doula journey

me with doula bean#1

bags are packed...massage oils are ready...water has broken...soon off to the hospital with mama#2! very excited to support a dear friend today during birth- and wanted to send a quick thank you to everyone for the last-minute kid watching, the party cancelling understanding, and the endless support you've given me on my journey to become a doula. i feel like it's my birthday and i'm about to open the most incredible gift.

i heart my life.

magically delicious mama time

i've been a missing spirit in bloggie land...not by choice so much as my kids have been absolutely insane and busy eating my soul all waking hours of the day. especially joey. he's at that special age that i like to call "birth control."

can i just say how much i love my mama time? how much hanging out and chatting with other mamas feeds me and keeps me energized and refreshed? this past week has involved some much needed mama time, filled with conversations and spills (figuratively and literally) and endless cups of tea and coffee. even my peeps who aren't mamas still feel my mama-time soul- even when the toys are all over the place and joey is climbing on the couch about to jump off the arm of it and gracie has dropped the handle to the toilet inside the toilet and someone is eating crumbs off the floor- with all the frenetic energy, i still try to manage to find solace in the fact that this is what life is all about. the frenetic energy. and then the tide of quiet that rolls in when the house goes to sleep. and i sit and have a glass of wine and close my eyes.

thank you to s. and your beans for feeding my soul today! as gray and i reiterated many times before you left, you are welcome here anytime!

this afternoon is going to be filled with my beans and two twin beans- more kid-related chaos up in my hood! anyone want to come over and play?

this weekend was magically delicious: filled with steak tips and fresh green beans and crossword puzzles and a dozen donuts and road trips and my favorite restaurant and morrocan beef stew and steamy falafel sandwiches and salty salty french fries and checking off to-do's and libraries and harmonicas and dance parties and candles and endless supplies of tea lights and meatloaves (the plural of meatloaf, anyone? because you know i just had to make two), and prebriefing and debriefing and goldfish crackers and watching gracie grow up before our eyes and a new salad spinner.

these are the things that feed me. i happen to be adamantly in favor of flavor.

humpalicious

i heart earth mothery days when everything seems to be aligned and i have an endless supply of patience and i actually fold laundry and do the food shopping and take the kids to the library for playgroup and don't freak out when joey bites my arm off and it's wednesday and the meal is ready to be prepped and the dessert is in the freezer waiting to be eaten and my bathroom is dirty but i don't care and i've got on a big sari-like scarf that i wrap my kids heads in because it's so cold and the house fills up with the smell of nag champa and gray is busy on the floor sorting through photobooth strips and i breastfeed in public and not give a damn what anyone thinks and the milk explodes in the grocery bag and drips all over the house but who cares, because i'm an earth mama today and my legs can go unshaved and i can have seasame seeds in my teeth, but i've got a stack of strawberry shortcake valentines day cards to do with my girl and lots of milk to produce for my guy, and some serious lovin' to do.

quotes from grace this morning in bed:

"mama, you're a whale. you go to work and you massage dolphins."

and

"mama, i see your fanny. i wanna go scuberdiving in there."

and then yesterday's quote of the day:

"mama, i'm picking my boogers. they are WICKED delicious. seriously. go ahead. try some. try some mama, you'll LOVE them."

singin' in the snow

another resolution: sing more, sing loud, especially in the car, especially with the kids

more self portraiters, go here.

things i'm loving on, or 'what i did for the past four days':

candles in the bathroom, quiches with spinach and fresh onions, coffee and visits and presents and hanging with my girl and my two favorite twin shorties, working, buffalo chicken calzone with blue cheese dip, massaging nice people and imagining healing their bodies with my hands, banging in the car, listening to live jazz music, making coffee ring circles in my journal, writing secret messages back in forth in a loud and uncrowded room, making stacks of used creamers and sugar packets, endlessly taking pictures of minutiae, finishing up things on my lists, simultaneously procrastinating, sugar-crusted blueberry muffins, knitting like a madwoman and messing up all my projects because i hate math and measuring, finishing the best book i've read in a long time ('the birth house' by ami mckay), treating myself and hub to regina spektor's new album and ayun halliday's 'dirty sugar cookies', listening to my family play our new harmonica, making a huge batch of spicy chili and then watching joey eat it like it was the best thing on earth, seeing tab at her book reading for kids and taking gracie on a girl date with tingy, reading tab's new unreleased books and using the new bookmark that she crafted (thanks! i love it!), my red fuzzy blanket, deep forest music bringing me back to good times, cherry wheat sam adams (amanda, i SO went out and bought some last night after i read your post and it's the best thing that ever happened to me after 7pm! thanks for the deeeelicious suggestion!), people taking caramel, smelling the newest bean mary jane today and holding her close and remembering her birth, being enveloped by shorties, shorties all around, reading 'alice in wonderland' and wondering about all the drug references, stacks of books to be read and piles of yarn to be knit and bottles of glue to be stuck and valentines to be written and love all around in the biggest of ways.

gingerbreasts

in our house, even the gingerbread cookies are anatomically correct. and they breastfeed.

baking helper girl in the anatomically-correct-gingerbread sweatshop

and just because the kit (thank you shaun and sara!) came with these cinnamon hearts, we had to put them to good use.

i hope my kids don't turn out wrecked. happy monday. here's to a new week!

photobooth friday: obsession evidence

photobooth friday obsession: exhibit A- layers upon layers of photobooth strips on my inspiration board. what's a mama to do with all of them? mount them in a journal or keep them displayed? you should see my fridge. my obsession is out of control.

also...gray is always good for classic inappropriate quotes. and messing around with fairy tales and stories. and making them dirty. my favorite of the week so far...

