Our wild girl
With ladybug gloves
And
Pink swirled garden boots
Perpetual laughter as you
Tease and poke
You Found One!
The most perfect strawberry
Of the bunch
But not
As perfect
As YOU, our love!
Category: Outdoors
Family Green Thumbs
The family got down and dirty tonight.
We finally planted our garden out back. Eight tomato plants, twelve pepper plants, two garlic plants, and two broccoli plants (Mario begged Jon to get the broccoli plants so he is on the hook for eating it if it actually grows). Jon and I do not exactly have the greenest of thumbs so our fingers are all crossed that these plants actually produce some sort of edible food for us. Jon and I are dreaming of tomato and onion salad all summer. When Jon used the tiller over the weekend, he found strawberries growing in our garden. Strawberries! The former owner of our home was a gardening nut and had all sorts of vegetables and herbs and I guess, fruits planted around the house. Jon and I know the strawberry plants need some serious weeding but we have not quite got to that chore yet. There really needs to be a robot invented that can smell out the weeds in your garden and flower beds and scorch them down to the Earth so that we would not have to manually do it every single week. I can’t even tell what are weeds and what are flowers. Half of the time I learn something is a weed, I am amazed because I found it to be just as gorgeous as a flower, and I only pull it if it is obviously strangling the flowers in its stead.
Maria began the planting with us but soon tired of the activity and laid in the grass looking up at the sky. Mario came out only after we ordered him off the computer (he is a Ben Ten fanatic). However, once outside, he is a workhorse. He wants to do as much physical labor as possible. He begged to dig holes. He planted plants and covered them with dirt. He pulled weeds. He told me how far down I should place the garlic plants and he scolded me when I did not hold the root up straight for him. I see a gardener in the making.
Being outside with the entire family made me happy. No worries about homework (it was done) or running off to the store (it was done, too). Just hanging out in our garden, getting our hands dirty and gazing at the couple of strawberries peeking out at us.
TGIF
Ten Reasons to be Grateful For Today…
1. Gorgeous powder blue sky with cotton ball clouds and 70 degree temperature = perfect biking to work weather.
2. Lunch with Mom at Mario’s school – free Panera with a big chocolate chip cookie! Running around the playground with Mario, spinning in plastic seats and playing tag in the muscle room. Mario made me a gorgeous beaded necklace so “I can remember him every time I wear it.”
3. Playing soccer with Maggie and Mario in the back yard (except when Maggie stole the ball from me and scored)!
4. Figuring out which drapes to get for the living room window and hall window. So exciting to branch out and take a walk on the wild side! I am not matching the color of the drapes with the furniture – crazy!
5. Seeing Jon on a scooter that his friend wants him to buy. He looked like a ten-year old who just got the present he begged his parents for all year.
6. Taking Maria to school and listening to Jack’s CD in the car. Maria asked if Jack wrote one of the songs after he broke up with Chelsea. I told her I was not sure and that we should ask him since we have the good fortune of being related to the singer of the band! She stopped me in my tracks and told me that we should not ask Jack such a question because it may make him sad and she doesn’t want to see her uncle sad. Also, loved seeing her in the cowboy boots that Grandma Meg got her for her b-day!
7. Going for a bike ride with Mario; he still fits in the baby seat on my bike! We biked all over Grandview; hit the park for some slide tag and Giant Eagle for a flower to plant outside.
8. Watching a yellow finch land on the branch of a japanese maple tree.
9. Talking to my mom about her new pup, Lou, and how everyone at the doggie day care thinks he is the best dog ever (so funny to see her as such a proud doggy mama!).
10. Eating Orange Leaf’s brownie batter and birthday cake yogurt with oreo and graham cracker topping. Mario got his pineapple, as always. And sitting outside together talking about desert animals.
