So I am not losing my mind after all

Oh ho HO! My mother-in-law called me today, and guess what she found "stuck between the bed and the wall, it must have fallen down there, I don't know how"? That's RIGHT. My library book. And now she and her husband are jetting off to Costa Rica and I can't get my hands on it for two more weeks. ISN'T THAT CONVENIENT.

I kid. I kid because I love. She reads this blog, so in my last post I was teasing her with all my accusations of book theft and lies. But this does not change the fact that I secretly, deep down in my heart, thought the book was at her house, despite her insistence that they had looked everywhere. "Sure you did," I thought to myself. "Everywhere except where the book is."

WELL. She read my blog this morning and felt like she had to do a deep search for my library book, and there it was stuck next to the bed. And the good news is that the librarian took pity on me when I went in to pay for it, and let me renew it, so I have three weeks before they send the library police after me. Just enough time for my mother-in-law to take it to Costa Rica and read it herself.*

And now I will show you some of my child's art. I'm sorry. Except not really. What follows is a picture of what Jack likes to eat.



Lest you think my children have sophisticated palates, note that the top left is a picture of mac 'n' cheese, and that's a hot dog up there on the right. But I think my favorite parts is the smile on the fish. Which, incidentally, I have never served whole.

 *She's not really taking it. She's going to drop it off at my brother-in-law's, and I can probably get it this coming weekend.

Fine motor skills

Excuse me while I brag just a little, but Nora, who is three, made a Valentine for her teacher. First she cut along the line I drew for her to make a heart, which she glued onto red paper:


Look at that cutting! I swear I did not help her at all, other than to offer encouragement when she initially failed to follow the curve.

Then, completely unprompted, she cut another heart out all on her own:


Can you see the heart-like shape? She also wrote her own name, but that part was strongly prompted by me. Still, though, I think it's pretty good.

Jack's fine motor skills aren't too shabby either. Look at the Lego space shuttle he and his dad assembled:


Not too shabby, I'd say.

Eye update and cute children

Thank you guys for all your sympathy about my poor angry eyes of the past week. It really does help me feel better if people feel sorry for me in my pitiful state. The new eye drops seem to be doing their job; my eyes are a million times better. They're still a little red and itchy, but nothing compared to what they were. And I did call the ophthalmologist to confirm that it was OK to still have itchy eyes after four days on the antibiotic, because I am done with messing around with the wrong prescription, thank you.

But I don't like leaving that post up with the horrifying eye photo, so I'm going to instead put up adorable photos of my adorable children. By the by, my two older adorable children had a fight yesterday about whether it is called "pumpernickel" or "pumpernickel BREAD." An actual fight. I wouldn't have cared, but they were having the fight in front of the baby's bedroom door while I was trying to put her down for a nap, so I was unable to yell, "IT DOESN'T MATTER YOU ARE BOTH RIGHT!" Anyway, here they are, looking angelic and stuff:

.
 Ann Marie learned how to play, "How big is Ann Marie?" this week*, and I am so happy about it.


 
She also turned seven months old last week. She might end up being the only kid to get all twelve monthly shots, but we shouldn't count our chickens as there are still five months to go.


 
 I am so lucky.


*Soooooo big!

Am I a Catholic?

Jack just asked me if he's a Catholic. I told him he was, and tried to start a conversation about baptism and confirmation and being raised Catholic when he interrupted to ask "What's a 'Public'?"

Ah.

"Oh, 'publics' are kids whose parents don't really love them," I said.

No, of course I didn't. Instead I tried to explain the separation of church and state at a five-year-old's level, and then rerouted the conversation back to baptism vs. confirmation, and how and when we choose to remain Catholic if we have been baptized as babies.

"I don't want to be Catholic," he whined at me.

"Really? Why not?"

"Because I want to see the whole construction," he said.

This will make more sense to you if I explain that we got a notice yesterday informing us that a road construction project is slated to begin next week and is going to last until the end of September. It's going to be a "full depth road construction" and work will occur from 7:00 am - 4:30 pm, Monday through Friday. Most of the work will be done in front of the - public - school complex; hence, Jack's desire to become a "public."

In other news, this summer should be super super fun! I cannot wait to put two kids down for a nap during the jackhammering! EVERY DAY! (crazy-eyed expression)

Pictures for Emily

Emily just asked me on Twitter why I never post pictures of Ann Marie, thus documenting her increasing cuteness. My answer was threefold:

1. I have no smart phone, and thus posting photos is a multi-step process that involves changing out memory cards and exporting and resizing and blah de blah, it's a huge pain.

2. It's an even huger pain on my blog because I don't like the way Blogger does photos so I have to post to Photobucket and then copy links and there is EXTRA TYPING, people.

3. Ann Marie is the third baby, so there are practically no photos of her at all. (There probably would be if I had a smart phone.) (Or maybe not.)

