Blueberry: Bow? No Bow?

My Kind of Breakfast

Ok, I get that they meant cinnamon rolls..but the bottom marquee says, "ICE CREAM....NOT JUST FOR BREAKFAST ANYMORE....ICECREAM" and that is what caught my eye. Pre children I would eat Mango sorbet for breakfast. I would still do that if it wasn't so darn expensive, oh, and setting a good example blah blah blah.....

Seriously, icecream, cinnamon rolls, and cappuccino is the PERFECT breakfast. Need protien, add bacon.

August 9th

Peaches for Me

For the first time since planting the peach tree four years ago, we have peaches. There is nothing like a fresh picked, still warm from the sun peach. Even better is sharing it with a little girl who LOVES peaches.

Her Corn Stick

We had Iowa State Fair Corn Dogs for breakfast. And pineapple whip (which is basically ice cream).

We missed being part of the world record, but we did get in for free and that was a major bonus. We saw dancers, a demonstration bee hive, horses, doll houses, a stage show with cavity goons and a dentist wizard, rode the sky lift thing (yikes), and played in the fountains. All before noon, when we headed home and I fell asleep with the girls.

Good times these. We plan to go back to see the animals on Saturday or Sunday.

Also, I took this picture with my old camera. I didn't want to lug the new one around with me since I was wearing Blueberry on the front, a diaper pack on my back, and holding on to Lil'bug's hand in the crowd. I can tell the difference. Boy oh boy am I camera spoiled. :)

Also, thank you all for the kind emails and comments. I do feel better today.

Jammin' With The State Fair Jam

I did not even place, BUT the judges said all the entries were wonderful and met standards. That meant a lot to me. I entered jam made from Spring crop and fall crop always has more flavor- so next year's will be from a fall crop batch AND with raw sugar instead of all white cane sugar (required by this year's sponsors, gah.).

I got great feed back from watching the competitions. I learned SO much. I also got the chance to explain to Lil'Bug all about "winning":
"Mama, you didn't win."

"Kiddo, yes I did. I may not have the blue ribbon BUT I tried my best, I met all of the requirements, I followed through with my plan and actually entered my jam, I watched the judging, I learned a lot about food canning, and now we get to eat the jam!"

She looked confused.

"Sometimes you get to be a winner because you have a good time and learn new things. You like having fun and learning new things?"

"Well, actually, I like crowns too."

I grinned. She thought I'd get a queen crown for winning the fair? LOL.

Also, I plan on making Christmas gifts from our fall crop. Hope you local mamas like raspberries! ;)

Some Small Thing I Get Cranky About

Age segregation.

As in public school classrooms. As in "enrichment programs" at the library. As in homeschool co-ops.

Why do we group children based on age instead of intellectual ability? The easy answer is "emotional maturity" and I can totally see that with preschool vs. older elementary, to a point because of disruption issues. But I don't understand social promoting just to keep kids with their age group and likewise not grade skipping for kids who are advanced in studies. Why is it such a big deal for a kid to be 11 in highschool? Why do we worry over the 9 year old in the first grade?

Well, because kids will be cruel to each other. That is a huge problem, but I am pretty sure it is not related to age segregation. Cruelty is a product of home life and should be addressed as such instead of ignored or institutionalized.

Ah, but we are homeschooling. We get to avoid such annoyances, yes? No. We were excluded from several activities this summer because of an age cut off. Last summer we couldn't do the canoeing part of a field trip because of Lil'Bug's age even though she had been out on our canoe in bigger waters more times than many of the kids who did get to go. She had proven her ability to handle it, her maturity, and her interest and was still left out. Liability the park ranger said. Ok. But that explanation doesn't hold for the library activities. That's just based on assumptions about how most kids act. Lil'Bug can get excited and run about with the best of 3 year olds, but she also knows how to leave (I know when to leave when she doesn't) if she isn't interested. She has demonstrated civility in group situations. I just wish the world was not so restricted.

Spending time with unschoolers who do not age segregate most of the time is a solution, but only for social and self learning. She really wants to take these classes that her 5-6 year old friends are taking. It is not fair. I wish the classes would list abilities needed to participate instead of "ages 5-10".

