Dog Days Of Summer - The Art of Doing Not a Whole Heck of a Lot

It's getting towards the end of July and the reason I know this is because the TV and stores are now bombarding us with back-to-school shopping ads. Oh and I was in Costco the other day feeling pressured to buy a thick, furry rain coat for my child because if I don't get it now they will no longer carry them when I actually need it - in about 6 more months. (I didn't buy one.) I know when I go there in a few more weeks (in Aug) I'll be able to pick out my child's Halloween costume if I so desire and a week or so after that I'll be able to buy my fake Christmas tree with all the trimmings. 

Can we just be done with speeding through life already?  

I know I'm fighting a loosing battle because that will never change, as annoying as it is. But for now while I am a stay-at-home-mom creating a little, tiny bubble around my little, tiny family we can ignore all of the pressures of society - as much as possible anyway. As my kids grow older and we are out in the world more (like kindergarten), I am really noticing this push to do everything, be involved with everything and learn everything as young as possible so you have several years to hone your talent before you start making your parents millions of dollars. OK, slight exaggeration, or is it?  All you have to do is take one class with your child to witness first hand the parents who are trying to get their child on track to excel in that particular thing whether the child wants to or not. 

As a kid I had a good friend who literally did everything. She had no down time whatsoever because her time was filled with several commitments a week and she was never, ever available to do the typical childhood things on the weekends due to these commitments even though she desperately wanted to be a regular kid. She couldn't go to sleepovers because her weekends started very early in the morning with various practices, competitions and recitals and for this same reason she couldn't go to birthday parties in general, or any playdates for that matter. However, when I was a kid we didn't call them "playdates."  We just called it "playing outside with the neighborhood kids." 

Now that I'm a mom I'm very careful not to schedule too many things at once, even fun things they want to do like dance classes and swimming lessons. First of all it's expensive. But when you have more than one child doing more than one class a week you can see how your days and weeks get away from you and they no longer belong to you - they belong to the schedule. 

It's important to know your child's personality type to see if this is a good thing or a bad thing - for them. Notice I didn't say to pay attention to your own personality type. Many times we are very different from our children even though we may not want to admit it or "deal with it." Just because a parent likes to be super busy and on the go with several things scheduled at all times, this doesn't mean our child thrives in this situation and vice versa. Just notice your child's daily/weekly tantrum level to see if this is the case. (Even older kids have tantrums in their own ways.) Most tantrums are thrown by children who are overwhelmed, over tired, over scheduled and over stimulated with no room for transition time between activities. If you find yourself running from activity to activity, eating restaurant meals in the car or on-the-go, your kids are doing homework in the car or prepping for the next class and your only "down time" is the drive to the next function (whew that makes me tired just typing it), you are very likely over doing it and setting yourselves up for failure. Kids need down time to discover who they are are, what they like and what they are capable of doing on their own. 

When I was a kid 30+ years ago, our summer days looked a lot like this:

• Wake up lazy
• Have breakfast
• Pack a picnic lunch (my mom put in a lot of time packing awesome, healthy summer picnic lunches)
• Head to the beach or the park until dusk
• Get an ice cream at Thrifty's (back then it was only 25 cents a scoop)
• Fall asleep the second our heads hit the pillow
• Repeat the next day

That was basically it. 

If we went to the beach we'd take boogie boards and sand toys, beach chairs and an umbrella.  If we went to the park we took bikes or roller skates/skate boards, and maybe a board game or a deck of cards. We never, ever bought food at a snack shack because my mom had that covered. She even made extra sandwiches to last us throughout the several hour beach day. That didn't keep us from asking for snack shack food of course, but we never spent money we didn't have. 

The only time we'd ever get anything at a beach snack shack was when my grandparents lived walking distance from the pier down in San Clemente. To this day San Clemente is my very favorite beach of all time - even after living on Kauai. I have so many great memories of San Cle. When I was a kid the snack shack down at the pier had the best cheese burgers around. Kind of like In-N-Out Burger if you are familiar with them and their fries were great too. So this was the only time we splurged at a beach snack shack. 

