brothers :: veljekset.

March 19, 2012 by mama lola

they play school.
listen.
bear: i am the teacher. here is your hook (and hangs up lions little bag on a chair)
lion: smiles and tries to take the bag
bear: no, you can take it when school is done.
(this game mimicks the routine at bear’s pre-school where bags and coats are hung on hooks.)

these little imaginary worlds they create together and move through, cause my heart to ache. i’ve always wanted the boys to play together, but as the age difference is getting smaller, the games and roles they take on keep evolving. i am in awe of their camaraderie. often i will hear bear allowing lion to have a turn first, or do something that isn’t really a part of the game. they are always looking out for each other.

bear’s nickname for lion is “first friend”. i know right, too friggin’ cute!

the boys play together so well, i am worried about the day bear heads off to junior kindergarten in the fall, and lion is left alone with me. i am worried for both of them and their relationship. i realize some time apart will not hurt them, but all day, 5 days a week is a lot, and i quite frankly it breaks my heart to think my kids won’t get involved in their imaginary worlds together. there just aren’t hours in the day. i feel quite protective of their relationship and i know many people look at me with confusion and judgement. let them.

sometimes it feels like our capitalist society is hell bent on destroying the family unit, by separating us into day cares, schools and jobs.

bro’s.

what’s in a name?

March 18, 2012 by mama lola

choosing a name can me tough. even before i was ever pregnant dear hubby and i had decided on a girl name. thus far, we have had to decide upon two boys and with each pregnancy had to really think about the names we wanted for each little dude. our kids have simple finnish names, chosen with the hope that they would be easy enough for english speakers to pronounce and remember. i think we succeeded. but man, boy names a tough!

we still have our girl name on file, and i’m not not quite ready to reveal it, just in case we actually need it one day.

and what about the world of nicknames. my dear friend named me lola over a decade ago when we were working at lush together. it stuck. i attached the mama to it. then this morning, i decided to google mama lola and this is who i found.

this woman, another mama lola, is from port-au-prince, haiti and is a famous voodoo priestess living and practising in brooklyn, NY! how completely random and totally cool! doesn’t she just exude a wisdom only gained by living an interesting life. a drink in one hand, a smoke in the other and rings on each finger!

fabulous!
*******
how did you choose your kids’ names?
how did you get your nickname?

saturday evening post: a royal do.

March 17, 2012 by mama lola

whew. we survived the another day of seasonally extra-warm temperatures and glorious sunlight. we took advantage of the weather and headed to the local university to attend college royal. an open house of sorts, but the main attractions are the barns belonging to the vet school. there are lines to get into there!

we went with dear hubby’s parents who were pleased as pie to spend such quality time with their grandsons. the kids were delighted to see their grandparents as well, which made for a wonderful day.

getting out of the house was a nightmare. it was painful and just awful.

our first attraction was the cat show. it was a bit of a bust. it was held in a huge auditorium style hall where the audience sat in the seats. it was a slow moving show that was hard to hear and follow, so we decided to sneak out early and head outside. so glad we did.

bear got to go for a tractor ride. he’s a natural; it’s in his blood. his great-grandfather was a cattle farmer.

the barns were a hit. both kids were in awe and loved seeing the animals so close up.

then we walked around campus soaking up the sunshine and vitamin D. the kids climbed and ran and raced and giggled a lot! by four o’clock the temperature was HOT, which meant time to get going home.

and what’s perfect for dinner on a hot march saturday evening? yup, you guessed it… SUSHI and BEER!

doubt.

March 16, 2012 by mama lola

today’s prompt via NaBloPoMo is to write about the word doubt. since i can’t decide what else to write about, i thought i would share my thoughts on this topic. (i have also included some random pictures to make this post more, um, colourful!)

i am a very doubtful person. i am always questioning if what i am doing or saying is right, or accurate, or kind or whatever. many people see me as a confident person and in many ways i am, but doubt is always lingering in my periphery keeping me on my toes.

it is difficult to not doubt ones-self in our society. the media is always inundating us with images and notions about who we should be, as if who we are now is not good enough. it is difficult to be a woman and i find it especially difficult to mother in this media storm of information. when bear was a baby i doubted all of our parenting decisions, and would quickly worry about our choices. luckily for us we were pretty broke financially, so i couldn’t actually spend a lot of money on all of the gidgets and gadgets i was told i needed to be a good mother. so, instead i sat in worry, fear and doubt wondering if i was damaging bear, because he never had a crib or a bumbo chair.

[ bear writing; i dictate the letters. ]

today, i see that those decision we made were right for us and our family and i do not doubt those choices any more. in fact, i feel quite confident in our choices as attachment parents.

now, i worry about lion and doubt i am as wholesome of a mother as i was for bear, back in the day. with two kids i feel stretched, which is not a bad feeling, just the reality of my life. i worry i am not expressing my love enough to each little boy of mine and worry that someone is going to feel less-loved. i am sure this is common of all mother’s who have more than one child, but it is a terrible feeling.

doubt is not a pleasant feeling in itself. although, it can bring one to growth and self-awareness, it is difficult to manage through the fear and stress doubt brings with it.

