Here we go...

I am now participating with a group of gals from my Sunday School class who are training...originally for a 10K, now for a tri. Not a full tri, but a tri sprint. And tonight was my first night to train with them and they kicked my tail! It doesn't help that my longest run lately has been 2 miles and they were planning to run 4-5 (or for about an hour) tonight, or that it was a night run (I typically run in the morning), and it was after dinner (I typically run on an empty stomach). So, I was destined to have a rough time of it.

But it was a great workout! We did a 1.2 mile run, drills, another 1.2 mile run, another set of drills, then ended with another 1.2 mile run. It felt great, even though it was horrid! If you work out at all, you completely understand what I mean.

I have my alarm set for 5 am and am planning on a short run for the morning.

Now, can I learn to swim and bike in less than 3 months?

We're well...

We're well, and it takes 7 viewings of 5 movies to make 1 princess well. And that many to make her mommy ill. Yup. Tatum is really good at sharing! Isn't that sweet?

So let me recap quickly the last few weeks for those of you who might be interested....

The Tuesday after Tatum was ill she went back to school and I went back to work. I started feeling poorly that afternoon and decided to call it a day. I took her to school the next day and I stayed home that day as well....and slept virtually all day long! I never ran a fever, but my stomach was upset and I basically didn't eat for a day and a half, save for a few pieces of toast and a hot cup of tea Matt made for me. That Thursday, Matt took Tatum to Conroe since it had been a while since she had visited her MawMaw and PawPaw, and since Kellen was already there attending Bible School, I was able to fully regain my strength.

I went there on Friday after work, as I was planning to attend a baby shower for a friend that Saturday with MawMaw, and Matt was going to take Kellen to a birthday party here in town. Those plans changed somewhat when, on that Saturday morning as Matt called to get directions, we learned that our friend was in the hospital with kidney stones! So, I brought the kids back to town and took them both to the birthday party.

The next day was Kellen's birthday party, and I'll devote another post specifically to that event. Suffice it to say, he had a BLAST! I cannot believe that my baby boy is 6 years old. We gained our friends daughter (the one who was in the hospital) after the party that night for a slumber party.

Kellen's birthday was Monday the 20th, and at breakfast we all sang another round of Happy birthday to him before we headed out for the day.

Later that week we had a pool play date with his kindergarten teacher and her kids, and it was a surprise to Kellen. He was so excited about it and both the kids had a blast at that pool!!

And on that Friday (the 24th) I was supposed to take a group of students to Schlitterbahn, but we ended up having a Seinfeld car rental experience. You know, the "I know you can TAKE a reservation, but do you know what to DO with a reservation?" one? Well, we had THAT experience. We had reserved a van 2 weeks earlier and the day we were supposed to pick it up, they didn't have one for us. So I had to make a 'go no go for launch' decision about the trip...and we had to postpone.

That weekend (last weekend) we had another party to attend at a splashpad hosted by one of Tatum's friends at daycare. They just LOVE the water!

On Sunday, I realized that over the last week, Tatum has cut a molar all the way through and is starting on another one (top left all the way through, bottom left partially).

Tuesday, MawMaw and I attended Chalk Talk again. They adjusted the way they organized it this year, and I'm still processing it...I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure I learned a whole lot. Wednesday, we had dinner with our dinner group from Sunday school at Chick-fil-A and had a great time there as well.

Yesterday was the rescheduled Schlitterbahn trip. Boy oh boy. What a trip that was! We had SO MANY ADVENTURES! I can now recognize how a certain girl in our group looks before she passes out, because she did so. Twice. And I know how the lifeguards and medics react when you HAVE to get them quickly. Because we had to. Twice. And I now know how they clear the rides when there is inclement weather and they have to clear the park. Because they did that just as we were finishing up our third ride of the day. Yup, our third. And we packed it up and made our way out to the van in the torrential downpour that ensued. And got about as wet by the rain as we did in the rides.

Oh, and then there were the Code Maroons that I was dealing with as well. Did I mention that virtually all of Bryan was being evauated because of a chemical fire at this same time, and that they were closing the very routes we were planning to take to get back into town? And that the private dorm where the students were housed had been evacuated? Nice, huh? Especially considering that I was the one in charge of them making all of the decisions.

