Window to Whimsy

Thirty-five (and Ten)

2012-02-02T10:39:00.007-05:00

(picture by Jason, taken in front of the Coliseum
during a 10-year-anniversary trip to Rome)

We have been teaching Audrey to count: by ones, by fives, by tens. We count by fingers, by seashells, by stacks of pennies, by chocolate chips. Our methods teach the concrete - items absolute. What we haven't taught Audrey about numbers is that the those little devils are tricky, sliding right through your fingers if you don't keep a tight grip and careful count.

Jason made up a hand-clap game as an easy way to give Audrey practice counting by fives and tens. He calls out a number. She has to give him enough "high tens" and high fives to add up to the number. Last week, he turned three high tens and a high five. I still remember him two high tens and a couple of fingers ago, when Madonna was queen and Hammer pants were king (Although, I don't remember ever seeing Jason in a pair. As for myself, I'm pleading The Fifth). Back then, the numbers came in pre-assembled equations with some of the variables missing. We were expected to fill in the blanks. But, we were just learning the answers.

Math class does not teach you how a boy can appear one day and magically begin multiplying his way into your life. None of the geometry theorems I puzzled through warned that someone could happen across me at ten, introduce himself at eleven, and make it his business to study my face, my moods, and the way I take my turkey sandwich. And, while math wasn't the most adept subject at holding my attention, I'm pretty sure that none of the postulates I studied warned that this sort of multiplication could extend beyond my life and right into the faces and tendencies of my children (in one's irises, and one's smile, and one's dogged persistence). But, regardless of what the textbooks tell you, this math exists. Granted, it doesn't always follow the rules. Somehow, over the span of 24 years, you might just find that one plus one has found a way to equal five. And that boy, the one who used to smuggle packs of gum into middle school, selling the individual pieces for twenty-five cents a piece in an attempt to earn enough extra cash by lunchtime for an extra Little Debbie? As of last count, he adds up to a whole lot of high fives.

So, how did the birthday boy celebrate his latest hand jive?

With a few of these:

An afternoon of this:

And a really big one of these:

That adds up to one sweet day, no matter how you count it.

Not to be Left Out

2012-01-25T15:39:00.013-05:00

I know that "less is more," but I completely ignored that philosophical nugget when I uploaded the pictures for this post. You're about to be bombarded. Forgive me. (Don't say I didn't warn you).

It's hard to be five. It's rough to sit around and watch your parents play with heavy machinery while they hand you a book, most likely with the pictures already drawn for you inside, and a box of crayons.

It's tough. Your mother is busy pounding away on something that looks like it has an accelerator and you've got a box of colored wax. Life. What are you gonna do?

Beg. Plead, if you have to. Take a knee (or two). Repeat yourself, over and over and over and over and over and over again. Please, please, please. Can I? Repeat.

Hop into her chair as soon as she gets up to grab some new fabric or the scissors she doesn't remember that she's left on the ironing board (again). Show some initiative.

Remind her, you are five. In some cultures, girls are practically married by the time they're five. Remind her that last week, when you told her it was your wedding day and asked if you could marry Daddy, your brother, your cousin, or your uncle, she said no until you finally settled on the neighbor boy, and then she said okay, but not yet, right now it's illegal. Tell her, you never let me do anything I want to do.

Shed a few (buckets of) tears, preferably over something of which water could ruin the finish. Time these tears to coincide with those of your baby brother.

Promise her. That you won't run over your fingers with the needle. That you will pay attention. That you won't drop pins on the floor. That you will only cut the fabric with the scissors. That you will clean your room. And your brothers'. That you will wait until you are six to marry the neighbor boy.

Smile at her. Remind her of the girl she used to be (the one who took apart her own mother's sewing machine in an attempt to figure out how the bobbin worked, unbeknownst to her mother). Smile, because now you've got her.

Audrey's first sewing project: a set of finger puppets. I showed her how a finger puppet was constructed by helping her make the little red-headed man. Then she sketched pictures of the other puppets she wanted to create - a butterfly, and (of course) a jellyfish. She gave them to Nathan for his second birthday.

The Holiday Handmades: Part 1

2012-01-22T16:48:00.006-05:00

I was a bit lackadaisical in my blog posting last year (shh...we're not going to talk about this year's efforts yet). I'm blaming this:

That's right. I'm blaming the graham crackers. (Go ahead, take a second look. I won't tell.) I have higher hopes for my efforts this year: that those graham crackers will stay in their pantry and sleep through the night, and get on a daily organized schedule that includes the slightest snippet of time (unbeknownst to busy graham crackers) for mama to sneak in some tiny tidbits of writing. But, before I go gangbusters on the writing of the new year, I feel the need to digress and catch up on some meant-to-write posts of the happenings last year - starting with the holiday handmades. I like to tuck a little something mama-made under the tree each year. This year, I found my I-must-make-for-the-children gift on the cover of Joelle Hoverson's More Last-Minute Knitted Gifts. It's her pointy elf hat. The moment I saw it, I knew we had to have a set. After all, what everyone really wants from Santa is their very own life-sized yard gnomes:

I made five, one for each child and nephew. We attempted a photo shoot at our holiday gathering with four toddlers/preschoolers sitting in a tree and one babe at the base of the trunk. Yes, it went just as you imagined it. Gotta love talking, walking, hanging, swinging, laughing yard art.

The hats are made from Lion Brand Wool Ease Thick & Quick Yarn (I forget the color).

The Holiday Handmades: Part 2

2012-01-22T16:39:00.009-05:00

This year, I received an early Christmas present. It came in the form of a phone call from my little sister saying, do you know what you're getting Mom and Dad for Christmas, because I have an idea. Her idea was simple, sentimental, and perfect for all the grandparents on our Christmas list. It was practically wrapped in a shiny red bow. I performed a happy dance (well, in my head I performed a happy dance, being too exhausted or busy pulling jumping children off of couches or both to physically muster said happy dance). Then, I crossed "fretting" off my to-do list and replaced it with "make garden pavers". Then I did nothing, for weeks, until Jason finished up his traveling for the year and took a two-week vacation, at which time I began frantically searching the internet for DIY garden paver tutorials. I found this. I prayed it would be as simple and straightforward as the directions made it look, because our margin for error was narrow. I could count the days until Christmas on one hand. I tell you, the man's a genius. Here's the process, in a very condensed nutshell:

First, we put poster paint on each child's right hand and made a print on the back of a cardboard cereal box. This is brilliant - 1) it takes the stress out of worrying if the child is going to scrunch his fingers into a ball in the concrete rather than make a flat handprint, and 2) you can do this with multiple children in rounds (we did Audrey's while the boys slept, then each boy on his own after he woke up) and then get your concrete mixed and poured all at once (after the children are in bed!!).

Second, you line the bottom of a cake pan (we had a few slightly rusty ones, just waiting for such a project, on hand and then bought a few more for a couple bucks) with a piece of paper. Ours is taped down with double-sided tape. On top, tape or glue down the handprint (that you've cut out of the cardboard) and any names or dates you want to include, assembled in a backward-fashion so that it appears the right direction when viewed in a mirror. Brush the whole shebang liberally with vegetable oil.

Next, mix and pour your concrete into the cake pans. Let them set at least overnight (possibly two days if you don't procrastinate and wait until the last possible second to attempt DIY projects for your relatives at Christmastime). Take the hardened pavers out of the pans. Peel any cardboard pieces from the concrete that might have stuck during the drying process (note: ours had most of the cardboard pieces still in the pavers when we took them out, but they were easy to remove). High five your spouse with exuberant disbelief at how well they turned out.

Finally, paint them with an outdoor patio paint and (after that dries) seal them with a coat or two of poly urethane. Marvel at your children's odd handprints. Stack the pavers up with a circle of felt in between each, wrap a pretty bow around them, and lug them to your family's Christmas celebration. Promise that you'll make a set of your own when it's warmer outside and you've had more sleep and you've figured out what you're doing with your backyard. High five your spouse some more, just because it feels good.

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 119

2012-01-17T16:33:00.003-05:00

photo from recent visit to the Indianapolis Art Museum

Friday, before going to bed, Audrey asked that I keep the doors unlocked - just in case Peter Pan stopped by. She had tucked Peter Pan into her library tote during our last visit, and she and Jason spent several toasty nights curled into a nest of pillows and blankets by the fire reading the chapters before he left for a week in Brazil, requesting that we not finish the book while he was gone.

By Friday, Audrey was sure Peter would make a house call. I fielded questions regarding Lost Boys and the degree to which they were lost and the nature of jealousy in women, particularly mermaids and fairies. I couldn't help but feel stung by irony as my little ones begged for more chapters (against their father's will) about children clinging double-fisted to their youth as mine proved daily how hell-bent they are to grow-up (dragging me, clutching their suddenly-too-short pant legs, in their wake). Irony is ageless. My little ones, however, are leaving Neverland behind.

Our stories from the week past:

Nate is growing his vocabulary. His latest additions include "Love, love, love" and "moose" - so far, not used together. But regardless of any verbal limitations, he seems to get his point across just fine. Early this week I was awaken by the little man standing by my bedside. He was playing his castanet. I opened my eyes. He handed me my cell phone (my version of a watch) and my glasses. Point made.

Tuesday night, I set the security alarm. Wednesday morning, Audrey beat me downstairs. The alarm was bleating a siren's yell before I hit the bottom step.

"Who was trying to go outside?" I asked after disarming the alarm.

"I wasn't trying to go outside," Audrey said. "I was just letting a bug out. I didn't kill it. It was just a baby bug and I was wanting it to have a little of a life."

Thursday, I came downstairs from putting Nate down for a nap to find Audrey playing dead.

"When you came down, I was pretending I was dead," she said.

"That's not very nice," I said.

"Why?"

"Because if you were dead, I wouldn't be able to play with you or hug you again."

"You could still hug me," she said. "I just wouldn't hug you back."

Friday morning, Audrey (once again) put her boots on the wrong feet.

"Your boots are on the wrong feet," I said.

"I always put them on the wrong feet," she said, sighing audibly.

"And someday, you'll always put them on the right feet."

"And then I'll get tired of that?" she asked.

Jack, for his part, tries to sneak out the baby gate; if successful, tries to sneak up the stairs; tries to sneak his brother's sippy cup and the crumbs that drop from the table; and is sneaking closer to being a boy and less of a baby every day. It's troublesome. It leaves me itching for some pixie dust - and a visit from Peter Pan.

For Posterity's Sake: Week (Humor Me) in Review 118

2012-01-03T15:42:00.004-05:00

Well, crap. Audrey said something funny last night, but dinner was being brought to the table and I forgot to write it down. I remember Jason and I laughing and exchanging glances in a we-must-control-ourselves sort of way, which leads me to believe she attempted to say something quite grown-up, quite wrong. Now, the moment has passed me by.

I have begun this post several times, but in an attempt to not let Christmas, or Jason's vacation, pass me by, I've yet to get it all down. Now, back to an ordinary Tuesday, I feel a heft upon me that I imagine the local librarians must feel after returning from Christmas break to find the return chute jammed and the book carts teeming. The awaiting material is immense and Dewey hasn't laid my groundwork. So let's get down to the stacks, so we can move on at a more reasonable clip, shall we? The post, how it began the first time:

This summer, Jason grew red chili peppers. He mentioned drying them. After noting how they were strung from the doorways of shops in Rome, I came home, threaded a needle through the stems of our crop, and dangled the spicy necklace from a hook I attached to the window frame above the kitchen sink. Audrey told me it was cool.

Yesterday, she nearly smacked into me, breathless. "Mom, the peppers are ruined! You let them get ruined."

"Is that what Dad said?" I asked.

"No," she said. "You know how my sheets get wrinkled and I have to fix them and make my bed?" I nodded, confused. "The peppers are like my sheets. They're wrinkled. They aren't good anymore. You let them get wrinkled."

I should have told her the peppers were okay. I meant to. I might have. I don't remember. What I do remember are images of one of the strangest metaphors I've ever heard turning themselves over in my mind: shriveled red chili peppers and a little girl's wrinkled lavender sheets.

I remembered those two non-like things clumped together later as I dashed off to run errands. The last of the Thanksgiving dishes were finally washed and stowed, the holiday (and Jason's vacation days) were coming to a close, and I couldn't help but think ahead. If a to-do list could make a person itch, mine was crawling with bugs. Jason said he'd take the older kids to the neighborhood playground if I took Jack with me to run errands. I agreed. I packaged a gift for delivery, wrote a card, slipped a hat and blanket on a sleeping Jack, and restocked the diaper bag. By the time I pulled out of the driveway, Jason was waving to me from the backyard, just back from the playground. My cell rang five minutes later. "You forgot something important," he said. I checked my loaded passenger seat: package to be mailed, gift to be dropped off at a friend's, bags for grocery shopping, coupons.

"What did I forget?" I asked.

"Jack. He's in his car seat on the floor."

Sometimes, the holidays are like that: a juxtaposition of objects that don't go together - time meant for family and a to-do list that leaves them behind, even when I don't intend to.

I pulled into my subdivision two-and-a-half hours later, greeted by the newly strung Christmas lights of my neighbors. My first thought was that hanging lights might not get crossed off the list this year. But as I watched the lights play across their new landscape, I thought of the first lights: torches and lanterns used to guide one's steps, allowing a person to see clearly only what was before him. The narrow scope of those first lights would have forced the bearer to focus only on those objects directly in front of him - a fact I couldn't help but recall as I lit the candle that sits in the middle of our kitchen table and sat down with my family for dinner, focusing on those illuminated before me.

Our moments from the last two months:

Every child-rearing adult has their own method for convincing the kids around their dinner table to finish the food on their plates. My mother liked to employ the "eat three more bites" technique. At my neighbor's house, we strove to be members of the "clean plate club." Jason uses a tactic I call storytelling. One night, he tried to convince Audrey to eat her corn by informing her that if she ate it, she would see it again the next morning. She cleaned her plate. The next morning she walked out of the bathroom clearly disappointed by her lack of performance. "I wanted to see that corn!" she said.

Last week, she was asking Jason questions about Aladdin at dinner. "Why did he have to steal to eat?" she asked.

"Sometimes, kids don't eat all their pizza and talk through dinner, instead, so their parents kick them out on the street and they have to find their own food," he said.

"Oh. That's weird," she said. "So, how did he live without his parents?"

"He was raised by the monkey."

"Why did the genius (genie) make the tower fall down?" she asked.

"He was a mad genius," Jason said.

As always, when it comes to stories (or thoughts) on her mother, Audrey always has her own take:

One afternoon as Jason was watching college football, I was feeding Jack on the couch. A commercial for Xbox Yourself Fitness came on. "Isn't that what you used to do in Herrin?" he asked.

"I think so. I'm not gonna lie; it was a good workout," I said.

"I know. You did it all the time," he said.

"She lied all the time?" Audrey asked.

"Mom, you're clever," Audrey said randomly, sitting at the kitchen table. "What does that even mean? All I can think it means is smart."

One Saturday, Jason noticed some dirt stuck in the grooves of the sliding door. "We're disgusting," he said.

"Disgusting isn't a nice word," Audrey said.

"It's not nice to call someone else. It's okay if you say it about yourself."

"She is not yourself!"

The first time we took Audrey to the beach, I was stung by a jellyfish. While some stories bounce off the ears like rubber balls to cement, to Audrey, the jellyfish story bears frequent repeating. And question and answer sessions. She asked for one more rendition in November. I will spare you most of the stinging details and tell you this: we had been warned. The purple flag was hoisted above the sand. Friends had told us that the jellyfish were plentiful. They didn't tell us the waves had fingers. Jason had just run back to shore to take a turn watching Audrey so I could get into the water. I planned to stick to the shallow water when a sneaky wisp of a wave untied the top of my suit. I slid a little deeper into the waves, collecting the bikini strings in my hands. I had just finished knotting the back when I felt a searing hug from behind.

Per her request, we told Audrey the story again. As always, she asked more questions. I explained that I had gone too deep into the ocean while the purple flag was out. Jason explained that I had needed privacy to fix my swimsuit. Somewhere, Audrey got muddled. "What?" she asked, "her private joy?"

She also has thoughts about her father:

Audrey came into the kitchen one afternoon with her father's button-down shirt hanging loosely from her small frame. She grabbed his capped Mountain Dew and pretended to take a swig. "Look, Mom; I'm Daddy."

On Nathan's birthday, Audrey asked, "Is great-grandpa a dad?"

Jason explained before asking, "Do you think I'll be a cool Papaw?"

"No, not cool, but smart and a Papaw that knows stuff."

Jason made a trip to London in November. We picked him up from the airport.

"I'm so happy to be home," he said.

"Well, you're not home yet. You're at the airport," she said.

Other people and things, she's still trying to figure out:

"So Mom, I know Beth is my fairy Godmother, but what's the other name for Boo?"

"You have such pretty hair, you know it?" Grammy said while visiting one afternoon.

"Yeah."

"You're supposed to say 'thank you,'" Grammy said.

"Oh. I still have a lot to learn," said Audrey.

One afternoon, Audrey brought her Bible to me. "I want the one with the three Americans, but I can't find it," she said.

"Honey, I don't think I'm going to be able to find it, either," I said. After a thorough questioning as to the plot of the story, I realized she wanted to hear the parable of The Good Samaritan.

Christmas, of course, brings its own opportunities for joy:

My parents gave each child a copy of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" with a sound recording of them telling the story. At the end, my mom says "Goodnight (name of child), Mamaw and Papaw love you."

Audrey listened to her book. At her grandmother's closing remarks, she responded, "Goodnight. Thank you." She listened to the story two more times. Each time, as the recording came to a close, she replied, "Goodnight. Thank you." After the third time, she looked at me. "Why aren't they talking back to me?"

Nathan also listened to his book repeatedly. At the end of each reading, he would cry upon hearing his grandmother tell him goodnight. He seemed to think his grandparents were stuck in the book, and for those first few days, no amount of talking to Mamaw on the telephone would convince him otherwise.

This year, Audrey participated in the Children's Sunday School Christmas Program. Nathan, too young to attend Sunday school, did not. Audrey played a shepherd. "Nate should be in the Christmas program," she told me.

"He's too young," I said.

"He could be a sheep," she said. "They just crawl around and stuff."

Audrey's part in the program required that she pass out props to the other shepherds. The props included a wooden spoon, dish cloth, Frisbee, and lampshade. One afternoon, we were going over her part. "What do you give each kid?" I asked.

"My friend Nolan gets a wooden spoon. My friend Anna gets a dish towel and Frisbee, and my friend Christopher gets a broken lamp."

The program's dress rehearsal was on a Saturday. Jason had returned from Paris the day before. In a rockstar dad move, he had let me sleep in while he got Audrey ready. I came downstairs to drive her to rehearsal. She was ready and waiting. "Mom, you're like Ariel when the shell opens and she's not there and she's always late, and I'm like the big sister - the one that says 'Ariel's in love.'"

The kids received an art easel from Santa and stockings filled with art supplies. Bright and early on the 26th, Audrey asked, "Mom, can I do anything on the weasel?"

These days, the boys can hold their own in the entertainment arena:

Nathan has decided to talk, after all. Sentences. Short and crisp. They began when he handed me a memory card featuring a beach ball. "It's a beach ball," I said.

"It's a beach ball," he said.

I screamed. I cheered. Clapping was involved. Nathan began randomly shouting out "beach ball" for days just to see what his crazy mother might do.

Now, his most common phrase is "Hi, Mama," most often said as we descend the stairs in the morning or pass in the hallway. I still can't get over the sound, small and clear and bigger than he knows.

A few of his more memorable phrases:

Audrey: Nate, say Audrey before you leave.
Nate: No, Ah-Dee.

One morning, Nate's shirt got stuck as I tried to pull it over his head. To keep him calm, I pretended we were playing a game (as I yanked and pulled and prayed I wouldn't have to cut him loose). "Where's Nathan? Where did he go?" I asked over and over to my silent, hidden boy. Finally, the shirt popped over his head. "Hello!" he said.

One night at dinner, Jason asked Nate if he could say "amen."

Jason: Say ah.
Nate: Ah.
Jason: Say men.
Nate: Me.
Jason: Say amen.
Nate: Oh jeez.

Jack, on the other hand, has spoken complete monologues since birth. We just don't know what he's saying. But a couple things are crystal clear: when in distress, he can yell "mama" as plain and loud as any eighteen-year-old, and this one has no plans of pacing himself. Two teeth, crawling, and pulling up on furniture under his belt, when we stand this little man up and give him two hands with which to steady himself, he bends a knee and lifts a foot as if he plans to walk on out of here. Regardless of lacking the appropriate vocabulary, this one makes his point known.

While Jason was in Europe, Jack woke up (after a long night for mama) at 6 a.m. The other kids were still sleeping. I tucked Jack in close to my side, attempting to convince him to join them. He spit out his pacifier and bit my nose.

Later that day, Audrey brought Jack's pacifier into the bathroom. "I need to wash this off," she said. "I used it to smash a bug. It was a fly. I thought it wasn't dead, but it already was!" Karma, Jack. Karma.

Dear son, I'm not sure what karma has in store for you for only sleeping a couple hours at a time and waking your exhausted parents with your awe-inspiring, wall-piercing moaning during the hours in which you do sleep. But when he or she arrives in thirty years bearing your sweet mischievous grin and insane ability to subsist solely on catnaps, call me. Just not at 4 a.m.

The holidays are over. The Christmas tree and lights, which Jason surprised Audrey and I with one day when we arrived home from a birthday party to Christmas carols playing and house aglow, have been returned to their boxes. Earlier that week, as I tried to compose an ambitious Christmas plan-of-attack, Audrey sat at the kitchen table, making her friend a birthday card. She oohed and aahed over its loveliness as she filled it chock a-block full of stickers. "I'm giving her my joy," she told me, happily. I decided to take her lead. I bowed out of several of the typical holiday traditions this year. Instead, I focused on a select few: the ones that brought me joy. I kept my focus narrow, a light cast directly in front of me, so I might have some joy to pass on in the every day - time for bedtime stories or one more game of memory or five more minutes of daydreaming with my little ones of the magic to come. Happy 2012, everyone.

For Posterity's Sake: Catching Up

2011-11-10T00:28:00.008-05:00

As a kid, I loved the book The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. I was taken from the moment Lucy pushed through the fur coats of the wardrobe and felt the bristle of pine needles from a forest unknown brush her face. Stepping through a door into a world all my own - one of adventure, popping with magic - was a secret I wanted in on. Not knowing of any such door, I created what secret spaces I could (a library under the frame of my bed, a second on the top shelf of my closet), places requiring a flashlight, stack of fiction, and tolerance for cramped quarters.

The first week of September, Audrey and I were attending a meeting at church when she had to use the bathroom. Drying her hands, she asked, "where does that door go?" Before I could answer, she opened the closet door reflected in the bathroom mirror, a door that I must have looked at a hundred times without ever seeing. We didn't delve into the closet to explore what hid behind the hanging clothes, but as has happened countless times the past five years, I left with my eyes opened wider and my imagination tripped. The past several months have reminded me of the magic in plain sight as our family has taken on new adventures at home and an ocean away. Jason and I ventured to Rome for a belated ten-year anniversary celebration; our family ventured with some of our closest friends to Disney World; and at home, we ventured into homeschooling (more on that later). As I finally buckle down to the job of "getting back on track" (uploading pictures that date back to summer, clearing away the remnants of a recent fifth birthday celebration, and wiping down the fifth chair in the kitchen that designates Jack's new place at the dinner table), I can't help but feel the sensation of something small, yet real, prickling around me - pine needles against cheeks. I think we may have just walked through a door.

But before we address the magic of the days at hand, a quick look back to magic past:

Jack's eyes are the shade of Becoming. They are not the Ball jar blue of his siblings, reflecting the light of fireflies, making it their own. His are embers of flint, slowly burning their own fire, shape and path unknown. While the rest of us wonder who he will become, he seems to know himself just fine, speaking (or screaming) his mind and threatening to crawl at any moment. The only sure fact, as a smile sends sparks to his eyes, is that his fire is catching.

Nate still prefers to let his actions do the talking as he catapults himself from the rocking chair into his brother's crib (with Jack in the crib, usually asleep), or soothes Jack's cries by picking up a bottle (and the slack) when he notices my hands are busy, or balances said bottle on Jack's head as if it's his latest party trick. He refuses to say "please," but can be coerced into saying "ooh la la" when receiving a meal, and says "elbow" just because he can. Of course, who needs words, when plugging your fingers in your ears and laughing when your sister begins to sing gets your point across just fine.

Audrey, as always, speaks for herself.

On her mother:

"I love you so much that if I woke up and you were dead, I'd cry." Thanks, honey. That's sweet. And morbid.

One Sunday I was sick in bed with a stomach bug. Audrey brought me up a glass of water and placed it on the nightstand. I asked if she could hand it to me. "I don't know if we're allowed to drink in bed," she said with a sly smile.

On her father:

"Why are you so competitive?" she asked while trying to win an argument during an international phone call.

"I'm kind of a big deal," Jason said, attempting to keep a straight face at dinner one night.

"You're just a box with old numbers in it," said Audrey.

On faith:

While at my parents' house during a visit from my little sister, Audrey informed her aunt that when she's afraid, she just puts her trust in God. Later, she asked me to push her on a decades-old swing hung from a tree branch. After checking out the rusted chains, she said, "I'm a little afraid that branch might fall down, but I'm putting my trust in God." I warned God that He'd have a real uphill battle on His hands if that branch gave way.

On attitude:

I was attempting to change one of the boys' diapers so we could leave to meet my sister. Audrey kept jumping in the way. "Audrey, I need you to move so we can go see Aunt Ashley. Can you choose to be crazy another day?" I asked.

"Okay," she said, "I choose tomorrow."

