Posts

Posted on

New bike for my boy

andrewsbike.jpgMarch 23: This morning, Andrew, Sylvia, and I headed through the rain, across town to check out a bike.  I’d been checking craigslist for 16″ bikes, and last night I found a good one.  I spoke with the seller this morning, and within a couple hours, Andrew was giving the red bike a spin around the seller’s garage.  Andrew was pretty reserved and didn’t want to try it again after the seat was adjusted for him, but he quietly told me that he liked it and wanted it.  So currency was exchanged, and the bike is now in the trunk of my van, waiting for young Andrew to experiment with it.

A few weeks back when we were talking about bikes, I told him he’d have to decide if he wanted it as an early birthday present or if he wanted to wait until his birthday.  “It would be nice to use it in April, May, and early June,” I told him, “but then he would have to be prepared to not get any big presents from us for his birthday.”

To my surprise, he’s decided he wants to wait until his birthday to “get” the bike.  This in turn is making me realize that I wanted him to have it now so he’d have more time to ride it this spring/summer!  hmmmm  That Andrew is quite the fellow.  I’ve never met anyone quite like him.

He smiles and laughs so much these days.  It’s a joy to behold.

Posted on

Mommy, you can depend on me

March 20: Yesterday I did a birthday card shopping run.  Andrew helped me pick out birthday cards for our late March and early April family birthdays…Michael, Joe, Melanie.  As I was in the card section, I scanned the “mom” birthday cards and had a hard spot in my chest as I contemplated that I would be getting my mom a birthday card (her birthday is April 7) if she were here to receive it.  As winter fades into spring, I’ve found myself thinking of Mom a lot.  And missing her.  Missing that she is missing all this life around us.

I had a song on this morning that pushed all the buttons I needed to have a little cry about missing Mom.  It’s a song from an album called Generations.  The mom/daughter team sang at Maretta’s elementary school, and we went to a concert together.
Here’s the lyrics from a song called “You Can Depend On Me” that get me going every time:

Just as that old river flows, as the sun comes up and the north wind blows, just as sure as these are guaranteed, Mommy you can depend on me.

(Daughter): Down in your heart you know that I’ll be there I’ll be with you if you’re here or anywhere.  And if you’re troubled, my song will lift you up so high, ’till happiness is shining in your eyes.

Just as that old river flows, as the sun comes up and the north wind
blows, just as sure as these are guaranteed, Mommy you can depend on me.

Together and never apart.
Forever you can bet your heart

(Mom): Deep down inside honey, you know that I’ll be here, I’ll be with you if you’re here or anywhere.  And if you’re troubled and feeling like you can’t go on, let my love for you give you strength to carry on.

Together and never apart.
Forever you can bet your heart

Just as long as that old river flows, as the sun comes up and the north wind blows, just as sure as these are guaranteed, honey, you can depend on me.  Together and forever in sweet harmony, Mommy you can depend on me.

The part where she sings “if you’re troubled, my song will lift you up so high, ’till happiness is shining in your eyes” makes me feel so sad because it reminds me how much I liked making Mom happy.  I loved to make her laugh, to do things that made her proud.  I liked the way her voice sounded when I surprised her with some little treat.  The little exclamation of delight.  The happiness that would shine in her eyes.  And it makes me so very sad that I can’t see those beautiful eyes again.  I don’t get to hear her say, “Oh, SWEETIE!” when I show her something I made.  It makes me weep.

When I’m listening to this song, and that verse makes me feel a moment of desperate sadness, then the mom’s verse sings, “Deep down inside, honey, you know that I’ll be here, I’ll be with you if you’re here or anywhere.  And if you’re troubled and feeling like you can’t go on, let my love for you give you the strength to carry on.”  And I know that my mom’s love for me, for Michael, Maretta, and Joe…for Dad and Terry and for Andrew and Sylvia…for our whole family is still alive inside of us.  I miss her but I feel her love all around me.  And I know that if I wasn’t here that my love would be left behind as well.  Because when you take away the body and distill our spirits down to their truest essence, you’ve got pure, fierce, unending love.  Andrew and Sylvia are going to be loved by me forever no matter what happens to any of us.

So we can be together forever.  Even when we’re apart.  But I do miss my sweet mommy even so.

Posted on

Snip snip

March 17: Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone!  The weather is promising to be beautiful today.  We’re meeting friends at the zoo for our first group outdoor activity and picnic of the spring!
Andrew’s working on some shamrock crafts to give to his friends, and he’s dressed from head to toe in green.
I have my hair in pigtails with the shamrock bands that Heather gave me years ago.  This morning, Andrew walked up to me with his crafting scissors in hand and snipped at one of my pigtails.  A clump of hair fell to the ground.

