Happiness Is…{a good problem}

April 26, 2012 By 6 Comments

I feel like the blog is heading in a strange direction right now, and I wanted to clarify what’s up with us in case you’ve been around Rub Some Dirt On It for a while and have noticed a change.  Usually I regale you with anecdotes and humorous stories about life in Vermont with two kids under four.  Usually I have photos galore to highlight the best part of our days.  I usually have a stockpile of blog posts, of things I can’t wait to share with you all, be it wisdom, a craft or two, a tip on how to get your kid to leave you alone in the shower for 10 minutes (one of my favorites), or the like.  But lately, I’ve got nothing.

Not because we’re doing nothing.  For heaven’s sake, I can barely find time to clean–(sidebar: maybe that’s why it doesn’t happen).  We have school, gymnastics, Music Together, playdates, grocery shopping, playgrounds, etc.  We have plenty to do and share.  Except…it’s all kind of mundane.  You’re doing it, I’m doing it, the photos aren’t that exciting and I don’t really have any interesting way to spin it to make it sound cool.  It’s not like we have to ride a moose to get to Hannaford–now that would make errands interesting!  We go to the playground every morning that it isn’t raining, and although I’m due to drag my camera around, Em is in a great but frustrating stage for playground play.  Big enough to do it herself, but not confident enough; thus I end up hovering and hoping that today is not the day we visit the emergency room with a broken arm, or just lugging her around on various apparatus.  Plus, photos taken in direct sunlight at noon aren’t of the best quality, so why even bother?  I have only taken about 50 photos this entire month, which is unheard of for me.  I will be better, once this God forsaken rain stops, I promise.  But there are only so many umbrellas and galoshes shots are girl can take.

So our mornings are routine, and then in the afternoon, Jax has quiet time and then we either play board games or practice some fun literacy tool I picked up on Pinterest, or we play outside.  Sometimes its blog-worthy, but more often not.  Then Em wakes up from her nap, we watch TV–gasp! says my Waldorf school friends, they eat dinner, then JDubbs comes home and my brain is off duty.  So what I’m trying to say is, our days are great, we’re having tons of fun, but I’m having a bit of trouble conveying that to you all.  That’s why I’ve been a bit literacy-heavy lately–it’s a quick and easy post with simple pictures.  I’m not saying those posts are disingenuous; Jax and I genuinely enjoy those activities and we really do do them almost every day.  And crafting gets a backseat in the spring and summer–I do a lot of crafting in the winter, but not nearly as much once it’s warm out.  Why be inside with a gallon of paint when we could be outside reading frivolous novels, working on our tans, exploring nature?  My afternoons look a lot like this now that my two babies are big enough to maneuver a slide and kick a ball on their own.

This is a good problem to have.  Quiet time rocks.  But it doesn’t make for great blog posts, if you see what I mean.

So my happiness is that things here are good, our life is great, the weather is warming up, we’re spending a ton of time outside, and unfortunately I’m not doing a great job of documenting it.  If you’re wondering what direction this blog is headed, join the club.  I’m doing my best–in between chapters of my latest frivolous novel, of course!  And if you have a sense of where I’m headed, do be kind enough to clue me in.

How about all of you?  Can anyone relate?  Do you find it harder to blog in the summertime?  So much to do but not much to say?  I’d love any advice–please comment after you’ve linked up your happiness at the Happiness Is blog hop!

The Happiness Is… blog hop is simply a place to come, link up a post (not your homepage!) that made you happy recently (anything but a giveaway or review) and share it with the rest of us!  Photos, recipes, crafts, stories, moments, and anecdotes are all welcome!  Come peruse other amazing posts and meet fantastic new people in the blogosphere!  The only rule is to please grab my button (right sidebar) and link back to me in some way, otherwise you won’t be able to link up.  That way more people will come and learn about this uplifting way to promote your blog!

So, are you ready?  On your mark, get set, hop!



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Words & Pictures

April 22, 2012 By 2 Comments

Warm and sunny days, sunblock-smeared bodies, layers thrown to the wayside.

Her hair is an entity all its own.

Lounging and enjoying just being here, right now.

Appreciating these days, with these two.

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A Glimpse

April 16, 2012 By 6 Comments

When Daddy’s home, we take walks as a family and I get to carry my camera instead of lugging around 70 lbs of children.  Then I am unofficially off duty as Daddy orchestrates the fun and I get to snap photos like this one.

Love love love.

I love capturing the way her shoulder go up when she’s feeling nervous or silly or embarrassed.  How crazy and untameable the back of her hair is.  How she dotes on her brother and wants to be near him, make him happy, laugh with him, experience life with him, keep up with him from morning till night.  Capturing who they are right now, at this moment and stage, before they go and change on me.

Life with Jax is a series of crazy, quirky, strange, weird little boy expressions, one after the other.

The older he gets, the more I realize that boys are a unique species all their own.  I never had any brothers or many guy friends, so sometimes I feel like we are definitely on different planets.  But he keeps me on my toes, makes me smile, and impresses me with the thousand different ways he can fashion a weapon out of a stick.

I’m not ready for all this growing up.  That’s why I make sure to capture these moments as often as I can.  Because I already know that before long, they’ll be gone, and I’ll be wishing for those days when my biggest problem was trying to teach Jax that our dog is not a bad guy and no, he cannot use his golf club as a sword.  The little things, indeed.

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Bubble Bribery

April 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Jax is such an obedient little guy–we can train him to do just about anything with the right bribe–and potty training was no exception.  He is so praise- and reward-driven that with the promise of food, presents, or prizes, he happily toes the line.  So when he started waking up with dry overnight diapers, we figured with a few dollar store prizes we could get him to quit wearing them altogether, and we were right!  After a quick trip to the store for a reward of his choice, both kids came home with a new bubble toy, just in time for that glorious warm spell last month.

I’m not sure that Em has figured out yet that bubbles taste yucky.

No matter what I said, she still kept thinking she needed to put the wand in her mouth rather than blow through it.  But after a little trial and error, she figured it out.

Big brother, who is nearly three and a half, has the whole bubble-blowing thing down pat.  But I swear, the fun never wears off, even after hours of practice!

The simple pleasures of every day with my kids.

It was one of those days that is ingrained in my mind with mental pictures as well as these photos.  I will never forget how lucky I am to be home with them, and to spend my days this way.

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Searching For Signs Of Spring

March 31, 2012 By 8 Comments

On March 20th, the first official day of spring, the sun was shining and the birds were indeed chirping.  Mother Nature was without question celebrating the end of winter, and so were we!  My mom was on her way up for a three day visit, and we had a morning to kill with the woods in our yard and on our street beckoning for us to come and play.

Thus I printed out a fabulous worksheet brought to me by The Educator’s Spin On It and their Afterschool Express–worth a weekly visit, I assure you!–and the kids and I set off to search for signs of spring.

I am a humanities girl at heart, but even I enjoy this kind of delve into the scientific realm.  The art of observation is not lost on me, and it does more than thrill young children.  The mere acts of looking, listening, touching,  and smelling, which are so mundane as to be unconscious to us adults, are actually beyond stimulating and exciting to kids, and my three- and one-year-old bought in on this springtime expedition hook, line, and sinker.

First, we sat on our steps and observed.  What did we hear?  What did we see?  Jax was quick to make things up, but once he realized this activity was not just a game but actually served a purpose, he quickly changed his attitude and got with the program.  Birds, clouds, animals, grass–everything became very interesting, and the kids became very present in their surroundings.

Quite literally!

The hunt began for things to touch, see, hear, and smell.  We checked in on the bird’s nest that has rested secure in a fallen tree since Hurricane Irene last fall.

Jax loves to wonder: where did the birds go?  Were there eggs in there when the tree fell?  Would they come back?  I sincerely hope some animal moves in their someday–it would be the highlight of the year!

Em was definitely the more adventurous of the two–maybe because this is the first spring she can really understand, and maybe because Jax has the jaded superiority of a three-year-old.  ”Those are pine needles.  That’s moss.  That’s tree bark.”  Whereas Em found the entire process miraculous.

Jax was more interested in what kind of animal probably lives in here:

He opted for skunk, so now we call it The Skunk House.  In my limited, based-on-Animal-Planet kind of knowledge, I saw no evidence of any type of animal habitating there, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be soon!

The other main attraction of our Signs of Spring walk, as it is every day, is the waterfall that spouts from the culvert across the street.

Notice the ice still lingering around it?  We went down there a few days later and it was all gone.  Nothing explains the wonders of nature to kids better than when something just “disappears,” even if it is ice.  The water cycle, right before our eyes.

After we traipsed about for a bit, the lure of the unpaved road and its muddy splendor was too strong to resist.

So sticky and gooey that his boot got sucked clean off!  Just stuck his dirty sock in my pocket and carried on.  That’s how we roll in Vermont during Mud Season.

Then we headed home and finished filling in our chart.

Jax’s favorite sign of spring was “squirrels chattering.”  At first it was “seeing a rainbow,” but when I reminded him that we had not, in fact, seen a rainbow, he chose something a bit more accurate.  We did a similar walk a few days later, this time armed with good friends, two magnifying glasses, a bug catcher, and a kiddie camera–it was just as big a hit as it was before!  I think taking the time to observe and enjoy nature and our surroundings is going to be a recurring scene this year!  We’ll see if any remarkable discoveries come our way!

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Spark

March 28, 2012 By 4 Comments

Do you think having an opportunity to visit a gallery every week for free would spark a love and appreciation for art like nothing else could?

Do you think using real materials, having permission to act maturely, and receiving praise for your creation would spark a level of self-confidence that could not be achieved alone?

Do you think that the creative spirit is sparked by having a blank canvas and the freedom to do whatever you choose with it?

Do you think that creating beauty can spark an unparalleled appreciation for it and its many forms?

Do you think that watching your children grow and learn can spark a feeling of accomplishment that surely cannot be compared?

Do you think that having a place to be silly and creative and free can spark an imagination, which will simmer and blaze and glow over a lifetime of experiences?

We do.  And are grateful for a chance to light that spark every week.

For more information about the CAOS open studio at Lebanon, NH’s AVA Gallery, click here.

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Making Lemonade

March 27, 2012 By 4 Comments

Recently we had one of those good idea/bad experiences that rubbed me the wrong way, but the kids had fun, so in the end I wasn’t sure how I felt about it kind of days.  Since I try not to use this blog to criticize others or complain–unless I’m using pseudonyms–and since if you live locally you may very well know exactly where I was and to whom I may be referring, I will just follow Thumper’s advice: “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothin’ at all.”  So where we were and when will remain a mystery, and why I was aggravated will be also, and those grouchy people will miss out on some possibly great PR by me not spreading the good word, as I love to do.

Anyway, sometime ago, there was something held at a mystery local school which allowed young kids to come and beat the winter blues by riding their tricycles indoors.  In theory, it was awesome.  A great idea.  Loved it.

And my kids really did love it.  My aggravation was not shared by them–they thought it totally rocked.

We had to leave after about 45 minutes because of circumstances inflicted on us by said annoying grouchy people, but overall we had a great time as a family and I think that’s what really counts anyway.

We like to make lemonade out of lemons in these parts, and all we need to have fun is each other.  Enough said.

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