Quick, Stop!

I think it's time to sit down now. Yup, I think I will. Pull up a seat with me, won't you? Put your feet up. Stop moving. Stop doing. Stop planning. Stop making. Just for a little while, at least.

Ah life - it's been so full lately. Overfull, somedays, but I suppose I'd take that rather than boredom any day. Last night, Ryan was on call, and rather than clean, rather than read, rather than write, or sew, or do anything universally productive, I grabbed some leftover hummus and veggies, and a frozen ball of chocolate chip cookie dough. I pulled the blinds closed, finally found the remote (thanks Kaden) and I sat down on the couch, put my feet feet up, and mused at how foreign this feeling was - mindful relaxation, the softness of the cushions beneath me dulling the pull of gravity. Typically, evenings are reserved for more precious activities, such as International House Hunters, laundry and sleeping. But last night was mine all mine. 

But not exactly, because I really wanted to watch "The Devil's Backbone" and couldn't for the life of me figure out how to turn on the subtitles. I watched a little bit just in Spanish, trying to comprehend exactly what was going on, but that wasn't enjoyable. Too much thinking, not enough lazy payoff. I ended up renting The Cove, which was eye-opening and really, really sad. I definitely recommend it, regardless. I'm not going to be become a dolphin activist any time soon, but do think that knowledge is power.

Mornings always bear reality back with a snap, but less so on a Saturday. Rather than hustle the kids to get dressed, eat breakfast, comb, brush, buckle and go, Kaden and I lingered in our pajamas, and Anika wore her best "I Don't Have to Go to School" outfit - shorts and a Columbia zippered fleece, just like Daddy, who insanely wears shorts year-round. Not that I'm complaining, because he's got fantastic, if a little hairy, legs. But I digress... back to the pajamas. We ate breakfast in slow motion, listened to music, chatted and sang. I drank two cups of coffee in a regular, non-travel mug. The sun came out. I liked it.

Moving on to... kids say the darndest things!

Anika:
Her favorite color is unabashedly red. Not pink.

When stringing beads, she licks the bead, rather than the thread.

She still says "whobody" for the word "who". "Whobody is at the door?"

She's adding the suffix "-ies" to everything. "Mommy, can you tie my shoe strapies?" "Why do you use the sharpie knife?" "Kaden wears two pajamies!"

She's "reading" books on her own more and more frequently.

She enjoys playing the "what does my toast look like now?" game. See photo below. This one is a boot. The bite before looked like an alligator.

She loves to play outside, and would all day if I'd let her. In the rain, wind, snow, tornado... she doesn't care.

Thomas the Train - oh, the obsession. She's slowly moved away from princesses, and is currently all about the trains, specifically the Thomas characters.

She takes care of Kaden. She protects him, comforts him, shares with him, teaches him. She also yells at him, grabs stuff out of his hands, and goes into her room for "pwivacy" from Kaden. But when Kaden needs Anika's help or love, big sister always comes through for little brother.

Her favorite song is "Love Song Baby," which is Selena Gomez's "Love You Like A Love Song." She'll sing along with it whenever it comes on the radio. I had to buy it because it is the song she "likes best".

Becoming independent is Anika's paramount mission in life. I'm constantly guiding her down the path, but dang - she wants to do ev-er-y-thing her way, by herself, leading the tour. I get frustrated with her a lot, but am proud just the same. She is bold, assertive, and wants so badly to be self-sufficient - positive traits, as long as they are coupled with care for others and a dash of caution.

She is loud. LOUD. LOUD! I think I'm a very sensitive person to sound to begin with, so this one characteristic aggravates me. I'm not sure why she thinks every word must be yelled, or screamed at the top of her lungs, but it's just part of who she is. She was born screaming her lungs out, and hasn't really stopped since. And when she cries, the world is for certain ending - as in truly the end of the world. No, really. Its as if thousands of meteors are pelting the earth's surface and bursting into flames, destroying everything in their path. Innumerable death cries pierce the atmosphere in one consummate wail as Armageddon harvests the final reaping and life as we know it is swallowed into a bottomless pit of sonic darkness...

... seriously. I have to take a deep breath, remind myself that I am an example, not a participant and just calmly go about my mommy work. Happy or sad, mad or calm, she is just loud. PERIOD.

And the power struggles. Everything is a power struggle. If someone else wants her to do something, then she simply doesn't want to do it, on principle.

Me: Anika, can you brush your teeth?
Anika: No.
Me: Anika, it's time to go to school, please get in your car seat.
Anika: No.
Me: Anika, pick up your toys please.
Anika. No.

