Wicked Awesome Parenting

Sing Along...Pee Along...its all the same to Henry.

2011-07-25T08:02:00.000-04:00

So I sing a bit. My friend Mark whom I sing with, invited me to come to an old fashioned sing along down at a little church near the beach. Fun right? I thought, oh the kids will enjoy this!

So we head down to the beach church and are singing along. It really was great. Fun musicians, fun music, great setting, beautiful day. We were all sitting in a circle on the church grounds behind the parsonage.

I am singing and look up and see Henry standing not far from the group with his back to us...looking a little suspicious....I tilt my head with a pensive look and then realize HE IS PEEING ON THE MINISTERS FLOWER GARDEN!

The look of HORROR on my face registered to the person across from me who followed my gaze to see my son pants half down watering the garden. She started to laugh and gave me a thumbs up....(this was clearly not the ministers wife!)

My face got so red and I tried to just keep singing hoping it would be over before anyone else noticed. It was like a scene from Austin Powers where the pee went on forever....(at least it seemed that way to me.)

I leaned over to my husband and whispered as harshly as I could "Stop him and tell him not to do that"

My husband, in between hysterical laughing whispered back "I can't stop him now, he would turn around and pee on everyone"

Needless to say...I am not sure if I dare go back to the sing along...I don't know if anyone else noticed.... but our whole family did.... Thanks Henry for eliminating one more venue from our event calendar!

An Ag Teacher Henry is NOT

2011-07-09T08:57:00.000-04:00

So the other day we were headed to the beach. We drove down a long road near our house that has a couple of farms on it. We pass one and it had cows and their babies...and one baby was feeding from its mother.

Now, the thing about Henry is....he is really observant...I mean REALLY observant. we can't take walks without having to inspect every facet of a spider web or ant hill. I am a nature girl, and even I, after having to study the underside of an interesting leaf for 10 minutes, want to move on.

Henry of course noticed the Mamma Cow and her baby and let out an "awwwwwww, did you see that?"

I said "yes wasn't that cute?"

My daughter who was busy texting away, barely noticing that she was even in a moving vehicle said"what?"

Henry said "It was a giant Deer milking its cub!"

Hmmmmm me thinks my teaching career has come to an end...

Wrestling the Demon Cats

2011-07-07T10:31:00.000-04:00

So I had to take the Cats to the Vet this morning, and as I lay here in recovery I would like to tell the Vet...THIS IS WHY I CAN'T GET HERE MORE OFTEN....DON'T JUDGE ME!

It sounds like a simple task, getting your cute little kitties to the vet...but let me tell you this is a total process. I have two cats. That are, on any given day of the week or year, very loving and sweet cats. They don't scratch, pee where they aren't supposed to, they even spoon with me when I am sick. HOWEVER, when they know that somethings up...it is a whole different ball game.

I had to start three days before, when I stealthily took out the cat carriers and put them in the living room....just let them sit there for a few days. If I wait until the day of, they know, and run away.

Then I didn't put any food in their bowls last night....now don't get all PETA on me, they weigh about 17 pounds, so neither of them is going to starve one night without food.

About an hour before I had to leave, I put food in their bowls knowing they would come running. Then I ran around the house shutting all the doors to all the rooms and blocking the cat door that leads to the basement.

This is where the fun begins, because they just saw me do that...and now...They know...They managed to get under Henry's bed because he was trying to "help" by trapping them. So after going under the bed with a broom stick and chasing them out I had to slam the door to make sure there was no escape.

Sugar Ray, the more amicable of the two, (only because he is too lazy to really fight too hard,) I managed to get in his cage on try number two, having expended all the energy he felt he wanted to on the first wrestle.

But Target? Well I think perhaps that he is having issues with his name .... He is a whole other story...I have never seen a small cat weigh as much or be as strong as this animal...being the more skittish of the two it was a real treat to get him in.

This is where I would have benefited from watching the WWF in the 80's.

After chasing him down and cornering him, I try to get my hands on him. His fur is like bunny fur, it is so slick that it makes it hard to hold onto him..and he has the special cat power of Fur Release. So as soon as two hands got on him he pressed his magical button and furs me, head to toe.

I find myself out of breath lying on the living room floor in a cloud of fur and Target is on the stairs. (how he got there, I have no idea because I am holding what looks like a cat worth of fur in my hands) He is calmly looking down at me...clearly saying "Oh were you trying to get me?????"

Eventually I got a hold of him with a lot of sweet talking and slow moving. I shoved his head in the box and immediately his butt swelled up to about 3 times its normal size. (It reminds me of me on vacation.)

I tried to push his butt in the carrier. Somehow pushing on his butt is like a lever that makes his back legs splay out. At which point all the talons came out full fledged and latched on to anything in the vicinity, arms, shirts, couches, rug.....and by the time I got them out of one thing, they were Velcroed onto another.

Occasionally I got one back leg in, and the front leg from the other side came out. This wrestling match went on easily 5-10 minutes, and again, with a pile of fur in the carrier I shut the door only to find him sitting calmly on the stairs looking down at me curiously. DAMN....

After another match with the Target, I sit with sweat dripping down my face making the fur stick to my body, and bloody scratches on my legs and arms, but he is in the carrier....

By the time that I got them into the carriers and into the car, they were mad, I was mad and we were late. They continued to meow the entire way to the vet....which I am quite certain was less meowing and more cussing me out.

I walked into the vet looking like some crazed maniac that has just come out of her Yurt in the woods with a wild bobcats that I want to make my pets. The vet just looks at me skeptically and starts sweet talking the talon exposing demons that I have in the carriers, and eyeballing me like I might be some sort of derelict...Little does he know that I was just in a standoff in my living room with the guards of gates of hell. Of course at the end of the appointment when its time to go home, he just slips the cats in their boxes easy as can be and they mew politely.

Grudge holding has occurred, and after letting Target out of his box when we got home, he looked at me with distain and vowed that next time he would go for the eyeballs. I haven't seen him since, and am pretty sure he is in his lair drawing up his plans for next time.

The Good Father

2011-05-02T05:10:00.002-04:00

So the other morning we had terrible rain storms. The kind where the rain beats against the windows and thunder and lightening are crashing.

It mildly woke me up, but I was so tired, I just stayed with my eyes closed.

I started to hear this whispering in my door. I figured it was Henry so I tried to pretend I was still asleep....

What I was tired and he wasn't crying or anything, I figured I could ignore him for a short while....

Anyway, I kept hearing him run down the hall and then come back to our door and whisper...I finally started to feel a little guilty that I wasn't paying enough attention...and the whispering was getting annoying.

I finally asked Henry if he needed something...he ran over to the bed and said "The lightening is hitting my windows and I don't want the glass to fall on me"

I allowed as to how the lightening wasn't hitting the windows it was the rain, but of course let the little terrified Henry into bed, and managed to get back to sleep for a couple more hours.

Then next morning on my way to the bathroom I see the huge pile of stuffed animals in my doorway...

"Henry, why are all your stuffed animals in our hallway?"

"I was evacuating them mom, I didn't want the lightening to break the windows and cut them"

What a good little daddy....

Big Bottoms

2011-05-01T06:09:00.000-04:00

So Henry came into the bathroom and went potty while I was brushing my teeth. (An always pleasant experience...I am not sure why he doesn't us HIS bathroom)

As he was leaving I noticed the seat up, and I have on a few occasions "fallen in" lately in the middle of the night.

So I politely turn to Henry and said "Buddy, you need to put the seat down after you potty."

He looked at me all irritated and said "But Why?"

"Because we have 3 girls in this house who don't go potty with the seat up and they don't want to fall in."

He looks at me and smiles and says "OH MOM, you aren't going to fall in your butt is too big."

So much for me feeling good in my jeans! ;-)

Radio Stations to Stay Away From

2011-04-18T08:36:00.000-04:00

Yesterday the fam and I were on our way home from church, and headed over to my grandmothers house. Henry begs to listen to 97.9. Which on many occasions of my protesting I have heard:

"But MOOOOOOOOM, our bus driver lets us listen to 97 dot 9"

I figure if his as old as my mom bus driver, lets him listen, then....well...I kinda have to be at least as cool as his bus driver. I am keenly aware that my "cool mom" status is quickly running out, as my 12 year old daughter looks at me with disdain (insert rolling eyes here.)

So we are listening to some song that I am trying to ignore the words to, and Henry doesn't seem to know them either, so I am good...he mostly waits patiently to hear "Dyn-o-mite." It wasn't too bad.

I do tend to turn into "Mom the headmistress" when there is songs about taking clothes off on the dance floor because I can see my "country music only" husbands head start to implode. But ultimately I try to be understanding, as a kid who listened to the Sex Pistols, the Dead Kennedy's and the Butt Hole Surfers...by virtue of the "kids pay you back for all your childhood mischief" rule, I need to allow some lenience.

THEN...

Came the Ad... for TROJAN's. Now I am not a prude or anything, but the ad itself was a little much, and frankly, a lot much for my 5 and 9 year old.

I said "OK, time to turn the channel"

Henry says "Why? I want a Trojan, you can't even feel it is there"

Seriously?

So much for him not really listening!

The Nature Walk

2010-09-24T08:12:00.000-04:00

So today was the Hubsters birthday. I baked bread, made dinner, baked a cake...and for the first time since Soccer season really got going, we sat down as a family at the TABLE and ate together.

We were asking the kids about their days at school and what they learned.

Henry apparently went on a nature walk with his class. Where he saw a deer and a moose.

Don't get too excited yet.

He held his hands out about 1 foot apart and said "They were this big" and then he continued "The deer was just a baby because I saw it hatch out of its egg..."

huh, Kindergarten is working...right????

On Becoming a Soccer Mom

2010-09-21T11:39:00.000-04:00

OK so as you may or may not have figured out, being a Soccer mom is a little out of the box for me...I am not sure that I have sporty enough attire and matching tennis shoes for the job...but none the less, I found my self scheduling my life around 5...yes that is 5 soccer games last weekend.

I am not sure what has happened to sports for the young since I was...young that is...But apparently now, all our young folks starting at 6 months, are “in training” to become the next Pele, Elway or Phelps. I say this with love in my heart for all those parents who are putting their eggs in that basket...Seriously????

I know after this weekend that Henry's basket has no eggs in it for soccer. His first soccer game was spent, doing lots of antics, and getting lots of laughs from the sideline, but not a whole lot of soccer playing. He was dancing, running off the sidelines and "chatting" with random people.

Mind you I was not close enough to hear the conversation, but I saw the confused look on the random Dads face that he picked to go and tell his story to. Lord only knows what he was talking about...I am just praying he was not being the Robot from the planet Shnerp with him...(I believe that is saved only for his Goddess Teacher, but still, I am a little concerned.)

He pretended to have a sword fight with an apparently very vicious wind monster in the middle of the field, while the other players kicked the ball around him. He spent a lot of time rolling around on the ground...and I spent a lot of time pointing to an innocent parent next to me and saying very loudly “Boy YOUR SON HENRY out there is having fun!”

They did not take kindly to this, as it was their son who was scoring the goals even through the complete interference of my son’s superman cape flapping with his shirt half off.

In the end, I had to admit he was mine...He picked a flower for me out in the field and brought it over to me.

I hugged him and said he played great. I guess that’s ok...It is very un-soccery of me and I may have hurt his chances to play for a big college now by telling him that what he did was actually playing soccer, I mean he is ALREADY 5 and all...

I Guess even though his entire performance was like a half time show, I think he had fun. I just took those virtual eggs out of that basket and made a deal with myself to just enjoy watching my son be a robot in the field, after all...he is ONLY 5!!!!!

Kindergarten Memories

2010-09-17T12:00:00.000-04:00

So here's the thing, I had girls first. And let me tell you, that is just not an OK order to go in.

I had little girls who wanted me to walk them to their classroom. I had little girls who got off the bus and couldn't stop talking long enough for me to ask a question about their school day, much less catch a breath. I heard all about their teacher, about their classroom, about all the friends that they made, and the shoes those friends wore, the classes they took, the letter A they wrote and what color they wrote it in.

Then....there is Henry...The boy....

The first day of school his favorite thing at school was: " I don't remember what I did mom, it was school"

The second day of school his favorite thing at school was: "I guess I like the bus"

The third day of school his favorite thing at school was: "I really liked Recess today mom"

The fourth day he came off the bus looking like someone shot his dog, when I asked him what was wrong he said: "They promised we were going to have a fire alarm, we practiced lining up and everything and then they didn't let me do it."

The fifth day of School his favorite thing was: "The fire drill."

The Sixth day of School his favorite thing was: "I kinda liked gym"

The Seventh day of School his favorite thing was: " MOM I am so tired can I stay home tomorrow and just watch TV...seriously mom...seriously...school is too long"

The Eighth day...I didn't even ask...whats the point? It will probably be tying his shoe because that was when he was outside, before he even entered the school....

I am pretty sure that he is going, he comes home with work, so unless he is stealing some other helpless Kindergartners work and shoving it in his own folder, I have evidence that he is actually attending school...and not just spending his day out at recess or sneaking into alternate gym classes, yet he cannot tell me the name of ANYONE in his class...and forget about the color of their shoes.

So I guess this is it...now that I am no longer witness to his everyday life, I will no longer be privy to what is going on in that little pea brain of his because it is very clear...I am not going to be told, unless I catch him during a fire drill.

Half Time Show

2010-09-06T21:55:00.000-04:00

So it is the middle of the Hokie vs Boise game...a little intense...a few choice words, much pacing going on...and all of the sudden we hear rain in the hall way...or rather flooding coming down the stairs...as you all may or may not know we have had our experience with flooding this year so immediately we jump up and run to the stairs...

There is Henry...underwear around the ankles, shaking off at the top. Apparantly sleep peeing is his new trick. Standing half asleep at the top of the stairs the boy just peed the whole way down.

My oldest ran to the stairs and being so globally minded and concerned with others yelling "did he just pee on my art supplies?"

I am wondering if I should tell her now or later, that her art may have a "special" scent and we should hope that her art teacher doesn't have an alpha dog that gets theatened easily.

I am glad that it is half time because Jamie and I were laughing so hard it took us 20 minutes to stop long enough to clean it up. I put him back to bed, I am not sure that he knows yet what he did...

I can only laugh so much though, sleep peeing is genetic...I seem to remember at 5 backing into the linen closet in our bathroom and peeing on the blankets...But you have to know, genetic or not, its coming up at graduation...

Uh-oh

2010-08-27T06:03:00.000-04:00

So as you know, Henry is starting kindergarten...I am not totally sure how I feel about that. I will have to wait for my blog on September 1st. I could be a mess, trying to type while my computer board shorts out from the tears landing on it....or it could just look like this: alkd hfu lakhfoir lslirbh, due to the many mimosa’s I have already had at 5 in the morning, starting the celebration. I would say that there could be something in between...but, really? How well do you know me? There isn't a whole lot of in between with Pie!

So we went to his Kindergarten orientation the other day. He actually behaved very well...but some of this was due to the crippling anxiety surging through his body.

See, Henry is not a "change" kid, and unfortunately things got switched up on him. There must have been some kind of storm of flood or something in 2004 because the kindergarten class this year is HUGE. (For our small town that means that it exceeded its normal 38 kids and now is encroaching on 48! Heavens!) So they had to create a new class in order to keep the numbers below 20 in each class. Henry was one of the kids that got switched to the new teacher. He was not over enthusiastic about this change UNTIL....

He saw his new teacher.

Many of you know that Henry is a fan of blondes. He has been since he was born. If you had blonde hair you would get a charming smile...if not...perhaps the spit up was for you. I cannot control this, seemingly genetic flaw.

One of my best friends Dana, was plagued by Henry the first few years of his life, but she got over it since he referred to her as "pretty lady!"

His new teacher walks up to him, a six foot, long blonde hair, 20 something, Norwegian Viking. When she put her hand on his shoulder to say hello, Henry held his breath and turned so red I thought he was going to pass out.

I finally nudged him and said "Can you say Hi to your new teacher?"

At which point, the long stream of breath he had been holding let out right in her face and something that I think was English came out of his mouth..."

"Hoooolooooo" he rambles with a goofy look on his face and then starts to dance around in circles in some sort of demented pigeon mating ritual.

She looks up at me all sweet and says "A shy one huh?"

I didn't have the heart to tell her that really this was his way of flirting, and that I hoped she could get one sensible word out of him throughout the year. As my son waddled off in a strange robot walk saying "Shnerp, I am from the planet Shnerp" I just smiled and said "Well, I guess, good luck?"

That evening when Jamie asked about his new teacher, again the face got red, and he looked at me: "YOU TELL HIM" He screamed.

"Tell him what?"

He tilts his head to the side gave me the raised eyebrow, knowing look and says, "You know..."

"What? Whisper it in my ear" I lean over and he says...

"She's Blonde..."

And there we go...we are starting Kindergarten....Lord help the Norwegian Goddess from escaping Henry's primitive flirting techniques....pretty sure she is going to get gum in her hair at some point this year...

Two Henryisms for the Day

2010-08-20T05:27:00.001-04:00

So Henry has a little speech issue. He can't say R's...yeah I know it does totally add to his persona with lots of mispronunciations...like we ride in a Cow...not a Car. We go to a Sto, not a store, and he has Sistows not sisters. But sometimes He also mishears things and re-says them as though it is something that has been in his vocabulary for ages.

