the evening rituals

The lack of emotional security of our American young people is due, I believe, to their isolation from the larger family unit.  No two people - no mere father and mother - as I have often said, are enough to provide emotional security for a child.  He needs to feel himself one in a world of kinfolk, persons of variety in age and temperament, and yet allied to himself by an indissoluble bond which he cannot break if he could, for nature has welded him into it before he was born.  ~Pearl S. Buck

I know why families were created with all their imperfections. They humanize you. They are made to make you forget yourself occasionally, so that the beautiful balance of life is not destroyed.
-- Anais Nin

Bringing up a family should be an adventure, not an anxious discipline in which everybody is constantly graded for performance -Milton R Saperstein  

Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and of family disagreements. -Elizabeth II

Check out Ever and I in Babble Magazine

Here we are in our nursing glory, on Nat The Fat Rat's Babble column for My Babies First Year

How awesome being included with other publicly nursing mommas!

Very Superstitious

Watching Lola dance I thought about the forward motion of life and how we can be still inside although the world, of course, moves onward. This persistent timeless movement cannot be timeless and movement in the same juncture, can it? Or can it. So my childhood was so terribly hard, but then-  Dakota and then the children in succession and my husband and fighting daily for health has given me the freedom and right to say in all honesty life just keeps getting better.  So my childhood was terribly hard, and while it all keeps getting better I have one witchy eye rolled backward, to view the other spinning side of the coin... the dark and faceless. No matter how many self help books or gurus or almost dead grandmothers tell me to stay in the moment and stop worrying, my blood is full of cortisol aged as brutally as I did as a child.  So that it sticks to the cellular membranes as if it fears for it's life. It fears.

If I am laughing with Ever's little tongue poking in my mouth as it does when I kiss her, and Lola's long arms wrapped round my waist and my family around me and the dogs and music and everything illuminated, then the witchy eye is rolling upward to the sky in fear of a God who might decide I am too blessed and too happy and the pendulum has swung too far from the place of my birth, and lightning will strike and where there was this joy there will only be a sign that says  She Was Stupid Enough To Believe It Would Last

I am telling you these things and I have faith that you won't mock me.*

So I come to write about my life and my fingers are heavy and full of fear.  I could write i have never been so happy but I must be punished if I do. That's the ridiculous nature of my brain and still, the incessant warnings take iron discipline to ignore, and I am not known for any kind of discipline at all. 

Perhaps this is why sex has finally become the torturous ordeal to obtain that we are always warned it will be when married with children. We made it through three kids and still went at each other often, but Ever's CSection and hospitalization and being the fourth and first baby I have to work with, Mr. Curry and I keep promising each other all kinds of pleasure that feels totally out of reach once we actually lay down.  We are so exhausted.  The fatigue of babyhood and children and illness and working has taken us into another world where we are practically reduced to tears at the thought of truly cleaning the house and making dinner. I think about Mr. Curry all day, his long knotted arms, the muscles of his thighs, the broad thickness of his shoulders and back, the working grit of his nails, the rough of his hands on my skin... and then when we face each other we fall asleep snoring like the grandparents at the nursing home in Raising Hope. We leave each other sexy  notes, we sex-t, we whisper into each other's ears and nuzzle like cats, we do everything but actually have sex. But when we do? It's memory making. That has to count for something. 

*She Was Stupid Enough To Believe They Wouldn't Laugh (?)

no parkin on the dance floor

lola's beeeelated 9th birthday party began with Queen and a totally crazy game of Twister on a beautiful, warm Friday evening in sunny San Diego California

the laughter was contagious ( and loud. VERY LOUD )

i'm not sure if you realize that Mr. Curry and i now have FOUR children. because we barely realize it. but here they are. my heart is so full it hurts on a daily basis.

here we are and below, my mom, Mary, with her four grandkids. she's a truly awesome Grandma. the kids love her deeply and spend a lot of time with her. they see her pretty much every week, to spend the night, or go to dinner, or hang at her house, whatever.

