The haps

working on writing. 2 publish.  blogs get the shaft. remember my other blog address...as this one will probably not be around much more to find out what "The Undefeated" is up to creatively.

Peaceout~

Eh?

I have been away from blogging for a short time.  Please tell me what I missed.

Pooped Out

(Straight from the 5 and 3 and 2 year old vernacular dictionary...)

My kids are obsessed with:

"booties, 

butts, 

poop, 

pooties,

farts,

fat farts, 

butty-bums, 

farty-butts, 

farty-farty poots, 

pooty-poots, 

poopies, 

poodies,

farty-poops, 

booty-booty-butt-butts 

and boooty-bums".

I just put those little poopies to bed and I swear, these are all terms I heard during the 40 minute ordeal.

When will this fascination pass?

I felt Crabby today

none

Getting to know me 101

Things I Likie:

chopping vegetables into different shapes

tapestries

rice.  you can make paper outta it!

old people walking with those little wire shopping carts on wheels.

asian straw hats

jerry curl

British murder mysteries

Herbal tea that tastes like earth

Incense...sandalwood, nag champa, musk...ooh and the vietmanese kind

sparkly toe nails

Louisiana style hot sauce on my pizza

grey days

coloring

window painting

mowing the lawn

Things I NO Likie:

Looking through binoculars wearing glasses

being hot

restricting bras

loud cell phone users in the checkout line

obnoxious vehicles (street hummer, huge trucks that pull nothing)

Lucky Charms cereal

Waking up cranky

small pebbles in my shoe

speeding tickets

a house with every furnishing being brand new

someone with a gourmet kitchen and all they do is microwave

parents who tell their kids they are "bad"

drinking cow milk

For Your Play Dough Pleasure...

We made home-made play dough the other day.

Once it was ready for use, I left the room to come back to these masterpieces:

(I know he's my son but I think Isaac's got mad skillz.)

"Ware-rabbit"  by the 4 year old Isaac.

"Lizard" by the 4 year old Isaac.

"Hello Kitty" by the 3 year old Peaches.

My latest yum

Rachel's Blackberry Cous-Cous Pudding

(Note:  I never follow recipes.  I measure-by-eye.  My philosiphy: Just keep at it until it tastes right.)

~~This is my take on an Indonesian-style dessert.~~

Steam: 

*cous-cous 

with a generous amount of:

* ginger

* cinnamon 

* cardamom 

Add:

* honey &or sugar (honey is yummier) until desired sweetness is reached (may need to add more later as cream will subdue sweetness)

* Lots of fresh "Washingtonian" black berries

* Fresh cream

Mix and enjoy.

Great for dessert or breakfast!

Serve warm or cold (warm is best)

I would love to hear from those of you who try this...

Sleep, where are you?

I am so tired it feels like pop rocks candy is popping behind my eye balls.

Complete and Total People

My toddlers love to play "superheros".  We have a costume box loaded with capes, wigs, spidey-suits, and vacuum attachments that serve as good makeshift bazookas in times of dragon-slaying and shark-hunting.

Spidey-suit or not...if you ask my son what his name is, 99% of the time he will reply "Peter Parker".  If you ask my daughter what her super-identity is...she will always tell you, "woman".

Woman.

She is 3...and that projection of herself could not be more accurate.

All children; are in fact, whole and complete people.  I agree, my daughter is most definitely, a "little woman".

How many of us grew up hearing responses like,  "I will tell you when you're older" or "because I said so"?

What a diss to the one inquiring.

Really. 

 

If someone asks the time.

Tell them 2:35.

Not the type of watch you have and how it gages 4 different time zones as you fly over them with a mouth full of honey roasted peanuts.

Talk to your kids like they are complete and total people.

Love and appreciate their views and ideas.

Let them have their own.

Who cares how old you are and what initials are after your name...you can learn a lot from someone so fresh to the other side. Things our minds have forgotten, can be resurfaced by the mind of a child.

Much power is entrusted to parents.  It is by and through the experience of family-life...that much power is created.

You know I speak tha Tr00F!

Lullaby of Death

My baby Aaron is 19 months.  Many of his oddities are manifesting themselves.  

Some cute, some uhhhh....

Here is an example:

He hates it when you sing to him.  He screams and arches his back to leap out of your grip and gouges out your eyes.

No I am not exaggerating.

Yes, I am serious.

Is this normal?  Is this abnormal?

Whadoya think?

New Kids

Remember the early 1990's poppy, bubble gum band:

The New Kids on the Block?

Well I found out they are touring again.  You can relive all your girlie puppy love for Donny and Marky Mark...or whoever those guys are/were all over again.  Just like it was the 5th grade!  They are at the Tacoma Dome this November.

I keep thinking this is a joke...and feel it is silly enough to post on my blog.

Relief

My 2 oldest kids are at a summer day camp in the afternoons all this week.

The house is quiet.

I think I can isolate my thoughts enough to realize that I can make this crazy-motherhood-gig work another day.

I have had the theory of "nature vs. nurture" on my brain lately.   I have determined that my kids are just plain crazy! No I am not exaggerating.  It is just fact.  Sure their surroundings play a big role in their behavior...but I gotta just declare that this is the package in which they came.  I feel I am pretty mellow with them and should just deal with this as the way it is and stop sizing them up to other kids their age and how well they behave for their mommiez and daddiez. 

