The Hardest Part of Parenting

I used to think the hardest part of raising kids was sick kids. Sick kids ARE super frustrating. Especially when it's puke going everywhere you don't want it to because they do not know how to drop everything and run to the toilet. Non-sick kids are also frustrating when you see them stick their fingers into their mouths in all places after touching all sorts of things and you can just envision yourself in 24-48 hours having a child wake up in the middle of the night screaming because his/her throat hurts and the cold is coming. Sick kids take a lot of love and effort. But that is not the hardest part of raising kids. 

The actual hardest part of raising kids is disciplining them. And I don't mean discipline like raising your voice at them, sending them to time out, or even spanking them. Those are easy. 

We were going to bed the other night and my daughter picks out her clothes for the next day before bed. She opened her drawer to grab her socks and finds that her brother's socks are in her drawer. She's also holding up the pair she wants to wear which also belong to her brother. And she knows this.

I told her to hand me the pair of socks to put back into his sock drawer. She hands me one pair and clings to the other she wants to wear. I ask for the second pair. She unwillingly hands them over and then bursts out in tears. This is where the hard part begins. Because you see, she is wrong. She is absolutely wrong and she knows it. And yet, she is the one crying. I was also at the end of a long day myself after not feeling great, watching the kids, and then teaching my own students. By 8:30 pm, I was ready to get the kids into bed and do my own thing, whatever that meant. 

Her beloved pair of socks with the rainbow trim...I remember pushing her in her stroller at about 9 months old buying this pair of socks so I do not discount her sentimentality one bit.

So first, I had to ask her to complete her outfit selection for the next day, because since she took out the pairs of socks which were not hers and handed them to me, she had not moved an inch. So I firmly asked her to finish picking out the rest of her outfit or there would be consequences. 

Then, I held out my arms, she came over, and I gave her a hug. I. gave her a hug because I wanted to and not solely because I knew that's what she wanted. There are times when I don't want to give her a hug even though I know that's what she wants and needs, but I'm not ready. 

As I hugged her, I began asking her a series of questions.

1. Whose socks are those, yours or your brother's? Brother's.

2. Since they belong to him, who gets to wear them? He does. 

And then I explained. 

They used to be your socks when you were little. But your feet got bigger. So now he wears them because they fit him. They don't fit your feet anymore which is why you don't wear them. You wear socks that fit your feet. I continued by using an analogy to some of my old toys. It's just like when we go to grandpa's house and play with Mommy's old toys. They used to be mine, but I am not a little kid anymore so I do not play with them anymore. You are a little kid so I have passed them onto you to play with. She loves playing with my old things so I think this made my point very clear.

She then asked me if she could have rainbow socks. I told her we could get some for her birthday. So now I have to go find some rainbow socks for her that aren't absurdly priced per pair. And I actually will because part of parenting is following through with what I say. Well I know what's on my to-do list for the next month...

You know why this is hard? Nobody modeled this for us. Had this happened to me as a child, I would have been told, "Give me the socks. They're not yours. Stop crying. Go to bed." End of story. 

Sure, that's discipline. But that's easy discipline. Easy discipline doesn't raise capable adults. Easy discipline raises resentment, frustration, and manipulation. Being a parent now, it's up to me to end the cycle at the next generation. If I want my children to think independently, use good logic, and have wisdom in their decisions, I need to model it, and it starts now. 

I don't always respond like this. There are many times when I revert to old habits that are "familiar" and the situation ends up a little bit different. But this is what I strive for, and this particular incident was probably one of my finer parenting moments. 

That is the hardest part of raising a child. 

Vintage Valentine's

I recently rediscovered my collection of Valentine's Day cards over the years. Believe it or not, the oldest cards in my collection are from my pre-kindergarten class! That's.... about 28-29 years ago 😱 As an adult (with my own pre-k age child!) it's easy to wonder why in the world I kept these. I actually know why in the world I kept these. Each of these cards stood out to me for a reason and that's precisely why I saved them.

1. Barbie

This first collection is comprised of Barbie valentine's. I was a huge Barbie fan once upon a time. Loved the clothes, accessories, and play sets, but was never a fan of the actual doll herself. I preferred stuffed animals. These three cards I kept precisely because I liked Barbie. 

