Category Archives: parenting apparently?

B day celebration

Posted in it's cool to school, kiddie-do, parenting apparently? by

no annual milestone over here, just our letter of the day. and what a B-eautiful day it was, too.

we started of course with breakfast of bread and butter and berry yogurt

it was at this point in the meal that my daughter jumped up and ran out of the room yelling “oh i forgot something.” she returned 20 seconds later wearing her ruby slippers. only her ruby slippers. she stripped out of her sleeper and put on a pair of buckle shoes in a speed that is going to make me very frustrated then next time it takes me 18 minutes to get her in or out of an outfit.

i think she took B day literally and so wearing her birthday suit was entirely appropriate. 

after getting dressed with a lot of attention paid to the letter B – braid with a blue hairband, boots and a birdie shirt we hopped on cordelia and biked to the audubon center for bird learnin’. hence the appropriateness of the bird shirt.

i know i post about the audubon park a lot but it’s by our house and is really a beautiful, magical place. this town does a great job with it’s parks. here’s our little bird watcher.

using the binoculars (the wrong way) to spot what she says is a “jerry bird.” huh?

and there he is. just imagine my sugar sweetness congratulating her for being able to spot an 8 FT PAPER MACHE GULL. ohhh, i laugh at life.

in the center we: read books about birds, bats, bugs, butterflies blah blah blah. visited the salvaged art butterflies which are still holding up with original coolness factor and did some of the center activities testing different bird beak designs.

we discovered a new room with lots of grand activities including bird and butterfly costumes seen here as well as a simulated climbing tree biosphere complete with root system too.

but the greatest resource discovered at the audubon park today….

BIG KIDS

i have previously noticed the magnetic pull that exists between pre-teen/teenage girls and toddler girls – probably toddler boys too but i don’t have as much experience with that. darla first adopted this group of homeschool kids and they were impressed that she knew words such as “audubon,” and  “insect.” i think they were most impressed by her cowgirl boots, though. they then adopted her and entertained her for 15 whole minutes. i ate and entire apple in peace!  all three were jumping, hand in hand, from atop this fire pit thingy, pretending to be birds and chanting “we fly so high in the skyyyyy!” it was very cute and gave me hope that one day darla, too, will grow into a lovely pre-teen and give a weary mother a break by bossing her toddler around for her. thanks again, universe.

dear salty sailor,

Posted in kiddie-do, parenting apparently? by

ohhh man we did some STUFF this week. check it.

we zoo-ed it.

she likes to wear you clothes just as much as i do.

new artings at the library. she said she was inspired to draw so she did.

discovered some gnarly, antique doors in our hood. i told her they were secret doors.

she noticed this root system at the schiller park playground grown in a circle. decided this is where gnomes and faeries have dinner together.

in which she discovers a spider’s web, touches it then freaks out b/c it’s on her hand

nom nom at the north market + our treats for being good. she had the little girl and i had the dog dressed as a pig. japan, you so crazy!

you just go ahead and run it out, you crazy lunatic

these last two are at highbanks metropark in the natural play area. this is the best sycamore tree i’ve ever seen, said sycamore featured on the right. i asked darla to pose in front of it and she laid down on the ground and rolled around like a dog. she’s special.

a word on highbanks metropark: they have these little shelter houses that have fireplaces in them. i don’t care how cold it gets, when you get home you will take me there and darla too. you will build me a fire in one and you will like it. you will woo me with your manly survival skills and we will sit in front of that fire whilst darla goes buck wild at the nearby playground. i will probably have some yarn and a darning needle in my hand but i won’t be using them. they are just props b/c that is what a lady is supposed to hold in front of a fire.

that is all.

i can’t even keep track of all the funny stuff she says anymore and i’m getting lazy b/c you’re almost here so i don’t wanna. i feel that way about chores around the house. it’s like i think you’re already here so i don’t want to do it on my own but ‘taint the case.

