Time Flies When You're Havin' Fun

Three months? How can three months have gone by since my last visit to this journal adventure? Well, time flies when you're having fun and that we are. In addition to finding the time, I have also been finding that I am not quite sure what to write lately. There's the normal, I love my kid. I love my husband. Being a parent is the best, most tiring, most trying, most repetitive, most rewarding, most relentless adventure we have ever been on. Lucy is a nice kid. She is a a little more clever than we appreciate some days (wait one minute. I'll be right back. Let me go get some applesauce before bed.) She has starting asking why and is so curious and inquisitive. I can't get enough of her funny anecdotes. She cracks us up and our family spends a lot of time laughing together. For example, after launching her plate across the kitchen floor, Jim asked her what she eat dinner after her food sprayed across the room. She responded, quickly and with enthusiasm, "pizza!" That kid has had pizza three times in her life.

Recently she has started talking in a made up language. It started by her answering questions she doesn't know the real answer to with jibberish, but now we have full-length conversations in this language. If you repeat something incorrectly, she will correct you. We lay in bed at night before she falls asleep and talk back in forth for fifteen minutes, never speaking one real word. It seems like she likes the back and forth without the pressure to make the sh sound, or to put words in the right order. I love it to no end.

Lately she started using the sign for more when I am not as quick as she would like getting her more of something, like mango, for example. This is really interesting and made us reminisce about her start at Nia House just seven months ago (holy shit...seven months ago?) when her strongest mode of communication was signing. Now she talks up a storm, is assertive, sometimes to a fault, and is so clear with her needs it makes us think she is ten years old sometimes. She loves singing and always has a new song from school she wants to teach us. She tells the other kids on the playground, "the slide is my work. I am choosing this work. You can have a turn when I am done." The only trouble we have run into with this level of verbal articulation in such a young human is that other younger humans have no idea what our little Montessori babe is trying to tell them. They aren't familiar with taking turns versus forced sharing. It causes some drama, but Jim and I just stick to our agreed parenting agenda. When other parents comment on something, we say, "yes, this is working well for our family right now." But when their kid is running off and she follows directions (or faces consequences) and when she can talk through and problem solve a situation while the other kid just screams, it gets a bit awkward. Jim and I take a little credit. Following through and being stern isn't easy. And it is definitely exhausting. And we most definitely aren't on top of it 100% of the time. Mostly her willingness to communicate and cooperate come from her temperament and Nia House.  We have learned so much from the Nia House family, so we do what is working for our family right now.

Speaking of things that working well for our family right now...I think I have the apartment set up in a way that makes me feel calm(ish), allows Lucy to be independent, and keeps things organized(ish) in a small space. We have transitioned everything Lucy might need or want to a place where she can reach it. We have learned from Nia House that setting up the environment is a high priority. I have always had this inkling and have been looking forward to setting up a home for a small human my entire life. Living in a small apartment leaves much to be desired by my organization imagination. For now I am try to be grateful for our living situation. The weather has been 68 and sunny with a cool breeze and this means there have been 5-10 kids out back in the courtyard every night. Bikes, chalk, bubbles, running, slides, soccer. It really is a cool place to be growing up/raising a child. Her toys are organized and on trays or in baskets, like they are at school, so we can take out one "work" at a time and clean it up before we get another. We moved all of her clothing to the two low drawers on the changing table and closed up the changing space since she only wears diapers to sleep at this point. Oh, my baby kid. She can get to her washclothes, get herself dressed, and put herself down for a nap when I protest her anti-sleeping antics. She has cleaning supplies her size and we work together to clean up messes. Her learning tower has been of great use and she has even started washing dishes after dinner at the kitchen sink. We have a new shelf for shoes and Jim hung a low coat and hat rack. She can get her own coat on and loves to make choices about what she will wear. Sometimes four and five times a day :-). It saves us a lot of power struggles has increased her independence ten-fold. Now, if only we have a slide and a trampoline in the house. And a tiny, real potty. And a short sink and an art/science room and a library room and a loft and a garage and a tree house and a workshop.

This winter we were lucky enough to go on a few really fun trips, including one to San Luis Obispo with our dear NY climbing friends. This is a group of people we miss so much and feel grateful to see at least once a year when they come out to CA to visit family. It is so weird for me that they don't know Lucy better, but the time we get them is always precious to us all.

We also took a trip to Lake Tahoe with my sister's family and Jonana, and one to Santa Barbara for a small academic conference for me. These trips were within 10 days of each other. At Tahoe we rented a cabin and roasted marshmallows in the fireplace and played in over three feet of snow. In Santa Barbara we visited the Channel Islands Nation Park and hiked around in 80 degrees with full sun. All in the same state! It was a really neat contrast and these times remind me why we pay so much to live here and why I choose to live in place where I a scared of earthquakes every day. Jim, Jonana, and I even got to go skiing for the day. The crowds were crazy for the record snow pack, but we all had a great day. It turns out my body remembers how to ski! Lucy stayed with my sister and had a wonderful time, too. The Channel Islands were beautiful and calm and quiet and it was refreshing. We often feel stuck in our urban jungle and need to make lots of time to get out of here over the summer.

Feeding Micheal Giraffe at the Santa Barbara Zoo.

 The reason why I am finally sitting down to type is because I am on spring break this week. Of course, I haven't accomplished nearly what I set out to so far, but it has been a fantastic week. The weather is unbelievable and I have gotten enough vitamin D to last me a few weeks. I went for a 4.25 mile run by the bay yesterday and have been making fresh fruit/veggie juice and smoothies all week, which my family has even loved! I have gotten some work done and have gotten a million little things out of the way that seem impossible when the semester is in full swing. We are going to

Lucy's first collegiate athletic event. Go Lady Bears Basketball!

Florida for a work conference for Jim in a couple of weeks, so I need to push through until then, but things are feeling manageable for the first time since I started this program. Summer is so close I can taste it and I am actually starting to enjoy the work I am doing for school. I hope this summer brings me lots of interviewing and writing. I want to have a second position paper ready for review by August and a third paper in the works. My fingers are crossed that my first position paper will be signed off on before we leave for Florida. I updated all of our emergency information, bags, food and water supply and am feeling much more relaxed about emergency preparedness. Things can get crazy and I feel like the work is never ending, but all in all my schedule is really flexible, I am learning a tremendous amount of information and gaining new perspectives at a rapid rate. Today, right now, in this caffeinated, actually alone, unpressed space, I am feeling like this was a good move. But wait five minutes...I'll probably be overwhelmed and regretful. Oh, parenting and academia.

Lucy's first protest...marching for healthy vaginas.