i need an instruction manual

am i totally crazy for this?

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

One of our non-negotiables when looking for a house was that it would have four bedrooms.  All my close family and best friends live out of state so it’s always been important to me that my guests have a nice place to lay their heads at night when they are visiting.


We bought a house with three bedrooms.  

It seemed natural at first that the older child would have the bigger of the bedrooms – we’re talking about 30 square feet bigger – but that didn’t feel right.  They’re only 14 months apart anyway.  After thinking about it, we’ve decided to see how it goes, letting the boys share a room.  The room is about 13.5′ x 13.5′ and has plenty of room for two cute toddlers.  I guess my instinct is telling me that they play wherever the other one is, they go to bed at the same time, they get up at the same time…so why not?  Does this seem like a disaster in the making? 

Since we bought a house with just three bedrooms, this seems like a simple solution until the boys are older and express a desire for their own space.  There are some possibilities for a fourth bedroom either in the basement or unfinished attic space later on down the road.  

The only thing I worry about is bedtime.  When we move, we are giving Theo’s crib to Dexter and getting rid of Dexter’s.  Cold turkey.  Theo will have a new house, a new room, and a new bed.  Oh, and he’ll be sharing his new room with his little brother.  Too much at once?  Anyway, I anticipate putting them in bed and then Theo getting out of bed 500 times while he is getting used to his new freedom.  Maybe I’ll be wrong, I hope I am, but that’s what I worry about the most.  

With them both being boys, playing with the same toys, and being so close in age, it just seemed like a good idea.  We shall see…I’ll have to keep you posted on that one.  

Here are a few pictures of recent progress, starting with Dexter’s crib bedding (from Amazon, last year’s Kimberly Grant Zoom Zoom collection) and the new twin bedding I picked out for Theo (currently at Target).



The base colors – light gray and blue (with one row of tape, getting ready for stripes.

A couple of visitors came by to supervise our work. 


They approved.
They had fun playing with the used painter’s tape.
Momma working on those stripes.
Finally – finished paint job and the old carpet is gone.
Momma working on the master bedroom.
Going to paint those window walls some other color – just haven’t figure out which one yet. The color of the walls is a light aqua shade.  So pretty!  I’m thinking maaaybe red.  Too much?

If you google “red and aqua bedroom,” there are so many inspirational images…oh my.  Here’s one that I love.



Just realized I was ALL over the place with this. So here’s the recap… am I crazy for making/letting the boys share a room?  And is red/aqua awesome or what? 

xo,
~C~

this is the hard part.

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

Since I’ve got two weeks off between jobs + a house that needs LOTS of work and updates, I’ve been spending as much time as possible at the house doing whatever I can to get it (more) ready for us to move in to.  That means getting up in the morning and getting the boys ready for the day, whether that means going to the babysitter’s house or staying home with Nana, and then only seeing them for another hour or so each day.  This is the hard part.

I keep thinking it will all be worth it.  I have only been going at these long days for a week or so but I feel like it’s been 10 years since I’ve spent any time with my kids and I really miss them.  I wonder if they think about me when I’m not around because they cross my mind 10 times a minute.  I know they’re fine without me around.  But what do they think?  Do they miss me?  I’m looking forward to moving into our house and living there as a family.  Dinners there, baths there, bedtime there.  Living with my husband there.  Seeing the improvements we make over time.  This is the hard part.

My mom is in town. She has been hard at work painting for me the last 4 days.  I can’t wait to show you what she’s done!  I’d be lost without her, my father-in-law, and my mother-in-law.  I asked my mom what she thought dad would be working on if he was still here with us.  She laughed and said, “probably whatever you told him to.” I sure miss him at times like this. I know he would love our house, flaws and all, and would do anything he could to help us make it better.  This is the hard part.

The house looks worse than it did when we bought it because it truly is a construction zone right now.  We keep asking ourselves how we ended up in a total fixer upper when we have no time and very little money to make it the way we want it.  We can’t keep beating ourselves up for our questionable decision making skills. We have to look to the future and realize how great this house WILL be one day.  This is the hard part.

I really do believe one day we will look back at these days fondly and admire the work that we did.  The love that our family shared with us throughout this process..  Their talent, their generosity, their time, their aching backs and knees, and the list goes on and on.  I just have to keep telling myself that it will be worth it. It won’t always be like this.  This right here, this is the hard part.

xo,
~C~

Dinnertime: what’s right or wrong?

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

This has been on my mind for some time.  We go through periods of time where the boys eat great and I don’t have to worry about it at all.  Other times, I struggle with what to do.

Eating habits.  What do you do?  Do you try to coax your kids (toddlers) to eat what’s on their plate?  I have mixed feelings about this. I have a habit of cleaning my plate just because the food is there and it shouldn’t go to waste. Not necessarily because I am so hungry that I need to eat everything in sight. I don’t know what my child’s stomach feels like so is it fair for me to push him to clean his plate if he’s not that hungry?  Doesn’t that just set him up for the same bad habits I’ve fallen into, which have caused me to gain and struggle to maintain a healthy weight?

Sometimes we have a dessert that I am excited for him to taste.  If he doesn’t eat his vegetables, should I withhold that treat? Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t.  I don’t want to set him up for resenting vegetables.  If he is forced to eat them, won’t he soon start (if he already hasn’t) to rebel against them? I don’t want to set my kid up for failure. There are so many things to worry about as a parent that I never even dreamed of before.

Here’s a scenario that happens all too often at our house.  I’ll fix dinner and Theo will refuse to eat or barely pick at his food. No dessert.  We don’t force or high-pressure him to eat.  Bedtime rolls around and conveniently, he’s suddenly hungry.  Ryan says he shouldn’t get another chance to eat dinner because then he’s running us around like short order cooks.  Valid point, but I can’t let him go to bed with his stomach growling.  What if he really is hungry? At that point it’s been 7-8 hrs since his last meal and he really might need something.  Normally, if I have saved his plate, he will eat it.  Sometimes he asks for yogurt. I don’t ever allow crackers or cookies in that situation.  The doctor actually suggested yogurt or cheese as a bedtime snack when he skips meals.  I’m just torn.

Both Theo and Dexter are thin, hovering around the 20th percentile.  It isn’t like a bedtime snack is going to push them over the line to obesity. But should I be teaching them a lesson by sticking to a hard and fast rule about when they are allowed to eat?  I’ve read a million different things and theories.

What’s yours?

~C~