a week in review

Happy Sunday! It's a great morning when I've already showered, made two dozen jam thumbprint cookies, had a spectacular cup of coffee (thank you single-serving French press!) done laundry, and napped the baby all by 9am. I can hear Biscuit waking up now though, so my productiveness is surely going to decrease. Ok, he's crying.... sigh.

jam thumprints are my favorite

[...Twelve hours later.]

My ability to write a blog and simultaneously take care of my increasingly-mobile baby while he is awake is pretty much impossible. He wants to touch and grab and get into everything he can reach. And he can reach a lot of stuff--like coffee table and couch surfaces. And he's not even crawling efficiently yet. Babyproofing our apartment is an immediate necessity for the sudden moment when he is a speed-crawler. I've heard from parent friends that the transition from tentative crawling to full-on Daytona 500 crawling is overnight. Hope it's not tomorrow--I'm not ready!

 This week was full of Christmas gatherings. I love when the week leading up to Christmas provides me with pre-holiday warm-up events. Feels like the great parts of the holiday get extended that way. On Tuesday our church life group had a little Christmas potluck with a viewing of A Christmas Story (and some flipping amazing peppermint mocha cupcakes my friend Cassie made.) On Wednesday we had a little Christmas party for the youth at church with a Christmas Karaoke competition and Christmas trivia jeopardy-style and everything. Thursday was a girls night for life group ladies where we had a little Mary Kay facial party and then decorated sugar cookies. Roger was with me and getting tired so I rushed through my decorating and just did the white frosting with sprinkles thrown willy-nilly on the lot. I think I need to do a redo and make sugar cookies with my boys at work or something so I can really feel that I partook in that most iconic Christmas pastime.

pathetic.

Friday we had a church staff/leadership Christmas party at our pastor's house, and it was pretty fantastic. Great meal, lots of desserts, pie with fresh whipped cream, apple cider, conversation, people passing around my baby and giving me a break, a rousing game of Outburst (guys against gals - we lost by one measly point!) and a white elephant gift exchange that left us with two really nice gifts--when does that ever happen in white elephant!? We got some really nice candles and a gift basket with an assortment of tapenades and bruschetta. We really dodged a bullet too, we could have been the ones stuck with the fart piano and the hot-dog warmer.

Saturday was a slower-paced day. We slept-in, did some cleaning, went to a birthday party for Everett, my favorite 6-year-old, and used a gift card to go out for dinner. Dave dressed like the unibomber (I can't control his wardrobe choices. I've had to learn to accept) and Roger wore his Green Bay jammies handed down from cousin Steven.

 And then today after church I took Roger with me to a Christmas cookie exchange party. My friend Gabby snapped some prrrrrretty cute pictures there of Roger and I.

How did I get such an insanely cute child!?

I hope you've had a wonderful week too! Christmas is so near! Take time to enjoy it and make it a time to appreciate what you have and how good God is for all He has given us. On top of sending His only Son to us as a tiny, sweet baby, to grow up to conquer sin and death for us who don't deserve it, God also provides for our daily needs and puts love in our lives. I am so thankful.

Christmas spirit

It's like winter in Seattle here this morning, mild and rainy. So strange. I want the familiarity of snow and blustery winds. Christmas is ten days away and I am so thrown-off by waking up to the sounds of rain on the roof and car tires splashing through the street puddles. Snow is much quieter than rain. It's sneaky like that.

So Christmas is upon us in this drizzly land, and while I'll hold out for the white stuff, I'm getting in the Christmas spirit right now. For me, that means planning the meals, cookies, cakes, and maybe even pies that will grace the tables of our holiday gatherings. Meal planning is probably my absolute favorite way to get into the mood for Christmas. Tomorrow I'm bringing baked Brie with raspberry filling and a savory galette to our first Christmas party of the year. Thursday night I'll be making cookies with some gals from church. And I'll need to make about three dozen more cookies (jam thumbprints) for a Christmas cookie exchange I'm attending on Sunday. Next week I'll focus on my birthday meal, since we will get the pleasure of eating Christmas dinner at our "surrogate" family's house (the family I nanny for.) My birthday meal is going to be fattening and divine: my mom's meatloaf recipe, which has a tangy-sweet sauce, mashed potatoes ala Dave, roasted Brussels sprouts, homemade Mac and cheese, and birthday cake in some form. I'm having trouble deciding between chocolate peanut butter layer cake, and chocolate cherry cheesecake. Why must I choose!? Maybe I'll make both. Because it's my birthday and adult birthdays lack the fanfare of child birthdays so one must compensate with indulging in mild gluttony.

