Mother's Day Views from Paige

Parenting toddlers/preschoolers is such a wild ride, and Paige is no exception. Generally, she is such a happy kid with such a fun personality. She is definitely finding her place as an independent person, but she is really such a fun kid. However, twice over Mother's Day weekend, she really put me in my place.

First, on Friday when I picked the kids up from school, Paige climbed into the car just grinning from ear-to-ear {which is nothing new} and handed me a card she made for me for Mother's Day. She was SO proud of the card she made and as she gave it to me, she said 'Happy Valentine's Day!'. HA! She knew something special was going on, just not really what!

Sunday, on Mother's Day, we were getting ready to go to a birthday party. I was getting dressed and Paige made the following comment:

'You have big, big, big, big, big fat breasts.

And a fat tummy.

And fat legs.

And fat ankles.

And a fat butt.

And fat arms.'

THANKS, PAIGE! I love you too! Are there any body parts you forgot to mention you'd like to comment on?

She's lucky she's cute!

I'm really glad I don't rely on this child for my self-esteem!

I Call First Song!

One part of our morning routine that has remained consistent for years - and causes very little drama - is our song rotation in the car. Our drive to school is 10 minutes - long enough for each kid to pick 1 song on the way. The kids {whoever thinks of it first starts it} will call out which song they want. Trent and Paige both want first song and Drew always wants second song. Usually when the kids are eating breakfast, someone will randomly shout out 'I call x song!' and it dominoes from there. It cracks me up when one of the girls starts it while Trent is still in bed and later he tries to call first song, and it's like 'Dude, that ship has sailed.'

Once we get in the car, my phone gets passed around to each kid as they pick their songs. For a long time, Trent was picking clean rap songs off YouTube {usually garbage songs and it made me feel like I was 100 years old complaining about the junk he picked} and the girls were picking Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Ava Max...some rotation of girl power pop songs. 

Then we had a big shift in our song choices, and it has really cracked me up, and it's worth {to me at least} documenting. 

Now Trent is super into Manga {Japanese anime} - he literally checked out 45 books last week at the library and read them all in a week. They are comics so he can read a whole book very quickly. So his song choices are now Japanese TV show theme songs that literally we don't understand a single word to.

And Drew is obsessed with Harry Potter, so she goes from picking classical music from the various Harry Potter movie soundtracks or these YouTube Harry Potter rap songs. Paige usually picks the same thing as Drew right now ha.

So imagine how that feels in my mind to go from rap/Katy Perry/Taylor Swift to Japanese theme songs and classical music, ha! These kids are something else. {grin}

Just because they are so cute and I can't end a post without a pic!

Thoughts on International Women's Day

March is Women's History Month and Monday was International Women's Day. Anyone else not know about this? Just me? I felt real dumb when I read International Women's Day has been celebrated since 1911!

The older I get the more I try to reflect on, appreciate, and learn from these special months. I enjoyed continuing talking about diversity during Black History Month and learning about Black historical figures with the kids but hadn't thought much about Women's History Month before this week...mainly since I'd never heard about it! {grin}

HOWEVER, Monday, my company did an amazing celebration of Women with a 3-hour conference. It gave me all the feels and led me to really think about being a woman, being a girl mom, and what I want to BE as a woman/mother.

First, how amazing is this picture of my {female} hero and littlest lady love?

I took this Sunday, and it feels really special right now.

I started thinking about a few things I want to teach my girls. Some of these are very universal but some are also things that have evolved as I grow into my own as a woman.

