Beads

My daughter requested a bead kit for Christmas. I was slightly hesitant at first because these bead kits get pricey! Not only the cost, but I was not mentally ready to deal with having loose beads all over the house if she spilled it. We'd already dealt with Legos, scraps of cut paper, paper stars, play money coins, puzzle pieces, foam letter stickers, colored pencils, crayons, magnatiles, mini figures, toy cars, play gemstones, Cheerios, and probably more categories of tiny toys and food I've failed to mention. I did not want to add beads to that list.

Well, I ended up taking her to the store and she looked at a bunch and told me which ones she didn't want and which ones she wanted. I took some pictures, went home, and looked online again to find one to closely match her pre-approved selections from the store. In the end, the one I purchased was not "pre-approved" but I think she was going to enjoy it. 

The package arrived, and it was much smaller than I anticipated. I was very tempted to open it up and look, but I had to save it for Christmas. So I wrapped it up, put it under the tree, and was glad I had an extra long return window with the holiday season. 

She opened it early because we let the kids open some presents before Christmas. She loved it! I know my daughter after all. And she's aligned her heart with the things the child inside of me loves (not intentionally!), so it's pretty easy to shop for her. 😝

She wanted to make bracelets immediately, but I told her to wait a few days. She didn't even try to object and waited patiently for the day she could make bracelets, another cue that I've been blessed with very special children. 

When we sat down to make bracelets together, she had so much fun. She wanted to make one for all her friends at school, family members, and even one for her piano teacher! As I watched her make these bracelets, the little girl inside of me really wanted to make one myself.

So I did!

M💗MMY

It was so much fun making bracelets with my daughter. I was even able to repair a bracelet I bought in high school which had broken in the last five years because the elastic was too old. 

These loose beads were hanging out on the bathroom
counter at my dad's house for the last few years.

Slowly restringing them.

Good as new!

I spent $3.50 on this bracelet in high school and it's not worth much at all, but being able to fix it instead of throw it away was very satisfying. What started out as a one bead kit actually turned into three, but I have been able to partake in the joy and enjoyment of her gift as well. Perhaps I should oblige her wishes more often. 😁 and I've only dealt with a "couple" beads on the floor. 

Consumables

I've never been a fan of consumables. Specifically for this post, I would be referring to stickers. Are stickers fun? Yes! Are stickers cute? Yes! Would I buy stickers for my children to play with? Nope. The reason is logical but narrow-minded. I specifically don't like buying things like stickers because they end up stuck on pieces of paper or items, and the pieces of paper will eventually get thrown away. 

So why are there so many stickers at my house? I've bought stickers to teach. As early as 11 years ago, I purchased reward stickers for my classroom when I was a student teacher. I used a handful here and there and had leftover which I saved and carried over to my future teaching positions. I still buy stickers to teach. I go through multiple stickers a day and about every 2-3 weeks I need a new sheet. For teaching, I buy bulk ones so they last me at least a year if not multiple years. 

A few years ago, my Christmas gift to my students included a few sheets of stickers each. I had tons leftover because when I bought the set, even though it was advertised as 232 pieces, almost half of the bundle was sticker sheets. 

Only two shiny sheets left...

My children recently discovered stickers. I know, they're very late to the game. I've held off for a long time. It started after a friend babysat for us. They took the kids out on errands and bought them stickers from one of the stores. After that, we noticed how entertained they were by stickers. I remembered my extra stash from Christmas stored away and pulled them out again for the kids to play with. They loved it! I could even teach a 30 minute lesson while they busily pulled off stickers and pressed them onto a blank piece of paper without being bothered. I’ve been able to take a shower without fear of my child tearing down the house. We can make it through a meal at a restaurant without fussy children.

My son's stickers on stickers. 

Specifically, my children love the stickers that are shiny and holographic. They're very keen on this - they prefer the "fancier" stickers and always ask for those first. It's not a taught skill. I didn't teach them to preference the shiny stickers. They just naturally figured it out. Sadly, we are down to the last two sheets of the shiny stickers. My daughter asked me a few days ago if I would buy her more stickers. I went online to look for sheets of shiny stickers and I couldn't find anything like what I wanted.

My daughter, on the other hand, is very organized.
I did not teach her to do this...but she probably inherited my type A 😅

All I want is a sheet of the shiny holographic-type stickers in bulk. And I couldn't find it. I'm actually pretty close to just buying the Christmas stationery set again which included stickers and just save the rest of the pieces for other purposes. 

My daughter also uses the outsides of her stickers now. She learned it from us because we would peel the outside off first so our son could peel his own stickers without the border pieces. 

