Nine is Divine!

Sep21

So, an interesting new feeling for me as I got ready to write a happy birthday post about my oldest boy this week…I realized I should probably ask his permission before writing things about him to share on the internet! He said it was fine. I do already ask before sharing quotes/pictures on Facebook usually, if I think they’re potentially embarrassing at all.

See what I mean?! Snaggly teeth and big nose is my default, self-esteem-blow, embarrassment self-concept. Though, actually this picture was taken when I was 11, so perhaps really 9-11 are the awkward years!

I’ve been a mother for nine years now! As I said in my post from this morning, I feel weird about this because I remember being nine. I remember other ages too, of course, but nine is when I first start journaling and so I have more concrete memories and records of that time. I guess it is the age that marks the beginning of my own conscious awareness of myself and the world in a way that still feels familiar today—it was beginning, the dawn, of my adult thought processes. I also remember starting to feel self-conscious for the first time at nine, like my teeth were too big, my knees were too knobby, etc. And, personal remarks made by others about my appearance stuck for life at that age (i.e. the knees thing—a friend of my grandma’s commented to me, “when my daughter was your age, her knees looked just like yours and I too her to the doctor because I thought something was wrong with her.” Gee, thanks.) I also have this thing that I’ve had for a long time in which when I get embarrassed about something or something goes wrong, I say, “I feel like I’m nine again!” Nine was an awkward age for me. Feels weird that it could be Lann’s future self’s embarrassing archetype too!

His birthday always feels like my birth-day too. It is my birth-of-a-mother day, though as I shared last year I felt forged rather than born as a mother. Today, I made sure to put on the necklace I bought for myself as a first-birth-day-present in 2004 (it was my first goddess pendant too–who knew how that collection would evolve!)

PMC pendant made by a Canadian artist and carefully selected by me as a birth-day gift to myself 8 years ago!

Anyway, so back to my actual kid instead of me, me, me! This year has brought good changes for Lann. As I’ve alluded to previously, our work party relationships have enriched all of our lives. I’ve watched Lann develop tons more self-confidence and create friend relationships that do not have to be encouraged/guided/forced by me. Something that hasn’t changed is that this boy is an artist! He’s recently been thoroughly engaged by needle felting and created lots of awesome monster heads and action figures:

Both the boys also started taking taekwondo lessons as well as gymnastics and they love them both. Again with the self-confidence—two years ago, Lann would have been too scared to go to something like that without me. Now, I drop them off and he loves it. It is a good reminder to me about waiting until people are ready rather than pushing them. It happens eventually!

Look at this big kid!

Birthday cake request was for a chocolate/vanilla swirl. We bought a mix and discovered to our dismay that it had both red and yellow food coloring in it! (We cut food colors our of the boys’ diets early this year and it has been a very good thing.)

So, as I stood there in my pajamas, I had to make a quick re-adjustment in plans and I made a swirl cake from scratch instead even though I’ve never ever made a vanilla cake from scratch before (I used my usual chocolate cake recipe and left out the cocoa. I’m smart like that.)

Pretty nice, Molly, pretty nice! ;-D

Blowing out the candles! I almost didn’t find nine of them!

Lann remains very devoted to Minecraft and Baba surprised him with a homemade Enderman toy! (Zander and Alaina both got one too)

Aren’t they lucky to have such a talented and crafty Baba?!

In addition to TKD and gymnastics, the boys also signed up for homeschool co-op again this year after having taken two years off. They’re taking a mythology/dragons class and also animation. I neglected to take a “first day of school” picture of the boys, but I did take a cute one of Alaina:

For Lann’s birthday, Mark took the day off and set up a laser tag arena in the field in front of our house. He bought special colored lights and set up obstacles and things to hide behind, etc. We also have five, count ’em five, laser tag guns and a visiting friend brought three more. So, we had spirited nighttime battles with a group of eight at a time—I played too, at first while nursing Alaina (and running in the dark. I rock!). It was super fun. Originally intended as a “money saving” option rather than paying $65 to go to the laser tag arena in town, after we bought the extra guns, and light bulbs, and tarps, and fence posts, I think we “saved” approximately –$50 😉

So, having a nine year old is awesome. He’s funny and smart. Pretty responsible (I’m feeling apprehensive about the iPod touch many family members chipped in to buy him this year–sudden he doesn’t seem quite big enough and is kind of slinging it around. He did send his very first email this morning though, with coaching!). He is a good big brother and super helpful with Alaina. He makes movies, he does art. He draws comics. He is more packed with ideas for businesses, products, and money-making plans than any kid I’ve ever known. He is creative and amazing!

