routines

Will 2019 be the year I finish painting the playroom? STAY TUNED…

shark

Now that winter break is over we are all slowly getting back into our daily routines. While I don’t typically like to have my kids over-scheduled in a lot of activities I DO try to stick to a schedule for meals, naps, and bedtimes. It’s especially important for my work week as I have to fit morning snack, lunch and afternoon nap for Nicky and the daycare kids all into the five-hour block of time between getting back from dropping Gwen at school and leaving to pick her up. In order to make it work we have to have morning snack at 9:30, right when we get back, and the kids have developed their OWN routine from there:

  • 9:30- 9:45 morning snack
  • 9:45-9:50 help me move the couch (see below)
  • 9:50-??? listen to Baby Shark and run around in a circle

They do this EVERY DAY and honestly… I don’t even find Baby Shark that annoying anymore. Oh and re: the couch, I don’t want the kids playing in the “living room” part of our living area because they always jump on the couch and throw all the cushions on the floor (annoying) and one time a toy was thrown by someone running through the living room and it SMASHED our tv so…. Anyway we push the couch forward to the entertainment stand (there needs to be a shorter word for this…) which pretty much eliminates the living room as a play area and makes the playroom huge with more room for running, playing and dumping out all the toys.

dough

Before Christmas my friend gave me a little jar of sourdough starter, which I promptly put in the fridge and forgot about. If you keep them on the counter they need to be fed every twelve hours but in the fridge you can let them go a week, two weeks or… a month? I’ve heard conflicting things from different people and websites, and of course there is my own personal experience of just leaving it for a month. Yesterday I FINALLY pulled it out and was like… is it alive? is it dead? WHO CAN SAY. I figured I’d feed it some to find out, and then I forgot to put it back in my fridge. This morning I have to say YES, it is alive and ALL OVER THE COUNTER. I transferred it to a bigger jar and popped it back in the fridge but HONESTLY I should start using it to make bread. Sourdough bread is actually one of my FAVES so it makes sense. If anyone has and tips, tricks, techniques, recipes or advice please let me know and REST ASSURED I’m going to set an alarm on my phone to remind me to feed Li’l Yeasty… weekly? Bi-monthly? Something-ly.

skin

Over the winter break, especially the last week when I was sick (I literally got a cough/lost my voice on New Year’s Day and I’m still not better) I definitely started slacking in the skincare routine department. SHAMEFUL in these times I know. I needed to get a new nighttime moisturizer so I decided to jumpstart my return to skincare by getting a TON of tiny products from Sephora. I wanted to try the Herbivore Pink Cloud moisturizer but I didn’t want to buy a full size jar in case I didn’t like it, so I got a set of small Herbivore products and THEN because I’d never used any of my Rewards points (I have literally never ordered anything from Sephora because the entire time I’ve been regularly buying stuff there it’s been three blocks from my house) so I got every (free) tiny product I could. I ended up with a bunch of new masks, moisturizers, cleansers, serums and facial oils, and a bunch of lip colour for some reason. SO be on the look out for a lot of well-hydrated selfies from me in the months ahead.

dishes

Last week we got a new dishwasher! You might recall we tried to replace our old, third-hand one a year ago but the new one we bought at the time turned out to be contaminated with mold and returning it was an extremely huge hassle that took honestly months. MONTHS! After Christmas we decided to give it another try with a different dishwasher from a different retailer and HONESTLY it turned out great. We were really anxious about something else going wrong so we weirdly kept it a secret? We just didn’t want to jinx it! But in the end we got a brand new dishwasher that had the look and all the features that I wanted/needed delivered, installed and the old one hauled away in a week and a half.

With our old machine we had to completely pre-wash everything before putting it in (you might ask “why put them in at all then?” and the answer is DAYCARE REGULATIONS). So we all got into the habit of leaving our dirty dishes in the sink/on the counter until there was enough to justify filling the sink with water. It was frustrating for me because I ended up washing up after everyone’s snacks and drinks all day long (I’m talking about people over the age of sixteen here) . With the new machine everyone can just put their dishes in it right away and wow. WOW. What a difference! We are all still getting used to this new routine but I sincerely hope “putting dishes in the dishwasher” remains a fun novelty activity my kids are happy to keep doing, haha.

go outside

Just before New Year’s I read There’s No Such Thing as Bad Weather and I feel a little silly about it but I really did find it inspiring. Obviously I did have some problems with it, like literally HOW can you say the only obstacle between kids playing outside in wet/cold weather is high-quality outdoor gear and not even acknowledge that these things are out of the budget for a LOT of families. Even secondhand may be too pricy/not an option if you don’t have the time/capability to troll through used clothing shops to try and find the sizes you need OR go all over town sourcing them from randos on craigslist or fb marketplace??? Like I got Gwen’s ice skates and helmet used via fb marketplace and YES I saved money but also YES picking up each item took literally hours of time. Anyway, there’s is definitely some seriously unexamined privilege in this book.

