Hello hello!

How about another doomed effort to wake the blog back up, eh? 

December was tough because I had bronchitis that deteriorated into a walking pneumonia and one particularly unforgiving coughing fit broke one of my ribs(?). So...we were lacking a little holly jolly in the festive department for most of the month. 

But before all that happened I managed to get some family photos taken by a super talented and sweet friend. The photoshoot was laughably difficult. Roman was unhappy unless we were letting him dig with a measuring spoon. Lucy June got wise to her power pretty quickly and stayed in tantrumville for most of the shoot. I was just praying for one - just please one - passable photo. Then when we got them back I was delighted.  

If you look closely you can read the hidden stories. (Mother who's been smiling too long has death grip on three year old while tickling her.) 

Or not so hidden stories...

Nothing like a magical photographer to make lemonade from your lemons. Or maybe a nice ginger lemon cocktail.

>><<

We are still deep into our house renovation. We redid the interior of the house last year and have recently begun adding some extra square footage and a master bathroom. We're basically turning a tiny 2/1 into a not quite so small 3/2. We'll probably finish everything up by late spring...which is precisely when we will move again. Because that is how we do. 

Adding on has been lots more fun than the original remodel work because it's all been outside. When your husband has to routinely decommission your kitchen or your only bathroom to work on the sewer line it starts getting old fast.

Of course we did have to hack into a couple walls. So my brother-in-law's room currently looks like this: 

He's a trooper. And he sleeps in the living room.

Back when Jacob and I lived in Los Angeles we would talk about renovating houses and got into the game a little over two years ago after moving to Houston. It's strange to say it, but I think that means that we're "living a dream." And not surprisingly that dream comes with layers of frustration and exhaustion, financial stress and decision fatigue, holey walls ands construction dust. I even find myself longing for some apartment living again. #grassisgreener #etcetc  

I'm getting my legs under me as a mother of three...now that the baby is 16 months old. I know this because I've started some kitchen fermentation again. We're starting light with carrot sticks and some kefir water. I should have my first batch of soda done by the end of this week. I have a friend coming over tomorrow who's a sourdough queen, so it should be a nice brunch/inquisition. I still don't get dressed everyday, but there's nothing like some controlled spoilage on the counter to make me feel like a functioning human.

Bye for now!

7QT: Lucy Likes Cheese

Our little girl turns three tomorrow, so here are some of her gems from the last year.

>> 1 <<

Lucy: Look at my mouf.
Me: What's wrong with it?
Lucy: There's nothing in it.

>> 2 <<

Lucy: I don't want chocolate chips in my muffin. I want them in my hand.

>> 3 <<

Lucy: I don't like bears. They will eat me. They will put me in their mouf.
pauses 
And if they put me in their mouf, I can't put anyfing in my mouf.

(She also routinely bites her fingers because they get in the way of her overzealous teeth. Is this normal?)

>> 4 <<

While the boys are playing a raucous game of indoor soccer:
Lucy (yelling): Who's ready to pway pwincesses??
waits. 
yells louder.
Who's ready to pway pwincesses???

>> 5 <<

While cramped together in the pack-n-play, in a game of Jake's devising:

Jake: Officer LJ, begin the launch sequence!
Lucy June: I'm Pwincess Leia!
Jake: Officer LJ, begin the launch sequence!!!
Lucy June: I'M PWINCESS LEIA!!!
Jake: PRINCESS LEIA, BEGIN THE LAUNCH SEQUENCE!!
Lucy June: OKAY!!

>> 6 <<

Lucy June: Hey little daddy!

Jacob: Call me big papa.

>> 7 <<

She's also started calling her big brother "Jakey" - no one else does this.

>> 7.5 <<

Lucy June (pretending to sleep): Honk shhhh honk shhhh

We love you LuzJune! Happy Birthday!

Go see Kelly for more takes!

7QT - Messes Minimalism Macrame

Happy Friday!

I'm four days into a Whole 30 and...it's fine. Pretty boring really. I've been making our regular food but substituting out the best parts.

Last night we ate spaghetti squash carbonara and Jacob liked it as much as the regular one which boasts both ricotta and parmesan.  The night before that we ate gumbo.

We eat gumbo every week in the okra season. Every year I forget just how long the okra season is, and sometime in August after a couple months of gumbo I start saying: "This might be our last gumbo of the season!" And then I say that every week or so until... well at least until October!

