it’s the 9th, so it’s ’bout time, eh?

Ahem. Hi.

While I am still swimming in a blue sea, my head is firmly above water now, and only dips back down occasionally, which makes the previous post very embarassing to me. Not that it’s not real, or not true, but just in that morning after, “Did I really put underwear on my head and dance around on the table last night? Did anyone see??” sort of way . . . So now I have this “must post something so it’s not right there” blogging urgency, and so here goes.

I have to admit, I am getting all Christmas itchy. And it’s no use to just refuse to acknowledge Christmas until after Thanksgiving, because by then all the good stuff (hello Amy Ruppel window clings at target!!!) is gone and you mourn not getting them the day after halloween because hello! it’s a day after halloween and i refuse to acknowledge Christmas yet! and then you finally acknowledge it already and the amy ruppel stuff is gone and you are bummed.

So yes, that’s a long way to tell you, I got the Amy Ruppel window clings yesterday at target when picking up new shoes for Ethan. They are BEAUTIFUL. I feel a deep need to run back and buy 5 more to never ever open and just look at longingly and then maybe sell on ebay in 50 years. I mean seriously. AMY RUPPEL! I saw them and I had kind of heard an amy ruppel + target murmur on one of the crafty/design blogs i read, but I feel like this was not given the appropriate trumpeting it should have. AMY RUPPEL is doing the illustrations for the Target 2007 season — those little decorations on the website – Amy Ruppel. The in store decorations – Amy Ruppel. The window clings, and I beleive there are some gift bags (which my target didn’t have, and I am going to go HUNT SOME DOWN) – yes yes, that’s right, Amy Ruppel.

Apart from the sweet little holly leaves and ornamentation that is on the target.com website itself (all amy ruppel) i can’t find any actual PRODUCTS, which then i can snag and post here to show you, so let me just show you this mural she did on the wall at the newly opened Rare Device store in San Francisco:

Amy Ruppel wall mural at Rare Device, via design*sponge – she posted more rare device photos here.

Amy Ruppel’s paintings go on sale on her website about once a month, in the range of $90-120, so as far as art goes, this is very reasonable and we should definitely have some in our home. My excuse – I never get to any of it in time to buy some, and even though as far as original art is concerned, it’s very afforadable, it’s more money then I really want to spend.. There are some even more affordable methods though, for example, she is Student of the Month along with Sally Shim over at ReForm School, where you can get this print for $35:

They have got some other really cool stuff over there too, so check it out.

So I digress – Amy Ruppel at Target! I’m going to get a gift bag, and then i’m going to freaking FRAME IT!

OK, so yes, I’m a little excited. Just like I was last year over all the Tord Boontje stuff at Target. If I was delicate, I would SWOON!

Tomorrow we have our last soccer game and then the awarding of the kids there soccer medals. Jocelyn is VERY EXCITED. Last spring when Ethan got his, she wanted one SO BADLY that we went home and I covered a circle of cardboard with tin foil and ran some ribbon through it for her. This year, she can’t wait to get her hands on her own REAL medal.

Monday is a day off for me, but not for James or the kids, so I am going to have to decide how to spend my beautiful day all to myself. Sewing pillowcases? Sewing a quilt for jocelyn (haven’t even started yet)? Seeing a movie? Going and checking out the newly opened Marcel Breuer: Design and Architecture exhibition at the National Building Museum? Sleep in until noon and wear jammies all day?

OH DECISIONS DECISIONS!!

-amy swoons anyway.

feeling kind of down on myself right about now.. i’m trying to think of the usual reasons i might be feeling depressed, and while the sleep hasn’t been great lately, nothing else is presenting itself.

working full time has done something to me i think. i just don’t have the infinite mommy patience that i used to have. it’s gone so quickly now that tasks i used to perform with little effort have become dreaded and disastrous. i can’t blame myself entirely though, it’s a different family dynamic now (5 year old and 3 year old) than it was when i was at home full time (3 yr old and 1 yr old), but the patience thing is still a factor.

i’ve been screaming lately. to be exact, it happened last night, and last sunday. too often. way too often. it starts with a squabble. ethan power-tripping about some toy that jocelyn wants a turn with. jocelyn not bothering with any sort of niceties and demanding it, her voice rising into whining and temper tantrum. ethan locking down into stubbornness and me trying to talk everyone down in a normal tone until i can’t even hear myself think as it all escalates in emotion, volume and tension until i crack and then i screech something insanely momish, (“that’s it, i’ve had enough!”.. “if you guys can’t work it out, NO ONE will get to play with it..”) these items aren’t yelled. they aren’t even hollered. I scream them at the top of my voice.

