Neighbors, Cousins, Friends

Raph and I were pretty psyched when my cousin and his girlfriend started looking for houses in our area. Then they bought one less than two miles from our house. YES! They been in for a few months already but we finally got the camera out yesterday. Amazingly, I think my cousin actually like food more than we do, which works out for every body because he gets to cook phenomenal meals, like this lasagna (which for the record ain't your standard veggie lasagna) and we get to eat it.

Tamara can't seem to get enough of Makili






and Makili can't seem to get enough of their cat, Snowball (yes they seem to have a sense of humor with naming their black cat). Tamara, the good sport, carries him after the cat, all over the house.




We are planning on sharing gardening duties this summer on our property, which is pretty exciting. God I can't wait!

BUSY week

We finally got a few down moments today to go out and watch winter's slow recession. Yes I said recession. I am so tired of hearing about whether or not we're in a recession. Who really cares. Though I am more than willing to accept my duty as an american to spend an extra $1200 for the economic stimulus. If I have to.

This was indeed a BUSY week. Lots of working from both Raph and I. Yesterday we sat in a school cafeteria craft fair for six hours trying to convince people to host exchange students. FUN? Not sure. I actually enjoyed it for a little while, but like anything, it got pretty old after six hours. I did get to attend a pretty awesome girl party last night and filled my gut with some much needed laughter. Eight (including me) crass girls talking about life, husbands, sex, jobs, kids, kids, etc. So nice to have the illusion of girlfriends even if I met most of them for the first time. I felt like "part of gang" immediately and cleaned up in the pokeno game (glorified bingo) raking in $30 in gift cards, $2 in quarters and a bagfull of goodies. YES!


This morning was wonderful and so enjoyed some down time. It was one of those moments when the baby is happy, the house is pretty clean, yummy food is in the oven, the music is nice, the light is filtering and making everything seem special, and you just feel like, "my life is pretty good." Makili spent some of that time in one of his favorite pursuits, pulling the pulls for the blinds. Blissful fun.

Auction Part II, and Wives Tales

We went to another auction last weekend. And we scored this kitchen/dining room table and the cabinet/desk thing in the background. I'm pretty excited about it and think they really make much better use of our small space. It is such a relief to have a shelf for a book!

The cabinet got some scratches in the moving process (though Larry and Ann surprised us by bringing us our furniture yesterday in a U-Haul! Wasn't that nice!) Ann mentioned that she heard you could rub a walnut on scratches and the oils would fill them in. Old wive's tale? Maybe, but I'll tell you, it works! I recommend it!

DUH

I substituted yesterday and Ann came down to watch Makili. After school, as we were waiting for Raph, Ann I were talking about how he hasn't quite seemed himself in the last few days..."It seems like something is hurting him," I said. "Yeah, and he chewed on that pacifier all day today!" Ann pointed out. We went on listing how he didn't sleep well last night, but slept a lot today, how he seemed cranky, etc. Then Makili took a break from nursing to smile at Ann and imply "ha ha I got the boob!" And when he did that, guess what I saw...a new tooth coming in! Oh! Then it all made sense.

We've been letting him chew on apples and bananas, both of which he loves. Apples now have to go in the net munchkin thing (an appreciated gift from Kate, Guy, and Elio), because he is good at chomping off chunks that are just the size to choke on... Yesterday we set up his high chair (complements of the Crawfords!) so that he could sit at the table with us. He LOVED it!

Defining Work

So I think I might have gotten some relatives worried with my recent posts, but don't worry, I'm not going to take a walk off a short bridge any time soon, and I haven't entertained any thoughts of dropping Makili off on a stranger's stoop. I like to vent in my down moments. I've been having a lot of good moments too, even while working. I babysit for three really cute kids two days a week. Today I took them and Makili on a walk at the "wiggly bridge." It was beautiful and was able to take some shots of the kids, though Makili was in the backpack and therefore missed out on all the photo shots.



Happy-Go-Lucky Morgan


Sam the Linguist, the Creator, the Romantic



Jack the Lover, the Leader, the Loyal



The scene - the woods, with sticks and sunlight




Mom showed up so we spent some time throwing sticks into the water and watching them float by...



Then we headed into the sunset. Even Ann made it. Great day!

