MOTHERHOOD THESE DAYS

If you're in the mood for some ramblings on motherhood, you're in luck!

But first, a brief note about your babies looking at each other. To have two beings that you grew in your body and brought into this world, then grow and become cognizant of each other, and not only that, grow in love for each other, and then also express joy at seeing the other....I MEAN. C'MON. It's the best thing on the planet earth. 

It was really hard to drop off the girls at daycare this week. I walked away with my heart aching, my arms feeling empty and the car felt eerily quiet as I drove off to work. Some weeks are harder than others when it comes to being away from them, and this was one of those weeks.

Our days are full, from the moment we rise to the moment we fall into our beds. But even at the weariest, there is a tinge of sweetness to it all because it is summer.  Thank goodness for summer. Bare arms and legs are happy to be free and the longer days make us all feel a little more free, even with our schedules.  Motherhood these days has me thinking about how I am just one version of my ever changing self. I remember a time when a busy life with one kid seemed packed to the brim, but now there is two, and more house, and more responsibilities and somehow, we are content.  That tells me that as life gets fuller, we expand. Our heart's capacity to hold and handle gets bigger, in a way you don't think possible. You also get much better at saying no to things and saying yes to the right things.

So every spare moment is filled with something these days and I'm trying to figure out not just our priorities, but what things I can do without right now. I love this age that Sloane and Logan are right now and I'm sharply aware that it will slip through my fingers all too soon. That knowledge helps me see everything in hyper focus. It's crazy; trying to get out the door with both girls by 6:50AM, getting back home a little after 6:00PM and then having to put Logan to sleep just an hour later at 7:00PM. It can get taxing physically, but also emotionally. What is this ridiculousness? The time I have with Logan is too short and I'm feeling the brunt of that.  I'm trying to make up for it with the half day that I get on Fridays if I get into work earlier during the rest of the week, and after a couple of weeks of practice we seem to have gotten the hang of the schedule. These days I'm telling myself to pay attention along the way: get an extra hug while dressing Sloane, say thanks to Ken for the little things that he does, give Rusty a thorough pat and ear scratch, look at both my girls lovingly while enjoying our brief breakfast time together.

This week I've just been wanting/needing to spend as much time with my girls, without the pressure of anything else. I want to be fully present during that hour with Logan, so I try to prep our dinners the night before, which means I won't be distracted with trying to get dinner on the table when we get home. I want to be fully present for Sloane, so I've been going slow with her bedtime routine, and reading more than I usually do, stopping to talk about various parts. (We are reading Charlotte's Web together! And it is so fun going through it with her.) I haven't gone to the gym the past few days because the stress of having to get out the door at a certain time means I rush time with both of them, and sometimes it means dishes don't get done, dinner might not be prepped, and lunches don't get packed until the next morning. I haven't done any of the house projects that I still have on my list, because I knew it would drain me in a way that would prevent me from fully enjoying time with the girls. Some weeks, I can make it all work (and I am so grateful for time I get to be at the gym), but this week, I just really needed to be mentally all in for them and that's what I did. This is what is good for all of us right now.

These days, motherhood is taking a deep breath when I want to lose my temper because I feel frazzled.  I've had these near miss moments recently when we have gone out to eat - both Sloane and Logan will not stay in their seat (Logan wants to climb out of her high chair and Sloane wants to wander to explore), which makes for a trying meal.

Yesterday, parenthood was getting down on eye level with Sloane along with Ken and having a long talk with her about why it is important for her to stay in her seat during meal time and how it important it is to obey. Today, parenthood was feeling amazed, thankful and humbled at how well Sloane seemed to have heard that message by her actions and obedience during said meal times.

These days, motherhood is being extremely content with any moment that contains my family. I have the thought of, "Wow. This right here is the best moment of my life." in the middle of the smallest of moments: when I'm nursing Logan and her small hand is curled up around my finger, when Ken leans over and gives me three kisses on the lips, when Sloane tells me something she has found funny and laughs with all of her body.

Tomorrow, motherhood is going to be waking up with excitement to greet my girls, letting them love me and need me to their heart's content, and basking in the joy of being their mother.

Here's a photo that Ken's cousin, Karen, sent me earlier today that her fiance took of us and I'm going to include it here because it's such a sweet capture of us. Sloane's smile, Logan's cheeks, and my contentment.

SUMMER, TO DO

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1. Swim: Spend as much time in and around the pool as possible. Make all of Ken's hard work worthwhile, make sure Sloane knows how to swim, enjoy time with friends, get a nice tan. 

2. Beach: Try to get at least one or two trips down to Virginia Beach, build sand castles with Sloane, visit Ken's grandma, maybe try paddle boarding?

