April

Only YOU Can Help

2011-09-21T20:32:00.000-07:00

My friend, Sarah Lenssen, has started a campaign to help bring food and hope to the drought stricken areas in the Horn of Africa where there is not enough food to sustain life. I look at my food scraps pile that I toss out every night after making dinner. And of the bits of food the boys don't eat. And the food that spoils in the fridge. Sarah's efforts have brought food - life - to these people with her campaign. Please read on to see what Sarah has started and what you can do to help her help real people with real hurts.

Here are her words:

Thank you April and nearly 150 other bloggers from around the world for allowing me to share a story with you today, during Social Media Week.

A hungry child in East Africa can’t wait. Her hunger consumes her while we decide if we’ll respond and save her life. In Somalia, children are stumbling along for days, even weeks, on dangerous roads and with empty stomachs in search of food and water. Their crops failed for the third year in a row. All their animals died. They lost everything. Thousands are dying along the road before they find help in refugee camps.

At my house, when my three children are hungry, they wait minutes for food, maybe an hour if dinner is approaching. Children affected by the food crisis in in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia aren’t so lucky. Did you know that the worst drought in 60 years is ravaging whole countries right now, as you read this? Famine, a term not used lightly, has been declared in Somalia. This is the world’s first famine in 20 years.12.4 million people are in need of emergency assistance and over 29,000 children have died in the last three months alone. A child is dying every 5 minutes. It it estimated that 750,000 people could die before this famine is over. Take a moment and let that settle in.

The media plays a major role in disasters. They have the power to draw the attention of society to respond–or not. Unfortunately, this horrific disaster has become merely a footnote in most national media outlets. News of the U.S. national debt squabble and the latest celebrity’s baby bump dominate headlines. That is why I am thrilled that nearly 150 bloggers from all over the world are joining together today to use the power of social media to make their own headlines; to share the urgent need of the almost forgotten with their blog readers. Humans have the capacity to care deeply for those who are suffering, but in a situation like this when the numbers are too huge to grasp and the people so far away, we often feel like the little we can do will be a drop in the ocean, and don’t do anything at all.

When news of the famine first hit the news in late July, I selfishly avoided it. I didn’t want to read about it or hear about it because I knew I would feel overwhelmed and uncomfortable. I wanted to protect myself. I knew I would need to do something if I knew what was really happening. You see, this food crisis is personal. I have a 4-year-old son and a 1 yr-old daughter who were adopted from Ethiopia and born in regions now affected by the drought. If my children still lived in their home villages, they would be two of the 12.4 million. My children: extremely hungry and malnourished? Gulp. I think any one of us would do anything we could for our hungry child. But would you do something for another mother’s hungry child?

My friend and World Vision staffer, Jon Warren, was recently in Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya–the largest refugee camp in the world with over 400,000 people. He told me the story of Isnino Siyat, 22, a mother who walked for 10 days and nights with her husband, 1 yr-old-baby, Suleiman, and 4 yr.-old son Adan Hussein, fleeing the drought in Somalia. When she arrived at Dadaab, she built the family a shelter with borrowed materials while carrying her baby on her back. Even her dress is borrowed. As she sat in the shelter on her second night in camp she told Jon, “I left because of hunger. It is a very horrible drought which finished both our livestock and our farm.” The family lost their 5 cows and 10 goats one by one over 3 months, as grazing lands dried up. “We don’t have enough food now…our food is finished. I am really worried about the future of my children and myself if the situation continues.”

Will you help a child like Baby Suleiman? Ask5for5 is a dream built upon the belief that you will.

That something I knew I would need to do became a campaign called #Ask5for5 to raise awareness and funds for famine and drought victims. The concept is simple, give $5 and ask five of your friends to give $5, and then they each ask five of their friends to give $5 and so on–in nine generations of 5x5x5…we could raise $2.4 Million! In one month, over 750 people have donated over $25,000! I set up a fundraiser at See Your Impact and 100% of the funds will go to World Vision, an organization that has been fighting hunger in the Horn of Africa for decades and will continue long after this famine has ended. Donations can multiply up to 5 times in impact by government grants to
help provide emergency food, clean water, agricultural support,
healthcare, and other vital assistance to children and families suffering in the Horn.

I need you to help me save lives. It’s so so simple; here’s what you need to do:

1.Donate $5 or more on this page (http://seeyourimpact.org/members/ask5for5)
2.Send an email to your friends and ask them to join us.
3.Share #Ask5for5 on Facebook and Twitter!
I’m looking for another 100 bloggers to share this post on their blogs throughout Social Media Week. Email me at ask5for5@gmail.com if you’re interested in participating this week.

A hungry child doesn’t wait. She doesn’t wait for us to finish the other things on our to-do list, or get to it next month when we might have a little more money to give. She doesn’t wait for us to decide if she’s important enough to deserve a response. She will only wait as long as her weakened little body will hold on…please respond now and help save her life. Ask 5 for 5.

Thank you on behalf of all of those who will be helped–you are saving lives and changing history.

p.s. Please don’t move on to the next website before you donate and email your friends right now. It only takes 5 minutes and just $5, and if you’re life is busy like mine, you probably won’t get back to it later. Let’s not be a generation that ignores hundreds of thousands of starving people, instead let’s leave a legacy of compassion. You have the opportunity to save a life today!

Trying Something New

2011-08-30T23:40:00.000-07:00

If I were more industrious I would go back and see how many times I've lamented about the loathsome job of doing laundry. It, like washing dishes, is such a bother. Wash, dry, take care of and repeat for the rest of your life.

The few times that every article of clothing (save what we were wearing), kitchen towel and assorted linens has been clean and folded and taken care of are such sweet times. I like to see empty hampers, laundry baskets, a spacious and empty laundry room and a pool table not covered in clothes.

Then I squander that precious time of having nothing taunting me in the hamper by fretting about other chores that need to be done to make the house perfect. If the dishes are done and the toys are picked up then are the windows sparkly clean? The bathroom spotless? How about the grout lines in the kitchen - how long has it been since I took a toothpick to them?

Nutso, I know.

Last week Ryan invited a friend over to play pool.

There was only one problem.

The pool table. It was covered - every square inch - with clean clothes, piles of stuff to go to Goodwill, to save for so and so, to be moved to the garage/kitchen/bookshelf/boys room...

One evening Ryan spent an hour and a half tackling the pool table.

It took him 90 minutes to fold all of those clothes and sort through the piles of stuff. And he goes pretty fast at it, too. There is no precision folding going on.

Maybe I should slack a little on the precision and just go with the whole 'getting it done and over with' method. I'm the only one who cares if the sheets are folded so well that you can't tell which is a flat sheet and which is a folded sheet. The boys don't balk if the towels in the linen closet do not have all of their edges matched up perfectly. Or if the edge sides or round folded sides are not all facing the same direction.

Geez, just writing about this makes me want to go straighten out the linen closet. The towels are folded all wonky and there is a huge stack of yellow shop cloths in front of the bath towels. The wash cloths are not stacked by style (in the following order: the white ones with pink trim, sand colored ribbed ones from our wedding registry, white ones from my mom 2 Christmases ago) and baby washcloths are mixed in with them and they are stacked so high the tower of wash cloths is falling over ....

Wait.

I need to go get a brown paper bag.

*********

Just kidding. Sort of. I'm not hyperventilating but I do think I've got myself plenty worked up about the state of the linen closet.

Sheesh. Now I have to worry about the linen closet in addition to the hallway full of stuff I need to clear out. It's been 5 years in the making but I reached my tipping point in our tiny bedroom. Our bedroom set is lovely. Really. Very pretty, solid wood, blah, blah, blah. It is also freaking HUGE. We will gain 18 inches of precious space by removing our head and foot boards. I cleared the top of my dresser (into a laundry basket, the contents and which are in the hallway sitting on top of my nightstand - which I also emptied in order to move it to the guest room) so I could work on emptying the dresser so I can take the dresser out of the room.

On Sunday or Monday we are going to get a platform bed that has storage underneath. The one drawer full of clothes that I couldn't arrange neatly in the closet are going in those drawers. We will be down 3 really bulky pieces. Our room will feel like a calm and spacious oasis.

Now I just need to get Ryan to take the boys to his mom's or dad's house for the weekend so I can paint the bedroom... and living room... and dining room....

I feel relaxed just thinking about the vision it's going to be. Now I just have to work on my sales pitch to Ryan about my color choices. Half of my pitch is about his lack of labor involvement and the other half will have to be made up of trust (see how nice the bathroom turned out? You doubted that, remember?) and my big brown eyes looking at him all sweet and doe like.

So the whole reason I started this post was because I had this novel idea about something new I'm trying: folding laundry one load at time. When a load needs to go in the dryer I fold the one already in there instead of piling the clean clothes on top of the dryer, then the washer then the pool table.

It's been 3 days and it is going beautifully.

The other new thing I was going to try and have already failed miserably at is a short blog post. Since I like to write but finding the time to do it when I have enough uninterrupted time and energy is kind of hard I thought I would just write a small post about doing laundry. But then I start in on tangents.

Oy. The tangents.

That reminds me about this time in the 9th grade when I learned what a tangent was...

