charlie 6.0

the love for this little boy continues to swell exponentially every day. he knows his name. he rocks, lunges, scoots and inchworms and is so close to actually crawling. another week or two and he'll get it. he chews on paper and loves to crinkle plastic. his feet and hands are constantly sweaty and constantly being used to grab, pull, tear, kick or push. everything is better in his mouth; fabric, eve's hair, his little thumbs. he sighs, talks, laughs and complains. he prefers to stand. he favors his family but loves kissing only me, not the girls. he's always happier when people are around and happier still if those people hold him upside down or throw him in the air. he stares and laughs at chip and swats at me. he's calm and happy and so good, even with an ear infection and cough. deep, deep down there is a tiny secret part that wonders if he is my favorite, but then i remember the girls at six months and how i could hardly stand how much i loved them... oh, but this boy...

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"you are my favorite robot maker helper, dad. i super super 'cited you making robots with me, dad. you are my really favorite."

is there anything better than a three-year-old in a paper-bag-turned-robot-costume, talking in her best robot voice and walking her very stiffest robot walk with her dad first thing on a weekday morning? 

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just before bed tonight, eve and ruth, clad in the newest robot costumes (cardboard boxes, we upgraded) ran at, smashed into and literally bounced off of each other over and over and over. robot war. everyone made it to bed unharmed, but now this song (which has been in my brain for well over a year now) is playing on a continuous loop. . . i think maybe i need to make a robot mix so we can have a robot dance party. with a couple more deliveries from UPS we'll have enough costumes for a little civilization. . . add some music, several little bodies and it will be total robotic chaos. could be great. 

last weekend

wow. two weeks have gone by quickly. between each of us taking turns being sick, chip taking a week off from work (yay!) and (what feels like) a billion school activities, we've been busy and distracted and having fun.

soon after the election eve began asking questions about the president-elect; does he know i voted for him? (in her pre-k class), can he come to our house? when can i see him? once she realized he would not be making a personal visit to brooklyn, she decided that we really needed to go see where he was going to live. a break from life sounded great so we happily gave in to her requests, packed up and drove down to d.c. this past weekend. 

highlights:

eve's letter to her future president. mild frustration when she was told she wouldn't be able to deliver in person.

a stop outside philadelphia to see some great friends and revel in the last, and possibly most shockingly beautiful, bit of fall.  

cousins in d.c.. the girls fell in love. complete break down and several minutes of sobbing when we drove away. 

and of course, there was the white house. seen hundreds of feet away and through a fence, the girls weren't as taken by it as anticipated. eve just wanted to go inside, and ruth just wanted to run away. i think our next visit, which will involve a tour inside this "super big white place" will live up to all the hype. if not, i might be dealing with some seriously disillusioned patriots. 

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this post is dedicated to my mother, who continually states her dismay (horror, even?) that she has not only managed to raise a "liberal" daughter but that that daughter is raising a liberal of her own. but really, my preference out of it, there is no way mr. obama could avoid becoming a hero to this girl- his picture is everywhere in our neighborhood and he has two little girls.

a great day

today ruthie turned three. 

today molly, my brand new and beautiful niece, lived her first full day of life.

today i couldn't stop smiling as i thought of the cheers, the honking and the shouting in the streets that kept me up all last night.

this was a really great day.  

wedding attire

as of friday, chip's littlest -and youngest- sister is a married woman. mim was stunning, martin was handsome, the weather was perfect and everyone was beaming. 

the girls can't stop talking about it. 

ruthie: "remember mim's married dress? ya, dat was really really pretty. and white."  

eve: "i liked martin's flower. but i caught lots of flowers when mim threw them. so, bonus points for me."  

i can't stop thinking about the happiness of beginnings. . . sigh. . .

beyond moral support, making mim's hair pins and some minor altering of the wedding dress, my main responsibility was getting myself and my family dressed in fall colors. orange dress for me, plaid dresses for the girls plaid pants for charlie. . . i'm one scary step away from making all of us match all the time. . . chip could look pretty great in a homemade plaid suit. . .

throughout the entire day- from the manhattan temple to central park's sheep's meadow to soho's i tre merli- the plaid served us well. but the real beauty of these dresses is that at any moment they could have been turned inside out for a whole new look. ruthie's is reversible! eve's is reversible too but as the maiden attempt i kept it really calm and her reverse side is a little more hausfrau compared to ruth's party girl. i'm going to have a hard time just making a regular dress again. two for one! no self-respecting daughter of my mother's passes on a two-for-one deal. . .   

but, while the newlyweds are honeymooning in the tetons i'm taking a few more days to catch my breath and stay away from any new projects. i'm also going to try my very very hardest to forget all the "it seems like just yesterday miriam was eve's age" or "it will be here for you so much faster than you realize." comments. ugh. . .  i can hardly handle how big they are already. maybe i'll just have more photoshoots with ruthie because the attempts to photograph this charmingly unreasonable little girl drag on forever. 

++ first photo courtesy of joshua brown photography. 

eight years ago

we became a family of two. now we are a family of five.

chip, you were right. if we would have been able to see all of this when we were first together in college we would have been so excited. because even now, right in the middle of it, whenever i take a minute to really look around and see our life i am amazed. i love you. i love all that we can call ours. . . . . except for the mouse. i do not love that elusive mouse. 

here's to love, marriage, babies and the millions of things in between that have made up the substance of our life together. 

go to hawaii

and get mark to photograph you. because he's amazing. one of the nicest, coolest guys you'll meet who is also really good at what he does.

i adore this family of my sister's and i want to cry these are so great. those kids! that water! those kids! 

i wish i had been there to jump in, fully clothed, with them. i lived in hawaii my junior year of college and would have stayed longer if it hadn't been for chip waiting for me on the mainland. it worked out well for me (i still like chip a lot), but it really has been too long since i've tasted that salt water and breathed in the plumeria. it has also been too long since i laughed with mark and his beautiful and passionate wife patria ruth. . . so go. for me. swim, lay on the beach, sail, surf, be photographed, drink fresh coconut milk, watch the sun rise and set and be happy. then tell me all about it so i can live vicariously through you. and then take it a step further and show me the pictures that mark took; test my will power. . . because there is a little part of me that will want to implode with envy on the inside.  

photos courtesy of holladay photo. mahalo mark! (and sarah for letting me paste you and your family all over this post!).  

charlie

    

he stares. he smiles. he laughs (but not a lot). he sticks his lower lip way out when he is about to cry; so sad and sweet. he likes to hang out on his stomach. he sucks his thumb and puts himself to sleep. he swings his arms and grabs for toys, but hasn't really figured out how to work his fingers yet. he kicks and flaps when he's excited. he cries when his sisters go to bed. he really likes chip, but likes me a little more. he spits up and now is starting to drool. he grabs his toes and stretches his legs. he swats at me over and over and over while he nurses and rolls to his back when he's mad. he talks more and more all the time- a nice high squeal to start then brings it down to a raspy and low "oooh" and "mmm". the girls have heard him say "mom" and "ice cream". . . he sweats a lot and gets smelly fast. he's not sure about baths but feels pretty good about what he sees in the mirror. 

i am completely in love. and shocked that in one week from today he'll be four months old. 

showering the bride

in a few weeks miriam is marrying martin. this past weekend i got to throw her a bridal shower.

invite.

address changed to protect the innocent. . . which is you- my neighborhood can get kind of sketchy. chip deserves the bulk of the credit here. he took my little sketch of the design on mim's ring, put it through several filters and got this. i'm withholding the very sad attempt at designing an invitation all by myself in order to protect my ego.

the decorations.

don't know what to call them, but the confetti streamer things were inspired by these amazing mobiles and by the invitation itself. cardstock, needle, fishing line, a lot of little knots, glass bead at bottom for weight and a 2"circle punch (my new favorite thing- it totally takes me back to 1987, watching my mulleted older brother walk around the house, squeezing his squeaky grips over and over and over to bulk up his wrists).

oversized confetti spread on the tables. among the many solid pieces were these with the invitation design and words; words that come to martin's mind when he thinks of miriam, his bride-to-be. reading that e-mail almost made me cry.

pictures of mim in banner form. because if you spent the bulk of your childhood with a bowl cut, i'm going to celebrate it. sewn together with a zig-zag stitch; my favorite fast and lazy way to make a banner.

and of course there were balloons, because balloons mean party time.

the table.

without chip in the house to help me take pictures while i finish all the last-minute details i miss important shots like the final version of the table. but it was filled with really yummy stuff, which i can mostly thank the internet for.

if you don't normally put vanilla in your crepes, do it. fresh off the stove, these were the best things i've eaten in months. the next day at the party they were great too. for topping options: lemon curd, mascarpone/ricotta cheese filling, hot fudge sauce, strawberries, bananas, raspberries, fresh lemon juice and powdered sugar. mini quiches- made with this cream cheese tart crust (half the butter)- crazy easy and good. barefoot contessa turkey tea sandwiches- i'll use any excuse i can find to make these. i first had them years ago at brooke's house and have craved them often ever since. baby spinach salad with pears, avocado, goat cheese and raspberry vinaigrette. plums for refreshing before diving into the lemon chiffon cupcakes, ginger snaps and chocolate toffee cookies. and as people parted, there were truffles. i used this recipe with some adjustments (a bit of cream added, and a good amount of bittersweet chocolate in place of the semisweet). and to try to wash all the richness down, juice and lemon-mint water.

album. i love things like this. next to their pictures (which they e-mailed me earlier) everyone wrote a special note just for little mim. hopefully it will be fun for her to look at every now and then. . . to remember all these people when she's an old married woman. . .

among all these little details, which i loved preparing, there was talking, laughing, opening of really great gifts, sighing, over-eating and, above all, celebrating miriam. and that was by far the best part. because this bride-to-be, my sister-in-law (who also happens to be one of my very best friends) deserves to be celebrated.

artistic temperaments

each saturday, if his work schedule cooperates, chip spends the mornings with just the girls. they go the park, or the playground or the botanic gardens, or sometimes they just hang out in the apartment. but no matter where they go, there are always markers, crayons and paper in tow, because no activity is truly complete without some drawing. it usually begins with chip doing the majority of the work (make a princess! a t-rex! mommy and a rhino on a trampoline!) but soon the girls take over as the artists.

i adore their art, but what i find most interesting and endearing is the consistency in approach the two girls take, regardless of age or artistic phase.

ruth keeps her work free and spontaneous. she never plans or thinks too much about what she draws, just does it. when she is finished she throws the crayons down (or across the room) shouts "i all done!" and walks away.

eve takes her time; drawing slowly and carefully. she tortures herself trying to get just the right color, make just the right line. finally, when she is ready, her art is taken to the door. other pictures are shuffled, magnets are chosen and the piece is gently placed. as she backs away she holds her marker at the ready, just in case.

i love how who they are is so evident in everything they do. . . and really, is there anything better than kid's art?