Day Commences.

Yawn. Hoist happy cooing baby from crib. Shuffle into kitchen. Shift hip to support happy cooing baby while coffee mug fills. Shuffle out of kitchen. Slump into couch and watch sunlight spill into living room. Stare at happy cooing baby and wait for the rest of the crew to awaken.

Day moves on.

Our gardenia is in bloom. Small but mighty. Only 5 little white blooms right now, but our yard still smells like a perfumery, and I’m liking it.

We hit the park Wednesday night.

Thank you, floyds, for the girls’ shirts!

We park it a lot and, although lovely and entertaining, our park dates aren’t much out of the ordinary. We come, we see, we climb. But something about this park date was good…really good. Good sunshine, high underdogs, and rich conversation that kept us huddled watching our kids from the picnic tables far past the point the sun-baked metal slides cooled down.

No one threw a fit. No one fell off a swing. And snacks magically appeared when kids asked for them. This hardly ever happens.

I love our little motley crew.

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(p.s. “****************” means I’m about to joltingly shift subjects)

We jump through flaming hoops.
We said we never would but, then again, we didn’t know we’d have a kid who fights sleep like a Jedi knight.
It’s funny, really. Watching Brett push her stroller around and around and around the kitchen island once more until he’s dizzy and she’s finally asleep.

Sometimes dog-and-pony-shows are just fine, I think. They give us sweet stories to tell our kids in twenty years. And it reminds me of the line I love in Meet the Fockers after the serious father-in-law brags that they used the Ferber method. Mr. Focker smiles and replies, “We used the Focker method. We hugged and kissed that little prince like there was no tomorrow. We fockerized him.” Every time I see this, I want to jump off the couch and pump my fist with a “BOOYAH!”

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FYI: sprinkling powdered sugar on box-made treats makes them look homemade. I’m just sayin’.

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Lainey’s mis-matching’s gettin’ a little crazy lately. Loud and random, and for now we’re gonna go with it.

Nella took off on the cement last night, searching for mischief and skidding her belly along concrete like a seal. I chased after her and Lainey, totally sensing what I was up to, yells, “It’s okay, she can ruin those jammies.”

One hole-in-the-toe and blackened cotton belly later…

And I’m happy to announce a new sponsor, The Meg Shop, coming on board. Meg sold out of her featured bracelets during Nella’s ONEder Fund and donated 50% of her profits (thank you!), and we’re happy to have her back. Use code “ENJOY10” for 10% off your order. And Meg is still donating 50% of the Sweet Nella Charm Bracelet to the NDSS.

Turquoise and Coral Bracelet

My favorite…her unique curve hoop earrings.

The Meg Shop will be giving away a $40 gift certificate to a random commenter on this post.

And to make it interesting, from the last post, tell me what inspires you to shift your “off” to an “on?” Don’t tell me what turns you on…ha ha. Keep that one to yourself. But when you need a push, the excitement to do something new…what do you do to find it? What inspires you to regain your mojo?

Anyone notice that brilliant moon last night?

Day Ends.

Tuesday, February 15

Today, I nap with the girls because I am tired. I never nap with the girls, but this afternoon we all slither under the tangled sheets of our unmade bed and make hand shadows on the ceiling in the thick ribbon of sunlight positioned perfectly above our pillows for our shadow performance. It seems strange to be resting while it’s light out. I struggle to settle my mind and quiet the voices that attempt to convince me I am wasting time, that there are so many more productive things I could be doing, that busy moms should be chucking a second load of laundry in the dryer at 1:12 p.m., not napping. The voices are not winning today. I justify the argument in my mind with the declaration that I’ve never watched a soap opera in my entire life, and somehow this unrelated piece of information convinces me that I’ve earned the right to recline in the daylight. And so I lie on my back and smile as Lainey twists her fists and fingers into strange blobs whose shadows she informs me are a bird, a cat, and a pizza with mushrooms respectively.

Lainey and I press our foreheads against each other as she breathes a staccato rhythm of laughter, delighted by the way “our noses are kissing,” and Nella arches her back and paws at my chest to nurse. I indulge her pleas, cradling her close between me and Lainey until she is securely sandwiched. And I close my eyes and listen to the chorus of nap time harmonies. The breathe, suck and swallow of Nella’s nursing trance, the rustle of body to sheets as Lainey shifts her position several times, struggling to get comfortable, the tick-tick-tick of the red second hand on Brett’s tiny travel clock that sits on his nightstand, the distant hum of a lawn mower several yards over. Soon, the girls are asleep, their chests rising and falling slowly, their bodies heavy and still. I wish I could join them, but my mind is a wild stallion, racing along the shores of to-do lists. My phone chirps next to me, and I jump to quiet it, sliding the silver mute button down until the red dot appears—the red dot promising hours of beautiful silence. I close my eyes and will my mind to rest. “Think Isle of Capri,” I tell myself. “Think sunset, think quiet family vacation.” I shift my body again, repositioning to face my night stand and notice my phone screen illuminated. Incoming call, interrupting my rest even without its audible alert. And so I swipe the phone off the table and hold the skinny button on top one—two—three—four—five long seconds until it powers off.