Spoken like a true mother
Maria, Mario and I sat down to dinner last night. Mario had his toys next to him at the table, and within a minute of beginning to eat, he took out a Ben 10 figurine and started playing with it. I began to tell him that he was going to be sent to his room if he did not stop playing and start eating but Maria interrupted me,
“Mom, I got it. You just eat your dinner and enjoy. I will take care of this.”
She proceeded to give Mario a lecture about needing to eat his food in order to get big and go to kindergarten. She sounded just like me and Jon. When he continued to play with his toy, I tried to chime in again.
She stopped me by grabbing my forearm. “Mom, I really got this” she said as she grit her teeth. She stood up and grabbed the toys from the table and placed them over on the other side of the room. While she walked to the other side of the room, she told Mario he would only get them if he ate his dinner. I thought that he would attack her for sure. But instead he watched her take his toys and did not say a peep. I can’t say that he chowed his food down after she talked to him, but he didn’t go hysterical either. It was quite a sight. I told Maria that she was going to be a good nanny. She told me that there needs to be consequences.
Yeah, my 7 year-old daughter is informing me that there must be consequences. If I was skeptical before, I am no longer. Maria had to be a mother in a past life. Maybe even mine?!
Meanwhile, she was back to her 7 year-old self tonight as we ate dinner. She called Mario a “poopy-butt” and he called her “stupid.” When I told them both to behave, she copped a seven-year old attitude and turn her chair from me. There is my darling girl I know and love.
After dinner, we scurried around to find shoes and clean up in order to go see the elephants that arrived in town for the circus. They stop the rail car about a mile down the street and walk up Grandview Avenue. We head over to see them every year. This year, Sherri and Jessica and Eli and Isaiah met up with us to see them. I had touted the event as a great time. But this year was completely different from past years. The route changed because the circus is at a different location. We used to play around at the local park in years’ past because the elephants went right by it. This year, we waited on the sidewalk in front of a friend’s house.
Last year, there were more elephants and animals in the parade. I believe there was a clown, too. It lasted for 20 minutes. This year there were six elephants and ten horses and the parade lasted two minutes max. Poor Eli and Isaiah. Isaiah summed it up the best when he turned to Jessica and cried “That is it, mama?!” To make up for the lack of entertainment, we let Isaiah and Mario wrestle in the friend’s lawn, which was more entertaining than the elephants.
We walked back to the house, and said goodbye to Sherri and the crew. The kids took separate baths, got on their nighties, and watched a show. I put on my nightie, too, and listened to Maria talk about art class. As I rinsed my face off with water, Maria said “do you know what, mom?” I said “what, pumpkin?” She said “I love you so much.” Spoken like a true mother.
The joys of nature, good food and family
The farm delivered good times this past weekend. Maria, her cousin and her friend drove out with me on Saturday afternoon. We jammed it out to Now 41 and Justin Bieber during the ride. Everytime I tried to sing with them, Maria would yell “Moooom, please don’t!” Even though she did not want me to sing, she did want me pump my arm up and down when we passed truck drivers along the way. She remembers me telling her my story of doing that as a kid and truck drivers honking away at me and my girlfriends when we were on long trips with our parents. They tried to do it from the back seat but the windows are tinted. I pulled through for them and pumped my arm (and showed a little leg) and got a few honks for them!
When we pulled up the drive to the farm, Maria began explaining the entire set-up to her friends. “There is my pee-paw in the garden and there is Rosie’s dog-run and the chickens are up in their house and the cabin is in the back and….” SHe is definitely at home out at the farm. The girls jumped out of the truck and bee-lined to Rosie. Maria and Alana love to play with Rosie. They throw her toy, play chase, love on her, and exhaust her. Janira, Maria’s school friend, was much more hesitant to get in the gated area with them. She stood back and watched. I think the whole farm scene overwhelmed her – she is a true city girl. However, she did get up her nerve to go into the chicken coop with the girls. And much to her amazement, she retrieved a chicken egg. All three girls retrieved one, and came running back to the house with eggs in their hands. They were different colors, mostly peach and grey-blue. Maria described to Grandma Meg how they found the eggs by digging under the hay (she knows all of the tricks of the farm, too).
