Category Archives: Mothering

Growing up!

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Yesterday, the light of my life turned 2!!! We threw a wild bash in her honor and invited everyone we knew! K and her friends played in her kiddie pool, ran around the yard, swung in her chair, ate lots of food (brownies, cookies, carob balls, ice cream cake and chocolate-zuchinni cake, udon noodles with almond sauce, avocado salad…). She ordered people around, made sure everyone had a fake tattoo (she put 8 on her little body). She showed people around our garden and stayed up until the last person went home at ~10:30pm!! Then, she crashed hard! We all slept until 8:30 this morning and all took a 3 hour nap this afternoon! I wanted to be able to post some pictures of the party fun, but I can’t. See, K was nudie for the whole party!!!! She put on her “big girl panties” (she’s potty training) for about 5 minutes and that was it! But, Toby and I agree that wearing your birthday suit on your birthday is the only way to go and think we might start a new tradition. 🙂

Right now, we are listening to the present daddy gave her, the Muppets 25th Anniversary Music CD, a must-have for everyones music collection!

Where is Sesame Street going??

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Have you heard?? The House Appropriations Committee just approved a spending bill that would slash spending for public television and radio nearly in half!! And the first to be hit by this spending cut??? The ..ady to Learn..rograms for producing children.?shows, like ..same Street..”Reading Rainbow”, ..tween the Lions..and ..agon Tales…strong> We can’t let this happen!! In this crappy TV world full of sex, violence, ‘reality’ tv and just more crap, PBS is the only thing my daughter can safely watch! And it is the only TV where you aren’t bombarded by advertising telling kids what they ‘need’ and ‘must have’ because they won’t be cool with out it! Here is an article about the spending cut. And here is where you can speak up about it! Please, please write to your congresspeople!

Catch up!

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We had a wonderful past 4 days in Charleston, SC visiting with Toby’s dad and some friends. K had a blast playing in the sand and waves. We ate great meals from the garden, lots of squash, salad and stuff. (But, I countered that with about 5 hundred cookies!! No, seriously!!) Toby and I got to see Batman Begins on IMAX big screen!! It was pretty cool! Definitely the best of the Batman series so far. The ride to/from Charleston was pretty long, so we sang lots of songs for K. As a result, she has learned most of her ABC’s. Except she skips “K” and thinks LMNO are “ella” and “menna”, two entirely new letters 🙂 We ran out of songs by hour 4 in the car and started singing things like “clap on…. clap off…. clap on, clap off…. the clapper!” She loved it!

Now, I am playing catch up. I am going to be doing a small talk for k-2 graders (then 3-5 grade next week) on herbs. A friend of mine owns a farm and has started doing farm school for kids. There are ducks, chickens, small horses, cows, flowers, veggies. It will be fun. I think I will talk about what an herb is (‘weed’/food/medicine) and take them on an herb walk. It’s only going to be 20 minutes so I can’t get too indepth. Plus, I imagine they are going to be a little excited about the horses and cows. 🙂 Wish me luck.

K’s Birthday Dress

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I got this for K for her 2nd bday. Isn’t it adorable. It’s great cause the shoulder straps are looped through to make a bow in the back that is adjustable. So, she can wear it for many years to come!! My friend Tina made it for her. She has a business making fantastic things for little ones!

Beekeeping, garden making and land searching

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OK, there are going to be lots of pictures in this one!

First, the bees. They are doing well. Though one hive still has a moderately high mite count, both hives are growing rapidly!! The queens are laying really well and the population is just exploding, which is great! They are bringing in lots of nectar and pollen, too. So, you would think that they would stop drinking the sugar syrup and just fill up on the food they are bringing in. But, they are scarfing it down, which makes me think they need it (or maybe what’s in the syrup). To help decrease the mite population we are adding HoneyBHealthy to their sugar syrup, as well as 15 drops of Bergamot Essential Oil/quart of syrup (some friends of ours totally got rid of their mites using bergamot!) We are still doing weekly mite counts to make sure the level doesn’t go up. So, here are a bunch of great pictures (well, some aren’t so great, but I had to post them!)

This one show a great capped brood pattern in the middle with lots of white capped honey on the edge.

Here’s a great one of pollen and capped brood.

Here is a queen. It’s fuzzy, but she is the long bee in the middle.

This is a pic. of brood (baby bees) being capped over.

And this one I was so upset that it didn’t turn out!! We were witness to a bee birth 🙂 This baby bee is just about to come out of the comb. Here is his little fuzzy head!

