“Mommy… here…” she walks towards me, then hands me a set of handcuffs my maid of honor gave us as a gag gift at a bridal shower. “Pretty mommy, here.” oh boy. 

“Thanks Ginny” I respond as I set them behind my keyboard. Just what I wanted on my desk.

She walks away and returns with a package of bobby pins. “Mommy, Ginny hair please.” And I oblige, pinning her bangs back with a bobby pin and putting the rest behind my keyboard.

A few moments later “Mommy, here… tums.” And sure enough she is carrying a bottle of tums.

“Thank you baby.” You know I’ve probably got some sort of stomach problem if I say “Tums” enough for my daughter to know that word.

A few moments later she returns “Mommy, trash, here….” she hands me a condom wrapper. gah… get out of my drawer you little pipsquak!

But naturally I thank her, then tell her to go back to the blocks. That’ll do it.

But alas. “Mommy… here…” and she hands me a condom. Now… what I don’t understand… is how in the *ahem* heat of the moment *ahem* condoms seems to disappear from view and not one can be found but she can just *POOF!* find them in two seconds. :/

So now I need to clean out behind my keyboard, as it currently houses condoms, bobby pins, tums, a signle AA battery (which she said belonged with the TV… she keeps taking the remote apart), a too-small baby sock, and 2 hair clips.

Also… I think I need to find a new place to keep the condoms.

I’ll add that to the list.

That first day was a blur, Ginny didn’t want to sleep, since it was daylight outside, despite the lack of sleep she stayed up all day and made every one miserable. lol. Sleep has definitely been the biggest challenege of this trip, as the room doesn’t have curtains, so Ginny rises with the sun… at 5 am.  We visited several different places, but for now I’ll just share a few pictures.

A panorama of the view from the house at sunset.

B-man and I at Mackworth Island. He skipped rocks into the water while Ginny tried to copy him.

Ginny getting some energy out at Portland Headlight, in South Portland.

And one last sunset.

And that is it.

But this year, we got a real tree! The fake one looked tiny in our house, and just didn’t feel right. So we got an 8 foot tree. We got it in the house and had to trim it so it wasn’t touching the cieling. lol.

In any case, I’m saying this because you can kind of see the tree in the background of one of these pictures – and I’m super defensive. I paid for that tree. A tree died to help us celebrate the holidays, and honestly – it is still beautiful, so we’re still enjoying it.

In other news. There was a box in my living room. I’m not sure why. Maybe it used to have… well… some thing was in it, but then it was empty. So around the end of December it got flipped on it’s side and Ginny started crawling in there to hang out. Of course, it was a bit like my first dorm room: cave like. Being incredibly bored, and trying to tidy up a bit, I spent a little bit of my time and turned that lone, cave-like box, into a miniature playhouse!

Don’t worry, it’s fully functional. I was going to make little curtains for it, but I doubt she would’ve appreciated that, plus sometimes it’s nice to just let the sun-light come in!

Please note the incredible detail in the shingles. Also, the box is from Lowe’s, Juuuust fyi,

So, I was gone most of the day. I was hosting a baby shower for a good family friend (hosting at some one else’s house since I live kind of far away from every one). When I called B-man to tell him I was headed home he said “remind me to show you, I got some cute pictures on my phone.

Yes, cute. naturally.

There were some of Ginny sitting on a wheeled giraffe wrapped in a blanket, and then… well, there was this:

That’s the Young House Love book. I pre-ordered it before it came out, and was very happy to receive it. Ginny is a lover of all books, and had pulled the book off of my desk, and then sat down to browse… I guess she is looking for some nice affordable ideas for updating her little house. lol.

I accused my husband of staging the photo, but he assured me she had been finding different books throughout the house and then taking them to her house to read.

My heart melts.

This morning, I put Ginny in a laundry basket, turned the TV on, and relaxed in bed for an extra hour. Sort of. G-baby isn’t really interested in the TV. She was interested in sitting in a laundry basket with a stuffed frog from my childhood.

It was adorbs.

And I didn’t sleep, because I was too busy peaking at her and trying to steal this picture.

And yes, that is a messy room, with the left overs of having recently painted. I purchased the paint back in October, but never got around to painting. Lucky for me I have an amazing friend who drove up from F’burg – TWO DAYS IN A ROW – to help me paint while her precious kiddos helped to mind Ginny.

It was poop yellow/green before. Awful. The room is so peaceful and calming now. I feel better rested when I wake up now. It’s lovely.

In celebration of the winter solstice I made a special dinner for our little family. I decided to highlight in-season veggies, and just make it fancy. The fancy part didn’t work out. B-man ended up having some car troubles as I was cooking, and then extended family situations lead to the evening having a very solemn feeling. Regardless, I still made some delicious food stuffs.

As part of our dinner I made “Meltaway Cabbage” from Simple in Season, a  cookbook I received for Christmas last year. I’ve made this recipe twice and it is delicious. Cabbage, softened for at least on hour with butter and paprika – then mixed with egg noodles or speatzle. Naturally, I don’t need much of an excuse to break out my speatzle maker! I made a big bowl, and then Ginny stood by the stove, and then at the kitchen table, carefully picking up one noodle at a time and lowering it into her mouth. I try to cherish these moments. They surpass all elements of time and generations – my baby likes the things I like, and it is precious.

This year we decided to do our nuclear family celebration of Christmas on the Solstice. We spend Christmas Eve with his extended family, and Christmas Day with my extended family. It is always good to spend time with them, but it leaves me feeling burned out, which can lead to the holidays feeling rushed and less special. Doing our own thing, in our own time, gleefully handing each other one gift at a time – it does my soul good.

Santa drove through our neighborhood on a firetruck! With sirens blaring they tossed out candy canes and all the little kids collected some. Ginny picked up a lollipop, while I pocketed a few leftover mini-candy canes. Yum!

One of my gifts this year was a bread machine from Nanny. It makes a 1 pound loaf, which is perfect for our little family. I have made about 5 loaves since opening it. I’ve dabbled in bread making before, but seriously – this makes it so much easier! Plus, I was able to set up a bread making station in one corner of my kitchen with all of the typical ingredients collected and read to make a new loaf of deliciousness!

And that (generally) covers life. Home made bread, delicious speatzle and cabbage, and of course, crocheted hats. I didn’t make these ones, they were Christmas gifts from one of my little sisters, but they are adorable and super warm. Ginny’s is a little big, but it just means she has plenty of room to grow into it!

I long for warmer weather – a weird thing for me, as I usually prefer the cold. But now the cold means staying inside, which is nice for me, but is hard on Ginny. Almost all the way through December we were spending at least an hour in the back yard every day. I would get to sit in my camp chair, read a book, or knit, while Ginny would run around, chase the dogs, collected leaves or, upon request, bring me a stick!

Maybe if we ever start using our fireplace she can be our kindle-collector!

]]> http://oneshinystar.com/?feed=rss2&p=2273 0 http://oneshinystar.com/?p=2265 http://oneshinystar.com/?p=2265#comments Sat, 24 Nov 2012 20:19:20 +0000 Jessica http://oneshinystar.com/?p=2265 My Mom’s birthday was on Thanksgiving, so I offered to host the family so that she would not have to spend her birthday slaving away in the kitchen. I fondly remember as a child waking up in the early morning to my mom quietly preparing the Thanksgiving feast on her own in whatever tiny kitchen the military had stuck us with. Since we were rarely near family these meals usually consisted of just as, and some times a neighbor or family from church who was also far from their relatives.

Now we live very close to a lot of relatives. I did all of my grocery shopping on Monday, including buying a turkey. I had planned on making my huband’s traditional Swedish Limpa Bread that evening, but a good friend from my parents’ area called saying they were headed to the Cheesecake factory that had just opened up near me. The line was long, but they brought cheesecake over to our house and we all sat in the living room and chatted while the kids played in the parlor. It was… awesome. I miss their company more than anything else I gave up when we moved north. Schedules are busy this time of year, though hopefully a new year will bring a new schedule.

Ginny enjoying the trampoline at my parents’ house.

On Tuesday I spent the day running errands. The few things I forgot to buy on Monday, plus a few special items to make the meal feel more fancy. We decided to have the dinner at our long kitchen table instead of our dining room table. So I needed to make a table cloth long enough to fit the table, and placemats as well. Then I pick up 12 wine glasses at ikea for $1 each, to make our sparkling cider fancier.

Tuesday evening B-man’s mom came over and made the Limpa bread with us. It was a good thing, as I was low on oil and she on oats – we shared. We spent the time kneading bread and listening to her tell us about her childhood. His parents represent a generation not found in my family, so I love hearing about how different things where for them.

By morning our bread had doubled in size! I have very bad luck with yeast, but B-man’s mom helped me this year, and it turned out beautifully.

B-man took Wednesday off so that he could help me in the preparations. Mostly he watched the baby and did the dishes, while I frantically cooked and baked my way through 7 recipes. Almost all of the side dishes were cooked ahead of time.

Limpa Bread, all baked up!

Thursday was spent cleaning, cooking, cleaning, hosting, eating, and cleaning. I can see why some people are resistant to hosting Thanksgiving. It was definitely over whelming and all of the work made the day fly by.

I snapped a picture of every one at the table before we dove into the food. I had planned on everything being ready at 4, but we got the turkey in the oven a little late and when all was said and done we didn’t sit down until after 6.

Ginny took a late afternoon nap, and then woke just in time to eat. Unfortunately she found it overwhelming and ended up eating a bowl of cottage cheese in stead.

And now with all of that over we have been spending a lot of time outside. Though the air is chilly the sun shines nicely into our back yard and we take advantage of it every chance we can.

If I take Ginny in the backyard without the dogs she will walk around saying “Greloe” (Gretel) and “Duko” (Zuko), then she goes up and tried to open the back door for them. Over half of her words right now are probably dog related (okay… that’s a little exaggerated.), and though her vocabulary is limited, she understand so much more than I realize.

So from our home to yours: Happy Holidays! Thanksgiving falls under that, right? Today we had planned on doing some decorating for the season, but then a football game came on. Though, he assures me it is (possibly?) the last game of the season, I look forward to Saturdays free of hours spent in front of the television. Thankfully Ginny is usually content to hang out with B-man in the living room, so I can get down to the office and do a little blogging.

5×7 Folded Card

View the entire collection of cards.

Have you ordered your cards yet?

Writing “No offense, but…” does not make your statement less offesnive, especially when done in a public social media environment.

If what you are about to type is rude or mean, then keep it to yourself. There are appropriate times to tell people straight up what is going on, and then there are times to suck it up and keep it to yourself because you don’t know what is going on in some one else’s life.

People think it is okay to type these long rage comments to other’s telling them how wrong/annoying/stupid they are, and I’m sick of it. I’ve been thinking about leaving facebook for months now. Every time I get on I am annoyed by one thing or another, but then when I consider it further I tell myself “but it is so nice to be able to keep in touch with people”. The thing is… the people who matter to me in real life, are a part of my real life. I see them during the week and talk with them and enjoy their company. Those people who don’t live near me would still be able to contact me through e-mail, and I would happily send pictures. The more I think about it the better this idea sounds. I basically just need to quit social media, because it is stressing me out.

Also – people are mean.

During the summer Ginny lounged around in a onesie and socks. But these days my crazy haired baby is sleeping a full on fleece romper.

It’s also been oatmeal every morning for a few weeks now. Of course, that’s what I’ve been told. Recently B-man has so sweetly been letting me sleep a little longer while he feeds Ginny in the morning. I should probably be going to bed earlier, then I wouldn’t feel so exhausted, but I definitely appreciate the help/extra sleep.

Ginny has also become very good at feeding herself with flatware. If I ever serve her finger foods while I eat with a fork she demands that I hand over my fork for her usage. lol. I wish I could say this helped on the mess, but it’s just a different mess.

With the cold weather also comes a long list of things I would like to be knitting. I am currently working on a pair of socks for a knitting exchange I signed up for, but I’ve also got 2 scarves and a hat on needles, each in a bag, waiting for me to finish these socks!

It took a long time to get started. This cuff took be 2 days. :/

I got about 3 inches down the cuff of the sock and was very upset one morning to see that Ginny had climbed up onto the table and pulled all of the needles out of my sock.  I quickly sewed a lifeline in and then shoved it into a bag. I didn’t know how to fix it, because… well… I’m new at this.

I went to the online group and explained my dilema and through the magic of the internet a kind soul who lives near me was willing to meet up with me at panera and spend two hours fixing my sock for me.

Needless to say: faith in humanity restored.

Now I’m working on the heel section.

I have not been knitting for very long, but it is really growing on me.

Speaking of standing on tables… I quickly determined this was a bad place for Ginny’s little table. eek!

It has been moved back to the kitchen and away from the messy craft table covered in scissors and needles and other pointy/sharp things. eek!

Of course, Ginny loves autumn just like her Mama. We spend a large part of our day outside, Ginny trudging through the leaves.

