MamaPie

Love is in the House

Even though it's a gray and rainy day here in Portland, Valentine's goodness abounds in the forms of handmade Valentines...drawn in pen, chalk and pancake batter, and in the form of the sweetest handmade photo book you've ever seen (with special thanks to Laura, the wonder-babysitter!).

  

 

 

Hope your Valentine's Day is filled with sweet & simple love.

Sick Week

Ezra and Reuben were sick all week. Today, Saturday, as I emerge from the house (with the sun shining, no less!), I feel like I an tentatively walking out of a hot, sticky parallel universe, where days and nights all run together, things move at a snail's pace (unless they flare up in a hot second) and, if you don't watch out, you're bound to get hit in the head with a flying quarter or to trip over a chain of eighteen scarves tied together.

My friend, Andrea, just walked in to the tea shop where I'm sitting: "What did you do all week?" she asked. Funny, I was just thinking about that. What did we do to fill all those hours? We read alot of books. I read alot of books as my boys pressed so tightly up against my sides that it was a logistical maneuver to turn the pages. We read some good ones--some old favorites and some new ones from the library and from my vintage children's book collection*. My favorites this week were: Tales of Mr. Pengachoosa, Recess at 20 Below and The Happy Birthday Present. We also started making Valentines--I got out pink, red and white construction paper, some scissors, glue and a heart punch and we sat around the kitchen table working. I kept the supplies out and we revisited this craft every day for awhile. I have this papercraft book and we learned about quilling, so we did alot of that for the Valentines. Reuben, who is almost 4, was really able to do the quilling by himself and liked it alot.

I sent them off to play or rest a few times a day, with varying success. When they did that, I hopped on the computer for a little bit and tried to keep up with cleaning, laundry and cooking.

They're finally fever-free and feeling better and I'm glad we're all stepping out of the house today, but it was sweet, too, and I'm sure I'll miss these kind of "lost weeks" when my boys are older.

 

*You can find some of my favorite vintage children's books in my etsy shop

Puzzling it Out

 

You know those times when your kids seem to be shifting into a new phase of play? It happens slowly and subtly around here, but then I look around and realize that they're playing with totally different kinds of things than they were a few months ago.

We've had one of those shifts lately and I'm still catching up and making adjustments around the "new normal." What are Ezra and Reuben interested in these days, at ages 6.25 and 3.0? Puzzles, building with blocks (this has been a constant, throughout lots of shifts and transitions) and games.

Ezra did lots of puzzles when he was three. One of my clearest memories of my pregnancy with Reuben is going to The Ugly Mug with Ezra every morning and snuggling on the couch there, reading books and doing little Melissa and Doug truck puzzles that we brought from home. We had some bigger puzzles that he would often do at home, too - a world map, a Richard Scarry bunny house and an alphabet train. I, never a puzzle person before, learned to love puzzles too, through sharing the joy with Ezra.

But, then, no puzzles, really, for a few years. And now...it's puzzle time again! This time with Reuben enjoying the same puzzles that Ezra enjoyed when he was three and with Ezra (and Mama!) enjoying 100 and even 200 piece puzzles. I am so happy puzzles have come back and have been having fun seeking them out at the Goodwill, our local consignment shop and our fantastic new neighborhood game store. Do you know of any great puzzles?

Important

Sometimes you catch the moment in just the right way.

The other morning, after I spilled my much looked forward to chai all over table at the coffee shop (the opposite of what happens at least once a week at the coffee shop: Reuben spilling his steamer all over the table), I scooped Ruby off of his chair, so the rushing tide of chai didn't spill onto him. I went over to the counter and asked for a rag and sopped the hot brown liquid (that had tasted so good! whose caffeine I rely on to wake me up in the morning! but I didn't want to fork over the criminal price of $4 for another one) off of the table. Then, I got down on the floor and mopped up the chai, along with lots of dirt and debris, all while keeping up a calm narration of what I was doing to Ruby, who was on the verge of completely freaking out.

Once I was done with the cleaning bit, and had returned the rag to the counter, it was Reuben's turn. Sobbing and screaming, he told me that I had ruined his "paper." His paper was a raggedy insert from the local weekly alternative paper, that had some drawings of super heroes on it (not that Ruby has any idea who super heroes are), that he had found on abandoned on the table when we had arrived at the coffee shop.

