Living In The Woods

Beavers Working Hard

2011-12-12T15:46:00.002-05:00

Before you ask, this post is completely safe for work, except for the part about electric donkey bottoms.

Since June I've been doing most of my daily workouts in the wee hours before SNG and the kids get up for the day. In the summer, I'd start out after sunrise and get back as it started to get hot. In the fall, I'd leave right at or just before sunrise and get home in full morning light. Now that it's December, I leave in pitch darkness, run in pitch darkness, and usually get home in pitch darkness, or maybe just as the first light starts to show and I can sort-of be seen by passing cars. My hat has lights all over it and I carry a flashlight. It's kind of monotonous. Sometimes I slip on roadkill, which is exciting, but not fun. But the sounds of the woods at that time of day are spooky and intoxicating. Next month the days will get a little longer, and I look forward to it.

If I feel like staying on pavement (a good plan when it's pitch dark), I can take a route from my house down to a small lake surrounded by woods. On the way I always pass the same four neighbors (two with dogs, one running without dogs, one waiting for the high school bus) and one guy who rides a bike lit up like an electric donkey bottom.

In the lake live at least five beavers. I know there are at least five, because that is the most I've ever seen at one time. They are elusive -- you have to show up before sunrise and be very, very quiet. Usually I see them swim around in little circles, passing one another and SPLOOSHING a tail in the water on the way by (a beaver handshake, or a beaver prank?). Sometimes I see them just sitting on the shore listening to frogs. This morning I couldn't see them (it was really dark) but I could hear one slap-slap-slap-slap mud onto the dam with its tail, then splash-splash to gather more mud? dig? and then slap-slap-slap-slap. The sound really made me smile as I imagined the beaver making finishing touches on the winter hideaway.

e-baby has asked me to take a picture, but there's no way it would look like anything but a black screen. So I try to paint a vivid picture of the beaver lake before sunrise, chatting over breakfast every day. Some of the great joys of life are found in the tiniest corners.

A Room of One's Own

2011-12-03T22:27:00.001-05:00

This weekend, SNG and I are spending a weekend on our own,with Granny and Grampy taking care of the kids. We almost never get to do this –in fact, we’ve only had one other night away from the kids ever, so it’s a realtreat. Since having kids, there’s always some kind of stress: whining, crying,poop on the floor, people to be fed, a mess to be cleaned, teeth to be brushed,laundry to wash, and on and on. We spend a lot of time putting out fires and bythe time kids are in bed, we have very little energy left to just shoot thebreeze. Conversation centers around the practical: did you remember to brushher hair? Did he potty one last time? What time do you need to get up tomorrow?Are you picking them up from school? I’ll switch the laundry if you’ll go fillthe dishwasher.

Spending a day together, with no responsibilities, makes iteasy to remember how much we just really like being together. Which is a lot.

We left this morning (Saturday) and drove to Morrow MountainState Park, which is in the Uwharrie National Forest (alongside it? Anyway, onthe map it looks like one green blob). On the way, we had lunch at a Thai placein Albemarle that was quite good (Thai Spice on Main St, in case you go – sushi’sgood there, too). At the park, we hiked about 6 miles of beautiful wooded trailup to the top of Morrow Mtn and back. They have cabins to rent for a goodprice, all year round. The kids would love it.

After that we drove into Charlotte to go to Ikea. That waspart 1. Tomorrow, the plan is to hike at Latta Planation Nature Preserve in themorning and then hit Ikea, part 2 around lunchtime. We’re getting Jambuca a newbed.

Speaking of Jambuca, I have a story that is disgusting andheart-warming and too funny not to share.

He has been potty training since August, with limitedsuccess. At first we had him sleep in a Pull-Up, but at some point, he got itinto his head that Pull-Ups are for babies, and he’d take them off and now refusesto wear one. So, he sleeps in underwear. To make it easier for him, I put a kidpotty in his room, with a towel underneath in case of “spills.” He rarely usesit, and he wets the bed at least a couple times a week. Usually, I hear him getup and run upstairs to usher him to the toilet before an accident occurs.

Today, I went upstairs to check on him and he was alreadyup. As I opened the door I could smell that something was amiss. And there wasJambuca, in a t-shirt and no pants, standing in front of the little potty seat.

“I put some poop in da potty, mommy!”

"Good boy! Mommy is so proud of you"

(I noticed, then, that he had smears of poop on his shirt,arm, leg, foot, and hands. There was poop smeared on the side of the pottychair and I spotted a big, poopy handprint on the towel that is under the pottywhere it looked like he had carefully tried to wipe off his hands.)

“I pooped in my unnawear. I put it in da potty. I wipe mybottom!”

(Sure enough, lots of poop and Kleenex in the potty)

“Where did you get paper, honey?”

“I ‘tood on the chair to get the keenex from my dresser! IBiiiiiiG!”

“yes, you are big. Good job. Thank you for putting the poopin the potty. Let’s go clean up.”

(and there, on the towel, carefully folded up, is theoffending pair of underpants. He put the poop in the potty. Not the pants.)

“Mommy, I wipe my hands riiiight HERE!” (indicating the poopyhandprint mentioned above)

Repulsive as it was, I admit I was impressed that he hadmanaged to solve such a problem on his own, using what he had at hisdisposal.

Good Old-Fashioned Music

2011-11-28T21:59:00.001-05:00

Tarte Tatin and Thanksgiving

2011-11-26T08:13:00.003-05:00

We had SNG's family here for Thanksgiving, and between the wonderful food, the wonderful company, and the wonderful weather, it was definitely a highlight of the season.

The day started with a running race, of course. E-baby and I participated in the Inside Out Sports Turkey Trot 8K and kids' 100 M dash. There was also a one-mile fun-run, which really we should have entered SNG in, but there was no one to chase him, so I doubt he'd have crossed the starting line. I was happy with my time -- 5 miles in 48 minutes -- and e-baby made lots of new friends at the kids' run.

Her race was exciting. There were probably 80 kids lined up at the start, and most of them were bigger than e-baby. They took off like a shot. She ran her tiny legs as hard as they'd go. Like her mommy, she isn't the fastest in the field. And I think she was surprised to find that, just short of the finish line, her legs were hurting. I held her hand and we crossed the finish line together, and she got a red ribbon for finishing. This mommy couldn't have been more proud if e-baby had finished a marathon.

Back at the house, SNG, Dianaverse, my mother-in-law and I contributed dishes to the Thanksgiving meal, which consisted of:
Turkey
Gravy
Two kinds of stuffing
Garlic mashed potatoes
Fresh cranberry sauce
Bacon-hazelnet brussels sprouts
Steamed broccoli
Sauteed shiitake mushrooms (from Dianaverse's mushroom farm)
Apple pie
Blueberry pie
Sweet potato pie
Key lime pie
Walnut pie (Oh.My.Gosh.)
Watermelon cream pie
Cranberry-orange bread
Chocolate-blueberry bread
Coffee

And because six pies and two dessert breads weren't enough, I made something sweet on Friday. It started with a recipe for Pear, Apple, and Cranberry Tarte Tatin at delish.com, but I modified it substantially for healthier tastes (and, it was killing me to try to resist all the leftover pie). It's kind of interesting because you make it upside-down, and cook the fruit on the stovetop before putting the crumble crust on top and baking it. Then you turn it out onto a plate and it is all sweet and tart and the flavors have integrated but the top is still crispy and comforting.

It was tasty as a dessert, yet still good enough for you to be a high-fiber, low-glycemic breakfast.

Cumble crust:
1/2 c wheat germ
1/2 c Ezekiel cereal
1/2 c old fashioned oats
2 T granulated Truvia
3 T butter, cubed into little tiny pieces
3 T cold water

Fruity part:
2 ripe, peeled pears, thinly sliced (double this if you prefer)
1 large cooking apple (honeycrisp, jazz, fuji, granny smith), peeled and thinly sliced (double this if you prefer)
4 T Truvia*
1 T molasses*
1 T agave nectar*
2 T butter
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t ginger
1 c fresh cranberries (double this if you prefer)

To make crumble crust:
Combine crust ingredients except for water in a bowl and mash with a fork until the butter and grains are close to the consistency of breadcrumbs. Set aside.

Cook fruit:
Put butter, sweeteners, cinnamon and ginger in a 10" skillet over medium-low heat. Thoroughly melt butter and stir until well combined, but not sizzling. Remove from heat.
Starting in center, arrange apple and pear slices in concentric rings, overlapping a little with each slice. Make as many layers as you need to (I had 2 layers with 2 pears and 1 apple). Sprinkle cranberries on top.
Return pan to stove at med-low heat and cook until the sauce simmers. Turn heat to low and cover. Simer for 5 minutes. Remove cover and swirl fruit around to mix with sauce a bit. Continue cooking, uncovered, 7-11 more minutes or until sauce has thickened to a runny caramel consistency. Remove from heat.

Crust!
Add 3 T cold water to crust crumble mix and knead with hands. Mash dough in hands to make little "pancakes" and lay them on the tart, placing them so that they touch until the entire tart is completely covered.

Bake:
Put in 350 degree oven for 30-35 minutes.
Remove tart from the oven and let it rest at least 20 minutes. Put a plate over the pan and carefully turn it over. Jiggle the pan a little to be sure it all falls into place before lifting the pan. Serve warm. If you are of a sinful persuasion, serve with whipped cream or ice cream.

* this is to replace 1/2 c brown sugar. I have found this combination to be the best balance of taste and sugar content, but you could use whatever you want here.

Football played on the TV all day. The Cowboys won and the Longhorns won. We forgot all about war, economic downturns, political corruption, and petty concerns for the day. I hope your Thanksgiving was full of as many reasons to be thankful for this wonderful life as mine was.

A dozen lessons from a half-dozen triathlons

2011-11-13T16:13:00.000-05:00

I received an email in May about the Ramblin Rose Women-only Triathlon. The tag line: YOU CAN DO THIS. I had not done a triathlon in six years. Two weeks later, as prophesied, I did it. My swimming was abonimable, but it was great fun. Afterwards, I resolved to do one triathlon a month until the season ended.
May: Ramblin Rose Raleigh
June: The Smile Train
July: Triangle Triathlon
August: Rex Wellness Triathlon
September: Dash for Divas
October: Sportsplex Triathlon
In the spirit of progress, here are things I learned throughout the season... some of which I learned the hard way.
1. WARM UP, YOU GOOF! It may be fine to workout without a warmup, but on race day, warming up puts your mind in the right place.
2. Make friends with neighbors in the transition area and in swim start. It reduces nerves, and gives you someone to look for along the course.
3. Check the bike for mechanicals before the race. Chains fall off and brakes get disconnected.
4. Transition times can cost you several places on overall rankings. If you aren’t going to win anyway, it probably doesn’t matter.
5. The only people who passed me on the bike this year were guys sporting $12K worth of triathlon gear and 30lb of extra gut. That stuff must really work.
6. There are a lot of men with $12K worth of gear and 30lb of extra gut.
7. There are a lot of women with department store bikes and 30lb of extra gut.
8. There of no women with $12K gear and a gut, and no men with department store bikes and a gut. Also, for the record I never saw a woman with a TT helmet. TT helmets are a little bit silly for a sprint triathlon.
9. For me, swimming is best treated as a slow, zen-like process. It will end. I will not drown. I will not beat anybody. In the meantime, I'm weightless. Enjoy the feeling.
10. Triathlon is a solitary sport. Open your eyes and enjoy the scenery. Open your ears and enjoy the rhythmic sound of your own breath.
11. The Music. Really. Really. Sucks. Really. A lot. At women-only races, it is even worse.
12. The best feeling in a race: when somebody cheers for you by name (even a stranger). If that somebody is your husband, or your parents, it’s extra motivating, If it’s your own kids, it’s a dose of heaven.
I hope to resume the one-tri-a-month schedule next Spring, and in the meantime I am planning for one running event a month. We will see how that goes.

Guy Fawkes Day 2011

2011-11-06T17:13:00.002-05:00

Last night we celebrated our annual Guy Fawkes Day bonfire and effigy roast. I can't recall which years we have missed, but this year was different in two respects.

1. It was the first year that nearly everyone had kids.
2. We didn't have our effigies made in advance.

I can't help but think these facts are somehow related.

Like other years, it was a night to remember, and a reminder of how much I love having parties at my house. Yes, even with a dozen kids under 6 running around breaking stuff. Even with all that, I was in hog heaven.

Some highlights, starting with injuries, because they're the most fun to talk about:
* Right before the party, I sliced my thumb open. If not for the party, I would have gone for stitches. Let's hope double-wrapped bandage and triple antibiotic heal it up well enough.
* E-baby had her lip busted by a swat from a kid who was mad that she told him to quiet down. She probably didn't say it very quietly herself...
* Jambuca cut his chin falling in the yard.
* We burned effigies of Guy, Parliament, cancer, mosquitos, roaches, a pop star from the 80s, a wicked kitty cat, the Morrisville town council, a drumstick, and I can't remember what else. If any of this sounds offensive, then you weren't there.
* For the first time, someone got snippy with me about throwing junk onto the bonfire (like candy wrappers and messed-up marshmallows from s'mores). Good thing he wasn't around the year we almost blew up my coworker with a 2-liter bottle.
* We used all of my plastic plates. Not sure that has ever happened before. None of them ended up on the fire. Also a first.
* As the party wound down to the last 5 or 6 guests, we pulled out the digeridoos and the ukulele for a live performance by e-baby and jambuca around the campfire. They serenaded us with Frere Jacques, Mr Golden Sun, Twinkle Twinkle, some homespun stories, and a lengthy jam-session ode to nature. Quite a show.

Upon reflection, it is a lot harder to throw a big party when there are a dozen little tykes letting the good times roll, but it's still worth it to spend some no-manners-necessary time with good friends. I hope other people had a good time, too.

Call them chores, call them contributions, call them child labor, I call them little victories.

2011-10-24T20:26:00.001-04:00

I want to document this for when Jambuca is older.
Now that my e-baby is 5, she is ready and able to take on some new responsibilities. SHe is also really keen on getting to fill out her responsibilities on a chart. I've been thinking that she is about old enough for an allowance, as well. What better way to introduce chores and an allowance than to have them tied together.
I let her decide what her daily chores would be. We settled on: scrape plate/put it in the dishwasher, pick up all the toys before bathtime, and brush teeth. Each day that she does these things, she puts a sticker on that day's square of the weekly sticker chart, and I write the date. As a bonus, she can draw a picture on the square. For each completed 7-day chart, she is entitled to $1 of her allowance. She also has weekly chores, which again she helped set: sweep up crumbs under the dinner chairs 3 times a week, and put away her own laundry. For this, she gets a bonus sticker on the weekly chart, and earns another $1 of her allowance. She has the option of spending her allowance right away, or of saving up sticker charts for a larger sum, for example if she wants a $5 toy (which, right now, she does).
As she gets older and the allowance goes up, so will the responsibilities. And when Jambuca turns 5, he will have the option of earning an allowance as well. Right now, though, he is doing pretty well with putting things away (one or two toys before he gets distracted by something else in the toybox), brushing his teeth, and scraping his plate. He still needs a lot of help, though, and money means nothing to him yet.
Toilets also mean nothing to him. We were all sick last week with strep, and ever since, he has reverted to never using the toilet. We had a good two-week run there, but now it's one backslide after another. Hopefully this will pass along with the illness.
And speaking of illness, I have got to get over this nonstop fever/headache I've been having. It finally got bad enough today that I went to the doctor. They have no idea, but it's probably viral, and I probably need rest. I agree.

Huck Finn's got NOTHIN' on me

2011-08-29T12:30:00.002-04:00

I've had nutritionists tell me that kids eat the same variety of foods as grown-ups, but they just do it in jags: they eat all of one food at a time, then change to something else. I'm not really sure this is quite true, since Jambuca has eaten cornbread ("yellow bread") with nearly every meal since that fateful day he first tried it probably about a year ago and sometimes it's the only food he eats. But I continue to offer healthy things on the plates, with a fruit and a vegetable, some kind of protein, dairy, and starch. Breakfast we usually skip the veggies but there's always the fruit (which does usually get eaten). And I have to credit e-baby: she has grown into a great eater. She still doesn't eat much, but she will try anything and regularly eats raw vegetables. Jambuca, not so much.

This morning, e-baby was painfully constipated. I told her it was because she hasn't had enough fibrous vegetables or water recently, and she asked for some carrots. I told her I was out of carrots but that what she really needed was celery, bell pepper, sugar snap peas (the very things I had just finished cutting up to take for my own snack to work, as it happens). I made her a baggie of raw vegetables to eat in the car on the way to school. Her brother got jealous and started to screech, "MY WANT BAGGIE OF RAW VEGABLES TOO!!!!" So I told him that if he was a good boy and put on his shoes, I'd make him a baggie of raw vegetables as well. He was DELIGHTED.

In the car on the way to school, the only sound was the crunch-crunch-crunch of little teeth making short work of red bell peppers and celery.

Sometimes, you're the worst parent in the world. But sometimes, you get it right.

New Year's Resolutions: A Half-Year Update

2011-07-09T17:02:00.001-04:00

This is a diet-and-exercise posting, in case you find that kind of thing boring...just be on your way and I'll see you back here next week.

I only kind of half-mentioned it on my blog because I'm superstitious about these things, but in January, I made a New Year's Resolution. Since the year is halfway over, I'll spill the beans publicly here.

Before we had children, I had to fight a bit to keep my weight within about 10-pounds of where I wanted to be. It was a bit frustrating, but nothing too bad, since I also typically got 6-10 hours of exercise a week. I could put away a lot of calories before they'd catch up.

In 2006 I got pregnant with e-baby. I was already about 10 pounds over where I wanted to be, but I gained the recommended amount of weight during the pregnancy (about 25 pounds) so it was no big deal. It was easy enough to keep some exercise going, but I knew that the days of 2-hour workouts were shelved for at least a couple of years.

A year after she was born, I was 15-20 pounds above where I wanted to be. It was hard to drop any weight, but my priorities had changed, so I wasn't really concerned.

Then I got pregnant with Jambuca. And let me tell you, that pregnancy was miserable. I was so tired, all the time, and unable to ever take naps (between e-baby and work, who can nap????). I gained 30 pounds on that pregnancy, and started out heavier to begin with. A few months after he was born, I got down to within 5 pounds of my pre-Jambuca weight, but couldn't move it any lower.
Then life got away from me.

2010 was also a very tough year at work. We lost a few team members to other departments, some high profile projects came our way, and everyone was doing the work of 2-3 people each. I did no exercise, no diet management. Just worked, slept, ate, and managed my home life as best I could. Every few months I'd realize that nothing in the closet fit anymore, and go buy new stuff. I tried starting diets over and over again, but they never stuck.

Then in August, my dad had a massive heart attack (and a miracluous recovery)and well, who gives a crap about diet and exercise when you're worried about your dad staying alive? I gained about 10 pounds in the next 2 months after that.

By the end of the year, my bank account was feeling thin and I was feeling fat. I was 35 pounds overweight. I had trouble going up the stairs. My knees hurt. My hips hurt. My back hurt. I had developed sleep apnea, reflux, and carpal tunnel syndrome all related to being overweight. I was seeing a chiropractor, a massage therapist, a physical therapist, and and ENT on a regular basis. Every office visit with every specialist was a $20 co-pay. In 2011, it would be going up to $30 co-pay. My boss probably wondered why I was always at some appointment. And none of my clothes fit (again).

On New Year's Day I made a resolution: No New Clothes in 2011. I wasn't sure how I'd make good on this resolution, so mom and I talked at length about what works, what doesn't, what I can live with and what I can't, how much I'm willing to suffer, etc.

By Jan 4, the revised goal was to lose 30 pounds in 30 weeks (and hopefully another 5 pounds by the end of the year). That 30 week goal roughly corresponds to when I'd have to be in a swimsuit next -- vacation in Marquette the first 2 weeks of August.

The diet is a 4/3 hybrid of 2 different diets. Four days a week, (M-Th) it's lean protein, low fat cheese, a little nuts, fruits, and vegetables but no starches, breads, sugars, potatoes, rice, fried foods, cream, butter. Then three days a week (F-Su) it's lean protein and vegetables only (no fruit) except for one meal a day, which is a "Reward Meal" in which I can have some sort of starchy/sweet/fried treat, about 200-300 calories. This makes it easy to go to a party or dinner with friends and not feel like "the freak who won't eat anything normal." It also means that if I am DYING for a buttermilk biscuit, I just plan accordingly. Every day, everything that I eat is written in a journal, along with my morning weight and any exercise. Notice no mention of calorie counting or restrictions-- anything I'd have to really keep track of like that would be destined for failure.

Part two of this plan had to include exercise because, well, I'm grumpy without good exercise. Every day the plan was to shoot for at least 20 minutes of SOMETHING, but never let 48 hours pass between workouts. Twenty minutes is really a bare minimum, with a goal of about 4-6 hours a week of real exercise activity.

At first, everything was difficult. Stepping for 20 minutes was hard. Running 2 miles was hard. Avoiding sweets and breads was hard. But I started losing weight, so I kept it up. As I lost weight, the exercise because easier. As I got used to the diet, the eating part got easier. Then the exercise got a lot easier, and my aches and pains dropped away one by one. By Easter I had lost 20 pounds, I no longer needed the chiropractor or the physical therapist. Around that time, my weight loss slowed way down, which you can expect.

But the universe had a plan for me... in May, I got an email from a triathlon series I had participated in back in 2005 that there were only 60 spaces left in their upcoming women-only triathlon, the Ramblin' Rose. It's a super-sprint, which means really, really short-- 250M swim, 9 mi bike, 2 mi run. Their tagline: "YOU CAN DO THIS." Holly carp, there it was, right in front of me. You can do this. Like they were speaking directly TO ME. Backstory: In 2005 I quit my part-time job teaching aerobics to devote more time to triathlon training, did 3 races, and the next winter got pregnant. It was 6 years since my first and last triathlon season. I had loved it. I have wanted to get back into it ever since. I could do this. Two weeks from the date of the race, I registered. Not enough time to lose my nerve.

