birthdays and bear cubs

I've just had one of those weeks where I look back and marvel at how differently my life has turned out than I might have expected (warning: contemplative birthday post to follow). For instance, would I ever imagine the following things come out of my mouth, and even more surprisingly, directed at my children:

"Stop licking the piano."
"Stop licking the TV!"
"Stop licking the window!!"

only to be followed by:

"Don't eat your book."
"Don't eat the dog kibble!"
"Don't eat that pencil eraser!!!"

I celebrated not only my birthday this past week, but also my 9th wedding anniversary--a little bit strange as I still see myself as a youngster right out of college. And speaking of which, I never would have expected that my current job would be: mom of two bear cubs and independent designer. Especially considering my favorite subject in high school was biology and even my parents expected that I would go on to study zoology or something similar (I ended up majoring in psychology, then worked in publishing in NYC, and went on to a graduate program in speech pathology, so in retrospect, I suppose it was the natural order of things to do something else completely different).

But, I love it. I get to be at home to nuture my two young cubs (see? I am studying animals after all!) and nurturing myself with creative endeavors (and possibly a little extra-curricular reading).

So, necessity is the mother of invention, as they say, or was it something about idle hands....? Instead of continuing with my "No, no, no" one-sided conversation about which household items are appropriate for mouths, I ran to my sewing table, cut out some fabric and whipped up some candy for Bear Cub No. 1 to chew on. It was pretty brave of me, too, as I used no pattern (which I never, ever do) and I even cut into one of my favorite fabrics for the occasion instead of practicing with muslin.

and...? Success!

It's the closest I've ever gotten him to a real lollipop (you think I'm lucky, but I assure you I'm not... he also won't touch anything containing nutritive value. Thank goodness they put vitamins in cereal!

He thinks the corduroy is the tastiest part.

It's back to real life for me now, and you know, I think I prefer it to the one I had imagined for myself as a young'un.

Take care,
Kim