And Ben. His IS too short, but he likes it "flat"--no mean feat when you have curly hair:
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Stroke, Admire, Sniff!
Here's the cute hair:
And Ben. His IS too short, but he likes it "flat"--no mean feat when you have curly hair:
And Ben. His IS too short, but he likes it "flat"--no mean feat when you have curly hair:
back on the wagon
I swear, the longer I go w/o posting, the harder it is
to post. I feel like after all that time I'd better have
something good to offer. I, uh, don't. I have that great
back-of-the legs ache that comes from early spring gardening.
It's the same every year. It's one of the first warm days, I go
out to peek at the flower beds or garden. I think "I'll just pull
up that bit of vinca vine so the tulips are showier" and pretty soon
I'm covered in dirt w/a pile of weeds waist high. That feeling of
just digging your hands down into that cool, moist soil...Demo work
weeding is so rewarding--just rip it ALL out! Take that vinca
vine! And THAT thistle buds! Have at you, wayward
grasses! I swear, I might have to plant mint just for the
satisfaction of ripping it all out later. Underground root
systems are the most fun to remove. But only in spring when the
ground is loose and gardening still new. Come July, I am over
weeding and the plants must fend for themselves. Much like the
children. I'll carry you around for the first couple of years,
but after that you are on your own. Get mommy a drink, will you
dear?
Peanut butter ice cream with fudge and graham cracker crust mixed in is very good.
I took Ben and Lily to get haircuts today. We go to this place in the mall. I'm not wild about it, but Ben is such a nutjob about the cut that I daren't change the venue on him. The woman that cuts his hair has little patience for his crap. At first, that really bothered me. I mean, if the boy is afraid of the clippers, use the scissors. And be fast about it. But now, a year and a half or so later, I feel like she's just what he needs. Matter of fact and unmoved my his cries of "Ow Ow Ow." (I'm not an ogre, btw, it was just the clippers shearing his mop off. I cannot IMAGINE how it could have actually hurt. And he's fine. No blood, two ears.) I got Lily's cut off just below her ears. Crazy cute. She's going to need it. She has made it her mission to make me eat my words about how there's no such thing as Terrible Twos. She's a good one for totally ignoring me or just going the opposite way. A delight in stores. And she's discovered that you don't REALLY have to eat whatever mommy makes. Like I said, she needed this hair cut.
Peanut butter ice cream with fudge and graham cracker crust mixed in is very good.
I took Ben and Lily to get haircuts today. We go to this place in the mall. I'm not wild about it, but Ben is such a nutjob about the cut that I daren't change the venue on him. The woman that cuts his hair has little patience for his crap. At first, that really bothered me. I mean, if the boy is afraid of the clippers, use the scissors. And be fast about it. But now, a year and a half or so later, I feel like she's just what he needs. Matter of fact and unmoved my his cries of "Ow Ow Ow." (I'm not an ogre, btw, it was just the clippers shearing his mop off. I cannot IMAGINE how it could have actually hurt. And he's fine. No blood, two ears.) I got Lily's cut off just below her ears. Crazy cute. She's going to need it. She has made it her mission to make me eat my words about how there's no such thing as Terrible Twos. She's a good one for totally ignoring me or just going the opposite way. A delight in stores. And she's discovered that you don't REALLY have to eat whatever mommy makes. Like I said, she needed this hair cut.
Monday, March 21, 2005
Greetings from Sick Bay
So the night of Julianna's slumber party (which turned
out to only be one kid, which is nice), Lily woke at midnight, puking
her guts out. And she continued to barf, for about 24
hours. Now she has a fever, but isn't barfing as
much. She can warn me that it's coming, now. She
moans, puts her hands to her mouth, shakes her head, and says "Mommy, I
not going to fwow up." Grab the towel. She's been nursing
non-stop. My milk supply has probably been shocked into
over-production and when she gets better I'm going to be engorged...not
looking forward to THAT. Hey, maybe I could get a stomach virus
AND mastitis! Anyway, I'm just glad the barfing has slowed.
I was standing in the bathroom, washing my hands, looking in the mirror
thinking, "In the J.Crew catalog, this shirt looked a lot better.
I suppose there's a reason why they don't model them on saggy-boobed,
vomit covered, sleep deprived matrons..."
Picking up laundry in Ben's room, I found this:
Now I'm wondering: send him to military boarding school or just hire a full-time chaparone? I mean, he's clearly trouble. But he just looks like an angel when he's sleeping. Well, the angel of a pirate, anyway...
