beanski

i'm thinking that they're going as bubbles for halloween

I spent the last week freaking out that Cameron had The Swine Flu. Some dude I work with's kid had The Swine Flu and on the day I found out about that daycare called and my kid started a five day run of 103 temps. I know it's called H1N1. I don't know why they changed the name, I liked The Swine Flu better. I don't care if it wasn't "technically" correct. Anyways then the rash started yesterday and I kicked myself in the head for freaking out about The Swine Flu because Roseola never crossed my mind and Renee was the EXACT same age when she had the EXACT same thing happen to her.

My goal was this weekend for having Halloween costumes purchased and/or assembled and I'm totally blaming The Swine Flu for my failure to meet that goal. The only idea I could come up with over the weekend was The Bubble I want to float around each of us for the winter.

I'd sort of like for them to come as a pair because I'm a cheeseball and know that next year she'll want to be something obnoxious like, well, DORA. She still doesn't really GET Halloween. I only have two ideas so far.

• Dora and Boots
• Chewbacca and Yoda

What are your kids going as for Halloween? Do you have any ideas for me?

Boo at the Zoo is next weekend, I have to hurry.

we are family

The lovely and talented Kim agreed to allow my children to torture her for an entire morning last weekend in order to help me get a family picture. Have I mentioned that she's like a million months pregnant? Because she is. Like she's having her baby in a matter of days almost and she lugged herself through the woods with a stool and blankets and camera to take a picture of me. That is what you call cool. She posted a few on her blog but I wanted to post a couple more. Along with a big fat THANK-YOU.

My favorite family ones are the ones of us being huge dorks, laughing trying to wrestle our kids to just BEHAVE FOR SEVEN SECONDS.

I'm cutting myself off there because otherwise you'd end with all 100 images :)

the beginning of a little boy's room

This is the first post in what I'm hoping will be many posts as I slowly but surely convert our house from old quilting lady (the former owner) to modern, hip, young person. That would be me, yo.

We so far have decorated about 100 square feet of many and I'm still waiting on my husband to put in the new faucet in the kid's bathroom before I go ahead and call it complete and post pictures of the cuteness. HINT, HINT HUSBAND. And I need to figure out some art for the walls because the kid's handprints on canvases didn't go so well. ART PROJECT FAIL. I did SEW a shower curtain, though, but do me a favor, if you ever shower in the kid's bathroom, don't look at the inside of that shower curtain. OK? Thanks. These are fabrics I used for the bathroom because Renee LOVES octopi (octopuses?).

In the meantime, Cameron's room is next. He's currently using the gender neutral newborn bedding I bought when Renee was born and while I like it I've been itching to give him something more boy. And blue is my FAVORITE color so I've been excited about that.

This was my initial inspiration. I LOVE it. I seriously DROOL every time Susan posts a quilt. I showed it to Ski and his exact words were: "That is way too sissy. It could be a girl's quilt."

So, I had to regroup. I poured over etsy looking at fabrics, showing Ski a few here and there to get his green light on the masculinity of his son's bedding. Nevermind that the boy wears a PINK bib at breakfast EVERY day because we're too cheap to buy him new ones.

I need help though. I can't decide if I should go with the bright greens and blues:

Or the more muted greens and blues with brown:
 
I'm leaning towards the brights but don't want it to be obnoxious.

What do you think?

the 'playground'

This is just one of the [many] reasons we are so lucky.

The only real downside to us moving was losing our playground two blocks down the road. Renee missed it. She talked about it all of the time and was never satisfied when we took her to the playgrounds in our new neighborhood.

She sat by the window ALL afternoon watching the man put the 'playground' together. She kept saying, "I want to go see him. I want to go play on it." After many hours of waiting I took her outside. She looked at it shyly with this little grin that clearly said "Can you even believe this shit?"

Then she ran over and tried EVERY SINGLE gadget on the thing. I won't easily forget the wonder in her eyes. So innocent and pure and just plain excited.
 
 
 
 
And you can see in Cam's ten month post that he loved it too. Spoiled? Lucky, I think.

ten months

There are three people in this life that make Cameron's life worth living: Daddy, Renee and Sasha. Simon and I? We're totally second rate. If he so much as catches a glimpse of Ski he dives for the ground and thud, thud, thuds his little booty over there as fast as he can. He follows Renee everywhere she goes to the point where she is constantly saying "Cammon, LEAVE ME ALONE."

Seriously, what kind of kid doesn't like his mother? Mine apparently. It makes me sad so often and then I have to tell myself that maybe it's just a phase. Maybe someday he'll want me to hold him. I love him anyways.
He LOVES to swing. LOVES it. When the swingset showed up in the backyard I KNEW Renee would love it. I knew she'd want to be outside all day every day but I didn't realize how sweet it could work out for me if Cameron liked it too. And he does. The ONLY time he sits still is in that swing and he'll sit there smiling and screeching for a half an hour at a time. And if you know Cameron you know that a half an hour is a LONG time for him to do ANYTHING. Even sleep.  

I guess he'll play Squash the Cat for a half an hour at a time sometimes. Sasha seems to enjoy 22 pounds of baby crawling all over her and ripping out her fur because she follows him around all day. And I refuse to protect her because she lays there just ASKING for it. Then all of a sudden she'll have had enough and she bats at him and then he cries and she looks at me like it's all my fault. OF COURSE IT'S MY FAULT.
My money was on ten months for him to start walking and while he's made big strides in that department and can walk between the ottomans and along the furniture, he still prefers crawling as his primary mode of transportation. He'll look like he's going to try and then he says screw it and heads for the floor instead.  He can walk holding on to one of hands though so I imagine we're headed in that direction soon. As though he doesn't already have enough bruises and scrapes from just the simple fact that he's a BOY. He has no fear.

