Dear Baby

Everly says...

Thu, 23 May 2013 09:25:55 -0400

Me: Arlo, what happened to the side of your face?!?

Everly: a bahsneeto (mosquito) bit him!

Arlo Turns Two!

Wed, 22 May 2013 14:28:00 -0400

We celebrated Arlo’s birthday last weekend with a dinosaur themed party and it was a blast! For months, I’d been squirreling away dinosaur themed party decorations as I came across them. We never know quite how it will all look when we put all the ideas together, so it’s fun to stand back before the guests arrive and take a look at the final result. (And a big thank you to my mom this year for helping!) To save money, I kept the colors similar to his party last year, so that we could reuse as much as possible.

I wanted some sort of dinosaur landscape as a backdrop, so I took a sheet and used colored duct tape to make a linear, palm tree and volcano background. The table skirt was a couple of cheap grass skirts that I picked up at the dollar store and I found a great deal on Meri Meri party supplies on Zulily - so I purchased the big stegasaurus on the table, a few banners, and party bags. I’ve ordered both of the kids a personalized birthday banner this year that I plan to re-use every year going forward. I really like this chalkboard inspired one from Minted.com.

I’m not much of a baker, but I like making my own cakes for the kid’s parties. For Arlo’s birthday I used a simple boxed chocolate cake and then added fresh strawberries and homemade buttercream. As a topper, I ordered a wooden T-Rex skeleton puzzle off Amazon (full disclosure: it was a pain to put together!) and made a little party hat for it to wear. It was simple - but the results brought lots of smiles!

His party was at 3pm, so we kept the food simple. Mini sandwiches, fruit, veggies and dip, cheese and crackers and munchies like pretzels, chips, goldfish, nuts and dried fruit. I snagged a bunch of Arlo’s toy dinosaurs out of his room to decorate the platters.

The dollar store and the party section of Target our my favorite places to find inexpensive goodie bag toys. Arlo’s friends took home mini tambourines, dinosaur stickers, bubbles, finger skateboards, and a sweet treat.

The forecast was calling for thunderstorms mid afternoon, so we were hesitant to set up much in the yard. Instead, I moved the kid craft table to the porch. We had two activities - little wooden dinosaur cutouts I found at the dollar store that the kids could color with markers and I carved potatoes into dinosaur feet stamps so that the children could put them in washable paint and stamp paper with “dinosaur tracks”. We blew up a couple of inflatable dinosaurs to welcome our guests and attached balloons. The kids at the party loved playing with them.

A “live” velociraptor made a brief appearance at the party, but I worried about Bailey overheating, so she didn’t wear it long. It was definitely good for a laugh!

The storms held off all afternoon and our yard and home was filled with family and friends. Having a fenced in front yard makes for a great kid-safe area to play - so we put out tricycles, scooters and yard toys. We also had out Arlo’s new sandbox with lots of digging toys and buried dinosaurs.

Singing happy birthday to our big two year old! Arlo’s personality is a bit more reserved and he is much more shy than his big sister, because of this, he doesn’t always command the spotlight. It was really sweet to see his face light up as he realized that every part of this day was all about HIM! He was so happy when we all sang happy birthday and blew out his candles on the first try!

A favorite shot from the day - complete with a cake mustache and a new hat he got for his birthday. (Arlo is on his way to having the coolest hat collection ever.)

I’ve talked about this before - but we always encourage our guests to bring a donation instead of a gift to our children’s parties. (Our kids have so much already.) It’s a great way to teach Everly and Arlo about giving to others and help out a great cause. For Arlo’s birthday this year, we chose to collect pet supplies and are dropping it all off with a local rescue group next week.

It was just a wonderful day and the perfect celebration for the sweetest little boy in our lives. Arlo brings so much joy and happiness to our family and we cherish every opportunity we get to celebrate him. I can’t believe another year came and went so fast - before you know it, we’ll be here again, watching him blow out three candles as he runs off his sugar buzz. Until then, we count our lucky stars for every day we get to watch him grow.

We love you Arlo Redding! Hooray for turning two!

Love,

I didn’t turn on the news last night and mostly stayed away from social media, so it...

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:33:00 -0400

I didn’t turn on the news last night and mostly stayed away from social media, so it wasn’t until this morning that I learned of the devastation that occurred in Moore, Oklahoma yesterday afternoon.

