Enough is Enough

Not sure why I bothered showering this morning.  I'll be covered in poo & pee soon enough.  Yes, it's potty-training boot camp this weekend at the Hines household.  You can be envious of my life right about now.  I give you permission.

As the title states: enough is enough!  Myke and I are so OVER having 3 kids in diapers.  It's so expensive.  It's so gross.  The boys just turned 3 last month and are still not showing much interest in using the potty.  In fact, they will straight out tell us, "I don't want to wear underwear.  I wear a diaper."  Uhhhh...ok...  Eli even said that he doesn't want to move to the 3-year-old classroom for preschool because he doesn't want to wear underwear and use the potty (which is a prerequisite for the 3-year-old room.  They don't mess with diapers there).  So the boys are still in the 2-3 year old room.  They are supposed to move by the end of the summer to start Fall semester in the new room.  We are determined to get them there.  I will not have them be 5 years old and in the 2 year old classroom because they won't use the toilet!!  In fact, I think MOST of the kids in their current class are potty trained.  So they do see the kids using the teeny little potties that they have in the class bathroom.  This past Thursday I took all 4 kids to a birthday party.  Besides Ella and the hostess's newborn baby, they boys were the only other ones in diapers....and there were plenty of 2 and 3 year olds there.  AND I changed 4 diapers between my three diaper-clad children within a 2 hour period.  Two stinky.  Two wet. (if you must know the breakdown).  I felt like I was constantly on diaper patrol.  Such is my life.  Like I said, enough is enough.

So today it starts.  We are putting on the big-boy undies and throwing out the diapers!  Well, not really throwing out...Ella will still use them....for now.  She shows more signs of being ready than the boys.  She loves to sit on the little potty and clap for herself.  She grabs her diaper as soon as she wets it and whines.  Then she'll go bring me a diaper so I can change her.  Maybe we should potty train her this weekend, too.   Anyways, so we'll just pretend to throw the diapers out.  That's how the 3-day-boot-camp starts.  Get rid of the diapers.  No turning back.

Wish us luck!

Been an emotional past week or so.  Last Tuesday we heard the news that my uncle Brian (husband of my mother's younger sister, Debbie) passed away after a battle with cancer.  He was only 57.  Just a few days later I found myself on a flight to the midwest to be there for the funeral and a "Celebration of Life" gathering at my aunt's farmhouse out in rural Illinois.  Myke wanted to join me on the trip but we were unable to find care for the kiddos (one of the downsides of not living near family) and definitely knew that taking all 4 of them was out of the question.  So I went alone, and I'm so glad that I went, even though I was literally there for only 36 hours.  It was a beautiful and emotional service but it was great to be in the presence of all my extended family (most of whom I hadn't seen since my grandmother's funeral exactly two years ago this month...sadly, that was the last time I had been back to that area).  All of my mom's seven siblings were there, cousins, etc.  It was like being able to go to a family reunion, but, unfortunately, for such a sad reason.  There was great comfort, however, sitting there among them all, comfort that I hope my Aunt Debbie and cousins Alex and Cam felt as well.  Uncle Brian's passing is a great loss.  He was a wonderful man and will be missed by many.  I'm so glad he and Debbie made the trip out to visit us this past March and that we had that time with them.  I'm thinking of Debbie and the boys every day, hoping they are getting by and doing okay.

Debbie & Brian on their visit this past Feb/March

Lunch in Pacific Beach

California Adventure to Celebrate THREE!!

A quick post - Owen & Eli's birthday trip to Disney's California Adventure wasn't quite what we had planned when we asked my parents (MONTHS ago) to come out in May 2014 so Myke and I could take the boys on a solo trip to celebrate with them, but it was fun nonetheless.

When Chloë turned 3 we took her to Disney.  Just Myke, myself & Chloë.  The boys were 9 1/2 months old at the time so they would have definitely put a damper on the day, to say the least (ha..I'm mean...mean, but honest).  My mom (who has made a point to be here for every one of Chloë's birthdays since day one) was in town then so she watched the twins all day while we took Chloë on her birthday adventure.  Right then and there we decided to make it a sort of Hines Family tradition and do it with the boys as well when they turned 3.  Well, here we are.  They just turned 3.  We had been looking forward to having that time with just them for quite awhile now.  It was even more exciting because we NEVER get time with just them.  Never.  Of course we don't.  We have 4 kids.  I'm talking about time with just Owen & Eli and their parents.  No other siblings.  If we really got into it, we should have probably given each of them their own day trip to Disney with just the two of us, on separate occasions, but let's not get crazy here!!

So anyways, a couple days before our planned trip (i.e.: Myke had taken off work months in advance for this day...he VERY rarely takes time off...this was big) Myke stubs a toe on one of our outdoor chairs and BREAKS the toe.  He's broken a toe before, so not that bigga-deal.  However, the hobbling around for a couple of days apparently strained his back in some way and he ended up on his back with severe back pain for a couple days.  Long story short (did i make it short?), we had to all but cancel our trip to Disney.  I was pretty disappointed but definitely didn't want Myke to be hobbling around in pain all day.  Well, in the end, my Dad rallied and said he would come with us!

So, last week my Dad & I drove up with the boys and spent an incredible day at California Adventure with the boys.  I know it sound cliche, and I said this last time I blogged about our Disney trip (Disneyland in February 2014), but it was MAGICAL.  I truly feel that way.  It was just so much fun to see their (terrified...lol) faces when we went into CARS Land and saw Lightening McQueen, Mater & Red.  I was more excited than they were, I think!  Dad will confirm!   We had a wonderful day!  The boys were great.  We did rides (even ones that scared me!...Dad made us!), had ice cream, watched a show, saw the Pixar Parade, met Woody from Toy Story, etc.  It was a great time and so fun to spend it with my sweet boys and my wonderful Dad :)

They were nervous for each ride but ended up liking them (almost) all!

 Cars Land with Grandpa

Woody!

Grandpa & Owen

For reals?!  Summer 2014 is already maxed out and it's barely even started.  It's June 1st.  I feel like the next 2 1/2 months are just so jam-packed that I can't possibly fit anything else in.  Not if I want to keep my sanity.  I DO want some days where I feel like there is relaxing (haha...that must be a joke, right?!) and enjoying.  I want things to somehow SLOWWWW down before they SPEEED up (as I anticipate they will) starting August 18th.  The day my oldest child starts kindergarten.  I want to just hold on to her before she slips more away from me.  I can't even imagine this next stage of life.  I know it probably sounds like I'm making a mountain out of a molehill here, but I have really gotten used to our schedule and routine.  Three days a week we WALK around the block and take the kids to preschool by 8am (the boys go Mon & Fri and Chloe goes MWF).   We are usually pretty punctual about it (we are paying for it, after all.  x3!) and get them there as close to 8 as possible.  Now I have to start thinking about not only DRIVING Chloe to elementary school (no buses here!) but getting her there by 7:45am?!  EVERYday?!?!  Seriously??  AND the boys will need to get to their preschool three days a week by 8am (thinking I will have them go three days a week starting in September...but I may keep it at two..we will see).  Still around the block.  I'm not worried about that one, too much.  We just have our morning FLOW going on here.  I just am not sure about a NEW morning flow.  Will it work?  Will the kids still all get to eat breakfast together every morning?  I'm doubting it.  Even now we don't have much leisurely time on preschool mornings.  We are rushing around to get diapers changed, kids dressed, fed, teeth brushed, sunscreen on, etc.  Now we have to factor a 10 minute drive into this?  Oh man.

And then I have to drive AGAIN to pick her up at 2:20pm?

Anyways, just thinking about that a little.  It will be a change for us.  I'm just EXTREMELY lucky that Myke has been able to work from home so far and can help with the morning routines.  I don't know what I would do without him.  It would be utter chaos around here.  Truly.  He is the one who pulls the mornings together.  I'm a zombie for the first 10-20 minutes after waking up.  I need a shower and coffee to wake up.  I'm going to have to start figuring out how to pull myself together and get moving faster.  We'll see!

 

