Awkward/Awesome

I haven't done an awkward/awesome post in, I don't know, 100 years. But my kids have really made some moments lately awkward. And the reality is, even though they were awkward, they were so laughably awesome too. Plus, it's Friday. Not that Friday's aren't particularly joyous already (because, hello, Friday!). But here's a little something extra to help you laugh your way into the weekend.


Awesome: I ordered some amazing toilet paper that not only is made from recycled material, the company donates 50% of their profits. Totally up my alley.
Awesome x2: The company is called Who Gives A Crap. Which, side note, my postman found this hysterical, as did I.
Awkward: Connor announced to his whole class the name of our new toilet paper and his teacher was less than amused. Even when she was telling me, I was like, "But isn't it funny?!" She didn't seem to find the humor in it all.


Awesome: Isla's teachers told her how proud of her they were for her doing the right thing in a situation with a friend at school.
Awkward: When I asked Isla how she responded, she said she put her head down and walked around the teachers to the playground. And she finished up with, "Mom, it was so embarrassing. It felt like I was a celebrity."


Awesome: Your UPS driver (of seven years!) recognizing you while out and about and saying hi.
Awkward: All the moms with you thinking you have a severe online shopping addiction.


Which, let's just let my next one be about the UPS driver too.


Awesome: The new travel stroller I ordered for our vacation this summer arrived.
Awkward: The UPS driver asked if I was expecting again.


Awesome: Callum and one of the yard duties at the kids school high five every day. Callum starts yelling his name and waving the whole time we are walking toward the school, until he gets his high five.
Awkward: Callum coughed so hard while we were walking to school the other day he vomited. I tried to warn the yard duty that his hands were gross, but the yard duty still gave him a high five.


Awesome: Scrolling through old pictures of the kids (one of my favorite pastimes), seeing an old picture of Connor and realizing just how much him and Callum look alike.
Awkward: The picture was actually Callum.


Awesome: Connor loves me to go out to recess with him when I am working in his class at school. He especially likes me to battle the other kids at tether ball.
Awkward: Getting beat by a second grader...who was not my child.


Like I said in the beginning, my kids give me a lot of awkward/awesome situations on the daily!

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Curious Callum

Callum henceforth will be known as curious Callum and I will be known as the woman in the yellow hat. Get it? It's a Curious George reference, for those not knee deep in all tv shows pertaining to 3-6 year olds. Callum certainly makes me feel like the man in the yellow hat every time I happen upon one of his messes/ideas/exploration adventures...whatever you may call them.

There is the lipstick all over my comforter...which I didn't even know was there until Ian asked why blood was all over our bed. I knew Callum got into Isla's lipstick because he was covered in it. I just didn't know he decorated our bed with it. I actually looked at it and said, "this is why we can't have nice things!" And, as you can see from the picture, Callum really regretted what he did.

Or there was the dumping of way-more-dirt-in-the-pool-than-I-care-to-admit fiasco. You try to get some dishes done in a moment of peace and your toddler sees it as an opportunity to ruin the pool water. I'm sure all those people that think our pool net is so cool are changing their minds now that they realize toddlers are obsessed with throwing things threw the net into the pool!

I'm not even going to get into the steak knife incident. Let's just say it was a miracle that no one got hurt and because of Callum, I now understand why all knives need to be locked up when you become a foster parent.

I feel like I could go on and on. This kid has done things my other two never did. He certainly is curious and just goes at life with gusto. And honestly, given that he is my third and not my first, I realize stuff is just stuff and react to all this, er, curiosity much better than I would have a few years ago.

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How to Clean a Wool Flat Weave Rug

You know when something happens and circumstances dictate you learn (or try to do) something that you thought not really possible? Well that happened when an adorably curious toddler of mine made a disaster of our living room while I was showering. His weapon of choice? Chocolate milk. He managed to get out AND OPEN two containers of chocolate milk...all over the living room. He dumped them all over the couch and chairs. You could tell he even rubbed the chocolate milk around with his hands. It was also all over the floor and rug. I wanted to cry. I also wanted to blame my brother, who got the chocolate milk for the kids...as if it was really his fault. After several deep breaths, I decided to tackle the disaster.