The other Day I had a Not so proud parenting moment where my eldest...getting to be an eye-rolling-sulking-sighing teenager, did one of those things while I was being a stressed-out-not-using-effective-parenting-skills parent and I called her a wench. Yes I did, not proud of it but I did. A few minutes later Henry told Marshall he "would shaaow his Lego's" but he didn't want to because she was being a "workbench."

I am thankful that my almost always annoyed at the sibs teenager has a sense of humor and was able to laugh, because now when she doesn't act nice Henry dances around her singing "Marshall is a workbench, Marshall is a workbench." He really thinks he is saying something edgy and forbidden, but at least it lightens the moment...for now...but come 14 I have a feeling he had better watch his step. Henry being cute won't go far with a surly teenager who holds my genes in there somewhere.

The problem in my family is that once one of those things happens, it becomes part of our regular speech. So now for real, when I am irritated I call her a workbench. It is something that happened in my family, a bad gene we get from my dad, who to this day calls pocket books, ocketbooks, and hairbands waddies, and people Creeps of the first Water. I believe that this may cause some strife for my children in their future when they are in a fight and in all seriousness yell "workbench" at someone...I am pretty sure that may end in laughter at their expense...

We have another new one that has been added to our Nautical collection of strangeness. The other day Henry hands me one of his Lego masterpieces and says "mom look at my boat!" I smile and dutifully look at the 4000 guns that he seems to have attached to his small fishing dingy, because you know...you never know when an alien or dinosaur may pop out of the lake on a peaceful day and start a war with you on your 10 foot boat...

Then Henry says "And right here is how it floats...it has two Boobies!"

I raise my eyebrows and say "What?"

"This is how it floats because of these two BOOBIES..." He says louder, because Clearly I did not hear correctly the first time.

I am thinking to my self...only a guy would come up with a boat equipped with 4000 guns AND boobies attached, when my miss never-pronounce-anything-wrong-future-literature-professor middle child says giggling "Henry, did you mean Buoys? like out in the water?"

"Oh I thought they were Boobies, because Boobies float."

Hmmmm.....I would say to Henry's future girlfriends...please do not accept an invitation to go fishing with him...I am not sure why he will be asking....

This That and The Other

2010-08-19T05:19:00.000-04:00

So I have so much to catch up on...and I am not even going to pretend that I will do it because, in my many attempts to get back to blogging every day I seem to get worse. But I think that the fact that Henry will be going to Kindegarten this year may help my time...but may also stunt my creative flow.

Can you believe that the boy is starting Kindergarten...ahhh yes it is true...for 6 hours a day he will be another persons blog material...I am quite sure that there will be another Maine blog about a boy named Henry fairly soon!

Our flooded house that we were hoping to have all fixed in June...you know because the damage was my mothersday present...Is JUST NOW BEING FINISHED. I will have floors other than plywood for the first time in MONTHS soon.

My first reaction to the tile was, huh, its a lot darker than I remember, I thought my husband was going to flip out...but hey, when you have been staring at ply wood for 4 months...its wierd to see a color. I think my Agriculture degree got the best of me though, and now I realize that my floor...is the color of soil. Oh well, at least it is the color of fertile soil.

So anyway, I just thought I would start out with a boring post to warn you that Henry is starting school...pictures and fun to come, the floor is down, the Garden is in, (and I really need to make sauce because the tomatoes are looking a little smooshy but I cant get into the kitchen yet, that is my excuse and I am sticking to it) and to let you know that your favorite delinquent blogging relative is back with her fingers on the keys and ready to roll.

The End.

No Explaination Needed

2010-06-20T08:16:00.001-04:00

THIS video says it all

Enjoy and Happy Fathers Day Homeys!

Scenes from the Trellises Part 1 2010

2010-05-27T04:10:00.000-04:00

So since Maine has decided to turn into a Southern State this year...at least the part I am living in...(I do hear that my more northern counterparts had snow earlier this month...but here...it's been like...Africa hot this week) I have gotten my entire garden in and have even harvested stuff already.

Now I am not Acorn Farm Girl, but I do my best. Already have had lettuce, spinach and radishes fresh, and hoping that we don't get the biblical 40 days of rain like last year so I will have the opportunity to harvest more than a few moldy strawberries!

But here we are, my modest raised beds where the running list is: Sweet Potatoes, Blue, Yukon and red potatoes, wax beans, green beans (bush and pole), Lima Beans, Peas, spinach, lettuce (4 kinds), Beets, Turnips, Parsnips, radishes, carrots, Tomatoes (A bazillion types), cantaloupe, watermelon, eggplant, jalapeno's, Habanera’s, Green Peppers, Sweet Peppers, Pumpkins, summer squash, zucchini, acorn squash, butternut squash, broccoli, cauliflower, red cabbage, green cabbage, pointed cabbage, nasturtiums, basil, cilantro, thyme, oregano, mint, rosemary, lemon balm, red onion, white onion, spring onions, yellow onions, Brussel sprouts, cucumbers, Swiss chard, and Strawberries...I think that covers it... oh and chives...thats those things blooming in the garden!

Still haven't dared to plant Asparagus or Rhubarb, somehow I know that will mean I move the next year!

But I did plant Raspberry and Blackberry bushes this year, and hope to expand to grapes and blueberries next year!

So here’s to dirty hands and strung trellises...lets see what happens now!

The Boys new look!

2010-05-26T15:01:00.003-04:00

So the other day I had an eye appointment due to my being completely blind with out glasses and all. I of course had little man in tow as I went which...around complicated machinery can be a real challenge.

After about 20 minutes of "what is that?" "What are you doing... what are you doing now? what are you doing now?"

My eye Dr., in either exasperation, or excitement that someone cared about what he was doing, said:

"Hey do you want to try out the machine that your mom is looking in?"

"YEAH!" Henry was very excited...I was thinking...oh what a nice guy....

Then I heard it...

"huh," from the Dr. then a few minutes later another.."hmmmmm"

Long story short...Here we are a couple hundred dollars later!

Blimps

2010-05-26T08:26:00.002-04:00

Before preschool Henry was watching Curious George, which I question letting him watch anyway because of his natural bent toward curiosity in a way that shuts down cities and saves ducks and stuff...

George and the yellow hat guy went up in a Blimp...

Henry exclaimed "Hey look its a giant flying football!"

my all too literal oldest says "No Henry, that's a Blimp..."

To which he looks at her quite indignantly and says...

"Nooo, its a giant flying football." In his best wise tail voice...

At least he knows what he knows right????

My Mother's Day Present

2010-05-25T05:57:00.000-04:00

OK so I was remiss in the midst of my flooded house to not mention that I got a very nice mothers day gift. This year in lieu of lovely shell jewelry and tissue paper pins, I got these!

And the best part is...they are Hokie Colors...so how could they be bad?

Ahhh now I just need an umbrella drink, a nanny and a crew of carpenters to put my house back together again!

The Gods Must be Angry

2010-05-12T20:23:00.002-04:00

So this morning I felt like I was totally on top of things. I felt like mom of the year. I gave my kids cereal on paper plates since we have no kitchen due to the flood, thus no water…so dry cereal it was.

I had called my sister to drop the youngest and oldest off at their prospective schools, my neighbor agreed to put my middle one on the bus, all so that I could get to my meeting at 8:15. I am running out the door in my girl clothes shoving everything into the car, a change of clothes, a pear, and all the kids’ lunches, and yes I even remembered all the kids.

I pull out of the driveway and notice that as I am going my car seems to be dragging half of the rock with it…

Huh.

All of the sudden it dawns on me…this is not the way that my car normally feels… it is now 7:45 and I am getting perilously close to my deadline to get to my meeting on time.

I get out of the car only to see that the back tire is completely flat. After a long string of unmentionable things came out of my mouth… I just sighed and looked up and said:
“SERIOUSLY?”

(Thanks to Greys Anatomy it probably has a new entry in Webster’s.)

Clearly I have angered the Gods, I can only hope that perhaps I have started to pay off my debt…Because really I am totally expecting to wake up tomorrow looking up at the beautiful sky about to rain because a wind storm took off my roof during the night!

It's Raining It's Pouring the Old Man is...

2010-05-08T14:24:00.002-04:00

Pissed to find that it’s raining and pouring in his basement!Ahhhh, the happiness of homeownership! Friday morning I woke up feeling a little overheated…”huh” I thought to myself. When suddenly my oldest daughter runs up stairs and says…

“Daddy, you need to get down stairs, there is water in the kitchen floor.”

Ok so I am thinking, something leaked…no biggie…I look at my windows…in my bedroom…upstairs…and notice that there is sort of a dew covering them on the inside.

“Huh” I think to myself.

I walk down stairs and see even more dew all over the insides of the windows downstairs, and that there is a certain…oh rain foresty quality in the air…

“Huh” I think…

Then I walked into the kitchen…the “Huh,” turned to “Holy S%$^#”

There was literally inches of water from one end of the house to the other…then what I am hearing starts to register…rain…Although outside was looking to be a beautiful blue sky, I heard rain…in my basement!

I went down the stairs to find that the floor beneath that half of my house was literally raining into my basement.

The culprit? An overactive dishwasher that clearly was trying to prove its manhood to the rest of the appliances. It had been set to run at 11 that night…and ran until 6 that morning gushing hot water into the downstairs of our house until saturating the floor so much that it leaked through and RAINED in our finished basement.

Yes, I am now questioning my use of the word apocalyptic in my last post.

Mowing the Lawn With Girls and Preschoolers....

2010-05-05T13:58:00.000-04:00

The other day I had to mow the lawn again. First of all I find it slightly apocalyptic that I am even having to mow my lawn in April and May in Maine, but regardless of how odd being in a tank top in the beginning of May was making me feel, it had to be done.

I use this term, lawn, lightly because I believe that a lawn consists of lush green grass….ours is lush green clover, with lots of yellow dandelions dotting the landscape. And the moles have made lots of mounds where the dead patches are from the grubs…you get the picture…mowing is really more trimming the crabgrass and wild flowers than mowing…

This has become a battle between my husband and I, as he is from the south…the land of manicured lawns, and football games in the front yard. I on the other hand had a family that was akin to hermits and had big trees growing right up to the house, so lawn was more…well…pine needle covering.

As I was going over and over a patch of oh…400 dandelions, I looked up to find my daughter blowing the dandelion offspring onto my lawn to seed even more of the demonic flower that is taking over my yard. “Making a wish,” she yelled to inform me, incase I didn’t know what she was up to.

It was then, as I pictures all the jars, plastic sippy cups, bowls and pots full of these beautiful flowers that have been sacrificial offerings to the mommy god by a little boy who quite honestly needs to be sacrificing something to continue living, that I realized this was an exercise in futility.

I realize that I will not win the lawn battle…not with out waging a major chemical warfare, which frankly is just not really my style. So I will just continue to find containers for my flower offerings, make wishes on the baby lawn killers when I am asked to, and continue to expand my garden into the entire yard…until my husband kills me, or the kids stop wanting to give me flowers, or move out… Until then, I will have just gaze on my bluewhites, dandelions, crabgrass, and brown patches with a sense of defeat, and enjoy the sunshine on a nice May day.

The Invisible Pee Monster

2010-04-27T07:07:00.001-04:00

Now one would think that this was a Henry story, because conceivably, this is his type of imagination, but lo, it is not. This was the invention of a little 4 year old girl down the road...who may just be Henrys soul mate…

For the first time I let the girls ride their bikes across the road into the being built neighborhood. After about 30 minutes the freaky mom gene started working so I walked down to see where they were.

A little 4 year old girl, whom I have met on occasion, was walking with her cousin down the street. I asked if they had seen the girls, they had, so I decided to walk down to the little pond to see if the tad pole were out yet. The little girl looked at her cousin, dropped her hand, grabbed mine and said “I am going with her”

As we walked and she talked (I have forgotten how verbose little girls are.) We came across two plant pot looking things on the side of the road and she proceeded to tell me:

Her: “Don’t touch those, those are full of pee.”

Me: “Pee? Are you sure? Wait…how do you know?”

Her: Quite matter of factly, “Because the invisible pee monster left them.”

Me: Slightly amused, “The invisible pee monster?”

Her: “Yes, he is invisible, and he is trying to take over the world with his powerful pee. He sneaks around and pees when we don’t see him…but you can’t see him because he is invisible…except I can see him because I have super seeing eyes.”

Me: “OOooohhh, well I don’t have super seeing eyes because I can’t see him.”

Her: “Nope I have super seeing eyes because I am saving the world from his pee…”

Now folks, if this ain’t a match for Henry I don’t know who is!

A Little Scary

2010-04-23T05:37:00.001-04:00

So the other night we were doing the all American thing and eating fast food the other night. I know, I know, I am sure that all my arteries were screaming shut as I took my first bite but you know? I had taken 4 hours to dig out my middle child’s closet...if you need a reminder of what that is like I am simply just happy I came out alive and didn’t find neighborhood children lost in there.

So we are sitting there, my husband walks up to get some straws and Henry gets a devilish look on his face and says:"Hey I have a plan!"

Underestimating the grudge that Henry seems to have against my husband right now for no apparent reason was my first mistake, but busting out laughing was the second one since now he is telling everyone and I am concerned that perhaps people are putting him on a watch list.

Henrys Plan:

"When we get home if dad takes a long time to come inside....lets build a cage and catch him when we walks in the door. Then we can duct tape the cage to the ceiling waaaaayyyy up high until forever."

Silence falls over the table...with the exception of my cell phone dialing the psychologist I now have on speed dial...

The End of an Era

2010-04-14T07:38:00.002-04:00

I don't know why I get attached to inanimate objects...it really doesn't make sense other than the fact that I am maybe 5 degrees off of half way normal. What ever the reason, I simply seem to personalize everything around me. I have since I was a kid.

I can remember having 1000 stuffed animals on my bed, because if I only picked one, the other ones would be staring at me from across the room with hurt feelings. I would feel bad for them so I would go get them and put them on my bed too.

I remember when I got married my parents gave us their old couch. It was canary yellow…and weighed 8000 pounds…and was HUGE…yet, when we had to leave it behind on our first move because it was bigger than the place we were renting…(seriously, it was) I got all teary and thought about how the couch was feeling to be left behind by the family that had sat on it for 20 some odd years…

I have always had a way of attaching feelings to things that, well…really don’t have them…trees, houses, movie ticket stubs, old goggles being retired.

So yesterday Jamie wisely didn’t tell me before he left for work that he was exchanging our old Explorer (nicknamed “the Exploder” because of its tendency to leave Jamie stranded…the fact that it had 230,000 miles on it probably had something to do with it too.)

He told me while he while he was at work, and I could not make a pilgrimage to the “Exploder’s” side to reminisce about how excited we were to get a car with a CD player, or how it was the used car we bought when Marshall was a little baby, or how it had brought Caroline home from the hospital for the first time, or how when we got our puppy she was so little she couldn’t even hop from the passenger seat to the drivers seat.

I guess it’s good to just rip the Band-Aid off when you have a wife that lives in Narnia where all things talk and have feelings.

However….I am just excited about having a car that won’t make that deafening humming noise when I drop Marshall off at school on the days that I happen to be driving Jamie car! I had to leave that parking lot behind big sunglasses and a hat many a day. (I am pretty sure Marshall is scarred from those mornings too!)

So out with the old and in with the new….just this once!

The Reason I Love Anne Lamott

2010-03-30T05:02:00.003-04:00

"I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her. (Although hen I mentioned this to my priest friend Tom, he said you can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out hat God hates all the same people you do.)" - Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird)

All I can say, is...there are quite a few people in this world who could stand an Anne Lamott tattoo!

Things That Make You Feel Sooooo Good

2010-03-29T07:51:00.003-04:00

…Or NOT.

So the other night I am sitting in the kitchen, shoes off, hanging out talking with the husband. Caroline, came in and was playing with my feet.

This is where I doubt that she is even my child, because feet are the one thing, besides spiders and obnoxious people that totally skeeve me out. I do believe that it may have stemmed from childhood trauma of having to pull my dad’s cowboy boots off after he got home from work, the ones that he insisted on wearing with his blue thin dress socks. I can only tell you that nothing could have survived in those shoes…nothing…including his feet which is why they were clearly rotting off the ends of his legs and that was the only explanation for the hot waft of stench that came out as the boot popped off sending me falling back onto the floor…

ANYWAY, I run, (OK so really? I try to run, I more bounce along panting and hoping that someone will stop and drive me to my destination and that I will adequately still burn the desired calories…) so my feet tend to be a little, well, calloused? Is that the right word? Or maybe I should just say I have old lady feet that are dry and a mess. Caroline looked at me with love in her eyes and said “why are your feet like that?”

“I said because I am old, and that is what they look like when you get old. You will have them too.”

At which point horror flashed on her face and she yells "Oh CRAP"

Ok, so perhaps I have gained another foot-a-phobe in my house now.

The Cat Maffia

2010-03-26T06:09:00.002-04:00

I am thinking that the Don of the cat mafia is living in my house, with his brother the hit man. I have two cats that, well, are not subtle...in anyway. First of all they are man sized cats. These brothers each weighing in at close to 20 pounds, even scare the 60 pound boxer across the street. Because of this, you can imagine, they really like meal time…and I mean REALLY LIKE MEAL TIME.

In my recent life of 3 jobs, 3 kids, a grandmother and school board, I have gotten…er…a little behind. For the most part everyone in the family has been pretty understanding that sometimes you feel that you could make a meal off the kitchen floor, or that dinner may not get on the table until 7:30 because I am still thawing the chicken that I forgot to take out of the fridge, and even my children are understanding of having to go on safari through my jungle bedroom of laundry in search of clean underwear from the mountains of “to be folded” along the walls. They are great…the cats however? Not so much.

I forgot to buy cat food, now, this is not to say that I was starving them, I am fairly sure that they could sustain life off their bellies for 2 years if need be. But they had gone oh, maybe 12 hours over night without food, and frankly, they are less than forgiving about that sort of thing. I woke up to one of them staring me down in bed…you know that type of thing where you wake up in fear because you know you are being stared at? I went down to feed them, but we were out of food…I figured they could wait until I went to the store, so I went about my daily business.

At this point, I think they sensed that I was not going to be meeting their needs at that exact moment…so they proceeded to stalk me through the house. They followed me around taking turns tripping me until I fell on my face in the living room in my attempt to not step on the two slithering animals.
If I would stop and look at them, they would quickly adjust to their “I am pitiful and you are starving me” look.

There really wasn’t much I was going to do at that moment so I continued on my day. I went down to run on the treadmill that morning…Sugar Ray…otherwise known as “Fatty” sat at the table in front of the tread mill and proceeded to stare me down…and I don’t mean just a little while…that darn cat didn’t break eye contact for nearly 30 minutes and the whole time I was running right toward him…I actually laughed at one point because it was getting so awkward…still no break in the stare.

After about 35 minutes of running I was so unnerved that my husband was going to come down to find me laid out on the floor and fatty licking his paws after having eaten my face or something that I ended my run early.

I did finally get the food and I am pretty sure that they called off the hit cats that they had hired…but seriously…these felines are severe about their kitty chow. I will not forget again, because I am fairly sure I will find a fish in my bed as a warning…

Missing Bear: FOUND All is well with the world

2010-03-22T05:32:00.000-04:00

Henry has a teddy bear that I got at a baby shower before he was even born. He has slept with this "lovey bear" that he named Green (surprise surprise it was wearing green) since he came out.This has been his constant companion. He has a bed for it that he made out of a shoe box. He “reads” to it, sings to it…you get the picture. This was not a dispensable part of our family…

About 2 months ago, in one of my weeks from Hell (which these days with three kids, two jobs, and school board are many) Henry asked me as we were getting out of the car if he could bring Green with him. Not wanting another battle that day I said “fine”

…For 2 months I have been racking my brain to try and remember where it was that I said this STUPID remark…

We checked Target, we checked book stores, friends houses, tore our house apart looking for this Green lovey bear.

Henry was in tears nightly, but it really came to a head this past week when sobbing one night he came downs stairs flailed himself across my lap threw his hand across his forehead in his best “woest me” pose and cried:

“He doesn’t know where I am, he is scared and lonely and I can’t find him mom…what and I going to do…he is scared…I AM THE WORST DADDY EVER!”

There are not many things that will break this girls heart folks, but this about did it.

I assured him that we would look more, to which I just got more sobbing and wailing. I have never seen him like this before…

I didn’t sleep much that night, thinking how sad I was, and racking my pea brain about where I could have possibly let him take it…

Saturday morning I went to work at the library. I usually work upstairs but was down in the children’s room this particular day… I looked across the room and in a cubby, staring back at me … was GREEN LOVEY BEAR.

The lights starting shining on him and I am pretty sure I heard the choir sing “Laaaaaaaa” as I looked at him. In my glee, then irritation I said:

“You have GOT to be freaking kidding me!”

This may seem like a momentous occasion…but mind you, I have been searching for this bear for 2 months, listening to my son berate himself for losing it, feeling guilty that I let him take it somewhere…and the whole flipping time it was in the library…

Folks, I WORK THERE EVERY WEEK….My SISTER is the DIRECTOR of the library….

Wouldn’t you think ONE of us would have seen the damn thing before I scarred my child for life about his parenting skills?

I guess I am just happy he is home, under lock and key, and may never leave this house again unless he is physically chained to my son…I am not taking any chances…

The moment of truth...Henry had a smile a mile wide!

Type A Little Man

2010-03-20T05:15:00.001-04:00

I know that Henry is a bit on the particular side. Perhaps it was the lining his cheerios up on his tray when he was still in a highchair...or maybe it was the fit he would throw if his granola bar was put in front of him "upside down," that was his give away. What ever it was, it was clear to us a long time ago that the boy, well, is tightly wound!

The other day, I about got in hysterics over his brand of crazy. We went for a walk with our neighbor through the woods. There is a really cool waterfall that you can only get to in the spring before the militant pricker bushes get to the size that they like to capture small children and animals and eat clothing.

We wandered along the stream bed happily; Henry in his “Buggy Boots,” was splashing in the wet mud puddles and looking at everything. We came across a very cool vine growing up a tree. It was like a Tarzan vine…Seriously, even I could swing on it…and let me tell you…that is one strong vine!

All the kids were taking turns swinging on it. We started to walk away and I heard TWAP, and then waited the obligatory 10 seconds before the wailing set in. Henry swung on the vine right into the tree. He was OK no worse for the wear so I thought, but this really bothered him apparently because as we were walking through the field his boot caught on some vines and he fell. He stood up and screamed really loud

“WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME TODAY! I HIT MY HEAD ON THE TREE AND NOW THIS!!!!”

I thought my neighbor was going to pee in her pants. A bit of a perfectionist maybe? I reassured him that everyone trips once in a while and that it wasn’t going to be some black mark against him in his future search for a career.

We got on the road and low and behold he tripped again. Again exasperated he stood up stomped his foot and said:
“I don’t know what is wrong with me today, I keep falling! What is up with that?”

Um…I don’t really know, but I was pretty sure that it wasn’t quite as life altering as he thought it might be…

I am thinking I may be the wrong parent to be bringing him up, because, I probably scarred him for life with my giggling…

Things I made for Christmas

2010-02-09T11:14:00.006-05:00

Due to the economy I went all Little House on the Prairie this year for Christmas. I was pretty proud of some of my creations...so I thought I would brag. I am not sure about how the recipients felt...

There may have been a few that thought I was the crazy Aunt making bunny suits from A Christmas Story...but hey...when I start making sweaters with cats on them and a voice box that meows... then they can complain...until then, they are going to have to deal with my 1800's self!

The scarf was for a friends belated birthday. The girls together, show the dress (it has a big red bow in the back) for my eldest. But I cut myself out because Pie on Christmas morning is NOT PRETTY...the rest were dresses and sweaters made for my nieces....

So there you go...now I shall go churn butter and tend to my chickens....

Winter Fun

2010-02-08T05:30:00.000-05:00

Here is my new thing to do with Henry. We built a skating rink this weekend. It is 20x30 feet, so I think it will be enough of a size that the kids can skate on it. It isn’t perfect, but it was a good solution to my boredom of playing cars…

So, there you go, that is the real reason I got into this project, (you knew if wasn’t from my stellar parenting skills!) I basically got tired of playing trucks with Henry. I never have been good at that. I used to have to play the same exact game with the girls, except they used Barbies and dolls as opposed to speaking vehicles. (Thank you Pixar...)There is something about playing these games with my little dictators that seems to go against the control freak in me.

When you play, you have to hold the car the way they tell you to, and they really aren’t about improv, they have the whole thing scripted in their head. They tell you what your car/doll is supposed to say, and do.

Yeah, I am not down with that. They get all mad at me because I purposely go rogue on them, and start doing my own thing with my character that clearly goes against what they have planned.

Sometimes I fear the future of small countries if my children ever set their sights on them… they will have a dictatorship for sure…and all of them will be going to dances, and having road races for sure!

Again?

2010-02-03T17:31:00.004-05:00

OK so Caroline has a friend that she likes to have over. This would be the one that Henry likes to put underwear on his head in front of... Mind you her mother is who I coach with, and her dad is a teacher at Caroline's school...that Henry is slated to attend next year...

So her dad comes to pick her up and Henry is showing off in the hall way...this is what he says to his future teacher...

"I am the boss here...because I built this house and whoever builds the house gets to be the boss."

Caroline, who would like to think that she is the boss of the universe and has steep competition from her sister, was quick to say "you weren't even born when this house was built"

Henry thinks for a minute...and he says "You don't know Caroline...I came right out when I was borned with a hammer and nails and a chainsaw and builded the house."

I thought back to having him...I was pretty sure that there was no chainsaw, but you know? I was a little out of it I guess....

I am starting to wonder if the boy will have a reputation before he even gets to school!

Things That Make You Say....

2010-02-02T08:44:00.002-05:00

AARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!

So last night I had a meeting until 10:30. I worked two jobs yesterday, didn't eat dinner, and went straight to my meeting after job number 2... This is not to say "Oh poor Pie, pity, pity, pity," but rather to let you know my frame of mind when I dragged my oversized butt out of bed this morning to get my children off to school.

I am downstairs feeding the boy, because apparently I am obligated to do so as he lets me know every morning by demanding breakfast. (We have had many conversations about how starving because of rudeness is not a good option, but it seems to fall on deaf ears…He clearly understands the idol threat...)

So my cranky grumbling stumbling self is filling my coffee cup for the second time, and my lovely middle child comes down "ready" for school. I could tell she was sort of hiding herself a little, and I could hear a swishing sound when she walked. This was my warning…

As you may or may not recall, my middle daughter is, well, a little fashion challenged. I like to call it unique, which it is, and many days I am OK with her bag lady approach to dressing...but somehow this morning when I laid eyes on my pretty little girl with a pony tail directly in the center of her head falling into her eyes, a red, yellow and navy blue striped sweater, with a black watch plaid taffeta skirt with crinolines, multi colored tights and black shoes....something broke inside the "let her be her unique self" part of my brain.

A voice from the old crabby lady within came out of my mouth, saying: "NO, NO NO, Absolutely NOT, What in the world made you think THAT was OK????"

(Yes I know, it was harsh...that’s why I prefaced the story with the pity me party.)

I sent her up to change, she emerges from upstairs in her best nasty teenager interpretation...pouty lips, arms crossed...in....COMPLETE BLACK.

Black tights, black shoes, black skirt, black shirt, black headband.Granted this was better in some ways than the eye assaulting outfit of earlier in the day, but I was really hesitant about sending my angry child to school as an angsty mortician.

Silently I went up to her room retrieved a bright pink sweater, came downstairs and popped it over her head...we didn't say another word until the bus came...

"I love you, have a great day"

And I meant it...as much as I meant to go get another BIG cup of coffee!

Play-dates with boys

2010-01-28T10:27:00.003-05:00

Ok so I am entering into a new world of boy play dates. With girls, you go to pick them up, they come home, are quiet, play Barbies, dress up, Legos, what ever. They pretend that they are in these imaginary forests, and worlds that are enchanted. (Granted there is usually some evil mother symbol, thanks to dear old Disney) but never the less, they are quiet, and creative.

Boys? The way they interact is … well, interesting anyway.We go to pick up Henrys friend from his house, and immediately the boy showed Henry his "burp on demand" skills.

Henry giggling, says "That is very interesting" then continues the rest of the ride home to try to burp on demand...which he cannot seem to master, much to my pleasure. But this was the beginning of...well, BOY mode.They proceeded to scream from the moment they entered the house, running up the stairs as fast as they could to start an activity I like to call “shake the house down”

I cannot figure out what exactly they were doing, they were jumping, tumbling…or taking off drywall, I am not sure, but the entire house was shaking.

Thankfully, 4 year old boys seem to have the attention span of a gnat so that only lasted for a few minutes (before I had to go up and crack some skulls) and they were onto something new.

Did I say that I was thankful for the short attention span? OK so THAT was delusional. This short attention span turned into a continuous path of running from my sons room upstairs to the basement downstairs, with 1000 things in between… after they had played with every toy in the entire house for the allotted 10 seconds, they were bored.

Bored? Seriously??

I finally sent them down to play…I did not, however, for the benefit of my sons social future, give the “back in my day” speech about no such thing as play dates, and any mention of boredom led to more chores. The speech that always elicits the rolling of the eyes, and large sighs response. Secretly I don’t blame them, I got the same speech, as did my folks, and If I was a betting woman, I’d bet none of us appreciated the sentiment!

I have been checking on them periodically to make sure that they aren’t building bombs in the basement or somewhere they aren’t supposed to be (the girls rooms) and my son, who on a regular basis, just looks at me with love in his eyes, and says "I love you mom"... Now is in the basement and when I come down stairs he says: "WHAT? What do you want?"

I said nothing, and then he says "What? Why are you looking at me?"

(we will have a politeness discussion later and I doubt I will be polite about it!)

Somehow the extra Y chromosome in the room transformed his eyes from looking at me as lovable cool mom to “Persona non grata.”

He is worse than a teenager...is this a sign of things to come? I hope not. But Some where deep in the recesses of my heart, I am fairly sure that he is going to make me drop him off a block from school so he can walk in.

So I have just given in, I will listen carefully from afar and check on them periodically, and hope all gets calmer. Somehow when they see me they seem to think I am Julie McCoy cruise director, and am going to do something fun…I keep reminding them…”I am not that Mom”

So I am hoping if I stay hidden all will be ok.

Super Eyes

2010-01-21T18:13:00.002-05:00

Henry has a new trick, he has informed me that he has "Super Eyes"

He screws them on, with a wonderful "shhhwooot, shhhwooot" sound and then I know that he has them on. He says that he can see North Carolina with them.

So North Carolina ought to be scared, my son is watching you...and if big brother is reading this, I am sure to expect strange unmarked vehicles following my four year old to preschool...

I suppose that this is in response to missing his grandparents. One set is in NC and the other is in VA. He has really enjoyed seeing his NC grandparents a great deal this month between an extended Christmas visit and a "pick up gran" trip.

I have had to answer endless questions about why we don't live in NC, or VA...when CAN we live in NC and VA... when I explained that we used to live in VA, but we moved away to Maine his response was:

"Well that was stupid"

Nothing like feeling judged by your 4 year old. And I am sure that as my mother-in-law is reading this she is thinking "YEAH my super secret mission to get them back here is working!"

This all is kind of sweet that he misses and loves his grandparents so much that he wants to see what they are doing...but it is worrying me a tad that he is giving me descriptions of what he is seeing...

"Hey there is a brown horse"

"Where Henry, I don't see a horse."

"No Mooooom, in North Carolina, can't you see I have my super eyes on?"

must have not heard them being screwed in...never a dull moment.

There are Days I Wonder....

2010-01-14T08:17:00.002-05:00

…If Henry is operating with all 6 cylinders....

Because I don’t feel I have enough to make me insane, I took on coaching my middle daughters D.I. team. (Destination Imagination) The other coach and I being crazy busy decided to have a meeting so that we could get organized.

She has a daughter one year older than Caroline and one that is one year older than Henry. So I thought to myself…hey they can play!

My eldest was on the computer playing SimCity, the others were playing, and we got our work done…all was nice and normal…

I went to the bottom of the stairs with the other coach to call for her daughters as it was time to head home…Henry comes to the top of the stairs with his light saber, leap pad back pack on and a pair of underwear on his head…

To make matters worse when I laughed trying to make it all sound silly and said “Oh did you get those out of your clean laundry basket?” Kind of giving the reassuring look to the woman standing next to me who was sporting a very “unsure about the cleanliness of your house" look He yells…

“No I got them off Marshall’s floor!” Yeah, not really what I wanted to hear…especially when he had them pulled so far down on his head he was peaking through the leg holes…

Marshall came bolting around the corner and ran up the stairs taking them by 4’s, grabbed the underwear off his head and yelled…”That is so gross Henry that’s my dirty underwear…” and stomped off to her room muttering about her privacy...

So who wants to bet how long it will be before we have a meeting at my house again?

Excuses Excuses

2010-01-13T08:15:00.000-05:00

So, my son doesn't eat anything anymore...to be honest I am not sure how he is still growing. His palate consists of white starchy things. Rice, bread, peanut butter, noodles with parmesan cheese and waffles….Occasionally I can get him to eat an apple, but only with out any of the skin showing…because that MIGHT add color to his diet.

I have gotten so tired of this, that what ever we have for dinner is what he gets, he can either eat, or be hungry…I just have put my foot down…

Unfortunately the boy tends to choose going to bed hungry. He realizes that this makes me crazy so in his Henry way of making me feel better, he comes up with what he views as “reasonable excuses” for not eating and I get them each morning.

“Mom I didn’t eat because I sat on the couch too long and my tummy hurt”

“Mom I didn’t eat because my knees were bothering me.”

“Mom Green told me that I couldn’t eat” (Green is his lovey bear)

But this morning was one of my favorites…

“Mom I do you know why I didn’t eat last night? Because I didn’t want to get this counter dirty so I could eat at it this morning…” he said this rubbing the counter in front of him.

OK so I get that I am not Martha Stewart…but I DO wash my countertops… How this child is so big is beyond me…peanut butter must have super nutrient powers to it!

Christmas Presents to Cry Over

2010-01-07T07:13:00.002-05:00

Christmas for us this year was a small one. Between the economy, an emergency flight to VA for my husbands dad, and BOTH, yes BOTH of our cars breaking down the two weeks before Christmas, our Christmas funding (which isn’t very generous in a normal year) was slowly eroded.

But as I found as a child, when I was told it was a tight year and Christmas was going to be lean…sometimes that provides the best Christmas ever…because we get creative.

I put my hands to work and made gifts for my nieces and my daughters, which turned out to be a good thing. Watching my oldest daughter put on her dress and swing around in it holding it to her chest like it was too precious to let go, or seeing my middle daughters surprised look when the sweater that she coveted as I was knitting, was actually for her and not for her cousin, made Christmas morning for me.

