Sharing Hobbies with My Kids

Okay so the other day I wrote about my Empty Cup and how I’d picked up an old hobby to keep from going insane. My awesome best friend has taken up embroidery and inspired me to pick it back up. She makes pretty things for her baby. They are dainty and beautiful. Up till now I’ve just been screwing around on a pillowcase and trying to learn new stitches. I’m not great, but I enjoy it.

Last night while at my in-laws I decided to do a little embroidery on a pair of cut-off shorts for Crazy Eyes. She has a booty that fits in a 4T but is so tall that she needs a size 6 so I’m making shorts for her out of old pants. When you have a bunch of kids that are growing like weeds you save money when you can. Any way, while my mother-in-law bathed the twins I got to work. To my surprise, Crazy Eyes, The Boy, and The Oldest were all interested in trying what I was doing. If you ever want to test your patience, try teaching three kids how to hand stitch at the same time. To their credit, they were also pretty patient with me. I’m pretty sure I re-threaded each of their needles about 4 times at least. The Hubs even stepped in to help. The most interesting part was seeing how their styles and ideas were so different.

The Oldest wanted to make something with her fabric and thread. She saw it as a means to an end. “If I sew this fabric together I can make a bag.” Her stitches were small and fairly uniform. She got frustrated when they weren’t in a straight line. She asked me questions about how I learned to sew and what I could make. (My grandmother taught me hand stitch and I can’t make much.)

The Boy took a different approach to it all. He initially claimed not to be interested in learning to sew but, once he learned that Daddy and all of his grandfathers knew how to sew, he decided to give in to his curiosity. His approach was the most like embroidery. He had no interest in making a useful item. He just wanted to do something with his stitches. He made his stitches into a square and a triangle. They were uneven and a little weird but they were obviously what they were intended to be.

(I swear to God we bathe her and make her brush her hair!) True to her spirit, Crazy Eyes was the least interested in the final product. She just wanted to play with the needle and thread and make stitches. This isn’t to say that she didn’t get frustrated and pout a little when she saw that her older brother and sister were struggling less. She frequently made strange mistakes and unthreaded her needle every couple of stitches. After explaining to her that getting better takes time and practice and that I mess up sometimes she was pleased with what she’d done and moved on. Zen in all the important ways.

It’s easy sometimes to lump my kids into categories and judge them accordingly. It’s “my older kids” and “the twins.” It was good for me to sit and watch them explore with something new and scary and a little risky. I got to see them be perfectly themselves and learned some patience in the process. As an added bonus maybe they’ll be able to sew their own buttons on when they get older.

Mom Bod

I’ve written before about my struggles with my body confidence since having the twins. It’s not something I really anticipated before having kids. I think I just blocked the thought of it out and hoped for the best. When I was younger I didn’t like my body. I worked hard to learn to love it and now that that’s gone again I often get upset about it. Last week I was disappointed to learn that my waist is bigger than it’s ever been without a baby in my belly. For someone that used to pride herself on her “Brick House” measurements, (36″, 24″, 36″) this was a bit of a gut punch. Exactly what you want to learn the day before you take a trip to the beach right? Ugh.

I was determined not to let it ruin my trip though. Determined to make sure that I was in pictures of our first family trip to the beach. It’s such a Mom thing to be the one taking the pictures and not in the pictures. There are so few pictures of my Mom and grandmothers because they were always behind the camera or didn’t like the way they looked. I want my kids to see that I was myself with them. Thicker waist, jiggly thighs, and all the parts I don’t like. (I say jiggly thighs because my child, of course, felt the need to point them out while we were in the pool. Kids are a-holes.)

I’m so glad I got over myself and flipped the bird to that ugly voice in the back of my head. I had so much fun with my babies. When I look at the pictures I still see all the parts I don’t like but I also see the laughter. We spent like ten minutes trying to get pictures of us jumping in the air. It was a bit of a fail but it was hilarious and we had fun.

At the end of the day I even felt a little bit sexy despite being sandy and gross. I felt stupid for wasting so much time worrying about how I looked before our trip. I felt a little mad at myself too. It’s easy to forget that this body has done wonderful things. That it works hard every day to keep going so my family is taken care of. So here I am, rocking the Mom Bod and making my kids and husband laugh.

