I felt SO much backup after our ordeal yesterday at the hair place. I was very upset about Dekker’s tantrum and how the whole event played out, which I think is justified to a degree, but I think I figured out why it upset me quite so much! I slept maybe two hours last night, I just couldn’t wind down, but it gave me time to think. Do you remember earlier this year, we had this awful run in at Walmart? Someone said hi to him, and he just lost it. He screamed and kicked and was completely out of my control until we left the store. I couldn’t talk him down, I couldn’t gain eye contact, I couldn’t get his attention or hold his hands or anything. He was just gone. It was because of that instance that we decided that he needed a break, and for the next 4-6 months or so, we took Dekker absolutely nowhere. No stores, no restaurants, hardly any church even. Granted, his behaviors had been escalating up to that point, and that was just the cherry on top. The break we gave him was WONDERFUL and he’s come so far! He loves going in to businesses, and he loooves restaurants. He handles himself beautifully, and even had the nerve to order a smoothie at Cora’s once all by himself. Last night, his reaction to his haircut was the same reaction he had to that poor man at Walmart that dared speak to my son. The exact same screams; out of control. At our Walmart excursion, when we were finally at the van, I just bawled and bawled in the drivers seat. I called Brady, and he left work an hour early to come help me. I was done. So this time around, thinking he’d be on way better behaviour that the past because he was sooo much better at social situations, I was completely overwhelmed and honestly, a bit afraid I think. I think thats what happened, and why I was so upset by his actions. I felt so much love from all of you guys. Comments on the blog, on Facebook, private messages, and texts all poured in. I’m so glad its not just us who have been there, done that. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Seriously.

So on that note, today has been better. Like its been a bit rocky, but definitely better than yesterday. We’re doing a lot of cuddling and being quiet. Laundry went all morning, and Dekker was my big helper, totally unprompted. He followed me to the laundry machines when I went to switch out a load and insisted he pull everything out of the dryer on his own. “Makes mommy happy?” he asked. I praised him up and told him I was sooo happy for his help. Then, he wanted me to pass him all the drippy clothes to put into the dryer. My boy, covered in cool water, asks “Mommy proud of me?” I really really am, yes, Dekker. Once he closed the door, he grabbed a handle of the basket and pulled it out of the room and over to the dryer rack. “Just help mommy fold this…” I heard him say as he walked away. No word of a lie. He is really, really trying. He was right beside me as I struggled to stuff quilts into space saver bags, his simple comment being “Oh! Ziploc!” And he did his best to entertain Laela while Brady finished the long process of backing up our Mac!!! Its completely reloaded, updated, and the iMessage glitch is finally gone and is back to being a usable program!!! I’m so relieved to have actually gotten a couple of things done while the kids were up! At nap time, I could see Dekker start to wind up and get upset, so I grabbed him and hugged him, and he immediately just climbed up on me. So I carried him to his room and he went down fairly uneventfully. It was a huge improvement.

Since the kids have went down for their nap, Brady has somehow managed to pack what we thought was a solid two loads of garbage into his van into ONE LOAD! The closest landfill we could find that was open today was all the way to the city, so he’s off for a few hours. I’m sooo excited to see that garbage go! To celebrate, I started bringing some things from my overfilled pantry down into my newly spacious furnace room. You know, the big stuff, like flats of drinks, boxes of granola bars, and pretty much everything that we buy in bulk. I’m thrilled to already see a huge improvement in my pantry and tons of space still on my furnace room shelves! I accomplished a bunch in there, and the last load of laundry is in. I feel good. Tired, but way better than I felt yesterday.

Maybe when the kids get up, they can “help” me sort through the Tupperware/plastic containers. I’m thinking they’d actually really like that 🙂 And seriously, who needs that many margarine containers???

Thanks again for everyone who sent love or encouragement, whether you told me or not. I felt so supported yesterday. And today. And often. You guys rock.