How can you do nothing when there are chores to do?

As a mom, my goal is to fine tune my house keeping so that I'm not bogged down the entire weekend with piles and piles of laundry and dishes. The following has been a good system for me so far, but stick with me til the end because it might sound crazy at first if you have been accustomed to the weekend filled with hours of laundry:

Every morning I put in 1 load of laundry. We have a laundry sorter in the garage next to our washer and dryer so I gather up the clothes in everyone's rooms each day to take them out to the main sorter. At this point it's usually just a few items since I'm doing this every day. When that 1 load is finished washing I put it in the dryer or I hang it on the line (depending on the time of year) and this is the biggie: I do not start another load of wash. However, I do make a mental note of which load I'll be doing the next day. When that load is done drying I take it in and fold it right away and then I put everything away. Because I have only 1 load to do this takes very little time and effort and I'm almost 100% successful at it each day because it's one complete load of laundry from start to finish.

I do the same thing for the dishes however, it varies slightly. We usually run the load of dishes throughout the night. If time permits my husband empties the dishwasher in the morning before work and I fill it throughout the day. I cook at home and make homemade meals for dinner each night so we always have a ton of pots and pans to wash. In a perfect world, the drying rack gets put away as well as all pots and pans that are drying on the stove. This doesn't always happen, ok it rarely happens, but that is the goal if I want a clean kitchen. 

A preschool teacher we had made this great suggestion that I have found to be useful: wipe down all bathroom counters each day with a paper towel and spray cleaner, very quickly swish out and wipe down the toilets with cleaner (everyday!) and get rid of all bathroom clutter (ie; hang towels, put things back where they belong, etc.) Depending on how many bathrooms you have, you could get this daily task down to about 15/20 minutes or less a day. Because you are wiping everything down everyday it doesn't get the chance to gather any gross bathroom funky build up that takes a lot longer to scrub. 

If you are super organized (I'm not) you could accomplish this with your kitchen/stove top and counters every day too. My kitchen has become a catch all because we don't have a proper office so this is harder for us - but we're working on it.

These are just a few tips I try to do daily to minimize and eventually eliminate the long weekend cleaning days. 

If you only do one of these things every day I suggest doing the laundry thing. 

It makes a huge difference!  Especially when you have multiple people living in your house. Resist the urge to do more than one load a day if possible (I know it's hard because that is not how we are trained to do things) because when you do many loads at once, chances are you will not be able to successfully wash, dry, fold and put away multiple loads of laundry - and seeing it to the very end (clothes in closets and drawers!) is really the daily goal. When I get backed up from life getting in the way it only takes about a week to get back on track where the majority of our laundry is clean and in drawers or hung up. There are even some days were I'm actually looking for something to wash for that days load if you can believe that. That is when we do bigger things like sheets and stuff. 

I remember seeing an episode of Oprah were she said she has fresh, clean (and ironed!) sheets on her bed daily!  I don't know about you but I was kind of shocked when I heard this as were most audience members because they panned out across the audience to wide eyes and all mouths agape. She even looked kind of surprised (and sheepish) at the audience's reaction to see that most people do not change their sheets daily, let alone iron them. Someone in the audience made a reference to her having housekeeping help and even she agreed and said, yes, that makes a big difference. That must be so nice to have someone cleaning your house regularly!  

Ahhhhh....just give me a second to dream.... 

Imagine the free time you'd have?!  

Well, do my laundry trick and I promise if you keep it up all week and stick to the 1 load a day rule until you get a firm handle on it you'll feel a bit of freedom from the piles and piles of weekend laundry. This of course only really works if you don't have to go to the laundry mat, or share a common laundry room in a complex of some sort. Been there done that and I feel for you in that situation with a family, I really do. 

As far as not doing much during the summer because I kind of digressed a bit there, if you can get a handle on the household chores you have more free time to do not a whole heck of a lot. I don't mean spend the day watching TV, playing on the computer or playing any type of electronic device for hours on end. I mean spending time outdoors doing basically nothing. When I say "nothing" I mean where your child's day is not scheduled out for them with a class or anything structured and they get to make their own fun using their own brain, their own creativity with maybe a few things provided like a bike at the park or a ball, sand toys at the beach or something like that. But no cheating with electronics!! Hopefully you get exactly what I'm getting at here.

