We got new family pictures taken yesterday in the woods behind our house. While I love words very much–very, very much–sometimes there’s nothing like a picture to say what you really feel… 🙂
“For months I just looked at you
I wondered about all the mothers before me
if they looked at their babies the way I looked at you.
In an instant I knew what moved humankind
from continent to continent
Against all odds.”
–Michelle Singer (in We’Moon 2011 datebook)
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:
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.
Since I’m lucky enough to have an ongoing collection of great photos taken by my friend Karen, I was very excited to be contacted by the website EasyCanvasPrints about hosting a review and giveaway. At EasyCanvasPrints.com, you can upload personal photos and have them printed on any size canvas. The main “problem” was choosing which photo to send! After some debate, I decided to go with one of my favorite pictures of Alaina from our most recent photo session in April.
Here was the photo I submitted for my canvas:
I absolutely love this picture! The cheeks, the eyelashes, the puffy hair, the powerful shoulders…
It is really hard to take a good picture of a picture (especially if you are a non-photographer), but suffice to say that when the canvas actually arrived and I got it out of the box I almost cried it was so beautiful (you’ll just have to trust me, since, as I mentioned, hard to get a picture of a picture):
(I also have a lovely new dress that I bought from my dye-queen friend just this afternoon!)
Closer up picture. The quality of the canvas is very nice and the printing on it is beautiful—very clear and with a slight glossiness that looks like paint almost when you turn it.
I decided to hang it on the wall near my belly cast and think it is funny that it looks like she’s looking up at it—“hey, remember when?!”
****This giveaway is now closed. Sarah Z was the winner!*****
Luckily for you, you now have a chance to enter to win a lovely photo canvas yourself! The giveaway is for an 11×14 custom canvas photo (includes free shipping as well). This giveaway is open to U.S. mailing addresses only (excluding Hawaii and Alaska due to shipping costs).
To enter do any or all of the following (you will get one entry for each item!):
I will close the giveaway next Friday (6/15/12)
—
Disclosure: I received a complimentary canvas photo for review purposes.
A couple of months ago, I attempted to branch out from my usual style of polymer clay goddess figures (see past birth art posts). I’m not particularly satisfied with any of them, but I had this post saved in my drafts to share pictures of them anyway! I have some new translucent sculpey that I’ve been working with without very satisfactory results. It is stickier and meltier than regular sculpey, which makes it a challenge to work with. The figures don’t hold their shapes/poses as well while baking and the clay also folds into itself and sticks very firmly and it is hard to reposition/refigure things after having let it stick accidentally before you’re ready). Anyway, I tried to make this sort of “siren” (double-tailed mermaid) figure first and she’s all right:
I also tried a figure using only the translucent sculpey. She turned out looking like she should glow in the dark!
I also had a vision of making a sculpture with a small “offering bowl” in which you could place a crystal or something else. She kind of sagged over to one side in the oven though. She is my first figure with a face too!
So, I tried again. This one sits on her own (leaning back very far), but I burned her by mistake!
So, I tried one more time. This one I used gold pigment on and I don’t really like how she turned out either. Back to the drawing (sculpting) board, I guess. After this third attempt I kind of gave up on my vision and haven’t tried to make any more in this style again.
At the same time that I was experimenting with these figures, I also experimented with using a rubber stamp and pigment to make a flat disk of sculpey with the embossed sort of impression of my Goddess of Willendorf stamp on it. I then used that disk when I took a class in making a stained glass panel:
My panel is on the left and Mark’s is on the right:
Then, this past weekend I became ordained as a priestess (more about this later) and after that ceremony I decided to make another figure to add to my series. I’ve never made a standing figure before and she needs some work. I’m lukewarm about her–she didn’t turn out the way I’d envisioned and I need to experiment some more before I really add her to my series of 3-D journaling sculptures.
