In My Own Little Corner

When I was a little girl one of my favorite movies was Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinerella. The Lesley Ann Warren version, not the Brandy version (which was wonderful, but as a small child I was confused that a white king and a black queen sired an Asian son).

My favorite scene wasn't Cinderella's transformation, or the ball, or the happily ever after ending. No, I loved the scene where Cinderella, sad and dressed in rags, sang about her special corner in her home where no matter what else was going on, she could retreat to and find peace and happiness in her imagination.

Here is the clip if you aren't familiar. Go ahead and watch. I'll wait.

Wasn't it magnificent?

Guess what? Twenty years later, I too have my own little corner. Like Cinderella, I spend my days waiting on my families every need, cleaning the house, and other various homemaking tasks. Unlike Cinderella, I'm not mistreated and I don't mind it so much. The work of a mother is hard and often thankless, but I love my family and I'm happy to do it.

Every evening I retreat to my own little corner. It is actually the corner of my son's room. The lights go out and I lay my tired baby across my body and rock him to sleep while I nurse. Down the hall I can hear my husband reading stories to my daughters, or saying prayers with them. I can see into the hallway to my bookshelves.

Sometimes I'll think about the books I've been reading and how they live in my mind and change my heart. Sometimes I reflect on the day and all the things I've accomplished. It's a place where I take pride in the laundry that was folded, the meals that were prepared, the restraint I showed when my three-year-old drew on the walls, or the pride I felt to hear my five-year-old read books by herself.

I don't know why but for some reason that corner is my sacred sanctuary. I'm removed from the work, and I get to sit and enjoy the fruits of my labors. The best part about that corner, is the time I get with my sleeping son. The weight of his body, the smell of his skin...it is pure bliss. I think about all my babies, and how they slept in that room and how I rocked them to sleep. I think about a baby or babies who are waiting to come into our family someday, maybe.

I never think about the mistakes I made or the tasks I didn't get to. I never worry about the next day or the next week. I don't know why it is. I don't know why that spot in the house provides so much peace, but I love it. I almost always tear up when I'm sitting there, my heart too full with gratitude.

I hope that when I leave this stage of life where I'm rocking my babies to sleep I can find an equally peaceful and satisfying sanctuary. I worry I won't.

Do you have a little corner?

Luscious Locks: A New Mother's Irrational Views

The other day I read a blog post (that I can't find the link to, sorry) about a new mother's set of instructions for her babysitter, it was six pages long and ridiculous and neurotic and could have been written by me word for word at any time during Cooper's first year of life. It got me to thinking about all of the times that first time motherhood robbed me of all logic and reason.

Cooper took about two years to get any hair. One day my mom and I had a conversation about it-
Me: I can't believe it took Cooper two years to grow any hair!
Mom: Oh you thought he had hair like a year and a half ago. What did you used to call it?
Me: I did not!
Mom: Yes you did. Oh yeah, you called it his luscious locks.

Luscious locks you guys. And I was deadly serious.

I used to be EXTREMELY concerned with Cooper's sleep schedule. One time I started crying because I felt guilty that Josh and I had gone to see a movie at 8 p.m. and left Cooper with my mom and I was upset I had ruined Cooper's bedtime. Did I mention Cooper was like three months old and didn't really have a bedtime?

Or the time my mom offered to keep newborn Cooper for the night so Josh and I could sleep and I asked her not to make eye contact with him. I was very concerned with day and night confusion and had read some dumb thing somewhere about how babies take eye contact as a sign of daytime. Apparently I used to feed Cooper with my eyes closed...

When we moved to Washington my mom kept Cooper for three days while we drove our stuff here and unpacked. Every day I would call eight month old Cooper on the phone, not my mom, I would call to talk to Cooper. Multiple times a day. During which I would sob and tell him how much mommy loved him and not to worry we would be back together soon while Cooper sat and pushed buttons on the phone oblivious to the fact that he was talking to his mom because, you know, eight month olds can't conduct phone conversations.

Hypochondria also took advantage of my diminished reasoning skills during this time. Cooper was six months old before I went a whole month without taking him into the pediatrician. I don't remember all the diseases I thought he had but some of them were: a lazy eye (When he was a newborn no less. Don't all newborns have lazy eyes? Anyway I had the pediatrician write me a referral to see an opthamologist), asthma (I still kind of think he has asthma), scarlet fever, carbon monoxide poisoning, lead poisoning, measles, dehydration (this one included an ER trip where the ER doctor just stared at my happy, laughing baby and said, "nope."), botulism, every allergy there is, every developmental delay there is...

