Kelle, Author at Enjoying the Small Things

Stream of Consciousness

September 9, 2010 By Kelle

The cool thing about craft-making and cupcake-baking days is that it doesn’t make you feel quite as crappy when you have days where you’re frazzled or you snap at the whining or the T.V. runs too long or you’re just not feeling it. And we have them, but there’s a strange beauty to those days too. Sometimes, at the end of those days is when I have my best moments. When I sidle next to sleepy bodies in bed and whisper in their ears that today didn’t go exactly like I wanted, but tomorrow will be better and that I love them all the same. Ah, the beauty of Balance. I learned it here and here and, well another time here.
Ebb & Flow, Baby.

We’re a bit crazed with some chaos right now, but it’s beautiful chaos…like the unorganized dissonant tones of instruments as they tune before a symphony. It’s all in preparation of something good, and soon the maestro will tap his wand and all will fall together in lovely harmonies…at least that’s what I tell myself.

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Labor Day had us setting out for a little drive up to Gasparilla Island where we met my friend, Rebecca and her husband Jon at her parents’ house and enjoyed a day of beach-basking and catching up.

This girl smiles in her sleep all the time.

Lainey’s totally in love with Aunt A’Becca.

…and so are we.

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Ballet is now one of my favorite moments of the week, and in just these past few weeks, I am quite certain I have acquired new wrinkles from all the smiling I’ve done.

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Today, we met sweet Ethan whose mama and daddy won a giveaway here awhile back for one of Poppa’s vacation rentals. Nella was smitten, and we got a kick out of not only watching the two of them together but Lainey and Beckham having a ten-minute pow-wow on the cold tile in front of the front door just lovin’ on him.

Jessica & Justin, hoping the rest of your week is relaxing and perfect and just what you need!

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Our Nana Kate is not only our borrowed grandma, across-the-street neighbor and a dear friend of mine, but she is locally known as the Naples Nana who works at Baby Gap. She’s worked there for years and calls all the babies that shop there “my babies.” Recently, she worked hard to get Gap corporate to approve an idea she had to have photos of all “her” local babies as the Gap models in our store here, and I love that her passion for this idea and the genuine love she has for the babies that shop there got approved.

…especially because my babies now grace the walls.

I had my old camera this night and some horrible lighting conditions but you get the picture…that my mama heart was swellin’ and that my girls’ pride was matched with Nana Kate’s who treats us like her own.

Kathleen, we love you and you are so freaking fabulous.

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And that brings me to the last two lovelies, the first being that September from now on is just Christmas on a cracker. Family arrives tomorrow and there will be love and much of it this week. Next week, I am taking my girls to the Montana mountains to finally meet my dear friend, Nici. We’ve been blogging friends for three years now…e-mailing, texting, talking, Skyping and dreaming of the day we’d finally meet. And Friends…it’s gonna be good. I cannot wait to see our girls together and fetch eggs from the chickens and take walks under blue sky kissing Montana mountains. And these Florida girls will get to wear tights. That’s a bonus. My mama comes down to finish off the month with more love and that? Well, that’s just heaven.

Finally, I am so proud to announce our new sponsor, Tina Steinberg Designs. Her fingerprint jewelry is beautiful and unique, and I can’t tell you how many times I reach up during the day to rub my fingers along the edge of my pendants and feel the fingerprint impressions of my babies.

For a special promotion this month, enter the code “smallthings” at checkout and receive 10% off your September order. Orders over $100 (after discount) also receive a silicone ‘i am not afraid. i was born to do this.’ bracelet. (I feel powerful when I wear mine. Like Wondertwin Powers Activate! kind of power)

Check her out!

And now, I must go whisper sweet-nothings to the babies. They hear you when they’re sleeping, you know.

The Never Ending Story

September 7, 2010 By Kelle

You know the annoying guy at the party who tells the same story every time? And you’re like, “Dude, we’ve heard this story fifty billion times, shut up” but he’s oblivious to your annoyance and he keeps going, chugging his drink and excitedly flailing his hands as he gets to the climax even though you know exactly what happens because you’ve heard it fifty billion times before…

With that said…

So, there’s this place we go on Sundays.

And I’ll cut to the chase.

Long story short…we like it. We like this place.

Friends joined us again. And we rolled in early, when the tide was high and the legs of the beach tables were sinking and slipping and the waters of the bay nearly kissed the edge of the tiki bar. So we swam and sipped and savored our walks up and down the little beach in search of shells and sticks and critters. We found them.

What the? We think this is a starfish of some sorts. Its stringy tentacles moved like worms. Ew.

And watching it all from my chair under the umbrella had me thinking about how my Florida girls will talk about these days years from now…how they will tell stories of shelling and crabbing and chasing dogs along the dock.

