Run your hands through your hair if you’ve just lotioned them with coconut oil.
Guess I better fix this before the Bulls game tonight…
Category Archives: Family stuff
The Kids! The Kids!
“If you use a British accent, I’m not going to take your emergency seriously.”
Yes, I said those words this morning to Henry, when Sarah ran off with his Lego creation, nearly crushing it. No one flapping their arms hysterically and shouting in a John Cleese voice is going to get an eyebrow-raise of “something might be amiss” from me.
He has grown to love reading. YES YES YES YES YES YES to infinity. This was my number one goal for the year and it was achieved! If you go back in my blog, you’ll see me bemoan his distain for books and how he was drawn to electronics. Well, we extremely limited them and read to him incessantly and voila! We have a proficient reader and a book lover. He begs for extra chapters at night and not just to delay the inevitable “Time to close your eyes,” line, he actually loves the stories and can’t get enough. I think the crowning achievement came the other day when he realized he’d left his Nintendo DS in the van, yet when I looked in the rearview mirror, he was reading a Highlights magazine instead. I almost cried. Yes, I am that much of a nerd, and so proud my nerdiness is now shared by my eldest.
We’ve even gotten him to brush his teeth without fussing- we bought him an electric toothbrush. I remember my mom always said they were bad for your mouth. Maybe back in my day they were something of an amalgam between sander and brush, but today’s brushes seem legit. He and Rhys love those brushes. And I loved the concept so much too, I bought myself one. <–dork.
We’re about to leave for a playdate with our friend Pierce so I better wrap this up. I’m back in the blogging spirit (I hope!) because there’s so much to catch up on. For now, I leave you with a mustachioed Henry, a shy Rhys and a sweet Pierce.
Fun at the park!
Making Kombucha
I have a new love and its name is kombucha. It's a fermented beverage, dating back thousands of years. Yes, it kinda tastes like easter egg dye, but it's fizzy and delicious at the same time. And it's full of probiotics and helps right all the wrongs in your GI tract if yours is like mine (i.e.; not moving). I've drank it on and off for years, but recently got serious about drinking it routinely to see if it could help me feel better.
Here’s the “How to Make Kombucha” post! I bought my SCOBY here https://www.etsy.com/listing/58696758/kombucha-culture-mushroom-scoby-organic?ref=shop_home_active
Sprummer!
It’s officially sprummer and I am so excited! You know the season where one day you’re excited because you can wear a short sleeved shirt, but you have to settle for pants, the next day your fishing a heavy sweater out of the tupperware tote bin you thought you wouldn’t have to lay eyes on until next winter? And then SURPRISE! Just when you didn’t bother to shave your legs, the next day it’s 95*F outside! So you sweat in your jeans, or wear really low capris and sit with your ankles crossed and hope no one looks down.
I’ve gotten some cool and inexpensive things this spring to liven up my post-maternity wardrobe (yeah, she’s turning two and we’re not having anymore so it’s about time). I got a green 3/4-length sweater set from Ann Taylor, a bunch of tee-shirts from Target (love! But if you buy one with writing on it, go UP a size, they are not stretchy!), some shorts from Target, two pair of Lucky Brand sandals (Milan 2 – canvas and canvas/blue stripe – LOVE the latter), and a new whitish/creamish purse and some scarves to mix in with older pieces so they look newer. I think that’s it. Part of that was for Mother’s day, part was my “Teacher of the Year” award. *snicker*
I think the pollen is finally gone. Why did I type that? It’s like an automatic electronic groundhog burrowing in and cursing us with six more weeks of pollen. Maybe I should erase that.
So many things have happened since I last blogged I’m not sure where to start. Not huge things, just tiny little things that are hilarious, that I should record daily HERE instead of Facebook, where they’re lost forever. Lots of funny quotes from the kids, silly acts I’ve caught them committing, that sort of thing.
They’re all bursting with excitement because Grandma is coming up today to spend today through Wednesday or (I suspect) Thursday with us. I’m going to the Classical Conversations praciticum in Durham from Monday through Wednesday (so if you read this and I’ve never met you and you are going to be there – please introduce yourself!!! I’ll be the one that looks like me!) I’m only staying half a day. It says the second half is about Challenge and Henry is only going to be seven this summer. We may all be dead before he hits Challenge and he’ll be the first so…yeah. I’d rather spend the afternoon with my mom. When I say “we” might all be dead I mean all of us, not my mom. I realize that sounded bad; Jesus could be here within that time frame, you know? Not trying to kill you off. Or a plane could land on our house. We could be stampeded by buffalo as we drive down I-85. I could kill us with my cooking some day, I am always afraid of undercooking pork, that’s why our chops usually feel like cutting into frisbees.
I’ve gone to several CC meetings recently and met a lot of nice new ladies who will be joining us next year. I’m going to end this entry now so I can type up a new entry on what curriculums I’m using next year (and a bit about the practicum) in hopes it might help – or overwhelm, hopefully not! – and encourage and get them excited about next year’s homeschooling adventure!
NOTE: I fell directly asleep after I wrote this. And I wrote it at 6 am so if you read it’s first incarnation, it was full of errors! Fixed now.
Sarah Speaks – and it’s All Boy
NOOOO!
My precious dolly is taking after her brothers in a big way. We’re having a nice Sunday breakfast and suddenly a large “TOOT!” escapes from under the table. It comes from Sarah’s chair. She immediately beams with pride and says,
“Oh yeah!”
Really? We need some tea cups, stat.
How can this dress-loving, girly-girl enjoy a good fart? Scandalous.
