My Longest Year

things we've handed down: solitude

Maybe it's just her personality.  Or my idle parenting philosophy.  Or both.  Whatever the reason, my E. loves her alone-ness just as much as she likes to spend time with me.  When she was just a tot and J. was deployed, I'd bring her to my room when she woke up and shut the door and let her play while I rested for a while longer.  She'd scribble on some paper.  Talk to herself.  Read her books.  Sing.  Scribble some more.  She's always been able to entertain herself.  And now that she's a little older, that translates into lots of story-telling--between her Barbies, between two sticks, between her feet--whatever props are available--but always for the benefit of no one but herself.  She loves it if you tune in, but she's just as happy to be alone in her own world.  There was a time when I worried about that a little. Am I paying enough attention to her?  Does she feel loved?  Should I be doing more with her?  Basically, Am I screwing up my child? 

I still worry about that a little, but for the most part I've come to appreciate it.  After all, I was very similar growing up.  I always had my nose in a book, or in a craft, or some other project, be it alphabetizing my books or rearranging my room or planning assignments - yes, assignments - for my little sister.

I think its a healthy skill to be able to be alone in our own company sometimes.  To tune out the clutter and noise and busy-ness, retreat to ourselves, and just be - creative, at peace, in prayer, or contemplation - whatever we need.  Solitude can take on so many forms.  I think of sewing, rock climbing, thrifting, jogging, blogging, or in my daughter's case: a moment on the porch with a Cinderella figurine.

I hope she'll always be this happy by herself.  She'll need to be.  Right now I govern most moments of her day with routines and guidance and Hello Kitty bandaids and kisses.  But there will come a time when I can't quiet the noise for her--that rattling of things and people and tasks, expectations and even heartbreak. When I can't do it for her, I hope she can do it for herself.  With a little time by herself.

Links of Interest:  The Benefits of Alonetime from Psychology Today, Yours, Mine, and the Hours: an article for Single Parents, Solitude and Silence as Spiritual Disciplines

things we've handed down: hernandez family enchiladas

One of my wedding gifts from mom were two recipe boxes full of recipes from friends and family - everything from my sister's favorite pork chops to baby meals to bath salts.  A family favorite is a recipe that my Grandma on my dad's side handed down to my mom, who handed it down to me: the Hernandez family enchiladas.  You can see my copy is tattered and stained - a true sign of a great recipe.  I like that the recipe uses measurements like "some" and "a few" and "till it runs out."  I'm making them this Tres de Mayo for our monthly supper club and thought I'd share with you:

Hernandez Family Enchiladas

• 1 1/2 - 2 lbs ground beef, browned and drained
• Finely chopped onion (to taste)
• Chopped black olive
• Corn tortillas
• Oil for frying
• 2 19 oz cans enchilada sauce
• 2-3 c. shredded cheese
• 2 pair of tongs; one for oil and one for enchilada sauce

Mix first three ingredients together and set aside to cool.  Fry corn tortillas in hot oil a few seconds until just starting to cook (do not let get crispy). As you remove the tortilla, drip-drain excess oil over pan. Slip tortilla into pan of enchilada sauce, careful not to get sauce on your "oil tongs."  Repeat for several tortillas.

Using second pair of tongs, remove soaked tortillas to a plate. Fill with handful of meat mixture and handful of shredded cheese.  Roll and place in glass dish, seam side down. Continue this process until dish is full or until meat mixture runs out.

Top enchiladas with generous spoonsful of leftover sauce (pay particular attention to corners), then top again with shredded cheese. Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes.

*********************

These are fun to make with a friend in assembly-line fashion, and can actually go rather quickly.  I used to make them for military functions with my friend Lacey, who knows the recipe by heart herself now.  It's funny watching someone with a Southern drawl whip up some enchiladas.

ETA: I've corrected the amount of sauce needed for these (2 10 oz. cans would probably not be enough)   

e being good

E. is the true product of a mommy who blogs, and, therefore, takes lots of pictures.  Of everything.  And anything.  Everything is something that could be important.  Every once in a while she'll ask me to take a picture of her.  This is a picture of Evyn "being good."  No, seriously.  That's what she asked for - "Take a picture of me being good, Mommy."  So here it is: Evyn being good.

And here is another very important picture.  Of Ariel, per Evyn.  Actually, I'm quite proud of it.  It's one of the first pictures she's drawn that could really look like someone.  And I love her interpretation - especially that she knows Ariel is basically orange with pinkish red hair.

And since I've now gone down this whole everything-my-daughter-draws-is-important-enough-to-share road with you, here is her roller coaster.  And ladybug. Which she actually hates in nature but wanted to draw.

