Sweet Child of Mine
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Rain, Rain GO AWAY
Posted on May 20, 2012
We arrived yesterday afternoon at Corolla (which I recently learned is pronounced Cor-ah-la, not Cor-o-la, like the car). My favorite part of a beach trip is when you first walk out onto the ocean. The smell of ocean air is intoxicating and I feel as though I can breathe easier, instant Xanax.
I thought I did a good job packing, however I naively packed only one sweatshirt and no pants for the boys, thinking we would not need them. It is chilly and is currently raining sideways out our window. The forecast looks grim. We keep checking the extended forecast on-line and on the weather channel, praying that maybe the sun will come out. The boys are sledding down the stairs on the surf board, Brian and I are drowning our weather blues in beer and good books. Not all bad, there is a hot tub with a view of the ocean. It’s all good.
Happy Birthday Brian. We love you!!
Love & Light,
Stacy
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The Devil Wears Powder
Posted on May 17, 2012
Here is proof that little devils have sweet faces.
This incident occurred at 9:45 at night when we ASSUMED Nolan was in bed.
It COVERED my entire upstairs.
I had suitcases packed for our beach trip. He poured the powder IN the suitcases.
And in his toy box, chairs and bed…
And the TV and DVD player…
So I made him vacuum at 10:00 at night.
Which he LOVED…
And it took him 2o minutes to do one teeny tiny section.
I told him the ONLY reason I was photographing this MESS, was to send the photographs to Santa. He will have to earn his way off the naughty list.
Have you ever tried to vacuum powder? I thought I had most of it gone and looked behind me to see my own powdery footprints. It is still in the cracks in the floorboards and I can smell it in the sheets.
I suppose it could be worse, it could be something foul smelling like poop or permanent like a black sharpie. In the grande scheme of things, a truckload of baby powder won’t make me gag or send me over the edge. Still, not how I wanted to spend my down time.
Love & Light,
Stacy
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The Art of Washing the Washer
Posted on May 15, 2012
Pinterest is my new addiction.
Today I found this.
Click here for the cool blog it came from.
Cleaning my washer and dryer have been on my “to-do list” for about, oh, since I bought them about 12 years ago. So you can imagine the dirt and grime. And I just have to say, that fabric softener dispenser, NASTY. I had to google how to clean it because it was not coming apart (Thank God I read it does not come apart because after trying butter knives and jaws of life to open it, I was just short of throwing it against the wall). One guy recommend baking soda and vinegar, and I tried it. Not only was it fun to watch the mini volcano pour out of the dispenser but it broke up all that junk inside and it started falling out of the bottom. The dispenser is SO clean that I want to invite my friends over to see it. I did a little jump for joy, I felt smart or maybe I had a slight cleaning buzz from the amount of bleach I poured in the washer. Either way, we have to pat ourselves on the back for the little things.
Love & Light,
Stacy
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On Being Mom
Posted on May 13, 2012
My Aunt Janice sent me this short story by Anna Quindlen on my very first Mother’s Day when Cole was 6 months old. I keep it close to me and reread every now and then when I need to be grounded. The story carries me on a spectrum of emotions from laughter to tears but mostly it reminds me; it’s all good, just be. I think we as mothers need that reminder every so often (or every few hours).
Sending love to my mother, with whom holds such strength and beauty that she is even unaware; my sister, whom should be the older sister because I go to her for all the advice; my aunts, who share their words of wisdom and support me throughout my life’s journey and my grandmothers, who always role modeled kindness and generosity to my sister and I. And to my girlfriends, the ones I bitch and complain to, laugh with and grow with. I love you all.
Happy Mother’s Day.
Love & Light,
Stacy
On Being Mom by Anna Quindlen
If not for the photographs, I might have a hard time believing they ever existed. The pensive infant with the swipe of dark bangs and the blackbutton eyes of a Raggedy Andy doll. The placid baby with the yellow ringlets and the high piping voice. The sturdy toddler with the lower lip that curled into an apostrophe above her chin. ALL MY BABIES are gone now.
I say this not in sorrow but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like.
Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.
Everything in all the books I once pored over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach., T. Berry Brazelton., Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education, all grown obsolete.
Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories.
What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations — what they taught me was that they couldn’t really teach me very much at all. Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One boy is toilet trained at 3, his brother at 2.
When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing.
Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow.
I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton’s wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month-old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China. Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk,too.
Every part of raising children is humbling, too. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the Remember-When-Mom-Did Hall of Fame. The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language, mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, What did you get wrong? (She insisted I include that.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald’s drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons.
What was I thinking?
But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.
Even today I’m not sure what worked and what didn’t, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I’d done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be.
The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That’s what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts.
It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.
Nolan brought me a flower in bed.
Served with breakfast.
And I gave him a kiss.
Cole, has a future in track.
And Nolan is swinging with all his friends. LOL.
This is probably one of my favorite photos.
And an old photo of my Mom, Grandma and me when Nolan was a baby.
