The Golden Angel and the Dark

I am now the mother of two boys, both of whom, for the moment, are rather Angelic.

please disregard my inability to sketch baby heads.

I know this is not a state of affairs that is likely to last for the next 12-18 years, so I figure I'd better enjoy it while I can.

You may recall that TLG was not originally on board with getting a Little Brother, but that we eventually brought him around.  Well he has stayed around, and he is stoked as hell about LBB.  He helps me with diapers, lets me know when I need to feed Little Brother (you know- in case I hadn't noticed the grousing infant) and bestows millions of kisses upon him.  For his part, LBB is still kind of indifferent to TLG, although he did smile at an appropriately-timed moment in response to TLG tickling his feet, so who knows.  Strangers things, Horatio.

When we got the anatomy scan of LBB the tech switched it over to 3D, so we got to see LBB's facial features- and we were pretty shocked by how much he looked like TLG.  Once he made his Exterior Debut, however, two Main Differences jumped out immediately:

1) He has his father's dark hair
2) He has his mother's cleft chin

TLG was born with sort of medium-brown hair, and it shocked exactly no one when, after he rubbed that initial fuzz off, the new growth came in golden.  Blond/e babies are fairly ubiquitous in both of our families (Nathan notwithstanding), so it was more or less expected that any child of ours would follow suit.  LBB is the first grandchild on either side (that's one in fourteen, mind you) to come out with truly dark hair, and we're hopeful he'll grow up to be as black-maned as his father.

As for the chin- I'll admit, I was a bit wistful when TLG showed absolutely no evidence of my ancestral chin-dimple, and in fact I spent probably way too much time staring at the aspect in question, attempting to will an indentation into existence (and possibly also poking at it in an attempt to encourage one to develop... don't judge me...)  So when I first saw LBB from not a crown-down angle (visibility is limited for that immediate, skin-to-skin contact) I literally let out a little gasp of delight and squeaked, "He has my chin!"

See, the beautiful thing about TLG is that he blends our familial features so perfectly that it's really hard to consistently say, "Oh he looks like so-and-so!"  More often it's a certain expression he makes that has us going, "Oh yeah, he's related to Cousin _____ for sure."  But with LBB it's like he's taken specific traits that are immediately identifiable as one or the other of us, and arranged them in the best possible way.

Other differences include:

-LBB has a wider mouth (but whenever he makes a moue it looks exactly like TLG's, especially in conjunction with their identical noses)
-LBB has a wider jawline, which right now codes as a rounder face
-LBB is built on longer/narrower proportions than TLG, and in fact he may end up being a throwback to my paternal grandfather, judging by his feet

Granted it's been all of three weeks since LBB emerged, so we'll see how it all pans out.  But in the meantime- genetics, man.  Some crazy stuff.

Mini-Memorial

We are getting ready for bed, and I am explaining to TLG that tomorrow we are going to up to Olympia, to see Ur-Opa.

"I think he must be very sad," says TLG.

"Yes, he is," says Nathan.

"He will need a big hug," I add. "You can tell him you're sorry that Ur-Oma died, and that you love him. That might help him feel a little okay."

I go on to say that we will be dressed up nicely, because we will be going to a Memorial Service, where we will share memories and stories about Ur-Oma.

"Why?" he asks.

"Because that is what you do, when someone you love dies," I say. "You tell stories about them, and remember, and it helps with the sadness."

"Me too?" he asks.

"You can if you want to," I respond. "Do you have a story about Ur-Oma you'd like to share?"

"Yes," he says, with all the innate, unflappable confidence of a 3-year-old.

"What story would you like to share?"

He hesitates. "Um," he says, obviously thinking hard. "Ur-Oma died,"

"Yes she did," I say. "But did you want to share a memory about her?" His little brow furrows, and he continues to think.

"Hugs," he says at last.

"She gave you hugs?" I ask, just to clarify. "And you liked them?"

"Yes!" He beams up at me, pleased with his answer, and my comprehension. I smile at him, stroking his hair and thinking, it took me nearly two hours to write the tribute I plan on delivering tomorrow... but his is probably better.

Nesting With My (Big) Baby Bird

This weekend was devoted to capital-N Nesting.  Like, I even wrote it on the calendar, you guys- that's how serious about it I was; no work appointments today, by golly- I have a car seat to clean and install!

