Mah baybees
Warning: This post contains gardening p0rn. Proceed at your own risk!
It’s been raining and raining and raining here, and that’s good, both because of this pesky drought, and because it means I don’t have to water our garden. So instead of watering, on days when it’s not pouring—which would be, in the last two weeks… um, today—I can just go outside and pet the plants and feel smug.
That’s not entirely true, of course. I don’t pet the plants, because they prefer to just be hugged. And I don’t really feel smug, because I’ve never done any gardening from seeds before, and I am ill-suited to the uncertainty of it all. I’ve watched the tomato plants double in size since planting them less than two weeks ago, and that’s my kind of gardening. ZERO EFFORT leading to VISIBLE RESULTS. Yes.
But as the rain came down at the boxes filled with seeds continued to look… exactly the same, I started to fret. read more…
Love’s got style
I remember being told, long ago, that you fall in love with your spouse all over again when you see him falling in love with your child. This was, of course, in reference to my first baby, and I do remember the warm-n-fuzzy feelings of watching my ex unfold as a father, even though it often feels like that happened in a galaxy far, far away, approximately thirty billion light years ago.
No one ever told me that, somehow, that experience would be magnified a thousandfold to watch my husband embrace his role as stepfather. He had no part in creating these children; they are not from or of him; he never went through the process of deciding to bring another human into this world; and if not for me, he would never have entered parenthood (and that would’ve been okay with him).
For me, there’s also the sort of double-bonus in watching my kids weave his presence into their landscape, effortlessly. read more…
Made of corn
Otto and I went to a fancy-schmancy banquet last night, because he won a fancy-schmancy award. Because he’s kind of a rock star.
Sometimes proper parenting has to take a back seat to free steak, so Monkey was informed that his current behavior was being tabled until tonight, because we already had the sitter lined up for last night. (He did, however, write a very nice apology note to the vice principal after we had a brief discussion, which is sort of going to take all the joy out of grounding him for the rest of FOREVER when we talk, tonight.)
(The sitter, by the way, was someone who came on recommendation from a friend of a friend (thanks, Foodie!), and marks the first time I’ve left the children with someone I’ve never met. I still can’t decide if this marks growth on my part or just the worn-down-ed-ness of old age.) Chickadee, in particular, was very excited about the whole thing. read more…
Hold the cocktail sauce
My children are darling little angels.
Except when they aren’t.
And BELIEVE YOU ME, we have plenty of the “aren’t” sorts of instances, ’round here. Though their seemingly limitless capacity for finding NEW and INTERESTING ways to make that little vein in my temple throb sometimes astounds me.
So, you have to go read this post by Joshilyn about how her son Sam has had his first brush with inappropriate profanity. It’s worth the read, trust me. Go! I’ll wait.
It was hilarious, right? And lo, how I giggled. Oh, how I snorted in smug and blissful assurance that SURELY my children were LIGHT YEARS away from any such situation. read more…
Spring cleaning and family togetherness
We’re a busy family, and so like most busy families, we like to use the weekends to reconnect with each other in light of our busy lives. This is generally accomplished via sleeping late and eating pancakes. (Ahhhh—nothing says unity like carbs, am I right?) And then every now and then we try to do something special together.
Saturday was VERY special. I was so far behind on my work, I kicked the entire family out of the house and told them not to come back until I was done.
Ha! I’m just kidding. I would never do that. I mean, how could they possibly know when I’m done, when even I have no long it will take? No, I kicked them out of the house so that they could have a nice day of bonding. That happened to include four+ hours of driving to retrieve Otto’s broken car. And I totally wish I was kidding about that part. read more…
Early geometry geeks
I’m having one of those overwhelmed-with-work kinds of days, and the children have been remarkably patient with me. Thank goodness. Though this does mean that there has been various silliness at the door of my office.
Chickadee: [while pantomiming being stuck in a small box] Help! Help! I’m stuck in a box! I can’t get out!
Monkey: [immediately crouching down and imitating her] Me too! I’m stuck in a box, too!
Chickadee: You can’t be stuck in a box. I’m stuck in a box; you do something else.
[She continues “feeling” the walls of her confines, while he thinks for a minute. Suddenly his face lights up, and he crouches down again, bringing his hands up above his head with the fingertips forming a point above him]
Monkey: Help! Help! I’m stuck in a triangle! I can’t get out!
(I probably shouldn’t have laughed, because from there we had STUCK IN A RHOMBUS and TRAPPED IN A TRAPEZOID and, finally, SHOVED IN A SPHERE. That was when they discovered they could pretend to be racing around the house in those hamster ball things, and I gave up trying to work.)
Love is the journey, not the destination
As the youngest and possibly most impulsive and least patient member of our family, I oftentimes wonder if Monkey feels like his entire life is just everyone telling him NO, over and over again. Some days, it feels like that’s all I do. Put your feet down and sit properly. Please don’t bang. Stop jiggling. Don’t hum at the table. Because she’s older than you are. Because that’s the way it is. Because I said so. No, you may not go ride your bike in the rain. Why is there laundry all over the floor. What happened here??
It’s not exactly the flowers and rainbows and life of constant kisses and hugs and ice cream that I’d always dreamed of, when I pictured motherhood.
One of Monkey’s most endearing qualities, though, is that he’s relentlessly cheerful about 90% of the time. (During the remaining 10% it is recommended that you find the nearest bomb shelter for your own personal safety, but that’s another topic for another day.) And my Monkey has recently discovered a new talent. read more…
The *squish* sound of success
Things haven’t been going so well, over here at the Eyeball Corral.
Oh, it’s true that Chickadee remains a champion contact lens WEARER. I don’t know if lenses are different now or her eyes are just a lot hardier than mine or what, but back in my contact lens days I remember a lot of “AHHHHH! There’s something trapped under the lens! AN EYELASH! THE PAIN!!” and such. She’s headed off to school every day with a lens case and a pair of glasses, just in case, and she hasn’t had a single issue. That part is great.
The part that’s not so great is that she’s now had her contacts for two months and was still showing absolutely zero interest in learning how to put them in for herself. And neither the “You’ll have to take me with you to college” jokes nor my peppy rendition of “L! A! Z! Y! You ain’t go no alibi!” were persuading her to change her ways. read more…
The garden that dumb built
I’m on a five-year plan towards actually growing enough food to cut down our grocery bill.
Two years ago, I bought a house plant. Actually, I sent Otto out to buy me a house plant, because I’m also on a five-year plan to delegate more often. “If I can keep this plant alive for a year,” I told myself, “Next summer I’ll actually try growing something edible.”
The plant is still alive. (Though—it must be noted—somewhat sickly in pallor. I don’t think it likes me.) Last year, I planted herbs, strawberries, tomatoes and some peppers on our deck. “If I can grow these things somewhat successfully,” I told myself, “Next summer I’ll expand my planting, and learn how to can.” (The fact that I now have “learn how to can” as a life goal makes me feel about 85. But as I still have a freezer full of roasted jalapenos, it seems necessary.) The herbs went wild. We had jalapenos coming out of our ears. The banana peppers had some issues, but all in all—a successful season.
This weekend we went all Garden 2.0. read more…
Better than I could’ve imagined
Today may just be the greatest day of my life. Ever.
It’s been kind of a long week, ’round here, with the children being cranky and various meetings being… well, you know, the sorts of meetings where you’re sitting there, hour after hour, questioning your will to go on in a world where people think you need to have 3-hour meetings about minutiae.
I also totally biffed our meal planning this week, and I have absolutely no excuse for it, either. As a result we had “Oh crap, what are we doing for dinner?” every single night this week. Not really my favorite meal, though we worked it out.
And so then today rolled around, and it’s Friday—which is good, because tomorrow’s Saturday, but also bad, because everyone is tired and grumpy—and this morning I was just trying to get breakfast made and lunches packed. read more…