Barbie cards surprisingly have not gone out of style. They are still handed out in classrooms today in the year 2023. But these three? Vintage. Definitely vintage. The one on the left was my favorite. 

2. Cute

The second category I saved was the cute category. Bears were my thing back in the day 🧸. They still kind of are, but I've been mostly converted to penguins 🐧. 

The two cards on the bottom are from preschool! They both have names on the back and I even know exactly who those people are. One was from a boy. After preschool, we didn't go to school together but our schools were in the same district. We ended up at the same college and hanging out with the same friend circle. One was from a girl. We actually ended up going to high school together and graduated in the same class. Both of these people are still friends with me on Facebook so they have potential to read this blog 😝 although I have a feeling they won't remember. 

3. Sparkly

I couldn't resist a sparkly card. And clearly, that is the only reason I kept these cards. 

The top center was a power ranger card. If I turned it over, the card itself is very blasé. Literally the only reason I kept that card was for the pink power ranger sparkly heart sticker on the back. I don't remember who Todd is at all. Sorry. 

On the bottom, we have N'Sync, Britney Spears, and someone doing an extreme sport. The actual sport is called skysurfing. I didn't even know that until I just looked it up...now...decades after receiving that card. Britney Spears was never my thing. I knew her by name but that was about it. Of all my mix CDs and music tracks, I had one song she wrote. I didn't even recognize her face in 5th grade when my bus driver showed me a picture. 🤷🏻‍♀️ N'Sync was also not my thing. Knew a couple of their songs...but never had one on any of my CDs. 

4. Repeats

The only reason I kept these is because I had so many of the same/similar designs from multiple years. I guess the dogs are kind of cute, but I think I kept the duplicates from sheer chance of receiving so many of the same design.

These are in fact from five different people. 

5. Magic Eye

Magic Eye was a big fad when I was in school. I used to love checking out the books from the library and holding them really close to my face (and smelling all that library-book-weird-smell that some books from the library have) and then moving them further away until my eyes saw the 3-D image bulging from the page. It took me a long time to finally see my first one. You had to really master the eye focus as well as the speed to back the page from your face. But when you saw it, they were the coolest thing ever.

Turning these into Valentine's Day cards was pretty genius. I will say that the little ones on the cards never worked as well as the ones in the books. 

6. Glow-in-the-Dark

Who doesn't love a cool glow-in-the-dark card? These just happen to be planets, which I don't particularly care for, but the glow-in-the-dark texture and feature was what captivated me. Luckily, these planets are still planets according to today's science. 

Sadly, nobody's memorizing "My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas" anymore.  Nine pizzas has just turned into nachos. Or if you're into Dr. Seuss, Mallory Valerie Emily Mickels Just Saved Up Nine Hundred Ninety Nine Nickels. 

7. Teachers

Very rarely did we ever get cards from our teachers. I only saved three anyway from the 20+ teachers I had from pre-k until 5th grade. 

The top card was from my 4th grade homeroom teacher. I wonder if she picked that card on purpose for me because she knew I excelled at math. I'll never know, but her handwriting was beautiful. 

8. Friends

These three cards I actually kept because of the people who gave them to me. Nothing particular about the cards really appealed to me. I guess they do all have dogs in common, but that technically wasn't the reason why I kept them. 

These three cards were given to me by three friends who meant a lot to me in my elementary school days. One of these girls was my "first friend." I don't remember how we met or became friends, but I remember being friends with her by 2nd grade. The second girl and I became friends in 2nd grade because we were in the same grade. She had skipped 1st grade so we ended up classmates. She moved the same year I did, except she moved out of state completely and I just transferred schools within the district. We reconnected in middle school/high school periodically but our lives had moved on to different places. I remember being friends with the third girl but I don't remember specific details of our friendship. I know we were on the same Destination Imagination team for at least one year. There may have been two but those memories are foggy. 

9.