I made a whole To Do List, which is not in and of itself particularly surprising (To Do Lists are How I Roll), but I did have some doubts about my ability to get all the way through it, given my Extremely Pregnant and Slightly Anemic State.  But I did get through it, Gentle Readers- I did!  Everything on the list got checked off!  And what's more, I didn't do it alone- Nathan helped quite a bit, but (more importantly to this particular blog entry) TLG helped, too.

One of my main tasks was to wash all of the newborn-to-three-month-old-clothes that I'd saved from TLG's infancy (/since received in anticipation of Little Brother's arrival), and TLG stood right there with me, happily transferring all the tiny little outfits from the hamper into the washing machine, one after the other.  And then he later transferred them into the dryer, and finally back into the clean-clothes hamper  He is delighting in his impending role of Big Brother, and it makes me so, so happy to see him so happy.  I can only hope the delight will survive Little Brother's actual arrival...

We are now 100% ready for Little Brother to arrive, at least from a purely pragmatic point of view: car seat installed, bassinet set up, clothes washed, diapers and wipes ready and waiting.  Really, when it comes right down to it, everything else is gravy, and since TLG got himself born at just shy of 39 weeks, I felt getting The Essentials set up before the end of week 37 was just good sense (please no one laugh too hard if Little Brother decides not to make an appearance until after his official due date...).  There are other things I'd like to get done before D-Day (that's D for Delivery, you know) but I'm not going to sweat it if I don't get around to them.  (#parentingveteran, amiright?)

Now, in terms of emotional preparedness... that's another topic, entirely.  I find it interesting that I seem to have greater affection for this unborn child than I did for TLG at the same stage, a feeling which I can only credit to TLG already expressing his pure and uncomplicated love for Little Brother.  He hugs my belly, kisses it, giggles delightedly when he feels kicks or sees movement, and talks excitedly about how Little Brother will be born this month!  I see his love, and of course I love what my child loves (hence my re-found ability to discuss dinosaurs at great length), so therefore I love this newest uterine pirate in a way I was incapable of fathoming during my pregnancy with TLG.  Plus, you know... after two miscarriages I believe I was holding myself at a Bit of a Protective Reserve, whereas now I know it's entirely possible this baby will make it!  Woo!

But even as I'm feeling all this warmth and affection for Little Brother, at the same time I also have very real concerns about my ability to love him as much as I love TLG, once Little Brother becomes a reality rather than an idea.  Intellectually I understand that hormones will eventually kick in and I'll love him unreservedly, just as I did TLG, but my heart worries I'll only ever see him as a threat to TLG's resources, and never be able to bond properly.

I'm told this is a common (and entirely unfounded) concern.

Here's hoping.

Counting Down 65 Days

or: Yes!  I'm Pregnant Again!

All swanky at a Work Event.

Hey, remember how last time I was all, "turns out I'm really terrible about not mentioning the pregnancy while I blog,"?  Well that remains a true statement, hence the extremely extended silence.  But I let the fetal cat out of the social media bag this past Sunday, so here I am doing a write-up on the blog.  And it's important to me that I start blogging with regularity again, since it's so fun to look back at TLG's first year of life through my in-the-moment lens.  I'm trying not to shortchange this new one, whom we are calling Little Brother amongst our little family, but whom I'll call LBB (aka Little Baby Boy) on the blog (for now- the TLG -formerly-known-as-Neeps taught me the folly of expecting pre-birth nicknames to stick).

Now with that out of the way, let's hit the other Typical Questions

-My due date is August 30th (aka 65 days from now) but based on past experience, I'm laying money on August 24th or sooner.
-As you may have surmised, it's another boy!  We are freaking stoked, because (as I exclaimed during the anatomy scan) this means we don't have to learn a new set of genitals!  Winning.  Actually I have a funny story about this- TLG was dead set on having a little sister (he wanted to name her Rosie, of all things) so when we broke the news that Little Brother was, in fact, a little brother, he wailed, "Nooooo!"  I got it all on video- priceless.  But we talked him around by pointing out that I have a little brother (Uncle David, whom he adores) and Daddy is not just a little brother but the littlest brother, so now he's on board with the idea that little brothers can be cool, and more importantly, little brothers look up to big brothers, who get to teach them All The Things.  We'll see how long this enthusiasm lasts once the squirming larva is actually here, but for now I'll take it!
-Just like with TLG, we have no clue what LBB's Real Life name will be.  We have a list of names that we'll choose from once we actually meet him, but for now... LBB it is.
-Yes, this is the Last One.  Steps Will Be Taken to ensure it, I assure you.

