After writing my last post, I felt haunted by the phantom Super-Mom. I found myself wallowing in my "I don't even come close" self pity, that and some unfolded laundry, dirty dishes, random clutter and disorganization. I felt like I needed to devise a system, some kind of schedule to help me keep the housework under control. And so I organized one neatly on a dry erase calendar and stuck it to the side of the refrigerator. Easy Peasy. Different rooms had different days, and different days carried different goals, and loads of laundry were each assigned a specific weekday. It was fool proof...but not Ang proof. After one week, I'm already behind schedule. Cleaning schedule FAIL. Truth be told, I could absolutely buck up, dig in my heels, and make this cleaning schedule a priority. But truth be told, I don't wanna.
Wednesday: Bedroom/Darks
According to my dry erase calendar, Wednesday morning should have been dedicated to cleaning my bedroom and washing our darks, instead we met "Yanna" (as Milani calls her), and the gang to go strawberry picking. All morning as we got ourselves dressed, and packed up our picnic lunch, Milani sang a strawberry song. She was so eager to sink her teeth into a berry that she snagged one right off the produce stand as we picked up our buckets. She simply just could not wait any longer!
Berkley spent a little while strapped to my back before she got antsy, then I sat her in the row in front of me, propped up against my knees. She happily shuffled her pudgy little baby feet in the straw, and grabbed for nearby leaves.
Once, as I scooted Berkley forward her hat flopped down over her face. She didn't fuss, or cry, she just reached out from under the brim of her hat with two chubby little hands and felt around for more leaves, without a peep. It was so funny Ariana almost had tears streaming down her face.
We all had to sample the goods. The kids plunked berries into their buckets, and then snuck them from their buckets to their mouths, until they all had red berry goatees.
For being so eager to get her hands on a strawberry, Milani had her fill of picking, and eating long before our buckets were filled. Sister knows what she wants and is getting good at dishing out the sass when she doesn't get her way.
Sass Face
Luckily, Yanna offered her a comfy lap seat until we finished picking. As I was weighing and paying for my berries, the produce swindler struck again. Milani had her eye on the yellow peppers, and swiped one before I could stop her. I convinced Milani to hand it over long enough to weigh and pay for it, then she took hungry bites out of it like an apple. (She also does this at the grocery store; I'll be bagging corn and will turn around to find her happily chowing down on a green pepper. I'm just glad that fresh produce is the target of her thievery.)
This is the face I get when I ask her to smile.
After a picnic lunch, and some time running around by the stream, we packed up and headed home. Both girls were fast asleep in their car seats within minutes.
Thursday: Downstairs/Girls Lights
I think Milani may have been strawberry'd out, she only tasted a berry or two. She wasn't quite as interested in picking berries, but the flag kept her busy parading up and down the row.
And we solved Berkley's floppy hat problem. Kind of.
After another picnic lunch, Milani trotted back and forth from the parking lot to the stream, collecting fistfuls of rocks and plunking them into the babbling water.
I love the way certain activities are instinctive, imprinted into kid DNA. Every kid loves throwing rocks into water. Every kid will continue throwing rocks into water until they run out of rocks or are forced, unhappily, to stop. It never gets old.
We watched as dark gray clouds drifted in, and headed back to the car when they started to release fat raindrops.
And again, plumb tuckered out from all the flag waving and rock throwing, both girls were asleep in record time.
Saturday: Bathroom/Whites
As much as I cherish my days with my girls, it is the time when Jon is home from work, that we all get to hang out together as a family of four, that is most precious to me. Recently Jon has been working on Saturdays, and even though I hate the separation, I know he is working hard to provide for his girls, and anxiously looking forward to time with his family.
We took a trip to Hillside Farm to visit the "Bak-a Bak-a's" (Chickens) and share some ice cream.
Jon and I are both animal lovers, and Milani inherited every ounce of our love of creatures. She had a ball feeding hay to the cows, and feeling their sticky noses. In fact, whenever we make the trip to Hillside, she is always more interested in the animals than the ice cream (That trait, however, she did not inherit from me.)
Milani glows in the presence of "Daddy Doo", absolutely lights up in his company.
Tuesday: Upstairs/Lights
From the very first night Milani came home from the hospital she has slept with me. In the beginning she curled up like a little tree frog on my chest. As she got bigger she earned a spot in between Jon and I, nestled in the crook of my arm. She grew to sleep sideways and upside down and usually took up more room than either of us. Once Berkley came along, my sliver or bed real estate shrank even further, with Milani in the middle usually plastered to my back and Berkley kept safe in the crook of my outside arm.
This sleeping arrangement, however, has gotten too tight, and we decided it was time to take down the crib (that neither girls has ever slept in) and put up our old full bed in the girls' room. I turned the allen wrench, removing screws one by one, remembering the comedy act of putting it together. I was eight months pregnant with Milani, reading the directions to Jon, who has no patience for reading directions himself. It was only yesterday that I was anticipating the arrival of my first daughter.
Tuesday night, Milani and Jon slept in her bedroom on her new big girl bed. I slept without her for the third night since the day she was born. (The other two nights I was away from her I was in the hospital with Berkley.) It was so bittersweet. For the first time in ages I could stretch out, and get comfortable, but I miss watching her sleep peacefully next to me while I'm up nursing Berkley. I miss her groggy smile first thing in the morning, with her hair all ruffled and her gookie (binkie) in sideways.