On her brothers:

One Friday morning, I sat Jack down in my closet to roll around while I got ready, thinking I had saved him from possible roughhousing by his siblings. Audrey, not realizing he was in there, dashed through the door looking for me, stepping on her brother's face. Jack cried, but quickly recovered. Audrey shrieked inconsolably, flailing her arms and pointing at something on the carpet. Finally, I saw the twig she was motioning to, which she had mistaken for something that had once been a part of her brother's face. (What's that you say? You don't all have random twigs hiding in your closets waiting to be mistaken for body parts?)

Nate likes to wipe up the table after he's eaten. One afternoon after lunch, I noticed a washcloth on the floor and handed it back to him. As I handed it over, I heard Audrey say "no." She was sitting to his left. I was trying to keep Nate occupied while I finished the dishes and told her it was fine. "No it's not. He threw it at me twice," she said.

"Audrey, you're sitting over there now. He can't reach you. It's fine."

"How would you like it if he threw it at you twice?" she asked.

A couple weeks later, I found Nate dressed in a blue dress while Audrey played princess and referred to him as "stepsister".

On exercise:

"Do you want to see my sports' run?"

"There's a difference?" I asked.

"Yes. You have to hold your powerhouse in. Wanna see?"

(Apparently, the three times I've convinced her to do my Pilates DVD with me, were three too many. She also enjoys instructing me to "squeeze my tushie" - while we shop for groceries.)

On women:

One afternoon, I overheard Audrey teaching Nate about women. I'm not sure what secrets she revealed, other than "look at my pretty shoes."

On things that may or may not exist:

"You know that Humpty Dumpty? I don't think he's in real life."

One night, Jason and Audrey were talking about a crab that Jason had made up (during a previous dinner) and tried to convince Audrey was real, but too fast for her to see. Audrey was revisiting the topic, asking if the crab really existed, her expression doubtful.

"You've never met my dad, but it doesn't mean I don't have one," Jason argued.

"Your dad is a crab?"

On escape plans:

As I made dinner one day, Audrey asked me about fires and how we would exit the house from every room were a fire to start. After covering the plan room-by-room, she said, "If there's a fire, I'm grabbing that, that, that (pointing to the last three Lowe's Build and Grow clinic models she had made) and the chocolate bon bons."

On housework:

"I put Jack's clothes on top of his dresser. I was going to put them away, but I didn't understand it." (Referring to my organization of the drawers.)

On having too few or too many:

One weekend, while shopping for groceries, Audrey wanted to ask the cashier for stickers. She forgot. She remembered while leaving the store. Jason told her to not worry about it this time, and maybe she could ask for double next time.

"What's double?" she asked.

We tried to explain that it was twice the amount. After a few failed attempts on my part, Jason said, "it's a lot."

Later, Audrey wanted her drink at dinner. Jason told her to eat more, first. "I've already eaten two (noodles)," she said.

"Eat double that and you can have your milk," he said. "Do you remember what double is?"

Audrey sighed. "A lot."

While doing puzzles with her Uncle Boo, Audrey lost one of the pieces.

"You have to find that missing piece," I said.

"It's MIA," said Boo.

"Don't worry. It's in his A," Audrey said.

On school:

This summer, we thought we might be moving to England for a few months. The children got passports. Jason and I discussed school options and that we thought it might be harder for Audrey to transition abroad if she had started, and been pulled out of, preschool. We waited to hear if we would move. We heard nothing. Tuition came due. A choice had to be made. I chose to homeschool this year and called the preschool to say Audrey wouldn't be attending. We got the call saying the move had been approved, but by the time Jason's work visa could be acquired, he might be finished with the majority of his work in Europe and onto Brazil. We stayed in the Midwest, but decided with Jason's travel schedule to move forward with plans to homeschool.

I broke the news to Audrey while driving in the car. I tried to win her over with the positives (lunches with Daddy when he's able to work from home or we're able to travel to his office, the ability to study subjects in which she's interested, and lots of field trips). She asked what I wanted to do during school this year. "I want to take field trips," I said.

"Okay, mama. But where is a field?"

One day, after reading a story, Audrey decided to copy some of the words she saw printed on the book's pages to practice her handwriting. After a few minutes she asked, "Mom, can you get me a drink, because writing a story does make us thirsty."

We've been reading BOB pre-reader books to practice reading skills. Some of the books feature characters who look like shapes and do various activities that highlight shapes. After reading one such book, I asked, "What shape is Seth hiding in?"

"A rectangle."

"No."

"A square."

"What makes it a square?"

"I don't know. God?"

One afternoon, she was completing a worksheet with a picture of a frog on top. I asked her to name the animal at the top of the page. She studied the frog for a minute before nodding her head decisively. "Cathy," she said.

On aging:

"Mom, how big am I?"

"Pretty big."

"I know. Thanks for the opportunity."

"Mom, it's my birthday!"

"I know."

"No you don't."

"Honey, I was there when you were born."

"Oh."

I was there the day Audrey and each of her brothers were born. While I knew on those days that they had begun for us a world anew, I could not see past the tight grip of their fingers or wrinkled brows, past a set of toes and fingers longer than I had expected, or the cry that subsided as long as I was willing to snuggle. I could not see this day, begun with two big kids climbing into bed to stretch and yawn the day into being, the oldest now five, teaching me to learn all over again, the youngest ignoring my requests to stop growing and pace himself, for his mother's sake. The middle one, content to move at his own perfect pace, taking time to beat his imaginary drum at all music he hears, reminds me: be still and watch, the magic is here - no flashlights or wardrobes necessary.

For Posterity's Sake: Week (Ahem) in Review 116

2011-08-15T00:25:00.011-04:00

One Sunday, while riding home from the library, Audrey said, "If I were big, I could pick up houses." After thinking out loud about how she would move houses around if she were to find herself suddenly being of Herculean proportions (and abilities), she asked, "What would you do if you were big?"

"If I were a giant, I would wade across the ocean," I said, surprised at how quickly the words came. Beyond attending an elementary school with a giant as its mascot, I'd never contemplated living that large. "I would walk across the parts of the ocean where I normally can't touch," I said. Then, being neither within spitting distance of the ocean, or possessing boats as feet, I drove home and made dinner like everyone else.

"It's been six weeks since you've blogged," Jason said a few days later. "If you don't blog soon, people will start to worry that something is wrong." That was at least two weeks ago.

All I can say is this: I have average feet. I can't transverse the ocean in mere strides. And that's fine. In fact, I have a feeling that had I the ability to rise up out of the water, I'd miss being in neck-deep. There's so much goodness to get swept up in here.

Since I can't remember everything in order from the last couple of months, this "Week" in Review is going to take a different form. Here, from our experiences of the last couple months are the things I know for sure:

Four-year-olds don't care what size their shoes are. Kids see themselves as one-size-fits-all, and that size is Bigger Than They Are.

I believe Audrey thinks herself ready to take over for me at any moment, should I be deemed unfit. Thursday, I heard Jack gag and turned from doing dishes to find her sticking one of Nathan's spoons in Jack's mouth. When I told her Jack was still too young for spoons, she insisted, "He has to learn." (Apparently, very concerned for her brother's education, she only relented from the exercise when I removed the spoon from her hand). Last month, she asked to give Jack his bottle. A few minutes into the feeding, she positioned his hands together at his chest, propped the bottle on top, and clapped at his ability to hold his own bottle. When she sees me feeding him now, she often reminds me that he can do it himself.

On Tuesday, Audrey asked if she and Nathan could play upstairs while I cleaned up the kitchen. I agreed. After a while, it was quiet. I yelled for her. She came downstairs. "Where's Nathan?" I asked.

"I put him down for a nap."

"Where?" I asked, envisioning her attempting to hoist him (a mere 10 pounds lighter than she) into his crib.

"In my room," she answered. "I scooted him to the end of my bed, put my covers on him, and told him it was nap time."

I went upstairs to investigate. I found a green-and-white-polka-dotted mound at the edge of her bed. Carefully, I pulled up the quilt. Sure enough, there he was, sandwiched between layers of covers, fast asleep, a pacifier between his lips.

Audrey attended Vacation Bible School for the first time this summer. "What will I do at VBS?" she asked a few days before the program started. I told her it would be a lot like Sunday School, but she'd do even more fun stuff. I told her they would sing songs and do crafts and learn about God. "Will they teach me to drive a car?" she asked. I told her she might be disappointed with VBS after all.

The next week she informed me, "I think I know how to drive a car because I rode on the lawn mower with Papaw." (I've been keeping my car keys on a very high hook, just in case she decides to attempt cutting the grass with the SUV).

When it's 85 degrees inside, air conditioning is nice. Having the resources to fix the air conditioning is a blessed thing. But shade trees and friends who distract you when your air conditioning is broken are luxuries no one should be without.

The strong silent types are apt to break your heart, or every bone in their bodies.

Nathan is a boy of few words. I know he knows some. Last month he brought a shoe to me, said "shoe" perfectly and walked away. I'd never heard him say it before, and I haven't heard it since.

I haven't heard much out of him at all, which is troublesome, because in those moments of quiet, every other part of him is busy.

Nate has been trying to jump from a standing position for a month. He can manage to get one leg off the floor, but unbalances himself too much to get airborne with the second. He has, however, figured out how to pull himself up onto the coffee table and jump onto the couch from that vantage point.

Last week, I walked into the office to find him sitting on top of the desk. I had moved the chair away from the desk earlier in the day thinking I'd eliminated that ability. I put him on the floor and asked him how he'd gotten up there. I meant it rhetorically. He answered me anyway. He pulled open the bottom drawer (initially intended to hold a typewriter), used it as a step, and pulled himself onto the desk.

Yesterday, he discovered that if he gets into the coat closet, overturns his sister's basket (dumping out her bicycle helmet, scarf, hats and mittens, and sunglasses) he can use the basket as a stool to reach anything on the kitchen island he desires. I need to put bells on his shoes, because it seems the only person he wants to make noise for is the little boy reflected from the stove front who dances just like him.

Sometimes, the deepest kind of gratitude can be found in the discovery of the simplest facts. For example, Nathan is not allergic to bees - something I discovered after he overturned a buried hive in some mulch, receiving seven stings before I could reach him and pull him away. Gratitude. Gratitude. Gratitude.

Those rumors about apples and trees? They just might be on to something.

I bought some peaches last month. When I got them home, I grabbed a stoneware bowl, filled it with the peaches, and placed it on the counter. Then, I watched as Audrey put a place mat in the center of the kitchen table and grabbed an empty colander from a cabinet that she placed on top, before dumping our newly purchased bunch of bananas inside.

Jason has been trying to break himself of saying I thought in my head, since, well, where else do your thoughts come from? Last month (and tonight) I overheard Audrey begin her sentence, "We'll have to think in our mind..."

This month, Audrey returned from a birthday party to find me watching the food network. I asked if she wanted to come outside to play while I did yard work. "Only if you record this so I can watch it later," she said.

Baby smiles are contagious, and their kisses therapeutic. (Lately, I've been the lucky recipient of both).

Sometimes, the littlest among us leave the biggest footprints.

Lately, I've been calling the baby Chief, as in Commander-in-Chief, because I find myself to be constantly in the act of moving him to a more secure location to save him from mass destruction. And somehow, as we all fawn over him (Jack accepting this fate with the widest of grins) the name fits.

One never outgrows the magic of fireflies. Or S'mores. Or reading books by flashlight.

If wonder is the default state of childhood, then the default state of parenthood is shock and awe.

The first day of July, the older kids ran upstairs while I was busy feeding Jack. After several minutes of quiet, I yelled up, "Audrey, what are you guys doing?"

"We're up to something!" she said.

Ten days later, Audrey was sent to her room within ten minutes of getting up for the day. I sent her back to her room for a timeout. When I went to get her, I found her dressed, her bed made, and the clean clothes that had been stacked on a chair put away in her dresser. I sat down to "talk to her" about why she had been sent to her room. I was really steadying myself to keep from passing out from the shock.

One rare morning last month, when Audrey was allowed to begin her day by watching something on television, she became disgruntled with the sun coming through some curtain-less windows (above our standard windows) creating a glare. "Mom, the sun!" she complained.

"Honey, I can't do anything about the sun."

"You could put pillows in the windows," she said.

One afternoon in late July, Audrey found a fly swatter in our basement. A few minutes later, I heard her say, "Nate, you're a fly. Run!" (A few minutes after that, I saw him biting her toes).

We made a trip to Camp Tecumseh last week to visit with friends. As with all car rides, as soon as I put the car in motion, Audrey asked that I tell her a story. She typically gives me guidelines as to what the story should be about (for example, on the Fourth of July, she asked that I tell her a story in which Dora and Boots build a house, after which, Boots eats a piece of bacon only to find that he's allergic). As we drove down the highway, she said, "But this time, the characters will be Dora and Boots" (lately we've been on a baby dragon kick, in which the baby dragon is always discovered hatching from an egg by a little girl named Sweetheart).

"Character?" I said. "You know the word character?"

After a thorough quizzing, during which, I determined that she did, indeed, know the definition of character and that inanimate objects don't count, I did what any, ahem, fanatical English major would and asked, "Do you know what 'setting' is?"

I then explained what the setting of a story is, followed by a brief quiz of the settings of all the Dr. Seuss books we had read that week, before settling into the requested Dora and Boots story, the plot of which I can't remember, only that Audrey did not approve of the outcome, to which I responded, if she didn't like the ending, she could make up her own stories.

Summer is as fleeting as popsicle drips.

The world has its own set of checks and balances to keep you grounded. They are called preschoolers.

When Jason travels, I try to keep the kids busy with special outings and play dates with friends. Upon meeting up with some good friends recently, their mother relayed a little story. Her daughters had recently watched The Incredibles. When she later told them that they were going to see baby Jack, they couldn't contain their excitement, assuming it was Jack-Jack from the movie (a seemingly ordinary baby until he suddenly harnesses the ability to burst into a flaming fireball at the end of the movie). As apt as our family is to All Hail the Chief, I think the girls were slightly disappointed that Jack's only real talent thus far seems to involve projectile spitting and not the ability to instantaneously combust. Although, he has figured out how to light up his mother.

As impressed as I might be when Jason calls and describes his ventures abroad (this summer he's had to make a trip to England and one to Barcelona), Audrey isn't as easily dazzled. During a phone call from London, she asked what he'd been doing and eating (she has a tendency to ask what he's eaten when he's away). "I've been eating in really old buildings," he told her.

"Ah, poor Daddy," she said.

Before Jason left for Barcelona, Audrey drew him a picture of a train. Jason had set the picture on a table just long enough for Nathan to find it. Audrey came across her artwork a little worse for wear. She brought it to her father.

"You need to move your picture so it doesn't get crinkled," she said. "Did you want it crinkled?"

"No," he said.

"Well, it's crinkled."

One night after studying her father at dinner, Audrey said, "Daddy, God forgot to give you hair."

"God didn't forget. I just lost it," he said.

She turned to me. "So Mama, did you see where he put his hair?"

With kids like these, you don't have to be a giant to live large. You just have to remind yourself to sit back every once in a while and take it all in. Until next time...

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 115

2011-06-17T22:17:00.001-04:00

Audrey just propositioned me for a monkey. But Mom, our house would be its cage. But Mom, it could play with my toys. But Mom, a monkey would be excellent! These conversations lead to bargains. Let's buy an elephant. How about a giraffe? We could keep it in the backyard. A hippopotamus? A sheep? A horse? A pig? These negotiations lead to talks about the Home Owners' Association. I explain that while she sees our house as the perfect "cage" for a monkey and our backyard as suitable living quarters for (at the very least) a pig, others do not view the world through her lens. There's a lot of that going around. Audrey is developing a "world" view of her own. It may not seem cohesive to the rest of us. On any given Wednesday, it might include a pair of flowered shorts being the perfect hat for a sunny day and the branch of a pear tree acting as an acceptable umbrella holder. It's not always ideal. It may not make sense to the masses. But, it's always original, delivered with the kind of pluck that only a four-year-old can muster. And (luckily), she's more than willing to share it with the rest of us. Our moments, from the last few weeks:

The first week of June:

I try to keep the television off while the kids are awake. But, there is something about the nonstop feeding of a newborn that draws me to the couch - and the remote, especially on weekends. I think that Jason has the other kids occupied. I tell myself they aren't paying attention. I turn on HGTV and watch marathon episodes of House Hunters. Audrey plays between the kitchen and the family room, wrestling with Jason, clobbering any available brother, and creating chaos from everyday home furnishings. Midway through my second or third House Hunter's episode one day, she asks, "Why do they let people sneak in the houses?"

Later that week, I was putting Audrey to bed. Like always, we said a prayer. Unlike always, Audrey insisted that we pray for rhyming things. We thanked God for our nose and toes, dogs and frogs and polliwogs (okay, not really for polliwogs, but you get the idea). We try to take a little time to learn a verse or two at night as well. Apparently, Audrey thought she could put her own spin on the verses. That night, she thought she would just create her own. According to Audrey, John 14:6 says, And He will tickle us.

On Saturday, I was clipping coupons. Audrey wanted in on the action. She cut out coupons and any pictures that interested her. She found an ad with a picture of the world. "Mama, it's the whirled! It's the whirled! I want to cut out the whirled!"

Second week of June:

On Monday, I think Nathan wanted to show that he's taking in a little bit more of the world (or whirled, if you prefer) around him, too, as he sat a book, opened to a picture of a bird, in my lap and said what sounded like a Nate-version of "bird". He hasn't said it since, but "ball" has become a vocabulary mainstay for our little guy.

Tuesday, after making a comment that proved Jason wrong, Audrey said, "I got you with that one."

The following day, she and I were building houses with Legos. After showing me her technique, she asked, "Now do you know the proper way to make a house?"

Saturday, while eating lunch, I was telling Jason about running into a friend who, seeing Nate for the first time, said, "Well, you can definitely tell who his daddy is."

"Really? Do you see it?" he asked.

I looked at Nate. He turned in my direction, smiled, and made a monkey face.

"Yes," I said.

Third week of June:

Monday morning, I caught Nate unwinding a skein of garden twine through the office and into the dining room. I told Nate "no." "It's okay," Audrey said as Nathan stomped exuberantly on the twine. "He's just making it pretty and clean."

Tuesday morning, Audrey and I were playing dress up. She placed a red wig on my head, along with my sister's wedding veil. Then, she tried to slide elbow-length child-sized gloves up my arms. "You're the God fairy," she said. "You're the Godfather." I believe I was supposed to be the fairy Godmother, but you can call me The Don.

We typically light a candle at dinner as something that sets that time apart as special family time. Tuesday, the older kids were having a sleepover at Grammy's, so Audrey wanted to light a candle at lunch before she left for the night. We had finished lunch and the candle was blown out. Audrey noticed the melted wax surrounding the wick. "What is the water?" she asked. I explained that when wax melts, it becomes liquid. "Oh! Liquid is inside of toads!"

Toads contain liquid that may or may not be related to wax. Scarface wears elbow-length pink satin gloves. Nate's newly acquired longer reach has him sneaking his fingers into the kitchen drawers and running through the house brandishing a turkey baster. When he stomps on things, they magically become clean. Jack is looking less like a baby and more like the boy he's about to become (and teasing us with the occasional smile). I haven't seen the tops of my counters in weeks. And this house, well, it might just be the perfect home for a monkey.

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 114 and then some

2011-05-27T10:04:00.003-04:00

This week, I tried to revamp my to-do list method. In the midst of major life changes, I get antsy. Those with sage advice (or just plain common sense) would tell me to simply get a hold of myself, to self-swaddle and reign in my flailing arms that can't keep up with demand - to wait for the pace to settle down around me rather than try to lasso the moving parts into submission. But I can't help myself. When my world kicks up the momentum, my instinct is to grab a rope and pretend I can tie a good knot. Or, at the very list, make a to-do list.

So, I've been making to-do lists: lists void of those refreshing dark black slash marks that acknowledge accomplishment. When life kicks things up a notch, nothing is more depressing than a list void of those black slash marks. After reading this post, I decided some to-do list editing was in order. I added my own twist. I started by making a list of my important life categories: faith, family, health, creativity, and educational activities for the kids (yes, friends also made this list, but time constraints being as they are right now, I decided my friends were realistic and would realize that they aren't going to be seeing me or getting phone calls/emails for a couple weeks). Then, I came up with small (in some cases, minuscule) tasks for each category. My first new to-do list day looked something like this:

Print off chronological Bible reading list.
Make pizza dough with Audrey for family pizza night.
Take a walk.
Blog for 15 minutes.
Make list of daily, weekly, monthly, annual cleaning tasks for 2 rooms (yes, I realize this seems as if it has nothing to do with kids' educational activities, but I've decided that we need to get organized so I can locate the necessary materials to do the educational activities first).

I felt instantly rejuvenated. I had a plan, one that looked simple. I could do this. The day ended. Three of my five simple tasks were crossed off. I laughed at myself.

Last night, my mother-in-law kindly volunteered to come over and make us dinner. Dinner and dishes off of my plate, I had the kids bathed early. All three were in bed by 8:30. Jason had plans, so I had a couple hours to myself. This is typically the time I would blog, or knit, or do something really crazy like wipe the hand prints off the refrigerator door. But my eyelids, of which I'm not typically aware, had a definite weight to them. As I sat on the couch, finishing a row of knitting and trying to will myself to turn on the computer to write, I heard Nate crying. He has four teeth coming in this week (I believe "teething machine" is the term you're searching for) and has had a bit of trouble settling himself into naps and sleep. I left my knitting and pulled him from his crib. We nestled into my bed, and at nine o' clock (a time that my head hasn't seen my pillow since I was a preteen or harboring a fever) we both found sleep - it only took Nathan draping himself across my head, which one would imagine would make it impossible for me to fall asleep, but sadly, it didn't. Waking for a two a.m. feeding session more awake than I've felt in days, I decided that to-do lists were overrated - not that I won't be making one later this afternoon.

To-do list or not, there are a few items I can't help but feel called to do, like write down a few moments from our weeks past, the ones I would hate to forget. So, without further adieu, here is a rather belated, rather simplified, Week in Review for that past few weeks - a highlight reel, if you will.

From the week leading up to Jack's birth:

Monday night, Jason's arm was draped across my belly. Jack kicked a roundhouse that shifted my entire abdomen. "Holy! Did you feel -," Jason broke off laughing, "of course you felt that." Jason rested, his arm up against me for a few minutes before turning to face the other direction. "I don't think I can fall asleep if I keep my arm there feeling that all night." Welcome to pregnancy, honey.

Tuesday night at dinner, Audrey wanted to tell us the creation story. After she finished, Jason asked her what happened to Adam and Eve. "They had to leave the beautiful garden," she said.

Jason explained consequences and that they were asked to leave the garden as a consequence of disobeying. "How would you like that?" he asked. "How would you like if Mommy and Daddy threw you out of the house every time you disobeyed?"

"You couldn't do that," she said, "the porch is hard."

Wednesday, while Grammy was visiting, Nathan began throwing his food from the table to the floor. Grammy told him he was being bad. Audrey, ever the diplomat, said, "He's not a bad boy. He's just making a bad choice."

Thursday, I asked her what she had done at school. "I thought about what I could do for my tea party while I worked on other things," she said.

"What did you think of?"

"Running through sprinklers. Making mud puddles. Going on a flower hunt. Taking leaves off trees." This isn't going to be your run-0f-the-mill tea party.

We had Jack the next morning. Below, a few of my favorite moments and one-liners from our hospital stay:

Friday evening, a lactation consultant made a visit. Before leaving she informed us that the nurse assigned to our room that evening was one of the best. "So you're good until 7," she said.

"What happens at seven?" Jason asked. "Do they bring on the B team?"

Saturday morning I managed to catch the hospital table on wheels (holding a pitcher of water, a folder full of papers, and a slew of medical supplies) on the rail of the bed as I was attempting to reposition the bed. The table flipped over, creating a shower of water and medical supplies. Jason refused to let me help clean it up. I apologized for creating the mess. "It was a freak accident," he said, mopping up the floor with a towel. "You're the freak."

Sunday, our nurse came in for a quick check. "What is your pain level?" she asked me.

"I'm at about a five," said Jason.

The first week of May Jason stayed home from work to assist with the day-to-day household functions and help us make a smoother transition into family-of-five status. He took on the role of chauffeuring Audrey to and from preschool. En route on Tuesday, she asked if they were going to be late. He informed her that they should be on time (they were, in fact, several minutes early). She told him that she liked him taking her to school. "Mommy bees (is) late all the time."

The following week, I took advantage of the warm weather and sent Audrey on backyard expeditions while I was busy with her brothers inside. Monday, she asked if she could take a beach towel and a snack outside to have a picnic. I agreed. I noticed she pitched her beach towel right next to the fence where our neighbor was tilling his garden. When she ran back to the door to ask for seconds, I told her to let our neighbor finish his work. "I am," she said, "I'm just talking to him so he doesn't get lonely or bored."

Last week, Nathan attempted to mimic his sister and hop through the kitchen. He would have pulled it off, if he could have gotten his legs underneath himself rather than stumbling back onto his thickly diapered bum. He also decided that silverware (which he had been trying use consistently) was overrated, adopting a vacuum technique of putting his open mouth to plate and "hoovering" his food inside.

That Friday, as we did dishes, Jason and I were remembering how rough our first five months of parenting were and contemplating how different they might have been had we realized that Audrey wasn't getting enough breast milk sooner (something we discovered when she nose-dived off the growth charts at six months old). "But, we're stronger for it," I concluded.

"You're stronger. I'm still weak," Jason said.

"You're not weak," said Audrey, who had wandered into the kitchen.

"Thanks, Audrey."

"You just look weak," she said.

Now, Jack is one month old. He's contemplating longer stretches of sleep, but still weighing his options. Nathan has begun saying "hello," always accompanied by a hand (or stolen cell phone) raised to his ear. Yesterday, after inviting Nathan into the cave she'd just constructed from the kitchen bill-payers' desk and draped receiving blankets, Audrey finished schooling her brother on some topic by stating, "Just check on Facebook and you'll learn all about it." Suffice it to say, time marches quickly and no to-do list (no matter how well constructed) can contain it.