BUT. I actually coincidentally JUST COPIED brand new photos to my computer! I got Emily's tweet while putting Nora to bed so I came right out and sat down and went through the process - the MULTI-STEPPED process - of putting them on my blog. All for you! And Emily! Because who am I to deny requests for photos of my adorable baby? Who is and remains a DREAM BABY SENT FROM HEAVEN, by the way. Tonight she did cry a lot for a total of maybe fifteen whole minutes, split over two cry sessions, but the first fussy period was because she was starving and I ignored her more patient whimpers while I finished making dinner for the other two. The second round of fussiness was because she was wet and tired, and then I Nose-Frida-ed her. In between those two screaming sessions, she hung around in her bouncy seat and grinned like a fool at anyone who was willing to make eye contact. (Many of us were willing.) (But she stopped grinning as soon as I got the camera.)

All this complaining about the hardships of having to click buttons and type things makes me think of an issue I once had with a website. I maintain a corporate membership account for my company, but I am not personally a member of the service we offer our staff. Whenever I send the invitation to join to the new hires, however, I always click the link I send them to make sure it works. The link takes me to a sign up page, and at that point I just close the window, because I do not need to join. But during the last round of hires, I started getting chirpy little emails from the membership service reminding me to complete my registration. These were annoying, yes, but not nearly as annoying as discovering that when I went back to the website, I was routed directly to the registration page instead of my normal homepage. The first time this happened, it took me a few tries to even figure out how to get back to my homepage. And I couldn't shut it off.

So now, every time I wanted to check the billing statement which is the only thing I ever need to look at, I had to first go to step 1 of the registration, then click the logo in the top left corner, and then click "Account settings." That's TWO EXTRA CLICKS. I lived this nightmare for WEEKS. I finally emailed the company to ask them how to shut it off, and I ended up having to call them. It was difficult to explain the problem to the agent I spoke to on the phone, but once he understood exactly what was happening he realized he'd have to send an email to a separate department and have them get in touch with me. "It may take a day or two," he warned me, apologetically. "Is that OK?" I told him I'd probably be able to survive two more days of unnecessary mouse clicks, but only just.

And now here are pictures of my adorable children.

Parent-teacher conference

Can I brag for a minute? I met with Jack’s teacher today for a post-progress-report conference. I wasn’t concerned about anything, I mostly just wanted to go hear about how wonderful Jack is. And I was not disappointed.

Jack got all “S’s” and a few “S+’s” in everything except for knowing his phone number, that was an “I” for “improving.” (I taught him our phone number last year, but failed to practice it with him, so he forgot it.) Mrs. M. said that she’s actually pretty stingy with her “S+’s,” but Jack just knows his numbers and patterns too well. He’s the best in the class at patterns, in fact. He also is a good leader and follows directions really well; she never has to tell him anything twice. (This is slightly different from my experience with him.) All in all, he’s a joy and delight to have in class.

But you know the best part of the whole thing? She said that he’s a good leader and will help kids who are struggling with their work, and that he is kind about it. Because if I had to choose between raising a child who is kind and raising a child who succeeds at school, I would a thousand times rather raise a kind child.

Oh! And they asked the kids today what they want to be when they grow up, and Jack said he’s going to be a scientist. “What are you going to study?” his teacher asked. “Whatever interests me,” he said.

Three remainder one

The kids and I went down to their grandparents’ house for the afternoon yesterday. We did this for several reasons. First, we love them, and hadn’t been to their house since Christmas. Second, Jack and Andrew were sick this weekend, leaving us housebound for two straight days, and if we had had to spend another day of family “quality” time, we might have killed each other. The third reason is that their grandparents live an hour away, so that’s two hours in the car that I don’t have to think of something to do. (The third reason is linked strongly to the second reason.)

At any rate, Jack watched an episode of Peep and the Big Wide World while there, which was a refreshing treat for me, because I love Peep. We never seem to watch it here anymore; it’s usually not on during the times I let them watch TV. In this episode, Peep, Chirp, and Quack were trying to fairly divide two crackers among themselves. They started by breaking each cracker in half, so everyone got a piece with one piece leftover. They broke that into four, and I think you can see where this is going. They went through several iterations until Peep finally said, “Will there always be one piece leftover?” but then an ocean wave came and whisked away the last piece.

I thought it was weird that they didn’t solve the problem; usually they do. I had expected Quack or someone to accidentally break the last bit of cracker into three pieces. My mother-in-law must have had a similar thought, so she asked Jack how he would divide two crackers among three people. She gave him some paper and a pencil to work it out. He scribbled away for several minutes, and this is what he came up with:



See, he would divide both crackers in half, then break the last piece into four, and break THAT last piece into four, and so forth, and he’d do this seven times according to his drawing. And THEN, he’d take the last final piece, and throw it away.

Well, it’s fair!

(My favorite part is the level of detail on the trash can.)

