Our Everyday Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Enjoying the Small Things

In Like a Lamb.

March 3, 2010 By Kelle

So the time has come. The countdown to Lainey’s Third Birthday Party (a proper noun around here), just two-and-a-half months away. And celebrations of life, in my opinion, are rare and beautiful opportunities to especially suck out the Lifecycle juice. And the way I like to pay tribute to that one, most precious day my babies entered the world…well, we start planning early. That and I’m just plain obsessed with children’s parties. I asked Lainey’s input this year, and she said she wants “a pink party” which I have elaborated into a pink, garden fairy party. So, my mind has begun to spiral into crazy fun project manager mode. My dad’s first suggestion: “I see a canopy. And tulle.” To which I agree. Along the course of the way, I’ll blog about ideas and how to affordably make things, where to purchase materials, etc. and post pictures of everything. So, I guess Project Birthday Party commences. Hoorah. Still can’t believe my little pixie is going to be a ripe three years, and I realized it today when she was talking on the phone with her friend Baylee and I saw her laughing, slapping her knee and saying, “that’s ‘ilarious.”

Her favorite daily ritual has become morning adventures to the lanai where she tends to her new little plants like a mama, shy-smiling proudly while she waters them, turns them and today…sang to them: The ippy ippy pider went up da wada pout.

I promised her a trip to the library today but found myself tied up with various tasks instead until tonight, forty minutes before the ‘libary’ closed, I gave in and was pleasantly surprised to find library night-trips are way more fun than day-trips. The children’s section was clean and quiet and mysteriously vacant. It felt like we had snuck in after closing and could have practically set up sleeping bags between illustrated fiction and biography if we so chose.

Which, now that I think of it, Library Sleepover has just been added to my bucket list.

I love this love affair with books she has and how chubby fingers clumsily turning thick pages of board books just short years ago has slowly metamorphosed into kid fingers carefully pointing to words, making up stories, asking ‘what ‘dat say?’ And the promise of this continued love. Of books and words and writing and late night tuck-ins where her heavy eyes will fall asleep to our reading great stories of legendary classics. And then someday, she won’t want us to read anymore but will instead huddle under blanket tents with flashlights, scouring books of her own interest. But, lucky for us…it’s just the beginning of that book journey and tonight, she was just my two-year old enthralled and happily overwhelmed by all the possibility a room with a sea full of books held for her (and for the poor librarian who had to redo the entire dewy decimal system of Aisle 6 after Lainey ransacked 501.3 through 587.42).

And, oh how I love watching my big girl read my little girl books.

She loves her something fierce but space between bodies is key as there’s a fine line between hugs and choke-holds…thus leading to poor little Nella’s “save-me” faces. I will admit, though, as two-year-olds will be two-year-olds, there’ve been a few times I’ve ticked Lainey off and to “get back,” she immediately heads toward Nella with an evil eye…like she knows my buttons, and there’s a split second where we meet eyes and I know what she’s thinking and she knows I know…and we both make a mad dash for the cradle trying to get there before the other, and it usually ends in the nick of time, her hand grazing the newborn just as I’m whisking the floppy babe out before she wrecks havoc. And I picture this all going down in slow-motion with the Bionic Man theme song in the background. Because every moment has a theme-song, you know.

But, mostly…she’s just sweet.

And, newborn is fleeting, as newborn does. I’m grasping and yet, at the same time, basking…in big, inquisitive eyes. Eyes that scan the room for my voice the moment she hears it.

We hold her – a lot. And it is now second nature to wipe counters, apply lipstick, wash hands, type, etc. with one hand whilst the other engulfs this perfect little body. And I am loving how this little body settles right into that hollow nook between my hip and the inside of my elbow, and when she gets sleepy, that body sinks a little heavier and her head burrows a little deeper and her shallow breathing settles into a deep “hmpppphhhhh” when she’s finally out. And the whole process accelerates my heart just a little more.

And, never mind the tipped over grocery cart, the wadded sock, the lone frog boot, or the ripped cushion on the folding chair that has replaced not one but both cool Craigslist wooden spindle chairs that split down the middle, splintered my butt and nearly caused a broken tailbone when it finally gave in and I crashed to the floor.

