pregnancy eats

Posted in pregnancy by ElaineMarie

summertime pregnancy benefit = melon. alllllllll the melons.

i have been pretty crazy about the melons in the last week. this is the 3rd cantaloupe i’ve purchased in a week. coincidentally, we looked up how big the baby is for this week aaannnnnndddd, you guessed it, it’s the size of a cantaloupe. darla said that must be why i’m craving them so much. and they are pairing up with things very nicely. I’ve had cantaloupe with my yogurt and cottage cheese, added in raspberries, found a recipe for cucumber and cantaloupe salad and just a minute ago i tossed a couple of slices in the blender with some frozen strawberries and some raspberry lemonade as a base. it tastes like summer in smoothie form.

but seriously, melons are so good during late pregnancy.

27May2014

avoiding maternity clothes

Posted in pregnancy by ElaineMarie

oh yeah. things are looking good over here. this is how i spent much of the first part of the week. it’s getting harder and harder to find things to cover this bump. i thought maybe we were just going to skip pictures this week and assume that any time that i was not in the above yard work outfit, i was in the black dress. But, I got a few more semi-acceptable outfits in there:

one being this outfit. these are the most comfortable pants in the world. i swear they are not pajama pants. i might have to get another pair! but maybe in a different color…and maybe in a size that will fit me post baby as well.

and this, which involved the dress i was wearing when i met husbeau…

and this romper for memorial day, which i wore in my pregnancy with darla, but it looked much different given that summer was on the beginning half of my pregnancy last time.

and one where miss D wanted to show off what she was wearing to memorial day, too.

that wraps it up. the rest of this week is looking to be gauze tents and caftans.

27May2014

weekending

Posted in familyness, weekending by ElaineMarie

darla toss

yay for long weekends! you would think this would be an extra long weekend post since we had an extra long weekend but, no. i tried to keep off my phone as much as possible and be in the moment. our weekend was packed and good and sunny and warm and all the things a good memorial day weekend should be.

thank you blessed universe.

*i hope you had a good one, too.*

25May2014

fellowship of hand surfers

Posted in love and happiness, Momma Needs a minute... by ElaineMarie

as i’ve been driving around on this weekend, this weekend in which we’ve been blessed with exquisite weather for kicking off into summer, i’ve noticed the small sign of kindred spirits extended out car windows.

i watch for these hands fingering the breeze, twisting and turning into configurations against the wind. each one has their own style. some have a simple spread of the fingers as the current slips between digits. others cup their hand and ride the currents up and down. others are multitasking as they tap or shake a beat into the winds. is hand surfing an acquired act or is it something that each of us born with this trait brings to organic fruition? is your hand surfing style a sort of fingerprint? maybe no one out there hand surfs in quite the same way…

and i assure you not everyone does it. not everyone is driven to extend his or her hand out into the air while on the road. we’re a select crowd. a small population that really has no chance of meeting anywhere else but on the road. occasionally i’ll pass another hand surfer. i feel confident in my feeling that there is no need for a wave, for we already have our hands out connecting in the way that seems most appropriate. sometimes i’ll pull up alongside another driver with his hand out and i’ll feel the small twinge of solidarity and know there is no need to even take the other driver in. we are already displaying the most important part of ourselves. once, a few days ago, i was fortunate enough to be the 4th car in a line of hand surfers and i think that was the closest to free that i’ve felt in a long time.

for i know a little bit about who that person is inside by that simple extended hand. i know what they are reaching out for as they ride down the street. it’s that little bit of freedom. it’s the small, hibernating piece of our childhood that still believes that someday we’ll spread our wings and fly away. it’s a bit of rebellion that at least a part of us can be riding on the wind, even for a little while. it’s nostalgia taken human form.

as we head off into summer, i’m so thankful to see this fellowship of hand surfers out there on the roads. i realize that this is a piece of my childperson uncovered. riding down the road with my hand out of the window of the car would be my quintessential act of summertime. it sums it all up for me in a way that nothing else can: freedom, fresh air, sunshine, travel. a literal throw of caution to the wind.

and thank you to all of you kindred spirits out there for helping me usher in summer. i will look for you every memorial day weekend from now until the end of my driving days.

23May2014

how to get started with unschooling

Posted in it's cool to school by ElaineMarie

ok, this is not really a how-to post. i just put that up there because people like how-to posts. this is a semi-how-to post. i started writing out a longer post about it and decided to scrap it because i can’t write something that sounds like i know what i’m talking about when really this has been an experiment for us; a crazy, wonderful, challenging experiment. so these are some things i learned along the way and you can figure out if, when and how you’d like to implement them into your life. see! you’re unschooling already!!!

first, i just want to say how rad this year has been. i hope hope hope this time is one of the things i look back on and cherish most in later life. i certainly cherish it now. if you have any inclinations towards unschooling at all, i say follow them at least for a little while to see how you feel. i don’t think you’ll regret it long term. maybe in the short term when it feels heavy, but not in the long run.

the biggest things I’VE learned while unschooling:

1. learning is every minute of everyday. whether it’s a walk down the alley, a doodle session at the local coffee shop, or a visit to a nature preserve in a local park, there is learning taking place in all of it. and the generosity of that is astounding.

2. you have all that you need to be a good student in life. you don’t need materials. you don’t need lesson plans. you don’t need anything extra than what is already laid before you and within you. the world is vast in its bigness and smallness so the opportunities for learning are infinite. this has changed my entire way of looking at the world. my worldview seems so bountiful now after experiencing unschooling. all we have to do is step out our front door. one of our unschooling mottos is “let’s find what we can find and see what we can see.”

3. let go. this was the hardest. i had to let go of my previous thoughts of education. i had to let go of expectations and my desires for my daughter’s education for a year. in the beginning i think i almost tried too hard to make sure we were out and “learning.” i had to accept that my daughter was going to find very valuable learning material from television and computer games. my ideal for her education was anything but that when i set out but the fact is those are powerful learning mediums that we as adults utilize a great deal. i had to let go of my control and realize that she finds value there that i can’t see yet. i don’t know what her future holds. how do i know what importance television and computer games are going to come to pass in her adulthood?

so, darla is headed to formal schooling next year. i have mixed emotions about it but i know it will be a good thing and i know that this year has prepared her in numerous ways. how could you look at that first photo and see anything but a young girl confidently marching on to find what she can find and see what she can see in this world.

if you’d like more resources on unschooling you can find them under the unschooling tab at the top.

23May2014

our week

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

what would 80 year-old me want to know about this week? what would i want to remember?

i try really hard to capture life as it happens and tell the story of our time together in this space. you see, this story that i tell myself now is how i will remember my life in my years to come. our lives are a collection of the stories we tell ourselves. once this moment passes all we have left is the story.

what do i want to tell myself?

i want to remember the way darla said “i’m the queen of the underworld mermaids” after she colored her lips with black marker. i want to remember the brightness of the poppies around the corner. i want to remind myself of how many times i gaze at that little cradle next to my bed and think about the day in the not-to-distant-future when this person will no longer be a part of me but separate and taking up space in the outside world instead of within me.

i want to remember this picture darla drew of Woody Cat during a breakfast date doodle session and then her demanding i send a picture of it to my parents. i hope to remember how engrossed darla has been with her first set of legos. i want to remember our colorful garden projects and how we really got into finding new objects to paint and add to the gardens, how a walk down the alley to find these items turned into an adventure. i want to remember how it feels to watch new things sprout from the ground and have such high hopes that they will turn bountiful by summer’s end.

i want to remember how darla talked a complete stranger into constructing a fishing pole for her from scratch. i want to look back at a moment of late afternoon life in my household and remember how normal and beautiful it looked bathed in sunlight and be reminded that sometimes there are moments of peace here. i want to remember darla’s joy and enthusiasm as she shows me how she’s taught herself to jump rope 20 times without misstep. and i want to remember how that little girl planted a tree. i want to remember how i tried to talk her out of it at first, tried to explain the years it would take for that tree to grow, and had to stop myself. i had to say “elaine, she’s a little girl who wants to plant some seeds in the hope that they will grow into a tree. just let it go.” and i did. and she did.

i want to remember how overwhelmed and exhausted i felt by midweek. i felt utterly incapable of handling any and all things in life that day. i was short on patience and rude at times. i cried. i yelled at darla and snapped at mike. old lady elaine will smile as she reads that all it took was an early bedtime for my household to then wake the next day and have the nicest of days. the difference a day makes.

and i think 80 year-old me would want to remember how much i love my life and my family and myself at this point in time. i think future me will need to know that is part of my story. that it’s hard some days and i feel lost but despite that, the majority of the time i am happy. so the other stuff doesn’t matter.

future me needs to know that i’m happy, so that’s what i want to put down here. this week was real life and real life makes me happy.

