Tag: aveline alenka

Life in Photos, Poetry & Words, Travel/Moving

LIFE IN PHOTOS :: My Miniature Flying Companion

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

July 2013 - Aveline in Naartjie hoodie

July 2013 - Aveline in Naartjie hoodie with waist ruffle and lace front

Aveline and I are packing this morning, for a little jaunt a couple (thousand) miles over to cooler weather for a bit. This means I write lists and try to collect what I need to pack, and she follows me around immediately removing said items from bags while asking for (even more) kefir and shrieking happily, “Baby help! Baby help with pieces!”

Not a whole lot gets done this way.

This won’t be the first time she’s flown — she’s taken close to a half-dozen trips already  — but it will be the first time she has her own ticket and own carry-on. If you happen to be in the airport on Friday, she’ll be the only kid under three feet tall to have a entire twin-size fleece Mario blanket in tow. (My “purse” will be overflowing with snacks and coloring books.)

Oh, and we’ll be traveling with Mr. Fox, too.

As it just so happens, this fox is on newsstands right now. Well, not Mr. Fox himself, but a tale of his adventures as The Flying Fox, Aveline’s traveling companion. He ends up in a stranger’s lap, and witnesses a pair of airline headphones reduced to rubble courtesy of a rogue beverage cart. (You can read more in Babiekins Magazine, Print Issue 2.)

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to tend to a toddler eruption of tears over a small issue in which a plastic figure of Mario is lodged headfirst in the Tinker Toys container.

—

Little Style :: Aveline is wearing a Naartjie hoodie.

Inspiration

INSPIRATION :: How to keep reading Oaxacaborn after Google Reader dies July 1

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

It’s true, Google Reader is disappearing on July 1.

Are you still reading this blog in Google Reader? Eep! I’d hate for you to be suddenly disconnected from Oaxacaborn when Google Reader is no more. (Each of you is so important to me! It’s sounds cheesy, but it’s true.)

Fortunately, you don’t have to start over from scratch. You can easily move all the content you currently have in Google Reader — all the blogs and RSS feeds you already follow — into Feedly! Feedly offers a one-click Google Reader import.

Alright Google Reader users, I’ll give you a moment to switch over to Feedly now….What to use instead of Google Reader

…well, that was quick and painless, wasn’t it?

Oh, wait. Maybe the above didn’t apply to you.

Oh dear. Was it all really THAT boring?

Changing to Feedly once Google Reader dies isn't THAT boring

Life in Photos, Poetry & Words, Theology

Spelling out hope in all kinds of ways

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

June 2013 - Aveline waking up near window
June 2013 - Aveline looking out window

We wake up slowly this morning, the hum of the air conditioner and the dehumidifier a constant reminder of the tropical climate. They are the new silent, the steady noise which blends into the background and becomes a part of these walls and this life.

Outside, the landscapers’ lawn mowers rattle across the sidewalks and through the landscaping mulch, sending a spray of pebbles and bark across the bottom third of the front door. I cringe a little, thinking of the helpless, newly-transplanted moss rose and marigolds in terracotta pots on the front stoop.  The new pinwheel, whirring happily to the blast of mower exhaust, doesn’t mind. It just spins and blends the colors into a sphere anyway.

Aveline wants to see it all, and settles in by the second-story window to watch. It’s a Monday-morning routine, at least when the rain stays away long enough for the landscapers to trim and edge and cut and sweep.

Maybe later, we’ll spread out a towel on the narrow strip of sidewalk in front of the door, and sit side-by-side in the sun to “make ABCs” on the concrete, until our fingers and knees are covered in dusty blue and pink and yellow.

She wants to “make ABCs” with her pens and crayons and chalk, this one, not houses or trees or little boys and girls. She flips book pages and pretends to read, and screeches “TWO A’s!” whenever she spots a word which has, indeed, two letter A’s. She can’t pronounce her own name, but she can make a letter “T” from pretzel sticks, and she turns her felt number 2 upside-down to “make Z”.

I don’t know where she gets these crazy ideas. I know how it feels to love letters, though.

I love letters. I love the words you can make from them. I love that 26 characters can be scrambled and pushed into thousands and thousands of different orders to spell out love, or fear, or hope, or happiness.

May she grow up to spell out lots and lots and lots of hope.

Poetry & Words

POETRY & WORDS :: When it rains

Gina @ Oaxacaborn

June 2013 - Hanna Andersson star pajamas and Anthropologie Fables and Feathers beddingIt’s 2 am, and I’m awakened to the sound of a sobbing little girl and heavy raindrops beating against the side of the building. She is teething, the rain’s falling from the swirling fingers of a tropical storm, and my head is tired and groggy. I lie still for several minutes, as if by remaining motionless I could somehow will her back to sleep. She shifts from quiet crying to calling out “Mummy!” and in a moment, we are both in her room. She’s upright in her crib, stumbling around half-asleep and half-awake as though the mattress were a ship deck, rolling on the high seas to the sound of the pelting rain.

“Get out,” she asks, stretching out her wobbly hands. “Wear blanket scarf.” I wrap her favorite fuzzy blanket around her the way she wants it, and she reaches her arms toward papa. He holds her while she drinks water, and then she lunges in my direction. “You hold,” she says.

Her tiny hands clasp together behind my neck.  I stretch out on the rug next to her crib, and she nestles her blonde head on my chest, the same way she’s done scores of times since the moment she was born. She moves her ear over my heart, and the rhythm soothes her. We lie there together in the darkness, listening to the staccato of rain and the beat of my heart. She sighs. I close my eyes. She’s tall, and I marvel how her feet stretch down past my knees now.

I think how thankful I am to have her here with me. I think how wonderful it is that when she cries, I can be next to her.

Over the next hour, she alternates between crying and whispering, “Nigh’ nigh’ sleep.” Finally, I hear nothing but the persistent noise coming from the very loud frog claiming squatter’s rights in the second-story rain gutter outside the window.

I close my eyes again, this time in my own bed, and fall asleep to the constant stream of tropical rain.