Earth-shattering News!

Last night I slept seven hours and forty-five minutes in a row!!!! It's been a while since that has happened. I was so excited and encouraged that there may be more nights like this in the near future.

But since blogs without pictures are boring, here are a few gratuitous ones:



Oh, and our new favorite things:

Wild About Books by Judy Sierra. If you're into books, this is a fabulous one. Here's the review: PreS-Gr. 2. In this rollicking story, librarian Molly McGrew accidentally drives her bookmobile into the zoo, and then the fun begins! The animals draw close to listen to a Dr. Seuss story, and soon they begin stampeding "to learn all about this new something called reading." Many picture-book authors who try their hands at rhyme have less-than-stellar results. Here, the best part of the book is Sierra's handy way with a rhyming text that not only scans properly but also is both clever and full of images that will amuse children ("Tasmanian devils found books so exciting / That soon they had given up fighting for writing").

And my kids' new favorite song (we listen to it ALL the time) is from Dog Train, by Sandra Boynton. I can totally understand why adults would like it, but kids? It's called, "I Need a Nap."

Fun with Remodeling

Here are some pictures from the recent remodeling. We laid the carpet ourselves. As we were unrolling it, Sam was rolling around on it. Remember that excitement from when you were a kid? I started rolling around on it too, while Ivan and his dad looked at me like I had lost my jelly beans.




And this is Sam scaling the mattress mountain. He did this about 30 times, climbing up and rolling down. And then started walking along the top like a billy goat, at which point, with visions of him falling on his head, I put an end to it.



About 3:00, Sam asked me to open a can of corn. When he finished it around 5:00, I realized that I had forgotten to feed him and that that was all he had had all day. I think he was happy though. A few days ago, he asked for a can of corn and some tuna fish for lunch.

Oh, and a trip down memory lane for anyone in my family ... I found some things that I've hauled around for years packed in an "orange box". This (well, not this exact one, but a series of them over many years) was my suitcase for the first 18 years of my life. I used them to visit all 48 of the continental United States.

A Roof Over Our Heads

I have some friends who are DINKs (Double Income No Kids). They bought a new house in a posh suburb of Detroit a few years ago, in an area with the best schools. The house has four bedrooms. They have one room for them, one as their dog’s room, one as their office room, and another as their yoga/exercise room. And they have a full finished basement with an entertainment room. It is beautiful, but I couldn’t help thinking about the irony that someone with a bunch of kids could really use that space, but couldn’t afford it because they only had one income. But the ones who had the income couldn’t have the kids. And another great irony is that now that I feel that this is one of the most important times for me to be tapped in spiritually because of the impact I am having on my little boys at this crucial time in their lives … it’s so hard to find the time to do the things I need to stay tapped in. Any insight, anyone?

On to other housing thoughts …
We have a beautiful little house in a suburb of Detroit that feels like you are back in the 1950s. The main streets are filled with little shops, you can walk to school, parks, the library and the grocery store. Ivan walks to the barber to get “an education, not a haircut,” and talks with Russ the Barber and his assistants about life, people, politics, etc. Our friends’ daughter walks to the corner candy store with all the kids on her street every Saturday to buy a little treat. You run into people you know at the grocery store at 10:00 at night, but it is still fairly fluid (people moving in and out) so I haven’t felt any small-town social politics, if that makes sense.

But our house was built in the 1950s and it is a little small. It is large for a bungalow but the top floor is an apartment, complete with living room, dining room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom for Ivan’s parents. (Separate enough to feel like we live alone, but close enough that Sam, who wakes up at 6:00, can go up to grandma’s house on his own, and wait for me to wake up at 7:15.) The main floor has our living space with two smallish bedrooms, and then we have the basement. So, I was thinking, two bedrooms=2 parents+3 kids=no problem. But there was a problem.

I had these romantic ideas about being crammed in a two bedroom apartment--“Oh! People in New York and Europe do it all the time. I’ll feel like I’m living in Europe!” Not so much. In addition to tripping all over our coats, bags, etc., and not being able to walk to the front of my bed without walking sideways, there was the most pervasive question of the last five years of my life: how do I get my kids to go to sleep and stay asleep. Sam has slept in the kitchen or living room at least 75% of the time for the last two years because no matter what I try, they are on different schedules and can’t sleep together. (And I’ve read at least 15 “how to get your child to sleep” books.)

Once Ivan got the new job and we knew that we would be here for a while, we had someone (actually a recommendation from Russ the Barber) put in some electrical and can lights, strengthen the wall between the two rooms, and paint the ceiling black. We were going to put in a drop ceiling until we realized that anyone of above average height would hit their head on the ceiling. It actually looks really cool. The black covers up all of the inconsistencies and gives the illusion of height. I think I’m going to get little stick-on stars for the ceiling so I feel like I’m out camping under the stars every night, in complete comfort.

We got a carpet and had the walls painted a light tan and it has a nice feel. So now, in addition to a little empty space in our bedroom, I have padded carpet, an actual desk for my computer (instead of the top of my dresser), and all my books on bookshelves in my room, instead of in storage. And it feels so cozy!

The Best Husband in the Whole World

Last week was a tiring and stressful week for both of us. Friday was Ivan's last day at work and he passed the ceremonial stapler on to his friend Matt. He had a lot to finish up and worked hard to finalize every thing.

