a day with the lyden's...

today our dear friends the lyden's came over for brunch. it turned in to a day-long hang fest. as the kids drifted in and out of games and rooms so did we adults. complete with tea time, yummy nosh and plenty of great conversation. it was the perfect lazy sunday spent with dear friends. very reminiscent of spending hours and days on end with girlfriends in high school. it gets harder for things to happen so spontaneously the older we get but i was delighted and reassured to know that it is still possible, even in the dizzying schedule of family life.

feliz navidad

we are enjoying a lovely christmas day. in the company of some of those most cherished. in spite of some nasty tummy bugs all are in good form. the sun is shining and the scene is blanketed in gorgeous white snow. we are grateful to have such beautiful people in our lives to call our family and friends, and to you, we wish you all a very merry holiday and a healthy and joyful new year. we are hopeful that 2009 will bring renewed health, happiness and prosperity for all.

feliz aniversario

noni and babu have been married for 26 years today. that is a whole lot of years. more than enough to say that i am proud. very proud of parents who have struggled thru the worst of it and who are perhaps struggling thru the worst ever. they are incredible, they are beyond words, they are parents in the truest form. who am i to have befallen the love of such beauty, such grace and such incredible love. it is astounding and profound and i can only hope that that love i am creating is as deep and immaculate. i love you noni and babu with all that i am and more. my heart. shay.

crahsed but not burned....

my computer that is.
thursday night was one of those nights where you can't believe you are a parent. first, your nearly 7 year old comes to you at 1 in the morning complaining of her stomach hurting and can she please get in bed with you. in your slumber stupor you say "come on in". one hour later she sits straight up in bed (mind you she is in the middle of you and your partner) and says "i don't feel so good" followed by a large upheaval of that night's dinner. you and your partner somehow manage to wake enough to get her in to the bathroom to finish the job and disrobe your bed of any offended covers and climb back in to bed in hopes of more rest.
second your barely 1 year old wakes up inconsolably at 3 am. this leaves your partner beyond irritated. you kindly urge your partner to go sleep up stairs and you will handle it (thinking the worst is over).
third, at 4am your very sick, nearly 7 year old wakes again and complains that she doesn't feel so good and proceeds to upchuck on the remaining covers on the bed. once again you remove all of the offended covers this time only salvaging the mattress cover and one blanket. not nearly enough coverage on a below freezing night.
anyway, at this point you manage to clean up the nearly 7 year old, wash your own hands and climb back in to the very inadequate bed in hopes of a few more winks.

so, you get your winks. your very kind partner gets up at 8:30 with the barely 1 year old and feeds him breakfast and kindly lets you and the very sick nearly 7 year old sleep until 10 am!!!! that is a beautiful gift and you realize you have not properly thanked him for this and you should.

fast forward to 10:30 am. your nearly 7 year old is in the very inadequately made bed with no appetite and looking pretty green. you offer her a video in bed on the laptop. she musters a small smile and says "okay". you get her set up with a very cheesy holiday movie as well as a very big jug of ice water with a bendy straw and ask "are you sure you won't eat a piece of toast with as much butter as it can hold?" "no" she sadly replies. you know it must be very bad if she is turning down that much butter. anyway, shortly after the cheeseball movie begins your barely 1 year old, who is more like a bulldozer rather than a baby, makes his way in the bedroom and finds the big jug of water. he proceeds to dump the jug of water on the bed where it conveniently seeps in the back vents of your computer. "shit! f**k! arrrrrghhhh i am really mad" you scream as you snatch up your beloved friend and break down in tears at its' black face. "why are you so mad mama", your nearly 7 year old asks you "is that your best friend?" yikes, you realize you must really be addicted to your computer if your nearly 7 year old calls it your best friend.

but the truth is, you really don't care about the computer. i mean, if you could take it back you would but what really gets you is how much of an idiot you are and have not backed up a year and a half of family pictures. the ones you intended to use for your annual photo book of the kids. but now they might be gone forever. enter the apple store hero. after she takes a little look she says "well, we can probably save your hard drive but you're probably looking at a 999 mistake". meaning, you're going to have to buy a new computer. you hang your head in disappointment but are truly grateful to have not lost your hard drive. because if you had, you might also have lost your marbles.

feliz cumpleanos mijo

today marks an incredible day in our family. the day when i gave birth to mateo luz. as it turns out it is no coincidence that we named him "luz". mateo lives up to being the "light" in our lives in so many ways. we are blessed to have him. we are blessed to have survived this first year. we are blessed.

mateo, i love you beyond words. i am grateful for your choosing me as your mama. i know this first year has not been an easy road but you have weathered it well and i just know we have so many years ahead to look forward to and spend together. life is looking up little man. and that is largely due to you. feliz cumpleanos.

mi corazon,
tu mama.