So we made our way from New Braunfels to Sam Marcus, stopped at Cracker Barrel to get something to eat, and I spent virtually all of the time on the phone with a variety of individuals trying to get the latest and greatest information on road closures, evauation information, etc to make the remainder of our trip plans. Whew! Luckily, we had ZERO time constraints, so by the time we had finished with our relaxing dinner, stopped by Best Buy to get me a car charger (because by this point in time, my phone was rapidly dying) and got back on the road, the route we had originally taken had opened back up, so we headed back the way came. Unfortunately for the students, their dorm was still closed, so we still had to drop them off at Reed Arena, which is where many people who were evacuating were taken. However, they were released a short time later, around 9 PM, to go back to their dorm.

Needless to say, it was QUITE the adventure. And I was quite done today. I went to work in shorts and flip flops and virtually refused to make any decisions beyond what I absolutely had to make.

Then I left early. Matt and I needed to run some vehicle errands, so I left, and Kellen and I played at The Childrens Museum while Matt took care of the errands. Just what I needed after THAT kind of day!

And today is also PawPaw's birthday, so Happy birthday PawPaw!!

Productivity...a different perspective

Today was a different type of productive from what my "normal" work day is like. By 8:30 AM, I had consoled a sick little girl - once at 10:30 PM, and then again at 5 AM (which was fewer times than I actually expected), snuggled and gotten her back to sleep, rejoiced that she wanted water after a day of coaxing her to drink water or 'pink juice' with no luck, eagerly got her the requested water (twice, but just a little both times), only to go from happiness to utterly helpless when less than ten minutes later she was getting down off of the bed telling me, 'My tummy hurts, Mommy' and trying to make it to the toilet to throw up. She barely made it with my assistance.

I then cleaned up (bless her heart, she actually did a great job, so there wasn't much to clean up), and we snuggled some more, made some phone calls to Maw Maw and Daddy, then I tried to figure out WHAT I could give her to appease her....'cause she was STILL begging for water. There is a fine line you must walk between hydration and not giving a child something you know is going to come right back up. So we started watching Yo Gabba Gabba and I distracted her for a while with that, and after some time had passed, got her started on some ice chips and cheerios. By the third Yo Gabba Gabba (thank GOODNESS for DVR's), we were still keeping down ice chips and cheerios, and we had a moderately happy Tater-tot.

And it wasn't even 8 AM yet.

While she was watching one of her episodes, I asked permission (yes, you read that correctly...she's sick and I'm no dummy!) to go and take a shower. At a few minutes after 8, I asked if she wanted to go for a ride, and boy-oh-boy, she was ready! We went to McDonalds, and before you burn me at the stake, we simply paid the deposit for Kellen's birthday party and got me an vanilla iced coffee (oh-so delicious!!!). I then asked her if she wanted to be my helper and go with me to the store or go home - her choice. She wanted to go to the store.

So, we had a very quick trip to the grocery store...her vitamins and more Tylenol were high on the list since with one more dose of Tylenol, we would be out...Let me tell you what, this little girl is a charmer! She charmed the socks off of both the lady checking us out and the lady sacking our groceries. Since we had gotten her medicine and her vitamins, she wanted to hold them, and then she gave them to the lady at the checkout and asked for them back. Bless the lady's heart, she rang them up, sacked them, and immediately gave them back to Tatum to hold! Oh my, Tatum was in heaven! She was telling them ALL ABOUT her medicine and her vitamins and everything else that we had picked up....her crackers and her graham crackers and....well, you get the point.

We got back to the house close to 9 AM, and put in Cinderella to watch. Tatum decided that she wanted to call her Grandpa, so we made a phone call to talk to him. While they were on the phone, he prayed over her to feel better.

Fast forward to lunchtime, and it was obvious that Tatum was beginning to feel better. So I decided to get some video....She has been absolutely precious today.







After lunch and naps, we snuggled for a while. When we finally got up, we played and played...we played in her room and weeded out many of the 'baby' toys. They are now in a bin outside her doorway. She played dress-up, complete with headgear and every purse she owns. We read books. Lots of books. Over and over. We played with her dolls. I dressed her dolls. She undressed her dolls, then brought them to me to dress. Then she undressed them again. Repeat.

And throughout the day, I did manage to get a few loads of laundry done, with a wonderful assistant to 'help' me fold and put away what we had done. And the kitchen has some semblence of clean to it - at least the dishwasher is running and the counters are somewhat clean. But the most productive things I did today were WHATEVER TATUM NEEDED FROM ME, regardless of what that meant for the rest of the world.

