Thursday, July 31, 2008

Finding a Nanny.

The current battle I find myself fighting is that of finding a new person to come and watch my girls while I am working. This is a battle I feel like I have been in since Stephanie left early in the year. I have been blessed with girls home from college and family friends to watch the girls for peiods of time since February, but I am now in search of one person that will hopefully be with us until both the girls are in school. Tonight I had three interviews scheduled and only actually met with one girl. One rescheduled and then one didn't show up at all.

It is so hard to find just the perfect person. Someone you trust to leave your children with. It is so hard to leave them at all and I suppose in a perfect world one wouldn't have to. But, at the same time I think it is good for them to have someone else that cares for them and develops a love for them, extending their circle of people that take care of them.

One thing that has been great this time around is that I discovered www.care.com which is a Christian website where people can sign up to get information on nanny jobs in the area or about nanny's looking for jobs. There are also areas on the site for house cleaners, pet sitters and more. It has been great as I have actually set up interviews with quite a few girls who have their listing on the site. I am sure that God will send me that right person that will be wonderful for my girls. Mainly I just have to survive the process.

For sure this time around it is going much better than when we initially interviewed Stephanie. During that process we interviewed a couple in their 70's that wanted to work as a team to watch the children, a little scary, as well as the woman who didn't have custody of her own 13 year old child while also having a record for multiple drug posessions, YAY! God is definitely helping me out with many more qualified people. Now it is up to Robb and me to make a decision on one.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Reality.

The reality of marriage. Before you are married and especially when you are younger you have these ideas of what it will be like to be married. Not the day to day stuff, but the bigger events of a married couples' life. Like, where your honeymoon will be or where you will live, the type of house you will live in, the number of kids you will have, how you will celebrate anniversaries, birthdays, travel plans, etc. I remember after having my oldest child being saddened with the birthing process because it didn't happen how I perceived it would. The other day I was watching some skits online for The Skit Guys (check them out, they are awesome http://www.skitguys.com/. You can also see some of their skits from the Youth Specialties Myspace page http://www.myspace.com/youthspecialties.) One of the skits that I was watching was called perception/reality. Although it did not deal with all issues of our life that we are faced with, what I realized is that almost every aspect of our life we have a perception of how it should be and we have the reality of how it is. Marriage is no different. I remember being in high school, and even when I was newly married, thinking of how we would spend our anniversaries and all the places we would travel. Now however, life has shown me that reality is different. Not bad, just different. We don't do big things on every anniversary. Heck, there are some anniversaries that we don't even spend together. We don't buy each other extravagant gifts for birthdays, sometimes all we do is make each other a card. What I have realized after 12 years of marriage, and possibly I realized it earlier and didn't know it . . . is that being married is about the every day. How we spend our time together and not how we celebrate the milestones. We show our love for each other not by buying extravagant gifts or going to expensive dinners (although every once in awhile we may) but by folding each others laundry, doing the dishes, or watching movies together, or having the last words out of our mouths each night be I love you! These are the things that define our relationship, our marriage. This makes me contemplate whether perceptions are worth it. Should be perceive how things are going to be? I think that sometimes yes we should and then other times I think maybe we shouldn't. Maybe perceptions get us in trouble or maybe when reality isn't how we perceived it we are disappointed. What I conclude, while still contemplating the issue, is that we need to be aware that what we perceive is not reality and to not let what we perceive dampen our reality because in so doing we may miss out on some of the best times of our lives. I am happy with my reality in relation to my marriage. I am happy with the little things that all add up to what I have.

Innocence.

The innocence captured in this photograph is the innocence that I want to capture in my mind of my two daughters. I want to always remember their love for simple, their quiet beauty and their search for fun. (Photo by Ella Blue Photography)

This picture was taken at a friend's wedding held in Port Gamble and this picture captures what I want to remember, and not necessarily what I do . . . While the beautiful innocence of my daughters was being captured in this photograph, I was trying to reassure my mother that I knew where they were while at the same time stressing out because I had to get up every few minutes in the cold (no I did not have a jacket) and walk around looking for them. Between that and continually telling them that they had to stay within eye contact ... and to please not spill the bubbles on themselves or someone else ... and to please put their sweaters back on ... and to be carefull and not run down the concrete hill towards the road ... and to . . . . . As I look at this picture though I realize what is important and it reminds me that I need to slow down and enjoy every minute because soon the minutes will be behind me and I will have missed them.

