Potential

Some days have the potential to be inspiring days, filled with exploration and joy; days bursting with goodness and gentleness, much like a 1970's fabric softener commercial. Today may have had that potential, but we didn't pull it off. It started off on a weird note when Zorak woke me by handing me a crying, stinky baby at 7:30, with the admonition, "Here ya go. I've gotta run." What? Where's the alarm clock? Or, barring the alarm, where's the coffee?

I should have cancelled the dentist appointment, stayed home, cooked, and read. Next time my day starts like that, I think I will.

It was a rough one, just weird from start to finish. There were even a few things that were simply too odd to sort out. My personal favorite came tonight, from James. I cannot share the context, (because I was hiding and refused to go see what was going on - Zorak had the helm, and I left him to it). All I know is that the child was in tears when he uttered this phrase. I may never know the rest of the story.:

Well, would you want to lick my tongue?

Come to think of it, we may not want to know...

Miss Emily is firmly entrenched in her 9 month growth spurt. Hiking across the desert in August with nothing but a bag of pork rinds wouldn't leave a person so parched.

Costumes: mostly figured out. I think. The only one that's going to require actual effort on my part tomorrow is John's pirate costume. Gotta dig up the sewing machine (and then find a place to use it... and then figure out what I'm doing.) James plans to re-tread his Superman costume, and our Wonderful Friends have come to the rescue with an outgrown Bob the Builder costume Smidge can wear. I bought a hardhat and yellow spraypaint today to round out the look. Miss Emily is set to be a ladybug.

All's well that ends well, though. We began Farmer Boy tonight, and had lights off around eight-thirty. Everyone was out by nine. James got back up around ten and said he was hungry. I gave him a banana and some warm milk, and we read a bit of Tucket's Travels together while he snacked and we snuggled. Then he brushed his teeth and headed to bed. I don't think he was hungry, really. I think he just didn't like ending the day on a sour note and needed a little more comfort. That's good, I think. I'm glad that comfort is the norm for him.

I'm glad that's the norm for all of us. It ensures that we'll work harder together, as a team, to make tomorrow a better day.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

A meme?

I always think about doing these, but never get around to doing them. But then Becca tagged me, officially, so I thought I'd give it a try. This is a "Ten Random Facts About Me" meme. Are these supposed to be little known things? Or do we shoot for weird things? Or is it just truly random? Ok, ok, I've got the first one:

1. I draw a total blank when asked a relatively vague question.

So here goes. 10 9 Random thoughts about me...

2. Zorak kicks my butt at "Name that Band" - every time. I have some kind of musical turret's that causes me to shout "Bob Seger" at the most inappropriate moments.

3. I didn't learn to dance until I was 22.

4. I studied Italian for two years, in the hope I would one day be called to serve as a missionary in Italy. (Yeah, I know, that's an odd way to go about it. I was twelve. That's about all I can say on that one.)

5. Up until about six months after I'd met Zorak, neither marriage nor motherhood was on my radar. At all. Ever.

6. I can wrestle a stud wall into place, rebuild an engine, and sew a straight line, but I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what to fix for lunch!

7. Although I'm not a fan of some of the technology available, I must admit that I got a little thrill in my knees when I saw the new commercial for a vehicle that will parallel park for you.

8. I used to train to be a powerlifter. (Laney, shush!)

9. I've never smoked pot or taken any illegal narcotic substance.

10. Coffee. Good thing it's legal, right?

Ok, that fruffnsnuffn dagburned dryer buzzer just woke the baby. I tag anyone who hasn't done this yet, but thinks it look like fun! I'll catch y'all later.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Dentists and Cabinets and Bugs, Oh my!

Blogging and heading for bed tonight! The low is supposed to be around 28. We haven't hooked up the propane to the HVAC yet, and the behemoth stove is still in exile in the basement, so it's gonna be a cold one tonight! (We're loving the beautiful days, but this cold snap at night caught us off guard. Thank heaven for space heaters!)

The checkups for the boys went fairly well. No plaque, no tartar, happy gums, clean tongues. Everything that is supposed to be receiving excellent attention and maintenance, is receiving excellent attention and maintenance (yay!) But they STILL all have new cavities! Every. Single. Child. (argh!) WHY is this happening? The dentist is very nice about it, but somehow he comes across as if he's saying, "You really suck at this, ya know." I *know* that's not what he means, but... *sigh* He's convinced it's a diet thing, now.