Bad Days

Yup. I have 'um. And when the dark clouds descend they are terrible and fierce. I just want to hide. I have a headache, I have tons of work to do, and I still have children and husband to tend to (ie feed and wash clothes for). The world doesn't stop for me, but I want it too.

I am cranky about nothing. I forgot to thaw meat for dinner. My student loans. The bill from the hospital. Laundry detergent. There are not enough hours in the day and if there were more I'd just have more laundry to do. Tornado Tot just went through four of her five nice dresses and got grape Popsicle juice on every last one of them. My shampoo smells funny and doesn't work. I'm hungry and don't want to eat healthy food and there is no junk food in the house. None. What kind of twilight zone am I living in? Gah. See nothing. Nothing. Not a darn thing that I should be so upset about. But I am.

Learning New Things

Today (and last night) I learned:
How to post a YouTube Video. Neat.
Why my diapers were not getting very clean.
How to take apart a washing machine agitator (and then watch Dearest actually do it and technically that was last night).
How to reassemble the agitator with new part installed.

What other chance circumstance will turn my house into cloth diaper hell? So far we've had threat of city wide water shut down (thank God that was avoided), 32 hour power outage (with no AC diaper pail took on a life of its own), and now washing machine breakdown. Gah. The bright side of this last thing, and really a blessing, is that we worked as a team, only spent 6$, and repaired it ourselves within 24 hours. Good times. Also, I could have done it completely by myself, if it were not for my Dearest who enjoys fixing things of this nature. :)

I'm Mr. Heat Blister

I am hot. Melting. I don't usually mind the heat but today I feel unbearable even in front of the AC. The heat index is supposed to top 180, oops, I mean 108 F by 3 pm; cheesy peas, it feels like 180.

Why is it so hot? Well, it is Iowa and this is State Fair week (starts Thursday), though forecast has it back to cool (85/60 as the high/low with a breeze). Ha. I bet it rains lava instead. Seriously though, we get so hot and humid here because of the corn. We have lots of corn.
I keep singing the lyrics to one of my favorite Christmas songs. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy performs it on their Christmas Album.

Lyrics to Heat Miser Song

(Heat Miser in bold, chorus in italics)

I'm Mister Green Christmas
I'm Mister Sun
I'm Mister Heat Blister
I'm Mister Hundred and One
They call me Heat Miser,
What ever I touch
Starts to melt in my clutch
I'm too much!

He's Mister Green Christmas
He's Mister Sun
He's Mister Heat Blister
He's Mister Hundred and One

They call me Heat Miser,
What ever I touch
Starts to melt in my clutch

He's too much!

Thank you!
I never want to see a day
That's under sixty degrees
I'd rather have it eighty,
Ninety, one hundred degrees!
(spoken)
Oh, some like it hot, but I like it
REALLY hot! Hee hee!

He's Mister Green Christmas
He's Mister Sun

Sing it!

He's Mister Heat Blister
He's Mister Hundred and One

They call me Heat Miser,
What ever I touch
Starts to melt in my clutch
I'm too much!

Too Much!

August 4th

Good Luck MamaP!

Today mama podkayne entered her world famous raspberry jam in the Iowa State Fair! She did this despite myriad events conspiring to make it not happen.

Good Luck MP - we're proud of you!

-Chad

August 1

Peppers, peaches, Table Ace squash, tomatoes, peas.

College as a Worthy Goal? Dunno

July’s (only) topic question:

