The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness

I think the universe is in agreement that we should pack up and do a bit of RV-living: not only did my friend Jodie and her family do just that last year and sent me the link to their blog, but this article also came up in my Google reader this morning: RVing with kids. But where would we go? Tom has never been east of the Rockies, (sans a jaunt into Michigan for a family reunion) so we could just explore the US. Part of me wants to see things I have never seen, and head south into Mexico and South America. I only know 1-10 in Spanish though, so that may be tricky. Maybe Australia then. Perhaps if we WWOOFed around we would not get bored as quickly, and it would give us some direction. Do they accept families on WWOOF farms? How about mission trips (of the nonministry variety) ? Families in the Peace Corps? Am I insane?

Tom is game for the planning part of this entire deal, but I think it would be a lot harder to convince him to get in the RV when it is all said and done. He has lived in the same area his entire life. His parents live a mile away from us. He had never had to share a room before I moved in (though now he shares it with all of us). Nothing in his experience makes him want to put everything he owns in a 5X5 storage unit and live in a tent for the summer, while some of my best memories stem from just this. I crave adventure, and would like to get some of it under our belts before the girls are old enough to feel as ‘homeless’ as I did growing up. Not in the sense that I would ever be without a roof and walls (well, until later, when I lived in my car, and said tent, but that was my own doing) but just that when people ask me where I am ‘from’ I don’t really know what to say. I want my girls to know where ‘home’ is. I just also want them to know enough about the world they live in to appreciate the wide range of experiences. Perhaps it is more prudent to plan to be a ‘summers on the road’ family, but a girl can dream about selling everything she owns and going on an adventure, right?

I’m daydreaming about it today, while simultaneously making plans to lay down roots, literally. I’ve never had an actual garden before, but I think we are going to try it out this spring. With some help, I found this site tailored directly to gardening in our area, and now I am searching through the library catalog looking for a few books recommended to me. For being one generation off the farm, you would think I would at least know a hoe from a spade, but I am really pretty clueless about how to start. I can keep kids alive, I should be able to grow a tomato, right? We’ll see.

As part of the Great Purge, I went though my closet(s) yesterday and got rid of a few things.

I.. um.. am a hoarder. I am betting it is because I moved around so much as a kid and had to keep my belongings sparse, and the fact that we were poorpoorpoor at some points in my childhood, but regardless, I am a big girl now and I need to put on my big girl panties (I have a few pair!)  and get over my need to collect. I mean, there in that pile? Is every piece of clothing I have bought since I was 15. There are jeans in there that are size 2. Size 2! I had a hard time throwing them out, since I am totally going to fit into those again, right? HAHAHA. No. Get out of my closet you snarky little bastards – you mock me every time I open the door. There are baseball uniforms from (I’m not kidding) second grade. There are wool sweaters that have been felted beyond fitting Ella, shoes with gaping holes in the toes, and bras that are so stretched out that they could not really be defined as bras anymore.

And this? Isn’t all of it. All the maternity clothes are going to the local consignment store, and I know there are a couple more bags of clothes stashed around here somewhere. There is also only a tiny pile there of baby clothes, that will be growing as Alice grows out of things.

Perhaps it is a sign of my current state of mind – I need to flush out all the excess, get down to the essentials before I can be comfortable in my skin again. It’s also an attempt to boost my self esteem – if everything I have in my closet makes me feel good, I am more apt to put some effort into my appearance (which in turn encourages my husband to make out with me more, which is always a mood booster).

Tom and I have talked a lot lately about our need to simplify – we realize now that this house is so much bigger than we need, and when we have the space, we fill it. We know we don’t have a chance in hell selling right now, but unless we have a kid or three more in the next 2 years (oh god no), than we plan to down size then. We half joke about just fixing up the ’71 VW bus in our backyard and traveling around in that. Live in an RV and start a travel blog? That is the nomad in me talking…

In the mean time, I’ve been reading as Rachel (of SJ fame) and her family make the transition to a”Less really IS more” lifestyle, and am excited to see how Chris’s  experiment in taking a year off from buying goes. Know of any other blogs with a simplicity theme? Link away.