But that doesn't mean we quit trying. Until next time...

A Boy Named Jack

2011-05-05T11:01:00.002-04:00

One morning in late April, I woke before the sun, street lights humming, my duffel bag packed with essentials. Street lamps cover only the area in need: one might do well to follow suite when preparing for a short trip. But I find, when about to embark on a life-changing adventure, I like to arm myself with the things that nourish me, regardless of practicality or good sense. Somewhere between grabbing a few bites of oatmeal and my knitting-in-progress, I made a quick pass by the office bookcases, scanning the shelves for something I'd yet to read. My fingers settled on Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale, pulling it from the shelf and tucking it into one more small canvas bag for the hospital. It was five o' clock in the morning. I was leaving the house to go have a baby. No where did reading fall into my weekend plans. I have a tendency to over pack.

I did crack open the spine of the book toward the beginning of our stay. I made it just past the epigraph, a couple paragraphs into the first page before the events of real life pulled me away. I hadn't yet read the book jacket before opening the book that morning, so I found the epigraph ironically fitting for the day:

All children mythologize their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. What you get won't be the truth; it will be a story. And nothing is more telling than a story.

- Vida Winter, Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation (fictional author from the book)

The only person who mythologizes a child's birth more than the child is, perhaps, the child's mother. So let me tell you a story, about the day a boy named Jack was born.

I find the coming of every child to be different. The day we went to the hospital to have Audrey, I knew she was coming. "Something feels different," I told Jason when I woke that morning.

"No," the doctor said, examining me later that day, "let's go ahead and schedule an appointment for you the week after your due date." Sure enough, by ten o' clock that night, I was in labor. Audrey, always one to do things her own way and keep them interesting, was almost delivered with her water sac intact. But what I remember most from that day was locking eyes with her for the first time, knowing that in an instant she had changed who I was.

I thought Nate was coming for weeks. He wasn't. I was in the doctor's office the day of his due date, hooked up to a monitor for a stress test. "You're having contractions six to seven minutes apart," the nurse said, "you're just not feeling them." The doctor suggested we go out to eat while she booked us a room at the hospital for later that evening. While last-minute Christmas shoppers filled the parking lot of the mall nearby, Jason and I went on a date to P.F. Chang's. We took our time, speculating what this little guy would be like and enjoying one last evening out for a while. When Nate did decide to come, he came like a sudden driving downpour, beating our doctor or anything resembling a real set of pushes. But, in spite of his dramatic entrance, Nate brought a sense of calm to a hectic season - our sweet boy, slow to cry and quick to cuddle for whose carefree spirit I have felt a swell of gratitude since the moment I laid eyes on him.

Jack, I believe you wanted to be born in May. If you felt rushed, I apologize. If you were hoping for the attention and quiet that come with being an only child, again, I apologize. By the time you came around, we were quite the packaged deal. Packaged deals require certain provisions - like childcare while Mama and Daddy are at the hospital. So after a week of irregular contraction teases and back pain and steadily making our way to three centimeters, we decided to make an appointment to meet you, a few days early, on a Friday that worked well for everyone involved. Luckily, you took to the plan. You arrived in less than three hours. While your birth was quicker than your brother's, yours was somehow more methodical - paced. After I give birth, I have a tendency to shake - violently. I don't know why. It worried my OB-GYN the first time she saw it. I imagine it worried your father even more. After your brother and sister were born, he made quick trips between me and each baby, not wanting to leave me in that condition for long. But with you, Jack, the tremors held off for a good twenty minutes and I was able to witness your father cut the umbilical cord and hold you for the first time, carrying you around the room; standing next to you taking videos as the nurse checked you out and commented on your tight hand grip; petitioning, once again, for the name he thought would fit you best (he was right). Audrey made me a mother, shifting my priorities and opening untapped dreams. Nathan drew us to bring our focus home, to seek and feel gratitude for the calm there, regardless of the whirlwind just outside the door. And you, Jack, gave me the gift of falling in love with your dad falling in love with you. You have already changed the world as we knew it, and we're so glad you're here.

Jack Hudson
7 lbs. 7 oz. and 19 1/4 in. long
With dark hair, pianist's fingers, and a tight grip on our hearts.

For Posterity's Sake: Weeks in Review 112 and 113

2011-04-23T21:28:00.004-04:00

I listen to the radio twice a week as I drive home from dropping Audrey off at preschool, switching the radio back to whatever our CD of choice is (lately it's been Dr. Jean songs, remakes of childhood favorites like "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" transformed to "We've Got the Whole Globe in Our Hands" to teach the names of the continents, etc.) when I pick her up. Last week, driving home, the deejay was relaying a story about a nine-year-old hero. While visiting their grandmother, the boy's two-year-old sister had fallen into the pool. She was discovered and pulled out by her mother, but was no longer breathing. The brother performed CPR, resuscitating his sister. When asked where he had learned CPR, the boy replied, "from watching TV."

It's the sort of story that makes my heart stop as I imagine the panicked mother and grandmother. It's also the sort of story that reminds me of the qualities of childhood I love and admire. Only a child would leap to act saying, "stand back, I saw this on Nickelodeon,"* without hesitating to second-guess his abilities. As adults we plan, we fret, we take classes that provide certificates to prove our competence. Then we act.

Two weeks have slipped by here without a Week in Review. The last, especially, has been a week of fretting and attempts to plan as we thought we might be meeting our little guy waiting in the wings. Wednesday morning brought with it back pains and labored breathing, followed by an evening of an often-contracted (although, without pain) stomach. Wednesday night, "just to be safe," we sent the kids to visit their grandparents. Thursday, a stress test confirmed that my contractions were 7-8 minutes apart, where they seem to be happy staying. Now (kids back at home), we wait (with mama trying not to fret about the possible logistics of days to come). There's one thing we've come to learn about kids: they don't come with a plan; they simply act.

The actions, and thoughts, witnessed around here the past two weeks:
(April 10-16)

Lately, we've been meeting up with some close friends on the weekends. With the exception of a two-year-old, Audrey is the only girl. Monday, at dinner, she was talking about our recent get-together and wanting to have more friends over.

"I want to have a lot of friend boys over," she said.

"I don't think I like you having a lot of friend boys over," Jason said.

"I won't have a lot. I'll just have a little."

Wednesday, while playing outside, Audrey got a splinter. It was still in her hand when Jason got home. "This is very disappointing to me," she said as she showed it to him.

While outside, she had created a batch of "dandelion soup," which had apparently gone missing. She wondered aloud what happened to it.

"Maybe dragons ate it," Jason said.

"There aren't any dragons in this whole world (pronounced whirl - Ed)."

Later, at dinner, she turned to Jason. "Daddy, you have a sweet voice."

"I do?"

"Yeah. Today."

Thursday, Nathan moved one step closer to boyhood as he laughed at the sounds of his own farts.

Friday morning, Audrey sent the following text to Jason:

Dear Daddy,
Audrey has sent a lovely message for you. Help Daddy to be welcome for the message. Help him to be the papa. Help him to take his phone to work and help him to bop-a (she paused her dictation to laugh and tell me, "that's silly"). Help him to work and eat his food. And help him to take a bear to work.
Love,
Audrey

Jason's response to me: Darn, I forgot the bear.

Jason's text to Audrey:

Daddy loves his pancake. Help her play with her friends. Help her have a good lunch. Help her earn a sticker. Help her to bop-a! Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side, silly! Roses are red and violets are blue!!!!!

After I finished reading the message, Audrey began to laugh. "Silly-headed put two jokes (pronounced joke - ez) on it."

(April 17-23)

Saturday, I bought an end table at a garage sale to use as a night stand in Nathan's new room. The table has a small pull-out drawer and a door on the front that opens to reveal a storage space big enough to fit a dainty preschooler once the drawer has been removed (creating the perfect peep hole). It was $5 of weekend-long entertainment as the kids took turns crawling inside and laughing at each other peeking out of the drawer hole. Monday, Nate found a new use for the end table. He moved a stool to the right side, positioned himself on the stool crouched on his knees and proceeded to use the table as a block-building desk.

Tuesday morning, Audrey came into my room saying me her stomach hurt. She crawled into bed next to me and pointed at her stomach. "This belly."

As I worked at the kitchen table that morning during a rain storm, Nathan rolled around on the rug underneath, acting like he wanted a nap. Unable to get comfortable, he raised his hands to be put on my lap. He quickly changed his mind, finding my belly not to be the soft pillow it looks to be, and wiggled back to the rug where he attempted to burrow his head into Emmy's backside. Emmy obliged for a few moments before deciding she was better off braving the storm alone rather than serving as a toddler's pillow.

The most anticipated event of Audrey's week was scheduled for Wednesday, the day I woke up feeling as if early signs of labor were underway.

"Is it your birthday today?" she asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Yea! The Easter egg hunt is today!" (Our church was hosting an Easter egg hunt that evening.).

I told Audrey that we might not get to go if I had to go to the hospital.

"That's okay. The Easter egg hunt is at night. You can go to the hospital during the day."

Later that day (as she does most days), she asked if anyone was coming over. I told her that her Papaw might if I went to the hospital.

"No," she said. "I have to go to MOPS (the group hosting the Easter egg hunt). He doesn't know where the church is."

As we prepare for Easter morning, and what I am sure will be one more day filled with requests for egg hunts, I'm reminded of the unexpected: the concealed goodies inside of colorful eggs; well-intentioned women with thought-out plans arriving at their destination to find it abandoned; and unlikely heroes, willing to act. Wishing you a happy Easter, and the joy of being surrounded by little ones adamant to make you celebrate, regardless of your plans.

*This quote is a complete dramatization. I have no idea what the child was actually watching or really said during his heroics.

For G on His Birthday

2011-04-17T20:18:00.003-04:00

Not all the projects around here have been of the practical sort. Some are soft on the hands and warm up the heart like this little crown, made for a dimple-cheeked boy quick to walk and easy to hug, who knows his way around a hearty laugh. These are the projects that you can't help but smile while making because while you wish you could be there to squeeze the intended recipient on his special day, you know that at least this little felt hat will be hugging his head. This, hat (ahem, "modeled" by Nate) made a trip cross-country to help my nephew, Greyson, celebrate his first birthday. Greyson, we couldn't have imagined you any better. And, one year later, we can't imagine this world without you. Happy birthday, sweet boy.

My Name is Kristin

2011-04-12T14:25:00.004-04:00

and I might have a problem. I have yet to search the web to discover if a clinical term exists for my condition, or if quirky suffices. What I can tell you is this - I've developed a bit of a habit. The first time, the incident occurred innocently enough. I was pregnant with Audrey, somewhere between second-trimester carefree and get-your-bags-packed-Junior-is-on-her-way, when Jason informed me he had to leave for a business meeting. At a ski resort. In the mountains. With little chance of cell coverage. I was a first-time mother and one of my mother's three preemies, all determined to surprise the world and our relatives by arriving 5-6 weeks early. I had heard metaphors about apples and trees. I knew approximately 7 people (two of which had drivers licenses) in our then hometown outside of Richmond, Virginia. While there seemed to be plenty of time and odds were surely in our favor, I was varying shades of nervous, and in absolute need of distraction. And, we had an untouched guest room.

After Jason's car pulled away from our townhouse headed toward the mountains, I hopped in mine and drove to the hardware store. I bought two cans of paint in similar hues, a mask, and some blue tape. Once home, I pulled out our stud finder/level with a red laser and penciled a horizontal line midway down the guestroom wall (for those of you wondering how someone with only two hands tackles such a feat, the answer is simple - secure the stud finder with duct tape) and began a three day project of two-tone painting our guest room wall. I remember pulling my mask from my face long enough to assure my mother (as I stood atop a folding chair, roller in hand) that, of course, I was taking it easy. Three days later, Audrey was still right where I'd left her and Jason came home to a new room.

I'm not really sure at what point something outgrows quirky and turns to down-right addiction. What I do know is that each time I'm pregnant and Jason's car steers him toward a mountain or airport, my car finds itself in the hardware store parking lot. So, it should come as no surprise that this January, as Jason embarked on his first transatlantic trip, I embarked on an adventure of my own. It began at Home Depot. While Jason boarded a plane wearing a just-purchased winter coat for the damp London weather, I had another article of clothing on my mind - a little sweater we bought for Nate the night we found out that he'd be having a little brother. It was striped. It had tiny brown buttons. Its bottom edge and sleeves rolled in the teeniest bit. The only thing that made it more perfect was Nate wearing it. Then, one day, I found myself looking at the sweater thinking, maybe this sweater is actually a bedroom. And so it began, at a Home Depot with two buckets of Freshaire paint in Organic Garden. The color is a gray with the perfect hint of blue, the kind of shade that makes me slow down for just a minute every time I open the door to Nate's new bedroom.

I would love to say that Jason came home from a week in England to a freshly painted bedroom. But circumstances have changed since my first foray in pregnancy-induced painting five years ago. The days of painting two-toned rooms uninterrupted are gone. Now, my painting consists of forty minute pockets of time as long as the nap is holding. So, a mere two months after I began, this project was complete (at least that's what I'm calling it, I ran out of paint regardless of what imperfections might stand). Nate has moved into his new bedroom. I daydream of curtains, bedding, art, and a few little boy touches that remind me of my sweet little man in his striped knit. But we've reached that in between time, the would-be calm before the storm, if the time before a new baby's birth were ever calm. More precisely, it's the debate-from-within time when I try to decide the best use of what time I have left before sleep deprivation and lack of free hands hits an all-time high. I would love to say that personalizing curtains or creating artwork are on my list of "will-get-dones" before the next little mister arrives. But they're not. However, a few more moments of slow, taking in my little guy's new backdrop and those first moments of his days and last snuggles of his nights - those are definitely on my list. And, that seems to suit us both just fine.

*I think this post is going to appear two-toned, just like my old guest room. That was unintentional. Before posting, I noticed an italicized "i" at the start of the post. Upon erasing it, I turned part of the post a different color. Go figure. It seems like every space has its own idea as to what it should be...

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 111

2011-04-11T08:32:00.003-04:00

Last week, Audrey donned her safety goggles before heading out the door to draw pictures with chalk. Safety first. She never told me why she felt she needed the goggles, but I suppose we each prepare in our own ways. This morning, I prepared for the day by retrieving the calendar from a desk drawer to double-check our schedule. What happened next was atypical at best. I began counting days - the number we have left until our due date, to be precise. I don't know what got into me. I won't post the number here. Denial is a procrastinator's best friend. A more practical person might have marched herself straight to the garage to clean out the car and see if that third car seat will indeed fit across the back row (okay, a more practical person would have probably done that months ago). I loaded the kids up and went to the gym, instead. Like I said, we all prepare in our own ways. I do have a mental running list of tasks to accomplish this week - preparations for the events to come. But, what I've found is this: no matter how much we prepare, each of us comes into being and learns to be in his or her own perfect time.

Our cases in point, from the week past:

(I apologize in advance for including this first story. All I can say in defense of myself is that it made me laugh). On Monday, the kids and I were gathered inside and just outside of my bathroom in varying states of readiness. Audrey had popped into the water closet and shut the door. A few minutes later, I hear, "Eww, I smell poop!" As the mom of two little ones and a dog, my first thought was, great, where? As if reading my mind, she responded, "From me, going in the potty." I breathed a sigh of relief. Nathan, playing right outside the bathroom with his sister's dollhouse (a gift from her Grammy, complete with buttons that make noises like a doorbell, washing machine, and toilet) had other ideas in mind. He followed her comment with a toilet flush as if indicating that, perhaps, a courtesy flush were in order to protect the noses of the rest of us.

Tuesday, Audrey was continuing work on an elephant picture she'd been drawing for a couple days. Its details were extensive: a spray of water coming out of the elephant's trunk, a source of water from which the elephant had drawn the water being sprayed, grass, and clouds. She added some worms, rain, a butterfly, and a baby elephant. Then, she pointed to a small pink outline drawn in the grass, "and here is a dead foot. Are you surprised?"

"Where is the rest of the body?" I asked.

"God already took it up." (Naturally).

Wednesday morning, Audrey asked for toast. The toaster's lever sprang up with a bing. "It hatched!" she said.

That afternoon during lunch, Nathan kept trying to pull his bib off. Unable to master the task, he began laughing at himself and his failed efforts. I just love a baby who has mastered self-deprecating humor.

Preschool mornings are always a bit rushed at our house. The kids wake up wanting to play with one another rather than get dressed. Audrey wants to talk or work on projects rather than eat. Thursday was no exception. In a feeble attempt to get Audrey, who was more interested in telling me a story, to eat breakfast, I said, "I'm not talking to you anymore until you're finished eating and we're in the car."

"Okay. I still love you, though."

Thursday evening, Jason was getting Nathan ready for bed. I told Audrey where to find a diaper and pajamas and asked her to take them upstairs to her dad. "Thank you, big girl helper," I said.

"Thank you, big mama helper for trying to tell me what to do."

Friday morning, Audrey asked if she could help get Nate ready. I told her she could try to take his pajamas off of him. She began with the shirt. She kept pushing his sleeves up toward his elbows rather than pulling them down and off. Realizing her tactic wasn't working, she stopped to regroup. She paused for a minute, in thought. Then, she began pulling at her own shirt as she would to take it off, realized her mistake and used her newly-gained knowledge to get her brother's shirt off.

A few minutes later, she told me she wanted two Audreys. She's mentioned wanting a sister several times since discovering she's having another brother. I assumed this was another attempt at telling me how much she wished for a sister. "Do you want a sister or another Audrey?"

"Another Audrey."

"Would she be a baby or be four."

"Four." Upon further questioning, I discovered that she would also look and act just like Audrey. This could be one interesting play date.

Nathan had a new skill of his own to show off Friday evening. As it turns out, he can now blow his nose, which he demonstrated by pulling out and blowing his nose into each bib in the kitchen bib drawer.

Oh yes, each little one comes into his own or learns to be in her own good time. And no amount of time, no matter how well-prepared she might think (or hope) she is, is enough to prepare a mama to watch it all unfold before her, which might just be one of adulthood's great gifts. That, and a self-cleaning car. Where do I get my hands on one of those?

Practical Stitches

2011-04-08T20:56:00.003-04:00

This space has been a little sparse in the project department lately. It's not that projects aren't in progress, I just haven't had much time to record them. But, like most things of the last month, these projects lend themselves towards the practical. My knitting needles were feeling a bit rusty last week. I was about to hop into the passenger seat for a fifteen minute ride with my hands empty when a household need (and project that's been on my get-around-to list) popped in my head. I grabbed a couple needles and a ball of garden twine and hustled to the car. Several months ago, I ran across this blog post giving instructions on how to knit a dish scrubber using garden twine. Our dish scrubber had seen better days. We had garden twine (okay, I had just purchased garden twine a month ago with spring and this little project in mind). I had a weekend with a couple of car rides in the passenger seat and a few spare moments at the kitchen table with the kids. I had idle hands but a mind too busy to focus on a project of much complexity. All told, I had the makings of a perfect rustic rectangle - and it is: rough around the edges, glitz-free, but getting the job done. It's a little like us right now. I kind of like it.

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 110

2011-04-06T11:55:00.003-04:00

Do you remember the scene in Pretty Woman where Vivian finds herself staring down a plate of escargot and a line-up of forks that seem completely inappropriate for the task?

"Where's the salad?" she asks.
"Uh, the salad comes at the end of the meal."
"But, that's the fork I knew."

Some days, I worry that I've set Audrey up for such a scene, she desperately counting tines, trying to remember what their numbers mean. It's not that we're an etiquette-free house. I'm simply partial to the salad fork. It feels better in my hand (for those of you picturing me with dainty, smaller-than-average hands, you'd be mistaken), or perhaps, I like that due to its shorter length, I have the illusion that the food has a shorter distance to travel before reaching my mouth. Touch or semblance aside, when Audrey sets the table, I ask for a salad fork. Every time. Our table is a mish-mash of cutlery, toddler-sized forks for the kids, a salad fork for me, and your standard dinner fork for Jason. Audrey doesn't stand a chance.

I could make this simple and change my fork. But sometimes, regardless of etiquette or principle or want, you use the fork that fits. Those have been our weeks of late. As I have spent my sleeping hours up with a teething toddler and my waking hours trying to prepare for the next baby (or recovering from missed sleeping hours) this space has been a quiet one, lying fallow until energy returns and this ground is ready for a fresh turn of the fork.

In the meantime, here are our moments to savor from last week, the ones that filled us up, no utensils required:

Sunday morning, Audrey was running around the family room with a ball "doing tricks" to make Nate laugh. With each new laugh, her tricks became more elaborate. "When he laughs, his face is brand new," she said.

Nate likes to play peek-a-boo. Sunday, he added a little twist to the game, covering his nose with his hands rather than his eyes and smelling his fingers before tossing both arms out in a "ta-da" gesture.

As I'm able, I try to make it to the gym for a workout, which at this point involves pushing Nate around an indoor track in a stroller while Audrey plays or does crafts in the children's area. A couple months ago, no one took note (at least verbally) of my belly, perhaps thinking I simply hadn't lost the baby weight from Nathan. Now, well into my third trimester, note has been taken. On Monday, a man stopped me. "Is that what you call walking for three?" he asked. I believe this same man asked me a little over a month ago, "Is that what you call walking for two?" That day, I almost answered that I was actually walking for three. When I relayed the story to Jason, he informed me that no, when I'm walking to take care of myself, I'm really walking for five.

Tuesday evening I had plans to meet up with two of my favorite ladies. Both celebrate their birthdays in February, but we were finally able to coordinate schedules to honor the occasion in March. Audrey saw me preparing a couple little gifts Tuesday afternoon. She wanted to include a little something of her own and asked me for a couple of blank cards that she could decorate. I struck up a deal. I opened the kitchen cabinet that serves as her art storage. A ream of loose-leaf paper fell at my ankles. "Pick out ten sheets of paper for me to recycle and I'll give you two cards," I said. Audrey agreed. She picked out six. She began bawling. She asked me to photograph one picture for posterity's sake. I snapped a shot and told her she had four more papers to go. "I want my Daddy!" she said.

Wednesday afternoon, Audrey came to me carrying a big plastic pig. "Mama pig has a big snot," she said, pointing at the pig's nose.
"Snout," I said.

That night, Nate and I had a bit of a late night party when he awoke at 4 am, crying inconsolably. I brought him downstairs and spent two hours trying everything I could think of (changing him, feeding him, giving him Tylenol) to calm him down, until he passed out at 6 am and began laughing in his sleep.

Of course, the Law of Averages states that if your youngest child stays up well into the night whittling away at your energy, your oldest will awaken bright and early with energy to spare (okay, the Law of Averages states something entirely different, but in my very scientific study, n=1, the outcome is completely accurate). Audrey began Thursday morning by asking, "Mom, are there fish farmers?"
"Yes."
"Can you teach me about them?"

We spent the morning perusing the Internet, looking at pictures of shrimp farms and catfish tanks and learning what tilapia eat (for those of you wondering, tilapia eat ANYTHING).

"Can we build a fish farm in our backyard?"
"No, honey," I said (followed by a brief explanation of what an HOA is and that our particular one would most definitely not allow a fish farm in our backyard).

By complete happenstance, twenty minutes later a couple of our neighbors walked past our fence carrying fishing poles toward the retention pond. Audrey raced outside to badger them with fishing questions. I saw it as the perfect window of opportunity to sneak Nate upstairs for a nap. Unfortunately, the window wasn't wide enough. Audrey came inside, and unable to find me, began shouting through the house, waking her brother. Wide awake, he skipped his nap until late afternoon, right as we pulled into the grocery store parking lot. As I carefully maneuvered him out of his car seat, Audrey discovered a spare handmade Valentine tucked under one of the seats. She carried it into the store. Hoping to give Nate a much-needed nap, I carried him through the store, maneuvering my cart with my spare hand and asking Audrey to walk right beside me. Five minutes into our trip, she brushed past a potted orchid, knocking it to the ground. As I turned to pick it up, a store employee stopped me and said she'd take care of it. We walked away and I leaned down to Audrey, "I know it was an accident, but can you go tell the lady you're sorry?" I asked. Audrey headed back, talked briefly to the woman, and then bent down placing the Valentine on the ground next to the overturned flower. "I gave her my Valentine," she said, "because she told me it was okay."

Back at home, Nate still safely strapped in his seat sleeping in the garage, Audrey ran upstairs to change into some dress-up clothes. She came down wearing a pair of clown pants - and nothing else.
"Why don't you go put a shirt on under that?" I asked.
"No, my dance group told me this was one without shirts."
Just as I began wondering how she'd gained admission to a topless club at age four, she criss-crossed her straps in front of her, creating a zig-zag pattern and began performing superhero poses.
"I'm a superhero clown!"

Rested, and ready to show off some super moves of his own, Nate practiced spin moves against me, lowering his right arm to the side as he does when dancing, to juke away from the Tylenol dropper - my weapon of choice for lowering his fever.

Saturday morning, Jason had planned to play an online video game against a friend. I was hoping to keep the kids at bay long enough to let him finish uninterrupted. I hoped Audrey would forget it was the weekend and would assume he was already at work. But, she raced downstairs asking where he was. "I want to look for him," she said, pausing by the basement door. "I heard 'ding it!' (dang it) so I think he's downstairs."

I don't remember the last time I wore a cocktail dress to dinner. I've never learned to drive anything other than an automatic, and know about as much about a car "cornering like it's on rails" as I do about aquaculture (actually, after last week, I know more about aquaculture). But Vivian and I both know something about dealing with a week of unlikely circumstances. Sometimes, you just have to stick with the fork you know. Or, when all else fails (or life throws you a plate of "slippery little suckers") just dig in with both hands. And enjoy the ride.