3. Hike: Try a river trail here in Richmond that I haven't done before with the family. 

4. Write: I have notes and plans to write a thing and I finally got Microsoft Word on my laptop. Let's do the damn thing!

5. Popsicles: Make as many Popsicles as possible. Also, summer pies. 

6. Cocktails: I'm really into Manhattans these days, but I want to try experimenting with some gin cocktails this summer.

7. Videos: Make at least one or two videos of summer activities!

8. Get down on the floor: I'm ever so aware of how fast my girls are growing and changing these days. I want to spend as much time as I can on the floor with them, playing, watching, listening to them, without distraction.

9. Travel: We are not taking any huge trips but I am going out to LA for a weekend for my friend's wedding and then all of us are going up to NYC for a weekend for my sister's wedding. So very excited! 

10.  Throw a birthday party for Sloane's 4th birthday: Sloane has been talking about her upcoming birthday and birthday party all year, I want to plan her party with her and have fun doing it! 

MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND

Like I mentioned in the previous post, we finally finished the kitchen and - as I knew it would - I feel one hundred times better about the house, and everything else in general. My shoulders are relaxing, my movements throughout the house are more at ease, and I can tell that I'm starting to emotionally attach to this new place. The kitchen ultimately being the epicenter of it all. 

So this past weekend, we got to enjoy the completion and relax further into the house. To be clear, we are still doing house projects here and there, but it feels like the truamtic parts are over and the sunshine has been signaling a rest period. 

On Saturday morning, I finished an intense Murph workout with my gym, which our crossfit gym does every Memorial Day, and then got the weekly grocery shopping done. When I got home, I had one agenda for the afternoon: pool. We've resolved to make every minute of pool maintenance worthwhile by hanging out in it as much as we can. So far that's not been a lot because it's been raining so much!

But that particular afternoon it was perfect; the kind of the day where the weather cradles you, all your limbs feel relaxed, and you could almost believe that the day will go on and on forever. 

At first Logan was uncertain about Rusty, eyeing him as he roamed around the house, explaining in protest whenever he came near to her high chair trying to eat her food, but now she is smitten and the noise she makes in delight when she sees him is so adorable.

We have lots and lots of watermelons in our summer plans.

All of us are into it. 

We headed to the park for the latter part of the afternoon to celebrate a friends' birthday.

She told me I'm her best friend the other day! 

This was us at the grocery store the other day. I went to go get something in another aisle and when I came around the corner, Logan's face lit up like this and gave me the cheesiest happiest grin. It melted me right into the grocery store floor. 

More friends came to visit from out of town on Sunday and we spent some time by the pool (before it started raining, again!!) and spent the rest of the day talking, eating, cooking and playing with the girls.

I'm starting to really appreciate this house- for the time and space it lets us have with our friends but most especially for the memories we're starting to create with our little girls.

BEFORE AND AFTER: KITCHEN

You guys, FINALLY. The era of the kitchen renovation have come to an end. There's a few things we want to update here and there - stainless steel appliances, paint the island to match the cabinets, update the island hardware - but those things we can address to later and for now we are going to declare this project to be over so we can move on with our lives. 

This has been quite the experience and by quite the experience I mean it was painful and long. It took much longer than either of us were expecting, as we tried to work on it in between everything else we have on our plates these days, and it was extra stressful because this is the room we use the most. I learned that trying to make daily meals, especially baby food, while there is drywall flaking into the counters, is the beginning of a mental breakdown. 

The above two photos are pictures of the kitchen from the online listing of the house. One of the first things I noticed was how sturdy the cabinets were, which made me deliberate for a long time about taking the top ones down. The Corian counter tops were also in good condition.  I had wanted wooden countertops, but since these were in great shape, we decided to keep them until they needed to be replaced. I knew I also had to figure out something for that brick facade - either by taking it off or painting over it - I just had no idea how much of a pain it would be to do so. My vision for the kitchen included white tile,  open shelving, navy lower cabinets with brass detail and lots of natural light.  

This is what it looked like when we moved in. It was a perfectly functioning kitchen but there was so much brown and it made the kitchen seem dark and small. 

One of the first things we did was take down the huge light and fan in the middle of the room and put in recessed lights. Garrett is an electrician and Nic is awesome in general, and they helped Ken make this happen. Just changing out the lights instantly opened up the space.

Next up, the wall..when Ken and I first walked through the house, we both immediately agreed that this wall needed to go. Luckily, it wasn't a load bearing wall, so it was totally doable (even though it cost more than I thought it would to take a wall down!)

Apparently, all the wall smashing that goes on in the home renovation shows is not necessary. The proper way to take a wall down is like this, piece by piece. 

