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This past weekend we loaded up and headed south to my home town in Brevard County, FL.  My sister and her family graciously let us stay with her and fed us and endured the volume.

 

Breakfast

 My niece, Nicole, graduated from high school (and also 2 years of college!) a few weeks ago.  We were unable to go then, but went this past weekend so we could see her recognized with other graduates at church on Sunday.  It made me think about my buddies at church that I graduated with.

Here I am with Nicole and Penelope as she was getting ready to walk down to the front of the church.

And here I am on my Graduation Sunday at church.  I love these guys.  Such great memories.

The Alley's love Nicole.

And on a side note, my sister reminded me that when she came to my high school graduation, Nicole was almost exactly the same age as Juliet is now.  Crazy!

We also hit the beach three times and being at home made me miss the ocean and my home town community of leather backs, retirees, and surfers.  Seriously, I reminisced a lot and enjoyed my boogie board rides (it's amazing how it's like riding a bike) and cruising A1A telling my kids stories about my past.

Ju-Ju with Elise

I love the Atlantic Ocean!  It is home to me.

The kids loved playing in the ocean.  It made me a little nervous but they really handled the waves and currents well.  I was proud of them.

Our visit also included a visit with Jimmy's cousin, Robert, his wife Emily and their 13 month old, Henry.  We invaded their house with all the Alley chaos we could manage and enjoyed hanging out for a couple hours and letting the second cousins meet.

Cute Cousins

Yesterday on the way home we drove through Orlando to visit IKEA and pick up some furniture we've been wanting to get.  They were having a deal that if you spent more than $100 you could also turn in your receipt from your meal there and they would reimburse you for it.  So of course, we did.

 What we did not consider is that everyone else in the entire Orlando area was also going to IKEA to do the same thing.  But we made it through, then drove all the way to Tallahassee with three large boxes.  One in the van and two on top.  In the rain bands of a tropical storm.  Needless to say, we all went to bed exhausted last night.  The car trip home was hairy to put it nicely but these things make you stronger as a family.  Right?

Here we are riding home.

Beginnings

When I graduated from Florida State with my BFA in Art, I was sad.  It was the end of something and I knew it.  I could feel it.  I did not want it to be over.  I have always been this way.  I even formed an attachment to a phone from my childhood.

This week I had to say goodbye to the preschool four of my kids have attended.  Even though this school year we no longer lived down the street we kept Penelope there because the preschool is just that good.  But we're not sure what we will be doing when Juliet is preschool age, so I have said goodbye to Covenant Presbyterian Preschool in case this is the end for us.  Endings are no fun!

A friend, Carl, that I graduated with from art school felt the same.  We talked about how it was a little depressing when it should feel pretty good, graduating college and all.  He wrote on the wall in the studio, "It's not an end it's a beginning."  We had talked about this too.  I tried to get excited for the beginning.  It was hard, but the truth can be hard.

It truly was a beginning for me.  A month or so later, I got engaged. 

And began.

And  the older I get, the more of these little life endings I'm forced to live through.  It can make me feel old and tired.  I have been blessed with a heavenly perspective on these things, but at times it's hard to grasp it.  I am only human.  And this human thinks endings suck.

So I'm going to miss preschool.  Sometimes I pick up my near eight year old girl and tell her how I'm going to be sad when I can't pick her up anymore.  Today the neighbor who lives behind us called me to tell me his wife of over 60 years passed away last night.  And the children feel the weight of an ending too.  Cash remarked sadly, "Now he is all alone."  Endings are hard.

But it's just preschool after all.  We can visit.  It's not the end of the world.  It's the beginning of something else.  Right?  Only now I have stretch marks and gray hairs peeking through and children I can't pick up anymore.  The whole thing hits you pretty hard sometimes.

And just one more thing.  When did my blog go from hilarious descriptions of poopy diapers to melancholy ramblings about life changes?

I
HATE
GETTING
OLD.

Happy Mother's Day 2012

Had a great Mother's Day with my wonderful family including my parents.  Even my sister via Skype.  Wanted to share this comic Libby wrote earlier this week since it's about a mom.  Libby has captured it perfectly.  Sometimes, as hard as you try to stay positive, you end up saying, "Just forget it."

Multi-Grain Cheerios

Yesterday Jackson went on an all day field trip to Pensacola.  We were thoroughly packing Thursday night since he had to wake up before dawn and be at the school at 5:45 a.m. the next day.  Looking toward a long bus ride with his classmates, we plugged in his iPod Shuffle to charge and I also remembered I had a large pad of Mad Libs, and asked him if he'd like to take some along.

He got excited and said he would take the whole thing.  He also brought an entire pack of pens, so he could pass them all out and share them.

Within minutes of stepping off the bus late last night he told me that as soon as they pulled away that morning that "everyone" pulled out their Nintendo DS and messaged each other the entire way there.  Some were using the phone of their chaperone parent.  He then proceeded to of course tell me that he wanted a DS.

I had forgotten about the Mad Libs but remembered later today and asked him if he used any of them.  He said "No, everyone was too busy with the movies and other stuff."

I have held out getting a cell phone and Facebook account.  This makes me feel old and the opposite of hip.  I do not text, twitter, or pin.  It is enough to read a few blogs and keep up with e mail and my home phone. 

And the above story illustrates why...I don't want to get to a point where I text someone sitting a few rows down from me and Mad Libs are boring and not stimulating enough. 

A few weeks ago I found a box of letters spanning my freshman year of college until my wedding.  Real letters.  Some typed, many written by hand, more than one encouraging me to get an e mail address.  The hour I spent looking through that box of letters lifted my spirits.  They were extremely personal. 

I'm sure much out of my love for paper, I am sad to think that my children will not have written memories of their friends and loved ones.  I do encourage them to write letters to their friends.  I hope we can strike a balance between these new forms--text, Facebook, twitter--of communication (which are unfortunately often selfish and convenient) and the ways of the past.

And I don't want to step on anyone's toes, but here is the truth:  When Jimmy leaves his Facebook page open on the computer and I spend some time scrolling through his friend's updates, I don't feel edified or encouraged.  Often I feel inadequate and discouraged.  I definitely feel as though I've neglected what is going on around me.  Mostly I get the feeling that many are wrapping their self worth into how many comments or likes they receive and spend much of their time trying to promote and prove themselves to people who supposedly already call themselves their friends.

I even had reservations about this blog at first.  But hopefully I can write with a pure heart and leave a history for my kids.  So kids, one day, when you get a cell phone, please don't look at your phone instead of me when I'm talking to you.  Because I don't have one for that very reason.  I want to look at you when you're talking to me.  You are growing up way too fast for me to miss anything.  Embrace technology.  Just remember it can't hug you back.

"Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar;"  Romans 3:4

Garden Dress

My good friend Tara made this adorable dress for Juliet.  Today I took pictures of her in it as she walked around our driveway, our neighbor's driveway, and then took her in the backyard so I could photograph her next to our garden, which we planted the first week of March.

Juliet is quite good at walking now, so my inept fashion photography was even more challenged because the model would not stand still. Thank you for the dress, Tara.  It makes my heart happy.  How can you not love the back of her fat little knees?  And she also had matted peanut butter in the back of her hair.  No one would know if I didn't say it, but it just endears me to her even more.  She smelled like peanut butter all day.  It's a toddler thing.

Here we are by the garden.  It has really gotten big and the beans and tomatoes have taken over everything.  We really had no idea what we were doing.  This is our first attempt at planting anything for school that didn't just sit in our windowsill until I threw it away.

Have you ever seen some incredible person who had done some incredible feat say, "If I can do it, anyone can do it!"  I never believe these people.  It's things like, "If I can run a marathon, anyone can run a marathon." or "If I can become a concert pianist, anyone can become a concert pianist." You get the idea. And you're saying to yourself, right buddy, I could never do that.  But let me say it, and this is true.  If the Alley's can plant a garden, ANYONE can plant a garden.

I seriously thought that we would stare at black dirt for the entire summer and wonder what we did wrong.  I had no faith that it would produce anything.  I really only did it because my five year old asked me every single day, multiple times a day, for about two months, when we were going to plant our garden.  (Yesterday I told him I'm glad he bothered me about it.  You won't hear me say that very often.  That I'm glad someone bothered me.)

Tonight we ate our first batch of beans and they were good.  Your kids don't give you a hard time about eating their vegetables when you can use lines like, "You planted these seeds with your bare hands.  You watered them.  We are not going to waste them!"  They all ate them up.  Juliet especially.

Ju-Ju in her garden dress.  So sweet I could pick her up and eat her!  Wait, am I talking about the beans or the baby?  It's all blurring together this late at night...

Birds on a Progress Bar

Sometimes when I'm waiting for my inbox to appear or waiting for a Netflix movie to load, I wax poetic in my head about the progress bar. It comes up. You moan a little. You don't want to wait for it to move across. But since fast internet connections, usually it zooms right on by, getting to the end much faster than you expected. And I think about how fast life goes by.

Recently we had the pleasure of watching two wrens nest, lay eggs, and hatch babies in our garage. We were able to see them brand new, blind and silent, and then feathered and making their tiny chirps. In the morning the parents would squawk at me to let them out. If they had been outside all night, they would come flying in seconds after I opened the garage door.

The whole thing was amazing.

And then, it was over. I watched for them one morning and worried when the birds did not come into the garage and to the nest. So I got on the ladder (which we had placed near the nest so we could all spy on them) and they were gone. The entire process was a month tops.

Of course I cannot help but make the parallels between our life and the birds. You make your little nest, have your babies, feed them, and then they're gone.

Mine aren't gone yet. I'm somewhere in the middle of the progress bar. But it's going by super fast and I'd like to go back to dial-up and have it take just a little longer. I'm afraid. I'm afraid I'm going to forget things. I'm afraid I'm going to miss things because there's so much going on. I'm afraid I'm going to try to feed them one day and they will have left the nest!!

Okay, I'm getting a little dramatic.

But life is going fast. My life is a progress bar on a fiber optic internet connection. My birds are perched right there on it, looking super cute and changing on a daily basis. Sometimes they can get a little loud when they want their food. Sometimes they fight with each other. Often over the food. Then I clean them up and we start the whole process over again. I love birds.

Bestfeeding

Disclaimer #1: If you're a man, you probably won't be interested in this. But you should read it if your wife has breastfed. She is doing a good thing.

Disclaimer #2: I do not stand in judgement against anyone who chooses not to breastfeed. It is not for everyone.


Weaning is gradual. It tapers off for a long time. I am currently in the process and just wanted to write a little bit about breastfeeding before it is a part of my past.



These cloth diapers have served as my burp cloths for every baby. I love them. They are perfect. I don't think you can buy them anymore, so I protect them as a precious treasure. Juliet has not needed a burp cloth for many months, but I pulled these out and refolded them one by one, not forgetting the method I use to make them all stack up nice and straight. I do not think I will be able to get rid of these.


I have nursed all my babies from birth until one year old or longer. I cannot remember giving any of them formula. I did not even pump my milk very often. I am not saying this in a prideful way. It is the opposite. I realize how fortunate and blessed I have been that me or my babies have had no major difficulties that would prevent me from breastfeeding.

Someone once asked me why I breastfeed. The only thing I could think of to say was, "Why wouldn't you breastfeed?" There are too many reasons. Convenience, little to no cost, helps with baby's brain development, antibodies in mom's milk, burns calories for post partem weight loss, connection with your baby, perfect recipe of what baby needs... the list goes on and on.

There is much to be said. But mostly, it is just a miracle, the way God designed it.


When I prop myself up in the hospital bed and help my baby nurse for the first times, it causes my uterus to contract and also the baby's body lying right there on my abdomen...all of it works together in an amazing design.

When you breastfeed, the hormone released makes you feel sleepy. I think this is so you take your time, letting the baby linger and get as much as they need.

When you are breastfeeding a new baby, you find yourself doing just that many times throughout your day. I think this provides the rest required while your body is recovering from childbirth.


When you breastfeed, you need your baby just as much as they need you. As a friend once put it, you have some information you need to download. And your baby is a hungry little hard drive. This need to work together creates a bond with your baby only made between a mother and her child.

When you breastfeed, you are providing a safe and secure place for your baby. It is a sacrifice of your time and energy to nurse. It does come with a certain amount of pain and difficulty. But your baby could never doubt your attention, your devotion, or their place in your heart while at your breast. You are setting yourself aside. You have to miss things sometimes. It is a great practice in unselfishness, which prepares you for parenthood in general.



It has been extremely rewarding and I will always have fond memories. The noises they make, the way they reach up and touch your face, the drunken sleepy face of a newbie with milk in the corner of their mouth...it is a blessing to say the least.

I am grateful to have had the experience. I tried to do the math...how many hours of my life I've spent breastfeeding. I couldn't do it. I have lost too many brain cells in the breastmilk. But it's a lot. Thousands. Enough ounces to fill five gallon buckets. It's pretty cool.

The Bobbin

Tonight I finally got a chance to listen (with some concentration) to a new album by Eric Peters, a singer/songwriter Jimmy and I befriended when we were first married. He and his wife Danielle came to Tallahassee and played a show and hung out for the first time with us way back in the year 2000.

I was able to make some artwork for one of his former albums. It was a privilege. It had birds. I love birds. His new album is really great (sorry for the boring adjective...it deserves something more cerebral than that but it is after 9 p.m.) and he did his own artwork and his Danielle photographed him for the liner. It is called Birds of Relocation and has a painting with birds for the album cover. I felt proud somehow even though they are much cooler, more creative, and I think a couple years older than me.

In the spring of 2010 Jimmy brought Eric back for another Tallahassee concert. Then, he came back in the fall and on that visit asked me to make some artwork for his wife for a Christmas present. I of course said yes because I need a kick in the pants to do anything artistic. Unfortunately I am not in a place in life where I make it for the sake of making it. I use up all my creativity doing something called home school. But I do lie in bed on a regular basis and dream about carving out a corner of my bedroom into a tiny studio.


