peelosophy » kids

wednesday ramblings on thursday

jill — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 03:56:30 +0000

It’s 9am on Wednesday. An ordinary Wednesday in the middle of an ordinary week. We have a day with no plans and I am fighting the urge to have an agenda lined up. Whether that consists getting something done or planning something. Both tasks I love to do and I find myself planning a lot when I have downtime like today. You see, I plan when I am uncomfortable with not moving. I plan when I can’t handle the mundane. I plan because I want to get over the slowness of a usual day and move on to something more exciting. (I have have an old draft I need to post later that will really get a glimpse of my insane planning mind.)

I would say John hates how much I plan and look ahead. He is very good at living in the now and resting. I think my planning stress him out at times.

With the conviction of my obsessive planning, I worked on being present in the downtime we have today. I lie when I tell myself that I am good about being in the moment. I am not. Especially with my boys, I’d rather watch them play or let them play with each other than to be fully engaged with them. I do play with them, but it’s really challenging for me, I think of what’s next or what I need to do.

I keep coming back to questions like, where else do I really have to be? What else do I really need to be doing? What is more important than right now? For instance, digging through a bizzillion Legos to find just the right piece? To me – honestly I can think of a lot of things, to Henry it was the most important thing right then. It was showing him love to help him find the piece he needed and that’s what I really needed to be doing above all else. So, coffee in my hand, we rocked out to an 80s station on Pandora and sifted through the tiny plastic pieces. And it actually felt good, no need to plan, no where else I needed to be but just right here, right now at my kitchen counter.

See ya January!!!

jill — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:48:01 +0000

Finally. Hopefully that was the longest month of Winter for us. There was way too much stuff going on and big stuff all at once at certain points. Here are some highlights…stick around until #10 it’s the best.

1. George’s 3rd Birthday. Man is he getting big. He is still the comedian. He loves recounting moments in our recent history by saying, “Hey mom remember that one time when…” this could have happened a week ago or an hour ago. Justice is important to him. He never goes a day without out saying, “Hey mom, how come Henry/JJ/Daddy/Emma got this or that and I didn’t” always in a low whine with a martyr-like huff at the end. He loves to jump over anything and from anything he can – his favorite is to jump on top of a pile of brothers.

He loved his birthday. It was all about Cars and Superheros.

2. Lots of Snow. This has been fun. But not anymore, I am over it.

3. The Pinewood Derby. 3 weeks to make the car of JJ’s dreams. The same 3 weeks that our van broke for good and John’s company was moving. This made for little time for the Pinewood Derby and lots of stress. We were prepping him during this time on how to deal with not placing in the race. This was our first PWD – we had no expectations BUT he got 5th Place – which means he gets to go to Districts!!! I was blown away. This is the car during construction and then at the race.

4. Battlestar Galactica. I’m hopelessly addicted. It is my crack and I stay up way too late watching it. Friends have been worried about why I’m so tired and I have to have to fess up. It’s ridiculous.

5. The Penguin Parade. Our zoo, does a Penguin Parade during the winter months on Sundays at 2pm – as long as the weather is below 50 degrees. I have to admit I was a skeptic – but it was so cute! Tips: Go Early, Stand by the Exit of the Penguin House under the sun. It doesn’t last long because they don’t force any penguins to parade – so it’s whoever wants too. The zookeepers said it’s always the same two penguins ready to go out the door.

7. My New Wheels. My van’s transmission went out on the way home from having dinner at Happy Joe’s for George’s birthday. It sucked. So I spent a week getting cross-eyed looking on the internet for what kind of car I wanted next and finding one to buy. I ended up getting a 2006 Toyota Sienna. I feel like a princess, my old van was a 1998 – so the perks are amazing to me. My favorite is the 8 passenger seating – I can fit 2 non-family members legally now. Wow. And true confession – as I headed out the door to run errands for the first time in my new ride – I actually wore make-up because the car is so fancy.

8. My Gift. John’s company moved offices which meant he worked over a weekend and he spent several long nights getting everything just right. Last Friday, he came home with a wrapped gift for me from his employers. It had a sweet note saying how they appreciate my patience and lending my husband to them. It was an iPad. Let me repeat. It.was.an.iPad. And it is fabulous. And I love it. They just moved up to one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For in my book.

9. Emma is walking. So she’s up to about 10 steps and it is so cute. This is not a picture of her walking, just an adorable one.

10. Passing Time. Like I said it’s been a long month with long days. We’ve been doing all sorts of random things to pass the time. But this is my favorite. Emma on the Roomba (our robot vacuum).

Our Living Room Right Now…

jill — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 16:20:12 +0000

It can’t decide decide if it wants to rain today. So it’s just wet from random sprinkles. Around here, rainy days usually equals the resurrection of a tent of some fashion.

ps. if you are coming over today, don’t come in the front door….

a shift in family dynamics

jill — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 21:20:37 +0000

Since JJ has been back at school for 2 weeks now, the band of brothers has had a shift in dynamics. Before school, I would say that JJ was the ringleader and the younger boys generally followed suit or got excited about whatever he is doing. Now that JJ is gone all day, Henry moved up to be the older brother for 7 hours during the day.

