You Can't Rush Art

Yesterday I took Sweet Pea and The Bug to the community center for a "messy art" class I had signed Sweet Pea up for. As you can imagine, the theme right now is Christmas. The class is called "Tinsel Time." ha ha!

This is actually the first class of any sort Sweet Pea has ever attended so it was interesting to see her in that setting. Made me really want to get off my butt and look into Montessori, because if regular school is anything like what I witnessed yesterday, they would take my focused child and MAKE her have the attention span of an MTV junkie. But she had a lot of fun.

The first activity of the 45-minute class was story time. The teacher had the kids gather 'round on the floor and she read a book to them. I had to all but push Sweet Pea over to the group of kids because she didn't know anything about sitting in a bunch to hear a story read. What? I should take my child to the library, you say? hee hee. Once sitting down she was very interested in the story and looked at the pictures and listened attentively, but every so often would turn around, make eye contact with me and mouth "Mama," to make sure I was nearby.

After story time the teacher told the kids what to collect from the table and then they took their supplies and went to sit down at a lower activity table. The supplies were a large pinecone each, hot glued to a sturdy piece of card stock, a small paper cup containing glue, and a tongue depressor. Then the teacher came around and put a tray of beads and other sparkly things on each table and gave each child a tiny paper cup overflowing with some sort of foamy stuff. They were supposed to mix the glue and the foamy stuff and then wipe the result all over the poor unsuspecting pine cone. Sweet Pea stopped mixing when she got a little foam on her hand and wanted me to do the messy part. ha ha!

Anyway, we finally got around to the part where she could stick the beads, etc. on the foam to decorate her "tree." Sweet Pea took great care in her selection of decorations and was so incredibly focused that I thought she couldn't hear anything else. The rest of the class moved swiftly from that activity to painting and shaking glitter onto paper Christmas tree cutouts, but Sweet Pea did not want to stop the first activity, and the teacher came by, noticed how focused she was and said, "she can do that for as long as she wants." So even though she had wanted to fingerpaint when we talked about the class at home, she chose not to do that while we were there.

After the very quick tree-painting activity there was "circle time" when the teacher taught the kids a little poem with movements. I prompted Sweet Pea to go join the other kids if she wanted to do that but she just watched for a minute and then went back to decorating her tree. As soon as circle time was over, however, and the other kids and parents started gathering their coats and bags and exiting the room, she had a mini-fit about wanting to do circle time too, and burst into tears. I had to encourage her to clean her hands and get her out the door relatively quickly because everyone else cleared out very quickly and the teacher seemed ready to leave too. Or ready for us to leave, anyway.

Granted, we had to settle for a class that happens pretty much at Sweet Pea's naptime because the morning class was full, so that didn't help anything. But she can push her nap later now and then without too much trouble.

Anyway, ultimately we had a good time and Sweet Pea is quite pleased with her tree, although this morning she chose to partially undecorate it for some unknown reason, so it's not as cute as it was and it probably won't last until Christmas. When we got home she wanted to call her daddy and auntie and Grandma to tell them about her art class and how much fun she had making a pine cone tree.

Now, I do realize that no matter what kind of school Sweet Pea goes to she will need to learn to switch tasks and do things within a set time frame. But the swiftness of change of activity was really shocking to me, and completely out of whack with her personality. And I, personally, as an artist, was happy to see her take her time decorating that pine cone. I think there is something to be said for doing something until it's done, rather than throwing a handful of decorations at it and calling it art.

The age range given for this class was 2-4 but my feeling (I am a horrible judge of age, even in little kids) was that Sweet Pea was one of the oldest there. The majority of the kids seemed to be more like 2 years old. And most of them were just fine with the rapid-fire activities as well. I was intrigued. I know that there is a HUGE difference between ages 2 and 3, but I also think that there was a personality element to Sweet Pea's super-laid-back approach. It occurred to me hours after the class that the age difference might be related to most people putting their kids into preschool by the time or before they're Sweet Pea's age. I wonder if we'll run into this a lot in future classes. I wonder if it will be a problem. Will I be forced by popular practice to get Sweet Pea into preschool just so she can be around other kids her own age?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!

