corner view: hair

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Cole | 6 Comments

The girls’ hair garners a lot of discussion in our home. Each girl has started out with a thick coat of dark hair that appears to have created an army of mini-mes. Then within a few years, I’ve been left as the only dark haired girl in the house. Lovey gets credit for their strawberry blonde locks. The funny thing is, at their age- Lovey was a true towhead white toddler. I was a strawberry blonde until around the age of 5 and I still have a tiny lock in my baby book to prove it. When we named Zuzu we both pictured a dark-haired beauty with her lovely name rather than the strawberry-blonde love she’s become. When the Quail came along with her long bob on top of her head we knew what to expect. Sugarplum funnily enough emerged with her dark locks tipped in white- apparently she had time for a cut and color before her arrival. It will be interesting to see who they look more like as adults. They each seem to be a particular blend of Lovey and I that depending on who is holding them gets credit for their looks.

Sugarplum with the requisite dark locks, albeit tipped in white.

The Quail with her signature bob up top.

Our strawberry blonde in all her magnetism!

Corner view is a weekly Wednesday gathering, originally hosted by Jane, now by Francesca. A topic is given and you can see impressions; be it photographic or writerly in form, from around the world. Come see the world’s corner view via the links on the sidebar!

corner view: feet

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Cole | 9 Comments

itty-bitty baby feet!

Zuzu

The Quail

Sugarplum

The Sistred: hide & seek

corner view: L is for….

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Cole | 7 Comments

LOOK!

five minute friday: beloved

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Cole | 3 Comments

…where a brave and beautiful bunch gather every week to find out what comes out when we all spend five minutes writing on the same topic and then sharing ‘em over here.

Go:

Beloved

In our house, beloved is unspoken. It’s woven in to the daily ordinaries of our family life. It changes as our days and years together pass, but it can always be found with a momentary pause and an open heart and hand.

It’s the yellow bowl set out by the 6 year old for her little sister who so loves the color.

It’s the quiet and unprompted handing over of the shiny red heart balloon that hasn’t flown off yet to the sobbing six-year-old by the four-year-old.

It’s in the rascaling, monstering and tumbling that the Sistred wind in to their afternoons together.

It’s the duck and rabbit lovies brought along when Zuzu goes off to find her monkey one to hold while she watches cartoons.

It’s the Keurig set to brew my cup before Lovey goes to take his own shower.

It’s the bent knee squat I hold while I try to puzzle out the story of her day the Quail is telling with her hands.

It’s the giggle escaping the baby while Lovey bounces her on his lap.

It’s the valentine that says I love my Family that Zuzu made during art center.

It’s the snuggled-up-to-Dad spot chosen on the couch by each of the sisters as they settle in for a story or cartoon.

It’s the soft breathing on either side of me I wake to find all three girls napping in the bed with me.

It’s the warm and running car that I hurry out to, late for the school drop-offs on weekday mornings.

It’s the soft little hands on my face while I sit and wait in the bathroom for the Quail to finish up.

It’s the crawling across a room full of toys when the baby spies her waiting family at pick-up time each afternoon.

It’s the handing over of the remote, turning off of the phone and stepping away from the computer when the children are finally asleep.

It’s unspoken, but oh so very present.

Stop

five minute friday: bare

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Cole | 1 Comment

…where a brave and beautiful bunch gather every week to find out what comes out when we all spend five minutes writing on the same topic and then sharing ‘em over here.

Go:

I take the teacher note out of the Quail’s backpack and read it to her four year old self: “The Quail was not kind to her friends today. She pulled her friend down and her friend did the same….” The Quail looks down at her shoes while bird-perching her bottom lip out at my words.

“Momma, that girl was mean to me again. She took my prize and hid it and wouldn’t tell me where it was.” Zuzu’s voice wobbles through her tears.

“Momma I got my sticker and stamp taken away today. But I was only talking quietly. Lucy was talking loud but Mrs. Campbell didn’t hear her. She didn’t get hers taken away. It’s not fair.” Her tears flow hot at the injustice of kindergarten rulings. Her embarrassment at having gotten in trouble worn as plain as the clean back of her hand where the daily stamp is missing.

