Salem, OR

We moved to Salem!  At the beginning of September..and what a move it was.  I quit my job about week and a half prior to the move and packed packed packed.  Whitney was doing a week of training for her job, so most of the packing was left to me and Ivy.  **Disclaimer:  Whitney did help a lot, and I mean a lot...after hours of training every day she'd come home and help pack all our silly belongings.  I know it had to be rough on her, what with a new job looming and the stress involved with all the changes...so I say thank you to her!! ***

I don't know if it was harder to keep Ivy out of the boxes or the cats...or both.  What I do know was the Ivy was brilliantly accepting of the move.  I think what helped the most was to let her be involved in all things that consisted of the actual move.  I'd have her pack her things in little boxes (which I'd have to repack at a later time) to help ease her into the concept of moving.  We also spoke to her a lot about the move to Salem.  And Whitney, wise as usual, took pictures of our new apartment and would constantly show her the pictures...just to make it a little more concrete.  We made a point of talking about the move as much as possible, but made sure not to over do it.  If I can pass one piece of wisdom along to parents of young children, it'd be to talk to them about everything - and I mean everything.  They pick up on things so much more than you'd imagine.  Not only that, but they remember....everything!  Sponges indeed.
  I have to give a shout out to Jon & Allison who helped us with the move.  Without them, it wouldn't have been possible - we'd probably still be moving at this point if it wasn't for those two.  And a special thanks to Jon for backing the moving truck down the piece of crap driveway that led to our new place!
Ivy wanted to help so much!  Mostly she would stand out side and say.."excuse me, sorry...I'll get out of your way.."  Moving is hard enough, but add a 3 yr old in the mix and it's near impossible.  She wanted to help so much and be involved...but what the bleep is a 3 yr old going to do?  I felt bad that most of that day she spend watching multiple episodes of Fraggle Rock.  I told her that she was watching so much because of the special situation of the move and didn't want her to think that Salem was going to be a movie mecca heaven....I think she understood.

We were concerned that she'd be uncomfortable in the new place, or more so that she'd miss Portland and not feel safe.  We couldn't have been more wrong.  She immediately took to the place and didn't seem to mind Salem or the new apartment at all.  That said, there are still incidents of Salem to Portland contrasts in her mind which she voices every once in a while.  (ex. while helping me do dishes the other day she said " remember in Portland our sink was white?..our new sink is silver/metal).
Luckily, the night we moved in I was able to put her crib together (we need a big girl bed!!!) without much incident...except that I couldn't find the parts and Whitney and I got into one of our rare scuffles..:)  We found the pieces and all went well. Waking up the next morning was a shock to all of us...I don't think any of us knew where we were.  The move was such a  wham-bam-thankyou-maam affair.  Whitney had work the next day and Ivy and I had our first Salem day together.  I think we stayed inside all day.

Now that we are here and settled, for the most part, things are pretty great.  I need to get a job or Whitney needs to get an actual teaching job (for her sake!). We have all fallen in love with Salem...unexpectedly!  It is beautiful here!  I feel like I'm camping all the time.  The smells, the trees, the farms, the opposums, the climate, etc.  We truly love it here!

Ivy loves the new bath!












And a few Salem pics: 

Her Favorite horse at the carousel:  Razzle Dazzle

Interview with Ivy 10-28-2010

 

• J: What's your name?
• I:  Red Fraggle
• J:  What's your real name?
• I:  Ivy Irene?...
• J:  What's your favorite color?
• I:  My favorite color is green...what's your favorite color?...wait, now I'm Red with two ponytails
• J:  Orange
• I:   I think Mom's favorite color is blue or something..(looks out the window)..who's that?..
• J:  What's your favorite number?
• I:  My favorite number is one..or 18 or 20 ...maybe a hundred.
• J:  What's your favorite thing about Halloween?
• I:  What's my favorite thing about Halloween?...Red Fraggle
• J:  What's Red Fraggle have to do with Halloween?
• I:  I don't know, we have to wait and find out.
• J:  Are you going to dress up as red for Halloween
• I:  Yeah.
• J:  What's your favorite thing about mom?
• I:  I don't know...maybe spiders..ha he..
• J: Well, that's not what I was going for... I mean what do you love about mom?
• I:  I don't know dad, maybe ice cream is my favorite thing about mom.
• J:  Are you ready to go to the store?
• I:  No, not yet?
• J:  Why not?
• I:  But, I'm not done with this...this book that I read.
• J:  Maybe we can give the green witch at the store a big hug today?
• I:  Noooo..
• J:  Why not?
• I:  'Cause I don't want to see the green witch, 'cause I don't like her.

Art

Art is something I definitely do not understand.  I couldn't begin to tell you why I like some art and dislike other art - I just do and beyond that I put no thought into it.  It's confusing to me and makes no sense.  I like artists like Marcel Dzama, Helen Douglas & Michael Sowa and dislike artists like Thomas Kinkade,   I'm critical and self conscious of anything I do, so I rarely make an attempt.  I wish I were better, more motivated or able to try to better myself where art is concerned.  Ivy loves it unconditionally.  I think I need to take a lesson from her.  She has fun where I just get frustrated and have the opposite of fun.  She'll do it forever and tell me everything she's painting along the way.


