Heart in Hand

We went to vote tonight, and in a tradition that embarasses my husband to no end, I made him take a snapshot of me with both kids. This is the 3rd or 4th voting picture Luca has been in, but Rohan's first. I don't know why I am so into taking these shots, other than I think it's a good experience for my kids to grow up seeing their parents vote.

After voting, we stopped at the playground (we vote at an elementary school) and let the kids run wild. It was amazingly nice weather for mid-May and the playground was ours for the taking, so the kids went wild and had a blast. We even broke our own rule and let them clumb UP the slides instead of just sliding down. It's a personal pet peeve of mine when the jerk of a 9 year old on the playground insists on running UP the slide while my toddler is trying to slide DOWN it, but since we were the only ones there I let Luca have a blast. Rohan tried to keep up, but he doesn't yet have the coordination to climb up slides. He attacked it with all he had though, a few times tumbking backward off the slide and then melting down in a fit of giggles.

I mean, could I really say no to that face?

After some serious fun, we headed home with Luca pulling Rohan in the wagon. I am not kidding. Have I mentioned he weighs maybe 2 pounds less than she does?

At the end of our walk, Luca handed the wagon over to her daddy and grabbed my hand. As we walked, she talked about how we "just boated", how maybe we could color and eat ice cream when we get home, and about how Rohan can go to bed early so we can plaaaaaaay! She's quite the charmer, that one. I had my camera over my shoulder, so I just opened the lens cap and snapped a few pics without really looking at what I was shooting. I love what came out of it. These pictures capture for me what it's like being her mom. The sweetness of the hand holding. The mischevious squint of her eyes. The way you can see her hand making a motion in one of the pictures (the 5th one down) as she is no doubt telling me How It Really Is.

It was a perfect night, rounded off with Rohan bear hugging me to let me know he was ready for bed and a reading of 'Stop That Ball!' and 'Don't Be Silly Mrs. Millie' before bedtime. It's days like these I feel like all is right with our little world and I realize how lucky we are. Darrick turned to me after Luca went to bed tonight and said, "Our kids are awesome." and I couldn't agree more.

P.S.: Our ballot Proposition passed!

Yogis

Back in the day, before I had babies and when I had the luxury of imagining myself as 'sooooo fat' as opposed to the uncomfortably recognition that, um, dude?...I'm fat....I did yoga.

Lots and lots of yoga.

I belonged to an all-women's gym in those days, and the girl who taught my favorite class, Body Flow, had a really nice ass. I say that in the most hetero way possible. In all candor, I kept going back to that class with the hope in my little heart that someday my ass would resemble hers.

It never did. But it WAS a much smaller ass than the one I am currently sporting, and it was attached to a body that was flexible and had a good sense of balance to it. I probably should have been at least mildly offended when the old biddies in class would commend my 'surprising' nimbleness because what they were really saying was that a chubby chick shouldn't be able to bend like that. But instead I just smugly thanked them and reminded myself that they wished to be ME just as I wished to be Hot Yoga Ass Girl.

And then I got pregnant with Luca. I kept going to the gym through most of my pregnancy, up until bacterial gastroenter-something-something struck me down while on a trip to Mexico. And then I just never really went back. I wanted to. Heaven knows I needed to. But motherhood was a rising tide of leaky body and lovesick swooning and sleepless nights. And if we're being honest it's the sleepless night that did me in more than anything. Luca was a puff of magic in our lives, but at night she was more like Puff the Magic Dragon. I quite literally would fall asleep half sitting with her nursing, and wake at 4:30 when she was ready to be up for the day, her still semi-attached to me and my legs numb and arms and neck cricked and crunched. If ever I needed yoga, it was then. But that fatigue was all-consuming and sleep was at a premium. Add to it the late bedtime and early morning hours kept by our resident Diva, and a soul-gripping need to be with her as much as humanly (and, sometimes, inhumanly) possible and there was just No Time For The Gym.

So, yoga and Body Flow disappeared from my life. And I managed, but after Rohan came along I noticed a few things about my new body that upset me. I mean, in addition to the extra weight I am still struggling with, there were other changes. Stiffer shoulders. More lower back pain. A tightness in my hips. Sore feet and tired bones. When I was on maternity leave I proudly started the 30 day shred, and though I did blog about it it's too embarassing a failure to even link to now. It went by the wayside as soon as I was back at work and had both a baby who was not fond of sleeping through the night, and a toddler AND baby who thought anything later than 5:15 a.m. was highly unsuitable an hour to sleep in until.

