cuteness liquified

beyond dazed but still confused

last night D and i spent a portion of our saturday night in front of the tv with a tempting spread of treats in front of us. in between bites of burritos, cookies and sips of wine we indulged in some free on demand that we do not pay for but yet it magically appears (and disappears) onto our screen. last night we stumbled upon a classic of our day, dazed and confused. i think we have probably seen this movie a combined one million times. randomly on cable, back in the day in someone's living room through a haze, in dorm rooms. 

but last night it was different. we still laughed our asses off at lines like  "that's what I like about these high school girls, man; i get older, they stay the same age." but in between the laughs we were also doing a lot of discussing. it struck me that our conversation went one of two ways. 

first we reminisced about various adventures other nonsense that we had experienced when we were younger. we laughed about what it might have been like to be free and doing all the naughty things in the seventies, and how the movie makes it all look so fun.

then the next minute we would be saying, "do you think bee will have a party if we go away someday?" and "imagine if she did how cool henny and his friends will think that is." 

here we are in this place where we are not going to drive around looking for something to do, or spend our nights drinking beer and smoking joints. and still we are not at a place where we know what it would be like to have teenage kids, although we can imagine. 

alternately i feel like i could be in either place. i feel like some part of me could be driving somewhere with the radio cranked up, a bottle of reunite ready to be cracked. i feel like that person is still part of me. 

but then i feel like i could be the mother, who is sitting at home waiting for that door to open and her baby to come home. i don't know what that will truly feel like but i can vividly imagine it. 

someday the feeling of that free, wild girl will become more faded and i will be more mom than anything. i hope that i can always hold on to a piece of her, reserved for nights when we have a babysitter, or after the kids are in bed and we are enjoying our "adults only" time and maybe even someday when *gasp* the kids are grown.

this is what i think about.

spring bird

little bee made a bird. i love it. a lot.

excess

easter was a huge success.... fun was had by all..... the bunny hid eggs filled with the pieces of a giraffe puzzle..... the pinata went off without a hitch... the baby smiled ALL DAY long....we all had on fabulous outfits.... 

the one thing that left us mystified as we were cleaning up after the kids were fast asleep was, what is one child supposed to do with all this candy? i mean seriously!!

pinata!

the pinata is done! *cheers* 

every year we bring a pinata to easter. it is an odd tradition, but what kind of person doesn't like a pinata? a cold hearted person, that is the answer.

i have always loved making pinatas and have made them many, many times. i've made them for birthdays, graduations and other celebrations. i've even taught a pinata making class to children. basically, i love it. 

so this year we made the pinata in the shape of a flower pot. i am a little nervous about how it will go down when it comes to smashin' time. you never know how it will hold up to the strength of a group of small children. but my lovely D assures me that it will be great. other than my worries, i am actually pretty psyched about this year's design. we made the shape of the pot around a big terra cotta pot. we decorated the top with tissue paper flowers and paper leaves. little bee did a lot of cool decorating, including texture lines on the leaves and ballerina bunnies on the outside of the pot. inside i packaged up bundles of gifts specially chosen for each child, along with a bunch of my homemade lollipops. 

here is the whole process, in pictures:

pops!

little bee and i made pops for easter. well, to be fair, henny was there too, watching from my back. this is the second time i have made these pops ad i think it is fair to say that i would make them every day for the rest of my life if i could. they are so fun and satisfying to make. this time i used my new fancy natural food coloring, so they are 100% natural. 

these will find their way into the pinata that we are working on for easter. and after that they will find their way to a lawn where i pray they don't break!

cross the pops off the list... but there is still mountains of self-imposed stuff to accomplish before sunday. it is so worth it though!

how boring i am

i am so thrilled for easter, it is not normal. 

all i want to talk about is easter. therefor it is hard for me to carry on an interesting conversation with anyone over the age of 4. the conversation would be interesting to me, but no one else. 

all i want to talk about is easter basket making, filling easter baskets, coloring easter eggs, egg hunts, easter dresses (complete with hat) and pinata making (may otherwise be semi-interesting, but is easter related). these past few days i find myself biting my tongue with every adult i speak to. my brain is all "easter! easter! easter!"

i am dull.

i'm just so excited about these things. little bee has reached the age where she is so thrilled by all the delights of the holiday. it is pure magic to watch her and to teach her about all these fun things. i know that she will have this sweet innocence for only so long. in a few years she will question the easter bunny or request what she would like in her easter basket. 

for now i am going to stay deep in the preparations and keep my unhealthy excitement to myself. mostly.

thanks D!

this is little bee's new chair! it started out as a rickety, handed down version of this. and now after a few cans of spray paint it has been reborn! i can't wait to see bee's eyes light up when she get sup in the morning!

hopefully now we will be rid of the "one bum cheek the chair, one foot on the floor" meals.

baby food night

the stock was almost depleted, so i hit the steamer and the blender tonight.  i made a little bit of mango, pear, peas and a whole lot of sweet potato. henny will be in heaven. maybe we will actually start feeding him more than once a day. maybe.

what a great feeling it is to make baby food. i always kind of dread it. all the chopping, steaming, blending and freezing. but in the end it is so satisfying. the smells are so sweet and the colors are so vibrant. i love seeing all those cubes stacked in the door of the freezer. it is truly love in cube form.

first overnight as a family of four

also known as, may have been a poor choice.

no, after careful deliberation it has been determined that the trip was a good idea, despite the more "interesting" moments.

we started our trip at the aquarium. this is where the greatest amount of family fun took place. all four of us were ooohing and aaaahhing and cooing. it was amazing and great timing for little bee. we saw it all: sharks, sting rays, seals, sea turtles, jelly fish, an octopus and more and more. it really was and amazing time. many memories created. 

after all the aquarium fun, some fried mac 'n cheese on a stick and a bit of gelato, we headed to our "hotel", which was actually a lovely bed and breakfast. our room was very cute and HUGE for a city room. all seemed to be going perfectly and after our last big city adventure, a subway ride to a restaurant for dinner, we settled in to bed. 

this is where everything was turned upside down. ok, i know that a bit of adjustment is normal. so that later bedtime didn't really bother me. it was that stretch from midnight to 4:30am where there was lots of fun and games. there was much looking out the window (that was so inconveniently located right at bee's head), reading, laughing (lots of laughing- sometimes even the mom and dad had to laugh) and playing. there was also some threats and some whisper-yelling and some grabbing of the car keys.

needless to say, we made it through and have many memories to keep forever. it was an adventure but a trip that i know we will look back fondly on. 

(the whole family is seen in this picture, can you spot us?!)

tapped out

things have gone a bit haywire around here. we maintain a fragile balance most days, which even so sometimes ends up with a mama muttering "i can't take this!". but the balance has been tipped mainly because of the fact that both of my grandmothers are currently in the hospital. the SAME hospital! unfuckingbelievable. for real. 

two glasses of wine and two children sleeping later, i am beginning to decompress and process the whole thing. 

one grandmother is getting more well and the other is more troubling.

i feel very stressed about the whole situation but the feeling that i keep coming back to is sort of strange. i feel like i don't deserve to have this effect my mood and my attitude. my poor parents have spent every minute this week dealing with doctors, eating hospital food, sleeping in chairs, tending to sick mothers, calling relatives and more that i can't even imagine. they have not had the luxury of giggling with a baby or going out for ice cream with a very thankful little girl, like i have. i feel guilty feeling sad or mad or stressed, knowing what they are going through.

but i am sad and mad and stressed. these women are my last two grandparents. and they are both laying in hospital beds right now. it is some kind of crazy coincidence, something that i never would have expected and almost can't even process.

on top of everything, we are headed off on a pre-planned weekend trip. great timing. 

so here i am spreading cream cheese and jelly to be eaten in the car and fielding phone calls about medical tests and other news and feeling very conflicted and heady.

thank god for wine. 

wish me luck.

painting on snow

this is a project we enjoy in the winter months. it is especially fun when it is too cold or windy or mama is just not up for the snowsuit challenge. the preparation and clean-up are about as easy as it gets.

step 1: get a big bowl

step 2: scoop it full of snow, any kind of snow, dirty, clean, fluffy, icy

step 3: get out the watercolors!

step 4: go nuts with the watercolors on the snow

step 5: dump the colorful snow in the sink or outside, your choice.

done!

this always ends up being really fun and creative. little bee makes the pile of snow into a whole little world all her own. it is particularly fun when there are different textures like icy chunks and that nice ice layer that coats the top of the snow. fun!

new growth

while doing some exploring outside, little bee and i discovered this:

it's a bit of catnip that was growing deep down at the bottom of last year's dried up plant. it is fresh, green and smells so nice. we admittedly weren't sure if it was catnip or mint, but either way, excitement was abound.

i have not been this excited about a pinch of herb in quite some time. 

*wink*

laptop pouch

it has been months since i have dragged the sewing machine out, but this weekend the ambition finally struck. i had this cute fabric waiting on the shelf to become a laptop bag for my new little beauty. we have a bit of travel coming up in the next few months and i refuse to go anywhere without this new extension of my being. 

so, i made this little pouch and i think it's pretty cute. it is stuffed with layers of old diaper pad (waterproof) and old halloween fleece. it has a zipper and a flap that comes over and is fastened with an old button i found around here. i think i got the button at a senior center tag sale in cambridge, maybe in 1999. oh, and i stuck that little embroidery on there, the one i wrote about here. the pouch has about a million mistakes and funky things going on, but i still sort of love it. i admit that much of the funkiness is due to my lack of skill (i'm learning...), but a great majority of the funk is the machine's fault. seriously. the machine is as old as me and has probably never been tuned up, so i think i may have to break down and do it.

it felt good to get the machine going and now that i made something i can give myself permission to make something else. that means a trip to the fabric store!

7 months of smiles

henny is now 7 months old. i can hardly believe it as i type it. this small fact has consumed me all week. i think i have mentioned to every single person who i have encountered that hen is 7 months now. strangers, other parents at bee's school, friends, everyone. 

the thing is, this 7 months is just such a surreal concept to me. on one hand i feel like we have had henny forever, on the other hand i feel like i was just pregnant yesterday. i still don't totally feel like a mom of 2 sometimes, probably due to the fact that hen is usually strapped to me and quiet as a mouse (kind of like he was in my belly!). 

but the overwhelming feeling about this 7 months is just how incredibly lucky we are to have hen. he is all that we could ever ask for and more. in 7 short months i have just fallen in love with him more than i could articulate. it is the kind of love that you just don't talk about, because nobody wants to hear that kind of gushing. 

there are so many great things about little hen but by far the greatest of all is his smile. it just beams from within and you can see that he is truly happy. and he is not shy or frugal with it. he smiles at us all day, any time he catches our eye. he smiles at the cat, his sister, his toys or at nothing at all. he loves to be tickled and just the slightest touch on his bare back or neck sends him over the edge. he loves watching our hands doing the sign language we hope he will catch on to. he loves looking up at trees and breathing the fresh air. he gives us a proud grin from his new position as a person who can sit. he greets us when we come in his room to scoop him up after some sleep, with the happiest smile of all, full of kicking legs and loud squeals. he is just a generally happy guy and it makes all of our lives richer because of it.

happy 7 months hen!

from the backseat...

all the way home.....

penis, bum, weiner, penis, penis, caca doo doo, big caca doo doo (*laughs hysterically*), penis, bum weiner, bum dance, bum dance, big caca doo doo, big caca dooooooo dooooooo!

and on and on. 

trying something new

i have a tendency to jump around from craft to craft, from idea to brilliant idea. i know how to do a little bit of a lot of things. i lack the patience to stick to something for a long time until i am really good at it. i wish i were different, sometimes i try to change. sometimes i just don't care. 

last night i tried embroidery for the first time. i just followed a couple of tutorials online (this one and this one). i mainly just tried out following my lines and some VERY simple stitches. laying awake last night i was going through some of the tougher stitches in my head and i think i may be ready to tackle them too. we'll see! pattern courtesy of little bee:

hello march!

on the topic of progress, this is where our christmas tree is now. now the birds can have their way with it until the spring. horray!

**********

all last week, every day, i resisted the temptation to change the calendar to march. i thought, "i know it's too soon", but i just wanted to, i knew it would feel so good. but i resisted and finally on saturday i had the pleasure of flipping that page. 

good bye february with your constant snowing and freezing raining and flash flooding, your school vacation and common cold. hello march! i don't mind if you come in like a lion, i know you'll go out like a sweet fluffy lamb.

so, even though we were beaten down with yet another 9 inches of snow, the sun is so much stronger these days. strong enough to heat up the sun porch that we haven't been out on since the fall. hence this shot of little bee playing in the sun (time to wash those windows!!):