thirty days hath September

I always end up feeling shorted on the months that only have thirty days- it seems like a bit of a scramble at the end to fit everything in.  (You can imagine the trouble I have in Februrary...)

This month was no different, however as I look back over our pictures, I feel pretty pleased with all we crammed in, unfinished lists aside.  

- We hosted a Labor Day impromptu neighborhood pool party with two inflatable pools.  And suddenly, what used to make us look like weirdos is totally cool.  

- We all survived Arthur's first week of preschool and baked cookies to celebrate.  

- We went to Virginia to visit my family, our best friends, and Arthur's three favorite lady friends.  It was cool and fall-like and just the way to kick off the season. 

- We set up the tripod and took a few family pictures after I happened to need one and realized that the only decent pictures of the three of us were taken over a year ago.  Arthur was actually wearing his flag shirt in our last family photo as well, which may cause a bit of speculation about his wardrobe selection.  I promise he has at least three other shirts.  

- I tried out Hello Fresh, a service that delivers meal ingredients with recipes to your door.  It was amazing.  I can't stop thinking about how great it was and plotting when I can use it next.  I took lots of pictures of the whole process and am planning a thorough write up on that soon.  

If you can believe it, we also traveled to Texas, hired a shop helper, and redid the laundry room.  Not bad for only thirty days.  

I'm already pumped for October and ready to see what we can accomplish with that extra day!

outtakes

I like to think that Steve and I have perfected the art of a flannel scarf photo shoot in late summer. We have our go-to spots for the best backgrounds.  The boys each have a vest that matches the majority of the scarves.  We set the camera so that I can literally snap multiple pictures per second. After all, every second counts when you're roasting your family members.

So lest you look at the following photos and think that they were taken over the period of several hours, I would like to go on record and say that I took about 400 pictures during this particular session and the length of time between the first and the last was exactly 15 minutes.  But it was a dramatic 15 minutes...

The obligatory wave to the neighbors.  It seems like every year, someone new moves in next door.  I'm sure we're not scaring them off or anything.

"If I could just loosen this thing Mom wrapped around my neck, I'm sure I'd feel better..."

The wet noodle

"I know!  I'll pretend to be asleep in Dad's scarf!"

"No, really, I'm sleeping, guys."

"Are you still taking pictures of me in this blue scarf?!"

"Maybe if we climb this tree, we can get away from her..."

Done smiling

The good news is that we got plenty of lovely pictures as well.  I'll probably do a quick rundown of the scarf options this year in the next week or so, but they are all posted in the shop right now, if you'd like to see them sooner!

success is 95% attitude

In what can only be called a back-to-school miracle, I am blogging twice this week.  I'm still not sure if you should get used to this or not.  

So this was Arthur's first day of preschool.  He is obviously projecting an enviable level of confidence, and I think it served him well.  He came home every day sweaty, covered in paint, and exhausted.  Not just regular exhausted either.  One day, I had to wake him from his nap because it was almost dinner time.  After I had opened the curtains and spoken to him several times, he rolled over, looked me dead in the eye, and said, "I did not call you yet."  Yesterday, just to make sure I understood, he told me that he was going to sleep until dinner time and then all night and then all the next day too.  Translation: don't you dare wake me.  

I know how he feels.  Somehow preschool is exhausting to me too, and I'm not even going.  I find myself completely done for the day by 8 pm, unable to even carry on a conversation.  This morning, when I reminded Arthur that there is no school today, he announced that he would like to stay in his pajamas at home, all day.  And I thought, "You read my mind, kid."  

While Arthur has been busy learning Spanish and painting, I have worked my outstanding order list down to a very manageable size.  I've also been posting the new flannel scarves in the shop, sorting through the hundreds of pictures from our photo shoot last weekend.  There are some really awesome ones, and also some absolutely hilarious ones.  I will be doing a blog post with some of the outtakes next week- they're just too funny not to share.  

We're looking forward to a very low-key weekend here.  A few errands, a few chores.  Hopefully lots of time at home.  I'm making Polenta Skillet Eggs with Chorizo for dinner tonight and I've stashed some surprise ice cream treats in the freezer.  Mainly, I just want to celebrate that we made it through the week and regain enough stamina to do it all over again.  Isn't that what weekends are for?  

brave enough

We're enjoying the long weekend here.  Arthur loves to ask before bed if Steve will get to stay home the next day, and we both love it when the answer is "yes".  I was explaining that Steve does not have to go back to work until Tuesday, when Arthur goes to school.  His first day of school, to be exact.

A: Where will you be when Baba is at work and I'm at school?

me: I'll be right here at our house.

A: You be lonely?

me: ....well...yes.

And all at once it hit me- motherhood is an exercise in loneliness.  From the moment I see my children's sweet faces on that screen, I will start being lonely for them and it will just get worse and worse as the years go on.

It's different with Steve, thankfully.  No matter how much I miss him while he's at work or wherever he is- he always comes back to me.  In the end, just like the beginning, it will be the two of us, together.

Not so with children.  They leave you and leave you a little more each year.  And that is as it should be, but it still is daunting to think about all that leaving.

I still haven't been a parent for very long- 16 months now- but I find myself constantly thinking, "I don't know if I'm brave enough to be a mother."  I think this when I picture dropping Arthur off at school for the first time, when I see him almost get squished under a falling piece of furniture, when I think about having to deal with loose teeth.  To be perfectly honest, a big part of me thought that the bravery was in the getting- the hoops to jump through and flights to catch and navigating a foreign country.  But that wasn't it at all.  The bravery must lie in the letting go, a little bit each day.

On Friday, we ran errands all morning before meeting Steve for lunch.  Arthur wore a sticker that he found in a recent fabric delivery that says "JACKPOT!  You got the end of the bolt."  He wore it with pride and a lot of people noticed it.  I found myself giggling at the irony and wanting to give him a JACKPOT! sticker to wear every day. We really hit it big with that kid.

Here's to all the moms (and dads) who need an extra bit of bravery this week.