Feeling a little cramped in my own house today. A has been holed up in the office all week on important (must keep the kids quiet!!!) phone calls and dodging in and out of the house for meetings and gym runs. This morning he left while I was out with the boys and he locked up out of the house by accident. Its so hard to switch up your regular routine and toss a new person and new demands into it, right? It seems so cozy to spend extra time together but the reality is a little stickier.
I always thought I was extrovert until I realized that being an introvert is more about needing alone time than it is about hating people. Read this fabulous book all about introvertism and came away with a whole new perspective and an understanding about my need for space and recharging. Makes sense that having my little world invaded, even by my own spouse, would make me feel a little encroached upon now that I feel legit about my own wiring. Autumn feels like a season that pushes all the introvert buttons extra hard too, its all of the moment: stand at the sink peeling apples for hours and stock the larder with homemade apple sauce, read books alone in the dark by the light of a lantern, get up in the quiet and start a coffee cake before the children get up, walk home from work alone and take a shortcut through the woods to kick leaves....you get that right?
Sharing is good but admitting your own needs and boundaries is also good. Sometimes a little open-eyed clarity is the key to stopping the obsession and high-stepping past your own little stumbling blocks. I think one of the problems is that I also skipped my mama-night out alone this week. So, now I'm off to the library to look for a good book that I can take off and read alone after dinner just to get myself out of the house and breathing in a little solo space.
It's a fluff day. Summer needs those. It's essential. I am spending time I don't have reading the ever so fluffy Tao Of Martha. It's hilarious and over the top and ridiculous and I am quite addicted. I spent naptime with my feet on the dashboard at park, reading more of it hungrily while the boys snoozer in their carseats. So delicious.
As a result I am now planning a Martha Stewart inspired backyard clambake to celebrate the golden end of summer.
Now that dinner is over (pesto chicken, cheese cubes, sauteed garlic summer squash and a cold melon soup) I am in the office positively giddy about watching Mama Mia with A as soon as he is done reading bedtime stories. I have been dying to see it for years and am sure cravings for The Medditerranean will result. Bring it on! I am in the mood!
Just sifting photos today and noticed this wonderful set of shots that Ru took of his little brother reading his favorite book of the moment. I love that his big brother thought this was a good subject, I love that he's so absorbed that he's reading standing up, I love that we see him through the handle of the broom and framed by the cupboard he's standing next to, I love the way the book moved up and down in the shots, I love that you can see me making dinner on the counter behind him and I love the myriad little expressions he makes under the story's spell.
Love the way he's absorbed in the back cover page here and letting the story bits fall open also digging the inquisitive angle of his head.
Something serious here...
Love the furrowed brow sticking out over the book
Focus on the book now....his little head is blurry background...cute, cute.
Cute little jolly emotion here
Get a load of that cute little bit of hair sticking up...and those tiny fingers curled around the cover
Having children is such a wonderful business. Its super fun to watch them "become." I love watching to see what shapes they unfurl into. Its like those little gel cap, sponge animals we played with as kids (did you play with those?) that melt away on contact with hot water and slowly uncurl and then Tada!!! You can see that your red capsule was a hippo! So cool! I feel like I did when I was five with my chin up over the edge of my grandma's bathroom sink, watching to see what the capsules I've been given become. You know all the shapes are good....but golly...who knows what they'll be! The fun is in the revealing. I love watching Ru learn to love photography and seeing through his eye when I upload his pictures, I love seeing Dee pick favorite stories and watching what special bits he loves and why. Its just really darn cool watching my boys be them! I can't wait to see what Nib becomes. Maybe he'll be a little red hippo! You never know! Mommyhood is cool like that.
Just a crazy potpourri today of all the delicious little tidbits I have been accumulating all week and haven't found a place to share. Have a little bit of everything....
Chubby toddler tummies in swimsuits...just, delightfully off center
Smiles so big they almost look fierce
This amazing video which is painfully inspiring and makes me madly itch to put together a million vibrant quilt squares.
This amazing take on the staycation. I totally, totally wanna do it. Any takers?
This brilliant book. Am putting it right on my library hold list. It looks like the kind of fabulous homeschool/mommy happiness book that may end up amongst those books I just packed yesterday...on the bookshelves on my new home.
And look! Speaking of flowers...one of my orphaned orchids that I bought for pennies, all shriveled and missing tags when I was a newlywed...just finally rehabbed enough to bloom for the first time.
A and I read together, its one of the ways (as discussed in this post ) that I manage to fit literature into my life. We read on the daily commute occasionally, we read on long road trips and we sometimes even read in the evenings while we take turns getting ready for bed or after the little ones are down for the night instead of a movie or some other relaxy activity.
"Steinbeck's slippers" shoved under a quilt covered bed at the Steinbeck Museum
We both really love Steinbeck and our recent trip to California only reminded us. Excitingly, we have not even come close to reading his works and so there's still a lot out there to discover. We talked a little during that trip and then recently, when we finished our latest read about how we'd love to read more Steinbeck and, which one should we pick for our next tome?
