Butterbees and Bumbleflies

Real Life

I sometimes feel like I’m the only person feeling what I’m feeling, but I KNOW that’s not true, so I plan to make this post “sticky” – so that this is the post that someone reads first when stumbling across my blog. Because I want you to know what real life is like around here. I have said before that Pinterest is for people with lots of time, an only child (or no kids at all), and a live-in maid. I still believe that. Because many of the picture perfect projects, hairstyles, and fashion ideas on Pinterest are impossible for someone like me. And while I know that I am a unique individual, and I KNOW noone has my exact set of circumstances, I know moms. Lots of them. And I see the competitions and the pain, and I KNOW the feeling. Ya know, that one that says “If I don’t do what that mom is doing with her kids, with my own, then I’m not as good as she is.”

THAT COULDN’T BE A BIGGER LIE.

I read this post from The Artful Parent a while back, and it made me really sit up and take notice. We all (even our idols) have someone that we idolize and want to be just like. I would love to be like Jean Van’t Hul. I would love to be willing to let my kids get paint all over themselves to end up with a fabulous piece of art when they are done. I was even so proud of myself when I bought sponges and cut them into shapes for Becca to stamp on paper with finger paints. Have we done it yet? No. BUT THAT’S OK.

You see, you might look through my blog, or any other mom’s blog, and see things that you want to do with your kids, that you can easily do in just a couple minutes and work great for your family. Or, you might look through with different eyes and see all the things you AREN’T doing with your kids, and begin to feel guilty. PLEASE DON’T!

As moms, we have these things called “Mommy Wars” – Do you cloth diaper or use disposable? Do you breast feed or formula feed? Pacifier or not? Circumcision or not? Baby wearing or stroller using? Regular baby food or homemade? Fast food or organic at home? Homeschool or public school? Private Christian or Montessori? TV or not? Sleepovers with friends or not? Homework before play or after? All these issues are put in front of us on an almost DAILY basis, and we are often made to feel that OUR WAY is WRONG. Because who ever we are talking to or reading about firmly believes that they are right. AND THEY ARE.

What? They are right? YES. They are perfectly right. They know exactly what their family needs. The problem comes in because our mind then wants to take that information and say that we are wrong. And thats where you ARE wrong. Because they ARE right. They know what’s right for them, but you are wrong to thing that what you do in your home is wrong. Lots of negatives. Lots of positives. Let me break it down more clearly for you:

Your real life is your real life.
And it’s exactly what your family needs it to be.

Their real life is their real life.
And it’s exactly what their family needs it to be.

You are you, she is she. There’s no way around it. Somehow we as moms have to break out of this lock that seems to be on our brains that says that we are not “good enough” if we don’t do what others do. Honey, noone else has your kids, your husband, your house, your personality, your physical abilities or lack their of. Noone else is you. SO STOP COMPARING YOURSELF!

I started recording the activities I’m doing with Becca on more of a regular basis because I’m prone to forget, and I don’t want to. I want to remember her cute little replies, the fun stuff we’ve done, and all that, so I can share it with her when she’s older. And so that I can replicate some of these fun things when little brother comes along in a couple years. I DO NOT BLOG TO UPSET ANYONE. I DO NOT BLOG TO PUT ANYONE DOWN. I DO NOT BLOG TO MAKE YOU FEEL BAD ABOUT YOURSELF OR YOUR PARENTING ABILITIES.

And now, here’s the hardest truth of all – I DO NOT BLOG TO PUT MYSELF DOWN WHEN I HAVE A BAD DAY. Because you see, despite all the other moms out there that can make us feel bad about ourselves, it’s our own mind that is our worst enemy. Days like I had yesterday are miserable because my own mind plays tricks on me and tells me I can do better and that I’m being a bad mom – I’m not living up to the standards I have set for myself.

But I’ve never lived yesterday before, and I’ll never live it again (THANK GOD!). I won’t ever wake up with exactly the same issues on my mind, or have exactly the same tasks to complete. The kids will never be that exact age again. Because yesterday was a singular event. And the fact that it didn’t go real well… well, that’s just life. It’s ok that we were way off of our nap schedule. It’s ok that I felt like crap. It’s ok that I forgot several things I was supposed to do until well after they should have been done. It’s ok that Becca didn’t have a fun new activity to do after nap. It’s ok that the only pictures I took of the kids were at the church yesterday morning while we did stuff for MOPS. It’s ok that Grayson’s morning nap was finally taken when he simply couldn’t stay awake anymore and fell asleep in the bouncy chair.

