Day 310.

The kids and I ate at Panang on Chicago for lunch today, with a dear college friend, Allison. She was in Chicago for a few days helping to chaperone an art trip, so it was so fun to reconnect with her! The kids were great, letting us gab on for most of the time, inserting funny faces or comments here and there. Of course it helped that they were stuffing their faces with Pad Thai Tofu and loving every bite (oh yeah, and mangoes and sticky rice! my fave!).

I am grateful for an outside perspective.

Alison commented a couple of times when one kid did something cute or funny..."How do you just not smile at them all day long? I'm like constantly smiling!" It was so kind for her to say, and such a good reminder...that even though there are timeouts and tantrums and diarrhea and backtalk...there is so much to be thankful for. These two beautiful children give me daily joy, and while it is so stressful at times and all I'm doing is trying to find a way to escape...I always come back to their two faces staring back at me in love. How can I really get that mad?

Day 309.

I did a workout video this morning: The 30 Day Shred. It's my favorite to do when I don't have more than 30 minutes to devote to exercising. Guess who joined me?

I am grateful that Dylan did the workout with me.

She lasted through the whole thing. I was amazed. She often starts the thing with me and moves onto something else by halfway through. Today she did it all, only taking a couple of breaks to lay on the couch for a few moments ("Phew! I'm tired!"). The last two minutes of hard cardio, we were doing jumping jacks, butt kicks, punches and jumping rope and we motivated each other. I just kept yelling, "You can do it! Keep going - we're almost there. It's almost time for the cool down! (she loves the cool down)" and she stayed up. It was awesome.

After the video Dylan said, "I'm sweaty from being shredded."

Day 308.

We went to the park after preschool today, to have a picnic and play. It turned out to be quite the gorgeous day, weather-wise. It had said 40's and cloudy, but when we got to the park it was sunny and 50's. Beautiful. So, we basically didn't eat and played our hearts out - for about 20 minutes, when Dylan suddenly announced in the pirate ship that "I have to go poopies!"

I am grateful to have made it to the bathroom.

This feat is not to be taken lightly. We were in a very large park, and I panicked, not knowing where we would go to make this happen. Usually when Dylan finally accepts that she needs to go to the bathroom and tells me, we don't have much time. So, I threw everything in the stroller (including Noah - Dylan needed to walk to help "hold it") and we rushed to the park's bathroom - a good several hundred feet away. Well, we got there and LOCKED! Ugghhh. She would start walking faster and it would make her have to go more, so we had to find this balance of quick walking without going too fast to make her go right there in the middle of the park. In a split decision, I decided we'd take our chances with the Jewish Community Center, knowing it was locked, but hoping they would take pity on us (What would I say, I wondered - my daughter is going to poop her pants...PLEASE?!?!?!?). Lucky for us, they quickly buzzed us in and didn't even ask why we were there. We MADE IT! And we even got to sit there for 10 minutes (that's about how long the process takes with Dylan because you have to tell stories) in an immaculately clean bathroom, as opposed to a park district hell hole.

So for all those who think this is a ridiculous thing to be grateful for, you must have never cleaned up a 4 year old's poop-filled underpants...and you surely have never made them walk 5 blocks home in them.

Day 307.

I know I've talked about this at some point this year, but I guess life has been so busy, when it slows down, you notice. This week, not much is going on. My mom was in town yesterday, but besides that, life is simple this week. Besides our normal routine of preschool, soccer and violin, we have nothing going on. It is divine.

I am grateful for a week at home.

We tooled around this morning, took a mid-morning bath and played until they requested to get out - no me pushing them to "play for 5 more minutes" so we can wash up and get out. I played with them and then I actually went through the bathroom cabinets to toss and organize what was in there. Stuff like that doesn't get done if you go on too many field trips or playdates! So, we reveled in our simpleness, went to the grocery store and hardware store on foot, and hung out this afternoon, playing people and stringing beads for Dylan and Mommy time. It felt good to live in our own lives, and not rush through it.

Day 306.

Monday, November 2, 2009.

Had Dylan's first parent-teacher conference today. It's so funny to go and talk about your child with people that see her for several times a day without you there. I was so curious what they would say! Was she herself at school? (yes!) Was she shy? (no!) Was she making friends? (yes!)

I am grateful that Dylan is thriving in preschool.