Earlier today I went to see my daughters while they were downtown Poulsbo at the Dancing Brush doing some artwork. They had each chosen a cute little flower piggy bank that they were painting a wide arrange of colors. They were both very excited to see me, first asking why I was there. When I expressed that I just stopped by to see what they were up to, they immediately lifted up their porcelain object covered in paint to show me what it was. Trying to acknowledge both of them at the same time . . . a feat almost impossible . . . I saw that they each had totally different techniques for completing their works of art. My older daughter would do a color and then add other colors on top in different areas of the piece. My younger daughter though is a perfectionist in training. She would paint some color, lean back and look at it and then wet her sponge and rinse the color all off. She would then choose another color, or the same color and paint it again. She continued this process quite a few times. I, realizing that those places charge you by the amount of time it takes you to complete a project, decided I should probably encourage her not to rinse it for fear that I would go poor while she attempted to get her piece perfect. You could tell that she would contemplate my suggestions but didn't think they were that great.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Afternoon Hugs

One of my most prized moments in life is at the end of the day. When I come home from being gone all day to find the house cleaned up, the kitchen ready for dinner to be made and my little ones screaching with joy to see me. My youngest runing up to me and flinging her arms wide open, clasping her fingers behind my head and lifting her toes off the ground. As if she is giving me her whole self. Hugging and kissing me and telling me how much she missed me. There is nothing more wonderful than the complete love of a small child.

My oldest is starting to get more reserved with her hugs, but they are still their in their fullness. She comes to me slower, more grown up, wrapping her arms around me slowly and then gradually letting her legs go limp. She is still giving her whole self to me, showing me she loves me with all parts of herself, but in a much more calm manner than her younger sister; she is becoming grown up and with that more reserved.

Morning Kisses.

One of my favorite things about being Robb's wife are the morning kisses. Something he has done since we first married - every morning before he left for work, whether I was awake or asleep, he gives me kisses on my neck and face. Sometimes he will be giving me my morning kisses and I know he is, but I can't actually say anything because too much of me is still sleeping, I feel myself smile. Whether I smile on the outside or just in my mind, I smile. His love for me makes me smile. The way he always remembers the little things no matter how late he is running in the morning, or how much he has to do, or how little of sleep he got the night before, he never forgets my morning kisses.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Morning rituals.

First a little about me . . . Showers are my coffee. When I wake up in the morning not much time passes before I head into the shower. I am not a morning coffee or tea drinker, although I do fancy a cup now and then. Instead, I shower.

So, this morning as I was showering (my few minutes of solitude prior to my darlings waking up) I was bolted out of my rainfall abyss by the sound of my oldest declaring a wonderful "Happy Morning Mom". Not wanting her cheery disposition to be halted, I slowly pulled the shower curtain back to say happy morning, in a audio just above a whisper, and calmly asked her to keep her voice down as to not wake up her little sister who was still in dream land. She smiled at me with her beautiful smile and a tilt of the head with an "ok" as she skipped out of the room to go about her morning activities. She came in three more times, it could have been four, to tell me happy morning before I finally gave up on the solitude of a morning shower, got out and dried off.

I was able to get dressed and get back into the bathroom to finish getting ready before she joined me again. This time she entered without saying much. She had brought in her new hair brush that I brought home for her last night. She was very excited about the idea of having her own brush, as was my youngest, and climbed up onto her step stool in front of her sink and began brushing out her long copper colored hair as she watched me get ready.

The process of drying ones hair, when look at from the sidelines, is quite a skeptical really. The fluffling, brushing, flipping, messing up, combing straight . . . it is almost as if the person can't decide what they want their hair today and are trying everything before deciding on one final resting spot for every hair on their head. It was this process that I was going through as my eldest stood upon her step stool brushing out her hair. She would copy me by flipping her hair from one shoulder to the next; This is quite a feat seeing as her hair goes to the middle of her back. When I bent over to get the underside of my hair dry, she stepped down from her step stool, flipped her hair over and began brushing. I continued to act as if I was drying my hair as I watched her. She brushed her hair from every angle as she hung upside down. Once she felt she had gotten out all the snarles, she did test it by running her hand over every section of her hair, she flipped not one time but twice to make sure every piece of hair that had been hanging upside down was now laying where it should down her back.

I too flipped my hair back over, finished drying, added the final touch of a head band and lotion. She had obviously finished up, smiled in the mirror, proclaimed her hair was complete and left the room . . . don't worry, she would return.

As I finished putting my face together for the morning, making sure I was fully awake, she knocked on the bathroom door. A pretend play thing she does when she wants you to open the door and say hello, as if she has just come over to your house to play. So, obliging her pretend world I opened the bathroom door with a cheery (but still very quiet) "why hello, what can I do for you miss?". She then proceeded to show me her beautiful bracelets which were actually the hair bands that I had purchased for her last night to go with her new brush. She probably had about 30 on each arm, as they went all the way to her elbows, in multiple colors of course.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Spray 'N Wash

After work today I decided to clean the house; It has been awhile since I actually got around and under everything. So I am full into cleaning while my two precious daughters are outside. Finally getting to my desk area, to clean off the dust bunnies collecting behind the monitor and around my pencil and pen holders, I glanced out the window and saw that the girls were scrubbing my very grubby jeep with toilet paper. I immediately knocked on the window, trying to remain calm as I am imagining the small rock granules grinding into the surface of my paint surely causing damage that touch up paint can't fix. The girls look up with their beautifully innocent faces and I smile. I ask them to come upstairs. Once up here I calmly thank them for their want to be so helpful and clean the jeep, but that we should probably wait until daddy gets home so that we can use the hose. I explain to them that the dirt can cause scratches (I am really thinking fissures) and we want to take good care of our vehicles so that they last a long time.