Disbelieve was conveyed.  A discussion ensued.  At least I already have layers in my hair, so hopefully this will just add a little more volume.  I hope.

Posted on

Fantasia…thank you

March 16: Sylvia is taking her afternoon nap, and Andrew is humming along to Beethoven’s pastoral symphony as we watch Fantasia.  I’m finding myself very thankful that Andrew likes watching movies.  It gives me a little down-time.  I’m also grateful that his movie selections are limited to Fantasia, Fantasia 2000, the David Attenborough wildlife documentaries, Animals are Beautiful People (a kids wildlife show from the ’70s), and Robin Hood.  Oh, and The Lion King sometimes makes an appearance.  They’re all shows I enjoy listening to, and it means that Andrew hasn’t ever even heard of most of the characters in most modern movies.  So he’s not jonesing for shoes or cereal or pajamas that sport the logo of some Disney product.  I am really not a fan of having my children being walking billboards!

Hmmm…take five on that comment that Sylvia was napping.  She’s apparently not napping.  That girl!  I was hoping she’d take a good nap so we’d all be nice and rested and could pull out my bike and hook up the trailer and go for the first bike ride of the spring!

It’s a stunningly beautiful day today.  The last piles of snow are melting, and the ground is wet, wet, wet!

Posted on

All through the night

March 16: One of my mom’s favorite lullaby’s was from Hansel and Gretel, “Sleep my child, and peace attend thee; all through the night.”  I like singing it to my kids.  But up until Saturday, March 14, Sylvia hadn’t partaken in the song’s suggested timeline.  This last weekend, she finally slept “all through the night.”  It was magnificent. She slept from 7:30pm to 7am without waking us once.

A couple nights before, I had slept through the night.  Bryan woke up with her once.  Also on Thursday night, she slept for a total of 14 (!!!) hours.  She went to bed at 7:30, woke up at 3 am to nurse, and then didn’t wake again until 9:30.  Unbelievable.  In general, the switch to daylight savings time has worked really well for our family this year.  We kept putting the kids to bed at their normal bedtime (which felt to them like an hour early), and then they slept until their normal wake-up time…or much later.

Along with her crazy-long nighttime sleeping, last week Sylvia switched to a single-nap.  It seems like she’s back to waking at 7am and napping at 9am and then 2pm.  But last week she was waking at 8:30 or 9am and then napping at 11 or 12 for several (or more) hours.  Overall, it was an amazing week for sleep.  And what a joy my young girl is to be around when she is well-rested.  It makes such a difference!

Posted on

Tweeting

March 15:  Did you notice the new little flashy application on the side bar?  That’s my new Twitter status.  There are lots of times that I have the computer on and the kids have done something funny or sweet or horrible or enduring and I want to share it, but I know I won’t have time to fire up my website-updating program.  So now I can pop off a quick note via Twitter (I just enter the text into the URL bar of Firefox!) and it will show up here on my webpage.  If you’d like to comment on any Tweets you see, just pick some post and comment.  I’ll see it!  Let me know what you think!

Posted on

Meal planning

March 15: Every weekend, I spend a little time mapping out our dinners for the week. I try to do this on Saturday. Then on Sunday one or some (in this case, Bryan and Andrew) of us go grocery shopping. It might be more appropriate to say that we brave the Woodman’s crowds in search of our food.
I started meal planning about a year ago. Before then, we had a dozen or so meals that we commonly made, and we bought the staples for those meals weekly. So we didn’t really need a shopping list, and we didn’t really use recipes too often. That was when we were both working and dinner was something that needed to happen at the end of the day when we were both tired and wanted to play with Andrew.

But now things are different. Since I started staying home, I’ve taken on dinner. It used to be Bryan’s terrain, and now it’s mine. And I like to make new things. So every week I look through magazines (Martha Stewart’s Everyday Foods is my favorite) or cook books and find seven meals…almost always ones I haven’t made before…to put on my list for the week. We still have our staples, and I don’t tend to plan our lunches (no need when they are all mac & cheese or pb &j or malt-o-meal muffins).

It’s a pretty good system. The best part is that on any given day I don’t have to think about what I should do for dinner. I just look at my list. I don’t like to have to think or be creative when I just need to start a meal. Especially when Sylvia is needy of being held and Andrew wants me to tell a story. That’s no time for me to be deciding if we have the ingredients to make some pasta dish. My meal planning keeps me sane and keeps us well-fed. And it means that I get to try out new recipes all the time, and that keeps my creative side happy.