"georgie porgie
sat on a pie
and birds came out
and flew up his fannycooloo." 1/10/07


happy weekend you beautiful souls.

life is hell, and good

today is just one of those days. it really has the potential to be something fantastic and shiny and wonderful (read: postbedtime and postdrinkies) but right now it's just stuck in that afternoon purgatory time before the fun begins. today was a comedy of errors- and while i was laughing in the begining of it all, right now i just want the night to begin, and this crazy day to end.

basically, to make a really long and painful story short, my car broke down in subzero weather, and i had to run around looking for power steering fluid. luckily my brother was with me and waited in the car and called all the appropriate people for help- but he was also in the car with my two screaming-bloody-murder children which made said phonecalls quite difficult. i was bumming because a couple of weeks ago i spent $500 getting my whole steering column fixed, and here i am, stuck in demoulas' parking lot (which grace proceeded to same 8,000 times...demoulas, demoulas, demoulas- say it...it's a strange word) with the SAME problem. wheel not moving. snotty kids crying. mamas eyes watering out of her head after running two miles in the burning cold to target to buy all this fluid that subsequently came pouring out of the car onto the parking lot.

can i just say that i love my brother? and my dad? and using their AAA? and through it all, the kids really were rockstars. because it was cold today. and again, my mechanic (i just think it would be hysterical is jimmy read this but there's no chance in hell). who fixed my car when it was towed to him for ten dollars. my bill was freakin' ten dollars!

wait, my life is good. i can't complain. ten dollars!

through it all i made just to transport the delicious car-full of groceries and drinkies from one car to the other, making sure they arrived safely at my home for tonight. i have my priorities.

my final thoughts: grace has a serious obsession with KT Tunstall. and the song "suddenly i see". she was on ellen today, and grace had to watch. and she knows all the words and sings along (thanks for the cd auntie s!). is it bad that i allow to her say 'hell' because it's in the song? she is only three. i explained that 'hell' is a bad word, but she's allowed to say it as long as she's singing KT Tunstall. talk about high concept.

a weekend of food and fullness

this weekend was filled with the best sorts of things: pajamas and slippers, mapley appley bacon, cinnamon swirled french toast made on electric griddles, watching a kids' movie and reading stacks and stacks of books that i grew up with, library book sales where i got a big brown paper bag full of children's books and records for $1, fresh city salad bar and those delicious free cinnamon and sugared pita chips, homemade (by the husband) corn chowder and ginger butternut squash soup, cranking up the heat and not leaving the house for two days, date nights with thumbelina for gelato and uncomfortable borders moments, big salads with cranberries and blue cheese and fresh greens and boo-homemade maple balsamic dressing, listening to musicals and classical music on record, lots of reading of adult books (that sounds dirty- by adult, i mean bookclubbish books...you know, russian history and all that jazz), making anatomically correct gingerbread cookies and then practicing letting-go while watching gray drizzle frosting like a madwoman, and then watching her eat a half-full container of red sugary sprinkles, nursing joey like it's going out of style, football games on the tv downstairs while i work on the computer upstairs, getting my ducks in a row, working on two normal and needing clients this weekend, dreams of tingy's eggplant parm, a new love of nutella (in gelato form), wearing hats to hide my bad hair, lots of massages for sore muscles, reconnecting with my husband, taking vitamins, putting joey to bed last night at 5:15pm, watching parts of 'back to the future' and laughing, blankets, earlobes, no spaces between 'them' and 'me'

photoboothISH friday

happy happy friday...finally finally here.

i got this little guy at an outdoor antique fair this past summer, and since then he's been hanging on my inspiration board at eye level above my computer. he greets me in the morning with my coffee and bids me adieu at night before bed. i want to eat his little face. i imagine his mama creating his little smockish shirt for him and tucking each photo of her son into the tiny folded cards featuring fireplaces. he has messy bedhead and his family loves him anyway. his life was his own and it was bright in its own way.

pictures like these remind me of how all our experiences are universal, and how we are all connected. times have changed, but there is something about this little boy that makes my heart simulataneously break and swell for the power of being human. i think about things like this when i read your posts, and when i read the comments to those posts. even though some of us are strangers in real life, there is something about our shared experiences that draw us to each other and form bonds that may have not otherwise formed. it's powerful to me. if i could hang you all up on my inspiration board, i would.

like i said before, happy friday. don't forget your two cent stamp.

and check out (if you haven't already) a very 'ish' book, a children's (and adults!) book called ish by peter h. reynolds. it will rock your world.

grateful thursday stream of conciousness

(femiknit's hands and stencils and scissors...all the good things)

colorful rings, salt and pepper shakers filled with glitter, pages of journals filled with children's drawings, watching my daughter run off to her friends when i drop her off to school, surprise presents of my favorite stella artois, preparing a package for a special someone, styling my little ponies' hair all day long, watching my family and friends interact while i sit back and relax, ebay items being bid up to ridonkulous amounts, sitting down for a bit of bloggie inspiration, taking the day off from work because of "emergency dental work", and stealing that phrase from last night's episode of top chef, even though i thoroughly made fun of it at the time, prepping, karen dalton's "in my own time" (get it now, it's incredible!), ben harper, planning dates for the weekend, boo having the day off tomorrow, making a meal to send to my mother-in-law for her dinner tonight just because i felt like taking caramel, eating garlic bread for breakfast even though i have a 2pm dental appointment and they are probably going to die when they smell the combo of four cups of coffee and leftover garlic powder emanating from my insides, green kitchen's comment on my 'overdue post' post about how she got to witness a birth and it was on her life list (go check it out, it made my life!), feminknit's post and subway picture of me with coffee (surprise surprise) and our freezer paper stencil adventures, new sheets on our beds, dancing to aunties jo&lib's dance mix at top volume, mr. wendell (i freakin' love that song, still), wearing a hat today and not taking a shower and not caring, recycling more, swiss cheese and canned soup and stuffing and rice and chicken and garlic bread and NO vegetables and not caring, homemade ice cream pies- my new signature non-recipe that i'm bringing everywhere so be ready, the book 'the birth house' by ami mckay that is causing me to loose sleep at night, listening to my radio show in the morning, reframing situations when i feel angry toward people, living a commune-like life, watching people snuggle in blankets on my couches, grace eating my earlobes even though it drives me crazy, joey starting to hug and snuggle and be daring and exploratory (you know, like eating safety pins behind my back), cleaning the mold out of the shower, stretching, superman with joey and having him drool on my face and shirt, my inspiration board and plans to reorganize it, grace's drawing of john with a little thing coming out of his eye and she says "oh, that's daddy's ipod" and we don't have ipods so i have no idea how she even knows that words and is able to use it abstractly

happy thursday. almost the weekend peeps.

