sorry for that long, awkward pause

For any of you still listening still subscribed in your e-reader, I've started a new project here. I'm blogging about what it's like to be a naysayer, and how I'm trying to move towards a little yes, everyday.
So far, thinking about saying yes has opened doors: to rediscovering an old joy, to standing up for my kids, and to just being here, fully, each day.
And in posts to come, I'll explain how a small yes might take our whole family on a multicultural journey across the globe--or downstairs.
So come on over and join in--I'd love to hear how all of you are saying yes in your own lives.

not a metaphor at all

I decided, in my quest to reinvigorate my Spanish, to change the settings on my iPhone to Spanish. Now when I type, I don't get auto-corrected back to English.
I had been afraid that I wouldn't be able to type in English (getting auto-corrected back to Spanish). Except there's a little button to push when typing that has a globe on it, and it will auto-correct to English temporarily. Which is frickin' brilliant.

It's also very sad to me. Because so many English speakers don't even have reason to notice that such a button would be useful. And we don't realize how the rest of the world caters to us, every time they press a button.

Hey, don't get me wrong. I'm proud of the fact that the iPhone and Windows and a host of other technologies came out of our country. I love English, and I feel lucky it's the world's lingua franca. I just wish we understood what a gift that is, and made some small, small attempt to reciprocate.

opening doors

We were blessed with visitors over the weekend. Friends of mine from my year abroad in Argentina visited with their three lovely daughters. Our kids (two languages, three nationalities) mixed and played pirates and held hands through a day at an amusement park.
I greeted my dear, dear friends with delight and made a cake for their middle daughter, who turned three while they were with us.
I spoke in Spanish for the first time in years, and realized, to my amazement and delight, that it still hasn't disappeared. My vocabulary sucks, yes, and my grammar isn't great either, but I still understand my friends, and can make jokes.
What a blessing, to be able to joke and laugh bilingually.
I had trouble sleeping while they were here because my brain was rediscovering whole cities of knowledge it had forgotten. I woke up in the middle of the night, remembering how to say "drop of water" in Spanish. I went over conversations in my head, remembering the correct way to say things.
Now they are gone, and I'm sad, but also thankful. Because that world is there, and now I know it's not as far away as I thought.

insert cuteness here

It's so hard to record baby talk. Especially when the five year old is talking at the same time. I have a word count my brain can handle each day, and it's usually filled up by about 9:30 am.

However, Julia is talking. A lot. We had lots of words for a while. Now we have sentences.

A few samples:

Julia, why don't you do your puzzle?
"Oooohhh. yeeeah!"

"Angry. Monster. Mama?" (Meaning, Mama, pretend to be an angry monster.)

"Hi Pad? Yes? Sissy, Hi Phone?" (Meaning, Lucy has the iPhone. So can I have the iPad?"

"Mama bye? No. No Mama bye."

"Missing you, Mama."

The last one, obviously, kills me.

another birth book

I read another birth book, "Deliver This", and wanted to put it out there. I have a feeling other home birth vets might not love it--since it presents all the birth options out there (from homebirth to elective (by the woman) caesarian) with equal weight. What I liked was this:

1. Very few books by people not already convinced of the need to overhaul the current birth system will write so respectfully of home birth or birth centers. I felt like Marisa Cohen tried hard to abandon her misconceptions about natural birth and take it seriously. For that reason, I could give this to someone preparing for birth and felt like I was showing them options, without hitting them over the head with natural birth info that they might see as propaganda. Resources in the back would point them to great books, like Gaskin or Goer who could further guide them.
   
2. No one is served by women duking it out over birth choices. Less eye-rolling and more real discussion would do everyone good.
3. If all women would see the options, perhaps more would do the research on their own, and make actual choices. What breaks my heart in birth stories is not women who make choices different then mine--it's women that wanted one thing, but felt like they got another, without their consent. More empowerment, more responsibility for women preparing for birth has to be a good thing.

So there. Everyone should go check it out. Especially if you know someone who is not sure what kind of birth experience would suit them.

half full. I think.