Some more pix!

Make up for movie a little more uncomfortable than bargained for!

Nice big brother!

Flashback: Playing with Tom! (grandpa)

I found out I was pregnant with Zander right around Lann’s second birthday!

The baby who made us parents and us a family! Look at what a small little family we were! (though, it felt plenty full then. Sometimes I’m amazed that I’ve been able to expand to add more people to it!)

Happy ninth birthday, first baby boy!

Lann’s Birth Story–Baba Style!

My First Birth

The tensions and triumphs of work at home mothering

Sep17

Tree pose…

Most of the time I love and feel very grateful for the opportunity to work from home. The work is interesting, stimulating, and fulfilling. I feel like I have a real opportunity to have a positive impact of my students’ lives. I love not having to drive in bad weather and I love being able to work around the rest of my life/schedule and around the lives of my kids. I enjoy the income and the professional development. I like contributing the our family’s financial health and feel optimistic about my potential to eventually be able to release my husband from “wage slavery” so we can both enjoy a predominantly home-based life. I enjoy the relationships I create and I enjoy the (admittedly, fairly limited!) “status” of my role. I love gathering and sharing information in a field I care about.

I recently got home from spending four days at of town at a festival in Kansas. On the long car ride there, Birthing Beautiful Ideas posed the question on Facebook: what does working at home look like for you today? My response was: Leaning over the car seat nursing on the way to Kansas while checking in with my online students via iPad! (bless the iPad, possibly the greatest addition to my life this year. I don’t know what I’d do without that thing!) Mondays are always on the rough side for me because I have to enter my grades for the week and that “extra” duty tends to topple me from got-it-under-control-territory into slightly too much territory. This Monday, however, I now have my first batch of 25 papers to grade. As I’ve alluded to in the past, usually online teaching blends seamlessly into my day, often taking roughly the same amount of time and energy that checking in with Facebook would take. During the two weeks each session that papers are due (fifth and seventh weeks out of an 8 week session), the work suddenly feels unmanageable and incompatible with motherhood and I feel taut, tense, and drawn. The kids are need-factories and I’m distracted and impatient and consumed with the NEED to get these freaking things GRADED and OUT OF MY HEAD! So, imagine how I feel today when the getting home from being gone coincides with the first batch of papers! Whew. This morning I happily experienced the modern motherhood sweet spot in which I snuggled comfortably in bed with my nursling, smelling her sweet head and holding my iPad with the other hand while I entered my fairly simple weekly grades. Then the day devolved slightly with people wanting to go outside and me not eating enough and being inexorably pulled into the swirl of un-responded to email backlog from the weekend as well as those dang papers.

Luckily, past self had some advice for me that came to the rescue this morning. At the close of the last paper grading session I typed myself the following note in my trusty iPad of goodness and beneficence:

Reminders to self about grading papers:

This is temporary
You are guaranteed to finish them. It will happen.
Remember you’ve done it before and it is normal for you to feel stressed, overwhelmed, and unable.

You need:
Two days, part days (Monday and Tuesday) or one whole day to finish.
Write on calendar in advance so you can prepare and give advance warning to helpers.

Don’t schedule anything and/or cancel commitments on those days (including LLL if need be)
Don’t try to do them while Alaina is awake
Skip school with boys–it will be there later
Don’t do any blog posts, school assignments, FB, or any other “work” on those two grading days–don’t secretly plan to do some anyway.
Take breaks for self-renewal
*Ask for help*
*Be kind, but firm and assertive about needing time and space to work. Expect to have this available and “allowed.”*
*Ask clearly for what you need.*

Plan to get up early and stay up late as needed–trust that these times can be backup if naptime/grandparent-visit times get messed up.

Don’t cook real dinners on those two days.

Be nice to the people you love. If you are mean, increase self-care and respectful requests for aid and be compassionate with own feelings of tension and irritation–respect them as “normal,” even though they aren’t desirable. Remember that it will pass as it always does and equilibrium will be restored.

Say no.

Remember–again–this is temporary and you’ve done it many times before!
Still pray. Listen to music. Take time for spirit.

Have a reward when you finish.

Release your shoulders. Breathe.

—

Wasn’t I smart?! It really helped to read these things and among other things I called Mark and asked him to bring home Papa Murphy’s for dinner. I told the boys it was “school-off day,” but we still ended up walking on the road and finding cool rocks and having an impromptu geography learning time. I said no to some things even though I felt badly about doing so and tried to figure out some other way to make them work. And, I’m trying to be okay with leaving my bubbling brew of blog post idea/updates (I want to write about my trip!), jewelry ideas, birth art ideas/writing, and more, and more, and more for “later” and trusting that later will, indeed, come. I am trying to feel compassion rather than hatred for my ragged self.