And one of our girls hard at work.

Now, on to K’s garden! We put in our new/used sink this weekend and put the old one in the garden for K. This morning, K and I filled it with pineapple sage, chocolate peppermint, purple basil, hyssop, chamomile, zinnea, lambs ear, calendula, and a tomato. I tried to put things in there that she could smell, taste, and feel. But, it’s a little crowded. So, I may move the hyssop to my herb garden 🙂 She really likes it! And everything is very well watered!

Here’s one of the garden.

And my little helper.

And my little helper practicing her best sad face.

So, as far as land search… well, we have been a bit disheartened. To be able to have the sustainable homestead that we would like, we are really hoping for more land than we will be able to afford in our current area. Land prices around here (and back in Asheville) are so inflated that we can barely afford an acre! We did, however, just find out about the possibility of buying some land from a family member. This would be great! My biggest worry though, is that we would be surrounded by many people who have very different beliefs than us. Plus, one of my herby friends and I have just started to talk about opening up an herb school here. If we moved, I couldn’t do that. (Well, it’s not that I couldn’t, but I don’t think there would be the desire for an herb school where the family land is.) I wish there were some overwhelming factor to push us somewhere. It would make this decision so much easier… do we spend more and have a higher mortgage, or by less, have a smaller mortgage and less land to work, do we spend more and buy less land to be near a town we love, or spend less and buy more land, but be near a town that doesn’t have such a supportive community for alternative living? I don’t know! Anyone out there got an answer??

Busy bees

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We have been staying really busy here! After delivering my order to Weaver Street, I got 3 more orders through my website and wiped out my stock. So, I have spent the last 3 days making soap, ordering supplies, labeling, etc. Toby went out of town for work, and I would have been sunk trying to do all this stuff without a hand with watching K. But, my mom-in-law came to town for a visit and a little relaxation, and she was my savior! She and K played all day and they both slept like logs at night 🙂

I also got a sink (cast iron, enameled in great condition!) off of Freecycle. So, we are going to take the old one and plop it in my garden, fill it with soil, plant some flowers, fast growing seeds and such and let K run free with it! She will get her own watering can and shovel and if she ‘destoys’ everything, that will be fine with me! I have some squash and tomato seedlings without a home. I will get some flower seedlings for her to pick and lots of seed for her to plant. It will be packed with stuff, or not. It will be her own space. Hopefully she will be as excited about it as I am 🙂

Advice from Gardening Mamas

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K is an amazing child! She is fun, clever, very happy, usually in a really good mood, she’s extremely verbal, so we can already have detailed conversations. I have a hard time remembering that she is not even 2 yet. But, these last few weeks K has not been listening so well. I say “K, leave the bread on the counter, we are going to make sandwiches” and in an instant the bread is gone. “K, will you put your sippy on the table please” and it goes flying across the room. But, the place that I lose my temper the most and seem to be having the hardest time with is my garden. When I use to ask K to be gentle to the plants, she would pat them nicely. Today, I asked her to let the flowers grow so they can make food for us… she ripped up some eggplant, picked 2 flowers and almost ripped up another. I know that she isn’t 2 yet, but since she use to listen when I asked her not to do something, it is very hard not to raise my voice when she is continually disobeying now. I’m sure it is confusing for her since she knows that what is in the garden is edible. How do you guys handle it with little ones in the garden, or anywhere for that matter? I guess this is the ‘testing the limits’ of the terrible/terrific twos. But, since talking it out and giving her ‘quiet time’ isn’t working, I am looking for other suggestions.

That being said, the amazing brainiac told me that yesterday Suki (our dog) begins with S

Quiet time

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If there is one thing I have figured out about marriage and motherhood, it’s how important it is to make time for yourself, alone! So, Toby and I have started getting up together when K wakes up (it use to be a fight to see who got to sleep in). He gets her breakfast and gets a little K time in while I go for a walk. I tell ya’, these last two mornings have been heaven! The cool, morning air, the quiet road, getting my mind in order… I love it! Since Toby is not a morning person, I consider this a major gift and sacrafice. Toby, I will consider this an early Mother’s Day gift. It even makes up for forgetting about it last year 🙂 So, what day is Mother’s Day again, dear? 😉

Cleanse Day 6 – The Final Countdown

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Que the Final Countdown music!

Today actually felt different. I didn’t have the intense desire to eat, and somehow, my body felt different. I had pretty good energy and felt great mentally. Maybe it’s just that I know I only have one day left of the cleanse. But, it felt pretty good.

