Anger Managment

Kayliana has anger mangament issues (as do many toddlers, let’s face it).  Kayli deals with anger by throwing – fits and objects.  She will start to get vocal – crying, yelling, etc. – meanwhile she looks around her for any nearby object to hurl in frustration.  The other day, we’d come in from playing outside.  This ALWAYS (currently – and I do hope this phase quickly passes) elicits protests of rage and anger.  It really IS completely unjust that I eventually force my children back inside.  At any rate, I was closing the front door (to the soundtrack of enraged screams) when I added my own YELP to the cacophony. Something – or someone, rather – had just grabbed a toddler-sized handful of my left buttcheek and attempted to throw it in rage.  The fact that my buttcheek was unhurlable only added insult to injury, but I must say, I cracked up at her effort. (Get it? CRACKed up). 

My ringlet-haired princess looking quite peaceful "reading" one of my library books.

I've gotten terribly behind on my Tuesday/Thursday morning blog-time.  Sleep has taken priority.  We started staining the deck today.  We are blessed with a ginormous deck, yet, this means kind of a curse when it comes to staining/painting it.  The weather forecast looks good for the next several days though, so we thought we better jump on the chance!  I also got the office painted in the last two days!  Anyway, that's the latest on the house projects.  Now, moving on...

So far, we’ve met MANY of the neighbors who live on our street, and I gotta say, I’m pretty impressed.  Don’t get me wrong: we had some WONDERFUL neighbors at our old house, and we miss them a lot, but we certainly hadn’t met as many people as we’ve already met here. Everyone’s been super friendly AND they’re planning a “welcome to the neighborhood” block party for us in a few weeks!!

One thing we’ve all been a bit anxious about is meeting kids in the neighborhood.  The boys have been REALLY hoping for some playmates.  Last week, Kayli and I walked over to the mailbox.  I saw a couple of boys (looking about Matthew’s age), down the street from us.  They seemed to be carrying some sort of neon yellow and orange nerf-squirt gun situation.  (The only kind of play-gun that I’m OK with).  I quickly returned home, and called upstairs to the kids, “Boys! Grab your weaponry!”

We walked down the hill where I kinda-sorta-somewhat chased these other boys, yelling and waving, “Boys! Hey, boys! Can we talk to you?!”  Now, any kid knows not to talk to strangers but I was hoping that the entourage of three children (and the fact that I look pretty “mommish” – without being matronly, I hope – would convince them that I was neither scary nor dangerous).  I was right.  They stopped walking and waited for us.

We found out that, ironically, Roman (who lives down the street from us) went to the boys’ same elementary school last year and would also be new to Newcastle come September.  He’s a year older than Matthew and just as shy and (I can say it ‘cuz I’m his mom) socially awkward.  Trying to facilitate conversation between two quiet-awkward 8-9ish year old boys was tricky.  I tried things like: “Legos.  Discuss.”  When that topic petered out I whipped out the almost always boy-friendly: “Star Wars.  Thoughts?  Do tell.”  Eventually I ran out of boy topics and conversation was lagging. 

Roman, quickly sensing an awkward silence, said, “Well, nice to meet you.  See you at school!”  I could see the disappointment in my boys. (The deflated, sagging shoulders and slight frowns gave away their sadness at the realization that a spontaneous playdate was NOT going to happen).  I explained where we lived and told Roman (and his visiting cousin Adrian), that we were around this summer if they wanted to play.  I pointed out our house and we sadly parted ways.

When we got home, I tried to cheer the boys up with a snack of yogurt and graham crackers.  It didn’t work much.  Then, mid-way through yogurts, I heard a timid knock on the front door. I opened the door and saw Roman and Adrian standing there. 

Adrian, the more outgoing boy, said (and please read this with the cutest-yet-nerdiest 8 year old boy voice you can possibly muster), “Yes, we’d like to know if you’re boys can come out for an EPIC BATTLE.” 

"Boys! Get your guns!”

Busy. Busy. So very tired. Busy. For those of you lacking access to my facebook photos, here's a peek at some of the (more completed) parts of our house. It's definitely coming together!

This is my happy place where the evening glass of wine and morning cup of coffee/good book happen (occasionally).

LOTS of deck-staining coming our way! (and Kayli, in this photo).

Our backyard/woods!

Kayli looks four years old in this photo.

Some of my 'veggie garden!'

Living room

Dining room

Blackboard kitchen table!

Kitchen with Behr "Ground Ginger" paint.