• Being happy in my own skin. There are several things I am uncomfortable with currently as I age - I am graying RAPIDLY, wrinkles are popping up quickly, my belly is full of saggy skin and stretch marks {thanks giant babies}, I have weight I want to lose. What I want my girls to see is that I love myself. I try really hard not to talk negatively about my body or to talk about weight and size. I tell my girls I exercise and eat good foods so I can have a strong body and live a long time, not so I can be skinny. This one is for sure a work in progress and I have a lot to learn about body positivity, but I'm getting there!
• Natural is beautiful. Similar but also different from being happy in my own skin, I want my girls to know they don't need to change a single thing about themselves. I shared a few years back that I didn't want to dye my hair because it's a pain and expensive with hair this dark...but that doesn't mean I love my grays. I also get more self-conscious of my aging face as time goes on. But I decided a long time ago that I never wanted to feel like I couldn't leave my house without a full face of makeup, and so far, I still feel that way...most of the time. You will never see me getting Botox or having plastic surgery. I have no issues with anyone else do anything they want that makes them happy...but the example I want to set for my girls is that they are beautiful the way God {and their dad and I!} made them.

The shirt I just happened to be wearing on Monday!

• Kind is cool. I don't want to raise mean girls. One of my flaws is a love of gossip, and I don't like that about myself. I want my girls to know better!
• How to be a friend. Nothing is better than a group of women friends! For the support, unconditional love, ear when you just need to vent about your job/children/husband/anything! We are at our best as women when we support each other and there has been too much tearing each other down.
• You can be anything you want! I want my girls to know the sky is the limit, and anything they want to achieve is possible.
• Recognize your privilege. Just the other night, Trent and I talked about him hitting all the points of privilege {white, male, Christian, heterosexual, middle class}, and the girls hit almost all of them. I didn't understand privilege until more recently, and I want my girls to recognize their privilege early on and use it for good and to make the world a better place. As Layla Saad talks about often, I want to be a good ancestor and teach my girls that too.

The guest speakers of the conference were Lisa Ling and Viola Davis!

Their talks were SO inspirational, and I enjoyed learning from them.

As you can see I have a lengthy list of ideals I want for my girls. Obviously those won't all happen this month! {grin} My goal for the month is to share stories of the amazing things women have accomplished throughout history and instill pride in my little women. But I hope to also use this month as a launching point for a lifelong journey of celebrating and elevating the female voice!

Happy Women's History Month!

All Things Kids

I had a random assortment of things to share about the kiddos, so I decided it would make a nice post together.

First off, Trent! This kid is 11.5 and rocking 6th grade. He's had some big changes this year.

1) He got braces! We have known for a LONG time he'd need them and have just been waiting for his baby teeth to finish falling out. Once we knew he was ready, we gave him the option of getting them now or waiting a little. He picked to do it now and get it over with, which I thought was really smart!

2) His school year has been his best year EVER {minus 2 fights and 1 suspension ha}. And he's had A LOT to deal with! In typical 2020 fashion, he's on his 3rd teacher and just finished a class-wide 14-day quarantine. He has moved easily from virtual to on-campus and has made us so proud with handling all the changes at school.

3) This one blows my mind. Trent now wears a bigger shoe size than me! He wears a size 5 in kids, which translates to an adult 7. I wear a 6! He's getting really close to 5' tall too - he's going to pass me up within a couple of years. I'm not ready!

Whose is whose? Ha!

Drew has had a lot of things going on that are super fun to share.

1) She celebrated her First Reconciliation a few weeks ago. This was her 2nd sacrament and is in preparation for her First Communion which will be in May. My mother-in-law is going to make her dress, and I am so excited to get started on it!

2) Next week Drew is starting piano lessons! She got a keyboard for Christmas, and we've been using a beginner book to start, but a lady in our neighborhood teaches, and she is so excited to start. Learning to read music is something I want all my kids to be able to do, but Trent is SUPER resistant ha.

3) After switching rooms over a year ago, we FINALLY finished Drew's room in the fall by painting 1 wall. We narrowed it down to a few colors in the spring, then Covid happened so we couldn't go buy any, and then she changed her mind! We finally got a consensus on a color {the same color in Trent's room ha}, and my mother-in-law came over one day and we slapped some paint on it!

Last, but certainly not least, Paige has had some big developments too!