quiet gratitude

this deeeelicious bracelet was gifted and crafted for me by my cousin vinnie (tee hee...always gets a laugh!)...THANK YOU! xoxo

you know how it goes...i get all in my head and overwhelmed and overstimulated and creative and simultaneously stopped in my tracks. my inbox gets full, my dishes get dirty, there are loads of laundry to be folded. to do lists to do. but i'm immobilized. i was that mom today...the one with two screaming kids tearing at her body in public places, with my shopping cart rolling across the parking lots, and someone kindly yelling "your carriage! your carriage is rolling away!" and i drop a kid or two and run across the parking lot like a wild woman, in my high heeled boots and too-tight sweater. i'm that mom today. what are you?

in honor of my mood, i'm going to take a couple of quiet moments and reflect on all the good around me:

*the smell of gray and joey's heads when i take them out of the bath. it doesn't last long but it's the best smell in the world.
*stacks of books and articles and knowledge waiting to enter my head.
*oreo cookie crusts and two half gallons of ice cream waiting to be scooped inside.
*karen dalton's music waiting to be listened to.
*the yarn from acumama that i want to drape across my body and wear as an outfit. you made my life! thank you.
*kind emails pouring in from everyone...i WILL get back to you, i promise.
*amy's dream about me being a gymnast. i'm not kidding you amy, we had watched horrible gymnastics videos of me the night before you sent me that email...and even though i haven't gotten back to you yet, your email freaked me out in the best way possible. and solidified the fact that we were in fact separated at birth.
*upcoming vacations with jen's family.
*taking men's vitamins because it makes me feel all genderbendy.
*getting magazines at the library.
*smiling at the bagging boy at the grocery store.
*piles and piles of homemade sushi, and femiknit for teaching us.
*red fleecy blankets.
*listening to people's secrets.

happy wednesday. i'll be sure to have a drink for you tonight.

self portrait challenge: resolutions in five parts

1. eat more organic foods- and use my grateful dead cookbook more, just because it makes me laugh. "just throw some veggies in, man...like whatever."

2. drink more. not a typo. drink more.

3. use what i have. hence the rice pilaf snowman. (not organic, i know. bad snowman!)

4. have more fun.

5. take care of more people. including myself. massage more. listen more. heal.

other portraiters: go here.

an overdue post

these past couple of days have been the most amazing kind of whirlwind ever...leaving me spent and exhausted and high and feeling like i needed a bit of cyberspace break. thursday night after bookgroup, (when two of my most favorite peeps pulled me through a very angry and pissy mood), i settled into bed with next month's book (russian history, oh my!). some greater power told me to crack-up on caffiene earlier in the day, so i was wired and feeling expectant. then i got the call from my first doula-in-training mama! she was having contractions two minutes apart...and 'get to the hospital!' by 10:30p i was there, with crumpled hair and hastily-brushed-teeth.

and then i saw a baby being born. at 11:18p.

honestly, i still feel like i can't even write about it. there are no words that can put everything right with the experience.

there was no fear in the room. or embarrassment. or negativity. it was just mamapower and baby and magic. and laughter. and the baby's wet seal-head crowning and then the cry. and then the tears and celebration and pictures and quiet. and the first nursing and the sleepy sighs. i've never felt more inspired. and connected. and empath-ish. and days later i'm left feeling kind of...empty. tired. cut-off. needing my own head-time. it's very strange.

i know not all births aren't like this. i know that there's fear and mistakes and bad-headspaces and all that. and that's what makes being a doula all that much more important for me.

now it's solidified...this is what i'm meant to do. witnessing birth is funny like that....i never really knew how i was going to handle it until i actually did it. and up until thursday, i hadn't had that chance. and now i have. and now i know. i never wanted to leave that room. if i could be a part of birth every day for the rest of my life i would.

i heart baby mj. i heart that i was one of the first people on this planet to see her sweet head and hear her sweet song. i heart her parents. i heart birth and blood and naked baby toes. i heart all the beauty and all the pain of the world.

so please, bear with me. i'm very up and down, working through some stuff. as jess (and jonathan safran foer) would say, i've got the best case of "heavy boots" possible. walk with me. sit down. let me offer you a piece of homemade banana bread with brown sugar crumble. we'll take off our heavy boots together.

why i'm blessed thursday

*i've got a nice little bag of m's allergen-free trail mix sitting on the table in front of me. and it's got cranberries and chocolate chips and the most deliciously sweet magical oats in the world. john's convinced that she should package and market it. i want to stick my head in the baggie and munch away.

*sex talks with friends. talks about deep stuff even though 'extra!' is playing on the tv. friends that bring over bottles of wine and bags of peanut butter filled m&m's. getting equally excited about both. big cheesy black bean pies in the over, and warm slices of homemade hippie banana bread with brown sugar crumble. pottery bowls of vanilla pudding and apple crispy cake for dessert. being old and going to be early. pink champagne. my friends that get just as excited/embarrassed for me when we're watching my old home videos.

