Liner Notes 5/29

 

Slowly coming back down to earth after what has been a very long few days. Long weekends are equal parts wonderful and overwhelming (wonderwhelming?) these days and although holiday weekends used to be the stuff of all-day adventures via mixtape infused roadtrips, i'm basking in the relief that is this pressure-free life. Surviving the day is adventure enough and I'm sure, eventually, we'll go back to weekend exploration-a-thons, I'm more than happy to spend the weekend hosing off ye olde rustic water table, spreading towels across the lawn and sitting barefoot in the grass with my favorite creaturefolk.

...Which is pretty much what we did this weekend. We enjoyed the backyard that in thirty days, will no longer be ours.

(Holy shit.)

We celebrated Archer's birthday on Saturday with his two best friends. By far the best birthday party ever. We ordered a pizza, cut up a bunch of watermelon, set up some soccer goals and sat on the deck while the kids ran around like banshees for the entire day. Low stress. High fun. Amen. 

ED: Every time one of the kids has a playdate at our house I marvel at how much easier it is to have, say, six kids, here, rather than four, mainly because it keeps the big kids occupied. The pressure is no longer on Hal and me to entertain while juggling babies. We can relax while juggling babies instead.

My sister was here at the end of last week which was awesome...

My mom was here, too, which was also awesome but I don't get to see my sister much so having her here was really special.

Rachel has the same happy in her heart that Fable has and seeing the two of them together is like watching a unicorn spoon with a rainbow trimmed in puffy-paint beside a flock of hologram flamingos.

(fablecorn)

We have to be out of our house in thirty days which is equal parts nerve-wracking and thrilling. I packed one box so far but spent much of the weekend throwing everything away in my head. Archer made a list of all the things we should keep and the list looks like this:

Cars
Car tracks
Legos
Refrigerator
Table
Bed
Bubbles
Water table
Basketball
Soccer ball
Computers
Books

Tempting. We've only been in this house for two years but with the arrival of two new little people, our stuff has seemingly tripled x infinity. (Our board game to human ratio is something like 800:1.) so the idea of doing a massive stuff detox is a lovely one. Especially as there is zero closet space in our new house. (Everything in the house is original, harking back to the 20s when minimalism was the only ism.)

But more on that later!

(One of these days I'll have news to share about the house we call Esteban. Just waiting on some final finality. So just go ahead and ignore everything I just told you.)

We shot episode five of Childstyle on Friday in Huntington Beach which was a grand 'ol time. (Ed: speaking of ChildStyle, we shot episode four a few weeks ago and Jessica of The Eagle's Nest wrote a post about it! Awesome!) I'm really enjoying the act of working outside my house. Putting on makeup and clothes that aren't maternity leggings. Hanging out with awesome adult-sized people is wondrous.

On Friday Hal and I are flying to Miami for a Westin gig I'm doing with Babble. The timing could not be worse/better. Worse because, hello crazy life house babies moving packing house move. Better because, hello. 

Hal and I haven't been in an airplane together (sans kids) since we attended a wedding in Minneapolis in 2007 so even though we'll only be away for two nights and I'll be spending more than I'm making on babysitters to assist my amazing mom who offered to spend the weekend with all 87987398247 of my kids, it will be worth it. It's been a tough few months and mommy and daddy need some quiet time. And also some (ahem) loud time.

Something scary: Reverie is still an infant (shhhh. she's still an infant) and she's already climbing furniture wtf.

Meanwhile, Bo is TRYING to climb furniture. She watches Revi out the corner of her eye and then tries to follow her crazy-assed lead. So far she has not been successful. But girlfriend is a determined little thing so we lowered her crib to match Revi's and I'm bracing myself for synchronized skydiving.  

Something exciting: I lost seven pounds this month (after losing ZERO pounds the past three months. ZERO) which means I am officially back in my pre-pregnancy jeans. As in, I can BUTTON them.

Baby steps, right? I felt so fierce about my post-baby-still-kind-of-pregnant-but-getting-there-sohelpme body that I changed my facebook photo to something other than me holding a baby without makeup. It's the little things, yes?

It's the little things.

currently: 162. goal: 139 (pre-pregnancy weight)

Because I decided the time has come to be FIERCE. I am writing a self-help book for myself in my head and it is called "YOU ARE FIERCE!"

And you know what? I feel a thousand times better than I did two weeks ago. Hell, I wore lipstick today AND a dress (SANS maternity-leggings) even though I left the house never.

You know why? Because the first commandment in my (personal) self-help book is also the FIERCT commandment this 29th of May, 2012 and it strictly states that the best way to work from home is to WERK from home."


I learned that from my daughter who is my muse in the fiercely awesome department.

Snap snap, girl.

GGC