Noses and Doors

This Sunday the regular nursery worker was sick, so I worked in the nursery again with Becky as my helper. I usually do the first Sundays of the month, so this was my second time in the nursery back to back! I decided to be really chill about it. I brought my phone and played piano music for most of the hour, and we did coloring first and then read books and then played restaurant. It was so fun! Right before pick up time we cleaned up and played I-Spy. I'm definitely going to try some of these ideas next month when I am scheduled for nursery again. I never thought about applying a routine to my nursery rotation, but it worked great. Kids love routine, why didn't I think of this before? 

Esther Rose was the only baby in the nursery so that made things extra easy. Besides her, we had a sibling set of 4 and a 6 year old boys and a sibling set of 7 and 4 year old girls, plus Becky (7) and Esther (2) who are obviously siblings too. Everything went smooth. I'm glad I was able to help out, and be the community my church needed this Sunday. So many times I am to busy or burnt out to help much!

I don't know why but everything went downhill from there after we went home from church. Reuben broke his nose on the trampoline, Esther got her fingers closed in a door, and Becky had a few meltdowns to boot. Somehow we made it through lunch and Esther's nap and wow, I'm frazzled. The kids had cereal for breakfast which we hardly ever do but Brian bought some so...I guess we are a cereal family, at least this week. We had meatballs, sourdough bread and broccoli soup for lunch. For dinner we had spaghetti with einkorn noodles. 

Reuben's nose. It's so awful! It looks so painful, swollen and tender and he says it hurts a lot. I really think it's broken but we didn't have a X-ray to confirm. The doctor said there was nothing they really do for broken noses that aren't misaligned so...we are giving him arnica and a few other homeopathic meds and applying salve and clay. I am so frustrated because we are working so hard on getting Reuben to breathe through his nose that this is a clear setback. It's okay. God knows. He is with Reuben and he has a plan. No one likes to see their kids in pain though. Please pray he heals fast and there are no lingering complications.  

Esther's finger is fine. Becky is okay too. Being seven is hard and she's still learning to control her emotions. 

I need some chocolate and a few minutes in the closet to get out of flight or fight mode. Kids, life and all the above....what a day.

I hope Brian had a great father's day regardless of all the crazy injuries. Becky made him a card and I tried to make his favorite foods. He said he didn't know what he wanted, so I guessed. He loves meatballs and spaghetti, and thus that's what I made! We love you Brian and all you do for us.

We ended the day with chores, knitting, and trying to play a family game. It always ends up that someone doesn't want to play and that kinda ruins it for the rest of us, somehow. It's hard to find a game everyone likes. And a game that doesn't have a lot of pieces because...toddler.

I can't believe summer is halfway over after this week. I'm ready. I'm not ready! Nothing is clean. Do I care?

I just want to lay in the sun and read more books to my kids.

I hope no one breaks anything else for the rest of the year.

Paper Modelling: Bookmark, Matchbox

Two Paper Modelling tutorials today! This is the bookmark and the matchbox. Enjoy! 

Summer Break Week 5

This week was Reuben's camp week! He went to Randolph College Tech Cats Kid's Coding Camp. He enjoyed camp so much! There was one problem we had to deal with: a kid who cussed non stop and wouldn't stop talking, loudly, about sex. According to Reuben he was a 9 year old going into 4th grade, so hopefully he did not actually know anything about sex? To me it sounded like this kid was watching, or had been shown pornography, which is so sad. Brian and I didn't know if we should talk to the staff, and Reuben really didn't want us to create any problems so we decided to just pray about it and give him some tools to deal with it himself the next day.

The second day of camp this kid ended up being sent home because he wasn't obeying, and then he was sick the rest of the camp, which was a relief. I'm praying for him and his family. Sounds like he might have a rough home life. 

But poor Reuben heard some really detailed descriptions about a few sexual acts that honesty he didn't need to know about until he was an adult! I guess it's just the world we live in, but my heart was grieved. 

As to what Reuben did at camp: they did scratch, python and Minecraft coding, went rock climbing, ate ice cream, did some tug of war outside and listened to some local engineers and scientists give short talks. They were also coding little cars to run mazes and complete tasks. I bet he did a million other things too, but as his mother I only get to hear bits and bobs of his day's narration. He had fun. I missed him. 

picking Reuben up from camp...

Becky, Esther and I had the best girls week. I tried to do something special each day before lunch. Monday we went out for coffee, grocery shopped and went to two thrift stores! Tuesday we got bubble tea and went to the park. Wednesday we picked up our raw milk, went to the library and got bubble tea again! Thursday we went downtown, walked, shopped and ate chocolate brownies and had hot chocolate and finished up the day by visiting a friend. Friday we did our regular swim day. It was a special time even though we really missed Reuben. In the afternoons we played a lot outside on the slip and slide, read books together and did chores. 

Monday and Tuesday Esther refused to nap. Wednesday and Thursday we did contact naps since I really needed her to sleep, and it was hard to go back when she had been laying down in her own bed for naps for weeks! I wanted to clean things and knit and crochet and she wanted to use me as a pillow. I had to let it go and be a pillow.

I've been having a hard week. My house feels cluttered and everything was a little overwhelming with all the driving to drop Reuben off and pick him up at specific times! I don't know how moms do this weekly! Chores have not been getting done on time and camp week is just abnormal. That's okay. I only made it to the gym once this week and that is bothering me too. I don't like to feel behind. Oh, well, I'll try again next week! The kids had a fun week and we got a lot done outside of the house. Here is to next week being more productive inside the house!

I'm still dealing with mourning the loneliness of motherhood and trying to love my past self who desperately needed some help when I had two toddlers and didn't have anyone to help. A lady at my church is due with her fourth and it's so exciting, but she has a mother in law who helps once a week and a neighbor who watches all three of her kids once a week. I had a mother in law who yelled at me for breastfeeding and didn't even bring me a meal. And no neighbors who ever helped but only got us in trouble for having a car parked on our property that was out of inspection (apparently you have to have a car cover for it--why couldn't they just tell us rather than sending the government? sheeesh) and neighbors who complained about our grass never being mowed. It makes me feel sad for myself who had to do that all alone, I wish I had help like that when I needed it with two small toddlers! 

I'm so glad I am in a better space now! I don't need childcare anymore, but I hope I can deal with the negative emotions that keep coming up and move on. It's not jealously. It's like I see them thriving but behind that picture I see myself crying and alone and wish I hadn't had to go through that. It's like I wish I could go back and give myself a hug and tell myself it's going to be okay. Well, it wasn't okay. And maybe that is what I need to realize.

But often when I see someone in a good headspace with babies/toddlers I have to grieve for myself all over again. 

Big deep breaths. I'm okay. I survived. God was with me, and that will have to be enough, until he can comfort me in heaven.

Brian also was able to work from home part of this week since the air conditioner was broken at his office! Hopefully it will be fixed next week. It was nice to see him for lunch, we all miss him terribly due to him working such long hours for us. 

Next week is the halfway week in our summer vacation!!