So my perspective on consumables has broadened. Although they will all eventually end up in the trash, what they afford me along the way is more valuable to me as a parent: time to shower in peace, eating at a restaurant calmly, being able to not have my children say "mommy" 10x in a row and leave me alone for 10 minutes, fostering my children's creativity. I'm sure a child therapist or psychologist could go on and on about why consumables, although not financially efficient, are a wonderful "toy" for children. 

Do you buy your kids consumables? How has it saved your sanity?

Blue Swings

Sidenote: It's been a long month of not being able to blog and post any stories. I'm working on some, but seeing as I only pull out my computer about once a month to pay bills, typing out a blog unfortunately gets put aside more often than not. I originally meant to post this over a month ago. Oops.

***

With the weather cooling down as the infamous Texas summer has ended, I've been taking the two kids out on walks in our neighborhood. It's become a daily ritual for us to talk a walk and look for "blue swings," the quintessential Little-Tikes baby/toddler swing. We have a pink one in our front yard, but my daughter loves to walk around the block and look at our neighbor's blue one.

The quintessential baby swing 

After we found the blue swing, we kept walking down that street and came across a pink tire swing in front of another neighbor's house. This led to a little game where we'd walk around the neighborhood and look for swings.

In addition to looking for swings, we've met some more of our neighbors. One morning, one of our neighbors down the street was out working in her yard and we stopped and said hello. I complimented her beautiful landscaping and started a brief conversation. She was very friendly and we both enjoyed some in-person socially-distanced chit-chat. 

A few days later, we were walking down the street behind us, and a neighbor actually came out of her house and asked if she could see my kids because she hasn't gotten to see her nieces and nephews given the current circumstances. 

Since then I've run into these same two neighbors multiple times. Once, we got candy since Halloween is around the corner. Another time, our neighbor shared her home-grown peppers with us and even cut a blue iris from her garden for us to take home and admire.

Blue irises from our neighbor.

Our neighbors are very friendly and it’s lovely to be able to meet them and say hi. I love being able to walk by someone outside of their house and feel excited to be able to exchange a greeting. But there’s something else that makes running into them almost bittersweet: we could have been neighbors with one of them. I know, we are already neighbors in the sense that we live around each other, but I mean literal next door neighbors. 

You see, one of these neighbors lives in the house next to one we made an offer on five years ago when we were looking to buy. The house next to the neighbor with the beautiful landscaping was one we were particularly upset about losing. It had one owner, clean bathrooms, and a great price. There was some updating needed to bring it up to current aesthetics, but overall, it was a wonderful house. The actual price it sold at was the exact same offer as we’d put in. So why didn’t we get it? We’ll never know. 

The other neighbor actually lives in a house two doors down from one we put in an offer on. It had a sunroom, needed some work, but the price was right. The lady selling it at the time got tired of showings and stopped accepting offers merely 24 to 48 hours after hitting the market. Ours never made it in. 

I’m thankful to live in the neighborhood we do. I enjoy walking to the nearby park and playground, biking on the trails, and saying hi to our neighbors. It’s bittersweet thinking about the houses we didn’t get to call home, especially when they’re right down the street or around the corner from us, but our house is one I’ve enjoyed spending an extra amount of time in this year. 

And we still get to walk around the same neighborhood and look for the blue swings.

The Sixth Empty Coin Slot

My grandfather was a collector. He was the one who introduced the idea of collecting to my brother and me. We each started our own stamp collection from his influence. We'd cut the stamp off the envelope, soak it in water, and then peel away the paper and adhesive, and then wait for it to dry again before storing it in our jars/boxes. 

Besides stamps, he was largely into coin collecting. He was the kind of guy who would see the ads for "special and rare" coins, fill out the form, mail it in, and eagerly await his one-of-a-kind coin to be mailed to him. Every time I went to visit my grandparents at their house, I would go upstairs to his study and look through his shelves of collections and books. One set in particular that he owned was the collection of medals of the US Presidents. My grandfather had a book with short bios of all the presidents up through Ronald Reagan and another binder which housed coins of each president with their name and years of office through Ronald Reagan. On the backs of these coins had various images and phrases, anything from patriotic sayings to the inauguration date of the same president. 

He bought two sets of these - like I said, really into collecting. At one point in my childhood, he had given me one set. I remember talking to him at one point, and he said, we should buy the rest of the presidents (I think Clinton was in office at the time) and add them to the set. There were six empty coin slots on the last page. I asked him, "How do we add their name and years of office?" He told me, "I can write them in." Even in my youth, I remember responding back, or at the very least thinking in my head: but it won't look the same.

