ElementalMom

Yesterday was the Marina holiday party. It’s like that, when you have lots of chaos in your life; you have to wait for some sort of external motivation to do the decoration thing. Otherwise, your brain is saying “oh goodness, that looks and sounds like more work…”

So. Considering that we live on a boat, and a boat does not provide much room either for storing or for putting up decorations, you have to be compact. We have precisely one box of decorations. And this is how we arrayed them:

The “tree” in the lazyjacks:

The stockings on the sailcover (Kaia has her own!):

The finished product. The kids stuffed fabric gift bags with rags, and we threw a tree skirt over the boom, for the illusion of gifts under the tree:

One of the really cool things about living in a marina is that there’s always something fascinating happening. While we were decorating, our neighbor Jay was fishing, (while Chris socialized) and the boys kept running over to see what he’d caught.

At the party later that night, the inestimable DJ played Santa. Rowan and Kestrel had seen Santa once before, but it was all terribly new for Aurora. I’m not sure if she was more intimidated by the Santa she didn’t know, or by the monkey, which is bigger than her.

So there’s the beginning of our holiday. I think our next big adventure will be the attempting of gluten-free cinnamon rolls…

We eat a lot of sprouts, on this boat. Not only are they little nutritional powerhouses, but they’re yummy finger food, they lend themselves to recipes well, they’re easy to store in the tiny storage space available on a boat, and, well, they’re fun. Just recently, the Sproutpeople, my favorite supplier, ran a sale on sprouters for children, so with my last order, I bought a few. The results were marvellous.
First, assembly.

Then, selection of seeds to sprout. You’re supposed to soak them first, but the boys played with them like sand for a while.

At that point, Aurora lobbied heavily for her favorite kind.

Seriously, wouldn’t that make you want to eat sprouts?

Kestrel decided he wanted his hair cut. He was serious. For over two months, he badgered me about getting it done, and I stalled, not only because I wanted to make sure that was really what he wanted, but also because I loved, loved, loved his golden curls, and the way they made him look all Pre-Raphaelite.

This is why it really needed to be cut.

This is my pal Jenny, who is a professional hair stylist, preparing to do battle with the blizzard of Kestrel’s hair.

The end of the ponytail. My mom had asked for some hair, and here it is. The whole ponytail. Kes had gotten so annoyed with his hair that he’d actually started asking for ponytails regularly, but his hair is so fine, they’d slip out promptly anyway.

Rowan kept Kestrel and Jenny entertained by reading Bionicle comics to them, and holding the comic up so Kes could see it without moving his head around. What a guy!

And as per usual, Aurora was fascinated by the proceedings, and wanted to get in on keeping Kestrel entertained.

It’s a little blurry, but I just love the expression on his face here. So serious, so determined, and so gorgeous. It’s Kestrel all over.

The deed is nearly done now. Jenny’s putting on the final touches.

The deed is nearly done now. Jenny’s putting on the final touches.

The first thing Kes said, upon seeing his new short hair in the mirror, was “Whew! That’s better!” I was so worried about cutting it and then him changing his mind, but apparently, it all worked for him. Hurrah!

As I’ve mentioned a time or two before, Aurora is growing fast. Way faster than her brothers did, mostly because she has them to look up to, and an intense motivation to catch up to them. I didn’t post the other day when she started crawling, but she is. It’s still not super-organized; more like, she moves with purpose in several disorganized ways. But move with purpose, she does.

This morning, the kids were cuddled up in the salon. It’s cold here, and the salon, being the highest part of the boat, stays warmest, so the boys have been sleeping up there, in the “spare bunk”. It’s a neat space for kids, and they’re really loving being up there, not only for the heat, but for the novelty. So as soon as Aurora wakes up, I take her up there to hang with her brothers.

You can see from the first photo to this one, she’s definitely making progress towards Rowan and his Bionicles. Yet another advantage of being a little girl with two older brothers is that she’s never going to have to have the discussion with people that yes, despite being a girl, she’d like LEGOs, thank you. Her brothers have huge collections already, (you can see the bags behind the couch there) and are really interested in sharing with her. Both of them have gotten clear on the idea that the small ones can be swallowed, but that the big ones can be played with, so they’re both making big block creations for her to play with and gnaw upon.

And there’s the reach. Aurora has targeted the Bionicle… and you know what’s awesome? Rowan’s letting her. He’s specifically put one of the “big piece” Bionicles within her reach. Is that awesome big brotherness? Oh yeah…

Quite a few folks told me that having three kids was just spectacular, back when I was waffling about whether or not to increase our family size. Two was great, Rowan and Kestrel were awesome, and the boat is not huge, blah blah blah. And I’ll never know whether it’s the addition of the third, or whether it’s Aurora herself that makes it, but there’s something about the dynamic of the three that brings them together into a cohesive unit. I can’t wait to see how things go as they grow up. It’s entirely possible that this could change. But right now, I’m doing this post so that some day Rowan and Kestrel can look back at when Aurora wanted to be just like them.

Kestrel wanted everyone to smile today. Smile!

Kestrel wanted me to take a picture of him and Aurora. He had been holding her for a while, and thought they looked cute. So I picked up the camera.

Clearly, Kestrel was far more interested in being photogenic than Aurora was.

Jason stepped in to try to get her to focus in the same spot, and maybe even get a smile out of her.

Kestrel even tried to help, to little photographic avail.

Finally everyone gave up.

The irrepressible Kestrel decided to entertain himself…

And got Aurora in on the act… providing a better photo op than all the others together.