CHEERS TO FRIDAY!

Tomorrow marks the start of the year’s last quarter–my favorite one. We save the best for last and try to go out strong. More gathering and huddling.

I gathered up some of the things I’m especially loving this month for a Fall Friday Faves installment–from the best stripey fall knits for kids to the perfect pillow spray to end your day.

1. And the award for Best Stripes for Kids goes to…Mabo Kids! I am always in search of the perfect stripey knits for both me and my kids because we live in them, and they go with everything. Mabo Kids has the jackpot–amazing quality, organic cotton, stretchy, nice snug fit and long enough for my kids (long torso genes). We scooped up a few of these cozy classics for the fall/winter season, and I love them so much, I wish they had them in my size.

2. Semi-Permanent Funky Hair Color: Several of you have asked about what I use to color the tips of Lainey’s hair when we go mermaid. We use these semi-permanent dyes that last anywhere from 1-2 weeks. I paint them ombre-style in three colors on the bottom section of her hair, fold the dyed section in foils and leave it for about 20-30 minutes and then rinse. It works for light colored hair and eventually washes out.

3. Best Holiday Preorder Toy–Candylab Toys Cars: These gorgeous wood cars started as a Kickstarter campaign and marry art and play for a toy that will last generations. Your kid will play with it now and display it later. That camper though!

4. All sorts of obsessed with this Rainbow Ponte Dress from Shabby Apple for representing ALL THE THINGS–comfy, simple, colorful and a tad bit retro. When stripes and rainbows combine, it can never be wrong.

5. I Am A Story. We love this beautiful new children’s book about the power of a story. It follows the history of story-telling from caveman drawings to today’s powerful stories that inspire us and change lives. I love the last lines…”I was censored, banned and burned but did not die. I’ve inspired millions. I can go with you everywhere and will live forever. I am a story.”

6. This dress from the new boho line for girls at Target. Nella loves anything long and swishy, and the new boho girls line at Target delivers. Cute bell bottom pants, hippie florals and lots of fun pieces to celebrate the new season.

7. Bath & Body Works Aromatherapy Sleep Pillow Spray. I keep this on my nightstand and spray my pillow every night with it–an evening ritual I look forward to. The scent is total “Now close your eyes and think of Zen things.”

8. My favorite high rise jeans in all the land from Zara–I have the blue wash zip-up and black button fly ones, and they solve all my long torso probs. They’re thick and stretchy and make me feel put together no matter what I’m wearing.

9. Fall Plaid D’orsay Pump. Wear with a black turtleneck, fall scarf and your favorite jeans and you are an Autumn Class Act.

10. Time Timer. Our Time Timer is a member of our family now. A friend told me about it early in the summer, suggesting it for Dash, and I ordered one that same day. It’s a giant timer that lets kids easily determine how much time is left with a red area that slowly disappears as it gets closer to zero. We use it for time-outs, but it’s proving very helpful for Nella in promoting independent work (“Practice writing your name until the timer dings”) and iPad usage. You aren’t the bad guy anymore for calling “Time’s Up.” Time Timer takes all the heat.

*****

Happy Weekending!

This post is sponsored by KeVita.

I’m 37. According to the “Do’s” and “Don’ts” lists in fashion magazines, this puts me somewhere in the bracket between “Go for it!” and “only for a Halloween costume” for trends such as overalls and “I woke up like this” shirts. But when it comes to health and body issues, there’s only one bracket where I want to be…I want to feel good. Sometimes feeling good involves clothes and lipstick and a great pair of earrings, but most of the time it’s about overall well being–listening to my body, taking care of myself, staying active, loving well. I’ve come a loooooooong way since Brown Sugar Pop Tarts and Sour Patch Kids days, and if there’s one thing different about my body than ten years ago, it’s that it will speak up. Not enough water? Too much to drink? Skipping meals? Aw, hell naw! It lets me know–and usually the second I roll out of bed. I do know that health and beauty resonates from the inside, and most of us could probably say that we feel our strongest and most beautiful when we are taking good care of ourselves–when we’re listening to our needs.

I got a compliment one time from a friend who noticed, “You look really–I don’t know, content.” And I loved it because it’s exactly what I was feeling at the time. If we could capture these inner feelings more often–how strong we feel when we finish a run, how protective we feel when we’re kissing our 3-year-old’s forehead after a scraped knee, how happy we feel as we step out to let the dog out in the morning and happen to catch the pink sky of a rising sun, how confident we feel as we write the final sentence to a journal entry we poured our heart into–and transform them into mirrors, imagine how beautiful and healthy we’d view ourselves as.

So I have an easy challenge for you–and one that does double good.

KeVita wants you to do just that–take a selfie that represents how you feel–and use their #InnerSelfie photo app (you don’t even need to download anything–just go to the link!) to share how you FEEL. Energized, content, peaceful, driven, strong, fearless, sensitive, excited, ALIVE–you title your own.  Not only that, in their continued mission to support digestive and immune health, KeVita will donate $1 to the Gastric Cancer Foundation for each inner selfie shared (use hashtag #innerselfie).

I am INSPIRED inside. By all that surrounds me in my 37 years and this great big world full of opportunities. Okay, and fall. I’m inspired by pumpkins and wheat wreaths too.

If you haven’t tried KeVita drinks yet, they’re refreshing and loaded with probiotics, which can support immune and digestive health by enhancing the beneficial bacteria that line our guts and help us absorb our food’s essential nutrients. You know, the stuff that Sour Patch Kids lack.

Their Master Brew Kombucha is an energizing caffeinated drink that’s super robust (I love the ginger one!).

But their sparkling probiotic drinks are my favorite–many are low calorie and all are naturally fermented. I like ’em spicy, so the lemon cayenne one’s my fave.

Want to try it?
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I may be too old for overalls (still gonna wear them), but I do know that feeling good helps me live better. To more #innerselfies!

I realized something last night as I gathered cards that had been removed from Nella’s sight word key ring and scattered on the floor. I found “to” and “am” and “little,” but “go” was nowhere to be found.

“Who took GO? Where’s GO? NELLA! DASH! FIND GO! Your teacher made this for you–you can’t throw these all over the floor!” They disperse in search of “go,” lifting pillows and bending to look under furniture.

Here’s what I realized: I’m having the 7-Week Meltdown. After a baby, it meant that all those perfectly packed diaper bag and well-nested house days started giving way to running out of the house without diapers and fixing blowouts with Taco Bell napkins and tape. After school starts, it means well-stocked lunch treats and organized school supplies shifts into searching for clean underwear in the morning and missing sight word cataclysms.

“I’m drowning,” I told Brett last week, “it’s just too much–the driving, the appointments, the drop-offs, the homework, the house–it’s just not humanly possible to do it all, and yet it all needs to be done.” I’m edgy and overwhelmed.

I realize something else though, and that is that this is less about the 7-Week Meltdown and more about the sobering truth of  Week 1,980, what Kelly Corrigan calls The Middle Place. It’s about being a parent and a child at the same time–needing and being needed.

My phone dings with a text early last week: “He’s gone–how hard he fought.”  My dad lost his brother–my precious Uncle Dale. A beloved peg has been removed in our family, and the invincible generation of our parents falls a notch. We are now the grown kids, not the grand kids. I join my cousins in grief and hold virtual hands all week through phone calls, through texts, through tears.

I make dinner, clean rooms, bake muffins, stumble over blocks and dinosaurs and Barbies scattered on the floor. I pick up sleepover friends, throw in a load of laundry, buckle a life jacket before she jumps into the pool with her sister. “Be careful,” I remind them.

Later in the week, my phone dings again: “He’s here–how long we waited.” The photo of my friend’s first baby comes through–open eyes, tiny hands, that stretchy little hat I know so well. I remember it like it was yesterday. My friends are just beginning–so many joyful firsts before them.

I go through folders in the backpacks this weekend, tape their art to the refrigerator, briefly read through flyers before throwing them away. We read books, organize clothes, fold up things they’ve grown out of and tuck them into bags to be passed on to little friends. The introduction of my parenting book is over, and the relentless work of the middle place is here where rewards aren’t as shimmery as feeling newborn baby breath on my neck. And yet, they’re here, hidden in flower fields…

…and beds laden with sunlight…

…and Sunday morning muffins.

When I taught fifth grade writing, there was a lot of hype over introductions–that’s your chance to grab the audience. Wow them! Pull them in! And conclusions? Your last opportunity to inspire your reader. My students got so good at writing riveting introductions and meaningful conclusions though, that the bulk of their papers–the meat! the words! the backup stories to hold everything in place!–was getting no love. We had to refocus our writing attention to remember that our middles–the most laborious part to write and yet the core of everything we want to say–needed substance, creativity and good stories.

I set my alarm clock for this morning–something I rarely do, but I want a few moments to myself to start the week. I wake up achy–no doubt, the result of pretzeling around Nella who climbed in bed with us last night–and subconsciously shovel coffee into the filter, pour water, push the button, careful not to make too much noise to disturb my sacred hour of alone time. I light a candle, wipe the counter and look down at the floor that hasn’t been vacuumed in days, and there it is–a small sight word card, freed from its key ring: “GO”. I found it.

I don’t have an answer for feeling overwhelmed right now. So I take my coffee into my office and start my day doing what I know how to do–show up.

I order a baby gift. I order flowers. For a welcome. For a goodbye.

Soon, the first of the three wakes up, and I hear Nella shuffling in her nightgown down the hallway to find me. She climbs in my lap and asks to look at pictures on my computer and comfortably settles in as I click through folder after folder–pictures of babies, toddlers, vacations, holidays, play dates, ordinary days–and the darkness fades outside. I feel her breath on my neck.

I will find time to make space for myself. I will wake up early, light candles and pour coffee. Call friends, get away, rest, read books, explore hobbies, remember I have a name outside of “Mom.” But right now, as another Monday begins with the weight of my girl on my lap and a slideshow of memories before me, I’m feeling grateful for this exhausting, demanding, infinitely beautiful middle place. Let it last, let it last, let it last.