Mind Dump

Complete randomness...

Its been really warm here, as it has in most of the country. Last year at this time, 2.5 feet of snow had already fallen. If you had told me during the freakish snow storm in October that we wouldn't have anymore snow through the middle of January I would have laughed. Now, I'm just complaining that there's no snow for skiing. It is supposed to get cold just in time for the three-day weekend. We're hoping to get a ski trip in and perhaps a day-trip to Philadelphia. It will be a weekend of fun no matter what the temperatures.

I have been really working on not putting too many expectations on the kids. I have a problem with stepping in and taking over when things don't look the way I want them to look. I'm working on letting the kids just be kids. I was pretty proud of myself this week when I didn't take over Oliver's snowman project at Mommy  Me. He got the general gist of the picture and art projects have never been his thing. He doesn't like to paint or color. They don't hold his attention. In fact, he flat out refuses to paint. He's pretty vocal that he doesn't like it. So, I sat back today and let him create this Picasso-esque snowman. I was quite chuffed that I didn't take over and quite proud that this is totally Oliver's creation.

But, then I faced a bigger challenge in the afternoon. Chloe came home with a field trip form and needed $29 to pay for the field trip. I handed over the money. She put it beside her backpack and I found it like this---

Many people will look at the money and say, "Yea, so?" but I look at it and go into complete fit. I'm not anal, just anal about bank-facing money and putting it in descending order. In a matter of 10 feet--the distance from my wallet to her backpack, the money is in disaray! Two black eyes below a nose and on a snowman's stomach I could take. Money out of order, I couldn't. I told Chloe it would be safer in an envelope (i.e. safer in an envelope neatly folded and put in descending monetary value and the presidents all facing the same way). I guess I'm still battling with the not stepping in and taking over thing....