why? why can’t i hold it together? i am not even home with them where this is a whole day of thing upon thing piled up to this “last straw” sort of moment.. I only have an hour or two with my kids at the end of each weekday and i can’t have an ounce more patience? what is with me? i used to be able to handle way more than this and keep my cool. is it just the lack of day to day patience trying that’s making me lose it or is there something wrong with me? i think it’s the former, but i’m scared it might be the latter.

i made a real dinner once this week, where we all sat down and ate together. One. Time.
i stopped at fast food on the way home for kids’ meals twice this week.
i made just the kids scrambled eggs once, while james picked up burritos for me and him to eat after the kids were in bed.

walking from the car to the store is such a pain in the ass. ethan runs ahead and my mind is filled ith the fact that someone looking out their rear window as they’re backing out of a parking spot (if they even bother looking) will only see the top of his head and so i’m constantly trying to scan for red tail lights while trying to get jocelyn to stop staring at whatever is in her hands and keep up with me, while hollering at ethan to stay next to me. one runs away and the other straggles behind. both holler and yell if i take up their hands to keep them next to me.

ethan has a habit of hiding and trying to scare us. when he hears daddy’s car drive up, he doesn’t run to the door. he hides.

this is not a good thing when you’re in target.

this evening, i had to pull a “OK I’m leaving! Bye!” and walk away way too many times just to get my kids to tear themselves away from the toys/christmas decorations/ spider man shoes. ethan of course, hiding, trying to scare me with a boo, no matter how many times i tell him “no more trying to scare me. especially when we’re in a store.”

I feel like Jocelyn gets the short end of the stick often, just being the younger child and I’ve been trying to give her some special attention. But now I feel like it has backfiring and I’ve been neglecting Ethan.

this mom stuff sucks sometimes. we can do it all, but don’t anybody try to convince me that it’s supposed to be easy.

especially this week.

Pillowcases for the kids using this fabric from reprodepot:

Lollipop cookies from Me and My Girl:

An advent calendar from allsorts, which I know realistically I won’t ever make, but isn’t it lovely? I can dream can’t I!

(or otherwise known as, Not So Veiled Christmas Present Hints)

Urban Outfitters, $32

Etsy seller skinnylaminx Eep teatowel $11/each (I would have to have 2!)

Etsy seller joom‘s Brown Hummingbird Art, for $35.

And I still am wishing for a turquoise (or I’d settle for red) cuckoo clock, but these are starting to look good (maybe I could paint the green one? It’s cheap enough if I screw up I won’t feel too bad..)

Urban Outfitters:

$10 (also comes in pink)

$48

And lastly, with the holidays upon us, I saw these in Target recently, and tossed them in my cart. Target.com is selling 12 piece sets of each, but in the store, they are all separate. I bought 4 large tumblers, 2 small tumblers, and 4 salad plates (the dinner plates were huge). I liked the idea of having some fun winter plates to eat off of for the kids (oh, all right, and me too!)

Target – Snowflake Acrylic tumblers, set of 12 – $23.99

Target – Snowflake Melamine 12 pc set (12 dinner plates, salad plates, and bowls) – $27.99

I can’t wait to check out some of the other christmasy stuff out there. I’ve averted my eyes (hello, when it’s out before halloween!) long enough!

-amy

(taken place around the dinner table in the last week or so)

james: knock knock
jocelyn: who’s there
james: interupting cow
jocelyn: interupt–
james: MOOOOOOOO!

Ethan: Knock knock!
me: Who’s there!
Ethan: apple!
me: apple who?
Ethan: Apple fart-head!

me: knock knock!
ethan: who’s there!
me: boo!
ethan: boo hoo!
me: aww, what’s the matter, why are you crying?!

Jocelyn: knock knock!
james: who’s there
jocelyn: interupting cow!
james: interupting cow who!
jocelyn: interupting cow macaroni and cheese!

ethan: knock knock!
james: who’s there
ethan: interupting sheep!
james: in—
ethan: BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

jocelyn knock knock!
me: who’s there!
jocelyn: bowl!
me: bowl who?
jocelyn: apple in the bowl!

me: knock knock
jocelyn: who’s there
me: interupting cow
me: inter–
everyone: MOOOOOOOO!!

jocelyn: knock knock!
ethan: who’s there!
jocelyn: MOO!

-fini-

Jocelyn was thumbing through the Toys R Us Biggest Toy Book Ever! (preferred reading around our house these days) and saw a kid’s guitar, and started talking about how she wants a guitar when SHE’s a big girl. James caught wind and told her, “I have a guitar. Do you want to see it?”

Well, they were off and downstairs in a jiffy. And now, here’s the video of our budding super star!

Oh. My. Lord.