******
this has not been a very happy entry, so i am leaving you with these two questions bear has already asked me numerous times today…
1. “when will the easter bunny come and give me chocolates?” (we have not talked about the easter bunny or chocolates…hmm…..)
2. “when will all of my teeth fall out? i want it to happen now.”

kids really do say the darndest things!
what silly things have you heard lately?

smells fishy.

March 15, 2012 by mama lola

we had simply wonderful hump day, yesterday.

i started the day by baking muffins, while sipping my morning coffee. then after th eusual tears about leaving the house, we were off to the park with friends to enjoy the sunny morning.

the park was fun and the sun was glorious in it’s warmth and cheeriness. it felt amazing to take advantage of mother nature’s vitamin D supply. later after getting home and after lion’s afternoon nap we headed outside into the backyard and spent another couple of hours enjoying the phenomenal weather. i even got a touch of sunburn on my extra pasty face!

then, i made a beautiful dinner for my family last night. we had rainbow trout with roasted leeks, apple and carrots, and a side of mashed potatoes with dill. i made a delicious tahini & yoghurt sauce for the fish and was looking forward to sitting down with my family for a lovely dinner. unfortunately for me, our lovely family dinner’s have gone to the pits recently.

[ ready to go.]

[ ready to be mashed. ]

bear also has his dinnertime antics. he used to be a wonderful eater; he ate everything offered. now, he has a long list of food items he adamantly claims not to like. like fish, to my chagrin. anyway, last evening and on many other evenings he comes to the table and immediately makes rude noises, “eww, ick, yuck…” which accelerate my blood pressure to rocket through the roof and i get mad. i hate that. eventually, once everyone has eaten enough and the boys are clearing the table, bear comes up to me, and in the sweetest voice says “kiitos äiti, for making such a delicious dinner. it was lovely”.

[ rainbow trout with the works. ]

are you kidding me?
that simply sounds suspicious, insincere and fishy to me!

spring sprung, i think.

March 14, 2012 by mama lola

bear received some flower seeds for his birthday. it was a whole set that came with plastic pots he decorated with a special marker and colourful stickers. since planting the seeds, bear has been planning what kinds of flowers he wants to grow in our garden this summer. definitely sunflowers, they seem to be his favourite!

i love that he has this strong desire to learn about flowers and growing things. these new curiosities have provided great opportunities to chat about growing food, farmers and what they do for us, about the environment and how we can take care of it.

[ L-R sunflower, zinnia, marigold ]

lion also wants to be involved, but mostly just because there are fun tools involved. once it’s safe to plant seedlings outside i’ll let him plant a few himself.

i’m trying to decide what plants i want to plant in our backyard, as well. it’s fairly shaded, which is great with the kids, because they can run around for hours back there. but, it’s tough to grow stuff. i’m hoping to get my hands on some giant or jumbo hostas to fill in some of the dull holes in the back. last mother’s day i received a hydrangea, so i hope it thrives this season. my mom gave me some ferns from her garden, but our friendly four-legged visitor loves to poop on them, and in doing so last summer he bent some of the pretty badly. hopefully they too survived horatio and the winter.

thanks to pinterest, i’ve found some great ways to take advantage of the limited amount of direct sunlight we get in the back.
like this vertical garden for our fence…

[ source ]

i like these pots, but would prefer just unpainted terracota pots with herbs growing in them.

[ source ]

i am eager to get digging and have dirty fingernails (well, not really dirty), but it is only march 14th and up where we live the rule is after may-2-4 long weekend it’s safe to plant stuff in the ground. that midas well be a million years from today.
sigh.

what kinds of things will you plant this growing season?

almost half way and i hit a wall!

March 13, 2012 by mama lola

day 13 of NaBloPoMo and i’ve hit a wall. i don’t know what to write about. there are prompts to help, but i didn’t like today’s.

well, spring has sprung early this year. we barely had a winter and are now enjoying plenty of sunshine and loading up on vitamin D. all sorts of things are pushing their way through the decaying leaves.

the boys and i had a nice day together. we did some groceries, had lunch, lion napped while bear watched some “bob the builder” and then we headed outside for a few hours.

i made a delicious alphabet-veggie soup with eggs, brie, pickles (thanks brandy), left over cabbage salad and bread on the side. here’s a picture of our spread; please excuse my dying tulips. i bought them for myself last week when i received my 5th strep diagnosis; i needed a pick me up. lovely!

cheers to a lovely tuesday! tomorrow we are heading to the park first thing with lots of friends to enjoy more of these warm temperatures! what a great march break!

what do you have planned for hump day?

goodnight moon.