Ta da! The difference was amazing...even with all the boxes and tools we still had laying around. 

At this point I was still deliberating on whether to take the upper cabinets off, or just paint them. The biggest barrier to taking the cabinets off was I didn't know how hard it would be, neither Ken or I had ever done such a thing before, and these seemed like they were really solidly built into the wall. I also liked the cabinets and thought I could make it work by painting them white. 

But then two things happened: our friend Nic said he could help us take them down, and I realized how much extra light we could get by removing the cabinets.  Besides, there was so much cabinet space that I knew I would never use (just from the sheer fact that I couldn't reach most of it) so I made the hard decision to take them all off. Down it came! HUGE thanks to Nic who got them off, and also to my mother in law who helped us take a lot of that fake brick off. It was glued on and there was so much careful scraping - hard enough to take it off, but not too hard that it would take the wall off.

You guys, THIS IS HOW WE LIVED FOR WEEKS. It drove me crazy. 

Then Ken started tiling. It was tedious work so it was incredibly satisfying to see it slowly go up. We even spent a night tiling and called it a date night. The hood also had to go up, which was harder than expected. 

This is also when I started painting the lower cabinets, which took several weeks. I could only get an hour here and there to sand and get a coat on, and then I would have to wait for them to dry, or wait for another chance to get away to paint. By this time, we had worked out a system where I would take care of feeding the girls, putting them to bed, cleaning and meal prepping so that Ken could work on the kitchen. It was frustrating to not make progress on painting the cabinets or being able to help with tile, but that's what we needed to do to get this done while both working full time and caring for two little kids. And I have to say, Ken was a rockstar working on these projects. I was constantly impressed with his initiative and diligence with all this work that neither of us had every done before. Seeing these traits show up in him may be one of my favorite things about this whole process. 

Ken sent me this photo after he put the shelves up and it was like the heavens parted and angels started singing. One step closer!

And then, last week, we could see the finish line.  The last few things that had to happen was: installing the hardware on the cabinets, putting up pendant light over the sink (which you can't even really see in these photos), caulking, putting the plates on the switches and outlets, putting in the magnetic strips for the spices and knives.  Also, unpacking a few more boxes, putting plates on the shelves, and cleaning up books and crannies. Then we stepped back and said, it is done. 

Ta-DA! 

It was so gratifying to have the vision I had in my mind come to life before my eyes. I got my natural light, white tile, open shelving and brass hardware. 

I think the kitchen would look even lighter and brighter with stainless steel dishwasher and oven (and I even looked into stainless steel paint or cover, without being convinced), but the ones we have in there right now work fine so we are planning to wait until we can save a little more money and find a good deal on them.

I love these extra shelves so much. I had originally wanted to do some sort of reclaimed wood shelving, but there wasn't enough time so we went with these Ikea Algot shelves and they do exactly what I hope they would.

We cut down our bowls and plates to the essentials and so far, I love this system.  Also, the knives on the magnetic strip is so convenient.

We tried to make this kitchen as functional as I can, and I'm still working on making it user friendly, especially to the way that Ken and I cook.  I still have to organize the pantry that holds most of our dry goods, and decide how to organize the rest of my spices in a way that will be most practical....but all that will happen after I spend some time enjoying the fact that we have the big things done.... 

A note on marriage:

When we moved into our first house, we had some of the biggest fights we'd ever had. So big in fact that often times I would be left thinking that it was all a mistake, how could I marry someone who was so different, how could I have wanted to make a life with someone who couldn't appreciate my appreciation aesthetics?

Almost three and a half years later, we started looking at houses again, and some of those old issues resurfaced, but we were so much better at managing it this time. Better at communicating, listening to what the other person was saying, and respecting each other's opinions.

When we moved into the new house and started the projects, it was with pleasant surprise that we repeatedly found ourselves on the same page. We were grateful for it, because the projects were stressful and disagreements between us would have made everything that much harder. And something else wonderful happened. We realized that our differences made us a really great team. Is this a cliche lesson to learn? That differences can work together for the good? Well, it doesn't feel that way when you are on one side of the rope in a tug-of-war, but then suddenly instead of being on opposing sides, you find both of you pulling on a rope together, and on the other side of the rope is a house. One person could pull when the other got tired, one person knew the directions, the other had the ideas, etc. Such was the beauty of a marriage, such was the beauty of two people being transformed together.

He would ask what I envisioned for a space, I would tell him, he would listen - really listen - and then tell me what would work and what wouldn't, because he knew about the practical things.  I cared about the visual things, he cared about doing things right, and we both cared about the functionality of things.

And all of that together, plus a lot of hard work, produced this kitchen, is what I'm saying.