Category: Personal

The Cedar River experienced its second highest river crest in the river’s recorded history on Tuesday. While Cedar Rapids is still in “major flood stage,” by most accounts, the efforts of the city and hundreds of volunteers can be considered a success.

Nearly 10 miles of earthen berms and barriers and about 250,000 sandbags have held most of the water from the Cedar River out of the city’s downtown that was flooded in 2008. Underground systems are still stressed and potential remains for floodwater to enter through the storm sewer, but the river is going down. It should be within its banks and a return to normalcy by the weekend.

Our kids are out of school for the week because the school district canceled classes due to the flooding. They were happy to volunteer filling sandbags. They loved being able to help their community and it made them all feel good knowing they were “doing their part.”

My son Leo is six

We walk along the leaf-strewn path, and without making eye contact or missing a step, his warm, soft fingers grab around my wrist. I know what will come next. He often does this to steady my arm so he can place his little hand in my big one.

He doesn’t care that I just scolded him five minutes ago for being pokey. He knows what he needs to feel happy, safe. He doesn’t care if I seem distracted or stressed. And as a mother of four, I’m always too distracted and too stressed.

He doesn’t know that his mother has quietly suffered through depression and anxiety, with days where any physical touch literally makes my skin crawl, or his bubbly, incessant chatter can rattle my nerves.

And why should he? He’s only six.

Leo is my youngest, my last. I’m glad to be done with middle-of-the-night feedings, diapers and potty training. Parents of grown children tell me to enjoy this stage of childhood while I can, that the time is fleeting and once it’s gone, I’ll miss it. But as a mother that is distracted and stressed, I sometimes think I wouldn’t mind my kids already being grown.

Even at six, Leo is my child who needs the most affection. “You love me best, right?” he’ll ask. He laughs at my jokes. He still needs kisses when he gets hurt and wants to sit on my lap to listen to a story. Sometimes, he’ll stop in the middle of what he’s doing and come stand before me, arms stretched wide. “Hug?” he’ll ask.

At bedtime, he can’t fall asleep without first being tucked in with his blanket and stuffed cat, then hugged and kissed. He has rules, he says. He’ll wrap his arms so tight around my neck, threatening to never let go. He always holds on until I have give him a little tickle and can pry his grip loose.

But already he hides the big, pink, stuffed cat that he sleeps with, because he’s six, after all, and it’s a big, pink cat. And already he’ll say “Mom, stop!” as he rolls his eyes because maybe my jokes aren’t always so funny. And he doesn’t want kisses from me on the playground or to be walked to his classroom, preferring to give one final wave and go into school alone.

He is six. He will never be little again. He won’t always fit on my lap. And I don’t know how many more times he will reach for my hand. Because you never know when the last time will happen.

Because you only know it was the last time after you look back and it’s already over.

He reaches for my hand as we walk on the path, and so I take his and hold it tight. While I still can.

Because he’s already six.

The problem is, I can see the potential.

When we were house looking, we found a house that was practically move-in ready, it only needed new paint. We looked at it 4 times. Our realtor knew we really liked it. That was the house Chris wanted and we were going to make an offer on it the morning our realtor called.

The quirky house that I had also looked at several times, the one that Chris thought needed too much updating and remodeling, the one that I thought had SO MUCH POTENTIAL just dropped their price by $40,000. So just like that, we switched gears and made an offer on the house that needed a lot of work.

I now often joke that I wish our house had less potential, as everything is taking a lot longer than we thought it would.

I’m excited to share some “before and after” photos of our living room, dining room and sunporch. These are long overdue!

First, we needed to get rid of the wallpaper and carpet. I’m actually becoming quite skilled at removing wallpaper, since almost every room had it. It takes time and patience, but luckily not a lot of brawn. The walls were in rough shape under this layer of wallpaper, probably from the last owners removing the grass cloth wall paper that had been there before. We dodged needing to skimcoat the walls, but Chris did need to retexture them before we could paint.

This floor took a little bit of artistic design finagling. It’s three different widths of boards that repeat in a varied pattern. Chris left that all up to me and just cut the ends when I finished each row. If I had to do it again, I would pick this flooring again. The rough “hewed” texture looks great.

From the start, I had particular ideas for the living room. I wanted dark wood floors and dark gray walls. For the foyer, I wanted a light blue to brighten the room and to set off the gray. I wanted all the trim and fireplace to be crisp white to really make the gray stand out. Chris is always a little worried when I pick paint colors, but then falls in love with them when the rooms are painted. This was no exception. He was nervous it would be too dark, but when it’s on the walls, it has the impact I wanted and everyone loves it.

When we were looking for a house, a formal dining room was something we thought we really wanted. Now that I have one, I don’t want a huge table taking up all that space. Plus, I have 4 kids who are pigs when they eat- I don’t want to bring that mess into any other rooms beyond the kitchen!

I decided to leave the dining room mostly empty, giving more open floor for the kids to play. It’s also the main walkway to the sunporch, so not filling the room with a table helps to make it feel larger. We took down the heavy chandelier and Chris convinced me to go with a darkened stain on the french doors. Along one wall, I created a family station for school papers and charging electronics.

And here are the “Before and After” of the spaces all together. We are so happy with the final result!

Walking into an art supply store is kind of like walking into a candy store. You want to get everything!

At the beginning of the summer, my four kids had worked together to create a list of art projects they wanted to do and needed items. I then took them to the art supply store, with the list in hand. Our shopping trip would fill out the craft cabinet at home so they’d be ready to create.

Walking down the first aisle, it was obvious that following the list was going to be a problem. There are so many possibilities waiting on the shelves, for so many projects we hadn’t even thought of yet.

The aisle of painting canvases stopped me in my tracks. The blank white material was stretched over wooden frames in tons of sizes and thicknesses, looking fresh and ready to be used. My eight year old saw this. “Can we get these?” he asked, picking up several.

Canvases were not on the list. “What would you do with a canvas?” But I understood the appeal. I saw the possibilities. Like a new notebook that could be filled with smart and wonderful words strung together in ways you haven’t even thought of yet, an empty canvas is filled with the colorful potential of designs just waiting to be painted.

I added six of them to the cart.

The canvases became a “family night art project.” I selected six paint colors and set the ground rules: The colors could not be mixed into a crazy mess on the canvas and they had to have their handprint included into or onto their design.

I wanted the limited palette so that the canvases would coordinate together on the wall, regardless of what each person painted. I wanted the handprints because I thought it would be a fun way to tie the canvases together and as a way to remember the sizes of the kids as they are now. When they were done, I had everyone sign their canvas, so their own handwriting would be preserved, as well.

I now have our family art on the wall and everyone is happy with how they turned out. The collection is perfect.

My kids decided they wanted to do a lemonade stand, but we live on a very, very quiet street. I knew it was going to be a challenge. So I talked about inventory and marketing and explained they didn’t have a large customer base.

“You think we’re going to fail, don’t you?” asked my 10 year old daughter.

I said, “No, I just think you better get to work.”

And they did. They came up with a name-and a jingle- for their business, made their little brother the mascot, put up signs throughout the neighborhood, made their kool-aid and set up shop.

When no one came, they put up more signs.

“We’re very unlucky,” my daughter said. “Not a single car is driving on our street.”

I added to the business talk a lesson about “supply versus demand.”

In the end, four very kind neighbors stopped by for a refreshing glass of Rock-A-Dile Red Kool-Aid. I wanted to see what they had learned from this experience, so I asked them what they could do to improve it for next time.

“Move to where there’s more people,” my daughter said.