March 13, 2012 by mama lola

“Goodnight room. Goodnight moon. Goodnight cow jumping over the moon. Goodnight light, and the red balloon…”

“goodnight moon” is one of the favourite bedtime books at our house. i love the slow rhythm of the book and the simplicity of the lines. i love the illustrations and the details in them.

our bedtime routine has been the same for years now. dear hubby and bear were solid in the evening routine and when lion was born, he jumped into the rituals as well. first there’s a bath, then iltapala (bedtime snack), then hugs and kisses for me and upstairs for teeth brushing. the boys each choose a couple of books and the the guys all snuggle on the bottom bunk for stories.

bear crawls up to his top bunk where lion joins him for brotherly hugs and kisses and then it’s lights out. lion needs someone to stay with until he is asleep. being in the bottom bunk makes it tempting for our littlest one to get up.

dear hubby and i have gotten back to the habit of reading in bed before sleeping, which i find is the most relaxing thing to do. i have a tall pile of books on my night stand of books i want to read. they include parenting books, novels and one autobiography.
what’s your evening routine like?

goodnight. sweet dreams.
hyvää yötä. kauniita unia.

how much is enough?

March 12, 2012 by mama lola

what a beautiful day outside today. it almost felt like summer! we took advantage of the sun and headed to the university’s arboretum. glorious!

as we walked among the trees, i was handed a few introspective moments when the guys were doing their own thing, and i was left alone to take pictures and think.
how much love is enough?
how much discipline is enough?
how much art is enough?

this is where i’m at: as i learn about anxiety and about “sensitive” kids, i wonder where i went wrong. i mean, yes, kids are born with various maps of who they will be, but how much of my behaviour, my mothering affected bear’s temperament and personality. as usual, i feel tremendous guilt that i didn’t do enough; that i pushed when he least needed it and left him to play alone so much in the beginning.
maybe i didn’t carry him enough?

i’ve gone back and looked at old pictures of bear from when he was about 12-24 months, in the hopes of recognizing some behaviour he presented back then that might be connected to the stuff we see today. these walks down memory lane are wonderful, but bring on a whole new wave of guilt: that i am not mothering lion as attentively as i did bear. when bear was this age he and i spent many hours colouring, stickering, building blocks, going for walks and i would let him help in the kitchen a lot. lion, well, he has definitely been handed the short end of the stick as he does not ever get to sit alone with me and play. well, maybe not quite never, but his alone time with either dear hubby or myself is very limited. and yes, i do recognize that his relationship and hours of play with his older brother is priceless and has replaced that void.

i am feeling very unsure, again.
as usual.

happy sunny-sunday everyone!
see you tomorrow.
xo

summer vacations can bring on stress, for bear!

March 10, 2012 by mama lola

about a year ago, almost to the day, dear hubby lost his job. it was a shocking blow, which shook the ground we were standing on, but we both decided it meant bigger and better things were coming. unfortunately, it also meant we had to cancel our family road trip out to the east coast with friends. we were literally hours from sending a deposit for a cottage we were going share on the eastern shores of canada. Our friends suggested that we use apartments from somewhere similar to DelSuites apartments during our stay but we had already decided on the cottage.

[ bear five months after his first swim at the cottage. ]

well, lucky for us we are back on the planning wagon and looking forward to heading out east to the maritimes this summer. we won’t be going with our friends, unfortunately. They have been looking to search holiday homes all over the world and see if they can explore abroad, which is fair. i’ve been told that they are even looking to hire a private air charter service as part of their travel arrangements, i wish them all the best on their exciting and luxurious adventures and wish we could have been joining them! i am looking forward to camping next to the ocean and listening to the waves; i am excited to go whale watching with my guys and feel the excitement of seeing those majestic mammals in real life again. i always thought that going whale watching was going to be something i would never be able to tick off my bucket list, but i can’t wait to actually experience it. if this is something you’ve wanted to do for a long time, a quick google search into something like whale watching california (if you’re looking to go here) could help you plan a trip of a lifetime and make memories with the family.

i am eager to see more of this grand country that i have lived in for over 20 years, and i am grateful i can share these adventures with my kids and dear hubby.

[ lion two weeks old here. his second trip to the beach. ]

but, when i mentioned our summer plans to bear at dinner the other night, his throat closed immediately and his chin went skrintchy and as he was desperately fighting back tears, he said “i don’t want to go. i want to stay home.” WHAT? augh, his friggin’ little anxious self had taken over, instilling fear into his mind about the family vacation. i tried to explain that we would all be together, as a family, as this is something that is very important to him. but, no matter what i said or explained he just continued to repeat his desire to stay home.

it’s distressing, heart breaking and agonizing to see him get so upset about our summer vacation!

what’s a mama to do?