Painting is probably her favorite medium, though she is inclined to draw with crayons and markers.  She is just starting to understand the concept of coloring books, in the sense that she tries so hard to keep within the lines - something which we didn't teach her, she just picked up on her own.  She has a camping and Halloween coloring books that she loves.  We got her a Smurf coloring book, but she's hesitant, for some reason, to even consider coloring in that one...





My first Fathers Day present from her was a painting that she did - it's beautiful!  And she did it before she was 1!  I got a little teary-eyed, it's true...

Sometimes the cats try to join in...it's a family affair. 


 

Ivy Fraggle

Well, it seems our little girl has an obsession, and that obsession is Red Fraggle.  She likes to think she is Red Fraggle.  If you call her anything else, even her own name, she'll correct you and advise that she is in fact Red Fraggle.  She'll even get upset if you don't call her Red Fraggle.  Sometimes I think I should worry about this - check back in a year, if this still persists then I'll worry...  It's been going on for a good 6 to 8 months.

She acts out scenes from Fraggle Rock in character...pretty cute.  She has multiple favorite scenes to act out, but her all time fave is Red's Blue Dragon.  It's adorable - unfortunately this video is sideways..I'm trying to figure out to change this :)  This episode was kind of a break through for Ivy, she was initially too afraid to watch this episode because of the blue dragon - a little too scary for her.  She was so proud when she finally watched it all the through and wouldn't stop talking about it for days.  Then came the re-enactment, which lasted a couple months at least.  Every day we had to act out this scene.  I was cast as both Uncle Traveling Matt & the dragon, while Whitney was cast as Mokey (of course!).

Pumpkin Patch

A first for all of us!  That said, I may have gone to a pumpkin patch when I was a kid but have lost all memory of it. I think I've lost memory of most of my childhood - a few things stick out, like the swimming pool in Moses Lake (McCosh Park), walking along the ditch to the gas station where we'd buy loads of candy for a dollar, playing ping-pong at my dad's work, making tape recordings with my little brother, chickens, dogs and cats, the coming and goings of older brothers & sisters...but that's about it.. Anyway - We (and when I say we, I mean Whitney:) searched the internet and found a pumpkin patch online called Heavenly Farms that was just outside of Corvallis.  Sounded great! Boasting of hay rides, games, farm animals & organic produce.  Heavenly it was not, it was a little run down and had zero pumpkins.  Also, the only animals I saw were some rough looking chickens huddling behind a car.  The farmer told us that the weather ruined their chances for any kind of pumpkin crop this year and that most other farms in the area were the same.  We bought some pretty decent produce ( broccoli, beets & carrots - all of Ivy's favorites) and went our way.

On our way to Corvallis ( we decided to make a visit to Trader Joes) we passed a farm called Davis Farms.  Naturally, I drove past without hesitation but Whitney made us turn around to check it out.  And that is one of the millions of reasons I'm lucky to have Whitney :)  This place had it all - corn maze, hay maze, haystack slide, hay rides, apple cider and most importantly - pumpkins.  All Ivy wanted to to was to play in the hay and corn mazes - luckily there wasn't a rustic old farm tire swing...we would have never got out of there.

After playing in the mazes for long, long time we convinced her to go on the hay ride to the pumpkin patch.  Convincing her with words wasn't really working but once she saw the tractor pulling the cart with stacks of hay for sitting -she was hooked.  She didn't even mind waiting in line!  She loved the ride and she loved hopping like a bunny in the pumpkin patch.

And after picking a pumpkin....more of the mazes.  They also made fresh donuts, which Ivy wanted so bad even though she didn't know what a donut was - she just knew she wanted one :)  The line was too big so we convinced her to play in the mazes yet again.

Heaps of fun and she even slept on the way home..which is a rarity these days :)

Allure of the City Park

Ahhh...the city park.  Like crack to a baby.  Not until I had a baby ( who's now 3 and no longer a baby) did I start taking notice of city parks, that or moving to Oregon - they have the most beautiful parks you'll ever see.  I spend most of my time either trying to find a new park for Ivy or trying to distract her from seeing the many parks we drive/walk by.  She doesn't quite understand that we can't stop and play in every park we walk or drive by, it's just not acceptable to her.  I swear, she has park radar and can sense one blocks away...like a drug sniffing dog.

Right now it's all about swinging.  Every once in awhile she'll attempt to slide, sometimes she actually does slide but mostly she doesn't trust all involved with the act of sliding: slides are a tall climb, steep, which leads to fast movement and they can be either wet, hot or both.  Not her idea of fun.  However with the swinging, if allowed, she could do for hours on end.  I love my daughter but get bored quickly with pushing her in the swing - I know, I'm awful.

We just moved to Salem about 2 months ago and found the greatest park - Bush Park. It has everything from jogging paths, multiple playgrounds, big beautiful trees, football field and a couple of public bathrooms (huge when you have young kids!)  The pictures above of Ivy swinging were taken at a park up the street from our apartment, not sure of the name but it's pretty great little park.  I'll have to take pictures at Bush's and add soon.

There are only about a million parks in Portland, but these are my fave by far:  Mt. Tabor , Laurelhurst & Cathedral Park

A few more pictures of Ivy at various parks: