Accessorizing

Girls. We seem to be born with two things. An opinion and a desire to be beautiful.

At younger than two, Selah Grace has long since become the dictator of her fashion. She picks out her shoes each morning and her chosen jammies each night. And in between she has a grand time adding and deleting fashion accessories that may or may not go with the season: stocking caps, beach hats, headbands, watches, necklaces, band-aids, etc. That's how we end up at toddler story time in the library wearing a cute little outfit with sparkly shoes and a striped beanie in 70 degree weather. I can't wait to see what this turns into as she grows older and dresses herself for school!

Is this a head trama? No, she just felt the need to wear all six of her headbands at once.

Mama's necklaces make the best tiaras.

This day she wanted to be a ballerina and wore her tutu and crown all afternoon.

"Chillaxing" and Keeping Our Eyes on the Big Picture

Blanket statements. Never universally true. Let's begin with one, shall we?

There seem to be two types of people: calm and high-strung. At least that is the way adults in this household can be categorized. Nate is the calm. I'll let you guess who the high-strung one is.

Nate's inner calm would have yoga gurus drooling. He walks into a room and even the yappiest of psychotic dogs lay at his feet in hopes of a belly rub. Nate's inner spirit is the Jack Johnson, acoustic fingered guitar, beach-bongo melody.

My inner calm is slightly more frenetic. So, a lot more. But I recognize this along with the need to move away from the high-strung end of the spectrum and back to where Nate is, resting in a pool of nonchalance. Being a stay-at-home-mom by profession and a perfectionist by nature, it is easy to equate being a perfect wife and perfect mom and a perfectly spotless house with success. Ha! Don't worry. I know that equation is crazy! But still, multiple times a day I have to remind myself to "chillax."

At the end of the day it will not be detrimental to our family's development if:
1. Selah eats quinoa pasta with prego sauce AGAIN for dinner.
2. There are dishes in the sink when people come over.
3. We are 10 minutes late to everything in life.

It may sound trite or roll off like a meaningless platitude, but this Leboffe household is trying to see the big picture and not sweat the small stuff. It comes easier for some of us under this roof than others, but a willingness toward the right attitude has to count for something!

Creating

There's something so central to God in creating something new. Right now we are creating in two places: in the dark, comfy confines of my womb, and in the empty room of the future nursery. Inside my tummy something magical and spiritual is happening. A person is being made!

But in our empty room we are getting a chance to imagine a new space for a new family member. It used to house icky blue carpet and precarious towers of boxes of things we haven't gone through in almost five years of marriage merge. Now it boasts a fresh coat of paint and new carpet, but is still rather barren. Although I moan about how long it seems to take babies to grow, it's a good thing that God gives us time to prepare a place for them in our homes and hearts.

Here's a picture of our little guy's space now:

Here's a "before" picture of our little guy's future space:

Yep, pretty boring right now. Nate and I are throwing around some ideas right now to make a big impact on a low budget. Think fabric, trees, kites, and tesselations. Stay tuned for the big reveal in a month or so when we get it done!

My Valentine

Nate knows that I don't want a little glass swan vase with a rose and a bow on it from the grocery store on Valentine's Day. No thank you. While I didn't get flowers from my husband this past Sunday, he did get me something that showed me just how much he cares.

Nothing says love to a pregnant lady like carne asada fries. Thanks, Hubby. I love you too.






















(Yes, I do realize these look absolutely disgusting. And yes, I do know these are NOT on the Jillian Michael's approved diet plan.)

Lovely Saturdays

Pancakes, Coronado, Picnics, Naps, and Wii: The Ingredients to a Great Saturday.

I think it's a crime to live so close to the ocean, but not see the beach very often during the winter months. Nate feels like going to the beach and not getting in the water is the equivalent of driving to Disneyland and sitting in the parking lot all day. The obvious solution here is that we need to get Nate a wetsuit.

I need time outside in beautiful places to fill up my soul tank. I also need quality time with my little family. Although Nate doesn't need these things in the same way, he happily took his wife, daughter, and little developing boy to spend the morning at Coronado together this Saturday.

We strolled along the beach, meandered around lovely neighborhoods, then spent time having a picnic in the park and playing on the slides. It was sunny and breezy, but not too cool. It was beautiful. It wasn't extravagant. It was perfect. Thanks for filling up my love tank Nate!

