Polishing

Dear friends, I'm so sorry my posting is still so erratic. I'm having some good days, and still many yucky ones. I appreciate all of you who continue to visit and leave comments despite my irregularity in this space!

As autumn has crept into our surroundings, our daily lives, our home, and our hearts, we've found ourselves beginning to draw in and begin the work of settling into this new house. It has been coming along -- very slowly. But we're getting there. Each box unpacked, each room arranged and rearranged as we settle into how we use this space, is a huge check off my list. Actually, a card tossed away. (I'll share in an upcoming post the little to-do system that I came up with to handle the overwhelm of moving while very ill.)

And with each box of toys that is unearthed, my little ones have a new batch of things to polish. Roughly half of our toys are made from wood, mostly "raw" wood (that hasn't been varnished or lacquered or treated). We like to polish it with a beeswax wood polish (I prefer the natural scent over the lemon-lavender). It smells so good, gives our toys a bit of protection from dryness & cracking, and leaves them with a lovely patina. And, best of all, polishing is such a relaxing activity for my children, especially in the "witching hour" right before dinner.

Happy October!

October is probably my favorite month of the year. I really love the changing seasons, the coziness of autumn evenings, baking, comfort foods (bring on the soup!), the festive feel of preparation for Halloween ... I really love it. As I'm starting to feel just the teeniest bit better (nearing the halfway point of pregnancy -- yay!), I have high hopes that our days won't all blend together this month, with day after day of my lying in bed. I'm looking forward to exploring the season with my wee ones, making some costumes (really just getting reacquainted with my sewing machines -- I haven't sewn since July!), starting to think of some holiday gifts ... I'm so excited!

Not many photos for you today; I have been forgetting to carry my camera lately. Again, I have high hopes that this, too, will shift with the change of season and my feeling a bit better.

We made this pumpkin bread last week after I saw the recipe over at Molly's. We were just pouring in the ingredients, and I was kind of on auto-pilot, so it wasn't until after I baked it and tasted how sweet it was that I went back and looked at the recipe -- 3 cups of sugar! It was so tasty -- a real treat. We called it "pumpkin cake" because it was so sweet. Anyway, I might reduce the sugar next time, but it was really, really yummy. It got gobbled up very quickly in this house!

{Edited: Though I am feeling somewhat better, I am still quite sick. I've experienced this hyperemesis in all of my pregnancies, though this one has been by far the worst. I have tried all the usual home remedies, acupressure, homeopathy, acupuncture and Chinese herbs, and two pharmaceutical medications -- the latest being one that was developed for chemo patients. I haven't received much relief from any of this. It seems that, for me, time and rest are the two best remedies. I have a really good midwife who is monitoring my health and the baby's, and everything is OK, though I would probably benefit from eating and drinking more. Thank you all so much for your kind thoughts and warm words. It's such a happy, exciting time, but feeling sick dampens that sweetness just a little bit. Sigh. It's good to know that people are thinking of me.}

Hi there

I'm so sorry I've been absent from the blog so much this summer. It has been a big several months; many changes (to which I never adjust all that well). Yeah, I'm one of those kids who has problems with transitions. ;)

Anyway, there's so much to write about, including so much more on my Summer Is... series, and I'll do my best at catching up. I have another huge work-in-progress going right now which is taking up all my time. (More on that in the next month or so.) But I'll try to check in here a bit more often. I didn't mean to neglect this space so badly!!

In the meantime, I'm dealing with my transition by listening a lot to this piece, which my mom, a pianist, used to play for me a lot when I was a little girl. She'll still play it for me if I need her to, which is good.

Saying Goodbye

So, it's been about a month since we officially began to live in our new house. Since we took a long trip and celebrated a holiday in the midst of that, I'm still feeling a bit unsettled.

But last week, we went to gather the last few things out of the little home we'd known for the last three years. A home that we had outgrown quite a while ago, but home, nevertheless.

So I took pictures inside our empty house. And we said goodbye.

Goodbye to the very place where James was born that snowy March morning. I know I am not the first, nor the last, woman to leave behind the spot where her babe first took breath. But oh, my. This is the hardest part for me about saying goodbye to the house. Goodbye convenient 3/4 bathroom off the big bedroom.

