Long time, no update, I know. Between work, school, kids and getting ready for Christmas…blog? What blog?

Yet, somehow, I had time to Wordle.

An except from our dinner conversation tonight:

Duncan: I’ve got a job to do!

Daddy: What’s your job, buddy?

Duncan: My job is to cut paper.

Mummy: Oh, is Berry’s job to color on paper?

Duncan: Yes.

(This seems about right to me. After all, isn’t what each of us in the family does somehow related to paper?)

Mummy: Then it’s my job to write on paper. What’s Daddy’s job?

(Kevin says something totally unrelated to paper here — like it being Daddy’s job to water plants or eat bacon)

Mummy: I think it’s Daddy’s job to read paper! (I.e. the newspaper, textbooks for school, etc.)

Duncan: Yes. Now we can all like our jobs.

Then he asked me how my cut finger was healing and if it still hurt me. What a great kid. Especially compared to the meltdown monster we dealt with trying to leave a fun activity before lunch today. How does he go from one extreme to another so readily? And how did he know that one of his friends from school would be there, too?

The kids have been making us a little crazy lately, so we decided to try doing something new today. We went to visit the Cumming Nature Center in Honeoye Falls.

Our plan was several-fold:

• It’s an hour drive away — farther than we’d usually go for a hike in the woods, but this ate up 2 hours of our morning while our children were safely strapped into their car seats
• It would tire them out, so they’d nap (this has been an issue since the Binky Fairy visited Duncan 10 days ago)
• It’s outdoors — and we all could use more nature and tree hugging.

Speaking of tree hugging, when I see my children voluntarily go up to a tree and literally hug it — with no prompting or demonstration on my part — I know I’m doing something right as a parent. They do get outdoors to enjoy the natural world (as much as is natural in a city) a lot more than I do and I know that’s so important for them. At least if they’re on a playground or playing in our tiny backyard, they’re outside, and children can find the beauty and wonder of nature in anything. Often it seems to be in the rocks they insist on bringing home. Or the mulch they must repeatedly put on the bottom of the slides.

In any case, we managed to all get in the car and drive there without incident. Duncan actually fell asleep a few minutes before we got there. That’s what happens when you insist on waking up befor 6 a.m. We wandered around for a while, looked at a pioneer log cabin and read some signs about how the native Irondequoit used to live and then carried the crying, dragging little ones back to the car.

We found a diner for lunch. It was the first time I sent food back to the kitchen. I ordered a roast beef sandwich and my beef was green. Yes, green. Beef is not a vegetable. It shouldn’t be green. Amazingly, we finished lunch and packed everyone back into the car — where they fell asleep on the way home. We ran errands while they slept (Kevin stayed in the car with them, don’t worry! But we were out already and just used up 2 hours’ of gas) and got home with them still sleeping. I hung out with them and read in the car for a while until they each woke up.

It doesn’t seem like much of a fascinating day, and it was a lot of driving for a walk in the woods. Next time, we’ll pick somewhere closer to home and keep the hiking short. I’m glad that Berry is finally getting old enough to take on a walk like that, as I’ve always envisioned spending so much more time outdoors with the kids than I tend to actually do. It gives me hope for future weekend activities.

At lunch, we talked about our favorite part of the walk. Kevin saw a knarly tree that he liked, Duncan liked stepping on the tree roots. Berry — well, she’s 18 months old, she doesn’t give us much in the way of descriptive sentences yet. Me? I liked the part where we walked along a stream and all stopped and got quiet enough to hear the water flowing below us. There was stillness, suddenly, finally. I closed my eyes and could feel the woods around me and hear my own thoughts, finally given the space in my head.

Even after we got home and I was trying to decipher the TV show that Berry was asking me to put on, I looked in her eyes and she seemed different to me, somehow. Maybe we’d just spent some good time together. Maybe tromping around in the woods and hearing some stillness was good for her, too.

I’m determined to get some spiritual focus back into my everyday life. God knows I need the patience with a toddler and a pre-schooler. So the search for a Sunday morning sanctuary continues.

Last Sunday, the kids stayed home at the Church of Daddy (where they got to watch TV) while I checked out the Universalist church downtown.

