Second Birthday

Sweetcheeks, originally uploaded by JenSig.

Dear Isla —

I fell woefully behind in doing monthly updates for you, so it's been a couple of months since my last one. This weekend you turned two (or. as you like to say, "two minutes"), and I am just completely blown away by the little person you are becoming.

You know pretty much the entire upper case alphabet, and all your numbers from one through twelve. Recently, we were playing with this little wooden clock, where the numbers are on differently shaped and colored blocks. We had laid all the blocks down on the ground, and I was asking you where certain numbers were and where they go, and you would locate the correct number and put it into the clock face. We put in the two and the three, then I asked you about the six. which you found and placed with a happy grin. Then I asked you where the nine was, and you looked around you for a minute, trying unsuccessfully to find the "nine" block. Finally you took the "six" block out and turned it upside down, telling me, "nine." Clever, clever girl.

You absolutely LOVE to sing and dance, and you know most of the words to the theme songs of your favorite TV shows, like "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse," "Little Einsteins." and "Jake and the Neverland Pirates." I absolutely love to listen to you singing (and humming, when you don't know certain parts) along, and you wiggle your butt and dance a little happy jig — unless you suddenly become aware that you have an audience, in which case you become suddenly a little bit embarrassed and won't perform. (This is why I have yet to get any video evidence of you in action.)

You talk SO much, all the time, just like your sister did before you. All day long I am treated to a running commentary of the day's activities, and you LOVE to say "bye bye" to things — like when we leave the house you wave and say, "Bye bye, house! Bye garage! Bye lights!" (This last is because of all the Christmas lights — another thing you absolutely adore.)

You are sweet and affectionate, eager to give hugs and kisses and "loves," and you are quite a little mother to your babies and stuffed animals. You got a little puppy for your birthday, a stuffed toy that walks and barks and whimpers, and you just love to cuddle your puppy close, carrying it around with you under one chunky arm.

This morning I took you for your two year checkup — as has been the norm with you for some time, you are WAY off the chart for height — at 38 inches, you are two inches taller than Edie was at the same age, and SHE was considered tall, too. You are wearing mainly 4T clothes now, and people just can't believe you are only turning two! I think your size and the fact that you can speak so well make people think you are older than you are.

One of the things I had been wanting to do with you by the time you were two was to get rid of the binky — you had become WAY to dependent on having that thing in your mouth, something I never had to deal with with Owen and Edie. So recently we just began to tell you that you could only have it at bedtime (or naptime). It only took a day or so of you fussing, and now every morning when I go to get you from your crib, you hand me your binky and say, "bye bye, binkie!" I know that this probably means you could get rid of the thing entirely, but I'm just so proud of you for handling the separation from the "plug" so very well.

I say this all the time — but I just feel like I have been so very blessed with all three of my sweet babies — you are a complete ray of sunshine in my life, baby girl... your smile just lights up my world.

Happy birthday, little monkey.
Love, Mama

My $500* Bedroom Makeover

I have been busy since school started up, folks. I have been wanting to revamp my bedroom for some time now, and just hadn't made the time to do it, so I decided to begin when school began, and I did — on the very FIRST day of school I got busy.

First, some "before" shots and a little info. I knew I needed to do this remodel on a shoestring, so I budgeted myself $500 for the project. Now, I am painfully aware that $500 is not MUCH when one wants to redo an entire room, but I am nothing if not creative and thrifty, so I will explain how I spent (and budgeted) my money at the end of this post.

The bedroom BEFORE, from a couple of different angles:

The furniture is some that Terry brought to our marriage, having bought it himself as a young adult. While there is nothing particularly WRONG with the furniture, it has always seemed to me a little dated and '80s-looking, but I couldn't afford NEW furniture (particularly on my tiny budget) so I decided to try the next best thing: paint and hardware. This picture shows WHY I was ready for a furniture makeover; both bedside tables looked like this on top, from many years of carelessness with coasters. (Note to readers: USE your coasters!):

The handles on the original furniture were these molded wood things that, again, had nothing particularly wrong with them but to me dated the furniture about 25 years:

Sometime in August, I decided to see what would happen if I pried one off with a screwdriver and a hammer:

The result, as you can see, was problematic at best. Because the handles were actually a solid unit that sat into a recessed hole in the front panel of the furniture, I would need to find something that would be large enough to actually COVER this hole. I searched for a couple of weeks to no avail (and was beginning to severely regret having popped this one off, since I wasn't sure I would be able to fix it and then Terry would REALLY be angry with me)... and then Terry and I took a little weekend getaway in late August, to Palm Springs. What does Palm Springs have to do with this story? Well, we stayed at the über-chic and fashionable Viceroy Hotel, styled and designed by none other than Kelly Wearstler, and it was while relaxing in the air conditioned comfort of our room that I had my "aha" moment. The furniture in the room featured large mirrored handles. Most were VERY large (and probably custom made), but the one on the mini-fridge looked like EXACTLY the right size for what I had in mind. With that, I began a search on the Internet and, lo and behold, found exactly what I was looking for at a mirror supply company. Even better? They were on sale for $5 a pop — cheaper than MOST standard furniture hardware. 

Now, I did not initially tell Terry my intention of putting mirrored handles on the furniture. Terry tends to be a disbeliever until he sees a finished product, which has often been the case when I have begun a home improvement project. So oftentimes I don't really tell him my plan until it's kind of too late, and then he will grudgingly admit that he likes it. So when the box of mirrored handles arrived and he realized my intent, he was seriously doubtful, but by that point I had already popped off several more handles from the furniture so there wasn't much he could say about it at that point anyway. So I crossed my fingers that the end result would look as cool as I THOUGHT it would... and pressed on. 

So on the first day of school — August 31, to be precise — I dragged the first bedside table out to the driveway to take a stab at painting it. Now, a side note here; originally I intended to spray paint the furniture, but after two coats I could tell I was going to hate it. It's difficult to see in these photos, but the wood has a fairly heavy wood grain, and the spray paint was not thick enough to fill it in entirely, leaving these TINY little black dots of unfilled areas — it looked like pepper. So I scrapped the spray paint idea and switched to regular old brush-on paint — I splurged and bought the kind with the primer included. Woo hoo, big bucks! 

I was pleased enough with the end result (and its mirrored handles, shown close up below) that Terry agreed it was looking "kind of okay." I think he still was hesitant to put all his excitement into the project, but was thinking it wouldn't be a COMPLETE loss, mirrored handles or no. 

So the furniture was well under way. I painted one piece at a time, so I only had to empty out the drawers of one item at a time. I would say overall it took me about a week and a half to get the furniture all painted — two side tables, a dresser and an armoire. The headboard is the last piece to be painted, which I haven't actually done yet, because just this weekend I tackled the other big part of my makeover: the brown wall. 

I have been wanting to paint one wall in my room chocolate brown almost since the day we moved into this house THIRTEEN years ago, and Terry resisted me for many years, fearing it would make the room too dark — but the room has very high ceilings and transom windows, so we don't have a problem with lightness in the room. So I pushed and pushed, until finally he relented (but only after seeing his MOTHER'S chocolate brown bedroom wall, which she painted about four years ago). This is how long it has taken me to get this project rolling. So I brought home a bunch of paint swatches and stuck them on the wall to see what spoke to me. I finally chose a color called Wooden Swing, which is a very nice, mid-tone brown that blends well with the rest of the room. 

Also, meanwhile, I had been on a shopping spree, and got new lampshades, a new mirror, new bedding, and a new rug (where previously there had been NO rug) — pricing breakdown below. And after painting one wall brown this past weekend, here is the end result:

There are still a couple of things to finish — mainly redoing the photo layout on the wall to the side of the bed (I want to completely reorganize this) and painting the headboard (which is currently in the garage) — but for the most part it's done. And the best part? Terry loves it. 

Here's how I spent my money (and why there's an (*) next to my $500 budget in the title)

Furniture handles: 18 @ $5.05 = $90

Paint (furniture and wall): $76

Mirror from Homegoods: $40

Bedding and throw pillows from TJ Maxx: $184 

(note: the knitted throw pillow was an old pillow I had that I just knitted a little sweater for. Easy peasy!)

Rug: $150* — but technically free since I bought it with Target gift cards I had been hoarding

Lampshades: 3 @ $10 (clearance!) = $30

Mirrors for tops of side tables: $65

Glass for top of dresser: $65

Grand total: $700 — minus the $150 for the "free" rug, I spent $550 — slightly over budget, but I think I did pretty darn well. 

So... what do you think? 

Monthly Newsletter — Month 21

IMG_3547, originally uploaded by JenSig.

Dear Isla,

Oh my goodness, you have grown in such leaps and bounds in the past few weeks! Suddenly you speak in sentences! You demand things! You have a sense of humor! You feel remorse! It's hard to keep track of all the new tricks up your sleeve, but I'll try and recall a few here.

First — your sense of humor. You are FUNNY, little girl, and the best part is you KNOW it. One of the new things you do now is when I go to get you out of your car seat or stroller or something you suddenly pretend to be sleeping; your eyes are closed and your mouth is pursed with a slight pucker. Then you wait for me to say, "Oh, look! Isla is sleeping! Shhhh!," at which point you open your eyes and burst out laughing, thinking you played a trick on me.

You are speaking more and more, as I said, even using simple sentences. The other day we were looking for something, and when I asked if knew where it was, you held your two hands up in the air and said, "I don't KNOW!" Now, mind you, your speech is still not very CLEAR — this came out sounding more like "I wo WO" — but you and I both knew what you were saying. You also will call out things like, "Daddy, where ARE you?" And the best one that you say (generally when prompted) is "I love you," which comes out sounding like "I wuh woo." Makes my heart melt every single time you do it.

You also know about 8 letters of the alphabet — all of the vowels and several consonants as well. Smart, smart girl.

You absolutely adore Owen and Edie, and you get so excited when it's time to pick up "O" and "Deedee" from "cool." I'm sure that being without them for most of the day, now that school has begun, must seem odd for you, although you do seem to enjoy not having to fight for what you want. Owen recently started sitting with you on a skateboard, both of you wearing little helmets, and he wraps his arms around your middle and the two of you coast down the cul-de-sac, at which point you immediately yell for "mo mo mo!" You love it immensely when the big kids play with you, and you seem to be a bit of a thrill seeker, attempting to ride scooters and skateboards and anything else the big kids are doing.

You also generally understand when you are in trouble and you also often realize that you deserve it — I know this because when you get scolded you will hang your head and look at your toes before muttering, "sorry" ("toddy") and then you usually offer a sweet little hug, as if to emphasize that you really are sorry.

You are such a delight in all of our lives, little one. Every day brings new adventures, and each day I try and remind myself what a blessing each moment with you (and your siblings) is.

Love, Mama

Three thousand two hundred eighty-five

DSCN1759, originally uploaded by JenSig.

Dear Owen,

3,285 — that's the number of days (give or take) that you've been alive on this planet. That many days ago, I had just given birth to you, shortly after midnight, after going through a preposterously long and intense labor. And from the moment I laid eyes on you, I was enchanted.

From the very beginning, you gripped my heart so completely, you, with your little bald head and sweet disposition, and I have delighted in watching you grow over the past nine years into a delightful, wonderful, intelligent, sensitive and kind little man.

You have continued to amaze me with your intellect and thirst for knowledge. We discovered after this year's state testing that you read at a sixth grade level (and you only just started third grade) and you excel even more in math. You love any kind of games that involve using your smarts, and this summer we introduced you to the fun of Yahtzee, and you get such a thrill out of playing it.

But you are also a very typical 9-year-old in so many other respects as well... you love video games and any kind of new technology (like our family iPad or playing on the Internet). You are generally pretty good about trying most foods and are open to new things while remaining stubbornly resolute about others. You eat a crazy, inordinate amount of ketchup. You love chocolate.

This summer, you went back to surf camp, and though you began the week a little apprehensive of the experience, you jumped headlong into it, embracing and challenging your own fears, and now it's all you talk about, asking Daddy when is the next time he will take you surfing.

You are a fantastic big brother (most of the time) to your two sisters, being pretty nurturing with baby Isla — though you and Edie sometimes butt heads, too... I suppose it's because you two are closer in age. But you are also kind to her as well, and you generally give her a sweet hug and kiss goodnight, and you are always there for her if she is sad or gets hurt.

