It's been a long time since I've shared tips on favorite foods and products as well as sundry other little insidery tidbits. Please proceed.

Snacks for the little ones:
There's no reason to jack up my little June bugs with tons of sugar but I want to hydrate them with a little juice every day (mostly the boys drink water and whole milk) so I buy organic HONEST TEAS FOR KIDS - only 10 grams of sugar per 6.75 fl. oz. That's about half the sugar found in most other juice boxes.
Kirkland Organic Animal Crackers (Winnie the Pooh) from Costco - comes in a huge container and the cookies stay crisp and fresh for quite some time. This snack tends to spark a conversation with Dax about life in the Hundred Acre Wood.
Dax and Skylar love making smoothies with me. We wing the measurements but here's what we put into the Ninja: Greek whole plain yogurt, one kids' organic strawberry yogurt tube, frozen and fresh strawberries, frozen blueberries (or raspberries), wheat germ, OJ fortified with calcium, honey, and some ice. Yum.
No kidding. My kids love sardines. The good ones with EVOO. Brain food. I say keep on eatin' it boys.
Chunks of ripened Hass avocados.
Two timeless Ritz crackers stuck together with creamy all-natural peanut butter. I stay away from the pre-made ones. Those are full of stuff I can't pronounce. 

Best mom tip passed on to me recently: 
  Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons - Siegfried Engelmann;

I just ordered this from Amazon and I'm excited to try it with Daxie and later with Sky. Not sure if Dax is ready to start reading but he's showing an interest so I thought it was worth checking out.

My new favorite products:
Gillette Fusion razor - it has five flippin' blades. I never, ever nick myself anymore.
Neutrogena Rainbath Refreshing Shower & Bath Gel - the scent seeps right into my brain and wakes me up with a happy hello. The heavenly scent is even masculine enough for Tim.
Essie nail polish in "watermelon" - gives even the palest foot that summery glow (other Essie red hues had too much orange or brown but I'm very happy with this selection.)
Motif hand soap in Olive Leaf and Coriander - you can find this antique-looking bottle (the print looks like something right off of my Gannie's apron) with all the other bathroom hand soaps at Target. Got it for $2.50 on sale but usually priced around $2.99 for 8 fl. oz.
Pssst: The generic Target brand teeth whitening strips work better than the name-brand Crest strips. They're thicker so they stay in place longer.

My mom tips of the day:
Don't spend a lot of money on new toys. Scan your local Craigslist first for the items you're looking for. I found an awesome search and rescue helicopter and search and rescue hover craft as well as two garbage trucks for $15. All in perfect condition from a preppy mom in Castle Pines. I've hidden the toys and dole them out when Dax fills in another column on his sticker chart or kicks butt in swim class. I feel better about adding less to the landfill and besides the boys can't tell the difference between new and slightly used.

For a lightweight summer T-shirt, I bought a five-pack of white Hanes Toddler Boys' Crew Undershirts  from Target for $8. White goes with everything, keeps Dax cool, and I can bleach them when they get grungy. I tire of graphic tees so this is a nice alternative to busy lettering.

I was given some great advice tonight from my dear friend Kate when I told her I was feeling downright stuck in my own life. I've given up too many things that make me happy and gotten lazy with all the rest. I've made my kids my world and in the meantime I've completely lost myself. Her advice was simple - don't rush yourself. Take it one step at a time and don't try to change everything at once.
Ah, she knows me so well. As I was sitting in that booth tonight sipping a Cabernet, some of my realistic and far-fetched ideas came tumbling out - I told her I'd like to start a number of different businesses related to new moms, my thoughts on teaching private yoga classes, managing people and their properties, getting paid to write my blog, being a Rodan + Fields consultant, as well as all those hobbies I love but left behind, the book club, yoga classes, trail running, and writing my blog.
Where the hell did I go? And where the heck am I trying to get to? I know better than most after losing my mom that we really don't know how long our life is going to last. So then why aren't I living my life as if each and every day may be my last? And why does it seem that everyone else around me has figured out what they're good at while I'm still trying to figure out how to channel my interests into fulfilling work that brings me ultimate happiness?
I have consciously made a choice to be a stay at home mom and my boys come first but I also know that I use them as an excuse to channel my energies away from myself because I simply still do not know what path I should pursue that will complete me. Make me wake up and say, THIS is it. This is what I should be doing.
So if you'll all bear with me, I thought I'd just start jotting down in a steam of conscious style many of the things I do feel passionate about that if channeled in the right way, could potentially become a gratifying and lucrative career some day: when I write I feel whole, when I'm in the woods I can breathe with no tension, when I cook I heal myself and my family - it's my creative outlet, hearing people's stories of love and pain, hardships and successes especially those shared with me by the elderly, infertility, postpartum depression, new mama issues I could converse on for hours, getting that trail running high, learning about stocks and bonds, being brought to tears by Vivaldi, learning the history of the country I'm visiting, getting carried away by great writing, getting my hands dirty in the soil and eating what I've grown, counseling others when my advice is sought out, easily excited by the small things in life, camping, proselytizing about the importance of moderation and respecting your body, managing another bed & breakfast and oh, this list is endless. And here's a short list of the things I dislike: technology, greed, drugs, boastfulness, laziness, hot, dry weather, living so far away from family, sameness, artificial ingredients and preservatives, fake air kisses and OMG-talking women, over consumption of anything, empty words.
I'll get there. I know I will. I'll start with baby steps. I'll see if my old book club will have me back, I'm going to be more consistent with running, I'll make the call to Littleton Adventist's marketing woman and run my business proposal by her, I'll price out business cards for teaching private yoga classes, and I'll keep reminding myself that right now I'm doing the most important job of my life, raising my boys. But it's that itch I still have in me to do more. Until I can afford to hire a life coach to help me get on the path that's right for me, I'll keep blogging about it, brainstorming ideas and throwing around the ridiculous and the realistic options. I hope Kate's right. That I'll figure out what I want to do. I've got to believe, believe, believe in myself.

Oh Daxie. I can't believe you turn four tomorrow. I'm just awash in a flood of memories of when you were born.
I would love to tell you it was a beautiful time but it was far from that. My birth plan went out the window the morning I found out my water had broken three weeks early. I was given two hours to get myself to the hospital to be induced. There was a chance of infection so you had to come out.
Your father was skiing that day and wouldn't answer his moblie. He just assumed I was calling to see what I wanted to do for dinner, or something inane like that. But no, I was calling in a sheer panic, having a hard time catching my breath because I knew an early baby might mean complications.
Pitocin. No pain medications. No epidural. Even my Doula hasn't seen labor pains that intense. Your head crowns for a little too long. I finally deliver you naturally and we hear no cries. You're not breathing. Your daddy and I stare at one another in terror as the nurses rush in to help. Seconds pass and we hear your meek cry. I realize as I let out a long sigh of relief that I had not been breathing either. You are placed on my chest and I first notice your warmth. You are alive and breathing. What a ride it has already been. I look down to see this incredible chunky blond hair, and lots of it, that looks like it has been styled by Bumble & Bumble products. Your skin has a golden hue - as if you'd just gotten back from the beach (we later learn you have a very high Billirubin count and it would require staying in the hospital an entire week past delivery. Pure torture for the worried new parents.) You were this little surfer dude. And with those huge eyes and little sticky legs scrunched up under your belly as you clung to my chest sleeping soundly, you were also our little tree frog. You were our very own Coqui.
It may have been a rough start for you Dax, but my gosh how you have flourished since then. Three word sentences by 10 months. One hundred words by the age of one. And then mama just stopped counting because your vocabulary, comprehension, and ability to reason was beyond what most one year old children could do (that is, grunt and point).
You were biking by the age of 18 months, holding your breath under water at two (with eyes open), playing drum solos for your adoring girlfriends by the age of three and on skis that same year.
You ask a zillion questions because you want to know things, you are athletically gifted and have an ear for music. You love books. And if you had your choice, you'd ride your bike all day long, down staircases, over ramps, accompanied by your loud and quite realistic motorcycle sounds. You are to the core adventurous and brave. You're one special little guy Daxie and we love you for being you. You will go far, that I'm sure of.
But you know what I love most about you? It's how open your heart is. You have an enormous amount of empathy for others. That's rare to see in a four year old. You'll ask our neighbor Kirk if he's having a good day. You'll wipe away my tears and tell me, Oh sweet mama, everything is going to be OK. You watch out for baby Skylar's safety and well being and you tell your parents how much you love them every day. You make us very, very proud.
Happy birthday Daxie Doo.