And I still haven't figured out how many movies it takes to make my princess well...our total count is up to 7 viewings of 5 moviews (2 viewings each of Kung-Fu Panda and Cinderella; 1 viewing of Bolt, Pinnochio, and Finding Nemo). I'll let you know tomorrow if that's the number.

How many?

How many movies does it take to make one princess feel better? I'm not worried about how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop. I want to know what I can do to make my Tater-tot feel better!

She had a rough night, and then wanted to crawl into bed and snuggle with me at 6 am this morning (her normal wake-up time). We snuggled until almost 7:30, then finally crawled out of bed. I took her to the potty, then as I was getting her to wash her hands, she and I got into a little battle of wills over washing her hands.

Totally unlike her! To clarify, the unlike her part was the problem with washing hands, not necessarily the battle of wills part....

As I was 'helping' her wash her hands, she commented that she didn't feel well, and I realized just how warm she really felt. So we called to our resident expert to get the thermometer and 'take my temperature'. Sure enough, she was running a verifiable low grade fever.

And wouldn't you know it, this was our Sunday to work in the nursery during second service. Ug. A phone call later, that was worked out and rescheduled.

So, we tried to get some fluids in her...water didn't work, 'pink juice' didn't work, even though we tried to tell her it was just like kool-aid (she wasn't buying what we were trying to sell), nada. She decided she wanted to watch Kung-fu Panda on mommy and daddy's TV. We obliged. Sometime during the movie, I went in to snuggle with her and there must have been superglue on me somewhere, because I was no longer allowed to leave her side. Even after she fell asleep nestled into me, as I unfortunately found out when I tried to get up after she had been asleep for a while.

Bad move on Mommy's part, in case you were wondering.

For our movie count...we're at two viewings of Kung-fu Panda, one viewing of Bolt (paused due to the urgent but albeit shortlived need to go play in the pool - and yes, we thought the cool water would feel good to her!), and are currently viewing Pinocchio.

Hopefully I'll have an answer to my question soon, but as the movie count rises, so does her temp. *Insert my sad face here*

Family fun day

Today has been quite the family fun day, and it isn't over yet. However, in the spirit of trying to remember the funny events, I'm posting...

As we were playing in the backyard, Matt was spraying water in various directions...up in the air to splash us, straight at us, etc...now, before you think this classifies as some sort of abuse, our sprayer is COOL! It has various types of spray strengths and streams...all the way from a straight on stream to an umbrella looking sprinkle. So it was quite nice in the extreme temperature today to play like this outside, even while we were in the pool.

Well, Kellen was in a little trouble (not going into that, but to give you the backstory) and sitting on the bench while the rest of us were in the pool playing. Matt was splashing Kellen with the hose, and after a short while, Kellen exclaimed, "Make-up!"

[If you need further explanation, Kellen gave Matt a Bugs Bunny DVD for Fathers Day, and they've been watching that together lately]

Kid funnies

I should try and do a better job of writing these types of things down as they happen...but that's mommy guilt that I'm trying not to let myself shoulder...

Here are some that I can recall from recent times...in no certain order...

*Tatum LOVES the story of 'Pocono'. I bought her a short board book of the Disney favorite (there's your big clue) for Easter, I believe (perhaps even last year??) and over the last week or two, it's been a huge hit. We must read about Geppetto, Jiminy cricket, etc. And I will probably cry when she begins to pronounce this word correctly, because she's incredibly verbal and rarely mispronounces things.

*Tatum is a girly girl (as if that hadn't already been established time and time again on this blog) and as of last night, her toenails were plain. She declared to me, as she was eating dinner, that she wanted pretty toes, AND FINGERS. So last night, after dinner, I painted her toenails and fingernails as she sat in her pink princess chair. As a sidenote, she's doing much better with sitting still during this process. I should have gotten a picture of her sitting there, with the wet nails, perfectly still, watching Yo Gabba Gabba as they dried. A little while later, she looked at me and asked, "Are they ready now, Mommy? Can I move?"

This morning, daddy asked to see her pretty fingers, and she showed him, then exclaimed, "And my thumbs, too!"

*Tatum has mastered her vocal range. And she tries to use this to her advantage when throwing a fit. Unfortunately, she hasn't learned quite yet that this works against her in these times.

I'll post more as I think of them...'cause these kiddo's regularly keep me in stitches over here!

Shall we bring back the nickname?

