A Tale of a Kitchen Facelift: Done!

Well, it was a lot of work, but it's finally done. I took three days vacation from work to pound it out because I knew I couldn't handle living with my kitchen in shambles while I tried to sneak in a weekend here and there. I still wouldn't have been able to finish it if it weren't for my makeover partner--my mom. She's always up for a good project...she's been remodeling her house for 30 years, And I think she was just itching to get in my kitchen and "do something" with it. Thanks, Mom! You're awesome :)

Some of the progress along the way:


The gross cabinets, Before. (I can't believe I'm posting this!)


And After shelf papering and cleaning and organizing. Paint still to come.


The newly "brushed nickel" knobs.


The newly black range hood, two coats down. It took a third.

And a few shots of my constant "helper," who wanted her picture taken every time the camera came out to document the progress.


Re-claiming her step stool, which I "borrowed." It's usually reserved for G's hand washing. She kept climbing up with me. Possessive?


In her smock so she can help paint!

This chick is sooooo excited with the white kitchen. She keeps running into the room and saying "Surprise! It's white!" or "Not brown anymore, it's white now."

And now, the After:





Ahh. I like it.

A Tale Of A Kitchen Facelift

I've hated my kitchen since the day we moved in. Ok. I've hated it since we first walked through the house before we bought it. We've always had the intention to rip the entire thing out and replace the cabinets, floors, counters...the works! But...yeah. That's not cheap. So, someday. Until then, I just couldn't take the ugly cabinets and hardware another day. So, though it won't fix the falling apart drawers or the hideous yellow counters, I've decided to paint. Oh, boy. This should be fun.

Here's the before. The walls are staying green. The counters and floors, unfortunately, are staying yellow. The brick...it's fate hasn't been decided yet. It may end up white. We'll see. The cabinets and those blue doors will be white. The range hood gets a coat of black paint. I'm even ripping out the old shelf paper!




A close up of the ugly, so ugly, hardware. Luckily that back plate comes off. So, it will go and the knobs will get sprayed with brushed nickel paint and, hopefully, they will match our light fixture, which is staying. And all that grime around the knobs will disappear under nice white paint.

Wish me luck!! After shots are just around the corner.

Aspects of Her Emerging Personality

This little girl here, even smeared in spaghetti sauce and chocolate pudding, is my heart. She is the largest part of my soul embodied, walking around outside of my body. I would give my life for her, in a heartbeat. She is my future.

But day by day she is becoming, or perhaps I'm just realizing, her very own person. She is NOT a part of me, not really. She is a separate and unique being. She makes decisions without me. She goes places I don't go. She has thoughts and reactions I don't like. She is Giuliana, her very own.

Oh, she has so many wonderful qualities. She's so brilliant. Very funny and silly. Adorable in every way. She is loving and affectionate. She's creative. I don't want you to get the idea I'm not aware of all of these things. I truly am. And I love her more than I ever would have believed possible. But this girl, she has me at a loss...already. I'm honestly a bit nervous for her teenage years. She's becoming quite a handful.

She's two, and I know that. I'm sure that a lot of what I'm seeing these days can be attributed to that fact. I've read about sweet little babies morphing into wild aliens on their second birthday. I guess I just didn't think it would happen to me.

But more than that, I feel like I'm discovering certain aspects of her personality that trouble me. I fear for her a little bit. It seems she has an independent streak a mile long. She wants to do EVERYTHING herself. She does not want anyone to come near her while she tries to do whatever it is, and, tonight, she didn't even want us to look at her. She does not handle instruction AT ALL. I mean it, at. all. You can't show this girl anything. She expects that she knows how to do it and can and will do it herself, even if she's never even seen the thing done before.

Exhibit A: Tumbling Class. If you follow me on Facebook you know I recently signed Giuliana and I up for a Mommy and Me toddler tumbling class. We began on Saturday. Now, the major reason I decided to enroll us in this class was not for the exercise, not from some desire for G to become a gold-medal gymnast, not even so much for the opportunity to be around other kids (though that was definitely a factor.) My motivation was largely to get this kid in some sort of mildly structured environment so she begins to develop an understanding of how to listen, how to behave when someone is teaching her how to do something. I've also recently begun investigating preschool options and I had a revelation the other day. Holy Crap. If I don't start now with helping her learn how to behave in a class setting, she's going to shove a glue stick up the nose of the first teacher who tries to help her make a collage.

So, tumbling class. It went predictably. Giuliana was bouncing on her trampoline when it was time to leave the house. I'd prepped her all morning, but of course she didn't want to stop bouncing and go the gym. Cue screaming and crying. Ok, I get her in the car, I talk up how much fun we're going to have. She calms down. We arrive. She's shy and nervous at first. But then we enter the gymnasium and she eyeballs all the fun equipment.

