Kelle, Author at Enjoying the Small Things

Lively.

April 7, 2010 By Kelle

As I type this, the ten-week-old sleeps on my lap, her pefect head warming my knee, her frail legs dangling comfortably across my thighs and one of her socks, as usual, hanging on for dear life as an almost-bare footie is revealed. And it is with this I’d like to start my post–this adoration for babyhood once again. I never can get over it…this loving having babies. And I can honestly say that I know I won’t look back with regret. I know I won’t want to shake that younger version of myself years from now and tell her to enjoy it while she has it. Because I do. Every bit of it. I savor the weight of her body and the way it falls into the hammock of my arms. I drink in her breathy exhales and the way she roots at my neck when I hold her close, smelling her mama’s skin, wanting more. I cherish every second of nursing, the way her tiny fingers curl around mine, her thin lashes batting as her almond eyes lock their gaze onto mine, the perfect pout of her pink lips as they latch on and the relief of all nine pounds of her as she settles into pure satisfaction. And breathes–in and out, in and out–and with each suck, each breath, it’s as if love is literally moving with the rhythm of our feeding ceremony.

There is such peace in my life when I’m mothering a newborn. Not to diminish at all the beauty of toddler wonders–Lord knows that possesses its own magic–but there is something so raw and beautiful about sustaining the life of the tiniest of forms and hanging on to the remnants of the physical connection we shared not so long ago. She grew inside me and I birthed her into this world and, as she grows and learns and drinks in this universe, it’s just a constant reminder of the amazement and beauty of life.

The girl had me at hello. I may not have known it then, but she did. She had me.

my talented niece, Savannah, took these!

Whew. Moving on…
Our Evening at the Beach…

So, most of our trips to the beach are exactly as I write them…storybook. Family settles into blankets on soft sand, toddler happily makes castles and hunts for shells, champagne is poured, glasses are clinked…”To Life!” we smile…cue pink sun dipping behind horizon. End of story.

The other night was hardly the case.

Lainey had a short nap, so we were pushing it as it was. Enter impromptu decision to head to the beach for sunset with cousins. We arrived in hillbilly Hampton style, dragging pails, dropping cups, soothing cries, and leaving a trail in the sand. I watched as heads turned to take in our entrance, their faces clearly reading please don’t sit next to me. Especially the couple with their wine glasses and picnic basket and boombox playing Navaho flute music. They obviously came to experience some Zen awakening and I’m sure the sight of Smith Family Robinson lying their make-shift blankets next to them wasn’t exactly the spritual night they had envisioned. So, we scooted down a few yards out of Navaho flute ear-shot. And we began our night at the beach.

Poor Lainey cried and wiped her snotty nose on sandy towels, Nella pooped out her outfit and had no socks, and when the wind picked up and my poor baby needed to be fed, I had to use Heidi’s hooded sweatshirt for a blanket which didn’t work out so well so I was left publicly cupping my boob while spring break junior high boys walked by and gawked. Dude, pardon me while I feed my baby the nourishment of her life.

Note to Self: Someday, become the mom who has it together.

You know what? We had fun. And that’s all that matters.

Having my sister’s girls here is a piece of home and my heart never fails to swoon a bit watching cousin bonds form…

Last night, as the bright sun set slowly into the woods behind our house and cast its happy shadows into the yard, the neighborhood kids gathered at our place for a game of “Kick the Can.” We didn’t have a can, so we used a bucket. Consequently, the game became “Kick the Bucket,” not to be confused with the more common understanding of that term.

Nella slept on a blanket in the yard while kids dodged her as they ran for base.

And I stayed close to my girl, guarding her from flying bare feet that came zooming in to kick the bucket.

I love watching Lainey play these grown-up kid games because she doesn’t understand a lick of the rules and yet, if she sees a herd of kids running, she thinks she’s playing too if she jumps in and follows suit.

