I didn’t have my camera with me for most of our 4th, but I did manage to take this sweet photo of my cousin with Claudine. She and her husband came over for brunch and a little stroll around our neighborhood. We later drove to our weekend (I mean parent’s) house (ha!) and after Claudine was tucked into bed for the night, Mark, Mia and I drove to get some ice cream and searched for some fireworks. We eventually saw some through the treetops coming from the beach and we pulled over, opened the door to the back of the wagon, and sat in the trunk to watch the colorful bursts. It was nice to be able to spend some one-on-one time with Mia, just like the old days when it was just the 3 of us before Claudine was born. But Mia kept saying things like “Claudine would really like this” or “Claudine should be here because she really likes ice cream”. So I guess even Mia thinks of us as being complete only when all 4 of us are together.

I’ve been feeling a bit insecure the last few days. I seem to go through this cycle every few months where I get a bit down and begin to question the path we’re on when things get a little slow. Some of my smaller work projects got unexpectedly pushed back a few weeks which was welcome relief, but as much as I try not to, I start to get very antsy if I’m not working. I know that in a few short weeks I will get slammed as all my projects, big and small, will most likely start at the same time, so I’m trying to spend this unexpected free time drawing and sewing and not dwelling on the slow progress of things. How does one learn to relax? Is it something you can learn? I can’t stop my head from spinning with a million business ideas and projects and other things I want to accomplish. Mostly because I have this big responsibility to provide for my kids and I’ve convinced myself that climbing the corporate ladder is not the path to achieve this, at least not for me. Still, sometimes I get tired of “just getting by”. I thought by the time you reached your mid to late thirties you would have it figured out. Trying to figure out what you want to do when you grow up, at this age, is getting a bit old I must say.

…but only because I felt like Claudine was so behind in her gross motor development for most of her first 17 months. She never learned to crawl (and still can’t, although sometimes she tries and it’s pretty funny), walked late, and just seemed generally unmotivated to move. This was a baby who couldn’t pull up to standing or sit up from laying down until she was well over a year. I’d put her on her back on the floor to see if she would move and she’d just lay there. For an hour. Not rolling over or scooting or…anything. And this wasn’t at 5 months, this was at 11 months. She’d always been a mellow baby, and her ability to put herself to sleep by herself from a very early age without crying or fussing was the stuff of envy, but I also thought she was truly lazy. Most of the time I was too busy to really take note of her delays, but there were moments when I was really concerned that something was wrong. Maybe, just maybe, that bad car accident that we all closely escaped from when she was just 6 weeks old rattled her head more than we knew. The paramedics checked her out and she seemed ok at the time, but how could we really know? Why wasn’t she moving?

But you know, maybe all that laying around on her back was spent concentrating on listening to people speak because she is having a language explosion right now at 19 months. She actually walked by Mark yesterday and casually said “bye bye Daddy. See you later”. Wha??? She’s constantly surprising us like that. She can identify letters of the alphabet, sing the beginning of the ABC song, and name shapes like oval and triangle. She goes about her day narrating everything she does. Mia developed pretty much at the same pace, but because she seemed to do everything early, it didn’t take us too much by surprise.

Now, I know it’s annoying to hear other people talk about their kids all the time so I’ll stop. But I’m really proud of my little girl (who looks about 4 in that first photo, doesn’t she??)

We took the girls to the Chelsea Market today and bought a bounty of vegetables for real cheap. These beets were just 50 cents a pound. Since we’ve been eating so poorly, we decided to make a simple, healthy vegetable soup for dinner with some Rosemary bread we picked up at the little Farmer’s Market a block from our place. Not sure what we’ll do with the beets, but they were hard to pass up at that price…and look how beautiful they are - the colors!

Claudine and Mia loved running around the place and I hadn’t been back to the Market since I freelanced in-house at a firm in that building when I was 7 months pregnant with C. Some shops seemed to have changed hands, but we stopped by my favorite spot, the fish store and had sushi and lobster bisque. Mark and I can’t seem to catch our breath on all the work and orders that are coming in daily, so we’ve made it a point to take some time each day to spend together, all 4 of us. Can’t say that these moments are relaxing - the pair of them have become a terror together!

