"bubbles!"

Josephine was helping me clean off some clay pots for garage storage* when she figured out how to make water droplets by swinging the hose back and forth really fast. She declared them "bubbles!" which was cute enough to merit a photo.

Not that my standards are exceptionally high, as I have pictures of her doing just about everything. For instance, talking. Phenomenal.

*Sometimes I do things, too. Not cute things, but if I can achieve a semblance of organization, I consider it an enormous accomplishment and try to remember to take pictures of it.

A Story About Clay Pots

Introduction

We're all suffering from full-blown colds today, so my brain's in a fog of congestion, decongestant, coffee, and exhaustion (as the cold has only slowed down Sean and me, not Josephine). So this story might not make sense. But since I am ridden with unbridled self-pity for my weary condition, I'm just going to sit here and type whatever I want and then post it. It will make me feel better, and it doesn't technically put out anyone, as you are not required to read this.

Chapter One

Our neighbor's dogs enjoy the challenge of digging under our fence.

It is too hot and dry here to keep things alive in clay pots.

Those seemingly unrelated issues at some point collided in the form of a long row of soil-filled clay pots lining the fence we share with the ambitious dogs, along with rotting boards, cinder blocks, and concrete chunks. If you're picturing something not very classy, you've got the right idea.

Chapter Two

Eventually I found a guy on craigslist who would deliver 33 limestone blocks to my driveway. So the other weekend, I pulled away the pots and junk, much to the snarling, snapping delight of the dogs. I was using a two foot board to try to flatten loose dirt before putting the blocks in place... until one of them successfully grabbed the board and tore it from my grasp, snapping back the bottom of the fence plank in the fierce process of dragging it into its eternal possession.

It was an edgy process, to say the least. I now consider Sandlot a horror film.

Chapter Three

The completed task left a pile of rubbish and unusable pots in its wake. Bulk pick-up was this week, so I dragged it all to the curb on Monday, hoping to high heaven someone would wander by and say, "Look at all those free pots! I'll take them and put them to great use!" But seeing as how all wanderer-bys are also residents of this drought-prone place, the pots just sat there lonely, abandoned, unclaimed. My conscience couldn't stand it.

Intermission

This story is going somewhere. Not anywhere especially grand, though. The length of the story is not directly proportionate to the satisfaction of the ending, so prepare your expectations accordingly. Another good option is to save this story for a time when you have a cold or your brain is similarly numb.

Chapter Four

So I kept wandering down the the curb, pondering different pots, dragging back in two or three, cleaning them up, repurposing them. (Yes, this is what my life is like). Eventually, my beleaguered conscience found homes for all the pots, except for about 5 small ones, which I still pulled in this morning, minutes before the dump truck doomed them to a sad, unmerited fate. I have faith they'll find purpose somewhere. (Anyone need some small clay pots?)

Chapter Five

Josephine had a birthday in April, for which I had painted some scrap boards with chalkboard paint and hung them on the fence as a gift to her. It was only a small can of paint, one already used by its previous owner (another craigslist thing), and I used several coats on her chalkboards, but it appears to be a self-replenishing can.

Chapter Six

Mama Jo sent Josephine new Crocs. As the rubber on the soles of my running shoes is worn through, and I have recently redeemed a voucher for a a three month membership at 24 Hour Fitness, I ordered new sneakers. I got the Earth kind where your heal is lower. They are interesting. I think they're very comfortable. This is a tangent. The point is we had recently acquired two Zappos boxes.

Conclusion

There's really nothing better for an immune system than working in a hot garage, shuffling around dusty objects, and breathing in paint fumes. So I put my most promising clay pot idea to work-- the plan being to put stuff in them, then write on the pots with chalk. It sounded all Martha Stewart-ish, until I realized it had to be applied to my garage, at which point any hope of cute quickly faded away. I did break out the chalkboard paint, covered the Zappos boxes and painted various tubs and the rails of the shelving unit I had made out of old garage door tracks that I found up in our tiny attic when we moved in.

