On the move again

Real quick post tonight since it is late... I'm thinking about reviving the blog a bit, sharing some of our journey with Bean and now Spud as well.  Anyone interested?  Whether you're interested or not, I may or may not still post.  So, pretending I never stopped...
The last 3 months or so have been pretty crazy in the Ayala household.  My sister came back for a visit from Israel, Bean turned 3 (WHAT?!?), Spud was born, Christmas happened, David's mom came to visit for a couple weeks in January and then returned to Texas.  After returning to Texas, she succumbed to the cancer that she had been fighting and died, so David went down to Texas to settle things there, leaving me and the boys at our York st house to pack up and get ready to move.  David came home and about 2 weeks later we were on our way to an apartment in London.  And those are just the cliff's notes!

Why London?
London is where Robarts School for the Deaf is.  It is where we feel Bean will do the best for education.  It hasn't been an easy decision and I'll try to post more about why we decided to go this route at another time.  For now though, just a couple pictures before I hop into bed.

Introducing Spud

Making memories with Grandma

Brothers:

The Mommy Club

My younger brother (Middle Brother) has an antique spinning wheel.  All but one of the spokes on the wheel are identical.  One of the spokes though is just a little bit different.  It's still part of the wheel, but just different enough to be the odd one out.
Much of the time I have felt like that "odd" spoke.  I might be part of a group, but never quite fit in.  I can be a little awkward, and just in general, different.  I never quite felt like I was at the same place in life as my peers.
In all the lonely times, especially as I got older, I held onto the fact that one day I would belong to "The Mommy Club".  The Mommy Club, in my mind, was the club that all mommies belonged to.  You didn't have to do anything to join except be a mommy.  Once you were a mommy you would belong to this unofficial club.  Every mommy would belong because they would all have something in common - they would be mommies!
Just over a year ago, I had a baby.  I could now be part of the Mommy Club.  Except I never found it.  I suspect that the mommy club is a lie, cooked up in my own psyche.  Yes, I have a baby (toddler?), yes, that makes me a mommy, but I'm still the odd spoke.  I still dance to the beat of my own drum.  I realize that the Mommy Club is as fictional as The Village in which the women all work together raising the children and looking out for each other.
They both sound like wonderful things, but like many wonderful things, they aren't necessarily real. Doesn't mean I don't often wish it were so.  I wish there was a Mommy Club, or a Village where I could kick off my shoes (or leave them on if I wanted), curl up on a couch, stretch out on the floor, or lounge on a pillow and just be with other moms who subscribed to the same philosophies that I do, or at least similar ones, or at the very least weren't adamantly opposed to them.  Maybe we'd drink some tea, maybe we would talk, or maybe we would just watch our littles be the little people that they are, not worrying about what the other mommies think about how we are parenting.
I am so fortunate to have found at least 2 other mommies in the neighborhood who I can mostly relax with - and as I get to know them better, and they get to know me better, perhaps we will become a Mommy Club.  But even if we don't, that's okay too.
The Mommy Club doesn't have to exist for me to belong.   My parenting styles don't have to match up with anyone else's.**  I do not have to defend my parenting to anyone else.   Having the support of other parents who follow similar styles is great, but I'm learning that it doesn't have to be shared face to face over a cup of tea.  My "village" is spread around the globe, and consists of hundreds of people. I can't talk to most of them about everything, but I can talk to all of them about something. I have a group I can ask questions about babywearing (however, getting hands on help for those back carries is hard on the internet!), another group I can ask about why my son has decided to stop using the potty, another I can ask about which essential oils will most effectively treat my husband's cold, and another I can turn to for support when it comes to sorting out thing related to Bean's hearing loss.  So it's not just one village, but lots of villages and I can travel from village to village with a click of the mouse.   This virtual metropolis will never quite replace The Village of bygone days (if that Village ever truly existed), nor will it replace The Mommy Club (which I suspect never actually existed), but it will be good enough.   Because when I march to the beat of my own drum, I know who will be with me all the way:

**My parenting style does have to be compatible with my husband - this parenting gig is a two person job, but other than him, everyone else can go fly a kite (and he can too, as long as he takes the Bean with him)

Bug Screen, otherwise known as: My husbandy is awesome

Summer has arrived in full force - meaning lots of sunshine and lots of outdoor time.  In years past I have made the transition from "lots of clothes on in winter" to "lots of bare skin in summer" (which, let's face it, basically means sweater and socks to t-shirt and sandals) without paying too much attention to it.  I was genetically endowed with naturally dark skin - sun burns really were never a concern for me and I soaked up as much vitamin D as I possibly could.  This year however, I had a little someone to think of, and this little someone did not win the genetic lottery when it came to the amount of melanin in his skin - he is as white as white can be.
As important as vitamin D is, I did not want Bean getting burnt.  But I also didn't want to slather him in the chemicals found traditional sunscreen.  So I took to the internets hunting down a recipe that would work for us.  I found this one (link opens in a new window) and whipped up a batch.