Please Say Hi!

Hey Folks!

So it’s been about 8 months since I started on my blogging journey. Since starting I’ve connected with many people via Facebook, Twitter, and other people’s blogs. It’s crazy to have people that I don’t know follow my stories but it’s also super cool.

I saw a fellow blogger who goes by the name “V” write a post asking her followers to reach out with a comment and I just loved the idea. It hit melike a smack in the face. I don’t know all of my readers. What are they like? It’s strange thinking about interacting with my readers but I’d like to do it more. You can read V’s post here. I really enjoyed the comments section on this post in particular. Their blog #Milleniallifecrisis is fun to read so I definitely recommend that you go check it out. So here I am, admittedly borrowing their idea.

If you enjoy my blog drop me a comment. Tell me who you are, what your blog is and what it’s about (if you have one), where you’re reading from, and (because I love positive thinking) what the best part of your day was. I look forward to getting to know you!

Have an awesome day!

Diana

My Empty Cup

This month has been insane. I haven’t slowed down enough to even think about writing more than once a week, if that. You know how they say “you can’t pour from an empty cup”? Well yesterday my cup ran dry. Back to back weeks of sickness raging through our house coupled with stress at work and The Hubs working strange hours had me giving more than I had in me. To put it into perspective, I had to take my husband to the ER this weekend at about 3am and then go to see Crazy Eyes in her first ever dance recital about 12 hours after we got home from the hospital. She was amazing, by the way. She missed nearly every step but she did it with confidence and pizazz. I couldn’t be more proud. (I was also proud of myself for carrying her up four flights of stairs on my back afterwards.)

I couldn’t have survived this far into the month (or this long in parenting really) without my family and friends. My parents and in-laws kept the kids overnight to let me rest when I was sick or to keep them from getting exposed to The Hubs’ cooties. Friends watched The Twins for us while my Mom and Bonus Dad were out of town. My brother called and harassed me to keep me laughing. My best friend sent me messages of encouragement. They all did their best to help keep us afloat. They cared for me and tried to keep my cup full.

You can imagine my shock when I suddenly realized that I’d given all I had left to give. I thought I was doing okay…well….surviving at least. Then yesterday I broke down. I told my Husband that I didn’t want to parent even though I hadn’t taken care of the twins since Friday morning. I cried and told my Husband all of the things that I’d been feeling but didn’t want to say or even think. A lot of what came out was guilt. (Good ole Catholic right?)

I feel so much guilt any time I try to take care of myself. I know that it’s irrational and misplaced but I really struggle with it. I feel guilty if I’m doing something creative that’s not food related because I feel like I should be spending time with the girls or cleaning the house. (Food is essential to life so I can’t feel guilty about it. *eye roll* I never said my logic was sound.) I even write my blog while multitasking 9 times out of 10. I feel guilty asking my parents to keep the girls overnight for anything that’s not necessary since they watch them so much and I work all week. I feel guilty spending money on myself because we have bills to pay. I gave in to the guilt over and over again and got lost in it. I tried to be super woman and got my cape caught in a jet turbine. I made excuses for why I didn’t have time to do anything for myself. Tried to pretend that putting bubbles in my morning bath or listening to audiobooks while I drove was enough to sustain me. (Putttinh bubbles in a 10 minute bath doesn’t make the bath any more relaxing in case you were wondering.)

So last night I picked up one of my old crafts. Within minutes I felt better. The most amazing part to my guilt-addled brain? The girls were fine. My husband was fine. The house didn’t burn down. No one scolded me for not spending every possible moment with my kids. I watched them play while I tinkered around. By the time they went to bed I felt like myself again. I was excited to snuggle and love on them as I tucked them in where before I just wanted them to go to bed and stop crying and leave me alone.

Hopefully I’ve learned my lesson. If not, at least I have this to look back on.

Dear Future Self, Stop being dumb and go refill your cup!!! Sincerely, Past You

Superhero Names

Crazy Eyes never ceases to stir up the creativity and weirdness in our house. An offhand comment by her sparked a long, ridiculous family conversation about what superheroes we all are. I couldn’t have made this up if I tried. Overall I feel like we’re a pretty bad ass team guaranteed to strike fear into the hearts of our enemies but I’ll let you be the judge.

