Perfect Doesn't Happen (or, Just Roll With It)

We’re having one of “those” days.

You know the kind I'm talking about.  The kind that begins with a tiny human in a bad mood, fake-crying to get what they want, and then real crying when their acting, to their very real surprise, doesn't get them what they wanted.  And in our case, that leads to a nap, because we don't do temper tantrums in my house. 

And the nap leads to screaming.  Real, top-of-the-lungs, shrill, puncture-your-eardrums screaming that would make any horror movie director proud.  Why-have-I-never-bought-earplugs screaming.  Bang-my-head-against-my-desk screaming.

In my defense, I’ve tried every trick in the book to stop the tantrum and the crying.  To absolutely no avail.  So, I threw up my hands and gave up.  I told the body snatcher who resembles the sweet, adorable boy that I usually watch that he could feel free to come downstairs when he decided to stop screaming/crying/throwing a fit and behave nicely.  Which I probably should have done in the first place, but I had to try to fix it myself.  And of course, it made me feel like a bit of a failure when it didn’t work.  Really, you call yourself a nanny, and you can’t get the kid to stop screaming?

Until I remembered something.

Kids cry.  And throw hissy fits.  Sometimes for real reasons, sometimes for made-up reasons, sometimes just because it’s Wednesday.  And that doesn’t mean we’re bad parents/nannies/people, it just means that every day is not perfect.  It just means that kids, like adults, have good days and bad days, and kids are just not as good at moderating their behavior on bad days as (most) adults are.  And sometimes, you just have to let them work through it on their own. Hard as it may be, you can’t fix everything yourself, no matter how much you want to.

Lo and behold, my tactic of just rolling with it actually worked.  It took an hour and a half, but Gavin finally quieted down.  I thought he had fallen asleep, but he came downstairs and said he had decided to stop crying.  I told him that was a good decision, and now we’re watching Star Wars (at his request) for the umpteenth time while he eats a taco and all the green olives in the house.  Thank God I like these movies just as much as he does.

Today’s lesson?  Don’t expect perfect.  And when you don’t listen to that and expect it anyways, don’t let it get you down when perfect doesn’t happen.  It’s okay for you (and the kids) to have bad days.  Just roll with it.  You might be surprised how much better it gets when you finally do.

Stay-at-Home-Something

You know, a lot of people envy my schedule.  "You only work every other week? That's AWESOME!"  Is something I get a lot.  And in some cases, it's totally true.  It means I get to go home for two weeks of leave, but only take one week off work.  It means I literally never have to take off work to schedule a doctor's appointment, because I can make them for my off weeks.  It means Laundry Day doesn't have to come after a full day of reminding Gavin to cover his mouth when he coughs and to please not share his Cheeze-It's with the dog.

But it also means a lot of long days with little to fill them.  If I were a stay at home mom, this schedule would be great--it would allow me to hang out with my tiny person and get things done every other week, and make money on the opposite weeks.

Right now it's mostly just boring. 

Saturdays, I wake up and I'm all excited it's my week off.  I get to relax.  This carries on through Monday morning, when I get out of bed at whatever leisurely time I want.  But by Monday afternoon?  I'm bored.  There's only so much Netflix a person can watch, guys. Added to that, every time I look anywhere in my house, my eyes land on something I should be cleaning... It makes being home by yourself all day not such an awesome experiment.  ESPECIALLY now that we're down to one car.

I think if I can convince Jimmy to.... *ahem* liberate some wood pallets from the trash dump, I'm going to make an outdoor couch for the back yard.  But until then, today I'm breaking out of the house and taking the car from Jimmy.  I'm headed to Hobby Lobby (or as Gavin likes to call it, The Orange Place) to see if I can't find a cheap project to keep myself occupied.  So hopefully, my next post will be way more interesting than this one, and have pictures and stuff.

See? Even my posts get boring on my off weeks.

Growth Spurts and Warm Fuzzies

Whew.

It's been quite a week around here.  This is a Gavin week, and to be honest, it's been kind of a difficult one.  I'm fairly certain the little man is going through a growth spurt (which means none of his shoes will fit...)  He's been complaining that his legs hurt, and he's been very cranky and back talk-y this week.  Also, he's napped.  He never naps.  He HATES naps.  And so far, every day this week, around two or so, he's conked out on the couch.  Yesterday, he actually went up to bed for a nap.  We'll see if it holds true today as well.

This week has been a bit weird for us to, due to the Car Situation.  We haven't been able to have our library day, or go out to our favorite park, or even be at his house with all his toys.  So, we've basically been locked up in the house all week, and this has led to a cranky tiny human leading to a cranky nanny who was at her wit's end with this tiny terrorist.

