Nathan @ 7 months

My darling little Nater-tot is 7 months old today!  Hip hip hurray!

Things seem so much better this month in Nathan-land.  He’s once more happy to nurse, he’s (usually) sleeping through the night (we still do have the occasional howl-filled evening, but generally only if he has a cold or something like that), and he delights in feeding himself!  Bananas are a real favorite, although generally they just slide right out of his little fist, but that doesn’t deter his enthusiasm in the slightest. He also really loves refried beans and mashed sweet potatoes with ginger.  And pumpkin pie just about blew his mind.  That was one happy baby!

  Nathan can now sit without support, so he’s really been enjoying playing with his toys in an upright position! Whenever he’s on his back he will almost instantly roll over to his stomach, but he still hasn’t figured out how to roll back the other way—so he howls until somebody comes and fixes things for him. He seems less motivated to move around since there is so much to look at and so many people to bring him things--honestly, I am very content to have my fifth baby hanging out rather than cruising around like mad!  He spends a lot of time "surfing" on his belly--he doesn't move his arms and legs against the floor so he can push off, but he lifts all of his limbs and moves them like crazy.  I think he must have the most amazing abs. (And all that kicking practice pays off at bathtime, because he can completely SOAK any and all bystanders...yesterday Luke was helping Neil to bathe Nathan and then Luke came crying to me and said, "Nafie kick dee water so fast and now I am sooooo wet!")

He’s still a pretty slender little guy—I can never keep socks on him because he just doesn’t have those chunky fat rolls on his ankles! But he does have little rolls and he eats happily and well, so apparently this is just how Nathan does it.





Yesterday Isaac and I were talking and he told me that he didn’t want me to ever have any more babies, because Nathan is the cutest and sweetest baby in the entire world and Isaac wants Nater-tot to always be his baby and not get big.  Pretty much that sums up Nathan in a nutshell—little darling ball of heaven.

Luke at seven months Isaac at seven months Juliet around seven months (one of my all-time favorite posts)

Abigail, I love you, but there was no blog when you were a baby

Create

So this is what my kitchen table looks like as I'm typing--a papier-mache rhino head drying out its first coat of paint, and a sunburst mirror behind it, also drying in its clamps.  I put away my sewing machine earlier after I used it to make a pair of curtains for my living room, which I hung up on rods that I also made (and Neil hung).

I walked around my house a few minutes ago and counted 42 unique decor projects that I have completed since Nathan was born.  I didn't include painting the kitchen cabinets, walls, and trim, the bathroom walls, cabinets, and trim, the living room and foyer walls and trim, the hall, etc.  You get the idea.

Point is, I've been on a project whirlwind lately.

I was grading papers earlier this week and one of my student groups had written a paper about psychological disorders.  After discussing talk therapy and medication, they started writing about the research that's been done on alternative therapies...like art therapy, and how it's very effective for some people.  It was a lightbulb moment for me.

I don't think I've managed to work through any deep-seated psychological issues while I've been painting  and drawing and sewing and dipping my hands into papier-mache.  But I do know that it has been incredibly calming for me.  Embroidering silver flowers onto a blue velvet pillow, positioning paste-soaked newspaper strips, sketching my children's favorite book characters...this is what, in large part, has gotten me through the summer and fall.  It's given me something to look forward to, it's made the days different from one another, and it's given me something that at the end of the day stays permanently done.

When I was younger I sort of had a prejudice against crafts--for some reason I pictured it as women who weren't very smart or talented and sat around painting kitschy wooden figurines--I suppose my thought was that you would only do crafts if you couldn't do anything else.  My mom tended to spend more of her creative energies gardening or cooking (at least this is how I remember things...she may differ on this!  I do remember that she valiantly sewed my first formal dress, something which I appreciated WAY more once I started sewing myself!).  I did do some cross-stitching and I made a few projects in school, but basically I was a terrible artist and always viewed "making stuff" as something that I couldn't do well.

I still don't think I'm the most talented artist in the world, but I really, really, really enjoy it.  I love making things.  I love creating something beautiful(ish) out of a bunch of random materials that I glean from around my house.  I love changing the way my home looks or a room feels with simple additions.  And I love spending time creating things with my children.  Isaac and I spent a happy afternoon building the frame for that rhino, and he was so delighted.  Jules asked me to teach her to knit last year, and we spent many happy interludes snuggled up together trying to figure out what we were doing! Abigail has sewn stuffed animals for all her siblings, and she has a real knack for hand embroidery that is so fun to see. And Luke and Isaac, of course, are my permanent table-top audience as I'm sewing.  Isaac's preschool teacher mentioned to me the other day that he is an incredibly talented artist, and I was so thrilled because I felt like I was helping him to develop that facet of his own personality.

I waited so long to join Pinterest because I worried  that it would make me spend even more time online when I was already trying to cut back.  When Nathan was born, I began allowing myself to look at Pinterest only when I was nursing, and it has been so fun to see the wealth of creative ideas and beautiful handiwork that people around the world are creating.  Even if I worry that my house looks like a Pinterest Fail.  :-)

I don't really know where this post is going--I suppose I just wanted to say that I love making things.  And I resonate so much with this:

time for a picture dump again!

Abigail made this label and stuck it on a bottle filled with peanut M&Ms for Neil.  Totally stole the idea from my friend, but it was awesome.

Done with project grading and I figured I’d knock out another to-do list item: blogging!  But first of all, I feel like my blog has been sort of lack-luster in content for the past…while.  I have lots of ideas for posts but I’m curious as to what people would be interested in reading.  Stuff about my kids? Recipes or food somethings? Holiday books we love that I think you might love too? Books or toys my kids love that I would recommend? (Can you tell I’ve thinking about Christmas?) Something else?

Anyway…some photos.  Confession: it’s been so long since I uploaded the photos from my camera (I’ve mostly been using my iPad) that I couldn’t remember what the cord looked like.  Sheesh.


So if my kids ever complain about their childhoods when they're adults, I'm just going to show them these three pictures and say, "WHATEVER.  It was awesome!" (And then they'll be like, "Yeah, Mom, we remember exactly how much of that candy you really let us eat...")

So one day we went on a hike & packed along a picnic lunch.  Isaac really didn't want to go (it was a couple of weeks after he had his tonsils out and he was still super grumpy but ohmygosh I felt like I would die if I was inside the house all day for one more day).  Anyway, he took all of his clothes off in protest, so we loaded him up totally naked into the car and went on our way.  He did eventually put his clothes on midway through the picnic and we went on our walk.  This probably says quite a bit about my approach to parenting Isaac--I've learned that I never ever win if I make it a power struggle, and I tend to just sit back and let him work it out on his own.

Somewhere on our walk...

A month or so ago Neil and I met up for lunch at a playground (I think maybe I blogged about this already?) to "celebrate" our engagement.  It was so nice to be with him.  He had ordered a couple of pizzas (there are some extremely passionate feelings about pizza toppings in our family and never the twain shall meet) and we just hung out and enjoyed the rare treat of seeing each other during the day.

I promise that Luke really WAS having fun.

And it was my darling Tot-Tot's first venture on a swing!

This is my view whenever the kitten hears dishes clinking--he comes racing in and starts mewing for someone to give him his canned wet food.  It's kind of the cutest thing ever.

Someday I will get a decent picture of myself running, but this was not the day!  I'm the one in the white jacket looking like a moron.  I had so many layers on, and I was trying to wave to Luke, and the combination of layers and waving didn't go well.

I looked even more attractive post-race.  DO you like that pink sweatshirt?  I've had it since seventh grade and it is a total wreck and I will never throw it away because it's the most comfortable piece of clothing I own.

Here's a real-life confession for you:  I had some pink frosting already made up and so when the kids wanted to frost sugar cookies for their Primary teachers I just mixed food coloring into the pink frosting.  Because I'm awesome like that.  Bats are sort of greenish-blue, right?

And I still think these are the best toys ever.

And Tot-tot is awake, so I'm done for the night.

Luke and the world's most patient kitten

 

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Focus on the positive

Lately I have been really struggling with my self-esteem.  I look around at my life and see all of the ways I'm falling short, or all of the things I'm not doing, or all of the things that someone else is doing better.  And when I do think of something I'm doing well, I immediately add a "but I don't" statement to qualify it.

Last night I was feeling so awful about myself that I really had trouble sleeping--Neil and I had spent the entire day working on various house projects and we had accomplished a TON of things--but all I could think about was what else I should have done, or how I should have done something more efficiently, or for a smaller cost, or that Neil really shouldn't have been home helping because he should have been at work all day.  Argh.

So I challenged myself this afternoon to think of ten things that I am good at, and refused to record the qualifiers that I normally would have added.  It took me kind of an embarrassingly long time to come up with this list, but such as life.

1) I'm good at managing the needs & medication schedule of my often-sick children and nursing my babies as long as I can, despite some pretty daunting challenges.  Nathan's feedings, for instance, require that I try to nurse him (he usually eats for less than 2 minutes), and then pump, and then somehow get the pumped milk into him via syringe, bottle (he doesn't do well with this), or mixing with oatmeal.  It's a long and exhausting process and I do it over and over every day.  Someone once left a very hurtful comment on my blog about how often my children are sick and I appreciated so much the person who countered by saying how lucky my kids are to have a mother who can remember who needs a breathing treatment when and everyone's dosage schedule.  That kind comment has brought me so much comfort.

2) I'm good at starting AND finishing projects.

3) I'm good at keeping track of everyone's homework assignments, practice schedules, permission slips, and knowing who their friends are and how their day went.  I'm good at making time to touch base with all of my kids every day.

4) I'm good at exercising consistently.

5) I'm good at creating daily opportunities to read stories and cuddle with my children.

6) I'm good at vacuuming my house every day and keeping things acceptably tidy.

7) I'm good at separating work & family responsibilities and not allowing my job to infringe on my time with my children.

8) I'm good at baking bread.

9) I'm good at washing laundry frequently enough so that everyone always has clean clothes.

10) I'm good at creating traditions and memorable moments for our family.