Family Self-Portrait on the rocks by the dunes at Coronado.

We call this her Flocks of Seagulls Hair. It was in a cute pony and bow, but she wanted to feel the full glory of the wind in her essence and therefore flung her restrictive bow to the ground. I understand Little One. Something about the beach that calls for a desire to be free.

Fun on the slides with Daddy. We spent a lot of time here going down and gleefully requesting one more round. "Uhn," she says with eyebrows raised and an expectant smile and a chubby little finger resting on her cheek.

And what better way to end the day than to come home, take a LOOOOONG nap, then play a little Mario Kart Wii with Daddy.

Having a completely free Saturday is a rarity in our household, but they are oh so good when they do come!

How We Purposefully Potty Trained Our Toddler on Accident

As always, I had a plan. And as always, Selah Grace had her own ideas.

The plan was to ease Selah into potty training, allow her some potty "knowledge" and "experience" before I plop her into that tiny plastic chair and ask her to tinkle. For the past month or so we've been utilizing our local library checking out picture books, videos, and songs about potty training. Smart little one that she is, she's picked up right away on new potty signs and eagerly strings three baby signs together: book, potty, music to let us know when she would like to sing the potty songs from one particular book.

The plan:
1. Begin reading all these stories, sing these songs, talk about the potty, etc.
2. Buy Selah Grace her own potty and put it in the bathroom for her to explore for a month or so.
3. Begin the training.

We got as far as step 1, but the plan derailed at 2.
She was so excited to USE her potty that the second we got home from the store she pulled her pants down, ripped her diaper off, and spent the rest of the afternoon naked running back and forth to her little potty to sit and the toilet paper to "wipe", which basically consists of wheeling off streamers of tp and throwing them in the big people toilet.

So far she's only really used her potty once, but she gets the concept. So that is how we purposefully potty-trained our toddler on accident.

And now by popular request: The Pee Pee Dance
(She gets a little camera shy so she's less animated than usual. But she's bent over and holding her knees together like the lyrics suggest. And no comments please on the big pregnant lady hopping around.)




Roll Call of Our Favorite Potty Books

This book holds a wealth of potty songs set to popular tunes, such as The Itsy Bitsy Poo Poo. It is by far the family favorite.


" A 'witty' and 'gentle' " tale of potty training.
This one is fun for S.G. to act out while we read.


In this story the toddler teaches her bunny to use the potty. Selah has her own stuffed bunny that she drags around so she loves this one.

Rainy Days

There's something about being home on a rainy day that is just so wonderful. I love the rain. Granted, if you are trying to drive through a downpour that can be unnerving. Or if you are stuck in a classroom with 25 sun-deprived kids climbing walls on a rainy day schedule, that can push you into insanity. But if you are lucky enough to be tucked into home on a rainy afternoon the possibilities are scrumptious. Some of my favorite wet weather, indoor activities include:
* cuddling into sweatpants
* reading
* watching movies (preferably dramatic epics full of romance and adventure like Empire of the Sun or Joy Luck Club)
* snacking on hot chocolate and homemade bread
* falling asleep on the couch with the rain pittering in the background

San Diego doesn't get much rain and the storms we receive are pretty mild. It has been such a treat for me to enjoy a few rainy days.

Dreams

Saturday morning I was congratulating myself on my current sanguine state about having a newborn while wading into the murky and fickle waters of parenting a toddler. By Saturday afternoon I had considered all the things I wanted to get done before the little one comes: organize garage, decorate nursery, transition 20 month old to toddler bed, potty train said toddler, find cheap deep freeze for garage, fill said deep freeze with a year's supply of casseroles, etc. Goodbye sanguine mom, hello slightly overwhelmed mom, but still optimistic this will all happen in time and happen smoothly.

By Saturday night my dreams were a little more honest.

Dream #1: I'm driving a friend's red truck down a hill. A stoplight and t-junction are coming, but none of my attempts at pumping the brakes or pulling the emergency brake on are helping. We go careening through the light at 120mph and I make a wild turn at the T, while cars honk and spin-out to avoid us.