Now, um, up to this point, my exercise was still pretty basic stuff. I wasn't even sure I could still swim 250 m. So those two weeks I spent a lot of time at the pool making sure I could swim 250 without stopping. I could. Do this.

Race day was gorgeous. My parents were in town, the sky was blue, it was a cool morning. Waiting around for my start time, my BFF sent me a text message that she was going to register for a triathlon in Raleigh in August, and that I should, too. I was STOKED at the idea. Then I hit the cold water and it took my breath away. After a panicked dog-paddle the first 2 laps, I was able to finally do a poor excuse for breast stroke to finish out the distance. The bike was better - I passed every single person I could see until the finish line. The run was good - I was pacing a 10 minute mile, which is fine. I CAN DO THIS! It was a good enough way to start the season. I'd have to work on getting rid of those race-day jitters, though, if I didn't want to drown.
I decided the next day that I wanted to try to do one triathlon a month until October.

In June, a friend and I participated in a longer (sprint) triathlon, the Smile Train. It was AWESOME! I was smarter about the water and warmed up before the start, which was a great idea because the swim was super smooth. I'm super slow in the water, but I can actually swim pretty well, as long as I don't get myself freaked out. This race, by the way, had really, really great officiating. But that's a story for another day.

Fast-forward to today. It's only three weeks until the Marquette trip and the 30-week goal date. I've lost 29 pounds. And tomorrow is the Triangle Triathlon, which will be my first open-water triathlon since 2005, and 3rd race this year. I'm excited, feeling great, and just hopeful that this is something I can do for my whole life, not just this year.

Oh, for the record, although I tried Olympic distance triathlon in 2005, there will be no such shenanigans this year. Sprints are long enough to be challenging, but short enough to be a lot of fun. Super-sprints are even more fun because it's over before your body really realizes what you're trying to make it do. And it better be fun if I'm waking up at 5am to do it.

I Just Need a New Computer...and About 2 More Hours a Day

2011-07-04T15:46:00.000-04:00

I haven't blogged in an elephant's age because my computer is crap. I'm so sick of waiting for every mouse click, and rebooting every now and then when the whole thing freezes up. I seem to have a bad graphics device, and it's a netbook, so it costs more to repair it than it would to replace the whole thing. I'm in the market for a new computer.
The other reason I haven't blooged much (or read anyone else's blogs, or kept up with twitter feeds, or much of anything else) is because of my New Year's resolution. I found myself 35 pounds overweight at Christmas, and resolved to lose at least 30 of it by the end of July. So far, I've lost 29, so that's on track. I also resolved to get at least 20 minutes of exercise a day, but preferably 5-6 hours a week, with no more than 48 hours between workouts. And there's the pinch: all it takes is 45 minutes once a week to keep up a weekly blog post. And about 15 minutes a day to keep up with twitter feeds and a few friends' blogs. And those minutes have now been earmarked to get exercise. I get home from work, make dinner for the kids, make myself dinner, SNG gets home and eats while I keep the kids entertained until they go into the bathtub, then I put one into bed and while SNG puts the other into bed, I go for a workout, get back in time to shower and put myself into bed. Mornings aren't any easier, but recently I've started setting a 5:45 alarm to go running before anyone gets up. I've got to go to bed before 10 to make this work, and there's always cleaning up, laundry, last-minute work stuff, etc. This is how it is when I'm in town, which lately, hasn't been very much.
I have no idea how anyone has kids, a full time job, an exercise regimen, and stays connected. The easiest one to give up is the computer time. I'm having lots of fun without it.
Eh, we'll see what happens.

The Driveway Bike Ride

2011-04-15T09:47:00.002-04:00

I love that he knocks at the neighbor's yard.
My Jambuca is so much fun.

Let the Lunch Begin!

2011-04-12T22:12:00.000-04:00

I took Jambuca to lunch with me at work today for the first time. I've been waiting for this forever.

We talked about it this morning, before school.
"Sweetheart, I'm going to take you to school, and then at lunchtime, I'll come get you and take you to the cafe for lunch. Is that OK?"
"YEAH!"
"After that, I'll take you back to school for nap. OK?"
(silence)
"Say, OK, mommy"
"OK mommy"

His teachers also talked to him about the plan, that mommy would be bringing him back for nap.

When I arrived to pick him up, he started to cry that panicked cry that unmistakeably means "You'd better be here to take me with you because if I see you and you leave again I just won't be able to liiiiiiiiiive!" I told him that he needed to calm down before we could go to lunch, and so, he did. Poof. Back to happy.

We walked to the cafe, and he loved the piano player. The pianist played him a round of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and for the rest of lunch, Jambuca would occasionally point to the piano and sing the song, as if to remind me how cool that was. He had a chicken finger, steamed carrots (and discovered the salt shaker, yum), and some pineapples and strawberres. He had perfect manners, and afterwards, we walked back having a great time. When we passed the preschool, he said "There goes Lelly! Bye-bye Lelly!"

He was perfect, until we walked into the daycare building. He cried. I felt bad.

As I walked into my office 3 minutes later, the phoe was ringing. Jambuca's teacher, calling to tell me that he was perfectly happy once again, playing out in the playground.

Well be doing that again! Lunch with your kids at the cafeteria at work is possibly the best, and least-publicized, benefit of my job.

Breaking a Sweat on the Weekend

2011-04-03T21:41:00.001-04:00

This is a long update, with some fun stories closer to the bottom. Impatient readers can scoll to the string of ***** below.
We had such a good weekend, on the heels of a not-so-great week. Last Tuesday morning, e-baby threw up at breakfast time, but it was pretty much just a gag reflex from coughing very hard. Still, rules are rules so she stayed home from preschool. It was probably good to have a day to let her cold recover anyway.
Wednesday at lunchtime, e-baby's teacher called -- she had pink eye. Persona non grata until Friday. Well, a kid with pink eye (that's being treated) can actually be a lot of fun to stay home with, and we went on a bike ride (she rode, I ran), wewent to a museum, we went to lunch with SNG, and we even went to my office for several hours so I could try to catch up on at least a little of that work.
Friday was normal.
Saturday morning was Peace and Fuzzy's daughter's 2nd birthday pary, so we celebrated and had a blast catching up with friends. It wore Jambuca out again, and as he tried to take a nap on their living room floor while other kids climbed over him, I remembered the last time we wore him out and decided it was time to go. He got a good nap at home.
While Jambuca slept, e-baby and I picked up the NEW COUNTERTOP for our kitchen island! YAY!
Backstory-- we have a big kitchen island, 3'x6', with overhang for seating along one edge. It comfortably seats 2. We also have a little counterspace for seating near the sink. It also seats 2. But all 4 of the chairs usually surround the island. Clearly, it's everyone's favorite place to sit. We have 4 stools, but aren't really happy with them because they're hard to clean, easy to smoosh a finger with, and not really our style. So we decided to get a new countertop that's a foot longer, and new stools to match. The newer, longer countertop holds 3 seats comfortably along the long edge plus a 4th seat on one short edge. BONUS-- you can actually fit one more stool on the long end if you want, making it seating for 5 (nice when one of those is a clip-on highchair).
We looked online for new stools, but the ones we liked best were available for internet order only from Target.
SNG installed the new countertop just in time for Jambuca to wake up so we could all go to Target to look at other stools in stock. It must be all that clean living, but There They Were!! Four new chairs, the ones we liked, in the store on clearance! Someone must have bought and returned them. We grabbed all four and headed for home. They are PERFECT! Best of all, they adjust in height so that kids can be up higher. They also go low enough to double as child seating at my dining room table. At Thanksgiving and Christmas, that'll be so nice.
Sunday morning, I made some broccoli cheese soup and SNG puttered in the yard with the kids. It was gorgeous weather. He took a mountain bike ride in the morning, and after lunch, I took e-baby for a bike ride. She likes to ride her bike to the state park and down to the lake, about 5 miles round trip in some hilly terrain. I run alongside her, and help her negotiate traffic, joggers, dogs, potholes, whatever. I also usually give her a push most of the way up the mile-long climb out of the park. She's such a good sport, though, and never whines or complains. She just loves to ride.
And she gets faster every time we do that ride.
And my push becomes shorter and shorter.
And I seriously need to become a faster runner! :-)

*****

This evening SNG had the idea to see whether e-baby could read Hop On Pop. If you've never read it, each page has 2 or 3 words that rhyme, a short sentence or phrase using the words, and a picture. Like,

MOUSE
HOUSE
Mouse on house.

or

PAT
CAT
Pat sat on a cat.

She was so excited to try. We agreed that she could do the uppercase words a the top, and SNG and I would read the sentences at the bottom.

She certainly needed some help (NIGHT and FIGHT don't work phonetically), but really did very well, getting most words in the book. Still, it was hard work, and by the end she was flagging. She's pronouce N's as T's, confuse W and M, and other mix-ups. I could tell she get frustrated a few times. But she didn't want to give up and finished it.
Then she climbed into bed, and I sang her a song. As I ran my fingers in her hair and on her forehead (a magical sleepy-touch that makes children and some adults drift instantly to sleep), I realized that her forehead was sweaty. Now that is some effort.
It gave me new respect for the task of learning to read.

A Mommy Has to Keep Track of These Things

2011-03-31T21:12:00.000-04:00

Jambuca has finally started calling e-baby by a name!! Well, it isn't her name, but it's definitely her favorite girl's name (or almost so). He calls her Lily. Well, almost. He calls her LELLLLY! As in:
LEH-LLY! LEH-LLY! LEH-LLY! LEH-LLY! LEH-LLY! LEH-LLY!

When he tried to say "I love you, e-baby" it came out:
I Luh Lelly! I Luh Lelly!

So, OK, for the record he clearly got none of that early vocabulary and clear diction that his sister had in spades, but he gets his point across. And now that he's in the two-year-old class at daycare, he is growing and learning so fast that when I left town for 3 days and came back, I could really tell a substanital difference in him.

Jambuca loves having his teeth brushed. He always remembers it before I do, and after his bath he reaches up to the sink and goes "TSH-TSH-TSH!" I can't remember, but this might have been the age when e-baby started tolerating tooth brushing as well. I only had to force him against his will for a few weeks, and then it was like a switch went on, and he decided it was fun. And, he likes to brush his teeth cradled in a parent's arms like a baby. I'll tell you, his morning breath is much nicer now that he brushes nightly. :-)

That's all, just a Jambuca update. E-baby has been home from school for 2 days with pink eye. She goes back tomorrow. It's been terrific fun to stay home with her, but I'm glad I have work to go back to eventually. I can only do empty pickle jar crafts for so long before I want to eat my own hand. If I stayed home full time, my kids would probably watch a lot more TV.

But Really, Does Anyone Eat Normal Food?

2011-03-26T20:23:00.000-04:00

Taste is a funny thing. My own taste, for example, has shifted so that things like waffles and Jelly Bellies are not nearly as tasty as they used to be, and things like garlic-roated kale and diet soda are much better. When I was a waitress at The Kettle in San Marcos, we used kale to decorate the edges of the salad bar, and that was the only way I had ever seen kale used in my whole life. A few years later, I also saw it used as a garden ornament, and even grew some ornamental kale of my own. But to eat it? Uuuuuuh, no, and I won't eat parsley sprigs either.

But tastes change, and now I like nothing so much as fresh baby kale leaves roasted in the oven tossed with olive oil, salt, and fresh garlic.

Some things never change, though. When I was a kid, I loved liverwurst. You can never eat more than a small piece at a time before your mouth goes from "YUM GIVE ME MORE" to your stomach saying "OK, that was tasty, but if you give me any more I'll stop talking to you." Some favorites never change. Except when they do. Rewind to February (or was it March?), 2006. Me, a little-bit-pregnant. In the midst of a world tour of puking performances across Spain and France, I'd managed to puke my way into Germany. The land of liverwurst. They even serve it for breakfast. And being in the same room with any liver-related product (even the really expensive foie gras in France) could turn me green. It was so unfair. I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to eat liverwurst again.

With my 2nd pregnancy, I had the same reaction to onions-- even to shallots, which you'd think I could never hate. I'm still not too hot on onions but I got over the shallot thing.

Well, I'm over the liverwurst thing as well, and I bought a tube of it today. I doubt it's the best thing for my diet, but when the liverwurst calls, I am powerless to resist. Dinner tonight was roasted garlic kale, liverwurst, turkey lil smokies in BBQ sauce and Cholula, and a bit of e-baby's latest recipe creation:

1/2 chopped apple
handful of strawberries, hulled
splop-spoonful of strawberry preserves
about 2 T Cheerios
Mix well and microwave for 15 seconds. Mix again. Serve warm.

Weird Brownies and a Yogurt Blast From the Past

2011-03-23T15:37:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I made two recipes that I'm posting here for posteriority.

The first is based on a recipe for fudgy brownie bars from Women's Running magazine. When I first saw the ingredients list, I thought "EEW!" but I had seen something kind of similar on my cousin's blog awhile back, so I decided to give it a try. (I'd link to the recipe, but I can't find it online)

First time, I made it exactly as directed. It wasn't sweet enough. I also didn't drain the beans well enough.
Second time, I made it with stevia instead of agave. It was the wrong texture-- too dry, and perhaps overcooked as well.
Third time, I changed the sweeteners and added pecans, and it was perfect.
I can't emphasize too much the importance of rinsing the back beans several times. Insufficiently rinsed beans make a chocolatey bean-blob. Eew.

Here's the third version of the recipe, slightly modified from the original, attributable to Women's Running magazine, 2011:
Spray an 8" square pan with nonstick cooking spray, and preheat the oven to 350F

With an immersion blender, puree until smooth:
15oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 c unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp instant espresso powder
3/4 c liquid egg substitute
3 Tbsp whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 c agave nectar
3/4 c Splenda granular measure
1 Tbsp melted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract

then, fold in 1/2 c chopped pecans or walnuts and pour the batter into the baking pan.

Cook at 350 for 20 minutes, turning once half-way through
Reduce temperature to 300 and cook 5 more minutes.

An inserted toothpick should come out slightly batter-coated. If it comes out clean, you've overcooked it.
Let it cool completely. (I like them still slightly warm, but the author likes them better chilled). My kids like them no matter what.

And, if you've never read Women's Running, it's a really nice magazine. I like Runner's World a lot, but their audience are more than half men, so their articles aren't always relevant. Women's Running has articles featuring some great women. I don't get any kickbacks from WR for telling you this. :-)

The 2nd recipe I wanted to write about is a response to something that has haunted me since I was 6 years old. Long, long ago, Dannon used to have a strawberry-walnut (or was it strawberry-pecan) yogurt. The fruit-on-the-bottom kind. It was my hands-down favorite as a kid. I don't know why it was discontinued, but like Brick cheese, I have never forgotten it. Unlike brick cheese, I can't even find it in Wisconsin.

Here is my no-sugar-added variation on the old Dannon favorite, even better than the original.
1 QT fat-free plain Greek Yogurt
3 cups good strawberries (thawed from frozen OK, if they're good frozen berries)
6 Tbsp granular-measure Truvia
1/2 c pecans

Puree everything with an immersion blender. The nuts will pulverize to tiny bits. That's a good thing.
Mmmmmmm now I'm hungry.

I Think My Heart Seized a Bit as Well...

2011-03-20T21:40:00.001-04:00

I can write about the last few weeks and how I've had a few nice trips and how last weekend Jambuca was sick with a stomach bug and how SNG had it Monday night right before I left for New York and what a nice anniversary dinner we had last night, but today was a little more newsworthy than those things.
This morning, e-baby went to church with her Granny and Grampy, so SNG and I took Jambuca to the grocery store. He was sleepy, but cheerful enough. After that, we went to Durham for a birthday party for a friend of e's. When we got there, I noticed that Jambuca felt a little warm, but SNG thought he felt fine. A few hours later, he stil hadn't had a nap, and it was showing. He had a thousand-yard stare, but being as he is, he doesn't sleep in a stroller, so he just gazed around until time to leave. He just looked dazed and tired, and not real interested in anything.
In the car, we were certain he'd fall asleep right away, so I looked back to see if he had even made it the few blocks from the parking lot of the life and science museum.
His eyes were rolling around and his body was tremoring, drool coming from the side of his mouth.
"OH-SHIT he's having a seizure PULL OVER I'm calling 911" (yes, I hollered the s-word with e-baby in the car. I just hope she didn't add it to her vocabulary.)
SNG ran a red light to turn, pulled over, put on the blinkers, and took Jambuca out of the car. He held him up, put his face up to Jambuca's, talking and trying like mad to get him to respond. Jambuca's body was stiff, back arched, facing up to the sky, totally unresponsive. 911 dispacher telling me it looks worse than it is. Eight minutes later EMS arrived. By this time, Jambuca was catatonic, flopped against SNG's chest, staring at nothing. His temp was 103, skin was cold and clammy. EMS said it was for sure a seizure, probably brought on my a sudden onset of fever.
They put him on a gurney and I rode in the ambulance. They stuck his finger to test his blood sugar, and he didn't even register that it had happened. His O2 sat wasn't great, so he had an oxygen mask. He was shaking like crazy from chills. I could see SNG following behind us like his car was on a bungee cord.
It wasn't until we were in the ER at Duke for about 10 minutes that Jambuca fussed or cried or made any noise (when he threw up all over the place).
Jambuca slept in the car going home from Durham, and drank apple juice when we got home. He was in bed asleep by 6:30, and didn't even want a book. His eyes were closed before I finished th 2nd verse of his lullaby.

Bottom line is that he's fine. One in 25 kids under 5 get febral seizures, and it doesn't really mean anything. If he had a lot more, they'd start doing additional testing. But I'll tell you, watching your 2-year-old have a seizure and not knowing what to do is terrifying.
E-baby stayed calm, patient, and charming the whole time. She made friends with the staff but didn't get in the way of the work being done. She tried so hard to make her baby brother smile (it didn't work). But I'm sure that after he's had a good rest, he'll have a good laugh with her over some goldfish crackers.

A True Future Fairy Tale

2011-03-03T17:01:00.002-05:00

Scene: My car, on the way to daycare drop-off

e-baby: Mommy, I am going to tell you a true story. It's a true story, about a real girl. OK?
me: OK, babylamb. Let's hear it.
e-baby:
Once upon a time, there was a little girl named (e-baby) . She had a beautiful medal, and it had her name on it. She loved her medal and wore it every day. One day, she was playing outside and dropped it on the ground. She left it outside when she finished playing. That night, there was a GREAT STOOOOORM. The wind BLEEEEEW and BLEEEEW and lifted the medal off the ground, and threw it in the river.
So she grew up without the medal. And when she became a teenager, she cried, "Noooooo Faaaaaair! Nooooooo Faaaaaair!"
When she grew up, she became an animal rescuer. All her friends who worked at the rescue center had soooo muuuuuch fuuuuun, and one day someone said, "We have to rescue an animal in the river!" So (e-baby) put on her scuba gear and went in the river to rescue the animal. When she was there, she found her medal. She was so HAPPY!

I enjoyed that story so much I had to write it down for posterity.

In other news, Jambuca can count to 2, and makes us more aware of all paired things in his world (2 cars! 2 birds! 2 books!). I love this life.

Two.

2011-02-27T21:37:00.002-05:00

My tiny baby boy is two. Never was there a sweeter, more endearing boy. You know, except when he hasn't had his beauty sleep.

We had a birthday party while my parents were in town, which was fantastic fun, and just like my thank-you notes, this blog is running very late. Things haven't slowed down enough to be able to sit and write for more than a minute or two before I have to sleep, exercise, shower, feed someone, switch a laundry, get to work, put someone else back in bed, or pick up the exponentially growing pile of clutter in the house.

Oh sure, all those things are looming now, but I want to get this down before the next month officially begins.

Jambuca is still average weight (50%), and is slightly taller (65%) for his age. On his 2nd birthday he was half of 5'10", which means he'll be roughly SNG's height when he grows up. E-baby was roughly half my height, so it's only fair. He is able to do all the things on the 2-year-old questionnaire that his doctor has us fill out (fine and gross motor skills, communication, basic problem solving, etc) but he is very hard to understand when he speaks. I know he can make all the sounds, like 's' because he goes 'SSSSSSS' when he sees a picture of a snake, but he pronounces 'Star' as 'Lar' so he doesn't seem to know when to put the right sounds together. He can say 'Yay' but also pronounces the color 'Lellow.' If I still can't understand him in 6 months, I'll ask for the daycare's speech therapist to have a listen. It might be just an unfair comparison after e-baby and her poetry and songwriting at this age.

His favorite things:
Daddy
Dogs
Pajamas (his own)
Shoes (anyone's)
M&Ms (at my office)
Little toy mice (from the Hideaway Hollow series)
Cars, trains, helicopters, boats, and any other Things That Go.
The dollhouses
Play structures
e-baby, the coolest big sister in the world (I catch him striking a pose next to or behind her so that he looks like her stunt double)
Mommy

When Did This Become a Recipe Blog????

2011-02-02T21:50:00.001-05:00

My parents are in town, and we've been having a terrific time. In fact, we've had so much fun, that when I cooked up a big 10-Qt pot FULL of broccoli and zucchini, I completely forgot about it and cooked it till it was grey. We ate it that night, and no one said anything. The next morning, I put some in my omelette, and didn't say anything. For lunch, I had some more and had to say something- it was just awful. My mom asked if I had put fish sauce in it (I have to hand it to her, she is so diplomatic, "What an interesting taste, did you do a thai version with fish sauce or something?") -- I had not. It was just awful.

I wanted to salvage it. It was a ton of vegetables. I wanted to make a cheese soup.

Here is what I did:
1 stick butter
3 shallots, sliced thin
3 ribs celery, chopped
2-3 carrots, chopped
Cook these in the soup pot until nice and soft. Gradually add
1/4 c flour
Add
6 cups chicken stock
Simmer for 45 minutes.
Add
1 c low-fat buttermilk
12 oz shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 t dry mustard
1/2 tsp hot paprika (like El Rey de la Vera's)
Stir well until cheese melts (do not boil or the dairy will be ruined).
Add all the leftover overcooked broccoli and zucchini (in my case, it was about 10-11 cups)
Process with the immersion blender until smooth.