Nutso

2011-07-09T00:05:00.000-07:00

You know those days when you wake up and in spite of being a little tired you just go, go, go? I had one of those the other day. It hasn't stopped yet. I think it may have something to do with having two young children.

Just maybe.

The other factor would be the nutso factor.

When you add coffee to the nutso factor - watch out.

I cleaned the kitchen which is always an epic feat. Always. We have so many plastic kids dishes that can only be washed in the top rack that I always have a mountain of cups, plates and bowls that don't have any room in the upper rack so I have to wash all of those by hand, then the pots and pans, knives.....

The whole process of sustaining a human body with food is such a bother. How nice would it be to just go outside and pick fruit and vegetables and eat. Call it good. No need to cook. No need to clean.

The sweeping led to vacuuming, the vacuuming led to moving some furniture which led to a curtain rod falling which led to curtains being washed which led to curtains being ironed.

I suppose that stuff isn't nutso. The nutso part is when I decided to strip the bed, wash the duvet, vacuum the mattress pad, the bed frame, two dressers and nightstands.

Ryan was in the shower when I put the sheets on the bed. In case you don't know I have to have the sheets perfect when I put on a fresh set. After that, meh, not so much. Ryan gets a kick out of wresting the corner of the sheet out of his hand to I can put it on properly. And the way I smooth out all of the bumps and wrinkles in the top sheet so it lies perfectly flat. I even make hospital corners - but I don't tuck the sheet in at the foot of the bed. I'm like George Costanza in that I'm a "no tuck" person.

As if that weren't crazy enough... I remembered that I had the ironing board out and the top of the flat sheet was so wrinkled that it wasn't making a straight line across the top of the bed. Naturally, the only thing you can do it iron all of the seams of the top sheet. And the pillow cases.

When I plopped into bed I was a little disappointed in my self for not ironing the shams. Really, that's what's going to be seen... by me and Ryan, the boys and our cat Bob. I'm sure Bobby would much rather lay on an ironed sham than a wrinkly one. Poor Bobby.

The next day the craziness continued when we realized the freezer wasn't, well, freezing. Then we discovered the fridge wasn't refrigerating. Working quickly we moved all of the food to the downstairs fridge in the laundry room. Well, first I took out all of the beer and water and ginormous pot of chicken stock I completely forgot about.

You wouldn't think it would be such a hassle to walk down stairs to grab some food for your kids for breakfast, lunch and dinner but it was a HUGE hassle. We had a lot of take out over the last two days. Most of that was because the kitchen was impassable. If the fridge wasn't pulled out and the island butcher block moved then it was overflowing with all of the shelving, drawers and racks.

Ryan spent Thursday evening figuring out the problem and Friday fixing it. I spent Friday cleaning the inside of the fridge, washing every rack, every drawer, every shelf. I didn't just wipe the stuff down, I scrubbed it with copious amounts of soap. Then I spread them all over the kitchen and dining room table to dry.

When I was trying to put a drawer back in the fridge I opened the door really wide and angled the drawer to slide it in. The top pane of tempered glass slipped and shattered into a million little pieces, scattering themselves all over the kitchen, under the fridge, island, and dining room. Theo was in the dining room and was fascinated by the sound of shattering glass and immediately started climbing out of his chair. I said, "No, Theo, NO! Ryan! Help. Ryan!"

By this point Theo is standing barefoot on broken glass. I quickly take a few steps on broken glass to get to him. Just as I got to him Ryan arrived to pick him up. Theo starts to cry and I very gently brush the glass bits off his feet. Fortunately, there were no cuts.

I crawled over the baby gate to the chair that Theo was in then crawl to the next seat over, brush off my feet - also not cut - and scoot the chair away from the glass so I can get shoes on to help Ryan clean up the glass.

Did you know that tempered glass keeps breaking after the initial crash? As I was waiting maneuvering myself around on the dining room chairs I kept hearing pops coming from the kitchen. I turned around and sure enough bits of glass were still breaking apart. They weren't huge breaks but they were clearly forming new fissures. It was pretty neat to watch.

Cleaning up that mess was a big undertaking. So big I worked up a sweat and took a shower afterwards.

A couple of hours later I took a peak in the downstairs fridge and a glass bowl just slid out and broke on the concrete floor. There was cellophane over the bowl so it helped contain the glass but still. Another glassy mess to clean up.

On the bright side off all of the breaking of appliances and glass - my floors are clean and my fridge is showroom clean. Not a single item in the fridge is expired (my recycling bin is going to be overflowing with empty condiment bottles this week). My, oh, my we have a lot of condiments.

It is such a lovely sight to behold that I just want to go stare at it. Or take a picture and post it on facebook.

Nah, that would be really nutso.

Nice Kitty

2011-05-18T22:51:00.000-07:00

Days like today are what make living in Seattle great. When the sun is out and it's warm - it's the best! I've been to other sunny places and it's not the same. We were in Arizona recently and it was sunny for a day or two while we were there and - eh. It's just not the same. It's a flat brown sprawling deserty suburb. Of course, the company was fantastic. And the cacti and citrus trees. Those were super cool. So cool in fact I took a bunch of pictures of orange trees. Next time we go maybe Ryan and I will venture off to Sedona or something - I loooooovvvvvveee Sedona. Anyhoo.... back to the Emerald City.

We've been cold and soggy since a nice week in March. At least it feels like we've been living in perpetual rain. The other day I thought about making some hot cocoa to warm myself up. It's the middle of freakin' May!

So, with the sun out in it's full glory we hit the road for the zoo. And by hit the road I mean, ate a leisurely breakfast, put Theo down for a nap, let Gavin play my Nintendo DS (he has his very own Elmo game) on Ryan's side of the bed so I could doze, and wrangle the boys for an hour and a half in an attempt to get out the house to do something fun.

Our first stop was fun, fun, fun! For me. We went to True Value where I picked up an obscene amount of seeds to plant in my obscenely tiny garden. I picked out carrots, colored carrots, peas, swiss chard, lettuce, cucumbers, pumpkins (I will be happy with just one pumpkin), beets and..... I think that's it. Now I just need to get one or two tomato plants. Oh, and actually plant everything.

The penguins were a hoot today. Well, one penguin was a hoot. He was swimming back and forth along a glass enclosure following the kids as they walked back and forth. It was so entertaining. The kids shrieking with excitement wasn't my cup of tea, though. I felt kind of like a scrooge. Gavin is pretty quiet but I think if Theo was a little older and understood how unusual that little show the penguin was putting on was he would have been the loudest of them all.

The hippo wasn't much of a hoot but it was the first time I saw the hippo in all the years I've been going there so I was really excited about that. Another first for me and the boys was that this was the first time I didn't take them to see the ducks. The ducks are my favorite part of the zoo. No joke. I really like ducks. They are so cute what with all of their waddling and quacking. So cute!

Every time we go to the lion exhibit they are always off in the distance taking a nap and just looking really depressed. The last time we were there I couldn't help but notice some ducks who were in their enclosure by a small pond.  I kept thinking, "Does the lion not see them? Do the ducks not see that huge cat over there?"

Today we were in for a real treat as the lioness was front and center at the glass.  Looking into the eyes of a lion from 3 inches away is a little unsettling even with a nice thick glass barrier between us. I crouched down and put my face right in front of hers and she sized me up and looked right in my eyes. When our eyes connected for a very brief moment a shiver ran down my spine.

Gavin and Theo had noooo idea the lion was sizing them up as tasty little snacks. Gavin and Theo were so excited to see this big cat that they were jumping up and down and trying to touch her face through the glass. I told them that even though they were safe they should not tease the lion and to have some respect for it. Sheesh. Don't tease the lion! It feels like you are just asking for it.

Pharmaceuticals

2011-05-06T01:55:00.000-07:00

This has been quite a week for me and Big Pharma.

Last Friday morning I woke up and at some point inspected the disheveled woman staring at me in the mirror and to my dismay I saw little red bumps lining my upper lip. I rubbed my lip and felt the familiar tingling sensation...

It looked like round 5 or 6 of the cold sore/impetigo mystery was brewing. There was still hope, though. I've had little bumps and the cold sore tingles that just *poof* went away. I was hoping there would be some *poofing* but no such luck.

My regular doctor told me to see the dermatologist because she has no idea what's going on with me. The dermatologist's office said they couldn't see me until next Wednesday and, after I called back to plead for an appointment they said they don't reserve space for same day appointments. This is the same office where the last time I was there the Dermatologist said to me (after I asked him about my latest outbreak and if there was anyone he could refer me to and he said, "Well, maybe this is the last time it happens."). I know - I should have never gone back after that profound medical insight on his part. Is that what 8 years of medical school gets you? Maybe it won't happen again? Really?!

As each minute ticked by in the late morning I could feel my face being transformed. Staph was colonizing my lips and chin and there was no one who could see me. I sat on the steps in front of the house on the phone with my mom crying about how I wanted to see someone about this - I just needed to start antibiotics ASAP. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, it was warm. The day was too beautiful to be marred by this ugly, ugly thing.

We had just returned from a mom's group when my doctors office called and the above series of phone calls set me off on my calls of pleading for an appointment. It was now well past noon on Friday and if no one could see me I would have to go to the Emergency Room.

