Whoa...looks like we're on the move again. We just received our 60-day notice from our landlord--they need our house for unforeseen circumstances for a family member. Very nice note, at least. Good tenants, great references, how very sorry, was hoping to catch you in person...
But now we see yet one more reason why renting sucks.
In some weird way, it feels ok. It will give us the push we need to make something happen...whether it's buying a house, moving East, something.
But right now it just feels gosh-darn inconvenient. As in, we hardly have time to do what we need to do each day for the next 2 months. Um, moving and packing and looking for a place weren't exactly factored in.
In case you didn't already know, we just moved back to our home in which both children were born after a year + in a yurt on a farm. We've been happily enjoying the luxury of mod-cons, even as we wince at our growing bellies and slumping computer posture.
And so, the ride begins again. We get more practice in trusting the flow of this life, knowing we can't control it all. Trying to make the right choices for our family. Enjoying the beauty and wonder of each day.
Friday, May 2, 2008
The Future's So Bright, I've Got to Nap with My Shades
Thanks for the title, Papa Steve!
Our funny bunny...not only does she love to nap in her little tent, she insists on sleeping in full regalia.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Beltane!
Happy May Day!We've been celebrating by reading Elsa Beskow's delightful The Flowers' Festival and by starting what might become a new tradition.
I loved our spring egg tree and so enjoyed blowing out the eggs and decorating them. As the buds were drying brown on our "tree trunk," it was obviously time to make space for the coming solstice. I had read and heard that we could save the eggs from year to year, and maybe when the children are older and can do their own blown ones (they only worked on the hardboiled eggs this year), we'll save the keepsakes. For now, though, I know I'll want to do at least as many next year and how many eggs do we really need?
They've been hanging on our fairy tree this week--which is in full bloom with deep purple lilacs--and we've been waiting to see what the fairies do with them.
Today--which in addition to being May Day was also Isaiah's first day of a Montessori home-based preschool!--Isaiah and I decided to help the eggs along. We're never far from a bat these days, with baseball fever upon us, so he slugged away at each egg strung up on the tree. Many of them got batted down whole, at which point I pitched them to Isaiah and he smashed them to smithereens in mid-air. I got to do one, too. Fun!
What's next? Skeet shooting?
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
warp speed
Moving at 100 miles per hour leaves little time for the creativity of new posts. Somehow I'm fitting in over 30 hours a week of editing while scrabbling together bits of childcare. Usually that means me editing from 6:30 to 10 am. Plus the 3 days a week we have babysitters. And I'm working in the teeny, tiny cracks to prepare for a big conference presentation in June (for which I'd like to finish a little booklet and have a website together.)
The scrabbling together part might be changing. Isaiah is going to try out a home-based Montessori preschool, just 6 children and 1 teacher for the next couple of months, twice a week. His little buddy C goes to the school and as we were saying goodnight to them after a baseball-filled, ice cream truck excited dinner (the sheer joy of the boy house!), Isaiah got to say "See you at school tomorrow!" to his friend.
He is in equal parts excited and apprehensive. He tells me doesn't feel like going tomorrow, then talk about the lunch we planned and the backpack he'll take it in. Of course, lunch and snacks have received elaborate planning from our little gourmand.
I'm curious how others handle the juggle of work, ambitions, and inspired family life. I seek--as with everything else I've ever done in life--to find that precise optimal balance of challenge, inspiration, relaxation, stimulation. It's a joy (and essential for us) to keep the money flowing in, and I have some large ambitions that are important to keep working toward, and I want to give the children the best of my time and energy. It's an ever-evolving spiral, isn't it? Rather than one perfect moment. It's all the perfect moment.
Isaiah is full of his first joke these days, learned from TQ:
"Why did the banana go to the doctor?"
"Because he wasn't peeling well."
And Miel, bless her little heart, repeats it over and over, a laugh if you already know what she's saying..
The scrabbling together part might be changing. Isaiah is going to try out a home-based Montessori preschool, just 6 children and 1 teacher for the next couple of months, twice a week. His little buddy C goes to the school and as we were saying goodnight to them after a baseball-filled, ice cream truck excited dinner (the sheer joy of the boy house!), Isaiah got to say "See you at school tomorrow!" to his friend.