I watched this video this morning on my phone while the children sat at my feet watching cartoons. Quiet tears ran down my face as I watched parents break down in relief as they were reunited with their children. My heart seized for those calling out their children’s names in the chaos - searching for their faces in the battered crowd. In times of tragedy, so often I find it hard to even comprehend what that experience must be like for those going through it. That overwhelming fear. The desperate prayers, hoping that your loved ones are unharmed. I often consume the experiences of others by relating it to what I know - but even attempting to imagine the terror of trying to find my children in that sort of nightmare scenario is more than my mind will allow.

Everly saw me fighting tears and asked me why I was crying. I always struggle with how or if I should talk to my children about tragedies. They are so young and I don’t want to scare them or cause them to worry. One of the great beauties of childhood is that for most, there is still that naive comfort in not yet understanding or experiencing heartbreak, disaster, or cruelty. So, I chose my words carefully and told her that some people were hurt because of a big storm and I was feeling sad for them.

I don’t know where I am going with this. I just wanted to write something out loud…to join the choir of millions of Americans and those around the world who are heartbroken for the families who lost everything, some including their lives, to this storm. If you would like to do something to help, please consider making a donation to the Red Cross or text the words “red cross” to 90999. If you are not financially able to contribute, please consider making an appointment at your local Red Cross Blood Center to give blood.

Sending all the love and prayers I have today, as far and as wide as they can go.

Love,

The Coolest Sandbox Around

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:22:00 -0400

Brent and I decided early on that we wanted to get Arlo a sandbox for his second birthday, as he and Everly always enjoy playing in the ones at our local parks. Late last month, I spent some time researching options online looking for one that would fit our needs. For aesthetic reasons, I wanted a wooden sandbox since it would be in our front yard. I also wanted something that would keep Arlo shaded and I kept thinking that if it was mobile, it would be nice not to have to kill what little grass we have (and the green weeds that we like to pretend is grass).

I really loved the design of the Badger Basket Sandbox because it features a lid that covers the entire box but plays double duty as it folds up into two bench seats. I looked at a lot of different models, but the functionality and price ($119) for this cedar model was my favorite. We purchased the kit to build our own and sent mama the dimensions and asked her if she could design a way to make it mobile.

She drove down to Raleigh for Arlo’s birthday party and when she showed me what she had made, I was absolutely thrilled. Her design has five wheels and a long tow rope so that we can move it around the yard. She painted the base bright red to give it some color. She put the sandbox kit together and then attached it to the base with L brackets. Before we added the sand, we drilled holes in the platform base, and then added a layer of mesh outdoor gardening fabric so that water could drain through, but the sand would stay put if it rained.

(Mama and her finished sandbox)

The result was a beautiful sandbox that can be wheeled around to shady parts of the yard as the day progresses that won’t destroy the ground cover underneath. It’s heavy with the sand, but it works great!

At Arlo’s dinosaur party on Saturday (a post to come on that tomorrow!) we filled it full of plastic dinosaurs and dino skeletons and it was a huge hit with the kids in attendance as they practiced being little paleontologists. Some of them stayed put for thirty minutes or more as they happily dug!

The only downside is that now I’ve got to learn to come to terms with the layer of sand that I’ve found in the house since it arrived!

My mom can build anything out of wood. Our house is full of tables and shelves and bowls and even cupcake stands that she has made based off a simple photo or idea I sent her way. She’s like my own personal Bob Vila!

I was just so proud of this that I wanted to share it on my blog.

Happy Monday!

Love,

Everly Says...

Sun, 19 May 2013 22:05:00 -0400

(On a trip to Target to pick out a special prize for being well behaved. Arlo had already chosen a toy motorcycle and we were browsing the doll aisle)

Everly: Mama, instead of a toy, can I pick out a new pair of shoes?

Me: Shoes instead of a toy? Are you sure?

Everly: Yes. Sparkly ones. They need to have sparkles.

Me: This is proof we are soul mates.

Everly Says...

Sun, 19 May 2013 22:02:00 -0400

(While watching a Disney commercial that featured a little boy who was talking about his heritage. He looked into the camera and said, “I’m Native American, Irish American and African American”)

Everly’s response: Whoa! That’s a lot of Americans!

Happy birthday to my dream boy. My great adventure. My gentle...

