Christmas in a Cupboard

The coveted kitchen cupboard looks like this 

and to this Little One it is the most glorious wondrous thing in the world to behold. 

He will stand on the counter for minutes at a time in awe just looking and smiling. Sometimes he talks to the cupboard and sometimes he snaps his fingers and sings as he stands there. He pulls things out, looks at them, shakes them, smells them, hugs them, asks to taste them then replaces them. 

   Presents under the Christmas Tree, Ornaments, Nativity, Gingerbread House, he could care less but this cupboard gets a visit at least three times a day (and I know it's not to stare at the red pepper soup) his visits usually end in tears. He has started to learn though and now asks for raisins or dried cranberries which delays the sadness which is inevitable unless I were to let him eat  it all, which would also end in sadness as then it would not be there at all. 

Circumference of a Thought on Life and Death

   Of Life and Death. In this world which we live in these words are always kept as far apart as possible. Two conflicting ideas which we foolishly think will never meet and should never be mentioned as having relation to one another. Just writing them I think I must now knock on wood or throw salt over my shoulder. Life and Death opposites or friends? So close together yet viewed as so far apart.
   I can only look at this in one direction, in the direction of bringing life into the world. I have brought three children into this world, all thankfully at home with no interventions. Allowing me to fully experience the power and understanding of birth, an experience that I highly treasure and would not trade for the world.
  Power yes, undeniable power, the strength of the human body is truly amazing. The ability of ones own body to contract so completely and so naturally with no thought put into the matter except that you would love for it to stop contracting. This is remarkable, especially when you are pregnant and are pretty sure you don't have a muscle left in your entire mid-section.
   At first you think there is no hope of mind over matter, as your entire logical mind is telling your body to stop this now! But then you start to understand that it is mind over matter and you accept the fact that, yes this is going to hurt and, yes this is going to be the hardest thing you have ever done. But it is completely doable and you want to see this little baby more than anything and you say to your body, "bring it on"! And it does and wow how much raw power is in one woman? Only woman knows.
   In my labors I always arrive at a point where I don't want to go any further I feel like I have given all I can and all I have and it's scary to go further. To go further into the unknown, further into the pain, further into what seems like nothingness yet to get past you have to accept and greet this passage into the unknown. The more I think on it I think of it as death and not as we see death but as a complete surrender of giving over of oneself to this power that is a part of each woman lending us true understanding and knowledge and I meet death and death is kind and is hope of the purest kind. Then I am past, death parts and life is won. I meet new life with a grateful and much needed view of the fragile nature of life and of hope not fear.

2vs4

   For some unexplainable reason the boys are intimidated by these guys at the skate park. They say the bikes always look like they are going to crash into them. I am sure anything going by that fast and that high when you are that small and that wobbly would be rather intimidating. Though as they rarely feel intimidated I try to take them to the skate park whenever the sun is shining and the roads are dry (which has been exactly once in the past 2 months).

*Thanks to Nate for being so Awesome and taking this Awesome picture and no thanks to my unawesome camera battery which died before the boys were even on their skateboards.

The Celebration of Destruction

   Dessert Before Dinner Celebration if mentioned caused gleeful running and jumping all over the living room in pure imagined sugar bliss. For the Gingerbread Masterpiece House was getting eaten that night before dinner.
   As I do believe there can be too much of a good thing (especially in the form of icing sugar and corn syrup) the boys had ten minutes to do as much damage as possible and eat as much candy as possible before dinner. I figure they got a bit of nutrition from all the dust that has collected on it for the last two weeks sitting in our living room.
   Due to the fact that they could not finish their dinner, albeit contrary to their thoughts on the matter, ten minutes was just about right. Though they barely made a dent in the Gingerbread House and I wished I had a flock of pigeons to feed it to or the miniature pony at my Mom's I fed it to last year but I had to sadly tip it into the garbage can. Not a very noble end for all that hard work and all that hording of Halloween Candy.

At least my Birthday week had a Glorious end. A beautiful Strawberry Cheesecake from Nate. 

As every Dessert Before Dinner Celebration also needs dessert to be complete.