Do you agree that college for all is a worthy goal? Why or why not? Is it even a reasonable goal for all students to be “college ready”?
I have worried over this for a week now, thinking of different ways to put all my random thoughts together. How do I articulate this answer from my perspective as a student, professor, college graduate, homeschooler, and wife of a high school drop out? Whew. That was a mouthful.
From my view point as a professor of English and Literature at our local community college my perspective is that many, many students are not college ready. That means two things to me, not one. First, many can barely read and write coherently or with comprehension (but they rock the myspace hard core while I am lecturing); to me those two things are life skills not just needed for college, but that can be taught or caught up in a semester or two. Second, they are not ready in terms of critical thinking or motivation. Ask them what they want to do or be and the answer is, "Dunno." Those students are typically are studying "liberal arts" until they figure it out. They should find something else to do (perhaps get a job?) instead of wasting classroom space, in my opinion. I don't like playing babysitter to unmotivated children who are biding their time on mommy's or daddy's or the state's (ie, my taxpayer $$) money, not when there are waiting lists of students who do know what they want. These unfortunate students cannot even choose a topic for a free writing essay. They stop their research at wikipedia and just cut and paste (yeah, plagiarism), some come to class high and/or drunk if they show up at all after midterms, and they annoy the crap out me. I wish they were college ready. Try as I might, I cannot rescue them from the muck that is "Dunno".

From my view point as a college grad myself: I was not prepared for college by public school, though I was an honor student with good grades. I simply wasted my time there. Then I worked a minimum wage job for a year and continued working there even after I enrolled in college classes. I worked hard to bring myself up to the skill level of the academics who were my professors, because I decided I wanted to. I saw them as future peers and I negotiated my education as such. The difference there was that I found joy in the classes I chose, mostly poetry and history classes, knowing full well that these alone would not make me employable. College was a very expensive tool for self development. Often I would over enroll so I could drop a class that wasn't a good fit for me. I self advocated, I asked questions. I never expected anyone else to do it for me and I cared.

Then I went to graduate school. The same motivation led me there: a love of a topic. I used the resources at the University to further my knowledge in a topic I had become passionate about, I wrote my thesis on said topic. Again, a tool for me to use to grow as a student. It did not make me employable, except as a professor. I teach English and have a degree in History/Architectural Preservation/Creative Writing (a degree created by a new program and tailored to the student's interests, how cool is that!). I now teach online classes part time and stay at home and homeschool my daughters.

As a mother, a homeschooling mother, people expect me to have college as a goal for my children. That's the tricky part. If I say no, am I devaluing my own education and experience, especially since I am not working in the discipline I trained for? But I'd be lying if I said yes. College should not be the end goal, or even a middle goal. It should be a tool available, just as it was for me. Many, many directions in life do not require college. Some require additional training or studies, but those are often intense and discipline specific. I want my kiddos to find joy and follow their passions, I would hope they know themselves well enough to not ever answer some random person, "Dunno" when asked what they want to be when they grow up. Right now my oldest wants to be a Warrior Princess Pirate Kung Fu Master Chicken Farmer Super Hero Who Saves the Day, she may or may not need college algebra to achieve that goal- in fact she says she just needs another Popsicle and a better hat. As of right now, she won't need a student loan to acquire those resources.

So many students and friends of mine have experienced another pitfall of this goal mindset. College was THE goal they worked for, completed, and then expected to find a really good job, for employers to see them as "better" than. The reality is that they, like others with less education start at the entry level jobs like everyone else. They may get to move up faster, but that takes time. Some of them have debt to pay off, a lot of debt, and start of worse financially than their non-college educated peers, even if those peers make less salary/wage.

The other side of the coin is this: my Dearest Husband was a high school drop out. He doesn't regret it. He's taken some college classes recently, but mostly classes for certifications in the IT field. Motivated by his career path and interests. He's way more employable than I am. But, there has come a point in his career that he is close to the glass ceiling, the point where he has been told, "Sorry, no, you need a degree for this job." It makes him more vulnerable to lay offs and less marketable outside the company. That's unfortunate. The classes he needs to complete his AA are completely unrelated to IT "core" classes, a waste of time and brain power, time away from his family. He's not the only one in this position, just lucky that he's made it as far as he has on his abilities so far.

I'm not sure I've answered the question asked, but I don't like the wording of it. College as a goal sounds like that's the end of the road and that sentiment is misleading to people. Many people who complete college and expect the world to be handed to them after, or at least a job better than they could get before the equivalent of four years and as much student loan debt/tuition paid. Sadly, many (dare I say most) would have been better off working instead. The term "college ready" doesn't mean to those politicians what it means to me. Who are they to determine that when so many students coming out of their institutions can barely think for themselves, but they can text their buddies and have proficient thumbs and maybe know the names of the Jonas Brothers. Maybe.