In the end, I did get my piles of materials sorted much better than they ever have been before, the garage is almost neat, I got to play with chalk, and that tiny can of paint is still half full. Success.

The End

henge this!

All the recent fuss over "Manhattanhenge" ...

(Source)

...left me wanting to brag about my own backyard Austinhenge, so I took the following picture the other night. All it takes is a wee bit of lawn chair maneuvering, and you've got a perfectly tree-framed sunrise and moonrise on as regular a basis as those bodies visibly rise.

Admittedly a tad less scientific, but still pretty. :-)

busy.

I guess "busy" is a more fitting impression if you look at all the photos I took of her that evening.

But the rest were even less in focus than these, precisely because she was so busy.

So you'll have to just believe me. Or come and see for yourself (while I go take a nap).

aw, friends

My dear friend Beth got married on July 9! (I happen to love the 7/9/11 wedding date she ended up with, but that's not what's technically important here). She met a wonderful man, sweet and funny, who grins at her with such love that it makes me all warm and fuzzy inside just to watch! Their wedding was lots of fun and beautifully done. I should wait for the professional photos to come out rather than posting my lousy snapshots, but we all know patience isn't my strong suit...
Beth getting Justin's nieces and nephews riled up (they were all adorable members of the wedding party):
An overview of the lovely reception:

Equally enjoyable was that our friend Mychel came into town so she could be one of Beth's bridesmaids. (History: they were roomies when Mychel lived in Austin; we all met through a Bible study via Mosaic). Mychel stayed at our house for a few nights, much to my delight. I'd give anything to have her back in Austin, but I know she's doing good work out in California. And besides, her being out there means I get to take fun girl vacations like this one!

Clearly I wasn't the only person who enjoyed Mychel... Josephine asked after her as much as she does when a grandmother leaves, and she still frequently mistakes other girls around city as being her, and does so with great hope and excitement every time. :-)

Something I think is funny: When I was trying to tell Josephine Mychel's name, I was saying to her very clearly: "my-kel" (emphasis is on the last syllable). Well, Josephine started saying "her-kel" and stuck to it so strongly that I said something to Mychel like "Why on earth is she calling you Herkel??" Mychel was the one to explain my child to me: Josephine was just switching the pronouns. :-) And that's exactly it, because later I was trying to correct Josephine's pronunciation, and we ended up with "my Herkel."

Anyway, all of it added it up to a great few days. Loved the quality time with my sweet friends, and I'm so excited for Beth and Justin's new marriage!

one month ago...

... I took this picture of Sean, at his request. It was his last day of being in his 20's.

We purposely kept the flash off, as he wanted to be sure he looked tired. He was aiming for photographic evidence that his 20's weren't all spunk and joie de vivre. Yes, literally-- he was striving for dismal.

Oooonly Sean.

The NEXT day, his 30th birthday, was super fun... all sorts of vivre! A good sign for the ensuing decade, I hope.

My mom was in town (as my sister Janell was at a week long camp, which she ended up LOVING) helping me with Josephine. So Sean and I hit downtown Austin from noon 'til midnight, incorporating a spontaneous urban hike, the best dinner we've had in Austin to date, and a couple little pastimes we've never been willing to risk a precious date night on. I wish I'd taken pictures at each place (well, kind of. I'm also glad I didn't get anal about that), but here are a few.

The above was taken at Clive, after we'd had lunch at Leaf, watched Midnight in Paris at the Violet Crown (we missed the Buck opening by one day-- that was our top pick, but the Paris movie offered some fun rose-tinted glasses for our little city exploration, so I am glad we watched that one). From the cinema we wandered over to the W bar for a drink (this was pre-falling-glass-shutdown), then to 2nd Bar and Kitchen for some snacks and a drink, down to the river, heading east, and then up to Clive. We hit it before the evening crowd started filtering in and liked how laid back it felt. As it started to fill up a bit more, we realized how hungry we were, so we headed back west to our car and then down for dinner to Barley Swine. You can't make reservations there, so we put our names on the list and walked a couple doors over to Opas, which had some misting fans on their patio. Sean had an excellent glass of white wine (my sangria was fair), the timing and location were juuust right.