i do remember that she has figured out how to be three people at one time instead of just two: toddler approaches. tugs on my shirt to signal that my attention is needed. says “mom, i’m mai pretending to be gumby” and then bounds off. i am very frightened for the future at this point.

you missed a pretty magical first for darla’s life – her first viewing of the wizard of oz. i would give anything to have captured the look on her face when dorothy opened the front door to reveal oz and all its vivid splendor. darla’s eyes grew saucerlike and she gasped. she then sat enraptured. if i had known it was going to be that spectacular i would have waited for you to be home before we watched it. also, I FREAKING LOVE JUDY GARLAND.

well i better sign off so i can write you a honey-do email so you know what you’re going to do when you get home.

i love you more than cheese.

wife former fwife

F-R-I-D-A-Y

Posted in parenting apparently?, Run Da House by

back in my school-bus-riding days there was a friday tradition to yell F-R-I!!!! D-A-Y!!! FRIDAY!!!! and then bang on the sides of the bus. when i was a wee lass i didn’t join in but once i was a little older and could discern the knowing smirk on Arsilla’s face (bus drivers have the best names, especially in indiana)  i would pound right along. Arsilla was just as happy as we were to not have to ride that bus for two days.

now that i’m a stay-with-my-kid-all-the-time mom i don’t have that same sense of relief that floods in at 4:59 pm friday evening. 33.33 repeating percent of the time i don’t even know that it is friday. but yesterday i tried to have a good ol’ fashioned friday night celebration with my girl.

after a day of errands and a failed attempt at visiting the natural play area at highbanks metro park – located it but atmospheric conditions prohibited proper exploration – we spent some time at the neighborhood park. i’m going to wikileak this photo out before the salty sailor update:

this is a tree at the end of our block that has never received its due notice. today darla exclaimed “look, mom, that tree is all tied in a knot with itself.” so it is.

sensing that it was definitely a soup day, i made broccoli and cheese soup by loosely following pioneer woman’s recipe. ’twas delicious dishes. *tangential story at the bottom of this post if you’re interested.

we finished the evening watching castle in the sky cozied up in bed. pretty subdued. but, truthfully, i need subdued like whoa right now. the little miss was actually pretty good company today but i’m so worn out. it didn’t help that i was up all night trying to work through ambitions and mastermind plans for taking over the world. and not even this world. a future world. that’s how big my plans are!

i feel a little down about not having any big friday night to-do or anything special for the weekend really. at one point i was contemplating just getting into the car with darla and visiting some destination spot in ohio just to feed my gluttonous craving for novelty. then the thought surfaced that this could be the last girls weekend darla and i have together. i am of course thrilled that mike and all his saltiness will be returning shortly but i’m always a little sad when my solitary time with darla is coming to an end. the dichotomy of being a mother is maddening, i tell ya.

so we’ll just stay close to home for the weekend and leave ourselves open to discoveries such as that tree. things that have been there all along but have been overlooked in the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

and we’ll wait for a man named mr. mike.

*tangential story time. have i ever mentioned that the universe always gives me what i want? i’m pretty lucky that way. if i voice a want to the universe it somehow makes it to me. not in the “i want a million dollars” way but little everyday graces. such as earlier this week when i noticed we hadn’t made a dent in our broccoli from the last produce delivery and i said, i said to me-self “hmmm, i should look up a broccoli and cheddar soup recipe.” i sit down at my computer and BAM the first post in my bloglovin’ is broc + cheese soup from pioneer woman. added bonus the recipe called for tons of butter!!! thanks again universe. i gots your back and you gots mine!

umm, excuse me. you made a mistake.