Okay, today I am ready. It's time. We're going to have to sell all our shit, move to a one-room cabin in the woods, and just have one place setting and set of clothes for each of us, and one toy each for the kids. Because I cannot keep up with this place. It's ridiculous and insane that we have so much when others have so little. It's shameful that I am getting fat when there are people who have no food to eat. It's wasteful that we have things we don't even use. It's maddening that I can't find the floor in the living room. It's beyond pointless that the kids have so many toys they don't even realize that there are four or five boxes more in the closet that haven't been unpacked yet.

I feel like this frequently and often would gladly at least give it a try. We need to get rid of stuff. But Slipshod could never live without his mondo TVs and latest tech. And let's face it, I really enjoy that stuff too. There must be a way to find balance. Could someone please enlighten me as to what that is?

It is definitely time for me to sign back up for Flylady (had to turn off the e-mails because of the move) and really follow the baby steps this time.

**Nighttime addition: Okay, so during the mere 15 minutes that the girls' naps overlapped today, and a little longer than that because The Bug was happy in her crib for a while after she woke up, I managed to fold all of the clean laundry that's been sitting around in baskets (4 or 5 loads - I lost track) and find 3/4 of the living room floor. Later I got most of the garbage and some of the recycling out (tomorrow morning is pick-up day for those) and washed the dishes. There is still some work to do and I have to get up at 6am so I should really turn off this machine - but had to say that I did at least get a few things taken care of and the place looks and feels a bit better. But we seriously need to get rid of stuff.**

Thanksgiving - More Pictures

My parents were also bunnysitting my sister's bunny, and Sweet Pea loves to hop around with him when it's time for his nightly exercise. He is quite fond of her as well. Saturday I wanted tomatoes on my sandwich so Sweet Pea wanted to go pick some in the garden. Slipshod or my dad or I could have gone out with her, but she would not have any of us. She only wanted Grandma.
When we got home Sweet Pea decided that she needed to color on some packing paper. She loves doing that, which is great and lots of fun, but these can't be drawings that we're going to keep - they're way too big!

Aren't the overalls cute! ha ha!
The Bug is getting better at sitting up every day. She loves to sit and scream and flap her arms all around. And of course chew on toys.
 

Thanksgiving

Seems like everyone had the same idea this year - blog in photos for Thanksgiving. It's a good quick way to recap, isn't it? This year I did more cooking than I usually do at Thanksgiving because it's almost never at our house. Wait - make that never. Anyway, this year I made my first successful yeast bread - pumpkin rolls. It's a family recipe that has been improved upon. I did make them a month or so ago, but that time I killed the yeast, or it just didn't work, so they were quite different in texture. This time, though, it all worked out the way it was supposed to. I made two batches and took rolls everywhere we went. I also made my first pumpkin pies. Been cooking since I could see the countertop, but had never made pies before. I just used the Libby's pumpkin and Marie Calender's crusts, but hey, I made pies! hee hee Thursday we went to Slipshod's mom's place for dinner with his family. She's got lots of fun toys for Sweet Pea to play with and the food, as always, was great, so we all had a great time. And no, she is not trying to eat the toy. This is how Sweet Pea "smiles" when you ask her to.
Friday we drove to my parents' house and spent the night. Mom brought out some boxes of clothes from my sister's kids and toys from my family growing up, and she and Sweet Pea and I had a good time going through those things. One of the pieces of clothing that fits Sweet Pea right now is the overalls pictured here. For some reason she thinks overalls are super cool, so when Mom and I determined that these would probably fit her she yelled, "okay! I want to wear them right now!" and couldn't get her dress off and herself into them fast enough. And then she wore them the rest of that day, that night to sleep in, and the next day. ha ha! Today she wore a different outfit but wanted the overalls to sleep in. Slipshod got her ready for bed tonight and I got her and The Bug to sleep and was amused, but not terribly surprised, when she said she wanted to take off her overalls because her legs were too hot (the overalls are reversible, so they're two layers of flannel), and I then discovered that she had her jammie pants as well as her jammie shirt on underneath. No wonder she was so hot! Yeesh. Dads.
While at my parents' place Sweet Pea as usual enjoyed looking at and to some extent terrorizing (without meaning to, of course) their parakeets.