So we did the routine Q&A:
Do they drink a lot of juice?
Mmm, no. In the past six months, they've had juice maybe, MAYBE twice a week. If that.
Kool-Aid?
No, we don't even buy that. Or sodas. They have soda perhaps twice a month. When we eat out, we all drink water. When they're "thirsty", I give them water. We really drink a lot of water.
Sugar before bed, or drinks at bedtime?
Nope. Nothing passes those lips but water after their teeth are brushed.
Candy?
Unh-uh. I tried the chocolate chips with lessons thing, but that was more work than it was worth and lasted a whopping two days out of the past three years. So, um, no. We never eat taffy, and they don't eat caramels or nougats... (of course, I'll have to fess up on Wednesday that *I* eat all the caramels at night, while the children are sleeping. My diet is deplorable, but theirs is great!)
Processed foods like snack cakes and cookies?
Uh, wheat allergy means any cakes and cookies we do eat are homemade and generally free of a lot of the gunk. No high-fructose corn syrup. WAY less sugar than store-bought things.

Really, we're a LOT better than my mother was with me! *grin*

They're already little flossing maniacs. The teeth are clean, just... weak? We're going to add a third brushing to our daily routine: a light brushing with baking soda after lunch. And the boys readily agreed to a total moratorium on any and all junk food from now until their next checkups (although Zorak kindly mentioned certain upcoming holidays, so that will need to be renegotiated a bit). Perhaps that will work.

In the meantime, poor Smidge has a referral to a pediatric specialist. His front teeth overlap slightly on the edges, and the dentist said there is decay at each spot where the teeth rest against each other. He'd like to put crowns on all four front teeth. (I don't know that we're going to follow that recommendation. Figure we'll talk with the specialist first and go from there.) It breaks my heart, and we feel like absolute loser parents for this, but when we stand back and look objectively... we can't really find anything obvious that's causing it. Maybe we need to take them in for a blood workup? Would a blood serum calcium deficiency cause this kind of problem? Anybody else with good diet and hygiene still run into dental problems in their little ones?

After the lengthy visit, we hit the library, where we returned our books for the THIRD TIME IN A ROW without late fines! WOOHOO, we're on a roll! Maybe someday soon John will stop referring to our visits as "renting" books from the library. ;-) All stocked up for the week with some wonderful reads!

Then, as a treat for a day well-executed, we headed to Cook's Natural Science Museum. It's a little place, but just the right size when you're eight and six and three. Very friendly staff. Incredibly diverse collection. They have an historic mousetrap collection, insects from around the world, aquatic and regional critters... the ladies there were very knowledgable and shared tons of interesting information with the boys. The boys had a delightful time exploring the many hands-on exhibits and discussing the interesting, detailed displays. I think this will be one of our regular hot spots for a while. Good way to enjoy the afternoon.

We did meet with Patient Mr. Cabinet Guy. He's so... patient. He couldn't really answer our concern about putting the Swiss Army Cabinet against a wall. Said he's done it before, and hasn't heard any complaints, but acknowledged that people don't always complain to the salesman or managers when they're unhappy. He'd put in a few calls, but didn't get any satisfactory information. So, we'll have to swing by Lowe's (because Home Depot does not have any of the tall cabinets on display other than one lone, empty pantry) to see what's up with the angles and whether it's worth trying to make it fit. In case it's a no-go, though, Patient Mr. Cabinet Guy did help us design two other very feasible options, both of which would move the microwave from atop the fridge. Zorak's eyes twinkled, and he obviously preferred both of those options to the Swiss Army Cabinet. (Something about balancing scalding leftovers above your head with small children darting between your feet as if on a dare... makes him nervous.) So, we'll see. Like I told the boys, now Mommy and Daddy have to go sit and stare at one another until one of us comes up with an answer.

And Miss Emily? She was a TROOPER today. Granted, she passed out every time we got back in the car, so she was a little dazed for the first half hour at each stop. But she was just her normal, happy, clapping, giggling little self. She's like carrying around a ball of sunshine wherever we go. Gotta love that!

Well, I can't feel my fingers now, so I'm going to go before the typos get too bad to correct.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

General Stuff

OH yeah, after the grandfather comment from earlier in the week, Zorak got carded for beer at the market yesterday! I'd forgotten about that. (Although I did laugh. Quite heartily.) So, go figure. Is he eighteen... or eighty? Dun-da-daaa! He's Chameleon Man!

Today, we worked. We primed and cleaned and moved. We chopped and sorted and stacked. We changed our minds a hundredtybillion times (maybe more) about the Swiss Army Cabinet. We hunted down Patient Mr. Cabinet Man, who has moved to another store and still can't get away from us. (OK, it was a promotion and he gets to work M-F now, rather than "retail hours". I'm pretty sure it wasn't us. Not entirely.) We'll meet with him tomorrow and order us a cabinet of some kind! Wahoo!