1) She is 100% diaper free! After an accident in the fall set us back {only because she peed in our brand new bed ha}, we put her back in diapers for a while, but she was consistently waking up dry. We finally took the plunge again and haven't had any accidents, yay!

2) Not really a new development, but she continues to be the silliest child with a huge personality. {grin}

2) In the hopes to curb her nighttime wanderings into our room, we have Paige and Drew sleeping together, and it is the cutest thing ever.

So there's a little update on our brood. Making my heart happy every day!

Ten Questions About Motherhood

Another set of questions I borrowed from Natasha! I really thought these questions about motherhood were SO interesting! 

1. Did you have siblings as a child? Do you have children at home now? If so, tell us more about them.

I don't think I need to answer whether I have children at home...or honestly either of these questions, but I'll talk a little more about my sister here!

I have one older sister, Patty, who is 20 months older than me. We went from best friends as kids to mortal enemies for most of high school and college to best friends as adults/early mothers to...I'm not quite sure what these days. In some ways she is still my person, but we are definitely not as close as we used to be. I blame some of it on their move {they now live an hour away which is the furthest we've ever lived from each other} and some to the season of life we're in - 6 kids between us is a lot to juggle. I don't see her nearly as much as I want to, and it's usually us getting together at our parents' house with all the kids. The cousins LOVE to play together! And we occasionally swap children for sleepovers. I hope that as the kids get older, we can do stuff just the 2 of us - I miss spending time with her!

Patty, David {her husband}, and me a few weeks ago at our parents'.

2. What age were you when you became a mommy for the first time? How many children and pets do you have?

I became a mom at 28 {Brent was 29}. Brent and I had been married for about 4.5 years and only tried for a few months before getting pregnant. We had our second child when we were 32 and our third when we were 36.

About 6 weeks before welcoming Trent!

3. Are your children biological or adopted?

All of our children are biological. We actually talked about adopting instead of having a 3rd but I loved being pregnant, delivery, and breastfeeding and didn't want to miss out on those experiences. I'm obviously SO thankful we have Paige, but this might make me sound a little selfish. 

4. If you have children, did you deliver them naturally or with pain meds or by c-section? If you adopted a baby, how old was he/she when you brought them home?

I delivered all 3 vaginally with very different circumstances - Trent was a planned induction at 40 weeks, 3 days using pitocin and I had an epidural, Drew I had completely drug-free at 41 weeks, and Paige was an unplanned induction sort of at 41 weeks, 6 days {I went into labor but things stalled so I had pitocin and then needed an epidural}. Trent's labor was 12 hours, Drew's was just over 5, and Paige's was close to 24 hours of misery, ha.

You can read their birth stories if so inclined by clicking HERE.

5. Did you breast feed, bottle feed or pump for your babies?

I breastfed all 3 - Trent for 14 months and both girls for 2.5 years. We also used bottles for when I was away {but it was always breast milk} and once the kids went to daycare. 

Breastfeeding Paige shortly after she was born, I love this picture!

I was very fortunate that my body responded well to pumping, and I was able to keep up with the kids once I went back to work. I think it was partly that I had so long at home to establish my supply but also the flexibility at my job to pump when I needed to. My company had an amazing wellness room where I could go and pump with no stress. Of course back when I was pumping at work, I wasn't always at my office and was often at clients, and they weren't required to provide me a pumping space {since I wasn't their employee}, so I have some really awesome {meaning terrible} stories of fun pumping situations!

Pumping at work...moo!

6. Have you potty trained babies? Cloth diapers or disposable?

EVERYONE IS POTTY TRAINED! We used a combination of cloth diapers and disposables when they were all babies. Trent and Drew both potty trained at 2.5 for daytime, Trent was closer to 5 for nighttime and Drew was right at 4 for nighttime. Paige potty trained at 18 months during the day and is waking up dry consistently just in the last month or two {although after our double bed wetting night a few weeks ago she is still sleeping in diapers}.