Stories to Tell the Grandkids

Omigod...they're going to put me away for feline endangerment (after you read the story, click on the photo and look at the fur on Lois' side).

So, usually while I'm taking a shower The Bug is napping safely in her crib and Sweet Pea is either drawing in the bathroom where I can see her, or actually in the bathtub with me. Today The Bug did oblige and nap in her crib. Sweet Pea, however, told me that she wanted to stay downstairs while I took a shower, and seemed intent on combing the cats with a baby comb to get them ready for their "shop," meaning "shot," as in, the kind you take with a camera. She told me that after she got the kitties all combed and looking pretty, she wanted to take pictures of them with my camera, put the pictures on my computer, and then make a calendar.

I have had mixed success with letting her do her own thing while I take a shower. Usually there is a little cleaning up for me to do, or she cheerfully tells me that she put one of the cats into the bathtub and closed the door (luckily she has never tried to turn on the water), so usually I insist that she bring up her crayons and paper and DRAW kitties, rather than doing things to the real kitties, while I get cleaned up.

Today, however, I really just wanted that shower while The Bug was sleeping. You see, last night the newborn memo got through to The Bug and she woke up every two hours to nurse. So nothing was keeping me from my shower today, because that's practically the only thing I get to do for myself on a daily basis, and after a bad night it's the only way I can make myself human again. So I relented and agreed to let Sweet Pea comb the kitties all alone in the house while I took a shower.

Toward the end of my shower I heard a loud thump that was a bit worrisome, but soon thereafter I heard some kind of reassuring sound - I think it was a door closing - that let me know that Sweet Pea was still okay. As soon as I was out of the shower I popped my head out of the bedroom and called to Sweet Pea just to hear her answer, so I'd know she was okay.

There was a slight pause and then she answered, "what?"

I told her, "I just wanted to hear your voice so I'd know you were okay."

She replied, "I'm fine. I'm giving the kitties a haircut."

My horror mounted. I found her halfway up the stairs with a very pointy pair of scissors and a cat, and I saw black kitty hair all over the house. While I retrieved the scissors from Sweet Pea and explained to her why we only cut paper and never use Mommy's scissors unless Mommy is there and says it's okay, the cat went downstairs. Sweet Pea followed, making all kinds of noise, and just couldn't understand why her favorite kitty was hiding from her behind the couch...

Thankfully no kitties were harmed in the hair cutting, though poor Lois may have a few chilly spots on her back tonight. I can't see her skin, but there are a few areas on her back that have big chunks of fur missing. I'm just thankful that Sweet Pea didn't trip on the stairs with the pointy scissors, or cut either of the cats' tails or ears!

The scissors came out of a box in the guest room. We just can't get unpacked fast enough for Sweet Pea and the cats to stay safe and out of trouble.

Here's another, shorter one:

This past Saturday Slipshod took Sweet Pea downtown to see "Happy Feet." They didn't stay for the whole movie - it was her first time in a theater and she wanted to leave about 2/3 of the way through - but she enjoyed as much of the movie as she did see, and was talking about penguins for the rest of the weekend. That same night we were watching TV and Slipshod turned the channel to a travel show about San Diego. Of course Sea World was shown, and the part she noticed the most was the shot of an Orca sliding out of the water and up to the edge of the pool on its belly, right up to the audience.

Sweet Pea (in absolute amazement): "WOW, that is a WEALLY BIG PENGUIN!"

Slipshod and I still break into peals of laughter when we think of it. Ha ha ha ha ha!

And of course there are always the fun things she sings:

"Do, a deew, a female deew - way, a dwop of golden suuuuun, mi, a name, I call myseyulf, fa, a yong yong way to wuuuun, sooo, a needle pulling fwead, ya, a note to follow soooooooo, ti, a dwink with jam and bwead, that will green juice back to do-oh-oh-oh-do." (Note: Green juice in this household refers to Odwalla's Superfood smoothie, which Sweet Pea and I like so much we keep some in the fridge on an ongoing basis.)

This one she sang this way on purpose, but it was still very funny:

"Woe, woe, woe yo boat, gentwy down the stweeeeam, mewwy, mewwy, mewwy, mewwy, yife is buttered bwead." ha ha!

