Academomia

Patience, kindness, and self control

2012-02-16T19:08:00.000-08:00

The discussion topic from my church's moms' group this morning was the Fruits of the Spirit, among them "patience, kindness, and self control". We had a discussion about how we exhibit those Fruits in our daily interactions with our children. I did not have a lot to add because, while I *try* to demonstrate patience, kindness, and self-control sometimes I just need everyone to GET IN THE $#@$$#@ CAR ALREADY. What more is there to say? The woman I was sitting next to, my friend who has two three year olds, and I made many sarcastic remarks to one another. Many of them about wine.

All kidding aside, the conversation stuck with me as we left the classroom and picked everyone up at the nursery and made our way (PAINFULLY SLOWLY) out to the car to go home.

We had a delightful afternoon afterward. James took a long nap and Charlie and Wes played outside (INDEPENDENTLY!) for about an hour. I burned through a few loads of laundry then vacuumed the living room, swept the kitchen, and did all the dishes. I also spent a lot of time eating Valentine's candy and perusing Facebook to be perfectly honest, I'm not some kind of Stepford wife.

"I've got this Fruits of the Spirit thing LOCKED UP" I thought. But the real test was yet to come.

Charlie wanted to walk to the grocery store instead of driving, which was a great idea. The weather was nice and we only needed dinner ingredients, so we set out for the store. We got there fine, got all of our groceries with no trouble, and then headed back. That's when I *paid* for being such a snarky jerk during moms' group. Wes found something INCREDIBLY FASCINATING on the ground approximately every eighteen inches. The walk is only half a mile, but it took us about four hours just to get across the parking lot. He was really being adorable, dropping rocks into a puddle and laughing, but I had cheese and sour cream warming in the pus bag and I really wanted to get home before Wild Kratts, which is the backdrop for my thirty-minute daily check-out time. I need that time to gear up for the 4:30-6:00 ninety minutes of whining, fighting, dinner-making hell. So I prodded him along as gently as I could and tried not to get too flustered when Charlie ran ahead, leaving me on a dirt two-track in the middle of a field with a fully-loaded stroller and a good fifty yards of rocky ground between me and both big kids, in opposite directions. "Stay together, everyone!" I trilled. I am calm and patient! Look at me! "GET YOUR BOTTOM OVER HERE RIGHT NOW OR I SWEAR I WILL LEAVE YOU OUT HERE" I mean "Weeeesss! Precious, darling boy! Let's stay together, Cutiepie! Time to go!" Am calm, patient, and slightly schizophrenic.

We finally made it home and got the TV going just in the nick of time when James began what turned out to be a two-hour, impossibly loud given the size of his body, meltdown.

"Patience, kindness, self control" I reminded myself as I bounced him on my hip. It's either teeth or another ear infection (join the James William ear tube placement surgery betting pool today!), or, in my experience, it is a more insidious problem called "One Year Old". Whatever the cause, nothing helped--not food, not milk, not water, not holding, not a diaper change, not Motrin. I thought maybe he'd like to go outside so we gathered the bikes and trooped down to the culdesac but all that did was move the party to my neighbor's driveway, where we could more effectively share the velociraptor noise he was making with the rest of the neighborhood. Special times!

We got in our mutually agreed upon walking order for the one-hundred yard walk home (Charlie first, then Wes, then me and James). Charlie sped off, as usual, then turned funny and crashed about halfway to the house. He was lying on the grass screaming and all tangled up in his bike, so I ran past Wes to get to him, which made Wes FREAK the FREAK OUT. He laid his tiny little thirty pound body on the sidewalk and refused to budge. Being full of patience, kindness, and self control as I was, I resisted the urge to drag him home under one arm and plunk him in the timeout chair indefinitely and instead patiently, kindly, and with great self control walked the rest of the way home with Charlie and James, then stood on the driveway watching him have a conniption on the sidewalk and hoping with my entire being that our neighbors would come out to walk their dog, thus distracting slash embarassing him into standing up and walking like a human.

After ten minutes it became clear that he was in it for the long haul. As you can imagine, by this point I was BRIMMING with patience, kindness, and self control, but James was ALSO freaking out and we needed to get inside, pronto, before someone called the police. Not wanting to back down, since this is one of our focus areas with Wes right now (freaking out and refusing to walk), I asked Charlie if he wanted to go help Wes. Charlie spent two minutes talking to him while I watched from afar, then Wes got on his bike and pedaled home like nothing had happened.

When Charlie got back, I hugged him and remarked how proud I was of him for being so kind and patient with Wes. It's not something that comes easily for him these days. I asked him what he had said to Wes and Charlie shrugged and said "A brother knows how to make a brother feel happy" then turned and walked into the garage.

The rest of the evening was not easy, James was miserable, but I was so happy to have a tiny peek into the reason we try (struggle) to maintain those Fruits of the Spirit. It's for the little eyes.

Val Day

2012-02-15T07:57:00.000-08:00

Something special was in order for our Tuesday, in addition to the already special morning which consisted of a living room FULL of construction paper hearts cut out for me by Charlie, Wes, and Ryan, cards all around, special coffee, flowers, and a box of candy on the driver's seat of my car, so when Charlie asked if we could go ride a train, I planned a super-secret trip downtown on the commuter train and secretly invited my dad to join us.

The kids got into the car with no idea where we were going. I asked for guesses.

"Are we going to the playground?"

"Are we going to see a statue?"

"Are we going to climb on rocks?"

No, no, and no. They were cautiously very excited when I turned into the parking lot for the train station. There were several minutes of silence while I looked for a parking spot. Then Charlie piped up.

Can we ride the train?!

YES! I told them. They were very happy. We bought our tickets and boarded the waiting train. My dad arrived shortly after and hopped onto the train with about a minute to spare. He is a seasoned "T" rider from way back and I had no worries.

The train ride was uneventful if you don't count James's refusal to be held in any kind of safe position for the duration of the ride or the fact that he chose to communicate using only frequent blood-curdling screeches that had many a commuter slamming his laptop in frustration. The big kids sat nicely in their seats and made cute (and appropriate!) comments about what they saw out the window. James did his best to perform an alligator's death roll in my arms as I struggled to keep him from sliding the length of the car at every station. On the plus side, I will not need to work out my arms anytime soon.

We arrived downtown and found a potty without incident then set off to find some lunch. I was headed for my favorite little brunch place when I spotted this sign and decided I could have huevos rancheros another time.

We had some enormous hotdogs (mine had horseradish slaw on top, my dad's had onions and baked beans, the big kids? Mustard. Boring!) and bacon chocolate chip cookies, which sounded amazing but were really kind of strange until about the third bite when I started getting used to it.

Then we walked around outside for a little while until the next train home. Charlie demanded to have his picture taken in several strange places. This one is my favorite.

But this one is my new desktop.

We got on the next train home and, impossibly, James's behavior was even worse than the ride down. He really upped the ante by pooping THREE TIMES during the forty-five minute train ride, requiring as many diaper changes on the train floor (no bathroom!), which was really not as much fun as it sounds. He and Wes were asleep when we got home and Charlie and I set to work making Valentine's cupcakes for after our Chinese food feast. A great Valentine's Day!

Too much time in front of a computer will do this to you

2012-02-12T08:47:00.000-08:00

Ryan took the big boys to church this morning and I stayed home with Sickie McFever. I put him down for a nap the second they left then settled into working on my (INFURIATING) work project (after the usual procrastinating things like making my bed, putting on a bra and changing my shirt, and putting in a load of laundry). If he was allowed to text on his work-provided cell phone, this is what he would be hearing from me.

Miss you, please make Wes go potty before Sunday School.

Hope it's going well... any thoughts on lunch?

Man this spectrum issue is SO FRUSTRATING. Also, we are out of cookies. Problem.

Have I mentioned how much I like the Thai Chicken Salad from Panera? We are out of lunchmeat.

If you see Sandy, please tell her thanks again for the hand-me-downs.

MATLAB IS THE DEVIL.

Did you know we are expecting sleet this afternoon? I'll go shopping right when you get home for bananas.

MATLAB IS SO STUPID. *I* AM SO STUPID. A Thai Chicken Salad and a bag of chocolate chip mini-cookies might make me feel smarter.

And a large iced tea.

I'm sorry for acting crazy. I hope the boys are acting nicely for you. Thanks for the work time.

SATAN INVENTED SPECTRAL ANALYSIS AND I WISH IT WOULD DIE.

YAY, I got it to work!!!

Crapcakes, the curves are switched. Wrong? Or GROUNDBREAKING. Probably wrong. COOKIES.

Aaaaannnd James is awake. Maybe he can help me figure out what to do.

He didn't have any advice, but he did get snot all over my shoulder.

Am laundering your undies, would like a salad please.

Love you, see you at home.

Boys, what are you gonna do?

2012-02-09T14:18:00.000-08:00

You guys, I have discovered The Secret to Boys. I will share it with you here because I like you so much, but let's keep it between us, OK? Mostly because I don't want to get referred to the school counselor in a few years. Because, you guys? The secret to communicating with little boys who are angry or frustrated or sad? Or who cannot stop PICKING ON THEIR BROTHER FOR THE LOVE?

Is to act EXACTLY LIKE A FIVE YEAR OLD BOY.

I am telling you that I have spent half my life over the last few days calmly (and let's face it, not so calmly) attempting to explain to Charlie that he needs to stop picking on Wes all the stinkin' time. Stop poking him, stop calling him names, stop taking things from him, stop telling him what to do. But the thing that has best diffused the situation before it has escalated was to teach Wes to call him names right back.

Let me give you an example. They were exiled to the backyard for wild indoor behavior this afternoon (you'll see why they were behaving wildly inside in a moment). Charlie came to the back door to tell me that Wes had called him a (wait for it, it is quite awful, you might need to avert your eyes) "mimic-head".

So I said "You ARE a mimic-head", because he totally is a mimic-head, and went back to making dinner.

And HE LAUGHED and WENT BACK TO PLAYING.

I am a freaking genius people.

Earlier, when Charlie was consumed with rage because the paintbrush could not do what he wanted it to, and was yelling "STUPID!" over and over as he stomped around the living room? I calmed him down by yelling "STUPID!" in a silly voice and throwing a pillow at him. He stifled a giggle. I got another pillow.

"STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID ARRRRGGHHHH!!!!!"

I smashed my fists into the pillow, then threw it at him.

He was doubled over laughing.

Then Wes started yelling stupid and throwing pillows and five minutes later we were all breathless, pillows covered the living room floor, and no one could remember who was so mad he'd snapped a paintbrush in two just moments before.

I was not prepared for how competitive and physical boys are, though my life now is casting every negative elementary school gym class experience into a different light. Nothing makes Charlie happier than when you run past him, dribbling a ball, then execute a perfect lay-up just as he tries to take the ball away. Except possibly blocking him with my shoulder, but that seems a little rough for a five-year old. If he makes a basket on you he can talk smack like a five-year-old Chicago Bull playing street ball. "OH HO HO, YOU MISSED! BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME MOM!" as he whizzes past me hanging onto the ball so I can't get it (TRAVELING!!). Is it poor sportsmanship or a valuable life skill? I've seen boys playing basketball on the playground and it seems to be their version of girl-talk, so I'm hesitant to squash it, though I do point out that if someone's feelings get hurt then he's gone too far.

So, we might have to put the coffee table away for a while and we might have to have our pediatrician on speed dial, but I can't imagine my life without this wonderful energy.

But I do hope his kindergarten teacher is a patient, STRONG, woman.

Big Men on Campus

2012-02-06T09:31:00.000-08:00

Oh my goodness, where to begin? All it takes is one stray thought, one "I haven't had much to blog about lately" to unleash the fates of chaos on your life. It's happened before, so next time I run out of things to say I will be posting lots and lots of boring recipes.

Today the kids' school is closed so I had to take everyone with me to my school. This should not have been an issue, since we already have a wonderful babysitter in place who picks James up from my office twenty minutes before my class begins every day. But, like I said, fates of CHAOS.

It started on Saturday night, when my computer broke. The screen doesn't work, so I have to plug it into an external monitor if I want to use it. It is really cramping my style, as you might imagine. I was almost unable to make my lecture for today last night because I was forced to sit AT MY DESK and not lounge on the couch as is my custom.

And THEN, the printer at home broke Sunday night and I couldn't print my in-class assignment like I had planned. I would have printed it at school, but two other important things are also broken--my work computer, which won't log in ever since I rearranged the furniture, and my copier card, which has never worked (RAGE).

So to summarize, this morning I had three children in my office, a half-functioning computer, a totally defunct computer, an assignment still in electronic form, and no real idea how I would be giving my Powerpoint lecture given the current broke-ass state of the laptop I normally use. And it was thirty minutes to game time.

I took the (really, remarkably well-behaved, considering the last time we all came to school together) kids on a Really! Fun! Adventure up the elevator and into my classroom where I promised that if they just sat quietly for five minutes while I figured it out that I would take them to see the sucker fish in the biology department afterward. They sat nicely in two of the desks and asked me LOTS and LOTS of questions about the chalkboard, the projector, the computer, the lab tables, and what my students did while they were in class. I was able to finagle the computer and projector provided in the classroom and got my lecture up on the screen with no issues (YAY fabulous small-school IT department where everything works EVERY TIME and you never find the printer out of paper at two o'clock in the morning the day something is due. I heart you small school!!) and we spent five glorious minutes examining the sucker fish down the hall, as promised.

Then we went downstairs and asked around until someone was able to open a computer lab for me so I could print my assignment. Much easier than anticipated. Until Wes erased the bottom eight inches of a very complicated looking equation that took up the entire chalkboard. Yes it was marked "Please do not erase". Or at least it was until Wes erased part of that before I ripped the eraser out of his hand, grabbed my assignments off the printer, and got the heck out of Dodge.

After that we spent a happy fifteen minutes in my office, collating and stapling (me), weighing samples of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rock on a triple beam balance (Charlie and Wes), and complaining wildly about being confined to the stroller (James). I reminded the kids forty-seven times to keep their coats on because the babysitter would be there any minute as I stole many, MANY glances out into the hall wondering where the heck she was.

At 9:57 I finally texted her. "Everything alright?"

"OMG MY ALARM DIDN'T GO OFF I AM SO SORRY!!! FIVE MINS!!!" was the response. So I texted her my room number and we ALL went back up to my classroom.

The boys froze when they saw all the students. I told them to find a seat and wait for Miss Kate while I got class started. Charlie chose a convenient seat all the way in the back and opposite the door. Wes sat closer to me and James stayed in the stroller next to the lectern. The brief rundown of my expectations for them to SIT QUIETLY AND LISTEN AND DON'T TALK TO ME WHILE I AM TALKING I had given them in the elevator was surprisingly effective.

"Good morning, everyone! There's been a bit of a mix-up so we have some guests today!" I smiled at them and took a deep breath. I introduced the boys to the students and then got started with my lecture about earthquakes.

I'm not gonna lie, I did like having them there, just a little bit.

Five minutes after class began, Miss Kate came running into the room, collected the kids, and took them back to her apartment.

The rest of the class was uneventful. I texted the babysitter when I got back to my office, "Please don't worry about it. I had fun and so did the kids." She responded "Charlie is STILL talking about earthquakes!" and also "SO SO SORRY!"

But in truth, I am a little bit glad it happened that way.

These are my expectations

2012-01-31T11:58:00.000-08:00

My Dear Darling Boys,

I would like to apologize for the harsh words we shared outside the Rosa's Mexican Cafe after lunch today. I was unclear regarding my expectations for your behavior during lunch. Given the distance a three-way simulnap/forced confinement provides, I now understand the confused look you gave me when I corrected your behavior in front of our friends. To prevent a similar situation from occurring in the future, I would like to outline my expectations for your behavior here.

1. When you are finished with your drink, you may put the cup on the table near your plate. Please do not attack it with your teeth, attempt to "break it's neck" by shaking it vigorously from side to side, and then spit the shreds of styrofoam out onto your plate.

2. Your straw is not a sword.

3. While honey is not a traditional condiment for a bean and cheese burrito, I am willing to look the other way if it means that you will eat your lunch quietly. I will not look the other way if you eat your honey-soaked beans by licking them off your tortilla or scooping them off with your fingers and rubbing them on your cheeks.

4. If for some reason your hands are covered with a sticky mass of honey and refried beans, and you would like to clean them up, you may use a napkin. I will be happy to provide one. In the absence of a napkin it is never acceptable to wipe your messy hands in your brother's hair.

5. Your straw is not a light saber.

6. If you become disinterested in the meal, you may sit quietly until everyone has finished. Pouring an entire 20 oz. glass of iced tea onto my plate will only get your high chair pushed sufficiently far from the table as to prevent you from further destroying my lunch.

7. The appropriate reaction to the, totally understandable, crushing disappointment of having to share an order of rice with another family member is not to throw all of the food wrappers onto the floor then pout for several minutes.

8. Use your fork.

9. Use your fork.

10. USE YOUR FORK FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

11. Food is for our tummies, not the floor.

12. Your straw is not a gun.

I hope this clears up any misunderstanding you may have felt. Again, I am sorry for being unclear. I look forward to dining with you again soon. At our house.

With fondness,
Mom

Going Bananas

2012-01-29T18:17:00.000-08:00

Ryan mentioned to me the other day that he'd drafted our 2012 family budget and asked if I'd mind taking a look. I didn't have time right then, but I did mention that I'd been struggling to make our grocery budget, which seemed like a very generous number to me, stretch through the whole month. I started a spreadsheet detailing what things cost and how much we were buying, mostly to see if I could resume buying chocolate chips and if I still had to substitute kidney beans for chicken breasts in my recipes, and I was shocked to learn that we were going through upwards of TEN POUNDS OF BANANAS EVERY WEEK.

That seemed wholly unreasonable, so I checked my math again. Sure enough, we were out of bananas, and we'd bought seven and a half pounds of them four days prior. SEVEN AND A HALF POUNDS.

So I put "Bananas: 40 lbs" in my spreadsheet. And then took a deep breath. Because if they continue to eat WES'S BODY WEIGHT in bananas every month, we are in for some large grocery bills.

Ryan went to the store that night for some odds and ends (which always includes bananas and milk, the other money pit in this house) and came home laden with almost eight pounds of bananas.

He walked into the door, chest puffed out, and declared "I'd like to see those freaks eat all of THESE in two days."

We had a good laugh. But guess what. That was two days ago. After breakfast, we had THREE BANANAS LEFT.

So I started watching more closely. And sure enough, when we came back from the playground Saturday afternoon, Charlie went in first. Before I could put down my purse and unbutton my coat, Charlie had helped himself to a banana, peeled it, eaten it in about three bites, and left the peel on the couch. Special. Then James had one after dinner because I felt like a one-year-old should probably have something in addition to just pizza for dinner. And this morning I awoke to the sound of noisy chewing at my bedside. Charlie and Wes were standing there in their jammies, looking to eat breakfast in bed. Charlie held the remainder of the bunch in his other hand, like he was carrying the rest of the six-pack over to the neighbor's to watch the game.

So tonight I bought eight and a half MORE POUNDS OF BANANAS at the store. Even at $0.48 a pound, this is getting out of hand. I might have to keep them up high where we currently store the medicine. I've never seen them go after Ibuprofen with such enthusiasm.

I'll just carry it with the monogram on the inside

2012-01-24T10:35:00.000-08:00

I bought James some new curtains the other day and as a result of those clearance curtains I bought with a gift card, I now find myself in need of a new quilt to match them. Nothing fancy, just a navy blue quilt for his future big boy bed. And maybe some matching shams with a planet motif. My budget for this project is about $40, so I have been combing Craigslist and Ebay, with no luck. Today the kids were bored, so I suggested we go to Tuesday Morning, where not only could they be bored, but I could look for a new quilt at the same time.

I bribed them with a hot chocolate on the way home and we got out of the house so early that we got there thirty minutes before the store opened. I didn't want to wait, or get them their treat early, so I drove to the next block and pulled into the next best thing, the Goodwill/Salvation Army Shopping Center of Thrift. I do so love it there.

There were no quilts, but that left plenty of time for browsing and reminding the kids to look with their eyes as I touched every single thing that caught my eye. I threw a skirt into the basket, and a plastic bin for Legos, picked up and put back a stack of traffic cones that might have been fun for bike courses, and THEN, I found the PIECE DE RESISTANCE.

A HUGE L.L. Bean Boat and Tote IN MY SCHOOL COLORS. FOR $5.99!!! And it was practically brand new! It had some initials monogrammed on it, but it didn't bother me. IT WAS PERFECT! I bought it without a moment's hesitation.

I used it to buy groceries on the way home. I wondered about the person who would donate such a beautiful bag. I mean, I've been wanting one just like it for a couple of years, but haven't wanted to spend the $40, considering I have a perfectly serviceable (if not pretty, clean, or in good condition) pool bag already.

It was so awesome to carry in the whole load of groceries with one hand. Everything fit inside easily. I gazed at it lovingly as I stirred the butter into the kids' macaroni and cheese. I felt like one of those effortlessly stylish women we see in Maine, heading into the grocery store with their boat and tote over arm. Why would someone take something so wonderful to Goodwill, I wondered again.

And then I gave the monogram a second look.

Does that say...pus?

Oh dear. It all made sense. Someone must have ordered it online, just as I excited as I was to find it. They typed their initials in as they ordered their tasteful embroidered monogram, "PSV". A week later, the package arrived and they eagerly ripped it open and pulled their new bag out, turned it over and thought "PUS?!!!!!??"

I think that makes me love it even more.

Just a Virus

2012-01-22T19:07:00.000-08:00

I think everyone is finally on the mend after the first big cold of the season swept through the house. We all got it, but I think this guy got hit the hardest.

He can't help but smile when he sees the camera, but don't let it fool you. He was miserable. Prolific drooling, a hacking cough, and fussiness with a capital EFF. OMG. I have a constant twinge in whatever it is that connects my arm to my shoulder from the neverending holding. I've stirred spaghetti sauce holding a baby, chopped broccoli holding a baby, folded laundry holding a baby, and gone to the bathroom with a whimpering ball of misery sitting on the bathroom floor. I don't mind too much, though, because this guy is a SNUGGLER. All he wants is to be held and then he buries his face in your shoulder. It makes him all the more pitiful.

He woke up at 5:30 this morning, screamed his way through breakfast, then fell asleep in the car on the way to church. This is good, because he hasn't been napping either and I was beginning to think he'd forgotten how. It's been really special hanging out with everyone for twelve straight hours every day this week too. Special, special bonding time. I think we were both happy for the break on Friday when I went to school, considering he spent the two hours in a dorm room surrounded by the entourage of college women he attracts whenever he goes to campus.

Anyway, when we picked him up from the nursery today after church this is what we found. They put him down after a diaper change and he rolled over and went to sleep. He stayed asleep all the way to the car, went back to sleep after getting buckled in, and slept for two hours at home.

Then he fussed and refused to eat all afternoon until his incredibly perceptive parents finally gave him a nip of Motrin and he turned in to MISTER! HAPPY! BABY! Until dinner when he imploded again. Ryan gave him a forty-five minute bath so we wouldn't have to put him to bed before six.

Apparently, it wore them both out. Judging by all the sleeping, he should be good as new tomorrow.

In other-kid news. I naively took everyone to see some military aircraft the other day in an outing that shall henceforth be known as "IS THAT A GUN? IS THAT HOW THEY SHOOT THE BAD GUYS? WHERE DO THE BAD GUYS LIVE? AND WHAT DO THEY DO WITH THE BAD GUYS ONCE THEY GET THEM?" And also, "The time we asked that uniformed soldier where the potty was."

Freewheeling!

2012-01-21T12:51:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, just seconds after James learned to walk with a walker, Charlie asked me to take his training wheels off. I told him we should wait for Papa. You know, so someone could stay home with Wes and James while I drove Charlie to the ER. It turned out to be a lot easier than that:

Too many milestones are happening!!! My shrieks of excitement were heard all over the neighborhood. He's so stinking cool.

He is so proud. And so am I.

Wednesdays

2012-01-18T09:46:00.000-08:00

8:30-9:00 - Drive Charlie and Wes to preschool, drop them off, run frantically back to my car with James

9:00-9:45 - Drive to my school, schlep James, the diaper bag, my work bag, my purse, my coffee into my office. Today I happened to park next to our department chair and he carried my coffee and diaper bag for me. Wes walked behind us (home sick from school) carrying his backpack and his own hot chocolate. He looked like a little, three-foot tall, student.

9:45 - Hand James off to Kate (babysitter, not her real name)

10:00-10:50 - Teach my class

10:50 - 12:00 - Office Hours

12:00 - 1:30 - Eat lunch (takeout from dining hall!!), prepare lab stuff, make copies, work on other research projects, respond to emails

(1:00 My dad picks up Charlie and Wes at preschool, they hang around together, usually at a fast food restaurant that has good coffee and a playground, until 3:00, when they get dropped off at my house with the babysitter)

1:25 - Facilitate transfer of child(ren) between Kate and Kate (both our babysitters have the same name) so Kate I can go to class. This might mean taking James to the beginning of class occasionally, I'm not sure how it will work out.

1:30 - Lab begins

2:30 (?) - Kate gives the kid(s) back to the other Kate, Kate takes them to my house

4:00 - My lab ends, clean up and take everything back downstairs

5:00 - Arrive at home, sling some food at the kids

5:45 - Ryan arrives, I leave with Charlie for children's choir

Any questions?

With thanks to Ryan, who did everything else with the house and the kids and everything

2012-01-15T21:15:00.000-08:00

I spent my whole weekend in this chair:

And yes, most of that time was spent in my jammies. What's your point?

Ryan took this picture when Wes, straight from a bath, figured the only way he was going to get some mama-time was to climb onto my shoulder like a parrot and help me work.

That was not my plan for the weekend, but Saturday afternoon I really hit my stride on this paper I had FORCED myself to work on. And I do mean FORCED. As in forced myself not to ctrl+dlt the whole stupid thing after the most recent round of questions from my coauthor. But it was going really, really well. I worked Saturday night until I found myself typing nonsense with my eyes closed. Embarrassingly, that happened a little after 11:00. I used to be able to push myself until two! And still get up in time for an eight o'clock class!

After a couple more hours this afternoon, and a couple more mugs and glasses on the teetering pile of nervous eating on my desk, I have two-ish chunks left to write up, and I honestly don't think they will be that hard, and then I'll have a draft ready. Considering the fact that I started this paper when Wes was an infant, it's about time.

If I can get this one off, that will only leave the NSF proposal (draft due the week before Spring Break) and the conference paper (April 25) and all the nonsense problems I've been having with that one. Then there's my class. And the lab. And and and. Should be no problem, right?

And they're napping now so I should really go straighten up. Oh what's the point?

2012-01-12T11:46:00.000-08:00

You guys. I was not prepared for the level of chaos a fifth person could unleash on this house. Sure, I was prepared for a third baby. A cute little passive thing that would sit in a swing or on a blanket. Sure, they're demanding and make a lot of noise, and you don't get much sleep at night when you have a newborn, but at least they stay in one place when you put them down. They don't get all King Kong on their brother's block/Lego/Magnatile creations, they don't eat dog food, and they don't crawl out the back door and into the yard while you're taking out the trash.

James has been mobile since this summer when he learned to roll. Then he learned to army crawl, but he still was only interested in looking out the front window and sucking on the remote control. A few months ago came honest-to-goodness crawling. And then he got FAST. In the last few weeks he's taken an interest in the Big Boy Toys and that is when the real trouble began.