"Oh," I said "let's fix that up sweetheart." And we walked over to where the napkins are, and I carefully carefully, as if I were drying off some famous historical documents, patted dry each page of that random booklet that, at that moment, meant something to my boy. Ruby watched carefully and then joined in helping me blot dry each page. "There, sweetie, it's all dry and good." And he was happy and relieved, and I thought - this is how we learn to take care of what is important to us.

More Jam

This time with the little guy helping too.

Scooping out the honey/pectin mixture is a sticky job.

More evidence of my oft-repeated guideline for happy, fun cooking with kids: make peace with the mess.

But, hey, you can always follow the group cooking with some group cleaning (where the guideline is make peace with the inefficiency and make peace with the fact that you may have do some of it again, solo, at another time).

And then...proud:

Into the Rose

At Ezra's school, the classrooms are named for flowers. The nursery room is The Bluebell. In The Bluebell, all is good: the pace is slow, the sounds are quiet, there are lots of pillows and silks and sheepskins. Each morning, when we would cross over the old knotty branch marking the threshold of the Bluebell, we would be greeted by sweet smiles from Miss Anne-Marie and Miss Laura, and, after Ezra would get his soft wool slippers on, one of them would gently bring him over to the big bowl of warm lavender water and help him "warm his hands." There were six friends in the Bluebell room, and two loving teachers. During rest time, Miss Anne-Marie would rub their feet.In the card I wrote to Miss Anne-Marie at the end of last year, I told her that I could not imagine a sweeter, more nurturing or loving entrance to the world of school - to the world of life away from home - than the one that she had provided for Ezra. I will be eternally grateful to her for that. •••••Yesterday, Ezra had his first day of Kindergarten; his first day in The Rose. Without any advocating from us, Ezra ended up being placed in The Rose, pretty unanimously considered the most desirable of the three Kindergartens. The main teacher, Miss Sonia, is beloved by all the parents whose children have been in her class. So, there's that.Ezra had such a great nursery school experience, and the Rose is right next door to the Bluebell, and he will play in the same playground that he did last year, and one of his good friends from the Bluebell is in the Rose, as well as a good friend from the neighborhood, so he hadn't expressed any anxieties about starting Kindergarten, until yesterday morning.As we were getting ready to leave home, he said, "I'm scared." "Of course you're scared, sweetheart," I said, while giving him a tight hug. We all loaded into the car and listened to some Beethoven as we drove to school. "I'm scared," Ezra said again, and Andrew and I tried to both support his feelings and to be positive, trying hard to get it right (oh, the tyranny of the parenting books!). When we got there, we all walked down the hall, past the Bluebell, and entered the Rose, Ezra holding onto my leg. Miss Sonia was bustling around, and showed us where to put Ezra's things - there is a locker in the hall for rain gear, and a cubby in the room for his lunch basket and other things. Miss Elizabeth, the assistant teacher, sat with a few children at a table where they were cutting fruit. She briefly said hello. Ezra was brave, and he didn't want us to go, and he wanted to know when his friend Gabriel would be there. I, too, was feeling impatient for Gabriel to arrive. And, I was really missing the Bluebell. I was missing the warm welcome and the small room and the feeling of Ezra being tucked under a wise and loving wing. We stood in the middle of the big Rose room and I tried to figure out a way to comfort and anchor my boy. I found a seat at the table and asked Miss Elizabeth if he could sit there; I said hello to another mom and her girl and asked the girl's name, trying to speedily find a friend. Then, Andrew motioned to me that it was time for us to go. I gave Ezra a hug and a kiss and reminded him that every stitch in the placemat and napkin I had made for him to use said "I love you, I love you, I love you," as I had told him a few days before, trying to tangibly leave some of our love there in the room with him.And, then, Andrew and Reuben and I left. We left our Ezra at Kindergarten and stumbled out, disoriented and stunned, three of us instead of four, into the bright morning light.

Fun: No Assembly Required

One of the things I love about motherhood is how ordinary events can turn into adventures. Obviously, sometimes this is a serious job hazard - when you just want to get a few groceries and the trip to the supermarket turns into an "adventure" of the not-good kind. But, what I'm talking about today is the good kind of adventures. The ones where the trip to the post-office results in some adorable conversations between Ezra and the various people waiting in line with us; where we have a nice chat with the postal worker and she gives Ezra some mailing stickers and a "Fragile" (oh sweet irony) stamp on his hand. And then, what the hell, the ice cream shop is right across the street, let's go get some. And before we know it, we've had a whole afternoon outing. That's the kind of adventure I'm talking about.

