Fitting for a Sunday

I've read a lot of posts on taking your young children to Mass, many of which have addressed the issue of death-glaring curmudgeons who make parents of multiple tiny children--or of even one child--feel awful for bringing their loud, annoying kids into Mass. These posts have always made me feel super encouraged. Yes, it is good for me to bring my little ones to Mass even if they are slightly-to-a-lot disruptive. Yes, it is ok to do whatever I need to to get through it, even if it means camping out in the cry room, feeding them cheerios, and bribing them with treats afterward if they are good. And yes, there is grace present there even if I don't feel like there is because I am so exhausted and burned out by the end.

But I came out of Mass yester-evening in a bit of a quandary. What if I am becoming one of those grumpy curmudgeons about my OWN kids? Because I am. Really. I am more annoyed with them the entirety of the Mass than anyone else in church, this I can be sure of. I am literally sitting there wondering WHAT IS WRONG with them. They were fine before we walked into the church. They were sitting in their playroom at home playing peacefully and happily, with no tears, yelling, or weird body-squirming. But then we walk into the church, and it is like a switch is flipped in their little heads and they cannot or will not summon an ounce of the discipline/self control/obedience they had only 5 seconds before walking into that narthex.

Mike and I have talked it over a thousand times, trying to figure out what to do. The past 3 weeks we have been experimenting with the best time to go to Mass. We usually go to the 11 a.m. Mass, but things were getting worse and worse, so we tried the 9 a.m. last week. No better. Last night we did the 4:30 p.m. vigil Mass. That one was the worst of all. I leave almost every single Mass these days with a migraine and pining for a stiff drink. (This, by the way, was the only reason the Vigil Mass was better: it was acceptable to have a drink afterward.)

The only conclusion I have come to is that our expectations are just too high, and that it's probably time to begrudgingly accept that good kids sometimes act like rabid lemurs. Maybe all of us going to Mass together just isn't in the cards right now- or ever when we have kids this age and I am 7 months pregnant. Going to Mass by myself is physically hard right now. I chalk it up to the prolonged sitting/standing/kneeling with a nice splash of tons of crazy Toni Braxton Hicks contractions and the baby always going nuts on my bladder for the entirety of the liturgy- yeah that's probably it. The addition of a 3- and 1- year-old both cimbing back and fourth over my almost nonexistent lap the whole time and generally needing to be picked up multiple times does not help. Oh, and I am a selfish wimp of a baby and just want to sit and be comfortable.

We've gone through spurts where it is really good and going very well, and because of that we always tell ourselves during these tough times that it will surely get better. I am starting to doubt that it will get better at all right now, at least until we have an older child to help us with the younger one- so for like 5 more years. Looking back, I feel like from the first pre-Mass picture of this post to the last it has gotten progressively worse. and worse. and worse. So either I have regressed massively on the patience and virtue scale (a very likely possibility) or it just takes a reallly reallllly long time to get any better, especially while we are only adding additional totally dependent children to the mix right now.

Personally, I think parishes should just have a rent-a-teenager station at the back of each church before Mass. We would pay them in food after Mass if they would just sit with us and help us for that hour. Just sayin'.

Weekly story board

 When my kids get colds, they generally leave you thinking that they've probably come down with some nasty plague, or scarlet fever, something most definitely life threatening.

So we have been spending the week in almost total isolation, save for several titillating trips out to the doctor, a nasty government building and the store: and these truly were some of my weekly highlights.

 The week has also included one late night run to CVS for another humidifier...

very little house cleaning...

many visits from my counterpart from his basement office to help me in my numerous moments of desperation...

 one constantly trantuming toddler

 and another

and chex all over the floor.

so awkward

I am still here and happy, or maybe it's just the la croix, or the donuts we got at the store... Grace's recent post on surviving the craziness of 2 under 2 was super helpful too. Either way, things are looking up.  Thank you Thursday.

Valentimes

Putting off working out again... so pathetic, but at least I have my priorities straight.
Here are some highlights from our V-day.

Pez dispensers and new clips

definitely brought more joy than I thought they would

for real

happiness abounds

And continues with gratuitous sugar consumption alllllll  day

 And that about sums things up.
While I think it is possible that I have never been this tired in my life, I will summon all the residual guilt from yesterday's calorie fest 2012 and try try try to do something that at least minimally resembles exercise. You have a good day,
Ana

Hurrah!