*finally going to the dentist. the last time i went was when gray was in-utero! i'm punished. i have extremely bad receeding gums and these crazy dentists just want to do weird gum-grafting surgery on my exposed nerves. dentists make me scared. 'make dentist appt for n&g' has been on my to-do list literally for two years. i faithfully recopy it on to all my new lists. and it makes me feel bad ever day that goes by that i don't call. so i finally found a dentist (random pick) and made an appt. and went. i was scared how gray would do, but i did some major prepping (thanks 'dora goes to the dentist'!) and she was a complete rockstar. not to brag, but they literally said that they've never seen a three-year-old wee one act some freakin' cool. and then it was my turn. and it was fine (slightly painful but i had to be brave for my girl!). and of course, i have to go back in a couple of weeks for about 11 bondings over my exposed nerves, which basically involves them drilling over the roots and filling them like cavities, all in the name of making me more comfortable in the long run! eeks. and the hygenist was all talkative while she was in my mouth, and like "you SO a type A personality, all this gum stuff is your fault because you equate brushing HARDER with being CLEANER." she was all over me. i'm so not a type A but when i "uh uh" disagreed with her with my mouth open and drooling, she misunderstood and thought it was more like a "you're so right sister" and so now she thinks i'm totally a type A.

anywho.
at least it's off my list.

*i heart groceries. but seriously, i cannot step into the store without spending at least $182. it seems that's my magical grocery number. maybe i should've bought a lottery ticket.

anywho.
at least we've got meals for weeks. hopefully there's some healthy ones in there, but i doubt it.

*bookclub tonight. i heart bookclub. i really do. i love the bad coffee and bad treats, and tonight is my special night to provide beverages! (jess, don't forget the snacks!) i heart green iced tea.

*the above picture is pum holding his favorite truck. i've got to get this on video- but if you say to him..."go get your truck and bring it to daddy"...he goes, gets the truck, goes over to john, hands it to him, then leans over john's leg and waits for his truck-rub. john drives the truck up and down pum's back like a little hand-held massager. pum's face is filled with joy and complete release. it's my favorite thing in the whole world to watch.

note to self: get that on video!

a new year

a new year. i love taking down the tree and putting away all the decorations and sweeping the floor. i love the feeling of starting over with a clean slate. of detoxifying from all that sugar and fat of the holidays that start in october. the cleansing power of water (and coffee). of rearranging and rethinking and reframing (the theme of this past weekend). i love how it feels to be on the cusp of a year so wonderful i can't even manage to put it down on paper and make words rise up around it.

this year will be filled with:

*witnessing three beautiful babies being born into the world
*completion of my doula training, and finally becoming a certified doula
*watching my own children grow, change, and challenge
*eating vegetables and making a commitment to being more mindful about what we put into our bodies (we're not giving up dessert, though, no way)
*lots of snuggling
*massage, massage, and more massage. building a business.
*keeping up with wellness appointments
*reframing when necessary
*the gathering of friends, loved ones, and lost souls at our home
*more crafting, forward-thinking, clean living
*recycling
*honoring our feelings
*relying on others for help
*debriefing, celebrations, living every day like it's a party.

happy 2007. watch out...here we come.

five snapshots of my day

(paper gifted to me by nine-aaah)

snap one: i'm at the theater. a ballet, to be exact. i'm holding my sweet baby girl in my lap, smelling her clean double-bunned hair. she toots on me, and quietly whispers "i just tooted." the snowing scene has been done for minutes- but then i see it...one tiny little last snowflake, falling in a scene that it has no place to be in. that stray snowflake is always my favorite part. i always look for it. i always find it.

snap two: i approach my exit on the highway. it is snowing out. i see the sign that reads "EXIT". the letters must be a bit raised, because when i look closely, i can see a tiny bit of snow accumulating on the top of each letter. i make a mental note of it because it strikes me as so beautiful.

snap three: breakfast and coffee and snuggles with the family. we try to protect our kids from everything- and it never works. we turn on the TV for a moment to catch the news, and we see flashes of a noose, a broken neck, a bloodied face.

snap four: the big city rises up around us. a soft snow is falling. hats and gloves and runny red noses. i look up and see my daughter on the shoulders of her strong and beautiful auntie. it makes me want to cry.

snap five: looking away from the show to stare at the profiles of strangers' faces. i secretly find that more interesting.

i'm lucky because

i'm lucky because:

i have a family who puts up with my photobooth obsession

i have friends who bring me gingerbread cookies and put up with me being a bad hostess

i have a half-eaten mexican casserole on the stove downstairs

i have a date with my husband tonight to a yummy restaurant, a photobooth, and then to a bookstore to read maggies

i managed to fold about seven loads of laundry today, and finally feel like i'm getting out from underneath all that's weighing me down

gray and i are being taken to the nutcracker tomorrow in boston for a super freakin' christmas date with aunties jo and lib

i have a husband who has started to play with trains and puts up with me when i make jokes and call him a trainwreck for being so trollish

i am attending a kiddie countdown-to-the-new-year party this weekend, but we're going to count down to 12 noon instead of midnight

this weekend is going to include fat, juicy steaks and lobsters and lots of champagne, hopefully pink- oh, and eclairs. freakin' eclairs! did i mention how much i love eclairs?

i love to add official-sounding initials after my name

i am writing articles again

my kids are both taking naps right now

my family never fails to be obsessed with watching my crazy children

my friends and husband and family love me even when i'm having the post-holiday blues

i got to massage a wonderous pregnant mama yesterday

did i mention the champagne?

i hope your weekends are filled with countdowns to something really life-changing.