Here is a list of what nothing looks like for us:

• Going to the park, setting out a blanket, taking a lunch and just letting the kids play and explore. 
• Going for a nature walk in the neighborhood and discover the world around you.
• Taking a lazy stroll or slow bike ride/scooter ride through the park, beach trail or neighborhood.
• Lie on the grass and look at shapes in the clouds.
• Go to the library and discover something new, attend a FREE toddler/preschooler story time or get involved in a reading club.
• Turn on the sprinklers in the back yard, fill up the water table, play in the sandbox and have a picnic outside.
• Garden, dig in the dirt, plant something.
• Look into FREE things through your local parks and rec like public wadding pools for little ones and concerts in the park in the evenings and different events for Holidays like the 4th of July or Easter Egg Hunts, etc.
• Have a backyard family camp out.
• Have a night time family movie party (the kids pick the movie) and get a pizza or make something fun to eat and put out a blanket and let the kids eat in the living room picnic style while watching the movie. This will be a huge, fun treat if your kids never get to eat in front of the TV. (That is a good thing btw!)
• Reading!
• Painting with watercolors
• Arts and crafts
• Exploring the wild outdoors
• Most importantly - slow down.

Have fun discovering what your family likes to do that is not a structured, scheduled, indoor event. Those have their time and place in our lives too but they should be the exception, not the daily agenda. We have a rule in our house now with extracurricular classes scheduled through parks & rec (especially since we have baby #3 on the way): Each child gets to take one class at a time and we take a break in between sessions. The classes we usually take are once a week for about an hour and at this age we have been able to combo some classes like tumbling or take them the same time at the same location but different teachers like swimming lessons, or back-to-back on the same day with the same teachers like soccer. (I had a very strict rule that there was to be no electronic devices used during the soccer class while the other sibling had class. Their options were to actually watch their sibling play and encourage them while doing so, or find their own fun running around looking for bugs and leaves and chasing birds at the park. Sometimes we took supplies to color or draw. It was never an issue. Mom stuck to the no electronic device rule too because as you know, you teach by example as opposed to just using words without backing them up with an example.)  

This summer is a bit different since our daughter is taking a kids Science and Nature Summer Camp at the Nature Center and these summer camps run for a week at a time from 9-noon. So far we've taken two different ones and have one more week on the schedule. So for now she is the only one who is taking a scheduled class because the ones for preschoolers filled up too quickly and we didn't book them in time. We've learned our lesson for next year! However, my little guy is doing plenty of fun things because we have a pass to our local water park and usually go several times a week for a few hours or so.

If you need any more ideas of things to do in the summer I wrote a Summer Bucket List a few years ago. Some stuff no longer exists like the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, but you can fill in your own activity in that one. 

Here are some lazy family pics of us doing "nothing." 

Learning to surf from daddy at Doheny Beach, California

Exploring the stream at the El Dorado Nature Center in Long Beach, California

Exploring the trails at the El Dorado Nature Center in Long Beach, California 

Splashing in the wadding pool at a local park.

Making up their own games with their own rules.

Taking a scooter & bike riding detour to throw sticks and leaves in the stream at a local park.

Exploring a local water fountain after having lunch out.

Mom's Night Out! Mama's perfect version of doing nothing!  (This one is a solo act btw!!) 

My favorite beach of all time: San Clemente, California

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The Battle of Nigh-Nigh: Getting Our Spirited Child To Sleep.

When you were born and we finally got you to go down after many dances with daddy listening to soft music, you slept like a baby - you woke every two hours all throughout the night to nurse.  In between those hours you snuggled sweetly between daddy and I, swaddled in your baby blanket, or sometimes in your bassinet that was pushed right up against my body, not moving a muscle, your eyes closed tightly off in a baby wonderland.

