Things to Make - Kaleidograph Stencils

A few weeks ago I posted about how much fun we have making patterns with Kaleidograph Flora and Kaleidograph Crystal (click here for past post). Lately, we've been using the cards as stencils with watercolor crayons - mixing the colors and shapes to create interesting patterns. A fun, easy playdate activity too.

What have you been making lately?

Things to Do - A Bad Day

A few days ago P ate part of a chocolate cookie with peanut chips and we landed in the emergency room. After an explosion of hives, some minor breathing issues, and other (luckily) small signs of a reaction the hospital released us, making me super grateful for - epipens (we didn't need to use one, but i'm glad we always have a pen with us), doctors, steroids, and benadryl. and also for tvs in the emergency room because i found it difficult to entertain a 5.5 year old and a very destructive toddler for 2.5 hours on my own.

i could go through the negligent chain of events that lead to the "cookie" incident, but I really don't want to rehash it. if any fault lies in this situation (and there's always fault somewhere) then it all rests with me. and i'm having a bad time with that.

having a child with a severe allergy is tricky and every parent handles it a different way. i know parents who micromanage everything, who shadow their kid's every move at birthday parties and playdates. who "bubble" their children. and i get why they do this, especially for airborne allergies. because even if i sound crazy to parents of "normal kids", when you realize a peanut can kill your child daily life becomes filled with minefields. where other parents see the reeses' logo, i see rat poison. trail mix appears as a bag of mini-explosives, ready to kill on impact. you see protein, i see death. it's a war. a long, drawn out daily war. and i have won some battles, but last week I lost one (the battle, not the war).

I tried. I try. I make mistakes.

This is tough. parenting is tough. one one hand, the goal at the end is to have them leave, right? to function without us. to raise strong, independent, happy people. and on this topic I'm a big free-range believer. but i also want them alive. on one side there's the bubble (lock 'em up) and on the other death, sandwiched between a world of grays. too many greys. especially in a society where every move is questioned - why didn't you yell at your kid? why do you always yell at your kid? always smile! don't raise a brat! make them happy! make them independent! never let them see you cry! take control! you are the adult!

lately i'm feeling like we're all so busy either being perfect or striving for perfection that maybe we need to talk about mistakes more. maybe i need to talk about mistakes more.

One last story - as we left the house for the emergency room - me trying not to panic, P saying "it's okay mommy, i just feel weird, but it's okay," t out of control as always - as i'm shutting the door behind us, it was P who called out "you have my epipen mommy, right? just in case. it's important. make sure you have it." And i realized that even if my bubbles have holes, at least I have a daughter who is doing a great job navigating the minefields on her own.

Places to Go (Vacation) - Denver Girls' Weekend

Returning to Denver always feels a little bittersweet. Even though I moved away over seven years ago, I've never gotten over Denver, with its mountain backdrop beckoning adventure and new possibilities. Dan likes to remind me that even if we lived there now our lives wouldn't be the same as in our twenties - we wouldn't spend our weekends backpacking long distances with three kids in tow (though kudos to the families who manage it), instead we would purchase the "easy" trail books, searching for destinations under two miles at most. Plus, Dan would still work long hours, those things don't change with city (though we'd all like to believe they do), and he would need to travel more for work.

Perhaps he's right, perhaps my love for Denver is just love of my younger, freer self. But still, so many close friends still live there (though they've all opted for houses in the suburbs rather than apartments in the city) and they all have kids approximately the same ages as my kids. Whenever I visit, I picture our children growing up together at mosquito-less barbeques (unlike Arlington, Denver is almost bug free, yet another reason to live there).

Oh well, enough reflection, we had a great weekend (minus some hiccups on my part) - a crazy pedicab ride to the Black Eyed Peas, dinner at Vesta (my favorite restaurant ever), drinks in bars with chandeliers, pedicures and wine on the patio (with mountain views), bbq hamburgers and trampolines, and (as always) so much catching up to do.

It's nice to have a short getaway every few months. I read a whole book (The Tiger's Wife: A Novel) and slept in every morning (the two hour time difference made that easy). On Monday, I arrived home to tons of drawings/gifts, a super clean house (still not sure how Dan managed to keep it THAT clean with all three kids), homemade strawberry shortcake, a wonderful family, and Mad Men on tivo. Reminding me that life's not about where you are, it's about who you're with. always.



My first pedicab ride and now I'm a true believer. Like a mini-roller coaster through the night.



When I fly, I always find it crazy that above the clouds the day can be perfect, but then you land to a cold, grey, miserable afternoon.

Things to Read - Blexbolex's Seasons

We often check out Blexbolex's picture book, Seasons, from the library. The kids like the pictures and it seems to help in teaching them new words. Yet, probably because of the lack of prose, I never paid very close attention to the book as a whole.

The other day, when I finally took the time to peruse every page, I was awed by how the book tells a story through illustration. Rather than divide itself into four sections, the book goes back and forth through several iterations of the seasons, incorporating highlights (harvest, flowering, discovery, picnic, abundance) and lowlights (allergy, traffic jam, torrent, sunburn, avalanche). A gorgeous diary of the passing of time. Now that I've finally taken notice of it, I'm a little obsessed.

Things to Do - The Ebb and the Flow

Tonight as the kids and I walked around the neighborhood, P (as always) insisted on picking up stones from a neighbor's gravel driveway, a treasure hunt for the most beautiful pebble she can find. The neighbor, an older man who I had never met before, came out of the house. Apprehensively (did he even like kids? what would he think of us lingering on his property?) I told him how much my kids love his driveway, how they can't pass by without running some stones through their fingers, marveling at the differences between the tiny rocks. He replied that "other children" had grown up in the house and had loved the stones too. He then bent down, found three glistening snow-white pebbles, and handed them to each of my kids. They smiled back like it was Xmas day.

Throughout the rest of the walk I thought about how our patterns change with the seasons in ways that I sometimes fail to notice. In winter, we spend most of our late afternoons in the kitchen - coloring and cooking. But in spring the children lose interest in the art cabinet. Tonight, before our walk, I was wondering how best to entertain everyone during the pre-dinner witching hour when T said "we need to go for a walk." So the girls created bouquets out of fallen flowers, twirled helicopter seeds, and climbed on the corner's "big rocks", while T and I photographed the coming of evening.

WEDNESDAY LINKS:

*I'm not much of a runner, but the color run looks so fun I really want to try. It comes to DC on September 22nd, any one want to go? (click here for the full list of cities and dates).

*How to Get Out of a Creative Rut (a great list, even if you're not in a creative rut, especially the Ira Glass clip).

*After I finished reading Just Kids, i really enjoyed watching this interview with Patti Smith (esp. some of her quotes after minute 46:01, just wonderful).

*Mansome. I can't wait.



Our close neighbors have a beehive, suburban cool.