Pirates Can't Swim

I got to have lunch with Ian in his class. He was holding his hands up around his eye to look at something across the room. I asked him about it and he put his hand over his eye and asked: What does this look like?

Me: A pirate!

Ian look pleased. 

He asked: What do pirates eat? 

I thought for a moment, then answered: Arrr-tichokes!

He shook his head no. 

Me: Let's see, pirates live on boats, so maybe they eat a lot of fish. 

Looking at the seaweed on his plate I added: And seaweed, I bet they like seaweed. 

Ian: How do they get the seaweed? 

Me: Well, they could pull it out of the ocean, or go out on the beach and get it there. 

Ian: But Pirates don't know how to swim. 

Me: Oh, they don't? Well, they need some swim lessons then, don't you think? 

Ian nodded. 

Me: Can you imagine a pirate in your swim lessons? It would be you, those two girls from your swim class, and a pirate!

Again Ian looked pleased. 

Me: Do you think the pirate would be scared to go in the water? 

Ian: No, because it is surrounded by walls. 

Me: Oh, so he could just go over to the edge of the pool? 

Ian: Yes. 

Me: Would you teach the pirate how to blow bubbles? 

Ian: Yes!

Miss Me?

A few months ago I had a great idea for a blog post on the theme: "if you have time to blog about work-life balance, you have some." I never wrote the post, which should tell you something about the state of my life. Things are going really well, but wow, the busy.

At 2 and a couple of months, Ian is starting to use the potty, with little or no prompting from his parents. Mira was the first to use the potty, but after one successful try she has figured out that the potty is more fun as a distraction tool. She likes to declare her desire to use the potty whenever she is faced with something she'd rather not do (get her diaper changed, put her pajamas on, eat breakfast...). Ian has been shockingly interested in non-diaper based elimination. Thrilling and thoroughly unexpected. Who says boys are harder to train? We are a while off from dumping diapers completely, but we are making some good progress without trying much. (Anyone who remembers what we went through with Ada will find this a big and pleasant change.)

When I am not working and marveling at Ian's willingness to use the potty, we have been having a good, if fairly mellow, summer. We went to our college reunion, Ada turned six, we celebrated 4th of July with family and I took a bunch of pictures on a work trip to Chicago.

 

Newish Chicago Icon

More recently we spent a week at the beach with my family. The weather was better than ever in the years I have been going to the Oregon coast. Amazing. Even better, Ada got over her fear of the water. She lead me repeatedly into the waves, much to Ian's horror. We heard "look out, the ocean! look out!" a lot from him. Mira, who pretty much refused to touch the sand last year was a lot more willing to play on the beach, so long as we didn't expect her to get near that scary water stuff.

Mira and Ada on the beach

Ada and I built a fairy house, which was very fun to do. In case this isn't in your repertoire, Ada offers the following public service announcement: Fairy houses must be built with all natural components; no artificial/human made items and nothing currently growing. So no picking flowers, but fallen leaves are fine. Or in our case, sea weed, shells, driftwood and dried sea grass.

 
fairy attractor, dune scaler, child who posed for 10 minutes 

but later declared she does not like her picture taken

 

we could have never left the porch and Mira would have still had a good time

 
proof that we had fun inside the house too: cherry juice stained boy

After a few days to recuperate and wash the sand out of our pants, we went to see Chris' family, including his 94 year old grandmother.

great grandma

We had a great time, despite the rigors of traveling with three kids. (Pro tip: take a third adult with you!)

How can you resist toddlers in tiny cars?

And lest I forget to tell you the exciting news: my sister and her husband have a book out! It looks like this:

The book is great - funny, interesting and compelling. Also, pictures! recipes! a comic! Really, I laughed, I cried, it became a part of me. Go buy it and read it now. This means you, Maggie.

Before the summer is over we have a few more tricks up our sleeves. Maybe I can commit to a post every couple of weeks, just to tap the mike. You may have forgotten me, but I miss you. 

Wouldn't you want one in your town?

The Awesome Foundation funds cool projects. Check it out.

And here is a video of a project funded by the foundation:

What we've been up to lately

snuggling

creating

hiding and peeking

smiling

flying

My Valentine

I hope Chris knows how much I love him. I try to tell him, but sometimes I might wedge such thoughts between "don't forget to buy chicken thighs" and "who left this poopy diaper on the counter?" and he might not hear it or know how much I think about him every day.

We went out to dinner on Friday, just the two of us. I said: "I think it is going to get worse before it gets better." Instead of sighing or rolling his eyes at the tempest in a teapot that is the legislative session, he reminded me that we knew this was coming and let me know it was okay. He is calm where I am excitable. He is patient where I am ready to jump out of my skin. He's reserved; I am the queen over the over-share. For all this and more I am so thankful and love him so intensely.