As a one year old we were living in the land of the "Sleepy Drive."  This drive was our night time routine and it was carried out faithfully for God only knows how long. It actually started before you were a year old because we'd make the drive down to Poipu Beach when we were living on Kauai. But daddy and I actually enjoyed many of those quiet starlit evenings driving around in the dark through fields of tall cane grass until you drifted off to sleep. Once in bed however,  you woke every 45 minutes all throughout the night to nurse and nurse and nurse and nurse and nurse. I don't think you actually ever "slept."  Or I should say I never slept. During the minutes where you'd finally break your latch, roll over and drift off to a light slumber - my "exhale moment", you thrashed your tiny body around the bed between daddy and I like crashing waves on the rocks. Your arms and legs kicking wildly as if you were swimming to shore through the raging water. It was a good night if we only got kicked in the eye or punched in the jugular a few times. You might have been "sleeping" but your body never stopped moving. Never. As a baby daddy would say you are "full throttle til you run out of gas." Truer words were never spoken.

As a two year old (who had even more energy if you can imagine that) you had a very, very, very long nigh-nigh routine that lasted hours. "No way!"  "Yes way!"  It consisted of a pre-tub sprint around the circle of our house, a long leisurely bubble tub that would make a Greek Goddess jealous, several books, as well as a verbal story, followed by a made up song, a slow dance and then a rock in the chair til you finally drifted off. I'm exhausted just writing it. Daddy and I took shifts in the beginning. This is how it all went down. After a very long dinner we come to Part One: The Running Of The Babies. It was just as hectic as The Running Of The Bulls in Spain. Something I'm sure you'll partake in someday. We called this the "Naked Baby Chase" and you wore us both out after several laps. The house we were living in at the time had a complete circle through the house. It connected the kitchen to the hall, a bedroom, another hall near the bathroom, through the living room and dining room and back to the kitchen. This was your track and you were training for a marathon. Like any top athlete, you took your training very seriously. You just kept running and running and running and running at full speed ahead, laughing like a hyena, eyes flashing with electricity every time you passed us on the side lines cheering you on trying to pinch your booty. You were a tiny, battery charged Forrest Gump. Then there was the tub portion of the evening - when we finally got you in there that is. This lasted a good 45 minutes to an hour and a half. The water was cold after several attempts to drain some of the cold and add more hot, swish it around to warm it up - repeat. Tub time ended when there was no more hot water to be had in the entire house. It did not end happily, let me tell you, even after an hour and a half. Then we come to the routine of drying you off. The made-up song I had to sing to dry your hair because you HATED for me to dry your hair and the song helped somewhat. I had to use a towel because you HATED the sound of a blow dryer. Even in a public restroom. I didn't blame you though. It's very loud. I can only imagine how loud it must sound to very sensitive two year old ears. Then the picking of the jammies. They had to be the right ones. Not too scratchy, no tags in our way, nothing itchy, not too hot, not too cold. Sometimes there would be several changes until we got it just right and even then more times than not we'd end up sleeping in only our diaper all night long anyway. As any parent with a Spirited Child will agree, any break in the routine or any attempts to speed it up only ended in heartbreak - for daddy and I. I'd like to remind you that mommy was pregnant with Baby #2 and tired. Oh-so-very-tired during this two year old stretch of wild animal life. We haven't really even gotten to the meat of our night time routine yet and it's been close to 2 hours. Add on the evenings festivities of books and entertainment provided by the "parent du jour" and we've got another hour plus. Now it's time for lights out. She knew it was coming, we knew it was coming and every one of us knew it wasn't going to be pretty and it wasn't going down without a fight. Kisses and loves, lights off and out the door closing it behind me only to find my darling cherub turning the doorknob ever so slowly to poke her smiling face out of the door about 22 seconds later. Anticipating her arrival I stood in the hallway (faithfully doing my deep prenatal yoga squats and various Bradley Method exercises) until she came to the door. I'd then usher her back in there along with some tears, more kisses and I love you's and sweet dreams wishes, shampoo-rinse-repeat for a good 45 minutes or so and sometimes yes sometimes it even ended with a sleepy drive - even after all that! Those were on the nights where our patience was non-existent and that was our last resort. Our gas budget had required us to use this as a last resort after a few years of nightly 20+ minute drives in very large circles at night. However, after all those hours spent squatting in the hallway I was extremely fit and limber and ready for Baby #2 to come along since I had so much time to prep my joints and muscles every night for most of my pregnancy. Once Baby #2 came along though, daddy was permanently up at bat in the nightly game of nigh-nigh so it took on a new form. One that he molded into what worked for them. Daddy recalls standing outside your door as well counting the seconds to see how long it would take til you popped out and needed to be ushered back in. "One hundred and one, one hundred and two..." He said if he was able to get to 200 then you were most likely asleep. Sometimes he'd only get to "one hundred and seven" before you poked your sweet lil face through the crack of the door. Prior to the hallway counting there was a lot of holding and swaying to one of daddy's famous made up songs. Something a very pregnant mama could no longer do. Even in a rocking chair. It just wasn't comfortable anymore which is very bittersweet to be honest. The end of an era spent with just me and Baby Girl rocking for hours and hours in that pink rocking chair.