big bad babuey birthday

one quick little note before i turn in for the night. today is babu's birthday. today is a very special day. a day where i personally celebrate how blessed i am to have babu & and the whole laursen gang to call family. babu you are an inspiration to me. your strength, your dedication, your hard work, your goofy side, your serious side, your interests, your love for the world, and your boundless love have all helped to shape who i am today. and now my kiddos get to reap the reward of having you as their grandfather. we are all very lucky. and we all love you very much.

from the bottom of my heart.
s.

reaffirmation

tonight i attended the PVPA meeting (that's the portland village parent association for those not in the know) and i must say with each step of this educational process i feel more and more as though we are making the right decision for pilar. choosing to be part of a brand new charter school is precarious and scary. i mean to put it bluntly we have NO IDEA where we are going to be next year and our school is at capacity with another 9 classes of 22 kids to add! shit! talk about unstable ground. but what i do know is the absolute dedication brought forward by this community is unfaltering. it is absolutely mind blowing. it is awe inspiring.

tonight we listened to the 5th grade teacher talk a bit more in depth about waldorf philosophy and i found myself nodding my head over and over again in affirmation. "we are teaching to the whole child- the physical body, the feeling body, the thinking body and the spirit body"-- i'm just figuring out what my feeling body and spirit body are! how encouraging to think we are raising a group of children to set forth in the world with these things already figured out. setting them forth in confidence in all of their "bodies". that would be remarkable, wouldn't it?

i have been hearing this quote, "rosa sat so that dr. king could stand, so that obama could run, so that our children can fly". this quote nearly brings tears to my eyes. what a time we are living in- i see this quote as a beautiful reflection of where we are headed- i hear it in these words, i hear it in the words of our school's 5th grade teacher, i hear it in the voices of those who surround me and it reaffirms me that there is absolute hope.

a new chapter?

i am really hesitant to write this for fear i my jinx things, but i am so beside myself that i must share.

it has been 2 full weeks since i have had a dip in my mood. (i know you must be thinking, 2 weeks?!?!?! that is nothing!) but my reality has been that i have not had more than a week of relief from the black dogs since this whole thing began in april.
i am not holding my breath that i am totally out of the woods but to be looking back over the calendar and to really notice that things are shifting is truly a godsend. for me and for my family.

i am not sure if it is the meds, the yoga, the journaling, the therapy, the super duper healthy diet, the PILE of vitamins i down everyday, the curves workouts, or the fact that we are coming up on a year milestone that is making the difference. most likely it is a all of these things working together but damn! this has been one scary ride and i am happy to be getting off of it! and i am ready for the next chapter of life to begin- what a remarkable chapter it is going to be- i can't wait!

another week gone by...

where do they go? i mean seriously... it astounds me how elusive time is. sometimes in the moment it seems as though time can not pass by quickly enough and then suddenly when you stop to look a whole week has vanished. amazing, truly.

anyway, our last week has been a good one consisting of; a delightful visit from babu. a lovely lantern walk. a soggy trek through the rain with the kids. an obama potluck celebration. a sweet visit from uncle michael. a tumbling birthday party. a play date with pasha. and yoga- lots of yoga.
and zap.
just like that.
it is gone.

there must be a "dicho" somewhere that says something along the lines of: may time pass swiftly thru the struggles and linger in the moments of sweetness. if you find it, let me know.

president barack obama

it is amazing. it is profound. it is overwhelmingly inspiring to know that SO many americans are so passionately ready for change.
here's to a new america. a new era. a beautiful future for our children.

on the eve of the election

i can feel the anxious buzz in the air. everyone in anticipation for what tomorrow holds. i feel strongly in my heart that our country is ready for this. that our world is ready for this. we are ready for change.
"president barack obama" rings loud and clear in my head.

halloween tidbits

this year for halloween pilar was a mouse (surprise, surprise) and mateo was a brown fruit bat. of course it was a mad dash the night before to finish the costumes- will we ever learn? as we moaned about how late it was getting on thursday night and how we really wanted to go to bed- we had the realization that there probably aren't too many years left before pilar tells us she wants to be a valley girl or gypsy or something else that doesn't require much more than a trip to the goodwill and a rummage thru the closet. so we savored the moment and happily finished our kids costumes- it is the curse of both of us coming from families who dare not buy halloween costumes. in the end they turned out to be simple and sweet.

we enjoyed the evening trick-or-treating a few of our neighbors and then headed off to a school friend's halloween party. the night ended with a visit from the switch witch! (if you haven't yet beckoned her to your house, i highly recommend it!)

where did october go?

i am really not sure what happened....
the month has flown by and it has been weeks since i have posted.
here are the past few fall weeks in photos.