I’ve been to the First Unitarian Church of Rochester a few times. It was a while ago — while I was still pregnant with Berry — and, though I liked it overall, I didn’t keep going. It has a lot going for it: a great Sunday school program and nursery, really nice people (quite a few of who I already know), and interesting sermons. But I just couldn’t get over the brutalist industrial architecture of the place. Cold, grey concrete just doesn’t inspire me and move me towards the divine. It wasn’t cozy at all.

The First Universalist Church, however, is small and cozy. Not too small that they don’t have childcare, though. If a church doesn’t have some kind of child care / nursery / Sunday school, I just can’t go to it regularly. Last Sunday, when I left without them, there was lots of screaming, clinging and crying as I tried to squeeze out the front door. Clearly, for whatever reason, they want to come.

I enjoyed the service at First Universalist — and the people. They were welcoming and friendly, without demanding to know my entire spiritual background. A good thing, since I’m fine talking about being an ordained Spiritualist minister, but not an in-your-face kind of person about it.

So I went back again yesterday. With the kids. And spent the entire service in the nursery as Berry wouldn’t let me leave the room. *sigh* Not even to go to the bathroom. Next week, I think Kevin might come with us to hang out in the nursery with them so I can flee and go to the service. In time, she might let me leave her side.

This does make it problematic to visit other churches, though. There’s the Church of Divine Inspiration that I’ve been to once before (years ago) and would like to visit again. They appear to have a Sunday school program, so I’d like to check that out. Plus, there are a couple of Unity churches in Rochester that I’ve heard good things about. It seems like I might be a spiritual gypsy for a bit longer.

I’ll admit that sometimes I don’t know how best to entertain two lively little ones once naptime (or school) is over. Berry often wakes up grumpy and Duncan doesn’t always nap at pre-school, so he’s on the road to meltdown city some afternoons.

I’ll also admit that we tend to turn to the TV a bit too much. But, in mid-meltdown, as one child hands you the remote and the other grunts something about Little Einsteins, it’s easy to click it on and play something from the DVR just for some peace (and a chance to drink a cup of tea while it’s still warm).

Today, however, after only one episode of the intrepid foursome and their friend, Rocket, we went outside. Kevin was finishing painting the garage, and today was apparently the last nice day of the year. It’s already much colder now.

I don’t know what inspired me to climb into the back of the garage and grab the rakes. It certainly wasn’t Berry fussing and whining at the garden gate the moment I disappeared. Or maybe it was. In any case, I faithfully reappeared, as promised multiple times in the 45 seconds I was gone, and started raking.

I wasn’t allowed to rake alone. Of course not. Mummy was doing something. Let’s do it too! “Mummy, I want a rake,” Duncan demanded. After getting him to ask for it nicely (”Please may I have a rake, Mummy?”), I consented, gave the other one to Berry, too, and let them get to work.

They did quite nicely — for at least 4 minutes. Inevitably, of course, the pile of leaves was too tempting and had to be plundered. Berry was very entertained wading through it, leaving a trail of leaves in her wake. Duncan preferred throwing his leaves, scattering them across the garden. I dutifully piled them back up again. It was part of the fun (and exercise - I wonder how many points 25 minutes of leaf raking gets me?).

After a bit, I got some totes out of the garage that we normally use to catch rainwater (we have no gutters at the moment, due to the garage painting) and got the kids to fill them full of leaves. That also worked well for a few minutes, but once I’d emptied them into the compost pile they didn’t want to refill them again. Oh well, at that point, Kevin was just about done with painting, so he took over and I went inside to make Berry’s half-birthday cake and cook dinner.

I knew this time was coming. Pants becoming progressively tighter aren’t very subtle. And, even though I avoided stepping on the scale for as long as I could, one day I did it. It wasn’t pretty. And why did we ever teach Duncan to read letters and numbers, anyway?

I still don’t know what caused it. I was staying pretty stable at my body’s set-point (which is, of course, at least 10 lbs more than I’d like it to be). I don’t think I got less active. I don’t think that’s possible. I conserve as much energy as possible, all of the time. Did I manage to conseve even more somehow without realizing it? Probably not.

But, for some reason, things started shifting upward (my weight — on my body it shifted outward). Maybe it was reducing Duncan’s nursing before his 3rd birthday with that valiant aim of weaning him come late July. The boy likes his milk. He was probably drinking a lot.