Today I burned, er, baked not one loaf of bread, but three, and three batches of cinnamon rolls. Sunday, it turns out, is not a good baking day for me. Most of it was edible. The upside to today's baking fiasco is that we will have bread pudding for breakfast tomorrow, because that's what we do with the failed wheat-free loaves.

The wheat-free loaf would have turned out perfectly, had any one of the six of us in this house had heard the timer beep. Of course, that would have saved the bread that was already in the oven, as well. But, ah, no. And so, two loaves burnt and one loaf overproofed to the point of reaching critical mass and imploding. Zorak has already eaten most of one of the whole wheat loaves I made. Maybe it's a sympathy play. Or one of KathyJo's euphemisms. The cinnamon rolls, actually, weren't "burnt", but they didn't get removed from the muffin tins in time and what was supposed to be the caramel glaze cooled into... a praline-style Gorilla Glue. Ick.

Tomorrow we have three, possibly four, dental appointments. At nine in the morning. I tried to schedule for a Friday so Zorak could go with us, but the office is no longer open on Fridays. Don't know what's up with that, but considering the amount of business they get from our family, I'm thinkin' they could open on Friday, see us all, close up shop as we leave, and make out like bandits. Maybe I'll talk to them about that tomorrow. ;-)

And so, to bed. Tomorrow's going to come way too early!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Kind of different...

This has been the week for unexpected comments from strangers! None of them have been bad, per se, just... odd.

Comment #1:
While we were eating out last week, Zorak noticed that a couple of older, grandmotherly types were eyeballing the baby. Miss Emily was in good form, and so he took her over to say hello (much to the delight of said eyeballers). It seemed like such a routine exchange of pleasantries and reminiscences, until one of the ladies asked Zorak, "Are these all your grandchildren?"

*blink* *blink*

"What?"

"Your grandchildren, are they all yours?"

BWAAHAAHAAAA!!! (I can laugh. It wasn't me. This time.)

Maybe it's the beard.

Comment #2:
Then today, we were at the mall, trying to track down comforters for the boys. We paused at a stall which displayed blinking things. No, we didn't expect to find blankets there, but those lights -- they drew James like a staticky television will draw an unsuspecting little blonde girl. So, as he's staring into the light, the gentleman manning the booth and I struck up a conversation. All seems normal, when out of nowhere, he says, "Where are you from?"

(Side note: I hate this question. Around here, people mean, "Did you travel all the way from Priceville, or are you from here in town?" But this guy wasn't from here, his accent was faintly Mediterranean, with a bit of an Indian lilt to it. So I wasn't sure if he meant here-here, or around-here, here...)

In going with our Forever Home theme (This Is Home), I said we were from our little town. He cocked his head and asked, very slowly, the way some people will do when they think you're not quite proficient with the language, "But where are you from?"

Oh, well, we're from New Mexico. *smile* (OK, answered that one without looking like too much of an idiot. Meanwhile, James is still staring intently at the lights.)

But no, again with the question. This time, a bit more slowly. I just stared at him, because, frankly, I was no longer certain I understood his question properly. Finally, he says, "You're not European?"

When my laughter died down a bit, he explained that he thought for sure we were from the Netherlands, or perhaps Germany. Nothing he could pin down. We just "had that feel" about us.

Of course, he could have been from Texas, I guess. In the end, it doesn't really matter where we're from, as long as we can talk and visit and enjoy the interactions we have from day to day. And both conversations turned into delightful ones, in spite of their odd beginnings. I hope you have some delightful surprises in store for you this week!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Industrious Days

(A grouchy post)

This weekend is The Weekend of Preparation. We're not actually preparing for anything, but it makes us more productive if we have a goal. We've gone over all the little things that need doing - some obvious, like finishing the trim painting, others not so obvious until, say, it rains... that's like a big, soggy highlighter from God, there. Or the dental work I thought I could put off a while, until tonight. Anyway, I doubt we'll end up with a floor before Christmas; there are simply too many other pressing obligations. But that's okay. I'm glad we can take care of these things, and that's forward motion. I just asked that we take this weekend to get (and, by affiliation of said request, keep) the house "floor ready". You know, like normal people live.