There, that ought to cover it, for now.  Here's to our future adventures as a Family of Four!

Festivities

It was an extremely full and satisfying day for the O'Richey-O household.  We had two Events scheduled for today: TLG's School Picnic in the AM, and the Multicultural Festival in the PM.

For the picnic we signed up to bring brownies, and I thought it would be a good experience for TLG and I to bake them early in the morning, and then bring them to the picnic.  Pride in accomplishments, and all that.  So around 0900 (after a quick trip to the store to buy eggs, which he helped me check for cracks) we began the process.

He was extremely excited about the egg.

It didn't take too long to put the batter together (even including cleaning up the egg he crushed rather than cracked), and soon we were popping it into the oven.

Official Taste Tester

Which, uh, kind of decided not to work.  As in, it decided that 250 was pretty much it's default setting, consequences be damned.  I kept those brownies in there nearly 90 minutes (did manage to coax the oven up to about 335 for the last 10), and finally had to pull them out so they could cool for fifteen minutes before we left.

Those brownies were 100% not done.

Now, they were done enough.  Enough that I'd eat them, or give them to family to eat, and just enjoy the chewy rawness of the bottom.  But to take to a Class Picnic, where people might actually complain about salmonella?  No.  So on our way to school we popped into WalMart to pick up a substitute; "We already have brownies!" TLG shrieked in indignation (pride in accomplishment, sigh), but after I explained the situation (ie lied and told him I didn't think we had enough) he grudgingly agreed to their purchase, with the caveat that he got to carry them.

The point of the picnic was to celebrate grandparents, but since TLG's all live far far away, we instead brought my aunt and uncle to represent the generation.  TLG had a grand old time running his great uncle ragged on the playground!

Not nearly as death-trappish as they were in MY day.

I may or may not have indulged in some hokey pokey with him.  But there's no photographic evidence, so who can tell.

Fortunately for everyone he fell asleep on the way home, so he got an hour nap (and I got a chance to write some Severan stuff, which I'll share in a few days) before we had to get ready for Event Number Two.

I'd been so focused on the chance to eat delicious ethnic foods that I had totally spaced on the fact that we've got some multiculturalism in our household, too.  But fortunately at the very last moment it occurred to me, and I squeezed TLG into his vintage lederhosen (passed down through the family from the aforementioned great uncle).  I was bummed that I hadn't thought of it in time to have my mom ship me my dirndls, but there's always next year...

Ready to Ride!  Possibly for the last time, because he's just about outgrown that seat.

We rode my bike there (love being able to ride my bike to fun things) and TLG was an immediate hit with the police officers wandering around: they gave him a shield sticker and directed us to the bike corral.  Once we had it locked up, TLG made a beeline for the playground, but pretty quickly thereafter he caught sight of the hula dancers on stage and got mesmerized.  I eventually coaxed him back down, and we checked out some of the booths, until he told me he wanted food- but then on the way to the food he caught sight of kids with balloon animals, so we had to take a detour for "a brown monkey!"

He would literally bite his money's face off within five minutes.  Enemies beware.

Monkey secured, we got ourselves some delicious street tacos, and followed it up with a peach ice-pop to share.

Not necessarily multicultural, but a favorite from the Farmer's Market we were excited to find here.

We spent some time watching beautiful Mexican dancers, and playing with a little paper toy bus (TLG is enamored of city buses), but eventually we were ready to head home.

They looked like butterflies.

A burst of sunshine!

All in all it was a great time, and next year I'm thinking I'll wear my dirndl, have Nathan wear a kilt, and we flip a coin to see which of our 52 flavors TLG will represent!

Cultured!

