did i say i liked it?

a sorry sixteen. ernie was feeling sick so joe and i creamed ourselves.



i've been roped into working as rehearsal pianist for the community theater's last summer 2005 performance. ugh. i feel pressured to play for performances as the director cannot find anyone else. this is not the season of life for me to be doing this -- everyone is just too darn needy. not to mention that the playhouse is in the middle of nowhere. "it's too much work and time for you to work on it when it's not going to be your own," says ernie, and he's right. who knows that the thing will be like in the end? it has "that was really good!" potential.



here's a sleepy view from our wake-up posts each morning. helps get us out of bed and get working! "who makes the morning fabulous?"

air conditioned gypsy

we sweat and swelter. henry's hair twists something glorious. with the purchase of seventy five feet of rubber hosing, a medium sized wading pool and a bulk package of tea bags, we brave the heat. we stubbornly refuse to flip on the air-conditioner that sits dark and teasing in the window. "our bodies are meant to sweat!" we say. and sweat they do. henry does not seem to notice as he dons his lined yellow raincoat and coon-skin hat, making my skin crawl at the mere sight of him.

admittedly, when the going gets tough, we, the other-wise tough get going on over to grandmama's 68 degrees cold and frozen house. henry sits on the living room floor wrapped in a blanket, a boy who takes after his mother, who spent her summers home from college wearing turlenecks and wooly socks, velvet jackets and cashmere scarves, holed up in the cold, writing and reading and practicing the solar shine away.

so we've become anti-airconditioning snobs, the nice kind of snob, of course. and although we're completely appreciative of the cold and dark of the artificial summer environment, we are also taking a strange delight in not feeling perfectly dry and cold all of the time. take joy in this season of heat!

two more dreams, fourteen and fifteen, non-descriptive. perhaps it's old hat?





look at these boys at their new table! happy birthday from the pennsylvania relations! jude attempts to climb into his seat himself, unsuccessful and frustrated, so i swing him up onto the seat and all is well. dried black beans are not delicious (as both children soon found out) but they provide a good many minutes of fun while mama does something other than play. and then the fun turns into a frenzy and the beans are flung about the green room with much laughter. another twenty minutes or so of enjoyment at the vacuum and everything is back to normal. it's really a nearly mess-proof activity, as henry enjoys the clean up as much as the mess-making!



here's a little something smart and fun to offset the puzzling belief that college is not for women, from the fingers of four (and soon to be five!) women who promote formal education in the lives of Christian women.



contributors include two women with college degrees, myself with a master's degree, and another with a phd. if you'd like to be a contributor, request! the requirements are as follows:

• you must have a college degree or be actively pursuing one
• you must be a woman!
• you must have a blog, or at the very least, a blogger profile
• you must "celebrate formal education in the life of a Christian girl"

jude sleeps his blues away (teeth yet again!) and henry wraps himself in the newly purchased hose while wearing goggles and singing happy birthday. the morning sneaks away from me and there is much to be done with happy heart and hands. glory in it.

the latin names of flowers

it's official: we've another walker! no longer is the crawl the second-best (*the* best being slung about by mama, of course) form of transport. the perfect form of his crawl will soon be left to memory as jude is now everywhere on soft dirty feet. congratulations are expected!



it's hot again, the sun sneaking in the house through the cracks between the curtains. our bodies grow accustomed to feeling hot and, suddenly, it is not so bad. to feel a little sticky and a little hot has become "okay." i think we're designed to feel this way come summer sun and sweat. with bodies that are not used to the cold of central air no one is completely wilted when playing outside. everyone shouts, though, shouting over the loud spinning whirr of the fans of the house.

henry has, for the most part, stopped napping. we mourn this loss. without a nap we've a long day of three year old effervescent energy, no break for mama, and several hours of wearisome grumpiness, from both mother and child. but today is a day of surprises! henry passed out during rest time and as i went to fetch the camera he scootched over and held jude's hand. so beautiful and sweaty in our room of blue. of course, he'll be bouncing off of the walls until well after eight. it's hard to know what to do!



and an altogether too-rich heath-in-chocolate-soft-serve number thirteen, eaten while sweating on the couch and watching the aviator.

attention all shoppers

we've discovered the deliciousness of the heath candy bar shake! additionally we have found that purchasing the large size (as pictured below) provides more than enough dream for the both of us to share, and at a reduced price!

twelve! in a large, heavy, paper cup, held by my one and only. and also dribbled down my shirt in my haste to taste.





does anyone appreciate (nay, enjoy?) these dream-creams vicariously through us? we hope so! it was recently suggested to us that we discuss dairy dream compensation for the free advertising we've been doing! perhaps free ice cream. daily. nightly. "whatever you want, on the house!" they'll shout as they fill the large, heavy, paper cups. we will look at each other with surprised elation and talk excitedly about our good fortune as we walk to the car. if (when?) such a thing happens we will extend the offer to the faithful readers and fans of fresh milk delivered daily and treat you all to free ice cream, compliments of hannam's dairy dream themselves.

how altruistic of us!

proud of my lilt through the sky

we've planted something shady and secret. my mother-in-law will be glad to know that the plants she gave so generously to us did not sit in their plastic pots and die of dehydration. rather, while henry took a surprise nap and while jude played silly with joe in the yard, i dug and watered and plunked the things into the earth and stood back with arms crossed to survey the job well done.

henry has figured out how to use the screen on the back of the camera to get the shot he wants!





not bad, considering the breaking in two of the trowel midway through the project. astonishing what can be done with a jagged piece of metal, blood-sweat-and-tear determination, and a little slice of precious time.





two new dream creams. one (ten!) eaten off of a stolen spoon. another (eleven!) brought late in the evening by my parents to share under the backyard's tree of light. jude slept on the couch. the listen-for-the-baby monitor was plugged haphazardly into the lights on the tree making us just a little less cool than we are perceived to be at first meeting and glance.



the weather has cooled, slowing the production of greenemama freckles. my arms are browning and i seem unconcerned. methinks the former slatherings of sunblock (spf 50) may not be repeated this summer. i'm not sure why this is, i know that the sun can kill me, that these tanned arms could one day look like red and wrinkled hot dogs. somehow, today i'm shrugging my light brown shoulders at this. a kind of liberation.

well it's my birthday too, yeah

jude has an ear infection! poor baby! we celebrated his birthday nonetheless. he is feeling better since we started the antibiotic. the doctor thought i was joking when i asked what he thought about putting breastmilk in jude's ear. why hadn't he heard of that? my father in law says that the ear won't let the breastmilk get to the place of infection.

it was strange to take jude to his one year doctor visit. the nurse assumed he wasn't still nursing. perhaps i'm just way out there, but i assume that breastfeeding isn't a foreign, obsolete practice. innocent weirdo that i am. every visit so far starts with "what formula is he drinking?" is it right to assume that breastfeeding is in the minority around here if formula feeding is the assumption of the doctors?

i was nursing at the park one day last fall when jude was still exclusively breastfed and a little, sparkling girl kept trying to see what was going on, asking me what the baby was doing and "where is his bottle?" i had mixed emotions: do i let her see "(by just sitting there and doing what we're doing) the mechanics of it since "that's what breasts are for" or should i hide from her since her mama obviously hasn't educated her about the varying ways babies eat? henry knows that some babies eat from bottles and others from breasts, is it the norm that bottle-fed children are not educated about "the other way?" i told the girl to take her pigtails over and ask her mama what my baby was doing. i figured it wasn't up to me to decide. call me chicken, i dare you.

so the sad baby cried when we sang happy birthday to him. he threw globs of chocolate ice cream across the table. he smeared cake on his chubby thighs. he had a bath and then came down for presents. he watched henry "help" him open his presents. he chewed on the fabulous haba wooden animals. he went to bed early and slept long and hard. his nearly four teeth gnash together and he cries.









but he is one, full of speed and spree. i look at his long legs and remember the tiny little thing whose diapers wouldn't fit, premature yet without flaw, the miracle of life in my hands and arms. "he is perfect!" exclaimed the neonatologist through the white mask, his black eyes and indian skin crinkling up in a smile, his face a mere kissing distance away from mine as everyone rushed around with relief, with vindication.





barefoot to the ice cream truck

it's hot! (sail on, silver girl)

for some reason, jude likes to try to sneak away henry's ice cream. but henry is quick.

for some reason, to jude, henry's ice cream tastes better than jude's.

for some reason, henry knows this.

for some reason, these boys are ever-delicious.