I honestly can't remember why I saved this card. The only reason I can think of is that it was one of the extras I had from one year. My mother wrote my name on this card so I'm assuming she must've written it on my other cards that year. As a parent now, my initial reaction would be, "Why in the world is the parent writing the child's name on her Valentine's Day cards?" And that reaction would be completely reasonable and expected. My four-year-old can write her name. I'm pretty sure I should have been able to write my own name 24+ times on little slips of paper.

But the reason why I will choose to keep this card now and forever is because it has my mother's handwriting on it. I'm glad she wrote my name on it instead of writing my name myself. As weird as it is, you don't think about these things until you think about these things. Had I been the child who had signed my own Valentine's Day cards, I wouldn't have this memento today. 

Maintenance

Every now and then I take my house for granted. I forget to appreciate the actual aesthetic beauty that it is. I forget to remember the glass mosaic tile that is in our bathroom shower. I forget to appreciate the house for what it looks like now vs what it used to look like when we bought it. 

I said to my husband recently, “Our house is in much better condition now than it was when we bought it.” His reply was: Oh, definitely. 

Now our house isn’t newer than it was when we bought it. It has aged another almost eight years since we took over ownership. And our house is entering its fourth decade since being built. The previous owners also only lived in the house for a mere four years. So how is it that it looks and feels so much newer than it did? 

Well, the easy answer is we renovated. We painted. Replaced flooring. Changed out tile. Smashed bathtubs. Removed cabinets. And made it look the way we wanted to. The hard answer? We took care of it. 

Regardless of how the house looks, care and maintenance is crucial. Without care and maintenance, a magazine-worthy house can turn gruesome in a very short amount of time. The kitchen is one of the hardest places to keep clean. Every time you cook, grease splatters, water spills, little bits of food fall out of the pan. It’s inevitable that your counters, stovetop, and probably your kitchen sink are going to need a good cleaning every so often. Growing up, we papered the back of our stove. It prevented grease splatters from staining the backsplash. I continue this tradition now and have repurposed years and years worth of brown packing paper. 

 

This is what our stove usually looks like. Brown paper on the back, dirty pots (only when I cook!) on the stove and some splatters here and there. The brown paper gets really messy after a few months and I do change it out regularly. That’s when the magic happens. 

When I remove the brown paper thats’ stained with splashed grease oil, and overall yuck, once again, it reveals the beautiful clean backsplash being protected behind it. 

If my kitchen looked like this all the time, we'd be starving because in order to keep it this clean, I'd never be able to cook.

Whenever I see the kitchen clean and uncovered, it reminds me why I put up the paper for the majority of time. I know I can’t enjoy all the backsplash behind the stove, but realistically, if I didn't put up the brown paper, the backsplash wouldn't look like this without it. I am preserving it for the next owners. I have no idea who they might be. It might be my children. It might be a complete stranger. But either way, they won’t see the remnants of life stories we lived in our house through fat, oil, and grease.

Daily Musings

January has flown by. A few weeks ago I made the comment to a friend that 1/24th of 2023 was over. And then a few days later, or so it felt, 1/12th of 2023 is now over.

I knew this was going to be an interesting week by Sunday. The forecast was iffy, and that meant potential school closures and my classes would be affected. It also meant I was stuck at home with my children for the entire week without being able to go anywhere.

Now I realize, I "stay home" with my children every single day. However, when the roads outside aren't covered in sleet and ice, we can go to the grocery store, we can go to the library, we can go visit friends. It makes a big difference to the mental state of "staying home" with my children. On weeks like this, I am literally at home with them from the time I wake up until the time I sleep. As much as I love my children, that is not my idea of being a stay-at-home mom. 😅

We started the week yesterday with a moment. My son had used the potty and earned the privilege to flush the toilet himself. We had washed our hands and he was all set to come back down. Except he wouldn't. He wanted to cling to the side of the sink and stay like this. I asked him if he wanted to come down. No. I asked him if he wanted to stay. No. I asked him if he wanted help to come down. No. 

He stayed like that for a while until I decided it was a safety hazard and made him unhappily come down. Somehow, somehow, we made it through the rest of the day without nap time. 

Today's adventure was a little more exciting because of outside precipitation. My children asked to go outside and after an outerwear disagreement, they finally conceded to put on the necessary layers I was requesting and went outside. 

