Spilled Milk

advent craftiness. you knew it was coming.

2011-12-02T13:41:00.009-05:00

Holidays! Can you believe it's already December you guys?! Feels like only yesterday we were Skyping Phil in to Christmas morning from the hospital. Ah, the ~~good~~ ol' days.

And look, the stockings-because we lack a chimney- are already hung by the staircase with care.

Jingle on out of the fast lane, slackers, 'cause I have got my act TOGETHER this year.

It's been a while since I've sung the praises of Pinterest. Me thinks it's about that time again.

As a child, I remember having an advent calendar at Christmas every year and in the interest of keeping traditions alive it was important to me that we start doing that with our kids as well. I checked Pinterest for some ideas of homemade advent calendars and, as I've come to expect from my fellow Pinners, there certainly was no shortage of creativity. I melded some of the collective brilliance together and voila! I give you my finished product:

I filled little bags with fun treats like chocolate coins and peppermints, items such as pencils and small notebooks to keep thankfulness journals, and harmonicas to practice making a joyful noise unto the Lord (while also driving me crazy, to be sure). I also filled about half of the bags with fun family activities such as 'Go look at Christmas lights', 'Bake Christmas cookies', 'Dance to Christmas music' or 'Make gifts for the neighbors'.

I used a paint pen on colored cardstock to mark the date, clipped them to some twine with clothespins and strung the whole deal waaaaaaaay up on the curtain rods in our dining room. To deter sneaky little peekers. My plan is to pull out a Bible verse each day to correspond with what's in the baggies as an attempt at keeping things holy up in here.

Our calendar only goes until the 22nd because of our holiday travels. And it starts today because I procrastinate like a mofo.

Anyone have some fun holiday projects they want to show me? I'd love to oooooh and ahhhh over them.

a shout out to the children's leukemia foundation

2011-11-06T12:52:00.005-05:00

I woke up this morning and realized I have three children. Do you ever just do that? Like, how did I get here? It was the sight of Ocean's shoes in the hallway that did it to me. I thought to myself, "WHOA. You are a for real parent. Your kid wears those shoes." Shivers.

Despite moments of weirdness like that, our lives continue to feel more and more normal. The big kids are in school 3 days a week and Phil and I manage to keep ourselves busy in grown-up land. We're trying to be more disciplined and balanced for the sake of the kids, because neither Phil nor I are gifted in those areas. But we're making progress. And we've also managed to squeeze in some fun family time.

Last week we took the kids to the Children's Leukemia Foundation for an Art Day. They got to paint, draw and color while Phil and I hung out and chatted with the super amazing social workers who have been taking such great care of us over the last year. CLF not only represents children with blood cancers, but also children of adult patients with blood cancers. Every Christmas they put together a box of gifts for each of their families; we were overwhelmed last Christmas when a GINORMOUS box arrived on our doorstep filled with wonderful presents for our children. Given the state of things last year, I cannot tell you how much it meant to me knowing that my children were being thought of and cared for when my attention had to be with Phil. Even now, as I write this, my eyes are filled with tears and my heart is bursting with gratitude for the CLF.

As we begin to enter the season of mistletoe, holiday cheer and- let's face it- toy drives, I wanted to draw your attention to this particular organization's efforts. You can find out more about the Holiday Toys program here.

from now on i'm going to let him choose his punishment, because an ice cream trap is way better than what we were going for.

2011-10-19T22:51:00.007-04:00

Ocean was having a terrible time when he got home from school today.

Iris had stayed home from school with a raging fever and Phil was working so by the time Ocean got here I was losing my mind between Iris's demanding screams for more juice and Ruby's physical abuse of Iris, for which she shows absolutely no remorse I might add. (It's a new thing. It's disconcerting. I don't know.) So I didn't have much time to connect with Ocean like I usually do in the afternoon. As a result, he was- as my dear southern mother would say- fit to be tied.

When Phil finished working he tried playing soccer upstairs with Ocean but I could hear Ocean copping an attitude. I went up to chat with him and ended up taking his soccer ball for refusal to cooperate, and then subsequently sent him to his room for sassing me. Different versions of this scenario kept replaying over the next hour. I had had enough and went downstairs to deal with the Sicko and the Sociopath. Finally, Phil came downstairs, opened up the freezer and took out the carton of chocolate ice cream. He put two scoops into a small bowl, set the bowl on the table and called Ocean. "I'm going to try a different approach," Phil said. I raised my eyebrows.

Ocean came downstairs and Phil told him to sit at the table. He sat, then noticed the ice cream. "What's this for?" he asked with a smirk, raising an eyebrow.

Phil said, "Do you think you deserve this, Ocean?"

I was pretty sure I knew where Phil was going with this. We have been talking about God's generosity. How he gives and gives, and we often don't recognize it. That it's not by our efforts that we are given so much, but just because we are loved and part of the family. This is something that I want to communicate to our kids. Generosity- recognizing it, appreciating it and replicating it. For about three-and-a-half seconds, I thought this just might work.

Ocean pondered the question for just a moment before he began to speak, tentatively...

"I heard a story once. It was about a mouse. And there was some cheese in front of him. But then he realized it was a trap. A mouse trap."

Guess we nailed that one.

all done.

2011-08-23T14:26:00.006-04:00

And just like that, Ruby is weaned.

I had tumultuous breastfeeding relationships with both Ocean and Iris. They hated nursing and fought me tooth and nail (literally) at every feeding. I made it a few months with Ocean before I started pumping for him, then we made the transition to cow's milk at about 11 months. I weaned Iris quickly when Phil was diagnosed because nursing was a battle I did not want to fight during that challenging time. She was 9 months old and had no objections. In fact she pretty much responded with, "Finally!" while rolling her eyes.

Ruby has been different. She loves the milkies. As of a month ago she was down to two feedings a day and one in the middle of the night, but without a pacifier or favorite lovey the milkies were her source of comfort and a winding-down before bed. I was seriously dreading having to wean her.

Until.

A couple of weeks ago I realized that my sweet, snuggly, easy baby was turning into a crabby, whiny, cling-on. Her separation anxiety was at an all-time high, when- at her age- it should have been wrapping up. She started waking up every hour at night, expecting to be nursed, and screaming like crazy when I would try to put her back in bed. We were both sleep-deprived and insane. For a moment I considered putting a little bow on her head and giving her to my mom as a gift.

In a moment of clarity inside a moment of desperation inside a moment of sleep deprivation I decided that I had to put the kibosh on the boob. Yep, a boobosh. Weaning was our only hope. I started with her nap that day, bracing myself for a battle of epic proportions. Instead of nursing her to sleep I handed her a cup of milk. She smacked it away. I said, "Mommy milk is all gone." She took the cup, drank the milk and I put her in her crib. She went to sleep.

Just like that.

I nursed her at bedtime for another few days, then did the same thing with the milk cup, letting her know that the milk bar was out of order. She fussed a bit, but took the cup and pointed at her bed. I put her in bed with her cup, left the room and she drank it. Then she fell asleep and slept all night for the first time in months.

MONTHS.

Since then, she has returned to her sweet, happy self. And she's eating better, sleeping better, talking more and using accurate baby signs. As opposed to beating her chest and screaming always.

This one, she is smarter than I.

So now that we're done I'm sad. I know it was time. She is almost 16 months old and really, her behavior was driving me bonkers. So I know the time was right. But having finally had a good breastfeeding experience after two miserable ones makes me grieve the fact that I won't have the opportunity to do it again.

Not enough to actually have another baby, because A. I can't, and B. I can't. But it's just a little emotional. Just like when they start walking, or they say mama for the first time or I guess when they start driving or go to college. Just another milestone that takes them one more step out of the nest and one step closer to being the independent people we're raising them to become.

Because milk from a cup? I mean, she may as well be drinking a cappuccino.

Big. Girl.

let there be light. fixtures.

2011-07-30T19:26:00.014-04:00

We built our house in 2007. When I was 6 days postpartum with Iris we all went to Home Depot to pick out light fixtures. I was hobbling around in a fog of hormones and achy butt, pointing at things for Phil to load up into our cart. It was not fun. It was misery. And we have a house full of boob lights to show for it.

Looking back, I wish I had had more time to choose what fixtures we'd end up with. But mostly I wish Pinterest was around back then.

I recently fell head over heels for this light fixture from Pottery Barn Teen, which I thought would look fabulous in Ruby's room:

Image via Pottery Barn

At $128 it was a definite no-go. But never fear... I began a Pinterest adventure looking for a DIY version.

Eureka:

Image via Freshly Picked

Isn't that gorgeous?? It's made of wax paper! Genius.

Problem: While I really like the look of the white, the colors in the Pottery Barn chandelier were what caught my eye. And the lazy side of me thought it seemed a little labor intensive to use wax paper.

So... I used vellum. I'm not going to go through the whole process because Susan at Freshly Picked has a very thorough tutorial.

Instead, I'll show you a few pictures. Here's the thrifted lamp shade I got for $1.50 at the Ann Arbor PTO Thrift Shop, aka my new favorite joint.

Here's the shade once I had cut off the fabric. I then spray-painted it white.

Pretend that I was smart/awesome enough to take a bunch of pictures of myself circle-punching, sewing and draping. Insert those imaginary pictures here. (Oooooh. Aaaaaaah.)

I installed it above the existing boob light using 4 small screw-in hooks. The fixture has a CFL light bulb so it doesn't get hot. I kept the light on all day today while I was inside and checked it periodically. You know, just in case. It was fine. Barely warm even. (If you attempt this project you'll want to do the same thing since all light fixtures are different.)

Total cost breakdown for the project:
Lamp shade: $1.50
Vellum: $20 (I had to special order the colors I wanted which is why it was so expensive)
Circle punch: $10
Thread and paint: Free. I already had them on hand.
Hooks: Free. My dad bought them for me. =)
Total cost: $31.50

And just for fun, here are some of the other projects I've done in her room:

I have plans to DIY a different kind of chandelier for Iris's room. More on that later. I'm also on the lookout for an industrial style fixture for Ocean's room so if anyone has any ideas about that I'm all ears.

Here's a blurry/jumpy Miss Roo enjoying her new chandelier.

Working on something you saw on Pinterest? Get in on the Young House Love Pinterest Challenge!

it's too hot to blog.

2011-07-13T10:03:00.004-04:00

I feel like I might die from heat-induced exasperation and annoyance.

Yes, yes. I'm a weenie-whiny baby. And I'm officially opening the floor for all of you to lovingly poke fun at my intolerance of this heat. I know some of you have it much, much worse, speaking in terms of temperature and humidity/misery-quotient. I've been to Atlanta and Dallas, and lived in North Carolina. So I know 90 degrees is nothing compared to what some of you must endure. But my midwestern blood is thick, baby, and I can't take it take it take no more.

So instead of having to use up precious energy blogging about how much I'm sweating, I thought it would be less disgusting to make a Suburban Matron inspired pie chart to indicate how I'm spending my time*.

*Just go ahead and assume simultaneous sweating is occurring with each activity.

sauced

2011-06-22T21:19:00.002-04:00

We were driving to our friends' house this evening. Just to paint you a picture, Ocean and Iris sit in the third row and Ruby is in the second row. I was in the passenger seat and Phil was driving. We grown ups were chatting and things were fairly quiet from the peanut gallery in the back when suddenly something flew from the back of the car, sailing past my head and splattering against the windshield, showering me with wet, cold grossness.

I screeched, "What the hell?!" and looked over at Phil. His eyes were huge. I examined a blob of goo on my arm and determined quickly that it was applesauce. It was all over the side of my face and down the front of my shirt, and of course it covered the dashboard. By this time Phil was saying something to the kids but I interrupted, "No. NO. Pull this car over NOW."

Phil pulled into the first driveway he saw, which happened to be a day care center at pick-up time. I hope it doesn't make me a terrible parent that I thought at that instant, "Oh man. This means I can't really yell at them like I want to."

I opened my door, grabbing a pack of wipes on my way out, and sprang around to the other side of the car. I opened the door and proceeded to give them the weirdest lecture I've ever given to date. While covered in applesauce.

When apologies were said (many times over) and I had cleaned myself up to the best of my ability (with a few wipes and an old sippy cup of water-- let's hear it for never cleaning out my vehicle) I got back in the car and looked at Phil, shaking my head. We both sat there for a second in silence when I realized how ridiculous this whole thing was and we quickly covered our mouths so the kids wouldn't hear us cracking up. I slumped down in my seat and mouthed again, "What the hell?!" Phil whispered, "I just can't believe they threw applesauce. Who does that?"

I mean, it's not like I've never wanted to throw a full cup of applesauce across three seats in a moving vehicle. But there's a time and a place, tiny people. There's a time and place.

who she is

2011-05-31T21:04:00.006-04:00

It's been 13 months since this Ruby character arrived onto the scene and I think I really like her.

She's loud like her sister. And she says what's on her mind. Mostly that's Dada or, when she gets a glimpse of Phil from across the room, Hi Dada. She says Ara for Iris, Ny-ny for Mimi (my mom) and as far as I can tell she doesn't have a word yet for Ocean. She says my name, "Bwwwwwaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" As in, she whines and screams when she sees me. Seriously, she still doesn't say mama or mom or mommy or anything. BUT when you drop something on the floor she will put her hands on the side of her face, gasp and say, "Ah-deh" (Oh, dear).

She has six teeth. Four on the top and two on the bottom. They are perfectly white and perfectly gappy.

She is extroverted. She waves and says hi and buh-buh to everyone who passes, cars included. She smiles the brightest, loveliest smile anyone has ever seen and makes you feel like you're the greatest person who ever lived.

She is just now learning to drink out of a cup and isn't all that into food yet, although she will eat pretty much anything off of the floor. Sequins, rocks, Legos... We went for a little stroll yesterday and had been outside for a good 10 minutes when she opened her mouth and spit out a pistachio shell that I had no idea she'd been sucking on.

She hates to swing or slide. She actually is terrified to swing. Which is strange given her affinity for stunts.

By that I mean, she climbs. Anything that looks like it might be climbable. One morning last week I left the room for a moment and Iris started yelling, "Ruby's on the chair!" I thought she was on a little child's Ikea chair. I came into the kitchen and she was standing on a bar stool just looking positively smug. A few days later I left her in her highchair to run upstairs. Two minutes later I heard her yelling and hustled downstairs to find her standing on the kitchen table. She wiggles out of grocery cart seatbelts and stands on the seat while I have my back turned reading labels, and she likes to stand facing backward on the seat of her rocking chair and rock violently, presumably trying to tip it over. Phil lovingly calls her Evil Knievel.

Her favorite book is "Hand Hand Fingers Thumb" and she whips through it almost faster than you can read it just so you will start it all over again. I think she likes it so much because of the drumming. She loves to pick up a stick or a spoon and bang on the nearest object she can find. Intently. And with purpose. She seems to really enjoy making rhythms.

She loves to dance.

She also loves to sing and knows how to use a microphone. Her favorite song, I think, is the song we sing to bless the food before our meals. She lights up when we hold hands and start singing, "Lord we thank you..."

She likes to climb onto the couch, grab the remote control and point it at the television, over and over. Yet she is the only one of the three kids who doesn't like to watch TV.

I think she would really like dolls. We've had to become a doll-free zone because Iris is terrified of them. Ruby is often found walking around the house, clutching one of Ocean's super heroes under her arm, giving Iron Man kisses or rocking The Incredible Hulk.

She has dark blond ringlets that stick to the back of her chubby neck when she's all sweaty from running around with Her Big Kids. She likes to play with her hair when I'm nursing her before bed. Her bright blue eyes get heavier and heavier while she drinks her milk and mindlessly twirls the hair on top of her head.

She has a wonky toe on each foot. The middle ones. They hide underneath the toes on either side.

She can sign "All done", "Please", "Hat" and "More".

She smells like summertime.

Photos by Isaac Smith

it's the rainy season. must do projects.

2011-05-25T09:49:00.009-04:00

It's been raining here for roughly 539 days. Instead of my slippers I just get out of bed and put on my rain boots. When it rains, my children cry all day and I do projects. It's how we pass the time.

Remember when I was organizing paperwork? And I mentioned that I wanted to paint my china cabinet?

Just to recap, we bought it from a guy on Craig's List a few years ago, intending to paint it. I'm a huge fan of pretty wood and would never paint something unless it was ugly. This was ugly. There were parts that had been stripped and then, presumably when the owner realized what a tedious job it would be and changed his mind mid-project, painted over with a not-quite-matching shade of brownish paint. Classy.

So about a month or so ago I got the gumption to tackle it. I got a buttload of sandpaper and went to work on a Wednesday night. I made it through The Middle, Better With You and Modern Family when I accidentally knocked over that huge roll of paper to the right. It may not look like it but it weighs about a million pounds. It teetered around for a while and I did this awkward little avoidance maneuver where I jumped back-no-sideways-wait-it's-going-to-fall-on-my-big-tooooooooooooooooooe. And much cussing, and later bruising, ensued. The mission was aborted and I avoided eye contact with the china cabinet for about a week after that.

It took me a couple of weeks and several glasses of wine to sand, prime and paint this bad boy. Last week I finally finished up, switched out the knobs and filled it back up with my precious things.

Much better and worth the effort, I think. I probably wouldn't do it again, though. My toe is still recovering and it was a super tedious task.

With that project done I've been looking for the next thing to do. Phil and I were driving through a random neighborhood the other day and found this black faux leather ottoman just sitting on the curb. The only thing wrong with it, other than the fact that it was black faux leather, was a wonky button. We stopped and I threw it in the car, figuring I could slipcover it pretty easily.

I got some awesome brown and white zebra upholstery fabric on sale and used this tutorial to make my slipcover. It was a two-evening project but I'm pleased with how it turned out.

For my next project I'm going to figure out how to use my camera. White Balance is my nemesis.

What about you? Got any good projects going on?

the end is... here?

2011-05-21T00:00:00.000-04:00

I hate to be the one to break it to you guys but Judgment Day is today. Well, only if you're in America. I guess if you're not in America it doesn't count or something? Because CNN hasn't been reporting any apocalyptic type situations in Asia or Australia. And I've heard nary a trumpet blast in my neck of the woods so either someone's lying or I'm completely screwed.

My friend Lindsay emailed me the above link yesterday. Yesterday. I would have liked a little more notice but what can you do. She then stated that I should be on the lookout for a pair of shoes and half-eaten burritos at her house. I think I'm going to get one of those bumper stickers that says "In case of rapture this car will be unmanned", put it on my car and then leave my car parked in the middle of Main Street in downtown Ann Arbor.

I'm thinking that if Amy's still around the date was probably miscalculated. Amy? You there?

the question we should be asking is who exactly "they" are.

2011-05-14T10:17:00.003-04:00

Iris: I would be sad if my bottom came off.

Me: Yeah. That would be... weird.

Iris: Yeah, I don't want a big hole there!