After highlighting yesterday how difficult it can be to have children and how challenging it is, on every level, and how crazy and ornery kids are, (I realized today that that post may have made some people a bit terrified of having offspring of their own, not my intention but nevertheless a possible outcome- good thing so few people read this! Sorry if I did that though) Anyways, after all of that semi-complaining, I was in the kitchen cooking or something and all was quiet for what felt like a long time and I figured someone had spilled their drink all over and was lapping it up like a cat, but then I looked out to find this:

Reading peacefully together. The cups of hot chocolate perched in each of their laps are not hurting. Not at all.

And then the sun was out so I got to enjoy some of these fantastic smiles:

umm, she was smiling, but she just refused to look up...

And then sometimes your kids do this:

Bernadette insists on draping herself in as many layers of clothing that will stay on her sometimes, I don't know what this indicates developmentally, but it makes for some funny pictures.

And then after procrastinating all day about working out, wearing my fitness clothes all day to try to motivate myself, I finally got it together after the girls went down which is unprecedented, and did WEEK 4 of this:

I feel like an all star.

And now I wait eagerly for my parent's arrival for a fun weekend visit. Hurrah!

Rock slide

Today I woke up with my 2nd cold in 3 1/2 years of marriage. I knew that eventually all of my annoying bragging about my rock solid immune system would come and bite me in the bottom, no I didn't actually think it would. I am a bit of a baby whenever I do get sick since I never do, so I pampered myself today.

Dinner literally thrown in crock pot and fake homemade bread

Once I stopped pouting on my bed and got myself together this afternoon, I took the little tykes outside to "muck" around in the mud and rocks and what not, and mucky it was.

I also decided to finally alter the last of my thrifted men's button down shirt collection. It was the one I wanted to do the most because I can wear it under my fav mustard sweater.

And... that's about all. I am off to sleep off this plague,

P.S.
Here's another pic of the cutsie hair clip I will make for you if you win my little giveaway!

It's open until Sunday, good luck!

Where is the maid?!?!?

I have heard fellow stay-at-home mom friends make jokes in passing (when referring to the not-so-clean state of their home) like "Sorry, the maid didn't show up" or "Where is the maid?!?! When is she getting here?". Today I decided that this should not be such a joke. It shouldn't be so preposterous to think that we SAHMS would hire someone to help us stay on top of our thousand household duties in order to stay on top of our (my) always shaky sanity.

I mean, we stay at home, right? Our homes are our jobs, right? Why hire someone to do our jobs for us? Isn't that just lazy? Well if staying at home, being a house wife and keeping things clean and tidy was all you had to do and you hired someone to come and do it, then yes, that would be lazy. I was a little unemployed house wife our first year of marriage- granted I was pregnant within days of being married- but none-the-less, keeping our house looking decent was no big thang.

BUT THAT IS NOT THE ONLY JOB WE STAY AT HOME MOMS HAVE.

You see, we are MOMS. We have children. Children who poop on the floor. Children who cry and cry and whine and cry allllllllllllllll day unless you hold them and when you set them down it starts all over again. Children who need to be played with, read to, tickled, chased around, watched at every second or they may set something on fire, break glass and cut themselves, drink bleach, run out of the house and get hit by a car, you name it. Children, who if we let them, could take up every single freaking bit of our thoughts, energy, emotions, of our whole life. They are enough work in themselves. Period. ONE child is enough work in his/her self. And then you have another, and another and another- it doesn't matter how many you have. Just that very first one was enough to take up all of your time.

Left-the pooper; Right- the whiner

So it is absolutely not a joke in my mind to think about having a maid. I want a maid. If we had enough money, I would hire one. Not a nanny- my kids are my kids, I bore them, I birthed them. I want to stay home with them and be present with them, they are my first priority. I would hire a maid to come and give me a hand for 1 hour a day with house work. No body wants to sit in a filthy house, especially not me. I need order, I crave it. I need some level of cleanliness. Order and cleanliness are good and they make me happy.

I genuinely believe that there is so much value in house work- eternal value and material value- but there is so darn much house work. There is enough to do in one room of my house to keep me busy for an hour maybe 2. Then you add the 7 other rooms and, I am sorry, it is not possible to stay on top of this by myself.

 laundry=the worst

So what do I do? I whine and complain and I do it anyways, but if I had a maid there would not be such an annoying amount of whining and complaining from me. And I am sure that my kids would be much, MUCH happier as I would probably be much, MUCH nicer to them instead of getting angry when they make it impossible for me to have some order and cleanliness in my day... In short, everyone should have a maid.

Sorry for whining,
Ana