October 30, 2010

Silent as the Grave

Sorry!  Sorry!!!!  Sorry!!!!!!

We've been sick over here - like mucho.  All of us but Keira - bless her healthy heart!  And we've been finishing up our visit with my parents.  It's been a long month, and a terribly quick month.  Now we find ourselves preparing to help them pack up and head home and it's so sad to say goodbye.  The kids have absolutely loved having them here and getting to know them.  I'm not sure how we're going to adjust to life without Papa and Nina.  Boo hoo...

Anyway, just popping in to say that regularly scheduled "programming" over here will (I promise, it will...) begin again very soon - but we're gonna need to get through the holiday weekend (I've got a Monster and a Turkey, how bout' you?) and send my parents off on their journey Monday morning - and then we'll commence with the chatting again. 

Missing you all - it's so hard not to be posting all the wonderful Fall pics we've been taking!

Happy Caramel Apple Eating...

and Happy Halloween...

and Happy Reformation Day....

xo


Also?  Go check out Tina's blog - the newest from Bushel & A Peck Designs.  Last two days to get in on the $45 SALE for a Full Bushel Package!  HURRY!!!  

October 23, 2010

Oh. So. Yummy.

Go ahead.  Tell me she’s not the best slice of berry-licious pie you’d ever want to eat.

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I know.  You can’t.  I’m sayin. Neither can I. 

Delicious child. 

October 21, 2010

Meant to be

I actually never feel jealous of them.  I adore them both and I love what they have together. 

I mean, I look at them together and I just see such love and devotion to each other.  I feel their bond – it’s tangible.  You can almost touch it.  It’s so palpable. 

Such trust.  Father and son.


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And I have to be honest with you.  I’m pretty sure this boy was never meant for another family than ours.

I think this was his Daddy before time.

To see them together is to see two sides of a coin.  Different, but the same.  Separate, but joined forever. Inseparable.

And I’m not even going into the mushy stuff. 

They are meant to be. 

October 19, 2010

Ebb, Flow, & Fine Print

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You cannot force yourself.  I mean, you can try.  And it’s fruitless.  That’s what I think, anyway. 

Parenting just has an ebb and flow.  And occasionally, more often than I like at any rate, the piping backs up and we’re a mess.  A big messy mess. 

It’s slightly embarrassing that I’m the only mother yelling across the play area at the mall.  And all the other mothers stop chatting about this and that and hold their trendy pink travel coffee mugs mid-air and stare my direction.  Like I’ve broken code.  Like I’m just totally breaking all the rules of appearing like I have it all together.  I thought the stained t-shirt, flip flips in Fall, and baseball cap would have given that away on our entry – but apparently not so much.  And there I sit, a big messy mess – yelling for Quint to not slap the moses-supposes out of some hapless 6 year old.  I mean, he’s little – but never underestimate a toddler.  He will take a big kid down.  It’s on like Donkey Kong when my son is in range. 

And so it goes.

It’s slightly disenchanting when you have a mall picnic planned.  Lunch packed.  Organized stroller.  Wipes, check!  And then your child spits egg all over you.  Hard-boiled, dry egg yolk.  And it wasn’t his fault.  Not really.  It was dry and he’s had a cough.  And it was all over my hair and shirt before I could re-think the whole making a coughing kid eat a boiled egg for lunch at the mall picnic-thingy.  I might have yelped.  And those around us, hoping for a quiet lunch-break in the food court?  They didn’t have that quiet lunch break.  No, no they did not. 

And so it goes.

It’s really hard to think straight when your sweet baby girl…that cute, chubby little goddess who stares up at you with such longing and tenacity decides your leg is theirs for the biting.  And it’s not like we planned it out this way.  Biting is a no.  A big fat NO.  But apparently?  I have a lot to chomp down on and in a moment of weakness, she could not resist.  Only I was in public.  And it was embarrassing the way I shrieked like a school-girl and burst into plump uncontainable tears.  I have a poor pain tolerance.  It’s my thing.  Pain.  No tolerance. 

So there I am crying.  Because I’ve been bitten.  And I have egg in my hair.  And I opened up my “mommy boom” in the play area and all the other moms stared at me and made me feel stupid and mean and horrible.  And I have egg in my hair.  Seriously.

And here’s the moral of this tale.  As a mother, I have many moments of joy – certainly.  But I also have many, many moments of messy mess.  It’s the ebb and flow.  The “mess” was probably in the fine print, but as with many things, I didn’t read all that heading into this gig.  I missed the bit about the egg.  How bout’ you? 