Julianna's birthday party was a success. The girls--Ally, Allie, and Rhiannon (whose mom doesn't STRIKE me as a huge Stevie Nicks fan, no witchy scarves or pentagrams, or lace up moccasin boots. Doesn't even smell like patchouli) arrived at 5. While waiting for the pizza, they played Apples to Apples Jr. and a life-sized board game Julianna made up after being inspired by Imaginary Annabelle and then she gave them a "which Only Hearts Club Doll are you most like?" quiz. They all decided they were a mixture of Lily Rose and Taylor Angelique. Julianna disagrees, but hey. We had pizza, and then cake and ice cream (ice cream from Cold Stone, of course--cheesecake w/blueberries, graham cracker crust, and whipped topping and cotton candy w/pop rocks and sprinkles). Here's the sleeping bag cake:
Thenthey played all sorts of games--I even taught them Rock School, which I don't recall involving tears, but what do I know?--until the Allisons' moms came to get them. Next morning, Steve took them to Build-a-Bear. Lucky them, because Steve let them have their way at the store, making for VERY happy little girls (and Ben):
They brought Lily home a kitty in a poodle skirt, which she loved. Poor little monkey. Alrighta. Sleep deprivation has killed my funny, so more later.
Picking up laundry in Ben's room, I found this:
Now I'm wondering: send him to military boarding school or just hire a full-time chaparone? I mean, he's clearly trouble. But he just looks like an angel when he's sleeping. Well, the angel of a pirate, anyway...
Julianna's birthday party was a success. The girls--Ally, Allie, and Rhiannon (whose mom doesn't STRIKE me as a huge Stevie Nicks fan, no witchy scarves or pentagrams, or lace up moccasin boots. Doesn't even smell like patchouli) arrived at 5. While waiting for the pizza, they played Apples to Apples Jr. and a life-sized board game Julianna made up after being inspired by Imaginary Annabelle and then she gave them a "which Only Hearts Club Doll are you most like?" quiz. They all decided they were a mixture of Lily Rose and Taylor Angelique. Julianna disagrees, but hey. We had pizza, and then cake and ice cream (ice cream from Cold Stone, of course--cheesecake w/blueberries, graham cracker crust, and whipped topping and cotton candy w/pop rocks and sprinkles). Here's the sleeping bag cake:
Thenthey played all sorts of games--I even taught them Rock School, which I don't recall involving tears, but what do I know?--until the Allisons' moms came to get them. Next morning, Steve took them to Build-a-Bear. Lucky them, because Steve let them have their way at the store, making for VERY happy little girls (and Ben):
They brought Lily home a kitty in a poodle skirt, which she loved. Poor little monkey. Alrighta. Sleep deprivation has killed my funny, so more later.
Friday, March 18, 2005
Happy Birthday Miss Nanna!
It's happened. I have an 8 year old. Eight
just seems so...Kid. Not little kid, but Kid. I mean, I can
remember being 8, for petesakes. I guess that means that now
she'll start squirreling away every wrong I inflict on her, stewing
over it in her adulthood...
Julianna's a great kid. She gave us the hardest time getting out, but once we got her, she's been pretty easy. Well, by comparison. And okay, she was kind of a hellish infant. And I carried her in a sling until she was 2 and a half and weighed 35 lbs, but still. All in all a great kid. She's smart and kind and beautiful. She has far more concern for others than I've ever modeled, so it's all coming from inside her. She's much more patient with her siblings than I ever was with mine. She tries her best, she is outraged by injustice to others. I'm proud of her. And just look at her:
And back when she was the Only:
Julianna's a great kid. She gave us the hardest time getting out, but once we got her, she's been pretty easy. Well, by comparison. And okay, she was kind of a hellish infant. And I carried her in a sling until she was 2 and a half and weighed 35 lbs, but still. All in all a great kid. She's smart and kind and beautiful. She has far more concern for others than I've ever modeled, so it's all coming from inside her. She's much more patient with her siblings than I ever was with mine. She tries her best, she is outraged by injustice to others. I'm proud of her. And just look at her:
And back when she was the Only:
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
just call me Norm.
Well, Nahm, to keep the accent right. I have conquered the
plaster walls! I can hang bookshelves! So maybe, just
maybe, a year after moving in, I can get my craft room tidied enough
that I can use it. If I do, I'll have the whole downstairs in
non-embarrassing shape. I'm ever so proud of me. I've kept
the other downstairs rooms in a condition I'd allow the UPS guy to see
for a week and a half now. Luckily, he never goes upstairs.
