When you're ready; you're ready.

At the playground there are two slides.  One is for the little kids and you get there by climbing up a flight of playground stairs.  The second is for slightly more daring kids and it's located at the top of a second flight of stairs.  It also is a corkscrew slide.  Typically we relegate our playing to the smaller slide though we have gone down the big slide together once or twice. Claire climbs up the stairs to the small slide, sits down at the top and then does a sort of turning maneuver (the same one she does if she's climbing down off of the bed or the couch) and slides down on her tummy.  She laughs like crazy, eats some of the wood chips at the bottom and runs around to the stairs again.

Yesterday when she got to the small slide, she turned around and smiled at me and kept climbing up.  Almost before I could reach her she had turned around and the top of the tall slide and gone twirling down its cork-screw turns.  I would never have guessed that she was ready and I would never have sent her down on her own.

Claire is emerging as a head-strong determined little person.  I am reading about and thinking about discipline (oh if only we didn't have to discipline our children and they just came out knowing that you shouldn't hit your mom in the face whenever you get the chance). And even as we are working on discipline in my heart I am repeating over and over the words, "Don't ever stop being so brave.  Don't ever stop knowing your heart and what you are capable of."

This is just to say

This is Just to Say

I have left
the dishes in
the sink since last night

and have spent the
day cleaning little hands
playing in the sun and
jumping in waves


Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

*Embarrassingly that is a real picture from my kitchen this evening

Randomly enough...

Auntie Melissa sent a gift this week.  100% success.  Thank you Auntie. 

Don't mind the nakedness of the pictures (that's one of the ways we keep the fever down--not the pictures but the nakedness) and I swear that we do feed her.

*****
This has been a hard week.  Claire has 3 new teeth in the last 4 days.  The fevers have been high, the crying bouts long and no one in the house has slept all the way through the night in over a week.  Yesterday I called my mom.  Claire was crying on the porch, I was nearly in tears and I just said, "I need to hear that it gets better."  She assured me that it does--that babies' teeth come in and some day in the not-to-distant future we will play and have fun again.

Claire just started screaming 30 minutes into her nap so I jumped out of the shower and rocked her wearing nothing but a towel for 40 minutes.  She screamed the whole time--it's that darn 3rd tooth of the week still pushing it's way through the gums.

I am moving forward with faith...it does get better.  It gets so much better.

****
Have you read this article yet?  You should.  It's thought-provoking.  While I was sitting in church on Sunday they announced that one of the people who was going to address us had just returned from being a missionary in Dallas where he taught in Spanish.  The 50+ year old man behind me leaned to his wife and said, "Spanish speaking in Texas?  Must have been preaching to those illegals." He said, "illegals" like is was a terribly dirty word.  I wanted to turn around and punch him right there.  Don't worry, I didn't.  It made my heart sick to hear him especially as he was with his 2 teenage kids (keep in mind that the freeway signs by my house list the distance to the international border and it's not far). 

Talking about immigration gets me all riled up because so many people forget that we are not talking about "illegeals."  We are talking about human beings and families and little kids and people who just want a better life.

****
And lastly, if you're wondering how I feel about The Book of Mormon Musical the answer is, I'm pissed.  I consider myself a very liberal Mormon but I'm still not going to say it's okay.  I don't believe in making fun of other people's religious beliefs. Period.  I am not going to see it and I don't think you should see it either.

Were you waiting for the rapture?  Great, I'm not going to say one word about it being silly, I'm not going to join facebook groups that are getting ready to go looting when all of the good people are taken up because I don't diss other people's religious beliefs. I'd be just as peeved if the musical were called The Torah (and quite frankly, I think a whole heck of a lot more people would be peeved if that were the title).

Luckily, this guy's with me. 

Book Club Reminder

Ladies and gents I just wanted to remind you that for book club this month we are reading Where the Mountain Meets the Moon.  I started this book club because I wanted to continue to read challenging books and talk about them (a girl who stays home with a toddler has to make sure that she uses her brain every day).  I read lots of books that I don't talk about on this blog but I wanted to be sure to continually read books that couldn't be summed up with a declaration of either being on team Edward or team Jacob.

That being said I should warn you that Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is written for a 3rd grade audience.  Let's call this break from the Pulitzer prize winners our summer vacation.  And instead of reading something so sad we want to poke our eyes out (March...I'm looking at you) we're reading something fun and light-hearted.  One of our book club members recommended it and it had this glowing recommendation on Amazon

"This review is from: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (Paperback)

I got Where the Mountain Meets the Moon in my Easter basket. This book is so creative and I haven't read anything that even stands up to this book. The characters and art in this book are amazing. I am in third grade and would recommend this book to anyone who likes reading. This book was very touching and even gave me some tears in my eyes. I loved how the author told about Chinese culture and legends. I couldn't put this book down! Go grab yourself a copy today...quick!"

How could we say no? On July 1st we'll talk about the book and we will be accepting comments from all friends, book club members and third graders.