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:53:06 -0400

Happy birthday to my dream boy. My great adventure. My gentle spirit. You are everything and more that my heart could ever desire in a son. I thank God for every single day of these precious two years I have spent as your mother. May you continue to grow and thrive in the days and years ahead. I love you so much Arlo!!!

(Song: Catch the Wind by Donovan) When Seventh Generation asked...

Thu, 16 May 2013 10:17:00 -0400

(Song: Catch the Wind by Donovan)

When Seventh Generation asked if I would like to be part of their Toxin-Free generation campaign, I jumped at the chance. We have been using their products in our home from the start. We wash our clothes and dishes with their detergents, clean our counters and surfaces with their cleaners and have used their wipes and diapers with our children. Beyond the peace of mind I get from knowing that I can clean and care for our family and home without the use of harsh chemicals, I love supporting a company that has consistently been rated as one of the greenest in the United States.

Seventh Generation asked me, “What is your child’s view from 36 inches?” For every person who uploads a photo or video answering this question to their website , they will donate $1 to Women’s Voices for the Earth (an organization that works to educate and advocate against the use of harsh chemicals)

Everything looks different from Everly and Arlo’s level and the way we think about how we keep them safe and limit their exposure to toxins changes when we see the world through their eyes.

I strapped a camera to the top of the kid’s helmets to get a better understanding of how they experience the world, and the results had me smiling. I plan to do this more often, as I truly loved seeing the world from their perspective.

Enjoy the view from 36 inches!

Love,

This Post sponsored by Seventh Generation. To learn more about their Toxin-free generation campaign, visit their website .

My Mother's Day

Sun, 12 May 2013 23:59:00 -0400

This morning, with my face smushed in a pillow, a three year old raked her fingers through my hair and said “Mommy. Daddy said to let you sleep in. Are you sleeping?”

I said yes.

And she said “OK. Tell me when you wake up.”

Some time later, Brent set a cup of coffee on the night stand.

I yawned, grabbed my bathrobe and Everly and I made biscuits for breakfast.

We took advantage of the sunshine and walked to church. This week, there was a mandolin and a bongo in the band and we sang my favorite, “How great thou art.”

We ate lunch with family.

Arlo and I held hands and admired the flowers in grammy’s garden.

We came home and planted my Mother’s Day yellow rose bush in the front yard.

Brent painted our front door red.

That’s what I asked for. A red door.

And while I washed the babies and put them in their jammies, he put on the last coat.

Then we all stood in the front yard, eyes towards our house, admiring it.

After bed time stories and bed time prayers, I laid in bed with Everly for a little while. We do this thing, where she will wrap her arms tightly around my neck and refuse to let go when it’s time for me to say goodnight. She always says “I’ll never let go!” and then she waits for me to say it back in my dramatic movie voice “I’ll never let go, Jack!” and then she says it that way too and we both giggle.

Tonight, I promised to let her watch the movie Titanic when she is a teenager so that she will one day understand the reference.

coffee. hymns. family. a red front door and my favorite goodnight ritual.

I can think of no better day to celebrate this day.

Happy Mother’s day!

Love,

A Mother's Day Tea Party

Fri, 10 May 2013 10:59:00 -0400

(Practicing our proper curtsy technique before I left for work)

Last week, Everly came home from school with a construction paper card she made in class, inviting me to attend the Mother’s Day tea party at her preschool. Her smile was huge as she proudly presented it to me and after I read it and told her I would be honored to attend, she whispered, “Mama. We’re gonna have sweets! Cookies and everything!”

All week leading up to it, she would tell me at random times, “Happy Mudders day!” and sing parts of the songs that her class had been learning for the occasion.

Wednesday morning, we took the opportunity to dress up a bit and gave her a big hug before heading off to work for a few hours. I’ll see you soon, I promised.

I flew into the parking lot of her school at 11:14, rushing to get inside before the program started. I had been on back to back conference calls all morning and had scrambled to make it from my office to her school for the 11:15am start. My heels clicked loudly on the wooden floors of the quiet sanctuary, full of other mothers waiting for the program to begin. A few turned to look at me and I tried to hide my flushed face behind my hair. I felt a little embarrassed that I was the last one.

Everly searched for me as her class filed in, and waved proudly once she spotted me. I may have just barely made it, but as long as I was there in enough time for her to see me sitting in the pew, I was happy. She sang all of the songs, complete with hand motions, until they reached the second to last song. At which point, she just burst into tears and started crying ” Mommy! Mommy!” in the middle of the group.

I stepped to the side of the aisle and her music teacher picked her up and brought her over to me. “She’s usually one of my best singers!” her teacher said. Once she was in my arms, she immediately wiped her tears, smiled and said “That singing was taking too long.” I had to stifle my laughter when I realized her dramatics were because she was tired of singing and was ready to hang out with me. This little rascal of mine!

She laid down in the pew next to me, looking up at the cathedral ceilings and listening to the other children sing. “That was beautiful!” she announced at the end of the last song, and clapped along with me.

From there, we walked hand in hand to her classroom, where her teachers had prepared a delicious spread of chicken salad sandwiches, pasta salad, fruit, and crackers.

All week, Everly and her classmates had been working on all sorts of crafts for Mother’s Day. She gave me one card to open there, one to save until Mother’s Day on Sunday, and a little container she decorated full of hershey’s kisses. “We’re gonna share this, right mama?” she asked as she handed over the candy.

We ate our lunch together, cheersing her pink lemonade with my sweet tea and chatted with some of the other families in attendance. It’s always such a pleasure to sit down and talk with Everly’s teacher as I don’t get to interact with them much since Brent takes her to and from school most days. I am just so proud of my little girl and the kind comments I received from her teachers and friends.

Brent and Arlo met us at the end of the party so that he could carry her home and I could head back to work. I left with my arms full of beautiful, construction paper gifts from my sweet girl.

The rest of my day at the office was just as hectic as my morning, but that precious hour I spent with Everly, watching her sing and crouched next to her in a tiny classroom chair as we shared lunch, kept me smiling.

So much of my life is a balancing act, a constant attempt to keep everything moving forward and on track. It’s nice every now and then to take some time to be intentionally slow and purposeful. To nibble crackers with my daughter and wipe strawberry juice off her chin or allow myself to be a few minutes late to an afternoon call because I was pinning up her new artwork at my desk.

It’s those breaks in an otherwise full speed day that help me to take in the goodness I have in my life. I’m so thankful to be a mother and to have a job I love and a family who supports me while I find the balance in both.

Love,

(A silly family portrait, snapped this week after brushing the children’s teeth before...

Thu, 09 May 2013 13:26:00 -0400

(A silly family portrait, snapped this week after brushing the children’s teeth before bed.)

Brent is in the middle of reading Here and Now by the great, modern spiritual writer, Henri Nouwen. He met me in the kitchen as I was fixing a meal and told me he would like to read me a passage from the chapter on family. It was so perfectly stated that I felt compelled to share it here as it sums up so much of the journey and struggle of parenthood.

Children are a gift.

Being a parent is like being a good host to a stranger. While we may think that our children are like us, we are continually surprised at how different they are. We can be gladdened by their intelligence, their artistic gifts, or their athletic prowess, or saddened by their slowness in learning, their lack of coordination, or their “odd” interests. In many way we don’t know our children.

We didn’t create our own children, nor do we own them. This is good news. We don’t need to blame ourselves for their problems, nor should we claim ourselves their successes.

Children are a gift from God. They are given to us so that we can offer them a safe, loving place to grow to inner and outer freedom. They are like strangers who ask for hospitality, become good friends, and then leave again to continue their journey. They bring immense joy and immense sorrow precisely because they are gifts. And a good gift, as a proverb says, is “twice given.”

The gift we receive, we have to give again. When our children leave us to study, to look for work, to marry, to join a community, or simply to become independent, sorrow and joy touch each other. Because it is then that we feel deeply that “our” child isn’t really “ours” but given to us to become a true gift to others.

It is so hard to give our children their freedom- especially in this violent and exploitative world. We so much want to protect them from all possible dangers. But we cannot. They do not belong to us. They belong to God, and one of the greatest acts of trust in God is letting our children make their own choices and find their own way.

And so, I will leave this here. As a reminder to myself and to all of us, that we are raising citizens of the world, each with a purpose and a path that will one day diverge from our own. It is a wondrous and heart wrenching predicament, to dedicate yourself to growing and loving another soul so successfully that they eventually establish their own independence. It is the great conflict of parenthood, wishing that they would never change, but celebrating each new step they take towards autonomy. A gift given and received, over and over again.

