Space

I created this little corner for Eliza in our living room recently. It isn't much, but I am really happy with it. I bought this little shelf at a yard sale. It isn't exactly my style, but I like the challenge of trying to make things work anyhow.

This is pretty much it for Eliza and her toy sprawl. Not too bad, really. One of my goals as a parent is to not have my living room become Toy Palace.

Something I've noticed now that I am only working part time and in my home so much, is I am more interested in having our living space flow for grown ups and kids. It isn't that easy...especially when I don't want to spend any money. I am trying to find small ways like these to improve our space and make it work for everybody. I am hoping as I get better at being at home with Eliza all the time, I will find ways to improve our space and little by little things will fall into place with the house. I stumbled across this e-course recently on creating playful learning spaces and I think something like that might be pretty interesting. I could definitely benefit from some professional guidance I am sure!

Moments

It is so easy to get caught up in the rush of life and let the smallest moments of your life slip by unnoticed. We all do it. But I want to try and be better at acknowledging the moment. Even if it is horrible or boring or awkward.

Tonight, after Eliza was in bed and after David and I caught up on Mad Men for the week, we lingered on the couch and debated the merits of unloading the dishwasher tonight or tomorrow morning before work. I mistakenly started to say: “Don’t put off until today what you can do tomorrow.” In case you don’t know, I am a rather excellent quote/idiom-butcherer. Finally, I told David I would unload it if he just sat in the kitchen with me. And so I did, and he followed. When I was finished, he started reloading. We were like a machine, our routine completely effortless for all the time we spent putting it off. Then I started to do a very uncoordinated cheerleading routine that was straight-up ridiculous and solidifies me as a children’s librarian, in case there is any doubt. I leaned against the counter and we just talked about this and that. I’m pretty sure there was some ribbing about who is the better dishwasher loader (me, of course). If I hadn’t been so aware at the time, the moment would have slipped right by. And maybe that isn’t so horrible, there is nothing earth-shattering here, but in that moment I just felt really good and content and I just want to remember that because it is so easy to forget, it kills me sometimes.

DIY Baby Food

We started solid foods with Eliza a few weeks ago. I thought this would be great fun...I absolutely hated it. I had no idea how messy feeding a baby was. It gets everywhere. Eliza gets food in her hair, on her eyes, behind her ears. Everywhere. I'm sure this isn't news to any veteran mamas out there, but I honestly thought the food would just go straight from the spoon to her mouth. Silly first time parent! I also naively thought that Eliza would instantly like solid food, after all, she seemed interested enough in David and I's food, but again: Wrong.

A month later, however, and things are swell. We have our routine down: we feed Eliza when we eat, at the dinner table. Before we even started solids we would sit her at the table with us and give her something to chew on, usually a baby spoon, already making her part of our meal. Now, David and I feed her bites of sweet potatoes in between our own dinner. I've decided to try and make her baby food and I honestly think this has been so easy, which has shocked me. When we started rice cereal (which I did not make) I was sort of panicked that I wouldn't be able to find time to make her food, but I checked out the book, Feeding the Whole Family, which I think I saw over on Soule Mama at some point. The one thing I really took to heart from this book is for each of the recipes, it has an adaptation for 6 month olds or 10 month olds, which is really just telling you to set aside this or that and puree it for your infant. This got me thinking about how I can do this with any meal. So now if we are having pasta and salad for dinner, I am already chopping up carrots so I'll just set some chopped carrots aside, boil them and then puree them alongside all the other cooking we are already doing. In a snap there are five baby meals. Incorporating baby food making into the normal meal preparation has made baby food making much easier. I have done some baby food making (i.e. pureeing) at night too, but not anything painstaking. Very little effort, trust me. And I've pretty much decided to ditch all the baby food cook book recipes, except for the basics. Who has time to make gourmet food for your baby? Not me! I'm sticking to one or two ingredients, no more. Another thing that has saved time is I bought organic frozen vegetables to cook and puree. Since these are already washed and chopped, it saves me some steps and seems more appealing than jars of baby food to me (and is actually still cheaper than jarred food).

I think as Eliza's tastes evolve, I may need to invest in a food mill too, but I haven't yet researched how these work. Have any of you used one? The other thing I am not all to clear on is when I am supposed to increase Eliza's meals to more than one per day. We are still trying new foods, but lately it seems as if I could feed her at breakfast too, at least some of the time, but I've also heard you shouldn't rush things. So far she has tried only rice cereal, apples, bananas, sweet potatoes and carrots. Are you supposed to be out of the tasting phase before adding a meal? What did some of you all do?

Saying Goodbye

Yesterday we headed down to my old stomping grounds, the Short North. I grew up there, and as I've mentioned on this blog a while ago, my mom is selling the house I grew up in. I wanted to walk through the house one last time, even though it is empty now, to just take it all in, remember and say goodbye. Perhaps it is weird to say goodbye to a house, but I needed to do it...and I am glad I did. Despite the fact that I cried immediately upon unlocking the front door, it was a lovely day with my family. The only agenda was to walk around the house, talk and take pictures.

Growing up we always took pictures in front of the tree out front. My parents planted it when they moved in...I think it might have started out as their Christmas tree one year...but I'd have to check my sources on that one. Here is a picture of me in front of the tree at age 5:


And here I am at age 32, with my little family. Many, many family photos have been taken in front of this tree.

I wanted to take at least one family photo in front of it. It struck me how much this tree has grown in my lifetime...it was once big enough to see over, but not anymore:
Here are a few more highlights from our day...oh how I am going to miss that old woodwork!



A few years ago, my dad taped this note on the storm door...this note is so dad. These are the types of things I miss most about him. I smiled seeing it there yesterday.

