The Best Feeling

Weaning makes me a little sad. Less opportunity for snuggles with an active baby or toddler. But after weaning, and after a full month spent asking for milk, my toddler now buries her face in my neck and wraps her arms around me when she needs comfort. It's a safe place for her and a pretty awesome feeling for her mama. I'm trying to soak it up every time because this stage won't last forever either.

(Photo taken by my sister-in-law after a day on the beach.)

Fall Bucket List (and Leaf Garland)

So this week I decided to pick myself up out of my self-pity for not having Fall here. I used Pinterest as inspiration and not just jealousy, and made a simple leaf garland out of craft items I already had on hand. I found a leaf template online, cut out felt leaves in Autumn colors, and stitched them together with embroidery thread. I honestly can't even sew on a decent button, but if you can trace, cut, and push a needle in and out, you could do this. I decided to count the unevenness of the stitches and spacing as a rustic look. Originally I had thought to hang it along the stair banister, but with the amount of leaves I could get from the colors I liked, it simply wasn't long enough. But I like it hanging from this shelf too.

For the past couple of years, I've made a bucket list for various seasons or holidays so that our days aren't spent watching TV. I couldn't put apple picking or crunching through leaf piles (although I think my felt leaves are pretty, they are not crunchy), but I tried to put some Fall activities we could do here in Florida. And some that I might never think of doing in the Autumn months if we lived elsewhere.

Fall 2013 Bucket List 

Outdoors 
Go Camping
Family Bike Ride
UCF Arboretum
Visit a Pumpkin Patch 

Outings 
Mommy/Daughter Date
Daddy/Daughter Date
Orlando Science Center
Avalon Park Oktoberfest

Arts & Crafts 
Make a Thankful Tree
Apple Stamping
Carve a Pumpkin
Handprint Turkeys

Indoors 
Make Pumpkin Cookies
Drink Apple Cider
Make a Blanket Fort
Have a Read-a-Thon

Seasonal Sadness

We moved to Florida in May and jumped right into summer. It was summer a bit early, but close to my expected summertime nonetheless. I haven't loved the heat and humidity and the fact that it's too hot to play outside and when we try to it's five minutes tops before my little girls are pink cheeked and drenched in sweat. I have loved the summer afternoon thunderstorms which are common here.

And then the calendar switched to September. And other people who live in a land of seasons started posting about fall weather and trips up the canyon and changing leaves and pumpkin recipes. And I got sad. Really, really sad. Fall is my favorite season and it simply doesn't exist here. We will still have Halloween here, we can still make pumpkin recipes, and I think there are even pumpkin patches to visit. But there will be no sweaters and boots. No crunching leaves and crisp, cool mornings. No eating apples picked right off the tree or pressing cider in a 100 year old press. No jumping in leaf piles and tossing them in the air. All these pictures are from last year. They're frozen in time and the experience won't be repeated this year:

So forgive me if I post about camping and family walks and picnics while you're stuck inside in January. It's the trade off for me not getting to experience Fall this year. And I'm not so sure the trade off is worth it yet.

(I have considered decorating my house like Fall, but I don't decorate for anything but Christmas and don't really know how. Plus the whole money thing.)

Reading Aloud to Young Children

When my first was one year old, I read her the entire Chronicles of Narnia out loud while she played on the floor. We lived with my in-laws at the time, so I had significantly more time to do something like that. Since then I had really only read my girls the picture books that they chose. Which is great too.

But I have memories of my mom reading books aloud to all six of her children. Once my dad even read the book (Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls). I know we read lots of different books, but the ones I remember most are the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Farmer Boy remains one of my mom's favorite books in the world.

One of my goals this summer was to read a chapter book out loud to my girls. I chose Little House in the Big Woods. Little House on the Prairie is the most well-known, but in Big Woods, Laura is about four years old, my daughter's age. Reading a chapter at a time, we didn't even finish its 13 chapters this summer. But then we started preschool and found a good rhythm for reading together and finished it quickly. After lunch my daughter changes into her uniform and brushes her teeth, then while we wait for it to be time to go, we read a chapter. Some days are too hectic, but more often than not we get to read together.

