Under the Sea

This month I had a ridiculously awesome offer given to me by Milagros Boutique (the best mama & baby boutique in P-town, baby!): to re-paint their play area! Welllll.... alls I do is sit around dreaming up crazy murals in my own house (the baby's room is East-coast sand dunes, and there's a half-finished stork in our hall (for about 3+ years now). See?) so this was a no-brainer!

I took Taylor with me and all the paint I could find. A few sketches and almost 7 hours later (woah, that's like...a workday!) and we've got an underwater adventure!

At the last minute I found gold paint in my stash,
so I had to add some bling to the mermaid's attire.

This guy looks like he's going to open up any second and offer you a pearl!

 This was so incredibly fun! I loved taking Taylor with me. He primed with me and helped with some larger color blocks, but mostly he just kept me company, washed brushes, ran errands. He was my excuse to get dessert from the French restaurant next door. It was so LIFE-giving to me to paint like this, and I haven't painted in acrylics, much less painted at all since I got my job as a MOM....you know how it goes. Well, maybe you don't. Maybe you have had a well-rounded life of fulfilling your potential. But for me, this is a walking-in-the-right-direction, and it feels great! The best part is that I got to trade for time at their beach house. More on that to come....

Meanwhile, maybe it's time I finished that stork.

First Day of School 2011/12

Did you know? Four out of five kids are in full-day school these days!

7th, 5th, 2nd and 1st...whoo-whee! That's a lot of school supplies!

Just for comparison, here's a picture from last year:

 Aww, look at my little buzzed buddies.

Noble can't get used to this full day of school for Micah.

Every day around lunch he asks me, "where Mah-cah?"

 He's in school with his little Waldorf lunch basket!

Micah's excited about his big-kid desk, I think.

 It's all old-hat to Morgen now. She's excited that her desk has a little cubby for her crayon pouch and stuff. Stuff like balls of wax and little sticks and pebbles. She's a collector.

 Here's me distracting my hyper little monkey while we wait for the 1st grade Rose Ceremony to begin. The Waldorf Tradition does this to welcome the 1st graders into the Grades, as opposed to having a Kindergarten Graduation at the end of last year.

 Micah hands me his rose as he is escorted back to his classroom by an 8th-grade buddy. The 8th graders participate as leaders in the school, as this will be their last year here.

"Been there, done that!" Morgen's just happy as a clam today!

Have fun at school, guys! Like Papa used to say to me, "Learn lots of things today!"

Words

It's almost 8am and no one is awake! Except me, of course. Is it because I want everyone to get back on a school-schedule? We would have to be leaving the house by now. Is it because David is taking a personal day to work on the attic dormer, and he's still in bed, too? Even though he sneaks away every morning, the house seems to have an unsettling when he's gone, and the children never sleep in very long after he leaves. I could leave and come back at noon and those beds will still be warm!

My reader seems to be carrying a theme this morning, and when life throws me a theme, I figure I'd better listen up. Today's theme is: WORDS.

Grace words.
Words that heal.
Words that make children feel strong.
Words that give thanks.
Words that give life!

Because words can bring death. I have brought more death than life with my words in my lifetime, I am sure of it.  If you have been the recipient of my death-words, please forgive me. I know I am learning to keep quiet when I am tired and hurt and my tongue wants to barf out all kinds of maladies, but I still have a long way to go!

Today I am printing out (and I mean by hand! We don't have a printer, lol!) Ann Voskamp's Manifesto for Joyful Parenting. What a good thing to move towards as the harried, early school mornings quickly approach!
And today I am praying,

"Set a guard over my mouth, Lord. Keep watch over the door of my lips!"

Speak well, today!