Lucky for her, she's so darn cute. For ever night I go to bed exhausted and maybe a little frustrated, there is a morning I wake up refreshed. Once I feel those arms wrap around me, and hear that quiet voice whisper "Good morning mommy," I fill up with this innate, huge love that overcomes everything. 

Kaden:

As for my little man, Kaden. Well, what can I say. He is the bomb diggity. I am so lucky to be his mama.
He is always good for a toothy grin, a giggle, a shy, sideways smile... I (or daddy, or grandma, or the checkout lady...) just have to look at him and he'll just smile and smile. He is going through a bit of the stranger danger phase, where he will hide his head in my chest, or come running to me in a room with people he doesn't know. But the whole time, the mister will certainly be smiling - at least, most of the time.

Excuse the flax seeds that appear alarmingly like bugs...

He is repeating everything we are saying now, mostly the last word of what we are saying, and he'll phrase it like a question, almost every time.

Me: Kaden, it's time for breakfast!
Kaden: Braba?
Me: Let's go put on our shoes!
Kaden: Voooooo?
And today, he said cricket on a night walk. He was trying so hard, and it was succinct and adorable.

Besides repeating language, he is imitating Anika nonstop, all day. She plays with the trains, he plays with trains. She goes outside, then he wants to go outside too. Anika wants a drink, well, by golly, if Kaden isn't the thirstiest toddler this side of the Mississippi. He follows Anika everywhere, so much so, that Anika has started to more increasingly want her "pwivacy," saying (screaming) "I don't want Kaden to fowwow me" or  "Kaden don't bug me!". Her outbursts aren't too often, but I suppose if someone were shadowing me day and night, I'd want a break too. It's now come to the point where Kaden doesn't even want to go to bed at the end of the day if he knows Anika is still awake. If we take him upstairs, and Anika is still downstairs, he will waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaail in the crib. Wail. We've changed our nighttime routine now, so their bedtimes coordinate more closely.

Kaden is an electronic addict, too. Every time I turn around, he's climbing up on to the chair in the study moving around the mouse, tapping the keyboard. (Did I mention I found our cordless mouse, finally, in the kitchen cupboard in a stock pot? Cords aren't such a bad idea after all 'rents...). We have this toy laptop that he can't get enough of. Most days, it keeps him occupied for a long, long time... like three minutes!

He is quite stable walking now, and has begun to run most places now, rather than walk. He also takes the stairs carefully, either backwards, or lately he's started to sit and scoot down each stair on his bottom -  *bump* *bump* *bump* - while I hold one of his hands. He thinks thats the most fun thing ever.

One thing he is doing, that Anika really didn't do, is favorited a blanket. Aunt Trina knitted him a blue blanket way back in the day. I don't have a good photo of this, but the image below is a fairly good representation...

I mean, seriously. I'll need to take a photo of him tomorrow morning so you can see the Linus resemblance. Kaden must sleep with his blanket and take it out of the crib with him in the morning. Sometimes he'll drag it around with him, but mostly its just to sleep with. If you put it next to him, he'll snuggle right into it. Linus. I'm tellin' you...

He is growing so handsomely. I think I'll keep him.

On a totally unrelated note, I found some cool cups at Oregon Coffee and Tea, an awesome shop with all types of tea, coffee beans you can roast yourself, and all the accessories in between. Since I got rid of all our plastic cups (including sippy cups for Anika, finally), I'd been looking for a good alternative for her. We have glass glasses, but they are still heavy and can break. When I saw these cups, I snatched them up. They are made by Klean Kanteen, the same brand as her school water bottle. They are stainless steel and light enough that Anika can wield them easily. I really like them and wanted to share with other like-minded parents who are warding off the plastic spirits as I am.

Feeling so good lately... And rockin' it!

My sunshines!

See these kids?

They are my sunshines. Or my mostly sunshines or partly cloudies, because there are rainy days, of course. But I can't complain. No matter how the day unfolds, Anika and Kaden bring color to it, whether  yellow or grey.

We've been busy these past few weeks, fighting off stomach flus and colds, sinus infections, ear infections, antibiotics all around... again. Just par for the course for a family with a preschooler. Kaden's immune system is going to be impenetrable by the time he starts school!

I gave him his first haircut ever last week - and boy, did he need it! He looks so handsome with his new do! That "Doc Brown" look just isn't flattering on anyone, even Doc Brown.

Before:

After:

He looks like so grown up now!