Aaaand… that is 20 bags of leaves. Those came from just our front yard. It took four hours of a local teenage boy, me, and Brandan. Lots and lots of leaves in bags… lucky for Ginny we still have leaves all over our yard too. :/

I need to get a chair for sitting on the patio. In the meantime though I just sit on the ground, while Ginny explores our backyard. Today she found this small section that has lots of little white rocks. It has been covered in leaves for so long that she hadn’t noticed it before!

It is neat to see her finding and exploring new things. Thankfully she was not interested in eating them! This lack of eating every object is a new thing – and I am so glad for it!

She is growing so quickly. She runs now – and fast. She also (as pictured earlier) can climb. Sometimes I find her on a table, kindly clearing it and putting all of the papers on the floor. It’s annoying, but I know she’s not trying to be annoying so I try to just correct the climbing instead of getting worked up. It’s been a constant battle.

Her hair is growing too. I can do almost an entire ponytail, or bouncy pig tails, and now:  a braid!

It’s kind of nice because she can sleep on it and it doesn’t get super messy overnight, like a ponytail does.

And that is life lately. It is slow, and fast, and perfect.

Recently my world was turned upside down. Not having a baby – recently, but moving into a new house – recently. I didn’t move far, but my entire social life has changed. I’m having a hard time finding people I click with, and it usually has very little to do with me. Ya see – I’m two people now. I’m me, but I’m also Ginny. At least, right now. I have to consider her in everything I do.

I wish I could sleep through the sniffles, but I’ve been trained. It’s like they send you home with a baby and they say “It might die, good luck!” Then you spend the first several months glued to the baby monitor, listening for breaths. Any little hiccup might be suffocating/SIDS/death-in-general, so you spend all night getting up to check on this tiny helpless baby. By the time they are no longer so helpless you can’t help it – you’ve been trained! It’s exhausting and terrifying. And then they grow a bit. And you’re not supposed to have to worry any more. Unfortunately I am a professional worrier, so I do.

But it’s more than the sleep. I worry about the people I spend time with. The things she is exposed to. I often try to channel my fore-bearers, of… about 200 years ago. When people lived in small, self sustaining, communities. Where it really did take a village to raise a child and no one was offended by you possibly implying that their child wasn’t perfect. Because people knew that not only did children need minding, but the children need to learn to mind. I don’t know if it is the times or the location, but people seem to hate the “village”. As Ginny grows I expect her to respect adults. All adults. Even the ignorant, racist, homophobic, rude, loud, obnoxious adults. I did. I didn’t like it. But I did. And it taught me to see with out needing to comment. It taught me to be polite.

I’m having trouble making friends. And it’s not really me I’m worried about. I married my best friend and that was the best idea I ever had. It’s Ginny’s village. She needs that. She deserves that diverse upbringing. Growing up I had at least 3 strong “mother” figures in my life at all times- aside from my actual mother. Women I was comfortable around. Women that had no problem teaching me to behave.  At my wedding a collection of 10 women posed for a picture with my Mom. My Mothers. The women who raised me.

I try so hard to herald back to those times. I find myself forcing apple picking/canning adventures and learning to knit and sew clothes and create this environment. But it doesn’t really matter because the people aren’t there. It will happen. I will find Ginny’s village – and make great friends along the way. Women who will one day help with Ginny’s wedding.

So that’s where I am. Awake because of a sniffle and wishing I had friends like I did in high school – who didn’t mind a 3 am phone call for comfort.

————————-

Also – it’s more than the behaving. Though that is important to me. Perhaps this is arrogant, but I think as a person… I turned out well. I do my best to be kind and helpful to as many people as I can, even if it is not easy or convenient, and I do so with out complaining. Why am I this way? Because that is how my Mom is. She has given up hours and days, even weeks, of her life to help others. When I was younger she was always volunteering in our community. She was even the “mayor” (a volunteer position) on one of the military bases we lived at. This type of commitment took a lot of her time. Time she could’ve spent on herself. But she was always happy to help the people in our commitment. A selfish woman, she is not.

Playing her great grandmother’s piano

I want Ginny, and future children, to know that they have a community. I want her to feel comfortable talking to me, but when she isn’t I want her to know that she can talk to one of my friends (and that friend will discreetly fill me in on what’s up!).

I’m having a bit of a crisis over this whole village thing. I’m lonely. Part of it is self inflicted. Part of it is just finding people who click. :/

And thusly ends my 3… now 4:20 am rant. Sweet dreams.