Spiritual Mantras for Cleaning House

Earth my body
Water my blood
Air my breath
fire my spirit.

I got clean sheets on my bed, laundry folded, dishes done and a baby washed! Sweet! Before I even discovered the mantra for house work, Melinda was helping me use it birthing babies. I thought, hey it worked then, maybe it'll work now. It did.

Tapatio is hotter when left on the counter... and consumed in large amounts at 10pm...

Earlier in the day, no chanting... but I still got some chunky stuff done- I showered Bean, with Soap this time instead of getting her wet and calling it good, AND I cut her hair. Yeah I did! She looks so cute and neat instead of some crazy scraggle kid I pulled off the street. She even ate 2 really good-ish meals today. I know most kids eat 3 or more but she fell asleep at 6:45! Crazy Kid. Maybe that helped get all that stuff done...? Naw it was the chanting.

Bean says Toy Story 3 is too scary for her so we watched Bugs Life instead. Also a great movie, but I sooo love TS3! I got most of the head of another frog done, but I was nursing, then holding a sleeping baby so it didn't go as fast as it could have. Now I will work on it for a little while while watching Hulu and then go back to bed with my spit-up free clean smelling little baby. yay.

The Man Child's new favorite night time song (another chant courtesy of Melinda) helped him doze off quite a bit faster tonight and kept him entertained as I washed dishes next to his bath tub. yeah, multi-tasking.

We all come from the Goddess
And to her we shall return.
Like a drop of water
Flowing to the Ocean...

The fact is, chanting these and putting love and truth into the words gives me the strength I need to finish my task. Just like when I birthed my Man Child, hearing these words... or maybe I thought them waaayyyy hard in my head, gives me strength to put one foot in front of the other. Women have been raising beautiful, honest children in worse situations than ours and we will be fine as long as I don't give up.

Thank you
Blessed be

The Finished Frog and Pics of Kaya in the Grapes

Ok so here are the pics of the Frog Binky Strap in all it's glory!

The Frog in use...

The cute little butterfly button on the end was my idea!

 I worked really hard on that stupid frog. The one shown here is Frog Number Four. I didn't even bother posting pics of frog 3, although he was blue... Any way. Once I got the bobbles down, the rest was a snap! OK lie, but it wasn't as hard as it could have been. There are leaves under the frog's but that were hard to do, I did about 7 of those even though I really only needed 3. I had to find the best 3! I'm sorry, I don't know how Susan B. Anderson (if I knew how to create links I'd link her name here to her page [she's rad]) makes pointy knitted leaves, but mine didn't want to point, ever. So I didn't force it. stoopid yarn. I also knitted 4 butterfly leaves, more stoopid yarn. Yay frog!!!

Ok, so just so you know, I'm working on an adorable little hat for the Earth Angel Baby, Melody Sophia. I really hope it can keep her perfect little head warm. And my other work in progress project that I just started is the MoHat for Kaya. Tricky Tricky Tricky... I'll post pics and a story about the damn hat later.... ~bane of my knitting life~

Now onto pictures of Kaya in the grapes. This grape vine was a clipping from my Great Grandparents' home in San Jose. The structure Kaya is playing on is a swing set my dad built for Brian and I when we were kids... like 20 years ago. Yeah hand made stuff that survives a big move and living out doors for 20 years. My dad is hella boss at building things. The kids and I spent our day in my mom's garden, Kaya played and dug in the dirt and Zen sat in his swing in the sun and watched birds and bugs and the trees dancing or got carried around to look at things while I sat in the sun and knit Melody's Hat. or carried Zen around to show him things. This hat will have sun and love and hope and energy knit into it.

I too climbed up that ladder as a small child. Only
when I did it there wasn't a hella big grape vine
all over it...

      

Zen in his swing...

Fluffy Mail!!!

First off, the fun stuff, I got my fluffy mail today! The boring stuff- Thirsties Pre-Wash and Rockin' Green Cloth Diaper Laundry Detergent (Soft Rock- Bare Naked Babies). The exciting stuff- FuzziBunz Double sided Wipes and my very first Rumparooz G2 One Size Diaper w/ 6-r  Soaker (Aplix fastener) in Platinum. That's right, we now have a platinum colored diaper. Ballin! I already love it, but it hasn't been washed yet and that seems to make a difference in the softness. In the next few posts I think I'm going to start reviewing some of the fluff and fluff related products I get. I'll start with our first diaper purchase and go from there.

But that is another post, and right now I'm going to talk about my day...

J Wizzle left this morning, sad, and the house is a mess, sadder. I should be picking things and cleaning since I got both kids to bed at the same time (score 1 me!) but instead I am going to watch Robin Hood and work on Melinda's cowl. Tomorrow I will be going to the MYS with Jamie to get some advice on the project while Bean is in day care, I'm kinda nerdily excited about it! My mom told me I was an old lady but I just laughed. This is fun! I got more done on this project while Wade-O was home than I had been able to get done in a while and that felt really great!
Our day went pretty well, J Dub left at noon and the kids and I sort of hung out together for a while. We played "You can't caaaaatch meeee!" with Bean. I hold the Man Child in the carrier and sort of fast walk while K Bean runs through our house squealing and having a really great time. Then we played "You can't fiiiinnnd meeee!" Bean will hide under the blanket and then squeal and have a really good time when I pull the blanket off her and find her. Then, get this other moms of 2 babies, We All Took A Nap At The Same Time!!! Yes we did. It was glorious! Man Child slept and Bean slept and I got to sleep too!!! (Hence being up blogging at 11pm) It was even Bean's idea. I think she thought she was playing a game until she started snoring!
Any way, I'm off to my knitting.

Day 10: Ugh... Now I Can't Remember...

I need to start writing these things down. Over the last few days I have come up with, what I think are, some great topics. But everytime I sit down and start writing, I sooooo forget what I was going for. I guess I'll just do another up-date.

Kaya's behavior has been pretty up and down. She goes from being really helpful to really stubborn in a whole 2 blinks of an eye. I've been working really hard at not shouting or using threats, trying to really hear what the problem is. Making the effort to really spend time with her has been rough but I think we're getting better at it.

Zen is amazing, he still has a cough and a snotty nose, I think I'm going to call the peds office to see if I need to bring him in. I really don't want to. I think he would sleep really well at night if he weren't always soooo stuffy. He can hold his head up really well and loves to look around towards the noises he hears. Cloth diapering is going really well, no rash yet, no build up in smell or stains. It even helps me keep on top of the rest of the laundry!

James is going to be home soon, but he'll be bringing his mother. I really can't wait for him to be home... but he's bringing his mom. oh well.
Time to get Kaya from school!