Trent 'helping' me fold his cloth diapers {grin}

7. Have you taken prenatal or parenting classes for your babies? Home school, private school or public school?

We took a birth class through our OB with Trent and a pain management class before Drew since my goal was to have her without medication. All our kids go to a public charter school as of this year, yay {discussed more below}!

8. What is the significance of your children's names? If you could pick another name for yourself, would you? What would it be?

I blogged about how we named each of our children {Trent, Drew, and Paige}. Only their middle names have any significance {Trent and Brent share a middle name, Drew and I share a middle name, and Paige's celebrates her birthday being right before Christmas}, but they all follow the same syllable pattern - 1-2-2 and I made sure that none of their names were super popular using the social security administrations name database {nerd alert}.

When we almost flipped a coin to name Trent!

You can see what other names were our contenders.

I've never liked my name, but I don't have a name I wish I had instead. I have always liked my middle name, Kathleen, and tried for about a day when I was a kid to go by it ha.

9. If you have children, did you travel with them as babies? Did you use childcare for your children? Playdates?

We have not done much traveling in our lives as a whole, but what little we do, we have largely done without children. I know a lot of people talk about just taking their kids and going, but that always scared me too much to try it often!

California with all the Gurleys in 2016

All 3 of our kids went to daycare when I returned to work. Luckily, my company has amazing benefits, and I was able to be off work for about 6 months with all 3. Trent went to a traditional daycare {national chain} from 9 months until he was almost 5, Drew went to the same daycare from 6 months to 14 months, and then we switched to a Montessori school. Paige started at that same Montessori school at 8 months. They all now still go to a Montessori school, but they are all now at a public charter in our town.

Trying not to cry as I dropped Drew off at daycare for the first time.

I held it together until I got to the car!

10. What is one lesson you learned or one takeaway from being a parent?

Parenting is incredibly hard, and we all need to give ourselves grace. You do the best you can and keep trying every day.

Oops

Y'all. Somehow Brent and I made a big parenting mistake. We managed to avoid this mistake with the first 2 kids, but here we are...failing with #3.

Paige is sleeping in our bed. Like every night. 

We went through the same thing with Drew - when she came out of her crib, she came into our room, she went into Trent's room, she wanted to sleep in random places - it was basically a disaster. We put her on a pallet on our floor, and eventually she stopped waking me up and would just get on her pallet, and then after a while stopped coming in. 

Paige is truly a dream child in so many ways. But NOT sleep - she has consistently been our worst sleeper. She had every sleep regression known to mankind. I really didn't think anyone could be worse than Drew, and she has proved me wrong!

When she came out of her crib, she was scared to fall asleep in her bed. I don't understand why, but she was. If I sit in her room while she falls asleep, it's not a problem. I sit in her room in the glider and read on my phone or work, and as soon as she's asleep I leave. I've never had to do this with either of my other kids, and Paige was content to go into her crib awake, so this has been a surprise. Almost a year later, we're still doing this, and I have no clue how to get out of her room. So that's been problem one.

THEN, to add to that, she comes in our room EVERY night in the middle of the night. We had her sleeping on a pallet or the couch in our room {just like Drew} and things were moving along. But now she cries if we try to put her on the couch, and we let her in the bed. And she won't go back. How did this happen?

Brent asked her the other day why she wouldn't sleep in her bed. Her response 'I sleep in the middle.' We are screwed.

Turtles All the Way Down

A couple of Sundays ago, I took the girls on a bike ride while Brent and Trent were doing some work on my dad's land. The girls and I stopped at some neighbors' houses to say hi to their kids and visited for a little bit. I decided to take the longer way home so the girls could get more exercise. We barely made it a few houses down the street when both girls managed to fall off their bikes and start sobbing.

I was on my bike trying to console and calm down 2 crying girls while also thinking about how I was going to get us all back home. I decided I would ride my bike and have the girls walk, and we could get on the golf cart and drive down the street to pick up their bikes. Going the fast way home, it would only be about half a mile. 

