Creative

Summer is a very creative time for me. I mean, both of my children were conceived during summer months. BAH-HAHH!

Yeah, summer is a fruitful time for me.  I read a lot, I clean a lot, I organize and plan.  It is a good time for me to start projects and I may even stay up late a couple nights in a row to finish them!  (Or I may leave the pile of newly ironed clothes on the banister that I am *eventually* planning to sell on e-bay, though it would appear in this instance that I am waiting for the clothes to rise like "Thriller" zombies and take pictures of themselves and post to the interwebz with paypal directives.)

I wish I could feel the way I do the rest of the year, but I've tried to mind-over-matter the whole lack of inertia thing in the frosty thick of January, and, frankly?  If there's a puddle on the floor and no one is going to slip on it?  I'll just wait to mop it up in June.

I'm sort of antsypantsed right now because I'd really like to take a knitting class or go to a chocolate tasting and learn about organic cacao or paint an awesome design on a picnic bench, but I'm indentured to Little Man's feeding schedule, which is fine, it's what my boobs signed up for and it's going well, praises be.  I also feel like I'm in a fog that is slooooowly lifting, and anyone who dares tempt me to Think Ahead about Something in the Long Term Future of Next Week must seriously have it out for me because I am operating on an hour-by-hour survival these days.

Anyway.  Very glad to have summer and creativity and kids and Loverpants and the imperative to be barefoot and popsicle drippy-stained for at least a couple more months.

Speaking of creative, guess who got her first professional haircut?

Trophy Babies

This is my trophy son wrapped in a frog towel.

This is my trophy daughter who once upon a time was swaddled in that same towel.

This is my trophy son demonstrating male pattern balding.

This is my trophy daughter with her movie star hair and superstar shades.

This is my trophy son taking a nap and looking like he could be rotisseried.

This is my trophy daughter interrupting that nap.

This is my trophy daughter so tuckered out that she fell into naptime half seated on a comfy chair.

This is me proudly holding one of my babies as if he were a trophy, and the truth is that he is hardly such a totem.  A trophy is sought after and earned, flaunted, and then stacked high on a shelf or shielded in a case to be admired and perhaps forgotten.  My babies are on lease to me, I didn't earn them, they are not mine to flaunt or showcase.  But you can be sure I will never ever place them on a high shelf.  At least not one that can't be reached with a stepstool.

Emptying Nest

This might be slightly premature, but I've been liquidating several tupperware bins of frilly pinky frocks that are meant to fit a little girl (all gender bending aside) that is no longer so little.  In so doing, I have been watching my heart quiver, inflate, burst and then fall limply into a million kabillion pieces. It's pure melodrama, but this is a terrible task.  I cannot believe I will never have the pleasure of playing dress up with my little dolly again.

Oh, but I guess she is still only two.

And I have a whole 'nother newbie baby to dress.

But I was telling Big Pops how hard it was to look at all of those sweet little scottie cloaks and cupcake onesies and to realize that as I prepared them for consignment or the charity box, that time had passed.  You don't get "a lot of mileage" out of kids clothes.  All you get are a few months, maybe a full season of wear.

You remember the first time you put the little blueberry muffin ensemble on your little dolly--and, unwittingly, that first was also the last because she was grown out of it the following week. Baby firsts do not stay minty fresh but for a moment.

And though I didn't want to go back, per se, I don't want to rewind, I also don't want to be left behind!!! I don't want to be saddled by the sentimental so much that I can't move forward.  I don't want to be an Empty Nester, wearing my slippers all day, pawing for some kind of hobby, taking my reading list from Oprah, thinking about how the best years of my life had passed me by and wondering if my babies will remember to wash their dorm sheets on the regular, like I taught them.

Big Pops told me that it's not about getting the mileage out of baby clothes.  It's about appreciating those clothes as tokens of memories.  He said he remembers TP and me wearing our little Parisian berets to have lunch with him when we were 8 and 10, and maybe we would never wear them again, but they are part of the imprint of the memory.

Can you tell I am still totally flushing out these crazy hormones???

Let's get to the picture portion of our program, shall we?

***

Had our last day of "music cwass" this past week.  Have taken two sessions and will now take the summer off after this last session of tambourines was completely rigorous and completely exhausting.  We are seriously burned out.  Here's the pack of gal pals that made music together.

We went to World's End in Hingham, MA today which is a great place if you are a dog.  If you are not a dog, it's kind of rugged and not as beachy as we I had hoped.

But it is a good place to lay (lie?) on your back "bobcat" shaped "cwouds."

We were getting ready for a funny face picture.  Look how Little Man jumped the gun.