Barley Swine was hands down the BEST food we've had in Austin so far. Food rarely leaves me speechless, but I've found every time I try to describe the wonders of that dinner, my energy level is entirely inadequate. It's small-plate style, so you can try (and we did) many plates before you're full-- but unlike many tapas style joints, Barley Swine is worth every single penny. This was truly good stuff.
I'm delighted we found such good eats because Sean loves food so much, and neither of us had a single complaint about the place. It was a better birthday present than either of us could have planned. Happy to end the food/drink endeavor on that brilliantly high note, we killed the next block of time playing games. Down the street was some miniature golf (what turned out to be an interesting, packed, byoMillerLite, Austin institution)-- still fun, though-- despite the fact that I was given a very, very unlucky ball. Stupid ball.
And on our way home we even braved the Slick Willie's Family Pool Hall we drive past all the time on Burnet. :-) Yes, funny. But it was also more respectable than I expected; you can tell they exist primarily to provide pool tables, which was new to me. It was basically like a bowling alley-- you don't hang out at one because you're looking for classy interior decoration, the latest cocktail, or a cozy nook for great conversation. You tolerate the awkward lighting and strange acoustics because you want to bowl. I'm glad my theoretical random urge to play pool now has an outlet.

And of course, Josephine didn't even notice we were missing, as all her time was spent engrossed in Grandma the entire time my mom was here.
Many thanks to Mom for all her help that week!

And to Sean, happy 30th birthday! congratulations on the conclusion of your tired twenties.

heaven forbid!

So there were all those July 4th pictures of Josephine, and the pictures before those posts were from mid June. Which means I missed a couple weeks of photos in between!!

(gasp)

How are you SLEEPING at night not knowing what she looked like in transition between being 2.1875 and 2.25 years of age???

As I care vastly about the ability of each and every one of you to sleep well at night, here's some nighty-night tonic to put your mind at ease.

Some pictures of Josephine at the end of a "quiet time" (which transitioned a while ago from being in her bed, when it was first replacing her morning nap, to being a contained play time in her room for an hour).

In this case, she's essentially torn the room apart and pulled the seat cushion down in order to rest at the end. It's funny to me how some days her play is so destructive seeming, and the other days, like today, she didn't pull out anything, dump out any blocks-- NOTHING-- she just played music with her piano and harmonica along with CD the whole time. No matter where she falls on the destruction spectrum each day, it's a pretty funny time to eavesdrop on, and of course it helps that she can climb up on the window seat and watch the world go by out front. I'm thankful that we've got a pretty good set-up for her quiet time, as it does wonders to restore my sanity mid-day.

It's always been the case that as she grows older I have to introduce more freedoms to her routine. When I realize she's growing systemically bored, it's a real challenge to rework what she has access to and decide how to structure things anew, but it always pays off. I enjoy adding the newness into her life and watching her relish it and take it very, very seriously.

Early in June we were reaching that point again, heightened of course by how drastically hot it was so early this summer, and the resulting fact that Josephine didn't want to play outside as much. This meant that she was getting bored with indoor options, and the whining was wearing me down as I couldn't go to stores, parks, and playdates all day every day and I really didn't have any new rooms to open up to her or toys to offer, etc. So we were reaching the point that if I wasn't playing with her directly, I was attempting to field her whining about it. Not a livable situation.

I looked seriously into Mother's Day Out programs to see if there were any nearby that still had vacancy for the summer; we ended up on a waiting list that didn't pan out, unfortunately. I had my fingers crossed that she'd be able to play with her friend Zanna at her program twice a week (while giving me 9-10 hours of uninterrupted house project time every week). Would have been an awesome deal to get us through these hot months, but I was too late in realizing we'd have this need.