Love,

Sunday Morning Biscuits

Wed, 08 May 2013 13:38:00 -0400

The morning I learned that my grandmother had passed away, I emailed my cousin Katie and asked if she would send me grandma’s famous biscuit recipe. I had it, written in grandma’s shakey handwriting on a notecard, but with so many moves in the past few years I couldn’t seem to put my hands on it.

Katie’s reply was along the lines of a lot of recipes in my family with no precise measurements. So much of our cooking and baking is done from memory, sight, and feel. I have always cooked this way and it’s the main reason I don’t share a lot of recipes on my blog. I’m not precise about anything - I just do a pinch of this, a scoop of that and cook it until I know its done.

The morning of grandma’s funeral, I baked her biscuits and served them to my family on the delicate, rose printed china she had handed down to me when I got married. It was just a small thing I wanted to do in her honor.

Since that day two weeks ago, I have made her biscuits four more times, learning to do it by heart and feel just like my grandmother always did. I’ve been tweaking her recipe some to make it a little healthier and I wanted to share it here. I tried to measure things out so that I could share it here, but don’t be afraid to make your own adjustments. This recipe is very simple but evokes all the warm, loving, comfort-food related memories of my childhood.

Ingredients:

4 cups of self rising flour

1/2 cup of coconut oil (grandma’s recipe called for crisco, but I wanted something a little lighter and the results were delicious!)

2 cups of buttermilk

Preheat oven to 425*F . Sift the flour into a large bowl. I don’t currently own a crank sifter, so I just used a colander and a wooden spoon to sift, like this:

(A tip from a reader: a remedy for no-sifter-ness that may be a little less messy than my verions is to use a whisk on the flour to “lift” it a little. Thanks Stickyheel5)

Before adding the coconut oil to the flour, use the back of a spoon to mash the coconut oil into a paste and remove any hard clumps.

Add the coconut oil to the flour and mix with a chopper like I have pictured here. This one was handed down to me, but if you didn’t have one, a plastic cup with an air hole punctured through it would probably do the trick.

Continue to combine the two ingredients together with the chopper until the texture becomes piecey. My cousin Katie described it as similar to “mealy grits” but unless you are from the south, you probably have no idea what that means. I can think of no better way to describe it than she did, so I included a photo for reference:

Make a hole in the middle of the flour mixture and slowly fill with buttermilk. With a large spoon, combine ingredients until they form a dough. Add a little more flour or milk as necessary to achieve a dough consistency.

Flour a flat surface and roll out your dough to about a half inch thickness. I use my chopper to cut out the biscuits, but again, a cup with a hole punctured in the bottom of it will suffice.

One thing my grandma always made for us were “funny biscuits” where she would take the last remaining pieces of dough after all the rounds were cut, and clump them into little piles on the baking sheet. These lumpy, odd shaped biscuits used to delight us as children -and we always ate them first. I learned at her funeral that she actually adopted this tradition from her mother in law, so making them for my children means there are at least three generations of my family who have grown up with funny biscuits.

Place biscuits about a half an inch a part on a non-greased baking sheet or baking stone and place in oven. And here’s the part that you’re going to have to “eye ball it” as we say in our family. They will need to bake for for 5 to 10 minutes. I have a hard time getting the tops to brown (A reader shared with me it’s because of the coconut oil), so I use a spatula to check the underside of a biscuit - when it’s golden brown, it’s almost done.

My favorite addition to grandma’s recipe is brushing the tops with a mixture of melted butter combined with either maple syrup or honey. It helps brown up the tops and the faint sweetness pairs so nicely with the hint of coconut in the biscuit.

(note the “funny biscuits” in the middle of the tray)

Let bake for another minute or so to caramelize the butter/honey mixture, then remove from oven and transfer to a basket where you can wrap them in a cloth to keep warm. The time in the oven keeps the top mixture from being sticky, so it’s fine to pile them on top of one another.

I love to serve mine with butter and jam, sharp cheddar cheese, or a thin slice of salt-cured country ham.

These biscuits are quick and easy to make and can keep for about a day on the counter (pop in the microwave for 10 seconds to warm them up!) I grew up on these biscuits and it makes me happy to know that my children will too. We’ve deemed them our new Sunday morning tradition!