Mr. Curry lit the candles, pirate candles, matching the pirate pinata.

my girl and I

 

the house looked awesome. Mr. Curry cleaned and decorated almost all day. he rocks.

the girls all wrote on a balloon and then set the balloons into the air. Lola's wish:

tell Anne Frank Lola Moon said hello and she loves her 

Last Saturday

Ever's outfit is from a trade with my sponsor, My Sweet Muffin

i <3 it

Play, Children

Lola had a little friend over, a beautiful brown eyed pixie faced girl with a sad, sloping mouth. I walked past them into the kitchen. Lola was standing over her friend. Well what about fairies, she asked? The little girl shrugged. Connect Four?, I heard Lola ask as I trailed into the bedroom with Ever on my shoulder.

Later I walked through the living room and they had barely moved. Lola was sad. What's going on, I asked. What are you two going to play? Lola looked at her friend, her friend shrugged. She just wants to watch T.V., Lola told me. We aren't allowed to have the T.V. on during play-dates, for the most part. PLAY-dates. See? So I suggested a few games, and her friend kept shrugging at me. A familiar shrug. Lola has playdates every weekend, sometimes just kids down the street she is hanging out with, sometimes an official 'playdate' with a friend from school, and lately there has been a common theme with these little girls: prepubescent malaise, otherwise known as I'm Bored. And these girls are really, really, really bored. Jump rope? Yawn. American Girl dolls? Naw. Pet Shop Creatures? Been there. Baby dolls? Animal hospital? BARBIES, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD?!!! Nope....

But I'd really like to watch T.V.

I've taken to getting involved with their play, something I would have died if my own mother had done. I took Lola and another tragically bored young lady on a 'explorers walk' and by the time we got home they were trilling and tinkering and happy with their collection of acorns and rocks. So by the time we reached the millionth and three play dates of boredom, I had it. Look, you two, I said grimly. You can either find something to do and look like the playful, carefree children you are meant to be, or this play date is over. Harsh. I know.  Lola and friend headed out front and within ten minutes were engaged.

We watch T.V. Sometimes, we watch too much T.V.  We have a computer. Sometimes, we spend too much time on the computer. ( we=me ) We have video games, cell phones, and Ian has an I-Pod. And, we play. We make room for play, on a regular basis. We insist on it.  Imaginative play is so crucial to the development of empathetic, intelligent and creative human beings that to consider it's erosion is truly depressing. Lack of toys never killed imagination, but overuse of toys that don't involve screens could.  

Here's a game: let's pretend all these children are on a playdate together at your house, and the power goes out. 

Better Than Hot Buttered Biscuts!

Stacey from Any Mommy sent Ever this gorgeous little summer outfit from Mini-Boden, just in time for a hot weekend ( which has since reverted to overcast and yuck ) Ever wanted to send her thanks...

drool, xo, lick and love, Ever Elizabeth

In Our House It's OK To...

Embrace the strange

Skip a shower and sleep instead

Leave the sink full of dirty dishes but make the kids lunches for school

Let the kids stay up late to have a quickie with your husband

Tell inappropriate jokes

Slam a door when you're mad- just not TOO hard and not every time

Cry
sourced

Bite the baby's butt ( no teeth marks, please )

Meet Mary Potts

I'd like to introduce you to Mary Potts. She is a fellow blogger and mother of four who lost her beautiful daughter, Erin Elizabeth, at age 18 to cancer. And now Mary is doing something so awesomely brave and loving that it makes my heart speed up. She is preparing to donate her 'gently used' (as she put it) left kidney to her older brother. It's hard to imagine something more tangible as an expression of love than literally cutting out part of your body to place it in the body of the person you love. Mary, my hat is off to you, and my heart and prayers with you. I hope some of you will take time to visit Mary and give her a 'bloggers hurrah'.