Crafty momma....

Er. Or pintrest fail momma?
Don't approach her with scissors momma?

The post on the nursery is all the final product, but before the final product there were lots and lots of trials.

First, I made the boys curtains. That went pretty well, until I got to the window seat and mis-measured the fabric. Woops. I had to piecemeal a white piece to the back of the seat cushion. Hopefully no one spends much time looking at the bottom! And, as a bonus they are already using it, which makes me happy :)

Second, was the nursery curtain. Here's where the real nightmares began. I knew that I wanted to make a ruffle valance and pinterest offered at least three "easy to do" tutorials. They made it sound so easy- you get your fabric, cut and sew into long strips that are at least twice as big as your window opening, you determine how you want to fix them to the curtain, get the ruffler, ruffle them and sew them on! Voila! Ruffle valance.

ha ha. That shit is funny.

First, have you ever seen a ruffler? It looks like some sort of torture device. Exhibit A.

And of course, because I'm cheap I ordered the 10.00 version from Amazon, which worked splendidly exactly 0% of the time. Ruffler =10, Alisha =0. It was quite an adventure. Lots of messing with needles, tension settings, threads, fabrics, you name it, I fiddled with it on my sewing machine. I could get it to sorta work on a setting I had absolutely no use for, but on the setting I needed it to work, I couldn't get it to do anything but jam up. Not to mention, the tension on the back of the fabric looked like I had tied about 10,000 knots. It was awful. I thought I could bust through it in one evening, a few hours at most since the tutorials made it sound so easy! 1:00am later, I was still working my sweat shop to get the thing done (Drew on cutting and mercifully, Drew's mom on ironing). I couldn't quit of course, so that night I put that sucker up at 1:30 am.

I wasn't done there though. I mean, I'm a total glutton for punishment, so I decided a quilt was necessary too.

I encountered this round of crafting more apprehensivly. So far its going okay. Not wonderful. Quilters make it sound like lining up fabric seams is cake, like you can always so easily make each seam perfectly aligned. I'm here to tell you I can't. I'm always trying to figure out the secret and mostly always failing. Sometimes they accidentally line up, and I think I did something right, but then I can't replicate it. Another good thing about the quilt is that I'm already constructing the top quilt! That was half the battle with Owen's quilt- piecing hexagons was a nightmare for his. For this one the blocks are triangles and easy to take on bit by bit (even if they don't line up perfectly). So, if I keep up a pace of 20 blocks a week I should be able to get the top quilt ready in about 5 weeks, with a few weeks left to baste, get the back fabric, sew and quilt the thing together!


Alongside the quilt were two more craft jobs- much smaller and easier. One is the bunting for her nursery with letters on it. These were fun to make- I found a font I liked, used it as a template, interfaced the letters and sewed them on banner triangles. Then I pieced them all together to make the alphabet with bias tape.  The second was a boppy cover- these are super easy to make. A zipper and a hunk of fabric, an hour or so later, and voila! boppy cover! I used the same pattern to make Owen's years ago and hung on to it. I'm glad I did!



The crafting continues. Before long the top quilt will be finished (maybe two more weeks) and we'll be closer and closer to baby ninja arriving!

Nursery Preparations

For each of our kids I've tried to personalize their nursery. They each get their own space and I'm pretty meticulous about picking it out. I have this commitment to making sure that they each come into this world surrounded by a room filled with love and many homemade things that they'll appreciate, I hope, years down the road.

This time wasn't any different. I took to picking out baby ninja's nursery decor at about 25 weeks and have been working to slowly get it ready for her arrival. And, true to nesting form, as I typically do, I've bitten off a bit more than I can chew.  This time it was an afghan, a curtain, a quit and a bunting banner. So far, we have the curtain and afghan ready to go, and I've started the quilt. This time I hope to finish it long before her second birthday (which for the record, is when I finished Owen's -- I started his before he was born too!).

Here's the progress so far. We're finding our way to making it a happy place.
I especially lover her birdie mobile and the mirror that I'm sure, once she's big enough, she'll admire herself in.

 We're still working on table top stuff- eventually I'm sure there will be a video monitor on this dresser and a small lap to go below her ABC print (which I scounted on minted.com until I have a big enough coupon to get it cheap).