As I was making an appointment to see a regular doc at a local clinic I almost shouted to the receptionist, "WAIT! Do you have any same day appointments available with a dermatologist?!"

When she said yes but it's at 1:45 with a 15 minute check-in so I would have to be there at 1:30 and could I make it, I probably did shout, "Yes! I'll be there!"

Fortunately I never took the boys out of the van - they sat in their car seats with the doors open while I called everyone under the sun that I could think of to make an appointment.

Unfortunately I never took the boys out of the van while I called everyone under the sun.

They were hungry.

They were tired.

They were cranky.

Normally I am really good about feeding my children.

Normally I am really good about letting them sleep.

This was not a normal situation.

To make a long story a little less long - I saw the doc and she was befuddled. She didn't give me antibiotics because she didn't know my history of the raging impetigo and as a good responsible doc she didn't prescribe me antibiotics all willy nilly based on some new patients self reporting even though she did see the first start of the infection. Just the faintest beginning. She had me take an extra strong dose of something I already take in hopes that would quell the beast.

But the beast was not to be quelled; by Saturday morning my face (read: lips and chin) was a gross, crusty, drippy, honey colored, swollen mess. That afternoon I had Ryan drop me off at the ER. There the doctor who saw me gave me not one but two kinds of antibiotics to take.

I didn't sleep well that night but the next day - from 10 am to 5 pm - I slept like a log. The only reason I woke up was because Ryan checked on me to make sure I was still breathing. After a few hours up and helping put the boys to bed I went back to sleep but not before I noticed a red patch over my left eye.

Frick!

It had never spread beyond my lips and chin before this. Why oh why would it decide to leap up my face?

About 3 am when I was up for a trip to the loo I noticed that what started out as a red itchy patch that was a tiny bit puffy was now flaming red, very itchy and my eye was almost swollen shut.

"Ryan, wake up. I'm going to the emergency room, my eye is almost swollen shut."

"OK. I'll pray for you...." zzzzzzzzz

Just kidding. I'm sure it took him at least two minutes to fall back asleep.

3:30 in the morning is a great time to be in the ER. It was a ghost town. When the receptionist asked why I was there to be seen I pointed to my face and she said, "Oh, the obvious, huh?"

"Yup."

The 2 nurses aides and nurse who checked me in - no joke - they were bored - had me change into a gown because they were certain I was going to be there a while since it looked like something was obviously going on.

But no. The doctor gave me a big dose of prednisone and sent me off with a prescription for more to take throughout the week.

Whew.

Geez, this is just getting longer and longer.....

On Monday it was back to the dermatologist who said it was probably an allergic reaction and sent me to the lab with a boat load of things to be tested for. She kept looking at me and patting my knee and saying, "Oh, you poor thing." I think she was really shocked to see how quick and virulent this thing on my face was.

I am eagerly waiting to hear what she has to say when the labs come back but in the meantime she's befuddled.

Since the non-drowsy anithistamines did nothing to keep me from wanting to scratch my face off my only source of comfort on Tuesday was dunking my face in ice water every few minutes. Ice. Water. I set up a big bowl full of ice, poured water on it and dunked my face in. I told my friend I wanted to shove straws up my nose so I could just keep my head in the water all day. It felt soooo good to make my face go numb.

As a result of my facial melting, so to speak, Ryan was super helpful. He's already helpful, mind you, but when your spouse's face looks like the spawn of Satan, the helpful factor gets ramped up. So, I slept a lot over the weekend and late into the mornings.
Sleep, as many of you know, is the great restorer of many things.

Well, two things: energy and sanity.

Everything after that just falls into place. When you have energy you can clean the house and yourself.

The sanity is just gravy. Sweet, soapy scented gravy on a freshly scrubbed body floating in a fur and dirt free, clutter free house.

Oh, that whole dirt and clutter free thing was compliments of the prednisone.

So, sleep + prednisone = energized mommy.

And maybe a little crabby mommy by the end of the day.

And by the end of the week a wide awake mommy who is going to crash when I don't have prednisone to boost me up anymore.

Anyone have Barry Bond's trainer's number?

Mama needs some juice.

Bwahahaha! BWA HAHA!

2011-04-19T09:50:00.000-07:00

He FINALLY asked me to put something girly on him. I have waited patiently for the opportunity to take a picture of my boy in something girly for future use. My cousins would dress up my brothers like girls and we have the pictures to prove it. One year my older brother Ike was a girl for Halloween and when I show people the picture they say, "Aw, how cute - is that you?" Bwahahaha!

I'm still waiting for the day when Gavin tries on Chiara's dress up clothes since he's at her house once a week. I've told my friend Cecelia that if Gavin shows an interest in trying on princess clothes that we would not be at all upset and to please, please take photos.

This photo isn't that great but it's a start. Just some fun bobby pins my friend Krissy made (if you are interested in her stuff you can find some more here.).

One of These Days

2011-03-24T01:26:00.000-07:00

Today was one of those days when I kept thinking, "One of these days..."

Today I raised the white flag and surrendered to potty training Gavin. I told myself, "One of these days he will be ready. He won't go to kindergarten in diapers." For 6 days I told myself he was ready; that I was ready to this for the long haul. But after the poopy underwear followed a few minutes later by the wet underwear (and wet carpet) - that I didn't find out about until I said, "Gavin, time to go potty," and he replied, "But I went pee pee in my underwear." - maybe he is not ready since he never tells me when he has to go. And if I try to stretch beyond the 30-35 minute marker it usually ends in a watery mess. Today's accidents coupled with his silence did me in. I was ready for this to happen but I guess it isn't up to me.

When I rolled over and looked at the clock this morning and saw that it was a few minutes past ten I realized I slept too late and we missed church. Then I begrudgingly got up and went into the living room to relieve Ryan since I knew he had a very big basketball game to watch - he's been looking forward to it all weekend and since he is not the kind of guy who is obsessive and obnoxious about watching every televised game (except during the Olympics. Seriously, he will watch curling. Curling.), I went and started to play with the boys so he could concentrate his eyes on watching the Huskies come really, really, really close to winning and making it to the Sweet 16. I think. Basketball is not something I would call a passion of mine. Not even remotely.

One of these days Theo will tell us what's wrong instead of screaming.

One of these days Theo will sleep through the night.

One of these days neither boys will be in diapers.

One of these days I won't ask, "Is that the dog or did one of the boys have a poopy?" and set out on a diaper checking mission.

One of these days the announcement of dinner time won't be met with demands for "little bites," "medium bites", screaming, spoon throwing (Theo) and the Thank you, thank you Jesus song/prayer.

One of these days getting dressed won't be an epic feat that defines the entire morning.

One of these days I will not remember having ever talked about myself in the third person.

One of these days I will sleep.

One of these days I will feel human again.

And when "one of these days" ever gets here I'm sure it will usher in new conundrums that will cause me to weep and wail. But when those glorious days arrive I hope my boys are not too old to snuggle with their mama and give hugs and kisses. As much as I'm looking forward to a quieter house I am really going to miss being super awesome in their eyes. One of these days they will also realize how human and fallible I am. We will all be ok so long as they know I love them to the moon and back. At least that is my prayer.

Why

2011-03-05T23:02:00.000-08:00

Before having children I didn't realize firsts (words, steps, smiles) were not always obvious. It seems silly to question a first smile, word, crawl, step until you witness one. Or think you witness one. The first smile is blamed on gas. The first crawl looks something like a dying sea creature trying to beach itself. The first word may resemble a word but only a little. Theo is a lagging in his language acquisition but that's fine.   Gavin was the same and yet he knew most of the alphabet by his second birthday. I'm not too concerned. I like to hear Theo babble and I get all sorts of excited when he graces us with one of his words, "Buh buh" is bye. Banana is something along the lines of yaya. My favorite is Mamamama. Ryan's is probably Dadadada. I think he even tried to say dump truck but only managed to say duh truh.

So to see a first, or in our case tonight - a new stage, and to realize you are in fact watching a first is something quite spectacular.

Here is how this new stage played out in our house tonight.

Ryan was in the kitchen getting his plate ready for dinner. Theo was in his highchair eating broccoli with cheese sauce (with a ratio of 1:2, that's one part broccoli and 2 parts cheese and if the ratio switched to 2:1 it was quickly rejected), Gavin was doing his best to avoid trying the broccoli and cheese sauce, the salad, the cucumbers, just dinner in general. It was late and he had toys to play with.

Between shoveling food into Theo and coaxing Gavin to sit down at the table I was inhaling my salmon.

***Tangent: it was the BEST salmon I've ever had at home.   Yum. YUM! YUM! King Salmon is delicious. It is such a fatty fish. Mmm..... fat.***

I told Gavin he needed to sit at the table.

"Why?"

"Because we are a family and we eat together."

"Why?"

"Because we love each other and like to spend time together."

"Why?"

"Because....." I don't remember what I said but it was clearly not a satisfactory answer to Gavin because he asked, "Why?"

Then to make sure we were knew he wanted some answers he said, "Why, why, why?"

My mouth dropped open and I turned to look at Ryan in the kitchen who turning his head with his mouth agape to look at me.

"It started!"