Lo and behold, God (in the form of the blogosphere) provided.  I've been reading the Hands Free Mama blog, and yesterday she wrote this post about How to Fill Up a Child.  You should really go read the whole thing, because Rachel Macy Stafford is kind of my hero and she writes a great blog, but this post really hit home this week.  She talks about noticing the good, and the power of positivity.  She also talks about the Warm Fuzzy Jar.

“This is The Warm Fuzzy Jar,” I explained. “Whenever you do something helpful or kind, you place a pom-pom ball in your designated jar because kind and helpful acts make people feel good, like a warm fuzzy.” The girls looked at each other with wide eyes and big smiles, so I continued. “And if you are doing something helpful together or just getting along nicely, you can put two pom-poms in your designated jar. And when your jar becomes full, you can choose something special for you and I to do together.”

 I thought this idea was pure genius.  Not only would I be more apt to notice the good thing Gavin was doing, he would be more apt to do good things, hopefully without having to be told a thousand times.  Now that I think about it, I think I had an English teacher, Ms. Holcomb, who had a similar concept in the sixth grade. Only hers were shiny and for good luck during tests and quizzes, or something.  Twuzzles, maybe?  Anyways, here's our version of the warm fuzzy jar:

Basically, I took two mason jars, one large and one small.  I put a bag of 80 fuzzy pom poms in the big jar, and put the empty small jar next to it.  I explained the concept to Gavin, and we set the jars out next to the TV.  This happened about ten minutes ago, and Gavin already has three warm fuzzies in his jar.  His whole attitude turned around the minute I put the jars out.  It's been amazing.  Hopefully the trend will continue, and I'll keep you posted...

I'm Not Dead, I Promise.

Just very overwhelmed!!!

I know, I'm terrible--I haven't posted in A MONTH.  Time flies, right?

So first, sincere apologies.  Life has been pretty crazy here in Georgia. I actually had to go back and check my blog to see what I've told you and what I haven't.

First of all, on a sad note, my Uncle Jimmy passed away after a long illness on May 8th.  For any of you who knew him and would like to see it, the obituary can be found here.  I have to admit, this is the reason I initially stopped writing.  It took a few days for me to be able to cope with his passing--although he wasn't a blood relative, he was as good as.  I've known Jimmy since I was four.  Aside from simply being sad he was gone, I initially had a lot of guilt about not being able to be there.  My parents visited him in the hospital the night before he died, and assured me that he wouldn't even have known I was there, but it still took me a few days to get over not being there.

Then, roughly two days later, my darling dogs ate my laptop charger.  This is the main reason I haven't posted.  For a while, I had a dead laptop.  Then, the replacement charger I ordered from Best Buy turned out to be faulty--it charges for five seconds, and then doesn't for five seconds.  Aside from taking forever to charge, it's also really effing annoying.  I still haven't gotten the replacement, but this morning I woke up an hour before my alarm with an urge to write, so here I am.

Jimmy and I also got to go visit his dad in Florida.  If I haven't mentioned, Jimmy's dad and his girlfriend Monica are presently living in an RV and traveling around the country, mostly in the south. 
A few weeks ago, they were on their way from Donna, Texas, to Clewiston, Florida.  Since they had to drive right through the panhandle, which is only about three hours from us, we went down to visit them in Mariana, Florida.  Confession time--that was the first time I'd ever been to Florida, and as far south as I've ever been in my entire life.  We had a pretty great time.  We learned to play Mexican Train Dominoes, which is my new favorite form of Dominoes, and we visited Florida Caverns State Park (pictures to follow once I re-locate my camera). 

Something funny happened during the trip, though.  When we got to Florida, we had a flat screen TV, two dogs, and no cat.  When we got home from Florida, we had a cat, two dogs, and no TV.  Let me explain.

When Jimmy and I moved in together, Jim and Monica were moving from their house into the RV.  They had this giant flat screen TV that wouldn't fit in the RV.  Monica had already promised it to her son Paul, but they weren't going to see him for a while and had no way to get it to him.  So we got to borrow it for a while.  Once it was decided they were moving to Clewiston, not far from where Paul lives, we had to give it up. 

While we were visiting, we cuddled with their cat BC for a while.  I had long wanted a cat.  Jimmy doesn't particularly like cats, and said the only cat he would ever allow in the house was BC, because he knew his dad would never give him up.  As I was petting BC, I jokingly told him that he could come home with me whenever he wanted, because he was such a sweetheart.  To which Jim replied, "Okay!"  Where they're at in Florida, they're about two minutes from the Everglades.  There are gators and many poisonous beasts in the Everglades, and BC thinks he's an indoor/outdoor cat, and always tries to escape the RV to explore.  In Florida, this could have been deadly for him.  So, in an effort to not let BC get eaten by a gator, he came home with us.

This is Jimmy cuddling BC just before we brought him home.  I have documented proof that he does actually like this cat, for all that he protests otherwise.