As a three year old it was much of the same as when you were two except for adding Baby #2 in the mix of dinner time, bathtub time, jammies time, book reading time on top of you - the three year old trying to get more mileage out of the whole nigh-nigh routine. How can you possibly add more time to that you ask?  It's possible. We fondly referred to you as the "Dilly Dally Queen" on occasion. However, at three "we" were way more vocal, way more savvy and knew exactly how to work the system. We'd pick at our meal during dinner time only to try to finagle eating a full "4th meal" after bath time. Because we didn't want her to go to bed hungry we'd let her eat a snack. She snacked all day so she wouldn't actually be hungry but in the off chance she was hungry in the middle of the night it only caused US pain in the long run if we didn't let her snack on 4th meal. And before you think what you might be thinking, there was never any circumstances of "she'll learn her lesson if she - this or that..." with this child. This is not how she's hard wired. This is not how she operates and us "teaching her a lesson" out of hostility and our lack of patience is not how we try to parent. We're not perfect, we get worn out and at times just want results like any other parent but we shoot for patience the majority of the time. And believe me our patience was running thin. But our time spent helping our Spirited Child grow in the world as a toddler was not about us "winning the battle" and her "losing the battle" and us "breaking her down" in order to make her bend at our will. I believe she was brought to us to teach us patience and it's a lesson we're still learning and it's been a long bumpy road, but we're getting there.  A few times a week you'd creep out into the living room and we'd have to usher you back a few times. You'd want a little something as a snack. You became very fond of a glass of warm milk which I was more than happy to oblige since it meant you'd most likely stay in your room. And most of those times you just really wanted some extra snuggles from daddy. I don't blame you. Daddy is a good snuggler. Mama was chopped liver from most of 2 to the end of 3-ish. I can understand. Baby Brother was nursing and Big Sissy had already weaned and wasn't the least bit interested in nursing anyway aside from right after baby was born to see what all of the fuss was about. Your thoughts: not interested. Special attention from Daddy: Bring it!

As a four year old we got to the point of you knowing exactly what your night time routine looked like because we basically did the same thing night after night after looooooooong night since you were a wee lass. You were sharp as a whip so we'd talk you through the evening. "In 5 more minutes we're going to do this -" and we got to the point of shaving off some serious time on our nigh-nigh routine. Because if you remember, Baby Brother was now in the mix as an 18+ month old dragging out his very own nigh-nigh routine.  "Please pick your jammies and get dressed." "You pick some books and look through them while I get Baby Brother's jammies on", etc. We were very independent and liked the authority over our own agenda.  As pre-written as it may have been. She still took the reins on a lot of it from picking her jammies to picking her books to picking her clothes for preschool the next day. Spirited Children thrive on control. This was control I was more than happy to let go of.

At four something magical happened...