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 109

2011-03-28T21:41:00.002-04:00

Sunday, the family was loaded into the car, headed to spend an evening with friends. I was telling Jason a story from the passenger seat when a voice piped in from the back, "Mom, don't talk forever. I have something to say."

We laughed. I finished my story. Audrey took her turn. I was reminded of just how much four-year-olds do have to say. And how much they know, especially about themselves:

Monday, Audrey came inside from a successful bug hunt. She placed her captive on the kitchen floor to observe what he would do. Unaware of her plan, Gomer* came by and stepped on the bug, killing it in front of her. Audrey cried the rest of the evening, wailed over her plate of dinner unable to eat, and finally stopped at bedtime long enough to say a prayer for the bug.

The next day, her school received a "Silly Safari" visit. A man came with his bunny (Foo Foo), skunk, baby crocodile, turtle (who wore a diaper), bag of fleas, and bird (who pooped on the floor). The bugs (that Audrey said were fleas) the man pulled out of his lunchbox. They were in a ziplock bag that the man told the class had contained his sandwich for lunch. Audrey found the sandwich-eating bugs rather funny and told me they were her favorite. She then proceeded to tell me that the bird had pooped on the floor and that was her favorite part about the bird.

"Audrey, I think you could be a zookeeper," I said.
She thought this was a good idea and asked just how she'd go about becoming a zookeeper. "I want to be a zookeeper, a farmer, and a mother," she said. "Can I do all that?"
"Audrey, if you want to do all that, I think you will find a way," I said.

Audrey also had an opinion about the things the adults had to say last week. Saturday, Jason and I were talking about Butler's latest win. "I think you should stop talking about that," said Audrey, who is not allowed to use the word "butt". "It sounds like a bad word."

I'm what you'd call an indecisive adult. But, I don't think I was always this way. As a first grader, I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. (I don't remember who posed the question, but I believe it was my teacher, Mrs. Montgomery, who never scolded me for doodling in the margins of my worksheets, but wrote comments about how pretty the pictures were, instead). I replied without hesitation, "a writer and a mother." Time passed, and by fifth grade my answer to this question changed as I gained new interests and discovered my friends' interests and heard the suggestions of adults. I was going to be a figure skater, then a friend and I were going to open an optometry clinic, followed by my claim that I planned to become an architect. I entered college with every intention of following the path to become a counseling psychologist.

Within three years, I had all the credits I needed to graduate with a psychology degree. But I stayed in school one more year, racking up English courses and sneaking in a couple creative writing classes for good measure, leaving college with the academic mark of an indecisive woman - a double major in English and Psychology. I meant to attend a graduate clinical psych program, really I did. I had excellent grades and recommendation letters and horrible GRE scores. The handful of programs I applied to rejected me. Then, this boy I knew, asked me to marry him and I found myself, once again, answering a question without hesitation. We moved to a small town near a college campus where I took a job to take advantage of the employee benefit of free college courses, and snuck into as many graduate creative writing courses as I could (where the legitimate MFA students wondered who I was). Four years later, the day before packing our car to move to Virginia, I told Jason he was going to be a father.

Today, I am a mother. Every day, Audrey asks me to make up stories as we travel in the car or eat breakfast. Every once in a while, I check into this space to record pieces of our days. And, while I wouldn't call myself a writer, I will tell you that I've never met an indecisive four-year-old, or first grader. When one tells me she wants to be a mother and a farmer (I won't hold her to the zookeeper since I brought that one up), I'm not surprised that she seems to know herself so well. Those four-year-olds have a lot to say, if we only silence ourselves long enough to listen.

*Some names have been changed to protect the not-so innocent.

As for Nate, our man of precisely a few words, he seems to communicate just fine, pointing to the refrigerator when he wants some milk, shaking his head to let us know what he doesn't want, and jabbering like a talk show host rescued from a deserted island at his last doctor's appointment when he realized that talkative sister of his was nowhere to be found.

Feels Like Spring - at Least on the Inside

2011-03-24T19:35:00.003-04:00

According to the latest weather report, spring is taking her sweet time. I can sympathize with her drip-like-molasses nature. But the children of this house are springing forward, with or without the weather's blessing.

Yesterday, we grabbed spring by her indecisive bootstraps and pulled her inside. We began our little planting project outdoors (mama thinking this would be the cleaner option), but the wind felt like puffing his chest and warning everyone about the coming storm. Dirt was in the air and our eyes. So after filling our little toilet paper tubes with seed-starting soil, we took our project indoors where Audrey added a couple broccoli seeds to each tube (and accidentally showered the rest of the miniature peppercorn-looking seeds across the brown rug).

A sprinkle of water and one labeled tongue depressor later, and our makeshift seed-starting cells were set - for whatever spring has in store (or at least for the laundry room counter).

*I found the directions for the toilet paper roll seed-starting cells in Gayla Trail's Grow Great Grub.

While We Could

2011-03-23T20:30:00.002-04:00

We ignored the list of indoor projects (and mama's need for a shower) and set out on a little adventure today, while the sun was shining enough to warm our faces. Audrey stopped along our bike route to collect a handful of sticks. When I told her I thought she would have to leave them behind, she insisted otherwise. These sticks were for a project (what that project is she didn't say). While I had my doubts, I've learned to never underestimate the willpower (or abilities) of a four-year-old. And, never take a sunny day for granted (did I mention it's now hailing outside).

*The sticks, the bicycle, and the four-year-old all made it back to the car safely, where the sticks still sit, piled on the floorboards of the backseat.

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 108

2011-03-22T11:05:00.003-04:00

Last week was a week of goodness. The week began with goodness - the sigh of relief kind - when word was received that friends, who I'd lost track of after their move home, were safe and doing okay in Japan. Much time was spent sending and receiving emails from other concerned friends as we tried to find out if this family might still be in need of some support, because one imagines that "safe" and "okay" be rather relative terms when watching your direct neighbors experience absolute devastation. Goodness continued - the planned kind - as I made preparations for a breakfast pitch-in I had volunteered to host for my mom's group on Friday. This was followed by goodness of the impromptu kind, when I received a message that my best friend could come up to spend the day Friday and ten minutes later got a text from Jason that his best friend and son would be coming up to spend the weekend. And so, frenzied cleaning (of everything down to the basement - where I've stashed all of my former craft room supplies as it becomes Nate's room - once a guy's game night got scheduled for Saturday) ensued. The weekend was spent with friends and food and nonstop activities from which I'm still catching my breath and hoping to (someday) catch up on sleep. But for today, I will simply catch up on the events of last week - our rather tardy Week in Review, and let those of you wondering just where we've been that we are all safe and okay, in the very best possible way.

Our moments from last week:

Okay, this first one is actually from the Thursday prior (I know, I know) but somehow it got lost until now. Audrey had just injured herself for the third time in an hour (I can no longer remember the injuries, but all were your run-of-the-mill preschooler specialties).

"Audrey, what's the matter? You keep getting hurt," I said.

"I don't know. I think I'm falling apart."

Monday morning, Audrey found Jason's lost house key. Upon retrieving it from the back of the coat closet she said, "It's a pleasure! I'm going to find more pleasures (treasures) and then you'll be excited when I give them to you."

During lunch, she asked me to tell her about Tarzan. I told her he could climb trees really well.

"I remember he could swing from branches. I can't do that," she said.

"Me, either."

"How cool is that?"

"It's pretty cool," I said.

Apparently, I wasn't enthusiastic enough. "No, how cool is that, seriously?"

That evening at dinner, Audrey was discussing the size of dinosaurs with Jason. She was telling him about one in particular.

"Was that the one whose head was as big as a surfboard?" he asked. "Is your head as big as a surfboard?"

"Hm, we'd have to measure that," she said.

Monday, before bedtime, Jason and Audrey invented a new game - an investigation game. He would pose a question such as "where are elephant and giraffe?" Audrey would then ask questions to different witnesses (in this case other jungle animals) and collect clues until she could guess what had happened to elephant and giraffe. Upon questioning a worm, she might find out that he had been scooting through the jungle toward the river until he fell into a big hole shaped like a foot. A monkey might tell her that he was showered with water while playing in a tree near the river even though it wasn't raining, etc.

Tuesday, she suddenly asked, "Mom, what happened to the broken bridge?"

"It broke."

"No, we're playing the game like Daddy last night. You have to ask questions."

I asked questions. I discovered that one animal found a white and black spot; that according to the monkey, it was snowing; that according to another animal (I think it was a sheep) it was actually sunny and the monkey, who likes to joke, was an unreliable witness; that one animal smelled something purple and another smelled salad. So, who broke the bridge?

A shark.

Nate and I clocked several late hours together last week as he cut another tooth. Tuesday night, as I tried to snuggle him to sleep and recover from the day, I turned on the television to find an episode of "What Not to Wear." I thought Nate would lose interest and close his eyes. I didn't think about the show's end-of-the-episode big reveals. Nate heard the friends and family members of the newly-made-over woman screaming and clapping and began to clap and cheer with them.

Wednesday, Audrey began a serious conversation. "We're going to be serious after the baby is born. You, me, Nate, and the baby will all be serious, and we can move the world!"

Nate laughed. "You'll know what it means when you grow up, Nate," she said.

While in the car, I play age-appropriate CDs for the kids. A couple weeks ago, Audrey asked Jason and I what the word "mossy" meant. We told her. When we asked where she had heard "mossy," she said it was in one of the songs. We couldn't think of a song on the CD where mossy would make sense.

Wednesday, while driving to the gym, Audrey yelled from the backseat. "Mom, did you hear them say "mossy?'"

"Honey, they said, 'beautiful one my soul must see,' but yes, it does sound like 'mossy.'" I found myself trying to explain the concept of enunciation to my four-year-old, while thinking of another song, one sung by Leann Rimes in which she means to ask, "How do I live without you?" But, what she really asks is, "How do I live without chew?" (Which I imagine would involve nicotine patches or some sort of 12-step program).

Later, Audrey asked me to play a rhyming game with her in the car. I gave her the words "truck" and "can" and asked her to find rhyming words. She gave me "Harriet" and "mailbox." Ahem. (In case you're wondering, I came up with "chariot" and "cell blocks," and was more than slightly thankful when she didn't ask me what a cell block was).

Last week, Jason introduced the children to some of his favorite Weird Al songs, including one in which a family loads up into their decal-covered car and heads off on an adventure to see the "Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota." Wednesday evening, Audrey asked me where I would like to go if I could go "anywhere in the whole wide world." I told her that I would like to take her dad to Italy or Switzerland since he's never been there before, or I might like to go to Australia and see some of the places her Aunt Ashley has visited. "Where would you like to go if you could go anywhere in the whole wide world?" I asked.

"The biggest ball of twine in Minnesota."

Thursday afternoon, I thought I had Nate down for a nap. He was snuggled against me at the kitchen table, his eyes closed as I perused some library books. Just as I thought about standing up to take him to his crib, he opened his eyes, sat up and started clapping. Then he put his head back down and closed his eyes. He was still a moment. Then he opened his eyes and gave me a wave. He put his head back down and closed his eyes. Once again he bolted up, this time performing the ultimate sign of Nathan affection - vigorously rubbing his forehead against mine. I gave up.

We don't watch much television at our house. I think boredom is creativity's greatest gift (and, while I haven't read any biographies and have absolutely no proof to back this up, in my mind I envision Einstein the child at home bored out of his mind, sketching inventions and such, while his neighborhood chums played with their version of that day's iPad). In order to watch television, Audrey has to do chores (acts of service as we call them) to rack up enough stickers (5) on a chart to get a family movie night. She averages about a movie a week. Having said that, I've been wanting her to watch Leap Frog's Letter Factory DVD because Audrey learns easily through songs and I was hoping it would help her with her letter sounds. Thursday, she asked "Mom, can I watch a movie today?"

(There were three stickers on her chart). "Actually, today you can. I've been wanting you to watch the Letter Factory movie to help you with sounds, so you can watch it."

"I can? Why am I getting a movie! Why am I getting a movie!"

I may have just ruined the sticker chart.

The weekend is over and we're slowly shifting back to our normal routines, thankful for being blessed with an abundance of goodness and thankful, too, for the quiet that follows. A quiet during which I must go hunt down the microwave user manual. It seems one can't have too much goodness without her microwave going bust. After all, it's all about balance, isn't it?

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 107

2011-03-12T20:28:00.008-05:00

For me, things happen one small fragment at a time. The laundry gets done in partial, interrupted cycles, my train of thought lulled away by requests for sippy cups or a make-it-up-as-Audrey-goes game involving "abc" flashcards at the kitchen table as the dryer buzzes (resulting in extremely wrinkled clothes and Jason's dress pants crumpled in a corner to be washed again). From the passenger seat, a design on the latest craft project comes to be, a stitch at a time, the car arriving in a parking lot or driveway before I can get the current row finished. Books are read a paragraph at a time (several with a notebook and pen close by with the hope that I if I take a few notes, I might just remember what I've read). And, ironically, for every task I complete, the to-do list seems to grow by two.

My children are different. For them, things happen in bounds. Something clicks - a letter finally pairing with a sound - and suddenly words come alive to Audrey as if she has swallowed a magic pill sending her down the vocabulary rabbit hole, leaving her brain ten inches taller. A father-son game of "catch" inspires Nate to stretch his muscles and I find myself with a new pastime of pulling him down from the couch and the stool his big sister uses to help me cook. The children move about their days, laughing and running, masquerading their lessons as play, until I find myself caught off-guard by the words sounded out, written with magnets on a cookie sheet, and the ball that lands by my feet, kicked by this little man who seems less baby and more toddler at every glance. They like to pack a punch, double-teaming me with these milestones, growing by twos.

Luckily, laundry (and most any mundane task) goes down better with a little shock and awe (not to mention laughter) to keep you company. Here are the moments of childhood wonder that kept us company this week:

Audrey began Tuesday morning by telling me she wished to call her father to tell him something (he had already left for work before she woke up). I knew he had a morning conference call scheduled, but told her she could send him a text message. She agreed, and promptly dictated the following:

I hope you'll be here for my tea party. I hope you won't have to go to work. I love you, too. And listen to your boss. Listen to all your bosses and do what they tell you to do and just do it if you care. You really have to listen to your bosses. And eat all your food. And I love you.

Tuesday afternoon we were in the car when she informed me, "I already named the baby."

"Our baby?"

"Yes."

"What did you name him?"

"T-bone."

Tuesday night, while eating, she saw Jason put his piece of garlic bread back on a plate sitting in the middle of the table rather than in his bowl. She asked him why he did it. "I don't have room on my bowl, so I put it back on the plate," he said.

"That doesn't make sense," she said.

"Honey, sometimes, little girls don't get everything," he answered.

"No, I get it. You don't have room in your bowl and you don't have another plate, so you put it back on that plate."

"If you get it, then why did you say it doesn't make sense?" he asked.

"That's just something I said."

Jason has been packing Girl Scout cookies in his lunch this week. Tuesday night, Audrey drew him a picture of cookies and left it on the counter to remind him not to forget to take them. The next morning she asked me if he had remembered. "I'm sure he did," I said.

"He's only allowed to take two," she said.

Wednesday morning, I read Audrey the story of Zaccheus out of her illustrated children's Bible. Later, while running an errand, I asked her what she had learned from the story.

"If you climb a tree and there was a mama bird and a baby bird in a nest, you might scare them," she said. (Oh the power of illustrations).

Thursday, Audrey began her morning in song. And dance. She crafted lyrics, swaying her hands in the air, occasionally turning in circles. Her brother watched, a couple feet away. Audrey paused, "Your turn, Nate," she said. He bounced up and down and suddenly began singing in nonsense syllables, matching her volume. Then he stopped and she picked up the tune, again pausing to tell him it was his turn, to which he began to bounce and sing.

Friday, I was trying to get everyone ready to attend a meeting of my mom's club. I had five minutes to get the breakfast dishes cleared, Audrey's teeth brushed, both kids into shoes and coats and car seats, and the car loaded to make it on time. Odds weren't good. Audrey watched me as I helped her brush her teeth. "Mom, are you mad?"

"No."

"You look like you have a mad face," she said.

"Honey, I'm not mad. I'm just focused. I'm trying to get us there on time."

We finished brushing her teeth. As she fumbled with her coat and shoes, I finished getting her brother ready and into the car. Then I went to strap her into her car seat. "How long are you going to have a mad face?" she asked.

Each of us gets twenty-four hours a day. What we do with them is up to us. I spend mine growing a to-do list - one that will probably never be completely crossed off. It's not that I want to procrastinate on everything, or that I don't wish the house were a little cleaner or a few more rooms were painted. But the simple truth is this: I have better things to do. I have wonders to witness and impromptu concerts to attend. (Not to mention, a new face to grow.) And, at the rate these two are growing, if I spend too many moments hidden in the laundry room, they just might pass me by - by next week.

*The bottom two photos were taken by Jason on Saturday at a Lowe's Build & Grow workshop where Audrey completed her first woodworking project. She spent the rest of the afternoon telling me about all the projects she intended to hammer.

Digging

2011-03-09T16:32:00.006-05:00

Today the world is awash with the scenes of moody watercolors, grays and browns swirling together in puddly masterpiece. But yesterday, the world was cast in a different palette, that muted-before-the-storm hush of barely-there blues.

As the temperature crept up into the mid-fifties, we crept out to join it, one with pitchfork, one with plastic shovel, and one empty-handed, to get ahead of the work of spring. I thought I might begin to turn the garden soil, pull out the rocks or wayward toys left behind from winter's play. I thought Audrey might want to help - in her own way. I assumed Nate would roam the yard playing with the half dozen balls strewn about, uninterested in our muddy ventures. Ahem.

Apparently, he likes mud as much as his sister. I wonder what his stance will be on worms...

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 106

2011-03-07T12:00:00.002-05:00

The morning is blurry at best. It involves crying. A lot of crying. I've been up, off-and-on, since what I believe was 3:15 a.m. Nate began crying around that time, Jason and I taking turns going to check on him, finding him asleep in his crib, his cheeks wet with tears. His tears would subside when we placed a hand on his head, so we finally resorted to moving him to our room and rousing him enough to give him a dose of Tylenol. By 3:45, he was awake, crawling on top of my head, over my stomach, making wiggly use of every last inch of himself. The two of us retreated to the kitchen until five o' clock, when I finally managed to shift him back to his crib, sound asleep. I hoped to join the rest of my sleeping crew, but the mind is an awful, funny contraption. As my head met pillow, a running to-do list reel began to play of all the things left to accomplish in the coming months, until it rested squarely on the quandary of finding a baby name. I began thinking of the children we had just spent the evening with, of their names: Cole, Wyatt, Audrey, Caedmon, and Thaddeus.

Suddenly, I was in middle school Home Ec class, sitting next to my friend, Sarah, the two of us having just received matching baby boys, of the hard-boiled egg variety. We discovered we both wanted to name them Zachary. Instead, (because, really, the confusion and horror of having two egg babies named alike, just think of it!) I named mine Thaddeus. I carried Thaddeus with me everywhere, for the period of the assignment - one week. I was an involved parent, even taking my egg child out of his crib (or basket, as it's more commonly referred to), which is where I made my mistake. Unlike the smarter students, who left their eggs resting on shelves, I took little Thaddeus out, and a day before turning him in for my grade, cracked his little bum. A hairline fracture. Minuscule. I went for some scrap fabric and a glue gun. I fashioned a cloth diaper around his tokus and bought the kid a pair of plastic shoes from the cake decorating aisle of Wal-Mart, because that's what crafty, pragmatic girls do when faced with a cracked hard-boiled egg - that, or make egg salad, but it wasn't really that kind of assignment. My teacher was none the wiser.

Our class used eggs again that year for a science project. This time they were uncooked, and this time, we were dropping them from the extended ladder of a fire truck, raised above a blacktop parking lot rather than toting them around in baskets from our lockers to social studies class. We were given a few materials: straws, tape, an individual-sized milk carton, and string. The objective was simple. Build a contraption for your egg to protect if from the fall. My friend, Jill (who went on to become an engineer), and I had just finished building a bridge in Tech Ed out of toothpicks. The boys in our class used boxes of toothpicks, gluing them on top of each other until they had amassed the Monster Garage versions of toothpick bridges. Jill and I used 54 toothpicks, strategically placing trusses. (What can I say, I was the runt of my middle school class, the size of one's toothpick contraption never impressed me much.) Our bridge didn't hold much weight, but at the end of the day, it withstood more in relation to its size than the rest. So when it came time to protect my second egg, I created straw trusses and built my contraption like a bridge. We worked on our projects for several days, testing their durability by hefting them off the top of the bleachers lining the football field. My contraption was sturdy, shaped like a trapezoid with the milk carton (my egg's cocoon) secured in the center. It was also heavy. The day they dropped it from the firetruck, it made an audible "thud," echoed by the "oohs" of my classmates. But when I retrieved my contraption and opened the cocoon, there was my egg, nestled inside, still in one piece.

Some weeks are like that, well-thought out, planned, and buttressed to perfection. And some, despite your best efforts, are filled with the spontaneous - sometimes rich, sometimes challenging, and sometimes leaving your bum a bit bruised. The week past was a bit of the latter. While we don't have any cracked tokuses to tend to, we're a little short on sleep and desperately hoping for a surge of energy (well, the adults anyway). Nate, poor kid, decided to excel in teething last week, skipping filling out his bottom front gumline and opting for breaking out a couple upper molars. (This weekend, he decided to start on that bottom gumline.)

Audrey, not teething and sleeping just fine, kept us all in check with her typical perspective:

Sunday evening, she began discussing dinosaurs before bedtime. "Why don't we have dinosaurs anymore?" she asked.

"I don't know, honey, something happened a long time ago that made it so they couldn't survive anymore."

"Maybe God decided it was better to have people and the meat-eaters would have eaten the people," she said. "But it would be nice if he would have just made plant-eaters."

Everyone has their drink of choice when they have a sore throat. For me, it's typically Gatorade. Lately, for Jason, it's been hot apple cider. Both were in use the past week. On Monday, Audrey asked, "Can I have Ciderade?"

Wednesday, she drew a map of the neighborhood, including the houses of her friends. When I asked about the houses, she pointed to one in particular, a house where she spent some time last year playing with a girl older than herself. Last year, Jason and I were a bit surprised that Audrey followed this girl's every direction, letting her lead games of school and being the one to make up the rules for games in the yard. Apparently, this year, Audrey has changed her perspective. When she pointed to this house, she informed me that she made the house ugly because she doesn't like the little girl telling her what to do, since only moms and dads should do that. Ahem.

Saturday evening, we asked Audrey to go wash her hands for dinner. She ran into the bathroom. Minutes passed. More minutes passed. When this much time lapses, it usually means some science experiment is underway involving soap and mass quantities of water. Jason went to investigate. He found her sitting on the toilet reading a book. He decided to give her some privacy. She finally came out, ten minutes later. "My leg hurts," she said. "I can't walk." We had to explain that she had sat reading so long on the toilet that her leg had fallen asleep.

Life is like that. Those things that bring you the most joy, occasionally make your legs fall asleep. Or, they bring you no sleep. All we can do is prepare as best we can, be optimistic, and hope that when all else fails, there's a glue gun nearby.

Right Now

2011-03-04T16:43:00.004-05:00

:: The sidewalks are wet, but we are dry in spite of a drizzly walk.

:: A picture has been delivered to friends and a collection of leaves found along the path home.

:: One snuggles close, drowsy from sleep, while another creates a picture of a far away place as her father drives home.

:: Pumpkin bread crumbs peek out from under drawing paper and leaves litter the closet floor.

:: My hands smell of fresh pizza dough rising on the counter.

:: My lids are heavy from the events of the week; my head is focused on (and hopeful that rain won't hinder) weekend events to come; and my heart is filled with gratitude for this warm house, the ones who bring joy by crossing its threshold, and the calm of this moment as the day creeps to its edge.

In Progress

2011-03-01T20:18:00.004-05:00

Every toy and book Audrey owned used to fit into two small bins in our playroom. The space was efficient, with a large open space to run and play - just the thing a child needs most from a playroom. A funny thing happened as Audrey grew, in essence, needing more room in which to run and play - those toys grew. They seemed to multiply as we slept, soon spilling out of our two bins. We cleaned them out and trimmed down the contents, but with the addition of another child and more birthdays and Christmases, those toys never seemed to get under control and running in that room became a challenge.

Taming that room has been on my mind for some time, but I like to take my time with these projects, figuring out what I want from a space before I invest time and money. I've never been an impulse shopper, or much of an impulse anything, for that matter. (Part of me would also just rather give most of the toys away. I prefer a few quality items and lots of space for imagination over a packed playroom). But, for those things that the kids come back to again and again - especially those things with multiple uses that encourage creativity, some storage is definitely in order. When I ran across this pattern a few weeks ago, I knew I'd found what I was looking for. Spare moments over the last week have been spent working on three of these baskets, two still in progress. With the exception of some interfacing, which I had to buy, the other materials were fabrics left over from other projects. The inside is cotton quilting fabric, while the outsides are the scraps of a painter's drop cloth, used to make Audrey's indoor playhouse. They won't contain all the ruckus that has become the playroom, but it's a start. At less than $1.60 each, it's a very effective start.

*This pattern calls for a lot of hand sewing, with no visible machine-stitched lines on the outside of the baskets, which might just make it an ideal first project for someone, especially a child learning to sew.