In any case, no matter what caused it, it happened. And now I have to deal with it. I’ve been waiting for “the right time” when things aren’t too stressful. That time will never come. But, school is well underway for both Duncan and me and our recent lead hazard reduction home makeover efforts are (almost) over. So I figured it’s time.

Last Sunday, weighing in at 170.8 lbs, I signed up for Weight Watchers online. I weighed myself mid-week — and to my horror, I’d gained weight. Apparently, I may still be nursing, but not enough to warrant an extra 10 points in my daily food allowance. Once I realized that, I altered things a bit and ended up weighing 2.2 lbs less this morning.

I also switched to the CORE plan this week (as opposed to the FLEX plan where every food is given a point value). On the core plan, there are certain foods you can eat as much as you want of. They’re mostly vegetables, fruit and fat-free, sugar-free stuff. Since I don’t eat artificial sweetner, that limits my options.

Just to complicate things, you get some FLEX points to use each day/week and you also earn activity (or nursing) points. I use those to “buy” sugar. Seriously, I can’t live totally sugar-free. My sugar choices aren’t that bad, either — honey, maple syrup and raw brown sugar. No corn syrup here.

So we’ll see how it goes. I dream of dieting without feeling hungry — the only time that happened was when I did high-fiber, high-protein (ala Atkins), but that was such a pain in its own way. This way, presumably, I can eat all the fat-free cottage cheese I want — should I want to, of course.

At playdates this summer, a couple of my Mommy friends have talked about their church - book club meetings, Women’s retreats, that kind of thing. I miss going to church. Mostly I miss the fellowship, the healing that takes place, the communing with Spirit / God / Infinite Intelligence / the divine within each of us.

I asked them what it is they like about their church. The said they like the fellowship and knowing that they were working on their spiritual lives in some small way.

So today, after an invitation from one of those friends, I went.

Going somewhere new is always a bit of an uncomfortable experience. You’re out of your element, don’t know where anything is and worry about making some awful faux pas in front of strangers. Fortunately, one of my friends pulled up right behind me as I was parking and getting Duncan out of the car. So we followed them inside and they showed us around. I quickly got lost in the maze of this place.

The way the service works, everyone - parents and kids - sit down in the church for the first part of the service. Then the parents take the kids to their rooms for the remainder of the time. Duncan was in a 3-year-old pre-school room with his 2 playdate buddies and Berry went to the nursery with the siblings of Duncan’s friends. (Nice that we all had kids at the same time.) Then the adults go back to the service.

It all went well. Berry consented to being left and didn’t even notice me leave. I left my cell phone number and kept my phone on vibrate. Duncan got to play with his friends, so he didn’t care.

The service itself was fine. I have to say that I wish I liked it more. Because all the other things were really great - child care, my friends, a beautiful big building. But, while I do love Jesus, I just don’t have a Lord & Savior kind of relationship with him. I want to talk to God myself, directly, not through his son. Besides, we’re all God’s sons and daughters. To me, worshipping one person misses the fundamental point that Jesus was trying to convey to us all in the first place.

I will say that the hymn at the beginning of the service (not that I can name it, but it was a familiar tune from my childhood) made me start to cry. I was sitting there with two squirmy kids and no tissues - not the ideal time for an emotional religious moment. Besides, I hate to cry in public.

On the way home, I asked the kids if they liked it. Duncan said he did. He said he’d like to go again (i.e. he responded affirmatively when asked directly if he’d like to go again). Berry did not shake her head no when asked if she’d like to go again, which I will take to mean that she enjoyed it, too.

When asked what he did, Duncan told me that he “sang songs and played games.” Apparently the teaching was something about Moses. On the way out of his room, he was handed a “Take-Home Sheet” entitled, God Calls Moses, that has a coloring activity, a bit of bible teaching and an explanation about the whole thing (presumably for me). Which is a bit of an issue for me.

While I’m quite able to sort out my own personal beliefs from those of the person in the pulpit, I’m not sure I’m ready for my kids to be exposed to Presbyterian religious doctrine. On the other hand, I want them to grow up with something. The silly thing is, one of the main reasons we don’t go to my church - the one in which I am an ordained minister - is because they don’t have childcare. So either I leave them at home (with their Dad), hire my own sitter, or don’t go.