Something that almost brings tears to my eyes just typing all of this up. We'd do our extremely trimmed down version of "night-night" ("only babies say nigh-nigh"), we'd prep you that it was "last book," we'd kiss all of your animal lovies, sing a made-up song by request, we'd turn off your light, close your door and before we'd make it to the living room you were pretty much asleep!  No walking out into the living room 10 minutes later needing - something, no Sleepy Drive, no requests for 4th meal. You were just....asleep. Sometimes you'd sleep til morning, sometimes you'd have a bad dream and call out for one of us. Sometimes we'd find you snuggled in our bed at 3am or 5am. But 4 years old was when we no longer dreaded the infamous Battle of Nigh-Nigh.  We all won the battle - together. The only time we need a sleepy drive is when our evening has been thrown out of whack and we are at the point of no return. Like with having dinner guests, over night guests, a long day at Disneyland (the drive home is the sleepy drive thank the sweet lord!), birthday cake, Christmas Eve - you name it. But it doesn't take too many streets and you're out like a light. Baby Brother is another situation when it comes to sleepy drives. It tends to work the opposite with him!

Tonight you are 5. At 5 we are seeing a very worn out lil Miss who plays hard all day long at preschool, who's no longer napping (haven't seen regular naps since 3 1/2 anyway) and at 5 we are seeing the earliest bedtimes we've ever seen in your lifetime. The bedtimes everyone as well as every parenting book always told us you should have and no matter what we ever tried to do we never, ever, ever accomplished it. "Just give her a short nap."  Nope. "Just wake her early in the morning."  Uh-uh. "Just wake her early from her afternoon nap."  Umm...do you poke a sleeping bear just before spring?  I don't either. "Just cut her naps completely and keep her up all day long." Major back fire explosion.  The word "just" that began everyone's sentences of helping us fix our sleepy time issues implied it was an extremely easy fix. I'm assuming none of those people had a Spirited Child. There is no "just do" anything with a Spirited Child. There just isn't. Tonight we took an early tub, had a pretty early dinner and you powered through your meal and told us you were full. Jammies were already on and we decided to snuggle with daddy on the couch. You, 2 year old Baby Brother and daddy. You all started to drift off to sleepy land (Daddy's favorite thing to do at about 6:30pm - heehee!) and suddenly you got up and ran down the hallway.  We both assumed you were going to the bathroom and you'd be back for more snuggles or demand to break up the slug fest and get down to business of reading a bunch of books. A few minutes went by and no return. Baby Brother had drifted off to sleep in what was to be the easiest, most effortless nigh-nigh we've had in a very long time. I decided to go check on you and I found you in your bed, covers tucked up all around you (something you used to fight with me about that you'd never be able to do yourself), your lovie firmly in place "full body hug style," your night light on as well as SeaSea: your glowlight/soothing musical seahorse lovie - a throw back from your infant days illuminating your angelic face peacefully asleep. Not a word was spoken to complete this mission. It was carried out 100% by you - our five year old!

I'd like a moment of silence to let the full weight of this monumental moment sink in fully. 


Exhale.... 

Hello 5. We've been waiting for you. It's so wonderful to see you. However, if we're being honest, your friends ages 4, 3, 2, 1 and newbie are missed. Even the hardest of times, they are missed. For we can't fully appreciate where we are today without you and your grueling all-night moments.  But for now I'm happy missing those times as opposed to still living them. We did it together, kid. You, me and daddy - we did it together.

Love you forever and ever and always,
Mommy

Now go to bed.  ;-)

Doing What I Love...A Tribute To My Mom

My mom is retiring from the school district this year after working there for 23 years. She started out as a Written Language Instructor in a program called Back to Back. In a nut shell, she taught a creative writing class to elementary school students. Can you imagine a class like that existing today in a public school? It's a shame that after 9 very successful years they lost funding and cut the program and all of those wonderful stories and ideas and a place to get those creative juices flowing out of those little kids was just gone. Several years later she had her full circle moment at Pavilions where a young man came up to her and said, "Excuse me? Are you Mrs. D-----?" and she said, "yes?.....Oh hi Scott!" and he was talking about her creative writing class and he told her how much he loved it and that it was so inspiring to him and it meant so much to him after all these years that he decided to become a journalism major in college. It was a very proud moment.