I tested my limits, too. One of my herb teachers had a “Wild Edibles” workshop at her house today. A group of us walked around her garden and woods talking about and harvesting the wild edible herbs/foods. Then we made a beautiful wild salad with lots of flowers, a pesto with Nettles and Chickweed, a casserole with nettles (rice and goat cheese, too) and lots of other divine yummies!! I watched, helped, and smelled but didn’t eat any!! I did take some home in a tupperware to taste on Tuesday, along with all the recipes to make next week too 🙂

K did pretty good today. She just fussed a little when I wasn’t eating breakfast with her. Hopefully things will be all back to normal soon!

Cleanse Day 5 and other stuff

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I woke up to K starting her day off in a funk again! She cried through most of breakfast, which consisted of a little yogurt, cereal, egg, prune, and a bread stick. Then more cereal, rice milk and herb tea!! She must be going through a growth spurt!! But, I think her mood is a combination of things. One, I think the weaning thing is finally hitting her ’cause she has been asking for “boobie” lately. But, it looks as if my once plump breastfeeding boobs have started to shrivel up and die! So, even if I wanted to give her a boob, it would probably just frustrate her that there is no milk. At least they are not feeling so engorged anymore. But, also, I think my cleanse is effecting her. This morning, during her breakfast, she kept trying to get me to eat with her, “mommy eat cereal” “mommy drink sippy” and she would start crying all over again when I said no thanks. We’ve been eating our meals together for her whole life, so this must seem like a very major change. Hopefully things will get better soon. She did great the rest of the day.

And I’m doing fine. A little tired and hungry. But the urge to eat just to eat isn’t as strong today. I’m just tired of drinking my meals. But, I really want to make it to day 7. That is supposed to be how long it takes for your body to make a major dump of toxins. I thought I was being handed a double whammy this morning when I started my period, too!! (Which usually makes me a little cranky and physically tired.) But, I have done fine today. Plus, it seems only fitting that I start my period a little early. I am cleansing in every other way, when not mentrually too?

On the home front, I’ve decided to stop using my dryer and start hanging the clothes on a line. I figure it is one simple step to getting off the power grid. It was nice standing out in the sun and wind, putting the clothes on the line. We’ll see how it works in winter:-)

Fairy Princess

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In my cleansing stupor, I am got a little creative urge today and decided to make K a “fairy princess skirt”. I just got some ribbon in all different colors and tied it on a pretty rope and voila.

K’s first herb books

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I just got these fantastic herb books for K! I know she is barely 2, but I couldn’t pass them by. I’m hoping to home school, so these can be used as part of her science education. They are “A Kid’s Herb Book” by Lesley Tierra and “Walking the World in Wonder – A Children’s Herbal” by Ellen Evert Hopman, and they are both fabulous! Lesley Tierra and her husband are both amazing herbalists and writters. This book has great projects, songs, crafts, education, recipes, and more about herbs!! I can’t wait to use it! The other book by Hopman is more simple, but a great suppliment to the first since it has big pictures and also a short description of the Wheel of the Year and corrisponding festivals.

Yay me!!

Deer Control 2

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Well, the deer have found the garden! I don’t think they know there is stuff growing there, just that there is a fence around it. I found a huge rip in the fencing where I think a deer got caught. But, there was no sign of a struggle, or tracks. So, I think they took off as soon as they got free. So, this morning I pulled out all the stops! I tied pie pans to some of the fence posts to make noise in the wind. I tied a bar of Irish Spring (which I hear deer hate) to each post as a deterant, and I wove red and silver “bird flash tape” through the fencing to make sure the deer saw it and didn’t try to run right through it! I hope that works! Everything is starting to take off with the warm weather we had this week. So, I don’t want the deer to try again and find a smorgusborg(sp?). I checked the 10 day forcast and there are no freezing temperatures in sight. So, since April 15th is the average last frost date and the lowest predicted temp in the next 10 days in in the 40’s, I planted some summer squash, pumpkin, zucchini, and cucumber seedlings and also some corn, bean, aster, zinnea, and radish seeds. Wish me luck!

For dinner tonight we had a salad with fresh greens, chard, arugula, and parsley from the garden (there weren’t many to harvest, but enough to say “we had fresh greens, chard, arugula, and parsley from the garden”). I also added some chickweed, violet leaves and flowers from the yard. Non-home-grown stuff added was spinach, tomato, strawberries, kalamata olives, walnuts, feta cheese, sprouts, and broccoli. I have to say, it was very yummy!