You know what’s funny…besides the shock of an unexpected birth and the pain of limitations and letting go of what you dreamed (okay, that’s kind of a lot), there’s just love…plain & simple. SO much love. And I told Brett the other day…You know, before all of this, at any point in my life, pregnant or not, if you would have shown me pictures of Nella and told me she was a baby with D.S. whose mama didn’t want her, I would’ve begged you to let us adopt her…literally begged you to let us take this child and love her ‘cuz I wouldn’t be able to stand that she didn’t have love.

Well, that’s not really a problem.

From a card someone gave us…and I cut it out and it’s propped up on a little shelf in the girls’ room.

My mama just sent us these new knits she made, and I am loving…

There’s a constant range of emotions, obviously, and some days I feel back at Square 1, but today? Today, I just felt so completely lucky to be her mama, proud to show her off at the library with no hesitation whatsoever…and like I’m proving to some cosmic force out there that I indeed can love this girl. I can love like no other.

(Side-swept hair is always referred to as Senator. As in Senator Nella. Did you ever know a senator that didn’t have a combed side-swept?)

This weekend we will be doing Spring mini shoots. And my assistant is preparing to help.

If you’re in the Naples area, we have two slots left if you’re interested (see here for details).

And after ravishing my pantry, scrounging for something sweet the other night only to land on a handful of stale honey nut cheerios and two hard marshmallows, I have replenished the candy jars with an Easter smorgasbord. While the Peeps properly stiffen, the pastel M&Ms call my name. And you know pastel ones taste way better.

We like sweet endings:

March will be good. March will be very good. I’m excited about picking up more work, potential blog sponsors, and writing Chapter 1. I’m really going to write this book.

Normal Day

February 19, 2010 By Kelle

In perusing the comments the other night, I came across one from a reader, Sadie, who shared that her 83 year old mother has a yellowed, curled clipping stuck to her bathroom mirror with the following quotation:

“Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day, I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return.”

…and it completely moved me.

Which is why I reflect as often as I can, through words…through pictures…through writing and talking and just taking it all in…just how beautiful the ordinary is. What I’ve learned in life from loving and treasuring those perfectly normal days…it’s profound.

Guess what I got yesterday?
My girlfriends all chipped in and surprised me with a house cleaner. Let me rephrase that. A team of housecleaners. Like four of them, and they arrived in a van and entered the house like Rambo, hoisting buckets and vacuums and ladders. Yes, ladders. As in ladders they climbed on to reach fan blades. Fan blades that haven’t seen the light of day through the thick blankets of dust that have been coating them since they were installed. I’ve never had our house professionally cleaned…which is why it’s never been horribly clean because, despite my wild and crazy shakedowns before entertaining guests or really trying to convince my husband I was incredibly productive while he was at work, I’ve given up on spit-shined and instead choose picnics and tea parties and letting the creative side of my brain have a free-for-all.

When this amazing team of housecleaners arrived, they set right to work and I couldn’t leave the house fast enough…not because I wanted to get out of their way, but because I wanted the embarrassment of what they must be thinking about my house-keeping abilities to go away. Like when one of the ladies dug under my kitchen sink to pull out my cleaning supplies and I watched her shake a bottle of Soft Scrub that was obviously empty but had been put back under there anyway.

I played dumb…”How’d that get in there? I guess it’s empty. Sorry.” And after she tossed it in the garbage I watched her pull out yet another bottle of cleaner only to shake it like the former once again, cock her head to the side with this confused look and then toss that empty into the garbage as well. I wanted to disclaim once again but felt too stupid, so I did what every other self-respecting inefficient housewife would do. I ditched.

As we left, headed to the park and errands, I heard one of the girls rattle off something in another language to another. My dad, walking behind my shameful trail said, “I don’t speak their language, but I’m pretty sure she just told that girl…This woman’s a pig.”

While the team spent five hours transforming my house, we headed to the park where we sat on a big blanket next to the lake and ate “Thubway,” as Lainey calls it, warded off black crows, and tried out every swing the park had to offer.

(and p.s. House looks beautiful and Girls…Thank you. Love you. I am lucky to have your love.)

And what’s a “Normal Day” without a trip to Target…just because. We casually wheeled our red cart through the aisles, in need of nothing, but tossing in silly things like Scooby-Doo band aids and Easter candy because it felt good.

I love Easter for it brings with it pastels and tulips and daffodils and these sweet aisles in Target that remind me of a baby shower. Little chicks and bunnies and soft shades of pinks and turquoises…it makes me happy. And Peeps…oh, the Peeps. You buy them early, peel back the plastic and then let them sit for a couple weeks until the sugar coating gets crispy and the inside is chewy. …and that’s the proper way it’s done.