It was OUTSTANDING. Mmmmmmmm.

So it seems that I am now running not just a recipe blog, but a recipe blog for salvaging doomed foods. I would have been popular in the 1930s, no?

Thai Peanut Sauce and Whatnot

2011-01-26T21:41:00.001-05:00

I made up a peanut sauce this evening that I will forget the recipe for if I don't put it down somewhere.

1.5c natural peanut butter (the kind that's just peanuts and salt)
1 can light coconut milk
3T fish sauce
3T soy sauce
2T lime juice
2t kaffir lime leaves
2t minced garlic
2t minced galangal (thai ginger)
2T "man ketchup" (Sriracha hot chili sauce-comes in a squeeze bottle) (blame SNG for the nickname)
2T "man salsa" (Sriracha chili-garlic sauce-comes in a jar)

Mix everything in a bowl. You can leave out the Sriracha or double the Sriracha, or only use one kind, depending on how hot you like it, or use fresh finely chopped serrano peppers instead.
I had to use a mixture of kinds of Sriracha because I ran out of man ketchup before it was hot enough for my taste.This was crazy-good over Shiratake noodles and broccoli.

I took a half day off today to go see the Normal Rockwell exhibit at the NCMA. I've never been a Rockwell fan; he stopped doing Saturday Eve Post covers long before I was born, and his art always seemed corny to me. But seeing all the covers of the SEP in sequence, and having the chance to really look at the details was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. I also really appreciated some of his art commissioned for Look in the 1960s. The exhibit ends Monday, and even on a rainy Wednesday, it was pretty busy in there.

The kids-- I haven't had an update on them in a long time. Next week is Jambuca's birthday, so I should save some news for a birthday blog post, but I'll tell you he's making us laugh all the time. He talks about everything (and we understand about 1/4 of it) and he is getting a little easier to redirect verbally.

E-baby has really taken off with reading and writing. Something just clicked finally, and she's getting it more and more. The other day she wrote her first name from memory without any help from me. And that's a lot of letters to remember! :-) She's reading 2- and 3-letter and some 4- letter words, but what's funny is that half the time she can guess what the bigger words are because of the rhythm and rhyme of the story. She also memorizes most books after the first or 2nd time they're read to her, so it's hard to always know whether she's reading or reciting. She's got a storytelling streak a mile wide.

I'm starting to suspect that Jambuca has as well. He loves playing out little narratives with the doll house residents, making little parties and dinners, driving the little mice to and from different doll houses, and I wish so badly that I could understand what he's saying when he's there for an hour at a time making the little village come to life.

Reduce, Reuse, Recipe!

2011-01-23T18:44:00.001-05:00

For the past couple of months, Sunday mornings have mostly been a time for cooking. Since I've been on my New Year's Resolution diet*, we've mostly been cooking healthier things like veggies and meats for the next week's meals. Having quick meals ready to heat and eat keeps me from snacking like a fiend when I get home from work while trying to make something for dinner.

This morning, I also cleared out the fridge (which I do every 2 weeks or so-- it's shameful how much I throw out each time-- I'm looking at you, 2 week old slice of leftover meatloaf). There in the back were 6 Del Monte Fruit Naturals blackberry and blueberry fruit cups. I bought these because I had a BJ's coupon. Which means, of course, that I bought a case of them. They're fruit in juice with no added sugar and my kids LOVE fruit cups, and they LOVE berries, so I thought, what a perfect match!

Not so much. After repeated attempts, neither of the kids would eat these blackberries and blueberries in a fruit cup. I think that to preserve shape, they have to do something weird to the texture. The flavor is great! But the texture is just... not quite right. I've given up on trying to get anyone to eat them, and I pulled them out of the fridge and thought, "What can I do with these?" So I present to you:

Two Recipes from One Surplus of DMFN Fruit Cups!!!

Gelatin blocks:
Juice from 6 DelMonte Fruit Naturals fruit cups (not the berries)
Enough of any other juice to make a total of 4 cups liquid
2 Stevia packets
4 Knox gelatin packets
Put 1 c juice in a bowl and sprinkle the Knox on top. Boil the rest of the juice. Add to the gelatin mixture and stir in the stevia. Stir well, and pour into a rectangular or square dish (I used a 2Qt Corning Ware). Fridge until set. Cut into squares.

Berry Sorbet (based on this recipe)
berries from 6 Del Monte Fruit Naturals cups (not the juice) (should make about 4c)
20 Splenda packets
2 c buttermilk
Freeze the bowl of your ie cream maker at least 8 hours
Mix all ingredients in a bowl, and puree with an immersion blender until super-super smooth.
Fridge until ready to eat.
Put in ice cream maker according to your instructions (mine went 15 minutes)
(The kids wanted a little extra sugar, SNG and I thought it was perffect as-is.)

Both of these were so good we all 4 ate until our bellies hurt. And there were hardly any calories in there. So New Year's Resolution is still holding strong.

* the New Year's Resolution: NO NEW CLOTHES in 2011! Shoes, hats, scarves, gloves, and socks do not count. Just no new clothes to fit a bigger posterior.

Instead of a real blog post...

2011-01-05T20:53:00.000-05:00

a totally cute video of my kids!

Two Stories (One long, One short)

2010-12-15T21:54:00.000-05:00

This time of year if I even see one PSA about children/families/individuals who are giftless/hungry/alone for the holidays, I get choked up. Case in point, the other day, e-baby asked me why it's better to give than to receive. I told her it was because it feels good to give someone something, like when we donate to the Goodwill. She wasn't quite following (well, they could just go to Target and buy some things). She prodded for more-- she asked why we donate old things to the poor, and I tried explaining how some people don't have much, and the least we can do is give them our old stuff.
Blank stare, crickets.

So I took a different strategy:
me: You know how, when you come home from school, we make dinner, or sometimes we eat out?
e-baby: Yes
me: And whenever you outgrow your old clothes, we go buy new ones?
e-baby: Yes
me: And when your birthday comes around, or Christmas, you get lots of new toys and books and things?
e-baby: Yes
me: That's because mommy and daddy have jobs and we are paid enough to buy the things we need, and have a little extra to buy things we want, like dinner in a restaurant or a toy now and then. Well, some people can't find good jobs, or their jobs don't pay quite enough for all the things they need. There are even some mommies and daddies who can't afford to buy food and toys for their children (and at this point, I start choking up like a super-sappy-sop and can't speak in a coherent sentence anymore-- little face with huge brown eyes, so lucky to have everything a child could ever need)

So we discussed that there are organizations that we give money and other donations to so that they can bring food and toys to people who don't have enough.
e-baby: If I had a friend who was really poor, I would give her one of my toys that I didn't want anymore.
me: Would you maybe give her one that you do still want?
e-baby: Well, no, I don't think that would work.
I mean you know, she is a 4-year-old, not Jesus or the Dalai Lama.

But, she seemed really receptive to the whole taking-care-of-poor-children thing and asked a few more times about how we could help some poor children. So we began a new family tradition: each kid has a budget for buying toys for donating, and we go shopping. Jambuca is still too small, so e-baby shopped on his behalf. She picked a deluxe toy food set (like the one she has and loves) and 2 small Disney Princess figurines. "He" picked a 12-piece toy muscial instruments/band set for babies (like the one she has and loves) and 3 Matchbox cars. We also picked out a bunch of her favorite nonperishable foods to give to the Food Drive at my office.

Here's my favorite part...

In line to check out at Target, the man in front of us accidentally bumped into e-baby, and knocked her over a little. He apologized profusely, and she (in classic e-baby style, using the opportunity to make a new friend) tells him (loudly), I'm donating some toys and food to the poor children! I am so excited! I can't wait to donate! It will make some children so happy! This is the happiest I've ever felt!

After he had checked out, he noticed that our Matchbox cars accidentally made their way into his stuff, and he had been charged for them. Before the cashier could credit it back, he said, NO! Leave it on my bill- That little girl is going to donate, and I want to be a part of it.

A near-tearful Hallmark moment. Over a $3 Matchbox cars donation! But no, that's not the reason. It was the poignant, the raw and gorgeous humanity of the situation.

When we put the toys into a Toys for Tots collection bin, e-baby told the toys to find their way to a great new home. I don't think she really gets it completely-- how can you understand hunger if you've never been without food? -- but it is the beginning.

By the way, if any of you have ideas for other ways to get preschool-age kids involved in helping others , I'd love to hear your ideas. I'd love for my kids to grow up with a strong conscience and sense of social justice. After all, it was my own mother who, in the mid 1970s, had her children flying Black Power kites in the field next to the airport which had been notable for their racist empoloyment policies. Start 'em young, right mom? (this really is true. ask her about it. my mom is so awesome.)

OK, and the 2nd story. Much shorter, struck me as funny.
To save time and water, the kids have been bathing together more often. We let them use our big bathtub, and tonight I overfilled it and overbubbled it. Jambuca ran into my bathroom, sat right down and pulled off his right (red) cowboy boot. Then he pulled off his right sock, and stuffed it carefully inside the boot. Then he pulled off his left boot, then the left sock, and stuffed it inside the left boot. Then he neatly lined up the pair of boots next to the bathtub and put his arms up to be lifted into the suds, stomping his feet in excited anticipation.

Heh. I think at 1 yr old, I was wriggling free of my diaper and running from the house to streak nekkid down through the neighbors' yards. Jambuca is SO Montessori. (For the record, Jambuca does love to run around nekkid. But he mostly stays inside.

Gingerbread House-Eating Day

2010-12-15T08:44:00.000-05:00

I love making gingerbread houses at Christmas, decorating them with cheap candy, and picking at them throughout the holidays. At the end of the Christmas season, the whole thing is so stale you just want to throw it away. E-baby has never been all that interested in eating them, so mostly they sit around being decorative.

This year we made a whole gingerbread village. There was a large central house (town hall?) made mostly from graham crackers and ginger snaps, surrounded by 5 tiny houses made from one of those gingerbread house kits. E-baby made my favorite snowman ever with mini marshmallows.

This year, Jambuca was very, very (VERY) interested in the gingerbread village. He climbed up onto the kitchen island at one point to grab a mini-house and try to gnaw on it. Repeated efforts to redirect him were thwarted and just led to a lot of screaming, so the gingerbread house moved to the top of the fridge.

It's been there for almost 2 weeks. That's just useless.

So, thanks to a great idea from my BFF Lizard, we also decided to have Dec 15 be gingerbread house-eating day. At breakfast today, the kids went nuts on the houses. And honestly, they didn't want much. Everyone had fun. E-baby said it was her favorite day of the year, and she was only sad that she'd have to wait another year for gingerbread house-eating day.

She also started singing this funny song with the lyrics "Chick it easy." It's odd, so I decided to videotape it. Here it is!

(Thank you again, Lizard, for the great idea! And, it is killing me that I know I took pictures of this year's house, but I can't find them anywhere.)

A Recent Collection of e-babyisms and Jambucaisms

2010-12-08T22:34:00.001-05:00

* Discussing the Irish potato famine, we somehow got onto the subject of fungicides and insecticides and how they have saved so many lives from starvation and famine. She said that they were like superheros, but for potatoes. (car conversations with e-baby are strange, but never boring)

* He won't go anywhere without his mommy doll: a Polly Pocket with perma-clothes and hiking boots. He carries it in the car, leaves it in his seat to go to school, and grabs it as soon as we pick him up. He loves to point to it and say, Mommy! and then point to me and say, Mommy!

* At school, a little boy friend told the class about watching Rudolph on TV. She burst into hysterical sobbing, and once the teachers settled her down enough to speak, she said, I missed it! Now I will never get to see Rudolph! (the teacher told her that it would come on TV at least 10 more times before Christmas. I DVR'ed it and we watched it this evening).

* He loves to push the Pager button on the cordless phone cradle just to hear it go BEADLE-BEADLE-BEADLE! He also likes to use the cordless phone cradle as an easy-chair for Polly mommy.

* Describing a troll that has bad teeth, she tells me, That troll doesn't eat oranges- he's a scurvy troll.

Existential Mommy Crisis

2010-12-04T20:00:00.004-05:00

Since I haven't posted pictures on Flickr since the Ireland trip, you might be surprised to see some more up there (Thanksgiving week and the first snow of the season)

When e-baby was 2, she loved watching Caillou. She was the same age as Rosie, Caillou's little sister. I enjoyed watching her go from being able to speak less than Rosie to being able to speak better than Rosie. I also wondered whether the kinds of things Caillou was able to say and do were really representative of a 4-year old. I mean really, there's no way a 4-year-old can do all that stuff and speak so clearly and understand such concepts.

Tonight we watched Caillou for the first time in a long time. E-baby is Caillou's age and does all the things Caillou does. Jambuca is just a little younger than Rosie. Caillou is a typical 4-yr old (only waaaaaaaay better at using his polite words). It took my breath away.

Speaking of e-baby, she never fails to make me laugh with how she explains things. This evening, a friend/neighbor from next door came over with her 4-yr-old son, and we loaned them our copy of the book James and the Giant Peach. I read it to e-baby last month, and she loved it. She was showing her friend the pictures on the cover, and explaining who the good guys were, and the bad guys, and then she told him about the peach.

"They went inside that peach. I mean INSIDE of it! Wait, I'll show you..."
(putting her hand waaaaay into a big barrel of goldfish crackers)
"See how my hand is in here like this? THAT is how they were INSIDE the peach!"

A lot can change in 2 years.

The Joy of Cooking With e-baby

2010-11-16T21:33:00.001-05:00

This evening, even with evil Dora yelling at her from the TV, e-baby was more interested in developing new recipes in my kitchen that would make her restaurant patrons happy. She told me I was the waitress, and to get her some ingredients.

Last weekend I gave you a recipe of my own for using up excess cream cheese in your refrigerator. This week, I give you three e-baby originals. If she becomes famous someday, remember you saw them here first.

Also, for the record, all I did was provide the supplies she asked for. The creative mastery and execution are entirely hers. All recipes are made to serve 4.
Raspberry Marnies
4 big raspberries
4 baby carrots
Put the raspberry on the tip of the carrot like a head, so it looks like a little person whose name is Marnie.

Marshmallow Puffins
4 raspberries
2 marshmallows
a spoonful strawberry preserves
Slice the marhsmallows in half the short way (across the beltline of the marhmallow? Slice the sagittal plane? Just see the picture, OK?). Use each marshmallow half as a platform and smear a bit of preserves on it. Then rest a raspberry on top.
Chef's note: It does not need to resemble a real puffin. Just needs to make a "puffin" sensation in your mouth when you eat it.

Cheese Bonnets
1 stick of mozzarella string cheese
4 grapes
1T vanilla custard, prepared
4 fresh pomegranate seeds
4 toothpicks
Cut the string cheese in half, and then slice the half into 4 pieces. Eat the uncut half.
Dip a grape in vanilla custard. Attach the cheese to the grape (dipped end) with the toothpick. Rest a pomegranate seed on top like a fancy lady's flower on a white bonnet.

After she had finished, and her customers had all eaten their fill of her culinary delights, she told me,
"Well, I've been mostly cooking, so I'd like to rest up and play now."

She had earned some R&R for sure.

Why Texting is Better Than the Phone

2010-11-14T21:11:00.000-05:00

Scene: An office supply store, prematurely decorated for Christmas. Kids hollering and playing a toy trumpet loudly, employees giving the stink-eye.
"Hey, should we do the grocery run while we're here? What time is (so-and-so from out of town) getting here today?"
"I don't know-let me check"

(Option A: the phone call)
"Hey, we were thinking about plans for the day, and wondering whether it made sense to go to the grocery now or later, so what time do you think you'll be getting here? PUT THAT DOWN RIGHT NOW. NO, YOU MAY NOT HAVE THAT IT IS VERY EXPENSIVE AND WE ARE NOT HERE FOR TOYS Sorry, go ahead."
"Oh gosh, I'm not sure how far we are from leaving, and even then, I'm not sure how far it is from here to your house. We will probably stop for lunch along the way. If you need to do some things, go ahead, because we haven't left yet and it will be awhile. The last time we did that drive there was some traffic, but oh, that was a weekday. So probably it'll be an easy trip. I don't know how far it is, though."
"SIT ON YOUR BOTTOM. YOU MAY NOT STAND IN THE CART_SEAT. NO. ON YOUR BOTTOM, PLEASE. ON YOUR BOTTOM. THANK YOU ok, just roughly what time do you think? NO YOU MAY NOT. SHHH. MOMMY IS ON THE PHONE. PLEASE JUST WAIT A MINUTE."
"Gosh I don't know, maybe 2? 3? Later? How about we call you when we get close."
"How far does the GPS say you are? I AM STILL TALKING ON THE PHONE, CAN YOU PLEASE ASK YOUR QUESTION WHEN I AM FINISHED? sorry, go ahead"
"Oh, OK, well let's see... turning it on... Let's see. We're 4 hours away now, plus lunch, so we'll be there in about 5 hours."
"YES, NO, WAIT, I MEAN NO, YOU CANNOT CLIMB ON THERE. ok, thanks - see you then!"

(Option B: Text)
"When will you be here?"
"Around 3:00"
"Cool- c u later"

Once in awhile you meet people who Do Not Text. They know how to, but they won't. I appreciate a conversation as much as anyone else, but really, which option seems nicer?

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for SMS.

Recap: Guy Fawkes Day, DC, Veteran's Day and a Recipe

2010-11-13T22:37:00.000-05:00

Our Guy Fawkes Day party was last weekend, and we had a blast. It was great to see friends, watch the kids as they get older and an play together more, and burn stuff in the backyard. 'Cause that's the real reason we celebrate, after all. S'mores this year were not as good as usual, mostly because Hershey's miniatures are really, really crappy ever since they stopped using cocoa butter in most of their chocolate, turning it into a chocolate-flavored food. And don't even start on the b.s. that Hershey's was never good-- plain old Hershey's milk chocolate was tasty. Krackel and Mr Goodbar used to taste creamy and delicious. They weren't Belgian, but they were good. Now they taste like wax. They don't even really melt in your mouth. It's all wrong. I know that this change happened about 2 years ago, but last year we had Ghirardelli and Resse's peanut butter cups, so we didn't notice until now.

Monday I flew to DC, and spent a few nights at L'Enfant Plaza. Usually when I go I stay in Rockville because that's where our regional office is. But this time, I was downtown. It was magnificent. Right next to the Smithsonian castle and the National mall, a hop on the Metro to the White House, good restaurants. I was reminded why DC is such a tourist destination. I think I prefer it to Manhattan- more places open to the public, and less crowded.

Oh yeah, I promised a recipe For the party last weekend, SNG made bacon-wrapped stuffed jalapeno peppers (MMMMMM!) and in preparation, each of us bought 3 packages of cream cheese, without knowing about the other one getting cream cheese already. We didn't use 6 packages of cream cheese. We didn't even use 3. I had 4 bricks of cream cheese left over in the fridge, and when the world gives you cream cheese, make a creamy dip. So today I made up the following recipe, which was SUPER-good:

2 8-oz packages cream cheese
2 c reduced-fat mayo (yes, it would taste even better with full-fat)
a small handful of scallions, chopped (I used shallot tops from the garden- probably 7 or 8 stems)
1 can artichoke bottoms, chopped (hearts are fine, I had bottoms in my pantry)
1 can long asparagus, chopped
1 jar hearts of palm, chopped
2 c. cooked broccoli
1 t garlic
8 oz package shredded cheddar cheese
an extra 1/2-3/4 c shredded cheese

Mix all but the 2nd part cheddar in the kitchen aid, low speed, until it's all well-blended together. Divide into small or medium ramekins (mine are 16 oz) and sprinkle the last of the cheese on top. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes, or until bubbly.

I made 6 ramekins, and baked 2 of them The rest are waiting in the fridge.

Two Weeks of Mostly Vacation

2010-10-27T22:22:00.000-04:00

We have had a busy and fun past couple of weeks. There are also lots of things rattling around up in the grey matter so this'll be a lengthy if perhaps a little boring, post.

We left for Austin on a Tuesday 2 weeks ago, after work, and flew until very late into the evening. There are no nonstop flights right now (boo!) and Jambuca doesn't sleep in a lap. He dozed about 20 minutes before we landed. By the time we got the kids into bed, it was 2am Eastern time. Rough night, but still probably the best way to go so you don't lose a whole day to travel.

The first day in town we went up to UT campus and wandered. The place has really changed in the last 10 years. The stores on Guadalupe are entirely different, and the campus buildings are much shinier and prettier than they were before. Even the bus routes have changed. No more number 9 bus, and ER goes past the Texas Swim Center now. But I enjoyed the visit, and we bought some fun Bevo tchotchkes at the Co-op. I spent a few minutes wandering the halls of my old building (where the Spanish and Portuguese departments now live) and nothing inside was the same-- the elevator even goes all the way up to the top now!

It reminded me that I used to have a research assistant who was in a wheelchair, and I wouldn't let her run subjects alone because if there was an emergency, she'd have no way to escape the building. Those were the days, when life was simple and no one on the board of regents gave a rat's toot about the safety of undergraduate research assistants.

Thursday we went to IKEA and let e-baby play, play, play at the kid area (Smaland). It was the first time she could play- she's barely tall enough (by 1/2 inch). Oh how sweet, to wander the aisles with only one fidgety kid, and 3 grown-ups. Every store should have a Smaland.

That night we walked to Cafe Medici, which is a fairly new coffee shop a couple blocks down from our old apartment in Clarksville. They had GREAT coffee. Beautiful coffee. I think the location used to be a women's clothing store???

Friday we had a playdate with T and E and their 3 kids (A, M, and V). Their oldest child is famous for being The Reason we decided to have kids at all. He's still the sweetest, smartest, happiest, perfect-est little boy ever (except, of course, for Jambuca). Be careful around him. He'll make you think parenthood is so easy. In order by age, it's A, e-baby, M, Jambuca, and V. They got along like a house on fire. They were pirates. They were singers. They were monkeys in trees. They were construction workers. T and E seriously need to move to Raleigh someday.

