I’ve always loved aprons.

I suppose it’s because they remind me of my Grandmother, who passed away in 2000 at the age of 87.   She raised 9 children during the 1940s-1960s, and never wore pants in her life!  As with many women from that period, she also wore aprons quite frequently as well - even up through the end of her life.  There is just something so nostalgic and homey about aprons that give me a sense of peace.

I’m not really an apron-holic like some, but I do adore looking at them and have always longed to have a retro one (or 5) of my own!   I have 2 modern chef type aprons that were given to me over the past 5 years, but none that I had bought of my own liking.

So, after much debate, I decided to blow a small bit of spending money on 2 homemade aprons from Etsy that I had been drooling over.  And boy were they ever worth it!   The craftsmanship on both are wonderful - especially my full aprons.  Those ladies sure did take their time, and put a lot of love into crafting these garments.

The first one is a little half pink & brown ruffly apron, with cute cats and a small pocket on it.  I like to wear this one for cleaning as it doesn’t offer shirt protection when cooking.

And the second one is (in my retro opinion!), to die for!  It’s a blue full apron, with a slip over neck and thick tie.  It has a pale blue background with contrasting yellow flowers, yellow sash, and a yellow pocket.   Although “handmade”, it’s crafted by a sheer professional.  All of the seems are perfectly sewn and the edges are even beautifully serged for a nice finished look.

I wear this one for cooking and anything else that comes up.  My husband even loves it!  It’s just simply an all around fun apron to wear.

Sometimes I get lazy and go for a couple weeks without home cooking something, but I then get back into the swing of things and go on cooking binges - and for the past month, I’ve been in a cooking & cleaning mode and have been wearing this little apron to pieces.  It just takes much of the monotany out of housework!  It’s like a morning perk-me-up without the Starbucks label.

One thing I’ve noticed since I’ve started wearing these new aprons, Jack-Evan absolutely loves to look at them, marvel at the patterns, and hang on to them.  He follows me around sometimes and stands up, holding on to my knees, and hids under the hem of the apron and giggles his head off.  Sometimes I get so caught up in standing there playing peekaboo with him, I let the banana pancakes burn.  It’s the cutest thing eva, I tell you.  Just the experience of my little man enjoying the apron in such a way makes me glad to be wearing it.

Who knows, one day when he’s 80, he might find himself looking back in the far recessed corners of his memories, and begin to feel nostostalgic for a little old apron clad woman standing in the kitchen that he once called Mum Mum.

….this is what tearing up your front yard will get ya!

I suppose this fellow got a little mad at us for hammering in on his outdoor habitat so he marched into ours to pay us back.  He was found the other night crawling around in our foyer, just after dusk.  We had been working out in the front yard all day, digging flower beds, painting, and building the arbor and had just come in to get out of the rain that was starting.

 Thankfully I discovered him before he discovered Jack-Evan!

…died yesterday.  

I had him longer than I had Kevin - Napolean has been with me ever since the summer of 2005, and Kevin became his ferret’y dad when we married a year later.

He loved playing with his bell toy, snuggling in warm rags, and bouncing around the room. He had this little plastic squeaky toy shaped like a little man in a blue coat that he would drag around the house with him. When excited, he would make a chucking/kissing type of noise, and when he was upset he would hiss.

Shoulder rides were his favorite thing (besides his little blue man), and he was good at giving kisses. He would even jump in my arms from the floor when I reached down towards him.

He was a good, funny little guy and my heart is broken that he’s gone.

Although we didn’t know it until a few months ago, Napolean had kept a huge secret from us his whole life - he was actually a girl. It took a sharp eyed neighbor to fill us in. We tried calling him a her for a while, but old habits die hard - and we finally decided that Napolean(a) would forever and always be a “he” to us. I’m sure he really didn’t mind.

His nicknames included “Poley”, “Snicky Nicky” and the occassional “Snickelodeon”.

His cage is forever empty now, and his food dish is sitting there on top, never to be replenished again.

The little jingle bell wooden toy that hung in his cage these past 3 years will be going into my memory box.  It’s hard - I keep thinking I hear his jingle bell rattling like he does, then it will hit me that he’s no longer there to rattle it.  I cried for hours last night.  Kevin said he even shed a small tear on his way home from work after I told him.  

We’re about to bury him in the backyard.  We made him a coffin out of Kevin’s size 14 shoe box, and wrapped Napolean up in a nice dish towel. 

He’ll be buried with his water bottle, and the little blue man that he loved so much in life.

(Voiced by 7 month old Jack-Evan, Typed by Mommy)

Tonight my mommy told me that her and daddy were going on this thing called a date.
It sounded scary so I grabbed mommy’s necklace so she couldn’t get away. 
She had never been away from me, so I wasn’t sure she could handle it. 
Mommy knew I was worried though, and explained to me what a date is.