I’m so looking forward to this again, and that whole colorful confections/spring-hath-sprung thing.

As we were heading to check out at Target, I saw one of the cashiers waving at me and it hit me. I come here all the time and have chatted with several of the employees throughout my pregnancy, lately informing them of the final countdown, and the last time I had seen her I remember what she had said…”Next time I see you, you’ll have that baby in your arms.” I knew she’d want to see Nella…to congratulate me…and I suddenly didn’t know what to say. Do I tell her? Will she notice? Do I not say a word and have her notice on later trips to the store and wonder why I never said anything? I started to get uneasy, hugging the sling a little closer as she ran over to me to take a peek.

“Let me see, let me see!”

I smiled as I pulled the sling fabric back and revealed this piece of heaven we’ve been waiting for.

“Her name is Nella…” I stopped and watched as she took her in. And then, for some strange reason, I went on in this painfully seamless fashion, “…we found out when she was born that she has Down Syndrome.”

The cashier just stared at me. “Oh…” and then she didn’t know what to say. It was obviously just as painfully awkward for her. And I suddenly felt stupid, like I just muttered “I love you” to the boy I liked and he didn’t say it back, and I just wanted to retract it…to tell him I didn’t love him and that I certainly had never thought of what my name sounded like with his last name. I protectively pulled the sling back over my sleeping baby’s face and looked down to notice my embarrassement was now compounded with the fact that I was leaking two perfect round wet spots on my white shirt, and I wanted to abandon my groceries and run like a bat out of hell for the hills. Why did I tell her that? For that matters, why don’t I just print out her chromosome studies on little laminated cards and pass them out to anyone who happened to glance our way? Why was it important for the cashier at Target whose name I don’t even know to learn that Nella was anything more than just our sweet little bunny?

I figure this will eventually go away. And, as the incredible mother I talked to on the phone the other day reminded me, Nella is not a “Down Syndrome child.” She just has Down Syndrome, like some kids have ADD or asthma. We don’t feel the need to tell people, “This is my son, Charlie. He has ADD.” Why is it any different in our case?

I’ll get there. I’m getting there. In fact, when I look at her, all I see is Nella…who is more perfectly beautiful than I could have ever imagined. Whose almond eyes and rosebud lips have stolen my heart.

And, speaking of stealing hearts (sorry, can’t think of any other transition)…
…a sight seldom captured in our normal day, but so beautiful it brought me to tears the other day…

Austyn’s treck off the bus towards our driveway after school and Lainey’s joyful welcome of her very loved big brother:

What lucky girls I have to be so loved.

And, speaking of love (sorry…had to do it again. Damn transitions)…

There has been so much lately with family taking over our house, settling into couches, snuggling our babies, reading books. It’s this masterpiece to behold.

Thanks to Heidi, I’m actually one of those photographer moms who has pictures of herself with her babies.

Gary gave Lainey a horticulture lesson as our girl has developed a bit of a green thumb, taking interest in watering and nurturing some of our little plants outside that would have surely died if it wasn’t for her interference.

She was thrilled in her shy-smile little way, choosing her seeds (so very Lainey…bright, sunny sunflowers), burrowing shallow holes into the dirt, carefully placing each seed and tipping and spreading a shower of water from the pink plastic watering can so perfectly, you’d think she worked in a nursery.

And that snuggly love we’re experiencing goes awry only a few times a day when the big sister tries to ferociously cram a pacifier into the little sister’s mouth, taking her cries and wincing only as signals that, “No, she wants it, Mama.” Me thinks not.

(not sure why Lainey’s hand looks like a rubber prosthesis here.)

You know who comes home for real tonight? Our long-lost daddy. There will be tears at the airport. And, if I have anything to do with it, one of those embarrassing running-in-slow-motion-towards-him-with-loud-cries kind of welcomes. Onlookers will be humiliated for us. It’s going to be that good. Like if judges could score our welcome, there would be signs with lots of “10”s. And clapping. And maybe a standing ovation.

But, that’s just normal for us. Our normal days.

And, today, I shall write and attach to my mirror a little piece of paper which I hope will crinkle and yellow over time:

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasured day you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart…let me hold you while I may.