Building Up Mountains

I'm standing in the kitchen, washing dishes (as you do) and eavesdropping on my child (also as you do) tell himself wonderful stories.  There was a birthday party at preschool on Friday, complete with Goody Bags, and one of the items in said Goody Bag was a little thing of home made modeling compound (gee, thanks anonymous parent, she said with Serious Side Eye...).  I'd taken it away from TLG last night due to a Naughtiness Incident, but a new day brings new chances to Make Good Choices, and so I'd given it back to him when he requested it, along with strict instructions that if it left the table it would be gone forever.  (And he knows Momma Don't Play on this sort of thing.)  And so I am washing dishes and eavesdropping, and he is Telling Stories to himself using his dough.

"It's a mountain!  Oh no, the mountain is falling down!  The bad guys knocked it down to get it out of their way!  I'm a good guy!  I picked it up.  A  new mountain is growing!"  Etc, etc.  And I cannot help but flash back to The Early Days of TLG (when I still referred to him as Neeps, even), when I'd be washing dishes and he'd be laying in his swing like the Tiny Larva he was, and I'd wonder what was going through his tiny little skull.  I flash even further back to when I was pregnant, and having a conversation with Nathan about my Very Real Concerns regarding taking on a roommate for 18 years that we might not even like.

It turns out that I like him very much indeed, and I love hearing what's going on in his head.  We take walks together, and have actual two-way conversations.  This is my most favorite stage so far, but then I've said that about every stage.  I do hope this upward trajectory continues.

Who Are You Again?

Hi!  Welcome back!  To me, mostly.  I've been deep in the throes of starting my new career over these past two months, to the point where I actually took about a month off from the 365 project just to stay functional.  But today is the day I get back to it, and to celebrate that, I wanted to share what I did from 04/22/18-05/19/18 (which is when I accepted things would need to be put on hiatus).  I took pictures of pages rather than individual pieces, in an attempt to actually get this whole thing done today, so commentary will be shorter than usual (although, obviously, the entirety of the post will be somewhat longer).

Greenbreathing.

I spent several days trying to capture the way that being in the woods brings me peace.  There's a poem in the left image, and here's how it goes:

Steps slow and burdened/Searching for the way I’ve lost/I pace the leaf floor

Following the path/Dark and light and dark again/Deep into the wild

The weight of sorrow/Pressing on my lungs: exhaled/Gathered up by Them

The Ancient Ones, still/Breathing with me in silence/Lifting my burden

From poison to life/In the space between heartbeats/They transmute my pain

Out and in and out/The one becomes the other/The other the one

My balance restored/Light and dark and light again/I find my way home

Sweet Things

I'm super into The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.  You should be, too.  And then I found a pretty pittie who had wandered away from her home, and she was so sweet I called her Dulcinea.  Happy ending: she was reunited with her family after I took her to the Humane Society.  Also Happy Ending: I painted her without drawing first.  Progress!

Unfinished Business

I love what I've got going here, with my maenad and her satyrs, but I spent several days on it and it refused to progress.  I'll probably come back to it, someday.

Blue

I finished the first sketchbook on the last day of April.  I'd been reading a book that dealt with whales (Deep Wizardry) and it inspired my doodling that day (and I quoted it up there in the upper right corner).  (The lyrics in the lower left corner are from a song by Young Summer called "Waves That Rolled You Under", and I highly recommend you go listen to it right now.)

X Factor

Just a little green study of Madame X, because I was still working on painting without drawing first.

Jackalope Got Me Down will be the name of my first album.

More paintings without drawing, with limited success.  The Jackalope thing is because for some reason TLG took it into his head that anytime he fell down it was appropriate to say, "Jackalope got me down!" We have no idea where he picked that up from, but obviously we find the idea of blaming things on random jackalope attacks hilarious.

Damn good appetizer

Not much to say about these, except that I put a million layers into that cherry tomato and I think it looks awesome.  Also, the quote "He's my Wade and I'm keeping him!" is from the last time I played DnD (waaaay too long ago, now), and my character Severan sort of accidentally picked up an NPC squire and basically he's the Podrick to her Brienne now.  I'll hear no arguments.

Rainspheres (as opposed to bows) over the Grand Canyon, and also some Geese.

Red lips and purple ties.

Feet silhouetted in the pool at night, Super Professional Face.

These are all from my trip to Tempe at the beginning of May, where I had maybe five minutes each night to sketch something out before I dropped into bed, exhausted.

