October 8th--what a great day. My handsome husband turned 27 this year. I LOVE celebrating his birthday all week. This year we went out to Tucanos with some of our best friends, the Clark's, since three of us have birthdays in October. Then we ate out AGAIN (on the actual birth date) at a not-so-fantastic Thai restaurant with the Clark's and the Mueller's. David's mom took the girls so we could celebrate with a movie and kid-free night at the Marriott. It was wonderful! The only downside was that we had to take off early the next morning to drive to Idaho for our niece's baptism. (We got a wake-up call at 8am. Ouch).
500 Days of Summer and comfy slippers...what more could you want on your birthday?
And a collage of the girls to top it off.
When I asked Hazel what kind of cake we should get for Dad, she told me a "good guy cake." I asked her what that looked like and she said, "Well, a good guy has hair and legs and arms and he's holding a Barbie coloring book. And he has shoes on because he's going to the library." So, I did the best I could and found a Captain Moroni at the church bookstore.
Happy Birthday to my husband. I love love love you.
I always avoid paints for as long as I can...but eventually you have to give in. And tempera paint really is washable, thank goodness. I did get two amazingly cute little hand prints out of all this.
And this little girl is washable as well. What a blessing.
For family night we made a "spooky house" while we watched Under the Sea with Hazel. I hate to admit that we put Charlotte to bed for the entire event, but we couldn't put all the candy at risk. Hazel LOVED this activity as well as having mom and dad all to herself. We had a great time and Charlotte has only found the spooky house twice, eating half the picket fence. It's still standing.
I never thought I’d spend an hour coloring in my daughter’s coloring book, alone. Looking back now, I see how that hour changed my perspective of the little things that color my life as a stay-at-home mom.
When our second car broke down, I felt a piece of my independence disappear. My husband worked from home when he could, which allowed an occasional escape to the grocery store or library, but the option of getting the girls dressed and just going somewhere was gone. A few weeks later, my computer crashed. It was my last window to the outside world except for our television. And then, as if there were some electronic conspiracy against me, the TV took its last breath, and died. I had become a hostage within my own home.
There was an eerie silence in our house as I tried to piece together what I had left to keep myself sane as a stay-at-home mom. Within a few weeks, I had lost my freedom to plan my day without coordinating my routine with my husband’s work schedule. Checking my email or updating my blogs during nap time was no longer an option. And, perhaps most importantly, I didn’t have Disney as back-up entertainment during that crazy hour of 5 to 6 pm when I needed to make dinner, tidy up, or just sit down.
It was a Friday and the clock showed 4:08 pm. My three year-old was still napping and my one year-old was circling my feet, wanting to be held. I dug out the crayons and a dinosaur coloring book and opened up to a cheerful Triceratops chasing a butterfly. I tried to get my daughter to color with me but after about five minutes her fleeting attention span left me to myself. I considered getting up and doing another load of laundry, but lost the energy as I saw the previous load heaped and unfolded on my couch. I stared at the collage of toys, library books, shoes and the occasional diaper scattered across my floor and decided to gather a family of plastic vegetables into a small crate. As I was digging a potato out from under the couch, my daughter dumped the entire thing onto the floor again. I collapsed back against the couch with the potato in hand as she giggled and gave me the empty crate.
I returned to the Triceratops who seemed to be waiting for his finishing touches. My daughter sat next to me, pulling out the crayons one by one. I reached down and picked up a light brown, rolling it over between my fingers until I saw the small black title, Raw Sienna. I colored the smooth round rocks that dotted the grass, feeling more settled amongst the mess on my living room floor. I even felt a sense of pride once the entire drawing was complete. I slowly turned the page, peeking up at my toddler who was diligently tearing the paper off of a crayon and dropping it onto the floor.
The next picture showed a smiling Brontosaurus grazing in a field of flowers. I leafed through the pinks, settling on Razzmatazz and slowly traced over the dark lines that formed the flower petals, making sure the outer edges were shaded slightly darker than the middle like I used to do in elementary school. I found the sharpener on the back of the crayon box and sharpened a half-eaten Asparagus for the dinosaur’s tall, curved neck. I became addicted to my task until everything was given a color. I even filled in the sky with a pale Periwinkle.The entire process required the sharpening of three more crayons, but I didn’t mind. It felt good to complete something that was somewhat permanent, like a trophy for my escape from the routine. I was tempted to tear out the page and hang it on the refrigerator.
As I stared at my work, my daughter reached over with a dark blue crayon and colored on my completed page. Instinctively, I blocked her hand to protect my artwork. She looked up at me surprised, with a scrap of Crayola paper pasted to her chin. I smiled and slowly drew my hand away, allowing her to scribble across my tidy fuchsia flowers. I turned the page again.
I remember feeling trapped when I was a teenager. No car, no savings, nothing that belonged entirely to me. I wanted so much to own something for myself. When I was fifteen, I saved my money and bought a solid wood nightstand that I still keep in my bedroom, twelve years later. It was my first real possession. When I got married, I worked as an editor for a small publishing company and would get defensive any time my husband corrected my grammar. That was my talent. He was great at a number of things, but I wanted to be the proficient writer and grammar guru. (It didn’t help when I slammed him in Scrabble with the word “militia” and pronounced it “muh-lit-ee-yuh.”)
I do not have ownership over time, the physical state of my living room floor, my bust size, or the length of my kids’ naps. It has become a constant quest to discover what things I can actually claim as my own, besides my full-time title as “Mom.” I have never regretted my choice to stay at home with my kids, but I have had to work hard to maintain a true sense of self. I don’t receive compensation for my hours at home or get recognition for calming a hot temper without losing my own. But only I can decide what to do during those in between moments when I’m alone and the house is quiet. Time to myself is rare, and what I do with that time defines me more than I ever realized.
