Some enjoying catch-up here after taking a little blogging break. I’ve got a handful of holiday posts I’m photographing right now and an epic stocking stuffer guide (my favorite guide of the year–TINY SHIT MADNESS!) in the works, and with the Christmas bins out of the attic and all the gatherings we have to look forward to, I’m excited and grateful to have good creative places to pour energy into.

I’ve always been a little bit of a start-early girl when it comes to busting out the Christmas cheer, but it’s more because I don’t want to scramble. I want to enjoy it all, spread it out so that instead of slapping return addresses on Christmas cards and running them out to the mailbox to get it over with, I can have fun with it–watch a movie while I address them, use pretty pens and stamps, tuck stickers in for families with kids.

We managed to round everyone up for a family picture last week…(naturally, stripes on stripes on STRIPES)…

…and it allowed for a nice head start for a December evening I now look forward to: The Addressing of the Christmas Mailers. There’s a pile in the corner of my office ready for it: The Family Stone DVD, return address labels, Christmas stamps, cards, stickers, two calligraphy pens, colored pencils and glitter. The problem with getting ready too early though is that it allows time for you to expand the project, and with stickers and glitter, we’re already well past “STOP HERE.” Or so I thought.

“I’m adding something to our cards this year, ” I told Brett as I shoved him a finished card. “Here, smell it.”

“Oh my God, you did not order scented cards,” he said as he took a deep sniff. “What is that–pine?”

“Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree! I spritzed it with balsam & cedar room spray,” I explained. “It’s Christmas in an envelope, Brett. We’re delivering cheer and Christmas spirit. It’s like a gift from the North Pole. Wait, wouldn’t it be cool if you could lick the card and it tasted like cocoa?”

“You’re nuts, ” he concluded.

Like I’ve always said, I’m a minimalist. Okay, I never said that.

Needless to say, I’m happy it’s November and looking forward to the initiation of the season with Thanksgiving next week when we will gather with our friends and family and recalibrate all our love and gratitude for each other and the world.

With that said, I don’t want to ignore the political discourse and hurts of our country right now. To be honest, I don’t really know what to say, so I listen–to my friends who both think like me but also to those who don’t. I try to stay current and aware by listening to the news from responsible sources, but I also know when to turn it off and focus on my family–funneling my agitated energy into my kids, teaching them to be the kind of humans I think the world needs more of, telling them about the wonderful things being done by the people that make this country beautiful. I come from a long line of conservatives with politics often driven by faith, but I swing liberal and voted for Hillary. I have friends and family who did not, and I refuse to let our political views drive us apart. We listen to each other, learn from each other and respectfully challenge each other, and if we can do that responsibly and with compassion, we can strengthen our views, our voice and better serve our country and our communities, no matter what political party we belong to.

In between that, we hold our footing where the ground is solid and strong–in our homes, with our families, and in our communities, modeling love in every way we can.

Enjoying lately…

A trip to The Bird Gardens of Naples…
…a non profit organization that rescues and rehouses abandoned birds. No surprise, Dash was the only one of my kids who wanted to get closer to the birds.

It’s so nice having my dad and Gary back in Florida for the season.

Waiting for pizza is hard, Dash, isn’t it?

A little ice cream accident on the dock.

Afternoon walks to the lake.
People always ask when I reference our lakes if there are any alligators. The small lakes in our neighborhood generally don’t have any alligators, but it’s always possible in any Florida body of fresh water for them to find their way. Brett has taught me to scan the water and what to look for, and we never swim in the lakes. In the unlikely situation that an alligator would make its way to this small lake, our neighborhood would report it, and if it was sizable enough to be a danger to kids/humans, it would be removed.

In November.
Cynthia Rylant’s In November is such a delightful read for the fall and Thanksgiving season. We’ve reread it several times this month.