Two BIG embarrassing things happened to our family today. I would oh so much appreciate it if you guys didn’t judge us. We are currently wiped out beyond belief from todays events and it is just time to call it a day. Very, very soon.

Firstly, Tuesday is a day our landfill is open! We had our whole day planned around it. We napped the kids early, and began the massive job of hauling the garbage upstairs from our furnace room. It was FINALLY all cleared out of there, but sitting in our living room. It was then that we remembered that it was Remembrance Day. Don’t judge us, please! With the way Bradys job goes, we are so rarely even aware of when stat holidays even are, since he works them often. He’s had a few days off just with the way scheduling worked out this month, so we’ve been taking advantage of the days to get things done, and yes, we forgot about Remembrance Day. So that sucked. We got over it and moved the huge haul of garbage onto our deck so we could try again soon. Sadly, our local dump doesn’t open again for a couple of days, and Brady will be back at work over those days. So at best, Brady might take a load in to the city tomorrow, but we’ll still have at least one more run that will have to wait. More likely, our garbage will sit oh so beautifully on our deck for the world to see until Saturday when the landfill opens again. So that was a big win for us.

Secondly, Dekker had a haircut scheduled for this evening. He’s sad through them fine before, with just a bit of a bribe. So we told him about it, so he knew it was coming, with promises of candies during the cut, and supper out afterwards. HUGE incentives for my little boy. But guys, no word of a lie, I don’t think I have ever been so embarrassed as I was this evening 🙁 I still feel like crying. We got in early, which was wonderful. It gave us lots of time. Dekker went absolutely nuts. As in I’ve never seen him like that. He screamed and thrashed and wouldn’t listen to anything. Its impossible to speak to someone screaming so loudly he can’t hear anything over his own voice. My hair girl is excellent and just waited patiently. She gave us tons of time. We even ducked out and all sat on a bench outside the salon to discuss what we needed to do. He finally agreed that, if he had a smoothie, he would drink it while he sat quietly for his haircut. We asked him a number of times, and he seemed to understand and agree. Turns out, not so much. He sat on Bradys lap and just lost it. People who were waiting in the salon not-so-subtly informed the staff that they’d rather wait out in the mall. It was horrific. Finally, Carlinna just asked if I wanted her to just go for it, and we agreed. She worked sooo fast, and Dekker thrashed and freaked the whole time. It was unbelievable. Again, I was so embarrassed 🙁 I mean, they all said it was pretty common that kids were scared of haircuts and new places, and when I asked Calinna if he was her first crazy three year old, she laughed right out loud and said she’d been in this exact spot hundreds of times. So they really wanted us to feel ok, but we were so choked.

Needless to say, supper out was cancelled and we drove home in silence. Dekker ate supper and proceeded to scream (literally) for the next 45 minutes or so. He went down to bed almost an hour early. It was a truly awful way to end the day. I’m emotionally wiped out and at a complete loss. I know we all have days like this, and I know the stereotype that comes with three year olds. I just have never seen Dekker like this, but these last few days have certainly given us a run for our money, and sanity.

The kids are now both tucked away, but not sleeping. Make them sleeeeep! Brady and I still haven’t eaten, but we both feel more sick than hungry. What a day. Hoping for some normalcy tomorrow.

I spent today shopping with the ever-lovely Jerilee. She’s moving right away here so she came along on my grocery shopping trip to pick up a few house things and obviously to keep me company.

