operation: baby

Friends, I need your help.  As you know, we’ve begun a fertility run-up to help us toward our goal of having children.  While we have insurance, this is costing more than we had realized and we’re nowhere near done with the process yet.  To fund this, we have been using the money I make from see what I sea designs.  Right now we’re in a holding pattern until we can save up for further testing.  I need your help to spread the word about the shop so we can hasten the process of testing and bringing home a child.   Here’s what I need you to do: Please share the blog, Facebook page, instagram,  and the shop and spread the word! To sweeten the deal, I’m offering 15% off your entire purchase with the code OPERATIONBABYF until the end of June.  Please share the code with your friends.  We’re doing all that we can but still need more help!

But wait! There's more!  (Said in my very best infomercial voice)  If we can get up to 250 likes on the facebook page, I’ll do a giveaway for a print from the shop.  Any print.  And there are some really, really great ones!

Thank you all for your comments, notes, emails, phone calls, and hugs as we figure out this process.  It has and does mean more than I can express!  Operation Baby is underfoot, but still a ways off!  Please help us even further on this journey!

olive us

Have you checked out Olive Us yet?  If not, you should!  It is such a sweet reminder of childhood with fun things for your own little ones to try out.  Plus, the Blair children are really just as sweet as can be.  

whiskers on kittens

I don't think it's a mystery that I love working at the library, and moreover, that I love the children's section. And by "love" I mean it's an abnormal day to leave the library without at least one picture book tucked neatly under my arm.

Usually there are three or four.

This morning I got to participate in one of the aspects of the library I adore the most. Storytime! Lest ye be deterred, storytime is not just some miserly old woman sitting in front of a group of disgruntled toddlers reading them archaic stories. No! This is nearly an hour jam packed with books, fingerplays, songs, physical activities, and merriment, all orchestrated to help develop early literacy skills.

I was guest this week and worked with one of the usuals on the theme du jour. Guess what it was! No, really, guess!

Okay, fine, I'll tell you. It has to do with animals and going out and finding them..

That's right! SAFARI!

I came dressed up in my "safari explorer" gear, equipped with a safari hat and felt very Crocodile Dundee. We started off with the book Starry Safari, which I loved, but the monstrous group of five year-olds was far too active to sit through much more reading. So we went on a safari.

It. Was. Awesome!

The kids and I held our hands up to our eyes and yelled "Come with me! What animals will we see?" Then my lovely assistant would pop out of the coat closet carrying (and sometimes animating) a stuffed animal. The kids would all shout out what the animal was, we'd make an animal noise or movement that went along with it and then bring our hands up to our eyes again. I had to get inventive with some of the animals, but they were the most fun. For example...

the ostrich.

Does anyone know what an ostrich sounds like? I don't. All I know is that they're tall and have silly feathers. So what did we do? We raised both of our hands hiiiiiiiiigh in the air and wiggled.

It was an instant classic.

The fun only got better when we had a staff meeting immediately following storytime in which everyone was curious about the safari extravaganza. If you think a group of preschoolers raising their hands high in the air and wiggling is a hoot, wait until you see about ten middle-aged librarians.

Also an instant classic.

"Come with me! What animals will we see?"

occupational delight

"Next on the agenda, today's storytime. The person who was going to do it has today off, any volunteers?" Blank stares engulfed the groggy morning meeting room. Everyone was considering how long until their next cup of coffee, leaving no thought for children's books. "No, really, anyone?"

"I'll do it." The words were out before she knew it. She must still be sleeping, why else would she have volunteered at the last possible moment to read to a group of toddlers.

The meeting adjourned shortly thereafter and she made a mad dash to the children's section, hoping that all of the hours she had spent reading there rather than working would finally come in handy. Rifling through the shelves, she located some of her favorites, Let's Do Nothing, Always Lots of Heinies at the Zoo, The Duchess of Whimsy, and then heaped on more for good measure.

Returning to the meeting room to use the half hour before story time to prepare, she thought of all the Scandinavian fairy tales she had forced on her roommates years ago. Toddlers can't be that bad, right?

The appointed hour came and she took her seat in the oversized chair designated for the storyteller. A handful of children sat at her feet and she grabbed her first book.

"'Help!' yelled the Page. 'King Bidgood's in the bathtub and he won't get out. Oh, who knows what to do?'" She added all the emphasis and pizazz she could think of and it must have worked, the children were all smiling. "'I do!' cried the Duke...'"

The children didn't move. They kept their eyes locked on her and the colorful illustrations waiting for the next book. Unsure of how many to read, she worked her way through the small mountain of resources she had prepared. She asked them questions, did voices where she could, and still the children smiled. Finally out of books, the story time came to an abrupt end. The children returned to their waiting mothers while she gathered the picture books and returned to work.