During my aunt’s visit from California two weeks ago, we had a last-minute photo shoot for some Mother’s Day pictures (it wasn’t last minute for my aunt who planned in advance to hire the fabulous Karenfor a photo session, but the addition of me and my crew was last-minute). I’m currently at the end of the another school session with the accompanying 50 papers and finals to grade, so I haven’t had many opportunities to write posts in the last two weeks. I have ideas piling up like crazy though! For now, some of the pictures and thoughts from our recent photo shoot:
I absolutely love this picture! The cheeks, the eyelashes, the puffy hair, the powerful shoulders…
After getting these pictures taken I came across two items on Facebook that made me think about why I want pictures and why I write blog posts. The first was this: A daughter grows from 0 to 12 — in 2 minutes and 45 seconds. The dad videotaped his daughter every week from birth to age 12 and then put a little snippet of footage from each week together into a fast-moving montage of her life. It was a cool project and also so poignant. As I watched it, I thought about my own fast-growing kids and also about a moment I had last month when I was watching Alaina walking away from me on the porch—suddenly I felt fast-forwarded and like I was watching her adult self walk away, like my future self was seeing her and looking back at the porch moment thinking, but she was JUST MY BABY!
So, along those lines, I also enjoyed reading a thoughtful blog post by Stephanie Soderblom about her son’s seventeenth birthday:
When ‘they’ kept saying, “it goes by too fast!”….what ‘they’ mean is that memories don’t fade. My childhood is foggy, a distant memory of playing outside and brief snapshot memories of friends or school. But raising our children – that memory doesn’t get foggy. I remember this almost-17 year-old man’s first week as clearly as I remember this past Christmas. I remember the clothes I dressed him in….I remember the chair I would sit in and rock him. I remember the smell of his silky hair, the feeling of him cuddled up in a little ball between my breasts as I rubbed his back. I remember rejoicing in the tiniest of accomplishments – learning to coo, smiling, rolling to his side – as well as the big ones.
I also remember the insecurity that came with being his mother…
from Left to cry….alone
I really connected to the mention of the children’s memories fading or becoming indistinct, but the parents memories feeling like “just yesterday.” This makes a lot of sense to me and feels true from my own childhood and now with my own kids—being a mother to small people is so sharp and so defining and so all-encompassing that it seems impossible that this phase of life will end. There is an element of initiation to it, of almost a spiritual journey, a defining, core life experience, that I wonder how it will feel to have only teenage children and then young adult children. Will I still identify closely with mothers of toddlers, or will I “move on” and just remember “what it was like” from afar. Since my oldest is only 8, I have a ways to go before I figure that out, but my experiences as a breastfeeding support group leader is that the memory of caring for a small nursling is as sharp and potent as ever (of course, right now it is, since I’ve still got a nursling of my own, but I’m talking about the time during which I was a leader and had no active nurslings).
And, speaking of memories and how childhood memories can be blurry or indistinct or amorphous, I was a little depressed by this observation in a current article in Parents magazine:
For years, I’ve been asking audiences of parents a deceptively simple question: “What was the sweetest moment of your childhood?” I wait so they can come up with a memory, and then I say, “Please raise your hand if your parents were present when that sweetest memory took place.” I have done this with thousands of people and the result never varies much: Around 20 percent say their parents were part of their sweetest memory and 80 percent say their parents weren’t. When audience members turn in their chairs to see the result, they laugh self-consciously. As parents, we hope that we’re laying a foundation of happy memories for our children. When we’re confronted with the fact that our own best memories of childhood took place away from our parents, we’re a bit confused. That’s a slap in the face to dedicated moms and dads. Or is it?…
Bummer! All of this time, energy, and constant life investment isn’t producing any sweetest memories for my kids, only for me?! :::sob::: My own dominant memories of my childhood are actually mostly about my sister. Watching my boys play and appreciating their tightly interwoven lives, I predict they will have the same experience in adulthood. I also have more specific, event-based memories of my dad than I do of my mom and I think that was because he was gone at work during the day—my mom was everpresent and thus it is harder to pick specific memories for her. I think that is one of the good things though—since she was always there, I could rest in that security of presence and affection, rather only focusing on “special occasions” or special days/moments. She was (is) my life’s constant.
(Side note: I’ve found that as my kids grow, I find more to enjoy in Parents magazine. It isn’t a helpful resource for pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, infancy, or medical care, but many of the articles about older kids have nuggets of interest for me to glean.)
You’ll miss this?
These musings also reminded me of my post from last year: You’ll miss this. I think the intent of my post has been mispercieved by some readers as thinking I’m saying not to savor or appreciate time with my little kids or that I’m somehow thinking that I won’t “miss this”—I most definitely will miss many things, I already miss them with a sharp pang of nostalgia as I in the moment see them passing by, which raises a whole other issue because I want to make sure I’m parenting the child right in front of me, rather than the memory of their baby self or the vision of their future adulthood. I also stand by my personal assessment that it would hurt my feelings quite a lot to know my mom was spending tons of time thinking wistfully about me as a baby when I’m right here now! Why would I expect to spend the second half of my parenting journey any differently? The current people who my kids are and will hopefully continue to be are so rich and vibrant, that there isn’t much space for “missing this”—they’re right here and I like who they are right now. (I also note that perhaps not everyone picks up on the shaming undercurrent that I perceive—particularly online—in the “you’ll miss this” comment and how it is used by other mothers against each other and against themselves.)
What I know is that there has not been a single day of Alaina’s life that I haven’t savored and appreciated her. Almost every day I experience a moment in which I feel like my heart is breaking open at the sight of her and how she is growing and just how magical and she is. My boys are so very much integrated into my life—I can’t imagine life without them and so my pangs about them are a little less sharp. They also aren’t babies and so the changes they experience aren’t so obvious and striking, they’re more subtle. Lann is getting taller and taller and I can see into the not-too-distant future that he is going to be taller than me. He has grown two inches since last year. My husband was six feet tall by the end of middle school. Lann is going to be nine in September, so doesn’t that mean that I may only have three more years with him as a boy instead of an almost-man?! Ack! Zander continues to surprise me with how bold and confident he is. In my own family, the older sister (me) was the “leader” and the one who was more confident. In our family, while Lann does boss Zander around quite a bit, Zander is the “brave one”—the one who will go talk to people, or turn on the lights in the dark room, or ask questions, or step up and speak up. They are tightly connected and their senses of self are obviously entwined with each other. This is my brother. It is one the deepest and most profound bonds they will ever experience. I feel both lucky that they have this connection, that the genetic dice rolled so compatibly, and also mildly smug, because I think one of the reasons this relationship is possible is because we homeschool. If they were going to separate classrooms all day, I can’t imagine that they’d be quite as close—their “spheres” would be different and Zander would probably be treated like the pesky little brother and Lann would be the bossy big brother, instead of the rock-solid team of best friends that they are.
Step out onto the Planet
Draw a circle a hundred feet round
Inside the circle are
300 things nobody understands, and, maybe
nobody’s ever really seen.
How many can you find?
–Lew Welch
I’ve almost finished reading the book Earth Prayers and the above is one of my favorites from the book. It was actually the first one I randomly opened to when I first got the book last year and then it jumped out at me again this week (when I finally got to it in sequential order).
I’ve had some exhausting days with Alaina lately. She’s getting four molars and is super whiny as well as just generally a “baby on wheels,” constantly wanting to move and grab and get and explore. I feel worn out—body, brain, and spirit. However, earlier this week, I went outside with her to play in the rain and I think I found some of those 300 things:
Noah's tree bloomed again!
Alaina specifically picked a spot on the deck where the rain was dripping through the gutter and stood under the drips experimenting with the feeling of getting dripped on.
Look at those great arm segments, as well as the little hands thinking about catching raindrops.
This is one of her faces that I most love--she does this fabulous little head-cocked-to-one-side-question-look that is ADORABLE!
Baby on wheels running in the rain! See that face? Those little feet?
Literally a baby on wheels now. I love watching her climb onto her little bike. It is a lot of work for short legs, but she does it.
Another one of her best faces--little squinchy, "eee" face!
A better look at that cute little squinched up "being bratty" face!
Hey! Mama has a face too!
Check out the baby curls. And, check out the "challenge" stand and also Z's defensive face...she is fond of wrecking just about everything they do lately.
Mama collapsed in toddler induced exhaustion on the floor. Then, I got jumped on. Her expression is that grating, "eeehhhh" sound that she is making that drills through my skull.
There are women who make things better…
simply by showing up.
There are women who make things happen.
There are women who make their way.
There are women who make a difference.
And women who make us smile.
There are women of wit and wisdom who –
through strength and courage –
make it through.
There are women who change the world everyday…
Women like you.
Then, today, after feeling again like I was being drained in body, mind, and spirit and feeling frustrated, annoyed, and headachy (I swear the tone of voice she uses drills straight into my brain and saps my life force!), I went outside and took a 300 things walk with her. It was wonderful.
My favorite dogwood tree bloomed. I love how this one is shaped like a tree that should be in front of a Japanese temple.
After admiring this tree, I lamented how we don’t have any pretty redbud trees in our woods. Then, my 300 things eyes snapped like a magnet into the woods beyond this dogwood and lo and behold there WAS a redbud there. We walked down to it and I took a close up picture of one branch:
The profile! Look at the glee of being outside.
Earlier in the week I also mentioned how I didn’t have any violets and should dig some up to transplant from my mom’s house. Well, look what happens when you go on a 300 things walk? It turns out there are plenty of violets right next to our front porch.
This is one of my favorite pictures that I took on our walk.
Friendly hound. Earlier was licking butter off my skirt (Alaina is fond of eating straight butter)
Clouds!
Approaching priestess rocks in wood--I love this overlook.
Looking like most precious ragamuffin ever to be found standing on the rocks in the woods!
Love that I accidentally caught both the reaching, straining arm and the pointing, desirous finger!
Looking a little stormy. Have I mentioned how I love these woods?
I sat on the rocks and noticed a blue jay flying in the woods. I thought about how many things live their lives in these woods without anyone even noticing. I thought about how there was only one redbud on the whole hillside. Then, looked to my right and suddenly there was another redbud I had overlooked before. And, another blue jay flew above it…
How many can you find?
I made sweeping promises about all of the fabulous posts I was going to write over my break and apparently I only had ONE in me. I find a good blog post really takes a minimum of three hours to write and that is after having the idea, taking notes, collecting links, etc. Someday I envision cleaning out my intense drafts folder, but that day has not yet come. So, for now, I want to share a picture of the delightful Goddess of Willendorf my talented mother crocheted for me for Christmas this year:
Isn’t she a beaut? Who is the real Yarn Goddess here? My mom! I am also enjoying some lovely new handknit socks in solid black at my request (so that I can wear them to teach in).
Speaking of teaching, the new session is about to begin! One of my classes got cancelled, which is really a great thing, because I only have one separation per week from Alaina now. I was really nervous about how all of us were going to manage two and I’m glad I don’t have to find out. I did get a second section of my online class, which I have been hoping for for about a year. So, I’m super excited about that! Let’s hope it scrapes up enough students at the last minute to actually run.
Also, went back via my BlogBooker (which I think I’m going to re-do shortly and make available for download for any die-hard “fans” out there), and want to share my post from this exact date last year. Seems so recent in many ways, but also like an eternity in others! I just said to Alaina today, “remember I used to be pregnant?!”