so long, frank lloyd wright

bits and pieces as a red jeep drives by. he passes a man cruising the morning street on a red lawnmower and the red sedan parked sleepy across the street. jude kicks back on a red chair munching oyster crackers. henry sleeps late (!) beneath a red summer blanket upstairs near the fan. a new concentration of tea sits steeping a redness atop the kitchen counter. new modes of caffeine during the red heat of summer.

two more dreaming delights. spaced out, of course! if i blogged more frequently it wouldn't seem so bad . . .

eight!



nine!



sick children, crunchy eyes, running noses. jude was so crunchy and sad and sleepy that we postponed his birthday celebration until this weekend. terribly sad to have a crabby baby at his own birthday party.

something must be said for the fabulous barb and her stunning and super supersilks. they are the toys most favored in this house of greene. they are capes and knapsacks, tents and slings, skirts, long hair, curtains, bullfighter capes, snakes, oceans, sharks, wings, scarves, babies, and of course, much, much more! buy some! today! they are gifts that give back (as ridiculous as that reads). and they're beautiful pieces of art created by a beautiful mama, too.



if you're trying to stay cool the old fashioned way, might i suggest cool drinks? icy and blendered made by a man wielding strawberries and limes.



and on the same subject, staying cool, that is, i cannot sing the praises of covering the windows enough. i'm kind of a no-curtain, shades, blinds kind of girl -- i like the openness of the glass, the trees peeking in the windows. but the summer sun is too hot! we closed the blinds in the living room and set a fan to swirl and the place is a lime-ade oasis. something must be done upstairs. the sun wakes us up bright and early, bright eyed with a fire tail, sending us down to the dark and cool and out to the splashing and cold.

bend low again, night of summer stars.
so near you are, sky of summer stars,
so near, a long arm man can pick off stars,
pick off what he wants in the sky bowl,
so near you are, summer stars,
so near, strumming, strumming,
so lazy and hum-strumming.

you say it's your birthday

and the fabulous henry turned three.



three! how is this possible? i'm still just a girl! and now i'm the proud mama of a boy who pumps a tricycle to grandmama's house. a boy who flings his arms around my neck and loves me the most, more than anyone worldwide and universal. a boy who sparkles and flies, whose grin shoots moonbeam and firefly fire.



truly, it is better to give than to receive. never have we enjoyed birthday (and all that comes with it) more.

to the chagrin of this mama we've a barking dinner of hot dogs (with ketchup, of course). sometimes a hot dog sounds so good, though. sometimes.



and cake-wise, i've found my forte (and i still went to college! and grad school!). the illustrious cupcake. the form of which is fluffed perfection. the frosting rises in a spiking swirl of minty delight. sprinkles partly sprinkled by the birthday boy extraordinaire.



and jude is growing, too! he's drinking from a juice box without assistance (in fact, insisting on the withdrawal of assistance) and peeking under the table for something mysterious. peeking for his own birthday, perhaps, which comes fast and flashing and furious on monday.





these boys! all bloodied and red, screaming out their liveliness with first breath. what is this life that sends us soaring with youth and zip into motherhood, fatherhood, parenthood, all in an electric swirl? all at once we're here when we once were there, and we don't want to talk about it because it's all so frightening and fast. lickety split.

paperback writer

weeks of business and busy-ness. we're allergied out here. somebody cut off this head of mine!

lady jenn and family spelunk-ed with us at the dream. i think they were unamazed. particularly when the strawberries were not fresh when we were told that they were. nevertheless, six!











perhaps when i describe the dream the place comes across as a fabulous marble-slab-esque confection? not so!

she's really just a teensy, golden place with girls in chocolate spattered white t-shirts and white short-shorts, girls with smooth hair slipping out of haphazard ponytails, girls throwing together cream of all kinds into cups of large sizes for small town customers standing outside or inside in lines and crowds, looking for something soft served up just right for a few dollars here, there, everywhere. it could be argued that half of the deliciousness of the place is the atmosphere, the smell of the busy cigarette-butted street, the rush-around, shout-out of the kitchen, the ashtray vocals of the owner as she sings a scream to, "hurry!" the digging around the bowels of the car for a buck ninety in silver.

although, of course, i think the dream cream is delicious standing alone!

memorial day of shish kebobs and master grill-masters.





and then seven. an almost forgotten pic, too! eaten during the inspirational "i am david."