Awww crap.

So I was either drunk or high, when I *ASKED* if I could take on the challenge of making donkey ears for every kid in Marilyn's class.  That's right.  22 freakin' pairs.  I guess I was feeling energized and slightly manic when this seemed like a good idea. 

Let me explain.  They are putting on a show for the parents in 10 days.  The teacher sent out a plea for someone to take this on.  Like any good parent, I ignored it.  Then a week later she sent out another plea, for someone, anyone to make 22 pairs of donkey ears.  I feel like as a mom, especially a mom of a kindergartener, that I need to do my part throughout the school year.  I'm not the room mother.  I didn't volunteer to go on any field trips, and I haven't baked anything.  So this came up, and I thought, why not? How hard can it be? I'll just look online for directions to make donkey ears and do what they say.  So I asked the teacher if I could take charge. 

Lord help me, there is just about nothing on the internet.  There are people that have posted requests for directions on making donkey ears. 

I've looked at pictures of ears.  I know I want to attach them to a headband.  HOW am I supposed to attach them? Next year I'll just be the crappy mom that doesn't do anything for the class.  Shoot me now.

Milestones

Each of our children has had something pretty cool happen in the last couple of weeks.  Marilyn came running into our room, "I don't know what happened, but my tooth fell out!" Apparently she was styling the hair of her My Little Pony, and holding the rubber band in her mouth.  She accidentally pulled the tooth.  When I looked in her mouth, she has 3 or 4 adult teeth coming through on the bottom.  Two have broken through the gum, and she has another crazy lose tooth next to the one she lost (her bottom middle two teeth.)

As for the other monsters, Jake and Sadie both started walking behind their push toys.  Jake made several laps of the house.  Sadie, I'm convinced, only did it, because Jake did.  She went about 10 feet, with her feet as far apart as she could get them.  The next day, Jake spent a lot of time crawling behind the toy, trying to keep it away from Sadie.  Since then, there hasn't been any walking.  At least I know they're capable.

Marilyn is starting to read more and more.  When I read her a Dr. Seuss book, I stop at words that I think she knows, and she reads them.  So we wind up each reading have a sentence.  I'm so proud of her!

My Nose Warmer

When I was 6 or so (I remember I was in first grade), my mom bought my sister Nicole and me nose warmers.  What the heck is a nose warmer? Well, it looked a lot like a teeny hat with a pom pom on top.  It sat on your nose, and strings tied behind your head.  Mine was yellow, with a yellow, red and blue pom pom.  I don't remember her reaction when she gave them to us.  I think she was very matter-of-fact, though, because we took it in stride.  "It's cold outside.  Do you have your coat? Hat? Mittens? Nose Warmer?"

Nicole and I were walking to school wearing our nose warmers, and we saw some other kids - Big Kids.  Of course they took one look at us and busted out laughing.  I was devastated.  That afternoon when I tearfully told my mom what had happened, she asked, "Were their noses red?"  sniff, yes.  "They were just jealous of your nose warmer."  AND I BELIEVED HER.  I wore my nose warmer proudly after that, until sometime over the years I lost it.

I love this story, because to me it epitomizes the innocence of childhood.  Our parents know best, and would never have a chuckle at our expense.  Those children weren't laughing because it was hilarious, they were laughing from jealousy.  In the spirit of this memory, I made my daughter Marilyn her very own nose warmer.

She was 3 at the time.

My niece Sophie, at age 10, asked for one for Christmas.  She was much more secure with herself than I was at that age.  When my sister Andrea warned her that she might get laughed at when she put it on for school, she said "Let them laugh."  Someday I hope to be that bold.

I'm Innocent

Lots of times when I'm out doing something random (like on Saturday morning, I was downtown watching a parade), I find myself thinking about how strong my alibi is.  You know, just in case a violent crime occurs and I'm one of the prime suspects.  I was downtown, and I saw a sign that said there were 24 hour surveillance cameras.  My thought? "Oh good, now I'm accounted for from 9:30 to 10:15".  The police would be at the station arguing,

"Well, yes she's on the camera, but we don't have anything to prove she didn't kill (him, her, it) before 8:30."
"She didn't have her car.  The valet did."
"She could have taken a cab."
"Jones - you start calling cab companies.  Has anyone interviewed the valet?"
"The one on for Friday night is out sick.  We've been trying to reach him at home.  No luck."

I'm not sure whether this means I have a rich fantasy life, or I'm nuts.  Maybe a bit of both.  The good thing is that the time stamp on this blog will hopefully clear me from anything that occurred between 7:45 and 8:00.

Babies and nannies and knitting

It's Thursday, and it's hot in this house.  I just took off my pants.  I was on the phone with my sister Andrea, and the babies were chasing me in circles around the house screaming.  Of course now that I'm off the phone, they have no interest in me whatsoever.  They're like cats.  Actually, Sadie is the cat in the family.  Jake is much more like a dog - always smiling and ready to give his love to everyone.  Sadie needs to check you out for awhile and decide if you're worth her time.