"I do! I do it! I do the tunnel!!" She skips asking, heads straight for whining. It went downhill from there. We attempted to sit in a circle with the other kids and their parents and the instructor and do some easy stretches. She wanted nothing to do with it. She would NOT let anyone show her how to do a somersault. She refused to allow anyone to teach her how to hang on the bar. She didn't want to do the obstacle course, she only wanted to climb through the tunnel. And she was whining and stomping her little feet the whole time to a chorus of "I do it, I do it!!"

The part that breaks my heart a little bit is that the few times I coaxed her into listening and she actually tried something she was so proud of herself. She bent down and touched her toes with all the other kids and her face just lit up. She jumped and smiled and beamed pride. But she wouldn't repeat it. It wasn't her agenda.

The other part that breaks my heart? When she can't do something. She seems to think and expect that she knows how to do everything. All by herself. No help required. But, well, she's two. So obviously she can't. And she is so easily disappointed in herself. She bursts into tears, the whining dissolves to wailing, "I can't do it, Mommy. I can't do it. I never ever do it. I sorry I can't do it." She's so very hard on herself.

These are the personality traits I fear. Yes I know that it's typical for little kids to want to do things themselves, to be stubborn and never want to do anything according to Mommy's plan. But this insane NEED to be completely independent, this over-the-top expectation of herself scares me. I worry she's going to have a rough time of it. And I have absolutely no idea how to help her. I've tried giving her a wide berth, lots of time to try to do things herself before I ultimately have to help her. I've tried setting a short time limit and letting her know I'm going to help her after a certain amount of time. I've tried the 1, 2, 3 trick. I've gotten stern when the tantrum gets out of hand. None of it has made a bit of difference. She decides she wants to do something and she starts yelling and whining about doing it herself, before anyone has said a word contradicting her. She dissolves into a stomping, tantruming mess and doesn't even try to do whatever it is she wants to do, she just argues. Even when no one is arguing. Sometimes I can say "Go ahead, you can do it" enough times that she actually tries/does it. But often she just keeps it up and I end up having to step in. And of course that never ends well.

I just don't know what to do next. I feel like I'm missing a puzzle piece. There's something here I'm not getting. If I could only figure it out I could make things so much easier for her. So, friends, I'm asking for your advice. How do I help little G help herself? How do I structure her day/my requests so she can be successful and feel good about herself? Help!

The Pout Has Begun

The other day Giuliana threw her first, honest-to-goodness pout. Oh, she's whined and stomped and thrown a few (thousand) super-loud fits in her day. But this? Was a for real P-O-U-T.

One of my birthday gifts from John was a little steel drum. I love it! So does G. I let her play it most of the time when she asks, but we have firmly explained to her that it is MOMMY'S drum and she must ask if she wants to play.

So this time, she asked and I let her play for a little bit. Then I asked if we could share the drum.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I do it myself!"

Insert parental discussion on sharing here. Next thing I knew, she gently placed the drumsticks on the table (at least she knows better than to throw them) and then ran into the other room. I peak in there, and there she is, chin to her chest, arms crossed around her middle.

"Hrmph. It's not fair. Not fair. I don't wanna share."

I had to duck my head back around the corner before I cracked up. I could hear her continue with her pouty little rant.

"Giuliana play Mommy's drum. Not fair. I play. I not gonna share."

I picked up the drumsticks and began playing the drum. She came running out to see, then turned around and headed back into the other room. Again with the chin to chest "not fair" drama. But a minute or two later, with me pounding away on the drum and bellowing, "Gee, I wish I could share this drum with someone. That would be waaaaay more fun" she came around.

Oh geez. I'm so glad I have a little girl. I really am. But the drama! We are so in for it.

How To Break A Mother's Heart (Toddler Version)

I know I'm not the only parent to resort to The Stern Voice from time to time. Like when your child is being especially exasperating. Yeah. I know I'm not alone.

Here's the scene: Giuliana is fresh from her bath. For some reason this is a particularly touchy time for her. Probably being cold and wet doesn't help the situation. But for whatever reason, she gets really cranky about having lotion put on. She wants it on, and she wants to do her tummy by herself. This gets no argument from me. I'm flexible, she can do her tummy-no problem. But she gets in one of her moods. Oh, I dread and hate this mood. Nothing makes her happy. She has decided she wants to do something herself and no amount of "Go ahead" or "It's OK, you can do it" or "Giuliana, I'm not arguing with you, stop yelling at me, go ahead and do it yourself" pleases her. For whatever reason, she is expecting an argument and she's ready for it with a good, loud whine and cry session. So, even though I give her the lotion and encourage her to rub her tummy and tell her what a good job she's doing, she's wailing through the whole thing.

