on the brink of our sacred weekend, and it’s always a lovely feeling. on friday nights, an aura enters our home–and i can’t put my finger on it, but i think it’s just an extra dose of love. because we hoard our weekends like little treasures, and while sometimes i think we should be making efforts to visit interesting places and fill her little brain with as much as we can, i usually arrive at the conclusion of: what better place for her to make memories than her home? her love. her security.

…especially since i have all these dreams of making home just the most heavenly place ever for our kids. like tea parties on friday afternoons. and come-climb-in-bed-with-us-if-you’re-saddies days and i-promise-i’ll-try-not-to-embarrass-you-when-you-bring-your-friends-home-from-college slumber party weekends. and family dinners. and braid-your-hair mornings. and baby-i’ll-hold-you-forever evenings. and our kids will come and go…but home will always be here.

home. i’ve come to appreciate the term so much more being with brett. his favorite days are spent at home and the way he talks about “home”, you’d think it was a child of his. he loves this house–every memory contained within these walls and every nook and cranny that holds some sentimental value. (how many times i’ve heard…”see that counter? i remember when brandyn was little enough to walk underneath it.”) and when i’m off to the races on a saturday morning, ready to tackle a mean list of errands and “breathe” outside the four walls which contain my sanity five days a week, one look at him and his complete contentment to commit to a day inside our sanctuary–making scrambled eggs for the binks, adding some tbs-movie background noise and planning a grand game of afternoon ping pong with the boys in the garage–humbles me in the i’m-so-glad-i-married-him kind of way. this is our home. this is our life.

and then there are those confirming moments–many a quiet nights when, fire crackling, candles lit, and a good movie rolling, i’ll see that look in his eyes, and i know what’s coming. he’ll pause, sip his wine and just quietly say…i love this house.

a similar moment granted tonight. brett returned late from fort lauderdale…past lainey’s bedtime, but i do my best to keep her up to see daddy. so, after a bath with daddy…

…and some substantial cuddles, i took our binks and her heavy-lidded eyes to bed, two blankies in hand.

sidenote: i know it’s a completely controversial topic, but we have a family bed. regardless of what the books and people say, at this point, it works out beautifully for our family. i feel the need to justify somewhat (which is strange because, if you think about it, “family bed” is the most natural and pure thing) but the biggest reason i do it (besides i just secretly love it) is because brett is working a lot longer hours these days and i know it kills him to lose so much time with her, so it grants him hours of snuggling and spooning and hearing her breathe in his ear–hours he would normally lose to wasted sleep time. and when i wake up in the dark at four a.m. and look over to see her all clay-molded to her daddy and a half-smile on his semi-sleeping face: oh, it’s so worth it. end of sidenote.

so, here we are doin’ our normal night routine and then daddy comes walking in. and he just climbs under the quilt (plus extra down comforter because it’s frigid these days in naples, you know) with us and we snuggle. and it’s dark except for this glow of yellow light coming from the closet, and you can hear the hum of the space heater (you heard me…space heater. in south florida). and brett and i prop our heads up on our elbows and talk about our day–in the faint yellow glow of a dark room–with a sleepy little binks between us. and, as we talk, we see her eyelashes bat slowly…and her lids fall…and she’s tryin’ so hard to capture all this mama and daddy conversation…but she’s so sleepy and she’s just thumbin’ her puppy’s left ear and sucking the livin’ daylights out of her pacifier. and we see it all goin’ down as we keep talkin’….and watching her…and smiling because it’s just the cutest.

and yes. i hit “record” on my little brain recorder, filed it away for later and said something super sappy to brett. but he’s used to it. and i think he secretly loves it…very, very much.

…and then super-rewind to our day: just one of those regular days where we bump into friends and make impromptu plans to do fun kid-ish things…like go to the park. we have this lovely park just about a mile from us and, in addition to the traditional swings and various climb-ey/bounc-ey things, it boasts this vast gravel digging grounds…which i think is also known as e.coli-harboring-grounds, but what brett doesn’t know won’t kill ‘im. so, we tote our purell and give it a shot. …and what kid doesn’t like a little gravel/e.coli, huh?

(and kudos to the mom who packed a galvanized tin pail for the park. we don’t know who you are, and we’re sorry we temporarily stole it for a picture)

…and our sweet lily cuddles with a bottle…

…and hello, sweet peyton.

