A Parenthetical Introduction

I have a new strategy for dealing with my unhappy little girls. Basically, if I feel a swell of frustration inside of me because they’re harassing me while I’m trying to do something, I no longer get bothered and lose my cool. Instead, I stop what I’m doing and change something to try to make it better. It’s so simple you probably just missed it. Let me give examples:

Talking to a friend

This is the classic parent dilemma. I’m talking to a friend while we’re out having coffee. Norah and Stella finish their snack and drink, and they are no longer happy sitting at the table with me and Jeff. So they start heckling me and demanding more of my attention. When I ask the girls what they want, they don’t have any ideas.

This is where I would normally get bothered. I would lose my cool or go back to ignoring them. Now I look for ways to change the situation. Get our coffee to go and head to the park. Or take a ride around Arcadia in Luke’s golf cart. With the girls strapped into their seats, we can keep our adult conversation going. We’re all happier because of it.

Working on a project

I am obsessed with making stuff. I’ve spent a decade making stuff online, in the classroom, and in boardrooms. It gets dull. Right now, I’m most obsessed with building things with my hands. And it’s clear that Norah is obsessed with building too. Typically, I’ll start a project outside and get moving. Norah will discover that I’m having fun and want to join the barn raising.

It sounds cute at first, but within a minute she’s gets too close to the project and risks messing it up or even worse, getting hurt. So now I try to have some sort of side project that she can work with while I’m doing my thing. Or I’ll explain to her the steps of the project and then let her know which part is just for me to do, and which parts can we do together. Things go better
this way.

Keeping a Cool House

So lets be real here for a minute. One of the reasons why stylin’ single people get uneasy about the idea of “settling down and having a family” is because there are so many sloppy examples of what this really looks like. You know, the sexy young couple gets married and then they stumbled through their years together and eventually lose their style, gain weight, and their house is destroyed by snot-flinging children. Nobody wants this to happen.

Solution 1: The Play Corner

So the way Candyce and I dealt with this dilemma was to have a cool house and then have a kid friendly corner in our living room. This is where we kept Norah’s toy box and a couple push toys, like a baby carriage and a shopping cart. This worked for a time, but through a couple birthdays and Christmases, that cute arrangement of toys had grown to an awkward, precarious stack of toys. Even when Norah’s corner was “clean,” it still didn’t look cool. We looked like parents who were losing control of their house.

Plus Norah seemed frustrated by the whole situation. Her space was cramped, so it wasn’t fun to play with anything. So she would keep digging through the toy box hoping to find a burst of excitement, but she never did. So every night, I had to repack and restack the play corner, and the next morning Norah would bring it all back down. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Solution 2: The Play Room

One afternoon a few months ago, Candyce’s brothers and dad were hanging out at our house doing nothing. So I put them to work by rearranging our furniture to create a playroom for the girls. Candyce wasn’t too happy because it seemed impulsive, but it was something that I had been scheming for weeks. Plus I knew that talking about it would get us nowhere–this is the kind of thing you just have to do and see what happens. I promised that if she didn’t like it after a week, I’d put it all back.

What did we do? I flipped the dining room and the living room (1 couch, 2 comfy chairs.) Rather than just swapping the dining room table for a living room furniture, I put one of the comfy chairs into storage. With the extra space that was freed up, I created a whole wall of toys for Norah. She was thrilled! We were thrilled b/c we could still sit and talk, but now Norah and Stella could be occupied. Victory.

Solution 3: The Play Room with Storage

So the new playroom was a hit, but it was also ALWAYS messy. Something had to be done. I was uninspired by searching for “toy storage” on Pinterest. But I did stumble upon a DIY garment rack on some creative girl blog. So I got gangster on the idea and came up with our toy rack:

The hanging canvas buckets keep toys close, but out of reach with little kids. It’s such a very simple concept–but it’s magic.

Summary

If you want to be happy, don’t try to make children fit into your grown up world. It wasn’t fair to kids two generations ago, and it’s not fair to kids today. You’re the designer. It’s easy to design a Dwell-like home with all the hipster adult details, surfaces, etc. The best designers, though, aren’t afraid to create a house to be a–dare I say it–a home for children first, and then make it stylish enough for adults.

This morning I took the girls out while Candyce hosted her Bible study. We came across an estate sale and we picked up two sweet lights. Here is Norah with one of them.

Tonight’s sunset was dreamy.