He is in equal parts excited and apprehensive. He tells me doesn't feel like going tomorrow, then talk about the lunch we planned and the backpack he'll take it in. Of course, lunch and snacks have received elaborate planning from our little gourmand.
I'm curious how others handle the juggle of work, ambitions, and inspired family life. I seek--as with everything else I've ever done in life--to find that precise optimal balance of challenge, inspiration, relaxation, stimulation. It's a joy (and essential for us) to keep the money flowing in, and I have some large ambitions that are important to keep working toward, and I want to give the children the best of my time and energy. It's an ever-evolving spiral, isn't it? Rather than one perfect moment. It's all the perfect moment.
Isaiah is full of his first joke these days, learned from TQ:
"Why did the banana go to the doctor?"
"Because he wasn't peeling well."
And Miel, bless her little heart, repeats it over and over, a laugh if you already know what she's saying..
Friday, April 25, 2008
birdwatching
One birding book and we have birdwatching fever! Isaiah particularly took to the page of "What to Wear and Bring."hat with a brim?
check
backpack?
check
field guide?
check
comfortable shoes or boots?
check
binoculars?
check
clothes that aren't too bright (not orange)
check
snacks?
double check
Birdwatching club, anyone?
first ponytail!
Oh to be a California boy.And a stylish first ponytail it is...hand knit from Hot Knots, owned by dear friend and neighbor Gayle.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
milk rant
After a child turns a certain age, whenever I leave the West coast I feel pressure and even a certain amount of communal disgust that I would nurse a baby who can eat, walk, hold a bottle, ask for it. It doesn't phase me anymore, and I trust my decisions about what best supports my children's development and the flow of our family life. And I always travel with a scarf or a shawl.
I've also heard gruff reminders that question under their breath the choices I make for the children. "You do give that boy milk, don't you?"
As a matter of fact I do give the children all kinds of milk--cow, goat, almond, rice, soy. And our 3-year-old is now weaned, after a tuxedo-clad weaning party on the farm, replete with strawberry goat milk ice cream.
But the comments do get me wondering. Why is it so strange to see a thriving toddler seek the comfort of cuddling up with her mama, skin on skin, for some warm milk full of nutrients and antibodies, but it's totally acceptable to drink milk another animal's breast? A big, furry animal who mucks around in the grass and mud all day. And at least I'm thinking here of the milk we drink--local, organic, grass-fed cow milk. What about the industrial kind? Cows standing in their own manure, subjected to artificial light, not allowed room to lie down, injected with antibiotics to try to compensate for their living conditions.
Who is convincing us that this is better for our children? It reminds me of the great formula hoax, a marketing coup if I ever saw one. If marketers can sell several generations of women on the concept that a synthetic formula is better for their children than the milk their mammalian bodies (yes, that's right, under all those clothes and personal care products, behind those steering wheels and computer screens, we are animals) naturally produce, they can sell us anything. . . diet chocolate chip cookie biscuits for our dogs, DVDs to make our babies smarter, those nice Coca Cola bottles that feel as wholesome as a Sunday picnic, war.
I've also heard gruff reminders that question under their breath the choices I make for the children. "You do give that boy milk, don't you?"
As a matter of fact I do give the children all kinds of milk--cow, goat, almond, rice, soy. And our 3-year-old is now weaned, after a tuxedo-clad weaning party on the farm, replete with strawberry goat milk ice cream.
But the comments do get me wondering. Why is it so strange to see a thriving toddler seek the comfort of cuddling up with her mama, skin on skin, for some warm milk full of nutrients and antibodies, but it's totally acceptable to drink milk another animal's breast? A big, furry animal who mucks around in the grass and mud all day. And at least I'm thinking here of the milk we drink--local, organic, grass-fed cow milk. What about the industrial kind? Cows standing in their own manure, subjected to artificial light, not allowed room to lie down, injected with antibiotics to try to compensate for their living conditions.
Who is convincing us that this is better for our children? It reminds me of the great formula hoax, a marketing coup if I ever saw one. If marketers can sell several generations of women on the concept that a synthetic formula is better for their children than the milk their mammalian bodies (yes, that's right, under all those clothes and personal care products, behind those steering wheels and computer screens, we are animals) naturally produce, they can sell us anything. . . diet chocolate chip cookie biscuits for our dogs, DVDs to make our babies smarter, those nice Coca Cola bottles that feel as wholesome as a Sunday picnic, war.
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