Here in Iowa a few families got together and sued the IDE because their college freshmen children were not actually college ready. ?? 1) I wonder how exactly these kids lived that freshman year that they blew, I doubt they worked full time, slept normal hours, and studied hard and 2) Are they channelling Rasputin? How on earth did they convince their parents that it was not in fact their own fault and do so in a way that led them to the lawyers? Gah.

Maybe the terminology is wrong for us as a society. Why do we value the four (five) year University of liberal arts education over vocational and site specific training? Why are we focusing our time and resources arguing that specific place and experience is the goal? Why does it have value over other experiences?

Maybe the goal should be redefined: the goal is to raise your children and yourself to be civilized and capable. Put a value on kindness too. Stop shifting the blame when that goal isn't met.

AGH!!!!

Yikes. Is it July 31 ALREADY?!?!?!?!

I have to:
Get my ART FOR FOOD entry in the mail. (Any of you local moms have entries? I'll mail them in my box if you get them to me this weekend.)
Can my raspberry jam for the Iowa State Fair
Clean my house for a playdate
Wash (find) towels, because apparently a sock goblin graduated into a towel goblin and they are ALL missing!?!?!?!
Get the dog vax'd and groomed
Submit grades for my online classes
Finish creating courses for fall and have live online by MONDAY?!?!?
Drop off entry for ISF on Saturday
****EDITED TO ADD****
Get JMcG the promised list of local homeschool support group contacts, almost finished
Submit Thinking Parents Wiki...done late last night.
RSVP for Adjunct Dinner
Make vet appointment (see above)
Order (and blog about) more cloth baby wipes
Set up Sewing Machine
Sew first project (shhhh it's a secret)
Set up Fall playdates and craft days (since everyone else is making their lesson plans, now is the time to do it, right?)

.....and still feed, clothe, bathe children (maybe myself?). Lil'Bug has an ear infection, her first ever, and Blueberry is growth spurting (ie feeding every hour it seems).

Oh and poor Aunt Bee is fretting over a wedding location. Any ideas for a space/location for both a wedding and reception? I've got a list going to send her, but she reads here too and any suggestions would be welcome. I'll even allow anonymous!

How Can You Learn Nothing?

Learn Nothing day was July 24th.

We failed miserably. It was raining so we stayed inside. We tried not to watch TV or go outside or clean or cook, but Lil'Bug really wanted to play a new board game and we had to eat.......

Then we just had to read books. The rain let up and Lil'Bug escaped to the back yard where she found a new bug and some ripe-ish tomatoes. We made a salad for lunch and she experimented with what toppings taste good together.

Then, I couldn't stop her, she got out the crayons and paint.....

You get the idea.
;)

Cool Beans

Win the Essential Babywearing Stash from Along for the Ride (one Beco Butterfly, one Hotsling baby pouch, one BabyHawk Mei Tai, one Zolowear Ring Sling, and one Gypsy Mama Wrap)

Over the course of the week I have been approached three times, twice by children, about the "puppy" in my baby carrier. Um, no, it's a baby.....to which the reaction is surprise and shock.

Why is it that people expect a puppy in a baby carrier and children on leashes? (Thanks LD) Also, nobody ever worries about spoiling a puppy by holding her too much or answering a cry in the middle of the night. Bah.

First Harvest of Summer 2008

A small first harvest. We'll blame the tons of rain.


Ok, if we are being honest, the one red tomato is the only early one that survived Lil'Bug's budding culinary artistry, ala green tomato secret soup for the birds. Secret as in hidden for a week in the heat and found by a, "Hmmmmm, what is that awful smell and where is it coming from?"
First tomato was quickly eaten as was the first pepper.


Ha ha. The tot gets the prize.


What's this? A small green pepper? Mmmmm. Yum. Wait a minute.

What happened next? Mama had to put the camera away and assist with an emergency mouth is burning OMG help crisis from the tot who licked the pepper seeds out of the case. A Serrano pepper. Water, milk, strawberry ice cream, lots of tears, and eventually just time. Learning happens everyday!

Cute Pictures of the Wee Ones

Pirate Kung Fu Warrior Princess. I don't know. That is what she called herself.

The "masters" helped her train all day at the park. She is to become the dragon panda tiger warrior. Or something.

It is not a hair do. I can't make it "do" anything but stand straight up. Her hair will actually pop off hats. It is almost two+ inches long. Yes, she is once again asleep. Really she is awake sometimes!

Wednesday Smiles and Dental Thing Plus Meme

Sharon challenged me to a meme: 6 things I have not written about before, that you don't know about me......

1) Until today I hated my dental hygienist. She creeped me out by asking about my husband every time I had my teeth cleaned. Not normal questions, but things like shoe and shirt size, favorite food, sports team......weird. Today she tried really hard to do her job while I wore a fussy Blueberry in my Moby wrap and Lil'Bug danced around trying to help her clean my teeth. She was patient and wonderful and we all walked out happy. Not. One. Meltdown. Awesome.

2) I stopped wearing make up about 6 months ago because of pregnancy. I didn't want to absorb the cosmetics into my skin and harm the baby. Silly? Maybe. I figured I go back to caking it on after she was born BUT my skin has never felt so good. I actually don't get the old sinking feeling when I look in a mirror in the morning. I don't need foundation "for sunscreen" anymore either. Maybe I am not meeting the standard for beauty, but I feel great and not slimy. I expected to look in the mirror for the first time post delivery and see a splotched, bloated, frazzled version of myself but I was pleasantly surprised. It was surreal.

3) I once hugged Tori Amos. However I clawed my way through a crowd to do it and that kind of ruins the memory for me.

4) I once talked the ear off of the former Governor of Iowa at a luncheon. He listened and asked questions about my thesis for close to two hours. I had no idea who he was. I thought "Governor Ray" was a nickname or something. Seriously. Later he sent a lovely note to my boss at the museum with a list of additional resources he thought would be useful to me in research. So he was actually interested! Still, I had no idea who he was until my boss told me. For those outside of Iowa- Governor Ray was in office for 14 years and has a giraffe named after him at our zoo.

5) Cooking with lard grosses me out. I do cook with bacon grease. I know it is the same thing, but scooping out lard is yucky. I feel the same way about making gravy. Yucky. But I'll eat gravy.

6) I love science fiction books from the 1940's and 50's. Theodore Sturgeon is my favorite. He wrote the short story that E.T. was based on.

I tag my current blogroll, lazy I know, but I have laundry to attend to!

• Child's Play
• Gookins
• Happy and Free
• Learning in the UNzone
• Life Dreamed
• My So Called Homeschool
• Supernatural World
• The Foil Hat
• The Road Less Traveled
• Turtle Works
• Wandering Knits
• Welcome to My Brain
• Wheelchair Mama
• Wistful Wanderlust

Flogging Molly is Good Cleaning Music

I've listened to Flogging Molly for years, passively, but enjoyed every bit. A friend once said it was good music to clean to; my preferred clean the house quick and furiously music was anything by the Beastie Boys but now that is not kid appropriate, not really.

Question for you all....what music, if any do you clean to? Do you use different music for daily mundane chores than you do for the fast and furious this-must-be-done-quickly-OMG-AGH! cleaning?

Mucking Mucky Muck

How can our house be so messy when we left it 2 days ago clean and tidy? Oh yeah, storm clean up chaos.

I am stuck in the muck, tired, sour bellied, and just worn out. How can I clean? So I am standing bewildered in my kitchen unable to figure out where to start while both my girls are very, very, busy. Sigh.

Anyone know how to get play dough "birthday cake" (ie florescent orange and brown play dough mixed with too much water) out of red velvet upholstery?

Power to the People

That's us, yo.

We have our power back on.

Will blog later when I am finished mucking out the fridge. Then I have to figure out what we need to buy for the week. Oh, and make my house smell less like spoiled food.

I'm keeping good humor. At least we had no structural or familial damage (ie, we worked together and only hung up the phone on each other twice...LOL!).

Dr. Horrible

"Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog"

So very funny and only free until Sunday night so hurry! IMO Act II is funnier than Act I. Neil Patrick Harris + that guy from Firefly + Joss Wheadon = very funny stuff, a super villain musical? LOL.

*Hat tip to Mama B for posting this link on our local homeschool forum.

In Friendship

My next blogorific task I am setting out to do is to comment more on other blogs. At least for this week, to let people know I am still reading. I have about 30 blogs in my reader. More that I am a sometimes visitor to.

So my first challenge to you all is to comment on some of your favorite blogs too! Especially if you never have before. Some of my current favorites I found through people commenting and/or my stat reader letting me know a lot of traffic was directed from and lo and behold- I'm on their blogroll! LOL

My second challenge is to find two new blogs you like and tell me (or on your own blog) about them. New to you. How? I'm going to take my blog ring for a spin and see what I can find. Sometimes I get curious about blog names in others' blogrolls, sometimes a blog is mentioned in a post and I check out the link.

*Edited to add- my blog rings are not working. Gah. I'll fix them later tonight.

So there you have it. Happy 10,000+!

Art For Food

ART FOR FOOD.

I wish sometimes that I had the time and energy to jump back into the local Historic Preservation movement. I did some good work for it, but the movement flows on without me just fine, whereas my family does not. I admire LB's efforts to do something for a cause she cares about in a neat way. I plan on sending her a photo (snail mail printed). For my 10,000 visitor celebration, I'd like to invite any readers who are artists to consider this very worthy cause.

Also, if anyone has a favorite photo of mine that you think I should enter, place your vote! Here are four I am considering:

WOW! 10,000+

I just noticed my ticker. I am amazed and in awe that people read this blog, but thank you. This little blog has helped me vent, record, develop a photography habit (I mean hobby!), keep in touch with relatives, and despite my inability to pick up a phone (sorry LB! The floods happened and even though we weren't underwater, I got distracted! I plan on calling soon.....) develop friends, local and online, and that has been a real blessing.

I plan on coming up with something to celebrate 10,000! You, know, once I find my kids under the laundry and feed them. LOL!

Berry Berry Good

Two days; cherries, strawberries, and gooseberries. Good times!

The Troll and the Battle for Mt. Patience

Lil'Bug has been feeling angry and rude inside. She is very frustrated about it and has painted some lovely expressive art that starts with a rainbow of colors and ends with the spectrum being covered with black paint.

She said her feelings are turning her into a troll, that's how trolls are made you see. She wants to be a princess, not a troll. She said she needs patience. I think what she may be saying is that either she needs to be patient or I need to be patient with her more. Or both, maybe both would be better.

I'm not sure how to help her with what she is feeling. I am eternally grateful she is able to express it verbally and artistically. I thought that starting back with play dates and field trips and park days would help, but they don't so much. Also, aside from very few isolated incidents (usually at play dates) she's been cheerful, helpful, and awesome- the normal state of Lil'Bug! That's why I'm so surprised she is articulating her sadness and anger, outwardly she seems fine.

As for me, I am content and blank. I'm just not feeling super happy or super sad or frustrated or overwhelmed. No extremes. Just getting by. I decided to start getting up at 5 am when Blueberry does and in the morning I enjoyed the quiet and the sunrise. It was a nice start to the day. Then she shifted to waking at 4am and then sleeping until 7am. I'm not getting up at 4 and everyone is up by 7. Ah, it was nice while it lasted.

So while I am feeling very vanilla inside, little one is rocky road mud pie with sprinkles. Perhaps that is a balanced mix. Hopefully we will work through it well.

What I Did This Morning, aka the Tornado Tot Strikes Again

Tornado Tot strikes again and again. Her mess started migrating to take over the house, I knew I must hold it back, wrangle it into bins, or Dearest might have to send a search party to find us one of these days......


Didn't take long at all. I'm no Martha Stewart, but at least it is tidy and dust free. Lil'Bug, once transformed back into sweet child, said, "Thank you, Mama!" and started in on rebuilding the mess.




Ah. Oh well. At least I now have pictures to remember it clean by. My lovely floors.......I will miss you again in a couple of hours......

Adoption Gratitude

I've been pondering this all week and then Christine posted this today.

We have a legacy of adoption in our family. My Dearest was adopted, Nana was actually abandoned in a bassinet to a family that adopted her. There is so much love in our family, and I am so grateful to both birth moms, the sacrifices they made so our family could be the one it is today.

Having just carried Blueberry in my belly for nine months, the idea is fresh in my mind that not only is it traumatic for the baby, but for the birth family too; what a loss the families might feel too, the fathers, the grandparents. I had anxiety when the nurses held her to check vitals and even though I knew they would hand her back, I felt at a loss. My God, how would I feel if I never, ever saw her again? My heart cannot even fathom it. Yet my family is what it is because two mothers made the heart wrenching decision that their babies would be better cared for by someone else and after nine months of knowing and loving their babies, handed them over to very wonderful mothers.

And those mother welcomed the sleepless nights, the poopy diapers, the vomit and fevers, the heartbreaks, the ER visits (lots of them in Dearest Husband's childhood!), and trials of childhood. Those mothers get the love of and get to love those children. Those mothers get a lifetime of motherhood which is a full palate of emotions, grief, joy, anger, fear, and lots of love. Grandchildren, great grandchildren.

So today, I am feeling especially thankful for my mother-in-law and her mother and both of the birth moms that gave Nana and Dearest to our family.

Great Clippers

Lil'Bug really wanted to use scissors this week. So I let her. I even bought her her own pair of blunt tip kid scissors. She clipped and clipped and snipped all day, until the floor was littered with paper and glue and paint. An explosion of motor skills and creativity. Lovely.

Until.

Until she cut her own hair. That's a right of passage, isn't it? I was right there with her and she was simple too quick for me to stop her. She looked at me in amazement and said, "Mama, my hair is falling out?" Aghk. Luckily, she merely cut more of those stupid layers that the multiple Great Clips hair "artists" butchered her hair with so, really, you can't tell.

The bright side is that at age three she has a marketable skill, she can cut hair for Great Clips! Ha. (For those who don't remember we gave instructions for NO LAYERS and the hair cut lady cut lots of layers so we went to a GC across town and asked a different lady to fix it but cutting it really short to get rid of the layers and she cut MORE LAYERS AND GAVE LIL'BUG A SUCKER AND THEN TOOK IT AWAY FROM HER WHEN SHE STARTED CRYING! OMG).

Still, Dearest had been skeptical about letting Lil'Bug had scissor privilage. Upon seeing the carnage of her hair on the floor, he reminded me of his objections. Bah. He turns to her and asks, "Lil'Bug, how old are you?"

"Three!"

"Thank you sweety, now I won't have to do an I was right dance for Mama," he snickered.

Hmph.

Caterpillar Buddy, the Eulolgy

Caterpillar buddy cocooned, but he never emerged. That was weeks ago. Yesterday Lil'Bug realized there was something wrong with his "coon" and I explained to her what happened. She cried. She's never had a pet or a loved one die. She'd seen movies where characters die and I think she somewhat understands the concept, but still, her heart hurt her to know that caterpillar buddy was dead. We set him out in a shady place for the wind to take him to heaven. That was her idea.

Goodbye caterpillar friend. You were very special to my sweet child. May you eat lots of broccoli leaves and flutter with delicate wings on the breeze.

Slug baby!

The first photo reminded me of the stylized baby photos that studios do. LOL. Anyway, this is our bug find for the week!

Punk Rock Girl Baby

Ah, a happy family moment. :)

"Blphbbbbbb........are you making fun of my hair?" Blueberry is considering her own fashion line. No, I did not do this to her hair, this hair do is despite my best efforts to comb, shape, or direct her lovely locks. Also, proof that she is in fact AWAKE sometimes!

Good Grief Charlie Brown

My husband HATES dessert. He hates quite a few things that are sweet, the only exceptions I can think of are Cherry Coke and the weird Kool-Aid mixture he used to drink in high school that is 3 cups of sugar, 2 packets of Kool-Aid, 1 pitcher of water. Um, ew.

So I was surprised when we went out to lunch and he ordered a 7 layer bar from our local deli. (Every year we eat there on something he has dubbed "Customer Service Day" because one time four years ago he ate there and had already ordered when to his chagrin he discovered they don't take credit/debit cards, only cash, and they GAVE him the food with nothing more than a promise that he'd come back and pay. He did (well, I did since he was at work).

Anyway- I was thumbing through my Baking Illustrated and found a recipe for 7 layer bars and made them on Sunday afternoon. Seriously delicious stuff. I was suspicious at first at how simple the recipe is. Add stuff willy nilly to jelly roll pan and bake for 30 minutes.


My reaction:
"Hey this is really good!"
Dearest: "Oh, yeah it is!"
Me: "And I made it!"
Dearest: "Um........Ok, follow that to its logical conclusion...."

Dramatic pause.

Me: "Ok, so later tonight we'll all suffer terribly with food poisoning and die?"
Dearest: "Yup."

Hmph. The thing is, he has every right to say that. He's the one who was hospitalized with food poisoning about 10 years ago.

When we were married a sagely neighbor gifted me this:


and this:On the one year anniversary of Dearest proposing to me I tried to bake a chicken from a recipe in the book. Ended up using part two of the gift as a topping. The next week, I tried to make up for it and made a lovely no-bake dinner: fresh salad greens from our garden. About six hours later we were at the local emergency room, Dearest being intravenously re-hydrated and the nursing staff glaring sideways at me as I apologized for the cause of the food poisoning. Salad? Really? I gave up on trying to be a super wife, cooking just wasn't my thing.

Ok, I don't really give up easily on anything, but my major attempts through the years have been inedible or caused stomach illness. It doesn't even have to be me cooking, but recipes I've shared have carried the curse (sorry about the Turkey Tetrazini WhimsiGal!).

Lately, though, and with the help of Christopher Kimball and staff, I have muddled my way out of the muck that is my cooking. I know that substituting Olive Oil for Crisco is not so good, I know that adding cinnamon and apples to EVERYTHING may not be to everyone's tastes, and I know that baking is chemistry and throwing in more of an ingredient I like can (and has) cause a chemical reaction that leads to the fire department knowing that I ruined dinner before I do.

But....24 hours later no one is sick from my dessert bar, just yet.

Friday Part Three: Chicken Little

"I love you this big!" She declares herself a chicken and sets off to do chicken-y things. Yes, her pants ARE already wet from being thigh high in a 6 inch farm puddle (see previous post)......


Is she a chicken or a pig? To be fair the only sort of clean part of her is the only place she got sunburned. This is a totally different puddle, by the way. Look closely and see her boots are off her feet AND packed with mud.


This is inside the chicken pen. I love that this family let her play and explore the hen house and chicken yard. She collected eggs too. We brought four home and she hugged them in the carton all the way home (yes, one broke!). It was her treasure for sure. We've been to many farms the last year and the coups have all been off limits for various reasons. When I was a kid, we had free access to them and did just fine. Lil'Bug and her friend played for hours with the chickens and ducks. She even ate some cracked corn. Not yummy. I had to bathe her twice. The second time was a second round of muck after the first bath.


Where did her boots end up? As a monument to childhood mucky fun! :)

As we got ready to leave, A. noticed I had a VERY flat tire. She tried to air it up, but it wouldn't hold the air. I'm still on lifting restriction from surgery, so she changed my tire for me. Seriously. She is a super hero. I'm not sure I could do it myself anyway. It's been 15 years since I last changed a tire and it was on my 1971 VW super beetle (the one with a duct taped axle...).

Also.....
I ate hummus. You know, I had never eaten hummus before because in my mind I had confused hummus with haggis and could never figure out why such a thing was so popular at all the mom groups. Last year I discovered the error and since had not had a chance to taste it. It is sooo delicious! That particular error is so typical of me. Gah.