Saturday December 19, 2009
Christmas is getting closer. 
Today Adam’s chain said seven more days (that’s because the last chain says Merry Christmas). I am loving December this year. It’s so relaxed and fun compared to last Christmas when David had surgery and Goldi had puppies and Liam was a baby. The best part of it all is that there is a lot more down time for just us … our little family. I can hardly believe I’m saying that because I am usually all about the big get-togethers and the parties. But with two children (one of whom needs all his food thought through and prepared and transported along), it’s downright nice to stay home. Plus, whenever it gets cold, I don’t feel like venturing further then the doorway to shake my head at the thermometer. I’ll regain normalcy next Spring (we hope).
More time for us meant that David and I spent a night out. This should have been perfection in a basket for several reasons. One, it had been almost two years since we were out for the night (aside from our spur of the moment night when we went to his grandpa’s funeral). Two, our babysitter is one of my good friends, the boys adore her, and she is fantastic with kids. I did not worry once. Three, well, dates are just always supposed to be perfect. Wake up and smell reality. Did you know that when you have been married for seven years and you have two kids (one who is old enough to listen intently to e.v.e.r.y word you say and one who never seems to shut down) that it is possible to get into a very bad rut of not being connected emotionally and not even realize it? And then something outside of us happened that totally unstrung me Friday night and made a lot of old emotional hurts re-surface (Yes, I have issues like that) and turned me into the kind of melancholy I don’t like and then the old battle we’ve battled for seven years came up AGAIN and we still didn’t have answers. And to top it off, I still think that even though the Double Tree is very nice, there is something very un-romantic about practically being in the Sam’s Club parking lot.
We had fun some of the time. I guess that’s the good thing about being married seven years. You can sort of, kind of lay it aside some of the time. In other words, I’ve learned to waffle box at least a little. But really, it was pretty disheartening. Especially because this hasn’t happened to us for so long. I was immature and mad for a couple of days until Wednesday afternoon when the dam kind of broke loose inside of me as I was holding Liam (he’s been sick again and can’t sleep lying down or at least he’s doing a good job of fooling me into believing that) and talking to God about the whole mess. David and I talked it out later that night and the next and it feels so incredibly wonderful to be on the same page again. I was talking to a friend of mine who has been through more struggle in her marriage in the last year then I want to imagine in a lifetime. We were talking about girls who are dating and how they think they have these huge struggles that seem so minute to us and how they have to stop everything right now and talk for four hours until everything gets hashed out. “She has no idea and I don’t know how in the world to prepare her,” my friend said. It’s true. But I still maintain that they don’t want to know how awful it can be because no one would get married. The same way that they cannot possibly understand how wonderful it can be either. And there is just no way possible to describe to someone what it is like to try to throw yourself passionately into your marriage when you are in the middle of raising kids either. Life’s like that, I guess.
Mostly I’m just glad to have things hashed out and feel all wibbly wobbly in love again. David said he thinks it’s good I get mad sometimes because it makes him think. He does say THE strangest things. 
width=”15″ border=”0″ />
***********************************************************************************************
Virginia got plastered with snow. And more snow. And more snow. In fact, it snowed for twenty-seven hours straight unless it stopped to catch a breath during the night and I didn’t find out. I still don’t like cold weather; but this is amazing! We are literally snowed in. It’s pretty drifty which makes it difficult to get an accurate measurement but around 2 this afternoon we had approximately twenty inches and it still snowed for hours after that!
Last night, even after it actually started snowing, I had a hard time believing we’d actually get this much snow. Snow forecasts in Virginia are often a hoax. They say 3-6″ and we get maybe 1-2. But when it accumulated so quickly I dropped the disbelief. Adam and David kept checking the weather radar hopefully.
We kept the outside lights on for a long time just to watch it.
This morning we woke up to the stuff dreams are made of. At least, if your dreams include snow. The best part of it all was that it was still snowing! That’s the other thing about Virginia. If it snows enough to cover the ground, it seems to often happen at night when you can’t watch the world turn white. Adam was beyond enthralled. Liam, well, excited wouldn’t be the key word here. He wasn’t about to be left out; but he can hardly walk in his snow suit inside the house, much less in snow. Plus, he hated his mittens. He found his niche underneath the deck where the snow had only accumulated to about two inches. 
