Where Do I Live?

My eldest stopped munching on his breakfast cereal the other morning and causally said, "Hey Mom - look at the spider hanging in a web by the slider door." I admit, I didn't turn around and look and offered an indifferent "Uh-hmmm." Spiders on our deck - totally normal. We face the woods.

But, when Annalyse started frantically saying, "Mom! Mom!" and making roaring noises like an animal, I turned around. 

Lord have mercy.

I don't know what kind of spider this is. I don't want to know what kind of spider this is. I don't care what kind of spider this is. I just know I don't want to find another one like it anytime soon. Or ever, actually.

I'd like to share how I removed this beastly critter, but it's more than you want to know. Trust me. But I promise you I heard every bone in its body break so I know it's not returning.

Not long after this episode, the kids and I got our bikes out for a morning ride. Micah rolls his bike back and exclaims, "Hey look! A snake skin!" Grady Lee, of course, quickly slammed through anything in his way to see what Micah had found. He concurred: "Yeah! A snake molted in our garage! Can we get our magnifying glasses out and investigate it?"

My first thought was, "Goodness - you are indeed an eager homeschooled kid. Simmer down." But, in the time that same thought was happening I was also thinking, "Good grief! I bet this stupid snake is here because he can eat spiders like the giant one I just killed!"

An hour later we returned from our bike ride, and as we were standing in the driveway waiting for the garage door to completely open, I watched a mouse scurry across the floor.

I'm not kidding.

Where in blazes do I live? What is this place I call home? We are being overrun by vermin!

Cityscape - Day 1

Wikipedia: A cityscape is the urban equivalent of a landscape. In urban design, the term refers to the configuration of built forms and interstitial space. In the visual arts, a cityscape (urban landscape) is an artistic representation, such as a painting, drawing, print, or photograph of the physical aspects of a city or urban area.

Since this August marks six years of living here in Charlotte, I decided it was time for a history lesson on our city. While the boys (and for a few minutes, Annalyse, too) stayed busy painting their Charlotte cityscape, I read facts and figures about our city and they shot back question after question.

And, like usual, one bunny trail question led to another bunny trail question, which led to another bunny trail question. Before I knew it, I was trying to explain why America fought the British, and how much of that history happened in and around Charlotte. All of this talk of war and fighting had Grady Lee wondering "why the Americans were allowed in their country to play in the Olympics if we had a huge fight with them before?" Enter another long bunny trail.

Sometimes I wish we lived closer to our previous home in Chicago. My boys would learn what a real city is. A real city meaning that the concrete jungle can't be walked in one afternoon, the train system involves more than one line, and you're not young, hip, professional, and sans kids just because you live in a high rise. While I am a huge fan of Charlotte, I have to admit that Chicago will always and forever hold a place in my heart that no other city will fill.

Memories of my previous life in Chicago aside, Charlotte really is a great home. It's a large city without being a crowded city; a growing city without being an underdeveloped city; a bustling city without being an  overwhelming city. And, maybe even better than the city itself is simply where it's located: a short drive from the mountains and a short drive from the beach. Nothing beats that.

So, with a short history lesson and an art project under our belts, I told the boys we would spend the next day enjoying a short walking tour around downtown - er, Uptown - Charlotte. We would take the train to the middle of all the tall buildings and, rather than head straight to a museum or park like usual, we were going to walk and walk and walk. We were going to use the day to learn about some buildings, enjoy some fountains, explore some parks, visit new museums, and maybe even find a new favorite snack stop.

Our Charlotte cityscape, covered in hammered nail holes representing building windows, became a fun nightlight this evening. I placed a lamp under the box and the boys fell asleep to the soft lights of the city they call home.

Yes, it was oh-so-sweet to see their sleeping faces and their finished project glowing in the dark. The only bummer was when Micah wandered downstairs two hours later, softly crying. "The city of Charlotte is making scary shadows on my wall and I don't like it anymore!" So I mandated a city-wide blackout and Charlotte stopped glowing for the night. Sheesh.

An Empty Week

Last week was a blur. Last weekend was a blur. Today is finally non-blurry. The kids slept until 8:00 am: win. The kids have played awesome in the toy room and their bedrooms all morning: win. We made it through Target without incident: win.

Grady is in NYC this week doing whatever it is important people like him do in fancy hotels and nice office buildings and expensive restaurants. The kids have I have (are you ready for this?) absolutely nothing planned for this week. I think this is the first week in months that my calendar has nothing. I sort of have the shakes about it, too, because it feels so strange. I must be forgetting something - remind me if I'm supposed to be somewhere or doing something, okay?

Can you believe this is the last week of July? Didn't I just put away Easter baskets and plant seeds in the garden and shop for new swimsuits and flip-flops? Get ready people: I've already witnessed Christmas trees and glittering lights on display in some stores. Obnoxious, I know.

But before my house is littered in pine needles and candy canes, I've got the summer days of August and September still. And, tightly scrunched between September and Christmas is my favorite time of all. Bring on the colored leaves, the pumpkins, the apples, the hayrides, the cider, the bonfires, the jeans and sweaters. 

I think I'm getting restless for a seasonal change because I'm reorganizing what I've already organized. Seriously. Or, maybe it's because I have a whole week in front of me with nothing to do and I feel like I have to do something so I may as well clean and organize. Besides, making Goodwill donation drop-offs feels so good.

Hall closets, toy room closets, pantry shelves, and laundry room shelves all have newly arranged bins and baskets and hooks. I'm going to add Professional Organizer to my resume. And maybe Professional Dump-If-I-Don't-Use-It-Because-I-Can't-Stand-Clutter, too.

But wait, have you noticed the theme in these pictures? While I was busy reorganizing what didn't really even need to be organized, my kids were busy playing ever-so-nicely, but ever-so-messily. So now that my closets look nice, it's time to make the rest of my house look nice, too.

Today is only Monday. And even though my calendar says there is nothing happening this week, you and I both know that life doesn't work that way. Does it?

Yielding Firstfruits

I don't have a green thumb. At all. Not even a yellowish green thumb. But, wanting to teach my boys a thing or two about responsibility and managing a job from start to finish, I decided it would be a great idea to build a small garden in our backyard. In our completely-and-totally-on-a-hill and covered-in-red-clay backyard.

My boys were ecstatic with the notion. Growing our own strawberries? Harvesting our own cucumbers? By mid-February they were asking if it was springtime yet so the garden could begin.

Grady, usually the willing sidekick for my ideas that require more of his time and energy than they do mine, agreed to assemble something super simple that would fit the bill. If our gardening attempts this year are, pardon the pun, fruitful, he said he'd be willing to build bigger and better next season. For now, though, we've got ourselves a nice rectangle with black soil ready for growing a handful of things.

With everything blooming and budding and all signs saying spring is here to stay, the boys and I got busy last week and planted tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, red peppers, and strawberries. I cheated on a few things and bought pre-grown tomato and strawberry plants, mostly because I'm anxious to yield the harvest from these as soon as possible. 

This small garden really is a learning tool for the boys. They're responsible to water it daily and, according to Micah, "feed the plants vitamins so they get strong veins." The other day I found Grady Lee hunched over and pulling out teeny-weeny blades of grass that had blown in from the last yard mowing. "I'm getting anything that might take water from the vegetables or start weeds in the garden, Mom."

In less than two weeks time, we are the proud farmers-in-the-making for several rows of sprouts. With only mere inches of stems and leaves pushing through the dirt, I'm certain every neighbor on our cul de sac has heard the good news. Grady Lee is convinced we won't need to get groceries all summer long and Micah wonders how much longer until his "strawberry bush has fruit for my snack?"

 

I know, I know. It's still March. The long, hot, dry summer awaits and the real test of gardening responsibility will be put to the test. But since my boys have taken eager ownership of this project, it really doesn't matter that my thumb isn't green. I just better be ready to slice and dice when they bring fistfuls of green beans and strawberries up to my kitchen.

 

The Simple Things

I feel like I've had a lot of laundry to do lately. Oh wait, I always have a lot of laundry to do. But, I'll let a small secret out of the bag: laundry is my most favorite household chore. I don't like walking by a clothes basket and seeing dirty clothes, and I don't like seeing empty hangers spread throughout a closet.

As I was stain-treating two pair of toddler boy jeans, I looked up at my laundry room wall and smiled. My usually loud, sometimes obnoxious, and very often destructive little men do have a soft side. They love to do crafts. And, being that they're still young, their artwork still has innocence. (Translated: bunnies and butterflies and not guns and monsters.)


What about you - what Simple Thing makes some of your household chores easier to do?

'Lil Workers

Grady Lee woke up this morning ready to work. At breakfast he looked at me and said, "It's a nice day today, Mom. I think we should go work hard outside!" I couldn't have been happier. Today's chore was spreading mulch and planting a few flowers.

Shortly after breakfast we headed to Home Depot for supplies. Since I was getting several bags of mulch, I used the flatbed cart rather than the traditional cart. Oh.My.Goodness. My boys thought riding on top of several bags of mulch on the flatbed cart was the coolest thing they have ever done. In fact, Micah sobbed when I told him to climb down and get in the car.

The boys were eager to help, and bless their willing hearts, I think they only added an extra half hour to the chore. Grady Lee kept telling me he was "big and strong and can lift heavy things so that I don't hurt the baby." Wow - a gentleman in the making!

Once we were done - hot and dirty - it was time to clean off by running in the sprinkler.

The boys thought the best part was pretending it was a car wash and running their lawn mowers through the sprinkler.



After lunch outside, I introduced a new "bubble game." Nothing fancy, but they had a riot. (Remember, when you're two or three it doesn't take much!) We blew bubble snakes and created foam all over the ground. Micah thought it was snow and tried to make a ball. So cute.



And now my 'lil workers are napping soundly - tuckered out from working hard and playing hard.

The Simple Things

Wow... so many simple things I'm thankful for this week!

A friend passed on a box of maternity clothes for me to borrow. Less than a week after hearing the news, and she's already grabbing things from her attic to help me out. She is a gem. (That, or she realizes that my pants are getting tight and she is subtely suggesting I move to a bigger size...)

And then there's another friend who decided her three year old has too much Thomas the Trian stuff and she randomly gave some tracks and trains to my boys. It's nothing more than a simple loop, but you seriously would have though Christmas and Birthdays were happening in our home. My boys were on cloud nine.

And what about another friend who decided to clean out toys her boys no longer played with... and I happened to score five amazing floor puzzles! Round two of Christmas and Birthday celebration in our home.

Like the title says - it's The Simple Things. Nothing much, but enough to make my heart smile. What about you: what made your heart smile this week?