reviving the family blog
ok, i am reviving the family blog without any snarky comments about how much i suck at keeping up with the family blog.
other than that sideways one.
it is officially summer here and our winter blahs MUST be over, because i am feeling the need to redecorate, mostly outside.
tomorrow i am off, and i am going to celebrate the revival of the family blog by doing a photopictorial “day in the life”!
also, i hope that by sending this link around to family members again that your comments let me know that you are reading, which will inspire me to post regularly and keep us all in touch with each other in this small way.
whoa!!
holy craptastic blogging skills, batmama. it has been five whole weeks, that is ridiculous. so much has gone on that it is a little intimidating to try and catch up, which is what is stopping me actually these last few times i thought, “go update the family blog, mama…”
so there is no better way than to just jump right in with some major moments. here we go…
vincent turned four. yep.
making the cake, actual birthday.
until dada puts a mosaic over his bits and pieces, i can’t post any more “baking the cake” pictures because, as he is often these days, vincent was naked while we were doing this.
wait, how old are you today??
oh, right. that many.
here is the birthday boy making a wish on his cake “on the day”, which was wednesday.
make a wish baby!
after his bath, he got into killer pajamas from his grandma, because his grandma kicks ass. we totally missed her being here this year. vincent didn’t stop asking when she was coming “from the beach”…she treated us to a week at the beach last summer and now vincent is convinced that “grandma lives at the beach”. yeah, kiddo, i bet she wishes that too!
monster pjs, one of several gifts from grandma.
things to remember about this day…
vincent had so much fun making his cake with me, made me write “happy birthday vincent” on it in red, and then dumped 20 pounds of jimmies on top, totally obscuring the message. hilarious.
the cake was lemon with pink frosting, he picked these.
sitting around the table, just the three of us, singing happy birthday to him. i don’t think we ever did this before. it was sweet beyond measure and i will remember it forever.
ok, i gotta go. coming soon…
vincent’s party
jonah arrives
christmas tree
happy birthday vincent
ever since i can remember, i have known that i wanted to be a mom. i had three opportunities before you. two i chose not to follow through with, one decided for me. the minute i saw your face, i knew that you were my soul mate, my first born, my angel, my sidekick.
you are so smart, and you are hilariously funny. you keep me honest, you keep me on my toes, you keep me invested. you remind me every single day that i am at the same time so important, and yet always and naturally unimportant. your nonna was right…motherhood is equally empowering and humbling. i would like to add galvanizing to that.
you are happy, and that is beautiful. you are starting to get very opinionated, and that is beautiful too, even when i am screaming into a pillow in another room from you. you are my son, how could you be anything but rebellious? i love you and i understand you.
you have been here for four years today, although you and i have been together for almost five. i cry as i am writing this because i will most likely not have any more children, and that is fine. i cry only because i am grateful that every second of your existence has been part of mine, and i planned you, wanted you. whether i am able to give you a sibling or not, you were on purpose my love.
i remember the first time i felt you. i remember it totally. i remember finally deciding to find out what you were, after two really vivid dreams about you being a boy. i remember it all.
before we met, we were already together.
turning one.
turning two
turning three
last week.
and i will be back soon to put a picture of you up from today. you are playing dress up, the play room looks like elton john just had a temper tantrum in it, and i can hear you clomping up the hallway in my old high heel boots that you swiped to complete your pirate outfit.
you can have them. i love you little boy.
damien thorn has moved into my house.
see the resemblance?
but wow.
i created this blog to remember more about these times in our family, and we do occasionally do things other than redecorate, so here is a post about the past three or four weeks.
those of you that know me, that know my son, know that he has been mellow most of his life. he was a mellow newborn, i mean, he cried, don’t get me wrong, but he was fairly easily soothed by nursing or going outside, and granted, i spent the first year of his life exhausted from the effort (oh yeah, and starting grad school and finding out that my gestational diabetes had not gone away, and all that). but he was not “high needs” or anything like that. he would sleep in his sling or stroller anytime, really. i could go anywhere with him, he was my little sidekick.
this continued for a long time. well, really until about a month ago. he is almost four. will be four in a matter of DAYS, actually. and last month a lot of things changed. he lost some important aspects of his routine, mostly his mondays with geneva and her family. it was bound to happen, i say this only because it was entirely too perfect to last. and it didn’t. nothing perfect lasts. perfection is a myth! haha.
an aside about geneva, my amazing, dynamic, tireless, organic, unschooling, homebirthing, inspiring friend, who has been the only non-family member to keep my child for me with any regularity since his birth, and has done so for the past two years. she has him right now, actually. she just needed a break from the every monday structure and i respect that. but really, if i could afford to offer her $100 an hour to be my only childcare, i would. that is it. she is awesome and her kids are awesome (all three of them!) and vincent is so happy and safe with her. geneva, such a good friend and mama.
anyway, vincent has been having temper tantrums. for the first time. we had no terrible twos, no trying threes. i know that these fits are very age-appropriate, and they will pass, and they are all about his new levels of independence and the inconsistency of our family schedule…(our schedules are the same every week, but not every day. this is hard for a four year old to get. mondays we do this, tuesdays we do that…a week is a long time for them. they are like goldfish.)