When we got home, we noticed one picture of Eliza and I is strangely similar to a picture of me and my mom almost exactly 32 years ago...We are even wearing similar style shirts that we both made ourselves.
I think I like how some things can be the same, thirty years later. More pictures of our day are here.

Home

My mom is selling the house I grew up in. It is a good thing really...The house is old; it needs remodeled again and of course my mom needs to move forward. A house full of 35 years worth of memories has got to be hard to live in now, without my dad. But that it is really happening has been a hard pill for me to swallow this summer. And it is happening...the yard sale is over, the furniture is in storage, the new condo has been purchased. My mom should be all settled in her new place before I even return to work from maternity leave.

I haven't been there much since my mom started packing things up. I always thought I would be helping with a task so huge, but having a newborn has made that impossible. It is probably a good thing actually, because I don't think I could've done it. The few times I have been over since the furniture was moved out have been hard. I am the kind of person who holds tight to objects with some sort of memory connected to them. I found a ratty old poster, a topographic map of the Pacific Northwest, sitting by the stairs when I went over last week. I'd completely forgotten about it until I saw it. The poster hung in my dorm room freshman year of college. I have always loved maps and I was really proud of it...I think I actually bought it at a map specialty store in high school on one of our visits to Tacoma, Wa. My dad and I took it to Long's Bookstore and he got it matted and attached to foam core for me. It's a small memory which is probably why I completely forgot about all of it: the poster, that it hung in my dorm room, the connection to my dad...all of it, until I saw it in a pile of random stuff ready to be tossed out or moved. It got me wondering...what else have I completely forgotten about?

To me, that is what makes it so hard to see my childhood home emptied out. I am afraid of what I'll forget.

When I was 12 or 13 my dad took me by his childhood home. My dad grew up here in Columbus, but I'd never seen the house before then. It was a half double and I don't think his father ever even owned the place. We didn't go inside, we just drove by because it wasn't in the best neighborhood anymore, even back then. It was probably a Saturday afternoon and it was just the two of us. We had gone down to the old Schottensteins store in the south end of Columbus (which isn't there any longer) and for some reason my dad decided to take me by his old house. I don't remember much else about that day. I don't remember what we talked about, I just remember finding it so fascinating, even at that young age, to see the house where my dad grew up and I have never forgotten it. I don't think he had seen the house in many years either and I wonder what prompted him to take me by it on that particular afternoon.

About 5 years ago I decided to drive by the house again. I loosely remembered where it was, right off Main St by the old Rosary Catholic Church and School. The house was abandoned and boarded up and the street was really depressed, but I still felt transfixed by it and tried to imagine a different neighborhood. I tried to picture my dad living in the house as a child, wondering what he was like back then. He never did talk much about being a kid and there are few photographs of him as a child, so picturing him as one has always been tough on my imagination.

I have no doubt I will take Eliza by my childhood home someday. I will tell her she was inside it when she was just an itty bitty baby. When we do visit, I will very likely be so bold as to even knock on the door and ask for a tour too. Although it saddens me she won't know the house or get to spend the night in it, deep down I know the stories I tell her will still help create something for her, just like when my dad took me by his old house. I also know that without us, without my mom and my dad, my brother and I, it is already a different house. Where it really exists is in our memories. No one really needs to live there to keep that alive. I still can't help but worry that there are more memories trapped inside the french doors, or the built in book cases, or my old bedroom, but I guess I'll have to take what I can get. Those lost memories will just have to haunt the place!

While she napped...

Before I had Eliza, I didn't think we needed a changing table.

Well, I changed my mind...pretty much right away. I have changed my mind about so many things in the last 8 weeks (I should do a blog post about that...it is funny to look back and think of all my pre-baby misconceptions)! We can still do without a changing table in the nursery, however, we needed something in the living room, which quickly became overrun with a changing mat, diaper packs, cloth diapers, wipes, etc etc. It all just looked like a mess on the living room floor and it was kinda driving us nuts.

So I headed on down to Once Upon a Child and bought this:

It isn't horrible, but it isn't lovely either. After I cleaned it up I decided to take a look at my fabric stash and see what I could do about those shelves. Turns out I had several yards of the same fabric I made our couch pillow covers in, which is perfect since this is in our living room for all to see. I also covered the cushion (not shown) that goes on the top shelf with the same fabric. Here is the AFTER shot:

A tad better! And all was completed during Eliza's late morning nap today. Best of all though, all of these things are not in piles on the floor. Much much better!

My new favorite room in the house...

Our baby's room is finally almost done...I can't resist posting a few preview pictures...

Here is the little corner by the window, with the rocker and dresser. Both pieces are repurposed items from the 70s or 80s! The dresser was my brothers growing up and I took it to college and everywhere else after that. We repainted it and added new knobs to freshen it up. The rocker-recliner we just covered with a slip-cover from Walmart, it was David's and also traveled with him to college.

Here is a closer shot of a little print I purchased from the black apple. It really ties all of the colors in the room together. I actually bought this before we were even pregnant...lucked out that it works so well in here:

More fun prints from elsita above the bookshelf (also a re-used item):

Just a few more finishing touches to pull together...still need to get a hamper and a few more wall decorations (hello etsy), but I am really feeling proud of how little we spent on this room and how easy it was to give a few old cast-offs a new life. I'm sure I'll be posting more pictures eventually, once there is actually a baby living in here!

I am feeling a mix of anxiousness and complete terror as my due date approaches. So many fears running through my head and so much anticipation. Everything is feeling so very real now...the baby has a room, we now own a car seat, we've toured the hospital...I know all these little things are necessary and part of the process of becoming parents, but in the moment sometimes I feel struck at how HUGE this change is going to be...so much bigger than anything else in our lives, ever.