Ella is deep in the territory of Two, and I am reminded every day that this parenting gig isn’t for the weak of heart or spirit. Goodness she can dance on my nerves. And since they say we are annoyed with the people most like us, I have to admit that I see so many of my own traits (neurosis included) in her. She is so willful, hot-blooded, and sneaky (but on the flip side of that, she is so passionate, creative and empathetic.) She knows just how to get my goat, and I am slowly learning how to let it slide. I remind myself daily hourly that she is just trying to have some small control over her life, so if that means wearing the same ratty shirt three days in a row, and dipping her eggs in applesauce – well, that is okay. We are trying to be lowkey about the few things that really matter – sleeping, eating, and pooing – but even then, she latches onto the things that she can tell are important to us and makes them her main battle grounds. We’re trying to get back into a routine, since the addition of another little person to our family kind of screwed up the one we had, and I hope the stability will help us all feel less on edge.

I just asked Tom what I should mention about Ella, and he said that “She is in the terrible twos. Terribly fun sometimes, but other times…. ” and then he gave me tired look. We have been reading Olivia at bedtime lately, and at the end the Mommy says “Olivia, you really wear me out sometimes, but I love you anyway” and Olivia says “I love you anyway too”. That pretty much sums it up. We are trying to be patient with each other, and some days we are better at it that others.

But goodness the fun really does make the not-fun so much more bearable. Ella is talking constantly now, and almost every day comes up with a new word that we did not think she knew. Lately it has been “Happy!” and she will spring it on us at the best times. Yesterday we were cuddling after her nap, and she sighed and said “Sooooo happy mama.” She will also clap and dance when Alice smiles at her, and shriek so that everyone in the house knows “Alice happy! Happy baby!” She can always be counted on to tell Alice “It’s okay baby! Don’t cry! Mama’s commin’!” if I am not able to pick Alice up right away and she is upset. It stresses Ella out so much when Alice cries, to the point that she will cry along with her because “Alice sad! Not happy mama!” And yes, she does talk in all exclamation marks – every thing, even questions, are definite. She also has no volume control, which I blame squarely on my family genes – we do not have ‘inside voices’.

We dance everyday, we play puzzles, we make crafts and play with the cameras. She loves to take baths, so we do that at least once a day, more on the tough days. She has learned to ask nicely to watch TV, which usually works (she loves Zoboomafu and Kipper), though we are trying to limit her TV time again – we went a bit overboard when life was so chaotic, and it really does not improve Ella’s attitude when she watches more than an hour a day. We try to stay busy, reading and playing with Alice and letting her “Help! I help! Ella get the biiiig chair!” with all of the cooking and cleaning. Everything takes 3 times as long, but I’ve never enjoyed doing dishes before. She loves to pretend – pretend eat, pretend run, pretend she is a dog (Like Madigan, Jodie!) . She loves to play in forts, dress her dolls, and ‘talk on the phone’.

She brings so much excitement and joy to our days, and I am so thankful she is my girl. I feel like she has gotten the short end of the stick the last few months, but everyday she reminds me of why I wanted more of these little people in my life. Everyday, she is my sunshine.

Oh, remember how I was going to start recording my finished crafts? Oops. Now is as good a time to start as any.

Birdy Wrap

Made for: Alice

Started & Finished: 1/28/08

Materials: Soft remnant of cotton flannel, given to me by Pam months ago, but stashed because it hurt to cut it. Some dark brown bias tape. A couple plastic snaps.

Pattern: Simplicity 3941

Thoughts: I bought this pattern a week or two ago when I was frustrated with the Baby Yoda knitted wrap jacket I was working on. While I love the act of knitting, I also really like the instant payoff of sewing, and I figured a kid can’t have enough simple wrap shirts. This is actually the second time I’ve used this shirt pattern – the first was the ‘S’ pattern size, which I made out of a soft cream fleece with pink ties, but it ended up big enough to fit Ella. I decided to try again with the ‘XXS’ size for Alice, and made a few modifications (used snaps instead of ties & added some length). It’s still a little too big for Alice, but I don’t anticipate it being that way for too long. I think If I could just focus on sewing and nothing else, I could easy put one of these together in two hours (less if I just hem it and do not use bias tape). If I didn’t have other projects I am itching to work on, I would be making 10 more of these this week.

Alice approves (and is feeling 75% better. A lingering cough and a snotty nose, but hey, she’s just trying to fit in.)

Well, tonight is the Business of Being Born showing, and I am in my jammies, watching Curious George instead.

We’re still holed up, trying to heal each other with cuddles, which seems to be working with everyone older than 2 months. Sadly, Alice doesn’t make that cut. She’s come down with the coughs and a fever, so we’re sleeping sitting up, with the humidifier in our face, and checking her temperature everytime I put her on the boob and scream a little because Ohhh that is a hot mouth. My poor girl.

Our pediatrician isn’t too worried as long as her fever stays below 101 and breaks every so often, since we know where the fever is coming from. The fear is that infants often develop secondary infections when their immune systems are trying to fight off a bug, so if her fever spikes, or her cough gets ‘thick’, we are supposed to take her into the hospital immediately. Tiny babies are great for so many reasons, but I can’t help but want her to at least be to that age where they can get sick and not make you worried that they may die at any moment. Ugh. I haven’t gotten much sleep in the last few days.

Since we’ve been quarantined for nearly a week now, and I’ve been awake at 3 am every night this week, I’ve made some progress on the the stack of library books, as well as what is being called the Great Craft Purge. Since Tom built me the craft room downstairs, I have been hoarding all kinds of crap that I will never use, but that I just want. Like all of these patterns I was given over 2 years ago – Yesterday I whittled them down to just enough to fit in one drawer of my craft dresser, rather than all 8. I also took an tall garbage bag of yarn to knit club a few weeks ago and pawned it off on the girls, and am now starting to pick my way through the fabric, paper crafts, embroidery supplies, stamps, paints, button making, gift wrapping, ribbons/trims, beading, and the craft books. My goal is to only keep things I will use (not could use) and have it all organized in those two tall dressers. Anyone in Spokane know of worthwhile places to donate craft supplies? Also, anyone want to lock me in a closet during garage sale season so that I don’t buy 56 more rolls of black bias tape and 12 more jars of vintage buttons? I have no self-control.

Now I’m going to go find Ella and try not to think about how much I wanted to see that movie tonight. Everything I’ve read about it makes me wish I could be there, but I’ve got a very important place to be, namely under our kitchen table, eating ice cream. It’s uh, for our throats. Yeah.

Behold the wonder of genetics, where  two siblings resemble one another!

1 . Ella or Alice?

2 . Ella or Alice?

3 . Ella or Alice?

4 . Ella or Alice?

5 . Ella or Alice?

6 . Ella or Alice?

7 . Ella or Alice?

8 . Ella or Alice?

Cheaters click more! (more…)

Driving home from the pediatricians today (Ella has croup, likely brought on by the flu), we heard on the radio that actor Heath Ledger had died. Tom and I turned to each other, confused. “I always liked him” my husband said, a perfect Brokeback Mountain set up, had my eyes not been tearing up.  “Oh his poor Matilda,” I said, and looked back at our girls.

Matilda is just a few months older than Ella. My Ella who, every morning, wakes up her dad with tickles, and who is right now curled up his arms asleep. Tom is 29, Ledger was 28. Mind you, Ledger and Tom live very different lives, but if reports are to be believed, it looks like he died of an overdose of sleeping pills, which many are calling suicide. And you don’t have to be famous to be in the kind of pain that makes you just want to fall asleep and not wake up.

Maybe the reports are wrong – maybe it was just an accident, and I hope for Matilda’s sake that it was. But that doesn’t bring back her father, and it doesn’t make my heart ache any less for her. She is two.  She will not remember him.

It makes me panic, to tell you the truth. Because then I realize that Tom’s father died when he was 14, and my mother died when I was 18, and we are  not guaranteed to be here for our girls and

Panic.

