Big butt

Michael to Eva in the middle of trying a pushup, butt up: You have a big butt!

Eva: Hey! Moooooom!

Me: Michael, that's not nice to say (although I knew it wasn't meant in a mean way)--tell her she has a nice butt ;-)

Michael: You have a nice big butt Eva!

Heehee, I look over at Brad who's face is screwed up into a silent laugh. Love kids.

Getting excited about Halloween!

We have a neighbor friend who just turned 4 who thinks Eva hung the moon. She follows her around when we're outside. She and her dad brought Eva a gift yesterday--a fairy costume! She's decided that she will be a fairy for Halloween (and her Feb birthday theme will be fairies as of yesterday):

When Michael saw this outfit he decided HE had to be a boy fairy! Ok, so I'm thinking Peter Pan with wings...I show him what that looks like and he was all, "No way." I told him we would go to Target to see what we could find. Today we headed off to Target and this is what HE decided on:

Notice the light saber- that's what he chose first.
And then the Darth Vader costume.
And then the purple fairy wings.

Love it ;-)

Love the tiny toes peeking out from the bottom too.

He's already informed me that he wants a dragon to be a part of his costume too. Wondering if I'll be taking the Vader cape and altering it with painted fire before Halloween...









And this is what he looked like when he found out he can't wear it until Halloween:

Can he stick his lip out any further? So so sad!

CRAFT: Batik Art Aprons

The final product--cool huh?

 Ooooooo! This was fun, fun, fun for me and the kids loved it too! You can go to Pink and Green Mama's site to check out the details. Basically you use the glue as a resist. You draw your design in Elmer's Gel Glue. Michael asked me to draw rockets and planets and Eva asked for characters from a book. I drew with the glue on Michael's apron, he told me where he wanted everything. With Eva I sketched out the characters in pencil and she did 90% of the glue tracing. (Make sure you use a piece of foam core under this, the glue will seep through as will the watered down paint--the foam core soaks it up and also makes it easier to move it around)

Once the glue is dry (about 24 hours) it's time to paint! Michael did his a few days ago during one of our homeschooling days. We got to talk a lot about mixing colors and what would happen if you mixed this and that. (Eva painted hers this evening, I'll post when it's finished!) I mixed craft paint and water about 60% paint and 40% water in those wonderful Melissa and Doug no spill paint cups--love those things! Michael did a great job painting all kinds of colors--he did 99% of the paint, I filled in 5 or 6 little spots that hadn't been painted at the end. The amazing thing was that he was focused, involved, and excited for the hour it took him to paint the apron! Wow!

He loved it!

I put the apron outside to dry in the sun for the afternoon while we went out to play.

Next: fill your sink with hot water and let the apron soak for 15 min or so to soften the glue. Using an old toothbrush (or your hubby's if you're mad at him-hehe) scrub off the glue tracings in the hot water. Any paint that ended up on top of the glue comes right off and you are left with the white apron underneath (I used rubber dish gloves so I didn't burn my hands). Not all the glue will come off, the part that had soaked through the apron will still be there. Throw it in the washer and wash it on cold (probably whatever temp you'd like would work). I dried it with some old towels I didn't care about so it would fluff around the dryer.

Michael says he can wear it doing art or cooking! He's quite proud of himself! :-)


Lots of fun applications for this. Before I did the aprons with the kids I painted a pillow for Michael (below) to see how it worked. I looked around my art studio and found that I had some plain decorative pillow cases with a zipper so you could stuff a pre-made pillow into it. It was off white and 18x18 and a 20x20 pillow fit in perfectly. After I got it washed and dried I realized a few mistakes--shouldn't have put a small planet so close to his name, now it looks like his name is Michaelo haha. And I totally forgot to add the dark blue background to the left side of Saturn's rings. Oh well!

I'm making Eva one too. She asked for a regular pillowcase and again, characters from a favorite book. I'll post when I'm finished with it.


Some of the paint fades a bit with the washing but it kind of adds to the batik look--I like it. After the paint dries you might be thinking, "OMG! It's so stiff! But it softens up with washing and drying.

Give it a try, it's fun and easy!

Just out of the dryer.

And here it is stuffed!

I'm writing about makeup...really? Blinc Mascara!

I haven't consistently worn makeup in years--like 14 years. I've tried all the various drugstore brands but they all get a great big FAIL. Why bother when it doesn't stay on? The oils on my face takes the supposed bombproof waterproof mascara right off and deposits it under my eyes. In just a few hours I look like a raccoon. Eye shadow color is a faint grey with the majority of it in the crease of my eyelid. Concealer looks like I've taken a flesh colored crayon and drawn it into my circles--it's never the right color. The list goes on.

The other night I went online and searched around. I found something that lots of people were raving about called Blinc Mascara. They carry it at the Sephora in Boulder. I went there yesterday and bought it along with a bunch of other stuff I was talked into ;-) I was an easy sell. Just passed my 42nd birthday and showing it. The girl put some of the stuff on my to prove the colors were right and the rest I tried this morning.

Out of the shower, moisturizer and this amazing stuff: Dr. Brandt Dark Circles Away. Seriously? Where have I been? It takes the puffy under eye crap and greatly reduces it. It's a miracle! Morning and night. Laura noticed. Even BRAD noticed! Supposedly the circles go away over time. In the mean time:

Concealer for circles--make the Sephora girls find the color for you. My complexion has never been Peaches and Cream. It's Strawberries and Skim Milk. I needed help finding something to match THAT.

Clinique (some sort of redness reducing neutralizer type base)---put on with a brush, didn't look like I was wearing makeup--perfect. Toned down the super pink cheeks--bonus.

Can I talk about brushes? Why didn't anyone ever mention makeup brushes and how amazing they are? I've always had and issue with those annoying sponges, for base, for eye shadow, etc. But now? It all just glides on, looks great. WTH? Where have these been? Google "caring for makeup brushes", you need to wash them now and then. I bought one from Sephora for the base and then went to Michael's Craft Store and got some natural bristle brushes for eye shadow--much cheaper.

Eye shadow base was next. Again WTH? Where have I been? Put it on with a brush, put on your eye shadow and OH. MY. GOD the shadow stays on. It doesn't move, it doesn't fade and it doesn't crease.

Probably the most amazing stuff was the Blinc Mascara. It...NO SHIT...didn't come off. I wore it for 12 hours. I got hot out walking, I...are you ready? I took a nap! For an hour! Nothing moved. It was a miracle I tell you! Taking it off was just as they said on the website, put a warm wet washcloth on your eyes for maybe 15-30 seconds and then wipe it off. Looks like spider legs on the washcloth, kind of funny. It doesn't smear even when you take it off.

I even bought lipstick and lip liner. The liner (lined and filled in lips) stayed on for about 5 hours.

Who knew?

RAD-Love

You know RAD is lessening it's death grip on your kid and things are looking up when...

you comb out your child's hair and they say, "Ow." occasionally but don't have a melt down.

you shop for school clothes and can't wait to show them to her.

you ask her to go take a shower and she says, "Ok!" (instead of melting down)

you go on a spa weekend with friends and she says, honestly, "Have fun Mommy!"

you start looking forward to spending time with her.

when she falls down and skins a knee and comes running to YOU not another mother.

when you see another child hit her and your heart clenches. You wait to see if she's going to freak out and go after that kid, stand by herself crying or...look up and look for you. When you call her she comes running. You actually want to cuddle her.

you can take both kids to the store and not come out nearly in tears.

the thought, "THIS is what I thought motherhood would be!" runs through your head several times a day.

your RAD kid and your non-RAD kid get along more often.

your RAD kid tells you she likes to be happy! She used to say she liked being angry--she wasn't kidding.

you say, "Goodnight, I love you Eva." and she actually responds back with, "I love you too!"

you cry on your way home after dropping her at first grade.

I walked her to her line this morning. We stood around and waited for her teacher to arrive. I kept up a fairly constant patter about how cool this was, wondering what she was going to learn, who her friends were going to be, telling her about stuff I did in first grade, etc all the while I was watching her emotions play across her face: fear (silent), worry (silent), excitement (a little chatty), and full on panic with orphanage eyes (silent, looking forward at nothing, eyes up-lots of white under, mouth open, expressionless). Those four emotions pretty much looped the entire 15-20 minutes I was waiting with her. It broke my heart for her when I saw the orphanage eyes. That's her OMG-I'm-going-to-get-left-here-and-die look. I explained to her repeatedly and in various ways, "I'll be back at 3pm to get you. You'll come home and we'll go outside to play, then a shower, homework, dinner, bed." trying to give her the schedule she so needs when she's stressed. I found out that they were going to have PE first and told her about that so she'd know SOMETHING about her day. Nothing helped but I tried :-)

This was taken while we were still home and she was excited!

This summer has been incredible. Eva and I are really starting to click. She's letting go of quite a bit of her RAD behaviors which means I can be less strict with her. We laugh more. We're silly more. Michael is FLOURISHING. I think the constant melt downs and drama stunted him a bit but he's bouncing back and is absolutely amazing us with his ability to soak up everything we say, teach, show him. It's so cool.

Eva and Michael are getting along much more than they used to. When Eva takes a bath Michael can often be found sitting on a stool next to the tub and the two of them are talking and laughing. The first time I saw that I had to hold back tears.

A big bonding moment happened about a week and a half ago. Michael, Eva, and I went to the lake. We were splashing around in the shallows and then I decided to be brave (and not hover) and sit on the beach (I was about 10 feet from the water's edge and the kids were about knee to waist deep. Michael came up to have me put on his goggles. I was putting them over his head, looking up to keep an eye on Eva, adjusting the goggles, watching Eva, goggles on his face, watching Eva, last adjustment, looking up for Eva who was...bobbing up and down. Just far enough out she couldn't touch. Sinking, bouncing off the bottom, coming up for air, sinking, bouncing off, coming up for air. I saw what was happening, leapt up, raced to the water, ran until I was up to my knees (just then I heard the lifeguard behind me yell, "I've got her!"), dove in and swam like I've never swum before. 6 big strokes and I was there grabbing her. She coughed and half threw up over my shoulder and then clung to me gasping and kind of groaning. I could touch. I turn around and yell for Michael to stay where he was (at the edge of the water). I started slowly walking back, hugging her to me hard. God. My heart was pounding. I asked her what happened and she said she was trying to get her floaty ring and it kept going just out of her reach. I told her next time to just come tell me and I would get it for her, I knew how to swim, I could swim across the lake if I needed to! When I walked back up to where she could touch, she squirmed to get down. With not an ounce of fear, she went back to playing. I sat on the beach, dripping and shaking. The lifeguard caught my eye and gave me a nod. A few minutes later he said, "I love it when parents are faster than I am!"

One of the things about RAD is that the kid thinks they have to control everything, handle everything--like getting her own floaty, or bouncing off the bottom of the lake, not yelling, not flailing, just dealing with what was happening to her. Surviving. When Eva was getting ready to ride the bus for the first time last year (at her insistence), the night before she said, "I don't know how to drive a bus but I guess I'll just keep turning and turning the wheel..." Poor baby thought SHE was going to drive it! Needless to say we reassured her that she was just riding, not driving!

RAD kids also think they are going to be abandoned at any minute. She went to preschool in Jan 2010 (home in Sept 09) and she asked if we were going to bring her bed to school. If you think about an orphanage setting it makes sense. She asked something similar when she started kindergarten last August. Both times she was very matter of fact, the only thing that gave her away (when I look back) was the 'orphanage eyes'. Utter panic but completely expressionless. Before she could bring it up this year I told her that she was just going to school for school, not to live and that she would be coming home to her family every night. I told her fairly often. Even so, this morning she still had 'orphanage eyes'. :-(

Eva will have been home two years on September 12th.

Lots of emotions on my part: confusion, utter panic, fear, hate, fury, regret, depression, worry about Michael, thoughts of "disruption" (where you find another home--this was on my part, never Brad's), crying in the closet, acceptance, commitment, and then this summer: waiting for the other shoe to drop because things were getting better, and finally, falling into "like".

But today.

You know RAD is lessening it's death grip on your kid and things are looking up when...

you cry on your way home after dropping her at first grade and you realize you're crying because you care.
No...wait...that's not quite right...what is this feeling...love?
I love her?
I never thought I could love her but this feels like love.
I can't believe it.
I love her.
I love her.
I love Eva.

Well, was it all worth it? Amazingly...yeah.

Dreamy Mikey

We're finally starting to hear about what Michael is thinking about when he goes off into "Mikey Land"

Today at lunch he was staring off out the dining room window and I said, "Hey Michael, whatcha thinking about?"

He looks over at us with a smile and says, "Rocket ships" :-)

How many more crazy things can happen to me today??

Getting out of car at grocery a bottle of Purification essential oil falls out of my purse and SHATTERS on the blacktop--cutting my leg in the process. I bend over to pick up the broken bottle to throw away and my phone falls out-pick it up and put it back in. Leg bleeds for the next 30 min as I walk and dab at it through the store. 3 kleenexes of blood in my purse.

As I'm walking through the produce section--first section of the store, I reach into my purse to check the time on my phone. My finger gets cut on...WTF?? My phone screen is shattered and bits of glass are falling out of it. Shit. Finger bleeds for the next 15 min.

Get home. Get kids inside and start schlepping groceries. First trip with hands full of groceries--the toe of my sandal catches on the stairs going into the house and I crash to the ground, bashing my arm and knuckles of my left hand.

This is not my day.

Is this the best thing ever??

Oh yes it is.

Religion is like a penis.
It's fine to have one.
It's fine to be proud of it.
But please don't whip it out in public and start waving it around,
And PLEASE don't try to shove it down my children's throats.

Found Eva sleeping like this!

This is how we found Eva sleeping tonight :-) Dolls lined up on the left, hugging her huge teddy bear and an eye pillow over her eyes. LOL

No idiots

The bank gave me lollipops yesterday for the kids. Much carrying on in the back about how much they wanted them. We were heading for the grocery store where the kids are known to be hellions.

Me: If you guys don't act like idiots in the grocery you can have a lollipop.

Eva, quietly talking to herself in the back seat says repeatedly: I'm NOT going to be an idiot in the grocery store, I'm NOT going to be an idiot!

Oh yeah, I'm an awesome mom...