xo

things i love thursday: calm after the storm edition

asian grocery store calmness, stopping to take pictures and smell the crabs, dessert essence tea tree oil face soap, taking extra long in the shower this morning, having family to bail me out in a pinch with babysitting, sitting around my wood table eating glittery remnants of food out of the cracks with friends, pork pie, homemade guacamole, margaritas with straws, friends home from spain, couch debriefing, my new sherpamama hat that i wear to bed and to drop grace off at school and look like a crazy person and don't care, taking pictures of myself with other people's cameras, auntie donna's christmas food snacks, doing kiddley activites with grace like the caramel/chocolate/pretzel thingies and then putting them in giftbags for friends, putting away all the christmas decorations in the house, keeping candles lit, watching pummie explore the world around him, my new black knee-high boots from boo that i'm wearing to work with a skirt today even though i look slightly inappropriate, afternoon snack dates with friends and their babe, snotty green nose wiping, gift cards in my wallet, planning dinner dates, kicking friends under the table

hope your thursday is filled with that asian-market-kind-of-calmness that everyone deserves after the holidays

holiday blur

post-sickness and post-holiday blur. i tried my best to savor the moments of peace and calm, even though they were few and far between. it's been the best couple of days, especially coming down after the week we had last week. we started the partying off by going into daddy's work on friday for his holiday party- he spent the whole time in the bathroom overcome with the bug we had all week...and on our (long) drive home, spent the time puking into a thin, white dunkin donuts bag (thank god i had a seasame bagel that morning!)...until the bag gave out, leaked puke all over the inside of the car- now the whole left side of my white van is covered in streaky yellow stomach contents. despite that, however, i was able to enjoy my friday (john retired to bed until saturday). i spent the best afternoon with dear friends, drinking hot beverages and catching up, watching the kids tear up the house. i heart shaun and sara. saturday morning i had girlie time...started off with a huge breakfast crafted by C. (thank you C.!), and completed with a massage for a tired and post-sick mama. it was the best hour i've had in a while. sat. was spent hosting an early christmas for john's family, which was satisfying. i heart watching people in my home relaxing and eating (no secret there).

saturday night was spent drinking a deeeelicious bottle of wine (all to myself) at C. and erina's house for a shaun and sara party! scrumdiddly tapas and good friends rounded off a very busy day. i heart getting drunk and playing charades. and winning (well, tie-ing) the cook-off for the night! let's heart it for peppermint bark!

sunday was spent eating biscuits all day and drinking coffee and baking and watching my kids be complete freaks. the night was spent drinking pomegranate martinis (sense the drinking theme?) and eating more deeeelicious food and being with family. my favorite gift was this HUGE binder full of copies (hundreds of pages worth) of my late grandfather's poetry and letters and ramblings. seriously. i heart thoughtful gifts. thank you auntie and uncle!

monday was spent eating cinnamon buns and drinking coffee (theme again) and watching kids be freaky some more. santa skipped the cookies and raided the fridge and left a plate of half-eaten kielbasa, which really got gray. she was convinced it would make the reindeer poop (evidently she started believing in flying reindeer again). luckily we only got our kids a few gifts each, because everyone else on this planet bought about 100 gifts for each kid. it's ridonkulous. seriously people! can we remember that i live in a microcottage? really though, everyone was super generous. i'm trying to instill some sort of 'appreciate every little thing you have' value in gray, so it's been a battle this christmas with all the gifts. she has this thing...even when she opens something she loves, if there's an unopened gift next to her, she's all "what's next??!? moving on!" it's horribly embarrassing, but completely normal i think.

my favorite gift (besides the pepere book) was a painting gifted to me by john. it's a painting of my favorite restaurant in portsmouth, NH. i bought him a painting by another artist last year of the restaurant, and this year he found this one for me. they will hang together in our living room. the card that john wrote for me sealed the freakin' coolness of the gift. i'd probably post it here right now if it weren't downstairs buried in piles of stuff.

i haven't gotten a chance to go on the computer at all the past week or so, hence my missingness for the blogosphere. i'm sorry that i haven't been able to check in on all my peeps. i'm going to try to seize these next couple of moments to peek in on your holiday blurs. i hope they were as blurrerific as mine.

xo

things i love thursday: comin' round the bend edition

(i am thankful for these pictures...and my weekend date with femiknit to bazaar bizarre. there were plenty of good photo ops, but due to the INSANE amount of crafty, hot, cool, tatooed and did i mention freakin' hot people packed into one huge crafty space, i was mostly too scared to take out my camera, except for our trip to the ladies' room. best part of the day (besides hanging out kid-free with femiknit, of course) was our shared pecorino romano, fig, and mortadella sandwich, and the impromptu fish tasting at a fancy-pants organic deli. aaaah, fish tasting.)


thank you for all your well wishes. when i was hugging my not-so-clean toilet bowl, it was helpful to know that you dear souls were thinking of me and taking cybercaramel. i'm so grateful for that on this thursday.

without coffee, or nutrition, i'm having a hard time typing. the words are swimming in front of my eyes. must.muster.up.energy.to.type. lots of cleaning and cooking planned for the next couple of days now that i'm coming round the bend (i actually ate a piece of bread! and gatorade!) i'm grateful for bland, flat food, and for bleach and rubber gloves.

for someone who's gotten little sleep and no caffeine for over two+ days, i feel alright. maybe it's the beckoning of the approaching holiday festivities, or maybe this bug was just a 24 hour thing, but i'm no longer throwing up. joey, however, has been throwing up (boo's christmas shopping extravaganza with the kiddies was cut short by pummie's projectile vomiting) and has a baaaad case of diarrhea, which has resulted in the worst case of diaper rase slash peanut and balls infection. luckily, between grocery shopping this morning and gray's christmas party at school and lunch at puppa's, we get to round off the afternoon with a trip to the doctor's for joey's one year checkup that was already scheduled before the sickies popped up. so it actually works out perfectly. we're watching the infection spread through all our loved ones (sorry!) but luckily daddy hasn't become infected yet. but after spending the night in bed with a pooping and puking wee one, he may just be the next one hit. cross your fingers that he gets to enjoy the holidays toilet-bowl free.