She is the free-est of spirits–my sprite. And it is only right she has a fairy party because I’m quite certain the girl is part fairy–flittering about, casting her magic, her joy, her independence as she flies.

And fairies are gentle and generous, evident by her sharing of the possession most dear to her heart…Puppy and his all-healing ear. Rub Pup’s ear on any tear, any boo-boo, any sadness and miraculously, all is healed.

Speaking of fairy…the dining room table is currently a happy mess of birthday goodness, its piles of pink tulle and silk flowers towering above seed packet favors and scraps of blossomed fabric. More to come on birthday prep and the fun we’re having there.

Life continues in our home and in yours as well. My heart is so beautifully inspired by the photos and stories you’ve been sending of of where life occurs in your home from the way your mornings begin scrunched together getting ready behind foggy mirrors in small, cozy bathrooms to the kids gathering at the front door anxiously awaiting Daddy’s arrival from work. I’ve received so many stories of the beauty of conversation and love that occurs around the kitchen table–so much that I’m clearing off our birthday mess so we too can reignite our family meals and what they should be.

I have many of your photos to share, but today, these few beautiful ones…

Laura’s favorite lively place: The Playroom. And her words about watching her daughters in this place: “I love to see her imagination go wild. I love seeing her “breastfeed” her babydoll and “talk” on her play phone and be overly expressive with her hand gestures. I love becoming aware of how intently she studies every little thing I do. I love the fact that rather than Mady having a room of her toys and Ashlyn having a room of her toys, we have a communal space of shared toys. What else can I say? It’s just awesome. Period.”

And I love that she, like us, gave up a formal dining room to have a playroom. Best decision ever. And I also love that, if I see correctly, her little’s jammies are on completely backwards.

Belinda’s lively place in her home is her bedroom. In her words, “I love our bedroom. It’s a place for us all to cuddle, to read, to play. I have memories of the girls as newborns, nursing when the house is asleep and I’m the only one awake just watching and smelling that newborn baby smell. Our bedroom is a great big trampoline, a place to heal the sickies, where we give the girls a million kisses and airplane rides.”

And I completely love her photo:

Vanessa admits about her lively place, “when dancing in my kitchen, it feels so full of life that I do indeed feel like there is more than one “me” dancing. My kitchen is vibrant and full of life and is always the gathering place in my home where I can enjoy life with those I love and embrace it.”

And that picture totally makes me wish I was dancing in her kitchen with her.

Finally, Kaitlyn in cold Colorado says, about her lively living room and welcoming couch, “This picture truly engulfs my life as I know it for now, for that couch has so gracefully allowed me to soak in it while I lived through the awful pains of morning sickness. And my little Kodie bear has sat by my side, day in and day out through it all. I must say that I can no longer bend my legs like that since the little baby in my tummy isn’t allowing me to move in such ways anymore!”

I am so truly enjoying the inspiration of life in your homes and have many more stories and photos to share throughout the week. Thank you for sending!

Have a wonderful, lively day… ~k

Life in the Home (otherwise known as The Big Fat Post)

April 6, 2010 By Kelle

Regardless of the presence or type of faith in one’s life, I think Easter simply represents Life. Coming appropriately in spring when things are hatching and blooming and green is finally awakening under blankets of melting snow, it just seems right…to celebrate life in and outside our homes. With traditions and togetherness, family meals that call for the gathering of many bodies hustling over baked hams in the kitchen, excuses to wear pastels even when our skin tones beg to differ, and meaningful ceremonies for littles…like egg hunts and strategically nibbling the ears off chocolate bunnies.

I’m a holiday nut, and I suppose it won’t be long before I’m salivating over the arrival of even less celebrated holidays. Like a family barbecue for George Washington’s birthday, perhaps. We could decorate the place in dollar bills and wear wooden teeth and powdered wigs. It’d be totally fun. I kid and yet there’s something about calendar holidays and the way they offer us a perfectly good excuse to be high on life that lights my fire.

