2008 January | chatting at the sky

a plea, an apology and a thank you

January 18, 2008

Dear Pediatrician,

I know you do very important work like saving the lives of children and stuff like that. I also know that you are very smart because you went to school for 25 years or something. Waiting at a doctor’s office is a necessary evil. I know this, too. I do.

What I do not understand is why you insist on calling me back into the exam room (that measures exactly 8 square feet) when you know it will be another hour before the doctor will see my child. It is mean. It gets my hopes up, and then causes me to spend an hour keeping my less-than-2-year-old son off chairs that have wheels and dirty throw-up floors. I would rather wait in the spacious waiting room. At least there are more toys out there. And better magazines.

I also do not understand why you keep the urine sample cups in the bottom drawers of said exam rooms. My son thinks they are Tupperware. He stacks them. And licks them. I know they are clean, but this is not ok with me. I try to keep him out of these drawers, but it is difficult to keep him occupied for an hour short of letting him throw tongue depressors in the garbage. Which we have done. And I am sorry.

I do want to thank you, however, for having the “Note to Parents” posted on the back of the door. It keeps me up on my anagram skills. (Parents: part, rent, sent, ten, net, star, trap, nest, rant…) I think I’m up to 25 words. At least that’s all I can figure without writing them down.

Anyway, I don’t want to be part of the problem, I’d rather be part of the solution. That’s why I propose it be made illegal to force parents with children under 5 to wait at the doctors office.

Thank you and have a nice day.
Emily

Filed Under a mother 88 Comments

i never do this (portrait of a kitchen)

January 17, 2008

My sister (The Nester) recently blogged about my kitchen redo. What a novel idea, thought I. Who doesn’t love a good before and after? She often writes of window treatments and her love of fabric (that she has so graciously passed onto me). I don’t usually write about this type of thing, but with it being my kitchen and all, I thought it could be fun to post some significant shots of it before the love and after the love. So here we go. This was our kitchen on move in day, August of 2005.Please notice the lovely shade of dark mauve under the chair rail. Oh, and the sponging. What self-respecting woman in the early 90′s didn’t love a good sponged wall?
The bones of this kitchen were great, I thought. It just needed a little love.
And love it we did. First, we painted the kitchen Ivoire from Sherwin Williams. Actually, first we replaced the stove, but that’s not as fun to talk about. Then we lived with it for a while. I talked a lot with The Nester about what I wanted to do in the kitchen. She encouraged me to look through magazines and find photos of what I really liked, realistic or not. It helped to think this way and get a feel for what my likes are. Sometimes I have a hard time with that. Then, I found this, my inspiration photo:
It’s actually an ad for that stuff that’s on the ceiling, but I didn’t care about that. I noticed that the walls were the same color as mine and those cabinets looked great! And it also made me want a dog. And a friend. And coffee. But whatever.

I knew we couldn’t replace the cabinets, so I just had to choose what color I wanted them to be. I decided black was the only way to go. I also liked the fact that the black made our dishwasher disappear. So we hired a friend to do the dirty work (you didn’t think I did this all myself, did you?) and off we went. We also replaced the sink and the countertops, which was by far our biggest expense. Add a subway tile backsplash and here is the final product.
And another one with my butcher block/island included.

Here is a close up of the window treatment. I picked out the fabric and The Nester helped me hang it. I’ll let her reveal her secrets. Let me just say it cost $10.
I found these bubbled glass knobs at Anthropologie. Love. Them. Oh, and by the way, we do have a refrigerator. I just had no before shots from that angle so I didn’t bother taking any after shots of it either. Incase you were wondering.

Let’s see that one more time, shall we?
We do have to replace our off white outlets with white ones, but other than that, we’re pretty much finished. Now if we only had a dog…

Filed Under a house-lover, a sister 49 Comments

different doll, same story

January 14, 2008

It’s a paper strawberry shortcake doll and it came inside a pop-up book along with several other dolls like it. You can’t change their clothes, brush their hair or move their arms. But these flat, 2-D, paper dolls have managed to hold their interest above Polly or Barbie or even Dora. I think I may have even wondered why out loud. And then, I remembered…

I was 8. Or 9. I may have been 10. Fine. I was 12. I remember looking through magazines and cutting out photos of models, then I would name them and make up stories about them in my head. Sometimes I would cut out photos of the same model with a different outfit on and pretend they were twins. Most of my characters came from JCrew magazines because my mom got that one free in the mail. One set of twins was Cameron Diaz before she was famous. I still think of that when I see her on TV and I like to think I saw potential in her before she was discovered. What? I know.

If someone were to walk into my room while I was playing, they would have seen me on my bed, sitting silently, staring at several piles of cutouts. I did not stand them up and make them talk to one another. I would categorize them into groups of friends, siblings, rivalries. The cutouts were merely reference for the stories I was writing for them in my head: their friendships, personalities, family ties.

I am willing to admit all of this to simply say this: a story is a powerful force. Nobody ever sat me down and taught me how to make up stories, or even suggested that I should. I was naturally interested in people and their stories, even people that only existed in my head. (And with that last sentence I’m certain I solidified the suspicion that you have undoubtedly been hiding, telling you that I am indeed crazy.) I have never taught my girls how to pretend. They just do.

