red

As promised J, here's the red hair.

christmassing

We've all been christmassing our little hearts out around here. Much like my no-homemade halloween costume vow, I also broke my no-homemade christmas presents vow. I just can't help myself. I won't list them all here (who knows who's lurking around this blog), but suffice to say that our diningroom table has been littered for days with felt, red and green amy butler fabric, jars of applesauce and sparkly ribbons. (Not to mention the 80-odd holiday cards we ordered late and have been manically addressing late at night. Don't be surprised if yours gets to you after the holiday!) Liam has been making lovely things out of felt and popsicle sticks and Milo made me battle holiday traffic at Gateway yesterday so he could get more beads for his project.

Turns out, I love this part of christmas. It wouldn't be christmas without late night last minute sewing, and gifts wrapped at the eleventh hour on christmas eve. I admire all y'all who had your cards sent and tree trimmed on the day after Thanksgiving. I do. But there's something about the frizzled last-minuteness of things that's half the fun around here.

Me and the other moms of MICE, getting our holiday spirit on.

Liam and Milo getting ready to decorate Nonny's tree.

Liam fortifying himself with Cafe Sienna pancakes.
Joel and Lucy spend lots of quality time together while I sew and sew.

Lucy and Ruby, Nonny's dog.

(thanks for the pictures Haley!)

snow days

In Eugene, an inch of snow usually means no school. Four inches is a blizzard and people are practically snowed in!

I think the best part about snow days is sledding. I also think it's more fun for me because I live on a big hill. For some kids it is hard because they don't live on a hill. I think I'm lucky to live on a hill, but only when it snows. --Liam

tree season

Find five hats, four pairs of gloves, and four scarves. Put on your layers and your mud boots. Stuff the baby into a down Patagucci suit. Pack Z-Bars and pretzels and spare socks. Load three boys and one carseat into the back of a VW van with a trailer hitched to the back. Meet your friends, the MICE*, at the christmas tree farm in Pleasant Hill.

*MICE: Monthly Improvement Collective of Eugene. 10 adults, 5.5 kids, 3 years to date of monthly home improvement adventures.

(The farm will be familiar to you because you have chaperoned the annual fall field trip to the pumpkin patch there for four years and counting.) Strap the baby to yourself and be grateful for the extra warmth. Get a hot drink. Put scotch in it from Dave's flask. Sit on wet strawbales in the tractor next to your friends and their kids and feel picturesque.

Argue about whether it's worth the extra money to get a noble fir. Recall your childhood Charlie Brown trees and decide it is. Trudge through the mud looking for your perfect tree. Find it. Stand next to it and stake it as yours. Hand your nine year old a saw and watch as he crawls under the tree to saw it down in the rain.

Wait until he gets muddy and frustrated, then your husband will finish the job while your son stomps off pouting because it's hard to cut down a tree.

Take a family photo while your son is still pouting.

Admire your friend Rebecca for cutting down her own tree. Say, if I just didn't have this baby strapped to me, I could do that too. Privately acknowledge that you wouldn't, regardless of the baby.

Get back on the tractor and sing christmas carols ridiculously led by your husband. Miss the Blaines. Feel grateful for good friends, sweet children, and scotch.

Later, decorate your tree with your kids and think, this is what memories are made of.

(Liam, remember when we strapped the baby bjorn to you and made you walk around the house with Lucy the night we decorated the tree?)

lazy saturday morning

the girl loves her thumb

The thumb is awesome. It's always there (unless your shirt sleeve is in the way). It doesn't fall on the floor (get back to me when we start crawling though). It doesn't leave a circular imprint on your face when you spit it out. It's soft and warm and cute. It's free and doesn't contain BPAs or other leaching chemicals. We think she prefers the right thumb, but she's an ambidextrous sucker and can switch if necessary. Her auntie Roh, a veteran thumb sucker of over 5 years, is very proud.

Here's Lucy, lounging in her easy chair.


Waking up in the parents' bed.

And dozing, late night in the lounger. (I came home from my knitting group the other night to this scene. Without a wide angle lens I couldn't capture Joel sitting a few feet away watching SNL shorts on the computer.)

coffee and kleenex

I knew it would all catch up to us eventually. The adjustment back to two full time jobs with three kids. The back-to-back coast-to-coast airplane trips. The wakeful baby hitting what one mom described as the "4-month sleep regression." The triple play of my grandfather's death, Jess's diagnosis, and the anniversary of my mom's death five years ago yesterday. Someone contagious with the chicken pox for a month straight. And now, a cold for me. Our kitchen counter looks like a hybrid between the supplements corner of Sundance and an aisle at Rite Aid.
Coffee and a box of kleenex are getting me through the day. Applesauce and computer games are getting Milo through

my sweet girl

I came home from working in Salem today and Lucy was so happy to see me. She was probably mostly happy because she knows I have the goods, but she smiled and kicked and did this lovely thing with her hands where she clasps them under her chin, like this:

Throughout all of the craziness and overwhelm of the past two weeks, all I have to do is let my sweet girl lay her head on my shoulder and suck on her thumb, and I instantly feel calm. She's not sleeping great (anymore), and she sometimes makes me carry her around endlessly, but I don't care. She brings me joy and reminds me that life IS beautiful. Even through the hard stuff.

what a week

Today is the day after Thanksgiving. As thankful as I am for my wonderful life, my sweet family, and my amazing community, this Thanksgiving also found me in a state of grief and disbelief.