Now, I am sipping on some sage tea to help dry up my milk. I’m not really engorged, but I can feel a fullness. K didn’t ask for ‘boobie’ all day and I am doing pretty good mentally. I have heard that there are certain astrological signs that are easier to wean under. Do any of you know about this?

Aske and ye shall receive

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Why am I up blogging at 7am? I’m trying to keep my self occupied so I don’t go off in a corner and cry! See, after blogging about how I need a break away and might take a trip by myself once K weans, she decided to cut back on nursing. One day, she just didn’t ask for her afternoon or evening nursing. So, I didn’t offer. I figured we’d see what happened. Well, she never asked again. So, we are down to one long morning nurse when she wakes up. Then, I decided that I would go on a trip and see if we couldn’t wean all together. She’s nursed for almost two years and I need some time on my own, right? So, this morning, I went out to the couch before she woke up and let Toby get her when she got up. She cried for a minute and then wanted to get up and get some cereal. She is so flexible and easy to adjust. Not me! I laid on the couch and cried. All I could think about was that yesterday was the last time that I will ever have my baby at my breast. Nuzzled up in my arms, finding comfort, rolling her fingers through her hair while she nurses. So, what do you do when the baby is fine with no longer nursing but mom is not? My heart hurts! I know she can’t nurse forever, but it is so hard to let go!!

Back home

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We’ve been gone for a few days…
We joined some other couples-with-babies friends of ours for a trip to eastern NC. We stayed one night at a B&B and then hopped in some canoes and paddled down a river. We stopped for the night to camp on a platform in the middle of a marsh. Then paddled out the next day! K absolutely loved it. She is normally a happy child, but she couldn’t wipe the smile off of her face the whole weekend! It was a blast! Toby and I have made a promise to try to go camping at least once a month (even if it is just camping out on our land). When we were in the marsh, there were so many Barred owls that I couldn’t sleep. One or two would ‘hoo’ and then the whole lot of them would sound off (courting, I guess). It sounded like a pack of orangutans!! Seriously! At one point, K woke up and in her sleepy stupor said “hoo-hoo. Cock-a-doo” and then fell back to sleep. 🙂

Monsanto Sucks!

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I can’t believe that we can ban people from smoking in public places and we can’t get rid of crooks and killers like Monsanto!! I try so hard to make my home and environment a healthy, nurturing one. It makes me sick that these huge corporations are out there dumping filth into my world! When I hear about all of the babies in Vietnam that have been effected by Agent Orange (an herbicide made by Monsanto), it makes my body shake! What if things had been different and I was born into a vietnamese family? That could have been me or worse, K!! AAAARRRGGGHHGGHH!! And they have just been let off the hook for all the horror that has been caused by this herbicide. We have got to take a stand!! (YES! I am screaming!) Now this company, who is huge into genetically modified crops, is sueing small farmers for saving their own seeds! (It cuts in on their profits, ya know.) What the F*%#?? Go away Monsanto! You Suck!!

Insert Title Here

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I hate trying to think of catchy titles for my blog entries!!

Anyway, check out this bunny my sister, Carla, sent K. Carla doesn’t ever plan on having children. So, she uses K as an outlet for spoiling 🙂 Isn’t it the cutest bunny ever??? I know that I didn’t start this blog to just post pictures of my child and her toys, but this is a cute bunny! I want one my size that says “I ‘heart’ Maria”!

Now, if Carla would just send K some proper shoes… My deprived child likes to go around the house wearing these…

Yes, they are kitchen gloves! (And, I’m just kidding Carla, we are well stocked on shoes. Thank you!)

AAacccKKK!

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Don’t get me wrong, I am very glad that my little girl is regular. It’s nice to know that once a day, in the afternoon hours, she poops. But tell me, why does she feel that this is also the perfect time (before said poopy diaper is changed) to go bounce on her bouncy horse? What kind of power does this horsey have over her? And why does she keep doing it over and over every day!?!

Sorry, that was probably more than you wanted to know.

Grandma moon

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I’ve been working with K to try to cut down on the amount of times she nurses at night and it’s going very well. I just told her that after she gets her bedtime booby, she can nurse again when the sunshine is out, but not while Grandma Moon is up. The first night this was pretty hard for her and we did a lot of snuggling and crying. But, after that she was fine.

