paint splashes

We've Got Cabin Fev-ah!

2012-02-19T00:19:00.001-05:00

You may have wondered what happened to me. You may have wondered why I haven't posted here.

You may not even be here any more.

Are you here?

Well. It's been... something else around here.

I haven't been able to write here because I haven't been able to come up with a humorous spin on the non-stop ordeal of sleep-deprivation and sickness that I have encountered. I was actually afraid of what vitriol I might spew about the injustice of it all if I started a post.

So much for my "vacation".

As I write this, I still have two children with fevers. And I'm still coughing up a lung or two. We're ALL coughing up lungs around here.

Lest I continue to bore you with tales of our woes, I'll stop. Suffice it to say that I've been feeling a little unbalanced.

We came up with a plan to help us feel a little more chill.

We went to a garden show!

Just me and Mom and a snotty (but fairly cheerful) baby.

It was lovely, though slightly artificial and WAY too crowded. Apparently there were many others in need of the same therapy.

Flowers and green and beauty in the winter?

Yes!

The problem with this is that it makes me want things. (Like, um, spring.)

A cute little french garden with an outdoor stone oven?

Want!

Ginormous clay pots with water flowing out of them into crisp little blue pools?

Want!

A cute, smiley baby with a snot-crusted face?

Want! (Um, hold the snot crust!)

Wait, I have that!

Great!

It also made me want to make things. I came away with a few dreams and ideas. We'll see if I can put a few of them into practice this winter and spring.

Like these adorable miniature gardens.

They're just so tiny!

I've always admired these miniatures and I would love to try my hand at making them!

Also, some day I want to learn to weld and work with metal so I can make awesome little sculptures like this:

I've always loved metal art. Ahhh... someday...

So we got a got our spring fever ramped up a few notches, and got a little break from being house-bound. We also managed a little "retail therapy" but that was severely frustrated by the traffic. Oh, city life is not the life for me.

It has it's perks sometimes, though... like little doses of spring in winter...

Snip Snip!

2012-02-11T20:44:00.002-05:00

Evan got his first haircut at Grandma's house!

At 19 months old, it was time. It was getting pretty long in some places and his mohawk has long since been laying down. With his constant hair-twirling habit, the back was getting pretty tangled, too.

Getting him to stay still was a trick...

In fact, he didn't, really.

Once he saw that first cut, he was determined to get the heck outta dodge.

So I bribed him with cheese while his Grandma cut a moving target.

It worked, and my Mom has a lot of experience cutting little boys' hair.

And now he looks like such a big boy!

The double swirly is quite visible again, and that middle part will stick up whenever he gets a haircut for the rest of his life, I'm sure.

He's just extra cute now!

Ka-blooey

2012-02-07T18:29:00.004-05:00

I traveled without my camera.

Le gasp!

Yes, I did. I've never done it before. It seemed like a good idea at the time, that time being packing. My camera would be one less bulky thing to carry along and I figured it would be nice to minimize the bulk what with three kids and all their accompanying gear. Besides that, my camera has been around and around and around and it's really showing it's age. I want it to hang on as long as possible, and a trip is unlikely to help that. AND, my Mom has a fancy new camera that I can shoot with here.

But I miss it. That camera is like an extension of my person and it feels like I'm missing a limb or something. Also, I missed so many good photo ops along the way. Scenes like Evan zonked out, spread-eagle, on the floor in the very crowded Denver airport, or Jonah studiously following along in the safety information card during the in-flight safety demonstration. ("Mom! Did you know that the seat bottom cushion is useful for flotation?"), or the big stroller that carried my babies and randomly dropped a wheel once in a while along the way.

However, even though I am short actual photos of the actual event, I have managed to find a few stand-in images that will help to illustrate my journey from Michigan to Oregon alone with my three children.

After arriving at the airport at oh-dark-thirty in the middle of the night and getting my progeny and stuff through security, we boarded a fairly average jet-liner, something like this, but with Carl the Coyote (and later Jack the Snowshoe Hare) on the tail and wing-tips.

We found our seats waaaaay in the back of the cabin. ("Walk, Evan! Keep walking! Go! Evan... keep goooooing!")

We settled ourselves.

The plane took off.

Then this happened:

I've always sort of prided myself on being the Mom that has it all together. On never leaving even so much as a peanut wrapper behind. That's actually not too hard with one kid.

I got my comeuppance when I had no choice but to walk (or rather, drag my crew) off the plane at the end of our flight with our seating area looking something like this:

I was wishing I had packed a neat little Dirt Devil hand vac.

Sigh. No camera, no Dirt Devil.

And then we got on another plane and did it all again, same song, second verse, a little faster and a little bit worse, and left the aircraft in ruins.

"Your kids have been so great!" the stewardess said. Then she narrowed her eyes and looked at Evan and said, "Well. YOU are a little boarder-line." (Someone else said, after asking the ages of my kids, "Well! You have been a very busy lady!" which is actually very different than saying "You ARE a busy lady" if you catch my drift. Just sayin'. I got a lot of interesting looks and comments yesterday.)

But we made it! We're here, and I could happily sleep for several weeks, but I don't get to because I have to join in the game of Mommy Ping Pong (Mommy's the ball) that my little guys have initiated. That's okay, though, because if I slept I would miss out on so much fun with my family! It's gonna be great (if I can keep my eyeballs propped open).

Jeffrey!

2012-02-07T09:23:00.001-05:00

You know this routine, don't you?

Yeah, that was me. Times 3.

More about that to come...

When It Rains, It Pours, and then Somebody Vomits

2012-01-31T08:24:00.000-05:00

When Jonah got up this morning and told me that when he woke up he had to pick the crusty gunk from his eyes he said, "Mom, I think maybe bad mouth germs cause this."

I said "Uh, whaaaaa...?"

"That gum we bought yesterday says it has a Defense System which fights bad mouth germs. So I should probably have lots of that gum for a while."

That, folks, is what you get when your kid learns to read. Also, fielding such questions while driving as, "Mom, what does x-y-l-i-t-o-l spell?"

~~~

Evan can stand one tall drinking glass on a cardboard box and then invert a second tall drinking glass on top of the first one and balance them rim-to-rim. I mentioned the "glass" part, right? He's gifted, I'm sure. However, he cannot hit a bucket when he upchucks his last drink of water.

~~~

Have you ever cared for a feverish, snotty, goopy-eyed baby while you have a fever yourself? It's easier to stay warm all night that way.

~~~

Also, have you ever tried to get ready for a long trip with three children, for which you are leaving in 6 days, while also fighting various and sundry illnesses in said children? Loads of fun for everyone!

~~~

And what's this I hear about more bad weather heading for the Pacific Northwest (where I, and my gooey children, are also headed)? Hey, to all that family I'm going to visit, howsabout we go spend the two weeks in Hawaii instead, huh?

Snowman Snow

2012-01-24T17:16:00.001-05:00

For Christmas, my Grandma gave Jonah a bag of snowman parts.

Wow, just sounds so funny to me. I snicker every time I say it. "Snowman parts." Hee! It sounds like something you'd get on the black market or something, like "tiger parts" in China. Hahaha!

Eh-hem. Anyway.

So snowman parts. They're various wooden features on dowels that you use when building a snowman in place of the traditional carrots and rocks.

Trouble is, we don't often get snowman snow. It's usually very cold and dry and blowing all over, not wet and packy.. But the other day we had a brief warm-up in which the lastest bath of cold snow started to melt. The window for good snow was all of one afternoon, so Nathan and Jonah had to work fast to try out those snowman parts (hahaha! "Snowman parts!").

I think they had some fun with this project.

Jonah even made a pet for the snowman.

And then, that very night, thunderstorms (yes, actually) rolled in and the snowman and snowpet were nothing but soggy heaps of slush and jumbles of snowman parts. *I* thought this would be a funny ending for my blog post about the snowman, so I was going to take pictures of the tragic snowman downfall. Jonah, however, was so horrified by this idea that he made a special point of heading outside to pick up the parts (without being told!) before I got a chance to go out with the camera.

Motivation, as with humor, comes in strange packages.

Detour Through Stupidity

2012-01-20T16:54:00.000-05:00

On any trip to or from Minnesota, the issue of Chicago is always a big thing. Traffic. Chicago has lots of traffic. We don't likes traffic. We always try to calculate just when we'll get there and what the best time will be.

We also have a bit of a fondness for Chicago (the city, but not the traffic) because we spent a good bit of time there when we lived in the south suburbs during our first year of married life (I don't miss it. Nope, not a bit. Suburban living AND the first year of married life.).

Also, we have just enough knowledge of that city's roads to hang ourselves.

All that said, we thought we were getting to Chicago at a good time on our way home from Minnesota yesterday, but we weren't. We got all snarled in traffic on the Kennedy on our way into the city. As always happens, Nathan moaned about not having chosen a different highway, suggested surface streets, and I sighed and begged him not to. This is always the way it goes, and by the time we get done discussing it, the traffic clears and we go on our way.

This time he said, "Hey, way don't get get out of here and head over to Lakeshore Drive and head down that way? Just for a change of scenery?" And I said, "Uuuuuummmmmmmmm... sure. Sounds fun! Looks like it's just a little jog to the east from here."

Did I mention that the baby was screaming while we were stuck in traffic and having this discussion?

By the time we got the exit into the city where we would just head over to Lakeshore Drive, the traffic cleared.

We hesitated.

The baby screamed.

Maybe we should just....???

Nah.

We headed off into the city, baby screaming, Evan yelling in impatience.

"Look, Jonah! We're in Chicago! Isn't this FUN?"

"Uuuuuhhhh... How are we gonna get home, Dad?"

"WWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

What do you think the traffic IN the city was like? Clogged of course.

We even maganged to drive right by the Latin School of Chicago, just as the parents were picking up their children after school let out. Eek

We delude ourselves into thinking these little short cuts will be easy. How could it be that we could SEE the road we wanted to be on, but we couldn't GET ON it?

The signs pointed our direction, and yet, we couldn't seem to get there.

And the baby screamed on.

What is wrong with us?

Just as we were about to give up, we came across Wacker Drive. That insane road-under-a-road where cars whip around at insane speeds... Wacker goes to Lakeshore!

And the baby stopped crying! Ahhh... perhaps he has finally gone to sleep.

And we did it! We made it to Lakeshore drive!

We're cruising now! Woo-hoo!

And the crying commenced yet again. Evan joined in again.

What fun we're having.

Then, I remembered that I had these, thanks to my lovely Mother-in-law:

Ahhh. Peace.

On the Road Again

2012-01-15T20:12:00.002-05:00

We decided, sort of last minute, to make another trip tp Minnesota this week. Seemed reasonable, until it came time to pack and then, KA-BLAM. My head exploded.

See how good we are at procrastinating, though?

Piratey Things

2012-01-11T15:26:00.001-05:00

Andrew supervises while Evan hands the silverware to Jonah, and Jonah puts them in the drawer.

It's a great system, until it dissolves into swashbuckling.

Favorite

2012-01-10T17:23:00.000-05:00

When Jonah was littler, he had a special blanket. Someone had made it for him and it had little pictures of Whinnie-the-Pooh on it. We took it everywhere with us and didn't dare leave it home on an overnight trip. Right around the time that Evan was born, I had noticed that Jonah didn't seem to be needing that blanket quite so much. Finally, one days he said to me, "Mom, I don't need my Pooh Blanket any more. You can give it to Evan." He was a bit over five years old.

I think that's a pretty normal attachment and a pretty normal "growing out of it".

Evan, in his infinite quirkiness, has a special ball.

He always prefers a ball to most other toys, but this one, in particular, is his favorite.

He carries it around constantly.

He eats with it.

He sleeps with it.

After he falls asleep at night, we laugh when we hear the ball hit the floor and go rolling away. When he wakes up, it's the first thing that he wants. Sometimes it falls in the crack and we have to fish it out for him.

When it rolls away during play and gets lost for a while (like it has been for the last couple days), he will sometimes replace it with something else-- a small, blue, bottle cap, for example. But he remembers his ball and cries for it at bedtime and is always glad to see it again when it turns up.

It's so funny to me that he chose this particular ball to be so attached to. I have tried offering another ball of similar size, but he won't have anything to do with it. He only wants this one, hard, plastic ball.

Most significantly....

...it has a sad face on it.

It looks...

...just like him.

Bread Bug

2012-01-09T19:34:00.001-05:00

I've been bitten by the bread bug. Again. After months and months of coasting along with the same ol' everyday bread, I'm just itching to try some fun new things to feed my wheat addiction. The photo above is an attempt at stenciling on my bread. Obviously, I needs some actual stencils. Not sure I could sell the Jonah-handprint loaf to any discerning customer. (As for selling, I'm only opening a bakery in my head. Don't worry.) But it's a fun idea and I will probably play with that a little more!

Yesterday I mixed up a batch of Chocolate Cinnamon Rye. I was drooling just reading the recipe. I dreamed of it all night while the loaves retarded in the fridge. Today I baked them and... so utterly disappointing. After all that anticipation, it was a total flop. No rise to speak of. I'm not really sure why.

So tonight? Bread pudding! That is what I do with bread flops. I will make it into bread pudding, and behold, it will probably not be Very Good* either, but I shall call it Breakfast. Ah-ha! You thought it was Dessert, didn't you? Not so, says I. Eggs + milk + grains = breakfast. And this is even better because it even involves coffee AND chocolate. Just realized it is somewhat lacking in butter. I will find a way to remedy that. Sugar? Yeah, so what. Some days are like that.

Come have breakfast at my house! Everything in one dish, and only the Good Stuff.

So I've not had the greatest start with my Baking of Fabulous Things. Oh well. I see wonderful bread in my future...

*Good Bread Pudding requires the use of Good Bread. Betcha didn't know that, didja? Yeah. Trade secret.

General Awesome

2012-01-08T15:47:00.000-05:00

So I'm finally gonna take this little pipsqueak (and his brothers, of course) to meet the family "out west." And I'm taking them by myself. *Deep breath* Yeah, it'll be an interesting trip. I'm really looking forward to being there, just not the getting there part. And I'd just as soon go for the whole month of February, instead of two and a half weeks of it, if it weren't for the fact that Nathan will be here all by himself the whole time.

I think I might have to spend the whole month of January getting ready to go. I need to get out the next size of clothing for Andrew, if not Evan as well. And I need to fill the freezer with bread and easy meals for Nathan.

Hey, has anyone noticed how awesome this winter is so far? At least in my neck of the woods, it's more like late March than early January. And it's fine with me. Well, except that the maple sap is running, and that makes us a little concerned for the surgaring season this year... But otherwise, fine. The ground isn't frozen? Fantastic. No snow? Here, let me try to shed a tear... nope, can't. We got to go play outside yesterday. In fact, I poked onion sets in the ground. AND I picked cilantro from my cold frame. In January. Wheeee!

My Frankenfinger is healing well. The skin flap that the doc stitched on took quite well (no gangrene is a good sign, right?) and Nathan took the stitches out for me about a week and a half ago. It's still very tender, and the fingernail is now starting to compete with the skin where my cuticle used to be and I'm hoping that will all work itself out okay. I still keep it covered most of the time just to protect it, but I'm trying to leave it uncovered a little each day as well. It's harder than you might think... It's so sensitive and I feel all naked and exposed and even a little freaked out when the bandage is off. I still don't use that finger at all, either. I just hold it out of the way while I'm doing things, and I've adjusted to typing and playing hymns at church without it. Eventually, I suppose I will reintegrate it into my life again. It has occurred to me that flute and whistle playing is out for the time being. Not that I ever get around to taking out an instrument anyway... Hrm.

Aaaaand I simply cannot think of a clever way to end this. So. This is awkward. I guess I'll just...

Bowties Are Cool

2012-01-07T20:08:00.000-05:00

(Some of you may not quite know what I mean by that, but those of you who do, do.)

Figuring

2012-01-03T20:36:00.000-05:00

What is it about January that makes me want to rent a dumpster? I could maniacally go through my house and throw. away. everything. Just looking at all the crap I need to go through makes me want to scream and throw up. I think it's a universal syndrome. Well, maybe not the screaming nausea, but the clean-out part. I've been seeing posts on facebook of people saying that they're decluttering and getting rid of stuff. They also say how much they love it and how good it feels. I get the feel-good effect, but I don't enjoy the job. Just thinking about it makes me want to take a nap. A long nap. There are so many other things I would rather do.

And yet, I am compelled. It's like someone else has robotic control over me. I just go into a room, and I start throwing things away. Don't care what it is. Don't care if we need it. Don't care if we might use it someday. Pitch.

It's really good, but also a little dangerous. I do have three boys, and probably shouldn't get rid of too many boy clothes. My system is that I put one size in a clear plastic Sterilite storage tote, and I can only keep as much of that size as fits in it. So I whittle it down to only what I can put in and barely cram the lid on. And then people give me stuff. And.... aurgh... I have to... go through stuff again. Decide what goes and what stays. But is it really a good idea to only keep as many pairs of boy pants as one child will need per size? At they rate they get holes in them? Should I really get rid of ANY boy pants? Prolly not a good idea, actually. So then I need to keep them. Somewhere. Among the piles. But my robotic arms start pitching.

Sigh. Why do kids need so much STUFF?