Also I tried to tell the pediatrician that my two month old was getting his bottom teeth. Spoiler alert: he was not.

The videos! Cooper recently found the videos on the iPhone and has been watching them when I realized that I took videos of the most mundane things! Like ten minute videos of him sleeping or a video of me reading a book to him, he not even doing anything, he's just sitting and listening to the book. Worse still, I emailed these boring videos to everyone I knew and expected everyone to be excited about them.

The hundreds of times I refused to go somewhere because Cooper was sleeping, or about to sleep, or there was the possibility of sleep on the horizon.

The time I tried to sign my one year old up for preschool.

When eating an egg gave Cooper a small rash one time and then I told everyone he was allergic to eggs and got mad at my mom for giving him a bite of a sandwich that had a minuscule amount of mayo on it and then I tried to take him to an allergist to get stuck with a million needles because I thought he had severe, life threatening food allergies.

I used to refuse to change lanes when Cooper fell asleep in the car for fear that crossing those raised bumps on the road would wake him up.

Wow. I was a mess.

Gurl got SKILLZ

You'll have to excuse the title of this post. I feel like I have to counteract the geriatric nature of what I'm about to write with bad grammar and hooligan-eese.

I learned a new skill.

I've written before about the death of my grandmother late last summer, and how it broke my heart and colored my world. One of my grandma's favorite things was blankies. She wrote a blog post back in 2009 about the quilts she made each of her grandchildren. She also knitted a blankie for each of her great-grandchildren. I believe she knit seventeen in all before she passed away.  

Hannah with her blankie in 2009

Paige with her blankie in 2011

Samuel with his blankie in 2014. Granma started making Samuel's blanket before I became pregnant with him, and she kept saying, "I have a blue blankie with your name on it." she knew how badly I hoped for a son, and I think that blankie became a good luck charm. 

My brother and his wife announced her pregnancy two weeks before Granma passed away. The blankies were so precious to me, that one of my first thoughts after they announced was that their child wasn't going to be given the amazingly beautiful and precious gift. I knew that somehow I needed to learn how to knit. I would continue the tradition that she started with my own nieces and nephews.

The first thing you have to know about this project is: I don't have a crafty bone in my body. I hate/loathe/despise/abominate projects. In fact, projects is a dirty word to me. It's not in my nature, it's not anything I ever desired to learn. But I felt strongly that Granma wanted it. 

The problem was: how do I learn how to knit? There are various YouTube tutorials, and WikiHow articles, but nobody to answer the questions I had like: "Yeah, but how do I ACTUALLY do this?"

Enter: Sara.

I turned to Facebook to see if I had any talented friends who knew how to knit and would be willing to teach me. I discovered that a girl that I sort of knew in my area was extremely talented and very willing to be patient and teach me. I found a pattern that looked doable, and she told me the brand of yarn, size of the needles, and a various other materials.

Sara selflessly came to my house in two two-hour sessions one week. She taught me how to cast on, knit, purl, read a pattern, fix mistakes, and work patiently. The time passed quickly and pleasantly. As I cast the yarn onto my needles tears stung my eyes as I thought about Granma. I regretted that I hadn't asked her to teach me while she was alive. Somehow I knew she was with me, and she was pleased with the way I was trying to honor her.

For the next two months I spent every night working meticulously on a blanket for baby Jack. My hands became sore and tired, but got stronger as I persisted. It took me approximately three hundred hours, (or seven seasons of Gilmore Girls, several movies, and a season of BBC's Broadhurst...seriously, this blanket has been brought to you by grief, sentiment, and Netflix) the blanket was finally complete. Sara came over once more to teach me how to bind off and weave in the loose strands. I.was.done.

I loved creating this gift. I loved learning a new skill, I throughly enjoyed knitting and I look forward to the next  blankie for a new baby. I thought about my first nephew, imagined him wrapped up inside the soft folds, and fell in love with the boy I haven't met yet. The best part about the whole process was gaining a deeper appreciation of the beautiful baby blankets from my grandma. I felt her love and presence so acutely. I know she is watching over me. That she is proud of me. I couldn't have done it without her.

I asked my Sam to give it a test drive to make sure it wouldn't disintegrate upon use.  

