April favorites

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1. Keurig one-cup coffee maker: Dan and I love our coffee. We use a regular coffee machine in the morning, but if we want a cup later in the day (and who doesn’t at 3 p.m. otherwise known as Slump Time here at Casa Bagley), we brew them individually. So awesome. I think the best thing for me would be an IV drip of coffee directly into my blood stream because I am just at my very best while caffeinated. But that seems kind of invasive, so the Keurig is the next best thing.

2. When did I get like this?: I laughed, I cried, I wanted to meet Amy Wilson in person and give her a great big blubbering hug. I consumed this book in just a few days. If you are even thinking about having kids or if you already have your very own whining machines, then this is the book for you. I so appreciate Amy’s honesty about parenting (you can read more of Amy’s stuff on her blog). I kept thinking to myself, “this woman knows me!” Amy, you are my hero. Call me!

3. Fiskars squeeze punch: I am a big fan of Fiskars products and this punch in particular. I fancy myself a sometimes crafter (read this month’s archives for my crafting sagas in April). And I like this punch because the circles are so very versatile in scrapbook making. I sometimes just glue them down in a pattern or use them to journal or just to write words.

4. Skip Hop Studio Diaper Bag Tote: Dan took a lot of issue with this diaper bag when I put it on my registry. “Who needs a $70 diaper bag?” he wailed. Me! That’s who! I am a self-proclaim bag whore. I L-O-V-E bags. BAGS BAGS BAGS! They are far and away my favorite accessory next to my strand of pearls that I sadly cannot wear until Kate stops attacking me. Anyway, I knew that since I would be needing to carry around baby junk like a pack mule, I wanted to do so as stylishly as possible. I am not sure why diaper bag makers put ducks and bunnies and elephants on the diaper bag. The baby isn’t carrying the bag. The mommy is! So, therefore, the diaper bag should reflect mommy’s taste. Truth be told, I would have looooooooved a Kate Spade bag, but that just wasn’t in the budget. This Skip Hop bag, in my opinion, gives you a lux look for much less than the designer price tag.

5. Paper Source Bracket Rubber Stamp: If you think I have a thing for purses, well my thing for stamps is runner up. I like my crafting supplies to be dual purpose, so I am always on the look out for stamps that don’t scream seasonal or baby or whatever. I prefer my tools to serve many functions. I like to stamp this bracket on minibook pages as a place to journal.

What are your April favorites?

April Happiness Project Recap and the “ah ha” moment

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The contents of this minibook took up residence on my desk for the past couple weeks. During a particularly “long” nap by Kate standards (meaning an hour instead of 30 minutes), I selected pictures, chose my paper, cut them all down to size, pasted them back to back, and bookringed them together. Then Kate woke up. And then life got in the way, so every morning I stare at this sad minibook in progress and think “maybe tomorrow.”

My Happiness Project goal for the month of April was to work on my creativity. Almost immediately, the pressure to BE CREATIVE did me in. So I shared how I suffered a creative crisis. Then I tried to get back in the creative saddle because I could not let blogland down. I promised blogland I would be creative, darn it. So I gave it the old college try and made something pretty.

Feeling inspired to create after the success of the ruffle necklace, I tried to make a minibook. And I would not stay I failed because I am working hard NOT to judge my creative endeavors like term papers. But I would say I realized that the demands of being a mom and a wife and a dog’s mom and a daughter and a friend and all the other things I want to do and be do not allow for speedy production of anything.

I used to think “ah ha” moments happened like lightening, Oprah style. Like the “ah ha” moment would just strike me, and I would finally make sense of the situation. But, if I have learned anything this month, it is that, while sometimes something might just strike, oftentimes (at least for me), I make sense of things over time. I keep learning and keep learning and keep learning a lesson until I add up all the lessons and see them for that they are. These mini teachable moments that add up to a great big “ah ha.”

So my “ah ha” this month is two fold: 1) I have a lot of ideas, I am a creative person, I have much to offer. I also have an almost-11-month-old-daughter who is messing with the buttons on my printer and making copies as I type. So in this season of my life, I am quite understandably tied down. Oh, how I sometimes long for hours of uninterrupted peace to write and cut and glue. But that is not my life right now. But it will be my life later. So I cannot judge myself harshly given such circumstances. And for 2) There is more than one way to foster creativity. It depends on what that means to me.

