white picket fence

drooly & brownie face

In lieu of any "real" content (slash I just don't feel like writing blog posts right now) here are some cute pictures of my hilarious children. Some days it is like HOT MESS central in our house. Drool, food all over the face, neither of them wearing pants, etc. It's fantastic. 

catching up.

Lots of little things to share today. 

1. I took the kids to a kite festival last weekend. I didn't know what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised. Do you know there are professional kite flyers? And they do this thing called "kite ballet"? Hard to describe, but man, I was wowed. The kites really do dance in the air. Lovely to watch. I think the kids were more entertained just looking at huge crowd of new people. And the thing David remembers most is seeing a kid wearing Thomas the Tank Engine boots. But hey, it was a great Saturday afternoon activity. 

2. It's only fair that I do a little follow up on my Lent internet fast. You guys, I kind of failed. The first two weeks went really well, but once I started cheating it just went downhill from there. Overall, I do feel like I improved my relationship with technology. Have you ever gone on vacation and stopped checking twitter or facebook for a few days. . and then you try to catch up after and think, "why again do I normally care about all of this?" I'm feeling a little more like that these days. 

The other issue with not going online all day was that I would totally gorge at night and stay up way too late just surfing. Also not good. So in the end I learned that a little levity, a little wittling down of my google reader and tumblr following, and a healthy dose of moderation are probably the best. As usual, the most common sense approach wins. 

3. Lately both kids attitudes and behavior are on a little cycle. . . a few happy days, a few minor grouchy days, one really horrible day, and repeat. I'm glad that their bad days don't occur simultaneously, which saves my sanity a bit. But the really golden days are when they're both happy at the same time.

Norah is standing on her own, exploring like no one's business, and now that 2 new teeth have poked through, her demeanor has been so sweet and pleasant. Lots of smiles and cuddling now. It's a treat watching her become less of a baby and more of a little person. 

David sure has his ornery moments, but when he's doing well, he's great too. His imagination and creativity with toys always makes me smile. The other day I found him standing at the kitchen counter playing "Angry Birds"... a shallot was the bird, a spoon rest was the launcher, and my kitchen-aid whisk attachment was the structure he was trying to knock down. Honestly. . . could you even make this stuff up? Little kids are amazing. 

 

ragamuffins.

Before I had children of my own, I never spent a lot of time with really little kids. I saw my nieces sometimes, and I babysat a little when I was in high school, but basically, I only saw kids in passing. And I hate to say it, but I honestly thought the cute and tidy kids I saw on TV or in magazines were pretty true to life. Yeah. Dumb. 

Kids are DIRTY. We just get SO DIRTY all the time. And I know I wrote about this before, but I just can't get over it. The three of us are like Pig-Pen, the character from the Peanuts cartoons who's always enveloped in a cloud of dust. But guess what? I really, truly, do not mind. I want my kids to have fun and I'm pretty sure kids think dirt=fun. 

So this is us. Dirty, snotty, messy haired. . . but still cute! 

Real life. 

I love the kids faces in this and I even kind of love that I didn't quite make it into the photo. 

And poor Norah. Who can blame her for being gross all the time? She's in that exploratory 1 year old stage; she wants to go everywhere, touch everything. The blooming tulips and new hostas are too tempting for her NOT to crawl through a bed of mud and leaves. 

Though I am happy to say that pretty soon after these photos were taken, I decided giving everyone a long bath would be the best use of our time, so the kids went to bed all clean and shiny and happy. Post-bath squeaky clean kids are pretty cute too. 

smarch!

This past month will forever be remember by me as Smarch. Smarch = summer March. 

Sometimes we went outside in the morning before we even changed out of our pajamas, and some mornings the kids got so dirty they needed baths by 8:30 am. Norah's hands and knees were stained brown from crawling around in the grass. I feel like we were in constant Ragamuffin mode: dirty, barefoot, trailing mud into the house. We chatted with our neighbors, went on walks, looked at bugs, listened to the birds, poked around in the dirt. That's summertime.

And it's times like these I wouldn't trade my life as a stay at home mom for any office job. I feel so lucky to able to take advantage of beautiful days and live in nature a little more, and encourage my kids to do the same. (Poor Norah, she's already tired of being inside for the cold and wet days of the past week. She spends a lot of time pointing at the door and crying.) 

happy birthday Norah

How has this been a whole year? 

From this:

to this:

And then. . . 

And now:

Oh, my little baby girl. Not such a baby anymore.