That evening we walked to the coffee shop in the shopping center at Windsor and Exposition. A shame about that place. There used to be a fantastic little gourmet grocery store, a small hardware store that carried the bits and parts for everyone in the neighborhood's old appliances, a restaurant that was an Austin fixture, an awesome bakery, a post office, and a few other little shops here and there. Then the property was sold to a person in Houston who refused to renew the contracts of any vendor who 1) sold meat 2) sold other (non-milk) animal products, 3) sold products that might be used to harm animals (like mousetraps and bug spray). This happened while we lived there, and one by one all the great places left. Now there's a post office, a coffee shop (that sells only vegetarian sandwiches and pastries), a yoga studio, a holistic health woobie-woobie place, some kind of vitamin thing-or-another, and a lot of chiro-realtor-lawyer-crap offices. What used to be the heart of the neighborhood is now its weird second-cousin that no one want to get stuck sitting next to at Christmas dinner.

Saturday we went to Natural Bridge Caverns with my brother, his wife nd their baby, and my parents. I loved it. So did e-baby. Jambuca fell asleep half-way through. E-baby was great at asking questions throughout the tour, and I could tell she was really absorbing a lot of the information. She's since taught her friends (and some of my friends) about the rock formations you find in caves. Sure it took an hour to get there, but it was worth it.

Sunday, we had another playdate with E and the kids, and had dinner at Kerbey Lane South. Pancakes as big as your head.

Monday, SNG and I left the kids behind and went to San Marcos. Unlike Austin, it has hardly changed in the last 15 years. Sure the surrounding area is different-- there's continuous suburb from San Antonio to Austin now-- but the campus and downtown are essentially the same. I still love that town. I'd still love to live there again someday. If corporate life ever gets too dreary, perhaps there's a teaching job waiting for me... Later that evening later we took a walk to Mozart's coffee shop on Lake Austin. I saw a guy drop his car keys into the lake. He tried fishing them out with a golf club, and finally had to jump in for them. Dinner at Magnolia cafe. Grumpy kids. Mom came by with the van to rescue us from a long walk back to the house with two overtired gremlins.

We flew home last Tuesday. Wednesday I took a day off work so e-baby and I could ride all the rides at the State Fair. It was rainy so hardly anyone else was there. It felt like we had the place to ourselves. No line for biscuits at the Apex Lions Club, no line at any rides, no lines for cotton candy, no lines at the petting zoo, no lines at the Grist Mill, no lines at the Ocean Spray samples truck. We had so much FUN! And I chatted with a rabbit breeder at the rabbit exhibit for a half hour and came away with the knowledge that we need a pet rabbit.

Thursday evening we drove down to New Bern. One of SNG's big projects had a grand opening over the weekend, so we went to the festivities. Lots of boring speeches (sorry, Gov Perdue, you're in that list), lots of lunches and dinners, some fun for the kids, and I'm really glad we went. It was cool to see the project and meet some of the people SNG has talked about in the last couple of years.

We got home Saturday night, too tired to do anything. Pooped.

Sunday, we went to the state fair again. The whole world was there this time and we waited in line for ev-er-y-thing.

Whew! OK, so that's where we've been.

Now other stuff.
In the last 3 or 4 weeks, Jambuca has grown tired of being misunderstood. He has exploded into more signing, trying to say words (with very limited success), and asking us for more words/signs. The number of new words I have seen/heard from him are no longer countable, really. It's all very exciting.

He's also been really affectionate this week. He must have read the post last month about how he prefers SNG, because I've become A-OK again. He want snuggles and hugs and kisses all the time. I recall e-baby was like that at this age, too. She's still very snuggly, but she's also surly at times. Jambuca's just sweet, sweet, sweet.

Whew. brain dump finished.

The Sweetest Kiss

2010-10-09T22:42:00.001-04:00

It has been bothering me a little bit lately that Jambuca is such a daddy's boy. I don't mind that he's nuts for SNG because SNG is a super cool dad, but I am sad that he seems to (vehemently) reject me in favor of daddy a lot. It's been worse the past couple of months. His 1-yr-old teacher suspects that since e-baby is so much mommy's girl (and demands a lot of attention), he has just gone to the easiest source of available parent attention-- daddy.

Well, then he goes and does something like this....

Jambuca and e-baby were playing with the dress-up box. SNG helped Jambuca dress in a dog costume and took him to the bathroom to see himself. Jambuca was so happy with how he looked that he walked up to the mirror and licked his own reflection on the nose. SNG told him "Now go give mommy a puppy kiss!" So he toddled out to the living room and gave me a proper (smooch!) kiss right on my cheek. I had no idea he could give a proper kiss! I melted right down to nothing but a dribbly puddle of gooey mommy-love. He gave me another kiss on my cheek, then he gave his big sister a kiss on her nose.

Time Stood Still and Slipped Past Like a Sneaky Sneak-o-sneak

2010-09-25T21:27:00.000-04:00

(seriously, I wote this on the 24th. Just didn't hit publish until the 25th)Today is my e-baby's birthday.

You were once small enough to use my finger as a chin up bar. I would get lost in that tiny hand while time stood still.

When you were an infant, I would look at your fingers and eyelashes while time stood still.

When you were one I watched you dance while time stood still.

When you were two I listened to your stories while time stood still.

When you were three I explored the world with you while time stood still.

Now you are four. Time stood still. Time passed in a flash. I am so proud of you and cannot wait to see what you will do next. Thumbs up to you, little mama.

A little over 4 years ago, imagining what it would be like to have a daughter, I didn't know what to expect. She's just like me. She's just like SNG. She's not like anyone else. She's unchecked, unbounded joy. She's curiosity. She's wisdom. She's in her underpants and cowboy boots. She's dressed as a princess. She's everything I ever want in a daughter. She steps on my last nerve sometimes. I can't imagine life without her, and the world is a sweeter place with her in it.

Nice Sunday Evening

2010-09-12T22:34:00.002-04:00

Happy Birthday, Lizard!!!!

2010-08-28T20:57:00.000-04:00

This is a quick post to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my BFF Lizard. I hope you had a fantastic day, and we're all sending you lots of birthday hugs! I am so glad to have you as my friend!!

A Belated Half-birthday Post!

2010-08-24T21:17:00.001-04:00

Jambuca's 18-month happened while I was out of town, so I accidentally missed his doctor's appointment. It was rescheduled for today.

The big deal: last shots until Kindergarten!!!!

He took his shots very well, and seemed more angry about the being held down part than about the actual injections part. He cheered right up once he was able to sit up again. By the time we left, he was guffawing and running down the hallway. I asked him whether he wanted a Nutri-grain bar, and he said "HARHARHA!" I don't know what is in those things that makes them like crack for little kids, but it makes bribery a snap.

He's still tracking along at 50% on length and weight, and he's doing fine on all his skills. Further ahead on gross motor than anything else, as I discovered myself when I came into the kitchen only to find him climbing on the counter. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, is safe in our house unless it's under lock and key. It won't be long until he figures those out as well. He can already open the outside doors of the house if they aren't locked.

His language skills are coming along. He still has a LOT more comprehensive vocabulary than expressive. He can point out all sorts of animals and other things in books, follow instructions without me having to point, he knows some body parts and animal sounds. He says lots and lots of stuff, but it mostly sounds like babble. He says giraffe as "jah," milk as "muh," and car as "caaaaaah" (real slow-like). But he does love to try to talk. Thank goodness for sign language, because he can't say goldfish or cookie. But he can sure as heck sign them! Loud and clear! The doc says his language developent is right on median track.

His personality is showing more and more. He's persistent at doing tasks, and enjoys playing with things that involve using his hands. He's open to new people. He likes to play loud games. He likes ACTION! and EXCITEMENT! I can't wait to see what more comes of that personality.

E-baby has a birthday coming up fairly soon. She'll be getting a new bike. Jambuca will be inheriting her walk-bike. I know it will be the highlight of his year.

Boring post, I know, but I have to get these things down for posterity.

The Formerly Late SpiderStan

2010-08-21T12:00:00.000-04:00

My last post was a sad one about the death of a man I greatly admired, and who will be sorely missed by many, many people.
This post is also about a man I greatly admire- a man who met death, had a coffee and beignets with death- but who thought better of it and came back to life. Or perhaps death decided they didn't have the right chemistry together. Either way, this is not a sad post.
I wrote most of this post from a hospital waiting room more than a week ago.
On Tuesday two weeks ago, my dad collapsed on a bike ride. His heart had completely and suddenly stopped. He had been riding with two others, one of whom broke his fall (Bail onto a friend! SAVE THE CERVELO!). The other waved down a driver. Within seconds, the driver was doing CPR. Another rider arrived and called 911. The passerby did CPR for a good 10 minutes. If you've ever done CPR training, you know that's hard work. EMS arrived. They shocked SpiderStan multiple times before loading him into an ambulance and one of dad's long-time dearest friends rode along with them. EMS told the friend that SpiderStan is dead. They promised to keep trying, but don't get your hopes up.

At last, his heart started again. It had taken somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes.

In the hospital, he started moving. He moved his arms and legs. He tried to remove the IVs. This was a good sign: he had not been paralyzed. Then he was out again. At one time, he had 12 IV bags going in, along with a breathing tube, a draining tube from his stomach, a heart pump, catheter, and probably some other unpleasantness he's glad to forget.

To save his brain, the doctors induced a coma, and cooled his body temperature to 89.6 degrees. He would stay this way 24-48 hours. All we could do was sit and wait.

Meanwhile, I was at the office. The office! Who gives a CRAP about the OFFICE? This is my DAD! The INVINCIBLE guy! I was at work. Eating my own hands. At last, Mom gave me the green light to come to town after she was assured that he would not die while I was in transit. Jambuca and I arrived around 10:30pmTuesday.

My brother picked us up from the hospital. My brother, who was mom's rock all day long, and she was his. He warned me that it would be shocking to see dad like this. I was afraid of what I'd feel, looking at my dad in such as state. He is invincible. I couldn't compute SpiderStan = Comatose. We got to the hospital around midnight and mom sent me up to see him. I walked in. He was a mess of tubes and wires, dried blood here and there, lots of mechanical noises, and a smell I've never smelled before, and that I will never forget. A horrible, sterile, chemical smell. He was wrapped hed to foot in cooling blankets. And there was my dad's arm. I put my hand on his arm. And I knew that he was going to live. He had no intention of leaving so soon. I told him I was here. I described the trip. I said that I love him and that hundreds of people are praying for him. I knew he could hear me.

The next day, the hospital waiting area was full of the worried faces of people like us, hoping for the best for their family members, fearing the worst. We paced, not knowing whether he would remember us when he woke up. Would he walk again? Speak again? Pick up a baby again?

My mom slept less than anyone, but you'd never know to see her. She was fresh, energetic, keeping all the rest of the family and friends from singing in a minor key.

Wednesday night, she slept in the ICU. That night, he woke up. For the first few hours, he didn't know what had happened to him, why he was in the hospital, why he couldn't sit up, why he had these damned tubed and wires all over him. He knew mom, and later in the morning, he knew my brother, he knew me. He remembered everything up to the day of the ride. That would come later as well. Nothing had been lost. He was all there 100%, but with a serious wake up call.

SpiderStan
* can fix anything.
* always knows the best way out of a sticky situation.
* loves to ride a bike
* loves the sound of his grandchildren's laughter
* thinks romantic thoughts about my mom, all the time, and thinks we don't notice
* is my hero

Dad had open-heart surgery last week, and he's recovering remarkably well. I think I'll go to Texas in September, around the time he gets back on his bike, so I can keep up with him. By December, he'll be faster than ever. Then I'll have to make him pull the kids in the trailer (again).

I'm sorry it has taken so long to get this post up Every time I read it, it's not quite what I want to say. It still isn't but eventually you just have to put it out there and call it eough.

Dad, I'm so glad you are OK. I love you!

Everything I Really Need To Know I Learned From Dr B.

2010-08-02T21:57:00.001-04:00

* If someone with road rage tries to get you outof your car for a fight, even if you did nothing to cause it, say "I'm so sorry" in the most sympathetic way you can muster (through the window). Whatever's making your opponent so angry, there's nothing you can say to make it better. A sincere apology goes a long way to soothe blind fury.
* Too much structure is oppressive, but kids need some kind of structure. Schools with no rules produce kids with no direction.
* If you don't teach your kid the meaning of inappropriate self disclosure, their friends will.
* Every opportunity that comes your way, give it serious consideration. You won't take every opportunity, but give everything a chance. You can't get to the next station if you don't jump on the train.
* Never lose your sense of humor. If your name rhymes with a brand of beer, let people make knock-off t-shirts to honor you.
* Always be kind. Smile easily.
* Know more about math than you strictly need to. Sometimes it comes in handy in conversation.
* Trust others to be their best.

Every time I go back to Dallas, I tell myself that I need to pay a visit to my old university and visit Dr. B. I worked in his research lab 94-95 and was the lab manager from 95-96, and he was instrumental in my making the choices I made for graduate school. But I never managed to stop by and say hello. I received tragic news this evening. He and his wife were excellent climbers. Mt Ranier was practically his playground as a young man, and his stories about being a professional mountain climber were fuel for the adventurous imagination. My heart goes out to their 2 sons. I can't imagine how hard this is for them.

Sorry this post is depressing. I wanted to get something out in words to keep a memory alive. Happier posts coming later, I promise. If you pray, please send up a nice word for a couple who should have been around to see grandchildren, to enjoy retirement, to have another vacation, to mentor another student, to care for another toddler. I hope they're hiking heavenly cloud mountains.

This week's list of random collected items of little or no interest.

2010-07-27T22:33:00.000-04:00

I'm still trying out the Glycemic Load diet, and after losing 2 pounds the second week, I gained 2 1/2 pounds the third week (no change the first week, BTW). That was kind of depressing, so I drowned my sorrows in chocolate covered almonds and raisins. Then, back to the program again. It occurred to me later that the 2 1/2 pounds might well have been muscle, since I've been getting in some consistent workouts for a change. Let's give it a month to see whether I can chip away at my badonka-donk on this diet, and if not, I'll probably switch to something else.

The exercise program has been terrific. Some neighbors (not the bike riders next door; other neighbors) turned me onto a half-marathon training program that they did last year, which takes you from novice/5K runner to half-marathon in 12 weeks. They said it was really good, and another friend at work also did it several years ago and vouched for it as well. So, I'm on it as well, with a little adaptation...

He assumes you're starting from 5K. At one time, 5K was no big deal -- the typical morning jog to work was about 5K, and the afternoon jog home was 10K cross-country on hills. Oh, to be young and invinvible and elastic. That was 4 years ago. Since then, I've alternated between being a little out of shape and just plain lazy. So, I'm taking 2 weeks to get to the base level of the program, doing basically the first week of the program but with shorter running distances.

For starters, I ran 2 miles on Sunday. I went early to beat the heat. HA! It was hot, it was muggy, there was no breeze. My heartrate wasn't very high but I could not push my body to any kind of speed and the whole time I felt like I was going to just keel over with heat exaustion.
Monday is a "stretch and stregthen" day, so I did the Yoga DVD that PIC loaned me. That was great! I did the warm up and level 1, so it was just 30 minutes, and it felt so good to do deep stretches and hold poses that made my muscles all warm and tingly. It was refreshing. I especially like that the instructor reminds me of Neil Patrick Harris, and all I can think of are the Harold and Kumar movies, and Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog, and that just makes me smirk and giggle the whole time. I also like that the models in the DVD are not skinny. I hate skinny models on workout DVDs.
This evening I ran 2 miles in light rain, cool air, a little breeze, and it felt SOOOOOO GOOOOOD. I could push the speed further, enjoy taking deep breaths (instead of feeling like I'd suffocate from the heat), and afterwards, I did 30 minutes of Yoga for a cooldown and stretch. E-baby even did some yoga with me, but eventually decided she would prefer to do pilates, so she did a pilates workout alongside my yoga. You go, girl, do your own thang. I like both.

NON-WORKOUT UPDATES-- In just the last week, Jambuca's been really working hard at talking. It's mostly words that only a mother can understand, but for example, yesterday in the hour of getting ready for work in the morning he said six different words that I noticed. For the record, they were fish, flower, milk, bowl, bear, bird, and food. Or approximations thereof. I'm so delighted. It will be really fun to have little tiny 1-2 word conversations with him.

Garden's go lots of big melons, some of which I did not know I planted. I have no idea what they are. They are probably the seeded pollinators that are required to accompany a seedless melon variety so that they'll pollinate, but they sure aren't watermelons! They're light green and football shaped! I'll keep you posted as I learn more.

The tomatoes we have are delicious served in thick slices, topped with sizzling-hot turkey bacon and melted cheese over that. Mmmmmmmm.

That's all for now. Have a great week!

Work Deadlines, Familiy Visits, Fad Diets, and More!

2010-07-18T21:50:00.000-04:00

Since March, it has been so busy at work that at home, after the kids are in bed, I'm usually working. Last week, the worst of it passed. This project has been tremendously fun, but I'm glad to have a little time to sit and write a blog entry for a change.

I'm also glad to be able to ride to work again. I've had to get to work as early as possible and stay as late as possible given the daycare's schedule, and that means no biking. Next week-- bike!!

It's been bothering SNG and me lately that we haven't been on the bikes in so long, and never without pulling a trailer, so I made arrangements with one of e-baby's old teachers to babysit on Saturday mornings for us. The guys next door also ride, and they've gotten tired of the group ride shenanigans, so we now have a running date with them to ride out from the cul-de-sac. Sweet! As a warm-up, we rode a hilly 16 mile loop this weekend. Um, ouch. I am in sorry shape. It was really fun, though, to feel the wind and hear the road, out with friends on a bike, without a trailer, and be able to say 4-letter-words (which I did, repeately, with reckless abandon).

After the bike ride, Dianaverse came over and we worked on her chair. She has this cool highbacked dining chair she picked up for a song somewhere and it is begging to be artifully decorated to match this old embroidered cushion she also has.

The garden's doing OK. While my parents were in town week before last, we put in trellises for the melons. It's nice, but more than half of the little baby melons are molding and turning black and dying before they get bigger than a golf ball. I don't know what the deal is there.

While mom and dad were here, mom got me started on her latest fad diet, the Glycemic Load diet. Like so many others, it's a no sugar, no flour, low starch diet. Unlike others, you can have all the fruits and vegetables you want. I love fruit, which has been my problem with so many low-carb diets. So far, so good. It isn't hard, and if I can drop 15 pounds on it, I'll be happy enough to eat (or not eat) whatever they tell me. I fixed a batch of banana bran muffins using a recipe from the book, but with wheat germ instead of wheat bran. I thought they were the same thing! They're not. The muffins were super-tasty and that was my first clue that something was wrong. So, back to the store for a bag of sawdust and I made a second batch, with the right ingredients. They were still quite acceptable. Not as tender as the ones with wheat germ, but the taste and moistness were good.

So between the new diet and the time to get some exercise, hopefully by this time next year, I'll be writing about how none of my clothes fit because they're all too big, woe is me. :-)

Small Is Tremendous

2010-06-24T21:35:00.000-04:00

I was getting e-baby ready for bed, and singing her one of my favorite songs and she was looking at me, so sweetly, so happily, with all this love in her eyes, and she touched my face in that heartachingly sweet way, and when I finished the song, she moved her little thumb to my nose and said,
(e-baby): Smell my thumb. Does it smell good?
(me): Ummmmmm, I guess so? Where’s it been?
This was apparently the funniest thing she’d ever heard anyone say, and when she recovered from her paralyzing laughter, she held up her little thumb to ask it.
(as e-baby): Where have you been, little thumb?
(as thumb): In Mexico!!
Which was the funniest thing I had ever heard anyone say.

Ranting and Raving: A Mother's Perspective

2010-06-13T22:43:00.000-04:00

Duh, I should never read the comment on cnn's website. It's always bugged me when people think that the sound of a child is de facto a horrible thing, even if the child is oh, I don't know, laughing? Singing? Talking? I want to say, "Did you ever stop to think that your ugly self is interfering with that kid's fun as much as her voice is interfering with yours?" My annoyance with these curmudgeons is multipled n-fold now that I have little talking, singing, laughing people in tow with me most of the time.

People Suck Who:
* Think that any public temper tantrum is either a) the parents' fault for not beating the child enough or b) the child's fault for being the spawn of satan, because all children are inherently evil and need to be beten. Or locked up.
* Think that children should be kept out of public places. The "kids are spawn of satan" attitudes are usually accompanied by an attitude that children should not be taken out in public until they're old enough to behave. OK, so if I keep my kids at home until they're 10, they'll learn how to behave in public around adults. Riiiiight.
* Think that children should never be seen in public and also wonder why they never see their friend anymore since she had kids-- and don't even give me that "just call a babysitter" crap. Unless you're payin'. How's about offering to help out instead of bitching? Better yet, don't call. No one needs friends like that.
* Assume that if a kid is misbehaving that the parents are just LETTING IT HAPPEN, how dare they, and not even trying to stop junior from kicking the back of your airplane seat/talking too loudly in a restaurant/unrolling the toilet paper in the public bathroom/whatever, Stop. Think. Who wants their kid to do those things? No One. Who stands idly by and thinks it's funny? No One (well, OK, I do know some dads like that, but they're almost never trusted alone with the kids anyway).

I'd love to see people (cnn's readers, I'm looking at you!) give parents a break, and the benefit of the doubt. When this behavior is at its apex, Mom is probably planning her strategy to take away a week's worth of TV and steeling up the nerve to lay down this punishment. Because when that punishment is announced, hoo-mama, it's gonna get UGLY.

You used to be a kid. So did I, so did your own parents. Maybe your parents beat the crap out of you when you misbehaved, maybe they didn't, but they did what they could, the best they could, to civilize you, a wild creature, to become who you are today. But you were a pill sometimes, I was a pill sometimes, we all embarassed our parents in public at some point, and they didn't just lock us up in the basement until we were 10 (if yours did do that, then I apologize for my insensitivity to your plight).