Why post this here? Who cares? Well, I do. I often use my blog as a “storehouse” of things to remember. And, when the next batch of papers rolls around, I want to easily be able to read my reminder list again! I also thought it might be of interest to the other mothers out there who continually teeter on the edge of finding that elusive and possibly-not-actually necessary “balance” in their work tasks and mothering tasks. I have a friend who describes balance not as making things “equal,” but as being like tree pose in yoga—you want one leg to be firm underneath you so you can stay standing up, but your two sides do not have to actually be “equal” in order to be balanced. Today, my balance is weighted towards the work-at-home tasks, but it will shift again and I’ll still be standing. Find your center. That is the mental reminder that instantly pulls my own literal tree pose into balance for me during my (formerly daily, now erratic) morning yoga. Find your center. Perhaps those words should find a home on my reminder list above as well.

Today, I also resisted the temptation to blurt out a giant laundry list of to-dos in my Facebook status, even though the panicky urge to do so was potent. I was reminded of my own prior reminder post about this tendency: Busy is Boring. I shared the link on Facebook this morning in lieu of sharing my to-do list and a friend responded:

“Not sure I completely understand. You write ‘I’d rather talk about the things we’re doing that fuel us and excite us’, and I completely agree with that, but these are also the very things that keep us busy. If I look at a really busy day in our family…I am excited about every single thing on the list: I love working, I love it that my kids are involved in activities that are exciting and stimulating for them, I love being part of that… so, all this busy-ness serves to enrich our lives.”

So, I clarified. What I’m talking about is trading litanies of, “I have this and this to do…” and “well, I have this and this to do…”—essentially trading to-do lists without actually hearing or talking to each other, but just rattling off semi-stressful lists of places we have to be, things we have to remember, and things that are on our minds that we have to do.* Talking about busy plans that we’re excited about and care about and are looking forward to is something totally different than just sharing to-do lists without really listening to each other. It is HOW we talk about/share the busy-ness that makes the difference to me. And, I’m trying very hard to stay mindful of the difference and not share the exhausting list that just adds to the cortisol levels of all around me who are already dealing with their own busy schedules and lives.

—

(*this is a pet peeve about myself that I’m trying to adjust/remember/fix. I occasionally experience it with others in my life too and it bugs me, because it also bugs me in myself. ;-))

Homemade Extracts

Sep11

Every other weekend we get together with four other families who all live in the same 20-mile, rural region and we have a “work party.” In an admittedly sexist division of labor usually the men work on the large, house-building type project and the women work together on a cooking project or some other type of project, while also taking care of the children and preparing lunch and dinner for the whole crew (our families together total over 20 people and so it is actually a lot of work to feed that many people for an entire day!). I could write a long post about the many wonderful things we’ve gained from this work party experience, but it will have to wait for another day. We just celebrated our one year anniversary and it has been amazing what a positive influence the work party experience has been on the lives of everyone in our family.

During the last work party at our own house during which the men worked on Mark’s greenhouse project, the women gathered in my kitchen to make a variety of homemade extracts. Our main goal was to make vanilla extract to be ready for the holiday season, but we also made orange and lemon extract, mint extract, and flavored vinegar.

We bought our vanilla beans from Amazon. They were $25 at the time there for 1/2 lbs (about 50 beans), which was much better than the $9 per 3 beans from the bulk spice company (looks like the same ones are $27 now). They were pliable and easy to work with.

I followed the general ideas from these two websites about how to make your own extracts, but took the even lazier approach and decided to make the extract right in the vodka bottle! My share of the beans was about 11 beans. I slit them all lengthwise, separated the sides a bit with my fingers and dropped them into a 1.75 liter bottle of 80 proof vodka. Voila! It started to turn a lovely golden color almost right away and then deepened to a dark brown. We’ve tasted it and it tastes like…vanilla! I’m continuing to let it steep though, since there are conflicting reports about whether to let it sit for 6 weeks or 6 months.

Think we’ll have enough vanilla to last us a while?!

For the lemon and orange extracts I used about a 1/2 cup of peel and 1 c. of vodka. I loosely based it on the recipe from this site. We did the mint extract the same way. I used mint from my yard.

We also experimented with flavored vinegar based on information from this handout. I used strawberries in apple cider vinegar. I plan to use it for salad dressing, but haven’t tried it yet. It retained a lovely red color!

Extracts all lined up while freshly made (see how much lighter the vanilla was on the first day?)

And here are the work party women after a full day of extract-making!

I really value these friendships and what we’ve created together!–

Amazon affiliate link included above.

Decked out!

Sep8

What a jewelry filled week I’ve had! Our local Mindful Mothers group got together for a jewelry making party. Instead of using the materials the teacher brought along, I brought a lot of charms of my own that have been sitting in a pile for a long time and used her tools, chain, and wire to make myself a nifty “goddess gallery” charm bracelet. I think it turned out very nicely!

Then, when I got home that night, what was waiting for me, but my long-awaited package from Joy Belle jewelry. (The conclusion of my CAPPA conference adventure.) I can’t show pictures of everything I got because most of it was Christmas gifts for other people, but I will show you my own pendant:

The largest disk has Mary Oliver’s Instructions for Living a Life stamped on it, which I kind of use as a personal motto and it is really a big part of why I blog!

Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

On the small disk, there are all the kids’ names and underneath that there are footprints and a heart for Noah.

As if this wasn’t enough, the next night my package from Wellstone Jewelry arrived! I’m going to start a small store page on my website and I have lots of lovely wares to sell now from this awesome jewelry company. But first…for myself I got a Venus of Lespugue pendant. She is amazing! I love neolithic Goddess figures the best. The company said they sell very few of her, perhaps because so many women have body image issues (many more thoughts about this to follow in a later blog post, trust me!).

I also added a delightful Moon Dancer ring to my personal collection…

Close-up view

And, here I am fully decked-out in all my new jewels!

Recipe: Four Minute, Four Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies (or: super easy, super tasty flourless peanut butter chocolate chip cookies of pinnable awesomeness)

Sep5

It will probably take you longer to read this post than it will take to stir up these cookies. I’m not sure if they really take four minutes to assemble, I didn’t time it, but they are super quick! The boys and I invented these for Pinterest Day and they said, “Now, YOU have something to put on Pinterest!” So, I’m posting here and will pin away!

I continue to boggle that no flour is required to make these tasty morsels. Here is the recipe:

First, you have two options:

2/3 c. peanut butter

1/3 c. Nutella

OR: 1 c. peanut butter (any kind)

1 c. sugar

2 eggs

dash of vanilla

optional: chocolate chips

Stir all ingredients together, plop on cookie sheet and bake at 350 for about ten minutes.

These cookies are chewy and delicious and you won’t believe they are flourless and so simple!

Time to Pin it! The boys will be so excited! 🙂

Productive!

Aug13

“Being bored is an insult to oneself.” –Jules Renard

This afternoon I made such a long status update on Facebook that I joked it should really be a blog post. So, I decided to convert it into one! (albeit not particularly fascinating or relevant to my blog’s theme. Perhaps I need to remember that Busy is Boring!) I think the abrupt shift in local weather from horrendously hot to near-fall-like crispness has rejuvenated me and we just had a great day today. This morning I went for a walk in the woods with the boys to scout locations for “real life Minecraft.” We also investigated the yard barn shed in our field for rehabilitation possibilities into a cool clubhouse. Then, we had a mini Pinterest Day making baked mozzarella bites and healthy chocolate chip muffins. I gave the kids applesauce with cinnamon for a snack which was met with genuine exclamations of, “this is the best day ever!” (hmm. If that’s all it takes, should break out the applesauce more often!). Also, the doctor finally called back and Zander’s arm is NOT broken (more about this in a minute). We’re finally on a roll with school and Z did 18 worksheets this morning, plus Lann is clicking with things too. On the less productive side, at 2:00 when I made said status update I was still in my pajamas (yes, even on the woods walk and clubhouse scout) and hadn’t taken a shower, let alone finished prepping for Friday’s class. I did get checked in with my online students this morning while still in bed using the miracles of iPad goodness. And, as it turned out, later in the afternoon when the kids went to visit my parents I did finish my prep for Friday’s class after all. What was just delightful about today is that we spent most of the day having fun and enjoying each others’ company—something that sometimes seems not to go hand in hand with productivity! ;-D

Okay, now for the mini-Pinterest Day verdict…

The mozzarella bites were just cut up string cheese dipped in milk and then in bread crumbs which I doctored up with Italian seasoning, pepper, onion and garlic powder. (They were originally inspired by this blog post.)

They were fun to make with kids, tasted great (I recommended my doctored bread crumbs version), and were easy.

Zander cut up the cheese and helped me dip the pieces into the crumbs. Alaina helped too.

While they flattened some during baking, they had remarkable integrity and did not turn into melted cheese puddles.

