MommyCoddle

Potatoes, Lanterns, Bee Stings and A Dose of Reality

I think I am becoming a photography junkie. I find that I'm carrying my camera with me everywhere I go, and when I don't have it on me, I'm always thinking, "oooh, I should take a picture of that." Deep down, I am still a purist.  I'd much rather have a handful of photographs from my SLR than be sitting in front a computer screen scrolling through pictures. But, I guess I'm becoming a sucker for the convenience and immediate satisfaction of digital prints.
So, with that said, I have pictures to share today.
It has been on my mind lately to get some potatoes out of my pantry and little paint to do some good old fashioned potato-stamping. Several years ago, my college roommate and I ran a nature camp and had so much fun doing this with the kids. So, on a whim today, I finally got out the knife and potatoes and carved two simple squares for stamping. I wanted to do an easy shape, but at the same time, I really like the simplicity of the square in different sizes. Maybe it's the subliminal mommy square, baby square effect that I'm drawn to.  I was having so much fun stamping by myself, and then emma wandered in with two of her own tshirts to stamp. It was lots of fun and I'm pleased with the results. One of Emma's shirts is on the left, and I did the baby onesie for Mary.

Last week, I saw these Chinese Lanterns for sale in a thrift store. I didn't buy any, but when I mentioned them to my mother-in-law, she said she had them in her back yard garden. So, this afternoon I picked a whole bunch and trimmed off the leaves because apparently they dry really well.  I love the vibrant colors. 

When I was looking for information about them online. I found this website about a blossom and seed swap. It sounds so interesting. I will have to check it out when I have more time. What a neat idea.
While we were picking flowers a yellow jacket landed on Emma's calf. When she stood up to run away (mostly because her mother was freaking out yelling, "emma's there's a bee on you, get up, get up!!") she caught the bee between her calf and thigh and it stung her.  Oh, I HATE bee stings.

Just as I was typing this, she came into the room in her most dramatic, frail voice and told me that now she won't be able to do anything-- not eat, not play, not nap, not pickup, not go anywhere...all because of her bee sting. It is too much to handle. 
Maybe I need a bee sting, too...
Lastly, for a dose of reality, and to avoid having my day sound like a romantic afternoon of artwork and flower-picking, let me confess that last night's dinner dishes are still on the counter, there are wet clothes in the washing machine and wrinkled, unfolded clothes in the dryer, goldfish crackers are swimming around my living rug, and if I rolled around on my carpets for a few minutes, I'd stand up with an extra layer of dog hair for warmth.  That is reality.

SPT 08.30

Not exactly a flattering self portrait this week, but I just had to post this one because I love mary's hair in this picture. We went to the beach this morning, trying to take advantage of all the last days of summer. It was incredibly windy, almost enough reason to turn around and go home, but we made the best of it. After trying to swim and getting whipped around by waves we stayed curled up in towels on the beach.
I did my best to stay upwind of emma's sand play. She was busy making soup for all of us. I don't know how many times I ran into the water to rescue her from the grip of the waves. I could tell they just wanted to swallow up a little girl in a pink bathing suit. After several choking, spitting, water-up-the-nose episodes she gave up on wave-jumping and stayed on dry land.
I love mary's hair standing straight up in the wind, and the crusty patches of sand in her hairline. There is sand everywhere. After post-beach baths, there's a  small sandbar forming in the bottom of my tub.  Once I'm done posting here, I will peel off my bathing suit and add to the collection.
Oh, and where did all those wrinkles come from around my nose and eyes?

Birds, Flowers, Swingsets

Dan and Emma are outside building a swingset. It is quite the family excitement. Dan, who is a carpenter, has been working on the project for three hours now. I can't imagine what your "average" man must go through to set one up. Although, I'm not sure dan is using the directions...Emma has been outside observing the progress from the beginning. She'll flutter off to the sandbox, come back and check in, or play with the boxes that the swing set arrived in. At one point,  when she had propped the long narrow boxes on top of each other to make an impromptu slide/seesaw, she announced that we could return the other swingset because she liked the boxes better. If only....

I've been playing around with my camera lately and I took a few shots of flowers that Emma picked from my martha stewart-inspired cutting garden. It is mostly full of zinnias and cosmos, with a few renegade sunflowers pushing through the other flowers. I have about three blooms left out there, I think. Emma can't walk past the garden without ripping one off. They are scattered around the yard and in makeshift vases around the house. I'm finding zinnas everywhere.  This is a shot of a few that showed up on my kitchen counter last night.