NOT Good

We've had record snow fall up here this year. I heard on the radio that we're in the top five snowiest winters ever on record, and within a foot of the actual record! Unfortunately, this means snowfall on rooftops is increasingly heavy and after rain yesterday, the strong winds today increased the snowpack's weight enough to cause the roof over Ann and Larry's 2nd story garage to collapse. Thankfully no one was hurt, nothing (other than the building itself) was damaged. Still a pain in the neck however! I'm so sorry!

A New Baby Girl

Raph's cousin, Winter, had a GIRL! Congratulations! Welcome to the world Mila Virginia!

Seeing a new baby makes me SO nostalgic. Ann and I just went and looked again at Makili's newborn pictures. I truly don't remember him being so small, so vulnerable. I look at him now, crawling all over, pulling up on anything and everything - legs, furniture, walls, etc. - and I truly can't believe he was ever as small as little Mila!

It's 12:50 and I'm Not Asleep

I wish I were asleep, but alas, no such luck. This inability to fall back asleep is part of the reason that we've been inconsistently trying to work on sleep with Makili, a proces I am about to detail below, far more specifically thatn anyone probably wants to know about. Let me for the record say I don't want to hear opinions as to whether we are doing the right thing with the sleep. The truth is, like every other set of parents out there, we're doing the best that we can.

Right now we're visiting the Matty's, the latest in a long series of interruptions to our unestablished routine of better sleeping. First Makili got sick, my mom and aunt came, Raph went away and came back jet-lagged, Ann visited so I could work, etc. It is no wonder that he isn't sleeping consistently, since there hasn't been anything consistent about the effort since the beginning, though I will say it has been better since day one of the sleep saga.

At the suggestion of the woman I babysit, who I fully admire for her parenting skills, we started the sleep saga by putting Makili to bed at 7:30/8:00 and preparing ourselves to not respond to him until 4:00. At that point Makili was up every 1-3 hours all night. I was prepared for the worst - I had ear plugs ready, a movie ready to distract ourselves. But it turned out none of that stuff was needed. He cried for 15 minutes at 10:30 or 11:00 and then whimpered on and off for about half an hour at about 1:30. I nursed him at 4:30 and he slept till 7:00.

Then two days later, he got sick and had a fever for almost two whole weeks. The whole time he was sick he still was sleeping about 8 hours before getting up or nursing. Wow! There were a few nights where he cried intermittently for a little longer.

Since Raph was gone and we had visitors, I haven't been quite as prepared to let him cry, since our house is so small and what not. He also suddenly got very good at standing up in crib. When he's standing it isn't nearly as easy to fall back asleep and he really starts to scream, even though he is perfectly capable of sitting back down. This has produced some longer crying sessions in the middle of the night - like up to an hour. Since the head of our bed shares a wall with the crib it isn't easy to sleep during his crying. And then when he does finally fall asleep I am so anxious, I can't sleep for another hour or so anyway. A vicious cycle, though I have been pretty consistent about non nursing in the middle of the night (since he stopped being sick).

Sometimes when I do go to him (I haven't been able to wait until four for a while now, but instead usually go in between 2:30 and 3:30), I'll sleep with him on the futon. The problem is he snores. Like a lot. I cannot sleep, further exacerbating the problem.

I don't function super well on no sleep, though I guess I've done alright considering.
I really want to create a solid routine that Makili can count on and I can count on. I want him to be able to fall asleep on his own, to be able to get back to sleep on his own. Obviously, I need sleep too. Our family, like every other, has to get to a state of equilibrium for everyone.

_________________________________________________________________________________
The list below includes a whole host of decisions that parents must make (and this list only grows exponentially as kids get older), none of which will individually preclude a child from being well-adjusted, interesting, intelligent, etc. This list of decisions I consciously think about as I know so many mothers (perhaps all) feel judged about one or more of these. I for example feel that there is a lot of judgment about having a C-section. It is as though people respond with this implied, "well you could have waited longer" or "how do you know it was really necessary?" I could answer those questions to the best of my ability, but the point is that I shouldn't have to. We all make decisions based on what we think is best at the time. I have several friends who didn't breastfeed and boy do they get heat from people. For whatever reason, (again I could elaborate but shouldn't have to) they didn't. Sometimes there is a source of regret/inadequacy/insecurity with some of these decisions. I know I felt that way after having a C-section. Thankfully I was surrounded by supportive people. And I still felt that way, so every time I spoke about it with someone new, and they had the shocked "why did that happen" (with the implied failure) reaction, I felt those feelings refreshed. The point is let's all just shut our traps and be supportive of one another. Who the hell really knows what the "right" way of doing things is? We are all doing the best we can.