Yep, that’s a lot of snow.
********************************************************************************************
My petty grievance with xanga remains. When I upload forty photos to the photo blog and I make sure the “show in photo blog” icon is checked, I would appreciate if those photos would actually show up in the photo blog. I checked out the xanga help and two things are apparent. I am not the only one having this problem. The help people are not answering. Anyone out there with solutions? I can manually go in and change each photo’s status; but it’s terribly time consuming.
*********************************************************************************************
One of the good things that happened on our date was that we had time to brainstorm about parenting. It feels as though Adam has entered another stage of childhood and somehow we haven’t caught up. I think I know why a lot of five year olds are ready for school! It feels as though he is suddenly so BIG and so when he just tumbles all over me without warning because he wants attention, it hurts! I mean, forty pounds is a lot of weight to throw around. Or if he leans against me suddenly, it throws me off balance. It’s obvious to both of us that he would be a happier child if his life were intellectually and physically more challenging. He’s always been a demanding child; but in the last three months he’s become much, much more so. To combat at least some of the boredom we decided to come up with a more structured game plan for our evenings instead of just letting it happen. One of the first nights, I suggested we pull out my scrapbooking supplies and make cards. To be honest, I think we were both dreading this a little. But Adam was impressed and in about twenty minutes I surprised myself realizing we were having a lot of fun! The generic idea of cards turned into a Christmas card theme and before long there were cards for everyone. At this rate, we might put Hallmark out of business. (cough, cough)
But someone tell me, why did I have this idea that sometimes parents get to sit on the sofa and read a magazine while their kids play with toys? Adam is absolutely convinced that life in the evening is completely boring unless he does what his daddy does or his daddy does what he does. There is no middle ground. Sometimes I’m about ready to resort to the timer. How do you guys get your children to think playing independently is fun?
**********************************************************************************************
Besides the beautiful pictures, and the way you express yourself.. I SO resonated with this post, especially on the marriage thing.. will I EVER grow up?? Will some issues ever be resolved? Having a daughter dating now… whew!! that brings out a whole different ball game and I want to make it perfect for her, so she doesn’t have to face some of the things I did.. but that means perfecting everything around her.. and that is not my job.
So glad you got it talked out, and you whether you know it or not.. you reached a different level! Be easy on yourself.. you have a lot on your plate.
Enjoy your down time.. it’s the best!
If anyone has the secret to kids playing happily by themselves, I’d love to know. I was dusting tonight, and realized that not one single book moved off the children’s bookshelf since last Saturday. A few from upstairs got looked at, but really! I know we spent a lot of time upstairs this past week, since I sewed a lot, and my machine is upstairs, but… I need to take more time to teach my daughter things- she loves to learn new things!
I want to comment on the whole marriage and communication thing, but I’m not sure how to say what I’m thinking. Kids change things, for sure… Thanks for having the courage to be honest- it’s refreshing.
I could comment on a lot of things but the last sentence is all I have time for.
A lot of it depends on the child I’d say. Madison will follow me around, wanting something to do, asking questions, talking, and just plain driving me crazy sometimes. She has no clue what to do when I tell her to go play. Almost like she can’t function without being told what to do and having someone there to help her. Reagan… yesterday I clocked her. She played in her room for an hour and a half in the morning and another 2 hours in the afternoon. I heard CD’s come and go, her talking to her pollies, jumping off the bed, and just quietness. After the 2 hours, she came by to chat a bit, then went to the basement for a long time. Madison came home from school and started to follow me and Reagan never even came up from the basement to see her. After all that, I have no answer on how to get the first one to play alone and the 2nd to play with someone!!
good post. lots of things to ruminate on…so true what you said about ‘get into a very bad rut of not being connected emotionally and not even realize it’. seems like that has happened often for us lately, and man! it takes w.o.r.k. to get out of that rut! but, such is marriage…if we’d never have things to work on/thru, wouldn’t it get sorta mundane and blah? it’s the spice of life, my husband says.:)
enjoy all that snow! sure is pretty! we are snowed in too, and it’s a nice way to spend a Sunday.:O)
~R
What your husband said about it being a good thing that you get mad sometimes, sounds exactly like something my husband would say. So take heart, my husband says strange things too.:)
I’m jealous of your snow. We got about 4 in.
my word, do you have a LOT of snow!
