Challenges

I love my kids- they are amazing, beautiful, fantastic beings, and I miss them lots when I'm at work. However, I have no choice but to work full time so I (along with Hubby) can afford to provide my kids with food to eat, clothes to wear, and a roof over all of our heads.

The thing is, since Y was born almost three years ago, we've struggled with maintaining the same consistent childcare. We've always taken the kids out to babysitters, never having a nanny or anyone in the house with them, for a myriad of reasons. We started with a wonderful babysitter, who I trust totally and she was (is) amazing! We were also fortunate to only have to pay for part time child care as we had some family assistance a few days a week. However, about a year after we started using her, our family childcare had to end and the babysitter didn't have space for Y on the other days.

So we added a second babysitter- sitter #1 was three days a week and sitter #2 was the other two mornings only and was kind enough to transport Y to the family childcare for the other two afternoons (still with me here? it was exhausting!) Then sitter #1 had a baby and so she took a maternity leave, so we were back to sitter #2 full time. The regular family childcare ended totally, and once sitter #1 returned from her leave, she shortened her hours and it no longer worked with my schedule.

**Keep in mind that this doesn't take into account at all the vacations, days off and babysitter's kids illness that left us scrambling multiple times for coverage!

Fast forward a couple of years, and now I'm facing some more childcare challenges, with changes in our schedules for the coming school year, and increasing costs of childcare for two kids over one (side note: why didn't anyone ever tell me that having two kids is EXPONENTIALLY more expensive than one, not just doubling the expenses??!!!) I am just so frustrated right now by all of the roadblocks I keep encountering and this is just one of those times that I wish I could be a SAHM, or that Mary Poppins was real...

I want to close by saying that I am not at all trying to complain about babysitters needing time for themselves, kids getting sick, or having to find childcare for my kids- I work really hard to make sure that my kids are well taken care of and if I could be the one to meet their needs full time, I would.

Crafty Girl

So, I aspire to be crafty- I can get lost at Michael's for hours, I love arty things like jewelry making, painting, drawing, crocheting, etc, but lack the funds, patience and real talent to actually make my own anything. But I was determined to do something, and I really wanted to make napkin rings. We use cloth napkins an average of once a week, so napkin rings are really something we'll use.

Three months ago, I embarked on a trip to Michael's, determined to come home with the supplies (and drive) to make a dozen napkin rings. Unfortunately, I was a bad girl and didn't take any "before" pictures, but I do have "after" pictures. First, I'll explain what I did:

I bought a dozen wooden spools, about an inch wide and an inch in diameter. I wrapped them in floral tape (inside and out), and under the floral tape, I placed a silk flower. This took about 2 hours or so to get done. Then the rings sat in my front closet for about two and a half months until today, when I finally went back to Michael's to buy some ribbon to wrap around the outside of the rings. Floral tape needs to be pulled really taut to stick to anything and it really only sticks to itself, and it's super sticky, so I needed to cover it. I bought some 7/8" wide ribbon (apparently Michael's doesn't have regular old 1" wide ribbon) and was originally planning to use a hot glue gun to get it to stick to the rings. However, I was informed by Gina at Michael's that hot glue will make the floral tape melt, so she introduced me to nifty little tools called glue dots. They basically look like the sticky goo pieces used to adhere a new credit card to the paper its sent on, but much stickier.

I was planning to ribbon-line both the inside and outside of the rings, but after lining all of them on the outside, I lined one on the inside and it made the ring a bit smaller so it was harder to pull the napkin through.

Without further ado, here are the pictures of my adorable little rings:

I love how cute they are- my little garden!

If I were going to do it over again, I would do a few things differently. First of all, I would have chosen a smaller, flatter flower, even though these ones are super cute. I would have also skipped the floral covering and just found a different way to adhere the flower. I would have gone straight to the ribbon and saved a step.

But that's for next time...

Thank You, I'm Sorry

Lately I've been noticing how often I (and others) apologize for things that don't warrant an apology. Not to say that they shouldn't be acknowleged at all but why do we feel this compulsive need to apologize? One example of this is that I was walking down the hallway at work with a client and we bumped shoulders.