1) Crazy Eyes: “Powerful Unicorn Princess”: She wears two dresses, has a pet rainbow horse, and kills people with her unicorn horn. She can also make anything real…like Godzilla. She wears a charm that helps her disguise herself as a regular person. Her catch phrase? “No one can be bad! God made me!” How does she introduce herself? “You call me Powerful Unicorn Princess!” Her nemesis wears tons of makeup and no panties under her dress or socks in her boots.

2)The Boy: “The Gunner”: He has a weapon that can launch anything, “even Deedee.” He wears pants on his head that kick people, a mask, and a cape that can trick bulls. He wears a Batman mask to confuse people. The Gunner rides a giant rainbow parrot named “Buck”. Buck has the ability to call other animals.

3) The Hubs: “The Pain-Er”: He carries around a back massager that shoots out pain to people. He has a tail that he whips people with. His feet send out germs that make people sick. “He can shape shift into anything that’s a boy…also Deedee but no other girls.” What kind of costume should he wear? “A bunny! Obviously!” He also has a pet dragon who spits out fire.

4) Me: “Stylish the Butterfly Princess”: Her superpower? She acts like a painter then kills people with her paintbrush. She also stabs people in the eye. What does she wear? She wears beautiful things like jewelry “to make everybody blind.” She also wears purple nail polish and her clothes are “blue green mixed up into green blue.” She has a pet bunny who’s ears turn into knives.

5) The Hun: “Fancy Sprinkles”: She grabs magnets and throws them at people. She wears a sprinkle dress with a pink bow on her head. Her catchphrase? “I’m the princess of the babies!” Her animal is a bee that can sting or “suck other people’s blood”

6) The Conqueror: “The Wizard”: She can make anything! She can turn into “a snake, a koala, a dragon, a possum, a regular baby, and Luna.” Her eyes can shoot out lasers. Her dress is dark pink, her hat is light green, and her boots are black. Her wand looks like a screwdriver because she’s pretending to work.

Powerful Unicorn Princess and The Gunner in action.

6 Ways Toddlers Are Like Drunks

Raising young toddlers makes me feel bad for all of the people who had to take care of me when I was a stupid, drunk college student. Rest assured, Dear Friends, that it’s coming back to me two-fold. They are like belligerent little drunkards at all times. What do I mean? Here are some examples:

1) They laugh at the most random stuff. I swear. These girls start giggling over nothing. One sees the other one feeding the dog off of her plate and it’s giggles galore. Make a strange new noise? Giggles. They’re constantly entertaining each other too. Hugs turn into baby hilarity. Built in drunk best friend I guess.

(AHHH! Did you see that dog! Pahahahaha!)

2) They fall over all the time. Standing still? Falls over. Running? Falls over. Drinking a bottle while standing? Slowly tips over just like a drunken hobo in an old black and white movie. Sometimes they even fall over and then giggle.

(The Hun watches as the Conqueror topples over.)

3) They have zero volume control. You know the drunk girl at the bar that shouts everything because for some reason when she started drinking her ears stopped working? It’s like she and her drunk BFF moved into my house. All things are shouted at maximum volume. Or shrieked! That’s a new adventure all in itself. They are suddenly little banshees running around shrieking and giggling and falling over.

(OH MY GOSH MOM LOOK AT THIS COOL PINK THING!)

4) They go from crazy to loving then back again SO fast! Tequila turns me into a cuddly, snuggly mess. Rum makes me crazy. These two live every day like they took a shot of each and hit the town. One minute they want snuggles. The next they’re running away screaming because you told them they weren’t allowed to eat the dog’s food.

(*slurs words* Listen…Mommy? Listen. I just love you soooo much. If you put me down I’ll scream and wake everyone else in the house. Okay?…I love you.)

5) If they see you with food, they’re suddenly starving. It doesn’t matter if they just ate and were so full that they were throwing their food, they want a bite of whatever you’re eating. They’ll even eat things they don’t like if it’s something you’re about to put in your mouth.

(Mom this is the best French Fry everrrr!)

6) Sometimes they throw up on you. I recently learned that while adults make gagging sounds before they hurl, toddlers give zero warning. My daughters and I all had an AWFUL stomach virus last week and there was so much throwing up happening. If I could erase the week from history I would. To their credit, they puked and rallied like champs.