This issue aside though, before I even finished it I was really doing my best to get the kids outside more. This two weeks of winter break has been awesome and it’s been wonderful to see Gwen & Nicky have the chance to play and interact without the added variable of the daycare kids; last time I had vacation Nicky was still too small to really *PLAY* the way he can now and it’s been a delight. HOWEVER they (and everyone) have had a bit of cabin fever and too much screen time and there’s been a few temper tantrums and bad nights of sleep as a result. The day after I started reading the book I was DETERMINED to take the kids outside rain or shine and wouldn’t you know it, it was a gorgeous sunny day! Fully blue-skied and clear in the morning. It was cold as heck though, but I didn’t let that stop us and after a small amount of cartoons I bundled them up in head-to-toe waterproofs and we hit the playground. And you know what? We had fun!

Of course, I already knew how much fun my family could have outside in gross weather after Nicky’s extremely wet & muddy but also extremely successful pumpkin patch birthday. And the kids often ask to go outside in any weather at all, which is something I definitely should not be discouraging. I have found myself saying “not right now, it’s too cold/wet/muddy to play outside” which needs to stop! I think my main obstacles are:

1. I can’t send both kids outside to play on their own.
Growing up in the country I definitely had one of those “go out to play see you at dinnertime” childhoods with plenty of forest exploring, creek-wading, fort-building, and tree-climbing. We’re lucky to have a fenced backyard that the kids can play in but we do still live downtown in a major city and honestly… not all the people who live or pass through our neighborhood or even our yard are kind, or harmless. I’m just not comfortable letting them both go out alone, especially with my limited view of the backyard from inside the apartment. Also the gates don’t necessarily latch securely and while Gwen is very good about staying in the yard, Nicky just isn’t there yet. So both of them going outside also means me (or Taylor, or Sym) going outside and with work, school & home responsibilities that’s just not always an option. I will admit though that sometimes I just don’t wanna go out and stand around in the cold/wet while they play!

2. I get burnt out on outside time from school drop offs/pick up
Obviously this hasn’t been a problem these last two weeks but during the school year dropping Gwen off & picking her up with all the daycare kids in tow is a HUGE production. Getting everyone’s outdoor gear on and walking five block there and back at the speed of two- and three-year olds takes an hour, two times a day. Fitting in snacks, lunch, and nap around it takes some tight scheduling and when you factor in the dressing/undressing/cleaning up sometimes there just isn’t time to get in a good amount of outdoor play. Additionally during the warmer months we typically go outside after afternoon snack and stay out until pick up time but at this time of year it’s basically pitch dark by then.

Something that ISN’T an obstacle for us though is outdoor clothing; both kids have an abundance of waterproof rain gear and warm snow gear. Of course it hasn’t snowed at all this winter but the snowsuits are getting a decent workout as non-rainy-day outer layers to keep small bodies and inner layers of clothing warm, dry and free from mud. I know that we’re lucky that we can afford (or have previously been able to afford; all Nicky’s stuff is Gwen’s hand-me-downs) a variety of layering options and that makes overcoming my other obstacles easier. I have been trying to let go of the idea that expending the effort getting the kids and myself geared up for just a short amount of outdoor time is a waste, and recently we have been going out to play in the late afternoons when it’s dark and honestly, they have just as much fun as when it’s light. The other day I even brought sparklers out for them to play with in the rain before dinner and it was a huge hit! (I don’t think I could get away with that during the work week though, the child care powers-that-be probably frown on fireworks lol).

Going forward I want to continue making more of an effort on this. I’ve already seen positive results from both kids with better sleep and fewer tantrums when we’ve spent more time outside. Of course as soon as I embarked on this new adventure I immediately got sick as shit but I haven’t let that stop me… much.