Knowing the rug would be ruined if I didn't do anything, I knew I had to do something, even if it ruined the rug in the end. After all, the rug would be ruined if I did nothing anyway. I thought about washing it in the washing machine, but it was too big. I did some googling and read things about blotting the stains our, which made me want to both laugh and cry at the same time. These people obviously didn't know the disaster my rug was. Then there were the people that mentioned professional cleaning, which would have probably cost just as much or even more than the rug cost initially, so didn't make sense to me. In the end, I found someone mention using woolite on their rug, so I went with that.

I drug the rug in the backyard, on the concrete. First I hosed it off. Using a pretty hard spray, I was actually able to get more stains and chocolate milk our than I expected. Next I used shout and sprayed it all over the rug on the stains. I let that sit for 20 minutes before hosing off the rug again. Then I made a mixture of woolite and water, took a rag and lightly rubbed the whole rug. On some stains, I scrubbed a bit. I let that sit for 30 minutes before washing the rug off again.

Everything I read said not to let a rug dry in the sun, as it would fade it. But I did it anyway. Given that we've owned the rug for about two years and have never cleaned it, I wasn't super covered about fading. I actually think the sun helped get even more stains out.

When it was finally dry, which I did flip it after I felt the one side was dry, I was pleasantly surprised how clean it looked. It actually made me wonder why I hadn't attempted to clean it sooner. But I guess now I know.

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Childhood

I'm pretty sure anyone who has ever been on facebook has seen one of those posts that starts with "you know you grew up in the 60/70/80/90's if..." Then it is always filled with childhood nostalgia. The comments are then always filled with people talking down on "parents today" and the way we are raising our young. 

Without fail, one of the things on the list will talk of the lack of seatbelts...like it was a good thing. And someone will always comment that they survived. This one always makes my eyes roll straight out of my head because, well, seatbelts save lives. And just because you survived doesn't mean that there weren't plenty of others that didn't. I still remember being in maybe third grade and a good friend was in a bad car accident. Only two people were wearing seatbelts in their van on the way to school. Two died. My friend was severely injured. Like I said, seatbelts save lives folks. 

Another thing that always makes the list is drinking out of a hose. First, I never realized this was a rite of passage in childhood. I don't necessarily remember doing it. But given that a good amount of my childhood was spent in my backyard, I am sure I did. But honestly, who are the people these days not letting their kids drink from hoses?! There will always be people on the fringe that disagree with things, yet I still don't think many find this controversial. My kids drink pool water, for goodness sake. And the youngest will drop to the ground and lick dropped food and drink off of it. Obviously a hose is the least of my worries. Like literally the least. 

So there you have it. Seatbelts are a necessity. They save lives and aren't something to joke about. But drinking out of garden hoses, have at it. Just remember, I don't think many really care about that one. So yeah. 

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New Glasses

I got some new glasses a week ago. Riveting, I know. I never really liked my old pair, so I was happy to upgrade to a new pair. I also asked about lasik. Unfortunately, these messed up eyes of mine would be quite expensive to get lasik on. I have some pretty messed up eyes. You know those "free" glasses you see advertised everywhere online? I've tried to do those before and they come out to a couple hundred dollars because of my complicated prescription. Apparently it's the same with lasik. Complicated prescription means a much more complicated lasik procedure and a lot more money. Like each eye costing several thousand dollars. So I shelved that idea. Instead, I decided to upgrade to the most thin lenses I could get. I mean, one may as well treat themselves when they get bad news, right? Haha! Honestly, I don't think I really can see much of a difference in the lens size between these ones and my last pair. I always have to pay extra for thin lenses anyway because otherwise the bottle caps wouldn't fit in frames...even thinner ones still stick out, but it is what it is. 

I also got more contacts. Even though they make my eyes super dry by the end of the day, they really are great for wearing in the rain and while swimming. And when I want to wear makeup because without them in I can't see my face to put on makeup. I told you my eyes are bad! I thought my eyes didn't agree with my contact when the dry eyes came on. Turns out it happens the older you get. Like really?! I'm not even halfway through my lifespan yet. I shouldn't have aging eyes this quickly! Of course, talking to other people, it is par for the course. 