My custom "WINE, not?!" - painted wall! LOVE it!

Kayli has spent the first part of summer being TERRIFIED of sand AND water.  This did not bode well for our first beach day with our best friends.  Thankfully, she worked through it and was digging in the sand and playing in the water in no time!

We thought we might be taking a field trip to the hospital last night. Kayliana and Matthew were playing in the family room. She slipped, fell, and did a total face-plant up against the ottoman/foot stool/storage bench/coffee table thingy.  Definitely biggest, LONGEST, loudest cry we’ve ever heard from her for an injury.  Her nose was scraped up on the outside, but after several minutes (of shrieking – hers, not mine – or Mike’s), I realized that it might be more than just a surface wound as her nose was starting to swell up, and a little bit of dark coloring was appearing under her eyes.  (Plus, the fact that she was crying THAT hard…).  Anyway, we called the nurse-line (since it was after hours).  She said to ice it for 20 minutes every hour.  Um, yeah, right.  Kayli is not-yet TWO.  She’s not going to sit for 20 minutes let alone let us put something big and cold on her ‘owie.’  Mike managed to ice it off and on for maybe 2 minutes but that’s the best we can do.  We need to just watch it over the next few days.  Obviously, if it suddenly started looking really bad, we’d need to get her in, but otherwise in 5-7 days, when the swelling’s gone down, we’ll know if it’s broken and needing surgery.  I kinda doubt it.  While I haven’t totally peeked under the big Scooby Doo bandaid yet, from what I can see, it looks a little better this morning.  I knew that Scooby Doo bandaid would work magic!

Painting Madness!

It’s like they planned it.  For about the last two weeks, Kayliana has not slept through the night.  She’s woken up anywhere from 11:30pm-4:45am just YELLING: “MAMA! DADA! MAMA-DADA! MOMMY-DAD! DAD! DAD-MOM!”  Eventually, we’ve given in (usually when it had turned from yells to serious-angry cries), when we'd go in, she'd sign for “diaper change.”  Anyway, it was driving me nutso that with our 19 month old, we were no longer sleeping through the night. I mean, we paid our dues in the newborn days (or nights, rather).  Thankfully, the last two nights, she’s slept soundly through the night.  SHE slept through the night.  WE, on the otherhand, have woken up the last two nights to: pitter-patter, pitter-patter, LEAP and a small body landing on our bed and diving under the covers.  Usually, I manage a half-concious, “Zach, what’s the matter?”  And he’ll squeak out, “I’m scared” or “I had a bad dream.”  At any rate, the sleep-interrupted nights are beginning to get old, ESPECIALLY because…

I’ve been a ca-Razy lady with the painting projects and am pretty tired.  I got our master bedroom done with the most beautiful, soft seafoam green-ish blue called “Valley Mist.”  (Pictures will come once we get our huge window valance and curtains up).  I spontaneously painted the entire kitchen-family room wall last week (despite the fact that it was – according to yours truly – “the last room I would paint.”) The kitchen, I painted Behr’s “Ground Ginger” – it’s the perfect celery green that I wanted.  Sometimes it’s yellow, sometimes it’s green; all times it’s awesome.   I’ve also sanded down, primed, and quadruple-coat painted our (awesome Craigslist find) kitchen table.  I painted the top with omplete with black chalkboard paint.  Cool eh?  At our house, you're encouraged to draw on the table! (Well, the one in the kitchen.  And only with the right kind of dust-free chalk). In the last three days I’ve also painted about 15 flower pots (uncovered at my parentals’ formerly overgrown beach house).  And yesterday, I also painted both boys’ bedrooms (just their back window/wall).

It turns out I’m a bit of a mad scientist and unstoppable in the paint-mixing department.  I’ve now created two custom colors for our home (using paint brought over from the last house).  For the boys’ rooms, I created/painted, “Martin Midnight Magic.”  Yeah, it’s navy blue and pretty darn dark, but I think it looks good and the boys LOVE it.  Matthew is especially pumped as it looks perfect, according to him, for the “outerspace” portion of his Star Wars-themed bedroom. 

My other color masterpiece is what I’ve dubbed, “WINE not?!”  Holy dooty, I love it.  It’ll be on just a small accent wall under the stairs when you first walk in the front door. I used a dark red that I’d had in our old master bathroom for a few years.  I added a wee bit ‘o black to it and voila!  I love fun paint colors, but I definitely wanted some new stuff, so why shouldn’t I create our own new colors?  WINE not, I ask you?!