Yesterday, we had that kind of adventure. At IKEA. It was rainy and the house was already such a pit that I knew if we spent any large amount of time there, the mess would reach insane proportions, so we needed somewhere to go. I am not an IKEA hound, like some people I know. In fact, I think that yesterday was my third trip there ever, in my whole life. One selling point, in my mind, was that it is near the airport, so we were sure to see some low-flying airplanes, which now delight both Ezra and Reuben (A-BA! complete with upward pointing). So, off the big box we went.

After watching some airplanes from the parking lot, we went inside. We stopped first to look at the kids' play area. Kids can play there while their parents shop. I didn't expect Ezra to want to go in there by himself and he didn't. We talked about how when Reuben gets older they can go there together, and he liked that idea. We got Reuben settled in a little cart and I gave Ezra the task of getting our big IKEA bag and hanging it on the cart hooks. We headed off to find the elevator, where Ezra got to press the buttons, Reuben marvelled at the sensation of moving up and we all took in just how big the elevator was.

We got off on the second floor and I felt my "I love to shop" juices start flowing. I had to temper them with my thoughts of: "I have to be a good role model (not a crazy consumer)" and "Be realistic, you're not going to get much shopping done". So, we talked about all the things we saw, took Reuben out of the cart so he and Ezra could play with the tents and tunnels and chairs in the kids section and the boys tried out the various beds and cribs.

After a while, we headed over to the cafe where Ezra loved sliding his tray along and we got a great table by the window. We ate some french fries, Elderberry juice and "Uncrustables" (I didn't even read the ingredient list on the package of this peanut butter and jelly sandwich, because there are two things obviously wrong right off the bat: a lengthy ingredient list on a pb&j and the fact that it comes in a sealed package), which Ezra declared "delicious".

Then came more adventures including two bathroom trips, a kids computer game, finding a shovel to buy for Reuben and some scissors to buy for Ezra and, finally, Ezra got to scan our purchases.

By that time, I could tell we were all a little crazy from so much time spent in the store, so we spent a little while outside, again watching the planes and then, back in the car to head home - all three of us happy and tired.

Oh, and see Ezra's pants? I made those!

In Summary

Some friends (you know who you are!) and I have been playing a sort of game where we attempt to describe our children in three words.

I find this really hard to do, but here's my best shot:

Ezra at 4 years old:
Observant
Curious
Conscientious

Reuben at 9 months:
Light-hearted
Social
Determined

Both: Pretty Darn Cute.

Now, you play!

Creative Gift Giving

My Mother's Day began at 4:30am when Ruby threw up in my hair. The vomit was quickly followed by a massive poop blowout all over the diaper table, his onesie and my hands. Happy Mother's Day, indeed. Through all this - and the morning that followed, replete with chaos, fussiness (from both boys), no milk for the pancake batter and the backache that is my constant companion these days, I felt content. Thankful to be on this motherhood journey with these two wonderful boys - one that I know better than the other - I'm looking forward to getting to know the little one more and more and with Andrew, my partner in crime, laughter and exhaustion (and, yes, more frequent arguing these days, thanks to that exhaustion).

Again and again I feel like motherhood is a chrysalis, a kiln, an oyster - a place where tension and difficulty and despair and more challenges than I believe I can handle take place and, always, I make it through (sometimes with more gracefulness than others) and come out the other side more refined, different and, occasionally, with a pearl woven into my hair. And this happens over and over again in the course of a single day.

I told Ezra a little while ago that I am so happy to be his mother and that when he was born I became a mama. I thanked him for that gift.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mamas out there!

Slam!

Okay - 10 days out and I totally hit the proverbial wall today. I spent an hour or so sobbing on and off, got ragingly angry at Andrew and just felt generally horrible, crazy, despairing and all those other post-partum dark side kinds of things.

My sleep has been terrible - and not because of Reuben. So far, he's only waking twice a night to nurse. But, me, I'm up all the time: having trouble falling asleep between nursings, waking up early, worrying about when he'll wake up and occasionally being woken up by Ezra (whose sleep has also gone to hell).

I'm trying to remember that this will pass and trying to have some perspective (and trying not to yell anything at Andrew that I will regret). But perspective is hard won when you haven't had more than 6 hours sleep at night (and 6 was the best night) in 11 days.

On a cheerier note, here are some photos of sweet baby Reuben:





I think butter yellow is his color.