Vaginal Birth / C-Section
Drugs/No drugs
Breastfeeding/Formula
Pacifier/No Pacifier
Cosleeping/Crib sleeping
Food at 4 months/6 months/8 months/etc.
vitamins/ not vitamins
crying it out/ responding every time
Organic/homemade/storebought foods
Cloth/Paper diapers
Schedule/On Demand feedings
Day care/No day care
Work/Stay at Home


I could go on and on...you get the point.

Tea with Aunt Ruthie

Makili met his great grandmother's sister the other day, though he slept through much of the visit. One of the most interesting things about moving to this area is that so much of Raph's extended family lives here or is from here. Makili's great grandmother had nine siblings (actually so did his great grandfather!), many of whose progeny still live in the area, though we really don't know who they are. Larry jokes that you better not make any "tobey jokes" (their last name) because you're probably talking to one of them. Still it's pretty neat to point out her house, to see the spot where his great grandparents met, where Larry spent so much time as a child, exploring the woods, going out on the lobster boats. Aunt Ruthie was very different from my relatives, but fun and I'm glad to know she's here. Hopefully we'll see more of her!

Intense / Beautiful Packages.

I read a blog yesterday by Laurie about her identity crisis. I have to admit, I could relate. When I'd visit other people with kids, like my sister for example who has four kids, it always seemed intense, but I figured, "with your own kids you must grow into the intensity, making it seem less intense." I've changed my mind on this. Having a child IS intense. One is intense. Four is even more intense. It is really hard work and I don't think I fully appreciated that before (sorry Yoyo). It is exhausting and unrecognized for the most part. Your children set the compass for your days and sometimes are the only ship in the sea, when you desperately need to hit land to get things done.

I used to really question daycare. Why would anyone pay someone else to raise their kids, I thought. MY sister after all can handle four kids all day by herself. I've changed my mind on this too ultimately. Thought daycare isn't the best option for our family, I can certainly understand how it might be the best option for someone else. I hate the days that I stare at the clock waiting for Raph to get home, wishing that I could something else done. I hate when Makili is happy playing with me, my mind is surveying the house for the next project I will complete when I can slip away from him without him crying. This is in my nature. I am a teacher, a professional multi-tasker and being single-minded is maddening for me.

Raph's aunt Gina yesterday said "motherhood is wasted on the young." When we are young and have so much we want to do, motherhood is difficult. She says grandmas on the other hand appreciate the situation differently and are often happy to dedicate time to a baby. I think probably grandmas' abilities to do this may in fact be linked to learning to give up part of themselves as young women. Who knows.

Gina also says, "be careful what you say because it comes back to bite you in the ass." I am trying to be aware of this karmic fact, to not be judgmental of others and to appreciate that there are a million ways to raise a child and most of them produce well-adjusted individuals. I've been feeling a lot of advice coming my way recently. I used to shrug off these comments, confident in my own choices, but I've found them tagging along for longer periods of time. After all, what the hell do I know. I'm tired. Mostly I'm tired of cleaning the house. But I'm tired of not having friends around too. I'm tired of not sleeping. (Makili has been doing better with the sleep, even throughout sickness when I responded to him multiple times in middle of the night, etc. The last two nights though haven't been so good. His napping on the other hand is fully maddening. Like he won't do it. I get him to all asleep and try to move him into his crib, he wakes and screams. Sometimes I've left him in there, since at bedtime he never cries for more than 15 minutes. not so at naptime. Naptime is my only time to get something else done....ahhhh...)

So I've had my own catharsis after reading Laurie's. I really truly did not know how much work a child was, how trying it is to be at home all day with a baby, how challenging certain issues could be. I don't know how my sister has done this four times with no family nearby far away from even a grocery store distraction. I of course believe it to be totally worth it for the Makili and even myself ultimately, but really who knew?

