little spidey

and his trusty guitar....

Morning breath

When Oliver wakes up in the morning he usually comes into bed with us for a little while. Sometimes he drifts off to sleep, other times he pelts Kate with things from the nightstand while she tries to keep sleeping.

Yesterday morning he fell back to sleep. Kate and I both managed to slip out of bed to get the morning started. After a while I heard him squirming around in our bedroom. When I came in to greet him, he was sitting in the middle of the bed with a grumpy look on his face.

"What's up, bud?"
(pointing to one of our pillows) "That purple pillow has stinky breath."

I took that as a cue to change the sheets. I remember being a kid and being oversensitive to big people morning breath. They just don't realize how much more morning breath a big mouth generates. I wondered how my dad's breath could consistently smell like an old leaf pile first thing in the morning. Now the tables have turned.

owbries

Oliver is talking pretty well now, but there are still a few phrases that he still mixes up. We know they won't last long, so we're enjoying them while they last. Cora's longest lasting jumbled word was "breftik" for breakfast.

Oliver's:

"owbries" eyebrows
"PVS kids" PBS Kids
"sunscream" sunscreen
"Carro me" carry me

We'll miss them when they go....

Mommy's dream come true

Okay, I never dared to hope that this might happen, but Cora made me BREAKFAST IN BED this morning. Here's the story:

Brian left early this morning to teach class, and had Cora set up with morning cartoons while Oliver and I slept in together. When Teletubbies (Oliver's favorite) came on, Cora came in and got him up to watch. Now, Cora's pretty much over the Tubbies, so I heard her start to bang around in the kitchen and figured, in my sleepy stupor, that she was fixing herself a bowl of cereal.

Then lo and behold, she comes into the bedroom holding a plate of fresh cut canteloupe, and also on the plate a bowl of cheerios with yogurt (the way I like it). She even brought me a cloth napkin, and the only spoon she could find that was clean -- one of Oliver's old blue rubber-coated demitasse spoons! I tell you what, I started crying right then and there. Happy tears, I reassured Cora. I kept blubbering how sweet she was to do this and how much it meant to me -- I hope I didn't freak her out. It just came out of nowhere and happy crying was the only response I could muster. I think she knew she'd done something really great to get such an emotional response from me.

That's parenting for you -- just when you start to think that all you are is a giant snot rag to your kids, they go and do something unspeakably wonderful and thoughtful and help you remember that all the hard stuff is totally worth it in the end.

Oliver's Fs

Oliver has started doing something that Cora used to do when she was about his age. He enjoys playing with words, particularly substituting the first letter of every word in a sentence with a particular letter. His favorite is "f". I just make sure not to talk about trucks.

So tonight for bedtime he requested and I sang, with f's substituted throughout:

Fender Fepherd
Finkle Finkle Fittle Far
Fock a Fye Faby
Fing Fow, Feet Fariot

Then, after songs:

Me: "Good night buddy."

Oliver: "I'm a fig foy. A fig two years old foy. I'm Foliver."

Me: "Good night Foliver. Feet feams."

Ollie: "You're a fatty."

Me: "I'm a fatty?"

O: "Uh-huh. Before you were a fatty you were a Brian. Before I was Foliver I was an Oliver."

And as I left the room after saying good night I heard him call out behind me:
"Fud Fight Fatty!"

Camp and sleep

Cora came home from camp yesterday with an arrowhead necklace. Any camp that makes arrowhead necklaces is a real camp. She has been creek hiking, pool swimming, dancing, making crafts, and tomorrow hopes to go horseback riding. When asked if they go inside when it rains, she responded, "there is no inside." She loooves it.

Oliver is developing opinions about how the world should be. Lately he is most passionate about 1) not napping and 2) not bathing and 3) not eating. Thank goodness he's our second child, because none of these things have phased us much. With Cora we would have had all the child rearing books out, anxiously soliciting opinions from anyone with a child past or present. But now it's mostly amusing, sometimes annoying.

Like Cora before him, Oliver really needs his naps. So a nap strike is not pleasant as the day wears on. Last week he fell asleep in the car for a while. He woke up groggy and cranky. He said, "I slept in the day. That means I am a baby."

With Cora we used to go for convenient afternoon drives down the Natchez Trace Parkway, a scenic highway with little traffic, no billboards and more deer than buildings. Eventually Cora would drift off to sleep with nothing to keep her attention. This worked successfully for probably three days. Then the fourth time she cried out "I know what you're trying to do! No Natchez Trace! I won't fall asleep!" It took her an hour to fall asleep that day, and we scrapped the tactic after that. So far Oliver still zonks out in the car, but he's catching on. Kate picked Cora up at camp this afternoon and noticed that Oliver was yawning in the back seat. After a few turns Oliver called out, "Don't drive around, Mommy! I'm not going to sleep!" He conked out a minute later. But he's on to us. We're keeping the Natchez in reserve, for when the time is right.

da kids

2007_0701_173238AA, originally uploaded by Wingates.

Curious?

No, the washer/dryer didn't eat Brian. I'll explain in another post...