Love,

Blooming and Growing.

Mon, 06 May 2013 13:38:00 -0400

When we bought our house, there was very little in the way of mature landscaping. The yard had a large camilla tree and a few azalea bushes, but other than that, there were only a few small bushes recently added by the seller against the house’s foundation in an attempt to improve curb appeal.

Brent and I spent a lot of years with out a real yard. When we were first married, we owned a townhome where all of the shared common lawns were managed by a landscaping company. In San Francisco, we called a tiny concrete walkway our “yard” and when we first moved back to Raleigh, we rented at house and didn’t want to invest much money in a yard that didn’t belong to us.

When we bought our house in December of 2011, the yard, much like the house itself, was a blank canvas. Since then, we have added dozens of new plants and bushes. We have dug up trees from one area of the yard and moved them to another. We’ve ripped out huge patches of unruly monkey grass and put in flowering plants and nearly a dozen rose bushes. Last year we put up a picket fence and recently we created new flower beds down the front.

We know very little about gardening. In the beginning, Brent and I just picked plants without paying much attention to how big things were supposed to grow. This meant that some of last year’s plants had to be dug up and replanted in a better spot this year as our beds became crowded. Last week, I bought a climbing plant that I later learned (only after it was already in the ground) was an annual and would not survive the winter outside. We are still very much novice landscapers… despite not even knowing half of the names of plants we’ve put in our yard, we are learning and having so much fun along the way.

I’ve discovered that I love pulling weeds and pruning and tinkering in my beds. I love watching our plants grow and bloom. I love seeing what was a tiny plant last year, double or triple in size this year.

Giving our yard a little personality has been one of my favorite parts of home ownership and we reap the rewards daily. So much of our time is spent sitting on the front porch, watching the children play in the yard and feeling pride that it belongs to us.

Almost every day when I pull up after work, Brent and the kids are playing outside. It never fails to hit me with a rush of gratitude. I still can’t believe sometimes that we own a house. That we have our own yard. That it is truly ours!

We have plenty of weeds yet to be pulled, the fence we put up is a bit crooked (we learned many lessons on that one!) and and there is so much left to do, but I love this little yard so much. Things are blooming and growing here. Our yard and our family. I’m so thankful we get to call it home.

Love,

Since Tuesday

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:25:00 -0400

My grandmother passed early last Tuesday. The Red Cross had flown my brother in from his deployment in the Middle East in the hopes that he would get to say goodbye to her. He made it just in time and was there next to her when she passed away. I know she was waiting for him. That evening, he came to my house and we stayed up late, talking. He told me that watching the quiet way with which her breathing shallowed and then was gone, gave him the greatest peace. She left this world in the same gentle way in which she had always lived.

We buried her at the church that she grew up in. The one my mother grew up in. The one that holds so many of my own childhood memories. I have not been back since my grandmother moved into an assisted living residents more than fifteen years ago. The cemetery behind the church holds the names of many people I am distantly related to, and I remember innocently playing hide and seek between the gravestones as a small girl.

Every member of my family filed out of her funeral in a mix of tears and smiles. Heavy with our goodbyes but so comforted in the knowledge that the hour we spent in her honor was so very… her. From the spring flowers that adorned the pulpit to the music - her favorite hymns that we had found written inside her bible. Brent sang “In the garden” - her very favorite hymn. The day before she passed, the family had played it often for her in her room while she lay still in bed and she mouthed the lyrics in an attempt to sing along.

I spent all of Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday morning pecking away at a tribute to read. It’s a big task to write something fitting enough for a woman of her character, but I edited and deleted and added words until I felt it was right. I read it out loud all the way to the funeral in the car with Brent, in the hopes that some of my emotion and nerves would settle enough that I could do it justice at her service.

When it was my turn to stand at the lectern, my voice waivered a few times, but I got through it. And in finishing the last line, I felt I had found my peace too.

After a lunch hosted by the ladies of the church, we took the children across the street to the old country store that was first opened by my great grandfather. His name, C.W. Flowers, is still painted in large letters on the front. Nothing about it has changed since my childhood, since my mother’s childhood.

As a little girl, I used to pull back the wooden screen door and use the quarters in my pocket to buy a yoo-hoo chocolate drink and a bag of M&Ms. Stepping inside last week was like stepping back in time. A relic of simpler days. The new owner has kept the same dirt and wood plank floors. The same old smell. The piles of livestock feed to the left, fishing lures, tires, and bottles of engine oil along the back wall. I slid open the old metal drink cooler and bought two glass bottle Coca-Colas.

We sat outside and drank. Everly scolded me, “Mama, but we don’t drink soda!” I smiled back at her. “Today, we do baby. We’re celebrating memories.” She chugged nearly the entire thing.

Friday I went into work, seeking a little normalcy but still feeling like my thoughts and heart were elsewhere. I struggled to focus and by three pm, I was out the door again. We spent Friday evening running around at our favorite city park and taking in the golden hour.

It’s weird, how life goes on. How people leave this world and enter it thousands of times each day. How our human hearts are constantly learning to adjust to the changes that come with all of our hellos and goodbyes. I am reminded that goodbyes in life are rarely easy, but sometimes they can be beautiful too.

I miss her.

Love,

Everly Says...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 21:29:00 -0400

“A man just ran by that window NAY TED (naked)!!!”

Said our daughter, who gave us quite a fright, until we realized she had confused the meaning of being naked with someone not wearing a shirt.

They warm my heart through and through. Song: Households by...

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:22:17 -0400

They warm my heart through and through.

Song: Households by Sleeping At Last

Love,

When we bought our little white house on a quiet street, I was immediately drawn to the...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 14:20:00 -0400

When we bought our little white house on a quiet street, I was immediately drawn to the skinny park that ran the length of the neighborhood loop. It reminded me of a tiny version of Panhandle park where Brent and I spent countless days when we lived in San Francisco.

It’s a little narrow strip of land, maintained by the city, where Crepe Myrtle trees and Long Leaf Pines dot the green grass and a few neighbors have claimed small portions of it for vegetable gardens.

I am guilty of sometimes sneaking over when the the snowball hydrangeas hang heavy with blooms to snip off big clusters of white flowers to put around our house.

Our little park just barely qualifies as one, but it is where we escape when we need to get out of the confines of our own house and yard but don’t have the time or energy to go far.

We have come to love it as our own. A place where the kids run free and Brent and I lay happy in the shade of the trees. Right now, the buttercups are blooming and of all the gifts this little island of green gives to us, it is this event that tops the list.

The buttercups are here

and we are counting them

picking them

dancing in them

swimming through them

every day

until they go.

Love,

The kids and I were on a playground on Saturday when I heard another couple discussing Arlo’s...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:49:00 -0400

The kids and I were on a playground on Saturday when I heard another couple discussing Arlo’s sunglasses. I couldn’t find his regular ones and so I had put him in a pair of too-big green ones that we keep in the car as back-ups.

We do not go outside without a hat and sunglasses for our son. Arlo’s albinism causes a condition called Photophobia that makes his eyes extremely sensitive to sunlight (and even some bright indoor lighting). If you have ever experienced the discomfort of walking into a bright room after being in a dark one, you can get a small sense of what it is like for him. He can’t tell us what exactly he is experiencing yet but others with the condition describe it as often blinding and very painful to be outside on a bright day without sunglasses.

When he was a tiny infant, we noticed how he would try to shield his eyes and close them tightly whenever we took him out. It wasn’t until he was diagnosed with albinism that we realized just how uncomfortable he had been. Even now, should we find ourselves in a situation where it is bright out and he doesn’t have his glasses, he has learned to tuck his head into my shoulder to hide his eyes.

So we are diligent about hats (which provide some shade for his eyes) and sunglasses. We have several pairs, including some high-end ray-bans which under most circumstances seem frivilous to put on a toddler - but they have high quality, dark lenses and fit his face the best. He has always hated the strap-on type that most folks in the albinism community recommend, so we go with what works.

At the park on Saturday, his back-up sunnies didn’t fit his face well and would slip down his nose every few minutes. As a typical toddler, there are some days when he is just not in a mood to wear a hat or glasses, no matter how uncomfortable he is, but on this day, he was trying his best to keep them on.

I kept going over to help him adjust them and tried to tuck them into his hat to help him keep them on.

I heard the woman next to us say loudly enough for me to hear, “How sad that lady is forcing that little boy to wear all those stupid accessories. Just let him play.”