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Flying Solo
Posted on May 12, 2012
Brian is away this weekend visiting friends in New York. I have been flying solo, buried in baseball games and playdates. I just want to lay on the couch and watch Law and Order, that did not happen. At bedtime tonight I found myself pleading with the boys to listen to me because “tomorrow is Mother’s Day. For the love of God, PLEASE take a shower.”
The Mother’s Day guilt trip worked; they are both bathed and sound asleep and I am about to lose myself in a Law & Order marathon.
Love & Light,
Stacy
Here are some photos of my girlfriend and her family. These are just a few of my favorites.
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Garden Party
Posted on May 10, 2012
Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
This is my little garden for the summer. Dibs on how long it takes before I kill them. But who could resist a plant that smells like chocolate mint? And Limequat (which kind of sounds like a R rated word), will grow a fruit that can be substituted for lemon or lime. I hoping to slice one up in a Corona on hot summer night, maybe with a sprig of Cinnamon Basil in it. Guests are welcome.
And Nolan looked like he aged 2 years last night with this haircut.
He was very ichy.
But recovered nicely.
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A Secret Symphony
Posted on May 8, 2012
I got up at 5:30 am to meet a friend to run. I walked out my front door to a symphony of birds. I may have been blurry eyed from just rolling out of bed but mother nature was certainly not sleeping in. The streets are quiet prior to dawn, only a few houses emit light in some random room. I love being awake before the world, it feels like you know a secret they don’t. The secret being how peaceful the silence is; when you can hear the birds over the cars or kids, when there is no one to answer to but the open road.
Love & Light,
Stacy
Here are some photos from the past few days.
This is a staircase to an amazing basement that I photographed by Classic Kitchens of Virginia.
A fun kitchen.
Sink Envy.
And a baseball game in our pajamas to end the night.
Home Run
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Elliptical Illusions
Posted on May 4, 2012
I have my best thoughts on the elliptical; brilliant ideas about inventions, ways to save time, books to write, how to save the world. The novels would sure to be published, the inventions will score me interviews with Matt Laur. Oprah would request my presence at a private dinner party and I would be able to have my to do list accomplished, dinner prepared and the house cleaned by lunch. Then as soon as my feet stop, so does my brain. I lose my train of thought, my ideas that once seemed so grande no longer hold allure. I forget what I was going to write my book about and my plans to save the world seem far-fetched and ridiculous.
I often keep a journal by the treadmill to jot down ideas. Is it lack of oxygen to my brain that explains my ideas of grandeur? Is it my unconscious attempt to distract my mind from the clock, the pain in my body or serious dehydration? I suppose it really does not matter, because it gets me through my 40 minute workout when I would much rather be doing anything other than exercising. Maybe one of those grande ideas will manifest into something big. However if I do not keep up my exercise routine, the only thing that will be getting big, is my butt.
Love & Light,
Stacy
Here are some photos from the past few days.
My feet.
They are both in separate parts of the driveway eating their buckets of strawberries they just picked.
Buckets of Berries
And yes, a week later the second tooth was gone.
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May Day
Posted on May 1, 2012
Today is the 1st of May, a perfect day for strawberry picking and slip and sliding. It was a small taste of summer with children’s laughter, mosquito bites and wet towels strewn throughout the house. It was a good day.
Love & Light,
Stacy
Here are some photos from today.
These strawberries are from our garden. They are SO delicious and full of flavor. There is something grounding and pure about picking a strawberry and eating it right out of the garden.
Nolan would not share many with me.
The neighborhood kids come over to slip and slide.
I love these photos!
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The Young and the Toothless
Posted on April 28, 2012
I remember my mom watching the soap opera, The Young and the Restless, when I was a kid. She would iron my dad’s work shirts as she watched the rich and powerful Victor and Nicki Newman in the throws of their dramatic life stories. Thirty years later and I still watch this soap opera. Victor and Nicki are still on the series, their children are my age with children and dramas of their own. I strangely find comfort in this soap opera as I was an avid fan through college and most of my 20′s. There were periods of my life that I would miss months of the soap and be able to turn it on one sick day to catch up in an hour’s time. I strangely find solace in viewing other people’s imaginary drama, it is completely ridiculous to believe that one person can endure THAT much drama in their lives and still look so polished.
One tactic a soap opera often does is they have a child go from newborn to teenager in about 6 months time. It is ridiculous and the audience knows it is done purely so the writers have another character to add to the dramatic pool. However, as I was watching the soap this week (NOT ironing Brian’s shirts), and a 25 year old guy appeared that was about 10 years old two weeks ago, it made me think…. This is NOT too far fetched as I think, because sometimes that’s how my life feels. One day I have a newborn, the next day he is 6 years old and has lost his first tooth. Yes, the soaps are a parody of life, but when my mom visits and I turn the soap on (that she no longer watches) and she sees the characters that she used to watch when I was Cole’s age it is almost a time warp. It is as if I jumped from 6 years old to 36 years old in a span of a few episodes.
Love & Light,
Stacy
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BAHAHA!!!! ThiS is AWESOME!!! Seriously all those things that you named that could have made this worse….LG has done. You got off easy mama! SOOO glad you took pics. This is way worse than I imagined. Love that you can see his hand prints…he must have been so proud!!