Me: Good thing it won't come off. It's on there pretty good.

Iris: Why? Did they use a special kind of glue? Bottom glue?

getting stuff done.

2011-05-10T10:13:00.004-04:00

We've had some ridiculous fluctuations in temperature here in southeast Michigan and within any given week (and sometimes any given day) we experience everything from 40 degrees and rainy to 75 degrees and sunny. This is nothing new for springtime in Michigan but it's just been a little more extreme this year. It's nothing to complain about given the severity of weather in other places. So all things considered I'm grateful that the only 'problem' this produces is an abundance of laundry, but it is a bit of an inconvenience nonetheless.

I haven't been able to put away any winter clothes, yet I've had to tap into the summer stash as well. Some days we have to change outfits in the middle of the day because the weather changes so drastically. Double the clothes to wash = laundry paralysis. There's so much to do that I'm not sure where to begin and we end up with a DEFCON 1 laundry situation, like the one brewing in my bedroom right now:

(Sidebar: I once saw an organizational show where the decorator walked a mother through her messy house and there was a pile of laundry in the hallway. He stopped and asked the mother, "Do you consider yourself a good mother?" She tearfully answered Yes and, gesturing to the laundry on the floor, this wifeless, childless buttmunch decorator had the nerve to say, "What about this situation indicates that you are a good mother?" My desire to kick him in the junk was overwhelming.)

You're probably thinking something along the lines of, "Maybe you should quit blogging about it and git yer butt to folding, woman." And I will. But first, in the spirit of procrastination, I wanted to compile a short list of things that, while important in and of themselves, give me a false sense of productivity in that they don't truly address the daily housekeeping tasks that I should be doing to ensure that we don't end up living in filth.

1. Changing the dead batteries in a toy or electronic device.

2. Making lists.

3. Going to Target.

4. Putting away the 3 largest objects in any given room so it looks cleaner.

5. Rearranging and/or changing out artwork and photos on the walls.

6. Trapping the mess inside of closets by closing the doors.

Okay, I'm really going to start folding now. Are there little things you do around the house or at work that make you feel more productive?

discipline fail.

2011-05-03T10:54:00.005-04:00

Ocean and Iris are at a strange discipline-transitional phase where time outs are no longer effective. Ocean just pretends he's in a rocket ship and Iris lays on her back and belts out show tunes until the timer beeps. When I ask why they're in time out they make something up just to get out of it. It's like a police interrogation gone horribly awry. Yeah yeah yeah I tripped someone or threw my food or kicked the dog we don't have just get me the crap out of this cold, dark foyer so I can get back to the very important business of ripping up three rolls of toilet paper like a hamster and stuffing microscopic pieces of it into every nook and cranny in the entire house, thankyouverymuch.

At the suggestion of several friends I've now employed the rather effective technique of taking away something of importance for a certain amount of time, based on the offense. You grab something out of her hand? Oops, there goes your Spiderman. You scream in his face? Sorry, Ducky goes bye bye for a few hours. Toy is removed. Behavior is corrected with a conversation. Toy is returned within 24 hours. It works beautifully for my kids.

Normally all three kids are quite well-behaved in public. I always like to anticipate potential blow-ups before they happen-- I know their limits and eating/sleeping patterns and stressors and hot buttons and reactions to changes in barometric pressure. Like if it's 3:08pm on the first Monday of the month, we had cheese for a snack and it's rained for the last three days, we can stay at the mall for approximately 1.5 hours before Iris loses her mind and goes crawling on all fours like a "syterapots" (triceratops) through Macy's with her underwear on her head. This is the kind of deductive reasoning we do here.

The other day, though, I found myself out with three rather unruly children and not one beloved object between them to use as a disciplinary tactic. Ocean and Iris both had more than one stern talkin'-to about running away from me so close to the street and then they started that awesome I'm in your face but I'm not touching yoooooouuuuuuuuu nonsense that's been infuriating parents since the beginning of time. Flustered by Ruby's screaming and the older kids' racing around in circles while simultaneously whining and poking at each other I did what we, as mothers, try to never do. I spoke before I knew what I was going to say.

What I meant to do was communicate a concise, "If X, then Y" scenario in which the kids would get the message that there would be an immediate consequence for any further disobedience. What happened instead (and I blame, once again, the stress hormones released by the screams of the baby and the low blood sugar from not having had a snack and what the heck let's go ahead and blame the barometer as well) was that I said this:

"Ocean! You-- stop it. Stop it now. In fact, you have lost... uh, standing.... privileges. You no longer have the... privilege... of standing. You must sit down. Now. Sit."

And Ocean and Iris both looked at me like I'd lost my damn mind. Because I had. But Ocean sat down with kind of a little smile like he was going to humor me even though I clearly had no earthly idea what just came out of my mouth and I took my own time out before packing all of us up and heading home.

Where we had a nice snack and then a nap.

a walk on the child side

2011-04-23T22:31:00.003-04:00

Oh, yeah. This just happened:

And it took me back here, when Iris took those first few steps.

I get all kinds of disbelieving looks when I say life gets easier when baby starts walking. Experienced moms click their tongue at me and new moms say I'm crazy.

Which is probably valid.

Say what you will. I stand by my argument that walkers are easier than crawlers. Yes, walkers have a bit more potential to get into stuff and yes, you kiss a lot more boo-boos but aside from that there's a new kind of freedom that happens for baby and mom once they get to runnin' around. Baby is now free to explore her environment on her terms and I get to do things two-handed again. Score.

I relished this transition with Ocean and Iris but it's bittersweet this time since Ruby is absolutely, positively the last baby. I can hardly believe she will be the big O-N-E in a few short days. I seem to have misplaced the last year of my life. Has anyone seen it?

college collage

2011-04-14T20:41:00.004-04:00

This conversation just happened this evening in the car:

Ocean: When I get big to go to college, I'm not going to go to college.

Me: What will you do instead?

Ocean: School.

Me: Well college is school, but it's the kind of school where you go and live there and learn stuff.

I hear a sob and look in the rear view mirror to see Iris crying.

Me: Iris, what's wrong?

Iris: (chin quivering, tears now streaming) I don't want Ocean to leave!

Ocean: Well that's my choice, Iris.

Me: Ocean! She's sad... please be sweet to her.

Ocean: It's okay Iris.

Me: Iris, maybe you and Ocean could go live at college together, just the two of you.

Iris: (wailing) But I will miss YOU!

Me: Okay, okay... what if you guys go to Michigan and you can live in our basement. We'll get you some bunk beds and you can have an apartment down there.

O & I: Yeah!

Iris: We can have our own college in the basement!

Ocean: And we can draw ALL OVER the walls!

iris's breakfast: thursday

2011-03-31T09:04:00.003-04:00

Mixed nuts.

iris's breakfast: wednesday

2011-03-30T09:19:00.004-04:00

By request Iris is enjoying a bowl of vanilla yogurt and cold pizza with green and black olives, onions and green pepper

Also I think Ruby may follow in her sister's footsteps since she's currently enjoying the crust from Iris's first piece of pizza.

This is not the strangest breakfast I've seen around here. I'll try to be better about documenting them.

mount paperwork: climbed and conquered.

2011-03-28T12:17:00.013-04:00

It took me longer than expected to tackle the mountain of paperwork in our house but I am happy to report that I'm officially done.

I wish I could say the only problem we had in this area was incoming mail and medical stuff but tragically the kids had a crisis of their own brewing in the corner of our dining room:

They do multiple art projects every day and the table is the most logical place to do crafts so we had set up a little contain-all/catch-all station next to the china cabinet. The problem is I never had a plan for it to begin with so this area quickly became a pile of supplies mixed up with artwork with no real purpose other than sending me into fits every time I thought about it. And can I have a little mommy confession time? Most of this "art" wasn't worth saving. What can I say? We can't keep everything and the majority of this didn't meet closet wall standards.

I tackled this while Ocean was in school, Iris was playing quietly and Ruby was napping. I got myself a big cup of coffee and started going through The Pile. Most everything went into the recycling bin. The pieces that made the cut were those which made me smile with delight. Drawings of our family, hand tracings, writing samples. I didn't follow a set formula for keeping or pitching, just whatever felt right. Then their respective art went into color-coded bins which my mom bought me over a year ago for this very purpose. (I'm a slow learner.) The bins fit neatly on the top shelf in our foyer closet which is located directly on the other side of the china cabinet wall- out of sight but easily accessible.

Now what to do with the art supplies? I have a basket way up high in our mudroom that contains the art supplies over which I maintain control- paint, sequins, glue, markers and tape. I want them to be free to get a piece of paper and draw whenever the mood strikes but I don't want it taking over our eating space. So I cleaned the clutter out of the bottom of the china cabinet and voila:

The far right is an empty shoebox full of paper for drawings. The middle is our trusty craft carousel, full of washable crayons, colored pencils, safety scissors and glue stick. The far left side has an empty shoe box for the kids to deposit finished artwork, and I will go through it when it's full to figure out what stays and what goes.

So here's the finished project:

Other paper-related areas that I tackled last week:

-The corner of the kitchen counter where all the bills land
BEFORE:

The amount of crap is staggering

AFTER:

Smaller basket, tidier nook

-My backlog of coupons

Cut and filed

-A cardboard box full of stuff that needed to be sorted, shredded and/or filed

"Shred me!"

Whew.

As a side note, this project got me thinking about my china cabinet. We bought it off Craig's List a couple of years ago for $40 with the intention of painting it but I just never got around around to it-- does anyone know if I have to sand before priming? Because that will determine whether it gets painted or not. Thoughts?

Also, for those of you who are tackling projects of your own feel free to link your posts in the comments. I want to see your progress!

all better

2011-03-24T21:20:00.004-04:00

Nine days and a combined 7 pounds later everyone is finally healthy. The kids are asking for and eating olives and peas. Mixed up in a bowl. For breakfast.

A sure sign that everything is a-okay, digestively speaking.

All surfaces are sanitized and I'm in the middle of the laundry pile from hell as we speak but there's no better kick-off to spring cleaning than a good old fashioned bout of vomit and diarrhea, don'tcha think?

I'm so motivated in fact that I decided to take part in Simple Mom's Project: Simplify. Candice's closet inspired me to start making a dent in some of the clutter we've accumulated over the last few years and the Simple Mom project has some great ideas for getting started with those clutter magnets in the home as well as creating lasting organizational systems to help keep things tidy.

I'm joining the party sooooooper late (why attempt to be punctual now?) but started with, and already made some serious headway in, the paperwork department. I can't tell you how absolutely buried we are in the paperwork associated with Phil's myeloma. Medical bills, insurance forms, disability claims, doctors notes, lab reports... all of you guys who have been through similar situations or have had chronic medical conditions totally know where I'm coming from. And not to mention the normal life stuff like bills, catalogs and magazines that come through the mail and just get chucked on top of everything else. Until now I haven't found the motivation to tackle it all. I mean why on earth would I want to spend a whole evening sorting through a mountain of paper when I could watch reruns of Greek on Netflix? I think the technical term for this dilemma is "laziness". But seriously, I'm so sick of the real estate it's taking up in my life and on my counters so I took a stab at it last night and I feel about 20 pounds lighter. And that's not even because of the stomach flu.

I'll probably skip this week's challenge with the kids' stuff because I stay pretty on top of their clothes already and their toys are no longer a huge issue after last week's absolute kid crap takedown. I figure I'll just tack another week on when it's over and handle my closet and wardrobe then since it might finally be warm enough to bring out some spring clothes at that point. Or at the very least maybe we'll be done with the winter storm warnings and I can put away my winter boots.

Anyone else taking part in Project: Simplify? Or just doing some spring (or seasonal) cleaning on your own? Do tell!

if you don't want to read about me feeling sorry for myself over a dumb stomach virus stop reading now.

2011-03-21T21:45:00.010-04:00

Not to be all Woe Is Me but seriously, this stomach bug has been neverfreakingending. Ocean started puking last Tuesday night and didn't leave the couch for about 48 hours. He wasn't able to stomach any food until Thursday when he ate about a dozen Cheerios and a saltine cracker. Progress! Iris started with a tummy ache on Thursday also but never barfed (yay grape juice and colloidal silver) and neither of them have had much more than toast, saltine crackers and a few juice popsicles since. Oh, I mean besides the Doritos this afternoon. You can ask Phil about that. And then ask me about the subsequent fallout. Or maybe not because it was gross.

In hindsight Doritos were a bad idea.

I'm so, so sad for how rotten they feel. I really am. There's nothing worse than when your precious little babies are feeling badly. But mostly the whining feels like it might drive me to drink. I'm not sure if their incessant fussing is actually a result of illness or just the six straight days of PBS Kids we've watched. (Does too much TV make your kids irritating too? No? Just mine?) Once Ocean was able to lift his head off his pillow I finally turned off the TV and Iris flipped out. I told her that our brains were going to turn into mashed potatoes and she stopped crying long enough to look at me completely wide-eyed before bursting into tears.

Mashed potatoes? Seriously? If you're lying I'm totally calling my Congressman.

And just in case you're wondering how quickly you can blow through two gallons of Clorox bleach and 75 pairs of latex gloves the answer is 48 hours. Say what you will about nasty chemicals and landfills but it was worth it because the rest of us were spared and also right now I don't give a rip about anything but not barfing.

What happened to the good ol' days when a stomach virus only lasted 24 hours? Hem. Haw. Sigh.

Here's a cute baby to make amends for such a disgusting conversation topic.

What's wrong with you people? Quit yer whining and give me milk. Milllllllllk.

uncle! UNCLE!

2011-03-16T20:49:00.006-04:00

I promised an update on that whole black tie optional situation. I decided to wear this:

But, as it turns out, I got hit with the flu and had to stay home. Wheee! Thankfully our friend Eric went in my stead and he and Phil had a great time at the ball, then went to the bar and closed it out while I was shivering and sweating under my covers, the surrounding floor littered with tissues and Dear God Why?s.

And now, we've been hit with another stomach bug. Only Ocean is affected at the moment and I blame myself for getting cocky since we already had this junk a few times (Hello, immune systems? Are you freaking there?) and I totally slacked on all my preventive ritual silliness. In fact when my precious little guy started ralphing last night I totally panicked because I was completely out of cranberry juice, colloidal silver AND probiotics... and Whole Foods was closed. Thankfully my mom saved my butt as she is apt to do, driving to my house at midnight to bring me the rest of her stash which got us through the night.

Ocean told me that today is the worst day in the world and I can see his sad little 5-year-old point. Also he wailed that he's "a hungry little boy who likes to eat" when I denied him a bowl of Cheerios. So pitiful. But I know he'll feel much better in the morning after some sleep. We ALL will feel better in the morning, I gather.

I'm pretty delirious from lack of sleep and caffeine withdrawal (something about people puking around me makes coffee really unappealing) and I keep typing the wrong words so I'm gonna wrap it up before pulling out the air mattress for the night.

Please send me news of the outside world, particularly stuff about sunshine and warm temps and daffodils blooming and people NOT throwing up.

the story of (our) stuff

2011-03-11T20:01:00.007-05:00

Is it just me or does it seem like babies are born into the world and then immediately have all their junk shipped overnight to your house? It's like one day I went into labor and left for the hospital with a neat, tidy home only to return to overturned furniture and primary-colored plastic crap littering every square inch of my house.

All my kids leave little snail trails of stuff wherever they roam but Iris has the most intriguing style of creating a mess. She likes to put stuff in stuff. She gathers every assortment of container she can find-- laundry baskets, tupperware, toy bins, hampers-- and dumps everything she owns into them. Helping her clean up is maddening because it's essentially starting from scratch to put everything back where it belongs. We've talked about it a lot this week because frankly I'm sick of dealing with the mess. The kids don't really have a lot of toys but they do have a few toys with a lot of small parts. Like this:

And this:

And of course, these:

This afternoon I walked into Iris's room where she and Ocean were up to no good. I knew this was the case because as soon as I crossed the threshold into her room they both fell prostrate and remained perfectly quiet and still, as if they were playing dead. They call this Camouflage, and they do it when they're making bad choices. Sure enough, they had a laundry basket full of plastic animals from A to Z, all the play food from their kitchen and about 20 plastic hangers that came out of goodness-knows-which closets. (A nest, Iris informed me later.) Also, Ocean was wearing his Wolverine costume and Iris had blue glitter paint on her face but that seems to be beside the point.

Now I don't know if it's the cabin fever or the snow we got last night or this cold we've been passing around for a month but for some reason this little scene was my tipping point. I got the trash bags and started putting stuff in them. I wonder how often Salvation Army gets "Mom's Final Straw" donations? Well, they're getting one this weekend. Holla!

After a brief lecture on being responsible for their things I tossed the dirty laundry they had emptied from the basket down the stairs and started making my way down after it when Ocean, pointing solemnly at the pile of laundry at the bottom of the steps said, rather altruistically, "Actually, Mommy, you need to be responsible for your things."

black tie optional

2011-03-08T15:25:00.004-05:00

Phil and I have an event on Saturday night, at which he is one of the speakers. The attire is Black Tie Optional. I'm having a hard time figuring out what this means.

We all are confused.

And by that I mean I don't want to have to buy anything. The kids helped me go through my already meager closet offerings and it has me wondering if I can get away with my trusty LBD or a cocktail dress.

What would you wear? Keep in mind this is Ann Arbor so things tend to run a degree or two more casual here, and also there's still lots of snow on the ground. (Although I'm pretty sure my winter boots do NOT fall under the category of black tie anything. Right?)

ocean

2011-02-28T19:48:00.006-05:00

It was a Tuesday.

You arrived with the morning sun, streaming into our lives with your bright smile and sweet spirit.

You were crying.

So were we.

Happy 5th Birthday to the little boy who made me into a mom.

infected

2011-02-23T09:51:00.004-05:00

Well, it was only a matter of time.

Phil came down with a nasty cold last weekend (for which he is now on an antibiotic and had to go to the hospital for a neupogen shot last night. Good times.) and now all three kids have succumbed to the snot and hacking cough. I'm the only one still holding my own but me thinks it won't be long since Ocean hands me a used tissue every 53 seconds and Ruby keeps sneezing directly in my mouth. There isn't enough Purell in the world, people.

I'm hyper-sensitive to bringing contagious kids out in public places given our own susceptibility to infection, which means I generally don't go anywhere with them when they're drippy and hacking, so we're pretty much house-bound which makes the world feel like it's stopped for a few days.

We did get outside for some playtime after that crazy snow happened since I had to dig us out of a foot or so over the last couple of days-- and also spent a fair amount of time digging out unwitting motorists who attempted to drive down our treacherous street. (Stay off Fifth Street after a snowfall, Ann Arbor! Try Seventh or Main if you must head downtown.) I brought the two big kids outside with me to play in the yard while I shoveled which allowed Ruby and Phil to sleep while we got a little fresh air, but it's generally way too cold and snowy to have sick kids outside for too long, even with the scores of layers I impose on them. Plus frozen snot is just sick.

