Look

The people who owned the house before us built a chicken coop. A nice one, really, with 6 nesting boxes, a roost, a cute exterior that matches the cedar siding of our blue house, and a little penned in area in the back yard.

So, we had to get chickens.

And we did. Today.

I wanted to order heritage breeds and do the research and make some unique choices. And then I took a look around me - at the mess of my house, at the papers piling up, at the three kids of my own and the many others that spend time here from the neighborhood. And I decided to drive over to Belmont Feed & Seed.

Now, they had some fancier breeds, some more unique birds, but they were unsexed - meaning, as I found out today, that they weren't sure yet if they were male or female.

I'm not an asshole. At least not all the time. I couldn't risk walking out of there with a box full of roosters. So we got the sexed ones, the hens, the proven layers. They're hybrids, bred to lay, really.

We plan to build a second chicken coop later for a second flock. The Isa Browns we got don't tend to do well with other breeds, so maybe on our second time around we'll get fancy.

Until then...

3 Isa Browns; 3 Amber Links

Oh good lord the girls are so excited.

And in case you thought we only went and bought two... Don't worry. There are six!

some sad news

Grandma Libby and our family - by Mae

Oh hello there. It's been awhile. Haven't much felt like writing. Haven't much had the time.

We've had some sad news here. Chris's grandmother passed away a couple weeks ago. She had been sick on and off for awhile, but in the last year started to suffer shockingly from confusion and general dementia. I was glad to have had the chance to spend some time with her last summer. She was such a lovely lady, so talented in so many ways: pottery, sewing, crochet, embroidery. That was how I knew her. I know that her own children and grandchildren know her in other ways as well, and that they will miss her.

This was a first for our girls, in oh so many ways. It was, for them, the first time someone they knew and had spent time with had died. She started failing dramatically a few weeks before she died; long enough for Chris to drive his mother to Arkansas to be with her in her final moments. So the girls were back with me, in Chicago, waiting for news.

Knowing that her death was imminent did not in any way diminish its effect on them. When I broke the news a week ago Monday they were so sad and confused in such a little girl way that I broke down in tears.

We rented a car and set off on our 11 hour trip which, with three kids, ended up taking two whole days of driving. There was the perfect and expected amount of drama, anger, sadness, tears, and the oblivion that only small children can bring to death. We had a few lovely moments in the southern sun, though, and wandered the streets of Hot Springs after the service. Ate a lot of Mexican food. Drank some margaritas. Got back in the car and drove home to get back to work.

We approached the weekend with no specific plan regarding how we would talk to our children about death. We had no lessons in mind. We had no words memorized. We just let them fumble through it, as best we could. It doesn't seem to matter much how many times as an adult you go through the ceremonious finale that marks the end of a loved one's life. No matter the number of times you've received bad news; no matter the number of services you have planned or attended. It's always done, at least for me, in a bit of a haze. A strange slow rendering of reality, moment by moment. The sadness sinks in much later.

Oddly enough, we turned this occasion into a double funeral, as Chris's Uncle (the youngest son of his grandmother) died a couple years ago and was never given a proper goodbye. His ashes were still in the house. So after the sadness of the day, the tears, the sometimes angry words... we ended up spreading his ashes in an undisclosed location (this may be illegal, I'm protecting my family). At one point, I looked over at my girls and Bela was squeezing tight a bag of human ashes and inquiring about the bone fragments. A few minutes later and the girls and their cousin had their hands in the bag, sifting big parts from little ones, sprinkling and spreading them all in the water as we watched the beautiful swirls fill our field of vision.

It was a little unreal.

So. I've been quiet here. I'm not clear enough on my feelings surrounding this event yet to make much sense of them in this space. Was it ok for us to let them dig away in the ashes of someone's body? Will they forever remember that they kept the groundsman at the cemetery busy while he dug a fresh grave and scooped the water away that stubbornly kept filing it?

What has this experience done for their understanding of death?

Mae was feeling sad at school after her Daddy went to Arkansas to be with Libby when she passed away. Her teacher encouraged her to draw the image above and dictate this letter as well.

The roof

My girls do this thing. They let their room get dirty - disgustingly dirty. And then, in conspiratorial camaraderie they make a show of sneaking upstairs, telling me they have a surprise in store. Only two little girls aged 8 and 5 could make a show of sneaking off.

Anyway. They did this the other day. I assumed that in 20 minutes they would call me upstairs while proclaiming their room was "messier than even before" only to surprise and delight me with their newly cleaned quarters.