So it began on Easter morning as our strawberry nightgowned one (with the complementary troll doll morning hair) woke up to the realization that the Bunny had been here and it was time to get busy. So she waited, at 7:30 a.m like a pre-sprint Marion Jones at the start line, careful not to cross the carpet of our bedroom door until I had my coffee in one hand, camera in the other, and commenced our indoor egg hunt with a “Go!”

And off she ran, the crazy-haired one, this time not even attempting to hide her shy smile or mask her excitement. She squealed with delight at each new found egg, popping it open right there on the spot and rifling through the treasures that landed in a happy heap on the floor.

And we watched and smiled and sipped our coffee and didn’t even mind the fact that our Easter morning included a pile of significantly wrinkled laundry heaped on the left half of the love seat or that last night’s dinner dishes were still sitting in the sink. Easter’s about miracles and I figured there might be a chance in hell the kitchen would miraculously clean itself.

Didn’t happen.

But my girl did love the $7 sandals I scored for her Easter basket.

Our Easter continued with our first dip this year into the pool…

The water was too cold for Nella (just a footie dip sent the little Present into the greatest flinch of her life), so she did a little sunbathing.

…and later, we joined friends and family for a big dinner at the boys’ mom’s house where I watched as another holiday brought about that magical “life” that suddenly awakens in a kitchen on special days like these.

And I love it. The “excuse me’s” you hear as the day’s cooks bump into each other, stretching to stir the gravy, reaching to turn off the potatoes. The chop, chop, chop of the knife against the cutting board as carrots and onions are sliced. Wet hands being dried on the front of aprons, dishes piling in the sink, steam rising from boiling pots, oven timers dinging and the laughter and chatter of friends and family as anticipation for the big meal slowly grows.

I love holidays and the Life that rises to the surface because of it.

And the dresses. Easter is a perfectly good excuse for pretty dresses.

Thank you, Nana Kate for our Easter dresses!

And, let me just add, getting a picture of Lainey actually holding Nella–and by holding, I mean two arms wrapped forcefully enough around her body to keep her from slipping off and yet gently enough to not cut off her circulation–is comparable with capturing Big Foot. And a total bonus if I can get three shots before she decides she’s suddenly done and drop kicks her to the floor.

Nella, fortunately, is very forgiving.

And did I say she smiles? I love her smiles. They are as gentle as she is. Soft and subtle with a little *wink* of those almond eyes. Like I said…that extra chromosome? Holy Magic, Batman.

And now here comes the fun of this post.

First, my very good friend Nici at Dig This Chick made my girls some new digs. And let me clarify “very good friend.” Nici & I have never met. And yet we’ve “known” each other for over two years now. I met her through blogging…back when I wasn’t so sure about this whole thing. And then we “fell in love.” We both have two girls, we both love being mamas and we both have this insane need to drink the bejesus out of life and write about it while we’re doing it. Over the years, Nici and I have talked, texted, sent packages, enjoyed Skype chats and she was one of the first I called in the delivery room just ten weeks ago…she was waiting for the call…and although it wasn’t I’m sure what she expected, she was right there with me for the whole journey. She is insanely talented, she is close to my heart, and she makes killer clothes. Like these ones here.

So glad my little Florida Crackers now have the shirts to prove it!

Nici’s offering a 20% discount for my readers at her Etsy shop! Type in “enjoying the small things” at checkout, and she’ll refund your 20% the same day of purchase.

Soon, I will take my girls to the hills of Montana to meet her and, as much as we’ve already bonded, I picture our greeting totally movie-worth. Like slow motion, hair in the wind, running through a field of daisies with the Chariots of Fire theme song playing. And we will hug. And weave daisies into crowns for our girls and walk hand-in-hand into the Montana sunset. Okay, so real life doesn’t always pan out like that but I do know for sure, we’re gunna dig each other.

So that was Fun #1.

Ready for Fun #2?
Really?

Another Giveaway. But you have to work for it.

First of all, the goods.

I recently fell in love with a friend’s necklace that embodies a mama’s love like none I’ve seen.
Tina Steinberg of Tina Steinberg Designs captures your children’s fingerprints in her beautiful jewelry and puts them as close to your heart as you can get ’em. One reader will receive her 3-print “Mini Loves” necklace seen here: ($200 value)

(Become a Facebook fan of her work HERE. There’s some great energy on that page!)

So, what do you have to do?

I’ve been thinking a lot about “Life in a Home” and how there are certain corners, nooks, rooms where life seems to evolve a little more beautifully in every home. As I mentioned the hustle and bustle of the kitchen on a holiday, there are others. The magic that awakens in a bathroom when littles are bathed at night, the hum of supper converasation around a dining room table when Dad comes home from work, the creativity that erupts from spools of ribbon and scraps of fabric in a craft room…
…where does Life occur in your home?

I’d love to hear in your comments about the lively place in your home. So, leave a comment please. But, if you want to be part of the giveaway, give me a little more. Take a picture of your ‘lively place’ and e-mail it to me at kellehamptonblog@comcast.net. You don’t have to be a photographer, you don’t have to edit it, and I certainly won’t judge on photography experience. Just be creative and capture that feeling of life in your place as best as you can…organically and beautifully–unposed. I will post some of my favorites on the blog for all to enjoy over the next week. Please enter your photo along with a short description of the place in your home you chose before midnight EST on Sunday, 4.11.10. Winner will be announced the following Monday. And if you just want to comment for the heck of it, well that’s perfectly okay. Please keep in mind, if you send me a photo, it may be published on the blog (first names only!).

And I’ll start with a favorite of ours:

Life in our home awakens at the changing table. While some may see it as just a station for a quick change, equipped with a stack of diapers and wipes and an array of creams, it is far more than that in our home. Over the years, it has become the place where we linger after the diaper tabs have adhered and the snaps have been fastened. We linger for coos and goos and little smiles. On that table, tummies are tickled, toes are kissed and Burt’s Bees buttermilk lotion is massaged into tiny cowlicks and cookie-sweet cheeks. The family often gathers for changes, Lainey perched high on her stool, Mama snapping pictures and Daddy coo and gooing all the while. And the sun stretches into the window in the morning just like magic, casting its golden glow onto the black & white flashcards that entertain baby eyes right above that place of Life. No, it’s not just a changing table. In our house, it is where life occurs. Where first smiles are noted. And where the monotony of the day disappears but for a moment.

I’m so excited to hear about your homey places full of life.

In the meantime, my nieces are in town and there’s some fun to be had this week.

Happy Bookends

April 4, 2010 By Kelle

My heart is happy.
Because my day has commenced and closed with little moments of goodness like two equally delicious bookends, propping up a smattering of middle chapters that happen to include similar goodness. A Goodness Sandwich, if you will.

Beginning with hot coffee hugged in the perfect mug as we leisurely readied for our day that included…

Our Neighborhood Easter Party

Full of sugary pastels and best-dressed littles holding baskets on the outside and anticipation for egg hunting and candy finding on the inside.

Lainey herded us along all morning, trying to get our butts out the door because she was so excited to see the Easter Bunny. Of course, one sighting of him transformed her innocent excitement to horror movie-like terror. As soon as she saw him through the glass panes of the door, she ran like hell to her daddy.

…and only lifted her head off his shoulder for a glance if she had the door as a barrier.

She kept her hands over her eyes believing that whole If-I-can’t-see-him-maybe-he-can’t-see-me thing. Kids are so funny.

And when, and only when, she was thorougly ensured that the Bunny had left the building, she agreed to venture outside for my favorite part. What is it about egg hunts that make me so freaking high on life?