At one point in time, Kellen's nickname was Crash. Given his adventures the last few weeks, I believe it might be time to bring back the nickname.

We've already gone over the incident at the bowling alley that resulted in the split chin the Friday prior to the 4th of July weekend. So we're clear on that one, right?

Well, I received a phone call on Monday from daycamp, and when they use the words, 'front flip cannonball' when describing the incident, you just HAVE to know it isn't a good thing!

Apparently, Kellen decided to do a front flip cannonball off the side of the pool INTO the water. He made it (for those of you adventure freaks wondering), but managed to hit his head in the process. HE says he hit his head on the bottom of the pool, but no one is sure if that is actually what happened (since he was wearing a life vest at the time).

I'm really glad I don't overly freak out when I get these phone calls...Really!

So I got the call, asked if it actually knocked him out, asked how bad the bleeding was, about the head injury, etc, etc. He was, at the time of the call, eating lunch, and the counselors had treated and bandaged it up and were simply calling to let me know. Once I reiterated the facts as I understood them - that he had basically scraped his head on the side of the pool and was, for all intents and purposes, fine, I let them know that I would just look at it when I picked him up after work.

He does; however, have a slight bald spot where the abrasion is...it basically scraped the hair off! Now don't get me wrong, I watched him closely all night and continued to ask if he was dizzy, if he had a headache, etc...

But he was fine, really....and played with Tatum and a friend that we had over for dinner Monday night like nothing had happened.

And speaking of his 'friend'.....oye. I had a friend and her daughter (Kellen's age) over on Monday night. By the end of the night, Kellen was telling her dad that he was her 'boyfriend boyfriend' and she was his 'girlfriend girlfriend'. Did you know that if you only say the word once that it means you're just friends? If you say the word twice, it means that you want to marry the other person.

Um. Hello!! They're 6 years old! (And I'm giving Kellen a few weeks by making that comment here...)

And here I was thinking Kellen still thought that girls were yucky and gross.

4th of July fun

Ok...so it was really the 3rd of July...but it was in CELEBRATION of the 4th....and it was the holiday weekend....so enjoy the photo story with some explanations thrown in for good measure.

Both Tatum and Kellen were amazed at the juggler...Tatum even helped when he 'dropped' his pins. I'm not quite sure that Kellen could figure out how he was that tall....

Then Tatum thoroughly enjoyed the musical entertainment...you may not be able to tell from the picture, but she's dancing to the drum and fife - and did so EVERY time she heard this. She was so sweet to clap for them every time their numbers were over...She has music in her future somewhere.

We were handed flags upon entering, and Tatum had great fun in waving her flag to the beat - either heard or in her own little mind!

Kellen, on the other hand, had woken up from an unplanned nap (in his defense, we HAD just finished with 2-3 hours at the pool) and seemed to have woken up on the wrong side of the nap mat...or carseat...unlike his sister, he took a little while to get warmed up to the festivities.

Here is our Hapes clan during one of the songs.....

Kellen was quite entertained with the fans handed out at entry as well...there is a small see-through area that enthralled him...apparently, when you look through it, the world becomes rainbow-like. No wonder he was entranced!

And well past Tatum-tot's bedtime, she was fighting for all she was worth to stay awake...

In case you're wondering why you're going blind with this next photo, it's actually the canon going off...They used live canons for the 1812 Overture.







And here is Tatum NOT LIKING the canons, and Kellen trying desperately to console his sister. He later turned to where the canons were located and remarked, "I don't like you! You scared my baby sister!"

Tatum still recovering from the canons....


Houston Sympony at The Cynthia Mitchell Woods Pavilion in The Woodlands....

And then they ended the night with a fireworks show....Kellen loved it, and Tatum....well, let's just say that she was really tired and hadn't gotten over being scared of the canons. So fireworks weren't really high on her likable list. But the rest of the gang enjoyed them!

And for the ACTUAL 4th of July, we spent another several hours at the pool, which is pretty much Kellen and Tatum's favorite past time....then had hotdogs and they C-R-A-S-H-E-D after the late night from Friday, and an early morning Saturday morning. Sooooo, that meant no fireworks display on the actual 4th for us...but we had a fabulous weekend, full of family fun, which is really what was important!

Banged up...

After our memory making Thursday night, Kellen went off to daycamp on Friday, ready to round out the week full of good behavior. So I was a little nervous when I received a phone call, then a voicemail, from the number I recognized as the daycamp cell phone. Only when I listened to the message, it had nothing to do with his behavior. It was one of those, 'Ms. Hapes, Kellen had an accident at the bowling alley. He's ok, but you may want to come and get him a little early today.'

