baby wear ware

Posted in Shopping by ElaineMarie

maybe you’ve already read, bc the mommy blogosphere is blowin’ up about it, but ergobaby is having a contest to design their next ergo carrier.

the ergobaby was my favorite of our baby carriers, especially when darla was older. it was perfect for days that i knew we would be walking a lot. it got us through 2 music festivals, countless city walks, and a handful of airports, all before ours was stolen from our car. saddy sad face. but that is a testament to how nice these carriers are. they get stolen from cars! they left our stereo alone and took the ergo!

i have spent more than a few minutes thinking about which design we will get as a replacement if baby number 2 ever comes to pass. now i am thinking of how cute an ergobaby in momjeanz floral would be. hmmmm?

if you feel a strong desire to design a carrier for your little one you can visit their site here for details of the contest and instructions for entering.

good luck!

2Oct2012

the thing about acorns is…

Posted in Momma Needs a minute... by ElaineMarie

yeah, this patience thing is one i’m meditating on A LOT lately. this illustration spoke to me from one of darla’s library books, Outside Your Window: A First Book of Nature, so i thought i would share it. i’m constantly reminding myself that it takes time for our seeds to come to fruition.

i’m always eager to see the results of work and effort and have a hard time remembering that everything happens in its own time. i can get disproportionately discouraged by minor setbacks.

what do you do when you need to conjure up a little more patience? please fill me in. i need all the help i can get!

2Oct2012

a wonder wander

Posted in advantageous adventures, kiddie-do by ElaineMarie

i much prefer a nice stroll in the woods over any other activity with my girl. after a picnic lunch at their pondside wildlife observation deck we took our apples and went for a walk in sodalis nature park.

i love the way her imagination has the freedom to expand when there are few parameters. we walked along the trail, singing various songs, clearing sticks off the trail and using the sticks to build various projects darla dreamed up. i loved watching her excitement as she found red leaves and exclaimed “i found the first leaf of autumn!” or when she found large rocks to climb and jump off.

i’m looking forward to a whole season of these nature walks.

1Oct2012

harvest moon weekend

Posted in advantageous adventures, let me let me update ya by ElaineMarie

did you enjoy the harvest moon weekend? did neil young perform in your headspace as well? just me?

oh well.

we enjoyed a wonderful weekend of beautiful weather (thankful for that after several rainy days), carnival rides, food truck fest and a little girl running hills.

at the top of the ferris wheel

ferris wheel 2

picture comment one: i was a little reluctant to let darla in the fun house. i mean, did you see those paintings? i don’t know if you know this but carnivals are creepy…

picture comment two: the food truck fest was at mallow run winery. this was a rad time! the set up was very relaxed and kid-friendly – a great place to relax, nosh, and watch your child run up and down hills while you delude yourself that it will help get her into an earlier bedtime. i highly suggest it for any of you central indiana folk.

hope you enjoyed your weekend. thanks for reading about ours!

30Sep2012

ridez

Posted in Kiddie Hangouts, let me let me update ya by ElaineMarie

i don’t know if you know this but we take darla to a lot of fairs. A LOT. she’s met more carnies than a ummm person who meets a lot of carnies.

well, anyway, i took darla to a carnival yesterday. more on that event later but i wanted to share some photos from our buzzker visit at the beginning of the month. see here’s my thought process: carnivals + left coast = buzzker visit memories:

lucky for us, we live right across the street from the park where the annual neighborhood carnival is held. we took the girls over for some fun when darla’s best friend, elsa, visited a few weeks back.

1. ready to ride 2. big girls riding the big slide 3. the lamest carnival ride ever 4. seriously the lamest but they both loved it 5. gerbilz 6. father + daughter barrel spin 7. i asked her to stand next to buckey and this is what i got.

we really miss you friends! we’re so thankful our gals got to spend two days together riding that bath tub ride. seriously? what was the attraction there? they rode it like 5 times!

29Sep2012

west coast wedding nostalgia

Posted in advantageous adventures, Travels by ElaineMarie

i’m missing my west coast friends this weekend so i thought i’d do a visual venture back a few weeks to one of the most enchanting wedding weekends i’ve ever had the pleasure of partaking.

my five day stay in the bay city was FRANTASTIC.
a visit to the haight, a drive down the PCH, and a weekend stay at the holly farm were all part of the getaway.

my only regret is that i didn’t take more photos to reminisce!

missing you tons left coast friends. lots of love vibes to you.

1. reunited 2. sourdough! 3. sf style 4. fireside chat by the ocean 5. new friends 6. miner’s cup 7. wall-to-wall music 8. wedding pretty 9. i love these faces 10. officially the raddest couple

28Sep2012

the wonderful story of how you were born

Posted in doula work, parenting apparently? by ElaineMarie

last weekend i was perusing in a used bookstore and i came across the most amazing vintage book geared toward explaining procreation. it’s everything i’ve been looking for in an appropriate explanation of sex, procreation, birth and nursing….and it was written in 1952.