An older neighbor {who we didn't know} was in her yard working in her flower beds. She saw we were struggling and offered to follow me in her car with the girls' bikes, but I said we could make it. {Why as mothers is it so hard to accept help from others?} Then she asked the girls if they'd like to see her pet turtle, which instantly dried up the tears.

She brought her turtle, Julip, outside and the girls loved getting to touch and hold her. Donna, the neighbor, told us all about Julip and her personality. Then she mentioned she had 2 dogs and the girls wanted to meet the dogs, so her husband brought both dogs outside. My girls were in HEAVEN. They have 2 teenage daughters, so they understood a little something about having 2 crying girls at the same time!

We sat in their yard for about 20 minutes. And it was just what our disaster of an adventure needed to make some very sad girls happy. It also worked out really well that Brent got home during this time and was able to come down in the golf cart and pick the girls and their bikes up!

It's nice to see and experience the bonds of motherhood. I didn't know Donna, but she knew a mother in need of some help. Her small act of kindness was a huge blessing to me and made 2 little sad girls very happy. I hope to be a Donna always.

Drew and Julip - look at that smile!

You wouldn't know they'd both been hysterical 10 minutes earlier!

Quarantine Mother's Day 2020

Like all holidays...and really all of life...things are different this year. And Mother's Day was no different. There was no church, no spa gift card {it's currently closed and who knows if/when my mother-in-law and I would be able to go, SOB}, BUT like every other day...there was family time! I had just a few requests for 'my' day - I want Starbucks, I wanted to go on a nature walk/hike, and I wanted Brent to grill. I'm happy to report I got all 3 PLUS my kiddos and hubby washed and vacuumed my car, yay!

I can't with this little nugget

We didn't make it very far into the hike before this one wanted the Ergo.

And then refused to smile for ANY pictures when she was on my back.

Selfie with my babies...you can sorta see Paige's forehead ha!

BEAUTIFUL view!

Beautiful babies!

Texas being gross

Nature is so ugly

And she STILL won't look up!

Monday I took the kids to my parents' house and my sister did the same with her kids. We stayed outside 99% of the time, took a walk down to the creek by their house, celebrated our mom and Blair's birthday {which was in April}. The cousins were ecstatic to be together after not seeing each other for 3 months! We practiced as much social distancing as we could with 6 kids ages 3-11.

Creek adventures in this creek since 1981

We got our mom these really cute birthstone bracelets.

Too bad Patty {November} and me {August} have the ugliest birthstones.

The babies playing together

So fun to have a Babs who was a PE teacher for 100 years!

Happy birthday, Blair! We love you!

The big boys - weren't they just the little babies?

SEESTERS!

The girl cousins - everyone was a bit loopy to be together again!

And sadly I got no pictures with our parents, ha!

Another Quarantine Adventure in the books!

Porchtraits

We had some Quarantine Porch-traits made last week.

We haven't taken family pictures since Paige's newborn pictures.

[Ugh, I let that self-hatred get the better of me]

But these are so wonderful and are bringing me such joy!

I will cherish them forever.

A beautiful reminder of a crazy time.

For anyone local, Kristin was wonderful to work with,

and I think the pictures speak for themselves. GAH!

You Win Some, You Lose Some

Sometimes you're doing good and sometimes...not so much. I feel like the last few weeks have been 1 step ahead, 1 step back, 1 step sideways, all over the place. But we've had a few things to celebrate...but also a few things to lament!

Some of the good...
- I've lost 2 pounds so far this month! Slowly working my way toward my goal, yay!
Some of the bad...
- I ate my weight in lasagna last night, oops!

Some of the good...
- We've managed to keep the kids' diets pretty decent. [minus some extra snacks we ordered from Amazon]
Some of the bad...
- I think the kids are only brushing their teeth once a day. At least they are brushing them? And they are definitely not showering consistently!