With the cold and flu season upon us, I am not surprised to find myself fighting something. I've had a cough for the last week, and it does not seem to be going away any time soon. Last year, it seemed like I'd no sooner recover from a cold then I got another one.
Anyway, I say a cough, and that's what I have. No sniffles, no sore throat, none of that awful taste in my mouth or the crushing headache or--you know.
In fact, I feel pretty good about the fact that the last three times I've been sick it's been like this. One or two annoying symptoms, a lot of tiredness, but not the full-blown cold. Maybe my immune system is really pumped! I'm so healthy! This year is going to be different!
Of course, I've been sick-ish a lot over the last month. In fact, it seems (perhaps I'm whining) I'm mostly sick most of the time. It's an improvement over last year, but--not exactly a victory. (Cough. Cough.)
Hmmm. And there I'm stuck. Because I can't decide whether to (sort of) celebrate the cough, or feel like my immune system is going to hell in a handbasket.

math, homeschool style

Lucy has been spending 99% of her free time doing artwork. Lots of artwork. Watercolor, masks, cards, oil pastels, beading, coloring. You name it.
She has not been interested much in say, more traditional school subjects.
So today, I snuck it in at dinner time. We all had cut up veggies with our dinner. As she ate them, she said, "I have six left!"
"But how many sets do you have?" I asked.
She looked, and said, "Three?" We all went around and counted our sets.

Yes, I marked that down as our math lesson on our daily log. Set theory, check.

the beauty of leftovers

Lately, Dyami and I have been working a lot. A LOT. So dinner has been a challenge. I realized that some nights, I don't have time to cook, but I do it anyway, because I love cooking. It relaxes me, and having yummy food to eat relaxes me even more.
Plus, then my husband cleans up. (Thank you, Dyami)

However, some nights, I don't have much in the way of new food to prepare, and I don't have time to prepare the non-existant food, and we have leftovers from five different meals in the fridge, and I realize that I can do leftovers.

I never loved leftovers as a kid (unless we were talking pizza or fried chicken). But man, as an adult, I dig it.

treasure box

Yesterday, I was folding laundry in the living room, when I heard a crash. I went into the garage, and saw nothing out of the ordinary except for a lone bottle of water toppled onto the floor.
I went back inside. Three minutes later: CRASH! BAM! POW!

I ran into the garage this time, and definitely saw the source of the noise: three storage boxes on their sides, contents partially spilled.

What had tipped them over?

We'd balanced some other bottles of water on the boxes, and one of them had gotten punctured somehow. Half of its contents had leaked out....soaking the top of a cardboard box that's filled with Dyami's and my old papers (school essays we liked, precious letters from friends, diaries). This you probably Would Not Want to Get Wet.

I decided cleaning up the spill took precedence over the laundry.

What might have been a horrible tale of ruined treasures, however, is actually a tale of rediscovered treasures. Only a few things were water-logged beyond repair. I'm lucky I heard everything falling over. The stuff that was most precious to me (namely, a bunch of my letters from college, notebooks I filled while I was studying abroad, etc), were fine.

And so I looked through a bunch of old memories for part of an hour, and marvelled. Because back in the day, I kept me some diaries. Some of them (when I lived in Argentina), I kept in blank-sheeted drawing notebooks, which makes them all the more compelling: space for calligraphy, and drawings, and just jam-packed text. The text isn't super-exciting (though I did find diaries from when Dyami and I started dating, and my entry for September 11th), but the sheer amount of WORDs is quite astonishing.

I left thinking that maybe I needed to start a diary again. Something that feels artistic in my hand, and that I make into more of an art work, a daily practice of working with my hands.

It might mean that I post less here, because the sheer physicality of the memories really charmed me.

I'll keep you posted.

activity

They pruned trees in front of our house today--big old trees, all in a row along the avenue. It required several hours and very large equipment.
I was watching a friend's toddler, and after a few minutes of everyone being frightened by the noise, I explained that the trees were getting a haircut. And that they were chopping up the bits of leftover tree and putting them in the truck.
And then I sat and read while two mesmerized two-year-olds watched the workers. Who knew yard maintenance could be so darn useful?

home

I had a moment of panic when plans got cancelled. I had childcare arranged, and it fell through, and I have a lot (lot) of work that needs doing. Work with deadlines and such.

