A Museum, a Park, a Beach, Repeat

O: Momma, are we starting the day, or ending the day, or in the middle of the day?

I love summer, or at least I used to, when I was a kid. As I trudged into adulthood it has started to mean less and less. Sure, it is warmer and it is light later into the evening, but gone is that free feeling of having nothing to do, nowhere to be. I no longer live in my swimsuit, my hair in an eternal matted pony tail. 

But here we are, at the beginning of O's second summer off from pre-school, and somehow, that tingly summer feeling is returning. This week I rolled down a hill, swam in the ocean, and ate ice cream for dinner. Our bathing suits are living on the line outside and haven't been fully dry all week. In a few days, we are going camping. We will return home, exhausted and that first post-camping bath will leave a dirt ring around the tub as satisfying as the trip itself. Summer is a time to be dirty, to roll in the sand, to eat cherries until your fingertips are stained red, to lay in the dirt on your belly and look for bugs, to lay in the grass on your back and watch the clouds. I'm ready. I suppose, if O and P want to join in, they are invited too. 

This summer, my recipe is this: a museum, a park, a beach, repeat. Every week, we are going to attempt those three things. That should leave plenty of time for cloud gazing, getting dirty, and cherry eating too. 

It Doesn't Take Much

O: The car is too hot. I won't get in the car. I guess we will just have to live here.

It was hot last week. No, scratch that. It was mind-boilingly, unreasonably, unacceptably hot last week. I wore my bathing suit cover-up in public because I couldn't imagine putting on real clothes. 

hot, sweaty, and cranky, even if she doesn't look it

One day, we went to Pamper and Play, and you should seriously check them out, and not just for their wonderful air conditioning.

air-conditioning and an adorable, tiny, retro-kitchen, and a wonderful staff that watches your children while you enjoy some peace in the PARENT'S LOUNGE (that is a real thing with wifi and coffee)

One day, we went to school and melted at the park and sniped at each other for the rest of the day, except while we had a french fry party on the floor in the girls' air-conditioned bedroom.

One day, we just stayed home. Now, we don't have a pool, heck, we don't even really have a yard. I had thrown away last year's kiddie pool the week before because someone small, blond, and adorable had thought that it would be fun to fill it with rocks and potting soil, and it was genuinely too gross to salvage.

Instead, I filled three plastic storage tubs with water, grabbed a ton of small cups and two grown-up paint brushes, and set them to work. 

P washed her precious rock collection.

O repainted my stairs.

Nothing like a fresh coat of water 

When they started to lose interest about two hours in, I pulled out a tray of ice and frozen teething toys.

They drew on the cement with half of it, and ate the other half. Win?

When that lost its novelty, we had popsicles. When O snuck the last bite of P's popsicle, it was time to come inside.  

There were a few casualties.  Poor Fred, the teddy bear, got an unexpected and un-needed bath. P did attempt to wash Sam, with Poor Fred as a sponge, much to Sam's displeasure, but all and all it was a very enjoyable day.

I often try to do too much, or even worse, I often feel bad about what I can't do, what they don't have. We have made this choice, to live in this city, to live in this small space, to forgo a yard, to not live in what, I image, is a more typical suburban neighborhood. Most days, I feel good about that choice and genuinely believe that there are positives that outweigh the negatives.

The day we stayed home during the heat wave was one of those days. It really doesn't take much. Most of the stuff is superfluous. In fact, it might even get in the way. Play is so much easier than we grown-ups imagine it to be. 

It doesn't take much

But I still really wish they had a garden. 

Last year's bounty, our closest garden approximation.

Kid Made Modern Art

O: I'm going to paint you a story. 

I went to Target to buy dog food, Elmer's glue, and some paper, and came out with a new pair of sweat pants, two tank tops, and a cart full of new art supplies, like you do.   They were so shiny and looked so full of possibilities, I just couldn't turn them down.  

I did, also, get the dog food.

We rummaged through the junk drawer for bottle caps, wine corks, and other bits and bobs to use as makeshift stamps for the large ink pads.  We scribbled and scrawled with the diamond shaped crayons.  

O marveled at how many shades of green her new paint set contained, enough to paint every leaf in the whole world a different color.  It is so easy to forget the beauty of a heavy, textured, blank piece of paper, the possibilities that it can contain.  

All of the supplies, including that exquisite blank piece of paper, are from a company called Kid Made Modern. They are high quality and reasonably priced.  They withstood the afternoon and have been lovingly tucked away for our next creative binge. I especially appreciate how beautiful, streamlined, and functional the packaging and supplies are.  The bold colors and simple forms lend themselves to freeform creativity. There is no need for instruction or guidance.  The beauty of the tools is inspiration enough.

No one asked about Winnie the Pooh, the location of the iPad, or the possibility of an extra snack, all afternoon.  That alone feels like a victory.  

Spring Cleaning

O: We can give those stuffed friends away to another family that will cuddle them.  

It is officially spring, and somehow, here in Los Angeles, that means it has been greyer and colder than this winter ever managed to be.  We are in the middle of a great clear-out and clean-up: tossing out, donating, and scrubbing. 

helpers

It feels good to start fresh, shedding the layers of dirt and clutter.  It feels good to role-model the importance of letting go of things that are no longer useful, to teach, by example, how you can hold a moment in your heart while letting go of the physical manifestation of that moment.

I held in my hands today, the clothes that each of my children wore when we brought them home from the hospital.  O's was a tiny newborn onesie, striped with green.  I remember how her skinny arms barely filled out the long sleeves.  I had purchased a grey, long-sleeved newborn outfit for P, but it never would have fit her and was much too warm for the early August heat. P came home in a plain, white, cotton onesie, sized three months.  I let go of a lot today.  

I kept those two onesies.   

Shake, Rattle, Roll, Repeat

O: I missed it.  I missed the earth shake. 

We had an earthquake this week, a pretty good shake.  O slept through it and P was eating a banana and therefore, barely noticed. We live right at the epicenter, so while family and friends who live relatively close by barely registered it, we certainly felt it.  It was not the biggest quake I've ever experienced, I grew up here and remember Northridge, but it was the first time I can remember that an earthquake really scared me.  I lay in bed afterwards wondering, if this had been the big one, or if it was a precursor to the big one, what would we do, where would we go?

We are prepared.  We have supplies and water in a safe spot.  We know how to turn off the main gas line.  We have a point of contact outside of California that all of our family knows to get in touch with in case we can't call within the state.  We have a spot, a local park, where we would meet if we were separated and  our home wasn't safe. Still, it is different, somehow, with two tiny people.  The idea that my arms holding them wouldn't be enough to keep them safe keeps me up at night.  There will be another one, it is only a matter of time.  

planning to add some toys and basic art supplies to our home and car kit 

This weekend, we are going to check all of our supplies, pull them out, replace what might need replacing and add a bottle of whiskey for good measure.  This rumble was a good reminder.  We live on a living planet.  There are things we can do to be ready when she sneezes.  

Here is a list of resources that Jim (code name: Captain Safety) used to help put together our home and car emergency kits and some resources on teaching children about earthquake safety:

United States Geological Survey: Talking to kids about earthquake safety

Seven Steps to Earthquake Safety: What to do before, during and after an earthquake

List of Recommended Items for a Basic Emergency Kit

Our Pre-packed Emergency Kit -We purchased a kit from this company for a family of four, but we have supplemented it with other things from the resources above.  

We Only Have One Refrigerator

O: Not that one, Momma.  That one is the dust cloud that made all the dinosaurs get dead.  

K: How about this one?

O: Yeah, you can cut up that one.  It's just a dragon eating a princess. 

painting stance

O is as prolific as Picasso. And sure, each painting is a precious delicate flower and I’m going to save all of them. Except, I’m not. We live in a very, very small space, and we like it that way, but it means that choices have to be made and clutter must be vanquished. Here are four of the ways we’ve come up with to deal with the artistic output.