When I returned the phone call to find out what happened, I was told that, 'We've stopped the bleeding, but some of the counselors think he might need stitches.'

On my way out of the office, I put in a phone call to the pedi's office, checking to see if I could bring him in after I picked him up from camp. I left a message with the nurse and she was slated to call me back.

I walked in to the bowling alley, went over the Kellen, and checked out the cut. It was a pretty good one, but not stitch-worthy. As I'm making this determination, Tatum decides she wants to call and talk to me ('cause she's spending a few days with Maw Maw and Paw Paw), so I have to break her heart and tell Maw Maw that I just couldn't talk right then. Then I get the return call from the pedi's office telling me that I could bring him in for the stitches that I had decided he didn't really need. So I let them know that it wasn't necessary. Then Matt calls to tell me to take a picture of said wound and send it to him.

One at a time people. One at a time. I'm in the middle of trying to actually handle this perceived crisis here...Because of course, my phone is ringing while the poor counselors are trying to talk to me about what actually happened with Kellen, and he's trying to tell me what happened, and they're trying to get me to sign paperwork.

It was quite the chaotic sight, I'm sure!

I told the head counselor that I had been expecting a phone call of this nature, and then gave Kellen the option to either stay or come home with me (by this time, it was shortly after 3 PM). Needless to say, he wanted to come home with me!

So after a quick stop by Whataburger to pick up a consolatory milkshake, we headed home. Milkshakes make almost anything better, don't they?

Sorry you missed it...

If a house is clean and no one is there to see it, was it ever really clean?

I'm beginning to wonder. Because you can't really tell I did all that much work last week. *sigh*

Such is life with kids and a crazy, full schedule. At least one when you don't work your fingers to the bone and are trying not to put too much pressure on yourself, huh?

I got up this morning, looked around, and lamented that my hard work and effort hadn't stayed visible for longer than it did. Then you know what I did about it tonight when Kellen and I got home?









Nothing.


We ate cereal (his dinner request), changed clothes, and went to the pool. We had a BLAST, came home, played a game of Investigate (AKA Go Fish), read a book, then I tucked him in bed.

So, if you happen to stop by my house, it was clean last week - sorry you missed it!

The verdict...

Yes, Matt was COMPLETELY shocked, amazed, thrilled, and wondered HOW and WHEN I managed to get the project done.

Oh, and he also wondered WHAT POSESSED me to get ORANGE rugs and towels for the bathroom. (How well do I know my husband??)

I actually beat him home on Friday, so had a chance to do a few of those things that I had run out of time on (take out the kitchen trash, tidy up a bit more with some of the toys that inevitably had managed to spill out of their 'homes', you know...just some general stuff). No, in case you're wondering, I still didn't get the bedrooms done.

He walked in as I was putting Tatum to bed with a sleeping Kellen on his shoulders and the first words out of his mouth were, "The house looks GREAT!"

My response, "I'm SO GLAD that's the first thing you said to me!"

After we got the kids down, I asked him to tell me all of the things that he noticed that I did. With a deer-in-the-headlights look, he pointed out a few things, then just begged me to tell him the rest. As I rambled through the litany of things I had managed to get done throughout the week, his mouth continued to drop in amazement.

'WHEN did you get all of that done?'

I then had him then close his eyes and walked him to the bathroom. He reacted just as I thought he would....'Orange? Why did you get orange? Orange? Really?' And the rest of his comment was something along the lines of, 'You HAD to know I wasn't going to like that, didn't you?'

Instead of getting upset, I just laughed, and told him it was the KIDS bathroom. I reminded him that he had wanted a FUN bathroom for the KIDS, and that the orange was the PERFECT accent.

Then I told him about the project, WHY I had done it, and had him read the blog. And then laughed when he got to the part where I knew he was going to flip over the orange.

All-in-all, it was a perfect reaction and he LOVED it!!

And it's confirmed...

I have been wondering about Kellen's insane ability to hoarde large quantities of food and eat nonstop for large periods of time - hours, really. I was going through various options in my head...tapeworm, hollow leg, growth spurt, you know...all of the "normal" things, right?

Well, it's been officially diagnosed and confirmed. Growth spurt it is!

