back to school

So I am back to school this week. The kids aren't here yet, but teachers are back doing lesson plans, setting up desks, and attending endless meetings. This end of summer transition is always really really hard for me. This time of year is a stark reminder for me that I cannot do it all. I grew up firmly believing that I was capable of anything- that nothing I put my mind to was too hard or beyond my reach. That belief has inspired me to do things about which I am immensely proud- run a marathon, major in physics, etc. But what I have a hard time with is the idea that I cannot have or be all things all at once. That once I've made a choice, it closes other doors. That I cannot, for example, work a full time job and be a stay at home Mommy. And that is really really hard for me.

To my mind, the summer is this amazing time where I get to be Mommy full time, while still maintaining my identity as an independent, career woman. But then Fall hits and I am actually back to working and the illusion of having it all comes down around my ears. I start to question everything about my life choices and feel like I am failing on all fronts. Failing at spending those precious moments playing trains and chase and reading stories. Failing at going the extra mile for all of my students. I suddenly feel like the balance I strike makes me mediocre at everything.

For the past two years once we've gotten into the groove of the year, I see how great it is for Jonathan to be in school. And I see how great it is for me to have a career that is mine and that I really do love. And I see how OK the balance actually is. And I start to feel good about my choices again. But this year, I don't think that groove will be as easy to find. It is hard to see a vision for a school year when I don't know if I will be out on maternity leave starting tomorrow, next week, or three weeks from now. And once the baby comes... well life with a newborn is anything but "settled". So hopefully I will find some way to relax into the tension that is my current life. For now I'm taking a lot of deep breaths and trying to extend myself a little extra grace.

37 weeks

So as my weekly pregnancy update email has reminded me, starting this weekend I am officially "full term"! And what could be better timing wise than to have a hurricane bearing down on us this weekend? Perfect. At least the hospital is only one mile away- even if the streets remain impassible for weeks, I could still probably make it there walking. (Or perhaps DH could push me in the jogging stroller). I guess life is nothing if not an adventure!

Here Fishy Fishy Fishy

Jonathan has been amazing me lately with how his imagination is getting more and more extensive. A few days ago he was playing with his toy fishing rod on the sofa. He had arranged all of his fish on the floor beneath him and was laying on the sofa attempting to catch them with his toy fishing rod/hook.

When he had caught them all, he announced that he needed to cook them. Something along the lines of "I need to take the fish home to bake. Mommy! Get me a pan!" So I obliged and next thing I knew he had his cutting food out and was cutting up carrots and tomatoes to put in the pan along with the fish. I asked if he needed anything else for the soup and he said "Umm, I think it needs some spices".

He stirred it and cooked it and kept tasting it and adding more chili powder until he announced that it was ready and we needed some bowls. He carefully poured it into bowls and gave one to me and then "ate" one himself.

I loved that he had worked out the whole scene from catching the fish to cooking them to serving the soup in bowls with virtually no input from me!

books- how novel

Jonathan has been on a book craze over the past week or so. Every day at some point the ONLY thing he wants to do is sit and read book after book after book. Yesterday we probably read 15-20 books in a row (some of them multiple times) before he lost interest. It has been so much fun not only to hear how he talks about the characters and plots and what he sees as we read, but also how it pops up in his conversation later in the day. Little phrases like "that was a big success" or "in the whole wide world" that wouldn't normally be part of a 2 year old vocabulary come popping out of his mouth and make me laugh. I love that something so simple and so cozy can be such a powerful tool in expanding his world. Here are a few of our favorites this week:

I picked One Yellow Lion up at a consignment sale. It is a pretty basic counting book, but something about the fold out pages and ways the animals interact on the last page has made this a favorite for a long time.

We picked out Flap Your Wings at the library on our last run because we have loved PD Eastman so much in the past (Go Dog Go! is amazing). Jonathan loves to be "surprised" at the alligator popping out of the egg every time we read it. He also loves the idea that the alligator is growing bigger and bigger and bigger just like him!

