9.27.2018

A Walk in the Garden

Things seem to finally be settling into a routine now that the school year has started. My oldest is in Kindergarten, my middle is in preschool, and the youngest is loving having Mommy to herself for three hours every morning - and so am I.

Truthfully, my middle child, "C," got the raw end of the deal - as is par for the course - because there was always another sibling vying for my time and attention. Once my oldest was in preschool, "C" got some one-on-one time for a bit, but then little sister arrived. And even though I feel bad about that sometimes, I also see all of the benefits of having bookend siblings:
  • Isn't afraid to stick up for herself
  • Knows what she wants
  • Easy to talk to
  • Plays well with others (most of the time)
  • Extremely outgoing
  • Loves to make friends
My youngest, "L," shares a lot of the same attributes, but she's also my most spirited and free child in a lot of ways. She loves to learn and explore, and so do I. So this week I decided to re-energize an aspect of this blog from it's former life and go exploring, with "L" at my side. I've decided to make it a weekly occurrence, and this week I chose to hit up one of my favorite spots here in the city: 


It's a favorite of mine because it offers so many awesome features, and it's also pretty much in my back yard! But proximity aside, it's just fantastic on so many levels. There are so many beautiful gardens, conservatories and areas to view and explore, along with beautiful architecture, learning centers and an abundant trail system that is just awesome and seems to go on forever! Plus it has a fantastic "Family Adventure Garden" that the kids love, which boasts a super cool lazy creek to splash in on hot days, log cottages to play make-believe in, hedge mazes to navigate, and a stage with accessories to put on a whimsical performance! The garden is currently offering an interesting art installation too, of which I'm always a fan! 


Along with a plethora of other awesome events that are coming up: 


If you haven't been, you should totally go! And if my remarks above and blatant advertising haven't sold you yet, here are some photos that I took to help seal the deal!


























9.24.2018

Happy Irony

I went out and had a little "girl time" with my oldest yesterday. We got manicures and had lunch at a local sushi place. While we waited for our bento boxes we took pictures of our freshly painted nails and played a game of "I'm going on a picnic...." It was a fun afternoon and my heart was full of love and laughter when I returned home.

Shortly after getting settled in the house, my youngest woke up. I went to get her out of her crib to change her pull-up. As I went to tickle her neck she grabbed my hand and pulled it towards her. "Fingers?!" she asked in a "What did you do?!" kind of tone. "I got them painted," I told her. "Paint," she said, and I could see the little wheels turning around in her mind as to what this paint stuff could be.

When my middle child saw my nails she loved that they were dark purple, and then promptly asked when we were going to have some "Mommy & C" time to go get hers painted. I told her this coming weekend was ours. She's pretty stoked and has already informed me she wants to get Hello Kitty nail polish, just like her big sister, only she wants violet.

My nails looked great yesterday...

Today two nails are already chipped, one finger has some weird gray streak on it, my middle finger got squished and the paint is oddly wavy now, and I have blue markers all over my hands from doing a rocket ship craft with C this afternoon - who profusely apologized for getting my "pretty purple fingers all smudgy."

Interestingly enough, a few days back I wrote a poem about my hands; about how I perceived them and how my kids perceived them. It's funny how sometimes when you just think about something, in passing or in quiet reflection, that thing or idea can all of a sudden become a focal point in your life in a happily ironic way...







9.20.2018

Conversations

I wanted to sit down and blog tonight because I didn't want the conversations I had with my girls' at bedtime to fade from my memory. I wanted to share them because, like so many moments with children, conversations with little ones are always more profound and deep than you expect them to be.

So, to set this up, let me go back a bit...

This past weekend our family took a little trip to Barnes & Noble to get some new reading material, which is always a favorite past-time. Of course the girls were more interested in the gazillion toys the store now offers, but we finally lured them into the kids reading area where we spent ample time perusing the shelves. One of the things we wanted to get for the girls was a story Bible because - to be frank - religion hasn't really been a big part of our household these past years. The "Why?" behind that is a long explanation, and something I'll reserve for future blog posts. What I want to talk about in this post tonight is the amazing, spiritual conversations that have been sparked by telling my kids these stories from the Bible.

My oldest - we'll call her "M" - is on the downward slope towards six, going on sixteen. She's your typical oldest kid; smart, a bit hyper-sensitive, and always wants to please and be praised.

My middle child - "C" - is closing in on four and is a typical middle sister; outgoing, funny, and marches to the beat of her own drum.

The youngest - "L" - just turned two and is already trying to out-talk her older sib's. She's the no-nonsense one of the group; observant, determined, super bright and a little too sly for her own good.

They're an awesome little trio, and I love watching them together and look forward as they start getting older and growing into their relationships with one another more and more.