I always have these winter projects planned. Projects for the time when I don't have so much to do and can tackle these fun things that I don't usually have time for-- painting projects and sewing projects and photo projects and such. But it never seems to work out. The winter passes (thank the LORD!) and I haven't touched those things and why? Because I was sorting crap. But mostly reading books and being lazy. But the sorting crap made me feel like I was accomplishing something, so I never get to all the other stuff. And now there's also an astonishing amount of child care that needs doing. But I really just wanna read a book. Or hibernate.

Why don't we hibernate, anyway? That's what I'd really like to do.

Oh, and there's also trying to plan trips to Oregon and Minnesota to visit family. There's another job that makes me what to take a nap. Trying to figure out all those logistics... yikes. Maybe it's not really that bad, but it feels like it.

How do I fly to and from Portland with three children, two of whom need constant holding? Nathan can't decide if he's going or not, and even if he does, he can't stay as long as I want to stay, so that means I get at least one trip solo. I thought it would be so much easier if I had a direct flight --get off the plane and be there!-- but it doesn't exist. No. such. thing. They just don't do non-stops between Portland and Detroit. And I'm torn about how long to stay. Two weeks is too short, but three is a long time to leave Nathan here alone. I miss him just thinking about it. So I dunno. And if he goes for part of the time, then there are a whole other set of things to figure out.

So the craziest plan that we cooked up is this-- Drive to Minnesota, visit there for a few days, then Nathan puts me and boys on a plane there, where we can have a direct flight. Then we could fly back to Chicago (again, direct flight!) and have twice the drive home. Plausible? Maybe. Crazy? Probably. Stress-filled? Absofreakinlutely. For one, there's the driving to Minnesota and Chicago in FEBRUARY. And then, when I try to picture planning such a trip? Take the stress I feel getting ready to go to Oregon, then take the stress of getting ready to go to Minnesota, add them together and multiply by 439,000 and that will be approximately the stress of getting ready for both at the same time. Wheeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!

So I dunno. But we need to get on it and plan something.

Meanwhile, I'm gonna go throw something away.

Essence of Evan

2011-12-31T11:57:00.003-05:00

About Diapers

2011-12-30T15:58:00.001-05:00

"Dude. We... match."

"Mom. Seriously."

Yeah, so... diapers.

Them diapers, they's buryin' me.

But that's partly by choice, because, yes, we use cloth. And I have to say, I am very, very thankful for a big stash of cloth diapers and covers because I can't imagine how much money we would spend on the purchasing and disposing of disposable "paper" diapers.

I mean, talk about painful. That kind of a money hemorage would hurt.

But I change diapers and change diapers and wash diapers and wash diapers.

It's a lotta diapers!

It's nothing new. Lots of Moms sing the same song.

(I should also note that I have a husband who is glad for the economy of cloth and doesn't quibble about changing them when he needs to. That helps! He is very sweet.)

It's almost enough to drive me back to infant potty-training (also fashionably, but somewhat obnoxiously, termed "elimination communication" these days), which I actually did part-time with Jonah. It seems weird to us Americans, but it's quite common throughout the world and history and to me, it just makes a lot of sense. It was actually really easy with a bit of focus, but now I just can't seem to wrap my head around it. I have no focus at all these days. So, diapers it is.

My laundry room is Diaper Central. I have a bin of Andrew-sized diapers and a bin of Evan-sized diapers. I have clothes-pins on the wall for hanging clean covers to air-dry and be readily available. I have lots of cloth wipes and the laundry sink is right there for warm water. Our "changing table" is a folded towel on top of the washing machine.

I'm also very glad that cloth diapers have come a loooong way in the past few years and have improved considerably over the cloth diapers of... forever before. I don't even use very fancy ones (too expensive!). I go with basic prefolds and wrap-style covers because they're simple, versatile, and relatively cheap. And none of those pins and horrid plastic pants. They're really almost as easy as paper diapers, just that I have to keep them rinsed and washed. And there are two kids-worth of them. Which is saying something. So I'm sayin' it. Right now.

Lotsa diapers. That's what I'm sayin'.

For Our Christmas...

2011-12-27T21:33:00.000-05:00

...there was bread!

Lots of bread! I baked every day for, well, days and days and days. Mostly gifts for friends and neighbors, including this Christmas wreath bread that I tried for the first time and was very pleased with.

...there were cute kids all spiffed up with spit-shined shoes.

Did I mention they were cute?

And funny?

And cute?

(I know his lips look blue and cold... it was the flourescent lights, I promise! He was toasty warm. I had a camera oops and couldn't quite get it corrected later. Phoo.)

...there was lots of singing!

Jonah memorized four stanzas of a hymn, This Night a Wondrous Revelation, to sing with the other kids during the Christmas Eve program. We sang it over and over and over in the days before Christmas. (Guess what? I memorized it, too!) He also learned and recited Isaiah 7:14, "The Lord Himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son and shall call his name Immanuel."

...and of course, there were presents (and chaos!).

All the motion blur? Yeah, that's how it really was! My camera tells only truth.

"Hey, I wanna turn!"

"Dude! Don't touch my stuff!"

...there was a baby that got buried and nearly lost in wrapping paper.

...there were many blessings. More than I can even number, the greatest being a good reminder of our deep need for salvation, and the salvation that came to us at the birth of our Redeemer.

I hope you all have had a blessed Christmas as well!

Bric-a-brac

2011-12-21T18:18:00.001-05:00

We finally got our Christmas tree put up, only a couple days after the project was cut short (hahaha! I'm so punny!) when I tried to add some of myself to the artichoke dip.

Jonah was very excited to show Andrew his new ball ornament from Bronner's (traditional baby gift from my parents) with his name on it. I reflected that last Christmas I reveled in adding Evan's ball to our tree, but never would have thought that we'd be adding another one this year!

By the way, do you know the secret to keeping a toddler from pulling down a Christmas tree?

Blue Spruce!!! Yes, indeed. Messing with this tree hurts. Jonah wore gloves to decorate it.

Okay, so typing without my left middle finger is a bit frustrating, so I think I'll just do more pictures than words for now, mmkay?

My little Rooroo is not looking much like a newborn anymore. At 8 weeks old today, he's chunking up, smiling lots, and starting to outgrow his 0-3 month clothes.

See how much his brothers love him?

One steals his binky, the other nibbles his hand, and NO ONE seems to care how he feels about it all.

Evan and Andrew are having some pretty good talks these days...

Plotting future escapades, no doubt.

"Just wait 'till I figure out how to use my arms and legs..."

"What are we gonna do then?"

"TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD! HAHAHAAAA!"

On a barely-related note, I just read this fantastic blog post entitled "Postpartum" with my jaw sagging down. I could have written every word. Every. Word. Even the parts about railings and knives and contact lens stress and trying to shove my baby up my nose. Astonishing. Note to self: Have Nathan read this, so that while he may not understand, at least he'll know.

And, um, I guess that's all I have to say about that. Off to feed my people.

Frankenfinger

2011-12-17T17:08:00.000-05:00

So I'm beginning with the above photo of my eldest son looking all noble in his warrior atire. This photo is to ensure that nothing disturbing shows up in your Google Reader just in case you are not even remotely interested in what I'm about to show.

That being my chunked up finger. It ain't perty.

So, here:

*WARNING* do not scroll down if you are squeamish or prone to fainting at the sight of gross bodily ailments or don't really want to see the results of my dang-blasted, over-confident, and obviously less-than-adequate knife skills.

Really.

Scroll at your own risk.

No, really, it's not really that bad. "It's but a flesh wound!" ("What are ya gonna do?? BLEED on me?") Heh.

Okay.

Here ya go.

This was when we changed the bandage today. I'm thinking it looks awfully white and maybe not like it's doing what it was supposed to do. The doc scraped the inside of the finger pad out to make a flap of skin to sew on in hopes it would aid healing, but I'm not so sure now. Wishing I had just asked him to cut the chunk off all the way. And yes, he stitched through my nail. Those ones hurt...

Anyway, we'll see what he says on monday. I'm off to go kick myself some more.

I might never make artichoke dip ever again...

2011-12-16T22:24:00.000-05:00

In the week-and-a-half before Christmas, my mommy-mush-brain gave to meeeeee:

12 little stitchs
11 ibuprophen
10 days of antibiotics
9 shots of lidocain
8 layers of gauze
7 syringes of saline
6 pieces of paperwork
5 (or more) hours of paaaaaaain
4 good left fingers
3 bloody towels
2 big needles
and a severed fi-ing-gerrrrtiiiiiiiiip!

Biggest/Littlest

2011-12-10T09:15:00.001-05:00

Photo Bits

2011-12-08T18:54:00.001-05:00

I posted this picture of Andrew on Facebook yesterday.

I just thought he looks so adorable with those big, giant eyes and the way he's biting his lip in a funny little way.

Then I looked back at the picture later and realized that his lip just looks sort of deformed and someone who didn't know better might think he has some weird birth defect.

I really liked this shot, but was very disappointed that it has quite a bit of motion blur because his little head was bobbling around as I was taking pictures of him.

But it's a cute shot anyway.

Then there's this guy.

This little guy who is nearly impossible to photograph because he is in a constant state of motion blur.

This little guy who just destroys the house over and over all day.

I had my back to him for a few minutes today and turned around to find him covered in flour and spots of green food coloring. The bottle of blue food coloring is completely missing, most likely buried in the flour bucket.

Later I left the kitchen for two minutes and came back to find him cramming cookies in his mouth. Granted, the cookies were near the edge of the counter, but I didn't know he could reach that high!

Twenty-foot arms, my Dad would say.

I attempted a photo session with all three boys the other day.

Nathan worked doggedly and tirelessly as baby wrangler.

We played, coerced, begged, bribed with treats.

I probably took fifty shots and not one of them is even remotely usable.

So much for that.

Someday... someday I'll get a nice photo of them all together. But it might be another twenty years.

Buh-bye, Blackbird

2011-12-02T12:04:00.001-05:00

I know I should be posting cute pictures, or telling you all about our trip to Minnesota (it was great! That is, if you don't count the disgusting and horrible eye infection I came down with as we pulled out of the driveway at 4:27 in the morning which plagued me the entire time we were gone.) but I can't seem to summon up the energy right now. However, I have a lot of things in my head, so I'm thinking I'll just put it out here. I realize that this sort of post is something of an insult to blogging which should be some kind of writing exercise in which I put down something clever or funny or thoughtful or meaningful. But right now all I seem to have are random thoughts and agitation.

I think what I'm missing most right now is my creativity. I have a need, a real, physical, emotional, psychological need for creativity. I feel the urge, I know what I want to be creative with, and yet, it's not there. And I miss it. Here it is, Advent, and I have many vague and unformed ideas for crafts and homemade gifts and a Christmas card and fun things to do with my children, and yet I... can't.

It's not just that I can't get much accomplished with a baby constantly attached to my, well, you know, though that certainly has some bearing on the situation. Perhaps it's the soul-crushing fatigue and sleep deprivation or the hormones addling my grew matter. Whatever it is, my focus and creativity have left the building.

Also, my hair is driving me crazy, I can't do a thing with it, so I think I'm gonna shave my head.

Oh, wait, hormones talking again. But it's all gonna fall out anyway, so I need to chop it, at least.

Focus? Me? What?

Anyway.

It's not just those creative pursuits that I'm lacking in, but also the creativity that daily household management entails. I cannot fulfill a need without neglecting another. I frustrate my poor husband with all the things I don't get to, my oldest child is resistant to everything that isn't his way (and I suspect this often has to do with getting my attention), and my toddler just cries when mommy pays attention to the baby instead of him and my baby cries when he isn't touching mommy.

While a newborn's needs are intense, they are fairly simple. Jonah, however, is showing me that as they get older, the needs get more complicated. And he's only 6. ("Just wait ten years." my parents say.) He and I clash so much these days. And then I just get so angry which I know is not fair to him. I should be thinking through these problems and coming up with solutions, but my powers of thought seem so feeble. I actually threatened him with school --the big, yellow bus kind-- today. Wow, that was classy.

So. Advent crafts? Ha. Christmas presents? Groan. A clever handmade Christmas greeting card with a cute new family photo tucked inside? Don't hold your breath. I can't even get thank-you notes written for the baby gifts and meals we've received from generous friends. Happy, well-adjusted children? Right now, even that seems pretty sketchy.

I know it's just baby-mush-brain. I know it will pass. I know I'll hit my stride again, someday. But then this image enters my head of myself as the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, She Had so Many Children, She Didn't Know What to Do and I run screaming for the hills because I'm sure I'm just going to have babies forever and never be able to do anything ever again.

Oops, hormones talking again.

MaryP wrote a great post on perspective, About Balance, and I know she is right on. I keep reminding myself that this is just a season, and I think I'm doing a much better job of realizing that than I have in the past. When Jonah was a newborn, there were times when I would wonder what I had done to ruin my life this way. And then I would see the bright spots again, and then it got better, and better and better.

So I know someday it'll get better and my brain will come back I'll be able to make beautiful things and tasty things and think clearly and enjoy learning and inspire my children to learn.

It's only a season.

I'll Be Thankful if They Don't Cry the Whole Trip...

2011-11-24T13:51:00.001-05:00

I should really do a post about all that I am thankful for, this being Thanksgiving and all. But alas, I don't have time right now for more than a quick update and a couple cute photos... Just know that I am.. Thankful. I am very thankful for a lot of things, and I'm thinking about it all, but not enumerating them right here right now.

I am busy because we are planning to bundle our munchkins out of bed at approximately half past insanity in the morning (middle of the night, rather) and drive to Minnesota to visit Nathan's parents and his brother's family. We will have our Thanksgiving Day with them on Sunday. I've been baking and cooking and doing laundry like a maniac. Today I still have piles of packing to do, and we're planning to have the van loaded by bedtime and AAAACK and we'll all get to bed at a decent time and leave very early and the boys will all sleep soundly until the other side of Chicago and you know what they say about plans, best-laid or otherwise.

I do enjoy roadtrips. I've been on lots of them! However I am now finding that being responsible for packing up five (!) people and being the main provider of food and entertainment of said people for the trip can be... exhausting. Makes the fun a little harder to find. Jonah has been crying about how this is the "worst time of my life, hmph!" and I try to put on a happy face instead of sending him to the basement and I tell him how much fun! this! will! be! and I try to believe it.

So, we're off! (I first type "oof". Yes, that too.) And I will leave you with a little bit of gratuitous cuteness:

Nathan wrapped Andrew up like this and I thought he looked like one of the scary little glow-worm dolls, but way cuter.

Not sure which is worse; looking like a glow-worm, or Curious George:

More Sleepy

2011-11-21T22:13:00.001-05:00

They actually both fell asleep in my lap. While that was very sweet, I have too many things to do right now to spend naptime holding them. So I enjoyed it for a few minutes, and then carefully extricated myself. It's amazing that Evan didn't wake up. Jonah made sure they were well-covered with blankets. He takes good care of his little brothers.

Sleepy

2011-11-19T22:26:00.001-05:00

Adjusting

2011-11-18T12:51:00.001-05:00

Blogging is not coming easily these days, as you may imagine. I frequently write blog posts in my head, but that's just not quite the same as writing them on the internet.

My posts just don't seem to make it all the way to the internet.

I just can't figure out why.

We said goodbye to my dear sister a couple days ago, after she'd been here a whole month, helping around the house and keeping me company.

We miss her.

Also, there are dishes piling up.

Alyssa! Come clean my kitchen! And then we'll laugh about goofy nonsense and have popcorn and tea and watch a movie together. Please? Doesn't that sound like an offer you just can't resist?

I think Evan really misses her a lot. She really spent a lot of time with him and he's a particularly needy little guy these days. He's really still a baby, and needs a lot of attention, still nurses occasionally, and cries. A lot.

He's also busy. The level of destruction (not to mention the noise) this kid is capable of only grows every day. It's truly astonishing.

This little guy, on the other hand, makes plenty of work all by his little self, and he can't even go anywhere.

It's like having twins, except that one of them repeatedly trashes the house.

Andrew has a theme-song that runs through my head on a daily basis.

Sleep a little, nurse a little, sleep a little, nurse a little.

Sleep! Sleep! Sleep!

Nurse a lot, sleep a little more.

(Name that tune!)

It's quite accurate, too. He catnaps and snacks and catnaps and snacks. Then he finally, finally, FINALLY falls asleep and stays that way for a good nap. Then he wakes up and tries to tell me that he's truly perishing of hunger this time and then he catnaps some more. In my arms, preferably. He's also very alert and aware during his awake times and even talks to us just a little.

It is a little chaotic around here, I must say. But we're managing and adjusting. Someday, we'll settle into our new normal... someday....

Three Little Monkeys

2011-11-11T14:29:00.001-05:00

I thought it might be about time to get a picture of all three of my sweet little boys together. Can you believe I haven't yet?

Um, there might be a reason for that, actually.

It's not as easy as it seems...

Hey, that one is kinda cute! But there's always someone not looking at the right place And surprisingly, it's not always the littlest!

But then...

...it just deteriorates...

Until my photo subjects just... leave.

Sigh.

(And now, as an aside, I discover that I have exceeded my photo upload quota for this blog. I guess I need to figure out what to do about that...)

On Mothering

2011-11-10T22:01:00.001-05:00

For the past half-hour, I've been soothing and rocking my two-week old baby --this tiny, very new, little person, who is completely dependent on me and whom I've just barely started to get to know-- to sleep for the night. It's not easy; I don't really know what he wants. I try different things over and over-- rocking, bouncing, nursing, shushing, swaddling, more nursing. He fusses and squirms, irritable, tired... until he finally gives in and drops off to sleep on my chest with his soft little head snuggled into my neck.