At first I thought I definitely failed this month. But, looking back at the goals I set, I think I did better than I thought. I did take many pictures (I shared them on this here blog), and I have tested out new ways to take pictures. I make a home everyday. And in that same vein, I remember “good enough” when it comes to our house. Umm, every day with Kate is a mini adventure. Oh, and I did bake a delicious carrot cake for Easter, but it was so darn good, I forgot to snap a picture given I was under the control of cream cheese icing.

Creativity, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. I put my life on the Internet, so it can seem a little like I have something to prove. But, really, I make things and do things for myself, and I share them here for fun. Anyway, this Happiness Project thing is for introspection, not perfection. And in that, I know I definitely was a success.

Chicken tamale casserole…Olé!

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My name is Sarah, and I am a recovering picky eater.

Back in my old days, I would never have touched this Chicken Tamale Casserole with a 10-foot-pole. Picky eating Sarah would have whined about it being too spicy or would have sifted through looking for horrorifying pieces of chiles.

But when I saw this recipes on Kate’s blog, I knew I had to give it a try. Good news! New Sarah L-O-V-E-S this casserole. I had to put it safely away in Gladware containers before I ate the entire Pyrex dish full of this stuff. Yum does not even begin to describe my love.

So this recipe required a little more to do than my usual dinner picks. I had no idea how to pre-cook the chicken, so I could shred it. After Googling (Don’t you love the Internet? I often wonder, what did Colonial women do without Google?), I decided to boil the chicken and then shred it. It was kind of a delicate operation. I did not want to boil the heck out of it and end up with shoe leather. But obviously, it needed to be cooked through. So I plop two chicken breasts in a sauce pot, brought it to a boil, and kept an eye on it. No easy task because Kate likes to use these moments to scale my legs and try to splash in the dog dish. But, I succeeded in boiling the chicken, let it rest, and shredded it with two forks.

The dinner came together pretty quick after that. And, oh my olé, it was delicious. This dish is definitely going in our rotation.

The Tooth Fairy cannot be trusted and other childhood phobias

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When I was a child I made my dad hide my baby teeth in our family car. No way in heck was I going to let someone who calls herself the “Tooth Fairy” to enter our home. While we were sleeping, no less. Geez! Didn’t my parents have any sense?

Now, I wanted the cash that came with a Tooth Fairy visit. But that crazy fairy could just leave the cash in the car and take the teeth and go on with her bad self. I remember when my parents finally sat me down and told me the Tooth Fairy did not actually exist. Relieved does not even begin to describe how I felt.

I had the same adverse reactions to Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Like the Tooth Fairy, I was cool with receiving gifts and cash and the like, but did these characters really need to enter the home? Okay, so I reasoned Santa needed to put the presents under the tree, so he needed access to the home to drop off the goods. But I made my parents swear on their lives that Santa would under no circumstances enter my room while I was sleeping. Creepy! Same with that Easter Bunny fellow. First off, was he really a bunny? Like the tiny ones that scamper through our garden and feast on all our plants? Or his he some sort of super bunny. As in more life size? Oh, the thought of that was unbearable.

And don’t even get me started on clowns. One time when I was about four or five my Grandpa took me to the circus. At said circus, a clown pranced around aisles, stopped next to me, and touched me. On my shoulder. I still shudder remembering that clown. The worst part was my Grandpa took the opportunity to tease me about it and kept saying he saw something growing out of my shoulder where the clown touched me.

If you think I had a clown phobia, that does not even compare to the fear I felt around any sort of costumed character. Take for example, Chuck E. Cheese. Kids looooooooooooove that grotesque mouse, am I right? When I was a kid, all my peers chased that poor mouse and reveled in pulling his tail. Not me. That thing was F-R-E-A-K-Y. Perhaps even freakier than the Easter Bunny. My mom had to ask the manager to tell the mouse to stay away from me. I wish I was kidding.

And, related to the mouse, any other sort of dressed up character gave me the heebie jeebies. Heaven help me if I attended a kid’s birthday party featuring a dressed up character. Oh, the horror. Why were the other kids soooooo excited?! Didn’t they see the unaturalness of this, this, thing?