 Here's the ruffle valance I made. It uses the same fabric as her bedding (which I had made and ordered, I'm not that crazy to take on bedding too).

 Eventually she'll have a bunting over her crib with her name on, but since we aren't sharing her name just yet I'm not putting it up.

And here's the Etsy birdie mobile I love so much and her mirror. Across the room is her changing table and rocker, but I haven't worked much on that side yet, so more updates with all the pictures when its finally finished.

Loose Tooth!

Some things in childhood you really have no control over. Loosing teeth is one of those things. Collin has been asking for almost a year now about when he will lose a tooth. The other kids in his class have been loosing teeth for a whole year- some in Kindergarten and Collin has been waiting patiently. Every so often I ask if he has any lose teeth and he says no. It was a ritual of ours.

Until one day he said yes.

I happened to be away in Florida at the time and during facetime he shared his news. A loose tooth! A new world. A transition out of early childhood.

And here it is, still just loose.

I couldn’t recall how long it takes for a tooth to go from newly loose to ready to fall out. It turns out for Collin its pretty long, because its still only partially loose and we’re about a month since its started to really wiggle. Maybe that means sometime in April it will fall out.

Enter the tooth fairy. A whole new world for us.  What does the tooth fairy do you ask? I’m not really sure. What does she bring? I’m not quite sure about that either. We’ll have to wait and see.

For now, we’ll mark down the first wiggle: February 24^th, 2016.

Wiggles are on our way though, through one of the many doors into becoming a big kid and losing more than teeth, moving away from the little bits of early childhood bright eyed excitement. And so, he loses a tooth and I lose a little bit of the baby left in him.

Collin's First Grade Winter Concert

We live in a time when no holidays that have religious connections are celebrated in schools. It makes me sort of sad that my boys don’t really get the chance to enjoy the magic of various faiths in celebration at school. We’re not even religious, so its not a religion in schools plug. Instead it’s a celebrate diversity in learning about others plug. Instead of worrying about not offending anyone and therefore celebrating nothing, I wish they celebrated everything. I wish the could experience Hanukah, Christmas, Divali, Kwanza, Ramadan, Chinese New year, all the bigs of all the faiths and denominations. I think it always helps open their eyes to the magic that is stored in tradition and heritage.  But, they don’t. Instead they do this “winter concert” thing where they sing a few songs and sorta pay homage to a few cultures.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the concert itself because the kids are so excited to be able to show off the songs they have been working on for months. They stand in the risers, a tiny bit nervous, waving at us sitting in the seats just ahead. They steel themselves for their masterpiece performance where they try their best, even if that is just humming along

.

This year they sang a African folk song, a few Spanish songs, a French song, and a few standard American fares. At first grade they are adorable- enough independence to take pride in what they are doing, enough playful joy to trumpet on, even if they are out of tune.

They sang the Ants go Marching and were so enveloped in their own pace they left the recording behind, which made for a sort of double layered version of song and tune. Again, adorable and so full of inspiration about what it is to be committed to a task, that for them, meant pushing forward with or without their accompaniment.

In the end, we really enjoyed the concert and I found myself thinking- do I really have a first grader standing in those risers? How did we get here? And you know what, it turns out there was a song for nearly every season of our lives.

When the boys were little we sang our share of nursery tunes, a fan favorite was the wheels on the bus during lunch time. I made up songs that made no sense to introduce vocabulary, I sang about making lunch, making beds, changing diapers. You name it, there was a song. We did music together and I still find myself humming the hello and goodbye songs from those groups.

In toddlerhood the songs became a mix of soothing remedies and purposeful ballads. The clean up song entered our repertoire, and soon behind were the Daniel Tiger varieties of “Try new foods, they might taste good” and “If you are feeling mad and you want to roar, take a deep breath and count to four.”

The preschool welcomed us, and we were still singing songs, this time to finger plays, adventures in books, and many more. Character profiles appeared in our world and suddenly songs from Disney movie’s we’d never seen were attractive to the boys. The Lion King soundtrack ran often, even though we’ve still never watched the movie.  Pandora also entered their lives, and a whole new world of children’s music, classic music, and “momma’s music” opened up.