I am also grateful for the great school that she is at - KAM has been a wonderful place for her so far, and I am so happy we are there. It is so focused on play, and has no "standards" to which the students should be at. It just knows that they are preschoolers, learning to interact with one another and have fun together and need to play, play, play! When I mentioned that Dylan had told me a story about her stepping on a classmate's hand on accident and how she was too shy to say "sorry," the teachers quickly assured me that was OK. They said, "Some kids can say sorry very easily and it's very hard for others. They say sorry with their eyes, and so we tell the other kids that they are sorry, and we move on." A good reminder for me too, when sometimes I feel the need for my kids to "say sorry like you mean it."

Day 305.

Remember my Toy Story post not even a month ago? Remember the innocence I wanted to keep in my children - not pushing them to grow up too soon, especially because of media that I chose for them? Yeah...me too. NOW I do.

I checked out Pinocchio from the library and thought it was a good family movie night choice. From my memory of the movie, it was pretty tame. I took them to a children's theater production of Pinocchio a few years ago, and it wasn't scary. So, we sat down with popcorn, grapes, cheese and turkey roll-ups to enjoy it together this evening.

Then, I got this feeling I should check out commonsensemedia.org. I usually do (with fuller feature-length stuff, which they've hardly watched any of), and didn't know why I hadn't done it before for Pinocchio. Here's what I read:

"Some scenes and themes may be intense for younger or sensitive viewers, such as when Pinocchio is kidnapped and caged, threatened with destruction, can't find his father, and/or nearly drowns. They should also be aware that Pinocchio's friend Lampwick introduces him to cigar smoking, but is punished for it. Kids may be disturbed by Pleasure Island, where "bad boys" are turned into donkeys and sent to work in salt mines."

Ummm...yeah. Then I read parent reviews:

"this is the most inapropreate G movie i have ever scene!!!!!! and for these ressons: there is underage drinking and smoking, some vilonce and peril, and language like "jackass". I think they should have rated it PG-13. Or at least a PG because having it G rated with all that stuff in it is wrong!"

Ok, get over the fact that she can't spell inappropriate or reasons or violence. And it's just one parent (there were other negative reviews on there). But that was enough to make me frown. I passed the laptop to Jason to read, as Jiminy Cricket was finishing "When You Wish Upon a Star." We did some parent sign language and lip reading to agree this was not a good idea.

I am grateful for white lies.

I am not a fan of lying to my children. Most often, I would rather tell them the truth and have something difficult to explain than to lie to them. But I also felt like an idiot. I checked this movie out for them - they didn't pick it, and they didn't even care about watching it. I wanted to watch it with them, and Jason and I are always looking for fun things to watch with them for our occasional movie nights. I didn't feel like explaining why I didn't look at the reviews ahead of time or why it wasn't appropriate. I just felt like turning it off and watching Pooh...or something equally as harmless. These are our babies, and by golly, what is the rush to expose them to "jackass" and kidnapping. I don't feel like I'm sheltering them, but rather just not pushing them over the media cliff too soon.

So, Jason gave me the go ahead and I pushed stop. We both did a really bad job (but sufficient for this age bracket) of acting...and we easily convinced them the DVD wasn't working. They didn't care one bit, and we chose a Backyardigans episode that we all thoroughly enjoyed.

Day 304.

Saturday, October 31, 2009.

Halloween on Harper Ave. in Hyde Park is a blast. We haven't gone over there in a few years (thought it might be too crazy/scary for the kids), but now that they are a little older, we braved it.

I am grateful for the Harper Ave. residents who put on quite the Halloween spectacle!

People that live on this street go through hundreds of dollars of candy each year (that's PER house). One person said her friend who lives there gave away over 2000 pieces last year. Wait, WHAT?!?! Two-thousand?! After being there at 4:30pm and seeing the madness (and know it continues and even gets busier up until 8pm), I believe it! No one there even goes inside - all the homeowners participating just sit on their front porch or steps and have HUGE pots or cauldrons full of candy. You have to wait in line to get to the front of the house. It's just one big traffic jam.

The kids had SO much fun, but it was funny how timid they were to go to the doors and say trick or treat. I finally gave up saying "Say Trick-or-Treat!"

Some of the fun of trick-or-treating is actually ringing the doorbell and waiting for someone to answer. And there is no time for homeowners to stop and admire anyone's costume - they are just working like machines to throw candy into pumpkins and get on to the next kid. So, some of that part is lost. But they make up for it with their elaborate decorations and even their own adult costumes. They go ALL OUT, and we hyde parkers appreciate it. It has to be pretty overwhelming to live on those two blocks for Halloween. I think you'd have to either participate or go out of town. Thanks Harper residents!