Smile

I enter her room, like I do every night, to turn off the light she insists stay on while she falls asleep. She is curled on her bed, the covers pushed down near her feet. As I grab the blanket to cover her back up, she turns and opening her eyes, smiles. Her smile is so broad, so genuine that I know she is seeing me, even in her sleep. After a moment I snap off the light and my beautiful daughter turns back to the window, returning to her dreams.

I lay in bed thinking about how much I love her, unable to sleep until I write this down.

Keep Thrilling Me

Just one more reason why I love Portland:


Video by goldensummitinc

You. Yes, YOU.

Okay, Indulge just a FEW more pictures

A little family photo from right before I messed up the larger family picture.

I took several full family photos with the timing (note to self, next time bring the remote!). Sadly, before I realized that they were fairly blown out, the kids and adults all decided they were done with photo time. You can see a couple of them here, which range from more blown out to more crazy looking participants (eyes shut, arms flailing, etc). Oh well, better luck next year.

Anthony flying Ada's kite

Ada with my glasses and her new seahorse 

Ada enthusiastically climbed the huge sand dune four times

One of a few really lovely sunsets
 

What these pictures do not express is how much I love my family. I really enjoyed the week, and as I told my sister when we returned to Portland, I was only sad that I had not gotten more. I am greedy for their time, and want as much of it as I can have. Even though Karen, Anthony and my parents live only a state away, there is never enough time. I often want to paraphrase that line from Where the Wild Things Are: I'll eat them up, I love them so. 

It is nice to have these reminders of how lucky I am to have such a great family, and occasionally even the time to enjoy them.

Away

Hello from the beach.

This is the year Ada got over her fear of the ocean. She is a blur of dune-climbing, sand angel-making, water-enjoying happiness.

Ian loves the beach. In particular, he loves tossing sand in his own hair.

Mira is less excited and pretty much refuses to be put down on the sand. As long as we hold her, she's happy.

I hope you are having a good week, wherever you are.

Wrap-Up (Or, How Blogher Reminded Me That I Love My Small Blog)

On Saturday morning I sat next to Maggie at breakfast. I told her that I was feeling happier than I had in a long time. Maggie gave me a funny look, wondering (I imagine) how I could be happiest at Blogher, an event known to cause insecurity and discomfort in the most self-possessed of bloggers. I told her it wasn't so much that I was happy at Blogher, but that I was just happy. I am feeling good about my work, my family, my blog.

I am happier with my blog than I have been in a long time. I generally like my blog, but preparing for a panel at Blogher is what really made me so happy with it. Writing notes for Little Fish in a Small Pond reminded me why I blog, and why it is so much more rewarding to put my energy into my blog rather than into reciprocal commenting, tweeting, self-promotion and all that goes into trying to gain readership or make my site into a big name blog. I don't want to do any of that. I just want to write and take pictures and read the blogs I want to read.

In 2008 I found Blogher kind of frustrating and depressing. I had not expected the focus on sponsors and monetizing. I enjoyed meeting people but felt uncomfortable and decided it was me who was out of place. In 2010, I went to Blogher mostly to see the blog friends I already knew in person and meet people I have known and enjoyed through their blogs. I knew what the conference would be, but felt confident I could find my place in it. On the flight to New York I wrote up some thoughts, and by the time the plane landed I felt happier with my small blog than I'd felt in a long time. The feeling persisted through the conference, and came back home with me. This feeling made me decide to stop running Blogher ads, because I can't figure out why I wanted them to begin with. (Sure, the money, but honestly the amount I make from them does little more than buy me a cup of coffee now and again.)

I am happy with this place. I don't want to change it or worry that it should be something more or different. Don't get me wrong, I am thrilled when you visit. I enjoy comments and encourage you to write them. But whether or not you are here, I will be. Ultimately this is for me, and I love my small blog.

Long Live the Small Blog!



For more about the joy of small blogs, check out the live blog transcript of the Small Blogs session from Blogher 2010. But be warned, the live blogger mis-understood and wrote that I said I have a child on the way. I do not. After saying that I have twins, I responded to an audience member who happily pointed at her own belly and said she was going to have twins too. I am not pregnant!

Oh, and Emily also wrote a post inspired by the small blogs session. It apparently got some folks riled up. I'd write more about that, but I am too tired. If you have also written a post on this topic, leave a message in the comments or email me. I'd love to read it!

I love you Chris.

I love that you are:
A wonderful husband.
A fantastic cook.*
A loving father.
An enthusiastic mathematician.
An unrepentant internet addict.