Love Undying

This last one, you'll notice, has a whole lot of dates next to it, and no color whatsoever.  That's because after nearly a week of making incremental progress, and feeling super stressed out about it, I realized that I needed to give myself a break.  So I did.  Which brings us to today, and this blog entry.  And once I finish this blog entry,  I'll start laying in some colors.  So stay tuned, Gentle Readers, and thanks for sticking with me for this long.

Jenny O Does Maui

Okay, right off the bat I need to admit that I am not going to do a post for every day I was gone; I am going to cluster them all into one loooong post.  Which is to say, this post.  Because Momma's gotta sleep, ya'll.  Plus I still need to do updates for "post-Hawaii"...  those might happen tomorrow... anyway...

01.21.18:

It was a 12+ hour travel day.  I did a very quick ink sketch on the plane.  It's not worth sharing, so I won't (no wait I lied: you can see a bit of it in the corner of the photo below).

01.22.18:

The view from our lanai

I don't normally enjoy landscapes, but this one?  This was an absolute delight to paint: sitting in the warm air, smelling the plumeria, listening to a variety of birds chatter, and watching whales spout their little hearts out.  And the nice thing about painting a scene rather than photographing it is that you can automatically edit out things like telephone wires and cars.  Winning.

01.23.18:

A quickly sketched impression.

Did I say a variety of birds?  I should have used a capital V: Variety.  Hell, maybe even all-caps VARIETY.  So many beautiful birds.  Pretty sure that if I spent more time in Hawaii I'd turn into a bird-watcher, I was that charmed.  I splashed down the color for this little guy, and then added some questionable line work later:

The surrounding splotches were me demonstrating things for the niblings.

01.24.18

Love that color combo.

I managed to make it into the ocean every day except the last day (more on that later), so it shouldn't really be surprising that I also spent some time trying to capture it with my brush.

01.25.18

There's even more experimentation over the rest of the page.

I tried to capture some of the brilliant sunset effect, with considerably less luck.  I need to circle back around to this eventually, but it's really had to capture both vivid color and the bleeding effect.  Challenge!

01.26.18

This is the day we drove the Road to Hana.  It was amazing.  I swam in so many bodies of water!  Hah!

The first place we stopped at was Twin Falls, and I snapped a photo of Malachi that I then sketch-painted once we were back at the condo:

I mean it's not bad, per se, but I craved more definition.

It just wasn't doing it for me, tho', so I added in some line work to the foreground, and now I like it much better.

Those roots were too cool not to define.

01.27.18

SUPER king-ish!

I had a story seed plant itself in my brain this day, but I wasn't in a position to write, so I painted one of the characters, instead.  He's the High King.  And he's totes gonna' die.  Sorry High King.  Don't worry: your baby sister will avenge you.  Probably.

01.28.18

The day started out promising, with Nathan and I heading down to the beach at 0700 for our snorkeling date while his sister watched TLG.  But instead we had a date that consisted of me spraining my right ankle on an ocean-hidden rock and ripping open my left shin (on the same rock!  Talent!) and then driving to get pain killers, hydrogen peroxide, and so many bandages.  ::sigh::  I spent the rest of the day with it propped up, reading my book.  I did not sketch, I did not paint.  I feel zero guilt over this.

01.29.18

I had hoped to swim the morning before we left, but the previous day's adventures ruled that right the hell out.  Damn it.  Anyway, Sunday was another 12+ hour travel day, made extra miserable by my inability to carry things or really walk at all (thank goodness for airport wheelchairs!)  I didn't even manage a sketch.  Again: zero guilt felt.

I do, however, have paintings for the past three days, but they're going to have to wait until tomorrow, because Bedtimes, she is a'callin'.

Princess Poppy

My son, like most two-year-olds, has multiple obsessions, and one of them is Trolls.  As I worked on tonight's piece, the holiday special was playing in the background.  Three back-to-back times.  It's a testament to the creators that I don't actually mind this, or the fact that I can more or less recite along with the original movie, line-for-line.  I love the movies, and I love the characters, so I decided to illustrate one of them in my own (larger-eyed) style:

MORE GLITTER!

And you know what?  I'm not going to say a single critical thing about it, because when I showed it to The Little Gentleman (he's way outgrown "Neeps" at this point), he reached out in wonder to touch it, and exclaimed, "Princess Poppy!" so I know I nailed it.  Plus it was super fun to do her hair, and the color-gradient of her dress.  Maybe I'll do Branch tomorrow.  We'll see.

