Mommin' It Up!

June 13, 2014July 7, 2014

Splurging on my self(ie) this summer

Well, it’s the end of the second week full of June, so I figure I should probably talk again about how I hate summer, because you guys need to hear about it at least once a week, RIGHT? Okay, okay, I should be honest here: I don’t REALLY hate it. I had a great week with the big kids at VBS and Jonah at summer preschool (4 more weeks of that, and he is LOVING IT!! So happy!!) I just get a bit bent out of shape when I go all day without a single moment to myself. And after a few days or weeks of that, I get REAL bent out of shape…flustered, my self-diagnosed adult ADD gets worse, and I want to become a hermit. I am just one of those moms who needs a wee bit of time to herself to recharge and get stuff done. I’m not talking about a daily spa session or anything, I am talking about a couple hours of non-interrupted work and getting things done. It does WONDERS for my soul. Therefore, when we are on the school schedule, I am much more functional.

So: here is one way I am surviving summer. I am carving out space for some small splurges on myself. Taking the time a couple times a week when, instead of spending 30 minutes finishing that work assignment, I spend 30 minutes giving myself a manicure or a making a homemade facial scrub. Because those activities, when you have wet nails or a face covered in yummy-smelling goo? REQUIRE YOU TO SIT STILL FOR A BIT. And sometimes, that is what I need more than anything. The kids each have to do 30 minutes of reading a day, and a couple days a week during reading time, I am going to sit and be good to myself.

I started today, with an oatmeal face mask which I whipped up as part of a sponsored campaign with Dawn Hand Renewal (which has been my fave dish soap since it came out! I stockpile that magic elixir when it goes on sale at CVS!) It was a huge mess but it felt kind of awesome on my face. You guys know I am into BEAUTY, especially my OWN, ha ha, and I love the way an oatmeal mask feels because it’s nice and exfoliating when you put it on and take it off! It has all kinds of benefits for the skin like the aforementioned exfoliation and hydration, too. Only trouble with making your own pampering mask at home is…you end up with some goopy dishes to clean up!

So, it’s a good thing that I like to treat myself to some pampering dish soap: Dawn Hand Renewal. There are a few “luxuries” I enjoy around the house. One of them is my fancy-brand paper towels and the other is my fancy dish soap. I’ve been a goner for Dawn Hand Renewal since it first came out. I mean, the coupons in the P&G Saver insert were for 50 cents off when it first came out and the coupons for regular Dawn were 25 cents off, so…you guys know I went for that! And I LOVED it so much, it’s all I buy now. I’m a total stockpiler when it’s on sale! Dawn sent me this new scent that I hadn’t tried yet, Peach & Almond, and it’s pretty much amazeballs. Super-yummy smell plus it makes your hands nice and soft while you do dishes, or after a million hand-washing that every mom does each day because our kids are always getting gross stuff on us. (They have a lot of new scents! I am dying to try Pomegranate Splash next. Yes, I really am. This is how much I love this soap!!)

I love that Dawn Hand Renewal really does moisturize, soften, and treat my hands sooo well while I am doing the daily mundane (and possibly unpleasant) tasks that require it’s use…it makes those things that much better! Plus, it cuts grease like a BOSS and powerfully washes away stuck-on foods like Dawn has always done since the…dawn…of Dawn. (See what I did there?)

Do you like Dawn Hand Renewal? What are your thoughts on this fab everyday life (and hand) saver? Leave me a comment and let me know what you like about it and you’ll be entered to win your own Dawn Hand Renewal Simplify Your Summer Kit (which includes a big ol’ bottle of Dawn Hand Renewal) just like the one I used to make my oatmeal mask! One winner will be chosen Friday June 24 at 6pm EST. All you have to do enter is leave a comment – good luck! And Happy Summer Simplifying!

This review was made possible by Double Duty Divas and Dawn. I was provided the featured product free of charge to facilitate my review, but all opinions are 100% mine. Thanks Dawn, for including me in this campaign!

June 11, 2014June 10, 2014

I have problems.

The title of this post is probably the most overly-simplistic statement ever made about little ol’ me.

I don’t really have problems, and if I do, they are first world problems which are not really problems.

But functionally, I have problems. I am functionally disabled. This is why I can’t ever seem to quite clear my kitchen door frame even though I’m pretty sure it’s a) big enough for me to fit through and b) not moving from the same space it’s always occupied. Or why I often hit my head on the top of our van door frame when I’m buckling Jonah into his seat even though…right, it’s dimensions are never going to change. I lack depth perception, yo.

ANYWAY…my current functional disability is mental. As in the kind that’s really all in my head.

