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Joy in the Ordinary, the Every Day and Folding Clothes with Milk Stains

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I find joy in a 4 x 6… a set of them actually.

A few weeks ago I captured A Week in My Life through pictures. What may be boring, mundane shots to others shout nothing but joy to me.

Because in between the vacations and the milestones and all those other BIG things hide thousands of seemingly insignificant moments. Moments that make up my life as a mother. My life as a wife. My life as Melissa.

These moments are the ones we forget to capture. The ones we don’t think to chronicle because they aren’t deemed momentous enough. Or happy enough. But the ins and outs of our every day lives are worth capturing just as much as that trip to Disney World.

And maybe even a bit more.

I think back to the pictures that MY parents took. My mom took lots of pictures so I have more than most. But dang, what I wouldn’t give to see a picture of my sisters and I greeting Dad at the door, excited by the silly rubber band he’d wear on his wrist to give one of us.

Or a picture of my mother making black beans and rice in the kitchen.

Or a picture of our morning routine as we get ready for school.

It’s the every day, the oh-so-very ordinary pictures that I crave from my childhood. I have the memories in my head and in my heart, but a picture… that can show someone a little sliver of your life. (If only I could print pictures from my mind. Get on that, okay Epson?)

As for MY life in 2010, here’s a glimpse of what I captured in a series of 4 x 6s:

Folding laundry. Boooor-ing. But wait…I step back and look. I look at the style of clothes I was folding, the design of our furniture, the type of toys we had. What nostalgia will this picture conjure up in 15 years? In 25?

A little moment out of our morning routine. The baby’s got a full tummy from our morning nursing session and Big Roo comes downstairs to love on his little bro. Maybe I’ll show them this picture in a few years when they’re fighting over Legos.

While pictures captivate me, trains captivate him.

Story time with Daddy. I’m not sure if I can even remember my Dad reading us books (though he’d assure me that he did).

Part of our evening routine – a walk around the block. It’s the time where we count bunnies, point out flowers and recite numbers off mailboxes.

I find so much joy in these pictures because each one offers hundreds of clues into my life AT THIS VERY MOMENT.

In 15, 25, even 35 years from now, they’ll remind me of more about my life in 2010 than a perfectly posed shot with matching clothes, slightly tilted heads and saccharine smiles.

Joy? It’s life chronicled piece by piece through a 4 x 6…

… to show my children when they are old enough to appreciate it.

… to show my grandchildren so they can giggle at the fact that their dads were kids once, too.

… to show anyone who’ll reminisce with an old woman about her life back in 2010.

My guess is that they’ll all see the joy in those 4 x 6s too.

This post is part of SOYJOY‘s What brings you joy contest. Learn more here.

Week in the Life: Saturday, Sunday and Urgent Care Nonsense

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You thought we were done with this shenanigans didn’t you?

Well, what’s a Week in the Life project without a WEEKEND… isn’t that the best part after all?

The weekend was a mix of fun, frustration, friends and owies. I guess you could say the big event was our anti-climactic urgent care tour.

The 30-second story: Big Roo has hand in side of fridge door as Daddy Roo is closing it. Big pinch on Big Roo’s pinky finger. Finger starts swelling, Big Roo keeps crying. Decided to go to the urgent care we usually go to. They suddenly don’t take our insurance anymore (only the LARGEST insurance provider in NC too!). They suggest other places- go to one– closed. Go to other– they don’t do X-ray. Drive to a final one and wait an hour. By this time Big Roo says it doesn’t hurt and wiggles it fine. They say it’ll be another hour to see a doctor. After urgent care ring-around-the-rosy, we go home and all is well the rest of the night. (we’ll just call the doctor tomorrow)

On to the weekend…

Big Roo decided to help me get Trajan his breakfast.

The picture QUALITY isn’t great, but it tells such a sweet story of brotherly love.

We spontaneously decided to accompany Daddy to the mall while he got his haircut. We playing in the play area and then shopped a little.

Apparently, Little Roo thinks this catalog is worth eating. This feat earned him the nickname “magazine baby” by Big Roo.

Somehow this thing made its way inside the house again and has been circling through the downstairs ever since.

We had friends come over on Saturday night for pizza and hanging out. Big Roo kept asking when his friend would get there and anxiously looked out the window.

All I have to say is if there’s a Costco near you, buy the giant box of Ghirardelli brownies. Nom nom.