Cooking dinner has become an Olympic event--if the decathalon required athletes to perform all ten sports at the same time, that is. Put the water on to boil, get James out of the dog food. Get the meat out of the fridge, take the food processor bowl away from the baby. Spend the next ten minutes trying to find the ground beef, find it sitting on top of the dryer where it was dumped hastily in a spastic rush to keep James from putting the food processor blade in his mouth. Notice the water boiling, open the pasta box, help Charlie fix his Lego house, move James back into the kitchen, attempt to engage his attention with the basket of plastic cups and bowls in the cabinet. Put pasta in water, hear splashing, nearly kill myself tripping over useless overturned baby-entertainment basket as I rush to get James's hands out of the toilet.

Level of inappropriate language the kids have heard in the last two months: HIGH.

Then he gets locked in his booster seat with a handful of Cheerios even though dinner is a good thirty minutes away and I feel guilty for not letting him "free range" like the books tell you you should do. I get the sense that those authors have ONE CHILD. Who is in college. And possibly a prescription anti-anxiety. By the time it's time to eat he is full of Cheerios and DONE with the booster seat. He usually lasts about fifteen minutes then goes to bed.

And where I used to fold a load of laundry or two while the big boys watched a show, I now spend the whole thirty minutes repeatedly getting James off the stairs and reopening the TV cabinet doors he so loves to close. You can imagine how dire the laundry situation has become.

The pinnacle of all this interruption and confusion occurred yesterday. I changed James, then went to shake his diaper out in the bathroom. As I came out of the bathroom I watched in slow motion as he stuck his little hand out the back door just as Wes ran out into the yard. I dropped the diaper and ran to save him from getting pinched. HOURS later, when the babysitter was here and I was about to start making dinner, he crawled around the far side of the kitchen table with something stuck to his hand. I sniffed the something. Uh huh. It was poop. I'd left he poop diaper on the floor all afternoon and he had been playing with it. I forgot to add the onion that time, the soup was a little bland.

If any of you comes to my house between now and June, when James turns 18 months and gets a little bit more sense, I hope you will forgive the mess. But do tell me if there is poop on the floor. That is below even my standards.

Moment of Triumph

2012-01-10T10:31:00.000-08:00

He's been working on this since he was Wes's age. He only began hitting the backboard about six months ago. He keeps getting soccer balls stuck up high in the gym at school because he practices ALL the TIME (I know because he points them out to me when we go up to church for dinner. See that soccer ball up there stuck on top of that doorway? I did that!).

It all came together today.

I may have shown this to everyone I passed on the way to the car. I'm a little proud.

Update: He says "SIX POINTS!" at the end. I think it was the sixth basket he made that morning.

Children's Time Gone Wild

2012-01-08T19:36:00.000-08:00

We made quite the impression at church today. I should have known to pack it in and head for brunch when we went to get Wes after Sunday School and found him in the baby nursery, barefoot and wearing a backup pair of shorts. Apparently he secretly drank a Route 44 in Sunday School and just couldn't hold it for the whole hour. Happens to everyone, kid, don't worry about it.

But instead of cutting our losses and going out for pancakes, we pressed on, out into the courtyard in the fifty degree weather, with our son in shorts and no socks, into the sanctuary and up to the front row, where we sit because Charlie likes to watch the piano player.

A friend stopped me on the way to ask kindly "You sit up front, right? How does that work?"

"Oh," I responded with great hubris, "They behave much better at the front because they can see what's going on!" I smiled and headed to our seat.

The kids were wiggly, so I was relieved when it was time for them to go sit on the alter steps for the children's sermon.

As the congregation sang a hymn, the kids walked up to the front. Wes walked up the steps to sit down. And kept going. And going. And going.

People around us were giggling. The woman leading the children's message was unsure how to react.

Wes kept walking. Around the sacristy table, between a couple of microphones.

Finally the choir director, WHILE CONTINUING TO LEAD THE HYMN, patted him on the head and gently turned him in the right direction, back to the steps, where he settled in next to Charlie.

The leader asked the children "Have you ever been on a trip?"

Charlie piped up. "We went to the Gulf of Mexico!"

The congregation smiled. I smiled. The leader continued. But then Wes was talking.

"We stay in a house on da BEACH! It was WAY UP HIGH!"

The leader somehow continued on with a message about the wise men. "And what are some gifts we can give Baby Jesus?" she asked, purposely aiming the microphone away from Charlie and Wes's side. Charlie leaned over and answered "Prayer" into the microphone.

Another kid said something nice. Charlie wasn't finished. He made his way back around to the microphone.

"We give him our bodies when we die!"

Like right now. Jesus, you can have my body right now.

"AND WE CAN DO NICE THINGS FOR OUR FAMILIES!" continued the leader. Her voice was strained.

Charlie continued to talk, which made Wes continue to talk. It was one big interrupting party.

I hissed from our pew "STOP INTERRUPTING. CHARLIE. WES. QUIET. IT'S TIME TO LISTEN." but we were too far away.

Fervent prayers were coming from our pew. OMG GET THAT MICROPHONE AWAY FROM MY KID.

Finally it was time for the children's prayer and for whatever reason, that made them STOP TALKING.

They returned to the pew like nothing was amiss and proceeded to wiggle and squirm and try to lie down and otherwise make church a total circus. But I heard most of the sermon while Ryan took Wes to the Narthex for time out, so it wasn't a total loss.

Much better!

2012-01-07T18:55:00.001-08:00

Thursday afternoon I was walking down the street from the coffee shop back to our car at the library, pushing the stroller and trying my hardest to keep everyone out of the street/flowerbeds/ashtrays without totally losing it when I noticed that a new salon and spa had opened up downtown.

Under forces completely outside my control, but certainly related to THE PACK OF CRAZY WHO GO WITH ME EVERYWHERE I GO, I walked through the door and up to the counter where I proclaimed that I would like to schedule a haircut and pedicure for Saturday afternoon, please. As Wes and Charlie noisily jockeyed for position on the massage chair in the sitting area, I scheduled an appointment for 4:00.

This is kind of a big deal for me. I like to get fancy, girly haircuts where they offer you coffee or tea while you wait, but it just seems so inequitable with what the rest of the family does (I line them up at Great Clips like sheep at the county fair. Ryan included. And then pay with a coupon.). To compensate for the fact that my haircuts cost five times what theirs do, I only go like four times a year. And the last time was only two months ago. And my hair still looked pretty normal, which is all I really care about. But still, a tiny island of femininity in my testosterone soaked world sure sounded nice. It would be a bonus haircut.

I could cancel up to twenty-four hours in advance, I reasoned. But then yesterday at 4:00 came and went and suddenly, I was COMMITTED.

I looked forward to it all day today. Even though I spent the whole day happily working alone at my desk with a warm beverage, I still kind of felt like I deserved an hour away. Just an hour! At 3:30 I couldn't take it anymore so I grabbed some magazines, hopped in the car, and left. I tried not to behave too gleefully as I left the house, but I don't think I was successful.

While I waited in the quiet, zen looking reception area, a nicely dressed hipster type brought me a hot cup of tea and asked if I would mind if she gave me a complimentary hand massage. I did not mind, as a matter of fact, bring it on. Then the stylist came and led me to my chair. We briefly discussed what style I wanted (chin-length stacked bob, as always, how original) then it was time to wash my hair and massage my scalp with wonderfully minty shampoo and conditioner. "This is why I don't go to Great Clips" I thought as I struggled to stay awake and keep from thumping my foot on the ground like a Golden Retriever.

When she was done cutting and styling my hair I was a little startled to learn that it was already 5:00 and I still had my pedicure left to go. Startled and a little giddy, I mean. I called Ryan and told him not to hold dinner then fired up the massage chair and opened my In Style. Sixty (!!) glorious, QUIET, minutes later I had pretty, coppery toes, freshly styled mom hair, and my very own bottles of minty shampoo and conditioner.

I was starting to feel a little bit bad for Ryan. I had not expected to be gone for two hours, especially not THE two hours before dinner, the worst two hours of all. So I called him. He answered on the first ring. "You'll be just in time for dessert," he said "I couldn't wait any longer. The core was melting down." I could hear screaming in the background. It was in stark contrast to the aromatherapy lotion that was I had smeared all over my feet.

The kids jumped all over me when I got home. "You got YOUR hair cut, Mama!" exclaimed Wes. Charlie snuggled into my lap and observed "You smell MINTY." They both were totally enamored with my toenails and fancy disposable shoes.

We ate brownies together and then put them to bed. And now I am happily back at my desk working on the conference paper while Ryan works on work stuff at the kitchen table. I haven't had this much energy in WEEKS. I think I better go back to that place weekly, just until the paper is done. We'll call it a professional expense.

The process of conference paper acceptance

2012-01-04T07:07:00.000-08:00

1. Shock: Wow, that piece of crap I slapped down in fifteen minutes, typing with one hand while I ate a Freebird's burrito with the other hand, did not proofread or otherwise seek feedback from someone (Like my coauthor?)for then submitted without a second glance because I was tired of thinking about it ACTUALLY GOT ACCEPTED? FOR A TALK?

2. Anger: FIFTEEN PAGES? How on earth do they expect me to write fifteen pages on top of all my other responsibilities! KIDS? TURN ON THE TV! MAMA'S GOTTA WRITE A $#@$@#$ FIFTEEN PAGE PAPER? Fifteen pages. I hope they like figures.

3. Bargaining: God? Are you there? I swear if you could just help me remember the name of the Excel spreadsheet where I put all of the analysis for this project I swear I'll volunteer for Vacation Bible School again this year.

4. Depression: WOE. My computer doesn't have the right software, I can't find my analysis, my dissertation reads like a drunk third-grader wrote it, my coauthor is in Cabo, preschool is closed this week, and there are NO COOKIES IN MY WHOLE HOUSE. (Pour a third cup of coffee, tighten bathrobe belt) NO WE CANNOT GO TO STORYTIME, GO OUTSIDE.

5. Acceptance: (At one o'clock in the morning, paper is due at COB EST) OK I can do this. I CAN DO THIS. (Put on another pot of coffee, unearth lucky coffee mug in sink of dirty dishes) Introduction? Let's use the first half of the abstract. Historical Research? I'll just borrow that from this other paper that's going nowhere. Method? Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V from the old dissertat-o-rooney. Woohoo ten pages! Results and Discussion? Conclusions? Crap. Get on Facebook to await arrival of flash of brilliance. Stand up and walk around. Sit back down. Check Google Reader. And Facebook. Still waiting on flash of brilliance. Force self to look at each graph and make some observations, however infantile they might seem. Get to third graph when sleep deprivation and caffeine combine to make you INCREDIBLY INTELLIGENT AND CLEVER ALL OF THE SUDDEN. WRITE WRITE WRITE LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT. Submit paper electronically with little-to-no proofreading. Go to bed. Wake up with hangover-like worry that you did something embarrassing last night and can't quite put your finger on what it was. Decide not to care. Pass out bananas to very loud children and forget all about it.

Pictures! Because I've been enjoying so! Much! Family! Time!

2012-01-01T15:02:00.000-08:00

Well, whoops! It's been five days without a post. You would think that all the stinking quality time we've been spending together would mean I'd have lots to say, but after a while The Crazy just fades into the background and hardly seems noteworthy anymore, you know? Except for one noteworthy thing--after almost two months (was it more? I do not know, but the ped hasn't called in the CDC yet, so it couldn't be more than a month or two) I think we've finally settled James's diaper rash down. You know what did it? CLOTH DIAPERS. I know. Not the plan. But it's the only thing that works and we already have some and whattareyougonnado? He still wears disposables at night. I am not interested in reliving that extremely messy part of Charlie's infancy and it seems to be OK for his preshus little princess-and-the-pea bottom. So there you go.

Pictures! A little bit after Christmas (because without preschool and/or work who can remember what the hell day it is anymore) we went to meet some out of town friends for lunch (This friend, Abby, and her family). There were five boys between us. Charlie was the oldest. It was loud. And lots of fun. The three "older" boys sat together at their own table in what can only be described as Lord of the Flies meets Peter Pan meets Transfats. Ketchup was sucked up with straws, is what I'm saying.

Captain Hook insisted on wearing that grubby bandaid for three days. Battles, you have to pick them.

On the other side of the aisle, at the adult table, we have the two good boys, who sat nicely in their chairs and ate their lunches without (much) complaining. James's shirt was grunge-i-fied by the large cup of lukewarm coffee he dumped all over himself in the play area, but I think he's eyeing Travis's bib like "Man, if I had one of those I wouldn't smell like a barista on a bender right now."

On New Year's Eve Eve Ryan and I went to the symphony to hear a concert of all John Williams' music. It was exceptional. There was a heavy "Star Wars" theme and I was too chicken to go up to the real live Stormtroopers, so this is what you get.

The orchestra opened with this and it was so enjoyable. The crowd cheered when the conductor came back for the encore and cheered louder when an image of Superman came onto the screen. SO fun. A wonderful show and a wonderful night away from The Crazy.

And finally, we finally got around to having a first birthday party for James on New Year's Eve morning! His cake was covered with yummy blueberries! We had family over! I made four pizzas! It was lovely.

James approves of cake. And pizza and family passing him around.

New Year's Eve was interesting because Charlie crashed into the space shuttle at full speed with his celebratory noisemaker in his mouth and started bleeding. His lip turned out to be fine, but it started an hour-long tantrum that was TOTALLY out of character for him. I finally figured out he hadn't eaten anything but birthday cake all day and force fed him a PB&J and the evening was salvaged. Yay blood sugar! Fettucine Alfredo, champagne, and apple turnovers followed and then the kids put on their jammies and went for a walk to look at fireworks while James went to bed. I celebrated by taking some Tylenol Cold and going to bed at 9:30 after a couple of episodes of House Hunters. ROCK ON.

Merry and Bright!

2011-12-26T20:40:00.000-08:00

Every year I say "This year they are at a GREAT age for Christmas!", but I think it's really true this year because, friends, it was magical. Everyone finally woke up AFTER SEVEN, but I had been lying awake since six, when I'd gotten up to get the casserole out of the fridge and was too excited to go back to sleep. Santa did it up big this year. He set the table with bananas and glitter and a handwritten note! He posed two Lego Bionacles to guard the present stash. He put dinosaurs next to the stockings by the kids' doors! But let me back up...

*****

We have Christmas Eve dinner at my aunt and uncle's house every year. She makes a traditional Polish Christmas Eve feast with borscht, pierogi, fish, a special dessert, and sometimes homemade lemon vodka. I look forward to it every year and this year the kids were looking forward to it too. Charlie said "The borscht and the fish and the perogi? I LOVE that meal!" Tradition, family, candles, warmth, a connection to the past, to another world. It makes my heart so happy.

Dish towel borcht bibs also make my heart happy.

We went to church next, for the children's service. Partway though all the kids go up front in their shepherd, king, and angel hats and crowd around the Newborn King. They stay there until it's time to light the candles and sing Silent Night. It is delicious chaos every year. I lost sight of Charlie and Wes, but they found their way back with no trouble at the end. James slept through all of it, even the manic bell ringing during "Joy to the World".

*****

After church and hot chocolate we spent some time tracking Santa on the NORAD website. He was in Portugal. The kids were electrified.

Do you like my new dining room Space Shuttle? It was a gift from our babysitter. I joke about it, but I think it's the coolest thing in the whole house. I kind of want to sleep in it at night.

*****

We had several false starts Christmas morning. The first wake up was at three. Wes had a bad dream. Bears, I think.

The next wake up was around six-ten. Wes collapsed on our floor, crying. We have no idea why, but he went back to sleep after Ryan put him back in his bed.

Finally, everyone was awake and coherent. I asked Charlie if Santa had come and his eyes popped out of his head. HE BROUGHT US DINOSAURS! He couldn't believe it. I remembered being a kid and feeling Santa's presence in my own house Christmas morning, when I woke up with my stocking at the end of my bed, the Christmas tree lights turned on, the presents. I knew Charlie was picturing Santa walking around in our hallway, arranging the stockings. I was giddy just thinking about it. Wes caught on shortly after and they both tore into their stockings.

Then we headed down the stairs and tried in vain to get them to eat something. We were really, really outmatched, mostly because we didn't want to wait around and eat bananas either. Santa had come through! Wes got his blue truck! Charlie got his walkie talkies (which are *awesome*. Today we took them to the park and let the kids walk all over the place and talk to us). James got his hand me down wooden stacking puzzle that we gave to Wes two years ago.

Then James took a nap while the big boys put together the new Lego Space Shuttle and I milled around making mulled apple cider, listening to Bing Crosby (Santa put a CD in my stocking!), and gathering the wrapping paper together.

Christmas dinner was at my aunt and uncle's house. It was a fabulous meal, as always. This year there were enough people to have a kids' table. My teenager cousin was especially thrilled to sit there.

James was thrilled to get a brand new toy.

My mom made costumes for all the kids to be in a Christmas pageant. THAT will be a new tradition because it was ADORABLE.

And this was the after-dinner entertainment. Charlie played so hard he woke up with sore muscles. I think there is a n XBox in our future.

Getaway

2011-12-21T20:39:00.000-08:00

My sister organized a little mini-vacation for us all (Our family, her family, and my parents) this past weekend. She found the most perfect house. Quiet, remote, and close to the water. This was the view from Wes's bed.

Fabulous.

This was my view of Charlie, pretty much the whole time. After promising to not go in the water and not go anywhere but up the stairs to the house, he was given free reign of the (not very large) beach (yes, sometimes in his jammies). For a kid who is happiest being allowed to tinker outside by himself, it was absolute heaven. And when did he get so freaking grown up, I ask you??

James loved the aquarium.

This was a really sweet scene until Charlie screamed at Wes after Wes refused to respond to Charlie's attempts to teach him about sting rays.

Then they got really rowdy so we locked them all in a cage.

There was a touch tank and Ryan took this picture of me adjusting my glasses and James looking unacceptably grown-up and tall. This was right before Charlie casually asked the volunteer if the starfish he was petting had "regenerating limbs".

Afterward we had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe, home of the most terrifying simulated indoor thunderstorm Wes has ever experienced. He crawled over the top of the table and into my dad's lap after the first rumbling boom of thunder (Grandpa is Wes's favorite).

We took a ferry ride across the bay and got to see dolphins and pelicans. It was very confusing to Wes, who had fallen asleep in the car, to wake up still in the car, but also on a boat. He got over it quickly and it turned out to be the highlight of his weekend. When we got home he burst into the house and yelled "WE GO ON A FERRY BOAT AND WE SEE DOLPHINS!!!"

Ryan assured me he was hanging onto James so tight in this picture that he thought he might be hurting him.

After the ferry we drove to the beach for a picnic. I think the seagulls had more of a picnic than any of the kids. They do love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and bananas!

James was drawn to the ocean like a sea turtle hatchling. I followed him, curious where he would go, and he made it all the way to the water's edge and had to be scooped up seconds before he was soaked by a wave.

We spent some time examining a mummified fish skeleton. It was not as disgusting as it sounds. It was really pretty cool, the fin bones were serrated! That was one bad-ass fish!

After we all made a big fuss about how interesting it was, Charlie said quietly that he thought it was sad that the fish had died. Poor sweet boy! We buried the fish and Charlie said a prayer and marked the spot with some sticks.

I took this magical special picture when we stopped in the historic district on the way back to the house. Clearly, it was time to get those kids back into the house PRONTO. Charlie was being so ridiculous that Ryan had to take him to the car while Wes and I spent a lovely fifteen minutes picking out the very perfect treat at the candy store. I chose hot chocolate and Wes picked chocolate covered pretzels, which he shared with his oppressor Charlie once we got to the car. Wes is a nice kid.

And speaking of boys who are all grown up, look who turned ONE while we were gone!

He is SO BIG!*

*There will be another post on this soon because HOW THE HECK IS HE ONE?

Welcome Home

2011-12-13T13:01:00.000-08:00

Last week when I got home from San Francisco, the kids were already in bed. I kissed their sweet faces, talked to Ryan for a few minutes, then went to bed myself, since it was nearly midnight. Around 2:00 Charlie came wandering into our room.

He was cold and couldn't find Phent and he went to Ryan's side of the bed to ask for help. He was all smiles when he saw me sit up in bed. I led him back to his room and wrapped him in a quilt on the floor while I searched his bed for Phent.

As I smoothed the sheets and pulled the blanket and quilt up and tucked everything in tight he was talking, talking, talking.

"Mama, do you know what the biggest magnet is? It's THE WHOLE WORLD. The WHOLE WORLD is a magnet. It has a north pole and a south pole just like a magnet. And a compass needle sticks to the earth! It sticks to the North Pole. Santa doesn't live at the North Pole, that's just where the compass needle sticks. The whole world is a magnet!"

I scooped him up and tucked him (and Phent) back into bed, rubbed his arms to warm him up, then leaned in to give him another hug. He grabbed on and wouldn't let go.

"Night, night, Buddy! See you in the morning!"

"The earth is a huge magnet! 'Grabbity' holds the moon in its ORBIT!"

"It's sleeping time, Sweetie, I'll see you tomorrow."

"And the compass needle sticks to the North Pole!"

"Night night, Charlie."

And then he was asleep.

First Crush

2011-12-11T19:56:00.001-08:00

Saturday afternoon we loaded up the family for a trip out for lunch and to Target for laundry detergent and hot dogs. We all enjoyed a lunch of tacos and bean and cheese burritos at Rosa's before venturing back out into the frigid Central Texas winter weather (forty degrees). Charlie declared that he wanted to walk to Target, which was a half-mile away, but it was cold and we were buying something heavy, so we compromised and parked really far away instead of walking the whole distance.

The kids happily held onto the sides of the cart and bobbed along as we made our way through the store, picking up all of the odds and ends on our list. Hot dogs, thumb tacks, goodie bags, ribbon, flour, wipes! One by one, into the cart. Everyone was happy. We were going to have plenty of time to get home and wrap the gift we were buying for our friend, whose birthday party we would attend later that afternoon.

The kids were bubbling over with excitement at the register, bouncing in place, climbing around each other and the cart, grappling over the plastic sticks that you use to separate your toilet paper and bananas from the next customer's DVDs and half and half. So when Wes finally settled down underneath the shopping cart, on the place where you would put a large bag of dog food, or the big box of diapers, I was relieved. One fewer kid bouncing around me like a crazed electron! Hooray!

Ryan and I made a big stupid deal about "looking" for Wes before we left the store. "Where's Wes?!" we asked each other, in mock confusion, "Did he go to the potty? Is he at the water fountain? I don't see him! Where is he?" Hysterical giggles came from under the cart. "I'll sure miss Wes! He was such a nice boy!" Giggle, giggle, giggle. Finally, with James in the baby seat, cart fully loaded, and Charlie bouncing along beside, we made our way out of the store and started down the aisle toward our car, which was, as you remember, parked Very Far Away because Charlie is trying to incorporate more cardiovascular activity into his daily routine or something.

About halfway down the aisle Wes began screaming. SCREAMING screaming. Charlie shrieked "HE RAN OVER HIS HAND WITH THE CART!" And sure enough, when I peeled him off the parking lot, his left hand was covered in blood (and there was a situation with the nail on his middle finger that is too disgusting to detail here).

He cried. OH did he cry. He buried his head in my chest and cried and held his hand out at an awkward angle, shaking it from the terrible pain. He couldn't even bear to hold Smelly with that hand. We hobbled the rest of the way to the car and settled Wes in the passenger seat to investigate. He could not calm down, his finger was dirty and bleeding and crushed.

Ryan got everyone settled in the car while I frantically ran back into Target for Something To Fix It--Toy Story Bandaids, gauze, children's Motrin, a bag full of ice, and M&Ms. I planned to use the M&Ms to distract him while I dabbed the blood off his tiny little fingers and wrapped his whole body in Woody Bandaids.

Ryan was still trying to console him when I got back outside. It was good I'd gotten the big bag of M&Ms; we all needed them, especially Charlie who went absolutely pale when he finally got a good look at the injury. Even after administering candy and Motrin, it took two of us to get his middle and ring fingers wrapped in gauze and taped together with Bandaids. I was on the phone with Urgent Care as we pulled out onto the main road. They could get him in as soon as we could get there.

Not wanting to further the chaos, Ryan took Wes to the clinic while Charlie, James, and I went to the previously scheduled birthday party. Charlie disappeared into the house as soon as we arrived, but ran through the kitchen multiple times to ask if I'd heard from Wes. Ryan called right after they did the x-rays. It wasn't broken, so they were going to clean it out really well and send him home with some antibiotic ointment and a splint to keep him from catching it on things.

Before we left the party, Charlie spent ten minutes crafting the Perfect Goodie Bag for Wes from the candy table, making sure he got AT LEAST five packs of Smarties, Wes's favorite. He proudly carried it to Wes when we got home and found him in the playroom, sucking his thumb with his splinted middle finger in the air. Wes was happy to see us and still a little tender about his finger. We made sad faces together for a picture.

He was feeling much better today, but took a three hour nap this afternoon. We all took a three hour nap this afternoon. I'm going to need to toughen up before the two-wheeler years, the organized sports years, and, God-forbid, the skateboard years. But he won't be such a snuggly little guy then, right?

It would be called a summary if it wasn't twenty pages long

2011-12-07T14:05:00.001-08:00

Some highlights of my trip (the quick-ish version):

-Dinner and sightseeing with blog friend Kim. I really can't do this justice with the time I have now, but we had a GREAT time. It is not often you meet someone in so identical a life stage as you (especially when you are an early-career academic in the sciences with multiple small children) and we had lots to talk about. She met me at my hotel at 3:00 and, when asked what I wanted to do, I said "let's walk!" We saw EVERYTHING and returned to the hotel completely exhausted just before nine. We had the most wonderful cup of hot chocolate at Ghiradelli and a delicious garlicky dinner at the Stinking Rose before walking through Chinatown on our way back. When she got home she mapped our route and learned that we'd walked 5.6 miles! It was the perfect not-too-cold night for it and her company was the best part. You are welcome in South anytime, Kim!

-Dinner and more Chinatown with blog friend Sarah! Again, someone I met online who is now a real friend. We last saw each other in person several years ago at BlogHer and were able to pick right up where we'd left off. Which is to say, drinking wine in a swanky restaurant talking really, really loud. I had the thought "Wow, I think I'm talking too loud" about ten seconds before she said "I feel like I'm being really loud!" We covered a lot of ground, but I especially enjoyed talking politics. We're two peas in a pod there. Our Italian dinner was wonderful (including the best salad OF MY LIFE) and then we set out on foot for Chinatown so I could buy some souvenirs for the kids. Most things were closed when we got there, but we had a really nice walk, including climbing the most enormous hill I have ever seen.

Seriously, it was ridiculous. And it just kept going and going.

-Lunch with another blog friend, WhitMc! She is lovely and also very helpfully reminded me to get a picture of us together before she had to go back to work, something I'd forgotten to do with Sarah and Kim.

We had lunch with a view on top of Macy's in Union Square (this was taken from our table, it was spectacular).

We compared notes about our awesome husbands and awesome kids and our jobs and future plans and priorities. It was like we'd known each other far longer than the few months we've been online friends. She is an ambitious attorney and had lots of great thoughts about the jobs vs. family question and was in general just really fun to talk to. We had a great time.

-The conference. OMG THE CONFERENCE. I am so glad I came. SO GLAD. I am going to be processing this for weeks to come, but let me try to summarize it in one word for you now:

AWESOMESAUCE.

