Congratulations to m*, Kaia Joye, and Mandy!
and thanks everyone else for entering.
xox
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Monday, November 05, 2012
Winter giveaways for 500 Posts!!
Yesterday I wrote my 500th post, so today I give some of my wintery favorites away:
jars of summer jam,
Big Train vanilla chai,
homemade biscotti,
and classic chap stick (every winner gets some)
Please leave a comment by November 15th to enter the drawing! Three of you win (which could be all of you!)
Thanks for reading*
jars of summer jam,
Big Train vanilla chai,
homemade biscotti,
and classic chap stick (every winner gets some)
Please leave a comment by November 15th to enter the drawing! Three of you win (which could be all of you!)
Thanks for reading*
Sunday, November 04, 2012
More Life in the New Days
Maeve is six weeks old. I am sitting at the table, rocking her on my knee while outside the kids stand around a galvanized tub of fall fire, "making torches." I am not sure this is the safest game. Ben is grinding down some azalea stumps to smooth out our small hill and ready it for possible sledding.
Today we took a date, rented DC bikes and cruised around downtown to a Ramen noodle bar and thrift shops. We are weathering the low-grade tension that lives in the corners of these days of small people and full arms, and sometimes yells from the driver's seat or kitchen doorway... It was good to be together, to bike behind him and watch him boyishly weave through traffic the way he always has, to follow the shape of his back and sit elbow to elbow over tangles of noodles. Walking through Adams Morgan I could feel the gnawing want to be wrapped in a scarf, wearing fingerless gloves, sitting at a laptop with books, papers and a large coffee outside Tryst, or lingering with Ben over a long breakfast and the newspaper. These are not days of leisure, or time alone or creative space -- all things we crave. What I tried to remember, walking down that street past the brunchers, is that milk will not spring from my body ever three hours -- on a date or not -- forever, that one day I might be sitting outside a coffee shop alone missing a squirmy girl in a striped dress gnawing on her fist as she lies across my lap.
She just spit up down her face, into her ear, and onto my leg...
Maeve is balding and cooing these days. In the mornings I can steal a rare bright smile from her, and today her tiny purple Mary Jane socks stay on her feet.
Eden received face paints for a gift and has drawn two lopsided hearts on my chin and cheek, one large American Flag -- which greatly resembles a French flag -- on my other cheek, and a blue paw print on my forehead. So that's what I look like right now. She is amazed by how good she is at face painting and may begin offering it curbside.
Silas has no school tomorrow or election day and is reveling in the freedom, as if he's a 15 year-old missing exams. I keep trying to think of fun plans for the hours Eden's at school , but I think he may be most happy to sit on the floor in my attention and build with legos. So we will.
And so the days unfold into November. I am trying to remember to stop and be thankful, especially when I find myself frowning or banging around the house -- both things I apparently do in the mornings, before dinner, and just before piling people into the car (is that most of the day?). I am trying to practice smiling (to counter the frowning). I am beginning a book called Seven and hoping it will jolt my complacency. I am especially missing the park and California these days, which may be a sign of sinking deeper into real life here; Maeve was the final big change in the series, and she's here, the last loose end tied up. Now it's all about learning to walk on this new footing.
Today we took a date, rented DC bikes and cruised around downtown to a Ramen noodle bar and thrift shops. We are weathering the low-grade tension that lives in the corners of these days of small people and full arms, and sometimes yells from the driver's seat or kitchen doorway... It was good to be together, to bike behind him and watch him boyishly weave through traffic the way he always has, to follow the shape of his back and sit elbow to elbow over tangles of noodles. Walking through Adams Morgan I could feel the gnawing want to be wrapped in a scarf, wearing fingerless gloves, sitting at a laptop with books, papers and a large coffee outside Tryst, or lingering with Ben over a long breakfast and the newspaper. These are not days of leisure, or time alone or creative space -- all things we crave. What I tried to remember, walking down that street past the brunchers, is that milk will not spring from my body ever three hours -- on a date or not -- forever, that one day I might be sitting outside a coffee shop alone missing a squirmy girl in a striped dress gnawing on her fist as she lies across my lap.