Being With Flowers

Our good friend from Omega, Anthony, stopped by for a brief visit with his friend Jacob, en route to the Bonnaroo music festival in Manchester, Tennessee. Anthony is Omega's official floral artist, adorning the classrooms, dining hall, and entire campus with the most gorgeous, inspired floral arrangements you could ever imagine. He was asked to do some of his work onstage at Bonnaroo, with Michael Franti of the group Spearhead. Soon after they arrived, Anthony had to take care of the flowers he brought with him for the show, and he found a willing (and gentle) assistant in Oliver. Here's a video:

Lorri Honeycutt's Big World

I know I've already sent out an email about these fabulous photos, but for those of you who didn't get a chance to check out some of Lorri's "work," here's your chance. I found her at a booth at the Decatur Arts Festival in Georgia, while strolling around with my good buddy Rachel. I find her pictures to be so whimsical, simple, and soul-soothing I just had to share them with everyone I love. She told me Whole Foods will be carrying her 2008 calendar, so it sounds like lots of other folks like looking at her little people too. She's got Holiday cards, thank you cards, large and small prints at her website, www.bigworldphoto.com. Definitely an artist worth supporting!








New Year's Resolutions
















Divers









Hair Care













Wine Making








Thank You

Happy Camper

Cora started camp this week, so summer vacation is officially in full swing. She is beyond happy.

Caterpillar leaf

Caterpillar leaf, originally uploaded by Wingates.

Cora discovered this leaf while exploring the hillside in Gma and Gdad's back yard. A group of little caterpillar type worms had systematically eaten their way through the chlorophyll surface of the leaf, leaving a swath of bare scaffolding in their wake.

School is out now, and both kids are home for a week or two before Cora starts the first of her three summer camps. Life has been eventful already, as it always is with two kids on the loose.

Yesterday morning Kate made some toast and then walked out of the kitchen for a minute. A few moments later she heard Oliver howling in pain in the kitchen. She found Oliver on the floor, clutching his hand, and a rock in the toaster. Our toaster is on a scaffold type shelf, and he just got strong enough to scale it. He got a pretty nasty burn on his hand, but it will heal in no time. And I'm sure he won't toast any more rocks.

Cora's Treasures

2007_0528_175906AA, originally uploaded by Wingates.

Cora's thoughts on marriage

Cora, this morning as I was brushing her hair before school:
"Mommy, can I live with you forever?"
Me:
"Of course you can."
Cora:
"I never want to get married."
Me:
"That's fine -- you don't have te get married if you don't want to."
Cora:
"Maybe I'd marry Ben (her best buddy of 3 years), but he's going to marry Mohini. I'll make him marry me, that fudgeball."

And so it goes...

Father and Son

2007_0513_140339AA, originally uploaded by Wingates.

Pictures with Daddy are pretty rare because I'm usually the one behind the camera. Figured it was worth documenting.

This flurry of posts comes from the Mothers Day Peace Parade, which Kate helped organize last year(and this year too) as the local outreach of a national organization called Mothers Acting Up(MAU). It grew out of an idea that she had, or maybe just an urge, to get more involved in the community and speak up for what she believes in.

Over the last year it has been beautiful to see the group of wonderful people that have joined the movement here. Soon after hatching the idea last year,Kate met Paige LaGrone Babcock, another local mom who has become a close friend and the heart of the Nashville MAU engine that makes things happen. It has been amazing to watch a community sprout around a wish, and it continues to evolve. Go Mamas!

Be sure to click on the picture, as there about 120 photos or so from the parade. Enjoy!

How cute is this!?!

2007_0513_135906AA, originally uploaded by Wingates.

Mothers Day Parade

2007_0513_130249AA, originally uploaded by Wingates.

Cora didn't break her foot.

Last week we were at her gymnastics class and her teacher invited her to switch to a more advanced group. Cora was delighted. The new class is 90 minutes instead of 45, and she will learn more advanced techniques and "real" gymnastic moves. She went to her first class Thursday and did great. She balanced upside down on the balance beam (with her teacher's assistance), did back bends and all kinds of fun stuff. She has really taken to gymnastics and seems really excited about the prospect of learning more. She's a natural out there on the mat.

Oliver is a full blown two year old. When he's happy he's still the sweetest boy on Earth. But as soon as he thinks of something he wants he starts whining like it has already been denied him.

Cora and Oliver have already been fighting like cats and dogs this morning. Kate has memories of Cousins Kim and Rusty fighting each other in a blur of arms and hair. We're headed that way. So far no physical assaults, but lots of perceived injustice. Everything has to be fair!

Spring update

Okay, it's been a looong time since we really updated the blog. As several of you have mentioned to us, it's not Christmas Eve anymore. In fact, it's not winter anymore. In our house, that's a great thing!

Winter got really oppressive here and we just didn't have the energy to write posts or the words to put our experiences into digestinble bits. We had a bit of everything going on--sicknesses, struggles, bone chilling weather. Thankfully spring is here and things are lightening up.

In fact, both kids have diarrhea and Cora might have broken her foot today. Kate ended the day wearing Oliver's poop on her shirt. Me? It looks like I'm the one who passed on the diarrhea to the kids, having been in bed for the last couple days.

Really, things are lightening up!

We'll write more soon. Promise!

It's not Christmas anymore!