It was sooo nice to have company and to be hands free while I wandered Walmart and costco! But we started with Telus. My phones been acting up so I brought it in and was helped by the guy who I often find to be incredibly unhelpful. While he reset a few things on my phone, I talked to Jerilee about being pregnant with Laela and how we told Dekker her name in advance in hopes that he would learn to say it. This time, however, we’re doing everything we can not to share baby names with him, because he’d tell! As we were talking, the Telus guy inquired and congratulated me on my pregnancy. I was surprised that he cared and told him thanks, and that we were really excited. He said he sure hoped I was. I told him it was our third and some people think we’re crazy to have more. He just smiled and said “don’t listen to any of that. Just be thankful you can have babies. Not all of us are so lucky.” And then he cracked some little joke about us making a deal down the line, and he went on to fix my phone. I was so sad, and didn’t know what to say, yet he didn’t make me feel awkward, or guilty for having kids. He actually made it really comfortable. I was relieved because I really never know what to say. I know a person can have a wondered up, rich life without kids. You don’t need kids to have joy. But they add something that nothing else can bring, it’s true. I was sad, but thankful that he shared. It reminded me that he’s a man with a life, not just an iPhone hater.

After Telus, we went to red lobster for lunch, which was likely our best decision of the day. It really hit the spot and didn’t set us back financially at all! I could eat their clam chowder in a bread bowl every day of the week.

We ran through Walmart next and I bought groceries and a few other fun things. Oh! And a Christmas present for Dekker. Costco after that resulted in lots and lots of delicious frozen processed foods from a box which I am actually really looking forward to! And new kitchen towels that we are in desperate need of.

Sadly, I took Jerilee home after that. She has evening stuff up, and I had sad kids at home. So we parted ways, but I think I can say we both have good evenings to look forward to. I feel very accomplished with all of our shopping done. But it was also nice to get out of the house for a few hours and get in some time with a friend.

Brady did a bunch of work on the Mac, but it’s still loading and updating and doing its thing so we’re gonna get a few more things done here before we really tire out. And then supper, hahaha! We’re a bit backwards today but it’s gonna be extra delicious 🙂 were gonna earn it!

I wasn’t subtle about the fact that yesterday was hard. I had a pretty sweet wicked brutal meltdown last night, keeping us up fairly late. However, I’m happy to say that Brady and I slept like rocks and I was ready to get our day started! We still have our list that we’re working on, and sort of decided to work at it a bit today, but nothing too crazy. Just some of the little stuff. Really, everything on that list is going to produce garbage, and the dump nearby isn’t open until Tuesday, so we can’t make too much more of a mess! So I was excited to get up and get on the baking chunk of the day. Dekker is very interested in whats happening every time the mixer goes on, and he’s starting to really enjoy pulling a chair up to the counter and keeping watch over the situation. And then I discovered we had no sugar. Like, maaaybe a cup. So my whole baking plan was nixed, which was a bit discouraging, but not the end of the world. I say and ate breakfast with the family, and we went about our day normally. I did a couple of things, like getting a few things off the bathroom counter and into tubs, but nothing much.

When the kids went down for their nap, Brady and I went into our second basement bedroom/storage room to see if anything could be tidied or helped. We couldn’t do much in there, unfortunately. Its sort of holding all the furniture that we want to keep for wherever we move next, but doesn’t have a place now. It also has all the big baby toys, like the swing, bouncy chair, etc. And a mini fridge. And the single stroller. And a drum kit. And a couple of guitar cases and amps. And some bins of toys. And the cradle that baby Jim will use when he’s first born. And some doors. Like the room is bursting. Oh, and a HUGE pile of diaper boxes that we’re hanging onto for moving. There was really very little we could do. We rearranged a little bit and put the closet doors back on the closet, but that was pretty much it. Oh and get this. We added stuff to that room today.

Better than the storage room, we personally attacked our walk-in closet today. It was a HUGE mess! Every time I would reach for something on the shelf, I expected the whole thing to just come down on me. Plus we have clothing store bags all over the floor, jewelry laying in amongst a pile of size tags on the dresser, and basically just dust bunnies on everything. It was pretty vile. So we purged through our clothes a bit, threw a bunch of bags and paper away, and put a few things into tubs and on the top shelf. I separated my pregnant clothes from my not-so-pregnant clothes, and we freed up a bunch more space for Bradys work clothes, which are usually just in a heap. We moved out absolutely everything that doesn’t belong in a closet. Its AWESOME! I’m so happy with the result. That gave me a feeling of productivity, finally!

We had pizza for supper, which our kids were super happy about. Dekker was eager to go play downstairs after we ate, and was thrilled to find a little flashlight keychain thing I had thrown down there for him. My son loooved flashlights, but has a tendency to leave them on, burning up the battery. This one only shines when you hold the button so hopefully we have a bit of time left on it. But he was thrilled. Laela, not so much. Poor munchkin. Her ears and cheeks were sooo red and hot that I checked her temperature but its low. She’s just teething so hard. Molars are so hard, because they have to cut through in a number of places, right? And of course, she doesn’t ever work on one at a time. Apparently that wouldn’t be efficient. She’s working on for sure two right now, and I can see those eye teeth are juuust below the surface too. Yikes. Poor dear. She was so ready for bed.

Dekker is still talking away in his room, but he’s happy, which is nice. While he’s been awake but in bed, we accomplished more in our house. We packed up all of our summer shoes and replaced them with boots. We put away the shoes that don’t fit the kid anymore, brought the skates upstairs. We also finally put away the suitcases from our Vegas trip. Don’t judge! I’m already embarrassed, ok? Does anyone else have that problem? If you don’t unpack them the day you get home, it just doesn’t get done? We’re so bad for that. And I mean, they were pretty much empty, minus a few pairs of socks and gift bags. But we got those all taken care of as well, and out bedroom is swept. I can’t remember what all else but we did a few solid chores that we can cross off the list, and we got a good start on a few others.

Tomorrow, I’m going to hit up the city in the afternoon for a couple of hours for groceries, and some lunch and shopping with a friend. Brady is going to try and backup/reload our laptop. Its seemingly on its way out, so this is our last ditch effort to bring it back to life. Get it all updated, backed up, and wiped clean. A fresh start always feels good! Hopefully our Mac agrees!

We’re all pretty off around here. After another big work afternoon for Brady and I, we’ve accomplished a ton of work in the furnace room. Yet, I still don’t feel satisfied. The rest of my list is growing, and what space we now have in our furnace room is FILLED with bins of garbage that we have nowhere to throw out. It will eventually be cleaned out, but I’m so tired of all the garbage. It just feels like the “gets worse before it gets better” stage.

Next to that, Dekker is in rare form these last few days. Its hard to figure him out, because he’s started to tell us he doesn’t feel well. At first, we were super compassionate, and thrilled that he had started to communicate that way! But now, he “doesn’t feel well” ever, apparently! Or if he doesn’t want to do something. And we have NO IDEA if he actually feels sick, or if he’s trying to stall. I guess lots of parents have this stage of figuring and wondering, and not wanting to discourage communication or encourage lying. BUT our hang up is that Dekker claims headaches. All. The. Time. And if his head hurts, it might actually be an issue with his prescription! But do I try and make some short notice “emergency” appointment with his ophthalmologist, to have everything be exactly the same? Or do I ignore him and not see Dr. Rubab until the end of February like is scheduled?? I have no idea.

And on top of everything, since tidying and working this afternoon, I’ve developed a fairly heavy and nerve wracking chest pain. I think I just pushed it too hard, and I’ve been banished to bed for supper, which is actually quite lovely. But I hate feeling like an invalid, and being utterly useless to my family. What makes me think I can have three kids if I can’t even handle two hours of work in the afternoon?? Sigh. I’m in pity mode. Sorry guys.

Its just felt like an off day. I know we accomplished lots, and in the very near future, it will feel sooo much better! But today, it feels like another day pissed away with a ton of garbage produced and sick, grouchy kids.

Definitely time to stop moping and end this post!

I believe I said that we were going to relax today and start working around the house and doing some chores starting on Saturday. My bad. Brady was hung-ho to begin one of the most foreboding tasks on the list today, so when the kids went down for their nap, he and I attacked the furnace room full force.

