Michelle Smiles

Teaching my children to question authority, except mine.

Playing catch up

August23

Some how, even without a job, life is busy. Nothing earth shattering but a million little things add up to busy days. I dreamed of having endless hobbies when I became a stay at home mom. Quit laughing – I didn’t know. But I do try to fit in some things for me. I read whenever I have a moment. And I’ve been cooking up a storm this summer with all of our CSA goodies. I’ve also been feeling all artsy fartsy lately. I’m dabbling with mixed media on canvas and having lots of fun. I want to just keep doing and doing…but I don’t have places to put it all so no idea what I’ll do with it all. Hey family – guess what you are getting for Christmas? Here is the one I just finished. I kind of dig it but have lots to learn as I play around more.

Speaking of painting, we painted the kitchen. You might recall that just before I announced we were selling the house and moving back north, I asked for color assistance. I finally found a color that didn’t clash with the weird yellow in my eat in and sun room area. But Steve hated it. So we decided to just paint over that color and paint it all a different yellow. I’m not convinced that I love the yellow I ended up picking. It is aggressively cheerful in the morning instead of warm and glow-y like I anticipated. But it is so much better than the brown. The kitchen looks even larger. As for the eat in area and sunroom, we are going 1 shade darker on the paint swatch because I can’t handle that much cheerful in my face in the morning. Before and after:

Steve’s parents came for a visit. The girls love spending time with them. They also love that their hotel has a pool. Sabrina started out the week rather fearful but got pretty brave by the end of it. Tessa is just fearless (which is terrifying).

Sabrina enjoyed some dance lessons from both Grandma and Pap pap.

There was also a late (Tessa) and early (Sabrina) celebration while Grandma and Pap pap were here.

Then the first day of school happened. Sabrina is started the 1st grade and Tessa started her second year of preschool. Both girls seem to be enjoying it so far.

We thought we had the potty training thing licked. But we should never underestimate the level of Tessa’s stubborn. Our family vacation seemed to throw her off and she quit making much effort. We had tried everything I could think of. Nothing was motivating her. So we went to the extreme. We took away Froggie (her bestest friend). It broke my heart but it was the only thing that made her want to try. After a very unsuccessful day, we left Froggie on top of the red cabinet over night. Our hope was that seeing him would motivate her. We got up the next morning and found this:

Someone pushed the table over and climbed on top of it in order to get Froggie. We turned a corner after we finally told her she was going to be a baby and go back to diapers or be a big girl and wear panties full time. She chose panties and hasn’t had an accident in 6 days. I guess the ambiguity of pull ups didn’t work for her. Child is going to keep us on our toes.

posted under family, parenting
One Comment to

“Playing catch up”

  1. On August 26th, 2012 at 3:51 pm Abuela Says:

    Love this post – thanks