Glassblowing, Exhaustion & Girlfriends

One of the joys I have in life is creating; it's how I got into soapmaking. I love crafts of all types (don't believe me? My crafty boards on Pinterest have a veritable lifetime of awesome craft ideas for me to try). I knit. I have a flower press. I have newly started gardening. I adore cooking. I rubber stamp. I like to color. And, I now consider myself an expert play dough sculptor.  

When I was tasked with developing a 2.5 day retreat for my Entrepreneur's Organization group (that's us at the Inn at Langley enjoying an amazing meal cooked by Matt Costello), I jumped at the chance to make our team building exercise creative.  

We tried glass blowing. Wow! It was intense. I was alternately terrified and curious about the process. When it came time to actually do it, I tipped over the line of worry and spent most of my creative time scared I would drop the molten hot glass or slip and touch the glass. It's over 1200 degrees so apparently, it would burn me but first, it would burn all the nerves so I wouldn't feel pain initially. That news wasn't all that comforting.  

 This is my creation. I'm ridiculously proud of it and even with the fear of burning myself, would definitely try my hand at glass blowing again. I also have a new-found appreciation for all glassblowing artisans now too.

Big thanks to Chris for taking extra good care of our sweet children while I was gone. Lily has firmly crossed over into the "I can eat solids" department and loves her little organic puffs (basically a more expensive form of cheerios that somehow manages to get me to pay more for the same product by having a different name). She's not a big fan of sitting still (see above). Lily is not yet crawling but is sooooooo close. She can get up on all fours now and rock. Any day now, she'll start to crawl and our home will turn into babyproofing central.

  

 Jamisen is growing to look more like his Daddy every day (which of course thrills me because I think his Daddy is pretty dang cute). He remains obsessed with trains, loves fire engines and likes to pretend cook me creative things every day ("Mommy, can I cook you some cheese ice cream?"). He adores reading time and we spend a lot of time at the library in addition to lining the pockets of all the local booksellers. Books are the one thing I feel good about splurging for him on; well, books and healthy food. Jamisen still drinks green juice and asks for it most days.

  

We've got Lily in on the green juice act as well. She gets kale or spinach most mornings for breakfast and is so good natured that she smiles through the entire meal.  

Jamisen and Lily remain typical siblings, as the photo series above demonstrates. He loves her most days but still likes to torment her. Today, I caught him trying to feed her olives. He claimed he thought was sharing. I tried to explain the meaning of "choking hazard" to him but I'm not sure it sunk in. Not twenty minutes later, he came over, enveloped her in a giant hug and said, "I love you, Lily." I'm reading the book 'Sibling Rivalry' in the hopes that I can steer them towards friendship and teaming up against their parents, instead of each other.

The other day Jamisen grabbed Lily firmly by the shoulders and proceeded to open mouth kiss her. That was a little more sibling affection than we'd like to see so Chris tried to explain to Jamisen that we kiss sisters on the cheek. 

 

The downstairs remodel is almost done (yay!) and Chris and Jamisen have been having a wonderful time shopping for finishings and fixtures at Lowes and Home Depot. They bond over cart rides and shiny faucets. Our credit card can't wait for that father/son bonding activity to transition to something cheaper, like throwing money into a furnace instead. 

Jamisen and Ava remain best of friends. She sent him a card this week and he's been carrying it around the house and sleeping with it. When he saw it, he said "Ooooh, it glitters!" Naturally, she had sent a card with sparkles (duh, everything is better with glitter.) He is planning on sending her a card in return.

  We love our little family of four - and though I remain tired every day (seriously, the new theme of my life is "exhaustion"), the challenge is good and I know that each day is sweeter with these little munchkins in it.

Happy New Year

Like many on New Years, Lily found herself in a horizontal position, partially unclothed. Unlike many on New Years, Lily is the most adorable cherubic little harbinger of good tidings (ever).

Weather permitting, I've been taking Lily on walks around the neighborhood. We are so thankful for warm clothes, especially this amazing sweater from honorary Grandma Linda. She loves being on walks and generally falls asleep on the walk so I try to time the walks with her nap time.

Jamisen is in the phase where he hides under a blanket, or in a closet (in plain sight, basically) and actually believes that since he can't see you, that you can't see him. In this sequence of photos, he is 'hiding' ("Mommy! I'm hiding! Mo-OM! I'm hiding!") and whoosh, look at that dramatic reveal. I had no idea where he was! I'm so surprised! And then we proceeded to play that game 1846milliony times.

Lily is eating solids like a champ. Today she ate an entire sweet potato! And every morning, she gets a lovely kale/blueberry/almond butter/hemp milk/chia seed/yogurt breakfast that she eats like it's candy. Her brother seems to eat less than she does. I have no idea what he subsists on besides string cheese, yogurt and bagels (that may be a slight exaggeration but really, he'll do 2 bites of a healthy dinner and then just graze the rest of the time). Bless his heart, he still drinks his green kale juice.

The other day, Jamisen hit me. I gave him a time out. When I came back to talk to him about the time out, he threw his toy at me. And then did it again. This time, I told him that he had a time out and when I came back, he would be getting a spanking (directly against Chris's wishes; we are designed to be a spanking-free house). When I came back in to give him his spanking, he was sitting in bed, under the covers, acting all innocent and singing, "God is so good. God is so good. God is so good. He is so good to me. God loves me so. God loves me so. God loves me so. He is so good to me." I had to turn around and leave the room; I was laughing so hard.

Jamisen is a big helper in the kitchen always. Here he is, helping with the delicious maple siracha donuts. Of course, the second I turned my back, I heard him say "Mommy, I added more water." And sure enough, he had dumped an extra 4 ounces of water into the batter. Awww, thanks buddy!

Jamisen went to his beloved's birthday party last weekend and had the best time. He was introduced to a DVD player and saw 'Minions' for 30 minutes. That pretty much blew his mind. He has started peeing in the toilet for candy and is quite good at holding his bladder now. He still refuses to poop in the toilet. He continues to have a classic 2 year old's mischievous streak. We caught him sneaking into Lily's room, climbing up into her crib and waking her up. That was not a fun day. Her baby cam monitor has been reinstated to its rightful place so that rude awakening won't happen again.

 

We were so happy that Grandpa Winston got to join our maple siracha donut debauchery. He got down on the floor and played with Jamisen, much to the delight of Jamisen who had his new fire engine toys to show off and, course his amazing puzzle skills.

Siblings. No Rivalry.

Ah, our little kids playing nicely, showing affection and warming our hearts. Lily doesn't look terrified. Unfortunately, while she always smiles initially when she sees her brother, usually those smiles turn to whimpering and outright terror as he either doesn't understand how gentle he needs to be with her and/or outright just decides to be mean to her. Lately, he's been trying to tell me it's "an accident" when he bites her. Riiiiiiggggghhhhhht.

Even with those little brotherly love bites, hits and kicks, Jamisen does love Lily. She is the first person he asks for in the morning and he comes running to me ("Lily's crying! Lily's crying!") the second he hears her wake after her morning nap. He is quite protective and helpful with her, getting diapers, washcloths and crackers "for people without teeth" for her.  We are so blessed to have a sweet little boy who loves his sister, even if he has a hard time managing his emotions sometimes. He even told his substitute Nanny Gabriel that the puzzle pieces on the floor were "choking hazards for Lily."

Little Lily remains ridiculously easy going. She shopped for THREE hours with me for the Salvation Army shopping trip that Bramble Berry does annually with a smile on her face the entire time. She remains petite. She is in the 20th percentile for her height, 8th for her weight and a whopping 56 percentile for head circumference. So, she's a petite little dove with a giant head. Obviously (and this clearly goes without saying) because she has a prodigious brain. 

Look closely at the photo above. Do you see the white on Jamisen's fingers? Ah, yes, that's because when I was cleaning the kitchen, he started eating yogurt with his fingers. That would have been fine if he had stopped there. Which, he didn't. He started flinging the yogurt all over the floor and when I had turned around again, he had this lovely self-satisfied expression on his face and all the yogurt was out of his bowl. We cleaned it up together (of course) but it was the first time Jamisen has been so deliberately mischievous. I mean, look at his expression! That is not a remorseful child.

Jamisen has turned into the most amazing puzzle master of all time. He has his Dad's spatial analysis skills. I just got got him 4 geometry coloring books of symmetrical shapes and mandalas. Even with his pre-math skills, Jamisen is amazing with language. He loves to mimic all of our expressions. His Dad uses particularly intriguing ones. The latest one is, "We're going to take those puppies down!" I think that was said when they were playing Angry Birds together. Either way, Jamisen repeats it all the time, complete with the hand motions. It's precociously hilarious. 

Lily has started rolling over with aplomb. That's fine and dandy during the day but she's started rolling over at night; in her crib and sleeping on her stomach, with her face pressed deeply into the mattress. It gives her Dad and I fits. We're constantly trying to turn her over but she just rolls back over right away. Since she started sleeping on her belly however, she has started sleeping through the night. Now, if only I could sleep through the night knowing she's on her belly!

And there's the amazing 56% percentile head ...