Next, we headed to the creek below the house. Meg and I walked with them enjoying a few minutes together to talk about the latest going-ons in our lives. Meg and I don’t get to talk as much as we used to pre-kids because she lives two hours away and the kids are always with me when we see each other. I value even the small moments in time that we can catch up. The water in the creek flowed at a manageable level for the girls to walk around in their water shoes. Maria and Alana took off again, and Janira was a trooper trying to keep up. We walked to the swimming hole; a pool of water less than waist-high where the girls could jump around and splash. It looked like a little bit of paradise with the sun shining through the trees onto the water; the green plants and wildflowers lining the edge of the bank, the birds flying from one bush to the other, and the smell of nature. My dad talked about making a cleaner path to the swimming hole and setting up stones near the hole for adults to talk while the kids played. Retirement is hitting him soon, and he is already scoping out projects to keep him busy!
The kids were soaked after the swimming hole. We took them to the house and dried them off. When they moved to the table, they found sweet surprises from Grandma Meg. First, goodie bags with headbands and snap bracelets and crayons and pens. Second, a homemade Nature Journal complete with a twig fastener and activities inside. Leave it to my Meg-pie – she has a perfect combo of teacher, conservationist and nature guru. It had educational yet fun activities in it like discovering a tree and finding certain colors pasted onto a sheet of the journal (when we were walking in the woods and saw yellow bark, Janira yelled out “I found our yellow!”). She also had pages to detail the day, including writing one thing in nature that made you have a happier day (Meg gave them an example of a butterfly landing on her leg). They stood around the table soaking up her words. What an awesome influence for Maria Grace and her friends. These girls certainly walked away from the weekend with a greater appreciation for nature. They also got so excited over finding a caterpillar (which Meg looked up in her guide-book with Maria completely intrigued), a toad, and a woodpecker.
I helped my dad later in the afternoon following a sumptuous meal of spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread and corn on the cob. We loaded up all of the slate from the barn to store next to the chicken house (the barn needs to be refurbished due to its age and the fact that it could topple over any second). Nothing better than some good, hard labor (when you are not forced to do it, heh?!). My body was rather shaky and exhausted after moving the slate and picking up a few giant rocks, but it was a good exhausted – one where you feel you’ve actually done something useful with this machine that is our body. I enjoyed time with my pops, too. When we rode on the forklift to get the rocks, there was a moment he looked back at me to make sure I was on securely. I felt like a kid again hanging out my dad. I wanted to tell him how much it meant to me to share that moment with him but it seemed a rather strange comment to make when we were both dripping in sweat and riding a forklift down a gravel hill. So I kept it to myself but I believe he knew just from the sheer fact of being my dad, and having an intuition for those things.
We returned to cake and ice cream – yummy. Meg and I laughed at our sweet Maria as she sat in her chair eating the icing off her cake. All was quiet and she chimed in “Ahh, I am enjoying this cake.” A perfect summation of what we were all thinking. We finished the night with Matilda – an absolutely adorable movie with Danny Devito and Rhea Perlman. It was super moon night, and it shined into the house so brightly that I felt like I was being interrogated at times. But it was gorgeous in the clear black night out in the country.
We woke on Sunday and rode horses. The girls all did a fab job with Meg and dad helping them. The horses were in great moods and caused no distress. After the girls rode, we had some killer pancakes made by dad. He uses a regular whole wheat mix but adds a bit of brown sugar to it and it makes them to die for. They have this crispness around the edges and a melt in your mouth taste. Sometimes he makes them with nuts and blueberries, which sounds amazing. After pancakes, the girls took a tractor ride around the pasture and gathered a few more eggs from the chicken brood. The bickering began around that time with little slights setting them off (Maria yelled at Alana for talking about dogs because it made Maria miss Cy; Alana yelled back; Maria yelled at Janira for “bragging” and Janira cried that she was not trying to brag but Maria always thought she was and it’s not fair…). Hence, it was a good time to leave so Meg and dad would not be subjected to it and I could ignore it from the long way off in the front of the truck.