Our next Pinterest Day project was to make some delightfully healthy double chocolate muffins…

I thought this little threesome all working together so cooperatively was adorable.

What a cutie waiting for cupcakes!

Alaina enjoyed some batter.

I changed the recipe somewhat from the original and this is what I ended up with:

Double Chocolate Muffins (flourless!)

Ingredients:

1 3/4 c. oats
3 eggs
3/4 c. unsweetened cocoa
1/2 c. applesauce
dash vanilla extract
1/2 c. plain Greek yogurt
1-1/2 TB vinegar
1-1/2 ts baking powder
1-1/2 ts baking soda
1/4 ts salt
1 c. hot water
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2, 12-cup muffin pans. In a food processor, mix all of the ingredients except for the chocolate chips. Blend until oats are ground and mixture is smooth. Gently stir in the chocolate chips (or, if you forget like I did, sprinkle them generously over the top–they kind of sink in and make a gooey center). Spoon mixture into prepared muffin pans. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes.

My kids said these muffins were too “intense” after the first one…they’re pretty gooey/rich seeming and they actually thought they were too sweet. I think I’ll cut back the sugar next time–I think 2/3 c. would have been more than enough.

I totally loved them though! They taste like nice squishy brownies! (The kids shaped up later in the day and ate more of them, no longer complaining about being too intense.) As of right now, there are two of the 24 we made left in the house…

Finished muffin/cupcake! Look at the nice texture and tasty squishiness.

Okay, and remember the non-broken arm? Last Thursday we spent a lovely playgroup at the river…

The boys enjoy playing in this goopy, nasty moss/algae stuff.

Zander, “Moss-Man”

Having some hummus by the river side and close to Mama’s skirt as is the preferred location (if not in arms)

As we were leaving the river, the boys wanted to stop and play on the playground by the parking lot. Lann tried to swing across on the monkey bars type thing (with a slidey handle deal) and fell off and hurt his tailbone. Rather than learn from this experience, Zander instead decided to see if HE could slide across with only one arm. When he fell off, he fell with arm under him. I saw him go down and my first thought was, he broke his arm! But, after some tears and snuggles, he seemed okay—the arm had full range of motion, etc. However, that night he woke up crying three times in the night because his arm hurt too bad to sleep. We did arnica and healing salve and then tylenol. In the morning, he was cheerful and playing like usual, but I noticed he wasn’t using his arm at all and I started to get worried. He held it up close to his body at a weird angle and was often holding it with his other hand. Then, he mentioned to me that it hurt too bad to push down the soap dispenser in the bathroom. So, I became 99% sure that it was fractured somewhere (somewhere, like on the underside, that didn’t impact his range of motion). The bottom of his forearm also felt really hot to the touch, almost feverish. So, we packed up and went to the urgent care clinic sort of place in town:

Feeling kind of cool about being up on the exam table.

Alaina wants to get in on the “fun”!

After an x-ray, they put a splint and sling on it “just in case,” saying they did not see a fracture in the x-ray, but that they would send it to radiology for a million dollars (j/k) and they might be able to see a very fine one there.

Feeling all doctored up with sling (plus, favored homemade Creeper “snuggly” made by Baba)

It then took until today to get the radiology report which was “negative.” So, sling is now off, arm seems normal, I expect to receive an unpleasantly hefty bill (we have sucky, “catastrophic only” insurance–when Mark cut his leg with the chainsaw earlier this year it cost us about $2000 out-of-pocket), and yet I do still feel like I made the right call in taking him in.

And, there you have it. Facebook status turned blog post. See why I’m just not cut out for Twitter?!

Kansas City Adventure

Aug4

This post is my final post in my CAPPA re-cap series.

In addition to going to the CAPPA conference while in Kansas City, we did several other things for family fun—some with only marginal fun-success. Looking back at our trip, I see that we had good times, did fun things, and overall had a successful trip. While we there it felt a lot more stressful and much less fun. Why? Mostly because we had to do a ton of driving and most of our plans each day got messed up in some way—turning on the wrong roads over and over again, getting to the store when it was closed, etc., etc.

Kids went swimming in the (green, murky) hotel pool every night and loved it!

On Friday afternoon we went to Kaleidoscope a free kid’s art center offered by Hallmark. I lost track of the boys (they were with Mark and my mom), but had tons of fun watching Alaina step right up to work on a project. She was serious about it!

I love these curls, this sweet neck, and these powerful shoulders.

Can you possibly guess what noise she is making in this picture as she instructs me to acquire additional paintbrushes for her?

