a worthwhile cause

Posted on November 21, 2013 by mommyinthemidwest

Last Friday, Ryan and I spent a half day volunteering at a local food bank. The organization, Gleaners, is well known to the community as a provider of food to the hungry.

In their words:

At Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana, we solicit, store and distribute food and critical grocery products to qualifying agencies who serve the public directly. Among those agencies are food pantries—as well as soup kitchens, halfway homes and emergency shelters.The food bank is the storehouse for millions of pounds of food and other products that go out to the community. The pantry functions as the arms that reach out to that community directly. Food banks and food pantries—they are not the same. But they share the same commitment. At Gleaners, we are proud of our partnership with food pantries—and many other organizations—who act with us on the belief that nobody should ever go to bed hungry.

Our financial advisor invited us to join Ameriprise agents and customers across the country in a National Day of Service; we were happy to oblige. I challenge you to watch this video and NOT feel compelled to do something to help.

I never took into consideration how much food we waste at my house until I participated in assembling Backsacks for hungry kids. As a team of volunteers, we prepared over 4,200 bags containing 14 items. Every Friday, Gleaners distributes 10,000 bags to needy children in Indiana to keep them from going hungry while away from school for the weekend. Sadly, the items in the bag might be all that some children get to eat. I’m fairly certain we waste that much food – or more – every weekend.

Here are the items we placed in each bag:

Back row: 3 microwavable pasta meals & 3 juice boxes

Front row: graham crackers, pb&j, pb crackers, fruit&grain bar, fruit snack, cookies, pudding, & cereal

The sheer size and capability of the facility was mind-blowing. Gleaners runs a massive operation with just 70 paid employees. They rely solely on volunteers to assemble the Backsacks. It was an honor to be just a small part of that mission and left me longing for a bigger role in serving my community. Just having enough is something we take for granted EVERY DAY.

Our volunteer group:

This Thanksgiving season, I urge you to do something – anything – to give back. If you only have ENOUGH, you have so much more than millions of hungry children in your own country. More than many families in your state, your town. Your community. In a day and time where we are so wrapped up with living in excess, we all have something we can give. Time. Money. Food. Can you help?

xo,

~C~

more rambling – childcare update

Posted on November 21, 2013 by mommyinthemidwest

Hard to believe it’s been almost 6 months since The Babysitter of the Year told us she was quitting. Closing. Whatever. That was truly one of the hardest things we’ve been through as parents. Stressful. Unexpected. Struck fear in my heart and opened me up to a world of uncertainties and insecurities. On July 1st, we took them both to a new in-home sitter and on August 7, Theo started attending Montessori pre-school three days a week.

How’s it going?

It’s going …. good. The transition was hard and it took longer than I expected but I can say confidently now that things are good. Am I glad now that it happened this way? Not necessarily, no. The boys still miss her. I miss her. I miss her kid. The boys still talk about her. The current situation is that Dexter goes to the new sitter every day and Theo goes there on Mondays and Fridays. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday he is at school. Not too long ago, after a day at the sitter, Theo was going on and on about his day and the fun that he’d had. I asked him if he liked school and he said yes. I asked him if he liked the new sitter and he said yes. I felt my heart grow warmer as a peace settled over me. Then, like a moron, I asked him if he had to choose, where he would go every single day.

He paused, and then said “I would go back to E’s because that’s the best place for me. I know that’s the best place for me.”

And then my heart about shattered into a million pieces. Months later, he’s still missing her and wishing he could go back. Me too, son. That’s not to say that I don’t love his school. I do. We do. We all love his school. His teacher loves him and has great things to say about his growth there. I have noticed him growing up, acting older, since he started there. I don’t know if that’s always a good thing, but I guess it was bound to happen one way or the other. I do believe that it’s been good for him to be the youngest kid instead of the oldest. He’s learning about social cues and rules and expectations. He’s growing more independent. It’s been amazing to watch him change in a short time. But it’s still sad.

Theo was having some behavior issues before this transition and I now deeply believe that it was due to being the oldest and possibly under-stimulated. E suspected this and told me this the day she said she was closing. I didn’t want to hear it but the simple truth is that he’s had a handful (or less) of issues since the switch. Because of Theo’s wacky antics, I really thought if anyone was going to struggle, it’d be him. He can be downright rigid and stubborn and I knew how attached he was to her. I can only assume that Theo’s ability to verbalize his thoughts and feelings helped him in a way that Dexter was not able to process.