here's hoping you have the best damn thursday around, filled with peppermint candies (thank you tracy! we're still enjoying all the treats!), back rubs from the one you love, and snuggly wool (as opposed to scratchy wool) socks.

xo

why i'm a freak

(i'm posting this picture of us because it's making me happy right now...i love how gray is holding BOTH of our earlobes...i told you that she has an earlobe thing. she's been holding on to mine all morning, sending me healing vibes through the lobes.)

oooooh lordy. i got the sickies. since this morning, me and the toilet bowl have been best friends. it's not pretty. i hate throwing up (i know, stating the obvious!) but i mean i REALLY hate it. it makes me wish for those days of cold face cloths on the back of the neck. and being sick as a mama is just the worst- with two kids either laughing at you as your hack your soul up, or crying hysterically, pounding on the door. aaaah, the sickies. let me just tell you, i'm ROCKING those black circles in the worst kind of way today.

so why am i a freak, you ask? because of the fact that i have the best friends in the world, boo took the day off and came to my rescue this afternoon...making my kids eat and checking to see if we were all ok. when we walked in he found that gray had dressed herself, which meant she was wearing an ill-fitting and trollish button-up sweater, unbuttoned and upside-down. i was on the couch under a heap of blankets shivering with drool plastered on my face, trying to figure out how to breastfeed and throw up at the same time.

did i mention how much i love boo?

he just took the kids out for a pre-christmas shopping adventure to relieve me. i got up off the couch for the first time today (with the exception of bathroom runs) and...wait for it...started cleaning! but i can't HELP it! we're hosting christmas here on saturday, and the mess was making me sicker than my sickies. i know. freak. i know. lie down. i'm one of those people that has a really hard time with down time. as i was laying on the bathroom floor this morning, i was still dreaming about garlands to be strung and gifts to be knit.

i need to relax.

through it all today, i keep looking at mark's candle that i have burning. it helps keep everything in perspective. my heart is still with d and d and their families. their situation makes me feel like a little puke is just that...a little puke.

xo

self portrait challenge: red

this is me. my home. the warm red walls. the imperfections. my favorite part of this picture...if you look closely around our thermostat, you can see the unpainted rectangle shape of our old thermostat. we're too busy loving each other to rummage in the basement for the red paint and make it perfect. we're not that kind of family. we like to remember the old things. unfinished projects and unmitered corners.

i took this picture a couple of weeks back with the self timer, trying to get a full body shot for the egg donation application. this is what i got. imperfect. red. warm.

other self portrait challenge peeps: go here.


today my thoughts are with darlene. please keep her family in your thoughts and prayers. i have a candle burnin' downstairs for your baby, d. xo

taking caramel

this is the nina-beana family version of how we say "will you take care of me?" or "i'm taking care of you" or however you want to conjugate it: taking caramel.

there's been lots of lots of taking caramel goin' down in our house.

thank you firstly for all the birthday wishes for the boy. i just realized about two minutes ago that i never gave him the $3.99 tiny dump truck cheap-o-parent toy that we got him for his birthday. just goes to show you our priorities around here of late (or the fact that the kids have been inundated with pre-christmas toys already). he's one lucky bean to have all you peeps in his life, supporting and loving him through his milk-filled days.

secondly, thank you for all the gracie well wishes. the quote of the day "mama, i think i'm peeing out of my bum again!" our bathroom has been well-loved today, and needs a major scrubbin'. i'm going to be making friends with the bleach bottle for the rest of the week, prepping the house for our house-full of visitors this coming weekend. my husband rocks the casbah so hardcore, he broke down and told me about the upcoming massage that he purchased for me. to think...a massage therapist actually getting bodywork done! amazing! i can't wait. i can't wait.

gray, unfortunately, is still sick. the throwing-uppies are done, and we've moved on to different explosion venues. it's one of those weeks. filled with caramel. my ideas of nutrition are strained- now popsicles are considered good! good! more popsicles! now i'm off to double-bath the babes with new bubbles (thanks shan!) that hopefully won't cause my girl's beaner another UTI.

aaaah, motherhood. i'll be accepting donations of caramel through christmas.

a year gone by

my boy is officially one. and despite the fact that i wanted to write up a sweet little post detailing the past year of his fabulous and full life, i'm tired. i was up last night with my older bean, who's been struck with the worst case of the stomach flu that i've ever seen. i'm still a bit in shock, due to the lack of a night's sleep, coupled with the fact that i've never seen gray throw up before. i would trade spots with her in a second. poor girl's sleeping on the couch right now with the blackest circles under her eyes, and boy's out with his daddy shopping- so i'm stealing away for a minute to send a little shout out to the tiniest little real-life bobblehead on the planet, my jogeybear. proof that he really is a bobblehead (this was him at eight months, but you get the point...totally lovable, totally bobbleheadish):



this was me just over a year ago, with a belly full of boy, and christmas shopping through my contractions (i told you, i'm a christmas freak):



and this is my new, bigger family now...a year later (husband excluded- sorry bub!...why do you have to go to work?):



my kids play and interact with each other, and are real human beings: (stating the obvious? maybe. but it still shocks me to think about the fact that they actually exist.) they even ride rides!-



on friday, joey's 1st birthday, it was my only goal to have a photobooth picture taken of us all. i decided to do this on all of our birthdays for the rest of our lives, mainly because i'm a freak and i want a project to justify my obsession with photobooths. so i made my way to a local photobooth hotspot and had no small-bills cashola, and two cold kids...and while digging in my purse i found two sticky old chuck-e-cheese tokens- so we walked next door and got two separate photos for only two tokens. although i detest that place more than anything, and attribute it to the fact that gray is puking and pooping her brains out right now (germs! germs!)...my kids had a freakin' blast...and i love them even more because i insisted that we buy NO tokens...so they just ran around and sat on the rides (ooooh bad mama). they loved it though, i swear. i just had to get over my embarrassment as gray kept stating loudly "we have no money, right mama?...no money!".

anyway, my boy. what would my life be without him? he's the worst form of birth control ever. he's got bright red hair that we have no idea where it came from. he has adult-sized and adult-scented farts. my jogeybear. my little mister man.

happy first birthday poomalooma.

xo
mama

things i love thursday

gray as the sugarplum fairy- with her little ponies underneath her dress (tutu)

time for a good things i love list. really. i need one.