(I think I'm gonna need to have a good cry sometime today.)

friday afternoons

Let's count the number of things in these pictures that are probably not ideal. Bed not made. Kids hanging out in parents bed. Kids watching TV. Book on bed indicates I probably wasn't paying full attention to kids at some point. Boy drinking a soda (it's an IZZE though, so really. . . that's not a biggie, right?). Boy drinking a soda in bed. Baby precariously crawling on bed while mom holds camera. 

BUT. It also looks like they are having fun. So that's alright by me. And let's be real. . . sometimes by Friday afternoon the week has worn me out and the only remedy is piling us all into the big bed to watch PBS kids shows and just decompress for a while. Right?

shut it down!

Are there any "Cutest Baby Alive" contests going on right now? If so, they need to be shut down immediately. Because obviously this baby is the clear winner. All other contestants, take your diapers and go home. 

Norah is almost 11 months old. Can you believe it? She's crawling and exploring and eating all kinds of messy food. She loves looking at books and stealing her brother's toys. She loves to be held by me (like, a lot, like. ... almost all the time. We're working on that.) She can wave and point and make the signs for "all done" and "more" and she looks so proud of herself. She also loves to share with me and can't understand why I don't want to have a sip of her bottle. So I've gotten pretty good at pretending. 

Her separation anxiety, constant need to be held, and her charming ability to dump the dog's water dish on herself at least twice a day can be a little draining, but come on. . . Look at that baby! I can't ever stay frustrated with her. 

ragtag

Sometimes I feel like being a stay at home mom aggravates all my worst scattered, unfocused, wander-y tendencies. It takes effort to stay on task and make things happen. Some weeks are better than others, and some weeks I just can't help it. This week, well, me and the kids are kind of a ragtag band of misfits. 

We joined a gym recently and I'm actually really excited about it. I don't know if it's just maturing, or getting more invested in roller derby, but I've finally realized it's time I started working out a bit. Plus, you know, it doesn't hurt that the kids are members too and there's free childcare. Can I get a big HOO RAY? 

But the segue here is. . . both kids got sick after just a few hours in the gym day care. Of course. Norah's nose is like a little faucet and David was up late last night with the most awful-sounding croupy cough. And my poor un-exercised body was pretty sore after a "cardio boxing" class. So we've been laying low, staying home, having quiet playtime, making soup, and trying to keep both kids from poking/kicking/stealing toys from/annoying each other. 

I don't want to get too cooped up, so I'm hoping I can get the boy to actually put some pants on soon (as you can see, he is not a big fan of pants this days) and exit the house today. I'm thinking of taking a stack of quarters to Goodwill and seeing what cheap thrills we can find. Then hopefully, hopefully, everyone will fall asleep on the way home and I'll be able to spend a little time finding some focus. Wish me luck.

2011, in a single photo

These two are my bright shining lights.

Here's to 2011 and an even better 2012.

little pieces of December

We're having a quiet month here. I know everyone talks about how intense December is, but for low-key me and my small children, we're keeping it pretty chill these days. We just hang around the house, run small errands, go to the library, watch movies (Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas has been a surprising hit with the boy.) I'm intensely grateful that the kids are too small still for school holiday activities. 

My refrigerator happiness.

David's refrigerator happiness (magnetic Nativity Play set).

Current reading stack. Yes, it's mostly cookbooks. And yes, I realize this makes me seem like the ultimate lame housewife. I don't know, I just haven't had the heart for fiction in a while. I tried to read the latest Jonathan Franzen and I sort of felt like he was phoning it in and the characters weren't compelling and it was too long. This coming from someone whose favorite books also function as doorstops, so . . . yeah. I stopped halfway through and I usually hate doing that. 

I have been listening to Tina Fey's Bossypants audiobook, though, and thoroughly enjoying it. It keeps me company in the kitchen on the quiet afternoons when the kids take long naps. And I know, it's such a cliche for a girl like me (brown hair, glasses, kinda funny, kinda smart) to say "Tina Fey! She's just like me!" but I definitely felt that a lot while listening to the book. 

The kid's new favorite activity: hanging out in Norah's crib together. Most adorable thing ever. 

(insert picture of potty training here. I have some cute ones but I feel a little icky posting those on the web, even if they're tasteful or don't show anything. . . you know what I mean?)

So, potty training. I swore up and down before I had kids I would never share this kind of info on the web, but it's been a big part of our life the past few weeks, so here it is. One morning I woke up and decided our almost 3 year old is really too big for diapers. And we went cold turkey. And you know what? It was a huge success. I'm glad I waited because David caught on fast. It's been about 2 and a half weeks and we are officially diaper-free! The unexpected bonus of potty training? We spent so much time in the bathroom that first week that my hair, makeup, and eyebrows have never been better groomed. 

That's been our month. And of course we couldn't be more excited about the next few days of Christmas happiness.