Like, seriously loving it.
We really have to take advantage of the spring before the spring takes advantage of us with its relentless rain and pollen. Our kids are such a great age for playing these days. Alma can almost independently play at a playground. Harriet is content to roll around on a blanket, or nap in the Ergo.
These photos are from earlier this week. We are now in the middle of a 10 day rain storm. Such is life in a Willamette Valley spring.
I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Last night I went to see Divergent with the ladies in my book club. Before the movie we met for dinner and drinks and discussion. We talked about which faction we would be in (if you haven’t read the book, or seen the movie here’s a quick rundown: in a future Chicago, the city is divided into different factions – Erudite where everyone is smart, Abnegation where everyone is selfless, Dauntless where everyone is brave, Amity where everyone is kind, and Candor where everyone is honest).
We talked about the faction we would have chosen when we were 18, and the faction that we really belong in. (in the book and film the characters choose where they belong as teenagers… perhaps a reflection of the absurdity of choosing a major in college at such a young age.)
I don’t know where I belong. I am an eternal optimist, so that makes me feel like I should be in Amity. I like to think I’m kind of smart, so that makes me feel like I belong in Erudite. When I was 18, I thought I was pretty bad-ass, so I might have chosen Dauntless. I believe in the strength of truth, so maybe Candor.
But, I sort of feel like I’m trapped in Abnegation. I spend most of my days living the life of a two-year-old. The other days, I’m serving and teaching slightly older than two (but not necessarily mature-r) children.
I sat at dinner last night looking at, and listening to, amazingly smart professional women. I know how I must look to them. A mostly stay at home mom. A teacher. I am not oblivious to the fact that our society doesn’t respect the intelligence of teachers (if you can’t do, teach). I also get the ideas about a woman who spends her days with kids. I really do get it.
My life resolves around my kids. My main goal for each day is to entertain kids, keep them clean, maybe even clean up the house a little bit. I don’t spend the day expanding my brain, solving problems, creating things, even talking to adults. Sometimes I don’t get out of sweatpants. My vocabulary is very elementary. I talk about poop. I talk about poop a lot.
Anyway, abnegation. Some days I feel like my self is melting away. I can see myself blending into the lives of my children. If my daughter asks me to do something, I often do it. If my daughter has a two-year-old melt down, I am along for the ride. If my baby needs to nurse, that’s what I do. What would my dauntless 18-year-old self think of this?
I’m not sure what I’m trying to say here.
I know that I love how I am able to stay home with my kids. I love that I am giving them a great gift by doing this important job for them. I know that they will soon be grown up and gone, and I will look back on these days with shining rainbows and unicorns in my hindsight.
If you’re still reading, I’ll try to get to a point. I feel like I am missing something by not being a professional adult who spends time with other adults. I feel like I might be wasting some of my self by not being outside the home. But I also feel like there is no greater job than the one I have now – and no better place for me to be using my talents.
Now that you’ve read this far, I will tell you that I don’t have the answers. Just musings and questions. Let me know if you have the answers.
Alma has some pretty great friends. None so great as our neighbor, Rory. They have an unspoken way of communicating. Sometimes this can be a problem.
There are some amazing adventures in their future.
Happy Novruz, everyone! It’s spring! I love spring so much. The flowers, sunshine, the green. It’s my second favorite time of year, but every year at this time, it’s my favorite time of year.
This year we had our playgroup over for a Novruz celebration. We started by dyeing eggs, which was a wonderfully frantic (and surprisingly mess-free) dash. We had nine two-year-olds, and various aged babies along for the ride.
Jesse explained the meaning of Novruz – the toddlers listened very attentively – all the earth, wind, fire, water, rebirth, newness. Then, we went outside to jump over the fire!
I love this ritual of leaving all our troubles, and worries, and problems in the fire. I’m always one for a fresh, clean start – especially when spring is springing.
It was an amazingly beautiful day, so we all went to the backyard to play with all of Alma’s bikes, and her slide. It was perfect. I love how our kids are old enough to pretty much just play. We don’t have to hover and help like we did last year at this time. It gives us grown-ups time to chat and catch up.
We are so blessed to be a part of this great group of families. We all (pretty much) met through the Birth Center, where most of us had our first babies. After getting to know each other at the weekly Baby Clinics, the idea was born to have a monthly playgroup. Not only do we all have two-year-olds, but most of us are on the second round these days, too. It’s wonderful.
After playing for a while, we had to play the egg game. I think Alma’s friend Beatrix won this year.