As a kid, I harbored a lot of embarrassment about my Tooth Fairy/Santa/Easter Bunny/Clowns/Various Costumed Characters phobia. Other kids delighted in these things and could not get far enough away. Fortunately for me, my parents tried their best to shield me from these tormenting creatures. But as an adult – and an adult with a child – there is no hiding now. I am cringing at the thought of one of Kate’s friends having a balloon-animal-making clown at a birthday party. I am going to have to suck it up and try not to toss my cookies in fear. I will have to play it cool for Kate’s sake, so hopefully she will not grow up with the same imaginary-characters phobia. Until then, I am going to stay away from any clowns for as long as I can. Nothing did ever grow out of my shoulder, but, hey, you don’t know where those clowns have been.

Growing up is hard work

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Dan made an interesting observation the other day. At each baby stage, there is something frustrating/annoying Kate does that we hope will be fixed at the next stage. And we are correct. She will right herself. But then she picks something else to do that makes Dan and I want to take turns poking each other’s eyes out with forks.

For example, we could not wait for Kate to feed herself solid foods. Then mommy could eat with at least one hand. And as soon as she could eat on her own, she began smashing bananas in her hair, giving herself a yogurt facial, tossing cheese all over the floor, banging her sippy cup on the table. Then we foolishly thought she would be happier when she could crawl because then she could be in charge of her own destiny. Well, she sure does love her freedom. Dan and I, not so much. Because now she is completely destroying my home, cruising between furniture, and getting herself all bumped and bruised.

Anyway, clearly Kate is growing and changing and with that comes more fun and more annoyances. And the need for more clothes. She grows in spurts, which I discover when I go to get her dressed in the morning and realize that the pants that used to fit perfectly now look like capris. So yesterday Kate “helped” me go through her closet and by “helped” I mean make a mess with hangers.

It was a little sad to pack away her six to nine month clothes. Some of the little outfits she wore and wore and some I barely got her into. I remember when we brought her home from the hospital, and she was too small to fit in her zero-to-three outfits. For the first two-ish weeks of life, she wore the little t-shirts we stole brought home from the hospital. I thought for sure she would never fit in any of her clothes.

But of course she did. And I could wax on about how they grow up too fast and I must enjoy every banana-smashing, sippy-cup-mess moment. In reality, this under-age-one time is tough on parents. I told Dan the other day I would take one for the team and carry our next kid for an entire year plus the nine months to make him or her to avoid this under-one age. Since that is not possible, we just try to find the the humor in the situation and know that it is not forever. I am fine with admitting it – this under age one stuff stinks. I get it; these under-oners are always morphing and that’s got to be hard work. Their little brains are making big connections, their gums are on fire with protruding teeth, and no one understands a thing they say. All I can say is someday, many many many years from now, we can look back fondly at the food stains and 10-month-old temper tantrums and middle of the night wake ups and say, “right on, partner, we survived and lived to tell the tale.”

Can’t touch this: grass and other phobias

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Kate won’t touch the grass. When I tried to get her to sit on the grass, she cried while holding both her legs up in the air. (Really, that is quite a feat – you try to do that). Now, the grass is fun for picking at and perhaps eating, but only while sitting on a nice comfy blanket where you can reach over the side to snatch some grass while never letting the grass tickle your bare legs.

This kid would happily eat dirt if I let her. But she does not want her bare feet touching the grass. I get it. It must feel prickly. And maybe itchy. My mother-in-law said my brother-in-law never wanted to sit on the grass. And my mother reminded me of a little girl who refused to touch sand.

Oh, how I hated the feel of sand. My grandma on my dad’s side lived in Ohio near Lake Erie. And one summer I spent a week with her and my grandpa. They treated me to a truly awesome time of whatever I wanted to do in true grandparent fashion. One of the things I wanted to do was go to the beach off of Lake Erie.

Now, at this point in my life, I was living in a suburb in Chicago. There were no beaches. The closest thing I saw to beachy was the sand in my turtle sand box. But, I had my loving grandparents convinced that I wanted to go to the beach. So we loaded up their car for some fun in the sun. When we arrived, I realized I would have to walk through – in my six-year-old mind – a HUGE grassy area LOADED with bees. No way in heck was I going to go anywhere near that situation. So my grandmother lifted me up and ran through the bee-infested grassy area holding me. And when we finally got to the beach, I realized what sand was. And I also realized it was HOT. Like walking on fire. And I also realized that the beach was home to sand crabs. OH THE HORROR! NOT SAND AND SAND CRABS!