Ryan has been dreading the "why" stage. Well, it's here, baby.   Oh, boy is it ever here.

Survey Says

2011-02-27T22:24:00.000-08:00

Please help a girl out. Look at the picture below and take the survey. Tell me what you call the picture. That's it. Once the survey is closed I'll tell you what the breakdown of names are and why I care to know what you call it. For the survey click here.

Indirect

2011-01-29T00:53:00.000-08:00

It used to be one of my favorite ways to get to know a city. I've done it in Vancouver, Portland and Seattle. I manage to do it on a small scale, too, like say, in a rest area parking lot, the mall parking lot, a casino - any casino. Oh, can't forget about, Kirkland, Bellevue, Renton....

I can get lost anywhere. Really. Just ask my family. They saw me come out of a restroom at a rest stop and stop and look left, right and left again. I was looking for the car. One time I managed to drive clear across town, back in my days in the 'Couve. The sad part is that my starting point was just one neighborhood away from the neighborhood I had lived in for 10 years. I got turned around in her neighborhood, which, to my credit, I had only been in like once or twice before, and I kept turning and turning and before I knew it I was on the other end of town.

Today wasn't that bad but I kind of thought I've moved beyond the hopelessly lost phase of living in Seattle. This fall will mark my 10th year in the Emerald City. Hopeless is not a good word to describe the state I was in because I recognized the neighborhoods as I tried to weave my way to the highway to get home.

So, this is how it should have gone down: Quenn Anne, Highway 99, home.

Here is how it went instead: Queen Anne, Fremont, Ballard, Fremont, Phinney, Wallingford, I-5, home.

A trip that should have only taken 15 minutes went beyond 30 minutes. Oy.

On the bright side I now know how to get from Queen Anne to Ballard super fast.

Transparency

2011-01-09T00:25:00.000-08:00

Have you ever feared your two worlds colliding? No? Have no idea what I'm talking about?

Well, congratulations are in order, for you are a transparent person.

In High School I had long talks with a girlfriend about the many different roles we played in our lives. Of course, we were trying to figure out our roles in life, where we belonged in the grand scheme of things. Like all teenagers we had drama with our parents, real and imagined, drama with our friends, drama with our classes, drama with our teachers, drama with the boys we pined after. Oh, the boys. So many boys and so much pining. I'm surprised my heart never gave out with all of its pitter patting over the silly, silly boys. I was a silly, silly girl.

I think I was pretty transparent at school when I saw a boy I liked. The blood in my face shone right through my white skin. Some days I cursed my fair skin. It's so hard to deny being in like (I may have been a silly girl but I knew I wasn't in love) when your skin is flaming red.

As I've grown and matured, at least I would like to think I've matured, I'm settling into the person I am. I'm comfortable in my own skin. Mostly comfortable in my beliefs. That didn't come out right. I am confident in my beliefs but sometimes it is hard to reconcile my beliefs with the world I live in - and often times embrace.

I suppose this is the crux of my problem. If I am completely transparent then I feel like I will offend a lot of people. The conservative base from which I come would find my beliefs horrifyingly liberal (my family has NO idea how liberal I've become - they only think they know) while the left leaning Seattleites would find me to be Neanderthalic in some other beliefs.

Oy. What to do? Keep my opinions to myself? Bite my tongue? It's hard to keep quiet - just ask Ryan. Or my brothers. Or my mom. Or my dad. Anyone who knows me, really.

Trying to be Girly

2010-12-12T12:51:00.000-08:00

We hired a photographer to come to the house and take pictures of us. Ryan and I take great photos of the boys but there are very few great photos of the four of us together, or heck, even of just me and Ryan. Ryan is photogenic so most all of his pictures turn out great. Me? Not so much. Ryan will take pictures of me but he seems to see me the same whether I'm dressed up or down, with or without make up. So when I'm looking a bit um, shall we say, rough around the edges, he sees April. Just April. While that is sweet and all it makes for some pretty blah photos.

Hence I thought it was time to get some good family photos. A huge plus will be if I don't look like a haggard mother of two. I'm hoping to look like a radiant, well rested mother of two. I went to great lengths to make sure today would go well. I bought a pretty new sweater that would look great with jeans. Then I got boots that would look great with the sweater and the jeans. I made sure my hair was good so I got it trimmed on Friday. Make up was restocked on Thursday.

And to make sure the curl was even in my hair and not just a bunch of curls in the back - because you know most photographers take photos of just the back of your head - I braided three sections of hair in the front like I do many nights of the week.

But last night I was a little over zealous in the braiding. The braids were very tight. Very.

After applying the toner, serum, moisturizer, foundation, concealer, blush, eye shadow and mascara I was ready to let my hair down and toss my head around like I was in a shampoo commercial.

From 1988.

Oy.

The curls. They were not good. It looked like a crimper attacked my hair.

So, I did what I do every other day of the year - I put my hair in a pony tail. After a while I managed to do a half up, half down do.

Then I was all ready for our candid family shots. As directed by the photographer when the lighting was just right, after Gavin had been bribed with cookies to do as instructed.

When we look back on these photos years from now will I whitewash my memories to show the boys in cute matching outfits? Me with my hair ~~perfect~~ acceptable and clothes all cute 'n stuff. Will I remember Theo screaming because he slept too late for his morning nap and was gearing up for his afternoon nap? We got just enough laughs out of him in between shots to make it worthwhile.

Of course, we really wanted to do outdoor shots on Alki but the pineapple express working its way through our area put the kibosh on those plans. The rain did let up enough to allow some outdoor shots at the light rail station and for some on the walk home.

I'm excited to get the photos back.

I hope my hair isn't too dorky, there isn't cleavage and my lips don't look like they belong on Caspar the ghost because I forgot lipstick.

Lipstick! I never wear it so it only makes sense for me to feel at home without it. Oh, how the Pioneer Woman wouldn't faint at such a declaration.

If you don't know who the Pioneer Woman is... well. You may just want to keep it that way since you would get sucked into her Black Heels to Tractor Wheels book and if you read her recipes you would gain 10 pounds just reading about all of the butter she uses.

Cria Cuteness

2010-12-03T22:33:00.000-08:00

Did you know a baby alpaca is called a cria? I didn't know either until we googled it on our way to a farm in Mason County to see two new babies. My MIL's neighbor and great friend is on the board of trustees of some farm that .... shoot. He told me what they do. Something to do with salmon so I wasn't quite sure what the alpacas and goats at the farm had to do with salmon. I didn't ask how they are connected.

So I have some pictures of baby alpacas. And from Thanksgiving, our tree cutting, gingerbread house decorating... In no particular order.

Enjoy!

The spearmint hard candies have been fashioned into a van. Gavin wasn't as interested in decorating the house as he was in making vans with which to decorate the side yard of the gingerbread house. It's our hicksville gingerbread house. We didn't have any candy that I thought could look like blocks to put the vans on.

Van #2. The yellow gum drops in the middle are the seats with the little gum drops being the people.

Van #3. We were low on materials so this one takes a little more imagination to visualize.

I found the key to a structurally sound gingerbread house lies in reading AND following the directions. First put the sides together allowing each side to dry for 1 minute before adding the next. Then letting the whole thing dry for an hour before adding the roof. Then one more hour cure time before decorating.

Gavin could only bring himself to put on the big candies as that was the safest way to ensure his fingers didn't have to touch the frosting. He didn't know what the white glue was - I didn't tell him.

He wanted to make more vans.

Theo wasn't into the photo op. in front of our first Christmas tree at Camp Monten (Ryan's mom & step-dad's house).

Turns out Gavin likes the snow when he gets to sit in a sled and be pushed around by dad and chased by the dog.

12 hour old cria (baby alpaca).

We tried and tried and tried to get a photo with the mama alpaca but she ducked out with each picture.

This one was my favorite. I wanted to hug it but settled for scratching her cute cheeks. I asked her to not spit on me. She was nice and complied.

Theo enjoyed the ride, too, although you would never know by the look on his face in this picture.

Gavin was mildly interested in the alpacas.

Apparently Theo didn't think having his head sniffed by an alpaca was as cute as everyone else.

My niece Laura. I can't believe she's 12!

Laura & Matthew. 12 years vs. 6 years. Matthew's gingerbread house had a seismic activity shortly after this photo was taken.

He was very proud of his house.

After the roof collapsed he decorated the inside of the house. He was so proud of his gingerbread tree that wasn't broken. He's so cute!

Cousins Laura and Matthew playing with Gavin during their dance party. Everyone likes to dance when Gavin breaks out his dancing skillz.

My brother got after his kids for jumping on Nana's couch not long after this was taken. Oops. I mean, Gavin, get off the couch like that!

A flood of sprinkles came out. It was quite a challenge to sweep all of the round sugar balls off the hardwood floors.

Rabbit Hole in my Brain

2010-11-16T22:16:00.000-08:00

Sometimes Ryan will give me a bewildered look in the middle of one of my riveting stories and say, "Where on earth did that come from?" Apparently he doesn't realize I easily fall down rabbit holes in my head with the slightest verbal, olfactory or auditory stimulation. Take the following hole I fell down tonight.