Posted in Momma Needs a minute..., parenting apparently? by

there are days when i’m certain that the universe made a mistake giving me a child. i’m a fraud and if you’ve ever heard me give any parenting advice then just toss it in the waste basket. my child is a maniac – a very cute and hilarious maniac. i’ve learned that i cannot ever hope to control my wild child. her spirit is too free. and i want that to be a good thing, i really do. but controlling myself is the issue at this point. i mean, it’s pretty bad when you’re two-and-a-half year old tells you to go meditate.

universe, can you give me sign that i am supposed to be a mom? preferably a sign that doesn’t involve CPS showing up at my door. also, a sign that doesn’t involve the staypuft marsmallow man.

oh wait. darla just fell asleep in the 2 minutes that it took me to write this. is that it? is that my sign? it’s certainly a sign that momma’s gonna take a nap…

dinning out like a normal human, NBD

Posted in Momma Needs a minute..., parenting apparently? by

a much awaited dinner date with a girlyfriend has come and gone. now that it’s gone, i bet you wanna know how it went…

darla did these things in this particular order: threw a fit in the ordering line. spilled her entire cup of edamame on the floor. stood on her chair repeatedly. ran out the front door that was propped open for the gorgeous fall night. pinched a baby on the cheek. poked a complete stranger in the REAR END with a chopstick! attached herself to one of the lady waitstaff and kept running after her complete with the leg cling (another total stranger, mind you. i just know she’s gonna climb in the back of a van someday when offered a sucker). repeatedly slid down the back of the booth bench seating. refused to wear her shoes at the table. stole carly’s tortilla chips. probably only ate a combined total of 5 bites as dinner and, drum roll, yelled HEY STOP YOU STUPID JERK at an oncoming car while we said our goodbyes on the sidewalk outside the restaurant.

(by the way i am chuckling heartily at the memory of this last one as i type.)

BUT

they poured me the wrong kind of wine at dinner so they gave me two for the price of one. those glasses look half full and not half empty to me! soooooo….that makes the evening a success in my book. CHEERS!

also, at bedtime she told me she likes me and i’m a fun mom. she has some redeeming qualities. thank you, darla, for keeping my life interesting. as infuriating as your antics can be at times, it’s your spiciness that i love the most about your personality.

a semi-communion with nature

Posted in it's cool to school, Kiddie Hangouts, parenting apparently? by

when i say semi i mean that we could still hear the semis speeding along the superhighway. the audubon park is a little nook of nature carved into the cityscape between the two biggest highways that pass through columbus. still, it’s one of our favorite spots to play, bike, hike and spy a little nature. here’s our latest nature hike.

photo 1. our path  2. darla holds my hand; a momentous event  3. our shadows turned out more “poltergeist” than i would’ve liked but, eh  4. she climbed stuff  5. deer tracks!  6. “take heed. for the path you are about to choose will lead to certain destruction!”  7. she enjoyed being able to run as far in front of me as she liked without restriction  8. i realized halfway through the trip that it was incredibly insensitive of me to wear a hat adorned with a feather to a park dedicated to avian conservation  9. you can’t see the little guy but a shrew was in the underbrush rooting for his breakfast. we watched him for ten minutes – a personal record for d’s attention span and ability to stay fairly quiet  10. she climbed more stuff  11. she left “directions” for other hikers so they wouldn’t get lost  12. N is for nature  13. examined moss. i’m going to have to get a magnifying glass to bring along for future wilderness treks  14 & 15 shoulder ride and her turn to wear the hat  16. salvaged item art inside the audubon center.

this trip was the first time we’d ventured inside of the center. wowza, what incredibly wonderful resources and setting. we spent a good hour in the reading library which architecturally consists of 3 walls of glass looking out over the park. lots of birds flying to and fro and stuff. i’m hoping i’ll be able to get darla a jump start on learning plant names, bird species, trees, etc. those are all things about which i wish i had more of a knowledge bank.

it was a very organically educational, carefree day for us. there were many more discoveries and new experiences that i didn’t capture because i did force myself to put the camera away and just be present. i love how everything seems like such a marvel in nature. the pictures don’t even do justice to the weather and the jubilant attitude darla exuded that day. universe, i’d like more days like that one, please.

