Baby Steps to Blogging

Saturday, January 26, 2013

you are my sunshine

Thank goodness everyone in my house is healthy again. Finn was teething. Lily got really sick for the better part of this week. It has been a whirlwind of unwelcome illness in my home and I am so grateful it seems to have abated for the time being. The ever doting big sister, noting that Finn was down about his sore gums, Lily climbed up on the couch and sang to him. Mark got this video so that we can preserve these sweet memories forever.

enjoy

Video Link

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Share and share alike

Back in my grandmother's day it was a point of pride to have a stocked recipe box. That box held generations old recipes written in pencil on note cards and filed in said little tin box. Women in families used to talk and cook and laugh and share. Sharing is no longer a part of the way people cook. It is all about "secret" ingredients and photo credits and the like. I am officially here to say that any food items I post on this blog are yours, dear readers. They are yours to tweak, omit ingredients, add a dash of whatever you want or claim as your own. It was so important to the ladies of past generations that they would hand down recipes and cook wonderful food that was meant to be shared and enjoyed. Getting your credit is simply a new way of ruining a great thing. If you are so self-important that you would file a claim regarding a photo of your food then please refrain from trolling my blog. A note to all of you in the dark here, I got a claim filed for not giving the URL to one of my food photos in my "mark approved" entry on this blog. The recipes are all ones I have gleaned from the depths of the internet or recipe books, honed through trial and error and presented to you, my friends. I do not always have my camera strapped to me when cooking with two youngsters traipsing about at my feet. So, for reference, I just pulled some from some other sites. As I know now, that was very bad and could have gotten my blog taken down. I will not do such an egregious act again and I beg forgiveness for my blatant and hurtful transgression.

In summation, I am so happy to have a small but loyal following who view my very occasional post about recipes or cooking. Also, I am more than pleased to tell whomever was offended that they are free to skip my page on their daily readings and go fly a kite instead.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

The Giving Tree and The Golden Heart

This past summer I found a shiny green book in with the rest of the hundreds we own for the kids. The Giving Tree was one of the more formative books of my youth and I remembered really loving the message. So, Lily and I sat down and began reading it. As each page was read, understood and turned I began to feel an ominous pressure in my heart. Lily was fidgeting with her hands and looking increasingly worried. By the time we got to the cutting down of the trunk after the apple stripping and branch hacking, she was beginning to seriously fret. "I don't like the where this is going" was her exact phrase. So, when we turned to see the sad abandoned trunk she burst into tears and told me she didn't want to continue reading this awful sad book. Mark came bounding up the stairs worried something had hurt his little girl. Indeed it had. Her darling heart just couldn't take it that someone could give so much and be asked for more without so little as a thank you in repayment.

Today we went to the salon to get Lily's haircut. Our stylist asked if she wanted to take a little more than we planned off to be able to donate to Pantene's beautiful lengths program. Lily immediately agreed and got a beautiful cut and looks so sweet and older and beautiful. I was so filled with emotion at what a gentle and kind soul she is. Just now, before bed, she asked why some children don't have hair, which is how I explained it to her at the salon and she just nodded as if she understood. I asked if she really wanted to know because it is a little sad and hard to understand. She nodded vehemently and so we went online and I showed her pictures of children who are suffering and fighting through cancer and chemotherapy and have lost their hair in the fight. I explained that while the chemo attacks the bad cancer bugs it also has to be so strong that it hurts some of the good parts of you too. She asked, "like their hair?" and I said that was right.

She then welled up a little and said, "I am going to donate my hair for the rest of my life! It isn't fair that some kids have to give up having hair because they're sick!"

She looked so adamant and defiant in the face of such a terrible disease. I couldn't help but recall her staunch disapproval and utter sadness at the thought of being left shorn and alone while reading the book that shall not be named. I get the feeling that she is wise beyond her years. She is empathetic and understanding beyond any realm of reason. It is a worry of mine that her soft heart and thin skin will do her a disservice. But after tonight, I feel like her sensitivity and loving heart give her strength and courage. She is equipped to right the wrongs and injustices in the world. To her, there is no good answer for why pain and meanness exist and I cannot help but agree. She has an inner grace and focus that sincerely stops me in my tracks. Today showed me that she may look young and fragile but she is building up an absolute stockpile of battles she will inevitably win.