Jack's Party

Today we had Jack’s 5th birthday party. It was supposed to be where he goes to gymnastics, but a freak October nor’easter took out the power at the gym, so we had to cancel it. I did have the option of rescheduling the party, but seeing as how I’m 36-ish weeks pregnant (I honestly can’t remember; I’m due November 29) and November is the official start of the holiday season, I canceled it. It was pretty disappointing since this was to be Jack’s first “friend” party, which I plan to have only for a select few birthdays. I was double disappointed, because I was looking forward to meeting his school friends and their moms, but what can you do? Who would have predicted a snowstorm on October 30?

However, although we’d invited seventeen kids, ten of those kids were his cousins, so we had them over to our house to make sure we wouldn’t be stuck with an entire half-sheet cake. And also so Jack wouldn’t have to go from “I get to have a party with a bouncy house and a tumble track and an obstacle course! WOOOOO!” to “I get to… hang out with my Mom and Dad and not have any presents because they already gave me theirs! Woooo?”

It actually turned out just fine. Jack and Nora love their cousins, and, if you’ll indulge me a minute, I’d like to say that this group of kids are just about the sweetest, most well-behaved group of kids I’ve ever had the privilege to know. We had ten children here aged nine-and-under, and you would never have guessed it. There was no screaming, fighting, or thundering around the apartment, and the older kids included the little ones in all their games. Everyone waited patiently for cake and ice cream, and my four-year-old nephew was heard to say, “I’ll take whatever piece you give me!” What sweethearts they all are.

As for presents, can I just say that five-year-olds get WAAAAY better stuff than babies. Playmobil, Transformers,Perfection… Andrew’s favorite though was from my parents. When my mom told me what she got him, she described it as “Mario Kart, but without the wheel.” I was confused, so she elaborated with, “You know? The old Mario Kart? Without the wheel?” I wondered if she perhaps meant Super Mario Brothers? She did. Andrew’s pretty psyched. (Well someone is going to have to teach Jack how to play it.) (And in my mom’s defense, we did not have Nintendo when I was a kid, so her first introduction to the Mario Brothers was Mario Kart. As far as she knows, Mario Brothers equals Mario Kart.)

In unrelated news, last night we had a family Movie Night and watched Babe. Nora sure knows how to ruin a Movie Night. First she whacked Jack smack in the forehead with the door of the medicine chest, then she whined and cried - loudly - about wanting more popcorn (among other things), then she just would not stay seated! Man, sometimes she acts like a two-year-old. But in one of her calmer moments, she rested her head on my belly. The baby gave her a good kick, and she sat up and said to me, “Why you DO that?” while rubbing her cheek.

“That wasn’t me, that was the baby!” I said. “The baby kicked you!” She told everyone today how the baby kicked her in the head, and she’s been trying to get him (or her) to do it again ever since.

Five! Five! Five! Five! Let's sing a song of five!

So this kid here:



Has somehow morphed into this one:



And yes, that is another Chirp cake, the third one in a row. I asked him what kind of cake he wanted, and that’s what he chose. I think maybe he thinks he’s only allowed to choose characters from Peep and the Big Wide World. Convenient for me, I have to say, since the characters are all very round and simply drawn. I’m not including a shot of the cake from above, because it looks pretty much the same as the last two Chirp cakes I made, but I this year the icing was a lot closer to actually being red this year instead of pink. (It seems I never posted a photo of the cakes from last year, but they were Chirp and Quack, and Chirp looked the same.)

In honor of turning five, Jack got to try gum for the first time today. Jack has literally been looking forward to this for two years. Since I wasn’t about to let a three-year-old chew gum, I arbitrarily chose five as the age of reason as far as chew-but-don’t-swallow is concerned. I didn’t think he’d remember it or anything. I was wrong.

“When I’m five, I can have gum!” he told anyone and everyone for the next two years. I actually started to feel pretty bad for him, because there was no way The Experience of Gum was going to live up to his expectations. At any rate, today he had gum. And, as it turns out, we have not yet hit the age of reason as far as chew-but-don’t-swallow is concerned, but at least he got two minutes of chewing in beforehand.

Gum-swallowing aside, Jack had a good day. He got to hand out his cupcakes at school AND he got to be the line-leader THREE TIMES. Top that with a dinner of pineapple pizza, banana ice cream, and birthday cake, throw in a remote-control race car, and you get a pretty perfect birthday.

Jack, you’ve grown into such a fun, inquisitive, silly goofball of a little boy. You are just the best kid. I love you.

Kids, eh?

Nora woke up from her nap in a pretty decent mood, but when Andrew asked her if she wanted a snack, juice, etc., she just kept saying, “No.” Finally he said, “Do you need a clean diaper?” and she held up her hand and said, “Just leave me alone.”

***

I was folding laundry and told Jack I needed him to put away his clothes. “No, thanks,” he said.

“Uh… the correct answer is, ‘Sure thing, Mom,’” I told him. There was some more argument and I finally said, “We’re going to make you a chore list, Jack.”

“Nooooo!” he said.

“Jack, how old are you again?” I asked.

There was a brief pause. “Not very,” he said.

Some stuff that's been happening

This past weekend was our niece and nephew’s double birthday party at my brother-in-law’s. Everything was going fine until Andrew nearly cut the tip of his finger off chopping scallions and everyone FREAKED OUT. Well, I exaggerate. My mother-in-law came over and with careful calmness told me that Andrew’s dad would be taking him to the hospital for stitches. I got up to investigate matters and found Andrew’s brother holding him up at the kitchen sink while water ran over his finger. There was also a bag of frozen vegetables on Andrew’s head because Andrew had almost passed out. Fingers, it seems, bleed a lot.

At any rate, my FIL took Andrew to the hospital, and they were back after only two hours with only four stitches. During the two hours, my MIL pretended to be totally cool and fine, but she was actually having a series of secret inner heart attacks because her child! Was at the hospital! I, on the other hand, was fine except that I felt guilty for not being more worried that my husband! Was at the hospital! Perhaps I would have been more upset had it been my 35-year-old son instead of my husband? But it’s just that… it was only his finger. In the absolute worst case, Andrew was going to lose a fingertip. Which, yes, would be awful and nasty, but not as though Andrew is a professional musician or something; he’d do just fine without a fingertip. Losing a fingertip is no day at the beach, but, you know, fingertip. There are worse things to lose.

The best part of this story is how my FIL brought my MIL’s phone with him, and her sister called while they were at the ER. I guess she started talking, and the nurses were yelling at my FIL for using a cell phone, so he just said, “I can’t talk; I’m at the hospital with Andrew,” and then he hung up. He hung up! And of all the people he could have said this to, Andrew’s aunt is among the most freak-out-able. I’m a little surprised she didn’t leap into her car and start driving. So Andrew’s poor aunt had to wait two hours to find out that he needed four stitches, and had not been in a terrible car accident or something.

***

In other news, Temerity Jane has been writing a lot about cloth diapering her adorable baby Penny. TJ uses mostly fitteds, and they are adorable enough to be worthy of Penny. And now Amalah has gone and written a cloth diapering manifesto of her own (mine is linked in the sidebar), and SHE uses fitteds with fleece and wool covers!

Now when TJ first started showing us all the pictures of Penny’s diapers, I thought, “Yes, they are cute, but isn’t it annoying to have a bunch of different kinds? And also expensive? And also you have to keep shopping?” Because we have been CDing for almost five years now, and I tried a few kinds of diapers, but settled on BumGenius one-size. It’s simple. It’s streamlined. I don’t have to keep shopping. The aplix on ours got all curly and annoying, and some of the elastics wore out, but I paid someone to convert them to snaps and redo the elastics, and they’ve been working out mostly great. They don’t fit Nora as well now, but Nora is pretty close to being trained, so I wouldn’t dream of buying new diapers for her. Still, TJ and Amalah have somehow managed to convert me. I now covet adorable fitted diapers. I’m not going to purchase any, because adorable fitted diapers are just as pricey as the 24 pocket diapers I already own that work just fine. But I WANT adorable fitted diapers. Le sigh.

***

I knew it was inevitable, but Jack no longer wants to use his pink accessories (water bottle, pencil case, etc.) that he specifically chose because he likes pink. It seems his friend laughed at his pink pencil case because pink is for girls. I am more annoyed by this than I expected to be. It would be one thing if Jack decided on his own that he doesn’t like pink anymore, but I fear he still does like it, he’s just embarrassed about it. And for crying out loud, it’s just a color. The kid should be free to use a pink water bottle if he wants to. Stupid peer pressure.

In all other ways, school is absolutely wonderful and he comes home simply brimming with songs and games and stories. I’m so glad we enrolled him even though it’s five full days (7:50-2:10). He is just thriving.

***

Finally, I’m totally pregnant. Somewhere around 30 weeks if you can believe that. I can believe it because I have the heartburn to prove it. I find myself feeling like I’ve consumed two Thanksgiving dinners by 1:00 every afternoon, and then I get terrible heartburn which induces nausea and I can’t eat anything until 8:30 or so. The doctor actually gave me carte blanche to eat ice cream every night if I want to since I haven’t gained that much weight yet, but I can’t because of the stupid heartburn. Le sigh indeed.

As far as baby-readiness, we aren’t. We did finish painting the bunkbeds, but we haven’t put them together because Andrew was going to do that this week but then he nearly cut off his fingertip instead. And all other baby preparations hinge upon getting the bunkbeds set up, because that will mean moving the dresser which will affect where I put the baby’s clothes. And, actually, that’s all I really need to do I guess, so maybe we’re not in such terrible shape after all. We did already buy the minivan. It’s a 2005 Toyota Sienna, white. I’m pretty happy with it except for how it uses twice as much gas as my Civic Hybrid. Damn, but I miss my old gas mileage.

And on that completely boring note, I will sign off and perhaps take some antacid. My life is so filled with glamor and excitement.

He may be right, you know

Before lullabies tonight, Jack said he just wished he knew where heaven is. "Well no one really knows except God and the people who are there, Jack," I told him.

"I think I know," he said. "I think it's all around us."

"Because God is all around us and heaven is where God is?" I asked.

"Right!" he said.

Woah.

Some kid stuff

Some kid stuff

A few months ago, Jack had a bad dream and had to come sleep in our bed. The next day, as we were driving somewhere in the car, I glanced in the rear view mirror and saw him looking droopy and tired. “You can close your eyes and take a nap, honey,” I told him.

“I don’t want to go to sleep,” he said.

“OK,” I replied, “but it’s just that you look really tired.”

“But I’m afraid to go to sleep,” he said. “What if I have another bad dream?”

My heart broke, but I tried to play it cool and asked him if he wanted to tell me about the dream he had the night before. I can’t quite remember what it was about, but I do remember thinking, “Wow, that is pretty scary.” I think it was something along the lines of a bad monster chasing him, trying to steal him away from us.

But I can’t have a kid afraid to go to sleep, so I said, “Jack, you know that dreams are just in your head, right? And you’re the one in charge of your head! So you know what you should do? Before you go to sleep, you just tell your head, ‘Head? No bad dreams.’ And then if you have a bad dream anyway, you should just say, ‘Hey! I’m dreaming! That means I’m in charge! Head? Change this dream!’ and then you can just change the dream!” Jack giggled.

“I could turn it into a flying dream!” he said.

“Exactly!” I replied. “Those are my favorite dreams too.”

He did fall asleep in the car because he just couldn’t fight it. And that night, Andrew reported that Jack asked him to wait a second before he sang songs and then whispered to himself, “Head? No bad dreams.” He’s been telling his head what to do every night since.

But this breaks my heart even more, because the trust! In me! When he has another bad dream, which I assume will happen eventually, will he think I lied to him? Which… I did? But on the other hand, did I really? Maybe all it takes to keep away the bad dreams is to truly believe that you just have to tell your head not to have any.

Parenthood, man. It’ll get ya.

***

Yesterday, something small – I forget what, exactly – made a loud noise that surprised us. “Woah!” said Jack.

“Yeah, you don’t expect something small to make a loud noise, huh?” I said. “Loud noises usually come from big things.”

There was a slight pause while Jack processed this. Then he said, “Nora’s pretty loud.”

He’s right. She is.

***

We have started the presumed hundred-year-long potty-training process with Nora, so she’s been spending a lot of time pantsless. As you do. Andrew found her one such time wearing naught but a t-shirt. “Nora, you’re naked!” he said.

She looked down at herself, and then looked back at him with genuine confusion. “I not naked, I still wearing a shirt.”

She was right. She was.

Well this is convenient

Yesterday, Jack was rooting through the silverware drawer while I prepped for dinner. (I made this crockpot breakfast casserole. I am told it was good, but I certainly couldn’t eat it. I couldn’t even go near it as I very unwisely included broccoli. Here’s a helpful tip: If you start to feel nauseated round about 3:00 most days, it is perhaps not the best idea to cook broccoli in the crockpot from 3:00-5:00. We played outside from 4:00 on or so, and when we came back inside the stench of overcooked broccoli almost killed me dead. In fact, I have to stop even typing about it right now. Blergh.)

Let’s start over: Jack was rooting through the silverware drawer and came across a baby spoon, but a particularly annoyingly shaped baby spoon that doesn’t fit in the drawer very well. We used to have two, in fact, but I think I threw one out. Jack was fascinated by it, and when I told him it was a practice spoon for babies, he said, “We should have another baby.”

Well that caught my attention. We have not yet shared our good news with Jack, but I figured this was a golden opportunity not to be wasted. “Would you really like to have another baby come live here, Jack?” I asked him.
“Yeah!” he said.

“Because they’re so cute, right?” I was concerned that he was mainly interested in seeing the baby spoon in use, so I wanted to check.

“Yeah, they are,” he replied. “We should have lots of babies.”

“How many babies do you want, Jack?”

“Oh, five or six,” he answered.

“Five or six, huh? I said. “Do want them to come all at once, or do you want to have one every couple of years?”

Jack considered this, and then said, “One every couple of years, because we only have one of these baby spoons.”

And you can’t argue with that.

Just sitting here on the couch, internetting

So about 50% of my laptop battery ago, I got home from dropping the kids off at their grandparents’ house for the whole weekend. Yes, I said “weekend.” And yes, I said, “whole.” As in “two nights.” TWO NIGHTS. Clearly, this is a golden opportunity to get a billion important home-maintenance things accomplished, and so I naturally flopped onto the couch with my laptop the instant I got home and have been here ever since, dirty kitchen be damned. Oh, and I have a bunch of work to do that requires quiet and concentration, so I’m wisely using this quiet alone time to tweet important breaking news like:



It’s true! And you have to act fast, because several of the $10,599 Birkin bags have already sold out! Plus, I am sorry to report that you will be unable to purchase a hideous rocking-horse print silk scarf for a mere $359, as they are long gone, my friend. LONG GONE.

All that being said, I did not drop the kids off for a restful weekend of internetting. No, Andrew and I have big plans. This is the weekend we clean the attic. And as not-fun as that theoretically sounds, I can’t tell you how much I am looking forward to it. We borrowed my in-laws’ truck so that we’ll be able to haul stuff to donation sites and I just cannot wait to get rid of 75% of the stuff we have stashed up there.

You may or may not recall, but in January I made three resolutions, and one of them was to have an assigned place for everything in my house by December 31. I am supposed to be spending at least fifteen minutes a day decluttering, and I have to admit that that trickled off by late February, but I did get a lot done. I sort of hit a wall, though, because there are a bunch of clutter-troves in the main living area that cannot be decluttered until the attic has been dealt with, because I need to store some stuff up there, but I refuse to put any new things into the attic until there is some sort of organizational system up there.

See, we have a huge walk-up attic that runs the length of our big two-family, so it’s 1800 square feet of emptiness. And it WAS empty when we moved in, save for a pool table that the previous owners left us because it was easier than moving it out. But it is not empty anymore! Oh, no. It is stuffed to the gills with things that we “just stuck in the attic” until such time as they could be dealt with, which turned out to be never.

I did explain before, but it bears repeating that it is quite difficult to clean out the attic because it isn’t insulated. This means that there are about eight weeks a year during which it is neither too hot nor too cold to spend any significant amount of time up there. So while it’s always possible to run up the stairs and “stick something in the attic” to deal with later, it’s no easy feat to spend a large chunk of time sorting and organizing. And lest you think we are just too wimpy to deal with the temperatures, may I remind you that “no insulation” means that the attic is JUST AS COLD as outside in the winter, and that is usually in the twenties. As for summer, the attic is actually HOTTER than outside because it just bakes all day and the heat gets trapped overnight. Just ask the bird that got in last year and simply dropped dead on the stairs from heat. True story.

So this is the big weekend. The attic will get miraculously organized and I will be able to sort through the rest of the stuff in the main living space and maybe, just maybe, I’ll get this house cleanable by the end of the summer. (Please note that I am not saying it will always be clean, I’m saying that when I NEED to clean it, I will be ABLE to clean it, because I will be able to just put things away instead of standing around wondering where I’m supposed to put all this stuff. Because a big pile of toys pushed against the wall just isn’t doing it for me anymore.)

In other news, Jack’s preschool spring show was today. He was a raindrop. I was almost late, because I wasn’t incredibly early and therefore had to park at the park and walk over, which is actually a pretty long walk. But I did make it, and while he had an initial look of worry on his little face when he couldn’t find me right away, there was a lot of waving and “Hi, Mom!” –ing throughout the show and it was adorable.

You know what wasn’t adorable? Jack’s school sent home about five separate notices about the spring show, largely concerned with the parking. We were allowed to park at the school, across the street at the town hall, and overflow parking was at the park, a five or so minute walk away. It was made perfectly clear over and over again that the police were not allowing parking on Smith St., By my estimation, there were 10-12 cars parked on Smith St. at the start of the show. Sometimes I hate people, you know?

But I don’t want to end on a sour note, so I’ll tell you that I made one short video that will hopefully be audible; if so I’ll post it for your viewing pleasure. But I didn’t get any of the “Hi, Mom’s!” on tape, so you’ll just have to take my word for it. He also gave me a thumbs up after one particularly satisfying song. And I died.

If any of you are still reading, you should go over to A’Dell’s blog and leave a comment telling her that she is awesome and that the baby will come out eventually, because she is approximately 74 weeks pregnant and is understandably kind of depressed about it. And then go drop by Arwen and let her know you’re thinking of her because she is ONLY 33 weeks pregnant (with twins!) and the babies are a little over-eager to make their appearance. Irony’s a bitch, eh?

Twitter is killing my blog

I keep posting 140 character snippets and then I have nothing left to say here. I suppose one could make the argument that I have plenty to say here, it's just that I have lost the attention span to write anything longer than 140 characters, but to that I say... wait, what was I talking about?

At any rate, I thought I'd take a moment to share a few things here that I may or may not have already tweeted about. (Tweeted? Should that be capitalized? What is the protocol?) First of all, today is Good Friday, which means Lent is finally almost over. I am not good at Lent. Every year I try to get something out of it, and every year I end up just fighting the urge to whine about how I want to have some of whatever I gave up. A few years ago I gave up fiction with the intention of replacing it with spiritual reading, but instead I replaced it with television and the internet. That is not better.

I tried again this year and gave up fiction, and I actually did read something good for me instead: A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken. I quite enjoyed it, and it made me think about God. So just by that alone, I think this is probably my most successful Lent ever. I try to spend Lent getting closer to God, I usually just succeed in falling asleep during my prayers.

Maggie wrote about Lent not long ago, and I think she pretty much nailed how I feel, so rather than rehash what she said, I'll just send you there and talk about Jack. Because today, as noted, is Good Friday, and it was also the day of the Easter party at Jack's preschool. I was not thrilled with the idea of an Easter party on Good Friday, because... c'mon. GOOD FRIDAY. But it's not a religious school, and since Jack's only four I didn't make him skip it or anything.

But here's the thing: Jack gave up cookies for Lent. He's been SO GOOD about it. He usually remembers all on his own. And I've made an effort to provide alternative treats, but when there have only been cookies, I can just say, "You gave up cookies for Lent, remember?" and he just says, "Oh yeah!" and moves on. But I was proudest of all today when I went to pick him up from school and discovered that he turned down the cookies at the party. I did not mention anything to him about having given up cookies for Lent; he remembered all on his own. His teachers raved about it to me, so impressed were they. As am I, because he's FOUR. So. Sniff.

I'm not even going to reread this post. I have a feeling it's terrible, but I wrote a lot about it being Good Friday today, so I think it's important that I post it before midnight.

I hope you all have a happy Easter.

Too much to say

I have a lot of things to say, but I do not have time to say them right now. Lately, my computer time has been booked up with actual work for my job, so I haven't been able to tell you my stories. So this is a quick photo placeholder until I can take the time to write what I want.

A few weeks ago, I sent Liz some spare cloth diapers that I had lying around, and she sent me a totally awesome thank you gift:



I highly recommend sending Liz things you have lying around the house. The payoff is huge. I'm wearing a scarf she knitted for me, Nora is completely over the moon about the barrettes that Liz made for her, and Jack has already planted that strawberry plant and has been diligently watering it.

Oh, and did you notice? I got a haircut! A major haircut! And completely failed to blog about it! I was going to, but I was so excited about the haircut that I wanted to first surprise my mom and sisters, and then by the time I saw them the novelty had worn off and I never got around to posting the photos. Which is crazy, because everyone knows that if you don't blog about it, it didn't happen. But it did! I got a spontaneous major haircut at a party I went to that had corporate sponsors, and one of them was a fancy-pants salon that I could never normally afford. AND, because I got the haircut, I also won a prize for "Most Transformed." (It was Donna Karan perfume.) It was a pretty awesome party. Andrew won a gift card for a designer tie because he was the only one there with a tie pin, and when we LEFT there were gift bags, and in the gift bags were $100 gift cards towards something from the Donna Karan Infinity line. Which I still can't afford, but GIFT BAGS. It was glamorous.

And now I have to go to bed because I am going to get up for a 5:00am spin class. (And now I've told you all I'm going to do it, so I have to.) I leave you with two pictures from our trip to the science museum on Saturday, followed by the scene that greeted me this morning in the kitchen.











That was a brand new thing of pepper. Yes, I scooped it back into the pepper tin. BRAND NEW. I can't remember if this happened after she painted her tongue, but it was definitely before she ate all the Play-doh crumbs.

Spoiled rotten

So did you all have a nice Christmas? I had a nice Christmas. I got a Kindle! It is totally awesome. I had been avoiding purchasing one because I was afraid that I would immediately spend thousands of dollars on books, because each one is so cheap! And all I have to do to buy it is push this button! But so far, I’ve only bought Mockingjay which I’d had on request at the library for weeks and which naturally arrived for me about thirty seconds after I bought it. I also bought Scrabble, because did you know you could play Scrabble on the Kindle? It’s excellent, because I have no one to play with. Andrew won’t play with me because he gets too mad when I slaughter him, which I routinely do. I don’t mean to brag*, but I’m pretty amazing at Scrabble.

What really helps with keeping the Kindle costs down is the plethora of free books available. They’re mostly old books that are out of copyright, several of which I downloaded with excellent intentions but which I will probably never read, thanks to Scrabble. I also got a newer book that was free because of some promotion, but it’s pretty terrible, and I may not finish it. We shall see.

More significantly, the Anne Shirley books by L.M. Montgomery are also free, and I have happily been rereading the ones I no longer own and sort of forget a little. But if you follow me on Twitter, you already know that for some mysterious reason, Amazon’s Kindle store doesn’t have two of the novels. I may have talked about this on Twitter quite a bit. I may have been fairly outraged. But it is outrageous! The Kindle store seems to think I have IMAGINED Anne of Windy Poplars and Anne of Ingleside. I even got to the point where I was willing to pay for Anne of Ingleside, but even the collection of “all eight Anne Shirley novels” you can buy in the Kindle store for 99 cents doesn’t include them. Instead, the collection includes Chronicles of Avonlea and Further Chronicles of Avonlea. These, my friends, are not “Anne Shirley novels.” These are not even novels. They are anthologies, and, OK, yes, Anne makes a cameo appearance in a few of the stories, but that in no way makes up for the fact that the Kindle store is pretending Anne of Ingleside and Anne of Windy Poplars didn’t happen. THEY HAPPENED, Kindle store. Do not MESS with my Anne of Green Gables books.

But I digress.

I also got a wall-mounted radio for the kitchen to replace my under-cabinet one with a broken CD player and completely snapped off power and volume-down buttons. The broken one was technically more than sufficient, since all I ever listen to is NPR and the remote turns it on and off, but it sure is nice to have a shiny new one with far better sound quality. Really shows off the timber of Carl Kassel’s rumbling baritone, you know?

Andrew, on the other hand, got a selection of the geekiest, nerdiest Christmas presents ever known to man. From me. And he loves them all. His “big” gift, the gift that I knew he’d be most excited about, was a TI-85 graphing calculator. Andrew’s original TI-85, the one he had in college, broke a few years ago. Since the TI-85 has been discontinued, Andrew thought he was out of luck. But then I blogged about it, and Arwen’s husband Bryan gave him his. Ah, the magic of the internet. (Well, the magic of the internet plus the magic of being internet friends with thoughtful, generous people.) Sadly, Andrew spilled Chinese food on Bryan's a few months ago, and it broke. Andrew has been bereft ever since. Bereft, I tell you. Where was he supposed to store his variables? Fortunately, I had a brainwave a few weeks before Christmas and harnessed the magic of the internet once again and bought him one on Ebay. Best Christmas present ever. The only thing missing, it turned out, was the manual. I got that for him off Ebay after Christmas, and the day it arrived, I found this scene on my way to bed:



So what’s geekier? The way he lays out his breakfast along with his breakfast reading before he goes to bed? Or the fact that his breakfast reading is a CALCULATOR MANUAL?

If you check back a few paragraphs however, you’ll note that I claimed Andrew got a selection of geeky presents. You see, I had planned to write mainly about the calculator, but then I mentally ran through the list of gifts I got him, and it struck me as hilarious. So here you go:

1. A discontinued graphing calculator
2. A book about the elements
3. A book about being a geeky dad
4. Socks

I know I’ve gone on for quite a while here, but I can’t end this post without telling the internet about the set of tools my father-in-law bought for my four-year-old son. It included, among other things, a hammer, a saw, a screwdriver, and a hasp.



Despite my father-in-law’s very indignant claim that “They’re plastic,” when we made fun of him, they are not, in fact, plastic. That there is a real saw. It is a small saw, yes. A child-sized saw, if you will. But a saw quite capable of cutting through wood – and therefore fingers – all the same.

Call us crazy, but we don’t allow our children to play with sharpened metal blades until they are at least five.



*Yes, I do.

Stir crazy

I've been feeling very very cranky the past few days. I was hoping that this last week before Christmas would be relaxing and fun, but instead I've been trapped in the house with first one, then another sick kid. I finished the chores that are do-able while the kids are awake, so I'm also incredibly bored. (Don't tell Jack, but I don't find playing cars quite as fun as he does.) And this is what my house typically looks like by about 2pm these days:







Yes, the smiling toddler does help matters. As does the fact that making this happen



keeps 'em quiet.

STILL AND ALL. Do you see that first picture, with the chairs? I actually did that one; it is the only means I have of keeping Nora off the kitchen table and away from the knife block on the counter. Because that little monkey can climb, and she also knows how to push a chair to where she needs to reach. I give it about a week before she figures out how to lift the chairs up, and a week and one day before she drops a chair onto her head.

But today I've decided to pick Jack up from school with the stroller. It will get me exercise AND out of the house, so it's a win-win. Well, until Nora falls asleep in the stroller on the way home and screws up her nap, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Friday photos!

I bought myself a party dress last month, and I finally got to wear it tonight to Andrew's annual work Christmas dinner. I did my hair all fancy and everything. I had my sitter take some photos, and Jack photobombed us in this one. There were better shots of me, but his expression is too priceless not to share.



This week we made a gingerbread house because the internet was all alight with rave reviews over what a fun family activity! So fun! So easy, because of the kits! Ours took two days. We had to take a break after our first attempt because SOMEONE threw a tantrum. It was me. But in my defense, I had never made that type of icing before and the recipe said to add five tablespoons of water, and then add by 1/2 teaspoon increments, if needed. "The icing will be thick" it clearly said. The 1/2 teaspoon increments is what really got me, because this was a huge bowl of icing. It seemed to me that a 1/2 teaspoon of water was a negligible amount. So I added water slowly and painfully and then tried to glue the house together by squeezing what was essentially a solid out of a cheap disposable pastry bag, and my hands nearly broke and bag burst and the stupid house fell apart when I went to put the roof on and I HATE THIS STUPID HOUSE AND WHOSE IDEA WAS THIS STUPID PROJECT ANYWAY.

Oh, right. Mine.

So I smeared the icing onto the gingerbread with my fingers, stuck the house together and called it a day. The next day I readjusted my expectations, thinned the icing out so that it would actually squeeze, did NOT throw a fit when the pastry bag burst again, and it was all fine. And then we took a photo and my children posed with completely relaxed and natural expressions.





Finally, there is this:



That thing is the jar lifter from the canning kit I bought this summer. Nora found it a few months ago and decided it was a perfect place to put her baby to bed. There is a part of me so impressed by her ingenuity that I almost don't want to give her the doll cradle we got her for Christmas. But I think I will anyway.