black angels descend blanketing columbus in flannel

this won’t be a real concert review b/c i can’t tell you the names of the songs they sang or the intricacies of the music they played. i can only tell you there was flannel. seas of flannel.

i really only dig music for one reason alone: to shake my hair and my booty. sometimes in the same direction. sometimes in opposing directions. ahhhhwwww shake it momma.

ok, there is another reason. i like to sing along but that applies to only a certain subset of bands. i sing along in the crowd very loudly and tell myself that i’m actually better than the artist on stage. the black angels does not, however, fall into that category. neither does the dead meadow – the opening band wednesday night. both bands relied heavily on reverb and vocal echoes so i can’t even pretend that i understood any of their songs. very little of the words penetrated the aforementioned shaking of the hair. the black angels did play a song with the words “surf city” in the chorus though. i dug it. really, i enjoyed both bands quite immensely. i’ve seen the black angels at least twice before and had forgotten how good they are. i left feeling like i should follow them and every other band in the world more closely. i need to get back into my music lovership.

for the lack of detail and any actual structure, i can’t really say that i’m writing this for any real music journalist street cred. what i’m really accomplishing is publishing that “HEY, I’M A MOM AND I STILL DO COOL THINGS. I’M A PERSON TOO!” i’m sure some might be out there saying “but, Your Momness, (in my brain you all refer to me as this combination of mom and highness) you just took a 5 day jaunt to california why would you need another reprieve so soon?” well, it’s not my fault that they scheduled this tubular $5 show mere days after my return. sometimes you have to just jump at the opportunities and the offers for babysitting from friends unversed in your child’s demonic behavior. i’ve found that, at least for moi, i really need to keep up with some of my own hobbies and loves and have time out for myself to be a good mom. i’m inferior in the fact that i’m still really selfish with my time and i can’t give it all up to be devoted solely to darla. sometimes i wish i could but truthfully i think it will be in her favor in the end. I want darla to know that she can be a mom and not lose her whole, entire identity. i want her to grow up and say “my mom was an art lover, an avid reader, a music enthusiast and one hell of a booty shaker.”

so i just want to put it out there that if you are a new mom or a seasoned mom, you should know that you can still shake it if you wanna.

this segues into another recent story from my world. on our one night out in california, i was approached by a tall, handsome* **, englishman at a famous dischotheque. he offered to buy me a drink to which i immediately declined politely and told him i am married. his official response was (cue hugh grant accent) “why are you shaking your hair, then.” my response, “i’m married not dead” and excused myself from his presence. soooo, i’m also in favor of the ladies who are nuptually bound to continue shaking it.

i’m just a fan of shaking it! woooo hoooo! yeah! pretty much always have been and always will be. seriously, i was semi-famous for hair shaking in high school. this is my official disclaimer – no matter what other parameters involved in my life i will always and forever be shaking something.

what was this supposed to be about? how did i get onto this soapbox? i need to go focus on a dot on the wall and recenter. thanks for reading.

bye!

*dearest michael, he wasn’t really that handsome and the discotheque wasn’t famous. it wasn’t even a discotheque. i have my doubts as to whether he was actually english. maybe welsh. anyways, i was just trying to make you jealous so you’d remember how much you love me all the way over there. awwwwwwww. so sweet.

** he was tall.

mommy did a bad, bad thing

Posted in Momma Needs a minute..., parenting apparently? by

last week i did a bad thing.

like most kids, darla has a habit of leaving her toys strewn about everywhere. most of the time it doesn’t really bother me because i like seeing her little trail all over my life and it’s easier to track her down that way. but last week it got to me.

i was feeling the effects of 2 months of single parenting a toddler that may or may not embody the most multiple personalities ever recorded in human history. there also might be some kind of feral dog in there but i don’t know if that counts as an actual personality. anyway, the point is i let it get to me that day. i tripped over darla’s toy stroller and found myself kicking it across the room the next second. hard. actually it was impressive and i’m a tad upset no one else was there to witness the beautiful arc in which it traveled. on the flip side i’m glad darla wasn’t in the room to see me lose it. well, of course it broke.

