My girl

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities.
Dr. Seuss

My daughter's raw instinct for comedic timing is amazing.  Sometimes she knows she's funny but most of the time it's just subtle and perfect.  I am constantly inspired by her ability to find joy and humor in the most mundane of things.  Children are amazing little balls of raw emotion; joy, frustration, pain, humor... a pendulum that is constantly swinging from one emotion to then next.  Exploring life constantly, through action and reaction and feeling...  It's magnificent to watch a person create their personality before your very eyes.

Thursday we were out working on the yard.  Matt and I were weeding and Tula was scouring the weed piles for worms.  She thinks worms are fantastic (this week).  I think she only likes them because she thinks "potty talk" is hilarious and she knows that worms poop dirt.  (We have a worm bin that the kids find disgusting and fascinating.)  Anyways, she was walking around the yard giggling with a worm wriggling in her gloved hand when she shouts to both of us, and really anyone within 50 yards... "AAHHHH!  That worm just pooped in my hand!!  That is so inappropriate! and HILARIOUS!" And she laughed uproariously.  Gross.


She's really into telling long animated stories right now and since she doesn't get out much, most of her stories revolve around families.  Moms and dads, babies, sisters and brothers... but she doesn't completely understand the relationship between the characters.  Because of this, all of her stories end up sounding like really complicated baby daddy kind of scenarios, complete with fantastic anecdotal information.  i.e. "my baby's sister's grandpa likes to ride the xtracycle"  Her stories are really easy to ignore with a "oh really?" or "wow" or "uh huh" but when you actually listen to them they are brilliant.  Almost all of her characters names are based on variations of names of people that she knows.  Most of the females are variations of "Tina" (tina, bina, nina, leena, gina...) and the male names could be anything, but usually not real words.  Today we were walking home from taking Gwen to school and I (a captive audience) was actually listening.

This was the story:  "My baby is really really tiny, she used to live in my belly but now she doesn't but she's still really really tiny, her name is bina and she has a big sister who's tiny too and her name is heena I think, yeah heena and their grandpa is really really funny and his name is heenis, not penis, because that's a potty word,  his name is heenis, and he's really funny...." and on and on and on... with no pauses for a half a mile at a preschoolers walking pace (I wasn't carrying her this time).

I can't wait to see who she becomes.

Grace is not my middle name.

I fell down yesterday.  Like seriously. fell.the frick.down.  I don't remember the last time I just fell down.  I wish I could watch a replay.  Picture me walking down the sidewalk, basking in the glory of a smidgen of sunshine with Tula in the ergo on my back... sunshine and prancing ponies, birds chirping, waving fields of grain... cheesy Canadian Mento's commercial and... Whammo!  I.Am.Ridiculous.  There's no explanation.  Simply walking down the sidewalk!  I'm just that good.  I felt like a little kid.  My hands looked liked I lost a fight with a cheese grater.  My knees bruised.  And (!) ugh, because I fell with a 27lb preschooler on my back, my hands bracing my fall weren't prepared for the extra weight and... I scraped my chin.  Low of the low.  I had to laugh.  What.The.Hell.  My grace is not my strongest gift.  From what I could tell, other than a confused Tula, there were no witnesses to my humiliation.  (Until this confession, that is.)  However, I was on my way to school to pick up Gwen... where understandably there would be a mere thousand people offering assistance to my bloodied self... I was not about to have that.  I called Matt.  He picked up the kid.  He knows I'm graceful.  I hope my hands are repaired before Friday when 36 hours of hand gel await me at the hospital.  Ugh.  Ridiculous.  I think I'm going to go buy a lottery ticket.

A child of five would understand this.  Send someone to fetch a child of five.   -Groucho Marx

Only one Mother the whole world over...

I love my mother as the trees love water and sunshine - she helps me grow, prosper, and reach great heights.  ~Terri Guillemets

My wonderful Mother and I

Today is Mother's day, and I am feeling very very lucky.  Heart swelling kind of lucky.  Today we had our annual Mother's day brunch where the man-folk cook for the ladies... which is always more work than just having the ladies cook... but it's fun to watch and we ladies all get mimosas and talk a bit of smack as the gents fumble around the kitchen.  Perhaps it's my age, or that my children are growing by leaps and bounds, or that I was really missing my sister... but today I was really struck by the fact that families evolve.  Things change. People change.  But I always come back to my people.  They are my roots.  They are mine.

I had a discussion with my Grandmother about feet.  Tula has her feet.  I pointed it out to both of them.  Grandma gave Tula her condolences.  Tula just seemed confused as to how anyone could have her feet.  I hope that Tula remembers the conversation.  I'll make her remember it, I'm a mother, it's my job.

The foot conversation spiraled into a conversation about hands.  I have my father's hands.  I learned today that we all have those hands.  My Grandmother lamented that none of her children got her hands and none of the grandchildren did either.  We have my Grandfather's hands.  He proudly held his hand out for me to inspect and agree.  He already knew we had his hands.