As for me, I delight in watching you most when you are deep in thought, because you are prone to do so, and I find myself wondering where your imagination has taken you this time, or what profound thoughts are running through your head.

Recently you asked me when you could have a cell phone, to which I replied that you would not have one for a VERY long time, like high school. Then you asked if it could be an iPhone, and I laughed and said no, probably not. You sat in the back of the car thinking it over for a few moments, then you said, "Well, you never know what the future holds, Mommy." Sage words, my friend. Sage words, indeed.

Nine years ago you made me a mommy for the first time. It has been the most incredible nine years of my life, little buddy. I love you so!

Love, Mommy

Kids Room Swap

Everyone who knows me knows that I love a good home improvement project. The pics in this post are to show what I've got myself up to earlier this year: swapping the kids' bedrooms.

When I was pregnant with Isla, we didn't know whether she was a boy or a girl, so we waited to do much to the kids' rooms before knowing what the eventual dynamic would be (two girls or two boys). At that time, Edie was in the smaller of the two kids' rooms, and Owen had the slightly larger one. Once Isla was born, of course, I realized that at some point the girls should have the larger room (since they have to share) but I was too busy and tired to tackle it immediately, so I crammed the girls into Edie's already-smaller room, and figured I'd wait until I really wanted to make all that effort. (And I do mean CRAM — Edie's old daybed took up nearly the entire wall opposite the crib (which we had to pull down from the attic), leaving NO room for her beautiful dresser — which meant it got relegated to live INSIDE the closet.) Both rooms would require a major overhaul, so I wanted to make sure I was ready to deal with the mess.

In the spring of this year, I decided to tackle the project, first basically emptying Owen's room of everything except his bed and dresser (and piling ALL that stuff on the floor of my own bedroom, up against the walls!) and began patching and painting, choosing a soft, buttery yellow for the girls' new domain. After a couple of weeks of mess, the girls' room was complete, and they moved into it, all excited about their girly retreat.

Owen's room would have to wait a couple more months, so there was a period where he lived with his furniture in a pink and white bedroom, because circumstances and outside events meant we had to wait just a bit before finishing the project. There was a deadline, though: I knew that I would be having my dad out in late June to build a custom loft bed that would really maximize the space in such a small room, so that meant I wanted to have the room painted and ready before Dad got here. So sometime in mid- to late-May, I began working in Owen's new (old) room (see below), painting the white wainscoting a warm taupe and wallpapering two of the walls with an awesome surf-inspired grasscloth (which I had actually purchased years before with every intention of installing it Owen's OLD room and never got around to it — of course, now I'm glad I didn't, since it's so perfect here!). The result is a super-cool surfer boy's domain that Owen just loves. See below for pics of the rooms, in several of their incarnations:

Room 1: Owen's New (Old) Room:

Owen ORIGINALLY had this smaller room as a baby, hence the pastel green color on the walls. In this picture below he had just turned 2 and had just gotten his new BIG BOY BED (which is actually one of a set of bunk beds that were my mother's when SHE was a kid, and then my brother's when we were growing up — I painted them dark blue and distressed them for Owen. Unfortunately, I did not take pics of my refurbishment project for this bed). I was also about two months pregnant with Isla in this picture.

Below is how the room looked after Isla was born (Edie's daybed, not seen in this pic, was across from Isla's crib at this point) — this is also very similar to how the room looked when EDIE was in the same crib.

Here is a different view of the room, after we moved Owen's stuff back into it this summer, but before we had gotten rid of the pink walls...

And here is Owen's new loft bed (custom built by my dad — I helped — based on this one I found online). Notice the new taupe paint on the wainscot and the grasscloth wallpaper, along with the awesome limited edition signed Eddie Vedder ukulele tour poster given to Owen by Uncle Chris.

Room 2: Edie and Isla's New Room

(Somewhere I have pics of this room from when it was an office, but I won't bother showing you those here.) This "before" pic is actually from when Owen FIRST moved into it (before I set up his bunk bed when he got a little older) — I can't seem to find a pic of it with the bunk bed set up! Anyway, you can see the before pretty well here. Note the blue (single) bunk bed, and watch for it a little later...