Now, Henry and George have different relationship because they are closer in age, they are 16 months apart, whereas JJ is a full 2 and 1/2 years older than Henry. I feel like Henry and George either are best friends or worst enemies depending on the day, hour or moment. In recent days, I can see how they are trying to figure out how to be themselves with each other (aren’t we all?) and find a “common play”. It’s been rough – lots of crying, but some sweet times in between the grief.

I usually take for granted the time they are loving each other and playing “nicely”. But lately, I feel like God has been showing me sweet moments of them enjoying each other and here is one I’d like to share with you.

Times are a changin’

jill — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 02:07:03 +0000

Many changes are on the Fall horizon for the Peel family….

JJ will be in school all day- man I miss him.

Henry will be going to preschool- JJ never went so preschool is all new to us.

Emma will be joining George at Kids Day Out once a week.

My sister Katie and her family moved back home- not only to STL but into our neighborhood!!! AND Tootie, my niece, will be going to Hudson with JJ.

Kara, whom I have babysat 2 days a week since she was 9 weeks, is starting Kindergarten and won’t be a part of our Mondays and Fridays anymore. Totally bittersweet.

I started watching my niece, Rosie and it is going so great! Her and Emma are BFFs..check out the picture.

Wow, I didn’t think it was a lot, but writing it out it is ALOT! My current mental status is Monday -Friday I’m fine, it’s the transition to our weekends I have a hard time with lately. Weekends we try to balance getting things done with relaxing and I’m not good at the latter.

What do you do on the weekends? Do you find it hard to balance?

Boys and Waterguns

jill — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 04:29:56 +0000

We had an end-of-the-summer water gun fight in our backyard last week. It was great fun – 11 boys, 100 degrees and everyone of them armed with some sort of water artillery.

We did a couple of games which just meant a slightly more organized chaos. They were:

Freeze tag – the person who was “it” tagged by shooting their water gun at the person. And, subsequently, a player could unfreeze another player by shooting them again.
Alka Seltzer Tag. We strung Alka Seltzer tablets on a string that the boys wore around their neck and you had to shoot the other players Alka Seltzer tablets. The object of the game was to keep your Alka Seltzer from disintegrating. We referred the Alka Seltzer to your “life” like on a video game…it seemed to make sense to the boys more.
Target Practice. We set up empty soda cans on the clubhouse deck and the boys shot their guns to see how many they could get down.
And then we played “zombies”. This was tag but when you got tagged, you turned into another it.

1st Day of School

jill — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 03:10:11 +0000

Today was JJ’s first day of 1st grade!!! I always get undue stress about things like the first day of school. I thought I had to have a lot of silly stuff ready or perfect… like this was the first day of the rest of our lives or something!

On the other hand JJ was the normal one, he usually is, just calm, cool and collected. Although he did get upset because I was rushing him out the door and he still wanted to tell John about the dream he had last night…which explains the sad pictures. Honestly, I didn’t have any compassion for his case, but John did and decided that he would drive him so he could hear all about his dream- good dad.

New school year resolution #1…This year I will try my hardest not to be a stressed out Drill Sargent trying to get the kids to school in the morning…ahem

The 4 o’clock Hour: What Can You Make?

jill — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 22:14:26 +0000

Here’s another post about what we have done to pass the time until dinner. Like I said before, after 4pm over here is more often meltdown city, so I’ve been trying to come up with things to get through it. It’s funny though the unplanned things (or acts of desperation) we do tend to do end up being the real winners as opposed to something “planned”.

For example, a couple of days ago, I put some cardboard, masking tape, crayons and paddle sticks in the middle of the table and ask, “What can you build with these?”. An HOUR later JJ is done and here’s what he came up with…

He grabbed the Army and space guys when he was done and played with his camp set-up until dinner was ready. He’s amazing.

The 4 o’clock Hour – Backyard Obstacle Course

jill — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 04:17:59 +0000

One of our new favorite time killers family activities lately has been obstacle courses. Especially in the 4 o’clock hour, my least favorite time of day – it’s usually melt down city around here, but lately we’ve been doing some fun stuff. JJ loves putting the courses together and then I time the boys to see of they can beat their last times. Here’s our latest one…

Go under the chairs…

Across the “moat” via cushions…

Across the tightrope…

Slide down the little slide and shovel 3 scoops of rocks into a truck and push it to the other side…

Hop over the bricks to the clubhouse…

Run through the clubhouse and down the turbo slide…TIME!

Now another dozen times until dinner. I love my backyard.

The Best Days

jill — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 03:57:50 +0000

The best afternoons here are when the boys all collaborate, with minimal fighting, on some sort of project that takes hours to reach completion.

Yes, I said hours. I promise you, it doesn’t happen very often. But when it does it usually happens outside. And lately, it involves the construction of some sort of “habitat”. Whether squirrel, roly-poly or a Claire habitat, they have taken the philosophy of “Build it and they will come“.

This day it was a daddy long-legs habitat and the poor daddy long-legs was already inhabited inside during construction.

“DO NOT TOUCH DO NOT GO IN THIS AREA PAST THE STICKS BEWARE”