Weekend Happenings

This weekend was a wonderful mix of work and play, toil and tumble.  We started out fairly bright and early at the Festival in the Park, an art/craft/music festival which is a staple in our town.  After skipping it for a few years due to the crowds and the heat we decided to try it early in the morning and that seemed to be the key.  We got there at 10am, right as the festival was opening.  It was cool, it wasn't too horribly crowded and we were able to find street parking not far from the park and avoid the highway robbery everyone was charging.

They had easels set up for the kids to color on, but no matter how I held the paper, she was way more interested in coloring on the easels themselves.  Yep, that's my kid!  The rest of Saturday was spent lounging around the house, catching up on TV shows and watching movies with Turtle.

Sunday morning Turtle and I made our weekly grocery store trip.  I love grocery shopping once I learned that there are very few people at the store at 9am on a Sunday morning.  I like to take Turtle with me so that Daddy has an hour or so to sleep or just hang out by himself.

When I got back, we put on a movie for Turtle and Daddy Turtle and I cleaned up the kitchen and cooked brunch.  Scrambled eggs with cheese, sausage links and french toasts.

After brunch (which was more like lunch), we put Turtle down for a nap and crossed our fingers.  I'm hosting a babywearing meet up at my house next Saturday.  Well, the carpet in our living room was in desperate need of being cleaned.  Our hope was to get it done while Turtle was sleeping but this was the first time we had every tried to coordinate something during her nap time.  (She is terrified of the vacuum cleaner so we knew we couldn't do it while she was awake.)

 We moved everything into the kitchen and amazingly got the entire floor vacuumed and steam cleaned before she woke  up.  We knew keeping an active toddler off the carpet would be too much to ask and given the gloriousness of the weather yesterday, I met Grandma at the park with Turtle and Daddy stayed home to monitor the carpet and move everything back.

Turtle discovered the swinging bridge and was in hog heaven.  It was hilarious to watch her treat it like a set of stairs, going down backwards, standing up to walk the middle and then getting down on her knees to crawl up the other side.  I stood there and watched her go back and forth for probably 15 minutes. Soon there after we got a text from Daddy saying we could come home.

But before we headed into the house for good we broke out the sidewalk chalk to see what Turtle thought.  As she is with everything Mama thinks is going to be awesome, Turtle was underwhelmed.  I did get this awesome shot right though before she bit it on the sidewalk and we had to go inside to attend to a very broken finger nail.  

I'm so thankful for the cooler weather.  I feel like we have been sequestered inside for months now.  I'm definitely ready to get back outside!

How was everyone's weekend?

Changes... They is Happening

Wow!  It's amazing to me that it's been almost a year since I blogged regularly... a year of challenges and learning to accept limitation.  In August of last year, Daddy Turtle started back to school.  So, not only did he work during the day, but he would then go straight to school.  Four nights a week it would be 11pm or later before he got home.  That was challenging.

I still wonder how we survived those early days.  Turtle was so small and often times didn't want to be put down, so I would wear her most evenings in order to even get our stuff carried in from the car.  I lost count of how many bowls of cereal I ate standing up and bouncing her. 

It seems like a million miles away.

Now, a year later we still have the same schedule, but life is so completely different.  For one, I've learned that I cannot do it all. 

It wasn't easy!

Mama Turtle is my name, over-achieving is my game!  And it almost killed me! 

But slowly and steadily Turtle became more independent, even sleeping in her own room!  The new-found space allowed me to think, and I had a revelation... a revelation of precisely how many hours we as a family have together in a week.  And that number was scary small!  So, I decided that I needed to focus on what made us all happy.  No more wasting time on obligatory non-sense.  No more worrying about the tidiness of a house we hardly spend any time in.  This is our family and our family time and I have a right to guard it! 

This doesn't mean that we don't spend time apart.  I just took over leadership of the local babywearing group and I'm becoming more involved in other groups and activities that make me happy and bring me joy.  Daddy Turtle loves his monthly Cars and Coffee car meets.  But I look at everything differently.  I evaluate my commitments differently.  Time is a finite resource in our family.  So, my questions are always, "Is this a good use of our time?  Do we have the time and energy to participate in this activity?  How will this activity impact each family member? Have we planned adequate time to rest and recharge?"  Doesn't mean we always get it right.  Some weeks we do better than others.  But the shift in perspective has helped me see that often times, when our family gets crabby and unhappy, it's because we are being haphazard with our time.

I won't say that I'm going to start updating this blog on any regular schedule (although I hope to), but I will say that it's good to be back. :-)

And because I hate wall 'o text, picture-less posts, here are some of my recent Instagram pics to hold you over.

Planning her escape from the park.

Brushing teeth with Daddy.

Fun in the French Broad River.

Snuggles at the pediatricians office.

Happy Friday everyone!