Threenager

Since the day Olivia turned 3 she was full force "threenager". (It probably doesn't help that 10 days after she turned 3 we turned her world upside down with the addition of Evelyn.)
Everyone talks about "the terrible twos". It makes one think 2 must be noticeably harder than any other young child age. This is a lie. Two was cake compared with this dragon which is referred to as the threenager. The threenager is the emotional rollercoaster of a teenager trapped in the tiny body of a three year old, without the mental capacity to comprehend or describe all the emotions rushing through her. Since a 3 year old is undoubtedly smaller than a teenager, instead of these emotions running through 5-6 feet of a human before exploding out, they only have 3 feet before the explosion occurs and it is scary.
Now, my naive mind thought, "you studied child development, you worked at a child development center for several years, you can handle this". Again, so false. There is something about being the mother of a threenager that means you are the lighter fluid. Anything you do or do not do instantly makes everything worse.

Here's a few examples to better paint the picture.

Today we went to Trader Joe's. The whole family. Olivia was pushing the little cart. Part way through she ditched it so I started pushing it. When she realized I was pushing it she looked at me like I had betrayed her, stolen her favorite lipstick and lied about it. Then she came over pushed me out of the way, pushed the cart away, and made sure to look back and give me the dirtiest look I've gotten in a long time.

The other day she kept putting a blanket on Evelyn's head and then laying on her while she screamed. I told her if it happened again I would pick her up and move her away from Evie and she wouldn't get to play with her. We'll, of course 30 seconds later it happens again. So, I tell her to get off of Evie. She screams no. I walk over, pick Olivia up (she was on my bed with Evie) and put her out of my room and tell her she can do go play in the living room or her room, she can help me get ready and pick out my clothes for the day, but she was not allowed to get back on the bed. She screamed in my face, "I'm getting on your bed!” I told her if she did being in my room would no longer be a choice. Again she screamed in my face and tried to run past me. I picked her up and set her outside my room. She screams "don't touch me! Leave me alone!” and keeps trying to get in. I take her out to the living room and this is where she totally flips out. She starts hitting me and then she runs to the couch and starts throwing couch cushions saying "no pillows on the couch!" I walk away and she continues screaming and throwing couch cushions.

Often she yells things like "Just leave me alone!" Or she slams doors on me. It's pretty fantastic.

The other side of the whole threenager thing is that they can still be so sweet and so funny.

I was putting Evelyn down for the night and Olivia pops her head in and quietly says, "Hey, mom. Goodnight. I love you."

After she completes her complete breakdowns she usually comes to me and excitedly says, "Mom, I'm happy now!” and then goes on to tell me how she was sad/mad/frustrated/tired and that's why she screamed/yelled/hit and she's sorry. All on her own.

She says things like "What in the world is going on." Or puts random toys in the freezer because they need to "cool down".

Olivia is and always has been a pretty intense child. She feels all the feelings and they are big big feelings. Nothing anyone does or says during her meltdowns can calm her, everything only stirs the pot. She NEEDS to feel it all and then she is TOTALLY fine and over it.

I struggle during those moments but she is definitely such a fun girl that knows how to be a friend and show kindness to others.

And hopefully we'll figure out a better was to handle the big feelings that doesn't include the nuclear meltdowns before she reaches her teenage years.

Leftovers

Leftovers are THE best. Especially, leftover soup. Soup is almost always better the next day.

I honestly don't know what I would do without leftovers. Almost never eat lunch that's for sure, since probably 90% of my lunches are leftovers.

There are people in this world who do not/will not eat leftovers and I just can even comprehend that. Growing up most Sunday's were dubbed leftover night. We'd pull out everything from the week before, heat up our favorites and have a seriously mod podged dinner and it was the best. I have always loved it. How there's really no prep or waiting, you just heat and eat!

And on nights like tonight I'm doubley grateful for leftovers. I had a ton to do today, around the house and Thanksgiving prep. I didn't get nearly as much done as I wanted because I slipped going down our stairs in the morning and seriously tweaked out my back. I can barely move at the moment. So I was so happy when dinner rolled around and all I needed to do was reheat the soup I made last night.

I'm grateful for leftovers and my love of them!

It Takes a Village

I feel like I've been crazy busy this week and having to go to the store every day with prep for Thanksgiving. We decided last minute to stay home for Thanksgiving, I'm making Thanksgiving dinner for us and some friends and I keep forgetting things despite having a list.

Anyway, things have been a little chaotic, leaving me feeling a bit overwhelmed. It got me thinking about the whole "it takes a village" concept. I have always loved this concept, we talked about it a lot in my undergrad studies and at my job back then at IPCDC and I always felt like I really wanted to make sure my kids had a big village to support them.