Someday my kids will complain to their friends that a spanking would have been SO much easier than the lecture and suspension of privileges their mom doles out. Sorry, kiddos, that's how I roll-- I could no sooner hit you than cut off my own finger. But a long lecture and no tv for a week? You bet I can be that mean. I'm doing my best to civilize some wild creatures. They don't understand their own emotions, or long-term consequences, or even that showing your mommy's boss' boss' boss the chigger bite in your butt in the breakroom isn't appropriate. But these little wild animals are still human. They're as much members of society as you or me or that grumpy guy in row 23D who thinks that airlines should book "adult-only" flights as a service to passengers like himself who can't take the heat. I agree- the airlines should book assholes-only flights as a service to the rest of us.

My friend Jen told me that her parish priest wanted to create a "crying room" at the church-- for people who can't stand to hear children crying in church. That's my kind of guy.

If you're still reading, thanks for listening to my temper tantrum. I feel much better! :-D

A Butterfly CATCH-ING Net!

2010-06-12T22:34:00.000-04:00

Last week was a run-through a class I'm working on, and it all went well, although 40 hours of teaching, coming on the heels of the strep throat misery was a bit stressful. I kind of like stress. No, I really like stress. But it does take its toll on my health- no exercise all week, and the diet was put on a back-burner.

Last night when I got home from work I wanted to relax. Dinner was lazy-- whatever's in the fridge and easy to heat up. And some ramen on the side. I had some leftover blueberries from lunch that Jambuca pilfered out of my bag, and he ate them all up, guffawing happily over these wonderful tidbits he'd stolen.

This morning we went to Durham so e-baby and I could participate in a Duke U research study about overworked, stressed-out mothers of two kids under 4 and how we can't exercise or eat right. It's the one-year follow up. We are in the control group, where they don't give us any tips on how to eat right and exercise when you're a stressed out mother of 2-under-4. They also want to videotape one of our dinners at home so they can see how badly stressed-out mothers of 2-under-4 manage a healthy diet and a tranquil, clean, organized home.

While we were being measured, SNG took Jambuca down the street to Whole Foods and bought a giant clamshell of blueberries, probably 3 pounds or so. He remarked at how much Jambuca liked the berries. I wasn't surprised. Then we went shopping, e-baby got a butterfly-CATCH-ING net (you have to say it like that, apparently). Jambuca had a cup of berries to keep him occupied while we perused the aisles of our favorite import shop. We went to lunch across the street at a Tex-Mex joint. Jambuca wasn't interested in Tex-Mex. He wanted blueberries. We refilled his cup. He ate them all. Later at home, he ate more blueberries. Three cups more. We are now down to less than half the clamshell of blueberries.

Then he had a poop. "Alphagal? You down there? Come up, I need some help!"

HAHAHAAAAHAHAHAAHAAHAA!

HA!

HAHAHA!
SNG got some on his arm-- I thought it was a blue ink stain. The whole Jambuca bottom, both cheeks down to his thighs, were inky blue, after a once-over with wipes.

e-baby thought it was the funniest thing ever. We've been saying blueberry-POOP! all evening. She's also been using her new butterfly CATCH-ING net to catch dozens of fireflies. Once she catches one, she releases it and says, "You are now free to go." And it flies off, oblivious to the fact that it will be recaptured in just a few minutes.

There's nothing like poop and fireflies to melt the stress away.

Customer Service Day! But first, a pity party.

2010-06-04T21:24:00.001-04:00

First, this week...

has sucked.

I had the first of 3 major deadlines for this massive project at work on Wednesday at noon, and wouldn't you know, not 5 minutes after I turned everything over to the editors, I started feeling rotten- nauseated, feverish, mild sore throat. So, you know, the timing was good. I taught Wed afternoon and felt a little worse Wed night, but I had meeting Thursday and teaching Thursday afternoon, so I went to work (that was a mistake). By Thursday night, I felt like I'd been drinking lye. All night I tossed and turned with the pain of not being able to swallow. The glands in my neck were so swollen you could (still can) see them poking out. By this morning, it was hard to inhale through my mouth because my throat was so swollen.

I started thinking about maybe going to the doctor, but you know, they'll just tell me it's a virus and to wait it out and I'll feel like such a wuss for going to the doctor about a sore throat. But I went anyway. Good thing, because I have strep throat. Which, luckily, is treatable. But OUCH!!!!!

I think I had strep once in high school, but I'm not totally sure, but this is for sure the most painful throat thing I've ever had. Still not as bad as the ear thing in Ireland (was that streptocochlea instead of streptococcus?), but as far as throat things go, this is horrible. I've been on amoxicillin since this morning and yes, I stayed home from work today. And yes, I felt guilty about canceling a meeting with someone (whom I've already rescheduled with at least once), but I bet she'd rather cancel the meeting than CATCH STREP THROAT, right?

I can't nap because it hurts too much. There's no escape from the pain. Four ibuprofen every 4 hours, chloraseptic every hour or so, they don't do a whole lot to combat this.

Oh, yeah, I was going to tell you why this is Customer Service Day. Today, everywhere I went, I encountered super nice people working in menial customer service jobs. Must be a donut day thing. At the drug store, I got a sympathetic look from the pharmacist who said "I hope you feel better soon!" I hadn't even told her I was the sick one (although the raspy voice and hangdog look gave it away, I'm sure).

When I picked up the kids from daycare, I took them over to Walmart (yes, I know, I boycotted them for years, but now they have this sustainability index and so I'll go there no more than once a month /rationalization). We picked out 2 presents for birthday parties e-baby's going to this weekend, and then she had to pee. In the bathroom, I discovered that Jambuca had blown out his pamper and had a smelly wet spot on the leg of his pants. *sigh* back into the store to get the cheapest diapers and wipes and a new pair of shorts from the clearance rack. The bathroom is right next to the returns dept at the rear of the store. I had the lady ring me up, and she recognized the graviy of the situation (e-baby told her ALL about it), and offered to look after e-baby while I changed Jambuca in the bathroom. The 2 ladies from photo processing showed her a bunch of pictures (heh- probably customers' orders). I was so grateful. When I came out, she had also attracted a manager who had given her a sheet of promotional Twilight tattoos. I've never seen greatness in the Walmart until today. It was refreshing. I want that nice lady to get a promotion.

After Walmart, I was dying of thirst and pain, so we stopped at ChikFilA and all 3 of us got milkshakes. It was Jambuca's first milkshake. You'd think he had just seen a glimpse of Heaven. The people at ChikFilA were also exceptionally helpful and friendly. Each of the kids went home with a new cow, and I didn't have to carry anything to the table myself. Except Jambuca, who wanted to go behind the counter and make some waffle fries.

Now I'm starting to wonder if all of this was because I looked SO pathetic and hangdog, in which case, that's kind of sad. But maybe because it's donut day, everyone was just in a better mood.

This is why I don't go to the bathroom in private

2010-06-02T12:51:00.000-04:00

This morning, I went to my bedroom to find something. The kids were eating and playing, no sharp object, everything was fine. While I was there, I went into my bathroom to um, use the bathroom. e-baby started looking for me. I heard her yell, "MOOOOOOOMMMMEEEEEEE!" and I hollered back but from 3 rooms away, she didn't hear me.

Meanwhile, since e-baby couldn't find me, she went outside to look. Didn't find me there, came back in, started playing again.

I came out of the bathroom, and it was quiet...

too quiet...

Jambuca was missing. I saw the wide-open garage door and panicked. He had toddled out and into the front yard, and was having a nice conversation with Spud, our little scarecrow in the front garden.

SNG wonders why I think it's nuts that he wants his privacy when he goes to the bathroom and kids are around. Maybe it's because whenever I have my privacy, something terrible happens, ya think?

Memorial Day and the Garden

2010-05-29T20:53:00.001-04:00

First, an update: Windows 7-- STILL HAS NOT CRASHED! Ha. HahahahahahaHA! Take THAT, Vista!

It's Saturday night of Memorial Day weekend and a 3-day weekend couldn't have come at a worse time, work-wise. I've already put in an extra 4 hours since I left work Friday, and if I had a full day at work on Monday, things would look a lot more manageable. Still, though, I'm not really complaining. Like a lot of people, I get some of my best work done when it's do-or-die time. And it's more fun that way. Go figure.

We did have some normal fun today. The 4 of us wandered the neighborhood a little, went to BJ's and bought a barrel of cheese balls (Jambuca is trying to finish them off all by himself), and had Red Robin for dinner. Jambuca and e-baby have been pretty grumpy today, and when we got home I figured out why-- it's this cold they are sharing! Jambuca was running a fever, and e-baby was just pooped. He was asleep by 6:45 and she was out before 8. On top of that, he's got really gloopy eyes. It's probably his blocked tear ducts (the doctor diagnosed it last year and it acts up every time he has a cold) but to be safe, I'm giving him antibiotic eye drops which just makes him cry.

I am hoping to fend off this iteration of the cold because I have to teach throughout June-- and have been teaching the last 2 weeks straight as well. It would be a bad time to lose my voice (again).

The garden's going great. Although I have to admit, I'm a little disappointed about the volume of food it produces. The plants are doing well, and they seem to be productive, but so far the only things the garden has kept me from buying at the store are spinach and snow peas. Which, you know, how much of that do you normally buy anyway? The strawberries were mostly eaten by ants for the 3 or 4 weeks that they produced, and now they're pretty much all done. The snow peas are having a second wind right now, but that'll end soon. I've had some swiss chard, but never more than one person's side-dish's worth. Carrots aren't ready to pick, beans produce maybe 4-5 a day. No asparagus or artichoke this year (I knew that when I planted them), no tomatoes yet, no pumpkins or melons yet. The yellow squash look promising-- there are probably 40-50 tiny little baby squashes on the plants right now, but some of the squashes just turn wilty and brown right there on the plant. I don't have a ton of faith that they'll make it through the summer without an infestation of vine borers. I'm gardening organic, whih means all I do is look for the eggs (to SQUASH 'em! get it?) and spray Dr Bronner's lavender soap on them to kill any little beasties that might be around.

But it has been a super-fun experiment, and e-baby has eaten more spinach than, well, ever in her whole life. If I'm honest, she never ate any spinach beyond the little bit I used to sneak into her baby purees long, long ago. She'd balk at anything green in her food. Now she walks along the fence picking and eating snow peas and spinach leaves. She picks strwaberries for Jambuca (if they have't already been eaten by ants) and he eats them (and the snow peas) like candy. I have the joy of seeing the magic of a seed growing into a plant through the eyes of someone not yet jaded by modern conveniences. And that's worth all the money, time, and hard work of creating this monstrous garden.

Vista's Last Stand

2010-05-23T16:17:00.000-04:00

When I bought this netbook a year ago, it was a couple of months before Windows 7 was released. I preferred XP to Vista, but there wasn't such a choice. And Vista was a pain in my butt from the beginning. It would freeze up mysteriously and regularly. At first it mostly had to do with iTunes and Sleep mode. Once I solved a few problems there, it would still freeze, but not as often. Nonetheless, I hate Vista with the fire of a thousand suns. And before you ask, the software named after the company that I work for doesn't run on a Mac without quite a bit of rekajiggering, and I do run it at home, so no, I'm not interested in a Mac.

When Windows 7 came out, it was exciting because everybody got free upgrades. One of my computers at work now runs XP and the other runs Windows 7. I prefer 7. I was looking forward to my free upgrade. Oops, unless you're running Vista Basic, which is what nearly every netbook came loaded with at the time. Vista Basic wasn't eligible for the free upgrade. So I waited. It was a lot of money to spend on a computer that was only $300 to begin with.

I couldn't stand the freezing any longer, so yesterday I bought the Win 7 upgrade. And installing it was an offense that Vista wouldn't tolerate without a fight. The computer froze up no fewer than SIX TIMES and required 18 hours of installing, rebooting, etc. Vista was not about to walk away easily.

At last, though, it died and Windows 7 is running. And I am happy. It hasn't crashed yet. I want Microsoft to pay me for those 18 hours at my consulting rate.

32 bites and 4 vials of blood

2010-05-20T15:39:00.001-04:00

How many hits will I get based on that title alone?

E-baby got into a bunch of chiggers and ticks over the weekend, and poor child has 32 bites that are bad enough to need regular application of caladryl. Most of them are in really inconvenient place-- her toosh, underwear line, armpits, behind the ears, along her hairline in the back. Others are in hard-to-scratch places on her back. What's worse is I can't really tell the difference between the chiggers and the ticks. I know some were ticks because I removed some ticks, but I think that most of the bites are chiggers because of the sheer number and where they're located. Chiggers like warm crevices.

So poor e-baby is really itchy and she takes every opportunity to show people the bites that are waaaay in her buttcrack. I can't move fast enough to stop the drop-trou before it's too late. She even showed the VP of my division some of her most irritating bites in the breakroom at my office. I was sort of frozen to the spot. What do you say when that happens?

Things haven't been much easier for Jambuca. I got a call yesterday from his doc that his hematocrit came back surprisingly low and they wanted a full iron workup on him ASAP. You'll recall how the finger stick went last week--- uh-oh. I brought him in this morning and immediately regretted it because I got the same inept lab tech as last week. She must have read the tentativeness in my voice, and she called in the head technician for the lab. Then they got a third tech and brought us into a separate lab room. I held Jambuca while the lead tech worked the needle, a second tech worked the tubes (they took 4 tubes / vials of blood) and the 3rd tech helped me hold him still. Any of you who are parents know excatly how HORRIBLE it is to hold down a screaming baby who is in pain. It takes a few minutes to get that much blood. By the time they finished, he was hysterical and could barely catch his breath for the next 10 minutes.

I sat outside with him in the meditation garden (one of our perks at work-- along with the health care center) and let him eat a bag of marshmallows. That settled him briefly. Then he cried because he had no more marshmallows.

Well, I just needed to share those sad stories. Really this week is going very well otherwise.

Jambuca at 15 Months

2010-05-14T21:25:00.001-04:00

Jambuca had his 15 month doctor's visit yesterday. Poor guy, 3 shots and a finger-stick for a tiny vial of blood that took (no joke) 10 minutes of squeezing his poor little finger and when it was all over, you'd think we'd been slaughtering chickens in the lab. Perhaps the most inept lab tech ever. The shots were expertly administered by 2 nurses-- they really do a great job. But that lab tech with the finger stick-- I mean really, there was enough blood to fill 5 little vials!

He was 50% for weight and head size, and between 50-75% for length. So, he's average like his dad. And I think he's just about perfect.

Although he signs a dozen or so words, he's still not talking at all. He's really coordinated, he can get into trouble that a 1-year-old shouldn't be able to accomplish, but he won't tell me about it. If he doesn't start talking soon, I'll start to wonder if he's just being secretive.

I thought you'd enjoy a little video of Jambuca being silly. Here you go!

e-babyisms

2010-05-12T21:43:00.000-04:00

Biking past the place where we usually see a goose walking around on the sidewalk:
ebaby: Where's the goose?
me: It must've flown north. They go north in the summer, and south in the winter
ebaby: we live south, right mommy?
me: yes, hunbun- we live south
ebaby: GOOSE IS COMING TO VISIT IN THE WINTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
me: yes, and then we can have it come to dinner
ebaby: Yeah! We can have it to dinner!
me: we might be able to say "that goose is cooked!" [misunderstood as "that goose has cooked," apparently]
ebaby: yeah. A goose really can cook. You just have to know the trick to make it cook.
me: Oh yeah? What's that?
ebaby: You have to put FISH ON THE STOVE! Haaaaahahahaha! That will make itcook! Goose love fish, so put fish on the stove and they will cook and we can all eat fish for dinner!!!!!!!!!!
me: awesome!
ebaby: And if you want to make a sea otter cook, put FRENCH FRIES on the stove!!!!! If you want to get a sea lion to cook, put hamburgers on the stove! We can have all those things for dinner!

Conversations with e-baby are never boring.

Rickshaw Biker Chick

2010-05-11T20:32:00.002-04:00

The bike/walk/run to work thing has worked out well. I invested in a contraption that I swore I’d never own because it essentially turns me into a sled dog. But, as it happens, the thing is ideal for jogging with a gigantic double jogger loaded down with 2 quarts of tea, sippy cups., a dozen Nutri-grain bars, 60 pounds of whiney kids, 7 or 8 stuffed animals, an extra helmet, kneepads, and a tiny bike strapped onto the back. Guess what? A friend of mine thought I was a homeless person pulling a homeless person cart around campus the first time she saw me (that was before she realized it was me-- she wasn't like, "Oh, look, Alphagal's gone native, how about that?"). And not just because of the hand-written poster boards with my manifesto (OK, I’m making that part up to justify pulling a cart around on campus). It’s not very dignified, but it’s darn functional so I’ll keep using it.

But it still takes an hour to get to work that way, and last week I was hammered with things at the office. I ended up driving every day. Thursday afternoon, SNG took e-baby to New Bern to visit grandparents, which gave me the chance to put in some overtime after Jambuca was in bed. I needed the time— between Thursday and Friday nights, I got about 6 or 8 hours of overtime in.

Come Sunday, the weather was too nice to miss so we took a ride in the park. I made it about 20 minutes before my legs just completely gave out. It was pathetic. SNG made the point that I should switch to the bike for the summer and not worry about it being a shorter workout—enough weeks of short hops on the bike instead of driving will translate into fitness, and I can do it in less than an hour.

So this week, that’s been my M.O. It’s only 3 miles each way, and from my garage door to my office door, including drop-off at both daycare/preschool, takes 30 minutes. Driving the same route is 15-20 minutes door to door. Walking it takes an hour. But is it a workout? Oh yes. It is a most intense 3 miles. There are no flat spots- just UP and DOWN and UP and DOWN and UP and DOWN and you get the idea. What I don’t understand is how it manages to be a net up-hill coming AND going.

The ride is short enough to be invigorating instead of exhausting. The kids enjoy it when they aren’t at each other’s throats. I’m just glad to be taking some action to turn back those bizarre 7 pounds I found a few weeks ago.

In other news, SNG got a new grill and we made grilled bananas. Those could easily account for another 7 pounds if I’m not careful. Mmmmmm.

In Which I Try to Justify TV as a Pacifier

2010-04-13T22:36:00.000-04:00

Spring in North Carolina is magical and it's crazy not to take advantage of this window of perfect weather. Except for he odd day here and there, all winter we've been driving to work each day because it's too cold for a baby to be out for an hour in the jogger, or I can't get the kiddos ready early enough to walk or bike, or I have a meeting I can't be late for/leave early or something.

When I got home Saturday after 2 weeks away (a week in Texas, a week in Seattle), I stepped on the scale and discovered 7 pounds more of me than I expected to find. It isn't just water retention either. My clothes fit a little like peopleofwalmart.

So this week I'm not taking any excuses from the rug ramblers-- we are walking/running/biking to work at least 3 times a week. With daycare hours what they are, I pretty much have to stick to a 9-5 schedule or work late after the kids are in bed (which I usually do anyway).

Monday was not a big win. We left the house at 8:30. Pre-children, it used to take me 20 minutes to run to work. Now I have a double jogger with 2 kids and a tiny bicycle strapped into it to push up the hills, and drop offs at 2 different buildings add about 1/3 mile onto the distance. On a normal day, it takes about 50 minutes to an hour to get from my house to my office door. Monday it took 90 minutes. Why? Well, that little bike is for e-baby to ride once we get onto campus. She wanted to stop to look at pinecones, and squirrels, and birds, and leaves, and earthworms, and...

that will not work.

What I need is to keep e-baby in the jogger in the morning, and let her ride her bike home when we have more time. SNG had a brilliant idea: let her watch a movie on my phone. Added bonus: I get to listen to my iPod instead of the sound of 2 toddlers swatting at one another over Nilla Wafers and droolwars.

I tried out the plan this morning and it worked well. She was happy to watch some TV in the morning and to ride her bike home in the afternoon. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

In other news, Jambuca found a pair of e-baby's old shoes, some red knock-offs of Vans, and wants to wear them all the time. Never mind that they're a little too big, they are His Favorite Shoes. It's super sweet the way he brings me the shoes, squeaks a little (EH?) sound, and sticks out a foot which so obviously means "I wanna wear these!!"

The farm is thriving so far-- it's still too early for most of the pests, and the spinach tastes so much better freshly picked. Next weekend I'm going to put bird netting over the strawberry plants.

For Posteriority

2010-03-24T21:13:00.000-04:00

I sometimes look back and can't remember whether such-and-so was the same with e-baby as it is with Jambuca. Well, I want to be sure and remember that I had days like this when e-baby was 3. A lot of them. This was my FB status the other day:
"IT'S TIME TO GO TO BED NO YOU MAY NOT MAKE A CAKE OR WATCH TV OR GO OUTSIDE AND WATER THE PLANTS STOP HAVING A TEMPER TANTRUM YOU MUST WASH AT LEAST YOUR BOTTOM AND BRUSH YOUR TEETH DO YOU WANT THEM TO ALL ROT OUT PUT ON PAJAMAS NO THE UNDERWEAR MUST BE CLEAN AND IF YOU WOULD DRY YOUR LEGS THEY WOULDN'T STICK WHEN YOU... PUT THEM ON BE QUIET I AM LEAVING THE ROOM NOW SEE YOU IN THE MORNING!"

today, I said to her,
"OK, so is it TV that is so very, very bad, or is it going to your friend's house to play that is so very, very bad? Because only something very, very bad can make a person behave like this."

OK, so when Jambuca's 3, and I think, "Gosh, e-baby was never bratty like this!" smack me on he posterior with this blog post.

Farm Update, March 22

2010-03-22T20:09:00.000-04:00

I haven't said much about the farm since we built it in February. I know I need to post some pictures, but you know, eventually. So, in February, we started snap pea seeds inside and sowed carrot and spinach seeds in the garden. The peas were ready to transplant after we got home from Ireland. The spinach seedlings started showing up after that, and finally, last weekend, we started seeing lots of teeny tiny carrot sproutlets. In the meantime, we started some squash, watermelon, artichoke and purple beans inside, and sowed 2 kinds of sunflowers outside.