I also know that on those messy days I am unusually hard on myself.  To be more.  To be better.  And while I don’t know why I like to kick myself while I’m down, I do know that it’s a very hard cycle to break.  It’s on our worst days that we rise to fan the flames of insecurity and discontent.  When we start finding towels to throw in.  When we break down a little bit more.

And I said all this, on here, in this way to tell you something that a mother of four told me at the end of this messy day.

She said, “on your worst day…you’re still doing a great job.  You are.  You’re doing it.”

And you may have a sore bite mark on your leg, dried egg on your face and in your hair, and the memory of contemptuous gazes fresh in your mind.  You may.  You may have cried a bit more today than you’d care to talk about.  But you’re still doing it.  Little by little. 

Ebb and flow.

Messy mess by messy mess.  And you’re doing a great job.

And this too shall pass.  I know because it says so in the fine print.

October 17, 2010

Sunday seems to be the day

…that I post lately.  And I don’t really like that it’s only been once a week for two weeks – but it just seems to be the day that works right now.  I’ll try to be better – I’ve been so busy  I can’t see straight.  Forgive?  Alrighty then – agreed…more to come sooner than next Sunday.

Meanwhile, we did make it to the Punkin Patch with some dear friends and their sweet kiddos – oh my, it was so fun – and a dream come true for me, being that Fall is my fav-o time of year and being that we were all together – FINALLY….finally….oh sweet finally.

So I’ll leave you with some fun pics from that…Happy Week!
  
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Lord, could you not eat her up?!?!?!? Seriously?!?!

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Clearly not a “happy smiley wonderfulness” family shot…but still…so glad to see us all together FINALLY.  Did I say that already?  Finally…sweet bliss

October 10, 2010

Nina

That’s what they call her.  My Mom.  They call her Nina.  I don’t know why – have no idea actually.  Quint started it.  I said Grandma.  He said “Nina”.  I said “you mean, Grandma?” He said “Yep…Nina”.

So she’s Nina.  And she’s here.  After three years – she’s back.  And this time I’m two children greater in number. 

She had met Quint at 10 months old, and again at 18 months.  But now he’s almost three and he’s in love with his Nina.  In love. 

And Keira Joy?  Mom’s namesake?  It’s all about Nina.  Morning to night.  She wants to be held, loved, and overall adored by her Nina.  And she’s worked her baby magic, because she gets all that and more. 

Years ago, when my two younger siblings were still little, Mom recorded herself reading story after delightful story on cassette tapes.  The kids would listen at night as they went to sleep.  This of course, after she had already read to them before bedtime. 

By great fortune, I inherited all those precious tapes and never knew how much they would mean to my little boy – who listens to them at naptime and bedtime daily.  Nina is a celebrity in our house.  Because she reads to my boy every day.  And given the choice, he would rather listen to “Nina” on those tapes than Mommy.  I guess my character voices just aren’t up to par. 

And when she arrived this week, to sit a spell and stay for the month (a rare and wonderful treat) – Quint could hardly believe he was meeting the real Nina – in the flesh – and that she would be taking him onto her lap to read to him – in the flesh.  Sweet bliss!

And even to watch their favorite cartoons with them…

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And know what else?  We've missed her so much…

Forgive my absence to the blog – we are enjoying our Nina.  In the flesh…

October 3, 2010

To Love

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Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds. – William Shakespeare’s Love Sonnet 116

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I’ll have to tell you the story sometime of how Anton and I came to be Mister and Mrs. AB.  I will.  Because it’s a whale of a tale.  And it’s funny and romantic…and truth be told, it’s very much a GIRLS story.  Along the lines of how she got her man.  Oh yes, I did ladies.  And to be honest?  I don’t know that when I started having ooey-gooey feelings about AB long before I was Mrs. AB – I don’t know that I was ever really sure he would feel the same.  Or that we would actually start dating.  Or fall in love even.  Get married?  I WISH!  Or you know…travel the world and see amazing things together and ultimately adopt and love with every fiber of our being two of the most amazing babies on the planet. 

No, I’m pretty sure I was just thinking he was ridiculously handsome and that I wanted to make ooey-gooey eyes at him over a romantic dinner. 

He proposed ten years ago this week.  And I remember it like it was yesterday.  It feels like it was yesterday. 

And we’ve had lots of “alterations” over the years – both individually and as a couple, but our Love did not alter for each other. 

I’m so very glad.

Here’s to Love and all the wonderful things that came from this man and this woman saying “I do”…