Hiding out

The cupboards are bare, the bathrooms cleaned of anything you put in your mouth, the decks cleared… it doesn’t look the same. After the girls go to bed I have to bag up the food in the fridge and freezer and finish the piles of laundry. Tomorrow we pull the covers off the mattresses, chase down the cat, load up the car and get our butts up to the mountain. While we’re away big tarps, big clamps, big guys running all over the house, packaging up our home like a circus inspired present. We’ll come back to a home free of (living) termites.

I’ll be incommunicado for the next couple of days; going to a cabin without cable or internet. For entertainment we’ll walk through the forest; for communication we’ll talk face to face… it’ll be a nice and needed break for all of us. Have a great week!

Six months old

Dear Anya,

This month you’ve been working really hard. You’ve gotten really good at staying in a sitting position without falling over. Of course, with your sister pushing you over on a regular basis, you’re not getting as much practice as one would hope. You’re on the verge of figuring out how to get into that position on your own and then it’ll be a free for all with you dragging yourself up to sitting and then Lily gleefully pushing you over. For some reason yelling, “STOP!” at your sister has no effect whatsoever, so I might actually have to get up to keep her from trouncing you. At least you’ll be buff by the time you can attack back… she’s making you work for every last step.

You’re also making amazing strides in crawling and before I know it, I’ll have two monsters to chase. Yesterday, Lily made it all the way out to the car (which was parked on the far end of the parking lot) before I realized she was missing. I can just see where this is going once you get seriously mobile. Lily will be making her hourly trip to the car and you’ll be cruising down the canyon to go find the coyotes. Wait, it’s more likely that Lily will be feeding you to the coyotes while I yell, “STOP!” ineffectually from the top of the hill.

It’s not that your big sis doesn’t love you… she just loves you so hard. The other day I mentioned that I needed to go get your jammies and get you ready for bed. Lily ran off to the bedroom and was back with a clean, warm pair of jammies before I knew what hit me. I praised her for helping and she pushed me out of the way, insisting that she could change your diaper and get you ready for bed on her own. I think she wants to be your mama and is having a hard time accepting that the role is already filled. At least she’s making sure I don’t leave you at the park or anything. “Where’s Anya!?” She’ll holler if she doesn’t happen to notice you ridding on my hip as we make our way out to the car. So you see, she does love you. Remember that when she’s trying to control your life and you want to push her over.

I am learning to sleep with your breath on my face. It used to be that I could put you in the open crib pushed up to our bed and you’d sleep silently there for a few hours, waking after midnight for num nums. The minute that I put you away from me at night now, you wake and brush your face back and forth on the sheets, searching for my skin, mouth open and needy. I can still get you to sleep in the cradle upstairs, but within the month you’ll have this sitting thing mastered and it won’t be safe to stick you in the cradle anymore. And while I long for those hours of sleep, free of skin to skin contact, I am in love with the look of your face as it turns to me in the middle of the night. Your round moon cheeks, perfect rose mouth, insanely long eyelashes and paper thin eyelids are a map I can trace perfectly, knowing every turn and every warm flush. Last night I stared at you for what felt like an hour, just watching your mouth work in num num dreams and your little hands flutter up next to your face, startled by some unknown worry. It is true poetry to watch your own child sleep. It makes your heart ache in ways you could never imagine. You and Lily, you made me a better person. You opened up my heart and made me care about what happens next. You both taught me how to savor a moment. You taught me how to fall in love a thousand times a day. You taught me that there is nothing more perfect than a curl of hair around a toddler’s ear or the curve of your hand as it reaches for my face.

Thank you for sticking around this long. I can’t wait to see what the second half of your first year will bring.

All my love,
Mama

Pick one: me or the junk

We’ve had a pile of junk in our parking lot for a year and a half and yesterday I looked at it, looked at Mark, looked at it, and looked at Mark, and well… kinda snapped. We’re having our big Solstice Party on the 18th and it occurred to me that there was no way in hell Mark could make it go away by then. And I don’t know about you, but when I throw a party I’m not so keen on having a pile of deck debris – complete with rusty nails sticking outta it – available for kids to play on.

“I want it gone by the 18th.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“It will if I say it will.”
“Honey, I don’t have the time to make 500 trips to the dump.”
“Fine, you don’t have to do it then, but I’m going to need the check book.”
“Uh… ok?”