Since moving to Utah when Olivia was just a few months old we haven't really had that. Our first school year here I really didn't make friends. We lived in a basement apartment, we were one of the only couples at church that had been married longer than a month let alone had a child, and my postpartum anxiety made it really hard for me to go out. Then we went to Texas and we were living out in the middle of no where and I didn't have a car. Our 2nd and 3rd year were better. Being in the married student housing with all the other Mama's around was great. Though we knew it was temporary so it made it hard to be all in.

Now we live in Salt Lake County, we have a few friends and family in Utah County, and friends in Davis county. And while we have some friendish type people at church here we really don't have anyone that are "our people" close geographically.

So, I think about the village concept and get a little sad that our village is so limited by number but mostly distance. The last few weeks, however, my judgement on who is considered our village has changed.

We were at Costco going through the Christmas pajamas. The pile was a mess and it was hard to find sizes. A woman was next to me looking for a 2t and couldn't find the size so she settled for 24mo. A minute late I found a 2t and luckily she hadn't gone far so I had John run it over to her while I kept looking for Evie's size. She came over to return the 24mo and was so grateful. That day I was in her village.

The other day at Sprouts I went to check out and had a full cart, this woman in front of me had like 3 things in her cart and insisted I go ahead of her. She then proceeded to help me load my stuff onto the belt (I had both girls with me). That day, that woman was in my village.

While Olivia was at preschool I was at Costco. It was SO windy that day. I had Evie in the carrier I was trying to get the food in my trunk but the door kept closing on me and the cart kept rolling away. This man came over and held the cart and then returned the cart for me. That day, that man was in my village.

It hit me that though our village may seem sparse it is not. There are people all around that are our helpers. Some may be more permanent and consistent, some we may only know their names, others we may never see again but our village is great, our village is more than we can see, more than we can feel sometimes.

So, today I am grateful for my village. The village that happens in person with friends and strangers, the village through texts and calls, Instagram and Facebook. I'm grateful for the reminder to join in, get outside of myself, and be the village for those around me.

Lightning Tidier

Is tidier (someone who makes things tidy) even a word? Well, if it is not, it is now. ;)

I am FOR SURE not the tidiest person in the world. John can attest to this one but he probably isn't any better than me either. With that said our home is definitely not dirty.

Are there toys everywhere most day? Of course, we have a 3 year old. Is there laundry to do, laundry to be folded and put away almost constantly? Absolutely, I HATE doing laundry. Are there dishes in the sink (on the counters, on the table)? Endlessly!

It used to (and still does on occasion) REALLY bother me that I could not keep our house spotless. Then I realized a couple things. The toys everywhere means that we are having fun. The plethora of laundry to be done and put away means I am choosing more time with my girls. The ridiculous amount of dishes that accumulate every single days shows that I am making most of our meals from scratch. All of it are signs that we are living, that we are spending time with each other, and choosing time over our home looking picture perfect all of the time.

So, for that I am grateful.

But what I am also grateful for is my ability to tidy things up super quickly. I (and John) can go through our home, no matter how much of a disaster is may be and make every room completely presentable and not embarrassing in a very short amount of time. For example, today. Seriously, every room was crazy. But I just spent the last hour and a half tidying up. This including sweeping the kitchen, unloading and loading the dish washer, washing all the pots/pans, wiping down the counters, picking up all of the toys and all of Olivia's clothing changes from the last couple days  that were strewn about the house, put away two loads of laundry, put another load in, organized and wiped down our bathroom, and even made our bed! In an hour to an hour an a half.

Now I can relax, and enjoy our home without feeling stressed out about the mess everywhere... you know until I wake up tomorrow and it looked like none of that tidying had ever been done. ;)

Gratitude challenge

I have decided since it is November, and the focus of the month always tends to be gratitude, to give myself a gratitude challenge. Most days this month I want to do a blog post centered around something I am grateful for. To make it even more interesting I want to mostly focus on things I am grateful about myself, as a little personal development project of sorts. We'll see if I can come up with new things most days of the week.

I love to cook

Confession time. The first year and half after John and I got married I prepared significantly less meals than John did. Part of this was because I worked late and had I been the one to cook we would have been eating late. Another reason was that John loves to cook. The bigger reason was that more often than I would like to admit when I would make dinner it would end with me in tears feeling extremely inadequate in the chef department. Did John always eat the food I made? Yes. I don't remember a single time he deemed dinner inedible. Did he tell me I was the worst cook ever? Never. Not once. Though he did encourage me saying with time I would get better. Did I believe him? Nope. Was it true? Absolutely!