It made all of the blood rush to my face and tears fill my eyes. My first instinct was to go over there and give her a piece of my mind, but I didn’t. I took a deep breath, and then another, and collected myself. I watched Arlo and Everly chase each other around the playground while he kept pushing those poorly fitting glasses up his nose over and over again.

I wished he could play without all of those “stupid accessories” too but I was really proud that he was patient enough to try and keep them on, despite the fact that they were clearly an annoyance. We are teaching our son to advocate for himself and want to normalize any of the measures we have to take that might make his experience different from most children.

Arlo’s albinism means we have to be obsessive about sunscreen (we always carry a bottle with us) and very thoughtful about when and where we take him to play. We know all of the playgrounds in our area that are covered by big shade trees. We carry a pop up tent and an umbrella in the car at all times to provide extra shade if we are somewhere that doesn’t have any protection. While we want him to learn to think about how to protect his skin and eyes as he grows, we never want to make a big deal out of it. We want him to know that it is just a thing and that every single one of us has a “thing” whether others know it or not.

As for the lady on the playground… I suppose I should have confronted her and explained why he had to wear sunglasses in the first place. It would have made me feel validated and possibly made her feel ashamed for judging us - but instead I just felt compelled to ignore her. If there is anything parenthood has taught me, it’s to stand tall in what I know is right for my kids regardless of judgement from others.

The children were oblivious to the whole thing, but it made me think a lot about the confidence we hope to instill in them. Speak up when you want to, but don’t feel like you always need to explain yourself. We do what we have to do and we make the very most of what we’ve got.

And for me, the thing I got was two beautiful, happy kids, running around a playground and a little boy who makes his mama so proud every time he puts on his hat and glasses.

Love,

It has been a hard and heavy week and I am ready to hear the corporate America door close behind...

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 13:31:01 -0400

It has been a hard and heavy week and I am ready to hear the corporate America door close behind me and soak in the goodness of my family for a few days. Our plans include barefeet, returning overdue library books, tackling laundry, pulling weeds and balancing little bodies on the balls of my feet while they pretend to be airplanes. We plan to spoil our appetites with frozen yogurt before lunch and to take a trip to our favorite field in all of Raleigh for some wide open and wild galloping. A healthy mix of the have-to-do with the want-to-do should have me in top fighting shape before another work week begins.

Can I tell you two more things that I am ready for? Running my fingers through the wiley, strawberry blonde curls on my son’s head and listening to Dovie’s funny “what I did today” recap. Every work day, when I am away from them, I crave those simple, precious exchanges.

Friday afternoons are most definitely the worse - as the anticipation of getting home to them is enough to drive me crazy sometimes. Hurry up, weekend.

Love,

Everly Says... (The Awkward Moments Edition)

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 12:12:00 -0400

(To the nurse at our pediatricians office, while standing on the scale, and in the sweetest most innocent voice you can imagine)

Everly: When I….(pauses and blinks her sweet little doe eyes up at the nurse) …When I grow up, I get a knife!!

At this point, the nurse looks up at us like, what kind of devil spawn child do you have here? We had to explain the backstory. Everly knows that she is too little to use a knife when we eat, so she has begun to use it as a measurement of age. Like “Mama, is that girl old enough to use a knife?” It has become one of those off-limits things that she is eager to be old enough to do, like crossing the street without holding our hands or getting her ears pierced. Every time she sees me cutting up her food she says, “One day I’m going to do that myself!” It is sure to be a joyous day in our household when she finally gets to cut her own steak!

__________________

(To my grandfather, interrupting a conversation we were having about raising chickens. She walks straight up to him, puts her hands on his knee and says very loudly and confidently)

Everly: My favorite thing is to be nay-ted (naked) with the chickens!

My grandfather, who wears a hearing aid, looked over at me, unsure if he heard her right. I laughed and had to explain that last summer when we went to Vermont, Everly spent an afternoon playing in the garden among the chickens and for some reason, that experience -out of all we did that week, has stood out as a favorite memory. Whenever anyone brings up chickens, she has to talk about her naked afternoon.

Having been witness to the reactions she gets when she says these funny comments out of context makes me wonder just how much she is telling her preschool teachers that we are not there to explain! With all this knife infatuation and nudist chicken loving, it’s possible they think we are total wackos.

Has your child ever said anything out of context that left you fumbling to explain? Oh the mouths of babes!

Love,