Family

I can post this, because my family does not know about my blog. I believe I have posted before about some of my issues with my sister-in-law. I love her, but I think she is married to a horrible specimen of a man and this has caused a rift to develop. She has a step-daughter (age 14) and a step-son (age 16) and a biological son that is 6 months younger than Trinity. Her husband has custody of his son, but his ex-wife has custody of his daughter. They split the kids because he did not want to pay child support. Right after Christmas my step-niece got into a fight with my sister-in-law. Apparently she was rude to both her step-mother and her father. Her father asked her to leave. She was angry and refused to visit. Now my sister-in-law and her husband are bad mouthing my step-niece saying she is a brat, lazy, unappreciative, hates her family, she's worthless and disrespectful. My step-niece has shown some questionable behavior to the point that a family member who is a state mandated reporter, called to report her behavior to her school counselor. I hope she is getting help. I have limited access to her. In times like these I am so very grateful for Facebook.
None of us are allowed to question the parenting skills of my sister-in-law or brother-in-law. If we do, they rip you apart and you are bad mouthed for months. And by parenting skills, I mean ANYTHING having to do with their kids. I asked the oldest if he had started drivers training and I got a 20 minute lecture on how he was ungrateful and not responsible enough to drive from my sister-in-law.
I am typing this all out because it is eating me alive and I miss my niece. What she did was wrong and she should be held accountable, but casting her out of your family may be a little overkill in my opinion. I want her to have a good life and be surrounded by supportive, loving people. I think it is sad that in these critical formative years her Dad has chosen to turn his back on her. I love her, I hope she knows that and I wish her nothing but happiness.

Manic Monday

I am working again today. Therefore the title of this post seemed right, since I seem unable to coordinate getting Trinity ready for school, keeping Noah happy and getting myself ready. However, Trinity is at school, dressed properly with a lunch and instructions for getting home after school (I won't be picking her up). Noah is safely at home with a capable sitter (his aunt) and I am at work with coffee. I was a few minutes late, but that was because I had to stop for coffee or today would have been unbearable. Okay, the day would have been bearable, but I would not have been bearable. I'm even showered, dressed, wearing heels and made an attempt at doing my hair. It is raining, so I didn't make much of an attempt at my hair, but an attempt was made and I count that.

Yesterday I was supposed to get a bunch of stuff done and I ended up snuggling on the couch all afternoon with Trinity. I feel she sometimes gets my 'leftover' time, so it was nice to have some 'girl power' time. 'Girl power' is what we call our one-on-one time. We've been calling it that since she was quite little and it has sort of stuck.

Saturday we went shopping at Kohl's. It was fun, even though Noah was crabby. He was fine as long as the stroller cart kept moving, but if we stopped the screaming began. This was fine until Trinity had to try on clothes & Noah didn't want to sit still. I couldn't let him out of the stroller, because he would crawl out under the door. In the end it worked, but it made life interesting. Trinity had fun picking out her own clothes and figuring out her money. She loved that she got to count out her money to the cashier. I think she was a little disappointed that she didn't get change. She even talked me into getting a pair of shoes for myself. I am disappointed that we went shopping for clothes for warm weather and the next day it turned cold and rainy. Blech, but that is spring for you.

Feeling the love

I took the kids shopping this morning. Trinity has been learning about money in school, so I took the opportunity to cash in her piggy banks and after putting half in her savings account, she was allowed to spend the remainder at Kohl's today. She needed some summer clothes & she wanted flip flops and sandles. Noah also needed summer clothes as he has been forced to roast in long sleeves or wear nothing but a onesie.

Trinity was in charge of her own money and after counting it out MANY times, she knew how much she had to spend. Off we went to Kohl's this morning. The nearest Kohl's is about a half hour away. Not too long, but long enough that Trinity gets bored. So, here is a snippet of our conversation this morning.

Trinity: "Mom, can I tell you a story?"
Me: "Sure."
Her: "What do you want it to be about?"
Me: "How about a frog."
Her: "Okay. Once upon a time, there was a frog. The end. Now it is your turn to tell me a story."

Hmmm...kind of walked into that one. But off we went taking turns telling each other simple silly stories that had us both laughing...UNTIL...

Me: "What do you want your story about this time?"
Trinity: "How about a really awesome Dad and his wife."
Me: "Once upon a time there was this Dad..."
Her: "Don't you mean a really awesome Dad?"
Me: "Right, sorry. Once upon a time there was a really awesome Dad and a really awesome Mom. ..."
Her: "That's not right, the Dad is really awesome and he's just married to his wife, she's just a regular boring mom."
Me: "So, you don't want the story about your Dad?"
Her: "Mom, I just described my Dad, so of course it is about him."

So, I was feeling the love from my eldest child today. Apparently, I am just a regular boring Mom who has the honor of being married to a really awesome Dad. Am I supposed to be honored for myself or feel sorry for him?

