hard yet perfect

(costumes obviously not bought by me)

(neither were the shoes...but once she laid her three-year-old eyes on them...)

some days it's so hard being a mama so such a strong willed, beautiful, independent and emotional young person. it's my biggest challenge but my best one. i am blessed with the girlie girl that is attracted to anything with lace and frills and high heels. how this happened when i don't even own a pair, i don't know. i'm scared for my girl. scared to let her go off to school. scared of peer pressure and myspace and evil girl culture eating her alive. between last week, when i went to her "big girl's school" for some paperwork, seeing all the kids running wild and so loud and unchecked, and then today at a playdate that involved lots of barbies. i had to take my crew and leave when the barbies started saying "i hate you" (not my girl saying this) and getting into barbie brawls. we've managed to resist the lure of barbies up until today. and it was not a good day. after leaving, i sat the babe down and explained how barbies are allowed to dance and play and be friends, but are in no way allowed to fight or say hate. hate is a bad word in our house, not to be used lightly and thrown around when our feelings are hurt.

but real people fight and hate, don't they? so why wouldn't barbies, too?

aaaah mamahood. i thought i'd be better prepared emotionally to deal with barbies and high heels and feelings.

i just don't want to let my little girl go.

i heart the weekend

as expected, this weekend was filled with the extremes of beauty and chaos that is our family. big bowls of noodles and crunchy fresh vegetables coupled with bruised knees. biting cold temps coupled with big beautiful parks on the water and freezing hands and smiles and smiles. meeting old friends over bowls of soup and watching their new lives unfold. drink treats and miles and miles in the car, and thrift shopping alone and finding the best find. waking up and thinking "all i want for today is to find a vintage fisher price farm set" and walking into a store and finding a complete sought-after set for five bucks. gifties and treats tied up with string. dripping cucumbery dill grilled lamb pieces and frozen pierogies. pee on the seat of the car and the sounds of a new city. a new hardcover book and new pages added to our life.

we're all sick here but still taking time to stop and love.

how you know you're married to a hippie, and photobooth friday

after getting out of the shower this morning, my husband said to me:

"is it me or does the new detergent that you're using smell like marijuana?"

and happy friday peeps in cyberspace! this weekend is promising to be one of the best kinds...involving road trips, natural foods stores, old friends, and possible new friends. and lots of incense and pathouli, much to john and boo's dismay.

here's my photoboothie contribution for the week, and oldie featuring my little brother and me. he's a dear sweet soul, but looks quite disturbing in these pics. he went through a weird stage that we all referred to as the "big pants phase". he also grew his hair into two devil horns and used elmers glue to stick them up. luckily he didn't fall into a world of drugs and nothingness...he's just about to graduate with his masters in engineering! let's hear it for devil horns!

other friday peoples here.

cat dad and all before 8am

this video is proof of why i married my husband. just wait for joey's little laugh and smirky giggle. it's my favorite part. (and can you tell we just watched the most horrible slash funniest movie jackass 2? totally not our style but exactly what we needed...)


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and here are some quotes of our day, all occuring before 8am this morning (it's currently 8:05am):

"joey, don't throw pandas, ok?" -mama

"your ear lobielobies are peuwist and kuberist and i want to ooom-bah them and kuber them"- gray

"my snack for school is all crayon-y. i don't want to eat crayonchocolate! please get a plastic bag for me to put it in". -gray

"aaaaw, the table looks pretty with paint all over it!" -gray

and gray has called joey all of the following nicknames. poor kid is going to have some sort of identity crisis:

:chobe
:cho-bra
:poom
:poomalooma
:probe (this one is especially hysterical and problematic)
:probaloba

happy stinkin' thursday!

mantra of the day

my mantra of the day is as follows:

my children are sweet, special and kind

my children are sweet, special and kind

my children are sweet, special and kind


little do you know is that the second half of this mantra is as follows:

they really aren't evil little human beings that happened to crawl out of my body only to force me to never sleep so i have to drink 10 cups of coffee a day just to function and they never share and pull eachother's hair and earlobes and scratch at my face and eachother's faces so i'm forced to get out of bed at 4am in the morning and fumble for the nail clippers to cut their little demonic talons



they really are sweet, trust me. they are even sweeter at bedtime.

