kinderwonder

every fall i get this feeling.

i look around my church and i see these kids with their parents and its all to familiar. not familiar in the sense that i've experienced it, but familiar in the sense that i know how fast it will be here.

i know i'm supposed to be all choked up about my firstborn starting kindergarten, but for some reason i've skipped all her schooling and gone straight to college. i don't know what it is about these kids that makes me cry my eyes out. the fact that they have made it this far? the fact that they are at church with their parents still? the fact that they want God to be a part of their college experience? whatever the case, it gets me every year...

and this year... the stakes are higher.

because....

its that time. you've read them before. i'm pretty sure all mom bloggers are required to write one. but this is my first, obligatory kindergarten post.

this wednesday, lily pearl rodgers will march her way two blocks up the road and begin her school career.

as most of you know, i got a pretty good size sentimental bone in this ol body of mine. i get sappy like the best of them. the baby girl, our firstborn, my goose is beginning a totally new season of her life. everyone always tells you how fast it flies by, and you laugh politely not feeling that way at all, and then all of the sudden you wake up one day, and pack a lunch and drop her off.

she's someone now, outside of you.

and that's a feeling i know i will never get used to. i remember the first time i realized that lily actually had an identity, a life, experiences outside of me. it was stupid, it was about a pretzel-- i wrote this about it:

she is two years old. it's not like she doesn't have any sort of life outside me... but the other day I was struck by something she said. we were on the rodgers houseboat just hanging out. b's mom, shelley, started to get some snacks out... hummus, carrots, crackers, pretzels etc... I asked lily if she wanted some carrots or crackers (two staples in her diet) and she said, ' no, I want those'- pointing to the pretzels. i thought, that's funny, since she is not the most daring eater, why would she want those skinny looking pretzel sticks- they don't even look interesting. so i pointed to the bag and said, 'these, are you sure?' she quickly said, 'yes- i want those ones.' so i hand her the bag and she pulls one out. just before she takes a bite, she pauses and looks up at me and in a real matter of fact way she says , 'i have these at preschool.'it was a simple as that, and i was just struck. to think she experienced something outside of our little world was so baffling to me. not only did she experience it, she liked it- and i wasn't even there to share it. i know it seems silly, and really pretty inconsequential. but for the first time in my life with lily, i kind of felt like an outsider. somehow i know it won't be the last time. just a reminder, i suppose, to cherish the mundane- even if it means a new type of cracker- it's still just ours.

that was 3 short years ago. since then, she's had many more experiences like that. some were big, some were little, but as her mom, i've known at least in part about the majority of them. though i try to be that ever-present available figure in her life, the reality is i have 2 other kids to chase after. 2 other kids to shine that magnifying glass on. its not easy having to miss stuff, or not being available in the way i always thought i would be-- she's my baby after all. she's the only one that had my sole affection for so long-- 19 months to be precise.

even though she makes me crazy most days, with her incessant wardrobe changes and snotty attitude, every once in awhile i'll catch a glimpse of what was. just yesterday in fact, as she was laying in the bath, her hair was wet and slicked back to her head, almost giving the appearance of no hair. i was busy reading a book and she called my name to have me look at her go underwater. i looked up and for just a split second with her wet hair, all i saw was her face.

this face

and i remembered.

i remembered sleepless nights, pacing the downstairs, begging for sleep.

and then not long after, losing sleep --worrying about how she didn't eat, or why she couldn't poop, or why she seemed so different than other kids.

but i also remembered this...

she was the only one who got this.

she was my first and last in so many ways.

our bond is tight, sometimes strangulation sort of tight.

so with that said. i bid you farewell in many ways LP. i pray and hope that you will always want to share with me. whether its about your first crush, your new favorite book, or the first time your heart gets broken, i am your mom and i love you like you'll never know. i know you'll do great on wednesday.

and for the record, i'll always remember us like this....

oh, and monarch grove elementary, i know you do this every year with dozens of kids. though this year may not seem any different to you, it is to me. i'm trusting you with the best thing that ever happened to me.

