Winter Wrap-up. Please, Wrap.It.Up.

It's late and I am the last one awake in the house. Daddy and baby fell asleep first and then I tiptoed up to Miss Mad's room where she was sneakily sitting at her desk coloring her "work jobs" (anything that seems like it would be for school, she is desperate to go, or just anything with a pen/pencil and paper) and chatting to herself. She hopped into bed, arranging bears around the pillows where the might be most comfortable and able to snuggle with each other, and settled into her warm nest of blankets. 4 bedtime songs and a few minutes of humming, a few reminders to keep her hands out of her nose and/or mouth, and she was off to sweet baby dreamland. I still see her soft cheeks while she sleeps and feel amazed that she is mine.

She is so awesome and strange at the same time.

Tonight I'm thinking about all the things that will happen this year. I'm excited for a lot of new adventures and hopeful that I will be up to the task. I really hope some of those adventures include more writing....and more shopping too. WHAT?! Shopping is an adventure. It is.

I'm addicted to coffee accessories and chalk labels.

This Winter is starting to get to me. Like a page in a book curling up with age, heat, moisture. I'm officially curled, only no heat was involved. Some weeks I hardly leave the house except to buy groceries and wine. If I can manage to send The Bear out to do those things for me, well, even better. I go to Target and buy dresses that are made for warm weather and sandals. I'm going to start wearing these dresses with fuzzy socks, cranking the heat up so high we all start to sweat and magically get tan. Don't believe me? Just you wait. JUST WAIT!

Often Maddie wanders around in circles whining and acting generally obnoxious. She refuses to go to her room to play because she wants to be with me, but she is BORED. Bored out of her mind. When the snow outside is nice and not icy she'll go make mini snowmen and practice her snowball throwing. Other days she just hangs out in her panties and begs to watch movies over and over and over. And over.

Watching a movie. I die, they are so cute.

What I'm saying is, we are all ready for Spring. Ok?

She isn't bored of him yet.

5 Months - how did I forget?

Somehow I forgot to blog my sweet Jaime's 5 month pictures! How could that happen? I'm sure I was just too buys kissing his rosy cheeks and smelling his stinky little feet. They really are kind of stinky, but he thinks it is hilarious. And sister tells him they are yummy, what a wonderful amazing sister.

My sweet baby. OH how you have grown! This month you are pulling the people you love in for smothering slobbering kisses, rolling to your tummy (but not to your back), munching on your toes whenever your stinky little tootsies are set free, and laughing laughing laughing. You love me, the mama. You search me out, find my eyes, throw yourself into a fit of excited jumps and wag your arms in the air, letting me know I can come to hold you any time, you are ready for me. You are tentative about people you don't quite remember. Add being tired and a somewhat empty belly to the mix? Well, that is the only time you REALLY cry. Your little bottom lip starts to quiver, tears well up in your blue eyes, and you just let it all out. I know people judge me when I jump to your rescue but it is important to me that you KNOW I will always be right there for you. Even daddy has forgotten that even your brave, social sister went through the same period at some point; I did the same for her and she turned out ok? But if you want to be mama's boy and cry for everyone else I'd be ok with that too, secretly. We are together, attached at the hip (or mama's nursies ;) ), all day and night so obviously I enjoy being there for you. I know you will grow out of wanting to be with me all the time so I kiss you and hug you every second that I can, because I wish it could last forever. I love you so my baby.

Parenting OR Am I Doing It All Wrong

Sometimes I get the itch to blog. But, I have nothing to say. Honestly, most days around the Bear house are pretty much the same. And our same isn't always that exciting. Well, Jaime thinks it is, but he is easy to impress! So, tonight I got the feeling that I wanted to blog. Like I need to pee, only I need to blog instead? Yep. I pushed it off since I could peruse Facebook instead without putting any thought into it at all. But the feeling stayed and I'm not tired (thanks to a sweet husband who let me sleep in this morning, whoa I'm not used to sleep!) so here I am.

There is one thing on my mind lately. It's there a lot because it is ever present in my life. Parenting. It's hard. I want to be completely honest but complete honesty makes me look bad, and it makes me feel sad. But, here it is. Mad Maddie is rough these days. I waiver between feeling like Stephen and I have too high of expectations, or perhaps don't truly understand what is normal behavior for little kids (perhaps a little of both?), and feeling that Maddie is a truly spirited child. I think it really is a bit of both of those things. I struggle with the yelling that so often accompanies her activities. I feel guilty when I don't have the time/hands to clean, nurse the baby, AND pay attention to her constantly. Add to that the time I spend on myself, showers, computer time, coffee, 15 minutes to stare at the wall and have no one touching me, I guess I put her off too often.

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We aren't the sort of family that has crafts and projects going every week, so often her activities are reading, coloring, and playing with her toys. No pretty blankets and picnics out in the woods, or trips to the market with mini child sized carts. No season pass to the zoo where we bundle up even in the bone cold Winter to watch the polar bears laze around. Our days have too many trips to "the stairs", which is a non-excluded version of time out. She never really sits there but she also can't be running amok and causing trouble for a few minutes, which we HOPE gets her to calm down just a bit. I tell her no, be quiet, stop doing that, put that away, go play in your room, way too much for my own liking.

I was so annoyed she wouldn't smile for this picture. Mom fail.

The hardest part is, she is amazing. She is SO affectionate and tells me constantly how much she loves me. She adores Jaime, hugging kissing, rushing to his side when he wakes after naps. I feel like if I could JUST find her best way of disciplining things would be easier/better. We talk, we try to talk things out, allow her to have feelings, problem solve when she does something that isn't ok (hitting, mean words, yelling, waking the baby, torturing the cats, bossing her cousins.....etc), but the lessons never really last until the next episode. Which could be 5 minutes later or a day later, we never know. I want her to thrive while keeping my own sanity. I just don't.know.how.