what's your mantra of the day?

belly dancers and cheez balls

doing and going:

:: yesterday was spent being taken caramel by aunties jo&lib at the MIT space odyssey ball for the kiddies. there were plenty of trolls present, with lots of debriefable activities going on, but let me tell you people, we had f.u.n. and the kids had a freakin' blast, too. grace observed liquid nitrogen displays while gettin' rocked on three packages in a row of pop rocks, and joey danced with real-life, not-afraid belly dancers. daddy even wore a space suit that his package almost busted through! an event not-to-be-missed.


read this weekend:

:: love is a mix tape: life and loss, one song at a time by rob sheffield
this book rocked my world in so many ways. my only complaint is that i wish it were four hundred pages longer than it was. such a testament to love and loss. and it has inspired me to go up into my dad's attic and pull out all my mix tapes and listen to my history.

:: hipster haiku by siobhan adcock
this book took me approximately 20 minutes to read but was insanely funny and meaningful in an unmeaningful sort of way. the book i wish i'd been smart enough to write. damn you siobhan for being cooler and beating me to the punch.

reading now:

:: driving over lemons: an optimist in spain by chris stewart
nice to read about such beauty and life when it's cold and poohish outside. and i'm a sucker for a good travel memoir.

:: insecure at last: losing it in our security obsessed world by eve ensler
i'm a sucker for eve ensler, too.

what the beans are reading: (in honor of the upcoming earth day, a big thing around here for hippie-ish reasons)

:: the flower alphabet book by jerry pallotta (this book freakin' rocks, esp. if you've got a bean obsessed with flowers and nature and catagorizing stuff like me)
:: mother earth's counting book by andrew clements and lonni sue johnson
:: we all went on safari: a counting journey through tanzania by laurie krebs and julia cairns
:: can you say peace? by karen katz
:: new york is english, chattanooga is creek by chris raschka

listening to:

:: g. love's lemondade
:: matisyahu's live at stubb's
:: mazzy star's so tonight that i might see
:: sufjan stevens the avalanche
:: stealing beauty soundtrack (sucker for liv tyler)
:: moby's hotel

eating:

:: cheez balls at the space odyssey- i heart frickin' flourescent cheez balls.

random video that is only going to make sense to jen, and maybe you can get a laugh or two at the expense of my hideous accent:

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cheers to today

another snowstorm, just when i thought it was spring. another saturday morning filled with the sounds of the kids playing, running around on the hardwood floors, half naked and wild eyed. over a foot of snow outside, watching john stand at the end of the driveway scratching his head for a half an hour wondering how he's going to move all the snow. a surprise visit from a caravan of family members rallying around with a snowblower moving the snow around for us. a couple of peelers and pounds of potatoes and carrots. the promise of a housefull of guests this afternoon for st. patrick's day. four corned beef (beefs?) and lots of cabbage and not enough pots to feed all our friends and family. lots of irish records and impromptu irish step dancing shows from the girl. green construction paper and shamrock stickers on everything and green crayons and scissors and love. today we celebrate family and heritage and snow and food and love, just because we can.

happy st. patrick's day! let's hope the snow doesn't keep the liquor store (or what i like to call the 'alcohol store' and always get laughed at because of it) closed.

