I signed up to take Suzi Blu's Goddess and Poet class recently because 1) I love faces I want to be able to draw them better (I used to know how) and 2) all the videos are done/it's not a video a week, so I can go through and ignore the parts I'm not interested in and watch what I want to. And save them for later. So she draws pretty girl faces, like everyone else is doing right now. I know, I know, I just said I wanted to draw faces like everyone else. Haha. But yesterday as I stared at the pretty girl face I drew, I realized I had NO interest in drawing pretty girl faces. So using what I learned from her face drawing video, I applied it to another face of an old man and while haha, it looks NOTHING like the old man, it does look like an interesting face to me. Yay! Is it is a sure sign I'm getting older that I like wrinkly faces?? ;)

And I too used to want to draw pretty girl faces because I found my stash of face clippings from magazines that I collected in high school and while I find the 90s fashion amusing (and yes, cool), I am like, boring pretty face, boring pretty face. So now I have to find some interesting faces to draw. I'm sure I have something. Somewhere.

Anyway, I'm really happy that I can apply the class to MY style. In fact, I'm really thrilled to find my style. It helps that I am only making art for me, so while pretty girls are the rage (aren't they always), I don't have to care if anyone likes my weird wrinkly faces that aren't even gender specific.

I am finally finding more time to journal. Kavya likes to sit on the floor or the potty and color and so I art journal. We talk about the Sesame Street characters she likes to color, or the colors she is using. It is very relaxing.

Art thoughts:

- Is it really snarky of me to be like MEH when I see something about someone getting an art book deal and their art looks exactly like all the popular boring mixed media art??

- I have no interest in book binding. I've done it. I hate it. Why do art journaling classes have to include it? I don't want to bind books, it is one of those things that I suck at, so therefore, I hate doing.

- Any of the art/craft magazines doing anything interesting lately? I only subscribe to Hi-Fructose anymore because of time, but now Kavya is letting me do more art. I journal, she colors Elmo.

Today we painted. It was a lot of fun, so much that even after an hour, she did NOT want to stop. But it was so messy. And clean up was super bad. I went to dump the water and she walked all over the painted papers . . . and onto the carpet. Luckily I've already stained that carpet myself and it is old, so it's not a huge loss, but there really is no getting out acrylic paint. Then I had to give her a bath to get stuff off her. Major tantrum. Baths do not happen in the middle of the day! She also liked painting with the water more than the paint, so next time I'm going to water down the liquid watercolors I have (non-toxic ones for kids) and let her go to town and cleanup SHOULD be easier. I hope.

Not work safe, but this Lady Gaga video is really cool - nifty outfits, unreal shoes and just general fab stuff.

I finally put up all of my India photos on Flickr.

Most of them are from the Konark Sun Temple, which dates to the 13c. I could have spent DAYS there, but we only got a few hours.





You can see more on my flickr account

Finally, I got to carve a pumpkin again!!!

So . . . we went to India for 3 weeks.

There were high points like the beach:





Kavya's cousins playing in the sand. The younger one found that the only suitable sand for her sand project was from her older sister's castle.

These are my scenic shots from Puri

and

Family shots here

Low points included the trip back and everyone getting sick :( We're still recovering from what my dad dubbed "sacred cow flu". (Doctor said it was not H1N1.)

Today at the park, Kavya was eating her snacks. A little boy from the mom's group sat down next to her and was eyeing her food. He kept scooting closer and looking at her food. So I asked his mom if it was ok if he had some and she said sure, if you don't mind. So I told Kavya to share her food. So she popped the food out of her mouth and handed it to him and he promptly happily ate it.

Since yesterday, we've had a box of cookies on the table. S. came home from work just now and ate a cookie. He came into the computer room where I am, and Kavya did not follow (you can see where this one is going). I called her several times and just as I was about to see what trouble she was getting into, she comes into the room "cook-ay! food-ay!" and is eating a cookie she helped herself to (the last cookie that her daddy said he might eat himself). I doubled over in laughter and told S. to look at her, then he laughed too. Not the best parenting, but soooo funny.