Even though they are crazy...they are that much more animated and fun.

I guess I am feeling a lil' less-sane these past few days and am finding myself more frustrated.  

The schedule, the fighting, the opposition, the time-wasting, the yelling, the "science experiments" of oddities in the bathroom sink and toilet, the language, the needs and requirements of my children and family...have all increased a notch.

I reckon my capacity to handle all this must too.

So yes, this summer camp came in the nick of time.  I think I might now lay on the couch with my baby for 30 minutes or so.

Ahhhhhh, so nice.

I named the Boat

toot, toot!!

Against the Grain

The label on the Hershey's cocoa powder makes a darn good cake.  

I got tired of the look of my cell phone and attacked it with 8 bottles of nail polish.

I could never decide on curtains, so painted my kitchen windows with acrylics.  

Sautee' onions in olive oil, add yellow squash, pecans, salt, pepper and nutmeg.  Pan fry until squash is soft yet firm.

Let your kids play in the sprinkler.  Fuss not about the bathing suits.

Massage your kids.  You will both enjoy it.  Don't forget the husband, maybe he will hook you up sometime.

Ditch the DVD and CD cases and store the discs on a zip up binder to save storage space.

Call that person you have thought about lately but feel weird because it has been a long time.

Pray for longer than 2 minutes, get to the point of no more words...the real ones will soon follow.

Watch more John Cleese films.

Listen to some Bill Withers and Talking Heads.

Let your kids eat popcicles while taking a bath.

Remember that you are friends with your spouse...best friends.

Toss out the jeans you will never lose the baby weight to fit back into.  C'mon!  6 yeas of hoarding is long enough.

Make a Mr. Potato Head out of a pear.  Use tooth picks to secure a strawberry nose and carrot hands, etc.

Remember sock puppets?  

Draw a tattoo on your sleeping husband.

Go to the mirror and see that you are changing in a good way.

Turn a difficult conversation around with listening and hearing.  

Look at your baby album.

Go lay on your lawn at the end of your day for 3 minutes.  Look up at the sky and decompress.

Make a mess and clean it up.

Make another one and clean it up later.

 

Pillow Talk with the Big Boy

I was just laying with Isaac and chatting with the lights off before I left him on his own to fall asleep.  We were reminiscing about our fun day at the petting zoo and then realized that there were no pigs there today.  I said that they were probably out shopping or at the pool. Isaac replied with his famous belly-laugh and added that the piggies were wearing Spiderman life vests, scuba masks and snorkels. This then turned into a pool full of several jungle and farm animals, with crocodiles jumping off the diving board.  All wearing life vests and floating on the foamy pool noodles.

We laughed and laughed.

Isaac then went to tell me a story all on his own.  I love this.  He can come up with all the characters, (not quite a) plot, surprises and ending all on his own.  The only aid I offer if any, is something like asking what happens next...

There was once a dream that had a lot of statues.  These were elephant statues and they were silver.  The statues were not outside, they were in a big castle.  The King liked the elephant statues so very much that he decided to take them to the brave knights.  The king took a special golden statue to his brave knight and said,"brave knight, look at this statue".  And the brave knight said, "wow!".  He liked it a lot.  

Then the golden elephant popped open!  It popped everywhere!!

And inside of the elephant statue, there was an egg.  

The king loved the egg.  

The brave knight loved the egg.

The queen loved it too.

It was an egg for a baby chick.

A baby chick was inside!

So the brave knight put the egg inside a cage.

Then the egg hatched and there was a baby chick inside!

And the baby chick walked all around the cage.

And it was so nice.

The end.

It is always fascinating to hear little children express themselves.  I realize that they have a limited vocabulary and yet, are still so capable.  I find that sometimes, children have a better way...a purer and simpler way with words than a lot of adults...bringing new concepts and views to light.  Being the nonsensical thinker I am...trying to make ridiculous depth apparent in something as shallow as a dixie cup full of grape juice, I cannot help but to draw a few things out of this silly night-night story of his.

Millie's songs

"underware-bagina-diaper-lady"

"underware-bagina-diaper-lady"

I say to her that our bodies are special and wonderful and let's sing a different song.

She breaks into another from the same (bodily) origin:

"booty-booty-butt"

"booty-booty-butt"

"goes (fart, fart sounds)...and I eat it...it's Yum!!"

I say that is not a very polite thing to sing about and it probably tastes yucky too.  

She is crazy.  

Our Utah family is visiting next month and I just know Millie is going to sing for them.  

I am sorry in advance, Angie.  

We are open about things 'round here, yet respectful.  I guess pooh humor is inevitable.

(To be honest, I laugh with my back turned.)

Clever Toddler Moment-of-the-day

This afternoon I was reorganizing my calender and cork board.  

Isaac was about to pull out one of my push pins when I warned; 

"Be careful...those can poke, and hurt you."  

Isaac then reassuringly replied, 

"...but Mom, they're tiny mouse swords."

Happy For dirt

Oh how we love our yard! 

Who needs toys, when you can play with sticks.

Isaac is making his own "dust storm".

Rachel's tribute to the 1980's

 

My friend had an 8o's party with good nacho cheese dip.  

Here are some photos of me in my garb.

Tubular!