I've been playing around with the light settings on my camera, which explains the intensity of color. (although they are very brilliant).  I'm also including a blurry shot of an American Goldfinch that was perched on my sunflowers eating seeds. When I got back from finding my camera, the female had arrived. But by the time I got the settings right to take the shot through my kitchen window they were both gone. In the meantime, this was the best shot I got. But I'm ready for next time they show up.

Finished Bag and Kitchen Floor Drama

I finally finished the bag yesterday afternoon, after an episode of seam-ripping. Right away Emma filled it with library books so I had to take it back and do a little reinforcing on the handles.  I really like how it turned out.

I love this next group of photos and I couldn't choose just one to post.  So I'm posting them all. I like the progression of the shots. They are from my kitchen floor, and might explain why it takes me about three times longer than it should to get dinner on the table.

Self Portrait Tuesday 08.23

Good Memories:
growing up on a small farm in Maryland.
Walking around everywhere in just my socks.
One nice, smiling duck.
A ping-pong-ball-shooting gun to ward off all the other  mean ducks.

Just Bits...

Nothing earth-shaking to write about today, just bits and pieces.

I started working on a bookbag today for our weekly jaunt to the library. I had it all finished, turned it right-side out and realized the handle was twisted. Bummer. That's what you get for trying to sew while keeping a toddler out of the toilet water and dressing and undressing a three year old's baby dolls.  Here's a peek at the fabric I'm using for the bag:

Good news: Emma found her long lost baby doll this morning. About two months ago, I bought her a baby doll that she took everywhere, and thus lost two days later. I backtracked our day, called all the stores, left a "missing baby" report, full description, contact information...no baby was found anywhere.  Today, on a whim, we went for bagels. (both of my daughter's inherited my bagel lovin' gene) and there, oddly displayed behind the glass counter where they have all the bagels, were two lost babies--a barbie and a doll that looked a little familiar. Emma pointed it out to me since the glass counter is eye-level for her. I think she thought the babies were for sale. And when I noticed it and the bagel lady told me they were lost...we knew our baby had returned to us!! Emma squealed, the people in line behind us sighed in joined elation.
The only sad part is that "caffy" has been momentarily replaced by "lost baby". I asked emma in the car today if she still loved caffy or if we should just give her to baby Mary. She told me she still loves Caffy.
But, Emma's napping with Lost Baby, and Caffy is still in the car...
----
Had a great dance party this weekend in Emma's room...maybe it was just my "photo shoot" that was encouraging the display of dance moves.

Dan didn't want me to post these because her room is so messy in the background. Emma had just been rummaging through her dresser for underwear, leaving quite a disaster area behind. To her credit, her new bedtime "routine"/avoidance of bedtime, is to quietly clean her room after we've turned out the lights and said goodnight.  What a good little cleaning fairy.

Just had to give Mary some face time too. She is currently transitioning from two naps down to one. It is soo hard. Mix that with getting some monster teeth in the back (to which my husband replies, "monster teeth? I think I'd rather she gets baby teeth."), and you have a recipe for a distressed little baby. But she's still so stinkin' sweet. I could eat her.

Book Smarts vs. Street Smarts

Finished!

The bunny came off the needles last night. Stitching her up took forever, especially because emma was on the other side of the room, hiding her eyes and squealing in anticipation of the bunny's completion. She loves surprises.
                                             
Honestly, I'm a little disappointed with the finished design of the pattern, but oh well.  Emma is in LOVE with her, and that's all the matters. She has named the bunny "caffy" which makes me laugh because it sounds like  "Cathy", with a lisp. Caffy slept with her last night. I made Caffy a bowl of cereal this morning. And Caffy travelled to the farmer's market with us this morning. At one point I was holding a swaddled Caffy while emma checked out the fountain in the market park.

projects

Thought I'd post a few pictures today. The first one is Emma's glue project this morning with glitter and scraps of fabric. Last night when I was putting her to bed, she had the idea for this project and in her typical obsessive way, she wanted me to go downstairs right away and get everything set up for first thing in the morning.
I managed to get breakfast into her before we jumped in to art projects. Before children, I never could have imagined that I had the ability to wash dishes, fold a load of laundry and be up to my elbows in glitter all before 7:30 am.
                              

This other picture is of a bunny I'm knitting for one of the girls. All I have to do is stitch up the seams, (although my only darning needle rolled behind the bookcase this afternoon, so....waiting for Dan to get home and move it) . I got the pattern for this bunny from here. It was pretty easy to follow. I checked some other books out of the library earlier this week. "Beginner Baby Knits" and "Last-Minute Knitted Gifts" and they have some other cute patterns that I will try next. I've become obsessed lately with knitting animals.
                                       

I thought about posting a picture of my spotless house, after my Mother-in-law whisked through yesterday. But I can't, because its not clean anymore. Thank you, tornado children! Well, at least it's clean underneath the mess.