Goodbye odd, inset, north-facing bedroom window, and goodbye walls and ceiling painted moss green. I will not miss this dark bedroom.

Goodbye fireplace, before whose hearth we spent so many happy, cozy, beautiful family moments. I will miss you deeply. (New house does not have a fireplace. A concession I am still kind of surprised we made.)

Goodbye ugly linoleum in the laundry room which I actually kind of love now.

Goodbye hideous ceiling fan. Before James was born, his daddy and I used to joke often that when our baby was born into this room, we'd need to shield his (or her) eyes so that this fan wasn't the first thing he saw. Because then he would want to go back inside of mama!

Goodbye acres-long view outside our front door of the private golf course that our condo abutted. Goodbye not being able to let the children play outside without my being with them.

Goodbye to the tiny spot between the front door and the air conditioning where we just squeezed a sandbox. (Goodbye air conditioning!) Goodbye rude golfers who would sometimes come and peep into our windows. We certainly won't miss them and their noisy golf carts speeding by!

Goodbye narrow hallway that looks so long now that you aren't cluttered with laundry and toys.

Goodbye hill that Elisabeth learned to turn four somersaults in a row down, and where many of our family sledding parties happened.

Goodbye kitchen with more green paint and cabinets with that glaze that my husband thought made you look dirty instead of stylish. Goodbye kitchen where birthday cakes were baked, and James's first foods were served up, and where we prepared Christmas day brunch, and Thanksgiving the year that Grandma's foot was broken and James was still in mama's belly, and three years' worth of pumpkin-carving pasta dinners with Rebecca, three years' worth of Halloween chili, first dairy-free baking efforts, and where countless breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and family dinners were prepared. Sometimes with love and thought, and sometimes in a big hurry. But here.

So, goodbye little house. Little condo, I mean. There was nothing remarkable about you in your 1980-ish-ness. But I will miss you. And I won't. Because I know it's time. Time to say hello to something new.

Just a peek...

...from the new house this week.

Moving could be going better. ;)

But we're all so very happy to have a huge backyard.

With flowers and trees and swings and all the important things.

My little one spent the evening (normal bedtimes are suspended while all the grownups are working) making this tent with small branches the other night.

As we laid in it and looked up at the sky, the moon, and the trees swaying in the breeze, I was never so grateful. In the midst of chaos (maybe more on that later), I have been blessed with the gift of a child and her real sense of perspective.

suddenly summer

It kind of sneaks up on you, you know? Especially after a cooler-than-usual spring. But it's here, and we're oh-so glad around here.

Enjoying the first fruits of our little garden.

First flowers, too!

A bag constantly at the ready.

Feeling awe at the beauty of summer storms -- and knowing that they sometimes bring hail and cyclones with them.

Bits of green everywhere.

Fresh braids every morning before swimming lessons.

New joys discovered as our boy is big enough to play in the water on his own -- under his mama's hawk-like watch, of course.

Hoping that your season -- whether summer or winter -- is shaping up as beautifully as ours is!

Bring in the Boxes

{photography in this post by Elisabeth}

We found out a couple of days ago that we got the house we wanted, and so we're moving in less than two weeks!

We're excited, although I do feel a bit like a chicken with its head cut off. I'm a pretty bad (read: disorganized) mover, so everything is a bit topsy-turvy around here.

I've been spending about half my time on Craigslist looking for stuff we're going to need: washer and dryer, freezer, swamp cooler ... the list goes on. And the packing. Oh, the packing. I have never been happier that my children go to bed early. Tonight -- just as soon as my husband returns from a box and newspaper (OK, and movie and treat) run, and I finish this post -- it's back to the madcap hilarity (er, packing). It's funny how even something small like emptying a bookshelf or packing away some CD's makes the house look and feel different.

The children have been having no end of fun using boxes to construct tunnels and hideaways -- and collapsed boxes make great slides, too. So it's all fun!

Questions and Answers

Ack! Typepad created a new Compose editor and it appeared on me yesterday -- and it's driving me crazy! I am having so much trouble with links and with, um, backspacing over typos (there are some kinks they're working on, I guess).

My promised post about meal planning may or may not happen later today -- my little ones both came down with fevers and nasty coughs yesterday, and so, although I made dinner at the usual time, I was busy running back and forth between it and the two sickies and didn't snap any photos.

I did want to answer a few questions from the last post, though.

I got a couple of questions about why some, like me, feel it's so important to have an early bedtime. There are two reasons, in my mind. The first one is that children need a lot more sleep than we sometimes think they do -- 12 or more hours in a 24-hour period for children younger than 7 or 8. Especially if children have to be up early to go to school or a class or daycare or whatever, then (I think) giving them dinner at 6:00 so that they're realistically asleep by 8:00 on a regular basis could really cause chronic sleep deprivation -- the symptoms of which can be subtle or really intense, depending on the child. (I wonder if attention disorders might not be related to sleep deprivation? Just my hypothesis ... I'm not diagnosing anyone!)

The other reason to have the children asleep early is, of course, so that Mama can have some time to herself. :)

I also got a couple of questions about how the dinnertime ties into the bedtime. This is the most important part, I think. I think that it holds pretty true for most families that I've observed and asked -- two hours after the children sit down to supper, if bedtime follows in a pretty orderly and efficient manner, is the time that they will actually be asleep. I have tried about a gazillion other things to get my children to sleep earlier, and when I finally recognized this and shifted our dinnertime earlier (at my mom's continued urging), things fell into place. My husband is a school teacher, so he is often (but not always) home in time for a 5:00 supper. On days that he's not, I do go ahead and feed the children before he gets home. I know that family meals are a big deal, but I think that the overall rhythm of the family is really more important than a rigid idea of "every member of the household must eat the same meal together at the same time." For us, while our children are so small, it's OK for them to sometimes have dinner with just Mama, and spend more time with their Daddy at other times. And, I'm sure as they grow older, we will shift our dinnertime back to a later time.

Some of you wanted to know about what time my children rise and whether they nap. The first part of that question is easy -- they are usually awake before 7:30, although that can vary a little bit with James depending on his nap situation.

The nap part of that question is complicated. Both of my children were naturally morning nappers, and I discouraged that a little bit when they were tiny. With Elisabeth, it was because we were, at that time, pretty involved in various social activities (which were fun, but perhaps we did too much if I couldn't accomodate her need for naps). So she gave up napping at a pretty young age. Now I insist that she have an afternoon quiet time because she really needs it, even though I wasn't so good about recognizing that earlier on. James, also a natural morning napper, had his natural napping rhythm disrupted a lot when he was littler due to classes and other commitments that we had in the mornings until he was about 14 months old. (Less than what I did with Elisabeth, but still disruptive to him.) Right now, if he takes an afternoon nap, he's not sleepy enough to go to sleep at night, so I don't allow him to nap past a certain time. If he doesn't get his nap, he'll usually sleep about 14 hours at night. If he gets an early enough nap (which I try to get him to do every day, but sometimes with more or less success), then he'll usually wake up around the same time as Elisabeth, between 7 and 7:30.

And finally, about the book The Seven-O'Clock Bedtime. It is not my all-time favorite parenting book, and I hesitate to recommend it to people with infants or even young toddlers, because I feel like the system, and overall approach to meeting very young children's nighttime needs, is a little bit too strict. As I mentioned before, I have absolutely no problem nursing a baby to sleep (and frankly, it's just so much easier!), I do share my bed with my little ones, and I really don't agree with "crying it out" or sleep training of babies. But, with slightly older children, I thought that there were points in the book that were useful -- it's kind of a "take what works and leave the rest" kind of book. Whew! I'm glad I got that off my chest!

Does that help? Do you have more questions? 

when it's time for bed...

I've received several emails -- heartfelt emails from other mothers who are "in this" right now -- since my last post. Many of you, both commenters and those of you who have privately emailed me, wanted to hear more of my household management and parenting tips. The first thing that I'd like to say -- before I get into some concrete suggestions that have really been helpful to me and my family -- is that I am not a good household manager in general. In fact, it would be not only untrue, but really laughable to call me so, as most of my friends will confirm. But I do have some things that I do well in that arena.

