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So we’re driving home from a morning at the tiny mall museum that is the natural history museum for Las Cruces NM and the kids are counting themselves lucky that the doctors office computers all crashed so they don’t have to have their immunizations after all. The baby is screaming and we have a conversation that goes like this.
Me: “Guess what Aidan…”
Aidan: “What?”
Me: “You should stop screaming.”
Aidan: “But I’m sad.”
So I hand him a bag of crickets which was what all the screaming was about anyhow and cringe as I look back and see them all floundering in a huge pile at the bottom of the smooth plastic bag scrambling for purchase on walls that they’ll never be able to climb. I feel for those crickets that I know are just going to be eaten in a few minutes by the ravenous lizards at home in our tank so I take the bag from his little hands and lay is horizontal on the car seat and watch the crickets climb onto the egg crate shards which allow them to keep from crushing one another. I crank up the radio and try to focus on the episode of This American Life I have on instead of the screaming which has started up again. I hear that little nagging voice in the back of my head that says I really ought to do something to help him feel happy as he’s only two after all and childhood is short, so I explain that we’ll go home and get food in ten minutes. He of course has no concept of time and still wants the crickets and keeps on screaming and it feels like a really long ten minutes.
Fast forward twenty minutes and we’re home and I’ve given them all cookies because I need to sit for a minute to recover from all the screaming before I tackle lunch and another segment of my day. I’m typing this and recalling a friend talking about how she ought to get a job because there is more emotional stability in that than being at home with little ones all day. I of course being me reminded her that we just need to find emotional stability while staying at home and learn to get a grip basically (I think that I said that all much more tactfully last night but I guess I can never be sure.) Well I think that I need to take my own advice get a grip and go and make lunch. Maybe I need to make a little sign to tape to the front of my fridge that won’t hold magnets because it’s stainless steel… You are happy, life is good, live it like you said you should.
I’ve just realized in the past couple of days that Aidan isn’t so hard to keep up with as he has been the past months. He’s not quite so volatile in his moods and quick to throw a tantrum. His “two’s” did start early so maybe it stands to reason that they’ll end early? I don’t know but whatever it is I’ll take it and give the desk I’m sitting at a solid knock just for good measure.
So this was 24 hours and not a morning to night day but given the level of busy around here this month I think that I’ll let that slide. **Note: this post is not for the squeamish so skip it if you are ***
The biggest event in our week and I daresay month has been Bo’s ankle surgery. Here he is at the doctors office with the splint or soft cast on. He wore this while he laid in bed for a week.
Ouch! They just put some steri-strips over it and left it like that inside the new cast. There are stitches under the skin so it’ll hold together but it still looks pretty gross in my book.
Here he is with a hard cast which he’ll wear for a month. We’re happy to have him out of bed and back with the family even if he still isn’t weight bearing and a bit gimpy. He wanted pink but I advised black. He’s a smart man and therefore took my advice ;0)
Two of the three kids just being kids. They’re happy and well for the most part. Aidan is two and so we have the requisite 5-10 tantrums a day and Victoria is 8 so she’s right about most everything. Chullain being 12 doesn’t want his pictures taken and lives to spend time with his friends.
One of my favorite pictures! The patio ought to be done on Friday and usable early next week. We were able to hire the rest of it done as gimpy hubby isn’t going to be much help the next 4 months or so and honestly we just really aren’t that good at laying flagstone patios. I can’t wait to get shrubs in and grass laid now that the weather is warming and the patio is going to be done. Hopefully you’ll get some more great yard pictures next month.
Pretty dog. Pretty dog that doesn’t smell bad. We love Ruca.
You know the feeling when you take the stinky dog to the groomer (you know, the one you won’t touch because then your hand smells or she might lick you and her breath is worse than 5 day old road kill) and then you get her back and reminisce about the cuddly wonderful puppy that she was because she now has a bow on her collar and is soft and smells great? That fabulous feeling of ease that comes right in the few minutes after you leave the groomer and drive home with said perfect dog is what I’m talking about. Well, I need to have the feeling about my house and my children right about now.
I have been sick and Bo hasn’t left our bedroom since Wednesday when we brought him home. My Dad came to visit and ordain Chullain and so I did my best to entertain through the drug/fever induced haze that is the recovery for strep and did a lot of cooking and not so much cleaning. I don’t recall when the kids had a bath last and though they don’t smell I’m pretty sure they need a good scrubbing. I went to make oatmeal this morning (because I can’t stand another mouthful of yogurt at the moment) and realized that I had only one pot clean enough to do the job and so the kitchen apparently needs a good grooming as well. Because I wanted to entertain my Dad and my child we went for a walk yesterday and I noticed dog poop in the FRONT yard (ewww, I know… ) and so apparently the outisde of the house needs grooming too. I got out of bed this morning wondering why my toe was pained and realized it was because my toe nail was poking into (I took care of that grooming right away you can be assured). I don’t want to think of the grooming that needs to be done to the stack of bills/receipts and other things that fall into that category as it’s Bo’s job and he’s been laid up.