Today, most of the meals I make turn out well. I most definitely still have meals turn out pretty awful and maybe it is because we have been married for almost 5 years and we tend to be a little more blunt with one another, or perhaps my confidence in my cooking abilities is far greater than it was back then so he knows I won't burst into tears (unless I have low blood sugar), but John definitely lets me know when dinner is unappetizing. 

I now absolutely love cooking. Now that doesn't mean that I find joy in every meal I make or don't go through times when cooking feels like nothing but a chore. It does mean that I happily choose to prepare a meal that takes all day to make. It means I almost exclusively make my meals from scratch, even more so now with all of Evelyn's allergies (thank you corn and your derivatives being in EVERYTHING).  

It means I am always looking for new meals to try and often rediscover old favorites that have been long forgotten. 

I sometimes feel like I don't have hobbies. That everything that I do is part of the mom job. The truth is, the "mom job" has helped me discover who I am, what I love, and many of my future goals. Cooking is one of those things that because of Olivia's dairy allergy and all of Evelyn's allergies I have been pushed to be more creative and I am so grateful for that!

Minimalism

I have been really into minimalism for as long as I can remember.

When my parents got divorced when I was 8, my dad got a small 2 bedroom apartment. My mom moved into a small 2 bedroom apartment with my Gramma. My little brother and I went back and forth between the two. At my dad's, being the girl, I had my own room and my brother and dad shared a room. At my mom's my Gramma and her dog got one room, my mom, brother and I shared a room.
Before this we lived in a comparably large house. We each had our own room, a big backyard, and lots of other space. I remember having so many toys in my room and my brother in his. I remember our patio in the backyard filled with lots of outdoor toys.
You can imagine the downsizing that was done when we moved and divided.
I don't share this as a story of pity, because I was always a pretty happy and content kid, but rather to explain where my minimalistic nature was born. Since I clearly could not drag things back and forth between homes everyday/week little of the "stuff" I did have I had any real attachment to. Which was seriously great.
When the time came for me to move out for college into a small dorm room deciding what to bring was easy. Throughout my 5 years in college I moved a lot, I lived in 6 different places before I got married. And I could literally fit all of my belongings, including my bed, in my car. (I had a SUV). Every time I moved, I downsized and got rid of things I didn't use. While I absolutely hate moving, I love the opportunity it gives me to "declutter".
Luckily, my amazing husband had the same quality and all of his stuff also could fit in his car. Since we have married, almost five year, we have moved 7 times. Every time we move we get rid of a lot. Actually, when we moved out of our first place to move to Utah we basically got rid of everything. We downsized to one car, we filled it and a part of a tiny trailer and the rest we gave away. We have always lived in tiny places and so keeping our stuff to a minimum was a must and fairly easy to do.
We now live in a much larger space with LOTS of storage space. We've done ok job of keeping the stuff to a minimum but there are times we both have little freak outs that we have too much and go through and get rid of the excess.
Lately, I've been overwhelmed in our home. Not that we have too much stuff, though we have gathered some excess to donate lately, but rather because of all the space our home isn't as organized as I'd like. There are lots of places to just put things. Our bedroom was feeling overwhelming especially. In our bedroom we have a night stand, a king sized bed, crib, small drawer rack for baby things, dresser, and a "TV" with a moveable TV stand. (The TV is just a monitor we use with a Roku to watch Netflix). Our bedroom is pretty big and has a vaulted ceiling so you would think I wouldn't feel this way but I just like things really open and most of the space was being used. Our dresser was broken so we went to Ikea to find a new one.
Trigger the minimalistic nature in me. I didn't want a new dresser. I didn't want to fix the old one, I just wanted to get rid of it. How do you not have a dresser? Socks. Underwear. Ect. So, John and I brainstormed what we could do.
We left Ikea empty handed.
A few days later we went back and purchased 6 bins. Remember how I said we have lots of storage space in our home right now? Our bedroom closet has a ton of shelves. So, we ditched the dresser and we are utilizing that space in a more organized way. 

I know it probably seems silly, but it makes me so happy!

I was listening to this podcast on minimalism the other day and she was telling this story about her friend talking about her home and kind of teasing her that her house was like a museum. Besides the necessities, her home has no clutter or extras. It sparked something inside of me and I have been getting rid of clothes I don't wear and making plans for how John and I will spend our next few Saturdays.

There really is no point to this post besides that I'm weird and love getting rid of stuff and my husband is AMAZING and went along with my crazy idea to ditch the dresser. I'm so grateful "stuff" doesn't have control over my life.