But now here I am, still picking away slowly at the numbers on the scale and trying to get back to some sense of 'me'. I am not ready nor in a position in terms of schedule to rejoin a gym. It's just not going to happen, since it would necessitate leaving my house after 9 pm or before 5 am to work out AND not miss out on the time with my kids. And if you don't know this about me already: I am a fool for those children and would move mountains for more time in the day with them.

So I've dusted off my old friend Denise Austin and decided to give yoga a whirl again. And I remembered right away why I love it. It won't burn 1,000 calories...sure...but it does make me feel stronger, taller, leaner, more graceful, and more centered. And those are the things I need in life. I can attest tot he fact that not doing yoga in 3+ years has left me unstable, unsteady, and uncoordinated. But my body will re-learn the joy of a good stretch and the power of being 'surprisingly nimble' once again. And more than that, it's giving me a time to focus on me, to re-center and re-balance and re-connect to myself physically and mentally.

Here's to being a yogi once more!

Luca's Birthday Party

We had a lot of discussions this year about what to do for Luca's birthday. Since Rohan's 1st was a big party in mid-March, we weren't sure we were up to another big party 2 months later. But at the same time as we were thinking 'small', she hit the age where she realized there was a birthday party to be had. The mix of circumstances left us balancing her wants with ours.

What we decided was to keep it simple and fun and incorporate the things she is really into right now. Originally I wanted a girls-only party for kids ages 2-4 only, but my husband insisted we invite ALL the kids and ALL the husbands, and so that's what we did.

Um, the small party I had planned? Not so small after all, but SO WORTH IT. We DID keep it simple, and I think everyone had a lot of fun. In honor of Luca, there were flowers, princess wands, kids playing in her new orange pool, crafts, and a 'decorate your own cupcake' dessert. Unfortunately I didn't get pictures of it all, but I got lots of pictures of most of the day. Happy birthday, Luca!

Fit for a Luca.

Or a Princess? Same-same.

Today we're celebrating Sweet Luca in style. Princess style (Thanks, Gramma!!). I'm done waxing poetic on the virtues of my beautiful sweet girl for now, but I'll never tire of pictures!

Three? Awesome.

This time 3 years ago, I was mere hours from meeting my baby girl. It had been over 24 hours since my first definite contractions, and I was tired, in pain, and blissed out beyond belief. We were so excited and ready to meet her, and had begun dreaming as parents do of all the things and ways she might end up being.

We. Had. No. Idea.

Tonight when I was tucking Luca into her bed (the BIG bed, not the toddler bed....in panties, not a Pull-Up at her insistence) I told her it was the last time I'd tuck her in as a 2 year old. She smiled at me and squeaked out, "It's my birfday tomorrow!!". And I might have cried a little. Or, a lot? And she rolled back over to look at me, put her hand on my cheek, and said, "It's ok, Mama! Three is AWESOME!"

And it will be. Because everything she does, she does with AWESOME. Our Luca is a light in the world around her. She's full of joy and compassion. She kisses her brother full on the lips, then explodes in a fit of giggles over his drool. She's his favorite little comedian, and nothing makes him laugh so much as she does. She dances and twirls and pretends the hallway upstairs is a big blue pool and the stairs are a water slide. She tells me about all the people she knows (real and imaginary) and how they will wear pink dresses and play with her and how much they will love her new shoes. She makes friends with nice pink monsters and captures then releases mean red ones. Her eyes are her daddy's green. Her spirit is all her own. She is lightness and brightness. She has an imagination I cannot even believe sometimes, a memory I wish wasn't so great many times, and a smile that causes even the surliest people around her to smile despite themselves.

She's my baby, and I love her more than words could ever begin to express. Her spirit cannot be contained by the written word; her essence is too complex and beautiful for me to capture properly. I feel blessed the universe gave her to me....to us.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Luca,


The other night, I lay on the floor, and you came and crawled up onto my chest. You put your head by my heart and curled your legs up like a little froggy, and I began to cry. When you asked me why, I could only tell you it was because I was happy. But I realized later, after tucking you into bed, that it's because my soul and heart have a memory as does my body, and they all remembered you, newly born and soft as petals, in that same position as close to my heart as you could possibly be.

I love you sweet girl. Thank you eternally for being my daughter.

Mama

A Parenting Success

Parenting is full of a lot of questions and doubts and self-criticism. It's full of drive-bys from other people (a la "Where are your shoes, little boy?" said to Rohan as I carried him in a store at 13 months old....), advice you don't want/need/like/agree with/care to hear even though it's probably right, and moments of pure humiliation and "Oh my god what the fuck was I thinking creating life????"-ness.