Yes, 5 yr. olds can be a challenge to keep busy. I’m forever trying to think up small jobs that he can do without me hovering over him. I’m blessed that mine likes to draw, and will spend some time every day drawing. I’m really looking forward to have him go to preschool later this winter, just to give him a world out out of our house!
I need lots of answers on how to get your children to play by themselves!!! I totally can relate to madisonsmom2, Gwenyth can follow me around the house and ask all kinds of questions and when i’m in the kitchen baking or making supper, it’s lick here, lick there, stir this, and take the lid off the kettle to see what mom is making and Oh, we need to stick the spoon in there and stir it and who cares if some drops on the floor. Sometimes I just don’t know what to do anymore, She gets so bored and then she does things she’s not suppose to do. She thinks she needs to do EVERYTHING MOM DOES. Wear perfume, wear her veil, Use my lotion. Danika is the opposite, she plays and plays by herself.
So glad you are wibbly/ wobbly in love with your husband again:) somehow I have a fealing as what I said on fb was the wrong thing to say.:( Sorry. Have a good day.
@qawzse789 –
You have a daughter dating?????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tell me more, tell me more!!
@smuckers4jesus –
About your last sentence. No, it’s ok really. It’s what SHOULD have been true and how were you supposed to know it wasn’t?
First of all, I am jealous of all your snow. Yup. I am a ‘snowaholic’ and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE being snowed in. I guess it’s a good thing I am from the extreme North.
Second. Independent play. Having kids 19 months apart helps a heap. My oldest two play together for hours. When one is gone away for the day I see/hear a lot more from the one at home. It goes in spurts around here too. Sometimes I feel like there is not one second of the day where somebody isn’t wanting me to do something with them. Having a basement that they can totally destroy entertains them for quite a while. My clean up time is rather grueling, but it is worth it for some chat time with my husband. I also have found that if I do something with the kids first thing in the morning then they are more happy to go to something by themselves for a while. I do not think that they function well out of a vaccum of mom time. And BTW. I do not think that your dear Adam is having to function out of a vaccum. It sounds like you spend lots of time with him and interact with him in good ways.
And on marriage yet. (I promise to shut up real soon!) My greatest fear is that 20 years from now Amos and I will wake up someday and the children will be all gone and we will feel estranged from each other emotioally because our lives had been exclusively dedicated to our children. I think that dedication to ones family is an important thing, don’t get me wrong. But Lord willing, Amos and I will still have years together after our kids are grown and will we have the kind of relationship that is has been nurtured and growing more precious through it all? Or will we be like, now what? I don’t know if I am making sense so I’ll stop.
I love the picture of David Lee and your boys. So cute. And Liam is so adorable. The boken (I guess from the lights?) in the background is great too.
About the marriage issues. Being connected is the #1 thing for me! And when we’re not connected…there is just this dimension missing in our relationship. And I’m much more in tune to that than I used to be and we try to do something about it and get re-connected. As you know, I am a FIRM believer in dates. A lot of times, that is when Jeremy and I finally have time to re-connect. My advice would be to try and make those dates a lot more frequent, if possible. But, having said that, Jeremy and I just went through about a three day “chill” where things weren’t quite right because of something that happened on Wednesday. We finally just talked about it last night. i think we were both being too proud to talk about it cuz we both thought the other one was to blame.
About kids playing by themselves…I actually think some of it is just their nature. Derrick plays SO well by himself! The others, not quite as much. But I would also say, take heart because once Liam gets old enough to play with Adam more, hopefully that will help. Since the boys have each other….they just play and play and play together.
I love the christmas village made out of REAL food! You didn’t make all that did you?