My neighbor and her 3-year-old daughter helped out in the garden with transplanting, mulching, and starting seeds. It's nice having help, but more than that, it's nice having company while farming.

Last week, my strawberry plants arrived in the mail. They sat in my garage for a couple of days, so in a fit of willful productiveness, I came home from work Friday evening, knowing that SNG wouldn't be home for 3 more hours (he rode his bike that day), and took the kids out back while I planted EIGHTY strawberry plants. E-baby was easy enough to watch after- she just goes into the gazebo and tells fairy tales to the play-doh. Jambuca is walking pretty well now, so I could let him wander inside the fenced enclosure of the farm. But it wasn't so easy to stop him from eating much, dirt, sticks, seedlings, and pretty much everything else. I eventually got him interested in harvesting the pinwheels we keep in the corners of the raised beds (they act like scarecrows for the birds). So as I worked, Jambuca toddled around with 2 fistfuls of pinwheel sticks, shaking them like maracas.

Saturday and Sunday we sowed more beans-- some in the strawberry beds and some in the front yard. With what we've put in the ground so far, I've got about 140 sq ft of the farm planted and about 175 sq ft left to plant later. I plan to still inter-plant some of the areas and will be moving crops out and new ones in throughout the summer. We'll sure have plenty of vegetables this summer! If half of the plants work out, it should be more than we can eat.

Today 25 asparagus roots arrived in the mail. They are perennial, so they'll occupy one of the 4x14 beds permanently. There are some things that should be planted with asparagus to amend the soil and keeps bugs at bay, but I can't remember what. Maybe it was tomatoes? Or is it that tomatoes should never be with asparagus? Or was it onions? Or should onions never go with asparagus? Oh, I'll have some reading to do.

I don't have any pictures of the garden, but I do have some cute pictures of the kiddos. Here you go!

Jambuca's First Steps

2010-03-11T20:40:00.001-05:00

Austin's First Steps
Originally uploaded by catandtony318

Jambuca started walking today! In this video he starts out crying because I won't pick him up, and it mixes with laughter as he realizes he's doing it himself.

Ireland trip, Day 10: Last Day of Vacation

2010-03-07T19:11:00.019-05:00

(*I wrote this before we left but published it after we got home-- we are back in the US now! and- you'll notice my COMMENTS ARE BACK!!!! THANK YOU to my cousin PartnerInCrime for spending her Sunday afternoon being my IT help desk consultant!!! You are a brave woman, PIC.)

The faeries must have known we were leaving soon.

They are trying to lure us back.

I wanted to make our last day in Ireland special for e-baby, since she's been such a good sport about doing all the things we've wanted to do, and we had only seen one (pretty crappy) playground this whole time. The "hop on-hop off" bus loop passes by our apartment and goes past the zoo, so I figured it would be a treat for her.
As we ate breakfast, we heard horse hooves outside the apartment and saw a few hairy ponies being led away. Figured they were getting ready to pull carriages around town for tourists. Later, we saw lots more. On our way out of the apartment, the manager told us it was the day of the horse market, held the first Sunday of each month. We went. It was crowded for many blocks with horses and handlers. I've never seen so many horses in one place, and not a single quarter horse, Palomino, Pinto, or any others that I'm accustomed to. Most of these were smaller, most were a stockier build, and all of them had long, shaggy, beautiful coats.
After the equine detour, we took the bus to the zoo, and along the way saw all the major landmarks of Dublin including the Guinness brewery, the Molly Malone statue, Dublin castle, Cristchurch and St Patrick's cathedrals, sites of many uprisings, hangings, imprisonments, rallies, etc. At our stop we took a long walk through Phoenix park and Granny, e-baby and I hit the zoo while my mom went to a gallery to locate a painting that some friends of hers wanted to get information about.
The zoo was, well, a zoo, but it was heaven for e-baby. She played in playgrounds and saw monkeys, rode on a wooden zebra, saw giraffes and rhinos, and ran around like a crazy nut. She was ready to go when it was time to go, tired as she was.
We headed back to the apartment for some R and R, had a quiet dinner at the Czech pub across the river, and now it's time to pack.
I plan to fill in all of these Ireland posts with photos soon.

Lessons learned:

I love it here and plan to come back.
We should have skipped Cork and just gone straight to Galway.
It would be worthwhile to return to western Ireland in the summertime. And stay for, like, a month.
We 4 ladies are so well-suited to travel together that I'm already thinking about our next trip together.
Dublin is a history buff's dream come true, but Galway is faerie territory.

Ireland Trivia!

2010-03-07T19:11:00.000-05:00

Too bad my comments are not working, because I learned a nifty factoid about Ireland yesterday on the historical walking tour.

Ireland is the world's top producer of _____, which accounts for 3% of the GNP.

hint 1: it's a manufactured good.

hint 2: it's not alcohol.

hint 3: the locals tell you it's entirely for export.

Can you guess? Answer coming soon.

Ireland trip, days 8 and 9: Dublin

2010-03-06T16:14:00.000-05:00

Well, Friday wasn't really worth reporting... went to work, taught all day, love my job, you know. After class, I rejoined Tuti, Granny, and e-baby back at the apartment and we had a leisurely dinner in. I needed the rest, since I have caught another cold, and this one is entirely in my ears. OUCH! I am half deaf (more than normal, heh) and the pressure inside my ears makes me wonder whether I'll have a ruptured eardrum. I hope not, but we fly home Monday morning so I'm a little nervous.

This morning was my first full day to really see Dublin, and I've been itching to do the historical walking tour of Dublin ever since I read about it in October. It did not disappoint. The guide was a history graduate of Trinity college and he clearly loves his job. He told us at the beginning that this was less of a tour and more of an attempt to squeeze 3000 years of history into 2 hours, an ambitious goal. While I already knew the large moving parts of Irish history, the tour filled in a lot of the gaps I had, and cleared up a lot of the confusion I've had over the Catholic/Protestant wars over the centuries.

After the tour we had lunch at the market in Temple Bar, and split up: Tuti took e-baby home for a nap, Granny went in search of tickets to a performance of Mozart's Requiem at St Patrick's cathedral, and I wandered Temple Bar and bought way too many souvenirs.

Dublin's a fine city, but it's no Galway. The old parts of town have beautiful architecture. It's the off season now, and the streets are so crowded with people that it isn't comfortable. I imagine that in the high season, it's horrible.

Tomorrow's our last day here. I'm not sure what I want to do. It's a SUnday so lot sof places will be closed. If the weather's nice, I'll look for a playground so that e-baby can have a nice final day of vacation.

Update: Pictures!

2010-03-05T02:26:00.000-05:00

I finally had a stable internet connection for posting pictures from the trip. HERE THEY ARE. They are arranged by location, with Chicago (on the way there), Cork City, Galway, and Aran Islands being the chronology, if you wanted to keep them in order.

It's just a big camera dumpsite, so there will be some you don't care about seeing, but flik through and ejoy what you like!

Ireland Trip, days 6 and 7: to Dublin and to Work

2010-03-04T14:22:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I woke up early to buy some dramamine to try and relieve this dizziness I've had, and then we took the train to Dublin. Still clear skies, but Heaven Almighty it was COLD. I don't know how Dublin elt so much colder than Galway, but it was. Since I planned to stay at a hotel near the conference while the others stayed at an apartment in the city center, I went along to check into the apt and walk around awhile.

Dublin doesn't have the same WOW factor that Galway has, but there's history oozing from the cracks and there's music in the air and I love it here. Even if it's a little bit seedy, that doesn't disqualify a city from greatness in my book.

Our hosts for the conference took my colleague and me out to dinner last night, and today I taught all day. Great class, great students, lots of lively discussions, I love my job.

Now I am pooped. There isn't much more to say, so I'll bug out here. Tonight I sleep at the hotel on my own again, teach tomorrow, and then afterwards I'll head downtown to join the ladies for the rest of the trip.

Ireland Trip, days 5 and 6: Galway and Aran Islands

2010-03-03T04:07:00.000-05:00

We missed the ferry to the Aran Islands on Monday, so instead we spent the day shopping (shucky-darn). There is a pedestrian quarter near Eyre Square that has about lots of little shops and boutiques; some are tchotchkes and souvenirs, but there are also music stores, art shops, sweater shops (we are in the land of cableknit wool sweaters), cafes, bakeries, shoe stores, you get the idea. We also had our first pub lunch at a place that had little living areas straight from the early 70s instead of regular seating. We sat in a nook with a couple of couches and overstuffed armchairs, a big coffee table, and canonical vintage mustard, harvest orange, and avocado colored flowery wallpaper. The food was good, Granny had a pint of Southwick ale, and it was hard to leave when we were finished. Then we took a leisurely walk along the canals and shore of the bay to the town of Salt Hill for some tea. We fed about 30 swans on the way back. I have pictures- it was madness.

Dinner was a low-key broccoli and sirloin steaks.

Tuesday, we got up extra early so we could catch the ferry to the Inis Mor, the largest of the Aran Islands and the very place that the opening sequence from the show Father Ted was flimed. The series' location, fictitious Craggy Island, was apparently based on a conglomeration of the three Aran Islands. And let me tell you-- the flyover scenes opening Father Ted? It looks Exactly Like That in person. There are over 7000 miles of stone fences (hand-built walls). People have lived on the island for literally thousands of years, and there is a ring fort dating back over 3000 years. There are actually 4 fort ruins, but I on;y walked around one of them. There is no handrail at the edge of the sheer cliff that drops hundreds of meters to the water below. It's windy up there. I am so glad e-baby stayed behind at the visitor center for that part of the visit.

We saw the world's smallest church from a distance-- it's on a hilltop an hour's walk from the road-- it is only 6 feet wide. That was nifty. Many of the houses still have thatched rooves. Our tour guide, Patrick Flaherty (one of probably 50 Patrick Flaherties on the islandof only 800 people) can count his family back seven generations on Inis Mor. Most people there go back at least as far.

The islands are also the origin of those cableknit fisherman's sweaters, usually cream-colored with such intricate hand-knit patterns-- you've seen them. As you might guess, we spent the better part of an hour in the large sweater shop and musuem. The store had a special for UPS Worldwide shipping flat-rate of 25 Euros-- any amount. Hee!

In other news, I've had vertigo since we arrived in Ireland and it's getting worse- now I'm just plain dizzy and seasick most of the time. I'm more than a little sick of it and hope that it goes away now that I have some dramamine-equivalent.

In other, other news-- How on earth have we managed to be in Ireland in winter for 6 days and never been rained out???? Charmed lives???? (Knock on wood)

Today we head for Dublin. More later!!

Ireland Trip, day 4: From Cork to Galway

2010-03-01T04:44:00.000-05:00

Sunday morning we had a pretty boring morning of breakfast and packing, but e-baby did make a few new friends with a family visiting from Dublin. They had 2 boys, about 2 and 4 years old, who shared a common interest in chicken farming with e-baby. They spent lots of time talking to and feeding the hens while the rest of us got packed up.

We caught the 11:25 bus and had lunch in Limerick. The ride through that part of the country was dotted with the ruins of so many castles that I am pretty sure that at one time in Ireland, all your neighbors had castles. None were functional as anything but very ornate planters, but they were certainly impressive. The scenery was gorgeous, with stocky long-haired black and white horses, dairy cattle and sheep grazing, sometimes in the same pastures.

Arriving in Galway, we found a park with a playground on the way to the hotel, which was only a couple of blocks up the road. Our apartment is really slick, totally IKEA. I have pictures that I'll post on Flickr soon. Mom and I knocked over a Tesco's for groceries while Granny and e-baby played Princesses at the apaprtment (she has all her Disney princess action figures with her). Dinner was lamb, carrots and parsnips, and raspberry meringues. Mmmmmm.

We have 2 balconies-- one overlooking the bay and mountains. We see the spires of several medieval-looking churches reaching up between the row houses and their ceramic chimneys. It is so nice here that I really wish we'd skipped Cork and come straight to Galway.

Today we're going to try to catch a boat to the Aran Islands. The weather continues to be uncharacteristically sunny and dry.

Ireland Trip, day 3: Cork

2010-02-27T16:10:00.000-05:00

* Yes, I know that my comments aren't working. I've dug around my profile and can't figure out why. Grr. Sorry. I wish I could hear from you!!!!!

Last night we slept 13 hours, and I had the worst case of sea legs alll day today, so I'm lucky not to have fallen down a flight of stairs, but otherwise everything was fantastic today. This morning we had a nice breakfast at the hotel, and took off walking toward any spire or dome we could see from the top of our hill. We also went to the market downtown, where I had some righteous shepherd's pie, and some belgian chocolates for dessert, and then I got lost in a wool shop, and came out with nine skeins of gorgeous lambswool, alpaca, kid, mohair and angora yarns. Droooool. They'll make some nice hats, as hats are the only thing I can crochet well. Anyone live in a cold enough climate to wear a wool hat? I can bring you one!

After lunch, I took nap duty with e-baby while Tuti and Granny visited more old churches. We went to evening mass at St Patrick's, which was a great excuse to see the inside of the church, and had fish & chips for dinner afterwards. We all had a chuckle when my mom asked whether the fish was fried. After that, the waitress was careful to describe everything (tea has hot water in it, beef stroganoff is like a stew but creamier, chips are made of fried potatoes). Because you just never know what kinds of things these Americans eat.

Tomorrow we head to Blarney castle and then on to Galway. I'll be sad to leave Cork. The people who run this B&B are so nice, and I'd love to come back here someday.

Ireland trip, day 1: traveling and arriving

2010-02-27T05:11:00.000-05:00

Thursday morning, ee-baby, Granny and I left RDU and flew to Chicago for a 7-hour layover. The flight was easy, and to kill while waiting for my mom (Tuti) to arrive, time we took a train to downtown. That was a good idea, since we had some o=good exercise and saw fun things, both good for keeping a 3-year old happy. We visited Millennium park where we admired our reflections in The Bean, and e-baby slip-slid on the piles of snow around the edges. After that, we visited the Art Institute and what luck! the entire month of February is FREE ADMISSION! We went to the family gallery and the Touch Galleries (where you can touch everything!) and finally wandered the Thorne Miniature gallery which was amazing. Google it, and if you're ever in Chicago, go see it. It was great, especially for e-baby who is a doll house enthusiast. To call these foll houses, though, is to belittle the artfulness and architectural beauty of them. It was getting to be time to get back to O'Hare, so off to the train station.

It's around this time that e-baby had her first fatigue meltdown, so I'll just say we got back to O'Hare with all our belongings and no injuries. That's all I'll say about that.

We still had 2 hours to make our flight, so the L-I-N-E at O'Hare security didn't worry us, and maybe it was good travel karma, but we were put into the shorter Priority line so by the time we got into the terminal, it was still nice and early. Tuti was waiting for us, we got onto our plane and were headed for Irekand!!

Nine hour flight (a delay and some headwind worked against us), slept about 2 hours of it, crocheted my brains out, landed in Dubin, immigration a blur, waited for a bus to Cork, and then, a five.hour.bus.ride. The driver was trying to kill us. He was slow, and he was cautious, but he BRAKED! accelerated BRAKED accelerated BRAKED accelerated up to every traffic circle and I was about to throw up the whole way. We met a really sweet man on the bus with a one-year old girl named Clara who really did look exactly like a cherub. He was taking her home to her mother and picking up his other daughter from her mother (a different woman) and just kissed and kissed lara the entire way. You've never seen a dad more smitten with his child, and it was kind of heartbreaking when he sid that when he could get a job, he planned to buy a car so he could drive and see them more frequently without taking long bus rides each way. He wasn't looking for pity, but he was tragic.

When we arrivied in Cork, we found our B&B and to see us, you'd think we'd never had indoor accomodations. Look! Beds! Look! Clean bathroom! Look! chairs and a table! Our B&B is called Gabriel House. It is situated atop a Long and Steep hill overlooking the city center. There's a simple garden and a chicken coop with 20 hens (e-baby's favorite part of Cork). Liam, one of the owners, showed her around when we arrived. People here are comfortble including children in conversations and activities, even though Ireland does not look like a kid-oriented place. It is beautiful here. Our nauseating bus ride through the southern-central countryside was all picturesque farms with distant mountains. I can't wait to see more.

And on that note, I'd better go get e-baby back from the chicken coops so we can start day 2!

Two Crochety Ladies

2010-02-21T12:03:00.000-05:00

I haven't blogged in an elephant's age because every time I think of blogging, I'm either in the middle of work, in the middle of driving a car, or in the middle of 50 pounds of suggly children. None are activities I can pause for a quick trip to the old blogspot.

Last week was a week of crochet madness. You never know when these obsessions will strike, but on Monday I was at the craft store and found skeins of yarn in the dollar bin, and the next thing I knew, I'd make 3 hats and a scarf. Only one of the hats is nice enough to brag about, and even then, it's not at all the hat it was supposed to become. But hey, no one has to know that e-baby's white beret is actually a stocking cap in its Platonic ideal.

Speaking of e-baby, she wanted to crochet too, so I taught her to do a chain stich and she's made some doll scarves/bracelets. She and I made up a little song that helps her remember how to chain stich with her hands (I think the hook will have to come later). Before I forget it, I'd better put it on paper:
Put your pinchers through,
Other hand has a job to do,
Grab the string and pull it through,
Make the loop small.

It's a nothing little song, but it worked well to help her remembering what to do next.

I bought 3 more skeins of yarn to take to Ireland and a shiny new shiny (no really, it is shiny! It has LED lights inside!) crochet hook that I can use to wile away the many hours of insomnia and boring airplane travel without internet access. Instead of lugging tons of yarn all over Ireland, I figure I will release hats and scarves into the wild as we go, like a leprechaun dropping little gold coins in the socks of good innkeepers and children. By the way, we leave on THURSDAY!!! I can't wait! It's a ladies-only trip: my mom, SNG's mom, e-baby and me. SNG and Jambuca will bond in manly style eating a lot of burritos and watching a lot of ESPN while we kiss the Blarney stone and get the gift of gab (heh- don't say it, I know).

Updates on our chillies:
e-baby is, well, e-baby. I don't even know how to update about her anymore, since she's really just a normal preschooler who likes to play with her dollhouses, strings, trucks, stuffed animals...

Jambuca has several signs now: water, milk, more, all-done, and dog. He can stand alone, cruise with one hand held gently, climb to the top of all our furniture and go up and down a flight of stairs safely, but he's still too cautious to walk independently. I suppose he'll realize he can do it as soon as he moves into the 1-year-old class. There's a backlog of kids moving up so it'll still be a few weeks before he goes. Fine with me-- we're all crazy about his infant teachers.

OK, so it'll probably be awhile before I write more, but I should be able to blog from Ireland. Wish us a bon voyage!

It's Snowing!

2010-01-29T20:34:00.000-05:00

In NC, snow means raids on the groery stores for bread and bottled water. I stocked up on snow peas. PIC stocked up on Diet Coke. You have to be prepared, y'know.

If you look in my backyard right now, you'll see lots of cereal bowls on my patio table because someone thought that we *needed* to have snow for breakfast tomorrow. I'll let you guess whose idea it was. So if you're in the neighborhood, come on over for a heaping, satisfying bowl of... snow. SNG has offered to fry it up in butter and crack an egg over the top.

Mom, dad, and Fairy Grandmother are coming to town on Monday-- I sure hope the ice has cleared up by then!!

Help Me Find This and Win a Luxury Trip for Two!

2010-01-25T21:09:00.000-05:00

I want one of these. I really, really want one. I first saw it in Sydney, parked outside the Circular Quay ferry dock. It has a roof. It has 3 wheels. It has seats immediately behind the driver for passengers of any size. It has electric motor assist for tough hills. I do not want a surrey with fringe on top. I do not want a rickshaw trailer. I want this, or something very similar. WHERE CAN I GET ONE?????? Help please!

If you can come up with a source and I get one, I will reward you and a friend with a free ride around my neighborhood in it. Now, off with ye and find me a Pedapod of my very own!

postcards from the carseat

2010-01-20T20:33:00.000-05:00

E-baby: At school today, Chloe and Sean were pretending to be animals and I took care of them. I was their vegetarian.
Me: Well, I'm sure they're very grateful you didn't eat them.
E-baby: What?
Me: Never mind.

A mommy's pleasures are simple.

A Long-Overdue Update

2010-01-19T11:02:00.000-05:00

This week we've all been sick, and then sick again, and then sick again. Colds, stomach virus, whatever you pass around, we are getting it. So I am pleased to report that there are some happy things going on around here as well.

Jambuca has become much more communicative in the last few days, and it coincides with his improvements in mobility. He's still cruising, but could walk at any time-- he can stand unsupported-- and he climbs onto - or into - everything he encounters. He's often in the dress-up box with one foot behind his ear, grinning like a goof. That's a lot funnier than when he climbs up to the kitchen counter on a swivel chair and starts going after the coffeemaker.

He's been pointing and gesturing at things a lot more, and although he isn't speaking as such, he has been signing milk, water, and cheerio. It is a shame that we haven't really been able to focus much attention on teaching him to speak or sign, since e-baby pretty much steals the spotlight at all times. It's hard even to read him a book without interruption. I wonder if he'd be as precocious as she was, given the chance. But still, he is a lot better at entertaining himself than she was, and he can tile the roof if we need him to.

Last night in his bath, I had a rare opportunity to work on some signs with him. We practiced Ball, Duck, and Cup. He mimicked me signing Ball, which was great, and when I asked him where the (Cup, Ball, or Duck) was, he'd pick up the right toy. I was so excited I frightened him with my "YES! GOOD JOB BABY! YAAAAAY!" I might have to learn to bring it down a notch someday. :-) He got tired of the game WAY before I did.

E-baby has started taking a strange turn in her imaginative play. Now, instead of it always being happy-princess-land with the occasional naughty child being sent to time-out, she has bad guys, good guys, in-cliques, out-groups, fighting, and even killing of rude characters. Sometimes it's creepy, and I don't know if I like it, but I suppose you learn that stuff when you're in a class with 3, 4, and 5 year olds. Not sure how to handle that. So far I'm just sitting back and observing, and when she does ask me to participate, I casually mention that killing is wrong, and that if Farmer Emily is angry at Cinderella, then Farmer Emily should just stop being friends with Cinderella. I'm afraid that making a big deal out of it will just make a bigger deal of it. Any ideas??

