Love and its craftermath

Love is happy, busy kids on artsy adventures together.

Love is gifts of sparkly cupcakes and a 3-eyed, feather snake.

Craftermath is glitter on my clothes for days afterword...

...kind of like aftermath but usually less tragic and always more sparkly. Also totally worth it.

Which is fortunate because in our house, the two are often intertwined.

XO and thanks for the clay treats and snake.

Mama

What's better than unicorn blood?

Henry,

Your eczema has been such a baffling condition to handle. I have cried more than once and gotten unsolicited and terrible advice about it more times than you can possibly image. And I've tried just about every ludicrous option people have told me about. The guilt and the shame of not being able to fix it has been awful! And your poor skin!! I have spent hours dousing you with chemicals to try to stop it. Some of the things we have tried:

• Tubs of vaseline (messy)
• Eucerine (expensive and messy)
• Steroid cream (oh, the guilt!!)
• Extra strength steroid cream (Ack! guilt X 5000)
• Emu oil (cha-ching)
• Yak's oil (P.U.)
• Lanolin lotion (you hate it)
• Aveeno lotion (meh, doesn't quite work)
• Olive oil (gets everywhere, leaves everything smelling like food)
• Coconut oil (greasier and messier than everything else put together)
• Gluten-free diet (pure desperation, absolutely no scientific evidence to support this)

And after all this? Still awful! Still itchy! Still cracked and bleeding! Now with me yelling facedown into a pillow (loose translation: "why doesn't this expensive/messy/stinky stuff f@$ing work?! I hate your doctor! Die eczema die! GAH!!!!!")

Honestly, I was getting desperate. We're talking one step away from black market healing crystals and fresh unicorn blood.

But hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have finally found something that works. And I'm so happy that I want to declare my love for it from the mountaintops (or at least on the Internets). I think I will build a shrine for in the living room so it can spin, suspended in soft lighting, to impress all who enter into our abode.

Thank you O'Keeffe's Working Hands! Thank you Martha Stewart for recommending it. Thank you Jeremy for paying attention to the domestic goddess and reading that advice. We tried it on the eczema out of pure desperation at the last painful and bleeding outbreak on your adorable neck. And it's working! Really, really working! I'm so happy I could cry.

And phew. I guess we don't have to kill that unicorn after all.

xoxoxo,
Mama

Daily inspiration: wonderment

The world is so full of wonderful things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson, Read Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young

Feels oh so perfectly true from my point of view.

Play time: worksheets

Busted vacuums and squeaky dryers

Note: my job has me making infographics for web and social media use. You may notice that it has me thinking of our household in numbers and icons.

Once again, we have a new vacuum. I'm hoping this one will last a while. I am not above instigating a regular prayer circle to keep it running. Divine intervention may very well be required. One thing is clear, you are hard on hoovers.

Our washer and dryer have fared better but they seem to be inching toward the trash heap as well. The dryer currently squeaks so loud that people three houses down can hear it. So much so that I don't dare to run it after 8 pm or before 9 am.

Since work is taking over my brain, and cleaning is taking over our home life, I'm feeling the intense need to leave it all behind and take a vacation. Sadly, this is not as simple or satisfying as it used to be either.

Oh well. I'm thanking my lucky stars for a girls night out tonight and date night tomorrow.

All that boy wiring

Henry,

I really appreciate the straightforward matter of your wiring.

Must zone in on those gears and wheels.

Must activate blasters and rocket ship.

Must be on the move almost constantly.

Must combine above with making crazy faces all the time so possibilities of unaffected photos become zilch.

Must love mama and give her lots of pouncing hugs (ouch) with soft kisses (aw).

She writes!

"Dear mom, I love you."

"Dear Grandma Linda, I love you."

Mother's day pay dirt

Sleeping in was bliss. I love you, too.

Lucy is 5!!

Happy birthday Lucy B.

That is 5 years. 60 months. 1,826 packed to the brim days with YOU in our lives.

From the highs and the lows, I can hardly think about all that we have gone through together. Your existance has changed me so wholly; I am not remotely the same person I was before.

So many firsts. So many sharp and wonderful memories. So many missteps and lessons learned by this fledgling mama. So many treasures I will carry with me always.

I don't know how I've survived it.

I don't know how I ever survived without you.

Sharing this journey with you has been such an experience. I am so overwhelmed by it all, and also so grateful.

Next year, you will go to kindergarten. You are already starting to read and write! The whole world is about to open up to you. Everything is going to get more complicated and rich with options and information.

I ache for the hurdles you will face. And soar with the accomplishments that are coming your way so soon. Reading! Friends! Art!

I will try to keep up. Try to love you in the ways that you need. Try not to smother you when you need me to let go.

You are such a treasure. Such a wonder. Such a joy.

Thank you for the thousand dimensions you've added to my life. I am forever grateful to be your mama.

xoxoxo,
Mom

Wait and see

We have hundreds of children's books in this house. Many of them, we have read hundreds of times.

Some of them I love to read, some of them I grit my teeth and just get through (Disney drivel), and a few have gotten "lost" so I don't have to read them anymore (ahem - Alice in Wonderland).

But this one in particular (a gift from my sister Millie), touches me every time. I do not think I've read it a single time without tears.

It is a simple story about a bunny who dreams to someday become one of the 5 chosen Easter bunnies.

One day a little country girl bunny with a brown skin and a little cotton-ball of a tail said, "Some day I shall grow up to be an Easter Bunny."

Then all of the big white bunnies who lived in fine houses, and the Jack Rabbits with long legs who can run so fast, laughed at the little Cottontail and told her to go back to the country and eat a carrot. But she said, "Wait and see!"

As she goes on to have 21 baby bunnies, she devotes herself to motherhood and loses her dream of becoming an Easter bunny. But when her babies grow to become little girl and boy bunnies, she IS chosen and then she proves herself the swiftest and bravest of them all.

This children's tale turns out to be a beautiful story of modern feminism and motherhood. So wonderfully sweet, and quite amazing in that it was written in 1939. It is an empowering story for all us working mamas for sure.

I hope you will remember this book; and when someone tells you that you can't achieve your dream because you are a girl, or a boy, or are too old, or too young, or have children, or don't have children, or look different than the last achiever looked, that you will believe in yourself and tell them..."Wait and see!" 

The big K!

We had our introductory night at Buckman Elementary last night. I think it worked.

Before it started: "I don't want to go here. I just want to go home." Clingy, nervous lip-biting.
After the photos and tour: "This is my school. Can I start tomorrow?" Bouncy smiles, rushing away to touch treasures in all the rooms.

You are so ready, and the kindergarten rooms are like wonderlands. Art! Posters! Classroom pets! I'm so excited for you.

And kudos for making a great first impression by reading "Violet" and "Henry" in the hallway art. We did not mention that those happen to be a favorite friend and your brother.

Now on to part B of our master plan where we find the perfect house just a few blocks from the school. Hm.

 And then figure out how to juggle Henry's care and commute schedules while you are in two different schools for TWO WHOLE YEARS.

Having wonderful care for you both at Wren's Nest (within walking distance!) has been spoiling for sure.