Some of the good...
- We are spending a lot more time outside.
Some of the bad...
- But the kids are definitely getting extra screen time. It isn't INSANE, but I am trying to relieve my Mom Guilt over screen time right now...

Some of the good...
- I have started drinking my coffee with NO sweetener! I don't love it, but it's manageable!
Some of the bad...
- I REALLY want a Chai...and might be making that happen today! Sugar, I just can't completely quit you!

Some of the good...
- I have been so impressed at how quickly Drew picked up bike riding once we finally tackled it. Now we need to tackle shoe tying. Coronavirus is slowing us down enough to tackle all these things a 7-year-old should already know, ha.
Some of the bad...
- We can't go very far because her bike is too small, and it is super hard pedaling a bike that is too small. I think we're going to go get an old one my parents have though!

Some of the good...
- I love all the extra family time - I feel like we are making a lot of new habits that I hope stick and making good memories. Drew and Trent have been so much better with each other, and we're all doing a lot more together.
Some of the bad...
- With all this togetherness, there is definitely a lot more fighting, ha!

What are some of the good and bad things happening for you!?!?

Anatomy of a Kitchen Counter

This is probably going to seem like a silly post, but I am constantly amazed at how my house can go from clean to cluttered so fast as a family of 5. I wanted to show my kitchen counter as proof of this as the day progressed. I took about 10 or so pictures throughout the day and just chuckled at this progression. Maybe someone else will find this interesting? Maybe?

Night before - 10 pm

Finished cleaning the kitchen and wiping the counters down

Only things out: my water class and computer

9 am - breakfast time for the girls!

What's out: children, 2 plates, 2 water cups, my computer, butter knife

10 am - unloading groceries

What's out: hot glue gun, bowl from Trent's breakfast, the girls' breakfast dishes, school work spread out, my headset/computer, and 8 rolls of toilet paper that need to be distributed, my water glass, Trent's cup

11 am - we're technically outside

What's out: girls' breakfast plates STILL out, hello to my coffee and tablespoon, Trent's breakfast bowl, hot glue gun, school work, Trent's pen, my car key, Trent's watch, and still that TP

Hi Trent! Hi open back door! {why won't these kids close the door??}

12:30 pm - lunch is served

What's out: same plates but a different meal, computer/headset, my car key, coffee, glue gun, Trent's bowl, school work, lunch fixings

1:45 pm - My lunch time

What's out - blender for smoothie, plates from lunch, glue gun, Trent's bowl, bowl of frozen peaches for Paige {that she didn't eat}, coffee {yes, I drink it this slowly}, plastic sack from an earlier walk, my car key, green beaded necklace, strawberries and tomatoes leftover from lunch, school work, computer/headset

2:40 pm - Hi Trent!

What's out - same as before but we've added Trent doing his work and a snack pack of Pringles and 2 sacks of crayons

*Big break here as I was helping Brent spread rock around the flower beds*

5:45 pm - It's time for a colossal meltdown from a tired Paige

What's out - same as before minus the Pringles plus an early dinner snack for Paige, a purple beaded necklace, squirty fruit package, and my water glass is back

7 pm - Meal 4,327

What's out - those same plates getting another meal, container of leftover Spanish rice I made on Sunday, half an apple, empty squirty fruit container, more beaded necklaces, some random bell pepper slices, glue gun, 2 knives, my smoothie straw, my car key, water cups for everyone but Brent

8:30 pm - Winding down the day...hopefully

What's out - I cleaned the stove so my cast iron griddle got moved over, Trent made some hot chocolate so we've added the mix, measuring cup, and mug, plus Brent's old cell phone they all play with, a few things were put away, yay!

9:45 pm - And it's clean again!!!

Whew! That didn't even seem to get as bad as it does sometimes, and it still got pretty awful during the middle of the day. 

How do you handle clutter in your house?