I spent the entire time crouching on a beach chair. Because no way I was going to let sand crabs feast on my toes.

So, really, it should come as no surprise that Kate does not want to touch the grass. I forgot about some of my childhood phobias until I had Kate. When she baulks at something, I always think, “really, Kate, it is no big deal.” Until I think back on some of the stuff that weirded me out as a child. It’s grass today but soon it will be any green vegetable and then the dark and then who knows what else.

All I know is that for now Kate refuses to touch the grass until a day – in true kid style – when she will happily run around bare footed like it is no big thing and I will turn in to my mother, nagging her to please FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PUT SOME SHOES ON.

Mommy time

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In her almost 11 months of life, I have been away from Kate – while she’s awake – for maybe four hours total. Four hours total. Over almost 11 months. Kate has a fully-on-board-participatory daddy and two sets of grandparents within a 10 minute drive. For those keeping track, besdies myself, that is a grand total of FIVE completely trustworthy, capable, and loving adults in Kate’s life.

She is one lucky girl. And whenever I meet new mommy friends who ask me about our life here, how long Dan and I have lived in Northern Virginia, and when they find out I have TWO SETS of grandparents who live just the other town over, well, they just about fall flat on their face.

We live in a transient area. Many of my friends work for the government in some way, shape, or form. So they are transplants. They are from other places and end up here for work. Then they might do a tour here or there but end up back in Northern Virginia as a home base in between travels.

So, as a local girl, I am a rarity. Like I am one of those people they’ve heard about but did not believe truly existed. New mommy friends I meet cannot believe it when I tell them, yep, I went to middle school and high school just up the road. I keep in touch with my high school friends who still live in the greater DC area. I went to school at U.Va. and came right on back to NoVa (Northern Virgina for all of you non-locals). And guess what? My husband and I even went to the SAME middle school (although he was a year ahead of me and we were not there at the same time), and he also attended a local high school.

All this to say, Dan and I have more than just familial roots here. We have middle school and high school friends here. And our friend’s parents. Basically, we have a giant network of love and support and help. More than many of my mom friends. If I needed help, all I would have to do is sound the alarm, and I would have a line down the block of people vying to hang out with Kate while I did whatever I needed to do.

But like I said, FOUR HOURS TOTAL.

Leaving Kate is hard. I feel guilty and sad and like I am abandoning her. I have to laugh at myself a little – abandoning her with her own dad?! Seems silly, right? But even when she is completely driving me nuts, leaving her feels like yanking off one of my appendages. Kate is quite literally attached to me in some way throughout the day, using me as a jungle gym, grabbing my shoulders to pull up, rocking in my arms. She has become like a second skin.

And I know leaving her every once in a while is good for everyone. The other night after I put Kate to bed, I planned on meeting up with some moms from my mom’s group for drinks and desserts. I had a hard time getting going. I kept telling Dan that I felt too guilty to leave. That she would think I was abandoning her. AND SHE WAS A SLEEP FOR GOODNESS SAKE! Dan practically pushed me out the door with my hot rollers still in my hair. So I got in the car and went. And I tell you, just the act of driving to the restaurant, at night, alone, with the radio turned up all the way was exhilarating. Like I could finally shake off that second layer of skin and peel back the Sarah I once knew.

I knew I would have an awesome time. And I did. I chatted with my mommy friends and met new mommy friends. And it turns out, other mommies have their hang ups, too. So we talk about it, and laugh at ourselves, and tell each other the words we need to hear. You are a good mom. You are doing the best you can. You are not abandoning her. She knows you love him. You deserve a break. Don’t feel guilty.

I always knew my parent’s loved me. But I don’t think I fully comprehended just how deep and wide and all-consuming they loved me until I had Kate. How much my sister and I were – and are – their world. We’re blessed. And so is Kate. But Kate also needs a mommy who takes time for herself. A mommy who puts Kate first by sometimes putting herself first. That’s tough. And I am sure it is a lesson I will keep learning again and again and again until I am more experienced and gain more wisdom in being a mommy and being myself. So I am going to try for a few more hours here and there away from Kate, so I can come back to her a better mommy.