The AGU conference is HUGE, first of all, with physical scientists from every field imaginable. When I say "huge", I mean there were 16,000 attendees, three large conference centers, and 20,000 talks, lectures, workshops, and posters! Monday morning I stepped out of my hotel and into a throng of geoscientists that snaked its way the whole five blocks to the conference center, interrupted only by "don't walk" signs and the occasional open coffee shop door. As I walked I heard snippets of conversation about this research project and that, this field trip to Antarctica, that crazy moment in South America, and the concentration of ozone over Greenland in 1990 vs 2012. It was so energizing to be among the crowd of people so passionate about their work. Everywhere I went in the city I played "spot the scientist" and it wasn't hard. Some people even had their name tags on far from the conference center or were carrying their poster tubes around with them. I loved it.

I especially enjoyed the sessions on global climate change education at the undergraduate level and the keynote address by author Simon Winchester (so, so good, will be buying and reading Atlantic very, very soon).

Two workshops were the absolute highlight of the conference for me. Tuesday I spent the afternoon at one called "Starting a Research Program at a Primarily Undergraduate Institution," that sounded like a good fit after reading about it in the program. The first part was a very informative series of talks about ways to involve undergrads in research, resources available to undergrad institutions, and that sort of thing and then we split into groups (groups of FOUR PEOPLE, I was not expecting this kind of one-on-one attention, it was a dream come true, honestly) and talked with NSF program officers about ideas and questions and ways to make our proposals better. The NSF guy said he had remembered my proposal and we discussed some ways I could improve it for the next round, which was intimidating, but really, really helpful. He was very approachable and helpful and not The Great And Powerful Oz, like I had been picturing in my mind.

The second workshop that proved extremely informative and helpful was called Integrating Quantitative Skills into your Geoscience Courses. I thought it might be helpful as I prepare to teach Earth Science again this spring, but I did not realize how truly, mind-blowingly helpful it was going to be. We were guided through website after website of educational modules that are exactly perfect for my class and lab. And then, during the free time we had to work on our syllabi, I had a conversation with the person next to me who just happened to be teaching the same class, but with the benefit of multiple years of experience and a DEGREE IN PEDAGOGY. She sent me her syllabus and walked me through her reasoning for structuring her course the way she did (which was much better than my method which was "the table of contents told me to do it this way"). Together we came up with some good in-class activities to reinforce quantitative skills while teaching earth science concepts relevant to the course.

I never expected to be surrounded by such a crowd of lovely, helpful people as I was here and I am so, so grateful. My class, my research, and my career are going to be so much better for it.

On that note, I received an email while here that an abstract I submitted to another conference that's in October was accepted and that I should submit the accompanying twelve-page article by the end of April. It is very exciting, but the energy and motivation I've gained here along with the prospect of totally rearranging my course and writing a new article (with yet-to-be complete analysis) gives me the feel of being on a runaway train and it will be interesting to see what happens when idealism and excitement of this week crashes up against the realities of my normal, extremely hectic life. I really hope to continue the momentum I've gained here because it is worth it. If there's one thing I can take away from this experience, it's that I love being a scientist, I love science education, and it's worth pushing through these awkward part-time years.

In fact, the only bad part about the week was that these guys weren't here to share it with me:

I can't wait to get home!

This is what a geoscientist looks like

2011-12-04T04:49:00.001-08:00

At 6:30 in the morning. After only a few sips of coffee.I'm on my way to San Francisco for a conference. A PROFESSIONAL CONFERENCE. Where I will be talking about things! Science things! And going to sessions on such interesting topics as getting NSF grants, including quantitative instruction in geoscience classes, and boundary layer fluxes in the sub-Saharan region and the effect of political instability in the region (that's not a real thing).

Anyway. I only cried a little bit after I kissed Ryan and Wes goodbye (everyone else was asleep) and climbed into the Neon for the harrowing thirty minute drive to the airport. Harrowing because I no longer drive in the dark, pretty much ever, and also because it was raining, which also never happens anymore (I'm also going to a session about that!).

I'm going to miss them like crazy. But I think I will learn a lot and have some fun.

And also sleep in a king-sized bed ALL BY MYSELF. Kinda looking forward to that part, especially after spending the morning curled up in a queen with a barely-potty trained three year old who is afraid of all precipitation.

On Friday we'll all be yelling at each other in the costume room for the church's Live Nativity and everything will be back to normal. I'm kind of looking forward to that too.

Special Yuletide Memories!

2011-12-01T11:46:00.001-08:00

This morning at my church's mom group my friend was in the middle of sharing a great thought about family and traditions and making your home a sanctuary for your family when I involuntarily snorted from the effort of holding in the giggles as I thought about this picture:

In a nod to making our own traditions we made the assembling of the artificial, pre-lit tree as special as possible. Ryan was joking around and picked Wes up, along with the huge bushy mass of fake evergreen, so he could do the ceremonial putting on of the top third of the tree. "Come here, Tiny Tim!" he exclaimed as I stood ready with the camera. Wes started yelling "YOU'RE HURTING ME! OW OW OW, THE TREE IS HURTING ME!"

My life, it is an episode of "The Middle". Right down to the overflowing laundry basket on the dining room table.

But the rest of the tree trimming was very memorable and sweet, as we had intended all along. The kids were so thrilled to hang their homemade ornaments.

Wes chose to focus his efforts on the bottom-most row of branches.

Then Ryan plugged it in, accompanied by the Griswold Family Drumroll and the Hallelujah Chorus which serendipitously came on the internet radio at exactly the right moment, and the kids spent a few minutes figuring out if the lights were hot or not by touching every single one and giving us a report. "Red one's hot. Yellow one's hot. Blue one's hot. This red one's hot too."

Then we had eggnog and cookies by tree-light.

And read "This is the Stable" before bed. James wasted no time in removing half the ornaments this morning after breakfast. It's a good thing they're made of flour!

You win some you lose some

2011-11-29T18:15:00.001-08:00

Because Tuesdays are long and formless in our house, I decided it was time to make a little holiday cheer. Time for some dough ornaments!

With a snarky "making holiday memories" in my head, I Googled "dough ornaments" and was directed to this website, aptly named "Making Memories". We already had all the ingredients on hand, so I whipped up the dough during the kids' first hour (of approximately fifteen-thousand) of screentime in the morning. After their show was over, we rolled it out and cut the shapes out together then stuck them in the oven for an hour.

For whatever reason, everybody was completely insane today, so it was a special hour of reminding the children to PUT YOUR SHOES BACK ON OUT THERE IT'S FORTY-FIVE DEGREES and asking Wes if he needed to go potty eleven times a minute.

When the ornaments were out of the oven and James was awake we headed to Target for some groceries, paint, and glitter. You would think that getting everyone into the car for as fun a reason as buying paint for your awesome homemade Christmas ornaments would be a snap, but YOU WOULD BE WRONG. There was whining and stubbornness and endless requests to put your seatbelt/shoes/coat on. I considered scrapping the whole thing right then, but it was only ten o'clock in the morning and I had another eight hours to kill before Ryan would be home, so we pressed on.

Fortunately, the bananas they ate in the car on the way home perked them right up because we had a really lovely time painting ornaments together. It was like they were under a spell. A spell called "This is like school. School makes me feel calm and secure." (James was napping, by the way. This was not a James-approved activity. In fact, I made one ornament with his handprint on it, then while I ran to the pantry to get a rag to wipe the paint off of his hand he covered his entire head with red Crayola washable paint. Adorable).

Charlie's were very meticulous and detailed...

Wes's were bright and cheerful with lots of glitter...

The kitchen looked like a winter wonderland between all the flour, glitter, and multicolored paint droplets sprayed onto every surface within six feet of the table. And every time I passed the cookie sheet with the extra ornaments on it I thought they were sugar cookies and almost tried to eat one. I finally just made some actual cookies so I wouldn't keep getting disappointed. But ornament-making was a HIT. We all had so much fun.

And they came out so pretty!

I made the Rossby one.

We made about twenty-five in all and I'm considering making another batch and using them exclusively on our tree this year since I anticipate we will have some James-related tree drama.

The kids went nuts later in the afternoon and so now I am sitting here on my computer while Ryan unpacks our suitcase from this weekend to atone for not being here for Screamfest-2011 in which there were multiple injuries, much back-talking, ceaseless fighting, and a scorpion stuck to James's pants. But that is a story for another day.

Face kick

2011-11-27T19:32:00.001-08:00

Someday when Charlie is all grown up, and hopefully sitting awkwardly on the couch in our retirement cottage on the New England coast with a girl he really, really likes I'm going to break the ice by saying "Remember when you were five and you kicked Wes in the face during Hanging of the Greens at church?"

I mean, right there in the middle of all that winter stillness and anticipation of light in the darkness, WHAM! Size 1 sneaker RIGHT to the forehead.

There was screaming, as you might imagine, and then I told Charlie he couldn't have dessert, which Ryan said was the BEST punishment EVER. And it really was because after they light up the Chrismon trees and we sing Joy to the World we adjourn to the Fellowship Hall for dessert fellowship in the form of eight large tables covered from end to end in cookies and pie and brownies and candy (we made gingerbread men). (And also I told Charlie that he would lose cookies if he didn't stop picking on Wes, long before the face kicking incident. There were lots of foreshocks on both sides in the form of pinching, poking, sneering, and golf-pencil stealing)

He managed to join us up front when we hung ornaments on the tree together, but pouted with great vigor for the rest of the evening. He sat, slumped in a folding chair while the rest of us ate cookies.

It was pitiful. But not as pitiful as the giant red bruise on Wes's left temple.

Want another brownie, Wes? Here, have two!

Also behaved poorly during Hanging of the Greens. We took turns holding him in the back.

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-26T08:49:00.001-08:00

Boys in sweaters...

Toy trains...

The Santa Train...

Loveys on the Santa Train...

Delightfully awful family pictures...

And one delicious baby who for a just a little bit longer isn't too cool to look at the camera.

Family, laughter, late-night cuddly Star Wars watching, hours of cousin-play, seasonal weather (finally), hot cocoa for breakfast, car naps, good food (so much good food!), good wine, good friends.

So thankful!

Well that was a real pain in the butt, HAR HAR HAR

2011-11-21T08:32:00.001-08:00

I had big plans for this, the first preschool free day of Thanksgiving "Break". Friends were coming over to play! I was going to make breakfast tacos! But then James woke up howling and screeching from his crib with the diaper rash to end all diaper rashes. I dosed him up with all of his various creams for the high-maintenance baby that we've accumulated in the last several months, then stuck him in his high chair for some breakfast.

He was really losing his mind when I came down from taking a shower. Ryan had him on the floor to change his diaper, which he hates, so he was screaming and writhing around and I was flustered and snappy with the other kids who were hopping around me, half dressed, and yelling over the screaming "I WANT SOME HOT CHOCOLATE, MAMA!" on repeat as I picked my way around the kitchen stepping over toys and pajama pieces and tiny pairs of underpants, trying to straighten up a little bit for the friends who would be coming over.

Then, over the screaming and the whining I heard Ryan say "Oh my gosh, you poor, poor thing. BEC COME LOOK AT THIS."

There was blood. The rash was bleeding. It was bleeding so bad that when Ryan wiped some away more took its place almost immediately. James wrested himself from Ryan's grasp and rolled away. Blood got all over the carpet.

I calmly reported that I would be taking him to the emergency room and WOULD EVERYONE PLEASE FIND THEIR DAMN SHOES AND PUT THEM ON RIGHTNOW.

Ryan got him cleaned up and put a nice soft cloth diaper on him (the best one we have, he said, even though we don't use cloth anymore) while I dialed the pediatrician. Of course because it's the Monday morning before a holiday I was on hold for what felt like seven hours, listening to advertisements for the Med Spa and their new website where you can make appointments online, which, HOW CONVENIENT. Maybe there is a box you can check for "My baby's ass is bleeding, must come in ASAP."

Ryan took the phone from me when he noticed my eyes threatening to pop out of my skull. I get the other kids dressed while he waited on hold.

He made the earliest possible appointment and then we got everyone in the car and I headed out.

The doctor diagnosed him with a strep infection and prescribed an antibiotic, some more fancy creams, and some formula that costs more than the down payment on a new car. He checked his ears and gums and throat and we were on our way.

Or so I thought.

After I schlepped everyone back down the elevator, through the lobby, and out to the car I found the doors to the van locked.

"Who locked the doors?" I wondered aloud.

"I DID!" Charlie was so proud of himself. Which is why he was so confused when I sighed loudly and said "WHY?!"

I rifled through my purse with one hand, holding James in the other arm, and reminded Wes to get out of the street approximately every five seconds. There were no keys.

I squatted down in the empty parking space beside my car, put James on the ground, and started taking things out of my bag. The huge formula samples, the prescription, the books I took to entertain the kids, the extra diaper, the headphones, and my wallet. There were no keys. I retrieved James, who had crawled halfway under the car, reminded Wes to stay close, then said out loud to no one in particular,

"SHIT. YOU KIDS NEVER SAY THAT WORD. SHIT!!"

I gathered everything back together, James, the diaper bag, my purse, the other two kids, and we moved out of the parking lot and onto the entrance of the office building where I could complete a more thorough search. Still no keys.

I hoisted James onto my hip, let Charlie carry the diaper bag, and put Wes in charge of James's lovey and paci. We went back through the lobby, up the elevator, down the hall, into the pediatrician's office, down the hall, around the corner, and back into the exam room.

Where I found not only my keys, which were on top of the doctor's stool underneath the table, but also James's pants.

The four of us trooped back down the hall, out of the office, down the other hall, down the elevator, through the lobby, down the stairs, across the parking lot, and into the (now unlocked!) car.

And then we headed straight for Dunkin Donuts.

Drippity, Droppity, Doo

2011-11-16T20:34:00.001-08:00

To my dear, sweet, middle child,

I love your spirit, your sense of fun, and your curiosity. Some day those qualities will serve you well. Like if you live in a frat house, for example. Some ancient, ramshackle frat house with ancient ramshackle plumbing at some mid-level state university somewhere would be the perfect place to ~~get drunk and fall asleep on a shower drain~~ experiment with water.

A less appropriate place to play with water is in the upstairs bathroom of our house while you are supposed to be asleep. Because when I am downstairs with my game night friends, what I want to hear is stories about children, husbands, family size plans, wild things we did in college, and things you can do with a crockpot. Not dripping water. And then DRIPPING WATER. And then the sound of a small waterfall coming out of an HVAC duct, soaking through the kitchen rug, and pooling on the floor.

Ironically, my love, we had just discussed white noise machines and then all of the sudden there was a real live Amazon Waterfall right there in my very own kitchen. Your timing is impeccable.

But when, after I summon Papa to the kitchen with a tone of voice so alarming that he comes flying down the stairs two at a time, and after surveying the scene he immediately runs back up the stairs, three at a time, to find the source of the water, he finds you sitting in your bed with wet socks? He's going to know who it was who plugged the sink, shoved a crayon in the drain, cranked the faucet up to full blast, then calmly closed the door and went back to bed like nothing had ever happened.

So, dear, sweet child-of-mine, I hope "new carpet pad" and "mold abatement" were on your Christmas list. Because I have a feeling that that is just what Santa had in mind for you.

Ho, ho, ho,

Mom

Free Association in Downward Dog

2011-11-15T08:46:00.001-08:00

You guys, it is RAINING. I can't tell you how happy I am about this. It was supposed to come overnight and when I woke up at 5:00 and it was not raining I was disappointed. Like a child-like, totally out of proportion kind of disappointed. But then I sneaked downstairs (hard to do with my poppy-creaky knees) and checked the radar and sure enough, it was still on its way. Which was great because I go to yoga on Tuesday mornings and I'm hoping one day we have a massive thunderstorm during class because I think that would be really cool.

So during yoga this morning (and the rain didn't start until after class, but that's ok because I didn't get to finish class anyway because someone had a blowout in the nursery. Without naming names, it was the only one of the children who continues to wear a diaper during the day who also cannot speak or walk), when I was supposed to be emptying my mind and focusing on my breath and the way my feet felt "pushing the earth out of its orbit" (eye roll), all I could think about was my career. LUCKY YOU.

So last night at yoga (am an overachiever this week) the teacher was talking about how women are so hard on themselves and I was thinking about how I'm kind of afraid to do things that I don't think I will succeed at.

For example. My stupid publication THAT WILL NEVER BE FINISHED. Why am I having so much trouble finding time to work on it? I miss doing research. I miss knowing things. I miss reading and writing. I miss being part of the community I was once in. That Tuesday a few weeks ago when Ryan took the day off and gave me the whole day to write? WAS ABSOLUTE HEAVEN. I don't know how I can remedy those things long term, but I do have this paper right now that I need to write already. I do have time; I need to force myself to do it. It doesn't matter if it gets accepted or not, the point is that I am doing SOMETHING. I need to finish that something before I can see the next something. It's time to stop looking for the perfect job and start doing the job I have in front of me well. Eventually if I finish enough little jobs, I will probably be able to figure out the rest (maybe?).

Things are not going to get any easier, time-wise. My lecture course starts again in January and I decided not to use the lab book this time so I have to write my own lab material. I've taught the course before but it's on M-W-F this time instead of T-Th, so I'll have to rework things a little bit and add in some more class participation so I don't have to talk so much. The best time for the publication (kind of an optimistic thing to call it, isn't it?) is right now until the end of December. I can have a draft done in that time, but I'll have to focus (not my strong suit, as evidenced by having all these thoughts DURING YOGA CLASS).

The other thing I was doing this morning was fantasizing about what it would be like to live in our college town again. I feel like doing this would be fairly simple, since Ryan left on such good terms. I'm not sure *I* would be able to find work, since I have been such a slacker in the intervening years, but it's the last place I remember feeling smart and competent and I think that's what I want more than a relocation. Because it really would be just like our life here but with a smaller house, fewer friends, worse weather (HARD TO IMAGINE), and no family around (and possibly, closer proximity to the kind of job I want but without the actual ability to HAVE that job, which I think would be doubly frustrating).

For now I will enjoy the rain. And as soon as James is in bed tonight I am going to "rework the discussion section to better reflect our goals" (based on Dr. Coauthor's advice).

They'll thank me one day

2011-11-10T18:55:00.001-08:00

The headache was probably the result of all the caffeine I had this morning, but that wasn't really my fault. They just kept bringing it to me. First the man at the drive-through donut place I bribed the kids with on the way to church mom group, then the delightful helpers at Chick-fil-A who won't let you get up out of your seat even though it's a fast food restaurant.

Or it could have been the fact that I ate both donuts and Chick-fil-A in the same four-hour period. Whatever the cause, the throbbing of the right side of my head combined with all the hysterical whining (daylight freaking savings stupid time) to make our afternoon plans to write letters and draw pictures for our sponsored child not go exactly according to plan.

I sat them down at the table with stickers, paper, markers and crayons and held up our globe.

This is where we live, in Texas, you see? It's pink. Right here. No that's Belize, we're up here. OK, everyone see Texas? Good. We're in Texas.

Matthew (not his real name) lives in Kenya. Kenya is over here on the continent of Africa. To get to Kenya, we would have to fly in an airplane alllllll the way over here, over the whole ocean, across the whole...Wes, do you need to go potty? No? OK, well it's not polite to touch that unless you're in the bathroom... OK, so Kenya is very far away. It would take us several days to get there from here.

And we're going to write some letters and draw some pictures to send to Matthew, so we can get to know him and learn more about his family and what Kenya is like.

Charlie asks if there are more Buzz Lightyear stickers. I tell him no. He pouts.

OK, so who would like a piece of paper? OK, here you go...

No, buddy, these are all the Buzz stickers we have. I know you're sad about that. Sometimes it makes it an extra special gift when you give someone something you really love.

More pouting. This time with heavy nose breathing for added emphasis.

I suggest they draw a picture of our family or something. Wes makes three wild circles on a piece of construction paper, says he's done, hops down off the bench, and asks me for more juice.

I told you no more juice. You may have water if you are thirsty.

I resist the urge to point out that Matthew would be thrilled to walk five feet to the refrigerator door, push a button, and have clean, fluoridated water dispensed instantly into his glass and instead settle for Wes slithering to the ground facedown and screaming. Ironic.

I had decided earlier Wes didn't need to nap today. It went not very well. As you might expect (time change!).

Meanwhile, dear, sweet, thoughtful Charlie was creating a three-dimensional space ship out of construction paper and tape. I tried to tell him gently that whatever we send has to fit in a small envelope and suggested he color a picture instead. He ignored me and got a diaper box out of the garage, put everything inside, and taped it up securely.

I couldn't break his heart, so I tried to get him to let me "mail it on my way to school tomorrow". He would rather we all go to the post office on Saturday to mail it together. If one of you gets a strange diaper box with a paper spaceship inside in the mail, consider this is your explanation.

He included a note he wrote himself as I told him one painstaking letter at a time: "Dear Matthew, We want to help you go to school." He kills me with the sweetness. Absolutely kills me.

And by this time Wes was having a full-blown manic-depressive episode on the kitchen floor (yes, we were still upset about the juice). Charlie was done with his letter and box, so it was quite obviously time to turn the TV back on and stop trying so hard to broaden everyone's horizons.

Epilogue: I made them soup for dinner (from a can), no one ate, everyone screamed about something, Wes got a time-out for spitting soup down his shirt, I yelled a lot, Ryan came home, tantrum, tantrum, tantrum, minor head injury, tantrum, and everyone was in bed by 6:45. Ryan and I made some tortilla soup together and ate it in front of the TV. Family time = precious.

Wesley No-Nap

2011-11-08T10:21:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure, but I think Wes might be ready to drop his nap. You can imagine how I feel about this development, coinciding with the time change so nicely as it has. It's been harder and harder to get him to sleep at night. Bedtime ends around 7:30 and then Ryan and I come downstairs to relax and push back the carnage that's overtaking our house for another day. And then around 8:00 Wes appears at the top of the stairs.

"I have to go potty."

Ryan and I look at each other until someone blinks then that person goes upstairs to help him. Sometimes he goes potty. Sometimes he stands naked by the toilet asking you fifteen thousand nonsensical questions then declares himself "all done, no tinkles!" before pulling up his pants and toddling off to bed.

So that happens like fourteen or fifteen times before the angry-back-in-beds begin. That's when you go upstairs and use every ounce of will in your body to place him gently in his bed instead of dumping him on the floor and slamming his door.

Finally, around 9:45, we are reasonably certain he has fallen asleep. Sure enough, he is usually conked out on the floor with his back against his door around 10:30 when I go to bed. It is special and relaxing.

So yesterday when he didn't fall asleep on the way home from school and the playground I thought we'd go for it. No nap. They watched a movie instead then ran out the back door to play.

He was pleasant all afternoon and went to bed at 7:00 without any encores.

Then today he woke up at 5:30. Ryan left for a meeting at 6:00. It was a long morning.

They are upstairs for quiet time right now, but instead I hear what sounds like a cooking show on the TV in my room and a bunch of spitting noises and hysterical laughter. Bad boys. Bad, bad boys.

But hey! We all got haircuts today after yoga! And by that, I mean they got haircuts and I got to spend an hour wearing grungy workout clothes in a room full of mirrors.

But LOOK! THERE WAS TODDLER HIDING UNDER ALL THE BABY HAIR! I don't even know what to say about this. Except WATCH OUT LADIES!

It's been a busy morning

2011-11-05T05:04:00.000-07:00

Things I did before 6:00 this morning:

-Laid in my warm, cozy bed willfully ignoring the crying. Go back to sleep go back to sleep go back to sleep go back to sleep.

-Stumbled (freezing and half asleep) into James's room, crawled under the crib, found a paci, jammed it in his mouth, stumbled back to bed, kicking the thermostat up a couple of degrees on the way because maybe he was just cold? And also, white noise so he doesn't wake up the others.

-Laid in my warm, cozy bed willfully ignoring the crying.

-Found pajama pants in the dark, found glasses, scooped baby out of crib, picked my way downstairs to find a diaper, changed a poop diaper in my bed, returned baby to crib, closed door to the sound of re-invigorated screaming.

-Laid in my warm, cozy bed willfully ignoring the crying.

-Heard the crying settle down, then a loud POP! Then more screaming.

-Ran down the hall in the dark with no pants on, burst into the room to confirm my fears. Yep, James broke the #@$@$ crib. Again.

-Try to settle James in my bed. Realize he finds the alarm clock way too fascinating to go back to sleep. Curse stomach bug for drying up the "sleep cannons". No cuddling up with a bottle at 5:00 AM. BOO.

-Return to James's room, fix crib, put him back in with paci and blanket. Nighty night!

-Visit bathroom on the way back to bed. Am just finishing up when I hear "POP!" followed by screaming. Fantastic, crib is now officially $#%#ed. Mentally add "beg friends to transition their toddlers to beds" to to-do list.

-Scoop James out of $#@$ #@$ %#@$@ crib. Take him back to bed. Give up after nonstop wiggling and fussing.

-Make coffee. OK one more scoop. And a little more water. And maybe one more scoop.

-Rip up a piece of bread, arrange on high chair tray.

-Go to the 42 degree porch to disassemble the Pack and Play. Barefoot. In my jammies.

-Carry Pack and Play back inside and up to James's room, reassemble. Side-eye the $%#^ crib on the way back downstairs.

-Feed James oatmeal.

-Put him BACK to BED. GO TO SLEEP FTLOG.

-Return to coffeemaker, find the big mug. Almost overflow it.

I Can't Put My Arms Down!

2011-11-03T16:30:00.000-07:00

Half a decade

2011-11-02T08:49:00.000-07:00

Look who's five!

Guess what he wanted for his present this year. A new Thomas train maybe? A dump truck? Some sidewalk chalk? Nope. He's FIVE now. Time to start exploring the old Y chromosome. No better way to do that than to pull a live fish out of a lake and hold it in your hands (and then let it go FTLOG, they have fish at HEB).

I must admit it is a little shocking to learn that he has interests so different than mine. A glimpse into the future of Boy Scout campouts where the only thing I can do to protect him is to pack extra dry socks and insect repellent into his backpack as he runs out the door.

Will we always share a love of baking, of chapter books, of learning how the world works? I don't know.

But he's still my sweet, smart, snuggly boy for now. I am so proud of him!

Toys Go Out

2011-11-01T10:27:00.000-07:00

I organize my pictures with a folder for each month. Within each month, I put all the picture from special events in their own folder. So what you get is a couple of folders labeled "Birthday Party" or "Pumpkins" surrounded by a bunch of random pictures of the kids at home doing things with no pants on. As I made the folder for "Halloween" last night I noticed that October has FIVE FOLDERS. Suddenly it makes sense that the house is a disaster and the laundry has reached epic proportions (EPIC. Also, I am currently drying my first load for the THIRD TIME. It is possible our dryer is out to lunch which makes me want to cry because that would leave us with the options of: Little House on the Prairie hanging clothes all over the yard or finding magical fairy money hidden under a mushroom in our yard to buy a new one, who am I kidding, Ryan can probably fix it, and if not he can probably make it work again if I promise to never, ever touch *that* button again (like the washer)).

So October has been lots of fun, but also quite overwhelming. I am looking forward to a couple of weeks of nothing special. After Charlie's birthday, of course, which is tomorrow (HOLY COW).

But last night was lots of fun!

My dad joined us for a fun dinner of "monster mac" (mac and cheese with brocoli puree stirred into the cheese sauce to make it green, Wes ate a ton which made me laugh because he refuses to eat broccoli under normal conditions) and mummy hot dogs. Then Ryan came home and joined us and after some spider cupcakes it was time to put on our costumes! How about Wes, could you not eat him with a spoon? (Charlie wore a stormtroopers costume from a thrift store as the base for his Buzz costume)

They trick or treated at the neighbor's house for so long it got dark as we stood there.

