Self-Centered Interviews of My Kids

Hi! I have vowed not to start this by blogging about blogging, or rather, blogging about not blogging, so now that that's out of the way, let's just dive right back in.

There was a set of questions circulating on Facebook recently among a few of my FB friends. I thought it would catch on more widely, but it seems not to have. The gist of it was that you interview your child, about yourself, and see what awful or adorable truths they come up with in response. I got a kick out of seeing my friends' children's answers and thought I'd give it a whirl, but I decided to record the answers here on the good ol' blog rather than FB.

The instructions were, "Without any prompting, ask your kids these questions." To save you some scrolling back and forth, I'm going to paste the questions in 3 separate times, since I conducted three private interviews.  I've included a few of my own thoughts in brackets; couldn't help myself.     


JUNE
(6 years old)
1. What is something I always say to you?  You either say, "Home sweet home!" or "Alright, here we are," when we pull into the garage.  No!  You always say, "I love you."
2. What makes me happy?  When the house is clean.
3. What makes me sad?  When I get a burn.  [Ed.: True.  June recently burned her hand on a hot skillet.]
4. How do I make you laugh?  By reading the part in the book that says, "My only friend in the whole wide world is a hippo named Boo Boo Butt!"  [Ed.: That's a reference to "The Book With No Pictures" for those of you not in the know.]
5. What was I like as a child?  I don't know!
6. How old am I?  I don't remember.  Something like in the 80's or 70's.  [Ed.: To be clear, she was not speaking of the 1980's or 70's.]  
7. How tall am I?  Half of my stomach and one of my brother and half of my brother.    
8. What is my favorite thing to do? Go have fun.  [So then I asked the follow-up question, "How do I have fun, though?"]  By snuggling. 
9. What do I do when you're not around?  Do stuff on your phone and computer. 
10. What am I really good at?  Yelling.  [Ed.: Ouch.  The truth hurts.]
11. What am I not very good at?  Thinking of stuff to play.  [Ed.: It's good to make them think for themselves, right?]
12. What do I do for work?  Be our mom. 
13. What is my favorite food?  Vegetables.   
14. What do you like to do with me?  Go to fun places with you.  And also, make you spend money to take me on rides. (*insert June's cackling maniacal laugh here*)  [Ed.: I think she was specifically referring to a couple of Ferris wheel rides that were quite memorable to her.]

WAYLON
(4 years old)
1. What is something I always say to you?  I love you!
2. What makes me happy?  Cleaning up. 
3. What makes me sad?  I don't know.  That I shoot rockets on to pictures and the pictures fall down... At least I don't actually do that.  [Ed.:  Waylon has been indiscriminately adding the phrase "at least" to at least 80% of his sentences for at least 6 months now.]  
4. How do I make you laugh?  When you say, "Don't smile!"
5. What was I like as a child?  I don't know.
6. How old am I?  Give me a clue.  (It's a number, honey.  You have to pick a number.)  I don't know - 10? 11? 
7. How tall am I?  Very tall.
8. What is my favorite thing to do?  Reading Penderwicks and painting with music. 
9. What do I do when you're not around?  You miss me!
10. What am I really good at?  (HUGE PAUSE...)  (Shakes head...)  Throwing balls up in the air and catching them.  
11. What am I not very good at?  Lifting weights.  [I giggle and say, "How do you know?  How do you know if I'm good or not?]  I just know because your age.    
12. What do I do for work?    
13. What is my favorite food?  That's a hard answer. 
14. What do you like to do with me?   Have mommy days!  [Ed.: "Mommy days" are what we call me pulling preschoolers out of school whenever I want to, to do whatever else we'd rather be doing, simply because we can.  Once they hit public school, we take attendance more seriously, but until then, all bets are off.]     

