One of Andrew's earliest talents was his ability to find debris on the floor.
He would/still does constantly bring us fuzz or lint or who knows what off the floor. But vacuuming SUCKS. And we hated lugging out the big vacuum.
Finally Michael pulled the trigger on this purchase.
A cordless Dyson. And it has changed our lives!
It works awesome and is too easy not to use. It sits on a charging base and we just grab it and go.
We used to do ok on vacuuming our hardwood and were pitiful about carpet. Now we see the gunk that we left on the hardwood (thanks bag less vacuums) and all the grime we were ignoring in the carpets.
A bonus is that Andrew is obsessed with vacuuming and encourages at least daily rounds.
“You were given this life because you are strong enough to live it”
My aunt has that quote written on a post-it note on her desk. And man, I’m pretty sure it means she is a freaking badass. Because just the things I know of that she deals with would have toppled me many times over.
My relationship with my aunts as a child left me with a clear vision of what being an auntie means. It is this beautiful position of not having to be responsible for how children turn out but feeling like it is your honor to contribute to it. I had such a fantastic mom and a great big sister but my aunts just added such a spice to our lives. We lived very close to three of them (the CA aunts) and got into all sorts of awesome trouble with them all. My mom and her sisters viewed auntie-hood as being in this special realm of fun mixed with authority and understanding. My mom has five sisters so I had a lot of options for favorite auntie. And there were some really good ones. My aunt Val was the crazy one, my aunt Mary was the fun one (a little crazy too), the others had their moments too I suppose. But if I was being honest Hannelore was always my overall favorite. I loved spending time at her house. She was sort of hippy-dippy and I loved the crunchy people I met through her and the activities we did together. She worked with adults with learning disabilities to transition them into independent living and she was the first person I ever knew who absolutely loved her job. Sadly, when I was too young to even mark the time in my internal calendar she was injured on the job. A back injury. Pain and uncertainty were the only constants since then and, to me, that seems way too hard to deal with. But she did. She always appreciates life when it clearly looks like life is deliberately shitting on her. And I can’t respect her more for it. My immediate family of origin is sort of smart-asses and we show our love through acts of service and gifts most often. Hannelore’s love language is words of affirmation and she is the absolute best at keeping in touch with all of our far flung (and far out there) relatives. Before I met Michael she was one of the only people I knew who regularly said “I love you” out loud.
When her injury stopped her from working with adults with disabilities she rehabilitated for a while and then opened a daycare when I was about twelve. I worked for her during the summer. It is one of my fondest memories from those turbulent tweenage years. She made me feel so useful and we had such great times with the kids. She taught me to make a whole loaf of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and slip them back into the bread bag. We took the kids on such wild adventures to the park and to pet stores. We watched Disney Sing-Along videos and now I can’t wait to follow the bouncing ball with my own son.
But her injury grew worse again and she had to close up shop. She stopped driving and other things in her life took a downward turn. But she never stopped seeing the beauty in life- at least not that I saw. I can’t imagine dealing with the darkness she saw, especially during that time. But she hung in there. She makes good, helpful friends and keeps them for a long time which I’m sure helps.
Nowadays she is physically pretty wrecked and is starting to be unable to leave the house without her big, unwieldy electric wheelchair which no one can transport in their cars. It makes me sad to see her world shrinking around her despite how much she has fought to stay in it and how beautiful she thinks it is. So I try to be good about calling and not letting myself feel guilty telling her about the great things in my life. I make sure to let her tell me she loves me and combat all of the personal discomfort I feel when I, very truthfully, tell her I love her too.
I’m actually not sure why I wrote this post or whether it has any conclusion or purpose to it. The great and awful thing about having children in your life is how much they mark time passing. Hannelore made Andrew a window hanger of prisms and I am pretty sure it is one of the best gifts ever. To him he’s amazed at the rainbows and absolutely delights at seeing and touching them. For me, it reminds me so much of her and of the two of us when I was younger. Of the 15 tiny dream catchers she made for my high school cheer squad in a week even when she didn’t have a lot of energy or money to do so. It reminds me of all of the things I could be openly delighted about with her. Reminds me of the feeling of having family who don’t necessarily live in your house but are a real part of your life.
One of the things she has mentioned, more and more lately, to me is how much she hopes our children remember her. I sure hope so too. I hope it will be because Andrew truly gets to know her. I hope he gets to hear she and my mom argue over the details of an old family story or laugh about who had the worst hair in photos.