Kavya got an immunization today and whenever I asked her to tell anyone about the shot, she went "eh eh waaaaaaah" and then made the 'all done' sign. She's really talking up a storm lately, putting words together and everything. I'm trying slowly to teach her colors, but I'm not making a big deal out of it. She has the rest of her life to know all the expected stuff they drill one on in school so I'm not rushing it. She really likes it when people count things, but I think that has more to do with the musical way it is said. But maybe she likes counting.

So wish I could go to Artfest, but there's no way I can do that with kiddo. Maybe the year after when she's 3, either I can convince my mom to come help me watch her or daycare. After 3, there are several places who do drop in day care at a reasonable rate. Right now I don't even know what I'm going to do after September. My current babysitter is expecting and doesn't want to sit when she's 9 months pregnant (she also has a 1 1/2 year old). I love that situation because I know her from the Mom's group and Kavya loves it there. I don't want to find someone off of craig's list again because I wouldn't want to leave Kavya at some stranger's house and I am not sure she will consent to being watched at my house (without running to find me every 5 minutes). There are a couple of options I still have to try, but argh, it is so frustrating. I'm just lucky I get to spend a lot of time with her and still make some money.

Thoughts on my garden:

Still to do this year:
-finish digging/leveling out the old bed
- mulch the new areas of dirt I've put down in the flower beds

Next year:
- grow greens in raised beds made out of wood. despite frequent sluggo pouring, my greens are eaten alive by slugs

- grow tomatoes in the bed the greens are in

- plant 2 summer squash seeds. if both live, tear one out

- plant the green beans on a bigger trellis

- move herbs to one of the wooden planters

This leaves what to do about root veggies. My daikon radishes and earlier my regular radishes were eaten by some little fly/white bug that burrows into the root. The daikons were really eaten, and it doesn't leave me too much hope about the carrots next to them.

Also, need to buy more seeds. Most of mine are duds now.

I'm trying to get back into art journaling. Just something to give my hands a break from the computer and refresh my creativity.





and some other art:

Happy Birthday yesterday to my youngest sister, lunarflight!

And a few more words I forgot:
bee
owie

Kavya is finally starting to talk! And she's learning so fast now.

Here are some of her first words:

Up (for both up and down)
Elmo (thanks Sesame Street)
Mo (for more)
cat (tho it sounds more like 'at)
mole (she likes to point out moles on people's faces, hahaha)
Abby (from Sesame street too or she is saying baby, I'm not sure)
hat
hot
Ellie (babysitter's dog)

Old words (that she's had a for quite a while)
Mama
Dada
buhbuh (binkie)

The Fourth was pretty busy for the wee one. Saturday morning we somehow got our act together and took the MAX to downtown Hillsboro for the Rotary Club 4th of July parade. It was pretty much small town parade, but on a bigger scale than the tiny home town parades I grew up with. But the usual, marching bands, middle aged women in tiaras, young women in tiaras, cheerleaders, lots of candy, and several right-wing political groups. I did not yell "fucking look up the definition of socialism" but I thought about it. Kavya enjoyed herself, tho she did not understand why I kept holding onto her and wouldn't let her run free. The other kids were standing by themselves!!! (All were older.) She adored the horses and the bands.

Then in the evening we let her stay up late and we went over to the Mormon neighbors to mooch off their fireworks. I didn't want to buy any because I wasn't sure if the kiddo would hate it. She's not crazy about loud noises. But I don't know if was the other kids enjoying it (the 9 year old girls dote on her and she eats it up) or if she would have liked it anyway, but she did cover her ears with her hands (after one of the girls showed her how) for the loud ones and LOVED it. She was so upset when we took her home, 2 hours past her bedtime. I think I'll make some ice cream to thank the neighbors (shamelessly stealing that one from Beth). Tho I'll have to make 2 batches as they are a large family!

This morning Kavya woke up bright and early at 6:30AM. I did not fall asleep until after midnight (thanks to fireworks). So that was fun. She pretty much was like "hey you people, why aren't we doing everything we did yesterday? Move it people move it!" but in a cranky tired way. She only took a two hour nap too. So she passed out at 7pm. And S. and I got to watch a movie with dinner and it's still before 10pm and we finished the movie!!