We finally got some snow a few weeks ago. Not every place around us got as much as we did, but because of our elevation and micro climate, tucked-in, valley locale, we actually got quite a bit and it lingered. We got snowed in for three days and it. was. AWESOME! Until day four and then I was ready to leave because everybody knows that allworkandnoplaymakesjackadullboy. (Relevant: Don't teach your child the word redrum, because she'll start quietly cackling it at random... down hallways, in dark rooms... and it will creep the crawlies out of you...).

We loved our three glorious days of snow.

Anika couldn't get enough of it.  Notice she's still rocking the dress, even with all her snow gear. She is such a girlie girl!

Our awesome neighbors let us borrow their inner tube, and Anika and Ryan had a heyday.

Up the hill...

... and down the hill.

Up the hill...

... back down the hill.

She had such a blast!

Until...

Inner tube flip into a hawthorne bush. Yeowch... So Ryan carried her up the hill back home where we hung mittens and socks by the fire to dry and filled our tummies with hot (and not so hot) cocoa.

In between tubing and playing outside, we pulled from our rainy day bag of tricks for entertainment.

Can't go wrong with good old fashioned cardboard box houses:

Before I forget to post about it, we had a wonderful, relaxing, peaceful, stress-free Christmas. Ironically, the kids being sick played a part in this. Both kids had pneumonia on Christmas, which put a kink in the already pretty kinky plans of coordinating the get together of multiple families. Having all of your family (and your family's family and your family's family's family) so near is in so many ways a blessing... but when it comes to holidays, it gets a bit complicated. This year, with two wheezing, coughing, nebulizer-puffing, antibiotic-chugging kids, we just hunkered down at home for Christmas Eve, just the four of us.

It was the quietest Christmas Eve I've ever celebrated.

Both Anika and Kaden took epic length naps, as kids do when they are sick. Kaden was upstairs, and Anika just snuggled into her blanket on the couch and passed out.

We woke them up enough to eat a little dinner, get re-nebulized, left some treats out for Santa Claus, and hung some stockings with care, of course.

I do enjoy the busy hustle of a big Christmas, filled with family and friends and food. But I really, truly loved being home with just us four, creating our own, private traditions together.

Sunset, Christmas Eve

After the snow and subsequent flooding, we've had some lovely, temperate days, even some with sun! Gotta grab the rays in January/February in Oregon while you can. So what did we do? We headed to the park. I'm pretty sure there isn't anything more thrilling to a three-year-old than going to the park. 

This park is actually a playground at the local grade school that I attended. These monkey bars Anika is hanging from are one of the two original pieces still on the playground. I used to swing from those same bars when I was a girl! Anika was in heaven. And even with a cold and an ear infection, Kaden was too.

This was the first time Kaden has been to a park since he's become a stable walker. I could tell by his big grins, that he felt like such a big boy.

He went down the slide quite a few times all by himself.

Anika helped too... because that's what big sisters do!

You just can't go wrong with a trip to the park.

As we are in February now, I can feel and see the edge of Spring coming up over the horizon, even though I have no illusions that the rain isn't just right around the corner.

But we'll take the sun where we can grab it.

Happy New Year!

I had a dream last night that I spun out on the ice again. I was back in Massachusetts, on the highway from Worcester to Shrewsbury (Hwy. 9?), and was the middle car in a caravan of three. The road was empty, except for our caravan. I'm pretty sure Bobby Flay was the driver of the first car, but that's beside the point. In my dream, my little dark blue Ford started slipping on the ice, and this time I was completely calm. I was not scared at all. I did not brake, but held the wheel straight and the car decelerated to a safe stop in the middle of the road. Bobby Flay got out of the first car and congratulated me on my driving skills. Weeeeeeird. My mind must be longing for a do-over. Let's just reverse time, go back, and do that right this time, m'kay?

It is that time again, I suppose. The time to restart, resolve, try again, solve again. Fresh beginnings, unwritten endings, and the in between of possibilities. I love me a bright, shiny New Year.

So, back to the tail spin. Last week was insane. Bonkers. Winter break gone mad. I won't belabor all the trivial nasties that happened this week. But here's the short list:

1. Anika closed Kaden's pinkie finger in a door. Five stitches.
2. Both kids had trouble breathing, resulting in plastic cage of death (i.e., chest X-ray), pneumonia, nebulizer, antibiotics all around.
3. Garage door needs to be replaced. Open the garage door before you back up. You'll thank me later for this fine piece of advice.
4. Ryan fell down the basement stairs, full box of glass ornaments in hand. He is fine. Ornaments, not so much.
5. And... I slide off the road at 45 mph and lodged my car in the ditch.