..and while we’re on the whole kid/baby discussion, i will say that almost-21-months is just a beautiful age. and she just has so many expressions of feeling and so much to say about life (i.e.: so much to say about not getting her way) and i’m just embracing all these feelings i’m having about motherhood. all good. all in amazement at the evolvement of feelings and intelligence and emotion. it is such a miracle. and i find the fits and expression just beautiful challenges…i love figuring this out on my own. no books. just finding my own little niche in the beautiful world of motherhood…finding how it is my character raises a child. because there is no one way to be a perfect parent…but there are a million ways to be a great one. and i find them every day…every fit she throws in target, every inquiring look she gives me, every teachable moment she gifts me with..i love the challenge. i love embracing it all and figuring it out as i go. and i love seeing the impact of my choices–knowing just a handful of “consequences” and love and encouragement has already made its mark in her little morale. she knows. she’s gettin’ it. and her character is this big, beautiful shadow of everything i am (we are). wow. what a challenge. seriously, it is such an honor to hold in our hands the daunting task of being an example. to teach her everyhing we know. we want to raise a beautiful, confident, loving human being, and we will do everything we can to fulfil that unfathomable role.

…and leaving you with two little happies:

a) my sister pointed out she has a beautiful neanderthal-ian walk.
and i proved her right today:

oh, my little baby needs a plaque in the science & industry museum in chicago!

and b) her growing independence.
we clap for her a billion times a day because she is just one giant ball of smartycakes. miss fine-motor-skills buckled her own carseat today. (applause, applause. and, if you don’t clap for her….she will see to it you are reminded because, upon every accomplishment she makes, applause–on her own accord–quickly follows)

i just love being in charge of raising a human being.

…and, in other news, i will be photographing my first wedding (outside of family) this october: jeremy & erin, the darling couple in the previous post. i am so excited.

…and just since i’m in the mood…a shout-out to my sister tonight. i love you. you are fabulous. you are everything i aspire to be. and you are making a difference in so many lives. thank you for being amazing. now go write your book.

and a bonus scrapbook page:

…enjoying the life-is-whatever-you-make-it things. ~k

i’m back…ready to attack.

call it the bedroom being cleaned, seasonal affective disorder worn off (and it’s 27 degrees tonight! in south florida!!) or whatever…but, i felt the floodgates of creativity open tonight. we’re talking spirtual experience, baby…and all thanks to my friend, my constant companion, my there-just-when-i-need-him, my sweet canon baby.

okay, maybe not so much the camera but more so this ridiculously darling couple, jeremy & erin.

(and i now realize that’s my boot in the picture…i’ll fix that)

tonight was my first night meeting them and i knew with the first handshake they were going to be just perfectly wonderful.

…and then she pulls out this big-brimmed brown hat…so my kinda girl.

love, love, love these ones:

…and the shoot finished off at fifth avenue…and i always forget how fabulous it is…sweet nugget of a street.

oh, erin…you are just beautiful!

found a mirrored building which set the stage for this shot…lovin’ it.

oh, young love…so inspiring.

had an absolute blast tonight.

oh…and what’s a post without my cubs?

…enjoying the feeling-so-inspired things. ~k

i’m just gunna come right out with it.
and i know people are gunna eat this up…because we all just love imperfection.
i’m gunna be real.

ready?

remember my bedroom?

my bedroom is this perfect haven of a room when it’s clean. the afternoon light comes in this lovely stretch of glass doors and bathes the room with its splendor. and i have a reading nook–a real reading nook–with a table and lamp and the perfect little chair–and by perfect, i mean not-so-perfect because the left arm is a little loose and the seat is a bit squished, but it worked many a night when i used it to nurse lainey in the dark and actually appreciated the little give the left arm had because it would bend just the right amount to support my sleepy recline…without dropping a baby. i love my dresser and the line-up of polished perfume bottles arranged like dominoes on their mirrored tray positioned in perfect symmetry on the dresser between my silver wedding frames. i love the framed picture on my wall that i drew and the shelf that displays my little treasures–the rock from my grandma’s burial, my grandpa’s collage, the shell that was on my pillow the night we got married, lainey’s hospital bracelet… i like the way each of our nightstands says so much about us: brett’s simple and clean with only his watch, a bottle of nasalcrom, a very anassuming alarm clock and a picture of his kids taped over one of me in my wedding dress (it’s okay, i’m over it); mine with a graveyard of pacifiers, a stack of books i’ll never read, an old diary, a glass of water from three nights ago, four pens–three of which don’t work, a handful of hairties (hair included), lainey’s one-year scrapbook (which I look at every single week), and a lone earring.
and then there’s the whole issue of the bed. our bed is just grand, and we have really good cotton sheets and a quilt i love and heaps of down pillows that sandwich your head just right.