(any of my local peeps are welcome to come by and watch the beans run around in their undies and diapies)

SAHM

i am lucky enough to call myself a stay at home mama, for the most part at least (for the most part SAH, not for the most party lucky). granted, i worked today, but it was only for an hour, and i made enough money in that hour to justify not working for the rest of the day. and if we're being honest, i'd do the work i do for free, because i'm a dork like that and i love giving massages in my sage green workspace so much.

with that being said, my stay-at-home-mamaness allows me to not only spend time with my two delicious mini-human friends that i like to call my children, but also to host a parade-worthy amount of individuals throughout my day. my days are shaped by the visits- who's here now and who's coming next. it's what gets me through the day, every day. maybe it's because i lived so far from family and fetus-friends (and my hubby) while living in very-upstate NY through long winters, but i have a deep appreciation for each and every visitor that comes through the nina beana door. breakfast with my father's fiance, a long chat and babysitting from my mother-in-law, a visit from my dad bearing gifts of my favorite syrian bread and butter, my old friend peep who works for the town popping in for a drink, a bottle of wine with my girl after the beans are in bed, my brother catching up about life and love, and boo who is downstairs right now with the beans making a homemade pineapple upside down cake in a skillet for dinner (ok ok, dessert).

these visits and conversations and snippets of other people's lives keep me honest and alive. i'm a big fan of hearing what people have to say behind my doors. i've been obsessing lately about confessions and secrets (i've been hearing quite a bit of them lately, esp. at work), and what we share with each other in these moments. my job as a SAHM (stay at home mama, or shit ass ho motherfucker, as dooce likes to call it) allows me to go to confession all day long, and hear the confessions and secrets of all my peeps that i hold near and dear. it's kind of like being a priest, but waaaaay better.

can i get a 'whoot whoot'?

clearly, after the morning that i've had, a good things list is in order. i'd like to blame it on the time change, but something's amiss with my little miss, and i'm not quite convinced that that is what it is. i had to drag her kicking and screaming (literally) to school this morning, which was a first. i tried to be all zen and meditate through it, and respect her thoughts and wishes, but she was completely out of her tree. she went to bed at 5pm last night! which means it was really 4pm! so i can't blame it on lack of sleep. she has grown about 10 inches this week though, so maybe that's it? anyone that knows my little bean knows that ever since she was little she gets this really crazy red birthmark thing on her forehead when she gets upset, so i left her, sadly, at school this morning with a blazin' cling-on forehead. aaah, mamahood. today is just not my day.

so out with the bad, and in with the good!

::spring crafty projects a-dancin' in my head

::clementines, at least three at a time

::my blurb order that is ridonkulously over-the-top expensive (of course i can't just order one book...i have to order three!) but i don't care, i just want to get it! (thanks soulemama for the link!)

::finally chipping away at my massage continuing ed credits (hello, no joke! also incredibly expensive)

::making ebay antique money with my dad in order to fund my recent extravagant purchases (hello new wardrobe...i heart springy clothes)

::cinnamon shredded wheat cereal, i heart you, too

::upcoming dates with my mindertins (i miss you! i need girl time! i need adult human crafty mama interaction! what are you doing this friday night?!?)

::my love affair with mazzy star. yes, i know she was all the rage in the 90's, but i still love her. putting her cd in allows me to take broody trips back and feel all dark. like i should get out the khol and slather it on my lids.

::finally going into the city this weekend for the puffiest, more deeelicious gyro ever invented, and then a quick jaunt into johnny cupcakes

::gray's new hairstyle makes me one happy mama...two tiny wispy ponies, one on each side of her perfect skull

::going on a mama's outing yesterday- we were five mamas with 11 kids running wild, which doesn't sound like a lot until you actually see it in action. complete insanity. we got in trouble with security because the beans were bouncin' so hardcore.

::gray's new habit of pulling on my earrings- she says "mama, i wanna whoot whoot you, just like a train". my lobies are going to be down to my shoulders by the time i'm 30.