I don't dare lay him down just yet, so he sleeps on my chest while I browse the internet, reading articles that interest me. I just read something about the supposed dangers of swaddling babies-- just after I swaddled my baby to calm him and help him sleep (something to agonize and worry about? Nope. Not a bit.). Most of the articles I gravitate to lately seem to be about various aspects of mothering, so that's what I'm thinking about as I sit here, mothering my newest child. To add fuel to that line of thinking, today I attended a lovely gathering of like-minded mothers and I so enjoyed talking with them and hearing their stories and struggles. My thoughts may be raw and unformed, but I should get them all down anyway.

The opinions and methods and scientific studies and traditions of mothering are quite varied and diverse. And everyone feels so strongly about their own way. I used to find this so confusing-- what's the right thing to do? I agonized about it when Jonah was tiny and fussy and I didn't feel at all competent to mother him. Surely I was doing something wrong. It was all so much more complex than feeding, changing, and protecting from harm. These little people have intense needs, needs which must be met, but how?

Now, with my third baby, I'm feeling more competent, yes, and the only way to get to that point is experience. But I'm also finding myself more inclined to take or disregard advice as it suits me. I'm coming to the conclusion that it doesn't really matter how a mother mothers, so long as it works for her. I'd like to say "so long as no one is harmed" but that is often out of our control. My Dad says, "Every parent gives their child some kind of baggage." We are not all-knowing and can't forsee all the results of our actions.. We can just do the best we can with the information we have.

It seems like I read a lot of material supporting "attachment parenting". For various reason that I will not go into here, I've never really identified myself as an "attachment parent". Yes, I do a lot of things that fit in with that-- homebirth, exclusive breastfeeding, cloth diapers, baby-wearing, (limited) co-sleeping. But I don't actually consider myself an attachment parent. But then, I don't fit into the opposite end of that continuum, either (I have no idea what that would be called...). I'm just somewhere in the middle. Not to say I haven't tried many things that characterize either style of parenting. I've tried a whole range of different things with my kids, and I don't feel like they've been harmed by the things that didn't work. They've been well-loved through all my parental experimenting.

I've simply had to find what works for me and my kids. I try hard to avoid being too lenient, and yet I find that I can't be very hardnosed about everything, either, because I'm a softie and often don't have it in me. In the long run, is it really that important how I choose to diaper, feed, or sleep my children? If they are healthy, happy, and thriving, why does my particular method matter? But so much of what I'm reading lately is of mothers who are highly opinionated, vehement, militant, and often polarized about these basic family choices.

I guess I've decided that I would prefer to do whatever works and what I can handle in these areas, and save my thought and energy for the "long-term investments". I'd rather work hard at teaching them, training them, disciplining them, helping them learn what they need to be capable and well-developed people. I want to focus on being cheerful and patient and loving as they grow and challenge me. The specific methods I choose will be whatever works for us to achieve these goals. And don't get me wrong-- my choices are not arbitrary. I have very specific goals in mind and particular skills that I want my children to develop.

"What do you want me to be when I grow up?" Jonah asked me the other day. "It doesn't matter to me what job you have," I answered, "I only want you to work hard and serve God cheerfully in whatever He gives you to do." But he won't do that unless he's taught. There's the long-term work.

I recently read a piece that asserted that "we all have children for selfish reasons, anyway" and another that says "we're actually mammals and should remember that and take our mothering cues from other mammals." The problem with both of these opinions is that they leave out God. We may have selfish reasons for having children, but above that, parenting is a God-given vocation. We are human, created in the image of God and thus above other mammals in our calling. Raising and teaching children is actually very important work, not just something to do because we want to.

And along with my human-ness comes fallibility and imperfection. A lot of fallibility and imperfection. And the children I am raising are fallible, imperfect little sinners as well, and that bears remembering as I choose how to care for them. I can only try to make the best choices I can and trust the Lord to preserve my children from my mistakes and shortcomings.

Awesome

2011-11-07T13:01:00.000-05:00

If his Auntie is so awesome...

...why is he looking at her like that?

Paranoia much?

But really...

...she is pretty awesome.

Squeaky Clean

2011-11-04T19:25:00.002-04:00

I'm not really a Very Good Mommy.

I don't wash my kids every day.

I mean, I wipe down their dirty parts as often as necessary, but actual baths? Not so good at that.

A relaxing way to end the day and wind down for bedtime? I think not.

Goofiness and crying and big wet messes, that's bathtime, and it's great fun, but not every day.

Once as a kid taking a bath with my brother, I dumped a whole bottle of dishsoap, which we used as bubble bath and which was conveniently left by the tub, into the water. Then we kicked and splashed until the suds mounded up over our heads and onto the floor, and my brother got some in his eyes and started crying.

I guess I don't see the need to do full-blown baths every day. I think it's not so good to wash all the good flora and oils off the skin.

Yeah, that's it. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. (Because the only other explanation is that I'm lazy, which might be true as well. Possibly.)

All that to say that at the ripe old age of 10 days, Andrew finally got a bath. He was due. He did not scream and fuss, he just looked quite concerned the whole time. And perhaps a bit cold, but we got him all bundled up again quickly. And now he smells only of that wonderful, addictive newborn smell and I spent all the rest of the day just sniffing him.

Punkin Light

2011-11-02T15:08:00.003-04:00

We don't celebrate Halloween. Jonah knows about it, and he knows why we don't do it. However, he was really intrigued by the idea of carving a face in a pumpkin, and we figured that would be a fun fall-time activity.

A few weeks ago, during the almost-endless-baby-wait, we went with my Mom to a farm where they were having fun weekend activities like a corn maze and hay rides. Jonah picked out a pumpkin to bring home ("Find the best one!" we said. "Here, this one will do!" he said about the first pumpkin he saw.) and has since been begging, pleading, and pestering daily about carving it.

So the other day, I thought we had better get to it. And by "we", I mean, "someone else." I wasn't sure how my sister, Alyssa, would feel about it, so I tried to be cryptic in asking just in case she didn't want to. That way, Jonah wouldn't be disappointed. Because, you see, he wouldn't even know what I asked. I immediately posted the following exchange on Facebook:

Me, to Alyssa, trying to be cryptic because Jonah was sitting next to her: "Do you feel at all competent or, um, inclined to, uh, cut features into the surface of a, um, large gourd?"
Alyssa, laughing: "Yeah, I could do that."
Jonah: "WHAT? We're gonna carve my pumpkin?!??! Yay!"

Yeah, so that worked well. But it was fine, because she was happy to take on the project.

Jonah was actually no so thrilled once the project was underway, because scooping out the seeds is just not very exciting.

He got some help, but she mainly made him do it himself.

He drew a face on paper to show what he wanted, and she drew it on the pumpkin with a marker and they carved away.

I guess she did most of the "sharp knife" business, as is fitting. She's a good auntie.

Jonah was very pleased with his pumpkin-face. (Which, at first, he said "is Martin Luther" in honor of Reformation Day.) I gave him a candle for it and we've been lighting it by the woodstove in the evenings until bedtime. He likes it a lot, and I'm not sure he's prepared for the inevitable decay. We'll see how he handles that...

About Andrew

2011-10-28T21:20:00.000-04:00

~Andrew said goodbye to his Grandma early this morning. We're all sad to see her go, and we'll miss her a lot. It hurts to live so far away. But we know we were very blessed and spoiled to have her with us for so long! It was pretty great!

~Andrew has a very jealous older brother today. This particular brother has had one tantrum and crying fit after another today. Momma's feeling spread a little thin already... There are delightful bright spots, of course, but we have a lot of adjustment ahead of us.

~Andrew, however, has spent most of the day in a drunken stupor. Momma's got lots of milk, and he's enjoying it. He wakes ravenous, fills his tummy like there is nothing in the world more important than this task (and to him, of course, there isn't), and then immediately conks out again like a tiny narcoleptic. I'm hoping this doesn't mean he'll be up all night, but there was just no keeping him awake very much today (and we tried!).

~Andrew is one chill little dude. Well, it's only his third day of life On The Outside, so I can't say for sure, but it seems that way so far. He doesn't cry much-- not a peep for diaper changes or even during the heal-prick for his newborn screening test. When he's awake, he's pretty much happy to look around and listen to the commotion of his older brothers. After two very fussy-needy-intense babies, I am more than ready for a calm and mellow one!

~Andrew will be baptized on Sunday, and his Auntie Lyssa is right now in the kitchen baking his baptism cake. Which his Mommy will eat for him.

~Andrew has another brother who is greatly enjoying his big-brother-role this time around. He's become quite a competent helper and loves to hold and kiss on his baby. His Mommy tries not to have heart-attacks when he carries Andrew around.

~Andrew is a binky-baby. I have never seen a newborn take to a pacifier that quickly or easily. He's hooked. It scares me just a little, the addiction factor, but we'll get past it eventually, I'm sure.

~Andrew is quite sweet. Sweetness all around.

Finally Here!

2011-10-26T10:23:00.001-04:00

Andrew Paul

8 lbs, 7oz; 19inches long

Born at home, 1:08am, October 26

He's long-awaited, and finally here! The midwife says he looks maybe one week late, if that. All this agonizing waiting was really just a classic case of miscalculations. He's healthy, beautiful, and much-loved!

His big brothers are both very excited and pleased.

I'll write more --and post better photos!-- soon. For today, I have no plans to do anything other than lie on the couch and baby-gaze. Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers!

I Am Fruitcake

2011-10-19T07:39:00.001-04:00

Here I am, eating yogurt and browsing the web at 7:00 in the morning when I should by rights be still asleep. (I know, 7 is a perfectly reasonable time to be UP, and I would love to be, except that I wake up at 4, and I can't be up by 7 if I can't sleep until then! 7 has been when I've been going BACK TO SLEEP in order to get enough to [sort of] get through the day. GRRR!)

("Sleep now!" people glibbly tell me, "Because you won't be getting any sleep after the baby's born! Hee, hee!" Rubbish. I'll probably sleep better after this kid is not inhabiting my body any more. Of course, I said that with Evan, and then entered a year of Baby Sleep Hell like nothing I've ever known. Whatever. Sleep is just not my thing.)

My brain just won't shut up early in the morning lately. And it's been going on and on and on, every day the same. I wake up, aching and sore, after sleeping half-hour increments all night, and I still have not had a baby, and my brain clicks on and won't listen to my body, whining about how tired it is. It's like Groundhog Day, every day, world without end.

Any woman in my situation would have calculated her due date to be September 29. And any woman would be a BASKETCASE by the time she was 20 DAYS PAST THAT DATE. Just because I was paying attention (a little, not enough apparently) to know and expect that my real due date is a LITTLE LATER (though how much is anyone's guess) DOESN'T MEAN I DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE A BASKETCASE.

And let me tell you, I AM DOWNRIGHT CERTIFIABLE.

And lest you get worried about the possible dangers of going so far overdue, I'm not really that far overdue (it just feels like it!). Like I said, I expected some "lateness". I was not planning on the 29th being my actual due date. I might only be 10 days over. Or a week, or two weeks, or who knows, really. But everything is fine, I'm fine (HA!), baby seems to be doing great. So great, in fact, that he/she is just too stinkin' comfortable in there, and prefers it, apparently, to coming out to meet the rest of the world.

"No, no, it's okay, we're fine, we're all fine here... uh... how are you?" [Laser blaster to communicator] "Stupid conversation anyway."

Star Wars. Star Wars is ALWAYS appropriate.

So is the Princess Bride, which we watched last night with pizza and beer in attempt to distract ourselves. And all I can say is-- this overdue-business is INCONCEIVABLE.

My Mom has been here for almost 3 weeks. 3 WEEKS. She's changing her plane ticket date for the second time, and is now at the outer limit of the time she can spend here, because, um, she has a life, too. And my Dad has been surviving without her at home all this time-- holding down the fort, as we say, and I have no doubt it's wearing on him by now.

My sister is here, now, too. She was supposed to be The Reinforcements, arriving to help out around here when it was time for Mom to go home.

Can you see that THINGS ARE NOT WORKING OUT LIKE WE PLANNED?

Today is my Mom's 50th birthday. Yes, that's right. It's really special! And she's spending it here, in rainy podunk Michigan, STILL WAITING FOR A BABY. Do you know, she could have gone to Italy to celebrate her 50th birthday? But she chose to be here, with me.

I am determined that we will not sit around and mope today like we did yesterday. We have to do something special, because it's a special day. The only thing Mom actually wants for her birthday (can you guess what that might be?) is, um, not working out so far.

So. I've already had my good cry of the day, now it's time to find something fun to occupy the rest of it. What can we do, my enormous self and two of my favorite women in the whole world? (Aside from producing a grandbaby birthday present...)

Wait! Don't say it!

2011-10-14T14:37:00.000-04:00

If I hear anyone suggest a ride down a bumpy road one more time, I'm just gonna start screaming. C'mon, people. I've heard it. More than once.

It might have been a little bit funny the first time.

It doesn't even make sense! Jostle the baby around and it'll come out? Whatever. Not that easy.

I know, I know, it's a joke. But an old one.

I'm much more likely to have success starting labor by nursing my toddler, which is what I've been doing as often as possible, because it actually gets some hormone action going. Hormones are what we need here, not the bouncing of a car/haywagon/donkey/rickshaw/go-cart/moon rover/elephant.

Stop. Just don't say it. Eh! I know you want to. Just stop yourself.

Also, there are quite a few men out there who just can't help themselves from daily asking: "You had that baby yet? HARharhar..." Aieee.

But I'm not bitter.

Anyway.

So yeah. We're starting to joke around that there is not baby coming, made it up, haha, fooled you.

Psyche! Made you look.

Every day we get up and start another day, just like the one before. Mom comes downstairs and looks and me and just shakes her head. No baby yet.

I woke up pretty depressed about it all this morning. (And the sun was not shining, so that didn't help. Whine, whine, whine. I know.) And then I read this quote from Luther:

We are such softies, such sapless sufferers. A pain in the leg can cause us to fill heaven with our howls and wails, our grumbling and cursing. But the good God permits such small evils to befall us merely to arouse us snorers from our deep sleep and to make us recognize, on the other hand, the incomparable and innumerable benefits we still have.

We are also to look at our misfortunes in no other way than that with them God gives us a light by which we may see and understand His goodness and kindness in countless other ways. Then we conclude that such small misfortunes are barely a drop of water on a big fire or a little spark in the ocean.

So there's that.

And seriously? To equate this little "delay" in my mind with a "misfortune" is actually silly. Hello??!?! I'm having a baby! A real baby! Who is, right now, alive, and apparently healthy, and already a tremendous blessing. I wouldn't blame God for actually rolling his eyes at me and all my grousing, or laughing a little, like I do to my kids when they are having such minor little troubles.

And I know that. Right? But I'm kind of a wimp.

I certainly need the reminder, even if I whine about it.

No New is No News

2011-10-12T09:35:00.003-04:00

That's right, still no baby.

And it's not for lack of hoping, anticipating, begging, praying, and trying every folk remedy in the book. (I read that eating lots of pineapple will start labor... maybe I should go buy a pineapple...).

Jonah came up with one, too. Last night after he was in bed, he came down with something to say. Very Earnestly: "Mom. To help you have the baby, I'm going to make you the best medicines I know. I'm going to make you, um... some hot water, and some cold water and some vinegar water, and those will help! You drink them, and they help to puuuuush the baby out!"

He elaborated a little more, still Extremely Serious, and I thanked him and valiantly held in my giggles until he was heading back upstairs.

I had all but forgotten about it this morning when I stumbled down the stairs, achy and lacking in sufficient sleep, but the first thing Jonah said to me was, "Mom, I got your medicine ready."

Oh dear.

Sure enough, on the counter where I make breakfast were three tall glasses of water. One warmish (I saw the pan on the stove he had used to heat it!), one cold (the ice cubes had long since melted) and one with vinegar in it (that's our go-to remedy for everything around here-- raw cider vinegar for tummy-aches, indigestion, hiccups...).

What could I do but drink them? (not all at once-- oof) I thanked him for his help, and he gravely told me that we would do it every day and it would make the baby come soon.

At those odds, he can't loose.

Aaaand still waiting...

2011-10-07T15:45:00.002-04:00

Projects accomplished (so far!) while waiting (aaaand waiting) for a baby to arrive on the scene:

~Trim painted and installed in living room.

~A very ugly (picture bare studs, miscellaneous wood, and insulation hanging out all over) and difficult window framed, trimmed and painted; now very beautiful!

~Two rough, old chairs painted great colors and waiting for a little "distress treatment".

~Upstairs guest bedroom wired for electricity, drywall repaired, trimmed, and painted.

~Basement door framed and installed.

~Trim painted for bathroom, ready to be installed.

~Raw edge of kitchen floor finished.

~Kitchen cabinet knobs installed.

~Kitchen floor mopped (even under the fridge!), cabinets wiped down.

~Kitchen and living room windows washed.

~Herb bed weeded and beautified.

~Lovely piece of garden art installed in herb bed (ooh! I should take a picture of that!).

~Van brakes repaired.

~Um, there are probably more things that I am forgetting because seriously-- lots of stuff getting done!

And that's just my husband and mother.

I think they're nesting.

Or bored.

