RIP Steve. From the Eye of a Little.

Do you let your children play with your iPhone? We do.

It is a great babysitter. Well, not babysitter. But, it is great, you know? They, with their facile minds, just get the iPhone. It was made for them, for their small swiping fingers and lateral thinking. For the last year my small ones, the ones I swore would never have their own cell phones until 35, have usurped, explored, played. I know Steve Jobs; the man maker genius, is gone. But oh god, what he left us.

Mace has fingers that fly. I am constantly amazed by his ability to process the way the iPhone works. He inherently 'gets' it and I barely keep up when he is teaching me just how to beat the next level of Angry Birds. But he also loves the camera. I would like to think we have encased our precious little babies (read:iPhones) in steel so we regularly turn them over for their exploration.

Mace takes pictures. 100s. When I tap Camera Roll I am simultaneously dismayed and amazed. I love his eye. Follows some of the pictures I found today on my Roll, eye by Mace, processing by Mama.






Thanks, Steve. For giving (much more) facile minds a way to express themselves. Your Stanford speech resonates in me in more way than one.

*** Used the Cameramatic app to 'enhance' Mason's photos/ which is even more evidence of the lasting impact of Jobs/ that y'all know what that means.

They turned 4. They turned four and they care so much about good guys and bad guys. They want to defend and rebuild and shoot something. They want to make things and do things and ignore requests and sometimes dance, and sometimes fight and almost never eat.


Mason laughs like me. He also yells like me, with these immediate sharp excalmations of purpose that make everyone jump and run to see if everything is okay. His laugh, his giggle, it is like a silly sunshine that makes your stomach hurt it is so cute. He cannot pronounce 'L' so it comes out like a "y". He wants to be every superhero there is which includes spiderman, batman, green goblin (he is easy on the superhero definition). Also light saber man, trashman and stripeman (his favorite pair of pajamas).

Owen is a force. Of will, of good, of purpose. He can literally disassemble a picnic bence without direction. He can shift a mood from good, to insane, back to good. Because he wants pizza. He understands that people can be good and bad at the same time and he already understands that about me. He cannot stand watching someone be hurt. He also has no compunction about doing the hurting when he is pissed. Which is a lot like me.

They did it. They went and became people despite the fact that we were not sure that we could make people. Well, ones that we like, anyway.

They are lovely and funny and like to pretend that they can save anyone and like to wear three shirts at the same time (especially if those three shirts layer int his order :: batman shirt, spiderman shirt, dinosaur shirt). Mace likes bok choy and told me it makes him strong enough to carry the laundry basket. Owen hates bok choy (or anything green or meat) but will eat the hell out of a peanut(almond)(sunflower) butter and boysenberry sandwich three times a day.


Something somewhere decided that Tim and I should be given two souls at the same time. Two souls encapsulated in the small oddly shaped little people that arrived 4 years ago. Two boys that chose to come with each other because that is what they and we needed. I remember my first reaction was not exactly joy. I think I was kinda' pissed. Something along the lines of 'shit, did not sign up for this'.

They grew on me.

In every way possible.

They have made me. Not better, not mama, not parent. Just made me. Because all that I was before is still here. But all that I am because of them is so much more.

I love you boys, so very very much.

The party was fun and consisted of kids, sugar filled eggs and Legos (and a sweet bebe to squeeze and pass and a Costco sheet cake because of a failed cake experiment at 10 p.m. the night before that included whipping egg whites until stiff and the resulting 3/4 inch tall cake).


I love the way it seems like they are looking at each other in these photos even though the photos are a bit crappy ...



Until next year ... signing off the birthday posts now (with a little sentimental swipe at the eyes).

Write It Out

It is always wonderful and a bit strange to arrive at a new point with the boys, a place I had hoped we would be someday. That happened this weekend with the start of what I hope will become a weekly tradition and practice, that of Journaling.


I recall reading a post over a year ago, cannot remember where. It was about the joy of journaling with small children. At the time the boys were so young, able to scribble and scrabble and have fun with pen and ink, but also very into using lots and lots of pages. We have always tried to incorporate drawing/writing/coloring etc, but never in a truly focused way.

Then I read a post over at Chookooloonks about starting a journal for the new year. A real written journal with pages and stuff. That needs a hand and pen and stuff. And it sounded good. (The link came from my new muse, Erica, who is rocking my 365 world and making it a pleasure to play on Flickr more)(She blogs here with her cool sister-who-is-also a-mama-of-beautiful-twin-girls Jill).