Working

I am working today. A good friend of ours owns a jewelry store and prior to having two children I would help out every Christmas. He sent his staff to the jewelry show in Chicago, so I am filling in. A pretty low key job, obviously, since I'm blogging while here, but I am having fun. I love customer service A LOT and retail sales in small doses. So this job suits me perfectly on a fill-in, part-time basis.

I have to say, I admire those of you working moms, because having been out of the workforce for so long I find it very difficult to get in the swing of things. I forgot to send a lunch to school with Trinity this morning. Luckily lunch was something she didn't hate. I forgot to send her yearbook order form back, again luckily I taught Art Adventure today, so I took in at that time. I miss Noah like crazy & it has only been 4 hours. I felt like I was rushing to get ready and I forgot to eat lunch. Thank goodness for the tictacs in my purse. I just feel completely out of my element and unorganized today. Those of you that do this on a regular basis, I applaud you, because come fall when I am back in school my family will most likely be running around naked and living off Pop Tarts.

Art

One of the bad things about Trinity going to a small (less than 100 total students K-6) school is they don't have an art curriculum. They have gym, music, Spanish & religion, but no art program. This is where the parents step in. They do, however, participate in the Art Adventure program in conjunction with the Minneapolis Institute of Art. This program allows parents to volunteer their time and teach the kids a little about art. At the beginning of the school year Trinity's teacher gave my name as someone who would be a good choice to teach. This proves to me that I am far too nice to Trinity's teacher. But anyway, twice a year, once in the fall and once in the spring the parents go to the MIA and see 8 pieces of art and learn about each one. Then we go home, pick 4 days that work with the teacher, enter the classroom and try to excite these young minds about art.

I love the way the program works, because we don't tell them dates, names & spout off facts and speculations about the artist or the piece of art. The kids tell us. We ask things like "What do you see?" "How does this make you feel?" "Why?" We teach them that no matter how you look at it or how it makes you feel, there is no wrong answer. You can't be wrong in the world of art! After spending about half the time discussing the art, then the kids get to do a project that the parents think up that corresponds in some way with the pieces they just talked about. Some are fun and successful & some are not. But we are not professionals, nor do we pretend to be and the kids have fun no matter what.

So last week I had my first spring Art Adventure class. Normally I do this with another mom, but she called and said she had an emergency and could I handle it myself. The project seemed fairly easy, so I said yes. The project was looking through a toilet paper tube and drawing only what you saw through the tube. Straightforward enough, I thought. These are bright young kindergarten minds - they can handle it. . . Until we got started. Oh me, oh my! I had one little girl in glasses that swore she could not see through the tube with one eye shut. I told her to put her glasses back on and try and she said she was unable to shut her eyes with her glasses on, nor could she cover up one eye. She ended up keeping both eyes open since the tears were starting to sprout. Then Trinity brings me her picture, which is well done and I can tell she spent a lot of time on it, except she drew me, her father, herself and her brother. Um, two of the four weren't in the room. So, I asked her as sweetly as I could if she could turn her page over and try again, after praising her work of course. She slunk back to her desk and put her head down - AND STARTED TO CRY. Yes, she has the meanest mom in the world, because I made her cry in front of her entire class. I felt so awful.

Today I am going back, on my own again. Wish me luck. I'm going to try really hard not to make anyone cry today, especially my own child.

I have so much I want to tell you, but I doubt the baby is going to give me enough time to say it all. So, I am going to meander my way through and hopefully there is a point at the end.
Can I tell you how much I am enjoying being a mom of 2. I love it. However, I am nearing my end of the stay at home mom gig. I am ever so grateful for the opportunity to stay home for over a year with Noah. I was able to stay home for 6 months with Trinity and I loved it. I think that closing the business before Noah was born & then staying home was the correct decision at the time, but now I'm looking for more.
The market is being saturated with photographers claiming to be professional, just because they bought an SLR digital camera. I don't want to spend every moment of my time begging for business and explaining why my prices are higher than the weekend photographer who gets their prints from Wal-Mart. I want to spend my free time with my family. I want to have free time. I love being a photographer and I'm good at what I do. But I want to focus my energy on my children right now. Trinity is only in kindergarten once, Noah is only 1 for a year - I want to savor every moment.
Right before Christmas we learned we were pregnant again. It was bad timing, but we came to love the idea of growing our family and adding another life to our hearts. However, it was not meant to be. We went in for a routine appointment and there was no heartbeat. I ended up having a D&C a few weeks afterwards. We decided to wait to make a decision until our emotions were less raw and now we've decided our family is complete. Unless God decides to intervene, we are done having children. I believe this has prompted my latest transformation.
I have decided to go back to school in the fall and get my teaching certificate. I want to teach. It was my dream in college and the dream is starting to surface again. I am feeling good, very good.