We pulled out of the drive, and I felt so happy. You know those moments you get every once in a while where the entire world looks peachy-keen and life has circled around to right where you want it? I had it. Right in the palm of my hand. And then Maria threw a marker past Alana so she couldn’t use it and Alana screamed at Maria and Janira cried her head hurt, and I was back in reality. I had promised that we would stop at McDonald’s Playland on the way back home. Why did I do that? This McDonald’s Playland was the grossest one I have ever seen. The tables were dirty; the kids were loud and obnoxious, and the parents were even worse. One parent was yelling at her son to get down from the slide. When he refused she yelled “That’s it, Tiger, I am going to whoop on your ass with my belt in front of everyone.” I was ready to rescue the kid if she did it in front of me but she refrained. Eye-opening to see other walks of life. I pride myself on appreciating diversity but the folks in that McDonald’s tested me.
When we finally got home, we got to start the party all over again with Jon’s family. Patty had kept Giovanni and Mario all weekend up at her condo, and I am sure was ready to bring them down to our house to say good riddance! It took her over ten hours to make potato salad because she had to keep running after them. What a woman. I was being a little pissy from being tired when the rest of the clan arrived. The kids went down in the basement to dance to “I’m Sexy and I Know it” and Jon grilled hamburgers and brats and peppers. The meal was delicious, and I shook off my irritable mood and had a good time (it was probably the realization that I would get another whole sheet cake to eat (I had already had two others for Maria’s b-day earlier in the week)).
Everyone left around 8:30. Jon and I dropped on the couch. The kids fell pretty quickly, too. Maria’s b-day weekend brought lots of good times but I was glad to be on my couch with my hubby staring off into space. Although, loading up slate would be a close second.
Conquering the bike
Maria has conquered the art of biking!
She is now able to mount the bike by herself and get off the bike by herself. She must have grown a half-inch over the last two months because that was the crux of the problem earlier. She couldn’t quite get her foot down to the ground when she stopped the bike without falling over in a heap. But now when she stops, she is able to get the very top of her foot onto the ground like a ballet dancer’s en pointe and that little move stops her from falling to one side. And she has mastered the balance of putting one foot on a pedal while jumping on her seat and getting the other foot on the other pedal. It is the coolest sight ever!
The babes riding away!
I am so proud of that girl. And she loves to bike up the street alone with me far behind her. She does a great job looking down both sides of the street when she crosses at intersections and she doesn’t have to deal with any crosswalks with lights for a mile (and by that time I have caught up with her – albeit gasping for air).
Mario wants so badly to catch up with her. We took his training wheels off yesterday with the hopes that he would just pick up the art of two-wheeled biking. Wishful thinking. It is so funny how siblings have incredibly different strengths and weaknesses. Maria is so good at biking and rock climbing. Mario, not so much. Mario is so good at baseball and basketball. Maria, not so much. He fretted the entire time we rode and made me bend down to hold the front and back of the bike. My back screamed in pain when we got home (he did massage it for me though!). He wasn’t too proud to ask to put his training wheels back on, thank goodness. I was worried he would not ask because he would think it was a “defeat.”
Maria, forever the cheerleader, immediately zoned in on the potential break-down Mario could have exhibited over the bike. She wrapped her arm around Mario’s neck, and said “Ahh, buddy, you will get the hang of it. You can do anything!” Mario responded “I just want to win!” Maria looked up at me, shook her head and whispered “Oh, Mario, Bo Bario.”