Actually, he usually just dumps the package on my step, rings the bell,
and scurries out to his van. I guess he's heard about the
condition of my house. Or maybe he's timid b/c it's so odd that
we've changed our house number from 6702 to 6 for no apparent
reason. We just like to have a little fun w/our friends in brown,
that's all.
Scrubs is a rerun tonight so I get to watch America's Next Top Model. Yay. Never have reruns made me so happy. And The Starlet the next night b/c Lost is a rerun. My shallow, shallow life. I'll not even bring up how I'm looking forward to Showdog Moms and Dads...
Scrubs is a rerun tonight so I get to watch America's Next Top Model. Yay. Never have reruns made me so happy. And The Starlet the next night b/c Lost is a rerun. My shallow, shallow life. I'll not even bring up how I'm looking forward to Showdog Moms and Dads...
Friday, March 11, 2005
Oh right, this thing...
I'd wandered off for a while. I forget to
post. If I could compose posts in my head and magically send them
here, I'd be set, but having that chip installed just seems creepy.
We took Ben and Lily to the Natural History Museum in Washington DC yesterday. Julianna decided to go to school instead, since she isn't one to enjoy looking at dead things. Ben, on the other hand, is. We had to start by looking for the mummy. I recalled from my younger days that there was a mummy in the Western Civ area, but I feared it had been pulled out of "cultural sensitivity." I remember it as a pretty grotesque, female, mostly unwrapped, in big glass box kind of thing. That, in fact, is gone. There IS a mummy (so they say), but it's all wrapped an covered w/a mask, and not at all gawk worthy. But at least I didn't have to tell Ben there was no mummy. He was more impressed with the bull mummy, anyway. They've also removed what had been MY favorite display as a child--the human sacrifice and trephenation exhibit in the South American cultures area. There had been this big pyramid of skulls and lots of skulls with holes cut in them...Ben would have plotzed. Hmpf. Stupid cultural sensitivity. I want the freak show!
Luckily, the museum is just chock FULL of skeletons of things. My favorite display was a bare tree with 7 or 8 bird skeletons perched in it. What the hell happened THERE? Steve pointed out that all the displays were painted these bright cheery colors to distract us from the fact that there was this skeleton army poised to hop out of the trees and from behind the glass and exact its gory revenge... And why, exactly, is there a human skeleton wrestling with a goat skeleton? Is this how they found the bodies? Dinosaur bones now seem kind of hacknied and no one really cared. The giant sloth skeleton gives one pause, though. I mean:
"When it lived during the late ice age, the adult giant sloth weighed about 3 tons and reached a height of about nine feet on all fours and about 20 feet it stood upright on its back legs. It probably had long, coarse reddish-brown hair and foot-long irretractable claws that forced it to walk on the sides of its hands."
ahem.
As is so often the case, though, the big hit was the Metro. On the way back, we had most of a car to ourselves, so Lily just ran around like a nut. Surprisingly good at keeping her feet under her. Born subway surfer.
It was a really nice day. Since Steve came, we were back to a man-to-man defense instead of my usual...what do they call it in football where you just yell all the time and get a headache and yank one kid while you catch another and mutter curses under your breath and vow never to do this again? email me.
Tonight, Steve and I have four hours to ourselves! I signed the kids up for the Y's "Parents night out". It was too expensive, but they'll take all three for four hours. We're going out for Ethiopian and no one will be whining, "It's too spicy...I don't like beans...What's for desert...Why is that man wearing a dress?" Then we'll...I dunno, sit in silence?
What's bugging me today: Why, on the show "Franklin," does only Franklin get a name? Everyone else "Goose" or "Bear" or whatever. Can there only be one of each sort of animal per town? And why is "Beaver" a girl? That's just so obvious, isn't it? Give us some credit, people. Yeah, that's the stuff I need preserved. When my kids have gone off to college, I need to be able to look back and know that I thought to write down my musings on children's programming.
We took Ben and Lily to the Natural History Museum in Washington DC yesterday. Julianna decided to go to school instead, since she isn't one to enjoy looking at dead things. Ben, on the other hand, is. We had to start by looking for the mummy. I recalled from my younger days that there was a mummy in the Western Civ area, but I feared it had been pulled out of "cultural sensitivity." I remember it as a pretty grotesque, female, mostly unwrapped, in big glass box kind of thing. That, in fact, is gone. There IS a mummy (so they say), but it's all wrapped an covered w/a mask, and not at all gawk worthy. But at least I didn't have to tell Ben there was no mummy. He was more impressed with the bull mummy, anyway. They've also removed what had been MY favorite display as a child--the human sacrifice and trephenation exhibit in the South American cultures area. There had been this big pyramid of skulls and lots of skulls with holes cut in them...Ben would have plotzed. Hmpf. Stupid cultural sensitivity. I want the freak show!