We were also really lucky to have our authentic Azerbaijani friend, Elvin up for the celebration. It’s fun having him so close this year (he’s studying in Long Beach, California). He’s a great dost, and both our girls truly love him. So do we.
Here’s our pre-dinner conversation with Alma, March 18th, 2014:
Alma: *trips over toy boat* AAAAAWWWAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!
Dad: Oh no! You’re okay! Do you need a hug?
Alma: NOOOOO!!!! AWWWAAAAAAAAAHHHHH MOMMYYYYYYYY!
Dad: Mom’s cooking dinner right now, but I can give you a hug.
Alma: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO MOMMMMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYYYYYY!! AWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! *walks sadly into kitchen*
Mom: Uh oh! Did you fall down? Are you okay? (she is clearly okay)
Alma: NOOOO WWAAAAWWWWWHHHAHHHAAAAHHH!
Mom: I can pick you up in just a second. I need to finish this right now.
Alma: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Mom: Want to look in the oven? See what’s cooking?
Alma: WWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!
Mom: Can you tell me what you want?
Alma: WWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Mom: Do you want me to pick you up?
Alma: WAHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
.
.
.
This continues in roughly the same way for about 10 minutes, with both mom and dad suggesting things to help Alma cheer up.
Mom: Okay, dinner’s ready! (this is usually very motivating for Alma)
Alma: NOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!
Mom: Okay. You can either eat with our family, or sit on the stairs until you calm down enough to join us.
Alma: WAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Dad: So, how was your day?
Alma: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!
Mom: It was pretty good! I’m really…
Alma: *tries to climb into mom’s lap* WAAAAAA!
Mom: *ignores climbing puddle of a toddler*… tired. How was your day?
Alma: AAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWW-AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH-HHHHHHAAA-AAAWWWWWWWW-WWWAAAAAAAAAH!!!! All done. *climbs into chair and starts eating dinner*
End scene. Who is this creature we lovingly invited into our home, and our dining room?
Friday the 28th- Calm. Both Jesse and I were able to keep our calm when Alma smashed her face into our bed and blood was pouring our of her mouth. I think a tooth went through her lip, but the bleeding stopped pretty quickly, so we just gave her some ice and watched it. Scary to see our baby’s blood outside her body. So grateful that we didn’t freak out, and that we kept her from mirrors, so she didn’t freak out.
Saturday the 1st – Frozen. Again. We took Alma to her first movie and she loved it. I really hope she acquires my love for musicals.
Sunday the 2nd – Oscars.
Monday the 3rd – Dr.Bradshaw. We really have the best pediatrician in the world. She has been a hero of mine since my 19th birthday. We had Harriet’s 6 month check-up, and as always, Dr. Bradshaw was a breath of fresh air. I’m not sure she knows just how much she means to me, but that’s okay.
Tuesday the 4th – Toddlers. I love watching Alma interact with her friends. She is learning so much, making so many mistakes, doing so many strange things. I’m glad to see her with other odd little ducks.
Wednesday the 5th – Ashes. We didn’t actually make it to an Ash Wednesday service, but I was glad to know it was happening. And the season of Lent always feels sort of magical.
Thursday the 6th – Gymnastics. We met a couple sweet friends for the open-gym time at a local gym. These kids are so much fun, and so able!
After I tackled my first quilt, I felt like I was ready to try something a little more difficult. I decided that I wanted to make a baptism dress for Alma, but I wanted to make something she could wear for more than just her baptism (ie not a traditional ‘gown’). My mom and I were at a fabric store in Portland when we saw a sweet pattern for a sweet dress. It was the Oliver + S Family Reunion Dress. We picked out a fabric that was mostly white (to keep it somewhat traditional) and I was set.
But of course, I got scared. I decided to sew a rough draft. I read through the directions and got terrified. It was so crazy and confusing to me! There were button holes, pintucks, ruffles, interfacing, hems, collars, lots of scary stuff! I figured the best thing to do was to just jump right in and start sewing.
One of the first steps were doing the pintucks. These ended up being fun, because I sort of felt like a professional-sewing-super-star after seeing how cute they were turning out! The instructions were so clear and easy to follow.
I kept on sewing. Whenever I got to something that seemed confusing, I would take a break (sometimes a few days…). Once I finally got around to trying it, it was always way easier than I had expected. Soon, I had a fully constructed dress and I felt silly for doing a rough draft. The instructions were so great that I totally could have done the baptism dress on the first try!