I love seeing how curious this boy is. Trajan the dog is at the door (our friends just showed up) and Little Roo has GOT to know what’s goin’ on.

The dads are showing the boys the cool new Geotrax toys on the computer. Good times.

Sunday, lazy, Sunday.

Daddy had to work today (from home but it was still work) so I took the kids to the front yard for some fun. Then I started sweating too much (HUMID) and begged Big Roo to come back inside. Ha. Somewhere between all this I managed to half way clean the house. HALF way. Don’t ask me about the laundry.

Big Roo’s thing lately is he likes to help us cook. Here he’s “stirring” butter into the peas.

Aaand, there’s the boo boo. A fat finger, a little gash… smothered in boo boo kisses and some Neosporin.

In an attempt to milk this project for all it’s worth, tomorrow I’ll share some final thoughts and give you some tips for capturing memories in YOUR life, regardless of whether or not you ever attempt a Week in the Life.

Week in the Life: Friday

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Friday, you get my glorious middle finger. I had high hopes for you but you decided it’d be much more fun to deprive me of a sweaty workout. And make me forget the most important thing I went to Babies R Us for. If that weren’t enough, you added to list-of-crappy-stuff-that-happened-today the thrill of rushing out of the library while simultaneously hoisting a screaming preschooler on my hip and pushing a stroller. You also made sure Daddy Roo had to work until after 6 so I would endure Friday that much longer. So much longer that I said “screw healthy” and we hit the Zaxby’s drive-thru.

Whew, that felt GOOD to get off my shoulder.

After looking through my pictures for today though, I realized there were some good moments tucked into the folds of this insane day. And the evening was mostly glorious. Little Roo let out his biggest giggles yet and we all took turns trying to be the one to make him do it again and again. Then as I put Big Roo to bed, I “nibbled his ears” like grandma does as he burst into a fit of giggles.

I guess that’s what parenthood is all about. Ups and downs… nearly crying from frustration to giggle fits that light your soul.

Here’s the best parts of Friday:

A picture to mark the fact that I’ve had a camera in my hand all week.

What do you do when one child needs a bath but the other is awake? Why lay them on the bathroom floor, of course! (we usually use the bouncer but I was too lazy to drag it upstairs)

Enjoying our Chobani yogurts for mid-morning snack. Big Roo then traded his blueberry for my strawberry saying “yummmm, that’s pink!”

I introduced Big Roo to the song about his favorite food. Peanut butter jelly time, peanut butter jelly time, peanut butter jelly peanut butter jelly peanut butter jelly and a baseball bat! He proceeded to sing it the rest of my day. (Come ON, I know you’ve heard that before)

Guess what kind of sandwich I’m making for the big guy? Sometimes strapping a baby to your chest is the only way to get things done.

Quiet time was the ultimate #fail. It was more like come-out-of-the-room-fifty-times-then-destroy-the-room-then-still-not-sleep-and-interrupt-moms-workout.

Mom’s workout… trying to practice since I’ll be teaching kickboxing again soon. But then Big Roo peeked around the wall upstairs and asked what I was doing. I said exercising. He said “exercising is good for you!” Why yes it is… if you ever have time for it.

Big Roo decided to give it a try and I was just laughing and snapping pictures. I conceded that maybe I should just workout with him there and make it fun… and then the baby woke up crying. (insert sound of deflating balloon)

A little outdoor time at the Cars car wash on our deck before I decided it was too freakin hot for Little Roo. That’s when I got the library idea which I thought was a super duper idea.

Most of the chosen books were Clifford and Thomas the Train. As we were leaving, he started running around and standing on the couches. I warned him that if he didn’t come to me, I’d put a book back (we had JUST checked them out). He started laughing and climbed on a table. I gave him one more warning and he came near me with a grin and stance that said he was about to run. I grabbed his arm as he tried to take off. And so I picked him up, dropped a book in the return slot and carried him out the door. He cried the whole way home. Sheesh, three year olds.

We can usually hear the garage door when Daddy comes home. I love their anticipation.

Haha- and here we are at the Zaxby’s drive-thru.

The Kid Interview:

I thought it’d be a great idea to “interview” Big Roo… what his favorite color is, what toys does he like, etc. It’s a fun way to document all his favorites at the time while getting a sense for his personality… and apparently his booger picking.

My thoughts about the process:

  • I took hundreds of pictures in the beginning of the week. Now I’m taking less (50-100 before weeding bad ones out) but still getting just as meaningful shots. Quality over quantity.
  • I really love the interview. I think it’d be a good thing to do more often than the Week in the Life project just because it’s so easy and quick to do.