GEORGIA
(8 years old)
1. What is something I always say to you? I love you.
2. What makes me happy?   Food.
3. What makes me sad?  When we don't pick up our toys. 
4. How do I make you laugh?  By tickling me.  
5. What was I like as a child?  I don't know.  You lived right across the street from your school.  
6. How old am I?  39.  Going on 40.  
7. How tall am I?  5 feet 14 inches.  I think.  
8. What is my favorite thing to do?  Do art with me and June and Waylon.  
9. What do I do when you're not around?  Big mommy projects.  Like organizing drawers.  
10. What am I really good at?  Trumpet, cooking, and soccer.  Mostly cooking because you're a real good cook.  
11. What am I not very good at?  Starting big projects and finishing them.  [Ed.: To be clear, it's not the "starting" part that she's being critical of here...]    
12. What do I do for work?  Take care of your family.
13. What is my favorite food?  That's hard.  You eat a lot of foods when I'm not around.  Sushi maybe? 
14. What do you like to do with me?  Projects.  Like art or sewing.  And cooking.

Whew, domestic much, Kate?  That last answer of Georgia's was influenced by recency I'm afraid.  We had just finished sewing a button on a cloak that she insisted on creating for wearing to a friend's fairy-themed birthday party; however, this project was a rarity.  Most sewing in this house still consists of minor repairs that are delegated to Joe.  

So, there you go.  I'm dipping my toes back into the waters of blogging with an entry that wrote itself.  Baby steps, but I have to blow the rust off somehow.  Thanks to those of you who faintly heard this tumbleweed blowing by and clicked over to read it.  Leave me a comment if you have a moment; the dopamine sensors in my brain have been trained by years of Facebook and Instagram use to expect it.  Grrrr.... (Now there's a meaty topic for a different day.)  

I'm off now to go throw some balls in the air and catch them.  Or maybe start organizing a drawer that I will never finish.    

Cabbage As Big As Your Head/Truth in Bloggyville

Grrr. Since I don't want to fail myself on this daily blogging habit on night two, I am posting one picture of June with a cabbage.

I tried to post this whole other thing but ran into technical difficulties with iPhoto. The kind where I think I'm going to have to take my computer in to the store for service.

Plus it's 9:52 p.m. and I promised Joe I'd come upstairs to watch a TV show together by 10:00, so yeah, finishing that other post is not realistic. (But I think this is the point of this exercise: just post something, anything, be it a sentence or a photo, until you get back in the groove.)

So, I give you today's harvest. (Anyone remember my briefly-lived but ongoing "As Big As Your Head" series? Well, I'm happy to have a new entry.)

Does anyone have experience making kraut or know of good techniques or recipes, because I think we're going to try fermentation in my closet, no joke. I have a book on this but am curious if anyone else has tried it and lived to tell the tale. Anyway, we can only eat so much slaw and cooked cabbage with onions.

The vegetable garden is going well this year. We have done virtually nothing to make it so.

Oh! It's 9:56. Ta ta for now!

Blogging Streak? Blogging Tear?

My friend Maggie threw down the gauntlet and has posed a daily blogging challenge to get herself (and the rest of us) out of a writing rut, so I guess I'm in. Funnily enough, I do not know when this daily habit is to begin or if there is to be an end date, but Joe is working late tonight so I am starting NOW. I would be super proud if I could keep it up for a month, but we'll see. It is almost cake month around here, after all. That usually makes for one good-busy but tired mama.

My other friend Susan pointed out that blogs in general seem to be in decline, like fewer people are keeping up with writing them or reading them. I think she's correct, but my hope is that this will just mean quality over quantity. I don't know. I'm kind of bad about keeping up with mine, but the desire is still there, it's just hard to find the free time.

Anyway, join in on this little blogging tear if you'd like.  Or cheer me on by leaving comments.  I'm not too proud to admit that they give me a little boost, like spectators cheering and holding up posters along a race route. 

I hope chronology doesn't count in this little challenge, because my posts are likely to be all over the board, bouncing between current day happenings and old posts that I never finished (or started) but always wanted to.  So bear with me, and don't be afraid to wish my kids a happy 2nd, 4th, and 6th birthday in the comments even though they're all about to turn 3, 5 and 7.

How many times have I announced this supposed blogging streak and then NOT done it?  I am becoming the girl who cried wolf.  I hope this time is different.    

I Wish I Had a Day

I wish I had a day to just blog.  To catch up on the mounting piles of photos growing on my hard drive.  Not because anyone needs to see them, but because I just feel the need.  But why is that?  To slow time, perhaps.  I feel like our family of five is throttling forward at warp speed in a way that I'm not used to.  After having a baby every other August since 2007, you may have noticed that we did not have a baby this past August.  And as crazy as that may sound to you, it feels very different to me.  The baby reset button was not pushed.  We did not spin the spinner and land on the chute that instantly takes you back to square one.  And I know that is a good thing in many ways, and it feels like "progress" in many ways - there are activities we can do together, gear we don't have to bring, and poopy diapers that aren't being washed.  But it also feels very different.  I've been noticing this foreign feeling since approximately December of 2012, when I first had the thought, "Oh.  So this is what it feels like to have a 16 month old and not be pregnant.  Cool."  Not pressing that baby reset button somehow makes me more acutely aware of everyone, including myself, aging.  Growing up.  It is beautiful to witness but sometimes painfully so.  Bittersweet for sure.             

The thing is, I also know that if I had a full day to myself, I wouldn't really want to spend it blogging.  (I'd want to clean the basement and go for a run or get a massage and go out to lunch with a friend; sometimes these options are equally appealing.  That's normal, right?)  There's this paradox going on.  Being a stay at home mom is making me take even more pictures than I used to, and making me have more stories to tell, simply because I'm there for more family moments and my former law firm yielded exactly zero cute or endearing tales.  (Part of me is itching to go back to work, in some kind of utopian part time arrangement, by the way, but that's a topic for a different post.)  Being a stay at home mom is also sapping my energy to do anything with those pictures or stories at the end of the day.  So much togetherness leaves me wanting a mental break from children in the evenings, and I think that's good and healthy for everyone.    

Yet... Yet there is still this part of me that truly desires to blog.  It's cathartic.  It is our scrapbook.  It lets me write whatever I want.  It is my personal choice over Facebook for most photos (though Instagram may one day edge it out).  It is also a form of backup for that day when one of us inevitably manages to destroy the computer.  (Yes, I use other forms of backup, but I'm bad about all of them, so I guess you could call my system loose belt and half broken suspenders.)

So, I'm embarking on a stretch of more frequent, but probably less thoughtful, blogging.  Photo dumping to play catch up.  Posts that aren't in perfect chronological order.  Nothing here will earn me a Pulitzer, but hopefully it will give me some pleasure.

If you're not related to me and these posts give you any pleasure, then be sure to throw me a bone in the comments now and then, because I could use the encouragement to keep going on my catch up project.  It's not as fun when no one has a word to say because my content is so outdated.  It's hard to wish someone a happy birthday a year and a half late, though, I get it. 

I wish I had a day, but better to eat this elephant one bite at a time and spend that glorious day doing something other than sitting in front of a computer.   

Having a Wee Bit of Trouble Keeping Up

We survived Birthdaypalooza!  Cake week 2013!  The children turned 2, 4, and 6, and were each thoroughly celebrated.  Also, we hit Millennium Park last week and took a day trip out to the Illinois Railway museum.  My mom came to visit for a few days, and we threw another pool party.  Georgia had her first soccer game.  Joe coached his first soccer game.  School starts this coming Monday, which means we bought school supplies today and will be spending parts of this week cramming in every last ounce of summer adventure while we still can.  Meanwhile, the organizing and unpacking gradually continues while I try to suppress the urge to yell, "I HATE MOVING!" and start swearing under my breath (or crying) every time I can't find something here.