As I am talking to them, their big blue eyes staring up at me in that innocent "ok mommy" way that they do, I start to smell something. It was a cleaner of some kind . . . I couldn't quite put my hand on it and then it came to me. Like a flash of lightening out of a clear sky. Instantaneously I stop my explanation of the reasons behind using water and fluffy scrub pads when washing a car and ask ... "What were you using to wash the jeep?" Olyvia's eyes instantly got serious and her mouth curved down in a little frown. Ellie still not quite sure what the question meant. Olyvia said "Well, Ellie used just a little bit of Spray N Wash." I said, "How much?" and she assured me it was "just a little".

I said to the girls, as they looked at me worriedly afraid of how I would react, "Nooooooo, we can't use spray n wash on vehicles" as I jumped up and slid my feet into the first shoes they came into contact with while I practically fell down the stairs to see the damage. Now I am not only imagining fissures in my paint, but no paint at all. I am wondering what a car without paint would look like. Would it look like a wall does after you use too much 409 on a stain? Where the pain runs thin, and you eventually see sheetrock? Or would it be more like a face of a dancer being sprayed with a misting bottle, the mascara and makeup slowly sliding down her face as her natural skin color shows through?

I round the end of the garage, flying off the bottom stair and in front of me sits a jeep (Wait....let me first explain that when I got home from work this afternoon my jeep was covered in dust. There was not one inch of paint that was not in some way covered with a good layer of gravel dust particles). So, there sits a jeep that is no longer dusty, but COVERED with liquid. The lime green spray n wash bottle tilted, lying on its side next to the front left tire. I run to it and pick it up (brand new, having just purchased it last night at the grocery store) and it is practically empty. Yes, they have used the entire bottle of spray n wash on my dirty jeep. I turn and the girls are there at the bottom of the stairs with that deer in the headlight look . . . Ellie exclaiming, "just an accident, right mommy?"

I calmly tell them to go upstairs and wash their hands and then come back down. I needed a few minutes to swallow what I was seeing. I quickly go and grab the hose that is all the way across our front yard, a good 50 yards away, hooked up to a sprinkler. I drag it over to the jeep, turn it on and attempt to wash the spray n wash off the vehicle. Suds are everywhere as it reacts to the force of the water. I hear Ellie from her bedroom window, "just an acident, right mommy? right mommy? right mommy, an accident?" I am just in too much shock to respond until I again repeat that they need to wash their hands and come back down.

After they come back down I squat down to begin the discussion of why we don't use spray n wash on cars. Instead I make it simple "Girls, lets not play with cleaners because they are not good for us and it makes mommy worry. Oh, and we only use car n wash on cars, not spray n wash."

I then go upstairs, while they remain downstairs having gone off to play and totally forgetting about the spray n wash episode. Once upstairs I call Robb to explain to him that I need him to pick up a new bottle of spray n wash at the store when he stops there to get Olyvia's prescription. He says, "But what happened to the bottle we just bought yesterday. " I tell him it is a funny thing he should ask . . . . . . and I proceed to crack up laughing. Ahhhh, to be young again.

As a parent I am continually met with moments where I have to decide how I am going to handle the situation. Children are always showing us that the world is really pretty simple while at the same time too complex.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Our life . . . Wow!

I can hardly believe it . . here we are coming up on 12 years of marriage. We have two beautiful daughters, Olyvia Renae (7.8.03) and Ellie Claire (8.8.05). We are finally living out at Kopperskogen and loving it.

It seems like just yesterday Robb and I were dating and then we got married, moved to Pullman (and then the numerous moves throughout the rest of my college career) and finally settled in Pullman. By settled I don't mean we never moved again. After our move to Poulsbo, we moved another five times. Happy to say we are now very comfortable with no plans to move ever except into our house once it is built. When that will be is still up in the air. So, even though it seems like yesterday, when I go back and review all that we have done, accomplished, the places we have been, our beautiful children, I can't believe we have done so much in so little time. We have been truly blessed.

And so it is recently that I have decided to start chronicling our lives. Exploring what it is to be a wife, mother and woman in the 21st century. I hope you enjoy the look into our family.