James wanted to know why he was outside in an itchy costume instead of home in his cozy bed.

Then he got cute again. He was kind of manic.

We hit all the usual houses then James went home to bed and the big kids and I ventured out to the really spooky house with the skeletons crawling out of their graves. Then we went home to argue about how much candy they could have before bed (two pieces).

They're kind of a disaster today, but we had a great time last night. I'm looking forward to a calm month of November, but first I must go find all the M&Ms and hide them in my underwear drawer.

A whole weekend of bouncy goodness

2011-10-30T20:33:00.000-07:00

I swear this is not going to turn into Becca's Craft and Homemaking Blog, but you have got to look at this cake my friend and I made for Charlie and Wes's birthday.

My friend Katie is a cake-decorating GENIUS and lots of fun too, so when Ryan found a picture of a periodic table made of cupcakes online I immediately bribed her with a bottle of Cabernet and an evening of snarky fun in exchange for helping me make my own periodic table for Charlie and Wes's mad science-themed birthday party. As it turned out, she needed a girls' night and Ryan needed some privacy to watch the last game of the World Series, so we had a date. I can claim no credit for the spectacular result, but we sure had fun.

Right before Katie arrived, this monstrosity was delivered to our backyard.

We were so thrilled to find a space-themed one! They said they could deliver it as early as Tuesday for no extra charge, which tells us that there's not a ton of demand for the NASA bounce house. More for us, I say!

And the piece de resistance:

SPACE SHUTTLE ATLANTIS ROLLING OUT ON RUNWAY TWO-TWO AT EDWARDS AIRFORCE BASE AFTER A FIVE-POINT TWO MILLION MILE MISSION TO THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION

Yes, it WAS almost as tall as our house. Yes, we invited the neighbors.

We made the kids wait until nine the next morning to try it out. Needless to say they spent the hours of 6:30-8:59 with their noses pressed to the back window, wondering aloud what time it was.

Finally, it was nine o'clock and we ushered them out the backyard to jump the rest of the morning away while I enjoyed the seasonal weather and made my favorite chili for our guests.

Charlie and Wes and I decorated the playroom door.

Some closeups of my favorites:

Charlie the scientist (top) with experiment, graduated cylinder (left), flask (right)

Test tubes with reaction occuring

Wes's contribution, self explanatory

After everyone was here and had bounced for a little while we all came inside and made slime. I was so worried about this part, because I'm not much a wave-maker when it comes to parties. I would have been happy to let everyone bounce themselves silly all evening, but it was a mad science party, dang it, there was going to be some science. And also, I passed the dirty work of rounding up the kids on to Ryan and he did a really wonderful job. I was a little surprised when ten children obediently filed into the kitchen and took their places around the kitchen table. We know some pretty great kids, is all I'm saying.

The experiment worked (hooray! phew!) and we released everyone back into the wild with plates of pizza, grapes, and popcorn. No one saw them again until it was time to eat the periodic table.

We were so thrilled that Ryan's parents and sister and brother-in-law could come from out of town as well as Charlie and Wes's cousins who are older (seven and eight!) and SO COOL to our two. They and our friends were so thoughtful and generous and love our kids and the whole evening was fun and relaxed and left me feeling so happy and content here with our wonderful community of friends and family.

The after-party, which is when Ryan and I put the kids to bed and eat the leftover cake in front of the TV, was also very special, since we've been like two ships in the night this past week with all of our various activities.

We thought they were coming for the bounce house in the morning, so before church, we all ran out there (some of us in jammies, me and Ryan, cough cough) for to get the last bounces in before we had to leave. It turned out that they didn't come until five, so it was a bouncy bouncy day.

We did not hear one single peep out of anyone after lights out. Not a peep! I wish I could say that was normal, but Wes showing up downstairs in the middle of a movie with lots of swearing asking to be taken to the potty is much more normal.

I'm looking forward to hyping them up even more tomorrow evening and then it's right back to the very ordinary status quo.

To Infinity and Beyond!

2011-10-28T09:55:00.000-07:00

I spent most of yesterday managing Charlie's expectations for a homemade Buzz Lightyear costume that was to include (his list, not mine) a working laser, wings that fly, and a button that you could push to make it say "To Infinity and Beyond." Naturally he thought Ryan would be able to figure it out, both because Ryan really does make magic happen sometimes and also because my standard method of stalling on hard things during the day is to tell them that maybe Papa can do it when he gets home. I am singlehandedly setting the women's movement back three decades.

Well, sweetie, I don't know if I can make retractable wings by tomorrow morning. We might just have to pretend. That's what makes Halloween so much fun!

No, baby, you won't be able to actually fly when you are wearing your costume. Please promise me you won't try. Do you understand? I need you to promise. Because people can only fly in airplanes. I know you're disappointed but you have to promise me you're not going to jump off the swing set and try to fly.

Then Ryan came home from work and was all "IF MY BOY WANTS RETRACTABLE BUZZ LIGHTYEAR WINGS THEN HE'S GONNA GET RETRACTABLE BUZZ LIGHTYEAR WINGS!"

And then, about ten seconds later, he had found a pattern online which would enable him to make RETRACTABLE BUZZ LIGHTYEAR WINGS.

OH, the INTERNET! OF COURSE.

So last night we spent three hours watching the Texas Rangers play in the World Series Game Six and making Charlie's Halloween costume.

In between bouts of swearing at the TV we colored and cut and glued and pinned and hot glued and Googled. We hid the whole thing under the bed so Ryan could bring Charlie in to watch ~~the Moon Landing~~ the last inning of the game with him then got it back out again after it became clear the game was far from over and Charlie wasn't going to wake up enough to enjoy it anyway.

Finally, around 12:30, the game was over, Ryan was sitting on the floor with his head in his hands, and the costume was done.

The wings open and close. Ryan is magical.

Charlie was beside himself. When he walked in with his class for the Halloween parade he was flapping his wings with each step. Everyone who made eye contact got a "Buzz Lightyear to the rescue!" as he pushed the blue button. Wes told everyone "I Woody and he Buzz!"

It doesn't matter than he can't actually fly, he IS Buzz, he DOES have a laser, and he CAN talk just like the real toy.

Now to keep him away from the swingset...

SOMEBODY'S POISONED THE WATER HOLE!

2011-10-25T21:32:00.000-07:00

The kids told me their plans to be Woody and Buzz for Halloween sometime in March, so naturally I am just now getting around to doing their costumes two days before dorm trick or treating and three days before the school Halloween parade.

I started on Woody's vest first. Wes is Woody. I will probably not get to Buzz until tomorrow night after my Girls' Game Night, which is actually quite appropriate.

First I gathered my supplies. I needed cow-print fabric, scissors, thread, and a sewing machine.

And if you are an emotional eater and tend to get frustrated while crafting, you will also need some homemade sugar cookies.

The first thing you do, and this goes against everything I've ever believed about last-minute high-pressure crafting, is to make a pattern of one half of the vest front from a piece of paper. I know what you are saying, "But it takes ten extra seconds to make a pattern! I could use that time staring out the window, or Tweeting!" Believe me. It will save you time later.

.

You will need two front halves for the vest and one back piece. I used the same pattern for all three pieces but made the back piece slightly narrower than the front pieces. Also, I had a ton of fabric so I doubled the front pieces so if he opens up the vest there will be cow print on the inside too, know what I mean? Fancy.

Be sure to leave extra fabric to account for seams. Or, you know, forget and then spend the rest of the project wondering if you're going to have to make your baby be Woody instead of your three year old because it's looking way too small.

Quell your panic by going upstairs to measure the pattern against your sleeping child after you've already cut out the fabric.

Next you will turn the vest halves inside out and sew around the outside. If you are me you wil come *thisclose* to forgetting to leave an opening so that you can turn it back out the right way after you sew the seam. Don't do this. You will never find your seam ripper at this time of night. Here's what a vest front half looks like after it has been sewed. The bottom was left open on purpose.

Then you turn it right-side-out and top-stitch it. I'm a fool for top-stitching! It always looks so neat and finished and it used to not be possible because (and I did not know this) my sewing machine was broken and made really ugly seams. Two days at the repair shop and it is now good as new and I no-longer need a Xanax to approach a sewing project. I sewed a 1/4" top-stitch all the way around. This is also when you can close up that bottom edge. Fold it inside with your fingers and then sew it. You could pin it if you had that kind of time and energy.

Here's what I am talking about. The bottom one is finished, the top one is waiting for its top-stitch. Have I said top-stitch enough? No? OK, top-stitch, top-stitch, top-stitch!

For the back, fold each edge in about a half an inch and sew it so it stays flat. From the outside it will appear to be TOP-STITCHED! But you will know about your secret short-cutting ways! This is how I save time so I can do important things like stare out the window and wish it would rain.

Once you have all three pieces prepared you can sew them together by flipping everything inside out and sewing along the sides. Be sure to leave armholes. Unless you are making a straight-jacket vest. Stay tuned for a future post about our new discipline technique!

After it was all done I sneaked into Wes's room and tried it on him while he was asleep. You may find this creepy, but I for one will sleep better tonight knowing that his vest fits him perfectly.

For my next trick, I will turn an ordinary diaper box into BUZZ LIGHTYEAR, SPACE RANGER! TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!

The Blathering

2011-10-23T21:38:00.000-07:00

I've been increasingly overwhelmed these days as the pressures of work and home life start to ramp up mid-semester. Every night Ryan asks me how he can help and every time he asks I say "I just need like two or three whole days away. Not an hour at a coffee shop, an entire day with no obligations that I can use to do whatever I want." Well this weekend was The Blathering, and BOY did I get my free weekend!

Friday afternoon as I left from work and passed the exit for my house, I wanted to turn so bad. I was suddenly terrified to hang out with all these women I didn't know and not exactly sure of the directions I had scribbled on an envelope in my purse. But I found it alright and was greeted with a huge hug and many happy smiles and about a hundred different kinds of cupcakes. It was the right decision.

Everyone I met was wonderful, but I spent the most time with these ladies after I gave them a ride to the hotel in Ryan's (formerly my) Neon Saturday after brunch. We bonded over the lack of air conditioning and my ever-present fear of mechanical failure as well as the copious amount of dog hair in the back seat. And then we bonded some more in the hotel room watching Goonies while one of them pumped before we went back to join the party. Pumping is way better then the human knot game as an ice breaker, as you know.

Ryan had the kids out on a picnic by a river and I couldn't reach them Saturday, so I just kept having fun. The day began with brunch and then we went shopping. Every uninterrupted bite of eggs benedict and leisurely stroll through a cluttered antique store took me a little bit further away from the real world and, you guys, it was NICE. I had five hours until dinner and I did not know what to do with myself. I could take a yoga class! I could go to Marshalls! I could go to a real store and look for boots!

I took a break in the afternoon to go to a friend's Halloween party with Ryan and the boys (so much fun, forgot to put them in costumes, Spiderman came!) then headed back downtown for dinner.

I made two wrong turns (really, really wrong turns) and got there late and stole a place setting of a back table so I could squeeze into a table with my friends. Dinner? Was fun. Did not notice everyone wearing pants when I said "Hey, let's all pull our skirts up!" in this picture.

It was really, really fun. *I* was really, really fun. It's hard to get out of stressball mode when the family is around, you know?

There was a valet! And delicious passed appetizers! And a wonderful meal! With dessert! And there was wine! Lots of laughing! And many new friends.

I had planned to leave at 9:30. They kicked us out at 11:00. When I called Ryan to check in he answered on the first ring. I am not a stayer-out-later. This was very, very good for me.

There was much hilarity as we waited for the valet to bring the Neon around. "It's the classy one!" I called out as he disappeared into the night with my ticket. And then he brought it up and the light glinted off the paint-less roof and we laughed and laughed and laughed.

And then we got in, me and these new friends to whom I'd just offered a ride, and there was NO GAS.

I got home at midnight and it took another hour after that to calm down and go to sleep. Despite the late night, I felt like a new person all day--calmer, more patient, more fun, more willing to do house chores cheerfully. A break for Mama is good for EVERYONE and today was a great day.

Pumpkin Bar Love

2011-10-20T11:24:00.000-07:00

Last night I was all set to do my thirty minutes of professional work after the kids went to bed (like you guys suggested--a great idea), but then they didn't go to bed until well after eight, which is really late for us. We came downstairs after the last one was tucked in and collapsed onto the couch for a little Hulu'ed Modern Family. Ryan asked if I wanted to watch another show afterward, but I was very sleepy and still had to make pumpkin bars for my mom group in the morning. I got all the ingredients out on the counter while Ryan flipped on the TV to find the Ranger's game.

Then I poked my head into the living room to ask Ryan something and found him watching Nova instead of the baseball game. I sat down just for a minute to check it out. It was about NASA's Cassini mission to search for life on other planets and it was SO COOL you guys! We learned about the moons around Jupiter and Saturn and how the elliptical orbit can cause friction and heating within the core of the moon and create volcanoes IN SPACE. AND how the environment on Europa isn't that different from the polar oceans on EARTH and there could be LIFE there, deep in those oceans. It was amazing. I heart Nova.

I did, however, fall asleep right around the time they started talking about Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons, and forgot all about my pumpkin bars.

When I woke up I was covered with a blanket and Ryan was in the kitchen making them for me.

It's going to be hard to save the last two for him, but I will. Or maybe I'll just make a second batch.

They're pretty delicious. And also very easy. Make them for someone you love today!

Career angst, woo hoo!

2011-10-17T08:50:00.000-07:00

I had a bit of a meltdown last night after a difficult weekend. Ryan was out of town Saturday afternoon through Sunday afternoon; he went to the Texas Rangers game with his dad and had a wonderful time. It looked like an exciting game even to me, and I don't "get" baseball, but the kids were out of sorts and grouchy with him gone. Wes had trouble sleeping (which is, sadly, becoming routine). James has discovered screaming as an attention-getting mechanism. Charlie was alternately moody and stubborn and generously helpful and sweet, which made my hot and cold emotions toward him confusing and frustrating. Wes has three potty accidents at church on Sunday.

In addition to all of my normal life-with-three-kids frustrations, I got some scary news from a friend that her husband and son were involved in a serious car accident (everyone is going to be fine). It was overwhelming.

And as I normally do when I am overwhelmed, I spent my evenings in a vegetative state on the couch, TV on, Facebook open. And when I do that, I inevitably feel guilty about all the things I should be doing instead--the kitchen, the laundry, the Halloween costumes, the birthday party preparations. And then I feel even worse.

But the thing that's been on my mind all week is a paper I've been trying to prepare for submission FOREVER. My co-author had the paper for a year (a busy year for both of us that involved James's birth and a new class, so I wasn't in a position to work on it anyway) and never looked at it, so I planned a trip to go up to his office and meet with him in person to finalize the paper. He agreed and we set a date, October 25. Then last week he sent me a list of concerns and a marked up version of the paper.

It was exactly what I needed to have to be able to move forward. I don't have the experience to edit my own work well and I have always trusted him as an editor and reviewer. On the other hand, he is very thorough and the list of things the paper needs (and it IS what the paper needs, I have no complaints about his necessary criticism) was LONG and included reading and including a handful of references that I missed. In addition to the embarrassment of missing those references, the whole thing just makes me feel defeated.

Reason number one: I do not have enough time. I have childcare for ten hours a week. Six of those hours are spent in class. Two of those hours are spent commuting. In addition to the class-time responsibilities, those of you who teach know that there is grading, office hours, and responding to student emails. Obviously, I do not have enough childcare for all of those things, but I can usually close the gap by occasionally grading in front of the TV at night. I don't love doing that, but grading is a fairly mindless activity that doesn't take very long for this particular course.

However. I most certainly do not have time for other academic activities, like publishing, that I feel are important to keep my "career" moving forward. That is a problem. I estimate that the current paper I am working on would require a week or more of focused, full-time work to get the next draft ready. "Focused" work is not really my specialty right now. I am not able to work full-time right now.

Obviously I could pick away at this paper in the evenings after the kids go to bed and we've cleaned up the kitchen and maybe spent a few minutes talking to one another. I could probably sneak in a couple of hours a day that way at the expense of sleep (which leads to a whole host of other problems), hobbies, and fun things like TV shows and talking to friends online. Obviously that is one solution. But is it a long-term solution?

And that's not even considering the fact that I am EXHAUSTED by that part of the day--not ready to dive into a fifteen-page paper. By nine o'clock I can barely get through a page of a Jennifer Weiner novel, let alone "the Tieleman reference" that I need to include here, here, and here.

I can't add much childcare without earning more money, and full-time academic work, if I even wanted to go that route, does not appear to be available anytime soon in our current location. And we really, really like it here (except for our god-awful summer weather).

Ryan and I talked about all of this in detail last night and I'm going to try working an hour a night, however painful that might be. I am not going to get anything accomlished by alternately lying around doing nothing and then complaining about how all I ever do is lie around doing nothing, after all. He works most nights too, so it'll be no different from undergrad, where we got to know each other in the library over our textbooks. And I will try to develop a career, one paper or one proposal at a time. Fortunately I have about ten years until I'll be ready for a full-time job. I just hope that my suspicions, that the only option for success in this field is total dedication, are wrong.

Picasso

2011-10-14T05:08:00.000-07:00

We heard the artist at work long after his bedtime, but I didn't know what he was working on until he came downstairs for breakfast.

They are so much cuter in Ratatoullie

2011-10-12T08:50:00.000-07:00

Today after I got home from dropping the boys off I put James down for a nap and was looking forward to a couple of hours of free time to mess around in a quiet house and do as I pleased.

As usual, I was planning to do some modest kitchen straightening so that I didn't feel completely guilty about the time "wasted" doing nothing, drinking coffee, and staring off into space. I took the trash to the curb and patted myself on the back for taking care of it all by myself and then thought I'd take care of the bowl of compost on the kitchen counter too. Overloaded mixing bowl of scraps in hand, I lifted the lid to the compost bin only to see a GIANT FUZZY RAT crawling around inside.

Naturally I yelled "SHIT!" and threw the overloaded mixing bowl and its contents (banana peels, the guts of an acorn squash, coffee grounds) all over the ground.

Then I ran back inside and deadbolted the door. Just in case the rat was able to turn the handle and come find me, I wanted to be safe.

And then I got a snack and sat down at the computer. I wasn't sure what to do. Normally I would Facebook something like that, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to advertise to all of my friends (some of whom are local), that I had a rat habitat in my backyard.

Instead, I turned to Google, hoping for someplace I could lodge a complaint. After all, Google told me that if we didn't put meat or dairy in our compost bin, we shouldn't have an animal problem. Google was wrong. We only put vegetable and fruit scraps, teabags and coffee grounds in there. I can't be sure that there are no toys in there, or that no one has ever peed in there, but there are no meat scraps for sure.

I Googled "rat in compost bin" and clicked on the first disgusting link."Even if you don't have meat or dairy in your compost bin, chances are you will one day have a rodent problem. Here's how to get them to leave."

Google failed. BIG TIME. The article suggested keeping the compost moist (have not done), turning it frequently (also have not done), and frequently adding yard waste on top of the food (also have not done because we have no yard waste because we now live in the Chihuahuan Desert).

What we have done, apparently, is known as setting up a rat Golden Corral in our backyard.The article went on to say that it was important to keep rats out of your compost bin because they can spread diseases and multiply very quickly, a fact that was not lost on me because Ryan and I watched this Nova several months ago. Several rounds of shock therapy later I am once again able to sleep with the lights off.

I decided that I wasn't willing to leave the situation as it was for the babysitter to handle this afternoon, which meant I had to take care of it myself. Google told me rats like it when the food is easy to find, so I got a huge bag of top soil out of the garage and lugged it out to the back yard. I ripped it open and hoisted it up, ready to dump it in, then opened the lid wide with my foot.

I didn't see it at first but as I began dumping the dirt over the food scraps the little bastard JUMPED OUT OF THE COMPOST BIN. He landed on the fence as I ran away screaming obscenities and shrieking like a little girl. There may have been some hand flapping.

After it had safely run the length of our fence and disappeared into our neighbor's yard I finished dumping the dirt in. And then I returned with a pitcher of boiling water for good measure. And then I called Ryan so he could tell me how brave I am and maybe bring me a special treat when he comes home from work.

Mama, the strawberry farm has PUMPKINS now!

2011-10-10T20:06:00.000-07:00

That's what Charlie exclaimed when we rounded the corner into view of the cute little farm we visit to pick strawberries in the summer. We had a really wonderful and exhausting trip to the pumpkin farm today with our friends. After six months of being a jerk, our weather was GLORIOUS. I don't think it got over seventy-five degrees all day and it was overcast and just perfect for a day at the pumpkin patch.

And also, how could you not have fun with this van-load of adorable (James was there, you can just see his foot)? It was loud and wonderful. You know what happens when you put two four-year-old boys in a confined space for a couple of hours? You hear a lot of raucous laughter and things like "I'M GOING TO HAVE ICE CREAM WITH POOP SAUCE AND UNDERPANTS!!"

The kids in the middle were much calmer, probably because we plied them with food brought by my thoughtful friend who also made us each a cup of coffee for the ride.

The first thing we did was climb all over this trailer of pumpkins and take a lot of pictures before realizing we were capturing the portapotties in the background. Also there was a scuffle for the tractor.

This is what happened when I told them to get together for a picture (and reframed my shot to not include the portapotties).

And then I finally got them together and suggested Charlie put his hands on Wes's shoulders. And now smile! And look at me! OK whatever! I have no excuse for what they're wearing. I thought there would be mud and I was in a hurry and Wes is still wearing his pajama top. There are three of them, what can I say?

We had a blast in the corn maze. I underestimated the heart palpitations supervising all those kids in A MAZE would induce, but it really was fun. And then we found the bell! And then we got lost again and ran past the bell a second time and Charlie yelled "IT'S THE SECOND BELL!" I heart him. Note my friend's appropriately dressed children. She even had time to make me coffee. Awe!

There was more drama trying to get a nice picture of everyone that didn't look like a Calvin Klein Eternity commercial.

And then I got this sweet, sweet picture of Baby James...

...and I couldn't help but think that I'd seen that picture somewhere before (hint: this one is Charlie).

Things kind of fell apart after that so we headed for the car and home. We watched TV snuggled up in blankets with the windows open for the rest of the afternoon.

Bad Boys Bad Boys, Whatcha Gonna Do?

2011-10-07T20:50:00.000-07:00

I walked into my house after work today to the usual fanfare. Charlie ran and hugged me around the legs. Wes had fallen asleep watching TV and was curled up on a chair. James smiled and grunted as he Spiderman-crawled across the living room to meet me. I scooped him up and cuddled him as our babysitter filled me in on their day.

It was the usual, coloring, snack, Wild Kratts, and then she hesitated.

"I'm so sorry, but while I was inside making a bottle for James, they cut some holes in the..."

Not the Pack and Play, not the Pack and Play, not the Pack and Play...

"...Pack and Play. I'm so sorry."

I gaped at Charlie then went to the window to peek out onto the porch where we keep the Pack and Play because we live in Texas and you can do that sort of thing here.

It looked like it had been attacked by wolves. Devious, little wolves.

Holes of varying hugeness covered all four sides. Shreds of ruined netting fluttered in the breeze.

I reassured the babysitter that no, it wasn't her fault, Charlie and Wes know how to behave in the backyard alone and how to use scissors appropriately. She had put them in timeout and otherwise expressed appropriate horror at the behavior.

And then Charlie got the full "I'm so disappointed in you" treatment. I started taking away privileges one after the other. First the TV, then bedtime stories, then dessert, then the backyard camping trip he didn't even know we had planned for them tonight (that one hurt Ryan and me the most). And then I found the scissors and told Charlie he wouldn't be using them again until I decided he was ready to follow the rules. And I hid them. And at the moment I don't remember exactly where, but it shouldn't be a problem because by the time I'm ready to give them back he will be able to drive to Target and buy another pair himself.

"WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!" I stupidly asked him more than once. Clearly he was not thinking about rules, consequences, behaving like a human being, or the image of the veins in my neck doubling in size and turning purple.

Then I called Ryan at work to warn him that there would be no b-a-c-k-y-a-r-d c-a-m-p-o-u-t tonight because the little criminals have lost the privilege of having fun of any kind for the time being. I knew that Charlie knew exactly what I was talking about and I planned to leverage the full power of "wait until your father gets home."

He looked uncertainly at a spot on the kitchen table and fidgeted with a spoon for a minute. Then he dared to interrupt me to ask for some milk while I was talking and received the Look of Incredulity. When I got off the phone I asked him again "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!"

"I'm sorry" he said quietly, examining his shoes. He went right back to coloring and asking me for the scissors (!!) after I turned away.

I still don't know exactly how Wes was involved except that I know he was inside the Pack and Play when it all went down. So now I have a mental picture of Charlie stabbing the scissors through the sides of the Pack and Play over and over and Wes laughing hysterically, not aware that someone was pretending to STAB HIM WITH SCISSORS.

"I don't even know what to say!" I said as I angrily chopped a carrot and dropped it into a sauce pan.

I turned to a bowl of chicken stock I had planned on using for the soup and found it gelled over and unusable.

"DAMMIT!" I slammed a slotted spoon into the sink and walked out of the kitchen.

I stalked back into the kitchen, unwrapped two frozen pizzas and preheated the oven then made him apologize to James and me again.

He told James he was sorry. Then he apologized to me again. And then he asked me again to let him back into the backyard. I told him we were done having fun for the day. He pouted.

Ryan came home and inspected the damage and made Charlie apologize some more. We ate pizza then Charlie went straight to bed (Wes went to bed straight from his spot on the chair) after the whole "I love you even when you make huge mistakes" speech had been repeated a couple of times. After James was down Ryan met met me in the kitchen where we shared cookies and wondered allowed "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THEM?"

Tomorrow we will be doing manual labor. Lots and lots of manual labor. Tired kids can't destroy things!

We'll start at the church workday pulling weeds and, I'm hoping, cleaning the huge double oven with a toothbrush. It's never too early to teach children that working together to support our community is a punishment.

Charlie, my heart

2011-10-05T09:27:00.000-07:00

This morning was really rushed and frantic but since I didn't get around to taking a shower yesterday and James and I had a date with Pediatrician Man for a well check, I thought it would be OK to pop into the shower just long enough to wash my hair and face while everyone was happily watching TV or confined to an Exersaucer. I mean, two minutes! What's the worst that could happen, right?

After spending honest-to-goodness less than two minutes in the shower, I heard the hysterical screaming as I was towel-drying my hair.

Apparently "the worst that could happen" is that Charlie, through no fault of his own of course, managed to fly off the couch and land chin-first on the edge of the coffee table.

It took me some time to get this explanation out of him. The first ten-ish minutes were nothing but non-sensical angry screaming about how EVERYTHING HURTS! I FELL AND I HURT EVERYTHING as I cradled him in my lap dripping wet and wrapped in a towel.

He got over it fairly quickly, it's SCIENCE DAY at school after all.

We were in the car to school when I saw a thin brown line forming above his eyebrows and thought it might be a long, skinny bruise? From the edge of the table? But surely if that was where he hit there would have been blood, right? Then he finally told me he'd landed on his chin and sure enough there was a small, but angry-looking bruise there too. So I guess he really did hurt "everything". Poor kid. Also: heart palpitations because, YIKES!

I cheered him up by telling him that my dad, his grandpa, had flown off a couch in a very similar fashion when he was almost the same age and whacked his forehead on the very same table so hard he still has a scar to this day. Thank goodness we were able to avoid that for now.

On another note, I had to fill in a sheet for Charlie naming his favorite song and favorite book. His favorite song is "Mary had a Little Lamb", so I wrote that in then asked his favorite book. He told me his favorite book was the Bible. Which, great! Yay! He really does love reading his children's Bible before bed. The story of young David being chosen as king is his favorite.

But, really? "Mary had a Little Lamb" and "The Bible" kind of looks like I filled it out myself in an effort to look like totally awesome MOTY, you know? He knows all the words to "Tonight's Gonna be a Good Night" by the Black Eyed Peas for goodness sake! We are not The Duggars (although if I could have a tenth of that woman's patience and time-management skills I would happily call myself one)! Or maybe we are more of an offbeat, simple living, hippie, throwback family than I am willing to admit (as I suspect is probably the case).

So I said to him "Well, Sweetie, I think most people love to read the Bible and your teacher is trying to get a feel for what other types of books you like." I suggested a few that we read often and he chose Stuart Little. I was uneasy about the whole exchange and discretely brought it up to his teacher after I dropped him off.

"Oh, he LOVES to read the Children's Bible here! It's wonderful!"

His teacher = my teacher. I love her.

And then I felt like a jerk instead of merely looking like a jerk who filled in their kid's homework assignment.

Another another note: Kindergarten is a year away and I am starting to feel sad about it, which is not what I expected.

So Big!

2011-10-03T08:40:00.000-07:00

When sweet little baby toes meet pajamas that are on their fifth go-round...

More! Educational! Fun!

2011-10-01T18:40:00.000-07:00

Learned something new today, friends! If you suspect your baby might have an ear infection, there are places you should not take him. Topping that list is AN UNDERGROUND CAVE.

His mouth is smiling but his eyes say "I just screamed for forty-five minutes IN A CAVE!"

Ryan and I saw this cave on a PBS show we watched last Saturday night because we are too cool for words and decided we needed to go see it for ourselves. It was about an hour away and we managed to keep the kids excited by calling it a "science field trip" and stopping at Sonic for breakfast tacos along the way.

At the entrance to the park was the original visitor's center, built by the CCC in the thirties and it was SO COOL. It was the size of a small house and constructed of local stone with wooden beams and shingles. A large wrought iron chandelier hung in the main room, which had a grand domed ceiling decorated with rocks and crystals found inside the cave. It had a staircase outside that led up two winding stories to the roof, which served as an observation deck with a compass rose inlaid into the stone floor.

We all claimed the cozy room with the balcony on the second floor as "our room". My parents and niece came with us and people thought the four little blond children were all ours. One person said to Sibley "Oh, look at you! You're the only girl! I bet you can hold your own, though!"

We finally managed to get the kids away from the magical storybook castle house and moving towards the cave and were treated to more intricate stonework and a huge natural stone arch that led into the cave.

The kids were excited but nervous the whole time we were inside. Wes spent lots of time draped over my dad's shoulder. Charlie clung to my hand so fiercely I had to pry my fingers free if I needed to scratch my nose or get half undressed to feed the baby.

The cave had been used at various times as a meetinghouse for Indians, a hideout for outlaw Sam Bass, a Speakeasy, and a church. There are no pictures from inside the cave because of all the necessary kid juggling, hand holding, and passing James around, bouncing James, cave-nursing him in the cave-Ergo and ultimately deciding that there was nothing we could do but let him scream then give a huge tip to the ranger, who probably thought we were from some fringe religious sect with our four children aged four and under.

Despite the screaming, which didn't start until the farthest point away from the cave entrance, where I couldn't have found my way out myself, the tour was really cool. Lots of windy passageways and beautiful rock formations. Just enough climbing and tunnels to keep the kids interested. Some historical tidbits (LBJ kept an office down there in case of nuclear attack!).

Nonetheless, I was happy when we got back to the surface where James's choking sobs stopped immediately the moment he felt the sun on his face. As I handed the ranger all the singles I could find in my purse and apologized profusely, he said "Yeah, I've seen a lot worse (?!). Sometimes the pressure gets to their ears when we get near the bottom." How was I to know that? The pediatrician has never suggested we avoid spelunking before when the kids have had ear infections. SO WEIRD. I'll have to mention it to him. "You should really tell the other parents not to take their babies six stories underground when they have an ear infection." Right after "Avoid close contact with siblings," maybe.

We went out for lunch after the cave. It was uneventful except that Charlie ordered a man-size plate of fried catfish and ate almost the whole thing. Also, he carries stuffed animals inside his shirt (like an Ergo I think, not like a pregnancy).

Everyone conked out within minutes of leaving the restaurant and we went home to watch a movie for the rest of the afternoon.

"I a BIG BOY"

2011-09-28T08:25:00.000-07:00

If you ask him, he's turning five. But he's really turning three today.

He woke up at six and came into our room, looking for Smelly, who was back in his bed. Then we snuggled up all together for a little while until he just couldn't stand it anymore. It was his birthday! He was turning five!

We had to hide our excitement for a little while longer while we waited for Charlie to wake up. Sesame Street and bananas and secretive cupcake frosting. Finally Charlie was up and it was time for the Big Moment.

He rounded the corner into the kitchen and exclaimed "A BIKE! NO WAY!"

Charlie was jealous, not surprisingly. We ignored him. He told us "Being a big brother makes me nauseous." But then he showed Wes how to tear around the culdesac on two (four) wheels, the best driveways to go up, how to ride over the bumpy manhole covers. "I'm a teacher!" he exclaimed.

Then we ate cupcakes for breakfast...

...all of us...

And for dessert tonight, Wes requested a digger cake. It's fortunate there are so many foods that lend themselves so nicely to looking like dirt and mud!

It's a good thing James is going to stay a baby forever because I fear Wes is about to start pronouncing "S's" and "F's" correctly and between that and the two-wheeler I just don't know what to do with myself.

Proposal Epilogue

2011-09-26T20:27:00.000-07:00

So, the proposal didn't work out.

I got the news the other day, a week after the email was sent. I was way behind on work email because of The Virus. The kids were watching Curious George/Bob the Builder/Toy Story (the last week has been a blur of anthropomorphic fun) and I took a deep breath and waded into the sixty unread emails in my work account. The first one I read was from the administrator who had helped me with the submission expressing her regret that it hadn't been funded.

My reaction surprised me. I wasn't upset, or even that disappointed. I thought something along the lines of "Huh", then went into the kitchen to switch the laundry over. I could say that my subdued reaction was the result of maturity and professionalism gained from a few years of work experience, but I think it had much more to do with the enormous amount of Other Things on my mind at the time--two sick kids and the resulting heaps of dirty sheets, clothes, and towels endlessly cycling through the laundry, two missed days of work, missed preschool, nonexistant sleep, the fact that we're still hitting a hundred degrees regularly in late September, I need to start thinking about my spring class soon, The Office season premier is coming up...

In truth, I feel lucky just to have professional disappointments at all. Struggling through the proposal process only to be turned down by the NSF means that I am in the game! Hundreds of good, smart, talented people all over the country got the EXACT SAME EMAIL I DID! It wasn't that long ago that I wondered if it was even possible for me to have a scientific career and still have the kind of home life I wanted. I agonized over applying for post-docs, tenure-tracks, research associates, feeling deep down each time that it wouldn't work out, that I'd be working all the time, that it would put too much strain on the family. But the thought of walking away hurt too. Academics had been my goal for years! I knew that still meant something. I am in a very good position now and I couldn't be happier with the balance I've been able to create (Old Testament-style stomach viruses that mess it all up not-withstanding).

And shortly after the proposal email, I got some great news too! An abstract I wrote was accepted to a conference in December. I will be going to San Francisco to present the paper, make professional contacts, and visit the Ghirardelli factory. And maybe meet some friends! I am very excited about all of it, though I think I've forgotten how to be anywhere by myself. My first thought when I booked my hotel three blocks from the conference center was "I can't walk three blocks ALL ALONE!" as if walking three blocks with three kids was somehow less intimidating than walking three blocks alone (it is!). I guess it's all in what you're used to! Something I am not used to? Earthquakes. We will address my seismophobia another time.

I will be resubmitting the proposal in May. All but one of the reviewers said that it was a good project and it would be great for my school in addition to my own career. Their advice was very constructive and specific and I'm confident I can make some improvements before the next round (we'll see how those changes are received!) (if the office of institutional advancement hasn't disowned me after last time!). There are other grants and opportunities that interest me in the meantime. But I'm not going to lie, I'm a little relieved to not be committed to full-time work the summer before Charlie starts kindergarten.

It's been a long week, I'm feeling punchy

2011-09-22T07:45:00.000-07:00

We've spent a lot of time with Pediatrician Man this week, thanks the the virus I like to call "Maybe those obsessive pacifier-washers are on to something" and I've had a lot of time to reflect on how these visits have changed over the last five years. To summarize:

First Baby:
When the pediatrician comes in you are calmly nursing the baby. You provide the doctor with a handwritten chart of the baby's temperature over the last thirty-six hours, annotated with notes on diaper consistency, fussiness, and ear tugging. You listen to the doctor's advice with rapt attention, then follow it to at "t" after you get home.

Second Baby:
When the pediatrician comes in, the toddler is playing on the floor with toys you brought. A box of raisins is half spilled onto the exam room floor. You are nursing the baby still, but also singing "Wheels on the Bus" with an edge to your voice that betrays how little sleep you've been getting, how much coffee you had, and your innate sense that the toddler is about to lose it. You give the doctor a verbal rundown of the last forty-eight hours, mixing up the temperatures between the children and wondering aloud if it was the toddler or the baby that threw up in the night?

Third Baby*:
When the pediatrician comes in you are crouching on the floor sternly threatening to take away the post doctor's office donut if he doesn't stop slamming the middle's fingers in the cabinet door. As you stand up to greet the doctor you belatedly tug the hem of your shirt back down to cover your stomach then notice the unhooked top of your nursing bra poking out of the neckline of your tank top.

When the doctor asks you what's been going on you stare at him blankly for several moments before retrieving the patient from underneath the examining table, where he has been happily chewing on a tongue depressor the toddler stole from the dispenser on the wall.

The doctor asks how long he's had the fever and you say "Well, let's see, we missed playgroup last week and that was Tuesday, so that's, what, ten days?" You smile to hide your horror at yourself for letting it go on for that long. The doctor looks very concerned. Then you remember that it was a different kid's fever that caused the missed playgroup, but which one was it?

"OH YES," you exclaim, "The baby's fever started Saturday evening, that's why he couldn't go to the nursery at church Sunday."

The doctor's exam takes three times as long as normal because the middle kid is crawling back and forth on the table, ripping handfuls of paper off and throwing them. Flustered, you shriek "DONUT!" and the behavior stops instantaneously. The doctor stifles a giggle.

"Has he been pulling at his ears?" You honestly don't know because the baby spends so much time crawling around the house half-supervised. The doctor diagnoses him with an ear infection and gets up to leave the room. You hastily pull the oldest's pants off and ask the doctor if he could just check this one thing on his leg really fast before he goes. You resist the urge to also ask him if he could recheck the middle's ears as long as were there and figure you'll do it at the end of the week when you're back for whatever the kids picked up in the waiting room.

*Based on actual events. I am so proud.

It was a meaningful hour for everyone

2011-09-18T19:29:00.000-07:00

Because James gave the whole family Ebola last week, and because he had, uh, symptoms, twenty-two hours before church this morning, we couldn't leave him in the nursery like we normally do. Spurred on by the promise of Sunday School for us and the older, healthy children at 9:30, we rallied and left the house for the 8:15 service, planning to take James into Big Church with us. It would be cozy! And sweet!

We are currently teaching Wes to sit through Big Church, instead of staying in the nursery, because Me and My Big Ideas About What Children Should Be Capable Of are admittedly, probably a little bit old skool. Today was his second day, so when he and Charlie wanted to sit ahead of us, together, in an empty pew, I had no problem with it.

Until Charlie started trying to climb over the back of the pew during the Introit. And the Wes started crawling down the length of the pew, laughing all the way, toward the aisle. I managed to get Charlie settled next to me and then Wes verrrrrry slowly slid down the pew onto the floor and briefly out of sight before scooting out near our feet QUITE proud of himself.

I grabbed him by the arms and tried to make him sit next to me, but then it was time for everyone to stand up for the Call to Worship.

Celebrant: May our lives witness to Christ's love.

Me: May our thoughts be of peace and our--CHARLIE, SIT UP.

Celebrant: May our faith be a sign of hope.

Me: May our--WES, COME HERE. COME HERE RIGHT NOW. SIT DOWN. CHARLIE, SIT UP. I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE TIRED WE DON'T SLEEP IN CHURCH.

Then we sang "God of Grace and God of Glory".

The grace and glory of God was not evident in our pew.

Bored with their game of "Page Through The Hymnal As If It Was an Eric Carle Board Book", Wes reached over and poked Charlie. Charlie poked Wes harder. Wes poked Charlie harder. I grabbed Wes and sat him between me and Ryan, Charlie trying to get one last poke in all the way. I acted on primal motherly instinct to grab Charlie's arm and hold it awkwardly up by his ear as I hissed at him to KNOCK IT OFF.

Finally, a welcome diversion--Wes got to go to the front for the Birthday Prayer. I stood behind him as the minister prayed and patted his head gently with his hand. I smiled as I thought of how grown up he is and how proud I am of him. Then it was over and he tried to walk back to our pew on his knees like a penitent walking the labyrinth at Chatres.

I tried to maintain some dignity as we sang the Doxology, but right after it started James flung his pacifier two pews behind us and started squawking.

I acted quickly.

WES, I NEED YOUR HELP. YOU SEE THAT PACI? GO GET IT!

He dropped to his stomach and slithered the six feet back, got the paci, and returned it triumphantly to James. James settled into his blanket in Ryan's arms.

For about ten seconds, then he started bucking and shrieking. I was already on my feet, having chased Charlie back into our pew from a position several rows back, so I spirited him away to the aptly named "Cry Room" at the back of the church for some brunch.

Several sweet, grandmotherly types who had been enjoying our little side show gave me knowing smiles and patted James sweetly on the foot as we passed.

James fell asleep in my arms and it was once again peaceful and sweet. I settled into the comfortable rocker and listened to the sermon.

Then Ryan, Charlie, and Wes came barreling through the cry room for a potty break. First one, then the other had to take his turn at the potty AND the sink AND the paper towel dispenser AND the trash can and then they all had to try each of the rocking chairs and gliders.

They returned to the pew for the remainder of the sermon while I stayed with James. When it was over Ryan dropped them off at Sunday School like a bad habit and joined me and James at our blissfully adult Sunday School class upstairs.

Where James continued his wiggly disruptive ways.

Everyone better be nursery-ready next week, is all I'm saying.

Into the woods

2011-09-11T19:00:00.000-07:00

Last week's fifty-yard hike along the lake inspired us with it's simplicity, beautiful views, and the fact that it was free and made the kids take a long nap, all at the same time, so yesterday we set out for a more ambitious hike in a canyon near our town.Because everything has to be so freaking educational in our family, we brought along the kids journals and stopped several times so that they could record their observations. Charlie found his first subject in the cactus garden planted next to the parking lot. To say he was enthusiastic about my assignment would be an understatement.
Wes played along during the first stop, but later got distracted by all the rocks there were to be thrown into ponds and off of cliffs (the picture on the bottom is the one he drew of the cliff we stopped to observe).
The kids were total troopers. Climbing up the rocky trails was their favorite part.
We paused when we reached the top of the cliff to draw this tree.
The view was beautiful from "the top" (of a hill approximately as tall as a large public high school's football stadium).
After that stop we walked for what felt like six miles along a two-foot-wide trail along the edge of a cliff. It was probably not even a quarter of a mile. The view was spectacular, but the kids were getting tired and my blood pressure was getting closer to the red zone every time we passed a slippery spot with no trees. We paused for an observation break along the skinny trail (The tennis racket bag is Charlie's baby carrier for Phent. You can see Phent's head sticking out of the handle end).
And then we had a picnic and cajoled everyone back to the car with the promise of a trip to a nearby outdoor restaurant for a Corona (or maybe that was just me) and some playground time. We think we went about a mile and a half in total. The kids were totally wiped. Happy, dirty, and very, very tired.

First Day of School Pictures: What could possibly go wrong?

2011-09-10T13:30:00.000-07:00

Potty Training WIN

2011-09-06T19:41:00.000-07:00

This afternoon the boys and I headed out on our scooters/strollers to spend some time in the culdesac, hopefully not fighting with each other in the last couple of hours before Ryan's arrival home. I was getting the scooters out of the car when I asked Wes if he had to go potty. He said he did, but since I already had all the kids outside and the stroller all set up and the scooters ready to go I thought maybe the power of magical thinking might make him not have to go potty until we were all ready to go back inside, in about an hour.

So Charlie and Wes got on their scooters and I pushed James in the stroller and we headed for the culdesac, which is about a hundred yards away. Around yard thirty, I told Charlie he could go ahead of us and he sped off along the sidewalk. I could see my friend and her two girls down the street and had a good view of Charlie the whole way there. I love letting him have that freedom. It makes him so proud and happy.

Charlie had just reached the culdesac, well out of polite yelling range, and was starting his first loop when Wes stopped in his tracks. (He stopped at the 50 yard line, just like Texas Tech's offense last year) I passed him with the stroller and called him over my shoulder "Come on, Buddy! Almost there!"

He wouldn't budge.

"I wanna go potty."

Oh. I checked on Charlie, happily doing laps on the curved sidewalk. "OK, no one is here, let's just go in the grass!" (It is a wooded area next to our house, not someone's yard. This is Central Texas, for goodness sake.)

"I wanna go in da HOUSE!"

He was hanging on by this point. And dancing.

Charlie was still riding in circles. James was happy in the stroller.

"Wes, come on! No one's looking! Let's just go right here!" I briefly contemplated the absurdity of trying to convince a two year old boy that it's alright to take a leak in the grass for the sake of convenience. Especially since school starts tomorrow. I can only imagine THAT note from the teacher.

I feigned cheerfulness. "Alright, Buddy! Let's get these shorts off so you can go potty and then we'll all go to the culdesac to ride scooters!!" I tugged his shorts down around his ankles.

He pulled his feet out of the shorts, kicking off his shoes, and ran down the sidewalk toward our house calling out "I wanna go potty inside!" Percy, from Thomas the Tank Engine, looked back at me from Wes's undies, silently mocking me with his creepy eyes.

I looked at Charlie. I looked at Wes. I considered my options and finally called the friend who was out in the culdesac and asked her to keep an eye on Charlie for a moment. Then James and I took off to join Wes, who went potty in the potty without further incident. Then we walked back down the street to retrieve Wes's pants and shoes.

We'll call that a potty training success.

Wildfire

2011-09-06T07:11:00.000-07:00

We started our long weekend with a trip out for breakfast tacos because we had no food in the house, a condition that has been happening more and more now that we have three food-eaters with us. Bananas don't stick around very long. Neither does bread, yogurt, milk, or jelly. Anyway, all the boys loved the handwashing machine,.And after that we were going to go walk and scooter across the dam like I used to like to do when I was in high school, but found it blocked with an iron gate and razor wire fence, which were apparently a post-9-11 addition. No breezy walk by the lake for you! The terrorists have won.We tried to make the best of it and find a park to play at and stumbled on a nice one down by the lake. People were fishing and letting their dogs play in the water. We let the kids "wade" which, predictably, turned into swimming, fully-clothed.It was so nice and Ryan and I both commented how pretty the drive had been and how lucky the people who live there were to drive there every day.

Then came Sunday night. The nice neighborhood we had driven by to get to the lake had been evacuated because of a wildfire. Two families we know from church were displaced. No one could get any information about what was going on. It seemed like every time I went back to Facebook someone was talking about another fire. There was a new one to the west of us, then to the east. Another, huge fire was burning further away, southeast of our town. The fire was so large that we could see the giant plume of smoke from our upstairs windows, even though it was more than twenty miles away. Neighborhoods were being evacuated, houses were burning, calls were going out for more firefighters and prayer and rain and miracles. Ryan and I stayed glued to Facebook and Twitter, the only "news outlets" available. Our friends were posting that they were safe, but that they didn't know if their house was still standing.

I packed a bag of clothes for all of us and put it in the car. Ryan went out and watered the grass with the hose and knocked down the tall brush next to our fence with the lawnmower. We joked that we were overcautious, but other friends were doing the same. It seemed like the fires were popping up with no warning and anyone's neighborhood could be next.

Monday morning was beautiful and cool, the coolest it's been in months. But instead of throwing open the windows and planning what I was going to bake first, I stepped out on the porch to an eerie pink sky and a strong smell of smoke. I turned on the TV to see our city on the national news, the fire to the southeast had burned more than three-hundred homes. The fire near the lake was still out of control and was burning through houses. Someone posted a terrifying video to Facebook of a street with houses on fire on either side. Another fire popped up about ten miles away last night and burned another half-dozen houses. Two more family friends faced possible evacuation.

It has been the driest, hottest summer on record for our city. We haven't had meaningful rainfall in months. Once fires start, it is very difficult to put them out and they spread very quickly. The suitcase of clothes is still in the car and I'm keeping a close eye on the location of all the loveys in case we are threatened by a fire and need to evacuate. So far we've been so, so lucky and the weather is changing to cooler and less windy. Hopefully this will give the firefighters a chance to gain some ground against the two major fires that have been burning since Sunday afternoon. Hopefully it will keep new fires from starting that would threaten new areas. We all have to be incredibly careful. No grilling is allowed. People who flick cigarettes out of car windows face being arrested. When Ryan was mowing the brush the other night he carefully watered with the hose afterward to make sure the grass didn't get too hot.

What we really need is rain and lots of it. Days and weeks of steady rain are the only thing that will change the dangerous conditions created by the drought. Unless a tropical storm brings us some rain, it doesn't appear that this will happen anytime soon. For now all we can do is be careful, pray, and try to help each other as best we can.

At least no one wet his pants (except possibly James)

2011-09-01T09:53:00.000-07:00

Preschool orientation for Wes was today and I think, considering there are three kids I take everywhere I go, that the fact that they were all screaming as we left the building for home, is perfectly understandable. I mean, whose kids don't accidentally kick their brother in the face/have a sudden coming of age crisis in the lobby of their preschool/get their nap forgotten by their harried mother? That could happen to anybody, right?

We left the house with great enthusiasm. Charlie bounced out to the car, which was in the driveway instead of the garage because the garage door is not working (I can't imagine why), gleefully climbed into the way-back and buckled his seat belt. When I commented about the big, grown up boy he was being, he said "I am just so excited to meet my teacher!!" Then I had to tell him that we would be meeting Wes's teacher and that we wouldn't meet his teacher until tomorrow. You can imagine how that news was received.

All was forgotten once we reached the preschool, miraculously on time I might add, and we all climbed over each other and out of the car and bounced merrily into the school where Wes immediately ran to his teacher from last year, gave her a huge hug, and then walked into his old classroom, oblivious to the fact that he was twelve inches taller than the next tallest kid in there.

He was not so chipper and bouncy when they handed him back over the top of the dutch door. He melted into my body, completely heartbroken. It was a bad scene you guys. I tried to get him excited about meeting his new teacher, but he refused to take his face out of my shoulder. Fantastic.

As we made our way down the hall to Wes's! New! Room!, me pushing the temperamental stroller with one hand in wild zig-zags slamming into one wall then the other, Wes slung over my shoulder, Charlie getting distracted by the water fountain and the potty and the bulletin boards, I was performing a ritual of intercessory prayer for Wes.

"Dear just and loving God, please do not let this child wet his pants in the next twenty-five minutes, Amen." Prayer works, you guys.

So we finally made it down the long, LONG hallway to the classroom, waited behind some other parents, and somehow made it into the classroom only five minutes late and also tear- and urine-free. Wes was still clinging to my chest, but I figured I could coax him down with a dump truck or some PlayDoh once we got inside.

Then his teacher looked at me curiously and told me that the M-W-F kids' orientation was at TEN THIRTY, not NINE THIRTY.

OH MY GOODNESS.

Ha ha ha! Silly me! I must have gotten mixed up with Charlie's orientation tomorrow! We'll just go out to the playground and come back!

And then we got in the car to get breakfast tacos. Because I had not mentally prepared for that extra hour of public supervision. At least part of that hour needed to be spent with everyone strapped into their carseats.

And the taco place only had one of the tacos I usually get for the kids. And it was ten minutes until the other, non-drive-through, taco place stopped serving breakfast. So Wes got the last bean and cheese taco and Charlie and I each had a vegan black bean, avocado, and pico taco instead. Thank goodness the pico wasn't spicy. What was spicy, however, was the three tablespoons of salsa Charlie dumped onto his as soon as we sat down at the picnic table back at the school. I switched with him and we managed to get through breakfast without any further drama.

When we got to the orientation part, which was at TEN THIRTY, Wes was covered in black beans and mud, but it was lovely, with Charlie and Wes playing nicely with toys, participating in "circle time", and coloring at the table. Towards the end James was a little fussy and back-archy, but I knew he was tired and it was fairly manageable.

Then we had to stop by Charlie's old class on the way out. And James LOST it. Crying, arching, refusing to go into the stroller. It was special. He calmed down on the way out just in time for Wes to run back into his old room AGAIN and begin playing with his favorite toy from last year. And then James started crying again. And then Wes was crying because they were picking him up and giving him back to me, again. And then Wes accidentally kicked Charlie in the nose as I picked him up. And then, like some really loud, frustrating fireworks grand finale from hell, all three children were crying hysterically at the same time!

O.M.G.

So I laughed like a crazy person, slung my screaming four-year old over my shoulder and struggled back to the car, asking friends sarcastically, "So, do you guys have lunch plans?" Because while I wanted the number eight combo at Chick-fil-A very badly, I had just eaten a breakfast taco and our plans included going home and locking the door until next week when I can DROP EVERYBODY OFF and LEAVE.

One of these things is not like the other

2011-08-30T10:34:00.000-07:00

It's no secret that "fall" around here is usually kind of a disappointment for someone accustomed to screaming cold fronts that bring forty mile-per-hour winds and a thirty-degree drop in temperatures during the time it takes to attend a calculus class in shorts and flip flops, but we do what we can. I made some cinnamon bread the other day so it SMELLED like fall! I hung out our autumn wreath so it LOOKS like fall! I was so into it this morning when it was eighty-one instead of eighty-nine that I almost considered buying one of those giant scarecrows they have at Hobby Lobby to stand guard in the front garden (the kids wanted the one whose face actually WAS a crow, oh the irony!).

Next I would like to make a big pot of chili and fill the house with the sounds of Red Raider football (and corresponding yelling at the TV by yours truly, ahem).

Hopefully the atmosphere takes the hint. Our forecast high on Thursday is ninety-three. Better go find the scarves and hats!

Woodstock

2011-08-29T10:07:00.000-07:00

When I came down from putting the baby to bed, my kids had turned my living room into a hash den. I say go with it!

Story problem time!!

2011-08-25T11:31:00.000-07:00

If Becca and her three young children have lunch plans with friend, Katie, and her two small children at 11:30 at a restaurant that is twenty-five minutes from her house, and it is currently 10:15, how many minutes late will she arrive? Show your work.

GIVEN:

-Lunch is at 11:30 -- T₂ = 11:30
-Current time is 10:15 -- T₁ = 10:15
-Driving time to restaurant is 25 minutes -- D = 25 mins

FIND:

-Arrival time -- T_a = ?
-How many minutes late -- T_L= T_a-T₂

ASSUMPTIONS:

-Older children will need to go potty (5-20 mins)
-Baby will need to nurse (10 mins)
-Purse will be MIA (5 mins)
-Everyone will need shoes (10 mins)
-Time to buckle kids into car varies as T_buckle(minutes) = 1 / BS, where BS is a blood sugar coefficient that ranges from 0.1 to 1, BS chosen to be 0.1 based on time since breakfast

SOLUTION:

T_a = T₁ + T_buckle + D + T_other

T_other = T_purse + T_nurse + T_shoes + 2*T_potty + T_tantrum

...where T_tantrum is a random number between 1 and 20 minutes.

T_other = 5 mins + 10 mins + 10 mins + 2*10 mins + 7 mins
T_other = 52 mins

T_a = 10:15 + 10 mins + 25 mins + 52 mins
T_a = 11:42

T_L = T_a - T₂
T_L = 11:42 - 11:30

T_L = 12 mins

Most Wonderful Time of the Year

2011-08-24T19:23:00.000-07:00

I love the beginning of the fall semester. Even though it is still one hundred degrees outside, we powered through with our traditional scooter ride around campus and trip to the cafe for hot chocolate on Tuesday. We would have gone on Monday, which was the actual first day, but I was, frankly, afraid to take them out in public. It was not a good day.

But Tuesday we had a plan!

The big men on campus:

We had a gleeful scooter ride from the car to the library to check out Toy Story and then it was time to scooter over to the student center for some hot chocolate. The woman who makes the hot chocolate remembered them from the spring semester and commented on how big everyone was getting. Have I mentioned that I love my school?

Today was my first day of class. I teach two labs this semester. It is going to be SO MUCH easier than the spring. For one thing, it only meets for ten weeks. Second, I only lecture for ten minutes. The rest is helping with their experiments. It is SO MUCH FUN.

Also fun, our babysitter came today with rolls of construction paper and when I came home they had made race cars out of diaper boxes and watched Toy Story and cleaned up the playroom.

Not fun? I pushed ahead with my planned first-day-of-school outfit of jeans, and a short-sleeved cardigan from JCrew despite the fact that we just had our SEVENTIETH DAY of temperatures above a hundred degrees. It was fine while I was inside, but the walk to my car was quite unpleasant. Now that I've registered my protest against this ridiculous summer, I'll be going back to skirts and tees until it's AT LEAST in the nineties.

House Rules

2011-08-22T17:50:00.000-07:00

We have three simple rules in our house. Literally, three rules. Just like SuperNanny Jo Frost recommends. They are:

1. Be considerate of others.
2. Be respectful of our house and belongings.
3. Focus on what you are doing.

The kids are most familiar with Rule 3. Dilly dallying while getting into your carseat? Rule 3! Taking a coloring break when you're supposed to be putting on your pajamas? Rule 3! Throwing rocks into the sewer instead of following me back to the house? Hit 'em with a Rule 3.

I think I should carry around a yellow flag in my pocket and learn to hurl it right into the center of the action. Maybe we could have instant replay so we could finally see who started the yogurt fight. Because they have their loyalties, and they're not to me or Ryan.

(I should point out that I have gotten up twice for more milk and checked Facebook three times during the course of writing this. Rule 3 for Mama!)

Anyway, I don't know if it's helping or not, but it has added to the teenager-style eye rolls and exasperated sighs coming out of my almost five-year-old. Depending on the time of day and my blood sugar/caffeine level that is either really hilarious or makes me want to drive straight to Nebraska for some Baby Moses Law action.

All this to say, there are two more weeks until preschool starts. The one-hundred degree temperatures don't appear to be letting up anytime soon, the water in the pool is warmer than the kids like their bath, and we are all really, really cranky. Especially me. Especially since Hurricane Irene canceled my plans to return to my old town for a day to work on a paper with Dr. Advisor. It's enough to make me want to eat by flashlight at a Wafflehouse in rural South Carolina (ahh, fieldwork, have fun guys!).

I give my college kids an assessment on Wed and Fri and all I have to do is sit there in that quiet, freezing room for an hour and I can't believe how much I'm looking forward to it.

James's World

2011-08-16T19:30:00.000-07:00

You guys, I live with a Roomba. He never stops moving and is constantly sucking up things you don't want him to. He has identified the boys' best crumb-scattering ground, the shelf where the crayons are, and the source of all the small pieces of plastic by some heretofore unknown sixth sense. And because he is the third kid, and the first two kids need immediate access to the bathroom at all times, he has unrestricted access to the whole first floor (and God help me when he figures out the stairs).

I think the cute little baby-potato stage is over (I mean, the cute part's not over, what's not cute about finding an infant with a forest green Crayola hanging out of his mouth like a Lucky Strike when you come back from spending thirty seconds in the bathroom?). Next you're going to tell me they don't take three naps forever either.

The boys know to keep toys with small pieces in the playroom. I'm thinking some kind of retinal scan access system is in order.

Attention Target Shoppers

2011-08-14T12:35:00.000-07:00

I dressed the children alike today for my amusement. I thought it looked like they were going to go to Catholic school, but some (six) of my friends pointed out on Facebook that they looked like they all worked at Target.

About two seconds after this picture was taken, Charlie jumped up, screaming, because he had been sitting right in an ant hill. It was the last straw for Charlie, who had had a very stressful morning. He woke up at six and was forced to use the potty and get back in bed. Then his banana was rendered totally inedible by a "soft place" and Wes insisted on referring to the letter "G" magnet as the letter "T" and Charlie reacted so violently that he had to go to time out. It was a rough morning. And then he got attacked by ants.

Ryan still wanted a picture of them so we tried again after church. I call this series "Low blood sugar: What the hell are you looking at?" James was uncooperative because he wanted to eat the mulch behind him. Charlie tried to make him turn around by pulling on his ear. Wes refused to sit on his bottom.

This morning I was so homesick for our old town that I insisted we have lunch at our favorite taco place. They had it in our old town--it's where we went on our first date--and just built one here. The cool slash creepy thing is that the one here is identical in every way to the one in our old town (Except the friendly manager who always greeted me by name. Because I spent WAY too much time there.). Even the flatware has the same pattern. It's like walking into our past, but with lots and lots of extra children.

Extra children, who, it turns out, love refried beans.

Really, really love refried beans.

Like, if I lingered too long over my iced tea and didn't get the fork moving in time, he would grab a handful off the plate and smear them all over the place.

It was a delicious hour of feeling like we were back in our school town where the temperature would soon be dropping to a reasonable sixty degrees at night and eighty-ish during the day. Where the whole town would be going football-crazy in a week or two. It's always a surprise when we walk out of that place and are still in South. I felt like I should go home and argue with Ryan about who gets to spend the afternoon working on their dissertation.

Teachable Moment

2011-08-10T08:16:00.001-07:00

We were detoured on the way to the Community Center this morning by a man in a vest waving an orange flag. The kids picked up on the change in route immediately and Charlie complained all the way around back to the main road, all the way to the exit to the neighborhood and all the way down the highway back to the road where the Community Center is.

"This is SO STUPID. Why do they have to work on the STUPID road?"

"Charlie, I don't want to hear you talk that way."

"But it's STUPID. I want to go to the Community Center."

"We're going to the Community Center right now. We just have to go another way."

"Those workers are STUPID."

"Charlie, they're working hard to make our neighborhood nice for us. We don't call people 'stupid'. If you can't stop complaining, then I don't want you to speak at all."

Then quietly, "It's just so stupid to work on the stupid road."

And then, we approached the intersection at the entrance of our neighborhood, where we'd have to turn right to get on the highway to go the long way around to get around the (stupid) road work and go to the Community Center, where I would enjoy forty-five glorious minutes on the elliptical watching the news--and maybe if the kids got distracted enough, a few minutes drinking coffee and reading the paper in the lobby--as we approached that intersection, they had two of the lanes closed and a long line of cars was backed up. I waited, but when the light turned green only three cars made it through before we were all stuck again. I was trapped in the car with a whining Charlie and potty-training Wes and the nap clock was ticking on James.

My internal dialog turned negative "This is so STUPID. Why do they have to do stupid work on the stupid road. Stupid stupid stupid. I want to go to the Community Center!"

Oh.

Decisions

2011-08-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

The other day I was poking around online for a project at work, looking at the curriculum for a certain degree at other small liberal arts schools like mine, when I happened upon a very interesting job posting at a highly-regarded college in Massachusetts that was a perfect fit for my interests and skills (except for the highly-regarded part). I stared at the posting for several minutes, afraid it would disappear if I looked away.

The timing could not have been better. Every summer we spend a significant chunk of our vacation to New England discussing our favorite pipe dream: "How can we live closer to *here* and spend more time *here* in the summer? Maybe if we can both get jobs at a liberal arts college in New England, we could make it work! Yes! That would be perfect."

And then, we come home from our trip, step out into the smoldering 100 degree air in our town, and grumble for the next four weeks about how bad we want to move to New England where it doesn't suck so much.

But at which liberal arts college could we, both with engineering degrees, work? It's a total fluke that I have my job now!

That's where this perfect job posting comes in. I stared at it for a long, LONG time. And then I was so distracted I had to go to lunch early (if I was going to be obsessing I might as well obsess over tacos so that I could maximize my time in the, hopefully more focused, afternoon).

I waited until Ryan had been home for ten seconds before unloading my whole plan on him. He hadn't even put his laptop bag down. Or closed the garage door.

And then after the kids went to bed we had to have a big grownup discussion about it. The pros (of applying for a job that I would most likely not be considered for) were as follows:

*The possibility of living in a quaint New England town and working at an excellent college full time in a tenure track position.
*An exciting new professional challenge (a big, BIG challenge)
*On-site childcare
*Being closer to the place where we like to vacation (but not having to ever ride the subway with the electron brothers EVER AGAIN).
*Summer weather that doesn't make me homicidal.

The con list was longer:

*We love our church, we love our preschool, we love our friends, we love living near our families, we love our house, we love our pediatrician.
*I have a wonderful job, great co-workers, lots of support, tons of flexibility, and the ability to do as much or as little research as I want. I can use this time to learn the skills that will be important if I ever want a tenure track job one day (lesson one: don't try to turn an NSF grant around in one week)
*Tenure track is, like, WAY HARDER that what I do now. All kidding aside, now is not the time for me to be taking on a stressful, high-pressure job. I already have three of those.
*Cilantro costs $0.29 a bunch here and is not widely available in the northeast.
*Any house we could afford would likely be on the order of a thousand square feet. I tried to imagine what that would be like with the boys in the winter and I think the best analogy is that it would be like living inside a bag of microwave popcorn.
*Winter isn't really my thing

So we decided not to apply, which was a little disappointing, but I really think I'm exactly where I need to be right now. It's not the right time for us to both work full-time. I enjoy the slow pace of our week, I love the flexibility we have (for fun things and for dealing with things like doctor's appointments, dead car batteries, sick kids, dogs running out of the garage when you're trying to get everyone in the car), I love the kids' preschool and spontaneous get-togethers where we let the kids destroy the house as we chat over coffee. And I am truly enjoying spending so much time with them and the time they spend playing with one another (even though they do make me crazy sometimes, as has been evidenced here).

But I also love my work days--the separate identity, the quiet, the concentration, the challenge, the professional conversations, my co-workers, the students, the science, and the leafy campus. And the quiet, did I mention that? My Chair described my job as an incubator, and it really is. This summer I've gotten to write and submit an NSF proposal, prepare a paper for publication, and submit an abstract for a conference in the fall. I have gotten experience teaching and developing curriculum over the last three semesters. I'm slowly finding my way back onto a career path and largely at my own pace. It is a great opportunity.

Someday the time will be right and the opportunity will present itself and we will know it's the right move to make.

In the mean time I will continue to enjoy watching Curious George and making things in the bread machine. And breaking up fights on the playground while talking to Matlab salesmen.

We have arrived

2011-08-06T09:06:00.000-07:00

As a kid I always wanted a kitchen table with a bench, just like the Hogan Family had in their kitchen. Flash forward twenty-five years and now the kids (and we) have systematically destroyed almost all the chairs that originally came with the butcher block kitchen table Ryan and I bought at a yard sale down the street when we were first married.

We're down to two actual chairs and one chair that has become a stool after I roughly set it aside one day in a fit of post-partum, "I've been trapped in the disgusting house for four straight weeks", mopping frenzy and the back flew into a million pieces. And since we blew right past the suburban ideal of two kids, we need to have five seats anyway. It was time to trade up.

So after seven and a half years, we bought the first piece of new furniture we've ever bought together as a couple. We are JUST LIKE the Hogan Family now!

Oddly, the bench has not altered the usual state of disorder that pervades my kitchen. I think only James graduating from high school will fix that. Which is to say, I better just get over it.

(We're going to refinish the rest of the table to match the bench. One day. Or maybe we'll just get a lot of nice tablecloths.)

(I'm keeping the stool chair forever)

If the congress behaved like my family (and sometimes they do)

2011-07-31T06:08:00.000-07:00

Obama: Mr. Reid, Mr. Boehner, thank you for meeting with me. I'm confident that together we can come up with a solution to the debt ceiling crisis. Mr. Boehner, please get back in your chair. Get back in your chair. Get back in your chair. Mr. Boehner? Do you need a time out? Thank you. Now, who would like to begin? Mr. Reid, you have the floor.

Reid: Thank you, Mr. President. Mitch and I have drafted a series of compromises that I think you will find interesting.

Obama: Alright, let me hear them.

Reid: It's a surprise.

Obama: A surprise?

Reid: A surprise!

Obama: Can't you just tell me?

Reid: What's the magic word?

Obama: Please?

Reid: No.

Obama: Pretty please?'

Reid: No.

Obama: Would you please just tell me the compromises?

Reid: The magic word is POOP! (riotous laughter)

Obama: Please, Mr. Reid, let's hear your list of compromises.

Reid: What?

Obama: The compromises you alluded to, can I hear them please?

Reid: I wanna play golf.

Obama: OK, Mr. Boehner, let's move on to you.

Boehner: Thank you, Mr. President. The House is prepared to vote on the most recent package as soon as we clear up the timing issue. I can deliver our support on the extended deadline if you can give us several minor concessions.

Obama: Excellent, what are those concessions.

Boehner: First, no additional taxes. Second, no cuts in defense spending. Third, no changes to Social Security.

Obama: You can only have two of those things. Which two do you want most?

Boehner: No additional taxes, no cuts to defense, and no changes to Social Security.

Obama: I said pick two.

Boehner: No additional taxes, no cuts to defense, and no changes to Social Security.

Obama: You may have two. You may not have three. If you cannot pick two, you may have none.

Boehner: WAAAAAAHHHHH! WAHH! WAAAHHH! I WANT DEFENSE AND SOCIAL SECURITY AND NO MORE TAAAAAAXXXXXEEEESSSSSS!

Obama: Mr. Boehner, this behavior is not appropriate. If you cannot calm down, you will need to go to a committee room until you can. One...two...thr--much better. OK, we have two more days until it's time to default. Did you hear me? Please look at me when I'm speaking to you. Two more days until default, do you understand?

Boehner, Reid (sing-song): Yesssssss, Mr. President.

Obama: Alright now you two, have you looked for places to reduce spending?

Reid: Yes.

Boehner: (looks at shoes)

Obama: And did you find anything?

Reid, Boehner: No.

Obama: Are you sure? Did you look really, really carefully? What about in the farm bill? I thought I saw some unnecessary spending in the farm bill just this morning! Did you look in the farm bill?

Reid: Oh, uh, no.

Obama: And you, Mr. Boehner, what about that new transportation bill? Did you look there?

Reid: (snickering, unable to contain self)

Boehner: Actually, I left my copy of the transportation bill on the jet (looks at shoes).

Obama: I made you that nice transportation bill and this is what you do with it?!

Boehner: Sooorrrryyyy.

Obama: Nevermind. Now, it's almost time to default, let's go.

Reid, Boehner: But, Mr. Pres-i-dent! Just one more vote, PLEASE?

Obama: I said NOW. I want you both to go back to your offices and look again for unnecessary spending. And if I come in there and find it myself, you're not going to like what happens, got it? I'll call the press corps and cancel all of your appearances. All of them! Do you understand me? LOOK AT ME WHEN I'M SPEAKING TO YOU.

Reid, Boehner: Yes, Mr. President.

The cost of a simulnap

2011-07-29T12:10:00.000-07:00

When I got to the gym playroom today after working out a boy I don't know was sobbing in the arms of the caregiver.

My kids were not crying. My kids were laughing like little sociopaths.

The teacher explained "They threw toys at him. At his head."

I grabbed them by their chubby little arms and sat them down with their backs against the door.

"We do NOT THROW TOYS. YOU HURT HIM. YOU SAY YOU'RE SORRY. DON'T GET UP! SAY YOU'RE SORRY AGAIN! AND NOW TO YOUR TEACHER. AND TO ME!"

They apologized insincerely and then continued to giggle and goof around as I signed them out. When we got to the sidewalk I let them have it. They wouldn't stop giggling and screwing around. They climbed up on top of the landscaping boulders near the entrance and shrieked defiantly. Hearing Dr. Phil's voice in my head ("Keep raising the price of poker!") I kept taking things away until Charlie sobered up and told me he was really, really sorry.

"When we get home, you're going to your room."

Giggle, giggle, giggle.

"And you've lost your TV privilege for the rest of the day."

Slightly less giggling.

"Should I take away our trip to the pool, too?"

NO MAMA I'M SORRY MAMA I WANT TO GO TO DA POOL PLEASE MAMA I'M SO SORRY!!!!!!!

And then, of course, no one would get in his carseat when I asked. Everything was SO freaking hilarious. Wes hit me as I tried to buckle him in.

On the way home I made an unplanned trip to Starbucks--for me--so that I could make a big point out of "Boys who hurt other children in the gym playroom do not get treats." There were lots of "Mama, I'm really, really sorry!" in the drive-thru lane! I considered ordering some cake pops then eating them in front of them, but thought that would be a little too cruel and went with tea instead. I had just worked out, after all.

And now they're all sound asleep. And I ate all the M&Ms out of the trail mix.

Charlie-, Wes-, and James-zilla take Boston, a liveblog*

2011-07-26T17:54:00.000-07:00

*is not actually live

10:30 We're on the T! Everyone is excited! I have lost five years of lifespan due to stress of keeping two hyper kids from falling onto train tracks during wait for train.

11:00 We've arrived at the Park stop to learn that the elevator is closed. Had to carry three children plus bags plus eighty pound stroller up approximately nine flights of stairs among dozens of well-dressed commuters. Thank goodness Ryan is here!

11:15 Have reached the street. It is possible I have more children than I can control.

11:30 Playground, how original! It is the playground in Boston Common, though, so this is a cultural experience. Cannot interest Texan children in the Frog Pond as it is only seventy-five degrees outside (glorious!).

12:00 Wes got yelled at by a stranger IN CHINESE. See! Cultural experience!

12:30 We've left the playground for a lunch break at Quincy Market. Abigail Adams gave us great directions. The twenty-minute forced march to lunch was very special for everyone. I am dismayed that my plan to sneak away to the Gap to find something that hasn't been thrown up on or covered in sand to wear on the plane will not be possible due to extreme unruly behavior.

1:00 In lieu of exposing the children to traditional New England fare for lunch as planned, we're eating lunch at Cheers, where everybody knows your name and no one has to pretend she likes seafood.

1:30 Nothing like being out in a strange city and relying on public transportation to make you feel your "outnumbered" status more acutely. I wonder how much a cab ride to Texas would cost.

2:30 We're back at Boston Common and the children are in the Frog Pond. I am eating a cupcake. Is this what vacation feels like?

3:30 Drag reluctant children to Public Garden for magical/special Make Way for Ducklings photoshoot. Secure very cute picture of all three boys riding ducks. James was not interested in eating nicely on bench near the ducks, preferring off-on-off-on maneuver for maximum nipple exposure. Puritans would be horrified.

4:00 On our way back to the T. Snapped at Charlie after he slapped my butt to get my attention.

4:10 OMG we are lost in the hottest T station EVER and there are NO ELEVATORS. It is possible I will die in here right under the meaningless sign depicting the direction of the platform for the Braintree train as perpendicular to the floor and off to the left.

4:30 The train is here! And packed with commuters! A nice man has given up his seat for me and I am sitting on it with Charlie and Wes are sitting in my lap. Kids are cuddly and sweet and we talk quietly about the Frog Pond. It was sweet and cozy and I wonder what the heck I was so stressed out about all day.

5:15 We're back at the hotel! All of us! Alive! It's a miracle!

5:30 PBS Kids is on and the pizza is ordered. Much better. Next time I leave this room I'll be headed for HOME!

In which we make the children learn something

2011-07-20T10:03:00.001-07:00

There's only so much sand and water play three pirates can take before they begin to turn on each other. It seemed to be time for a little change in scenery, so yesterday we loaded up my grandmother's station wagon and went to the Portland Head Light.

We wanted to give the kids a little culture and at about an hour away, it killed just enough time to put us home right at high tide for prime swimming time.

I asked the kids what they thought it would be like to live in this house, way out in the middle of nowhere (at the time) with only each other to play with.

They looked at the pounding surf, nearby beach (with swings!) and boats passing by and thought it would be a great place to live.

I thought so too. I pictured myself wearing sweaters, gardening and canning our food, making big pots of soup while the wind whistled by the windows and waves crashed against the rocks.

And then I remembered how twitchy I get when the grocery store closes for Labor Day.

But it sure was pretty.

We were captivated by the stories of shipwrecks and heroic lightkeepers (Everyone on board survived this one, amazingly). The rocks around the lighthouse were enormous and forbidding. It's not hard to imagine how dangerous and scary it would have been to be on a ship passing by on the way into Portland.

We have my cousin Jen here this week, helping with the boys, and we have had so much fun (We had her sister here last week too and that was great too (Hi Lily! The boys and I miss you!)).

We took an obligatory cheesy family picture.

And then all the kids took a simulnap on the way home.

And, appropos of nothing, James learned to smile for the camera this morning. He is seven months old today. If someone would please find a way to slow down time, that would be excellent.

Wouldn't he make a cute little lighthouse keeper's baby? I better go knit him a Fair Isle Sweater.

ARGH: A Pirate Adventure Story

2011-07-18T04:21:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, the fiercest band of pirates ever to roam the Atlantic Ocean called the lower Maine Coast home. In fact, they lived right here on these here rocks.

One day after a breakfast of raw clams and beer (and cinnamon toast and bananas), the pirates set out on a great quest to find BURIED TREASURE. Captain Charlie read the map.

Deck Swab James the Chubby kept a lookout.

First Mate Wesley the Frustrated found the first clue near the flagpole.

A great quest was undertaken. "To the trees in the side yard!" was their cry. A garden gnome held the key to the treasure. He demanded the pirates solve three riddles, but the ruthless pirates picked him up and wouldn't let him go until he coughed up the next map. ARGH!!

Map in hand, the dread pirates set off across land and sea, singing "Yo ho ho and a bottle of ~~rum~~ organic apple juice."

Until at last Captain Charlie spotted an "X" on the beach! The pirates gave orders to have the treasure uncovered! ARGH!

The Grandpirates could barely contain their excitement! Argh, argh, argh!

The treasure was FOUND!! What would it be? Gold? Silver? Jewels?

It was a wealth of loot the likes of which have never been seen in these waters.

And there was much happiness in the land.

And peace once again reigned the land. Until the pirates began bickering over whose bubbles were whose.

Many thanks to St. Anthony

2011-07-13T18:46:00.000-07:00

One of the not so nice things about family vacation (among all the really, really nice, wonderful things which have already been documented here), is the way your whole family gets to witness you totally lose your everloving mind every single night when it is time to put the kids to bed.

Today was no exception. After it took three people more than two hours to get Wes to stay in his bed last night (instead of under the bed, under the other bed, in Charlie's bed, or leaning his entire upper body out the second floor window), he finally gave in around 10:00 only to have James get up at quarter till five in the morning.

The sun comes up here between four and five, which meant that after James had his breakfast in bed, he refused to go back to sleep in his crib. He wouldn't stop shrieking and trilling and I was worried he'd wake everyone else so we went outside to watch the tide come in from a lawn chair in the front yard. And then we played on the porch. And then he had two breakfasts (one yogurt, one banana). We had a lot of time to kill.

Once we got rolling (post-coffee, naturally) we had a really nice day filled with swimming and playgrounds and walks to the store for French Toast Muffins. Charlie passed an hour in the back yard jumping on a piece of bubble wrap the size of a beach towel. I read two pages of a novel I'm enjoying before losing consciousness on the couch for an unknown amount of time (ten-ish minutes? It wasn't long but there was drool.). My aunt made a yummy dinner for us all.

And then around 6:00 my blood pressure began to creep up in preparation for bedtime.

And then we couldn't find Phent.

Despite my encouragement to please go back to the porch and relax, the whole family was involved in the search. We opened drawers and cabinets, we stripped all the upstairs beds, we overturned laundry baskets and looked under every single piece of furniture. All the while James was getting passed from person to person and fussing and crying because he was tired (because he got up at FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING) and I was trying, unsuccessfully, to hold it the hell together because to normal people, Phent is just a stuffed animal.

I am not a normal person, however, and I was starting to freak out a little. Charlie's the good sleeper. THAT CANNOT CHANGE. Also, I have already decided that I will keep Phent in my own nightstand after Charlie outgrows him (WHICH WILL NEVER HAPPEN).

We searched every nook and cranny of the not-very-big house with no luck and I told Charlie that we would have to look again in the morning for Phent because we couldn't find him. He laid facedown on his bed with his legs on the floor and refused to move.

When I'd finally coaxed him into bed to read a story, Phent appeared on the landing. My mom poked her head into the room. "I prayed to St. Anthony," she said "he was behind the laundry basket in the bathroom." She tossed Phent to Charlie, who scooped him up and kissed him tenderly on the trunk over and over again until I finished changing Wes into his PJs.

We read a long book about a boy who gets to go out on a fishing boat and everyone was asleep by eight thirty.

Sorry, Texas

2011-07-12T11:34:00.000-07:00

It's been seventy-eight degrees every day since we got here and people are starting to complain about the "heat wave". Here's what my kids think of your "heat wave", Maine:

I'm going to ask Ryan to send me the rest of my clothes and my pillow so I never have to leave. And maybe one of those huge things of chili powder from our grocery store. You can't find those here.

The kids did some crabbing yesterday.

Then we made them eat ice cream.

And sit through a lecture on lobster fishing.

We caught a BIG one.

James makes an excellent beach-sitting partner (who eats sand by the chubby little fistful if you don't watch out).

Yes, I'm breaking up with you, Texas. I just hope Ryan enjoys boatbuilding or lobstering.

Now with 50% less sleeping!

2011-07-09T04:30:00.000-07:00

Still having a wonderful time, but I think we'd all be just a little bit happier if a certain two brothers would start falling asleep on their own without having to be physically restrained (I have a hunch that the seven hours of sleep Charlie got last night will not be enough).

They're walking to the store with my dad and my aunt to buy donuts right now and then we'll probably go over to the rock skipping contest or maybe just do some more sitting around while Charlie splashes in the wading pool in his life jacket.

Yesterday was trolley day.

James knows how to relax. Love that it's cool enough here to wrap him up in a blanket to sleep.

Vacationland

2011-07-06T10:35:00.001-07:00

My kids are total rockstars.

Even though they made me set James and Wes up on different rows (one carseat per row, has to be by the window), and I had to sit with James while Charlie and Wes sat up front, they were calm and quiet and friendly the whole time. They ate snacks, they read books, they chatted with each other, we took several trips to the bathroom.

*They* (not me!) made it look easy. When we got off the plane, an off-duty flight attendant was so impressed with them that she carried our two giant carseats all the way to our next gate then waited with all of our stuff so I could take everyone to the bathroom to marvel at the suction potty.

And then when we arrived my aunt was waiting for me right near the gate and the hardest part of the whole trip was officially a memory!

I can't even remember what it feels like to burn myself on my own car's tailgate/driveway/flip flops anymore.

Charlie spent an hour in the freezing North Atlantic yesterday.

He stayed in until he was shivering and asking me to get his coat for him.

Phent watched from the porch.

A lobsterman delivered a bucket of live lobsters to the end of the dock yesterday afternoon and we ate them for dinner. Charlie ate his whole lobster then spent the rest of the meal begging for more.

We went to the Botanical Garden's Children's Garden today. They pumped water into watering cans, watered flowers, heard a reading of Harold and the Purple Crayon, rowed the Tidely Idely, and crossed a perilous rope bridge.

Then we had a picnic where James teethed on a piece of celery just like the colonists.

We have big plans for some serious sitting around later.

Stupid Human Tricks

2011-06-29T12:25:00.001-07:00

It's like an endless parade of blogging material around here all of the sudden.

Today we were out at the fancy schmancy grocery store that has a playground and restaurant. We were with two friends and their kids. After we ate lunch, Charlie had to go to the restroom, so I grabbed James out of the stroller and took everyone in there. I wouldn't have taken Wes, but I couldn't leave Captain Pathogen with my pregnant friend and the other friend had already moved to the playground. Plus, Wes never misses an opportunity to fool around with a paper towel dispenser.

Once inside the bathroom Charlie informed me that he had only wanted to wash his hands, not actually go potty. I strongly encouraged him to "just try since we're already here" in what might have been described as a "hiss" rather than a "playful affirmation of his spirit and individual needs." While he was doing that, Wes stripped naked from the waist down and climbed atop one of the potties.

Because what better time to start your public potty training than while I am standing there holding a giant sumo baby on my hip.

He sat there for a few minutes then asked me to close the door so he could have some privacy. So then I was holding a giant sumo baby on one hip, holding the door closed with the other hand, asking Charlie repeatedly to stop fooling around with the soap dispenser, AND supervising Wes's potty time through the half-inch space in the stall door hinge.

When he was finally finished (and after I had exclaimed "GREAT JOB WES!" without remembering that we were in public; the woman in the last stall was highly amused with us too--the naked kid, the peppy encouragement, the pile of diminutive clothing and Crocs, the way Wes was grunting "PUUSSSHHH" so loudly) he climbed off the potty and stood there waiting for me to dress him. Somehow. Without putting James down.

I weighed my options--carry James and a half-naked Wes back to the table and our stroller, where I could put James down and attend to the naked kid or figure out some way to manage with one hand that didn't involve James or me touching the floor with our hands. Even though we live in the hippy capital of the southwest, I thought carrying a naked child through a restaurant dining room would be a tad inappropriate.

Then I had a stroke of genius. I crouched down on the floor on my toes, stood James up on his feet, and squeezed his hips with my thighs.

I am a HUMAN EXERSAUCER!

Also, big thanks to Sergio and his Sunday afternoon yoga torture class (Yoga Torture Flow) for all the extra quad strength.

With my hands free I could quickly get Wes's pants put back on and we headed back to the table to bathe ourselves in Purell.

Just a virus!

2011-06-28T20:10:00.000-07:00

I've been to the pediatrician three times in the last twenty-four hours. Three visits for a total of four appointments, if you want to get into the specifics.

James started screaming on Saturday night in an Embassy Suites hotel where we were staying while visiting family. He started screaming around eleven o'clock, right when I was thinking of going to bed, and after several episodes of "Storm Stories" it became clear that he would not be going to sleep. Ever. At one o'clock in the morning Ryan strapped him into his car seat and drove the Big Gold Minivan around for AN HOUR (AT ONE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING) until he fell asleep. Then he drove back to the hotel, parked, and retired to the back seat with a sleeping bag and Charlie's honeybee Pillow Pet for the evening.

Sunday night after I tried to get him to sleep instead of comfort nursing (slash CHEWING), Ryan took over and the two of them ended up falling asleep on the floor. He then spent all day Monday howling in protest if I even got him near one of the many baby neglecting devices we have around the house (swings, play mats, exersaucers). And by five o'clock, when I returned home from the grocery store to more hysterical screaming, I had HAD IT. I impulsively called after-hours and made an appointment for him to be seen at 5:45. One hour and fifteen dollars later I had my "just a virus" diagnosis and still-screaming baby in hand. (Doctor's visit number one!)

The night did not go well. James had a well check (ironic!) this morning (Appointment Number Two!) where we added to his misery by giving him his six-month vaccinations. Since everyone was so wild in the exam room, I didn't remember to ask Pediatrician Man to take a look at the red marks on Wes's legs (FORESHADOWING!) and we left to get our donuts and take our screamy selves home.

By some miracle, Wes went down for a nap at a reasonable hour. I plugged Charlie into PBS and hooked James up to eat, then collapsed backward onto the couch, where I slipped into a light coma.

I woke up to the sound of coughing. It was Charlie and his face was COVERED in bright red blotches. I touched it and he said it didn't itch. I Googled "rash". Do not do this.

My mom was at my house, so I called and made an appointment. While on the phone with the nurse, I remembered the splotches on Wes's legs and ran upstairs to check on him. Not surprisingly, his splotches had also gotten larger and more pronounced.

So the big boys and I trooped back to Pediatrician Man (Doctor's visit number three! And four!!) where they were both diagnosed with Just! A! Virus!!

Symptoms of this virus include crabby, belligerent behavior, extreme silliness, and massive red blotches on the face (Charlie) and body (Wes).

Tonight after much trial and error, Ryan took James for a relaxing stroller ride while I laid in bed with my heating pad and Frontline. Holding a twenty-two pound baby for twelve hours does take a toll on your back, after all. An hour later Ryan came up the stairs carrying the entire stroller with James sleeping inside. He's woken up twice since then. It's going to be a long night, but Ryan? Is he not the best?

Animal House

2011-06-24T14:54:00.000-07:00

There are some days when you are feeding a sweaty baby on your couch, exhausted from two weeks of church camp chaos, and your kid is driving his new-to-him remote controlled airplane all around the kitchen, around and around and around, and it's easy and calm and you think "This is nice."

But then the big kid in the kitchen exclaims "OH MAN!!" and asks you to get him a towel.

And you snap out of the haze for long enough to ask "What do you need a towel for?" still not lifting your head off the back of the couch or unhooking the now-dozing baby.

And he replies "The airplane drove in the THROW UP!"

And you sort of vaguely remember the baby hurling over the side of the high chair, under the table. Good grief, when was that? Yesterday? The day before that?

And then you remember that when it happened you made a mental note to wipe it up, but then you were distracted by some other emergency involving a child-sized guitar and a little brother's head or maybe by the sound of a tiny fist pounding the side of the TV to make the signal come in better, or maybe a phone call from a friend or a trip to the bathroom or the "beep" of the coffeemaker.

And you wonder how the big kid knew there was throw up on the floor and you didn't.

And then you remember that you live in a frat house now, and no amount of matching bathroom rugs and hand towels and well-balanced meals will change that.

And you vow to get more rest and maybe put some higher-wattage bulbs in the kitchen.

Seven Quick Takes

2011-06-22T13:34:00.000-07:00

1. VBS (Vacation Bible School, a.k.a. "church camp") is this week. And last week. We're doing two weeks of VBS. On one hand it's great to have the kids occupied for half of every day. On the other, they're tired as hell and have the behavior to show for it. Last night at the pool I tried to force Wes to put his life jacket back on and he BIT ME. And then, Tweedle Dee couldn't help himself and continued to splash and otherwise goad his incarcerated brother until I dragged everyone back to the towels to wait for Ryan, who was expecting to arrive to happy fun swimming time. Instead, he took them home and left me at the pool with my friend and her two children. Who were behaving like human beings and not wolves.

2. We had huge thunderstorms last night, which is awesome because it hasn't rained in over thirty days around here. I love lying in bed listening to thunder and rain on the roof. I do not love sitting up in a chair nursing a terrified baby and listening to rain on the roof. Ryan sort of enjoys curling up in a twin size bed with a shaking toddler wrapped around him like a Snuggie, but probably not for four hours, which is how long it took Wes to calm down. We were a tired family this morning at six when everyone was up for the day. Yay rain?

3. My job at church camp involves a lot of wandering around checking on things and I often run into Charlie and Wes. Charlie signs "I love you" every time he sees me. If he can break away from his group he gives me a giant body-slam hug which I have learned from "Pink Brain Blue Brain" is the boy equivalent of curling up in your lap. I love it when he does this. And have learned to prep myself for the impact like a linebacker.

4. I try not to let Wes see me because sometimes he gets upset and wants to stay with me. One time, though, he ran by me holding two other kids by the hands and shrieked "WE HAD FUN IN DA JUMPING HOUSE!" over his shoulder. His face and shirt were sticky and orange with popsicle residue. The picture of a happy kid.

5. The other day I walked into a friend's back yard to swim and saw Charlie at the bottom of the pool. I screamed "SOMEBODY GET CHARLIE", but then he started kicking and popped his head out of the water, grinning from ear to ear. That is how I learned Charlie can swim under water now (Ryan was in the pool with him and already knew he could do it). My life expectancy is now five years shorter.

6. I am taking the kids on an airplane by myself soon. Two airplanes, to be exact. I'm currently accepting prayer and drink coupons (enough that I can also distribute them to the people sitting in our general vicinity).

7. I just made "Ants on a Log" for the kids and thought I'd try it myself since they think Ants on a Log is the most amazing thing since boxed mac and cheese (probably because I use chocolate chips instead of raisins). OMG Ants on a Log, where have you been all my (adult) life?

We went on a date

2011-06-17T20:21:00.000-07:00

Since this week is church camp, we haven't had our babysitter over as much to watch the kids. She still likes being paid (and she says she thinks my kids are funny and cute too), so she suggested we go out for dinner and a movie tonight and let her handle bedtime. We slung some frozen chicken tenders down and backed out of the garage before she could even say "Can the kids watch a movie?"

Since it's a hundred degrees outside, we thought it would be fun to eat outside, so we headed downtown to where all the food trailers are. If you're not from the area, envision an empty lot filled with tricked out campers selling hipster versions of your fair-food favorites. Ryan got a cone shaped tortilla filled with fried shrimp and avocado pieces and coleslaw. I got a crepe filled with brie and eggplant (I wanted to marry that crepe). Then we went a couple of trailers down and had cupcakes.

Then we moved the party to a miniature golf course. This shark almost did me in.

Some of us can't take anything seriously.

Oh for goodness sake.

Ryan's ball got stuck and he had to look under the turtle's bottom to get it out. I am a supportive and helpful spouse. Heh heh.

We wanted to play another round, but it was unbelievably hot, so we went and had a beer instead (also outside, it's summer dang it, even if it is too hot to leave the house).

When we got home our babysitter had cleaned the kitchen and living room and put all three kids to bed. She had good reports about everyone's behavior except for Charlie, who squirreled away and ate an entire steamfresh bag of broccoli while she was upstairs checking on James. When she questioned him about the missing broccoli he replied "It was just so yummy I couldn't stop eating it!" I sort of felt the same way about my crepe filled with brie.

They call him "The Lawn Sprinkler"

2011-06-13T11:28:00.000-07:00

We used to laugh when Charlie was a baby because he spit up so much. Every single night for several months he used to hurl right over my shoulder onto the carpet as I carried him back to bed after his 4:00 feeding in EXACTLY the same crusty, black, place. His daycare teachers used to run out of spare outfits for him because he threw up so much during the day. I once took him home in only a diaper and socks because not only had he exhausted his personal supply of outfits, he had gone through all the emergency, vagrant baby clothes too (our kids have come home many times in what I call the "pajama pants of shame"--a faded pink pair of girls' pajamas with a lipstick and shopping motif that, I assume, they dress little boys in when their mothers repeatedly forget to pack extra clothes. Or I might just be paranoid.)

Anyway, James makes Charlie look like a reborn in the spitting up department.

Last night he got me four times while I was putting him to bed. Just when I'd get one spot mopped up, he'd hit me again. I felt like I was on Double Dare. I was so grossed out when I finally got to peel my saturated shirt off. And I don't get grossed out easily. I have THREE BOYS.

Today he was in the church nursery all morning so that I could work at Vacation Bible School (VBS). I got a message that he was hungry, so I ducked into nursery and fed him. When I sat him up to burp him after the first side he sprayed at least twelve cups of milk all over my leg, the chair, and the floor.

His teacher, a veteran with four kids of her own, matter-of-factly handed me a fistful of paper towels to clean up. Then I fed him the other side and handed him off.

When I came back to check on him he had "spit up" (slash projectile vomited like a Kappa Delta on Spring Break) four more times and was wearing different clothes. They weren't so matter-of-fact that time.

"I bet he's hungry again. That was a LOT of spit-up" they told me.

I nodded and picked him up.

"Like, a LOT" with wide eyes.

I gave him a cuddle and looked into his eyes. He spit up on my arm. Twice.

"OK, well maybe I should get that checked out..." I laughed, then put him back down to play so I could finish up for the day.

When I fed him at home he did a lot better, but that time a friend called on the phone and while I talked he sat propped up on the couch between sides. That seemed to help. As did the giant man-burp I got out of him after the first side. But then he spitup all over the Boppy right after I took that picture.

It doesn't seem to be phasing him. He's very happy and growing well and eats on a regular schedule, so maybe I should just take ponchos to the nursery staff tomorrow for the next performance of "Stand By Me: A One Baby Show"? Because I think they're all sitting in the splash zone.

Day in the Life: Home Day Edition

2011-06-09T11:55:00.000-07:00

Still waiting for a "normal" home day to tell you about, but I don't think we'll have one of those until school starts up again in September! I didn't work today, though, so here's what a typical home day looks like for us.

6:35 Ryan in shower, I'm half asleep half fretting about all I have to do before leaving for our fun pool day today.

6:45 Wes manages to escape child-proofed room and climbs onto Ryan's side of the bed, demanding "cubbers" (covers) and proudly telling me that he didn't bother Charlie, who is still asleep.

6:50 James begins squawking over the monitor. Go get him (happy smiles and laughing!) and bring him back to bed to eat, noting with pleasure that I haven't seen him since I laid him down to sleep at 7:00 the night before!

7:10 Leave James in bouncer in bathroom where Ryan is getting ready, take other kids downstairs for bananas.

7:15 Start coffee and sit down with laptop to get directions to friend's neighborhood pool.

7:16 Remind Wes to get back in his seat.

7:17 Remind Wes to get back in his seat

7:18 Tell Charlie to get back to his seat

7:20 Finish directions. Sit on floor with Ryan sunscreening the children and changing diapers.

7:40 Pack pool bag -- towels, snacks, James's swimming clothes, Wes's floaties, travel mug of coffee

7:45 My sunscreen and swimsuit, coverup and shoes

8:00 Into the car!

8:35 Arrive at pool easily thanks to great directions from friend. Huge hug for my friend who I haven't seen in a very long time

8:40 Get two whole families of small boys down to pool deck from cars. Realize I've left the swim rings in the car. Leave kids sitting in the shade with friend, use voice-of-sternness to ensure they listen to friend and don't move while I am gone, back to car.

8:45 Change James into swimsuit. Remember belatedly to take off my coverup and shoes before getting into the pool.

8:50 Everyone in the pool, finally!

8:50-9:45 Relax beside pool with friend, pass James back and forth, occasionally dash into water to push Wes back towards the steps (he can float in his vest, but prefers to touch bottom)

9:45 Massive Wes tantrum, stay calm and leave him flailing facedown on pool deck. Awesome friend laughs with me and gestures at her youngest (now six), "that was him! I totally get it!" Feel wave of warm appreciation for my more experienced friend.

10:00 Pool snack time for everyone, crackers and grapes all around (milk for James). Schlep everyone to the bathroom.

10:10 Back in the pool! Friend's oldest son arrives from swim practice. He is twelve. Charlie is awestruck.

10:10-11:45 Oversee massive pool-noodle battle between all five boys. It's hilarious and Charlie and Wes are so happy. Feel so lucky to be here watching them play. Rethink plan to get full-time job in five years (I start obsessing five years out, don't you?)

11:45-12:00 Get everyone dressed and back into the car (get in your seat, get in your seat, get in your seat, get in your seat), leave for home. Hope everyone falls asleep by the time I pass that cupcake stand I saw on the way in.

12:15 Pass cupcake stand. Charlie and Wes still going strong. Damn.

12:30 Drive through Schlotzky's, cheese originals, cookies, and lemonade for everyone!

12:45-1:15 Arrive at home, put sleeping Wes in bed. Let Charlie eat Wes's rejected sandwich. Set Charlie up on the couch with a quilt and airplane movie. Read blogs, eat cookies. Feed James.

1:15 Fold load of laundry

1:30 Start a new load of laundry. Note that I don't have a full load to wash owing to my recent effort to do laundry every day. Woot!

1:40 Hang up all swimsuits so they are ready for swimming with my niece this afternoon.

1:45 Sweep kitchen floor, marvel at quantity of messy crumbs produced by children

1:50 Change James, put down for nap

And here's how I project the rest of the day will go...

3:00 Wes up from his nap, have a snack to compensate for rejected lunch

3:15 Start getting everyone in car to head to sister's house

3:30 Start backing out of garage, realize I forgot swimsuits drying on porch, go back in.

3:35 On the road.

4:00 Arrive at sister's

4:00-5:30 Kids play in wading pool. Break up lots of fights related to child to noodle ratio. Remind Charlie repeatedly that he's the big kid and needs to calm the heck down before someone gets hurt.

5:30 Eat dinner outside

6:00 Ryan arrives, children will either fling themselves at him joyfully or melt down in exhausted overwhelm, coin toss!!

6:45 Leave for home in midst of epic, multi-child meltdown

(Wow, I sound awfully pessimistic about this afternoon, don't I? Let's hope I'm happily surprised)

7:05 Get James in jammies, nurse him to sleep

7:30 Help Ryan finish up big boy bedtime

8:00 Sit on couch with Ryan, watch mindless entertainment.

9:00-11:00 Turn off TV, talk about the day. Watch Daily Show online. Talk about vacation plans and wish it was here already. Practice guitar together.

11:15 Fall asleep reading in bed

Drama in Real Life

2011-06-07T07:43:00.001-07:00

Have I ever told you about the time I got to ride in a police car in Tallahassee?

It was 2002 and our hurricane data collection team was staying at a Holiday Inn (stayin' at the Holiday Innnnnn) in Tallahassee waiting for Tropical Storm Isidore to get her (his?) act together and make landfall already. We spent our days fixing our towers in the parking lot of the hotel and our nights eating at Outback Steakhouse with our $40/day university per diem. We also spent a lot of time lying around eating garbage and watching The Weather Channel. Those were heady times!

We had been there for a week and I started to become anxious about the coursework I was missing back home (this was during undergrad when coursework actually had a due date, as opposed to graduate school, which was more fluid and ultimately I think that is why it took me six years to get my PhD). Thanks to a marvelous new development called "email", I was able to stay in touch with my professors and answer questions like "Where the hell have you been?" and "Are you coming back?"

I think my professors were starting to question the scientific merit of this "field project" I kept going on that almost always resulted in me returning to class with a great tan and natural highlights.

So that I could stay in my professors' good graces, and graduate on time, thus securing several more years of cheap labor out of me in the form of a graduate assistantship, the future Dr. Advisor faxed an entire chapter of my Controls textbook to me so I could complete some homework assignments and prepare for an exam (THAT was a tense fifteen minutes in the lobby of the Holiday Inn, as we all stared at the fax machine waiting for it to finally finish printing all forty pages).

So I did my Control Theory homework in my room at the Holiday Inn and when it was finished, I needed to scan it in so I could send it back to my professor. Several team members were headed over to FSU to use the library's computers (no wifi at the hotel, CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE?) to check on that deadbeat hurricane we were supposed to be monitoring, so I hitched a ride. They were to drop me off at the Kinko's right by the school where I could use a scanner and submit my homework, then they were supposed to pick me up in thirty to forty-five minutes.

Best laid plans, right?

Important to know is that I was wearing sneakers, athletic shorts, a tshirt with the name of our field project on it, and had only my wallet and my homework assignment.

I did not have my cell phone. I don't know if I even had a cell phone at that point.

And it was nine o'clock at night.

And the whole time I was at Kinko's I could feel the floor vibrating with the bass beat of the music coming from the SKETCHY NIGHTCLUB DOWNSTAIRS.

In about twenty minutes I was finished sending my homework and the rest of the team had not yet come back to get me, so I walked across the parking lot to a McDonalds, ordered an ice cream cone, and sat down to wait by a window (so that I could see if they were coming)(They were not).

After waiting for a while, I went back to Kinko's to check the time and was HORRIFIED to learn that it was TEN THIRTY. I asked the cashier if he'd noticed a guy in a red tshirt come in here asking for me. He had not. I stomped out of the store and stood on the sidewalk, wondering if somehow I'd missed him, or if something terrible had happened.

Finally, around eleven, I used my credit card and a pay phone to call the guy who was supposed to be picking me up, we'll call him Tom (not his real name), and got sent straight to voicemail.

I evaluated my position. I was in a strange city, standing in the parking lot of a very sketchy-looking nightclub/McDonald's/Kinko's in the middle of the night armed with only a wallet and a five-page engineering homework assignment. Raucous club goers were spilling out of the bar into the parking lot and the whole thing was starting to seem really scary.

Conveniently, there was a policeman standing nearby (I CAN'T IMAGINE WHY!), so I approached him and tried to maintain calm as I explained my situation. I failed. As I opened my mouth to ask if he would call a cab for me he reached up and pushed the button on his walkie-talkie.

"I'm transporting a twenty-one year old white female from [I have no idea] Street to the Holiday Inn on [not a clue] Avenue."

Holy crap.

"10-4" came the reply.

And then he escorted me to his patrol car and (Thank God) opened the passenger door for me. Once we were safely inside and headed toward the hotel he said "You know, this is a really dangerous area, you really need to be more careful."

!!!!

I, slightly more calmly this time, explained my predicament and thanked him for helping me. I'm not sure if he believed my story until we pulled into the hotel parking lot and he saw the thirty-foot instrumented towers and Honey-I-Shrunk-the-Kids car parked nearby.

I pounded on the door to my room until my friend let me in and then laid awake for over an hour, shaking with fury, until "Tom" knocked on the door (sometime around 12:30) to make sure I was home safely.

Apparently he'd been quite worried when I wasn't at Kinko's when he went back to get me (God knows when) and the cashier told him "You're looking for Becca? She left. And she was PISSED." Indeed.

Day in the Life

2011-06-05T20:59:00.001-07:00

This is for my blog friend, Brooke, who is posting a schedule of her day every day this week. I think it will be interesting to read later when everyone is older. And now that I'm rereading it I sort of get why I'm so tired all of the time. Next I'll tell you about a non-work day, which will be considerably shorter (i.e. 10-4, played with hose, ate popsicles).

4:00 (AM) Feed baby, fall asleep in chair, wake up, return baby to crib, return to bed

7:05 Awaken with a start to learn that the alarm clock has not yet appeared by my bedside to inform me of 1) Other awake children, 2) A Pull-Up mishap, or 3) Imminent death by starvation. Wake Ryan up and hurry him into the shower.

7:07 Remember that Ryan's car is dead, text babysitter, see if she can come early.

7:20 Join children milling around in hallway. Respond to pressing questions re: when can I turn on the TV. Find baby and remote control. Get back in bed for feeding and news time.

7:35 Hand off baby, hop in shower for hair-only three minute, incredibly disappointing shower.

7:38 Throw on jeans and nice-ish black shirt, necklace, sandals, deodorant ("getting ready" routine complete).

7:40 Join chaos downstairs. Start a load of laundry. Make sure everyone has sufficient clothing to cover important parts. Buckle children in car. Ensure there are enough shoes in the car that we could all walk to a gas station in case of mechanical failure. Leave for Ryan's work.

7:43: Two frantic texts from babysitter. SO SORRY, OVERSLEPT! Pull over to relieve texting-inept husband. Respond: "No problem! I'll take the kids out for breakfast tacos. See you at nine."

8:10 Arrive at Ryan's work. Kisses all around.

8:20 Arrive at breakfast taco place to find it packed with policemen and firefighters having breakfast. How fortunate. For the boys, I mean. Order tacos. Take crazy-parade back through seating area to car. Fireman holds door. Well, hello there! Boys in awe.

8:40 Get home. Set kids up with tacos at kitchen table. Switch laundry to dryer. Remember abruptly that the babysitter is coming and the living room looks like a halfway house. Perform "quick sweep" of living room: Toys in playroom, clothes in washer, diapers in trash.

9:00 Sitter arrives.

9:01 Reassure Wes.

9:05-9:10 Load various bags (laptop, breast pump), make bottles, provide tour of refrigerator. Feel guilt about lack of food selection. Feel like antagonist in "Nanny Diaries".

9:15 Leave for school.

9:45-10:30 Arrive at office. Check email, brainstorm ideas for paper, write two pages of notes, get nowhere. Go to library website to search for papers relevant to my ideas. Print paper to read. There are a lot of equations. Not my favorite.

10:30-12:05 Read mathy-hard paper. Wake self up repeatedly. Stretch a lot. Remind self to bring coffee next time. Resist urge to login to Facebook approximately twenty-million times.

12:06 OK one little peek.

12:15 Walk to dining hall. Gorge self on $4 all you can eat buffet.

12:30 Return to office, purloined cookies and tea in hand. Return to boring paper. Finish it to satisfaction, write down several more questions.

12:45-2:00 Search for more relevant work. Read some. Print some. Feel like kind of a badass when department chair finds one of the papers on the printer and knows it's mine because it says something about velocity spectra in the title.

2:00 Realize I've forgotten to schedule thank-you lunch with administrator who helped me with the proposal. Send effusive apology email to set up a time. Wonder who thinks I'm more flaky, this administrator, the boys' preschool teachers, or my mom.

2:05-2:30 Research jobs in parts of the country where it's not a hundred degrees in May. Weigh potential for lake-effect snow against sweltering late-spring weather.

2:30 Check 7-day forecast for any mention of rain. Stew.

2:30-3:30 More brainstorming and summarizing old notes (older than Wes old) for potential new paper. Some staring off into space. Some blog reading followed by some self-chastisement.

3:30 Leave for home.

4:00 Arrive just in time for Wild Kratts. Listen to rundown of boys' happy day. Playing with the hose, Playdoh, coloring, a movie, naps. Sounds like a great day. Note evidence of origami-making on kitchen table. I love our babysitter. Fold laundry, straighten kitchen.

4:30 Wake Wes up from three hour nap. Put everyone in car. Leave for Ryan's office.

5:00 YAY Papa's back! It's the weekend!! Charlie is asleep. Oh crap.

5:30 Return home, put Charlie in bed for the night (?). Warm up some leftovers for Ryan and Wes. Open some leftover pasta salad and make a piece of toast for myself. Mix some oatmeal and banana for James.

6:00-6:30 Ryan puts Wes to bed. Give James a bath. Dress him in jammies. Nurse him to sleep. Fall asleep in chair. Wake up, put him in bed. Perform vital sign check of still-sleeping Charlie. Head downstairs.

6:30-9:30 Sit around reflecting how tired I am and promising myself I'll go to bed soon. Eat multiple slices of coconut cream pie (homemade by Ryan). Watch Dateline with Ryan. Realize how lame a Friday night this is somewhere in the back of my mind. Am too tired to care.