Black ice. You may have heard of it. Since my locale doesn't typically get a lot of snow, black ice is our Winter weather hazard of choice. It was the morning after Christmas, which is one of my favorite days of the year. Every year, my sister and I get up in the wee hours to hit the Christmas clearance. We even did it "together" from across the country. My list typically includes: Target, The Inkwell, Hallmark. And more recently Creative Crafts, JoAnns, and Fred Meyers. I'm straight up addicted to wrapping paper, ribbons, gift tags, and other gift adornments. I love love love the whole process of wrapping presents - selecting the right packaging, the crispness of the paper, a perfect seam, picking coordinating ribbon, signing the tag... my fingers twitch just writing about it. This addiction is perennial. I just can't quit it. So every year, I stock up on all the trimmings, wild clearance style.

Back to Christmas Morning Eve Morning... 6:45 am is our meeting time, so I'm out the door by 6:15 am. I get into my car, mosey down the gravel hill, turn left onto Oak Creek Drive. I accelerate as I come out of the turn, gathering speed, take a gentle right, and then a gentle left, cruising at about 45-50 mph, as best I can estimate. The speed limit is 50 mph, but I was still in the turns, so I don't think I could have been going much faster. On that second turn, I caught some black ice. I wasn't worried. Everyone has slipped a little on black ice - just a little slip, and then as the traction catches, you slow down thinking "Black ice! Better be careful." But this time, the traction never caught. I just continued to slip. In my panic, I did all the things you shouldn't do when you get iced - I turned the wheel sharply in the wrong direction and braked hard. The car continued to turn in a circle to the left, the whole time slipping down the road at 45+ mph.  I do remember yelling "No. No. NO. NO! NO! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!!" over and over and over again, all the while thinking "Holy shit, I possibly could die right now, or at least be seriously injured." My thoughts went from "It's okay, just a patch" to "I'm might die" in milliseconds. After what seemed like a really, really long time of sliding down the road backwards, I finally heard the horrifying sound of metal scraping, as my car's undercarriage met the asphalt edge of the road and ultimately lodged itself down the steep ditch on the opposite side of the road. Along the way, I also grazed a telephone pole down the right side and took out a road sign. The right side of the car was completely pressed up against the side of the embankment. The left side was at so high of an angle, it was very hard to get out alone. I must have either closed my eyes while the car was spinning, or else my mind just decided vision was the least important variable, because I have no recollection of actually seeing anything until the car had stopped moving.

Looking back, I think the speed was the most terrifying factor. I was moving so quickly in this huge piece of metal that I had no control over. Driving a car is all about these small deliberate movements - a press of your foot, a turn of your wrist. In most accidents, you are manipulating the situation, at least slightly. You slam on your brakes too late, turn into another vehicle in your blind spot... But to go from complete control to none whatsoever, was shocking.

After sliding into the ditch, I sat in the car for quite a while, just finding my land legs again. My first thought was "Oh my god, I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay." My next thought was "There's no way I'm driving the car out of this ditch." My next thought was "DAMN IT, I can't go shopping!" No, really.

I wasn't sure if I should turn off the car, but then decided I would, just in case it might explode. To clarify and defend this thought, a few months ago, two drunk exchange students crashed into a telephone pole a few streets from our house, and the car ignited in flames and they both died in the car. Of course, this popped into my head - so I turned off the car, shakily got out my insurance card, and called for roadside assistance. I sat in the cold, waiting. One car after another stopped to see if I was okay - so many, in fact, that I started ducking down so people didn't see me sitting in it. Once Ryan arrived and helped me out of the car, the first thing I noticed was a thick mist/fog in the headlights. It was everywhere. And the road was a sheet of ice - there were no clean spots that I could find in my short search. The tow truck guy finally came and unstuck the car - it came out with an ear-splitting scrape on the pavement edge. We all went home, feeling blessed, however unfortunately so.

Redos aren't always possible. But time is an excellent teacher. And I've been careful on the roads during the cool mornings since. I may not be able to erase my accident, but I surely can learn from it.

As for my resolutions, I just have a few:

Be active. Because I can.
 
Be still. Let the periphery go on without me for a while.

Consume less.See aforementioned shopping addiction.

Produce more. Write. Build. Bake. Grow. Get my hands dirty. Tell a story.

Create. Recreate. Create anew.

Happy New Year!