Hells to the ya for the weekend… no more tripod and self-remote!

Week in the Life: Wednesday

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So are ya’ll tired of my week in detail yet? Would talking about pee again make things better or worse?

(If it’s your first time here this week, you may wanna read this first.)

Pee has been a constant theme so far this week, right? Pee pee tantrums galore! Well, pee became the star of the show again today… at the wee hour of 4:00 in the morning (wee- get it? HA). After nearly two weeks of diaper-less bedtimes and NO accidents, we had our first one last night. Thirty minutes later, we’ve got a clean bed, new sheets, new PJs and mama goes back to sleep. Blarghh.

Enough of the potty talk, let’s move onto Wednesdays. It’s the only day where the kids both go to the babysitter’s house all day and I work, work, work. Our hump days go a little something like this:

When Big Roo comes downstairs, the baby is usually awake. Big Roo likes to hop on the bed with him and give him hugs. I like how their hair is touching in this pic.

Since I take both kids on Wednesday, I have to load my car with my purse (by PURSE I mean diaper bag), Big Roo’s backpack with his lunch and cars in it and Little Roo’s bag full of extra clothes, bibs and bottles.

At lunch, I ran to the store to fill in some groceries that we didn’t buy this past weekend. Fudge Rounds were NOT on my list but since I went before I ate lunch, they mysteriously made it in my cart (insert innocent whistling here).

(I’m skipping more pictures of me working because that’s SO boring. So real, but so so boring.)

I stopped working at 5:10 today and browned the ground beef for enchiladas. Then I headed to pick the kids up.

On the way home to finish dinner (and yes I was stopped when I took this thankyouverymuch). Daddy Roo had to work a little late tonight so it was all me (see my minute-by-minute dinner-making extravaganza below).

I held Little Roo off and on while I was prepping dinner. I had to get a picture of this because he kept trying to eat the enchilada sauce. Notice his open mouth going after the can. Haha.

As we sat down for dinner, Big Roo carefully laid out all his cars on the table. He was more of a train guy last week but this week is ALL car.

After dinner, we played for a little while racing cars. Big Roo informed me that I must race Leak Less and Chick Hicks with TWO hands, not one.

This picture is from yesterday, but it pretty much sums up most of our weeknights. We watch a movie we rented on Netflix and work on our computers. Daddy Roo usually surfs or works (he can usually leave work at 5:30 but sometimes has to work at home). I blog, work on some marketing stuff for friends or scrapbook. Tonight I’m working on this post and doing stuff for the local MS Society’s marketing committee.

Finally, can I go all Martha Stewart on you? Well, Daddy Roo did 90% of the work. We made this tonight:

It’s a blackberry crostata and it looks delish. We didn’t make it for the hell of it or to impress you guys. We just got the blackberries on sales this weekend and they would have gone bad by the weekend. Daddy Roo loves to make crostatas for whatever reason and so there ya go.

A re-cap of preparing dinner:

I got a bug in my you-know-what to write down IN DETAIL what preparing dinner was like. It was intense and fun at the same time. Here ya go, in all it’s glory:

6:28- starting dinner (ground beef already cooked)
6:29- realize we don’t have enough corn tortillas so I sub the rest with flour
6:36- simultaneously looking for Spanish seasoning for rice while making Little Roo smile with peek-a-boo
6:38- text from Daddy Roo “omw” (on my way for those who don’t speak acronym)
6:44- rice is started, enchiladas half-way rolled, picking fussy baby up
6:47- Big Roo comes in the kitchen, crawling on the floor zooming cars and asks “What you makin?”
6:50- got enchiladas in the over (baby’s in the bouncer)
6:57- feed baby (second time since I got home)
7:00- Daddy home (an hour later than usual but at least I got warning). He takes over dinner patrol.
7:13- Daddy Roo fixes dinner plates while I try to get Big Roo to potty. Big Roo smacks baby’s foot and is off to a time out (“the blue chair”)
7:19- potty!
7:22- sitting down to eat
7:24- forgot to get Big Roo milk so get it and sit back down
— EAT EAT EAT—
7:33- pick up baby and eat one-handed.
7:34- Big Roo says “I gotta poo poo!” and then runs off to the bathroom

And there you have it.

Please PLEASE tell me your dinner time goes something like this? It’s been this crazy since Little Roo made his debut and I wonder when it gets less hectic!