The following photo was taken Saturday late afternoon. Sweet Pea did not want to nap by herself so she kept herself awake upstairs in the bedroom for a good hour. As soon as I brought her down, she fell asleep on her daddy.

Reader Participation Requested!

Okay everyone, get out your trusty fingers and type away, because I'm asking for your brilliant ideas for the holidays.

Slipshod has a rather large family, all local, and of course the whole clan gets together every Christmas. Some years we opt out of presents by telling the family in October or so that we just want to see them but are not going to participate in the gift-giving part of the fandango. Of course, since we had Sweet Pea we can only opt ourselves out (not the kids), which is what we have done this year. Happily, I opted us out following a gift opt-out by Slipshod's mom and step dad, and our opt-out was followed by two more from other parts of the family. So I've reserved the right to forcibly opt out all the other adults - they're off our gift list, anyway.

That still leaves my family but we're not as large and not the whole family gets together (due to siblings living in other parts of the country) so gifts aren't as big a deal for that bunch.

But - what I want to do now is start to make the holidays FUN. Not just for the kids, but for me and Slipshod too. We're going to start off shortly after Thanksgiving by taking the girls to a Christmas tree farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains to choose and cut our own tree. We did that with Sweet Pea last year and she still remembers it and we had so much fun that day.

Hopefully the scaled-back gift giving this year will allow Slipshod and I to have a lot more fun with the holidays, though since I offered our house for the get-together there will still be a bit of stress related to getting the place ready. However, thankfully it's understood that we always do potluck when the family gets together. This year might be extra special fun with the food because one young family member who works at Kinko's came up with the idea of everyone submitting 5 or more of their favorite recipes and she's going to put them all together with any pictures we send as well and make a nice cookbook for everyone. Slipshod and I are thrilled about this because there are so many things he loves that his mom, grandma, sister, etc. cook but we have never gotten all the recipes. Now they will be together all in one place and everyone has been requesting their favorites from each other.

Now that Sweet Pea remembers things so well and can really enjoy the holidays, besides the fun of getting the Christmas tree, I want to start some other holiday traditions.

What holiday (Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hannukah, New Year, etc.) traditions have you started with your family?

Me-ow From the Robot Kitty

Just in case you worried that Fred Savage had left the world of child entertainment after growing up, rest assured he did not. His is the voice of Oswald, the earnest and ever-singing blue octopus on Noggin. We don't make a regular thing of watching Oswald, but from time to time the show crosses our optical paths. Last week we saw the episode wherein Oswald and his dog Weenie offer to watch a robot's robot cat, which is named Tinsel, while the robot gets a haircut (hey, it's a kids' show - robots can get haircuts on kids' shows if they want to; it's like a dream; it doesn't have to make sense).

We had seen that episode a long time ago, but this time Sweet Pea decided that we needed to make a robot kitty mask for her to wear. As you might imagine we have quite the collection of cardboard around after all the moving we've done, so I set to work with that, some scissors and lots of masking tape, and above you see the result before making it robotic.
Sweet Pea was so intent upon looking at her reflection in a tiny compact that she would not look at the camera, but here is the end result. We covered the whole thing with aluminum foil and then set to work with construction paper to finish the face. After taping on the nose and mouth, she insisted that the kitty must have spots, so I cut lots of spots for her and she taped them willy-nilly all over the front only of the face. I've been informed that we still need to cut "yots and yots and YOTS more spots" so that she can also decorate the sides, back and ears.

Slipshod is trying to get her to say "me-ow" when she's wearing her mask so that she'll sound like a robot, but even when she thinks she's mimicking him, she still says a fluid, "meow!"

KEEP SCROLLING DOWN - there are new pictures of The Bug here too!

You Want Pictures? Here They Are!

Here's our happy little Bug after a diaper change. She sure is a smiley little girl! Check out the super cute dimples. Combining her interests: Gnawing on anything and everything has been her favorite pasttime for a couple months already, but now she can do that while sitting up!
The sitting is not second-nature yet. Note the red spot on her forehead. That was from having very slowly leaned/fallen over onto her face on the green rattle toy in front of her shortly before I took this picture. But she didn't mind! She never whined about it, and as soon as she was back up she was all great big smiles again.
I just think this is a very striking picture of The Bug. 

