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“How to Scare the Crap Out of Your Parents” as told my our 23 month old little girl…

Step 1: Dish up a low grade fever. Have your fever go up and down and all around just to confuse them a little…especially if they are the type of parents who can’t remember how high it needs to be before they take you to the hospital.

Step 2: Start to feel better and have your fever go down…right before bedtime. Then act like your silly self so your parents think all is well.

Step 3: Go to bed in record time.

Step 4: About an hour after you are fast asleep have your fever spike and start up a febrile seizure. Let out a shrill sound that your parents have never heard before so they come running.

Step 5: Pass out, turn gray and play dead (but still breathe).

Step 6: By now your parents will really be scared so they’ll probably be screaming in your ear to “Wake up!” and “Stay with us!” and such and such. Just ignore it all, pretend to be a limp noodle and don’t open your eyes.

Step 7: Your parents will now probably rush you to the ER if they haven’t called 911. You’ll get prodded in the bum so the docs can see how high your temperature is and if you are lucky they will put you in a room with a big comfy bed. Keep taking some naps.

Step 8: Now the fun part begins. You get to meet all these nice people who talk to you in high voices and your daddy might show you a video while you get your blood drawn and they have stickers and a coloring book and stuff to look at. Keep in mind that it is now the middle of the night so you get to stay up really late!

Step 9: Your parents get scolded for not giving you Tylenol right when you got that low grade fever.

Step 10: When you get to go home your parents treat you like this magical princess and they give you hugs and kisses every few seconds and the next day you get to read books all day and you’ll maybe even get to watch a Mr. Rodgers show and you get yummy yogurt tubes and your mama makes you chicken noodle soup and man…life is good.

 

In no particular order a few things that have happened as of late that have brought a good old pile of joy to my plate:

1.) While in a busy Berkeley Bowl grocery shopping trip a stranger and I agreed that we are all dancing around one another trying to make our way through the aisles. And then randomly as I tried to cross the aisle and she tried to cross the aisle we both danced by each other at the same time (literally danced). I guess I would classify my moves as contemporary dance. For the record, I am not a good dancer and kind of don’t like dancing in public but this moment was special.

2.) I treated myself to a big bunch of fresh lavender and have it placed next to me while I work. Getting a big whiff of lavender as the great bay area breeze passes through our loft makes me one happy woman.

3.) MaLou rocking her chemo treatments this go round.

4.) We had an old banana and some hot days which then turned into a little rash of fruit flies. I feel really accomplished because last night I made a fruit fly trap and today I see successful results! The little things, right?

5.) Baby child talking up a storm, giving the tightest unsolicited hugs at random, looking up to big cousins, watching a little boy through a tantrum using so many “No! No! No’s!” and then little F learning how to say the word no two seconds later, using the potty, making friends, playing with friends, wanting to read…I could go on and on. I just love this little person.

6.) Enjoying what we have while we have it.

(photo taken with VSCO app for my iphone)

You should see this one section of my hair that is so so gray you’d think I was a 70 year old in a 33 year old body (i.e. it is time to get my hair did). It is actually a really pretty shiny silver gray and part of me wants to just let it go and embrace being a silver fox (ha!) but another part of me thinks I’m not quite ready.

“I’m not quite ready.” Lordy, this seems to be the theme of our lives at the moment.

We’ve been doing a lot of soul searching lately thinking about our future and where we want to be, what we want to be doing, what sort of life we want to provide our kiddo and how we might go about this thing called survival. One night we made up our minds and thought we had an answer and got all excited/scared. The next day after some venturing we decided we aren’t quite ready. It is really hard to take a big step when there are a lot of unknowns, self-employed factors to consider and dependents to provide for. I fear a little that maybe we are making the wrong choice by doing what is comfortable but I also fear if we made a big change we’d regret it.

But, it never hurts to take some time to think about the possibilities, enjoy what you have while you have it and try to  grow some cojones, ha!

 

A massively large T H A N K Y O U to all the kiddos, parentals and cats who participated in our black & white pop-up this year. You guys were awesome!

