Weekend Recap

 

 

 

 

Rebirth

I am very conflicted about the Easter Bunny thing.  If we go the traditional route, I’m imagining some years from now when M gets hip to the reality and we have the conversation about why I’ve lied to her for so long.  Will, “for your own good, dear,” cut it?  Putting that awkward moment aside for the time being, after a ‘conference with EB’, our apartment is abuzz with hardboiled duck and chicken eggs, blown out goose eggs, pots of boiled beets and purple cabbage, a potted Easter Lily, a sufficiently fluffy Easter basket and a mostly eaten package of peeps.  As I was nearly passed out from lightheadedness while blowing out the insides of a goose egg, a wave of contentment came to me.  Even cynical-child-me was delighted by the rituals that our family practiced and it feels incredibly right to be doing some of these same things for M.  My self proclaimed recovering-Catholic mother did right by Easter – to an extent which I now realize was above and beyond the norm.  Starting with homemade (I’m not going to repeat that word over and over – EVERYthing was homemade, got it?) hot cross buns on Good Friday, eggs of assorted variety laid by our pet fowl with the insides painstakingly blown out - to decorate, personalized woven baskets and the most delicious poppy seed paste bread you’ve ever tasted...  We have time to worry about how to spin the Bunny, but this year I’m just enjoying the meaning in taking some traditions forward and adding a few new ones (peeps!).

In other news, my iphone 4 was stolen out from under my nose (while I was not paying attention) and since I can’t stomach the fat price of a new one at this stage in my ‘contract’, I’ve had my old blackberry 8700 unlocked and I’ll be rockin’ it old school for as long as I can deal.  Why do you care?  98% of the photos on this blog have been taken with my iphone.  Amazing, right?  You can expect the quantity of pictures to decline but perhaps the quality will improve.  If lenses and such actually do anything… 

Us

An unintentionally ear-centric picture of us.

What Matters

solitude, nice but overrated

It's day four of our trip and R went off to work today.  M took it in stride - bringing his nice shoes to him and later giving a hug and kiss in the lobby.  After he left, we spent some time at the beach until she started walking toward the hotel saying, "bye waller, bye bye waller"...  Back at the room, I realized she was bored actually.  I tried rough housing like R does until she bit me on the neck.  To mix it up, we ambushed the breakfast buffet (mid morning snack) and then back to the room for some fun with water and pots.  For lunch, she ate soup and covered her body in yogurt.  All before noon.  To be honest, especially with R gone, it seems that M isn't having as fabulous a time as I had hoped.  I'm sure I could be more entertaining, but the truth is, new places are exciting to her for a short period of time.  It's interactions with people that have the most impact.  When she starts to plainly vocalize her vote, I'm betting that hands down her preference will be for vacation with family/friends (the more the better) over any "just the 3 of us" fancy pants trip.  Good to know.

operation get good with water

can you come "home" with me?

Clarification and Water

By "Life is Amazing" I was referring to Life as in living things, plants, kids, etc.  However, these days, the other Life (as in what we do) is pretty sweet too.  We've been in Sunny Isles, FL since late Friday night.

On the dark side, this trip has confirmed that M hates water unless it's falling from the sky, in a glass with ice, or in a moderately sized bathtub.  She has yet to dip a toe in the ocean or pool - but we are enjoying other sides of water and the trip in general.

water, loves it on the rocks (with lime)

water, good from a distance. on the phone - water, water, outside and Mimo (her bf's nickname) are repeated enthusiastically

beach nap, thanks to water for the white noise

good afternoon, water

a break from water, dancing machine

busy

water in a tub - good

good morning, water

what rain?

LIFE IS AMAZING

My freshman year in high school I had to dissect a fetal pig.  Part way through sewing little identifier labels on to each pickled muscle, my lab partner Liz confronted me with how couldn’t I believe in God after the experience of seeing all these intricate parts fit together perfectly to make a (once) living breathing being?  Liz and I weren’t particularly close so I guess my skepticism was right there on the surface at that point.  As a kid, I lumped God together with Santa Claus, the Easter bunny and the tooth fairy.  As I realized there was no way Santa Claus was fitting down our 10” diameter stove pipe -- and why were there scraps of fabric in my mom’s sewing basket just like my new Christmas bathrobe…?  And on Easter – why did our family get goose eggs and handmade baskets but our friends got Cadbury eggs and Peeps?  He shops around for different kids? Why were the letters from the tooth fairy always in my mom’s handwriting?  And then I managed to secretly pull a tooth and lo and behold no fairy showed (something about the parents having to pass the info along to said fairy)… stuff just wasn’t adding up.  Since Santa and the bunny were linked to religious holidays the sham(s) quickly infected the God topic for me.  Not believing became like a badge of honor for having exposed the fraud.  Since then, I have wished there had been a little more room for fantasy in my childhood, but I’m not sure how it could have been different.  For better or worse, my over-thinking started at an early age. 