I'm tired of the state of disarray, to be honest. Yes, this is a construction zone, but it's also our home. I'm tired of tripping over a shop-vac in my kitchen (I do move it, but it makes it way "home" while I'm not looking). I'm tired of the baby teething on the reversible screwdriver bits (just how many of those do we have, anyway?) I'm tired of not being able to scrub what floor we do have because it takes a full day to clear the junk up off of it before we can even get to the sweeping and vacuuming. And I won't even go into the shoes... those shoes that turn up everywhere... they're like the voices in the head of an Alfred Hitchcock antagonist.

I do what I can, but it's not enough. And I refuse to be a nag about this stuff - nagging won't help anymore than setting it on fire does. (Trust me.) But, as Zorak is fond of pointing out (sometimes at the most inopportune moments), I do have "control issues". So, going against my own grain in this endeavor is making me subtly and unpredictably grouchy. Well, perhaps not so subtly.

So today we buckled down and got to work. It was productive:

* School Room - sanded, textured, caulked and vacuumed check
* Boys Room - scoured and prepped for curtains and hanging IKEA thingies check
* Nursery - ... um, didn't get around to the nursery
* Basement - I don't even ask anymore, but I heard noises that sounded too big to be mice, and there are more boxes in the foyer, so I'm guessing something was done on that front check
* Clutter -
- library books rounded up check
- paper from the Alter of Incoming Bills cleared out check
- baby clothes sorted for washing (this time it's the baby boy clothes) check
* Pantry - actually rethinking the pantry option, but we will order something this week. Oh, yes, we will. check (In the meantime, I resorted and organized the kitchen bookshelf/pantry again, so small check on that one.)
* Clean off that hillbilly front porch! check

Now that the boys' windows are clean on the inside, it's obvious that tomorrow, I need to tackle the storm windows. They need to be removed, cleaned, repaired and put back up. New screens. Clean and lubricate the tracks. General happy homeowner stuff. Should be good. Should feel productive. There's just nothing like a frenzied cleaning binge to cure what ails ya.


Which brings me to the things that make me smile:
We need to buy James new winter jammies, as he insists on growing out of last year's clothes every. single. year. :-)
The boys are very excited about the school room.
Zorak is very excited about building bookshelves for the school room.
Emily is very excited about everything. She does "yay", and "wolf puppy" and many other things that take me back to the other children's infant years.

And that makes me very thankful - for the helpful, generous-hearted 8 year old; for the loving, doting 6 year old; for the delightful, happy 3 year old; for the sweet and exuberant 9 month old. And perhaps most especially, even when I don't feel like it, thankful for the dedicated, somewhat surly but always loving... erm, older one.

Autumn Recipe Tag

Mere, who regularly makes me smile, makes me think, keeps me alternately laughing so hard I cry, and standing in awe of her creativity (and motivation - definitely the motivation part), and is generally just thoroughly enjoyable to read, posted one of her favorite fall recipes when she heard rumors of autumnal weather reaching her neck of the woods. They are now well-fed, and shedding sweaters by ten AM. (Never listen to rumors spread by weathermen!)

Hmmm, let's tag everybody and put together the most delicious Autumn Recipe Collection!

Andie has inadvertently started the ball rolling with her Royal Thanksgiving Recipe: Pumpkin Pie Fit For a Queen.

It doesn't take much - just one recipe. One thin index card. Go on, try it. Post your favorite autumn recipe here, or post it on your blog and let us know here so we can all feast in the fall!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

(I'll figure out what to add later today. Right now I've got to go look productive.)

GAH!! I'm a heel.

Little did I know how prophetic my words were when I said the bug day would probably be better than the farm field trip. Today was the deadline to pay to reserve our spot (yes, I know, nothing like the last minute for getting things done). I'd made arrangements to just swing payment by while we were in town, since this is our "goin' to town day". Everything was going along smoothly.

Well, we got out the door with everyone and everything - loaves of bread for Mr. Ward and Miss Terry, Pioneer Club handbooks, library books, grocery list... everything except the directions, and phone number of the lady I was supposed to deliver the payment to. And I didn't know her last name. If we hadn't been TO town by the time I realized my mistake, I'd have gone back. But that's, what, $50 in gas? *sigh* I feel like a real heel, and am not sure how I'm going to explain it to the boys. Well, I'll just be honest, yes, but I'm going to feel even worse before it's all over. And the boys are going to be so disappointed.

OK, it's after eleven. We got home twenty minutes ago, and the kids are now down, except for Miss Emily. It's been a very long day, and tomorrow probably won't be terribly perky. So I'm going to get her down and see about making plans to do something solo on the farm field trip end. I know I can't make it right, but maybe I'll be able to make it at least a little better.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

The Great Acorn Hunt

This was, hands down, a great day. I don't know why we don't do things like this more often. (Well, I do - it's been too hot until just recently, and we're just now limbering up from our summer sloth.) Anyway, this was probably better than the upcoming farm pumpkin thing we're doing next week. I'm telling ya, a cheap hammer and a little direction will keep them occupied, learning, and working together for h-o-u-r-s.

