Christmas Construction

 
 

Handmade

Microwaveless

It's been over three weeks since our microwave failed us. It still operates, but the door no longer opens, rendering it less useful. I've had to compensate by being original:

--heating soup on the stove
--heating servings in the oven
--melting honey in a hot water bath
--thawing blueberries on a pie tin over a steaming pan

It feels so rustic, I'm practically a pioneer.

When I decide I'd rather sacrifice counter space to have a microwave again, we can bring up the old one that we've stored in the basement against just such an emergency. (See a friend's great post on saving stuff to save money.) So far, counter space is winning.

Preschooler Math

Alex quizzes his aunt on math problems:
"What's one hundred minus four?"
"What's four minus one hundred?"
"What's a house plus a big tree?" (Answer: 195 pancakes.)

The Polar Express

I just read this book to my children and ended up crying so hard at the ending I couldn't finish. Katherine had to read the last page.

So my question is this: is it better to believe in a fictional Santa Claus or not believe? If I pretend to believe hard enough, will Santa Claus come to my door?

Overheard

When my children were playing some game I didn't quite understand:

K: "Baby."
A: "Yes."
K: "Baby."
A: "No."
K: "Baby."
A: "No."
K: "Baby."
A: "Stop saying baby!"
K: "Baby, baby, baby!"
(Pause)
K: "Can I say person?"
A: "Yes."
K: "Person."
A: "Yes."

Great music and computer smashing

A friend of ours is an a capella singer who often records music for internet videos. Here's his latest project, featuring a computer user who gets hacked and takes it out on his machine. (He composed much of the song, sang all the parts, and was the sole actor in the video.)

Hacker's Holiday by Mister Tim

What didn't make the card

Every year I end the card with family news (if you missed it, look on the back!) But this year we ended up with some extra bullets:

· Rebecca can say several words, including “At!” (that) and “Es” (yes)
· Loralee started clogging, and can now do a single, a fancy double, a triple, a stomp double, a grapevine, a Utah basic, and an MJ
· Alex invented the “Trople Step” for dancing. Partners hold hands and straddle-step from foot to foot.
· Loralee wrote about gold mining, Northwest trains (spending most of her earnings on family tickets), and homemade Christmas cards.
· Loralee created www.candyexperiments.com and has received 72 emails, with only some of them from herself!
· Laramie took kids backpacking/camping nine times. At least half of the times they left in the daytime.
· If you ask Rebecca about body parts, she can point to her nose, rub her hair, and stick out her tongue. But when you say "eye," she points to her ear.
· Rebecca rolls back on cue to be tickled when we read the Tickle book
· Rebecca thinks sippy cups are for babies
· Loralee did about 200 yoga planks (one with each load of laundry), and Alex invented some new poses.
· Laramie invented a new Thanksgiving recipe: Upside-down Chocolate Pecan Pie. But you have to eat it off the floor.

Put it all together, and a whole lot of wasted days turn into a year's worth of accomplishment!

Nobel (noble?) Obama

I heard a lot of coverage about Obama's Nobel Prize speech. Commentators all over the radio were puzzling over his choice of subjects: using his speech to defend a just war as he sends more troops to Afganistan.

Why aren't enough of them asking a more basic question: why did he get the prize in the first place? He was fighting this war back then, too.

Car Break-in

Robbers smashed our minivan window on Sunday at church. I suppose they saw the bags inside. I never really thought the danger of leaving bags, even though my sister's car was once broken into, and purses were stolen from cars at the stake center last year. Guess this was a lesson we had to learn the hard way.

What they took:
--our diaper bag, containing about 1 diaper, 4 wipes, 12 stickers, a chiming elephant I'd bought new, a cloth book with crackling pages, plastic chain links, and random Goodwill toys (including the phone with buttons that Rebecca loved)
--my primary music bag, containing my primary music book, a gospel art book, a zippered nativity set, a ripped Ziploc bags of crayons, two pens and a pencil, primary class drawings, my hand-drawn visual aids for "For the Beauty of the Earth," old Relief Society announcements, and a couple of pass-along cards.

We're hoping somebody gets converted.

This year's Christmas list

This is partly a Christmas list and partly a to-do-list.

In my dreams...
--a medieval calendar such as castles, cathedrals, cottages, or illuminated manuscripts (but not fake medieval castles!)
--new washcloths
--a new sweater (cardigan?) to add variety to the blue/orange routine I've been in since a certain Ann Taylor shopping trip
--Smartwool socks with no snowflakes on them
--any Cambridge Singers CDs (except their "Best of"), especially Christmas music
--a microwave that works with our venting system (our old microwave still operates, but the door doesn't open.)
--also a King's College Nine Lessons and Carols, and the "Dancing Day" carols by John Rutter
--a finished fence
--a new bedroom closet
--an organized storeroom
--the new Shannon Hale books (Forest Born, The Actor and the Housewife)
--a new microwave that works with our venting system
--help organizing my children's art scrapbook
--my kitchen wired for sound (why do electricians keep bailing on me?)
--nylons
--a year's supply of chocolate pecans (hey, it's for food storage!)
--a big whiteboard for the hall to put postcards and kid pictures on (but I ought to paint the hall first, and if I paint the hall we ought to paint the living room, but we shouldn't do that until we sand out cracks and fix the sheet rock...)

And for anybody reading this in Annabelle:
--scrubbers
--herbs for cold and flu (like Navajo tea or echinecea)
--Grandpa salve
--Redmond Real Salt as garlic salt or rock salt

Last Year's Christmas List

So I was thinking about what I wanted for Christmas last year, and how it turned out. Here's the list:

--books that are as fabulous as the dragon series by Novik
Well, I'm not sure if I found any better, but I read some great books: Resistance by Agnes Humbert, Ropemaker by Peter Dickinson, Gregor the Overlander, Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series, Ranger's Apprentice, lots of books by Margaret Peterson Haddix, In Defense of Food by Michael Pollack, Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, and The Science of Sugar Confectionery (a real page-turner!) Plus Book Club elected me to be in charge of a fantasy year (easy for them to commit to when we're only reading 3 books)
--annual reports from the British Portable Antiquities Scheme, because nothing makes for fun family reading like illustrated archaeological reports
Well, I haven't gotten the reports, but I did get an email from their department, so I'm very optimistic!
--a vacuum cleaner that works--hey, I'm vacuuming again (now that baby rolls around on the carpet finding things)
Didn't get a new vacuum cleaner, but I finally fixed my old one
--a piano bench that's tall enough without textbooks piled on top
Hah, forgot this one. We didn't get a bench, but we got three tall stools--perfect for side-by-side kid lessons!
--my banister
Ordered it myself, and it's beautiful
--and my fence
Lar installed a gate and one very tal fence post. Every year a little closer!
--to fix the leak in my kitchen faucet
I actually set foot in a plumbing store! Leak fixed.
--replacements for my broken blinds
Rethreaded one of them when summer got so hot we needed the shade. It used to be stuck up; now it's stuck down unless I wrap the string around a bag clip. Got used to the other broken blind.
--the Leavitt calendar
Loved the calendar, Sarah, it was beautiful!
--a medieval calendar
Ended up buying three of them for a dollar apiece in February.
--long sleeved Shade-type shirts
Yup, got a few of those. Course now I think I need more.
--warm cute cardigans and cardigan lessons
Beware what you ask for, you may get it, especially if you go shopping in Ann Taylor with Katie!
--to learn how to play really complicated jazzy chords
This one looked like a total loss, until I was invited to play accompaniment for a jazzy Christmas number at the Stake Choir. It's taken way more work than I planned, but hey, it's jazzy!
--to find my missing exercise band
Got that one even before last Christmas
--cute pants that fit
Got one pair at Bellevue Square and one at Goodwill.
--a designer's advice on where to hang my framed pictures
Got a designer, now I just have to frame the pictures.
--fun dates
Lar decided we should take a rock climbing class. So now we can do something he likes--and I even sometimes remember to schedule a babysitter!
--the perfect plan to arrange the kids in bedrooms without losing my study
We just squashed them all in one room. Hooray for bunk beds.
--nice soft lovely background music that is real classical music and not muzak
Radio is a wonderful thing. So is the KPLU online jazz stream.
--peace and QUIET
Alex is in preschool; Becca now takes naps. Occasional peace and quiet now in the realm of possibility!

Wow, it looks like I got about everything on my list. Amazing. Here's hoping I do as well with this year's list--if I can think of one.

Mommy Morning

Things I have done so far:

--made breakfast
--dressed the baby (who had other plans)
--run two loads of laundry
--played Tic Tac Toe with Alex
--emptied the dishwasher
--promised Alex to play Chutes and Ladders when he emptied the silverware, but he never did
--ended up teaching Alex piano instead (hey, it was his choice)
--practiced the piano for the number I'm accompanying tomorrow night (about time I practiced!)
--untangled two entwined toy parachutes

And my kitchen is still a mess!

Things I'm Grateful For

'Tis the season for gratitude, or at least for lists.

But before I get started: I had a gratitude activity in Primary today that was a riot. I invited kids to say what they were thankful for, and listed them on the board. We got things like earth, trees, fun, cars, bodies, family, sun, rocks and minerals, games, primary, music, mom, and piano. Then we strung them together and sang them to "For Health and Strenghth and daily food we praise thy name, O Lord." We ended up with verses like these:
--For bodies, cars and families
--For rocks and fun and mom and games (a Primary boy came up with this set)
--For music, books, and Primary
--For peanut butter sandwiches
Then Senior Primary wanted to sing them all the way through. Good thing I'd mostly grouped words that were close together on the blackboard. I missed one set, but the kids noticed and sang the last verse anyway. Fun times!

