A Birthday Week/end

For a gal who likes to take photos, I sure do manage to skimp on them when it comes to our 'big' things like birthdays and parties and events. Probably because I'm self-conscious about having my camera all up in my face the whole time and I want to live in the moment, not hiding behind my lens. Still. I managed to capture a few choice little snaps from this past week/weekend as we celebrated our sweet Lou Fox. 

His birthday fell on a Wednesday this year and since he is now a big Kindergartner, we had Lou finish most of the day of school before picking him up early with a car full of star wars balloons and taking him for an afternoon at the area's new children's museum. His grandpa joined us and it was really wonderful seeing them explore the facility together. Loukas' favorite meal these days is fish tacos, so we treated him to fancy Latin cuisine at a restaurant on the Bentonville square where his grandpa managed to get us the nicest seat in the house with a view of the christmas lights all around the town's center. I always love seeing the boys with their grandfather. He came to our home immediately after Loukas was born, and helped up clean up his home birth and since then has been present for all of our joys and there for us during the hard times as well. I don't exactly know the words to express how much that means to me, especially living so far from my own folks, who we see rarely. 

With a party planned for Sunday, the whole rest the week was spent preparing for and talking (both boys super excited) about the party. Loukas even woke at 4:30am on Sunday (!) and could not get back to sleep. He was so excited to see his "old friends" and have a slice of the s'mores cake that we all dreamed up and describe to our pastry chef friend- whose creation far exceeded our expectations! Jerrmy and I were giddy while preparing for the party- it was truly fun and easy. I decorated minimally with Loukas' choice color from the Target decoration isle, greens, and we were all just happy to see our friends and build a fire and watch the kids run laps around the house. Good, Good times. I just wish I'd taken more photos. 

I'm pretty proud of our little six year old. There's probably a lot I could say about how he's growing so fast and I miss his littleness but he's still pretty little and I love all that he is today. The kid is precious. He's smart and kind and energetic and creative and I feel like we are having this very real happily ever after moment in our lives with our growing family. 

We're having a baby... GIRL!

We're having a baby... and it's a GIRL. After two surprise-ending pregnancies that blessed us with much-loved and desired little boys, we found ourselves a little less willing to wait to til the end this time around. I found out that I was expecting in late July and since then we have been pretty certain that we'd need to know what were are in for- not that I think a boy and girl children are really all that different. (Let's be honest they kind of are, though.) Something within me, at least, needed to know to prepare. 

Honestly, it was my heart's desire to conceive a daughter and while I know that having healthy children comes first, I cannot shy away from the truth of that matter that it is the adult relationship with a female-child that I most felt I'd miss in this life if I did try one more time for the opportunity to experience it. So when the technician at our 20 week sonogram scanned down to the baby's bottom and I did not see any boy parts, I did burst into some very real tears. Calling her a her and saying she make my tummy do a little jump for joy. I cannot even believe it. And it's not because I'm surrounded by three dudes, either- I happen to have some very well versed in the ways of gals guys, because I make it my mission around here. We shy away from gender stereotypes and try our best to never place our sex organ assignments above our human-ness.

I am a feminist, a humanist- who believes that we are all equal and valid. My boys like tea parties and pink and dresses among their rowdiness and in between pretending every other item in the house is a blaster, they cuddle their pretend animal babies and put them to bed. I can't recall ever having once told my sons something that they were interested in was, "for girls." They are gentle and curious and kind humans, I am beyond grateful for them. They look up to a lot of strong, smart little ladies and while they are rough and tumble for the most part, their birthday party guest lists are comprised mostly of their female peers. And in the same vein, these sons of ours have never been made to feel that their emotions or more gentle sensibilities are not for them because they are male. I don't know why I feel the need to go into all of this- perhaps because I want it to be clear that as much as I can say that I wanted this baby to be a girl, that doesn't make my feelings about equality or that fact that I have two little boys already, less relevant. 

It's not really the frilly pink overly fem things that I felt I'd miss, I think, had the baby been a boy. There is something to be said for the mysteries of girlhood and womanhood that only a woman and female child can understand of each other. I do not really have a first hand experience of being a little boy and am often asking my husband and dad what it was like for them as a male child in order to kind of have a reflective adult's perspective to relate to my sons. Who knows, though, this child that is coming is a person who will belong to themselves and I will just be their guider, their secret-sharer in and of womanhood, and hopefully we can celebrate being ladies together- I'm excited for the challenge and new experience. Well, and girl power. 