A had never read The Grapes of Wrath. Never read it! Really! He's a very well-read guy so this kind of discovery is quite astonishing. I had read it which immediately made me feel very cool. (thank you public high school English teacher) These little moments of achievement in which I have done something intelligent that A hasn't are the kind of things we hold onto. *grin*
Dustbowl ephemera from The Steinbeck Center in Salinas
Even though I'd read it once and I'm not the kind of person who re-reads anything....ever. Still, I was more than happy to pick it for our next read-aloud. I loved the book the first time around and I know how much fun we both have reading Steinbeck together and I'm certain A will love it which will make it a complete joy to live through again as a couple.
So, this week the copy we ordered off of Amazon arrived in the mail and we ripped it right open in the van and proceeded to make story-hour out of the traffic jam we were stuck in on our way home. Such fun. I really love Steinbeck. And folks, granted, I'm still rather deeply hormonal but still, I was crying within pages of the front cover. The man is a word wizard with such an empathetic and beauty probing gift that I can't help but wish we had time for one long non-stop reading time. It was so hard to see our driveway approaching and know that it was time to wrap it up. I've been salivating ever since about when we'll get another little moment to dive in again.
Steinbeck quote about our local area
And today, thinking about the whole story and the characters (I do love Ma Joad) I was stumbling around through YouTube and discovered accidently that Woodie Guthrie, one of those golden American songwriters had a similiar fascination. He wrote several rambling songs, set to plucky guitar accompaniment that are on the subject of The Dust Bowl, the Great Depression, Tom Joad himself, and the migrant workers that Steinbeck was so absorbed by. Enjoy the following:
Also, check out this amazing painting by artist Ashley Cecil who was commission by Oxfam to illustrate the poverty of modern farmers in the third world. Love the brilliant colors, the swirling dust coming from the bowl of the harvesting woman and elegant use of emotion. Lest we forget, The Dust Bowl was not just a quaint event in American history, it has just rolled on to other places where mothers still struggle to feed their little ones and the hand to mouth life drives families on in desperation.
And folks, if you somehow managed to escape school without reading Grapes...do yourself a favor and pick up this brilliant bittersweet American masterpiece. I also highly recommend Travels With Charley and Of Mice and Men.
Everything is okay again....because I found mushrooms. Heh. I do like foraging a lot and boy do I instantly feel like all is well with the world after running into a giant cluster of wild food accidentally. This particular mushroom is most often called Chicken-of-the-Woods but when I was growing up I was taught to call them Sulphur Mushrooms because of the particular shade of yellow on the underside of the caps.
And our farmer's market opened....well it opened last week but I was just days from delivering and not quite up to attending so, we went for the first time this week and caught the strawberries debuting. Mmm....am so happy to be back at the market. It was very fun to have some of the farmer's recognize us and be excited about the baby....one of my favorite vendors gave me two peonies to take home as a baby gift! People are so nice. (And you all know how I feel about peonies!)
We had a two week check-up with the babe and he's even bigger....up to 9 lbs and 12 oz. now from his birth weight of 8lbs 14oz. I feel like a very good mommy.
And then...our incredible neighbor came over and brought a picnic lunch for children, a grown-up mommy lunch just for me and dinner and then took my boys out to the yard for playing with a giant kick-ball, bubble blowing with huge wands, fed them and her own daughter with the picnic she brought and then read them all a storybook as a wind down so I could take them right in and tuck them in for naps. Why am I not friends with this neighbor? I must get to know her. Seriously folks, people are so nice sometimes that it hurts.
*grin* My giant iris bloomed for the first time! Isn't it pretty? I've always wanted to grow one of these and this is my first blossom. Am very proud.
This is what happens when your mommy is a blogger. Your splash sessions in the bath with your kid brother get all paparazzi'd. Heh.
And here was the crowning bit of lovely. This afternoon Ru comes up to me....
"Mommy. I have an idea. Lets write a book. We are such good helpers to you that we should make a book about it and call it "We Help Mommy" and then we can send it to all our friends and aunts and uncles and we can be in it and we can make words inside."
Awesome. We're authors! Just like that.
"What do you say Mommy?"
I think we may have a book project in our future. Heh. Stay tuned. I am envisioning a really fun rainy day project.
I love how inspiring the Internet can be. Check out this brilliant use of boy-style tinkering and play that was shown to me by the esteemed Melissa Wiley, one of the home-schooling mothers who most impresses me and fills me with hope about my own teaching future.This sort of thing makes me happy to have small boys with active minds and makes me think happily of the real life application for such fabulous books as How Tom Beat Captain Njork And His Hired Sportsmen, proving yet again that fooling around, tinkery play and the sort of silly fiddling stuff boys do to amuse themselves are not for naught.
(Here's our patio garden under wraps...turn your head sideways for correct perspective. Sorry! *wince*)
And so we took the kids to a local estate-cum-extensive park for a little late afternoon/evening sledding...
(Cute man in snowstorm)
Three cute men, sledding...
The snowman we built just before hustling off the car in the dark.
Aunt Sheila came by and saved the day. Elbow grease, homey homemade lunch, listening ear and much anticipated playmate about covers it. (and doesn't she have a chic haircut?)
My house got very clean. *grin*
See?
We made hearts and painted them.
We wore out one little valentine.
We met the newest calf at our local dairy farm.
And we made it more than halfway through The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe. He's riveted and every time we have to stop there are tears. Makes his mommy's heart go pitter pat.
Just another fabulous week here at the the homestead. Looking forward to another!