Book worm

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My house is always a mess. And it looks like a strange family that only puts things on high surfaces lives here. Why? Because Kate is ruining my house.

Once you have a mobile child, you must decide, do I a) let the child take apart everything in sight but at least have quiet or b) don’t let the child get into anything and keep taking things away and listen to the screaming?

If you are like me, you are against the nails-on-chalk-board irritation that is a child screaming. So most of the time I let her have at it with stuff not labeled DANGEROUS. And I learned pretty quickly what I am attached to and what I do not care about.

Take the book shelf, for example. Kate is CONSTANTLY taking books off the shelves and trying to rip the pages into little tiny pieces. Clearly, I am not too attached to the Economic Indicators books she is shown “reading.” Her facination with books is unparalleled. And not really in a good way. Since she seemed so into books, I tried reading her her own books. She sat looking at me for about five seconds before snatching the book out of my hand and trying to eat it.

Luckily, Kate’s books are made of cardboard. Clever children’s publishers. Kate only manages to make indents with her only two teeth (Sidenote: why does my daughter only have two teeth? She got her two bottom teeth in January. Now it is the end of April. No teeth since January?! That’s just not right. This is the stuff that keeps me up at night. My semi-toothless daughter. SHE WILL NEVER GET TEETH! WE NEED IMPLANTS! FREAK OUT! Okay, phew, glad I got that off my chest.).

Okay, what was I saying? Oh, yes, the bookshelf. Kate is drawn to taking books off shelves like ladies clamoring at the clearance rack at DSW. Then she tries to rip up pages of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Stitch n’ Bitch. And she knows she should not be doing that because when Dan and I approach her and say, “Kate, what are you doing?” she takes off crawling like her diaper’s on fire. They she turns around and LAUGHS IN OUR FACE!

Who’s the boss around here? I think it is the one wearing the Pampers.

Beheaded

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My front yard was filled with tulips. It looked like people who actually knew about gardening lived here. When our friends and family came over and marveled at the beauty to behold in my yard, Dan and I were all “yeah, we know, it looks pretty awesome.” Eventhough we had more than nothing to do with it.

In actuality, Dan and I had absolutely nothing to do with the plants in the yard. They came with the house. And they looked lovely.

I kept thinking to myself, “self, I really need to get out there and take some pictures of those tulips with the macro setting on the D7000. I really need to do that. Pretty soon they are going to die or evaporate or whatever it is flowers do.”

So I procrastinated and by procrastinated I mean chase Kate around the house putting back all the books she removes from the book shelves and counting down the hours until 7 p.m. bedtime. Every day I thought I would take those pictures tomorrow.

Well, the other day I stepped outside to get ready to take Kate and Belle for a walk, and I see something amiss with my flower bed I so painstakingly had nothing to do with. I only see about three tulips. And yesterday there were about 20 tulips. So, while math is not my strong suit, I can clearly see that three is MUCH less than 20. I walked over to investigate, and I saw a horrible, horrible sight. Something ATE THE TOPS OFF MY TULIPS.

Yes, the tops of the beautifully elegant red and yellow and orange tulips are now gone. Now all I have to show for no gardening work are beheaded tulips. Seriously, it looks like a bunch of stems standing in row that got executed.

I am thinking its the deer. It has to be them, those darn gardening-ruining deer. Curses! I could just about cry. I am getting all teary typing out this post because of how lovely my front yard looked and I DID NOT EVEN DO ANYTHING TO GET IT THAT WAY. For real, all day I slave anyway in my houses, chasing my tall, working in circles, and attempting to clean up messes Kate makes. My house looks like a disaster. But those tulips in the front yard? Perfection.

Now they are goners. And I have to move on. Some new babies are sprouting up. I hope they survive.

I must admit, I am thinking some not-so-kind-things about the deer right now. Like perhaps if Bambi made his way into my front yard to feast on my tulips as a midnight snack, I would pelt him with wood chips and spray him with the hose. Get out of here, deer. Why don’t you eat your way through someone else’s garden?

My only solace is the blossoming pink tree in my front yard. I am pretty sure the limbs are too high up to be deer snacks.