The Morning Grind

It is hard to get my kids out of the house for school each morning. It's even harder to do it without yelling. And the morning yelling is probably one of the things I hate myself most for. The last thing I want to do before I send my children out into the world for the day is yell at them. Who wants to start their day by getting torn a new one by their mother who (supposedly) loves them the most?

I like to tell myself that my mornings are particularly hard since 

a) I have three young children, all 5 and under 

b) my husband is already gone for the day so I'm solo and 

c) we have to leave the house by 7:30am most days which feels early.

Now, I'm sure many of you have it harder than me. This is not a contest. I'm not looking for your sympathy about my situation or the sob story about yours. We all have our challenges trying to get out the door in a timely manner and if you are anything like me your biggest obstacle is the same: children.

My three year old is quick and efficient at getting ready for school, but is easily derailed by his brother. The baby is beautiful and virtually helpless at 11 months old so the burden of getting her ready falls squarely on me. My five year old is both easily distracted and slow as molasses. He is particularly frustrating because he is fully capable of dressing himself but he won't, at least not in in a reasonable amount of time. My mother says the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and I think she's probably laughing maniacally in secret at my unfortunate karma. She also says she was guilty of yelling at me while trying to get me out the door and I turned out to be a relatively punctual and decent human being, so I think there's hope for all of us. But for my own sanity and the sake of my children I have spent the better part of this year trying to find a better way to motivate, to be on time, and to stop yelling. Here's what I've learned:

Set a timer. For Mr. Molasses I've started setting a timer, especially for breakfast. If he's not finished when the timer is up (and believe me he gets plenty of time) he leaves the table and continues with his routine. When he's finished washing up/brushing teeth and getting dressed he can go back to finish his breakfast, if there's time. Often the threat of a timer is enough, but it gets sticky when he runs out of time. Our usual punishment would be a timeout, but that use up more of our precious time! 

Let them sleep in their school clothes. The (power) struggle is real with my five year old. This was my mother's ingenious suggestion to eliminate the power struggle around getting dressed. It's a win win. Either he hates sleeping in his clothes and it motivates him to get dressed without losing focus or he loves it and it's one less thing to do in the morning. So far, I haven't had to make good on this threat, but I imagine I will before school is out. I'll keep you posted on how that works out.

Get up earlier. What I really mean by that is get up before the kids. I know you don't want to hear that. Believe me. I know. My kids get up at 6:37am every morning. My alarm goes off around 5:30am and lately I desperately ignore it until 6:00am. But an uninterrupted shower and coffee alone with my thoughts is worth it. Plus, if I am dressed and fed I can help them get ready if needed or at least monitor their progress.

Get the kids up early. Letting the kids sleep in until the last possible minute is not doing anyone any favors. They are even slower when they are groggy and more inclined to throw a fit if they are rushed. Until recently, my kids were pretty early risers so I had more of a problem getting them to stay in bed until a reasonable hour. They have a light on a timer that turns on when they are allowed to get up and now it acts as an alarm clock on school days. It's actually pretty nice that they get up on time, on their own. It's one less thing I have to worry about.

Do it the night before. Prep the coffee. Turn on the timer if it motivates you to roll out of bed before 6am. Pack lunches. Check backpacks. Pick out clothes. Find jackets. If it can be done the night before, do it. The less you have to manage during the morning rush, the less you have to yell about.

Threaten to unleash mean mommy. Sometimes threatening to yell is more effective than actually yelling. It's bizarre. It sounds like this, "If I have to ask you to get dressed again, I'm going to use my mean mommy voice. Do you want to hear my mean mommy voice?" I know. I sound like a crazy person. But I'm a pretty successful crazy person.

You'll win some, you'll lose some. Occasionally, I put my best foot forward all morning long and then as we are about to walk out the door, triumphantly on time, someone informs me that they have to poop. It happens. Pour yourself a to go cup of coffee while you wait. You will need it.

Do you have any secrets to surviving the morning grind? I'd love to hear about them!

2016: The Year of No f**ks

Love this cross stitch from the incredible Cotton Floozy

2015 was an incredible year. We welcomed Buttercup into our family and it has been nothing but a pleasure to see her capture the hearts of her big brothers. This morning she was fussy on our journey to school and her brothers sang to her and played peek-a-boo with her and it filled my heart with joy. 

However, 2015 was not ALL rainbows and sunshine. There were quite a few times when I thought I might lock myself in my room or crack a beer before noon. Honestly, it might have been better if I had done those things as opposed to becoming a raging lunatic screaming "WHY IS IT SO HARD TO PUT PANTS ON? DO YOU WANT TO GO TO SCHOOL NAKED?" It is moments like these that inspired me to make a resolution for 2016 that I might actually keep: Give fewer f**ks. 

Frankly, with three kids 5 and under, I have better things to worry about than whether or not my three year old's shirt was backwards when he went to school. 

