Happy Hallowhat?

Any day that Dave and I both have off is a holiday, but one that falls on a holiday is great! Bella of course would disagree, as today she is quite disagreeable. The entire day has consisted of Bella sleeping, whining, or crying. We woke up sometime after 11, dressed Bella in orange (whine whine), headed to Starbucks, sat around (cry, cry, sleep, cry), came home and took Halloween photos (whine whine), and Dave started making a huge dinner from scratch (zzzz).

Just as hot rolls were coming out of the oven (scream cry whine), and we were loading them up with hamburger fixings, Dave dropped a fork. Company's coming! I chimed automatically. (I may be one of the few who still believes in the divining ability of table forks.)

So imagine my oblivious surprise to hear a knock on the door. I was totally bewildered, opened the door with my half eaten hot dog in hand and looked down to see the cutest little kids. Trick er mumblumble....

Yeah, I would have lost heart at the sight of me, too. As their mom was trying to get them to say trick or treat with appropriate gusto, the light bulb finally flickered in my head and I started laughing and apologizing to the family. I'm so sorry, I don't have anything! I completely forgot! Too bad five year olds don't really understand grownups giggling in embarrassment. Way to ruin their night, Shawna. I tried to redeem myself by hollering after them that I loved their costumes. (Who knows. I didn't even have my glasses on...) I'm sure this was the scariest door they knocked on all night and in the best interest of the neighborhood children, I will diligently ignore any further knocking tonight. Damn that fork and its accurate predictions.

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Loving Autumn

So it is official: this is the most beautiful PNW fall I've experienced. Yes, it is quite possible that my eyes have been altered by the Love Lens. Bella came into this world so beautifully and has set about brightening up the world one smile at a time. But the evidence is undeniable. It's not just me. Leaves that turn red before brown, days without a single cloud, sky the perfect blue found only in a Crayola box.





It seems like in spite of the little things that get me down from time to time, everything is remarkably perfect and right in my life. The things I can't change at the moment, they'll come around in due time. Bills will get paid, jobs will move along, and even though my only complaints are ones that seem huge at times, I've been able to push them aside and enjoy the life in front of me. And what a gorgeous life it is.

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Moving (forward)

I remember taking them out of the dryer (I was diligently washing them, even though I was certain Bella would never have feet that small) and they flew about as I unloaded the clothes. Socks so tiny they dotted my laundry basket like pastel confetti. And indeed, that's about the only purpose they served.

It's so hard for me to take out her old clothes and stash them away. First I move them to another drawer. Out of sight, out of mind, but not gone. And finally, with the change of the seasons, I feel required to empty that drawer and make room for warmer, roomier clothes. Each piece I weed out needs a little goodbye. Perhaps just a glance, or perhaps something more. I brought her home in this shirt. She was three hours old and squinting into our faces.

I don't mind the changing of the guards with my own seasonal clothes. I know I'll see them again soon enough. But that cute summer dress that still fits her, she has nowhere to wear it and next year it will look like doll clothes. There's something final about emptying out the baby's dresser to make room for the new. It's just like a baby to be always moving forward.

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Today marks the day one year ago that Dave and I woke up, packed our Halloween costumes from the night before, packed up our bunny, packed up our car, and said goodbye to the apartment from hell in torrential rain that had not let up since the drought broke three days before.

Not quite five months pregnant, I had finally revealed my secret to a select few at the party the night before. I was still harboring the idea that maybe I would have a boy, still dreading that it might be a girl, since what in the world would I do with a girl. I wasn't sick every minute of every day anymore (just every other minute), and was looking forward to showing Dave this country and why I love to drive right smack through the middle. I couldn't wait to show him the mountains, precarious switchbacks taking us up and over the Rockies. I wished we could have spent longer, seen more, but we only had a week, and the car was uncomfortably full.

Amazing how far we can travel in a year. Since then I have fallen in love with the girl in my belly, brought her into the world, and fallen in love with her again. Dave has become an amazing father, a sweet and generous husband, and a delicious bread maker. My love and appreciation for him has only deepened. I knew what I was getting into, bringing Bella into our family, and was not shell shocked by the crying, the sleepless nights, the needing and needing. Tired and overwhelmed yes, surprised, no. I had an inkling of the love that would fill me as I emptied my self onto my daughter, but the reality has been a million times better.

Sometimes it seems stupid, having moved out here, away from the east coast. I had all my arguments lined up to justify it to the world, but inside I'm prone to misgivings. Sometimes I miss Virginia, sometimes New England, Pennsylvania on occasion. Mostly I miss my parents and my best friend being train ride away. I don't know how long we'll stay out here, but it seems so right at the moment. There's never a place we'll go where everyone will follow, so I remind myself that the three of us are the family now, and have to create our own path. It's awfully hard to move forward, but ultimately so much more satisfying.

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Unplugged #7: Thin

Alright folks, we've been MIA on the Unplugged scene for a while, but I haven't forgotten. It's been quite busy around here and although the themes rattle around in my head all week, sometimes I can't seem to get around to a project.

So this week's theme at Unplug Your Kids is Thin. Dave and I each had our own thin cooking projects, him making baguettes and me rolling out pie crust (yay pumpkin pie!).

And then there was a more elaborate craft. The craft itself is unplugged, but the purpose is to REpurpose your TV into art. :O) So, here goes and you can all tell me how nuts I am when you finally get to the end, haha. Oh, and keep in mind this might be easier for someone with more crafting goods on hand, but all I had was a box and tape and some printer paper, so forgive me if it looks like I am reinventing the wheel at some points.


TV Light Box

First, measure the screen of your tv so that you can cut out cardboard strips to match those dimensions. (Try to find cardboard that is not brightly colored, though as you can see parts of mine were and the project still turned out fine.) You will actually be cutting pieces a little longer so that you can bend the cardboard and tape it together. The most important part of this project is that the strips of cardboard be fairly even and match in width.

Assemble the strips into a rectangular frame.

Next you will cut another set of strips (same width!) so that you can divide the box. You can choose to do as few or as many divisions as you have patience for, of course. Again, cut the strips a bit long so that you can fold it at each end as a place to put the tape. Space them apart evenly in the frame and tape them down.


When you are ready to put the horizontal strips in, hold them over the frame and mark them where they will meet the vertical strips. Cut into the vertical strips at these marks, leaving about an inch uncut.

After you have decided where to place the horizontal strips, cut into the vertical ones where each meet. You will then slide them together so that they interlock. Try to make the finished surface as level as possible, but it's really not a huge issue.

Now that you have a frame of squares, put a THIN (see, you knew we would get to the theme eventually) white sheet of paper over top. As I did not have one sheet large enough, my process is a bit bothersome. I covered as many squares as would fit entirely under a piece of paper, and then repeated the process with lots of annoying little pieces of tape for the rest of the squares.

When all is said and done, hold it up over your tv (you could tape it or hang it there if you would like it to be a more permanent fixture, of course) and turn the yammer box on. (Feel free to mute it if all you can hear are electoral commercials.)



You will find that it takes the average of each color within each block and projects it onto the thin white screen. It makes for a particularly nice effect if you happen to have a music channel on and the lights change in sync to the rhythm of the music.

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Babies amaze me, they really do. For the past two weeks I could tell that Bella was getting ready to sit up on her own, and I was watching her like a hawk. I wanted to be able to follow the progression. I thought it would be Sitting With Mommy one week, then perhaps a week or two of Sitting But Not Quite Upright and then Sitting But Falling Over and maybe Sitting But Only For Half A Moment before the days of Sitting Up On Her Own. We spotted her a lot while my mom was here. I made sure Bella enjoyed the sensation of falling over, made sure she was padded on all sides or had my legs in triangle formation around her to break her fall. I was getting ready for the next couple of phases, but one morning I sat her upright and she simply continued to sit.



I watched her sway back and forth, arms out and toes wiggling, each appendage suddenly an expert in balance checks although they had never been used that way before. She made no fuss about it and simply continued to play. If she leaned forward, she bobbed back up. If she leaned backward, she caught her balance. If she looked up, she didn't topple over from the effort of concentration. I was flabbergasted, though I suppose there was no reason for it. This has always been her way. One day she seems so far from accomplishing anything, and the next day she's done it.


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I haven't said a whole lot about EC on this blog, probably because there haven't been many revelations of late. Bella generally has no diaper during the day and we just bring her to the bathroom when she tells us she needs to go, or timing suggests she might be ready. Realizing that she would be sitting up soon, we got her a potty made just for tiny little bums. It is absolutely amazing. I think our catches have doubled, and it's mostly because I'm not occupied by holding her over the toilet, my back getting sorer every moment she's not peeing. She enjoys sitting in her new potty playing or having me read to her, so I have infinitely more patience to wait her out. Before, I was constantly lamenting about how I would know she had to go, but I just didn't have the energy to hover over the toilet for 5 minutes while she got her bowel muscles in order. I know kids like to take their time, and this potty is the best answer to my impatience.

Bella enjoying the simultaneous wonders of a spoon and a potty (she sits! on her own!)

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PS. Bella also had her first day of shoes this week and let me tell you she will just have to be a barefoot kiddo. Do not be misled by the giggly face in this photo. She stared at them for a whole minute after we stood her up (after enduring tearful complaints while donning them) and then the rest of the afternoon they became an experiment in percussion as she used them to kick her car seat with a satisfying thump.
Six months without shoes, says Dave. Can you imagine going that long without shoes?

Her whole life, I say. Until today she has lived a life without shoes.

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