I, on the other hand, mostly lay on the couch, attempt to keep on top of laundry, try to pacify my crabby toddler, lay on the couch, get up to pee over and over and over, drop and break things, ruin batches of cheese and yogurt, sometimes cook things, and, um, lay on the couch.

I guess I've had a few constructive projects, like canning 18 pints of pickled jalapenos, weeding three raised beds in the garden, and starting some hard cider brewing, but otherwise... I pretty much lay on the couch. Fatigue. I think it's the gravity getting me down.

I really wouldn't mind lightening my load, any minute here.

I mean, I probably will mind. I will probably (most certainly, actually) complain and whine and cry. But when it's done, I'll be glad. Very glad.

But! Thanks to the wonderful people in my house, things are still being accomplished around here, and quickly, no less! But I was recently very pointedly informed that The Projects are mostly completed, so, um, we're ready. Annnnny time now.

The Waiting

2011-10-04T16:27:00.001-04:00

The waiting is hard. Tedious. And I'm tired.

But I'm just trying to keep busy and on with normal life while we wait. It can't go on forever, and suddenly life will change drastically and it will take a while to find a new normal.

My Momma is here! While I feel a little sorry that she's just waiting around with us, I'm also glad she's here to wait with us! The boys are having fun with her, and we're doing lots of visiting...

...and there's lots getting done around here, too!

There are so many projects and chores that I've been letting go, out of necessity and fatigue.

But Mom has energy and time and she's getting to many of my neglected things.

Although, perhaps these projects are occasionally prompted by my own stupidity-- like breaking a gallon jar of apple cider all over the kitchen floor first thing in the morning. Can you imagine that mess? My kitchen was flooded with sticky cider and shards of glass. Mom spent half the morning mopping and wiping and moving the fridge, and then she just kept going and wiped down the cabinets and appliances and washed windows... and now my kitchen is sparkly! Just in time for me to drop and break a jar of maple syrup the next morning!

Yes, it's true. You just can't make this stuff up.

Help. I'm a first-class klutz.

So anyway. We're waiting.

Waiting for a baby, who's evidently very comfortable right where he/she is, thankyouverymuch, to make an appearance. I got a chiropractic adjustment and had some acupuncture in effort to prepare my body and try to dislodge this little person, but so far, we're still waiting.

Evan seems to know something's up. He's very clingy and constantly wants me to hold him while he sucks his thumb and wraps his hands in my hair. He's not ready to stop being Mommy's baby just yet. So this Mommy will have two babies for a while, and that's just fine...

...so let's hurry up and get that other baby here!

Bullet-Point Stream of Consciousness

2011-09-28T16:19:00.000-04:00

~ It just keeps raining. Raining and raining. The radar shows it just swirling above us, round and round, same rain over and over.

~ I admit it's getting me down. Too much of a good thing is... depressing, actually.

~ Also, my rugs won't dry.

~ Really, what was I thinking? Washing rugs and hanging them out? Like, two weeks ago? Sometimes they get almost dry, then soaked again. I can't ever remember to bring them in damp before it rains again. The rest of the time, they just get wetter.

~ Two of them are supposed to go in the guest bedroom. My Mom arrives tomorrow, but sorry, Mom, no clean, dry rugs for you. At least not now.

~ Another one is a big, round white rug, very heavy to wash, and it's been out on the patio table on the deck, getting almost dry and wet again for, um, quite a while now. It's starting to drive me nuts. It no longer looks clean. I would really like it back on my bedroom floor someday...

~ My body sure has a sense of timing. Right after Evan was born, I got a horrible UTI that went on for weeks and weeks. Now, right before giving birth again, I had a large filling come out of one of my teeth. It's a wisdom tooth, but no way in heck am I having it pulled right now. (I'm terrified of that even in the best of times. Which is why I've had them filled instead of pulled.)

~ But the thing hurts. Not really bad most of the time-- only if I get food or cold water on that side of my mouth. Then it makes me want to say unkind things until I can get it rinsed with warm water.

~ I had to beg the dentist's office for an appointment to get it fixed a.s.a.p. and frankly, they don't really want anything to do with me right now.

~ But I won, and have an appointment tomorrow.

~ I'm praying it'll be an easy fix.

~ I have a lot of trouble with anxiety --have had it since childhood-- and the Birth Anxiety has been about all I can take lately. But now add Dentist Anxiety to the list and I'm kinda past my limit here.

~ I feel about as big as an elephant right now, and not nearly as graceful.

~ But really, when I look, really look at that space where there is a little human all wadded up inside, I find it astonishing that a little 8ish pound person is all wadded up in there.

~ I shouldn't be surprised at the little butt poking out near my navel and the feet wedged under my ribs all the time and the big lumps of limb that go rolling by from time to time. It's tight in there!

~ The wriggling gets more persistent and uncomfortable. I always wonder if babies fuss on the inside, or if they just learn that real quick once they get outside.

~ What could they possibly have to fuss about? It doesn't seem like there should be anything, but do they really get so good at it right away after birth?

~ (And I mean good. My babies are good at fussing.)

~ Maybe they get a little irritable with the cramped quarters. The little person-wad might be happier with some room to stretch, thankyouverymuch.

~ So, come on out, kid. All the space you could want, plus warm snuggles and lots of milk.

~ But please... go easy on me, okay?

The Pretty Pan Makes it Taste Better, I Promise!

2011-09-23T18:30:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, I was gifted with a cute, little, terra cotta tart pan.

Then, today, I noticed these pears that were getting past their prime...

...So I decided that I had no other option but to try out that new pan! It simply had to be done.

Yeah. That's my excuse. The pears. They had to be used. Now.

I modified the Pine Grove Grange Famous Pear Pie recipe that my Mom has posted before. It's always been a family favorite.

We didn't even save it for dessert. It was a snack. A yummy snack. All the more lovely for the pan it was baked in.

Wanna Leaf?

2011-09-21T15:53:00.001-04:00

Premium Entertainment

2011-09-21T15:40:00.000-04:00

"Oh, no! It's happening again!"

"Eh. You'll get used to it. When you've been around as long as I have, you toughen up a bit."

"Heeeeeeere, kitty, kitty, kitty!"

"I am coming to get youuuuuuu!"

"I will pull your tail!"

"And generally maul you! Because it's so fun!"

"See?"

"Eh, that kid isn't so much trouble. He can't even steer, yet."

"Yeah. Well. If he goes down, run. Fast."

Math Jam

2011-09-16T15:30:00.001-04:00

The other day, Nathan brought home two bushels of very ripe and rapidly deteriorating nectarines. He got them practically for free, so I certainly couldn't complain. He was afraid that I would, because it meant a lot of work needing to be done right now. I might have been upset if he had spent $40, but at this price, I was fine with it. (See? It's all relative, isn't it?)

They were too far gone for canning, which is really fine with me since I really didn't feel like canning. Just the thought is exhausting. So he helped me freeze some and dry some, and I sorted out the few unbruised fruits and put them directly into the fridge for fresh eating and baking. I also gave away as many as I could to a couple of families I know with lots of kids who didn't mind eating piles of them, bruised or not. Evan ate so many (well, it doesn't really take much for a barely-20-pound little squirt) that today has been nothing but butt-scalding diarrhea all day. His little bum is so raw and he just screams through diaper-changes. Every time he so much as looks at a nectarine and says "Geeth! Geeth! Geeeeeth!" (translation: Please! Please! Pleeeeease!) I say "Don't even think about it, kid. Nope. No. Way."

This morning, there was still one half-bushel basket waiting for attention, so Jonah and I got on it right after our morning chores.

Jonah helped me to wash and cut the pits out of the nectarines, and then while I pureed them in the food processor, he kept track of the number of cups of puree that went into the pot for jam.

This is where homeschool really gets good, I'm tellin' ya. The fun stuff! And the best part is that I can engage in some Ultimate Multitasking-- combine work that needs doing with school that needs teaching! We were gone all day yesterday and didn't get any schoolwork done, so today, Jonah was going through withdrawl and begging to do school. However, as much as he enjoys doing special projects with me, he doesn't seem to accept them as a substitute for "real school." "But after this," he says, "can we do our other school? I want to do my regular school."

Sheesh. How did this kid get so regimented?

I mean, really, how can this not be the most fun "school" ever?

Every time I filled the four-cup measuring cup, he would add 4 to his tally and use the wonderful Math-U-See blocks (which I got for a fabulous deal on Homeschool Classifieds!) to help him figure it out.

We ended up with an even 40 cups of puree, and by the time I added the other ingredients (with very little sugar since the fruit was so ripe and sweet already), my big pot was filled to the brim.

"Please don't boil over! Please don't boil over! Please don't..."

By the way, I just have to tell you how much I love my big pot. I just heart it. It's a three-gallon pot and came with a big, deep colander insert, and a smaller steamer basket and a glass lid. It has a very thick, double-clad bottom. It got it at TJMaxx for $30 several years ago (the original price sticker said $80). Can you believe that I hesitated before buying it? I can't believe it now. What was I thinking? What if I had walked out of the store without this pot? Where would I be today? Lonely, sad, and desolate with my life crumbling in ruinous decay, that's where. I have no doubt about it. I use this pot all. the. time. Cheese, yogurt, stock, jam, tomato sauce, steaming, blanching, canning, freezing, and yes, even soup. This pot gets some action pretty much every day this time of year. In fact, sometimes I have to plan my day's projects according to the availability of my big pot. I almost need two.

Okay. Anyway. Now that I've shared that...

Eh-hem. So. 26 pints of nectarine jam and one boy schooled in some practical math are what I got out of the morning's work. Pretty good, I'd say.

Oh, and this jam is maaaarvelous mixed into a bowlful of that rich, creamy yogurt. (Yeah, that's right... I take out the bad sugar and add back in more... bad... sugar. Oh well. Life is short and sugar is sweet, my friends.)

When Jonah was done with his part of the work he said, "Now can we do real school?"

Dyo-guh

2011-09-14T17:29:00.001-04:00

Evan can't drink milk. It just really doesn't agree with him. Actually, the same is true for me and for Nathan. Jonah does okay (not great, just okay) with it now, but when he was Evan's age, he would projectile vomit even the tiniest sip of any kind of milk.

And yet... we have milk goats. Goooo figure. And as wonderful and "more-easily-digested" as fresh, raw goat milk is, we can't drink it.

It's pretty much a classic case of lactose-intolerance. We do fine with the proteins and other things in milk, we just don't have what it takes to digest the main sugar component of the milk.

BUT! Wonder of wonders, if I get rid of that pesky sugar, we can have all we want, and thrive on it! So the vast majority of the wonderful milk produced here on Our Little Funny Farm is not consumed in it's basic state. I make a lot (A LOT!) of very sour yogurt which we all eat daily (Jonah and I love it best with a drizzle of our homemade maple syrup and some fruit or granola. Evan and Nathan eat it plain.). I also make several kinds of cheeses, and our cream separator provides AMAZING cream.

I usually drain some of the whey out of the yogurt (Nathan actually drinks the whey, or I use it in baking) to make it thick and creamy-- in the store it's called "greek-style". I lovelovelove yogurt this way! It's fantastic and regular yogurt will never again be good enough for me. Raw goat yogurt is naturally very runny, unless you do something to thicken it, like adding powdered milk or gelatin. I don't care for those methods, but draining makes it so yummy!

Recently, I stopped spoon-feeding Evan his yogurt, and started giving him un-drained, runny yogurt to drink from a cup. Unfortunately, spill-proof sippy cups don't seem to work well for yogurt. So I only give it to him in a drippy-sippy. This particular cup has Peter Rabbit on it, and used to belong to my little brother, whose name, incidentally, is Peter.

Aaaand of course the yogurt often gets dripped around on my kitchen floor, with great delight (for him) and tooth-gnashing (from me).

Evan is now addicted to this sour drink. He prefers it warm, but will drink a little cold in a pinch. Every morning, right when we come downstairs, I --yes, I admit I give in to this-- warm a little in a pan for him to drink. I'm a softie, and he drinks it better that way. He sits on the floor and sucks down the whole cup, then asks for more.

Throughout the day, he'll sometimes find the cup and bring it to me. "Dyo-guh!" he says as he holds out the cup. Sometimes if I'm busy and don't get it right away, he'll just take the cup back and try to take a drink. It seems that he thinks that by mere contact with me, the mommy and source of all nourishment, the cup will be full again. When he discovers the error of his assumptions, he gets mad and throws the cup and screeches more more, now!

He does love his yogurt, though. I think his consumption is approaching a quart per day, and he seems to do really well with it, praise God. His digestion is very much improved lately, but many foods are still a little iffy. I'm so glad to have all this fresh yogurt for him!

And --this has nothing to do with anything regarding yogurt-- he's just so cute!

A Bit o' This 'n' That

2011-09-10T17:16:00.001-04:00

My current mission in life: bannish every speck of dust from my house.

Because it's bugging me.

Especially upstairs. Wow, that gets away from me fast!

Really, it does. It has nothing to do with how often I actually clean up there, I'm sure of it. I like to think that there is some sort of inversion vortex in my house that no matter how often I clean something, it will still be worse than seems reasonable when I go to do it again.

Evan: will eat every thing in sight. If you're eating something, it doesn't matter what it is, he'll have some too, thanks.

I think he's actually growing and gaining some weight again, yay! Finally getting into a forward-facing carseat, too, just in time for his seat to be passed on to the newest member of the family.

Why can't I take a nap? I should be allowed to take a nap. Every day. For two hours. Or one. At least.

Some days I just can't fall asleep when the opportunity presents itself. Some days there is no opportunity. And some days, there is a perfect opportunity, and I fall asleep easily, and I really need it, and it feels really good, and then those are invariably the days when Evan only takes a short nap and wakes up as soon as I fall asleep. If he's happy in his bed and not crying, I ignore him for a little while (is that horrible? Oh well, it's necessary). But it doesn't make for a very good nap on my part and... grrr. It just isn't fair.

I don't ever get enough sleep at night now, even though I don't have to get up with Evan any more or anything, because, well, the apartment complex attached to my front makes continuous sleep, um, challenging.

I was talking with a friend of mine today who has six young children, and she was saying how she needs to put away summer clothes and get out winter clothes soon, and what a daunting task it is. Wow. Yeah. No kidding. I was feeling overwhelmed at the idea of doing that for my TWO and getting out baby clothes (Really? Really?!?) as well. But now I can comfort myself by saying, well. Well, I'm not doing it for six.

There is a mangled, dead rabbit on my front porch. Some days I wish the cats would just stick to catching mice. They disappear a little more neatly. And why do they feel the need to bring their prey to the porch? Yick. This rabbit, though. Ugh. The cats and chickens have been taking turns with it. So. Not only is my porch a mess of rabbit, there's also the chicken poop.

Sorry, is this kind of a gross topic?

Hm. Hope you weren't enjoying lunch while catching up on my blog or anything.

It's my life, what can I say?

I am not ready to have this baby, but I am starting to feel so. done. with pregnancy. I'm huge. I'm uncomfortable. And I just don't understand people who get all glowey and gooey and effusive about being pregnant. Yes, it's amazing, miraculous, special, etc., etc., etc., but somehow I want to serve an eviction notice. (Not too soon! Don't get me wrong!) I think I mainly miss having energy (and, um, mobility, but anyway). I remember back in the beginning of January, I suddenly realized that I had all! this! energy! and it was soooo nice! It had been so long since I'd felt so energetic. I could be busy all day and not falling down by the end of it! How I had missed this! It was wonderful. Evan was gong on six months old, and it was about time! And then, two weeks later, I found myself wondering why I was soooo tired. Was my thyroid not working? Cuz I was really tired. And where did all that energy go? What was wrong with me?

So I spent the next six weeks wondering that until I finally woke up to what should have been obvious all along. Another little tenant had taken up residence.

Now that I've spent most of the last two years pregnant, I am very, very, very excited about getting some energy back (even though it's still months off, it's in sight!).

And yeah, I'm excited to meet the newest member of this family. Watching Evan become his own little person, and all the silly things he finds to do definitely makes me look forward to another little unique personality to get acquainted with.

I know that life will change an awful lot, and I'm trying to enjoy my last quiet evenings when I can just put the kids in bed, and they just go to sleep with no fuss, and I'm not falling into bed hoping for a few hours of consecutive sleep. Rather, I have a little time to enjoy the quiet. And in the mornings, Evan can snuggle in bed with me and have me all to himself, for just a little while longer. All that is going to change (and for now I'll try to just enjoy where we are), but I'm okay with that. I'll be happy to find our new normal.

Screaming Angels

2011-09-01T17:15:00.000-04:00

It's September.

Yeah.

A little over a month left, give or take some days/weeks (babies... you can't plan these things, you know), until we are officially outnumbered. By that I mean that the parent-child ratio in this house, currently even, will be out of "our" favor and "they" will have the advantage.

There's a line in a Jack Johnson song that always makes me smile:

She can make angels
I've seen it with my own eyes
You got to be careful when you you've got good love
'cause them angels will just keep on multiplying

They may not really be angels, but they're certainly multiplying.

