Why I blog

My 2010 new year's resolution was to blog daily. As to why, I'm not quite sure, but I suspect it's partly due to sentimentality (the girls aren't getting any younger) and my need to document what made our days something other than merely surviving. Sadly raising a 4 year old (not in preschool) and a 16 month old, from morning to night, often spares no time for anything other than thoughts of survival. 2 mouths fed X 3 times a day = 6 battles; negotiation; surrender. diapers are changed approximately 10-12 times a day. butts are still wiped at the potty. nursing. nap times. resist temptation to plop them in front of the tv from 9am - 5pm. 2 minute showers. attempt craft activity w/ K only to have S shove buttons in her mouth. get girls dressed to go outside --> [(shirt + pants + socks + jacket + hairclip = S) + (dress + stockings + jacket + hairclip = K)]. run back upstairs to get myself dressed. hear crying from downstairs and run back down, half-dressed. then must pack snacks, water. diapers. keys. iphone. dang, where's my iphone??? once in the car, S, never missing her cue, starts writhing and screaming. turn the dial frantically on the cd player to find itsy bitsy spider. then baa baa black sheep. must sing along. must sound happy, relaxed. must not do psychic damage to the girls. and stop speeding already.

The thing is, even though I yell at J from time to time that motherhood is dehumanizing (come on, 2 minute showers?) and I am often aghast at how incoherent and absent-minded and a enormous nag I am about everything, I understand that I am the luckiest woman alive to be raising these girls. They are magic to me. I've found my pot at the end of the rainbow. It is truly as if I knew them before I birthed them. I supposed that's because when you grow a life inside of you for 9 months, they not only inherit your genes, but a good chunk of your soul. Anyway, there is no doubt in my mind that motherhood is the greatest adventure a woman can embark upon as she is making herself vulnerable to unspeakable grief and yet opening her heart to boundless joy. It is not my place to know why I am so blessed with these girls; rather I can only give thanks daily to God for them.

Pretend play

There has been so much recent media coverage and public interest in the benefits of play for children's mental and emotional development. And the noncontroversial conclusion is this: idle, creative, unstructured, free play where a child engages all of her five sense in a three-dimensional world (by definition this excludes tv and online games), is a critical part of neurological growth and development. The temptation to overschedule one's child is strong for the modern parent because for most of us, our lives pre-children were on the fast-track to some goal (career or otherwise), meals eaten on the run or in the car, blackberries or pdas full of events, meetings, conferences, dinners, etc. So I could literally hear the brakes screeching and resisting when I had to slow down the clip clop pace of my life to the point where I had to be content just allowing the girls play. Every fiber of my being resists because I love schedules and plans and checklists and something tangible to hold up at the end of the day to show that my existence is not in vain. But of course the task of raising children bears no noticeable short term result (aside from their very survival day to day). And neither does the task of playing. But ever since I read this book and this one , I've become convinced that aside from being a loving and responsive mother, there is nothing more I can do for my young children then let them engage in open-ended play. And if that play involves princess dress-up...

...then I can slap together a princess dress-up corner. The mirror took 3 Ikea trips to score. The peg board was painted by K and myself with Benjamin Moore's newest line of zero VOC paint (Natura. love it! only needed one coat! and dried in under an hour.). The tree is inspired by a wallpaper tree I found online for - no joke - $119.95. I ended up spending $8.00 for 2 sheets of gift wrap that was used for the tree itself and $0 for the fabric scrap which makes up the leaves. Is there anything I love more than dirt cheap DIYs (aside from God and my family and dark chocolate and cheese and an really amazing bottle of Burgundy. oh and a night out with the girls where we drink lots of good champagne while dining on mussels. ah and catching a story on NPR that is so quirky and inspiring that it makes you laugh out loud out of the sheer joy you feel in knowing that the human spirit is indeed the most colorful and indestructible forces in the universe.)??? I digress. Cheap but pretty DIYs makes my world go round.

My only regret is that I didn't get a picture of K's face when she woke up one morning, came downstairs, and saw all of this. But she uses it daily and even more importantly, has finally acquired the habit of organizing and hanging up all her princess paraphernalia. I know. PRICELESS.

Spring!!

An entire week of being able to finally scamper about in the front yard without a coat!

I can't get enough of S - her personality is so vibrant. She really lives for the moment, this child. And she has such an emphatic response to being outdoors, which I think is common for most young children. That naive enthusiastic curious response to nature. S especially loves to chase down crunch leaves and step on them with vigor. I love nothing more than to peer out into the world through her eyes as she discovers everything for the first time. Much fun and wonder lay ahead...

Sophie's first birthday

Happy birthday Sophie ~ you have shown me the miracle of how a heart can expand and birth more love than it could have imagined...and all in the time it took for my eyes to rest upon your sweet face for the first time.

Art in the home and the building of an atelier (ooh la la!)

Since we've decided not to send K to preschool until this fall or next (apparently I've grown comfy with the angst of raising a toddler + infant all day every day), I've been scrambling to help K ward off aimlessness and bordeom at home. I've never been completely at ease with having K watch too much TV because after an hour, she slips into zombie-mode - meaning the light behind her eyes start to dim, lethargy grips her, and brain cells visibly die off due to non-use. I normally don't allow her to watch TV for more than one hour and the TV is not otherwise on (not even for the super bowl! J still hasn't forgiven me.). It doesn't help that J's beloved flatscreen takes up more than half the living room wall - its' presence is dramatic. I wonder about those families who choose not to have TV in their homes and how they otherwise occupy their time. I imagine the children would at the very least have a dedicated art room and it would look something like this:

What child wouldn't be inspired to create, write and imagine in a space like this? More info on the breakdown of this lovely atelier can be found here:http://www.ohdeedoh.com/ohdeedoh/february-jumpstart-2009-entries/how-to-design-a-space-for-playful-learning-mariahs-february-jumpstart-project-2009-077238

I think that children who grow up in the U.S. have little or no exposure to the arts and are not taught to understand the importance of beautiful and natural quality materials (ie. not plastic) compared to their counterparts in Europe. Which is tragic because at what other point in your life do you have more liberty and natural inclination to engage in art (I've observed that young children are naturally and passionately drawn to the act of creating)? Once they embark on becoming schooled in this country, the emphasis will mostly be on rote memorization. So how precious is this time for a child to enjoy, with little inhibition, the wonders of painting, drawing, crafting, writing, etc. - in other words, being creative and expressing their unique selves!

Which is why I'm working on my own little atelier for K. Since my background in art and teaching is nonexistent and I have no natural artistic abilities to speak of, this project may very likely be abandoned in the next five minutes. Abandoned with vigor becuase I'm also contemplating the mess that will come with encouraging art in the home - crayon on the walls, paint on the furniture, oil pastels scattered throughout the house. UGH. The longer I am a mother, the more I am convinced that a full-time maid/housekeeper is the answer to everything.