 

things we've handed down: the littlest valentine

This is the sweet outfit that once belonged to me (or maybe my sister?).  A little red and ric-rac outfit handmade with love by Mom.  Isn't she the cutest?  You have to ignore the Roseanne Barr-ish keep-the-couch-clean blanket that we sometimes keep on the furniture (and that I forget to move before taking pictures, sigh).  She also has Mommy's childhood habit of sucking her fingers:   

Evyn wore this same outfit several years ago (note the same blanket thrown over the couch):

things we've handed down: toes

Do you ever blog in your head?  Around the house, while cooking, or shopping, or doing some other mundane thing?  I do.  These "posts" usually don't make it to the blog.  Recently, though, I've been mentally cataloging a list of images that depict a running theme.  I've started photographing them and I have a small collection--they're things we've handed down.  If you're a parent, you notice and muse about these things, too, I'm sure.  But I want to capture it here.  So from time to time you'll see them posted.  Maybe you can appreciate them; maybe they'll wind up being posts only this mother could love...Either way, I want my girls to have them.

Things We've Handed Down: Toes

Both of my girls have my big toe.  Crazy.  Eighteen months combined in pregnancy and the thanks I get?  They came out looking like their father.  But they have my long fingers and big, spoon-shaped toe, which, actually originally came from my mother.  You can't really see our spoon toes here, but I love this picture of the Toesies game we play. 

w.i.p.

Thank you for the many kind and supportive comments you've left.  I have to admit I was nervous about sharing the ugly stuff on a blog that's usually pretty.  When J. was deployed it felt so much more justified to sometimes blog about depression, anxiety, and the I just can't feelings.  I didn't expect to have such dark days again and it took me by surprise. 

I am a work definitely still in progress.  When the therapist told us "this is a process, not an event" I was both peeved (why can't this just be over, already?) and comforted.  Because I know I will have setbacks; but hopefully, it won't be the end of the world, even if it feels like it for a time.

Speaking of progress: about four hundred and fifty-two years ago, I mean, last year sometime, I said I was going to make a quilt. I know nothing about quilting, and to be honest, don't have a  desire to know all the ins and outs of real quilting, but I had a very specific picture of a pinwheel blanket in mind and decided it couldn't be that hard.  Until I sat down to actually figure it out.  I had no clue where to start and so the project was shelved, until I ran into this handy little reference via the Sew Mama Sew blog a few weeks ago.

And so now, this quilt is officially a w.i.p.  Now, I'm blogging about this project in the hopes that I will, in fact, complete it, but if it isn't finished in a timely manner and any of you ever comes back to me and asks about this quilt, I will have to quote some silly business about it being a process and not an event...

monkeys on the bed

on the mend

I once had a professor at my very-strict Church of Christ college who said that he thought he existed for the students who hung on the fringes of our school.  He was a reformed partier who married his sweetheart after an unexpected pregnancy decades earlier.  My professor shared these stories with us because he thought students should know there was no such thing as a perfect professor, parent, Christian, or student.  And that making mistakes didn’t mean we wouldn’t be successful or blessed.

a bit o' green

Last night I finally finished this lap blanket for E.  It worked up rather quickly compared to the one I'd done for baby A. recently.  I love this color green and it's everywhere right now (have you seen the porcelain cups at Starbucks?).  It's Lion Brand Cotton Ease "lime" -- a name I just don't agree with.  I'm constantly renaming paints and yarns and fabric swatches in catalogs.  This is most definitely a springy leaf green; can't they see that?  Lime is more neon and 80's, isn't it?

Unfortunately, E. wasn't as excited and appreciative of her lovingly-made blanket as I was hoping, but I was prepared for that.  I guess it's hard to expect a three year-old to get jazzed about crochet.   

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

p.s.: I bought our family name sign (pictured in the previous post) from a store on ebay a couple of years ago.  Do an ebay search in their stores for "family name sign" and you will find quite a variety of options. Ebay search.

p.s. #2: The pattern is the minty one pictured on the back of this little pattern book I found next to all the yarn at Michaels.  I didn't like their picot edging so I made up my own (I can never follow anything exactly).

I used to think he looked hot in uniform...

But washing dishes with a baby strapped to him trumps the army gear by a long shot.

because I couldn't resist...

I am quite sure that these pictures aren't as terribly interesting and beautiful to you as they are to this proud mommy, but that doesn't keep me from sharing them.  She's now four months old.  And precious as ever.  Notice how her toes curl into a sort of "hello"?