I headed out to Target with gift cards in hand (I've been very good at work apparently) and perused the notebook section until I spotted one that called to me. Something about faux leather and graph paper that I cannot resist.


Anyway, I thought I would pick up two extra for the boys to attempt a weekly journal practice with them. They are really into storytelling and letters and writing, their new school setting is so wonderful about prompting this without forcing and we are watching them reap the benefits.


We sat down Sunday at the table with the notebooks turned to the first page and the date marked on the top.

Their journals are really just spiral bound pages that lay flat and are made from banana which is pretty cool. I thought I would prep the area a bit and had some magazine pages featuring winter in Nova Scotia (brrr) and pencils, pens and a few Sharpies (man, those kids love Sharpies).

And I let them go to town.

It was an interesting experience.



I was pleasantly surprised that they understood and agreed to use just one page and it was fascinating to watch their 'process'. First it was oral with scribbles, then they got into the pictures, cutting and pasting and telling me all about what was happening. I journaled with them in my little book and we finished with a few notes by me on their pages and their names traced.

I loved that they also gave me the books without any freak outs and helped me put them away until next week with the instructions that I take care of their journal. We sat at the table for about 30 minutes altogether and ended up finding a new place/space to share with each other. This is one of the things that I love about their growing. Always finding new places and spaces together.


If you have little people I would encourage you to do this with them. Seeing how proud they were of their creations and knowing I will look back over them someday down the line have made me commit to following through. If you do play along, let me know.

2011 is shaping up to be a year of projects and doing and making and I am getting more and more excited about it. So, come join in the with us. Even if you do not have littles you can journal, just read that link to get excited and inspired. Happy hand writing, friends

Cookie Maker (get it, Em, get it?)

Now that the sick has gone, I am more than ready to focus on the upcoming holiday. Yay for recovery and the realization post-ick than my normal level of daily energy is more than enough to get things done.

The season of cookie making is upon us and so far this year it has gone quite well. Last year we made sugar cookies, but the recipe was off in some way and less than satisfactory to roll, cut and eat. This year we have had two spot on recipes that have been prepped, rolled and baked with help of some worker elves.



I am loving the simplicity of the sugar cookie recipe from MS magazine this year and it comes with some great ideas to alter the basic recipe. We made the vanilla and chocolate version yesterday. With three under the age of 4. And it actually went well. I think it was due to some pre-planning and a lot of designating.



Things I learned ::

- Set up stations, we had a dry measure station and a mixer station that we moved between. I let the kids measure from a big container of flour and it stayed fun that way. Plus they even helped me clean up.



- Do not let them handle the soft butter. Enough said.

- Also do not let them flip the Kitchenaid switch after adding the flour. Big mess.

- My one Must Do :: Let them taste the dough (Samonella be damned).



- Make the dough, chill it and leave the whole roll out thing until the next day. The attention span of the littles is good for only one step at a time.

The recipes for the vanilla dough is here. It is a Martha recipe, but that is the first link I found. Plus, I am trying not to frequent the MS website too often as it just makes me confused and distracted as to the holiday crafting/creating in my life. Waaaay too many options over there.

The other cookies we made were pre-plague cookies, up at the Cabin actually. Gingerbread cookies. They are again a MS favorite and they are really really good. They also make a load of cookies. The recipe calls for 6 cups of flour. That is a lot of cookies, people. But I never halve the recipe because we always end up eating the first few trays that come out of the oven.


(He looks a little gansta' here, right?)

We had a blast cutting letters into the dough and making some free form snowmen, etc. I have found this dough tastes great at any thickness, the thinner you roll it, the crisper the cookie. Thicker leaves them dense and chewy. And delicious all around.



Come Sunday, all the cookies are to be laid out on a table with frosting and sprinkles and candies and such for the littles to decorate. While the adults curse me for the mess their children will become. Sunday we are having are annual Indonesian lumpia holiday fest. Can I get a what what for fried traditional feast food?

Here is to your healthy cookie-fied deep fried beautiful holiday season. And I am looking to bring a bit of the holiday posting here sooner than later. Wish me luck.

Weathering It

You know, you hope and dream that your children will grow to love the same things you do, love the same life you live. And then you see that they do and it makes you feel so very good.