Last night, K started asking for booby around 7 pm. So, we went in her room and read a little. But, she was more interested in snuggling up and getting her bedtime booby. She didn’t want to stop nursing. When I finally told her it was time to go to bed she cried. I told her that she’d had both boobies and that we would nurse again when the sun comes up. She got annoyed and started pushing stuff around on her bed and telling her pillows to “mooove!!” Then, as she calmed down I heard her saying, very quietly, “sunshine, sunshine, no. Gamma moon now.” What a smart cookie!!

She Poops, Too!

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K is a wonder child! Tonight she asked to go potty and as soon as we sat her down, she pooped!! Then, after taking a bath, she got back on the potty and peed!! I can’t believe she is figuring this out so fast! No more diapers, here we come!!

Wonderful Evening!

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What a perfect end to the evening! K had a great time playing in a bubble bath. Then she got out and began her nightly ‘run-around-the-house-nudey’ time. But, instead of running around, she went to her potty, sat down and peed! All by herself! For the first time!! She was so excited that she spent the next 20 minutes getting on and off the potty saying “pee gen (again)!” I am so proud! 🙂

Being a mom is hard work!

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Many of my blog reader friends are moms already. So, I’m sure I’m not telling you something new. But, before I became a mother, I had this view of me as “xena -warrior princess mom” able to accomplish anything in record time, while still loving nurturing and caring for my family. HA! More like “xena – too many loads of laundry, rarely showers, cranky in the morning, never accomplishes anything on her list mom” So, I only write the following entry because, though K is 19 months old, I am still stunned by the realization that being a mom isn’t more simple, and that it is accompanied by so many emotions (like rage, joy, saddness, enlightenment, exhaustion) that always seem to hit me, all of them, with in a very short span of time – say 20 minutes. I have some mom friends who say that becoming a mom has made their life simpler and easier…I say either you are fooling yourself, or you are on some really good meds! I thought that after a few months of being a mom, I would get things under control and have this gig figured out. No one ever told me that you give up your independance because now you have a twin who goes everywhere with you, needs everything from you and whom you love with such a fierce passion that you don’t ever want to think about what it would be like if she weren’t in your life. I love K so much that it hurts. I cry to think about the day when she won’t ask for ‘boobies’ anymore (but I desperately want to wean). My whole body feels lighter when I see her at my bed side in the morning saying “all done napping mommy” (but after being up all night trying to get her back to sleep, all I want to do is say “Come on! just go back to bed and give mommy a little more time to sleep!”) It’s such an amazing roller coaster ride! But, I feel like no one ever talked about this stuff before I had kids. I had no idea what I was in for. Or maybe I just didn’t listen. For the past few months I have been slowly reading this book “Operating Instructions” by Anne Lamott. (It’s actually a very fast read, but I haven’t had the time to devote to it). I would like to recommend this book to anyone who thinks they might have kids, are in the process, or who have kids! It is a mothers journal of the first year of her son’s life, no holds barred. And I love it. I find myself laughing so much because she can put into words the things that I have been feeling for so long but didn’t know how to express. And I find it very comforting to know that I am not the only one who thinks motherhood is hard. And though there are many moments that I feel like the worst mom in the world who just can’t hack it, I look at her and feel so lucky to have been blessed with an amazing daughter with a fantastic personality. Sometimes, when I feel off my rocker and start acting a little nutty, K approaches me with this ‘wise man on the hill’ look, tilts her head, puckers her lips and leans in for a kiss, as if to say, “It’s ok mommy. You’re doing just fine!”

Sun bunnies

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K and I spent this afternoon washing the car…in our bathing suits…in the sun…in 70 degree weather…in January !! (Well, I washed the car. K stomped in the mud puddles)

Happy 2005!

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To start off the new year right, K has decided to take on a new favorite word: Frog. (Yes, she can say big words like ‘marshmellow’ and ‘butterfly’, but she likes ‘frog’ better) And it is very cute when she says it, except that she doesn’t fully pronounce the ‘r’ and the ‘g’ sounds like a ‘k’. So, we get more of a f!%* sound. Which I have to say is also quite amusing to hear as we walk through the hardware store and she points out the toy frog and yells “TOY F!%*, TOY F!%*!!!”. To which I follow with “yes K, that is a FROG. Can you say FARROOOGGGGAH?” To which she follows with a look of “duh, mom, I just said it!!” and pronounces loudly and proudly “F!%*”(She is having a bit of an issue with inserting an ‘h’ into the word ‘sit’…but we are working on that one too.) 🙂

heart ache

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I feel like an absolute, humongous pile of shit when I have to discipline K! I really hate it! She is having issues with biting me when she gets too excited. Putting her in her room for ‘time-out’ seems to be the only thing that gets her to calm down and stop biting, for a while. Tonight, she was running around the kitchen while I was doing the dishes. She ran up to me and bit my leg. I grabbed her up and went straight back to her room, placed her inside and closed the door…for two minutes. Two minutes that still leave me enough time to open my rib cage and tear my heart out while she sits behind the door crying. After two minutes, with my saggy heart in my hand, I knock on her door, “K, can you please try really hard not to bite mommy anymore? Please??” I open the door and she slowly walks out with her sweet, little head hung low. She walks up to me, turns around and sits in my lap, as if asking for forgiveness. My heart starts to dissolve. And if that wasn’t enough, she lets out a few of those half breaths that you make when you’ve been crying so hard that you feel like you can’t breath and then she leans her head onto my chest.

You’re killing me, kid!!! Killing me!!

She’s a mean one, Mrs. Grinch

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So, I decided to play the grinch today. We (Toby, K and I) are supposed to go back to Asheville on the 10th for Toby’s Office Holiday party, and then back to Asheville again 2 weeks later for Christmas. I told Toby today that I would travel for one of those weekends but not both…and that means K would only be traveling for one too. Here’s why…of the past 4 weeks, we have traveled 3 of them (to NY for the Marathon and to Asheville, twice), with, let me emphasize, the 17 month old. During this time, we have had to find someone (and it was a different person every time, poor animals) to watch the animals, the house has become a complete wreck, and none of the stuff that we were supposed to have done before winter has gotten done. We still have 75 trees to take down in the front before our house can get any solar heat, I still have to sew up the insulating curtains, and let’s not forget about Christmas cards!!! I know, bitch and moan, but I decided that I have had enough. I almost popped yesterday (that’s popped, not pooped!) after tripping over the stroller, in the middle of the living room. So, since I am a little tightly wound (is that how you spell it?), I decided not to go to Asheville on the 10th. And since I don’t want to wean K yet. Toby will make the trip by himself and I will have the house, and K, to myself. At first glance, you might think it is harder to have to take care of K by myself, but I actually think it is easier. Because we don’t have to worry about anyone else’s schedule, or clean up after anyone else…I’m not saying that Toby is a needy pig, but you now what I mean, it’s just easier by yourself, even with a toddler in tow. So, once next week is over and school is done, maybe I will have some time to put my feet up and chill…I hope so!

On a happier note, I talked with my mother tonight and she said that the Herbal Ulcer Syrup that I made for her has her feeling 95% better! It’s always so good to hear when things work well. Even though I know what these herbs are supposed to do, it’s nice to hear good feedback.

Potty training intensive

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Somewhere hidden deep in my family tree, one of my ancestors had sex with a storm and they had offspring. Those genes have been lying dormant in my child until just recently, when K put on her cape and turned into The Great Tornado, whirling through the house at break-neck speed, able to trip over small cats in a single bound. I use to be able to keep up with her, keeping the house in a state of clean, some-what. Now, God help me!

This evening, I just couldn’t take it anymore. So, K and I locked ourselves in the bathroom (the only room in the house that hadn’t been ransacked by the Great Tornado, yet) and had an evening class on Potty Training 101. K is only 16 months, so I have not really tried potty training with her yet. But, she has been showing interest – saying and signing ‘potty’ when Toby or I go to the bathroom, patting on the toilet and saying ‘potty’. taking her diaper wipes and trying to clean the cat’s unmentionables (except, I just mentioned them). So, since K insisted on being naked this evening, I thought we (she) would be naked on the potty. It was a very successful evening. We learned that butt’s and yoni’s go in the toilet, not your feet, or mommy’s shampoo. We learned that once you put the toilet paper in the toilet, you don’t take it out and use it again, and you certainly don’t put it back on the toilet paper roll. It went so well, and K was so mentally exhausted from learning about crap, that she went to bed at 6pm!!

Now, to clean the house before tomorrow’s forcasted tormado hits!

Cooler Weather

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Wow, what a beautiful day! The sky was blue, the air was crisp…

I took K out to run some errands and she fell asleep in the car seat before we got to the store. So, I took her out of the seat (we were in Carrboro, by a nice, green patch of grass) and we laid down under a willow tree while she slept for a while. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to have her sleep on my chest. I love to kiss her head while she sleeps…

With the cooler weather, it is time to move some of my plants indoors. This usually makes the house feel a little more crowded. But, also, more like a little tropical paradise! Here’s the bedroom:
plants
Check out the banana. It’s only one year old! I’m hoping it will fruit this next year.