{photo taken with VSCO app for my iphone…I really do know how to take photos with good cameras, I’m just lazy more often than not}

Things I’ve come to learn about baby child: She likes order, she likes routines, she likes predictability, she likes her independence and she likes hedgehogs. I guess this could be true for most kids (plus or minus the hedgehogs) but it is interesting to realize what she needs to feel happy and secure. In the case of the hedgehogs, she likes these specific items placed on the mini green chair on our photo ledge…she doesn’t need any other toys or items up here, just the hedgehogs. And she gets SO excited to see the hedgehogs on the chair on the ledge. And actually, I find a lot of joy in seeing the hedgehogs on the chair on the ledge too. If I were back in college I might consider doing a psych study to see if in having a hedgehog on a chair on a ledge elevates positive neurons in your brain. Because honestly I think it does.

 

{photo taken with VSCO app for my iphone}

My goal this weekend is to recap all my favorite memories from 2013 before they vanish from my little brain. So, in no particular order:

**disclaimer! This was “the year of the baby” so the majority of my memories revolve around baby and her milestones. If you don’t like babies then you’d better look away fast.

-The first 3 months of 2013 pretty much revolved around boobs. I knew breastfeeding would take a lot out of me but I wasn’t prepared for the amount of time it would take every single day for a long, long time and how little else I would get to do. After about the first few months it became second nature but man, it was like a wild African scene in our loft. Sorry to any neighbors/friends who saw things they were not prepared to see. In Vancouver, Canada ladies are whipping their man made nursing utensils out left and right which was awesome, but you just don’t see that as much out here.

-Lots of little travels in 2013. Fbombs first trip was to Palm Springs, CA at around 2 months then to Olympia, WA at 3 months then to Colorado at 4.5 months then back to Palm springs at 5 months then to San Luis Obispo for a weekend trip, then to Tahoe, then to Chicago at 9 months, then to Ashland, OR and back to Olympia with a quick trip to Vancouver at 10 months, then back to Colorado for her one year birthday. She has been such a good traveler both by car and plane. I’m guessing our easy travel days are coming to a close but man, she is such a travel buddy.

-Halloween in Colorado was pretty memorable. I had had too much coffee the day before Halloween and decided we needed to bring the old Beckord tradition back and scare the kiddos again. So my wild mind got going and I formulated lots of plans on how to raise the biggest fright. Then I realized, “I’m a mom and baby will have to go to bed.” So, my good old pops did all the scaring and he did one heck of a good job. Nothing like giving used golf balls out as treats, right?

-Ma’s bladder cancer came back a number of times throughout the year but before the holidays she was disease free. Yippee!! Now thinking happy thoughts for 2014.

-Cdawg shooting his first magazine cover. Exciting to see him branch out more and more.

-Waking up the morning of Fdizzle’s 1st birthday to snow! On the teepee!

-Sleeping on the bathroom floor with food poisoning when I should have been camping with my sister on her 40th birthday. But then getting to surprise her as she floated on Eel river. I love my sister.

-A dear friend’s wedding at the most magical place on earth (it wasn’t Disneyland).

-The death of our old Audi and the birth of our “we are parents now” hot red used Volvo station wagon.

-Seeing baby child sit up, eat real food, crawl, pull up, cruise and walk. I’m so so so so so so thankful I’ve been home to see all this stuff even if it means I’m not saving a lot of dough.

-Catching baby child’s first steps on video. Not sure how we were quick enough to do it but we did. She had no idea she had walked so it was no big deal to her. Just another day playing with the salad spinner.

-Spending lots of good time with friends who also have offspring. Thanks, friends, for also having offspring.

-The birth of the first Beckord BOY. Finally, we have someone to carry on the Beckord name. And I’ll never forget meeting him for the first time WHILE watching a Bronco game with my bro/sis-in-law in the recovery room, while drinking a beer. That is the way to do it.

-Doing a mini shoot with such awesome, awesome families. I’m really grateful and can’t wait to do more!

-Back to Olympia then Palm Springs then Olympia to start the new year.