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 105

2011-02-28T15:59:00.004-05:00

With a little over two months before we meet our newest little man, it's safe to say that nesting has taken up residence in our home and my mind. It's taken root here, which may explain why I've promoted it from a verb to guest status. (Although, true be told, it's just that kind of a year - a reevaluation year, if you will. A new job for one family member, a growing girl with growing stuff and activities, a boy suddenly on the move, and another boy about to move in. It just seems smart to take a little time to make sure everything is working for us and not against us as we embark on all this newness). I find myself in the thick of it, spending each free moment sorting, making, redesigning, and reading all manner of how-to manuals and organization books. While I tend to enjoy the process (and get embarrassing huge thrills out of taking the smallest of measures to improve a room or system) I don't want to get too busy to record a few stories from the week past. Turns out, I'm not the only one with much on my mind. Here are a few of Audrey's thoughts from last week (and a small indication of just what we're up against daily with this one who is a little too smart for her mama's own good):

Wednesday night, Jason took Audrey up to bed. As he tucked her in, she asked him about monsters. Jason told her not to worry that he was bigger than monsters.

"Are you bigger than the Abominable Snowman?" she asked. (We had let her watch an old version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer last Christmas, which I forgot included the Abominable Snowman).

"You're bigger than the Abominable Snowman," he said.

"What!" she said, before asking about the elves and how big they were.

"The elves are tiny. They only come up past your ankles," he said.

"But they were bigger than the reindeer," she said.

"Yes."

"But the reindeer pull Santa's sleigh, Dad."

Thursday night was one of those evenings where, by morning, everyone was in the master bed. I woke up to a child nestled on each side. Audrey woke up first. I told her I was going to the bathroom and would be right back. I forgot to tell her not to wake up her brother. I came back to find him wide awake.

"Did you wake up your brother?" I asked.

"I did this (touching his face) and it didn't wake him up. I did this (poking another spot), but it didn't wake him up. Then, I did this (tickling his leg) and he woke up!"

Luckily, she was in the mood not only to poke and prod her brother (trial-and-error style), but also to play. As I got ready and cleaned the bathroom sink, she led him on a search through the master bedroom and bath for Emmy (who had already taken her leave downstairs). Not able to find Emmy, she led Nathan on a scavenger hunt for things that are soft like Emmy - stray pillow feathers, stuffed animals, and the like. I cleaned and listened to the PBS special unfolding in my bathroom.

Friday night, she was praying with Jason before bed.

"God, why do lions roar?" she asked. "God, why are wolves meat-eaters?"

"That's not how you pray," Jason said. "When you pray, you ask for help for something or say thank you for something."

"God, help me understand why lions roar. Help me understand why wolves are meat-eaters."

Nathan has his own thought processes fast at work, ones that involve motion and figuring out how to pull himself up onto the couch with (and sometimes without) assistance, thoughts that cause him to break into dashes around the kitchen island and into the family room in pursuit of his sister or the dog. His thoughts cause him to burst into laughter (the contagious belly kind that don't seem right coming out of one so small) at the smallest sights: blocks tumbling out of bags, a ball almost caught. These are the moments, those breaks in the nesting process, that bring me back to why I spend so much time preparing, clearing spaces for play, building tools and stocking cabinets in preparation for growth. Because, that's what we're doing - building little people, one big thought, one belly laugh at a time.

It's a Plesiosaur Wall Decoration, didn't you know (the plesiosaur, a sea creature who lived at the time of the dinosaurs laid its eggs on the beach and is suspended in tissue paper water, above, surrounded by red fish)? She's the latest dinosaur creation to leave our kitchen table - again from the book Crafts for Kids Who Are Wild About Dinosaurs.

This week

2011-02-23T17:15:00.006-05:00

Between a little man pulling long hours cutting teeth and fighting congestion, a trip home to begin the process of reading applications for an annual family event, and attempting to fit in those things that make our days feel like our own, the computer has been a bit idle this week. So here's a little recap of the week so far and the ways in which I've been spending my time:

Seeing :: (and cleaning up) a lot of mud. It may be in the mid-thirties, but a certain someone has convinced herself that these are the early days of summer, which means she wants to be in the garden, come what may. Turns out, "what may" is mud - lots of mud, on shoes, pants, door frames, and rugs. The late-afternoon bath has become a bit of a ritual this week as we take our mud parties to the bathtub, exchanging garden trowels for boats with water spouts and our dirt-showered hats for a dab of shampoo.

Imagining :: this one sailing down Niagara Falls in her newfangled, ahem, costume.

Reading :: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot and finding myself amazed, yet again, at the stranger-than-fiction life of an "ordinary" woman and the value of a mother.

Trying :: a new pencil grip to hopefully improve Audrey's writing grip, which is typically a fist. (And, grateful for the free tracing pages here - thanks for the link, Jenny!)

Sharing :: my snack space with elephant and our latest creation, The Giant Apatosaurus Model, found in Crafts for Kids Who Are Wild About Dinosaurs by Kathy Ross. The dinosaur (christened Miss Ruby and carried everywhere by her doting owner) is supposed to be covered by an old t-shirt decoupaged to the cardboard using a glue solution, but that's a step I think can wait for a warm day and tablecloth outside.

In awe :: of all the dinosaur teaching aids used by this resourceful mama.

Ready (or not so ready) :: to attempt a new, to me, knitting technique that will bring a project to completion.

Hoping :: for a few more hours of sleep, and many more of the smiles, laughs, and hugs that make these sleep-deprived hours so worth staying up for.

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 104

2011-02-20T16:49:00.003-05:00

On The Name Game and Making Your Opinions Known:

I should not leave the house without my camera. There's too much to capture when I least expect it. Last night, we took Nate on his first family walk sans stroller. I thought we'd be carrying him most of the way. I seem to consistently underestimate the stamina of my children. His grin was wide, his expression proud. He walked two streets, mastering his big boy tennis shoes, until the adults led the children back to the driveway, our ears burning with cold. Audrey complained while parking her bike, asking if she could stay out and play. Nathan cried as soon as Jason set his feet onto the wooden planks of the kitchen floor. I could hear him wailing through the closed garage door.

We've had a couple similar episodes in the past two weeks. A week ago, while strolling through the grocery store, Jason pushed the cart with Nathan in tow past the milk cases. Nathan waved to the rows of cartons and screamed out as they passed.

Thursday, I took Nate with me to drop Emmy off for a grooming appointment. He laughed as I grabbed Emmy with my one free arm to get her out of the car. He watched as she walked into the building. He smiled at the girl behind the counter. The groomer came out, spoke with us a few minutes and carried Emmy through a door. I carried Nate out the other door toward our car. He became hysterical, trying to fight me and get down. I'm guessing he thought I had just given our dog away.

Nate is a man of few words: uh-oh, da-da, mama, and grunts that seem to come at the appropriate times for "thank you" and in response to "love you." But as far as getting his point across? He seems to be doing just fine.

Audrey has been letting her voice be heard in other ways this week:

Tuesday, at dinner, she told Jason, "I like when you're gone because I can talk to Mom without you interrupting." Ahem.

The following night, we were having macaroni and cheese with dinner. "We should make this sometime," she said. "Take these (pointing to the mac 'n cheese) and that (pointing to salt and pepper) and put them in water. Pour big noodles that stay big in and add cereal. Wait for a long time - two minutes." Then, she paused, looked at us and said, "This is a recipe."

But, the real topic on her mind this week is names. Tuesday she said, "the new baby, can we name her Ellie?"

I told her no, that we were having a boy and Ellie is a girl's name. I assumed she was just in denial and still hoping to exchange her coming brother for a sister until it dawned on me that she might think she's won the argument for us having a fourth child that she assumes will be a girl. I didn't ask.

Thursday, she told me she wanted to name the baby Dwight. (Perhaps they are covering Eisenhower in preschool).

Thursday afternoon as we drove home from school she said, "So, Mamaw's mother named her Mamaw?"

"No. Mamaw is just what we call her."

"Like a nickname?"

"Yes. Her mom named her Vicki."

"So she's a Mamaw whose name is Vicki?"

"Yes."

Luckily, she hasn't assigned names to the worms inhabiting our backyard garden. Friday she ran outside in her rain boots to play in the sunshine. She came up to the screen door a few minutes later to tell me she had caught a worm, which she planned on drowning in a cup so she could make a meal out of it for the birds. After the fourth worm, I asked her to please leave some in our garden to help with our soil this year (all the while thinking I must be the only mother making such a request). Moments later, she ran back to the screen door. Apparently, she had changed teams. Now, she was building a home for the worms (those not already in her water cup, they were still bird food) to protect them from the birds. Then, as if she was a veteran of watching R-rated movies, she said, "I told them when I picked them up, 'don't worry, I'm not going to kill you.'"

As I write, Jason is teaching Nathan to play catch with the knit balls I made him for Christmas. Audrey wings the ball underhand, her balls sailing high and deep past her brother who claps. Daily, they grow, the ways they express themselves (and the expressions, oh my the expressions) expanding. The stamina of our little ones' legs, their minds, their hearts grow faster than the adults can keep up, leaving us hoping we remember all that we can, especially to bring the camera.

Wednesday

2011-02-17T22:20:00.002-05:00

So what does one do on the first warm day of February? Go outside and play in the snow (or what's left of it), after traipsing through the freshly uncovered garden, of course. It's beginning to feel a lot like spring...at least for now.

Rhythm and Canoes

2011-02-16T16:41:00.008-05:00

Earlier this week we set out on a little adventure to meet up with some friends at the Eiteljorg. We went straight to the interactive section of the museum to play store and stagecoach.

We also found something new that struck my little ones' fancies this time. Instruments. Each took their turn striking a chord on their instrument of choice. After a lunch break, our friends left and Audrey asked to stay. We had a little time, so I asked if she wanted to head back downstairs to play. "No. I want to see the exhibits," she said.

Since we had to pass a totem pole on our way to the exhibits, we began there. I explained that every totem pole tells a story and read her the story of this one about a young man who saves his starving village by killing a sea monster and wearing the monster's magical skin to catch fish. Then, to my surprise, when I asked which section of the museum she wanted to walk through she chose the contemporary art.

We began with this installation, Wach-Nee (Canoe Form) by Truman Lowe. The piece is supposed to create the feeling of being underwater as a canoe passes overhead. As Audrey led me from exhibit to exhibit, we wove our own story of walking underwater and the things we would see and feel beneath our toes.

She stopped at each exhibit, asking me to read about each one until I told her we had to go, and promised to bring her back. Once home, I handed her a piece of paper and asked her to draw her story. Like all stories, it changed from the original telling, and the retelling in the car, and by the time it found its way to paper and crayon, it had been reborn into something new - the only detail that remained being that the bottom of the body of water was a layer of rocks rather than sand or mud. Story recorded, we moved on to the adventures that lay in wait, as all of us with a story do.

(Audrey and I are the two figures with the crazy hair standing at the side of the water. Yes, in this version of the story we are no longer in the water. Why? Well, that little figure outlined in blue on the right-hand side of the paper would be a shark. I'm not really sure how we transitioned from walking barefoot in a freshwater creek with minnows to standing at the side of some water scared of a shark, but there you have it. As for all the blue ovals? Those would be the rocks. Stories change. Rocks are forever.)

Valentine's Day: A Recap

2011-02-15T09:57:00.008-05:00

If Halloween weren't such a perfect fit for our little girl, between the costumes, candy, and birthday on its heels, I think Valentine's Day would be her holiday. She has a thing for telling others that she loves them, for wanting to make things for others to show them she loves them. She digs wearing pink and red and eating anything sweet (let alone heart-shaped). And, even though I don't remember ever being a Valentine's kind of girl (but who knows, maybe I was at four, ask my mom), it's hard not to catch some of that cupid's spirit watching her in action. A recap of how we spent our Valentine's Day:

Before the holiday, I made Audrey a couple heart-shaped barrettes based off of a design found here at Purl Bee. I didn't have the correct-sized barrettes on hand for their pattern, so I improvised. A little felt + a little embroidery floss + a couple of barrettes = some pint-sized holiday cheer. I have a feeling more of these little barrettes are in our future, maybe some stars or flowers.

Apparently, Valentine's Day at our house also means crust. Lots and lots of crust.

We began the evening with made-to-order calzones using the pizza dough recipe from Jamie Oliver's Jamie at Home.

After dinner, we busied our hands with a little more dough (some store-bought pie crust) and made these super simple heart-shaped cherry turnovers of sorts. We found the four-ingredient recipe here. We used the cookie cutters that we already owned but might have to get some bigger ones before we try this again.

We hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day and were able to spread a little love, or eat a little crust. ;)

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 103

2011-02-12T20:48:00.002-05:00

The yard and I are in a thaw. As good as the week has been (any week in which you are recovering rather than getting worse is a good week, right?), it's felt like a long time coming. It's been a salt-and-pepper sort of week as I tried to regain strength and catch up on the things we let slide during the days I didn't feel so well. For each day of progress, there seemed to be a setback day: adjusting-to-having-no-food-in-my-stomach day, up-late-with-a-teething-baby night, or the glucose test-induced afternoon slump once I had finally regained (or thought I regained) my strength. But today, the sun came out and Audrey and Jason went out to meet it, clad in snow pants with sled, shovel, and, ahem, butterfly net. (I did look out to see Audrey use the net to gather snow.) They spent hours out there, culminating in the building of the snowman above, named Bob. I have to laugh at the sight of Bob, constructed with plastic parts, a snowman-making kit gifted to Audrey by her grandparents. I remember having to search for our own sticks and rocks as kids (no, I didn't walk to school uphill both ways, I braved the bus and Mr. Sandy's driving skills, which occasionally found you bumping into a parked car or chipping a front tooth on the windowpane in the seat across from you). But some weeks, especially those salt-and-pepper, fumbling for balance ones, you take convenience where you can find it. This afternoon, with the sun casting bright color blocks across the floorboards, I began to tackle the remnants of a week off-kilter and took a little time to reflect on the convenience and laughter the kids helped provide this week:

Tuesday, Audrey was unloading the silverware drawer for me. She called Nathan over, fists full of spoons and forks, which she began to hand to him. I intervened, telling her he was too little to hold so much silverware. But she insisted, handing him one piece at a time. "I'm teaching him how to do service," she said, as she trained him to carry each piece over to her at the silverware drawer. "He needs to learn." Once I got over the possibility of rewashing every piece of just-cleaned silverware (after barely mustering the energy to load it the first time), I had to admit that her logic was more sound than mine. I let her continue, and watched him smile as he tried to dump spoons into the silverware drawer, which she took and put in their proper place. Once finished, she let him choose the sticker for her "completed acts of service" chart and praised his efforts.

Acting like the salt of the earth took a backseat toward the end of the week, as Audrey took a little (albeit, funny) peppery turn. Thursday morning, as we got ready for the day, Audrey said, "My stomach hurts, but I don't want it to look like yours."

And, just in case I didn't get the hint the day before, she reminded me why a pregnant woman shouldn't dress for the day in front of a four-year-old, when she walked in on me in my closet Friday morning. "Your bottom is getting big!" she said, laughing and trying to pat it.

Not one to leave a person out, Audrey showed her equal-opportunity ways Friday afternoon as she watched Jason clean out his wallet. She picked up a decade-old photo of Jason and me, one in which he had hair - lots of hair. "You look silly," she said.

"Thanks," he said, sarcastically.

"You're welcome."

Apparently, karma is never far behind. Today, while coloring a picture, the pen Audrey was using got caught in her hair. "Crap!" she said. Jason and I froze. We'd never heard her use the term, let alone appropriately or with such gusto. I tried to act nonchalant, until I saw Jason's face, at which point I started laughing uncontrollably. I would love to say I regained my composure and feel that my, "Audrey, you're okay, next time just say something else like 'oh no, Mom, I need help,'" was effective. What can I say? You win some, and some make you laugh, whether you should or not.

Nathan has helped in his own little ways this week, taking a few long naps and making me laugh at his dramatic throws of his pacifier each time he sees a full sippy cup, his newly acquired peek-a-boo skills, and his penchant to randomly take off running.

Of course, not to be outdone by his big sister, he found one way to get over on his mama this week. Tonight, while playing with the kids, I quickly ran out of the room when it dawned on me that I needed to defrost something for dinner (right that instant) so that we could eat on time. I left my phone in the playroom with the kids. When I returned, I found that Nate had managed to crawl up into the chair in which I'd been sitting. I picked him up. Audrey brought over a piece of pizza she had "baked" in her kitchen. I was just telling her how yummy it was when I heard an automated voice say, "if you would like to replay your message press one." I realized that the phone had been recording for several minutes. I assumed Nate had managed to fumble with the phone's settings and reset my voicemail message. I quickly pressed the button to record a new message, made up a new brief one, and got back to playing. Later, while making dinner, I relayed the story to Jason. He said he was going to check my new message. He called my phone. My old voicemail message played back. A second scenario entered my mind. I checked my recent calls. Sure enough, Nate had managed to call someone with my phone and I had left my "newly recorded voicemail message" on their machine.

As we prepare for the sun's (and heat's) return tomorrow, it is hard to not feel gratitude for this simple weekend. For warmth. For health. For a husband sore from shoveling a backyard snow playground of hills and tunnels. For helping hands, big and small. For the youngest who reside here, grow into their own here, and unselfishly share the ride. It's going to be a good thaw.

Catching Up

2011-02-09T19:19:00.003-05:00

As long as my newly regained strength held up, today was going to be a catch-up day: groceries and a trip to the bank after Audrey's last winter library class. Nathan had other plans. Exhausted after the library class, he suggested (not so subtly) that we just head home. So we did, and did a different kind of catching up. As Nate napped, Audrey and I got caught up on our reading, reading our new library finds and new (to us) textbooks that I found for a couple dollars a piece on the Friends of the Library Sale shelves. Audrey was ecstatic at the thought of being allowed to keep some library books as her own (and tried to barter to keep some of the others we had checked out). She quickly rifled through the textbooks and chose Mercer Mayer's There's An Alligator Under My Bed as our first read. We followed it up with a little coloring session, a handmade sign, which she hung from the garage door to warn her father that there just might be an alligator out there waiting for him when he arrived home. The pictures shows her alligator before she added a tail (during a peanut butter break).

The library book pile successfully replenished and examined, we got to work on the next phase of our valentines. Audrey had already traced some large hearts out of old shopping bags (in convenient colors of the season) that I cut out. She drew a face on each heart and I punched small holes through which she laced small pieces of ribbon (knotted on one end to hold them in place). Today, we glued on red card stock hearts in the place of hands and feet and stamped some Valentine's Day messages on white card stock. I'll cut those out and we'll glue them on later. We found our idea for the valentines here (based on the "eye love you" valentine. I love that they've come together using scraps of things we had around the house, and that each one has a unique look due to the hand drawn face.

Sometimes, catching up is so good.

When Mama Takes a Sick Day

2011-02-08T09:49:00.005-05:00

We've all had those days. You've had a great time hanging out with friends. You get home and get the kids tucked into bed. You feel fantastic - until, suddenly, you don't. Of course, when they wake up in the morning, the children who went to bed with a completely healthy mama, are a bit confused. But soon, they see an opportunity.

When mama takes a sick day, Audrey takes over. She begins the day creating a tablecloth and place mat-lined pathway through the kitchen on which to host a dance party for herself and her brother.

She makes her own breakfast: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, heavy on the blueberry preserves, with an extra layer on the top slice of bread. "You've never seen a sandwich like this," she says taking a big bite. She's right.

She gets her story time in with Scholastic's Video Collection and a little side-by-side coloring in mama's bed, in which she directs which colors should go where on the pages of her new Disney coloring book (thanks, Boo & Beth!) while Nate naps. I hear her in the kitchen with Daddy once he gets home, helping him make me some noodles in chicken stock. Nate toddles over to couch and rubs his forehead into my side trying to snuggle. And, we get by, the kitchen a bit messier than normal, the had-been plans for the day put on hold for a little while. As for me, I think I turned a corner last night. I'm braving toast this morning, hoping for the best. I have kids to get back to chasing and dancing parties to join.

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 102

2011-02-06T07:07:00.004-05:00

The snow has covered our surroundings again - that beautiful fluffy anything-could-be-hiding-under-here snow. As it turns out, ours is hiding inches of ice, and the planks of our raised bed, which Audrey noticed had gone missing yesterday with a gasp of "where's the garden!" It's the type of scene that, I imagine, stirs a different response in each of us, as to what that scene outdoors and the hidden landscape beneath means. I see a snowy reminder that nothing is quite as it seems and no two snowflakes (or interpretations) are the same. (And, goodness, a fresh layer of paint - or snow - can do wonders for an environment, but that's besides the point.)

The week past (including a dinosaur lesson in which we learned that the T. Rex is, in fact, a relative of turkeys and chickens - see the little wishbone-shaped bone toward the bottom of the ribcage pictured above - and might have gobbled just as easily as roared, no one really knows) was a lesson in perspectives. Four often different perspectives that kept us laughing (and one crying every now and then, poor teething little man) and made our house a nice one in which to spend a snowed-in week. Here's our sampling of the moments (and many ways in which the little ones among us viewed their experiences) last week:

Sunday morning, Audrey pulled herself into our bed and under the sheets to snuggle. She rested quietly a few minutes looking up at the ceiling. "I don't want to die," she said. "I like this house."

Monday morning, we stopped by a local elementary school, the back of the car loaded with our recyclables. I pulled up to the designated dumpsters and jumped out, only to find them full. As I climbed back into the car, I told Audrey we'd try another recycling spot.

"But God might have performed a miracle," she said.

"I didn't think of that."

"How could you not think of that?" she said.

Recycling taken care of, we stopped by the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art for a little adventure. We walked past an exhibit of looms and utilitarian art such as rugs and baskets. "Isn't it neat, they made all this stuff with their hands or looms." I said.

Apparently, I didn't speak clearly. "They bought it at Lowes?"

As we left the museum, we could see a new hotel, the JW Marriott, its blue glass-covered walls rising high in the distance. "Mom, look at that tower!" Audrey said. "Is that London?"

Thursday, I snuck in a little prenatal yoga video as the kids played next to me. During a butterfly pose, the instructor said, "Bounce your legs up and down, really let them fly." Nathan, listening to the video as he walked around, began bouncing up and down.

Friday, Nathan (who has been teething all week) was miserable. I took him upstairs to try to calm him down for a nap. I was singing to him (most likely "The Way You Look Tonight," "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," or "The Nearness of You" - my three go-to "lullabies" for him). Nathan had finally closed his eyes after two hours of fussing. Audrey must have heard me. She came upstairs, burst through the bedroom door, and began belting out a rather high-pitched version of Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up." I'm not gonna lie. I laughed. Nate did not. His eyes flashed open and he cried. For thirty minutes.

Friday afternoon, Audrey cut out what looked like a stop sign to me. When she asked what I thought it was, I said a "stop sign." She then surprised me by sounding out "STOP" (with my help) and writing the word herself (the "ST" is written in a dark pink, which makes it a bit hard to see). This is her first intentionally spelled word, as far as I know.

Saturday morning, we decided to brave the snow and crowds and drive to the Children's Museum for the opening of a Dora the Explorer exhibit. I had not told Audrey where we were going yet. Once in the car, she requested I make up a story, as she often does. She wanted it to be about Dora and Boots. Jason and I decided to use the story as our way of telling Audrey where we were going, so Jason said, "maybe they have to travel through snow and maybe there should be dinosaurs."

"Yeah, snow dinosaurs," Audrey said. "That's excellent, Dad."

We got to the museum to spend an ill-timed couple hours in line waiting to meet Dora and Diego (forty-five minutes of which, the characters were on break while the line stood still). We had been in line thirty minutes when the first 15 minute break was announced. The characters came back and took pictures for thirty more minutes before they announced that they were once again going on break, this time for thirty minutes. We were third in line. Jason and I might have exchanged a look that read "we've officially reached our lifetime quota of waiting in line for fake people." Jason told me he would wait with Nathan in line while I took Audrey to the bathroom and to go see the actual museum exhibit. Audrey and I went to play in the exhibit while Jason supervised a dancing Nathan in line. That evening, at dinner, we were talking about our favorite parts of the day (luckily, Audrey mentioned meeting Dora and Diego), but then she said her favorite part was "when Daddy had to stay while the characters took a tea break." I asked why, feeling a bit bad for Jason. "Because I got to go to the exhibit," she said.

Saturday night, Jason tucked Audrey into bed. While they prayed together, Jason gave thanks for our family. Audrey said she needed to start her part of the prayer over. Then, she began to pray for her new baby brother. "Please make the baby's face black," she said, "because sometimes babies are black and I like that color on my friends." Jason (who, like me, is not black) kindly opted for a "well, I guess we'll see" response instead of, your mother would have a lot of explaining to do.

While I know this week of ice and snow has come with challenges for many, this mama can't help but see that buried garden out back and feel a bit of gratitude for a week out of the ordinary, for stolen days with Daddy at home, for no place to go and the freedom to spend long hours piddling in the kitchen, curled up with books, and witnessing the magnitude of nature's reach and power and the generosity of neighbors looking out for one another. Of course, as quickly as the weather, we change course, out to seek adventure and journey forth, even if that journey finds us at the back of a very long line. In those moments, I'm just glad for the perspective of my two little snowflakes, cut different from every other, who show us that as the adults roll their eyes in discontent there might still be a reason to dance.

Summer Learning on a Winter Day

2011-02-03T16:52:00.005-05:00

I was one of those kids who loved school. Luckily, I was blessed with a handful of dedicated teachers, one whose address I mean to track down so I can write him a thank you note. He gave up his lunches to teach me one-on-one. Each afternoon, we sat next to each other, our brown bags open and sandwiches out as he went over the formulas and concepts we were learning in class. I'm convinced that without the time he graciously gave, algebra would just be a word I know and not a tool I can manipulate. But regardless of my teachers and their skill sets, some lessons were just better learned in the summer. After all, no matter how much you like your biology teacher, there's reading about an ecosystem in a textbook and there's hiking out into the woods in your backyard, taking your shoes off, and stepping into an ecosystem while watching the water beetles swim by your ankles.