 And this is BC in my lap at bedtime, "helping" me read my book.  Sort of how he likes to "help" me crochet...  Anyways, now we have a cat.  He's handsome and cuddly and sweet and we love him.



Hmm... What else has been happening?

Oh!  There was a carnival.  We took Gavin with us, and we had a blast.  We went with the Kelly's.  Caitlyn and I took tons of pictures...

Jimmy and Gavin watching fireworks...

Gavin on the Frog Hopper...

Mike and Ayden going down the Funhouse slide...

And Mike and Jimmy on some spinny thing whose name I don't remember.  Jimmy is the one in grey with his mouth wide open in a scream.

We've also been working with our super wonderful fantastic amazing dog trainer, Roberta, who is turning our heathen puppies into well mannered, adorable creatures.  She dog sat for them this past weekend (which I'll tell you about shortly):

By the grins on their faces you can see that she spoiled them rotten.

Where were we this weekend, you ask?  Only having the best weekend we've had in quite some time.

Jimmy's family on his dad's side live in Tennessee, split between Nashville and Memphis.  We went to visit his cousins in Nashville, Carla and Russ, their daughter Lacey, and her son Nathaniel.

We had SUCH a good time.  We went sightseeing a little on Friday, after staying up literally all night drinking and talking (a running theme for the weekend).  Saturday night we went to a bar called Bar 100, I think and had a delicious concoction called a Bushwacker.  It's basically a grown-up chocolate milkshake with plenty of alcohol in it.  We then went back to the house, drank and talked more, maxed out on Pizza, and played dominoes, Rummy (which I only just learned I'm pretty good at) and Spades (which I really kind of suck at).  Nathaniel actually fell asleep at the table watching us play.

 Sunday we went to Unionville to visit Jimmy's Aunt Laura Ruth and Uncle Gene.  We chatted and visited with them for a while, and then Jimmy, Lacey, Nathaniel and I went for a walk out in the country.

 Another confession... This is literally the closest I've ever been (in my memory) to a horse that wasn't tied to a pole and walking in circles.  Go ahead, make fun.

This guy was SUPER friendly.  He was in the pasture when we walked by, and came running right up to us when he saw us.  He let us take plenty of pictures and probably would have let us pet him, too, but none of us thought it was a good idea to touch an animal that we didn't know that could have knocked us back ten feet if we irritated him...

Nathaniel was pretty insistent on either being on someone's shoulders or holding someone's hand the whole way.  Cousin love is pretty adorable.

Jimmy was less than amused that I forced him to take a picture with me...

See?  I wasn't kidding about the shoulders.

After we got back that night, we went stargazing at the Natchez Trace with Lacey and some of her friends.  It was a lot of fun, but my back did NOT appreciate all the time laying on the concrete.  All in all, it was a pretty awesome visit, and we're probably going to stop back again for a few days on our way back from leave at home in July.

This week, though, it's back to the grind.  Jimmy is back and work and Gavin has been coming to the house to hang out with me since Jimmy's car took a massive, expensive dump on us last week.  Since we're sharing a car now, Gavin and I have been stuck in the house together with little to do, which has made for a cranky boy and a frazzled nanny.  If anyone has any suggestions on what to do with our time, that would be great (but remember we have no car to go anywhere or even to go get supplies, so be creative...)

Oh, and I just broke a nail cleaning the cat litter box.  So now tonight I have to go get that fixed tonight.  I'm telling you, June and July had better be fabulous, because May has been very up and down.  The ups have been really up, but the downs have been REALLY down.

One last thought before I sign off for the day--go check out Hands Free Mama.  Rachel is amazing, and she makes a lot of really good, honest points.  If you have kids, work with kids, plan to have or work with kids, or really have ever even come in contact with someone under the age of 18, please go check out her blog.  Your kids, and probably your future self, will thank you.

I'm off for the day.  I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good I'll post again soon.

Domestic Goddess Status

... Not reaching it.  There just aren't enough hours in the day. 

I suppose this was a bad week to judge myself on--Jimmy had his wisdom teeth removed on Wednesday, so that day was spent split between the waiting room (where they didn't allow coffee at seven in the morning...) and then taking care of a semi-high husband.  The rest of the week was pretty much hanging out taking care of him.  Yesterday we managed to get out and see a movie (Olympus has fallen, which was awesome by the way), and today we took the dogs out down by the Riverwalk. And I swept the downstairs for the third time this week.  But that was really all. 

Have I mentioned that I really can't handle all this dirt?  I literally have to sweep every day or it just becomes unmanageable.  I tried going to once or twice a week, a week, but by the end of the week we look like the filthiest people ever, and I look like a terrible housekeeper.  The only solution I can come up with is getting area rugs for the living room and front hall (in front of the two doors), but Jimmy is for some reason diametrically opposed.  I feel (and Caitlyn has confirmed that it worked for her) that it would cut down on the visible and tangible dirt--my hope would be that I could vacuum once a week instead of sweeping seven times... But I digress.

In any event, I made a chore list.  Tomorrow I'm going to print it and have it laminated at Kinko's and then stick it on the fridge.  It's broken down into Daily, Weekly and Bi-Weekly columns.  The daily column includes: dishes, sweep first floor, water plants, feed fish, feed dogs, feed cat, and cook dinner.  The weekly column is the longest and includes: empty trash, check bill folder, clean out fridge, clean yard of dog "presents", clean the litter box, dust living room, clean kitchen appliances, laundry, sweep second floor, and mop.  Then the bi-weekly column (because if it's a monthly column it'll never get done) includes: meal plan, grocery shop, wash bedding, scrub bathrooms, mow lawn, and clean the fish tank.

The plan is to put it on the fridge with two different colored highlighter, so items can be highlighted as they're done.  Then, at the end of the pay period, whoever's done the most chores gets to pick the takeout menu for the night.  This way, we both know exactly what needs to get done, and when, so there will be no excuses about not getting things done when we have a little spare time.

Please God it works. Because otherwise I'm going to have to hire a maid, or the mess is just going to make me go apeshit.

I can't afford a maid.

Holy Busy and Star Wars Pancakes

Oh my goodness. 

My blog has been so neglected this last week.  Between working a few twelve hour days, cleaning for another friend's visit, and I don't even know what else, this is literally the first time I've opened my laptop in a week.

So, my week in a nutshell:

Multi-surface Pledge, coffee, cover your mouth when you cough, Finding Nemo, bad dog!, take your medicine, sweep sweep sweep, grocery shopping, Veggie Tales, drink your juice, All Dogs Go To Heaven, coffee, no more zombies, I can't handle all this dirt!, coffee, Tom and Jerry, Tom and Jerry, Tom and Jerry, Gavin DANIEL!, the cat's trying to kill me, Disney Junior, Oh my God it's Friday, Croods 3D, clean like a crazy, coffee.

Now my friend Hannah is visiting, and we're totally being adults and making Star Wars shaped pancakes, so that's all I have time for just now.  But soon I'll be back with a for-real update.

In the meantime, here's a pancake Millennium Falcon for your enjoyment:

It's okay to be jealous.

Why Was I Up So Early? and Working Out at Home

Whew.

It's 11:30 in the morning, and already I've had my coffee, talked to my mom, read some of my book, crocheted a little, watched some TV, AND worked out.  Most days off, I haven't even had my coffee by 11:30.

Jimmy had an overnight guard duty again last night, and accidentally woke me when he came home at 6:30.  I laid in bed for another hour and a half or so, but couldn't manage to fall back asleep.  So I got out of bed and apparently put my productive pants on.

River was less than amused by my choice to get up early.


Not much of what I did was really worth blogging about, except the workout I just did.  I still haven't gotten up the courage to go to an on-post gym, and Caitlyn isn't a class kind of person (Zumba, Yoga, etc) and I'm too socially awkward to go alone.  So, where did I turn?  Pinterest.  Duh.

I actually have a whole board of workout type stuff.  I still haven't devised an every day plan yet, but here's what I did today.

This is literally everything I used to work out this morning.  No fancy equipment, no expensive programs or DVD's.  Just a pillow, a chair, two cans of soup, my TV and my phone.

First, I did an arm workout, found here. It's a Tracy Anderson ballet-inspired arms workout. It's eight minutes long and hard as f***. But I can already tell it's going to work like a charm if I do it every day.  And really, who doesn't have eight minutes?

This is the actual video if you want to watch it here.   It requires no equipment except a phone or computer to watch the video on.  I recommend a computer or tablet--it was kind of hard to see all the moves on my phone.

Then I did this workout:

                                                           

This was  also kind of hard, because I'm overweight and out of shape, and also because I did the arms workout and some squats on my own before this.  The wall sit and plank times were cut in half, but I plan to work up to longer.

The final workout I did was my favorite by far.  It can be found here, and it's actually titled "The Lazy Girl Workout."  It's timed for a 30 minute TV show with commercials.  You do the weight exercises (which is what the cans of soup and pillow were for) during the program, and some cardio like jumping jacks or running in place during commercials.  I was using Netflix, so I just added in a minute or two of cardio where the commercials should have been.

                                     

This workout makes me feel WAY less guilty about my TV watching.  I'll probably do another round later on tonight as well.  I'm going to pay for it tomorrow; my whole body (ESPECIALLY my arms) really hurts.

So there you have it.  I worked on my entire body, WHILE watching TV, and with no more tools than what you probably have in your living room and kitchen right now.

The only problem?  Now I'm hungry, and I think I'm going to be down a weight tomorrow, because that Italian Wedding soup is looking pretty good...