I think all kids do this, just not in the same way. My sister, for example, would rather decorate the Barbie house than act out pretend scenes with me, which she freely admits on her blog. I remember being so frustrated as a kid playing Barbies with her because I wanted to play Barbies and she just wanted to dress them. And arrange their furniture. But it is the same idea. She was making up stories too, just not about the same things. She was imagining, creating, and playing in a way that interested her.

It also happend to make me crazy, but whatever. I had bigger things to worry about…like hiding the fact that I cut out characters from magazines. As a 12 year old. Yikes.

Filed Under a freak, a girl 7 Comments

peace

January 10, 2008

Ahhh…I wish this for myself today. So warm, so snuggly, so…at peace. This baby is not mine, by the way (although I would take him in a heartbeat were the offer made). He wasn’t this peaceful the entire time.

But still very sweet. I took these photos in my sun room next to a window because I know nothing about ISO or aperture or shutter speed so I just have to get near a window and hope for the best.

Nothin‘ like a paci and a mommy’s touch to make a baby better.

Filed Under Uncategorized 6 Comments

a long way from Sweet Valley

January 8, 2008

I love to read. I didn’t really have a good book mentor growing up, though. I just read whatever I could get my hands on. So instead of classics and meaningful, childhood literature, there was a lot of Amelia Bedelia, Ramona Quimby, and Sweet Valley Twins. And yes, later it was Sweet Valley High. I still can’t hear the name Lila without thinking of snobby Lila Fowler which leads to red-headed Enid, sensible Elizabeth and Bruce Patman (who bears a strange resemblance to Tony Danza in my head.)

I was planning a post about some books I have read this year, but then I thought “Oh wait. I haven’t read any books this year.” Any. I’ve read paragraphs. And maybe even a few chapters here and there. Unless I can count Dora Goes to the Beach. But I don’t think I can. So I was planning to reflect on some of the words I’ve read this year that have been meaningful to me. Then I checked out my friend Kari‘s blog and saw that she wrote a post about the books she’s read. There were 13 of them…for January. Total, she has read 152 books. In a year. True business. I do not lie. I think she might be my hero. If I remember correctly, the entire Sweet Valley High series is about 152 books long. Not that I would know that.

So even though my repertoire is not nearly as impressive, here are a few books I have started and intend to finish this year.

Among my short list is a daily devotional by Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins. I intend to continue to pick that one up from time to time. It should be called a “from time-to-time devotional”.

Another is Choosing Rest and was written by a local author, Sally Breedlove. I’ve been in the process of reading it for several years now. I’ve not read it in order, which is sort of against all things I believe in (books should be read from beginning to end. There is to be no checking the last page to see if it ends well. Just as movies should be watched in the order intended by the creator ie: Star Wars Episode IV should always come before Episode I because that’s the way it was intended. But I digress.)

I have a fond affection for Jane Austen. I read Pride and Prejudice a long time ago, then re-read it a few years ago and had a renewed love for the English language as well as a tendency to say things like “fond affection”. So I’ve recently picked up Emma and look so forward to getting to know her.

Spinning Straw into Gold is a book I ordered this past summer and am most excited by it. It is by Jane Gould and the sub-title is What Fairy Tales Reveal About the Transformations in a Woman’s Life. And since I spend a lot of time with princesses these days, this is a fascinating read so far. I’ve only read the first 2 chapters…but it oozes with quotable quotes.

There are a few other books I have picked up this year, but the covers weren’t nearly as colorful and wouldn’t have looked good in the photo above. I feel the need to confess that, what with all the warnings about judging and all.

Filed Under a girl 14 Comments

best out of ten

January 7, 2008

Not kidding. I really did take 10 shots. This really was the best one. It was a fun party. No crying (at least not by any of my kids), no broken lamps (or bones, but you can see where my priorities lie), and lots of leftover cake. A success, I think.

Most importantly, our girls are another year older and we have another year of parenting under our belts…at least I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. I still kind of think there should be some sort of “labor day” celebration for the mommies on the kids birthdays. I guess that’s what Mother’s Day is for. Way to make their birthday about me, huh?

Filed Under a mother 3 Comments

before and after

January 6, 2008

I love a good before and after shot. I ran across this website the other day that shows celebrities before their photos were tweaked and after (click on portfolios). In other words, before they took 15 pounds off Kelly Clarkson and after. Personally, I prefer her with the poundage…because that’s her. (Course, if it were me, I’d be lovin’ me some photoshop).

It’s one thing to take out a stray hair or a booger…but to cut out half of someone’s behind? That is extreme. Speaking of extreme before and after shots, I have a few of my own. I am a believer in offering real help to the helpless. Of offering hope where there would otherwise be none. Of taking before and after shots that are meaningful and honest and life-changing.

So here we go, straight from the pile of Christmas casualties. This is Ariel before…
And here she is after.
See what a difference I made in her life? I did not change her body type. I did not give here a smaller nose. I gave her hair where there was no hair. I took away baldness, people.

And here’s another one. Polly before….
And Polly after.
Tada! What a difference a head makes, huh? She looks happier in this one.

So here’s to extreme before and after shots. And if you’re having a particularly rough day, just think: at least your hair didn’t fall off and you still have a head.

Filed Under a little bit crazy 5 Comments