Here are some of my meal-planning resources:

  • I got a “plan-it” organizer when I was starting to meal plan.  A notebook would work just as well.  Really, there’s nothing special about this.  Well, maybe spending $18 on my meal-planning notebook made me feel obligated to actually do it.
    I do like having everything in one notebook where I can look back at what I did in the past.  On the rare occasions when I want to make a recipe twice, it’s easy to skim back and find favorites.
    I think after I fill this notebook, I’m going to use Google Calendar to track my meals.  That’s what Simple Mom does, and it seems like a good technique.
  • My Woodman’s shopping list.  After writing up my week’s worth of recipes (and noting what page they are all on), I pull out a shopping list and start writing up what ingredients I need.  Here’s a copy of my list for others who might find it useful.
  • Everyday Foods.  I seriously love this magazine.  Thanks to Jessica for introducing me.  It comes out 10 times each year, and I’ve made about 80% of the recipes in each issue.  They are all fast.  They are all easy.  They are all good.  And they tell me how much time it will take, which I love.
    Most of the recipes are available online.  They also have an e-newsletter you can subscribe to.   Go forth, enjoy!

Do you have any meal-planning tips or recipe-sources to share?  I’d love to hear if you do!

Posted on

March pics

March 13: It’s Friday night, and Bryan and I are watching Battlestar Gallatica.  I’m also spending some quality time with my laptop.  Ahhh, a wonderful evening.  I’ve uploaded some new pictures from the last couple weeks into the gallery.  See here for set one (March 6-9) and set two (March 10-12).  Pictures include:

  • Sylvie doing some of her baby signs (all done, bath, toes)
  • Andrew having special moments with me and Bryan
  • Andrew sporting his new bike helmet
  • Andrew and Eli being leaping superheros
  • Sylvia screaming bloody murder
  • Celia and Sylvia pushing each other around in a cart

Continue reading “March pics”

Posted on

Who could ask for anything more?

I got rhythm, I got music, I got my girl
Who could ask for anything more?
I’ve got daisies in green pastures
I’ve got my girl
Who could ask for anything more?

Oh, I’ve got rhythm
I’ve got music
I’ve got daisies in green pastures
I’ve got starlight
I’ve got sweet dreams
I’ve got my girl
Who could ask for anything more?
Who could ask for anything more?

I wasn’t too keen on the prospect of giving Sylvia a bath this evening.  She had a pretty good day, but by 7pm, I was pretty wiped, and I felt like pressing a little “off” switch on the back of her neck as opposed to going through our 40 minute pre-bedtime routine.

So I decided to get in the tub with her tonight.  You should have seen the look of amazement on her face.  “Mom is in the tub!!”  She was grinning from ear to ear, and she kept kissing me…mostly by leaning toward me and making her kissing noise, “mmmMMMMak.”

Sylvia was laughing and rollicking about, and then I convinced her to float on her back on my lap, and she liked that a lot (yet another sign that she is not, indeed, her brother).  We pulled her water whistles into the tub and were taking turns blowing them, and she thought that was great fun.  Then she asked me to move a bit so she could get to the back wall and pound on it.  She loves to drum on the back wall of the tub.  It makes a great sound.  As she was doing that, I was thinking about how much she loves to make music…how delighted she gets when she can pound a drum or shake a rattle or toot a whistle.  I hope that making music (or just noise) will help this young firebrand channel some of her amazing energy.  It certainly makes her happy.

So as she was pounding away with her open fist on the back wall of the tub, I sang to her, “I’ve got rhythm, I’ve got music.  I’ve got my girl who could ask for anything more?”

After a bit, she turned her beautiful face up to me and did her sign for “all done.”  It feels so good to be connected to this child.  I do love her so!

PS.  After I had wrapped her up in her towel and was carrying her out of the bathroom, she spotted a bottle of bubbles that I had sitting on the counter.  A couple days ago I had given Andrew and Sylvie a bubble bath and blew bubbles at them too.  Sylvia saw the bubble container, gestured emphatically at it, and threw her body around to indicate (under no uncertain terms) that I was to reverse course.  We walked back to the tub, and she pointed at the tub, grunting and lunging toward it.  “No, Sylvia, we’re done with the tub,” I said.  “Remember that you said, ‘All done.’?”  It took me a few moments to put together that she wanted to do another tub with bubbles, but when I did understand I couldn’t help but feel amazed at how much this little 13-month-old knows and understands.  She sure is fun!