Dexter really struggled more (visibly) than Theo and much more than I expected. There was a lot of crying every day at dropoff, clinging to me, and not wanting to go. Crying on the way there and begging not to go. Saying he didn’t like it there. Crying when I picked him up. I spent quite a few of my drives to work in tears myself, thinking THIS SUCKS. Stomachaches, wishing for nothing more than to be a stay at home mom. I have nothing but kind words for the two ladies that care for him, but it’s not the same personal experience that we had with E. As soon as things started to settle initially, Theo started going to school and we had to go through a transition all over again. The roughest part lasted about two months. But now here we are, almost 5 months into this and Dexter absolutely loves going there.

This morning, on the way he says:

No, that’s not J’s house.

YAY! That’s J’s street!!

No, that’s not J’s house.

YES! That’s J’s house!!

I pulled in the driveway and reached into the back to unbuckle him from his seat and put his coat on before getting out of the warm, cozy car. As soon as I unbuckled him, he hopped down from his seat and said:

That’s okay, I go in by myself. Have a good day, mommy!

Excuse me, two year old child? I think I will continue to walk him in for a little while longer. Anyway, about 3 out of 5 days a week I don’t even get a hug from him because he’s too busy running off to play with his friends and doesn’t have time for me. I’ll totally take that over the alternative.

xo,

~C~

laying low and potty stuff

Posted on November 20, 2013 by mommyinthemidwest

Wow, it’s already been 2 weeks since my last post. I keep thinking it’s been awhile but never seem to find the time or the inspiration to come here and write. I don’t know why. The boys have been super cute and fun lately. I haven’t been taking many photos either…lame.

They are so smart. I’m surprised every day by something they say or do. Theo just seems so OLD lately. He’s still super obsessed with Legos. He just loves taking the guys apart and mixing and matching their bodies. We build whatever came in the lego set and then he takes it apart and attempts to rebuild it. He’s pretty good at it! What I love the most, though, is his creativity. He builds his own little ships and guns and I literally don’t know how he comes up with this stuff. So neat to watch him.

What’s not so neat is that he is also obsessed with pee pee and poopy. Like, the words. Not the things. He thinks it’s soooo hilarious to call people “poopyface” or “fartface.” I guess it was funny the first time, but now it’s just pretty obnoxious. I’m not sure if it’s just his age or something that he’s picked up from school.

Dexter, on the other hand, might turn out to be our goody-two-shoes. A lot of the time when Theo is trying to get Dex in trouble (by telling him to say or do something inappropriate), he’ll say “No Tee-o, we don’t say that.” He’s got a little conscience on him. Theo is starting to tell white lies, denying that he did something or blaming things on Dexter. He’s not a very good liar.

Speaking of peeing and pooping though, for the longest time Theo wore a diaper to bed just because we were so paranoid that as soon as he started wearing underwear, we’d be back to the newborn days of getting up 5 times a night. Before he wore underwear to bed for the first time (on Nov 2), he had NEVER in his life woken up dry in the morning. I was curious if he was just peeing when he was awake because he knew he could or if he was actually peeing in his sleep. We’ve pretty much figured out in the last three weeks that he CAN NOT and will not make it through the night unless we wake him up to take him to the bathroom before we go to bed (about 3 hrs after he does). We’ve experimented and he always has an accident in the middle of the night if we don’t take him. Sometimes he’ll have 2. So, what do you do? Do you wake him up every night (a nuisance for everyone) to start teaching him or do you blow it off and let him keep sleeping in diapers? For now, we’re taking him to the bathroom at midnight and celebrating successes every morning that he wakes up dry – which is the majority of the time. I figure he’s going to be four in a little over three months…we’ve got to get a handle on this. Right?

We’ve been lazy with Dexter’s potty training. We need to be more consistent but here’s the thing. He consistently pees on the floor almost every time he wears underwear. He has some GREAT days, but he has some bad ones too. I know that’s too be expected. Does it make me a bad mom if I just don’t want to clean up pee off the floor or risk him peeing on the carpet or the couch? Yeah? I kinda thought so. We’ve got a little time with him – I’d like for him to be trained (at least for the daytime) by the time he’s three…still six months away. Dexter is more than happy to tell you after he’s gone but very rarely asks to use the potty before he goes. I think with more consistency on our part, potty training him will be easier than it was with ~~Mr. Stubborn~~ Theo.

That was a lot of potty talk, considering I didn’t even know what I was going to talk about.

I think that’s all for now.

xo,
~C~