Last weekend was my mom's retirement party with all of her co-workers and she asked me to write a little something to say at the breakfast. I immediately knew I wanted to touch upon what she did all those years ago because she was now working in special ed and all of the teachers who remembered the Back to Back program were long since retired or had moved on to other schools. She has absolutely bloomed where she was planted in the special ed program, but I know she missed teaching that class for a long time. I wanted to high light that very creative time in my mom's life and hopefully spark her interest in writing again as she gets ready to retire. Retired people need a hobby, ya know! But in doing so I realized that I had reignited my own love for writing that has taken somewhat of a back seat since starting a family 3+ years ago.

I have always loved to write and thanks to my mom I have called myself a "writer" since I was in first grade. My mom was extremely encouraging to me and always enjoyed my writing. In my "late teens".....(ahem).... ok, ok mid twenties, I moved up to Hollywood to pursue a career in acting only to find my true calling was still writing. I ended up working with a group of actors who became friends whom I fondly referred to as "The 24's" and we'd write, direct and put on a show in 24 hours, called The 24-Hour Plays. It's an extremely intense and completely creative process that was terrifying at the same time since I was one of the writers. After that first one where I swore I'd never do another one I got hooked and made sure to participate in the monthly show about 4 times after that. I even got my mom to come out and co-write one with me while she was on summer break and in addition o writing she was our lead actress in her stage debut! We had a blast and stayed up for a total of 33 hours by the time the curtain closed.

I got married and moved as far away as possible from that seedy little stage in Hollywood where we'd put on our evening of one act plays, but I never stopped writing. My husband and I moved to the Island of Kauai (in Hawaii for those who've asked me, "where is that?") just two months after we got married in June 06 and I quickly joined a group of women writers and wrote another one-act play that won one out of only two spots to be put up as a Dinner Theatre at a local resort. It was a successful sold out show and it had "rave reviews" in our tiny island paper with not much else going on (haha), so that was really fun thing to be a part of. Unfortunately, I became very sick with morning sickness and a weird "jungle flu" I caught on Kauai that landed me in the hospital in my early pregnancy with my first born, so I wasn't able to actually direct my show. Which for a total control freak over my own work like myself was really hard to totally give the reigns to someone else, who was a complete stranger no less, so I was seeing it for the first time as the audience was seeing it. It ended up great and the audience seemed to enjoy it and although I had a very different vision for it, it was really fun to see a mans perspective (who was in his 70's btw!) on a show that had a strong female lead and was a very "girl power" piece. I was pretty impressed that he stayed true to the script and didn't change too much.

So now fast forward to 2011 and I am a stay-at-home mom to a 3 year old daughter and an 8 month old son and the fire inside to write and create still burns and has become stronger since I started working on my mom's presentation a few weeks ago. My whole life I have loved to make people laugh especially when I write and what's funnier than pregnancy, child birth, newborns, toddlers, husbands....?...Well OK so maybe those things alone aren't very funny but add in a sleep deprived, over worked, under paid, totally overwhelmed new mom's point of view and we're talking hilarious people! Pure magic! Well...to another sleep deprived, over worked, under paid, totally overwhelmed new mom maybe....OK, my own mom thinks it's hilarious, so there you go. I just hope to put a smile on your face between wiping baby barf off your laptop and planning playdates with the one kid your toddler will actually share with. Please join me and my moms blog as I journey into the writing world here at blogger by subscribing to my page or if you "Like" you can be the first to join my facebook page by the same name:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/My-Tales-From-The-Crib/206702489375070

I'd love to know:
What do you love to do? What is the one true passion in your life that is the first thing that pops into your brain the instant someone asks you that question? It's the one thing that (usually) doesn't take any thought at all, (unless you are totally trying to deny yourself this life long passion) it's just there...BAM! In your head before the question is even finished. All of the other things that you hem & haw about are just hobbies. They can still be great and bring you much joy but your passion, the fire inside that can't be ignored no matter where you live, how much money you have, how old you are, how long you've been married or single or divorced or widowed...that never goes away! Or if it does it just needs a little spark to get it back like mine did. Thanks mom! ;-)

A Summertime Photo Shoot!

