Portrait Project

August 31, 2013 by Summer

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eloise: You have been a busy girl this week. You are so close to walking. You’ve taken several steps here and there and walk along side the walls and around the dining room table, holding on with one hand. You are so close! You also are enjoying playing with your toys for longer periods of time on your own. This picture was of you zooming your cars around the dining room. I captured your sweet smile as you picked up your car to show me. This was also the first time I got pig tails in your hair. My, you are growing up so fast!

-joining Jodi for the lovely 52 project!

{this moment}

August 30, 2013 by Summer

“A single moment. No words. Capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.” – joining soulemama.

Just Write: My Tribe

August 27, 2013 by Summer

I have this tribe of Mama’s who have gotten me through the most trying days and nights with my baby. They support and guide me while I navigate nursing my active twelve month old, they give me advice when I’m anxious, pick me up when I’m feeling low and encourage my healthy living habits. They are the most phenomenal group of women that I have never met. They are writers, artists, engineers, stay-at-home-moms, professionals from all walks of life. We’ve never met and yet I feel like they are my dearest friends, my support group, my sisterhood.

It was a blog that started all of this. I stumbled upon it one sleepy night while nursing Ellie back to sleep. A blog about “waiting it out”. A blog about accepting that some babies just don’t sleep through the night and that was okay. A blog about following the lead and needs of the child. No crying it out, just waiting it out. I loved every word Sarah wrote and I started eagerly following her blog. Post after post resonated with me. The respect and tenderness in each of her posts were so genuine and real. This was the mother I was trying to be to Ellie, this was the way I was parenting as well. The Nurshable blog touched so many sleepy mothers, a Facebook group was created and then sister groups stemming from that. Mothers from all over the globe, coming together to talk about waiting it out with their children. Supporting each other, helping each other, learning from each other, lovingly, with respect and adoration for each other. Months of visiting these groups and I am now a solid part of the community. I talk with these Mothers daily. I have their phone numbers and they have mine. Women I have never met but a camaraderie that grows and grows.

A tribe is so important in this motherhood journey and I am thankful every day for the support I have in these women. We don’t need to meet each other to feel so connected (although it would be lovely to meet many of them). We are connected through our passion to parent gently and we are connected through the support we give to one another every day. They remind me to breathe in and out and smile. And I in turn remind them.

-joining Heather for Just Write!

Weekending!

August 25, 2013 by Summer

It was a quick, sunny, nice weekend. Jeff and his sister went to the Red Sox/Dodgers game so we spent the day with Gramma and Grandpa. They of course spoil their little grand baby rotten (i.e. new push car toy)! We had such a nice day with them! We discovered “noses” this past week and finding everyone’s (including the dogs’). I got Ellie’s hair pulled back in two pig tails for the first time and oh my, she is darling with pig tails! I think she thinks so too. Sunday was a lazy day with walks downtown, cookies and iced chai’s in the afternoon and a tired-but-happy-she-got-to-go-with-us bulldog. The house is in ruins and laundry is piling up. I have a long week ahead of me. But thank goodness for lazy weekends. How was your weekend?

-joining the lovely Amanda over at The Habit!

Portrait Project

August 24, 2013 by Summer

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eloise: You are ruff and tumble. You are queen of the playground slides. You are hands in everything. Explorer of all textures and sensory experiences. You are strong-willed and eager. You are pretend laughter and animal noise imitator. You are wisps of blond. You are cuddle monkey. You are lover of books and horses and dogs and bananas and Chipotle carnitas and “milky milk”. Wagon rider and champion wrap nurser. You are Ellie Mungojerr, twelve months old, my sunshine, my monkey, my love.

-joining Jodi for the 52 project!

{this moment}

August 23, 2013 by Summer

“A single photo. No Words. Capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.” -joining soulemama.

Making + Listening

August 22, 2013 by Summer

I’ve been MAKING a lot of dinners these days. Jeff is working later and in attempting to keep a steady routine in this household, I have taken over dinner duty. The crock pot has been a dear friend of mine but I’m also trying out some new recipes here and there. My Grandmother makes a wonderful split pea soup that I tried to reproduce last night. Mine was a bit more paste-y and less soupy, but Ellie seemed to enjoy it.

There has been a lot of trying to feed ones self around here. She’s certainly enjoying sensory experiences!

As for LISTENING, we have had the record player on in the afternoons with some old fashioned Broadway tunes, Auntie Lindsey (my SIL living with us as of last month) has played this for Ellie several times to Ellie’s utter and complete joy and a friend lent us these videos to get Ellie and I signing and singing.

-joining Dawn for Making + Listening today!

Sensory Explorations

August 20, 2013 by Summer

Ellie’s Nana and Papa got her a sandbox for her birthday that she is pretty smitten with. Every day she crawls over to it, climbs inside and swirls her little legs around, grabbing handfuls of sand and flinging them everywhere. She’s actively exploring with all of her senses these days and so I thought it was high time we got around to doing more sensory types of play. I put on my preschool teacher hat and surfed pinterest for some inspiration and thought we would start simply with rice. A different texture and look than sand but similar in how you play with it.

I put just a little bit in a plastic storage tub and she immediately went right over, climbed in and helped herself to sensory exploration!

I wanted her to first experience the rice with just her hands but then gave her a measuring cup. She used that pincher grasp and was picking up bunches of rice and placing them into her cup! Then she would dump the cup haphazardly and start over again.

We had a playdate with some of my wonderful Mama friends and their little ones and we thought we would start these sensory playdates once a week, allowing the children to explore a new material. This week we introduced them to homemade playdoh. They weren’t too impressed (we thought they may be too young for playdoh but wanted to try anyway).

The adults seemed to enjoy squishing the playdoh far more than our littles did, but that was okay, because I happened to also bring the bin of rice. This turned out to be a bigger hit.

I colored half of it with food dye to give it a more “pinteresty” look. Ellie and her friends enjoyed exploring the rice for quite some time.

All in all, I would say a very successful sensory play date! We’ll bring that playdoh out when they’re a bit older.

Weekending!

August 19, 2013 by Summer

It was an artsy weekend! The weather was dreary again in Ventura so we headed north looking for some sun and found it in Santa Barbara. We decided to spend a morning at the Museum of Art since Ellie had done so well at the Natural History Museum. And once again, she seemed to enjoy every bit of the museum experience. We didn’t get to take too many pictures in this museum (museum rules) but she would point to different pieces of art, “neighed” at the sculptures of horses and looked on, wide eyed at the strange modern and installation pieces. We even got to add her name to a children’s sculpture in the children’s art exploration area (and no, there is no 5 in Eloise. I stamped the wrong stamp).

We also enjoyed a nice afternoon at a local art walk (plus the sun was out in our neck of the woods finally)! There were all types of artists working on chalk sidewalk art, live music and other art vendors. A nice ending to our artsy weekend. How about you? How was your weekend?

-joining Amanda for weekending!