They didn't. I finally meandered up to see what was going on and the room was still the pits.

Mae admitted later that they got sidetracked. The weather was so lovely and the air smelled like spring, they opened the windows. They wrote secret messages on paper airplanes and threw them out their second story window.

It melted my heart. It was so darling. Two little girls, two sisters, throwing paper airplanes out the window.

And then yesterday happened.

I jogged home from work yesterday during a break in the rain. I stepped over soggy paper airplanes as I entered the front door. I took the baby from the sitter, I assumed my position in the kitchen and sauteed onions, chopped carrots, cooked up lentil soup. And the doorbell rang.

It's late now, and I've been giving oral exams in Spanish and taking care of a sick baby and reading for an hour to the girls and I don't have the brain power to turn this into narrative genius. So I'll just out with it.

The girls were on the roof. They were ON THE ROOF. They weren't cutely tossing innocent little paper airplanes out their cutely curtained white painted windows. They climbed out through the crumbling lead paint covered frame onto our newly replaced patch of roof and climbed to the little peak that looks out over our front stairs and THREW AIRPLANES TO THE FRONT YARD. FROM THE ROOF.

My neighbors saw them. They were horrified. I thanked them profusely for letting me in on the girls' secret. I didn't yell. I didn't take away Saturday ipad or Friday night movie. I figured for something this serious I should do something I never ever do under any other circumstance: I spoke to them calmly. I told them about the dangers of climbing on a roof.

I think we're in the clear now. I think they'll stay where they belong. But just in case, Chris and I have decided to put together a little homemade, hand illustrated Edward Gorey style book called: 30 ways you can die by falling off the roof. 

This moment...

Just a wee moment from our week...  Only the early riser gets to see the Easter Bunny in action!

This Moment

A moment from our week I want to share and remember. Have a great weekend!

Date Day

Romance and fun private time is hard to come by when you're married with three kids, and working, and generally busy and exhausted. But it's important. The few times a year Chris and I manage to be alone together, away from the kids, having dinner or hanging out with friends, we have such a nice time.

It's a very pleasant feeling to be reminded how much you love the person you married, how much fun you have together, when you can be together.

I see a lot of 'date night' talk on Facebook - weekly escapades enjoyed by my married friends with kids. I love the idea, but we have never been successful at maintaining this. Why? The city is crowded. It's expensive. There's so much pressure to have fun, to have drinks, to spend money, to dress nice. A lovely idea, but man - we are super tired.

And so we've let years go by without a regular you and me time of the week. Until it recently struck me - why does it have to be date night? I am my best between 10:00 am and 2:00 pm, after all.

And so, I gladly and giddily introduce you to: Date Day.

Not novel, I'm sure. But oh so exciting.

We have a young babysitter who will come now on Sundays, either 3 hours in the morning or 3 in the afternoon. We plan to alternate between hitting some fun breakfast spots and going out for lunch, maybe some time at the lake, a ride on the scooter when the weather gets nicer, a visit to stores and other places we never get to see.

Last Sunday was our maiden voyage out on the city. We sat at this hip little coffee/brunch place in Logan Square and felt, well, a wee bit younger. A wee bit freer. And for under $30 we had a meal out for which we needed no reservations. No cute outfit. No snobby snobbishness. We ran some errands, got a Hatch Show Print (that we've had since our trip) framed.

And got to hold hands.

BMG

Hey Family,

So, if you'll look up to the top of this blog page, you'll notice a new tab! It's called 'The BelaMaeGillian Project'. Go ahead, open it up. You'll see I've come up with a fantastic new way to keep my house cleaner and my kids educated and entertained at the same time! I'm a genius!

Genius idea: Each and every birthday or Christmas celebration, when you find yourself in front of a Barbie display, or coloring books, or stickers... think instead PAY PAL.

These girls have so much STUFF! It's proven that the over-accumulation of toys and child paraphernalia leads directly to the emotional breakdown of certain mothers, involving tears, usually in front of over-worked husbands and sometimes innocent babes, which may or may not involve stuffing prized possessions strewn across the floor into hefty garbage bags and hiding them in the attic. Right before work on a morning when everyone is running late anyway.

 They actively play with about 6% of their toys, and we are always trying to scrape together money for the exciting classes they want to take (ok, the exciting classes I convince them they want to take.) 

Just send a small amount of money their way, and I PROMISE I will put it toward their wish list of classes (and not toward pedicures). 

Or don't! It's up to you. I'll keep a running list of the classes on their to-do lists just in case you're interested.

What do you think?