I'm Writing A Story About Us

"What are you doing on your computer, Mommy?"

  

"I'm writing a story about us."

🏮 Gym time and lunch at Tai Ke. Delicious!!! We can't wait to go back. C loved the sausage and the noodles and Josie loved the chicken (pounded thin and fried and so good) and fried rice. My favorite was the pork belly in a so-soft steamed bun.

🍪 A brief stop at Nordstrom to get a pair of pants hemmed. Luke circled in the parking lot but texted me "Clem has to pee!" so I plucked her from the car for a potty (and cookie) run.

🍺 Schlafly's Art Outside event in Maplewood. I preordered a dress from my friend Allyson's new collection which I plan to wear this summer like C is wearing the striped dress below (four days in a row, "BECAUSE IT TWIRLS"). 

A little bit of the Sleepy Rubies until the sky looked ominous and we headed to the car.

🏡 Home for relaxing. Dinner on the picnic blanket downstairs watching Pocahontas.

Clementine, hearing a familiar phrase in the movie: Pocahontas is the daughter of the village chief, like Moana!

HEY WAIT! Other similarities:
 -- wistful allegorical song about a body of water: Just Around the Riverbend / How Far I'll Go
 -- two animal sidekicks: raccoon and hummingbird / HeiHei and Pua
 -- important necklace
-- father who won't let you have an adventure...

🍅 Dinner was caprese salad with farm share tomatoes and basil from the porch. I could eat this everyday.

💩 And, recorded here for milestones - we're making potty training progress!

👯 Caught this sweet little moment:

 


🚙 A long morning in the kid room of the dealership because we bought a minivan! Somehow it took over four hours to give them so much money.

⛖⛖🍖 Took our new ride out to my parents' house for a visit and Sugarfire bbq on the river.

🐲 Planet Earth 2: horde of snakes chase a sea-going iguana baby. Total nightmare fuel. Don't worry - this one ends well, with the iguana reunited "wif his fam-a-wee."

Lately

A collection of the funny (or not so funny) things they've said and done recently.


// Clementine, holding aloft a purple bra after rummaging through my lingerie basket: "Did you know Josie got dis bra in the potty? And Daddy put water on it and got it clean." (No, no I didn't.)

// Clementine, skeleton-obsessed and looking pensively out the car window: "Snowmans don't have bones, do they?"

   ...shows me her scraped elbow: CAN YOU SEE MY BONES?


// Watching the opening credits of Land Before Time:

Josie: A jellyfish!
Clementine: (reproachfully) No, it's a swimming dragon!

// Clementine looked at this illustration from I Dissent and said, "she's holding her hand the wrong way." -- this pose is awkward and doesn't really make sense.

// Declan, the Boy at School. SIGH. We started hearing about him a few months ago.


C: (upon finding a butterfly barrette) Will you put this in my hair... I think Declan will be at school tomorrow.
Me: Why do you want to wear this barrette?
C: Because if I look pretty he will like me.
Me: (aghast, sees the toxicity in Disney princess movies)


C: Declan built a pirate ship and I nodded (pantomimes how she nodded vigorously and smiled widely in approval) and then I played dress-up and he said I looked beautiful. And then we danced and the big blocks were our stage.

// Learning to fist bump:

// Breakfast of cold pizza: Josie leans over to Clementine, taps the slices in their hands together and says: CHEERS.

// I was lying on the floor and Clementine began to "measure" me; "I'm measuring how many angers [acres] you are," she said, referencing the paragraph and illustration below in Saint George and the Dragon, a book we had not read in a while:

Crazy Week

I began making notes for this post but then it became crazy weekS and maybe that will just be the title of every post for the foreseeable future. (Foreseeable future - what a laughable idea).

After spending one day dealing with car issues upon our return from Italy, I went to work on Wednesday. Because we flew overnight to Europe, I had almost no jet lag upon arrival. I thought I had outsmarted jet lag on the return as well, but Wednesday afternoon found me exhausted and out of sorts. I had a chance to take it easy during the evening but not Luke -- his bandmates arrived from Texas and they went into rehearsal, songwriting, and show mode.

Careened into this weekend:

Got up early on Saturday to shoot some photos with Mary Noel for her new ingenious venture, Get Gorgeous! I had photos for my own side gig (so side it doesn't even exist yet) at 11 with Lindsey - with some time in between, I called Jenny, who was free for some brunch and plant shoppin' at Bowood Farms.

Sunday was Mother's Day and Luke and the guys went to Columbia for a gig. The girls and I went to the gym and to Nordstrom for lunch and an appointment with my personal shopper Christine to see if a dress needed alteration. A babysitter came over in the afternoon to allow me some time at work.

On Tuesday the band left for Cincinnati, Iowa City, and Omaha. It was a busy week for me, getting the girls to school by 7:15 and taking C to her dance and swim lessons in the evening. Solo bedtime duty is also difficult for me: I've been up since forever, at work all day, trying to play and emotionally engage with the girls in the evening, and then the one thousand bedtime demands/stalling techniques begin. SERENITY NOW.

Friday morning: woke up to a beeping sound at 5:22 am: POWER OUTAGE. I got the girls dressed in the semi darkness, grabbed the expensive stuff from the freezer, and went to work. The power didn't turn back on until 8 pm and the next morning I threw out everything in the refrigerator.