And I will smile and tell them that they learned to walk on those sands, that they tasted their first bites grouper on that shore and that their sweaty little bodies took naps in the shade, snuggled peacefully against towels over heaps of warm sand.

This is my favorite church. This is where I feel “it” the most. And whether its the rich friendship that rises with the tide from the friends that join us or the fact that at any given moment, my eyes can dart from Brett to the boys to my girls to my friends and be met with this obvious enjoyment and drunk-on-life enthusiasm, I breathe the salty air of this place in deep breaths and feel so fulfilled.

Beach blood runs deep in the veins of my girls. They eat sand and get dock slivers and will be able to tell the difference between high tide and low before kindergarten.

I may miss my Michigan Autumns but raising salty sea babies is just as grand.

And so is basking in Capri Sun all afternoon with a shore scattered with people you dig and littles you love.

And my favorite?
Definitely the salty craters.
It happens every time we come. When the sun starts to sink and the tide sleepily slips back, revealing the magic of a long stretch of craters cradling salty puddles. The best shells and critters skim to the surface and the open puddled terrain calls for skipping and crater-hopping and inventing fun games that make you look silly to the diners inside the window glow watching.
But we don’t care. We don’t care because our babies are happy and the sun is magic and life feels pretty much amazing right now.

Night Capri posseses its own magic, different from Day Capri but just as enchanting.

Brett’s eyes were closed, so I fixed it. There. Can’t even tell.

Fifty years from now, I don’t know what I’ll remember. I bet a lot of things I think are important now will be pretty silly when I look back. And I’m sure things I think are presently challenging will be small in comparison to the great big picture I’ll have at the end of all this. I tell myself that a lot when I step foot on the Worrying Road, especially with our added concerns. And I always come back to the place of stripping life down to the bare bones of the essentials. Of what really matters. And this? This Isle of Capri thing we got going? This matters. I’m pretty sure my last words aren’t going to be “Thank God I drove a car.” But you can be damned sure I’ll be talking about our place and our sunsets and the way the tide pooled up in the moonlight and the way we danced with the babies on the wood floors of the tiki bar and drank cold beer with friends until the moon slipped behind the bay.

That, my Friends, is the magic of the Never Ending Story.

Refueling

September 5, 2010 By Kelle

I set off this morning to write.
I was alone which doesn’t happen very often these days, and it took me a moment to adjust to the still and quiet of a chatterless car ride.
I arrived at the bookstore, laptop in tow and settled into a corner table with a coffee, attempting to initiate some sort of word barage into my senses.
But nothing came.
I stared into a blank white document, fiddled with my cup, searched for inspiration–anything–but was only drawn to the bearded man annihilating a raspberry danish visible from the glossy reflection on my screen. I tried switching seats, changing the angle of my computer, pushing aside the distracting clutter of my bagel plate…but alas, nothing but a few pecked sentences which I quickly deleted.

So, I drove home, reemerged myself into the rituals of a Saturday morning and refueled my senses with what they needed…

Like Swimming.

Where my big fish shouted “Look at Me!” and “Hey, Watch Dis!” and proudly flaunted new jumps and paddles and splashes.

The spark of inspiration continued into the quiet of the pink room where the little bunny slept, her cherub legs tucked symmetrically under her diaper, her lashes contrasted nicely by mid-morning sun.

…lashes which later unfurled while her awakeness drank in kisses from the daddy.

I was refueled with the new September candy dish, stashed with Autumn-hued Jordan almonds which have rapidly disappeared in a matter of hours.

And I watched as my big girl entertained the little girl…

…and I studied the ever-changing features of her sweet angel face.

And dessert tonight was Dress-up.

Where I was instructed to “Put difs on” and was handed a ruffled clump of hot pink mesh and aqua sequins.

We strutted magestically through the driveway…

…until something ruffled the queen’s feathers and she ran into the house, distraught in a very three-year-old manner.

And just about the time the little one sank into a heavy slumber against my left arm tonight, and the bigger one breathed slow and steady in the crook of my right, I felt it.

My inspiration.

I often challenge myself to recognize the many facets of my identity and to understand that motherhood does not completely define me. I want to set an example for my girls of fulfilling my one wild and precious life with a great many things and giving them the freedom to explore the wonders of the world in their own way. I tell myself that I will gradually have to let go and that life will not always be filled with the happiness of dress up and tea parties and spontaneously aproning up to make cupcakes with extra sprinkles.

…but right now, I drink it up, knowing that the magnitude of our inspriration shifts over time. And while I am aware that mothering cherub-cheeked littles will not always be the source of full-flowing inspiration, I know that loving them will.

…and while the words finally flow tonight, there’s always re-fueling tomorrow. Watching my girls settle into the cold sands of our happy beach on the Isle of Capri.

Happy Holiday Weekending.