And I snap. I break out The Stern Voice. I look her right in the eye and say (rather loudly) "GIULIANA. Stop yelling." Well. Has anyone ever known that to actually work? Because it sure doesn't work with my kid. I have know idea why I resort to it. Some maternal gene-pattern, no doubt. Anyway, she just cries and whines louder. And I figure it's still all about the non-existent argument over the lotion/tummy issue.

Then she starts repeating, over and over, "It's not fair, Mommy. Not fair. 'Giuliana.' It's not fair. I crying. No, 'Giuliana,' Mommy."

At first I don't get it. What's not fair? Finally, after she repeats it about a dozen times it dawns on me. I ask her, "Do you mean it's not fair that Mommy yelled at you and said, 'Giuliana' when you were crying?"

"Yeah. I sad."

Stab me in the heart! I hurt her feelings. For real. Not just 'cause I wouldn't give her a lollipop before dinner or let her climb up into her car seat by herself because we were running late. I hurt her feelings because I yelled at her when she was crying.

I apologized a few thousand times and told her that I loved her very much and I was sorry for hurting her feelings. She told me "It's o-tay, Mommy" and gave me a hug and we're all cool now. But, man! That one? That was rough. I know I'll stop and think before giving into my frustration the next time.

Happy (34th) Birthday To Me

It's that time again. Another year, come and gone. You know what, though? I'm still pretty happy with my little life. I am grateful for so many wonderful people and circumstances that have blessed my life this year. So I don't have EVERYTHING that I want. Eh. I guess if I did that would be it, right. Game over. Nothing left to work towards. I'm feeling pretty zen today. It's sunny and warm outside. People who love me will wish me a beautiful birthday this weekend. My daughter has learned to sing

"Happy Birthday, you. Happy Birthday, you. Happy Birthday, my mommy, Happy Birthday, you. Fffooooooooo!! (that's the blowing out the candle noise)"

and has been singing it to me for the last few days.

I have another beautiful weekend planned. As I reminded you all last year it is springy and wonderful in Upstate NY this weekend, as it always is on my SPRING birthday (the link is evidence of me in flip-flops on March 7th last year. And further proof.) This year we shall surely try to make it to the St. Patrick's Day Parade (some...unfortunate...events prevented us from going last year. This year I'll have two sets of car keys.) So, Happy Birthday to me, and Happy Spring to you. Enjoy it for me :)

Scientific Conversations With A Two Year Old

The Scene: 8:15pm Monday night, driving home along the highway after Nana’s birthday party…waaaay past her bedtime, but she’s too hopped up on cake to sleep.

“Mommy, I can’t see the moon! Where the moon go?”

“I think it’s hiding behind all the clouds, honey.”

“What’s the matter, Giuliana?” she asks in a fake pouty voice, her cue for me to ask that question (subtle, huh?)

I bite. “What’s the matter, Giuliana?”

“Oh, no! I lost my moon! Mommy find the moon.”

“Oh, I don’t think I can, sweetie. The moon is very far away and we can’t see it because there are a lot of clouds in the way. It’s hiding behind the clouds.”

“Clouds up inna sky? The moon is faaaaaaaaar away. I don’t see the moon. I don’t see stars. I don’t see the sun.”

“Good job, Giuliana. The sun, moon, stars, and clouds are all up in the sky. Far away. We can’t reach them.”

“I don’t see the sun. Where the sun, Mommy?”

“We don’t see the sun at night time, when it’s dark. The sun goes to bed when it’s dark.”

“Sun sleepy. Goodnight sun. Mommy, look! Green sign. Blue sign. I see green signs.”

Apparently, we’ve exhausted the astronomy lesson for the night. But she has more surprises for me.

“That’s right. There’s another green sign. I see lots of green signs.”

“I do! I do! I see the green signs. Look, a blue sign. An’ a yellow sign! Look, Mommy, ‘L’ an’ another ‘L!’ Look, ‘E’ an’ ‘T!” She’s reading the exit signs.

We exit off the highway close to home. There are several stoplights before we get there.

“Stop, Mommy! Red stop light.”

“How’d you get so smart?! Good job, Giuliana! Can you tell me when it changes to green?”

“There it is! Green, go, go, go!”

This girl amazes me.

“Another red. Stop again, stop again.”

She points out each red light along the way. I turn right on red at the intersection.

“Why no stop, Mommy? Red light. Stop!”

“We don’t have to stop at that one, honey. We’re almost home.” I don’t know about her, but I’m too tired to explain the whole concept of Right On Red to a two-year-old.

“Here we are. All done. This is Giuliana’s home.”

“That’s right, baby girl. We’re home.”