I was telling my Mom yesterday that I'm finally to a point of not feeling so overwhelmed at the very idea of another baby in this house. I'm actually... a little excited. This is monumental, my friends, and it has taken a while (and prayer and peace from God) to get here. I think the biggest thing is that Evan is finally doing better with all his "stuff" and is much less needy. He reliably sleeps through the night, takes regular naps and is in a good and predictable routine. His digestive problems are about 90% better (yay!) and it's not such a struggle to feed him anymore. And... he's generally happy! For his entire first year, it seems like he was either sleeping or crying. He just fussed so much and needed me so much. And now.... now he goes off and plays. He laughs, plays, gets goofy and wound-up, explores everything quite enthusiastically, and generally seems to enjoy life. This is a very good thing, and quite a relief for me. He's not quite walking yet, and I'm so ready for him to walk, but he's getting there.

He loves to stand and practices that at every opportunity, but taking actual steps is just a little too scary. He will walk holding my finger, and with me not even really supporting him, but he doesn't have the confidence to do it on his own. I once heard a story about a mother who gave her kid a clothespin to hold and he walked off just fine, not knowing it wasn't Mommy's finger he was holding.

Evan wants to do everything that Jonah does, and by that I mean everything. And of course, Evan's chaos is just too much for Jonah's Limited World Order.

Challenges ensue.

And screaming. Lots of screaming.

This lifting-crane project was particularly frustrating (and amusing). Jonah lifted the blocks up, and Evan threw them down. Jonah threw a fit, tossed Evan on the couch, from which Evan climbed down, and round they went again.

I've been doing a light version of school with Jonah lately. I just can't quite start doing a full "school time" every day because I have to balance it with the garden and harvest work that must also be done right now. But we're getting into a good routine, and theoretically, we can just add to it as time allows. Right now, we have breakfast, then Mommy gets time to check email and facebook, and then it's chore time. We try to spend 30-45 minutes on general clean-up and daily chores before we get to do school (as the "reward", see?). Jonah is getting to be a better helper all the time. I do not have a set chore schedule or anything, since it's just him helping me, but rather I assess what needs doing and we work together until it's done. When Evan takes a morning nap, we get out the school books. We always start with Bible, then I let him choose from math, phonics or writing, and he only does as much as is not fatiguing for him. At some point during the day, whether in the morning school time, or later during afternoon quiet time, we read something together, either our current read-aloud, or some history or science books. After school time, I get going on whatever garden things are calling me. It's not much as far as school goes, but it works for now. I know that as soon as the baby is born, it will all go to pot, but I'm really enjoying the routine for the brief time I get it.

"Brief time." Ack!

Menace to Society

2011-08-29T13:33:00.002-04:00

I don't plant sunflowers anymore. I don't plant morning glories, either.

They are weeds.

Beautiful weeds.

I pull them out and pull them out and pull them out. I let some grow. A very few, select plants that happen to have decided to grow where, in theory, they won't interfere with the things I've planted.

And still, my garden is overrun with them. The morning glories are growing up the fence and look lovely, but they're also entangling themselves around my cabbages and tomatoes and are hopelessly twisted up with the sweet potato vines.

Nathan hates this.

I... I don't really mind. Yes, the garden is a tangled jungle that I can hardly walk through. But it's August. Isn't that how a garden is supposed to be in August? Besides, the jungle nature is more due to my negligence (Weeds? What, those weeds? All those weeds? Can't see 'em.) and close planting in my small space. The Teenage Mutant Flower Weeds are only a small part of the problem.

When I say "mutant", I'm not even kidding. They've been breeding themselves into quite an interesting conglomeration over the years.

I've planted quite a few different varieties of sunflower in the past. I had some "Giant Grey Stripe" one year that was very big and tall with a single flower head on top. That was a utilitarian seed variety, but I've also had various ornamentals-- multi-heading cutting sunflowers bred for their pretty colors. So the upshot is that now all the volunteers that I get are some combination of those. Most of them are GIGANTIC plants covered in a half million small blooms. (Here's a little blast from the past for you: read about My Giant, the monster we grew a few years ago.)

There are also some that are ringed with red and brown:

And some with longer petals and yellow centers, instead of black like the others.

And then the true mutants, bizarre Siamese twin sunflowers:

Weeeeeird.

So anyway, I had no choice today but to hack at 'em. Some of my precious vegetables were just getting too much shade from these giants (12 feet high and 5 feet wide for one plant is just too much.)

So a select few got hacked, either taken out completely, or just thinned considerably.

The goats were overjoyed.

And in looking out at the garden, I can't even tell they're missing. But there is definitely a little more light coming in where I need it.

The morning glories are a different story. I have to pull them while they're small, or they get all tangled up and I can't remove them so well. I've tried introducing other colors, but they always come back as these standard blue things, hardy as heck and very tenacious. I can hardly get the other colors to grow, much less intermingle with the natives.

But oh well. They sure are pretty.

(With apologies to my long-suffering husband.)

Mean Mommy

2011-08-26T19:28:00.003-04:00

I am! Really.

Mean, that is.

See?

I make my six-year-old do all the work.

Then I take pictures while my baby cries.

He can really throw a fit when he tries. But doesn't he look like such a faker in that photo?

And he's so cute, even when he's crying.

Aw, poor little snot-face.

I let them play, though, too.

Oh, boy, do I ever. Nathan came home tonight and looked around and said, "Wow, looks like someone had a fun day today." Between Evan's myriad messes, and Jonah's castle and our "ocean bottom depth sounding" project this afternoon, this place is a disaster.

This kid just goes from one mess to another all day long. My house looks like a bomb went off in it.

Someone please tell me why I even have this basket of baby toys in the living room? I should box it all up for Goodwill because seriously, it never even gets looked at.

Evan is just SO busy now. He's becoming a toddler right before my eyes. His favorite trick is "free-standing". He thinks it's great and does it at every opportunity. He took three steps by himself the other night, but hasn't attempted it since. He always just sits down and crawls. It's easier that way. But I'm sure more steps are to come.

I think I forget that he's actually a toddler. He's so little, and he can't walk, so he's a baby, right? But then he goes and writes all over Jonah's math book with a pen, or, you know, eats dishwasher soap, and I think, "Hey, babies don't do this kind of thing!" and then remember that he's getting past babyhood really, really fast.

The things he thinks of to do just crack me up. He went into the mudroom today and started bringing shoes, one by one, into the living room. Then he sat inside the door and threw them all back into the mudroom. Then he brought me one of my sandals and put it on my foot, then off, then on, then off, for a solid five minutes. When he tired of this, he put the sandal in my lap and climbed up and held the sandal. When I threw it down, he got down with an air of great urgency and got the sandal again. Tossed up the sandal and climbed up again. I put it down and we did it all again. Why? I have no idea. It's just so nonsensical.

I just love toddlers. They may be trouble-makers, but I love them.

~~~
I'm like, totally the laziest blogger ever. Here I am, sending you off to look at everyone elses Lodge blog posts, instead of writing more of my own. They're so good, and really, what more could I say? Well, I suppose I could surely think of something. And perhaps I will. But for now, check these out!

Mom: Photo Album

April: Pie Prep

Pioneer Woman: Good Friends, Good Pie

It's a Privilege

2011-08-23T21:51:00.002-04:00

Jonah helped me pick a mountain of beans today.

Okay, so he picked a few handfuls, then chattered, asked questions, and made up knock-knock jokes while I picked beans.

He's learning.

We brought them in the house and piled them on the counter. We ate lunch, then I said, "Hey! If you help me work on these beans, I'll let you do some math pages during Evan's nap!"

Hee!

This is a trick I learned from my brilliant sister-in-law/dear friend who is a mother of six. Make a potentially unpleasant thing desirable by making it a privilege.

"If you do you chores, I'll let you do some schoolwork!"

It works, too!

Ah, motivation.

Well, there was still plenty of reminding, whining, coercion, wandering away from the task at hand, etc. But still, there was a reward at the end of this tedious job in the form of schoolwork!

We got about half of them done (jarred up and turning into lacto-fermented pickles, yum!) before Evan ate dishwasher soap and I had to call poison control. (He's fine, apparently completely unaffected, praise God!) That was right at naptime, which I had to delay a little in order to monitor the child who will eat anything. But naptime did come, and the four pages of math was so! much! fun! It helps that we're starting a new book, and it involves fun manipulatives.

Let's see how long we can sustain that level of enthusiasm...

~~~
I haven't had a chance to write more about out trip to Pioneer Woman's Lodge and the pie workshop there. But if you're interested, my Mom wrote about Evan's experience, and April Phillips wrote about the horses. Check out the posts! I'll try to write more later.

This is Not My Life...

2011-08-19T12:49:00.001-04:00

...but I'll take it! For the weekend, anyway.

Not that I'd always want to ride in a limo...

...or change diapers on a cowhide.

But what a special treat!

[Random aside: is that a basketball under my shirt? I mean... seriously.]

The delicious food!

Lovely accommodations!

We are having a great time and enjoying our time with each other so much! It's so great to hang out with my Mom and my dear only sister, and we had a great visit with Ree (Pioneer Woman!) last night over supper. Evan isn't really sure what has happened to him, but he's adapting. It won't be all fun and lazing around, cuz there's work to do for the pie class tomorrow, but we'll have tons of fun with that, too! Off to take pictures and help with prep! More to come, I'm sure...

A Little (or big) Behind

2011-08-14T22:34:00.000-04:00

I'm so behind on updating here! I often have things I think of to post, and sometimes even the pictures to go with them, but I am always pulled away by something else.

Like this.

Ever seen what a busy 13 month-old can do to a kitchen? It can be scary. He loves to explore now, and it seems like my floor is a constant mine-field of stuff he's pulled out from somewhere.

And we've been doing lots of fun summer stuff, too. Jonah's begging to officially "start school" (even though we've been doing some reading and phonics and math all summer), but for now, I'm soaking up summer.

So are the boys.

Swimming...

...and playing in the sand (or dirt, or mud, or whatever else presents itself, hopefully not chicken poop).

Eating watermelon...

...and sweet corn. LOTS of sweet corn. (Ugh... can you imagine what his diapers have been looking like lately? Nevermind. Sorry. I keep mentioning poop, don't I?)

And speaking of sweet corn... I think I am just going to give up on planting that stuff. I love picking and eating our own corn, but we seem to have so much trouble with it (germination, mainly) and then our Amish neighbors have piles of it and share it so generously and I'm wondering why I bother with trying to grow it. The Amish are amazing with corn. They seem to know exactly when to plant it so that it grows well, and then they pick it at the perfect time and it's never over or under ripe. And they even always give us the perfect number of ears for a meal or two. I love it. And my corn is... pitiful.

Anyway. So that's something of what we're up to these days.

Oh, and then there's... this.

Yes, that's right. My Mom is doing a pie class at Pioneer Woman's lodge. And... I GET TO GO, TOO! Really! Unbelievable, I know! My favorite sister is going, too, and I'm taking Evan and we're all flying to Oklahoma and spending this coming weekend at The Lodge. Squee!!! I'm not so much looking forward to flying, 7 1/2 months pregnant, with a 13 month old in my lap, but hey, it'll be well worth it! It's gonna be so much FUN! And I have a direct flight, so it shouldn't be too big a deal.

A vacation!! I get a vacation! With my Mom and sister! With a fabulous place to stay, for free! SQUEEEEEE!

And... we're leaving in three days! Ack! So much to do! But it's a vacation! Yay!

Too Much Yum

2011-08-12T14:13:00.001-04:00

I just finished the most nearly-perfect batch of mozzarella cheese I have ever made. And I've been making mozzarella for a couple years now. The only thing that makes it less-than-perfect, I guess, would be the fact that it's made from goat's milk, as opposed to water-buffalo's milk. So that means I can't technically call it "mozzarella" anyway. Therefore, I deem this a perfect batch of "mozzarella-like".

I mean really, not to be tootin' my own horn or anything, or okay, maybe I am, but this cheese is pretty amazing. This is after many, many, many, many batches of substandard or just plain horrid mozzarella. This particular batch is creamy, mild, flavorful, stretchy, glossy, moist, tender.... mmmmmm...

So while it was still warm and stretchy, I layered globs of that perfect cheese with thick slices of juicy Yellow Oxheart tomato and Purple Ruffles basil (only some of which is actually purple or ruffly... most is just speckled, but still delicious and beautiful) and a sprinkle of fresh pepper.

Perfect summer treat.

Almost Can't Remember how Boredom Feels

2011-08-11T15:36:00.000-04:00

I just read an interesting blog post about boredom and creativity. It made me think a little... and mourn the loss, or temporary obscuring, hopefully, of my own boredom and creativity.

The author says:

This lack of creativity is more than just a lack of time to be creative, however. Unlike God, we can’t make something out of nothing like He can, even though we are made in his image. We need something to work with: problems to solve, ideas to reimagine, skills to harness.

Doing this requires that which we also find (or call) boring: the patient, disciplined process of learning new things and practicing new skills. The time to do it is merely a luxury our culture neither provides nor praises. Even extra time will not help if we lack the understanding and tools to inform our imagination. Or the virtue. An undisciplined imagination in the service of ungodly desire is not much help in saving the world.

All this time I've been blaming my creative recession on lack of time. Obviously, that's not all there is to it. I knew that, of course. I feel like my days are just awash in keeping up with home, life, and needs. I have no time to think, imagine, practice, or read. And by "read", I mean read something edifying and thought-provoking, as opposed to random internet bits which seem to have taken over my reading capacity. And that's just the problem, isn't it. Not only is my daily work-life made up of small tasks, this and that, jumping from one thing to another, often several at once, just to get it all taken care of, but my thought-life is the same. I take in bits of information, with great fascination, but don't digest them. I add it to some collection in my mind, or not, and go about my day.

Before Jonah was born, and when he was very little, I had lots of boredom and I think I had many more creative activities. A smaller domicile, only one child, much less work to do made time for art and music and other creative pursuits. Also, and probably most telling, we had dial-up internet. I spent way less time on the computer. There was no Netflix in the evening on the couch with my husband, but rather only the occasional movie. Certainly no Facebook to suck my time.

These things are blessings and curses, I must say. I was reflecting the other day on how thankful I am for the internet-- I think we're able to live more frugally (I have saved A LOT of money on school supplies this year with the internet resources I have available, and there are many other areas of savings that are only possible with the internet) and able to have more connection with far-away family, all thanks to the internet (and it's high-speed nature!). But I never have to be bored when I'm occupied with blogs and facebook and even so many interesting things to research and read and learn on the fascinating interwebs.

Not to say I have no creativity now --I have piles of ideas, sometimes!-- but I feel like that capacity is quite reduced. I don't act on my ideas very often. Or when I do, I feel woefully out of my depth. I have trouble making things work, or getting to them at all. I miss those things.

I guess I miss having a bit of boredom in my life.

[As an aside, I don't feel so bad about letting Jonah be bored. He always is looking to me for stimulation, and I simply can't provide it all the time, and that's okay. Just now, we had planned to read aloud in our latest book for a while, but he's been so engrossed in his Lego creation that I can't --won't!-- drag him out of it, even to read to him while we have time.]

Strange Things Are Happnin to Me....

2011-08-05T12:21:00.000-04:00

We eat a lot of yogurt in this house. A lot. A whole, hurkin' lot of yogurt.

We have lots of milk from the goats, see, and we all actually feel better (fantastic, even!) consuming this milk fermented (that's what yogurt is, you know, fermented milk) as opposed to fresh. I know all they say about fresh raw goat's milk being so digestible and good for you, but frankly it gives me a terrible stomach ache. And Evan screams during the night when he drinks it. Nathan and Jonah can have limited amounts, but not too much. And yet... we have goats. Hm. Let's not meditate on my logic in that, mkay?

My solution to this conundrum is to make things with it. It seems to be the lactose (milk sugar) that we react to. We all do just fine if that sugar is consumed by some friendly microbe that goes on to live and hopefully propagate happily in our guts. So I make cheese and yogurt. I used to make kefir, and I actually love kefir, but was having trouble keeping up with it, so it's currently residing in the back of the fridge, waiting for me to look benevolently on my beloved kefir babies and love them again. Someday.

All this to say that I try never to run out of yogurt in the house. I make litterally gallons of it every week. Evan lives on the stuff. I make it very sour, too (have to make sure all that lactose is used up!), and Jonah and I always put in a little maple syrup, but Evan and Nathan eat it straight. They're hardcore yogurt eaters. In fact, Evan happily ate lemons recently and never made a face. The sour just doesn't bother him. I'm also sharing it with an Amish friend who is having some terrible digestive problems and this yogurt is one of the few things she can eat and feel well.

My yogurt-making system involves using a cooler full of warm water as an incubator for the warmed and inoculated milk. I also do not pasteurize the milk before I make it into yogurt-- I keep the milk raw and just warm it and add the culture.

So. You thought this post was all about telling you about my system for making delicious, raw, creamy, thick, sour, fresh, greek-style, goat milk yogurt.

Wrong.

That was all preamble.

That was all just to lead up to showing you what I found in my yogurt cooler when I checked on it this morning, after starting a batch yesterday.

I love working with friendly microbes. In fact, I consider it my food passion. But sometimes. Sometimes, you just never know.

Proceed with caution.

(Apologies for the blown out photos-- I didn't think to take pictures while it was still in the house.)

This is what can happen when fermenting goes strangely awry.

It looked fine when I checked it and warmed the water before I went to bed last night (just like I always do). And this morning... wow. Near as I can tell, some rogue wild yeast took off in there and went to town. It actually didn't smell too bad. Kinda good, actually... yeasty... interesting.