Secondly I can’t believe all the snow you have! I’ve actually never seen more than about an inch or so that looks like a winter wonderland. Can’t imagine how much fun it is! Makes me want to come visit you just so I can play in the snow!
Lastly, I love your cute cards! I used to make cards all the time, but have gotten out of the hang of it. I did help make all our christmas cards which took forever!
What a wonderfully long post. So much not sure what to comment on…
My kids all have different personalities. Some our clingers and others enjoy alone time, but they all love to do something in the evening with mom and dad. Brayden was a mess. The minute Dad came in the door, he would whine, “I want to go work”. But ya, in a whole my kids play and fight well together:).
My husband also tells me weird things about it being good I get mad. Sometimes I just marvel, though, from the way he was raised, I am SO SO blessed.
@amoshaun –
please don’t shut up. I love when people soap box! 🙂 I hear you and agree w/ what you are saying; but sometimes I wonder if we’ve swung too far on the pendulum …. that we’ve made our kids needy by giving to them so MUCH. The boys actually play together incredibly well during the day; it’s in the evening that David cannot get one second of a break and when he does try to do something like bookwork Adam has to be RIGHT there w/ his own envelopes and stickers for stamps. I love that he likes his daddy so much …. but boy, sometimes some breathing room is nice!
Oh, and on marriage, you said my thoughts EXACTLY!!! I love seeing couples who are still so in live when they are 60!
@appalolly –
That date night thing… good advice! I think too we need to go again soon. One of the worst things about going so rarely is that even though it makes it terribly special, it also makes you set almost unrealistic expectations … “like we NEVER do this so it better be smashing” … which can almost set you up for failure before you even go.
@redladybug18 –
No, I didn’t make any of it. It was on display at the DoubleTree. I bought a kit to put together w/ Adam this year and that’s as far as I’ll get I’m afraid. Sometime when the boys are older I want to make gingerbread myself and make one. I remember my mom doing this with us one time when I was a little girl and we put a light inside the house and it was the coolest thing ever! Definitely one of my good childhood memories!
@smilesbymiles –
a light inside? never thought of that. Sounds cool though! Have made quite a few over the years, the little ones out of graham crackers are always fun and quick.
Good, good stuff here! We too, just came through a tuff spot in our marriage, and I admit I was being kinda bratty, but I also felt totally misunderstood. But it takes so much work….and is so AWESOME when things are going well! We are way behind on date nights…like 6 years maybe.:)
As for the children playing evenings w/o us, it is a rarity, but it helps when they are playing on the same level, which is pry’ not gonna happen overnight w/ your boys. One of these days….I know, it feels like forever!
The snow looks fun, if you like snow! I’m with you, I dream of spring almost all winter!
Oh, and movie nights are a fun way to spend an evening chilling with your children. We don’t have them often, but still…just an idea. Leon makes popcorn, we snuggle up with blankets, and watch Little House on the Prairie or whatever!
I like the ‘real feel’ in posts like this. Have you tried matching evening time with Adam? 1 hour of playtime alone/1 hour of playtime with daddy? If it doesn’t work without the timer would help you out. I did something like it one time with him – for another reason- and it worked.
Loved the Christmas decorations, gingerbread houses and the snow. Beautiful.
I chuckle again at our similarities- I can so relate to the intense 5 – now 6 – year old who can.not.let daddy alone in the evenings. We have been pretty strict the last while about us needing our time and it seems to be easing a bit. My second one plays delightfully well alone, but I don’t know if A. will ever learn that?? He is so social and inquisitive. I keep trying to look on the positive side, he will be a mover and shaker – he is sensitive (which has it’s own burden when he can’t sleep at night because something is weighing on him), but those are good qualities.
And on the marriage thing – you are struggling well. Just recently Jason and I were talking and he said, “you know, at one time I was not always sure if you were on my team, but now I KNOW you are.” He was so laid back and gentle and I am so intense and opinionated…and for a time we tried to just stuff all our differences but now I am glad we went through the hard work of honesty and being mad, etc. etc. I hope in another 15 years we will feel that much more connected again.