The biggest thing that I can offer as advice, a piece of advice that I have been given by my own mother many times over the last six years (it took some time for it to sink in for me) is that children must eat supper early if they are expected to be asleep early. If you are pretty good about keeping yourself and your little ones moving along from one thing to the next in an efficient manner, then two hours from the start of supper to the time you intend for them to be asleep is about right. If you or they tend to dawdle, then it may need to be even earlier! (And therefore you might have to work in a bedtime snack about 60-75 minutes before their intended asleep time.) There's a book called The Seven-O'Clock Bedtime which speaks to this as well. [I read The Seven-O'Clock Bedtime several years ago and there were many things in it that did not resonate for me in my particular circumstance -- we share a bed with our little ones (Elisabeth is in her own bed now, although I often put her to bed with James in the big bed and then transfer her later), I have no problem with allowing my babies to nurse to sleep, and of course, we aren't working with an external school schedule. In other ways, though, I thought that the advice given in the book was pretty good.]

What this ends up looking like for our family on most days (my cello teaching days are usually an exception) is that I start making dinner at about 3:30 and have it on the table at 5:00. When I first started doing this, it was a huge paradigm shift for me. It felt so strange to be making dinner so early in the afternoon. But I made myself get into the habit, and it has ended up working really well for our family most of the time. After dinner, there is not a lot of time for doing other activities before bed, but the children do usually play outside for about 20 minutes while I check email or something. (My husband does the dishes because he is a super hero.) Then, by 6:00, we are getting into pajamas, brushing teeth, and beginning bedtime stories. I also sing, say verses and prayers, and usually light a candle during this time. James is asleep before 7:00 virtually every night, and Elisabeth understands that she needs to stay in bed, even if it takes her a little bit longer to fall asleep. She has just started falling asleep without my being present in the last year or so, and it was like a miracle to me! She was (and is) very intense, very "high-need", very active, and very demanding of attention and energy from me. I never believed she'd be able to fall asleep on her own, but lo and behold, even the most high-need child will eventually be able to do it. So, have faith, mamas! It does get easier!

Anyway, although I know when I outline this, it sounds like a very rigid schedule, we are really just doing the same things that we have always done (even in the days when they were asleep much later), but I just make sure to start supper early. That has really been the key. Once you have them fed, it becomes much less of a struggle to get them off to bed.

For us, the key has been to think of it more organically -- as an organic rhythm rather than a rigid schedule -- and to find things in our day (like the dinner preparation-eating-getting to bed process) that we can work on in a consistent way each day. I have discovered that "instituting a schedule" is a much different thing than living with a rhythm. But that's another post all its own!

Another piece of household management advice I can offer relates to meal planning. Since this post is already super long, how about on Wednesday I'll share photos of tomorrow's dinner making process and talk about my approach to meal planning and cooking?

Tonight I'm off to do some cello playing, and tomorrow a very dear friend and her two wee ones are spending the day here with us. So see you Wednesday!

May Showers bring...

Some news from me! (Photos here are from our first good rainy spring day. During a pause in the rain, my wee ones had enormous fun doing some puddle jumping!)

We ordered a new computer. Thank goodness. It's not the Mac that I would have hoped for, but it'll work. A whole lot better than this "can I borrow the laptop again?" thing that is happening right now!

I'm leaving tomorrow for the parenting conference that I'm giving a talk at. Oh, my. I am so nervous.

And finally, I think we've found a place to live! It all rests on our references now. ;) It's a pretty sweet little house with a great big backyard and a fantastic kitchen. As with any house (especially when renting), there are compromises to be made. It doesn't have a fireplace, which I really thought I'd never be able to live without -- but I guess I will, and it's only two bedrooms, so the play/creative/art space for the children as well as what will be my own creative space are in a dark basement. We'll have to figure out ways of brightening it up (and we haven't talked to the landlords about painting yet, so I don't know if that's a possibility or not) without spending a whole bunch of money. It's important to me that we do manage to make the space comfortable and workable for our needs, though, because obviously that's one of the reasons we're moving out of this teeny place.

But lest I leave you on a "we're moving into a dark basement" note -- the backyard! It's fantastic! With trees! And a garden! and a wooden swingset! And the kitchen! It's so spacious! With a gas stove! And there are hardwood floors throughout the house! Which I grew up with, and wanted to have once again so much. So we're pretty excited. 

Six is Super!