I love how contented all the men look in this picture.
And I love that Uncle Dave looks like he's in some sort of trouble.  

The gift of motherhood, the gift of seeing the world become a better place because of the people you created, because of the love you give out freely.  I saw that pride again in my Grandmother today.  I've seen it in my Mom all my life.  I feel it when I kiss my babies goodnight.  I'm lucky to have been given this gift.  I'm lucky to have such strong women in my life.  I am lucky to still have them.  My cup runneth over.

Easter

Children with candy, dogs begging for candy... the usual.

I'm a big slacker this year and didn't take any good pics of the family festivities at my parent's house for Easter... Alas, I did capture what I do believe to be my absolute favorite(!!) picture of my children, both 2 and 4 legged, all together sitting still! And a couple true to form pics of my lovely girls.  Bad lighting as per usual... I'm still working the bugs out of my lighting settings.  :)

Diggin' in the Dirt

The rain stopped for gasp two whole days with only a few sprinkles.  Just as the raindrops started to disappear from the forecast (however briefly) my shipment arrived from Burnt Ridge.  I figured it was safer this year to just order online and try to minimize the spontaneous purchases as our local nursery... I still ended up heading out to our local fantastic Portland Avenue Nursery anyway, it was a nice idea.  Yesterday I was able to get our new raspberry plants, Gogi Berry, Autumn Olive, and dwarf Cherry tree all into the beautiful ground without getting soaked with rain.  The sun was occasionally out but it was still quite chilly.  Today we headed to the nursery for tomato starts (they will hang out in the garden window for the next several weeks) and another Columnar Apple.  Still lingering on the to-do list is to plant our low bush blueberries and new strawberries. We had a great time digging in the dirt, hunting for worms and getting good and dirty.  There is something supremely therapeutic about nurturing plants to grow.  I love that my girls play in the dirt and are starting to recognize the magic that lives in nature.

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.  -Kahlil Gibran

Perspective

I've been a little overwhelmed lately.  March was full of perspective that I didn't know I was missing. Through a series of near misses my family and friends reminded me that life is short.  I pretend that I'm aware of loss and the fragility of life because I work at a hospital but alas, it is always different when it's MY people.  Wether it was the early a.m. phone call saying someone's been in an accident, or waiting impatiently for a phone call from across the globe for the easy words of "I'm okay"... nothing makes my heart ache more than not being able to "fix it" right now, or better yet an hour ago.  The hardest part of loving is knowing that you can't keep everyone you love swaddled in bubble wrap in the basement.  Living in the moment, loving the time that you do have, letting the people you love carry you with them on their sometimes scary journeys through life... I wouldn't trade it for anything.  But seriously people... Please be careful, I'm starting to feel like the mother in Amelie when she has to set the goldfish free to spare her fragile nerves.

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.
Henry Miller

Project progress

My sweet nephew, in the "office".
Don't you love the purple? Especially
with the brown trim... Ewww. '04

There are some really good things about owning an old house.  There is comfort in knowing the things that an old house has withstood.  Earthquakes, windstorms, ice... and it still stands solid and almost square.  I'm not afraid of breaking anything.  It's been standing almost 100 years and it's probably seen worse than I can dish out... probably.   I've painted walls, I've stripped paint, I've yanked down wallpaper, I've textured walls, removed shower doors, I've laid vinyl tile... all in the name of progress... or angst... or desperation... or whatever... I've mentioned before that manual labor is therapy for me... whatever, I own it.   Just this weekend Mr APS and I finished up the room formerly known as "the guest room" (aka the crap room, the overflow kid junk room, the tv room, the play room, the bottomless pit of a room...) which we had been renovating for the master bedroom in an attempt to keep all of the kid crap upstairs.  Depending on who you ask and what you consider the actual start of this project, it has taken us anywhere from 3 months to 6 years... again depends who you ask...

Gwen's room '08

Now with white trim.  This was Gwen's
room at this point. '07

This started with Mr APS and a friend (ahem, Yes Blaine, that's you.) deciding with beer infused inspiration that the carpet of our then spare room should come out.  I recall no real critical thinking going on around this except that there was "pretty" wood floor underneath and that alone seemed to be good enough for all of us to sign onboard for the carpet removal.    Once we were in too deep to put the carpet back, we realized that the smart guy (read:assclown) that owned this house before us had painted the room beige (read:nicotine cream) with a power sprayer and no drop cloth.  Yes, our poor beautiful fir floor looked like a bad 80's splatter paint project.  That was 6 years ago... Mr APS and I just finished scrubbing the paint off that damn floor this weekend.  Hateful.

Guest room/crap room/toy room/tv room... '09-'11

Motivation to continue... the wood is BEAUTIFUL!

Start of the door work... They looked like
this for far too long... 

One door stained, one not... beauty.

We have completed the "guest room" and turned it into "our" room.  We're pretty happy with the outcome.  The girls are stoked that we're done because now our focus is on getting them and all of their crap into the room that was ours.  Workin' on that one today...  What do you think?

The new closet trim looks perfect if I do say so myself

Bad light but whatever...