But the “piece de la resistance” was the present from my middle daughter. (who is known for her home made gifts of paper and boxes!) I pulled out two people made from popsicle sticks, and a bunch of sticks wrapped together. Then I pulled out a piece of cardboard that was covered in green construction paper with a blue round piece on it.

Puzzled I looked at her for the explanation. Here it is:
“Mom I know you have always wanted to have a farm, so I made you one that you can play with until you finally get yours…that is you and dad, and that is a bale of hay. Here are the fields, and you even have a pond! Every year I will give you more pieces to your farm so it’s the gift that keeps giving…”

OK so other than the hallmark teaser at the end…it was such a wonderful little thing, that it brought tears to my eyes….YES Rabid Outdoorsman…AGAIN!

But seriously? Who wouldn’t get a little vaclempt????

boys and their guns

2010-01-06T20:40:00.002-05:00

Ok so it's not that I am totally anti-gun necessarily...I am not.

My husband was a hunter and would be still if he had fellow Y chromosomes to take him here in Maine. I have no issues with that. I will even be honest and tell you when I shot a 45 at my friend Kims house and it kicked back so hard my arm almost fell off... it was kind of a rush...

I do however, do the suburban mom thing when it comes to my kids pretending to shoot all of us dead...I mean call it the teacher in me, but I kinda feel that I should intervene when my kids are plotting my death.

Just as having a boy has taught me many life lessons, I have also learned that it doesn't matter if you give boys guns or not. They will shoot them anyway. If you don't give them a plastic replica of a handgun...have no fear, they will find a stick, or a car or even a piece of string.

One day Henry put on a long white Cinderella glove from the dress up box, and told me it was a special hand gun that shot fire out of the fingers.

If you don't give them a gun, they will create them. Tonight at the dinner table, Henry pulled his foot up onto the table and pretended to shoot me with his toes.

yup...he used his FOOT as a gun. *Le Sigh*

No point in fighting it, boys will be boys, and what is it with them and their guns anyway???

Snow, Beautiful Snow

2010-01-02T13:50:00.003-05:00

OK, so I guess I am a true New Englander. Besides my crotchety side, I also really love the snow. There is something about the white stuff…(in January anyway) that makes me smile, curl up with a good book and bad food and go into a little hibernation that I won’t allow myself to do in good weather.

HOWEVER, I realize that there is one caveat to my love of winter…still having a pre-schooler. Having a little one makes “Snow time” like putting on a Broadway musical with major costume changes and adjustments at every act.

Henry wanting to go out in the snow was told to go get a sweater and we would send him out. Being summoned to the bottom of the stairs I gazed up at my 4 year old standing at the top of the stairs with nothing but his boxer briefs and a sweater vest…
“uh…that wasn’t what I was thinking” I said nicely

“WHAT? It’s a sweater and it’s warm!!!” Henry screamed indignantly.

After a few minutes of arguing and knowing that I was going to lose, I simply took matters into my own hands and wrangled him into warm clothes. This task was more like wrestling a wet pig in Jello than clothing a child (not that I would know this per say…) All this only to come down stairs to start the wrapping, layering and jamming of the winter wear marathon.

By the time he got out side and I sat down, the door bell was ringing. Snow in the gloves… This is the major disaster that sends Henry into complete and total apoplexy every time he plays out side…they have yet to invent a glove that the boy can’t get snow into. As I am shaking out the glove I hear:

“Look I can boot skate on the floor!”

Henry in all his glory, and snow covered boots, is sliding around the wood floor in the living room. By the time I get him back out side, mop the floor so I don't break my butt slipping in it, answer the door a few more times and resolve more tragedies of the wetness of snow, I remember…didn’t I have a book somewhere I wanted to read?

Now I remember why I like spring also!

Up Up and a Sniffle!

2009-12-22T09:00:00.001-05:00

During our eventful snow storm on Sunday, the kids and I watched UP, which is a great movie, with a great message for the adult as well as entertaining for the kids. The message of “It’s never too late” and “Life itself is an adventure” etc…were wonderful and well needed right now in this time of my life.

However, on the heals of watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” Its no wonder that my kids have me on 24 hour watch and have taken away all my belts.

I suppose it is understandable that my kids are acting really nice and tiptoeing around me after the heap of snorting, smiling, crying, flesh that I turned into as I watched the movie.

Geeze, not only are my taste buds all screwy at my age, but apparently age is making me a weepy mess nothing less than akin to the drunk idiot of my past...

“I love you MAN…..”

Flurries in the South???

2009-12-21T08:43:00.001-05:00

So on Sunday it snowed. Which when you live in Maine, in December is not really a life altering event.

However, it also snowed in Texas...and the Mid-Atlantic and South East... What is this the end of worlds???

That one foot dump of snow on their streets has completely paralyzed the mid-Atlantic, they may not go to school again until February when the heat wave comes and makes sure that even the tiniest snow flake has melted.

Oh, was that harsh and sarcastic?

Probably a little, but having taught there for a number of years...(yes I did used to be a part in the intellectual development of our youth...don't get stuck with that scared look on your face, I am on a break, your youth are safe!) I used to get so irritated. The prediction of a couple of inches would spurn an apocalyptic reaction making the grocery stores scramble to put more bread, water and milk on their shelves.

Now, really folks…even if you are stuck for 3 days in your house from your 2 inches of snow, do you really need 10 loaves of bread? And frankly hip checking the old lady out of the way of the cooler to get the last 20 jugs of milk was a little much.

Just put on your boots, go out into the snow, and enjoy it…it will probably melt tomorrow!

Geriatric Taste Buds

2009-12-16T13:02:00.002-05:00

Is it possible to have old people taste buds?

I mean I am just curious because I am sitting here eating pickled beets...and have had them every day this week.

I can remember going to visit my dad’s family down south and them eating turnip greens, pickled beets, tomatoes like apples, and turnips with salt and vinegar (although I will admit I always liked that one…) and being so totally grossed out. Perhaps it was my over processed taste buds that kept me from liking these things…or perhaps it was my immature pallet.

I don’t know, but I always assumed that kind of food “old” people food. All the “old” people in the family liked that stuff…you know, the stuff that’s all healthy and what not, and all that self-canned-crap” from the garden.

Yeah, well, as I plopped a few more pickled beets on my plate and Henry stuck his nose up and said…
“ewwww their PURPLE,” (clearly assaulting his white-food-only sensibilities,)

I realized…OH CRAP…I like old people food now…

Go in my pantry folks, and you will find all my self-canned-crap. Not to mention the words "when I was your age..." are creeping into my daily conversations with my kids...Clearly I am running down hill from here. Somebody just shoot me if I start eating pickled pigs feet though...

I'm just sayin'.

Happy Holidays

2009-12-15T16:29:00.001-05:00

We celebrate Christmas in our family, but if you don't just substitute Happy Holidays...

Hope you have a good one!

PIE

Another Adventure in Caroline World

2009-11-14T13:25:00.005-05:00

So, you may well remember the Melba Toast Elevator we have a new one on the horizon...mom and dad...go ahead...I am making your day again...

Caroline has a mailbox now on her door...(OK not anymore because after I took a picture of it, ridiculed her to ensure her need for therapy in her future, I threw it away...) If you look closely you will see that she has written that it is her mail box...you know, just in case someone couldn't tell...

HOWEVER....
Nice to know that at least she has mail... a piece of foil trash and a snot looking plastic hand that is supposed to stick to walls but has lost its stick...however, it CLEARLY is to precious to throw away!

The Big Sky

2009-11-13T14:36:00.003-05:00

Today my niece is over for a play-date. They always have interesting interactions when they are together, if you can remember the past post of Henry looking in her butt to "see what was up there," or both getting into Caroline's swimsuits and dancing around the house...Margo looked cute in the pink and blue flowered one piece...Henry?...well, not so much.

Today has been relatively calm, other than having to intercept the plan for Margo to wipe Henry after going potty...that was a close one. But while I was upstairs spoiling their plan, I said "Henry your room is such a pig sty"

Margo's response was "I know, I don't know why his room is such a big sky...big big sky...yup it is a big sky."

I just sort of giggled to myself, but now I am listening as they play mommy and daddy with Henry's lovey bears. They just picked him up from school and now they are having them take a nap. Margo has informed them that their room is a "BIG SKY and what are they going to do about it!"

Hmmm, how does someone go about getting rid of the big sky in their room?

Death Scare

2009-11-12T05:00:00.002-05:00

Death Scare
Ok so yeah, I got sick...however, I didn't realize that I was going to have the black plague of sickness.

Last Friday I was coaching my middle daughters DI team…(you know, because I didn’t feel like I had enough going on in my life and felt that I needed a little something extra to concentrate on…)

I had a little headache during the practice, but didn’t think a lot of it. When you spend your days raising Henry, dealing with an angsty tweeny bopper, and trying to keep up with Caroline who seems to outsmart me even on a bad day, headaches can be pretty par for the course.

However…by the time we got in the car to drive home I was shivering. Teeth clattering, I ambled into the house and called my husband at work. I pretty much hinted as to the fact that his children were now going to be on their own and if he appreciated their general welfare and safety he ought to think about getting home on time.

By the time he got home I had a 102.7 fever and was pretty sure that I might pass in the next 24 hours.

But, there is an upside for a mother who doesn’t seem to slow down long enough to do anything other than use the restroom…oh wait…I usually put that off too…

I had to rest.

I lay on the couch for 2 whole days… I know, I know…I felt like Cleopatra… OK well, really not so much Cleopatra as a lazy lump of plague infested cells. BUT, I got to lie on a couch…and watch endless bad TV…

And I taught myself to crochet after I was able to sit upright again…

So plague or not, I guess I have a little soft spot for my H1N1. It forced me to stop, sleep and knit… for a couple days anyway!

The Flu has Landed

2009-11-09T12:36:00.002-05:00

SO, I was rather excited because today was to be my daughters first full day back at school. Some very supportive friends were going to take me to breakfast and I was going to get my house back in order after a Quarter of Homeschooling which has left my house completely in surrender to my nasty, and I was going to be able to blog regularly again...again...(I keep on saying that)

However, On Friday, as Murphy's Law would have it, the flu knocked me on my butt, and I spent the entire weekend, and today in the prone position with 102 fever. The first beautiful weekend we have had, as well as a beautiful day today...It will probably snow as soon as I am upright again.

Instead of brunch and cleaning, I have Theraflued and ousted the air around me.

But on the good side, I watched an entire disk of McLeods Daughters, and 2 seasons of the Vicar of Dibly. Something that on a normal week would have enlisted my rather large Guilt gene, but since I am forced to lie on the couch in feverish aching, I guess I just won't care.

So here I go back to my couch because I believe at this point I have been upright for oh...10 minutes now, I wouldn't want to stress myself now would I?

Here is to good health by tomorrow...the fever must break at somepoint...I mean can't Murphy see the state of my house?

Adventures in Cell Phones

2009-10-26T22:00:00.001-04:00

OK, so I went to a Halloween party...and so I may have treated more than I tricked...did I HAVE to send my cell phone through the heavy wash cycle?

Because that just made my life SO MUCH EASIER...can you sense sarcasm?

I heard from many after an exasperated post on Face Book, that if I put it in rice for a few days it would dry it out. So I did...and it did...mind you the screen looks a little strange and the picture of my husband and I now looks like it was taken in one of those funny mirrors at a carnival with a squiggly forhead and such...but it charged and turned on. Although, it is saying I have no service...

*BIG SIGH*

Chalk one up for stupidity...

It did however, make me realize how addicted to cell phones we all are. I generally make my phone calls to away family on my way home from work at night. (no worries, I drive back roads and drive slow and even put it on speaker if I need to) Tonight I couldn't. But you know what?

I turned up my radio and sang like an idiot at the top of my lungs.

I realize that I missed doing that. So, if nothing else, I suppose I should thank the washing machine for giving me my "obnoxious-in-a-car-by-myself-singing-really-loud" times back.

While I understand that others that may meet me at an intersection head banging or screaming really loud and be very afraid that I might be having a seizure, I am happy that I was reminded just why I like being in a car by my self with out anyone I have to talk to.

Ahhh The Sins of our Youth

2009-10-25T08:51:00.001-04:00

So I have posted many times about my little Caroline and her ability to put anything into a bag and collect it...rocks, sticks, leaves, stickers, starburst wrappers, small neighborhood children....what have you.

Her room generally shows this talent of hers, and when she is sent up to clean it, it becomes a 4 day marathon of crying, screaming, threats and ultimately a half cleaned room and a family exhausted of the fight.

I have to admit though, (as my parents are laughing reading this,) she comes by it honestly. I know that I was the same way.

Full of good intentions she goes up pulls out all her stuff to put away, and then…well, it is just begging to be played with while its being put away, and then….well, then she gets lost in her imaginary world and forgets that after about 5 hours her parents are going to completely loose their mind when they check on her because she has been in her room for 8 hours with out having picked up a thing, and in fact, it possibly could be messier than when she started the endeavor.

I am learning to be more patient…HOWEVER… she is also known for using trash to create all sorts of things…she will pull old non sticky stickers out of the trash because she doesn’t want to throw them away and use tape to re-stick them to various things…that they won’t come off of….like her lamp!

This one was my favorite however. The empty Melba Toast box affixed to the end of her bed. When I asked why she had trash tied to the end of her bed she responded with an astonished look on her face.

“Mom, that’s not trash…that is a sideways elevator that gets my Barbies from one side of my bed to the other without having to walk”
How could I have NOT KNOWN THAT????

Yes I am fully aware of my empty box obsession when I was a kid…I just can’t help thinking of the saying “The sins of our Fathers” and I am pretty sure that this is the result of a deal my parents struck with the universe when I had my children…so mom and dad?

Thanks A LOT….really…

Right-O Mate, Wanna Cuppa?

2009-10-13T04:59:00.002-04:00

One thing I have learned from my obsession with my Australian Ranch-opera is that Australian lingo does NOT translate.

In fact people may think that you have suffered a stroke if you start to use it with out warning here in America.

No matter how much I would love to say “Ta” instead of the cumbersome Thanks. And think that “I stuffed up” sounds so much nicer than “I screwed up” And some how that accent pulls me in every time, mine just can’t pull off the “Right-O.”

It’s depressing. Our insults seem so crass, and I am longing to call someone a Nob…Knob?…but see, I don’t even know the correct spelling…and its not really a good insult if you aren't sure what it means. (But is sounds good) So I guess I am going to have to stick to the coarse versions in our language.

I guess I will just have to get to it, and be a lover Aussie talk from afar.

**mind you I get the same way about our counterparts across the pond too…the English have it going on too.

A Lesson in Little Man Colds

2009-10-12T07:26:00.002-04:00

OK so I know that I posted the You-Tube Man*** cold at some point. Because I thought it was funny and what ever...My husband told me I had to write a disclaimer that he is not like that… (wink wink nudge nudge)

Then Friday night happened and I have found there is something worse than a man cold… the dreaded LITTLE Man Cold.

Henry was happily running around a birthday party for a friend. No problem…certainly none when it came to downing a big cupcake. However by the time we ran my middle daughter to a birthday party… he was screaming at the top of his lungs “Oooowwwwww my THROAT hurts.”

I kindly suggested that perhaps his throat wouldn’t hurt if he didn’t scream, and that the more he screamed while I was driving the more likely I was to go careening into a telephone pole. This did not seem to have any affect.

By the time we got home he was…not kidding…lying on the floor writhing in pain and moaning. I really actually started to get worried. Perhaps aliens? Tse Tse Fly made an escape to Maine? The Swine Flu?

He moaned for 2 hours and then I finally just put him in bed. Concern and insomnia led me to his room at about 2 at which point I found he had a fever, and I got the really sad eyes and pitiful voice saying “please sleep with me”

I was going to resist but as I was leaving out his door the “oow oow oow ow ow” started again. Obligingly I got in bed and (did not sleep) comforted my child who was clearly having some sort of science fiction episode.

The next day he had a fever, looked like hell, lay around and asked for us to wait on him hand and foot and to be honest, played us like fiddles. I slept (not really attaining any real sleep) with him again that night because it was the only way to avoid the “OOOHHHH oww owww owwww”

The next morning dragging myself downstairs to make a mammoth size pot of coffee and splaying myself on the couch to try and recover from two nights of no sleep, I hear the sprite jumping footsteps coming down the stairs…

“Mom, I don’t have a fever anymore, let’s do something!” (And I checked…he didn’t)

Seriously? The child was on the brink of death, wore me out…and now was begging me to play…

Yup, give me man cold any day…the little man cold sucks.

*** I apologize to any of you manly men that read my blog...clearly I am not talking about you! :-)

Boing Boing Hair

2009-10-08T11:55:00.005-04:00

So the other day when I was getting ready to go to work, little man came into the bathroom with his hair soaking wet.

"What are you doing?" I asked
"I am trying to get my hair to do right." Henry responded with a brush stuck in his hair.

I am used to my kid’s role playing. I have been told it is developmental, if I am sweeping, they try to sweep, when I am cussing, they wander the house yelling various words that make your hair curl…that is how it works right?

So I didn’t really think much of it, until he started sifting through my closet and pulled out an old curler from 1982 and kept trying to put it in his hair. I thought hmmm, maybe I can help.

