I love this photo. Her face is so peaceful. Bean had difficulty napping on our trip; I often had to lie down with her to facilitate it. I often fell asleep too, but one day I didn’t and managed to get a shot of her.
Sweet Dreams
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Category Archives: Motherhood
Catching Up
We arrived home last night at 11:00 p.m., exhausted and happy. Much unpacking and settling in to do. It was a great trip. Bean is a flexible and patient little traveler (inasmuch as a two-year old can be). We loved seeing family and friends and hope to do it again soon.
Traveling
So tomorrow begins an adventure! We are all getting on a plane to fly to Texas. Other than one overnight in Monterey, we’ve never gone anywhere with Bean. We’re all set!
I won’t have access very much to a computer until after December 1. I’ve created blog posts for the remaining days of Art Every Day Month, but those will automatically publish. I may log onto email a couple times if you want to contact me; just don’t anticipate a prompt reply.
Happy end of November, everyone!
Pangs
I’m having an ego moment. Cruising the Internet, I find so many sites by people — especially women — who are creative and generating a living (or at least some income) from it. Friends are making and selling their art. Friends are designing clothing and selling the patterns, and knitting up gorgeous garments. A friend is starting fitness accessory business. Friends write books and hold retreats. Acquaintances are life coaches, writers, have award-winning blogs, make and sell jewelry, and so on.
And I’m here in my little corner of the world, dabbling away. I suspect I’ve always been a dilettante. I walked away from a fledgling career as a professional counselor with her own practice to move here with Husband. (To get licensed here would require almost going through the whole process again — at a cost in money and time that I just won’t spare.) Sometimes I think about setting up a life coaching practice, but what is that, anyway? Everyone seems to be doing it; Google produced 42 million hits for the term. Plus, I’ve been out of the work world long enough that I feel rough and rusty.
One reason I go through sporadic periods of creating is that once I’ve got something made, the question arises of what to do with it. I’ve got knitted stuff stored in my drawers. Art I’ve made sits in a portfolio. Space is limited, so I create less often, and it depresses me to create only to have it sit in the dark. Yes, I could knit for charity — and I do. But there is something satisfying in being compensated monetarily for one’s efforts, and it is validating and heartening to be recognized for one’s work.
I’m not complaining so much as I am musing aloud whether I could be doing more, if I am wasting precious skill and talent by not generating income in some way with all this creativity.
And I’m wondering where these women get the energy. Some of them, in addition to being mothers, work outside jobs, and yet still find a way to create, often at the expense of their sleep and perhaps health. Maybe they can actually function this way. I did it for years in my 20s and 30s, but I’ve found that I’m a crappy mother if I’m exhausted and sick, and I want to be a good mother. I don’t enjoy life when I’m barely able to move or think. There are no sick days available.
So I struggle a bit with… envy? Or maybe it’s worry… a fear that I have retreated into a passive state, almost infantile, in that I don’t generate income, especially from all the dabbling I do. I’m getting to play, while Husband is out there bringing home cash. I don’t have currency in a world where the question, “What do you do for a living?” is unanswerable because I don’t make an income. There was no place on the U.S. Census form that I filled out for our household for me to write that my current job is Homemaker and Mother and that no, I wasn’t laid off and seeking work. It — I — just didn’t count.
I know, wah wah wah. But I do wonder.
Non-Art Posting
Making art every day has taken a lot of my energy, so much that I have virtually nothing to say otherwise. The days are full with Bean. We were all able to get seasonal flu shots last week, and I feel much relief as we are about to embark on our Big Trip next Monday. I realize other bugs might come up, but at least — I hope — not The Flu.
I am knitting. I’m still working my way through The Last Child in the Woods and am steadily reading Home, Marilynne Robinson’s second novel. I’m also gathering supplies needed for our trip. Despite the fact we aren’t lugging a lot of big items, thanks to my sister-in-law’s efforts, there still feels like a lot to remember.
Stayed up too late last night, and Bean woke at 5:30 a.m. today, so I’m headed to bed.
As Tigger would say, TTFN!
