Category: Ryan

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Activities Cole Ryan

Home Improvement with Kids

I have been up to the same old, same old.  Working on the house, or watching the boys so Joe can get some tasks completed.

Trying to work at the house with the boys should be a new reality show-how much you can get done while trying to keep the boys from undoing everything you just did, or keeping them from making more work.

Over the weekend, Joe was painting the boys’ bedrooms.  Ryan just had to help, so Joe gave him a paint brush and let him paint the closet floor (which will soon have carpet).  Later, Joe had to run to the store, and I was working in our bedroom cleaning the walls, and bathroom.  I knew Ryan was upstairs, but didn’t really think to check on what he was doing.  Big mistake. 

When Joe got back from the store, he had discovered that Ryan had taken it upon himself to empty about half the container of primer on the floor in the closet.  The primer was a few inches thick!  Joe had to scrape it all out.  After we talked to Ryan about not painting unless we were in the room with him, we figured we had solved that problem.

Shortly afterwards, Cole woke up from his nap, and Joe had moved on to another bedroom.  I thought Joe knew Cole had gone upstairs, and Joe had thought I was looking after Cole.  Uh, no.  Big mistake. 

When I found Cole, he was in the closet with a big paint brush, covered from head to toe with primer.  It was all on his new fleece jacket and jeans.  His lime green Crocs were now snow white.  There was another few inches of primer down on the closet floor-again.

Imagine my joy in having to go tell Joe that he had to scrape up all the primer again from the closet floor.  Let’s just say at this point, we were not happy.  It was time for me to give up on trying to get the master bed/bath done, and take the boys home.

On Sunday, Joe’s wonderful parents watched the boys for us all day.  We really made some progress.  I got the master bath/bed cleaned and the doors polished.  I tested out some paint samples for the room, which I am having an awful time trying to match.  Joe got the first two coats of paint applied in both Ryan and Cole’s rooms. 

The professional painter came yesterday and painted the living/entry/hallways, and dining room.  They turned out wonderful.  They finished it all in one day.  It would have taken Joe probably a week at the minimum to get it done, assuming he didn’t have any kiddie interruptions.

I decided I did not like the green and beige color scheme for our bedroom.  I found a light blue/gray color I like, but can’t seem to find an accent color.  Still working on that.  We will have to figure it out by this weekend, because Joe should be able to finish up the bedrooms and start on ours. He won’t let me paint.  He says I am as good of a painter as the boys’ are.  I don’t agree, but if he wants to do all the painting by himself, that is fine with me.  🙂

I have to clean the entire kitchen next, and clean the stair railing and banister. They are oak, and don’t look like they have been cleaned for several years.  The doors looked the same way, and after cleaning them and using Orange Glo, they brightened up beautifully.  I am excited to do the banister and kitchen cabinets with it, and really see them perk up.  Orange Glow is a wonderful product.

I have been taking lots of pictures, and promise to post some soon.  The rooms just don’t look right without flooring yet, so as soon as we get the hardwood floor and carpeting in, I’ll have some pictures of what we have accomplished so far.

Categories
Activities Cole Household Mothering Ryan

Home Improvements

Joe was out of town this week- he came home a day early, so that was nice, but it has been an exhausting week. 

Since we would like to move into our new house, before next spring, I had grand plans this week to remove all of the ugly wallpaper border, and clean the walls, in the three bedrooms in our new house, so they would be ready for Joe to paint this weekend.  

We have decided to hire a professional painter to paint our living room, entry way, and dining room.  The living room has what I think is a 16-foot ceiling, but no, we haven’t measured.  There are some interesting angles in the room as well. 

Furthermore, the previous owners were hunters (no they were not related to Sarah Palin- a little shot of humor- I need it these days, 🙂 ) and on these tall walls, they had a lot of their catches stuffed, (I believe taxidermy is the correct phrase for this), and mounted on the walls.  Evidently, it takes a lot of nails to hold up stuffed wild game.   I can’t count how many thick nails are in the walls, at various heights, and how many nail holes are in the walls. Did I mention, there is animal hair stuck the one of the walls, oh, about ten-feet up?

