Art Therapy Monster

Lately I've been enjoying learning a little about art therapy and practicing some interventions on myself. Toward those ends, I read all the blogs by art therapists I can find (and I wish more of them blogged as I haven't found all that many). However, the few I do read are pretty awesome and today one of them, Carolyn Mehlomakulu, did a post on metaphorizing problems into monsters via art media of some kind. Rather than elaborate on the dynamics here by quoting too extensively, I'll link to the post in question and encourage people to go have a read. It's interesting stuff.

At any rate, thus was I inspired to create Fran The Tired Monster.

Let me tell you about my monster. I have three children under three. (Well, one of them won't be born for another few months yet, but she still has all kinds of ways of making her presence very much known. So practically speaking, I feel I have three under three already.) I've always wanted at least a few kids and I think there are advantages to having them close in age. Realistically, though, I expect that most of those advantages are things we will be experiencing more in the years to come. Right now, I love my babies bunches but I'm tired a lot.

It so happened that I was particularly tired by the time I got some time to myself today, as I'm fighting off a cold and so is Little Guy, and neither kid was good about taking a nap this afternoon (erm, is this all starting to sound too Dickensian)? I ended up hiring the teeenager across the street for an hour of babysitting so I could rest. Whilst relaxing and skimming the feeds on my google reader, I came across the post mentioned above and thought, "Ah, yes, this is what I will do right now. Make a portrait of my monster of woe."

And so, here is Fran, poor girl:

I didn't actually finish her by the time the kids came home, but that was okay because I set Bear up with some art supplies and we worked together companionably for a bit while Little Guy played on the floor. It was kind of fun-- blending feelings of self pity and humor into an understanding monster that I now have some affection for.

 I think, after the kids are settled for bed, Fran and I will satisfy a pregnancy craving and treat ourselves to a bowl of mint chocolate chip icecream. With vanilla wafers and whipped cream and bananas. Now that is the way to make friends with a monster. :)

Ciao.

Morally Questionable Behavior

Today's post will be a story about my two year old. :-)

Earlier today Bear, Little Guy, and I were playing in the living room. After a little while Bear wandered into the kitchen, and soon I was hearing tell tale sounds of dishes clattering and liquids being poured from one cup to another. Now, Bear is allowed to help unload the dishwasher and to wash dishes with me from time to time (which she loves), but she is well aware that making unauthorized messes in the kitchen is prohibited, if not always strictly enforced.

"Bear!" I called from the living room.

"Yes?"

"Are you engaging in morally questionable behavior?" (She doesn't know what that means, but I'm pretty sure she recognized from my tone that she was being interrogated as to her actions.)

A moment of silence, then. . .

"Yes."

"Well, maybe you should come back into the living room with us and stop engaging."

Bear soon reappeared,  clutching a coffee cup with a little cold coffee sloshing in it (yes, I hadn't done the dishes yet). She fixed me with a calmly defiant gaze and asserted coolly, "My not stop engaging."

It was cute, there is no denying. I tried not to laugh, and instead meet her gaze with the tolerantly skeptical look of one secure in their authority, smiling while ordering, "Bear, go put that cup back in the kitchen."

It actually worked. If only all our power struggles were negotiated this simply. Meanwhile, it really is fun to use big words with her and watch how she incorporates them into her vocabulary. Maybe she'll be reproaching Little Guy for his morally questionable behavior the next time he tries to play with her toys. :-)

Painting Circles For Relaxation (an art therapy exercise for my art journal)

Even though it is has been nearly three weeks since the hyperemesis began to fade away and I am  functional again, I find I still get exhausted so easily. I am bone tired right now and all I've really done today is take care of my kids. I'm trying to be patient. I guess it takes a little while to gain one's strength back. Little Guy (my seven month old) has been sleeping poorly the last few nights and that may also be part of it.

But enough of my moaning. I will write about my art journaling adventures, which is what this online meta journal of mine is at least loosely about in any case. Yesterday both babies (I still think of the two year old as a baby) took blessedly long naps, and I spent a happy couple of hours resting, curled up on the sofa with my laptop and a mug of chamomile tea. During this cozy and silent interval, I did a lot of blog surfing, reading, and sprinkling of comments of good cheer across the blogosphere. It's incredible-- all of the amazingly talented and sensitive bloggers you can find just by following links for part of an afternoon. :) One blog that I paused at for awhile was Art Therapy Reflections by Karen Wallace. I felt very pulled into the idea of an art therapy exercise for de-stressing she suggested to someone in a comment on this post.

 "Take a large piece of paper. Have lots of paint. Start by doing some deep breathing and centering. Standing and moving the whole body, make large arm movements and paint large circles. Work big until your body feels relaxed and stretched, then start coming in smaller by making smaller shapes while saying out loud or to yourself things you want to release about the day. Keep working smaller until you reach the size you want to continue working at. Then paint one thing that you enjoyed about the day. This painting usually is abstract with lots of colors and feelings. It is a good stress releaser, try it. Whenever you need to release and de-stress."