“Henry can I help you?”
“I am trying to get my hair like Justice’s”

This is a boy in his preschool, not being sure exactly WHO Justice was, I thought OK I can do boy hair…

I spiked his hair up and sprayed it…(he looked pretty cool) He was so excited he ran to his bathroom to see it in his mirror…

then I hear a shriek of horror…(apparently this is NOT how Justice does his hair) In utter hysteria, Henry runs into my bathroom…

“But that’s NOT how his hair is…now it is stuck this way, you glued it…” after about 10 minutes of instructional Yoga breathing and a little water on a comb, I brushed his hair out.

Moving his fingers in a circle at his forehead he said “His hair goes like this….”

“OHHHHHHHHH he has curly hair…” I nodded…being slightly worried that he knew how to use the curler when I don’t use them…I had to explain that his hair was too short and too straight to do that. After a large disappointed frown, he moved on to crashing his cars into the cat lying on his bed…

It did however remind me a little of Clementine by Sarah Pennypacker, she loved curly hair…she called it Boing Boing hair… A great book for kids, and on a side note, I think that the author totally channeled young Pie for the Clementine character…it was like reading a biography…scary.

Children's Music

2009-10-06T08:50:00.002-04:00

OK so I am taking this as a sign that I am on my third child....

I was standing in line with my little man and getting very disapproving looks from the older lady behind me because my 4 year old was dancing like a wild child and singing…really loud…”I want a girl with a short skirt and a looooong…..” (wait for it) “JACKET!” The gentleman standing with the older lady kind of smirked…but looked confused as Henry went on about fingernails like justice… I am assuming that they don’t listen to the band Cake very often…

Here’s the thing, when my eldest (who is turning 11) was a toddler, my car was always blaring Veggie Tales, Dan Zanes, and Raffi on a regular basis. In fact on one rare date with my husband, we got 45 minutes away from home and realized that we had been mindlessly singing to a "toddler hits" CD the whole way. (We very quickly changed over to Credence Clearwater to try to redeem ourselves...) Needless to say when my second child came along just 2 years later, we were still in the toddler phase, so we continued to bop around to Baby Beluga.

But then…I got tired of “If You’re Happy and You Know It.” I knew the honeymoon was over when my sister and I on a long trip with just the babies, made up rated R words to “The Ants Go Marching One by One”…I had clearly moved on…

Henry’s favorite song is not “Little Blue Planet” or “Old Mac Donald” but rather “16 Tons” by Tennessee Ernie Ford, and “Jackson” by Johnny Cash. It’s all good, but I guess I need to expect the odd look every now and again.

…I am just waiting for him to break out into “They tried to make me go to rehab, but I said NO NO NO…”

What Does THAT Mean?

2009-10-05T05:41:00.000-04:00

OK so I have talked about having crazy dreams before...I don't know whether they are stress induced, or perhaps Advil PM induced since that is the only way I catch ZZZ's anymore. Nonetheless they are weird!

So last night I was dreaming that we lived in this old industrial warehouse type thing with lots of widows for ceilings and iron bars. It was pouring rain, and our roof was leaking all over the place. Every time I would get a bucket under one of the leaks another place started…MDH did not seem concerned in the least.

That part is kind of blunt, but then, I went in our pantry and found a money bag with 1000$ in it from a fundraiser I had run for the library and forgotten to give them the money…it was over a year old, and I was freaking out that my sister was going to get in trouble and she was going to be so mad at me…and there were scary vagrants, and shady characters wandering in and out of my pantry, (yeah I know, what is that all about?) I was shocked that the money hadn’t gotten stolen.

THEN little man came down stairs and peed in our umbrella stand by the front door, and we all laughed…then I woke up.

Huh, me thinks a break from Advil PM is warranted…

Shall I worry ... or just get a lighted palm sign out front!

2009-09-29T20:03:00.003-04:00

So the other day little man and I are in the car driving to school. I remember 4 from the girls…it was exhausting…not because of the running around as much as the endless questions in the car on the way to go somewhere.

I suppose that I should be thankful that I have inquisitive children…it is supposed to be a sign of intelligence…Yeah…the fact that they are intelligent enough to know that they are driving us slowly into a crazy stupor with each question they add to our already surrendering brain…

So amidst answering the questions about why there are colors, where is Maine, is it on Mars (I will admit I did pause on that one…) does the grass get painted green in the summer and if not then why is it always green…there was the rather simplistic question: “Mom, what is medium?”

AH HA, an easy one I thought to myself, (clearly forgetting that we are dealing with Henry here.)

“Well Henry, some things are really big, and that is Large. Some things are really little and that is small…then there are the in-between things, and those are medium.” I was pretty proud of how concise that answer was…

There was a long pause in the back seat…

“No, I think a Medium can see into the future”

Huh…didn’t see that one coming!

A Great Reminder

2009-09-28T20:18:00.001-04:00

Sometimes we're so concerned about giving our children what we never had growing up, we neglect to give them what we did have growing up. ~James Dobson

This was the quote at the end of a great post by a fellow blogger...I truly appreciated the message and figured you all would too!

Check it out at Achorn Farm We probably could all stand a little reminding....

Thanks!

A Quicky

2009-09-24T07:17:00.000-04:00

So here we are the end of September and I have so many things I could have written about...and didn't. SIGH. Yesterday was my husband’s birthday and he took a few hours to come home early and be with the family.

This was really nice; if I were him I would have opted for more overtime!

We were going to walk to the bus stop to get my 3rd grader off the bus and surprise her with her daddy being home. Henry wanted to stay at the house with my eldest.

When we left the house we didn’t even get to the end of the drive when we heard a shriek of terror filter out of the windows… by the time we got to the end of the driveway, Henry was flying out of the house screaming “DON’T LEAVE ME!!!!!”
(These are the times that I am thankful we don’t have many neighbors.)

But the sight of Henry flying out of the house, running past us, and starting down the street…in his underwear and a button down shirt, was something to behold. (We are talking tighty-whitey Lightening McQueen underwear!)

Of course being the sensitive soul that he is…My husband started yelling after him “woooohooo I can see your underwear, Hey Lightening McQueen Biscuits…where are you going…”

I could have told him how that was going to end…Henry, who gets embarrassed so easily yelled “Nooooo it’s NOT FUNNY…” and started running back toward the house. Thankfully my eldest knew enough to bring his shorts out side so I could put them on him and stop the underwear hysteria. By the time the bus came, all was well…and clothed…Ahhh a day in the life of a boy.

scenes from the garden

2009-09-23T08:12:00.002-04:00

I never did much of that this year, I guess because mother nature took a beating on my garden and to be honest I was very thankful that I was not a settler, because I have a feeling I would have ended up eating my hand off.

Even our zuccini and squash bit the dust with only 4 jars of pickles having been made. But I had plenty of beans that I put up. My inlaws bootlegged some Northern Neck tomatoes to me in August so i was able to put up salsa, sauce and bruccetta...But alas, my sister will have plenty of dilly beans to hide from us...

One of our new successes was the pole Limas (below) they were the best tasting limas and prettiest I have ever had...I am growing twice as many next year!

And as always, being a gardener in the fall, I have grand ideas for the following year, such as putting plexi glass over my apple trees to keep the damn deer away...(not really, but after only getting 10 apples as opposed to my prolific harvest last year I am under some serious research!) And perhaps a garden Fairy to stave off too much rain, and encourage bugs to disappear...

I guess our other big success...I got beautiful sweet potatoes this year out of only 4 plants... so next year we are growing more...we eat them like candy in this house, so it makes sense.

So I am putting my gloves away for the winter, and starting to dream of a perfect spring to plant...already!

Camping Pie Style

2009-08-30T11:40:00.002-04:00

For those of you who have followed my blog for any amount of time, may have reason to notice, than many of the “plans” I make end up in a debacle…I’m just sayin’

All summer we had been planning to go camping with my sister and some mutual friends with all the kids. We finally found a weekend, made our reservations, and looked forward to it.

Things looked gloomy for June and July, but then August hit, and finally the ark landed on dry ground and we thought for sure we were in luck. Beautiful weather…I even got a cucumber or two…Then…the weekend we were supposed to go camping…

A flurry of Facebook activity between the families let us know that Hurricane Dannyboy was coming for us, on the weekend we were supposed to go…OF COURSE IT WAS.

Half bailed, but my sister, my self and one other family felt the need to tempt fate and tough it out through a hurricane.

Friday was beautiful we drove up with all sorts of plans, set up our campsites which looked something akin to the Fort Knox of tarps, thanks to our superhero “Kit Tarpington” who climbed trees, scaled rocks and teeter tottered on picnic tables to hang tarps over our tents to assure us for our hurricane bound night.

And you know, setting up for 5 hours made sense when we were laughing, having a margarita, and the sun was shining on our backs.

However, what we failed to have the insight to see, was on the inside of our over confident trailblazing selves, was the overwhelming desire to be dry, and not have whining children in the rain.

As the hurricane came in, and we checked the forecast online, and all we saw was a mass of green for the next 12 hours, we decided to pack it in…

The 5 hours of setting up in the sun seemed fun, now, in the driving rain and gusting winds, trying to figure out how to get those knots undone while hanging by one fingernail from the branch of a tree and eating bark…not so much.

To add insult to injury, to wake up this morning, to sopping tents that have to be spread out all over the lawn to dry in the BLAZING BEAUTIFUL SUNNY BLUE SKIES, kind of makes me want to say some things I cannot post.

Pies law: If you plan it, it will be a debacle…I’m just sayin’

Blue Belly Button...

2009-08-28T05:00:00.000-04:00

There are days where I just look at Henry and think to myself..."REALLY?"

I am just curious what makes someone sit in all sincerity and think....gee I think I will color my belly button blue...

This was a week ago...he has been swimming in pools, had baths, been in the ocean even, and STILL HAS A BLUE BELLY BUTTON... which as you can see, he is quite proud of!

An Unhealthy Obsession

2009-08-19T14:15:00.001-04:00

Ok so I am writing this from the confines of a hospital room...actually I will later be typing this off of a piece of paper and trying to read my scratch, but you get the point.

No serious worries yet, but my eldest daughter is here for an ultrasound to make sure that her appendix has not decided to bail ship. So while I am sitting here in the waiting room which undoubtedly will be for years, waiting for this all to happen I thought I would talk about my newest, greatest obsession.

Drover's Run.

I am not one to get obsessed with TV shows...Ok that is a lie, every now and then one will be good enough for me to get into...Veronica Mars, Six Feet Under. You know the kind that you kind of think you know these people, and you can't wait to see them again? (Yeah, I am sounding scary and unstable...)

At any rate, my sister got me hooked on an Australian show called McLeods Daughters. My husband and brother-in-law could arguably say that we have an obsession with this because we are similar to the sisters in the show, which is true. They could also arguably say that we need to remember we are NOT Australian ranchers and that the use of “Right-O” and “Bloake” (I told you more on that later) probably make us kin to the “Trekkies” that are spouting of sentences in Clingon.

Between the sister thing, the Aussie lingo, the mad desire to be a farmer, I couldn’t say exactly what it is, but I am hooked, and starting to wonder about my sanity.

I got my mother in law hooked while she was here, re-watching some of season one with her. You know, bring everyone down with you I guess! I started to question myself because the first few are a little cheesy…but then I fell in love with the cows, and sheep drenching, hot helicopter Alex, the being able to vicariously live through my computer screen. (My mother in law had to sign up for Netflix before she left so she could keep watching! HA)

My husband is quite satisfied since he has unlimited time with the Red Sox now, because I curl up in a chair with the computer and watch my McLeods before bed.

My eldest rolls her eyes and say “Oh MOOOOOOOOMMMMM” in the way that only a teenager can belittle you, every time she hears the: “Previously on McLeod’s Daughters”

But hey, I could start my day with worse things. If a cup-a and an Australian Ranchopera start my day with my dream of someday having my own farm…well, I call that a daily reminder of my goal…and I am pretty sure that Anthony Robbins would be cool with it. LOL.

We Knew He Had a Brain...somewhere...

2009-08-18T22:20:00.000-04:00

So life in our household has held its challenges this summer. I keep trying to get going on this blog again, but between meetings, hospital visits, singing gigs (more on that later), trying to save my garden and winter stash from the wrath of Mother Nature this summer, visitors visiting us in the...wait for it...VACATION STATE, and if I am really honest a general malaise that seems to have set up residence in my body I have totally neglected my blog. I actually have had a few people wonder about me…which made me all sappy inside.

As for the rest of you, I hope that you will continue to read when I get to it, and will stick with me through my stress…it has to end someday right?...Or as my dad says, “one way or another,” the cheerful bloake that he is. (More on use of that word later too…)

What spawned me to write, was Henry…I knew you wouldn’t have guessed it. I write on here often that I worry about him, and then I laugh because I think he is just sort of waiting to prove me wrong. I suppose it is always good and humbling to have one kid who works at making you feel like an overprotective, fool…otherwise you might just start believing all the playground parent, parent magazine gossip, and who knows where that could lead! I am not sure, but probably with me covered in antibacterial sitting in a padded room hugging a pediatric diagnosis book, and a bottle of wine!

So the other day I had my teenage niece in the car and she was letting the sun reflect off her phone onto the ceiling of the car and she looked at Henry and said, “Hey we better call the Scooby Gang to come investigate this mysterious light!”

Scooby is one of my sons very unhealthy obsessions…one that I disapprove of, but in times of needing to get work done have been known to turn to…I know…Bad Mom.

Henry looks at her, rolls his eyes and said:

“No Sawah, that is just the sun light reflecting off your phone onto the roof of the caaawww”
Sarah looked at me in amazement, and I fell into a stupor…The kid can’t recognize all his letters but knows the word reflection, not to mention the scientific process of what was happening. Rock on my baby boy, rock on

Squirrel Lowery

2009-07-28T07:34:00.001-04:00

We have a new want to be member of the family. One that must have a death wish of sorts, and is certainly masochistic...I mean why else would you choose this family to join?

We like to call him Squirrel Lowery. I am not sure if he will survive his attempts to become a regular in our house, with my broom wielding husband, not a lamp, book, or TV is safe, much less my little auburn haired nut muncher. A few years ago, we had a tear in our screen door. Our cats had gotten to where they squeezed through and the hole got bigger and bigger. We used to call it our “red neck cat door.” But after our parents and siblings put enough shame on us, we got a new screen door…(actually as luck would have it, the shame built up at the same time our neighbors got a new one and gave us their old one…)

We finally had a fixed screen door. After a few days of entertainment of watching the cats come tearing around the corner to try and go through their cat door, only to bounce off and sit there dazed and confused… Now animal lovers, no harm no foul, no one was hurt, only laughs occurred and it’s not my fault my cats are a few brain cells short of a stick.

Finally we have a new screen. The very first day, my large footed beast of a 10 year old stuck her big toe through the screen while she tried to perform the trick “walk through screen door.” I thought my husband was going to loose his mind. The new toe hole was in the exact spot that the red neck cat door had been. So much for new stuff.

So after a trip out to the store...we came back to find that the hole in the screen had been pried open by none other than a red squirrel.

We came home, he looked at us like “Hey….did you get more apples?” As he sat on my counter big belly full while gnawing on a pinklady out of my apple bowl. However, when my husband screamed I think he realized that he may have overstepped his visit and leaped from our counter to the top of our TV cabinet. Mind you this is about a 10 foot leap. (can you see him behind the plant??) We did manage to get him out, but have had subsequent visits from our friend. I am wondering if I should take the bed and the picture above of his mom and dad as a sign he is planning on moving in. If so I am going to need some valium for my husband and locks for my kitchen cabinets…

Wig o Mania

2009-07-27T07:55:00.000-04:00

We had a visit from my grandmother from Virginia, my aunt from Virginia, and my parents. I don't have to tell you how many "y'alls", and "bless her hearts" were thrown around, but my college days came back quickly and by the time they left I had store clerks in Maine looking at me funny. "You're not from here are you?"

We had a party for my dad and my daughter’s birthdays on Friday night. My grandmother from Virginia never ceases to amaze me. She always buys things for the girls that in 1000 years I would never spend money on, but they end up being the hit of the party.

They have received such treasures as Plastic purses, gaudy princess nightgowns, and the piece de la resistance…Hannah Montana wigs. Clearly I have gotten too practical!

The wigs mind you were a hit. Everyone in the family was trying them on. Henry cried that he didn’t get one…I am ok with that. But we got in hysterics when he tried it on because he looked like me in my blonder…OK younger years!

After so much fun…maybe I ought to rethink the underwear and swimming lessons…

Life is too short…get your kids a wig.

2009-07-17T20:14:00.006-04:00

After much screaming, protesting, rioting in the bathroom, and a mop full of clean up...we have decided to send the boy to the Marine Corps....maybe they can do something with him!

Believe me when I say that my husband nearly lost his life tonight when I walked up stairs to see what the screaming was about, and Henry was fleeing the bathroom, half shaved. Tufts of hair oh the top of his head waving about 5 inches long, and 1 bang that went down to his eyes, the rest shaved. There were pieces above his ears that hadn't been reached either, so the over all affect was that Henry looked like a psychotic newly born baby bird...on Speed...

Now, I managed to calm him down and get the scissors to trim the random pieces that Jamie missed all together. It doesn't look like a high and tight, but, well, I guess when you have a moving target it isn't easy to wield your clippers with accuracy.

In the end, Henry enjoyed checking himself out in the mirror, and like that washing his hair was not an ordeal anymore... all is well that ends well...

Just in case you didn't remember the before picture....here is one.

Groundhog Day

2009-07-15T20:45:00.000-04:00

I do know that I am losing major Karma points with writing about my grandmother. It is not like she is going to get me back, as I am fairly sure Henry will when he is older. I am convinced he will, either by blaming me for all his ills in his Therapists office, or as an author who in true Disney form knocks off the mother at the beginning of each story.