*just finished smudging my humble and chaotic abode. although i feel much better now that it's smudgalicious, the whole experience has left my house smelling like i just smoked a big fat blunt. hum. must reconsider smudging. or start smoking.

*gray's newfound love of the nutcracker. in particular, the dance of the sugarplum fairy. thanks to aunties jo and lib's visit this past weekend, gray's curiousity about the nutcracker was sparked, and now it's the nutcracker on record, the nutcracker on cd, nutcracker books and some serious nutcrackin' dancing going on.

*my peeps. you all know how much i love my peeps. but seriously. seriously! i've been going through a particularly suckyass situation at work with a client, and some of you peeps have saved my life by listening and processing and prebriefing and debriefing and encouraging and validating and did i mention listening?

*deep discussions about blogging- the why's? and the how much's and the why even bother anyways?

*my little man turning one tomorrow. one! planning a photobooth trip (surprise surprise) to commemorate the day.

*a new stack of wool blankets to accomodate our ever-expanding snuggle couchy clan at nighttime

*leftover california three bean chili

*loving thoughts and healing vibes to a little person's broken pieces

*my upcoming free afternoon, with much crafting and snuggle to ensue

*s&s's upcoming MA visit from TX- we can't wait to see you!

*city shopping yesterday- exploring the hugest asian supermarket ever invented, and finding treasures amongst the clutter and live crabs

*wondering if "amongst" is a word but leaving it anyway

*the upcoming date with femiknit this weekend to bizarre bazaar...and the mad props she's always giving to me, even though she doesn't have to.

*is it possible that ever thursday my heart explodes a little more with love? you guys must be sick over this sun-shiny-ness and love all around, for sure.

xo!

self portrait challenge: red

all alone again in a bathroom. red red gloves against the background of faded ships on the wallpaper all around me. quiet. antique fixtures. the dividing wall between the two stalls is only waist high. i take a moment to snap a picture. the red of my gloves makes me want this moment to last just a minute longer.

see other self challengers here.

the weepies

if you have not had the pleasure of meeting the weepies (figuratively of course, through their kick ass music), you must do so. my christmas present to johnny this year (among many)- tickets to a weepies concert this past saturday night in portsmouth RI. where's portsmouth RI, you ask? we have no idea. it was the darkest, scariest, non-gas-station-and-grocery-store place on the face of this earth. thanks to the weepies, and our love of singing in the car (four hours of driving) and our love for each other, we had the best christmas date ever.

some of my favorite quotes from the night:

i expressed to john that i was nervous that he was going to be disappointedwhen he found out where we were going (lots of buildup...it was a surprise) and he said "you could bring me to a shit eating festival and i would be happy, and eat all the shit, because we'd be together."

and RI is dark. and scary to drive in at night. lots of good RI quotes, but my favorite is "RI is so DARK. and full of liquor stores."

and then there's john's: "musicians love pea coats. it's so true. they all wear them."

finally, john's 1st guess about the concert we were going to see was nick lachey. i have no idea why, considering we've never listened to his music, let alone enjoy pop music whatsoever. it struck me as one of the funniest things he's ever said, mainly because he was so serious.

the venue itself was HAsterical. when we pulled up (2.5 hours early) we realized that it was at a "community improvement hall" (read: VFW). i (of course) was excited because it was soooo teeny tiny, and i could see my girl deb talan up reaaaaaly close. i got out of the car to inspect the scene, and saw the bands warming up, and deb smiled and said hi to me. so pretty much that made my night. any place with wallpaper like this in the bathroom could make my night:




matt the electrician opened up. not only was he freakin' hilarious, but his music was incredible. i wanted to buy his cd but they sold out, thanks to teenage groupies.



the weepies were powerful and emotional and raw. we saw them on the last night of their tour that started in march. they were tired. and sick. and beautiful.



the added bonus for me was that meg toohey was playing with them. hello! three concerts for the price of one, with front row seats. i was one happy mama. i heart christmas date nights with the hubbertins.

junkie

i am a christmas card junkie. i get a rush every time i check the mail starting after thanksgiving, and stretching long past christmas (hoping that people mailed their cards late). photo cards put me over the edge into complete blissdom. this year (so far), jen's card takes the cake. by far the best. i just found myself downstairs, with a few seconds of quiet (kids sleeping for a very quick moment) just staring at their card. which features her gorgeous son and squishable doggy, sticking their tongues out in the exact same way.

if you want to encourage my addiction, send me a christmas card. you can be sure it will be displayed, and stared at lovingly, for weeks to come.

(ironically enough, however, i am not sending out my own christmas cards this year. cannot get my head out of my fanny to do so, and can't stop crafting to take out a pen and write them out.)

photobooth friday: lesbian cafe edition

12/1/06
boo and nina beana at diesel cafe
somerville, ma
before jo&lib&etsie's xmas party

reindeer ears for boo and raspberry lime rickey props for me

(note: i can't stand it when i get too close in a photobooth, and my face gets all puffy and blurry like here! note to self: sit back! note to self: get rid of those huge black circles under your eyes!)

diesel (read: lesbian) cafe is one of my favorite places on earth. not quite sure why- but the kick ass raspberry lime rickeys and old school b&w photobooth don't hurt. if i was single, i'd go there every day to hang out, read, and take in the scenery.