My grandfather died last Friday. On the same day I learned that one of my dearest friends has cancer. I alternate between a sense of static shock and frenetic, useless action. The last week of my life might be best described through a series of statistics:

31 - hours Rohanna, Lucy and I spent in airports, airplanes and automobiles traveling from Oregon to New Hampshire and back.
4- hours we spent shaking strangers' hands during calling hours at the funeral home.
91 - age my grandfather was on the day he died.
33 - age Jess turned on Thanksgiving day, four days after she was diagnosed with cancer.
5 - times Lucy woke up each night that we were in New Hampshire.
0 - number of people besides me that Lucy would allow to hold her while we were in New Hampshire.
9 - number of voicemails on my phone on Tuesday from people inquiring about Jess.
2 - number of New Hampshire governors that spoke at my grandfather's memorial service.
2 - times I cried for Jess during my grandfather's service.
7 - hour at which I got into bed the night I came home from New Hampshire.
3 - glasses of wine I drank in bed that evening while on the phone with my friend Rebecca talking about how unfair everything feels.
100 - percent sure I am that Jess will beat this thing with her usual humor and grace, and that next year we'll celebrate with gratitude that it is all behind us.
unknown - number of days though, before life feels beautiful again.

philanthropy and new jeans

Lucy and I spent a few days in St. Paul, Minnesota last week attending a semi annual meeting of the board of the Weyerhaeuser Family Foundation. We stayed with our good friends and cousins, the Titcombs, who are excellent hosts. (It's not their fault Lucy wouldn't sleep in Taylor's bassinet.) Even though we were both frizzled on Friday from lack of sleep, we enjoyed the company of our "cousins," it wasn't too cold yet, and I even found some new jeans that fit!

Although on Friday Lucy spent the day giving her babysitter a bad time, on Saturday she attended the meeting with me. She listened intently to the discussion about engaging more family members in the foundation, but got squirmy during the investment committee report so we retired to the family archive room and nursed while contemplating various family trees and photographs.


It was, as always, inspiring and gratifying to participate in the family foundation. This foundation represents over 350 family members and gifts over $800,000 annually to nonprofits all over the world. It is an amazing feeling to be part of a family endeavor that helps people with everything from therapy services in rural Oklahoma to sustainable reforestation in places like Ghana and Nicaragua.

My cousin Megan is in the process of becoming a certified doula, and in addition to shopping for jeans, we talked a lot about the state of childbirth in our country. While I was there she attended a birth with a woman who, with Megan's help, was able to have a successful VBAC naturally. Hurray for doulas! Spread the word...

yabba dabba do

Yes, the adults dressed up too. Every year our good friends the Taylors throw a themed halloween party. This year they had just bought a house built in 1965 (and never updated, see the wallpaper below). So the theme was 1965. Tom Wolfe was there, as was Truman Capote and George Bush as a cheerleader at Yale. People brought Waldorf Salad and TV dinners.

We went as Fred and Wilma Flintstone. Summer and Ayren dressed up as Barney and Betty Rubble. I broke my no homemade costume rule for this plan - it was worth it. We made them out of fleece (a lovely, warm and forgiving fabric) the day of the party.

Rohanna went as James Bond and Nathan as her Bond Girl. It was frightening, she even had fake chest hair. Jess was astroturf, which was apparently invented in 1965.

halloween...a little late

Sharing the halloween pictures, finally.

A disclaimer: I did not make the kids' costumes this year. I let myself off the hook. A little part of me died however, when Milo chose a slinky polyester power ranger costume at Party City, made in Bangladesh by a 6 year old ... Liam was a vampire. He put his costume together himself, and other than the black hairspray that got all over everything and the fake teeth that didn't fit, he was happy.

Lucile the baby dragon.

Trick or treating.

Exhausted boys, kept going by copious amounts of sugar.

Milo's halloween-themed birthday party. We bobbed for apples, played hide and seek, and Joel made an ice cream cake.

proud to be an american

We greet the next era with relief. Also, hope, pride, and nervous anticipation. We are proud to be part of an outraged majority that is calling for change in our country and the world.

We toasted President-elect Obama on Tuesday night, with the same group of friends with whom we watched the dismal and disappointing returns four years ago. The difference between this Tuesday and that darker Tuesday in 2004 did not go unnoticed among our friends gathered at Rohanna's house.

Rohanna and Joel watch nervously,

before CNN called the election for Obama.

Liam and Milo check returns on the laptop

(or are they playing Miniclip...?).

Liam sat with me to watch Obama's victory speech.

I told him he was witnessing history.

