Where's my village?

I remember a few years ago, after Bill was out of the White House, but before all this presidential hoopla, I took an interest in Hillary Clinton. I can't really remember why, but I read part of her autobiography Living History. This was the first time I remember hearing the phrase "it takes a village to raise a child" (Hillary also wrote a book titled It Takes a Village). I'm sure she didn't coin the phrase, but I associate it with her nonetheless. And I often contemplate the truth of those words.

I think because my husband has been out of town so much for work, I've been thinking about my "village" a lot lately. And I'm finding it lacking. My entire immediate family (mom, dad, sister, brother) are in California, so although I talk to them on the phone frequently (usually more than once a day with my sister), I see them rather infrequently. I never thought when I moved to Alaska that I would stay for so long and miss my family so much. And I didn't really feel so strongly about it until I had children. I often feel very isolated when Rich is gone and I am by myself with the kids.

When this happens to me I wonder why I moved away from my village. And I think about how true village life might have so many advantages. I imagine the women coming together to prepare meals while the kids entertain and, to some extent, care for one another. I don't know if the men would be hunters or maybe herders...herders, I think; it sounds so much more serene than hunting (although my man is a hunter already). And even though it would be a life filled with hard work, it would be ameliorated by the camaraderie of the villagers and the sharing of a way of life.

For a time I had a little bit of that village. We had these really great neighbors and I developed a wonderful friendship with the woman in the household. She has two kids, and even though they are considerably older than mine, we understood the challenges and rewards of being working moms and could support one another in that role. If one of us didn't want to cook, or wanted to share a meal we had created, we did exactly that and neither of us felt guilty for it. We played cards many Friday nights, we went to the gym or ran together as many mornings as possible, and we listened to one another's problems. Even our men-folk loved to get together and drink vino all night and act like morons. They moved to Idaho the summer before I got pregnant with Aidan, and I still miss them terribly. For a small time, I had a glimpse into what that village life would be like and I loved it. I hope I can find it again.

The young inhabitants of my village snuggling in the laundry:

Hula hoopin' good time

Okay, I love this. She makes it look so easy! I think Teagan would love this, too. I'll have to show her!

Through the eyes of a 4-year old

Teagan loves to take pictures. She takes pictures of whatever is lying around, usually as close up as she can get. She winds up with some really great photos I would never consider taking. So I thought I'd put some of her most recent pictures up.

Here's one she took today while we were making banana bread.

Aidan during dinner time. I'm the one holding the spoon; Teagan's holding the camera.

I guess she thought this bowl of oranges and lemons looked interesting. Some of our paper crafts are lying about in the fore and back grounds.

The kitchen from an interesting perspective.

Well, my Sunday's going to be over before I get much done. It's cold today, so I've been in the kitchen making bread and granola and new baby foods for Aidan. Now we are getting ready to head out into the cold, cold world to run some errands and I think Rich is taking Teagan ice skating. Fun stuff!

3 am Internet Searches

This is what kids do to you. Here I am, 3 am, searching the internet for the cause of my baby's horrible barking cough. My internet-based diagnosis is croup. He sounds perfectly fine until that cough. It's awful, and it's keeping me up tonight. That, and the fact that I, too, have a virus that's making me toss and turn.

When you get sick before you have kids, you get to wallow in your own misery, take time off work to nap, and eat whatever you can make in less than three minutes. Once there are kids involved, your own illness takes the back seat (because invariably your kids are sick, too). You go to work even though you feel like you could crawl in a hole and die because you already took four days off to stay home with your first sick kid, and then realize you're going to have to take more time off work to stay home with sick kid #2. You still have to cook meals when you'd rather just eat toast, read books out loud even though your throat hurts, and a nap? forget it! It doesn't help that my husband is out of town for work, since Friday. At least his working extra will help make up for me missing so much work.

But having kids is still worth it for some weird reason that's hard to explain! Because in between his horrible barking cough, he still makes the sweetest chattering sounds when he wakes up, like right this very moment.

It's been a loooong week

So I am a terrible blogger. I have dreams of writing witty blogs that engross all (three) of my regular readers in such a way that they can't wait to come back for more. But I just can't seem to find the time. Tonight I had the kids in bed by 7:30, a record for Teagan, really. I got just about caught up on my financial stuff...well, sort of. The day-to-day stuff anyway. There's still taxes to think about, and archiving the last five years' worth of paper that's bursting out of my file cabinet, moving Teagan's savings into something earning higher than 0.9%...what am I thinking, I'm not even close to caught up.

Teagan has been sick for the last five days. Meaning I had to miss four days of work. My boss is going to fire me for sure! On top of that, my car broke down Monday morning, so I barely squeezed in four hours before having to run out to get the car (minus $700 from my bank account) and pick up the kids to haul them over to dance class (minus another $300 from my bank account). The account balance is now leaning heavily toward the negative side, especially since the following four days I was barely able to work, all of which took place from home. Do you work from home with kids? I don't know how people do it. Between meals, dishes, laundry, more meals, and the kids just generally wanting your attention (who can blame them?), it's impossible to get more than an hour or two in a stretch...and that IS a stretch! I can do one or the other: go to work, or be a stay-at-home mom, but doing both is NOT for me.

So poor Teagan has been diagnosed with pink eye (see below), a staph/strep infection surrounding the pink eye, and finally a virus (fever, headache, a bit of upset tummy, supposedly unrelated to the other ailments). We've been to the doctor twice, and Teagan threw up in the grocery store once. Like any good mom, I caught half of the puke in my hands and then stood there wondering what to do with it while reassuring her that it wasn't her fault she threw up all over the place. I ended up placing the puke in my hands on the floor with the puke that was already there, grabbing a package of paper towels (yes, I was already in the paper towel aisle...thank goodness for small miracles), ripping said package open, scooping up all the vomit, running to the customer service area to grab some plastic bags, and cleaning up all the puke myself. I tried to call out to an employee going by shortly after the incident, but she didn't hear me. I don't think I was very loud, though to hear Teagan tell it, I screamed at the lady. It was quite an adventure. Needless to say, we haven't been out of the house since. She hasn't thrown up again, either.


Anyway, Teagan's on the road to recovery, thanks to industrial antibiotics, Dora-shaped chicken noodle soup, and her current movie favorites, Spy Kids and Spy Kids 2. Aidan, miraculously, has been perfectly fine. But I probably shouldn't say that yet. Here he is in his bouncy doorway seat.

He's such a happy baby! He's been rolling around and seems like he can't wait to get moving. Teagan and I like to cheer for him when he flips from his back onto his belly, which makes him giggle. He doesn't actually make a giggle sound, but he just looks like he should be giggling. He also loves to eat, and if I try to make him wait while we're eating, he gets pissed off. Teagan has us all calling him bub or bubba, which is just the weirdest thing, but it has really stuck. I'll have to get him a little embroidered carhart jacket that says Bubba. Army-Navy, here I come!