happy fall boy


climbing trees


mateo gets a new (second hand) rocking horse


a visit to noni & babu's


wild rumpus boy


pilar practices her guitar


and gives daddy's banjo a whirl


sleepy head


a trip to the sauvie island patch










autumn flower girl


mateo escapes a diaper change


look how they shine at night!


carving pumpkins with the ceniceros family


all the punkins


how beautifully they glow

keeping up with the jones'- portland style...

i suppose every city has its' version of "keeping up with the jones' ", right?
i think i might have been a bit naive when leaving san francisco that we somehow would miraculously escape this phenomenon. we were fed up with trying to be so hip- which seems to be s.f.'s version. you know, knowing the coolest boutiques around town, music haps, designers in the know, having the chicest unique crap in your house etc. etc. thankfully david never succumbed to the super duper pegged jeans worn with raggy hitops and that hair-do that screams "i spent 20 minutes and gobs of product on my hair to make it look like i did nothing to it"-- i guess david couldn't do that even if he wanted to. but seriously, it was exhausting trying to keep up in that town.

anyway, portland has a whole new flavor or keeping up and it falls along the lines of how green are you!?!? then on top of that we have landed ourselves in the waldorf community which adds a whole other layer of keeping up....anyway, i find it exhausting again- but at least they are all things i can really get behind. things i really believe in. things i want my children to learn and ways i want them to be in the world. so i guess i'll take being exhausted for now and look forward to a time when maybe there won't be so much "keeping up".

obama flags

i must admit that going to university in eugene left me feeling a bit cynical about prayer flags, that's how it is when you are 18- things are hard and fast and you know everything. but ever since i saw strings and strings of prayer flags sprinkled all over the nepalese mountains i have had a love for them. when you see something in its place of origin then that thing takes on a whole new meaning- or rather, it actually has meaning. unlike the bourgeois hippies in eugene who throw them up on their porches to profess their enlightenment similarly to those who hang dream catchers from their rear view mirrors. i mean taking from another culture to tout your own enlightenment is pretty transparent that you have none isn't it? but truth be told- i have waved prayer flags in my yard upon occasion since my return from nepal and india 11 years ago. and i have to confess that when i see homemade prayer flags they make me feel extra warm and fuzzy. i guess as you get older you see things have much more wiggle room and things, thoughts and ways of being are not so black and white.

so pilar made obama prayer flags the other day- with my encouragement- and no i am not expressing our political enlightenment but i do like the idea of the wind taking our wishes for a new and hopeful president out in to the abyss to meet up with all the other wishes and prayers for obama to be the next leader of our country. we are hopeful that november 4th will prove that we really do want change for this country and that we believe it is possible.

chosen sisters

a girl has got to have friends right?!?!
i am always amazed when i meet a woman who does not have a solid group of women friends. my friends are my lifeline much of the time. they help keep me in check. call me out when i am off. praise me like no other could. they lift me up when i am sad. they check in. they remind me that i am strong. they make me think about things-- good things, smart things, funny things. i know it is a little bit woo woo and a little bit yaya sister club, but my chosen sisters are, like courtney says, my family. and for whatever reason the universe brought us together oh so many years ago, i think i might now begin to understand what we truly have to offer one another and i just know we will be friends til the end- which is a long long long way off since we are just getting started really.

naughty babes

today has been sluggish due to a brutal night. neither of the kids would go to sleep. this was most disconcerting after a week of amazing bedtime routines and sleep for them both! we played musical beds. tried the exercise ball. let mateo stay up and play in the tupperware drawer--meanwhile d. was trying to put out a big press release and not able to help too much... finally i gave in to both kids going to sleep in the big bed at the likes of 9:45!!! look at them both here- sound asleep with their mouths hanging open--sleeping blissfully. i was tempted to put spoonfuls of salt in their mouths for being so naughty. but i refrained because their peacefulness was just too sweet to mess with and my sanity too precious. they best sleep soundly tonight because we have serious debates to watch!

octopus mama

i bought myself this necklace last fall. in part because my favorite s.f. style maven had one that i secretly coveted and in part because i see it as a wonderful mother image. to be a mother is to hold everything- literally and figuratively- and sometimes it does require nearly 8 arms. anyway, i wore it until i gave birth to mateo- i then took it off during labor because it felt restrictive. it has been 10 months since i have worn this necklace and today for some reason i put it on. i thought a lot about why i was putting it on and i think it is because i am finally starting to get my mothering groove back. i am feeling more and more capable of "holding" all that i need to. and my octopus necklace is a symbol of that.

sweet saturday

today was the perfect day. a true day of leisure. it has been a while since we have seen one of these. we lounged around this morning and then harvested the remainder of our summer garden's bounty and then went to the recycle roundup. kids were in bed early and david and i actually got to watch a movie. nothing like sweet family days with nothing on the agenda!






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