Okay, too many pictures of this same scene, but I just loved seeing her be so big, serious, and into this painting project.

There was a free dinosaur exhibit at Crown Center also (the same mall where the art room was).

On Sunday, we went to the American Girl store in Overland Park.

Alaina was very entranced by this stroller.

Figured out how to push two dolls in stroller AND pull two dolls in wagon!

After buying a set of Bitty Twins, we headed out to lunch with my brother, his fiancé, and my sister and her husband (who I’d never met before!). Alaina enjoyed eating the gravy off of Daddy’s chicken fried steak.

On Monday, we went to the Legoland Discovery Center, which was our only reason for staying over an extra day past conference’s end. I tried really, really hard not to remain preoccupied with the fact that it cost SIXTY-FIVE dollars to go to this place.

My annoyance at the cost was mediated by seeing Lann’s hands in these two pictures.

The Miniville part was cool (so was the “4-D” movie). Alaina developed a fever and conked out in the Ergo most of the time we were there (this is an example of one of the kinds of thing that made the trip trend towards the stressful, rather than pleasant).

On the five hour drive home, I spent much of the time nursing feverish Alaina in the car seat like this. My mom reports that antics like this are part of what caused her to eventually have back surgery! Notice my strategically placed iPad so that I can read books and send emails while contorted.

Luckily, we have a fabulous set of Bitty Twins to ease our sorrows.

You can pick any combo of Twins you want. Mine has the curly hair, Alaina’s has the straight hair. I like both of them and have trouble letting her play with them. Perhaps they need to live with just me for a little while longer.

Can you tell that I’m on a three week break from teaching? I’m possessed with blog post ideas and trying to keep this flurry of posting activity somewhat restrained via post scheduling so I don’t overwhelm my readers!

(It’s over now, so there’s no point in retroactive complaining/stressing about how the school session ended DURING our trip, and so I actually graded final exams in the car on the way to the conference and stayed up until 1:00 on Saturday night entering final grades for my online class so I could then be “off” for the rest of our trip. If anyone wants to compliment me on my skillful managing of my life that enables me to meet all these needs during one trip–my own need for continuing ed and birth peep networking, my kids’ need to go to Legoland, the needs of my 30 students for prompt grading and attention/teaching, my mom’s need to visit her other kids, and my feverish baby’s need for carseat nursing, I’ll accept them. Instead of beating myself up for the parts that didn’t go well and for crabby episodes and bad directions, I think I’ll take a couple of minutes to feel impressed at how I managed to do it!)

Marriage thoughts

Jul25

Today is our fourteenth wedding anniversary. Last year I shared some married musings in my rainy wedding post and I have a couple of related thoughts to share this year too. As I noted last year, I personally don’t experience my marriage as being hard work or difficult. Though I do understand that this is not everyone’s experience, I have a lot of difficulty understanding or appreciating comments that I see repeated in various Facebook-type locations that come from the, “love is a choice that you make every day” angle. Really?!?! I have trouble getting on board with that, because it sounds like if you don’t make the “love” choice, the alternative is just naturally disliking or not enjoying your spouse? My love for my husband feels similar to the love I feel for my children—it is a constant, it is not choice based. It is deep, abiding, and embedded. It doesn’t feel optional, which is what the word “choice” makes it sound like to me. If you choose to love your family, you can also choose not to love them on a daily basis. This doesn’t reflect my own experience in my relationship or my mothering.

At the beginning of this month, a Facebook friend shared a long quote about marriage from a Christian relationship book that seemed to come from this love is a choice philosophy. I did like this part of what she shared: “There are no lessons to be learned when a husband dominates his wife. There are no inspiring examples to emulate when a wife manipulates a husband. But love unlocks the spiritual secrets of the universe. Love blows open eternity and showers its raindrops on us.” (Perhaps I identify because of that rainy wedding of ours!) When I read this book excerpt and the subsequent comments about marriage being the “hardest work of your life” or a “constant challenge” or about how spouses and ourselves can be so “hard to love,” I shared this with her: today [July 1] is my husband’s 35th birthday, the 18th I’ve spent with him. I’ve never found him hard to love and I’ve never found our marriage to be hard work or our relationship a challenge. Quite the contrary in fact—he’s my safe haven and my soft place to land. Now, parenting I find to be a challenge! And, parenting compatibly together is also sometimes hard. But marriage. Marriage is sweet, comfortable, and home.

I then added: not to say that I don’t understand or appreciate that marriage is a struggle/hard/challenge for some couples. I know that it is and I admire the effort and commitment they put into a strong relationship. I just wanted to offer a different experience 🙂 I wish the same for you one day!