I looked up 1-800-GOT-JUNK and discovered you can book a junk removal online. Brilliant. And hey look! If you pick a preferred time slot (which was the next day) then you get $10 off. Weeeeeee! I booked that bitch. And right now, I’m sitting here eating toasted pumpkin bread while three strapping young men are making it all go away. Is it costly? Yep. Is it worth it? Hell yes. I’d like to stay married to my husband and if this is one of the ways to do it, just tell me who to make the check out to.

As promised

Photos of my girly "crawling":

Mobile

Anya has just about figured it out. She gets up on all fours (hands and toes, that is) and then lurches herself in the general direction she wishes to travel. In this fashion she throws herself across the floor, making remarkable distance in a surprisingly short time. It’s messy, but it’s official: she’s mobile.

Apparently she’s not going to sleep for more than 15-20 minutes until she has this crawling thing mastered. Right now she’s in her cradle, rocking back and forth, still working on it despite the fact that she is so tired she’s moaning. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad. Last night she wiggled and woke and thrashed and basically made it very clear that a milestone was coming… oh yes, it is coming. I’m exhausted and yet, I’m feeling petty excited for her. I even called Mark at work to demand he revel where he hid the video camera. I took a billion photos of this monster lurch and if she falls asleep, I’ll get them loaded to flikr and share ‘em.

I’m also hoping to show you just how white and boring Coronado is. What’s Coronado? It’s a little peninsula community that insists on calling itself an island and has homes that start around a million dollars. EACH. It’s where Mark does the majority of his residential carpentry. He keeps trying to price himself out of jobs he doesn’t really want to do and the crazy people keep saying OK. As though paying over $7k for custom closets is no big deal. Freaks. In any event, they do have nice parks over there so we went on over today to let Lily play and then pick up Mark for lunch. While there I discovered what could only be fresh graffiti. In very neat and nice handwriting it read: “poop”. Did I take a picture? You can bet your sweet “posterior” I did:



In the meantime someone go listen to my audio post from Thanksgiving. Not one comment and I thought it was darn funny. VALIDATE ME, DAMMIT.

Thankful for being OUT of the car

Just back from dinner with the family and the food and company couldn’t have been better. The girls were showered with praise and nobody actually ate them up (thank goodness for the piles of food scattered about the table, otherwise I’m sure they would have been lost). Once again I failed to get photos of my babes with my grandfather and for that I shall be flogged repeatedly.

The drive back was EVIL. On the way up the little one fussed quite a bit but she didn’t really put her whole heart into it. She made up for it on the way back. She screamed (not cried or fussed, but screamed) for about forty minutes when I finally demanded that Mark pull over so I could stuff a boob in her mouth. She settled down for all of thirty seconds after nursing and once we got back on the freeway was back to full strength. About twenty minutes later Lily announced that she had to pee. We pulled off the road and while Mark took Lily to pee in the bushes I changed Anya’s diaper, put her into soft warm jammies and she rewarded me with a monster burp. “AH HA!” I foolishly think. About three beautiful though painfully short minutes later, she was screaming again. About twenty minutes from home I chuck the nice soothing music we had on and throw a little Ani DiFranco in the player and crank it up. Silence.

FOR ABOUT THREE FREAKING SECONDS! And then we were back to the screaming. I was less than thankful. And I know what you’re thinking: did I check for spikes and acid pools in the car seat? YES! I totally did. Not one drop of acid or a single spike. Seriously. I looked HARD. She just hates me. Or the car. I don’t want to talk about it.

But ahhhhh, home; I love home. Lily went straight to bed without the slightest fuss and Anya is rolling around trying not to go to sleep. I am forced to sit and think about what I am thankful for since everyone else is doing it and I’m a joiner. I am thankful for so many things. But I think this pretty much sums it up for me:



Hope you all had a blast and ate way too much pie.

Bear sings...

..."You are my Sunshine" on low batteries; cracks up mama... freaks out child. Click on bear to hear my giggled audio post from thanksgiving dinner.

Superhero name

Mark has dubbed me “The Sampler.” Marty brought us a box of chocolates and my husband discovered that I had sampled a bunch of them, returning those to the box with nuts or bit that just didn’t belong. Luckily, Mark will eat anything covered with chocolate… hell, it could be cardboard, as long as there's a smear of chocolate covering it, he’s down. So he really doesn’t care that I’ve bitten and then BLAH!-ed the chocolates back into the box. And yes, this is probably a big part of the reason he never brings me chocolates; he just knows better.