(Yes, that is a tiny bottle of wine. No, she did not actually drink it. Yes, I took it away from her and like a true drunk girl she screamed at me then fell on the ground.)

Missed Exits

This weekend while we were headed out of town the Hubs and I switched roles. Usually he drives and I keep him awake by asking him stupid questions and reading fun facts off the internet. Our last trip involved a 45 minute long discussion/research session on the topic of Sloths. This time I agreed to drive for the first half because he was sore from working all day. Since I’d only driven the route once I fully assumed that he’d let me know when it was time to make the one big turn in our trip. He didn’t. We chatted and laughed while the girls slept. I overshot the turn by an hour. What was supposed to take us two and a half hours took us four hours. At first I was mad. I fussed and cussed. I was tired and grouchy and mad at him for not navigating. In that moment if I could have snapped my fingers and gone back and not missed the turn I would have. What about now though? I’d 100% do it all again. (Even the stop we made at that weird gas station.)

It’s hard to make time for each other. Hard not to feel guilty for not spending all of the time we have off focused on the kids or working on the house. Often when we do make time we spend most of it talking about work or the kids or worrying about all of the things that we have to do when we get home. Despite my initial anger of being 2 hours off course, I’m so happy that it happened. We didn’t talk about the kids. We talked about ourselves. Told our real life ghost stories. Tried to guess each others top three favorite animals. Laughed about times when we’d done stupid things. Found new things in common. Without knowing what we’d needed we drove right into it. We fell deeper in love without candles or the perfect date setting. Instead of a four course meal in a fancy restaurant, we rode in the Mom Van and snacked on sunflower seeds and skittles while we drank gator aid and coffee. It was perfect.

So many times in the course of our lives we miss exits. Something comes along and blocks our path. The bridge we needed to go over collapses. We get so caught up in what’s going on that we drive right past our turn. However it occurs, we are forced to go on a different route than the one we’d planned out. When that happens you have two options to choose from: 1) pout and cry and do everything you can to get back to your missed exit or 2) decide to enjoy your journey and keep your eyes peeled for better places to visit. I’ve always thought that Naomi Shihab Nye said it best when she said “The things we worry about are never the things that happen. And the things that happen are the things we never could have dreamed.” So celebrate your missed exits. Revel in your detours. Find beauty in the possibilities that you never imagined. Take a chance and drive past that exit. You may just fall in love with the path you find.

Ghosts of Hobbies Past

When I was pregnant I called my Dad crying one night because I was so afraid that after I had the Twins I’d get lost in them and not be able to find myself. He told me I’d figure it out and that it would all be okay. I see now that he was right but I wasn’t completely wrong either. There are definitely things that I miss about my old life. Right now I’m stuck on one big question: How the hell am I supposed to be visually creative with a full time job and two tiny terrorists in the house?! I spend so much time trying to keep up with them, half ass clean my house, keep all of us fed, write my blog, and get my brain back to normal after work that I want to be creative but feel like I almost don’t know how anymore. My old hobbies seem too involved and/or expensive for my current lifestyle. The thought of getting excited to start on a project only to have to put it down after a few minutes when a baby starts crying seems even worse than not starting at all.

Before I had The Hun and The Conqueror I had so many hobbies that I’d pick up and put down at random. A perusal of my craft supplies reveals them to me. Plastic molds and blocks of glycerine remind me that soap making was entertaining for a while. (That one pretty much went the way of the Dodo when I realized that I was a sub-par soap maker who couldn’t figure out what to do with all of my weird smelling soap.) A box of yarn and the start to a blanket from my crochet/loom days. I pick this up during the winter but this year things were too crazy and it’s too damn hot to sit covered in yarn in the summer. Beads of various sorts take me back to the many times I’ve embraced the Janis Joplin look and draped myself with strings and strings of beads. Bags of buttons and mirrors from some collage projects. Squares for the top of my crazy quilt piled up waiting to be sewn together. Tools from the pottery classes I took that I keep saying I’ll take again.