And, then when my parents’ celebrated their 38th anniversary two weeks ago, I thought it was high time I asked my mom about this whole “hard work” angle. This is what she said: “Not at all! It’s a union of like-minded, harmonious people. It has always felt absolutely right to me. I’m where I’m supposed to be, with a man I love completely! He’s my best friend. It’s not effortless, but it comes naturally to us!”

I do feel like I had an excellent relationship model. My parents are super cute and they like each other a lot and always have. They argue about things sometimes and have the occasional bump, but I’ve never seen them working hard at being married, only delighting in it. Maybe I’m just getting hung up on semantics, but I just have a personal pet peeve about that descriptor and I don’t know that it is the best message to give to people approaching their own marriages. I think about birth, of course: yes, sometimes we give the, “it is hard work, but you can do it and it is SO worth it” message about giving birth and maybe it is the same with the marriage message, but I like to share a, “birth is an awesome, empowering miracle and I hope you love it” opinion and I like to offer other couples the same sentiment about marriage.

And, because I can’t think of anywhere else to put it and yet I want to share, here is a picture of the totally awesome, totally homemade German chocolate cake I made for Mark for his birthday this month. In 14 years of marriage and 18 birthdays with him, I’ve never made him a real one before. I’ve done mixes and canned frosting, but I don’t like coconut. This year I decided to make a homemade one (with add-your-own-coconut-to-the-icing-if-that’s-your-thing) and it was unbelievable. It had 7 eggs in it, weirdly–4 in the icing and 3 in the cake. Who knew?!

Big Girl!

Jul21

This started as a quick, primarily photo update of my now 18 month old little big girl, but has grown to include more thoughts and a lot more length! I’ve been writing it for probably a month, adding bits and pieces of things I want to remember. Probably time to actually post it…

I can’t believe she is big enough to hold on to the chains and swing on the swing like a big girl:

And, speaking of big girls, she has her first pair of big girl shoes. She picked them out herself and it was really hard to get her to stand still enough to actually take a picture of them!
It is also hard to get a picture of her smiling–and not moving–but catching on ride on Daddy’s shoulders worked!

Strolling with big brothers.

At the park

Other things I’ve jotted down to remember:

Seems to say I love you—usually after picking her up, snugs down head on shoulder, pats back, and says in small, sweet, sing-songy tone “I yuh ya!”
Puts own feet into shorts when you hold them up for her–totally cute.
Rides bikes–perches on big bro’s bike while pushed, toes tightly gripping like small monkey.
Rides in stroller to help with watering the vineyard
Screams/squeals to communicate most opinions
Points to eyes and quite a few other body parts accurately–says “eye” clearly.
Loves her na-nas (see pix at end).
Pats your back softly and sweetly when you pick her up–love this
Kisses her dolls’ heads when she picks them up–how does she know to do this?! Love this too.
Loves dolls and looking at baby chicks
Says yeah and shakes head for no–helps a lot with communication (and is a new skill learned in last two months or so–see note below written before this sentence about my being concerned slightly with her verbal development or lack thereof)
We think she has a strawberry allergy, but not positive.
Starting to wear undies. Also, wipes self after going pee and it is ridiculously adorable
Fascinated by comparing undies to others who wear undies. And, seems to say, “undies.”

I posted a quick story on Facebook last month about how she fell backwards off a stool in the living room and smacked the back of her head. She cried and nursed and recovered. Then, at bedtime she did some “play therapy” with two dolls–she held them up and then laid them back like they’d fallen, then scooped them up and held them to her chest to have na-nas (we could tell because she held them face in and made smacking noises with her lips). Sad that she fell, but really sweet that she knew how to take care of her “hurt” babies too!

And, more pictures!

Snuggling with her beloved grandpa Tom.

Engaging in women’s health activism already:

Big enough to ride on a real big kid ride at the fourth of July carnival. I love the way she is looking at Lann here.

Drinking from the hose.