Tuesday ramblings
My mom came up from Cincy tonight with the hope that she could help me figure out what were weeds and what were flowers in my garden, and also see the grandkids on the side. She picked up Maria from school, a treat Maria absolutely loves. If she could have each of her grandparents pick her up everyday of the week, she would be in heaven. When they got home, Maria helped my mom in the garden a bit and then asked her if she could ride her bike to the park. This question floored my mom who expected Maria to ask to watch tv or play a game. They biked down to the park, and Maria gave my mom a mini-stroke when she climbed up her favorite tree to the near top. My mom made her stop way before she typically stops, which majorly irritated Maria. Mario and I arrived soon thereafter. We walked down from the house. I had given him the option to bike but he wanted to race. He set forth the typical prize for winning the race – a chocolate cake. We ran about a block and then he asked me to carry him. As I carried him the six blocks to the park, we talked about the green leaves and why they were green now and brown in the Fall time. He also asked me if he would die, and we talked about how everyone dies eventually. He asked if I would die, and then covered my mouth when I started to answer. He shook his head while holding my mouth and confirmed to me “mom, I know you will die, too, just like me.” Nothing like some light, uplifting conversation with your four-year old on the way to the park.
After the park, we headed to the police station to go to the bathroom, and to say hi to our former neighbor, Kim. Maria biked from the station to Panera. Mario ran most of the way. I love it when they enjoy being outdoors on their own. At Panera, they learned how to make “lemonade” from Grandma Lolo. They squeezed three lemons into their water and added one Splenda. Maria also wanted to add a Sweet-n-low, which made her water taste like something a hummingbird would love. We walked home from Panera with much pomp and circumstance. Maria crossed a street without looking, which prompted a major smack-down from my mom on me. She was completely right; I need to do a better job of making these kids look both ways or stop at the edge of the street. But I still felt irritated. After a few minutes, I realized it was not so much irritation as it was hurt. It’s funny how we, as adults, still look to our parents for moral support and adoration. We still want to impress them with our skills – only it’s parenting skills rather than algebra brilliance.
But I am 40 years old – really, Mar, let it go. In the end, a lot of the hurt has to deal with me realizing that I am letting myself down. I know I need to set more rules and work harder at imposing more boundaries and structure at certain times (like at an intersection!). I am pissed at myself for not working harder at doing just that. So, learn from it and do it better (you all just got a little glimpse of the dialogue raging through my head – lovely, heh?!).
After we worked in the garden a bit more, we decided to treat ourselves to Orange Leaf. A car trip later, we were eating yogurt with oreos and brownies and lucky charms on top. Maria sat slumped in her seat with her sunglasses resting on her head and Mario sat in his seat staring at Shrek and eating pineapple yogurt. My mom looked at me and said matter of factly “Your kids are mod.”
I am still trying to figure out whether she meant “mod” to mean dashing and smart or to mean offbeat. Either way, I will embrace the compliment, which I know she meant it to be. After all, what grandma gets to hang out with a pirate grandson and a granddaughter who engages in questions about past relatives and their spirits.
Cheering in the Bleachers
Maria wanted to ride her bike tonight. I was so tired and had not eaten dinner yet but I agreed to a bike ride because (1) it’s good exercise for her and (2) it gives us some time together after a long day at school and work. Mario ended up meeting us at the park (Jon dropped him off because he was so upset that Maria and I had left without him). The two of them bee-lined straight for the spruce tree with the awesome climbing branches. Maria climbed up to nearly the top of the tree like a little monkey and Mario stared in amazement. He got up the guts to climb up a few branches.
While they sat on their branches, a group of boys ran over and shouted to each other about how cool it was that Maria and Mario were up in the tree. One little boy started to climb up the tree when I heard his mom yell “Charlie, get down from there right now!” The mom glanced over at me and shook her head in disbelief. I could hear what was going through her head “what kind of mother would let her kids climb a tree and risk them getting hurt.” When they finally had enough of the tree, we ran over to the swings. I saw a mom I knew from Mario’s preschool. She had her grapes and strawberries packaged up for her two kids. I told her I was starving, and she offered me some. I declined telling her that I thought we may hit Orange Leaf frozen yogurt for dinner in a bit. “Frozen yogurt for dinner?” she questioned, amazed. “Yep, with oreos and animal crackers – nothing better”, I responded. Again, I could hear the bells going off in her head and the desire to cart me away to bad parents’ camp.