She is otherwise still a very sweet, kind and energetic kid. I think the imaginative play is partly a way to try out different scenarios and roles that she can't try out in real life.

Jambuca is getting big enough to play with a little, but he's also big enough to really get into his sister's stuff, so we have an alternating attract-avoid thing going on most of the time.

In other news, we are planning a huge garden, and come summertime, I hope to be living off the fat of the land with fresh melons, peas, beans, chard, carrots, strawberries, asparagus, tomatoes, and artichoke. Then we're also doing a bunch of flowers. Lots of work to do, but it'll be a fun family project. We'll also learn a lot about what'll grow and what won't in our yard.

e-baby's 10 Favorite Things, in Order

2010-01-12T21:23:00.000-05:00

The library
Dollhouses
Mommy
Daddy
Purple ballerina dress
Cats
Dogs
"Bird and Squirrel TV" (our breakfast room window)
Jack's Big Music Show
Making up stories

Jambuca's 10 Favorite Things, in Order:

2010-01-11T22:25:00.000-05:00

Food
Mommy
Remote controls
Water
Electrical plugs
Big Sister
Daddy
DOTi the dog
People's teeth
Shoes

Cruisin'

2009-12-19T16:19:00.000-05:00

Jambuca found e-baby's old ride-on cart and is cruising around the house behind it. I don't see much of him, but I know where he is by the SQUEE-guffaw-Yaaa! noises.

edited to add one more video. Those times when I'm feeling completely overwhelmed and haggared by the demands of 2 demanding children, I just need to watch this:

Australia Recap, part 1

2009-12-18T18:20:00.000-05:00

In order to keep my dad from hacking into my blogger account and writing a recap himself, I'm putting some words to disk and starting out the story of our Big Adventure.

For starters, that was One Fun Trip. Every time we've done vacation with my parents (Colorado, France, Quebec, Marquette, Australia), it has been better than the last. I'm not sure whether it's because we're getting more accustomed to each others' ways, or we're getting better at planning activities we all enjoy, or we're better at making a liveable home-base for eating/sleeping/socializing, or we're getting older and mellower, or the kids are such a distraction that no one has a chance to notice anyone else's quirks. Whatever the reason, we had a better time than the last trip, which I thought was one of the best trips ever.

The trip to Australia was long. But really, we planned for the worst, expected misery, and were pleasantly surprised most of the time. When it was difficult, it was status quo. The only thing seriously stressful was the chance of missing connecting flights (twice).

As a shout-out to the best airline ever, we flew V Austrrlia from LAX to SYD and back. Otherwise we flew American and Virgin Blue. V Australia were awesome. Best airline I've ever flown, and I wish they'd fly everywhere I ever go. If you have a chance to fly them, do it. Don't bother with anyone else. Even if you don't get any points.

We had (expensive) internet access in Melbourne, and so I was able to post during that part of the trip. The hotel there was a 3-br, so the kids had their own room and everyone slept really well. Jet lag wasn't even a problem. To keep our health and our budget, we cooked our meals in for breakfast and dinner, and had lunch out most days. That means we had the best of local produce, lamb, seafood, and even kangaroo. Melbourne is a food destination, whether you shop at the markets or eat out at restaurants or go to the cake shops on Ackland St in St Kilda. Which, by the way, were walking distance from our hotel. Hee.

I assumed we'd have internet in Sydney, it being a modern city and all that, but no. We were at the only million-dolloar-view luxury apartment hotel with no high speed internet access in Sydney. We also only had 2 bedrooms, so the kids were divided among us and no one slept very well. Still, the hotel was terrific and it was worth paying extra for a view of Lavender Bay from the 15th floor. At the bottom of the street our hotel was on was the harbour bridge and a perfect view of the Opera House. Everything was accessible from a ferry that picked up right there and took you to Circular Quay.

I pretty much worked in Sydney all except for a couple of days, but everyone else had a grand time sightseeing. I did get to see some of the key points, though. SNG and I took the kids to Manly, a beautiful peninsual with a popular Pacific surfing beach. We went on the "Manly ferry"-- Go on, say that out loud and try not to laugh. I actually preferred Watson's Bay, which had protected harbour beaches because there was no riptide, shark, croc, or jellyfish threat to worry about. E-baby preferred that beach too, since I actually let her get into the water there.

I think that Sydney was a cleaner city, and strikingly beautiful. Melbourne was a more casual city, with very interesting architecture. It would be more fun to walk Melbourne and more fun to ride the ferries of Sydney. Taxis in Sydney are unreliable. Trams in Melbourne are brilliant. Either city is a great place to take children.

If I have the chance to go back someday, I want more time. I want a kitchen again. I want to go in springtime again. And I want to fly home without children.

Next time: The end of the Sydney trip, and the trip home.

Home Again

2009-12-10T21:10:00.000-05:00

We're back from Australia and it was AWESOME. The best part of the trip was Sydney, and our hotel had no internet access. So I have a lot to catch you up on. But first, here's a random find...

Steamed broccoli and baked apples, mixed together to make a lumpy baby food,

is

maybe

the

tastiest

thing

ever.

The kids will be lucky to get any of the leftovers.

I Blog From the Land Down Under

2009-11-23T00:30:00.000-05:00

OK, this is just a copy-paste from Facebook, but here's an update on Melbourne so far. First, here are pictures.

The trip here was LONG but uneventful, with a flight from RDU to DFW to LAX to SYD to MEL, with a long layover in LAX (6 hours) and 2 very, very short layovers that made us nearly miss connections (DFW and SYD). The kids were as good as you can expect a 9-mo-old and a 3-year-old to be. Better, really. Each of us got between 4-6 hours of sleep in that 36-hour period. The first day in Melbourne was a walking dream with sea legs.

Melbourne has more interesting architecture than I've seen anywhere. Even Barcelona doesn't really compare. I will take lots of pictures of the buildings and bridges and post them later.

The adult people are outstandingly friendly, and the teenagers are outstandingly surly. Must be some sort of caterpillar-butterfly thing to go from kid to adult here, because it's hard to imagine that these cursing, spray-can wielding, angry-looking people will eventually turn into the jovial and welcoming people who are just a few years older. But that's adolescence for you and that's why someone's teenage record shouldn't be held against them when they run for office someday.

Yesterday (today for you!!) we went to the Healesville wildlife sanctuary and pet some real kangaroos. We saw some of the world's deadliest snakes and got a lecture that made them sound sort of sweet and lovable. We also saw a birds of prey show, allthough I think that the birds of prey in the US are at least as interesting. We saw giant monitor lizards (Goannas, NOT Iguanas) eating giant possums (possums, NOT oppossums) for lunch. We saw platypus eating yabbies (yabbies NOT crawfish). Reptiles here are way cool and creepy.

We also went to the largest open-air market in the southern hemisphere (Queen Victoria market) and I would believe that it is the biggest one in the whole world. The fishmarket section smelled like clean water. It was absolutely gorgeous. So far we've tried local snapper and basso. Australia also has TONS of free-range sheep, so the sheepmilk cheese is cheap and delicious. I hanker for some giant prawns. We will have lamb tonight. I love having a kitchen.

The hotel is a 3-bedroom apartment with 2 bathrooms, a balcony, and lots of space to spread out. Kids share a room. Life is good.

We cooked up giant prawns and a hostile alien species called Moreton Bay Bugs for dinner. Google those. They're delicious, and ugly. No surprise, they don't have Zatarain's crab boil here. We made do with a bunch of salt and green Tabasco sauce.

I am continually surprised at what a foodie's paradise Melbourne is. The food porn here is unreal. E-baby just had some of SNG's almond croissant from the bakery downstairs and said "it's so good, I couldn't believe my mouth!"

Updates so I don't forget

2009-11-03T20:23:00.000-05:00

Jambuca climbed the staircase at home today-- the whole thing, by himself (I was supervising, don't worry). It was hilarious because he, e-baby and I were playing in the foyer when he got this mischief-look on his face and went up the first step and then he really did laugh maniacally and went up the 2nd step, and he guffawed to himself, and then he roared up the next few, laughing his head off, and e-baby ran up the stairs to coax him from above, and he laughed and guffawed and squealed with delight as he made his way up, up, up. When he reached the top he belly-flopped onto the landing.

E-baby had her 2nd-ever dentist visit today and she was a CHAMP! They did the whirly toothcleaning, scraped her molars, everything except x-rays (she's too young for those still). She didn't even flinch. Afterwards we had the traditional celebratory Frosty from Wendy's and there was an excellent hook-and-ladder truck in the parking lot, just like the last time, so she's forever going to associate the dentist's office with Frosties (Frostys?) and fire trucks.

That's all. I just wanted these recorded for posteriority.

title

2009-10-25T14:53:00.000-04:00

Last Sunday I joined my cousin in doing the Fat Flush diet-- partly out of solidarity, because she wasn't ennjoying it much and partly because I need to lose this baby weight, and heck, I'm game for a new diet.

It was pretty UN-fun the first few days, but once I got into the swing of it, it's been fine. I actually really like the cran-water regimen, but I put stevia in it to make it taste better. I think it has helped to keep my blood sugar in check. The scale has only changed by a pound and a half, but my clothes tell a different story- I'm down one full pants size after a week. That's refreshing. I'm also really glad I went to the state fair last wekend and PIGGED out on all my favorite fair foods, because now I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.

This weekend, the fall colors are really getting turned up. I love this time of year- it is my absolute favorite season in North Carolina. Out my back window there's a riot of orange, red, pink, yellow, purple and green. Flowers could never compete just for the sheer visual real-estate those colorful leaves occupy! The weather is nice and cool, too, which makes me more inclined to play outside with the kids. THis morning, e-baby and I practiced riding her pedal bike She still has a long way to go, but there's a mtivating factor-- if she learns to ride it by Christmas, then she can ask Santa Claus for a pink-and-purple princess pedal-bike. Yes, I know, I am the LAST person you'd figure would have a princess for a kid, but there it is. Evidence of the inevitability of princess-infusion. It's OK, she can be a princess and still win the Nobel in Chemistry someday.

Jambuca really wants to walk, really wants to talk, but hasn't got the hang of either. He will be walking soon, but the talking? He does a lot of rhythmic LALALA! but so far, no hard consonants. He did sign "Milk" a few weeks ago, which was cool. He also recognizes a few other signs but I think he'll probably talk on a more "normal" schedule than his sister did. He can pretty much get whatever he wants by smiling at people. Which is just fine with me. My dad calls him Cheerful Charlie, and he really is just that.

SNG is not faring as well as the rest of us. This terrible cough he has is turning into a bear. He seems to have torn a muscle in his ribcage, making it painful to laugh, cough or sneeze. I am trying to make him go to the doctor, but he isn't having it. If he's not better by Wednesday, he'll go.

And me? I feel fabulous. Just getting over another cold, lost my voice, but HEY! I lost a pants size! Nothing's gonna get me down.

All About Being Three

2009-10-21T21:41:00.000-04:00

e-baby is three. She reminds me at every opportunity. She also reminds the checker at the grocery store, my colleagues, our neighbors, the mail carrier...

Being three means being able to DO IT MYSELF, DAMMIT, SO BACK OFF! (OK, those aren't exactly her words, but they're close) But really, she has a point. There are a lot of things that she can do and should be encouraged to do by herself. It's all good.

With three comes pre-school. She has moved up to the Children's House and within a day or 2, I could see changes. It's as if something clicks in a child's mind when they switch environments and bazillions of new connection form. I saw it when she moved into the 1- and 2- year old classes at daycare as well. The first and most dramatic clue I had was her artwork.

Exhibit A: Original e-baby art created maybe a month ago:

Exhibit B: Original e-baby art created after a week at Children's House:

Um- WTF? Wow, kid. You've been holding on me?
I don't suppose you really need those labels I put on the pictures, but I wanted to be sure I remembered which was whom.

So far, three is fun, but then that's no surprise. Every age has been fun. I'm looking forward to this next year.

Angels at the Altar

2009-10-11T20:24:00.000-04:00

Today was Baby Wisdom's baptism. I love baptisms. I love the little gowns, I love the Pass-the-Baby-Round-the-Congregation for blessings, but most of all I love the smell of a freshly-baptized baby. Makes me misty, every time. Peace was sweet enough to wipe a little of that anointing oil from Wisdom's head onto a cloth for me to put in my baby keepsake box. Because I was too drunk on baby-high to remember to do it when either of my kids were baptized.

Now, I shouldn't say so aloud, but we haven't been very consistent about taking the kids to church. E-baby pretty much thinks that church is for weddings, funerals and baptisms. Oh, and going to church is a HUGE treat to her. At the beginning of mass today, she caught my sleeve, looked up at me with wide eyes and whispered "Look! There's angels! Mommy, angels up there!" Being a little spook-able, I half-suspected that she was seeing some supernatural vision that only children can see (any of you with babies will KNOW what I mean when I say that it seems like small children see ghosts-- darn imagination makes the hair on your neck stand on end). So I looked at where she was pointing, and saw 2 altar girls, about 10 or 12 years old, flanking the priest. The girls in their robes and sandals made e-baby think she was seeing a heavenly vision.

It was so poignant, a moment of pure belief, from a mind that has no limits on what can be. The super-sentimental in me likes to think that what e-baby saw were, in fact, angels singing for Wisdom on her baptism day. Happy grace-day, Wisdom!!

Recap

2009-10-03T22:35:00.000-04:00

In case I've forgotten to mention it, we're getting ready for a trip to Australia in November. Work is sending me to teach for 2 weeks, so I'm bringing the whole family (the 4 of us plus my parents) to Melbourne and Sydney for 3 weeks. We are all very excited. I told e-baby that we would be going to the land of koalas and kangaroos, and she said "Are we going to the zoo?" and I said, "No, it's better than that!" and she said "We're going to AUSTRALIA?!?!?"

And so those of us with passports got visas and we applied for Jambuca's passport right away. I've been fretting ever since about its timely arrival. Thankfully, I just saw that the State department mailed it to me yesterday, so it should be in my hands next week. I will feel better once all of us have all the paperwork in order. Coolest planning thing-- we will have 2-BR apartments with washer/dryer in both cities. That'll make traveling with small children much easier.

Speaking of small children, Jambuca has been crawling all over Raleigh, and showed us 2 new tricks yesterday:
1. FIRST SIGN! He signed Milk to me yesterday. He was kind of signing to me, kind of to himself, but it was definitely a sign associated with milk. He got very upset with me for not making with the milk fast enough, and signed milk at me as he started to cry. I was so proud and excited that I totally interrupted someone else's friendly conversation to tell them how great it's all gonna be, I mean, to say that he had just signed Milk.
2. Peek-a-boo! Hee has taken to playing peek-a-boo with us. He was hiding behind some long curtains at PIC and LeBon's house last night and playing peek-a-boo, and he was doing it again at home today. E-baby used to play peek-a-boo with blankets on her changing table, but for the life of me I can't remember how old she was. I was thinking around 4 months or so, but I have to be remembering that wrong.

E-baby and SNG went to the international festival this evening while I stayed at home to cram a ton of work. One condition of going to Australia is that I have to wrap up 4 BIG deadlines before I can leave. So I will be putting in some overtime between now and mid-November. Ah well, small price to pay.

Oh, and today was basil-harvesting day. This year we planted 6 basil plants that grew to about 4-feet tall, each very full-and-bushy. I made 2 quarts of pesto, and I still have half a grocery bag of picked leaves, plus about 23 more gallons of on-the-stem basil waiting for someone to cart some of it home. If I can get some more pine nuts and parmesan tomorrow, I'll make another quart or 2 of pesto. And, the bushes in the garden are still reasonably large that I might have a full 2nd harvest before the first hard freeze. Good times.

Three of the Best Years Ever

2009-09-24T21:13:00.000-04:00

Today is e-baby's THIRD BIRTHDAY!

I love you than you can ever imagine, honeybunch!

I will write an update post later. Right now it's bedtime.

2009-09-22T22:07:00.000-04:00

Beatles Rock Band, tomato sorbet, "Rosie" from Caillou, sweet pickles, Miracle Whip, the red-headed spokesmodel for Progressive insurance. There are a lot of things I have talked about NOT liking lately. To balance all that negativity, here are some things I like.

The sound of a good glockenspiel
Hugs from tiny children, pretty much any tiny children
Rain without thunder
Pumpkins
Creamed tuna on toast
The first crisp day of fall
The "oyster" in a chicken
Making crafts with pipe cleaners and pliers
Watching George Hincapie in a bike race

OK, that's enough to bring the tao back into balance for now.

Random e-baby Quotes

2009-09-18T21:05:00.000-04:00

Yesterday at work, e-baby called me on the phone from daycare. She talked for about 10 minutes straight, and I had a few chances to say "Oh, wow" and "OK, that's nice" while she rambled on. These one-sided conversations always make me laugh, and I had the presence of mind to transcribe about 30 seconds' worth of it for posterity. I'm blogging it here so I will be able to look back at it someday.

Make sure the rattles are clean enough for Austin to play with to introduce his playful mouth Oh. Oh. And make sure the pecils are opened up so I an finish the paperwork. Mommy, can you make sure the lamp at home is off and DOTi [dog we're dogsitting] is in her bed so no one can take her and give her a treat. Something is not defined in the matrix- the matrix is not defined. The matrix is locked up in our door and ice cream is good to eat...

And now I'm siting in the bathroom while e-baby takes a bath and I'm going to transcribe what I can from the current ramble...

Today, Lucy and Bananas the Gorilla are coming over today. Sally cat is sick today. Hmm. So umm, Huckle has to stay home with Sally Cat. But their mother is coming over today, since she's not sick. She's gonna make dinner for us. She loves broccoli mixed up in drinks. Huh. And when she'll put that on our plates, and we'll eat it AAALL UP with a spoon .Oh! She's at the door! Oh. You can be her, if you like, and I can be Huckle. And umm, uh, and after, then Austin can be Sally Cat, if he'd like. Mom! Mom! Something is not right with Lowly. And I think Sally Cay is asleep and I'm done with my bath.

That was so much fun, I might turn this into a Stuff my Toddler Says blog.

Big, Big, Big, Big World

2009-09-17T21:16:00.000-04:00

The past few weeks have been a blur- I can hardly think where to begin to talk about what's been going on. I've got three big things going at work, and they all have deadlines during 4th quarter which also happens to be our busiest time of the year for teaching. This week I'm teaching and preparing materials for a new class, so keeping up with anything else is a challenge. Blogging is kind of last on my priority list now.

To help with the heavy lifting, SNG has been picking up the kids from daycare all week, which lets me stay at work until 6pm. It's surprising how much more work can be done in one hour- particularly if that hour happens to be after everyone else has gone home for the day. You don't realize how much those little interruptions get in the way of productivity until there aren't any interruptions. Maybe working from home wouldn't be so bad ater all...Naaah, I like my coworkers too much.

Tuesday was an exciting evening of doing something completely new and different. For you who don't know her, Peace owns a business teaching ASL to children, parents, caregivers, and health care workers. One of her teachers had an Introduction to Sign Language Workshop scheduled and had to cancel, but Peace and Fuzzy are out of town this week. Peace asked if I'd cover and I said OK, and Tuesday night found myself in front of a class of 15 or 20 parents talking about the benefits of signing with babies, and teaching a few of my favorite sing-and-sign songs. At first some of the parents were shy about singing out loud and signing, but by the 2nd song, the whole room was rocking with a cheerful chorus of Old McDonald! When we did Twinkle Twinkle Traffic Light, you'd have guessed it was a rave. I haven't had that much fun since the old days of teaching arobics. And I didn't have to wear spandex!

That same night PIC, LeBon and c-baby had a slumber party with us. Due to a scheduliong mix-up, the water and electricity at their new house didn't get turned on in time for move in, and so their misery was our company! The girls had a ball, and I always enjoy PIC and LeBon. It was so much fun I'm thinking we should let the girls have sleepovers more often.

And the news that has been eating at my brain non-stop for over a week is the big trip at Thanksgiving. I got an email that our colleagues in Australia needed someone to come teach a class that I teach, and one thing led to another, and now I'm scheduled to teach 4 days in Melbourne Thanksgiving week, and 5 days in Sydney the week after. SNG, the kids, and my parents will come along and we'll make a vacation of it. Now I'm trying to learn all I can about the where we're going. There are some awesome-looking side trips I want to take. Oooooh we're so excited! Not so much looking forward to that 30-hour trip each way, but the 3 weeks in between should be a blast.

We applied for Jambuca's passport last week. He's such a character! He's quite mobile now with his funny inchworm crawl, and you have to lock up anything edible. The other day he ate e-baby's dinner roll, he has taken waffle fries from SNG, and he will stuff his face with corn puffs. He's still as happy as ever, and a little more fun for his sister to play with.

Aaaaand now, without proofreading, I'm hitting Publish. Good night, blogworld.

Three Disconnected Blog Topics

2009-09-06T21:25:00.000-04:00

1) One of my favorite things to do on a weekend is to do an inventory of our produce and make something that uses as much of it as possible at the same time. Lately SNG’s been doing green curry vegetables, but this week was my turn to do some cooking. And I’m proud to report this recipe, which consists entirely of stuff from our CSA farm and stuff from my front yard. A recipe for Creole Ratatouille from Richard & Rima Collins’ (now out-of-print but still most excellent) cookbook provided the general inspiration. Like most of my cooking, I pulled a lot of it out of the seat of my pants.

4 T butter (aww, come on, do it)
4 shallots, peeled and sliced
4 small green onions, sliced
3c. fresh small okra, sliced
6 bell peppers, seeded and julienned (I told you, I have to use up this stuff and the farmer’s gone nvts with the peppers)
2 tomatoes, sliced
large bunch of fresh basil, chopped rough
a pinch each of Konriko/Tony’s, salt, and sugar to taste, or several drops of Tabasco

In a big pan, sautee everything in the order shown above, 5 min on shallots/onions, 10 min on okra/peppers, 5 more minutes on everything else, then cover and cook low heat 10 or 15 more minutes. Serve over rice (or couscous, which is all I had in the pantry today).