What gets you into the Christmas spirit? Probably giving, right? Because you're a much better person than I am and think of others before you think of your stomach.

pictures // weekend

 

 

Back in October our friends Andrew and Amanda did some family pictures for us at our friends' farm in Lennox. We  l o v e  how they turned out. The light is so warm and our little Biscuit was oh-so cooperative. I just can't believe that he's two months older than he was in these photos; he can't fit in any of these clothes anymore! Yikes!

I am now experiencing that paradoxical desire for him to stop growing. I don't really want this--I just hate that part of loving him and letting him be himself also means losing him as a baby. Kids grow whether you like it or not! I cherish the immortality of photographs so I can enjoy watching my little boy grow out of these baby times, knowing I can look at these photos and the memories can linger a little more substantially.

Getting these photos up is one of the productive milestones for my weekend. I also ordered Christmas cards, updated our health insurance coverage (saving $$$ always makes me feel productive!), finished Christmas shopping (I never have too much to buy, which makes that an easy one), did three loads of laundry, and purchased a no-contract phone plan. I feel like I've got enough productive momentum to do my taxes too, if only it were the end of next month.

And now the Holidays are really, really here, with the first of our Christmas parties beginning this week. I'm so ready to OD on Eggnog and cookies. Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year! I'll have to say more about that later. It deserves a post of its own.

Right now my baby is napping (a recent return to swaddling has made nap time a more consistent event in our house--swaddling at 6.5 months, who knew!?) and my husband is tensely watching the Packers play a close game with the Bills.

Happy Sunday to you! And to us, as long as Green Bay wins. ;-)

nanny • mommy

Stats from today:

Children cared for: 2 grade-school boys, 1 toddler, 2 babies
Times all five children were buckled into the van: 2
Trips to school, there-and-back: 2
Laundry done: 2 loads
Poop-plosions: 6
Onesies soiled by poop-plosions: 1 (I'm fast to change the poop-plosions. I've been around the block. I know what kind of laundry awaits the sluggard who allows a baby to go unchanged for a minute or more post-poop-plosion.)
Times Biscuit made the toddler cry: 2
Baby giggles: too many to count
Times Baby Biscuit and Baby Bean looked at each other and "talked" together: 3
Dishes broken on the floor: 1
Times the floor was swept: 2
Cups of coffee I drank: just 2! Impressive, right?
Simultaneous nappers: 3 (all of them were children. I promise I didn't nap on the job. That's what coffee is for.)
Time elapsed while all the babes napped at the same, magnificent time: 60 min
Toys cleaned up by toddler: 3
Toys cleaned up by nanny: too many to count
Carpets/areas vacuumed: 11
Number of times toddler  said "quiet... LIBBY": 4
Airplane rides given: 5
Times I answered toddler questioning "Why?": too many to count
Times I put toddler on the potty: 3
Times toddler used the potty to actually do his business: 0


Amazing when I see it all in writing. And when it was all said and done I came home and cleaned and cooked pheasant pot pie to share with our wonderful neighbors. My days are just full enough to admit the pre-bed writing of this short post and then hit the hay. Good night.

musing

I married a man who will go out into the wilderness and hunt for meat to put on our table, doing every step of that process, forest to plate, field-dressing to sauteeing, all on his own. How manly is that!? But he will then eat that delicious Venison with me while watching marathons of Gilmore Girls on Netflix. (We're almost done with the last season.) I snagged the White Whale of husbands, ladies, so put away your harpoons, he's taken.

I've talked about this before on my previous blog, but it deserves repeating- there is so much to love about eating game. The money we save on meat is significant, not to mention how healthy game is compared to factory-farmed meats. And once you get a few solid recipes under your belt, it starts to seem more like butcher-shop fare. Venison can be used in almost any way you use beef; and pheasant, while a little more temperamental to cook (it can easily dry out) can often replace chicken. So far our favorite recipes are Venison Philly Cheesesteaks (David's own recipe!), Venison Barbacoa (think Mexican BBQ, ala Chipotle,) and Pheasant Pot Pie. I think we're going to try pheasants in my favorite Mexican tinga recipe in place of chicken. And I have been meaning to do a stir-fried venison and broccoli.

Game will not be on our Christmas menu unless Dave bags a duck. Ever since I saw Anthony Bourdaine sear a wild duck breast I've been dying to take a stab at it myself. Maybe make a cherry or pomegranate sauce to go with. Festive! Duck would be a big score since Dave hasn't ever shot one yet, so we will probably do roast beef unless he gets lucky. We scored a ton of grass-fed beef from some wonderful people earlier this year and we still have a few nice roasts among the booty.

This year, with Christmas falling in the middle of the week, we're delaying travel until the weekend after New Years. We will get to see our extended families then, and we will get to do our own little Christmas at home with just us on Christmas Day. I love that we get to start our own Christmas traditions; for us, that means a focus on food, being together, and Jesus, with a little gift-giving as a bonus, but not the main concern. And it's Roger's first Christmas! He will even get to eat some of the meal!

And with Christmas comes my birthday (the 24th,) which I will continue to love no matter how old I get. 28 isn't old. Although it does feel odd to be so close to 30. I told David what I want for my birthday: I want to go get my nails shellacked and go thrifting and come home to a clean apartment, where we will eat meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and Brussels sprouts, and peanut butter chocolate cake--made by me because I have control issues--and watch a movie, and then drive around looking at Christmas lights. Hopefully Roger will cooperate with the plan. He's in a bit of a needy phase-- he wants mom and no one else will do. He may go with me on my birthday thrift shopping just so daddy can get the cleaning done.

And now the day is about to start: when I get some coffee into me. Happy Tuesday.

Weeknight philosophy

Life can drag sometimes, can't it? I mean the mundane busy necessities of work and cleaning and diaper-changing and grocery-getting and laundry, laundry, and more laundry, and what's for dinner? and car repairs and to-do lists and budgets... And it has no end. They are not meaningless, these busy necessities, but their merits can certainly get overlooked in their busy midst.

Tonight I made a to-do list. I then proceeded to complete two of the ten items and call it good. Because sometimes you gotta know when to slow down and stop letting life drag.

The rest of my night: I ate a perfect grilled cheese sandwich with from-scratch butternut squash soup (both made by my husband--I'm a lucky girl.)

I had a major Jones for chocolate and peanut butter in cookie form, so I made these and they are better even than they look.

And I gave Roger Biscuit his first solo bathtub bath where he was sitting in the big porcelain tub on his own! He was just splashing away, and playing in the stream from the faucet, and laughing like it was such a privelege not to be in the little green baby tub. Six months old and already showing the signs of burgeoning independence and self-awareness.

 I'm so glad he wants me to be right there with him as he learns to do things for himself. But seriously, I had a moment when he was a'splashin in the tub where I was r e a l l y sad he is no longer the little 8lb bean I bathed so gently for the first time. He never will be again and that is so final and concrete and it makes me think I'm going to have a lot of trouble watching him grow into a great big man without me having a complete emotional breakdown.

Man. My parents must be completely depressed that 3/4 of their kids are permanently adultified. But they get grandkids out of the bargain so maybe it's not so bad. And maybe as you watch your kids grow up, the contrast between sweet little baby son and stubble-chinned, 6'4" man-son is less severe because you've been there for the steady change. Maybe when Dave's mom looks at him she still just sees baby David.

Sigh. Motherhood is making me so philosophical. Time for another cookie.

Hey Biscuit, What are you doing? (6 months)

Roger (Biscuit) is 6 months old! (As of four days ago, but this post is only late because I had to get the pictures off my husband's computer and it was a slight debacle.)

Six months sure has done a lot to improve his totability. As a tiny babyling he cried non-stop on most car rides. But we made the Thanksgiving trip to MN/WI and all the way back with [almost] no crying! Hallelujah!

He's also learned to wake up from naps gracefully in the past six months. Right now I am listening to him babble in his pack-in-play over the monitor at the house where I nanny. The toddler is sleeping, baby girl is with her mama, and older boys are at school. Part of me wants to run and get Roger because I just like him, ya know? But the other part of me is glad he's having a conversation with himself so I can shoot out this little update.

Stats:
Sits up beautifully and almost seems like he's going to crawl if I turn my back.
Rolls everywhere he wants to go - often under furniture.
Pulls himself up to standing if he has something to grip.
He's tried avocado, turkey, and banana recently-- all have been a hit. I think he's going to be a great eater.
Total mama's boy-- he's started bursting into sudden tears if he realizes he can't see me and somebody else is holding him.
Social like his papa, especially when he sees other kids/babies.
Likes to pull hair, which has earned him the title "mean baby!" by a few unwary kids who wandered too close with their dangling locks.
Laughs when the boys I nanny are talking to me in the car.
Scowls at me when I brush my teeth.
Thinks he's entitled to my water glass.
"Wrestles" with daddy.

Ticklish almost everywhere!
Wears jammies all day most days.
Loves the bath and tries to drink the water.
And to my utmost pride, he knows how to play "up high, down low" and though he doesn't give the high-5 perfectly, he definitely knows he's playing along!

Doesn't know how to take a good selfie yet.