Maybe it’s the way she works hard to hide her smile. Like she’s way too cool to let you know she’s totally enjoying it all. No, she forces seriousness, tediousness, total focus as she scours the dewy grass for jewel tone hints. But, even through the straight face, the intently masked shy smile, the finger-in-her-mouth concentration, you can see it. …Bliss. And I can’t hide the fact that it just gets me. Her. Spring. Little kids in ruffled dresses and perfectly-parted braids happy squealing and mad-dashing to fill their baskets.

And the little bunny who slept through it all.

She wasn’t quite so frightened of the Easter Bunny so proper introductions were made.

Big Bunny, Little Bunny. Little Bunny, Big Bunny.

And they became fast friends…even though, after I put a baby in his arms for a picture, the Big Bunny looked at me through those giant mesh eyes like he didn’t know what the heck he was doing. I just saw two strange eyes peeking through those huge mesh holes, our gazes met and it was really awkward. I wanted to say, “I see you in there” and I think he wanted to say something maybe along the lines of “I don’t hold babies,” but there were throngs of children around him and if we shared a conversation and the kids heard a recognizable man’s voice squeaking out of the tiny fur hole in the giant bunny costume, I guess the jig is kinda up.
Moral of the story: Giant Costumes for Grown-Ups are kind of freaky.

Needless to say, our morning was perfectly festive. Followed by an intermission of inhaling every breath of heavenly goodness these eight pounds and fifteen ounces of magic gifts me with.

Brett is known for his series of nicknames for his kids. He takes nickname-giving a very serious sport indeed, pondering his choices, making sure they “fit,” sometimes altering them a bit until they are perfect and organically worn-in. Lainey’s “Baby Bee” took a whole year of cultivating (and shortening from Binkywinky to Binkywinks to Binky to Binks to finally, just “Bee”) not to mention the handful of other names she was referred to in the process.

With that said, I’ve been wondering what Nella will be called. She’s all of two months and I’ve been waiting to hear mention of a nickname, but haven’t wanted to badger or pressure the arrival of such name without it happening naturally just the way Daddy likes to do it.
Well, this week, it’s happened. It’s been dropped several times now and, although it’s subject to change I’m sure, she has a Daddy-given name.

He calls her…
Little Present.

…and every time I hear him whisper it to her, it makes me want to cry. What a present she is.

Spring = Bonnet Wearing. Because I love bonnets so very much.

And the last chapters of our day arrived with a beautiful evening with friends sipping plastic cups of beer poolside…

…and an outdoor movie. Lainey was thrilled to drag her pillow outside and curl up under the stars with a blanket, a bag of popcorn and some tiki torch glow for some Saturday night perfection.

…while Nella slept through the entire thing.

And somewhere between tying my wet hair into a sloppy ponytail this morning to make it out the door on time to satisfy a begging toddler waiting to see the Easter Bunny to settling into patio chairs under the stars to watch my girls experience the cozy joy of watching a movie outside, it arrived again–that feeling of perfect contentment. Because, no matter what stresses lie on our plate, what challenges we face ahead, what unpleasant feelings we temporarily harbor, the Bigger Picture of what really matters? It’s perfect and beautiful and unscathed.

And our conclusion today? After the last chapter, we closed with our pre-bed Easter Eve ritual…putting out the Easter Bunny’s food–because, apparently, despite the fact the mesh-eyed giant terror traumatized her a bit this morning, she’s over it and is okay with the fact that he’s comin’ to our house tonight.

Lainey chose celery and water and scripted my note to him, verbatim, as follows:

Easter Bunny, Come to my house.
At nine.
Hello.
Bring me a basket and chocolate.
Please. I love you. Love, Lainey

Tomorrow brings good things.
Have a wonderful Easter.

And a total tangent, but many have asked about the absence of the hospital bracelet. It fell off. Just fell off while I was running out the door one day. I didn’t get to cut it myself or have a moment when it happened. I looked down and saw it lying there and thought maybe I’d cry or fall apart but, nope. Just tucked it in the pocket of a diaper bag and moved on. Because life moves on and we’re all okay.