2) I want to get some opinions about Moon Sand, as compared to Play-Doh , Silly Putty, and good ol’ modeling clay. I like Play-Doh as a toy, but it dries and since I keep it outside in the gazebo, even sealed cans of Play-Doh sometimes die out there in the heat. So I decided to get some Moon Sand and try it out. It claims to never dry out and be easy to clean up. I trust they’re right about it never drying out, but easy clean up? We only used it outside and it was messy by backyard standards. I also got some Silly Putty, and it has some excellent tactile properties but it doesn’t mold and it REALLY doesn’t come out of wool carpet. And it doesn’t pick up newspaper cartoons anymore! WTF?

So if you have/are/play with kids, what do you think? Moon Sand? Play-Doh? Other toys of that kind that I don’t know about? I vaguely recall seeing something that was like tiny foam-looking balls that could be shaped and molded. Anyone familiar with those? What do you like best and why? What do you hate most and why?

3) SNG is a magician. E-baby is transfixed. He can make things disappear. His magical reappearing trick uses the incantation “Hey, look over THERE!!”

My Seven Month Old Piggy

2009-09-04T19:37:00.000-04:00

Today is Jambuca's 7-month-day and poor guy's been sick since Wednesday. SNG and e-baby are visiting the grandparents for a couple of days in New Bern so that Jambuca can be quarantined. It gets boring not going anywhere, so we had lunch at Sonic. What a lovely place, where you can eat in your car, be served by a high school kid on skates, eat tater tots, and enjoy some of the finest cool summer weather ever.

He's been doing the cutest little crawl thing the past few days- it's something like an inchworm, where he pulls his knees up to his chest, and then slides his hands out. Then he does a belly flop to recover, and then he pulls his knees up and starts it all over again.

He's also begun to communicate his food preferences. Last night I was feeding him peas and farmer's market blend. A couple of times, after a few spoonfuls of peas, he indicated his preference by leaning toward the jar of farmer's market blend. Maybe you had to be there, but I thought it was cool.

But mostly this week is about trying to make him feel better. He's lost his voice and so when his fever goes up and he cries, it's a whimper. When he coughs, it hurts, and he looks at me with a pathetic "Why does this hurt, mommy?" look on his face. I wish I could take all that misery from him.

Later this month is e-baby's 3rd birthday. We'll have a party, but I'm not sure where yet. She will also be moving to the pre-school around her birthday, and I can't wait to see how she does in the new environment. The preschool classes are mixed 3-5 year lds, and the Montessori philosophy means there are areas of the classroom for each subject, such as math, geography, language, etc. I'll write all about it once she starts, I'm sure.

OK, off to watch TV. With Jambuca sleeping and everyone else out of town, I can watch all kids of junk TV!! Woo!

Suday Morning Cooking Show

2009-08-30T19:50:00.000-04:00

Here is an excerpt from e-baby and Jambuca's cooking show this morning. Dress code is pretty casual around here.

Bad Blogger! No Cookie for You!

2009-08-26T21:29:00.000-04:00

I haven't been keeping up with blogging well at all lately. That's partly, as I said, because work is insane. It is also because once the kids are in bed, it's just a pain in the tookus to get on the computer and write. There's no way I can write while they're awake. Not while e-baby is in this WHY phase, at least.

So when SNG asked me whether I wanted a netbook for my birthday, my first thought was, "What the heck will I do with a netbook? I never use the other computers we already have." But then I thought about it more. Why don't I use them? Because it's too much trouble to USE THEM. A netbook would be something I could leave on my side of the bed, ready to drop on my lap and start writing at bedtime. It is super lightweight and small, so it wouldn't make me feel trapped under a machine. And it would be mine mine mine, so I could leave some things logged in so I wouldn't have to put in passwords on all my webpages which would reduce a good 40% of the annoyance of using a computer when I'm already kind of tired.

So here I am, typing a blog entry with my new netbook (yes, I know, 2 weeks before my birthday), and it's very nice. The only trouble is that they had to rearrange some keys to make them fit. There's no dedicated End key; you have to Fn-PgDn. And PgDn is not in the right place. The touchpad is a poor design. But I'll get used to it, and maybe I'll start posting regularly again.

What is up with the alphafamily?
E-baby is getting close to her birthday and has been pracicing on her bike a lot. She can balance really well and is nearly ready for a pedal bike-- once she gets tall enough. I want to get her a trailer bike in the meantime, but SNG is nervous about her falling off. He wants to get her a teeeeeny custom painted Madone.

Jambuca continues to be fat and happy. He is doing really well with solids. Maybe too well. He dives into his baby food like a heroin junkie, especially sweet potatoes.

I'm looking at the triathlon series for next year and trying to decide which ones to do. I'm planning on a relay with 2 of my cousins (I got stuck doing the run- dangit!:-) and 2 friends from work are going to train with me for another sprint or two as well. No international distance races this time. Sprint tris are like a fun, intense workout. International tris are downright uncomfortable. I can be uncomfortable at home for free, thanks.

Every year since e-baby was born I've said that I'm going to do triathlon again "next year" and I still haven't done it. Wish me luck in getting my schedule in order to do it this time!

Commute Conversation

2009-08-18T08:48:00.000-04:00

e-baby: 'What are these strings on my toy butterfly?'
me: 'Antennas'
e: 'Lantana?'
m: 'No, lantana are flowers. Antennas are on bugs.'
e: 'Butterflies eat the pollen on the lantana'
m: 'That's right'
e: 'What are antennas?'
m: 'They're like fingers for a bug.'
e: 'Like spiders?'
m: 'No, spiders have legs. Bugs have legs and antennas.'
e: 'But I'm talking about spiders.'
m: 'Spiders have 8 legs.'
e: 'Like octopuses!'
m: 'That's right'
e: 'Do octopuses eat spiders?'
m: 'I bet they would if they could'
e: 'Octopuses eating the snake with the spider in his mouth! Would that be a good plan?'
m: 'That would be an excellent plan!'

Never a dull moment.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Half a Year and a Half Bithday Party

2009-08-03T15:45:00.000-04:00

Jambuca is 6 months old today. Six months is an important milestone-- he got to have "real" food for the first time (baby rice cereal) and everyone else had some half-birthday cake.

Since I've been so quiet in blogland lately, thanks to an insane amount of stuff going on at work and at home, there's not much record of what he's been doing the past few months. So in honor of the big half-birthday achievement, here are some highlights (nothing here is unusual for a regular 6-month-old baby, but I like to have a record of these things, and the blog is a good way to do that).

Jambuca is a very different kind of baby than his venerable big sister. Both of them are perfect to me, but I am glad that I had her first and him second, because he is one of those babies that fools people into thinking they're baby-whisperers. He's a parent-whisperer. I'm pretty sure he will get away with a lot more than e-baby will.

He's a very jovial fellow and laughs at everything, especially in anticipation of something funny or a tickle. Anticipatory baby laughs are the best. He likes to see himself in the mirror and busts out in belly laughs that seem to say "Damn, looka' me! I'm a HANDSOME little fella! WOO mama, look at me workin' it."

He's interested in toys, where "toys" are anything that can be grabbed and shoved into his mouth. Examples include straws, coffee cups, my hair, e-baby's hair, a nose, a shirt, a washrag, a teddy bear, a carseat strap, the railing of the crib... you get the idea. If he can see it, he'll mouth it. That reminds me-

He's trying so hard to be mobile. He can easily push up onto hands and knees, but for now getting to stuff is mostly a matter of rolling around. He rolls around a lot because while he can sit upright, and he can play with a toy, he cannot, it seems, do both at the same time. He ends up rolling on the floor eventually anyway.

He is also very, very interested in eating. When he got to try cereal for the first time this evening, it rocked his tiny little world. He made some faces that suggested he had NO idea WHAT had just happened or how to take the news, but he kept coming back for more food, so it wasn't all bad.

I've included some pictures of the shin-dig on Flickr here.

And here's a bonus video of e-baby singing to her baby brother and helping him with the candle.

Yummy Dance!

2009-07-23T20:09:00.000-04:00

SNG picked up salmon on his way home from work today. He also got a pint of Ben & Jerry's and a box of neopolitan tofu ice cream sandwiches. E-baby and I opted for the sandwiches and both of our heads are about to explode from delicious delirium. E-baby is running around like a maniac doing the yummy dance (kind of like a happy dance, I think). SNG tasted mine & realized he chose wrong in picking the Ben & Jerry's.

If you haven't tried tofu ice cream sandwiches, you will have difficulty imagining just how delicious they are. Go get some and report back. I'll wait.

In My Absence, Life Goes On

2009-07-05T21:19:00.000-04:00

I haven't blogged in about an age and a half. I wish I had more time because there are a lot of things I am behind on (including one little girl's 2nd birthday present getting into the mailbox and I don't know how many thank you notes that aren't yet written). I haven't even really been on the computer for fun in a couple of weeks, because work has gone mad-crazy and home is crazier. Tonight the kids are asleep, my parents are in town but out visiting a friend, and SNG finally gave up the laptop to go watch the TDF. So I blog.
Jambuca's 5-month-day was yesterday! Here are some highlights on him:
*He's rolling (and rolling and rolling) and most of the time when I go in to wake him up, he's on his belly.
*He's getting good at recognizing some cues for things like eating (well, mostly just eating). If I say "Want some milk?" he makes this cute "heh-heh" laugh and cranes his neck as if trying to reach for milk.
*His favorite color seems to be purple. Anytime he sees something dark purple, he gaaaaazes at it, sucks his thumb intently, and then wrangles the thing into his mouth. "Puuuuuurple. Give me the puuuuurple."
*He is really interested in watching people eat. If I eat while I'm holding him, he tries to snake a bite from my fork. Any day now he'll end up with a mouthful of chicken or apple pie. Yes, I will be starting him on cereals on his 1/2-birthday. Not any sooner that that, though, because, well, he is a CHUNKER and doesn't really need to put on more weight.
*He's in size 3 diapers, and Huggies are too tight around his belly. It's the cutest pudge-gut I've ever seen.
*He is easily the happiest baby on the block. He's cheerful most of the time, and really just cries for food and when he's tired. He sleeps like a champ for usually 10-12 hours a night. When he's awake, he's looking for someone to laugh with.

E-baby and Jambuca are so obviously going to be best buds, and she's taken to calling him "little man" which is so funny coming from her. We let her stay up late last night to see 4th of July fireworks. It was her Granny's birthday, too, and she's kind of got Independence Day mixed up with Granny's birthday, resulting in this interpretation of the fireworks show:
"Granny is the angel, and she flies WAY up in the sky to spark the fireworks. She puts the pink one over where the green one is, and moves the green one to where the pink one is. Then we say, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! FIREWORKS!"

Here are some pictures, for your viewing pleasure.

At the Festival for the Eno (look at that boy's legs!)

E-baby and some roses

Buddies

Happy baby

Boring Post-Pardum Weight Loss Post

2009-06-18T12:34:00.000-04:00

OK, I am really frustrated with the fact that I weigh a few pounds more now than when I returned to work two months ago. WTF? Isn't nursing supposed to make you LOSE weight? Well, it didn't with e-baby, and it hasn't with Jambuca either. Really, it just makes me hungry and a little bit lethargic. When I was pregnant with jambuca, I said that the best I'd expect is to maintain my weight until he is weaned. But this is ridiculous and I have to do something because darn it, I am almost at SNG's ideal weight (!!!) (No offense, sweetie). So here I am, setting out goals, and setting out plans for achieving them. You are lucky enough to have clicked onto my blog to read about it. I won't be offended if you take a nap.

I realize that putting it in big, overarching terms doesn’t help at all, but so what, here is the big picture:
BIG GOAL:
Lose 15 pounds (putting me at my pre-e-baby pregnancy weight)
BIG PLAN:
Eat less, exercise more (duh)

Now, here are the specifics in bite-size chunks (heh. heh.):

Goal: Lay off the snack foods.
Explanation: e-baby has snacks between (and alongside) meals, and while most of the snack foods are reasonable as toddler snacks go (goldfish crackers, whole grain saltines) most of them are irresistible to me (the crunchy little iced oatmeal cookies, cheese, dried fruit). I don’t mind if she has calorie-dense snack foods, but I shouldn’t be snacking on them, too.
Plan: Buy her snacks that I don’t care to eat. Nutri-Grain bars, for instance, are not my taste at all but she loves them. Trouble is that there aren’t a lot of things like that, unless they’re REALLY unhealthy, like ice cream and gummy bears. And of course I’m not feeding her ice cream and gummy bears for her between-meals snacks.
Plan: Stock up on raw veggies to crunch after work while I make dinner. Stop buying the snack foods that I have trouble resisting (although I like for her to eat dried fruit, so those will have to stay).

Goal: Intake fewer calories overall
Explanation: Duh. I eat too much. Not rocket science.
Plan: I’ve been cooking with butter more than I used to for certain things, particularly leeks. I like the butter because it makes the leeks taste SO good, and olive oil is a poor substitute. I could cut that amount of butter way down and substitute a little olive oil and salt, but bring the total fat down to half.
Plan: Keep a food log (FLOG) of everything I eat. It’s easier to say no to that second biscotti if you have to write it down. Shoot for 1700-2000 C a day, which should be plenty to sustain milk supply for Jambuca.

Goal: Stay hydrated
Explanation: I am often so busy that I forget to drink water. Breastfeeding and dehydration-- a bad combination.
Plan: Fill and drink a 1-qt Nalgene bottle at least twice a day at work. Then it's easier to keep track of whether I'm drinking enough.

Goal: Improve core strength and posture
Explanation: I can carry around 2 children a lot, but my posture is paying for it.
Plan: Do Pilates every evening before bedtime, but do the push-ups and planks in the morning because I’m usually too tired for them in the evenings. Gee, I wonder why?

Goal: Improve cardio fitness
Explanation: I just feel lethargic a lot of the time.
Plan: Walk to work 2-3x a week (already doing this, most weeks). In the summertime, SNG will have to pick us up because it’s usually too hot and BUGGY to walk home (yes, Buggy. The biting flies are ferocious)
Plan: Get in one 1-hr bike ride each weekend (NOT already doing this-- oh, how I miss my bike!). Could take e-baby in the trailer if she wants to go.

Goal: Eat at least 4 superfoods a day. (If you don't know what superfoods are, you can Google it)
Explanation: I can feel that I am in needs of anti-inflammatory foods. My carpal tunnel is as bad as ever.
Plan: Stock up each weekend on enough for the week, and get everything cleaned/cooked/prepared on Sunday.
Examples: Frozen broccoli, fresh leeks, fresh spinach, strawberries, frozen cherries, garlic, sweet potatoes, greens (the farm provides these), zucchini

Goal: Coordinate with SNG so we BOTH get more exercise
Explanation: SNG needs to get more exercise, too. Not that I’m saying he’s fat. But, um, perhaps I have already said too much. Anyway, he wants to bike to work once a week and bike at least once on weekends.
Plan: He should ride on days that I am not walking to work and I should walk on days that he isn’t riding. We can watch the weather and our calendars and plan his bike day in advance. Whatever day I ride on weekends, he will ride the other day. He might tag along on rides with the neighbors. SOON, Jambuca will be big enough for the trailer and we can actually ride together (YAY!).

OK, so that was a boring post. But it's out there, and I'll hopefully continue to feel motivated enough to stick to my plans.

In other news, SNG, e-baby, Jambuca, Dianaverse and I are heading to IKEA in Charlotte tomorrow! Woohoo!

It's an ABBA Kind of Day

2009-06-11T15:14:00.000-04:00

This is a belated video birthday card for my mom, but everyone else can enjoy it, too.

Post-Partum Hair Club

2009-06-07T21:22:00.000-04:00

One of the few perks of pregnancy is that, for many of us, your hairs stop falling out of your head. So there you are, fat and tired, but with fabulous, thick hair. For me, my legs also got super freckly, but the freckles go away after a few months (which is really weird when it happens).

And just like the proverbial free lunch, the hair is temporary. I've estimated before the amount of extra hair. Figure a person loses ~100 hairs a day. In pregnancy, say you lose (conservatively) half that. Forty weeks of gestation and that's in the neighborhood of 14,000 extra hairs waiting to take the leap. When the kid is 3 mo old or so, BOING! Hairs everywhere. And now you've still got the normal 100 a day popping off. Over a few months' time, the house, the car interior, and the office become abstract hair sculpture.

SNG won't store his hairbrush in the same drawer with mine. Because the hairs leap onto his brush. I just thought someone might want to know that.

Pictures!!

2009-06-02T16:28:00.000-04:00

You want 'em, you got 'em!
Here are pictures of our front garden that we worked on for most of April and May.
Here are pictures of e-baby and Jambuca doing what they do best.

Party, Party Weekend

2009-06-01T20:35:00.000-04:00

It's no wonder both children behaved like orcs this morning: that was one seriously busy weekend. It was also seriously fun, so the orciness was worth it.

Friday night we went to see and play and dance along with my friend as he played blues guitar followed by the Raleigh Drum Circle's monthly Rhythmicity. Both my frind and the RDC are celebrities to e-baby now, and she was over-the-moon when she was allowed to play the guitar afterwards.

Saturday morning we went to see Elmo live in concert (do not laugh, I can throw you for distance and will not hesitate to do so). The four of us went with PIC, LeBon, and c-baby. E-baby loved it, c-baby liked it, Jambuca thought it was a bunch of noise for no good reason, and the rest of us thought it was a little too long and way too expensive. Still, I'm glad to have had the experience. I saw at least 3 other mothers I know there with kids e-baby's age, so I felt a little better knowing I wasn't the only one with SesameStreetSucker written on my forehead. I agree with PIC that the most fun part was having lunch together afterwards.

Sunday afternoon was our Joan of Arc day bonfire, also known as the semi-annual burn-stuff-in-our-backyard party. That was super duper extra fun. I would love to throw a party every single weekend, if I could be sure someone would actually come to it. Maybe SNG and I should open a nightclub when we retire. A nightclub with a firepit.

I forgot to take pictures at any events this weekend, but I do have some awesome shots of e-baby and Jambuca doing what they do best that I'll upload to Flickr soon.

Next Friday and Saturday we'll be picking blueberries for the first official weekend of blueberry season, and Sunday we'll be eating blueberry pie, blueberry cobbler, blueberry muffins, blueberry bread, blueberry jam, blueberry pancakes,...If you're hungry, you know I love guests!

Like A Kick to the Chest

2009-05-28T15:32:00.000-04:00

I just realized that I have been back at work for the same amount of time as I was out of work on maternity leave! Wha?! It feels like I'm still unpacking into my office. People are still asking "Are you back at work ALREADY?"

In the scheme of things, three and a half months really isn't a very long time, but it's a lifetime in baby years. When every day sees new developments, and every interaction seems significant, and multiply that by two kids, time goes on the log scale all of a sudden.

Nearly Perfect Day

2009-05-24T21:53:00.000-04:00

This morning, SNG & I slept until 7:15, the kids slept until 8, and we cleaned up the house really well. Then we cleared out the pine straw from the last section of our garden and repotted the last of the seedlings. We also installed our new silly frog-playing-a-horn fountain.
At lunch, SNG took the truck to get 2 trellises and 17 bags of pretty pea-gravel, while I took the kids to Sonic (our Sonic won't let you keep the tray on your window. WTF?). E-baby loves their grilled cheese. I like having the children in a confined space where they can't hurt themselves or each other. Jambuca likes to be fed in the car. Everyone's happy.
After lunch, it rained like mad, so the kids & I watched SNG shovel pea gravel into the just-cleared section of the garden, now known as the zen garden. We put in all the plantings & the trellises, the weather cleared up, and the yard was a glorious spectacle of red, yellow, purple, orange, white, pink, and green. Later in the afternoon, our cul-de-sac hosted a big neighborhood street party, and e-baby 'sold' every single flower from our garden to the other neighborhood kids when she set up a florist shop behind the gardenia bush. I heard her charging anything from forty cents to 200 dollars. Our garden is just green now, but that's ok. What's the point of flowers if nobody's going to enjoy them? Jambuca was passed from neighbor to neighbor all evening until he was pooped from all the attention. I know I've said how much I love it here, but I'll say it again- I love our neighbors.
Both kids went to bed without any argument and now I will, too. Good night!

Learning about Laryngitis

2009-05-15T17:19:00.000-04:00

I caught a cold last week and lost my voice (again!!), which was bad timing because I also had to teach all this week. Luckily, my co-instructor could cover for me when I couldn't go on for all the coughing. Oh, and extra bad timing because Thursday night I was scheduled to give the speech at the Teacher's Appreciation Dinner for e-baby and Jambuca's daycare.

So yesterday, desperate to get my pipes back, I did some Googling on laryngitis. From all the reputable websites I read, I learned that it's a really, really bad idea to whisper through laryngitis. You're better off either croaking (if you can) or writing things down. Or, presumably, signing, but if you're the only one in the room who knows a little ASL, it may as well be Mandarin. I was really surprised to read that whispering is as hard on the larynx as shouting. It doesn't feel that way to me. But I tried not whispering at all yesterday, and whaddaya know, I am starting to sound better today. Ordinarily, I'd have another day or 2 without a voice.

I croaked through the teachers' speech, everyone laughed at the right times and smiled at the right times, although I suspect that everyone really just wanted me to shut up so they could dig into their dinners. Still, it was fun.

I still have to teach all the next 2 weeks, so hopefully this voice thing will be completely healed by Monday. This weekend we're going to a birthday party, trying to get a visit with my aunt, uncle and cousins who are in town, and experimenting with pre-cooked frozen breakfast sandwiches. As in, making them from scratch, freezing them, and having quick, easy breakfasts all week. Has anyone ever tried to freeze cheese or scrambled eggs? Any advice before I ruin a bag of groceries?