Now time just needs to slow down a little so I can keep him a baby just a little longer!

little things to be thankful for

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I absolutely love this holiday. We got a fresh blanket of snow overnight and I'm already thankful for that; it means the boys will be out playing in it for part of my work day. Snow play is always mood-enhancing to young children. Wholesome. And they are still at the ages where I can make them believe shoveling the snow isn't a chore (although their version of a shoveled driveway resembles a messily-frosted cake when they're done.)

I'm thankful for the deer and pheasants my husband got this week. He spent several hours processing the venison himself- which would have cost well over $100 to do at a meat locker-and while he was packaging cuts of it last night I was busy in the kitchen turning his pheasant stew from the weekend into a pot pie. I'm telling you, if you're going to eat game meat, pot pies are a good bet. So. Y u m m y. And the best part (besides knowing our meat has no antibiotics in it) is that it cost is so little and David got to have fun at his hobby simultaneously.

I'm thankful my son has been slightly better at sleeping lately. Hence the ability to write this morning. He was on strike from naps for a few days and I took to calling him my "never-nap." If you're an AD fan, you'll appreciate that I also pretend he's wearing denim cutoffs during the strike. I also picture a little mustache. But maybe that's taking it too far. Haha.

I'm thankful for coffee. And that Gilmore Girls is on Netflix. And that David scrapes the snow off my car in the morning. And for warm sweaters and my cozy boots. And for the little songs the toddler will sing at work today. And for my job that is like hanging out with my extended family five days a week. And for the family I get to see tomorrow. And for a husband that cooks and even cleans sometimes. And probably for many more things but I'm out of time. I'll just have to ponder that today.

I hope your thanksgiving is wonderful.

Perspective

I really enjoy my kid. Well, of course. But let me explain. I work full time as a nanny (to four kids I also enjoy--thankfully!) and so the cleanliness of my apartment is not at the level of probably even a lazy mom who doesn't work outside the home and can devote at least the minimum of her time to cleaning up after herself and her family. I could clean more religiously for sure, but I'd be missing large portions of these precious few days of my baby's babyhood.

A picturesque corner of my cluttered apartment, one of the limited places suitable for public appearance.

It sounds like I'm making excuses to not clean. But honestly I hate clutter. I hate that until Saturday my apartment usually sits in a state of utter chaos. I hate not wanting anyone to see my apartment six days out of the week. But what I realized this year was that I can't have it all; I can have a really clean apartment and miss savoring those little moments with Roger and David in the evenings where we are just a little family of three, or I can have a messy apartment and spend my evenings laughing and talking and snuggling and nursing my happy baby to sleep. I really haven't figured out a way to do both. Maybe I will someday. Maybe that comes when the kid finally sleeps through the night and mommy has energy again.

Motherhood brings me all sorts of new perspective. I mean, there are certain things you just can't learn from a book, or even by being told by someone who's learned it herself. Before Roger was born I was uber-prepared for childbirth. I read books on natural childbirth techniques, diet in pregnancy, breastfeeding guides, etc., and they all really helped me feel like I understood what I had undertaken, and made my labor go really well and helped so much as I began breastfeeding my tiny Biscuit in the hospital. But that's about as far as those books took me. Roger has defied all parenting guides. I don't doubt that most parents would say the same for at least one of their children; no matter what the books say to do to get them to sleep, eat, or behave as you think they ought, they just have a mind of their own.

Pre-motherhood me would have been shocked at six-months-of-motherhood me. I really thought I of all people, the professional nanny who's entire career has been working with babies and kids of all ages and special needs and autism and ADHD, would have had my baby trained like a perfect little puppy by now. Trained to eat on schedule, and take a bottle sometimes, and allow his father to put him to bed at night, and actually sleep in his crib. Hahahaha...HAHAHA...(this laugh is becoming a little maniacal...I'm scaring myself.)

What pre-motherhood me didn't know is how much more I would enjoy life if I just let go of what the books say and just follow my instincts and Roger's cues. When I was so concerned about "doing it right" instead of just going with the flow, I had some really, really, bad nights. Trying to get Roger to go to sleep in his crib and struggling for two+ hours, staying with him while he cried and cried, and then joining him myself and sobbing like a defeated, powerless failure of a mom, until we were both too worn out and just fell asleep together in my bed. The term "accidental parenting" branded me a failure in my own mind as I recalled it from reading "The Baby Whisperer."  Mommy guilt on top of sleep-deprivation and mild damage to my eardrums from baby decibels; those nights sucked. And perhaps from sheer exhaustion or weakness of will, I gave up on the idea of sleep-training and decided to let my baby be the sweet little baby he is while he is, and enjoy his precious dependence on me for his every need.