Natalia (our super nanny) is off in search of her last vaccine, so she can enroll in Georgia Perimeter College.  I'm so proud (sniff)! Our little au pair is growing up.  It's our second year with Natalia, and she's the bomb.  I have no idea how I would have survived the last year without her.  With twins you have twice as many appointments and half the sleep that you do with one baby.  Okay, I made that up.  I've never had one baby.  Marilyn was 17 months old when she came home to us from Guatemala.  She could already walk, feed herself, and wipe her mouth with a napkin.  Yeah, not so with the Jake and Sadie.  They're doing fantastic, though, don't get me wrong.  Jake can crawl faster than a speeding bullet.  Sadie can stand on her own for seconds at a time. I think I just took it for granted a bit, that they would be walking and talking by now.  And composing their own music.  And winning the Nobel Prize.

I found a really cool pattern for a pair of socks I want to knit in all of my spare time.  Ha.  That's not going to happen for awhile.  I've been knitting The Never Ending Blanket for Marilyn for the last two years.  I started it about the time I got pregnant, and nausea prevented me from getting very far.  Then life did.  Now I'm back to it.  I'll post a picture when I'm done.  It should be cute.  Hopefully it will be finished before she goes to college.

Mommy Hood

So it's Monday, and I'm in for another crazy packed week of mommyhood.  Work today and Wednesday.  Physical therapy for Sadie.  Gymnastics and dance for Marilyn.  Family dinner at the school.  Teacher conference. Oh, and Friday is our anniversary.  We've been married for 7 years, which is strange to me.  I think because I started telling everyone we'd been married 7 years LAST year, so now it's like time stood still.  I'm not sure what happened - maybe I'm just a big liar.  Maybe I was confused.  Regardless, I have to own it and redo our year of "having been married 7 years".  It's okay.  I love the man, and I'll redo a year with him anytime.

I'm reading a great book right now called Don't Ride Your Bicycle In the House Without a Helmet by (I think) Melissa Greene.  Our next-door neighbors Debbie and Roger loaned it to me, and it's great.  It's about a family here in Atlanta that had 4 children biologically, then adopted 5 more.  The adopted children were older, ranging from 4 to 13 years in age.  She's got a fantastic sense of humor, and it's really hard to put the book down.  Having adopted myself, I can relate to the uncertainty and fear she feels throughout the adoption process, the doubt of her abilities to parent this little person, and the joy she gets as she sees them each blossom.  I give it two thumbs up!  It's inspiring.

Marilyn's new favorite word is "buttocks" and she uses it whenever she can.  She told me over the weekend that she hopes that she won't lose all the hair on her buttocks.  It was a little disturbing.  She's such a drama mama, and she can cry at the drop of a hat.  Friday night as she choked back sobs at dinner, she told me she was just really sad because she didn't have school the next day.  "I (sniffle) just really love school!"  I tried to assure her that we would hopefully make the break worth her time.  It was a good weekend - lots of time spent with friends.  The weather has gotten a bit cooler here, and I want to build a nest.  I want to bake and take care of all of my little chickadees. Of course, I have no idea when all of my grand home-making ideas will take place, but a girl can dream.

crazy garden

So I broke my kindle.  I'm such a dope.  I was cozy in bed.  I threw the covers aside to go tell my husband something.  I came back.  I knelt with my left knee on the bed, and heard a pop.  It was the screen of my kindle.  I was so sad.  Even though the screensaver was half gone, I was optimistic that if I held the reset button long enough, everything would be fine.

It wasn't.

Completely off topic, but I was browsing the web, and found this kicka@@ photo.  A woman covered a bunch of rocks with crochet tablecloth, and it looks so flippin' cool.  You've got to check the link.
www.flickr.com/photos/woolly_fabulous/4538904935/in/pool-ccc_gardenglam

I live in a pretty conservative neighborhood, but I have big plans for my front yard.  I was fearful at first, then I decided life's too short.  I cut down a few big trees, and I'm installing lots of raised garden beds for veggies, and lots of flowers.  Now I want to incorporate rocks dressed in doilies.

Time is strange

Okay, so here I am.  It's the beginning of September, and I've hardly given a thought to my blog.  Of course, when I did, I couldn't remember my username and password.  I'm lucky I stumbled on the correct combination of stuff.  Hopefully I'll remember for next time, but it's unlikely.

I was supposed to work at Merlino's today, but they didn't have any work for me.  None at all :(
So, I'm off for the day.  Hope to be a bit more diligent about writing stuff in the future.