So, formal opinions on God aside, LIFE IS AMAZING.  And less worrying about the facts and more absorbing the amazing-ness is very good.  This week, our small garden is growing at a practically perceptible-to-the-naked-eye rate and M herself is so full of love and light -- it's glorious.  I'm also thinking about how great it is to have these feelings without having to sew labels on a fetal pig.

violets in Midtown

This Week, Fun With the Hip App...

new skills at the playgound - hanging

Good night, Met

a stand-in for the pictures I didn't take of the Serra drawings...

=

Nostalgia Hurts

old chair, good intentions

new chair, all better

We recently got a new chair for M's room.  It's an incredibly comfortable upholstered rocking chair.  It replaces a wood and leather rocking chair from my childhood.  Getting a new chair was something I had been thinking about for awhile but resisted since I really love the nostalgic significance of the old chair and also how it looks.  And, I kept saying to myself that M was already (insert 9 months old, 1 year, 18 months... and therefore) almost past the need for a comfortable chair (far from the truth).  However, it became difficult to deny that certain features of the old chair were becoming distinctly adversarial.  For one, as M got bigger, we had to pad up the seat with layers of pillows to shorten the distance to the arms of the chair so I could cradle her body comfortably above them (see some of the padding 'here').  I think the arms still bothered her since she began to kick them during our bedtime snuggles.  Small bruises started showing up on her legs.  As she got sleepier, she would slump down between my legs, with her feet touching the floor and head resting on my knee - anything to get away from the hard surfaces of the chair.  A final straw was when we started to find the little upholstery tacks on the floor - was she pulling them out, were they falling out??  The mom of one of M's friends found one - yikes!

The new chair came last week and we haven't looked back.  It's amazing.  There is room for M to actually sit next to me (which she loves to do) and when I hold her the chair actually seems to help with the holding.  She no longer tries to wriggle out and she likes to sit there by herself and read books too.

In case you are wondering, the old chair returned to my mom's house and M did not give it a second glance.

If this sounds like a long winded way of justifying a purchase, I can't argue.  However, the obvious metaphors were kind of hard to ignore.  Hanging on to the past can hurt, it's tough to make a change - but there's no reason to hurt and sometimes change can be surprisingly easy and extremely rewarding.

Recently, I've been more aware of the natural lamenting that goes on with change - that it wasn't done sooner - and the beating up on oneself that can happen because of this - and the weird twisted bit that makes not changing a way to reassure oneself that things are being done right (avoiding the beating).  I did say twisted.  Ok, enough peeking into my brain.  Night night.

Love Drug

On Sunday morning we took M on a horse and buggy ride through Central Park.  She loves pointing out horses (and cows, as she calls the white ones) so we thought this would be a big hit - and it was!

Later Sunday M and I went to Guilford to see family.  R is on deadline, so it was our little mom/daughter adventure.

From the moment we got to my mom's house until we said goodbye to my Dad and P, M was a full on chatterbox.  Endless gibberish and lots of  cousin, frog, dog, Seesa (for the dog, Misa), Sheep (for the dog who looks like a sheep), "boo box" (for tool box), "thank you", "I got it", "I love you", shouting out animals for Old MacDonald, and on and on...  A similar thing happened a few weeks ago when we visited R's family.  It's as if the combination of new surroundings and more love than she knows what to do with is like sun and water for a plant - and suddenly she is the plant in one of those sped up plant growth movies, the high speed being the actual.  It's awesome to watch.  And a little exhausting, so I end with pictures...

with daffodil on early morning woods walk - still waking up

lunch at SCM - she was right at home

drifting toward sleep within minutes of leaving

back home with special blocks made by Papou - perfect for little hands

Rain, Rain Go Away

This happened:

While this was happening:

And later: