camera woes

Her latest favorite toy


tired girl

and then.... my camera wouldn't focus anymore! I'll try to get more pics later today.

Food blogs

A very kind lady I've had the opportunity to get to know over the 'net has a couple of blogs!

I wanted to share them with you and highlight a quote she used yesterday from President Kimball. "Let us get our instruments tightly strung and our melodies sweetly sung. Let us not die with our music still in us."

Ah, what a breath of fresh air!

Marie's Muses

A Year From Oak Cottage

Marie is a wonderful person, older, personal chef on an estate, and LDS. Don't look there for much in the way of diet food though. ;) You know those British grandma's and their delicious cooking!

Another way to spend money

Beads on Amazon.

And for very good prices as well!

::sigh::

The bead shops around here are so very expensive and the shipping for these is actually going to be cheaper than driving to the next city over to find Michael's.

Also, question for all those moms out there...
Is there some sort of forumla to be following regarding what consitutes a complete wardrobe for any given child? I'm sure it depends a lot on how hard the kid is on clothes and how quickly and consistently I can get them back into their drawers. What guidelines do you follow?

Tag Sound Bites

The other day I was cubing some squash.

Me: "Darn it! I cut my finger!"
Tag: "Off?"

The thing that was a little spooky was how calmly he asked.

Today Pebbles bit him on the rear end. She's 2 now and has some darn sharp teeth.

After examining the wound Tag lamented: "My bottom hurts so bad! Now I can't use it any more!"

We did NOT explore that conversation in depth.

Getting the hang of it

It starts with that sort of grimace they're born with. Then it evolves into the gas grin. After a while, the gas grin happens even while they're awake. Eventually, and after much parental encouragement, they do it -- that first little smile that mom and dad just go crazy over. The crinkley eyes, that toothless mouth, maybe even a little squeak, are all part of a beginning peek into the wonderful personality your little one is slowly unwrapping and developing.

I know someone whose child is having one slight physical difficulty. This small boy is absolutely gorgeous and otherwise developmentally perfect and she obviously adores him. When she related her son's one imperfection I recalled my anxiety over Princess when I first noticed her tied tongue, and Tag with his whole menagerie of difficulties (is the opposite of "minutiae" a "gigutiae"?), then Pebbles who only manifested a couple of tiny blips. Each time I wondered if it was my fault and was almost breathless with guilt until each problem slowly became a not-problem.

Then comes Miss Frieda. She has no apparent blips at all. Not one. Well, ok, a brief bout of jaundice but that's it. So I naturally kept an eagle eye on her, waiting for the other shoe to drop. There's one thing I pass on to my children without fail and that'd be mortality with it's inherent imperfections.

The weeks passed and nothing came up. She had all of the learning curve issues of someone getting used to being in an itty, weak, immature body but nothing we couldn't handle. She even sleeps through the night!

Then one day it hit me. My 7 week old baby didn't smile. Or look at me. She was far more interested in lights or colors or a passing breeze or burping to look at me. My heart crumpled as visions of autism, therapy, and a mentally impaired adult child living with me for the rest of her life ran with scissors through my thoughts. Of course, when one is looking for trouble one must find it, hey?

Man, after I demanded his input on my concerns, said she's fine. She's just taking her time and that's ok. I doubled my efforts at socializing with her and, after Man had gone to bed and while Frieda was still bright-eyed at 2230 hours I even resorted to embarrassing things... things I always secretly made fun of other parents for doing. Things like... monkey noises, and sort of "zoop, zoop, zoop!" noises. Nothing worked to get her to smile though she'd occasionally stare at me with her mouth in a little "o", looking at me like I'd gone nuts. Which I guess I had.

A couple of weeks later she finally cracked her first real smile. And who'd she do it for? Her father who had not gone crazy, thankyouveddymuch. She'll now sort of half grin at me occasionally while staring at my face. I think she's holding out to get more stupid human tricks from her old mom.

Sneaky little thing.

So now she looks into our faces and smiles and is otherwise perfect and easy and calm.

I wonder if she's going to be a difficult teenager.

Just kidding!!! I'll let the trouble manifest itself without hunting it out.

Defensiveness

I'm guilty as charged. Some mild language in the below link.

Link.

Keep in mind, Men, that this lady is specifically addressing women who have this problem. So, you can sit back and laugh while [I] writhe in my seat a bit. Yeah.

Time for pics!

Princess and the Pebble:

Frieda in a cute dress from a friend.

Mr. Tag in the early morning. He's cuddled in a warm blanket. These wood floors are soooo cold in the morning.

My nameless friends in passing

We've all heard some form of musing or another on how looking into other cars as you drive along is akin to observing a fishbowl, or a snapshot of someone's life, or peeking into one deceptively simple moment among the whole breath taking parade of moments that make up the mercurial managerie of resume items we'll be presenting in the hereafter.

I love it when those snapshots and moments collide. I mean, not the cars. But what makes that moment something shared rather than merely passing? A turn signal doesn't count as personal communication (though I do consider it a form of vital communication, certainly) and I wouldn't count "driver's sign language" as something I choose to take personally.

Taking Princess to school has opened my eyes to a new sort of interpersonal road experience. I see the same parents almost every day going to and from the school. I know the ones who walk, the ones who drive vans, the ones who can still fit their families into sedans, the ones who bring their bikes and either a tandem attachment or a little house on wheels where the spawn may rest and watch the world go by. There are also those picking up kids for friends, the kids who depart on buses, and kids who stay late for parents unable to come right away on a consistent basis, and people who decide to bring along the furrier members of the clan.

In the morning I know who is going to barrel out of the parking lot because, once again, s/he's late for something. I also know who is going to quickly and quietly drop off the kid, and who is going to stay in the drop off lane chatting. I'm familiar with all their bumper stickers, stickers to get on Post, window stickers, Baby on Board signs, little flags on their bike carriers, and license plates from all over the country (I've personally seen Alaska, Hawaii, Maine, and Florida all in the same parking lot).

But this morning I had the opportunity to wait a bit while someone went around the huge lawn maintenance equipment trailer someone had parked on a curve, mere feet from a stop sign. I see her in the oncoming lane pretty frequently on my way back from dropping off Princess, driving a large, dark blue 'Burb. She wears dark-framed glasses most days and keeps her hair in a looped pony tail. I didn't know if she could see me waiting across the street at the four way stop. But when she finally got up to the stop sign, she smiled and waved. I smiled and waved back.

And a little good deed was rewarded with another passing friend who remains nameless.

late pics

So these Sunday pics are late. In fact, some of them got taken yesterday and today.

Here's Mr Tag (aka, Gippard or Minnesota, depending on his mood). He's broken his glasses, then broke the backups, so we're waiting for his new glasses (including two backups) to come in the mail. It looks like his eye is getting stronger though.



My sweet Princess. At the end of a long week, and a long day, she's chilling in her favorite skirt and a cool shirt Aunt C sent while watching Monsters, Inc.

Miss Pebbles, and the face she makes when she gets caught doing something she shouldn't. She either pulls the huge, sad eyes look or the growly "you won't catch me, copper!" look. Guess which one this is.

Frieda: Peek-a-boo! Her two month is coming up fast. Contrary to what it looks like in the pictures, she doesn't spend her whole life wrapped in blankets and sitting in a seat. In fact she has spent almost all day today awake and getting more attention than I think she wanted. That's the nice thing about being a baby in a big family, I guess. I'm sure it'll backfire one of these days. Like the time Pebbles figured out that if she puts her sippy cup in the baby's mouth, she'll automatically drink from it. Thank goodness it was just water.

Man made this bunch of roses for the girls in Princess' kindergarten class. A total of 14, so our kids and the teacher could also have one.

And here's my special Valentine's Day rose. This, plus some cherry Hershey's kisses, and a nice evening relaxing with the family made a nice Valentine's Day. No homework last night due to special circumstances which had us sort of in a daze, not quite knowing what to do with so much free time.

Mr. Pootiehead

Tag LOVES improv. Especially the singing bit.

So last night I was helping him brush his teeth when he requested a song. Now, we already have a whole wardrobe of songs to work with: ABC's, Snowman (complete with funny giggle at the end of the song), Wheels on the Bus, and my own version of Wheels on the bus but with toothbrushing lyrics.

But Tag decided that I should sing a song about Mr. Pootiehead. I've never heard of this character before but he sounded interesting.

You have to understand, improve is something I dearly love the watch (Whose Line Is It Anyway) but I'm really horrible at it.

But here's roughly what came out in a sort of adventure/ballad melody.

Mr. Pootiehead
What a weird name for a guy
Mr Pootiehead is an accountant
With a house
And a car
And some walls
But Mr Pootiehead dreams... oh he dreeeeeeeeams!
Of being a knight!
Who slays dragons!
And he rides on a horse!
(at this point I got interrupted by a laughing Tag)
But in real life he rides his bike
Because he has to sit all day in his office
And draw pictures of knights
Slaying dragons
And he puts them in his house
On his waaaaaaaalls!

You know, the funny thing is, Princess asked me to sing the same song for her... and she and Tag remembered it better than I did. I had to explain to her how I happened to "know the Pootiehead song". They just laughed and laughed, and then spent the rest of the time getting ready for bed singing their own versions of Mr Pootiehead.

Ah, I love having little kids. I'm sure they'll outgrow it for a little bit in middleschool, but I hope they're part of the Monty Python, ultimate frisbee, debate, choir, theater crowd -- busy people having the time of their lives by living as best they can right where they are.

But if they happen to be accountants... maybe they'll at least have a house, with some walls... and dreeeeeeeeeam!