And here is the opposite wall "before"...

Here is that same wall, now, with Edie's bed and Isla's crib side-by-side. (Note Edie's bed... look familiar? It was Owen's old bunk bed, the blue one, refurbished by me a nice bright white. Next I have to finish refurbishing its twin so that when Isla is ready to move out of her crib in the next year or so they can either be set up like this, side-by-side, or possibly as bunk beds, to give the girls more room to play.)

And here is bookcase wall, with the girls' dresser fitting beautifully into the space next to the book shelves and no longer relegated to suffer hidden in the closet. (Please ignore the messy shelves... The girls need to filter through some of their stuff.)

All three kids are happy in their new rooms, as am I — as much as I love a home improvement project, I love them even more when they're all finished!

Now, what can I work on NEXT? Hmmm....

Monthly Newsletter — Month 20

Beach Baby, originally uploaded by JenSig.

Dear Isla,

You are now 20 months old, and are just so full of new tricks I don't know where to begin! With Owen and Edie, I always liked to say that we never had "terrible twos," instead it was more like "terrible threes." The independent antics and acts of imperious demanding didn't really start young. But with YOU — you are already well into what I would call your "terrible twos" — and you aren't even two yet!

That is not to say that you aren't still an inherently sweet and adorable child — you are, very much. When you give your sweet little kisses and come to me for cuddles, you are just about the sweetest baby ever. But you have also begun to perfect the art of The Tantrum — big, walloping displays of anger, impressive and terrifying at the same time, due to their volume and severity.

I have heard it said that the youngest kids in a family learn to fight early for what they want, because the older ones will always stake a claim first, being bigger, and I would say that this is true for you. Woe to the older sibling who has decided to take something that you wanted for yourself — woe to us ALL, in fact, who must listen to your shrill shrieks and see the way you flop onto the floor, facedown, kicking your feet in defiant anger.

But I don't mean to make it sound as though this is all there is to you, because that is SO not the case. You are sweet and curious, a mischievous imp with a delightful sense of humor. Your vocabulary continues to grow, and you enjoy singing songs, though most of the time you're just following along with the beat and the inflection, while not actually singing real "words." And you definitely get worried if someone in the house is sad or upset, turning into a little mother hen, clucking and patting your away around the person with a look of intense sincerity on your face. It is these moments I truly try and capture in my memory, the sweet delight that is YOU.

I love you, baby girl!
Love, Mama

Monthly Newsletter — Month 19

Isla and Pop Pop, originally uploaded by JenSig.

Dear Isla —

What a whirlwind month we have had, little girl! A couple of weeks ago, you awoke with a fever that continued to rise throughout the day and resulted in our first (and I hope LAST) febrile seizure. Apparently, when the body's temperature changes so dramatically in such a short time, these types of seizures are common, but it was certainly the most terrifying thing I have ever been through, as a parent.

After a trip to the ER, we learned several days later that you had a UTI (after the culture had a chance to grow, in the lab), and by that point you were still spiking fevers, so your doctor recommended an overnight stay in the hospital, for a dose of IV antibiotics and a kidney ultrasound.

Never have I felt so helpless as I did in that week, when you were so sick. On the way to the ER, I held you on the gurney in the ambulance and looked at your fevered face, so slack and lethargic. You will never know the terror that gripped me in those moments, how utterly powerless I was to make it all better. I hope you never experience the knotted fist of anxiety that clutched my gut like a vice for those several days. And watching them poke and prod you in the hospital, with needles and catheters, was torture — both for you and for me. You were so scared and you kept looking at me to make it all better, and I cried nearly as much as you did.

It's a real eye-opener, that kind of an experience, and one that makes me so thankful that I have been blessed with three beautiful, healthy children. I cannot imagine how other parents, with kids who are sick a lot or even all the time, even make it through the day with that kind of pressure looming over them all the time, praying for a good day, for a good test result, for good news amid the bad.

Lucky are we, and blessed besides. You are fully recovered now, and back to your old tricks, although we've been warned of the possibility of a higher risk of febrile seizures in the future, now that you've had one. So I continue to count my blessings that, for now, all is well.

I love you so very much, my little monkey.

Love, Mama