While standing in the checkout line at QFC I scanned the freezer case behind me. Was there anything on sale? Anything on sale that I wanted? No. But I did see a Stouffer's frozen meal that was on sale. That made me do a quick look for their frozen mac 'n cheese because their frozen mac 'n cheese is AMAZING.

No joke.

I became a frozen food connoisseur during our 6 month period of kitchenless living while we were remodeling our kitchen. I think I also gained 20 pounds but that is neither here nor there.

Actually, it is here. I'm sitting on it.

Anyhoo.

Seeing the Stouffer's frozen food made me think of a frozen lasagna I bought almost two years ago. It was really gross and I was mortified that it was so gross because it was the dinner I contributed to a weekend away with another couple to Birch Bay. To make sure the gross meal was completely gross I also bought a flavorless pre-buttered loaf of french bread. Both items were purchased at my local teeny tiny grocery store.

That got me to thinking, "Why did I buy that no name brand of lasagna?" Then I remembered it was because I didn't have time to go to Costco to buy their ginormous fattening and delicious lasagna and make it to the ferry on time. Or to QFC to buy a normal size, fattening and delicious Stouffer's frozen lasagna.

Then I remembered I was pregnant with Theo while we were there. I think I was getting close to feeling him move inside of me because I remember standing in the yard at the cabin looking at the ocean and rubbing my hands on my belly as I swayed from side to side.

Then a shocking feeling swept over me: nostalgia.

Blah! Nostalgic for pregnancy? Nooooooo!!!!

Slap me.

If I told Ryan he might. Just kidding. He would never do that.

Granted, Theo's incubation period was nothing like Gavin's. It was a cake walk in comparison. But, still, nothing I want to repeat.

Now baby cuddles. Those I would like to repeat.

Sleepless night?

No thanks.

Getting peed on?

No thanks.

First smiles?

Yes, please.

Seeing your baby throw his blankie and pacifier to the ground as he shrieks in pure delight and runs to you when you first walk in a room.

Yes, please.

Gag Me With a Spoon, Like Totally

2010-11-14T23:59:00.000-08:00

I couldn't decide on the title of this post. The other two titles that tempted me were, "Barf" and "Get a Room".

Who wouldn't want to read about barf? Or be intrigued by someone needing to get a room?

Ryan was gracious enough (or silly, or naive, or plain ol' dumb) to give me a free pass tonight in what was shaping up to be a rough bedtime with Gavin. And by rough I mean horrible. We put Theo in the crib tonight because I realized the mattress in the pack 'n play has a lump in the middle and the poor guy probably wasn't comfortable.

Theo sleeping in the crib upstairs means we have no other place to park Gavin if (when) he decides he would rather not sleep in his bed but would prefer to waltz out into the living room and join Mom and Dad's evening party. You know, when the kids go to sleep we eat ice cream, play with trains, dance, sing the coolest songs (Are You Sleeping, Mary Had a Little Lamb, BINGO...); all kids know that the real party begins as soon as their eyes close.

Gavin wouldn't stay in his bed. Ryan eventually turned off all of the lights so the house was dark - not pitch black because we have lots of street lights to light up the house - but for us city folk it was pretty darn dark. Gavin didn't care. So, Ryan and I just sat there and Gavin just stood there trying to engage us. He came over to me and kissed my stomach because he couldn't reach my face. His lips made a very audible kissy sound and he announced, "I kiss Mommy."

I slapped my hand over my mouth to help me keep it together. In the ~~pale moon~~ street light I could see Ryan with his hand over his mouth also trying to keep it together. It was so hard to not burst out laughing. Of course, it killed me that I couldn't give him a big fat hug and kiss, either.

At this point we had already taken away his work bench for the next day, warm milk (he has a problem with the warm moo juice) and his train set. Oy. Tomorrow is going to suck. Hopefully he gets it.

After a few minutes Ryan told me I could go to Trader Joe's if I wanted to - it was my plan after all, to shop after the kids were asleep.

So, it was at Trader Joe's that I witnessed the encounter that was straight out of a movie.

Even though I don't need coffee, tea or hot chocolate I looked at their selection like I always do. Don't ask me why I look at products I don't need - maybe it's like looking at cookies and ice cream. I really like them, I don't always buy them but I most certainly will look.

I swung my cart around from the meat section and turned my gaze to the coffee section when my eyes landed on a woman who was dressed really nice for a shopping trip. Not Desperate Housewives nice or anything but still, nice. She immediately caught my attention, not because of her attire but because of her eyes. They were smoldering.

She leaned in close, and she was already close, to a guy facing her and said, "I love you." She was oozing wanton desire for this man. Oozing it I tell you.

Since I didn't actually hear her and just read her lips she could have said, "Olive juice" but based on his reaction (which wasn't to point her to the olive section) she was proclaiming her love for him. Then they cut whatever distance was between them til it was none and kissed.

And it wasn't just any kiss. It was a Desperate Housewives kiss. Really. Her eyes went all dreamy and she may as well have sighed and put her hand on her forehead as she kissed her lover.

And I do mean lover.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Gag me with a spoon, like totally.

Who knew a couple having their coffee beans ground at Trader Joe's could be so steamy?

At that point I turned my attention to the display of fancy breads right next to me.

Lest you think I stood there staring at their over the top display of affection whilst I chowed on popcorn like it was a scene from a movie (it was like a scene from a movie, though), their whole encounter lasted about 2 seconds.

Two seconds more than I cared to see, though. We aren't in Europe, people!
Save your bedroom eyes for... the bedroom. Really.

What really shocked me was what I saw at the checkout. Dreamy Smooching couple was in front of me at the checkout. Mr. Dreamy Smooching, also dressed nicely, had a cool looking ring on his ring finger on his left hand. "Hmm," I thought, "could they be married?"

Ms. Dreamy Smooching took her hand out of her coat pocket after what felt like ages so I could see if she had a ring on her left ring finger. Sure enough, she did. And it looked like it may have gone with Mr. Dreamy Smooching's ring so my only conclusion was that they were married - and married to each other.

Then I felt bad.

Look at them in that stage of love.

Ryan would keel over if I planted one on him at the grocery store.

Then he would grab me by the shoulders and say, "Woman! Who are you? Where's my wife?"

You might say neither of us are big on pda.

For you younger folks, that means public display of affection and for you older folks it can also mean personal data assistant. I wonder if, since personal data assistants lasted for a nanosecond before phones got all smart 'n stuff, pda again means public display of affection?

Urban Delights

2010-11-13T00:11:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos from Ikea (in Renton, so it's not that urban but it is very delightful), the park overlooking the city and a shot of the city on our way home from the park. Of course, the most delightful parts of this post are my adorable boys. Adorable!

So goofy. So cute.

Gavin hates to get messy but he will make an exception for ice cream.

Tired of my slow pace of shoveling ice cream into his face he swiped the spoon.

A frequent sight in our neck of the woods.

Gavin loooves the slide.

He really wanted to climb this.

He wanted the sunglasses and mittens on. It was just as well since it was c-c-c-cold and bright outside.

Theo has a hard time reaching the snack tray (on my to do list: get a snack tray for Theo's side) so Gavin was handing them to his beloved little brother. It was SO sweet.

Watching in complete admiration as big brother prepares to come down the slide.

He tried to climb up the slide. Don't worry, I didn't let him get more than 3/4 of the way up.

The only thing this photo doesn't capture is the delighted shrieking sound he's making.

A man on a mission.

Peak-a-boo!

I love to see the city's skyline when we are just in the neighborhood haning out.

Hand in mouth.

Mitten in mouth, hand is free.

Mitten is long gone.

Sun setting over the Olympic Mountains was a good signal that we should head for home.

Look at that happy boy! He was running in circles.

Almost home. I love living in the city.

Garden Gnomes

2010-11-12T23:33:00.000-08:00

Here are my two little gnomes. Aren't they adorable? Their duo of cuteness won runner up in Best Handmade Costume at the Columbia City. Of course, my first thought was, "Hmmm, it was that obvious their costumes are home made?" Ha.

Hard Lesson

2010-10-29T23:41:00.000-07:00

Gavin attended a friends birthday party today. He talked about it all day. All day I tried to prep him for what happens at a birthday party for someone else. Namely, the cool presents that are wrapped are for the birthday girl, not the guests. He is really into presents now. He totally understands what they are now. When he plays with his new toys I try to talk about the person who gave them to him.

His vocabulary has grown to include a little word that I don't like so much: need.

From now until who knows when I feel like our job as parents is to teach him the difference between need and want.

We were at Curious Kids Stuff in West Seattle picking out a toy to contribute the birthday present pool tomorrow at a mom's group brunch. All of our kids are within 6 weeks of each other and instead of each family buying a gift for every kid we are buying one gender neutral gift and the kids will each get to pick one present. It's saving everyone a boat load of money and space in our homes, really.

So, I walk into this wonderful toy store that looks enticing to me - a grown woman. I can only imagine what it looked like to Gavin. He planted himself at a table with cars and started playing while a saleswoman was showing me gender neutral toys in my price range.

After about 15 minutes I made up my mind and made my purchase. While the present was being gift wrapped - I love Curious Kids Stuff for their free gift wrapping - I told Gavin we were going to be leaving.