The boys were first struck by the colors we found:

PURPLE!














GREEN!

FLOWERS!

(Short attention span. But, really, they were lovely flowers.)

I started us off with a known healthy nut. As a... um, control sample. Yeah.

The boys, however, went straight for the good stuff. And I use that term loosely...

(Not a clue why 2 out of 3 are not wearing shirts... come to think of it, they had shirts on when they went out. Huh. Weird.)

And their efforts were rewarded...

That photo is blurry b/c it's difficult to hold still with the stoopid dog pulling on my leg. There were many, many more like this big guy, but this one was, by far, the biggest. It was gross.

Meanwhile, Miss Emily and I hung out on our bamboo mat at the top of the hill and enjoyed the beautiful leaves. The dog, not so much. But the leaves were nice.



Kiss those babies!
~Dy

The Ew, er, Wow Factor

When you are eight or six or three, this is just a great way to spend an overcast autumn day...

It all started, as many things do when you have small children, with a discussion of maggots. What are they? Where'd they come from? How'd they get in the house? (Not my house, but that's only due to the butt-puckering fits I throw when I find smuggled "goodies" stashed in the recesses of closets.) Hmmm... a mystery!

Then someone shared a link... Acorn Larvae.

Well, you can guess what we've been doing since breakfast! The boys sought out nuts while the bread pudding baked. We ate, did math, history and Latin, and then, like three small shots, they were outta here. (I am stunned they did as much work as they did, truthfully.)

The stunning success factor rendered by dumping the nuts in water first (floaters are, or have been, inhabited) makes for a sensational day of learning. Yes, indeed.

I've got photos. I'll upload them when I'm not feeling quite so queasy... They're still at it. I can hear them, now. "This one's even BIGGER!" "Wow, there are two in this one." "Ewww, what's it doing?"

I'll haul them in for a snack here in a bit, and as always, kiss those babies (after they've washed up, right?)

Dy

Lesson Recap

We've begun week 5 of Latin for Children, which is a review week. Therefore, you get a wrap up of our lessons over the past month. We are making steady, forward motion in most areas, and for that, I'm thankful. Besides, what better time to review than during a period of absolutely no progress at all?

LfC: so far, so good. The boys have learned the first declension, two maxims, a ton of vocabulary, how to identify which nouns belong to the first declension, and several grammar chants. They "get" inflection. They're now able to spot the different cases, and decline nouns on demand. The vocabulary moves more quickly than we've been accustomed to before, but they don't seem to mind (or notice - but I'm not going to be the one to point it out). They look forward to doing Latin, which is good, considering it's a daily part of our lessons.

On the daily front, we'll segue into Math. James has moved his work from paper to the white board for now, and we've delayed the move into Delta for a bit. His housekeeping skills aren't what they need to be for him to be quick and comfortable with the multiple digit multiplication, so we decided to linger and loiter a bit until we can iron those kinks out. Graph paper helps quite a bit, but right now it's a focus thing, and the white board seems to be big enough to block out any distractions. *grin* He's got the technical aspects of it, so now we're working on, like I said, the housekeeping. We'll work on the board a bit longer, then move back to graph paper, and then into the next book. He still does his peripheral math for fun, and continues to learn, even as we hover a bit. Yet another reason we love homeschooling: what they need, how they need it.

John is in Alpha now, moving quickly through the review portion of the first few chapters. We review telling time daily with a manipulative clock (it's one we picked up at the Dollar Store, not related to the MUS materials), with his goal being his very own wristwatch for Christmas. He's pretty psyched over the "serious study" aspect of Alpha, compared with the "experiment and explore" tone of Primer. Primer was absolutely worth the initial investments for him (both in time and money), but I think he feels like he's a *real student* now, and he loves that.

History... mmm, honestly, I need to sit down, print out all the student pages, buy the audio tapes, stock up on craft crap, and throw a Story of the World, Vol. I Weekend Bash with the kids. I had hoped to be finished with that book by now and deeply enmeshed in Famous Men of Rome. We're so not there. Our tried-and-true method of reading History during lunch has fizzled with the repeated addition of children to the mix. Smidge is far too busy cracking jokes, or making bodily function noises for my voice to be heard over the ensuing din. Miss Emily is far too much fun to watch and interact with, as well. So when the boys are not laughing at Smidge's antics, they're staging their own open mike night in the hope of making Miss Emily laugh. I'm going to have to regroup and try something else. History should be something engaging, not something your mother shouts at you over her Fritos and coffee. This is where my end of the deal kicks into high gear, and I'll figure out something. Or die trying. What we do get through, they "get", and it's sticking. That's a good place to start. Now I just have to find a way to quiet the roar enough to get through more of it, more efficiently.

