So anyone who pays even the slightest attention to my blog or Facebook is probably aware that sleep is a hot commodity around the Larive household. Our children hate sleep. Many, many people have offered solutions...sleep routines, less screen time, baths before bed, less sugar...so.many.things. I have tried them all. ALL. Sometimes at one time. Some help, but none solve. Both of my littles have sun blocking curtains, white noise machines, and echo dots to play music and/or bedtime stories in soothing tones. We do meditation apps - which my son likes and my daughter hates. We turn on bedtime playlists - which my daughter likes and my son hates. No matter what combo we use...the end result is the same 90% of the time. I wake up at 3 am with my 7 yr old son laying with his feet in my face and his head at the foot of my bed. And my 6 yr old daughter is horizontal with maximum limb spread between my husband and I.
I know. I will miss this someday. But in the here and now? Mama gets cranky when a string of crappy sleep nights catch up to her.
I am also a terrible sleeper. I wake up at every noise and movement. I sleep next to the exact opposite - the snoring log. I love him and he is gorgeous but it is a wonder I haven't murdered him in his sleep yet. So this is how our morning went today....
Four in the morning, I am jarred awake by Lauren Daigle singing 'Rescue' from an echo dot somewhere in the upstairs. After the initial startle, I sink back in my pillows - all four of them - and wonder half asleep if our 7 yr old accidentally set a music alarm on his. He is a giant Daigle fan. I figure it will just end and sort of doze back off. As I am drifting to sleep, the song changes to 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow'...the really groovy bongo drum version? Yeah. I don't know in what world these two songs end up on the same station, but I am frankly too tired to investigate and no one else has even stirred.
That ends and I hear a hushed conversation and then muffled responses from Alexa that sound confused - and then a random hard rock song starts screaming through the second story...
My six year old daughter wanted to talk to Alexa. Apparently they had a miscommunication at some point. I then made, what I thought, was a very rational decision and disabled her Alexa. This caused her to cry forlornly that she loves Alexa and she is too lonely to be without anyone in her room if she can't talk to Alexa....so she jumps into our bed, narrowly averting landing on her brother who has been camped out at my feet since two. She does NOT go to sleep, but instead spoons me from behind so she can stage whisper in my ear, "It is morning. Can we get up? I see the sun. It is morning!" over and over again.
My husband hears NONE of this. NONE!
His alarm goes off at 545-ish and our daughter sits up straight next to him and yells, "Good Morning!" and then proceeds to get up for the day. I held strong til about three o'clock and then just frankly gave up on the day. Just did the necessary and sat my new cushier quarantine butt into the recliner. Tonight as I put her to bed, with her Alexa playing bedtime music, I reminded her - a little nicely, a little threatening-ish - that Alexa doesn't wake up til eight.
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
Monday, May 18, 2020
The Day It Rained for 24 Hours
What have we been up to?
Glad you asked...
My kids have played a zillion games of Roblox and watched a trillion tv shows. They have had a boatload of video conferences where other households probably see waaaay to much of our seedy underbelly. They have made videos of themselves playing guitars and dancing and telling stories. And then sent them to everyone they know. It has been a lot. And that is with me kicking them off them still to do homework and eat and talk to the humans that live in this actual house with mouths that have brushed teeth in them. I need the Great Flood to be over...
Hubby went back to work and seems better for it. He is a man who likes to be moving so this is good. He has been bitten by my project bug though- I just found him in the basement at 8 at night using the saw to cut beams for a squat tower for the new workout area. Beams that he STOLE from my garden, mind you. Just because I hadn't given it a home yet, doesn't mean I didn't have a future plan for it...
I am in a quest to see how many days I can go between hair washes. I have very dry, and now very long, hair so I have been an every-other-day hair washer for years. Sometimes I stretch to three days if I am super lazy on day 3. I have long been intrigued with this group of people that claim to have 'trained' their hair into not needing shampoo...at all. This is true. They call it 'no-poo' Not sure I am buying that exactly, but the idea that ingredients in shampoo require you to reuse shampoo again over and over have me interested. Apparently Pantene is cocaine for your hair - who knew? So I bought a set of Burt's Bees natural shampoo and conditioner and set out on my quarantine haircare journey. Less for the all natural choice and more for the time value that I would gain from only having to blow dry and tame this beast once a week. It literally takes me an hour to blow dry my hair. On a related note, I rarely blow dry my hair. Thus my perpetual mom ponytail. I have made it to SIX days last week before it really felt like I needed to wash it. I will keep you updated...