Early Nightfall.
I’ve never loved the time change and losing that extra hour of daylight as it often feels like less time to get everything done, but the silver lining? More opportunity for twinkle lights to have their moment. More cozy retreat, more family, more love in our living rooms.

Happy Tuesday. xo

 

This post is sponsored by Nick Jr.

He’s a whirlwind across the living room, weaving between couches and coffee table, arms in the air, mouth open, growl bellowing loud enough to initiate a head cock from our deaf dog.

“I’m a dinosaur,” he roars. “No, a tiger,” he says. “No, a dog,” he corrects once more.

“Oh, what a sweet doggie,” I say.

“No, I’m a mean dog,” he insists, adding an intimidating hiss and a swipe of his little hand curled up to resemble sharp claws.

I shudder and hide under a pillow. “Don’t get me, mean dog!”He laughs and raises the ferocity of his act about ten levels, now throwing his body on the couch, flipping pillows and bearing his teeth.

“Okay Cujo, tone it down.”

On the wall just past him, I can still see his crayon scribbles from last week–waxy swirls of bright red that curl around the wall into the hallway and haven’t been scrubbed off yet because sometimes  in motherhood, I take the ‘possum approach: just lay down and play dead. When this phase is all over, you can always wake up and clean the mess.

“It’s a phase, right?” I ask a mom friend whose once beautifully wild boy like Dash is all grown up and funneling his wildness into grand, world-changing efforts.

“He’s three, right?” she asks.

“Yes, three.”

“You got about one more year, and then you won’t believe how things shift,” she promises. “Hang in there. Keep doing what you’re doing. He’ll figure out what’s acceptable, and before you even realize it, you’ll have a mellowed-out little fellow.

A year. Whew. I pick up the copy of Raising Your Spirited Child that’s been kicked under the piano and wipe off the dust and dog hair on the cover. The subtitle reads “a guide for parents whose child is more intense, sensitive, perceptive, persistent, and energetic” with more in bold letters, and I smile. More! We love more! We all have our something extra area–don’t we want our “more” to be celebrated?

“You know how they describe Thomas Edison?” I ask Brett later. “They said he was a man who didn’t know when it was time to quit. Sound like anyone else we know?”

We work on boundaries and direction and modeling every day because that’s what parents do. But mostly, we lean in to everything each of our kids is–creative, persistent, adventurous, observant, and yes, even wild–and find ways for those things to shine rather than attempt to quiet them.

(Muddy fields are like blank canvases for this one.)

He is beautifully wild, not because he is a boy but because he is Dash. And my very favorite thing about him inspires me: he fully believes and practices the idea that Everything is Surmountable.

There is no sieve, filtering out “too hard” or “too dangerous” or “too embarrassing” from what’s possible, from what he so desires.

And there is no canvas off limits for his art.

(Just ask his legs.)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Half Shell Heroes figurines

And oh the stories we are collecting on this boy to retell at Christmas gatherings and graduation parties and in wedding reception speeches someday. How we’ll howl and shake our heads and remember how he stood on the minivan and swung from the garage door beams (it happened). How we once found him at the top of a tree (it’s true). How a fictitious call from “Officer Roberts” (/Uncle Bubby) got him to stay in his seat belt on a road trip one time long ago. And how I’ll look at him when these stories are retold one day–my tall, handsome, kind young man with a wild heart–and wish he was little again, if just for a day, to hear his dinosaur growls, walk by his wall art, chase him down the hall.

Blaze and the Monster Machines remote control car

This phase of–shall we say–intensity of spirit? Everything is surmountable.

Wild adventure reigns.

*********

For adventure lovers, girls and boys alike, some of Dash’s favorite toys right now that highlight some of his cherished things–dinosaurs, wheels and speed–are Nick Jr. toys featured in this post and available exclusively at Kohl’s.

His Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Half Shell Heroes figurines (dinos! dinos!)…

And his favorite, his Blaze and the Monster Machines remote control car that transforms from a monster truck to a race car and is controlled by a super cool remote wrist band.