We were all set for fun in the sun when the mosquitoes began to take over the world.  Time to whip up some mosquito repellent.  I scoured the internets again, hunting for the perfect recipe that I would be comfortable with using on Bean.  My searches led me here (link opens in a new window).  I decided I would rather have it in a cream base instead of a liquid (less likely to make a mess), so I told Husbandy that I was going to use the same base that I used for the sunscreen, leave out the zinc oxide and put the mosquito repelling oils in instead.  This is where Husbandy's brilliance shone through.  He proposed that I not leave out the zinc oxide and instead mix the mosquito repelling oils in with the sunscreen!  In my mind it was a revolution - sunscreen that was also mosquito repellent!  Or mosquito repellent that was also sunscreen!   I set to work and our new invention, based off of the two recipes linked above was born - Bug Screen!

Here is the recipe I ultimately ended up using (ever so slightly altered from the first two):
1/2 Cup olive oil
1/4 Cup beeswax
1/4 Cup coconut oil
2 TBSP zinc oxide powder
60 drops lemongrass essential oil
40 drops eucalyptus essential oil
20 drops peppermint essential oil
16 drops tea tree essential oil
4 (ish) drops lavender essential oil


Since I made the sunscreen first and then later turned it in to bug screen I melted the first three ingredients together in a double boiler (glass jar in a pan of boiling water) and then mixed the zinc oxide powder in, stirring super well to make sure the zinc oxide didn't clump.  While it cooled I stirred it periodically to make sure it didn't settle out.   When I was ready to turn it into bug screen, I remelted the sunscreen and added the essential oils in, stirring well to incorporate.  
If I were doing it again, I'd melt the first three oils together, add the essential oils and then add the zinc oxide at the end.

It appears to work well and is non-toxic - Husbandy tricked Littlest Brother into tasting some of it, and he lived - however he says it doesn't taste real great ;)

Bean enjoying some splash pad fun

Five Minute Friday: Visit

Bean is sleeping so I'm going to steal five minutes and take part in  Five Minute Friday with Lisa-Jo Baker - five minutes of unscripted, unedited writing based on the same prompt that hundreds of other bloggers are writing on today.  This week's prompt is: Visit

Start
Is it sad that when I hear the word "visit" the first things that come to mind are words that combine with visit?  Words such as "Doctor's" or "Dentist's" or "feeding specialist" or "audiologist" or "neurologist"?  Why in my head is the word "visit" associated most frequently with visits to medical professionals?  I guess it says something about how my last few week's have gone...visits to the midwife, the audiologist, the feeding specialist (for Bean), scheduling visits to the dentist and the doctor, being careful not to double book myself with upcoming visits to the neurologist and the lab, and hoping that certain visits won't have to be made - such as another visit to the audiologist for Bean or a follow-up dentist's visit.

I want to think of happier visits...of visits to see friends, of visits to see David at school, of visits from friends, but right now my visits are scheduled and carefully stored in my calendar.  Will there be a time for spontaneous visits again soon?  Visits that aren't scheduled weeks in advance in a myriad of different cities?  It would be nice.

Five minute Friday is one visit that I look forward to, it's a scheduled visit, but a wonderful one.

Stop

I always look at my work and then look at what others write and wonder how they write so much in five minutes...

Bean and I on the train heading to our second visit with the feeding specialist

Update July - September

Catchy title, right?  I know... I do what I can. So I haven't actually posted anything but five-minute Friday posts since July (!) so there is a lot of ground to cover!  So a summary will have to suffice.
July: Everyone in the big house was gone for Canadian Jamboree (big Scout to-do out West) and David and I ran the farm.  We dealt with a pneumonia outbreak among the crias and lived to tell about it!  Though the learning curve was steep for both of us.

This was one of our sick crias - he's healthy and rambunctious now!

August: David and I built a changing table for Bean. We also celebrated our first wedding anniversary and David left to return to school in Iowa for the year.

The unpainted finished change table

Celebrating our anniversary at the Lego store

Waving good-bye at the train station as David left to go back to school

September: Mom and I went to an alpaca seminar in Ohio and learned how to assist alpacas in difficult births.  Later in the month we went to a wedding in Iowa and got to visit David and other friends!