The Wonderful Story of How You Were Born is a pretty fantastic resource by Sidonie Matsner Gruenberg. Besides the fact that it’s a lovely little vintage book with great illustrations and fun to look at, it’s very matter of fact about procreation for all life on earth. Gruenberg doesn’t shy away from using medical terms- seeing the word vagina in a 50s children’s book is pretty cool- but explains them in tangible terms. i feel the book is very respectful to the Creator without being overtly religious. it even explains genes in a way a small child could understand.

i’ve started reading some parts of it to darla but mostly i’ve been reading and re-reading as a way of internalizing the way the author explains the birds and the bees so i have some good material for when the off the cuff conversations come about.

if any of you parents are looking for a good resource i suggest getting a copy of The Wonderful Story of How You Were Born. an updated version from 1971 is also available but the 50s version is much prettier.

oh and i also found a book about Gnomes that i’ve been coveting for a long time. it actually does cover gnome procreation…and a little book of western songs. it was a good day at the bookstore.

27Sep2012

school dayz

Posted in it's cool to school by ElaineMarie

we tackled our convergence with traditional education in these past weeks.

while other parents snapped cute photos of their little ones posed neatly in front of signs THIS is what i had to work with

let’s take a closer look at those facial expressions

ha ha. yeah, well she’s really going to regret it when i make her come back to this sign EVERY YEAR on the first day of school and reenact these photos. i mean it.

despite what these pictures portray, her first week of school went off without a hitch. in fact, these pics are taken from orientation day, at which she tried to keep us from coming in the room with her. she just held up her hands and said “bye, guys. bye.” right after these shots she wanted to clarify “soooo….the next time we come to school you’re just going to drop me off and then leave, right?”

it seems we’ve both been looking forward to a little time apart. i’m happy to have a little girl who is well adjusted and ready to be independent.

we had time the following school day, the first official day of school, to snap a few nice ones:

i tried to honor her wishes with a quick goodbye on the first day but i did snap this shot of her right before she strapped all three baby dolls on herself. she’s a tiny, baby-wearing enthusiast.

for the record, i prefer those shots of darla next to the sign over any first-day-of-school conventional poses.

25Sep2012

renewal

Posted in advantageous adventures, kiddie-do, let me let me update ya, Momma Needs a minute... by ElaineMarie

i haven’t been posting lately, but guess what folks – i just renewed the domain name for momjeanz so i’m recommitting myself to the project.

i know. i’ve just given your lives new meaning.

in true elaine fashion, this is about me not you. self-centered, as always.

we’ve been going through some things lately and i’ve found it difficult to muster the energy to do the blog and to feel authentic about what i’m putting out there. i say this because when i look back at the blog it makes it seem like life is so happy and carefree when in reality it’s been a bit rougher than that.

but then i remembered that these rough parts have always been here. as long as this blog has been around they’ve been here. and maybe that’s why i started doing it in the first place – to remind myself of the good parts of the day, of the bright spots.

these are my bright spots. with a few pity parties and emotional outbursts sprinkled here and there. but mostly these are the good moments when i look back and am filled with such gratefulness for all of life’s spots, dark and bright.

and i want to continue to share my brightest spot:

well, order a stickygram of that and slap it on my fridge. if that isn’t a summary of my child in one frame then i don’t know what is. if i could conjure one image of her as a 3-year-old it would be this. leaping. LEAPING. she’s forever leaping. fearlessly. in a way that puts anxiety straight into my heart while at the same time comforting me and saying “that one, she gonna be ok. she gonna take on de world.” (for some reason this voice is that of sebastian the crab.)

this year has been about us taking the leap from baby to big kid. and she is ready for all the big kid challenges. she basically wants me to hand her a stack o’papes and a cap and let her raise herself on the street. i’m almost tempted to because i love (LOVE) the movie newsies so much. alas, she is a girl and not a young christian bale so i’ve decided to keep her and raise her myself.

why?

because it’s so much fun. everything turns into an adventure. trips to the nursery and apple orchard turn into teachable adventures. and also, there’s the snacks. obviously. when you’re raising a child there’s an endless stream of snacks and i, for one, benefit from that. so does my gym.

anyway, a few more snaps from our nursery/orchard visit with a girl who wants to be dorothy:

30Aug2012

quality time

Posted in it's cool to school, let me let me update ya, love and happiness by ElaineMarie

i’m off to san fran for 5 whole days. FIVE.

so i made sure to have some quality time with my little peter venkman – as she sometimes likes to be called.

we spent a nice afternoon picnic lunch date at wallace garden plots in our neighborhood the other day after we visited the library. it was pretty cool to walk around all the different plots and take in the different gardening techniques. it was good to be around abundant gardens. it was peaceful and educational. i was able to show darla where sunflower seeds grow and we discussed the different ways plants grow their fruit.

yay for free teaching resources!