April Review and May Goals

My goal for April was to make some maternity clothes. I made this skirt and cut out a shirt. Sadly, the pieces of the shirt are still sitting on the desk. SO… goals for May:

• Finish said shirt AND make a couple other maternity items. I’ll have a lot of motivation to do this if the weather warms up more (currently it’s still cool enough to wear winter maternity clothes, at least since I’m one of some tiny minority of women who feel colder rather than warmer while pregnant).
• Make/buy Johnny some summer clothes. His current wardrobe consists of this pair of shorts (which Emma has taken to stealing, rather absurdly since she has a massive wardrobe courtesy of a friend who consistently gives her gorgeous hand-me-downs) and four t-shirts: one red and three white. Emma steals his white t-shirts too.
• Take control of Emma’s theft of her brother’s clothing
• Do something about the 500 or so flagged blog posts in my Google Reader.
• Figure out what to do about our leaking boiler. Any experts in 1960s-era copper piping radiant heat reading this?

That’s probably more than enough to keep me busy. But I have made progress on some of my annual goals:

• Find places to keep all those odds and ends that get stashed in random places: We FINALLY turned our family room into a proper, nice, playroom, mostly by removing clutter and steam cleaning the carpet. I can’t believe it took us nearly two years – having a nice space for the kids to play has made my life a million times easier.
• Potty train Emma: We’ve started to brave going out in public without pull-ups, with great success. One low moment: going to a playground with no nearby bathrooms. Dunkin’ Donuts half a mile away saved us, but I don’t plan to return to that playground until my kids are done potty training. In fairness to the playground, it is close to a library that used to be open all the time, but now rarely is (town budget cuts).
• Get Johnny to eat more solid food: Johnny is eating much better. He even drinks milk now instead of only wanting to drink water.
• Be more patient with cooking/baking that involves a rolling pin: I’m thinking I may tackle this one when my sister K visits this summer.
• Take the kids outdoors more: I’m acing this one thanks to my sandbox and lovely spring weather. I’m pretty sure the kids played outside for at least part of every day in April, sometimes in the rain.
• Get the kids to sleep through the night better: Emma sleeps great at night, although she now talks in her sleep. Apparently Mike and I tend to do cruel things like take away her toys and knock down her block towers in her dreams. Because we do that in real life, all the time… Johnny flunked sleeping at night in April (there were more nights of my getting at most 2 hours’ of consecutive sleep than I care to remember), but he has magically turned over a new leaf with the start of May. Let’s hope it lasts.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer

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MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.