I got started right away on the actual baptism dress.
Then I decided to make three more for Alma and her cousins to wear to their aunt and uncle’s (my brother) wedding. This time I had to make them in different sizes. I also decided that since it was a summer wedding, I would make them sleeveless.
I felt like I had learned enough tricks from Oliver + S to alter the pattern a little bit. I ended up making my own bias tape and just finishing the bodice sleeve openings with it. The girls looked so sweet in their cheerful dresses!
Next up were winter hats from the Oliver + S Little Things to Sew book. Again, I stretched my comfort zone a little bit and used new fabrics that can be hard to work with – velvet and wool shirting. The instructions were amazing again, and I had two cute hats for my two little lambs to wear.
Halloween was coming up, so I thought my freckled-faced-almost-redhead would make a cute Pippi. The biased trim apron seemed like a perfect costume idea (that we could use as an apron after Halloween!). This one taught me a lot more about how to use bias tape (and taught me what I had done wrong when I altered the dresses – ha!). I also learned a cool way to make a pocket!
I was on a roll. For Christmas, I decided Alma needed a doll carrier for the baby doll Harriet brought her from the hospital. Another way to make a pocket, more practice with curved edges, and a couple button holes later, and Alma had a fun doll carrier!
Now it is time for Harriet’s baptism. I wanted to try another Oliver + S pattern and finally decided on the Fairy Tale Dress. Now this one was scary! Fully lined, petal sleeves, invisible zipper, peter pan collar! Oh my!
Again, I just took it step by step and it all worked out. Ohmygosh is it cute!
I love these patterns because they are great for a beginning seamstress. The steps are clearly explained, with simple, yet complete illustrations. I love the feeling I get after every step, when the dresses start to look like dresses. I love that I go from being terrified of messing up, (to messing up), to doing it right, to having an amazing finished project!
I also love that I can use the skills I learned in the patterns for other projects. I have so many skills in my back pocket now! I even have enough confidence with the aspects in these projects that I am toying with designing my own dresses for the girls.
(I should note that Oliver + S has no idea that I’m writing this. They don’t know who I am at all, though they did once comment on one of my instagram photos and made me feel like I had a brush with fame.)
(I also want to note that I got most of my fabrics from Piece by Piece and if you’re in Eugene, it’s my absolute favorite fabric store in town.)
Friday: wine
Saturday: friends, the Henrys came for dinner. It had been too long.
Sunday: friends, super bowl watching with some fun, funny friends.
Monday: reading
Tuesday: church, we had our Itty Bitty Bible Study and it was so full of kids this week! So grateful to finally meet my friend’s daughter recently brought home from Uganda.
Wednesday: Jesse, when Alma woke up sick I was incredibly grateful to have a partner like Jesse in this crazy parenthood job.
Thursday: house & dad, I am grateful to have a warm house on these snowy days, and my dad is wonderful. It was his last day of work before retirement. He had a wonderful career and is well respected in our community. I am very proud of him. And grateful for how hard he worked for our family for so many years. Also, he drove through the snow to bring us more hydrogen peroxide and baking soda.
New babies love to sleep. It seems like that’s all they do. So why are parents of new babies so exhausted? New babies have some weird, mysterious way of sleeping just enough that the look like they are always asleep, but waking up just enough that their parents get no sleep at all. It’s just the way it is. Tricky, sneaky babies.
Luckily I no longer have a new baby. My baby is an old baby, which means that I get to do the tricking. I have successfully tricked her into taught her to sleep through the night, and to have pretty regular and kick-ass naps (are you kidding me? Right when I typed this, I heard Harriet wake up…. damn hubris!) during the day.
My main advice in all things parenting is to not read any books, or if you simply must a book, please, please, please only read one. Books are notorious for giving conflicting opinions and making you think you are doing things right, while simultaneously making you think you are killing your child. Yuck. My second piece of advice is to never listen to advice. It only messes with your head.
If you want to know how we trained our daughters, I will refer you to this blog post. I know some people think it is mean to sleep train babies in this way. I would say to them that it is mean not to, but I’m not going to say that. It’s just what I would say. But I’m obviously not saying that. I’m not trying to start any ‘mommy wars’ here, just trying to share my truth and reality. If you don’t agree with this, feel free to close the browser, or tab, or phone, or what-have-you. I’m not trying to change your mind, just trying to share what worked for both my girls. Besides, if you feel strongly that what I did is wrong, your mind will never be changed, now will it? Nope. And anyway, that is totally not the point of this post.