School from home is going...well it is going. We spend 2-3 hours a day doing work and about 2 hours a day complaining about doing work. I am 98% certain that they will be retaining NONE of this information for next year. (Other than our kindergartener learning how to read - that one will probably stick.) You would think by now they would give in and understand school starts at 10, buckle up and prepare to LEARN...but no. Last minute snacks, half an hour to brush our hair, extra potty breaks, not sharp enough pencils....the pre-school is probably harder than the school at this point. We do have it down to a pretty good system of half teacher-worksheets and half-mommy apps and zoo journals. One is on the computer while I work with the other and then we flip flop. Then I shanghai their father into helping with bedtime reading and we call it good. It isn't awful. That is about as much accolades as it is going to get I think. I have made my peace with it.
We did quiet time after lunch today - which is when I put on Netflix and let them binge watch Fuller House so I can go upstairs and get my work done in the afternoons. Mondays get a little stressful because my phone and email blow up every Monday morning while we do school work. So Monday afternoons are pretty much free for alls while I get caught up and set up for the week.
We got our garden all planted before the rain - so either it will be awesome and things will germinate quickly OR it is all going to drown and turn to mush. Our 7 year old is pretty convinced this is the year he is going to grow an edible watermelon. This will be year 3 he has attempted it. Everyone pray for a baby watermelon for this child please. Our 6 year old just wants peas and sunflowers...she just walks along all the pea sprouts asking when she will be able to "eat them all up!" She is hilarious.
Our big kids went back to their mom's house for the week. We feel pretty safe letting them freely traverse between our houses now. Both houses are taking it pretty seriously and our kids know how to keep safe. That makes it a lot easier on them and us - it was hard to go without them for long time spans. This is way better. We are starting to think about when to re-schedule our senior's grad party, kinda waiting on the stay safe order expiration to see where things fall. The only thing worse than not having it now would be to have it - and have no one feel safe coming. We would rather wait later so everyone can come and have a great time together - especially since so many things were taken from these seniors this year due to covid - we really want her to get this party the right way.
Baseball has been cancelled. ugh. None of us really know what a Larive spring looks like without baseball...so that will be new.
Lots of new things this year...not many of them awesome, but some. Find the silver linings, right? As much as we want normal right now...our house is going to be moving very, very slowly toward normal life. Even when things begin to open up, I think we are going to go with the wait-and-see plan for a while. No point in doing all this for so long and then just rushing out and jumping in a stinking pile o' germs and spreading them all around the first day...we are going to take our time to smear our germs on y'all. You are welcome.
Glad you asked...
My kids have played a zillion games of Roblox and watched a trillion tv shows. They have had a boatload of video conferences where other households probably see waaaay to much of our seedy underbelly. They have made videos of themselves playing guitars and dancing and telling stories. And then sent them to everyone they know. It has been a lot. And that is with me kicking them off them still to do homework and eat and talk to the humans that live in this actual house with mouths that have brushed teeth in them. I need the Great Flood to be over...
Hubby went back to work and seems better for it. He is a man who likes to be moving so this is good. He has been bitten by my project bug though- I just found him in the basement at 8 at night using the saw to cut beams for a squat tower for the new workout area. Beams that he STOLE from my garden, mind you. Just because I hadn't given it a home yet, doesn't mean I didn't have a future plan for it...
I am in a quest to see how many days I can go between hair washes. I have very dry, and now very long, hair so I have been an every-other-day hair washer for years. Sometimes I stretch to three days if I am super lazy on day 3. I have long been intrigued with this group of people that claim to have 'trained' their hair into not needing shampoo...at all. This is true. They call it 'no-poo' Not sure I am buying that exactly, but the idea that ingredients in shampoo require you to reuse shampoo again over and over have me interested. Apparently Pantene is cocaine for your hair - who knew? So I bought a set of Burt's Bees natural shampoo and conditioner and set out on my quarantine haircare journey. Less for the all natural choice and more for the time value that I would gain from only having to blow dry and tame this beast once a week. It literally takes me an hour to blow dry my hair. On a related note, I rarely blow dry my hair. Thus my perpetual mom ponytail. I have made it to SIX days last week before it really felt like I needed to wash it. I will keep you updated...
School from home is going...well it is going. We spend 2-3 hours a day doing work and about 2 hours a day complaining about doing work. I am 98% certain that they will be retaining NONE of this information for next year. (Other than our kindergartener learning how to read - that one will probably stick.) You would think by now they would give in and understand school starts at 10, buckle up and prepare to LEARN...but no. Last minute snacks, half an hour to brush our hair, extra potty breaks, not sharp enough pencils....the pre-school is probably harder than the school at this point. We do have it down to a pretty good system of half teacher-worksheets and half-mommy apps and zoo journals. One is on the computer while I work with the other and then we flip flop. Then I shanghai their father into helping with bedtime reading and we call it good. It isn't awful. That is about as much accolades as it is going to get I think. I have made my peace with it.