“Back away from each other and Quail go to time-out. We do not hit or spit.” I raise my voice to be heard over the wild ruckus of the girl’s disagreement and then proceed to wipe the spit off my face that was sent there flying out of the Quail’s frustration. I feel myself pause- I need to be heard, but I need to not yell and frankly- that’s hard some days.

Each day we start again. Each day I promise myself I will not yell. I will listen. I will instruct calmly. I will model what I want to see in them. Each day I feel the frustration mount as we repeat the same lessons over and over. Including the new promise to not yell *this day*.

The basic lessons:

We do not hit, pull or spit.

We ask for help when we need it.

We listen to our teacher, parents and grown-ups in charge.

We do not yell.

The bare bones they are, these daily repeated lessons of ours. How to get along with others in this ole’ world. How to be kind.

These basic lessons- they bare repeating each and every day as we wake up and try again.

Stop.

five minute friday: afraid

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Cole | 3 Comments

…where a brave and beautiful bunch gather every week to find out what comes out when we all spend five minutes writing on the same topic and then sharing ‘em over here. Go:

Once upon a time fear was something I wore like a coat on a brisk fall day. As a young girl I was prone to anxiety to the point where it caused me to reexamine what was essential and what I could let go of each day. I stopped every extra-curricular activity my friends still enjoyed. I so wish it could have been the fear that was let go.

Over time, those feelings- the frequency, the intensity have lessened and lessoned. They are no longer a daily companion, someone who holds me back and makes me think twice. They do still rear their ugly heads. Mostly in the night. When I least expect it.

It started again in the last few weeks of my pregnancy with Zuzu. I was like a dog roaming our house looking for a spot to rest my weary head, heart and hips. I cried to my OB that I couldn’t breathe at night. That my allergies were preventing my sleep. I was so confounded as to why the medicine they gave me in response did nothing. After Zuzu’s birth it came on even stronger. I would try to hold her and lay down and find myself rushing out of the room in tears asking someone else to hold her while I tried to calm myself.

Then came the late months of my pregnancy with The Quail. This time I knew the feeling that woke me in the night with a start. That made my heart flutter and my breath catch. This wasn’t allergies. It was anxiety. After the Quail’s birth I let the fear have one night in my head and then I asked for help. I knew how awful post-partum anxiety could be and I didn’t want to give the Quail’s first weeks over to it as I had Zuzus’.

When the later weeks of Sugarplum’s pregnancy came I was prepared. I asked for help sleeping in the last month and when she was here I asked for help on day one. Only one night still caught me, the night my milk came in I was certain the flu had gotten me for how horrid I felt. But it passed. As did my fear.

My fear- it isn’t conscious. It’s hormonal. It rears its head when my hormone levels surge. It always has and I would expect it always will.

The difference now- the difference is I’m no longer afraid of it.

Stop.

Sugarplumday: fever

Posted on December 12, 2012 by Cole | 1 Comment

You would think six years into this parenting gig I would know better than to quietly make lists in my head of all the things I can do when I happen to be home with my kids on an offday due to illness. But I don’t. I still do it. Every. single. time. I also start each illness with a strong momma lion’s heart. Hovering in over them, picturing their sweet faces looking up at me in gratitude as I wipe the cool rag over their forehead and carry them to the kitchen to make tea and toast.

But, um, no. That has always been pure fantasy. And it is usually about midway in to that first day that the bubble gets burst and I find myself sitting in the middle of the unmade bed with a crying child, covered in vomit and wanting to cry as reality hits and nothing I normally get done is being cobbled together by elves. Let alone the quiet fantasy list of baked cookies, closets sorted, photos edited, a peaceful storytime and Netflix queues whittled down, magazines clipped and Go Fish Game cards spent, beans simmering and bread scenting the air while that satisfied feeling of ending a book I happened to have the time and mind to finish fills me and I contemplate starting a roast. It’s like Groundhog’s Day how eerily similar these days play out in reality.