So I write with a slight amount of guilt…yeah, not quite enough though to make me not write!

So as you know I help take care of my 93 year old grandmother, who for all intensive purposes is in better health than I am; however a team of Doctors numbering in the hundreds would never be able to convince her of that. That said…her mind is, well, not as sharp as it once was.

(I say this with the full knowledge that at the rate my brain is deteriorating I will be a drooling carrot by the age of 50.)

So I drive my grandmother to one of her Dr in NH that she didn’t want to give up when she moved. It is an hour long scenic drive, that we have driven oh…about 1 million times, and that isn’t counting when she drove it herself every weekend when I was a kid coming to see us from Bath.

We drive down the road and it is the same exact road it always has been…very few new houses, very few new businesses, very few improvements….the very same comments at the same places every time.

It is kind of like that movie Ground Hog Day where the same day keeps happening over and over and over.

Gran: “Look how much this has built up; look at that new golf course”

Me: “MmmHmmm, remember that is where I had my prom”

Gran: “Oh really? It has been there that long? Look at that…that was just a road side stand and now it is a big business…”

The one that kills me however, is the "oh, look at all that beautiful farm land" to which my response is always "yeah we really want a farm someday," and gran says "Yeah me too."

OK so the thing that is so funny about that, is that my grandmother hates being outside. Part of why she looks younger than me at 93, is, well... she is very well preserved. Being an active person in nature is her personal hell. It is funny to watch her outside, it is as if the fresh air hurts....So I kind of entertain myself for the next few miles picturing my grandmother working outside in a field...

The running commentary makes me giggle. I have it down to the mile marker what is going to be said…the exact words…and my responses are always the same.

But there is always the one moment of solidarity where we flip off (yes even my grandmother) Alexanders, a restaurant that pissed off my Dad and now there are generations of our family flipping them off and never eating there…It makes me happy that she always remembers to lift that extra special finger at that moment every time.

I am sure that we will all lose our memory…and as I said, some of use sooner than others! But my dad has a good way to look at it.

When your memory is that bad, “you wake up in a new place, and meet new people everyday” Until then, I will just nod and give my standard responses to all the “new” things on our way to NH.

Beany Birthday

2009-07-14T07:07:00.003-04:00

It is my middle child’s birthday...so last year I wrote a little note to the boy on his birthday. But I never did it about the girls.

SO, today is Bean Day. Caroline is the child that was not to be. She was a twin, and at 16 weeks I lost her twin, and was sent home being told I was going to lose her as well because I was so late in the pregnancy…obviously I didn’t. Then came the many months of torture, when I was told that there were all sorts of things wrong, from deadly chromosomal defects to downs syndrome...then finally in my 7th month, they figured out that everything was going to be fine...it was a rollercoaster that I still am not over totally.

On this day 8 years ago I woke up in labor and refused to admit that I was, because we had a family picnic planned with just Marshall...and dammit, I was determined to have my last family day. She was 2 weeks early. We called my Dr...She said to come in...I called her back and said:

"I decided not to come in; I think I will be fine."

Uhhhh....yeah, I wasn't thinking very clearly...I was NOT going to have her on the 14th... But I did. About 4 hours after that phone call, well, and after my Dr. threatened me with bodily harm after waking her up at 6 in the morning, (in a loving way.)

I went in, and was already 8cm dilated....so, within a couple hours, Caroline Elizabeth made her debut, and nothing was ever the same.

So here goes my letter to my baby girl:

My little Carobeaner*...you fought like hell to be here, and you are still fighting. I see you fighting the world, even when there is no battle. Still, when you allow yourself, you are the most loving and caring child in the world with a heart big enough to swallow the world. Your hugs can literally make me gush inside.

You haven't stopped moving since the moment you could. You are a mover and a shaker. You find it hard to sit still, hard to be patient, as if you are just waiting for the world to just get on with it. You are a sweet girl, but make no mistake; you are barreling through life with purpose...A natural leader who will never want the job.

It seems to me that this is not your first time around here. You have a sort of Old World knowledge that makes you impatient with being a kid, as though you are just waiting to be old enough to show your true self and until then you have to put up with the child’s play.

You are a perfectionist on the inside…the worst kind (I know). You won't compete with others openly, you just internalize it and struggle with your own feelings of imperfection...I hope that some day you will take a look at what I can see. Someone who is strong enough to just be herself no matter what others say, smart as a whip, and just right the way you are...

That smile, and giggle are demonic, but wonderful and make me warm. I always feel loved, and hope that you recognize how much you are loved. You have so much passion wrapped up in that little body of yours, sometimes I think you are an empty sponge needing to be filled, an impossible task that I think you will be trying to complete your whole life.

You are the consummate inspirer. You can cut me open, put a Band-Aid on, and somehow talk me into apologizing for bleeding. You will go far my little one…just believe in yourself…because I wait with baited breath to see what you will accomplish next…you amaze me everyday of your life.

Happy 8th birthday!
Love MOM

*Carobean is what my sister coined her with when she was just an infant. When you would hold her she would climb up your shoulder like she was mountain climbing…the name Bean has stuck…but who am I to complain…I am PIE!

Henry the Germ

2009-07-13T20:22:00.002-04:00

So Henry is kind of a mamma's boy. I hear that this is pretty common among the Male Toddler Kingdom. I think that moms, somehow have super power until their son’s turn 13 and then they become no longer essential.

I have tried to fight his charms, but remain convinced that if we lined our borders with little boys who want “just one more story” with their bottom lips protruding and crocodile tears filling their eyes (but not spilling over,) we would have no war.

So tonight I put little man down to bed and we had our usual fairly unsettling Oedipus conversations of Henry wanting me to stay. WHY can’t I just get under the covers and cuddle for a minute, and he doesn’t like to sleep alone because it is too dark, when that doesn’t work he tries to convince me that “Blue” and “Green” his teddy bears, are going to run away because they are scared and then he will be so sad. The only argument that gave me pause was:

“But WHY can’t you sleep in here…I won’t snore.”

I was so tired tonight that I lay down and read stories to him, which launched into a conversation.

He turned to me with all sincerity and said:

“I want to turn into a turtle...then a germ”

“Did you say Germ?”

“Yeah the ones you get on your hands and then get a cold.”

I swear, I never know what that boy is thinking…but one thing is for sure…I did not stay for the “just 2 more minutes” !

Henry the Guitar Man

2009-07-10T09:06:00.004-04:00

Yesterday my friend Mark came over to practice for a party that we are playing for...in 10 days...and we have yet to rehearse...do I sound a little frantic...I am thinking YES.

So we were pulling together the music etc... And Henry disappears for a moment. He returns with his guitar, pulls up a chair next to Mark (who also plays the guitar) and starts observing very closely.

If Mark would strum, Henry would strum. If Mark used a pick, Henry would use a barrette. If Mark tuned his guitar, Henry would turn the little thingy’s to tune his guitar. (Can you tell I don’t play the guitar??) It was pretty cute, I wish I had gotten a picture of Mark with him...but this morning, I came down stairs and saw Henry, with his guitar in the same chair, singing 16 tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford...

well, with his own words…

“Some people say man has blood, and blood…because mans are made of blood and blood”

Being true to his Y chromosome, blood is all he got from the whole song. Mind you it is only in one stanza:

“some people say a man is made out of mud, a bold man’s made out of muscle and blood, muscle and blood and skin and bones, a mind that’s weak and a back that’s strong.”

But I suppose you could say he was close, at the very least he is not squeamish…The boy never ceases to amaze me and make me laugh. Needless to say the laugh was short lived, because as soon as I did he got mad at me and wouldn't let me take anymore pictures...oops

Back from Vacation!

2009-07-09T05:35:00.002-04:00

I have to say that I had all sorts of intentions of writing my blog and my book while I was on vacation...

Clearly that happened!

I am thinking that perhaps it was the salty air, with no rain...the ocean lulling me into pensive thought and relaxation....

Yeah I know, I am not kidding anyone...It was the sand between the toes, the umbrella drink, and the knowledge that 6 adults in the room means I am only responsible for 1/6 of the bad things that happen...

The illustrious Margo and Henry shared a room together. This ended up in a sort of old married couple effect that none of us could keep a straight face for. She nagged, He picked, they fought, and then cuddled on the couch.

My favorite conversation however, was:

Margo: "Henry do you love me?"

Henry: (not even looking) "yeah"

Margo: "Then how come you don't talk to me?"

At this point, every wife in the room looked at their significant other and busted out laughing. Somehow, in the course of one week, they had managed to cover the same 13 years I have!

The big girls all shared a room...It was the stuff of a great sit com. The angsty teenager moping about, texting her torment to her friends at home, the hyperactive over sugared 7 year old psyched to be up past 8, and the one in the middle being trying to balance her too cool, eye rolling with her childish desires... But I have to say all three of them were a joy and brought my sister and I back to our beach trips as kids.

I spent my time looking for shells and tickle bugs…My childhood obsession obviously had not waned.

Well... of course the hot tub and umbrella drinks were a plus!

However easing back in to Maine life has been a challenge. There is something empirically wrong with wearing a sweater to a meeting in July! I am getting ready to trade my gardening ventures in for arc building.

I fear taking the girls to the beach because boogie boarding in 65 degree water, is a whole other world from the 78 degree ocean in Nags Head!

At least that yellow orb in the sky is gracing me with its presence this morning, and I had better take advantage of it before it disappears behind the wrath of the rain Gods yet again.

Amazing what a Little Sunshine will get ya

2009-06-26T06:11:00.006-04:00

Yesterday about midway through my horrific day of insanity, this yellow orb in the sky came out. It made all the gray go away, and then something amazing happened....The rain stopped, and the skies turned blue, and lo and behold, I no longer wanted to crash my car into people who irritated me for no apparent reason!

Apparently I am deeply affected by the Vitamin D that the sun so readily hands out to me. We have had two straight weeks of rain. I would try to sit and write my blog and have my sense of humor, but somehow, I would start typing and this steady stream of surliness came out instead, I realize that would have never made it Noah’s crew…I don’t care how Godly he may have been, I would have been tossed overboard after the first two weeks.

Once the sun came out and I started to calm, I realized that the past few days all my sentences were ending in Dammit. As in: I have to feed the cats again Dammit? or, you want me to drive you to day camp Dammit? I don’t care that you are only 10, can’t you drive yourself Dammit? Here is your dinner Dammit.

OK, so maybe I wasn’t that bad, but I was starting to resemble an old man sitting on his front porch yelling at everyone and being boorish about the way life is now that the Ark was making its resurgence. At one point I may have even tried to pull my dentures out and throw them at someone.

But alas, the sun came out…just in time for me to leave for North Carolina. Now the slugs can really enjoy my strawberries as there will be no one to stop them, and no one to pick them.

*SIGH*

But this morning, as I actually hear birds singing again, and while it is cloudy, I have hope that the big yellow orb in the sky may once again shine upon me, I can relax a little as I try to pack for 5 people to go to NC. And really? I shouldn't complain that I am headed out to a beautiful beach for a week in nice hot weather! I am looking forward to blogging a week with out any other demands on my time...just an umbrella drink and grandparents to find, and parent my children...

PS I now have blight on my tomatoes from the incessant rain, any tips on how to get rid of it? Or am I destined to not have tomatoes again this year because of it???

New Style for Henry

2009-06-25T06:33:00.001-04:00

I wrote not long ago about Caroline's amazing sense of style. Have I mentioned that we fully believe that Henry is Caroline's twin that I lost? (for real)

It started out innocently enough, A head flashlight that he got for his birthday became fashion wear. I get it, it is kind of cool, and frankly, I wish I had one...however, I had to wrestle it off of him to go anywhere. Finally when I told him the battery was going to run out and I wouldn't replace it, he stopped wearing it everywhere, and just as in a nice tie, he chooses the best places to don his "headlight."

Then we got into the dress ups, which is no big deal, I thought it was kind of cute, a little flower bra never hurt anyone, though my husband did not think that I should encourage this, because he was in no way prepared to take him to Shaws with THAT on.
THEN, he found the goggles...and it all went down hill from there! Since I have been packing and trying to get ready for our trip to NC, Henry has had a lot of...well, free roam the house unmonitored time. Which is scary in and of itself, but some of the outfits little man has come up with are even scarier! He walks around the house with these goggles on and since they don't fit tightly, he still tries to breathe through his nose, creating a sort of science fiction Darth Vader effect. I can hear his breathing coming down the hall. But they are now the centerpiece of all his new outfits...
I think that the Thomas the Tank Engine underwear and the pedometer complete this ensemble with flair. However, I am not sure that people would want to walk next to him in his race....

Then came this, I am thinking that somehow he has broken into my I-pod and decided to become a member of the White Stripes or something...

Either way, he is rocking the earphones, birthday hat, and his new favorite, the mask.

Yeah...High School is NOT going to be kind to this one!

Coffee Vs. Parenting

2009-06-23T22:00:00.001-04:00

I am starting to wonder if my parenting abilities are becoming obsolete to my need for coffee...I believe that this has been a real cause and effect relationship. For instance...my NEED for coffee increased as the NEED for me to be a parent increased.

The other morning I was in such a foul mood when I got up. Just plain exhausted from life and work and kids, that I am pretty sure that the breathing my family was engaging in at the breakfast bar was the most annoying thing that had ever existed in my life time…

After my very rational rampage on family life where I simply pointed out that I was the only one who ever did anything, and politely let my husband know that rinsing out his sink (and only his sink) did NOT constitute cleaning the bathroom, I then proceeded to inform the rest of my family that their arms would not break off if they attempted to actually put the new toilet paper roll, ON THE HOLDER. I further educated them on the fact that I was no longer going to pack snacks for them because there was no need. With so many crumbs under the breakfast bar, they could simply shake their socks out and have at least a full granola bar on their plate so why bother packing extra food.

I believe it was when the froth started forming at the corners of my mouth that my oldest daughter stood up and looked at me with big scared eyes and said:

“Mom, can I make you some coffee?”

I realized that perhaps my need for coffee could be taking the place of my patience... or maybe just replacing it...either way, my kids are so shell shocked that they are looking to see if the coffee pot has coffee in it before they open their mouth now...hmmm

Happy Anniversary

2009-06-22T22:00:00.001-04:00

So tonight is my 13th anniversary. Yeah I know, awww. But like I said, it was number 13. Thus the flowers and sappy cards have since turned into Board meetings and laundry folding.

I took off work thinking that maybe we could sneak out for a glass of wine or something. Yeah, then my board scheduled a meeting and Jamie had to go to the Gorham town board meeting, so now I am paying a babysitter so that my husband and I can go to board meetings and not see each other. I know, right?

All was made good as my meeting went smoothly…which was just SHOCKING, and my friend Pam took me out for a glass of wine to celebrate my anniversary.

But as I sit here, pleasantly surprised at the ease of my meeting, and a good friend’s effort to make my day better, I am reminiscing about the actual wedding itself.

I am guessing that right about now I was trying to comb out the birdseed that my cousin-in-law ground into my 90's Rave Hair-sprayed bangs as we made our final exit from our reception. This was not on our own accord, but very typically my husband had to get me away from the party and convince me that we had places to be. (13 years later, it is no different. My go-go- gadget mouth just keeps on going until Jamie gets me to recognize that not all people are extroverts and may actually tire of my party energy.)

It was the hottest day of the summer that year…in Virginia, and I kept going into the kitchen of the farmhouse and getting more ice cubes to dump down the front of my dress…it was so wet my mother had to hang it to dry.By the time we reached Williamsburg VA, we were so ravenous because no one told us that you never get a chance to eat at your own wedding, dove into the basket of food that was packed for us. With crab dip dripping down our chins as we ate through the entire basket of food was truly a romantic moment.

So here is to 13 years, and many fond memories, still getting dragged out of parties, and eating less than gracefully when I am hungry.

Play Dates With Cousins

2009-06-12T23:31:00.003-04:00

As I have often written, Margo and Henry have interesting play dates...many times ending in the explanation that clothes aren’t optional or the ins and outs of appropriate behavior.

The funny thing, is neither one of them seem to have these problems with anyone else…they just save it for us, and I think secretly they are trying to drive Dan (Margo’s father) to madness…

The other day I was at my sisters house and I could hear them playing in the other room...they were pretending to pee on each other. Margo would squat on Henry’s head and make a “shhhhh” noise…then Henry would stand up and pretend to pee on her head…

Now, I can remember having some weird make believe play as a kid...I do remember playing a game where I was stuck in the woods and sprayed by a skunk and all the gnomes were running away from me because I smelled... or even playing Batman and Robin who turned evil and fought each other over bubble gum. (I remember that one because it ended in screams and my mother locking me in a bathroom after an unfortunate placement of a “mountain” that robin stood on, which happened to be a wasp nest. I rocked the pink pin cushion look for the rest of the summer from all the calamine lotion it took to coat the 4000 bee stings I had…)

But peeing on each other???? I don’t even KNOW where to start with that one!

I informed them that, that was kind of gross, and they went upstairs to play. Yeah…where the monitor was on…they were playing house and were serving Pee for dinner…

I am so glad that they listen…and a little concerned about the potty talk…and serving of potty material…honestly, what the hell?

I am waiting for Dan to come home…”Margo…you have lot of splainin’ to do!!”