I think I’ll go to my friends church again. And maybe visit some others in the area. I like seeing how other people do things, but I don’t want to be a spiritual gypsy for too long.

My blogging friend, Christa on Vocational Duality, often writes about balancing work life with mothering life. I’ve been fortunate in managing the two somewhat separately most of the time. But not this last week.

When Duncan was a baby and I leapt into the freelance life, I could put him in a playpen next to my desk and get work done. That lasted until he was a year old. Then I started taking him to an at-home daycare a few afternoons a week. Daddy looked after him some mornings, I worked during naptime and those three afternoons when he went to Kayden’s house.

Then Berry came along. Working with 2 kids is next to impossible. One of them always wants something - usually both of them want something, at the same time, in the loudest possible manner.

Because of this, when I went back to work shortly after Berry’s birth (too soon, I now realize, but that’s another story), I found someone (a wonderful someone) to come to our house to look after the kids. This keeps them close, yet I still get to escape to my office in the attic. I’m around, yet not. We eat lunch together, I put them down for naps, then I go back to work until dinner time. Really, it’s ideal.

I get to enjoy the flexibility of working from home, while maintaining working hours. Generally, I refuse to work evenings or weekends. I’m not a machine, after all. However, every so often, there comes a project with a looming deadline, that requires some after-hours work. I had one this past Labor Day weekend.

Oh boy. It would have gone OK if things had been “normal.” But we were all sick. I was sick. The kids were sick. Even Kevin was sick, although he did a fabulous job of not complaining about it.

So there I sat, one sick kid on my lap, the other sitting in a chair next to me or playing with trains on the floor, working away at the dining room table. We must have been a sight. They watched so much TV I think their brains may have melted and dribbled out their ears (at least they’ve been acting like it). But I kept plugging away and we somehow got through the weekend. My project got finished (finally, yesterday) and we will all eventually feel better. I can’t tell you how glad I was to see the sitter on Tuesday morning.

It’s interesting how we all manage to balance our lives one way or another. If I didn’t have a pressing deadline and I didn’t adore the client, I would have packed work away for the weekend and got on with it on Tuesday. Family and health tend to come before work in my balancing act. Time may be money, but time is also life. Somehow it’s important to find the equilibrium between the two.

It’s not easy to find time to tend the garden with two little ones. Or do any singular activity, for that matter. They like to be involved.

Our backyard, tiny as it is, is now strewn with kids toys. The turtle sand box, basketball hoop, water table, little slide and see-saw. I love it, honestly. It makes me happy to look out the back window and see all those things for them to play with. We can’t fit a swing set back there, so we do what we can with what we have.

Even with the toys, the lure of What Mummy’s Doing is too strong. Inevitably, I get interrupted with “help,” often in the form of digging in inappropriate places — such as where things are growing. Duncan, at least, has learned the boundaries of the vegetable garden and walks along the pavers, but not in the soil. Berry caught on quickly this year, but occasionally manages to somehow fall into my garden beds and took out a pepper plant earlier this summer.

One form of “help” we’ve found that they both enthusiastically get into is watering the garden. We collect rainwater from our garage roof in plastic tubs. Kevin has grand ideas about building a water barrel, but so far we’re just using totes with lids and it’s working well.

The kids love filling up watering cans (or at least pretending to in Berry’s case) and watering the vegetables. Duncan likes watering one particular square foot of the garden which quickly turns into a mud puddle. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times I tell him it’s had enough water already, sooner or later he returns to that spot and sploshes some more on.

Explaining that the garden doesn’t need watering when it’s just rained - and everything is clearly still wet - also falls on deaf ears. It’s just too much fun. Why wouldn’t the plants want another drink? It tickles them, after all. I love him.

So here’s some shots (with my cell phone) of the two of them helping out. I will say that their participation is helpful when getting them to eat veggies at dinner. By watering them, Duncan has buy in. I mean, they’re HIS veggies. Why not eat them. I even got him to eat a raw green bean the other day - and he liked it!

I’m not the only one who likes to cook in our house. We hauled the play kitchen up from the basement and put it in Berry’s room. It was a hit with Chef Berry and soux chef Duncan. There has been corn eating, pie making and lots and lots of tea drinking. Hmmm…. where do you think they get the idea of drinking cup after cup of tea?