Science is going quite well. We're actually doing the notebook pages and narrations regularly, although we could stand to do more experiments. With a house full of boys, though, I suspect we could do experiments daily and they'd still think we should be doing more (more, MORE!!!) We spend computer time each week on astronomy sites, which has added not only a little more interest to the lessons, but the opportunity for the boys to learn some new skills on the computer, as well. In the spirit of using the resources available, I'm hoping to cap our study of astronomy with a full-scale trip to the Marshall Space Flight Center up in Huntsville. In the meantime, though, we have plans to blow up a planet between Mars and Jupiter to see if we can create an asteroid belt.

We've enjoyed studying a bit of Baroque in our music studies this month, and the boys seem to have found the joy of Domenico Scarlatti. (And here, my inner self does a little happy dance. I've always loved this stuff, and it is fun to watch their faces as they listen. Sometimes they'll make up stories to go along with the music. Other times, they'll "hush" one another and just listen...) I'd like to supplement our studies with more hands-on material. If anyone has any recommendations, I'd love to hear them.

The rest of our studies we slip in through our reading. Tons of reading, but I'll have to to a Reading Roundup in a separate post. It's time to finish the evening chores and rest up for tomorrow.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

"You Owe Me"

This news echoes across the kitchen, from my beloved's mouth, as I'm standing by the kitchen, peering at him over the mounds of dirty dishes. I shout back (because we can't get within five feet of one another due to the entire contents of the cabinet under the sink being strewn about the floor), "Shyah. For what?" He smirks. (This usually indicates that he totally has me, and he knows it.) "For not having company."

OK, you know how sometimes your liver rebels against your body and tries to escape through your mouth? Yeah, that happened. I didn't even bother to scan the terrain: archaeological dig in the kitchen, yard sale-style clothing piles in the hallway (14 loads - it adds up when you're wringing it out by hand, okay?), the mess-hall-mid-air-raid decor in the dining room, and the children strung over random pieces of furniture.

"Dear. God. No. WHO would want to come over? NOW? No. Tell me they're not coming." (I don't even know who "they" are, but I don't want "them" here right now. And yes, he totally has me on this one.)

"I explained that we'd have to switch from renovation mode to cleaning mode, and that I really don't want to. Actually, I explained that you'd feel compelled to and would make me do it."

OK. I'm good with that. I'll take the heat. So, who was it?

My friend with the uber tidy wife and no kids whose home is always immaculate. (That's not actually how he put it - he just told me their names, but that's what the translation reads in my head.)

I owe him more than he knows...

The dishwasher finally went into place, and doesn't leak. We're working it hard now. Andie, thanks for removing the curses. I cannot tell you how much I appreciated that. I kept offering to wash the dishes after each meal, and he kept saying, "No, no, it's just about in... damn... ok, I've got to run to town one more time. THEN it'll be ready. Just hang on." And so, the dishes piled up, and up, and up. But now, they are gone. And we have a new soldering iron. Yay!

And, thanks to the motivating power of gut-wrenching fear, the kitchen is now just about spotless. Feels so good. I can almost feel the new floor beneath my feet (almost, mostly what I feel is splinters, so I just stand very still and imagine). We made some serious headway, and that feels really quite good.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

10:57:46

Had to mark the time, as this was a long one. I'm now officially no longer "at work", per se, just on-call. There's still the wash to finish up, the kitchen to tidy, and some planning to do, but the children are, finally, all down.

(And then, at 11:54, I was called back on duty and didn't get to finish the post - it's now Sunday and here we are...)

Today Yesterday, we didn't do much of anything, really. It was one of those deeply normal days that might cause me some blogging angst, but in reality, soothe the soul and uplift the spirit. I actually uttered a sigh of exhaustion, er, relief at the end of it all. It was nice. We hung out, watching cartoons, eating cold cereal, playing with the dog. We made Smidge put on a shirt because just looking at him made the rest of us cold. We ran errands: Home Depot, Lowe's, Wal-Mart. We looked at flooring. We got updated quotes on the Swiss Army Cabinet. We stopped at our favorite buffet and ate until we couldn't move.

The big news: we picked up a dishwasher. In-stock. On sale. Happy day. Zorak is installing it as I type, but has not-so-subtly requested that I not take photos and blog it.

The bad news: I've got to call Sears on Monday because our washing machine seems to have work ethic issues. I'm not expecting it to do 16 pairs of jeans, or a king size comforter. I'd be happy if it would spin out one queen sheet (not the set, just one. sheet. which it won't do, as I learned during last week's bedding exchange marathon), or even two pairs of jeans. But no. Not gonna spin the water out, not for a million bucks. Well, no, I'm sure if I stuck a million bucks in there, it'd work just fine and probably catch all of it in the handy-dandy filter which I cannot access. But since it's still under warranty, I refuse to knock off a bank to get my washer to spin. So, we'll call in Mr. Repair Man and see if he can convince it to pull its fair share around here. I'm tired of hand-wringing the wash before putting it in the dryer. I'm going to ask him to neuter the buzzer while he's in there, too.

This morning, I saw that Miss Andie has pulled it off - a Thomas cake for the little guy's birthday!! It's gorgeous! WOOHOO! Way to go! Head on over, check it out, and give wee Leo some big birthday greetings.

And now, I've got a kitchen to put back together, and all that laundry and planning I was going to do last night. My mother would not believe I'm doing this and loving it.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Just in case...

Just in case I was going a little too easy on myself over this whole Halloween preparation (or lack of) thing...

And just in case I was living (rather blissfully) in denial about Thanksgiving...

Somebody just had to go and mention Christmas (only 73 days left!).

Then someone else came to the rescue with a planner. A free planner. Oh, that's a good idea! YES. I like lists. I like planning things. I like free. So I opened the site to see...

Week #1 - List Week Oct 3- 8

...that I'm already behind.

Oh, well.

For those who might enjoy some festive lists to lose for the holidays, there's Organized Christmas. (How wrong is that?)

I'll print them out. And I'll lose them. And I'll feel quite in the holiday spirit about the whole thing. We go with the flow around here. And did you know Advent calendars are a LOT of fun when you just eat the whole thing on Christmas Eve while you read the story in one shot? Yeah, it's not all bad.

The one thing we definitely would like to do this year is get Christmas cards out. Before New Year's. Preferably before Christmas, but we're starting slowly. Last year, we had such lovely cards adorning the bare studs in the living room - they made the Forever Home feel very much like Home, even when it was still, technically, an uninhabitable shack. And something that can brighten a room that much, well, it's something we'd like to share.

Besides, we're always up for an attempt to get all four children pointing the same direction at once, and smiling. Or at least not crying. One at a time, it's easy...



Even two at a time can be done...



But we've yet to accomplish anything with the whole gang...



I wonder how much work it would take to make a composite...

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Life

Because I am tired.

Because it's late.

And because this was too good not to share.






Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Wild Wednesday!

This has SO not been my week for Domestic Achievement. It has, however, been a wonderful hands-on lesson in paying attention to details.

Let's ignore the dishes (no, really, please ignore them...), and even the weird piles of paper that would indicate there are two elderly, blind, compulsive packrats residing somewhere in the front of the house. It goes far deeper than that.

I made rice pancakes today. That was my first time actually making the recipe. I've tried several times, but always forget, when I'm making rice for supper, than I plan to use the leftovers for pancakes and, well, I'm not certain the boys would go for garlic or cumin pancakes. So, I whipped up a batch today and it was a little... thin. Disturbingly thin, to be honest. I rechecked the recipe. It did say, "Whisk until you have a light and creamy batter." Hmm, ok, well, it was creamy and, yes, certainly "light". I scooped some out and slapped it onto the griddle. And it ran EVERYWHERE. Suddenly, rather than pancakes, I was whipping up fried milk and eggs with rice bits. Interesting, but not what I was hoping for. (Upon closer scrutiny of the recipe, I realized I'd left out a cup and a half of flour. Ohhhh! Okay. Makes much more sense now.)

Made Magic Milk Shakes yesterday. Aside from the fact that our blender just isn't big enough (the note in the recipe said the blender "should be about 3/4 full now", at which point, I was stuffing things in through the hole in the lid b/c there was no more room), the milkshakes didn't look a bit like anything Frosty-like. I mean, they were good, but not... right. It wasn't until later than night, while sharing the recipe with LB that I realized I'd completely spaced the powdered milk component of the recipe.

The clean, shiny change, Snickers wrappers, and compass I washed, along with the jeans...

The windows (that's all I can bring myself to say on that point)...

