What Do You Do When...

I'm going to have a baby soon.  Yes.  

So, for the past six weeks or so, I've been in crazy nesting mode.  Which has led me to ferociously tackle projects ranging from meticulously repainting my front porch and entryway to sorting and laundering the boxes of newborn comfy clothes to...

...today, deciding that the back hall window, where I've always kept my oils and vinegars, really ought to be cleaned off.  I read somewhere that, oh wait, you're not supposed to keep oils in the sunlight, because they'll spoil faster...  

Anyway.  What do you do when uncovering that window, scrubbing off the oil-grimy sill, un-wedging the screen to clean all the gunk and cobwebs behind it (AFTER a very careful inspection to see if there are any of those nasty, resident, ENORMOUS spiders set up in there, the way they do in the upstairs windows)--reveals a window frame that is terribly rotten?  As in, some of that wood I can spongy-press with my fingers?  As in, the outside house wall surrounding that frame is growing moss?  As in, the rottenness there to be cleaned up is literally rotten enough to have converted into dirt?  

What do you do?  

Umm.  Well, at this point in the yearpregnancybudget...

Ignore it!  Close and lock that window, make that rotten sill as clean as it can be, come up with something pretty to put there as a distraction, and walk away.  

It's always awesome to know what goes on next year's Project List when it's time to close up shop on this year's Project Season, right?  

Post Script:

There.  No one will ever know, right?  Haha!  A Before would have been a nice touch: picture grimy curtain, and a chock-full lineup of greasy oil and vinegar bottles...

I Mean Really

I sorted baby clothes most of the day, and just pulled the tiniest out of the dryer, fresh and clean and ready for Baby.  And this one, this little onesie in particular, just melts my heart.  

I can't make it look in the picture as small as it actually is.  I mean, go get a ruler: it's 12 x 5 1/4 inches.  My baby's torso basically fits on your piece of notebook paper.  

The sweetness!  I can't wait to snuggle this tiny baby boy!

A Taste of My Scattery Morning Brain

This morning I have woken up with the desire to decorate my home for autumn.  This is something like an overnight change; yesterday I thought, "Hrmmm...it's a little too early.  I mean, it's still August.  Let's not rush it."  

So, how convenient: today it's suddenly September!  Feel free to begin enjoying the autumn!

Tomorrow my Lincoln begins kindergarden.  Full-day, away-from-home, Big Kid School.  Oh my.  He has the same wonderful teacher as last year, but will have to do an awful lot more of things like math, and not so much watercoloring-and-playdough fun.  Such is the new era of What 5-Year-Olds Must Know.  He's trying to wrap his mind around the fact that Lewis will (hopefully) get to do some fall field trips with mama and baby brother...while he's at school.  I'm hoping he'll get a couple of class field trips himself.  He'll be riding the bus to and from school.  I'm thankful he won't be on the bus for as long each day as I had feared.  Still about 45 minutes in the afternoon, but only 15 in the mornings.  

He did request that for tomorrow, his very first day, we drive him to school in the morning. <3  And daddy starts school a day later, so he get to be part of all Lincoln's first-day Pomp.  

I'm all excited about my baby's room.  I almost ran upstairs a few minutes ago to paint a leaf garland on his walls, an idea that just struck me as an awesome and simple addition. 

I've got all sorts of creative juices flowing through my brain this morning, so I'd better get up and get going.  

Oh, and my Lewis just woke up.  At 8:15.  Lincoln is still sleeping.  This new phase of sleep they've entered is baffling to me.  And I'm not sure how we'll all handle the school year schedule, when they want to eat breakfast with daddy at 5:45 every morning.  Because, you know?  A 6:30pm bedtime just isn't super-feasible for us.  We'll manage somehow.  Everybody will be on new sleep schedules soon!

Here's a gem for you, from one of my favorite Psalms: 

The Lord is my CHOSEN portion and my cup; You hold my lot.  The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

Psalm 16:5-6

Well, It's Happened

Our first ER visit, that is.  

Lincoln and Lewis were playing some variety of game in which they used the Hulk punching glove to knock each other off the red hopper ball...and apparently Lewis got knocked off in the wrong place, crashing his forehead down onto the edge of the coffee table.  

Andy and I were in the kitchen when Lewis's cries welled up.  But the thing is, they seemed like pretty run-of-the-mill cries, like when his brother pinches him or some such injustice.  Then Lincoln came into the kitchen complaining that his ear was hurt ("Well that's what happens when you two insist on crashing around into each other.")  And then, enter Lewis: bent over, hand on forehead, with blood streaming down his face and onto his shirt and dripping all over the floor.  OH MY.  This is more than we expected!  

So, you know, warm wet washcloth, paper towels to wipe up all the blood, pressure on the wound and rubbing the poor boy's back.  Lincoln, please put my yogurt in the fridge, and get me another wet washcloth.  Andy, would you switch the car seats so I can ride next to Lewis?  And grab me a t-shirt to change into?  Andy scoops up our little man to buckle him into his seat while I gather up water bottles and blankies.  And we're off.  

Hoping to go to Urgent Care, since it's certainly more of a wound than we're equipped to handle at home, but not really an emergency.  But they're closed until afternoon, so to the ER we go.  

And the kid was a champ.  I am very, very thankful that glue was the first aid of choice, rather than stitches.  And he got a pile of stickers (also some to share with his brother out in the waiting room).  And then we went to Lloyd's for lunch, his request.  

And now he's sleeping it off in the heat of the day cool of his bedroom.  

Oh, my little man.  In a way, it's a little miraculous that this is our first-ever Boy Visit to the ER.  And I'm sad that he'll probably have a scar across his beautiful forehead.  But there are so many worse things that could send a little boy and his family to the ER.  I'm thankful this visit was low-key.

Breather

This afternoon, I finished a second read-through of a wonderful book...and now I'm at that strange, limbo-y place of being Between Books.  The better the book I've finished, the sharper the sense of detachment, of feeling as if I don't really know what I ought to be doing.  

I've been trying all afternoon, also, to post pictures recording our busy, eventful lives in the past week.  There are a lot of photos.  And despite my best efforts, they're still on my phone for some reason, and not shareable.  This is also a limbo-y feeling.  

I've been running "faster" than usual for the past two weeks, and parts of me (especially at the 5am alarm) really want to just do nothing.  Instead, we're going to use our Saturday to celebrate Lincoln's birthday with a family fun day, traveling up to Tupper Lake to enjoy the Wild Center and a hike up Panther Mountain.  This morning, I groaned at that prospect (the 5am alarm, you know), but now I'm really excited about it.  Even though it will mean that, yet again, our boys won't have proper naps, and I'll still be on-the-go.  

And that: Lincoln turned 5 yesterday!  I have to admit, I've been thinking of him as 5 for the past few months (just as I've thought of myself as 30 long before the actual event last week).  But it's real, it's official, and at some point I'll realize and process that in a way that hits home.  

Summer has almost begun.  Almost.  Lincoln will graduate pre-k on Monday.  But I found out today that he does have a school day Tuesday.  Good thing I was there when another parent had a question about Tuesday this morning--I had no idea!  The kid would have missed his last day of school!  Andy's last day is Wednesday.  

And then we get to start Project Season, earn Master's credits, take big and little family trips, go on our first real Vacation, plan and execute a 3-day vacation Bible school, get together with friends more often, and try to stay breezy and beautiful while I keep getting more pregnant.  :0)  Oh, and do some SLEEPING!  :0D  

And I keep having a thought that I heard on NPR the other day, while I'm wandering aimlessly and "relaxing" but really just wasting time on Facebook (and trying to post pictures): our Leisure Time is stressing us out, because we fritter it away on things that aren't actually what we want to be doing.  

Hmm.  

So, even though I'm still looking at a screen to do this, at least I'm looking at my blog screen, sharing bits of my brain with you.  That's got a little purpose and satisfaction to it--and we all know that satisfaction really ought to be a tangible product of leisure time.  

And now, to get this bedtime show on the road.  Because we've made this big plan for tomorrow!  

"Mommy, Are We The Corduroy Boys Yet?"

For the Almanac: Mama Notes, etc.

May 8, 2015, at approximately 4:45pm, the black flies hatched in Lyons Falls.  I so enjoyed my short season of heavenly weather, when being outside, and having our home all open to the outdoors, was nothing but pleasure.  This is the "etc."  This is just for posterity, so I can look back and compare seasons at some point in the future.  That's the beauty of almanacs :0)
This is a whimsical version of a black fly, on the Adirondack Carousel in Saranac Lake.  

On this day one year ago, I was eating Mother's Day breakfast at Minella's Diner in Wayne, PA.  I was there with my hubby and boys, my own mom and dad, and my brother and Miss Kathryn--celebrating not only mama-hood (and grandma-hood), but my brother's college graduation.  What a weekend!

On this day five years ago, even though Lincoln hadn't quite arrived yet, people began celebrating me as a mother for the first time.  So now, for 1/6th of my life, I have been a mama.  That doesn't sound long enough for how life-changing and all-consuming being a mama is.  It's wonderful, and hard, and always a paradox of speed and slowness.  

Here are my boys now; hit fast-forward between the previous picture and this.  Taken at the Utica Zoo, May 4, 2015.

Today I am 18 weeks pregnant with my last baby, and it is a treasure.  In two weeks we'll find out if we'll welcome another beautiful boy or the marvel of a baby girl into our family.  This process, more than just being a marvel, a miracle, is also a strange sadness.  I am carrying our last baby, and I have friends carrying their last babies, and in a very real way, it's (the beginning of) the end of an era.  That's pretty intense.  But full of good things.