shaking our money makers all over creation

Oh Summer, you mischievous little season. How you move! 

We are off to Breckenridge for the weekend for the wedding of one fabulous lady and her English mate. 

Then I start a new job, at a new company, with new patients.

Then we are going camping with friends.

Then we are going to two local music festivals.

And a going away party.

And hopefully lots of hikes.

Somewhere in that there needs to be laundry, housecleaning

recognition of my toddler's sleep schedule. 

I love it. 

Oh my God I just love it so. 

Overalls: Mishu Lulu
Shirt: Carters
Shoes: See Kai Run

Checking in on my inner parent

I have caught myself lately doing the totally not healthy act of comparing my child with other children and then graphing her progress in comparison with those of her toddler peers. My child is not potty trained yet. She doesn't spout off large sentences. She doesn't put on her own shirts. She is only kind of able to ride a tricycle. And see, I have friends, with kids Ellie's age that are doing all that. And that just makes me start thinking that maybe I'm doing something wrong. Maybe I'm failing to teach her some core piece of the toddler parenting curriculum.

AND OMG I KNOW THAT MY CHILD IS ONLY 2 AND YOU CAN'T COMPARE CHILDREN AND EVERYONE AT THEIR OWN PACE SO PLEASE, NO NEED. I'm just lifting up the flap to my overly active parenting brain for a quick little peakskie. These thoughts do not paralyze me or send me into parenting tizzies.

But still, am I doing this parenting thing right?

And of course, yes I am. Ellie is awesome. TOTALLY AWESOME. But we have some habits that are perhaps, unhealthy. And annoying. Like putting her down for bed and laying with her until she falls asleep. Not that my body couldn't benefit from going to sleep at 7:30pm but MAMA'S GOT STUFF TO DO, yet far too often I feel my husband's hand tap me on the shoulder as I lay snoring and drooling in Ellie's bed to say that it's 11 and he's off to bed.
I MISSED MY MOST ENJOYABLE FEW HOURS!

This bedtime shenanigan is a terrific example of the crux of some of my parenting woes.
You see, I love my daughter. She is my baby. My B-A-B-Y and I have treated her like such, at least I have historically. But we are definitely at (or past) the crossroads where she is actually NOT a baby anymore. She's a capable little human. And I'm finding myself having to rewire my brain a bit. Having to be more mean. Making HER responsible for things. Holding my ground. NOT smiling when I'm putting on my mean mommy face and she does something that is SO FRIGGING CUTE.

I don't think I totally suck at this. It's just new, but we are making progress.

Ellie started preschool this week (she was in an in-home daycare before) and I shit you not, everyday she has come home surprising me with a new thing. Taking off her own outfit. Pointing to things that I did not teach her. Counting things as we walk. Saying please and thank you with no prompts. Singing her ABCs so fast and furious (and incidentally in no order or meaningful tune, but still darn cute).

I dare say my child is getting smarter by the day.

But still, rounding back to my original point. She is learning, and I am learning, too. I am learning that my baby is not just a baby anymore. She's getting bigger and more capable. She needs to learn that her actions create consequences and she needs to be given the opportunity to learn by them. I see, at least a vague outline, of what I have to do.

And I am learning that comparing my child with other children, my family with other families, is not really productive. We all have our own way.

My baby is still my baby. She will always be my baby. And though I am working on my inner mean mommy, my daughter will always know that she is LOVED.

That's the one part of parenting that I am absolutely sure I am doing right.

Didya miss me?

As expected, and as appreciated, summer has taken over my time sitting at the computer. Instead it has thrust me outside, into the big, beautiful, HOT, world where I have had a heck of a time galavanting around with my family. 

Our home for the past week or so

We returned a couple days ago from a really wonderful trip to Bozeman, Montana where we caravanned with other family members in the backyard of my aunt's house, hiked through the gorgeous terrain of the Gallatin Mountains, and spent time Yellowstone National Park. We broke in our pop up camper. We slept at night with only a layer of canvas separating us from the outside world. We bonded with family. We had no agenda. It was awesome!

Sleeping in

campfire singalongs at night

But truly, my most favorite part of our little Montana/Wyoming adventure was Yellowstone. Sure I've been there before. Saw Old Faithful on a cross country trip, toured the paint pots. It was cool. And we did all that. But we also explored MORE of Yellowstone, beyond the thermal, tourist-loving ground. And it was SPECTACULAR. A different view at every turn. A changing landscape that just seemed to get more and more beautiful. My only frustration was that I wanted to be OUT of the car more and IN the woods. So next time we will have to find a spot and stay and explore it. But in the meantime, we will have memories of some true gorgeousness to carry us through. What a beautiful world this is.

for me

I went for a run this evening when the sun finally broke through our rather wonky, monsoon-like weather. I took my usual path through the park. So green, so quiet, so many cumulus clouds. And I ran horribly. I don't know if it was my unaccustomed body to humidity but I just couldn't catch my breath. How I would normally react in the situation is to push myself, or berate myself for not pushing. But I just didn't have it in me tonight. It had been days since I'd left the house to be alone. Alone. So I let myself walk, with no judgement. I had my headphones on and was listening to David Gray's new album when I discovered this song. It did something to me. It was exactly what I needed to hear in that moment.  I played it over, and over, and over. I walked, through the wet, green, silent park, and I had a rare existential moment.