Matt had measured him on the 3rd of June and then again this week and he's grown a 1/4 inch in that amount of time. Yes, a quarter inch in a span of barely two weeks.

Goodness gracious!

He and I just went through all of his t-shirts and weeded out the ones that are too small for him. Luckily, I hit a sale not too long ago and stocked up on shirts in what is currently his size (who knows how long that will last). If you are a mom, you know the sale drill, right? One shirt of each color in the appropriate size. I bought 10 shirts. So perhaps we'll be set through the summer at least.

Final project status

Just in case you're wondering...the bedrooms didn't get finished. But, everything else on the list was completed.

WHEW!

I did a little "sprucing" before I left the house this morning, ran the dishwasher, and since Matt will most likely beat me home, he should be pleasantly surprised.

Might have been nice if I would have remembered to take out the trash, but hey...it's good enough, right?

My project reflections:
What really struck me throughout this project though, is how much pressure I put on myself. Yes, I gave myself a large project (for what I think is good reason - a nice gift for a reasonably small pocket-book price...a labor of love, a gift that cost time and effort, not $$$). But even as I reached completion of parts of the project, instead of feeling satisfied, I continually found things that I thought would be good to add to the list. WHAT's THAT ABOUT???

Instead of looking around and enjoying what I had done and accomplished, I looked around and thought, 'Well, the next to-do list I make should include the top of the TV, and I should really tackle cleaning out the closets, and....'

How did the perfectionism get so ingrained? And how long will it take for me to un-train and re-train myself to finish something and then REST, while waiting on direction from the Lord for HIS next project for me?

I might be overthinking things here, but hey...these are just my musings anyway...

Day 3 project update

Well, I'm officially running out of steam. It was bound to happen, considering the magnitude of the project goals.

This morning I managed to get the baseboards, trim, walls and vents done in the master bathroom and unload/load/run the dishwasher (yeah, no real big feat there).

I added a "side" project to the list, and while dinner was cooking tonight, Tatum "helped" me clean the kids bathroom (she cleans REALLY well with a wipee, let me tell you, and did a GREAT job on the decorative wooden fish that sometimes serves as a doorstop in the bathroom), in preparation for the new decorations that are now in place in there. She did that while I attacked the baseboards, walls, trim, swept and mopped, and cleaned the mirrors (how is it that I always look at them, but rarely think about cleaning them? anyone else?) then she then opened the new shower curtain hooks and helped me string the new shower curtain (BRIGHT fish theme) onto the hooks. I then hung it up while she named all of the various marine creatures on the shower curtain.

It was great!

After the floor dried, I layed out the new, bright orange floor mats down. Yes, orange. Pick yourself up off of the floor. They aren't in any way, shape or form burnt orange. They are BRIGHT orange and match the bottom of the shower curtain, therefore staying with the theme. They also match the set of towels that I got for the room.

Matt is gonna flip that I got orange and the kids are gonna LOVE it. Tatum was already laying down on the new mats saying they were "hers" and feeling of them.

It's amazing the difference in new versus old mats...even cheap ones, 'cause hey...it IS the kids bath, and we know what's going to happen to those rugs, right? And lets face it, the old ones were O-L-D...they were from my college days and predated Matt. You do the math.

So now that I've established that anything having to do with Tatum's room is off the list, basically, I still need to do the baseboards/trim/walls in the master bedroom and Kellen's room, mop the kitchen/entry and master bathroom and then vacuum the master bedroom and Kellen's room. Oh, and put away all of the clean laundry that is now piled on the couch, loveseat and the green chair. Have I mentioned my tendency for piling clean laundry?

I've just Febreezed the curtains that can't be laundered and "spritzed" them up, and now that I've written out the remaining "to-do" list, it doesn't actually seem that bad. I think I can do it, but if it doesn't get done, the house is in better shape than in was on Sunday. And that's pretty much what I was going for. Matt should still be surprised and I think he'll appreciate the effort.

Substitute

I have to share this absolutely adorable thing that Tatum has been doing this week....Kellen is attending a sports camp at Maw Maw and Paw Paw's and his sister misses him terribly. So, her substitute is the Baby Jamz video that he is a part of, and we watch this over and over and over and over and over and...well, you get the idea.

"I watch Kellen on there (pointing to the computer)," and "More Kellen song," are two phrases that I have become increasingly familiar with these past few days.

It's really adorable, and it's a good thing that I can handle the songs. Really.

Project update

Just in case you're wondering how the project is going this evening...