Harder to look at are the relics of my favorite mediums. These are the hobbies that I’ve let lie partially out of fear. The fear is admittedly irrational…and yet I find it hard not to lend it an ear. What if I’ve lost my skill (not that I was ever amazing to begin with)? What if I can’t create anything? What if I’ve changed and the things that brought me such joy are no longer pleasurable to me? The half filled sketch pads. The boxes of colored pencils. Ziplock bags filled with colorful embroidery thread. Thread that I used so long ago as I spent hours decorating jeans and book sacks. My paints. My box of paints and my brushes are the worst. I keep them out of sight. They make me sad and a little guilty. Seeing my paints makes me long for the time before kids. For the time when I could skip dinner and go straight to painting and paint until I was satisfied with my work without anyone bugging me.

I grew up watching my Mom scrapbook, sew, and craft when she had the opportunities to. I love those memories of us together and enjoy it to this day when I get to watch her show off her projects with pride. She likes to say that I make her do projects all the time but we both know that she comes up with most of the ideas on her own. I’ll find artistic me again. I have to for my sake and for my kids’. Maybe I’ll even find a new creative hobby to add to my list.

Book Review: Devil In The White City

Okay so as a Mom it’s hard to take time to read. I listen to a lot of audio books but sometimes I just want to sit down and read. It’s taken me a couple months of off and on reading but I finally finished reading Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson. I hated putting it down as much as I had to but kids and life take up a lot of my time. My family has been recommending the book to me for a long time and I can 100% say that I should have listened and read it earlier. It’s important to note that I’m not a fan of non-fiction. I find that it’s often dry or too focused on dates and numbers to enjoy. I love historical fiction though and this book reads like a crazy crime drama. The insane part is that it’s reality and not fiction. Erik Larson weaves together information from letters, newspaper articles, books, journals, and other historical records to paint a picture that’s bound to draw you in.

The book follows the stories of several individuals through the lead up, running, and conclusion of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Larson manages to make the lives of long-dead people interesting and relatable. It’s easy to think of the designers of the World’s Fair as actual people and not just names on a list of contributing minds. I feel like I know so much more about things that I’ve seen all of my life. Through this novel I’ve learned more about architecture, the lives of famous people like Buffalo Bill, the origins of Pabst Blue Ribbon, the first Ferris Wheel, and so much more. I found myself longing to read more about the Fair. More than once the taste of history given by Larson had me picking up my phone to do some research and dig deeper into the topics he briefly covered. Through his descriptions of the crowds at the fair and use of quotes from people who were there readers really get a sense of the excitement and power of the Fair on the entire nation, especially Chicago. I’ve thought about visiting Chicago before but this book settled it for me. I have to meet the city that gave birth to this story.

His rendering of H. H. Holmes is equally vivid. Holmes has been dubbed America’s first serial killer. At the time of his trial, many speculated that he was the Devil incarnate. After reading about his crimes I can see why. There were more than a few passages that made it hard to fall asleep at night. The amount of research that Larson has done on Holmes alone could fill up its own book. I think it’s important that his story be told alongside that of the Fair to better understand just how he got away with so much.

Devil in the White City was really an enjoyable and educational read. I plan on reading more of Erik Larson’s books in the future. I’ve heard great things about Issac’s Storm and In the Garden of Beasts. If you’re interested in reading Devil in the White City you can find it on Amazon by clicking the link here. (It’s even on prime!) If you have any reading suggestions please post them in the comments. Since I just finished my book I’m in search of a new great read. I look forward to sharing more books that I love with you all and hope that you love them too!

Getting My Groove Back

Things have been kind of weird lately with the blogging. I want to reach more people but don’t want my blog to turn into some cookie cutter thing just to get more views. I’d like to invest more time and money but I have bills to pay and a lot on my plate. Some of my posts have caused arguments. I’ve been discouraged and wonder if blogging is the right thing for me.

I read a blog post by Christian Mihai at The Art of Blogging today titled “Short Guide to Blogging Like an Artist.” I opened it expecting technical advice and got the encouragement that I needed. It made me remember what’s most important about this blog. That I do it because I love it. I do it because sometimes people enjoy what I say. I do it because life is too damn short to put yet another hobby of mine on the shelf.

So here I am folks! Not going anywhere! Thank you to everyone who has supported me so far and shared my stories and contributed their thoughts. Be on the lookout for more posts from me on more topics. While I love my kids and family, there are other cool things that I’m excited to share with you as well.