make your own happiness

i do a lot of wishing that i had more time to do the things i think will make me happy.  the truth is, i have 3 kids, and a job, and a husband and we all need to eat and someone, someday has to clean this house.  so time isn't always easy to come by.  but here are few things that are making me happy lately:

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.

chicklets move out

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.  

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.

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.

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.

chicken eviction

the big chicks moved out!  they got their own place, and we couldn't be happier.

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.

uh oh.

  look who's walking.

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. 

she smells fantastic, though.

 

around here lately

texas is reeling.  this june through august has been the hottest summer on record for any state.  ever. texans are battling wild fires and praying for rain that never comes.  

hundreds of families have lost their homes to the fires.  farmers and ranchers are struggling to survive the summer drought.  houston alone is estimating the loss of 66 million trees.   

where i live, the temperatures finally fell below one hundred. saved from the heat, the boys and i returned to playing outside.  i walked around and looked closer at the damage done to my little piece of land.  the yard was the reason we made this house our home.  we simply love it.  we typically choose not to water the grass very much. andy works hard to water the producing fruit trees and then we hope nature will take care of the rest.  this summer we have also been on water restrictions.

a lot of the yard is brown and crisp.  we've lost two trees. we are trying in vain to save the blueberries. even the palm trees are losing their color. but we've added a lot of native plants to this landscape, and they are thriving in the weather! i realized that even though we have not had a measurable amount of rainfall since March, there is a lot of life here. and i am so grateful for the green.

  

 (curse the weeds for being unfazed by the drought!

 and for being so lovely that i don't want to pull them.)

i am grateful for mushrooms the size of dessert plates that appeared in the lawn.

 and for the first two meyer lemons making it through the summer.

 

 

 

i am grateful for greyson's kumkwats, struggling but surviving.

 

and so, so grateful that there are oranges.  fewer than last year, but still - oranges!

 

 and i am grateful for the loves that share this space with me.

 

tiny Luna

nerdy chicken info:  Luna is a silkie bantam.  bantams are small breeds, about half the size of a regular chicken.  silkies are a japanese breed that have unique feathers that are similar to the down of chicks even when they are grown.  they lack the barbicels that act like tiny hooks to smooth traditional chicken feathers together, making their feathers look like fur.  i read that when silkies were first being introduced to the west, breeders told buyers they were offspring of chickens and bunnies! 

this little girl was a special addition to our flock, just for me (thank you andy for not freaking out too much when i added "just one more").  silkies are supposed to be very social, sweet, fun for kids.  the verdict is out on that, so far luna seems to dislike us.

chicks at two weeks old

getting big so quickly, the chicks are looking like weird little dinosaurs.  greyson continues to love them.  we try our best to keep quinn away from the chicks brooder.  when he grabs the cardboard side and pulls up i imagine it is, to the chicks, a bit like godzilla attacking.  asher enjoys watching them.  he told me he would hold them more often but he really hates washing his hands.

venus - everyone's favorite

 

 isabella - the sweet one

 lois lane - the mean one.  we wondered if she might be a rooster?

 red - the shy one

 flash - the fast one, she does not like to be held.  we don't give her much choice.

 

singer - the loud one.  singer was the first to fly out of the pen, 

she took off when i put the new chicklets in her house.

 

yes, greyson is shirtless in all of these photos.  he takes after his dad.  why wear a shirt if it's not absolutely necessary?  you're just lucky he was wearing pants.

meet the chicklets

i may have been a bit over zealous with the chickens...

i have been excited about having laying hens from the start.  but i really didn't expect to enjoy the chickens as much as i have.  after listening to a couple of friends with chickens, i decided six was not enough.  and since i'm already doing the raising-baby-chicks-in-my-sun-room thing, i hurried up and added four more babies to my flock.  (is this what they call chicken math?) 

did you know that you can order day old baby chicks through the US mail?  our chicks came from My Pet Chicken and they were great.  it was the cutest package ever.

here are the tiny chicklets:

Nico - the blue splash marans

Luna - the silkie bantam

Clementine - the buff orpington

Nellie - the blue laced red wyandotte

nellie is named after my grandmother, mary nell, just because i thought grandma would get a big kick out of having a chicken named after her.  that's the kind of grandma she is.  and i chose this chicken because she is a fancy sounding breed.  grandma is nothing if not fancy.

the chicks in residence are still getting used to sharing space and food with the little chicklets.  tiny nico is trying to assert herself but the bigger girls are having none of it.  it looks like she doesn't realize she is less than half their size!

lots of firsts and ginger cookies

greyson is already a pro at first grade.  he loves it.  he loves school and his teacher and especially lunch time because he has a new buddy.  apparently he and his buddy make jokes and weird noises and crack each other up.  first grade is awesome.

with greyson settling into his second week of school, it was time for Asher and Quinn to start mother's day out.  this is quinn's first time at "school".  first time away from me.  it's a big moment.

asher has not been in school since we moved last year because each time we visited a potential school he made it clear he did not want to go there.  i caved.  i figured he'd had enough change and could spend some time home with me.  i had also had enough of change and his company sounded great.  this year, mommy needs a couple of days a week to work.

come the first day, asher was no more enthusiastic about school.  he did love his new backpack and shoes.  i played on that love to get a few smiley first day photos.  note: quinn is 13 months old on this day and is wearing shoes for probably the second time ever.

i had prepared myself for a messy, wailing separation, but both boys went to their new school surprisingly easily.  no fussing, no clinging, no tears.  from the kids anyway.  i was just proud i waited until i got back in the car.  why was i crying?  i've done this before.  i did the checklist to calm myself: school is great for them, they love being with other kids, it's only for a few hours, i know they are safe, blah, blah, blah....  i realized that my tears weren't for the kids.  they were for me.

without the kids to focus on, i become the focus.  i have to establish some kind of new routine.  for a long time there has been a disconnect between what i am doing and what i want to be doing, but having a new baby has been a beautiful distraction.  my baby is one! now what am i going to do?

i pulled it together and got some work done, drank too much coffee, and vowed to stay off of facebook during "work hours."  i'll deal with the harder stuff a little at a time.

asher and quinn were both all smiles at pick up time.  asher said he couldn't wait to come back tomorrow!  he also immediately asked me what his special treat would be, since greyson got blueberry pies.  (they remember everything.)

at asher's request, we went home and made ginger cookies.  my kids love ginger cookies of all kinds.    these are the thick, crisp, spicy, just-sweet-enough variety.  we rolled them in brightly colored sparkling sugar to make boys smile, and they were quite a treat.

this recipe is adapted from one i found in Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunch Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies by Alice Medrich. it is a really fantastic cookie cookbook.  384 pages of just cookies.  the best part is that recipes are arranged by texture!  so you can flip to chapters for "chewy" or "flaky" or "chunky" - you will want to try every single one.

happy 1st day ginger cookies
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp aluminum free baking soda
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt (if you use salted butter, omit the salt)
1 stick butter/dairy free butter, melted
1/4 cup unsulfured molasses
1/2 cup natural cane sugar
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup crystallized ginger, diced very fine
sparkling sugar or granulated sugar for rolling

preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
mix the flours, baking soda, ground ginger, cinnamon, and salt (if using) together in a bowl.  in another bowl, or the bowl of your stand mixer, combine melted butter, molasses, sugars, egg, and crystallized ginger.  mix until combined.  add flour mixture, mix until evenly combined to make a thick dough.  scoop out the dough and roll into 1 inch balls, a teaspoon worked perfectly to make even 1 inch balls.  roll  each ball in sparkling sugar.  place cookies about 2 inches apart on parchment lined baking sheets.  bake for 12 minutes, rotate the cookie sheets and swap top and bottom racks half way through baking. the cookies are done when they have flattened out and cracked on top - watch them, though, because of the dark color of the dough they are easy to burn.  cool on wire racks or lift the parchment off of hot cookie sheets and cool on the counter.

i hope you enjoy these as much as quinn did!

quinn's first cookie, 13 month birthday, 1st day of school

asher's treat

this is an amazing photo because all 3 boys are clean at once.  

also, it was quinn's first bath with his brothers in the big tub.