I have so many pictures I want to share.  I really enjoy blogging but am finding it harder than ever to find the time.  (I blame the whole moving process more than anything.)  Can someone please tell Joe that we need a full time nanny so his unemployed wife can just catch up on her hobby?  : )

We ditched cable TV when we moved, but after a month with no television whatsoever, we got an Apple TV and started one episode of "Arrested Development" a night (sometimes two) until we got through them all.  Now we've started rotating between "Louis" and "Orange Is the New Black".  Sometimes we skip TV for the day all together, and every once in a while we watch a "Daily Show" or "Colbert Report" from Hulu instead.  At the end of the day, it really feels good to veg for that half hour or hour.  I know this is a common sentiment of adulthood, but it really does feel like there are not enough hours in the day for all that we want to do.  I don't know why I'm telling you our TV watching habits, I guess I just sometimes wonder what we're doing wrong because I envision other people having more free time.  I am probably wrong about that.

But my parting question for you is this (and I do mean this sincerely, so please leave a comment here personally or anonymously to answer this little poll of mine): 

WHEN DO YOU READ?  

Like, not just surf the Internet, but actually pick up a book or a magazine or a Kindle and read for pleasure or education?  I don't care if you're fitting it in once a month or three times a day or in 5 minute or 3 hour increments, but I am just really curious when other people are figuring out when to read.  Commute? Bathroom trip? Before bed? During kids' naps?  Never?  Please share.


Next up in bloggyland:  Waylon's 1st birthday.  (Yes, he just turned two.  Are you still with me here, people?)


Edited to add:  I think part of my confusion and consternation comes from all the things that I'm not fitting in my day but used to be, not all that long ago.  Like better cooking.  And thrice weekly weight workouts.  And slightly better self care, in the form of daily showers.  And probably more TV.  And blogging.  Like, 3 or 4 months ago.  It's tempting to chalk it all up to moving, but something just isn't adding up, because if I'm being completely honest, we're also not spending too much daily time working on that, either!  At least we are getting our sleep.  Joe and I are united in our love of sleeping, which is great from a health standpoint, maybe not so much from a productivity standpoint.  We could probably use one (or more) of those late night pushes where you stay up til the wee hours just to get something done, but we just don't have it in us anymore!  (Truth be told, I'd probably be the dumb one to go for that, brushing aside the consequences that would come the next day when the kids got up, but Joe cannot stand for it.  We are a "we must turn out the lights and go to bed simultaneously" kind of couple, which I'm beginning to think may be a little rare.)

I am Determined to Catch Up on SOMETHING in My Life.

(This picture is from August 2, 2012. Just heading out to the grocery store. Anyway, it's fitting because you're about to see a lot more from a year ago.)

STOP! STOP, TIME, STOP! Everybody's August birthdays are about to happen and I AM NOT READY because I have not blogged LAST YEAR'S August birthdays, and I know that that is an insignificant detail to everyone in the universe except for me, but it matters to me. In fact it's really been hanging over my head and has been for 11+ months, so I'm determined to try to fix it. And no, this is not just me projecting or misplacing my feelings about the kids getting older faster than I'm emotionally prepared to handle, because that is a TOTALLY SEPARATE ISSUE that yes, is also happening. But this isn't about that.

Anyway, I'm gonna jump off the caps lock key now and go dig up some old photos and meet you back here tomorrow!

Is Facebook Killing Your Blog?

Or is Instagram?
Or is [insert alternate social media platform here]?
Follow up question:  Or, is Facebook (et al) just killing the comments to your blog? 

Would love to hear your thoughts.  My sister and I got into a discussion about this a couple of months ago.  Also, I gave up Facebook for Lent this year, which was a nice reprieve and an eye opening experience in some ways.  Here are some bullet points from my brain:

• It is so much easier to comment (or click 'Like') on Facebook than it is to leave a comment on most blogs that I think most people have gotten used to the ease of Facebook (and Instagram, etc.), so now leaving a blog comment feels like a huge pain with all those indecipherable code words to type to prove that you're not a spamming robot.  (Hilarious when you think about it.  Oh, how times have changed.  How did we all survive when communication involved stamps and dialing?)