Morning Noon and Night Revisited

There are many bad things about social media, but there are also many good things.  One of those good things is the timeline feature, where Facebook shows me what I posted exactly one year ago today.  And one year ago today I posted this.

Go ahead and (re)read it: I'll wait.

It was so interesting to read where I was at, mentally and emotionally, on that first day of daycare.  And I'm so, so grateful that I was doing a 365 project at the time, because it means I caught many such milestone moments in my first year as a mother.

And it got me thinking about the difference between Jenny O, mother-to-a-six-month-old, and Jenny O, mother-to-an-eighteen-month-old.  Most specifically, it got me thinking about what I felt this morning, as opposed to that morning.

This morning I got up a little early, as I do on Tuesdays, because Tuesday is the day of the week I take Neeps to daycare.  We had our respective breakfasts, I loaded him into the car, and off we went.  On the drive over, he announced, "Red car!  Black car!  Red car!  Red car!"  (Identifying cars is the new favorite pass-time)  Once we got to daycare I unstrapped him, carried him into the building, and then put him down to walk under his own power to the classroom.  Which he did, with a brief pause to peek inside the kitchen and say, "Ello!"  ("Hi Neeps!" came the cheerful reply of someone I don't know- apparently my son gets around...)

I opened the door to let him into his classroom, delivered the various bits of detritus that go along with having a child in a daycare, and then picked him up to say goodbye.  He gave me a long, long hug (not usual: typically such affection is reserved for Daddy alone), then turned from my arms to his teacher's.  And I was suffused with a warm glow of satisfaction that he is so loved and cared for while I'm at work.

And then I went to work, and I didn't really think about him much for the rest of the day.  Except for when I checked Facebook and saw last year's post.  And then when a client came in and I showed off some photos.  And later when a product partner called and asked about him.  And later still when I mentioned to the second-graders I was volunteering with that I had couldn't stay forever because I had to pick my son up from daycare.  (One boy freaked out with joy when he realized that he attends the same daycare- it was super cute).  So yeah, okay actually I thought about my son a decent amount, but not with any sort of pain or longing.  Just love and pride and satisfaction.

I left work to pick him up (a half hour later than I would have last year, since we've changed our hours), and got the pleasure of watching him unobserved for a little bit.  He was wrangling two toy vacuum cleaners- but then he noticed me and charged the door.  I scooped him up and was treated to another long hug, collected the various bits of detritus (some new), peeled off the random toddler who had attached himself to my legs, and off we went to Boozeday.

So there you go, Past Jenny O- you made the right choice for your family, just like you figured.  Neeps is happy, I am happy, Nathan is happy- we are better parents thanks to the caring professionals who take over for the childcare weekday-shift.  It's worked out better than we ever could have anticipated- and probably most of our other choices will, too.  Which, of course, means that Present Jenny O can breathe a little easier, too.

Sharing My World(s)

My boss and I decided to change our office hours this year, and as a result I now get off early on Fridays (why yes, he is the best boss ever, why do you ask?).  As a result, I've been making it into the climbing gym once a week for the past five weeks or so, and I can definitely feel the difference.  Not just physically (although my goodness yes), but mentally and emotionally, as well.  Every time I solve a route, every time I push through trembling muscles to the next hold, I feel like me again.  Like my life has finally settled down enough that I can brush away all the dust that came from carving the new "mom" parts and re-reveal the old "pre-mom" parts.  Is that a simile that even makes sense?  I'm sticking with it, regardless.

Sweaty!

Anyway, the past couple of weeks I've been there, there's also been a father with his young daughter.  She's about five, and he belays her while she top-ropes.  It's freaking adorable, and I can't wait until Neeps is old enough to try.  He's recently become very interested in climbing onto things, so I've been thinking that pretty soon now I'm going to take him in to the gym to see if he wants to do a little baby bouldering.  Heck, maybe I'll even take him in tomorrow morning- it's scheduled to rain, after all.

Today it did not rain, however, so my bike ride back from the gym was glorious, and once I got home I did what I've been dreaming of doing for months and months- installed a toddler seat.  (I finally used my Christmas money and ordered it earlier this week: it arrived last night.)  And then I went and picked my son up from daycare, brought him home, helmet-ed him up, and took him for a ride.