My Boston apartment at 403 Commonwealth Avenue was still cloaked in grayness. The sun hadn't even come up yet when my telephone echoed loudly and eerily in the living room down the hallway. I let it ring and ring, filling my sparsely-furnished place with a sound that made me sick to my stomach. I did not want to answer it. I reluctantly sat down on the cold hard-wood floor and slowly picked up the receiver. It was Papa calling from Vermont, letting me know that mom had passed away peacefully just minutes before. I bent my head low and started to sob. I somehow managed to get out a "thank you for letting me know Papa" before hanging up the phone. I went back to bed and put the pillow over my head. I wanted to stay in that flannel cocoon for the rest of my life.
Mom died 18 years ago today. She was only 52. Her parents lived into their early nineties. There was no cancer in our family. She wasn't a smoker, heavy drinker, or overweight. When acquaintances or good friends early on tried to assuage my grief by saying that she was in a better place, I would whisper to myself, bullshit. What's more important than watching the daughters that you adore go from truculent teens to blossoming, lovely ladies? What's more important than to be Grandma Genie to four gorgeous, plucky, and smart-as-whips grandchildren? Nothing. She just got unlucky and every day our family feels her absence profoundly.
My sister tells me she heard my mother call out her name just a few mornings ago while lying in bed half asleep. It was the first time that has ever happened to Annie. There have been only a couple of instances where I'm certain I've heard her call to me but it's usually in a dream. I'm absolutely convinced she hovers close by watching over me and my sister, making sure we stay healthy and safe and in a very good place. There have been too many close calls and miraculous occurrences to think otherwise. So I know mom has not stopped being our mom - she does what she can from wherever she is. But oh my god what I wouldn't give to have her back in the flesh, being the recipient of her hundred little kisses to the neck. Telling us how proud she is of all that we've accomplished. Being our biggest fan and our loudest cheerleader.
If your mom is still here in the flesh let her know how much you appreciate and love her. Knowing you might be reaching out to your moms makes my sadness today a little bit lighter.

I knew I always wanted boys. Anyone who knows me well knows I'm not a girlie girl.
As much as I'd like to have trendy Top Shop items hanging in my closet and feel like everything is right in the world because I own multiple pairs of designer jeans and sexy knee-high leather boots, I don't make fashion or make-up or pretty girl things a priority. I wish I did more so, but I don't.
I don't have the patience to spend an hour doing my hair. I'd rather take that time I'd spend on myself and spend it with my kids doing something outdoors. I'd rather read them a stack of library books then take the time to blow out my hair and put on foundation and eyeliner.
I'm not saying this is good thing. I know I should get my haircut and highlighted more regularly. I know I should probably look in to getting my teeth whitened and my sun spots lightened. I know I'd look better with bigger boobs, tanner legs, and a sassier hair style. And if the Zappos fairy did come and stock my closet with 12 new pairs of luscious leather shoes and boots, I wouldn't turn around and donate them to Goodwill. I love nice things but I don't want to go out looking for them and I don't want to have to pay for them and hence this is why I own next to nothing.
And so back to having boys. My guess is that as Dax and Skylar grow older they'll want to dress in hip, stylish clothes and do their hair the way other boys do their hair but they won't want to hit the mall every weekend to shop. Their vanity will stay in check, I hope. They won't invest all their time in their looks. They'll be too busy with sports and homework and exploring to think about it much.
But it seems more than ever, girls seem to be unhappy with what they were born with and absolutely consumed by needing to alter their looks to fit in with their peers. Do they get this message from their moms who are also tinkering daily with their appearances trying to get the look just perfect? Does it come from the media blitz - be thin all over but large chested on top! Be tan year round! Get that nose smaller, lips larger, and hair blonder! Turn your teeth as white as chalk and never, gasp, step into a pair of sandals without the toes painted!
I'm simply amazed that young teenage girls (I know many!) who are getting breast implants and putting the $8,000 bill on their credit cards. And their parents are allowing this?! Why do young girls feel they now need to be tan all year round? It seems getting sprayed weekly is just part of a normal beauty routine for them. The hours they are spending on their make-up and hair could be spent with a nose in a book actually learning something new.
Parents who tolerate and even condone this narcissistic attitude in their young girls is sending the message to their daughters that spending this inordinate amount of time on their looks is OK. Why aren't we teaching our girls that they are gorgeous just the way they are?
I understand that when you feel beautiful you feel confident and when you feel confident you feel you can conquer the world. But we need to also get the message out to them that they are perfect and smart and wonderful just the way they are. Being attractive gets one ahead. We all know this. But you've got to have the smarts to back that up or you're just a pretty girl with a bad paying job.
I give kudos to all those parents out there who are not allowing their baby girls to grow up too quickly. Who are not focusing all their attention on how their girls look - who don't tell them every day how pretty they are but how smart and amazingly gifted they are too!
I feel surrounded by some young divas and it bums me out. I want to see a return back to natural where we embrace our our imperfections and rejoice in all that is different and not the same.

This one is about finding home.

When Dax was just four and a half months old we packed up our things and moved from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Castle Rock, Colorado. Tim had been hired by Douglas County as their new Water Resources Manager. It was June 2008. I did not want to leave Santa Fe - a place I had called home for nine years. I did not want to move away from family. And I certainly did not want to have some 400 miles separating me from some of my dearest friends.

I moved, physically. I didn't have much of a choice in the matter. But emotionally and spiritually I remained tied to a city where homes have been made out of mud and hay since the 1600's, Hatch chilis are roasted on street corners, and fragrant pinon wood is burned in kiva fireplaces. Santa Fe had profoundly changed me. I thought I had the world figured out until I moved there. And then I met the most intelligent, creative, and non-conformist folks who showed me how to embrace "different" and "alternative" and to stay true to myself.