Dream #2: I'm driving again. Little silver car now and this time the route I'm supposed to be taking is all closed down so I have to go trek down a different road, which puts me on an onramp, which turns out to actually be an off-ramp for the other cars. I'm driving the wrong way down the highway and have to do some sweet Italian Job action to make things right while narrowly missing the large group of stroller-pushing moms in yoga pants out for a morning pram parade.

Dream #3: Still driving. Things seem okay until I realize that the petals are kind of far away. I can just barely reach them with tip-toes if I scooch down, but the steering wheel is tilted really weird, and I'm trying to buckle up to no avail, and something else feels really weird. Why is the distance to the front of the car so hard to judge? Oh crap, I'm in the backseat!

I looked up car dreams in the dream dictionary and here's what it said. Car dreams are an indication of your dependence/independence and the degree of control you have on your life. Having trouble with seat belts means you're worried about the future. Speeding and viewing your speedometer represents your pace of life, how hard you are driven to complete something, and that things are moving too fast.

I don't think I really needed help clearing any of that up. Those symbols seem pretty obvious.

Now I'm no dream interpreter expert, but when I woke up Sunday morning I had to admit that maybe my subconscious was trying to tell me that I don't feel quite so in control or easy-going about the changes in our life as I thought. My positive attitude has just been giving myself pep-talks, but at the core this all feels out of my hands.

But God, so good with knowing what I need put this verse in front of me Sunday morning:
"God will do this, for he is faithful to do what he says, and he has invited you into partnership with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord."

The truth is that the steering wheel isn't in my hands and it doesn't need to be! Knowing that God is faithful makes careening down this road both exhilarating and trusted. Life, here we come!

Losing a Layer

While on a stroller walk through Balboa Park with a friend this morning we touched upon the topic of how many kids we would like to have. (Yes, I know that giving demands to the Creator like I'm ordering up the house special is rather futile but we all have an idea of what we think we would like.) Their family would like to have two. Two seems like a safe number. Parents can mark children man to man and don't have to fall back into zone defense. The whole family can fit into an economical and ecological sedan, along with the family dog. Although adding any number of kids into the equation will inevitably increase the crazy, two kids seems manageable. There can still be a reasonable amount of order with two.

But what happens when you throw in more? Nate and I would like more than two. With three the family still can fit into that cute little car. Sans family dog of course. But teams aren't even when there's only three siblings to play against each other. It's looking like it's going to have to be four.

Another one of my friends, who is a mom of three, said that with the third child a layer of life is stripped away. She isn't saying that the joy in life is taken. She's just saying that the thin barrier between ordering everything to be maintained and maintaining order is gone. When there are three problems that need immediate attention, you work as if in triage. Patch up what's necessary for THIS instant, move on to the next, then go back and smooth everything over. Transaction costs were talked about incessantly in our college political science courses and abstractly in our philosophy courses. I think you only truly understand transaction costs when you become a parent, and then only really feel them deeply when you become a parent to more than one.

If this is already what happens with three, then why not have four? We like the idea of the number four. It's a good round number.

Foreseeable problems to navigate: financing a family of six, driving anywhere together as a family, sharing rooms, listening to unthoughtful/uncensored people balk at the size of our family.

Foreseeable solutions: pressure's on to be incredibly smart and athletic like their daddy, I've always preferred SUV's anyway, that's just the way it's going to be so enjoy the nightly slumber parties, that's their problem not ours!

You may think we're crazy, but I say bring on the chaos! It sounds like a marvelous time!

Trouble Shooting Marital Bliss

We all have our weird little quirks. I for instance: keep a running commentary while driving, don't like listening to people chew, look for the shopping cart with the least amount of hair wrapped around the wheels, need the sheets pulled taught, and have to have the cupboard doors closed while watching tv. Nate doesn't have to work around any of these oddities, but I know he has a few of his own.

I've learned to live with mine, but there is one thing that I'm just not sure how to master...
Nate's pocket pile. I need help from you out there. What do I do with this pile of boy stuff (in a very loving wife way of course) that gets unloaded onto our dresser every afternoon? I need ideas to keep the keys, work keys, wallet, chapstick, deodorant, bank statement, sports ticket, lint, etc. out of eyesight. Anyone out there conquered this dilemma?