Baby Jack Timothy Marsden wrapped in his auntie's love

Five Things to Do After Work

I should really remove Apartment Therapy from my RSS subscriptions, but I haven’t yet, so I keep getting sucked in. Recently they posted their 5 things to do as soon as you are done with work for a happier evening.

They elaborate further, but essentially, their 5 things are:

1. Put things where they belong 
2. Check in, connect and center
3. Cook an easy-to-make meal 
4. Spend a little time on a hobby, habit or goal
5. Prep for the next day

While their points are perfectly fine, they don't necessarily reflect your average person just coming off of a day's work, so I drafted my own list.

Here are my 5 things to do when you get home from work (in order of importance, mostly...):

1. Take off your work pants and put on sweatpants. This is definitely #1. No question. Switching from "school clothes" to "play clothes" means you can handle whatever happens to come up (and in comfort!): cooking, cleaning, sitting around and watching Hulu... Anything.

2. Breathe. You just finished a day at work where you challenged yourself, did something new, and helped people (directly or indirectly). Even if you have to do this in the car before you head inside, just breathe. You’ve already accomplished something today. Whatever else happens or does (or does not) get done, you’ve got that -- now, take a breath and go put on your sweatpants already!

(You get your choice: Faith Hill, Pearl Jam, or Michelle Branch...)

3. Check your mailbox (not your email, but your realmail). Because sometimes there is real mail. Mail from someone you care about to tell you they are thinking of you. It’s worth checking if only for that reason. (Oh, and recycle that junk mail right away. Ugh, junk mail is the worst.)

4. Eat some sort of food at a reasonable hour as a meal if you are hungry. Does it have to be exquisite? No. does it have to be healthy? Not necessarily. Does it have to be a "real meal?" Not unless you want it to be. Do you have to like it? No, but that usually helps.

5. Think about someone else. This could be someone you live with (your partner, child/children, roommate); this could be someone in your family; this could be a colleague; this could be a friend you’ve not seen for a year; it could be someone you’ve only met once. Think of them, because when you’re thinking of others, that’s when true inspiration and good comes about. You could think of ways to help someone, think of something they might be interested in, something that makes them smile, something that brings them comfort. Even if you just think of one other person during your “down time,” that’s more than a lot of other people do their entire day. And thinking often turns to action, and that’s a good thing too.

Why I Love MasterChef Junior

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Not often do I find myself completely enamored with a television show, but here I am, writing about how I’ve fallen head over heals for MasterChef Junior.

MasterChef Junior is a reality show where children (ranging in ages from 8-12) cook for world-renown, professional chefs (including celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay). Now, before you roll your eyes at the words “reality show” or say “not another cooking show,” hear me out -- this isn’t another cutthroat competition show where you watch it and feel disgusting after, and it’s not another Saturday morning cooking show where the same dish seems to be made over and over. This is, when it comes down to it, a show about kids with strong character, kindness, heart, positivity, and a lot of determination.

Reasons why I love this show:

• I can watch it and forget completely about the negative news, things on my to-do list, the ice dam on my roof causing my living room carpet to be soggy. I mean everything. I find myself sitting there, rooting for every child to do well, heart swelling for those kids as they triumph over the challenging dishes they’re tasked to make. 
• These kids have such great character! They are encouraging, positive, realistic (with their own cooking triumphs and struggles), and so helpful! They go out of the way to help their competitors, and they do it with such kindness. When their competitors are eliminated, genuine hugs and encouragement are given. I want to live in a world this kind all of the time. 
• Those kids are remarkable! They’re doing amazing things with French or Japanese or other advanced cooking techniques (thinks I’ve never heard of), and they have to use step stools just to see over the counter.
• British accents are wonderful -- Don’t let anyone tell you any different. (This one is definitely a minor detail, but still adds to the enjoyment of the show.) 
• The chef-judges have such high expectations for their young chefs (and the young chefs know it and definitely give their all for them), but they don’t let that get in the way of them making real connections with the kids, being silly, being encouraging, and showing their protégés respect. You can see how proud the judges are of the kids and their accomplishments, and how hard the elimination process is for them.

Watching this show is like getting an hour-long hug. The kids are extraordinary, the judges are firm, but kind and encouraging, and the result is such a positive experience for the audience (and I would imagine everyone involved with the show as well). If you happen to find yourself with an extra hour or just want to bring some positivity into your home, I recommend turning on MasterChef Junior.

(This is just my own personal option regarding this show. We've not been compensated or rewarded in any way for this blog post, other than the warm-fuzzies I get simply by watching this lovely show.)