• I do not think that blogs in general are a dying breed, but watching blogs I have loved over the years come and go, it seems that those of the true "mommy blog" variety are the most likely victims.  I think this is because posting pictures to Facebook (et al.) is so quick and easy, as is writing one liners like, "Georgia lost her first tooth!", so a lot of former mommy bloggers (circa 2005-2010) have moved on to just posting everything on Facebook.  Blogs with additional content or narrative seem more likely to still exist.  
• Exception to this:  Die hards like me who for whatever reason just feel committed to keep going with what I've started.  There are a few reasons I prefer to keep up with the blog that I can think of right now:  (1) I like having one chronological record for our family -- this is like our ongoing scrapbook, (2) I like the fact that I can print the blog in book form, and (3) My big mouth and over-sharing of pictures.  If I feel like writing for pages or paragraphs instead of just something of Tweet length (not that I'm on Twitter...), or if I feel like posting 50 pictures instead of 5, then I can do so without feeling bad about it.  This is because anyone looking at this blog sort of chose to come here, whereas with Facebook, I feel like whatever I post is getting put in everyone's faces.  (Not that they don't have a choice in the matter to unfollow or 'hide' or whatever the "you're annoying me go away!" terminology du jour is, but still, in my view there is a certain etiquette that should be observed when using other forms of social media that I don't worry about with the blog.)

• Another thought regarding family blogs is that it may have a bit to do with the children aging.  First, as Beth pointed out, there's the simple fact that recording the family's fifth trip to the apple orchard may not feel as critical as capturing the first four did.  Second, as my friend Heather, (who recently realized while trying to compile a photo calendar that she had taken no photos of her children during the entire month of October), pointed out, older children do not change (physically, maturity-wise, or otherwise) as rapidly as wee ones.  Her eleven year old seemed roughly the same to her in November as he did in September, whereas at Waylon's age huge developmental milestones and physical changes may have occurred during that time span.  Third, for some bloggers, depending on how much of their family's lives they had been sharing online in the first place, they may no longer feel comfortable for privacy reasons discussing intimate details about their children as they get older.  (This applies to me with Georgia I would say.  Something about turning five, I guess.  I still share a lot and try to paint a relatively accurate portrait of our lives, but I hope all readers know there's probably more to any blog that is left out than is included.)  I have felt shocked to hear of impending divorces of bloggers I thought I knew so well, and thought were living in happy-marriage-bliss-ville, which just goes to show that even the most open book blogs, well, aren't.  [Note: OMG, no this is not some kind of secret message foreshadowing.  To my knowledge Joe and I are not getting divorced.  That was just an example!]  

Okay, that was all.  I know it's a pain to comment, but if you have thoughts on this subject please chime in, because I love it whenever anybody does.  In summation:  it sure would be nice if Blogger would see fit to update their comment-leaving doo hickey.

Also, if you are my blogging friend, please do not stop blogging, because I so enjoy reading your blogs much more than Facebook.

Okay, bye.  I have to go check the book of the face now.  Something may have happened in the last five minutes.       

Waylon's Hair

I feel hopelessly behind on blogging, and I know that I could just skip it and move on, but you know, CUTE STUFF HAS HAPPENED. And of course, not blogging it doesn't mean it didn't happen or whatever, but hello, THE GIRLS WERE FLOWER GIRLS. So I have to get to that. Most of the rest of it is just everyday junk that no one really cares about, except that I do for some reason. Blogging is my way of freezing time, living life twice.

If I posted entries every day would I catch up? Who knows. The thing is, with so much travel this spring, I'm not just behind on blogging, I'm behind on everything. Paying bills, putting away winter clothes, returning phone calls, you name it.

If I could hang a big "OUT OF ORDER" sign on this blog I might, because I'm having trouble putting together anything logical or cohesive. In an effort to get back into the swing of things, I'm just going to declare that I don't care and dive back in with the important topic of: Waylon's hair.

Wait - let me take a step back for a minute. Can we discuss the milestones that have flown by unnoticed? Something about the marker of my dad's illness has really brought into relief how much Waylon has changed. 11 weeks passed from the day my dad entered the hospital to the day he died, and in that same time Waylon went from a puree-eating, wobbly sitter with no teeth, to a sitting, crawling, pulling up baby with two top and two bottom teeth who eats like a horse. He got a clean bill of health at his nine month check-up, where he was also declared a string bean bobble head after logging in in the 25-50th percentile for weight, but 95th+ percentile for length and head circumference.