Please note the adorably ruffled jeans, borrowed from daycare after too much playing-in-puddles.

He loved it, but I don't know if he loved it as much as I loved it.  Because for him it was just a new, fun activity- for me it was fun and emotional.  My heart was swelling up and singing joyously, so happy to be able to share another beloved activity with him.  Now we have hiking and cycling that we can do together.  And soon?  Climbing.  And eventually?  Him being able to do all of those things independently.

It's funny how my life has become this combination of super-fast and so-much-waiting.  On the one hand, Neeps is developing at a crazy rate: I love watching him figure things out and use new words and identify connections and basically just self-program his little meat-computer brain.  But on the other hand, let's face it- the past fifteen months have been a lot of me putting aside things I used to do all the time, so that I can focus on what needs my attention right now (poops and meals and naps and stacking blocks and reading Goodnight Moon for the umpteenth time) until I could someday come back to those things- and introduce my son to them, as well.

That someday is getting closer and closer.  And I'm so excited.

Adventure Buddies.

Love Fest 2017

It's that time of year again, Gentle Valentines!

YES THAT'S RIGHT IT'S VALENTINE'S DAY WHAT GAVE IT AWAY??

Ha ha ha ha hah who am I kidding?  It's Second Best Holiday time, and I can't even pretend to be coy about it.  I've been sitting on this blog entry for almost two weeks now, and I'm super excited to share it with you, because this year, for the first time ever, I exploited my child for my own nefarious crafting devices.

Behold!  The Valentine Process of 2017!

I got it into my head that I wanted to do something with Neeps's foot prints.  I didn't know what, exactly, but something.  So when my good friend Kayla came up for a visit the other weekend, I took advantage of her presence to create a scenario in which the adults actually out-numbered the toddler (true fact: a two-to-one adult-to-kid ratio is actually an equal match) so that we could wrangle him into walking about on some poster-board with painted-up feet.

Looking suspiciously like evidence in a crime scene...

It was a good call on my part, and you'll notice that there are no photos of the actual Event, because Gentle Readers it legitimately took all three of us to make it happen without too much of a mess (Kayla and I still ended up with paint on our pants.  But that's why I bought tempera.)

We cleaned up his adorable little feet...

...mostly...

...and then I hurried up and waited for things to dry.  Once that was done, I armed Neeps with a marker and let him (somewhat) loose:

ACTION SHOT!

Yes, yes, nice use of linework to bring visual flow to the piece.

And then Neeps and I had a bit of a disagreement over whether or not markers are for eating:

This is the face of Ultimate Betrayal, in case you were wondering.

At which point he rage-quit over Creative Differences, and I finished the project up on my own by creating a heart template and placing it with Intention...

Oh-so-faint pencil lines.

...and then cutting and cutting and cutting.

I MAY have gotten carried away.  Maybe.

Ooo, ARTISTIC shot.

Then I came out of my Crafting Trance and realized I'd literally made over 70 little paint-splotched hearts.  Which turned out to be a good thing in the long run, but that's another story.  For now, let's take a look at how some of the Real Actual Valentines turned out!

Glue sticks and card stock are our friends, kids.

So are clever little quips.

And now, of course, the Annual Sharing of What I Did for Nathan's Valentine!

I used one of the more abstract images- it kind of reminded me of leaves.

Kind of a little throw back to 2015's Valentine*.

Our House Motto is "Secrets and Lies".  We're a strange family.

So there you have it- another Valentine Triumph.  And who knows?  Later today I might actually have some more to share, like whatever Nathan does for me.

EDITED TO ADD:

THIS awesomeness!!

(Nathan won Valentine's Day this year, the jerk.)


*In case you missed that year's entry

A Girl and Her Boy

It's been a good day for mother-son bonding.

Not too long after getting up and dressed, Neeps "did yoga" with me (this consists of him stretching up in his best approximation of mountain pose, and then spending a lot of time lying underneath me and giggling as I go through the other poses).  Then, after breakfast, he helped me with the dishes (by closing the dishwasher for me) and the laundry (by tossing one shirt into the washer, shutting the door, pushing the detergent tray shut, and giving me a solid assist on holding down the "start" button).  After all of that, we got bundled up and went down to the waterfront for a little walk.