Scenes from the Trellises

2009-06-11T07:00:00.002-04:00

It's amazing what a month will do! We have already had our first harvest of radishes, which I just put in a bowl of water in the refrigerator and my eldest and I just keep plucking from them out of the bowl and pop them in our mouths like candy. Loving the radishes.

Last night we had our first lettuce from the garden too, and had a nice salad...too bad the carrots don't come up at the same time!

We are also getting some red strawberries too, so I am looking forward to some good tasting jam soon! If I can keep the kids from eating them as fast as they ripen.

Our bush beans as you can see below are doing really well.

The Cabbages below are starting to head, and our potatoes behind them are already starting to bloom. I got such an early start this year because of an early spring that things are really coming earlier than usual....which makes me realize the need for a hoop house or greenhouse...that is my next big project. Making a frame to fit over some of my raised beds so that I can get an earlier start, and a later finish!

Apple trees have a zillion apples started...I love the way they look, especially on a beautiful sky like the Maine blues...

I have discovered, only one other soul in our house that loves my garden as much as I do......

Yeah, he looks miserable doesn't he!

So there it is! I am getting ready to put a thing on the side to keep track of what we planted this year, because I am totally copying some of my other blogger friends who do that and I love to scroll through what others are growing....I know...I am a big copy pants.

A Ditty

2009-06-10T22:00:00.000-04:00

I know that most of you have heard this a thousand times, and if so, you may skip it...yes, you have my permission... But another person sent it to me this morning, and after a few days of running around like a crazy lady, getting all my meetings in, conversations with gran in, trying to find astronaut men for Henry's cake, I sort of had been humming the tune of the William Tell Overture in my head. (Why, oh WHY do stores not carry astronaut men? Don't they know that little boys STILL LOVE SPACE?????)

I am pretty sure that this music is a theme song for moms of multiple aged children. I have found that having them spread out is proving to be a real task. I go from making dinner at 4 to get my eldest to softball on time, to wiping a rear end. It just seems my world is always split three ways. (I am not one of the three by the way)

So anyway...here is the Mom's Overture, for those of you who have not heard it, you will laugh... I got quite reminiscent when she said "I'll give you something to cry about" I believe that was my dads mantra through the parenting adolescent girls years.

The Escape to Boston

2009-06-09T10:04:00.010-04:00

In a much needed escape from home, my friend Jen and I decided to head to Boston for the night.

There were many lessons learned on this trip not the least of which was, as much as we both love "The Amazing Race" It is NOT for us! In fact in some strange turn of events I am pretty sure that we would cause a national incident and end up in a prison somewhere sharing bread and water and fighting over the burlap sac blanket.

The other big thing I learned was that, no matter how mature amongst our peers we seem...when we get together, we still point to random people and say "There's your boyfriend,” and we still sneak up behind the unsuspecting and snap our pictures with them, although we are not nearly as brazen as we were, we still managed to scare off a colonial re-enactor. The greatest part about this trip was watching our husbands, both the ultimate planners and type A’s squirm, when the week before we hadn’t solidified anything but the night we were going. I think that Jens husband finally slept well when I assured him that we did have a hotel room and that we weren’t going to be sleeping in a dumpster behind Faneuil Hall. True to our style, Jen and I had no plan and we just took it by the seat of our pants and had a ball.

North Station was the beginning of our many debacles of travel. It was like watching two people from another planet try to ask where the bathroom is, when we were trying to figure out buying T-passes.

Jen puts in a 20 and a bunch of “tokens” came out with her ticket. Her face fell, “Well there goes 20$ I didn’t know we would get change in tokens.” We turned to walk away when I realized that her new gold treasure trove was actually those gold dollars that you get at the post office.

Needless to say with 18$ in coins, Jen proceeded to pay for drinks, meals, and tips in change. When waiters would pick up their little black ticket holder, inevitably gold coins would spew out all over the floor, and we were trying to escape as fast as we could frantically pressing elevator buttons. They clearly were not as amused with our lack of common sense as we were.

There was also the issue that we hadn't been out of the house in a while, and this seemed to have impaired us greatly in our communication skills. I spent the first hour winking at our waiter unintentionally when ever he would ask if we needed anything. When Jen pointed it out, I got in such hysteria that we had to leave before we got locked up. It’s ok, because apparently it was catching and she had to actually move seats because she kept staring at someone unintentionally and he kept staring back. It was like we had no social skills at all...that’s what happens when you are trapped in a house for long lengths of time with toddlers...all social etiquette goes out the window! We did finally; however stop the incessant nervous winking and staring after we settled in to our normal selves again. Thankfully.

We met a friend from High School that we hadn’t seen in 15 years that is currently living in Boston. She took us to a great bistro with Jazz music which we finally left at 1 in the morning when we realized that we were the only ones left in the restaurant and the cook actually came out sat on a step and looked at us with that look of “Please Please Please go home silly girls with a camera”
The next day we walked about 400 miles around Boston never really knowing which direction we were going in, because as we found out, we are both seriously directionally challenged…as in we really should have been in remedial radar classes when we were in school. Our direction challenge became even more keenly obvious when we got on the wrong train to go to North Station. (Luckily we figured it out before the next stop, got off, laughed at ourselves and got on the right one….besides it was less crowded.)

We did make it to the North End where the owner of the restaraunt basically harassed us on the street until we went in...although Jen did tell him that he "had her at Sangria"

Much to our family members chagrin, we will probably do it again…and we may even adventure in other towns or cities, or God forbid, countries. We ate our way through Boston, and fully intend on getting lost somewhere again.

Then....

And Now....

Adventures in Caroline-Wear

2009-06-08T05:42:00.002-04:00

Caroline my middle child has always marched to a different drum…(preferably to her, one that she designed, made out of lots of sticky tape and paper, makes a really loud noises and she stores under her bed.) In other words, this child has a mind of her own.

I always want to encourage that, it is something gravely missing from our kids today…and while adults seek this quality out in their employees, children, and even in themselves as they are older, it is the very quality we want to squash when they are little… The very idea that your kid might be singled out because they are different is a pain similar I can only imagine, to having your heart ripped out of your body and played rugby with. Ultimately we want our kids to fit in.

My little Bean, does not…for the most part. It has been a source of much joy, perplexities, and angst for all of us for almost 8 years now.

One of her “things” is her dress code. I have had to learn to just let go, because the battle was far worse than the embarrassment of having to take a kid in a cow costume with a tiara on to the grocery store.

Every morning, her father and I wait with baited breath to see what concoction Caroline will come up with to go to school in.

Most of the time it is as simple as “purple day,” which is a day she finds all the clothes of various shades of purple and wears them all together resulting in a sort of modern art of atrociousness effect. Or the constant skirt over jeans, pants, leggings “Juno” effect. I have to say the Cowboy boots with yoga pants and a down vest on a 78 degree day was a little puzzling.

So the Sunday after Easter my church had a “Holy Humor” Sunday where we were supposed to dress a little whacky etc… Jamie and I figured we didn’t even have to tell Caroline, if we just let her figure out an outfit it would probably work for this day.

Yup, You guessed, Caroline walks into our room, with a perfectly matched outfit, hair brushed down, and even had matching shoes…no cowboy boots. Refusing to change, I just plopped one of my late Aunt Ida’s crazy church hats on her head, realizing that this child, will never, do what we expect, and in the end, I guess that is why I love her so much!

And Yes, this would be her, taking a self portrait while out bikeriding in her purple dress, boots, and red fairy wings...

Permanant Parking

2009-06-04T22:12:00.003-04:00

I seem to have a little problem with my car...apparently Jamie and I both have a bad Car Karma God after us this week.

The other day I get in the car to drive the kids to the bus stop, I go to put my car in drive, and hmmmm, it wouldn’t budge.

I started doing the whole freak out running behind schedule, lots of choice words that ended in “Girls, you better run your tails off to the bus stop”

They dutifully started running with their 800 pound backpacks bouncing on their shoulders. (The 800 pounds really is more a description of Caroline’s backpack. It is packed solid with sweaters from January, papers from September, books from her bookcase (for emergencies,) marbles, lip gloss, small animals, random neighborhood children, and perhaps her lunch. But if I am honest, most of the time I come home to find that on the counter because she forgot to shove it in to her overstuffed back pack. If I sound unconcerned, just know that I have washed my hands of her disaster area after nearly getting engulfed in gross the last time I tried to clean it.)

Needless to say, some time goes by, and my car slides easily into drive. So I think…huh, must have been a fluke.

Yeah, that wasn’t smart. I went to get gas, at a busy time, and got stuck in park at the gas tank. I am pretty sure that the guy in the big truck behind me did not find this amusing. After the third time that he laid on the horn and yelled “come on” I threw my hands up in a sign of despair.

One would have thought he would have figured out there was an issue…most people don’t just hang out in their car at the gas tank…what did he think I was doing? Sniffing fumes? By the time he was completely distressed and coming toward my car…yup you guessed it, it slid right into drive, making me look like a complete ass.

We are still trying to figure out what in the world is going on, because it works fine most of the time…but then…at the worst moments decides to stick…

Then today, Jamie ran over a knife blade on the turnpike and blew out his back tire… He is fine, but uh…what are the freaking chances of that?

I am wondering what Car Gods I have pissed off, and perhaps should contact Click and Clack to see if they can call them off. Because after the 500$ it is going to cost us to fix these issues we are going to need some time to recoup!

Little Mans 4th Buffday

2009-06-03T17:23:00.004-04:00

So today is the day...The day that life as I knew it before June 3rd, 2005 ended...for good...with a slamming of the door!

Yes, It is Henry's birthday.

I was awoken by Henry in bed singing "Happy Buffday to MEEEEEE, Happy Buffday to MEEEEE" Not a bad way to wake up I would say.

In my normal torturous parent mode, I said, "Guess what we got you for your birthday?" Excitedly he jumped up and down and said what?

“Lima Beans!”

There was a long moment of silence where he sized up the situation. I am guessing he was trying to figure out if I was joking or not, but then again, he may have been trying to figure out where the nearest projectile blunt object was…

He laughed a little tentatively and said “Nooooooo”

“Of course not” I said, “I got you a tree!”

Then he got the jist of this game. “Noooooo”

“Well then, what do you want?”

Now let me say here, that this is the downfall of many a parent. You don’t ask this question because ultimately they say something that isn’t what you got.

At this age, they can beg for Legos all year, and then the day they are to open their beloved Legos, they have changed their mind to a Power Ranger…or even better, a pony.

Now that’s not something a quick run to Target can solve!

“A ROCKET SHIP” He jumps up and down. (While I was thankful he did not say bunnies…I think that we may be past that land mine…) I thought about the bike in the garage that we had gotten him and got a little nervous.

As we walked downstairs to take a look, He said “I am so excited to be 4, it has been a long time since I was 4!” I am pretty sure that this solidified my thoughts that he was a Norwegian warlord in a past life.

Alas, we got his new bike out, and in a stroke of good Karma…guess what? (Take a look at the name of the bike in the picture!)

Happy Birthday Henry!

A Week Worth of Blogging: Scenes from the Trellises, Henry's Broadway Debut, and Parental Sappy Tears.

2009-05-29T08:11:00.012-04:00

I cannot believe that I have not gotten this done before now...what a dork I am.

I have been being held hostage by Softball, and much like water boarding, Softball season in elementary school with two girls on different teams and different schedules...is not much fun!

So here is my week’s worth of Blogging done in one long blog...I will section it of course so that those Henry fans can skip right to his Broadway debut, and those garden followers can admire my radishes with out getting mired down in my sloppy weepy video of my eldest’s first singing solo.

So read what you will, but I may test you later...

Scenes from the Trellises:

Firstly, I always do my scenes from the trellises starting in about June, but since we seem to have moved Maine about 3 hours south we have been able to plant early this year, with only one minor set back when we thought that there might be a frost. Like the true manicured lawn type that I am, I gathered buckets, blankets and tarps and covered my entire garden…just in case.

All though my beautiful landscaping of patchwork blankets and old buckets was beautiful, my neighbors I believe, were pretty happy when there was no frost and I took my lovely problem solving decorating down.

It has been raining for 3 days straight so things now are three times bigger than these pics, but Thought I would share anyway.

Something is eating my beans however, as soon as the first true leaves emerge, something tops them right off….any ideas what this little thing that I WILL seek out and DESTROY could be?

I have had my first little harvest of radishes. My daughter and I proceeded to eat the entire bowl full instead of saving them for a salad. But more will come later.

Planted in the garden to date: White Cucumbers, pickling and slicing cukes, Watermelon, pole beans, bush beans, wax beans, lima beans, peas, potatoes (red and Yukon Gold), sweet potatoes, radishes, zukes, and squash, acorn squash, sugar pumpkins, and giant pumpkins, Red Cabbage, Green Cabbage, Pointed Cabbage, peppers (red, yellow, green), jalapenos, habanera, tomatillos, tomatoes (cherry, Roma, Mortgage Lifters, yellow), Jenny Lind Cantaloupe, strawberries, Onions (shallots, white, red, yellow and spring), Swiss Chard, Spinach, Turnips, Beets, Carrots, lettuce (red leaf, Boston, Romaine), And all my Herbs! We have a good start to the season; let’s hope some of it actually grows big enough to eat!

Henry’s Debut:

So I admit it, I am a Broadway Musical junkie. It comes from having been a singer for a long time…and from growing up near the Prescott Park in Portsmouth, where every year you can attend musicals for free. As long as I can remember I loved them.

My daughter Marshall does to. So we were listening to Pandora (which is a music lovers paradise, you can get it for free on your computer) We put it on the Broadway station…

What happened next is...well...my husband is having nightmares about it…(He is NOT a musical fan) Mind you, this went on for a good 10 minutes, through the Guys and Dolls song and on to "I'm Gonna Wash that Man Right out of my Hair"...

“Ladies and Gentlemen, singing a selection from Guys and Dolls, I introduce the flailing, singing Henry…”

I don’t think that any scouts will be calling any time soon, but hey, it was entertaining.

Proud Mom:

And lastly, my daughter tried out for, and was given, her very first singing solo in her fifth grade concert. I cut it short so that only her solo was on the video partially to cut out Henry sneezing and yelling "Scuse me." And, you will have to excuse the mild shaking of the camera.

Apparently as I age, I am turning into a sappy pile of mess. I was desperately trying to hold the camera still as I sniffled and stifled the tears…I am pretty sure the woman on the other side of me thought I was having a seizure as I jerked and choked. But since she didn’t call 911, she must have figured out that I was just uber proud.

He's Gotten to the Public

2009-05-19T05:58:00.000-04:00

Other than my random ranting about Henry, I figured the few masochistic souls that read this blog were the only ones that were exposed to my brand of Henry, but he has gotten out to the public.

A woman in town had a party on Friday night for moms. The invitation was extended to everyone she knew, and they were to invite whom ever they wanted. This is a very brave soul. We had a wonderful time, and it was a great way to connect women that otherwise never would have been. But it was also a time for me to see how, much like the swine flu, the stories of my boy are filtering through the community.

There were a few people who recognized me or my name, but couldn’t place me. I said “Oh, well I am on the school board, and those meetings are televised...” No that wasn’t it…
“Well, I teach an agriculture class to little ones for Parks and Rec…” No that wasn’t it…

Then the moment of clarity.

“OOOHHHHH you’re HENRY’S mom.”

You know, those are the moments where you aren’t sure that you should readily admit something like that. It’s a real quandary. It could be “He is a cutie pie” because Henry has a large source of charm when he chooses to use it, but it could also be:

“He is the one that broke into my car and stole all my spare change out of the console before peeing on my tire.”

One just never knows!

But, apparently another mom was telling a story about Henry and his “bros” at school talking about their dreams…Most were pretty normal…until they got to telling me about Henry’s. (Of course after toddler translation we cannot be sure how it all really played out.)

Apparently the state of the cleanliness of my house was revealed, when they learned he had a Skeleton from his closet in his room eating dust crackers under his bed.

Other than not knowing what exactly dust crackers are, I was at least relieved that it wasn’t something more serious...

Knock on wood.

Henry's Grace

2009-05-18T08:34:00.002-04:00

So on the rare occasion that we all eat at the same time, which these days of softball and school board are nearly extinct, we try to give thanks.

It is one of our attempts to have the kids recognize that not getting invited to a birthday party or not having a Nintendo DS does NOT qualify as being needy. We let the kids do it mostly, say things that they are thankful for, and always say a little thing about take care of the poor, sick, and hungry.

Henry is really into saying grace. Only, he doesn't quite get it yet...

The other day he wanted to say "thanks" at lunch. So I let him...

He bowed his head and said "Thanks for bunnies" cutting his eyes to me to make sure that I was listening, then he dug into his sandwich...

(for those of you who may not have read previous entries...the boy is obsessed with getting bunnies, and is slowly trying to wear his father and I down until we can no longer stand the thought of having to hear another word about them and just give in to his evil ways.)

Last night he said his thanks, and then proceeded to say "Take care of the poor, the sick and the Henry's" (this was not without his little giggle afterward)

So I guess my father and the other 1000 Henry's out there can rest easy...at least for now.

Bunnies

2009-05-13T04:19:00.000-04:00

So if you have read my blog for any length of time you may have realized that Henry is all about making proclamations... I get that Moses was picked, but I am pretty sure that there was a mistake made there.

So we headed over to Harris Farm where Henry likes to get his farmer on. (We also get our milk and other goodies there when we can.)

They know when we come, and they know that Henry is into seeing the cows; they are so wonderful to him, that I am pretty sure he thinks he owns the farm. (I don’t think that he needs that kind of encouragement, he already assumes that he owns the world...now he is thinking everything in it too.)