It took some convincing and maybe a little bribe of a tasty lunch but after a few tears I managed to get him to leave the store with me. As we were walking out of the store he was pointing to toys as we were leaving and saying, "I need dis one."

"You don't need that. You need food, shelter and love."

At lunch - which was quite tasty since we ate at Blue Willow in the Junction in West Seattle, their food is always outstanding - Gavin was pawing at one of my coffee cream containers and said, "I need dis one."
I asked, "You need it or you want it?"

"I want it."

Ah.

It was a happy moment even if he was just parroting what he knew the right answer to be.

Now I just need to watch my own consumption so my actions reflect my words.

After lunch we went home. Theo got a much needed nap and Gavin got some quiet time - he quit napping several weeks ago but he still gets some time in his crib with toys that don't make any sounds or light up in any way shape or form, mostly puzzles and legos. I lay down or take a shower.

Today I chose to lay down and do some sudoku puzzles. I was nodding off a bit when Gavin screamed and started crying. I threw back the covers and sprang out of bed to see what was the matter.

Poor Gavin jumped a little when I flung open his door; he looked up at me a little scared. I asked him was what wrong and he pointed at something in his crib and said, "In mouf." Since I couldn't make out what he was pointing at I grabbed a sock that was laying in the crib to grab the mystery object and while doing so I said, "You put this in your mouth?"

"Yes," he sobbed.

Upon closer inspection of the brown round thing I saw that it was a snail! It's little head was moving around and it had some bubbles on it.

I tossed it in the garbage and went back to console the totally grossed out Gavin and to offer him some warm milk to wash down whatever funk was in his mouth. That and warm milk is a very comforting drink to the little man.

Blech.

After the birthday party which was full of wonderful 3 year old chaos each child got a mood ring, a bag of pretty rocks - it was a themed party at a place ... eh, I don't really know but it was neat, a goody bag and best of all a helium balloon.

Oh, the joy of the helium balloon.

Gavin chose a pink balloon.  I held onto the string and Gavin held onto the string.

Gavin did not like me holding it.  "Stop holding it, Mommy."

"No. If you let go the balloon will go up in the air and be gone."

"Stop!"

"Stop holding it!"

I tried to be sneaky about holding it.

He would have none of me trying to keep his balloon in his possession. I stopped our walk back to the car so I could tie the string to his pants or wrist.

That really rubbed him the wrong way. "NO!" "Stop!"

He would not let me tie the balloon to anything to keep him from losing it.

So I realized I needed to let go of the balloon. Before I did I told him again that if he let go of the string the balloon would go up in the sky and there would be no getting it back.

"Stop holding it, Mommy!"

So I stopped holding it.

Two seconds later Gavin let go of the string for a split second. I made a swipe for the string but it was up, up and away.

The devastated look on Gavin's face broke my heart. But it was also very funny and cute at the same time. He wailed, "Balloooooon!" "Get it, Mommy." "Waaaaaaaa!"

A couple saw him losing the balloon - not the part where I tried very hard to make sure the balloon was tied down - and looked very sad for him. It was a very pathetic little scene.

I told Gavin I was sorry but I couldn't get the balloon, it was gone. No more balloon.

As he was getting into the van he saw a single white helium balloon tied to a front porch of someone who was clearly having a party. "Another balloon, Mommy?"

The whole ride home he said, "It's okay, Mommy." At one point I asked him if he was sad about the balloon and he said, "No. I'm upset."

I love that he can tell us how he feels. I especially like it when he says, "Gavin's happy."

It makes me happy.

3/1

2010-10-15T23:22:00.000-07:00

My baby baby is turning one tomorrow. He's walking and will be one therefore he will be a toddler. My baby baby will no longer be a baby.

That makes me very sad.

My baby will be three on Monday. THREE!

I know they are young still young but they are no longer babies and since my uterus may be closed for business that makes me really, really sad that my babies are growing up.

I want to have my babies stay squishy and round and wobbly.

Although I would like to have them sleep well and not scream and cry when I walk out of the room.

Water

2010-10-13T23:34:00.000-07:00

Before I completely forget it ever happened I have to share a few funny stories revolving around water and the boys.

Theo loves to play in the animals water dish. We have a water table in the back yard that he loves to play in. He just stands there and splashes and splashes to his hearts content for what feels like an eternity. Or at least 15 minutes. Until he spies a juicy blade of grass to eat or a dandelion to eat or dirt to eat.

Gavin likes sticking his hands in the water table then slurping the water off his hands. Yuck. I really have to stay on top of cleaning the table since it gets dirty super fast, what with all the bugs using it as a drinking hole.

The indoor water table (animals water bowl) is the main reason we had to put a baby gate back up across the kitchen since that is the home of the water dish. Every now and again I forget to close the gate and as soon as Theo realizes his unfettered access to the water his eyes light up and he runs - it's a straight legged run so it's hilarious, to the water dish. Sometimes you can hear him squealing in anticipation of playing with the water and hope that he gets there before I swoop in and grab him.

Yesterday I caught him playing in the water and instead of grabbing him I went for the camera. I got some great photos and video of him playing in the water. Then as I'm recording him playing he leans over and starts to slurp the water out of the bowl!

Ewwww.....

Each time I pulled him up away from the water he leaned back over to try and get more.

A few days before that Gavin had his own play time with the water dish.

Gavin has found a fun new thing to do. He fills his cup with water at the fridge. It's great fun to stick your cup to the fridge door and press a button and have water and ice pour out. He's pretty good at not over filling, too.

He takes a couple of drinks and says, "Mmm. Das delicious," then pours the rest of the cup into the animals water bowl and goes back to the fridge to refill saying, "need fresh walla."

So he's doing his drink 2 sips, pour and refill routine the other day when I turn to watch him in action.

I turned after I heard him say, "get fresh walla" and saw him pulling his cup up from the water dish. It was full of water. Murky water with bits of dog food and grass and dirt from the dogs mouth (the animals get fresh water but sometimes it gets yucky if the dog has just been playing outside or drinks right after eating her kibbles).

Gross.

Gross.

Gross.

And really, really, really funny.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

2010-09-20T04:42:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try to keep this as short as possible because I just need to write it down and hopefully get it out of my system. The events of the evening are replaying in my head on a loop. Hopefully the act of writing it all down will kill the loop and I will be able to shut my brain off and go to sleep.

Bed time started like any other except I didn't take any benadryl because I was plenty tired. Still, I took a magazine with me because I have to do something before going to sleep.  After reading a dull-ish article which was about to work its slumber inducing magic my heavy eyelids snapped open when I heard a crash upstairs followed immediately by the sound of water falling onto something. A lot of water.

Even before I heard the water I knew what it was.

Bob.

Darn cat! She knocked over the pitcher of hydrangea on the dining room table. I flew out of bed and ran upstairs stopping long enough to grab a bunch of kitchen towels on my way to the dining room. Ryan got there a second before I did so I handed him some towels and after we soaked those I grabbed some dog towels (old, ragged bath towels now designated for doggy use). After using three big towels we dumped them in a heap on the tile floor in the kitchen and went back to bed.

But that darn burst of activity woke me up.

I read a little more and was preparing to doze off when Theo woke up.

Gyar.

I resettled him.

Then a headache I had all evening was really bothersome. Then I realized I was ravenously hungry and felt like I was going to throw up.

I took some ibuprofen and nuked a Trader Joe's Frozen Indian dinner.

Twenty minutes later I felt much better. Forty minutes after that I was ready for sleep.

Then Theo woke up.

I put him back down.

Then I was awake.

Then I got on-line. I saw it is the memorial for a friend tomorrow. Harold "Bud" Crovisier. We worked together for a couple of years. He was a great guy. Seeing as how I was the receptionist I saw him often in our office. We were chummy. He called me Sugar and Dahling. He made me laugh.   I made him laugh. I think everyone made him laugh.  I liked it most when he talked about life. What was real.  He talked about his relationship with God. His desire to get married. Diving.   He loved to dive. He got a huge crazy tattoo on his back. I never really "got" the dream he talked about that was the inspiration for the shark tat on his back. I didn't tell him that, though. I can't imagine that pain for that much ink. It was pretty cool, though.

But something was wrong. Bud killed himself from what I gathered on his facebook page. I didn't know he died until his sister, also someone with whom I worked, friended me on fb and I saw her status about Bud being gone.

Tomorrow, no, tonight, is his memorial. A celebration of his life cut short by his own hands.

I can only imagine the pain he was in to take his own life.   Did he really think the pain wouldn't end? Did he think the world was better off without him? He was so loved.

So, thinking about Bud has kept me up.

I ate some ice cream and read a magazine in an effort to not think about Bud and what his family must be going through. I keep putting myself in his mother's shoes. That's not a good place to go.

I was eventually able to nod off.

Then, you got it, Theo woke up.

Then I thought about Bud some more.

Then I nodded off.

Then the thing that I think would make Bud laugh that kept me up this last time was the repetition of Mary Had a Little Lamb going through my head.

Stupid children's song! It won't stop!

While that little lamb is making children laugh and play, laugh and play, laugh and play I am trying to sleep but coming up with a contingency plan for tomorrow that does not involve going insane.

I think it may involve the zoo.

Or the Children's Museum.