Glad this day is almost over. What a blah day, in every way. Baking didn’t seem to go right. Either too chewy, too thick, didn’t fit into the bags, too dry. Didn’t get as much work done as I would have hoped, so now I will be up late catching up. We are tired and Mark and I aren’t really eating much, which is why we haven’t been posting recipes - like tonight, I think we will just skip dinner because it’s too much of a bother (but wait, I didn’t have any lunch either, come to think of it). The only bright spot in the day was an end of the year party at Mia’s school this afternoon (where we did eat, so no need to worry). We watched a slideshow of the kids and got to take it home on dvd, which I know Mia will want to watch over and over again. Speaking of the little rascal, she shoved as many cookies, donuts, cupcakes and juice in her mouth as she could in the 2 hour period since she pretty much ran around the grounds unattended and then, of course, had a sugar meltdown on the way home. No pictures of Mia here, because she was too hyper to photograph. I, on the other hand, just want to sit very still and do nothing.

But you know..this goofy pic of C. is making me smile, hehe.

We’re having the most splendid weather here in New York - toasty warm in the sun, but deliciously breezy in the shade. I ignored work for a couple of hours again yesterday (this is dangerously habit-forming) and lounged on a blanket in the grass under a big tree in Prospect Park and had a picnic with the kids and our friends. We also had a little breakthrough with Claudine who didn’t seem to mind being on the grass and actually walked around a bit like she never had any fear of grass-walking. Kids are so weird. She even squatted down (her new favorite trick which is so freaking cute - we call it the Asian squat) and batted around long blades of grass with her hands. Have I mentioned how much I love this age? She’s really talking now and saying her name and putting 2-3 words together (”wake up”, “let go”, “I do it”, “here you go”). And when we’re bored, we love to play this game: Claudine, say “octopus”. Say “Obama”. Say “Britney Spears”. Yeah, I know, I know.

Mark and I actually went and had lunch together today without the kids. Do you know how huge this is? This hasn’t happened in years. We were toying with the idea of going to Momofuku, the much celebrated restaurant of the moment, however after seeing the menu, I realized that it was familiar Korean-inspired food. Probably more artfully prepared than the relative hole-in-the wall places we go with my parents, but, familiar nonetheless. We chose to go, instead, to Soba-ya, a fresh soba place that we would go quite frequently when we lived around the corner in the East Village. We hadn’t been there in years, but we vowed to come back and bring the kids since they both love noodles. Along with our soba, we also had uni (sea urchin) which is possibly my favorite thing to eat ever.

I should have gone home afterwards, but today was a gorgeous day, right? I made a trip back to New York Central to buy more paper and I splurged on some gouche and a square notebook of paper since I have this grand idea that I will be doing a lot of drawing this summer. OK, so I really should have gone home then, but such a shame to go inside on a pretty day. More walking, window shopping, trying on dresses, but no purchases except for this big circle brass necklace from Anthropologie. Perfect day. Will work now.

We didn’t think we would have a busy week but we did. We sold more Father’s Day boxes than expected, almost as many as Mother’s Day (yay for dads!), plus we’re getting ready to deliver 2 shipments to local Brooklyn stores this week. You can now buy our line of cookies and marshmallows at Blue Apron in Park Slope and Provisions in Fort Greene.

I was talking to my friend Angie a while ago about how business expenses are a whole different approach to money. I think you know by now that we are very careful about our budget and I have even surprised myself with how little I have spent on anything other than essentials this year, (that’s not to say, of course, that I haven’t had the urge to shop. Quite contrary in fact…summer dresses, sandals…ah well) but we have been spending huge amounts of money for the business. Need more labels? OK, let’s charge another $700 on the credit card. More boxes for shipping? $145. Oh, we’re selling drinks now? We’ll need cups, straws and lids. Let’s make that eco-friendly please, made out of corn. $156. Why is it so easy to drop a few hundred dollars on supplies without blinking an eye, yet I’ll agonize over a shirt purchase?

Making money from stuff you make is different too than getting a paycheck from a job. Although I have to admit this notion is fading as time goes on, it’s almost like “free” money. When you’re a business owner, your time, as opposed to time on a client’s clock isn’t as precious and you tend to not calculate time into the profit equation, only materials, so it sort of seems like free money in the beginning. This isn’t really good business practice of course, so we’re in the process of trying to change our perceptions about that. Next step: keeping track of hours, as well as materials, to see how much we really are making an hour. We’re learning, we’re learning…