Three hours later, we had gotten maybe a third of it cleaned up. As I mentioned earlier, I did a huge purge of the furnace room a few months ago, so the worst of the junk is gone, but its all a HUGE mess! Plus, there were so many things on and around the workbench that I just didn’t feel were my business to decide their fate. So Brady and I went through the entire workbench (which is the length of a whole wall), underneath the workbench, all the stuff hanging on the wall, and the shelves around the bench. There was a TON of stuff! We threw out a few old appliances, broken tools, good supplies that we’ll just never use, and a ridiculous amount of rusted out nails and screws. I thought the winner was an old pair of flannel boxers that were actually hanging on a nail on the wall to possibly be used as a rag of some kind? Yup, couldn’t wait to get rid of those things!

The whole table top now has a couple of tool boxes on it, and a tidy little array of boxed screws and hooks and things. We also now have a small tub filled with new jobs. Like fresh wall outlets that we may as well use to replace some of the old ugly ones around the house. There were so many things like that already in our basement when we moved in, and we just never felt the need to replace stuff. But its there, and we should either use it or lose it. So sadly, we still have another couple of days worth of work in the furnace room, plus we’ve added a number of chores to the list. The already humungous list.

I know we accomplished a lot of great stuff in the furnace room today, and I couldn’t be more thrilled that our kids gave us three hours to do it! More garbage out, too! Not that we have anywhere to put it and garbage day was yesterday… But regardless, I know we did good! However, I’m struggling with the fact that I still have this big list of things that drive me nuts every single day, and we didn’t go near them. The furnace room bugs me every single time I enter it, but lots of things bug me every single day, and they are way smaller jobs. I’m having trouble being happy with what we’ve chosen to start working on.

My frustration finally gurgled up as we were getting the kids up from their nap and chore time was officially over. I explained how I was feeling, and then over explained it, and then back pedalled, and I think that it was around that point that Brady agreed to sit down with me at the table after the kids went down for night and talk about my list and plan with me.

So we did. We went over the whole list to see what was ahead of us for the next few days. A few bigger chores, but mostly small stuff. So we decided to do a few things before we got too comfy and settled in for the evening. A fun surprise was that, for whatever reason, I had put “laundry” on the list, and I did all the laundry today! As in, done! Even put away 🙂 So I could actually cross that off the list. Then we cleaned up a big box that had been sitting in our living room for an embarrassingly long amount of time, and threw out a bunch of gift bags that have accumulated since birthdays and such. Brady took out all of our basement garbages next, which we use less often, and also take out way less often, so they’re either empty or bursting. Now, they are empty. And lastly, we did a little experiment for a Christmas. Brady and I are doing a homemade Christmas with my parents and siblings, so we all picked names and are going to make gifts for whoever we chose. I don’t know if my idea will work so we put together a test gift or two as our final “chore” of the evening, so we’d end on something fun.

I think tomorrow will be another day where we work on the furnace room when the kids are down, but we might do some rearranging in the living room while they’re up. There are a few things on the list that we can even involve the kids in, and some could even be seen as fun by little ones. So we’ll see how much we’re up to, but there is potential for the day anyway. But for now, we rest our feet. We have earned it for today.

*** Last cool note of the day, though! Brady was invited to speak at a career fair coming up!! He’s being asked to speak about his experience as a carpenter/tradesman, as well as a small business owner. I, personally, think this is awesome, and kind of a huge honour! However, if you know my husband, he’s a bit shy and really hadn’t done much public speaking in his life at all. But he’d do great at it! I guess its time to psych him up for it 😀 You can do eeeeet!!!