It was a moment for me.

It was not to be shared with my daughter. With my husband. With my friends.

It was an experience that was so hard to describe,so deeply personal, and I can just say that it moved me. I cried. Not out of sadness. I cried because I was remembering something. I was remembering myself. I was remembering me without my current daily stresses. For the brief, 3.5mile walk, I let myself feel free. I let myself get off of my normal path and run through the wet grass, soaking my sneakers and not caring. The huge clouds over head, the brilliant, low-set sun that washed over me. I remembered things. I remembered my heart. I remembered what it felt like to just be, without judgement, without pushing. My God is was awesome.

Life is full of so much. Most days I am running ragged trying to get my toddler out the door so I can go to work. Some days I just want a nap. Every day I worry. Every day I am dedicated to my sweet child. Everyday I feel the brilliance and burden of motherhood. Brilliance and burden of working to maintain a home.

I never want to forget that beautiful sky tonight, and how I took a moment
to slow down
to reconnect
to remember
to forget.

Being present. And fashion friday

I took my daughter to tour her new preschool today. My daughter is going to preschool. I sat in the back of  the room and quietly watched the rhythm of her classroom, holding on to my daughter's hand, perhaps projecting on to her my own childhood fears of starting a new school. I didn't push her and only meant for her to get a glimpse, something to emotionally prepare for. But the room was moving, children grabbing their chairs and getting into a circle. She watched and within 2 minutes her little hand gently slipped away from mine and she grabbed a chair. She didn't put it right in the circle but she put it close by. She watched the other children with a sweet, childlike fascination, almost as though it didn't occur to her to be scared. By the end of our short time there she was laughing and fully engaged in the flow of the room. My little girl. My how she is growing up. 

As a parent I have expectations of myself. I have preconceived notions of what kind of mom I want to be. Sometimes I meet them. A lot of times I don't. 

And sometimes the brutal reality that she is growing so quickly jumps up and bites me. 

And yet I realize that mirror is often reflecting back a mother who is too tethered to her technology. Too busy planning or thinking about future events. A mother who WANTS to be, and is much more happy, being present in the moment, but who, for whatever reason, always seems to have something going on.

Being present

Ellie will often come up to me now and give me sweet, unexpected kisses. They always stop me in my tracks.

Sometimes at night she comes into our room and lays her head in the crook of my shoulder, wrapped up in my love, falling right back to sleep. 

Her face, when I get down on the floor and play with her, is so joyous. 

To her, being present is the best gift. 

To me, it is too. 

I need to remember this.

Because really, all we ever really HAVE, is right now.

Pants: Matilda Jane
Tank: Old Navy
Hat: Old Navy

roughin it

I just did 10 loads of laundry, no joke. And the heaping pile on the floor seems none the smaller for it.
This is the sacrifice I make to go camping.

We upgraded our campstyle this year with a new-to-us 1990 Starcraft Popup, the lightest one we could find as our tow vehicle is a Subaru Forester. And we just gutted out all the upholstery to desanitize the 21 years of camping that may or may not have occured by some unknown family. HOT CYCLE!

We took that badboy for a spin this weekend. Wanting to see all of the capabilities it had we looked for RV camping. Being 4th of July weekend our pickings were slim, and we ended up at an RV resort 30 miles west of the city. There's wasn't a ton to do. Normally we would go hiking but we forgot our child carrier so we just moseyed around and explored. There were a lot of people out enjoying the great outdoors, having some crazy good times. Neither one of us said it but I think we were both kind of wishing we had OTHER people we were sharing the camping experience with. Not that going to the playground 30 times to go down the "lide" isn't fun. It's just not a frosty margarita around a campfire is all.

What I learned about this experience is that it is AWESOME to have a popup. The little patterings of rain in the middle of the night only made me smile as I was all snuggled up with my family on the king sized bed. Plugging in the portable DVD player and putting on an episode of Callilou only made me smirk to my former, backpacking snob, because NA NA NA we COULD. We just plugged it in.

It felt luxurious.

But as I lay to sleep to the sweet sounds of the KARAOKE MACHINE that the plot next door brought with them I couldn't help but wonder if all of the luxuries were worth it. I couldn't help but miss the sweet sound of crickets that my former backpacking self would be sleeping to. But then I got off my perch and thought "Hey, that lady can sing". And so I listened to the Latina family matriarch bust out Patsy Cline tunes with her over emphasized vibrato as I lay under the stars. Admittedly feeling a little jealous of the fun they were having. Knowing there was no way we could crash the party and leave our popup with our sleeping angel inside of it, not now at least.

And when that other bitch started singing "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" in her drunken stupor I busted out the earplugs. DAMN that electricity!!!!