{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Inspired by my favorite blog: SouleMama

Happiness is...

Today, happiness is:

sleeping 4 hours straight

wrestling an active giggling (almost) 2 year old boy

being able to witness my baby grow and develop every step of the way

beautiful sunshine after endless days of rain!

an overly perceptive 4 year old who keeps me on my toes

spending time in the tiniest, most beautiful backyard 

Be Content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you." Lao Tzu

Little Explorers: Color Mixing w/paint

Like I said, I love to mix colors with preschoolers.  It is so simple, but they love it so much.


Coloring Mixing

Here's what you need:

• 3 clear zipper bags
• red, yellow and blue washable tempera paint

Ask your child to pick two colors.  Put a generous squirt of each into a zipper bag.  Zip up the bag tight, hand it over to your little scientist and encourage them to squeeze, squish, and mix the paint.  Repeat until you've mixed all three combinations:

 red + yellow = orange

yellow + blue = green

blue + red = purple

What is happening:

This is the color wheel in its funnest form!  When you take the primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) and mix them together you get secondary colors (orange, green and purple).  

Extreme experimentation:

If you are not mess averse you can just squirt the paint onto white paper and have the kids mix it with their fingers.  Make sure you wash their hands in between each combo to avoid contamination of colors and creating brown.

For some fun tactile writing practice tape a baggy onto a white piece of paper and have your child work on writing letters or drawing pictures in the paint.  Both of my kids did this a lot longer than I expected.  

Then, of course, the kids will want to actually paint.  It is paint, after all!

Isabella wanted to make a cake and pretended she was piping frosting on (I cut a small corner off).

Little Explorers: Color Mixing w/eye dropper

One of my favorite experiments to do with preschool kids is to mix colors.  

Coloring Mixing 

Here's what you need:

• 3 cups
• water
• red, yellow and blue food coloring
• eye/medicine dropper
• clear plastic egg carton

Fill the 3 cups with water and put a about 5 drops of red food coloring in 1 cup, yellow in a different cup and blue in the last cup.  Put the egg carton on top of the white paper so you can easily see the color changes.  Demonstrate how to use the eye dropper (if your child doesn't know how to already).  Have your child drop some yellow into one of the egg cups and then add red.  Ta-da!  It turned orange!  Awesome.  

Repeat again and again to see how many different colors and shades of colors your child can come up with.  Allow your child to explore on their own.  It's okay if they all turn brown or black, that's part of the fun and learning.  (I had to keep telling myself this while Isabella was doing this!)

What is happening:

This is the color wheel in its funnest form!  When you take the primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) and mix them together you get secondary colors (orange, green and purple).  Also, kids are really strengthening their dexterity by using the eye dropper.  

Extreme experimentation:

Try experimenting with a little bit of one color and a lot of another color.  For example, encourage your child to put in a lot of yellow, but just a tiny bit of blue.  What happens?!

Isabella decided to spred some of her colors on the white paper so she could see the differences better.  In the cups they all looked brown to her.

Isabella + Balloons

Coming home from the church's street fair on Saturday.

I thought she should pose, she thought otherwise.

Simon: 5 months

I know I say this all the time, but how is my baby already 5 months old?!  Time is moving too fast (except during the sleepless nights)!

Simon, in short, is a squirmer!  He loves to move, move, move.  And he's not even mobile yet!  Well, he rolls a little (from his back to his belly) and gets his arm stuck under him and complains until Isabella or I come help him.  He flexes and contracts his belly until he slips out of his bouncy seat or off our laps.  Yes, he moves a bit like an inchworm.  When the dance music is on he kicks to the beat.  When he's in his bouncy seat and gets excited he does moves resembling the electric slide.  It cracks me up!

Right now he's in my lap, his feet are propped and pushing against the desk and he's rhythmically slapping my arm with his right hand.

He loves using his new teeth (fortunately not while he's nursing) so we keep teething toys at arms reach.  But he prefers gnawing on my hand over any teething toy.

Simon is finding his voice.  In addition to ear numbing squeals, he "talks" very loudly, usually when we are trying to watch a movie.  During his long, loud orations he furrows his brow and acts very serious.

He is a very happy child.  Smiles constantly.  Just the other day as Isabella was hanging on me and moaning about her allergy pains (rightfully so), Simon (in my other arm) looked at her and started laughing and squealing with delight.  It helped her out of her funk and lightened my mood.

Right Now

Excited and nervous to run my first 10K this year. Slow and steady...

**Update: My 10K race went pretty well.  There were just over 7,500 racers and I was #5,602.  But when you factor my gender and age I was right on average.  If they had a category: "mom's who just had their 3rd baby 5 months ago" I would totally be #1 (or at least in the top 5!)  You know it!

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.


Inspired by my favorite blog: SouleMama

Attitude of Gratitude

I am beyond grateful for the abundance of sleep I got last night.  Only one brief nursing from 10pm-6am.  Yes!  Life is wonderful!

Best Gift EVER!

The other day my sweet daughter gave me a bouquet of dandelions.  It was one of those moments that defined me as a mother.  I loved the gift.  I cried.

Attitude of Gratitude

I am grateful for the support of my friends and family.  After posting some of my challenges last week several friends and family members called and e-mailed offering empathy, encouragement, and tenderness. It touched me deeply.

"We love you!"  

"Your doing great!"  

"I've been there.  I know it is so hard."  

"How can I help?"  

"I can watch your kids Wednesday.  Bring them over!"

THANK YOU!!!

Thank you for being my light when I was in darkness.

*I have very few photos of friends.  So, friends, you will be photographed soon!

Sidewalk Chalk

I have always imagined that New York City kids create chalk art in front of their brownstone.  So we did it.  With paint brushes and water too.  It will be repeated.

Falling in Love, Again.

Sometimes I feel like living in New York City is like being stuck in a bad relationship.  You know you love it, it's really a fabulous place.  But then winter hits.  Once winter rolls in, all that New York has to offer is tear jerking winds, mean pedestrians, and pure despondency.  Every March I threaten Brian that we are leaving this horrid place.  It isn't worth it!  This is borderline abusive!

But then, slowly, New York begins to be nice again.  The apologies begin flowing with the first crocuses.  A month after those first blooms and I am completely smitten again.  Everyone is happy, the trees are heavy with green leaves, the breeze is perfectly gentle.  And I think, "How could I even imagine leaving such a perfect city?!"

Oh, New York, I love you!

One of my favorite things I love about New York City is just hanging out, wandering, and finding new treasures.  Last Saturday, that's just what we did.  Although, I didn't photograph all the food we ate.  Eating delicious food is one of the best things to do in NYC on a beautiful Saturday.

Street fairs are everywhere!  This was a community garden fundraiser in Tribeca.  Notice the young gals on stilts in the background.

The Balloon Saloon

Our destination: The Hester Street Fair in the LES.  Pretty awesome & pretty packed full of people.  If you go, I recommend you go early or late (not around a meal time).

Delicious food at the fair!

Beautiful church on Grand St (I think).  Near Little Italy.

Walk along the beautiful Hudson River.

We ended the day with a carousel ride on the Hudson.  It's a favorite place of ours.

**If you go to the Hester Street Fair, please take note that Doughnut Plant is just around the corner.

Ode to My Mom

 Mom, you are awesome!  How did you do it?  How did you physically carry and birth seven children (including those big boy twins!)?  How did you raise us so well?  How did you carry it all when you felt so alone?

You are my hero!  You taught me how to be tender, gentle, kind, humble.  You put up with my grief, extreme emotions, snarky remarks, and demand for independence.  You did all of this while juggling many other life-changing situations: several children, full-time job(s), divorce, moving and unemployment (to name a few).

I pray I will be as strong as you!  I hope I will teach my children to be the finest, just as you taught us!

By word and deed you taught me honesty, virtue, integrity, humility, charity, love, hard work.  I could go on and on...

You are so very brave.  I am still impressed you took the subway from JFK to our apartment when coming to meet your newest granddaughter, Isabella.  You were so scared, but you did it!

You are determined to succeed.  No matter what life throws your way you press forward, stronger every moment.

Thank you for loving all that is beautiful and good!  You are the best mother I could ever dream of!

Motherhood is more than bearing children, though it is certainly that. It is the essence of who we are as women. It defines our very identity, our divine stature and nature, and the unique traits our Father gave us.  Sheri Dew

Right Now

Saturday + 6:00am + Central Park = Perfection

I wish I could capture the light breeze, the millions of birds
singing, and the scent of spring. It is so glorious!