blessings

234 Hours and Counting…

~ jmwoolford ~ Leave a comment

covid

As of today, my children have been home 234 hours that they would have been in school.  This does not include the hours they are home when they would have been in hockey and swimming.

234 hours.  I know its daunting for everyone.  I get frustrated and overwhelmed myself at times.  Its a lot.  But do you know what else I think it is?  Amazing.

234 hours that I wasn’t “supposed” to have with my children, I am getting.  I get to have this amazing time that I’ve always said I longed for.  How many times did I reflect on the fact that I missed when I had 3 littles under 3 and we were just together?  Now I have my 3 not-so-little littles here again.  Together.

I know these are hard times.  But I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge this giant pause as an enormous blessing too.  I get to be an even more hands-on mom!  Time is something we don’t typically get back but I am!  You are!  Revel in it.  Look at the silver lining that it is.

Be safe.

 

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Christmas Spirit Fail

~ jmwoolford ~ Leave a comment

Not feeling like such a hot parent today.  I had big plans.  I was going to pick up my children early to surprise them and take them to the new Christmas movie, Star.  I thought it would be a fun moment for us as we get ready to swing into the holiday season.  After all, Marlin (our Elf on the Shelf) will be here this week and we are psyched for his arrival….

Then, today, my children did this cute little thing they do some mornings.  I don’t know if any of yours do this.  Ah, its the BEST!  See if it sounds familiar….

“AUUGHHH!”

“HE touched me!”

“She is looking at me!”

“It isn’t MY job!”

“You need to come because now its getting physical”

“AUUGHHHH!”

“Why can’t we have Halloween candy for lunch?  Seriously, Mom!  You are such a fun ruiner.”

etc, etc, etc,  (all actual quotes here).

Surprisingly this doesn’t have me feeling all the feels if you catch my drift.  It has me thinking, “The only star you are going to see are the ones twirling around your head like a cartoon character…” just kidding about that part but COME ON!  A Fun Ruiner?? I am like- the QUEEN of Fun!

I am now sitting at the library working on a writing project but I keep coming back to this morning.  I keep coming back to the fact that despite it all, I STILL want to surprise them and pick them up and share this magical moment with them.  Am I delusional???

Then, now that I am calming (writing does this for me), I am forced to remember some other things that ALSO happened today that I had forgotten when I let the negativity take over.

“Spicy, you can go first.  Ladies first- Always.”

“Thanks for recording the Steelers for me mom. I can’t wait to see if they won.  Don’t tell me, I want to be surprised.”

“I’m going to love nature A LOT today in Environmental Science class today. Like more than normal.”

“I’m going to ask my Spanish teacher to help me write a book in Spanish.”

“I love you, Mom” – times 3.

I love you all, too!  I love it all.  The Christmas spirit isn’t failed here like I thought.  I just need to embrace it all and remember that its tough sometimes; being a parental unit.  But, if you just keep your eye on the Star (the good), you’ll find something that makes all the travels worth it.

XOXO

 

 

Not my best day…

~ jmwoolford ~ 7 Comments

Good Morning!  Hope you are all having a spectacular day today.  I know I am planning on doing so.

Had a great night last night at a friend’s house where I got to meet new friends and have fun “grown up” talk.  It was a BLAST!  I recommend it if you haven’t had it in a while….

I wanted to write about something that happened on Wednesday.  Do any of you ever have days where you feel that one thing after another happens (the frustrating kind of things, not the fabulous things) and they just keep snowballing?  No?  Just me?  Okay.  Then I will tell you about MY Wednesday.

I woke up early and was super excited that I was going to get to..drumroll please…shower!  Don’t get me wrong, I shower every day, it is just not usually first thing because the kiddos are up and I am getting them ready.  So yea, I showered, I was like, “Oh yea, I am showering, this is awesome…” in a sing-songy voice.   I get out of the shower and I blow dry my hair.  And I keep drying and drying.  No matter how long I was blowing, my hair looked a little wet.  Greasy?  Ugh- now the kids are up and I can’t deal with that just yet.  So I throw on a baseball hat (my staple for bad hair days) and off to school they go.  I ran errands.  I did what I needed to do.  When I came home, I revisited my hair.  I even tried hair drying again.  LOL- like what good would that do?  It was still greasy as all get out.  Then I started thinking about it….my glorious shower, I was retracing the steps. Then it dawned on me, I didn’t wash my hair.  OMG, I didn’t wash my hair!  I cleaned everything and even conditioned my hair but I totally didn’t wash it!  I had missed the moment.  I was able to take an early shower, something at this stage of the game is a HUGE highlight for me and I blew it.  Ugh.  So, good news is, this problem has since been rectified and I moved on.

I moved on to Wednesday night when we were getting ready to go to bed.  I noticed my husband was holding a bottle of water.  This was strange because he ALWAYS brings a glass of milk up with him and isn’t a particular fan of water.  So I said, “Hey, Chach, why are you drinking water?”.  He told me we didn’t have milk.  WHAT?  That is not possible.  We had just gotten 6 gallons on Monday. We had only used 2 so I KNOW we had milk.  I checked the fridge and then I went out to the garage and checked the fridge out there.  He came with me and kind of smiled like I had forgotten milk and was going through a theatrical performance so he wouldn’t be upset that we were out of a staple food item.  Then I remembered, our son, Clever, had helped me with the groceries.  And I remember his very cute 6 year old voice (that he tries to make sound 40) saying, “I’ll get the milk, Mom.  Don’t worry, I got it.”  And he went out to the garage and took about 2 trips.  Question is, where did he put it.  I thought, “Oh no!  Did he put them in the freezers we have in the garage?”.   Nope.   We were looking all over the garage and found nothing.  Then my hubby’s eyes and mine fell in the same direction at the same time.  We walked over to our pantry closet in the garage and slowly opened the doors to find:

milk

Cute, right?  My little helper, Clever.  Perhaps I should have spent a little more time giving him his “Blog Name”!  Ha ha!  I am teasing, of course, he is clever and was sweet to want to help me.  We had to get rid of these as some days had gotten quite warm in our neck of the woods.  Moral of this story was don’t cry over improperly stored milk.  Sometimes it is just great to have a little helper who loves you so much they want to do things for us!  We are all blessed.

***Thinking and praying for everyone in France and for our whole world.  I pray we quickly find the fortitude we need to put an end to such hate.  The God I know doesn’t condone these things and shame on everyone who uses his name (their version of it) to do Satan’s bidding. Remember our blessings and remember that UNITED WE STAND, Divided?  Well, look around and see where that is getting us.***