Seriously… isn’t he adorable?

It’s ok that I fed Becca a crappy meal from Whataburger in the car because our timing was so far off that anything else just wasn’t gonna happen. It’s ok that when I went to bed the sink was still full of dishes because after I unloaded and loaded the dishwasher I just couldn’t stand and hand wash the leftovers. It’s ok that there’s laundry piled high in our room because I just couldn’t bear to stand and hang it up before bed.

Because despite all the negative feelings I had TOWARD MYSELF because my brain was telling me I wasn’t living up to my standards, GOOD THINGS DID HAPPEN YESTERDAY! The MOPS closet at the church is cleaned out and organized, and moms were able to do that because I watched their children. Becca was sweet and caring and played well with her friends. We snuggled under the blanket on the couch and watched Super Why together after nap time, and I was once again amazed at how her reading abilities are growing. And yesterday’s biggest victory – she went pee pee in the potty at bedtime!!

Ladies, Mommies, PLEASE. Please don’t read the posts on this blog and feel guilty. Please know that I’m happy to share these ideas with folks who have the desire and ability to make them work in their own families, but these are NOT meant to hurt anyone. They are not meant to make you put yourself down. Heck, I know how hard life is. I have Rheumatoid Arthritis. I have two kids. I work from home several hours a day. I have more plates spinning than should even be possible – causing my head to spin on quite a regular basis. I KNOW WHAT IT IS TO BE BUSY. I KNOW WHAT IT IS TO FEEL CRAZY. Please know that real life DOES happen around here. We do not live in a bubble of perfection. We are FAR from it.

You are not alone. You are not an island. If the activities here are helpful, then read them. If they aren’t, then please, don’t compare yourself to me. You aren’t me, and God didn’t make you to be. Find your happy place. Find the place where you are content to be the woman and wife and mommy that God created YOU to be. Because you are the only one He created to be exactly like you. And you are the only one that can be you to your husband and your kids. Be the YOU that God created you to be, and be PROUD of that person!

Wacky Wednesday

Well, it’s another Wacky Wednesday around here… with more comedic (and dramatic) presence from Boo.

She sneezed – like three times in a row. I said “Bless you!” And She said, “Oh my GOODness! So many sneezes!” Yup. So many. Allergy season never seems to end in our house.
Ready to go somewhere, backing out of the garage. “Here goes the car! We’re moving, Baby Brother.” I glanced in the rear view mirror just in time to see her smiling at him, and him actually looking back at her and smiling across the car. My heart melted.
Commentating her actions (again, for the bazillionth time in her short life). “I open the door by by myself. Bump my toe. Ouch. Be careful, Becca Boo!” I love it when she calls herself Becca Boo. Super super cute.
In response to one of the million silly things her Pappy did this last weekend: “Oh PAP-PY!” (Often with a shake of her head included.)
Looking at one of her Sesame Street placemats at the breakfast table: “Hmmm has how nany sides?” (proceeds to count until she just can’t count any more going around and around and around the hexagon… couldn’t remember where she started) “Is a octagon? No, no probly not. Mommy? How nany sides it have?” (pause when I decide to let her figure it out on her own) “Looks like bees on honey. Is hexagon?” Yup. It’s a hexagon. I love her problem solving abilities. If I can’t go around and count the sides, just look up at the honey jar on the table and relate the picture to what you KNOW is a hexagon. The folks over at Gretchen Bee Ranch will be proud to know that their honey label helped Becca start recognizing hexagons by sight instead of having to count the sides. Thanks, ya’ll!!

Buried Treasure

I keep seeing posts from Play at Home Mom LLC and Kids Activities Blog and Living Montessori Now that involve sensory play. And honestly, I do a fairly good job of letting Boo experiment with a variety of textures and such, but sensory bins are something I’ve really only just pinned on Pinterest (follow my boards here), but not created. Ok, so I made one. I was really proud of it. It was this Sesame Street XO cereal, and I put hearts and pink and red stuff in it for Valentines Day. I was so proud. And then I actually pulled the Valentine’s Day stuff out and put a bunch of green stuff in the same cereal and it was ready for St. Patty’s Day! But since then, well, it’s still Becca’s “Green Stuff” in the family room. And, I would seriously think before I’d consider feeding my child the Sesame Street XO cereal, ya’ll… b/c the stuff is STILL intact and has not even come CLOSE to disintegrating yet. Kinda gross. But it’s still in the same condition it was in inside the box. Anyway, I digressed. All of that to say, I haven’t done much with having Becca dig her hands in things… so this week we are busting out of our normal mold!! I started with a bucket of dried beans. I stuck twelve purple “shineys” (pom poms) down in the beans, and just presented her with this tray:

She immediately started digging in, and started singing her alphabet song. I’m not really sure where that came from, but it inspires me to want to try a sensory bin with letters hidden in it – SOON!