together, it makes a very lovely bedroom.
which is why i can’t understand my issues with keeping it clean.

i have a slew of justifications i use to make myself feel better, which include the following: both brett and i have a hard time parting with anything sentimental value can be attached to (and for the record, everything can have sentimental value attached to it), i’d rather do something creative than necessary tasks and often, regretfully, make the choice to do so, i do a phenomenal job of keeping the open areas of the house clean…but the bottom line is, there is no excuse. because having a beautiful bedroom grants me a more beautiful life. i enjoy my room too much to let it get so messy, and i certainly owe it to my hard-working husband.

so, with that said…i’ll get a little honest here.
in the course of my day, if i don’t want to bother with making a decision on where to put odd things, i put them in my bedroom. in addition, i often do laundry, fold it, and then lay it in a pile on my bedroom floor. in addition, i often try three to, oh let’s say seventeen things on before i go out…and sixteen of them may land on the floor.

so, in an intimate moment of friendship, i exposed my mess to a few friends the other night during my party (dede lives across the street)…and it garnered laughter of the unexplainable sort.

i have nothing to hide. we’re talking frat party gone wrong.

so, as intimate moments of friendship often go…my friend heidi says something on the lines of, “dude…i’m coming over this week to help you, and we will have so much fun gettin’ this bedroom back in shape.”

so, today was the day. and it was the most wonderful experience.
confined to the frat-party-gone-wrong, we watched movies. we folded. we hung things. and we did it bird by bird.
and i can’t tell you how many times we were rolling on the floor in fits of hysteric laughter. like, literally, my knees gave out on me once i was laughing so hard. and i hit my head on the nightstand.
the randomness of objects in the heap? i kid you not, this is exactly how it went: folded shirt, folded skirt, folded shirt, attachable cat tail from halloween costume, lone sock, lone sock, a receipt from target. washcloth, tablecloth, dishcloth, crumpled piece of paper scribbled in marker the words “WAKE ME UP” (don’t ask), broken hanger, broken hanger, lone sock, broken hanger (tally stands at nine). and it went on and on.

and our two littles were body-slamming piles of clothes while lily played with socks and we talked and laughed and folded and laughed.

and tonight, several hours and many beautiful vacuum lines later, it was clean.
which simply deserved a toast. so, we sat in the driveway, watched our littles climb on trikes and bikes, and we celebrated. not so much to a clean room, but to having these kinds of friends…the ones you can safely let in to see all the imperfections…laugh about them…and somewhere in the course of it all, make them better.

my room is clean.
and vacuumed.
and the perfume bottles stand dustless once again.
and it feels…delicious.
my haven has returned.

and i didn’t want to leave it tonight. just wanted to curl up on the bed and enjoy it…so we did.

i love real life…and always getting better, ya know?
i am thirty and most certainly, thirty-year-olds can have very clean bedrooms. and cook. and be really, really great moms. and wives. and take pictures. and write. and document their child’s life. and have friends. and read. and love. love a lot. yes we can.

oh…and throwin’ in lainey’s superbowl attire…

and her everyday loveliness…

she woke up with a runny nose last night and fell back asleep on top of me…just wanted her little body completely embracing mine. and it’s those moments, with her heavy chest pushed right against mine, her hand tucked right under my chin, the wisps of her hair right where i can breathe them in…that i think in the dark how much i’ll want this moment back. and i close my eyes and pretend it’s twenty years from now and i’ve just been granted my wish to go back–just for a moment–and i open my eyes again, as that future me…and i just can’t hug her close enough, can’t breathe in her littleness as much as my heart wants to. and it just hurts to love her.

so there. an honest blog post. an imperfect one. and, best of all…a loving one. ‘cuz you can’t escape without a little love.