Get this: turns out Mark already had a superhero name, I just didn’t know about it. The guys in the theatre scene shop he used to work with call him “The Eyeball.” Seriously. Wanna know why? ‘Cause he can look at anything and eyeball length, level, distance… that kind of thing. I look at the distance from here to there and go, “I donno: five feet? Fifty feet? Here to the moon? Gah, go away!” We seem to be a good match. I’m willing to sample things and he can tell me how far it is from here to the hospital.

Now we just have to figure out what the girls special talents are. So far I’m going with “The Whiner” for Lily and “The Wiggler” for Anya. I’m betting they’ll evolve. GAH! I HOPE they evolve.

What's your superhero name?

Tis the season

I suckered Lily into a nap yesterday by taking her to the park – where she actually played with other kids rather than drag me around from swing to slide – then driving around randomly until she passed out. If anyone was following me they must have thought I was on crack. I do have to say that you gotta love that there is a place where we can legally tie our children down and refuse to let them move about the cabin freely. Anyway, our house is set way of from the road and has zero curb appeal. As in, you cannot see the house from the curb. Wait, we don’t actually have a curb… just a place where the assault meets the weeds. Think rural (yet within sniper distance o a major freeway) and you got us. All this to say, I left her sleeping in the car and went inside to eat chips and guacamole and watch Desperate Housewives on DVD. Now that’s the good life.

Not sure what I’ll have to do to get her down today, but I’m fairly certain I’ll loose. You see, Marty is coming to visit. Marty is my husband’s mother’s best friend from High School. Got that? She’s in town to see her parents for Thanksgiving and will be stopping by this afternoon to meet the babies and see our little slice of domesticity. Nobody can sleep when Marty is around. She’s likely to work Lily into such a frenzy we’ll be lucky if she EVER sleeps again. I’ve been fighting between cleaning up to try to impress and just letting it all hang out there. We’ve settled somewhere in between and THAT my friends is why I’m sitting here at the computer rather than scrubbing something.

Tomorrow, Lily goes and hangs out with my mom while she shops and cooks. Hopefully she’ll behave brilliantly and even take a nap so my moms head doesn’t explode. Thursday we all pile in the car and take the 1.5 hour trip up to see my Grandpa and assorted friends/family. This is his first holiday without Grandma and while there is usually a small battle about which side of the family we should visit, the decision seemed obvious. Christmas will still be a vicious battle of rock-paper-scissors, but at least this one was a no-brainer. Dinner is at 2:30. In my world we call that LUNCH, but it actually works out perfectly considering we have to drive home with two kids after. And at least it’s not likely to be overly exciting for the Lilster.

I’m just glad nobody expects me to cook anything this year.

OH, and if you need a good laugh, this had me all a-giggle.

Aww, hell

The big one has given up naps.

Night Out

Mark and I left the girls with a friend on Friday night and went to go see The Frankenstein Project at Sledge. I didn’t expect it to feel so good to be in my old theatre again and thought the old haunted funeral chapel would revel to me my own ghosts from my life before kids. We stood outside waiting for the doors to open while listening to a man very confidently tell his date about the history of the theatre. He got it all wrong and I couldn’t help but giggle into my sleeve. Inside we found seats and I excused myself from Mark, Nate and Sandy to go use the restroom. Should I use the haunted one or the one I’d likely get locked into? I took my chances with the haunted. In the lobby I ran into the director and her three-month-old daughter and we stood gabbing about babies, catching up since we so rarely see each other. She’s one of the few women I know who can direct a show she wrote while nursing a baby in rehearsals. The acting was stellar, the directing clean and imaginative, the work… it made me nostalgic for that life of creation. A Sledgehammer show isn’t designed to make you like it, rather to keep you thinking for days. Liking it is just a bonus.

Our friend Jo, who was watching the girls, had encouraged us to go out after and so we all went to enjoy cake and hot mulled cider at a local shop, laughing and talking and just enjoying our friends. We got home just before midnight to two sleeping children and a report of only about 20 minutes of screaming from the tiny one.

We’ll only get one more chance to see a performance in that space. The building is being torn down at the end of the year, making way for condos; a crumble of debris where a chapter of my life once stood. The theatre will go back to its roots as a site-specific troupe. I am excited for what they will produce, even in my sorrow for a theatre space filled with memories where several companies were born and even Whoopi Goldberg got her start. Sometimes “progress” sucks.