Since "L" is still little, she's the first to hit the hay at night, and then the older two get a bedtime story and do their nightly ablutions before crawling into bed. Most nights, lately, the girls' (especially "M") have been wanting a couple of stories from the new Bible we bought. We started at the beginning and have, so far, read our way to Moses leading the Hebrews out of Egypt and back to the Promised Land.

Tonight we started with Moses at Mt. Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments and then coming down the mountain to find his people already breaking a law by dancing around the golden calf. Now this is a critical learning-point in Christian, Judaic and Islamic theology, so I was surprised at how my oldest, "M," was affected by the story and what happened thereafter, and how easily she understood its true import. So much so, that I think the following conversations will stay with me for a long time....

M: "Oh no! They already broke one of the rules!"
Me: "You're right. They did. Which one did they break?"
M: "The one about not worshipping other gods."
Me: "You're a little sponge!"
M: *Giggling, then serious.* "Is God going to be mad?"
Me: "Well, they broke a rule, but they didn't know it was a rule at the time. And God can be forgiving."
M: "Because God forgives people if they ask?"
Me: "Yes, if they truly feel bad about what they did and they mean it and they repent, God can forgive people."
M: "Were the people bad? Bad people do bad things."
Me: "Well sometimes good people do bad things too, honey. Everybody sins. That's why we have to be mindful of what we do and make sure we keep God in our lives."
M: "Because when people forget God they do bad things?"
Me: "Yes, honey. Sometimes people forget God and do bad things. Sometimes people don't even realize they forgot God because they just got caught up in their own lives."
M: "You mean they were selfish?"
Me: "You know, M, I think you understand this better than a lot of adults."
M: "Really??!!"
Me: "Really...."

-- We read about Moses going back up the mountain and getting the Commandments again, building the Tabernacle, the Arc of the Covenant, the journey into Canaan, and the Hebrews deciding it's too hard and turning back to Egypt (less Moses, Joshua and Caleb). --

C: "Why are they going back?"
Me: "Because they think there will be a war with the people living in Canaan and they don't want to face something unknown and scary; they'd rather go back from where they came - where they were slaves. They didn't have enough faith in God to trust that he would deliver on his promise."
C: "What's faith?"
M: "Believing in something with your heart. Right, Mom?"
Me: "That's a good way of explaining it, honey."
M: "I have faith. I believe in God."
Me: *Smiling* "I know you do. You have a good heart, M. You keep loving God and He'll love you."
C: "I love God, too!"
Me: *Still smiling* "He loves you too."
C: "Is God a boy?"
Me: "God is something not easily definable, sweetie. God exists in a place that isn't truly here. We connect with God on a spiritual level because we can feel something greater than us moving in the world, and that feeling, that understanding, is God. But in the Bible we refer to God as "He" because that's how they wrote it and how people for millenia have been better able to understand it."
C: "So God's not a boy?"
M: "God is whatever you believe Her to be since you can't really see Her. She's everywhere."
C: "Is God camouflaged?"
Me: *Laughing* "C you make me laugh. God isn't like a chameleon. But, you know, in some poetic way, yes, God is camouflaged to us. Sometimes we don't see God, even when He's right in front of us because He either doesn't want us to, or we're just not looking hard enough."
M: "Tonight I'm going to go to bed and look for God in my dreams."
Me: "That's really poetic, M!"
M: "I'm looking forward to meeting Her."
Me: *Smiling* "I hope you meet Her and always know Her, sweetheart."


9.14.2018

Pillars of Wellness

We returned from a trip this past weekend. It was good. Long, but good. 1600+ miles one way - Texas to New Jersey. 3200+ round trip. That's a substantial amount of time to spend on the road, with three kids six and under, driving through the night, taking shifts, and going through serious downpours in the mid-Atlantic, all in a Ford Fusion.

There were definitely some chaotic moments, and my littlest - who turned 2 on the last day of the road trip - was totally over her car seat after the first day. Legitimately, I kind of was too. The lumbar support in most vehicles is just bad.

But all of that aside, the trip was much needed in many ways, for many reasons, but I think the best takeaway was all of the awesome, quality time we got with the girls and their little cousin, who I so wish we lived closer to. It made me miss the Northeast. It made me miss family.

Now that we're back in Texas I'm missing all of it terribly; family, food, laughter, breezy fall days. But I'm also happy to get back into our routine. I'm also ready to get back into better eating habits. Vacations and Italian families tend to really help you pack on a couple of pounds!

I told the hubby tonight that I'm done, and tomorrow starts my clean eating kick! I got a new jogging stroller yesterday. I'm ready to get back on a healthy routine and start working on fixing myself - all around - because keeping all of our "pillars of wellness" strong is so important!

So, in that vein (and keeping an old part of this blog alive), I've added a new recipe for anyone wanting something clean and easy to help them get/keep their healthy lifestyle going! Bon appetit!