Summer contains one more key component to learning: boredom. Nothing spurs creativity faster than boredom. As it turns out, snow days contain their fair share of boredom, too - boredom that leads to exploration, especially when mama is busy trying to get a certain little brother to sleep. And so, yesterday with mama preoccupied Audrey went exploring. By the time I returned to the kitchen, she had collected a piece of Tupperware, a toy fish, and some ice from the back porch step. She was creating a pond (a frozen one at that) for the fish. She tossed the ice and fish into the Tupperware and added some water. She watched the ice melt in the water as the fish "swam".

Then she gathered a large aluminum mixing bowl, a plastic colander, measuring cups, a spatula, potato masher, more ice (of course), and hand soap. She commenced with giving the fish a bubble bath, dunking him in and out of measuring cups and moving him with the aid of the spatula and potato masher. That's when something magical happened. She realized that the fish (that has a magnet inside of it) stuck to some surfaces but not others. A little science lesson ensued - the most basis of lessons about magnets. Magnets stick to metal. Magnets do not stick to plastic, glass, wood, silicone, or little brothers. The fish swam and Audrey passed an icy afternoon learning by touch at the kitchen table.

Apparently, the lesson, ahem, stuck. This morning Audrey figured out how to get a magnet to stick to her, so she could become a magnet, too. You just have to smile at boredom and the lessons she brings on dreary days.

Inside

2011-02-02T21:37:00.008-05:00

As the ice stays solid outside, we're holding solid inside, with a few trusty tools:

:: A good stock of snacks (a large batch of granola and granola bars, pulled fresh from the oven last night) and hearty meals that speak warmth regardless of what the view from the window says.

:: Creative projects to keep our hands (especially the little hands) busy (and the house quiet during Jason's conference calls). We began our homemade Valentines this afternoon by cutting hearts from old shopping bags colored perfectly for the occasion.

:: And a little celebration, no matter how silly or small it may be. Tonight, we wore hats to dinner. I found the hat template here. Technically, it's a hedgehog, not a groundhog. Yes, there is a difference. Next year, we might worry a bit more about authenticity. This year, we just worried about smiles. Perhaps, next year we should also worry about the poor dears losing a limb once their excited recipient gets his tiny - and so quick - hands on them. Ah, details - how would we build a warm day without them?

Snow, I Mean, Ice Day

2011-02-01T20:29:00.008-05:00

We spent most of our day tucked away warmly inside, living in gratitude of a solid roof, a stocked pantry, the coziness that comes with heat, and the thankful calm of having all our family members safe, right here. But for a little while, two of us ventured out, cup of birdseed and camera in hand, to share some of our good fortune with those that share our little yard and to take in the splendor of mother nature - her power, her magnitude, her ever-changing face. These short forays out are so necessary sometimes to remind me, who tends to whine when I get cold, of the everyday miracles we get to witness - of the gifts of our hands and our eyes, those tangible moments that become our memories. (And just why is my daughter wearing a bicycle helmet, you ask? I told her she could "skate" across the ice if she put it on, and I pulled her in the sled across the smooth plane of our yard that was once grass. She begged me to go faster, and the two of us laughed until our cheeks burned red and another round of sleet drew us in to the coziness we're blessed to call home). Wishing you warmth and the splendor of winter.

Preparing for the Storm

2011-01-31T18:43:00.006-05:00

An ice storm is underway. The compost bin was already coated with a slick glaze when I took a bowl of vegetable scraps and egg shells out to it at five o' clock. The fire place is roaring and dinner was topped off with cups of hot chocolate. Grocery store parking lots masqueraded as the day before Thanksgiving with customers packing their carts with bread, eggs, and milk en lieu of turkey and stuffing. We spent our afternoon preparing for the storm in a different way (don't worry Mom, I grabbed my bread, eggs, and milk yesterday). We piled in the car and drove to a new (to us) museum. We wandered about the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, checking out a wigwam and teepee (which Audrey was very disappointed to find stowed safely behind a security rail) and running about the interactive lower level between sod house, Chinese general store, and stage coach. Somewhere among the museum's dress up gear, Audrey ran across a carpet bag, which she filled with all the available food in the general store before boarding the stage coach with the one other family in that section of the museum (with three little boys, one sharing Nate's exact birthday). As they "traveled" to California, she pulled out snacks for everyone to eat along the way. It seems that food preparations were on everyone's minds. We took our time, playing and lingering, getting in one last out-and-about adventure before the storm drew us in.

Audrey has finally shed her apron from helping me make risotto for dinner. Nathan is pulling himself up, knees first, into Audrey's rocking chair near the fire as Jason and Audrey snuggle at the hearth. In the background, Christmas music plays (yes, Christmas) from a cd we just received in the mail of our dear and talented friend, Katie Ott. Somehow, with the sleet pricking the windows and each of us tired from a day of adventures behind us, the harp strings and cozy winter ballads feel just right.

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 101

2011-01-30T14:30:00.003-05:00

Audrey likes to surround herself with beauty. She spends her free time creating works of art, decorating the house by hanging her favorite toys from twisty-ties, and (when grocery shopping with Daddy) begging for fresh flowers. Last week he obliged her request, allowing her to pick out a bouquet of her choosing - some popping pink daisies. Tucked into those blossoms were a few white petals, stark against their fuchsia counterparts. "I'm going to pull out the white ones," Audrey said.

"If you pull out the white ones, all the petals will fall out," I said. "You won't have any flowers left if you pull out the white ones."

Four is a year of flowers just because, and learning that every life is sprinkled with a few white petals against the bright - petals that if removed, make the beauty unrecognizable.

Our moments last week, a little fuchsia and white:

On Monday, Audrey introduced us to her stuffed animal, giving her a first, middle, and our last name. I can't remember the name now, but after announcing it, Audrey concluded, "She's invaded (related) to us."

Tuesday evening, I was attempting to get Audrey ready for bed. She had other plans, plans that involved jumping up and down on her bed and not putting on her pajamas. I told her I was leaving to go downstairs in two minutes whether she was ready or not. I set a timer. The timer went off. I went downstairs and told her to come down after she was dressed. She came downstairs, dressed but distraught, seeking out the comfort of her father. "How do you leave a girl who you love upstairs by herself for five minutes?" she asked.

Thursday afternoon she came home from school with a new toy in tow, a plastic "dragon" with a moving scale. She played with it for a while, before deserting it at Nathan's eye level. He found the dragon and began playing with it. He carried it over to the farthest part of the kitchen and set it next to the baby gate before losing interest. Audrey had informed me that the dragon could swim, so that night as we made our way to the bathtub, she asked where he was. By this time, I'd forgotten about Nathan carrying the dragon off. "I'm sure he's wherever you left him. Go look." Audrey ran downstairs to search. A few minutes later she came bounding up the stairs, laughing.

"I didn't know it could walk!" she said, reveling in the fact that the dragon was by the baby gate, definitely not where she had left him.

Friday, Audrey began petitioning once again for a baby sister instead of a brother. "Two little brothers is just silly," she said. "But a little brother and a little sister isn't silly." Knowing that we couldn't do anything to change her fate, she arrived with me a little later at a play date, unappeased. She began talking to one of the other mothers (a mama of two girls and a baby boy). "You have two sisters and a brother in your family," Audrey told her.

"Yes," my friend said, "but someday we hope to have another little brother." She went on to explain that her family would be happy with whatever God gave them and that God might not give them another brother.

"Yeah," Audrey said, "He might give you a pet, instead."

While Audrey spent the week learning the ups and downs of life at four, Nathan mastered the art of moving up and down. He likes to bend his knees and bop around to music. Monday, he walked over to the counter that holds our ipod, bounced up and down and then looked at me expectantly. I turned the music on and he began to dance. Then he stood, and spun in circles, wobbling about dizzy-footed when he finally stopped.

His other physical feat last week was climbing in and out of one of the kitchen drawers. Sometimes, he clears the drawer out before clamoring inside. Other times, he plops right on top of the pile of cookie sheets and slowly rises to his feet as if surfing, smiling when he raises to his full height. I have seen his sister scale the refrigerator using only her hands and feet. Drawer surfing is only the beginning.

As for our littlest, this wisp of a dream biding his time until he's ready to introduce himself, all I can tell you is this: he knows Kung Fu. I don't know who taught him. Perhaps, we've been watching too many episodes of Chuck. But I will gladly take those side kicks and jabs. There's a whole lot of fuchsia mixed in with those white petals.

Today

2011-01-29T20:17:00.005-05:00

I don't have much time for standing in front of mirrors, but when I do, I am reminded that I have been granted the gift of years (decades full of them). The corners of my eyes hold evidence of a childhood spent squinting in the sun and laughing with friends. Lines (crows feet, to be exact) have lingered.

I spend more time at the dinner table, hanging out in the family room, or riding in the passenger seat. During those times, I'm reminded again that I've been given the gift of years (decades full of them) - years spent next to a man who calls my crows feet "cute" and tells me that if he does his job right, my face should end up covered in laugh lines.

Today, we celebrated years, the years of one man in particular. We ate cupcakes with all the trimmings a four-year-old can dream up (and we only caught 2 of those paper flowers on fire when lighting the candles). Because, four-year-olds understand that regardless of if you're four or thirty-four, those who make you laugh, who create memories that linger on your face should be celebrated with gusto (and frosting and sprinkles and chocolate chips and maraschino cherries and squiggly candles). Because time is a gift. With sprinkles on top. Lots and lots of sprinkles.

And hopefully, lots of wrinkles to come.

Tress Control

2011-01-26T16:41:00.006-05:00

I've never been what one would call hair savvy. God knew this, which is why he gave me hair that resembles a Crimp 'n Curl Cabbage Patch Kid. You curl it around your finger and it stays. Stick a pencil in it, it stays (the boys who sat behind me in high school Physics had a field day with this experiment). Once you got past the shock of the sheer volume of it (no pun intended), the directions of what to do with my corkscrew curly hair were pretty freeing - don't blow dry; wash-and-go; finger comb it; and for the love of Vidal Sassoon, whatever you do, don't try to brush it out. Oh, and cut it, ahem, once or twice a year as the mood hits you. It grows out in corkscrew shapes, for heaven's sake, that takes a while. (That last piece of advice is my own lazy, too-cheap-to-pay-for-frequent-haircuts advice. I'm sure my stylist - if I had such a thing - would disagree).

But God has a sense of humor. Enter my beautiful daughter with striking blond so-straight-and-slick-you-can't-keep-a-barrette-in-it-without-the-assistance-of-duct-tape hair. Other than shaking my head every time I dropped another few dollars on yet another package of soon-to-disappear barrettes, I didn't think much about it. In fact, I thought nothing about her hair maintenance (other than shampooing it) until I won a free gift certificate for a child's haircut. And so, we went for a mother-daughter outing to get her hair cut for the first time. She was, ahem, three.

Funny thing about straight hair. It grows. Fast. So, now (cough) a year later, she was in desperate need of a cut, to the point where she's been asking for one. I had passed a book called How to Cut Your Own Hair (or Anyone Else's) by Marsha Heckman, Cathy Obiedo, and Claudia Allin one day at the library. So when it came back into circulation earlier this month, I grabbed it.

After the confidence that comes from reading two pages of hair-cutting instructions, I got down to business. We laid out my tools of the trade on top of a receiving blanket and wrapped another receiving blanket around Audrey's shoulders (so many uses for those receiving blankets). I squirted her hair with a spray bottle (an act she found funny and asked for again and again) and began to snip away a few inches. I'll be honest. I can't tell if it's straight or not, she never stands in one spot long enough to be sure. But the shorter cut suits her and her heart-shaped face. And, it's a good cut for dancing, which is what four-year-old hair is really about.

I thought that would be the end of our hair adventures for the week, until I cut open an avocado to find it less than guacamole-perfect. In the spirit of waste not, I decided to give it a second life. This week, I began reading Ashley English's Canning & Preserving. I discovered she has a blog, which has a link on it to this avocado hair mask. I didn't have sour cream in the house, but if there's one recipe for an avocado hair treatment online, surely there are two, right? So after a popping a few words into a Google search, I found a Revitalizing Avocado Hair Treatment that required an avocado and honey. Bingo. I combined my two ingredients and lathered the mixture into my wet hair. I combed it through, from scalp to ends, and wrapped my hair up into a shower cap. Then I set a timer for twenty minutes, cranked up some Tony Bennett (shush, I love him) and got to work on a project. Between Tony and the work at hand, I let the timer get away from me. It beeped and another twenty minutes went by. I was snapped back to the treatment at hand when honey began dripping down my neck. A quick rinse and the treatment was complete. My hair feels better today, although, it could use a cut - not that I'm ready to take that on myself. Yet.

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 100

2011-01-24T14:15:00.004-05:00

Or Something's Missing

I lost a bit of my afternoon yesterday to a headache that wanted to cling to me, and my evening to a little boy who had the same idea. So this post and the projects I had in mind for yesterday were pushed a little farther down the "to do" list while I took care of matters that had made themselves more pressing. Reclaiming that time now, looking over my recorded moments from last week, I've discovered a theme of things missing around here lately (at least from the perspective of a certain four-year-old):

Last Sunday, Jason requested chicken pot pie sans the pie for dinner. (I make the pie filling and serve it on a bed of rice). After a few bites, Jason told me it was good.

"I think it's missing something," I said.

"It is. The crust," said Audrey.

Tuesday, on our drive home from school, she complained, "My bottom hates me. It wants to join a new family."

"Why?"

"It doesn't like sitting in my car seat."

After she reconciled herself to sitting in her car seat, she began talking about her wedding and everything she envisioned for the big day, which she informed me was happening later that evening. (Most notably, that I needed to go home and bake a cake). I explained that while I'm sure her wedding would have great cake, it was not going to be that night, since little girls aren't allowed to get married.

"But I'm already four. They don't let us do it at four? That's not fair."

Wednesday, en route to the library, she told me, "The man with the yellow hat just has a monkey, not a kid. Why does he not have a kid?"

"I don't know."

"It would be better if God just gave him a kid. That's silly that his name is called the man in the yellow hat."

Thursday evening, she was working diligently on something at the kitchen table, scribbling lines across a piece of paper. "I'm writing a letter to Santa," she said, "asking him to bring me some cups next Christmas since he didn't bring me any this time."

Nathan, on the other hand, has had a week of additions. Most notably, the phrase "uh-oh" (very handy in our household). He has also learned a few, ahem, lyrics, such as "ba ba ba bum" (Beethoven's Fifth) and "da-da, da-dah, da-da, da-dah" (The NFL Theme Song). Yes, we're diverse in our musical tastes.

As for me, I'm happy to report that the headache of yesterday finally loosened its grip so I could spend the last couple hours of my day being productive, working on a project for a little while, but more importantly, holding one restless little guy determined to share an extra hour nestled up against me. As I curled him around my growing belly, I wondered how much longer he would fit like this, snug and warm and small - and content to be as close to mama as possible. I found gratitude for being swept off course, for not missing a thing.

Mission Organization: Gift Journal

2011-01-20T17:56:00.002-05:00

This year, I hope to make gift giving even more joyous by keeping things a bit more, ahem, organized. Last week I began a gift journal. I found a small journal that fits in the pocket of my purse for easy carrying and reference. I began by listing the gifts I gave for Christmas last year. This might seem a bit odd, but if you had spent an evening agonizing over whether or not you had already given someone the gift you had in mind (and yes, I have accidentally given someone the same gift twice, realizing my error during a deja vu moment watching her open it the second time around), it might sound more like a solution than crazy talk. The following pages included a list of birthdays to remember (written down in chronological order for quick monthly reference as to who I need a gift for that month); pages of gift ideas listing a specific person, occasion, and potential gift; and lists of gifts I already have (whether they have a recipient in mind or not).

There are blank pages to spare, pages I plan to fill with sketches of gifts I hope to create this year and lists of materials needed to make said gifts. It's a little thing, stashed with me as I go about my typical errands, just in case something strikes me when I'm out (or I need to remember who I might need to grab a gift for). I'm not promising that all of my gifts will be given or finished on time this year (I didn't wake up on New Year's Day to find I'd been reincarnated as a punctual, together woman with an impeccably sheered bob, manicured nails, the perfect trench and a Filofax tucked under my arm - although, I wouldn't mind the trench). But, it might be one more step in a direction toward a simpler 2011.

Knits of the New Year

2011-01-19T15:27:00.004-05:00

Sometimes, I'm surprised by the "extras" we're able to fit into our days, regardless of the breaks in our daily rhythms. A child wakes in the middle of the night with a cough, a long-scheduled business trip shakes up our routines as if we hadn't seen it coming, a much anticipated birthday or growth spurt or first day of school sends everyone in a new direction. And still, when the cough has subsided, the suitcases have been emptied, or the wrapping paper cleared, I find (each time) evidence of the extras.

It could be that the very nature of breakdowns in our routines and the need to regroup leads us to seek out the extras: those little things that pull us back to a sense of rhythm, row by row, page by page, chord by chord until slowly, we find our way back. Sometimes, with a handful of scarves...

The first two knitted projects of the new year made their way off my needles this month, both scarves based on a pattern by Astor Tsang. The original pattern, from her A Simple-to-Use Guide to Creating Hip Knits (a kit I stumbled upon at a Half-Price Books that I couldn't help but exchange for the hot-in-my-hand cash I'd just received from selling a bag of old books) was for a scarf incorporating several different stitches. I picked my favorite and used it for the entire scarf. The one in the top picture was a gift for a friend, made using Patons SWS yarn in Natural Plum. The second was for Audrey. She had mentioned that she wanted a scarf (she also mentioned that she thought I was so smart because I know how to make scarves - yes, she's mastered the art of flattery to gain handmade items). So last night, as she slept, I finished her scarf, made from Patons SWS yarn in Natural Pink. This scarf has a little buttonhole feature that makes it the perfect scarf for a nonstop-how-can-she-possibly-keep-a-scarf-on preschooler. She was an instant fan, showing the scarf off to Nate - "mama made it, wasn't that nice." She wore it as we made our rounds today, stopping any stranger who wanted to talk at the library or gym to inform them that she had a new scarf, made by her mother. I kept quiet, giving her a few moments to share her news, thankful for an appreciative daughter willing to wear her mother's creations, if even just for now. Yes, it's those little extras that bring us back, that welcome the rhythm and call it back home.

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 99

2011-01-16T20:20:00.005-05:00

Military wives, and their sacrifices, crossed my mind last week. A lot. Saturday evening, Jason boarded a plane for London. He arrived home Friday night around eleven to the pile of us tumbled onto the couch and family room floor in various states of sleep. Jason began traveling for work shortly after our wedding. We are not new to Jason traveling. We are new to being separated by a five-hour time difference. The waters were a bit rough to navigate. When he was free to talk, we were trying to get out the door in time for preschool or evening activities. When we were free to talk, he was asleep. A few five-minute conversations over the span of the week are not our usual (or preferred) fare. Within three days, I was in awe of military wives. I kept reminding myself of our cushy circumstances. I knew where my husband was. I knew he was safe. I knew how to reach him, regardless of if I was able. I hadn't wished him farewell watching him walk off in fatigues to go clear landmines. He was safe in a warm hotel, eating Yorkshire pudding and trying lamb stew for the first time. Military wives are women of steel. Last week, I discovered I am a woman of aluminum, and I was right to not marry any of the brave boys I dated who chose to serve (not that any of them asked).

I experienced the power of words - of receiving the right ones when you need them and of their staying power, regardless of if they are the right words or not. Monday, as we pulled into a gas station, Audrey said, "You remember when Daddy said if I said something one more time, he was going to throw me in the trash? He was kidding. That was a joke, right?"

I sent a message to Jason relaying the story. Meanwhile, I informed Audrey that her father had been kidding, that he would never throw her in the trash. For the thousandth time, I envisioned parent-teacher conference day at school, of the stories Audrey's teachers could tell if they ever wrote a book.

Jason responded later to my message. He recalled the incident - that as a consequence for misbehaving, Jason had thrown something of hers away. Audrey began crying and yelling over the lost toy. After several minutes, Jason told her, "If you keep crying, I'm going to throw you in the trash." Ahem.

By Wednesday evening, my daily thoughts shifted to include parents of terminally ill children. Nathan had begun running a temperature on Monday, one that would spike in the middle of the night, leaving the two of us in an uncomfortable sleepless state. After a couple restless nights ended by Audrey bounding into my bed in the early morning, I began to marvel at the strength of those parents, always tired and in a constant state of attempting to manage sickness, to be one step ahead of the next symptom, whatever that dark lurking symptom may be. Managing worry as much as anything. Sleep was not mine to take comfort in, but I had the luxury of knowing that in a few days it would be, because Nathan would be just fine. Just not last week. Apparently, Audrey was not so sure.

On Thursday, she informed me that there was a new girl at school. "Because Oliver wasn't there today and he's never coming back."

"Oh, do you know why he's not coming back?"

"I don't know. Maybe he's sick. Maybe he's going to be sick every day till he dies. Like Nate."

Our poor boy has had that kind of a winter. Luckily, Audrey is not his diagnosing physician.

Some weeks are typical. They wear like all the others. Other weeks test your wardrobe, leaving you barefoot in the snow, without the comforts (or iPads) to which you've grown accustomed. As a reward for finishing her service (what we call chores) or doing a good job listening, Audrey likes to play puzzle games on Jason's iPad. Last week, she was following typical protocol. Wednesday afternoon, after cleaning something up, she asked if she could play a game on the iPad.

"Mom, can I play the iPad?"

"Daddy took the iPad with him."

"What?!"

Some weeks are lessons in letting go of the images in our heads, of including "uncle" in our vocabulary when it is warranted, and shifting our perspective. There is more than one purpose to a week, more than one definition of a word.

On Wednesday, Audrey kept using the word "butt" in a sing-song way to tease her brother. I asked her to stop. I told her that if she needed to say that, she should say "bottom" or "bum," instead. "You should never have to say 'butt,'" I said.

"Yes I do. What if I want to say 'but, I love you.'"

There you have it, the nutshell version of an unglamorous week. One that was not our best, but one, when looked at through the right lens, was a week worth keeping. Several days felt like "to-do list" days, but there were moments: dances in the kitchen; an evening with friends; and an afternoon tea with Blueberry Streusel Scones, a stack of books on England, and a set of two Alice in Wonderland teacups purchased just for the occasion (and one evening meal of Toad-in-the-Hole, just for good measure). And, there is wisdom. The wisdom that someone else would gladly take this week with its tired, but present, laughter, its warm house and blanketed beds, and husband sweet enough to miss. We should all be so lucky.

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 98

2011-01-10T15:22:00.003-05:00

Getting down Risky Business-style with, ahem, hardware tools

Some things you only see on television, like people bursting spontaneously into song when overcome with emotion. Unless you live at my house (or with your own exuberant four-year-old, with a penchant for the loud or dramatic). I find myself (and the other members of my family) the frequent participant in spontaneous dance parties, hosted by Audrey. They begin in the early morning. She's discovered that if she opens a specific cabinet drawer and stands on the lazy susan inside, just so, she can reach and turn on the ipod. She selects a song, her brother begins to bounce up and down to the beat, and the day officially (and ever so musically) begins. Some days become bookends, the evening dance mirroring the morning with Daddy added to the dance card. Sometimes, Audrey coaxes a song out of him as I make dinner. Others, she once again takes matters into her own hands and requests a father-daughter dance to These Are a Few of My Favorite Things. And, there I stand, wooden spoon dipped in a pot of simmering soup, watching a musical unfold before me. A few more of my favorite things from the week past:

One of our neighbors in Virginia was a woman who had suffered a stroke. A vibrant grandmother who watched her grandsons while her daughter worked and attended school, the only telltale signs of her stroke were a limp and a vocabulary cut to two words, "hi' and "uh-huh." One might think this would limit her ability to express herself, but she was a daily reminder of the contrary - that one can say so much with so little. I had never known that one word could be intoned or used in so many different ways - that it could allow someone to be so clearly heard, until I was introduced to her "uh-huh." This month, we've been introduced to Nathan's "uh-huh," low and rumbly and used to convey all the words he has yet to learn, and consistently able to collect a smile from his parents.

Audrey, of course, has no trouble conveying exactly what she means. On Sunday, Jason was asking about some of the pictures she had drawn on the patio door, specifically some that looked like little guys wearing glasses.

"Are those mama's glasses?" he asked.
"No."
"Oh. Did you see them in a vision? Were you abducted?"
Audrey laughed. "No, I wasn't duck-ed."

Monday morning she was singing through breakfast. Suddenly, she stopped and looked at me. "Do you want me to turn myself down?" she asked.

Monday afternoon, she and Nathan both received flu shots. Nathan had three other vaccines as well. He cried for about five minutes. Audrey attempted to hide under a desk to escape the nurse, screamed before the shot was even drawn, and cried for about forty-five minutes after. At home, she requested that she be allowed to keep her winter knit hat on (a little striped number with a pom-pom on top). Then she took her pants off (I believe to get a better view of her band-aid). In an attempt to abate the crying, I told her she could watch a Leap Frog DVD. Jason came home to find her staring at the TV with a stocking cap on and no pants. "Why don't you have pants on?" he asked her. She explained that she thought it might make her feel better.

"Is it?"
"No."

He relayed this story to me at dinner (before dinner, Audrey had been given a dose of Tylenol to help numb the pain). As he finished, she said, "I thought that either Tylenol or my pants off would make me feel better."

Saturday morning, I was telling Jason how a friend had posted on his Facebook page that a television show had authentic computer code written on the whiteboards seen on set. However, the actor performing the code was doing the development on a Dell rather than a Mac, when the code won't run on a Dell. (Being a former acting student, Jason is often pointing out discrepancies in movies to me). I segued into mentioning how many professional bloggers I've noticed use Macs. "People love their Macs," I said.

"Who is Max?" asked Audrey.

These early days of January are full: yearly check-ups to make sure we're all on course; the kitchen island covered with lists of projects as we map out our goals for the year; new photos in the form of the latest ultrasounds and Jason's first passport showing us the new adventures underway. From morning to night, year after year, it's a dance. We feel blessed to say, our card is full.