It built up a lot of gas pressure in there and blew the lids off two of the jars. The other two blew as soon as I started to unscrew them. Thankfully, nothing broke. But-- two gallons of milk, ruined. The chickens has a feast of weird, plasticized cheese foam... stuff. The liquid went on the garden.

And I... cleaned up the mess and started over. We're OUT of yogurt. That is not good. Dangerous, in fact. What will we eat? I'm panicking, just a little.

If all goes well, we'll be in the clear tomorrow.

All Is Not Lost

2011-08-04T16:04:00.000-04:00

...but all is not gained, either, so I'm sticking with what I said earlier. However, I was delighted to pick these nice cabbages --buggy outside, but lovely and clean and tight inside-- which are currently being turned into spicy dill-pickle sauerkraut (chop cabbage, add fresh dill, mustard seed, garlic, some hot red chilis, ferment. Yum!).

So there's that.

Yes, that is a caterpillar on a dill stalk on top of my basket. These things must be observed. We have not yet discovered what it is, or whether we want it to stay or be a chicken snack.

Wait, wait! This just in-- Google informs me that our caterpillar is the larva of a black swallowtail butterfly! And it likes dill (which I am more than happy to share!). So there is a use for all that dill, afterall! Glad I didn't feed that creepy-crawly to a chicken

And here, for some gratuitous cuteness, is what my own creepy-crawly-cutie looks like when he comes inside:

Lachrymosity

2011-08-01T13:20:00.000-04:00

In which I will lament, cry, complain, and generally vent some serious frustration. Because I am whiny. Feel free not to proceed. I just have to do this.

Why do I bother? Why do I keep trying with things that never seem to succeed or bear fruit? Oh, I'll just try again, and again, and again. Nothing is working.

It looks like there's a lot going on in my garden, it's very lush and big and green, and even orderly, but I've come to the conclusion that it's all mostly sunflowers and morning glories and dill and weeds. I keep thinking optimistically about it, but there sure doesn't seem to be much output for all that I (and Nathan!) have put into it. And we've put a hurkin' lot of work and time and effort into it. And yet... fizzle.

The potatoes came up great, but died early due to blight (I assume) so there are only two or maybe three potatoes under each plant. And you know, it's pretty much the same every year. This year we even tried spraying them all with raw milk as an antifungal (read lots of good things about that) but no luck. They're dead.

My tomatoes got a nice early start and look beautiful-- great forage for those nasty tobacco hornworms that are decimating the plants.

I picked a handful of ripe romas for supper last night-- and every one of them had blossom-end rot.

I can't even grow carrots and beets and kohlrabi and lettuce. It rained so much all spring, then turned endlessly hot and dry so that nothing can germinate. I keep planting them and... nothing. I was laboriously nursing along a few carrots with much watering and shading, and yesterday a chicken scratched up what remained. So much for carrots.

The winter squash barely came up but to be infested by those blasted vine borers-- immediate death. There are two little plants that I'm nursing along by covering the stems with wet soil to encourage rooting, but they're so small that there is not time to set and mature fruit before frost now. Last year I gave in and just bought some squash from a local farmer, but they all molded very quickly because the apparently weren't cured properly.

I should be eating zucchini, but it took three plantings to get them to grow, and now they're small and way behind.

The peas barely and sparsely came up, and now it's too hot for them to do anything.

The cucumbers are stunted from the lack of rain, and are finally blooming, but they always seem to die right after they start producing. Bacterial wilt, or something.

The cabbage seem to be heading up nicely, but there are an awful lot of cabbage moths fluttering around out there and I found a couple worms on the broccoli, so... here goes.

The onions are all small. The garlic are small. The shallots went to seed. They are out of time.

The sweet potatoes had a slow start, so I'm not getting my hopes up for them.

The three year old raspberry patch is lush, and the new canes come up prolifically, but for some reason they never bear fruit in their second year. Disease? I've never picked a single berry.

The strawberry patch is smothered in weeds.

The apple trees are bare.

The peach tree leaves are curled.

I've done no jam and very little fruit because it just hasn't been available to me from anywhere.

The chickens are making a mess of my herb bed.

And I'm doing well if I get three eggs per day.

I was so excited when 12 ducklings finally hatched a week or so ago. The mama ducks are all on their second nests this year and this is the first time any have hatched so far. Over the weekend, six of them have died of mysterious causes, and judging by the way they're going, I don't have much hope for the rest.

The other mama ducks are getting a little nuts from the unsuccessful nests. They want nothing more that to have babies.

We bought a big load of hay for the goats for the year, then found out that it's so stalky that the goats will hardly eat any of it.

The only thing I seem to have going great is the green beans. They're happy and starting to produce (but lets not count chickens, shall we?). And the goats are giving wonderful milk, so we have lots of yogurt and cheese when I'm not too busy wasting time in the garden to make it.

Why do I bother? Why am I spending enormous amounts of time and energy on these things? It's not just this year, though it seems to be worse this year. Every year seems to go like this.

I am beyond frustrated.

I'm ready to quit.

Is my time not blessed? Am I not doing what I should be doing? Is my focus wrong? Am I prideful or complacent? Do I just need to be brought down a few notches?

I try to put the work in, and leave the results up to God; praying for a harvest. I used to garden because I loved to, and then economy became more important, and now my joy is sapped out of the whole thing. I remind myself, over and over, that God (and certainly not I) provides amply for all our needs-- one way or another.

This just doesn't seem worth it. So much work, so little result.

It doesn't matter anyway, right? I'm having a baby, I don't have the energy for this. It's probably just as well-- it would be hard to handle a big harvest this year, anyway. So I should just let it go now, while I still have some energy to salvage.

I'm tired. And discouraged. And so sick of this struggle.

Is this just something that I want? It's not what I've been given. It's a want. I want to be productive. I want to contribute to the economy of my family without going out and earning money, but rather working at home in whatever way I can. I love the work. But it's just a want.

So maybe I should give up. Focus on other things, like reading to Jonah and playing with Evan and cleaning my house (ugh) and sewing curtains.

Let the weeds grow and the tomatoes rot. I'm over it.

Compare and Contrast: What We Do

2011-07-30T15:09:00.000-04:00

Evan loves to roll balls around on the floor and chase them. Kinda reminds me of a dog we once had...

But Evan's cuter. And doesn't dig holes in the yard. Yet.

You should see the holes Jonah's got going right now...

Or sometimes Evan will find some other toy to push around and will follow it all over the floor. Like cars. He drives cars!

I could never get Jonah to do this. I would roll a ball, and he'd watch it go away, then look at me like, "Yeah, so?"

Jonah, by contrast, at Evan's age, would sit in my lap to look at books for as long as I would keep reading them.

Now he still reads pretty much non-stop. I still read to him, and now we can read books that I can enjoy, too! (Ever read the Little Britches series? Fantastic!) It used to be a matter of reading the same books overandoverandoverandover every dayafterdayafterday. Now, we can share our mutual love of reading and discover new books together that we both can't tear ourselves away from.

And I am just so glad that he can read so well to himself, now, too. It really lightens my load for feeding his hungry little mind. He recently discovered the concept of a "joke" and he's always telling and making up new... and old... jokes. I found him this book:

The Usborne Book of Jokes, which is just packed with kid-appropriate riddles, knock-knock, and every other sort of joke you could think of. Except... he probably doesn't get 99% of them.

"What's a cat's favorite breakfast?"
"Mice crispies!"

He gets that. But:

"What do you call a ship that cries as it goes across the sea?"
"An em-ocean liner!"

Not so much. But it makes for good vocabulary lessons!

Evan is interested in opening, closing, turning a couple pages, and 17 seconds later, he's done.

He's also beginning to get over his deathly fear of water. He actually voluntarily played in a few inches of water the other day at a friend's swimming pond. I can also bathe him in the bathroom sink without terrified screaming.

Jonah swims like a fish these days, but prefers to have appropriate safety measure applied.

Yes, that's a Barbie life-vest. Safety over fashion, you know. He's very comfortable in his masculinity.

Jonah chatters my ear off and has a seemingly endless supply of questions. Oh, they get so bizarre. I should write some down to share...

Lately, Evan is always "telling" me things, too. He's also waving to every car and buggy that drives by, and getting all excited when he sees a tractor, or even better, DADDY.

And now that I think about it, ditto Jonah, but add airplanes to the excitement.

And boy howdy, do these kids love to eat. Evan starts into a full-on temper tantrum when I start scraping the last bite from his bowl, no matter how much he's had to eat already. He eats a lot. A lot, a lot.

When I really need to entertain him, a spoon-full of refried beans keeps him busy for a little while.

Followed by another spoon-full.

And another.

And...

Jonah still asks all the time when the next meal/snack is coming. But he's also getting more into helping Evan, too. Today he taught Evan how to drink from a straw! Score! He's learning to be a patient and generous big brother.

It's just so endlessly entertaining to me to observe how different --and yet, sometimes, alike-- these two are!

Eight

2011-07-27T11:17:00.001-04:00

We turned 8 yesterday.

Don't we look it?

Heh.

When we were first married, I didn't really like the newness of it, the adjustment. I don't like change and upheaval, and I used to think, "I can't wait until we're just 'old shoes'." And now, well, we're still babies, but the shoes are feeling pretty comfy and broken in.

We decided we needed to have a cheap date to celebrate, because I think we're just not go-out-to-a-fancy-dinner kind of people. Besides, we're always broke.

So in the afternoon, we started by enjoying the fruits of our marriage-- our cute little boys. We headed off to the park with some lemonade and a "special treat" that mommy baked for the occasion. And a banana for Evan, of course.

But real life always intervenes, doesn't it? We weren't even there 15 minutes when some wasps came out of one of the pieces of playground equipment and stung Jonah on the hand and face. He was hysterical, of course. We went to our standby emergency sting remedy of picking some plantain leaves from the grass and chewing them up to put on the stings. That helped quite a bit, and if it were just his hand, I would have left it at that. But the other sting was right over the bone at the bridge of his nose, near his eye, and we knew that might swell pretty badly, so we packed up quickly and drove back home. He cried all the way home, but as long as he held the leaves on, the pain wasn't so bad. (I'm tellin' ya, that common weed is a miracle cure for stings, praise God! I know it sounds like an old wives tale, but we've relied on it many times and it works great!) At home I gave him some homeopathic Ledum (another miracle cure!) and he stopped crying and felt fine after that. It didn't even swell very much at all.

As long as we were home, I went out and milked the goats a little early so that would be out of the way as we went about our evening. Then we drove back to town and dropped the boys off to play at a friend's house for the evening.

We recently discovered this great little taco stand, right there in the small town where our church is. We pretty much never eat out or do fast food, but if we do, this is where we go. These tacos are the real thing! (Midwesterners have no idea what a real taco tastes like.) These tacos are made by actual Mexican people who know how to do them right. They're just like the tacos we used to get at the migrant-worker-run roach coaches "back home" in Oregon. I just can't rave enough about them, and the sauce, heaven help me, the sauce. I could drink it (and burn my ears out), it's that good. I wish I knew how to make taco sauce like that.

Anyway, enough raving. We got tacos, see? That's where I was going with that. Cheap, healthy, and delicious-- prefect for our cheap anniversary date.

Then we ~~argued about~~ discussed where to go for a picnic.

We decided to drive the 35 minutes to a nearby small city so we could go to a waterfall park there, and besides, there's a big hardware store there as well. Nathan needed to pick up a few things for a job the next day. Then, as long as we were in the area, we went into Goodwill to get him a couple work shirts (and I found a really cute white maternity shirt, which I would have bought except for the "totally see-through" part. Hrm.) So yeah. Very romantic, no?

We got our errands done quickly, and went to the park. Where we found that we couldn't get in, because it's only open in the evenings from 8:30 to 11. It's a lighted, man-made waterfall dealy that is supposed to be really cool, except we've never seen it because we've always been unable to get in for one reason or another. Phoo.

So we hiked up the hill outside the gates and found a nice spot to spread our picnic blanket and stare up into the branches of this gnarled, old, windswept maple.

...and where we could also look across to this old tree with a very cute, little, barenaked butt.

Oh, how I laughed, and Nathan rolled his eyes.

But we enjoyed our picnic during which we did not have to also put food in the mouths of our ravenous little baby birds and we could talk at leisure about whatever we wanted to. It was fun, and we were both glad we didn't opt for the standard dinner-and-a-movie date.

And we hiked back down the hill to go get our little birdies, who someone else fed. They had so much fun, they didn't even miss us! We should do that more often, obviously...

Eight is good.

Summer Company

2011-07-21T10:42:00.001-04:00

Jonah and Evan had been playing with their visiting Minnesota cousins!

I just love it when they have playmates.

It's always so fun to have family visit. It doesn't happen often since we live so far from everyone. But when it does happen, it's a treat!

The only damper on the whole visit has been the oppressive heat. The kids have managed just fine, but somehow I can't see myself barreling down the slip'n'slide, no matter how fun they make it look.

I envy the babies who can just be naked.

I envy the kids a little, too. They seem to barely notice the heat. They run, they sweat, they drink all the milk in the fridge (which is great cuz we have a surplus and I have no energy for making cheese!), they play, they dress up in ridiculously hot clothes because it furthers their general play experience. And I, great wuss that I am, lie in front of the fan and drink ice water and nurse a headache. Then I move the fan to the kitchen and stand in front of it with my ice water while I make food, and then I take several cold showers. My love for summer is undimmed, but this is pushing my limits, I have to say.

At least good company makes it all a little more fun.

Summertime

2011-07-18T15:53:00.002-04:00

Canning is so much easier with a helper. Even if that helper is only peeling the peaches, help is help and it's.... helpful. I'm glad to be getting to that point. I can remember helping my Mom can countless jars of peaches and it got to be such a drag sometimes, but we worked together and got it done and it was satisfying. Jonah is learning that, too, and I love watching his work ethic develop.

I praise Evan for his "help", too, and sometimes Jonah resents this. "He's not helping! He's making a mess!" So I put my hand by my mouth and whisper and make it seem like a great secret: "We'll just tell him he's helping, and let him think that. That's how he learns. Someday he'll help for real. For now, he's just learning."

Today was a very hot day for canning peaches. It seems to go that way. Just when I think I can close up the house and try to keep it relatively coolish, a bushel of peaches shows up and needs attention now. I paid more for these peaches than I have the last few years (significantly more, actually), but I have to say, you get what you pay for. I have dealt with cling-stone peaches and cling-peel peaches and hard peaches and overripe peaches. These peaches were so perfect I could swoon. Large, sweet, juicy, perfectly ripe, easy to peel and pit and can. It makes the work go so much easier. I got half of them done, canned up in 14 quarts, which became 13 when a jar broke, raffamuffaschniggafrigga. Arg. Why does that always happen? Anyway, the rest are finishing ripening and some will be frozen and some dehydrated and then I can decide if I want to do another bushel. I mean, I already know I want to, just not sure if I have it in me.

I am definitely struggling with how I will get my summer work done this year. I've always thought that fall would be the worst time to have a baby, and I was right. (Note to self: future babies in spring only. Ha. As if I can decide that. It's fun to pretend.)

It's just hard...

...to deal with the heat and humidity (stifling!), which normally doesn't really bother me, but now... ugh.

...to work through relentless back pain and increasing loss of mobility.

...to have enough energy to even get through half my to-do list for a day.

...to keep up with my little boys and have enough patience and love when I am just tired.

I know it keeps me from having pride (well, in theory, right?) and makes me look to God for provision, instead of myself. I can thank God for every little energy spurt, every task accomplished, because I know how precious it is.

I'm thankful for the little break in garden work while things are growing and not needing much attention. I can go out and putter for a while --watering here, pulling weeds there-- and then I'm just done. That will soon be past as soon as the beans and cabbages are ready for picking, followed by cukes and tomatoes and peppers. Then the work begins anew, and I'm a little daunted by it this year. Last summer was tough, too. We'll see how this harvest season goes. Don't even get me started on the cold storage crops, which will all need digging right when the baby is due. I think Nathan will get tagged with that work this year.

And it would sure help to have a little rain around here! It seems like this happens every year (well, at least the last few)-- we get non-stop rain all spring, then it suddenly dries up, we plant, and get... no water. It's dry, dry, dry. We have all the heat, humidity from nearby rainstorms, hard-packed clay soil that no late-planted seeds can push through, but no rain. And our particular section of the county is the driest, it seems. That rainstorm I wrote about in my last post hit pretty hard north of us, but my little slice of paradise hardly got a thing. We have some weird weather inversion thingy that makes all the storms skirt us to the north or south, but not actually hit us. With a well that can't run a sprinkler, we're stuck with whatever hand-watering we can manage.

And as long as I'm complaining (indulge me, please...), why do we have to eat so many times per day? Can't we just have breakfast and be good to go for the day? It's too hot and I am too tired to cook supper. Even cold food requires cooking. Sandwiches are not an option because I can't eat bread. I am out of ideas for feeding us. Watermelon and popcorn, anyone?

Okay, end of complaints. Life is beautiful. Sometimes.

I'm off to pop some popcorn and slice up a little watermelon.