i need to fall back and regroup.
all of that, on a monday, and to top it off, literally, my cowlick won’t quit! gimme a break.
cow. lick.
on an up note, the trip to IKEA with the remnants of last year’s gift cards was FRUITFUL and AWESOME, and wednesday morning, i am going to get to work on the last part of the playroom redesign. SO excited.
bake, craft, clean, repeat
i love fridays. i especially love them when i have no plans to be anywhere, and the weather is nice and i can open the windows and have a breeze and bake without feeling like i am going to die of a heatstroke. i love that the grocery store next to josh’s store has $5 prepared meats on fridays, and he brings it home so i don’t have to cook, just make a side and a salad. tonight, it is roasted chicken, which makes me happy. we will have leftover potpourri as sides. life is good.
so i wanted to make english muffins. dunno why, they just sounded good to me. so i surfed around until i found this, and tried the recipe.
yum. lunch.
the one in front was my spoils, with turkey, asiago and a slice of tomato. delish, and not hard. just followed the recipe. raised it in the oven with the light on the first time, and it didn’t seem to rise, but it actually did. then, i made the balls, eight instead of six (and could realy have made 10, they are still pretty big), and then did the trick where you put the oven on till you can just touch the wall of the oven, turn it off, and do the second rise in there. then, the rest just like the cute little boy blogger did.
also, made a cute mobile out of skewers, cotton yarn, and construction paper. I LOVE HAVING A KID!!
so much fun.
that was inspired by this blog that i saw on the craftzine blog that i must read every single day several times. i left the leaves off because well, i just wasn’t feeling them. after making them, though, i was feeling the mobile vibe. didn’t have any disposable chopsticks, so i went with skewers. vincent loves it.
i am almost done cleaning the craft room, during which time my darling boy has wrecked his playroom. i am drinking a diet coke, determined to sit down to dinner in a clean house.
my loaf of bread.
whitey.
and a little moment to shine up my girl…
my hotrod babe.
cause she works hard for the money.
silly dada, bloggers use pictures!
allow me.
the new shelf…makes me SQUEAL with glee!!
simple and gorgeous
the clock is back! and so…even!
time to get to work!
and the drapes of mystery…so dramatic!
not this dark in here...
and the master re-installation of the hardware…thanks dada!!
nice job josh!
i have big plans today and this evening to put more things back on the walls, in between baking and cleaning my craft room, which exploded into a bit of chaos while we were painting. be still, i plan to blog it.
Home improvement, Hurtado style
Normally, “Hurtado-style” home improvement would require 7 half-done projects that look very wrong and at least one trip to the hospital. Luckily, my wife has taught me to be a little more careful than my forebearers. Today I got the following done:
Put the clock back up in the living room. This is very important as we have been constantly looking back toward a blank wall to see what time it is.
Replaced the drapes and curtain rod over the French doors. We’re using the same ones that were up before, only measuring more accurately and being far more careful about where we drill, since we just spent 3 days painting the playroom/den. It looks pretty good, and I think I’ve conquered the practical issues regarding opening the doors with the drapes in the way, though I’ll defer to the judgement of the inspector later.
Put up a shelf in the cabinet that holds all of our most used casserole dishes, strainers, etc… This was something we should have done LONG ago. This morning we just had 1000 things piled on top of one another. Now there are more, smaller piles organized by their usefullness. More useful and used items are on the bottom, the more specialized things are on the top. I did pretty well. The shelf itself is unfinished, so it ain’t going in Modern Architecture magazine, but it works. All of the supplies for that little venture cost about $7. I was pretty happy with that.
There are more things to do, mainly in our autonomous spaces of the house, but the playroom/den is shaping up nicely.
oh and by the way
we are on day three, NO POOP. yes, we are using miralax, and raisins, and juice, and water, and apples, and whatever else he wants to eat. he appears no worse for the wear right now.
hi mama!
that reminds me, the sheets are peed. gotta add changing the sheets to my list. WTF am i sitting here for?
play room part two
so now the hallway looks like this:
better here than in the playroom!
yes, there are a lot.
back here too.
this is the hallway that goes back to the bedrooms, i rearranged these shelves, which already had toys on them, to add more art supplies, etc. and puzzles. things i want to supervise playing with.
so what i have done so far…i moved all these toys out into the hallway. i have taken everything down and spackled except for the paneling wall with the TV hole in it. i am on my way to do that after i get up from this seat.
still to do tonight…
take down tie backs.
take down speakers.
take down curtain rod above tv hole.
spackle.
spackle wall behind couch.
paint picture frame.
tomorrow:
take down curtains and rod from french doors.
spackle.
prime trim.
prime paneling.
cut in walls.
paint walls.
paint trim.
paint paneling.
sunday:
second coats.
take down ceiling fan, spray paint.
put ceiling fan back.
put speakers back.
put new shelves together, put in playroom.
collapse.
we're a happy family 