We've been having so much fun celebrating our six-year-old's birthday over the last several days. Thank you all so much for your sweet birthday wishes for her, as well. She has loved hearing them as they've come in -- as have I!

We had a super fun, simple, homemade birthday party with some little friends on Saturday. The kids enjoyed it, but I am making a note to self that this is the last time I will be the only adult at a birthday party, especially one that includes two two-year-olds in attendance!

Goodie bags with tags featuring the six-year-old theme. (Contents described here.)

Watercolor paper kites -- a simple, fun project, with the surprise bonus that the kites actually caught a gust of wind pretty well. I was standing outside with one, just holding the string, and it was actually flying up in the air. Who knew?

Wet felting some balls. My kids love to felt, and being the wool and felt lover that I am, we have done it a lot. It was pretty tricky to get a whole group of kids set up with it when I was the only adult, though.

Elisabeth and James with their kites later in the day. So fun and satisfying!

Lots more photos of the six-year-old weekend here.

{We are still without our regular computer. I'm "borrowing" my husband's work laptop -- having located the installation disk with my camera software on it just in time for birthday photos on Thursday! I have no idea if the photos look bad or not, though. The color on the teeny, tiny laptop screen is awful, and depending on the angle, everything looks either really dark or really bright. So, hopefully they're OK from where you sit.}

Easing back in...

...with a picture of my feet. Heading out for an evening with friends on Friday night. In my new shoes that I am breaking in for my upcoming trip to New York.

And with the first tiny, unfolding flower of spring, in a crack in the cement. My computer sabbatical was refreshing, and I think I should have taken it a little sooner. Now I feel a little bit like this flower, slowly opening back up.

I have some projects, as well as just some life, to share with you this week. And I'm having fun checking back in with so many of my favorite blogs ... it's amazing to see what all of you have been up to these two weeks! And now I'm going to get off the computer. Because it's fantastic. But so is everything else that's going on here. And I need to remember to keep that in balance.

Be Back Monday

These last 10 days have been really what I needed. And I'm going to take the rest of the weekend away from the computer and start afresh in this space on Monday!

Letting the Art Back In

Dear Friends,

I am feeling a bit tapped out and overwhelmed -- emotionally, creatively, and just with life in general. I think between having a bad season with regard to colds (the one from last week still hanging on...), stress about looking for a place to move to (still no good prospects on that, by the way), and just a feeling of having found myself behind -- one step behind my now more mischievous two-year-old and my almost six-year-old who leaves me feeling at a loss many days, behind in my work around the home, and so on -- I have allowed myself to let the "art" of living step right on out of my life.

So, with that in mind, I'm going to take about a week or ten days away from the computer. For all the amazing inspiration and motivation that can be found in the online world -- and the blogging "neighborhood" in particular -- there are times (I'm sure for everyone, not just me), when computer time seems to take over more than it should. And so a short break seems in order for me.

I am hoping that I'll return here late next week feeling refreshed, with maybe a few projects to share, and a feeling of having let a little bit more balance -- and art -- back into my days. Be well -- I'll see you soon!

xo, Grace

PS: I will be checking my email once a day out of pure logistical necessity, so don't hesitate to leave a comment or drop me a line. I may need to keep responses quick, but I'll be able to "hear" you.

Green Week ~ 1

Emily is hosting a "Green Week" this week. I agreed to participate. I've never done any sort of color challenge before this, so I'm calling it my "first week"! ;)

Since it's still winter here (we had a "blizzard" yesterday), I'm extra challenged, because I don't have any little green buds to share. But I do have a wee one who stayed up way too late last night, and slept in this morning. A wee one who was still very sleepy as he sat on his changing table in his green pajamas this morning. (Yes, that's a seam ripper in his hands. Just ignore that.) All that brightness behind him is the sun reflecting off the massive amount of white outside the window.

In the same windowsill, I have this empty Bag Balm tin. I used to use this stuff on diaper rash with Elisabeth, before I got all weird about petroleum products. So, now I don't use it on anyone's skin, but I still like the green tin. I think I should wipe the last, gunky bit of it out and use the tin for sewing notions. Yeah, I'll do that. One of these days...

Happy Green Week! (I am in a very weird mood today, and I feel like saying things like "yo" and "for shiz." I am trying to restrain myself. It's the cabin fever setting in. I can tell.)

