full weekend

it's monday and i'm just thrilled to be looking through some of the pictures we took this weekend. i had to post some here, i think they summarize a lot of what has been going on around here. it's a lot of good stuff!

first off, we learned this weekend that henny loves being in the swing. at this age bee didn't like it so much so i think we were surprised and exited to see the sheer joy on his face. that smile got bigger and bigger the faster and higher we pushed him! we got so many amazing shots of him but here are a couple. 

this past weekend was also D's birthday. we had a lovely night out, adults only, which was such a treat. and of course on the big day the kids were up before 6! don't they know that mommy was up late? it was all good because it gave D some time to sleep in while we wrapped presents and made the traditional "cake", which is really a fruit platter with candles. bee was so excited about it all and her enthusiasm made the day so much more fun. her favorite contribution to the celebration was a card with (you won't believe it!!) an elephant driving a car! 
in other news, bee now dresses herself, with her own choice of clothes. this has been a great change in our routine. she disappears into her room and returns dressed, with no arguing or reminding. as you can imagine, this has resulted in some rather interesting choices. this weekend she debuted my favorite outfit so far. she proudly declared that it all matched, "see, all flowers!"
and finally, henny capped off the great weekend with this new trick. the picture says more than words ever could, so here he is:

stencils

last night i tried out making some stencils and using fabric paint on some of the kid's old clothes. i think it turned out pretty well. i had hoped to use freezer paper for the stencils but ended up with this thin plastic that i found at the fabric store. i am actually quite glad in the end because it was hard to cut the details on the stencils and if they were done on freezer paper they wouldn't be reusable, and these are. 

i chose a bunch of pictures to trace from kid's books. these are the ones i liked best. the moose is the "hungary moose" from harold and the purple crayon, and the ballerina is from a ballet book that bee has. i am in love with the moose, maybe next i can make the deserving porcupine! 

paper girl

little bee has a new responsibility. she has taken on the task of bring in my newspaper before breakfast each morning. she begged and begged to try to do it and we gave her the whole speech about cars and whatnot. now after a few tries where we pretended not to be helping but were closely watching from a few feet away ("just checking the flowers", "just looking at the car"), she really does it all on her own. we stand in awe in the kitchen and watch her every move from the window.

bee puts her shoes on (after she realized that her feet were "disgusting" from going out barefoot one time) and the tiptoes up the driveway. she stops about halfway up to check for cars. today there was a car and she waited and even yelled back to tell us that she saw a car. once the coast is clear she dashes up and peeks in the box, just to make sure it is there. then she grabs the paper and carries it as carefully as she can. more often than not the sections fall out and the fliers hit the ground, but it all makes it in the house in one way or another.

it is amazing to see her pride in doing such a big girl thing. it is also scary. and really above all else, it is so damn cute!

(notice how green it is here now!!)

my view

every day. often three times a day. for nearly nine months. this has been my view.

as i sit in the rocking chair, in henny's room, i stare off at this. sometimes my mind wanders to nothing. sometimes i am planning the day in my head. sometimes i just look at henny and stroke his hair. i admit that i also sometimes do the most un-earth mama thing and pop my earphones in. but no matter where my mind is this is what i see. i think i know every crack in the floor, every way the light shines in, depending on the time of day and of course i know every speck of dust and dirt from the chair to the bathroom (and that spoon that somehow got under the crib! and what is that, a dollhouse guy's green coat over there?!). 

i took this picture because i know that this is one of those mundane things that i will struggle to recall someday. maybe our house will be changed and surely i will be changed. maybe i won't even remember all the time spent in that chair. hopefully this picture will bring me back someday when i am far from here. these days where it seems like i am often putting henny down for a rest all day. these special days where i get to spend so much time alone, quiet, nursing and dreaming with my baby.

bundt cake! no sticking!

i have been having the itch to do some baking. i have also been trying to lose weight and the two do not go well together. nevertheless, today i gave in and bee and i made a sweet little bundt cake. it was most exciting because i don't think i have ever had a bundt cake come out without sticking. this time i was all set with some cool tricks that i found online (like placing the cake-in pan- on a steaming hot towel to give it a little spa treatment to loosen it up). but then when i flipped it over.... bam! it just popped out, like magic. success! 

i used this recipe from epicurious. but i added raspberries because we didn't have enough blueberries. and i also used lemon instead of orange and vegan shortening instead of butter. oh, and we put a sweet little brown sugar glaze on top, literally the icing on the cake!

and now i'm about to dig into it as soon as i hit publish!

(and that tablecloth you see there... i found it here. nobody wanted it and it is handmade for our table, probably a million years ago. it was all stained from the cedar chest but i did some work with a sink full of vinegar and now you can hardly see the stains. unless you know about them, which i do, so i see them lit up like times square. but beautiful and exciting anyway! i love it!)

q & a

q: is it possible to get a baby out of his car seat while simultaneously eating an ice cream cone?

a: yes.

the bright side

that last post was so bad. 

here is a bit of brightness. the weather is just amazing right now. so warm! i took some great pictures of the kids outside the other day. they are so sweet. if christmas was coming, i'd say they were card-worthy.

how i'm not winning this week.

well, it's thursday and i am feeling like i'm never going to get ahead around here. this is a classic example of my pessimistic, glass half empty attitude. i just cannot think about the three square meals that i have prepared (from scratch! with vegetables!) for the last four days, or the seeds sprouting, or the fact that the sink is empty. 

no, all i can think about is the crumbs/dirt/dust/cheerios that litter the floor, the bathroom that is basically a petri dish and the endless spring cleaning list that i hope to tackle this weekend. that's my problem.

compounding the problem is that i didn't get to use any of bee's school time this week for my own enjoyment. tuesday there was a lunch social that started basically an hour and a half after the school day began. so, with henny's napping and the heating our our dish-to-share i had zero time for whatever i had hoped to do. like climb the mountain! and today there was a field trip. this could have been good if bee would have gone into the fire station with the other children. but she didn't. that's ok with me, but inside i was all, "i could be climbing the mountain! not pacing around this deadbeat town killing time!" and did i mention the part where we went to the car and a lovely meter maid pointed out that i was parked in a handicapped spot? (i would NEVER do this on purpose, btw.) 

so, that is where i am at right now. maybe tonight after the kids go to bed i'll have a glass of wine and clean the bathroom and then all will be well.

hey, tomorrow is friday!

**i think this post was just voted "most boring" by the internet as a whole*

i did something.

i need a craft room. i just can't stand dragging out all the supplies: the paper, the scissors, the glue, the sewing machine, the pins, the rulers, the kitchen sink. and then guess what you have to do? you have to put it all away! especially if you live with small people whose eyes will pop out of their heads when they wake up to see gobs of stuff to grab when they tiptoe out for breakfast!

anyhow, i did it, i dragged all the crap out and made this little tote. it is intended for shopping, for small stops like the market or whatever. the big shopping bags were starting to feel a little too big and i am going pretty turbo on the "no bags" thing. so, there you have it! small shopping bag. complete with rick rack.

hen, under stuff

"get the camera!"

that is what we have been yelling around here, about every day, for the last week. we have been noticing that, if left on the floor for a few minutes, that henny will find himself under something. we all decided to try to get pictures of him under different things.  it almost never fails that he will end up under something, and here are the pictures to prove it. 

RIP mae

my parent's dog died several weeks ago. somehow we had put off telling bee about it until just today. last year, their other dog died as well and bee was very upset by it. we had to have the same conversation about the dog for weeks. "no, she won't be back" and "her body stopped working" we things we heard ourselves saying again and again. she can be very sensitive and really feels and processes things, sometimes for stretches of time. 

needless to say we were not looking forward to telling her about the other dog. but today we were literally forced to do the deed. bee was set to spend some time with the grandparents so we had two choices. we could bite the bullet and tell her about the dog or just ignore the whole thing and hope she didn't notice that the dog was gone. i know it is insane but a tiny part of me actually thought about option number two. 

anyhow, after a nice quiet painting project i took a deep breath and dropped the bomb. here is how it went:

me: i have some bad news to tell you.

bee: what? (big wondering eyes looking at me)

me: well, you know gramma and grampa's dog mae? well, she died. 

bee: (silence)

me: do you know what that means?

bee: (excited) they can get a new dog!

some amount of thoughtful conversation followed: how mae won't be back and how gramma and grampa are pretty sad. but basically bee just wanted to excitedly discuss what options they had for a new pet. maybe a dog! a cat! 2 cats!

so, crisis averted, i guess. some part of us thinks that the shit will hit the fan sometime and we may have to have those hard talks. but for now i'll take it. this is one time in parenting where the best possible scenario prevailed.

i'm dry heaving....

this is why it's great that i am not the only parent around here. these pictures are from an activity that bee just enjoyed outside with her father. it's called, "gathering worms from the driveway and bringing them to the garden." it's also called, "go outside and take some pictures that will make your mom throw up a little."

(photos by D)

call merriam-webster

little bee has created a new phrase. it has quickly become a big part of our language around here. one day bee was on the phone describing what she was up to. she said that henny had just gotten up from his rest and "now he's just whippin' out!" (he was acting excited, full of smiles and coos.)

whippin' out: to act in an excited manor or exhibit outrageous behavior.

i love this new term. i probably say it more than i should. 

in other news, spring has sprung. we couldn't be happier. our days have been filled with gardening (seeds!) and outdoor adventures (worms!). i have made it up the mountain 5 times in the last three weeks and it feels great. basically, we're whippin' out around here!

oh that baby!

little bee has an imaginary friend, her name is baby. baby has been around for probably a year now. baby is all things to all people and situations. sometimes she is a teenager, sometimes she's three, sometimes seven or eight. sometimes baby experiences exactly what bee is experiencing, which is nice for working out our feelings. for example, last weekend baby's mom went on a trip. but don't worry, baby wasn't going to miss her too much, and baby knew that her mommy would be home soon. 

alternately, quite often baby is living a life that is much greater than ours, in many ways. if we have two cats, then baby has a cat farm. if the easter bunny hid 12 eggs in our living room, baby found a hundred in her living room. and so on. it is very predictable and makes us laugh ever time baby one-ups us.

over the weekend we were out enjoying some burritos as a family when the topic of smoking came up. bee said something about cigarettes and we launched into the speech: "cigarettes and VERY bad. they are so bad for your body. the WILL make you so sick and you should never ever smoke them."

little bee responded with, "well, baby smokes cigarettes. she smokes cigarettes ALL THE TIME! she blows on them all day!"

i'm sure, knowing baby, that when she gets lung cancer, it will be the worst lung cancer with the BIGGEST tumor ever!

the longest weekend

this past weekend i left the family for the first time ever. i have never been away from henny for a night and have never gone anywhere alone since being a mom. i went with my wonderful friend to this place to meet this person. it was a wonderful excuse to get away to a nice place and have lots of great chats along the way.

all went well on the home front which made it all the sweeter. naps were had, bottles drank, puddles happily stomped in. what made the trip even better was getting home (that sounds weird) on saturday afternoon. that made the weekend feel soooo long. 

sunday brought much creation which made me feel like a good little follower of our new bible. we made salt clay. the whole family enjoyed digging in 

and making something. being able to bake it and keep it was the best part.

sunday afternoon was full of gardening. it felt good to get out there and start envisioning what will be coming up soon. last year our garden was really amazing, beautiful and productive. this year we are hoping for more. yesterday we spent the last bits of daylight building a "castle" for bee. it is like a teepee, built with saplings, string and vines. we also planted peas all around the bottom. they promise to grow 6 feet tall and will wind around the castle to make "walls". i couldn't be more excited about this.

finally today we started some seeds inside. this was especially fun because i got to one it one-to-one with bee, because henny was asleep. we slowly chose what to plant first, and made tags and covered the plants so they could collect all the sunshine. 

i think spring has finally sprung.

little thrills

it's a simple pleasure. after bath, nice clean hair, silky from conditioner. a few nights ago we cozied up after bath in front of what will probably be one of the last fires of the year, in the living room, and braided. the feel of little bee's hair running through my hands, criss-crossing all the way down (so long!), it is certainly one of the perks of the job. it is a small reward after all the mini-tantrums that this junior teenager has been throwing my way.

and the result the next day is almost as thrilling. call me crazy, but sometimes i get giddy the night before, almost like a kid on christmas eve (but not quite!), anticipating taking those braids out and revealing some wild hair. that 80's hair is just so fun!