That sounded so good, I thought, so relaxing, the idea of just painting/coloring/drawing circles to relax and unwind. I filed it away in my mind as something to try someday, and today (again during nap time, oddly enough) I actually did so.  I tweaked the idea a little bit, as I didn't have a very large piece of paper on hand, and I never got around to the "something I enjoyed about the day" part because I became so engrossed in my circles. But anyway.

Using water soluble pastels, I started with drawing turquoise circles, then filled them in with concentric circles in reds, blues, and yellow. I painted over these to bring out the color. Then in the background I drew soft wavy lines in dark blue, lightly colored over the background with yellow, and added water to make it blurry and greenish. I loved the way the background looked. My circles seemed a little boring, though, so I kept adding layers of paint and water to make them brighter. Then I painted their outer rims in red to give them a little more oomph, but something still felt lacking. Impulsively, I started to circle one with a black sharpie marker, and, wow, it popped. "Where have you been all this art journal pages life, oh black sharpie?" I thought, and it kind of took off from there-- outlining, circling, dotting. Below are pics of the end result, this time taken by H, who is better with a camera than I am. I will say this was a great de-stressor, and I was quite happy feeling by the time it was done. It's a happy page.

Winter Coats for the Kids

Today I went shopping. Maybe not huge news in everyone's book, but for someone only a few days released from the personal purgatory (not to say hell) that is hyperemesis, this felt tremendous. I haven't gone out at all to speak of (aside from two doctor's visits, a hospital trip, and a couple very brief errands) in nearly two months. The world, I now observe, is very bright, very large and colorful, and it felt absolutely wonderful to be out and about in it, feeling healthy, reveling in the change of seasons and the fall air, enjoying the very agreeable and seasonal task of shopping for coats for my cute toddler and snuggly seven month old.

 For you see, it has been brought to my attention that my children are lacking in the winter wear department. Yesterday my mother in law was visiting us. It happened to be a chillier day than usual, but she wanted to take the kids outside to play and asked if Little Guy had a jacket? Ah, no, I had to confess that my son possessed no such article of clothing. (In my defense, we live in a temperate region and it's only just been beginning to be cold enough for him to require one, meanwhile I haven't been back on my feet for very long at all.) No matter, said mother in law, she would layer him in a long sleeved shirt and onesie. But did he have a hat? Sadly to say, Little Guy did not have one of these, either. At least not one that fits. She found one of his newborn hats from somewhere and stretched the inadequate article over his bald head, and that was Little Guy's fall weather costume for the day, along with his layered shirts and sweat pants. Obviously not a long term solution, although he did look cute in a thrown together sort of way.

My daughter still technically fits in her coat from last year, but I thought she could benefit from something roomier and warmer, since she's more of an age to be playing outside in the cold than she was a year ago.

So, on this fine Saturday, H and I hit the mall, kids in tow, and mission in mind. The first few stops were disappointing. At Belk and Old Navy, I could find surprisingly little in the nature of coats and jackets for Little Guy's size. Do most people not take their babies outside? The ones that I did find either lacked hoods (which he needs on account of aforementioned baldness) or were in colors that did not flatter him. He is a very fair skinned child, with light colored eyes and no hair, and all the grays and blues and browns I was seeing tend to make him look rather dull and colorless. As he is very adorable, especially when properly clad, I knew we could do better than this.

I ran into similar difficulties browsing for my daughter. Without knowing exactly what I mean by this, I vaguely prefer to buy toys and clothing for her that have a "classic look". For instance with toys, she has a Waldorf doll, a Cabbage Patch doll, a wooden rocking horse, wooden stacking alphabet blocks, a sock monkey, and the like. Plastic batter operated things with buttons and blinking lights and noise are kept to a minimum, and I try to select clothing with the same guiding aesthetic. I think that suits her style too, as she is a kid of the large eyed, small featured, wispy haired variety and anything too splashy or poofy tends to overwhelm her. And a LOT of clothing being produced for toddler girls falls into those categories.

I didn't think I was being too picky. I just wanted to find coats that were cute and looked good on my kids. But it has been awhile since I've engaged in any physical exertion, including simply walking around a shopping mall, and I found that by the time I wandered into Baby Gap I was very tired, a little dizzy, and the dreaded nausea was starting to creep back up on me again.

I was so happy, though. I found a light pink corduroy coat there for Bear (my daughter's nickname) that is just perfect. I love it! I love corduroy in general. I just adore the texture, the warmth, the coziness of it. My own winter coat (which I actually sewed myself back when I had time for such things) is an eggplant purple corduroy trench coat (with silver colored buttons shaped like bicycle wheels). But back to Bear. This coat we found has simple lines, is warm enough, fits her comfortably, and the shade of pink is ideal for her coloring. I wish I could post a link or a picture, but I tried to find this coat on Baby Gap's website and oddly, it doesn't seem to be there? There were so many of them in the store. Do their online stores and brick and mortar stores carry different inventory generally, or is this some fluke?

Also while at Baby Gap, I found a little zippered jacket with a hoodie for Little Guy. It's in a cheery fall red, is cuddly, and looks very fetching.

My only regret is I can't give myself any points for bargain shopping this time around, but I settled for the convenience of clothing I liked ready to hand, especially considering that by this time I was exhausted and the children needed coats, like yesterday. Literally.