Ha, classic type A. I started early.

He gave me one set of the presidential coins and kept the other. Honestly, I'm not sure why. Maybe he gave it to me because I was special, his only granddaughter of six. Maybe he gave it to me because he knew I was interested in them. Maybe he gave it to me because he simply wanted me to have it. It could be a combination of all of the above reasons. 

I still have this set today. When we moved to our house, this set of coins was one of the items I brought over from my dad's house. There are still six empty coin slots on the last page. After Reagan, there was George H. W. Bush with one term, Bill Clinton with two terms, George W. Bush with two terms, Barack Obama with two terms, and so far, Donald Trump and his one term. Although they started making separate coins for each president's second term, my binder only includes one coin per president with the total years of office labeled beneath. My grandfather passed away during George W. Bush's second term so he hasn't been alive for our last two presidents.

I've always wanted to complete the set, maybe even buy another page to add to this binder. The bronze medals, which are the ones in the collection, are actually not expensive. They're $6.95 each with a flat $4.95 shipping. Not bad at all. Of course, I'd wait until the next six coins are all out and buy them all to maximize the shipping cost, but this is something I would more than gladly spend money on, especially because I would be able to continue a collection started by my grandfather. 

We know who will fill at least five out of the six empty coin slots on the last page. This year is a pretty pivotal year for many reasons. There's a lot of people out there who don't want to see another four years of the same president. There's also a lot of people out there who want to keep him in office for a second term. 

I'm not here to get political. 

As of right now, the U.S. Mint has only made the coins through the 44th president. Trump will be 45th, and the last slot will be for the 46th president. I don't know what their schedule is like or when they produce these coins, but it'll be years before I'll get to actually finish out the binder and get my hands on the actual coins. If Trump gets reelected this year, I'll have to wait another 4 years to find out whose face will fill the last slot. If he doesn't, we will know this year.

I hope we all know this year.

Gee-ko

 I have fond memories from last summer of watching geckos with my daughter. At the time, her bedtime was close to 10pm or later on some nights. I have no idea how she could sleep so late. She was waking up around 8 in the morning and napping for 2-3 hours, but she still wouldn't sleep before 9 pm at the earliest if that. Even now, my daughter sleeps 11 hours at night max.

With this late bedtime, we were able to watch the geckos come out after the sun went down. She was very amused to see little lizards crawling on our windows. Small geckos would somehow find their way into our house. My husband would catch them and let them out again. He's not afraid of picking them up. I'm grateful for this. One time, he caught the gecko and put it on her leg while I videoed her reaction. She was more afraid of the skittering movements than the gecko itself. 

She called them"gee-kos" with a long E, so we all started saying gee-ko.

Her bedtime has since normalized and she's in bed by 8:30 (although asleep is a different story). We haven't gotten to watch geckos together this summer. But last night after putting her to bed, I walked over to our window and took a look myself instead of continuing the rest of my usual nighttime routine.

I had noticed more geckos than usual hanging around the window as well as a good number of moths flying around or hanging around the window. I stood there for a while, watching, and then hubby came by and joined me. We stood by our window and watched the moths fly around and the geckos circle cautiously.

The predators.

The (un?)suspecting prey.

We stood and watched for a few minutes. I really wanted to watch a gecko eat a moth. And we did! But I didn't catch a picture of it because by the time I pulled out my phone to get a picture, he had devoured 95% of that moth. So we stood there a while longer to see if another one would get eaten. Sure enough, another moth was caught and this time I was ready!

Stuck!

This moth really tried to wriggle free. Unfortunately, he did not.

After watching for what seemed like about 10-15 minutes, we resumed our normal nightly routine, but I felt a strange sense of satisfaction being able to witness some geckos eating their fill for the evening. I would still never touch one with my hands, but watching behind a sheet of glass works great for me! We don't get to have a lot of "fun" these days between parenting a toddler and a baby and staying safe from the virus, but this was actually a lot of fun.

Mid Year Check-In

At the beginning of the new year, I wrote a post with a few goals I wanted to accomplish. It's my version of a "New Year's Resolution." Well, Unfortunately for most people, 2020 has turned out to be one terrible year. You can read about my take on the terrible twos here, more for comedic relief than real talk. 

A whole six months has gone by. I can't tell you half of what I did in these six months, But I know the time has gone by because:

• I'm not pregnant anymore
• I have a second child
• There are more gray hairs on my head (I think...I'm not really counting...)

I started the year with three general "goals" I wanted to accomplish. 

1. Finish my cross-stitch
2. Find a new work-life balance
3. Keep my sanity

1. Finish My Cross-Stitch

I did! I finished my cross-stitch. I put in extra hours early this year, stitching at night, but I didn’t finish it before he was born. Somehow, after my son was born, I found time here and there to finish! It took me about three and a half years, but I finished it on June 28, 2020. This is my second large-scale cross-stitch that I've finished. Once again, the irony is that when I purchased this cross-stitch, I was living in China and single. When I finished it, I was living in the USA, married, with two kids two and under.

Originally, I bought this cross-stitch with a goal of finishing it before we had kids. That didn't happen. So then, I wanted to finish it before we were done having kids. That didn't happen either...but to my own credit, I only missed that goal by about three months.

Here it is!

Something often overlooked about cross-stitches is actually the back. If you enter a cross-stitch into a county fair or contest, they actually judge you more on the back than the front. Why is that? The back tells about the journey. Anyone can come up with a nice looking design on the front, but it takes dedication and patience to have a beautiful cross-stitch back.

So what is it about this journey that's so important? 

1. No Knots - cross stitching doesn't involve tying any knots. The ends of each thread are secured by looping your stitches on top of the ends. Every time you start a new thread, it must be secured in this way. 
2. Reaching over vs. starting new - I don't know if there's a technical term for this. If anyone's savvy enough in cross-stitch terminology, please let me know! But this is where instead of cutting the thread and starting in a new location, you take your thread from your last ending point and reach across the canvas to start it in a new location, therefore resulting in a very long piece of thread traveling on the back. It makes the back look messy and sloppy.
3. Consistency - The Xs on the front need to be crossed the exact same way in order to appear consistent and neat. This means if you stitch the bottom left to top right first, it has to be stitched first on every single X. When done correctly, the stitches on the back will all appear to be in the same direction instead of alternating vertical and horizontal stitches. 

Is it obvious to tell if someone's taken their time and cross-stitched the correct way? Yes. If you know what you're looking for, it's extremely obvious. One of the most telling signs is that the back of your cross-stitch should look exactly like the front.

Here's my back:

I have to say, I did a really nice job on this cross-stitch. I've been sloppy on previous ones in the past and learned the hard way, hence how I've been able to come up with my mental list of "what it takes to have a good cross-stitch." The design itself is not a difficult one, especially not compared to the last one I finished, but it fits perfectly for why I wanted to finish it: it's for my children. 

2. Find a New Work-Life Balance. 

I have been able to find a new work-life balance. In doing so, I've cut my students in half, I limit the hours I work, and I'm only teaching online right now. For most of this, I have to thank coronavirus actually. If the virus didn't exist, I would have pressured myself into taking all my students back which would be 12+ hours of teaching a week in five days. Add that onto taking care of my kids during the day while my husband was working as well as breastfeeding, or attempting to breastfeed my son, and that results in one crazy mom. 

I'll never forget the day I put my pump on the kitchen counter and pumped during my 30 minute break in between two lessons while cooking spaghetti on the stove for dinner at the same time after my daughter was born. I don't even know where she was. I think my husband was watching her. 

I'll be eternally grateful for coronavirus that I will not have to do that with my son this time around. But that's pretty much the only reason why I'm grateful for this virus. For everything else, it's ruined a lot of plans, trips, outings, and life in general. 

3. Keep my Sanity

As mentioned above, this virus has helped me to keep my sanity in certain ways. In others? Not so much. It's been a new learning curve to figure out how to plan grocery trips now and be intentional about what I buy. I've had to train my daughter into a daily routine/schedule that doesn't involve going on playdates or wandering stores for fun. But we've found other things that she has enjoyed during these last three months of staying at home and staying out of public places, which has also kept us from going crazy ourselves: going on bike rides in the bike trailer, swinging in our front lawn and "blasting off", swinging in our hammock, watching our neighbors mow and trim their lawns, going swimming in our neighbor's pool, watching bunnies and squirrels, digging in our flower beds which don't have flowers, and learning how to be a big sister, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. 

Overall, I think the transition to having two kids while maintaining both of our jobs and general lifestyle has been pretty smooth. The kids have kept me busy during all this staying at home, and to be honest, it's been nice. I wonder to myself what quarantine with no kids would have been like. I think I would have had a lot more time to do the things I wanted to do and no will to do them. Chances are, I would have sat at home, watched a lot of TV, or spent a lot of money shopping online, neither of which I have time to do now.

I hope despite all the terribleness this year has brought for many of us, you've been able to find some silver linings to reach some goals or discover something new for yourself. 

Here's to the second half of 2020.