happy friday, happy weekend. thank you all for your deeelicious comments. today is still a bit rough (read: joey just bit a huge chuck out of that reeeealy tender skin on my inner forearm) but not only did your comments help me realize that i'm not alone...these things help, too: putting on tutus and dancing to the nutcracker, pretending we were the sugar plum fairies (blankets helped), the soft snow outside, the upcoming trip to a christmas stroll tonight to see santa, and the thoughts of roast chicken and buttery mashed potatoes and slippers and snuggling and nutcracker party on sunday and living life through the muckiness.

shadowy me vs. fresh me

shadowy me at the beach


these past couple days have been hard. hard like "damn it's hard being a parent" kind of hard. hard and trying, but soul scrubbing cleansing. the kids have been OFF.THE.WALL. i have no idea what's going on or why it's happening. maybe they are picking up on the frenetic vibes of the season, or maybe it's because we've been spending more and more time in the house as the cold weather sets in. whatever it is, things have just been chaotic. joey refuses to let me do anything, and screams like a banshee when i walk away from him. all my shirts are covered in hysterical-crying-boogers from both of my children. gray got her first less-than-stellar feedback from school on tuesday, so we've been dealing with that. her eyes are glazed over and she's not sleeping well and is having a HARD time listening. the past two days have been spent discussing behavior and writing letters to her teachers and painting and talking about our feelings. i feel like a feeling factory, and i need a break. thankfully, this weekend john and i are slipping away for the night on saturday for a secret christmas surprise...more details to follow. i think it will be the perfect rejuvenation that i need. hopefully on sunday morning my black circles will be a little less black, and my atitude will be a little more fresh (fresh in a good way).

despite the turmoil and redundancy of parenting these past couple of days, there have been many bright spots. i offer you two quotes from gray (i like to ask her random questions just to see what her answers are-):

me: what's santa's breath smell like?
gray: uh...reindeer!

me: what's an orphan? (gray's been obsessed with listening to 'annie' on record)
gray: it's a little elf that skates around.

self portrait challenge: red city lights

mama time. out in the big city. rainy and balmy. a change to be the passenger instead of the driver. sexy red lights. wet pant legs. soaking boots. multiple bags even though i have no children in tow. sportin' a new necklace gifted to me by the lovely amy. glowy glowy red all around me

more self portrait challenge peeps here.

my monday 'five words'

1. jessi- this is what we've been calling jessica in jest lately, mainly due to a family member's incessant use of the word, and coupled with an outside-of-boston accent, it makes the perfect insult. there are many many reasons why i love jess, but these reasons seal the deal: 1. she uses a strainer to take out pieces of cork from the wine because she had to push the cork into the bottle 2. because she will come over and play scrabble with us and listen to christmas music and still love us even when we break the news to her that stevie wonder is kind of a jerk in real life and 3. because she lets us call her jessi.

2. coffee- not the first time i've said it, and not the last. without it, i couldn't get through the day. is it bad that all i want for christmas is bags of coffee beans?

3. femiknit's new house. did i mention lately that femiknit is absolutely inspiring? and kick ass? she bought a house and then manages, somehow, to rip through the thing and completely transform it. and then lets me take pictures of beautiful things like this, that she plans on ripping down.

4. photobooths- duh! hello, i have a serious problem. two photobooths in two weeks...and the photobooth strips aren't enough on their own anymore. now i have to linger in the booth afterwards and take random pictures.

5. banging- not as dirty as it sounds. i know i've mentioned it here before- it's a little bad habit that i still have that's carried over from infancy. i think boo may have even posted a video of me doing it at one point. my parents thought that there was something seriously wrong with me! but luckily now that i have my own kids, and still have this strange habit, i have no need to worry when it manifests itself in my second-born child! see for yourself: (oh, and delight in the teradactyl screaming, too...god knows i've been drowning in it for the past couple of weeks! and wait for the end of the video for the classic joey stoner laugh!)


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back in the saddle again: photobooth friday, here i come!

as a mama of two wees three and under, i don't get out with my friends all that much. we have lots of people over for dinner and tv and talk, but the outings are few and far between. i try my best to have adult time and make dates with my lovelies, but let's be honest here...i have to get up at 4:30am to someone sucking on my boobs (not what you think! dirty peeps), and my day just goes on from there. so going out after 7pm usually just doesn't happen.

boo has been very patient with me while i raise my babes. he usually complains, but it's more in a joking sort of way...like "why you'd have to have these damn kids?" i forgive him, mainly because he's gray's godfather, and i'd die if i knew he was serious. but lately the complaints of us having alone time have started happening more often...followed by a request to go to the movies together, alone. ok ok! even though i hated the movies a month ago, i'm quickly realizing that the quiet and darkness for two hours straight is pretty much the best invention ever, and i'm all about going to the movies now. so this past weekend we had our date, although it happened in the middle of the afternoon (there's no way in hell i would be able to stay awake for a movie after 7pm, sorry). and we took full advantage of the photobooth in the lobby. and we used the can of mixed nuts that i smuggled into the theater in my pocketbook as our prop. acumama, i knew i'd get around to using a photobooth prop someday!

so here's the final product- with the black printer streaks and all. my goal in these pictures was really to cover the huge zit i had on my right cheek (and still have mind you)- i'm not quite sure what boo was up to. i absolutely heart the nuts picture though. we are freakin' nuts, fo sho.

and i'm headed into the city tonight for another date with boo (so shut up, already, about the alone time now, will you?!?), to visit our aunties jo and libertins. for my first christmas party of the season! bring on the adult time and cocktails and nina beana's social awkwardness!

also, can i just say- you are all freakin' rockstars? i loved all the responses from my last post...reading through them not only made me feel better, but more connected to all of you, sharing those intimate things with me. the "discussion" sparked some very interesting and enlightening real-life discussions with some of you. i'm not done thinking about this topic yet, and may write more about it soon. i think i'll take the weekend to process it all. but thank you for taking the time to give me feedback for all the crazy stuff goin' down in my brain.