I am not sure how many parents embrace the idea that they know how to raise children. It seems in this day there is always some expert offering the latest way to do things or an explanation for why things are as they are. But how often do we hear that we do know what to do? That we are doing a good job?

Ha ha. I wrote the above a week ago, hours before our family was slammed for the second year in a row by some terrible virus. Let me tell you, I did not feel the above at all in the last 7 days. Alternately I felt like throwing one of them or myself or maybe even Tim somewhere. But I could not because I could not really get up long enough to do so. There is a particular kind of evil to your whole family coming down with something at the same time, its like being taken out by the knees. Not good.

Now we are almost on the other side of it, the boys are coming around and getting back to some semblance of sleep. We, the adults, are hacking up less stuff (and the stuff hacked up is becoming less disgusting in nature and color). Every time I wanted to cry and stop this week, I thought that if my throat feels like someone shredded it with broken glass, well, imagine how a the little people must feel. No wonder there was almost constant wailing and wake ups.

So, the post originally featured some adorable clips of the boys at snow play. And it still will. Because, now, a week after our fun and successful and chilly getaway, I am reminded to embrace the days that are just that. It ain't always sunshine and roses, but when it is, it sure is fun.

Fall Here, Fall Where?

We are having a terribly schizophrenic Fall with temperatures that are bouncing from the 100s to the 50s with not much middle ground. I am not a big fan. I know that the seasons seem hard to seperate in Southern Calfornia but this is getting a bit ridiculous.

We tried to feel Fall-ish last week by heading up to Oak Glen, a little foothill enclave of a town where they grow apples and host a few small family farms.



The weather accomodated by staying a bit on the chilly but bright side. The boys actually needed to wear the hoodies they had on (though Mace threw an awful fit when we tried to get him to wear a pair of pants)(They happened to be a pair of pants I sewed for him and so I felt a little miffed).



Just the mere act of getting together and going somewhere special helped the season come a bit more into focus and though we skipped bringing home a apple pie (it was freaking 14$...woah, right?) we did bring home a bag of apples and some shots that I think are destined for the next Christmas card.


There was a tiny stone building open for tours, the old school house. It was well preserved and charming and managed by two little autocratic elderly German ladies (one of which kept thrusting an old 3D view finder into the faces of all entering. That was a little weird). The boys loved it, carefully seating themselves at the old wood desks, shuffling the little wooden dominoes and looking more than a little like school boys.


Life has been almost a schizo as the weather lately. I am coming off a three week stint of working full time and feeling grateful for the extra income, but also aware of how freaking ridiculously hard it is to work full time and mother and make life happen. I was glad to have the opportunity to make the extra money and glad to see this Friday come as it marked the end to the 40 hour work week.

And so, today, I spent sewing and with a 'picnic' in the park gathering some brilliant leaves with the boys and walking them in the stroller (a very rare occurence these days) and I feel as if something has decompressed. I made a doll, I made a dinner and I made a faux pregnant belly for a friend for a late Halloween party and I am ready to call it a day and throw that 30 Rock Season 2 DVD in and relax with the husband.

Sometimes I marvel at how the mundane in my life feels so much more like living than other parts.

Just like I marvel that it was 98 yesterday, and it's going to be 65 tomorrow. I prefer the 65. We get to wear more hoodies and hats and that makes us all look cuter.

Transitions

Another season passes by, I am left wondering when it happened. The Summer that was is now gone and I realize I should change my header from iris to fallen leaf ...


I came home from work today early, no patients to be had, a slump of epic proportions hitting at just the wrong time. It was cloudy all day, the marine layer pressing into the Foothills, letting in just enough light to dispel gloom and give the hint of false Fall.

I played with the boys, read library books, juggled work and calls and then I felt antsy-itchy-had to get out of the house-ness. I felt like we all needed to come up for some air.

And so we did. Less than 5 minutes from our home, the Foothills sit. Always constant in their demeanor. Always gorgeous in their light. Always mine. I know them like my own hands, each curve and bend and dip, each pressing hill and rolling descent.


We used to walk there all the time, every week at least. Pushing the well-equipped stroller through dust and dirt or mud and bumps.


But it has been awhile. Too long. Long enough that the boys were apprehensive in the early dusk light that falls under the old oaks, asking repeatedly about bears. Little did they know that it is actually the mountain lion one should watch for up here. I didn't mention that. We did talk about oak trees and poison oak ... I tried to impress upon them the utter difference in the two but probably just saddled them with more apprehension.