And a few from my own list:
--The way Rebecca wrinkles her nose when she smiles
--Good chocolate
--People who have written to tell me how their kids loved candy experiments
--Weather that has allowed me to walk to pick Katherine up from school almost every day (you should see Alex chugging along on his bicycle)
--A HIGHLIGHTS ACCEPTANCE!!! (Sorry, that one just slipped out)
--Writing group members who still read my stuff for me
--A husband who rocks sick kids to sleep (and boy, we've needed some of that here this week)
--Dinner guests who wash the dishes
--My piano, even if it is out of tune
--My calling as ward organist, from which the bishopric hasn't yet had to release me (I've turned them down twice)
--Did I mention Highlights?
--The fun letter I got from a kid in our ward who's on a mission
--Children who help put away silverware, read to each other, look out for their baby sister, love to draw, love experiments, and keep learning and growing
--Peace and plenty

And One Sock On

Katherine likes to sleep with only one sock. She keeps one foot warm with it, and uses her bare foot to feel that the sheet is pulled up.
Diddle, diddle, dumpling.

Kitchen Terminology

Alex, watching me cut fruit:
"I think it's a paring knife and an appling knife. And a peaching knife."

Tips!

Did I wonder if Rebecca understands the words she's learning? Well, a few nights ago at dinner she learned the word "chips" in about 10 seconds, and used it too.

"Tips! Tips!"

Rebecca's Words

Rebecca is picking up new words faster and faster, or at least promptly repeating what she hears:
--"at" (hat)
--"uh me" (from Mommy's impromptu song "Erik looked up gelatin for me, for me...")
--"ed wight" (from Alex singing "Red light, red light, what do you say?")

Mopping

What kind of mother makes her children mop floors at bedtime on Saturday night?

--The kind of mother who fell behind on Veterans Day taking kids to visit friends and setting off Coke/Mentos fountains in the back yard, throwing off the week's chore rotation?
--The kind of mother who meant to do chores on Saturday but went to choir practice, wrote while kids drew computer art, and took kids to the library instead?
--The kind of mother who let the floor get so sticky she couldn't stand it anymore?

Oh, wait. That would be me.

So we mopped tonight, after I put Rebecca to bed. I like to involve the kids with chores, but sometimes this involvement involves me doing a lot of work and issuing a lot of commands while my oblivious kids turn cartwheels. Not tonight. Alex volunteered to mop, and went around the kitchen floor with a mop almost twice as tall as he is. Katherine volunteered to sweep and spot-clean, and she and I traded these jobs back and forth. Katherine even had the brainstorm of cleaning scuff marks off the floor with Magic Eraser. She and Alex had quite an operation going, him rushing with his mop to wet the spot for her, and Katherine scrubbing on her hands and knees as hard as any orphaned Cinderella. I let them stay up an extra half hour, they were working so well. By the end we were all terribly pleased with ourselves, and both the kids thanked me over and over for having the great idea to scrub the floor. Alex even included it in his prayer: "Thank you for letting me scrub the floor. Thank you that Katherine could mop."

What kind of mother makes her children mop floors at bedtime on Saturday night?
The kind of mom who had so much fun she just might make them do it again.

Growing Up

Rebecca can now:

--wipe her mouth with a napkin
--hand me dishes out of the dishwasher
--put a dirty diaper in the diaper pail
--help pick up blocks
--carry her clothes upstairs to put away, if I show her where to put it (after she's scattered everybody else's laundry all over the floor)
--recognize and yell for desserts

Vegetables

We've been wondering whether to sign up again for another year of CSA (where the farm packs us a weekly bag of fruit and vegetables). Is it worth the cost? Should we do it if we plant our own garden? Will we eat all the vegetables? etc.

Tonight I made jambalaya with some of the last of our garden tomatoes and peppers, and served it with CSA mustard greens. Lar thinks this means our garden produce and our CSA produce can co-exist peacefully, and takes it as a sign we should do both again next year.

Anybody who comes to visit next summer should expect lots of salad.

Shoes

Tonight my baby girl brought me my shoes, then threw up in them.

I thought that only happened with dogs.

Not a Fairy Princess

Our knight and our medieval lady (not a fairy princess, a medieval princess, or a queen).

Definitely not a fairy princess's carriage.

The pumpkin on the right is Alex's. Instead of the normal two eyes and a nose, it has one eye and two noses (on the middle and the right).

Steelhead on Salmon

 
 

Alex, Katherine, Grandpa, and I visited Pullman on a quick trip during the weekend. Grandpa and I went to fish for steelhead trout on the Snake and Salmon rivers. The adults--Grandpa, all the uncles, and I--had an exciting time riding upriver on a jetboat, and then had continued good luck fishing (we hooked about 20 steelhead, landed 12, of which 6 were keepers: hatchery trout).

The kids got to spend the day with Great Grandma, practicing math, playing games, visiting the library, and eating ice cream for dessert. They had a blast.

Thanks, Grandma & Grandpa.

Mysterious Errands

Rebecca keeps herself busy, even if we don't always understand why. Right now she's carrying her onesies, one by one, to a yellow basket in the kitchen. Is she packing?

Kids and money

After Katherine heard Alex did a great job on a chore which usually earns three pennies:

Katherine: "Why can't you give him four pennies?"
Me: "Because I said three."
Katherine: "Can't you just give him four pennies?"
Me: "No. Three."
Katherine: "But don't you want us to earn money so we can buy things out of the earning bag?"


Alex: "How many dollars do you have, Mommy?"
Me: "Enough for what we need."
Alex: "Then why can't you pay for me to go to Lunch Bunch?"

On Orphans

As a lover and writer of children's stories, I understand the need to get the parents out of the picture. Still, it's a little disconcerting when your own kids start doing it:

"Let's pretend our parents moved away and locked the house and didn't leave us a key."

"Let's pretend our parents died."

"Let's pretend our mother died but she kept it a secret so our dad got remarried."


I hope it's nothing personal.

Recognition At Last!

Many of you know that I'm participating in a church musical production, a collection of numbers meant to be a "Tribute to Broadway." When I tried out, I hoped that I would land one of the coveted solo spots. Instead I was assigned to the chorus. Then I hoped for one of the solo lines sprinkled throughout the choral music, but those all went elsewhere. So I was astonished today to finally receive my overdue recognition for my talents with a new assignment:

Page turner!

Yes, I will be turning the pages for our pianist. She assured me that it's very important and takes a lot of musical talent. I turned pages during our last rehearsal run-through today, with a 99% success rate. (Once I flipped too far and landed on a blank page, which made my heart thump with fear, but I recovered quickly. When I apologized afterwards, the pianist assured me that she hadn't been worried, she knew I'd fix it. See the trust she places in me?)

Anybody who's interested in coming to the show can find out more about it and request tickets at www.tributetobroadway.org. Shows are Oct 16, 17, 23, and 24.

How can you answer these?

Katherine: "Could you hold something that came up as high as your legs?"
Me: "Like what?"
Katherine: "Like a quarter. Because it's made of silver."


Alex: "What's the kind of skyscraper you can hold?"

When Lar is away...

Had a long two weeks the last two weeks, with Lar gone most of the time (goat hunting in Utah, and working in New York).

Things that wore me out:
--Getting all three kids up and dressed to get Katherine to school or Alex to preschool
--Rushing to school on the day Katherine forgot her homework and "Student of the week" sharing time prop
--Buckling all three kids with carseats into a Toyota Camry (we borrowed it from my parents because the minivan is in the shop)
--Getting rear-ended in the borrowed Camry (fortunately not hard)
--Learning the minivan will be in the shop another week
--Loads of extra laundry due to diaper disasters
--Taking the kids to the Science Center (Rebecca was NOT satisfied to sit in her stroller)

And some good things:
--Sinking and floating chocolate bars when I had a quiet evening to kill (Results: Twix bars float in water but sink in oil)
--Enjoying two Ranger's Apprentice novels (except that book 5 ends on a total cliffhanger, and book 6 has 272 holds at the library)
--Having a friend amuse Rebecca during church while I taught Primary singing time
--Inviting another friend and her two girls to dinner (verdict: the girls like dress-ups but not pesto pizza)
--Finding a box of chocolates on my pillow after the Science Center trip and knowing my husband was back

Family Fun fame

Here we are!

Family Fun has put highlights from its October issue online. You can't get to our article, but you can see our picture in the table of contents if you follow the link to view the magazine, then click the right arrow in the upper right Browse Magazine tab.

A rare update from Tickles

A few days ago I was pushing Rebecca on our little swing, when she started leaning back and pumping her legs. The rhythm was off, but she definitely knew what she was trying to do.

"Tickles taught her," Katherine informed me. "Tickles is her grandmother in Babyland, and she takes care of her."

Even though Tickles is imaginary, I find this strangely comforting.

On Professions

Just met a woman at clogging who started as a medical student ("I graduated with everything you need except the desire to be a doctor"), transferred to forensic pathology, is now a programmer at Microsoft, and is thinking it might be time to change fields again because she's getting bored. It made me think again about the idea that each person is destined for one specific profession, and will become miserable and unfulfilled unless they find it. In other words, the myth.

Ruth Reichl, author, food critic, and former editor of Gourmet Magazine, recently published a small memoir "On Not Becoming My Mother and other things she taught me along the way." She writes that her mother was warned against med school (she'd never marry), told she was too homely to attract men, and promised that marriage and children would bring happiness she could never find in professional life. The first marriage ended in disaster, and the second led to long depressions as her mother tried to find happiness in a life of childrearing and housework, after a brief but glorious stint as a New York intellectual. Ruth's moral: get a career, find happiness.

But one person might be good at a myriad of different things--and might enjoy them all. In fact, in our society people must now constantly reinvent themselves as their jobs dry up. (I know this from a time when I didn't reinvent myself--and stayed an unemployed technical writer instead.) The exact profession a person finds (or doesn't) may not be as important as broader life ideals of work, service, growth, education, that can happen in may ways. In the home or out of it.

I say this after a weekend of heavy duty candy experiments, in which we dissolved Pixie Sticks to make crystal growing solution, noticed color changes in our solutions, actually made crystals, poked and broke and redissolved the sugary crystals (Rebecca figured out that she really likes to eat them), and recorded our findings, flush with success. Ten years ago I could never have dreamed that I would become a "Mad Scientist Mother," as one friend called me today. Or that cooking a really great dish would become one of my escapes (not that I do it often enough). Or that I would end up as a resume consultant to dozens of friends and relatives after bombing so badly with my own job searches. (Potential clients should note that my resume advice comes from lessons I learned by doing them wrong, lessons I learned from doing things right, and lessons on targeting your audience and selling yourself that every freelance writer has to learn.)

Am I a stifled housewife, deprived of intellectual conversation and burdened by overwork? Am I the radiant mother who has realized that fulfillment comes best from loving and raising children? Am I the at-home intellectual who still nurtures her talents and pursues learning? Truthfully, I can feel like any or all of the above, when I'm not too busy putting food on the table, delivering kids to school, attacking clutter, or chasing the baby to think about it at all. I'm in the middle, just trying to get by. And I think most everybody knows the feeling--career or no career.

Day Hike : Snow Lake

Alex and I hiked to Snow Lake this afternoon, which appears to be the wildernessarea superhighway. We arrived at the trailhead in the afternoon and found the parking lot overflowing with cars. It is about 3.5 miles each way, and I carried Alex part of the way--maybe 1.5 miles--and the rest of the way we sang a hiking song: Step, Step, Hike. Hiking down the trail. Step, Step, Hike. ...

View Larger Map

 

 

 

 

School Lunches II

One week down, and Katherine still likes my lunches. Frankly, this is a better record than I expected.

School Lunches I

After getting trail mix with M&Ms in her lunch:

"Mommy, can you please not send any more candy to school with me? There are lots of kids who don't have any dessert. Besides, think of all that sugar."

She would rather have "fruit and healthy food."

On buying lunch at school:

"Most of the lunch is like fast food. So I don't want to be buying it often."

Too Many Pictures

Alex has a drawer where he puts his finished artwork, including art from Primary. Today he realized he couldn't fit anything more in. His evaluation:

"My picture drawer is too full. I think we should stop going to church."

On Missing Sleep

It's bad enough that we don't go to bed early (for shame, all you friends whose blogs are too interesting to turn off late at night!) but I've been having trouble sleeping the last few nights, too. The night before last it was an early morning power outage that astounded our prenaturally alert kids (and incidentally blew out my main computer). Six o'clock in the morning, we start hearing "The bathroom light doesn't work!" "Neither does the study light!" "How can I go to the bathroom when it's dark?" "Wear your headlamp, Alex!" (Luckily, the power was back on by the time I had to heat breakfast and dry my hair.) Then last night I awoke from a particularly disturbing dream involving Tuck Everlasting and a toilet and couldn't go back to sleep. Laramie had to lullaby me with own dream, in which he rented a vacation house which was then trucked away with all his possessions.

Come on, brain. Let me sleep--it's nighttime and tomorrow's coming too darn fast!

Becca's first (mock) phone conversation

Becca, talking into her new phone (a disused DVD remote)

"He-wo?"
"Yeah."
"Bye!"

What more do you need?

His first day, too.

 

Things I never guessed would be hard to teach kids

--Putting on socks
--Washing hair
--Eating with a spoon (Hold it horizontal, Becca!)

Six reasons you haven't really caught a salmon

When you fish for pink salmon with a lead weight and a spinner with a shrimp on it, you know you might have a salmon when something bumps the line. But it could just as easily be any of these:
--Your lead weight hits the river bottom, making your line dip
--The current of the river sways the line
--You shift your weight, making the lead weight shift
--A boat wake lifts your line
--A bottom feeder steals your bait
--A salmon nibbles your bait, but you miss it because you're dwelling on everything else it might be!

More words

Becca can now say
--Here (when she hands you something)
--Bye bye
--Uh-oh

Various family members have also heard "flower" and "Grandma"

and last night, Laramie was teaching her

"Remarkable!"

Will the First Grader please stand up?

 

Becca switches roles

Lately, Rebecca has decided she's big enough to feed herself with a spoon. A few nights ago she went even further, turning to me, poking the spoon at my mouth, and instructing, "Ah."*

(*"Ah" is universal parent language for "open wide.")

Overnight at Grand Lake (8/28)

We camped at Heart O' the Hills on Thursday, then Friday morning K & A hiked into the Olympic National Park backcountry to camp at Grand Lake, 4 miles each way with an elevation change of about 2000 ft.


View Larger Map

 
All together overlooking Grand Lake.

 
View from the Obstruction Pt. Trail.

 
Resting with my backpack.

 
Kids at Moose Lake.

 
1500 ft in 2 miles. Whew.

 
Katherine in the lead.

 
And back to the car.

Catalyst

Just finished the YA book Catalyst, by Laurie Halse Anderson (sp?). I found I could relate too well to the teenage main character, who is too busy, too stressed, and too misunderstood. Am I still a teenager at heart? Are all of us?

More questions for the universe

--What made our DVD player and our TV computer crash at the same time? We've had to watch Angel on my computer, and even that DVD player is on the fritz.
--How can a little cold bring you so far down?
--Why don't Nerds create as big a soda eruption as Mentos, when they have more surface area?
--Why is our pumpkin vine producing so many flowers but no pumpkins?
--Why does the remote for a $45 DVD player have so many buttons? (Angle? Zoom?)


And the biggest question of all:
--Why are my kids getting sick every time Lar and I plan to see Harry Potter? (Three times in three weeks.) Plus we had to cancel the first play date I've arranged all summer!

Questions

Sure, my parents and sister were only in Iceland for 11 days, and I thought I'd get along fine without them. But when they left, I realized I had nobody to turn to for answers to these ponderous questions:

--Is Katherine exactly like me when I was her age, and if so, what on earth do I do with her?
--What do you do about shooting noises? (Alex's imagination can make guns out of sticks, pegs, socks, or cardboard--we're now living with the soundtrack to a sci-fi action flick. Piyoo! Piyoo! Piyoo!)
--Why does your nose run to fight germs, when the germs are already inside you?
--What's the point of sinuses, anyway? (I never notice mine until they're blocked.)

New Words

Rebecca can now repeat these useful words: "Bye," "Uh-oh," and "Yeah."
She will obligingly answer "yeah" to almost any question, which leads my children into conversations like these:

A: "Do you have a nose on your head?"
R: "Yeah."
A: "Do you have a plate on your head?"
R: "Yeah."

K: "Do you have hair on your head?"
R: "Yeah."
K: "Are you bald?"
R: "Yeah!"
(Riotous giggling from children.)

Tricks for brushing a four-year-old's teeth

1. Singing: "Brush, brush, brush your teeth."

2. Counting: Me: "Alex, what should I count to?" Alex: "Dinosaur!" Me (brushing): "OK. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, dinosaur!"

3. Monotone robot voice: "Open mouth. Brushing. Brushing. Brushing. Scanning. All clean."

4. Animal: "What kind of animal do you want to be tonight?" "Alligator." "OK, alligator. Let's brush those sharp alligator teeth. Oh, look at those big white alligator teeth! Let's keep them clean so they'll be nice and sharp." Brush, brush, brush.

Language Acquisition

Rebecca has started singing "Frere Jacques" and "I Won't Grow Up." If we can only teach her the lyrics, we'll have a bilingual baby!

Camping with Grandpa

K&A camping with Grandpa at Picnic Creek, then visiting the old power plant.

 

 

 

 

Dinner at Fish Creek (8/8)

 

 

 

Fruit

Katherine has been begging to go pick blackberries, so we finally went this morning. One patch was pretty bare, but the patch down the street had lots of ripe berries. I suggested we eat them for breakfast, but Katherine was determined to freeze them so we would have fruit in the winter.

Can anybody say "fruit gene?"

109

Our deck thermometer hit 109.2 yesterday. For all you Utah residents who scoff at Seattleites when we're incapacitated by snowfall and dying in 100 degree heat, remember this: most of us don't have air conditioning. 16 hours ago, it was 98 degrees in my kitchen. Bread and cheese and fruit for dinner, anyone?

PS I have new respect for Utah gardeners. I had to water our vegetables three times yesterday.

New Blog

I've started a blog about my writing adventures, as well as a website about candy experiments. Check them out and feel free to tell your friends!

www.loraleeleavitt.com
www.candyexperiments.com

Our Lawn

In summertime, our lawn resembles nothing so much as a worn doormat--brown fiber pointing every which way, getting ground lower and lower. You can see tracks where we rolled our yard waste bins tonight, and the wheelbarrow that I was hauling bark in this morning. This summer the brown is especially striking because we've got one spotty strip of bright green running through it: this is the trench that was dug when we hooked up to the sewer, where I subsequently planted grass. The new grass merits watering, since it won't grow otherwise; the old grass will weather the summer. So we tromp all over our brown grass, slipping on sandals when it's too spiky, and have faith that come fall we'll see green again.

Climber

She climbs on the table.
She climbs on the chairs.
She climbs on ladders
and the high deck stairs.

 

 

 

A play, by Katherine and Alex

Act one:

Alex dresses in black pants and a construction hat. Builds with blocks until Katherine enters, dressed in leotard and skirt. Alex drops blocks, announces "I don't want to be a worker, I want to be a dancer," and follows her off stage.

Intermission (very long costume change)

Act two:
Alex, wearing his stegosaurus costume, chases the dancer Katherine onstage.
Katherine cries "Don't chase me!"
Improv: Alex snags and breaks Katherine's flower necklace, which has to be cleaned up.

Act three:
Katherine enters as a dancer with wings, followed by Alex who has pulled tights over his socks and shorts. They dance. Alex gets bored and refuses to follow cues; Katherine leaves in tears.

Hey

Rebecca's been saying this a lot lately, as in:
"Hey! Don't pull me off the table where I'm having so much fun eating cherries!"
or
"Hey! Why won't you let me out the kitchen door so I can fall down the outside staircase?"
or
"Hey! Why can't I play with the power cord?"

(The "Hey" is verbalized, the rest is understood.)

Boston-rific

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Favorite things from our Boston trip

Learning that Erik makes Britney a sandwich to take to work--every morning!

Erik and Britney taking us to their favorite dessert places, where we got chocolate decadence, cherry ortiz ice cream, and chocolate mousse cannoli...yum!

Eating lobster outdoors in Maine (while mosquitos were eating us)

Reenacting Erik's marriage proposal to Britney: i.e., buying a box of chocolates at their favorite store in Newburyport.

Comparing the 17th century and 18th century kitchen fireplaces in Paul Revere's house (17th century has the ovens in back on either side of the hearth fire, making the fireplace wider and posing a danger to skirts; 18th century fireplace has oven in brick wall next to cooking fire)

Visiting Concord and seeing Emerson's study...twice! (His study was recreated with original furniture in the museum across the street.)

Watching the fireworks display from Harvard Bridge while listening to the synchronized Boston Pops concert on a bystander's radio, with half the fireworks (the bottom half were obscured by trees), but only 1/1000th as much of a crowd.

Finding a medieval manuscript on display in the Boston Public Library, and taking our singing baby through very quiet back rooms in search of the Rare Books room (where we couldn't get any more medieval manuscripts, but did wander into a display of very cool marionettes)

Seeing the USS Constitution, a piece of the Berlin Wall, a brush fire, and a black crowned night heron on the Boston Duck Tour ("Abracadabra: quack, quack!")

Top 10 Reasons to Travel with a Baby

10. The gate attendants work really hard to help you and your husband get airplane seats next to together.

9. You can smuggle a bottle of souvenir jam among your liquid baby foods.

8. The security screeners will let you take water in a baby bottle (after they test it to make sure it's really water).

7. All sorts of people grin at the baby.

6. You make up for all the time you've neglected your baby at home by singing all her favorite songs OVER and OVER and OVER.

5. You invent new games, like "Head Bonk" (players lean towards each other, touch heads, and say 'Ba').

4. You don't get sucked into movies you don't want to watch when baby keeps stealing the headset.

3. You have an excuse to walk laps up and down the aisle.

2. Everybody next to you is astonished if the baby stays quiet.

1. You may get tired, frustrated, or embarrassed--but you're never bored!

I love my Alex. Old enough to ride his bike, young enough that his helmet looks twice as big as his head

The Sunny Hills

Last year Laramie's garden digging created two big mounds of dirt in front of our fence, which grew dandelions. Alex called them "The Sunny Hills," and climbed them every time we walked next door.

Today, while he was riding his bike in our driveway, Alex noticed the piles were gone. "Where are the sunny hills?" he asked, tears wobbling in his eyes. I explained to him that the sewer company had trucked them away last month, so we could park in that spot again. I tried to joke him out of it, but he just stood there, mouth drooping, then put his bike away and went inside, purportedly to do puzzles, probably to recover.

May the much-loved sunny hills live on, if only in memory. If only on this page.

Katherine's song

"Dive 'neath the cloak of the old gray ghost."

Sing to tune of "Glory, Glory Hallelujah"
Katherine says "the old gray ghost is fog."

Katherine coins a word

Twice as silly: "Twilly"

Book of Mormon excitement

Think the Book of Mormon battle scenes are boring? Try acting them out with Bolivian finger puppets!

Bannister

Camping

 
 
 

Alex and I went camping late in the day to Talapus Lake. I thought that we would get to the trailhead parking lot at dark... Not so; it turns out that the road is washed out two miles below the trailhead. So, starting at 9pm, we hiked 4.5 miles in the dark, and setup camp at midnight.

For breakfast we ate hot cocoa, cooked on a WhisperLight, and oatmeal cereal. Alex kept wanting to go higher, but I didn't think that he would make it very well, so we headed out at noon, and hitched a ride from the parking lot down to our car.

Note to self: The matches didn't work, so I had to borrow a lighter from some helpful scouts. Next time, pack a lighter. Also, I was thinking, on those times when a root would reach out in the dark, that a first aid kit would also be a good thing to pack.

By Definition

In Alex's words:

"It floats down deep."

"You have a tripod with one leg!"

"It's a double cherry with one pit."

Candy Experiments, Illustrated

Katherine was so excited about candy experiments this morning she decided to document it her own way. Here's her illustration, done in Microsoft Paint.

Famous

Since Family Fun magazine will be publishing a piece on our candy experiments in their October issue, we spent this afternoon getting photographed. Two photographers came to our house, (arriving early, before I'd changed and applied makeup--greeting the photographers in my clean-up clothes felt as weird as wearing pants to church). They lugged in all sorts of gear and spent half an hour just setting up light screens and positioning everything. Then they asked how long they'd have to photograph the kids--would their attention spans last more than half an hour? Ha, I wanted to say. You just watch.

Even though it turned out my job was pretty much to stay out of the way, I'm still recovering from the strain. Were Katherine and Alex listening to instructions to move closer together, stir their bowls, look at the camera (no, no, and no). Would I ruin a potentially brilliant shot if I ducked in to pour more water, lay out more bowls, wipe up spilled candy-water? Would I miss an important scientific discovery that I couldn't see from across the room? Would they ever get the lighting right? (The first half-hour of photos seemed to be discovery after discovery that the light was too dim). Would any of the shots work? Would they all work? Would they be so brilliant that my children's faces would be splashed across the web forevermore? Would this be a bad thing? Not to mention unquenchable concerns about the number of dishes I'd have to wash!

After an hour and a half of experiments (Alex managed to ruin my crowning achievement, a five-color density rainbow, by "helping" to pour), the experiments had been duly recorded and the photographers were ready to shoot a family photo. Photographing a herd of monkeys would have been easier! After so much prolonged concentration, my kids were ready to split, with Alex racing away after baseballs and Katherine hiding behind Laramie's back and in the wisteria. You would have thought they'd been eating all the candy they'd dissolved, they were that crazy. As for me, all those seasons watching America's Next Top Model helped me not at all--I could feel my smile straining (especially since I was wrestling to keep Rebecca in the picture). To top it off, it started to rain. Ah, Seattle. Maybe they can do one of those photo collages and paste our faces onto the bodies of people who are actually holding still.

At last it was all over. With Mom's help (she raced to the store for another pack of Skittles and stirred frantically while we were all posing for the family photo), Lar poured two more density rainbows with clear enough color striation that the photographer got a few pictures. ("Look, your tripod only has one leg," said Alex). Then they were gone.

But the kids weren't done yet. Katherine embarked on art projects, painting flowers onto paper towel with M&M color, while Alex (unwatched) dumped candy into his biggest bowl until the water level reached the top. There must be two pounds of M&Ms, Runts, Milky Ways, Snickers, Sweet Tarts, and Laffy Taffy still in there (he wouldn't let me dump it out). He calls it "candy soup." Goodbye, candy stash.

My dining room table is still sticky after three scrubs, I'm running my second load of dishes, entropy is overtaking my recently-spotless living room, and the rest of the house is a mess. But now we're famous. And I've learned a valuable lesson: I was never meant to be a model.

Polite

Today when Mom was handing Becca french fries, she swears Becca said "thank you" (at least "da-doo"). She heard it three times. We're sticking to this story, because not only does it mean we have a very polite baby, but it shows that we're a very polite family!

Three reasons to keep your legs shaved

1. You might be surprised by a record-breaking heat wave--28 days without rain.

2. You might end up slip-n-sliding at the Ensign Ranch when you thought you were going to be driving around clammy Boston.

3. You might be summoned to the summer's lowest low tide with only minutes to spare.

Vacuum Cleaner Saga

Problem: 11-year-old cheap vacuum starts smelling of burnt rubber.

Plan 1: Have Laramie research and buy me a new vacuum.
Reality: Life happens, but not vacuum shopping.

Plan 2: Have Laramie fix old vacuum.
Reality: Forget to update Laramie on the urgency of the situation. Life happens, but not vacuum repair.

Plan 3: Research and buy vacuum myself.
Reality: Consumer reports rates 73 vacuums; even their highly recommended vacuums have user feedback detailing major flaws. Give up in confusion and information overload.

Plan 4: Have vacuum cleaner repair store diagnose problem, decide if it's worth the money to fix it.
Reality: Vacuum repair store says that diagnosing any problem will take at least a week.

Plan 5: Fix vacuum myself.
Reality: Spent half an hour finding the right manual online, spent another half hour figuring out how to take the vacuum apart. Bought new belt and filter for $6. Installation successful.

Outcome: 11-year-old vacuum looking pretty good for now!

Vacuum Cleaner Survey

Do you have a vacuum cleaner that you love? Tell me all about it--what kind, how heavy, how loud, does it do stairs? We're more than ready to upgrade.

What we did on our "trip to Boston"

Stood in line at the Seattle airport for 2 hours

Camped at Ensign Ranch

Took the ferry to Vashon Island

Writing

For anybody who's interested, here's a list of my latest publications in ParentMap magazine:

Riding the Rails (June)
This one was fun to research, although I spent more than half my earnings on train tickets! Laramie was able to ride in the steam engine at the Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad, which he just loved.

Three Perfect Hikes for Kids (May)
This one was hard to research, since it rained so much in March. Luckily we had one sunny weekend, and rushed off to explore Wallace Falls. After this article came out, Mom walked into preschool and had people ask her "Did you know your husband was quoted in this magazine article?" She responded, "Yes, and my daughter wrote it!"

Why You Should Sing to your Baby (April)
I never stop singing, so the idea for this one was pretty obvious. I loved using my friends as sources; they have pretty impressive backgrounds. One thing I've learned from writing these articles is that almost anyone can be a source, and most of my acquaintances have expertise in something or other that I might find useful. So keep in touch, everybody--I may be calling you someday!

Kid Math

Katherine: "What's 100-64?"
Katherine: "What's one million minus two thousand?"
Katherine: "What's a house minus a box?"
Alex: "What's a house minus a mouse? Hey, it rhymes!"

Baby Words

"Hi!" That's what Rebecca started saying a week or two ago--at least it's close.

And her newest word: "up!"

Alex Planting

Becca Playing