Did she do that right? Did the kids have fun? Did she choose the right books? Who cares, she thought, I just got to spend an hour and a half reading some of my favorite books!
"'Come in,' yelled the king, 'tonight we fish in the tub!'"

a case study in support of the early development of machoism

The subject in observation was a young man of approximately seven years of age. He had a military-esque coif to compliment his sun bleached hair and surprisingly tanned skin for so early in the season. The boy was left to his own devices in the library and made his way into the children's section.
His confident strut indicated that he was in need of a task, a mission. He found a case of his own. A little girl of approximately the same age but, to the young man, but in a far more desperate situation than himself. With imaginary cape strapped securely about his husky neck, the boy leapt into action.
His deep voice rumbled through the children's section as he told all who would listen that he was trying to find a book for the little girl. As any good damsel would, the girl kept our hero on his toes, never quite satisfied with the book he had retrieved. But he was in earnest. The right book would be found for his heroine.
Sadly, both subjects were hastened from the library by their guardians before a proper literary resource could be agreed upon. All that was left in their wake were stacks of discarded picture books.

library delights

"Excuse me, do you have any books about animals?" The question came from a pair of sisters, neither of whom was taller than my waist.

"What kind of animals?"

"Any animals."

"Do you want picture books or are you wanting to learn about animals?"

"We want to learn about animals." le sigh.

"Follow me! I've got just the thing."

The sisters then followed me through the library until we sat on the floor together flipping through a book about dangerous animals. They were engrossed. I was positive a safari was never ever making it onto my to-do list.

"Guess what?" This came from the youngest, who had the most adorable buck teeth. Who knew buck teeth could be so cute?

"What?!" I really was excited to know what she had to tell me, and secretly hoping she wanted me to adopt her.

"There's a baby elephant at the zoo and it's birthday is tomorrow and it turns one."

And then they both told me about their experiences at the zoo, their cousin's pet snake, vicious cats, and I just sat there listening to the girls. I really did want to adopt them. Or at least play with them for the next couple of days. Dangerous animal books can be dangerously fun in the right hands.

lifestyles of the delusionally furballed

Day two at the OSU Urban Arts Space was a lot of fun for me, as it gave me the opportunity to work with my peers and lay some groundwork. I got a good feeling for the way the space operates and how I will contribute to it. I'm still not sure what sort of projects I'll be doing, but the experience is still invaluable.

Midday a woman came to give a class on crocheting bags of various designs out of plastic shopping bags. This got a couple of us talking about the charms, and lack thereof, of crocheting.

"Do you crochet?" a male peer asked me.

"No," I laughed. "It's too closely affiliated with turning into a cat lady in my mind." This resulted in sonorous laughter and the lot of us spent several minutes describing the sad and isolated lifestyle of cat ladies everywhere.

"Well," my male peer interjected between snickers, "I think being a cat lady would be a helluva lot better than being a soccer mom." He kept laughing, I smirked, then went silent.

How on earth could being a cat lady be better than being a soccer mom?

Life as Cat Lady:

• lots of cats
• selfish lifestyle
• microwave dinners
• no friends
• lots of hairballs
• overcrowded house to compensate for nothingness
• hermitdom
• total isolation
• no social skills

No, thank you.

Life as Soccer Mom:

• motherhood
• love
• service
• friends
• minivan
• companionship
• family
• spouse
• house overcrowded with laughter and homework
• joy
• interaction
• giving

Aside from the minivan, I'll take the life of a soccer mom any day over being a cat lady. ANY day! I'll even consider the minivan in place of a Volvo station wagon. Yes, I'm an independent woman with dreams and ambitions. I love my involvement with the arts and absolutely refuse to forgo furthering my education. A career may or may not happen. Cats as pets may or may not happen even. But the idea of giving up the opportunity to give my life completely to the service of my children and husband is absolutely unfathomable to me.

Thus saith the moderate with conservative tendencies working in the arts.

you're all heartless.

I think I've discussed my overactive ovaries before. In fact, I'm positive I have. Like this time. Well, they've been bad again...really bad. There are too many darling toddlers waddling around the children's section of the library every day to do me any good. (Think five year-old Indian girl, big almond eyes, looking for books on the Tooth Fairy because she just lost two teeths. Yes, teeths.)

My gallivanting in the library aside, I have a bone to pick with you, my dear friends. Yes, you. You know who are.

There are at least six of you out there right now pregnant. Rude. Rude, I say! Do you not know how happy this makes me and how desperately it makes me want to procreate?!

You just can't keep producing darling surrogate nieces and nephews for me to love and coddle and expect me to stay sane. I love you all, and couldn't be more delighted with the additions to the family, but you're heartless. My ovaries just needed you to know that.