O.C.D. and Then Some

2011-07-11T17:48:00.004-04:00

Two snippets from my day, which could (and sometimes do) happen every day:

~~~

We left for town this morning just as a big storm was coming our way. I was praying it would hit us, and hit us good, because my garden is gonna die otherwise. We're really hurtin' for rain around here. It was so wet for so long, and now it's been nothing but dry dry dry and that just doesn't work for the growing things. I simply have not been able to grow anything from seed. Even my zucchini didn't come up! What's summer without zucchini?!?

Anyway, I was praying for the rain to hit us solidly and not skirt us like it very often does. And Jonah... was freaking out. Just like he always does. Every time it storms, we have to listen to him worry incessantly about what the storm might bring. Sometimes he dissolves into outright panic. He can usually keep it under control, with lots (lots!) of talking about it, watching the radar, etc. But it gets tiring, especially since I, myself, am one who barely pays attention to weather forecasts beyond the basics, rain, sun, hot, cold, etc.

So here's how it usually goes:

"Is there a storm coming?"
"How bad is it going to be?"
"Are we in the bad part?"
"Will there be wind?"
"Will any trees come down?"
"Will any houses come down?"
"Will any power lines come down?
"Will there be hail?"
"Will there be lightening?"
"Is there a tornado?"
"Are we in the bad part?"
"How long will it be?"
"Is it past us yet?"
"Can we check the radar?"
"Is there a tornado watch?"
"How bad is it gonna be?"

IT'S GONNA BE PRETTY DARNED BAD WHEN YOUR MAMA'S IN THE LOONEY BIN, LEMME TELL YA, PAL!

Lather, rinse, repeat, constantly, ad nauseum, world without end, for as long as the storm continues.

And that's what I listened to while driving through torrential rain all the way to town.

~~~

Evan loves bananas.

Evan is obsessed with bananas.

Evan lives for bananas, dreams of bananas, and generally goes ape for bananas.

He loves them so much he eats the peal if given half a chance.

Today at the local garden and produce store, there was a table full of over-ripe bananas, placed conveniently near the checkout. You can be sure that this was not lost on Evan. He doesn't miss a thing.

I was concentrating on paying for my vegetables and a flower splurge, and he was manically pointing and reaching and "please please pleasing" all over the place. As my Dad would say, he just came unglued. He says "please", though it sounds something like "geeth", except with a slobbery tongue-roll at the end, and seems to think it's the magic key to getting all his desires. And boy, was he saying it! He was also trying to climb, jump, leap, fly out of his seat in the cart to get over there and get. a. banana. NOW. Need a banana! Want a banana! They're over there, Mom! BANANA! PLEEEEASE! The cashier laughed and said, "Just give him a banana, I'm trying to get rid of them anyway." So he got his banana. And he made it disappear within minutes.

Fast forward to the grocery store.

