a couple of new pictures of babies

Missing

I kind of miss my old "anonymous" blog where I could bitch and moan and snark when things weren't going my way and get sympathy from friends and total strangers. People who don't really know me so when they say a situation is f-d up I know I'm not just paranoid or being too sensitive. But it would be too much work to revive it. So, I'm lazy and depressed, so you gets nothin'.

Maybe ya'll can just give me sympathy without knowing why? It's for sucky things. That you would totaly go "aw man, that's lame."

Stuff I can share: Andrew's working this weekend, and babies have been HELLIONS. They refused to nap. They made a mess that I chose to ignore for a while until it became obvious that continuing to ignore the mess was going to cause said mess to get really really bad. Thank the Goddess that we have Madagascar 2 on DVD because that has made them contain their mess in the general area of the TV, although I really should go see what Sean is up to now. He sounds industrious, which is generally bad. Sigh.

Why Recycling is Evil

Guess what family spent the day at the ER (6 hours of it at least)? Because Sean found Grandma's recycling bin in the back yard and dropped a big glass something on his right big toe, trying hard to cut it deeply?

It might just have been us.

He's fine. He actually ended up not needing stitches, (he could have had them, but not NEEDED them) and since the stitching up would have really traumatized him, we opted for the skin super glue & a pat on the back. I know. For six hours, you ought to at least get ONE stitch.

For three year olds with an exceptional amount of energy, they were REALLY, really good. But it still sucked major something or other. And so, I blame the environmental movement. If that darn glass thingy had been in a landfill, where it belongs, it would not have cut my precious baby's toe. Phffffth. Al Gore would have gotten much quicker ER service, too. So there.

Maia & Mommy both try out new presents

The piano thingy is for Sean, technically. And mommy is trying out our new Flip Mino. Let's see how well it works. :)

Sean Meets Santa

Last night we went to Chick Fil A (the babies favorite fast food, and one of the few places we go like that). Guess who stopped in? Sean, who would not go near Santa during the photo shoot, was happy. He grabbed Santa's hand and tried to pull him around. It's adorable. Thank goodness for camera phones!!

Isn't this awesome?

These pictures of babies w/ Santa have been bought & paid for, so I figure the steal is okay. Sean would have nothing to do with Santa. Maia was convinced. I love the picture of Sean wanting the present, but still as far away from the bearded buy as he could get. :)

In The Pink

I've been wearing a lot of pink lately. Today's outift is a light pink skirt with these really cute scalloped ribbons all down it and a choclate brown t-shirt with pink and white turtle doves kissing under a heart.

Chalk all this pink up, perhaps, to the mood I was in when I went shopping for my "Fall wardrobe" or chalk it up to an optimistic feeling that comes and goes... but nevertheless, I'm enjoying my rosy wardrobe. There have certainly been many black outfits in my life at times but I have some light and bright pinks that just make me happy right now. One of my co-workers, the newhire from last year who teaches Milton, noted an all pink outfit early in the semester and said it "worked." I tell those who ask that I buy a lot of my clothes at this wonderful Goodwill "smart shoppe" in town (it's truly smart in that the shoppe ends in that extra pe, you know). So not only are they cute clothes, they cost me a fraction of the original price (and some of them end up coming with the original tags on them, like the skirt I'm wearing today!) But in spite of the compliments, I don't think other folks have ventured into my little fashion secret hideout. I like it because it's thrifty, yes, but I also like the "reuse, recycle" element of it. :) So. 100 bucks bought me enough new clothes just before the semester started (about three weeks ago) to have still new stuff sprinkling the daily look. Super awesome, in my humble book.

I sort of like to imagine I feel like Molly Ringwald's character in (you guessed it) Pretty in Pink. Stylishly unusual--not the creamy rich girl who was dressed so blah 80s that you just didn't think it looked all that good. Interesting. Kind of vintage. Redheads aren't supposed to wear pink for some reason but I think it looks really good. Yes, it might make someone with Molly's very pale skin (mine is ruddier, I think) look a little TOO pink, but I still am all for it.

Some of it is because Maia looks so adorable in it. Watching her makes me realize many things about myself. She truly looks very much like me, and she will behave, often, like me too. So it's a self esteem boost because she really is quite pretty and lovable. A reflection of oneself like that can be so much better than a real mirror, I think.

Anyway. Time to go wake up the little inspirations. They're in the bedroom, sprawled and snoring like a couple of long haul truckers. But still-- they look cute in pink. (Or blue, for Sean. It's not a boy girl thing, really. It's just the colors that look really good with their coloring!!) :)

Monday Monday

Blergh.

Some days, you just have to keep moving. I know it's early, but already it's been one of those days. Sean has a cavity in one of his little back teeth-- the boy LOVES him some orange juice and it's had an adverse affect. So I had an appointment made for this week, which took us about a month to get. But I typed it into my calendar on my phone wrong, and I wasn't sure if it was today or tomorrow. Since he has to not have anything to drink or eat, and get there at 8 am when the doctor's office opens, I couldn't call to check and I wasn't sure. So we went-- it's not today. So we get to do that whole early morning rush out the door tomorrow, too. Yippee!!

Today was the first day of regular school around here, too, so there were cars everywhere and the school zones in effect. I have two school zones to go through and I remembered and didn't get myself a ticket, but it was close on one. Then there was a wreck right in front of the dentist's office-- minivan meet SUV.

Whew. Lots of drama for so early already. Now it's calming down and I'm going to work on my novel. And eat some breakfast. And play with my wonderfully curly hair. :)

Hopeful

We have NEW neighbors! Since our old ones were nice but very standoffish, we're very hopeful that perhaps these new ones will hang out with us a bit more. One thing that might help is that they don't actually have kids. I know, I know, that sounds contradictory. But I've found that couples without kids (call them child free rather than childless-- it's the new way to say it without the stigma of "less." which I never felt in the past anyway but I did catch flack once from a stranger about it-- still, I say who the heck has to define themselves by their procreative ability nowadays? Well. Other than Brangelina--but I digress) are much more willing to pop in for dinner & drinks, or whatever, than their child having peers. It's just about 200% more difficult, I think, when you either have to get a babysitter or drag the whole fam along. I remember fondly our child free days, staying out til 2 am, going to like three of the first episodes of the new Star Wars in one day (in a tired haze, yes, but still). Nowadays, if I'm up at 2 it's either because one of the babies is crabby or something similar.

Anyway. This week is going to be crazy for me cause the Hubby is out of town til Friday. It's possible (but not probable) that he can come back on Wednesday, but no matter what, he'll be gone for a bit. When he told Maia yesterday that he was leaving for a while, she pouted prettily. Then, prompted by me (yes, I'm awful) she lit up and said "A Present?!" Ah hah! Princesses need presents when daddy comes home from a business trip. That's the rule. Mommy doesn't need squat (other than, perhaps, the occasional visit from a housekeeper to do the more Cinderella-ish things in the house). But the Princess Papaya gets some kind of sparkly present this time. Or else. :)

Now, off to finish my Voodoo issue of my magazine, which, by the way, is going to be awesome. My guest co-editor & I are even thinking about pitching this one to a real book publisher. We'll see what happens. :)

Succumbing to the Masses

So, today, I popped in to Wally world and came out with the Tinkerbell shoes my daughter has been bugging me to buy her for the last two weeks. She would ask for them with the self-assurance that they were out there (in spite of me not finding them anywhere I had looked) as though she knew I just wasn't APPLYING myself, dammit. :) So ridiculously happy about that purchase, I also fell into a trap zone that I usually do not let myself fall into. What everybody is doing. Yes, here is my guilty lemming following: I bought one of the Stephanie Meyer teen vampire books--Twilight. I've been reading it; it's not too bad. I guess they're doing a movie on this, and I can see why girls (especially) are digging on it. I would have loved it when I was seventeen. A lot.

It's funny, too, (to me) that it takes place in an area that I lived for about four years (the Seattle area).

