Lovely finds

I was trawling through bins at the Goodwill last weekend when I came across a whole stack of sweet, great condition vintage children's books. They are so sweet! I've got quite a collection now and am finding a lot of great titles in the local thrift stores.

I keep telling Pappa Starbucks that I will sell them on etsy but once I get them home I always find excuses not to.

Excuses like how sweet is this!!? and oops, this one is a little scuffed up! and well..I don't know how to price them...




This last one, the Shopping Book? It is SO stinkin' cute! It has the best illustrations I've seen in a while, I love it!


Oh, I love vintage story books so! It's a bit of a thrill still to find ones in good condition for inexpensive prices simply because I know how much love they will get around here.
What's your favorite children's book?

Sewing Table

Since we moved into this apartment we have lived in a seeming hodge podge of disorganization or non functional spaces. Finally I have created my own corner where I can actually point out as my own sewing space, (with my own sewing table!) or to write or just doodle. When we were students, I simply made my school desk work, even though it didn't. But when we moved here, and I became a full-time at home mamma, well, I begged for my own crafting space.
And I got it! I haven't included photos here of my fabric stash...or of my bookshelf loaded up with sweet vintage children's books, but I wanted to share my sewing table space and my sweet little wall behind it.

Strung up you see my vintage-style French children's "manners cards" we picked up in Paris. I wish I could remember the name of the shop...I can tell you we were accosted by a gentleman outside of the shop who was angry that A0 we didn't speak French and B) that Little Berry wasn't wearing socks and C) that the sun was shining. The sun! Shining on our daughter. How dare we let that happen!
You know, because we should have stayed in if the sun was shining, it makes perfect sense.
Anyway, back to my space.

I also put up some handmade mustache's. Because I can't seem to get enough of them lately and I can't decide what to do with these at the same time.
I have so many ideas though.

I have a little bit of room on the wall for things I don't want Little Berry to get her grimy paws sweet little baby hands all over- that's to say it isn't big enough to hold EVERYTHING I'd like to keep her from of course, but that would just be called a SEPARATE HOUSE.

The wrong way

Have you ever noticed that going through things together with your significant other either strengthens you as a couple or shows you a side you didn't know existed, or maybe ignored? Pappa Starbucks and I have been through a lot over the past year, good things and unforgettable experiences (like our trip to Europe for two months) and bad things (like graduating from college with no job prospects and coming back from Europe to not have a "home" anymore). Little Berry is a dream, but sometimes I get worn out being with her all day and let's face it, baby's don't measure out what they want from you in little request throughout the day. They want everything, they want it all the time, and they want it right away.
Sometimes I feel like I am failing to teach her patience, and just focusing on teaching her love, how to be happy, that I love her being sweet.
I know there is a balance. And from any outside view, we're doing a great job. But we disagree so intensely on the small issues that the big issues become pushed to the back of our minds. I know this is a recipe for disaster. I know that parenting is hard. Loving her is just the reward, the special reason that being a parent is worth it and the reason we all keep going daily. I have so much that I want for my life, and so much that I want for her life, and so much that I want for Pappa Starbucks' life that I don't know what to do first, where to put my passion. I want to do it all, and all well, but I'm not capable of that.
I take responsibility for other people's dreams and projects and desires, people not in my immediate three- and I do the best I can for them, but at the same time I am afraid I might be letting down the people who DO count on me. I can't be in charge of everyone's happiness and yet I want for us to all be happy. There is perhaps an easier way to say this, but it feels like I am being an underachiever because the only other option is to do everything, for everyone, so I please the people I know I can please, and I let the rest fall by.
I want to please, I have always been eager to make people happy. There are reasons for this, reasons I am just now beginning to understand but not willing to admit. There are consequences to treating myself and my partner and my daughter like we are last on our on list, but I don't know how to begin stripping away all of the problems and commitments that don't make me a better person, who I want to be, who I am, and focus on the ones that do. I am going the wrong way to get to my dreams but I am going to fast to notice it.

16 months of joy

Today my Little Berry is 16 months old. She's so big, and such a baby all at once.
She is still not much of a morning person (see above photo for proof) but I'm in love with this age, this stage of development, with all of its words and even its frustrations. This morning she got angry ANGRY because she wanted so desperately to dress herself and isn't capable of doing it all at once, she just doesn't have nthe motor skills for it, but you should have seen her try. She was intense, desperate, breathing heavily, picking up her foot with both hands and trying to poke them into her pants. In the end she settled on letting me put the pants on her that she picked out because any other pair? Elicited shrieks.
And she tries to read, pointing at the words on the page, making up garble about them. Everything has a name whether she gets it right or not, but boy oh boy does she try! A few weeks ago she started saying "airplane!" and now everything in the sky- from the moon, sun, birds, clouds, to airplanes themselves are pointed and called out as such.
If we're in the kitchen, she drags over her high chair and waits to be fed, grinning, and making messes with it whenever it's placed in front of her. She's very sensory oriented and specifically, loves feeling, touching things to see what they do.
She rolls her eyes when she doesn't like what we're telling her. She's been doing this for about three weeks and it's simultaneously hysterical and absurd.
I bought a vintage quilt recently at the Goodwill and she has spent so much time while we nurse stroking it, pointing at different images, licking it and right this very moment she has her whole face plastered against my computer screen watching the letters be typed and saying NnnnnOSE!
My girl, she is a joy.

Another day older...

Whew. Another year gone in just a day it seems. I'm always relieved when birthdays pass and my day returns to being just another box on a calendar, marked by slow, forgettable minutes, hours, days of the same routine that is life. In some ways it is sad to know that I will not pinpoint this day in time, remembering the lively sparkle of sunshine on Little Berry's hair as we take our afternoon walk, the smile my daughter flashed at a stranger in a wheel chair, or the kisses she planted on my mouth after I gave her a sip of my cocoa this morning. It is not a memorable day, not a spectacular day, it is only another moment in time lasting as briefly as the last.
But as I watch Pappa Starbucks taking out the trash and little berry fuss over a toy wedged between the cushions, needing a nap for her and a hair-tie to tidy up myself, I do wish that I could steal these moments away and never lose them, never have to wish I could remember that faint dimple on her face or that I could reach out and take her teeny hands inside my own because I would be there, breathing them, living them, smelling over and over again the crest of her perfect tiny head and sweet baby ears, holding her in my lap trying or grabbing me and trying to nurse in the store will be faint memories, but I also know my love for her will stay just as all encompassing as it is today, just as intense, just as perfect, tangible, and frighteningly bright.
That much, I know for sure.