{this moment}: just a picture (or three…) –a glimpse into our lives these days*
B’s sidewalk art expanded to include his face and hands.
And yes, he has some awesome bedhead going on.
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*inspired by soulemama
31 Friday Aug 2012
Posted B, this moment
in
{this moment}: just a picture (or three…) –a glimpse into our lives these days*
B’s sidewalk art expanded to include his face and hands.
And yes, he has some awesome bedhead going on.
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*inspired by soulemama
30 Thursday Aug 2012
Posted embrace the camera, family
inLast weekend we attended the wedding of a friend I have known for many years, and whose parents are some of my parents’ dearest friends. Growing up we ate many dinners with both our families together, and I remember the first time she confided to me her long-held crush on the man she married last weekend. It was sweet to celebrate with them, and to be there with my parents–and since our kids were enjoying one of their favorite babysitters, we had a blissfully quiet and conversational time.
Between the ceremony and reception, we wandered the grounds a little and found this beautiful flower-laden gazebo, perfect for pictures.
Me and my Mom.
Doesn’t she look pretty among the blooms?
With my Daddy.
My parents on the porch of a beautiful old windmill.
I made J stand in the gazebo while I adjusted my camera settings. Can you tell how much he loves this? I imagine him thinking, “For better, for worse…”
The two of us.
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27 Monday Aug 2012
Last week I was sick. It’s hard, and humbling, and horrible to be sick when you’re the mama. I had hatched grand plans for a week of fun activities before C starts school…and then I came down with a dreadful cold. I find that this stage of life, with three little people at home, is interspersed with frequent stretches where all we seem to be doing is surviving: eating simple dinners, wearing fairly clean clothes, bathing occasionally, and watching a lot of movies. This was another round of that routine. I wanted to be outside basking in the glorious weather, and instead I was walking to my couch with a kleenex box in hand while sunlight gilded the leaves outside the dining room window.
Over the weekend Daddy ran the household while I slept for hours, and on Monday he had to stay home and do more of the same. For rest of the week I cooked minimalist meals and forced myself to do a load or two of laundry a day; for some odd reason, people still need food and clothes, even when Mama is sick. During the kids’ naptimes, I slept on the balcony in the sun, hoping for a Vitamin D cure. The kids ate a lot of meals at the kitchen table with Daddy while I retreated to the couch.
When Daddy was on duty, I napped and sifted through the arid wastes of Netflix instant streaming in hopes of finding something watchable. To my surprise, I discovered two movies I liked (Possession and Enchanted April) and one I loved (A Good Woman: an Oscar Wilde adaptation set in 1930 and starring Helen Hunt and Scarlett Johansson? How did I not know about this?!). And I succumbed to periodic guilty gloom over what felt like another week of living in limbo rather than building or growing or doing anything better.
But then I rounded the corner one evening and spotted this:
I thought that if my child sits down on the floor to read a book, we must be doing something right. Good things are happening, even when I think life has ground to a halt.
A brother gives his sister a kiss:
Small feet cross under the shelter of a book.
Brothers enjoy a favorite read together.
My daughter absorbs works of art…
…and turns on her movie star charm for the camera.
(I’m still a rookie at editing pictures on my new camera: can’t figure out how to crop without distorting the image. Sorry for that chair leg in the top of the frame. I’ll try not to do it again.)
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In other news, Miss E is developing an avante-garde sense of fashion. One afternoon her leggings got a little damp while she was “helping” me water the flowers. (Those things need water when Mama is sick, too…) When we came back inside I called her to come for her pre-nap snack.
“I’m not coming yet!” she called.
“What?” I said. “Come for your coconut yogurt!”
“Not yet! I’m putting on my skirt.”
I ran upstairs in alarm (her dresser is quite stable but I still don’t like the thought of her opening drawers by herself) and discovered that she had indeed removed her leggings (rather a feat, I think), deposited them in the hamper, chosen a skirt, and put it on. This blurry shot gives you the best glimpse at her clothing selection:
She has an attitude about it, too. Don’t diss my style, Mama.
I’m hoping for a healthier week next week–but I’m also hoping it includes more book-reading snuggles and boundary-breaking fashion.
16 Thursday Aug 2012
Posted E, embrace the camera
inDaddy’s girl: snuggled up with her main man, reading a story.
I came in from stirring soup on the stove to see them like this, enjoying their before-dinner bonding time.
I love to watch these two converse.
Look at this page, Daddy!
Peeking over his baby girl’s shoulder.
Smirking, she elbows him out of her personal space.
Nice try, Miss E.
She plants one in return.
Like her Daddy, she loves books: I frequently come around a corner to find her plopped on the floor beside a raided bookshelf, surrounded by a fan of books and paging deliberately through one of her selections. Books, blond hair falling in her eyes, a steady stream of talk, and her pink crocs: these are her trademarks. And those pink crocs STINK. She considers them her inside shoes (inspired, I think, by the fact that I always wear Birkenstocks in the house) and will not be without them. A few days ago I confiscated them and managed a thorough washing with soap and water. They smelled better for an evening, anyway.
This girl fills our home with a tiny high-pitched voice, very grown-up conversation, delighted storytimes–and adorable, pink-toed, smelly feet. I’d say that’s Daddy’s girl.
15 Wednesday Aug 2012
The day after our zoo trip last week, I walked through the living room and discovered this on the coffee table:
It took me a second, and then I realized that is a giraffe nibbling at a tree, and the white and blue bands represent the protective wire and stripped bark that usually appear at that spot on the trunk.
C really, deeply loved the giraffes this time.
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The new treasures around here are the boys’ train coloring books from Oma and Opa. A few mornings ago, C asked me how to draw an engine like the one in his book. With my hands busy making breakfast, I told him to look at the picture and draw what he saw. He produced the engine on the lower right in the photo above. I thought this was amazingly good, and he was satisfied for about a day; then he decided that his drawing was lacking in realism. So I showed him how to sketch a simple reproduction of the coloring book image. His first attempt ended in tears. On the lower left of the photo, you can see the progress of his next attempt: the third engine satisfied him enough to add a tender and then the rest of the train. Since then he has been drawing these everywhere, branching out into different angles and executing a large turquoise masterpiece on the driveway yesterday.
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In the last days my thoughts have circled obsessively and anxiously around this budding artist– this boy who scampers down the sidewalk after his siblings, hurrying to be the first and forge the way. I find it exruciatingly hard to make decisions for our children, with the sense that the entire futures of these precious and unique people are sitting in my two hands. How do we know what is best? We want to foster his strengths–the creative mind and dazzling spatial intelligence and astonishing powers of memory–and give them room to flourish. We want to support him in the areas where he needs to grow–communication, flexibility, physical strength and coordination. We want to guard him from all hurt and harm. We want to make decisions in light of the long term, with a vision for all the years to come for him and not just today. We aren’t making decisions for ever and ever; we’re making short-term choices with a far-distant goal in mind. What steps are directed toward that goal? It’s not life or death, and we can certainly change course as we go, but to this mama’s heart it feels like everything depends on us getting it right.
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Yesterday I caught him reading to his younger brother, his best pal. Of course they’re reading the train coloring book.
I’m not ready for changes. I’m not even ready for them to be as big as they are right now; I wish I could go back and do so many of the days over. I wish I could go back and be more patient, and play more games, and take them sledding and swimming more often. I wish I could go back to the long-ago days when C was a baby and I was convinced I had to clean my whole house every week, while he was awake–and so because he played so happily alone, I let him. I know that wasn’t all we did; I also remember sitting for hours with him in the crook of my arm, reading Robert Louis Stevenson’s poems and setting them to little tunes I invented. But I always wish I could go back and do a little more.
And, knowing that it’s impossible to go back, I wish I could freeze time right now. I would like to pause here, in these late-summer days with the windows flung open to the pleasant air, and the happy voices of my three little people floating through the house. I want to keep jumping on the trampoline with them, and keep taking turns being batter and pitcher (while laughing secretly at the catcher who crouches immediately next to the batter and the batter who scampers off to retrieve the ball he just hit), and keep admiring the chalk masterpiece of the morning. I want more days just like these, to enjoy everything as it is now.
I know they need to grow up, as they are, slowly and yet lightning-fast–and that it’s good. I know there are things they need to learn, and that for some children that learning has to look different than I expected. In my imagined parenthood, everything was going to be easy–childrearing, education, family life. And it isn’t.
But it does involve lego giraffes, and hand-drawn steam engines, and brothers reading together in the afternoon sunshine. I am trying to believe that the future will hold good things, too, and that our big boy will know we are choosing our steps for him with much love, even on the other side of these decisions.
10 Friday Aug 2012
Posted E, snapshots, this moment
in
{this moment}: just a picture –a glimpse into our lives these days*
Trying out Mama’s headphones.
*inspired by soulemama
09 Thursday Aug 2012
Posted embrace the camera, family, snapshots
inToday we met friends at the zoo, and as we were walking back to the gate afterwards I set my camera on a handy bench and attempted a picture with my small crew. The results were a little comical. First I prominently featured our lunch bag:
Then everyone got silly. Nice kissing face, B.
Then E decided to hide behind the bar.
Then we went home and collapsed for late naps.
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We experienced a couple of new treats at the zoo: we rode on the carousel (E will tell you solemnly that her mount was a “weally big bug”), and we climbed inside the pouch of the giant kangaroo. The kids had been shy of it at first, but on our last trip they asked to try it next time.
Here is my pouch-full:
(E looks a little unsure that this was a wise decision).
And here are all the big boys:
Twelve years ago, my friend and I wandered around European cities together with packs on our backs and maps in our hands. Today we wandered around the zoo with laden strollers and, between us, seven children: six boys and one girl. It’s hard to believe that enough time has passed to produce all those vibrant, energetic, unique little people. But it’s a special delight to see them play together, and to catch up with a friend in snatches between dispensing lunches and chasing down stragglers. Old friends meet, and new ones are made.
07 Tuesday Aug 2012
B was deeply anxious lest Oma begin the corn-shucking process before he got up from his nap. She promised to wait for him, and when he came downstairs he marched outside, very big indeed, to tackle the task.
This boy loves corn on the cob. He quizzes me when I mention that we’re having corn with dinner: “What kind of corn, Mama? The big kind? Like this?” And he spreads his hands to approximate the length of an ear of corn. If I say yes, he beams.
He worked methodically and correctly. He is serious about the proper way of doing things, which is probably a trait he gets from me. His Daddy is an efficiency machine, but I insist on doing things the same way (the right way, of course–ahem) every time.
Glowing with pride as the fruits of his labors begin to appear. He ate those fruits with relish, too.
03 Friday Aug 2012
Posted snapshots, this moment
in{this moment}: just a picture –a glimpse into our lives these days*
Freshly cut cosmos on my kitchen windowsill, in an heirloom pitcher and vase from my mother-in-law.
*inspired by soulemama
02 Thursday Aug 2012
Posted embrace the camera, family
inDaddy with his wagonload of monkeys at the zoo.
Lifting E up to see the seals.
Daddy and C bonding over lunch.
That boy loves his daddy.
I love E’s cautious curiosity. Exactly how far could that lion jump?
The wagon wasn’t big enough for three small territorial creatures. B elected to ride in the stroller, from which perch he studied the map and gave directions.
The boys have been poring over their maps ever since, planning the next visit.
Taking it all in. And looking like his daddy, I think.
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