So instead I had to get a bit more serious about our daily schedule. I've always given her regular meal times and rest times, but it seemed she needed more predictable one-on-one time so that she wouldn't nag for it endlessly. So we instituted a Table Time and a Sports Time and a Music Time and other such options. I have [sort of] regular times each day where these directly supervised and interactive activities take place, and I think it's helped. It took her a while to get used to it, and I still struggle at keeping up with the new routine (I am intrinsically NOT a routine type person-- I love my autonomous freedom)... but everyone's happier having these facilitated times with designated activities. As long as I'm faithful to work them into our day, her independent play is much better.
By far, her favorite is Table Time. It's when we break out the colors, paints, homemade play dough (which might not be toxic, but I'm pretty sure would kill her via dehydration if a crumb of that salt-ridden stuff made it to her mouth), marbles, markers, colored pencils, or my awesome set of bb-sized magnets that are fun to pull on and style. It's all the stuff that I didn't really want her carrying around the house, as it's either unsafe for a toddler or would lead to me finding an unintentional crayon mark here or there if I let her color on her own. We both like having a set place and time for it.

Anyway, I'm rambling too much. I have way too many posts to catch up on to be writing all this. And besides, you were losing sleep at night because you were wondering what she looked like those two weeks, not what I was thinking about!

admission (acceptance?) of guilt

So this is what I meant by splitting a pizza:

Thankfully, she didn't seem to realize how wronged she should feel.

But I can't fully shake this sense of guilt, hence my public confession. I mean, how could I look at this face:

... and still eat all the best parts right in front of her? It's pure selfishness. I just can't figure out if I should feel guilty about it or plot how much longer I think I can get away with it.

Anyone with an opinion should weigh in, as my own conscience is currently lying smothered under a heap of pizza. I just hear these little muffled grunts. Hence my moral ambiguity.

water, water all around...

The look on Sean's face when I showed him last night's radar image was priceless.

Teaguetime

We timed a trip to Teague to coincide with the town's annual Independence Day parade, rodeo, and blow-up swimming pool competition.

I'm kidding about the pool part.

Considering the recently aquired ant bites on her feet and the blistering heat, Josephine enjoyed the Teague parade fairly well. In fact, the following Monday, as I was preparing her for our neighborhood parade, she informed me "Jos'phine ride horse. Parade." She was mildly disappointed by the wagon she was stuck with. Since then, she's been accounting for that disappointment with endless rides on her rubber cow and unfortunate squashings of her stuffed alpaca who now has the delightful job of pretending to be a horse.

The Rodeo. This, folks, is where the little cowpoke came face to face with a cowpoke's reality. I can't say it went over particularly well.

While rather stone-faced about the swarms of people on horses, she was pretty sympathetic towards the plight of the calves in the rodeo experience. Very little attention was paid to the actual cowboys and cowgirls. She quite accurately discerned the unwilling participants in these "games" [as I tried to sell them to her], and I'm not sure she was ever okay with what all was happening. The peak of her enthusiasm came as she said goodbye to each calf after their run in the arena and excitedly told them to go home to their friends (the pen on the far end).

Didn't help that it ran so late... it literally started at the same time we normally get her ready for bed. We had tried to push her afternoon nap later, but we still wound up with a sweaty, zombified version of this:
So we waited around long enough to watch the swarms of true cowpoke children chase the calves and catch the ribbons, then called it a night. She got a bath from Mama Jo and slept quite soundly!

I didn't catch many photos from the rest of the trip. Suffice it to say there was a green lizard,
a green snake, plenty of turtles, and a green frog.


There was also a visit to Gammy's church on Sunday morning and a brunch with our cousins, including Brayden, whom she hadn't seen since October 2009. Brayden's super polite with the BEST smile; it was wonderful getting to see everyone again.
On whole, quite a successful trip; we're all about imparting some culture to our kid, and if small town rodeos and backyard encounters with reptiles and amphibians don't count, I don't know what does.