The next day was Saturday. My husband took the kids outside to play and I knew I had at least an hour to myself. I ran through that mental list that is always looming in my brain: clean the bathroom, finish the dishes, organize the office, scrape off the food that has fossilized on the floor below the high chair. And then I saw them; the crayons were lying on the dining room table conveniently close to our stack of coloring books, politely inviting me back. I walked over to the window and watched as my husband showed our oldest daughter how to throw a basketball. Then I slowly closed the curtain.
For the next hour, I sat alone at the table, coloring a giraffe reaching up for a mouthful of leaves, a playful pull-string duck, and a plump goldfish trapped inside a round, glistening bowl. As I finished each page, I flipped through the book until another caught my eye. I loved outlining the waves beneath the slim legs of a flamingo and highlighting the white in the eyes of a doll. I discovered the contrast between Dandelion and Vivid Tangerine and the cool touch of Magic Mint. With each picture, I promised myself it would be the last before I’d get up and clean something. But after a while, I surrendered to the calming effect of sitting still and doing nothing more than coloring between the lines.
Some days I know exactly who I am during those quiet moments I have to myself. Other days I feel fruitless and expendable. I’m sure I’ll never be perfect in this mission of motherhood. No matter how hard I try, there will always be sticky spots on my kitchen floor and stains on the front of my kids’ tee shirts. But if someone were to ask me today what it is that I do, I might give a little more color to my response. Instead of the simple, “I’m a stay-at-home mom,” I would tell them that I am a keeper of secrets, a gourmet grilled-cheese maker, walking napkin, body pillow and memory conservator. I have rescued jewelry from the fated flush of a toilet and searched for swallowed pennies and balloons in places I’d never mention. And I can color a mean Triceratops.
I never thought that by opening my child’s coloring book, I’d find a piece of myself that was missing; the piece that dismisses guilt and embraces reality. It was the part of me that’s okay with who I am and isn’t obsessing over whether or not I’ll pass or fail in the future. Losing the car, the computer, the TV and, so I thought, my freedom taught me a lesson I’ll never forget. If I’m too busy digging a potato out from under the couch or scrubbing stubborn strawberries off of my floor, I might miss something more important—like the chance to just sit down, pick up a color and fill in some of the space in between the lines of my own life.
This is the third year we've done a garden. We are terrible gardeners, mostly due to lack of time. But this year was the best because my carrots grew. For some reason, I've always wanted carrots in my backyard. That's just when you know that you've really "arrived," as a novice gardener, you know?
*(What you don't see: I accidentally left this entire bunch of freshly picked carrots on my back porch...for like a week. I am so sorry.)
I love this girl. So actually, she's been really difficult lately. I mean, HELLO terrible three's. Not to air her dirty laundry, but I want to write a few of these things down so when she calls me one day and complains that her three year old is impossible, I will be able to show her how much I understand. She's been throwing tantrums that last for about 20 minutes and involve knocking (small) holes in her wall with her big toys (there is literally still drywall dust on her floor from the last one). Two tantrums ago, she figured out that she could pee on her floor and there was nothing we could do to prevent it. Then she started taking off her underwear and refusing to put anything on (which she knows makes me crazy. I don't like bare bottoms on my furniture). She hits. Sometimes she is falsely accused, but you can usually tell by the look she gets on her face when she's lying. LYING. I never knew a three year old could lie. She's smart. A little too smart. When I'm rushed or ornery, she asked me sweetly, "Are you tired or are you mad?" The other day she said, "What the holy crap!" I asked, "What did you say?" She looked up at me and said, "That's what you say when you're mean." Ouch. She has literally brought me to tears with the recent frequency and intensity of these tantrums. And then after the storm passes, she is usually exhausted and sweet as ever. There are apologies and hugs and sometimes she'll even caress my cheek with her little fingers. I am at a total loss with this little girl. But we love her more than anything, and she's beautiful. And smart. *sigh
The farm in Eugene, Oregon has been such a big part of my life! My Dad flew me and the girls out for a week long vacation and we made some great memories. It's so fun to show my girls the little things that made my childhood special.
There's my grandma Carmen, the most beautiful woman in the world.
When my grandpa was alive he grafted different types of fruit trees together, creating DELICIOUS pear-apple combinations. Hazel loved that she could pick them all by herself.
We accidentally left this bucket of pearl-apples out overnight and they were all gobbled up by deer. Hazel thought that was so awesome.
This is our mulberry tree. These are the sweetest berries ever and we became slightly addicted. Especially Charlotte.
I have pictures every year sitting on this tree (the "sitting tree")--until my hips wouldn't fit anymore. Love this tree.
My Dad put together a scavenger hunt for Hazel just like he used to do for me when I'd come to the farm. If you can't tell from this picture, she thinks he's the greatest thing.
He hid clues all around the farm, at the same spots where he used to hide my clues. I may have enjoyed this scavenger hunt just as much as my girls...
And to top it off, we went to Devil's Elbow on the Eugene coast--our favorite spot on the beach.
Hazel was surprisingly terrified of the water, but she survived AND got to see some cool sea anemones. And she fed seagles. And got a sucker. It was a great day.
Charlotte on the other hand was quite fascinated with the water and the sand in between her toes. And that sand eventually ended up in her mouth.
Thank you to the best Dad in the entire world. We love you so so SO much.