My little girl is growing up. And, honestly, I love what I am seeing.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Expectations

Finn has recently started learning words at an increasingly fast rate. He will parrot back things you tell him to say. But he also remembers what certain things are called and will ask for them by name. He can say biscuit, cracker, juice, chip, bite, yogurt, fish, chicken and many other food words. He insists on calling some of his favorite things by the sound of which he has paired to said item. For instance, he won't say train. He will say woo-woo! He won't say truck he makes raspberries loudly and with much expectoration. He has added a y to the end of certain words too like hot(ty) or hat(ty).

He is extremely reactive to discipline as well. He has recently taken to laying flat on the floor between the ottoman and the couch or bonking his head into a wall or door or the floor. It is like he experiences everything so much that he overreacts to even the slightest offense. If you attempt to help him with something and you are doing it wrong he gets up, runs into our bedroom and goes underneath the bed. It is startling how quickly it happens and how fast he just snaps out if it and walks back to play again.

Just now he asked for crackers. So, I took the Ritz out of the cupboard and started untwisting the plastic sleeve. He shook his head and said no and then took off whimpering toward my bedroom. I called for him and told him I was getting him a cracker. He came back out, looked at the sleeve and took off crying again. Exasperated, I set the crackers on the hutch and went to find him. He was flat under the bed. I bellied down next to the bedframe and he crawled out the other side and ran into the kitchen. I followed him and watched him grab the crackers, walk into the living room and proceed to deftly untwist the plastic and start enjoying his snack. Apparently, what I was doing wrong was attempting to hand him the crackers individually and not in stacked and wrapped form.

When I found out I was pregnant with a boy I thought I was going to have to try harder than with my little girl to get him to start verbalizing words and showing emotions. I have found the exact opposite. He is extremely chatty and reacts really dramatically to even the slightest deviation from what he wanted to have happen.

It makes me think that my children are constant sources of surprise and are never what I expected them to be. They are so much better.

I never envisioned my five year old daughter begging her dad to make her multiplication tables to work on while eating breakfast on a Saturday morning. I never thought my little boy would be so taken with his Papas that nobody else matters if they are nearby. I hadn't expected that my son would dance and say hi/bye exactly like I do. And I never thought my daughter would be so independent and outdoorsy that she will remain outside after school for hours just playing, eating snow and exploring.

I am not one for surprises. But I love being caught off guard by the personalities of my little ones. It just goes to show that Horton was right. A person is a person, no matter how small. And these smalls have some mucho grande personalities.

Finn's Tantrum Spot

My Little Explorer and Snow Taster

Thick as Thieves

Monday, December 3, 2012

home

Home is a place that is intangible. Your house is a place you can point to on a map. You can hang a wreath on the door of a house. You can even place a Home Sweet Home mat on the entry steps. But home is different. A person can be your home. A smell or a feeling can conjure a home. I have always envisioned Wisconsin as a wonderful place to build a home. I love this state's rolling farmlands and the dichotomy of the seasons we experience here. I have always felt right living here. Until I met Mark I thought home was here in the heartland. When we fell in love though, I realized that my sense of place was deeply rooted within him. He told me once that I felt like home to him. This was very early on in our relationship. It completely blew me away thinking that I could provide that feeling of a safe haven to another person. When we moved for Mark's job to a place that was very unfamiliar both in geography and native people, I was equally terrified and exhilarated. I knew that I could make our apartment in Bakersfield our home. In fact, I worked very hard to carve our names into that albeit temporary dwelling place. Mark told me that I succeeded in making our house a home and it made me sigh with relief.

Being home to someone is a great responsibility. It takes constant care and gentle nurturing. In some cases it takes fighting to keep that home safe and sound from things that could hurt it or disrupt it.

I let a piece of what made home to me travel all the way to Africa this year. I deeply invest in my sister. I always have. She has always been this precious commodity to me. She is the part of my home that is a kindred soul, a pusher, an inspiration and one of the brightest lights in my life. Without her here, there is a piece of home that is missing from me. We are always side by side in spirit. She is always swirling around in my thoughts. I wear a piece of her clothing daily to encourage me to be better as a person. I hope the home of mine that she took with her comforts her when she is feeling lonely or overwhelmed in such a different place with such dire needs.

There are no two people more different than my sister and my husband. They are polar opposites in almost every topic imaginable. But each of them make up such a profound piece of who I am.