And so, the winter concert reminded me that for every tradition, moment and adventure in our lives, season to season there is a song. I hope it continues, as when I hear those songs now, I’m transported back to those moments. I hope someday, when I hear the Ants Go Marching I’ll be transported back to first grade, where my oldest shared a piece of his heart on the risers in his elementary school with us.

25 weeks: adios Previa

It's been 25 weeks! 6 months! Holy cow. I can barely believe how much you are growing and how much you are running the show around here. My pregnancy app tells me you are the size of an ear of corn. I kept meaning to get a post up at a various weeks but time has gotten away from me and here we are now, getting close to the third trimester.

Things are feeling a little bit more real now- I'm definitely looking like a very pregnant person and you are definitely making it known you are there. You are like a little ninja in there, constantly kicking me and constantly moving around to make me think you are in between my ribs, or smashing my lungs, which just seems to be par for the course.

You have given me a few wonderful gifts though- so far, no intense leg cramps, which is awesome, because I had them terribly with the boys! Also, so far, no intense back pain, which is even better, because with the boys it was horrible just to stand around, so thank you baby girl for that!

Here we are at 25 weeks. I'm feeling like your birth weight will be bigger than the boys- call it mother's intuition or whatever, but you really seem like you are bigger at this stage than they were (maybe its just that I am bigger?). I'm constantly winded, bending over to tie my shoes is a chore and nothing fits well. I have six pairs of maternity jeans that I rotate. I've refused to buy anything new for my maternity wardrobe, so we're making due with something like 10 shirts, six pairs of pants, two dresses and a few work outfits for presentations at conferences (I would totally wear comfy pregnancy pajama pants all the time if I could. Sigh. Sadly, that's not exactly accepted just yet!).

One of the best parts of 25 weeks is that the placenta Previa is gone! Woo hoo! No more ultrasounds and onward toward a regular delivery. I was so relieved to hear that the most recent ultrasound showed that it moved and that I could look forward to going full term (fingers crossed) and delivering without a C-section!


Another lovely aspect of this pregnancy is that with both boys by this point I had experienced spotting, which any mom knows when you are pregnant, scares the shit out of you. You've been generous though and allowed me to relax a little. No complications and all seems to be trucking along in a healthy happy pattern.

As we round the bend to the third trimester its feeling a little bit more real- we are now preparing for your arrival. You have a name, but its going to stay a secret until you are born. I'm not interested in the world's opinions about our selection, so we'll keep it under wraps, like we did with the boys. I've started on your nursery, started to to crochet you a blanket and we've begun to order things that are needed- a car seat and stroller. Next up are a few other essentials- an Ergo baby carrier for Portugal and a handful of other accessories.

Our lives are so busy right now, we're trying to tick things off the to-do list to make way for your arrival. I'm trying hard to get out a handful of journal articles before you arrive, as well as write a few grants, so those tasks are leading the front edge of my work brain. Meanwhile at home we are trying to finish up some shelving, the boys toy box and get two major projects done- the mudroom and the front yard landscaping, which hopefully will happen early this spring.

With this last third of the pregnancy creeping up on our regular pace of things I'm starting to think about how it will all be different when you arrive and how our hearts will grow so much as we welcome you into this world. I look forward to seeing how our lives change, and at the same time I'm doing my best to anticipate what I can so that we are prepared and ready for what you bring into this world- a whole lot of love and a tiny bit of chaos.

When 5 feels old....

 Wake up! Its my fifth birthday!

5 year olds are something to observe.
Really, they saddle the ridge between independence and preschooler.
They veil their enthusiasm for this new independence with moments of sincere co-dependence.
Its an interesting transaction of life.

And here we are, arriving at 5 again. No better able to cope with it than the first time. You think we would have learned. But alas, we have not. We are reactive, not proactive in our understanding and appreciation of 5. It sneaks up on us and we aren't quite sure how it got so close without our seeing it coming.

Sigh.


Dear Owen,
You've reached 5 years old. You, dear son, certainly are your own person. Your confidence is strong and resilient. You push me in ways I didn't fathom I would learn to grow, and for that I'm so thankful. You keep me on the edge of my seat, always ready for new things to learn.

Some things about you are character traits that I doubt will ever change. You are passionate and full of emotion. When you are angry, you are so angry. The world cannot be righted at the moment you anger reaches your heart. You are overwhelmed with the raw intensity of anger that you almost cannot be consoled. We work so hard to help you navigate these emotions and you are getting it, but its clear your heart is so big and you feel everything so deeply that its a journey we'll be on for awhile, we know. We'll try to be patient, and you'll teach us that we need to continue to learn to be even more patient.