And then I remembered that I've been feeling overscheduled lately, what with having something scheduled every single day. For three days, all day is pretty much scheduled. Which is two days too much.

So we have a free day tomorrow. And suddenly, I'm craving it.

Hidden blessings, in the form of open space.

more red tide metaphors

This one from Lucy: Mama, the red tide looks like blue fairies dancing through the edge of the water.

wonder

I went out and saw the red tide tonight. Eerie lightshow on the waves, in long ribbons of lumenescent blue.
It struck me that all my metaphors to describe it are from the world of entertainment, special effects and light shows.

My husband makes software to do stop-frame animation, which as an art form nearly died when people started doing computer animation. But funny thing: after a while, we all realized you could do pretty much anything with a computer, and that can get boring. What are we amazed by now? Real things. Real things that awaken us to the possibilities (literally) in our fingertips.

Much as I love computers and the interWeb, I hope I can introduce my daughters to the REAL possibilities out there.

disconnect

I can't blame it on sleep, or a long day of kid-watching, or lack of caffeine. Whatever the cause, my brain's gears never really connected to the motors. Methinks it's time to fold laundry and watch TV and go to bed early.
Thus ends today's brilliant post.

what you really really want

I needed a few minutes of (ahem) privacy. A toddler (who will remain unnamed) was lingering in the doorway.
Dyami called her from the other room. "Julia, come here."
"No."
"Do you want to read some books?"
"No."
"Do you want some hugs?"
"No."
"Do you want some tickles?"
"No."
"Do you want some pinches?"
Pause. "Yes." Toddles away.

when you know you really need the tea

Boiled water, added the tea bag, added sugar, waited for it to steep, added sugar, took out tea bag, stirred, sipped. Bleh.

So then I...

Dumped out the tea, boiled water, added the tea bag, added sugar, waited for it to steep, added sugar (yes, I know) took out tea bag, stirred, sipped.

Drank it. Because at that point caffeine trumped taste.

a new game

We created a new game today. I'm thinking about trying to bring it to market.
It's pretty simple: you grab a kid, and then you say, "Ham scramble!" over and over again against their neck.
It's pretty fun. I think it could be huge.

the art of negotiation

Tonight, lying in bed:
Me: Lucy, I'm going to go in the other room now.
Lucy: No, you need to stay for fifty and one thousand minutes.
Me: It sounds like you'd like me to stay longer. How about I stay for another minute?
Lucy: Seven minutes.
Me: How about three?
Lucy: No! Three hundred!
Me, sighing: I'll stay for one more minute.
Lucy: Okay.

not exactly a stash

I started a skirt project for Lucy. I wanted to coordinate a few colors, so I pulled out my stash.
Such as it is.
Assorted thrifted sheets in 70s prints, mis-matched prints that don't go with anything, very few solids, random discarded clothes, and a pair of old socks.
I know little about sewing, but I know you cannot make a tiered ruffled skirt for a little girl out of old white athletic socks. Well, at least not with my level of skill with textiles.

If I had a little more skill and time to sew, I would plan projects, and order fabrics. But you need know-how and vision to order fabrics. Nothing calls out to me on-line (and in the very limited stores nearby, it's worse).

What does one do to build a stash cheaply? Where do you all shop?

juxtaposed

Lucy and I have been working our way through Little House on the Prairie. Re-reading it with so much attention (I tend to skip a bunch when I re-read), I'm struck by the ridiculous juxtapositions:
1. Pa builds a bed.
2. Ma does the laundry.
3. The prairie catches on fire and they all almost die.
4. Pa takes off his boots.
5. Someone nearly dies in the well.

After the Indian Massacre, a lesson on doing laundry in the creek!
Or, in our world, a high-speed crash, then let's go to the car detailer.

Ah, Laura. How I wish I was part of your world.