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...my latest pages for Studio Calico's Field Guide Kit. Blogging and scrapbooking go so well together, it's so easy to scrapbook when the story is already written:
(This was my Pinterest-inspired page, here is the inspiration piece).
I don't want Clara's scrapbook to scream PINK, so I love the subtle colors April always chooses for Studio Calico.
iPhone self portrait. Copyright Charlie Kurz 2011.
Last weekend we unceremoniously said goodbye to Charlie's binky. I figured since Suri Cruise is five and still sucking on her's, we're way ahead of the curve. (I take all my parenting cues from Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise).
The funny thing is, now that it's gone, I realize it was more for us than for him. There have been moments in the last week that I've missed the binky, but I don't think he has.
...I laugh when I think back on the days when it used to take me a few days to create one scrapbook page. Those days are history. Giving birth has done wonders for my scrapbooking speed.
These are pages and projects I made for the September Elle's Studio gallery.
Hard to believe this was almost a year ago. He seems so little, he's a different boy this year!
I finished this the night before Clara was born:
...and this? This is now ringing SO true. I should memorize it and say it every night before bed. But that would require brain cells I. just. don't. have.
"First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.
May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.
When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.
Guide her, protect her
When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.
Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels.
What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.
May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.
Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.
O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.
And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.
And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back.
'My mother did this for me once,' she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. 'My mother did this for me.' And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes."
Tina Fey, Bossypants
...that I don't think about her.
...But I find myself thinking about her even more these days, as things from Charlie's baby days make their way back into our lives and I spot a golden hair floating through the air.
...are the ones you buy yourself.
This arrived today. It is perfectly petite and I love it. It has a Big C and a Little C. For my two C's.
...came home, and set up the camera on the timer (after cleaning up breakfast, throwing in the laundry, and ordering Clara's birth announcements - I can't lose my supermom badge). I got one photo I liked, and here it is:
(I started writing this post on my second day home alone with the kids. Kids! I have plural children! But alas, am not finishing it until today. Thus is my life.)
...Day two presented a whole new kind of challenge. Not only getting us up, but getting us up, dressed, AND out the door by a specific time. Day two was Charlie's first day at Mother's Day Out (or "school" as we moms like to call it). So I figure, feed the baby, get her asleep, get her in the carseat, and go. (Clara has not yet realized how truly awesome it is to fall asleep in a carseat). But, as I am learning, on every episode of Survivor: Motherhood, nothing goes as planned. It's like you think you'll just have to eat worms and Jeff Probst shows up with a whole snake.
We get dressed and outside and Charlie's wandering around the car because the poor kid (and his mother) can't remember that his carseat is on the other side of the car now and both of us usually spend the first five minutes outside doing some toddler version of a Chinese fire drill going from side-to-side. Then it starts to rain. Not like a little dribble. Lately, Maryland weather doesn't do dribble. She only does full-on monsoon. Fun.
We're driving to "school," and the baby's wailing in the backseat, because the only binky she'll take is attached to my hand in the form of my pinky.
As we pull up to the church, I realize I have no rain gear. For anyone. All these kids marching in in their cute little raincoats and matching boots, and there's Charlie in his polo and New Balance kicks. I might as well have a bumper sticker that says, "Sleep deprived and stupid." But look! I managed to put EARRINGS on this morning!
Charlie gets to his classroom and immediately realizes that I am about to abandon him and someday he will spend hours with a shrink analyzing this day.
I wait out in the hallway (after I had to go back into the classroom because I'd left my keys on the table) until I hear his crying subside.
Why, yes, Charlie's mom, the professional scrapbooker? Yeah, she forgot his picture for his little bucket.
And yes, Charlie's mom, the professional scrapbooker, has this one picture of her son on his first day of "school:"
(That's Clara next to him under the cover of her oh-so-waterproof thermal blanket). Charlie jumped for joy, literally, when he saw me at pickup time. And then he squealed when he saw Clara. If I could read his mind, I'm pretty sure he was saying, "They came BACK! They LOVE me!"
It was a tough morning. At one point I thought of my past life and the meetings I'd had with major executives, I thought of conversations I'd had with presidential candidates (ok, so it was Ross Perot, but he did run for president), and how they were less stressful and required less logistical thinking than that day. But, at the end of the day, as Charlie sat and pointed to all the animals in his coloring book that I had taught him, I remembered that there will never be a job as rewarding as being his mom. Or Clara's mom. Ever. I mean, I taught the kid what a giraffe is.
...Is that they never know a day like September 11.