Where has the routine gone? The focus? The order? (Quit sniggling, there was some, at some point. I know there was.) The joy of the routine, focus and order?

OK, maybe there wasn't joy in it. But there's certainly no joy in the runny pancakes and ruined laundry, either. (The milkshakes, nobody complained about, so they don't count, not entirely.)

And then, when the pupil is ready and all that jazz... on the radio, I heard a bit about children and obedience. The phrase was "comply quickly, sweetly, completely". The station blitzed out right after that, but that's okay. I heard what I needed to. I seldom obey quickly, sweetly, completely. Good place to start.

That whole "task at hand" thing? Yeah, a little attention to detail would have left last week - blood, puke, and all - running much more smoothly.

Someone sent me an encouraging email about things I needed encouraging about.

Bloggers blogged about things that encouraged me, and strengthened my resolve to step out of the mental cellar, where, as I said to a friend earlier today, I'd fallen into the vats of whine I keep down there, to come on up and Get Doin'. Do it quickly, sweetly, completely. Stick to the task at hand. Find the joy in the mundane, the joy in the incredibly small setbacks. Wiggle those toes and watch the baby giggle. Read one more book. Sing while we wash the dishes. Suck it up while I pay the bills. Be a better steward of the money I've been entrusted with to manage our home. Fix lunch for Zorak more consistently. (Did I used to put notes in his lunches? Why did I stop? I still feel the same way, but it doesn't do him any good if I don't let him know.)

Yeah.

Details.

Things like that.

And I'm gonna kiss my babies just a little bit more, too.
~Dy

It wasn't Bob

Wow, you guys are creative! I love the suggestions and ideas. Maybe we could make a SpongeBob cake for Zorak's birthday next year. He likes Spongebob.

The uncanny resemblance to Bob the Tomato is probably residual from that being our first themed cake. We've done Bob and Larry twice. This picture isn't so great, but it's definitely the eyes. LOL. (The only good, head-on shot we have wasn't digital, and it's in a box somewhere. Pardon the flaming teeth.)



Have any of you ever read Matt Groening's books? Or have I completely underestimated the literary breadth of my audience? If so, I apologize. Truly. (If so, I am also quite thoroughly outed now, and probably shunned from making any book reviews ever.) However that may play out, though, we just can't look at the smokestack (seen here in a behind-the-scenes shot) ~



...and not see the one-eared rabbit, Bongo, from Groening's Life in Hell series of comics. (They're irreverent, somewhat baudy, and... shamelessly funny. But may not be suitable for some viewers reading over shoulders, if you know what I mean.) So, there you have it - not Bob. Definitely not Bob. And as far as Smidge knows that was all Thomas.

The things we keep to ourselves for the sake of our children, huh? ;-)

Dy

Belated Birthday Photos

Now that our printer issues have been mostly resolved (currently, everything is sitting smack in the middle of the room, and the cords make a lovely clothesline booby-trap for unsuspecting children... so, not *all* issues, obviously), I could upload photos from, oh, the beginning of September.

So, without further ado, here's Smidge's birthday. Three! He's three! (And still hooked on Thomas, the crack-dealing toddler toy...)


"Daddy made this cake just for me!" He was so happy, he really needed no other gift. This cake was everything he could have hoped for.



And here's Smidge, at the tail end of the day, reading a book with his "Me-wah", who has been a wonderful addition to the family.


(The cake was made from a 9X13 rectangle and a 4" circle cake. The smokestack is taken from the bottom of the rectangle. To Smidge, this will always be a "Thomas cake", but we just can't look at it without seeing another cartoon character. Can you see him?)

And, just for fun, a gratuitous babies shot:



Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Boats and Boys

The boys made miniature catamarans today...





...and sailed them across the makeshift "sea" in the front yard.





What a great way to blow five hours on a Sunday afternoon!



Kiss those babies!
~Dy

a rather theatrical death

Our dishwasher died last night. It created a pond in the kitchen so it could pull an Ophelia. *sigh* It's not worth repairing, as we'd been limping it along for a while (we didn't buy this one, we inherited it).

On the up side, though, when we installed the cabinets, we put them on rails so that -a- the floor would be level and -b- we could install the wood floor under the front edge of the cabinets and not have to use quarter round trim. Bonus: when the dishwasher floods the kitchen, the cabinets don't get wet! YAY!

We're out of cash for a dishwasher just now, so it looks like we'll be handwashing for a while. In the meantime, anybody have a recommendation for relatively low-end dishwasher they love? (We're not in the market for a Miele or Bosch - this is going to be a Lowe's, Home Depot or Sears type purchase.)

Dy