Was he dressed appropriately for the weather? Yes. 

Were his clothes clean? Yup.

Did he dress himself from head to toe while I was free to pack lunches and feed the baby? Yes. 

Did I inform him that it was backwards and give him an opportunity to turn it around? Yep. He declined.

Now there was a time in which I would have insisted that he turn it around the proper way, even if it meant a battle. It's my job as a parent to ensure my kids go out into the world prepared for what life may bring them. I never wanted to send my kids to school with a dirty face or a backward shirt because the world is tough enough for a three year old; let's not give anyone a reason to give them a harder time.

But if I'm really honest with myself, I think the thing that bothered me most is how the backward shirt reflected on me, as a mother. What kind of mother sends their kid to school with their shirt on backwards? It's so simple. It takes one extra minute to turn that shirt around. Why doesn't that mother care? I do care. But the bottom line is, he doesn't. And taking into consideration all the other successes of the morning, I don't give a damn. 

source

It's time I stopped giving f**ks about a backwards shirt on a happy, warm, clean, well-fed, on-time-for-school little boy. 

It's time I stopped laying awake at night replaying the failures of the day instead of the successes.

This year, I won't have time for news about your neighbors deteriorating marriage or the kid who can't behave himself in class because of his parent's divorce. Can't we talk about how we are going to help? And if we can't help, lets move on.

I will change pharmacies or stop giving f**ks that the Walgreens walking distance from my house has the worst customer service on the planet. Instead, I will use my f**ks to write a thank you card to the amazing people at my pediatrician's office who have taken such good care of us this winter. 

This year I will be a great mom and I will not give any f**cks if that's not any better than last year. 

Cheers to fewer f**ks in 2016!

Kitchen Reveal: A love story three years in the making

The moment has finally arrived. Our kitchen project, almost three years in the making is finally, finally complete! Are there still a few finishing touches? Sure. I'm not sure we'll ever really be finished with any project in our house because we like to change things up. Before we had kids, the hubby and I would rearrange our apartment every six months just for fun. We still want to update a few light fixtures, and there might be a few pieces of blue tape marking spots that need a paint touch up, but the major work is done. 

And if you saw the before pictures of our kitchen, you know that a few pieces of blue tape are negligible compared to the monstrosity we began with. So without further ado, I present our kitchen.

We started by painting the cabinets white. Simply White, actually which happens to be the Benjamin Moore 2016 Color of the Year. Of course, we didn't know that three years ago, but I feel like it's a bit serendipitous. 

My husband built those fabulous countertops out of red oak planks and stained them with a combination of dark walnut and mahogany. I absolutely love how they turned out. I love the contrast of the white beadboard backsplash and dark counters. It's warm and bright all at the same time.

These LED under cabinet lights really brighten the main kitchen workspace. I also like to leave them on in the evenings if we are away since they are so energy friendly. 

This cutting board was unusable when we bought the house, but Mr. Sir sanded it down and brought it back to life. He even painted it to match the cabinets (though he wanted to stain it to match the countertops. The man loves me.)

I have wanted a nook for this space since we bought the house. Since the kitchen has been under contruction for most of the time we've owned it, I haven't seriously looked at purchasing one. But a few months ago, Mr. Sir stumbled upon this beauty at 5am while out walking the dog. It had a free sign on it and he could tell it would be snatched up as soon as day broke, so he rushed home and attempted to wake me. The minute I saw the picture I knew it was worth getting up for, even though the baby had kept us up for half of the night, so I threw on some flip-flops and headed down the street  in my pajamas leaving all the kids (finally) asleep in their beds. We carried the table home then took the minivan back for the benches. It's certainly not in perfect condition, but you can cram eight kids at that table and it's a place where memories are made and dreams of bacon come true. 

The nook is where dreams of coffee come true too.

The mini gallery that hangs in the nook couldn't have come out better. The two photos were taken in Napa's wine country and the other two were free prints. You can find the lemon watercolor printable here and Rise and Shine It's Coffee Time here.

 

This pendant light that hangs over our sink was an outdoor light that hung in front of our house. My husband only thought I was half crazy when I asked him to install it here, but I think we were both happy in the end. You can use boiled linseed oil (available at your local hardware store) to spruce up old fixtures like this one.

I already posted a sneak peek of these DIY Pendant Lights but here's the full view with the cabinets and our art-plastered refrigerator on the side. It was waaaaaaay too much effort to pull all those magnets off and I'm all about being honest anyway. For the record, when I was taking these pictures my oldest said, "It looks really different in here!" I clarified and by "different" he meant "clean." This is further proof that our house has more of a lived in look most of the time. 

The final touch on the kitchen is this slate flooring. Can you tell it's laminate? It looks so gorgeous, but won't crack when our 60 year old house settles. I just hope it holds up to the wear and tear of three kids and a dog. 

And that my friends, is the story of the kitchen I love. What do you think? Was it worth the wait? Tell me in the comments!