Chin Is Up

The girls are napping. My hair is blown dry. My mother-in-law is downstairs mopping my kitchen floor. I'm eating air-popped popcorn (WWatchers staple), drinking diet coke and reading blogs. My chin is up. Way up.

Chin up, Chin Up, Everybody Loves a Happy Face

I ordered a laptop computer yesterday. I was so excited. I've been wanting one for a few years now, and our computer is very old and big. Then, I did our budget last night. I called Dell this morning. I cancelled the computer order.
So since I'm feeling a little bummed and crampy and greasy this morning, I thought I should write down a few things that WILL make me happy today.

• it's raining. it's supposed to rain all day
• my mother-in-law is coming over this afternoon to clean-- not tidy-up but CLEAN. She does those wonderful things that you never get to like mopping the floors, wiping down baseboard molding, dusting...
• i have several really fun knitting projects going right now
• emma is creatively painting with paintbrush, paper and WATER this morning.
• Mary is happily chatting in her crib, emma is snuggled under the covers watching Maisy and I get a peaceful shower. I may even dry my hair with the hair dryer...

A High Calling

"...that our God may make you worthy of His calling..."
This verse has been on my mind a lot these last few days...God's calling, being worthy of God's calling. I have always thought of a calling as something in the future, something to do, somewhere to go, something better and more important than what I'm doing now. But reading this verse it struck me that THIS is my calling-- what I'm doing today, yesterday, tomorrow. My calling is being a mother, wife, homemaker.
God has called me to care for the souls of these two little girls, to teach them, love them, protect them, discipline them. He has called me to love Dan unconditionally, to honor and encourage him. He has called me to take care of my home, to keep it, decorate it, and make it a place of refuge and fellowship. This is a portion of what I wrote in my journal yesterday:

"it struck me that this, being a mother, is my calling....not trying to be something I am not, not trying to accomplish things that just aren't possible at this season in my life, filling my day with my 'me agenda'. That is not to say that I can't pursue my interests, but I need to hold them in perspective with what God has called me to: being a mother, a wife, a homemaker. But God in His care of all of me and all of my life has also given me talents, interests and hobbies--things that make life pretty, rich, beautiful: sewing, knitting, gardening, cooking, music...They are things that bring joy and adventure to life, treasures and skills to pass on to my children. They are a part of my calling..."

This is a high calling. It is doing laundry, scouring my sink, making dinner, taking Emma around the block on her bike, showing Mary where her nose is, putting fresh flowers from my garden at the kitchen table, changing diapers, reading stories, packing lunches. It is realizing that each day holds something new. This calling is no less important than that of a pastor or a missionary or a business man. It is a high calling, the care of souls, the loving of a man, the creation of a sanctuary. 

Busted!

                               

 

There is not an ounce of guilt in this little girl's body--stuffing pencils into my toilet, pulling them out again, taking a few sucks. She even said "deeeezzz" (her form of "cheese") when she saw the camera in my hands. Innocence is bliss.

Self Portrait Tuesday

                                             

This is my SPT for now...on Saturday we hiked the pier out to the lighthouse. It was a beautiful gray morning, cool enough for the girls to be in sweaters once we got to the end. The walk is a little bit nerve-wracking for me--a narrow pier, sheer sides, deep water, and a three year old who likes to walk ahead of you, turning her head around to make commentary as she goes. I think if I had my way, and didn't have to face the scrutinizing of others around me, she'd walk in a helmet and life jacket, and be tethered by a rope around my waist. Thank goodness Mary is content to ride in the stroller.
I chose this picture for today because this is one of my favorite things, adventures with the whole family. Dan was there too, but was elected family photographer for this picture. He helps to keep my mom-nerves in check.

BABIES!!

I think my photography theme lately has been "difficult animals to photograph". Here is subject matter two--baby birds, the size of the top of your pinky, inside a dark, covered nest. These are the babies from our two zebra finches, Clementine and Winston (named after Winston Churchill and his wife...thank you, Dan). They are so incdredibly tiny, that you can't even be sure they are alive until you see a head loll over to one side. We have had many, many clutches of eggs without any babes, so when Dan came upstairs two nights ago and said, "you have babies", I had no idea what he was talking about. When I went downstairs in the middle of the night, I could hear a tiny pricking of what I think was another egg hatching. And now, three days later, the lump in the bottom of the nest appears to be four babies! New life is so exciting.