I set out the patio umbrella because then the kids could play in peace underneath it without having to hold up their individual umbrellas. My daughter made a small snow/ice mound and my son wandered around next to her. This was great fun for them until he stepped in her snow mound which upset her and then both kids ended up inside again with me.

They lasted about an hour outside playing. I'd say that's pretty good considering the temperature is quite cold. I'm not entirely sure what we are doing the rest of the day. I might do some story time. I might do some age-appropriate "homework", and I may let them have a lot of tv and screen time later. Who knows. 

They're already asking me for lunch and it's 10:00am. Oh boy....

A Wood-Filled Weekend

With a sequence of events, we need to clear our some more space in our garage. One of the main things that needs to go is a bunch of wood we've saved up over the years from various projects. Before just getting rid of all of it or giving it away, I thought we should try and finish some of our own projects which have been on our to-do lists for years and years now. We accomplished both of these projects this past weekend:

1. A "box" to cover the vent hood pipe that goes into the ceiling in our kitchen. 

In April of 2021, we made the decision to vent our range hood vent outside instead of having a recirculating one. It was one of the better decisions we've ever made for our house because I love it so much. I can cook and vent the smells outside and you can't smell anything after a few hours. I don't regret anything about the project except the person we hired. For the last 1.5 years, we've been staring at a really ugly ceiling patch where the pipe connected into the attic. The pipe is also not centered, but that is secondary to the ugly ceiling.

My husband has mentioned wanting to build a box around it to hide the pipe from the beginning to fix both problems. We were finally able to use some leftover MDF board from previous projects to build a three-sided "box" to place in front of the pipe on top of our cabinets. I had used play-doh a long time ago to trace the edge of the trim against our ceiling so we could cut the appropriate edge to cover there as well. 

After a few coats of paint and primer, we had ourselves a white cabinet box to make our kitchen range hood look centered and neat. 

We will hopefully add some trim around the top of the box to match the traditional style of our kitchen as right now it looks too clean and modern. But for now, this box fixed our main issues. Total cost* of this project: $0

2. Utilizing the other half of our second blind corner cabinet.

For my birthday in 2020, I bought blind corner shelf pull-outs and had them installed. To this day I still love using them and they have been super helpful. We have one other blind corner cabinet but the same pull-outs would not work in the other cabinet because it was a smaller cabinet. 

However, this cabinet had space behind it we could use.

The open cabinet is the one with the blind corner.
We've never been able to fully utilize that space. 

This is the backside of the cabinet which allows us to
make a cut to use the blind corner.

We had talked about cutting a hole from behind and adding another door to create another cabinet in our kitchen essentially. This project never came to fruition because I wasn't convinced we had a way to cut open the cabinet to make a clean rectangular opening. This past weekend on Friday morning, I asked my husband again if we could do this project. I was also more convinced to want to do it as a way to use up some of the wood we had stored before we got rid of it all. 

By Friday evening, after the kids went to bed, we got right to work. It took us the entire evening to get the hole measured, prepped, and cut, but we did it.

Really clean cut with a multi-tool he purchased last year.
I have no problem with spending money when it can earn its value.

The next day, my husband spent the whole afternoon making drawer boxes for me. That evening, we had one installed with the sliding tracks. It took much more time than we anticipated because the drawer slides were nearly impossible to separate. We looked up Youtube Videos from different people with three different methods on how to remove them. After a lot of pulling, tugging, and frustrated grunts, we were able to separate the slides and have them installed on their respective halves. 

On Sunday afternoon, my husband finished making the cabinet door completely from scratch! We used an old piece of plywood originally from the house we had saved from a previous renovation. We added some trim to fit with the style of the rest of our house. I primed and painted Sunday evening and by Monday morning, everything was installed and complete. 

Comparable pull out shelves like this would cost $100+ each...(yes, we've looked into it.)

Yes, I've already filled them up. Will need to reorganize the
pantry now that I have more space. 

The secret passageway has a proper entrance! 

Total cost* of this project: $30.90 

I'm really pleased with the way this project turned out. I know we waited years before turning this cabinet into a reality, but now that it's completed, it's really exciting to add another 4 cubic feet of storage space!