>><<

I've been knitting again. I started up again in August even though it was still super humid and hot and was until last week. For whatever reason this time the bug has taken less of a "scarf" tone and has got me ducking into Hobby Lobby to buy double pointed needles and cable stitch holders. And I'm probably doomed for failure or at least VERY SLOW progress, but whaddya do when you got the itch?

I do love having a relatively contained craft project that I can pick up for a few minutes here and there when the kids are playing well together.

I just finished some fingerless gloves that took a very long time to complete and ended up...kinda bulky. Or maybe they just felt bulky for Houston in October where we've barely graduated out of swimsuits? Maybe I'll send them to Christy at Fountains of Snow.

I also just finished a hat for a friend. Turns out it fits Roman. So...baby steps!

>><<

I've also been dabbling in macrame. A friend asked if I could make her a wall hanging and my inner bohemian just lit right up. Unlike knitting, making wall hangings with ropes doesn't really lend itself to grabby baby hands, so I'm not sure how sustainable it is as a mom craft.

>><<

I've been trying to teach Jake some knots. His self-taught knots are killing me especially when they involve tying to untangle the cords he's used to tie all of our stools and chairs together in a big clump in the middle of the dining room.

So slip knot! slip knot!

>><<

Are you cleaner or is your spouse/roommate?

Jacob has always been the orderly one in the relationship, and it's been an uphill climb for me over seven years of marriage to learn to stop throwing dirty clothes on the floor. We'd been married a year or so when I realized the messes in our house were *always* mine. I maybe would have noticed sooner if he'd ever complained about my messes, but he didn't. To my credit, if someone cleans the bathroom it's me. Jacob almost never cleans, and he hates picking up other people's messes, but otherwise he's super nice about his neatfreakishness.

The other day as Jacob washed dinner dishes and I did the final sweep after the kids had gone to bed, I mused about how we do a much better job keeping our house looking alright than we used to - even before we had kids. It's mostly the need to tame the madness of three kids + avoid Houston roaches.

I was feeling pretty darn good about it actually, so I asked Jacob how clean he would say our house was. He said: "Rarely clean and nominally orderly." Then I gave him crap because what the heck is "nominally orderly" - so he amended it to "Rarely clean and rarely orderly."

I just started laughing. I would describe our house - the same house - as "tolerably clean and generally orderly." I wasn't even offended. I'm still not offended. I am mostly just relieved that my standards are as low as they are.

>><<

I've been reading (...listening to, because knitting) Kim John Payne's Simplicity Parenting recently and it's inspired me to get rid of more toys.

We've run a pretty tight ship from the beginning when it comes to toys around here - mostly thanks to my mother and her willingness to adopt all the plastic, noisy, electronic or otherwise offensive toys that come our way - so I'm pretty much the choir when it comes to Payne's preaching. But every time I do a round of toy culling, the effect is 100% positive.

We're down to Legos, Duplos, matchbox cars, a few baby toys, dress up clothes, a toy kitchen with toy cooking utensils, and a basket of scarves with string and clothespins. Playdough is tucked away in a closet as are a few puzzles and toys with too many pieces for unsupervised play.

Now that I list that all out it's actually sounding a little overstimulating, so I might have to go purge.

>><<

The biggest byproduct of toy minimalism is that when within five minutes of finishing breakfast all of our stools, cushions, blankets, and wooden spoons have been pressed into the service of the Resistance and its noble effort against the First Order, there aren't as many toys on the floor as there used to be.

Happy Weekend! And go see Kelly and the other quick takers!

Whole 30 Here We Go!

Kids sharing some non-Whole-30-friendly fare:

I'm starting a Whole 30 today.

So many people I know online and at home are doing one, that I thought I should take advantage of the train and jump right on...one day late. My little brother's doing it. And I think I talked my little sister into it with a frantic text at 10 o'clock last night. So: moral support!

Last time when I did something like this I only committed to ten days and then took about ten days to mentally prepare for it. This time I'm trying the jump right in tactic. We'll see how it takes.

So there. Now I've told you, which I hope will kick my external motivation into gear.

Coffee is the biggest hurdle for me when it comes to the Whole 30. I love coffee. And I love it my way, which involves milk or half and half or cream...or all three?

I get terrible headaches without coffee - which probably means I should get off caffeine altogether and drink chicken broth in the mornings or something - but I love me a cup of jo.

So depending on whether this morning's bulletproof coffee experiment takes, my Whole 30 may include a big fat half and half in my coffee exception.

And legumes. I'll also eat legumes. For all the paleolovers of the last decade trying to hate on legumes, I'm still pretty pro.

I'm also banking on fall being a relatively easy time to do a Whole 30 because of hard squashes and soup weather.

That's my blurb! I'd love any tips if you've got 'em!

Ro Baby Update

Romie is almost one. We took him to the pediatrician yesterday for a 9mo (12mo?) visit and while we were there I dug up pics on the blog from Jake's first birthday and Lucy June's first birthday. All the blog scrolling showed me just how much I'd forgotten about what J and L were like as babies. When I wrote stuff down, I was sure I would NEVER forget it...but I have...the blog confirms it.

So I thought I needed to do a post dedicated to the RoBird before I forget his entire babyhood.

I'm pretty sure he's a leftie, even though Jacob thinks I'm wrong.

He's still big. 97% across the board. Because he's been in 18-24mo clothes since he was six months old, clothes have never really fit him right. The soft-knits of babyhood have always worn more like sausage casings and pants always skew capri.

He took his first step at 10.5 months old. We were at the library for storytime and I was following him around as he crawled among the board books when he stood up and took a few steps. There they were: his VERY FIRST STEPS! And we were in a storytime full of toddlers, so nobody noticed or cared. Except for me! And I cared a lot! Such is parenthood.

This makes him our earliest walker. He's the most "physical" of any of the babies we've had yet. When he walks, he'll just start barreling forward until he falls down. He climbs up on and falls off of everything. I've even seen him trying to climb out of his crib. His favorite thing is to crawl all over people who are lying on the ground and smash his face on them, especially Jake. He has recently started pointing at stuff - which he does with his whole body, his arm shoots out straight and he cocks his head down so that his shoulder smushes against his cheek.

He doesn't have any words yet - a fact that I was 0% concerned about until the pediatrician recommended we start reading to him. At the time it sounded like such a lunacy, but the pendulum has swung and I'm already feeling guilty that he hasn't gotten any rounds in with Goodnight Moon... or any book for that matter. 

He's probably the best natured of any of our babies so far. He notices people. He's generally pretty chill. He loves being in the thick of it with his two older sibs and is quickly branding himself as the dumb jock sort.

Finally, I had the pediatrician take a look at his mouth issue and we got an official diagnosis: snaggletooth.

We'll probably take him to a pediatric dentist at some point once the tooth grows in a little bit, but for now...we'll just keep on loving him. Snaggletooth and all.

Photo creds to my girl Claire

7QT: Back on the Blog Bus with Old School Quick Takes

Alright. The baby is asleep maybe for another half hour and the big kids are playing and I only have about eight things I want to get done before the baby wakes up...so blog for the first time in months it is!

- 1 -

We've been poking along with the remodel.

Yesterday we took out the ratty old fireplace that was a big black scar in the living room. Immediately after Jacob pushed it out, it started pouring rain. We felt PRETTY stupid because it's only rained every day this week and it's only supposed to rain every day for the next week, and there was no reason we needed to do the fireplace project right away. So...let's just say that got done more quickly than most things around here.

But now it's done and the rusty black metal box is gone! Don't mind the wall art - it's all out of wack because we used to have the TV where we now have...a skull. Trendy but also kind of a gnarly skull because we found it while tromping around my folks' place.

- 2 -

Remodeling with babies = barricades

- 3 -

Speaking of babies, ours is walking and therefore falling a lot. The other day he fell and hit his mouth and started bleeding where he's cutting a tooth. Ouch, right? He really wasn't bleeding very much, so we weren't concerned. I took a closer look at his mouth yesterday, and where there is supposed to be one tooth, it's like he has two teeth coming in?

Could he possibly have chipped the tooth? Or split it? Or is this its natural shape and maybe that's why a little face bonk made him bleed?

We have a pediatrician appointment Monday, so we should have answers soon...

- 4 -

Gretchen Rubin in Better than Before talks about how some people are stressed by the prospect of running out of something and other people are stressed by having too much. I think she uses the terms "abundance" vs "simplicity."

She says people who like simplicity will feel a little stressed when they buy a big bag of oatmeal, but a sense of relief when they've finished it all. People who like abundance will have the opposite experience.

I'm like 1000% the kind of person who prefers simplicity. Not that I'm some kind of Marie Kondo Master. My house isn't a paragon of elegant minimalism with the pristine fig tree in the corner of the living room. But emotionally speaking I find "abundance" stressful.

She also says people who prefer simplicity will even feel relieved when things break and have to get thrown away. Me to a T.

- 5 -

This is one of the reasons I love the library. Yesterday I renewed my library card and went on like a thirty book hold spree. It's all the fun of shopping without any of the stress of new things!

- 6 -

I had to renew my library card because we've been living in Houston for three whole years now. Three years! It feels shorter and it feels longer.

We're approaching our one year anniversary in this house which means we've stayed here longer than any other house in Houston, and we don't have plans to move until next summer! But that is another story...and maybe I'll even tell it to you now that I'm blogging again (ha!)

- 7 -

We went to Hawaii with a big group of dear friends and my whole family. The experience was too perfect for words, but thankfully my very talented friend took a lot of pictures. Here's a photo dump:

Happy Weekend! Go see Kelly!

On Fear, Failure, and Self-Care

My thoughts on this are pretty muddled, but if I wait for them to clarify I won't hit publish on this post until 2017, and in the interest of not going even longer without a blog post here goes nothing.

I've always equated self-care with treating myself.

Perhaps I'm the only person in the world with this misconception and thus this little piece of writing is pointless, but maybe some of you are like me.

Maybe some of you say the words self-care and you conjure up images of tea lights illuminating a bathtub full of rose petals. Maybe you think a book in a comfy chair. Maybe wine and chocolate or my newest weakness Glutino Yogurt Pretzels. 

I had a really hard time after my third baby was born. Really hard. He's ten months old now, and I'm mostly out of the proverbial woods, but I can still see them in my rearview, and sometimes they're closer than they appear. (#pun #set #spike) 

I've learned that self-care is much better understood as: doing the hard but necessary things for myself. I'm talking things like going to the dentist or the dermatologist. Making my bed. Exercising. And on particularly hard days: eating.

Self-care is tricky for me because I'm largely externally motivated (Thank You, Gretchen) - I do great when someone dangles the proverbial carrot, but not so great when I need to make a change for myself.

This is too bad. Really really too bad. I've thought a lot about what it means to be externally motivated, and I've found that at least for me it's closely linked to my fear of failure.

FAILURE is my self-elected word for 2016.

Halfway through the year and I'm no more comfortable with failure, but I'm committed to thinking about my failures as learning opportunities. (Thank you, Carol.)

For me, failure has a lot to do with how people perceive me. I HATE letting people down. This fear of letting people down has driven so many of my childhood and adult decisions. Only now am I beginning to let go of my people-pleasing obsession, because mama just can't anymore.

Here's the kicker: the only place that I've been OK with failure is when I let myself down. If I'm the only person affected by my failure, if I'm the only person I'm letting down, then nobody sees the failure and the failure doesn't count.

Because I don't count.

I tend to live a narrative that is simultaneously self-obsessed (what must they think of me??) and self-neglectful (you're only letting yourself down and that's ok).

People talk about self-worth, and I always thought I had plenty of it, but the honest truth is that I don't always live like it. I thought I could confidently say the words "I am enough," (Thank you, Brene), but I don't live like I am enough.

So I've turned myself into a third person, and for the time being it seems to be working. I'm constantly repeating mantras. Things like:

You're a person too.

Someone needs to take care of your children's mother.

Don't confuse self-sacrifice with self-neglect.

I've been working on this. I've been taking time for myself: I'm making sure I get myself fed and showered. I'm making it a priority to exercise and hydrate. I'm getting up early. I'm even taking time to pursue meaningful hobbies - even when that means I have to pay or obligate someone to watch my kids.

I'm realizing just how hard self-care is.

I'm seeing the effects of taking better care of myself. It's not all roses, but I'm having glimpses. I'm having moments when I'm with my kids and I'm simply with them. I see how beautiful they are, and I just sit with that reality: I'm not itching to tackle eight things on my to do list or counting down the seconds till naps.

It feels good.