My pieces and fragments that construct my home are many and varied in composition and location. In this way, my sense of home can never truly be wholly in one place. I will always be missing someone or something or somewhere. But in doing this fractal home creation, I feel like I will never be homeless since all my pieces are in so many places, times and in such different types of people.

Monday, November 19, 2012

Fight or Flight?

I have always been sensitive. I get my feelings hurt very easily. I cry without much warning or reason. I have a soft heart. My mom always allowed me to feel my feelings. She says I have always been this way. We sometimes refer to it as dramatic or a causation of my middle child syndrome.

I notice these same soft qualities in my daughter and it worries me while simultaneously filling me with great pride. I know how often I was crippled by my inability to handle a situation with a thick skin and a Teflon back. I feel like she cries more than a lot of other children. She also cares more deeply and is more in tune with others' emotions than other children seem to be.

Lily actually cares if she hurts your feelings. She and I share that quality. Lately, I have been worrying over whether the thickening of my skin is dulling the sensitive heart and loving spirit I once had. I have recently been more sharp and more ready to defend and argue a point rather than smile and allow that argument to blow over without much interaction from me.

I can't decide which is worse. Do I dial back my defensiveness and allow myself more opportunity to be hurt and sad? Or do I keep my head high and keep my shield by my side and a sword at my waist ready to strike down anyone who comes at me with contempt?

I want to keep Lily's precious darling heart pure and loving. But I want her to have the ability to speak her mind even when she feels outnumbered or under great pressure. I hope that she can have the best of both worlds. I hope she can be kind whenever possible and able to carefully and efficiently argue a point that is worth standing up for.

I know I can have both a sensitive side and a ferocious defensive side. I just want the two to be able to co-exist harmoniously. Mostly I feel like one overtakes the other and the pendulum sways back and forth. Being a role model for a young girl is a challenge and an honor. It takes constant introspection and re-evaluation of choices, words and reactions. This rings especially true when that young girl is your only daughter.

I hope that these competing sides of me can be honed and molded to fit together better. One is rather new and I feel like it is overtaking the older sweeter part. I will keep my awareness high and look to pass on only the best parts of myself to my impressionable daughter. It is a battle worth fighting to be the superlative mommy/woman I can be for her to look up to and hopefully deem worthy of emulating.

Monday, November 12, 2012

Snow and Lights

We were blessed with both this week. A light dusting of the white powder fell on our driveway and a smattering is still left on the lawn. We've got perfectly strung colored Christmas lights adorning our eaves. I prefer the opposite juxtaposition of color, as anyone who knows me will tell you. I like fresh green grass, brilliant blue skies and the shining hot yellow sun. I like my house lights white. I am old-fashioned? Do I lack creativity? I don't know. I just always thought white lights on the home were classic and beautiful. I never went for colored lights. This year marked a difference because Lily is vocal and has an opinion on almost every topic. As we were speed-shopping through Target before Finn had his obligatory meltdown caused by cart confinement, we slowed to toss in the two gigantic light reels that would perfectly string around the house. As Mark and I were discussing warm versus cool white, Lily chimed in that she loved the beautiful colors. I told her that they were nice, but we were getting white. The look on her face was not one of disappointment but of defiance and incredulity. She had literally not one moment where that even registered as a possibility.

"No, mom. Christmas lights have to be beautiful colors." she stated.

Mark's mom was with us and she said she wasn't going to say anything but since Lily had mentioned it, she liked colored lights best as well. As the turquoise light-up leopard print backpack fiasco of 2012 should have taught me, when you get Grandma and Granddarling Lily Kidwell voting on the same side, there is no countermeasure that is strong enough to sway the decision.

Mark painstakingly put up those beautiful lights with minimal assistance from me. He brought us all out and we lit them up just for the inaugural first evening. I instantly had tears spring to my eyes. They looked perfect. The twinkle and the glow was so festive and cheerful. Lily looked up at me and said, "I picked the perfect lights didn't I, Mama?"

So my preference has changed toward a more colorful glow around our happy home.

I got my mind changed as well toward a more colorful and kitschy Christmas card by my husband. My initial choice was just our professional photos on a nice slate gray stationery. Mark gave that the old thumbs down and convinced me that the classic red/green motif with pictures both professional and amateur mixed together was a much better choice and more suitable to our ramshackle little clan.

Maybe they all have it right. Those Kidwells are something else.

The mess of nonsense below should give you a preview of said Christmas card.