Week 1,619

February 12, 2010 By Kelle

I began to title this post “Week 3,” as in our-third-week-into-this or three-weeks-since-the-big-day, but I am beginning to see this differently and, as this is simply one step on the grander scheme of life, I am rather officically 1,619 Weeks into it. Life, that is. That’s 31 years, give or take a few weeks.

Last night, a friend sent me a passage she had underlined in her copy of Maya Angelou’s Wouldn’t Take Nothing From My Journey Now, and I smiled reading it.

“Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art; to bring all our energies to each encounter, to remain flexible enough to notice and admit when what we expected to happen did not happen. We need to remember that we are created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed.”

And oh, how true that is…and our real-life has exemplified a new understanding of that these past weeks.

Life as Art.

I have consciously been able to control my sadness and coming-to-terms with all of this quite well, but the past few days, that subconscious sadness–the part that can’t be controlled with self-talks and good quotes–that cloud of can-this-be-happening? that seems to follow and shadow me no matter how many times I watch The Hangover (four, in a row, to be exact) to mask the seriousness of it…well, it was beginning to get to me.

I hate “The Bus.” I tried to lapse on payments so the repo truck would come and drag it away, but it lingered, not so much running over me like a few weeks ago or even hitting me, for that matter. I still have the grill marks on my face from the last hit, so that was nice of the bus; however, it’s the threat of a hit…the unknown…the smell of the exhaust or perhaps the memory of the pain of the last hit. And, I’ve been known to take a good analogy and fly it to the moon with exaggeration, so I’ll chill on the bus thing before you’re left scratching your head, but I’ll have you know I once likened one of my sister’s bad days to cows in pasture eating grass or somethin’ or other and, by the end, the cows had run out of the fence, the grass had been eaten, I think there was manure, and my sister and I were left laughing hysterically by the end of the analogy because we had no idea what we were even talking about anymore. I am often asked, in the middle of an elaborate analogy, “Where are you going with this?” And the answer, I tell you, is…to the moon.

Back to the bus. The thing is, I hate being sad. I hate being negative. And while I may be teased on my over-positivity or need to find a cape emblazoned with “Enjoying the @#!*-ing Small Things,” I too wallow in a bad mood from time to time. However, I’ve found I am quite healed by the Fake It Till You Make It Strategy–searching for the good (and there’s lots to find), writing about the good, taking pictures of the good, talking about the good–basically bathing in the many little things that bring joy to our life until I am no longer faking it, I believe it completely and have allowed the good to rise above the bad in that ever present glass of “Half Full.” Unrealistic? Perhaps, but I don’t think so. Regardless, I’d much rather live life as an unrealistic optimist than a realistic miserable pessimist. It’s so much more fun.

So, we’ve continued to do that…and it’s not just this whole thing that has challenged us. We’ve been doing it for years.

And if we had a gallery, we would exhibit pieces of our life this week. Slices of wonderfulness.

Life as Art: An Exhibit of our Week…

The Art of an Afternoon Cup of Coffee.

…enhanced by the accompaniment of a snuggled baby.

The Art of an Evening Picnic at the Lake with Cousin Joann.

The Art of a Dog Pondering Life in the Eastern Sunlight

and A Little Dog Protecting a Little Baby

The Art of Two Little Friends

(and I have to say, my girl’s friendships have meant so much to me these past weeks…I just want her to be happy. I want her to be unaffected by the emotions, the change. And seeing her in total bliss, skipping around with her little gap-toothed grin and wayward pigtails…well, that makes it all seem better).

The Art of New Baby Feet
(which, in my opinion, may just be the most delicious form of art there is)

The Art of Watching the Littles Entertain the New Baby
(and her little eyes taking it all in. Yes, she is loved…and that is how she will learn to be just as fabulous as she will be…which is very, very fabulous.)

The Art of a New Space
It’s been awhile since I did something new to the house…and it always makes me so happy to “feather our nest.” A friend stopped by a couple weeks ago when we brought Nella home and completely surprised me with two beautiful chairs for my girls from the furniture store she works at…and I fell in love hard and heavy with their quilted fabulousness and have been waiting to highlight them deservingly. Finally, yesterday, with a small handful of Craiglist earned cash, I walked into Homegoods and found a clearanced slightly damaged trunk, a lamp, an old suitcase and a few picture frames…all for less than that handful of cash. Then rushed home to set it up and hence improve the quality of my day a trillionfold.
So, out with the big clunky couch and in with the…

Superfun Play/Workroom