"Oh, I'm so sorry" my client quickly said to me.

"Don't worry about it" I replied, instinctively.

But I continued to think about it as we continued to walk and as we sat down in my office, I said to my client that I was giving her a homework assignment. (this isn't a punishment, I often give clients "homework" to help them to reinforce things we're working on in therapy.) I told her that her homework was to work on not apologizing. I pointed out the instinct to apologize when we bumped into each other, but that maybe the better reaction would be to say "excuse me". We continued to discuss unnecessary apologies and I kept thinking about it for days afterwards. I gave myself the same homework assignment as I gave to my client- work on not apologizing when it isn't warranted- challenge myself to find the right words to respond to situations instead of just apologizing. How often do I instinctively say "I'm sorry" when a simple "excuse me" will do? Where does this compulsive need to apologize come from? I notice this now in myself and in everyone around me- what do you think? Do you apologize when there is no necessity for an apology?

The other think I noticed recently is "thank you". I'm a big believer in thanking someone when it is appropriate (and apologizing too, please don't think I'm just a big meanie who doesn't want anyone to take responsibilty for themselves) but I feel like we (ok, I, but I'm generalizing here) say thank you when it isn't necessarily the appropriate response. I noticed that whenever I leave a meeting, I say "thank you" for the person who I just met with. Why am I thanking them? They likely just gave me more work to do.

Anyways, these are just some of my thoughts...hope y'all are making it through the 9 days all right...

Nine Long Days

So, it's that time of year again...the NINE DAYS will soon be upon us. It's time to figure out what dairy meals (or at least non-meat containing meals) we'll be eating for the next week and a half. Hubby and I have been really good about menu planning each week and end up having the same few meals every week- I'm sick of that stuff, and the idea of having to figure out more options and being restricted to milchigs- it's exhausting! And compounding all of that is the fact that both hubby and I are super picky- in different ways! I don't want to just serve pasta every day, and too much cheese gets so gross! Part of the challenge is also finding something that will be nutritious, filling, and satisfy all of us. I feel so uninspired, and I've been scouring cookbooks and feeling just the same. I'm trying to compile a list of all of my milchig meal ideas, even though we won't end up making half of them. So here's what I've got so far- feel free to steal my ideas and contribute more in the comments...

Lasagna
Homemade Pizza
Broccoli Quiche
Salmon or Tuna Quiche
Fresh Fish
Tomato Soup
Cream of Potato Leek Soup
Perogies
Baked Potatoes
Tortilla Pizzas
Frittata
French Toast Souffle
Macaroni and Cheese
Baked Ziti

Tidbit of cuteness

This morning, my 2.5 year old son, Y, noticed that I had painted my toenails. He bent down and touched the polish and asked "What's that, Mommy?" I answered that it was nail polish. He looked up at me and with a big smile, said "it's pretty". melt! He's going to be a heartbreaker, that one.

What those are that?

Welcome to my blog!!! I've been toying with the idea of starting a blog for a while now, and I finally did it! I'm a mom of two young kids, a 2.5 year old son, Y, and a 5 month old daughter, H. I'm madly in love with my kids and so many of my posts will be about them and the funny/ridiculous/WTH things that they say and do. I'm a full time social worker and have a pretty hectic work life and a pretty hectic home life, too, so I decided to blog to vent and also have a space (outside of facebook) to share what's going on with my friends who I don't get to speak to often enough. In my spare time (ha!), I watch way too much bad TV so I'll likely rant/rave about what's going on there, too.

And now, for the origin of the blog title...This is probably one of the funniest things (in my opinion) that my 2.5 year old regularly says- when he doesn't know what something is, he asks "What those are that?" instead of just "what is that?" and I just love it.

I'm really looking forward to sharing with you all and getting to know you through comments too. I'm really excited to be blogging and I hope that you enjoy it too.

Peace out!

~Ronit