Reboot

Well, I'd really thought I'd decided to stop blogging. For so many reasons, the largest of which was that I felt like what I was putting out there was pure negativity. But I've thought about it & decided that what I love the most about the blogs that I read are the honesty I encounter there. And truly, no one reads this, so my motivation now is for this space to be here for me. To think. To process. To remind myself.

So here I go again. I've got to work things out, and part of the way to do that is here. I think. And if that isn't true I can always stop again.

Tough

Oy. Well, I feel like it's been a bit of a brutal year & I'm glad to see its backside. All of the Olive goodness has been divine, but there have been many, many challenges. In many ways I thought that this past year was going to break us, but here we are, battered & hopefully ready to make 2008 something better.

Big changes coming down the pipe:
- we're moving. It's a mixed move. It's a step in the right direction but not a final resting place. Mind you, who ever knows if where they're moving to is going to be their last home. I've always had this fantasy/picture in my mind of my adult home - it features lots of old hardwood, natural light, a fireplace, a big kitchen, a porch & a yard with room for a garden. And this dream is kind of making my reality a disappointment. Making me never satisfied with the here & now. Which is so true of so much of my life. Always looking for what is wrong, what isn't perfect, seldom appreciating what is truly great about right now.

So the other big change is me making a very significant effort to change my perspective on things. Because I can decide how I'm going to react to things, how to perceive what is happening around me. And I'm going to do my darndest to stay open & stop shutting down ideas just because they scare me.

Olive is as ever a hilarious monkey. She started hitting this week. We've got to nip that in the bud. She is wildly in love with Etta. She's started calling Doug & I "Mamadaddy" instead of "mama" & "daddy". Because we're one unit. She likes it when we hug. She says "nice". She doesn't want to go to sleep at night. She's probably not getting enough fresh air because the weather has been pure misery - sleet anyone? You just can't take a kid to the park in the sleet. She was really sick this month & it freaked us out. Her hair is so long we can make pony tails. She wants to put her own socks on. She says "oraninge" & "noyse" & sqrinches up her face all funny. She would only eat cookies & crackers if we let her. She yells "juice!" all of the time even though she's only had it watered down about two times. She rocks her baby dolls violently then lets them have a nurse on mama. She calls milk "some".

We're all just doing the best we can.

I feel like I'm spending a lot of my days just struggling. I get so cranky when the girls won't eat their lunch - all they want is fruit & starch. Then they won't nap. And I have two sleep deprived toddlers careening around the house demanding books read, destroying the living room & dancing on the coffee table. Then I feel guilty because I should be playing with them more, but I'm so freaking tired that I just can't be on all the time. I need breaks and the only time I get to myself is when I ignore them for a few minutes or after Olive's in bed, the dishes are done and the diapers are in the wash. 9pm.

I'm also feeling bad about my body. Before Olive I was a big yoga/gym gal. I walked & cycled everywhere. I exercised regularly to keep my anxiety in check. Now I'm lucky if I get one visit to the gym in a week - I know that it shouldn't matter, that I should love my body for doing all that it does, but I just feel fat, lazy, neglected, anxious. I have no time to feed my brain or body. And I get so caught up in the negative, the critical, the judging, the hopeless that I can't manage to pull my head out of my butt and just embrace how amazing my life truly is.

Right now Etta is practicing her running in the hallway - today is the first day that she's really been running full tilt & her little face is lit up. What an amazing thing, to run!

5 Random Things

I've been reading various 5 Random Things posts this week & decided to do it too, without an invite. Because I'm cool like that.

- I really like the smell of the crook of my arm when it doesn't smell like soap or lotion. Like it smells after you haven't had a shower for a couple of days - like the real you.

- When I was a kid I used to count my breaths. They had to be multiples of eight or divisible by two or four but they couldn't be six or that would be bad luck. For real. Intense.

- I really like to be alone in public places sometimes. I love going to the movies or the theatre or out for lunch by myself. Then you never have to discuss what you just saw/ate/experienced - you can just absorb it into yourself.

- I LOVE the Muppet Show. It is burned into my brain. Especially the one with the ghost of the theatre.

- My favourite place on earth is the porch of my grandparents cabin looking out on the lake with a book in my lap. Or laying with Olive all curled into each other nursing.

What saves me

Really, the only thing getting me through these days is chocolate & alcohol. And knitting. And Olive's propensity to dish out a large number of kisses. Without these things, we'd all be dead.

Free! Hat! Pattern!

Here's the new hat pattern I designed. With lace panels. On 2.75mm needles. I almost poked my eyes out - knitting math is so hard.

Thinking about gifts & consumerism & meaning

I spent a great deal of time this week obsessing over whether we should try & buy Olive this barn for Christmas/Solstice. Which is crazy. It's $270 & she's only 16 months old. But it is SO beautiful & I love the ideas behind Waldorf toys.

So I had to sit back & really think about my motivations for buying. About toys & what I think about marketing to children. About what Olive would really enjoy. About my desire to give her things that will spur on her imagination & not just crap that only remains entertaining for a short period of time.

Last night I reread a couple of really great blog posts on toys & came up with some ideas for Olive & my niece Kaitlyn.

Olive loves doing up buckles & zippers. I have a book on sewing kids toys from about 1972 that features a house-boot that I can attach zippers, buckles & buttons to for Olive to play with. And I can make some little felt figures to go inside (like an old woman & her children?). I also received this amazing book for my birthday along with some cashmere (!!!) to knit the creatures out of. I'm planning on making the hen & chicks, along with some eggs & a nest. I was also thinking that a chalk board & some chalk for drawing would be fun, plus a couple of books of course. That should be good for gifts for the wee girlie.

My niece is 6, & is one of those kids whose room is jammed with 50 billion pieces of plastic. Literally. For her I'm going to pick up some early chapter books from the VPL booksale (Frog & Toad, some Doctor Seuss, Amelia Bedelia, good stuff). I'm also going to put together a finger puppet kit with felt, embroidery floss, & needles, & a kit to make clothespin dolls. Clothespin dolls kick Pollypocket's ass.

Toys. Knitting. Must. post. pictures.

Oy! Another amazing birthday present was 4 hours of housecleaning from a friend's lovely housecleaner. This afternoon Shawnee is going to scrub my floors, my tile, my grout. And Olive's going to go play with Etta. And I'm going to the gym! Woohoo!