It felt so good, so freeing to me. To be in that spot, push their combined weight up the hills, sweat, breathe, look up. We laughed about horse poop and they demanded that I be careful even when running down the hill; they really did not want the horse poop on their stroller.

And then I realized it was the Equinox. So fitting to come back to my backyard home now that Summer is passing. The unbearable heating will not totally ease for some time, the Santa Anas will sweep in this weekend to super heat and spark wildfires .. but we are almost there. Almost back to those easy cool meandering hikes in our place.


I know they will know these curves too. Already they are telling me "remember last year ('last year' is their term for anything in the past) when we were here". I plan on them remembering it more. Me too.

Just Say NO.

Last week my Mom found a great library book for the boys titled NO DAVID! It is about a little boy that hears a litany of NOS! from his Mama for his every action and the boys love it to bits. They insist that we read through the scenes page after page while they inform us of every wrong David is doing, all the things he does that gets him into big trouble.

They tell me David should not come over because he does some pretty 'bad' stuff. They do not get the irony of telling David to "Stop that this instant!' on the page where he is picking his nose... while they are picking their own noses.

Every single thing that David does is an action that the boys have somehow incorporated into our daily lives... climbing for cookies (or in Owen's case, the giant bag of M&Ms my Dad poorly stashes in their room), tracking in mud after a session in the backyard, running naked down the sidewalk (this one really gets the to the boys because though they are down with the naked, they know it does not happen in the front yard. God forbid...)

I take a perverse satisfaction while reading it in the sheer amount of NOs I am allowed to say without feeling guilty. Because there are a lot of NOs involved in the raising of twin boys that are three. Like, double the usual. And that is okay.

What I really love is that the author of the book re-wrote this book as an adult. The first edition was made by him when he was a little boy and had the same basic premise. He heard NO a lot. But I love that what stuck with him when he viewed the little booklet from his youth was not just the NOs but the love that his Mama had for him in the end.







You should find it. It is a great book. And believe me, if you have boys you will get it. And if you want them, well, don't say you haven't been warned. They really are little heathens.

And, totally unrelated, but I love this shot of my Mama. She is the coolest. Also, she finds really great library books.


Love you, Mama.

Playing Catch Up

The Playtime title might be a little misleading...there has been precious little time to get all the Play I want into our daily lives. The boys? They play all day, of course. That is what three year olds with no obligations or schedule are wont to do. Me? Since our return from the uber trip I have had to make myself ultra available for work in order to, let's say, catch up.

And so work work work has been going on and very little blog blog blogging. For me, blogging is my playtime and I have missed it a bit. But when those Play moments are spare I like to choose to devote them to offline time and that is where I have been. Mainly.

I know I said I would make some time for trip posts but that time feels long gone. It was a good trip. We went many many places, the boys loved it and I already miss the feel of unpacking our lives in a new space every few days. I finally sat down to look through the 'real' pictures from the trip on the desktop and I found a few that I loved. Something about the clarity of a good shot from a real camera... it strikes the memory and I can almost smell the air in each location.


Bellingham, WA


Orcas, WA


Whistler, Canada
A playground


A boy. Named Owen.


Found heart.

Can you miss a place that you have never really lived and don't truly know? I think so. One thing that was clarified in that trip is the desire to head North again. Next year, Summer 2011, we will try to go and stay for months and months if we can. What a dreamy idea. And what I have learned is put the dream out there to let it breathe.

So there was that. Now I will tackle the 4th. I was almost a perfect repeat of last year; town parade, town fair, town fireworks. We really just stayed close to home and walked everywhere with the stroller which was great fun in itself. I wore a dress. And spent time with the family. Here is the evidence....My fave ore the ones with my sister.




I love how ridiculously happy we look. I think we were.


He made the hat at Library Hour. With Daddy. Makes me so proud. Which is kinda' ridiculous too.


The Lindy sisters do-whopping (or something).


Does not like pony. Absolutely does not.


Absolutely adores the pony...he is shining in his happiness, right?

Okay, so now that I have that out of my system, I will return to some semblance of regular posting round here. Or not. Just depends on work. Family. The gym (oooh, we are new best friends and I have been taking a weight 'lifting/sculpting' class and I am not sure if it is helping but I love it and feel awfully powerful). The library and the actual reading of books (Goodreads, are you on it??). Stuff, you know.

But I miss this sometimes and you my ether friends. So say hi if you would.