We did quiet time after lunch today - which is when I put on Netflix and let them binge watch Fuller House so I can go upstairs and get my work done in the afternoons. Mondays get a little stressful because my phone and email blow up every Monday morning while we do school work. So Monday afternoons are pretty much free for alls while I get caught up and set up for the week.
We got our garden all planted before the rain - so either it will be awesome and things will germinate quickly OR it is all going to drown and turn to mush. Our 7 year old is pretty convinced this is the year he is going to grow an edible watermelon. This will be year 3 he has attempted it. Everyone pray for a baby watermelon for this child please. Our 6 year old just wants peas and sunflowers...she just walks along all the pea sprouts asking when she will be able to "eat them all up!" She is hilarious.
Our big kids went back to their mom's house for the week. We feel pretty safe letting them freely traverse between our houses now. Both houses are taking it pretty seriously and our kids know how to keep safe. That makes it a lot easier on them and us - it was hard to go without them for long time spans. This is way better. We are starting to think about when to re-schedule our senior's grad party, kinda waiting on the stay safe order expiration to see where things fall. The only thing worse than not having it now would be to have it - and have no one feel safe coming. We would rather wait later so everyone can come and have a great time together - especially since so many things were taken from these seniors this year due to covid - we really want her to get this party the right way.
Baseball has been cancelled. ugh. None of us really know what a Larive spring looks like without baseball...so that will be new.
Lots of new things this year...not many of them awesome, but some. Find the silver linings, right? As much as we want normal right now...our house is going to be moving very, very slowly toward normal life. Even when things begin to open up, I think we are going to go with the wait-and-see plan for a while. No point in doing all this for so long and then just rushing out and jumping in a stinking pile o' germs and spreading them all around the first day...we are going to take our time to smear our germs on y'all. You are welcome.
Wednesday, May 6, 2020
The Day It Was May
Hello world! It has been a hot minute...I can't believe it is May already. Nine more days til our 'stay home, stay safe' order expires. It feels like I have my quarantine game down strong now. We have a rhythm of sorts. It plays along a pretty bipolar melody of highs and lows....there is no middle of the road here in Larive Land. We either have strong, productive, fun days....or we sit around in our pajamas and eat Cheetos all day missing our tribe. Or maybe that is just me. But in all honesty, it does seem like days feel extreme right now - everything flows together and I get work and school and parenting and cleaning done all together....or nothing clicks and everything pulls and tugs all day leaving me feeling like I have fought wars in the length of a day.
Members of our household have developed odd habits and interests in this strange time. My now six year old daughter has developed a very cavalier attitude toward clothing - creating the need for the new house rule that we must have underwear on before video calling anyone in the morning. When she does get dressed, her clothes are all inside out. To be very clear - they are NOT inside out in her closet. She puts them inside out and then puts them on. She just started it about a week into quarantine...no announcement, no discussion....she just walked down the stairs one morning and shrugged when I asked her, stating 'she just likes it this way now.' A few weeks later she started wearing just one sock - on purpose. Unless we had to put on shoes. Last week, she started wearing two socks again but BOTH ON THE SAME FOOT. Double socks. One foot. Other foot - bare. She insists on doing her own hair by putting as many barrettes and random pieces of string she can find in there. I am not sure how her re-entry to society is going to go, to be very honest.
My seven year old son keeps rearranging the living room and dining room knick knacks and pillows and what not. Our piano bench is now covered with an afghan and is serving as our 'coffee table' with coasters on it. I came home from the grocery store and the wooden lazy susan that sits in the middle of my dining room table had three empty plates balanced on it. Normally it holds the caddy for pencils and crayons and random school-at-home stuff. That was sitting to the side of it and just three empty plates were arranged on it. I still have no idea why.
My husband has gone through approximately ten pounds of candle wax in his melt warmers. I say 'his' because all I do with them is remember to turn them off at night when everyone else has gone to bed. His morning routine consists of coffee, feeding the fish, and picking out the scent of the day. Tomorrow he does get to go back to work so I can reduce the budget in that column now though.
I have just dug my heels hard into my existing rabbit holes...puzzles, gardening, thinking of projects to cajole my husband into helping me do. We got a lot of things done while he was off because he just does not sit still. So he rocked out a lot of things on the list with the unspoken understanding that I would school our kids while he kept himself busy- which made both of us happy. Marriage win. We have really leaned hard into...bird watching. Yup. Middle age is upon us. Stay with me...this gets good...we got a new feeder with a feed mix of nuts and berries and seeds and nature exploded! All of a sudden we have birds besides sparrows - black birds and woodpeckers and even a pair of finches. We also have a pair of blue jays that keep trying to peck through the roofs of all the neighborhood houses. Scared the crap out of us one day as our flue liner kept echoing this jack hammer noise. Dumb blue jay. We have seen him attempting the same thing at several rooftops since. Apparently he wants to be a house blue jay. I talk to them now...as I walk around the yard talking to my plants. Yup. Crazy nature lady or burgeoning Cinderella? You decide.