The Previous Entry
It’s still there, great advice from friends still there too, it’s just been moved to private. I give my (oh this sounds so stupid) “nonbusiness-business card” with my email and blog address to a lot of people and I am not sure I want the first thing they see to be a mini-mental breakdown. I want them to think I’m entertaining. Well, maybe I should have left it up, because I got twice as much traffic that day than I normally do. Lookey-loos! Revel in my pain! I am a one-woman car accident. Look! There’s a bloody arm!
I’m just tired. I want to lay around in my pajamas with my feet in a bucket of cold water. That sounds weird but it always seems comforting to me. Sometimes I like to put my hands in a sink of cold water, I might do that in a minute. It’s like swimming, without the possibility of drowning.
Or maybe I’ll just take a shower and turn the water on cold. If you’re my neighbor and you hear the scream, you know I turned the water to cold.
Okay, if you won’t, I will.
“I hate eggs!”
“Well eggs hate you!”
“I hate my underwear!”
“Well your underwear hates you!”
Not really, but that conversation almost happened. One night this week Rhys was being beyond belligerent and refused to put on his underwear. He was rolling all around the bed – totally naked – showing me and my mom EVERYTHING he has, things I really, really have no desire to see. Positions no one should freeze in, especially when accompanied by screams and grunts.
In order to make this Circ du Sorevolting end, I tried some humor on him. I asked, “Do you want me to put your underwear on?” leaving the understood “…you?” off. He knew what I meant - do you want me to dress you? – and he screamed “NO!!”
I said, “I’m going to put it on for you, okay?”
“NOOOO!”
Closer I crept to the bed with his red doggie underwear in my hand. I sat down in the chair beside his bed and proceeded to put his underwear on. He did not object, which was good, we were making progress. Well, not really.
A little too small, I think.
I couldn’t really get them up past my shins. When he looked over and saw that I literally meant, “I’m putting on your underwear,” he started laughing and tried to get the underwear off. I let him have it and he got dressed.
Now, am I going to have to start putting on size 5T pants in order to motivate him to get going on Sunday mornings? I think not.
Oh What a WEEK.
Sunday was Easter! We had a wonderful sermon at church, a dinner that took way too long to prepare (though the chicken WAS DONE when we got home) and three very cute kids:
Easter 2013 (Sarah 20 months, Henry 6 years and 8 months, Rhys 4 years 7 months)
Then on Monday, Grandma came up and Sarah clung to her like a monkey. She would not let Grandma out of her sight, it was a bit obsessive. If the boys came over to get some attention, she tried to swat them away. That was her Grandma. Others need not apply.
Peek-a-boo!
Monday night the kids stayed up really late, like 9:30 pm. They usually go to bed by 8:00 pm. The next day was CC so I was really dreading how that was going to go. Miraculously, they got up and got dressed. I attribute this to the magic of Grandma. We missed the beginning convocation (what else is new? I hate it, but we miss it almost EVERY week) but made it there before the classes started. Grandma went with Rhys to Mrs. Lori’s room and I went with Henry to Mrs. Roxanne’s class. We hung out for a little while after CC was over and let the kids run around but I was tired from them being tired and sort of grouchy and just wanted to go home.
Wednesday we had a field trip to NBC-17, our local NBC affiliate. We don’t even know what number on the tv NBC is, we never watch it, but Henry wanted to go so I drug myself out of bed and took him. I was exhausted. I’d sat up in a horrible, rickety chair in Sarah’s room from 2 am – 4 am, sleeping with my head thrown back, and I felt like I’d been run over. But he wanted to go and I wasn’t going to wimp out and say no. I thought Rhys wanted to go, but in the end, he stayed home with Sarah and Grandma. We met Bill Reh who explained how all the weather computers worked (really, you can just look on the internet and figure out what the weather is going to be like) and he let us play on the green screen:
Me and my friend Denise. She’d probably make a better weather woman. She can stay upright and point. I have issues with figuring out how the cameras work.
We came back home and I collapsed on the couch and took a half-eye-closed nap. I got to visit with my mom like 20 minutes the entire week. The kids occupied her attention relentlessly. Hogs. I thought I’d get some time Wednesday night after the kids went to bed and we were sitting downstairs together, but no. Rhys started crying so I went upstairs and found him in my bed. I laid down with him and that was the end of me. Maybe I can convince Dave to watch them sometime and let us go somewhere and get our toes done (she refuses, says they’re too hideous – she hasn’t seen mine – as I told my friend, you could sand a birdhouse with my heels) or go to the beach or even out to eat. Something.
Today is Friday and she left so I’m just waiting for the call to make sure she made it home. It’s like our roles have reversed. I am the worrying mother and she’s the kid. So I guess I got my long-desired fourth kid after all and she’s potty-trained. For now.
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Another Great Recipe from Donna!
This time in video format for your convenience. Just take me into the kitchen with you and get your cook on!
Right Back at You!
I’m tired of hearing complaints about food. I bought this awesome buckwheat pancake mix and made it for the kids last week. Everyone loved it except for Rhys, who wouldn’t taste it because I made the mistake of saying the word “buckwheat.” I guess it sounded nasty or something. Today I bought some more when I went to Earth Fare and I was excited to show Henry because we both loved the pancakes so much. When I pulled the box out of the bag Henry cheered and Rhys snarled,
“I HATE those pancakes!”
Well.
Fast-forward an hour and Dave and I were discussing what we wanted for dinner. I said I was thinking about making sausage and eggs and…
“I HATE EGGS!” Rhys yelled.
Fed up, I said, “Well eggs hate you!”
(he knows I’m kidding, we don’t need therapy)