Aaaaaand, speaking of his head...(like that segue?) Let's discuss his hair. Everyone agrees it needs a cut. I'm just scared of him going from looking like a baby to looking like a lawyer overnight. (I can say that because I technically still am one, right?) So, before any scissors graze on his gorgeous locks, let's take a look back and admire the crazy. Is it curly? Is it straight? Is it brown? Is it turning blond? Is it a wig? You be the judge.

Straight:




Wavy?:




Freshly washed and extra fluffy:




Curly:


{His secret? Heat, humidity, and a touch of product called "I Can't Believe it IS Spit-Up"}


Top-Knot:



The wet look:




Close-ups of the windblown look: (these crack me up)



The wet and windblown look:




The possible toupee?


{Oh, don't eat sand, bro!}





ETA: Oh! I forgot to add one more from back in March.  The mohawk:

I blog in my head more than on the computer

This may strike you as funny coming on the heels of my prior post, but can I just say that I think one of the things that holds me up from blogging more consistently is that the girls (Waylon is presently exempted from this indictment) are, pardon my French, being little shits at bedtime. Ugh. We've even implemented Weissbluth's "sleep rules" poster method (from one of those chapters in his book for older children) and a sticker chart, but alas, Georgia and June are managing to drive me to anger each night. Which is a real shame, because I hate for that to be the final impression they have of their parents at night, even though they seem to wake up not holding any grudges. And I don't know if Joe's just more patient than I am, or if I'm just more tired after a full day of watching children, but it's definitely me who is most prone to letting my frustration boil over in the form of stern words, a raised voice, harsh looks, and various threats (e.g., I had to tell June tonight that if she made me come back to help her find one more stuffed animal in her crib, that I'd remove them all). <--I'm sure that sounds super mean to you, but I swear, I really get to the point of wanting to punch the wall with their antics sometimes, and not just at bedtime. I try to be patient but I guess I'm not the most patient mother out there. I wish I could do better and always show them love and not anger, which - please don't misunderstand - is not the same thing as me saying that they do not need discipline or that Joe and I don't embrace our role of providing it. Anyway, it's frustrating because so often lately I feel like we'll have a great day, followed by a terrible ending; like a fun carnival ride that suddenly crashes and burns. After getting through dinner dishes and other cleanup, a recency effect seems to cause me to bitterly focus disproportionately on the bad parts of our day, and it doesn't leave me in the mood to post sweet stories and pictures. I sure hope the girls' lasting memories aren't the bad parts, too.

But in my head, you should know, I'm a fantastic blogger. I walk around pushing a stroller in the sun, snapping pictures here and there, composing succinct and witty entries about the following: Waylon's awesome t-shirts and onesies, June in general, Georgia's kindergarten exam, Georgia's diet/eating habits, the girls dancing to "Hot Stuff", everyone in dress up clothes, Waylon's curly hair in the heat, fun family outings, and more! And I wonder, why is no one leaving me comments, telling me how adorable these children are and how I have made their day with such fine Internet entertainment? Oh wait, that's right...I never actually created any of those posts on the computer. They were only in my head. Because at the end of the day, the kids have left me just wanting to veg out, plop down and watch TV in exhaustion, or in this weather, have a beer with my husband on the porch. (Which, granted, is not an altogether bad outcome either, but I do wish there was more time for both blogging and chilling.  Certainly many childhoods, including my own, have passed without being blogged about, and to no ill effect; that is not my concern. However, I consider blogging to be a hobby of mine, something that in theory I'm doing for enjoyment, so it bums me out when it falls by the wayside, or worse, feels like a chore.)

Sorry you just got a stream of consciousness entry of the worst possible sort:  blogging about blogging. I suppose you can let me know which of the above entries you'd prefer that I actually shake out of my imagination and on to your screen, if any.