migration

Posted in Momma Needs a minute..., Travels by

migration

i do not have to words to describe my jealousy of these migratory birds that flew over the playground as darla and i romped about yesterday. they circled by hundreds over head and i kept thinking “certainly there are enough of them to carry my weight and take me with them.”

how i long to be a migratory animal. how i long to be a traveler, a wanderer, a vagabond even.

not to mention they get to head where it’s warm while we’re stuck here to freeze all winter.

i guess i’ve been really in touch with the animalistic ways of dealing with the approaching season: hibernation and migration. both seem like good options. if i could construct my ideal life i’d be a migrant for 3 seasons and then spend this fourth holed up somewhere by a fire, reading and writing. doesn’t that just sound swell?

yes, swell and impractical. that’s my middle name: impractical.

but i’m reminded that at one point or another all the dreams that became realities in our world started out as impracticalities. even this technology that brings you these impractical thoughts of my own.

gimpy

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

my girl had a gimpy leg yesterday. no one, including her, has any idea when it happened but since she jumps off about 213 things a day it’s likely it occurred one of those times and didn’t really set it until she slept.

couch day
gimpy

anyway, we spent the day laid up on the couch. well, she did. i was relegated to snack servant. but i have to say it was a pretty excellent day. blankets bundled on the couch, candles going in the dark horse grotto…we started with a pile of books then movie, then books, then movie. you get it.

so this got me to thinking of this idea that i really think would work. it would get me through winter and save us money:

HIBERNATION

i could do days like today all winter long. just lots of movies and books and talks and laughs and snuggles. i wasn’t even as hungry since we didn’t use a lot of energy. maybe we could drop down to only 2 meals a day! we could lower the thermostat bc we’d just stay bundled under blankets all day. let’s do it everybody! just stop going to your jobs in the winter. really. it’s ridiculous. just stop it.

can we do this revolution? let me know what you think…

pathways

Posted in Momma Needs a minute... by

i took a bit of a technology break this weekend to focus on family and Waltzgiving so no pics of anything :(  but we had a great weekend all the same. great weather! and lots and lots of fun and friends at Waltzgiving. and great food. we inherited some tasty dishes. very thankful i won’t be needing to cook for a few days. yeaaaaaahhhhh.

the break from interwebs lead to some thoughts. deep thoughts. here:

i think i’ve spent far too much time putting pressure on myself to “create” the life path that i want to take. i think i finally understand that the path of my life is already out there. everything i want is already out there in the universe and it’s just up to me to find it.

that is so liberating. to know that i don’t have to create or force anything to happen. it’s already out there for the taking. i just have to seek it. i just have to work on getting in tune with what that path is.

i know this is easier said than done and i don’t think this means it’s any less work. i can just attest to the alleviation of mental and emotional stress with this new personal mantra.

i also have come to realize that finding this path and exacting the life i want to lead is not going to come from working on my weaknesses. it’s going to come from building and bolstering my strengths. i’ve spent so much time trying to fix my weaknesses that i’ve damn near forgotten what my strengths are.

it’s not all up to me. fixing my flaws are not all up to me. maybe they’re there for a reason. creating a life path isn’t up to me but living the path that is out there for me to the fullest is.

“like a bull”

Posted in doula work by

i’m boning up on some of my childbirth and labor support material for the birth coming up in just a few weeks. i wanted to share this short passage from Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth:

Barbara’s Reflections by Barbara Wolcott

I guess the most important thing I figured out was that your attitude and how you approach your birth is of utmost importance. In other words, it is important to face each birth like a bull, with full force, no fear or hesitation, with the attitude that you can do this and you aren’t going to hold back. This is your opportunity to remember your power as a woman, inhibitions not allowed. Those contractions are power surges, and each one gets the baby closer to birth. Your baby feels your strength and also your fears. The midwives helped me so much with this and kept reminding me of my strength.

weeksie

Posted in familyness, let me let me update ya by

snaps of our week and gratitude with attitude:

family voter's breakfastvotingmoustache house wild hairshadowreadingbitez

listy listy of my gratefulness. this week i’m thankful for:

1. a family that still has fun even after 2 1/2 hrs of waiting in line

 2. warm, portable voter’s breakfast and a voting location within walking distance

3. thankful for the voting process and for being an ohio voter for the first time. i’m pretty much hooked. that swing state suspense is killer!

4. thankful for walks with my girl past “the moustache house”

5. my girl’s wild hair

6. sunny & warm fall afternoons at the playground and shadows that make me look like a MO-del

7. daddy daughter reading time

8. and again, this girl. if there’s any questions as to why….just check out that face ONE MORE TIME.

wishing you all a happy weekend.

donut chef

Posted in yum yum eat good by

you might have guessed that we were obama people over here. we set off for a celebratory breakfast the morn of nov 7.

we’ve been reading a book that darla digs hard core called The Donut Chef this past week. she asked me what it meant when a donut is “glazed” and i was all “oh i will show you.” so we used nov 7 as an excuse to go get us some glaze at our favorite donut spot. seriously they are amazing. they have a breakfast sandwich on a donut and it’s phenom. phenom i tell ya.

budz coffeeanddonut donut chef reading

just waiting for the day she says “mom, what’s a nutella crepe?”

climbing & dangling

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

climbingdangling

i walked over to darla on the playground today. she turned to look at me with a beaming smile and said “i’m playing with the big kids.”  in actuality she was getting step-by-step instructions on how to jump from and climb on the outside of the play structure from a big kid. she had a grand time playing with them for about a half-an-hour.

soooo this means she is going to have all new tricks tomorrow and the ten minutes of peace i had this afternoon were effectively rendered pointless. i’ll most likely find her hanging from the shower curtain rod in the morning. whatevs.

wawwy

Posted in advantageous adventures, familyness, i dig music, it's cool to school, parenting apparently? by

no matter what happens tomorrow i’m glad i was there for this.wawwyjay z obamawawwy

and i’m glad i was with these two line buddies. darla was a real trooper. i mean it. we were there from 11 in the morning until 5 and she was great. she got a little bored during the boss’s slower songs so she started playing games on my phone. as soon as jay z started she just handed my phone back to me without even so much as breaking gaze of the stage and stared transfixed. so maybe she’s into hip hop. she a fly girl. she a j-lo.

just now during bedtime routine, i asked her what she thought of the rally and she said “oh it was great. it smelled like popcorn and the nerds you brought were yummy.” soooo maybe she didn’t really get that much out of it…but she told me she really liked the parts where she got to yell with everyone. that’s enough for me.

happy voting tomorrow, everyone!

ps. here was my main reference point for the day to darla. i may rely on an american tail as a teaching source just a little too much:

weekending

Posted in familyness, let me let me update ya, love and happiness by

our first weekend home in a while was quite busy but busy is good. the weekend included: momma got her hairz cut, initiation at To Di for Fitness boot camp, lady date to brother’s drake meadery, and here’s darla and i at an annie leibovitz family-friendly event at the wexner center:

wexner
duoleibovitz guess whobizacheleibovitz feet

we toured the leibovitz collections. there was much protesting from darla about this. i was pretty bummed because i wanted to check out all the nudie pics. just kidddding. i am sure i will be teasing her about turning up her nose at the most famous american photographer when she’s a know-it-all teen. we played leibovitz guess who and had a portrait of our feet taken in the style of miss annie. i adore it. it’s worth noting that darla does not appear to have the sexton toes.  we finished the day with our first bizache. wowza. i’m in love. the cafe at the wex center is phenomenal.

as great as all these different outings and doings were, my favorite of the weekend was our family trip to the grocery. my family can turn a simple, routine event into a fun fest.

i love them.

hope you had a great one as well. you really deserved it. i don’t know if you know this but…you’re my favorite reader ;-)