Bean Craftivity
Here’s a craft we did tonight. After dinner Bean said, “I want to do a craft project,” and I happened to have the supplies handy. I love the site No Time For Flashcards; it offers great and simple ideas. Here is Bean’s Indian corn.
Mmmmm, Meyer Lemons
When we moved here five years ago, I bought a little Meyer lemon tree and put it in a container. Meyer lemons are thought to be a cross between a lemon and a mandarin orange, and they are sweeter and lighter tasting than regular lemons. The tree yielded meagerly until this year. Yesterday I picked two dozen lemons off the tree, and more are coming. Mind you, this tree only stands four feed high!
What to do with all these luscious lemons? I zested and squeezed them, and put it in the freezer. I have a total of three cups of lemon juice, which I am freezing in ice cube trays. There’s a cup of zest. This is all great for baking and cooking. The next task (probably tomorrow), is to roast the little pie pumpkins we bought and puree them. Bean still loves to eat plain pureed pumpkin, and it will be great for pumpkin bread and pie. And again, I freeze it in ice cube trays to make just-right serving sizes for Bean.
Art Every Day Month – Day 2
I was playing with stencils in this one. I wanted to keep things clean and simple. I was in the mood for green, because I am still waiting for the mountains to turn into that gorgeous winter emerald color, if the rains ever come consistently. The word “listen” came to mind, because there is so much to hear in the natural world. I’m try to bring Bean to as many natural spaces as I can, and give her the chance to move and get messy and hear what the world has to say.
Princess Bean
We went out and covered a few blocks. Bean had fun and got lots of comments about how cute she is. She was a little shy about saying “trick-or-treat” at first but soon got the hang of it. People were very generous! She became obsessed with a giant spider decoration. We had to walk back two blocks to see it a second time; she named it Mike.
Happy Halloween
I ended up carving a pumpkin after all. Bean named it Wendy because it is winking — Winkie Wendy. Bean is doing much, much better. Her fever broke yesterday. She’s still tired and has a cough, but she is well enough to say she wants to go trick-or-treating, even though I suspect she really doesn’t know what that means. I’m not sure we will go, but if we do, it will be for a very brief outing. She doesn’t really want to wear a costume. Perhaps we’ll don her in one of my blouses (long enough to be a dress) and costume jewelry, and she can go as a “lady.”
She has been waking at 5 and 5:30 a.m., so we’ll see how early she gets up tomorrow after we fall back an hour on the clock! (Please please please sleep; don’t wake up at 4 a.m.!)
Oink
Based on her symptoms, Bean’s doctor thinks she has H1N1 (swine) flu. Her temp at 12:30 p.m. was 103.6; an hour ago it was 102.5.
I’m doing my job, being the Mommy bed. I hope Husband and I don’t get sick (at least not at once).
We’d have gotten a flu shot if the damn thing was made available. It turns out that although Santa Clara county is the sixth largest county in California (1.85 million people), we’ve only gotten 14,100 doses. Other smaller counties have gotten twice and triple that much. There are no seasonal flu shots either.
There actually were 79 H1N1 swine flu cases for every lab-confirmed case and about three pandemic flu-related hospitalizations for every reported hospitalization through July 23, according to the new estimates from CDC epidemiologists Carrie Reed, PhD; Lyn Finelli, DrPH; and colleagues.
After July 23, the burgeoning number of flu cases made it necessary to stop counting lab-confirmed cases — which the CDC always warned was ” just the tip of the iceberg” — and to start using mathematical models to track the pandemic.
An All-Pajama Day
Bean was better last weekend and on Monday. Then on Tuesday, she screamed and resisted going to music class, which is unusual because she adores going. But she said, “Please no music class,” and I honored that. We went out for a walk around the block but otherwise didn’t go anywhere. Yesterday I kept her home from preschool; she had a cough again, and generally had no energy and was clingy. We stayed inside all day. She got to watch more t.v. than usual. I called the doctor, who suggested that if she’d gotten well for any period of days and now has symptoms, that it’s probably a whole new entity (and not another secondary infection). I’m following the usual protocol. Bean woke at 2 a.m. with a fever of 102, and it’s not varied much. I’m not bothering to change out of my pajamas. We won’t be going anywhere. I feel sad for her when she’s sick.