They have been doing school tours and they currently have some goats and Bunnies. They told us to go up and pet the bunnies….

Henry now wants bunnies.

He “plays” bunny, talks about bunnies, looks at pictures of bunnies, and even came up with names for his future bunny patch. The other day in an act of discouragement, I said “Cats don’t like bunnies, so we can’t get bunnies because we have the two cats.”

The boy loves our cats, so I thought that the subject was moot.

Nope, at breakfast the next day he said:

“Mom, I have decided we need to get rid of the cats so that I can have my bunnies.”

Well, I am sure that our fat cats aren’t too happy with that statement…

The names? Sugarin’ and Doobie…I can at least give him credit for persistency and originality…but since it isn’t the Miss America Pageant, I think he may be out of luck!

The Marshall Genes...are Hospital Bound

2009-05-11T08:22:00.003-04:00

With our crazy schedule there is never a dull moment anymore, between, softball, meetings, work, church, and, well…Henry, we are totally booked! So we have altered our life to shift mode.

In order to get anything done we have to work in shifts...one person takes the taxi driver for the girls shift for a little bit, the other, what ever task is at hand.

This is what leads me to my lovely story. We had some trees down from the storms and from adding the garage, so we needed to have a bonfire to get rid of the brush pile that was bigger than the house itself…as attractive as it was in our front yard, we felt the need to rid ourselves of out local tick and black fly habitat.

I was left to tend the fire.

Because my husband is coaching the softball team for one of my girls he had to go get his picture taken with them. He left saying: "Don't worry about working on this, just keep it going."

He clearly doesn't know my family genes- That sounded like a challenge.

My Marshall genes create this sort of superhero complex where we feel the need to be big tough people…me in particular, who deems it necessary to prove my SheRa** qualities to a fault.

All was well until in an amazing act of grace and dexterity, I pulled up on a large limb, only to have it break quickly, knocking me in the head and then to the ground twisting my knee, jamming my finger, and splitting my ear open.

I KNOW, amazing isn’t it?

I quickly surveyed to make sure that no one could have possibly seen my incredible manual labor prowess. Seeing that no one could have seen, I then noticed the blood dripping down the side of my face.

See, my husband, is aware of my SheRa tendencies, but he forgot to account for my Marshall Grace Gene. The one that sent my dad to the ER on more than one occasion. (Most notably for his thumb that he nearly severed off, when he heard a “rattling” under the van and felt the need to check it out on the side of the road...on our way out of town to camp across the country for 3 weeks.) It is still one of the great mysteries of the universe that the man still has all of his digits in tact.

Granted there are no big trips planned here, just a brush pile, but I sat there and giggled as I threw more fodder on the fire while limping and holding and ice pack on my ear…

Here’s to you Marshall Genes…may my husband know better than to ever leave me alone with a weed whacker.

**For those of you who may be unfamiliar with SheRa-Princess of Power, here she is, and has been a family icon since I was a kid…as in: “You don’t have to be SheRa,” “You realize that you aren’t SheRa right?” “Stop pretending to be SheRa,” “You did WHAT?...Do you think you are SheRa or something?” Ahhh she has played a large role in my life…and medical history.

Feel Good Thursday

2009-05-07T15:58:00.001-04:00

I couldn't figure out how to embed this, but it is worth a look at....someone who knows me well sent this to me knowing that I would love it...and have to share it.

Enjoy!

Playing for a change

Bus Stop Brawl

2009-05-06T09:23:00.002-04:00

So, Henry summarized this whole situation, but let me give you some background.

We seem to have a neighbor that embraces his inner grunge. I have no issue with it for the most part. "Live and let live" I say. Who am I to question digging a moat in your side yard, or having a dead car garden in the back, or even the various half built storage buildings...it is his yard after all...However, this past spring one of the boys decided to build a race track in his side yard for his dirt bike. When I say dirt bike, I am not meaning the dirt bike of my ancient history which meant a trick bicycle with lots of dirt on it. I mean the motorized, loud muffler, kind of dirt bike.

Again though, it isn’t my yard so I am not going to complain…it isn’t my way. (well I might complain, but I am not going to make him change….)

This track, was a labor of love between a teenage boy and his front end loader. He worked on this endlessly until now; the path is right through our road right of way, and in danger of compromising the integrity of our road.

In our effort to maintain our property values, and our desire to not have our road collapse and run into the man made moat of death, we thought “let’s plant trees along our right of way”

Seems like a simple thing right? So we ran a line to show us where the right of way that we owned on our private road was, and intended on coming in about 3 or 4 feet so that our trees would never encroach on moat mans dirt bike path. We went over and explained to the mother (who was the only one home) that we didn’t care if they kept the track but we wanted to plant trees etc…

WELL, this turned into the father coming over to us at the bus stop and screaming profanities at one of the fathers, with threats of pigs coming to reside on the property line they share, 30 dogs coming to live with him, and countless other threats of red-neckery.

That afternoon the kids came home wide eyed and said “that man said the F-word” we discussed how this was not a real adult conversation and I did the entire “mom” explaining on better ways to handle it…

Henry looks over and says “Did he say the F#%$ word?”

Yes, he did. He did not say “f-word” he actually SAID THE WORD.

That’s my mister man…just stating the facts…

I am dreading Kindergarten.

My Snotty Cats

2009-05-05T08:43:00.000-04:00

So at the Vet this winter, my cats tipped the scale at close to 20 pounds each. They are big boys, but, I guess I should have seen this coming when their bellies were swinging back and forth as they ran, or that all the fur on the thighs of one of the cats was getting worn off from friction.

In my defense however, as I told the vet, they lose their fat in the summer when they are out running around, and store fat in the winter to keep warm I suppose. I explained that this was normal, I mean, that is what I do too...the Vet didn't seem convinced.

I was sent off being told to put them on "indoor formula" which is essentially diet cat food. The other day I bought the stuff because my husband kept buying the regular food refusing to put our cats on "weight watchers."

My orange cat...well, was rather unimpressed. He ran to the trough at the sound of the food falling in to the metal pan...mouth watering ready to take a bite of his scrumptious fattening “salmon” crunchies, he took one bite…looked at me….another bite…looked at me…

Then proceeded to stick his paw in the bowl, push a few pieces around, then tip the bowl over and walk away.

Really? I am seriously getting attitude from my CAT? I am feeling a bit like Rodney Dangerfield…no respect I tell ya, no respect.

I guess the starvation diet will work too.

So Sometimes I Have a Heart

2009-04-30T18:43:00.003-04:00

But only sometimes...

You may remember my prizes from last mothers day. As bad as I can be, I did wear them with pride...and nice big sunglasses.

As we approach another dreaded mothers day, I am wondering what my gifts will be this year. Why am I wondering you ask? My middle daughter has taken a liking to ... um.. decorating my house in what can only be called, psycho modern craft art. Really, I am pretty sure that many a parent can say that this is a true genre of art. (At least in the galleries hiding in the back of our closets.)

I want to encourage my kids to be creative...I mean I think that is one of my jobs as a parent right? I think I signed that paper. So I would hate to squash their individuality or their creativity, or their...crazy ass art projects...

But, now I have this hanging in my bathroom where a pretty plant used to be...

Wait 'cause you can't appreciate its true unique beauty until you get the close up

So, now I am just asking how I can politely get this down before I forget that it is there????

oh, and dads, I don't want to hear another complaint about the damn ties....

uh yeah I did

2009-04-29T16:25:00.002-04:00

Yup I just wasted an entire blogging time, writing about pirate talk and reading it...this is why I need the 12 steps....

ARRRRRRRG MATEYS

2009-04-29T15:57:00.002-04:00

OK so this is just really funny. I know that some of you know that I am attending Face Book Anonymous. It has been really hard...but yes I have limited myself to just a few minutes a day, and the 12 steps are helping...

BUT today I read a post from a high school friend who, oddly enough, has the same quirky sense of humor that I do. (Yeah, I know, weird that there is more than one of us...come to think of it, I think that all my friends and I shared the same warped sense of humor...perhaps that is why there were no Dunkin Donut coffee filters safe in our presence... This is a long unfortunate story of the nerdness of my life that we used to scoff the D&D filters and wear them on our heads…)

At any rate, on Face Book (focus, Pie, FOCUS) she told me to scroll to the bottom of the page where is says English and press on it. A whole host of languages come up including one that says English (pirate).**

Yeah…it is true…it will change all your Face Book settings to Pirate jargon.

Now why my daughter and I sat and stared giggling for 30 minutes is a whole other issue, and most likely another 12 step program…but none the less it is very entertaining.

So you maytes go to the home port and read your bottle o’ messages, and may it be pleasin’ to the eye!

**I can tell you right now that my friend Jen is doing this as we speak…because she is my soul mate of nerdom and just wrong humor.

Apple Blossoms Coming

2009-04-28T19:39:00.005-04:00

This isn't much of a post, but I am going to sit down with a glass of much deserved wine. I was planning on posting my scenes from the trellises...but that will have to wait until tomorrow...alas...I know, what am I doing with all my free time?

If I get motivated I may post after a bit, but I need to have me a little sit and sip down. (It could make for a more entertaining post after a glass of wine.) But since Henry tonight tried to take his diaper off to go Poop in the potty (yeah him) and ended up smearing it all over the bathroom and himself (trying to put his diaper back on)...which ended up with me hosing down the entire place, him and myself...uh, I am thinking a little red wine is OK.

So here is my favorite sign of spring...(on this flippin' 80 some odd degree day!) My apple trees are starting to burst...with buds that is! Ain't they purdy?

Happy Spring to you all, and to all a poopless night.

The Hand From Hell

2009-04-27T18:39:00.004-04:00

So here is the deal...I have this allergy thing to Black Flies...yeah I know...I am a total wizard to choose Maine to live in...the very place that the Black Fly ties the Mosquito for the state bird.

Every April when I start getting the garden ready I get bit by one of those demonic blood suckers. I must be a sadist though because I still go out, and always forget to put on bug spray...(Its for wusses a lesson from my father) SO...here is the result this year...and mind you, this picture was taken on Day 2...after many healthy doses of Benedril and Advil.

Just for reference, this is the size of my normal hand...not pretty either, but...well...I am sure you see the difference.

I had to work at the library last night, and I tried hiding it, but it was not easy to hide a hand that was the size of a baseball glove while I was stamping their books. I had a few concerned looks from concerned patrons who were probably worried about the swine flu. They were a little tentative taking the books from me after my infected elephantitis hand touched them...but hey, I am sure they have antibacterial in their purses...they will be fine!

The Third Claim of Being "Back"

2009-04-25T05:15:00.000-04:00

I have totally stunk at posting lately, I don't know what my problem is...I think I am having some brain issues...my husband is smirking, I can see him with my "back-of-head eyes" And he ought to be careful because I will smack him with my "front-of-body angry hand"!

It isn't that I haven't had things to blog about, oh you have to know that with Henry, and the girls, I have had no lack of material...

I have gone to my sons "circus" to find that lo and behold, the boy likes to take center stage, even if it means sneaking out during every "act" and waving, or shoving someone out of the way to get center stage. Let’s just say that I had tears streaming down my face by all the times that he got the hook! It was something similar to the Muppet Show and Gonzo. I was worried the other moms would be upset, but it seems that Henry has a nack for making people laugh...while I crawl under my seat...

He has started using the potty for something other than peeing and his personal recording studio...which is just OH SO exciting...but those of you who may have followed me for awhile, may know my hate-hate relationship with my sons bowels and underwear...

I have started my garden, getting in peas, lettuce, radishes, beets, onions, swiss chard, potatoes, carrots...and started indoors some other things. We will just see how it goes, as you may or may not know, I am the most pessimistic planter of all time. I plant seeds knowing that they will never grow or produce anything, and when they haven't sprouted in the 2 hours that I allotted for them I throw myself into a tizzy of despair...only to find that at the end of the summer I have a bounty that I have to can, freeze and eat until I am ready to explode...let me tell you, it is an exhausting process I put myself through.

I finished…almost a sweater for my dear Justine blogging buddy’s new baby boy, only to have to pull the entire thing out (after having a terrible mis-read with the pattern) with a sting of expletives coming out of my mouth, only to be repeated by Henry in the grocery store the following day. I was proud though, my skin is getting thicker to the disapproving head shaking from the Sweater Set Moms, who pull out their antibacterial to clean their kids off after hearing Henrys rant. (Thank goodness it was before the in-laws came!)

AND I finished TWO (I know, I am like, Super Word Girl!) books. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and Unwind. Very different, but both I could not put down and I avoided life for a few days to finish them…

So there is my quick catch up on the ins and outs of my oh so exciting life…because, I know how much people were worried…HA…

Here is to getting back on track, (and treadmill) the hiatus from the real and virtual world I live in must end! (I believe that this is the 3rd time I have claimed to come back from the dead...I think I may be a cat...)

A Lesson I Need To Learn

2009-04-15T13:26:00.002-04:00

and soon...Watch what I say in front of the little man.

Henry is like a sponge of evil. He soaks up only the bad stuff. He never repeats the good things I say, or the productive things I do…I never hear him saying to Jamie, (or strangers in the line at the store, he isn't picky) "My mommy always says I love you little man" or the "Mommy cleaned the house today"… Oh NOOOOOOO it is always “Mommy said I was the devil.” Or “Mommy do you need more wine? You said you needed a big glass”

This seems to be a growing trend with him, and the thing is, it isn’t always things that happen all the time, nor are they things that have happened recently. Little elephant brain of my loins seems to remember every slip up I have had since the moment he came home from the hospital.

There is a gas station in town that over a YEAR ago, someone cut me off and I yelled “Stupid Jerk” (which I will say, was a rare moment of lucid thinking and restraint from yelling what I really wanted to say) and now every time we go to that same gas station, with out fail Henry peeps up from the back seat “Mommy, is the big jerk here?” How does he even remember that???

So today we are driving down the road and he says “When is the damn plumber going to come back and flood the freaking basement?”

“Uh…I am not sure Henry…maybe never?”

“Oh, I just didn’t know if you knew the damn plumber”

Silence ensues…
(I am just going to wait for him to apply to trade school to be a “damn plumber” for him to figure it out…)

Easter

2009-04-14T13:44:00.003-04:00

Here are the kids after church, Henry even had a big boy tie on. The girls insisted on the typical dresses for Easter...at least this year the snow was gone in fact, if you look really close you will see my Hiacynth blooming in the back ground... The woman in the picture is not me, although raising Henry is certainly aging me, that is my 94 year old Grandmother that I blog about periodically (you can look in the archives.)

As I posted this, I realized...how decievingly NORMAL my family looks! I guess since Jamie and I aren't in it!

This was during our egg hunt. The reason I have this one in here, look in the upper left hand side of the picture...I just loved the fact that the kids were all surrounding it, and failed to see the egg hanging on the rope from the bird feeder support....I named it "Masters of the Obvious" 8 kids at my house, and no one spotted that one for quite some time!

And this one, well, I just couldn't resist...henry, in his church clothes, found the one patch of dirt left post construction and proceeded to bathe in it....well, he looked nice in the beginning...its the thought that counts!

happy Easter!

Book Love

2009-04-10T04:34:00.001-04:00

OK so I don't write about all the books that I read, mainly because I enjoy them...but I don't always devour them....

I finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society last night and....as a friend of mine says *le sigh* it was just great.

It was one of those books that I started rationing how many pages I would read at night because I wasn't really sure that I wanted it to end.

It is a book basically made up of letters back and forth between post WWII occupation Guernsey Island, and a writer and her editor. I loved all the characters, but mostly, I loved the main character Juliet...

I think mainly, I love reading books where the leading woman is strong and snarky, but not in a beat you over the head with an inner message, stereotypical "strong woman" way.

I have to be honest, I really get tired of needy, love sick women. I kinda want to slap them (I know I know, we have discussed my angry hand)

But really, I don't want to read about obedient, love sick, women all the time...that said, I also get tired of the Barracuda, independent, portrayed as a man, woman too....neither are realistic to me. I enjoy reading about women who are a little of everything, because ultimately, that is who we all are. A mixture of strength and weakness, intelligence and dumb-ass, sex appeal and comfortable shoes....

So hurrah! I like the story, hope you guys will too...anyone else read it?

Little Future Gardener!

2009-04-09T05:11:00.000-04:00

So the other day it was a miserable day and I needed to get started on my seeds. I had Henry and he was wanting to help, which was more like, play in the soil and spread it all over the kitchen and since it is seed starter it is like dust when it is dry and I am pretty sure that I am still breathing, and sneezing it to this day. Nothing like a nice tall glass of water with a little film of plant starter on top to make your day!

I couldn't find my seed trays for the life of me. SO, I invented the "why do I still have old dusty ice trays from my first house 7 years ago from when we didn't have an icemaker, tray planters"

I just took a nail and poked the bottom and filled with soil and seeds! It is working fairly well...along side my "Oh my gosh why do we use so many rolls of toilet paper, roll planters" Which are equally as exciting as they hold a good bit of soil and I can just undo the bottom of them and then put them right in the ground!

Not to mention that I am finally getting over my "is it ever going to be spring" bad attitude, and have started amending my soil and am really excited to get my peas in the ground...that is, if Pinetree seeds will EVER SEND ME MY SEEDS THAT I ORDERED OVER A MONTH AGO!

Anyway, this would be my very first "scenes from the trellis" post for the spring! I look forward to many more!

And to all a good spring...