I told him he'd remember this night for the rest of his life.

november 3

Some are calling this the most important election of our lives, to date. Is it? I don't know, I think all elections are important. But this one is certainly significant. Our nation is facing problems of historic proportions - economic crisis, our role in climate change, millions of uninsured children, a mouldering war in Iraq, a dismal international reputation.... Voting tonight sure seemed like one of the most important things I've done in a long time.

I caught a snippet of some inane radio talk show today, on which someone said that he wasn't going to bother voting because Obama had already won Oregon. But as I sat at my kitchen table with my ballot spread out in front of me, it occurred to me how easy it is to vote, either way. In the privacy of our own homes, or our own voting booths, you just never know what people will do. And, for the first time yet (although the paper has been reporting for days on the phenomenon of political anxiety), I felt the buzz of nervous energy. I hope that by this time tomorrow it's replaced by a sweet sense of relief.

Here's Lucy and me, voting for Barack Obama, for Kitty Piercy (Eugene Mayor), for Jeff Merkely (OR Senator), and Kate Brown (Oregon Secretary of State).

We're voting against English-only education too.

I was browsing facebook tonight and stumbled across these lovely and reassuring words. They are by Pearl Jam, Live at the Gorge, July 22, 2006. (Thanks Jill.)

This is our chance

This is our lives

This is our planet we're standing on.

Use your choice

Use your voice

You can save our tomorrows now.

This is our plea
This is our need

This is our time of standing free.

It's okay!

It's okay!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljsLZ5rGUKg

3 months

Our girl is three months old today. As someone pointed out recently, her "fourth trimester" has come to an end. My mom used to say that three months is a magical age, when babies have unfurled from their newborn cocoon and they start interacting with the outside world. Lucy is certainly unfurling these days. She's our bright eyed girl, and her smile lights up her whole face.
She's more independent every day, and now with better eyesight, she stares curiously at the world around her. She can roll over from back to front, and once she gets her arms free she likes being on her belly. Sometimes she ends up off her mat, on the bare floor, with dog hair stuck to her cheek, but she happily sticks her thumb in her mouth and hangs out, dog hair and all. She's a thumb sucker, this one.

Lucy is a sweet, cuddly girl. She loves to curl up on my shoulder and she will hang out like that for as long as my arms will hold her. She has started cooing and singing, and has a sort of half-laugh that cracks me up every time.

Sometimes I still can't believe she's here. She has changed our lives so profoundly, and yet, she also fits into our family's rhythm in a way that doesn't feel disruptive. After just three months none of us can imagine life without Lucy. When we were still on the fence about having a third child, someone told me that their third brought their family together in a way they would never have expected. This has certainly been true for us. Liam and Milo have never expressed resentment or reluctance about her. Liam will hoist her up onto his shoulder and walk around the house like a pro. Milo loves to make her smile - he makes faces at her endlessly, trying to elicit a grin. They both ask me when they get home from school, "how's Lucy?" and want an update on how she spent her day. Mostly sleeping, I tell them. My girl's a good sleeper.

seven

Milo celebrated seven years on the planet on October 23rd.

Milo has been exploring his limits lately. He's a curious and dedicated student. Schoolwork is generally a breeze for him - he loves math and reading, but spelling has challenged him this year. He meets the challenge head-on, tackling his spelling words each evening with gusto. He's a hard worker, conscientious about getting his work done - whether it's spelling, piano, or a soccer drill. Milo has a mischievous sense of humor, and has been trying out different ways to be funny. Sometimes his attempts at humor generate a laugh only from himself, but other times he hits the mark and cracks up an entire room. He is known among his friends as a stickler for justice, always working to remedy an unfair situation (real and perceived). He is kind and generous, usually willing to give up his turn or his treat for someone else.

Milo is a sweet big brother to Lucy, even though she has displaced him as the "baby" of our family. He loves to make her smile, and tries in vain to distract her in the car, refusing to be dissuaded by her wailing.

This will be the year he becomes a big kid. Until now he has been the little brother - tagging along with Liam's friends, playing Liam's games. But I can see him coming into his own these days, with his own interests and his own rules. Happy Birthday Milo -we love you!

Family party....

Jess and Mark. Milo was surprised to learn recently that these two are not actually related to him. They gave Milo a fish for his birthday. Milo named the fish World War Two. I have no idea why.

Liam and the grandmas (JP and Gramma G.)

The M quilt. I made an L quilt for Liam for his seventh birthday, so this year Milo got one too.

Gramma G.'s infamous angel food cake, with seven candles.

this family is for Obama!

I am voting tonight for Barack Obama. Among myriad other reasons, I am voting for Obama because I believe he will work to make this country a better place for my three beautiful children. Two of my dearest friends made Obama Flags with their children this month, with the intent of "the wind taking our wishes for a new and hopeful president out in to the abyss to meet up with all the other wishes and prayers for Obama to be the next leader of our country." Although I'd love to, we don't quite have the wherewithal to make our own, so instead I put these locally-made Obama Man shirts on my kids today and sent them out in the world as my own wishes and prayers.

VOTE!