But I brace myself and try to remember a favorite quote of mine from the legendary Billy Joel, “someday your child may cry and if you sing this lullaby, then in your heart there will always be a part of me.”
**slightly disturbing images in this post (if you're disturbed by my poor baby looking a wreck)
On Wednesday I picked up andrew from daycare and was really shocked. His face was bright red. Turns out he'd just slipped down their concrete steps and his face was actually all scraped up.
It looked pretty gnarly and M and I would have bet anything that he would have a major black eye/bruise situation.
But amazingly it was vastly improved the next day.
Andrew loves to read books in bed. it's one of the most adorable sights to watch him on the baby monitor. He will sit up in bed and flip though books for 15-30 minutes before laying down. We usually let him take the book we read together to bed along with one or two other small board books and a super-sized board book (that is harder for him to toss out of his crib) lives in the crib full time. It is absolutely precious and seems like a great bedtime habit so Michael and I are already pretty attached to it. spy cam
midnight on NYE. My mom asked if he was cramming for a test
In the meantime Andrew has grown 12 teeth and is currently working on his incisors. We totally respect his attitude when it comes to teething. In the past it has definitely bothered him as they've come in but other than some occasional grumpiness and some heartbreakingly sad refusal to eat foods he loves he is a super trooper. But he copes by chewing. With his front teeth we were really good at having teethers for him and all of his toys were designed for chewing. With his molars we found some good teethers that reached back into his mouth and most of his toys couldn’t get back to the spot that hurt. But these incisors are right up front and apparently very bothersome.
Now most of you are probably putting those two paragraphs together and realized he started chewing his books. When we first noticed we were bummed that he had ruined a few of his favorites but decided maybe he wouldn’t think some of his other books were quite as tasty and continued to feed them to him night after night. Finally we were like, “hmmm, guess he just likes to eat books.” And wised up and got a few indestructible books like one that my college roomie had gifted him. We also thought, well he wouldn’t chew on the giant book so that one (also a gift from Roomie) can stay. Wrong.
Could he have been more clear about the fact that he is in book chewing mode?
We may learn slowly but we do learn. The damage wasn’t as bad as I thought. Only five books were a total loss but a few of those were kind of special. Now he goes to bed with a nice solid teether and three indestructible books. It is working though he can’t quite sink his teeth into his new nightly reading I think he misses some of his old titles…maybe because he has long since digested them.
When I was a kid in San Diego I truly thought Christmas was the end of winter. Learned that was incorrect in Connecticut and have lived with that sad reality. BUT we just had the most outrageously beautiful weekend in February!
Started off with a Friday night craft fest.
I am so in love with the little gift set that I made for one of Michael’s colleague’s new baby.
Saturday we went on a hike down to the beach with DSF and her family. It was absolutely gorgeous.
Saturday night we went to the aforementioned colleague’s house and played board games until too late.
Sunday was lazier. I Zumba’d. We played in the backyard for a bit.
Hallway car races.
Did some chores. Went to Gymboree’s open play time. Then Michael GRILLED dinner.
It was so nice. So, so very nice. And the best thing of all is that we are turning the corner on sunset. It is currently at a much more reasonable ~6pm and the time change is only two weeks away.
Ok, ok. I think it really helps kids build life skills, makes them feel involved and keeps them busy and hopefully out of trouble. Plus the pride in their little faces is just too much.
But it is sort of a pain. When he was a little guy I would wear him in a carrier facing out and let him poke stuff with a spoon. After that we went to help from his high chair like handing me leaves of lettuce to wash or topping his own pizza. But then we got to the standing on a chair stage. Which sucked. It was annoying and nerve racking to me and he LOVED it. Problem.
attempts to work at the kitchen table
The good people of Montessori philosophy have an enormous and expensive solution in their "learning tower." Which is a stable platform for them to work from with rails to keep them from getting so wrapped up in their work that they teeter over. But my cheap ass was not about to spend that much on one. So I browsed Craigslist intermittently and forgot about it.
Then a facebook friend posted her toddler in his ikea LT hack!
I enthusiastically headed to ikea with my guys. I swore I had seen the hack as two ikea items being fused so we bought two and headed home.
I was bummed when an email from M revealed I had been hallucinating about the actual hack. But happily M problem solved and made it work, sending me a picture of the amazing final product. It looked even better than the original hacks, with a more secure bar and everything.
I rushed A home to see it. It was love at first sight. He climbed right up and would have stayed there the rest of the night.
We have created a monster! He wants to see everything from his little perch.
He used to want to be picked up when we were cooking breakfast but now he is happy to climb up and supervise.