A little taste of spring

Today (and yes, it's still today ... it's "only" 11pm as I type this!) we enjoyed a lovely little respite from the cold days of winter. It was 65 and sunny (tomorrow we're expecting a high of 25 and several inches of snow, though).

My children spent hours playing outdoors, while I finished piecing Jennifer's block for the Bee.

Ah, spring. I could get used to you.

Beginnings

I've been in a bit of a blogging funk lately (could you tell?). Just feeling like ideas are a bit thin, not much to say. I thought about taking a break for a little while, but I think I'll try to stick it out and get over the hump. There will be things to post soon. (Did I mention that my 30th birthday is in less than two weeks now -- 13 days, to be precise?)

So what has been going on around here? A lot of beginnings. Birthday ideas (my children's birthdays follow along right after mine) are in the beginning stages. The Tilted Duster has been cast on and is slowly, slowly coming. We're looking for a house ... we rent here, and we're looking for another rental, so it won't be our dream house, but I'm hoping we'll find something with more space indoors and out.

Work on my first foundation-pieced quilt block, for the Virtual Quilting Bee. Our items Mini-swap 3 are being planned with glee. Four dolls are in various states. Another little knitting project needs to be cast off and finished. A little boy, 23 months old today, is needing a bit more mama time (especially at night) lately. Enjoying the little taste of spring that comes around Valentine's Day most years in our part of the world.

So, in all, it's a very productive time, even though I feel that my blogging voice is a bit hoarse. I am making a little posting goal to myself to share a little something, even if it's a random photo, these next few weeks as I focus on all of the things we've begun here.

{The photos in this post are from my west-facing studio window, where I've been spending a bit more time in these days of quiet productivity.}

Tracks in the Snow

I meant to post yesterday. But after awakening from a night filled with bad dreams (unusual for me) with a screaming headache (even more unusual), I ended up with a "nothing is going to happen today" sort of day.

We did get out of the house to make tracks in the falling snow for a while in the afternoon, though, and that really helped to turn the day around. I love James's little tracks, especially.

A fire in the fireplace, some hot chocolate, an early bedtime for Mama, and things were good again.

An Impromtu Party

Ugh. We had a long and yucky weekend ... both kids ended up with stomach viruses, and my husband was out of town. So, yeah, it was a loooooong weekend.

The good news is that everyone seems back to normal today. Enough so that this morning, Elisabeth said that she'd like to have a party for a stuffed bear.

So, this afternoon, we made a cake (using the oatmeal cake recipe from this book, substituting coconut oil for the butter, whole wheat pastry flour for most of the flour, and soy creamer for the milk in the "icing" -- but even after reducing the sugar in the actual cake by almost a third, this stuff was like eating spoonfuls of pure sugar -- I'm not sure if I'd make it again for that reason!) and got down to the business of partying.

Some days I feel so scattered and overwhelmed by all the things that I "should" be doing that I forget to play with my children. But when I take the time to do it, I think we're all better off for it.

The not-so-good

December is slipping by and I am feeling woefully unprepared for Christmas. Oh, I promise myself every year that I'll start earlier, etc. But I never do. The advent calendar is barely happening this year ... despite my best intentions and good advice for everyone else, I was not as organized this year as I was last year, and it's causing some nightmares for me. My Christmas cards are sitting here on my desk, un-signed, un-addressed, un-stamped, un-sent. I always mail my cards on November 30. I have not even begun the children's Christmas pajamas (a last day of advent tradition here), and worse, haven't even begun Elisabeth's gifts. I don't have gifts in hand for most of our extended family, or any good birthday ideas for my husband (he turns 40 on Sunday -- can I say that?). I have hours of work left on my doll commissions. (If you ordered dolls from me and are reading this, they will make their way to you, sweetly wrapped, this week. I don't know when, but I'd mail them by Express mail anyway as a protection, so they'll get to you.) And, oh, yeah:

James's leg is broken. We don't know how it happened. We were in to the doctor twice last week because of it; at first they thought they wouldn't need to cast it, but after a second opinion by an orthopedist, James came home with a bright red cast.

I know this will all seem funny to me in, oh, about 8 days. But this week? Not so much.