Anniversary & Spanish Immersion

It's May 29th.  Nine years ago today Myke & I tied the knot on the absolutely stunning and beautiful Hawaiian island of Kauai.  It was amazing.  I close my eyes and just wish myself back there.  Even if just for a moment.  It was such a fun week and 1/2 trip.  We rented an ocean front house with a pool for friends and family to stay with us at.  You could snorkel right off the back yard.  There were sea turtles RIGHT there.  My favorite.  The guests consisted of such a fun crowd and mix of different people from different parts of our lives.  We basically invited all friends and family to come.  Put out the Save-the-Dates a year in advance so if anyone wanted to save up for the trip, they could (that's a long trip from the east coast, where most of our friends and family were located).  We ended up with a great group of people from all different parts of our lives.  Apart from both of our immediate families we had some aunts and uncles, a few cousins, some college friends, a co-worker from a past job in Virginia, a grandmother, some San Diego friends (we had been living in San Diego a couple years by the time we got married), two friends from Australia, an employer, etc.  Everyone flew in at various times and most had their own accommodations set up.  We spent a lot of time with the guests both before and just after the wedding.  We had a cocktail pool party at the rental house to welcome everyone to the island, Myke's parents took everyone to a luau for the "rehearsal dinner", a bunch of us went on a snorkeling boat tour a couple days after the wedding, and quite a few people went to the rope swing and cliff jumping area together.  The weather was perfect the entire time.  I can almost feel the refreshing ocean breezes on my face right now...ahhhh.  Snap back to reality....not that I can complain too much about reality when reality is San Diego.  What a fun trip though.  Then Myke and I returned for our 5 year anniversary and renewed our vows.  Maybe we'll go again next year for the 10 year anniversary?  It is tradition now, isn't it?  Who wants to step up and take care of 4 small children for a week?  Anyone?  Hello?? :)

Well, I can't type for long.  Need to get ready to head out to Chloë's future elementary school's Open House Night.  We've had some exciting news happen to us in the Chloë-is-going-to-elementary-school arena.  Backstory:  back when Chloë was in T-ball (last Fall?), I was speaking to a mom about schools and she mentioned she was going to apply for her twins (same age as Chloë) to go to the Dual Language Immersion (for Spanish) program at their school for next year.  Well, as we are relatively new to this area, I didn't even know a thing about this program but I had started looking at one down where we used to live back before the move happened.  Anyways, in an attempt to make a long story short: I looked into the program, put Chloë's name in the lottery for it, and then all but forgot about it.  The chances of her getting accepted were quite slim from what I was hearing.  First of all, the programs were not offered at her home school (which is right up the road from us, very convenient, has a beautiful campus, great parent involvement, great test scores and supposed to be a GREAT school, overall....which is part of the reason we moved to this area).  So this program is currenlty only offered at two of the other eight elementary schools in our district.  The programs only accepted 48 children at each school.  24 of those children need to be native Spanish speakers.  24 need to be native English speakers.  Of the 24 native English speakers, 70% of the chosen children will come from that home school.  As in that, they would already be attending the school where the DLI program is offered (each grade has two DLI classes and two "regular" English-taught classes).  So we were in the 30% of kids that were applying from different "home" schools.  They only were taking 7 or 8 students "like Chloë" at each school that offered the program.  So pretty small chance, depending on how many people actually apply.  Anyways, I all but forgot about it until a letter came in the mail earlier this month saying "Congratulations!!"  and that Chloë's name had been picked from the bucket to attend the DLI program at one of the schools that it was offered.

So here we are, a few weeks later.  A few weeks of thinking about it, weighing pros and cons (this school is a further drive, won't go to school with neighborhood friends (5 of which are starting kindergarten next Fall)), talking to the principles from both our home school and the possible new school with the DLI program, chatting for hours on the phone with parents of children in the program currently, googling and reading about the 90/10 immersion model that is used, researching success rates, lots of discussions between Myke and myself, etc.  As NONE of the cons have outweighed the pros, or come even close-we've come to the final decision that we WILL put Chloë in the program.  We're super-excited about it the further we go and more we find out.  Today I had a chance to visit the school and see both a 5th grade DLI class and one of the first grade ones.  I was blown away with how well the first graders were speaking in Spanish and how wonderful the teacher seemed.   We're all going back tonight for the Open House.  I'll post more about it later!

**I didn't put much detail about the program in this post, but to sum it up, it's a K-6 program in which you are taught in Spanish (90% of the time in K and first, and then less each year on up through 6th). The goal is to have the students bi-literate in both English and Spanish by middle school.  I wish I had done something like this when I was in school!  Not sure if anything like this was even offered where I grew up...

Focusing on the Positive...(Thanks, Dad!)

***My Dad wanted me to note the things that HAVE gotten done while they have been here:

*New hardware on all the doors upstairs.  Chloë is super-excited that she now has a door that locks.  Luckily for us, we can easily un-lock it from the outside just as fast as she can lock it with a small pin we keep above the door.

*Garage was completely swept and shop-vacced (is that a verb?).

*Car was washed

*Clothes have been folded in a timely manner so that our couch hasn't been a mountain of clothes ...and I haven't folded one item of clothing in two weeks...Thanks, Mom!

*Silverware tray has been wiped out...haha...but the little things do add up!


I'm really not that negative and only complaining about what hasn't happened....my point in the previous post was that I just want EVERYTHING on my list done.  Now.  I have to start looking at the good.  The stuff that HAS been done.  Not the stuff that I STILL need to do.  But life moves on.  Moving forward....

Rambling....(This could be the title to EVERY post I've ever written)

Life is going fast.  It always seems to zip by just a little bit faster when we have guests in town.  I've realized that it's because I set myself up for a state of being overwhelmed when we have guests in town.  I'm just not Martha Stewart and I don't apologize for that...but I do feel a little bit bad that my dad probably loses 10+ pounds on every visit to our house.  He is NOT used to not only our vegetarian/some vegan/some gluten-free diet BUT also the fact that we don't necessarily get around to making meals for the adults.  Things get so busy busy busy in the day that when the kids take a rest, we all take a rest.  Then they wake up from naps and are READY to eat NOW....so you end up throwing something easy and convenient together for them.  Mac N Cheese, vegetarian chicken nuggets, grilled-cheeses, etc.  Not always the healthiest...and definitely not what my parents want to eat.  So the kids are eating that around 5pm and then my dad asks, "What are the rest of us going to eat?".  Well, the truth is, after the chaos of dinner, hearing the complaints/crying/refusing-to-eat-what-is-served-and-then-being-cranky-due-to-low-blood-sugar, often I've just about HAD it.  Whenever I take the time to prepare healthy, nutritious meals the kids don't want it.  Why do I waste my time on them.  We end up throwing away a lot of food off their plates.  So, lately, once the kids are done eating we just DON'T eat ourselves.  Or we make a quick frozen dinner.  Let me just throw in there that when it comes to gluten-free & vegan sometimes a frozen dinner is the best bet.  There is just NO easy meal that you can throw together.  That diet takes a considerable amount of preparation.  I'm not opposed to that.  I actually (believe it or not) enjoy cooking to some extent.  When it's quiet and I can focus on what I'm doing.  So almost never :)

Okay, so this post definitely went somewhere that I didn't intend for it to go...but that's how a lot of these posts are.  I just open the laptop and let it start flowing.  Pair that with a glass of red wine (and no dinner.  See above.) and you never know what I might ramble about.

On another note, while my Dad LOSES weight whenever he visits us, I GAIN weight.  Not fair!  It doesn't help that my mom arrived at our house with a giant bag of M&M's for us.  Well, they were SUPPOSED to be for the boys as incentives for sitting on the potty, but tell that to a chocolate addict.  I.Have.No.Control.   Not when it comes to chocolate.  On top of the M&M's my dad bought a giant bag of fancy truffles at Costco while he was here.  I've had two tonight so far.  With a glass of red wine.  And no dinner.  Who needs dinner?

Okay, so I guess what I started rambling about in this post was the fact that I set myself up for a state of being overwhelmed because I try to fit way TOO much into the time that we have visitors.  I start compiling a list of things I want to get done while people are here a couple months in advance.  Things I just can't seem to get done when it's just Myke and I and the kids.  For instance, while my parents were here I wanted to:  1) Visit the Children's Museum downtown.  We have an annual pass.  It's not easy to go there alone with 4 kids and I don't want to go to places like that on weekends when they are crazy busy.  Taking the grandparents would be a great idea.  Have not done this.  2) Take the boys to California Adventure for their 3rd birthday.  We have been planning this for 2 years.  3) Get flowers planted in the back garden 4) Take tubs of too-small baby and kid clothes to the resale shop to sell/trade. 5) Prepare for the yard sale we're supposed to have next weekend.

Those are just a few of the things on my list that I HAVE not gotten done yet.  My parents are only here 5 more days and already most of those days are booked and busy.  When parents visit I just try to squeeze WAY too much in.   I try to schedule every doctor appointment, dentist appointment, one-on-one time with each kid, often a haircut for myself, etc...just things that are easier to do with some grandparents to babysit at least SOME of the other kids.  I can only get done what I get done.  I need to stop stressing about crossing every item off the list   I just need to let it go.  LET IT GO...dahdahdahdah dahhhhh (Frozen. I couldn't help it.)

I need to lower my expectations and just realize that some things just won't get done.  And that's fine. I'm getting there.  I'm working on it.  It's a work in progress.

I have four kids.  At least one of them has basically told me that I need to pull in the reins and stop running around so much.  Owen has started telling them that he doesn't want to go and that he wants to stay home.  He's a homebody like Myke.  I kind of want to be a homebody for a bit.  I think I would have a lot more peace?  Not sure.  I'll definitely plan a day to just stay at home and play with the kids....soon....just as soon as I finish my never-ending TO-DO list.   Hmmmm