Our house flips around again this weekend as we get our big kids back under our roof. The littles are very excited to see their counterparts. Apparently they are bored of Mom and Dad. Dad will be back at work, which means getting up early again - which is definitely going to hurt him a bit the first week. That means the house gets quiet earlier again - which is definitely going to hurt me as I tighten up the bedtime leash, which has gotten pretty slack. I have a coronovirus to-go kit set up for the husband to keep in his work truck, since I definitely don't trust a construction site to be super strict with social distancing. He has Clorox wipes, homemade masks, and a big bottle of sanitizer all ready to go, right next to his lunch box. I let him know he would have to strip naked in the backyard before he can come in the house - he refused for some reason. Weird. We compromised on an immediate shower while I washed everything he wore or used all day in hot water. We are as ready as we can be for sticking a toe back out into the world. I will let you know how it goes - stay safe out there my friends...
Members of our household have developed odd habits and interests in this strange time. My now six year old daughter has developed a very cavalier attitude toward clothing - creating the need for the new house rule that we must have underwear on before video calling anyone in the morning. When she does get dressed, her clothes are all inside out. To be very clear - they are NOT inside out in her closet. She puts them inside out and then puts them on. She just started it about a week into quarantine...no announcement, no discussion....she just walked down the stairs one morning and shrugged when I asked her, stating 'she just likes it this way now.' A few weeks later she started wearing just one sock - on purpose. Unless we had to put on shoes. Last week, she started wearing two socks again but BOTH ON THE SAME FOOT. Double socks. One foot. Other foot - bare. She insists on doing her own hair by putting as many barrettes and random pieces of string she can find in there. I am not sure how her re-entry to society is going to go, to be very honest.
My seven year old son keeps rearranging the living room and dining room knick knacks and pillows and what not. Our piano bench is now covered with an afghan and is serving as our 'coffee table' with coasters on it. I came home from the grocery store and the wooden lazy susan that sits in the middle of my dining room table had three empty plates balanced on it. Normally it holds the caddy for pencils and crayons and random school-at-home stuff. That was sitting to the side of it and just three empty plates were arranged on it. I still have no idea why.
My husband has gone through approximately ten pounds of candle wax in his melt warmers. I say 'his' because all I do with them is remember to turn them off at night when everyone else has gone to bed. His morning routine consists of coffee, feeding the fish, and picking out the scent of the day. Tomorrow he does get to go back to work so I can reduce the budget in that column now though.
I have just dug my heels hard into my existing rabbit holes...puzzles, gardening, thinking of projects to cajole my husband into helping me do. We got a lot of things done while he was off because he just does not sit still. So he rocked out a lot of things on the list with the unspoken understanding that I would school our kids while he kept himself busy- which made both of us happy. Marriage win. We have really leaned hard into...bird watching. Yup. Middle age is upon us. Stay with me...this gets good...we got a new feeder with a feed mix of nuts and berries and seeds and nature exploded! All of a sudden we have birds besides sparrows - black birds and woodpeckers and even a pair of finches. We also have a pair of blue jays that keep trying to peck through the roofs of all the neighborhood houses. Scared the crap out of us one day as our flue liner kept echoing this jack hammer noise. Dumb blue jay. We have seen him attempting the same thing at several rooftops since. Apparently he wants to be a house blue jay. I talk to them now...as I walk around the yard talking to my plants. Yup. Crazy nature lady or burgeoning Cinderella? You decide.
Our house flips around again this weekend as we get our big kids back under our roof. The littles are very excited to see their counterparts. Apparently they are bored of Mom and Dad. Dad will be back at work, which means getting up early again - which is definitely going to hurt him a bit the first week. That means the house gets quiet earlier again - which is definitely going to hurt me as I tighten up the bedtime leash, which has gotten pretty slack. I have a coronovirus to-go kit set up for the husband to keep in his work truck, since I definitely don't trust a construction site to be super strict with social distancing. He has Clorox wipes, homemade masks, and a big bottle of sanitizer all ready to go, right next to his lunch box. I let him know he would have to strip naked in the backyard before he can come in the house - he refused for some reason. Weird. We compromised on an immediate shower while I washed everything he wore or used all day in hot water. We are as ready as we can be for sticking a toe back out into the world. I will let you know how it goes - stay safe out there my friends...
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