Finding the time

Lately, the hardest part of crossing things off my list is finding the time. There are so many important things that need to be done, and so many of them seem to be of equal priority.

Playing. Cleaning. Making food. Crafting/creative time. Personal hygiene. Family time. Exercise. Play dates. Resting.

All these things need to be done on a daily basis. Times five people. With the exponential difficulty that is added on by three (sometimes four) children in tow.

Some days I am Super Mom and can do it all. Other days? Other days I can barely get three meals on the table without exhaustion setting in.

So what's the secret? What is the thing that makes these days so different? Maybe it's the lunar phases? Maybe... heck - I have no more guesses.

I've tried schedules (I suck at schedules). I've tried lowering my expectations. I've tried just letting things slide. But just enough is never good enough for me. My expectations are high, but I promise you they are realistic.

There are some Moms who can conquer and defeat every single day. I've read about them on blogs. I stalk them on Facebook and Twitter. You Super Moms out there, bequeath your secret to me.

I have an inkling that patience is part of their secret?

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“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.”
-Albert Einstein

Hmmmmm... ponder this. 

This quote also led me back to one of my recently found philosophies:
Consider that you are doing exactly what you should be doing and are exactly where you are supposed to be.

Does anyone else think about things sometimes so much that they don't make sense anymore? This happens to me all the time.

Yesterday...

In the Deneweth house, we try to reserve Sundays for family time. A fun activity for everyone (mostly the kids) to enjoy. Yesterday was a particularly good Sunday...

A bacon munchin' ZoBo.

Pancakes, BACON!! and eggs for breakfast. Everyone's favorite breakfast. Even little Zoie is now a bacon lover. And I think I may have finally perfected my homemade pancake recipe. (Yay! Go me.)

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Sarasota Chalk Festival. Particularly crowded. AND a different type of crowd that we are used to. But it's always nice to see the art. This activity was mainly geared toward Roxy - our budding little artist.

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 The sand here looks like snow...
I'm thinking a picture with mittens and scarves is in order for a Christmas card?

Siesta Key Beach. Since we didn't spend as long as we had thought at the Chalk Festival we suggested a quick trip to the beach. The beach always brings out the best in the Bear. Somehow - I never seem to have an extra set of clothes for these children when they are needed. Whatev. We had lots of fun.

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Dinner with Aunt Marianne and Uncle Dennis. Our snowbird family from up north. It's the first time we'd seen them since they 'flew' back down. The kids, of course, were mute the entire dinner.

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Heavenly dessert in the form of a Gelati from Rita's. I've been craving a gelati since having my first in the OBX in August. Every road trip out of the Brandon area, I've scoped out the Rita's locations and I guess all my whining paid off because my dreams were actualized last night. It was just as deelish as I had remembered. <3

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Wine and a bang trim courtesy of Christopher. Yes - Christopher cut my bangs using a chip clip as a guide. Yes - I'm still getting used to them. No - there isn't an accompanying photo. Although, Roxy said I looked like Cinderella. :)

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Okay - so now back to work. I've got a boy to socialize and a little girl to get started on, too. If you are reading this, wish me luck.

Socializing The Bear

The Bear at his first day of Stay and Play at the Y - refusing to go in.

Firstly - the Bear is a completely different animal than Roxy. It's amazing they come from the same gene pool.

Secondly - maybe I'm just a paranoid Mom? I have this fear that if I don't nip this in the bud right now, he will have many years of expensive therapy in his future.

Me: Maybe he's antisocial. Maybe he's on the autistic spectrum. Maybe he's depressed. I'm probably just doing something wrong.
Chris: He's just different than Roxy. It doesn't mean there is anything wrong with him.

So, here's what I'm talking about... he's not real good around unfamiliar people. He makes everything difficult. He pesters. He gets things done by making others do them for him (future executive?). It's hard to get him excited about things.

He's okay at home where we pretty much (most of the time) know how to deal with him. But around other people, he doesn't really make eye contact or conversate much. I know he's 3 - but I've been watching other kids and he's just, well... different. We go to parks and sometimes he will play with other kids normally, sometimes he doesn't at all.

In an effort to thwart this before Pre-K starts less than a year from now - we've taken some steps to socialize the Bear to be a proper almost 4 year old. Most recently, we enrolled him in a 3 day a week/ 2 hour 'Stay and Play' at the YMCA. This week was our first week. The deal is that I drop him off at the Play Center (which at our Y is a kick ass climbie structure with slides and awesomeness) and he plays for 30 minutes - then the teacher gathers the children and goes to a classroom for the remaining 1.5 hours for crafts, snacks, stories, songs, etc.

So far he will not let me drop him off at Play Center.

So far he has screamed for Mommy for at least 10 minutes before he settles in. The second day, he didn't settle at all and had to leave early.

He leaves 'school' saying he had fun and can't wait till the next school day - but when we get there it's been a different story.

I will keep trying. I think every day it does get a little better. I just hope I'm doing the right thing. I pray for patience to deal with this kid every day.

My current doubts... Maybe I'm pushing him to do something he's not ready for? Maybe he's just meant to do other things and I'm not sure how to deal with his unique personality properly? Maybe I need different perspective. My worst fear is to mold my children into something they aren't meant to be.

At the very least - I hope he knows I'm trying.

Halloween Pictures for Posterity

Halloween was a good one!

It was dry, warm enough, the candy was sweet and so were the children. The decorations are now put away, the candy wrappers still remain - but we miss the Halloween Hoopla already. We can't wait until next year. ;)

Getting ready to carve the pumpkins!!!

It was a little like brain surgery. We broke out the plastic gloves and all.

 Presenting: Darth Vader, My Little Angel, Baby Rapunzel