So, when I got home tonight and found Harley Rotbart’s piece, Just Parent, No Philosophy Required, I took a deep breath and patted myself on the back. We all have different parenting styles. I am not going to shake my head at the mom who refuses to allow her kids to climb trees because maybe she had an awful experience of falling when she was little or witnessed another child have an awful experience or maybe she just gets anxious about it and doesn’t want to be sick to her stomach as they climb. Who knows why she is prohibiting it but at least she is at the park with them allowing them fresh air and swings and slides. And I am not going to poo-poo the fruit mom who refuses to put one unnatural food in her childrens’ bodies. Maybe she had a parent die from cancer or maybe she is a dietician (my mom used to be a dietician but I think I rebelled completely). I am trying so hard to not judge people – even when they may be judging me until the cows come home. Because in the end, all three of us moms tonight were there for our kids in the park – in the metaphorical bleachers cheering them on – and that is all that matters.
Making it to the top
“Maria’s mom, Maria needs your help. She is way up in the tree.”
A boy in Maria’s first grade class ran towards me yelling those words. I asked how high she was in the tree, and his eyes widened “she is really high!” I walked over to the pine tree with him, ducked underneath the needles, and scanned my eyes from the bottom to the top. I passed over a few kids on the first two branches. Then no one. As I scanned up towards the fifth or sixth branches, I spotted my little climber. She was sitting on a high branch with her legs dangling over looking down at the crowd gathered below.
“Do you need my help, Ri”, I asked her.
“No, mom, I can get down by myself.”
She stayed up a while longer. It was only when everyone began to leave and I offered her a trip to Orange Leaf that she finally climbed down – without a problem. Maria is strong like her dad and me. Her nickname in preschool was “the Muscle.” She can tolerate pain better than most 6 year olds; heck, better than most 30 year olds. We rode our bikes yesterday and she fell off right on her knees and hands. I gasped fearing that she was really banged up. As I approached her, I did not hear crying. I picked her body up off the ground, and asked if she was ok. Her friend ran over horrified asking “Maria, are you hurt?”
Maria brushed her legs and arms off and told us she’d be ok. She walked around for a minute, and then stated “Come on, let’s get to the park, people!” Her friend stood amazed that she was not hurt. While we walked down to the park, her friend admitted that she would have been bawling to her mom had it been her that fell. “I know. Most kids would be scared and hurt. But Maria is a machine just like her mom and dad. She can take some pain.”
Maria looked over her shoulder at us and kept walking. I could see a bit of a smile on her face as she turned around; I think she is quite proud of her pain tolerance. That pain tolerance is what helps her climb so well, too. She has to deal with the pricks of needles as she ascends, and the poking of tiny branches located randomly throughout the tree branches. She has no fear of looking down from high above; if it was me, I would be sick to my stomach. She is the same way when it comes to climbing walls. She can scale up those things like it is nothing. I have a feeling Jon and I are going to be watching her climbing some big ol’ mountain in Europe one day.
And I loved how all the boys were running around reporting that “Maria had climbed all the way up the tree.” They were in awe without realizing it (heaven forbid that they were found to be in awe of a girl!). I am in awe of her, too. She is one strong, intrepid girl, and I am quite sure she will continue to produce more “awes” from all of us as we watch her grow up.
Dandelion wishes
Dandelion fur
Brushing your face
as you continue to blow
with all of your might
Careful thought before the wish
We believe, mom
Magical moments
watching your babies
dream.
"MOM!" 