Then, I went and got this ice cube tray and gave it to her to see what she would do. Without being prompted, she began to fill the holes with beans. She really enjoyed taking the beans in and out of the stars. I was surprised how focused she was on the beans, not the pom poms. But, I think it’s because she’s played with them before – the beans were new.

Then, I gave my first instruction of the activity (other than helping her put the lid below the tub b/c she was very frustrated when not everything would fit on her tray…. she had learned that rule well!), and asked her to take the beans out of the stars and see if she could put one pom pom in each star and use them to help her count. One to one correspondence is a skill for a much older child, but she can do so many things that are more advanced than that… just not one-to-one correspondence counting. So, we are working on it. And it really helped to practice putting one pom pom in each star! She also then discovered that one was still hiding, because I told her she should have one for each star. The hunt was on, and she had so much fun digging for that last piece of buried treasure!

All in all, this was a fabulous activity, and a great into to sensory bins for me – the preparer. I’m excited to set up more sensory bins for her soon… and you know I’ll share, so check back! 🙂

Total Prep Time for Mommy: 2 mins (dump beans into bowl, grab pom poms and poke them in, set up on tray)
Total Play Time for Becca: 15 mins (I think she would have played longer if not distracted by guests.)

Sticky and Pokey

According to Becca, this activity was fun, but “sticky and pokey”… so “enter at your own risk.” HA! I saw this idea on a pin somewhere (now I can’t find it) and it reminded me of a project I had my second graders do at one point. When I bought our super cheap marshmallows and toothpicks, I bought the flat toothpicks, thinking we’d reduce the number of pokes. She still got poked… and the flat toothpicks don’t work very well for stabbing marshmallows. Live and learn. But, we had fun building a house and then “huffing and puffing” and trying to blow it down like the big bad wolf. Of course that didn’t work, so we resorted to tearing into it, and then she decided that they were spiders and had a ton of fun playing with her marshmallow spiders. You just never know where an activity like this is going to lead a little creative mind! 🙂

I’ve decided to add, at the end of each post, the total prep time required by me, and the amount of time she stayed occupied. Keep in mind that the way I introduce activities is that I do them hands-on with her the first (and sometimes second and third) times just to make sure that she understands the rules and that I can see if she is struggling. The goal is for ALL activities to become independent activities eventually, so that I can work on prepping/introducing new activities, and also because little brother will be coming along behind and I’ll begin to work with him and will need time when Boo is independently working beside us.

Total Prep for Mommy: maybe 3 mins (open marshmallow bag, dig around and find a throw-away small plate – the longest part of the process for me, pull out toothpicks, put all on a tray)
Total play time for Becca: 25 mins (Daddy got home from work. She probably was about done, though. Might have made it 30 mins.)

Reusable Stickers

This blog post contains affiliate links. I appreciate you purchasing items from this post! Thank you in advance.

The kids are blessed with a Granny who sends them boxes of fun random items at random times. And at one point, in one of Becca’s boxes came one of Melissa and Doug’s most creative (in my opinion) products that inspires creativity in kids… it’s the Reusable Sticker pad. You can get your own here on Amazon (affiliate link). The one I’ve linked is the one Becca has – the habitats one, shown below, but there are others available as well.

She still needs help peeling them off the pad, but her hand-eye and fine motor coordination skills are almost such that she can do it all by herself… and she’s sooo proud of her pictures every time! 🙂

UPDATE: Have a child who really loves safari/zoo animals? Check out the fun project we did today, using this reusable sticker pad and her chunky puzzle! (Get your puzzle here) She started playing with her puzzle, so I went and got the stickers, and she would find the sticker that matched the puzzle piece, make the animal noise, and then place it on! She had so much fun! I also want to get her these Toob animals so that we can further extend our safari play!