And careful orchestration of nap/quiet time.

Making Friends Kicking and Screaming in the Seattle Freeze & a $4 Shower

2010-09-16T16:07:00.000-07:00

Have you heard of the Seattle Freeze before? I just read about it last night (if you want to read the article go here). It's about how we in Seattle are super nice but not really that welcoming when you get right down to it. Sure, come visit our fair city then don't let the door hit you on the way out. And if you are moving here, plan on taking a looong time to make friends. I have a number of friends who moved here from the East Coast, Midwest and Southwest. They all say it took them a while to catch on to the way of life here. No one RSVPs to anything, everyone breaks plans, it takes 10 attempts to get together to do anything (which reminds me I have to call Helen because I was supposed to call her last week to get together with the kids. Oops). But! We are really, really, really nice. To a fault.

One way I'm helping to combat the uber friendliness of the city is by trying to not be an obnoxious driver. Well, I don't think I'm obnoxious. I believe in taking turns and following the yield signs. I try to merge into traffic making it seamless. I'm not the so-kind-I'll-kill-us-all merger. You know, the person who slows way down to let you in. That is SO annoying. If it is up to me to merge into traffic it is up to me to get up to freeway speed - it's not up to everyone on the freeway to accommodate me.

Oh, and if you hang out at a green light - especially a light with a short cycle, I will honk at you. The honk is always polite (as polite as a honk can be) at first. It gets progressively louder and longer the longer the person fiddling with the radio sits there oblivious to the green light. Oh, and I may honk at you if you insist on driving 20 mph in a 30 mph zone.

Today at the toddler open gym - which is going to cost an extra $2 very soon because Theo is sooo close to walking. Today he took 9 steps in open gym. I kind of looked around to see if someone was going to walk up to me with their hand out demanding an extra $2 fee for my now walking child. But then he dropped to his knees and continued crawling. Whew. Close call.

Anyhoo - back the Seattle Freeze at open gym time. I decided to challenge myself and not be a true Seattleite (learn the names of the children but not the parents) - although I think the Seattle Freeze could very well be the Northwest Freeze, too. But to prove that I would actually have to do research and that would involve, well, work. No thanks.

Gavin was running around and enjoying the kiddie roller coaster, tricycles (which he actually peddled today) and bouncy houses and Theo was enjoying crawling around and looking in the playhouse and all of the push toys. I sat near Mr. T as he would need the most help and he also dislikes being too far away from me. Two other dads followed their tots to where all of the action was - near the playhouse. So I chatted them up.

I met dad Scott and son ... shoot... no, his name is not shoot but that reminds me - my younger brother met a couple at his church who named their kid Shooter. Was it Shooter? Slayer? Something totally horrible that will either give the kid super thick skin or will lead him to the only profession one with that name could have: death metal band "singer" - quotation marks are needed. No, the son's name was Truman. Pretty cool.

I also met Maurice and son Jackson. Very nice man. He said they considered Theo for their boy - I'm glad he didn't choose Theo. I kind of like having the only Theo around. Yesterday I kept hearing someone calling for Gavin at another play space and it was driving me nuts.

Maurice and I talked quite a bit. I really put forth an effort to be chatty but not over the top. I told him about Halloween events coming up that are for the kiddos and we chatted about adoption a bit because both of his boys are adopted.

I was supervising Gavin in the bouncy house when he came over to say bye. I asked his name again because I forgot it 2 seconds after he told me the first time and extended my hand for a shake. He gave me a hug instead. Quite a squeeze. My ear smashed against his cheek and I felt it form a suction - kind of like you do when you are trying to get your ears to pop on an airplane.

So much for the Seattle freeze.

Then right before I tried to convince Gavin we needed to leave I sat down with Theo who was telling me in no uncertain terms he wanted milk - right NOW. Scott came over right about then, I'm assuming to chat a bit since he could see Maurice and I talking earlier, but before we could say two words he got up and left again.

I'm thinking that me shoving Theo's head under my shirt and his chubby little legs flailing about while he happily nursed may have made him a tad uncomfortable. Nothing was exposed but some people are just uncomfortable knowing whats going on under your shirt. Thank God for super baggy shirts with an elasticized waist - I guess some would call it a peasant blouse. I couldn't find my nursing cover so the shirt worked perfectly.

Then Theo was done eating and it was time to devastate Gavin. All Hell was about to break loose. Before going to the open gym I almost put Gavin in his cute red T-shirt that has a cartoonish picture of a devil that says Li'l Devil but I thought, if he does act up then its going to look like I'm just asking for it putting him in that shirt. Maybe I should get him a shirt with a picture of an angel on it. Would it work?

So, I tell Gavin he has 5 more minutes to do what ever he wants to do before we were going to leave. If he leaves like a good boy with Mommy and doesn't kick and scream he gets a special lunch of rice and beans (yeah, you read that right). My boys love pinto beans and rice from Taco Time.

No dice.

There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth. I had to carry him and Theo out to the van. I told him I was very upset (understatement of the year - I was white hot mad) and that we were going to go to Kids Club for a little bit so I could take a shower and if he wanted to try again he could show me some good behavior when we left Kids Club and he could still get rice and beans for lunch.

Kids Club is the daycare at our gym; I took them there so I could have my $4 shower. Gavin loves kids club because the staff are fun and there are lots of toys that we don't have at home and lots and lots of space to run around. Theo tolerates it. He really hates to see me leave but a shiny toy dangled in front of his face provides a great distraction for him. I dropped off the boys and ran downstairs and took a shower.

That was the only reason I went there today. I didn't want to risk making a bunch of noise taking a shower right next to Theo's room downstairs and keeping him from napping since he only slept 15 minutes this morning.

I forgot my flip flops for the shower. It really grosses me out to stand in the shower with bare feet. I hope I don't get Athlete's Foot.

Search Party, Deja Vu or It Escaped!!!

2010-09-12T22:23:00.000-07:00

Today was nearly perfect. After a night of so-so sleep Ryan took the boys this morning and I slept another hour or so. Amazingly, I woke up in time to go to church. Unfortunately for Ryan it was the second Sunday service where the congregation moves their chairs around a bit and we have group discussions. I really like these Sundays because people are, for the most part, pretty honest. We talked about God's protection today and I fessed up that I have a hard time trusting Him to keep my family safe. That led to more discussion in the van on the way home but I won't go there - not here. Not today at least. It's not one of those posts.

After church we went to Costco to look at an area rug for the living room to replace the one Theo pooped all over. Yep. Poop. Everywhere. Nothing that we could clean up and feel clean about ever using it again. The garbage men picked it up the other day. It felt like such a waste of a perfectly good, cheap, stained, dirty area rug from Ikea that served its purpose well. Finding a replacement is proving to be more difficult than I anticipated mostly because the main criterion is that it be cheap. I don't think our days of little people oozing poop all over the place are over.

We left Costco - no dogs, no pizza, no soda, no gelato and no chocolate ice cream frozen yogurt with strawberries and went home for lunch. Ryan is so darn good. He offered to stop but I thought I should pass. Of course I had a frozen yogurt later in the day and a ton of Pepsi (had to drink it before it went flat) and way too many snickerdoodles. Not good. Tomorrow I start another two week stint of no sugar. It's not going to be easy.

After lunch Mr. T went down for a nap and the G had some quiet time in his crib playing with Legos. I ate said snickerdoodles, washed down with Pepsi, watched Project Runway (glad to see Michael C. get some love finally) then swept and mopped the kitchen, dining and living rooms.

Since Theo woke up a bit on the early side I hustled the boys off to Ikea so I could look for another area rug and a childproof safety gate that Gavin can't open.

He can open both of Ikea's kiddie gates. A woman walking by got a kick out of what she saw, "Gavin, come here please. Try to open this gate, please." "OK. Settles that. No Ikea gates."

I bought two rugs - Ryan can choose chocolate brown or red like the dining room walls. So far he likes neither. I bet he would like them if he saw the other ones with swirly designs on them that I liked but didn't buy because I knew he would despise them. I also picked out the faucets for the bathroom sink. Ryan doesn't like them but he picked out the vanity and sink so I think I'll take this one (and the color and the tile choices, too). But I'm the woman, I get more say in decoration decisions, right? He is still the luckiest guy on the planet because I don't force pink and floral on him. Luckiest I tell you.

Of course, I'm pretty lucky to have him, too. He let me paint the living room chocolate brown and dining room a deep red. It looks fantastic but he had to have some faith.

So.... Ikea. Gavin got to play with toys, he got some frozen yogurt, Theo got some Swedish meatballs. It was a good trip.

After Ikea we went to the playground. Fun was had by all. Most of it was on Gavin's end but we all had a good time enjoying one of the last gorgeous days of summer. This weekend has been unbelievable. Sun and blue skies dotted with white clouds. Perfection.

Dinner for the boys was cottage cheese and fruit. Yep. I'm that kind of mother. It was late and cooking would delay bedtime. We couldn't have that.

Oh my gosh. I am just dragging this out, aren't I?! So a lot more happened that involved cleaning then...

I walked into the downstairs bathroom and if you read the previous post you know where this is going... I saw another big fat spider!

&;$^#&;(!