In the words of Fats Waller: I love yah, I love yah, I love yah.

Happy anniversary!






*I can not believe that in all the years of this blog I have not written about Chris' terrific cooking. He feeds me well. I offer as proof, two words: bbq pork.

Summer Dinner

New favorite impromptu summer dinner (brought to you by the people who scooped up Ada and took her away for a play-date turned sleep-over): Fava bean and sausage pasta with cilantro pesto.

So worth the annoyance of shelling, par boiling, shelling again and sauteing fava beans. Everything else was easy easy easy.

Pro tip: check your teeth for little green bits before smiling lovingly at your husband as he hands you a lemonade and rye cocktail.

Scenes from the Beach

In case anyone had any doubts, the beach was great. When I arrived I joined Ellen and the kids on the sand for a while and then we went on to dinner. After their bath, the kids got sparklers and chocolate chip cookies and several chapters of a book. Ellen and I got scotch and porch-sitting and the rare time to sit and talk. We all slept in. (Ada slept until the mind-blowing hour of 10am!) While the kids played, I worked and sat in a tub and worked then chatted with Ellen before we all ate dinner and Ada and I headed out for home.

 

I took a bunch of pictures (some with my diana lens, hence the atmospheric/fuzzy shots):

Although the time was very peaceful and the kids all played well together, there were some great moments of kid "negotiation" like this one:

N: Let's play Ivy and Bean and you are my sister, Ada. 

Monkey Boy: No, I am not playing that, I am playing Narnia.

N: I want to play Ada's my sister and we find this little alligator.

Ada: (Spinning on her toes watching her skirt twirl around her)

Ave: There is no alligator in Narnia! (to Ellen:) I want to play something that I want because they want to play what they want.

N: how about we are in Narnia and we went to the pet store and bought a baby alligator?

MB: No! You are not being very nice! Because Narnia does not involve alligators! It involves people!

Ellen: well, there ARE talking animals in Narnia. Maybe we just have not met a talking alligator yet.

sparklers are way more impressive in photographs than in person

Hopefully N's mom won't be horrified that she was outside in shorts at night!

Sometimes it all feels like too much

But not tonight.

Today I got up early with Ian. I worked all day, productively. I biked home to find my family playing with chalk in front of our house. We chatted with neighbors and then came inside to get dinner ready. Our good friend Juniper arrived to help make and eat dinner. We laughed with the babies, joked with Ada, caught ourselves up on the happenings of our lives. We ate, put Ian and Mira to bed, and got Ada bathed and in her room. We drank Chris's wonderful Manhattans. We talked more, and made plans to go camping late in the summer. We cleaned up and then said good night to Juniper. We cleaned the rest of the dishes and picked up the house, and then sat down to rest and enjoy a little quiet before bed.

It was perfect and I feel so lucky to be who I am, where I am.

Blast from the Photo Past

A couple of months ago I started getting a semi-monthly email from Photojojo with photos I took a year ago. It combs through my flickr photos and randomly grabs year old pictures and sends them to me. I love this service (and it is free!)

Among the pictures I got last week is this:

Ian is in Pink, Mira in stripes
(There is nothing wrong with the color in this picture, they were just jaundiced.)

And this:

Worth washing their hands for

It isn't perfect, which is to say Photojojo's time capsule doesn't read my mind and know that this and this are among my favorites.  But until psychic software is invented, I will remain a huge fan of this service.

Peeking into the Cracks

I just found the work of this fantastic artist Ana Ventura who finds cracks and peeling paint and other imperfect spaces and turns them into people and monsters other fantastic creatures.

Wow. Check it out.




She also takes lovely pictures of her children and showcases some of her other work on flickr.

Take That! (or: Everyone Wins!)

To find out who won the growth chart, click here.

I have a few things for the rest of you too. I find these things, as I am sure you do, but who do I send them to? I can only send my sister so many emails titled look at this.

So instead, I say to you, LOOK AT THIS!

Quite possibly the best Star Wars movie ever. Even better, you can participate in making part of another of these. Click here to see how.

Months after I saw this, I am still horrified and amused by vajazzling. I suspected I was not alone, but now I have proof.

As a follow up to my recent "good animal" query, here's a reason you might not want to put Pandas at the top of your list.  (Thanks to @TheBloggess)

Another friend posted this on Twitter, and I think I am in love.

Remember

A year ago I wrote this note to myself about Ada:

To Remember - when I go in to make sure you still have blankets on, you turn over in your sleep and reveal that you have your teddy bear clasped in your hand.

Thought I'd Give That "Wordless Wednesday" Thing A Try