springtime song

cosmo works on a favorite rhyme.

happy easter

six word memoir

robin at the other mother tagged me with a meme. the assignment is as follows: tell your life story in 6 words. i often fantasize about writing a memoir. i keep lugging around those boxes of old journals, correspondence, date books, and other precious mementos. i call it my archive, and always justify hanging onto it by claiming, i'll need all of it for my memoirs. a couple of things keep me from doing it. one, it is a big scary project. i often take on big scary projects, but i rarely get very far with them. and now, since the recent hullabaloo about "fraudulent" memoirs, i also worry about people poking around to fact-check. some of the stories from my life are hard to believe. "verification" could be tricky.

but here i have the chance to start it, and to complete it tonight. very satisfying. it was harder that i thought it would be. below is what i settled on:

if
only
i
could
forgive
myself.



the six word memoir rules are:

1. write your own six word memoir.
2. post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3. link to the person that tagged you in your post.
4. tag five more blogs with links.
5. leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

i tag:
michael
texta
dodaddy
kate
le binky bitch

sleep, again

the last time i wrote about cosmo and sleep, i believe i was bragging about how he falls asleep on his own, in his room, with the door shut. that lasted a few months. at some point, having us outside of his room became a focus that prevented him from just relaxing and falling asleep. he would keep calling to us, asking us to put the covers over him. so one of us would go in, put them back on, say good-night, and leave the room. he'd kick the covers off again, and call out for covers. if it wasn't covers, it was something else. he kept getting up, and then getting upset, so finally i just decided he'd get to sleep faster if i just went ahead and laid down next to him. we have been doing that for a while now. sometimes carl does it, mostly it is me. the other night it seemed to take forever for him to fall asleep, and i found myself feeling impatient, frustrated and resentful. so, we decided that meant something needed to change. our ultimate goal for bedtime goes something like this: bath, teeth-brushing, pajamas, stories, kisses and hugs, light out, carl and i leave the room and go about our business around the house, cosmo lies in bed awake for a while, talks to himself, sings (when he is older, reads), and then falls asleep on his own. i don't want him to be dependent on our presence in order to fall asleep.

so, we are always working towards that ultimate goal. last night, i let him know ahead of time that we would be trying something different at bedtime. i told him i wasn't going to lie down with him. it seemed to help, because he had no problem with it when the time came. i stayed in the room, but sat near the door. he said a few things, asked for covers, then pulled them up himself. he settled down quickly, and fell asleep in about 15 minutes. tonight went exactly the same. let us hope this trend lasts.

spring fresh

the wonderful thing about living in a place with seasons is that just as you are beginning to tire of the way things are, they change. august and september were really hot and unbearable. then, autumn winds blew in, the air turned crisp, leaves fell off the trees. snow is beautiful and fun to play in, but the cold gets old too. i'd been getting a bad case of cabin fever, and then...miraculously, signs of spring start popping up around the yard. we've had some warm days this week, spending more time outside. the park was absolutely mobbed with people yesterday afternoon. we all had the same idea: what a gorgeous day, let's go play!

i thought spring might be a good time to give my blog a new look. i've wanted to customize it since the day i started it. today, i finally took the plunge. the header image is from one of cosmo's water colors. i still hope to do some tweaking, but i am happy to have made the changes.

i also started a garden blog.
enjoy.

equation

one little yellow bouncy ball +
one rather narrow kitchen +
one two year old boy =
SO MUCH FUN!



he played this non-stop for a good 30 minutes (which is the equivalent of hours in toddler time),
and his excitement did not wane. i tried, in this video, to capture his funky leg moves as he chased the ball across the floor, but some things just don't translate.