Hello, My Name's Violet and I'm an Addict

Yep, once again I have gone and gotten totally hooked on sugar. I've cleaned my system of it several times and truly once you get through the first three days it's a breeze and it's simple to say "no" to it -but once you start eating it again, ("just a little bit won't hurt me," you tell yourself) it's all over. Downhill slope. Gotta start all over again once you hit rock bottom.

That's pretty much where I am - rock bottom. For a couple months now I've been snarfing everything sugarry I can find in the kitchen, even if I think it tastes awful. I just have to have that sugar fix! And then a little bit later I'll get that awful headache and start snapping at the kids. Worse, since I know what I'm doing is bad for me and I don't want Sweet Pea to emulate me, I hide my fixes from her. For the most part I only eat ice cream after she has gone to bed. I sneak sweet treats out of the pantry when she's in a different room. I've even been known to hide things behind my back if I'm holding them when she walks into the kitchen. Thankfully she's still young enough not to notice I'm being furtive... but probably not for much longer.

Ooooh, how low have I sunk.

I have stopped putting sweet treats on the grocery list, and now we're nearly down to nothing and I'm pacing the kitchen trying to find sweets! I totally sound like I'm in rehab, don't I? So far I haven't sold anything important to keep myself on the sugar, though. ha ha!

It's weird, though. I want to eat cleanly again. I want to get this out of my system and truly teach my children good healthy eating habits for real, without hiding my vices - because I don't want to have any vices to hide. And yet, I REALLY WANT more ice cream, cookies, whatever. I really really want more sweets. Now. NOW. It seems that I cannot be trusted to eat sweets in moderation, so for me it's all or nothing. Having all the sugar I want makes me feel like crap. Having none makes me feel wonderful, but it's so hard to maintain, especially from Halloween through Christmas.

Part of the problem is probably that whenever I make a healthy change, I'm on my own. Slipshod would never do this sort of thing with me. He will keep his sweets/snacks hidden or only take them to work if I ask him to, and sweets are not the kind of crutch for him that they are for me. He can so "no" to them no problem. But... I don't know what it is. I guess I feel deprived somehow, even though I KNOW that I am so much healthier and feel tons more energetic, cheerful, and healthy in general without them.

So I keep knowing that I should ask him to keep the sweets away from me, but not wanting to actually say the words. Because I don't want to have that day where I ask him for ice cream and he says, "okay, is this the place where I'm a hardass and say 'no, you asked me not to get you sweets,' or are you jumping off the wagon?" and usually at that point I'm jumping off the wagon. But it makes me feel even worse to have it pointed out to me, and to have to say right then when I'm doing it, "yes, I'm giving up."

Here We Go Again

Dammit, I think we're headed down the no-sleep-for-Mommy-for-two-years road with the teething again. The Bug has actually been chewing on anything and everything for a couple months, but this past week she has also started to wake up at night. GAH!

Sweet Pea had a horrible time teething until a couple months after her 2nd birthday. It was an extremely rough time for me. I cannot imagine being able to live through the same thing while having TWO kids to take care of.

What happens is that I get the girls to bed, The Bug wakes up once or twice for an hour or more (sometimes two or three) and nurses, part of the time she's just awake in her co-sleeper, sometimes I change her diaper if I think that might help... meanwhile Slipshod and Sweet Pea are soundly sleeping next to me, missing the whole thing. In the morning Sweet Pea wakes totally refreshed after an uninterrupted 10-11 hours of sleep and encourages me, who has had MAYBE four hours of sleep in two-hour increments, to get up.

Yes, part of the problem for me is definitely that Slipshod and I stay up way too late and I miss out on two to three hours of sleep at the beginning of the night that I don't necessarily need to miss. But ugh, I was really hoping this baby wouldn't have as much trouble with the teething as her sister did.

Speaking of all that - we still don't have any teeth actually popping out, but boy are her gums bulging on the bottom. Yowza!

Once upon a time, when, I can't remember, I heard a theory that ability to deal with pain directly relates to skin tone and hair color, and that people who have the most difficult time have very light skin and red hair. And guess what my kids look like. However, I've also heard that that theory is a big load of bunk. It can't be that cut and dried, but I do wonder if there's some truth to it.