Alpaca course - learning to deliver difficult crias

Wedding in Iowa

David-Monkey waking up David-Human 

Sad good-byes (notice the growing belly!)

Visiting Summer

Visiting Chelsea Bell

Paying a surprise visit to Kathy

Visiting with Talia

And that's all for this post.  Hopefully I'll get October's update up soon...No promises though.   Facebook, of course, has more pictures!

Five Minute Friday: Belong

Our internet is currently being uncooperative (read: not working at all), but I do want to participate in five minute Friday, a blog party put on by Lisa-Jo.  I missed last Friday for various reasons (long story), but I’m here today.  Before the internet crashed I got the prompt and I will post my entry as soon as we have internet back.  The prompt for this week is “Belong”.

Start:
Growing up I often wondered what it would feel like to truly belong.  I became an expert on being on the outside and looking in.  Everywhere I went I was on the outskirts somewhere.  To adults it may have looked like I was on the inside, but really, I was on the outside.  I never quite fit anywhere.  There was too much about me that made me different and I didn’t know how to embrace those differences.

I still often find myself on the outside of things, never quite fitting in.  I think that’s because I’m a product of my past experiences and my unique biology.   On good days I’m okay with not fitting in perfectly and can embrace what makes me different.   On less than good days – I cry.  I get lonely.  I long for even one or two close friends, who are actually physically close, not just emotionally and mentally close.  I’ve got “peoples” on the internet, groups that I belong to, but here, on the ground…  there are few to no people who I’m actually very close to, who I can sit down and share parts of my life with.

Except for my husband.  When I am with him I truly belong.  I belong in his arms.  I belong laying beside him, snuggled up in bed.  I belong walking through the grocery store with him at my side.  He belongs with me when we go to the midwife, or the doctor, or the social worker. And I belong with him.   His arms are the one place on earth where I truly feel like I belong.

Stop.*

*My timer malfunctioned after 35 seconds so I’m guessing that I was about at five minutes.   Next time I’ll have to remember to look at the clock when I start my timer, just in case it misbehaves.

Photo Friday

Things are abnormally busy here, so this will be short and sweet:

Snow hanging over the edge of the roof as things start to melt

David's birthday cookies (He will get a proper birthday celebration later)

Photo Friday

This week's photo Friday features pictures from family fun day at Camp Shalom on Monday.  We were there with some alpacas as part of the petting zoo.

This little cutie got to "ride" one of the alpacas.  Riding alpacas is not recommended, but for really little children we sometimes make exceptions.

The crias spilled the grain we had brought along so Cailigh got a snack. 

David was super proud of his calf walking experience.  The calf wasn't so sure about it. 

Photo Friday - Valentine's day

I'm going to try and become more conscientious about blogging regularly.  One of the ways I want to do that is by having photo-Fridays...the day of he week where I post photos from the last week or some other recent event.  If I can come up with cool things to call other days of the week, I might try them out too.  Suggestions are welcome ;)
So this week, I'm going to post about Valentines Day because I have an amazing husband.  He told me ahead of time that he was going to make me dinner and that Mom was going to help him because I doubted his cooking skills.  I shouldn't have because he made me an amazing dinner.  He also told me we were going to have guests for dinner which made me a little unhappy until I figured out who the "guests" were.

Sweet Potato Heads!  Potatoes have played a major part in our relationship and we have 4 Mr./Mrs. Potato head figurines in our apartment, so this was very fitting.  The potatoes are baked and the vegetables are fresh. There were extra "parts" in a bowl for dipping.

He also made me bacon covered cranberry meatloaf.  Honestly, bacon makes everything better, and it was heart shaped.  I love my husband!

I made him heart shaped donuts with pretties on top.  The donuts were chocolate which is his favorite!

I even wrote his name on one of them!

All in all, it was a wonderful Valentines day and I have the bestest husband in the world (sorry mommy)

Three Months

Well, David and I have made it to the three month mark.  And what can I say?  I am incredibly blessed to have him in my life. A lesser man would have turned tail and ran when faced with the challenges that we have had these first three months, but David has stuck by my side through it all.  Every time I was in the hospital he was right there with me, as much as the hospital would let him be.  On the days I didn't have the energy or the ability to tie my own shoes, he tied them for me.  So basically this post is a public shout-out to how awesome my husband is. Because he is amazing and I am so blessed to be married to him.

Back to Wedding Pictures

A shot of the front

Exchanging rings

The very first awkward kiss

Pouring the sand for the unity candle

...and coming....

Gracie Jo carrying in the unity candle

Jude stealing the show.  He's cute and he knows it. 

Papa walking me down the aisle.

David and I at the altar...breathe in, breathe out....