Let me tell all of you so you can know too.

You see, when two people love each other, they get married.
After a  while they suddenly realize they no longer spend as much
time together anymore. At least, that’s what she said.

I’m don’t really believe that part because I’m with mommy all the time and we
see my daddy quite often.   Adults are very confusing!

And as mommy continued to explain to me what a date was, I became even
more convinced that adults are confusing.

Mommy said that people get dressed up when they go on dates.

I thought my mommy looked just fine in her sweatpants and tshirt?

Next, you drive with your date to a restaraunt.

I wanted to ask why was it a special thing to eat?  We eat every day.
(But I kept my mouth shut)

Then, the man holds the door open for the lady…

…and pays for dinner.

Again, I wanted to ask mommy why was this special.  
Isn’t daddy’s money her money already?

After ordering a little coffee to go with your creamer…

You pig out daintily munch on your meal while talking with your honey.

(Mommy said women daintily munch on food while on dates, but I’ve seen
mommy eat and I know she’s not dainty…)

After the meal, you are supposed to talk about everything, nothing, and a little
in between as long as the subject doesn’t revolve around home and children.

(HA!  I happen to know mommy called Grammy at least 2 times to check on me) 

After this thing called “a date” is over, you are refreshed and in love all over again.

At least…that’s what my mommy said.

I don’t know if I’m ready for dates yet…but…

I am glad they came back home to me!

THE END

….we’re taking our dog PupPup to their clinic be neutered. It’s pretty nice - they offer it for only $50. Our main vet cost over $200! His appointment is at 8:00, and we’ll be picking him back up this evening at 5 pm. He wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything after 6 pm last night, poor fellow. He has no clue what’s about to happen. I just hope it isn’t too painful.

In the meanwhile, we’ll be helping my dad clean his yard up - tons of family folks are coming for thanksgiving! Mom is the “matriarch” of her siblings….her 8 siblings…and we’re a very close family. I love when all of us get together, even though I am the youngest one of the “first-grandchild generation” that lives in SC. Almost all of my cousins are at least 8 years older than me….one of them is 44, I believe…and all of the others are at least 8 years younger than me. I’ve always felt like a baby around the older ones and a big, protective sister around the others. But such is life.

Afterwards, we’ll be leaving Jack-Evan with my mom and dad at 5 pm while Kevin and I take the SUV to pick up PupPup. He’ll need to be able to lay down in the back, so we have to remove the baby car seat base to make room to let the seat down.

If I didn’t have a baby, we’d also be headed to the Kelly Clarkson and Reba Macintire concert in Charlotte, North Carolina tonight at 8 pm. Kevin was the 10th Caller on a local radio station trivia contest and won two tickets this past Wednesday (they’re worth around a hundred bucks each).  He was so excited when he told me!  But after deliberating about 3.6 seconds, I knew I wouldn’t be able to leave my baby for that long yet. We’d be gone round trip about 7 hours! Kevin even offered to let me go alone with a girlfriend, saying he would like to see me go have fun for my birthday (Dec. 1), but I passed that up too. I just can’t fathom being away from Jack-Evan yet. In my mind, I know he’d be fine for that amount of time since he’s now accepts sippy cups and baby food, but in my heart, I knew it wasn’t him I was worried about - it was ME. I’d probably have a massive meltdown being away from him. It’s. Just. Not. Doable.  No way, no how.  Maybe when he turns 26 or something, but at just 6 months old?  nope.  Not even the fun of a power vocal duo concert could draw me away from my sweet little baby.  Plus, what if he decides not to take the sippy cup?  What if he just wants good ol’ fashioned mommy cuddles?  What if he starts crying and I’m not there to sooth him?  What if he says MumMum and I can’t hear his calls? what if he turns his head around justso in that way he does that’s so cute, looking for me, and doesn’t see me? What if he thinks I abandoned him?  His reasoning skills and sense of time isn’t too well developed ya know.  I just couldn’t bare it if one ounce of him missed me.  I just couldn’t bare it if one ounce of ME missed him.  He’s my little poopie head, you know.

Anyway, I’m making myself cry, silly sentimental momma that I am.  And I’m not even going anywhere!  Just the thought of being that far away sends me into emotional meltdown.

Luckily I have an understanding husband.  He found someone at work to gift the tickets to, and hasn’t said anything more about it.  He’s quite the nice guy.

So I better go.  Keep PupPup in your thoughts!

Three Pumpkins full of seeds:  $15.23

Portraits of a tiny Lion:  $48.99

New Baby to take trick o’ treating:  $20k

Knowing that you’re married to a man
who will do anything for the woman he loves? 

Priceless.

———————

NOTE:  This photo was taken on Oct. 29, 2006
at our church’s Fall Festival.
We had been married for 4 months.

The past couple of weeks, I’ve been in such a slump.  It may have been partly to do with the fact that I silently endured a nasty cold and worried to pieces that Jack-Evan would get sick.  Consequently, I began having nightmares at night - something that hasn’t really happened since the end of my pregnancy. 

Anyway, I began to feel disgusted with the day to day monotony of staying at home.  I mean, don’t get me wrong - I adore being a mother and being “free” from a job - but lately, a part of me began to feel useless because my efforts are no longer earning the cold, hard cash. 

I know, I know.  Home-making for a family is a very high calling and a wonderful duty bestowed upon us females.  I’ve read all the encouraging blogs and all of the “you can do it!” homemaking books.

But sometimes, the old feminist cultural mantras that somehow seeped into me as a teen will remind me of how much earning power I have in the business world.  Then, I’ll begin to wrestle with whether we’ve made the right decision for our family.  More money would do us good right now and remove that last bit of debt we’ve been hauling around the past 2 years.  It would mean our cars would be paid off within a few months, a lot more luxuries, more vacations, and more Sears portrait sessions followed by Starbucks cappucinos.

I know, I know. 

All of those are “materialistic” wants, money is not important, our family is who truly needs us, etc.  Yet, in the real world - the moments when we’re silently staring at the dog hair wafting slowly towards the red carpet that has already been vaccuumed 20 times this week - thoughts of abandoning the stay at home lifestyle do creep in.  And I’ve got enough guts to admit it too (unlike some of those blogs out there who make us feel like we should choose to be joyful at all times, under all conditions no matter what). 

And what may sound strange, is that I convinced myself that those feelings of wanting to return to the working world had to do with whether our lifestyle choice was the best possible one for our family. 

Many questions kept circulating through my head….. Will I be able to impart on Jack-Evan that love and relationships should take precedent over materialistic goods?  Or will he grow up with a subconcious bitterness that his parents were unable to afford things he wanted?  Am I prepared to watch my child “do without” or will a part of me yearn to spoil him with a room full of toys and gadgets as my parents did me?  Will I be able to handle the thought that Disney World may not be in the near future for my children?  As much as I dote on Jack, will I be able to say no with a clear concious when he begs for something I know a paycheck I earn could purchase for him?   Those questions sound silly when put in writing -especially since others have such straitforward black & white answers for them- but they’re very real feelings that I’ve been wrestling with as a parent. 

And besides, now that I’ve had a taste of bringing in a solid paycheck with all of it’s perks, it creates quite a dissonance when I’m scrubbing our toilets day after day.

So those were my thoughts this past month.  With plans of homeschooling Jack-Evan and being a long term full-time stay-at-home mom, it was bound to happen that the “but look at your earning power!” train of thought would try to take ahold of me.  And I almost succumbed to those terrible materialistic feelings. Almost.

A part of me even begun to feel like I was running around endlessly with no purpose in life.

Finally, the other night, I let everything out and used Kevin’s shoulder to bawl my eyes out on.  Thankfully he’s a terrific listener and doesn’t mind a wet sleeve. :)  He only needed to ask me a few questions to turn my heart around, back to where it should be -

“Do you truly want to go back to work?  If so, then you know you can, if that will make you happy. But, in the meantime, are you prepared for our son to end up accidentally calling a babysitter Mama?  In the end, do you really want to miss his first steps?  Do you really want to return to the stress of the business world?  Are you prepared to let someone else take over parenting our baby for more than 1/3rd of the day?”

His questioning and our subsequent conversation made me realize that what I was truly letting depress me was the skewed longing for abstract luxury, and the sinful jealousy that comes with that longing.  And furthermore, I realized that no, work was not what would make me happy.  What makes me happy is spending my days caring for my family and living a life free from constraints of a 9-5 job.  What makes me happy is waking up every morning and knowing that should anyone I love need me, I can be there in a moment’s notice.  What makes me truly happy is knowing that I am focusing all of my attention on nurturing a young life that will extend beyond my own, and affect future generations to come. 

No one will ever be able to raise my child like I do.  He is part of me, and I am part of him.  Kevin and I are the only people alive who truly have his best interests in mind along with the means to accomplish that vision.  No one can take the place of a mother in Jack’s life, and it has always been mine and Kevin’s intentions of ensuring that as a mother, I would be there 100% of the time as our children grow up.  It may not be a suitable choice for others, and various families may have differeing priorities - but for us, it’s our #1 priority.

When did I begin to lose sight of all that? 

I guess it was the moment I vaccuumed up the dog hair the 21st time that day and turned around to 5 baskets of laundry that needed to be put away.  Sometimes housework just seems so unforgiving!

But I’m back to my old self now.  Isn’t it wonderful what sharing a burden with someone you love - and with whom you have a common goal - will do for you?  Speaking my fears aloud to Kevin, gave me the courage to stamp out those feelings that were trying to destroy the life we are working together to acheive.

Were those feelings of wanting to return to work wrong?  No.  Being a woman with a career is not wrong if it is part of your family’s overall plan.  Were those feelings of wanting to lavish material goods on my child wrong?  No.  Every parent wants to give their child gifts and see excitement in their faces when they behold a new toy.  But for us - for our family and the lifestyle we want to create together and shelter our family under - the feelings were wrong.  Putting our child in a daycare and everything else that comes along with a dual-career family lifestyle would be as wrong for us as it would be if we were to actually beat our child….it’s just something we’d never consider doing as long as we’re healthy & able.

Anyway, so that uplifting conversation with Kevin took place over the weekend, and this week has felt so refreshing.  It seems like there is a renewed vigor between both of us in living the lifestyle we’ve chosen.  Yesterday, I even repainted our entire hallway, put on a new couch slipcover with a bit of luxury money we’d saved, and repaired the vacuum.  (Ok, ok…I’ll admit..Kevin repaired the vaccuum.  I just watched from far, far away). 

 Other odd jobs I’ve accomplished this week include cleaning & fully organizing Jack’s closet (all the way up to storing some 4T size clothes he’s been gifted!) and hanging some large picture frames I never quite got around to hanging.  All of that was done in the midst of regular home duties, nursing, and playing with Jack-Evan. 

And it was done with cheerful classical music playing in the background and candles burning.  Just like the home-making blogs suggest we do.  (I was barefoot though!  FlyLady would steal my feather duster if she knew).  

It feels so vigorating when you remember your “purpose” in life.

or… When’s the last time you raked your bedroom?

———————————-

The Scene:  Kevin is asleep on one side of me in our kingsize bed.  Jack-Evan has latched on the other side of me to nurse for a few minutes.

Time:  2:47 AM.

     Kev:  :::rolls over on back, begins to laugh::::  That tree branch almost got you didn’t it!

     Me:  What tree branch, sweetie?

     Kev:  :::continues to laugh::::  The one right there!  ::::points to the foot of our bed:::::

    Me:   :::decides to play along::::  Oh?  That one, huh?  Which tree did it fall out of?

     Kev:  :::stops laughing:::: Don’t be silly.  It didn’t fall, it’s a tree branch.  It’s on the ground.  :

:::Kevin wave off my question with his hand, seemingly annoyed:::

    Kev:   :::pauses::: I don’t know.  It almost got you though.

    Me:  ….but how did that tree branch get there?  What does it look like?  What color is it?

    Kev:   I don’t know.  It’s just a tree branch ok.  Just…I don’t know.  Nevermind.

…no?

Well ours is.

To date, he’s snatched 3 jars of peanut butter, 3 dozen Krispe Kreme doughnuts, 2 loaves of bread, a full pack of Combo pretzels, a roll of saltine crackers, a bowlful of pork & beans, and a prenatal vitamin.

It all happens innocently enough….

Usually I…uh..I mean..one of us…will be munching merrily on a snack or making a sandwhich - and absentmindedly lay it down on the counter or the coffee table.  Then, I…uh…one of us…will forget about said snack.

Later on, we’ll be outside, innocently enjoying ourselves, knowing full well that the dog has chosen to laze around indoors…and it will hit us.  Kevin and I will look at each other in horror, and, in unison, proclaim “PUP PUP!!!!!!!!  NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”.  Then there will be a mad cartoon-esque dash indoors where we’ll spy a happy…but full…Pup Pup, creeping stealthily back to his spot for a nap.  

Normally he leaves no trace of his misdeeds, other than a smeer of peanut butter on his ear or a piece of plastic fluttering through the living room….but, HA, this time I caught him. 

I caught him in the very act.

And what did I do? 

Stood back and laughed.

Fo’ shame.

….or…. Never ask a sleeping man questions.

—————————

The Scene:  Our Living Room. 

Guilty Party:  Kevin is napping on the couch, Jack-Evan is napping in my lap, and I’m randomly doing nothing on the internet.

Time:  Just a few minutes ago.

     Me:  Hey baby?  Kev… Honey? 

     Kev:   huh…uh..huh…what… ::::returns to snoring::::

     Me:  Hey!  You!

     Kev:   ::::opens one eye and looks at me in confusion::::

     Me:  Baby….why don’t you get on up from the couch and head to bed? 

     Kev:   Because there’s no more room!   ::::returns to snoring::::::