It was like freakin' deja vu, man! For a brief second I thought it was the spider from yesterday but that's not possible. Really. There is no escaping from the central vac canister. Then I thought it was part of a search party looking for the spider I vacuumed yesterday.

This time I put the camera on a different setting and snapped a picture and one with the hose as I was about to suck the spider up into the vacuum hose. This time I did do the creepy crawly gross spider dance. I think it was because I had one hand on the camera and was much closer to the spider so I could attempt to snap a photo of the vacuuming action.

Just had a post spider vacuuming shiver.

And another.

Now you see it.

Now you don't.

Oh, and this was the spider from yesterday (don't ask me why it loaded today but wouldn't last night).

A close up.

And just so you know how big it was, another picture - this one is a bit blurry but it will have to do.

Feel free to do your own creepy crawly dance now.

All Creatures Great and Small

2010-09-11T21:51:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago the boys and I took some baby birds to an animal rescue group. They needed help and I was able to get them to the place where they could get help. I think I should call to see how the birds fared. I will also need to write about the whole experience from discovering the birds - originally as eggs - in a roller blade in our back yard to amazing skills to deduce the mother was dead to driving them to a sanctuary in Woodinville. I suppose the summary tells you everything you need to know but why give you the nutshell version of a story when I can drag it out and make it a lengthy saga?

This story is not about birds but it is another creature, great in purpose, smallish in nature. Also, gross and creepy and crawly. It's about a spider. I don't know what kind of spider. It ~~has~~ had 8 legs, that's all I can tell you about it; other than it was FREAKIN' HUGE! And by FREAKIN' HUGE I am using my frame of reference as a woman who has grown up in the Pacific Northwest where our largest spiders are probably snacks for other spiders in other more tropical regions of the world.

Still. It was big.

A couple of weeks ago I read an article in the Times about a seeming population spike in spiders. We don't actually have more spiders but because of our funky weather we've been having they have been maturing faster so they are bigger and we are noticing them earlier than we normally do. A woman in the story used to be very afraid of spiders until one day she decided to not be. She studied spiders and learned a lot about them. She kept some as pets even. Throughout the article I learned that a non-native spider is taking over the hobo spider population here in the NW - it's our only poisonous spider. Or was it the recluse? Eh, one of them is native to this area and is only moderately poisonous, I guess. Which ever one it was is on the decline (yea!).

I also learned what we often attribute to spider bites are most often not spider bites. A spider person - arachna something ist - said in his many years of working with spiders he had only been bitten once or twice and it was like a mosquito bite.

After reading the article I was feeling less squeamish around spiders. I didn't jump out of my skin and rush to squish every spider that dared to cross my path in the house. I sized it up and thought to myself, "It's eating the other bugs and keeping the pest population under control. It's my friend." Or something along those lines. Then I turned my thoughts to something else and went on with my evening - because they always come out at night and since I am sleeping in the basement I see a lot of the little buggers, I mean, helpful other bug eating creatures.

It didn't hurt that in the article they were described as being clean like cats, doing a lot of grooming.

When we spend time outside and see a spider I draw Gavin's attention to it and tell him a little about spiders. How they eat bugs and are helpful creatures and the like.

He does not witness any hysterics. No screaming, no jumping. Just his mom calmly looking at the spider and talking about it's web and eight legs.

Tonight I took a hiatus from my spider loving ways. And, I do mean love. To go from hate to not killing is an act of love.

I was in the downstairs (of course) bathroom. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something big and black on the ceiling. Did you catch that? I noticed it with my PERIPHERAL vision it was so FREAKIN' HUGE! To show you how huge it is I will now post a picture of said monster.

Frick!

I can't upload the picture. Maybe I'll have Ryan look at it tomorrow to see if he can help upload it.

Trust me. It was huge.

Without screaming or doing the yucky squirmy spider dance I ran upstairs to ask Ryan if he thought a freakishly huge spider would be able to climb back out of the vacuum cleaner after I sucked it up. He thought for a second and replied, "Yeah, but probably only at night when you are sleeping downstairs."

By the way - Ryan and I are fine. I'm sleeping downstairs to be near Mr. T who does not sleep through the night.

I grabbed the hose attachment to the central vacuum and ran back downstairs with the camera (set to a bad setting apparently) to take a picture of the freakishly huge spider before I sucked it up. I stood as far away as I could and slowly inched forward with the vacuum hose trained at the spider. It was so big you could see it slowly pull away from the wall, little leg by little leg. OK, even if it went down that way I wouldn't know since I was looking through squinted eyes and off to the side a little as if I was trying to light a gas burner that had been pouring gas for a while before a flame was introduced.

The house is down one freakishly huge spider. I bet it was one I let meander on by earlier all fattened up on bugs. Sorry spider. You just aren't allowed to be that big in my house.

Channeling Lucille Ball

2010-08-24T22:49:00.000-07:00

We're back in the thick of a remodel project. This one isn't so bad. There are no saw horses in the living room, we aren't eating Stouffer's microwavable meals every day (although I could eat their macaroni and cheese every day), or worse yet, Lean Cuisine. Nothing about that food should be called "cuisine".

This is the last big project in the house - the upstairs bathroom. When we first moved into the house we had some grandiose plans to redo the bathroom. It involved expansion which would involve taking up some closets which would involve adding a closet to the second bedroom under a set of stairs - that do not exist. The stairs would lead to a completed attic space which would have involved raising the roof and changing the roof line a bit which would have allowed for an awesome new front porch - and a master suite and another bedroom and another bathroom and maybe even another bedroom or an office or play space.

But then we thought, do we really want to spend at least $80,000 on a third story? We already wound up spending a boat load of money down stairs - I don't think it was quite 80K but it was up there. We anticipate recouping that money one of these days. And if we don't, at least we've made the house livable for us.

We aren't tearing up the whole house for the bathroom remodel - just the whole bathroom.

The plaster walls are gone - lathe is still in place but now covered in drywall which has been painted, more on the paint in a minute.

The tub is going to be refinished, the tile is being replaced with the same white hexagonal tile, the white vanity with a white vanity, white wainscoting on the walls and white subway tile in the tub/shower. The walls above the wainscoting and subway tile are a deep, dark blue.  We'll be able to pull it off because everything around it is going to be white.

And about everything being white...

Yesterday Ryan took the boys to the gym after work so I could get some painting done.  Our goal is to get as much painting done as possible before the tiling begins so we don't have to do any prep work to keep the tile from being accidentally painted.

I spent the first hour outside painting the wainscoting and the rail to top the wainscoting. That went relatively smoothly; I only got a few drops of white paint on the cement patio.   I moved the paint party inside so I could paint the ceiling. I was going to use a brush for the edges and put on a nice thick layer before using a roller to get the middle.  If there was enough time I was going to put on another coat of blue on the walls. It was going to be Ryan's job to paint the blue next to the ceiling since it is impossible for me to stay within the boundaries.  If the job were left to me there would be dark blue paint on the ceiling and that's all there is to it.  It is a plain and simple fact.

So... I grab the gallon of white paint that I was using outside - the last gallon that we had left over from 5 years ago when we first bought the house. I set said paint bucket on top of the small ladder. I climbed the small ladder with paint brush in hand.  As I leaned forward to put my hand on the wall so I could get into a comfortable position, as comfortable as one can be while standing on a ladder painting a ceiling, I felt the ladder lurch forward.

Then in slow motion I saw the bucket of paint topple forward.  While trying to get off the unsteady ladder I was staring at the paint flowing out of the bucket thinking, I can get to it; I can save it.  While I was foolishly thinking I could mediate the paint loss my brain was also trying to register what was happening because it looked like the paint was disappearing down a hole.

A hole in the floor? No, it wasn't the hole where the toilet sits, it was in the corner - there was a hole in the subfloor. Not a big hole.  Nothing that would swallow up a kid but it was nonetheless a hole in the floor.

Then I said two words.

Two words not fit to print.

Then I laughed.

Then I got a roll of paper towels from the kitchen and started soaking up as much paint as I could. It was not nearly enough. So I got a fresh roll of paper towels from the hall closet and continued wiping paint off the floor and away from the hole.

Then I checked the bottom of my feet, ditched my flip flops and ran downstairs to see what disaster awaited me.

There was one lone drop of paint in the room below - thankfully the laundry room with a cement floor - the inside of the wall is coated a thick white and one drop made its way where the drywall meets the unfinished exterior wall. At least it was one lone drop right then.

Several hours later the paint made its way all the way down the inside of the wall and to the floor drain; that took several paper towels to clean up.   There's no cleaning up the paint smell down here - that will just have to dissipate with time as it dries.

While I was outside hosing off our contractors now white ladder and scrubbing my uber white hands I was thinking of all the ways I could tell this story to Ryan. One his favorite games to play is Good News/Bad News.

He didn't seem to think any of the good news was in fact good news. I thought it was pretty good that I didn't do it on a carpeted area. He was a touch grumpy about it until I was getting ready for bed and said, "C'mon. It's funny." He laughed and agreed it was funny.

Tonight he said he was just upset that we lost a day of painting. Now he thinks it is really, very, very, hilarious. My painting horror stories just get worse with each painting project.

Maybe that's good news for me.