Don't do it..

Just don't. Don't have children. Because even after they out grow that whole wake-up-every-two-hours-to-eat thing they are still ticking time bombs. Waiting until you've settled into a false sense of security in the sleep department and then BAM! They come up sick and are awake half the night coughing, crying and throwing up--and you are awake too--worrying, wondering and praying that this too shall pass. So, save yourself the trouble and just don't have kids. OK?

These were my exact thoughts as I stood at my kitchen counter in my underwear at 3:28 this morning--smashing a cough drop with the bottom of a jelly jar.

Why was I powdering a perfectly good cough drop with a breakfast spread container, you ask? Because:

A) My almost-three-year-old has a terrible cough.

B) Her delicate palate cannot handle a full cough drop--or half a cough drop--or even a cough drop crumb.

C) The only thing that will quiet her cough is little sprinkles of cough drop powder lightly dusted on her tongue.

And D) I find a full jar of jelly to be the best smasher in the business--naturally.

Now, when you are standing in your kitchen, in your unmentionables, crushing cough drops at record speed because your youngest child is a gagger, sitting on your newly washed bed spread and if you don't get her cough some droppage soon she is going to up-chuck all over the place it is only natural to wonder a little bit why you are in this particular situation.

"Kids." was my immediate answer.

If any single person or newly wed without children happened to ask me for advice on having children...I would have recited my opening paragraph without hesitation. Rest assured, we all know that the odds of a single or newly wed person standing in the kitchen with me at 3:28 this morning (while I was not dressed for company) are about as good as the odds of me winning a gold medal in the 100 meter dash. So my little anti-children speech did not effect any one's posterity.

As the warm yellow sun spread its beautiful glow over our sleeping house this morning (and I decided that getting to school on time was waaaay over rated) I could more clearly reflect on my situation I knew how much I truly love my (sleeping) children. In addition, it was only the ridiculous hour of the morning that pushed my mind to its anti-child limits. Kids are wonderful creatures and if they aren't keeping you up because they are new babies, sick toddlers, scared children or curfew breaking teenagers enjoy your sleep--it wont last long.

WARNING...

THIS POST CONTAINS IMAGES AND INFORMATION THAT MAY BE UNSUITABLE/OFFENSIVE FOR THOSE WHO APPRECIATE WEEDS GROWING IN THEIR GARDEN!

We have been getting quite a lot of rain here in Northern California. The latest batch of rain came pouring out of the sky on a serious mission: to turn every grassy surface in our back yard into squishy, soggy soup. Mission completion rain, mission completion...

On Tuesday, Wyatt went outside (in the pouring rain) on a mission of his own: to rid his strawberry bed of weeds. When I went out to check on him this is what I heard: "Argh, I must destroy you! These weeds are bad! They are my enemies and I can't defeat them. You will not kill my strawberries! I must do something... get right out of there weeds--swwwish--killed them!" This little verbal battle between Wyatt and the weeds lasted a good 15 minutes before Wyatt was soaking wet and every weed from the strawberry bed had been eradicated. Way to go Buddy.

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***********************************The victorious warrior and the carnage he left behind.

I can make a Disco Ball...

I made this Cinderella dress for Lorien when she was three years old. We all know that when I sit down to sew I really know how to put the "stress" in seamstress. You can just imagine how well things went when I was trying to sew with crazy sequined fabric and yards of tulle... Suffice it to say, this project ended with me dumping a cup of chocolate milk onto Lorien's head. Still, the dress is adorable.
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I did not know how to sew sleeves so for a year Lorien wore a Cinderella dress with weird-fan-like protrusions at the shoulder. The next year for Halloween I added sleeves and puffy side thing-a-migs--very Cinderella.

Lorien wore that Cinderella dress almost every day for about a year. The wearings be came a little less frequent as time passed but this home made Cinderella dress was a favorite long after the front of the tulle ripped out and even after I bought the actual Disney dress on sale.

Lorien started to out grow the Disney princesses but luckily for me (and all the princess crud our family has obtained over the years) Clare has just started to fall in love with the Disney princesses. A few days ago I made a little trip out to our back shed where I keep several boxes of toys. I hauled out our two Cinderella dresses. To my distinct surprise and joy Clare picked my home made dress to wear. The velcro closures gave out ages ago and the front panel of blue tulle is still ripped off--none the less--those sparkles scream out over the imperfections making it the dress de jour.

During lunch today, dressed in her Cinderella finery, Clare caught the sunlight bouncing off all of her sparkles. She also noticed that if she stood on her chair and turned in a careful circle--those sparkles moved around the room. For a little while, if you tilted your head just right and squinted your eyes, our breakfast nook was transformed into Studio 54 complete with spinning disco ball and moving lights.

Because it's there...

NASA has a research facility here. Did you know that? And they have a couple of museums on the NASA campus--one of them is free. Did you know that?!? Well, now you do. Saturday we took the kids over to the Ames Research Center to take a walk through the (free) NASA Exploration Center. It isn't very big but it has a bunch of pretty cool stuff--and it is free. We spent about 90 minutes walking around a big room with models of different space crafts, 3-D pictures from the Mars Rover, a slide show of the Hubble Telescope's greatest pictures/discoveries, a moon rock, space suits and the first craft sent up into space. (I know I say this about a lot of stuff but I cannot help it) The Exploration Center is WICKED COOL! Wyatt had the most fun because in between wanting to be a Mailman and a Cake Decorator he also wants to be an Astronaut.

Check out the pictures:

The kids loved seeing the life size pictures through their 3-D glasses. Wyatt knew how the Mars Rover was powered--solar panels.

There was this totally hot guy there showing my kids all around the museum and talking like he graduated from MIT or something...smart and hot! I managed to sneak a picture of him with his 3-D glasses on. Pretty hunky, huh?


Did I mention the Astronaut cut outs you could stand behind to pretend you were walking on the moon? Say it with me folks: "Wicked cool, wicked cool."

Sleep where she will...

Will has been coaching the High School wrestling team this season. Clare loves to go to wrestling with Daddy. She has too much fun climbing on the mats, running around the room and wrestling whoever dares to take her on. Sometimes practice goes too long and Clare is understandably tired. This is how she ended practice today...

Classic...

I missed my work out this morning--bummer. My van is in Oakland, with my husband and the wrestling team he coaches. We are out of a number of food staples (including milk) and we are expecting company for dinner tomorrow evening. For a laugh, I decided to walk to the grocery store with Clare in the wagon and Lorien and Wyatt on their bikes. I made my shopping list and headed over to the grocery store. (Here is where the tale takes an interesting turn.) This was not just a quick pop into the grocery for a loaf of bread this was a trip to feed my family for a week. It was four gallons of milk, it was fresh chicken breast for Sunday dinner, it was cereal, apples, bananas, broccoli , carrots and bagged salad. It was canned goods on sale and dairy products we were out of. It was eggs, people, EGGS! I ignorantly tossed whipped cream and olive oil into my grocery cart--completely forgetting the fact that I had not come to the grocery store in my van but in a red. plastic. wagon... The sobering fact of the wagon came all to soon when I wheeled my overflowing cart of paid groceries out the door and was halted by said wagon. My optimism prevailed, "No problem!" I thought. I loaded the milk into the wagon and using long forgotten Tetris skills I managed to fit most of the other groceries into the wagon (giving all of the produce a solid bruising in the process.). With most of the groceries balancing precariously atop the milk I turned my attention to the four cereal boxes that would not be squeezed into the wagon. Naturally, if my sweet children wanted to eat the cereal they were going to have to carry it home. I looked at their small bikes, their knobby knees, spindly legs and thin arms...perfect pack mules...of course. Attaching a plastic bag containing one box of cereal to each of their handle bars we headed home.

One block into the walk home, the youngest child who was forced out of the wagon by all the groceries ran a few paces ahead of me, tripped over her own feet and skinned her knee. With mule # 1 too far ahead to hear my screams of "Wait! Lorien, wait!" and mule #2 in hot pursuit I had no choice but to scoop up the crying baby and run to catch up. I am not a graceful runner and hauling 50 pounds of groceries one handed in a red wagon while balancing a crying toddler on my other arm does nothing to add to my running style. Mercifully, mule # 1 has about as much biking grace as I have running grace and several yards before I was about to sit down and cry, she lost her balance and fell over...onto a pile of rocks...effectively stopping her parade. With the unstoppable force of a speeding wagon behind me I had to keep running until I nearly collided with the sobbing Lorien. In the middle of my attempt to comfort both Lorien and Clare an elderly woman passed us on the sidewalk. She gave me a weak smile and kept on her way. At the time I thought she must not have spoken any English. However, as I reflect now, I think it is far more likely that upon seeing the scene before her (two screaming girls, a dirty faced boy and a crazy woman pulling a red wagon full of groceries) words simply failed her. She couldn't even muster the vocabulary to sympathise or scold and she was way too polite to give me the dirty look I deserved. After all, what kind of person makes a gigantic grocery run with a red wagon and two kiddy bikes? Well, a person who is in the odd habit of grossly overestimating her abilities, that's who.

I have come to the conclusion that I do not need to work out. Hauling 50 pounds of groceries up a steady incline to home will keep me in tip-top shape. More over, using all of my mental powers to will a wobbly 5 year old on a bike to stay on the side walk and out of the road will keep my brain out of Alzheimer's territory for a long time. I have everything under control...really.

Sleep over...

The kids have been wanting to have a sleep over together since I changed their room set up. Previously, Lorien and Wyatt shared a room while Clare was on her own. Now Lorien and Clare are in the "girls room" and Wyatt has his own "boy space". Anyway, they miss being together (Lorien and Wyatt) so a few weekends ago we let them all sleep together on the fold out couch in the office/garage/laundry/exercise/guess room/mini storage unit. I wish I took a picture of the whole room--that was the best part--seeing our kids squashed together on a bed surrounded by office equipment, holiday decorations, weights, gym mats, office chairs, boxes and piles of laundry. I guess a shot of them sleeping will have to do.

(Notice the box nearly falling onto Wyatt in the upper left corner.)

I love Anne, yes I do! I love Anne, how 'bout you?

Happy Birthday My Dearest Anne!

Let me tell you why I love Anne and why, if you are not friends already, you should befriend this lady. She is so kind and compassionate. She understands every situation and has advice for every complication. No one throws a better party and no one lends a better shoulder to cry or laugh on. Happy Birthday, Anne (again) and thanks for being such a great friend.

Love him...

Wyatt is growing into what I believe is a "typical boy". He loves video games and super heroes. He acts very silly around all of Lorien's friends and he does not want his Mother to kiss him any more--not even at bed time. But every once in a while he lets his tough-guy act slip and his sweet side shows:

He and I were walking back to the car this morning after dropping Lorien off at school. Wyatt looked around and observed: "There's nobody else outside right now. Just you and me." "Yep," I began "we are two lone people on the side walk." "We aren't alone," he corrected "we have each other."

Tug-tug (the sound from my heart strings) sniff-sniff (the sound from my tear-induced runny nose).

Ouch...

I am no athlete...not by a long shot. In high school my "sport" of choice was Cheer leading. I know there are die-hard girls out there who will insist that yelling, jumping, dancing and clapping in unison is a sport but I am not one of them. I'd call my high school cheering squad more of a social group than a sport. Sure, every so often we'd hoist the smallest of our squad up on to our shoulders or hands in an amazing feat of pubescent athleticism but really-we were just a group of peppy dancers in short blue skirts. (I've included a very old photo for proof--or laughs, your choice).

(I am the smiling brunette on one knee to the right--laugh all you want.) I am well aware of my low athletic threshold. I am also well aware of my deep and unstoppable love affair with ice cream, cheese burgers, milk shakes and chocolate. In (yet another) attempt to ward off heart disease I started "working out" this week. It is not going well. I posted that picture of me as a high school cheerleader because, believe it or not, it is waaaaaay less embarrassing than a photo of me trying to run down our street. My butt hurts, my legs hurt, my arms hurt and my abs hurt. Heaven help me...