I just spent some time writing a lengthy post about everything I did this summer.  When I reread it, I thought, "who cares?"  It doesn't have enough detail to be truly interesting and it's all in the past.  So, in the spirit of keeping it relevent, here's minutae:

Our front door handle has been broken forever.  Whenever someone opens the door that's not aware of the problem, the handle comes off in their hand.  They always have this look of surprise and panic on their faces, which of course makes me react with anger and shock.  I usually act like I had no idea it was broken and blame them.  If it's a repairman that just finished working (and boy, have we had a lot of repairmen with this house), then usually I quote him the same amount in damages as he just charged me.  Yeah, I know, I'm a regular laugh riot.

At one point I made a concentrated effort to fix it, and went to the hardware store.  They gave me a whole bunch of different pins to try.  I came home, tried them, and of course none of them worked.  We had a contractor at our house, and I asked him to fix it.  "Oh sure, no problem, next time I'm here." That never happened.

So yesterday I casually mentioned to our electrician that it would be great if HE could fix it, ha ha.  He did - in 5 minutes.  That thing has been broken for a year.  I was so happy, I wrote him a personal check.
So now our door handle works AND I have a new overhead fixture in the dining room.  Not bad for an afternoon.

feeling that spring vibe

It's Tuesday and it's beautiful outside.  I feel crazy inspired to redo my entire front yard.  I bought a bunch of vegetable seeds and herbs.  I want to plant a bunch of berry bushes.  I want to keep honey bees. 

My babies are sitting happily in their swings, refusing to sleep as usual.  Today has been crazy productive already, with food, baths, physical therapy, call to oma.  I just need to keep going.

I need to start recording more funny stuff that Marilyn says for posterity, so please put up with it here in the blog.  We were playing barbies yesterday, and Justin Bieber kept falling in love with girls, only to have Prince Eric take them away.  One girl was mean to him so I said she wasn't nice and had ugly hair.  Marilyn's doll responded, "yeah, I've got diarrhea hair."

Last night when I was putting her to bed, she told me she was upset because she hadn't spent enough time with her tiger.  He's a small white stuffed animal.  I told her to bring him to bed with her.  She started crying, and told me she couldn't.  Why not? "Because he won't sleep with the Christmas lights on.  He'll stay awake!" 

She's always coming up with crazy names for her dolls and for me when we're playing.  The other day my name was Mother Dog Weather.

Playing barbies a few months ago, she had me ask her doll to go shopping at the mall.  "I can't.  I have a business dinner, and I have to make my boyfriend fall in love with me."  Big schedule.

Every night she wants me to give her a massage now as I say "Goodnight little girls".  She moans loudly the whole time.  She told me the first day after the massage, "You got rid of some of my bones when you rubbed my back.  Two of the them.  Two of my bones are gone.  It's okay, though.  I don't need them."

We're planning a trip to Hilton Head for two weeks this summer, but some of the houses are ridiculously priced.  I'm not paying $7500 for a week at the beach.  We're going for two weeks.  So I can buy a car or go on a two week vacation? That's retarded.  Mom suggested I check out this vacation club they belong to.  I'll do that this afternoon.  She also told me about garden supply.com.  Can't wait to check it out.

Home early

We had to cut our vacation in Hartwell short by a day.  Sadie didn't sleep much last night.  She was coughing like crazy.  I called the nurse, and she said she needed to be seen.  We returned the boat (house to marina was 2 hours), and drove like wild banshees back to Atlanta.  Turns out she has a sinus infection, which isn't fun, but isn't life threatening.  I'm glad we got her seen.

This morning our plan was to go to Hardee Berry Farm and pick early season strawberries.  Obviously that didn't happen, so I've promised Marilyn that we'll do it later in the season.  Now I have to keep my word.

Going to go read and conk out now.

Getting started

I have a lot of crazy ideas and big dreams about how I want to live.  Of course, most of these stay in the "one day when I have more time" category, but I'm hoping to start living more intentionally.  I have a beautiful 5-year-old daughter, Marilyn, and 11-month-old twins, Sadie and Jake.  The last two years have been a haze of pregnancy nausea and sleepless nights.  I've been lucky to achieve the minimum and keep my sanity.  Now that the babies have learned to sit up and can sleep through the night (finally), I feel like it's time to pick up where my life stopped in 2009.

Right now we're at Lake Hartwell for spring break.  We rented a pontoon boat, and we've been relaxing.  The house we're staying in is HUGE and beautiful.  It makes me wonder about the family who's second home is twice as big and 3 times as nice as my everyday digs.  The house was obviously decorated by a professional - EVERYTHING has to do with wildlife and hunting.  It's got a cabin-mansion feel.  It's also got 30+ dead animals on the walls, including 4 bears.  Poor little bears.

Did you know that cougar, puma, and mountain lion are all the same animal? I had no idea.  I was reading Marilyn a book about the animals of North America, and there it was.  Marilyn and I had been debating what the dead animal in the sleeping loft here was.  She voted for Cougar, but I insisted in my motherly wisdom that, no, it was a mountain lion.  Who knew?