Soup Days

2011-01-06T10:29:00.003-05:00

Some call this stretch of days winter. I could just as easily call them Soup Days. Something about being tucked between sheets of snow and rain-soaked clouds makes me want to have a pot of something warm bubbling on the stove, simmering away urging us to relax and find the comfort in settling into the rhythms and days at home. Of course, full days at home require free hands to keep those little hands busy and happy during the day. So, I like my soups to cook themselves. Well, as much as they can. Recently, we tried a new one based on a recipe for Roasted Tomato and Paprika Soup from Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Cooking. Her version involves roasting all of the vegetables, which I'm wanting to try this summer when we can get our hands on some fresh-from-the-garden tomatoes. For now, we improvised (and played around with amounts of certain ingredients to better suit the tastes of some of our picker eaters). Here's our version:

42.5 oz. (otherwise known as one large plus one small can) fire-roasted canned tomatoes
1 large red bell pepper
2 large onions
4 garlic cloves
3 c. chicken stock
1/4 tsp. paprika
extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Seed and quarter the red pepper, skin and quarter the onions. Rub a rimmed cookie sheet with olive oil. Coat the quartered veggies in olive oil. Place them on the baking sheet (peppers skin down) with the garlic cloves (skins still on). Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake about 45 minutes until the onions get brown on top (you may want to turn the onions at some point, but I got busy chasing children and skipped this step). Chase children, count snowflakes, take the dog out, notice the house is starting to smell good.

About thirty minutes into the veggies baking, pull out a stockpot and dump in the tomatoes and stock. (Depending on how thick you want your soup, you may not want to put all 3 cups of stock in at once, I kind of wish I would have made ours a little thicker, but on day 2 it was perfect as is). Bring to a simmer.

Take roasted veggies out of oven. Peel the garlic, put all veggies in a food processor and puree. Add puree to soup. Add paprika. (You could puree the entire soup at this point to give it a creamier texture, but we were going for a more rustic feel). Serve with bread, because what's the fun of using a spoon?

If you like your tomato soup creamy, this probably isn't your soup. But if you want to try a little something different with some great smoky undertones to it, give this one a try.

Room With a View

2011-01-04T19:15:00.007-05:00

Lately, our patio door looks a bit brighter. Santa left some Crayola Window Crayons in Audrey's stocking this year. Something about that big clear canvas has our little artist returning again and again to add one more object. This week, it's been things you can find in the sky (with the exception of the little men in glasses, I'm not really sure who or what they are). I would love to tell you that these new art products are letting mama make dinner at a leisurely pace with time to kick back with a book afterward, but ahem, the art (at least at our house) doesn't stay on the windows. A trail of red and blue fingerprints (and crayon bits) find their way to the baseboards, the floors, the kitchen chairs, the table, the rug, and the walls, creating a bit of a mama scrub-fest after each new studio session. But our little world, those energetic hands, and our overcast January days have suddenly gotten much more colorful.

Centered

2011-01-03T08:18:00.004-05:00

Audrey trying to mimic my prenatal yoga DVD

I was challenged by a friend's Facebook post last week. She chose a word for 2011, one to incorporate into her days and inspire her actions. She chose the word "vitality," which made me smile because vitality is the perfect word to explain the life force this woman already possesses and the infectious energy she passes on to others (play date soon, please, Gretchen!).

I spent the day searching for a word of my own, one that encompasses my hopes and goals for the year. Several words vied for my attention: serenity, sanctuary, organization, creativity, encouraging. But one word (one very unsexy, tweed-sports-coat-with-leather-arm-patches-and-a-monocle-wearing sort of word) took root.

Centered:
(just a few of the definitions listed by my, ahem, iphone - paraphrased for space sake)

1. the middle point, as the point within a circle or sphere equally distant from all points of the circumference or surface.

2. a point around which anything rotates or revolves.

3. the source of an influence, action, force, etc.

4. an office or other facility providing a specific service or dealing with a particular emergency.

5. Football - a lineman who puts the ball into play.

6. Ice Hockey - a player who participates in a face-off at the beginning of play.

7. to adjust, shape, or modify (an object) so that its axis is in a normal position.

8. to come to a focus; converge; concentrate.

9. to gather in a cluster.

When I chose centered, I was thinking in terms of balance and being grounded, of being calm and in the moment. But when I looked up the definition, I was surprised by how many of these definitions can pertain to mothering and my job over the course of this year as I juggle my attention between three little ones and their father, as I serve and handle emergencies, as I facilitate play, mold and shape these three sweet souls, gather us as a family, and attempt (daily) to guide our focus to those things that create balance and calm - to those things that we should tie our anchors to in order to ground ourselves. That tweed-clad mister might be one sexy multi-tasker, after all. What's your word?

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 97

2011-01-02T14:31:00.002-05:00

2011 has walked through our door, brisk and cool with the sun on his heels. He has brought a quiet family night followed by a full house of friends. While Christmas lingers on a bit here, everything (the change in weather, five bags of old shredded files I dropped off at the recycling bin yesterday, the exchanges with friends) points to a new chapter, a going forth. Our calendar documents a going forth, as well - a new position for Jason (complete with new adventures foreign and domestic) this month and a due date posted for spring (that a certain little boy kicking me from within won't allow me to forget). But, before we get too excited about this new year and the projects and events to come, here's a look back at the moments of last week, during the old year:

Each week, Nathan gives us new clues as to who he will be. When the kitchen fills with music, he cannot help but dance, bouncing up and down to the beat. When he hears the word "touchdown," he throws his hands into the air. And, he has his own version of Eskimo kisses, rubbing his forehead against mine and laughing, in what I imagine is his own way of getting over on his mama and telling her "no-no" in a way that makes her smile.

Last Sunday, Jason was watching the Colts' game. "All they have to do now is get the ball back," he said.

"All they have to do to get the ball back is ask. It's their turn," Audrey said.

Monday night, we had dinner out with friends. A sundae came with Audrey's meal. I asked if I could have a bite. I must have stolen one too many. "When the girl (waitress) comes back, I'll tell her to bring you your own," she said.

I've been clearing out our basement clutter. I had made a small pile of picture frames to be dropped off at Goodwill. Audrey found them and decided to decorate the new basement shelves with them. Jason, finished putting up the last shelf, said, "Let's go."

Audrey stopped him. "Let's stand back and look," she said, indicating the frames. "It's beautiful."

Saturday morning, Audrey looked up from the breakfast table at me. "Mom, are some bugs mean because they don't know the true meaning of Christmas?"

While we prepare for the coming changes of the new year as best we can, one thing is certain. More will happen than we could ever imagine, more blessings will come than we deserve or could hope for, obstacles will appear that could not be foreseen, friends will be made who we have not yet met, old friends will nourish our spirits when we need it most, and this little family of ours will grow through laughter, tears, and first steps as the shine begins to wear off of this new year. And, just like 2010, there will be moments so full, so funny, so bright, they will beg to be written down.

Into Year One...

2010-12-30T16:16:00.009-05:00

I find the week between Christmas and New Years to be one focused on moving forward: Christmas decorations are collected and put away (not that that's happened here yet); resolutions are schemed; plans, big and small, are made for ringing in the year to be. In the past week, shelves have materialized in the basement closet (thank you, Jason and Brandon), two boxes and three bags of much-loved items have been dropped off to Goodwill to find new homes (again, thank you, Jason), and a second large cardboard box is beginning to fill with dated documents to shred. While it's been a week with few plans on the calendar, the days have felt full with these little tasks of moving forward and creating a space of less clutter and more simplicity for the coming year. But, no matter how important the task, one must abandon it every once in a while, go outside, and take a break to visit the now.

Today, we took a trip to the Indianapolis Art Museum so we could all get a little up-close-and-personal with this year of one we're embarking on with Nate. Jason is blessed with an employer who gives their workers this week off every year, so he was able to tag along on our art museum gardens trip for the first time. (His hand was in the first photo keeping Nate steady for those of you worrying about that balancing act). Ironically, even as we took some time to just be in the presence of one another and the art and environment around us, I looked at the pictures to find that we had documented ourselves moving on. Luckily, I turned around to find some things never change.

Christmas Future

2010-12-29T11:34:00.004-05:00

Before we close the door on the Christmas festivities of this year and move on to the projects and celebrations of the year to come, I wanted to note a few projects, recipes, and ideas that have me inspired for Christmas future. These things didn't fit into our holiday plans (or skill sets, in some cases) this year, but perhaps, a Christmas soon:

This Christmas tree garland made by Stephanie at 3191 Miles Apart is simple and sweet, and one I think Audrey could help me make once she masters scissors. It also doesn't hurt that it's lightweight and unbreakable, considering we're going to have little feet running circles around our trees for several years.

Another project that might take a year or two for us to develop the necessary small motor skills to accomplish is Geninne's Bird Ornament. I think Audrey would love having a few of these little guys perched in a future tree.

As we embark on each new year of "family life" together, with each new addition, adventure, or interest that we welcome, one thought (and one goal) seems to constantly call to me: simplify. I pray for simplicity, I meditate on it, I read books about it, and I seek ways incorporate it into our days so that the little things that matter so much don't get buried by the whirlwind of busy knocking on our door each morning. While this idea would take some work on the front-end, I love the simplicity it would afford us later. Amanda at Soule Mama posted instructions for making Fabric Gift Bags - bags that get used year after year for the gifts under your tree. I have a stash of gift wrap that was given to me for free several years ago. I'm still making my way through the stash. But, I love the idea of tossing gifts into cloth bags and tying the attached ribbons tight around them - no wrapping. No paper to clean up and recycle after, just fold the cloth bags up, store them, and pull them out the next year. Simple. Love it.

Of course, no holiday would be complete without food to fill the stomach and warm the soul. I found two recipes this year that I would love to try sometime. The first, Overnight Caramel Pecan Rolls, say they can be made in the bread machine. My vision goes a little like this: the bread machine does the work for me Christmas Eve, I tuck the raised doughy rolls into the fridge for a good night's sleep, then pop them in the oven Christmas morning to cook as the kids open their gifts. Right around the time they open their last presents, smells of cinnamon and caramel flood the kitchen signaling breakfast. It's almost like Santa brought them, himself.

The second, posted by Christina at Soul Aperture, is for cinnamon honey butter. It seems to me, if you're going to eat warm bread with a little something special on top, what better time than Christmas?

That's it for this year's future Christmas inspiration list. I made a similar list last year. And, while I completely forgot about the list until well into the Christmas season, we did manage to try out something on the list for our Christmas this year. So here's to hoping some of these ideas will be revisited next December, or sooner.

The Mama-mades

2010-12-28T22:36:00.007-05:00

A few mama-made gifts managed to make their way from the knitting needles and sewing machine to the tree skirt this year in time for Christmas. The first (knit balls) found their way on my knitting needles early this year, accompanying my summer rides in the passenger seat (Nate even tried to get in on the knitting action, playing with the stray yarn yet to be woven in). I used the "Baby's First Ball" pattern in Melanie Falick and Kristin Nicholas' Knitting for Baby. I made sets of three balls for the littlest ones on our Christmas list.

The last of the balls were finished up during Audrey's costume changes as she performed shows this December. This was my first experience with the felting process (each ball was felted after being knit in order to close up any holes between the knit stitches - felting involves washing the knit item in hot water, causing the wool to shrink together). All three sets were made using yarn from Debbie Stoller's Stitch Nation collection. Jason was as eager to try these out as Nate, mentioning that they would be perfect for teaching our little guy some indoor baseball skills with no fear of broken windows.

While perusing a Pottery Barn Kids catalog one night this November for inspiration, I decided that Audrey and my oldest nephew absolutely, without a doubt, must have pizzas to unwrap for Christmas. Felt pizzas. With toppings. Wrapped in actual pizza boxes (thank you Eric and Debbie for donating the perfect gift boxes!).

I made these pizzas up as I went, tracing a dinner plate to get the right size for the pizza, playing around with crust until I found a method that worked for me, and free handing the toppings. The toppings include pepperoni (which Audrey refers to as tomatoes since we don't typically order pepperoni on our pizza), green peppers, mushrooms, and little white ovals of mozzarella cheese. The pizza has been a hit. What I didn't anticipate was the extra mileage the toppings would get as they become featured in other dishes Audrey concocts in her play kitchen, most notably soups stirred in some new wooden pots that Santa dropped off.

I love so many things about mama-made gifts. I love the creative process that begins with my idea and transfers to my kids' as they come up with ways to use the toys that I hadn't imagined. I love that I can work on them at home (or even book club), still spending time with those I care about rather than at a store by myself. I get an extra boost of accomplishment when I finish a project and cross a name off of my "to shop for" list. And, working on a project always seems to spark ideas for future projects, getting me excited about the next season or celebration. Ideas are already brewing for next year. Soon, after tackling a few organizational projects, I might just have to start a journal - a gift journal to keep track of my ideas for 2011. Oh, and did I mention Santa tucked a sweet new knitting book under my tree this year? Yes, I foresee a 2011 full of mama-made.

A Few More Christmas Notes

2010-12-27T20:44:00.004-05:00

I thought of a few more things about Christmas this year - those behaviors or words that become seasonal habits. They make us smile each time they occur and then are forgotten until the next time. Since this season is quickly passing on, and new habits will surely form and these will be long forgotten and outgrown by next year, I wanted to write a few down before they slip away.

The Audrey-isms of Christmas 2010:

Audrey's Christmas List (as dictated by her father):

1. Trumpet or something loud
2. Puzzles
3. Balls
4. A car (to replace a Santa car that was left on the floor and, ahem, stepped on)
5. Kitchen food, plates, and cups (for her play kitchen)
6. Pass to the zoo
7. New pajamas - fuzzy and purple
8. Crayons
9. More legos
10. Movies

(Santa did not bring a trumpet. This has been mentioned several times since Christmas).

While Audrey's favorite songs to listen to this season have been Frosty the Snowman and The Chipmunk Song, her favorite song to sing has been Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer. Her version goes a little like this:

"...then one froggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say, 'Rudolph with your nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight?' Then how the reindeer loved him, as they shouted off with glee..."

She's also a big fan of the wise men, whom she refers to as the "present-ers". I'm hoping that next year she'll provide us with a few presents herself in the way of more Audrey-isms. Until then, we'll daydream about froggy Christmas Eves to come.

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 96

2010-12-26T15:50:00.011-05:00

It's time for our regularly scheduled Week in Review. However, holidays being what they are (most notably, time to make as few lists as possible while spending the hours with loved ones and as many cups of hot chocolate as you can handle) I have only one anecdote written down to share:

Sunday, while gathered at the table, Audrey told Jason, "You're the biggest daddy in the whole world because you can lift the couch all by yourself with mommy's help."

Just how does a super daddy and his sidekick couch-lifting mama and commentating children spend their holiday? Here's a short holiday recap, Christmas in Review 2010:

We decided to go simple and rustic with the tree this year - a lot of paper, a lot of clay, and one handmade star, because Audrey asked for one. We tied some twigs together in a star shape and added a little glitter for some extra sparkle when the lights were on.

We also found a way to use those acorns Audrey collected at the art museum. A dab of glue, a shake of glitter, and string of ribbon, and they felt right at home on our tree.

Our oldest elf wanted to lend her hands to Christmas card production this year, so a few handfuls of cards made their way to mailboxes in time for Santa's big day.

Audrey wanted to include angels on the cards this year. She cut them out with a special hole punch before covering them with glitter (yes, it was a big year for glitter).

Our traditional Christmas Eve pancake dinner featured pancakes shaped like snowmen and pine trees. Nathan ate 5. The rest of us got 4 a piece. Next year, we'll make more. (Audrey selected the silverware. She was attempting to be festive by giving the adults children's forks with green and red handles).

We kept our cookie adventures simple on Christmas Eve with one batch of chocolate chip. Audrey thought our plate for Santa should also include one of Grammy's brownies and a carrot for Rudolph. She insisted we leave a note for Santa so he wouldn't think the carrot was for him and eat it by mistake.

Of course, there are other snapshots - those saved on our SD card and those saved only in our memories. Each child's reaction to their favorite gift, moments of play between young cousins, the youngest ones in our family contending with the likes of wrapping paper (or seeing snow) for the first time. All of these moments stacking up to build the story of a family, one Christmas at a time.

To Nate, at One

2010-12-23T09:43:00.005-05:00

Before you, I felt sorry for those born in December - their birthdays tossed in with Christmas celebrations, their presents all wrapped in red and green. But as you grow, unwrapping yourself to us a piece at a time, I realize that you could not have been born at any other time. You are like the Christmas tree, signaling that I am no ordinary creation, something special is about to happen here. Be patient. Wait. See. You beckon us with your light, warming us with the joy you naturally exude. We are captivated, caught up in your spirit, the spark of your laughter, the energy of your hands. It is our gift to watch you grow. Our ordinary days, our Decembers, and our lives are brighter simply because you joined us one winter day, not that long ago. Happy Birthday, baby.

Oh My, With Peppermint on Top

2010-12-21T20:02:00.007-05:00

As a kid, I spent many December hours making candy with my family: caramels, buckeyes, chocolate pizzas, and peppermint bark. While my parents did most of the heavy lifting (constantly stirring the caramels and instructing us on what step came next) my sisters and I did our parts: wrapping the caramels, adding nuts to some, sprinkling toppings on, or whatever odd job we were assigned according to our skill level or age.

Today, some of those memories (and scents) came back as we brought Audrey into the kitchen for our own candy adventure. Last year, I took note of a recipe that sounded good, but that we had no time to squeeze into our baby-could-be-born-any-minute schedule. I was just reminded of the recipe this week, and four seemed like the perfect age to include Audrey into the peppermint-smashing, chocolate-dipping, finger-licking exercise of family candy making. The recipe was Three-Layer Peppermint Bark posted on the Orangette blog. I had seen this recipe referenced on more than one blog, so I expected it to be good, but oh my. You know how they say, you are what you eat? Well, there are days when I could be a chocolate truffle. This peppermint bark? It's part peppermint bark, part truffle. Part crisp white chocolate, part crunchy peppermint candy, and part chocolate ganache. And, um, slightly reminiscent of an Andes mint. We're big fans.

We decided to encore our peppermint bark with some chocolate covered pretzels, which Audrey doesn't want to stop eating. And, Jason found a way to take our candy making one step further. He crushed up some extra peppermint candies and put them in an empty spice container. He sprinkled a few of the chocolate-covered pretzels and saved the rest to pour into hot chocolate. I have a feeling it's going to be a sweet Christmas.

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 95

2010-12-18T12:47:00.004-05:00

Tucked under this roof is a little blond stuffed to the gills with holiday spirit. She begins each day with the same announcement, "Today is a decorating day." For her, the holidays are a month-long opportunity for creativity and whimsy and feasting on cookies. And, if she had her druthers, I imagine she would spend the month living in a life-sized gingerbread house (or at the least, turning ours into one). It's good to be four.

The much older brunette in the house has been known to get caught up in another type of holiday spirit - the kind that involves marking off the days on the calendar; counting the ones left by the amount of time spent waiting in lines, wrapping gifts, or driving in a car; and generally worrying about how to get everything done. You know, the grumpy kind.

But a funny thing has happened this year. The season will have to get along worrying for itself, it seems I'm all booked up. Right around the time the frenzied holiday worrying really kicks in, Nathan (as Jason so aptly put it) became fluent in walking, covering the distance of a room, making a u-turn and walking back, exploring behind the Christmas tree, and sneaking through the baby gate when his sister doesn't get it closed fast enough (followed by a mad dash for the stairs). In short, he's having the time of his life. At this same time, Audrey began putting on "shows" - shows that require audiences and frequent costume changes to include every outfit in her dress-up suitcase. With these new family endeavors (not to mention a little someone's birthday fast-approaching) demanding the focus of our attention (although, the costume changes in which Audrey insists I not look have carved out quite a niche for mama's knitting), December is beginning to feel like any other month - with the odd addition of a Christmas tree in our family room and lights and garland snaking their way up the banister. The worrying and slow-building stack of gifts to wrap and cards to write and address will have to wait. There's a little boy doing laps around the kitchen table and, one never knows when the next show will begin.

There are also these, the moments of the week:

On Monday, Audrey was playing with a doll who happened to be wearing an apron with pencil markings on it. She told me she had written on the doll's apron.

"Oh, what did you write?" I asked.

"I appreciate this girl and love her so much I gave her a hug and a kiss."

(It's hard to advise a child against performing graffiti when those are the messages she "writes").

Tuesday afternoon Audrey was winding the backdoor curtain into a rope and trying to swing on it while pretending it was the long hand of a clock.

"Audrey, please stop," I said. "That's going to break if you keep doing that and I made that curtain, so I'll be sad if it breaks."

She dropped the curtain and picked up a stray plastic bat, which she began beating against the floor.

"Audrey, stop. You're going to hurt the floor."

"Did you make the floor?"

That evening at dinner she told Jason she wanted to be a doctor, a mommy, and an artist. Jason told her that if she was an artist and a mommy, she could be like me.

"Mom could be an artist some day when she grows up," she said.

We have a rule in our house about screaming or uncontrollable crying. If someone needs to do it (read: Audrey), that's fine, but they need to go to their room or the basement so the rest of us can keep our hearing intact. Friday morning, Nate began crying loudly, which caused Emmy to begin howling, and lead Audrey to say to the both of them, "If you guys are going to keep doing that, you need to go to the basement."

That afternoon, while coloring, Audrey told me, "my crayon almost broke."

"Oh no."

"Why did you say 'oh no?'" she asked. "That's nothing to worry about."

Besides fine-tuning his walking abilities, Nathan has also been honing his vocal skills. My favorite new addition to our daily routines is the introduction of the "da-da" song. When he has a full tummy, has embarked on a successful exploring mission, or throws his hands up in a triumphant "touchdown" sign, Nate begins to sing a song made up of one word, "da-da." It's a simple song. It's a happy song. And, while Jason isn't always here when Nathan sings it, every evening when they hear the garage door go up, Nate and Emmy race to the door, vying for the spot closest to where Jason will walk in (meanwhile, Audrey runs to hide, informing me each time not to tell Jason where she is, beginning our first game of hide 'n seek for the evening). I understand this song and dance. Da-da is my happy song, too.

These being the moments that make up the songs and celebrations of our every day, I'm not going to worry about my list of things undone, the scattered and now-disheveled ornaments I keep tripping over, or fast-approaching immovable deadlines. These are nothing more than broken crayons, and we all know that's nothing to worry about.

The Moments of Slow

2010-12-16T12:08:00.005-05:00

Sometimes, I think back to the time I instinctively knew how to eat slow - a time before grade school and thirty minute lunch breaks, fifteen of which were spent in line. I remember summer and how I whittled away the time - time being the true gift of summer. Occasionally, I would tuck myself behind the two-story dollhouse made by my father. It sat in the corner of our living room, centered between the light of two windows (one near each corner of the perpendicular angle of the house). During the day, the sun marked time on our living room floor, sunbeams heating the carpet were I would curl myself around a book and a bowl of apples. Those were afternoons of time for slice upon slice and page turn after page turn, afternoons where no one rushed you to "get on with it" because, somewhere, a bell was about to chime.

Here we are, decades later, during the season of chiming bells. While there is much to do, this year I am attempting to not get swept up in too much sound and fury, to remember that instinct for slow. So we're taking our cue from the blanket of snow outside our backdoor and remembering that the land lying fallow serves the purpose to nourish, enrich, and prepare for the year to come.

A few ways we've incorporated a bit of slow into our week:

Spending a snowed in morning trying out a new recipe - this week, the Buckwheat Crepes from Lisa Barnes' Cooking for Baby. Nathan thought these were fantastic with blackberry jam. Audrey was not so sold, but had I filled them with strawberries and whipped cream, I imagine the outcome would be different. I couldn't help but be taken back to summers and sleepovers of my youth, when after spending the night in sleeping bags in her outdoor clubhouse, my friend Lauren would whip up a batch of crepes (always from memory) that we stuffed with strawberries and whipped cream. Each time she served them with a side of cheesy scrambled eggs that she cooked in the microwave. Some foods, no matter how many times you eat them (or how young the chef) always feel special.

Changing up the routine. This December, when we run across a "slow" day with nowhere to be and a short to-do list, I move bath time to the afternoon and toss both babes in for some extended water play (I figure this is the one time of year I can do this without worrying that Audrey is going to run outside and cover herself in garden dirt as soon as we're finished). This serves several purposes. The kids, who normally have separate bath times, think it's a special treat. Since I'm not worried about making an eight 'o clock bedtime, they can play as long as they want. In the evening, when Jason is home, we have the gift of some extra family time, which is perfect for those nights we have a little decorating or game-playing or seasonal merry-making to do that shouldn't be rushed. And, for a few minutes, as splashing water and laughter fill the air, it feels just a bit like the days of summer.

Taking a few minutes to enjoy the best small pleasures of the season. Even at times when I should be wrapping gifts or baking cookies or shoveling the drive. There are always five minutes for a cup of hot chocolate. Besides, my kids don't care what the gifts are wrapped in, and one day, I won't remember, either.

When You Take a Box to Dinner...

2010-12-14T17:13:00.004-05:00

Some actions are ordinary: you go shopping on a Monday; you select a gift and ask the store clerk if he can put it in a box; you wrap yourself in the coats or scarves of the season and go out for dinner, box in hand. You go about the daily routine of nourishing: feeding your body with food, your soul with company, your mind with shared ideas. You partake in the gifts of the ordinary day.