don't let me down.

and good luck.

your gonna need it.

dolphins

once upon a time there was a six year old girl.

this little girl loved sports. this was strange cuz her parents could really care less about athletics, and her only sibling was to much older to really have a major impact on her.

when she was eight years old, her best friend 'dared' her to try a contest taking place during recess. since she was never one to back down from a dare, she walked over to the basketball courts where the contest was taking place. she wrote her name down and waited in line. when it was her turn, an edelrly man handed her a basketball and told her to try and throw it into the basket. since she had never played basketball before she wasn't exactly sure what to do, but knew that somehow she would have to get it into the net. so she dropped the ball down and threw it up underhand - also known as granny style. much to her surprise the ball went in the net. she had to do it 10 more times and ended up making 8 of the 10. a few minutes later that same gentleman told her she had won the contest.

the little girl was shocked.

for at the wee age of 8 she experienced for the first time what it felt like to be good at something. she went on to compete county wide where she took second. thus launching her little know basketball career. she continued to compete in the contests for the next few years, winning at the school and then county level almost every time. when she was 10 she got her big break and made it all the way to the Los Angeles Semi -State Finals, where she heartbreakingly took second.

the little girl quickly realized that she loved basketball. she would go to the recreation department almost every day after school and practice shooting. she would sleep with her basketball and watched micheal jordan religiously. basketball was her world, her everything.

by the time she was 9, she began to realize that athletics came easy to her. why not mix it up? after a brief AYSO soccer career, she decided to take it to the next level.

since her second love was the SF 49ers, which she also watched religiously every sunday with her dad and brother, she thought maybe she'd try her hand at football. the adults around her just kind of laughed at the idea, and strung her along in the expectation the phase would pass.

but this little girl was very stubborn.

and so when she saw signs for pop warner youth football, she threw a massive fit until her mom walked her over to the sign-ups. the good ol boys had a good laugh at the idea and humored her mom-- secretly hoping it couldn't be-- surely there must be something in the rules about girls not playing!

yet they were wrong, and it was then and there that a skinny little girl called holly richmond became the first girl in SLO county to play pop warner football.

with that sweet tale, i'm dying to know....

'what about your childhood wouldn't most people guess?'

make out mountain

sorry if you've missed me.

i wish i could say i've been to busy makin love like p diddy, but instead i've been busy being in the most beautiful wedding of all time (besides my own) and trying to ferberize my 9 month old.

what can i say, life gets busy.

but oh, oh how i have missed thee...

and though i haven't been hittin the sugar shack as much as i want to, i will say i have been thinking a bit about makin out.

see it always comes back to running.

i realized the other day as i was running in slo that this dang town is sooooo full of memories. on a whim, i headed over the jennifer st bridge, and huffed my way up terrace hill, and when i reached the plateau, the memories came a floddin.'

for those of you who aren't lucky enough to call yourself slo locals.... you might not know that terrace hill is where it ALL went down. since slo is such a small town, there wasn't like old cornfields or abandoned barns for us wily high-schoolers to drink our beer in-- instead we devised a 'hill' that was just difficult enough to climb up to stave off those bored coppers roaming the streets. every few months or so from the years 1993-1997 we would receive 'word' that something was gonna shake down on ol t-hill. so we'd round up some fuzzy navel and our best v-neck and make the trek. when we'd finally reach the top, instead of marveling at the beautiful town below us, we'd try and scope out who was makin out with who, and where the liquor was (we were a classy bunch).

anyway, the general debauchery would continue until we saw those little flashlights makin their way up the path. word would hit, and we would scatter like leaves in the wind-- we'd be trickling down the sides of terrace hill, running through brush, tripping over rocks, all just to avod the 5-o. later we'd call each other and tell of our escape, and who we made it with. other times we'd hear of the not so luckies that landed the dreaded MIP. in any event terrace hill was a big part of my high school experience....

but that's not where i got busted.