Friday evening was Clem's dance recital and Luke surprised us there (between gigs in St Louis, after driving in from Omaha):




Saturday: grocery trip #1 to replenish fridge contents, worked out at the gym with my trainer, ordered Costco delivery from laptop while at the gym (what an amazing service!), grocery trip #2, to work to catch up. Kid hand off: Luke and the guys went to a gig, I watched Medici: Masters of Florence.

Sunday: guys go to Chicago. Girls and I go to gym and Nordstrom for lunch, visit the carousel.

Monday: C's conjunctivitis spreads to her other eye. With Luke out of town until 4 pm, I bring her to my office. She informs my colleagues that "my name is Clementine and I have pink toenails" and I try to get some work done...

I had to take her with me to the gross room (where specimens are processed) to look at a gallbladder.

C: What is that?!
Me: It's a part of somebody's body. A gallbladder. It's near your stomach.
C: DID SOMEBODY DIE?!
Me: No, you don't even need it! (makes hasty exit)

Luke picks up the girls and I go back to work to finish up.

Tuesday: Luke takes C to her final dance lesson, I take Josie swimming (and then go back to work). A THEME EMERGES...

Wednesday, dinner at Jenny's: Mom's Deli sandwiches (even better than we remember) and caprese salad and tiny strawberries with the tomatoes and fruit portion of my spring farm share.

Clementine: Remember when we saw that part of someone's body? The green one?

Thursday: I attended the opening of Mary Noel's business and Luke had a gig - my mom, in town briefly between her European river cruise and Grandbaby Birth Watch in Colorado, took the girls to dinner.

Friday: Luke played in Clayton; the girls and I watched Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron which is kind of dark (animal abuse, threatened gun violence) and has a horrible Bryan Adams soundtrack. In what was the norm in San Antonio and is becoming the norm here, Luke arrived home around 2:30 am and I left before 7 am...

Saturday: my day to work (scheduled, not catch up). Luke walked the girls to a bakery and a nearby playground.

Josie's face...

Kid hand off: Luke played a cocktail hour at the art museum. We made cookies, watched Spirit again ("it's not scary, Mommy, it's just a bonfire that the man lays by to get warm" -- apparently C was only worried about the campfire scene), and I made meals for the week.

Fam time for the rest of the long weekend!

Going to enjoy this weekend before the band arrives again and then a week of call... 

The Carousel

🌅 Breakfast with her octopus. We made from-a-can cinnamon rolls when Clementine woke up.

 🍴 We went to the gym and then Nordstrom for lunch. Octopus waited in the stroller.

💸 Hanna Andersson had a big summertime sale - I bought coverups and more swim stuff. Planning to focus on swimming this summer instead of dance.

🎠 I had promised the girls all week that we would visit the carousel this weekend. They had a much better time than this video captured. 

🚁 I wanted to take them to the adjacent playground but it was too busy, too much climbing, and mostly I couldn't keep an eye on both of them. Back to the car.

🎯 Went to Target for splash pad shoes, bought all this stuff. I was laughing with the clerk about how many unplanned purchases there were and she said, "You have only yourself to blame."

Verily, madam, verily.

🐙 Watching Moana with octopus. Will be interesting to see if this cephalopod has usurped Horsey's status as Number #1 Lovey permanently.

💅 Mani/pedis.

"TAKE A PITCHER OF MY FEET."

🎒 Finished up the weekend by packing the swim bag, the gym bag, the sparkling-water-and-snacks-for-my-office bag, and watching Medici: Masters of Florence on Netflix. Terrible show. Luke's show schedule slows down next week so perhaps a routine will emerge! What are your summer plans? I need to put some thought into the things I'd like to accomplish in this travel-free stretch. 

Two Feelings At The Same Time

Clementine sang this song the other day and I had no idea she knew it.

A salesperson asked Josie when her birthday was and she answered, to my astonishment: July.


I thought of this poem, What is Supposed to Happen, by Naomi Shihab Nye:

When you were small,
we watched you sleeping,
waves of breath
filling your chest.
Sometimes we hid behind
the wall of baby, soft cradle
of baby needs.
I loved carrying you between
my own body and the world.

Now you are sharpening pencils,
entering the forest of
lunch boxes, little desks.
People I never saw before
call out your name
and you wave.

This loss I feel,
this shrinking,
as your field of roses
grows and grows….

Now I understand history.

Now I understand my mother’s

ancient eyes.

(Sometimes you feel two feelings at the same time - and that's ok.)

Easter

My mom and I took the girls to the Botanical Garden on a rainy Easter morning (Luke was in Texas). We explored the new-to-me children's garden - it's incredible! The girls have been wearing these swim dresses + rash guards nonstop including three consecutive days this week. Josie's juuuust fits her so I think I'll buy the larger size for the rest of the summer (the jackets run bigger than the dresses).

We didn't make brunch plans but fortunately the garden's Cafe Flora had availability.

Josie dipped every bite of her waffle into the shot glass of syrup. Brunch level: expert.

Easter party at Aunt Ruth and Aunt Jane's! Josie with her cousin -

The gang, including three four year olds born within three months of each other!

Then the girls were off to my parents' for my week of call (and no Luke around for part of it).