Edible Pennies

   We had a close call this year with the possibility of not being able to celebrate Christmas properly and traditionally as I was unable to find the recipe for Peppermint Pennies! It quite traumatic and was a very close shave.
   We could not get hold of "Christmas Cookie Master Tradition Keeper" Auntie Em. She has all the traditions safely saved up her sleeve and can whip up an excellent Peppermint Penny and 6 other Christmas Cookie varieties in the time it has taken me to type this post.
    Luckily Grandma saved the day. A quick call, a quick search in the recipe box and we were set with the recipe hastily written on a scrap of paper, no wonder I had lost it in the first place.
   This project took pretty much the whole day and we did not eat dinner till 8 o'clock that night as (for some reason) no one was hungry till then and the cookies were hogging the oven.
Before you take on this project with small children or even on your own be warned you have to mix, chill, cook, cool, ice, cool as well as follow the recipe.
   We had fun, the boys did an excellent job and were very serious about this Christmas Tradition. Which is a very serious business, the making of sweets at Christmas time is of Utmost Importance in our house.        
    The eating of sweets is also very serious and Christmasilly Joyous.

We kept our priorities in order here, Washing Hands, Wearing Aprons and using lots and lots of Butter.

We made sure to lick the beaters, bowls, spoons, icing, spatulas, fingers and counter.

100% Perfection, 100% Focus, 100% Delicious.

Peppermint Pennies

1cup Butter

2cups Brown Sugar

2 Eggs

2tsp Vanilla

2 2/3cups Flour

1/2cup Cocoa

1tsp Baking Powder

1/4tsp Salt 

Beat butter and sugar till creamy and "fluffy". Add eggs and vanilla beat again. Add all the rest of the ingredients and mix till well combined. Chill in the fridge for an hour or two or until you feel inclined to roll the dough into walnut sized balls and place on a greased cookie sheet, flatten slightly with your palm so your pennies don't start rolling around. Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. Let Cool before Icing and sandwiching together so that 2 cookies end up equaling one cookie so make lots or eat less, I suggest making lots!

Peppermint Icing

1/4-1/3 cup butter

3-4 TBSP milk

enough Icing Sugar to make frosting 

1/8-1/4 tsp peppermint extract

3-4 drops green food coloring

As you can probably tell I didn't measure any ingredients for the icing, sometimes I leave it white and I think it tastes equally good but according to the boys they taste better with green icing .

3D

   I turned 30 last week. Yes now I am old, but I have already accepted this fact as I have been preparing all year for this Birthday. Just one of the reasons I am thankful that numbers come in order.
    I was a bit surprised actually when I awoke on the 7th and felt exactly the same as on the 6th back when I was young and in my "20's" albeit late 20's which does sound older than early 30's which sounds older than 30. So you see a whole year of mental thought really does pay off but as I was saying, I thought I would feel different. I was ready to wake up 30 and all of a sudden have the inclination to wear make up every day, buy 7 different colors of track suits, throw out all of my shoes except my runners and high heels and run off to perm my hair.
I am happy to tell you that I didn't even have to resist as I am still me and have been wearing skirts and tights and stripy socks all week in celebration of being 30, who knows what the future will hold as horrified teenagers see what 30 looks like.
  To top it off I even have some accomplishments, accomplished in my 30th year to ring in my 30th Birthday.
  Top of the list I weaned the baby and this was no easy task as he was not born with a gift for enjoying real food but would have been more than happy to be a nursing baby/toddler/child for years and years. Well he is done and he really likes cookies and bananas so I think he will be just fine nutrition wise.
  We ate mostly local organic food this year so now I should be feeling and looking younger right? No wonder it hasn't been a big deal.
   I read the childrens book Little Pea One Bazillion times, the boys still do not like spinach. I may have to try the Popeye angle.
   Other things of note that have happened this year, my mom was diagnosed with cancer and ensuing surgeries, we almost lost all of our photographs of the last 10 years when the laptop "died" and I misplaced about 600 dollars. Forcing me to contemplate the importance of things such as family, memories and money.
   So all in all a good productive 30th year, my mom is recovering, the photographs were reclaimed as for the money I'm still hopeful.

'

   I have been having a bit of a hard time lately managing to find time to write great upbeat humorous posts as usual. I have many excuses for this, mainly, I like to be alone, silent and contemplative when I write but my life is busy, loud, loud, loud and well, of course always contemplative...haha.
   Also I am reading an excellent book about punctuation and it has made me a bit nervous to write wondering how many "sticklers" faint at my use of apostrophes. Actually this book implies anger over fainting and the last thing I want to do is add more anger to this world. Which is one of the reasons I refrain from typing while the three boys here in my care, in my name, are awake and wild in the world as the laptop opening and/or the phone ringing are sure guaranteers of 1,2,3 or all demanding food, water, diapers, food, scotch tape, food, falling down the stairs or hurtling through the air at some random unmovable object scattered throughout the house, usually resulting in tears or anger or both.
   Right now they...(insert 8 hours) were in trouble and now are sleeping. Some days are better than others and it is so so true that the years fly by but some days just crawwwwllll and I am left with less gray hair because I have pulled it all out, literally with tweezers! Bring on the 30's I am ready! (well my tweezers are anyway)

Tuppence

   I have been having very bad luck lately with regards to driving animals, and driving in general. Lately when I have been going along driving around this small Island I am visiting, well honestly mostly rushing for the ferry, drivers stop and pull over when they see me coming down the road. Yes I can see out of both eyes. Yes I am on my side of the yellow line and Yes I am going pretty darn close to 60kph. It has happened 3 times now in 2 weeks and for the amount of cars on the road here that equals approximately one third of all the cars I have seen. One person stopped on the far side of a corner right by a drop off down to the beach in the dark on the road to look at the moon as it was particularly glorious that night but not glorious enough to put oneself in that position. So even though I counted that one at first I am now saying it was on account of the moon and not because they could see me coming down the road towards them.
   Hoping to tune it down a bit I decided to take the miniature pony out for a trot on the pony cart. The pony thought it would be much nicer to sit in the field and eat hay than pull me around in the frosty snowy air and me foolishly trusting the intelligence of small beast aptly named Reepicheep let my guard down for a split second in the which said pony dived for the paddock and in one small step hit a small rock, which tipped the small cart, which flew over a large boulder with pony attached, ran through the yard, careened the cart into the car, ripped past the fruit trees and through the gate that only the pony can fit through and being a miniature pony the pony can still only fit through the gate the cart staying on the opposite side and the harness in tatters. The pony was very lucky to have totaled the cart and the harness or I and it would most likely still be out there roaming the dark streets ten hours later.
   The other reference with regard to driving animals and trusting the intelligence of small beasts happened Sunday morning as we were meandering down to the ferry. Who am I kidding? Church starts at 9:30 and I have 3 boys to get dressed, fed, snacked, washed, combed, ironed and out the door all in time to catch the 9am ferry so we were rather going straight down the hill. Across the parking lot in a straight line from the hill to the ferry ramp was a small flock of pigeons eating some crumbs on the ground and looking very "feed the birdish" from Mary Poppins. Who doesn't like to see a nice flock of birds flying overhead on a Sunny Sunday morning so I aimed the car straight for this little flock and they may have been eating something illegally grown on this island here in the middle of nowhere (I will have to check what kind of brownies the coffee shop is selling down there in the parking lot) but these birds didn't even look, not at 20 feet, 10 feet, 5,4,3,2,1! There were 3 distinct crunches and we were past. Lousy flock of birds didn't even fly away at the last minute, no pigeons swarming up gracefully over the water just some ferry worker cursing me under his breath a half hour later as he is scraping frozen pigeon off the parking lot. If the ferry rates go up next month I am not to blame, well maybe, but probably not.

It's Halloweenish, not Halloweenie! Part 2

   Halloween Tradition number two: A new mythical way to stretch the truth to your children! Well actually there is no truth involved but it is just so much fun to have an excuse to totally pull their leg and get away with it.
  The Halloween Witch has been invented, not by me so I can't take all the credit but I think I did a good job giving her some personality as well as getting rid of all the Halloween candy by the 3rd of November and no the boys did not eat it all and neither did I as a matter of fact!
  The Halloween Witch comes to your porch on the night of the 31st, 1st or 2nd. Three chances. You leave out your candy and she eats it and leaves you a gift but being a witch at heart and not caring if you are happy or sad about your gift she will leave you whatever she wants or thinks she should to get you to leave your candy out again next year.
   The boys figured their candy was worth 10 dollars each, as if they could go out on the corner and sell it but according to them that is beside the point. I told them they could probably count on a Hotwheels car or a book or some socks. There was much deliberating yesterday as to if it was worth it or not and the myriad of things they hopped she would leave and what she could leave for it to be worth it and how many years they would give her a chance for. We skimped a bit on the Witches loot as we saved all the hard candies for December for our candy plastered Gingerbread Houses we always make.
  In the end the candy went out on the porch and in the morning the boys ran down and checked but there was great disappointment as the candy pumpkin was still full of candy and there was only a black garbage bag out there, so of course being a good mother I said, "Don't touch the bag!" And explained that if she didn't take the candy then maybe she was playing a trick on them and the bag could be full of snakes or spiders or slugs. Then of course no one would touch the bag and the anxiety of it all was just to much with much nail biting and looking out the window and walking around it and talk of smashing it with a shovel to which I replied that it may be something good and then they might wreck it, finally brave boy who loves candy more than anyone around here decided that if the witch didn't want the candy that he would just take it instead but picking it up realized it was just all the wrappers in the pumpkin and no candy was indeed left. They were still wary of the garbage bag but I told them if the candy was gone she probably left them something good or at least not horrid so they resorted to kicking the bag a bit and I would have given anything to have had it jump in the air but as there were only socks and books inside it just stayed put.
   Turns out the Halloween Witch left the baby some nice warm winter socks and the boys each got a Christmas Sticker, coloring book apparently donated to the Witch by Santa himself as she is prone to giving out apples or toothbrushes as Halloween "tricks"
   So even though they were secretly wishing that she would leave them the Lego Death Star or at the very least a 60 dollar set what child in their right mind is going to complain about a gift left by the Halloween Witch which was donated by Santa Clause a mere 7 weeks before Christmas! Needless to say they have only good things to say about getting a Christmas Book.