*Cost refers to new dollars spent. All other materials we had leftover from previous projects.

Why Your Child is Fat

Last week we went to tour some model homes in the metroplex. No, we are not buying a new-build, but it was highly entertaining to be able to explore the house and indulge in the free drinks and snacks with someone who was looking. 😁 Our kids were highly entertained for an afternoon. 

We went upstairs in the model home. This particular house had a game room, separate media room, and three bedrooms upstairs with two bathrooms. In the game room, they had decorated it with some shelving and decor.

It looked fine, but upon closer inspection, I noticed a lot of the decor was created from very simple objects. I noticed there were a lot of blank books. I got curious because they looked like books with covers torn off. However, it may have been a very rustic version of bound blank paper. 

My curiosity got the better of me and I decided to take one of the booklets off the shelf and flip through it to see what it was. Somehow by divine intervention or otherwise very "strange" luck, I flipped it open and  landed on a chapter title: Why Your child is Fat.

Just my luck.

After discovering this was in fact a real book with the covers torn off, I went to the front of the book to find out what kind of book I was actually holding with a chapter entitled "Why Your Child is Fat."

Ah, that clears it up. 

Clearly this was a book that ended up in the bargain pile or at goodwill and someone was looking for an inexpensive way to decorate a million dollar model home by ripping off the cover and displaying the blank page. Little did they know some overly curious visitor would dare to flip through one and reveal their secret! 

If you choose to copy this inexpensive design hack, I hope you keep in mind the curious people like me who will discover your secret. Choose wisely. 😂

Conclusion: Small Kitchen Appliances

At the beginning of last year, 2022, I set out to track my small appliance usage every single day. I created a chart, printed it out, and put it on the side of our refrigerator. Every time we used an appliance, I would mark a tally. I limited myself to one tally per day because if I tallied every single use, it would affect the results. My logic was I could borrow an appliance from a friend and use it three times in one day and return it. But if I used it three times over the course of two weeks, I would have had to keep someone else's appliance for two weeks or borrow it three different times. I am less likely to do the latter. 

My small kitchen appliances.

My chart contained 19 small appliances. I go into a bit more detail on how I define small appliances and why I included the ones I did in my original post linked above. The toaster oven, kettle, and rice cooker did not receive tallies because they were automatic winners. I will never get rid of these no matter what, and if one breaks, we are definitely replacing it. They are staples to our lives and that's never changing.

From the rest of the list, the lower was our hand mixer. It received 0 uses this year and I actually sold it in November of last year. 

For visual learners, here's the data summary if you can understand my notes.

Now for the rest of the list starting from the bottom:

10th place: Stand mixer - 2x

This one makes me kind of sad, but at the same time, I know why it came in last. I don't really bake. I enjoy cooking much more. It's also a very heavy appliance to move from storage to counter, and unfortunately, it won't fit underneath the cabinets on the countertop for daily storage. I will never get rid of it because I do occasionally make cookies, banana bread, or knead dough with it. But the number of times I do in one year will be very small. 

9th place: Steamer and dutch oven - 3x

We switched to induction last April, and since then, our steamer does not work with our induction cooktop. I figured out a creative way to still use the steamer, but it didn't happen often. Off the top of my head, we use our steamer to make two things: turnip cake and steamed buns. I made neither of these multiple times, hence why we only used our steamer three times last year. 

The dutch oven refers to my enameled cast iron dutch oven, I have a stainless steel dutch oven I use regularly in cooking. My enameled cast iron dutch oven is the lesser used because it is heavier to clean and I need to be a little more careful when I use it. It's one of those things that's great to have but in all honesty, I could probably get rid of it if push came to shove.

8th place: Popcorn maker - 4x

This was a surprise not-last-place for the popcorn maker. I didn't use it all year and was expecting it to come in last. However, my kids have gotten older and I remembered we had it so I pulled it out and made popcorn for them a few times. I think for now, it is not on the chopping block, but down the road, we may reconsider whether to keep it or not. 

7th place: Juicer, Mini warmer, immersion blender - 6x

We bought our juicer specifically to juice citrus in the winter months when citrus is in season. It received a lot of use in 2021. Unfortunately, that wasn't the year I was tracking. Last year we saw less juicing because the winter storm killed the fruit trees at my in-laws's home so they didn't have excess to share with us.

My mini warmer is a small plug in warmer that came with my crock pot. We have used it the most to heat up canned corn to go with certain meals. It's safe to say we ate at least six cans of corn last year.

The immersion blender is one I'm not convinced I will need often in the future, but it will earn its keep for now. I used to use it a lot when I was making baby food, but again, that was not the case in 2022 as my youngest turned 2 and could already feed himself. The one use I love is to blend beans in my chili. My kids will eat the chili I make, but they will not eat beans. So halfway through the cooking, I blend up the beans and then add the rest of my ingredients. 

6th place: Crock pot - 8x

I was genuinely surprised I used my crock pot this many times. Because we do have an instant pot with slow-cooking capabilities, I expected just to use the instant pot. However, I do find sometimes the instant pot is too hot, even on the slow-cook function. It is also nice to have both to use for double portions when cooking large amounts. 

5th place: Griddle, Waffle maker, Vacuum sealer - 17x

These three appliances align in how we use them which is perhaps why their usage was so similar. We use our griddle primarily to cook bacon and tortillas. I cook an entire package of bacon on the griddle and then freeze the leftovers. When we run out in the freezer, we repeat the process again. Tortillas are similar except we do not freeze them because it ruins their texture when homemade (in my experience). 

I use our waffle maker to make a large batch of waffles to freeze and we reheat for breakfast. Each batch lasts anywhere from 2-4 weeks depending on how often my kids want to eat waffles for breakfast. It is super convenient to be able to pull out pre-made waffles from the freezer without paying a premium for commercially made and packaged ones.

Our vacuum sealer gets used approximately 1-2x a month so this number is very reasonable. Whenever I see a good price on meat, I will buy large quantities of it and then vacuum seal them for the freezer. I save it in the freezer anywhere from 2-8 months generally. Sometimes, if it gets buried deep, we will end up with meat that meets its first freezer birthday. We still eat it. I've yet to get sick from eating vacuum sealed meat we stored in the freezer. We're more likely to get sick from fast food, grocery store sushi, or old orange juice, all of which has happened at least once.

4th place: Food processor - 28x

I used my food processor a lot last year. I used to not be inclined to want to use it because of the cleanup, but I realized, it's so much faster at shredding carrots and potatoes than I could ever do by hand on a grater. I also ground my own meat in my food processor this year just to experiment. The cleanup was a little bit messier than I would have liked, but the end result was very similar to what I would have gotten buying ground meat from the store. 

In fact, I used my food processor so many times last year, I justified buying myself a new one during the holiday sale. I had actually been eyeing one since holiday season 2021 but did not bring myself to purchase it. After tracking the usage in 2022, I justified making the purchase. I was even able to sell our old one to help cover a portion of the new cost. 

3rd place: Blender - 29x

Our blender gets most of its mileage in the summer during smoothie season. The rest of the year it may get used sparingly for a pesto or tomato sauce. Our blender turned eight this year. We said goodbye to our warranty, but it has replaced two blender cups and one base motor for us. We aren't complaining. To us, it's been well worth the investment we made. 

2nd place: Instant pot - 39x

Technically, first and second place are the same appliance. However, I separated them because even though we purchased it together as a bundle, they can be purchased separately. So because of that, it is possible to be a separate accessory which changes the entire use of the appliance. I've loved my instant pot since the second year we owned it - the first year was my learning curve...which was steep because I was too afraid to try it. After I got the hang of it, I love it. As you can see, the average use is over 3x per month.

1st place: Instant pot air fryer - 65x

Our air fryer earned its keep with flying colors last year. It averaged being used over 5x a month. We were really excited when we first bought it, and it's still very handy to have now. I have returned from taking my kids out, been crunched for time, and put lunch on the table in 10 minutes from entering the house. That's the power of air fryer convenience (and frozen food). 

Now air fryer vs toaster oven vs air fryer toaster ovens....that's a topic to ponder for another post. 

Any ideas on things I should track this year? 😀