Under the Tulip Tree

Close-Ups at the Berry Botanic Garden

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My sister wrote a lovely post about the lovely place we toured on Mother's Day—the Berry Botanic Garden. She has such an eloquent way of describing people, places, and things (as I know you know) where as I think I said something like, "This reminds me of Colorado." I was tremendously inspired by these rock gardens, however, and I've been scheming ways to incorporate something like them into my own garden ever since. The textures were truly amazing. What it is about the combination of rocks and plants that is so appealing?

Outer Space Birthday Party

Perry had his first big kid birthday party (one not at our house) on Saturday. He wanted to have a bowling party like his big sis and he also wanted an Outer Space theme. This theme was super fun, I have to say. First, we made the invitations by scanning Perry's drawing of a rocket and adding his little face. The rest of it was just me messing around in Photoshop.

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For the party bags and favors, I tried to keep it simple and use things that I had on hand. There are TONS of different things you can do for an Outer Space party but I just used red lunch bags and alphabet stickers from my scrapbook stash. I also stamped on some stars.

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For the favors, each boy got a cool spaceship and a little alien pop-up guy (as well as some propaganda from the bowling alley). All of my original ideas for party favors got vetoed. Astronaut badges? Too young. Door hangers? Too boring. Picture frames? Too girly. Luckily, this spaceship idea finally got the thumbs up. I saw it online somewhere and mine is a quicker (sloppier) version. I stapled two sturdy lunch size paper plates together around the edges, cut some styrofoam balls in half and hot glued each half to the top of each plate set. Then I painted them with silver acrylic paint and used yellow and black tempera paint for the windows. These are meant to be flung around the house like frisbees so hopefully they stayed together for more than three seconds…

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And, my mom made this yummy cake for the party! She had her own homemade cake making business in the 80's so we have had some amazing birthday cakes over the years. We used to comb through her old cake decorating books when we were young, trying to find the perfect cake for the occasion. My kids put in their orders just like we used to. Thanks, Mom. For this one, she made a simple chocolate sheet cake with chocolate and vanilla frosting, and used vanilla wafers as the bases for the planets.

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And then, of course, there was bowling. I love watching kids bowl. And I love listening to their conversations. I especially loved it when Perry opened one of his gifts (a Transformer) and his best buddy said, I think you're going to be very satisfied with this model, Perry.

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I love birthday parties.

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Eight Years Old

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This little guy turns eight today.

My littlest one.

My heart.

My love.

Eight.

A few weeks ago, we were watching some old family movies and I couldn't watch the one of Perry's 4th Birthday without crying. Just hearing his little voice and remembering those cheeks, my goodness, I almost had to cover my eyes. I hadn't noticed what was right in front of me— Perry is growing up. He seemed to stay a baby for so long that I thought he would be one forever. And all this time, I've seen myself as a mother to that little baby. I hadn't noticed that he's not, that I'm not, that person anymore. I used to see mothers with babies on their hips and I would see me. I don't anymore. Now I don't really know what I see.

I had a dream once where Perry truly was still a baby. Please let me stay in this dream forever, I pleaded. I sat with him on a bed I didn't recognize in an old farm house I'd never seen before and I soaked up every last bit of him. Then I heard Michael and Arden in the backyard, calling my name, waking me up, and I knew that the moment was already over. Some nights I go to bed hoping I'll have that dream again.

Someone told me once that raising a child is like cradling your heart in your hands and protecting it as you stumble your way through life. I would say raising Perry has been a lot like that, only I'm cradling my heart in a snowstorm, blindfolded, while walking a tightrope, on two broken feet.

If I could, I would keep him in my pocket forever. Safe and warm.

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Happy Birthday, my littlest love. xox, Mom.

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What Drawing Means to Her

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Drawing rights Arden's world. It's how she sorts her days. It's how she decides who she wants to be. When she's drawing, she's not just drawing something. She's defining herself. She is the character she's creating. Every choice is deliberate, every detail has purpose.

But sometimes it's not about creating at all. Sometimes it's simply about letting emotions go. One time, when Arden was about four-years-old, we all went on a hike to Multnomah Falls. For some reason, she kept running ahead of us on the trail. The drop-off was extremely steep and after threatening to do it many times, we finally scooped her up and went back home. We'd never had to do anything like that with her before and as Michael carried her back down the trail to the car, she screamed at us the entire time. When we finally got home, she ran up to her room, tears still streaming down her little face, and grabbed a pencil and paper out of her desk drawer. She stormed downstairs to show us the picture she had just drawn of Michael carrying her down the hill (both of them with angry faces and jagged teeth) and held it up to our noses. Then she drew a hard, heavy "X" over the whole thing that almost ripped the paper and shouted, I don't want that to ever happen again! EVER!

As I write this (she has no idea that I'm actually writing about this very thing), she is stomping around and pounding her fists in anger over something someone (her brother, maybe?) has said. I guess I'm kind of ignoring her. Trust me, I've seen this type of thing before. Now she is grabbing an empty toilet paper tube out of the recycling. Now she's telling me she's drawing me with an angry unibrow on it. What did I do? Uh-oh, now she's ripping up the angry unibrow tube and is throwing it around the room. Geez. (This goes on and on until I tell her to run a few laps around the yard and she starts to calm down.)

Ahhh, the tormented creative mind.

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When Someone Gets a Job

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Someone else has to get used to eating breakfast alone again.

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And someone else has to do her own searching on Craigslist for free plants.

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And when someone isn't here, he can't laugh at someone else falling down the back step into a pot of arugula when she tries to take out the trash.

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And it's been a long time since someone else has said this…

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Have a good day at work, honey.

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