She just spit up down her face, into her ear, and onto my leg...
Maeve is balding and cooing these days. In the mornings I can steal a rare bright smile from her, and today her tiny purple Mary Jane socks stay on her feet.
Eden received face paints for a gift and has drawn two lopsided hearts on my chin and cheek, one large American Flag -- which greatly resembles a French flag -- on my other cheek, and a blue paw print on my forehead. So that's what I look like right now. She is amazed by how good she is at face painting and may begin offering it curbside.
Silas has no school tomorrow or election day and is reveling in the freedom, as if he's a 15 year-old missing exams. I keep trying to think of fun plans for the hours Eden's at school , but I think he may be most happy to sit on the floor in my attention and build with legos. So we will.
And so the days unfold into November. I am trying to remember to stop and be thankful, especially when I find myself frowning or banging around the house -- both things I apparently do in the mornings, before dinner, and just before piling people into the car (is that most of the day?). I am trying to practice smiling (to counter the frowning). I am beginning a book called Seven and hoping it will jolt my complacency. I am especially missing the park and California these days, which may be a sign of sinking deeper into real life here; Maeve was the final big change in the series, and she's here, the last loose end tied up. Now it's all about learning to walk on this new footing.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Frankenstorm
is happening. So far, it's a big fat rainy day with gusts that bend and wave the towering trees. I've driven to the post office and my parents' house (neither of which was recommended), hung out with a cluster of men in the neighborhood hardware store, but mostly we've stuck inside. Ben rigged up a little zip line (we have just over 6' ceilings) in the basement and a swing. We've done what we can to prepare as Washington expertly panicked around us: yesterday the gas station was out of gas and the grocery stores sold out of water and batteries. The main road we take to my parents' house has been preemptively shut down for flooding, and the metro and airports are closed. Schools are closed today and tomorrow, and Halloween is up for grabs. Our bathtub is full of water just in case. Margaritas are in the fridge. We've bought bags of ice and borrowed a cooler to store pumped milk (the single must-save -- liquid freedom). Our electronics are charged. The kids are bathed and ready for no hot water. The outdoor drains are raked and covered in plastic mesh in hopes of saving our basement from an impending flood. We've been eating out of the freezer -- frozen peas, corn, chicken nuggets and sweet potato fries for lunch today. We've drawn the curtains in case branches fly at the windows, and that's about what we can do. Now we're going to have a bed-party in my room with a stack of books while Maeve sleeps in the swing that ran out of batteries yesterday right when the stores did, but my mom refilled today -- huzzah!
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Where We are Now
This week marks the move from honeymoon to transition: when husband's job resurfaces, when mother's life grows bigger than a babe, when adrenaline gives way to exhaustion, when the resolve to fight sloppy emotion flags, when the four year old erupts into strings of meltdowns and wakes screaming in the night and keeps screaming when her dad comes in, when the cheery six year old's eyes spring with instant tears at any thwarted expectation, when, in short, change hits.
Small victories mark the days: Silas's spelling "one" and holding the baby by himself, my picking Eden up from school alone, pumping for the first time (the stash of freedom begins), and remembering gratitude -- for the baby in the house, a person who continues to strike me as impossibly lovely. That humans arrive so tiny and perfectly complete is brand new all over again. And for people -- meals continue to arrive on my doorstep, people have picked up diapers at the store, driven S & E to soccer, taken them to the park, thrown laundry into my washer, folded mountains of clothes, emptied the trash... *thank you*
Fall has ripped through billowy summer and arrived -- the sky yesterday was taut and blue behind yellow leaves, and today wind gusted through the huge trees all day, sending showers of leaves and acorns in the yard. The air is cool and drying, the dogwoods deep red, and orange seeps into the edges of the sugar maples. The world is transitioning, too, around us, its wind against our skin.