If you're trying to impress the hubbs....

I've mentioned before that the hubbs doesn't like celebrating.  I mentioned this to a couple of friends who were over and the hubbs said, "I believe in giving Christmas gifts."

If it were up to him that would be the extent of present-giving in our house.  There would be no house decorating and "made-up" holidays like Valentines and Mother's day would be totally ignored. That being said, it's not like the hubbs is a party-pooper.  He loves traditions.  He loves telling us about what they did when he was a kid and he always wants to recreate those experiences. During Christmas his family always made these gluten-free cookies and treats (his grandma has celiacs) and he always wants to bake those with  us at Christmas.

So when preparing a celebration for Father's Day I have to be careful.  I need to remember that it's about tradition and then he'll like it more.

I've also been struggling with this one little thing (and if any of you have advice I would love to get it). But I don't make my own money anymore.  It feels funny buying a present for the hubbs with money that he made when he would rather just save the money (it also feels funny buying clothes for me and other expendable items when I feel like the money isn't mine--really, advice anyone?).  It's just a little tricky.  I'm still adjusting to not having money of my own anymore. (and just to be perfectly clear this has nothing to do with the hubbs he is generous and does not begrudge me staying home)

The hubbs grew up in Oregon and he remembers summers spent picking blueberries and strawberries. A couple of weeks ago he was telling Claire and me about the day they went to pick strawberries and how it was one of the best days of the whole summer and how they all made themselves sick eating strawberries then they spent the afternoon making jam.

To start off Father's Day 2011 weekend we went on a family date to pick strawberries.  This is a little different from Oregon in the 80's--it was WAY more expensive than buying strawberries from Costco but more sunny and we did follow family tradition and ate so much that we got sick.

Saturday night Claire and I worked on a card for the hubbs with some friends who came over.

Then on Sunday we presented the hubbs with his gift and card. He got some strange soda from the local Bev-Mo (the hubbs likes non-cola soda but I never buy it).  The plan was for Claire to take the hubbs a bottle of grapefruit soda (the flavor that the hubbs used to drink with his dad) with a card that said "Thank you for sharing the things that you loved to do with your family."  Then she was going to take out a six-pack of other flavors with a card that said, "and thank you for trying new things with me too."

It didn't work out exactly as planned but the hubbs got the general idea and he got the soda. 

Father's Day success

Houston, we have a molar

We are in the process of getting 1st year molars.  Don't fear, I'll spare you the story of long nights and high fevers because there is so much more to talk about. Summer for instance.

 Welcome Summer* we are glad you're here.

 *This is the first time since 2003 that we are not throwing the annual Summer Solstice Party.  It'll be back next year friends and you'll have all the time in the world to recite poems, read stories and sing songs.  We may throw a small summer solstice party in our living room this evening. It will involve a fever-ish baby walking around in nothing but a diaper while we sing songs and play the guitar (it will probably also include the hubbs rolling his eyes while he tries to figure out how he ended up married to such a hippy but I'll make treats so it will at least be a wash for him).

Picture from here

Dads

I'm sorry that I don't have a retro 80's style picture of me and my dad.  I also don't have a picture of the two of us at my wedding.  Even though those two things do seem to be the most important part of writing a blog post about father's day I'm going to push forward anyway.

I have the best dad.  Once, when I was still single, I was talking to two of my favorite people, Mr and Mrs. Miller.  We were talking about marriage and life and I said, "I don't know if I can ever get married because who could I marry that would hold a candle to my dad?"  Instead of coddling me the Millers just said, "yeah...that's going to be hard.  Your dad is really amazing."

It's true.  In high school I remember going to my car to leave for school (which started really early) and I would find the car running in the driveway, already warm and full of gas.  There was also always sure to be a tool-kit in the trunk.  When my dad comes to visit me now it's the same kind of thing.  He put shelves in my garage, hall closet and laundry room (if you live in a little apartment in SoCal extra shelving is like manna from heaven).  He tells me that I don't need to help him and that I should go and spend time with Claire.  He just works away  his whole vacation and fixes up my house. And sometimes after he's left I'll find a case of diet coke in the garage (really what says love like a case of diet coke?).  My dad stops to help people who have flat tires on the freeway, is an incredibly hard worker and has an open invitation breakfast every Saturday morning where he cooks pancakes, waffles or crepes.

The really lucky thing is that I did find someone like my dad.  He's not as good as fixing things as my dad is but he is kind and gentle just like my dad and that is more important than the fixing things. The hubbs spent most of Father's day weekend...fathering.  He made Claire breakfast, took her running, helped with babysitting co-op, changed diapers and played all weekend long. We did plenty to celebrate him (the hubbs does not love celebrating but he did a good job of being grateful anyway) but the hubbs was just his good fathering-self. 

So to these two men. (Sorry about the pic.  It was the only one I had of us together.  Though actually...I guess it's pretty appropriate)

Thank you for being the best example of what men should be.

Thank you for taking care of me and loving me.
You are more dear to me than you know.