In a way, this illness has been good for me. Holding Ella while she coughed and cried at 4 this morning, I realized that the physical unrest has pushed out the mental unrest, at least for now. Perhaps what I needed was a swift kick in the pants to remind me how thankful I am for my little family, or perhaps it is just that I am too tired and feverish to follow the obsessive thoughts down the road to “I fail at life”-ville. Either way, it’s a sad state of affairs when you realize that, with a dry cough, a fever and the chills, you feel better than you have in a few weeks.

Speaking of those symptoms, they don’t sound like a cold anymore, do they? Please, please don’t let it be the flu. No one is throwing up, but did you know that throwing up is not usually a symptom of the flu? I didn’t. Maybe I’m behind the curve there, but that is how we determined whether or not it was the flu when I was growing up. Then again, we also took antibiotics for colds. Blame us for MRSA (which both Tom’s stepdad and his grandfather were hospitalized with in the last year.) We also had pneumonia a lot for just having colds, but then again, we also had asthma, allergies and ear infections, so perhaps all the second hand smoke had something to do with that as well.

Thankfully Cricket is still healthy, and her squeals and smiles have helped distract us all from how crappy we feel. I forgot how brilliant the developmental stages are – right when you feel like giving up, suddenly they start smiling and you can’t get enough of them again. She is looking and acting more and more like a baby instead of a newborn, which makes me want to freeze time. I look forward to watching her grow up, to learning who she is, to all the fun we will have, but oh. Oh oh oh how sweet these days are.

Well, okay, not today. Let’s not capture today in a bottle, since it would consist of a lot of Curious George, coffee and whining. Wait.. maybe that is every day…

My high temp today? 103.2. Yuck. My brain is melting out of my ears as we speak. Ella has been spiking every time her dose of tylenol wears off, but even when she is drugged up, she is still running a temp. Tom is not feverish, but can’t stop coughing. We are a sexy lot, let me tell ya. Alice only runs a temp is she is laying on me, so she is hanging out in the swing, which thankfully she doesn’t mind too much.

I finally caught up on uploading my Project365 photos, so head over here if you are interested. All that linking is beyond me today.

Oh, okay, I’ll post today’s.

Our first self portrait family photo, featuring my 3 chins, the back of Ella’s head, and Tom’s nose hair. At least Alice(‘s head, as her body disappears into the shadows) looks cute.

[vimeo 622000]

What, two videos in a row?! Well, this one is a two-for-one deal, because not only do you get to see Alice sucking her thumb (*melty love*) but you also get to hear Ella in the background crying because it has been a hard poop week ya’ll. Literally. Fiber gummy bears, popcorn, prune cake, prune juice, Miralax, mineral oil, a thousand baths, a million hours of sitting on the potty, and what have we got? One lousy turd, and it hurt enough that getting any more out of there is going to be a fight. Locked up like Fort Knox. A crying, wailing Fort Knox, who is also sick (like the rest of us) and running a fever, so any fluid we are getting in her is probably not getting to the poo.It’s been a real fun house, let me tell ya.

Luckily Tom is sick (wait, I’m not a jerk, keep reading) and is at home with us, otherwise I think I would have shipped myself off to Abu Dhabi already. I am paranoid that Alice is going to catch our cold (fever, cough, headache, stuffy head) but hopefully I’m pumping her full of antibodies and she comes through unscathed.

I hope I am better by Friday Saturday (thanks Angela, I have one more day to get better!), because the only Spokane showing of The Business of Bring Born is that night, and I will be pissed if I have to stay home. There will a bunch of pregnant mamas though, so if I am feeling at all sick I won’t go, but I really, really want to see it as a community, not just me at home with my Netflix. There are not many events in our little conservative town that all of us hippie-birthing mamas can rally around, so I don’t want to miss out on this one.

Alright, I am off to mix mineral oil with ice cream and try to convince Ella that pushing is good. I feel like a poop midwife, or Bobby Brown. Awesome.