I knew we only had about an hour until the rain hit, so to start things off I strapped him into the stroller and we did a very brisk ten minutes over the land bridge and back.  Of course, during this very brisk ten minutes the rain was like "Ha hah have a little preview of what's to come!"  But it was okay because Neeps was wrapped in his Very Specific Waterproof Stroller Blanket, and I was wearing my newly-upgraded rain jacket.  Anyway, we got back to the car and I released him, stashed the stroller, and (since the rain had ended its helpful preview) let him lead for a while.

He did really great- walked a lot further and faster than I'd have expected, which warms my heart because one of these days he's going to be such an awesome hiking companion.  As it was he only had a few wipe outs, and only one bad enough that it needed Mommy-snuggles to get going again.  We looked at dead leaves and the river and rocks, and pointed out all sorts of people (who were all quite happy to wave and say hello) until I decided it was time to get him warmed up and fed.  So back to the car we went, and on the drive home we decided it would be nice to bring Daddy (who was stuck working) a specialty-coffee-beverage, so we swung by our favorite coffee stand and chatted with the nice baristas.

Once home we played, and then did a video chat with the grandparents, followed by a nutritious lunch that made me feel like a good mom, for a change (nary a Cheerio in sight).  And then?  Story-and-nap time.  And to show my solidarity, I took a nap, too.

Pitiful

Is there anything more pitiful than a sick baby?  I think not.

The daycare called us around 3:30pm to let us know that Neeps was rocking a fever of 102.4  Nathan went to go pick him up, and he immediately fell asleep in the car.  Then Nathan picked me up, and we went to the drug store to get some baby Tylenol.  Neeps woke up again when we got home, and played for a bit before devolving into a fretful puddle.  We gave him some medicine, and shortly thereafter his fever spiked to over 104.  A call to the doctor's office reassured us, and after the medicine had enough time to kick in his fever dropped back down to a less-alarming level.  Plus he fell asleep in my arms, naturally while I was sitting in the most uncomfortable position possible on the hard wood floor.

With some help from Nathan I did eventually manage to transfer myself (and sleeping baby) up onto the couch, where we stayed until his bedtime, at which point Nathan and I took him upstairs and tucked him in.  He slept for about an hour, then woke up and cried so pitifully that I went up and rocked him again.  His temperature was still down, but he didn't want any milk or water or medicine- just snuggles and recitations of Goodnight Moon.  So snuggles and recitations he had, for another hour, until at last he drifted off again.

I'm hoping he feels better by the morning- I hate feeling so helpless to make it better.  I'm just feeling lucky that he's so rarely so unwell.

Unboxing Cheer

It's 0930, and Nathan has abandoned us to "go Christmas Shopping" or some such malarkey.  It's snowing out.  There's ice on the roads but more dangerously there are other drivers who don't know what the hell they're doing on the roads.  And most aggravating of all, my son's heavy winter mittens and regular fuzzy mittens have both been left at daycare, so we can't play outside longer than the ten minutes it took for his hands to go cherry red.

We're currently considering our options, which right now looks a whole lot like me reading Bunnies!!! over and over again.  (Which, don't get me wrong- I do love that book, but I made the mistake of giving the monster a Very Specific Voice, and it does wear on my throat.)

Suddenly, Isis's head comes up- and then there's a knock at the door, the sort of knock that means Something Interesting on the front porch.  Perhaps the book I ordered for my mom over a week ago?  Isis lets loose her snarling "big girl voice" and charges for the window, following it up with agitated whining, just in case we missed the frantic-scrambling-sounds of the mailman diving for safety.

I grab her collar, open the door (yell, "Thank you!" to the poor man) and look down to discover that it's not for my mom- it's from her!  Hooray!  Mom has rescued us from our burgeoning boredom by delivering up the unadulterated joy of diving into a large package full of gifts and goodies!

Okay let's do this!

The first level: full of tissue-wrapped, "It's okay to tear into them RIGHT NOW" parcels.

Level two: now we come to the Real Deal.  These are Presents for Under the Tree, people.

(and edible goodies, both home-baked and bought-from-the-German-deli)

Neeps, of course, is THRILLED that Oma sent him a package of tissue paper to destroy.

And a box to sit in.

No, Neeps!  I won't ship you back to Oma!