Warning: the below suggestions involve the destruction of your tiny one’s masterworks. We generally go through the stack together and pick a few that are not to be altered. I generally lean towards ones that O can tell me a story about; O gravitates toward anything sparkly. If you are a completist and cannot imagine parting with even one of these treasures, in the interest of your home not becoming the next episode of Hoarders, let me recommend ArtKive, an app that lets you photograph, tag, and date your kid’s work. They also make lovely coffee table books from the images. It is quick and easy, and the app is free.

and now P is getting in on the act

1. Wrapping paper-We usually give books and those large preschool paintings are just right for wrapping picture books.

2.Thank you cards-Just find something blank on the back and cut a rectangle, fold in half and write a note in the middle. Bam, homemade thank yous.

Bonus: This year O wasn’t going to go to school on Valentine’s day because we were planning a long weekend. We didn’t pack in time and ended up deciding to send her at the last minute. I grabbed a stack of paintings that leaned red, cut out twenty hearts, and she scrawled her O on the back. The cheapest (read free) and most environmentally friendly Valentines ever.

2. Packing material-Ok, I know, this one hurts a little, but remember Artkive, and remember Hoarders. It makes it a little easier as you are crumpling up those paintings and shoving them in a box. Plus, I can not tell you how many thank you notes we have received that have said more about the packing material than the gift. 

3. Papier Mâché-Cut long strips of the paper, blow up a balloon, dilute some white school glue with water and go to town. This is a messy proposition. A drop cloth is advisable. Outdoors is preferred. Younger kids like to just layer the sticky pieces on the balloon, but you can encourage older kids to create masks. You can always go back and cut eyes and mouths with a pen knife once your creations are dry.  Note: any kind of shiny paper is not a great choice, the closer you can get to the look and feel of newsprint the better.

Full disclosure: This doesn't actually solve any problems, but instead creates a new one.  Now you have to throw out three dimensional pieces of art instead of just paintings, but, hey, it kills an afternoon.  

4. Grandparents-There is no shame in making them someone else's to throw away.

or they might just keep them forever

Any storage tips from the parents who keep it all? 

Growing Green on Concrete

O: When my sweet pea plants turn into sweet peas, I'm gonna do a sweet pea dance. 

We love living in Los Angeles, but I would be lying if I said there was nothing I wish I could change.  I wish people drove down our narrow street like it was a residential area, which it is, instead of like it was a highway, which it isn't.  I wish I knew the names of all of my neighbors and we would congregate on the front porch for cocktails and a catch-up on a warm summer evening.  I wish my girls had a garden, a verdant hideaway, where they could chase butterflies, make mud pies, hunt for fairies, and grow sweet peas. 

There are gardens in LA, beautiful public spaces to roam, private back yards of multimillion dollar homes, and, even, community gardens, where you can rent a patch of earth to call your own and get your hands dirty.  

Generally, we, the renters, are left with potted plants, sad window-box herb gardens, and that lush basil that I buy at Trader Joe's every few months that makes my kitchen smell like heaven, until I denude the poor bastard to make pesto.  

Out of my own sheer stubbornness, we do have a garden, a little plot of dirt, a raised bed that is intended to sit on harder-packed earth.  Ours sits on the concrete pad outside our dining room window.  The roots of the plants often creep out from under the forest green plastic, seeking soil, but we forge on.  We have grown kale (attacked and desiccated by cabbage worms), tomatoes (never ripened), pumpkins (this was acknowledged, in advance, to be folly), and cucumbers (of which we harvested 3, making them approximately forty-six dollars each). 

This bull shit is expensive

(the above contains actual bull shit)

This season, it is sugar snap peas.  As we scattered the seeds, O was already planning for the harvest, listing the names of dear friends who would share in our bounty. I love, at times, how short her memory can be, how the failures of the past months don't even register in the face of this new and hopeful venture.  The tiny green shoots have been measured daily, their growth tracked by comparison to her tiny index finger.  The first bloom, (see, I can be hopeful too) will be an event, celebrated with leaping and dancing.  

 We have a garden, not the garden I imagined, not the garden I would hope for, but a garden none the less.  

It is pretty good for making mud pies

Mostly, we just make a mess, but sometimes we make magic.  

When those sugar snap peas are harvested, dear friends, be they five or five hundred, they will be the best sugar snap peas you've ever tasted.  I'll keep you posted.