And then, every once in awhile, something happens and the stars align and you have a moment of Parenting Success.

And, new moms? Here is where I break this down to you: 7 out of 10 times, your parenting success will revolve around a bodily function. Breastfeeding. Baby poop. Diaper changing without getting a stream of pee in your eye at 3 a.m.. Potty training. You get the idea.

So there we were, at the Greek Festival at Tempe Town Lake, and after eating lunch I noticed the telltale holding of the pee from Luca. Every kid does the same damn thing, so anyone with any experience ever being around, or even previously BEING a kid, knows when a potty trained kid needs to 'go'. She also is almost 3, which means the quickest way to get her to NOT use the potty is to say, "Luca, do you need to go potty?" It usually goes a little something like this:

Me: "Luca, do you need to go potty?"
Luca: "No."
Me: "Are you sure, sweetie?"
Luca: "I don't hafta go potty, Mama."
Me: "Ok. If you change your mind and need to go potty, please let Mama know."
Luca: "Please stop asking if I hafta go potty, Mama." (yeah, dude...my almost-3-year-old talks like an almost-13-year-old)
:::14 seconds elapse:::
Luca: "I hafta go potty, Mama!!!" :::grabs self:::
Me: "Oh, you do? :::stifles sarcasm which would surely be lost on an almost-3-year-old::: Well, let's go!"

So it went at the Greek Festival, and in the end I put her on my hip and away we went in search of the potty. And the potty, it turns out, was a line of purple port-a-johns. Don't EVEN get me started on how they USED to have a real restroom but it was closed because of the budget cuts in our state. But nevermind that...here we had multiple potties from which to choose and each one was PURPLE! PURPLE, which also happens to be a favorite color of a certain little girl. So I walked confidently over, swung open a door, and asked her to stand next to me and not touch a thing.

(Have you ever noticed in a public restroom every mom is telling every kid Not To Touch Anything? And every kid will, at some point, touch not just 'anything' but the filthiest spot on the filthiest potty ever and you will only be alerted that he or she did this while you were looking the other way getting out your purse-sized hand sanitizer because he or she will say, "Icky. It's WET!")

Anyhow, I got the toilet seat lined in 4 layers of toilet paper and turned to pick her up, and her eyes were big as saucers.She flat our refused to sit on the potty, citing its 'scary' factor.  And, you know, I couldn't fault her that so I walked out of the port-a-john with her and stood there, facing down this newfound nemesis. I needed a different approach and I needed it fast since I knew her bladder wouldn't hold much longer. Already she was starting to cross one knee in front of the other.

With a brave face on, I took her hand and we walked down to stand in front of a different potty. Smiling at her, I said, "Here's what we'll do. We'll go in and....YOU can sit on ME...yes. Yes. I will sit and you sit on my lap and then you can go. Ok?" (Nevermind the logistical nightmare I'd just created for myself...the girl HAD TO GO.) She agreed, so I swung the door open and steeled myself to undertake this task which I was sure would result in a mess on me. But it was a small price to pay for a toddler who would use the port-a-john and not have an accident in her carseat later.

But before I could turn us around and shut the door, she was shaking from head to toe and repeating, "No. No. No. No." So out we went again, leaving the vision of someone's turn floating in blue water behind.

So here we were, two potty missions aborted, a toddler still in need of 'going', and our options exhausted. And then I remembered: I have two kids! (Ok, I mean, I didn't literally JUST THEN remember that....I know it all the time...but you know what I mean.) And one of those kids...the one not currently facing her own personal 7th level of hell...is still in diapers.

So I did what I had to do. I took her by the hand and we marched over to my waiting husband and son. I grabbed a diaper from the bag and, knowing that it would be hopeless to carry out my mission anywhere within 30 yards of the devil potties, I walked Luca behind a group of bushes and crouched down to her level.

"Luca, you need to pee, right?"
"Yes."
"Here's what we will do. You lay down. I will put this diaper on you. You pee in the diaper. I will take it off and put your undies back on. Deal?"
:::grinning::: "Yes!"

So that is what we did. I had her lie down, I snuck the diaper on under her panties, and I sat her up so she could pee. She smiled at me while we did this, my co-conspirator in the plot to avoid the pot. And when she was done she told me so, and I snuck the diaper off and the undies back up and Viola! A Parenting Success!