From Richard III


From The Devil’s River

Big

This morning I lay in bed with Anya (the fidget queen, btw) and watched Lily’s shadow run across the deck, mere moments after she had woken up. She was looking for Mark and when he went upstairs to meet her, she took him by the hand and led him into her room. I listed over the intercom as she told her dad, “Look, bed no wet!” She has finally done it. She went a whole night without an accident! We’ve been letting her sleep without a diaper for weeks, but this was the first time she made it though dry. I’m super proud, yo.

And boy does she love her underwear. We went out to our favorite pizza joint tonight and she told me that she had to go pee. I hustle her in there and she tries to pull down her underwear but hit a little snag. Yeah, it’s hard to get those panties down when you’re wearing FIVE PAIRS. She’s been doing this with socks, too. But with those, she doesn’t usually get out of the house since she can’t get her shoes on over all that bulk. Tonight in a dress, we had no idea she had loaded up on the “runners.”

In any event, she’s asleep now, hopefully to have another dry night. I have faith; after all, she’s cuddled up with a bag of baby carrots and a hair clip so really, what could go wrong?

Love that

A couple of weeks ago Lily discovered a set of mugs and a selection of tea while hanging out at Grandma's house. She immediately started serving my mom. When my grandmother died, my mom found one of the tiny tea sets from her childhood and has been allowing Lily to play with it when she visits at her house. This freaks me out; I’m worried she’ll break it. I guess mom is willing to take that risk.

In any event, we found a little set for cheap at Ikea the other day. I think I’ve had about 100 cups of tea since then. Anya’s had tea, Mark’s had tea, even the dog has been served.

“Wan sum?” she asks with a tea and saucer in her hand, eyebrows going up for her sweet little question.
“I’d be delighted!” I reply, while she dances the tea pot around with a happy little tune issuing from her lips.
“Cream?”
I nod my agreement. My claim of “Ummmm! Chai, my favorite!” is met with ecstatic giggles and a rush to get me some more. She even asks me if I want Chai or peppermint now (the answer is Chai, it’s always Chai).

Later in the day she takes my face in her hands, stroking my cheeks softly and waiting until I'm looking her solidly in the eye.
“I miss you.” She whispers in a sincere tone. “I miss you, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you…” this goes on and on. I feel my eyes well up a bit and try to figure out what she means. And then I hear it. The tone and cadence of her speech is “I love you.” I laugh softly and circle my arms around her.
“I love you, too!”
“No Mommy. I miss you.”
“OK, babe. I miss you, too.”
“Tea?”
“You bet.”
“Chai?”
“Absolutely.”
And she’s off to fix me the best cup of Chai this mama will ever drink.

My daughter is styling

Lily is in self dependence mode and for the most part, it’s damn funny. I’m mostly referring to her clothing choices. At the moment she’s wearing an orange tank top, stripped pants in purples and pinks and the craziest socks you ever done seen. These bad boys are a mishmash of reds, yellows, blues and the toes: the toes are green. We’re not talking about that nice calming forest green or even something reminiscent of the sea and bridesmaid dresses. This is in-your-face-green. It’s the crayon-that-freaks-you-out-green. All in all, the outfit is awesome.

Although she isn’t currently wearing any shoes, when she does they are often on backwards: right for left and left for right. People are constantly pointing it out to me and all I can do is nod and tell them I know. This is where I can usually figure out if they have kids or not: those with will smile and go on; those without look at me with a puzzled expression wondering how a mother could allow her kid to walk around so obviously wrong.

I wish I could dress like that some days, throwing all the color and patterns I want onto my body. I’d be a virtual palette but not for one of your mama’s paintings. Nope, I’d be modern art. People would look at me and say, “What the hell was she thinking?” or “Poor dear must be color blind” or even just sum it up eloquently with a, “DAMN, girl!”

I don’t know how I became this responsible adult with people who depend on me 24/7. Sometimes I look at the girls playing together on the floor and wonder when their mother is going to show up and take them home. It’s like the time Mark and I walked into the first home we ever owned and it was raining in the living room. I reached for the phone to call the landlord and then froze, realizing I was the freaking landlord. I guess it’s their time to wear wild clothes and my time to be boring.

Just not too boring, ‘cause DAMN, girl, I gotta have me a little fun.

Written for Mama Says Om

Big Girl

Mark took apart Lily’s crib today and we threw a mattress on her floor. She’d been sleeping in the guest bed and was digging the big bed option so we figured it was time. Especially now that she’s not wearing diapers at night; kinda hard to get to the toilet when you have to scale bars. We also emptied her room of all cloth diapers, covers and assorted perihelia. Yesterday her room was that of a baby and today… she’s a kid. She’s not really even a toddler anymore. There’s nothing “toddling” about her. She is adventurous, has a sense of humor, speaks in full sentences and can tell you what she thinks about the world, dances beautifully, is particular, opinionated, amazing! She’s recently picked up my, “Oh, nice!” line and uses it correctly, almost always resulting in smothered giggles from me and Mark. Today she told me that she wanted to eat up her sister and then proceeded to lick and “chomp” at her, declaring, “ummmm, nummy!”

She’s so big.

And I couldn’t be more excited.



PS If anyone knows where I can find her some kick ass bed sets (no characters, not too feminine, funky, fun... that kind of thing), let me know. I'm on the prowl.

Longies

Anya has her first pair of knit longies and OMG are they cute. I got them from Hayes at BaJo Boutique and she threw in a little orange cap to go with. For those of you not in the cloth diaper set, longies are knit pants that go over a cloth diaper and act as both pants and diaper cover (keeps the wet from getting ya). They are cool and comfortable and these ones are brilliantly adorable. Click on the photo of Anya below to get a few more images of my styling girly pants.

Runners

We’re doing great on the potty learning front. Lily has been diaper free since we’ve been back from our trip except for a couple of choice moments. She has an accident every couple of days and night time is still really hard. But she is so determined not to wear diapers that we haven’t had the heart to insist and would rather just change her sheets if need be. Her greatest nemesis is pure joy: when she sees something that makes her very happy, or she’s dancing, or concentrating on something particularly enjoyable, it’s really difficult for her to remember that she’s not able to pee freely. Just last Thursday she wanted to go on one of the trains they have at the mall where you put in gobs of quarters for 30 seconds of noise and random movement and in the midst of me saying, “you can sit on it but I’m not throwing money into that thing” she suddenly clutched at herself and peed all over the place. And wailed. She really doesn’t like peeing on herself.

Pooping is still a challenge and she’d rather put on a diaper, find a quiet corner, put her head down and make it happen. ALONE. Seriously, get away. Tonight she surprised us by announcing that she’d be pooping with Daddy and went marching in to use the little potty while Mark sat pooping on the big one. And she did it! Then she went into the living room, started playing with her sister and suddenly had to run back in to finish the job, glancing down to exclaim, “hey, there’s poop in my runners!” What are runners, you ask? What, isn’t it obvious? Runners are underwear. Right, the connection is so freaking clear. I just heard her making noise in her room and went to check on her. She insisted that she did not have to pee but didn’t resist me at all when I scooped her up from the bed and put her on the potty. She tinkled while resting her head on my shoulder and hugging my neck and when she was done, I popped her back into bed already asleep. Score.

And now I’m going to tell you one of the greatest truths about parenting: before you had kids you couldn’t have cared less about poop or pee that wasn’t your own. Now? Now it is ALL YOU CAN THINK ABOUT. Bodily fluids are part of your every day discussions. Diapers (or lack thereof) are something you must consider every day as you get ready to leave the house. But you know what? When your child looks up at you from a tiny little potty and gives you a huge grin as you hear her pee hit the plastic… you just feel so proud and so sad and so overwhelmed and like the world will never be the same again. Tonight I am melancholy and morose. But my baby is a big girl and somehow, we haven’t screwed her up.

Yet.

NEW!

We tend to binge around here, not buying anything for months and then spewing our money around on lusted after objects all in one fell swoop. In this manor we spend just as much as the average bear (at least as much as a bear in our similar social/economic class); we just do it with wild, giddy, somewhat maniacal laughter and big spender eyes. It really is more fun this way.

In any event, we got ourselves a DVR. Now all that angst over show loyalty can go right out the window. And commercials: commercials be damned. That’s right shameless advertisers: go on now, go walk out the door, just turn around now, 'cause you're not welcome anymore.

Guess what else I got? This sweet ass little number:



The easel comes with four brushes, a set of oil paints, acrylics, water colors AND a palette so I can look French. Do I know what to do with oil paints? Nope. Do I have a clue how to use acrylics? God, no. What about water colors? AH HA! Those I know how to use. And I bet you’re wondering how much I paid for this fabulous little ensemble: twenty five bucks. SERIOUSLY! I’ve actually wanted to try oils for awhile but didn’t have the funds for supplies or the time for a class. At that price, I can just screw around and see what happens.

And finally, we made one really big purchase: we’re getting the house tented for termites. We decided, in our infinite wisdom, to do this before the house fell down. It’s actually providing us with the opportunity to run off to my Uncle’s cabin in the woods for a couple of days. His “cabin” is like 2,500 square feet, located on several acres of forest, is only a few miles from an amazing observatory and is outfitted with all the comforts of home. Dude, let’s get the house gassed every year!

Hot damn, it’s a good day.

These boots are made for walking

For years, Mark and I have been talking about doing the MS walk together. His mom suffers from multiple sclerosis and when we saw her during our road trip she was just coming off of another relapse. Parts of her were still numb, others were in extreme pain and her hearing and vision were still making things a little harder than they normally are. In the past, relapses have landed her in the hospital so I was thrilled to see she was in remarkable spirits, joking and holding her granddaughters, making meals, sitting and talking with us about everything. If you didn’t know her, you’d have no idea she was having trouble at all. She’s really remarkable. I feel very fortunate to have this woman in my life and know I hit the jackpot when it comes to mother-in-laws.

So this year, we’re finally going to do the walk together and I’m feeling really good about it. My body, on the other hand, thinks I’m funny. I took the girls to the zoo yesterday and hiked all over the place, never without a child in my sling. Lily’s been super clingy lately and at one point I had to put Anya in the stroller and sling my almost 30 pound toddler. At first she leaned into me, circling her sweet arms around my neck and resting her head on my shoulder, thumb tucked firmly into her round mouth. Before long though she realized the sling meant she didn’t have to hang on and so she leaned back, bounced around and tried to KILL ME. Thank goodness she’s old enough to threaten and I was able to make it clear she had two choices: hold on or get off this ride.

We wandered around for four hours and by the time we hit the children’s zoo, Lily was done. And so was I, to be honest. So far my legs are not being evil to me this morning and I’m hoping they will continue to be kind. I’ve also realized that if I do want to do this walk come April, I better spend a whole lot more time at the zoo.

In any event, I’m going to urge you all to check out MS Walks or support in your area. This disease sucks serious ass; so many of them do, really. But this is the one that is near and dear to our hearts so come and walk with us. One of these days we’re gonna bitch slap MS and wouldn’t it be great to say you were part of that movement?

About multiple sclerosis.

Growth

Remember my post about my little container garden? Look what it’s done!


The basil and chives are going insane, the peppers are all happy and budding like crazy and the pumpkin is going to have to be moved to a place where it can sprawl because OMG it’s going all over the place. And I caught this little dude pollinating my pumpkin, so it looks like we may actually get one! I know, my timing is totally off and all, but who knows what could happen. Seriously. What could happen? I’m ASKING here.

The garden’s not the only thing growing around here. Look who is sitting up!



She can’t get into that position on her own but now, if you set her down like that and walk away, she won’t fall down right away! If she lunges for a toy or sneezes or the moon goes all “woogie woogie” then she’s over in a heart beat, but for a while she’ll make you think she’s all styling with her sitting up brilliance. Crawling comes next and won’t THAT be fun!

Lily is doing really well with the potty business. She’s had a bit of a set back this weekend but I thinking it’s because she’s been ill. Poor thing is all vomity and poopy and all “hold me, I’m a MESS!” So I guess she really shouldn’t be under a post about growth, but I didn’t want her to be left out. Even covered in her own sick she’s outrageously cute. And I love her big brown eyes.

OH, and Mark made Lily a tree swing! Which has turned her into even more of a whiny brat with the “swing swing swing swing swing swing” moan that does not stop. But at least while on it and someone is pushing her (incessantly) she’s happy.

And yes, I’m all hopped up on sugar. And I need to go to bed. Seriously.

Proof I got my title right!

I am 39% Hippie.

I need to step away from the tie-dye. I smell too good to be a hippie and my dad is probably a cop. Being a hippie is not a fashion craze, man. It was a way of life, in the 60’s, man.

Take the
Hippie Test
@ FualiDotCom

GAH!

"Did you order a wake up call?"
"We have children; we’re on the list FOREVER."
"Next time, get the one that isn’t so loud and without all those crazy flailing limbs."

Road Trip

I finally have some time to write about the trip so will see what I can bang out before Lily starts vomiting again or Anya wakes up and starts complaining about the whole teething thing. Yeah, it’s been really fun around here today, so bear with me! If I’m really lucky, this post will have all sorts of links taking you to spiffy pop up photos. Cross your fingers.

Anya and I started out this trip by flying to Colorado to visit with Allison Anya was great on her first plane ride and I only had to cry and yell once when they overbooked my second flight and tried to tell me we wouldn’t be leaving Phoenix until the next afternoon. Low and behold, we arrived as scheduled. We spent four days at Allison’s and I can say with certainty that Colorado is a beautiful place and Allison is an amazing mama. Her kids are beautiful and silly and I really want to eat them up. Even her husband was fun to sit around with while making fun of the television (my idea of a really good time, btw). I got to visit some other friends in a nearby town and loved romping around with the gals and their kids. Anya ended up with something nasty in her eye while there and I had to hold her down while Corey squirted it with saline solution. She was rather pissed off at me for that one but could open her eye after that bit, so I was rather thrilled it didn’t result in a trip to a doctor. After a trip with Allison and Eden to Ouray to check out the hot springs, Anya got good and sick and kept me up all night throwing up on me. Weeeeee! Parenting is fun!

From Colorado Anya and I flew to San Francisco where we were picked up by Mark, Lily and our friend Allyn. Mark had spent three days traveling up the coast with Lily and the dog and was so starved for adult conversation he didn’t stop talking for the next hour. Anya kept staring up at him and grinning happily, so I’m guessing she missed her daddy as well. And Lily gave me the biggest, tightest hug possible while strapped into a car seat, so I felt loved. A couple of days with Allyn and Erich while Allyn sewed up some dresses for Lily (the monkey dress was a HUGE hit) and then on to visit with Mark’s Grandfather. We also got a chance to meet Jenny from Three Kid Circus and had a blast at a local Orff Music class she invited us to attend. Lily dug it big time and jumped and clapped and danced and shook her maracas with great conviction.

We went north from there, spending a few days with Mark’s brother Steve and then up to Mark’s moms for the weekend. The town they live in closes down Main Street on Halloween and all the preschoolers get to run wild demanding candy and laller lallering in circles. Lily was confused about the whole set up but loved her Halloween costume (pumpkin) enough to trudge along in the heat putting goodies in her bag. Anya was also a pumpkin but spent the trick-or-treat fiesta sleeping snuggly in the sling, so we didn’t get the full two-pumpkin effect. Ah well, it’s all good.

On Tuesday we hopped back into the car and drove south until we ran into my brother. We got to see his new home which already has a swing set in the back yard from the previous owners. Lily looked through the living room window and yelled, “A PARK!” and then ran around in circles demanding “SWING!” until we took her out back and let her have at. We had planned to head for home that evening but Lily was having so much fun with her Uncle Matt and Cousin Liam that we stayed until morning. Wednesday we finally made our way home. I love home. Photos are up at Flickr. Click the photo below to take you to the album.

Back

There is so much I could say about the trip but I am so tired. So I will give you a collection of random thoughts after two weeks on the road with the whole family (dog included).

The pile of clothes to wash is frightening me.
Mark forgot to clean out the fridge or take out the trash before he left so I had to throw away stinky-icky-there’s-my-gag-reflex stuff.
I have no (edible) food in the fridge.
Thank goodness for pasta and canned sauce.
My house rocks.
My cat is climbing me for affection.
I have over 300 photos to figure out what to do with.
I need to write for Mama Says Om and I have too many ideas and not enough energy to share them.
I missed writing Anay’s 5-month update.
Was that a small earthquake?
I already miss my nephew (and I saw him this morning).
I am trying to learn to love wine; it seems like it would be such a great tool.
Lily getting out of bed again, the little stinker.
I actually said this while firing up the computer upon return, “come on baby, give it to me.”
I LOVE high speed wireless intenet.
The pasta is just about ready and I must eat before I start hurting innocent bystanders.
Kisses to my blogging posse. I promise more later.