It’s kind of hard to explain, but I’ll try. Here’s a great example: recently Jonah’s private speech language pathologist, the famous Miss Kristen (also Sophie’s beloved SLP), finally was able to get him to cooperate for some actual testing so we can actually! know! for sure! what he needs to learn. That’s pretty exciting stuff, because then we can start working on these things and knocking them out one by one, just like we did with Soph, and get him where he needs to be faster. So I was pretty happy about all this, as I am one who likes direction and concrete stuff to work on with him. (Because I don’t actually know what I’m doing.)

Kristen gave me the results of both his expressive (what he can communicate) and receptive (what language he understands) evaluations and they were almost identical, which is fine and good (Sophie’s was much lower on the receptive back in her day). They both show that he scored just one standard deviation below average. Which isn’t terrible. Kristen was quite pleased. I mean, it’s ONE level below average, not two, not three. Sophie was tested when she was about 5 months older than he is now and scored way worse than he did. And she is a fully-functional, super-smart, socially stellar kiddo now.

So naturally I should be quite encouraged by these results and by the fact that we really know what parts of the evaluation he didn’t do great on so we know what to work on with him. And I am glad, of course, that his result was not worse. Because I didn’t exactly expect him to like, knock it out of the park or anything.

But the way I actually feel, is not the way I should feel. What I feel is just tired of dealing with it. I feel like I want this to be over. I feel like I don’t want to do it anymore. I feel like I want to fast-forward to two years from now when Jonah will be “Mr. Typical” (ohpleaseohplease) like his sister is now “Miss Typical”. I feel like a jerk for feeling that way because there are some kids who will never be “typical”, and are perfectly awesome just the way they are.

I’m just worn out by all the extra effort it is taking/has taken to help my kids learn language when everywhere I look there seem to be kids with parents who DON’T shower them with love and attention who are developing perfectly normally. (But on the inside I know their sweet hearts and self-esteems are probably not developing perfectly normally.)

What I want to feel is relieved. Relieved that we have goals, have a plan, have a road map to getting Jonah caught up on his language. I want to just sit back and bask in how awesome he is and how far he has come.

But what I want to do is take a short cut. I want this part to be over. I want to not have this worry in the back of my mind all the time always.

I’ll get over it, I will. But that’s where I’m at right now. Just being honest.

June 9, 2014June 8, 2014

Summer School

Well friends, by the time you read this I may be somewhere vomiting (or worse) in fear: today is Jonah’s first day of summer school. I know what you’re thinking: “Dang Jenny! You hate spending time with your kids in the summer so much you signed your baby up for summer school? That’s HARSH!”

I can promise you that’s not exactly what’s happening here. Having Jonah at school fully-dressed in the summer at the crack of 8 a.m. (when his regular school starts at 9:10) and having to drag the big kids along with me to drop him off is not exactly for my convenience. (His teacher is going to see two very different Jenny’s every day, “Drop-off Jenny” who will look like she just rolled out of bed because she DID, and “Pick-up Jenny” who will be perfectly made-up and coiffed, naturally.) But when his regular teacher told me about a free 5-week summer science lab our school district offers for preschoolers, I knew I had to apply for him to get in. Because A) He would LOVE IT and B) the absolute best thing for his language development is for him to be with his peers, and 3 months without that was going to be a LOOONG time and a void that I simply cannot fill no matter how hard I work with him.

SO – for the next 5 weeks, Jonah will be in class from 8 a.m. -12:15 p.m. Monday-Thursday. This is nerve-wracking for me because it’s 90 minutes longer a day than he is used to being in school. It’s also at a different building, but it’s the one that is closest to my house, like, 3 minutes tops, which is convenient but still will be an adjustment (he will still go back to his regular class in the fall.) He will have a new teacher and 2 new teacher aides, and there will be more kids in the class than he’s used to. Also, his regular class is made up of half “typical” kids and half with IEPs, and this will just be a mish-mash of whoever signed up. The other thing I’m a bit worried about is his food allergies. He will eat breakfast and lunch at school but I’ll most likely just have to bring his food I think (he eats breakfast at his regular school and I always just bring him a banana) but I am going to have to find that out for sure tomorrow.

ANYWAY. I am excited for him because I know he’s going to love it (if he gives it a chance. He LOVES going to his regular school), learn a lot, and have some really fun hands-on science-y experiences and hopefully pick up a lot more social language from his peers.

But today, the first day, I will spend 4 hours and 15 minutes worrying my head off while he’s there.

On the positive, side, though, the big kids have VBS this week so I will also get to worry for about 3 of those hours BY MYSELF. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

If you read this in the morning, say a little prayer for me and especially for Jonah. I am praying he loves his 5 weeks of summer science lab and learns a ton!