Sugarplum is sick. Actually I’m pretty proud of her that she made it to just shy of 8 months old before catching her first fever. Her little head felt warm over the weekend. And she coughed. And then the nose started running. Then my mind started running after it. I flashed back to the Quail’s first winter with us. 4 trips to the ER and 2 hospital admits. 1 case of the flu, 2 of bronchiolitis. 1 of pneumonia and the golden ring hospital stay of RSV. One after another from November 2009 going into January 2010. Followed by months of daily breathing treatments and frequent follow-up visits that ended in GI surgery that spring. After that, she certainly still caught colds. But she’s been spared anything so dramatic as that season.

Zuzu’s first winter was kinder to her. Oh mind you she cried the entire trip we took to Atlanta and yet didn’t sprout a tooth or fever for months after that. Her first summer though she was plagued with ear infections and the nasty side effects of the medications that were supposed to be making her better. And the Christmas that the Quail was sick, we brought her home from the hospital just in time to notice the roses blooming on Zuzu’s cheek as her fever spiked a tone that sounded decidedly like her sister’s RSV.

Zuzu commented after her bath last night, “Huh, funny how when I was 3 the Quail was a baby and sick at Christmas and now that she’s 3, Sugarplum is a baby and sick at Christmas.” Huh. Funny indeed. Zuzu is just relieved that her turn at the flu passed by in mere days and with little cramping to her own schedule this season. It was so short that we didn’t even label it as the flu or take her in to the pediatrician. Then as Sugarplum’s forehead and feet heated up my mommy-radar started in questioning whether or not to go to urgent care or hold out till Monday morning. We did and she did hold out. Kindly Dr. Gamble said just a virus as her flu swab was negative and she had been vaccinated and Zuzu’s fever had passed so quickly the week before. But that if her morning temperature was still over 101 by Wednesday to bring her back. Unfortunately Tuesday night as her hot little hand patted my cheek I had a bad feeling I knew where we would be headed the next morning. Sure enough the morning temperature registered 101, so in we went. This time kindly Dr. Gamble rephrased his estimate as he listened to the crackles in her chest once she stopped sobbing. Flu and bronchitis. Motrin and Amoxicillin. Home and Crying. That”s about right.

We did manage to make Santa a visit before the plague set in here. We made our mountain trek to chop down a fir tree between diagnosis. And we are slowly adding ornaments between loads of laundry, doses of Motrin and patient if plaintive requests to finish the decorating already.

We’ve got a quick hand frequently passing over the Quail’s forehead as we watch her now like the timebomb she most certainly is. Especially considering her motherly ways towards her baby sister. No one is more empathetic to another person’s tears in this nest then our Quail. At first wail her fingers are up and signing sad as she works out the name of the soon-to-be patient in her Nurse Nightingquail routine. Unfortunately we, the actually designated, caretakers are old, tired and not nearly quick enough to intercept her every nose-wiping of the baby and teether tongue cleanings as she scurries off to do her work. Mother Theresa has got nothing on this sweet soul.

Until the next bird falls….

fave-O-lit friday

Posted on December 7, 2012 by Cole | Leave a comment

Noel

by Anne Porter

When snow is shaken
From the balsam trees
And they’re cut down
And brought into our houses

When clustered sparks
Of many-colored fire
Appear at night
In ordinary windows

We hear and sing
The customary carols

They bring us ragged miracles
And hay and candles
And flowering weeds of poetry
That are loved all the more
Because they are so common

But there are carols
That carry phrases
Of the haunting music
Of the other world
A music wild and dangerous
As a prophet’s message

Or the fresh truth of children
Who though they come to us
From our own bodies

Are altogether new
With their small limbs
And birdlike voices

They look at us
With their clear eyes
And ask the piercing questions
God alone can answer.

corner view: serendipity

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Cole | 12 Comments

Serendipity is a good name for my journey in photography right now. I’m still working on learning the mechanics or science of it while simultaneously still loving the art of what shows up on my screen, well, rather serendipitously!