Now you know way more than you ever wanted to know about my eyes, all because I wanted to show off my new glasses. Oh, and I totally skipped the funny story about picking out glasses. I went in and asked about clear glasses. They had a whopping total of three pairs. One was super thin and seemed like they would break instantly...and let's be honest, I've lost count how many times my glasses have been thrown off my face by my kids. The others just weren't the right style. I actually was considering one of them, but when I sent Ian pictures of me in various pairs, he said my smile was biggest in the pair I went with. So there you have it, the super scientific way I pick out frames. But also, these glasses are about as opposite as you can get from clear. Oh well.

Also, anyone with a bad prescription knows how much it sucks picking out glasses when you can't even see yourself in a mirror. Well, this time I spoke up and they went and got me a pair of contacts to wear so I could actually see. I wish I had spoke up much sooner because picking out glasses has always sucked for this very reason. And now the problem is solved...boom!

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Little Moments Not To Be Forgotten

It's been a while since I've done one of these posts, and I'm sad because they are actually among my favorite. Capturing the everyday of our lives and my kids childhoods is what I really enjoy doing. Because, so often, it's the little things we remember and the little things that truly make us smile.

car wash // bike ride // fro yo // reading

big boy showers // frisbee // painting snails // joy

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A New Master Bathroom

Remember back when I posted about us redoing our master bathroom? Yeah, it's been so long that I really didn't either. You guys, it's finally DONE. It took exactly 90 days, start to finish. Demo began on January 16th and everything was finished on April 16th. I thought that was kind of fun when I realized this. It's also kind of torturous that it happened in Ian's busy season when, you know, life isn't stressful for us or anything.

This reno took much longer than Ian or I expected. There were times I was annoyed. Times I was done being stuck at home with workers. Times I just didn't want to have to make my bed and try to keep Callum from getting all up in the workers business. But, it is finally over. And I must say, it looks more amazing that I would have imagined when we first began. Of course, that could be because the scale of this remodel took a much larger turn once demo started and we discovered a few things...like extra room to expand in to, messed up floor joists, blotched up plumbing and electrical. You get the picture. But now for the real pictures.

Here's a before, so you can remember what we were working with. I know it looks straight out of the 90's, but it was actually done only 3 years ago...glass block wall and all. And that bathroom was horribly lit, had no ventilation and the slate was impossible to clean. All it had going for it was the amazingly large shower, which I did enjoy.

And here's an after of the same view. Nice and bright. New, larger window...that isn't glued shut and stuccoed over. There are nice, bright led lights in there too. 

Another before shot. The WHOLE BATHROOM was slate. It also had a 3 foot long vanity, which was pretty dang small for Ian and I to share. We were hoping to go up to 4 feet, but actually were able to go all the way up to 5 feet.

And the same view of the new bathroom. Since we ended up having to redo everything, we were able to start with a clean slate and position the bathroom any way we wanted. I really, really wanted the window to be visible and not blocked, so that was what we had to work with. We stood in that little space many times with the contractor trying to figure how we wanted to lay things out. It felt so confusing and daunting when there were no walls or anything to figure out a scale of things with. In the end, it worked out great.

And now some more pictures of the bathroom. We picked everything out ourselves, which at times felt daunting, wondering if it would all go together in the end. We wanted something that went with the house (built in 1939) and wasn't a big fad that would quickly date itself. 

The shower glass has some sort of magic on it that frees itself of water spots. We've already used it and it totally dried clear. Talk about amazing! 

Also, the tile guys totally knocked my socks off with their attention to detail. Look how beautifully they lined up our tile in the floating drain with the rest of the shower floor. And they lined up the rest of the bathroom floor with the shower! The subway tile also seamlessly lines up around the whole bathroom, shower included. 

The quartz slab we chose for our countertop was also used for the shampoo nook in the shower and the shower ledge. That was something the counter/tile guys suggested and it turned out really nice. Also, I should mention, up until this point in life, I thought mostly all shower heads were the same. Um, no. This huge bad boy is life changing. I literally feel like I am at a spa, or a fancy hotel or something with that amazing thing. 

So there you have it, our shiny new bathroom. So light and bright. Oh, and the fan has a bluetooth speaker in it, which is totally awesome. I can now shower in peace, not hearing the fighting of the children in the other room. Talk about a win!

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