Joe is a great painter.  He is meticulous, but you have to have time to be that precise.  Even if he had the time, the nails, holes, and heights of the walls would take sometime to paint.   We found our painter, savior, who will remove all the nails, patch the holes, clean the walls (animal hair included for no extra charge), and then apply two coats of paint.  He has a crew, so it should just be a three or four day project. 

We have to get this area done because we are having hardwood floors installed by none other than Joe.  (We really are lucky he knows how to do all of these projects!)  But we don’t want to install the floor until the walls are painted.  In the master bedroom, and the boys’ rooms, we are having carpet installed, and again, we don’t want to paint with brand new carpet down.

So I thought I’d spend all day Tuesday removing wallpaper border. The border was glued, super-glued, three quarters of the way up on all the walls.  I had forgotten how much I HATE wallpaper.  After five hours, I only had three walls done in the master bedroom.  I didn’t have the right tools either, and I had the duct cleaner there as well..

Ryan had an injury from earlier in the morning, (trust me- you don’t want to know-let’s just say it was in the worst place ever for a little boy, and the teeth of his two year old brother were involved), so he was cranky (but who could blame him?)  and trying to work on a ladder removing wallpaper that is ten years old, with a cranky four-year old, and a curious two-year old who keeps trying to climb up the ladder-is not the formula to get much accomplished.  

After five and a half hours, we headed home.  I had to go to work for half-day on Wednesday, and after I picked up Ryan from school, we went back to the house, and I was able to finish the last wall in our bedroom.  I inspected the wallpaper in the other two rooms, and it was stuck on more firmly than the stuff I had just gotten off. 

After work today, and the nice surprise that Joe was home early, we went to Home Depot, to get a wallpaper scorer and some paint.  Fortunately, Joe has tomorrow off so he can get started in the master bedroom, and after the boys’ music class, I’ll start me vs. the wallpaper-Round 2.

It is a lot of work, and a bit stressful, but it will be worth it.  I can picture the rooms in the colors we picked out- the soft yellows against the wood floors and I get really excited.  The work makes me tired, but I still enjoy it.  

As the boys and I were sitting on a blanket on the floor in the living room, which is just sub-flooring right now, having a picnic on Tuesday, I knew someday when the room had been done for years, and has seen more of its fair share of living, I would always remember sitting there eating PB&J sandwiches with Ryan and Cole. We ate with badly-in need of paint-holes-in-the-walls, with animal hair stuck on them.  Not the most glamorous lunch, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

I do plan to post pictures, but I want to post before and after pictures at the same time.  In the meantime, I’ll leave you the paint colors of the rooms a paint consultant helped us pick out, since we are so awful at picking colors:

Colors for the entry way, living room, and dining room:

Yellow Freeze  &    Man on the Moon

Colors for the master bedroom:

 Baja Dunes &       Jade Tint

Boys’ Room: (they both wanted blue)

      Marguerite Blue

(color swatches from myperfectcolor.com)

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Cole Holidays Ryan Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday- Fall is in the Air

 

Ryan cleaning out his pumpkin

 

Fireman Cole at our town’s Halloween Parade

 Superman & the Fireman

If you want to see more pictures, head over to Wordless Wednesday.

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Activities Cole Ryan

Wordless Wednesday- One Last Sprinkler Day

Today it was in the mid-80’s, and after Ryan and Cole had been playing outside for most of the morning, they were hot.  They asked if they could play with their sprinkler ring.  Since days like this are fading fast, I thought it would be one last time this year they could play in the sprinkler.  I’ll let you decide if they had fun:

      

(You can click on the first two pictures to see them larger).  Now go to Wordless Wednesday, to see all the other pictures.

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Activities Family & Friends Mothering Parenting Ryan School

PreSchool Dropout, No More

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my preschool dropout, Ryan.  The comments telling me not to worry, were so appreciated, but we felt like we still needed to explore the option.