Just before checking out (I've learned, see?) I went to the produce section and got a watermelon and... a bunch of green bananas. Before we even reached the banana display, Evan had them in his sights and began repeating the scene from earlier. I think his head was just gonna explode. BANANAS! More! Bananas! There they are! And when I put some in the cart? He couldn't stand it any more. He was turning around in the seat, trying so hard to climb down into the card and get. those. bananas! He continued this routine, with me holding him bodily in his seat, all the way to the checkout. Then he determinedly tried his hardest to climb out onto the conveyor belt because the! bananas! They're getting away! Neeeeed bananas! And then they were in a bag! And he couldn't see them any more! PANIC!

~~~

Obsession. It makes my hamster wheel go round.

Happy Birthday Baby

2011-07-08T12:14:00.000-04:00

Then:

And now:

A baby's first year is so amazing!

The changes are astounding.

Where did the time go?

He decided to celebrate by working on a couple new teeth, of course. He had a bit of a rough day with lots of fussing...

I'm thinking the cake made up for it, though. He was pretty excited that the cake was for him!

I made Evan a rice flour carrot cake, since that's pretty much the only grain I'm letting him have right now. I asked my Mom for her super-yummy light cream icing recipe to go on top.

Just as I was starting to make the icing, I turned my back for one second, and Evan managed to get ahold of the hand mixer cord (I should KNOW BETTER!) and pulled it onto the floor. Thankfully, not his head, 'cause that thing is heavy. Nevertheless, it hit the floor with a crash and that was the end of that. Sigh. I really liked that hand mixer. Anyway, I quickly called up someone who would be coming for the birthday and asked her to bring her mixer so that I could make icing!

This icing is the most amazing thing you'll ever taste and really simple, but it was a little hot in my kitchen, and this icing likes to be cold, and it got really soft really fast. So it was hard to get on the cake and my friend said, "Just make it look messy-on-purpose!" so that's what I was going for. I think it mainly just looks messy. But oh well. I'm used to having trouble with cakes. It still tasted fantastic!

And besides, Evan couldn't wait to mess it up a little more!

He was digging in before we were even done singing!

I've seen one-year-olds who are very tentative and unsure about the whole birthday thing and need a little encouragement to dig into the cake or rip into presents. Not Evan. He was pretty into it! He'd been fussing quite a lot, but cheered up when he saw the cake and before I set him down with the cake, he was wriggling in my arms and making excited noises and trying to get at it! It's like he knew exactly what it was and that it was his. I mean, he probably really did know that. This is a kid who really loves food!

I think he pretty much thought this was the best thing ever.

He was mowing it down and we had to really monitor the choking hazard while he ate. He sure enjoyed that cake!

After the cake was done, he went back to fussing and whining, so we went right on to presents.

Again, no encouragement necessary. One of his favorite things to do lately is to take things out of whatever it is in. So opening presents was right up his alley.

He was excited and happy with each thing.

He even studiously read his cards. Upside-down, maybe, but who cares when you're one?

He definitely didn't mind being the center of attention, and never showed any shyness or uncertainty. I think it helps that the people around him were all familiar and Mommy was always nearby.

It was such a lovely evening, a little muggy and buggy, but overcast so we didn't have the hot sun on us and spent the whole time out on the kitchen porch. I just love that porch! It's nice because now I have lots of things growing and blooming all around it and it was so nice to sit there and enjoy the summertime with yummy food and good company and a cute birthday boy. (Cranberry mint lemonade in a "not kid" version helps, too!)

I, of course, spent most of the day as I was running around, thinking about his birth and first year. I have to say, he's been a challenging kid so far. But babies are a lot of work, and the time is so short. And they're so stinkin' cute and sweet!

He's growing so fast! He's still a baby, but I can see it won't last long. I'm gonna go squoosh and smooch him a little more...

Sky Eyes and Watermelon Lips

2011-07-05T15:59:00.000-04:00

Fourth Fun

2011-07-05T15:40:00.002-04:00

We have a special guest celebrating Independence Day with us this year! My brother, Neal, flew out for a couple days while he's on vacation this week. He's on his way to adventures in other places, but we're thrilled that he decided to come hang out with us, too.

Yesterday we took advantage of some connections we have and spent the day at a lake having fun!

It's nice to have friends in high places, you know. Lake front sort of places.

Even "sure, borrow my jet-ski" sort of places!

It is an awful lot of work, I found, for me to get everyone ready to be gone all day. I made a lot of food! Then I packed up all the swimming stuff and extra clothes and sun screen and bug spray and diapers and and and and... We left before lunch time and were planning to be gone until late (after fireworks!), so I had to have stuff for everyone for the whole day. And then while we were there, I felt like I spent most of the time feeding people and baby holding and rubbing on sunscreen and getting drinks and and and... I guess that just comes with the "mom territory". I can remember as a teenager at various functions seeing the young moms who don't seem to get to have fun because they're just doing kid-duty all the time. I used to think, "wow, I'm so glad that's not me." And now it is me, and... it's just fine. Doesn't really bother me, I guess I've grown into it. And I can certainly have fun, too!

We lovingly referred to the old pontoon boat available to us as "vintage" and had a great time out on the water.

Jonah likes to drive, of course.

The fourth of July may not be the best day for fishing on a busy lake, but we went for it anyway. Neal bought a one-day fishing license and he and Nathan and Jonah had a great time not catching anything.

For a while, anyway...

Eventually, Neal pulled out a bass which was just barely under the limit for keeping, so he had to throw it back.

After that, their luck changed and they started pulling out sunfish...

...and lakeweed.

Evan had a peaceful nap wearing a life jacket in my lap, but that only lasted while the motor was running and we were going around the lake. Being the ridiculously light sleeper that he is, he woke up as soon as the motor was switched off.

He wanted to fish, too!

Until he didn't want to anymore.

That's okay, I kinda think fishing is boring, too.

When I wasn't baby holding (Daddy is a good multitasker, too!) I enjoyed lounging around, sipping iced mocha, and taking pictures of my feet.

And drinking iced mocha.

Oh, I said that already.

Good stuff, that iced mocha.

I thought I would be alright with the sun, being already tanned pretty well, and staying mostly in the shade, but well, we were at a lake and I guess the solar radiation was magnified a little and... you know where this is going, right? Yeah, I'm burnt. When will I learn?

And Neal, he got burned, too. We're feeling a little tender-skinned today.

ALSO, Uncle Neal helped his nephew work up a little nerve...

to JUMP...

....off the swimming platform!

Jonah is becoming quite a brave swimmer! I'm impressed, I have to say. I was always such a chicken about swimming as a kid, and Jonah has always been somewhat timid about anything that he considers to have any danger, whatsoever. But he had a great time swimming with his Uncle Neal!

Evan tried new things, too. However, we were disappointed to find that his legs are not yet long enough to reach the pedals of the paddle boat.

He was not amused.

Oh, and contrary to what theses photos might suggest, I was there, too!

Looking very... plump... oof.

I had to suggest that Nathan take a picture, so I could show I was included in the fun, too. Usually, I have to resort to taking pictures of myself...

We played and played until it was almost dark, then we headed out to a nearby town to watch fireworks. I admit that I really just wanted to go home and go to bed by this point, but what is the 4th without fireworks?

We stopped at a gas station on the way there and Neal got a screamin' deal on a variety pack of fireworks. Jonah was thrilled.

Um, hello, guys? Safety, much?

I knew that Evan would not be very much into the fireworks due to the "scary things after bedtime" aspect of it. Nathan ended up sitting in the van with him. And I thought, "oh boy, next year-- three kids out late after bedtime for fireworks!" We only started going to fireworks at all a couple years ago, and that's only because Jonah became old enough to be aware that such a thing existed.

When we pulled into the driveway at 11:30, we realized that there was a bucket of sunfish in the back still needing attention. Aaaand the goats still needed milking. We couldn't just hit the hay after all. I took care of getting kids to bed and goats fed and milked while the guys set to the fish.

Guess what we're having for supper tonight?

We'll each get just a tiny taste of fresh fish! Yum!

So my plan today was just to sit around and write a blog post and feed people and do pretty much nothing else. Okay, I guess I really need to do something about those five loads of laundry waiting to be folded... But otherwise, nothing.

And then the guys decided to... build the pantry! Okay, I definitely cannot complain about that. It meant I had to empty out the existing temporary pantry, which is not such a bad thing, either, considering the amount of crap that has built up in there. But I had to get off my duff and... do... that. And now the contents of my pantry are piled all over the kitchen. But still. Can't complain. Am very, very, very excited to be getting a real pantry!

I'll take it as thanks for all the picnic food I made!

Catching Lightening Bugs

2011-07-01T21:41:00.000-04:00

It is a lovely July evening and no child should ever be deprived of this pleasure.

Royal Taste Tester

2011-07-01T09:21:00.001-04:00

He's good at his job.

It Only Counts If Someone's Watching

2011-06-29T13:58:00.001-04:00

Here is Evan, thowing a fit.

Pause...

Make sure Mommy is looking...

Eye contact! Commence crying.

Now act despondent, but very, very cute...

Try again. Maybe it'll work.

Back in Business

2011-06-28T12:40:00.001-04:00

I have found myself in the kitchen a lot more lately. I've also found myself reading cookbooks again.

Ah, it's good to be back!

I went through quite a dry spell for the last several months in which my family subsisted mostly on yogurt, sourdough bread and quesadillas. I guess I was tired and uninspired. Not to mention the difficulties of cooking with a little munchkin crying at my feet (he seems to think that "making supper time" is "cry at mommy time". Sigh.). I can now mostly get around this by setting him on the counter ~~to play with sharp knives and glass jars~~ to "help" me or I put him in the highchair right next to me and hand him things to taste and play with.

Also, it just gets boring to keep shuffling the same ol' ingredients around in as many different ways as I can think of. That's the way it always gets in spring before there is anything in the garden and after I have used up most of the fun stuff from last year's garden. Especially when I'm limited by not being able to eat wheat.

"Hm, let's see. What can I make with a pile of sprouting potatoes and onions, some canned tomatoes, and ground venison tonight?"

But now I'm getting to the fun part. The part where I go out and pick supper in the garden. I love summer! I'm still using things stored from last year, but now I have more options!

The above picture turned into some super-yummy soup!

I'm having a love affair with salads. I really don't have much of a taste for salads in the winter, but come spring I'm craving them! Fancy --like that yummy asian-inspired salad served over cold rice noodles-- or simple --plain ol' lettuce, carrots and cukes dressed with yogurt and dill-- I can't get enough!

Speaking of dill, I'm having a love affair with that, too. It grows everywhere like a weed right now, and I find myself pulling it out to make room for other things, but I just have to make something with it. Dill dressing, dill and tomato soup, dill and chevre dip.... it's marvelous! And where will all the dill be when it comes time to make pickles? Dried up and gone to seed, of course.

So I'm cooking again. This morning I made chocolate creme brulee (can I call it that when I actually leave out the "brulee" part?) with just a hint of cinnamon and cayenne pepper and vanilla. For a barbecue a few days ago I took a bean salad which involved bacon and basil and was dressed in my Mom's maple vinaigrette.

Ah, how I've missed having good food around. I'm missing the wheat a little, but getting around it. Except for a great deal of mourning when a lady from church gave us homemade chocolate chip cookies, which is my favoritest ever, and I wanted one sooo bad. Then I went to make myself some spelt flour chocolate chip cookies and had no eggs! Drat those lazy chickens! Oh, and on that note, several Amish neighbors of ours have been bringing us cookies and pies, so there's lots of extra wheat-filled sweets in the house. But we're always out of eggs. I'm thinking of putting a sign on the door that says "Will take payment for phone usage in EGGS only."

I am still having trouble with the time involved in cooking --where does it all go?-- but at least I'm enjoying it again. And I have had an awful lot of milk to deal with lately, which often feels like just another thing to get around to, but I'm also getting very used to having ample yogurt, mozzarella, and chevre on hand, so I keep up with it (and the addition of a cream separator to my kitchen equipment has boosted my possibilities enormously!).

My sister was recently horrified to learn that to save time, I frequently cook things in large enough batches to serve it two (or sometimes three!) days in a row. "Don't you get bored with it?" she gasped. Well, she's coming to stay with me for a month after the baby's born (yippeee!) so she had better make her peace with this. Or cook for me.

I'm hoping for the latter, actually.

And my family doesn't care about eating the same thing repeatedly. They're happy to have food around!

Say, have you ever tried popping popcorn in bacon drippings? Do. You won't regret it.

Bagely

2011-06-17T09:32:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I had two laundry baskets overflowing all over my bathroom floor with clean laundry waiting to be folded and put away, and another load in the dryer. I just hate that. But not enough, obviously, to do anything about it. I pretty much looked at that laundry, blinked, and headed to the kitchen to mix up some dough. 'Cause that's the proper way to handle laundry overflow, you know. Actually, now that I think of it, I took a nap first.

Remember how I used to rave about my laundry line? How I loved hanging laundry? Yeah. Well. I haven't hung laundry in a long time. It's partly, I confess, because I seem to have a hundred million things to do and a perpetually fussy baby, and frankly, it's easier to throw it in the dryer (the laundry, not the baby). But the main reason is that my back aches all the time. It's that danged Pregnant Pelvic #$&*% Dysfunction. So I haven't been carrying out my laundry (and I confess that I have a little guilt over the lack of frugality here...).

But this post is not about laundry! No! It's about dough!

It's related, though, I promise. Laundry... back pain... dough! Get it? No?

Okay. See I figured out that if I don't eat wheat, my back gets better. Remarkably better. Like, I can walk around and do stuff. Pretty much normally, except for this belly that is starting to get in the way a little. As long as I don't eat wheat! Bizarre? Maybe. Funny thing is, I don't have to avoid gluten all together, just wheat. I can eat other gluten grains such as barley, rye, spelt and kamut with no problem whatsoever. And for whatever reason, this problem only manifests itself during pregnancy (I guess I had blocked it from my memory, but I now recall being off wheat during my pregnancy with Evan), but I can imagine that may change as I get older. Eventually, it will probably be all the time. But for now, when I'm pregnant, no wheat for me. In some ways, it kinda makes me mad. Generations of wheat overdose has apparently led to widespread intolerance of it. I've known a number of people who found relief from joint pain by avoiding wheat (not even all gluten!), and my chiropractor concurs that she, too, has seen it many times.

It's mainly not a big deal to me. But. There is one little, okay, very big thing. I really miss my sourdough bread. A lot. I have not yet succeeded in making a wheat-free alternative. Wheat just works for good, artisan-stlye bread. Other grains have less and more fragile gluten and simply do not give the rise and structure of wheat doughs. I am planning to try again with spelt and rye next week and see if I can come up with something acceptable. But for now, I'm trying to make quick breads and other wheat-free things that I can eat. The problem is that then I have to bake.

(I make this sound like I eat bread all the time. Not true. It's a smallish part of my diet. I mainly eat a lot of other things, especially animal foods that we produce ourselves --lots of yogurt and cheese!-- and garden produce. And chocolate, of course. But I need a little carb content in my life, especially while pregnant and nursing!)

So. Enough talk. To the dough!

I mixed up a big batch of kamut dough. Kamut is an ancient grain similar to wheat, but different. The flour has a texture almost like cornmeal and a gorgeous golden color. It's pretty fragile and hard to work with, and also kind of expensive. I prefer to mix it with another grain rather than use it by itself (except for tortillas-- it makes fabulous tortillas by itself!). I would normally use spelt (also ridiculously expensive! That's my main complaint about this wheat-free thing!), but I'm out until my co-op order next week.

I had two plans for this dough. First I flattened out a ball of it...

And slathered it with my home-canned tomato sauce, oregano from the herb garden, pepperoni (from WalMart!) and my goat-milk mozzarella.

Evan helped, see? He's very good at sitting on my feet or hanging onto my legs and walking everywhere I do.

I rolled the filled dough very carefully (this is so much easier with a wheat dough!) and plopped it into a greased bread pan and sprinkled herbs and cheese on top. I got this idea from a dear friend of mine who has six kids and some very creative ideas for feeding them. Pizza bread! Advantage over regular pizza? Well... none, really, it's just something different and fun.

While that was rising, I used the rest of the dough to shape some cinnamon raisin bagels.

Except I went to the pantry and discovered that I was out of raisins. Well, I found some ancient raisins that had been in there who-knows-how-long and they were a little... crunchy. But they would have to do, because my bagels had to have raisins!

When they were all shaped, I let them rise, too.

Why did I take it into my head to make bagels? Well... I went to the health-food store to get some sort of non-wheat bread to have in the freezer for "emergencies" and all I could find where gluten-free breads made with rice and soy and such which are, in my opinion, not fit to be called by the name of "bread." Okay, so I'm a snob. Anyway, the only thing I could find was this package of spelt bagels that cost over $6 with my discount. Gack! But I bought some, and they're terrible. So I did what I should have done in the first place and made my own.

After the bagels were risen, I put the pizza bread in to bake and started boiling the bagels.

Boiling is what gives them their wonderful chewy exterior.

When the pizza bread was done, we had it for supper while the bagels baked in the oven!

It was dense (because it's not wheat!) but very, very yummy!

I totally forgot to take a picture of the bagels when they were all done, but here's a picture of my bedtime snack--

Half a cinnamon raisin kamut bagel with fresh ricotta, maple syrup, and cinnamon! Yummy!

Worth it. Totally.

Absent Without

2011-06-16T13:18:00.000-04:00

Wow, didn't realize I'd been AWOL that long... I guess time gets away from me when I'm short on sleep and long on the to-do list.

My two little guys have been miserably sick lately, but are recovering. Good thing, too, cuz I need their help around here! Just look how helpful they are!

And I... need a nap.

Stay tuned, more to come.

Farm Work

2011-06-04T22:00:00.000-04:00

We start 'em early around here.

Vintage

2011-06-04T16:31:00.000-04:00

I guess I'm in a photo-snapping mood today.

There's just something about these roses from the giant bush that has been in the yard probably for as long as this old farmhouse has been here, an old radio that Nathan picked up at a yard sale (and it works better than any other we have around), and a bunch of flea-market bottles.

It just seems so fitting for my old, Michigan farmhouse.

Where's Evan?

2011-06-04T16:24:00.000-04:00

Betcha can't guess...

...what Evan's favorite game is now?

My Firstborn

2011-06-03T16:34:00.001-04:00

This kid. I tell ya what.

Books and food, food and books-- that's about all he lives for right now.

He absolutely devours books and documentaries about science. Mostly oceanology, marine biology, aerospace, and astronomy. Also, Calvin and Hobbes. And every school reader I have on hand has been read multiple times.

We joke that some day he'll jump out of a plane into the ocean, wearing a diving suit, of course.

Hm... I wonder if that's been done?

I'm quite thankful that he can read so well (and, um, shocked, a little), because he's so much more self-entertaining now. He's also starting to become quite a know-it-all.

Having a school-age child is a new frontier for me, for sure. When I think of the concept of "mothering", I always picture babies and toddlers and pre-schoolers. Even though I know it, somehow it just doesn't enter into my mental picture that these little guys grow up. Quite rapidly, though it doesn't seem like it while in the midst of the baby/toddler/pre-schooler time.

All of a sudden, Jonah is moving out of being a "little kid" and becoming, well, a "big kid", I guess. His budding logic skills make him a dogged negotiator (and make me... crazy). His persistence is exhausting. His capabilities are fast expanding, but never quite meet up to his enthusiasm and ideas. There is just so much he wants to do! And it's all beckoning to him through all these books, and here he is, stuck in the "longest" part of his life, waiting to begin. It's hard, being 6.

I try to explain to him that this is the part of his life where he gets to learn all that he's going to need to know when he becomes a deep sea diver/airplane pilot/ship captain/whateverelseitistoday, and of course, I provide examples. That he can't move on to all these projects he plans until he learns the basic skills and and learns to work hard cheerfully at everything he's given to do. I've also found myself using his ambitions somewhat advantageously. In the past he has expressed a desire to wear glasses because Mommy and Daddy both do, and of course, I hope he doesn't have to, so I've been very careful in my treatment of that topic. The other day, he told me he was worried that if he wears glasses, he won't be able to wear goggles when he goes diving in the ocean. Of course, there are ways to get around this, but I didn't tell him that! No, rather, I pointed out that this is why he needs to make sure to rest his eyes when he's reading a lot. Ah, motivation! Guess what he always remembers to do now? [I read a study about a doctor who once helped school children avoid myopia by having them read an eyechart at a certain distance a couple times every day. Just that regular rest of the eyes helped keep them from needing glasses. It's been hard to remember to have Jonah do this, though.]

He absorbs every bit of information and sometimes regurgitates it in hilarious ways. Yesterday, he had some sort of military situation going on with his toys on the floor. He told me he had defeated the Moabites, and was currently fighting the Canaanites and would soon move on to the Ammonites. He made it clear that the "nite" on the end is "knight" in his mind. Canaan-knights-- Knights of Canaan.

And then there's the food. We rode out a loooong picky phase, and I'm sure that was mainly rooted in slowed growth. Now, he eats everything in sight. In fact, I get really tired of answering the "when are we gonna eat?" questions that come every ten minutes all day, whether we've just eaten or not. I get growth spurts, but this is ridiculous. He just wants to eat nonstop. Food is served here no less than five times per day, and yet he's always afraid he's going to starve. I know boredom plays into this, so I've adopted the habit of handing out a job at every request for food, legitimate or not. "Here, kid, work up a real appetite."

Wouldn't want him to grow too fast, now would we?

Do You Get Tired of Hearing About Spring?

2011-06-01T13:57:00.001-04:00

If so, um, too bad. It's my favorite topic right now. It's been so wet and cold for so long now that I just can't get enough of the sun now.

To the point of pain, actually. Ah, sunburn, my old friend.

We've just been hammered lately by severe thunderstorms, including one on Sunday that may be the most violent I've ever seen. It was actually a little frightening. Many of my perennials were laid completely flat by the wind. One elderberry was just giant, and is now laying all over the ground and I need to find some way to prop it up.

Some of the plants, like the little tomatoes that I put out a few weeks ago, are on the verge of drowning from all the rain. Others, like those hostas in that photo, are loving the rain to the point of becoming dinosaur food. I've never seen that plant get that big!

So the hostas like it, but I'm starting to feel a little rot starting to set in. I'm thankful for the few days of sunshine to dry me out!

Today the ground is finally dried out a little, just enough to put some plants in the ground, so that's how we spent the morning.

And now... nap time. Then back to work.

Raw

2011-05-27T20:20:00.000-04:00

[Here I have for you a few snapshots, unedited, from our day]

Evan has an adorable obsession with his tongue.

(See how many you can spot in this post!)

Big brother story time!

The mohawk lives on!

So very... six.

Look! Two babies!

And two (more) tongues...

Cheese

2011-05-20T13:39:00.000-04:00

Cold? No, actually, why do you ask?

2011-05-20T13:35:00.000-04:00

New Bits

2011-05-19T13:25:00.002-04:00

A couple of years ago, I planted 10 Purple Passion asparagus plants. Then last year, I planted 10 Mary Washingtons. I sat on my hands all last summer and watched them grow and fern out and forced myself not to pick any. (Okay, okay. I admit it. I did pick one or two very fat spears to munch right then and there. I couldn't help myself.) This spring however, I finally get what I've been waiting for! The purple asparagus are beautiful and plump and this is their third spring, so we get to start eating some!

As much as I lovelovelove fresh asparagus (and raw! I never knew how good they are raw!), I discovered a joy of asparagus that may perhaps surpass the flavor-- it's something to pick in the spring before anything else is ready! While I'm still waiting for my carrots and beans and peas and (especially!) tomatoes, I get to harvest asparagus. And I don't even have to do anything with it. It just comes up from the ground and I go out and pick it. No more planting and waiting. It's just there.

If you don't have an asparagus patch, get you one! The work of getting it put in is SO worth it!

Another new thing that I'm excited about is rhubarb.

You would think that living in Michigan, these asparagus and rhubarb would be without needing so much as a mention. But I haven't had any until now! And I've been waiting over the last two years, making myself not pick it until it's mature enough. This spring is sweet!

This beautiful, bright red rhubarb is a plant that I brought from Oregon, where I dug it from the garden of a friend of my Mom. I just adore the deep color! And the stalks are huge! There aren't very many of them this year, so we don't get a big harvest, but it's enough for a few yummy desserts. The stalks are so huge that it only took two to get enough for my recipe. I made a pan of my favorite rhubarb bars last night and I can't stay out of it.

Evidently, the red stalks looked so inviting to Jonah that he kept asking me to let him eat one. I told him he would not want to eat a whole stalk, but he really thought he would. (It's not good for you raw, anyway.) So when I picked it, I cut a little piece for him to try and his face went into quite a pucker. I can remember chewing on stalks of it when I was a kid-- it was a sign of toughness or something.

Last year when my Mom was here, she suggested that we border my flower beds with a twig fence. I thought it was a lovely idea, but there was no way to do it in July with the ground rock hard, and no long, flexible sticks available, anyway.

So this spring, I saved out a big pile of apple shoots that Nathan pruned from the trees. I've been working on this fence. I still have a ways to go, but so far I'm really liking the look of it. It's just rustic and cute, even though I messed up the pattern in a few places.

And the other day, I was surprised to notice that my fence is growing leaves! I'm not sure if that means it rooted, or it's just got enough life left in it for a little growth that will probably go away when it gets hot (I'm guessing the latter).

Nathan dug up several bagfuls of Lilly of the Valley from a friend's house for me to plant in my shady bed at the end of the kitchen. Lovely stuff, thought I'm skeptical that it will be very happy in my clay-heavy soil. Time will tell.

I had a very hard time planting it (and should probably have quit, really) because my back has been hurting so bad. I spent the rest of the day hobbling around, barely able to walk, and had a long soak in the tub after Evan went to bed. It's not strained muscles --I'm quite accustomed to garden work-- it's this danged pregnant pelvis of mine. Today, I'm only marginally functional, and it's been that way off and on for weeks.

I'm trying not to despair, but it's hard when I'm facing spending the next 4 1/2 months (the best and busiest of the year) like this. I had this problem while pregnant with Evan, and here we go again. I refer to it as "PP#D" -- Pregnancy Pelvic #$*#% Dysfunction. It's just so frustrating when I have lots to do, and for a limited time only, the energy to do it with, but I can hardly move around. I will shamefacedly admit that I have avoided going back to the chiropractor right now because I thought it wasn't helping, opting instead for stretching and yoga. But now I know that while the chiropractic adjustments may not get rid of the pain completely, it does certainly keep it from becoming debilitating. I'm on the cancellation list at my wonderful chiropractor's office and I can just hope and pray that someone will feel well enough not to need an appointment so that I can have it.

We're still dealing with Evan's digestive issues, but I think I've finally noticed some improvement over the last few days. Maybe we're on the tail end of this, now.

Lately, he's been squealing and shrieking when he wants more food during a meal. I started showing him the sign for "more" and saying "more" and then giving him another bite. He has skipped right over trying to use the sign, and instead says "muh!" It's completely adorable, and he says it very politely. Yesterday morning, he was crying on the floor while I got his breakfast ready. I said, "Evan, are you hungry? Do you want to eat?" and he immediately stopped crying and started saying, "Muh! Muh! Muh!" Then this morning I laid him in his bed for a nap, but he decided he wasn't ready and sat up and held out his arms to me and said "Muh!" So I guess "more" is now the word he thinks he should use to get what he wants.

He also says "Mamamamama" and "Dadadada", shakes his head when he doesn't want something, and gives a very appreciative "Num!" when he gets bites of food. Ahhh, communication!

And I now hear him communicating from his bed that he would like to come back downstairs after his nap, thankyousomuch, so I will end this rambly post and go see to it.

Springish

2011-05-16T23:02:00.002-04:00

It's chilly and windy and cold and rainy here, but spring seems to be proceeding apace, nonetheless. I'm anxiously awaiting some warm (hot!) weather, but trying to enjoy the spring anyway. I just can't get over the green! Green everywhere! Dazzling! It always stuns me after months of bleakness.

I braved the wind and chill today to work outside while it wasn't raining, pulling weeds and planting plants.

I wonder if some wacky psychiatrist would say that a person's love of gardening comes from a deep-seated, unconscious desire to be in control of life and death?

Hm.

Anyway. The ground is soft and soaked, and the weeds come out easily. That doesn't happen often with the hard clay I've got around here. I took the opportunity to get some deep-rooted dandelions out of my newest flower bed which I have just started filling with pretty-pretties. I looked at this pile of dandelions --crisp and juicy and fresh-looking, and um, muddy-- and I just couldn't waste them. But I really don't want to eat them, either. Not really my favorite wild food, but they sure are nutritious, especially first thing in the spring, and good for digestive and liver troubles. So I brought them all in and have been soaking and swishing them in sinkfulls of cold water, trying to get them clean enough for a nice, strong, tincture.

Now, to procure a big bottle of vodka, of which I am forever running out (and not because I drink it. I can think of many more enjoyable things to drink...).

I also went out and picked a bunch of fresh oregano for my spaghetti sauce, some chocolate mint to flavor my red raspberry leaf pregnancy tea, and a little bowlful of violet greens (and a few flowers, too) to sweeten our salad.

I told you, I just love all the green.

Oh, and the LILACS! There simply are no words.

I adore them. I fill my kitchen with them and they fill my kitchen with their fantastic scent. There is nothing like it. And they're such a short-lived treat. I could just stand out their under the lilac bushes all day.

Excuse the blur here, but I just had to share this. Our new layer chicks arrived in the mail today, and my nice brooder box out in the barn is currently occupied by the mama ducks who took it over for nesting.

So the chicks are in the house, peeping their heads off constantly.

Evan, amazingly, has NOT tried to explore the peeping box yet, but Jonah was very sweetly showing him the new babies and helping him touch them without squashing their fragile, little bodies.

Very cute.

Sigh. It's spring. It's wonderful.

Kardinalkaze

2011-05-15T22:32:00.002-04:00

It's endlessly raining and dreary, and that, above, is what my windows look like. But I just had to take pictures anyway... It was irresistible.

We have this nutcase male cardinal hanging around our house these days.

Why does he behave this way?

Is he on drugs?

Drunk?

Suicidal?

Did his mate lock him out of the nest and throw all this things out on the branch?

(I think she should really consider a restraining order.)

He's relentless, whatever is wrong with him.

For two solid days, he's been dive-bombing all the windows of our kitchen and living room.

It's rainy and cloudy, so I don't think he's going after his reflection.

He has a mate around, I saw them together last night, when he took a brief break from repeatedly accosting my kitchen.

Between attacks, he sits on a branch or post near the house and sings a fierce-sounding song.

Then he does it again.

And again, and again, and again.

He and his mate have been hanging around the yard for months now. They're never brave enough to come near the house to the feeder, so this is indeed strange. When we had the chickens fenced into the garden for a month or so, they regularly raided the chicken feeder. I've watched them from the windows quite often.

Now that I think of it, there is no longer chicken feed out there since the chickens are loose in the yard.

Perhaps he's trying to get a message across to me...

"More corn, or else!"

He Turned 6!

2011-05-10T18:11:00.001-04:00

We're currently away, having a lovely visit with Nathan's parents, sister-in-law and and handfull of nieces and nephews. And its warm and lovely here and we're more than enjoying it!

I have a bit of downtime right now as Evan naps and Jonah is off at the part with cousins (yay!) so I thought I should maybe show a bit of Jonah's very fun 6th birthday last week! I already showed you the cake (which was so fun!), so here's the rest.

How many kids can you get on the roof of one little playhouse?

A lot!

I was a little concerned about the number of children who were coming (I had been thining we'd have a small, quiet birthday party this year, but it didn't really happen that way), but it was totally fine and lots of fun! The weather was decent and they mostly played outside. They had a great time!

Evan just loved being handed from one person to another all day. No need to crawl when you can be carried, you know.

I was glad we could feed kids outside, too!

My idea of games for a kids birthday party is "Go outside and play!" I'm not a great planning hostess, but they had fun anyway.

We attempted to do cake on the porch...

...but it was way too windy. So took it back in.

He blew out his candles, and my baby turned 6!