Holy Shit.

WTF?

Okay, at first I didn't write any commentary about this, but since I just wrote the following as a comment on the Queen's site, I figured since I actually had something to say about it I might as well post it on my own blog...

Besides getting the chills from reading the article, all else I could think of was someone a few generations back in my mother’s family. A poor woman who was forced to continue having children by her husband because they were Catholic and the Catholic church didn’t believe in birth control. She went to her priest for help and he told her she had to keep having children. One day she took her brood of 5 to a park for a picnic and left them there. She couldn’t do it anymore.

They put her in an asylum.

That sort of situation in itself cried out for women's liberation, and any patriarchy that strives to undo what feminism as accomplished needs to be very strongly ignored out of existence. If some women choose to let that be done to them, so be it - you can't force anyone to have a sense of self, or to stand up for herself if she doesn't want to - we each have to do that for ourselves when it comes to this kind of homefront battle.

Now, I must say that I am amused, as well as chilled, that they are calling these umpteen children "red diaper babies." The parents completely assume that the kids will turn out just the way they want them to, and spread the parents' own religion and politics to the world. I understand that the parents don't believe in free will in any way, shape or form, so won't it be funny when some of those kids run off to New York or Los Angeles to raise hell and make documentaries and write books about their crazy upbringings? And won't it be funny when the kids who get away seek to undo their parents' political agenda?

Want to read more on the subject? Check out the Queen's and Christina's blogs today.

Fashion - What Am I Missing?

Okay, there are apparently a whole lot of girlie genes that I missed out on when I was being crafted. I am not big into clothes (unless you're talking costumes, or period clothing). I don't like pink (though you will see my little redheads sporting it quite a bit, since it looks completely adorable on them, and I actually wear more of it than I used to). I don't wear makeup. My favorite jewelry is not diamonds in gold or platinum from a known jeweler name - it is metal or bone or horn handcrafted by the likes of MacManus or Greene or Miller (actually Heidi Bartolemy does the carving if I'm not mistaken). I don't care that "boots are back." I hate boots, unless they're necessary for trudging through the snow, or they're my Dr. Martens.

And I HATE SHOPPING.

But today I had to go. I've been wearing the same two pairs of pants and four shirts (not all at the same time, mind you) since the beginning of August. No joke. There are two reasons for this: 1) I couldn't wear my old size after having the baby so I had to get bigger pants, and 2) I wasn't able to find my regular non-maternity clothes when I started to need them because we were packing and then actually made the move to icky house and then had to move again to this house - and in all that chaos my old clothes never made it here. They are in a pod in storage somewhere and we still don't have room in the garage to move that stuff here. BAD PLANNING. Story of my life.

As if having to go clothes shopping weren't bad enough, I had to go to a place in the depths of hell known as THE MALL.

Thankfully The Bug slept through half the trip. Sweet Pea stayed home with Auntie. All I wanted was some jeans that fit, a few new long-sleeved shirts, and some comfortable but not ugly lace-up shoes.

First, I was faced with a corner of the store full of jeans that looked as if they had been worn, rolled in the mud, driven over by a bulldozer, bleached, worn some more, and then lightly hosed off. Ugly as shit. What is supposed to be appealing about this? Is this really fashion? Or is it for bored rich people who will also buy dirt-scented soap, which I'll have you know really does exist, simply so they can find out what it smells like without going outside? I weeded through the crap and did happily manage to find two pairs of jeans that did not look completely horrid which actually fit. AND, happy note here, they are the size I used to wear pre-baby! Wahoo! No wonder the pants I've been wearing since August kept falling down...

Next I turned to the shirts. I don't know if I was in a special old-lady section or what, but a sweeping glance told me that I needn't actually browse. Again, boring, old-looking, and fabrics appeared to be largely synthetic. Yuck. The tops that did appeal to me were in the Juniors section, which left me thinking that perhaps I am one of those women who doesn't know I'm not 16 anymore. I thought it best to keep my 35-year-old, breast-feeding mama body out of there lest I become depressed.

