10.06.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:59 am by Sara
Apple season has descended upon Upstate NY along with the fall foliage that is almost at its peak. We spent a crisp Sunday morning picking apples at Hick’s yesterday.
Old apple trees with crooked bent branches surround the barn and house and hundreds of happy bees buzzed around our heads as we tried to scarf down our apple cider doughnuts.
The kids sipped from a cup of steaming apple cider, while I insisted on spending three dollars on maple sugar cotton candy. The cider? Always a winner. The cotton candy? The best I have ever had, and I do consider myself a bit of a cotton candy connoisseur.
After our snack at the barn we made our way to the orchard, where the apples were so ripe they were falling off the trees.
The apple coverage on the ground made walking difficult for small feet, so Grandma and Grandpa pitched in to help carry Harrison and Emma and assist in their picking efforts.
I picked some, too!
I was feeling a little stiff and sore during the apple picking because I had run my first 5K the day before, hence the wincing look on my face.
Brendan kept track of our bags and reached the reddest apples high up in the trees that were out of reach for the rest of us shorties. He also rescued Harry for the (apparently) horrifying apple studded ground and wet grass.
We tried to get a decent picture of the kids together, but the minute the camera was obviously pointed at them they became jumping beans and would not hold still.
We took some group shots,
and a few of us posed by the car.
The orchard was beautiful, the apples were outrageously expensive but delicious, and a good time was had by all. Even me, despite being so sore that I was, admittedly, a little grumpy.
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09.12.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:59 pm by Sara
We laid side by side on his bed. I was rubbing his belly and trying to coax his wound-up little body to sleep for a much needed nap and he was telling me snippets and tales from his day at preschool.
I cherish these quiet moment when he tells me things that pop into his head from his day. When asked directly about school he offers little, but if I try to lull him to sleep the details of his two and a half hour adventure trickle out of his mouth and into my waiting ears. I happily absorb his words, hold them to myself, and wonder at the world he has entered that does not include us. At times I think he likes having something apart from us, something that is entirely his, that we hold no ownership of. His burgeoning independence is both beautiful and heartbreaking. I want so badly at times to keep him small forever, but I also love, more than anything, watching him blossom and grow.
I am brushing my fingers through his hair now and I gently request that he close his eyes and go to sleep. "I can’t close them, Mom," he says, "I have to keep my eyes open wide so I can see everything."
He has grown so suddenly these past months. Gone are all traces of baby; they have been replaced by long limbs and strong muscles. Fingers that were once chubby with baby fat now have the ability to button, zipper, and snap, and are close to being able to tie shoes. He wants to know everything, to try everything, to see everything. He is at the wonderful age where children are ready to explore the possibility of the world beyond their family and yard, yet they want so badly to know that we still have their backs, we will still scoop them up and carry them down the stairs, and kiss away their hurts, and tell them endless bedtime stories until the possibility of a monster lurking beneath the bed is game rather than a nightmare.
Finally, his words are a murmur instead of a torrent and his fingers relax. His eyes flutter closed and he breathes in the even rhythm of deep sleep. I watch his face until I am sure that he is off in a land of dreams and then I can see it: the baby that lurks within the boy. There are the long eyelashes that brush his round baby cheeks, and there is the pouting little mouth that has always smiled, ever-so-slightly, while he dreams. I check his hands and there, too, I find the dimples that mark his knuckles. I feel silly to be relieved that these marks are still there, for surely he is growing up well and I am absolutely proud of the person he is. I just wish, sometimes, that life came equipped with a pause button.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 4:12 pm by Sara
Which probably won’t work…something about FTP is floating in my memory…but here’s a go anyway.
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Posted in Uncategorized at 4:09 pm by Sara
I just downloaded Live Writer (all by myself! Me!), so this is a test to see if I did it correctly.
This is only a test.
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08.24.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:19 pm by Sara
This little imp, once a baby whose fuzzy duckling hair tickled my nose all the way home from Korea, turned two today. She’s a big girl now with ideas of her own, a voice of her own, and a big wheel of her own (even though she can’t reach the pedals quite yet). She is shy at times and slow to trust strangers, but once you have become one of her beloved your heart will soar to the moon on a sea of her smiles and her soul soothing hugs. She is one of a kind and I knew it all of those months ago when I first met her, when the look in her eyes took my breath away. She is someone special, someone who could change the world with her love. I know, because she’s already changed mine.
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08.14.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 4:53 pm by Sara
I just bought this. It is so pretty, has a great message, and I love what it stands for: helping HIV orphans find homes. I’m no impulse shopper, but it took me roughly 10 seconds to decide to buy it. You can get your own by clicking here, else you’ll be jealous when you see me wearing mine. Maybe it’s Happy Thursday to You, too?
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08.07.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:57 am by Sara
We have a rule in our house: no kids on the second floor. They took over the basement Man Room and theater, they took over the first floor great room, and they have decidedly claimed the back and front yards, including deck and front porch. But the upstairs? It’s ours. It houses our bedroom and bathroom, as well as the loft, which is big enough to be divided into both office and sewing room. None of these rooms requires children. While that may seem mean and unwelcoming, let me adjust the rule by also saying that children are allowed to come upstairs to our room during scary thunderstorms, nights of bad dreams, weekend morning wake-up calls, and to use the second bathroom should the one on the first floor be occupied. But those are really the only occasions when they should be up here.
Until now.
With my laptop broken the only time I can use a computer with speed faster than that of a 300 year old turtle (the old computer in the basement) is if I escape to the loft office, and it is very difficult to convince two children that they should be happy to have free time downstairs without Mom. There has been a breach. There are matchbox cars strewn about the office floor. Someone’s pajamas are strung across the bridge that connects the loft to our bedroom. Our bed has been jumped on. The bathroom has been run out of toilet paper, and a blue plastic stool arrived at the sink just moments ago.
All might be lost. All three years of maintaining some sort of child-free sanctuary have gone out the window because one small piece of technology, one large brick in our wall of defense against the clutter and detritus and sprawl of young childhood, has come loose, taking down the wall it so carefully supported. The door to my bedroom is slamming, children are racing back and forth across the bridge, and chaos itself has consumed the final frontier of my adulthood. It is all toddler now.
Farewell, rooms without toys. Farewell, peace and solitude. We had a good run there and I will miss you.
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08.06.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:48 pm by Sara
Let’s just say that I am technologically challenged. All my techie friends will be having a jolly little laugh over this, I am sure, but at least I figured out how to log into my blog this time. That is progress in my book!
Bear with me as I try to get everything loaded onto our newer computer.
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07.30.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:32 pm by Sara
Your old, well-loved, nearly sheer, floral, funky designed, throwback from the sixties….pillowcases. Where did you think I was going with that?
I am working on a dressmaking adventure of sorts (more on that soon) and I need all the pretty pillowcases I can get. Vintage prints are great, fun patterns and florals are welcome.
And now I have proved, once and for all, that I am a bit crazy. But it’s a good crazy, I promise.
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