Anyways. I got stuff to do. But I wanted to blog that I am fine, babies are well again, I am mostly cured (still a little ick but not bad at all). The speech went fine last weekend (I know I haven't really blogged much about it. I don't really have much to say other than it went well.) I'm supposed to be sorting through the dozens of huge containers of baby toys and getting rid of stuff they don't play with. I don't wanna, though. I wish I could afford to pay someone to clean my house for me all the time. Dammit, why am I not a Hilton sister? :)

This book, the teen vamp thing, it qualifies as work. Really. Cause I might have to work it into my dissertation turned into first book. I need a new chapter, and something really current and really really popular would work very well. Anyways.

Maybe a nap. I love summer, but it is going too fast.

Damn Stomach Flu

Please pray for me, or do whatever it is you do to help out charitable cases. I have had sick babies for at least a week now (I think it's actually been longer but who's counting?). I was planning to take them to school this morning, but Maia got sick in the car on the way there. Poor little things. I myself still feel a bit icky, so that makes it twice as hard to deal with the sickies.

Ah well. This is one of those bugs that just holds on and on and on. My only consolation is that the boy (who was the first one to be sick) does seem better today, so perhaps that means we're all about a day away from being better.

Monday

The speech went fine. I'll post it soonish on my Women Writers website. I got a couple of nibbles on future speeches... so that's really nifty. We'll see if any of them pan out. I like doing that sort of thing, and practice always is good. I met a bunch of nice authors, and after lunch, when everyone loosened up a bit, it was kind of fun. The kiddos met Curious George, with Sean "stalking" him around the place for a good ten minutes before working up the courage to give him a hug around the knees. I have some cute pictures; I'll post them soon, too.

But today, it's back to the old grind. AND you know what they never tell you about parenting? How many bugs you catch from your little darlings. I have some kind of tummy bug right now that is really kicking me down. The babies are just fine; either they passed it through with no impact or it hit them more lightly or they were pretty sick last week and didn't appear to be. You never know with kids. But all I want to do is lie on the couch and complain. It reminds me of a quote from the Devil Wears Prada, though. The skinny assistant says "I'm just one stomach flu away from my ideal weight".... I'm not close to an ideal, but it has squeezed a few pinches off of my mom-inspired belly. So that's a silver lining, if I wouldn't gain it all back as soon as I feel like eating again.

Now to go moan on the couch about the injustice of it all. :)

Have You Seen Junior's Grades?

In which your plucky heroine turns 13 and a grandmother....

Yesterday at the Doctor's office for Sean's ear checkup, an old guy asked me if my babies were my grandkids. Wow. I'm 39, so it is POSSible that I could have grandkids. If I started young and my kids therefore started young too. But it's a stretch. And that's one of those questions that you JUST DON'T ASK A WOMAN ever. Like how much she weighs and also if she's pregnant when it's not obvious. I don't look THAT old, people. But it was a moment of ick.

And then, during the visit, I also turned 13, figuratively speaking. I got the urge to Text Message a friend of mine. And we've been sending silly juvenile Texts back and forth all day since then. Silly, but hey. I gotta join the younger generation, don't I?

Anyway. I've been avoiding the computer cause on Monday I pulled my neck muscle again and it just hurt to sit here. So that's why no real comments here. I mostly just lay on the couch and read. Which was, in itself, kind of awesome.

13 and a grandmother. You know, it happens.

Digital Scrapbooking

For my mom's birthday, I printed up pages from the digital scrapbook I made of the babies' first year. During that crazy, crazy 12 months, I managed to create a 150ish page book of images of the babies on a program from Hallmark. It was both hard & easy. I printed it up, and then sort of left it. Babies got into it when we moved here to Shreveport and got the pictures all out of order but I just stuck it in a box and then didn't mess with it. I've been taking lots of pictures, but I haven't been scrapbooking.

When I printed out the images for my mom, I looked at them and thought of how precious this time was, this book that I made which highlights special moments of that first year. How things can be forgotten and the details fade over time. Yes I have multiple versions of the photos on various places, but you distill an image in a scrapbook page. You type out dates, special details that could be forgotten over time.


