Happy Faces

Parents of small children are either:
1. Bragging about how cute their kids are
2. Complaining about how hard it is to parent them
Let me tell you that this is all that is in our brains, too. When I shot the video below this morning, I was feeling the former. Now I am feeling the latter. Ug. I miss freedom.

Lil' Tex's First Snow

Let's NOT Talk about Our Feelings

We had to go to a 2-day seminar this weekend to get certified to adopt. After 9 hours of talking about every possible feeling birthparents, adoptive parents, and adopted children could have, I'm pretty much adoptioned out. I'm ready to just enjoy my kids and move on. Here are some random cute pics of DJ:

Family Fun

When you have small children, places that were once your personal nightmare become a magical dreamland. Baby day at the movie theater is one example. We enjoyed another example this past Sunday: a restaurant that sells tiny burgers, corn dogs, sweet potato fries, and cold slab ice cream, has a fenced in playground, and is crawling with small children. Only families with kids under 8 years of age dare attend. It is very loud. Every surface is kind of sticky. The tables are designed to be cleaned easily by a hose perhaps once a day. Tillie is finally big enough to enjoy the playscape, which usually engages no fewer than 15 screaming tykes. I think she did the circuit about 25 times. Scott and I had a little indigestion afterward, but the kids both took 4 hour naps that afternoon. Mama like!

De-evolution of the Family Portrait

Lone Field Flower

When I was a kid, we got to do a lot of exploring in the "wild" places in our neighborhood. Nothing fancy, these were just creek easements, runoff spillways, and semi-wooded or cleared yet undeveloped lots. None of it was truly natural, but you could still collect tadpoles, dig up worms, gather clay, build dams, and hunt for (but never actually find) native american artifacts, crack open rocks in search of geodes (again, never actually achieved), etc.

Sometimes you came across a random homeless person's camp, a stray shopping cart, or some drug paraphernalia. We didn't have cell phones or chaperons. However, I never felt that there was any danger in it. Our parents could easily drive the less than one-mile radius of area and find us if they needed to. We knew not to talk to strangers or play with dangerous trash. We knew to stay off the railroad tracks. Giving your kid this amount of freedom was okay back then--either because Austin was a smaller town or there was less hysteria about child safety in our community or perhaps there were fewer dangers known, I don't know.

Yet, I don't see myself letting Tillie and Django do this now. Is it because I live a lot closer to the highway, with its speeding cars, seedy strip clubs, and drunken panhandlers? Is it because the creek near our house is just plain disgusting compared to the one I used to explore as a child? (Then again, perhaps that one was just as gross, but my 9-year-old eyes didn't see it as such.) Or, is it because I am just a more nervous person than my parents and their friends were, whether due to our inherent natures or due to our contemporary socio-political climate?

I can't stand the idea that my kids wouldn't get that kind of self education. I either need to take a chill pill, or create some sort of safe alternative. I could rent a farm or send them off to camp in the summers. Perhaps I could sign up to be a scout leader or buy some camping equipment. Fortunately, Tillie has a while before she will grow out of our backyard. In the meantime, let me know if you want to organize some future nature walks with my kids (and yours if you got 'em).

An Ideal Movie Date

Django and I went to baby day at the local movie theater/bar. He was the perfect movie buddy:
1) Let me choose the movie
2) Paid for his own ticket (he was free)
3) Let me choose where we sat
4) Did not talk during the film
5) Did not eat all (or any, really) of my movie snacks
6) Snuggled on my chest while I ate pizza over his head
It was a dream date!

My Children

Pie-rfection

We were invited to a terrific pie party this weekend. There were probably 50 different pies, both savory and sweet. Such an event--a potluck challenge, where participants are inspired to create both the delicious and the unique--is pretty much my favorite type of social occasion. I just love any type of cook-off where the food isn't actually judged and everyone gets to taste the entries. I made a sour cream pear pie, shown below. It was so delicious and fun to make that I made three, one on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I'm taking a break today, but I'd love to start up again soon. Do you want one?

PS. A lovely thing happened with the first pie, though not the others--half of the pears were a fleshy pink color. It was quite pretty. I wish there were a reliable way of getting pink pears so that all future sour cream pear pies could be this cute.