I've gotten two additional fans cleaned, leaving a lone fan left (again, not counting the one in the living room). Since it's the one in Tatum's room and she's asleep, there is a very good possibility that it's just not getting done. Oh well!

The kitchen curtain is in the washing machine as we speak, awaiting an empty dryer. Thankfully, I was warned to check the capabilities for laundering on my curtains PRIOR to actually washing them, and am unable to launder the living and dining room curtains myself, so they'll just get dusted/vacuumed off. (Thank you, Maw Maw!!)

And completely OFF of the to-do list is polishing the wooden cabinets dispersed throughout the house. I've done the kitchen cabinets, the wet bar, both bathrooms, including the hanging storage. You know what I'm talking about, right, the cabinets above the toilet... I completely forgot about them until I was looking into the spare bathroom in wonder and amazement at the difference a little furniture polish can do and realized they were wooden cabinets too! When I finished it off, it seemed like it was a completely different bathroom!

I guess the wood was thirsty. Who knew?

Realistically, I'll get the mopping done in the kitchen and possibly the bathrooms, but will probably not get all of the baseboards/trim/walls done in all three bedrooms and in the master bath by the end of the week. The master bath stuff is a maybe. I can't do ANYTHING in Tatum's room, really, considering that very shortly after we get home, she's going to bed. So scratch anything having to do with her room off of any list.

The laundry will most likely get done, but really and truly, is laundry EVER really done? I'll say I accomplished my goal on this one (at least the washing part of the goal), since the majority of the sorting baskets in the laundry area of the garage are empty, and all of the baskets inside the house are empty. You can't wash a load with one item by itself, now can you?

Now, if I can just get it all put away.....where did I put that easy button? Oh wait...we're going for excellence, NOT perfection, and good enough is ok, right?

Great, then I'm taking a break. Blue Bell is calling.

My project...

6/16 - AM UPDATE: I feel the need to explain WHY I'm doing this project...It's actually part of Matt's fathers day present, hence the "shhh" part of the original post.

So far, I've gotten all of the baseboards and walls wiped down in the entire house, save for the 3 bedrooms and the spare bathroom (but I JUST did that when the toilet EXPLODED a couple of weeks ago with Kellen - and I was thorough, at least with the baseboards).

I've also cleaned both hallway fans, and the fan in the kitchen. I still need to do to the ones in the bedrooms, and I'm skipping the one in the living room because it's too high.

I vacuumed the front hallway, dining room and living room, but didn't do the hallway between the bedrooms or any of the bedrooms since Tatum was already asleep when I was vacuuming (I'm not COMPLETELY crazy!).

I cleaned both of the bathroom toilets and scrubbed both of the bathtubs and got two (I think) loads of laundry done and put away. I put another load in this morning before I left to take Tatum to school and come to work.

I feel like I'm on a roll...


Shhhh...don't tell Matt. (I can post this on here because he really doesn't read this blog...)

I know I just ranted about the fact that I don't clean, right? And about the fact that I'm working toward excellence and "good enough." So here's my project for the week...

I want to see just how much of the house I can get REALLY CLEAN to surprise Matt. And I'm not talking "picked up" kind of clean, I'm talking spring cleaning kind of clean.

My primary goals:

• wipe down all baseboards and walls (include tops of trim & doors)
• clean all fan blades (exluding the living room, since there's no way I can reach it unless I got the ladder out, and I think he might have my head if I did that)
• launder all curtains & rehang
• polish all the cabinet doors (kitchen, wetbar, bathrooms)
• all laundry done and put away
• general cleaning (bathrooms, vacuum, mop, etc)

If I have time:

• go through kids clothes that they've outgrown and package for give-a-way

So whatcha' think? Will I be able to get this done in three nights?

Pursuit of perfection

I have come to the realization that the pursuit of perfection is paralyzing. Or at least I'm trying to remind myself of this as I make a mental shift from pursuing perfection to striving for excellence.