Luckily, the museum is just chock FULL of skeletons of things. My favorite display was a bare tree with 7 or 8 bird skeletons perched in it. What the hell happened THERE? Steve pointed out that all the displays were painted these bright cheery colors to distract us from the fact that there was this skeleton army poised to hop out of the trees and from behind the glass and exact its gory revenge... And why, exactly, is there a human skeleton wrestling with a goat skeleton? Is this how they found the bodies? Dinosaur bones now seem kind of hacknied and no one really cared. The giant sloth skeleton gives one pause, though. I mean:
"When it lived during the late ice age, the adult giant sloth weighed about 3 tons and reached a height of about nine feet on all fours and about 20 feet it stood upright on its back legs. It probably had long, coarse reddish-brown hair and foot-long irretractable claws that forced it to walk on the sides of its hands."
ahem.
As is so often the case, though, the big hit was the Metro. On the way back, we had most of a car to ourselves, so Lily just ran around like a nut. Surprisingly good at keeping her feet under her. Born subway surfer.
It was a really nice day. Since Steve came, we were back to a man-to-man defense instead of my usual...what do they call it in football where you just yell all the time and get a headache and yank one kid while you catch another and mutter curses under your breath and vow never to do this again? email me.
Tonight, Steve and I have four hours to ourselves! I signed the kids up for the Y's "Parents night out". It was too expensive, but they'll take all three for four hours. We're going out for Ethiopian and no one will be whining, "It's too spicy...I don't like beans...What's for desert...Why is that man wearing a dress?" Then we'll...I dunno, sit in silence?
What's bugging me today: Why, on the show "Franklin," does only Franklin get a name? Everyone else "Goose" or "Bear" or whatever. Can there only be one of each sort of animal per town? And why is "Beaver" a girl? That's just so obvious, isn't it? Give us some credit, people. Yeah, that's the stuff I need preserved. When my kids have gone off to college, I need to be able to look back and know that I thought to write down my musings on children's programming.
Friday, March 4, 2005
re-arranging the deck chairs
While my kitchen slowly passed "crack house" and
approached "call the police, we've found his lair," I organized my
spices. My beloved Alton Brown
has his spices velcroed to a door in little tins. I just happened
to receive shipment of delightful multi-colored tins from American Science and Surplus
(oh, I LOVE these guys). And Steve has a labeler! All these
things come together to create The Spice Cabinet of Wonders!
Wednesday, March 2, 2005
Your update
It's Wednesday. Today at Cold Stone, I made my own: Vanilla ice
cream with brownie, peanut butter, fudge sauce, and whipped
topping. Ohhhh maaannnnn.
In other, non-ice cream news, my college buddy Janet came by today w/her 5 mo old, Ian. He's crazy cute with these blue blue eyes. She's a friend I lost contact with about 8 years ago. We'd gone to her house and had a cranky game of Charades and she never called again. I sent cards, wrote letters, nothing but the occasional formal reply. Weird. I continued to dream about her and really regretted losing the friendship. Then, this summer, my friend Stacey saw Janet at a Dickinson reunion and asked her why she was ignoring me. Janet was surprised ('though how she could have been, I don't know), and gave Stacey an email to give me. So she was pregnant and had a new husband and much had transpired in those 8 years. I still don't know why she vanished, but I'm glad to have her back nonetheless. but we will NOT be playing Charades again.
In other, non-ice cream news, my college buddy Janet came by today w/her 5 mo old, Ian. He's crazy cute with these blue blue eyes. She's a friend I lost contact with about 8 years ago. We'd gone to her house and had a cranky game of Charades and she never called again. I sent cards, wrote letters, nothing but the occasional formal reply. Weird. I continued to dream about her and really regretted losing the friendship. Then, this summer, my friend Stacey saw Janet at a Dickinson reunion and asked her why she was ignoring me. Janet was surprised ('though how she could have been, I don't know), and gave Stacey an email to give me. So she was pregnant and had a new husband and much had transpired in those 8 years. I still don't know why she vanished, but I'm glad to have her back nonetheless. but we will NOT be playing Charades again.
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