Better Late (Thankful) than Never

I rolled back into work on Monday, straight into an meeting, followed by an hour conference call and then six and a half hours of a meeting with out of town collaborators. All that talk talk talk makes me thankful for the weekend just past.

I am also thankful for:

• family (mine and Chris's both) - I got so lucky to have all these people to whom I am related by birth or marriage that I liketo be around. Also, my children are more wonderful than insane, though they are certainly a healthy dose of the latter as well. I never get over how good it feels to have three little people come running in at the sound of the opened door, yelling "Mommy's home! YAY! Mommy's home!"
• work - I continue to have a fulfilling job with people I like doing something I care about. Oh, and I have some flexibility in my scheduling too. 
• home - my house is warm and cozy, with a fire often in the fireplace and good smells coming from the kitchen. I live on a fantastic block with thoughtful, generous, fun neighbors, most of whom are good cooks too. My city is easy to love; interesting and filled with cool little discoveries. Plus, it has lots of bridges. The state is beautiful and often progressive despite itself.
• friends - from my closest friends to people we are getting to know, I feel love and acceptance. Often people laugh at my jokes and praise my children. 
• health - My body has continued to let me run without complaining too much, which gives me the emotional and physical balance I have been needing. It even stops raining for long enough now and then to make runs reasonably pleasant. 

What more could I want? Oh right, holidays that remind me how lucky I am to have so much.

Place cards from Thanksgiving dinner, by Ada with help from her aunt and uncle 

The kids' table at Second Thanksgiving dinner this past weekend.

Unclear on the Concept

Mmm, cake.

Moments after we all walked into the house, Ian was on the couch, yelling:  "Strawberry mrrmmmrrm! I want strawberry mrrmmmrrm"

"What?" I asked, "what do you want?"

"I want strawberry mrrmmmrrm" repeated Ian.

"Is that something you can eat?"

"Strawberry mrrmmmrrm"

"Is it something you read? Something you watch? What is strawberry mrrmmmrrm?"

louder, more emphatically: "Strawberry mrrmmmrrm! Strawberry mrrmmmrrm! Strawberry mrrmmmrrm!"

"Is it something on television?"

"YES. Strawberry mrrmmmrrm!"

"Strawberry Shortcake?"

"Yes, I want Strawberry Shortcake!"

"Oh. We aren't watching television right now."

"I WANT STRAWBERRY TELEVISION CAKE!"

 

Does he look like a kid who doesn't get enough cake?

Miss Me?

A few months ago I had a great idea for a blog post on the theme: "if you have time to blog about work-life balance, you have some." I never wrote the post, which should tell you something about the state of my life. Things are going really well, but wow, the busy.

At 2 and a couple of months, Ian is starting to use the potty, with little or no prompting from his parents. Mira was the first to use the potty, but after one successful try she has figured out that the potty is more fun as a distraction tool. She likes to declare her desire to use the potty whenever she is faced with something she'd rather not do (get her diaper changed, put her pajamas on, eat breakfast...). Ian has been shockingly interested in non-diaper based elimination. Thrilling and thoroughly unexpected. Who says boys are harder to train? We are a while off from dumping diapers completely, but we are making some good progress without trying much. (Anyone who remembers what we went through with Ada will find this a big and pleasant change.)

When I am not working and marveling at Ian's willingness to use the potty, we have been having a good, if fairly mellow, summer. We went to our college reunion, Ada turned six, we celebrated 4th of July with family and I took a bunch of pictures on a work trip to Chicago.

 

Newish Chicago Icon

More recently we spent a week at the beach with my family. The weather was better than ever in the years I have been going to the Oregon coast. Amazing. Even better, Ada got over her fear of the water. She lead me repeatedly into the waves, much to Ian's horror. We heard "look out, the ocean! look out!" a lot from him. Mira, who pretty much refused to touch the sand last year was a lot more willing to play on the beach, so long as we didn't expect her to get near that scary water stuff.

Mira and Ada on the beach

Ada and I built a fairy house, which was very fun to do. In case this isn't in your repertoire, Ada offers the following public service announcement: Fairy houses must be built with all natural components; no artificial/human made items and nothing currently growing. So no picking flowers, but fallen leaves are fine. Or in our case, sea weed, shells, driftwood and dried sea grass.

 
fairy attractor, dune scaler, child who posed for 10 minutes 

but later declared she does not like her picture taken

 

we could have never left the porch and Mira would have still had a good time

 
proof that we had fun inside the house too: cherry juice stained boy

After a few days to recuperate and wash the sand out of our pants, we went to see Chris' family, including his 94 year old grandmother.

great grandma

We had a great time, despite the rigors of traveling with three kids. (Pro tip: take a third adult with you!)

How can you resist toddlers in tiny cars?

And lest I forget to tell you the exciting news: my sister and her husband have a book out! It looks like this:

The book is great - funny, interesting and compelling. Also, pictures! recipes! a comic! Really, I laughed, I cried, it became a part of me. Go buy it and read it now. This means you, Maggie.

Before the summer is over we have a few more tricks up our sleeves. Maybe I can commit to a post every couple of weeks, just to tap the mike. You may have forgotten me, but I miss you. 

'cause I know you need this information

While catching up on a million posts on Craft, I ran across a great site called Visual.ly filled with infographics. What's an infographic, you ask? It is a visual depiction of information, not necessarily but often (at least to me) humorous.

Speaking of humorous infographics, I love this one on how to determine the trustworthiness of a man in a given style of beard. Apparently John Waters' moustache is just slightly less horrible than Hitler's.

Wouldn't you want one in your town?

The Awesome Foundation funds cool projects. Check it out.

And here is a video of a project funded by the foundation:

Time is like a river, or is that an ocean?

In honor of Ada's birthday, I offer one of the poems she wrote recently:

The Ocean

In the ocean the jellyfish is swimming.
The ducks are in danger because the shark is there.
The turtle is happy because the water is warm.
There is three happy sea stars in the water.

-Ada
May 2011