So. What you're probably guessing is true-- I've decided to get back to doing the scrapbooking thing. I bought a new program which is specifically designed for digital scrapbooks, and you would be amazed at the amount of websites out there with special graphics and designers for this kind of thing. They are gorgeous, and could run into lots of cash if one were so inclined. Luckily, a lot of them also give out freebies, often as much as once a week. So I spent a bit of time this weekend downloading some of those things, and gathering up the stuff I had from last time I did this.


Last night I made a couple of new pages. The next book is going to be something like "Toddler Years" since I will need to cover everything since the last one. So it'll be images from years after the 1st birthday to 3ish. I am both excited and apprehensive because I know how much time these kinds of things can eat up. But if I'm just working on them while I sit and watch TV, it's not like I'm taking time away from other, more important activities. Maybe do a page or so a day. But it is fun to go back through those pictures that I hadn't seen in a while.


This is a screenshot of one page I did yesterday. Cool, huh? :) I swear the pictures were not posed-- she was really being that adorable. All the graphics, the "paper" in the background, etc, are freebies I got from an awesome digital scrapbook site. It's made with the new program, and I think it's pretty spiffy.

Anyway, this page is just a beginning. When I was taking those pictures of the girl, I could just "feel" the page that they would make. And Maia loved it. It's a start.

Vacay Over Sort Of

Well, this morning I was able to sleep in with the girl baby. Maia is a hard sleeper; Sean was up at 7 ish and dragged Daddy out with him. Then we all got in the pool for a while. In fact, Sean is still there now. So in a way, our vacation is still on for today. This is why, in spite of having been home since Thursday, I haven't blogged. I just don't feel like I'm really "home" at this point. I do have lots of lovely pictures, though. I'll load them to that feed thingy in a sec. But two for feature, one of Maia & one of Sean on the beach. They LOVED the beach, as I knew they would.

We didn't get to see as much of friends and family as we would have liked. Things are always harder once you're there-- Sean would not have ANY of staying at my mom's house and he was less than agreeable about a few of the other places we went, too. He is such a quiet boy that when he does choose to yelp, it's all the more unsettling and difficult to deal with. But we did have a wonderful time, for the most part. I'll try to provide a specific narrative later. But now, for some cute pictures.

I just love the moment of stillness on Maia's face in the first one. That little scar above her eye just adds character, I think. (It was a bathtub injury and is taking forever to disappear.... I hope it does).

And then there's Sean in action. You can see on his face that he is simply In Love. I myself love the beach in Florida. It's warm water, and green blue color, and the sand so white.... it's not as pretty in the same way as it was before the last few rough hurricanes, but it will be again one day after some time. For example-- I don't remember there ever being vines of morning glories all over the dunes back in the day but there were. Pretty white morning glories til about 1. Then they drooped in the heat. I meant to get a picture but we were always in transit when I saw them.

But now, the family calls again. More to come.....

Box of Smiles

Although I can hardly believe it, tomorrow is the babies' THIRD birthday! And, since we'll be getting on the road at around noon, they will miss their "snack time" at daycare. So, today, the daycare is celebrating their birthday with a box full of chocolate cupcakes & those little bags full o kid crapola. Rubber balls, stick on tattoos of the rat from Ratatouille, stickers, gumballs, etc.

I got the cupcakes from one of the local awesome bakeries. When I paid, yesterday, I thought "ooh, I should have just gone to Sam's." But after picking them up this morning, I was glad that I went to the extra expense. Aren't they the CUTEST cupcakes you've ever seen?

Since Maia is really "in" to pink stuff, we went with boy/girl themed. It's going to be a chocolate day for those kiddos. I'm sure all the other kids' parents will thank me for getting them all hopped up on sugar just before they head home. Mwha hahahahahahaha!

Pleef!

Let me tell you that water sealing a huge kids' fort on a Monday afternoon is sucky. And sticky, too. In case you were wondering.