Wednesday: Bedroom/Darks
According to my dry erase calendar, Wednesday morning should have been dedicated to cleaning my bedroom and washing our darks, instead we met "Yanna" (as Milani calls her), and the gang to go strawberry picking. All morning as we got ourselves dressed, and packed up our picnic lunch, Milani sang a strawberry song. She was so eager to sink her teeth into a berry that she snagged one right off the produce stand as we picked up our buckets. She simply just could not wait any longer!
Berkley spent a little while strapped to my back before she got antsy, then I sat her in the row in front of me, propped up against my knees. She happily shuffled her pudgy little baby feet in the straw, and grabbed for nearby leaves.
Once, as I scooted Berkley forward her hat flopped down over her face. She didn't fuss, or cry, she just reached out from under the brim of her hat with two chubby little hands and felt around for more leaves, without a peep. It was so funny Ariana almost had tears streaming down her face.
We all had to sample the goods. The kids plunked berries into their buckets, and then snuck them from their buckets to their mouths, until they all had red berry goatees.
For being so eager to get her hands on a strawberry, Milani had her fill of picking, and eating long before our buckets were filled. Sister knows what she wants and is getting good at dishing out the sass when she doesn't get her way.
Sass Face
Luckily, Yanna offered her a comfy lap seat until we finished picking. As I was weighing and paying for my berries, the produce swindler struck again. Milani had her eye on the yellow peppers, and swiped one before I could stop her. I convinced Milani to hand it over long enough to weigh and pay for it, then she took hungry bites out of it like an apple. (She also does this at the grocery store; I'll be bagging corn and will turn around to find her happily chowing down on a green pepper. I'm just glad that fresh produce is the target of her thievery.)
This is the face I get when I ask her to smile.
After a picnic lunch, and some time running around by the stream, we packed up and headed home. Both girls were fast asleep in their car seats within minutes.
Thursday: Downstairs/Girls Lights
Thursday morning I was scheduled to clean
the downstairs and wash the girls lights, but instead opted to meet Grandma Andrea for strawberry picking round two.
I think Milani may have been strawberry'd out, she only tasted a berry or two. She wasn't quite as interested in picking berries, but the flag kept her busy parading up and down the row.
And we solved Berkley's floppy hat problem. Kind of.
After another picnic lunch, Milani trotted back and forth from the parking lot to the stream, collecting fistfuls of rocks and plunking them into the babbling water.
I love the way certain activities are instinctive, imprinted into kid DNA. Every kid loves throwing rocks into water. Every kid will continue throwing rocks into water until they run out of rocks or are forced, unhappily, to stop. It never gets old.
We watched as dark gray clouds drifted in, and headed back to the car when they started to release fat raindrops.
And again, plumb tuckered out from all the flag waving and rock throwing, both girls were asleep in record time.
Saturday: Bathroom/Whites
As much as I cherish my days with my girls, it is the time when Jon is home from work, that we all get to hang out together as a family of four, that is most precious to me. Recently Jon has been working on Saturdays, and even though I hate the separation, I know he is working hard to provide for his girls, and anxiously looking forward to time with his family.
We took a trip to Hillside Farm to visit the "Bak-a Bak-a's" (Chickens) and share some ice cream.
Jon and I are both animal lovers, and Milani inherited every ounce of our love of creatures. She had a ball feeding hay to the cows, and feeling their sticky noses. In fact, whenever we make the trip to Hillside, she is always more interested in the animals than the ice cream (That trait, however, she did not inherit from me.)
Milani glows in the presence of "Daddy Doo", absolutely lights up in his company.
Tuesday: Upstairs/Lights
From the very first night Milani came home from the hospital she has slept with me. In the beginning she curled up like a little tree frog on my chest. As she got bigger she earned a spot in between Jon and I, nestled in the crook of my arm. She grew to sleep sideways and upside down and usually took up more room than either of us. Once Berkley came along, my sliver or bed real estate shrank even further, with Milani in the middle usually plastered to my back and Berkley kept safe in the crook of my outside arm.
This sleeping arrangement, however, has gotten too tight, and we decided it was time to take down the crib (that neither girls has ever slept in) and put up our old full bed in the girls' room. I turned the allen wrench, removing screws one by one, remembering the comedy act of putting it together. I was eight months pregnant with Milani, reading the directions to Jon, who has no patience for reading directions himself. It was only yesterday that I was anticipating the arrival of my first daughter.
Tuesday night, Milani and Jon slept in her bedroom on her new big girl bed. I slept without her for the third night since the day she was born. (The other two nights I was away from her I was in the hospital with Berkley.) It was so bittersweet. For the first time in ages I could stretch out, and get comfortable, but I miss watching her sleep peacefully next to me while I'm up nursing Berkley. I miss her groggy smile first thing in the morning, with her hair all ruffled and her gookie (binkie) in sideways.
My Milani is rapidly growing into a big, independent, confident girl, right before my eyes. Berkley will be sitting up within weeks, and crawling by the end of the summer. I was reminded this week that my girls are only little for a brief moment,
and I want to spend this precious short time I get with them wisely. I want to make sure I soak up every moment, memorize every facial expression, sear into my soul as many blessed memories I can. Before I know it they will both be sleeping in another room, then another house, eventually maybe another state. And then, if it's even still important to me, I will have plenty of time to get back to my cleaning schedule