9:30-10:30 Read Bossypants and fall asleep.

On my third twenty-ninth birthday

2011-06-01T19:43:00.001-07:00

It was a very thirty-one kind of day, I'd say. It began with Charlie appearing at my bedside at 7:00 sharp to show me the globe he'd drawn. Ryan whisked him downstairs to prepare my birthday surprise where I heard lots of whispering and shuffling around. They called me and I stumbled down the stairs, slightly alarmed by the eerie orange glow coming from the kitchen.

Did they get me a nuclear reactor for my birthday, like I'd asked? No! They put thirty-one candles on a birthday cake.

Wes came downstairs and everyone sang, I blew out the candles, we ate cake, Wes ate a candle, we coerced the children to shore up their blood sugar by having a banana too, tantrums were thrown, shoes were found, Curious George was turned on, coffee was made and delivered to me in a brand new travel mug to replace the one the kids use in the baby pool now, Ryan left for work, I folded laundry.

Then we went to a cool toy store with a playroom and spent the morning building trains and dragons and log cabins and playing junk yard. My friend and I got a little crazy and took all five children, aged four and under, to a sit-down restaurant for lunch. Mac and cheese and peanut butter-banana sandwiches for the kiddos, BLTs for the ladies, a mashed banana for James (this is a whole other post, but there was no way that kid was going to make it to six months before eating fruit with his little tractor beam eyes and pitiful wail of starvation, sorry Pediatrician Man, a hungry kid is a hungry kid). Cupcakes on the way back to the car rounded out a really nice morning.

And then NO ONE NAPPED. Charlie managed to convince me he wasn't tired. Wes laid on his back kicking his door and demanding water for nearly an hour before Charlie let him out. James had a diaper incident that woke him up (possibly definitely related to the banana).

I sent Charlie and Wes out into the backyard to do *something* that did not involve me for a while. When I heard laughing and checked on them a few minutes later, this is what I found:

Which is a huge improvement over yesterday when they teamed up to spray hose water directly through the open back door into the kitchen.

Later, after Wild Kratts, I found a scorpion stuck to my pool bag in the kitchen and flung the whole thing onto the back porch (Yes, I did check out the window to see if anyone's husband was home before I tackled that job myself). With the back porch now off limits until Ryan could perform a full inspection, they played Superheroes in the front yard.

Superheroes who loooooove each other:

Which was really fun and cute for a while and then Ryan came home and both older boys hit the freaking wall and there was an entire hour during which at least two kids were screaming hysterically for one reason or another (or no reason at all). James was placated by sucking down the last of the baby oatmeal (two bowls) and another half a banana, but Charlie and Wes just had to be put to bed. I choose to blame the terrible behavior and moods on the fact that it is now summer "break". Boo.

Through all the screaming Ryan made a delicious dinner of huevos rancheros for us, complete with homemade salsa. Now that everyone is in bed and we've eaten our coconut cream pie I hardly remember all the multi-child mega-tantrum. And now I've got some Bossypants to read and some gift card Zappos shopping to do. All's well that end's well!

Don't Tell Pediatrician Man...

2011-05-30T20:19:00.000-07:00

But somebody LOVES pears!

I thought he might like to taste the pear I was eating at the fancy grocery store downtown where we had lunch, but as soon as I got it within an inch of his mouth he latched onto it and began sucking as though he hadn't been fed in days (which, look at those cheeks, clearly access to food is not an issue).

Then I was all, "Haha, Baby James likes my pear!" and took it away so I could finish it and that was NOT ACCEPTABLE. Just ask the other people enjoying their lunch on the patio or the flock of birds that was startled into flight by the sharp wail he let out as I tried to reclaim my lunch.

So we shared it. He got the juice and I got everything that was left. I don't blame him. It was a delicious, juicy, perfectly ripe pear. And I have similar feelings for pico de gallo.

Good Friends

2011-05-27T18:18:00.000-07:00

Before I tell you how awesome my friend Abby is, let me catch you up on the details of my week.

PROPOSAL.

I am now to the point where I am referring to it simply as "my project" so sick am I of hearing myself talk about the freaking proposal proposal proposal PROPOSAL GAH!

Anywhoo. It's all I did this week, my project. The kids watched a lot of TV, I didn't sleep much, I was a big huge melodramatic grouch, it was an awful lot like the last weeks of my dissertation, actually. The feces really hit the fan yesterday when we finally got the revised budget from our collaborator to learn that we needed to magically create an extra twenty-four thousand dollars somehow. That was yesterday around 3:00. I was scheduled to go to another town to visit my friend Abby today. So I fired up PBS Kids again and settled in to remove what turned out to be an entire YEAR of activities from my project, then turned back in around 5:00. It was still not done.

So Ryan and I made a plan. After confirming that I wouldn't need to be on campus to finish everything up, Ryan took copies of all my files with him to work and monitored my email while I drove to the other town with the kids. If an email came about the proposal he called me and read me the email, and then I told him how to fix it and "wrote" a reply, over the phone. Smart phone, schmart phone.

We fixed a couple of items this way (there were many, MANY items) then I stopped in a McDonalds parking lot to steal their Wifi and nurse James while I made budget edits on my computer on the passenger seat. I sent off the last email with seconds to spare before my battery died.

Whoever coined the term "I am woman, hear me roar" must have tried to work on a tight deadline in a hot minivan with two rambunctious boys in back while nursing a baby. Because there was roaring. And not the empowering kind.

Ryan called thirty minutes later to tell me there was ONE LAST QUESTION. OF COURSE.

So this is the part where my friend Abby is awesome. She met me in the driveway of her dad's house and gave me a huge hug and then got Wes out of the car for me. After I'd lugged everybody and everything inside, she handed me a margarita and the password for the house wifi and took the boys off to the porch for a snack. I changed the ONE LAST THING and sent it off then joined everyone for a delicious lunch.

And then it was time for some SERIOUS relaxing.

Five sweet little boys, a pool just their size, endless chips and guacamole, strawberries, and, lemonade. Old friends and a shady porch. The perfect end to a very difficult week.

(And yes, the project is now in the hands of the NSF, eek!)

A new tradition, I think...

2011-05-22T18:42:00.000-07:00

I stayed up way too late making this delicious cake (omit the dried fruit) Friday night for the grown-up dinner party that we had on Saturday, but it was SO worth it. Really, I need to get out of my Tollhouse cookie rut more often.

The late night (and all the cake filling I ate out of the mixing bowl before remembering it had alcohol in it and maybe I should give it a rest) meant James and I fell asleep Saturday morning while everyone else was at tee ball and I was supposed to be cleaning the house. When everyone came back I took my second trip to the grocery store for the day (first trip was at 7:00 for chocolate chips and when I got back Wes ran out to my car and grabbed the bag and exclaimed "You a brought me ah donut, Mama?!) to buy corn tortillas and came home with two bottles of wine, a six pack of Corona, some raspberry chipotle sauce, a "fiesta size" bag of tortilla chips, and a huge tub of guacamole. Then I ate lunch, which clearly I should have done before leaving for the store.

After a family nap we switched into full-on prep mode, which entailed a Hoarders-style clean up of both floors of the house, and my favorite part of party prep, COOKING.

I poached chicken, I chopped sweet potatoes, I made tomatillo sauce. We used eight limes. EIGHT. It was my kind of meal. By five o'clock I had two pans of chicken enchiladas (spicy and kids') and a huge tray of cilantro-lime sweet potatoes, iced tea, a dip made of cream cheese and raspberry chipotle sauce, chips and guacamole all ready to go, and thanks to Ryan the house was sparkling--even the shower door--the table was set, and the music was just right.

James woke up from his nap right on time and our guests, Charlie and Wes's wonderful preschool teachers and one of their husbands, arrived. Everything was ready and under control and I couldn't help but reflect on the first dinner party Ryan and I threw together before we were married when the guests had to serve the salad with their hands and I think someone had a spoon instead of a fork because I didn't have enough forks at my house. And we cleverly used a tablecloth to conceal the fact that we had brought the big patio table inside because the kitchen table was tiny and who knows what I made that night, but it certainly did not involve homemade tomatillo sauce and now that I'm thinking about it I sort of remember holding my breath as I cut into a chicken breast because I was terrified that it wouldn't be cooked through (it was).

Charlie and Wes were perfect little angels in the way only kids whose teachers have just shown up to their house and sat down at their table can be. Which is to say they were terrified. Charlie refused to speak audibly for the first hour, instead tapping me on the shoulder and whispering things into my ear. Wes ate crackers for dinner, but he was very subdued from his normal dinnertime behavior. They warmed up after dessert--Wes regaled us all with his nonsensical knock-knock jokes and Charlie brought a jigsaw puzzle into the kitchen for he and Miss Cindi to work on together.

It was wonderful to finally get to talk to the boys' teachers while not standing on either side of a half-door. We talked about food and school and kids and grown-up kids and our Alma Mater and places we've all lived and Charlie and James and Wes and how well Wes eats at school and how picky he is at home. It was really lovely and I could have sat there at our kitchen table with them all night, until the last of the wine and the last of the cake were gone, but then they probably wouldn't have such nice things to say about the boys' behavior, so we reluctantly said goodbye and I brainstormed reasons to invite them over again one day.

I might need one of those annoying "Making Baby Food" signs

2011-05-20T11:05:00.001-07:00

A couple of months ago I was pumping in my office when there was a knock at the door. You've never seen anybody move so fast. I got everything shoved out of sight and my shirt put back together in about ten nano-seconds, then opened my door, a little out of breath and disheveled, to find another professor, we'll call him Co-PI, standing there looking bewildered. He peered around me into the office as he asked if my officemate was in today. She wasn't so he thanked me and left, looking awfully curious about what he had interrupted.

Today I became so absorbed in what I was doing that I forgot to pump until well after I was supposed to meet with my Co-PI to talk about our proposal (that is due on WEDNESDAY, Hold me!) and more than an hour past the time James would have eaten.

Figuring I would just pump after the meeting, I kept trying to finish my revisions. But then I remembered the whole leaking possibility and what if he wanted to go to lunch and I saw a baby at the restaurant and had to spend the rest of the meal pretending to be one of those paranoid old women who clutches her purse to her chest all the time. How embarrassing would THAT be? Plus my originally conservative shirt was getting kind of inappropriate and things were getting uncomfortable.

Figuring I would just ask to move our meeting back thirty minutes, I walked down the hall and discovered that Co-PI was not in his lab. Hurray! He has forgotten! I am saved!

I put my cheery little "Just a minute, please!" note on the door and hooked myself up to the milking machine.

WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A

I went hands-free and continued to work through my revisions.

WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A

Wow, I waited WAY too long, this is taking forever...

WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A

Drumming fingers on desk...

WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A

Twenty minutes seemed like a more than reasonable amount of time, so I hastily stored the milk and shoved the pump under my desk. There was no one in the hall when I opened my door so I figured I was home free. Hurray!

Fifteen seconds later Co-PI appears in my doorway.

"Hi, so I saw the note on your door and that is fiiiiinnnnneeee"

OMG.

WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A WOMP-A

(!!!)

OMG.

And then he came around my desk (which is cleverly arranged so that I can hide things like BREAST PUMPS from general view) to use the phone and had to STEP OVER the mysterious be-tubed contraption on the floor that I couldn't move quickly because it was still plugged in!

I really hope he thinks I am using drugs in my office.

Overheard in the Big Gold Minivan

2011-05-17T09:34:00.000-07:00

On the way to school today...

Charlie: Mama, remember the time when the bad train was going down the tracks too fast and Thomas....

We need wipes, bananas, something for dinner--what will Wes eat? Do I care today?--conditioner, milk, trash bags...

Wes: Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama!

[car approaches bend in road]

Charlie: MAMA! Difficult bend! Puff with care! And you remember when the bad train was going down the tracks too fast and Thomas saved the day by...

Do I have enough cash to run through Starbucks after dropoff?

Wes: Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama!

Charlie: Thomas made the bad train go on the other track because it was a bad train and it was going too fast and...

Me: Just a minute Charlie, Wes has something to say.

Wes: Mama! Mama! Wook! A square and a circle!

Me: Awesome, buddy!

How long does it take to lose fifteen pounds? A pound a week would make it, OMG NO. Better skip Starbucks. And lunch...

Charlie: And the bad train went on the other track and the station was SAVED!

Wes: Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama!

Charlie: Mama, you're going too fast, PUFF WITH CARE!"

Wes: Mama! Fat and thin!! [I remember that he's reading an opposites book]

Me: Wow, Wes, fantastic! Who's looking forward to chapel today!

Charlie: Me!! I like the part when the [unintelligable], RIGHT MOM?

Me: Um, tell me again, buddy?

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Wes: Mama mama mama mama MAAAMAAA!

Charlie [more quietly this time]: I like the part? Of chapel? When Pastor Jennifer? Tells us [unintelligable].

Me: Ohhh, OK.

Wes: I wike da part wit da ba ba boo ba da goo dee fuh!!!

Me: OKEY DOKEY!

Five more minutes, five more minutes, five more minutes

Charlie: Miss Lisa told me "We don't dump out all the toys" and then I hadda go sit in da [unintelligable]. That made me sad.

Wes: WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO! I a police car!

Me: What? Did you go to time out at school? What happened?

Mother of God, what the hell am I going to do this summer?!

Charlie: I had to go [unintelligable] because I [unintelligable]. My friend Chris won't share. I ALWAYS share.

Note to self: Apologize to Chris's mother next time we see each other

Wes: WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO WOO! I a firetruck!

Me: OK WE'RE HERE EVERYBODYOUTOFTHECAR RIGHT NOW.

Tourists in our own town

2011-05-16T19:20:00.000-07:00

Ryan had to work Saturday, so he took today off. We told the boys we were going to go out for breakfast then surprised them by driving to the train station so we could ride downtown for the day. There was lots of excitement all around.

The train ride was lots of fun, but we were ready to stretch our legs by the end. Fortunately we had kind of a long-ish walk to the brunch place I chose. Charlie was so disappointed that everyone had their blinds closed in this apartment building. Let's face it, so was I. I'm so curious about how the cooler half lives!

Then we ate pancakes (boys), French toast (me), and breakfast tacos (Ryan) OUTSIDE! People were eating with their dogs!! A bird stole a huge bite of pancake right off of Wes's fork!

Ryan held James up like Flat Stanley. This picture makes me want a cup of coffee. And a snuggly baby (he's asleep right now). And a good book and about two hours of free time. That place was nice.

We call Ryan "The Double Stroller".

We walked to the State Capital and I fed James while the boys had the run of the place. No squirrel or bird (or congressional staffer trying to enjoy their lunch hour) was safe from the screamy brothers.

Then, because it is a perfectly normal thing perfectly normal people do with their three small children, we spent some time watching the proceedings of both the House and the Senate. Charlie and I were fascinated. Wes and James had to be removed because James was overtired and Wes refused to put his shoes and socks back on.

We stopped for the obligatory rotunda picture on the way out. A tour group of nuns thought we were very funny.

We had a snack lunch in the Congressional Cafeteria where we stood out like really loud, messy sore thumbs, then tried to get a nice family picture in front of the statehouse, which was kind of the last straw for my patience and the kids' willingness to follow directions. Made for some really hilarious pictures, though. I especially like the way you can't see Wes behind James. They also wear the same size clothes!

Wes didn't last much longer than that. He woke up when it was almost time to get back on the train.

You have to do it every year, just like visiting the lady doctor

2011-05-15T20:51:00.000-07:00

Two catalogs arrived in the mail the other day. Well, there were two that I was interested in. Apparently the people who used to live here had quite the mail order habit. My favorite was the one with the XL Lawn Chair featured on the front cover with the words "HOLDS 450 POUNDS!" printed next to it. What will they think of next?

Anyway, the two catalogs I was interested in (though a lawn chair that could hold my entire family WOULD be kind of nice to have) were the highly disparate JCrew and Lands End. You see, I am in the market for a new swimsuit to accommodate what I am hoping is a temporary situation called Third Baby Kangaroo Tummy. Also? I sort of flashed the whole neighborhood last summer when the teeny string holding up the top of my old JCrew one-piece experienced a structural failure while I was trying to swim laps. Something with a little more integrity was in order.

My friend A raved about Lands End suits about a month ago when we were reminiscing shopping for swimsuits together in grad school and our mutual complaint that most of the offerings at Target required you to choose whether you would rather show way too much butt or way too much boob (boob all the way for me, but it depends on your figure). She said that not only are they long enough to cover everything, they are also made of heavy fabric that holds everything in. Winning!

So I paged through Lands End while the kiddies watched some PBS Kids and quickly found several-hundred dollars worth of sensible mom clothing that I wanted to buy (but did not) in addition to several good swimsuit offerings.

"Oh, look at that flattering swim skirt," I thought. "So-and-so wore one of those last year and it looked really nice."

"Oh, and I could also get a rash guard shirt! A skirt and a shirt! It's what I wear EVERY DAY! Perfect!"

But then I remembered that I am supposed to be playing up my best feature, which at the moment means as little fabric as possible above the waist. James is more than happy to help me with that goal every three waking hours and four at night, but since I should probably cover up at least a little at the pool I found a few sensible options before turning to the JCrew catalog to peruse their offerings.

You guys. The monologue in my head sounded *exactly* like Dana Carvey's "Church Lady" ("Look at me, Mommy, I'm a sugar slut in a devil's mask!"). And it has nothing to do with jealousy or the fact that there is no freaking way I'll ever be able to buy a swim suit there again, between the high prices and the teeny tiny bikinis and the absurd impracticality of gold sequins on a SWIM SUIT. And then I got up to make some brownies and roast a chicken. And stepped on a little pirate figurine on the way to the kitchen. And said "OH SHOWER" instead of the other word that starts with "SH".

So yeah, JCrew's days are over for me. I blame the kids. But I think I'm really going to like swimming fully clothed.

TWOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

2011-05-13T17:22:00.000-07:00

Big day around here if you like breaking stuff.

It all started this morning when Ryan and I were downstairs performing our two-man show called "SIT IN YOUR CHAIR AND EAT YOUR BREAKFAST." I was starting up the coffee maker when I heard a funny metallic noise and then a big THUMP.

I found Wes, who was not SITTING IN HIS CHAIR EATING HIS BREAKFAST, standing at the top of the stairs, looking sheepish. He was looking sheepish because he had just ripped the baby gate right out of the wall, leaving a two-inch hole in the drywall.

Thank goodness Ryan has so much drywall experience, heh heh heh! Also, I think his office needs a "Performing emergency home maintenance necessitated by two-year-old" space on their time sheets because this is the second time this week something has gone horribly wrong five minutes before he was due to leave for work. Yesterday morning involved a diaper and a whole lot of Resolve. Enough said. Really.

So Ryan got the rest of the gate off the wall so we could walk through the hallway without stepping on it and went to work. And then our babysitter came and I gratefully spent six hours in a quiet, windowless room reading about wind.

After I came home we played in the back yard for a while. It was a nice warm afternoon and the kids played with the hose while I held James or pulled weeds. It was all very peaceful and calm, so I went inside to make dinner while the kids continued to play.

I was almost done cutting up the potatoes when I heard that maniacal cackle that usually means they're doing something wrong.

Turns out Wes was standing on our glass-topped patio table. Dancing. Naked.

I've said it once and I'll say it again: That kid is going to join a fraternity one day. Probably one that gets put on probation. Even though he did not fall through the table and slice open his aorta, he still got a time out for that one. But it was really, really hard not to laugh.

Act III of Wesmageddon occurred after Ryan came home. I was plating up dinner when I heard a woosha woosha woosha noise coming from the general vicinity of James room. And then what sounded like a thirty-pound bag of potatoes falling onto the floor. And then hysterical screaming.

Ryan found Wes in James's room, having jumped so forcefully in the crib that he had pushed the whole mattress and spring down through the bottom like a fun house trap door, causing him to roll down the "hill" and crash into the floor.

Ryan had to bend the metal back into place with a hammer so James would have a place to sleep tonight. The whole time I nursed James to sleep I was thinking about how on earth I was going to get through this phase with my relationship with Wes intact.

And then I remembered the time when Charlie was two-and-a-half and I dragged his dresser out of his room in a fit of rage one day because I had found him standing on top of it throwing books instead of napping (while I was trying to talk on the phone with my advisor about my defense date). And Charlie is perfectly lovely and largely not a psychopath today. So I guess I just have to wait it out.

A Chicken in Every Pot

2011-05-10T07:52:00.001-07:00

I told my friend on Facebook the other day, after asking for her roasted chicken recipe, that one of my goals for the summer is to "learn to cook like it's the Depression." Because with three boys and one-point-two incomes, we're going to need to be creative in the kitchen. I'm starting with roasted chicken. At $0.85 a pound, it is less than a third of the price of breasts alone and Wes could really use the extra fat in the dark meat anyway. And after you eat the parts you want, you can boil the rest to make chicken stock and save even more money.

My parents came over for dinner last night, so I made them this recipe with a five-pound chicken I bought for approximately $4.75. After we carved it, found some uncooked places (Klassy! Also, grr broken meat thermometer!!), microwaved the uncooked pieces, and served it, it was delicious and moist! The potatoes were perfectly done too. I shall trademark my roasting/microwaving combo strategy and make millions!

After bedtime Ryan and I sat at the kitchen table and talked about our days while we picked the extra meat off the bones (ro-man-tic). Then I used the bones and skin to make ten cups of stock in the crockpot (OH the heated debate that occurred on my Facebook wall when I put up an innocent little appeal for stock-making tips!! Highly amusing. And informative!). TEN cups! Ten cups of stock at the store is $5! The same price I paid for the whole chicken! That we also got to eat for dinner! Bring on the Dust Bowl!

Tonight I'll make chicken soup with the extra meat and four of the cups of stock. CHA-CHING!

(I attribute this little home cooking jag to the abrupt end to the semester and resulting directionless creative energy. For lunch yesterday the kids had organic black bean and Monterrey jack tacos while I enjoyed a mozzarella and tomato sandwich with fresh basil on ciabatta bread with a side of sliced fresh pears. I am not bragging. I'm just kind of amazed because usually lunch involves yogurt and peanut butter toast for the kids and a handful of Halloween candy and a side of guilt-induced fresh fruit for me. Bon appetit!)

It's not all fun and chicken stock around here though. Do you know what your house smells like when you simmer a chicken carcass in a crock pot for ten hours over night? Like CHICKEN. Not chicken. CHICKEN. I woke up at 4:00 sure that someone had left a toy in the oven. Putting the stock away in the freezer has helped. But I'm going to make some peach cobbler too just to make sure the smell coming from my house doesn't start attracting stray dogs.

Next we'll move on to the Cold War and learn how to prepare dried beans in the crock pot. I'll be off the grid in no time!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a sleeping baby and about ten hours worth of chicken smell to wash out of my hair.

Messy Happy

2011-05-06T06:36:00.000-07:00

Usually clutter and chaos drives me crazy. You can imagine how much time I spend frustrated with the chaos given the current state of things. I'm told it won't get better until James goes to college, so I'm trying to prioritize and clean up as we go and it's helping, even though that whole shoveling the driveway while it's still snowing analogy still applies. Big time.

But this morning I walked into my messy living room and just felt content and happy.

When we bought this house we knew we needed one big room for all of us to do things together. I used to think an "adult house" needed a living room and a family room, but this house just had one living room (and a small playroom that is more often used for toy storage because everyone likes the living room so damn much) and we fell in love with it and it's been perfect.

This morning the coffee table was used as my office, with my grading and proposal budget still spread out where I left them late last night. They shared the table with Ryan's and my dishes from dinner last night where we ate in front of The Office and 30 Rock, one of our favorite weekly rituals.

There are clothes all over the place, left behind after hasty mid-day clothing changes, which are now more frequent now that Charlie can turn on the sprinkler for himself.

I realize this is not *that* bad. Which might be contributing to my shiny happy feelings today. Or maybe it's because I slept for six and a half continuous hours last night.

One of the protective pads from the dining room table houses the Island of Sodor and many happy afternoons of civil engineering (and violent property disputes).

The couch is a bookshelf, bed, and jungle gym (STOP DOING THAT TO THE COUCH! GO OUTSIDE IF YOU WANT TO CLIMB SOMETHING!).

Today I understand the empty nesters who have told me I'll miss the messy house. I just wanted to get this down as a reminder for the next time I feel like greeting Ryan home from work with "Sorry the house is such a hellhole." I don't think he even notices.

GET IN MY BELLY

2011-05-04T20:33:00.000-07:00

I gave James cereal during Charlie and Wes's dinner ONE TIME and now he expects it. A four month old can EXPECT things. I did not know that. I just assumed that someone who becomes irrevocably trapped after rolling onto his stomach just kind of went with the flow. But apparently not. I tried to hold him in my lap at the table while Charlie and Wes ate dinner tonight and he wiggled and squawked and spit out his pacifier until I stuck him in his chair and gave him something to eat.

He doesn't quite know what to do but he does know that he NEEDS MORE FOOD RIGHT NOW as soon as he swallows a bite.

Probably now would be a good time to join Costco.

CSI: Kitchen Edition

2011-05-03T10:17:00.001-07:00

Everyone jokes that the leftovers in their fridge have been there so long as to be unrecognizable. But that never really happens, right? I mean, you might have a little trouble determining which green vegetable it was that has turned orange and liquidy in the bottom of the Corningware dish some well-intentioned relative gave you for your wedding. But usually with a little bit of thought, review of grocery store receipts, and laboratory analysis you can piece it together.

Oh yeah, I remember making green beans almondine for Thanksgiving now. What was it, 2009?

I've never truly had the "What the hell was THAT?" experience when cleaning out the fridge. No matter how badly deteriorated the contents of the bowl was, I could always sort of remember having bought it, prepared it, or brought it home from someone else's house with the intention of eating it at some point.

Until today.

I came home from the store and opened the fridge to put the milk away only to have a medium sized enameled baking dish fall onto my foot, ejecting it's blue, fuzzy contents all over the floor and my shoes.

I stood there for a moment, gallon of milk in hand, muttering unladylike things about the rest of my family and why I'm the only one who ever cleans the fridge before remembering how I went to yoga last night while Ryan put the big boys to bed then cleaned the kitchen before starting on the actual work he had still to do before going to bed and getting up with James several times between three and six in the morning. OK! Time to clean the fridge!

After putting the baking dish in some soapy water and cleaning all the blue fuzz off the floor I put on my lead apron and face shield and removed a covered Corningware dish from the lower shelf for inspection.

It was about the size of a softball and appeared to have been some kind of roast at one time. The last roast I bought I had cooked in the crockpot to make French Dips, so I am fairly certain this was not it. Whatever it was had been white meat and was covered with a creamy orange sauce with what appeared to have been bits of some kind of herb in it.

Whether or not the sauce was intended to be orange is a matter of uncertainty. The herbs looked tasty though. If they were actually herbs.

I stared at it for several minutes trying to remember when I had cooked it and what it had been but came up with nothing. I looked closer at it and noticed what might have been cheese back in 1997 when it was originally prepared, but this did not help either.

And then, and I cannot explain this behavior other than to remind you that James got up multiple times between three and six last night, I gave it a little sniff.

CRAP ON A CRACKER.

I am pretty sure that was not how it smelled originally when I cooked it to celebrate JFK's inauguration.

Defeated, I scraped it into the trash and washed out the dish. Carefully. And then sterilized my hands in a paste made of isopropyl alcohol and pumice from a dormant volcano in Greece named for the Goddess of Botulism.

I am very unsettled not knowing what it was.