She loved reading this book because it did have a few drawings that she could look at as we read about something completely foreign to her (like harvesting or making cheese or going to a town for the first time in your life). Laura has a sister and a mom and a dad just like my daughter (both of them even have dads who have beards!).

Today we get to choose a new book to read. I significantly cleaned up my book collection before we moved here, but I still have a few of my favorites. I still have the entire Laura Ingalls Wilder collection because of the childhood memories they brought, so we could choose another one of those. A few other ideas I'll suggest to her:

The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner
Matilda by Roald Dahl
The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

I'm looking for something with stories that will entertain, but not be too difficult of topics. I've heard of a series of books called Ivy and Bean, which we may check out from the library. Any other suggestions of good read aloud books for young children?

Torn

I am so glad that I have two children. Sisters to love each other, play together, even fight with each other.

But there are times when I am torn because I am only one person. Sharing a lap is certainly a good thing. But I am torn about what to do on a day when my oldest will be having a minor surgery and spending a day in the hospital. How do I balance being there for her as much as she needs me and not giving my toddler, who has rarely been away from me at all, a traumatizing day of being left with people she barely knows? How on earth do parents with terminally ill children do it?

Underestimated

I'm always playing catch up to realizing what my children are capable of. I cut up their food long after they can do it themselves. They change so quickly that I don't notice when it happens--suddenly, they're just bigger and can do more.

My oldest was a clingy baby. She wanted no one but Mommy and sometimes Daddy. She was stubborn and would cry for hours if I left her with a babysitter. No giving up and falling asleep for that one. Her dependence and attachment continued long into the toddler years. Gradually I was able to leave her with favorite family members, but I never even considered a traditional sitter. Leaving her in a class for a couple of hours at church was a tremendous undertaking--once that was finally accomplished less than one year ago.

So the idea of preschool worried me. Would she be able to handle it? How long would it take her to adjust? Was it worth it? We signed her up anyway because it's free in Florida. But I told myself that I could always unenroll her if she really wasn't ready. I prepared myself to be cheerful and brief as I dropped her off in case she was uncertain or tearful.

But I completely underestimated her. The night before she claimed not to be nervous about school at all. It never even occurred to her. She marched into her classroom yesterday and sat down to color. I had to ask for a hug goodbye. She barely looked up as I left and was happy as could be the whole time she was there. I shouldn't have worried. And I shouldn't have underestimated her. She's stronger and more capable than I give her credit for.

End of Summer

My oldest starts preschool in one week. One week! This is the first time that a school calendar marked the end of our summer. We didn't get to everything on our summer bucket list, but we did a lot of fun stuff. It was a strange summer in a new place. A place where you actually spend the summer indoors and winter is more appropriate for outdoor activities.

We didn't make it to Downtown Disney or the zoo. But thanks to Grandma and Grandpa visiting us, we went to the Magic Kingdom and Sea World. I think that was a little cooler. We also went to Utah for a wedding, visited friends in Tallahassee, and went to Georgia for the first time (and my first grits and first fried green tomatoes).

We went to the beach a couple of times. We haven't yet made it to the Gulf Coast because it's about twice as far as the beaches on the East Coast for us, but we'll get there eventually. We found a farmer's market to go to (I've been sorely disappointed at how few there are in a place where you can grow stuff year round).

We had a picnic, played at the splash pad, rode bikes, and went to the pool more times this summer than my daughter has the rest of her life combined. We had homemade popsicles, roasted marshmallows over the grill, visited an ice cream shop, and got 7-11 slurpees. We saw our first 'gators--in the safety of the Orlando Science Center.

It's been a good and mostly fun-filled summer despite being a one car family. We are now blessed to be a two car family and I'm going to try to make this week fun with more outings before we're constrained by time and have to rush home to get lunch and get my daughter to school.