This is my first post constructed entirely on my new iPad–photo and all. 🙂
So many blog topics and ideas and yet so many papers to grade! (Expect a flurry of extremely awesome posts from me during my break that starts Sunday.)
Just a picture post then to show my two most recent experiments in polymer clay birth goddess pendant making.
This little one is my tiniest effort. She doesn’t have a belly stone, just the jewel in her hands:
The larger one is my favorite so far. She has a moonstone belly and is holding a heart shaped crystal.
Tried to get a picture of me wearing them, but it didn’t really turn out (and, my, what an attractive shirt I wearing in which to model them. Love the flattering neckline with the pendants).
I really love making these sculptures and have plans for more on that aforementioned break as well!
Today marks ten months of baby girlness in our home! I’m so glad she’s here! Quickie update in developments this month: she has seven teeth now! She cruises around furniture with impunity. She pinches your arms and then scream-squeals to demonstrate her empathy for your pain. She ate a gemstone, but it was recovered when we washed diapers. We successfully traveled to Chicago and back. She pinches and scratches while nursing and is a wild, twisting nurser. Naps have been bad lately, which can lead to commensurate maternal despair. She still sleeps on my arm all night long. She still smells like apricots. Has the bestest baby yogurt breath. She has the best eyes and eyelashes ever. While still even-tempered and brave when faced with new things, she has now thrown a big-time fit over dum-dum deprivation (also, has located and consumed entire blue dum-dum from the boys Halloween haul). Eats lots of things (some edible, some not) and likes broccoli the best. Is on a potty strike and stiffens back to make pottying impossible. Has been standing alone for brief moments. Has started going to visit like a big a girl with Baba and Tom (my parents) when the boys go over in the afternoon.
I still look at her with surprise and amazement multiple times a week—how did we get you? Are you really here? Oh my goodness, MY BABY! Feeling a weird sense of clock ticking as she approaches one year—is this really the last two months that I will ever spend with a baby of my own in my house? I’m trying to remember that…only two months of baby left…every single day so that I appreciate and marvel and cherish her every, single day. (Which, of course, all babies deserve, but which can be hard to remember—non-napping “schedule” also makes me “fail” in this arena some days as well.) I’m becoming more certain that she really is our last baby, though I still think maybe quite a lot. She needs a lot of me lately—lots of in arms, in baby carrier time. I’m sure in another *blink* she will be walking and won’t need me like that. I’m her favorite place right now still though. She says da da and mama and hi and bye. I’m only teaching one in-seat class this session and it is a lot easier on us all. I have signed on for three in January again though—it is three sections of the same class, so that is bound to be easier than the early fall session was, right?! I’m still plugging away on my own classes too—I’m taking six classes, but they are mercifully all self-paced (I’m over halfway done with several of them). I love them all—really amazing content. I love “stretching” my brain with them and thinking and pondering over and writing about complex ideas and issues.
We also had a family photo shoot this week:
I took Alaina for a 9 month photo shoot with my friend Karen (of Portraits and Paws Photography) who also took my pregnancy photos. I really have fun getting high quality pictures that capture what our lives are like. She is able to catch expression, details, and feeling in a way that I can’t usually do with snapshots. So, even though we were thoroughly exhausted from having just returned from my sister-in-law’s wedding near Chicago), I’m really glad we did another photo shoot!
Here are a couple of my favorites from the day, including one of each of my boys (lest you think I only get pictures taken of the baby!):
This one might be my favorite--I see this little face all the time, but have never really preserved it in a picture (she always looks away, it is blurry, whatever).
Became very obsessed with this candy cane
What a cutie! (note, still has some candy cane)
My biggest boy!
My little Z! (He's got some pretty amazing eyelashes/eyes too!)
We're going to try to get some better family shots another day. This was at the end of the shoot and all were tired. I like it anyway though. I also think it somehow looks like a lot of kids and only one mom!
I thought this one was a cute one of me--A looks done with pictures though (and, still has some candy cane)
Talk Birth 