Busy Hands Homestead

"Boat, hand, x, o,"  she loudly declares, first with both eyes, then covering one and the other. "O, x, boat, hand", she proudly states as the nurse points to each shape on the kinder garden eye chart.  We are on our way out of the doctor's office, the eye chart being the last stop before Ivory's four year old well child visit is over.  I stand next to her, trying hard not to giggle at her earnest approach to reading the symbols.  It is hard to believe that my know-it-all, suddenly tall, with hair almost touching her bottom, reading books to me little girl has been in my life such a short time. Ivory, so excited to ride the city buses for the first time.  I was the last to know I was pregnant, and I have to admit, terrified.  Every day I rode my bike past the hospital, twice, once on the way to campus and once on the way home.  My heart would start pounding and twice a day I experienced what bordered on a panic attack.  I did prenatal yoga, ...

Ivory turned four years old yesterday. It was the first birthday that she anticipated for days, weeks and even months.  Her new found awareness, excitement and joy about her birthday made it enjoyable for me to play along in this birthday game. So late Sunday night, I was putting the finishing touches on her birthday outfit, her cake and making sure that I had my bag packed to go and bake cupcakes at her school in the morning. The outfit: The breakfast: The cupcakes : Chocolate Beet Cupcakes with cream cheese icing and marzipan flowers and leaves.  Sylvan and Ivory, oh so eagerly, awaiting their cupcakes.  The cake(s): A toadstool fairy house for the children made of a chocolate sheet cake and iced with cream cheese icing and embellished with marzipan flowers and butterfly.  A Boston cream pie for the adults.  and the party: The party was a potluck, of course. Birthdays are perfect oportunities for the adults as w...

(written almost entirely while on hold with Team Heath) I have hung the diapers, stepping on the sweet smelling pineapple weed ( Matricaria discoidea ) at my feet.  Ivory is napping on my bed and I just gently deposited Sylvan on his sisters bed. I sighed and picked up the phone. I am sitting here, tethered to my phone, being transferred from one person to another. Somewhere along the way I have gotten dropped and am back to the first step in the process, I was just transferred back to the Team Health billing center. I have been on hold so long that the battery on my phone is noticeably warm. This has become a weekly ritual. It all started on March 23 rd , 2011 when Sylvan was 7 weeks old. We were visiting family in Oklahoma and he developed this horrible mucus in the back of his throat. He would choke after nursing and instead of spitting up milk, he would spit of masses of sticky slime. I had him sleeping propped up, terrified to fall asleep myself... It...