I’m happy to share that today has been significantly better than yesterday! After a rocky morning and afternoon, yesterday evening proved to be even worse 🙁 It was just a bad, bad day. However, the kids were down at 7:30 and I had pumpkin chocolate chip cookie batter whipped up by 8:00. Brady hung out with me and helped me judge the new recipe and when it was time to take them out, and therefore, we not only satisfied a nesting urge I’ve had for a few days now, but also resulted in fresh cookies for the bath! Win all around 🙂

This morning, I got the kids up, fed, dressed, and we headed out for Grandmas house! We just went for a couple of hours, but it was sooo great! My moms just been running and running and I fee like we see her so much less often than we used to, and I know the kids miss her. So we got some good grandma time in for a bit, and then had lunch with her. It was also a great way to break the day up a bit. She came out to the van with us to pack everyone in, and that always helps the transition of leaving go a lot smoother.

Upon arrival home, I quickly cleaned out the dishwasher and loaded the few breakfast dishes into it, and it was nap time!!! Sadly, Laela napped during the last ten minutes of the drive, so she’s not too tired but they’re both in their room and they’re fading. I am also resting and fading, and reeeaaally hoping they can fall asleep. But don’t think I don’t see your feet poking through the bars of your crib Laela, or that I don’t hear you giggling, Dekker! I know you guys better than you think. Little punks.

Bradys not expecting to work too late tonight so hopefully we’ll have an evening of either complete relaxation, which hasn’t happened in a while, or we’ll maybe even get some stuff done! I’m good either way.

I had a fairly rocky night/morning, which resulted in me making a really dumb decision and being a jerk all morning. I was standoffish towards my kids, and grouchy. I did the bare minimum the entire time the kids were up. They went down fed, changed, and hugged and kissed, but without many cuddles or soft moments. It turns out that my constant lecturing Dekker on having a better attitude might need to turn around and attack someone new. Just trying to be straight up with you guys. Today has not been smooth, and its been my fault.

Dekker has noticed my attitude today. I’ve been polite to him, but short. I haven’t answered all his questions or played his games. So he knows. And he worked his little butt off. He tried hard to change his attitude and be helpful. I wrote a few days back about how he’ll hold his hand out for Laela to give him her toy if he wants it, and because she’s little and learning about passing, she pretty much always gives him what he wants. Today, when he would do that, he would thank her, then come show me what she had done. He would say “Laela gives this to me! Makes me so happy!” and then he’d go and thank her again. “Thanks Laela, giving me this toy.” It was a process, but he was making a solid effort to cover his bases and get it right. It was kind of adorable to watch.

My favorite thing Dekker has done today was towards the end of lunch. Our lunch is usually just known as “snack” actually. We all play downstairs during snack time, so its not structured at all. The food bowls always go in the same place on the same table, and the kids just come around and eat gradually. Its more fun and they tend to eat more, which I’m fine with, since its usually just fruit and veggies with some crackers to go with it. Today is was apples, cucumbers, and goldfish. Dekker is usually pretty possessive of his apples, but didn’t flinch when I gave Laela some bites of a slice. His only comment was “Oh, Laela likes apples!” I keep tabs to make sure Laela gets enough to eat, since she’s getting off the bottle, and sometimes when I think she’s distracted, I ask Dekker to bring her some crackers. He often fusses a bit, but always complies. I know he really dislikes actually putting food into her mouth, and often opts to put the crackers on the floor in front of her, or into an empty bowl. But today, he offered to bring her food. And he chose a cucumber. A cucumber is not something I’d ideally want Laela to eat off of our basement carpet, so I watched and he brought it to her and I saw him intentionally going through all the “steps” I’ve taught him. He came up to her and got right in front of her, and held the cucumber up right in front of her face so she knew it was coming. (Thats my favorite part because he takes it so seriously 🙂 ) She opened her mouth for it, and I saw him hesitate and bend down for a second, but he came back up and just stuffed that sucker into her mouth. She was shocked momentarily, but she likes cucumbers and handled it. Once he had fed her, he came back for a few cucumber slices himself and noticed that there weren’t many goldfish crackers left. His recent reaction has been to shovel them all into his mouth in one shot. I’m trying to teach him to save some for others but we’re still in the beginning stages of that. I saw him tip the bowl and say “Oh, just a couple…” and I said in my short tone of the morning “Don’t eat them all ok? Save some for Laela.” And he did! Not one little whiny sound escaped his throat. He passed me two and said “Two for Laela.” Then he ate two. “Two for Dekker.” Then he held one up shyly and said “One for mommy?” I smiled at him as he fed it to me. “Anunner for mommy!” I got another one. And then there was one left in the bottom of the bowl. Silence.

“Last one forrrrr…

Laela.”

And that was it. He put it in my hand with the other two for Laela, counted the three, and then took them over to her. I watched him come in front of her again, and she hung her mouth open as he popped them in there, one after the other after the other. Dekker came rushing back to me and asked “Makes mommy so happy?” Well of course it did. That little boy worked so hard to bring me out of my funk today. He shouldn’t have had to, but I appreciated his effort, and I love seeing that he really does aim to please, and that he wants to helps others.

We all have rough days.

Whew! Guys, I earned my bed/blog/YouTube time today!! I feel like I occasionally earn it by just being allowed to lay in bed, or because I’m building a human and chasing two all day long. But today, I really earned it!

I’ve been hit by the nesting bug, which doesn’t happen too terribly often, and I want to take advantage of it! However, most of the jobs that need doing around our house are a bit too big for one person to tackle. Yesterday, I was feeling the same way, but decided I should take Monday as a low key day, and reassess everything the next day. Well, thats today, and I NEEDED to get something done. So I continued yesterdays trend of a tidy kitchen and did the breakfast and lunch dishes. Which took all of four minutes maximum. Then what? Now that we’re training Dekker on tidying up the basement every evening, the upstairs looks like a total pigsty. I could do that, but the kids were napping upstairs, and them hearing me “playing” with their toys likely wouldn’t help them sleep. It had to be downstairs.

So I tackled our pile of recycle stuff in the furnace room. If you remember, I began (and never finished 🙁 ) a HUGE house purge a while back. It screeched to a halt when my morning sickness entered, and I’ve never picked back up on it. The furnace room is in shambles again, which is really sad. That was a HUGE job. Whats good is that a ton of the mess is removed and thrown away. There is waaay less stuff in there, but its still a huge mess than impossible to move around. Under the work bench is where we keep our recycling. Bags and bags and bags of recycling. Five and a half YEARS worth of recycling. Thats right. We have never ONCE taken in our recycling. So you can imagine what a daunting job this was. But its been nagging at me for a while, and to avoid becoming someone who nervously eats their own eyebrows, I decided to at least start. That was my goal. If a job seemed too ominous, I’d at least start, and try. It doesn’t hurt to try right?

Well, that enormous pile is OVER! In my entrance, I have four large black garbage bags of plastic bottles and cans to bring in to SARCAN. Downstairs, I have all of our glass bottles separated into beer/alcohol bottles, and then non-alcoholic bottles like Jones or Nestea. I’m not hauling all that glass upstairs myself! Two more garbage bags outside of our front door full of lids, bottles that were waaay too icky to make someone handle, grocery bags that held recycling in the past, and any random garbage within an arms reach. And two diapers from this morning, haha! SO MUCH GARBAGE!!! And so much success. I still have to do my research and find out if glass jars from things like pasta sauce give a return, or where to leave those. And is it better to bring beer bottles to SARCAN or to a liquor store? Either way, my back is pissed about sitting on a concrete floor for quite so long but I feel pretty awesome actually.

The point of this post is to say how interesting our recycling is! I know probably no one else will get a kick out of this, but I just scanned through our entire marriage in a way!

The recycling towards the back, so the oldest stuff, was from earlier in our life together. It consisted of the occasional 2L pop bottle, which was usually something weird that we haven’t had since, or lemonade. There were big 1.5L water bottles that we always used to buy for trips. Our cans consisted of V8, which I used to drink when I worked in the city, and club soda for the ridiculous amount of italian sodas we used to make. There were numerous massive pickle jars, as well as completely different milk jugs from what we drink now!! I had completely forgotten that we drank milk with a different fat content when we first got together. A silly thing, but a memory I had lost until today.

In the middle stuff, there were LOTS more water bottles, littler ones, that I’m pretty sure we used to buy by the case when Dekker started drinking formula and we took bottled water everywhere we went. That stage was pretty much just those bottles and Coke cans, because thats Bradys favorite. The 2L pop bottles phased out, as well as the club soda. I saw the occasional juice bottle.

Now, the recent past, our recycling has changed. We’ve completely stopped holding onto the milk jugs, for one thing. Not because they’re not important to recycle, but because we had SO much recycling and not enough space, and this family burns through milk. I dont know about you guys, but we buy three 4L jugs of milk at a time and if we’re lucky, they last a week. We like milk around here. So, no milk jugs. Lots more cans of pop. And considerably more alcohol. Now, lets clarify this. I have not a single thing against people who drink regularly. Beer-a-day people, go hard! No issue here! BUT seeing these things made me really, really happy because it means that, in our recent past, we have entertained waaay more than we have in the last five years!!! We rarely have alcohol in the house unless we have people over. I mean, we have a little cupboard with a few things in it, and likely a few beer in the basement fridge, but they take a very long time to disappear. Its not something we count on. But we like to have something special in the house for when we have guests. Seeing the beer bottles reminds me of all the people we’ve had over in the last year or so. We’ve had more overnight guests since Laela was born than all the years leading up to that. And we’ve finally started having people over for dinner, or the weekend, or what have you, and to me, this silly little thing represents that. I really liked seeing how we’ve grown into adults who can entertain and run our household.

Now that I’ve had my realization, I am so over my huge pile of bags of bags of recycling. Once Brady is home, I’m getting all that glass out of my basement, and swapping out a pile of garbage bags for a Rubbermaid garbage can. We’ll still recycle our stuff, but with considerably smaller amounts at a time.

Sigh. Success, and a sore back. Time for YouTube and recipe hunting.

I know that, compared to a lot of you, our life probably sounds fairly mundane and boring. We don’t do too much, really. Its something I’ve learned is necessary for me. If I have one thing I have to do each day, I feel busy. So going out every day is NOT my ideal. Its fun for a time, but it tires me out pretty quick. I’m just not that person who can run an incredibly busy life.

I feel like our family has been going and going for a few days now, and I was really looking forward to today being a quiet day at home. And thankfully, I got it! We had a few bumps along the road, as is to be expected. The kids aren’t used to lots of going out either, so they were pretty tired through most of the day. And Laela is working on FOUR molars now! That one ridiculous one is popped partway through but still isn’t all the way out, and the others are just starting to make bumps in the gums. Yet I can see the bright white of the eye teeth coming as well. So the kids were a bit hands on. But it was the best day for it, really. We spent time in our jammies, cuddling, eating snacks, and just enjoying not having to be anywhere.

As far as I know, tomorrow is another day of the same. I do really need to accomplish a few things around the house, but decided to give myself a free day today before I sort of have to try to be a grown up tomorrow. I did clean up the kitchen today though, and I even hand washed the few huge things that often sit beside the sink for days and days. So thats something, but a pretty small something. Wish me luck! Hopefully I’ll be more motivated tomorrow 🙂

Oh! One more thing! What do you guys do when you start to plan for Christmas? I know it still feels early for some of you, but it doesn’t to me! Do you go shopping with a list, already knowing what you’re going to buy for everyone? Or do you just wing it? I’m trying to decide just how organized I want to be going into the season 🙂