The best big sister. The best.

I feel like we need a screen free week VERY soon. A week without tv, for any of us, computer, ipads, or phones (except for phone use). I bet if I eliminated the time on all of that we'd have more done around the house and have more time to play the way she wants. At the heart of all of this I believe that more time on her terms would be a good solution. Maybe a membership to the zoo is in our future.......

Resolution to Resolve

I certainly need to update the header on this blog. Only I don't want to. Even though I love my Jaime baby, my little joyful chubby boy, I loved that Maddie baby first. And now she is growing. And growing. And I'm sad about it. I love who she is now, except when she talks back. But even then I love that a little too because I know that she is strong willed and knows what she wants and she is smart and clever and all those good things we hope our girls turn out to be. Who cares if she refuses to admit she knows her alphabet? Not me, not much anyway. She'll just start reading novels tomorrow because there was something cool on the cover. That is how my girl works.

My little ham bone. She loves her some pictures.

Also, it is that time to admit that I caved and committed to, yet another, year of resolutions I'm not sure if I'll achieve. Only this year I have a head start. So, here is my list. The more and the less of the New Year. 2013, I don't know how you could compare to 2012 (remember that joyful boy I was just talking about?) but I welcome you to try.

MORE:
♥ laughing
♥ cleaning
♥ writing
♥ reading
♥ kissing
♥ snuggling
♥ dressing up
♥ wine drinking (that one will be really easy!)
♥ patience
♥ learning
♥ dance parties
♥ LIFE LIVING!
♥ better wife becoming
♥ mamaing
♥ bath taking
♥ moving....my body, not my house.
♥ crafting
♥ loving
♥ playing
♥ breastfeeding ♥
♥ memory making
♥ meal making
♥ improper punctuating!;......""

More kisses on this happy face

More bum shots please

Less:
♥ money spending
♥ junk food eating
♥ fighting (not that there was that much ;)
♥ weight gaining (should also be pretty easy)
♥ procrastinating
♥ back aching

I'm happy my more list is longer than my less list. I'm also happy that I ending the year hoping that the next could be just a fraction as wonderful. 

Resolution posts of the past : 2009 2011 More 2011 2010 I only did a year end review, which was kind of a snore (it took me 3 posts, WTF man) and 2012 I was too tired and pregnant to care about resolutions.

4 Months.....Very Late

I just now realized that I haven't done a 4 month post yet. December is crazy and overwhelming and that is my excuse.

Jaime....you are a joyous light that has entered our home and we will never be the same again. I adore you. Daddy melts at your smile. Sister, well, she is more obsessed than any of us. We love you! I know every parent says this about their kids but I cannot even imagine life without you.

Lately.....you slobber everywhere, chew on everything, smile at everyone, and laugh so adorably it makes me want to freeze you at this age forever. I feel so lucky to be your mama. I had this perfect beautiful baby girl, your sister, and I thought life could not be any more amazing. Then I gave birth to you, my little ray of sunshine, and you have made our world complete. Thank you for being here. I love you.

To Christmas, With Love

Growing up I have vivid memories of the perfect way my mom had about doing everything. The way she made my bed, folded my clothes, cut my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and drew little dogs and cats on paper during the boring parts of Sunday worship (my attempt at using non-Mormon words for my Mormon past). Christmas was no exception. Every memory has the touch of my mama in it. Our decorations, still put up every year for the granbabies, mostly made with her artistic hand. I remember making clay bears when I must have been very young. If I close my eyes I can almost feel myself in that kitchen with her and my older sister putting together messy little bears, cooking them, and painting them to put on our tree. I had fun making them but I liked her bears the best because they were perfect. I remember the way she packed her smell so good gingerbread ornaments (I think that is what they were made of anyway) in shirt boxes with paper towels to keep them from breaking. And my favorites, the little fabric packages stacked and tied with a string and the tiny mice sleeping in half a walnut shell; although I'm not sure if she made those, I would imagine she did because we were poor and she was that perfectly crafty, without Etsy or Pinterest or anything.

Gifts for my Mad Maddie

Every Christmas Eve my sisters and I would be sent off to bed with instructions not to peek into the family room until our parents came to get us in the morning. We were never really Santa believers but we just knew if we peeked our mom and dad would know and, as I recall, they would take all our presents away. In the morning, much too late for our parents would bring us down the hallway and into the family room where the Christmas tree was located. My dad would have been recording our sleepy eyed reactions as we entered the room. There it was, a pile of beautifully wrapped gifts, an individual wrapping paper pattern for each daughter, beneath the tree. I loved the pretty packages. No bows or ribbons, just plain paper with a little piece reversed and taped with our name on it. And of course our stockings spread out on the floor full of little candies and presents.

I found matching jammies for my babies!

As I grew older and started wrapping my own gifts for friends and family she shared her trick with me; you crease the edges of each box to make it look neat. I have practiced for years trying to make my packages look as effortlessly perfect as hers did. Turns out it isn't as easy as she made it look. Maybe by the time Maddie can REALLY remember her wrapped Christmas gifts I will have it down. I want her to have the same memories of me that I have of my own mama so she can pass more memories down to her babies. I want her to always come home and want me to cut her peanut butter and honey sandwiches just so, to have her bed made just the way I did it, sheets tucked tight, and to come out on Christmas morning to pretty perfectly wrapped gifts, edges creased.

My imperfectly wrapped gifts.

 I only wish she could remember how soft my skin was and think that I never had to shave my legs. Alas, unlike my mama, that will never be true.

Holidays