I just died. From the cuteness. My favorite part, the first 3 seconds when she’s struggling just to sit on the couch with the guitar on her lap. The rest is awesome too though. Especially the end, where she’s states, “That’s the END.”

-amy

This year, we didn’t get to doing a lot of halloweeny crafty things we wanted to do. I picked up the special Halloween issue of Martha Stewart Living, and barely got to look at it — because Ethan and Jocelyn were hogging it! They loved it and wanted to do all sorts of things. Maybe next year.. We did make it to Cox Farms (big slides, rope swings into hay piles, hay wagon rides, more slides, fresh apple cider and apples, baby animals, and free baby pumpkins on exit), which somehow we missed last year, and boy was it a hit. Ethan has a love of apples that he has reaffirmed again and again, and I’m trying to keep a good stock of apples in the house to keep him happy. I showed them both the “apple star” in the middle, and they loved it!

So this year, as you know, Jocelyn switched from a Belle costume to a Sleeping Beauty costume, and to top it off, we used her princess hat we made this past summer.

Ethan had 2 costumes this year. He long ago stated that he wanted to be a storm trooper, and that costume was bought about a month ago. His kindergarten class also had dressing up, but they had to pick a character from a nursery rhyme. Ethan decided to be a mouse, from Hickory Dickory Dock.

James and I put it off until the day before, but luckily it came together beautifully. James bought a hooded gray sweatshirt on his way to class, and I stopped by the fabric store and picked up some felt. Ears and a tummy were cut out and pinned to the clothes, and a tube sock stuffed with polyfill sufficed for the tail. It was SUCH a hit with Ethan, that he has since informed me that he wants to be a mouse for next year too!

Go home-made!! I admire the families that have a “costumes must be homemade” rule, but I would be nervous to commit to it.

Anyway – to the photos! Blurriness ensues!

Mom is making us stand here. What a drag. Can we go already?

First sweet! YES!

Trick or –Ooh! They have a dog!

Next! Next!

And off into the night…

oh boy. oh boy oh boy oh boy.

What a weekend. Let’s do it in list form, shall we?

Saturday

• 6:45am woke to the sounds of ethan and jocelyn frolicing on the main level. Could not go back to sleep.
• 7:15am ethan & jocelyn walked into the bedroom while i was laying there reading my book. managed to sneak it under the covers and pretend to be asleep and they went back to the play room. SHEW.
• 7:45am finally got up and, you know, parented my children.
• 8:30 woke up james.
• 9:45am jocelyn soccer game in the FREEZING FREEZING COLD EARLY MORNING COLDNESS.
• 1pm ethan soccer game which jocelyn and I skipped and james took him to because THE COLD ALREADY IT FREEZES.
• 1pm amy costco trip with jocelyn
• 3pm amy ikea trip with jocelyn and ethan. (did you see that? I went with the kids A-LONE. NO BACK UP. THIS IS HUGE.)
  managed to get everything PURCHASED and put into the car before the pager buzzed to get teh kids out of smaland. (oh how they love smaland.)

  For the record, we went last weekend too, except that was with james.

• 4pm had ikea ice cream (the main reason the kids love to go to ikea. the ICE CREAM payoff at the end.)
• 8pm kids in bed.
• 8:15pm Jocelyn wandered down the stairs in search of mommy and daddy in order to inform them that she is thirsty.
• 8:17pm Jocelyn pottied (again) and drinked (again) put back into bed, where she thankfully stayed the remainder of the night.