So because I resisted settling in to my new home town of Castle Rock, I treated this place as a temporary stop on the way to something better. It probably didn't help that we rented for the first three years we lived here. The rental home served its purpose. It had a huge yard for Dax to perform his bike tricks in and an area for growing vegetables. It even had a rhubarb patch that I got two pies out of every late Spring. But for us, renting was synonymous with rootlessness. We felt restless, unsettled, and merely visitors in a town we had now called home for three years.

And then that all changed this past June when we finally purchased a home here in Castle Rock. Waiting three years to buy goes to show that not settling for a home in a sprawling sub-divion pays off! We could not have found a home more perfect for us. As I write my blog today I sit in the cozy office looking out at a backyard of white pine, cottonwoods, gambel oaks, and aspens. The leaves which have gone from green to yellow are being blown off the trees. I see no people. I see only woodpeckers, mountain chickadees, and red squirrels and hear the gobbles of the wild turkeys in the distance. It's just the way we had envisioned our home to be.

From the stunning views of Castle Rock and the Rockies beyond from the master bedroom to the screened in porch that is so lovely to sit in on sunny mornings, I'm in love with my new home. And now when I visit Santa Fe I miss it a little less each time and that's a good thing. I don't want to pine away for a place I'll probably never live in again. I want to be fully present in the place where I reside. We have finally put down roots and it feels like now we can start growing again.

My 2011 Memorial Day Weekend has been playing nurse Ki to a sick baby Skylar.

A common cold that was checked last week and all was well unfortunately turned in to Bronchiolitis this week requiring round-the-clock oxygen and a Nebulizer not to mention antibiotics, a decongestant, and infant Ibuprofen (that's for the two new front teeth that are coming in. Great timing, right?)

I think my last three days have gone something like this (but with serious sleep deprivation, it's all kind of a blur) - Nebulize, administer the plethora of medicines, make baby food and give a bottle, keep "cupping" his back to loosen phlegm, apply new re-adhesive Band-aids and adjust oxygen tubing in nose while trying not to trip over the 50-foot cord attached to a giant oxygen tank in the living room, do laundry, change sheets and crib bumper, clean and fill humidifier, love on Skylar, remove tubing to bathe him, put tubing back on as he thrashes about, soothe his wimpers away, wake to a 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. alarms to Nebulize all over again and oh, try to find time to pick up the house, get to the grocery store and Target, help the landlords make repairs to the house, and try to get Skylar out for some fresh air.

So yes, I'm going on little sleep and lots of anxiety (it's hard to sleep when I'm worried the tubes have come dislodged from his nose - they had on a couple of occasions - and just plain troubled by his cries that are muffled by juicy gurgles that could send him to the hospital with pneumonia if I'm not diligent with his treatments.

But on our third visit to the doctor's on Sunday morning (yes the pediatrician on call opened the office just to check Skylar) I got the go-ahead to take him off oxygen and to Nebulize every six rather than every four hours. All good news and all going in the right direction.

I say this honestly, but not once have I felt sorry for myself that I missed out on camping with Tim, Dax, and the grandparents. Not once am I sorry I couldn't attend a social BBQ or partake in typical Memorial Day activities.
For so long I've struggled with not having a full comprehension of what I'm "suppose" to be doing with my life. Feelings of inadequacies have always haunted my thoughts. But this weekend solidified just how important it was for me to be there 100% for my boy - to love him well, to stay strong, and to be competent as his hospice nurse (i.e. like trying to absorb a quick lesson from the Apria Healthcare guy delivering oxygen tanks to my door at 10:30 p.m. when I was going on only four hours of sleep from the night before. Um, could you repeat that again, please?!).

In all the isolation brought on by his sickness there were amazingly sweet moments between us - his over-zealous splashes in the tub that left my face dripping with sudsy water, all those skin to skin hugs, watching him wave to inanimate objects in the house, and chasing his naked bum around the bed as he tried to flee in a fit of giggles. And he said my name, mama, more this weekend than he's ever said before.

Sure my needs took a backseat for the past three days - I barely had time to eat and yes, I just plain stunk from a lack of proper hygiene. But like those in the workforce who receive satisfaction from a job well done when they've landed a new sales account or can feel a sense of accomplishment after delivering a well-choreographed power-point presentation, I too feel like I've accomplished so much when I see my boy improving day by day. To see him get some color back to his cheeks, to note an increased energy level and appetite, higher Pulsox numbers, bigger smiles and babbles, more restful sleep, and fewer coughs.

This afternoon as he was standing at the coffee table beating it like a drum, he looked up at me smiling with his tongue, in all its silliness, sticking out to one side. I felt like he was saying thank you mama.

Oh baby, it was MY pleasure.