::joey trippin' around in his new shoes



aaaah zen. let the goodness flow over.

seamlessly: a late photobooth friday

it's days like today that we all fit together seamlessly. the muscles in my cheeks hurt from constant smiling. as annoying and cloyingly sweet it may sound, i'm one lucky mama to be blessed with such an amazing family.

evidence:



my belly is full and warm from a morning spent at our favorite local diner, with endless cups of coffee (hence the jitters) and big steaming plates of the greasiest, soul-cleansing (yes, it's possible) food ever. i'm wearing my new jeans by the "department of peace" and a new kelly green hoodie. two kids three and under at our table and things just seemed to go seamlessly.

my hands are cold and numb from a morning spent at the beach. plum island to be exact. walking among the dunes, getting our feet wet in snowy puddles. watching the kids holding hands while toddling down the boardwalk. the freezing breeze and the warm sun. the sneaking of shells into our pockets and the plans for the big pieces of driftwood in our upcoming spring garden. examining the footprints in the sand. salty tear-streaked faces. swings on the beach and big white-knuckled smiles. we're all wet and cold, but we're happy. another seamless adventure.

my soul is nourished from our photobooth adventure and our driving and talking and singing. we all squeeze into the booth and i take a moment to be grateful for everything that is us. i realize that we are seamless and perfect just as we are at this moment, but realize that we have at least one more gilbert waiting for us in the universe.

let's hope we can keep fitting them into the photobooths with us.


happy weekend, happy photoboothies. hope yours is filled with eggs and getting your face squashed by the little bums that you love.

the wine song

i'm busted. really busted. after a morning spent in a little seaside town doing jury duty (or not-so-much-jury-duty, more like being the only freak in the room full of white potential jury people- what's up with all the white people?), i came home to my sickly kiddos and my saintlike mother-in-law. after getting everyone settled and situated, grace and i were doing a craft at the table (actually drawing poop families...yes, families of poops, with labels and all, which is another story for another day) and she's all "mama, can i sing you a song?" and i'm all like "yes! i love songs. sing away baby!" and no word of a lie, this is what comes out of my sweet baby's mouth, word for word:

the wine song:

"the grown-ups love wine
the grown-ups drink wine

i don't drink wine because i'm a-three years old

but grown-ups really love wine."


holy AA! i guess we really do love wine in these parts. :)
i swear, my girl never ceases to amaze me with her wit, at a-three stinkin' years old.



thanks for all the enlightening and soul-nourishing conversation about the family thing. i'm going to read back over the comments and a-think about it all some more. i loved how some of you had such differing opinions about the whole topic, yet i found myself nodding my head in agreement with each one. thank you for guiding me and teaching me, and holding my hand on my journey.

power to change it all

(this morning's breakfast)

after the recent, cat-like nudgings from my husband about the possibility of having baby #3, i'm left feeling completely confused, overwhelmed, and excited about the power of decisions. it sounds simple and sooooo stating the obvious, but we have the ability to drastically change our lives. i mean, duh, really. i know. but i could, or could-not, create another human being, not only changing the course of my own life, but that of my unborn and my already-born and my marriage and dot dot dot. how do we know when are families are done being born? i'm not one to think things through and ruminate and weigh out options but come on! i should probably think about this, right? not that the pressure is on in any way. but if we're going to go all the way and pop out another snot-nosed-love-freak, i want to do it soon. i'm on a roll, right? my titters have barely had a moment to relax and deflate and we're already talking about #3. pure insanity.


so i ask you, dear friends...how do you know when your family's complete?

my body, the battlefield

(joey and mama- taken at the museum's dollhouse last week...or was it the week before?)

first, the good news: i'm showered, i'm dressed, and i've had two cups of coffee and it's 8:23am.

now, the bad news: my body is a battlefield. not sure if the mastitis-infectiony-crud spread through my body or what, but the weekend was spent having my brain cells fried away by a 103 degree temperature. my kids watched me cry and babble on the couch as i alternated between freezing cold "get the hot packs! get the heating pads! get the blankets! turn up the heat!" and burning hot "why is it so hot in here? who turned up the heat? should we go to the hospital? i think i'm dying."

luckily, the fevers have broken, my kids aren't too traumatized, and today is another day. i spent the sanest hours of my weekend finishing off the book "children of men" by banks, which the movie (which i haven't seen) is based on. nothing like reading a good distopic the-world-as-we-know-it-is-ending book to put everything into perspective and make your feverish world seem sunny and bright.

other brighter spots of the weekend: early morning breakfast date (with lots of shivering) at the local donut shop, watching people named carmello speak italian to each other, and watching my beautiful family gorge on donuts, raspberry and orange sherbert, frosties, my trusty heating pad, and sleeping with it on all night long despite my better judgement, the book "dirty sugar cookies" by ayun halliday who rocks my world, and who i'm considering petitioning to become my best friend, getting the little localy magazine in the mail with my humble little article published in it, all your comments about my boobies and your support regarding my interview, soy sauce sausage and ginger seasame rice, a date with my guys for the worst gyro i've ever eaten in my life but at least it was a date, boo helping me record all my old vhs tapes over to dvd's.

ok ok, i was really sick. how i managed to have all this greatness and all these bright spots, i'm not sure. as i drag my fanny through this morning, i must channel all the positivity i can to get through the pooh.

hope your weekends were filled with funhouses and sweetarts.

i feel famous, oh so famous

well, maybe not famous, but definitely cool.

if you have a sec, go swing by wendy's swingin' spot 'mother rising' for her interview with little ole me! an interview! my first! stuff on mama-ing and creativity. an honor, let me tell you. an honor.

why i love my life and why shaved heads don't equal crazy

again with the lists. this time a scanned version of my usual gratitude-fest.


and seriously, why does the media equate shaved heads with being crazy? i'm in no way trying to defend britney spears, but i'm really getting sick of everyone talking about how she's crazy just because she shaved her damn head. i shaved my head many-a-times before (my husband shaved it the first time) and i'm not crazy (cough cough!). many of you have asked for visual proof that i did in fact shave my head. here's a photo of my not-so-newly shaved head, during a solo-cross-country trip during the college years:

i'm not saying it looks good. i'm just saying i wasn't crazy.

my boobs aren't invincible

holy hot titty, i've gone and got myself a serious case of mastitis.

my boobies, in fact, are not invincible after all.

after years of nursing and pulling and head-butting and being slung up and down and pressed and bit and all that jazz, my nearly-weaned left one is hot, swollen, and bothered. r.e.a.l.l.y. bothered. so bothered, in fact, that i carted me and my cranky, teething one year old over to a clinic in order to be flirted with in the waiting room by a man of questionable mental integrity. (he reeeeaaaaaaly liked my scarf and earrings and everything else, by the way. he also whipped out his wallet and showed me some pictures. holy self-confession, why do i attract these weirdos?!?) anywho, i whipped out the boobers to a stranger-doctor, only to be made to feel badly about quitting cold turkey. "it's not best for the breast to do it that way!" ok sister, it's best for me, and it's a done deal, so can you just feel up my sad boober and let me be on my way? my son is getting a glimpse of the missed goodies and it's not a good thing. needless to say, i've got a serious case of crazy-milk-duct-blockage, something i've never dealt with before. i literally found myself saying to the doctor, "i'm not a boob-pain wimp, but this is PAIN". so i actually filled a prescription for antibiotics, even though my better judgement tells me NO. no hot packs or massage or all those other trickies have works. so here i go, choking down the horsie pills, hoping the titters are feeling fine again soon.

i'd post a picture, but i figured i'd spare you all. :)

photobooth friday: the weaning edition

this week has been hard, but also incredibly liberating. i feel like i have a new lease on life, which is sort of sad for me to admit to the world, because i really did love nursing so much. in a sense, i've been addicted to breastfeeding...it's been my way of life for the past couple of years...and the routine and beautiful monotony of it shapes my days and my nights. monday morning i woke up, fed the boy, and while in the shower afterwards had an epiphany- that was the last time feeding him. while most normal people like to wean their beans gradually, what works best for me is cold turkey. i can't really explain it except to say that i sat both of my kiddies down, and explained to them that mama's milk is all gone, and for both of them, they took the news and absorbed it and went with it. i'd never stop nursing if i weaned gradually. so since monday i've been up and down, fighting hormonal roller-coasters and watching my boy bloom. it's really horrible to admit this, but since monday, he's been a different child. free to play and read and waaay more talkative and interactive and happy. seriously happy. no whining and clinging and crying every time i step away. which sadly leads me to believe that he was ready. i just wasn't.

i've been dealing with crazy emotions, and a serious case of wanderlust. so yesterday, instead of coming home as usual after dropping gray off at school to put joey to bed, i just kept driving. me and the boy ended up in the city, stuck in over an hour of traffic, just to get a raspberry lime rickey, sans lime and with lemon instead, all to get out of the house. we went into little bookstores and shared an organic muffin and overpriced superjuice and then i let him wander all around the coffee shop. it's one of those places with signs and lights and bikes hanging from the ceiling and art everywhere, so he thought it was the coolest place on earth. the photobooth itself is ridonkulously overpriced, $4! but i would gladly pay much more than that to capture me and my sweet little man's weaning adventure in the city, me engorged and wearing three (!) bras to bind my playboy boobies, and him happy and at awe with the glow. i'd pay $100 just for the fourth picture in the strip...his face looks doll-like and surprised and the most perfect thing in the universe.

indulge me

these are a few of my favorite things- the ultimate indulgences:

fingerless gloves, brown paper bags filled with organic treats and oils, multiple colorful bags slung over my shoulder, listening to my folk radio show in the morning in the car with the heat blasted on my face, essential oils in the shower, whole milk yogurt with tons of granola on top and waiting until the granola gets all soft and mushy, spreading out crafting supplies on the floor and getting achy knees from all the crafting activity, martin sexton, red hot chili peppers bringing me back to my adolescence, "relax" riesling, big plates of pulled pork with my hubbie's special bbq sauce, cream and sugar in my coffee every morning, bagels with lots of butter melted on top, the smell of whole food markets (should be bottled and sold), burt's bees pepperminty lip gloss, my white fuzzy-inside frye booties keeping my feet warm, wearing hats to hide my badly-growing-in hair, massaging interesting people with stories to tell, powerful friend conversations with healing powers, homemade postcards, big gaudy homemade beaded earrings, stacks and stacks of books and magazines all waiting at attention to be picked up and loved, the feel of john's feet in bed, the way grace slams into our room in the morning starting off the day like the gunshot at the begining of a race, the way joey's nose gets really red when he's cold and it stays like that most of the rest of the day, bowls of steaming hot chili with lots of cheese, maple bacon, getting tucked in, tylenol PM, surprise meal drop-offs from dear friends, falling asleep to the sounds of games being played, natalie portman, finally clearing out my inbox, new issues of magazines, upcoming massage parties, hand-written notes and saving them for the future so i can remember.

why i love my husband, in three parts

exhibit A
exhibit B
and evidence

my day was filled with love. i hope yours was, too. i was so overwhelmed by the lubbins that me and my sore lobies passed out on the floor with a piece of chocolate in my mouth at 7:30p.

valentines day, in pictures

first off, let me just say to all my dearest peeps:

i heart packages. especially on valentines day.

this deeeelicious package pictured above is sent by one of my favorite bloggie peeps, ani at pancakemama. she knows me, that's for sure. how much did i need my all-time favorite chocolate yesterday, you ask? enough to rip into a bar before i could snap a picture. and the little springy drawing put a much-needed spring in my step.

shell seeking, another one of my real-life soul sister peeps, sent me a package filled with eye candy and i can't stop gorging on all its goodness. my girl has already ripped through the stickers and painted the shells, surprise surprise. thank you!

today is filled with the sounds of swan lake and ballet shows from the girl. the light is soft and dreamy and time is slow and quiet.

a snow day. we have daddy home. he is downstairs practicing letters and reading with the girl. the boy is sleeping. mama is catching up on the emails that she's drowning in.

i wish for you: wine glasses, bottles of your favorite wine, and some chocolate kisses.

the best days include: endless supplies of love, and a boy reading baby versions of frida kahlo's life.

my final valentine offering: a string strung with the most imperfectly perfect painted hearts.

i heart you.