He learned how to wave bye bye and I absolutely adore how he waves with his whole body. And I especially love how he scrunches up his nose while he's doing it. He'll just bust out The Wave for no reason sometimes and look at me like "When are you guys going to clap and say 'Yeah Cameron' because I'm totally waving over here."

He went through a stretch where he was sleeping fairly well and then all of a sudden out of nowhere mid-month he pretty much quit sleeping all together. Sleeping is for sissies. I love how he grabs my shirt and forcefully pulls me towards him with both hands when I go into his room to console him in the night. I also hate how he does this because seriously the lack of sleep going on at our house is getting OLD.

He is cutting some new teeth (three on the top including his two front teeth) now so I'm crossing my fingers that that's what is bothering him at night. Although I think his troubles fall more into the category of farts. He HATES to fart. Seriously he'll carry on screaming and arching his back for like 15 minutes sometimes and then he'll bust off a fart and immediately go back to normal. I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT THIS. I feed him nothing but fruits and vegetables and meat and his belly is still so volatile.
 
He loves the bath and the sprinkler and the water table. He has NO fear at all, crawling right through the sprinkler with it spraying right in his face. He'll sort of shake it off and then look up at me and laugh. Like did you catch that mom? I'm TOUGH.

He's incredibly ticklish. Like I pretty much just have to look at him and say "TICKLE, TICKLE" and he busts out laughing. I love his laugh. His smile is HANDS DOWN his best feature.
 
Although I have to admit that the dimples on his elbows and his knees are a close second. Why can't babies have chubby little rolls on their legs forever?

He wants to eat his snacks in the living room like Renee so my house is pretty much covered in a thin layer of pears and peaches and bananas. He dumps them all over the carpet and then smears them in. NICE.  

He's big enough to start to do things with Renee, they actually sat in the wagon for like 10 minutes together without fighting this weekend and Ski and I spent the entire walk pondering how wonderful life would be if they just got along and liked to play together.

He's busy growing and learning and becoming his own little dude. I looked at him a few times this month and just sighed because he's starting to look like a kid. He's starting to look what he's going to look like when he gets older. And then I find myself torn between welcoming a life where the kids aren't on such different schedules and we can actually have a life again and wanting him to stay little forever. Because I'll miss the sound of a baby crying through the monitor at three in the morning someday. Won't I?  

I'll miss the giggles and dimples, this much is sure. 

i'd like to buy a vowel

The anticipation is KILLING me. My long-time friend Davina is appearing on the Season Premiere of Wheel of Fortune on Monday night and if I know Davina it just HAS to be good. Like the greatest thing to ever happen to me. So set up your DVRs folks, even if you've never met her, it will be totally worth it to hear her say "Pat, I'd like to buy a vowel." If she doesn't say it all of my hopes and dreams will be shattered. GO DAVINA!

i thought i loved him then

We said our vows four years ago today. On a perfect September day just like today surrounded by the people we love the most. I wore a Marisa dress made from pintucked silk. I had flowers in my hair. We danced to All the Right Reasons by the Jayhawks. I can distinctly remember looking up at him and being so overcome by love, by kindness, by the feeling of security that I had to swallow a huge lump in my throat.

I thought I loved him then.

The babies came one after another less than a year after we took those vows. I remember watching him struggling to change Renee's diaper for the first time looking totally unnatural with a look that only be described as complete and utter fear on his face. I remember him rubbing my back as I cried for literally days on end after she was born. I remember thinking that I was lucky to have him.

I thought I loved him then.

I've watched him become a father to our children. The Best Father. I've watched him show endless amounts of patience towards them, hardly ever losing his temper or raising his voice. I've seen the way he looks at his children. I've felt him get out of bed night after night to soothe his crying son and never once feel resentful towards him for never sleeping.

I thought I loved him then.

I've seen so much compassion in his eyes during my dark days, never once blaming me for how hard things are, never once lashing back when I blame him for my misery. Always working so hard to make things easier on me, on us, on our little family. He never falters. He is my rock, my friend, the only person I want to wake up next to in thirty years. We've watched as marriages have failed and new marriages have begun and there is no greater feeling that knowing, just knowing, that yours will last. Knowing that what comes next might be harder than what what's gone before and while it's hard to imagine, I know we'll make it.

I think I love him now but I can't wait to see what's next.

the end of summer

This picture brings a flood of emotions to me because it is just SO Renee. Mr. Tiger clutched in her hand (always), the ringlets in her hair excessively springy from the humidity in the air, sidewalk chalk in one hand and and paint from our art project on her other. And still playing with her favorite rough houser: her Dad. I love the little goofball.
 
Goodbye summer. Goodbye water table and frisbees and running through the sprinkler. Goodbye. It feels like it just got here and now it's over.

little cita turns two (like a month ago)

I have no excuse for these taking a MONTH to post other than I am lazy. Perhaps the laziest human being here on planet Earth. Sarah turned two with a Dora party at home surrounded by all of her cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. Happy Birthday to the cuddliest of cuddly little girls (at least when Mommy is around).
 
 
 
 
 
 
Take a look at this dog. I'm TOTALLY not a dog person but if I was, Clyde would have my heart.

Stud