What a difference perspective makes. Roger hasn't become a better sleeper. Worse, even. He wakes up 3-6 times per night needing to nurse in order to be soothed. But I no longer worry about it. It won't last forever. And that makes it precious. He won't always be my baby, as "Love You Forever" has so achingly taught me. He won't always look at me like I am the be-all, end-all of his existence. And so for now, in all it's inconvenience, I still choose to cherish these fleeting moments of his littleness and neediness.

Milk drunk. That's how we party.

Toddler Lingo

I nanny four kids. One of them is a verbally-inclined 2-year-old. He can even pronounce my name correctly. No Wibby or Yibby, just Libby. A sampling of phrases I hear repeatedly throughout my day:

"Where ARE you, Libby?" - usually I'm a foot away but behind his back.

"DON'T! ...Libby." -I love the emphasis on "don't" and pause before my name.

"'doing, Libby?"  -he asks what I'm doing whenever I'm doing anything not directly for/with him.

"Pair-dane! Look!" -airplanes make him stop whatever he is doing.

"Monshers. Down-nare." -Yes. There are monsters down there. Go on thinking that, buddy. Then the basement is one less place you will be destroying when I'm preoccupied with the babies.

"Whore! See yat?" -he must not think very highly of squirrels.

"'memer?" -remember?

"One, twooo, fwee, five, seven, eight, nine, eleven, twelve, firteen, foteen, nighteen, eighteen, twuh-ee!"

"Whyyyy?"

"Got it?"

November Happy

I've loved all the Novembers of my adult life. I think I didn't appreciate them in childhood because I wanted them to pass quickly into December for Christmas and my birthday. But now, I savor Novembers. There is poetry in the air and in the dark gray mornings that have abruptly replaced the gone-too-soon golden phase of autumn. This gray and cold season before winter is underrated. It has so much expectation. Thanksgiving and Christmas and the New Year are separate individual blips on the radar of a whole season of warmth and peace and white, cold contrast of outdoors and in. I love November because it is the slow n o w of the holidays that is there to be enjoyed if you choose not to miss it. And not in a commercial, deck your house out with latest-trend decor and crank up the Christmas music kind of way, but in a quiet, appreciative of the good things in life kind of way. Fresh, quiet snow falling and cuddling in a warm bed with my husband and my baby on a lazy Saturday kind of way. How wonderful a hot bath feels kind of way. Baking cookies and leaving the oven door open afterward kind of way. Lighting candles in the twilight of 5pm. The scent of roasting pumpkins. The crunch of new snow underfoot. Sweaters. Scarves. Mittens. Wool socks you forgot about all summer only to receive again like a present when you open your out-of-season tote to put in your sandals and shorts. The little snow-suit your baby will wear for only one season and never again, as he grows so fast and each season is a unique moment of his short childhood never to be repeated.

Yay! (not sarcastic.)

I love all of it. I can't understand the complainers and winter-haters. Yes, it is cold. Yes, we live in the Midwest. Yes there is more work in getting ready to go out into the weather and driving is more difficult. But that is life, and life with all its challenges also has its joys and I think I'm better off savoring the joys as I weather the woes, than I would be getting upset about what I cannot change and will have to face anyway (like having to warm up my car every morning before work. But I'm not mentioning that.)

Roger and I in cozy sweaters. Courtesy of webcam/Picasa 1960's filter-- because I have to resort to whatever I can with my other cameras broken, and lost, respectively.

Today is the first true snow where we live. When I woke up with Roger smiling up at his mommy and blowing spit bubbles and raspberries to say good morning, I peaked out our window and was greeted with my favorite kind of snowy day: slow and steady large flakes falling and white everywhere you look. I got so excited, I picked Roger up and said, "Look Biscuit! That's snow! Yaaaaay! Snow! You're gonna love it!" And in that way that babies totally understand emotion even if they don't understand language yet, he leaned toward the window smiling and just looking. I was witnessing my son being enthralled with creation alongside me. I love November. And I hope we can enjoy the season together all the way until our silver white winter melts into spring.

(An aside: Dave is enjoying the first snow in his manly way: he went squirrel hunting before I woke up and came home and fried up his quarry for breakfast. He is now outside shoveling our walk even though snow removal is not our obligation as renters. He just loves it.)

Now off to Pinterest I go to review and add to my winter and holiday themed boards and do some laundry. Maybe have a cookie or two that we baked last night.
If anyone is reading this yet (new blog, but I'll start off with optimistic readership expectations,) what are the things you enjoy about the onset of winter and the holidays? Happy Saturday!