I suppose I am the one mother who didn’t get the memo that you cannot wait until back-to-school time to register your child for preschool.  Our school district has about six preschools in some of the elementary schools, and I assumed I could register Ryan at the one in the town we are hoping to move to.  WRONG.

When I called, the lady was very nice, but laughed.  She said I had to register for preschool back in January.  What?  I can’t even plan ahead to next week, let alone eight months ahead of time.  She told me they were completely filled, but they would put Ryan on a waiting list. 

I tried the other schools, and it was the same story.  One school that did have an opening, would have been in the farthest possible location from where we live now, and if we move.  The days they had open also did not work with our schedule.  Since I work two days a week, it was going to be tricky at best, to find something that worked.

So, I resigned myself that Ryan was a preschool dropout, and I was going to homeschool him for preschool.  We have been working on his name, numbers, letters, shapes, and colors anyway. Recently, he is starting to pick out a few words out of books that he recognizes, so I thought we were on the right track. 

The director at the farm program where Ryan went last year e-mailed me as well and said she had a few afternoon openings, so I signed him up for some sessions, just so he could be around other kids, and get the experience of being in a class.

But it was still bothering us.  Neither Joe or I, are teachers.  We were worried that we would be missing something.  What if we brought him to kindergarten next year, and he was the only kid that couldn’t do X, because we didn’t enroll him in preschool? But our options were severely limited.

Ryan’s wonderful grandmother (Joe’s mom) came to the rescue.  She told us about a center in town that caters to children with special needs.  She informed us that they have a preschool, where they combine special need kids and non-special needs kids in the classes.  She said it had a great reputation. 

Right off the bat, I loved the idea of that type of environment for Ryan.  I think he is at the perfect age to start learning about differences and in turn, learning tolerance and empathy.  I looked up the website, and was thrilled to see they were advertising at the top of their page, that they still had openings for non-special needs kids in his age group.  I read about the program, and became even more impressed.

We called the school the next day, took a tour, and even though they normally request that the four-year olds attend school four days a week, they said they would still love to have Ryan come for two days a week.  Because of my work schedule, there is no way I could bring him four days a week, but with some help from Ryan’s grandparents we will be able to do the two days a week.

The school was amazing.  All the teachers have bachelor degrees and or masters in early childhood education.  All the assistants at a minimum, have certificates in early childhood education too.  The ratio in the class is half the kids with special needs, and half the kids without.  There is one teacher, and two teaching assistants.  They are very organized and send home a lesson plan every week, so you know what is happening and what the kids are learning.  They have field trips.  One is coming up to a farm to see animals, take a hayride, and pick vegetables.  It just seemed like the perfect place for Ryan.

Today was his first day, and he was excited to go.  He told me he was a little nervous, but he was happy that he wouldn’t have to take a nap, since he’d be at school.  When we arrived, the director walked us to the class, where he met some of his classmates.  Ms. A., (his teacher), gave him a hug, and told him she’d show him where he could put his backpack.  Ryan barely gave me a hug, and he was off with Ms. A. 

Cole and I watched for a minute, and Ms. A., sensing I  needed another good-bye, pointed Ryan in my direction.  My little boy gave me a hug, and he was back off to Ms. A. Outside the classroom, there is a one-way window, and the director told me I could stay and watch as long as I wanted.  Cole was getting tired, so we left. 

It is odd turning your child over to someone else, to take over teaching them, even for just a few hours a day.  But this school seems so nurturing and supportive-it felt right. 

When we picked Ryan up, he had, had a blast.  He told us about the stories they had read, the snack they had, and the toy front-loader he got to ride during recess.  He was also happy to see that his name in his cubby, was attached to a yellow triangle.  That was very important. 

Ms. A. called us tonight and told us how comfortable Ryan seemed and how well he did today.  His first day couldn’t have gone better. It should be a fun year, and I can’t wait to see and hear about all the exciting new things he learns.  Here are a few pictures before we left for the first day: