It’s a “2 cups of coffee” morning over here at the Vances today. I knew I was tired when I went to make my
coffee this morning. I boiled water, put
grinds in the French press, and placed 2 mugs on the counter. When
my water was all set, I poured it into my empty mugs, and stared dumbly,
wondering why my coffee was translucent.
It took me a good 20 seconds to realize the problem.
Yes- we all had a rough night. It began with getting to bed way too late due
to our small group meeting. Robyn was up
a few times through the night as she got her first set of shots yesterday and
was a bit warm and just not feeling the bestL But the real culprit was darling Janna.
Many people describe my daughter as fearless. She does like to be thrown upside down, crash
into hard surfaces, tackle large dogs, and balance on strange things. However, she has one fear that developed over
the summer: the blender. She sound of a
blender or hand mixer FREAKS her out. Even
the sight of the blender does the trick. She actually gets to the place where
she is literally shaking, while her eyes dart around wildly and she runs crying
to cling to mama. Recently, this fear
has extended to other things. The bath
water running, a hair dryer going, or a snow plow driving by loudly
outside. She scrunches up her face and whispers,
“noise...” while trying not to cry, and the shaking starts. It’s pretty sad.
Well, it snowed ALL day yesterday in Ottawa. The roads were a bit of a mess and with freezing
rain expected for today, the plows were
all out working hard through the night.
Janna’s room faces Craig Henry, which requires a lot of plowing. Anyways, Janna kept waking up freaked out by
the sounds of the plows passing by, and she would holler out for “MAMA!!!” over
and over. Jesse would then wake up and
shout something along the lines of, “Janna! Be quiet!” Dave and I took turns going in to snuggle her
and tell her she was ok. The poor little
thing was just wide eyed, shaking, and
looking petrified toward her window while whispering, “noise.” So, I spent half the night trying to reassure
Janna that she was safe and ok, and the noise couldn’t hurt her.
So, I’m tired this morning, but feeling quite happy. My neck felt significantly better yesterday
morning, and even after a busy day of lugging the kids around, it is feeling
even a bit better this morning. I will
take tired over pain!
The kids are currently playing at their art table. I read an interesting article about inspiring
creativity in children a few days ago.
It discussed having art supplies within a child’s reach, and not
limiting them in their expression. For
example, give them blank paper over coloring pages, allow them to use art
supplies as they wish. It’s ok if they
want to paint with a feather instead of a brush- why not? I must confess I sometimes get caught up in
keeping things clean and orderly. SO, this morning I thought I would just put a
bunch of things out and let them do as they wished as long as everything stayed on the table and out of mouths. That was the only rule!
Welll, I was quite impressed with Jesse. He really doesn’t have much interest in
art. He never has. But he’s been going strong for over 20
minutes now. He started by squishing out
little pieces of playdough into round discs and stacking them on each
other. I typically tell him to try not
to mix the colors...but today I kept my mouth shut. Once they were loosely stacked, he took a
rolling pin and rolled them nice and tight together. Then, he grabbed a cookie cutter and make it
into a little man shape. He’s continued adding
colors, rolling them smooth, and making different shapes. Here is a photo!
Anyways, this open ended art will not last much longer, so I
should be on my way. Thanks so much for
reading. I’m out!
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