I harbor a hope that Husband will get home early enough for me to get out to the local yarn store to hang with my friends and knit. I’ll need it. And now, here’s a rare photo. (This child never sleeps anywhere but her own crib, and in nearly all photos I take of her she is moving.)
A Taste of Heaven
Since Bean has a small mouth and is still learning to chew, she doesn’t gobble up cookies with chocolate chips or M&Ms in them. She’ll even turn them down. (Horrors!) So I searched for a simple cookie and came across a Snickerdoodle recipe. I made it. Oh my, oh my! They make petite little rounds of cinnamon sugar goodness. I used this recipe here.
Rough Night
I went to bed on the late side, but then, Bean had trouble falling asleep last night and intermittently cried until 10. I went in multiple times to comfort, give medicine, and rock her. Then she woke at midnight, thirsty. And she woke at 6:30 without enough sleep. One of the first things she said was, “I have a fever in my mouth.”
And now she is cranky, cranky, cranky. No fever. She’s just not herself. She’s had some kind of illness (cold, ear infection, cough) for 20 days now. She finished the antibiotic last week, but she now has a dry cough.
It’s been a difficult month for us. It’s had some wonderful times too, and she’s made incredible leaps in her language and comprehension. I’m tired today. I need some energy to get through.
A Toddler’s Perspective
Bean and her Dad took a walk to the mailbox tonight. On the way they saw the moon. And then Bean noticed the stars. She raised her arms and said she was feeding the stars.
“What do they eat?” asked her Dad.
She replied, “Peanut butter. And they open their mouths up wide like hippopotamuses.”
Daily she comes up with some creative and startling associations and narratives!
The Big Pumpkin
I had intended forgo the large pumpkin this year, but when Bean and I were at the grocery this one caught my eye. It was so round and such an appealing shade of orange. So it came home with us. I still doubt I will carve it for Halloween (famous last words!), but we decorated it with stickers (mostly I peeled and she stuck). I plan to cut the top open and scoop out the seeds to roast. Bean can have a classic taste of fall.
Less Mess
While I love getting the paints out for Bean, sometimes the paint cups are more ambitious than I want to tackle. They are spill-proof, but they are big and messy, and I am constantly moving them around so she can reach them. The other day we took a preschool field trip to a pumpkin patch where she got to paint a mini pumpkin; they used small plastic boxes with dividers in them to hold paint. The boxes held many colors and yet contained most of the mess. So we went to Michaels yesterday in search of something similar. I looked at the bead storage boxes, and most of them had moveable dividers, which meant the paint would seep into the other spaces. But I did find one that had 12 little containers, each with its own screw top, all of which can be nestled into a box. I filled them this morning and look forward to using them frequently.
Letter of the Week: Lowercase f
Bean is obsessed today with spaghetti. But that’s not on tonight’s menu. Uh-oh! But with this activity, we had fun with food. Thanks to No Time For Flashcards.
Gonna Need A Bath Before Lunch
A Rite of Passage
For the last 10 months, each morning Bean sits with her Dad on the sofa, watching PBS shows while he works from home for an hour, giving me a break to shower and prep for the day. One of her first and favorite shows has been Between the Lions. It’s a show with a muppet-style lion family that runs a library. Many stories are read, and vowels and consonants are explored. It’s a really creative show. (The pun between the lions refers to “reading between the lines” and to walking between the lions at the entrance of the New York City public library.)
On the show they talk about getting a library card; for the past couple of months, if you ask Bean, “What do you do with a library card?” She answers, “You bring the books to the lady and she lets you take them home.” In recent months she’s been talking more about going to the library. (We had not gone to story hour since she turned 1, because the librarian who runs the story hour for ages 1-2 is a stickler for making the children sit still, and has been known to chastise mothers if their children don’t follow the rules. So we haven’t been.)
Today, because we stayed out of preschool so as not to share any lingering germs, we went to the library to get Bean her very own library card. She was very proud of it and told her Dad all about it when he got home from work. She picked three books for herself, and we’ve read them each about a dozen times already. I’m sure we’ll be making regular trips from now on.