All in all, a pretty good weekend. Oh, and S. replaced the kitchen sink. That went surprisingly well. Tho, the only down point is that the place where he got a mole removed has become infected :( He had to go to urgent care to get it drained and get antibiotics. He's a bit worried.

I'm debating replacing all of Kavya's bottles AGAIN. I just keep reading horrible stuff about BPA. And I could probably get a lot fewer bottles and still be good. Tho, sometimes we burn through a lot of bottles at night, since she still sometimes has sleep problems. Really, the solution would be to end the bottle, she's almost 2, it's not unheard of. But we'd also have to wean her off the bottle at night/falling asleep. Which neither of us want to do, even tho I suspect we both think we should. When she's sleeping well, she still wakes up once in the night for a bottle. She drinks most of the bottle, so I think she still needs it. What she doesn't need tho is what she's addicted to - getting a bottle before she falls asleep.

She's saying "up" now - it's quite a cute little command. She's also saying woof woof for dogs and making meow noises. And she said "peas" the other day because she loves to eat fresh peas from the garden. I still feel she's a bit behind in her language skills. But Grandma seems to think that she just wants to say the words precisely and waits until she can say them correctly. She loves to babble tho. The baby babble is adorable.

She's also hitting the terrible twos. Everytime we say no, she throws herself on the ground and screams. It's soooo lovely. I know it's just a phase, so it really only bothers me in public. Going to the grocery store is a whole new game now. Not a fun one either.

I haven't updated in forever, have I? Here's Kavya in pigtails. They only lasted 20 minutes, but she looked so cute. She likes to have me put things in her hair, but she promptly rips them out.

Not much is going on here, mostly I'm working and working and working in my free time (what little of it there is). I didn't have a babysitter for nearly a month, so I worked hard at night and during naptime.

The last couple of weeks we've been having sleep issues. Last week it was Kavya waking up at 5am every.morning. We had a few days of smooth sailing, but I did not recover enough sleep and then last night she woke up every hour. Like clockwork. So today I am exhausted. I could nap, but then I will have trouble sleeping at night. Fun fun.

The garden is going well, we have peas (which Kavya LOVES to eat straight from the garden). I have one cherry tomato that looks pathetic and another one that is thriving. And we might even have some cherries.

We finally got the 2nd garden bed put in. Well, mostly I did the work, but S. helped me finish up today. I planted some starts and put some a cherry tomato plant in a big pot. For reasons I'd rather not talk about (nothing bad), I won't plant tomatoes this year. Kind of hard to imagine. I can finally concentrate on building up soil in the flower beds now. I'm still ripping out the old garden bed. It's a ton of work.

I also mowed the lawn today, that was ugh, so hot and a lot of work. At least Kavya did not cry the entire time I mowed the back - last time S. said she just laid her cheek on his lap and sobbed while saying "Mama brrrrrr!" Brrr is the word for anything noisey - motorcycles, trucks, lawn mowers, vacuum cleaners, etc. She was still relieved when I was done tho, she kept making me say "All done!" and then hug her, cute thing.

I have an ant invasion in my garden. They are eating my radishes and also the soft stems on the broccoli starts. While a few ants is a good thing for the garden, this amount is not. But I really don't know what to do about it. I've read so many different methods of dealing with this. Whatever is done needs to be baby friendly and garden friendly. I'd prefer to kill them since they will probably try to move back to foraging indoors if I discourage them from the garden, but even discouraging would be preferred. Our neighbors do the pesticide spray thing on their house so I'm sure most of the ant population moves over here. But I really don't want to go that route unless it is something like carpenter ants attacking the house. I don't trust the poisons and from the bit I've read trying to determine their safety, the fiprinol or whatever it was could be to blame for the bee population dwindling. Meh.

Today was music class with Kavya. She loves it so much. Babies and Music, what more is there to life?! Not much if you are 20 months old. At home she is starting to sing. In tune. Seriously. My child. She also doesn't like to get her hands dirty so I'm beginning to wonder . . . is she mine? Hahaha.

Still not talking much tho. She wants to talk, but still hasn't figured it out yet. She stretches her little 30 word vocabulary as far as it will go.

And what else . . . nothing really.