So onto another note. I recently won a "comment contest" from Becky and have decided to host my own. (See pictures of some of my favorite fabulous winnings below!) Anyone who posts a comment will be entered in the "comment contest" for a package of handmade goods. No idea yet what I will include, but your name will be entered once for each comment left before April 15 - tax day... Hope to hear from you!

Domo Arigato Gabe, Laura and Gabrielle

Traveling to Japan is a big trip. Similar to going to Hawaii but you are stuck on a plane for 11 to 14 hours, which would be fine if your legs didn't hit the seat in front of you.
Japan can be thought of as opposite world. The maps in English are made by people to don't understand the difference between the true map and a mirror image of the map, so everything is the opposite of what it says. You drive on the right side of the road. You read from right to left, so you start a book from the back. Tokyo is one of the largest cities in the world and shops are closed at 5:00 pm. Not only that but they open at 10 or 11 in the morning and many restaurants are closed from 2 to 5.


This is Hiroshima before 8:15 am August 6 1945.


This is Hiroshima after 8:15 am.


This orange place is Miyajima Shrine, it would look pretty awesome at high tide because the water comes in under it and makes it look as though it is floating. You get the idea with the group picture in front of the torii gate.



Gabrielle is pretty cute except when she rides in the car for 6 hours. Strangely her head is smaller than Makili's. I was expecting her to be bigger than she was because the last time I saw her she seemed so huge compared to Makili. Now that I am home Makili's head seems even bigger. I was taking a picture of him and his head takes up half the frame and then the rest of him takes up the other half. I guess we can make jokes about him being big headed or full of himself later in life. Soon they will meet again, and it will probably end up with more crying like the first time.


Tokyo vending machine
Gabe says that one thing he really likes about Japan is that you will almost always be given a picture or visual representation of what you are going to eat when you order it. The thing is when the food comes to you it looks that good, sometimes better. Presentation is important no matter what restaurant you go to.



Tokyo lights

My mom's middle name should be FARKEL

My mom is visiting while Raph is away so that I don't lose my mind. I laugh a lot when my mom is around, mostly with her, but occasionally she says something funny, like today we were making soup with fresh rosemary and thyme. She looks at the recipe and looks at me and says "these recipes always say to remove the leaves, but I think they're so flavorful!" Yeah. All these years she's been removing the leaves, finely chopping the twigs, and adding them to our food. Who knew?

She also brought an awesome game, which I highly recommend. It's name is Farkel. Farkeling is actually not a good thing - it means to cancel out your score for the turn, like pigging out in pass the pigs. I beat her in two straight games tonight. No luck involved. All strategy and guts. Woo hoo...

Eight Months

I don't have the normal deluge of photographs to celebrate with this month. Raph is in Japan visiting his brother and he got to take the camera, so we've returned to film around here. It's also been a LONG week. We're both tired of being sick, though we are both starting to feel better. Now we just have hacinkg coughs and snotty noses. I might actually let Makili out of the house soon, since it has been so cold and he so sick that we pretty much haven't even gone on a walk in weeks. Nor have I gone running. Yes running. I was running for a while there, and the last time I ran I ran 1.2 miles without stopping once, which is like a record for me. But then the weather turned and rained non-stop for a week, then snowed non-stop for a few days making the road icy, and then I got sick and it's been all over. Damn.



Back to Makili. He is an adept crawler, though he always prefers to stand and try to get places by holding onto the furniture. He also really like to practice picking things up while standing, crouching down, standing up, crouching down, standing up. I think he might be walking soon, but we'll see. He LOVES books with flaps in them, like "Ears, Toes, and Nose" (thanks Kate, Guy and Elio). He will crawl off my lap to get to that book if I try to read another one, though he will patiently sit through others too, like the Boynton collection Raph's cousin Sarah gave us. What a lucky kid!



We've entered into mommy land too, where I am the only thing he wants. He cries if I leave the room, like always, ahhhh... He will crawl right after me, whether into the bathroom or the kitchen (it isn't too hard to find me in the 741 square feet of our house!)

Raph and I have been working on teaching him to wave "hi" and "bye" and sometimes I swear he does it. I also swear occassionally he'll try to make an animal sound when we're reading the noisy farm book. I'm pretty sure he knows the following words: look, help, up, booba, dadddy, and maybe some others. We do sign language with some of those words and I'm hoping he might start signing back at some point, maybe this month?