What's left? Shoes. The shoes-only store had left me with a question mark over my head about what the current style may be, and I couldn't find anything that actually felt good on my feet. Serves me right for wearing Birkenstocks for most of the past several years. Now I'll never find anything comfortable again, those fit so well! I didn't want white-white shoes, but that's what I ended up buying because they were SO comfortable. Like walking on a cloud. Ahhh.

For good measure I threw in an empire-styled corduroy jacket, but I'm not sure I'm going to keep it. So, I won't look like a fashionista, that's for sure. But at least I have some new pants that fit and shoes that are comfortable... I just hope I don't look as old as I'm starting to think I might be.

But... can anybody shed any light on this fashion thing for me? 'Cause I REALLY don't get it. Are we supposed to be able to turn a blind eye to the fact that often what is in style is undeniably hideous? Or am I simply unable to change with the times?

Blogging On the Run

On the run past the computer, I mean - I'm not actually going anywhere out of the house - that would be radical!

So here's the idea: I need to take stock of what I want in my life, what I have that can help me accomplish that, and what else I need to do to achieve my goals. That was the idea for the plan I was talking about earlier. I blog in my head all the time and have all sorts of things to say, but they almost never make it here because when I have any time free, I am trying to unpack boxes before the kids wake up, or wash dishes before I fall into bed completely exhausted. You get the idea.

I have determined that I need to start taking better care of myself by insinuating new things into my routine. To that end I have started my first "taking care of me while still doing everything else" task, and have managed to keep it up for a couple weeks to the point where it is actually becoming part of my routine without me thinking about it.

My feet had gotten extremely dry and gross during the move. I only knew the whereabouts of one pair of shoes the whole time, and those were some of my open Birkenstocks. If I wasn't outside I was barefoot in the house. So my feet got REALLY dry and crackly and scaly, etc. It was really disgusting. I wanted to soak them and do a pedicure and then start keeping them up on a more regular basis but kept thinking that I needed to find time after the girls were in bed to get started.

Then one day it occurred to me that almost every morning while I'm taking my shower, I am standing in water, thereby soaking my feet, because Sweet Pea is almost always in the tub with me, sitting and playing in the water in the tub. So one day I remembered to take my foot care files into the shower with me, and now my feet are in great condition because I keep those files in there and when the foot skin needs a little rub, I do that before I get out of the tub. I also put lotion (currently using Kerasal to heal the cracks) on my feet and wear socks all day, and often lace-up shoes as well. That keeps my feet much more moist and happy.

Just making this little improvement has helped me feel like the rest of my goals can be obtained. Hooray! Nothing like making a start.

I've been writing this while Sweet Pea makes toys for the cat and comes and shows me, so I'm not going to get into the whole "taking stock" thing right now - but hope to do that soon at night when I have my brain to myself. Wish me luck!

Oh - and here's the kid update: Sweet Pea has not had any potty accidents since two weeks after she started doing great and wearing big girl panties every day. The Bug has rolled once from her tummy to her back but prefers to roll the other way, and then gets stuck. But what she really wants to do is sit up. She doesn't like to lie down to play that way much anymore. The world is so much more interesting from a sitting perspective.

Check out the pictures Slipshod posted below. And come on - you can't resist that couch, can you? I love it. Tee hee! We're going to add another chair section to the right side - it's just too small with only the corner and two side chairs. And we may get an ottoman that matches as well. But this is in our family room, which is the play room, and which has precious little wall space to decorate because nearly the entire back of the house is covered in glass! Sliding glass doors and lots of windows. Love it! So that couch is my big, big splash of color. We're going to get a rug for the floor as well (the floor is Pergo and I'd rather have a softer floor in the play room) but trust me, that will be a non-bright solid color. I'm not totally crazy! >snicker<

Happy Halloween

Mommy took sweet pea and sprout out for Halloween. Guess what sweet pea wanted to be? 

My wife made me do it.

This has entered our home. No, not the drooling child or the kitty-cat - though honestly I'd be surprised if you could see them clearly past the glare from their perch.

I mean the couch. The one which, while it has nifty features like removeable fabric which is machine washable, will still always look like Picaso performed a mighty "technicolor-yawn" on it.

I grew up in a house with clown-orange carpeting, and find solace in neither.