Off.

I close my eyes again and curl my body toward the girls. It is quiet. My mind, the wild stallion, finally stops racing, reigned in by persistence. Powered off. And I sleep, under tangled sheets in broad daylight. Daylight that is softened by sheer curtains pulled across the windows that separate us from the world that is on.

Two hours and seven missed calls later, I awaken while they sleep. I tiptoe out the bedroom and down the hallway into the laundry room where I swap wet clothes into the dryer and dry clothes into a laundry basket where they will remain until someone’s clean underwear situation is critical enough to dig through them in search of a new pair.

But I feel good. Renewed. Perhaps not completely on but content to be somewhere in the middle—muted maybe. Silent, but my screen still bright.

I wrote this last night intending to finish it this morning with some sort of conclusive statement about being “off” lately. Not feeling inspired or basking in the usual vibrant colors that seem to naturally replenish themselves in my perspective. And then I woke up and heard the sirens calling again, feeling almost silly for being so hung up the last few days over the loss of my mojo.


All photos in this post taken by Daddy.

I’m learning to brush it off—to accept the “off” periods as necessary hibernations that allow the “on” times to be more productive. You cannot force inspiration. The best kind comes when it finds you, not the other way around. While I thrive on “on”—having projects, taking pictures, feeling like there’s a hundred thousand ideas brewing at once in my mind, I’m learning to use my discomfort with “off” to my advantage.

Sometimes mojo is quiet, sometimes silence is powerful, and sometimes colors are more magical when they are soft and muted rather than vibrant and oversaturated.

The zesty dose of energy is back and, yes, I’m thinking I want to paint something yellow, try my hand at homemade cheesecake, experiment with backlit shooting. But, I also want to nap with my girls more, leave my phone turned off, and welcome the stillness that comes from not a single idea brewing in my mind. Powered off.

“What seem our worst prayers may really be, in God’s eyes, our best. Those, I mean, which are least supported by devotional feeling. For these may come from a deeper level than feeling. God sometimes seems to speak to us most intimately when he catches us, as it were, off our guard.” ~C.S. Lewis

In the sun, I move quickly. Energized by its warmth and promise of outdoor activities, I sense the needle of my capability monitor creeping upward, and I often misjudge where it stops, convincing myself that an extra dose of Vitamin D means Do More. On a hot day we change our clothes once, twice, maybe three times, trading t-shirts for tank tops, tank tops for bathing suits, bathing suits for t-shirts. My mind reels erratically–as it has instinctively done since I was young–thinking of all the things we can do. We can run in the sprinkler. We can walk to the lake. We can trace our bodies with sidewalk chalk. And maybe we can do them all at the same time, like one of those one-man bands, blowing a harmonica, beating his drum and banging his cymbals all at once. I like that the sun is a good friend where we live–that it motivates and empowers me.

But–yes, but–the see-saw must shift its balance from time to time and, for this reason, I crave the calm that a good snow day brings. I miss the way my mind and body settled when, waking up to the swirl and whirl of a good blizzard, I knew there was nothing I could do but relax. Lainey loves to play storm. “Let’s pretend a storm is coming,” she says, and we run under the coffee table, covering ourselves with blankets, mimicking the sound of whistling wind and crowding our bodies closer. Her eyes get big and I, in turn, pretend to get excited. And there’s something…I don’t know…cozy about it all.

I say this not to complain about our bare feet and hatless heads in February, but to preface the good welcome of yesterday’s rain. An entire day of gray skies, slick reflective pavement and the calming hum of steady rain, whispering Do Less.

We did less. And it was good.

Rain accumulation on our screen.

A quick escape for first year well visit and thankful to have just that…a well baby.

Busy bee tries to swipe everything from Dr. Foley.

She does “So Big” about a 100 times a day, her “baby shows off” weapon of choice for new friends.

…perhaps my favorite picture of her ever:

And returning home for more rain…

…and our only Do Less disclaimer was that we baked. A tiny kid-sized cherry pie. We left the dirty dishes though…to abide by the whole Do Less rules, of course.

My mom always used the leftover pie crust to roll out, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and bake 15 minutes for cinnamon crust…divinity with a cold glass of milk, I must say.

And, in keeping with the coziness of a good rain post, our new sponsor, Blanket My Baby, has an incredible collection of baby blankets and bedding to choose from. Lainey has always had her favorite puppy blanket, and I’ve been looking for a small one to become Nella’s favorite. We may have it here with her new Lovey Blanket. (look under handmade blankets for super cute prints for boys too!) Use Coupon Code “ENJOY10” for 10% off your entire order.

It’s raining again this morning, and there’s an old movie with thick British accents calling my name. A Do Less weekend.

Happy Weekend!