While the rhyme scheme in Dinosaurumpus isn't Tony Mitton's best (I think everyone in our house can sing all the words to his Airplanes book), the actions and the cute dinosaurs are great. Perfect for a kiddo who is starting to fall in love with dinos, but likes them to all be "the friendly ones".

I don't remember how An Island in the Sun came to be on our bookshelf, but it has fun, quirky artwork (including a boy with blue hair and a polka-dot dog) that is whimsical and fun. The rhyme is catchy and builds page by page. Jonathan loves that the dog is waiting for the boy and that they go fishing "till the end of the day".

I am also rediscovering the joy of books. I finished a book about a month ago, and have been putting off figuring out what to read next because I am awful at picking out books. But with my pregnancy insomnia flaring up again, I needed something to get me out of my own brain and to occupy me from 11pm-3am (instead of just roaming the house snacking). I never quite know how to pick out a new novel, but I braved the used book store down the street and came home with three: Blue Shoe by Anne Lamotte, Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver, and The Piano Teacher by Janice Lee. I just started Blue Shoe and love it. It is so peaceful to sit and read in the middle of the night with a cup of tea. Almost peaceful enough to put me to sleep. Almost. But not quite.

Belly Pic - 35 weeks

So here I am at 35 weeks and up 35 pounds!

And while I am terrified and having nightmares about being prepared to bring a baby home, I am ready to not be pregnant any more. I am having a hard time getting in and out of chairs and I consciously tell myself not to waddle.

But then this morning when I glimpsed myself in the mirror, I realized how weird and wonderful it was that there was truly a little person inside. Doing her little dance and awaiting her debut into this family. I watched as I saw her doing some sort of dramatic kick was clearly visible outside my skin and thought- this is amazing. So while I am tired of the heartburn, insomnia, exhaustion, and vericose veins, it is pretty incredible what is going on inside of that enormous tummy.

Nursery- almost done!

So with only 5 weeks left until my official due date (which I think is probably a few days too late), my entire brain seems to be consumed with baby preparation. This is no longer keeping me up tossing and turning all night (I'm not sure I slept more than 10 hours total during the week last week), but it is keeping me busy. We moved that beautiful dresser upstairs and are finishing up the nursery. It is looking good so far. Since the kiddos are going to share a room, I've been trying to meld the boy and girl styles, but the room is kind of split down the middle at this point.

Here is the view as you first walk in the door:

As you turn to your left, you see the girl part of the room. (Mostly done except the crib mattress and potentially a rug).

As you keep turning 180 degrees, past the door where you entered, you come to the boy portion of the room.

And if you keep turning, you encounter the disaster portion:

I foresee a constant battle between Mommy and the proliferation of toys and chaos for the next 18 years or so. But I would really like to have a place for everything where it can be out of sight and then found easily again (at least once in a while). Our current "organization" for upstairs toys and books is seriously lacking at the moment. I'm thinking canvas bins and perhaps more of a book display rack rather than a book shelf. Anyone found anything that works for keeping toddler books in some sort of easily accessible, orderly fashion?

Project Dresser

You know how you behave differently around different people? Well, I have one friend in particular who brings out the very bravest in me and spurs me on to tackle projects that are really much larger than I think I can handle. So a few weeks ago when she visited and I told her that one of the things we really needed for the nursery was a white dresser, she took me shopping and picked out this from Goodwill:

Notice it is not white. She also convinced me that painting it white was a totally reasonable project and even went to the hardware store with me to get advice and to buy sand paper, primer and paint. Then her visit was over and she left. I can't say somewhere along the way (primarally during the sanding phase) I didn't regret her influence. But DH helped with the sanding. And after a coat of primer and a few coats of white paint I was feeling much better about the project (and our friendship).

I picked out some great new knobs

And now, thanks to a great friend, I have a fantastic dresser all set in the nursery!

One Ugly Tomato

At this point in the year I typically look out at my garden and assess its success.