and then guess what i did? i just pushed the pieces back together and set it back in it’s rightful place and then thought “maybe she won’t notice.”  what am i? six again? bad parent. BAD PARENT!

a coupla days went by and she didn’t touch the darn thing and i thought i might actually get away with replacing it before she checked in. no such luck. while i was cooking her breakfast i heard her tell her doll that they were “going to the grocery store” and then she started wheeling baby dearest around the living room. the leg gave out and then my daughter gave out.

darla came running to me with tears welling up in her eyes. “mommy, i broke my stroller. i’m sorry, mommy. i’m sorry.” i never could have predicted this reaction from her because ANY other time she would have paid no attention. but life was out to teach me a lesson. and for that i’m glad.

“i’m sorry, honey” i started to say and then she snapped back “no! i’m sorry!” and had an argument with me for a second about who was sorry because she’s started this thing where being sorry is some kind of competition. this is our house, after all, and things couldn’t go all leave-it-to-beaver without a little rumble.  so i picked her up and sat down on the couch with her and confessed that i had broken her stroller. that i didn’t mean to but i broke it and i didn’t tell her right away and that was wrong of me.

then she looked up at me with baby blues and humbled me. “it’s alright, mom. don’t worry about it.”

you see, i had to put this down here on the internet for some accountability. not for what i had done but because someday these roles are gonna switch. probably someday soon. it won’t be long before darla breaks my owl shaped coffee creamer pitcher (thanks dave and kelli!) and i HAVE to remember to handle it with the grace and compassion that my 2 1/2 year old displayed. i have to. hold me accountable internet.

also, grandparents – i know you. you’re probably already looking up a replacement doll stroller on amazon. well, clickers off that purchase button. this is my wrong to right.

a brush with bacterial meningitis

Posted in it's cool to school, Kiddie Hangouts, parenting apparently? by

it seems that in addition to sense of humor, complexion, facial expressions, hair color and basic bone structure, cousin and i share an acute case of hypochondriasis. don’t be alarmed. it wasn’t a real brush with meningitis. probably just allergies. but anything is possible when you have a bag of hot apples in your kitchen and have been laughing way too much for three days.

my cousin always lifts my spirits and makes me feel like anything is possible. i joke with her that the reason i like hanging out with her is we’re the same person and since i’m incredibly self-centered i really like being with another me. the truth is she’s a way cooler and more talented “me” and i feed off of that. it inspires me. beyond that she was very helpful with the practical stuff this weekend and didn’t flinch when darla went animalistic, biting furniture, etc. i’m already looking forward to our next visit. thank you cousinfriend!

photo info: 1. cousin’s room awaits her  2. cousin helps out with naptime storyland  3 & 4. dress up at funky & functional  5 & 6. darla and henry discover corn in the foddershocks 7. my schnoze 8. darla stealing fun 9. mother daughter matching 10. darla rides a barreltrain 11 & 12. pumpkin patching 13. darla and adam find a worm 14. cousin race 15. henry finds the great pumpkin 16. adam and darla picking apples 17 & 18. cousin bridget’s art lessons. 19. “painting is good arting, mom” 20. darla’s pallette  21. mommy’s bad at everything  22. can you guess whose is whose?  23. bobbing for apples is way hard b/c laughing underwater is never portrayed in disney movies  24. we call this “stolen apple pie”  25. roasted butternut squash  26 & 27. back to the groovy spoon for farewells.

on a further note, we did a loose P day. whoa that sounds wrong. anyways, we covered P a bit with pumpkin patch, apple picking, painting, apple pie and patience! i think we’ll need a remedial session though as i was a bit distracted and trying to be a social butterfly.