Sunday

• 6:45am woke to the sounds of ethan and jocelyn frolicing on the main level. drowsed until…
• 7:30 .. somebody hit somebody else because somebody took toy a away from somebody else and everyone involved came to bedroom to tattle.
• 7:32 told everyone that i didn’t want to hear it, they need to work it out, and hey, hop up here you, you look chilly!
  7:33 cold feet on warm skin is better than any coffee. sleep gone baby gone.
• 7:45 BED PARTY!
• 9:30am amy put together several trofast toy storage units. Ethan helps and accidently breaks a cross piece. wood glue and clamps come to the rescue. mommy does not raise her voice even once! PARENTING MOTHER OF THE YEAR award somehow does NOT magically fly through the window in recognition of this feat. Go figure!
• 11am carrying of tall trofast units downstairs, general running around in the basement by small people, scrubbing of paint spots on floor by grown ups, entirely too much playing with the glass doors on the new tv console for grownups to stomach before finally abandoning the basement for the upstairs again.
• 12pm lunch and then an attempt at quiet time. grownups discuss the need for another ikea trip.
• 1pm lots of cleaning ensues, with promises of a ikea trip as the carrot at the end of a stick
• 3pm amy, jocelyn and ethan off to ikea! (ALONE! AGAIN! WILL THE SAME LUCK STRIKE TWICE? OR WILL OUR CONTESTANT BE RIGHT IN THE CHECK OUT LINE WHEN THE PAGER BUZZES? TUNE IN BELOW TO FIND OUT!)
• 3:30pm amy checks her children into smaland, and the timer is set. She has 30 minutes to get all her stuff before she is required to get her children again! Can she do it!
• 4:00 BZZZZT! She can’t. She is still picking out bins when the pager buzzes. She is in the warehouse, finishes picking her bins, stashes the cart near the checkout lines, and dashes to retrieve said children.
• 4:10 amy is in the checkout line, PUTTING HER ITEMS ON THE BELT.. when she notices that a piece is missing from one of the kitchen items she wants to buy. Kitchen item. Kitchen department. one floor up and in the MIDDLE of the floor. SHE WAS ALMOST HOME FREE, but now she must RETURN, with TWO KIDS IN TOW, to get the item with all pieces intact.
• 4:25 one would think that by now she’d have that item and be back in the checkout line, but no. she’s not.
• 4:35 letting the kids play in the kids section before heading downstairs.
• 4:45 nope not yet. She has however, started using that hissing mom voice every time a kid clings to the side of the cart and then jumps off, which sends the cart careening to the side into other shoppers.
• 4:55 HAHA – not even close. Every “kid-house” in ikea must be played in, you see.
• 5:05 there are approximately 247 “kid houses” on teh bottom level, even taking the short-cuts (and i know them all, baby).
• 5:15 we’re in the rugs. the end is in site, but mommy is about to lose it and her feet are killing her and she sits both kids on the rugs to give them the rules that will ensure mommy’s brain doesn’t ooze out of her right ear (probably due to the fact that she is shoving something sharp in the left ear). #1: no jumping on the cart. #2: no jumping off the cart. #3 no running ahead. #4 no lagging behind, and #5 no, we can’t buy that. Any infractions will be counted, and if mommy gets to 3, then no ice cream.
• 5:25: finally in the check out line. So many bins to dig through. Gates to swing on. And of course, there’s the cart to jump on and off of. Mommy curses the designers of those damn ikea carts where the back wheels which swivel in all directions instead of staying forward like any normal cart for fuck’s sake
• 5:35 check out completed, but now no one is allowed to even TOUCH THE CART OR AS GOD IS MY WITNESS WILL BE NO ICE CREAM. EVER. IN THE WHOLE WORLD.
• 5:40 nearby man nearly jumps out of his skin from the mommy bark of the above order at both children.
• 5:45 ice cream obtained.
• 6:00 safely in the car. oh my lord the relief. SWEET RELIEF. MOMMY IS NO LONGER IN IKEA WITH THOSE DAMN CARTS AND 2 SMALL CHILDREN THANK GOD!
• 6:30 home sweet home! and look, james has laundered and put away every single dirty item in the house. amy knew there was a reason she married him.

The rest of the evening is a blur, but you get the jist. Will I attempt Ikea alone in the future? Probably. That smaland russian pager roulette is just to scary good to not try again. I will probably wear better shoes though.

The basement is shaping up nicely. Hopefully if i get the camera on a tripod the lack of good lighting will be ok and I’ll have some pictures to show. All major pieces have been purchased, and now I’ll be getting into the smaller details. The only problem is now I have no budget left for any smaller details 🙂 Ah well.

Hope you all had a nice weekend!

Number three? Number THREE??? I know that I forgot about my weekly friday theme for a few weeks, but I thought we’d be on 4 or 5 at least?

Blah. I suck! wahoo!

So yesterday, I was perusing my stats to see if anyone ever stops by here anymore, what with my prolonged not-writing-ness and continued grumpiness, and stumbled upon an old post that someone had found while searching for “personifying poop” (don’t worry, no poop will be personified (and don’t you think they actually meant anthromorphized?) in the following recyled post below). I clicked, read my own post, and I must say, I cracked myself up. Here’s an excerpt from my near-death experience:

I can only relate the anguish that I underwent by telling you that I thought death was imminent. My abdomen felt like a fiery pit of hell. My head felt all feverish, goose bumps broke out on my skin, and I actually started sweating like a pig. I could not contain the moaning that seemed to come from my throat.

Another thing I love about this post? In the title bar of the browser, it states: “Poop. at Crazy Mokes.” What’s not to love about that?? So click, and go get your poop, at crazy mokes.

So, a near-death poop experience, and a cute kid story at the end to boot. Go read, have a chuckle, and have a great weekend. Mine will be spent cheering on soccer players under the age of 6, and probably buying & putting together Ikea furniture. Yay for cheap scandinavian consumerism!

-amy wears a hat and scarf indoors.