I'm kind of running out of ideas to keep these kids occupied. We've baked, crafted, sewed, planted, bathed, cleaned and danced. Any other suggestions?

some have skeletons in their closets. we have...

2011-02-20T14:15:00.000-05:00

Oh my word. Can I pretty please just show you the inside of Iris's closet?

I wish I could get a good picture of the whole thing, but because it's inside a closet it's hard to get the whole angle. The drawings cover a surface area of about 5 feet wide and 6 feet tall. I love how their names and hand tracings are all over it. Not that they could deny doing this, but it just shows how totally in the moment they were and certainly not at all concerned about being found out.

Left: Ocean. Spiderman.
Right: Iris. Spidergirl.

I will not mention which parent was on duty when this scribblefest went diggity-down (hint) but all I know is I came home in the afternoon to approximately two tiny people attempting to persuade me to not go into Iris's closet and exactly one big person shaking his head in either complete agreement or utter disbelief. I think he was still in shock, really.

Iris pointing out her rainbow elephants.

What appears to be a mythical creature and two people presumably being crucified. Which is weird because we haven't yet broached that subject.

Naturally I hightailed my hiney right on up to the scene of the crime. And what a sight to behold, eh? I couldn't even really be mad. Oh, make no mistake, they got a scolding and the crayons have been banished to a very high altitude for the time being. But... it's gorgeous. So intricate and well-thought out and I'm pretty sure there's a scene from the book of Revelation in there somewhere. The color! The detail! And it's taller than I am, you guys! It's like an itty-bitty little Sistene Chapel and they worked so hard on it and honestly... I don't have the heart to make them clean it off.

More elephants and some raindrops.

Our solar system. With space ships. It's at the top, about 6 feet high.

Occasionally I find myself wandering in there to admire the masterpiece. I don't really know if we'll let it remain but I try to imagine how I'll feel looking at this when the kids are teenagers, or when they're grown.

Oh so proud.

It can stay, right? It's inside a closet after all...

unsolicited advice wednesday: food issues

2011-02-15T13:35:00.004-05:00

Remember that dinner scene with the mashed potatoes in A Christmas Story? You know the one I'm talking about.

I love this mom's ingenuity and willingness to let things get a little messy just to accomplish the task of getting her child to eat. Genius parenting.

I often lose sight of why I do things as a parent and just want my kids to listen to me because I'm the mom and I know best and because-I-said-so-that's-why. And while obedience is a non-negotiable in our house I have to remind myself there's no reason obedience has to mean sucking the fun right out of mealtime by being a big fat poopyhead. I want my kids to enjoy the experience of food-- gathering around a table with people they love and sharing a meal. It's community at it's funnest and tastiest.

That said, I am probably more challenged as a parent by my kids' eating habits than I am by anything else. I grow weary of feeding them. I mean they eat at least three times a day! Usually more! And they are messy. Boy are they messy. They've always been finicky, even as babies. I'm grateful that they enjoy healthy foods but they go through phases of what they will and won't eat and it's exhausting trying to keep up. So mostly I don't try to keep up. I serve what I serve, the rule is "Try It Once" and if they don't eat it after that they can be hungry until the next meal.

However, I've learned three solid moves that help with getting them to at least try what's on their plates, even if they then choose not to eat it.

1. Skewer it. My kids will eat anything if you put it on a stick. And it turns out pretty much anything can be put on a stick. Cheese, fruit, steamed veggies, sandwiches, olives, whatever. An alternative to this is arranging bite-sized food items on a plate and giving them a toothpick to eat with. I don't know why they love it, but they sure do.

2. Sauce-ify it. No matter what they're eating, if I incorporate a small bowl of some type of sauce or dip they will eat more. And especially with a new food that they claim not to like, I encourage them to give it another go by offering a dip on the second try. Ketchup, dressing, yogurt, hummus, syrup, nut/seed butter... and I mix it up. The creative combinations they invent are astounding and often disgusting. But they eat it up.

3. Play with it. Be a giant and eat as many broccoli trees and black bean rocks as you can! Stack up your food as tall as you can and what falls off has to be eaten in five seconds! Close your eyes, take a bite and guess what you're eating! Tomatoes vs. asparagus: whoever gets eaten first wins! It makes no sense at all, but for some dumb reason it works.

Mostly.

And during those meals when nothing works I remind myself that their weekly nutrition is more important than their daily intake, throw some Cheerios in their general direction and try again at the next meal.

So that's what works for us. What types of mealtime trickery work at your casa?

unsolicited advice wednesday: movies

2011-02-09T09:58:00.006-05:00

If you know me, you know I'm not a mom who shies away from a little screen time now and again, especially since I value things like, I don't know, showering and cooking actual food for dinner. Last summer we definitely exceeded the average 2 hours daily screen time while we were going through all that bone marrow transplant nonsense. You'll notice though, child psychologists, my kids survived and as far as I can tell their brains are just fine-ish.

We've since cut it down considerably and, miracle of miracles, some days the TV doesn't even come on (Hallelur-yuh!) but we've started a family movie night once a week as a fun evening activity, complete with popcorn and sofa-snuggling. The challenge with our young kids is finding a movie that's enjoyable for all of us. Like many things in life, Phil and I obviously have to sacrifice our personal tastes for the good of the children (Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson will have to wait) but there are some compromises we just. can't. make. Like, for example, an actual plot (gasp!) and some humor to keep us awake and engaged. Ocean likes exciting adventures with lots of action. Iris, for being such a tough cookie, is quite the delicate flower when it comes to movies and TV. She's extremely sensitive to anything dark or any type of adversity. Which is sort of a problem since every movie ever made has the whole protagonist/antagonist thing happening.

I've found three flicks that work for our family, and are particularly good for the sensitive set with a real lack of anything scary or threatening, which I wanted to pass on in case anyone else has run into the same conundrum.

1. Curious George. Will Ferrell is funny as The Man With the Yellow Hat, the plot is interesting and while Ivan, the doorman, is a little intimidating his few scenes are short and can be easily fast-forwarded without losing any of the plot.

2. Disney's Cars. And not just because Iris is obsessed with Lightning McQueen. It's funny and the story is sweet with good lessons built in. The only scary part is when McQueen and Mater are being chased through the corn fields by a combine harvester (did I mention Iris also loves trucks and tractors?) and, again, that part can be skipped right over.

3. Alvin and the Chipmunks. There's a tiny bit of potty humor which is less than desirable but nothing overtly nasty. And nothing frightening or dark. The plot is interesting enough to keep us all on board and the music is toe-tappin' good.

It goes without saying that you should preview these before showing them to your kids but they have worked well as our movie night staples.

And what about you? What family-friendly movies are you watching with your kids that I'm missing?

barf + blizzard = a party!

2011-02-02T19:44:00.003-05:00

Well, it happened. We got that nasty stomach bug, despite my best efforts to ward it off. I will say that I'm pretty sure the cranberry juice worked for Phil since he and Ruby were the only two to avoid getting ill, and I never actually got sick myself, just had stomach lava for a couple of days. (Kudos if you get the stomach lava reference.) I was religiously using all of my voodoo potions as well as surgical masks and latex gloves but when you're being barfed on without warning it's sort of hard to avoid. Iris got it the worst, the full GI gamut including a raging fever all day yesterday, and Ocean was a little worse than me but not terrible so I'm inclined to think all the grape juice we pumped into his system once Iris got sick did a little something to make things a bit milder for him.

Yesterday was the hardest day since Iris and I were up all night sick on Monday. I got an hour of sleep and Iris was so miserable all day with the fever and aches and cried every time she opened her mouth to say something. I want to watch Lightning McQueen! Waaaaaaah! I'm fweeeeeezing! Waaaaaaaah! I love elephants! Waaaaaaah! Seriously. I'm not making fun of her... it was just so pitiful. I know she was wildly uncomfortable and slightly delirious from the fever. And as much as I hated seeing her so sad I was relieved to be able to check her tears to make sure she was hydrated enough. Boy, was she.

So we stayed upstairs, Iris in front of the TV, laid up in her kid-sized recliner covered with her lovies. Ocean joined us when he started complaining of a tummy ache mid-afternoon. Ruby and Phil hung out downstairs while us sickies huddled around the DVD player in a pile of blankets, waiting for the snow to start falling. I finally gave Iris a dose of Tylenol once I knew she could keep it down and she made a remarkable improvement, even wolfing down a bowl of applesauce. Awwwww yeah... give it up for the BRAT diet, yo.

I spent last night on the floor in the playroom with Ocean, Iris and Ruby's monitor. Over the last couple of nights I guess I've gotten hyper-sensitive to the sound of kids stirring because at one point I woke to find myself wandering aimlessly around Ocean's room and didn't remember going in there. Weird. I sent myself back to my floor-bed and was able to sleep semi-soundly off-and-on until 8 this morning when I was awakened by Iris holding her wrist over my face saying, "Mommy! This bracelet is too BIG!" She wasn't crying so I knew it was going to be a better day.

And it was, in fact, a much better day. I even managed to sanitize all surfaces. The laundry, however, is a DEFCON 1 situation. I'm now working my way through eight loads that have been prioritized based on what touched it, who touched it, when it was touched and how gross it smells. So that's what I'll be up to for the next 24 hours.

Not how I imagined I'd be spending the Blizzard of 2011 (which, by the way, is a little bit of an overstatement if you ask me, but I also haven't had to go out in it) but I'm thankful we're all feeling better and that the two baby immune systems weren't affected.

On with the laundry.

it's as if i've never seen snow before.

2011-01-31T20:07:00.004-05:00

I'm all ready for the apocalypse. I'm not usually this prepared for the kind of snowfall that's predicted to hit us in the next day or two, but we were getting close to being out of milk and bread so I thought I'd run to the store and pick up those necessities before we get a foot of snow and it becomes much too difficult to, I don't know, put on boots and drive a mile to the store? Winter brings out the Lazy and Wimpy in me.

Anyway, I wrangled the girls this morning and we headed to the store with promises of snacks and rides on the penny pony. I had my list of three items, and coupons to match. We got inside the store... and that's when things went terribly awry.

It was like Supermarket Sweep in there. Hundreds of crazy ass Michiganders preparing for record snowfall. It reminded me of when we lived in North Carolina and the forecast called for rain-- every business in the state shut down and there was nary a loaf of bread or gallon of milk to be found on any store shelf.

This was not unlike that.

Call it gang mentality or the herd instinct or something but when we got inside and I saw everyone's carts packed to the brim with toilet paper and batteries I was all, "I need those things! I don't have those things! And also taco shells!" I tossed a bag of Goldfish at Iris and proceeded to race up and down every aisle, throwing things in the cart. Mostly on top of Iris.

So that's how I simultaneously lost the respect of my three-year-old and ended up substantially going over my grocery budget this week. And it's only Monday.

After we were safely home both my mom and Phil's called to make sure we had food in the house. Which should tell us all a little something about my usual preparedness. Or lack of. I was thankful for the calls, and I did feel proud that I thought of grocery shopping all by my big girl self.

I must note that the woman checking out in front of me had in her cart a dozen boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios and about twenty bottles of wine. And that was all. She's seriously hunkering down for this storm. Clearly a wiser investment than all the ~~actual food~~ crap I bought. I want to get snowed in with her.

If anyone needs taco shells though, give me a buzz.

an ounce of prevention

2011-01-07T13:36:00.004-05:00

When I was eight years old I was playing in a neighbor's yard next to a construction site and I fell on a piece of wood that had a rusty nail sticking out of it. The nail went into my shin, essentially nailing the piece of wood to my leg, and I had to pull it out. I then hobbled back home where my mom took me to the doctor and I ended up having to get a Tetanus shot.

I'd rather experience that entire ordeal twenty four times in a row than get a stomach virus.

Nothing scares me more than a stomach bug except the prospect of our whole family getting a stomach bug. For a couple of weeks I've been watching families around me dropping like flies and my paranoia is increasing.

In the past I've used various remedies as a preventative for myself, and it seems to work. But this is one of those things that you can't really test since I never really know if I was, in fact, going to come down with an illness or if that milk just wasn't really fit to drink after all. All I know is, I start to feel that icky feeling in the gut, I wash some probiotics down with pure cranberry juice, follow it up with colloidal silver and within a half hour I'm as good as new.

My kids hate cranberry juice though, and I think I'm pretty convinced that's what helps the most. I've been reading a little bit about grape juice having the same effect as cranberry juice on tummy bugs so I'm trying it over here. A cup a day for my kids (and we never drink juice because the sugar makes them cray-zay so this is also an experiment in ridiculousness and tomfoolery) along with probiotics once a day. If I know we've been exposed, I'll give them a little colloidal silver also. So far so good, but I know we have a long way to go before the risk decreases enough for me to let up a little bit.

Do you guys have any success stories about using cranberry or grape juice to prevent stomach yuck? Or any other tips other than the usual hand-washing, not-touching-your-face stuff that my family can't seem to remember to do, or not leaving the house (which was our preventative method last year)?

I wish you all the best in staying barf-free this winter.

olive oil? for me? no, i'm good. thanks.

2010-12-18T20:05:00.007-05:00

I was such a Meijer slacker this week! I knew they had olive oil for 50% off again but I'm still way stocked up from when it was free a month or so ago. Imagine my angst when I discovered, tonight, the store coupon for $2.00 off. Talk about a mad scramble to the store once the kids were in bed. The loveliest surprise, however, was that Ronzoni pasta was .99 and I had about a kazillion 1.00/1 coupons which got me 11 free boxes. I also left a few coupons there in my wake. Green Giant Steamers were a decent deal too so I snagged a few with coupons. For everything above I paid 7.82 and saved just under $50. Yes, you read that right. I am a maniac.

I realize that this is not my savings blog but a girl can only keep up with so many blogs so you'll probably see me posting the occasional shopping brag here from time to time. Also I owe you an update on Christmas shopping I believe.

I'm done!! I had to make a few adjustments to the plan but it ended up working out better this way. I got Ocean's Spinbrush using Extrabucks, so that was a freebie, and I ended up finding a new tube of Tom's kids' toothpaste in my stockpile which will go in Ocean's stocking. It snowed here and Ocean needed winter boots with a quickness so instead of the sweet ones I wanted to get him for Christmas I got him some boring winter boots on sale, and for Christmas I bought him a new pair of frog rain boots for the spring. His old ones ripped up the back a few weeks ago and he cried. So a new pair it was, to the tune of $16. Also, instead of getting Iris that cute Gap winter hat I ended up finding one at Kohl's, along with some elephant jammies, and used a second $10/$10 rewards card that was mailed to me (I'm not sure how I ended up on that list but Hallelujah!). I paid like two bucks for both, which means I didn't spend that extra $10 dollhouse money at Gap.

As far as the kids' gifts to each other, Ocean bought Iris a Lightning McQueen rug at Bed Bath and Beyond using a $5 coupon, which made it $15, and Iris bought Ocean a Lego knight and horse set for $10 on Amazon. I used a Swagbucks giftcard for half of that so their gifts to each other only cost a total of $20, and as I mentioned they've been doing a great job of helping me out around the house with simple chores in order to earn the money for each others' gifts.

And remember when I said I had a stocking plan? I sold 3 bins of the kids' old clothes at Children's Orchard, used a coupon for 50% more in store credit and ended up with a store credit of a little over $80. So I got them some really awesome Melissa and Doug art supplies and fun bath toys for free to fill their stockings. Also for their stockings, both of the kids decided they are into Toy Story (even though they're terrified of the movies) so Ocean asked for a Buzz Lightyear and Iris wanted a Jessie. I used that $10 Toys R Us gift card for a Jessie when she was on sale for $9, and I found a basic Buzz Lightyear figure on Amazon for $10 (there went the dollhouse money!) making my total out-of-pocket for the kids' Christmas gifts this year (DRUMROLL)... $25 and some change. Booya.

I will end with an Oceanism. He and Iris were interrupting me constantly yesterday, as they tend to do. (Having children does not bode well for my pet peeve of being interrupted, it turns out. Shoulda thought that one through perhaps.) I was making lunch and Ocean asked me for some glue. I stopped and said, "Ocean, I do not deal well with..." meaning to finish that sentence with "interruptions". Ocean, without missing a beat, interrupted me and offered, "Kids?"

Indeed.

busy brabbses. and a christmas shopping update!

2010-11-30T14:40:00.007-05:00

Dang. We packed a lot of life into the last couple of weeks. Iris turned three which seems impossible since I think it was just a week ago I was giving birth to that little turkey. She had a small Lightning McQueen-themed birthday party with a pinata and cake and then we celebrated again at my parents' house on Thursday with a Spider Girl cake. Iris is pretty awesome.

On Thanksgiving we went to our church in the morning, where our church community extends an invitation to the homeless community of Ann Arbor to join us for a Thanksgiving meal at the church. We send vans downtown and bring people to the church building where they get a hot meal, warm coats, clothes and blankets and the opportunity to watch a little football. The kids had a blast serving beverages, probably mostly because they got to sample the lemonade. A rare treat in our house.

From there we ventured to my parents' house for our own meatless celebration. As a new vegetarian I used to panic about the holidays but it turns out you don't need a turkey to have a feast. Pass the potatoes! The stuffing! The cranberry sauce! The green bean casserole! And the Quorn roast! As I mentioned, we also had another little birthday celebration for Iris since my dad was out of town for her birthday.

On Friday we headed into the belly of the beast, Columbus, for the Ohio State/Michigan "game". (If you saw it, you know why I put it in quotes.) Actually we went there for a myeloma fundraiser put on by the amazing Barb Hess, whose mom was diagnosed with myeloma last year. Barb did everything for the event, only requiring that we show up... and they ended up raising over ten grand for The University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center's myeloma department. At least Michigan had one very significant win on Saturday. A huge thank you to Barb, and everyone else who made this event such an overwhelming success.

And here's a little Christmas shopping update for those following along with my self-imposed challenge. I'm almost finished with the kids! Here's what I've spent:

Ocean-
WANT: Rocket Ship with Aliens and Astronauts. This one came with the little figures he wanted but the whole shebang cost way too much. I found a much cheaper version by KidKraft that comes with wooden action figures but knew he really wanted the ones in the first version. I bought him those figures he wanted, on sale, using part of a $50 Verizon rebate Visa debit card that we got when Phil got a new cell phone for his birthday, so nothing out of pocket there. Then I stalked the rocket ship online until it dropped to $79.99 on Amazon with free prime shipping (thanks to Amazon Mom!) and used part of the $100 Amazon gift card I got with our PNC points.
NEED: A new toothbrush. Ocean would like a spinbrush so I plan to use a coupon and CVS ExtraBucks to get him a Spiderman one for free, as well as his own tube of Tom's kids toothpaste so he and Iris don't have to share it going into cold and flu season. It's hard to find a "need" gift for kids since, thankfully, we're able to meet all of their basic needs. I figure grooming and hygiene is a good fit for that category.
WEAR: Ocean needs a new pair of winter boots. I'm hoping it won't snow before Christmas because I'd love for him to open these on Christmas morning. Total cost: $22.99 + shipping unless I can get a good coupon code.
READ: Gail Gibbons is such a cool author. She has books for kids on so many different subjects. I bought My Football Book and My Soccer Book for Ocean using a Barnes and Noble gift card.
Total out-of-pocket: I roughly estimate $28 for the boots.

Iris-
WANT: The Calico Critters Elephant Family. You know those coupons that Toys R Us has been putting out, spend $75 and get a $10 gift card? I had $40 in gift cards to Toys R Us already so I bought Iris the Elephant family as well as the Calico Critters cottage, plus a big pack of PlayDoh for stocking stuffers. My total was $80.xx and I used my gift cards so I ended up paying $40 out of pocket and got a $10 gift card back. BUT I also sold the dollhouse I bought for Iris last year for $50 on Craig's List which more than covered the out of pocket cost. So I'm actually up $10 on this one, not counting the gift card.
NEED: A hair brush that doesn't make her cry. She has the most gorgeous curls but her sweet little head is a pile of snarls every morning. I did some research and found this brush. I ordered it on Amazon using the rest of that $100 gift card and will get her a bottle of detangler at Whole Foods using a free $10 gift card we will get from a promotion at a local gym. (Local peeps, check the newest Clippers magazine for this one: Arbor Fit Club is offering a free one day pass AND a $10 Whole Foods gift card with coupon!)
WEAR: A winter hat. She can still barely fit in her hat from last year so have no fear, her head is not cold, but I really want to get her a snuggly, well-fitting hat to last her this winter and hopefully next as well. Gap has the most adorable hats for kids right now. They're mostly sold out online but our store still has plenty. I was given a 40% off one item coupon to use on Wednesday. So tomorrow I'll go get her a bunny or kitty hat for about $10 out of pocket. The rest of the dollhouse money will cover that.
READ: Gail Gibbons to the rescue again! I got her the one about elephants, as well as a book called Duck at the Door. Iris loves all things ducks and elephants. I put those on the Barnes and Noble gift card as well.

Ruby-
Besides those toys from Kohl's, there isn't much else a third baby wants or needs. She can't even sit up yet, much less open presents, so we're keeping it lean this year. I imagine next Christmas will be more participatory for her.

And remember that sled from Santa? I bought one at Target for $20 and used the rest of that Verizon rebate debit card plus about $5 out of pocket.

So all told, I'll have spent about $35 total for the kids' gifts this year. That doesn't count stocking stuffers, but I have a plan for those too. More on that later. This nonsense has gone on long enough.

How are you guys faring in the holiday shopping department? Anyone go out for Black Friday or sty in for Cyber Monday? Do tell!

we be shoppin'.

2010-11-13T22:36:00.007-05:00

I have a master plan. A master Christmas shopping plan. I'm going to try and get all of the kids' Christmas gifts for under $40 cash. We'll see if I'm as creative and resourceful as I think I am.

How will I do it? I have a four point plan:

#1- I cashed in our PNC points for an Amazon gift card, and I have various other gift cards, store credit and rewards cards from different deals over the last year which I fully plan to use toward the children's presents.
#2- I researched all the gifts that the kids want and found the cheapest places to get them online and in stores. I then made a ridiculous list (Which may or may not be a nerdy spreadsheet.) and matched up the stores for which I have credit/gift cards to the desired gifts.
#3- I am selling last year's Christmas Gift FAIL- a dollhouse (who knew that Iris was terrified of dolls?)- on Craig's List. The money will go toward this year's gifts and is not counted in the $40 budget.
#4- Each kid will get four gifts from us: Something they want, something they need, something to wear and something to read. They will get one joint gift from Santa (a sled- shhhh) and can each buy a gift for each other using money they will earn from chores. I'm not gonna count that chore allowance toward the total budget either. Those little munchkins work hard for the money. It takes Iris a half hour just to take all 6 of the kids' dishes out of the dishwasher and put them away, and Ocean is a perfectionist when it comes to folding a clean hand towel.

I'm getting ready to tackle some shopping this week, and in fact I already bought Ruby's WANT gift. I got one of those $10 Kohl's gift cards in the mail last week, hit the 45% off toy sale on Thursday and paid 1.62 out of pocket for two Fisher-Price toys that should have cost a total of $21.

I'm more excited about this challenge than I probably should be, but regardless I will let you know how things are going.

What else am I buying this week? Skippy Natural peanut butter, and lots of it.

It's on sale at Meijer 3/$5. I bought a buttload of $.50/1 coupons on Ebay for $2. Meijer Mealbox also has $1/2 coupons available, which means I can do this:
(2) Skippy @ 1.67 each = 3.34
Use:
(2) .50 coupons (two like coupons up to .50 will double)
(1) $1/2 MM coupon
Pay: .34 for 3 jars.

Rinse and repeat.

How are the deals lookin' in your neck of the woods this week? Anyone else have a Christmas plan?

it's about time.

2010-11-09T22:23:00.007-05:00

When my house is really messy, as it usually is, I become overwhelmed with the task in front of me and enter into a sort of housework paralysis. Same thing happens with blogging. I have so much to tell you but don't quite know where to begin.

I've felt the need for some privacy over the last few months after a couple of extremely stressful online interactions, right smack in the middle of the worst of Phil's treatment. Thankfully those situations have simmered down and I now feel ready to jump back in. Wheee! And oh, how I've missed putting all my business out there for you all to see.

Ocean will be five in February which is straight ridonkulous. He's in preschool now three mornings a week and loves it. I also love it. It's a lovely thing when I can miss my kids for a few hours a week. Ocean was a spirited baby but he's calming down a lot the older he gets. He loves art and always wants to make something out of boxes, leaves, plastic cups, whatever. He's a little obsessed with super heroes and plays Heroes with his friends at school... but he will only be the good guy, his teacher tells me. He loves his sisters and adores his daddy. I find that delightful. It's also delightful to hear him and Iris sing "California Girls", because he says, "California girls, they're unreliable..." and watching Iris throw her hands up while singing, "West Coast represent..." almost sends me over the edge.

Which brings me to Iris. That one almost completely defies labels. She's like a caricature of herself. My friend Lindsay calls her a Walking Contradiction and that about says it all. She wears gold glittery shoes and Lightning McQueen underwear, is terrified of dolls but babies the crap out of a toy shark and falls asleep in a race car bed while sniffing her stuffed duck's beak. She's all about autonomy ("I want to do it MYSELF!") but has no problem asking me to carry her around the house because "my legs are tired!" She never. shuts. up. and will talk circles around you until she gets her way. Once, during a 15-minute car ride, she said I want my ducky over 157 times. We started counting only after she'd said it at least a dozen.

Ruby is six months old. SIX! MONTHS! What the hecks, guys?! She's been such a peach. She smiles at everyone and is pretty much just happy to be acknowledged. She rolls around the floor and dominates the Jumperoo on the regular and might sit up by the time she's a year old. But maybe not as she seems perfectly content to lay around and watch Her Kids run around as milk dribbles down her chin and oh, by the way, can you change my poopy diaper? I'll giggle at you and try to eat your face off. Thanks! Goo! My goodness, I just want to eat her up.

Phil is finishing up the last leg of treatment, but it looks like he'll have a couple more cycles of chemo than we initially thought. I'm sure he'll blog about that over there soon.

And me? I'm settling into our new routine, am back to doing things I love like cooking and couponing (and blogging-- whutttt) and have started to maybe figure out this parenting-three-kids thing.

Or maybe not. But you'll probably be hearing more about it now.

Please say hi if you're still out there, homies. I'll be back catching up on your blogs too. It's been too long and I've missed you all.

Lippy.

2010-05-13T21:21:00.003-04:00

So last week while I was sweating out all of the IV fluids that were responsible for my postpartum hobbit feet and oh, by the way, my milk was also coming in, Iris busted her face open on a swing at the park. Her perfect little cupid's bow was cut wide open in a vertical fashion, so that a plastic surgeon had to be called in to do the repair. Iris, Phil, Ruby and I waited many hours in a tiny ER holding cell. Me, sweating and leaking milk, and Phil in his awesome face mask. In addition to the ouchiness of her booboo, Iris hadn't eaten anything since breakfast and missed her nap also so she was not in great shape. Also, she was dirty and unkempt-looking and pretty much straight ragamuffin which is always the way it happens when you take your kid to the ER, is it not? Despite all of this, she hung in there like a little trouper.

The surgeon had to put her under anesthesia since the cut was on her face and he needed her to be completely still while he did her sutures. It was absolutely heartbreaking to see her like that. Just to get back at us, she decided to keep sleeping for two hours after her procedure. So it was a lovely seven hour visit. With sweat. And milk.

When we left she was still loopy from the anesthesia. Phil and Ruby pulled the car around while I carried Iris. When she and I got outside I told her we would go home and have a movie night and she could eat popcorn for dinner. Then I asked her if she wanted some juice with her popcorn and with her little swollen lip she said, "Juice? Oh, Mommy, thank you!" And my heart just broke into a thousand pieces right there. The ride home was full of proclamations about the sky (Did you know it's bluuuuuuuuuuuue?) and some worry about how my baby would fare overnight. But slightly less sweat.

All stitched up.

The little lady went back to the plastic surgeon's office today to get those stitches taken out. We're hoping the scar will fade within a year's time and if not the doctor said he can revise it if we want to do that. The biggest takeaway, at least from Iris's perspective, was the apple juice and cookie. And you should have heard her chatting up the nurse. Iris told her all about my pregnancy ("I have a new baby sister and she was in Mommy's tummy and then she came out and her name is Ruby and all she does is sleep...") and her injury ("I just hurt my lip at the park and I pushed the swing and it hit me..."). She's such a delightful little person.

After the stitches came out. And all hopped up on apple juice.

Three

2010-05-08T00:12:00.001-04:00

It's probably wildly inappropriate that I titled this post after a Britney Spears song about a threesome but the dang song has been stuck in my head all day so I couldn't resist. Plus, you know, sleep deprivation. And... three kids OMG.

Realistically I do not have time to blog but I'm letting the art project mess sit right over there on the table so I can record the latest news from casa de crazy before it all slips away in a postpartum fog, never to be remembered. And it should also be noted that this post will probably take days to complete, as I'm doing much of my typing one-handed, between feedings.

First, the birth story for all of you birth story junkies, like myself. Ruby Carroll arrived on April 29 at 12:13pm. Eight pounds, ten ounces and 21 inches long. Sounds straight-forward, right?

Nope.

My due date was April 20, so already I felt awesome as you can imagine. Contractions started at 2am on the 28th (full moon!) and things started moving at about 4am. I called my parents at 5 and they came over. Then everything slowed down. I was still having 60-second contractions but they were only coming every 4 minutes instead of every 2. Things started picking up again at about 9am and I called the midwife who suggested I come in and get checked. Long story short, I was at 2cm and not at all effaced so we went home to rest and eat. By the time we got home everything had stopped. I ate, we went for a walk and I took a nap. It was about two hours later that my contractions started up again and I had to get serious about them. At 10pm I knew it was time to go in and sure enough I was 6cm.

I decided a few weeks ago that I have suffered enough over the last couple of years and I didn't really feel like bearing any more crosses so the anesthesiologist was called and I got a spinal/epidural combo which took care of that pesky back labor as well as all of the sensation in my legs. I did listen to my Hypnobabies "Come Out Baby" CD and just as it finished, my water broke. I thought for sure things would move quickly from there but seven hours later I was still at 7cm and Ruby still had not made any type of move. Her heart rate also kept dipping pretty low at the top of contractions and the midwife let us know that the cord was probably around her neck but it happens a lot and they would take care of it quickly once she was born.

Fast forward to 11:30am. I was propped up in a squat, sobbing my eyes out from exhaustion and hunger and aaaaaaaarrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhh. The spinal had worn off twice (it's really disconcerting to suddenly feel every bit of transition when you've been blissfully unaware of such things for the last umpteen hours) and I was ready to be the crazy lady screaming, "Just cut me open!" It had been 31 hours since that first real contraction and I kinda felt duped, this being my third baby and all. I seriously thought she would just march on out flashing a peace sign at 39 weeks.

My wonderful, beautiful midwife came in at noon and checked me, then suggested I push the baby out. Excellent idea. Ten minutes later, Ruby was born. She did have the cord around her neck, and she was blue and not breathing. They took her to the incubator and tried to get her to cry but she was limp and unresponsive. Zillions of people came rushing into the room and started working to get her to breathe. When she finally took a breath and cried she was wheezing, so they decided to take her to the NICU for observation. Just before they left they asked if I wanted to hold her and I said of course, but only if it's in her best interest. They thought it was and so she and I got to cuddle. Almost immediately her color improved, the wheezing started to subside and her breathing got more regular. The white coats decided not to take her to the NICU, but would continue to observe her breathing to make sure she was okay. It was scary, but she is fine and I am so, so thankful.

Oh and also she had a belly full of amniotic fluid which she later projectiled all over a nurse at 4am. What a delicate little flower. See?

I know... I have no idea where the brown hair came from either but it makes me feel like this one might actually be mine.

Now for the name.

Our kids all have significance behind their names. Ocean's name comes from Amos 5:7-9 in The Message:
Do you realize where you are? You're in a cosmos star-flung with constellations by God,
A world God wakes up each morning and puts to bed each night.
God dips water from the ocean and gives the land a drink.
God, God-revealed, does all this.

Iris is Greek for rainbow and comes from Genesis 9:13-16.
I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.

And Ruby comes from Isaiah 54:10-13.
"Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed," says the Lord, who has compassion on you.
"O afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted, I will build you with stones of turquoise, your foundations with sapphires. I will make your battlements of rubies, your gates of sparkling jewels, and all your walls of precious stones. All your sons will be taught by the Lord, and great will be your children's peace."

And her middle name, Carroll, is my dad's middle name, and was his dad's middle name also.

Now a few quick notes related to babies and birthing and pregnancy. First of all, I have a new law. Never say anything to a pregnant or postpartum woman that you wouldn't say to a non-pregnant or non-postpartum person. That means no comments about her body or her shape. I'm small-framed and short-waisted so I carry my babies right out front and yes, my stomach gets quite large. For some reason people feel that they can make comments. RUDE comments. It's not okay. I have belabored the point on Facebook so that's all I'll say about that, except for two stories which illustrate the point. The first is when I was in labor and thought, Finally. No more ass-hat comments about how huge I am or how I'm carrying. I had just checked in to the hospital and we were walking to my room from triage with the nurse when we passed another woman in labor, with her family. Her mom looked at me and said, "See, honey? She's a LOT bigger than you are! And it's definitely a boy!" Second story. At Ruby's one week appointment the nurse took us back to the exam room and asked how old Ruby was. I said one week. She looked at my stomach and, I kid you not, said, "You're not pregnant again, are you?" There are so many things wrong with this that I don't even know where to begin.

On the subject of postpartum bellies, I have been doing this belly-binding thing and it's amazing how much faster things are going back to normal. I still looked 7 months pregnant a month after Iris was born and now, at least according to one nurse, I apparently only look a week pregnant. I do have a significant diastasis which I plan to start working on in a week or two. And aside from re-injuring my tailbone during delivery I feel pretty good now. (And may I just say Benefit's Lemon-Aid helps with the emotional side of feeling good, and it should be given out in labor and delivery units along with those coffee table-sized pads and peri bottles. I'm not being paid to say that, I just really think it needs to happen.)

I have one final thought for today: 36D. So breastfeeding is going well.

Stay tuned to find out about Iris's first (and hopefully only) plastic surgery. She is fine; I still haven't quite recovered.

Nursery

2010-04-19T22:56:00.004-04:00

Now all we need is a baby.

ten things i didn't know until last night

2009-12-20T09:58:00.007-05:00

1. I own three unused pregnancy tests.
2. Tampons are kinda like rocket ships! And pads are like stickers!

3. Self-tanner is uninteresting to a three-year-old. Which is proof that God must love me after all.
4. My jewelry box is reachable.
5. My watch is not indestructible.
6. It takes a lot longer to put stuff back into dresser drawers and bathroom vanities than it does to empty them. I'm guessing.
7. Free makeup from CVS: Easy Come Easy Go.
8. Razor packaging is child-proof. Thankfully.
9. Wet bars of soap can be squished into all sorts of crevices.
10. A few hours out alone while Phil was home with the kids was actually worth the clean-up.

Ocean looks great in mascara and lip gloss, no?

working on forgiveness.

2009-12-17T21:19:00.004-05:00

Obviously there are many things I want to instill in my kids. One of the biggest for me is teaching them how important it is to forgive when they are wronged. And not just to forgive, but to forgive swiftly so that bitterness doesn't have time to take root.

About three dozen times a day Ocean and Iris will bicker and fight, and every time I make them apologize, hug, say "I forgive you" and "I love you". Usually forgiveness comes quickly and it's amazing to see that instantaneous shift in their attitude toward one another once they both know they're back to being best friends.

Today Ocean tried to help Iris with something, which he often likes to do. As Iris enters the awesome I do it myself phase she desires his assistance less and less. This was one of those times. He made the attempt, got shot down rather rudely and immediately burst into tears. I sat down with him on the couch and told him to go ahead and cry until he felt ready to talk. He sobbed for a good 3 or 4 minutes before he sniffled, "Iris hurt my feelings."

I asked Iris to come over and talk to us. She came running, totally oblivious to what was going on.

"You havin' a hard time, buddy?" she asked Ocean. I gently told her that the way she yelled NO at Ocean had hurt his feelings and that it would be nice if she would apologize. She offered a very genuine, "I'm sorry Ocean!" But he grunted and shook his head... and wouldn't accept her apology. Hmmmm. New territory.

I sent Iris to play and continued to hold Ocean. I said, "You know, buddy, sometimes I have a hard time forgiving someone when they hurt my feelings. And sometimes I even have to ask God to help me forgive because it's so hard to do. Is it okay if we ask God to help you forgive Iris?" He nodded. So I just said a little prayer for his heart to be able to forgive his sister. A minute later he jumped off my lap and started to get into a toy, but paused, turned to me and said, "I have to say something to Iris." He ran to her, gave her a hug and said gleefully, "I forgive you Iris!"

This could have been one of the hundred daily battles that I choose not to fight and this moment would have been lost. My kids antagonize the hell out of each other (and therefore, me) all day long, but it is so beautiful to see the purity of their love for each other during moments like this.

My friend Lindsay reminded me recently that even through this tumultuous time in our lives, when Mommy and Daddy go to the hospital two full days a week, and Daddy feels tired or sick a lot, and Ocean and Iris can undoubtedly sense the stressful circumstances, those two little crazy people have consistency in their relationship with each other. Because no matter what changes happen, or how often Phil and I have to be away, or who is watching them, they are always always together. They have each other. And that will be a bond that they always share.

I can't look at them these days without thinking about that. Even when they're fighting. And especially when they hug and forgive each other.

everything and the kitchen sink.

2009-11-11T14:03:00.008-05:00

Since this is our week off of chemo I thought I'd pretend to be normal for a moment, skirt my household responsibilities and BLOG!

Phil and I were on WTKA this morning talking about multiple myeloma. It was fun getting back on the air, seeing how it's been about a decade since I dabbled in broadcasting. Now I dabble in making tasty grilled cheese sandwiches, wiping butts and building awesome Thomas the Tank Engine tracks. Which is super fun of course, just a different kind of fun. Never fear, because we did our best to rock the cause and Phil will probably stop back by during OSU week to talk a little more.

I took some clothes out of the dryer last week only to realize that someone had crayons in their pockets. Complete. Disaster. All three pairs of my jeans, most of the kids clothes and some serious bedtime loveys were damaged beyond repair, it seemed. I called my mom gasping, "Crayons! Dryer! No pants... Heeeeelllllllllllllp!" After talking me down she reminded me about Lestoil which worked beautifully. I took it a few garments at a time, and just finished the batch over the weekend with my BFF Lindsay. (Don't worry, concerned citizens... we were outside on the porch. Lestoil fumes are nothing that two pregnant women should be breathing.)

Iris's second birthday is coming up in about ten days. Last night I asked her what she wants for her birthday and she said, "Mimi make me a cake!" Shocking, isn't it, that:

1. She knows someone has to make cakes and they don't just magically appear out of thin air before you put them into your shopping cart.
2. She knows that someone isn't Mommy.

Of course this could be due to Ocean's recent obsession with asking me of everything he puts into his mouth, "How did you make this?" Usually, lately, the answer is I didn't. Either someone else made it and brought it to us (Thank you, loved ones!) or it's, like, a granola bar and I have to explain who Kashi is and why she isn't exactly one of my friends.

No matter... Iris will be getting pre-made cupcakes from Whole Foods because that's how I roll here in the myeloma age, folks. She said she wants a Thomas cake, so I'll probably just stick one of her many Thomas the Trains on top of her cupcake and call it a day. A very happy birthday that is. Either I'm a terrible mother or I'm a very tired- but very resourceful- genius.

In non-birthday news, yesterday I was rinsing out a glass at the kitchen sink and suddenly the water stopped coming out of the tap. Interestingly, I could still hear water running. Or rather, spraying. I turned it off and opened up the cabinet and immediately said a very bad word because all the random, useless crap I hide underneath my kitchen sink was soaking wet and I just don't have the time to sit and dry all of that, people. This happened a few months ago to the other hose under there and Phil's dad was able to fix it for us (the guy who plumbed our house when it was built a year and a half ago wasn't exactly thorough. Obviously.) so Phil decided he was going to do the same thing his dad had done. Because I typically swing the hammer around this homestead, I got nervous. But he and Ocean went out to get the parts they needed and started the job. Towards the end of the project some assistance was required so I immediately put out an A.P.B. on Facebook for plumbing help and Jill, my coupon comrade and coffee companion, sent her husband Kevin over stat to help assess the situation. Long story short... dude totally fixed our sink with my hair dryer. Not kidding. The universe keeps trying to give us wet willies but our friends keep coming through. Booyah, universe! Shout out to Jill and Kevin... you guys totally saved ~~the day~~ ~~my sink~~ what's left of my sanity.

While all of this was going on, I was trying to get ahold of Comcast to get our rates lowered. We already have the most basic of the basic cable packages. I think they call it the cheapskate package because it just includes the networks and my beloved, can't-live-without-Curious-George-and-Clifford PBS. Plus somehow HGTV snuck itself right on in there too, which is always a fun distraction from laundry in the evenings. Our internet though, basic as it is, was still ridiculous. We also recently decided, since Phil has begun working from home and needs a phone line, to get rid of our expensive cell phones and just get an old fashioned, honest-to-goodness house phone. So when I got through to Comcast I told them I wanted to cancel our internet. Naturally Alfonso started in on the hard sell and I stuck to my story that it's just too expensive, Alfonso, and the economy is terrible here in Michigan and have you even heard about Pfizer and the Big Three and we want- no NEED- to cancel our internet. It didn't take long for him to lower our payment by almost $20, and he offered us digital phone service for $15 a month with no set-up fees. Which will save us roughly beaucoup bucks a month. All I'm saying is, Alfonso is my new homeboy. And also maybe you should call your cable company like NOW and tell them you want to cancel and just see what they say? And if you do get your rate lowered, let me know. We'll run a little Spilled Milk cable company recession experiment.

So there you have it. Crayon-free clothes, a lower cable bill and a working kitchen sink. What more could a girl ask for?

a teensy update

2009-11-09T19:28:00.002-05:00

Gosh, life sure has gotten in the way of blogging lately. My days are full of choices: Eat or blog? Sleep or blog? Breathe or blog? I'm still alive, so blogging has been the clear loser here.

I've been consumed with all the cancer... yet still, life marches on. Iris is saying things like, "Are you so cute, little kitty? Yes you are!" and "You're my best friend!" and "Is it awesome?" And Ocean is so into Spiderman that it's almost scary, especially because he has no frame of reference for it, and thinks the guy in the suit is Peter Piper.

The new little nugget is just over 16 weeks along, and is starting with the fetal acrobatics, though not as intensely as my other two were at this point. I'm taking that as gospel that I will have one laid-back child. Pray for me. I forget that I'm pregnant most of the time, which is a good thing right now I suppose. Ocean is very serious about naming the baby Socka. We will see about that.

As for me? I'm tired. I don't even have the energy to pretend I'm not. I asked Ocean today if he could play quietly at my feet while I closed my eyes for a minute and he said, "Sure Mommy. Look at this! Did you see that Mom? Look, Mom!" Naps just aren't in the cards right now, and may never be again, I'm realizing.

But none of that really matters too much. The kids, antagonistic as they are to one another, are generally happy. Phil is on the road to health. I am plugging along. And we're doing okay, all of us. So in the grand scheme of grand schemes, I can't really complain.

I hope you're all well. Or, as Iris would say, Awesome.

my precious peeps

2009-10-22T08:36:00.002-04:00

When I go in to get Iris out of bed in the morning she says, as soon as I open the door, "You're kidding me."

We can't call Iris anything but Iris. Not funny, smart, fast, cute or sweet. If we refer to her as anything other than her name, she insists, "NO! I'm Iris!"

When you tell Ocean anything that he doesn't agree with, he responds enthusiastically and insistently with "Sure."
Examples-
Me: Ocean, Iris is saying no because wants you to stop doing that.
Ocean: Sure she doesn't.

Me: Ocean, you need to take two more bites before you can be done.
Ocean: Sure I don't.

Me: Ocean, it's time to go to bed.
Ocean: Sure it's not.

Me: Ocean, I don't want you going outside without a coat.
Ocean: Sure you do.

Here's a scene that unfolded the other night while we were in the playroom. I had a tummy ache and was laying on the floor, and the flower tattoo on my lower back was apparently exposed. Ocean was playing football and wearing his helmet, and Iris was brewing something in the play kitchen using Ocean's Memory game.

Curtain.
Ocean: Mommy, play football!
Me: My tummy hurts.
Ocean: (sympathetically patting my stomach) Oooooohhhh, I'll take care of your wittle puffy tummy.
Iris: I'm makin' soup!
Me: What kind of soup?
Iris: (comes over to us) Memory Soup! Whatcha doing, mom?
Me: Laying on the floor.
Iris: (looking horrified and tugging at my shirt) Cover up your flowers! COVER up your FLOWERS!
Ocean: (throws his football at my rear end) BUTT CHECK!
Ocean: (grabs the football) Here comes nothin'... (punts it across the playroom)
Ocean: I WON THE GAME! Iris, I won the game, you little genius!
End scene.

a modern day fairy tale to send you off into your weekend.

2009-10-08T21:33:00.007-04:00

When two people who've been married for five years and make pretty adorable children together and like each other enough most of the time have a cancer crisis and need to make decisions around what to do once chemotherapy probably sterilizes one of them, they do what any rational, not mentally ill people would do.

Half of you are probably thinking, "Hooray!" And the other half are probably thinking, "Hooray but... what the hell is wrong with you?!" So to answer your questions: Yes, we are crazy. No, in fact I do not know what I'm doing. Yes, we have thought about the long term and short term problems that this may present. No, a fear of the future cannot and will not rob us of our present joy.

It's sad that I feel like I need to defend this choice, but it comes because I've already had to do it a few times. So just to put to rest any doubt or worry that anyone may have about how we'll manage with everything we have going on, let me explain.

It is a luxury to sit down and have a discussion with your spouse about if and when to have the next baby. It must be fun to have a few months or a year to plan it, time it just right and execute said plan. That, however, is a luxury we just didn't have. We're still very young. We knew we weren't done having children. Those who know us well know we've wanted to adopt but that option became highly unlikely with an incurable cancer diagnosis. The doctors said treatment in a month so bank your sperm. We said let's give it a shot this month. And it worked out. And even though the timing may seem less than ideal to some, we are elated. Because the baby will be coming at a time when Phil will be on the upswing from his transplant. Because no matter what happens, we will never, ever regret having a third child. And because, really, who wouldn't want another one of these?

So I'll be 12 weeks on Saturday and I've known for eight whole weeks now! Which is why I haven't been posting much because I'd probably give it away with all the "Barfing Again" and "I'm soooooooo tired I could just zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..." Honestly, though, I've been feeling very well considering the stress, and being at the beach for the two roughest weeks was a major plus. (Thanks, Mom and Dad!)

There are several of you out there whom I haven't yet seen in order to tell in person and for that I apologize. Let's just say I'm at the point where hiding it is nearly impossible and I actually had a nurse at the hospital on Tuesday declare, "Oh wow! You're pregnant!" (I guess my philosophy of not making assumptions about pregnancy until the baby is actually crowning isn't universal.) So I hope this will remove some of the awkward Is she pregnant or did she just eat a HUGE breakfast internal debate you would be having with yourself the next time you saw me. You're welcome.

Lots of love to you all, and lots of baby updates to come I'm sure. Should we get a gender poll going?

cricket, cricket

2009-10-07T11:26:00.002-04:00

I'm posting a lot more over here these days. Ideally I'd love to combine both blogs but I don't see it happening. Phil is under the impression that each blog may have a different audience. He's right, but it makes my life more complicated. So I just hope you all will join me there occasionally and hang tight over here also. I'll have more posts coming at the end of the week. Promise!

fragments of funny

2009-09-25T13:57:00.001-04:00

Many ridiculous things have been going on and if I currently had the ability or desire to form a cohesive thought I'd probably have a more clever way to present them. But really I just want to get them written down so I can throw away all of these durn post-it notes. So here they be.

------------------------------

Ocean and Iris were chatting on the porch in their swimsuits.

Iris: [points at Ocean's nipple] What's that?

Ocean: It's my mole.

Me: It's your nipple.

Ocean: It's my nipple.

Iris: Ooooooh! Nipple!

Ocean: Yeah, it's for the milk.

Iris: Milk?

Ocean: Yeah, for my baby.

Iris: [looks horrified, probably because she never liked nursing anyway]

------------------------------

Iris calls lasagna Zanana.

------------------------------

When Ocean doesn't hear you he asks, "What you said?"

------------------------------

Any item bearing the label "Spot Clean Only" is practically an open invitation for one of my children to urinate all over said item. Thankfully, I don't pay attention to labels. In other words, Ocean's stuffed zebra will never be the same.

------------------------------

Ocean: [yaaaaaaaaaaaawn]

Iris: [looking disgusted] Excuse you. Ex. Cuse.

------------------------------

My mom: Ocean, I was watching you run around on the beach earlier and you just looked like such a big boy!

Ocean: Maybe it's the sunglasses?

more pictures.

2009-09-20T16:26:00.004-04:00

Iris and my dad. She isn't enjoying this vacation as much as I would like. In other words, she screams every time we try to take her down to the beach.

Naked lunch:

Ocean and I in the pool:

Phil and I on our 5 year anniversary date (it was Thursday):

Ocean doing a shark imitation at the aquarium:

beachin', yo.

2009-09-16T13:52:00.003-04:00

We made it to the beach, and- as expected- it's gorgeous here.

Here are Ocean and Phil in the pool:

And the kids having their morning cup of tea before hitting the surf:

Let's dominate some sand:

Ocean flying his kite:

Phil, Iris, Ocean and my dad, discussing the fishing:

More to come.

it's 5 am and i'll be going back to bed just as soon as i tell you nothing of importance. things seem much more pressing at this hour.

2009-09-11T04:17:00.016-04:00

From the files of Captain Obvious: I haven't posted much lately. It hasn't been for lack of things going on... in fact there have been many times I wanted to sit down and tell you all about my session with a hypnotherapist, or share all the excruciating details of my food poisoning incident, or tell you the heartwarming tale of Iris smacking the shit out of a 3-year-old boy who was picking on her and making him cry. All good stuff. Just... not enough to fill up a post. But get me in the middle of the night, boy, and I'll blog your face off about some seriously inane crap.

So it's ridiculous-thirty in the morning and Ocean woke up about an hour ago and had a moisture situation which needed to be handled and so I dealt with it ever so swiftly only to hear a package of cookies beckoning me into the kitchen. Because they are healthyish cookies, and also because I have the self-control of something that has no self-control, I obliged. And then I realized why Matt's Cookies are a little healthier. The packaging is so obnoxiously loud that everyone knows what you're up to. There is no sneaking a Matt's cookie. There's practically a built-in alarm on the packaging. For a second, I swore I must be up inside the cyclone. It took me longer than it should take any one person to close the package back up after eating just one cookie and I'm pretty sure I heard the neighbor's dog verbally chastising me for being a glutton. At that point I thought I should eat something a little better for me, or at least something that wasn't going to rat me out, so I selected a Brown Cow yogurt. If you've ever had Brown Cow, you know that tongues of humans and angels are powerless to describe it. If you have not had a Brown Cow, you should try it post-haste. (But the frugalista in me must tell you to wait until they go on sale, and try to get your hands on a coupon while you're at it, 'k?) At any rate, I rapidly consumed that little slice of delicious and headed back to my bed when suddenly I had a stomach pain which, over the next five minutes, grew into an ache that can only be described as Oh sweet heavenly beings, please not food poisoning again. So I quickly exited my bed and drank some water and turned on my computer and now I'm feeling much better. Better enough to tell you that...

...we are going to the beach on Saturday for two weeks. (Not so fast, potential home invaders... there will be house guests galore while we're away. Ninja house guests with nunchuck skills.) I made a couple of trips to various grocery stores tonight in order to stock up on some things for the trip and while checking out at Meijer there was a couple behind me in the age range of Old Enough To Know Better and they were making out and possibly having sex too. At least I'm pretty sure that's what was going on; I was afraid to look directly at them for fear I should become impregnated and really, I think I'd take a pass on their DNA. I started to get annoyed but then I remembered my secret weapon: 172 coupons. They could make out all they wanted (or give me dirty looks) while I completed my transaction and I could save over a hundred bucks on what ended up being a $32 out of pocket sale. So basically we were all winners at Meijer tonight.

And on that note, and at the sound of the coffee maker coming on (which means Phil will be awake and chatty in T-minus 20 minutes), I'm going back to bed. Have a good day! Blogs from the beach to come.

"what the flip?" friday

2009-09-03T15:13:00.007-04:00

I don't get it...

90% of children's books. They suck. And the suckier they are the more my kids want to hear them.

The huge moth in our spare bedroom. How on earth did he get in? And how long has he been there?

My son's recent fascination with zebras and fish-faces.

Heated political debates over the existence of public libraries, public parks, public transportation and public education. Oh, no wait. Heated political debates over those things don't happen.

How it is possible that I spend roughly a hundred percent of my time looking for stuff. Most recent example: it took me 4.25 minutes to find the lid to the peanut butter jar.

Berry picking should be FUN for children. FUN. So why did my youngest stand in one spot of the berry patch sobbing, Mommyyyyyyyyy.... Mommyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! with a berry basket tied to her waist while it took me two hours to pick a quart of raspberries?

Vibrating mascara. Like I need any more help poking myself in the eye.

watch out, american idol.

2009-08-18T14:43:00.011-04:00

I've discovered that my son is a lyrical genius. He's just started singing these songs that have themes and melodies and rhymes and he completely makes them up. I thought to grab a pen for this one:

I remember when you were brave

I remember when you were smart

I remember when you were nice

I remember when you were heart

I remember your cuddles

I remember your snuggles

I love you when you share

I love you when you care

I remember you and me

I remember our family

I can't even be horrified by the lyrics because that rhyming is phenomenal. I think I asked if the song was about me but I don't think he answered me, or he may have said that I'm a terrible mother and only a shell of the person I used to be. Either way... rhyming!

I grabbed the camera in time to record this gem.

The lyrics:

to watch another sky

somebody painted the sky yellow

and the sun went down

and they paint the sun green

so it can be night

in the sky

Seriously, you guys, he's only three. It's like preschool poetry. I only wish I could come up with stuff this good.

we teach proper names for both body parts and plants, but there appears to be some confusion here.

2009-08-13T22:11:00.004-04:00

Iris was running around nekkid after her bath this evening and suddenly stopped short in the hallway, grabbed her crotch with both hands and shouted gleefully:

"It's my hydrangea!"

so little to do, so much time. it turns out.

2009-08-10T14:37:00.010-04:00

My goal: To complete every item on every possible to-do list before Phil's treatment begins.

Sounds daunting, right? Yeah, it looked bad from my end too... until I put it on paper and realized there were exactly three things on it.

1. Get the brakes fixed on my car.
My car is making a horrifying sound and it gets worse when I put the brakes on so I'm guessing that's what's wrong with it. However, I'm not that kind of car expert and I'm a bit out of practice anyway. Making plans to take it in somewhere, and soon.

2. Return a bunch of crap at the mall.
I was able to go to the mall yesterday alone [Hallelujah Chorus] because Phil declared it his Birthday Weekend, which, hey, whoop it up all you want to birthday boy, but then there was the subsequent fallout, which included headaches and exhaustion and looooots of naps and hydrating. And while I'm all for hangovers parenting waits for no one, whether or not tequila is involved and I'd missed my Saturday morning coffee with friends because of it which I'd normally be cool about but then the rain happened and the kids and I were cooped up all day and I'm going to go bloody nuts if I don't get out of this house right. this. second. So I put the three of them down for naps and clocked out for a couple of hours.

So I was able to get to the mall in order to make several returns of busted/ill-fitting garb and, AND cashed in a Victoria's Secret free gift! card and got myself a pair of Victoria's Secret cheekies panties, though in the days of yore we used to call them thongs. And change the name all you want to, but they are still just as uncomfortable. But, hey, free.

While at the mall I stopped in to see my favorite eyebrow threader but she was out of town. With great trepidation I agreed to be waxed instead and suddenly my brow doth feel a wee bit nekkid. Either she took a little too much off or I've been walking a fine line between Brooke Shields and Wookie for sometime and just never noticed. Maybe you be the judge? (Pointing at my eyebrows, not pretending to shoot myself.)

"Audrey! Audrey! Look at me!"

3. Go to the dentist.
I'm going to the dentist tonight. I flossed 365 times last night so I'm pretty sure that means I can say that I floss on average once a day.

i'm inspired.

2009-08-07T22:59:00.007-04:00

Okay, so apparently these Mommy Business Cards are the thing to have. I decided to take Becky's idea of a Family Contact Card and tailor it to my children, who are little wandering nomads. I'm going to print these on stickers and stick them to my kids' backs the next time we go to the zoo, the pool or Millpond Park. (I break out in hives just thinking about trying to keep track of my kids there.) Ocean and I have had a few talks about what to do if he gets lost ("FInd another mommy, because all the mommies are friends and we help each other") but the reality is that he'd rather eat peanut butter than talk to someone he doesn't know. (I know, I don't get it either. Peanut butter is delicious.) And Iris... well, she might actually tell you her name if you ask, but she's more likely to yell MOO! and then fly away on her broomstick, cackling wildly as she disappears into the night.

All that to say... here's my solution to losing kids who may just not want to be found:

confession

2009-08-06T23:17:00.005-04:00

Five things I shouldn't tell you guys but I can't help it because I'm an over-sharer by nature.

1. I got a steam cleaner today and gave my upstairs carpet the once- or thrice-over. I can't begin to describe the color of the water in the reservoir.

2. I ate a pint of Ben and Jerry's for lunch.

3. It takes a lot to embarrass me, and children never embarrass me... but my kids actually succeeded at the park today. I promptly took them home and put them down for naps. It was 10:07 am.

4. I bought my children plastic spray bottles at Target this afternoon so they could spray the hell out of each other in the yard while I watched from the porch. (It could have ended badly, but we all had a great time.)

5. I'd never heard of a Mommy Business Card until last night. Does anyone have these? Because I've clearly missed this boat, I decided to design my own Mommy Business Card but I had way too much information that I needed to include so I decided to make a Mommy Brochure instead. So here's my rough draft but it's pretty close to being ready:

it's a zoo.

2009-08-01T19:27:00.007-04:00

This week we went to the zoo with my friend Danelle and her girls. Danelle is mommy to one of the girls in my dance class. The good one. This one:

(See that look? She's not only horrified at the behavior of the other children, but also at my complete lack of control/discipline/composure. I'm asking her to teach next year.)

Danelle is also an incredible photographer, it turns out. Looky looky!

Ocean insisted upon wearing his rhinoceros shirt in order to impress the rhinoceros. Iris wanted to see pigs and kitties. When we rolled up in there we were met with some rambunctious polar bears and seals which delighted the children, but it turns out Ocean was much more excited about the inanimate objects he saw. Mommy! Look at that stick! Wow! Do you see that berry? A SPOON! You see alllll those wheelchairs?! Ooooooh.... ROCKS!

I only lost track of a child once. Ocean darted away and went missing for probably 8.3 seconds, and that's when I think I peed my pants slightly. It's hard to keep track of two small kids in large crowds. I was exhausted by the end of the morning just from the energy it took to keep tabs on both of them. But it was a good exhaustion, especially because I got to see monkeys. Monkeys!

Here are the four children being so sweet:

Anyway, we had a great time and here's our tribute to the rhinos who, by the way, weren't all that impressed with Ocean's t-shirt. Go figure.

untitled.

2009-07-29T22:27:00.002-04:00

dancing machines. sort of. not really.

2009-07-24T21:54:00.007-04:00

I've been a bad blogger. Bad, BAD. In my defense, we've had a lot going on. Also in my defense, I'm lazy.

This week I've been teaching dance to a pocketful of five- and six-year-old little girls at our church's Camp Creation, which is an arts-based vacation bible school type deal. It's very awesome and it's like a huge honor to be asked to teach but I don't think the kids got that memo because they look at me like I'm speaking Martian when I say things like Stop rolling around on the floor and let's line up so we can dance... girls? Girls! Let's line up and... let's make good choices! Those are not good choices! DO you guys even want to dance? No? Well then why the hell did you take a dance class? Except I don't say hell because they are little kids and it's church and I mostly just cuss in the written word.

Here's an artistic rendering of my class. You will probably have to click it to make it large enough to fully absorb the horror.

In reality, the girls are very sweet. I wasn't prepared for the difficulty I would encounter in getting them to listen and stay on task for an entire hour each day, and I really can't blame them for acting their ages. If I had been prepared, I would have thought to offer bribes.

Other things going on:

1. I'm meeting with a realtor next week to try and get our house sold already. Once that happens we'll have to make some decisions around where we want to live.

2. We were going to cancel our annual beach trip on account of the possibility of Phil beginning treatment but decided that it's best we live our lives as though the myeloma isn't there, otherwise we'll always be putting the focus on the disease and/or putting off the things that are important to us. So we'll be heading to the NC coast in about seven weeks and I am resisting the temptation to begin packing.

3. My children are still kind of adorable. See?

bring the pain

2009-07-11T23:42:00.004-04:00

I did something to my neck. Not something cool, so have no fear... I think a rabid chimpanzee ate one or two of my vertebrae. It happened long about last Sunday morning as I was- brace yourself, this is good- getting out of bed. Initially I thought it was a pulled muscle but upon further review I believe I may have slipped/ruptured/screwed up a disc. I know, I'm thinking the same thing you are: How freaking old are we who live in this household, anyway?

So after a trip to Urgent Care, thirty hundred phone calls to my PCP and buckets of Flexeril and ibuprofen I still cannot look up, down, left or right. I also cannot pick up a toddler or a sandwich unless I want to be bedridden for the remainder of the day. I am, however, having some very messed up dreams, so that's something.

The good news is I get to go to Little Rock, Arkansas tomorrow for a whole week. Did you hear that? A WHOLE WEEK. Can't wait.

Thank God for Flexeril.

oh, no doubt, you'll always have my heart.

2009-07-04T16:26:00.008-04:00

The first time I saw No Doubt in concert I was probably 15 or 16 years old. My older brother and I drove to the best venue in Detroit-- St. Andrew's Hall-- for the Tragic Kingdom tour. The album had just dropped and they were still virtually unknown to the masses. Which was great for us.

We were packed in with a few hundred other third wave ska enthusiasts, standing room only, and we were in the front. The show was incredible. The band members were a cohesive unit, all moshing and jumping and playing a show. Gwen's abs were amazing. Tony sweat on us a little bit. At some point a fan threw a t-shirt onto the stage, which hit Gwen in the face mid-song and wrapped itself around her head. The music stopped. You could have heard a pin drop. She lowered the microphone and removed the t-shirt from her head. Everyone just kind of stood there for a minute... then, without a word, she put the t-shirt on!, the music started right where they left off and the crowd went nuts. And that's when I fell in love with No Doubt.

My sister called me on Wednesday night. "Dude. No Doubt and Paramore are coming to Detroit on Friday. Wanna go?" Besides the fact that it was No Doubt, which made my answer an automatic Hellz Yeah, I love me some Riot and All We Know Is Falling so, uh, yes please.

When I told Phil, and mentioned that the last time I saw No Doubt was probably nine or ten years ago, he kind of laughed and said, "What does that say about No Doubt?" That they're still relevant. That's what. My sister and I debated on floor seats but just weren't up for the moshing/rowdiness that I remembered from No Doubt concerts past. So after determining that you just can't put a price tag on the experience we purchased some awesome level two seats on Ebay and all systems were go.

I forgot one thing.

No Doubt is no longer the No Doubt of the Beacon Street Collection era. They are Gwen Stefani and those other guys. They are, like, stars now. And they're almost 40 and I'm not 17 anymore and they were wearing costumes and ohmygoodnesswherethehellisthemoshpit? So it goes without saying (to everyone but me I guess) that I slightly overestimated the rambunctiousness quotient (zero) and slightly underestimated the number of attendees who hadn't even born yet when Gwen got hit in the face with that t-shirt so many years ago. Yes, everyone there last night either needed supervision or was there to supervise. We may have been the only people our age who were there to drink beer and rock out. And rock out we did.

As for the concert itself... it was pretty awesome. It made me want to be a rock star. It made me want to do lots of sit-ups. But mostly it took me back to my teenage years of seeing a band that I loved, leaving a concert voiceless and drenched in sweat, and being an honest-to-goodness fan of something great.

And I think that's why I love No Doubt so much. Their music is a big part of my memories and their fun punk/ska style got me through my teen-angsty phase relatively unscathed (well, if you don't count a few misguided years of bleached hair, over-plucked eyebrows and lots of red lipstick, that is).

Ska may be No Doubt's schtick now but they'll still rock your face off.

And Gwen's abs still look amazing.

it's difficult to argue with kid-logic.

2009-07-01T13:31:00.009-04:00

On crying wolf--
Ocean: Owwww! My foot! OUCH!
Me: What happened?
Ocean: (laughing): Nothing! I was joking.
Me: [some long-winded explanation about how we should be honest so people believe us when we actually need help.] Does that make sense?
Ocean: Nope.
Me: [some rephrased, long-winded explanation about how we should be honest] ...so that when we really need help, someone will help us instead of thinking that we're just pretending. Does that make sense?
Ocean: (pause) No it doesn't. If you need help, if you get hurt, you GET help. See that?
Me: Good point.
Ocean: Ouch! My hand!
Me: I'm glad we had this talk.

On our visit to Grandma and Grandpa's house--
Me: Ocean, what was your favorite part of the weekend with Grandma and Grandpa?
Ocean: Five!
Me: Okay. Iris, what was your favorite part of the weekend?
Iris: Green!
Phil: Wow, guys. Worth the drive.

On when I used to be awesome--
Ocean: I have a cool motorcycle. (It's a Big Wheel.)
Me: It is cool.
Ocean: Do you ride a motorcycle?
Me: No. I used to ride a motorcycle a looooong time ago with my friend but not anymore.
Ocean: (gasp) That's awesome, Mom!

On being ice cream buddies--
Ocean and I were eating ice cream on the porch after dinner. I was lost in my thoughts and glanced over to see him gazing at me.
Me: What are you thinking about, bud?
Ocean: You, Mommy.
Me: What about me?
Ocean: You're my best girl. And... and... I just love you.

On planting and growing when mommy can't keep a plant alive but wants to risk it for a hydrangea bush--
Me: So first we have to dig a hole for the hydrangea, and then we have to put it in the hole. Then I need your help to fill the hole with dirt.
Ocean: And then we pray.

a small glimpse into my life. and a slight indication as to why the future often terrifies me.

2009-06-25T10:27:00.005-04:00

After I removed Iris's wet diaper, my agile little ninja did her twist-and-launch maneuver, catapulted herself off the floor and ran shrieking across the living room. I caught up with her and said, "Iris, let's put your clean diaper on before you pee on my rug."

Iris smiled at me.

Then she peed on my rug.

where i were

2009-06-22T20:26:00.011-04:00

Besides having the never-ending plague over here, we've had quite the month. I'll spare you all the phlegmy details and instead fill you in on Phil's high school reunion this past weekend.

Here I am with my date, Andrea. Isn't she sweet?

The reunion festivities kicked off at a bar on Friday night and thankfully Andrea, who is the wife of one of Phil's closest and oldest friends and has also become one of my most favoritest peeps, was there to hang out with. I don't know if you've ever been to someone else's class reunion but it's... strange. Right after this picture was taken, we got hit on by a couple of 21 year olds. It was awkward. And weird. By the way, Kevin, Andrea's husband, watched the whole thing happen and didn't come over until after they left. To laugh at us. Did I mention that Kevin secretly reads my blog? Oops... not so secret anymore. Sorry Kev. (Payback.)

At the stroke of midnight our coach was preparing to turn into a pumpkin, but our husbands were not ready to leave so we bounced. However, as we made our exit we realized that it was practically typhooning outstide. (Yes, I realize that I accidentally typed outstide instead of outside but I'm leaving it because it was exactly that... a TIDAL WAVE of rain, pelting my face and my hopes of not having to wash my hair the next morning.) I took off my heels, rolled up my jeans and we made a three-and-a-half-block run for it.

Got back to Phil's parents' house where my children were nestled all snug in their pack-n-plays/whatever and Mama B. and I chatted for a little while before I headed off to bed.

The next morning my hair was curly. Not surprisingly. But it was a delightful day nonetheless. We headed over to see Chantelle, Phil's high school sweetheart (oooooh... scandalous! Not really.) who is like the sweetest girl and has the sweetest family and every time we see them they are so sweet to my kids and it's all very sweet. So the better part of our day was spent visiting and catching up with them, and then we headed back to drop off the kids and head to the Loons baseball game at Dow Diamond.

Now friends, Dow Diamond is something to behold. If you look very closely at this picture

you will notice the awesome chemical plant in the background, spewing loveliness into the beautiful blue sky. So when the fireworks started, all I could think was This can't be good. I named this firework Super Dioxin:

The lovebirds watched the fireworks until the grand finale. And when I say lovebirds, I mean Phil and his friends. After the first one sent a smoldering ash a mere 15 feet from my chair I bolted for the safety of the pavilion and watched the rest of them there. Very carefully. ~~I'm a pansy.~~ I was only thinking of my children.

Here's the crew after the game:

Karen, who was there when Phil and I got engaged; Kerianne, who organized the entire reunion; Phil; and Chantelle.

After the fireworks ended it began to pour. Again. The timing was impeccable in terms of the baseball game but it meant that once again we had to make a run for our car. And my hair was like, WTH. Seriously?

We got up on Sunday, celebrated Father's Day with a yummy breakfast and looooooooots of coffee, packed up the car and headed back to Ann Arbor. Thanks be to Mama and Papa Brabbs for taking such good care of my children; and mad props to my flat iron for coming through like gangbusters this morning.

more fun at the brabbses. or is it brabbs'? or perhaps brabbseses? one can never be sure.

2009-06-14T22:22:00.002-04:00

Iris had been in bed for about 15 minutes when we heard her on the monitor: "DeeDee! Dropped it!" (DeeDee is her pacifier.) Ocean said he wanted to go give it to her. Phil went with him to supervise and as they were coming back down the stairs Ocean exclaimed, "I did it! I saved the day!" Phil replied, "You're like a hero." Ocean said, "Sometimes I drop my binky and you're a hero, dad."

Me: (running around like crazy trying to get dinner ready)
Ocean: (rubbing his eye) My eye is all blinky.
Me: It's probably because you're tired.
Ocean: No, it's because you poked me in the eye, mom.

Ocean: (sitting on the potty, and a little distressed) The poop won't come out of my penis!
Me: Poop comes out of your bottom. Pee comes out of your penis.
Ocean: Pee comes out of my penis? Awwwwww... that's so cuuuuuute!

Last night Ocean, Phil and I were playing an intense game of Memory. Iris was entertaining herself by walking on the coffee table. Once I noticed what she was doing I called out, "Iris, you need to sit down. We don't stand on the coffee table." She said, "Yes, Mommy," sat down and, wide-eyed, looked at Phil and said, "Did you see that?!"

weeping and gnashing of teeth, or funny stories? how 'bout funny stories.

2009-06-05T20:53:00.003-04:00

I'm tentatively back online.

My hard drive was replaced.

I still have no idea if any of my data can be recovered.

So to change the subject, I will tell funny stories.

The kids and I walked to Jefferson Market today to get a muffin and as we were sitting outside amongst all the neighborly chit-chatting someone said something like, "Yeah, this baby came out with black hair." Ocean's eyes got huge and he yelled, "MY POOP IS BLACK!"

This morning on the way back from The Soccer Practice That Wasn't (as in, Ocean decided to play on the playground instead) he was getting tired and cranky. I was doing a pretty good job of ignoring the whining when Iris piped up: "Chill out, Ocean."

Ocean was eating an apricot and he started vigorously rubbing his head. When I asked him what he was doing he replied, "I got juice on my hand. So I'm wiping it in my hair."

Iris woke up from her nap before Ocean and I went to go close his door so she wouldn't wake him up. She was talking loudly and Ocean yelled from inside his room, "Stop it, Iris!" Under her breath Iris said, "Shush, Ocean."

We've hit a picky eating stage with Ocean. Trying to get ideas for the types of foods he is interested in, I asked him what his favorite food is. "Artichokes," he answered. He's never even had artichoke.

A friend's baby was at our house and was babbling and cooing at Ocean.
Ocean: She's talking to me!
Me: What did she say?
Ocean: Bashafristracka.
Me: And what does that mean?
Ocean: Rocket.

Every night when he gets in bed, Ocean asks, "How was your day? Who'd you play with?" As you tell him all the things you did, he counts them on his fingers.

This is Iris's bedtime routine. After we rock and sing a song I put her in her bed and she says, "Sit." I sit on the floor next to her crib and she says, "Hand." I hold her hand and say prayers. When I say, "Thank you, Jesus," she says "AMEN." As I stand up to leave she calls out, "Thank you!"

My sister was holding six balls. Ocean was trying to count them but kept saying she had five, because that's currently his favorite number. (Ten more minutes at the park? How about five. Three years old? Nope... five.) We told him to touch each ball as he counted. Which was working great until he touched the purple ball twice. It went like this--
Ocean: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven! FIVE!

Also, Ocean calls his mouth his little hole. As in, "That bite of broccoli won't fit in my little hole." And he points to his mouth.

And, just because I can't help myself, Phil liked Bride Wars better than The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

The end.

i am trying to be brave.

2009-05-20T12:27:00.003-04:00

The hard drive on my computer crashed.

I'm trying not to throw up until I find out just what, if anything, can be salvaged since I'm the genius that didn't back anything up. (Videos and photos from the births of my kids until now, important church/ministry documents... my CVS SPREADSHEETS!)

If you're a praying person, please plead for mercy on my behalf.

And please excuse me for the next few days until my hard drive is replaced; it's too hard to blog from an iPhone.

Smooches.

this has nothing to do with anything. unless you're a lobster. or an ear. i guess.

2009-05-13T22:03:00.005-04:00

When one has taken Nyquil, the words crustacean and eustachian sound very similar and one might spend a lot of time thinking about how they could be easily interchanged and how funny it would be if your doctor said something like Your crustacean is inflamed. Then later, when the Nyquil fog has worn off and one goes to blog about it, they might realize that it's not really that funny.

So instead here are my favorite quotes of the week.

At the park: "I learned a very valuable lesson, mom. If you jump off a swing you could land on your face."

At Mother's Day brunch: "You have something on your shirt. I noticed it while I was checking out your boobs."

On the phone: "Yeah, but Los Angeles was full of crazy people. You have to remember that there's no one out here in Clearwater but Scientologists."

Happy Hump Day, friends.

i don't even have a speech prepared...

2009-05-09T21:18:00.007-04:00

The amazing Bex bestowed this super-rad award upon my blog. See how shiny?

So now I'm supposed to tag seven other insanely wonderful (wonderfully insane?) folks and then we all write ten things about ourselves. Sounds like fun, eh?

Here are the official-ish rules:
You must write a post saying that you received this prestigious award and link back to me so everyone knows I think you're the bestest. Choose seven blogs that you love and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with “Honest Weblog.” Then, in your blog, list ten honest things about yourself.

Here are my award winners:
1. Andrea at The Good Life
2. Amy at Matron Down Under
3. Steph at Grace x2
4. SuperTiff
5. Jobi at My Life As Me
6. Amy at Roboranch
7. Cassady at Healthy Economic Savings

And now for my ten things. Ahem...

1. I drink whole milk. I love it.
2. Phil and I didn't get married because we were in love. (And no, we weren't pregnant either, smart-ass.) We got married because we had the same values and goals for our lives. And Phil recently revealed that he married me because he knew I wouldn't let him be a slacker at life in general. Damn straight. Apparently according to our pre-marital compatibility tests we are one of the most compatible couples in the universe. You'd never know it by the way we bicker.
3. I would sleep until 10:00 each morning if I could. Instead I have to get up at butt-thirty every day.
4. My brother is a Scientologist and he just quit his job to go work for the Church of Scientology and I really haven't talked to him in a very long time and I'm kind of worried. So if you hear from him let me know. Wow, that wasn't really a fact about me at all.
5. I love going to dinner and the movies by myself.
6. In high school I was the the psycho jealous girlfriend. (Sorry high school boyfriend.) Now I am the wife who encourages guys nights and would pay money to hear her husband say another woman is attractive. (He won't.)
7. I love my kids so much that it physically hurts me sometimes.
8. And other times I want to send them to live with their grandparents.
9. I think my feet are pretty attractive. You know, as feet go. Maybe because they are the only part of me that didn't change (too much) after having babies.
10. I played with Barbies until I was 14 years old.

Okay supa-seven! It's your turn...

are we still talking about houses?

2009-05-08T17:03:00.007-04:00

Our house has been on the market for what feels like eleventy months. We're averaging about two showings a week now which is good, right? WRONG. I'll send my children to your house for a day and you can see just how clean it stays.

We don't exactly need to sell it; we love our neighborhood and our location. And of course we love the house. But we have this crazy dream of buying a lot of land with some friends and making our own neighborhood. Plus, in the long run it's probably wise to be rid of our current house so we're trying to see if we get any bites. So far lots of nibbles, no takers.

In the mean time though I've had my sights set on this beauty:

It's a 100 year old farm house on 107 acres. It has a couple of barns and a couple of other out buildings and I lurve it. It's also right across the street from some good friends of ours. Phil says something to the effect of Yeah, we could just tear it down and...

And I had an aneurysm.

Me: You don't just tear down a gorgeous hundred year old farmhouse! You renovate it. You don't do your thing and tear it down.

Phil: I like tearing things down.

Me: See, this is just another example of how I'm like Jesus*. Jesus is all about renovation, rehabilitation and restoration my friend.

Phil: No, the fire burns away the imperfections. Burns. Destroys. Then we build a new house.

Me: No, Isaiah, actually the fire of which you speak is a purification whereby the bad shit is burned away and the entire person emerges cleansed and whole. Or you might say, renovated.

Phil: But we're new creations in Christ. The old has gone, THE NEW HAS COME.

Me: But you're in the same body, dude. You look exactly the same on the outside. It's just your spirit that has been gutted. So to speak.

Phil: Whatever. That house is built on sand and it must come down!

Me: You're the antichrist.

Phil: That's the nicest thing you've said to me all month.

*I'm not at all like Jesus. I just like Phil to think I am** when we argue.

**I'm not fooling anyone.

notable notes

2009-05-06T13:29:00.013-04:00

I've been racking my brain trying to think of something worth writing about lately, but there's just not much happening 'round these here parts. Which is a good thing when you consider the last five years of my life. So I figured I'd do a random round-up of the last week's most notable notes.

Notable Note #1:
I found Orla Kiely! My Target had been seriously lacking in O.K. merch, but I check every time I go, just in case. And look! Look at what I found!

They coordinate perfectly with my oh-so-adorable tea towels that I won over at Becky's. I now drink four different cups of coffee a day. Hahaha... haha........ ha... ahem.

Notable Note #2:
Yesterday I sliced my thumb open whilst attempting to pull the pit out of an avocado. I've done that little trick for years and this is the first time I stabbed myself instead of the pit. I clearly remember a moment where I thought I might die. (But also it's plausible that I tend to over-react a little bit in situations such as this, so my account may be slightly unreliable.) Since this is the first time I've ever been stabbed I wondered, How does one know if one should go get stitches after being stabbed? I decided to wait it out and I'm glad I did because it turns out that a Band-Aid is doing the trick just fine. So my advice is, if you ever get stabbed, skip the long line at the Emergency Room. Band-Aids, dude.

Notable Note #3 through #903:
I took like 900 pregnancy tests last week even though I knew there was no possible way I could be pregnant. But when you're 27 days late it's like, I dunno, could I just have forgotten or something? It turns out weight loss can prevent ovulation which can make you miss a period. (There's your lady parts lesson for today.) And I definitely have lost weight, albeit unintentionally. All the stress has not been good for me. But the cookies are helping me pack the pounds back on. (Thanks, cookies!)

Notable Note #904:
Ducky.

Notable Note #905:
I have a lot of really cool people in my life. Really cool. I have a hard time keeping up with everyone and everything but I am very appreciative of my f r i e n d s. (If you didn't get a letter, it just means I ran out of letters. Or I don't know your blog address. Or you don't have one. Which means you need to get with the program, slacker. I mean, if you're reading this you can pretty much be assured that you're really cool. Seriously, love you.)

Notable Note #906:
What is the line between letting kids be kids (destroy stuff) and teaching them to respect their belongings (not destroy stuff)? I tend to err on the side of the former but I'm wondering if that's not entirely as cool as I originally thought. In other words I've been cleaning a lot of crayon off the walls lately.

Notable Note #907:
My kids have swine flu. I mean a cold. Or allergies or something. Actually I'm not entirely sure what it is, I just know there's lots of snot and whining and naughtiness. Naughtiness is a symptom of swine flu, right? (I'm just kidding, CDC, we really don't have swine flu. Please allow me to continue my delayed vax schedule. Danke.)

So, that's all the news that's fit to print (or non-news, as the case ~~may be~~ definitely is). Hope you guys are all healthy and happy.

we have a new porch pet. apparently.

2009-05-05T23:06:00.005-04:00

Ducky. The Squirrel.

I kid you not.

He's been visiting us every day on the porch. It turns out he likes cereal. And responds to commands such as Get Out, Come Get Some Cereal and I Don't Think So, Bro. And my kids like him enough to name him after their favorite stuffed animals/lovey-things.

As long as he stays outside we shouldn't have any problems.

squirrely

2009-05-01T22:26:00.005-04:00

I had a squirrel in my house today. This squirrel to be precise.

The kids were asleep, the door to our porch was open and I was inside, sprawled on the sofa enjoying the breeze when I heard a little scurrying sound. I peeked around the arm of the couch and locked eyes with this brazen little dude who was chillin' in my kitchen, about three feet from me like, Oh, hello. Didn't see you there.

We stared at each other for a few seconds before I pointed at the door and yelled, "GET OUT!" He rolled his eyes at me and waddled back out the way he came. I grabbed my camera off the counter to get this picture of him on the porch.

Moments later I was walking past the door again and he was sitting there, looking in at me. Aren't you gonna invite me in?

"Dude, seriously, go," I mouthed through the glass.

"Fine. Whatever."

This is the most kick-ass squirrel I've ever met. I think I might leave him a bagel tonight.

and also, i can't figure out why iris smells like curry today.

2009-04-29T15:16:00.006-04:00

I have a few more Oceanisms and, to keep it fair and balanced, we'll begin with an Irisism. (Oooh, that was very fun to type.)
***
Ocean woke up the other morning after Iris had already eaten her first breakfast. I asked Ocean if he wanted some breakfast, and asked Iris if she wanted to help me get it for him. She glared at me, popped her pacifier out of her mouth and, chucking it across the room, screamed, "I hungry too!"
***
Last night Ocean and I went to the store. When we got out of the car at home I had on my person three grocery bags, my keys, my purse and a collection of random cups and toys that had accumulated in my car. Ocean was holding a receipt and he tried handing it to me to carry for him. "Ocean, you need to carry it. I don't have any more hands," I said. "Ohhhhhhh," he replied knowingly. "Because the birds took them."
***
Ocean was getting dressed this morning and poked himself in the nipple.
Ocean: I have milk in my breasts to feed Iris.
Me: You don't really have breasts. You have a chest and those are your nipples.
Ocean: And they're full of PEE!
***
We were sitting on the porch today at lunch time with my friend Amber and her daughter. Phil stopped in for a bit and Ocean was showing him his game of throw the imaginary poopy diaper away. Ocean bumped his arm and said, "Crap! That hurt!" Phil just raised his eyebrow at me in disgust and judgment. All I'm gonna say to that is, people in crap houses full of crap shouldn't throw crap. In other words: pot, meet kettle. (But about 5 minutes later I'm reasonably certain that I accidentally taught Ocean how to deal drugs. So suddenly him saying "crap" doesn't seem so bad.)
***
And here's a special installment I'll call "I Never Envisioned Myself Saying This, Ever." :
"No, I don't want to smell it, Ocean. Especially if it's 'pppeeeeeeeeeyoooouuuu stinky.'"

march for babies

2009-04-23T15:05:00.004-04:00

This Sunday I'm walking in the March of Dimes March For Babies on Nora and Ryan's team. I joined the team a month or so ago but because I'm the biggest procrastinator evah I'm just now posting it here.

I'm going to match donations up to a total of $200, so even if you can only give $5 it will really be like $10.

If you love babies, will you consider making a donation to our team? And if you don't love babies, there's something wrong with you. Seriously. But as a former baby, please consider giving anyway.

Thank you, friends.

hmmm... how to respond?

2009-04-22T23:48:00.001-04:00

Gynocologist, after my annual exam: Nice to see you again.

Me: Uhhhhh...

chicago pics

2009-04-22T23:19:00.002-04:00

a monday pick-me-up.

2009-04-20T20:23:00.000-04:00

PAC MAN (REMI GAILLARD)
by nqtv

laundry day

2009-04-18T10:47:00.002-04:00

Note to self: When the baby eats lentils...

1. Put her in disposable diapers
2. Rinse the cloth diapers thoroughly before laundering
or
3. Prepare to pick legumes out of the washer all morning.

*gag.*

glutton for punishment

2009-04-16T00:14:00.004-04:00

This is what Ocean and I do after the baby is in bed. I just don't know where all his energy comes from, especially at eight o'clock at night.

knock knock

2009-04-14T22:28:00.002-04:00

Check out Iris's knock knock joke. And please ignore my messy messy kitchen.

how quickly we forget

2009-04-14T10:40:00.005-04:00

I was cleaning out a drawer last night and I found a piece of paper with more Oceanisms from a few weeks ago. I had already forgotten most of them so I'm glad I wrote these down!

***Phil was missing a piece of his computer headset and asked Ocean if he had seen it. Ocean had shoved it into a tiny space somewhere and ran to go get it. Phil gave him a little lecture and Ocean responded with, "Daddy, calm down. Don't be sassy."

***Ocean was playing the "I have to go potty" game with me during nap one day. After the third time of crying wolf I sternly told him that was his last chance and he would just have to wait until he woke up to use the bathroom. He got an inch from my face and said, "You smell angry."

***Ocean and I were cuddling on the floor of his room and I was messing with his hair. He reached up and touched his head and, suddenly quite distressed, exclaimed, "Oh NO! My hair... it's... BLONDE!"

***I have a box of popsicles in the freezer that are reserved for hot days. Ocean is very cognizant of them and nonchalantly tries to finagle them for other occasions. On a particularly chilly day we were sitting on the couch under a blanket. "Whew. I'm hot." Ocean said, throwing the blanket off his lap. "Do you feel okay? Do you need me to turn on the fan?" I asked. "No," he said dramatically, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. "I need a popsicle."

***During a stressful attempt to enforce nap time (we seem to have a lot of those) Ocean raised his eyebrow at me and said, "This is a bad siesta."

chicago is a magical place.

2009-04-12T21:05:00.006-04:00

Last weekend I went to Chicago to visit my best friend Lindsay for our birthday gift to ourselves/each other. It. Was. Fabulous.

My friend Jamie made me a mix CD for the trip so on Friday morning I fired that bad boy up, stopped for a super duper gigantic mocha and headed down I-94 with nary a car seat in sight. Ahhhh... freedom. I totally rocked out to Coldplay, Ingrid Michaelson, Barenaked Ladies, Brandi Carlisle and not one but TWO songs from the Once soundtrack for the entire 4 hour drive. Methinks Jamie nailed my taste in music.

I got to Lindsay's place where she was finishing her packing, and I got some play time in with Ayla, who covered me with stickers, and Annabelle... who took one look at me and immediately fell asleep sitting up in her high chair. I'm hella entertaining.

We took the train to our hotel, checked in and decided to do Michigan Ave. We stopped at the Bean and took pictures, because this is what you do when you go to Chicago. We totally lost track of time and had to book it back to our hotel to get ready for Second City. When Lindsay took off her jacket she had one of Ayla's stickers on her back which was freaking adorable. Miraculously we got to Second City early enough to get awesome seats and we straight up laughed for the entire two hour show. It was quite possibly the funniest thing I've ever seen. And let's just say I fed an olive covered with hummus to a woman dressed as a Russian gymnast as she walked across the bar at which I was sitting. You kinda had to be there.

After Second City and several drinks we went to this great little restaurant called Quartino for tapas and more drinks. It was at this point in the evening that I walked into a revolving door. Twice. It may have been Shiraz-related. Or it may have been klutz-related. Or a combination of the two. I'll let the maître d' be the judge.

On Saturday we had a spa day at Spa Space. Highly recommend it if you're ever in Chicago; Jerry did my massage and Camille did my facial and I wanted to stick both of them in my pocket and bring them home with me. Lindsay's wonderful husband brought us some lunch and some champagne, which we drank once we got back to our hotel. For dinner we went to Karyn's Cooked, which is a fabulous vegan restaurant. After dinner and of course more drinks we pretty much walked around looking for a building with a view of the city. We found a few options but all had crazy wait time so we opted to go back to our hotel. On the walk back we passed a homeless man who basically had the most hilarious quote of the entire weekend. Dude didn't even hit us up for cash... as we walked by him he just said, "Y'all could be jeans models. Both of ya."

We went to bed pretty much right away and woke up the next day, had breakfast and took the train back to Lindsay's house. After a quick walk to the popcorn store to get a bag of Chicago Mix for the family (and a separate bag for my drive home, which my family never knew existed until NOW) I said goodbye to my BFF and her beautiful family and headed back to Meeechigan.

I listened to my new Imogen Heap CD, which I picked up at Borders after the spa on Saturday, all the way home:
"Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth.
Mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut-outs.
Speak no feeling, no I don't believe you.
You don't care a bit. You don't care a bit."

Good stuff.

This was the most fun trip I've taken since our beach vacation last September. It had more to do with the company this time than the location... but the location was pretty sweet too. Linds has the photos and as soon as I snag them from her I'll be sure to post them. I just wish I had a picture of the revolving door incident(s).

Thank you again, Linds, for an awesome weekend! And you really could be a jeans model.

happy easter

2009-04-12T13:38:00.004-04:00

This picture is totally unrelated to the resurrection but it's hilarious.

Those are not her Thomas the Train underpants, obviously, but she sure does know how to rock 'em.

And here's Ocean telling a story. He likes to "read" from his hands while he makes it up.

conversations

2009-04-09T13:45:00.009-04:00

I love, love, love the current ages of my kids. I wish I could have a camera crew follow us around all day; it feels like the funny never ends.

***I was wiping Ocean's face after he ate lunch and he said, "You're not supposed to wipe children, mommy. You're supposed to wipe things that I color on."

***Ocean wrote me a letter the other day. I asked him what it said and he 'read' it to me: "Dear Mommy. I love you. You are so smart and pretty. Dear Mommy."

***While hugging me around the neck Ocean said, "Mmmmm, you smell pretty!" I asked him what I smell like and he said, "Pancakes and... [sniff, sniff] strawberries!"

***Ocean has two words that he invented. We've tried to no avail to have him define them, so they've just become funny words that we say when we don't know what else to say. Yesterday I was helping Ocean get dressed and he said, "Coddie?" I replied, "Noooo..." and we said together, "LAYZEROUS!" And then cracked up. Like our own little nonsensical inside joke.

***Iris and I had our first real conversation yesterday while she was sitting at the table eating yogurt. It went like this:

Iris: All done.

(I started to get her out of her chair.)

Iris: Yoogoo. Hoat! [Yogurt. Hold!]

Me: No, you can't hold the yogurt if you want to get down.

Iris: Why?

Me: Because it's too messy.

Iris: Messy?

Me: Yes, messy.

Iris: (thinking)... all done.

And, miracle of miracles, she let me get her down without throwing an elbow to my throat or trying to jack the spoon out of my hand.

Communication is right up there with naps when it comes to having happy toddlers and sane parents.

"Wow, that was really insightful," you're all thinking. I should definitely write a parenting book.

(Not.)

oral fixation 101

2009-04-07T19:03:00.004-04:00

Our small group at church is chock-full of brand new nursing babies. At our meeting last month Ocean was having a hard time being with the other kids (we have a babysitter so the grown-ups can actually have a discussion) and so he was sitting next to me on the couch amidst the adults.

Out of the blue Ocean leaned over and whispered, "Mommy, I want to drink some milk from your breast."

I was trying desperately not to crack up, and not really succeeding. "Ocean, I don't have any milk in my breasts anymore," I managed to whisper back.

"Oh. Well then I just want to suck on your finger."

My kids are so weird.

FYI: No, I've never let him suck on my fingers before, and he's never asked before, and other than a couple of thumb-sucking buddies (their OWN, not someone else's) he's never seen any finger-sucking as far as I know so I don't know where he got that. Just so we're all clear.

it's april 6th for crying out loud.

2009-04-06T14:25:00.004-04:00

I am still practically comatose in a good way after a fun-filled spa weekend in Chicago with my BFF. I will update with photos and a recap of the weekend soon, but in the mean time I just wanted to show you all what I woke up to this morning:

Sorry about the weird angle but I was really trying to get a picture of the park across the street without stepping onto the porch. It's frickin' freezing out there after all.

I'll close with a funny story. Last week I was looking at the grocery ads and commented that Ataulfo Mangoes were on sale. Phil was passing by and exclaimed, "Oooh! I love flamingoes." It makes it funnier that I'm not sure if he was joking.

Hope everyone here is enjoying the snow as much as I am (I'm not) and if you live elsewhere and don't get snow storms in April please tell me how that feels.

oh my. a must-read.

2009-04-02T11:44:00.004-04:00

This was posted on my friend Heather's Facebook page. Click on the article below to read it.

you can't make this stuff up.

2009-03-28T21:19:00.006-04:00

From our local Craig's List: [my real-time thoughts are in brackets]

Free to good home:
1 1/2 yr. old pit mix needs new home.
Neutered, excellent with kids, very energetic!
Loves to chase our two cats throughout the house. [Funny... though probably not for the cats]
Is extremely protective of his owners/family.
Knows a few tricks, stays when told, and comes when called by name or whistle.
Crate trained/potty trained. [Sounds like a great dog!
Where do I sign?]
Our family situation has recently changed drastically and Rage needs more attention than we can give. [Say what now?]
This guy will make a family very happy if given the time and attention he so deserves! [Ummm... I have to go talk to a guy about a thing. I'll be back.]

A pitbull named Rage. Awwww, that's so adorable. Don't everyone offer to take him at once.

gender roles, schmender roles

2009-03-27T09:20:00.003-04:00

Iris just spent the last five minutes carefully selecting items to put into her frilly pink purse. I asked her to bring it to me and show me what she found.

She pulled out a baseball, a Hot Wheels car and the TV remote.

that hollyweird gonna get to ya

2009-03-25T23:10:00.006-04:00

A movie is totally being filmed on my street. This movie, to be precise. Check out that cast! And apparently they've been all over the area filming for the past couple of months and I've been too busy having emotional crises to notice. But whatever, the set is less than two blocks from my house and base camp is at a church two blocks west of there. If you buy me a pony I'll reveal my exact location. Or you could just drive through the general area and look for the massive vehicles and signs that say "SET - THIS WAY".

I took the kids for a stroll this evening to see what we could see, but the road was completely barricaded and there were semi trucks parked all over our narrow little street. White shuttle vans have been zipping back and forth between the set and base camp all day. I was relieved to discover they were a part of all the action because I was starting to think someone was casing the joint.

The kids and I were going to walk down to the ice cream shop but because of the barricades we couldn't get there without having to go way out of our way. I feigned aggravation but inside I was thinking how very cool this is. I haven't seen this much action in our neighborhood since we had to cut down a huge oak tree in our yard and a neighbor was so upset over it that she threatened to chain herself to the tree. Right before she called the police. Welcome to my little slice of crazy.

Anyway, I kind of had to restrain myself from storming base camp, asking for the famous people. The only thing really holding me back was my ~~dignity~~ lack of something to write on. I can see it now: "Hey, are you famous? Can I get an autograph? No, I don't have any paper. Here, just sign my baby's head. Yes, I'll get out of the port-a-john now. Gosh, famous people are so stuck-up." Awesome.

decade in review

2009-03-22T21:36:00.001-04:00

Welp, I just wrapped up my first annual 30th birthday. Yes, I said first annual. Next year will be my second annual 30th, etc. Ocean got me a pan to make muffins shaped like sporting equipment. I told him I thought it was awesome, and he told me it was expensive. And I'm going sometime this week to get some dishes from Anthropologie so you know I'll be posting pictures later.

The last ten years of my life were pretty nuts. I lived so much life in that time and experienced more than I ever imagined I would at this age. I loved and lost and loved again, I experienced sorrow too great for words and exhilaration that can't be described, I brought forth life and witnessed the end of life. I travelled, I searched, I yearned, I wandered, I found my home and I made peace with myself. Overall I'd say it was a pretty good decade.

My goal for the next ten years is to not allow myself to age too quickly since the last year has pretty much turned me into a senior citizen. I'm totally down with the S.C.'s but I'm far from being one and if I'm not getting the discount, I'm pretty sure I don't want to feel like one yet. The next decade has the potential to be very draining so I'm determined to not let my joy be stolen, no matter what circumstances arise. It helps having friends who keep me laughing and dancing and playing. (Thank you, friends, of all varieties.)

Here's a birthday video Ocean and I made before he went to bed tonight. Biggest blessings... smallest packages. For sure.

par-tay.

2009-03-21T14:06:00.000-04:00

My dear sweet friends took me out on Friday night to celebrate my birthday. Here is the progression of the evening in photographs.

Stacie, me, Jenny. Before the drinks.

Get a room. Geez.

Too... much... love...

Laughing. NOT puking.

Out. Of. Control.

I thought I should post these myself before the paparazzi tried to sell them to make money. Or before someone tried to blackmail me with them. It's not like I have a crown to lose or anything but you just never know who's out there with an axe to grind.

Seriously, I haven't laughed that hard in so long... the hilarity was unceasing, and I think all three of us really needed to let our hair down like this. Thanks for an awesome celebration, girls!

well-behaved female trains rarely make history

2009-03-19T13:09:00.005-04:00

The feminist in me was totally appalled at today's episode of Thomas the Train. Here's a slightly abridged and extremely paraphrased version of what went down.

James, Diesel and Percy are all trying to get to the washing station which Emily is parked in front of. James tries to intimidate her by getting up in her face and yelling, "Move, bitch!" Emily doesn't move. 'Atta girl. Then Diesel gets all handsy and ends up pushing her. Still, Emily is all, "Screw you, Diesel," and pushes him back, and maybe even kicks him in the crotch. It was hard to tell. Either way, way to stand your ground, mama. Finally, Percy swaggers up to Emily and turns on the charm. "Hey baby, if you really loved me you'd back that thing up." Emily giggles, bats her eyes and moves out of the way.

"NOOOOO! What are you teaching our daughters, Emily?!" I screamed, scaring the Jeebus out of my kids.

Supposedly it was a lesson in being polite, but whatever. I'm totally going to burn my bra.

And also I've had way too much caffeine this morning.

it's all fun and games until someone totally bites it

2009-03-11T23:24:00.003-04:00

Despite it being so, so freezing today, we ventured out of doors to dominate some sidewalk chalk. Ocean and I played a vicious game of hopscotch and he got a little overzealous with the hopping. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but somehow he launched himself about a foot into the air, got his right foot caught on his left ankle and came down flat on his face. I scooped him up and evaluated the damage. Even though it seemed like his face should have been in the worst shape, he was holding his hands in the air and crying, "My hands got burned!"

Me: Oh, I'm so sorry you're hurt! It looked really awesome, though.

Ocean: Waaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!

Me: Is it just your hands that hurt?

O: Yeahhhhhhhh! I burned them!

Me: I think you scraped them.

O: Yeah, I scraped themmmmmmmm!

Me: Well that's okay. Mommy can fix them.

O: *sniff* With scissors?

Me: No...

O: With crayons?

Me: Huh?

O: Oh. With boots.

Me: Am I being Punked?

He was fine once we went into the house and then, as further evidence that he has inherited my dexterity, he fell over backwards trying to take his coat off.

why twitter is not for me.

2009-03-09T12:23:00.007-04:00

I was talking with a friend over the weekend about the joys of Twitter, and it got me wondering for a nanosecond how my life would be enriched if I joined the millions of you who are much more hip and savvy than I. It didn't take me long to decide that Twitter is quite possibly my worst technological nightmare. Here is a brief explanation of why.

From my limited observations and understanding of this phenomenon, truly successful, productive Twittering requires frequent updates on what you're doing throughout the day. But I really don't get online as much as one might assume I do based on the amount of blogs I own and my complete lack of any sort of life, so I'm not sure when I would update. It would have to wait until the kids were in bed, and then you'd get a hundred million Tweets from me between the hours of 9pm and midnight, all of them super insignificant. Then you would all block me for being annoying and then what would be the point?

But assuming I chose to leave my high-maintenance children to their own devices and fully devoted myself to keeping you abreast of my whereabouts and activities throughout the day, what would these updates say? "I'm microwaving my full cup of coffee for the sixth time in an hour." or "I changed another diaper. The blueberries finally made their way through." or "My kids have been in a perpetual timeout today, and I've added a bit of vodka to my orange juice." I just couldn't bear the thought of you all knowing how dull and repetitive my weekdays can be. I'd rather have everyone operate under the false pretense that my life is all glamour and glitz. I mean, isn't that what I'm getting across here? Hello? Anyone?

Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, I already have issues with people knowing exactly where I am at any given time, as in I like my privacy and I'm sort of neurotic about everyone having instant access to me whenever they want (and now you also see why motherhood is a bit of a challenge for me). After realizing that the entire human race migrated from real life to Facebook and now operates solely on that interface I begrudgingly joined. I knew I'd be missing out big time if I didn't get on board, so I slapped that barcode on my forehead and called it a day. And now, every time I write anything on my page or anyone else's EVERYONE can see it. Am I the only one who finds that to be sort of creepy and invasive? It's kind of like the Patriot Act, but with willing participants. Twitter is pretty much the same thing. No... it's exactly the same thing. I'm not going down like that. At least not without some good old fashioned peer pressure.

So... to those of you who aren't completely turned off by my absurd neuroses, and are emotionally balanced enough to actually Twitter, tell me what you like about it. What you don't like about it. If you don't Twitter, why not? And if you can recommend a therapist who can help me work through these immensely important issues I will say to you "Tweet, tweet."

(That's as close as I'll get to Twitter.)

prêt-à-porter

2009-03-08T22:23:00.004-04:00

Iris. Oh, Iris.

Lately she has started choosing her outfits. We open her drawers in the morning and she selects whatever she is into that day by holding it up and declaring, "Pretty!"

However, she must have recently realized that other people have fun fashion options in their dressers as well so this was the hook up of her choosing yesterday, from multiple sources. Her monkey jammies, my bra, puppy rain boots and Ocean's sweatshirt.

Rock star.

i thought he'd never come out.

2009-02-28T20:32:00.006-05:00

Ocean turned three years old at approximately 9:46 am today. After his birthday celebrations had subsided we were laying on the couch and I decided to reminisce about his birth. With him.

Me: Ocean, what was it like when you were born?
Ocean: It was just hard.
Me: What was hard about it?
O: Mommy said, "Get out, baby!" and I said, "No no no!" And it just hurt a little bit.
Me: What hurt?
O: My head was stuck and my face was scratches. (scratching his right cheek)
Me: Really? Where were your hands when you were born?
O: Like this. (Covering his face)
Me: How did you feel being born?
O: Cranky. And a little hungry.

Now folks, I have not talked about Ocean's birth with him or in his presence, except to tell him that he used to live in my tummy. I try not to relive it ever. EVER. The only other people who were there during his birth were Phil (who has probably blocked out much of that 28 hours, especially the cursing* and crazy psychotic paranoia**, but I know has not shared details with Ocean either), and medical staff who still reside in North Carolina. So the fact that Ocean's account of his birth is so wildly accurate, even in three-year-old language, is a bit unnerving. Here are the facts that line up with his account:

42 weeks and one day of pregnancy.
28 hours of hard back labor, 24 without an epidural.
Ocean's head got stuck in my pelvis.
He came out with his hands on his face (yowza) and scratches on his nose and cheek from his fingernails.
I'm not sure I actually said, "Get out baby" during labor, but it's highly likely that I made some statement to that effect in the 15 days past my due date.

So you can see that his perception of the way the whole thing went down is spot on. Crazy memory aside, he's now a little older and a little wiser and a lot cuter. (I didn't think it was possible.) Happy birthday, Ocean! Thanks for deciding to finally come out.

*Not just cussing... cursing. Everything that touched me and anyone who came into my room. I was pretty much calling down fire from heaven on everyone and their mom. It was all very Old Testament, except for everyone rolling their eyes at me. And the total lack of fire and/or brimstone.

**About 19 hours in I noticed that Phil and the nurse kept having secret meetings in the hallway. After the third or fourth one I hissed, "I know you're talking about me." Well, duh, you're in labor. "I know. But I just want you to know that I know and I think it's really F***ed up that you're talking about me behind my back." Apparently labor turns me into a pre-adolescent with a filthy mouth. And quite frankly I'm shocked that he didn't call an exorcist at that point. (And so there's a little glimpse, a two minute snippet of a 28 hour stretch, of why we never talk about it.)

of note.

2009-02-23T22:45:00.008-05:00

I'm sorry to everyone who went to the Ann Arbor Vineyard first church service yesterday. That was my daughter screaming her little lungs out in the lobby. For the first time ever the nursery workers had to come pull me out of church to get her because she was inconsolable. We ended up leaving midway through the sermon. I'm guessing it was her molars because, well, when I asked if her mouth hurt she said, "Yeah." And also because Motrin helped. But seriously, first servicers, sorry about all the racket.
****
I've been immensely. stressed. out. the last few days. My friend Mandy came and picked me up this morning and we went to Arbor Brewing Company for an early lunch. It wasn't long before I was sobbing into my tempeh burger, spilling all my dirty and my whole sad story and, like a good friend, she listened and then responded with, "You need a massage." The woman then whipped out her iPhone, called a little place and sweet talked them into squeezing us in within the hour. On our way there we stopped at Whole Foods to do some lookin' around and grabbed a cup of coffee at a local shop. It ended up being a fantastic morning. If you don't know Mandy, you oughta.
****
My big brother has been in town from San Francisco for the last couple of weeks. He goes back tomorrow and that is very sad, because it's been nice having him around again. We always have such lovely little chats about Cougars and magic mushrooms and Scientology. I lub him.
****
Ocean is sleeping in his big boy bed! Grandma and Grandpa came down on Sunday to put it together (Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa!) and we had no issues with the transition. Well, just for a moment last night when he looked longingly at his crib (which I left set up just in case) and said, "I want my crib." After explaining that everything was the same except for the actual bed, he did fine and slept all night. Nap today, fine. Bedtime tonight, easy. I may or may not have shed a tiny tear over the fact that I have to break down his crib tomorrow.

maybe this post should be a drinking game.

2009-02-20T20:55:00.007-05:00

The kids and I frequently travel the four blocks to my dad's work so the kids can run around upstairs, play with physio balls and eat from the snack jar Papa keeps on his desk (dried fruit and yogurt raisins). While we're there the swimmers are usually in the middle of some sort of workout, many times in (duh) their swim suits.

Big Tens are currently going on here so we've spent significant time at the natatorium the last two days, and there are many more girls in swim suits bustling about than there usually are.

Suddenly this morning Ocean decided he wanted to go swimming and the following conversation ensued:

Ocean: I could go swimming in the pool.
Me: You want to swim today?
O: Yeah, but I could just wear my swim suit and not take my penis off.
Me: Wait... what?
O: I could not have to take my penis off. And I could just wear my swim suit not like the girls. And I not have goggles too. I not take my penis off. (shaking his head fervently and furrowing his brow)
Me: No, Ocean... you can keep your penis. Do you mean that you couldn't see penises under the girls' swim suits?
O: Yeah.
Me: That's because girls don't have penises. Remember? Who has penises?
O: Boys has penises. And girls.... girls doesn't have penises! (throwing his hands up and looking relieved)

I can't wait until this kid is a teenager. And, inconsequentially, I've never said or typed the word "penis" so much in my life.

the whining.

2009-02-17T18:28:00.003-05:00

It begins in the wee hours of the dawn: the sounds of my children whining, seeping through the child monitors like nails on a chalkboard. It continues as I fetch my dear children from their beds, carry them downstairs, prepare their breakfast and get them dressed. It does not let up during the late morning, nor the noon hour. It crescendos to its peak at dinnertime and only ceases when eyes and bedroom doors have closed for the night.

Aaaaaah, blessed peace...

...until the next morning when the symphony of whining begins all over again.

They whine when they're hungry, they whine when they aren't hungry and I make them sit them at the table. They whine when they want something, they whine when they don't want anything. They whine when they fight, they whine when they get in trouble. They whine when it's bedtime, they whine when it's time to get up. They whine when they have to share me, they whine when I try to hug them.

They whine when I ignore it, they whine when I don't.

Seriously. Help. How can I make it stop?

Spilled Milk

advent craftiness. you knew it was coming.

a shout out to the children's leukemia foundation

from now on i'm going to let him choose his punishment, because an ice cream trap is way better than what we were going for.

all done.

let there be light. fixtures.

it's too hot to blog.

sauced

who she is

it's the rainy season. must do projects.

the end is... here?

the question we should be asking is who exactly "they" are.

getting stuff done.

discipline fail.

a walk on the child side

college collage

iris's breakfast: thursday

iris's breakfast: wednesday

mount paperwork: climbed and conquered.

all better

if you don't want to read about me feeling sorry for myself over a dumb stomach virus stop reading now.

uncle! UNCLE!

the story of (our) stuff

black tie optional

ocean

infected

some have skeletons in their closets. we have...

unsolicited advice wednesday: food issues

unsolicited advice wednesday: movies

barf + blizzard = a party!

it's as if i've never seen snow before.

an ounce of prevention

olive oil? for me? no, i'm good. thanks.

busy brabbses. and a christmas shopping update!

we be shoppin'.

it's about time.

Lippy.

Three

Nursery

ten things i didn't know until last night

working on forgiveness.

everything and the kitchen sink.

a teensy update

my precious peeps

a modern day fairy tale to send you off into your weekend.

*cricket, cricket*

fragments of funny

more pictures.

beachin', yo.

it's 5 am and i'll be going back to bed just as soon as i tell you nothing of importance. things seem much more pressing at this hour.

"what the flip?" friday

watch out, american idol.

we teach proper names for both body parts and plants, but there appears to be some confusion here.

so little to do, so much time. it turns out.

i'm inspired.

confession

it's a zoo.

untitled.

dancing machines. sort of. not really.

bring the pain

oh, no doubt, you'll always have my heart.

it's difficult to argue with kid-logic.

a small glimpse into my life. and a slight indication as to why the future often terrifies me.

where i were

more fun at the brabbses. or is it brabbs'? or perhaps brabbseses? one can never be sure.

weeping and gnashing of teeth, or funny stories? how 'bout funny stories.

i am trying to be brave.

this has nothing to do with anything. unless you're a lobster. or an ear. i guess.

i don't even have a speech prepared...

are we still talking about houses?

notable notes

we have a new porch pet. apparently.

squirrely

and also, i can't figure out why iris smells like curry today.

march for babies

hmmm... how to respond?

chicago pics

a monday pick-me-up.

laundry day

glutton for punishment

cricket, cricket