I continue to marvel at her every day, and sniff her wonderful head, and think she’s adorable many times a day, AND she is also still exhausting me. Whew. She was a super easy baby and she is a hard toddler. She makes this one sound for almost everything and it is this plaintive sort of whine/grunt and it gets SO OLD. I feel like I spend much more time than I’d like to whining, stop it at her–not about anything she is physically doing, but about that flipping awful sound. I am sound sensitive and always have been and I feel like this noise of hers actually causes me physical pain. She needs to learn to talk and soon. She is my least verbal baby and it is much harder to have a nonverbal toddler than it was to have verbal ones. Sometimes I wonder if we should feel concerned about her linguistic development–it doesn’t seem to be developing much and in some ways she seems like she is going backwards (as in, I worry that she might say less words now than she did on her birthday. I know that is a warning sign and I have other friends who take their kids to speech therapy and other early intervention programs for things like this). While she was my happiest baby, she is a pretty complaining toddler age person! She is also into everything and a total destructomatic. The boys and I are occasionally known to call her, “The Destroyer of Worlds.” And, I’m known to sing a little rhyme sometimes that goes: “Laina, Laina is causing paina in mama’s braina.” Uh oh! Am I horrible?! Or, just keeping it real? I do try to strike a balance in blogging with transparency/honesty and not being a whiny, “bad mom” who doesn’t cherish her darlings enough!

As long as I’m in a confessional mood about my cherishment failings, I also want to mention that trying to leave the house with my kids is pretty much a hideous nightmare every time. Once we’re gone, it’s good, but the process of leaving feels like torture! It is just insane. And, then I leave all crabby and tight chested and frazzled and feeling like my kids may secretly be trying to kill me or something. I hate it. When we went bowling last week, I said that in a “bad mom” moment—“ugh, it is so awful to try to go anywhere with you guys!!!!” and Zander said sensibly, “but everything is always fine after we leave.” And, I was like, oh, yeah.

And, speaking of bowling, look who bowled like a big girl?! I swear, it actually hurt my heart to see her sturdy little body staggering up there holding that big ball.

And, in moments of sheer maternal awesomeness, I bowled two games myself and did score over 100 each time even though I bowled while babywearing, while nursing and babywearing, and with one hand while holding her on my hip (got a strike that time, actually).

We continue to nurse, a lot. Sometimes, I feel like this about it:

I swear we both make these exact faces. I feel such maternal kinship with mothers of all species.

Very often she nurses like this (she’s always favored being a vertical, upright nurser):

And, often nursing her is like this too:

I am at a birth conference right now and feel surprised that people have been surprised that she needs to be brought to me to nurse. She nurses probably three times a night and at least seven times during the day. Totally okay with me and feels/seems normal.

Another Pinterest Day!

Jul14

Yesterday we had another Pinterest Day. It was so exhausting that I’m going to not do another one for a couple of weeks! Alaina has been incredibly whiny and demanding and getting into everything all the time, often destroying things—so, it is really difficult to do fun stuff with the other kids, when someone else is complaining on my hip and sticking her hand down my shirt to twist my nipples half the time. So, our Pinterest projects of awesomeness were shaded by an overlay of intense crabbiness on my part. Boo! 😦 We expanded the definition to include “stuff we want to make” too. So, for lunch we had the best ever grilled cheese sandwiches that we just created, not from Pinterest. Mine had sautéed organic spinach and mushrooms added to the top of organic mozzarella and provolone all on (totally non-organic) french bread. Yummy, yum, yum!

Also, from our own heads we decided to make caramel apples using super delightful little Kraft caramel bits and organic apples from the food co-op:

Can you tell which one we made last?

After lunch the boys were excited to try these microwave chocolate chip cookies that looked super simple and easy. However, results were poor and I didn’t even both trying to make the pictures look better using Instagram. We made Zander’s first and since it still look squishy after the allotted time, we roasted the heck out of it and it was crunchy and burned on the bottom. The choco chips turned into powdery relics (that were kind of tasty). Lann deemed his a, “mega sugar bomb” and left it abandoned on the table. We didn’t put enough butter in his, I guess, because it was just loose crumbles.

We tried again with mine and it was no better.

My assessment is that this was about as tasty and texturally appealing as leaving a small bowl of egg, flour, and sugar on your dashboard on a hot day. Epic fail all around!

Pinterest Day dinner was vastly more successful: a cheesy, wild rice and spinach casserole and “crispy roast potatoes.” The potatoes called for “duck fat,” which is not one of my personal kitchen staples, so I used olive oil. I also sliced them in the food processor rather than into chunks.

Verdict: totally delicious.

The casserole was a modified version of this recipe. I added spinach and didn’t use chicken (or any of the veggies called for, other than dried, minced onion and garlic). Mark and I enjoyed it, the kids didn’t really.

Nice glass of strawberry wine to help me recover from Pinterest Day adventures with Alaina!

We’ve actually had other Pinterest Days in between the first one and this one. On the fourth of July I made several things, including homemade Payday bars that I was absurdly pleased with:

Definite win with these! Next time I’ll just stir the peanuts in though rather than layering them on the bottom on the top, where they had a tendency to pop out and roll away.