Everyday I work out the kinks of my life;
Breathe into them, feel them loosen.
It’s hard work, all this working.

Sometimes I grumble and complain.
Sometimes I boast in my own capabilities.
Sometimes I just fall over and give up.

I work out the kinks of my career,
learn new things that make my brain want to POP.
I work out the kinks of my heart,
learn new things that make my soul want to POP.

Even rest often feels like work:
taxing, stretching, challenging, moving, producing.

Today my work looked like this:

The challenge of getting myself and two young kids
ready to brace a chilly Fall morning, then
– catch the MAX, transfer to the bus –
Go to a yoga class,
Have a work meeting through lunchtime,
Carry my 20 pound baby 4 miles home because we don’t have change for the bus.
Break up the cock fights that burst forth every 2 minutes between Chris and Ethan,
Convince everyone to be civil,
Lose my civility by the 3rd mile (survival now: LET’S JUST MAKE IT HOME!)
Home for dinner: feed the baby, feed the preschooler, feed the husband, feed the mommy.
Get Ethan showered, Get baby showered, Get mommy showered.
Read 2 books, kiss Ethan goodnight.
Nurse for the umpteenth time today.
Work another few hours on random projects that have been on the backburner for friends.
Try to get to sleep at a decent hour…

Tomorrow work might look different:
a 9am – 2pm shift on the laptop,
learning things that make my brain want to go POP.
Followed by
grocery shopping,
cooking,
hosting a Harvest Party for our newly forming homegroup…

The next day, work will look different again, and then again…

Mixed through all of this work is internal work: prayers, self-talk, counseling, relationship building…

Even sleep is work: I work away the tensions of the day, I wake to nurse several times, I soothe a stuffy nosed baby, half-asleep rocking upright on my bed until she falls back asleep…

This is a season, a season for lots of hard work. They come, they go. Maybe winter will be restful: lots of painting, journaling, knitting, naps…

Well, I did it! I Raced for the Cure! I got up early this morning and ran the timed 5k with my lovely 4 running mates, including one crazy pink haired mama

The pictures came out SUPER awkward, esp since I look like I’m doing the pee pee dance. It was cold at 6:30 this morning!

How did it go? I got my period while running, that’s how. By mile 2 I could tell things were, well, uh, flowing. And the pms cervical cramps came right on time too. I think my IUD made it worse, I seriously felt like I was going into labor, lol. So I walked from about 2 miles in for maybe a .5 mile stretch and then ran the last part again, timing around 39 minutes, lol. I’m still happy with it though, it was about having fun and we sure did! Also, I wore a pink sign on my back honoring my friend who passed away. It was sad to see young girls running with “In memory of my mom” on their backs. Though we were having fun, I was sobered by the reality of this disease. It’s heartbreaking.

So here we are, being nerds. (Okay, I’m the only nerd.) After are some other pictures.

Enjoy!

For some reason I want to add that we all appear much thinner in real life. This photo added 20 pounds to each of us LOL

Yeah, that’s me dancing in the background of this accidental pic, with Nicole in the foreground tying her shoes. Sigh. I have WAY too much energy at all the WRONG times.

Misty with her crazy pink hair. Me with my crazy pink face.

Ethan in my “Race for the Cure” cape. (Is it just me or is this pose a little… feminine?)

Verity playing in the kids room at church this morning

Off the needles: Finally finished this Ostrich Plume Shawlet (in wool and silk yarn) for Lacey this week.

Verity fell asleep in the back position in the Ergo while in the back yard picking tomatoes the other day. When I took off the Ergo she stayed fast asleep on my back, so we had to shoot this funny picture.

THAT’S ALL FOLKS. I might be quiet this week as I’m working a TON and flying to Chicago on Wed.

Update on Verity!

She’s roughly 4.5 months and weighs 18 pounds (gained 10 pounds since birth). She is also verifiable sitting up all the time now (one step closer to being able to ride my bike again!!!) I just grabbed the camera to capture this mile marker, as well as her hand/mouth coordination with grabbing her toys and stuff. She will be running around with her brother in NO TIME!

She still nurses whenever the heck she wants to, is worn 99% of the time, sleeps right next to me, and sleeps about 11pm through 4am straight most nights, wakes to nurse frequently in the early morning but stay asleep until about 9 or 10am. She then cat naps all day, literally only 20 minutes at a time sometimes. She is very similar to Ethan at this stage; loudly verbal, curious, and strong.

(sorry about the spit up in the video and the fact that its sideways! lol) This is kinda long and boring and there is no sound so basically if you are a grandparent, eat your heart out; all other readers, you can pretty much skip this entire post

I got my Ergo yesterday!!! I heart it, with a cherry and a few backflips on top.

You guys know how much I swore by my Moby. But lately Verity was pushing 16 pounds and the Moby began to get less convenient. I think it would work great if it was only occasionally, but I need something that can withstand 12 hours a day of holding, including while we walk around the city, hop on the bus, etc. My back was not liking that. But MUAW – NOT wear my baby gal? Also not an option!

So enter the Ergo. Everyone swears by it, I see them all over the city (I’m not kidding. I could count at least 20 if I walked around the city for a few hours.) Unfortunately, these bad boys run over 100 bucks new. And I’ve said it before and I’ll said it again: Mama ’tis po’ folk.

Yesterday we finally found the one we wanted on craigslist. It’s an older version, in “terracotta” color, and came with the attachable backpack and wallet (almost like a small fannypack), which is all WONDERFUL when you have no car and your diaper bag consists of everything but the kitchen sink and chickens. The price? An unbeatable fiddy bucks.

Why am I spelling things oddly unphonetically today? Cuz’ I can.

Anyhow.

I’m so glad to have gotten my Ergo in time for the camping trip and Chicago trip later this month too. Yay! I haven’t been able to wear it yet because my neck is still twisted in a nasty knot, but its getting better each day. The thing that made the best difference was a Wild Carrot Herbals salve containing arnica, birch and cottonwood. It worked so well! I am definitely preparing to get more into herbs soon as my next “learn something new” phase. I’ll save that all for another post Vivian the VA… AND a herbalist? hmmmm…

So I was just commiserating the other day about how I’m not sure how I’m going to get through Portland’s drizzly cold (relatively) fall/winter as a baby wearer. I mean, how do you keep yourself and the tot warm without a coat and just, well, how is this possible?!

So some one (THANKS JENNY!) recommended the site CottonBabies for some of my cloth diapering questions and I found this product. As Seth and now Ethan would say: “what.” This product is the bomb diggity. (which is not something either Seth OR Ethan — OR anyone with an ounce of coolness would say.)

I guess it never occurred to me that the geniuses out there who invent stuff would have this babywearing in the winter thing covered. Neat.

I just gotta put a little sumthin’ sumthin’ away before, say, the end of October, so as to get myself one of these bad boys. Passing along the info in case anyone else had the same conundrum. (I really like that word, how it just rolls off the tongue… CON NUN DRUM! …Okay. It’s time for bed.)