Small victories mark the days: Silas's spelling "one" and holding the baby by himself, my picking Eden up from school alone, pumping for the first time (the stash of freedom begins), and remembering gratitude -- for the baby in the house, a person who continues to strike me as impossibly lovely. That humans arrive so tiny and perfectly complete is brand new all over again. And for people -- meals continue to arrive on my doorstep, people have picked up diapers at the store, driven S & E to soccer, taken them to the park, thrown laundry into my washer, folded mountains of clothes, emptied the trash... *thank you*
Saturday, October 06, 2012
Eden. (still articulating this, but words from my journal yesterday)
Eden changed under my hands. Literally. She walked into the hospital room two weeks ago as the little Eden I've known, there to meet her new sister. But when I touched her, she was different -- substantial, solid, a child. Hers was a new, grown body.
Until that day, she had been Tiny Joye -- our small one. Then in one day, after only four hours of a newborn in our hands, she suddenly wasn't.
Each day since then, I have marveled at Eden. Her capability is not surprising. Her bright chirpy helpfulness I have seen before. Her lengthening legs we have noticed, stretching before our eyes. But to touch her -- this is different. To pull her on my lap, which I guess I haven't properly been able to do for a couple of months, she is BIG. How did I not see this three weeks ago?
There is nothing "baby" about Eden. The one shy of seven pounds and floppy-limbed, yes, she is a baby. Eden, articulate and full of songs, is become something else, the big and the little at once.
Through the weeks, I've heard Ben say it again and again, almost to himself, "you're so big, Eden" -- he can't seem to keep the words from tumbling out. We are struck.
She is well named: Eden. The garden God made when He closed his eyes and imagined the most beautiful place he could -- a place of Shalom, of creative joy expressed, fresh, vivid, sweet-smelling -- Eden. I imagine that the vibrant beauty would knock us out, that those who lived there must have been surprised again and again by what was given, by how their understanding had been limited. How could they not live in a constant discovery?
In some way, Eden, you were also born on the first day of Fall, born into a new Light. We all were, as happens on single days that rearrange our lives as we've known them. You, my sweet girl, who calls me Mama out of a night fever and let's me hold you and rock away your tears, you have become, once again, new to discover -- and we marvel.
marvel: (v) to be filled with wonder or astonishment
(n) a wonderful or astonishing person or thing
from Old French merveille: wonderful
Until that day, she had been Tiny Joye -- our small one. Then in one day, after only four hours of a newborn in our hands, she suddenly wasn't.
Each day since then, I have marveled at Eden. Her capability is not surprising. Her bright chirpy helpfulness I have seen before. Her lengthening legs we have noticed, stretching before our eyes. But to touch her -- this is different. To pull her on my lap, which I guess I haven't properly been able to do for a couple of months, she is BIG. How did I not see this three weeks ago?
There is nothing "baby" about Eden. The one shy of seven pounds and floppy-limbed, yes, she is a baby. Eden, articulate and full of songs, is become something else, the big and the little at once.
Through the weeks, I've heard Ben say it again and again, almost to himself, "you're so big, Eden" -- he can't seem to keep the words from tumbling out. We are struck.
She is well named: Eden. The garden God made when He closed his eyes and imagined the most beautiful place he could -- a place of Shalom, of creative joy expressed, fresh, vivid, sweet-smelling -- Eden. I imagine that the vibrant beauty would knock us out, that those who lived there must have been surprised again and again by what was given, by how their understanding had been limited. How could they not live in a constant discovery?
In some way, Eden, you were also born on the first day of Fall, born into a new Light. We all were, as happens on single days that rearrange our lives as we've known them. You, my sweet girl, who calls me Mama out of a night fever and let's me hold you and rock away your tears, you have become, once again, new to discover -- and we marvel.
marvel: (v) to be filled with wonder or astonishment
(n) a wonderful or astonishing person or thing
from Old French merveille: wonderful
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