I realized today as my computer was whirring and struggling to process even the simplest program that it may be a bit overloaded under the weight of the bamillion and forty-two pictures I've piled onto it.  Which begs the question: what is the best method for storing digital pictures?  A separate hard drive?

lavender bottle cuff

So I think the verdict is in.  As far as actual uses go, my bottles are probably destined to be itty bitty bud vases.  But as for making them prettier - I liked someone's crochet idea.  And here it is - a nifty cuff.  I used a lightweight cotton yarn and a couple of buttons from my thrift store stash.  It was a rather quick and gratifying little project, which made me realize I need to do more easy crochet like this.

I see bracelets and coasters in my future...

now what?

Do you ever see something and feel drawn to it for its possibilities?  You don't have any specific craft or art in mind, but you know that somehow your little something can become something even prettier?  I do this all the time in some of the most ordinary places - receipt tablets and paper tags at the office supply store, vintage scarves at the antique store, bits of old paper brochures and leaflets from the junk drawer of someone's estate, jars and bottles and old cans...

I saw these at a kitchen wares booth at the flea market recently.  Usually I resist the urge to collect these things unless I have a very specific creative idea in mind.  But these were tiny and fifty cents and I had to have them.  So I bought three.  Now what?  They're small - about three inches tall, and the opening is quite small.  So what can I do with them?  Surely there's some Martha-like craft these little jars are destined for.  And while we're on the topic of jars, I've been collecting all my jars in various sizes, unwilling to throw them away and unable to truly recycle them.  I feel like there's some beautiful thing that can be done with these, too.  If it were Christmas, I'd use them as votives to light the porch (an idea I came across in Hallmark magazine).  But its not Christmas, so what else do you suggest?   

baby book: 3 months

 

Three months.  Wow.  In some ways, it's hard to believe so many weeks have passed.  And then again, it seems like a million years since we've all felt rested.  It's true what they say; every child really is different.  At this stage, my firstborn was sleeping from 10:30 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. without interruption, and her naps were long and frequent.  Our newest little bundle - not so much.  Every nap is accompanied by a few hail marys that she'll actually fall asleep.  And when she does drift off, the time is spent nervously glancing at the clock every fifteen minutes wondering how long she'll stay asleep.  Whatever it is you're about to suggest, I'm sure I've tried it.  And here is what I've come to:  I'm accepting that she is her own little person, with her own temperment and needs.  And as long as she is, in fact, getting sleep, my time would be better spent managing my expectations than managing her sleep schedule.

She has a sweet spirit, serious expression, and she's discovering her voice.  She finds Evyn fascinating, and loves to watch her dance.  Patty-cake and Little Piggy are favorite games and she doesn't care if her face gets wet in the bath (Evyn has hated water above the shoulders since birth).  Most people don't think she looks more like me or my husband; instead they think she looks most like Big Sister.  I agree.  Now if she'd only sleep like her Big Sister... ;)   

the one that didn't make the cut

It's totally true what my photographer-friend says about pictures.  You have to take quite a few to get that "one" -- like the picture of my two darlings in the previous post.  What photo galleries and pretty blogs never show are the forty-two other pictures of the pastry/antique treasure/handcrafted thingy/cute-sleeping-children that are now sitting in the computer's recycle bin (okay, pics of kiddos probably don't wind up in the bin). 

As a blogger, I sometimes chuckle at the process--especially the matter of what I choose to photograph.  Stripped of the context of blogging, I'd have some explaining to do (after all, I'm not a photographer, stylist, or designer).  My non-blogging husband doesn't flinch anymore when he sees me hunched over something like a plate of biscotti with my camera for ten minutes.  But sometimes I'm aware of how personal and somewhat awkward the business of blogging can be when I imagine explaining to someone outside the blogging community why I've just whipped out my camera for diapers or pumpkins or file folders, for heaven's sake.  The only thing more hilarious is the sheer number of pictures I wind up taking of said diapers and pumpkins and file folders.

Of course, in the end all the hunching and posing and tweaking and obsessive choosing from dozens of pictures for the sake of telling a story is perfectly worth it.  Now please tell me I'm not the only blogging dork who's privately (well, now publicly) mused about this.

eta: obviously, I actually love the above picture - it's just not the one that I wound up picking for the birth announcement.   

lucky me

This was one of those moments where the sun and the stars align for a truly Kodak moment.  I was much more lax in getting out birth announcements for A than for E.  I am incredibly picky about pictures and feared there would be no way I was going to get a good picture of the two of them for A.'s announcement.  Between a lucky moment with A. deciding to fall asleep in a room with great light, and my incredibly obedient E. who stayed perfectly quiet and relaxed so as not to wake the baby, I got my now-favorite picture of the two of them.  They're a pretty pair.   

So far my favorite part is watching them make each other smile.  E. likes to tickle and kiss little A., and A. will gaze in complete awe of her big sister's expressive face.  Lucky, lucky me.