My eyelids are kinda sticking to my eyebrow area/ridge on account of trying to paint the "ceiling" area above my head. I'm gonna have to figure out a better way to do that.

And dammit, it's like, 90 degrees out there!! These kids owe me. Big time. :)

But in the meantime, a couple pictures of Saturday. We went downtown to the Farmer's Market by the Festival Square and they have this lovely public fountain thingy.

Fort!

Finally done. This morning, out there at the crack of morning. :)

Little Ants

We drink Splenda in our coffee, but we keep it next to the espresso machine in a sterling silver-plated sugar bowl. Acorn pattern. A little bit of fake in a little bit of, well, fancier fake. I'm telling you this because, if he comes upon the sugar bowl not tucked away but out on the countertop where he can reach it, my son likes to push both of his fists into the powdery/grainy sugar substitute and fling bits of it everywhere. It falls like dry bits of snowy sugary fairy dust from his hands. Some of it makes it into his mouth, but most of it lies strewn all over whatever surface is nearby.

Yesterday, that surface was my poor depressed laptop. She is getting old, and decrepit. In spite of having gotten a new harddrive about 2 years ago, and probably because of having been dropped at least one time, the laptop I used to call Pele is running painfully slow. Now, there is sugar stuck under the keys. I hear a little crunchy noise as I type, especially over in the "r" and "s" area.

I call the babies (cause actually, both of them do it, Sean is just the more enthusiastic) my little ants whenever they get into the sugar. But they may just be the death of my little red lava laptop before too long.

Being Mom

So I'm thinking about mothers. On the Wom-Po listserv, there's been a discussion about the "mother-daughter wars" inspired, in part, by Rebecca Walker & Alice Walker, and the book Rebecca has written which apparently is not so positive about Alice. I want to read the book; it's on my list of things to get next trip to B&N. I've been a fan of Rebecca since I learned what Third Wave feminism is, and I think I get what she's been saying pretty well, minus having actually READ the book yet.

I am also reading a Joyce Carol Oates' book called Missing Mom-- just started it, but it's good so far. (And sidenote-- I think Oates has one of the best author photos out there... she looks all dreamy and wide eyed...pretty, in a kind of brainy girl way). It promises to have been written around the time Oates' mother died, and is about the inevitable final separation we all face.

So moms: I try to be a good mom. We always have these things we promise ourselves we will never do, things we catch ourselves doing anyway. The other day I told my daughter I'd "give her something to cry about." To my credit, I was joking. She was whiney and crabby all day and I really felt frustrated with her, and wanted her to stop. And it popped into my head and I thought, "hey, it's a classic." I know the ridiculousness of whacking a crying kid to stop them from crying, though. And just saying it made the urge to do so go away, and me to laugh, and get a grip on it and then distract her, instead, with a visit to her Curious George poster.

Andrew & I are what is called Attachment parents, in most ways. We try very hard to not over discipline, but to encourage the babies with love. Yes, discipline is needed. But we spend a lot of time with our kids. We don't drop them at the babysitter's house after they've been a daycare all day (although I can understand when there is a need for that, too-- people have to earn a living.) We feed them as best as we can, we try to be educated about childhood illness, we cheer when they do something well, we read to them, sometimes as much as 30 minutes a night. And yet, we miss things. We missed Sean's hearing issue. We sometimes let Maia get away with being a prissy whiney thing, and give her what she wants just so she'll stop whining.

But, we apparently do the unpardonable sins of letting them watch TV. Of letting them eat junk food for dinner sometimes. Of letting them run loose a bit when we're at the store (I get scowls from the patrons of one of the stores, the one closest to home, for this one).

As they get older, I know we'll miss a few catches. And those are the things, inevitably, that my children will probably remember best. Not the hours of snuggling, waking with tickles, etc. But the one thing we do that we regret instantly. The day we did X when Maia or Sean wanted to do Y.

I think of this and hope that my children will have the perspective to recognize that as a mom, I'm not perfect, but I'm always trying. It's the best I can do, even when I am not doing anything else well, I am pretty proud of my mommy-skills. At least now, before they are teens.