This year: pathetic.

beans: have climbed the trellis up and down and sideways (making a fun tunnel for Jonathan) but have yet to produce one bean or one flower

cucumbers: out of 6 plants, yield = 2. One ripened when I was out of town and got too big by the time I got home. One we ate.

onions: small harvest of small onions.

okra: plants look very nice, but seem to produce only 1 or 2 pods per week- which makes it difficult to use in the kitchen

peppers: as always they are limping along. so far 1 pepper

basil: half the plants died, the other half are enough to keep us supplied with pesto.

Of my large tomato plants, only one has produced anything more than food for hornworms. And it is quite possibly the ugliest tomato I have ever seen:

The only decent spot in the garden is my collection of Roma tomato plants. The leaves are being eaten by flea-beetles and so they look pretty bad, but they are still producing like crazy.

All of this begs the question of whether it is worth it or not. Honestly I don't put that much work into the garden (and I suppose it shows). So for the time invested a few cucumbers, peppers, basil and a plethora of Romas isn't too bad. But I am always so disappointed when I survey the plants in August and begin to pull up the ones that have not and will not produce for whatever reason. Alas. Maybe next year will I will be more diligent and have a better crop.

Cleaning & Scrubbing

My mom cross-stitched this sign to hang in our nurseries when my brother and I were babies. It is such a good reminder of what is important- and what is not. Jonathan has been fascinated by letters and words lately and wants everything read aloud to him (and then spelled letter by letter.) So we've read this sign above his changing table a lot over the past few weeks!

In case you didn't quite catch it the words are:

Cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow

Babies grow up, we've learned to our sorrow.

So quiet down cobwebs and dust go to sleep

I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

Cucumber Limeade

Last week I found myself with a huge overabundance of cucumbers. We'd eaten them in salads, with couscous, plain, in tzadziki, etc. And while I love the summery-freshness they bring, I was SICK of eating them. So I decided to try to drink them. I took the three I had still sitting on the counter, chopped them coarsely and popped them into the blender:

I strained the green goo through a sieve and popped the very green juice into the refrigerator.

I had seen some recipes for lime-cucumber beverages, but they all involved juicing limes and making simple syrup. I was feeling lazy. So I mixed equal parts premade limeade, cucumber juice, and tonic water. Voila! A super easy and super refreshing drink! And even better if you muddle some mint in the bottom of the glass first! Kind of like a pregnant ladies' mojito!

Jonathan liked it too and has even on occasion requested cucumber juice to be added to his lemonade since then!

T-Ball

Yesterday morning, Jonathan was CRAZY. Completely manic. Running. Jumping. Throwing things. Wacking balls with his make shift "wacket" (a tupperware lid). And I realized that his throwing arm has developed significantly so that he can really do some damage. I knew we had to get out of the house before there was a disaster and I totally lost my cool. So I finally broke out the T-Ball set I bought for his birthday way back in May. (I never gave it to him on account of the glut of presets he had already recieved). Thankfully it was tolerable outside (only 85 degrees) and we had a great time. Jonathan seemed to know what to do with no instruction whatsoever. Here is his first attempt at bat:

butterflies

Our latest painting project has been to make butterflies! I picked up some small sized plain white coffee filters at the store a few weeks ago and broke them out on one of the recent days when it has been too hot to play outside for long.

I decided to limit our paint to some bright warm colors, instead of allowing blue and red and orange to all mix together into a big brown mess, and Jonathan didn't complain too much that his paint tray had only red, yellow and orange. He dove right in with the brushes, his hands, and finally just outright wadding up the coffee filters and dipping them in the paint. The tricky part was laying them out flat again to dry (a few ripped too badly to be used in the final product)

When they were dry, I folded them with accordion folds and had Jonathan help me put two each along with a bit of green ribbon into the mouths of small sized IKEA chip clips. And voila! Butterflies! Jonathan had a blast running around the house with them making them fly along behind him.

When he tired of that game, I used some push pins to secure them to the ceiling. So now these beauties are hanging in our sunroom! I love it. I am actually thinking of making something similar for a "mobile" of sorts for above the baby's crib.