My good friend Susan (Suse), whom I've known since I was 13 going on 14....(actually, I think we were 14 going on 15.) We met at church camp, which cracks us both up...considering...well...whatever. We met at church camp, or as everyone liked to call it, "Camp Surf", because it's waaaaaaaaay cooler as a teenager going into 10th grade to say you have gone to "Camp Surf" on the border of San Diego and Mexico and slept in a tent on the beach under the stars, enjoyed camp fires, making HUGE messy smores, singing to acoustic guitar with adult supervision that still remains forgettable, than to say that you went to "church camp" with a bunch of dorks (you being the ring leader) where we all forgot to wear sunscreen and got fried to a crisp because we're not yet mature enough to do anything without our parents...OBVIOUSLY!

Ahhh...the good ol days! No bills, no mortgage, the only life we were responsible for was our own, (and that's stretching it! Hense the Great Sunburn Disaster of the Summer of 9th grade-going-into-10th-grade.).....the life of a teenager. We all thought we had it soooo baaaaaad, but looking back we had it soooooo_darn_good! (Thanks Mom & Dad!!)

Well, that is where I met Suse and that summer of Surf Camp/Camp Surf (I never really knew the exact name), sleeping 4+ in a 2 man tent, jumping out of trees with a trash bag as a parachute (another blog for another time, haha), Taco Bell, roller-skates, bike rides, babysitting, spending cash on candy, horror movies and talking about boys, boys, boys; we were absolutely inseparable creating memories that still make us laugh to this day with the mention of one or two words.

Fast forward.....a "few"...ahem....years, and Suse and I are both happily married and deep in the trenches of new babies, toddlers and preschoolers, careers, say-at-home-mommy-life, playdates, minivans and "practical" SUV's, deciding that a clean house isn't more important than playing with your only-so-small-for-so-long babies and trying to balance quality time with the kids, meaningful conversations with your husband that don't involve "teething", "shopping lists" or "poop stories", finding the time to reconnect with the friends who've been there from the beginning, navigating life in the work force after baby and of course the all important-but-MUCH-too-neglected ME TIME! We both agree that there is nothing sweeter than a little time by yourself to roam the isles of Target!

(I'm a big believer -HUGE believer- in me time. I feel you come back to your "life" feeling recharged and ready to tackle it once again and I make no apologies for the fact that I absolutely need and require and schedule Me Time!)

I read a friends facebook status the other day, Michele, and she wrote something like this: "I told the kids I'm taking a break and not to talk to me until my break is over!" OMG Mish!!! LOVE IT!!! It's priceless and absolutely necessary! A woman with four children is gonna have things figured out way better than a woman with just a 16 month old. (I don't know how you do it Mish! And on top of it all, her kids are absolute sweethearts! You are a goddess!!)

And as usual...I digress.

This blog is "supposed" to be about the photoshoot Summer and I had with Suse a few weeks ago at the beach. But I'm finding it's more fun to talk about old friends and nostalgic stories! I'll have to do this more often. Afterall, this blog can't be TOTALLY about life with a baby. I did in fact have a life "pre-baby"...I just can't for the life of me figure out what exactly that consisted of at this moment. haha! Aside from Surf Camp, of course.

So my friend Suse has decided to take off on a new adventure and dabble in photography, a great idea in my opinion, and we went to one of her open shoots a few weeks ago at the beach. We were the last group to arrive because Summer napped right through our original scheduled time, but it ended up working our perfectly because we were there right at "golden hour", my absolute favorite time of day, and she was able to capture some really great shots of Summer and I. (Todd was out of town on business. Insert sad face.) So I wanted to post some of these pics to share. I love them and will cherish them always. Thanks Suse!

Enjoy! It didn't give me enough room for all of them...so here are some of my favies!

Summer watching the waves crashing against the rocks.

My sweet little angel baby all snuggled up after going in the water.

I love what she did with this photo! The colors are so fun!

This is an unusual smile for me, but I really like how this one came out. It just looks very relaxed. A perfect day-at-the-beach shot. Summer looks so cute here!

Nothing is more precious than a baby laughing!

Building a sand castle for a princess!