The point of the post is to deal with my feeling after having sleep trained. I love that Harriet has learned this amazingly important life skill. I love that Jesse and I were able to teach her this amazingly important life skill. I have no regrets as to how or when we sleep trained both girls. I am confident in all of this. I am proud of this. I am proud that Jesse and I are able to teach and guide our kids. I am proud of my daughters for taking this small, no huge, step towards independence.
With Alma, we had her in bed with us every single night until she was four months old. I loved sleeping with her, and being able to nurse her whenever either of us wanted to. I loved the connection and cuddles. But I was so ready to move on to the next step when she turned 4 months old and we got the go-ahead from our pediatrician. I don’t remember feeling sad to have her out of the bed in those first few weeks.
With Harriet we had her in the co-sleeper, up against our bed every night until she was about 4 1/2 months old. I loved this, too. It was great having her close enough that I could nurse easily. I loved being able to hold her little hand while we slept. I loved hearing her little baby noises, and watching her little baby breathing. Again, I was so ready to move on to the next step. But, this time I have been a little sad in the weeks that followed.
Maybe it’s because she’s our last baby.
When I go to bed, and turn off the light, it takes me forever to fall asleep. I don’t know if it’s that I miss the white noise of her breathing, or the nightlight that is now in her room, or something more visceral.
All I know for sure is that it is called sleep training for a reason. Harriet seems to be trained, but I’m still learning. I guess that is what it means to be a parent. And that can’t be found in any book.
One of the things we did for Alma’s second birthday was make her a fun chalkboard table for her cars.
This project actually started last summer and went through a few different changes along the way. It started with this crazy dirt-and-rock-filled-brick-planter in our sunroom:
This planter has been annoying me since we moved in 3 years ago. I’ve never known what to do with it. Since our bunny lives in the sunroom, I couldn’t just plant some plants in it – he would eat them. For a while he liked to dig in the box, but that ended up making a huge mess. The dirt in the planter is a really fine dust that coats the whole room when dug up. Add a curious toddler and the sunroom was never clean.
My mom actually suggested that we do something with the planter. I think I had just given up at this point. Her first idea was to dig out all the dirt and fill it with something more fun (and less dirty) to play with. When she came over and started digging, she realized how horrible the dirt was after inhaling the super-fine dust. We started brainstorming again. The next idea was to cover it with a board and paint a scene on it for Alma’s cars. You know those old carpets that have the town and roads on them? That idea, but in paint. After agreeing that this was the perfect idea, I thought it would be even cooler to just use chalkboard paint. I wanted the girls to be able to create their own towns, or whatever, not just be stuck with the town I painted for them. Imagination and creativity are always encouraged here!
Jesse and my mom went and bought all the supplies, and Jesse quickly built the board using plywood and quarter-round strips. We countersunk the nails, and filled the holes with spackle so everything would be smooth. Then the board sat on the planter for a couple months.
Finally, I decided Alma’s birthday was the perfect reason to finish this project, so I sanded everything down and started priming the board.
I used two coats of primer, then sanded it all down again. I wanted to make sure the wood was really sealed because the chalkboard paint is expensive and I didn’t want to waste it by having it soak into the wood. Also, the directions say to prime and sand bare wood.
Then came 3 or 4 thin coats of the chalkboard paint. I can’t remember, but I’m pretty sure I did 4. I wanted smooth, even coverage, so I did really nice, thin coats. Below you see what it looked like halfway through the second coat.
Then back out to the sunroom to cure for a few days. I already liked how it looked so much! No more dirt!
I followed the directions on the can to prepare the chalkboard by rubbing the side of a piece of chalk all over the whole thing and wiping off with a dry cloth. Our original idea was to attach the whole thing to the wall, but I sort of love how I can tip it up and brush the chalk dust into the dirt. We might need to attach it if Alma or Harriet start lifting it up all the time, but it’s pretty heavy and I don’t think they know it opens.
I’m not sure who will like it more, me, or Alma. I had a lot of fun writing a birthday message, and drawing a little road for her new cars. I’m excited to work on my chalkboard-writing skills.
Alma definitely does love it, though! She seems to like the drawing part more than the car part these days, but I’m sure she’ll appreciate that it is a fun, versatile toy out in the sunroom. I also have a ton of the paint leftover, so I’m already thinking about what else could use some creativity. Chalkboard all the things! Uh oh….
ps – I am linking up with a link party on I Heart Nap Time!