Friday, September 30, 2011
make your own happiness
yes, my boys are as cool as my chickens.
someone told me that i have updated more about my chickens than about my kids. let's fix that:
greyson has been reading like a fiend. his first grade teacher has a system of rewarding kids with a bead for each 20 short stories or chapters they read. she is a genius. the kids keep their beads on a necklace and it is quite a first grade status symbol. greyson loves a competition and has been up reading at 5 am several mornings, trying to earn his next bead.
mushrooms
a little celebration of the small surprises in life and the joy of photographing just for fun.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
chicklets move out
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| punk rock luna - 4 weeks old |
the little chicklets are not so little anymore. they are like awkward teenage chickens - they are getting their feathers but still losing fluff, their feet seem way too big for their bodies, and they are starting to fly around and challenge each other. they have sufficiently covered our house in dust from scratching in their wood chips. so we decided to relocate them to the coop with the big girls.
Friday, September 23, 2011
PJ20 - working title: why i love pearl jam with all my heart
if you do not listen to pearl jam...well you should. but if you listen and the music is just not your sound... okay. when my friends don't love pearl jam it is a bit like when a guest says 'no thanks' to a slice of homemade chocolate cake. at first i'm a little hurt, i mean, i did hope we could enjoy this together. but then i'm secretly glad because there is more cake for me to quietly savor alone in my pajamas on the couch later.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
next time, i want to be the dad.
my littlest love is sick today. (he has a fever that i think is related to teething. he's acting happy. so not really sick, but cannot be at school. if he was really sick i would not be doing the following whining).
Quinn home means that i cannot go to yoga. only my second class and i will miss it.
there are days when i think dads just have it made. to my knowledge, andy has never missed anything because of a sick kiddo. and he really doesn't understand the constant struggle between being a mom and being My Own Person. i believe that most fathers don't really have this struggle.
my husband says he is going to write a book called How to be a Dad: a Parenting Book for Moms. he says it will be easy to write because it's just one sentence : "Do whatever is easiest for you." he cracks himself up and smiles his biggest toothy smile whenever he talks about it.
dads don't worry all day when a child goes to school feeling sad. dads don't feel guilty when the morning is rushed and there is no time to make a hot breakfast. dads know that forgetting to sign up for the art class was just a mistake, it doesn't mean they are failing as a parent.
at least in our house, we handle parenting and parenting responsibilities so differently. andy tries to do his best. i want to do THE best. he hardly notices his shortcomings and forgives mine. i lose sleep over my imperfections and am critical of his.
i rarely complain about my responsibilities as a mom. but i have come to realize that when you are a mom, some things are just not fair (that phrase borrowed from my 3 year old). you can be the champion of birthdays and holidays for the family, but who bakes mom's birthday cake? you can be the kisser of boo-boos, the tier of shoes, and the righter of sibling injustice, but who asks mom if the world was kind to her today?
yes, dad should. but dad is often out being His Own Person.
when you are a mom, sometimes you have to clean vomit off the couch. or kid poop off the rug. or chicken poop off the floor. or all three. and daddy is at soccer practice and neither the chickens or the kids care that it's your birthday and you should not be cleaning up at all.
and those are the days i think i'd like to be the dad. not forever, because dads are sweaty and smelly and have scratchy beards, but just for a day or two. long enough to know how it feels to simply love my kids, mom-guilt free.
Quinn home means that i cannot go to yoga. only my second class and i will miss it.
there are days when i think dads just have it made. to my knowledge, andy has never missed anything because of a sick kiddo. and he really doesn't understand the constant struggle between being a mom and being My Own Person. i believe that most fathers don't really have this struggle.
my husband says he is going to write a book called How to be a Dad: a Parenting Book for Moms. he says it will be easy to write because it's just one sentence : "Do whatever is easiest for you." he cracks himself up and smiles his biggest toothy smile whenever he talks about it.
dads don't worry all day when a child goes to school feeling sad. dads don't feel guilty when the morning is rushed and there is no time to make a hot breakfast. dads know that forgetting to sign up for the art class was just a mistake, it doesn't mean they are failing as a parent.
at least in our house, we handle parenting and parenting responsibilities so differently. andy tries to do his best. i want to do THE best. he hardly notices his shortcomings and forgives mine. i lose sleep over my imperfections and am critical of his.
i rarely complain about my responsibilities as a mom. but i have come to realize that when you are a mom, some things are just not fair (that phrase borrowed from my 3 year old). you can be the champion of birthdays and holidays for the family, but who bakes mom's birthday cake? you can be the kisser of boo-boos, the tier of shoes, and the righter of sibling injustice, but who asks mom if the world was kind to her today?
yes, dad should. but dad is often out being His Own Person.
when you are a mom, sometimes you have to clean vomit off the couch. or kid poop off the rug. or chicken poop off the floor. or all three. and daddy is at soccer practice and neither the chickens or the kids care that it's your birthday and you should not be cleaning up at all.
and those are the days i think i'd like to be the dad. not forever, because dads are sweaty and smelly and have scratchy beards, but just for a day or two. long enough to know how it feels to simply love my kids, mom-guilt free.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
yoga
thursday i took a yoga class.
and i'm going again next week.
now my "yoga pants" actually are yoga pants. not just busy, un-showered mom pants.
the yoga class is momentous because this is this first time since i've had a family that i have put a recurring event on our calendar for Me that is not work.
even though i had been planning on going to this class for weeks, waiting for all the kids to be in school and scheduling my work around it, i had a hard time getting myself in the door of the studio. i kept thinking of all the things i needed to do. all the other ways i could spend that hour and a half.