• In the pursuit of perfection, nothing is good enough...I overanalyze to find the "perfect" way to do something. The "good enough" way is just fine and still gets the job done. For the most part, the only one that's going to know the difference between the two is me.
• In the pursuit of perfection, I constantly compare myself with others who I think have it more "together" than I do, and then feel inferior and/or guilty that I can't do what they do, how they do it. God didn't make me THEM, he made me ME. I'm not SUPPOSED to do things the way they do them per se, or live their lives the way they live it. I'm supposed to live mine the way HE WANTS ME TO, to the BEST OF MY ABILITY, allowing HIM to shine through me, ESPECIALLY in the areas of my deficiencies, so that HE is glorified.
• In the pursuit of perfection, we mask our true selves. We don't necessarily allow others to get to know us, warts and all. How can we grow, or allow ourselves to be used in others lives if we don't walk with them...through both the good and the bad? How do we know that our bad times aren't being sent for the purpose of helping a brother or sister in Christ? If we pursue perfection and mask our pain, our difficulties, our deficiencies, don't let others know what we're experiencing, how can those experiences help them?

I really think this is the area that God is working on me with right now...striving for excellence, not perfection and just doing the best that I can do without stretching myself to the point of breaking.

I'm ready to be really real. I have a full life. A really full life. I am a wife, a mom to two kids, a full-time employee (read: mom to another 300 or so students). My husband has had a crazy schedule for our entire marriage that has rarely involved working in the same town. Cleaning is a low priority. News flash...if you drop in on me, my house is probably messy, there are probably clothes on the couch. They're most likely clean and laid out, waiting to be put away, but they're there.

That isn't how I envision my house in my head. I WANT it to look like a picture out of a magazine. I WANT it to smell like the "correct" scent for whatever season it is. I WANT to have all the ingredients for homemade cookies all of the time so that I can just "pop" them in on a whim. I WANT to always have the stuff for the cutsie crafts for me and my kids to do.

But hey, that doesn't happen.

I make cupcakes from the box. We colors in coloring books. We use sidewalk chalk. Matt buys whatever scent candles he wants, because somewhere, I have a wonderful wickless candle and warmer set that hasn't been plugged back in since the move (yes, almost a year). Kids craft magazines come to my house with wonderful ideas for me, and *someday* I'll get the stuff for them and we'll do them some weekend.

Let's just get real.

Misbehavin'

Well, Kellen rounded out last week with two days of misbehaving. Arg.

Thursday he decided to reconnect with his friend from the afterschool Kids Klub. You may remember her...she's the one that the counselors had to continually separate him from and, oh yes, the very same one that professed her love for him at the beginning of the school year. Oy. Those two. The two of them got into a variety of michevious trouble...nothing too terrible, but enough that it was brought to my attention in addition to the other items to be mentioned (I informed the lead counselor that things might be better if the two of them were simply split up, if possible). He also talked another boy into holding down the flush valve on the toilet in the bathroom and creating a waterfall. Yup. That's my boy. (They did make him clean it up, which he thought was gross.) But the icing on the cake was when they told me that he ran away from the rest of the kids and the counselors. Um...no. That's a safety issue and completely NOT ok with us.

Don't get me wrong, the other issues aren't ok with us, but they're to be expected from an almost 6 year old. Safety issues; however, are in no way, shape or form tolerated in this house.

So he was greeted with, "I guess you made some pretty bad choices today and we aren't going to the pool after all." And we had a stern talk-to at the house.

I apparently didn't work, as I get a phone call on Friday from Matt, who is on his way home with Kellen after he's picked him up. Kellen, the aforementioned girl, and another unnamed girl tried to sneak out of the gym.

WHAT??

So Matt dealt with him primarily Friday night, and I made a point of asking Tatum if she wanted to go to the pool near him and she and I got ready for the pool in the living room, so he could be reminded of what he was missing (again) because of his poor choices. And then Tatum and I proceeded to have a wonderful time at the pool.

I'm trying to figure out the root cause of it, and I really think that it might be a lack of quality time with both Mommy and Daddy...dunno...we'll test that theory a little to see if things get better.

Spaghetti, anyone?

I had forgotten just how much the kids like spaghetti...As I type, Kellen is on his 4th plate and Tatum is on her 5th plate of spaghetti.

Seriously...where are they PUTTING this food?

Tatum has abandonded her fork in liu of her hands in order to shovel the food in quicker. When she gets through with a plate, she asks for more and then calmly tells me that her, "...hands are yucky, Mommy."

Ya, think, dearie?

They are both piling on the parmesan cheese as well, and I'm rapidly running out of that commodity. I truly thought I made enough pasta to have leftovers for them for tomorrow night, and now I'm not so sure about that.

Growth spurts, perhaps? Hollow legs was suggested as another alternative for food storage. Hmmm...Pictures would prove that I don't starve them, but I think the camera might be covered in sauce at this point in time.