;;;

I think this series of photos of the guys with pink roses is just darling and hilarious. They weren't really that into it, but you can't tell from some of the pics- and then some you really can. My favorite quote was from Jasper (who said it again when he saw the pics again this morning) "It's like we're getting May-weed!"

Not October -or- Since July

There's no time right just now pre-dinner and bedtime to add much in the way of prose to this post I'm posting for the first time in months. And the time I've been spending in the evenings, post-mom duties days that feel oh so full lately, are spent soaking in my tub reading fiction. All to say- I haven't much to say other than to offer these images captured over the past few days. The fire that was the center of the time we spent together is not present but the awe of it is present in the boys' little looks of wonderment.

I love our little yard hangs, and I'm falling back in love with fall- the start of the season was very hard on me health-wise and I all but missed the Anne Shirley gratitude-full bliss of a world with Octobers.

Forgotten Language

Once I spoke a language of the flowers, 

Once I understood each word the caterpillar said,

Once I smiled in secret at the gossip of the starlings,

And shared a conversation wit the housefly in my bed.

Once I heard and answered all the questions of the crickets, 

And joined the crying of each falling dying flake of snow,

Once I spoke the language of the flowers....

How did it go?

How did it go?

(Shel Silverstein)

Midsommar

I stepped on a bee Saturday afternoon. As soon as the stinger entered my foot, I knew exactly what had happened, but when I turned my foot over to see for myself, the little bee was still attached.  I sunk to the ground and watched it struggle to free itself and as it did I saw the separation of the tiny end of its fuzzy abdomen which remained attached to the stinger and was twitching back and forth still in my foot. Loukas ran for the tweezers, and I stared at my foot's intruder trying to decide just what to do. I thought, 'this hurts very badly' and tried to separate myself from the my foot for a moment, recognize the pain but look past the discomfort enough that I could act.  Before Loukas returned with the tweezers I had removed the stinger with my forefinger and thumb.  

The only precedent I can recall for a bee stepping upon, occurred back in 1995 in a common yard shared with many families in the same housing area on the military base where my step father was stationed. I was visiting the family with the trampoline when I felt the sting- I can't recall what my reaction was but I remember the Dad of the family slathering the wound with baking soda and water- probably what I should have done immediately on Saturday. But alas, I paced around the house on my stung foot trying to decide what to do next, eventually applying a drawing salve, followed by a good washing followed by another salve and then essential oils and eventually poking around the wound to be sure the stinger was free. And. Of course, I am a mother (solo for much of the weekend while my husband worked hard.) So there was no resting with my foot elevated. All and all I'd say I probably over did it and that perhaps caused the bee venom to spread throughout my foot, because as I sit here now with my foot propped up upon the table beside me, my sting is about the shape of a medium sweet potato and has a sharpie-dash perimeter drawn around by the walk-in clinic doctor that I saw this evening.  I am having an allergic reaction to a bee sting and it is rather uncomfortable. 

So that's the story about how I ruined Summer Soltice weekend. Just kidding. 

I did not ruin the weekend, but I ruined that poor bee's weekend for sure, sorry bee. The sting did slow me down, though, which was probably a good thing, as the night before, I stayed up entirely too late.  Howling at the waxing quarter moon with my Ozark Babe friends at a bunk house camp by the river in Newton County, it was an evening/night/morning I will long be grateful to have had with these friends- some old, some new, all with a connection- all beautiful, strong women. We had big plans to spend the evening with friends around a bon fire on the last night of Spring, but instead, I managed to build the boys and I our own little fire outside- which was quite comical- I thought many times that I was glad that no one was there to see me trouble shooting fire starting, and the boys were over zealous with their fire poking sticks and eager to "help," while I limped around on my swelling foot. Eventually we got the fire going, I put the boys to bed and had a nice sip of wine by my Summer Welcome Fire after chasing the fireflies with my lens from a blanket in the yard. The solstice then came and went with little effort made on my part to celebrate, which was disappointing in a way, but I was fortunate that my father in law was able to come stay the evening with us so I could stay off my foot. I usually like to pay tribute to the longest day of the year, and the first day of the summer- but I suppose having a once in 20 years bee sting is special, too.

My sons were quite disappointed that I was not up for much, but I was able to hobble around here and there and I snapped some photos to share.  I'm also really trying to get better at materializing my photography- one of my major goals for the new house is to print my photos for the walls, something that I'm ashamed to admit I've done very little of, but I'm hoping to get some prints ordered while my little bee sting heals. One of my favorite sites for prints, though, is Artifact Uprising- do you have any favorite printing or photo display ideas to share?  I'd love to hear!

Thanks for stopping in.

Nic