Five is when you get social wings I think. You've always been a social kiddo, but now you are a leader in social situations. I see friends seek you out to play and I notice how half the kids in your class go out of their way to give you hugs goodbye. You are a good friend. This makes my heart so happy. If we've taught you anything, I hope its how to be kind and befriend others. We want to plant kindness in your heart so you overflow with it. And so, you have a new set of social wings. You fly above the 3 and 4 year olds who make friends at an arm length's from their moms. You take off. You don't need us as part of those relationships anymore.

Your social confidence though, also comes with a confidence in conversation. You, dear sweet Owen are sassy. A sassy that we've never been dealt before. Collin is confident, but almost never disrespectful and so we didn't know quite what to do with this talking back. You don't do it to be malicious, you honestly believe that your opinion is warranted in all adult decision. Sometimes they go like, this for example (today)
Me: Owen, I have warned you not to use potty words at the table and if you keep it up you'll take a nap after lunch.
Owen: Poop! I'll fart on your head Collin (or some variety of potty words continues to flow from his mouth instead of eating lunch)
Me: two more warnings with basically the same content.
Owen: More potty words, less eating. The struggle is real.
Me: Okay, you just earned a nap.
Owen: I'm not taking a nap!
Me: Owen, we don't talk back to adults like that. You are taking a nap. Its your consequence for not eating and using potty words after multiple warnings.
Owen: NO I AM NOT! (Insert angry face, crossed arms, look of sheer disgust).
Me: You are. Adults make the decisions.

Oh, how fun these conversations are! We're working to figure out to help you to know when to be confident and speak up and when its being sassy and you shouldn't respond. Clearly, its a very very grey area for you. You can't quite tell the difference and so some days you manage fine and others you push us to the limit with the sassy conversation.

Your passion is equally matched by your big and generous heart. You love fiercely. Your hugs are full and strong- you link your arms around our necks as though every moment of the hug allows your heart to speak to ours. Your eyes speak volumes about the happiness you carry in your heart and your joy, general and sheer joy with life is contagious. People always comment that you are always smiling, and its true, you are always smiling. Your happiness reminds me that there is so much joy around us. Sometimes we forget to notice it, but not you. You are heart is effervescent.

At 5 you are a reader. You see Collin reading and are anxious to read too. Some of my favorite moments these days are of Collin reading to you and then you reading to us. Currently its mostly Elephant and Piggie books you choose to read. I love watching you blossom.

Academic content is not a struggle for you, its pretty easy actually. Almost an after thoughts. You seem to say with your actions "oh yes, yes, I know that. Now can we get back to playing?"

You are competitive. I wonder if that is because you are a sibling or if its in your individual nature, but you always are watching to see who is doing it better. We work hard to remind you that competitions are not usually necessary (or healthy for that matter) but you persist. There is that resilience again, coming back to show us just has persistent and stubborn you can be.

You are ready to start Kindergarten, which makes me realize just how old you are. Its a little over a half a year away, but feels imminent. It feels dangerously close to the minutes where we stare the transition of school in the eyes and confirm that our work with you to help you grow and learn has all been for that set of moments, headed all too soon toward us.

And so for this birthday we celebrate all of you. We are lucky to have you in our lives, to teach us so much about what happiness looks like as a family of four, soon to be five. You are ready to be a big brother and I can't wait to see you take to that role too.

This year you asked for a party at Pump It Up, an inside bounce house that lets kids jump around for a couple hours to celebrate birthday fun. It was about -5 that day I think, so bitter cold, but you were full of energy and excitement to see your friends. A few hours later, 15 kids all tired out from jumping, pizza and cupcakes and you were basking in the glow of the being the birthday boy. It was the highlight of your week I think, and you tried to soak in every moment of it.

I really have a hard time believing six is up next. Six seems really really old to me. But so did 5 last year, and here we are, feeling as though 5 is too old for your sweet little soul. Even so, I look forward to every adventure we'll have in the next 365 days and I can't wait to see all of the experiences you'll bring into our lives.

All our love
Momma and Daddy