3 words: laguna lake park.

now let me just preface by saying there are many places to 'park' in slo in the back of your boyfriends parents 4-runner. laguna lake is not one of them.

picture it: me, 1996. tired of the old make-out spots, me and a boy we'll call 'gunner' decide to mix it up. we start driving around and make our way over to the glorified pond lake. we drive around to the back, past the park, and find a spot. one thing leads to the next (as it does quickly in high school) and before i know it we're in it thick. and not seconds after we round second base, a little light flashes in those factory tinted windows. at first we just ignore it, prolly just a car driving by, but then the light becomes brighter, and is accompanied by knocking and a deep voice. suddenly we become very aware that someone is trying to get our attention, and short of feeling like we're in the sequel to scream, i scrounge to find my shirt as gunner rolls down a window.

officer: 'good evening. what are you doing here?'

gunner: 'oh, just hanging out.'

officer: 'just hanging out huh? are you alone?' as he flashes his light to the back of the car and sees me holding a shirt up across my chest. 'hmm, i see.'

gunner: 'we were a just hanging out, i promise,' as his voice starts to quake and moves an octave higher.

officer: 'do your parents know where you are?' the dreaded words. for the love, please don't call our parents.

after what seemed like an eternity he finally said, 'alright, you kids run along home now, i don't want to see you over here again, you got that?'

a resounding 'yes sir!'

we got our clothes rearranged and gunner started the car.

'whew, that was close huh?' he said.

'yeah, kinda scary. my heart was pounding!' i confessed.

after a minute, i looked over at him and said, 'well, should we head to the airport viewing lot?'

and off we went. you can't stop hormones teenage love, just ask jake ryan.

so with that said, please do tell...

'where is your hometown's best make-out spot?'

or... for the brave few--

'have you ever been caught in the act?'

summer hasn't been so bad.

not nearly as hard as i thought. kids have only been making me a tiny bit crazy. we've stayed busy with camps, elks, bbq's, friends, camping. you know the drill. your basic summatime.

since we were out of town last weekend and are leaving in a couple days for yosemite, i thought i'd grace y'all with the best part of my summer-- these faces.

holy crap, i'm cute y'all!

i finally got my blue eyed beauty

you didn't know i had 3 girls huh?

teaching tali to read. cuz we're genius's

fernwood camp trip May 2010

my house is a very, very, very fine house

when b and i heard the news from his ever so generous parents that owning a home could become a reality for us, we immediately began our search.

first, we found the best realtor in the county (we didn't have to look far!) and began pouring over the MLS. we knew immediately that slo wasn't gonna be an option. we tried to finagle a way to make it happen, but knew that if we did, we'd be at the high end of what we could afford and stuck in a tiny house. we decided on either arroyo grande or los osos. we had a lot of friends in AG and knew that the commute would be minor for b. in the back of our minds we also knew that AG would likely be a better investment in the long run, but in the end it came down to one thing.

surfing.

yep, that's right. we basically chose los osos cuz the waves are better here. now before all you south countiers get up in arms, just know we don't hate the wrongboarders out in shell, or all of bakersfield that invades pismo all summer long-- its just we really like the idea that we could be contaminating our groundwater with our own s%*t.

nah, the reality is neither of them are perfect, but at the time osos is where we thought we would call home.

for those of you who know me, you know i love los osos. i could dedicate entire blogs to this town. sure its kooky, sandy, full of hippies and lacking a sewer or basic city planning, but the reality is, its also full of a lot of really awesome people parked in one of the most foggiest beautiful areas on the central coast. we got mountain biking, boating, surfing, trail running, hiking, literally all minutes from our door. and one of the raddest parts about it, is we have wonderful neighbors and friends to share it with.

yet, i digress once again. so began our search in los osos. we looked at a lot of houses. i was convinced that we couldn't be on a numbered street because no one would come visit us (this was before i moved all of my best friends here). i thank the lord b didn't listen to that crazy talk and convinced me that i couldn't discriminate against numbered streets. we found our way to a little part of osos called cuesta by the sea. our good friends had nothing but rave reviews about this little nook. heck- it was close to MDO and the seconds from the bay... how could we go wrong? we settled on a charming little (emphasis on little) house just two blocks from the bay. after much brilliant negotiation (thanks to our realtor) we still couldn't agree on a price. so one evening when we were hashing out whether or not we should go for it, we stumbled upon this....

we'd seen it a few times, but it was just a hair out of our price range. not to mention, it was a bit funky. but hey, its osos right? anyhow, we decided to at least check it out. i wish i could tell you it was love at first sight, but the massive rock fireplace wall, and cottage cheese ceilings were distracting me. we wandered around, and though it wasn't exactly hoarders material, there really was a lot of crap loaded in it. but it wasn't annoying crap. it was a desk in the living room, cuz there was no room for it in the kids rooms. it was surfboards and skateboards and bmx bikes hanging from the rafters in their crammed to the gils garage, it was their hand prints in the cement near the front door, it was the dining room table jammed into the corner of the kitchen with the light off-center just to be able to maximize the space and be able to fit 4 teenage kids around the dinner table. and then it was the owner of the house telling us how her son rides his bike to baywood for pizza, and her daughter rides horses up the street. and lastly, it was her telling us they already bought another house with the assurance that this house would sell a lot faster than it was. as much as i'd like to say it was my stellar negotiation skills, it really was their 'tight' situation that enabled us to reach an agreement. 30 days later we moved in two truckloads our stuff from our 750 sq ft studio on garden st. that first night we sat on the floor and ate pizza with some friends and marveled that we were now homeowners. when we went to bed that night, i laid there thinking about the baby in my tummy kicking and thought 'the house seems different than i remembered.'

sometimes i'll find myself coveting clean, new, big, shiny houses, or beautiful, old restored homes and think, 'why i am stuck in this semi-remodeled 1970's architectural experiment on a tiny lot on a street with no sidewalks?' and then i look around and can't find a matching pillowcase to save my life, or notice that our crown molding project is on two of three walls, or i see cobwebs under the eaves of our roof, or i drive up and just pray someone would please dump buckets of paint on it. but then when i walk inside and see this

and this

and this,

and of course, this

and i know.

i know that even though my house is definitely lacking refinement, and its scattered with kids artwork and hot wheels and polly pockets shoes, and no matter how much i clean it it never will smell like the new homes i used to sell, i know in my heart that this is my home, and i wouldn't have it any other way.

so with that said, i'd love to hear...

'what makes a house a home?'

mo money, mo problems.

i grew up in the other side of the tracks.

that is, if slo had tracks.

i would have been on the other side. you know the ones... most of my friends were on the right side. i've written before about coveting white carpets and new appliances and a mom and dad under the same roof, and the smell of freshly baked cookies. and though i spent a significant part of my weekends at such houses, i always came home to one amazing mom and thursday nights at my dads. we never had a lot of money. we had just enough.

don't get me wrong, i can't tell you how thankful i was for those deep country club pockets that provided me experiences my parents never could have- third row seats to warrior games, trips to hawaii, and magic mountain. fun stuff for sure, all with someone else's family. i loved and treasured those trips cuz they were definitely not the norm for me. though they weren't something my parents could afford, i remember feeling satisfied, i was never scared, and never hungry. sure, i longed for presents and gifts and the immediate gratification i saw my friends provided, but it wasn't something that consumed me.

now that i'm all growed up with a family of my own, it got me thinking i could really be a consumer if i had the resources. to be honest, having *a lot* of money scares me. could i really be trusted? mo money, mo problems yo. i gotta admit there's a bit of romance in just squeaking by-- like well, if i want to get that, i got to sell this... there is a satisfaction that comes from actually wanting-- not just always getting. sounds crazy i know and b thinks i'm coo-coo, but honestly i guess i just know my carnal nature.

yet just when we began heading towards affluenza, something changed. that little bitch called the economy. everyone loves to blame everything on the economy. and really, rightly so. crappy economy=crappy jobs=zero dollars. for a lot of people our age-ish, this whole economy tanking has been a bit of a rude awakening. maybe some of us felt the effect of a similar time in the early 90's when the market crashed... but we were teenagers and so the stress of money was distant. for most of us, the hardest part meant we wouldn't be getting our subscription to seventeen renewed. we didn't have to worry so much about food and shelter, our parents shouldered that. and then we went to college and things were kinda crappy when we graduated, but then it quickly turned around. jobs! jobs! jobs! then a lot of us got married and guess what, it didn't matter how much money you made- 'no income, no assets' became our best friend. a lot of us got into houses we couldn't afford and popped out a few kids and then we woke up and were like, 'oh crap, we can't make our mortgage!' and suddenly the stakes were so much higher, cuz we had people we were responsible for. very little people.

i feel super fortunate to have escaped most of this. i mean really fortunate. b has had some pay cuts and my real estate career - wait what? your a realtor? like a broker? like you would love to help us find our dream home? or list our house for a 1% listing? yes, as a matter of fact i would. and the good news is, i will work my mother of 3 booty off for you, cuz you are probably my only client i care that much. ahem, as i was saying, my real estate career has tanked slowed downed considerably. however, we are fortunate to have that little bit of savings (from the good ol days) that continues to waste away as we nibble away at it each month to make up for the pay-cuts. with that said, i have so many friends that this has affected in a really, really real way. its so difficult to watch your friends gasping to stay afloat, and feeling too strapped yourself to help in a substantial way. i want to blame someone, like bush, or fox news, or hurricane katrina, or the j-holes on wall street, but nothing really helps. the fact of the matter is, whether you are loosing your home to foreclosure, or just barely squeaking by each month, times are tight.

so when b and i got to talking the other day about how few dollars we actually have, i told him if we just (just always being the operative word) had like $300 more a month, we could make it. and he said, 'with that extra money, would we be putting any into savings?'

yeah right.

it was then and there we decided that you were officially doing okay if you were able to save each month. the reality is, we live paycheck to paycheck, and so do almost all of our friends.

so with that said, i'd love to know...

'how much money do you need to make before it's enough?'

leave it to the wise woman...

comment of the day: I once heard "enough is a little bit more than you already have." so we never have enough. it's good that we are all in the boat together. the most generous people i know have next to nothing. just a reminder that this is not our home.

-Roxanne Foote

bed bugs

do yourself a favor and do NOT google image search bedbugs. i'm pretty sure i just threw up in my mouth.

bed bugs are hot right now. oprah got them on her show, and now no one is safe anymore. i'm not so concerned about bed bugs because i'm to busy being stressed out about black mold and flesh eating maggots dropping slowly into your bed over the course of two days before realizing it. but that's another TRUE story for another time. in any event i got to thinking about beds in general the other day when we decided to take down the co-sleeper. with tali being almost 8 months old, we are dangerously close to getting our ferber on and letting her cry it out. its never easy, but we have to before we decide to start continuum parenting which is always creepy.

so anyway, as b wrestled the co-sleeper out of our room i took a wee peek under it and then further under our bed. it was the usual suspects, long lost pacifiers, used and un-used nursing pads, a liberator love pad, stray infant socks, all nestled in copious amounts of hair and dust. pretty awesome, and very stressful for my inner non-existent neat freak. in any event it got me thinking- i've come a long way from the drug paraphernalia and too short cd's hiding under my bed from my youth. cuz really, nothing says mom like lost breast pump parts being found under your bed when you do finally do get the hose attachment on your vacuum and bend over to clean. don't be jealous.

i know its not the most exciting question-- or maybe it is... in any event, please do tell,

'what's under your bed?'

i knew he'd claim it as soon as he came around... he's kind of a genius and if you haven't already, you should really check out his blog- just don't start reading his instead of mine.

comment of the day: a secret hatch that when opened, reveals a ladder that takes you down to an underground bunker with a single desk, on which sits a computer that I make Jenn enter the numbers 4 8 15 16 23 and 42 into, lest the world come to an end.

-Travis Avila