a new goal for myself is to keep a beginner's mindset. it seems so important to me. when i can admit that i am truly a beginner at something, i can laugh at myself, ask questions, and really listen for answers. have you ever not asked a question because you thought "i should know this"? i do it all the time. but i wish i didn't.
yoga is great for reminding me i am a beginner. i have done yoga in the past, but it has been years. and then it was bikram yoga - hot, power yoga that is exhausting in every way. the new class was yoga foundations - slow paced, i don't see how i'll ever lose the "baby weight" doing this, yoga. For half of the class my mind was racing, focused on everything but what i was doing. i thought "please let me like this class because i cannot spend more time searching for another studio that has a beginner class at this exact day and time so that i can pick the kids up from school without being the mom who's always late."
i started to break a sweat (from worrying, not from working hard) and then the instructor said this: "let's focus our yoga today on an expression of celebration. what do you have to celebrate? remember, you don't have to have big things to celebrate. sometimes small things are the most vital. if you feel you don't have much to celebrate today, celebrate that you are able to stand here. celebrate the strength within you. celebrate that you can breathe in and out. and let that be enough."
and i realized all i have to learn (or re-learn) about slowing down to connect with myself. in a moment my whole day was changed. i stood taller thinking of my own strength. i shook off the worry, i cleared my mind, i focused on my body. on my breath. i celebrated being in that room at that moment. and it was enough.
in the end, i did love it. i can't wait to go back.
and i'm going again next week.
now my "yoga pants" actually are yoga pants. not just busy, un-showered mom pants.
the yoga class is momentous because this is this first time since i've had a family that i have put a recurring event on our calendar for Me that is not work.
even though i had been planning on going to this class for weeks, waiting for all the kids to be in school and scheduling my work around it, i had a hard time getting myself in the door of the studio. i kept thinking of all the things i needed to do. all the other ways i could spend that hour and a half.
a new goal for myself is to keep a beginner's mindset. it seems so important to me. when i can admit that i am truly a beginner at something, i can laugh at myself, ask questions, and really listen for answers. have you ever not asked a question because you thought "i should know this"? i do it all the time. but i wish i didn't.
yoga is great for reminding me i am a beginner. i have done yoga in the past, but it has been years. and then it was bikram yoga - hot, power yoga that is exhausting in every way. the new class was yoga foundations - slow paced, i don't see how i'll ever lose the "baby weight" doing this, yoga. For half of the class my mind was racing, focused on everything but what i was doing. i thought "please let me like this class because i cannot spend more time searching for another studio that has a beginner class at this exact day and time so that i can pick the kids up from school without being the mom who's always late."
i started to break a sweat (from worrying, not from working hard) and then the instructor said this: "let's focus our yoga today on an expression of celebration. what do you have to celebrate? remember, you don't have to have big things to celebrate. sometimes small things are the most vital. if you feel you don't have much to celebrate today, celebrate that you are able to stand here. celebrate the strength within you. celebrate that you can breathe in and out. and let that be enough."
and i realized all i have to learn (or re-learn) about slowing down to connect with myself. in a moment my whole day was changed. i stood taller thinking of my own strength. i shook off the worry, i cleared my mind, i focused on my body. on my breath. i celebrated being in that room at that moment. and it was enough.
in the end, i did love it. i can't wait to go back.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
chicken eviction
though i am still crazy about them, the chickens were really wearing thin their welcome inside the house.
first, nico had a small injury and had to be separated from the rest of the flock. but they all hate being separated and they screamed and cried and made so much noise! then, because they are getting so big (and possibly also because they were trying to get to nico) the big chicks figured out how to fly up and roost on the sides of their brooding pen! the pen is just made of sheets of cardboard. i'm shocked that they could stand comfortably on the very narrow ends of the cardboard, but they did. all night long. and they pooped all over my wood floor. so the time came for them to go.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
chickens don't like baths.
other things i learned this weekend:
vaseline can be applied to a small wound to keep a chicken from bleeding (band-aids are mighty hard to apply to feathers).
you can keep other chickens from pecking at the wound by adding essential oils to the vaseline.
but don't use tea tree oil. tea tree oil can be toxic to chickens!
bathing a chicken covered in vaseline and tea tree oil is damn near impossible.
apparently dish soap can remove crude oil from bird feathers, but it cannot remove vaseline. neither does dr. bronner's lavender magic soap.
i'm pretty sure this is not what lennie would do - turn the master bath sink into a chicken spa.
i now have one freaked out chicken, who hates me, and looks like she was caught in an oil slick.
she's also lonely because she is separated from the other chicks. and even though we gave her a small stuffed monkey to snuggle with, she is still squawking. if the tea tree oil doesn't kill her, the stress might.
vaseline can be applied to a small wound to keep a chicken from bleeding (band-aids are mighty hard to apply to feathers).
you can keep other chickens from pecking at the wound by adding essential oils to the vaseline.
but don't use tea tree oil. tea tree oil can be toxic to chickens!
bathing a chicken covered in vaseline and tea tree oil is damn near impossible.
apparently dish soap can remove crude oil from bird feathers, but it cannot remove vaseline. neither does dr. bronner's lavender magic soap.
i'm pretty sure this is not what lennie would do - turn the master bath sink into a chicken spa.
i now have one freaked out chicken, who hates me, and looks like she was caught in an oil slick.
she's also lonely because she is separated from the other chicks. and even though we gave her a small stuffed monkey to snuggle with, she is still squawking. if the tea tree oil doesn't kill her, the stress might.
she smells fantastic, though.
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