Feverish

You probably can't tell on this video but both Makili and I have been suffering from some unknown virus since Friday. Our fevers have come and gone and come again. Makili was quite sick today actually, which I have to admit is no fun. I gave up trying to do anything else today and gave him my undivided attention, which for those of you that know me realize, is against my nature. I am a multi-tasker. I am trying to complete seven things at once at all times. Today I was worried about Makili and I made a conscious effort to focus on him, to make him comfortable, and to see to it that he had an okay day despite being too toasty warm for my liking. It was remarkably easy to do really and in fact I enjoyed the calm day. I read when he slept, though mostly I laid with him since he would wake so easily otherwise from congestion as to risk it. We played and walked around and I let him hold all his favorite objects - the phone, the cannopener, my mug (is he a future potter?)

Tomorrow I babysit, for a mom who also has the virus and who made an unplanned for visit to the hospital today in an ambulance. Even though part of me feels like Makili and I are still to sick, I know she is even sicker, and has three kids, god help her. So Grandma Ann is going to hang out with Makili tomorrow and I won't get to meditate on single-mindedness or simplicity, but instead chase three healthy kids around and practice multi-tasking again.

Kayden Turns Two

Makili attended his first official birthday party last weekend. I unfortunately was too sick to go, so Raph and Makili went and brought Kayden a new hockey stick. (It was a hit with her dad from what I hear.) Raph took these shots of the fun. I'm especially fond of the banana shot.

The Sleep Saga

We finally tired of the 2 hours sleep schedule and decided to let the crying loose last night. But amazingly, Makili was pretty okay with it. He went to bed at 7:30 and we didn't go in his room until 4:30 this morning, with only a two short bouts of crying, one hysterical 15 minutes and one whimpery 30 mintues. We're hopeful that things will go as well tonight. Keep your fingers crossed because I am pretty sick and need the sleep.

Craucus

I had a pretty good time at the Maine Democratic Caucus. Let me share a little of my experience.

We arrived slightly early and quickly realized we were not early enough. Lines of cars circled the high school looking for parking spots. Luckily we have a Jeep and drove up on a big snow bank. Perfect. We made our way past the people campaigning outside, pushing their Hillary stickers on us, and into the door where we were shepearded into a LONG line to "sign in." There was another line to register or change party affiliation, if you were independent or unenrolled. Our line moved fairly quickly since we had registered the previous week, though we were flabbergasted when we turned the corner and the line was another long distance into the cafeteria where the sign in occured. in we went, after I stopped to chat with anyone who had a baby, (since by the nature of the neighborhood caucus, they were neighbors) and off to the M table. (I still feel like I should be at the B table most of the time.)

Our names weren't on the list. Another line. We waited while the man in front of us, also an obama supporter, swore at the lady at the table and called her an idiot. She looked up our names on the more recently printed list (couldn't they have waited to print out the final list?) and told us to go back to the M table and assure the lady there that we "were on the list." Real official. Then we were shephearded into the gym where Hillary signs and Obama leis adorned the bleachers. Accidentally we ended up on the "right" side with the Obama people and waited for that long line of registees to come in. State congress people gave short talks, but mostly there was visiting with neighbors and meeting new people. They ended up turning unregistered voters away, even though they are supposed to be able to register the day of. Very democratic, huh?

Each candidate had a spokesperson who gave a speech. Obama supporters were intense, booing and being fairly raucous. The speeches were really well-thought-out and extensive. They were impressive actually. Then we had to get to appropriate side of the gym for real, because we were to be counted. At this point, a simple ballot seems like it might have been more effective. Counting 550 people accurately is a joke, especially one at a time. It took several tries before they figured out a system that seemed accurate. Come on. As a foreigner, I would have laughed at our democratic exercise. In this age of technology we must be able to come up with something better!

They shared the results. And there was a SECOND counting. Thankfully, they just counted the people that moved. I think the people who joined the Obama camp felt like heroes after the applause they gathered.

In all, I felt that the caucus left people out, may have been at least a little inaccurate, and was a bit too long. It was fun to see neighbors, Makili loved the commotion, but it was damn hot with close to 600 people in that gym. Makili was stripped down to his diaper by the end of the night. That's democracy for you I guess? I have some pictures...maybe tomorrow.