It's Halloweenish, not Halloweenie! Part 1

   I am writing this post on Nate's "telephone" computer which always makes me lean way back in my chair and honestly I feel a bit intimidated by the huge screen glowing right in my face. At least I can look down at the tiny little keyboard and feel more at ease.  Nate you need some "goggly eyes" for this thing!
   We started two new traditions this year for Halloween.
First we had two nice, well behaved, very excited children over for a Halloween Dinner. Annie and her Cousin. Annie was so excited as it is just so, so exciting to be invited over for dinner when you are 10 years old. The boys and I decorated the table with black cloth and lace and all the gross creepy things they have collected over the years from past Halloweens, gooey slimy glow in the dark bugs of various sizes. Lots and lots of spiders, rats and centipedes. We had Candles and Bones and Pumpkins and a Menu stained with Blood (beet juice).

Menu:
Horse Pee (warm cinnamon apple cider)
Troll Noses with Snot (small rolls with butter)
Vampire Teeth (chopped carrot salad)
Chilled Dragon Blood Clots (cold roasted beets)
Spider Monkey Brains and Blood (spagetti with sauce) served in a pumpkin
Giant Rat Scat (grilled ground beef)


   The Horse Pee was very popular and everyone had lots of fun requesting dishes to be passed around the table by their real name so I had lots of requests to, "please pass the snot" and no one had to feel bad or rude if they didn't eat their blood clots or rat scat. Next time I will find something else for vampire teeth as we were eating chopped carrots all week. All in all it was a success and the baby drank three cups of horse pee, everyone had a good laugh when he started asking for, "horspee, more horspee" so of course he got more.

For dessert we had:
Tadpoles in Swamp Mud topped with Polar Bear Puke. (apple gingerbread cake topped with whipped cream)
Which was delicious and which I will be making again. Here is the recipe if you have recently been craving tadpoles
http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/11/gingerbread-apple-upside-down-cake/
I used extra apples and didn't do the whole upside down thing, I left the tadpoles under the mud.
I had to cook it for about an hour and a half too, who wants to eat crunchy tadpoles?

   We played Master Labryrinth and carved some amazing pumpkins.

   My son did not sleep well the night before, he was up for about 4 hours in the middle of the night so he spent most of the Halloween Party asleep on the couch or trying to stay awake to eat dinner as he was so excited for it and helped plan it and decorate. I thought he couldn't sleep for excitement in which case I was about to cancel Christmas but it turns out he was just terrified because unbeknowst to me Nate had left the radio on when they ran to the store to pick up some eggs for the cake the night before and apparently the news was talking about some robber getting beaten up in the kitchen by some guy. So good news for Ethan as Christmas will not get canceled, bad news for Nate as there is a big lump of coal heading his way.

P.S I use this link all the time and have never been disappointed which is more than I can say for all my cookbooks.
http://smittenkitchen.com/recipes/

The Amazingness of Occasionality

   The boys got outfitted with goggles, elbow pads, knee pads, jerseys, braces, helmets and boots. There was a small amount of drama when awesome cool items had to be swapped out for other awesome cool items that fit better, but everyone was outfitted in the end and we set off for a nice quiet drive, down nice quiet roads, amid peaceful trees and farms. We passed the biggest pig I have ever seen, I seriously thought it was a cow at first and am still deliberating with myself as to the possibility of crossing a pig with a cow. We drove for an hour to get out of the city into the country to go and breath in some pollution, but all for a good cause.
   The boys were attending their first ever Motocross Camp. Which also happened to be a Haunted House and all you can eat candy bar. I am glad I am a Super Mother and brought water with me (that's right, in my world all you need to do is bring bottled water and presto you are Super Mom) who ever heard of all you can eat candy but not water. I guess this is what the world is coming to.
Needless to say the boys all fell more than promptly asleep in the car on the way home, I know perfect teeth rotting conditions and it's not even Halloween yet!
  The boys all felt very, very, very important and cool and amazing which are all good things for little boys to feel occasionally the occasionality strictly depending on their genetic makeup.
   They rode and ate and rode and ate and rode and ate yet some more candy. They learned how to corner, how to jump, how to start off a line, how to race, how to pass, and more. Including how to fall and how to barely avoid crashing head on with a stationary tractor, the last two being voluntary learning which we are all for around here.
   Their favorite part was riding the whole track which seemed so huge to them and so much fun. Nate even got to go for a few rides with them and passed a poor kid who crashed into the trees by the tractor, turned out to be his own son! But he was just fine and can't wait to go again, the fame this brought him could have been the highlight of the day which may be a close second to the sucker or the whoops needless to say he/they/all can't wait to go again next year.
   The Haunted house was just haunting enough and more anticipated than the new Harry Potter movie coming out. The Haunted house was deliberated on for a good half hour as to weather or not it would be too scary, too scary, or too scary! Turns out it was too scary but it was a good thing and, "maybe could have been scarier but probably not."

Cornering

Eating

Jumping

 Racing

 Waiting to be bigger

Instruction

Keeping an eye on Tractor Boy

Oatmeal and Ursula

   I would be sorely misleading if I gave anyone the impression that my circumference of thought did not include food! The main problem being I have no talent and neither does my camera for taking pictures of food. Something that is warm and smells divine when clicked by my camera becomes cold, flat and tasteless, I need a camera that also detects smell and temperature, some people have this knack...I will have to keep practicing or just rely on words for some recipes.
   
Recipe #1 Oatmeal.
   Oatmeal and I have had a love/hate relationship until recently. When I was young it was the stuff you ate so you could eat more of the stuff you wanted to as in, "Mom can I have Alphabets for breakfast?" "After you eat your oatmeal you can have any cereal you want."
    Once some friends were visiting from out of town and we made a big pot of oatmeal because being good children we knew the rule and wanted to eat lots and lots of sugar cereal, so we made a huge pot of oatmeal because we all were "starving" probably about 10 cups of it and added about 10 times too much salt. It was awful. Our hopes of sugar cereal vanished with one taste but luckily for me one of the children volunteered to eat the whole pot in order for us all to have any cereal we wanted, we cheered her on and we all got the cereal(s) of our choice (except for her as she was too full to even think of eating applejack's)
  I have tired just about every oatmeal variation I could come up with, my favorite for a while was oatmeal with jam in it.
   One day oatmeal changed from what you eat because it's good for you to what you eat because it's good. I was visiting an elderly lady who was a friend of my fiance, she invited us over for breakfast and of course the first course of breakfast was...you guessed it, oatmeal which was the point I started looking around for mini-wheats but the oatmeal was delicious, nutty and creamy and actually tasted really good. Like the polite, modest lady she is when I asked her how to make it she just said, "oh it's just oatmeal, would you like some more?"
   So my quest to make oatmeal began, cooked hot, cooked slow, cooked in milk, thick oats, quick oats, thin oats, served with sugar, served with butter, served with cream, none measured up.
Recently though I think I have found it, or else it has been so long that I have forgotten what the original tasted like but either way this is excellent oatmeal especially on these cool mornings.

1 Cup Steel Cut Oats
1 TBSP Yogurt - as plain and pure as you can get
1 1/2 Cups room temperature water
Mix the yogurt onto the chunks of oats with a spoon till the oats are all coated, add room temperature water, cover with a cloth or plate, let sit on the counter about 12 hours or all night.
 Boil 1 1/2 cups of water, add soaked oatmeal mixture bring back to a boil then turn down heat and simmer for about 10-15 minutes.
Serve with butter, maple syrup or brown sugar and milk.

Serves 2-4 depending on how much of a morning appetite you have or how much sugar cereal your children are drooling over.

Lost: Right arm. Reward.

   I am sitting here hunched over my computer with my arm in a homemade scarf sling. I went to the farmers market Saturday and bought my weight in meat and fresh veggies. Walking around carrying my bags I felt like my arm was going to fall off and apparently it did, to a degree. I'm happy I resisted purchasing the gigantic warty pumpkins because then I would have had to carry my arm home too.      
   Fortunately we went to Ikea Saturday and purchased a desk which is the perfect height to rest my arm on while typing with no pain but I must resist the ease of the computer and hope that the table is also the perfect height to rest my arm on while I figure out how to sew 2 Halloween costumes one handed.
   I need to make a Link costume and a Hoth Rebel Trooper. I was feeling very resourceful when I realized I could use the old cover from the couch to make a Trooper costume to which costume-ee responded, "well you are going to have to cut it", I guess he thought I would just wrap him in the couch cover. I told him of course I would cut it and sew it and it would look great, after a moment of thought he said, "well I guess I could just go as a couch."
  I guess I have been much more impressed with my "homemade" Halloween costumes in the past than they have. I think the Costco Halloween isle has made them a little bitter toward me and my Halloween ethics of homemade costumes, probably because no matter how scary of a costume they request, there is always a bit of a funny side too.

Circumference of a Thought...or naught

   There is a pile of papers to go through on my kitchen counter, enough that when the boys eat I have to remind them all day not to get food on the, "pile" but I am going to sit here and write about concussions because anything, even this topic is more fun than going through the mail and bills and junk and bits of random stuff from all over the house. For someone who does not build things why oh why do I always have screws and nails in my pile of leftovers from tiding the house?
    The most exciting thing that has happened in my life recently was when my son got a concussion, I know, I should get out more and I am thinking he should get out less but hear me out.
   We were at these little sand hills with rubber mats on them and the boys were jumping their bikes off the top. I was over on the other side of the hill with the baby and did not see but heard the thump crunch of one of them crashing once again. Apparently he jumped and landed then went off over his handle bars right onto the top of his helmet. (It would probably help if he stood on his pedals instead of throwing his feet off the pedals and sitting on his seat as his bike hauls him through the air). But what do I know!

Incase you are wondering or have 3 boys like I do here is some pertanant information:
That -disclaimer- should not replace the advice of your Doctor.

When one gets a concussion the first 12 hours are the most dangerous. Wake up concussion-ed every hour if they are sleeping and make sure their pupils dilate in both eyes at the same rate.
Keep constant surveillance for first 12 hours
Keep close surveillance for first 24 hours
Make sure they know people, place and time.
Can take Tylenol for pain,
Don't take anything to keep food down as it can make one drowsy
Arnica homeopathic remedy worked well for pain

Rush to the hospital if:
Person does not wake up
Has different sized pupils
Is projectile vomiting
Has a fever
Has blood coming out of nose or ears
Has any fluid coming out of nose or ears

It's OK if:
They want to sleep
They are throwing up
Their head really, really hurts
They feel dizzy but can still walk
They are not hungry

   I can remember, amazingly enough, getting a concussion when I was about 11 years old. I was riding my horse and jumped across a ditch onto a gravel road and somehow landed right on top of my helmet, (It would probably have helped if I stood in the stirrups instead of throwing my feet out to the side and sitting on my saddle as my horse hauled me through the air). But what did I know!
   I can remember just wanting to sleep and sleep and I did, for 3 days! My mom kept waking me up and it was so annoying to me because I just wanted to sleep and she would make me touch my toes and put my chin on my chest and random stuff like that and all I wanted to do was sleep and sleep and sleep and she would bring me plate after plate piled with beef and gravy and I would eat maybe 3 mouthfuls before I was sleeping again and she kept turning on movies and kept me on the couch probably hoping that the noise would wake me up but I just slept and slept. My friend was visiting from out of town and she went home horrified and told her mom that I had died and that my Mom was just leaving me on the couch.

from small things...

   The 3 boys and I are visiting Quadra Island, visiting my family. We went to the Fire Hall's 50th anniversary and there was an adventure awaiting, we were excited to go to learn about fire safety for a Cub Scout badge and to get a pancake breakfast and...
   All you can eat cotton candy! Which the boys were super, super excited about as they informed me they had never had their very own cotton candy as I always make them share and they couldn't even remember what it tasted like. Does that make me a good parent or a bad one? According to them this was a very important step in their childhood- getting their own cotton candy.
   Breakfast was great, the boys got to eat pan "cake", blow the air horn in the firetruck, see the lights flashing, try on firemen suits, play with helium balloons, learn about big tools, see big trucks, sit in big trucks, meet real live Firemen and explore the Fire Hall, all with no lineups or waiting, the blessings of a small Island compared with a City.
   Then their was the unintentional fire safety demonstration that I hope will have a lasting effect on the boys.
  The lesson was how to use a fire extinguisher which turned into why not to pour diesel into a burning fire, even if the flame is very, very small. Because even a very, very small flame can move very, very quickly 3 feet to the pouring can, into the can, explode the can, blast through the air with a very, very loud bang and the man who was holding the can now has very, very hot fire on his head which in the split second of realization quadrupled in size! Man was saved, hair was not, well half of it. The boys were disappointed they never got a turn using the fire extinguishers. Lets hope that that disappointment can continue on through their lives.