Anyhow, this Presidents day we will get our house in order. We will ignore the compelling sunshine streaming through the windows and the majestic mountains that are screaming my name after I have been laid up these past days and we will do our due diligence and live providently and all that. So on that note I am off to put my oatmeal into boiling water, snag a bite of the Valentines Chocolate and be responsible as our forefathers must have certainly intended each citizen to be.
As I mentioned prior I have been painting. Here is a shot of the living room color and you can see the shelving for our DVD’s that Bo built as well. I LOVE it! I need to get motivated and start the next color though. It seems that motivation to paint doesn’t come to me until I’ve started and see some progress and thus you can imagine that now that one section is done it’s hard to get the motivation to start the next…
Aidan’s “big boy” bed. He likes to get under it but doesn’t care that much for sleeping in it. Of course if you let him get tired enough he’ll sleep most anywhere so that’s been our strategy of late as I don’t like the routine that includes putting him in bed 30 or so times a night and there’s isn’t a lock on his door (just kidding on the last one.)
Victoria’s new bedroom furniture. As you can tell we didn’t get past the buying and setting up furniture part of things but that will come with time. Given our current rate of progress the kids rooms ought to be done by the time that they get ready to move out assuming that we stay here that long, lol. They don’t seem to mind though. We don’t see them nearly as often now that we’ve put nicer furniture in their rooms. I guess that we won’t get Aidan anymore cool furniture because after all this work bearing and rearing the children we’d like to have at least one of them around to hang out with.
The first shot is hard to get any details out of because of the blinding quality of the lizard set up. You get a true sense of what his room is like though. There is one bright spot that is the lizards and one dark spot that is the cave that he’s made under his loft bed. He says that it’s pretty hot up there and I believe it as the hot air from the lizard tank rises (as well as the stench I’d imagine, yeah plug in oil diffusers). He loves being up high and having a clean room. The first time I got in there with him and cleaned it he was quite skeptical as to how having it truly clean could really benefit him but after a few hours the benefits were clear to him and he thanked me and now is being great about keeping it cleaned up. I guess not having to walk over garbage to get to bed can have it’s advantages.
As promised BIG HAIR! Gotta love winter, ugly fur pillows and the power of static electricity.
the problem with the way the feed was showing up in google reader should be fixed. again. probably.
The camera was right where I put it in the cupboard for safe keeping!! I guess I kept it so safe that it was lost. Here’s the photo update.
Chullain earned his 1st rank advancement in scouts! He put the pin on my sweater and I didn’t even flinch. Yeah us!
The clouds were amazing on this day. I am not the best photographer but there were clouds below the mountains and clouds above them. I love having something new and interesting to look at out my back windows almost every day of the winter.
This picture doesn’t do it justice but the moon was so huge when it rose that it seemingly filled the space in-between the mountains.
B-O-O-T-S, Boots!!
I still haven’t found the camera charger for the camera I normally use AND I have misplaced the camera that I have been using in the interim. On the upside the camera without a charger had enough juice for me to get the photos off (most of which I might add are boring photos of bedroom furniture we were selling… ) I did get one good picture off that we took about two weeks ago when it snowed. Today it’s raining and I wish it was snowing instead because it’s cold and too nasty to get out either way but at least with the snow I can gaze out the window at it and reminisce about my youth.
I wrote this yesterday and it sums up my current perspective on child rearing:
“The things you might well miss the most are the ones you forget to capture in the quite moments of recognition that happen during everyday living.”
That is pretty much how it is every day. Too many things to do, too many messes to clean, to many fires to put out, etc. I’m working in just sitting and playing and being still but it’s against my nature and I have to work at it. I am happy for the times that I do though.
Update: One week from today is surgery day. We have bought 100’s of $’s of groceries in the past few days so that we don’t have to run to the store afterward. I am sick, sick, sick of grocery stores. We have put up new furniture in every one of the kids rooms in the last 3 weeks. I’ll take photos to show you all once the kids finish cleaning up said rooms. I finished painting the accent walls in the living rooms yesterday so I’ll take photos of that as well. Today I buy more paint. Yes, you can paint a house every day for a year and not be finished I believe! Victoria was sick but now is pretty much better. Chullain was bad and now is no longer punished. Aidan made a mess and still continues to make messes… Hmm, too bad that last situation wasn’t remedied like the others. Bo and I were on a diet and doing really well. Now Bo is on a diet and doing really well and I cheat and loose weight slowly (but I’m ok with that as I like cake quite a bit.)