To top it all off, our kids were really sick last week with the stomach flu. So Eric, who has been my champion sleeper for almost the last couple of years woke up at least every night, screaming because he needed a diaper change and sometimes his sheets changed. One night, we hadn't done the dishes because we were up late moving all of our basement into the center of the rooms (another story) and went to bed late. At 3:00 Eric woke up and it took both of us to take care of them. Because he was screaming, the baby woke up to be fed. So I went to feed the baby, and Ivan said, "I'm going to go do the dishes." And he spent the time while Mikey was eating to clean the kitchen.

The next morning, I told him how much I appreciated it and he said, "I did it because I love you and I didn't want you to have to wake up to a sink full of dirty dishes." Awwwwwww ....

How to Get Your Kids to Eat Vegetables ...

So ... on one of those super crazy days, I fed the kids but didn't have time to eat. So while they were taking a bath, I took my dinner in to the bathroom and ate while they were in the bath. I was eating carrots, celery, snow peas, red pepper strips, etc. when Sam said that he wanted one. I gave him a couple and then he said, "Mom, pretend I'm a little fish!" So I broke little pieces off and threw them into the tub. And he gobbled them up.

I can't decide if this makes me a bad mom with all those germs floating around or a good mom because my kids eat their vegies. On the other hand, no matter what I do, they both drink the bath water anyway, and now at least they're getting their "5 by 5"!

Sam's Last Trip

One of my favorite parenting books is called Piggyback Rides and Slippery Slides. It's all about play--how it helps kids to develop, why it's important, what they use it for, how to do it, etc. It's full of useful tips, like pretending that you are animals as you go to bed. So when I say it's bedtime, and Sam says that he doesn't want to, then I say, "do you want to go as a polar bear or a possum?" and inevitably, it's a possum and I carry him hanging upside down from my waist to his bed.

One of the major points in the book is that kids use play to deal with stress. So if a kid is in the hospital or has a serious injury, he will play doctor to try to manage his feelings, etc. Since Ivan has been traveling for his job for the last three years, often gone for 3 weeks at a time, 8-10 months out of the year, one of Sam's favorite games is to go on trips. He pulls all the suitcases out of the basement and packs them up, and goes to the pretend taxi (often I am the taxi driver), drives to the pretend airport, and then he flies to Pretend Spain or Pretend China or Pretend Mexico or Pretend France. Whenever he can, he recruits friends to go with him, so here's a picture from a few weeks ago.


His best friend moved last month and now he's pretend moving, so it is infuriating to me because I'm constantly unpacking, moving his boxes, putting everything away, and once I found a can of corn and some rotten bananas in Ivan's lunchbag that Sam had packed for his trip. Since Ivan was in Korea, no one opened it until I noticed a bunch of fruit flies hovering in that direction. When Ivan was home for December and January, Sam stopped playing this game, but as soon as Ivan left again, so did Sam. Understanding why he's doing it and how it is helping him helps me to be a little more tolerant when I trip over all of his suitcases.

So now for our exciting news ... Ivan just got a new job with a company called Energy Conversion Devices. He will still be doing auditing, but almost all of the work will be from the home office in Rochester Hills, MI (another suburb of Detroit, so we won't have to move). ECD is in the alternative energy field. Right now, they mainly manufacture Solar Panels, but they are in an expansion phase and are branching out to alternative energy products. Ivan is excited about the industry, the people he'll be working with, the potential for growth and mostly the chance to be home.

I think that one of the most interesting things is the founder of ECD, Stan Ovshinsky. He invented an environmentally friendly nickle metal hydride batteries, the technologies that led to R/W CDs and DVDs, amorphous silicon semiconductors, LCD screens and a whole bunch of other things. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_R._Ovshinsky#In_popular_culture)

Anyway, all of us are super excited and are incredibly happy about this good news. And hopefully I'll have less mess to clean up as Sam stops traveling too.

Getting Things Done

Sometime in March, it started to get warm and I mentioned to Sam that we could start to plant our garden. He was soooooo excited! I explained to him that we had to prepare our EarthBoxes, plan out our garden, figure out when to plant everything, make sure we had all the right seeds, fertilizer, etc. He did not understand why it had to be so complicated.

Later that week, we took the earth out of our earthboxes because it had fallen below the screen and the water would not be able to get out (leading to moldy plants). Ivan's dad and the boys took all the dirt out, put it on a tarp, let it air out for a few days and put it back in.


Meanwhile, I found that the average last frost in Michigan was 5 weeks from that week, and peas weren't supposed to be planted until the next week. I told Sam we would have to wait a week. Sam, who still doesn't have a good concept of time kept saying, "Mom, can I go plant our peas now? One day, he came in and said, "Mom. I planted the peas." He had put them in the dirt in the tarp. I though, "Oh well, we have plenty of pea seeds." Later they loaded the dirt back into the Earthboxes.

The next week was really bad weather, so we didn't get the peas planted. Then I kept forgetting to soak them to germinate them. Once I did soak them, but took them out to plant them, forgot about them and they dried out. Then I lost the seeds. So here we are, at Michigan's average last frost, and I have yet to plant any peas. But one day, I was going out to the garage and noticed tiny green shoots. Some of Sam's peas had made it, and we will soon have delicious peas :)


I feel like my life is like that sometimes. I wait and plan and try to get everything done perfectly and worry that it won't be right when what I really need to do is just have that childlike faith, jump in and do what I can and trust that I'll end up with some peas.