I never blogged about this art because it was the holidays and I had a baby (Juliet) just a couple weeks later and once a certain amount of time passes I just don't blog about things. But tonight my memory was jogged and I wanted to write about this.



I really only had one thing to go off of, a quote from a Traveling Onion poem that Eric sent me, "For the sake of other, disappear." But I knew Danielle likes to sew so I was also inspired by that. The scissors, well, I love scissors. I drew 86 pairs of them for my BFA grad show. Scissors can be open. They can get rid of stuff you don't want. They are a tool. They change the shape of things. They cut paper, the best stuff ever. They are utilitarian yet they create.


The Peters have two small children, so they are a family of four. Instead of four spools of thread, I made one a bobbin to represent the mother.

On a sewing machine, the bobbin holds the thread that you don't see. It is on the underside of your fabric. If your tension is set right, you don't see it on the top side. If not, it can peek out and make an ugly stitch. If you run out of bobbin thread, your top stitch will not hold together. It is not meant to be seen though, it disappears if you will.

We mothers are kind of like the bobbin. We do lots of unseen work to make our family look good. We disappear most of the time. We are behind the camera, in the kitchen away from the party, and chauffeuring the dreams of our kids around town. Yet without a mother, the fabric of the family isn't holding together so well.


This was sort of an encouragement to persevere through runny noses, dirty diapers, and soiled laundry. We are the bobbin. We hold it together. Unseen, but essential and important. For the sake of others, disappear. Be encouraged. Put yourself out there for your family and rejoice in the role God has given you...to help it all hold together. (With God's unending grace lavished over you every day holding you together of course!)

Be strong. Be the bobbin. Use your scissors if necessary.

Books I Love

Today I was mending a book that I have had since Jackson was a baby. Recommended by my sister, it has served me well and has been well loved by all my babies. I love this book. It is called First Hundred Words by Heather Amery and Stephen Cartwright. I love it because it is useful, helpful, and the scenes encapsulate my life. The expressions on their faces capture what they are feeling and these mundane moments (and the family that experiences them together) are celebrated. I really love it.



Look at the baby and mommy in the pool with a bare bottom. Who doesn't want to remember that forever when it's happening to you?


Here is my baby with the living room scene. Dad is playing, Mom is reading a book and all is right in the house.


Do you see what I mean about capturing the moment and expression?


This happens all the time at my house. Kitchen chaos. Only my baby would probably be playing with sharpies under the table instead of spoons.


I love bath time. I love this illustration. May I never forget the many times I've experienced this in our bathroom. Everyone is happier when they're clean.


Nothing needs to be said. (Except I forgot to mention that this little yellow duck hides on every page. It is so fun for a child to find. It never gets old.)


The Dad's face on this is priceless. It encapsulates how most dad's feel when given a baby and a bottle. "What's your problem?" And... "You can't do this yourself?"

I had so much fun photographing this book I decided to make a little visual list of some of our other staples around here. These are some of the first books I start with as early as possible. I could not parent without these books. They have been regulars with every single child.


This one especially with the boys. It has just the right amount of words on each page. An awesome introduction to different kinds of trucks.


This is Eric Carle's The Very Busy Spider in board book form. I can teach animals, their sounds, the sign language for them, and repetition. I enjoy trying to say, "Want to roll in the mud?" how a pig might say it. Hey, it's my theatrical outlet.


And speaking of Eric Carle, he still did the artwork, but the words are by Bill Martin Jr. I actually have an autographed copy (by Martin) but I have no idea where it came from. Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? is a whole blog in and of itself, but you get colors, animal names, signs, rhythm...it is wonderful.


A classic. Hard for Juliet to sit still for this one for some reason, but I read it with commitment anyway. I love books that rhyme. "Good night nobody, good night mush."


A must have for body parts, this one recently lost the back two pages. I'm going to fix it. It's been through all five kids.


Dr. Suess is also another post, but these two are my favorite for toddlers. They start to finish your sentences once you read them enough and it makes you so proud!


Besides, are there any illustrations better than Mr. Brown? Look at him! He is awesome!


I can't read the board book version of this because they shorten it. They leave out cute pages like Mr. Brown making a sound like a goldfish kiss.



Also love The Eye Book. Written by Dr. Suess (as Theo LeSieg) but not illustrated by. All the kids love pink underpants.


After I finished photographing the books I stacked them up next to this floor chair and later caught Juliet sitting there reading them.


I did not set this up! She was just doing it. I did turn one of the book right side up, but the pure joy from reading is hers alone.


Then later, I caught her sitting at the table with someones school work. They learn by example! Read to your kids!!