I will be Me.

   I never cease to be amazed at the many different people in this world and their outlook on life and the world around them, sometimes I see someone and I can't believe how good they are at life then others who are good at life in a way I never even considered.
  Take this example for example:
    The other day at the Zoo two women came walking across my path. One lady was wearing her long blond waist length hair in a gold headband around the top of her head, blue jeans and a loose grey shirt. The other lady in some short ripped bluejean shorts and beady lacy top also with long blond hair and both wearing big huge-mongous dark sunglasses.
   I just couldn't pass up this opportunity to see what 10 minutes in their shoes was like, by observation of course, they were walking along looking stylish and pushing toddlers in baby strollers, we were going to see the elephants anyways and who says children get to have all the fun at the Zoo. So I followed them up the trail. I'm pretty sure I was invisible to them so I didn't worry to much about trying to look like a fly on the wall, I think my 3 boys, baggy coat and makupless face did the trick.
   Their first stop was the elephant pen and so we also stopped to observe. (the elephants of course)! Beady's daughter is dressed like Brittany Spears, probably 4 years old and sucking on a soother.
Beady's daughter: "The elephant poops on the ground."
Beady: "Yes honey he poops on the ground because he is too big for the potty," (no wonder the girl still sucks on a soother, I would also be terrified of growing too big to fit my potty) "they don't make potties big enough for him" (so he would use one if he could?)
   Beady decides they have seen enough of the elephants and the conversation so on they walk to the tiger pen to see the baby tiger cubs.
   Headband's son gets taken out of the stroller wearing small rocker clothes (the only thing he is missing is the dark eyeliner) he is probably 3 but maybe Headband has gotten his voice box removed as he is silent and stares around like it is maybe the 2nd time in his life he has been out of his stroller in public.
   Headband wants to take a picture so she gets out her sleek little blue camera from her stroller but panic and panic her phone looks like the peacock thought it was his potty which is now all over her finger,  panic her nicely manicured finger and panic soaking into her skin and panic where oh where are the baby wipes and the sanitizer and the panic oh panic. I don't think she got to take a photo of her son's second time ever out of the stroller but she did get her finger reclaimed and her son safely back in his stroller because he must have gotten that mess in there as she kept asking him where the mess had come from but he didn't, wouldn't or couldn't answer.
   I continued on at this point as I figured I had stared enough and the boys were ready to move on from the sleeping tiger cubs. This was easily one of my more educational visits to the Zoo. Thanks life for making and letting me be me.

I Hate Purses!

I was going to go visit my family in Canada, I was going to go there on Sunday, I was going to make the 3 hour drive to the border with my husband and 3 little boys, I was then going to get dropped off at the ferry and picked up on the other side by my father and finish the 8 hour total trip to the Island with him.
    I was going to do this well planned vacation on Sunday yet on Sunday I was sleeping in my own bed in Seattle with the alarm clock set for 5 am why is this you ask? To make my husband a 6 course breakfast before 7am? No, it is all because of a purse. I usually love purses, well more along the lines of bags and backpacks but there are some cool purses out there too, if I was to have a "shoe type" girly impulse downfall at the mall it would be for a purse. But right now I hate purses and this is why, I packed my green purse for the trip with diapers, snacks, wallet, books, toys, ID, blanket, etc. etc. It would not close so I went and grabbed my much bigger brown purse and repacked that with all the stuff and more. We loaded up the car I grabbed my purse and we set out. After 2 hours we stopped in Bellingham for some lunch as we were ahead of schedule, Nate had a heart attack moment when he said, " I forgot my passport" to which I calmly responded I had packed it with the birth certificates, which I had, in my green purse, in a zipper pocket, where they fit perfectly, and I had double checked just that morning. When we got back in the car to head for the boarder I went to get all our ID together in a nice little bundle and where was my green purse with it's nice little zipper pocket for the passport and the birth certificates? Well, it was at home 2 hours away, in the closet. Where was I? In Bellingham with my brown purse, which holds way to many diapers!
  Oh how I hate purses. So we turned around and drove back home, kind of a long drive just to get a burrito and fill up the gas tank.
   At the moment of realization you feel a bit sick, then unbelief as in checking every singe pocket in case you put it somewhere that you never would and just don't remember, which would mean one was loosing her mind, but the hope for this is still there. Then I hope in a way that the ferry will sink, then you are not forgetful you are inspired, but this idea is quickly dismissed in sympathy for all the people on board, if anyone is wondering this proves I have sympathy, then I think maybe I forgot something even more important but all the boys are in the back seat so that is not it, at the very least I better sit beside someone on the Seattle to Victoria Clipper tomorrow that needs to meet me, though how much talking am I going to do with 3 little boys at my own 4 person table? Turns out in the end the only thing I forgot was my camera which I hadn't really forgotten but I decided to bring it to at least bring something else so my blog is what really benefited from the Sunday ordeal. Which isn't really fair as it is not even a thing, it's more of an idea.

Diet Sprite

   My sister and I have a bit of an inside insight. We call it diet Sprite and you know, sometimes as a child you need some diet Sprite and many times as a teenager you have more diet Sprite than you want and then you become married and you don't want any diet Sprite anymore, at least for a while. Then a Baby comes along and man oh man you need diet Sprite like you have never needed anything before, yet it is a conflicting emotion because you think maybe your baby should satisfy all your need for diet Sprite but your baby does no such thing, your baby makes you crazy for diet Sprite right when diet Sprite appears to be removed from off the face of the earth, at least from your point of view.
   Diet Sprite (from the movie Date Night) is "Me" time, "My" and only "Me, My" time. It is dropping everything just to do nothing like sit alone in silence and drink diet Sprite. With no one there, and no telephone so if someone did need to call you because they had a bleeding nose or they are hungry again, right now, five minutes after lunch. They would just have to call someone else until you finish your diet Sprite.
   And even though diet Sprite claims to have no nutritional value as it is basically nothing it does just what the label claims, a real life sugar rush to tackle that huge stack of dishes in the sink, the high chair covered in bananas and oatmeal the lego encrusted staircase, the laundry that never ends, the dinners and dinners and dinners to cook for the rest of your life, all these things get put in their proper place and time with a little bit of diet Sprite.
   As a mother of 3 adorable lego playing, banana eating, shower loathing boys I take my diet Sprite in any form - I don't care if it is a sip, a mug or a paper cup that is leaking out of the bottom.
   I found a heavenly pool of diet Sprite in Wyoming. It was an hour drive on a bumpy gravel road to a little old cement pool painted light pink under the rocks and trees with a lovely hotspring of diet Sprite pouring into it at 101.5 degrees.
Even though I was not the only one there I felt like I was. Some places just feel holy and this was one of them, like when you are on top of a mountain, or in a forest that feels like no one has ever set foot in, or when you sit and drink your diet sprite, which means it is more of a mind set which mind set is so rare for me that when it finds me I drink it in. (pun intended)

 

The boys enjoyed it immensely too in a bit of a different way as they like to drink diet Sprite for the pure joy of burping afterward.

And of course I could never have any diet Sprite in my life if it wasn't for awesomeness defined right here.

 I just might owe you a six pack of diet Sprite after this restful week in Wyoming. Though if you've seen the movie...I'm not going to even go there.

To the tune of "Down on Grandpa's Farm"

We're on our way, we're on our way, on our way to Wy-o-ming
We're on our way, we're on our way, on our way to Wy-o-ming

When we're in Spokane we will go skateboarding!

When we are in Spokane we will go skateboarding!

The skateboards they make a sound like this, "whoosh, whoosh".

The cars above us they make a sound like this, "zoom, zoom".

Oh, we're on our way, we're on our way, on our way to Wy-o-ming
We're on our way we're on our way, on our way to Wy-o-ming

When we are in Butte we will do everything but sleep in bed

 When we are in Butte we will do anything but sleep in bed

 Memories of skateboards keep running through our heads

 We can't wait to eat all the cereal when we jump up from our beds

Oh. We're on our way, we're on our way, on our way to Wy-o-ming

 We're on our way, we're on our way, on our way to Wy-o-ming

When we're in Idaho Falls we are almost there. YAY!

  When we're in Idaho Falls we are almost there. YAY!

 Daddy finds an awesome taco stand, truck, place

 He then proceeds to stuff them in his face*

 Oh. We're on our way, we're on our way, on our way to Wy-o-ming

We're on our way, we're on our way, on our way to Wy-o-ming

OH. We're on our way, we're on our way, on our way to Wy-o-ming

We're on our way, we're on our way, on our way to Wyoming.

Yay! We made it!

 Hooray!

(*Sorry Nate but it rhymes)