But some actions are not ordinary: you go shopping on a Monday, yet-to-be-seen ultrasound picture secured in an envelope in your purse; you pick out two gender-specific articles of clothing, hand them with the envelope to the store clerk (along with a small wad of cash), and ask if he would mind putting the outfit that corresponds with the ultrasound results in a box while you leave the store; you wrap yourself in the coats or scarves of the season and (with your spouse) take a box out to dinner. Before you've deliberated for even five minutes about when you should open the box (you've been known to hold out until dessert or at least until the pause between appetizer and main course), you pull off the ribbon and peer inside before any food has arrived. You go about the daily routine of nourishing yourself: feeding your body (and the body of a little one in the making) with food, your soul with thoughts of the company to come, your mind with shared ideas of dreams that have yet to be. You nourish your heart (and smile when you break open your fortune cookie to reveal the Chinese word for "family" printed on one side). You partake in the extraordinary gifts of an ordinary day. It's a boy!

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 94

2010-12-12T19:02:00.002-05:00

This little space has been quiet for a few days. As much as it tends to feed me: as a holding space for the things I want to remember; as a connection point; and a place to ground myself in the facts of the day, this is December. December walks a bit differently than the other months of the year. It moves as a force of weather and spirit and anticipation. It covers, like snow, making these thirty-one days unrecognizable from the other 334 of the year. No matter how much one loves the season, sometimes it covers you. I'm trying to stay on top of the snow (and the season) this month by changing my perspective. I'm finding that sometimes the best way to make the season brighter (read: less stressful) is to change the way you wear the season. (You know, try that mix-matched pair of gloves on your feet.) It's not that we're doing much less this year, we're just trying a new approach. I'm attempting to make several of our gifts (mostly for the little loves in our lives). Most of these projects come out of hiding after the kids have gone to bed, created piece by piece while snuggled under blankets within the Christmas tree's glow, watching holiday movies. The majority of the gifts I'm not making have been purchased online, again while snuggled under a blanket on the couch or at the table with a cup of hot chocolate. Decorating has also been tackled piece by piece, making ornaments a few at a time, assembling the tree one week and the decorations for the staircase banister the next. I've taken help where I can and when it makes the most sense. Help's most frequent form is Audrey. So far, she's been enlisted to make Christmas tree decorations, cookie dough for a cookie exchange, and elements to go on the Christmas cards. I've spread those few precious hours of weekly free time around. The blog has taken a bit of a backseat some days as I focus on family and the events ahead, with my goal being to enjoy the season and the littlest moments that matter most. Moments like these:

Hide n' seek continues to play a frequent role in our house. As I began writing this post, Nate was playing peek-a-boo with me by darting out from behind the kitchen chair next to me, laughing at my surprised expression, then ducking for cover before repeating his performance. (This makes for very slow, but sweet, writing).

Sunday, Audrey was playing hide 'n seek with us. It was Jason's turn to hide. He had covered himself with couch cushions, accidentally leaving one knee exposed. Rather than "finding" him, when she ran across his bare knee, Audrey laughed and covered it with a pillow.

Wednesday morning I was making breakfast. Audrey asked if she could help. "Yes, but right now I'm doing the mama part." I said.
"What's the Audrey part?" she asked.

That afternoon, while en route to the library, she asked me playfully what color my eyes are.
"I don't know. Are they pink?" I asked.
"No."
"Purple?"
"No."
"Yellow?"
"You're getting close."

Later, she asked if I would be her Mamaw when she was older. I explained that I would be her kids' Mamaw.
"You know what I'm going to name my kids?" she asked.
"No. What are you naming them?"
"If God gives me two kids, I'm naming them Harriet and Treelee."

Jason recently introduced Audrey to a song about Christmas cookies. She asked to hear it Wednesday night. The song explains how a man's wife makes and decorates Christmas cookies each year that he can't resist. Audrey sang along with the lyrics, "Sometimes she waits till I'm asleep and puts those little sprinkly things on top."
"She's kinda sneaky," she said.

Thursday morning, we arrived at Audrey's preschool to find her classroom door still closed. We were hanging up her backpack and removing her hat as it opened. Audrey took off running toward the door.
"Wait a minute," I said. She ran back so I could grab her coat, gave me a hug and kiss and sprinted for the door.
"Have a fun day!" she said tossing her hand back in the air toward me, as the other parents (lined up against the wall with their kids still attached to their legs) laughed.

Thursday afternoon she looked up from a nativity coloring book her class had made at school. "Mom, whose the dad? I don't remember. Moses?"

Friday morning, while attempting to leave the neighborhood for a meeting, we slid on some ice and the car slipped sideways.
"Wee!" Audrey said. "That was like skating or sledding!" (Luckily, the roads in our neighborhood always seem to be in the worse shape snow-removal-wise and the rest of our drive was rather uneventful).

When playing hide 'n seek, we use one little tool to help the seeker find a really good hider. If the seeker yells "Marco," the hider has to respond, "Polo." On Friday, Jason discovered that if he looks at Nate and says, "Marco," Nate will respond with a nonsensical two-syllable word.

Today, the snow has been falling steadily. We've all enjoyed the comfort of a warm house in different ways: Jason relaxing in front of a football game, me working on projects here and there, Audrey rearranging the Christmas tree again, and Nate attempting to taste the snow by putting his tongue against the kitchen window. This is a time of small moments, simple gestures, and the little things that make us cozy - all adding up to one big bright season.

Some Christmas Clay

2010-12-07T17:11:00.007-05:00

Last year, we made salt dough ornaments. After giving some away as gift tags on our presents and losing others to play (Audrey likes to run around the house, clanging ornaments together), a small sampling have survived for this year's tree. After running across this post, we decided to try our hand at clay this season.

We used Fimo Air clay (it dries overnight, no baking) and a few tools: a rolling pin, wooden skewer (to poke holes for ribbon), cookie cutters, a bowl of water, and a butter knife that Audrey insisted on using to chop up her clay.

And, of course, our hands.

A project like this always highlights each participant's individual creativity. I made a wreath and star before segueing into another clay project (more on that later). Audrey was a fervent believer in the decorative abilities of the wooden skewer (the snowflake below with all the poke marks is hers) and then turned her attention to more abstract designs. Jason used his imagination and no cookie cutters to make a couple characters he thought Audrey might like for the tree (the snowman and Santa - referred to as the Santa gnome on an occasion or two - pictured at the bottom are his).

Sadly, Santa gnome didn't last long on the tree. He was a little too beloved and broke early as Audrey tried to take a lap around the house with him. The snowman has been moved to a higher branch for safer keeping (his ribbon is threaded through the top buttonhole, for those wondering).

Six messy hands, one fun evening, and a trayful of creative characters to add to the tree. Christmas is coming together.

It's Beginning to Feel A Lot Like...

2010-12-06T20:37:00.009-05:00

This weekend played precursor for the season: cold outside, but warm inside. A flurry of white so dense the only colors are those you make or string from the treetops. The weather, and your breath, hanging in the air. The glow and warmth of everyday utilities seen (even by the littlest among us) for the luxuries they are. A splash of red to light up the season (these roses a surprise addition to my list when I sent Jason for a grocery run). And, learning again and again that laughter, lights, and even snow are all made brighter when shared with someone else.

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 93

2010-12-05T20:38:00.002-05:00

This weekend has been a bit about catching up, and (for the most part) staying in. Our week looked a bit more like a snow flurry: work meetings with new adventures on the horizon; busy nights; a little boy trying out his walking legs and fighting off a virus that left his eyes matted shut more mornings than not; two adults popping throat lozenges as if they were the peppermint candy of the season; one active girl who began each day by announcing that it was a "decorating day;" and one mama who has officially opened her Christmas gift sweatshop (employees: 1). It's one of those weeks that found me welcoming the weekend's first big snow and its tendency to draw everyone inside and underneath piles of blankets or the glow of the Christmas tree. And, welcoming a moment to reflect with a cup of hot cider and the moments of the week past:

On Sunday, I overheard Audrey tell Jason, "Daddy, I think I'm the greatest girl in the world. Because I'm so special."

Then, she came up to me. "Mom, I'm the greatest girl in the whole world."
"I've thought that for a while," I said.
"I still am," Audrey said.

During lunch, Audrey informed us that there are eleven little people living in her stomach (named the Donners) who get scared when she drinks juice and it falls down her stomach. They have a workshop where they make noodles, but they won't go into the room where they store their finished noodles because they are afraid of getting sauce on themselves. Apparently, when she dances, they dance. When she hangs upside down, they hang upside down.

On Monday, when I surprised her, she said, "You freak-ed me out!"

That night at dinner she took a drink of milk, followed by a dramatic pause. "Oh my! I hear the people in my stomach screaming." (We've had several reports since Sunday on how the people in her stomach are faring.)

Tuesday, she asked me to tell her a story about a banana bird going to visit his Mamaw and Papaw. "Okay, where does his Mamaw and Papaw live?
"Kentucky."

Wednesday, she said, "Mom, you're so smart because you know how to make things. You're so smart because you know how to make a scarf. And I'm smart anyways."

Audrey and Jason were playing hide 'n seek Saturday. It was Jason's turn to hide. He managed to squeeze between the couch and the wall. Audrey spent several minutes hunting, unsuccessfully. Meanwhile, Nate, crawling around the end table next to the couch, moved the window curtains to find his Dad hiding behind them. Shocked by the unexpected find, Nate began to laugh, so long and so loud that his sister finally had to come see what the big deal was.

We did manage to leave the house Saturday night to make a little excursion to see Santa and Mrs. Claus. I was relaying college football scores to Jason on the drive home. "Darn," he said, in response to some news about his alma mater.
"What'd you say, Dad?" Audrey asked. "I thought I heard you say something I'm not supposed to say."

I love waking up to the first big snow of the season and the sense of "hush" it creates across the neighborhood in those early moments before boots meet feet and sleds cut grooves through the smooth surface below. We needed just a bit of hush this weekend, just a bit of the magic of white lights reflected on whiter snow, and even a bit of a little blue sled carving its way through the backyard and the falling flakes. Just a bit.

Christmas in the Making

2010-12-03T16:13:00.004-05:00

We've begun to trim the tree, a few ornaments at a time. With a little guy determined to walk before Christmas and a climber-extraordinaire eager to get her hands on anything we place in the tree's branches, we've decided to go simple with the ornaments this year. Think paper. Paper and other extremely light objects that won't shatter or knock anyone out on their way back to earth.

We got the idea for these ornaments from a picture in Pottery Barn Kids. Then, I found this craft tutorial, which taught us how to fold the paper. Several folds (and playful designs by the ornament artist) later, and we had a handful of ornaments to hang.

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A few notes: Ours came undone in several places and had to be retaped a bit. We used cardstock and double-stick tape to make the ornaments. I think they would have stayed a bit better with some paper that wasn't quite so stiff or some stronger tape. To fix ours, I'm just going to use a bit more tape tucked over the tops of the folds.

A Few Words on Gratitude

2010-11-30T21:56:00.001-05:00

I believe it's time to discard the pumpkins when they catch their first snow. But, a certain little man refused to go to bed last night, so before we move those pumpkins to the compost bin and ourselves onto the Christmas season, humor me as I take a few minutes to write what I meant to post last night.

During the Thanksgiving season, I can't help but notice all the preparations happening around me (or by me and the members of my own household): the stocked carts of groceries; the composing of wish lists and lines of souls, braver than I, lined up outside of stores on the eve of Black Friday; cars being serviced and prepped for snow (okay, I haven't seen this done at our house, but I have thought about it). Thanksgiving, at times, also allows us to delight in abundance as we stuff ourselves with too much turkey and multiple desserts that look too good to pass us, and give thanks for those "scrapbook moments" - the new baby, that award at work, or family traveling from far and wide to be in the same room at once.

But, last night, during our last few hours of November, I found myself curled up on the couch with a sleepless boy and and ball of yarn, thinking about pizza sauce. Yes, pizza sauce. Monday night, I had planned on making a dish we call Tamale Pie. But somewhere along the way, I got this crazy notion that I might take a shower. I took both kids and a small pile of toys into the bathroom and told them they could play while I showered. I thought things were going swimmingly. In fact, if I had the ability to whistle what-so-ever, I would have been, right out of the shower and across the bathroom floor until I opened the closet door. Where I found Audrey, sprawled out on a pile of clothes, as if she had just raked them up into a huge jumping pile. Every shelf on Jason's side of the closet was clear, knocked to the floor. Ties, hats, shorts, and out-grown baby clothes that I had organized by size (well, somewhat) amassed from one corner to another. I was still refolding and sorting the mess when Jason let me know he was on his way home and asked about my plans for dinner. I told him that I planned to start making it after I finished reordering the closet. He offered to stop off for pizza on his drive home.

By the time he got home, that side of the closet was more organized than it's been in months (or since I began using those shelves for baby clothes storage). Jason dropped the pizza box onto the counter and I opened it to start plating dinner. That's when I saw the container of pizza sauce. The pizza usually comes with a container of garlic sauce, which I don't like. But I do like to eat my crusts and breadsticks with pizza sauce. Jason prefers cheese sauce. But there it was in the corner of the box, the garlic sauce swapped out for pizza sauce - a little moment of thoughtfulness. You won't see a picture of pizza sauce in my scrapbook (if I ever got around to finishing or beginning a scrapbook, that is), but perhaps, you should. Those little containers, and the thoughtfulness they stand for, make me smile every time. It's not quite the same as the blessing of a new baby. I'll grant you that. When everyone goes around the Thanksgiving table saying what they're thankful for, you're not going to get the same reaction from "pizza sauce" as you would for saying, "Aunt Rita being able to travel 1000 miles to be with us." (That is, if you have an Aunt Rita, if not, you might be better off saying pizza sauce, the looks you get will be just as odd). But sometimes, while calming a restless baby or preparing to enter a season known for joyous chaos, it's just as good to remember the little blessings. After all, what is life but a sum of all its little parts? So here's to pizza sauce and a season of Thanks followed by one of Joy. And, here's to you, and those little things that make you smile (even if it's the garlic sauce).

A Little Catching Up

2010-11-29T22:03:00.008-05:00

We had a successful Thanksgiving break, the kind that involves days of productivity and days of relaxation, as well as a day of having others cook for us. In fact, I felt so successful following the break that Sunday night a wrote out a to-do list of all the tasks I planned to accomplish today. I felt confident in my Monday abilities. Until I woke up. It's not that I couldn't have pressed on - there's nothing wrong with me. But you see, somewhere in the middle of last night a slumber party ensued (it's been happening the last several nights, truth be told). It began around eleven when Nathan woke up crying and Jason tucked him between the two of us to settle him down. His sister joined the party, sidling up to my other side around five in the morning. And, well, their little bodies are just so warm, definitely not the incentive one needs for starting the day early.

So, we didn't. We lingered in our pajamas until the hour when I hope I won't be embarrassed by needing to open the door to my UPS man. The to-do list sat untouched on the counter and I renewed the library books online. It's not as if the library or post office are going anywhere, or growing faster than their mamas can keep up with, anyway. And so, we took our cue from the morning and introduced ourselves into this week slowly, with cookies. Audrey donned her apron (sans pants, since the moment she gets jelly on them she considers them "wet") and we got down to serious, non-to-do list work. The cookies we made seemed just right (banana oatmeal, if you're curious), the ingredients tossed together in one bowl with no need to dirty the mixer. Dough dropped by the lumpy misshapen spoonful onto a cookie sheet and sent to the oven to make the whole downstairs smell like cinnamon and blankets on rainy days. It was just that sort of day.

In that same vein, before moving on with the details of this season, I thought I'd do a bit of catching up by sharing a few small things that happened around here in the last few months - items I meant to blog about at the time, but due to morning sickness and the busyness that has no regard for morning sickness, I never got around to.

First, I finally got around to lengthening the curtains (you can see the before picture above with the orange chair). It's a project that's been on my list since I bought them. I purposely bought the shorter panels when I realized how wide the hem was on each one, thinking I could save myself fifteen bucks a panel by lengthening them once I got them home. Sadly, they stayed in their short stature state for months before I got around to introducing them to my sewing machine. But, let's just focus on the finished product, shall we? Ahh, that's better.

This fall, Audrey took to watching birds, so much so that she (and Jason) decided she must have a birdhouse. So they made, I mean, bought one. One afternoon they traveled all over town looking for birdhouse kits to make their own. Unable to find a kit, they found this little abode, to which Audrey quickly added graffiti "to let the birds know it's their house."

They also brought home a feeder, which Audrey quickly hung from a tree next to the garden (I'm slightly concerned about what this will mean next year when the birds come to that spot looking for food). The feeder and house were hung so late in the season that we weren't sure they'd have any visitors this year, but the feeder has already been emptied once and Audrey was so happy to see this little guy above (one of the first visitors) that she quickly, accidentally ran him off. I have to admit, I understand the excitement. After my grandfather passed away, each grandchild was given something like $25 or $50 of his to do with what we pleased (I was a bit older than Audrey, but apparently young enough that I'm too old now to recall what my age would have been). I wanted to get something with mine that would last and remind me of my grandparents, so I bought a bird feeder (a large one that stood on a post), which my father very graciously put front and center in the backyard.

Finally, we captured some handprints before they do what handprints do and get abilities and minds of their own, and grow faster than any mama thinks they should. These handprints were captured during a meeting of my moms' club onto an apron. I love that once the apron is of no use, I can cut the handprints out and the canvas fabric can be framed or stretched like a picture. Of course, Audrey informed me that this is actually her apron, since she made it. Luckily, she's allowing me to wear it. At least while we make cookies.

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 92

2010-11-28T20:37:00.003-05:00

Time, and the season, have definitely marched on. The winter coats shrugged onto our shoulders before leaving the house feel right. The Christmas tree found its way out of its box (we bought it at the end of the season last year after deciding that, perhaps, fresh stray pine needles weren't baby-friendly) and into the corner of the family room. Audrey's most frequent request is that the Christmas tree lights be turned on, no matter the time of day. Holiday decorating and gift preparations are underway. And, one little man's birthday is just around the corner.

Almost as frequently as Audrey asks for seasonal mood lighting, Jason and I turn to one another and utter some form of, Can you believe Nate's almost one? As stubborn as we are to believe it, Nathan is more than willing to offer the proof. He is also marching on. Literally. Thanksgiving, with its celebration of blessings, brought on one more. Nathan's first steps. Daily, he makes us laugh as he communicates more, plays more, and becomes more of the little boy that he's determined to be:

On Sunday, while holding Nate, I began beating my chest with my flattened palm (in a sorry attempt to break up some of my congestion) as I stood coughing. Nathan watched me for a minute before shaking his head "no" and beating my chest with his own flattened palm.

Monday morning, Nathan was sleeping soundly when Audrey woke him up. After she walked downstairs, I told Jason, "He was out. He would have slept til eight." As soon as I finished my sentence, Nate looked at Jason and shook his head "no."

On Tuesday, Nathan initiated a game of peek-a-boo by hiding behind a column and peeking out at Jason, laughing and ducking behind it again.

Audrey's new favorite spot is sitting in her rocking chair a foot from the Christmas tree admiring its lights. It sticks in my head as an image of a new phase - one where any lingering baby tendencies fade and those of a little girl are all that remain. She has spent the week serenading us with her version of "Jeremiah was a Bullfrog" (she and Jason have had several impromptu dance parties during his vacation, with this being their song of choice), teaching Nathan how to pull every pot and pan out of the cabinets, and keeping things interesting, as always:

Sunday, during the Colts game, Jason let out a sound resembling "ugh," following a disappointing play. "What happened?" asked Audrey. "Did they hurt you?"

On Monday, Audrey was drawing pictures on thank you notes. She likes to write on the cards, as well. Not knowing how to write her entire name, she prefers to write any combination of letters that she does know. I looked down to find her hard at work on a card that had "Pay" written very distinctly across one page. It's being sent to some friends who I think will get a good laugh from it. I couldn't help but add a little caption, "Thanks for coming to my birthday party, now pay up."

Later that afternoon she was trying to convince Nathan to play with her. "Nate, come! I'm boring! Nate come! I'm boring!" (I'm sure she meant that she was bored, not boring.)

On Wednesday, she created a wish list for Santa, with Jason playing the role of recorder. The number one item on her list? "A trumpet - or something loud."

One night this week while Jason was putting Audrey to bed, he noticed that Curious George had been quarantined to one side of the bed while Audrey's other animals were clumped together on the other side (she sleeps with roughly 5 stuffed animals a night). He found this a bit odd, but didn't say anything. As Audrey said her prayers, she prayed for George, asking the he get better soon so he could play with his friends again and not get anyone sick. Hmm, perhaps, this little family of ours was sick a little too long. But, I'm telling you, it's a new week. New adventures await. We're marching on.

Avocado Blessings

2010-11-23T16:45:00.003-05:00

Lately, we find ourselves a bit of a mixed bag. Christmas lights in 65-degree weather. Christmas lights on before Thanksgiving (the four-year-old, and four-year-old in the rest of us, can't help herself). Contemplating carving pumpkins the week of Thanksgiving (we never managed to work in that family pumpkin carving night before Halloween this year). And, avocados in late fall. Yes, it's not really the time for avocados. But we've been hoarding a little avocado at our house. Actually, I've been told he or she may be closer to the size of a turnip now, but we tend to grow our babies small (and we discovered in California that Nate likes avocados) so we have our minds set on avocados. And spring, when this little turnip will be joining us. (Right now, some of you are remembering all those days I missed writing posts in the last few months and things are becoming a little more clear - see, I did have an excuse).

We have been spending the last several months with one foot planted firmly in the present and the season, scents, tastes, and joys around us and one foot stepping forward, dreaming of spring and our family to come. But both feet are wearing shoes of gratitude, for the blessings of today and those of tomorrow. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. I'll be back in a couple days.

Yesterday

2010-11-22T20:02:00.008-05:00

Yesterday, we walked out the front door to be hugged by the balmy weather and get down to business: the business of hanging Christmas lights, planting tulip and crocus bulbs, and, ahem, sledding pumpkins (our little girl is a bit between seasons, not that our activities aren't confusing her even more). It was an afternoon for getting our hands dirty, watching Audrey race down the sidewalk on her bike, and daydreaming of the season to come while enjoying what felt like remnants of the season past. Little hands, little bulbs, both bursting with big potential just waiting to bloom.

For Posterity's Sake: Week in Review 91

2010-11-21T16:01:00.004-05:00

Some items in the dress up suitcase have had some, um, interesting uses.

Today has been an unseasonably warm day in November. I overdressed the children before heading out, trowel in hand. They stripped off the unnecessary layers, losing hats and (in Nathan's case) socks for gloves. Amidst the backdrop of Jason hanging the Christmas lights, we played spring, pulling up the earth and tucking bulbs inside. All bets are off. We are following suite, building our days from the weather, the fevers, and circumstances that come. And, taking advantage of those days of unexpected warmth (both inside and out) every chance we get.

We're hoping Nathan's fever has finally broken after holding tight all week. Most days, as I work in the kitchen, Nathan crawls over and head butts my leg when he wants picked up. I'll feel the bump against my leg and then watch as he sits back, waiting patiently. This week, he followed each bump with a tug on my jeans, as if to let me know that this week he was serious. He needed picked up right away. So I did, happy to see the little guy had this persistent side to him.

Audrey, as always, spent the week showing us another side as well: the four-year-old analytical side.

On Sunday, Audrey was playing a computer game that teaches phonics and how to trace letters. She was asked to make a "ph" sound. She made the sound by blowing air through her nose rather than using her mouth. "That's hard!" she said.

Monday, Audrey asked why a little boy wasn't playing with her. I explained that he was shy. "Boys aren't supposed to be shy," she said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because they're too silly."

Later that afternoon, she told me, "Sometimes, Rebecca (a friend of hers) tells me to do things I don't want to do."

"Like what?" I asked.

"She tells me to stop being crazy and I like to be crazy."

Tuesday, while leaving school, one of Audrey's friends gave her a hug, linebacker-style, that brought her head to the floor with a smack. That night, she asked Jason if he knew what "Bubby" had done to her at school. Jason rattled off a series of creative answers, each receiving a unique response. The end of the conversation went a little like this:

"Did he did a hole to China with a spoon?"

"No, that's silly. The floor is too hard."

"Did he teleport you?"

"No. What is teleport? I don't even know what that is."

Friday after lunch, I was trying to get both kids cleaned up and in coats to head out to the doctor's office following another spike of Nathan's fever. I buttoned Audrey's coat and told her I needed her to put her shoes on.

"I need you to go fast as fast can be, little one."

"Okay, big one," she said.

Saturday morning, the whole family was snuggled together in bed after each child had found their way into our bed at some point during the night. Nate crawled over to Jason. "Someone smells like pee," Jason said.

"Why did you call me smokin' pee?" Audrey said.

Saturday afternoon, Audrey and Jason were playing hide n' seek. It was Jason's turn to hide. He chose to hide under a sheet. Audrey quickly found him.

"I saw a big bump," she said.

"Are you calling me a big bump?"

"No, you're not a big bump. You just make a big bump."

After a week of Audrey running around at full speed while the rest of us kept putting on the brakes, we began to feel a bit bad for our girl. She was bored to tears, almost literally. In an attempt to do something special for her and recognize her lack of one-on-one time with any of us, we called in reinforcements to watch Nathan (in the form of Mamaw) and took Audrey to see her first musical, a middle school production of The Wizard of Oz. We sat away from the rest of the crowd, keeping our germs at bay, and let Audrey pull her chair into the center aisle so she could see all the action taking place on stage. She was fascinated by the songs, the changing set designs, and the characters. At one point she began to ask questions about characters in the play. "It's all pretend," we informed her.

"Is she real?" Audrey asked, pointing to Dorothy.

This week we've been a bit short on energy, and plans. We're taking the days as they come, throat drops and infant Tylenol in hand, making up the days as we go. But, come what may, there's a few things we've come to expect: to be surprised by the spontaneous laughs, awed by each stage of growth, and comforted by warmth in unexpected places.

Sorry for those of you who may have already read part of this in an incomplete form, Nate published it before I was ready. Oops.