*best wishes for a sunny, memorable Memorial Day weekend to you*

hi all, if you have a chance will you please click the vote button below and cast your vote for momjeanz for top baby blogs? it helps the blog gain exposure and readers. thanks!

22May2014

bump day

Posted in love and happiness, pregnancy by ElaineMarie

i’m glad i snapped a photo of the bump from this weekend because this one shows how much the shape of this body changes from day-to-day, and throughout the day, as our little babe flips and turns around in there. i also like how this photo shows the lines imprinting into my body from my non-maternity clothes. maybe my body is needing some after all…

but what i love the most is the faint showings of some stretch marks coming through my Robert Indiana tattoo. it seems pretty poetic to me. i have been wondering if i would make it through this pregnancy without any stretch marks, as i did with darla, but it seems highly unlikely at this point. i’m counting on those marks growing along with my belly for these remaining weeks. and that’s ok.

this human, female body is just amazing to me. the transformations of late pregnancy are awe-inspiring. i love looking around a world of round bellies and imagining all the other little amazing human bodies curled up there.

this mother form is love embodied.

*and also i love the cameo of my great healthy, pregnancy hair.

21May2014

pregnancy eats

Posted in pregnancy, yum yum eat good by ElaineMarie

beans! i love beans!

a pregnant lady’s gotta eat beans!

here, try these recipes if you’re looking to fart your way through pregnancy. yeah!:

i’m prepping chickpeas right now for this chickpea, advocado & lime cilantro salad, we made these lentil sloppy joes last week but repurposed the leftovers over rice and all agreed that went over better, and i’ve got my eyes on these lentil tacos. we enjoyed this pumpkin chili with extra beans during cold months and there’s always easy crockpot refried beans.

so many options! i’ve been thinking about trying my hand at making my own veggie burgers so if any of you out there have a favorite recipe let me know.

beanz!

20May2014

avoiding maternity clothes

Posted in pregnancy by ElaineMarie

how i did this week with avoiding maternity clothes…

horizontal stripes maternity

^^^i call this look IT’S 80 AND HORIZONTAL STRIPES ARE A PREGNANT LADY’S BEST FRIEND^^^

^^^and i call this one YARD WORK IN THE RAIN. IT’S STILL 80.^^^

^^^this is OH NOW IT’S 60. STILL RAINING, THOUGH.^^^

^^^ well, 50s AND RAINING BUT NEW {old} BED LINENS!^^^

^^^rounding it out with OK, LET’S JUST STICK WITH MY BIG OL’ BIG LADY BLACK DRESS look^^^

19May2014

weekending

Posted in familyness, love and happiness, pregnancy, weekending by ElaineMarie

before i jump in to talking about myself, let’s talk about you. how was your weekend? was it a good one? i hope so.

we experienced a nice midwestern weekend here. our time was spent soaking in things like farmer’s market visits, mother + daughter coffee dates, yard work, snuggle fests on our one morning together as a fam and rain. we soaked in lots of rain. and a visit from grandparents. isn’t it grand when ordinary life moments come together so nicely? my parents and my husband helped me catch up on rest. this bump is really wearing me out these days. i’m crossing my fingers for nicer weather this week so we can get outside and run off excess energy {for darla, not me. the only thing i have an excess of is a need for sitting down}.

and hair! i have an excess of hair. which brings me to the next development of this blog…

lustrous pregnancy hair

the next few months are going to be a celebration of voluminous hair. i’m going to enjoy this until this baby is born and my hormones shift back and all this hair falls out. i’m living in a hair dream right now and i’m gonna talk about it, dammit.

*my hair and i are sending you our best for a superb week. we hope you see some sunshine*