My notes about the process:

  • I spent more time documenting the day today than taking pictures. I think some days will be like that.
  • It helps to have a hubby who is willing to take pictures of you. To get him used to the idea, I gave him fair warning at the beginning of the week.
  • I’m spending LOTS of time preparing these posts in the evening, which is taking away from what I typically do at night. To compensate, I plan to write a little about what I usually do in the evenings besides blog.

Over halfway there!

Week in the Life: Tuesday

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It’s day two of my week-long project. Again, it’s tiring. Again, it’s wonderful. Wonderful to capture all these normal moments in our life.

There were no peeing tantrums this morning– yay! In fact, Big Roo was SO exhausted from yesterday that I had to wake him up at 7:15!

Today was totally different from yesterday in that I work on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. I’m a marketing director but have the luxury of working from home (trust me, I know how lucky I am but I do miss an office sometimes). I did a pretty good job documenting the day too. I wrote down times that things happened. And since part of our morning routine is watching Today Show while we’re getting ready, I jotted down the three lead stories (the new oil leak cap, how the girl who was kidnapped is doing and Mel Gibson’s tirade).

Here are today’s faves:

Little Roo is still sleeping downstairs in our room in the pack n play. This is the gorgeously happy face I wake up to in the morning. Squeeeee!

It’s a rarity in this house to actually have to wake up Big Roo in the morning. But that’s what I had to do today. As you can see, he sleeps with Burt the pink bear, Doggie (under his arm) and some fave cars.

Since Big Roo usually comes downstairs to our room in the morning, he always brushes his teeth in our room. Luckily there was no pee or teeth-brushing tantrum this morning.

We usually eat breakfast in the living room in the morning. On the menu? Cottage cheese and pineapple. Big Roo just likes the cottage cheese. I ate later on and had a bagel (hello carbs).

After Daddy Roo took Noah to daycare, I got Little Roo to sleep. He’s home with me in the mornings on Tuesday and Thursday. I’ve only started doing this for a week now. It’s a way to save money and spend a little more time with the guy.

My work computer is set-up at the kitchen table. How’s THIS for multi-tasking?! I’m holding the baby, eating a snack (my turn for cottage cheese) and listening to a software demo. Bam yow!

I just love this everyday shot. Here’s what the weather was like today. And you can see I need to charge the phone.

Workplace #2. I had to nurse Little Roo so I headed to the bedroom and read something on the computer while I fed him.

Workplace #3. Unfortunately the little guy didn’t want to sleep this morning. Usually I get more time to work. He rolls all over the place so I have re-situate often.

Little Roo was doing his usual flipping over and over and over. He ended up trying to get big brother’s trains.

And the doggie Trajan. He usually lays around the house either in our room or Big Roo’s. He sleeps. And wants to go outside and chase squirrels. But mostly sleeps.

On Tuesdays, I pick Big Roo up from daycare and Little Roo up from his afternoon at the baby sitter’s. He’s always excited to come home. Except today he and his friend ran towards the road when we got outside and I had to chase them. In doing so, he made me drop the camera on the concrete. I was uber-ticked off and took away his cars for the ride home. Fun stuff.

Fast forward to bathtime (I got dinner shots too- teriyaki stir fry). Daddy gave the baby a bath and I took the big guy upstairs for his. There’s nothing like that clean baby (and kid) smell.

I got this robe at a consignment shop for $3 and it’s Big Roo’s favorite. My almost bro-in-law said he looked like Huge Heffner. Hehe. I have no idea why he was making that silly face though.

For some reason, this kid didn’t want to sleep tonight. About half an hour after bedtime, I came upstairs and he was playing with cars. Surprise surprise. He finally zonked out at 9:30ish. Baby was out before 8:00.

Why Jumperoos rock my baby’s world:

Instead of a Big Roo quote, how about let’s end the day with this little token of cuteness. (And yes I know I use their real names here!)

My notes about the process:

  • I used my external flash today. Got WAY better indoor shots. I would marry that flash if I could.
  • I got tons and tons of routine shots (way too many to post).
  • At the beginning of the day, I didn’t think I was going to capture anything exciting. But I did (naner naner to me).
  • I’m not going to get the morning routine EVERY DAY and the bedtime routine EVERY DAY. I’ll only capture the differences from day to day (like I need 7 pics of Big Roo brushing his teeth in the morning).
  • Hoping we can get in an evening walk tomorrow.

Bring it, Wednesday!