Twiggy Mama

It has snowed for most of the day today, but it has been the airy kind of snow - not much body, swirling down lightly, barely accumulating. It sure is pretty, though: I'll take it. This afternoon, Starbeans looked out the window (from across the room) and said, "noh". Snow. It was precious. He is also starting to attempt jumping (but never leaves the ground) and crosses his arms. So many new things...

I looked at the clock at 11:11 both morning and evening today. Spooky!

Onto a completely different subject...

My weight is down to 130; it was in the high 120's last week. People are started to get a little freaked out by my stick-like appendages and wonder what is wrong with me. I'm 5'9, by the way. My clothes don't fit, my veins are bulging, my underwear is huge on me, etc. etc. My nursing bras don't even fit anymore.

My BMI is 19.2, so I'm still within the healthy (be it low) weight range for my height, thankfully. I'm pretty sure that I have a fast metabolism anyway and extended breast-feeding (18 months and counting) is really sucking out the calories. I've been trying to eat more, but that can be tiring. I already eat a lot! So much, in fact, that several years ago when while baby-sitting our nieces, they said, "Our mom and dad said that you eat more than anyone in the whole family!" Oh goodness, it was hilarious (and true): I still laugh about that when it enters my mind.

He got stuck on the way down

Regret; and then, a bounce back

Remember my encounter with laughing gas at the beginning of the month? Well: it wasn't worth it. We just got a bill for 80 dollars because nitrous oxide isn't covered under our insurance. Doh! That was a pretty expensive new experience, especially since when they asked in passing if I wanted the gas, I so flippantly responded, "Oh, sure...what the heck!"

What the heck, indeed. It is especially unfortunate since Squeeze and I each work only part-time and we are trying to save vast amounts of cash for our potential move. Bummer, but what can I do - the deed is done.

Onwards and forwards...

I have been learning a lot about cooking the past couple of years. One of the most important skills I have learned is prepping ahead of time. This include keeping chicken stock around, cooking beans or chickpeas the day before, and generally thinking a couple of days in advance. It is challenging, and I like it.

Tonight I made re-fried beans (dark red kidney beans, canola oil, onions, cumin, and cayenne pepper) for a few different days of burritos. I made hummus, too, which Starbeans adores. Just yesterday we finished off the shredded chicken from the chicken stock I made last weekend; the stock sits in the freezer waiting to be used in White Bean with Vegetables, Garlic, & Rosemary soup and used for flavor in a dish of sauteed tofu with onions and celery.

It is so fun!!

I know what you're thinking...just think what I could do with a root cellar!

De-glitzed

I had an epiphany yesterday morning at work, while I was waiting for my baked potato(es) to heat up in the microwave. The talk show, Tyra, was on in the corporate breakroom. I didn't pay much attention even though it was blaring in my ears, until it closed with a [ridiculous] music video.

I have no idea who the musical "artist" was, but the video was completely dripping with lust, gratuitous sexuality, and total self-absorption. It blew my mind. Was this a joke? It looked more like a sketch from SNL than a real music video. [What is a real music video?] It led me to realize that the more detached from pop culture I become, the more laughable it is. Literally: I looked at the glitzed-up hot bod prancing around in front of svelte cars and sexy men & women, singing about his fantastically exciting life and laughed. Its pompousness struck me as hilarious; and it felt so good. I've never been much a part of pop culture, but I have certainly been more aware of it in the past - and never thought it to be that odd. But now, baby, it is out there.

I don't know if this is a part of getting older (I'm 29), or simply a divergence in my life from the beaten path. Perhaps it is both. Whatever the reason, I am so thankful for it. I would hate to be trapped in the race of shinier-hotter-tighter-sexier. I'm chelating the glitz out of my life.

Uhhhh...that is, if it was ever there in the first place.

He signs

Starbeans signed "help" for the first time this morning. I've been asking him if he wants [help] the last few days when he is trying to rip down the blinds to see out our bedroom window. He wants to see the buses, of course.

He signs:

• All done
• Milk
• Please
• More
• Help

Bbbbbbb!

Starbeans, almost 18 months, has discovered his love for cars, trucks, tractors, and snow plows this past weekend. He has loved buses for awhile and will breathlessly declare, "Buhhh!" whenever he sees one, but the other 4-wheeled vehicles have been practically ignored until a few days ago. Now he totes around any combination of toy cars or tractors and affectionately wheels them around with excellent sound affects:

"Bbbbbbbbbb....bbbbbbbbbb....bbbbbbbbbbbb!"

It really amazes me. Where did this little boy come from? And why, on earth, does he like vehicles of all kinds? It is unbearably cute. I find myself searching the horizons for cars or trucks and then rapturously proclaiming, "Look, Starbeans...a truck!"

I wonder if a little girl would be attracted to that kind of thing? We certainly didn't push it on him: his interest seems very natural. Why trucks? Why tractors? What about tea cups? It is just so fascinating. I'm excited about all his potential obsessions; and if he's anything like his dad, they will be numerous and intense in nature. I hope he likes dinosaurs and outer-space! I've been stocking up on those kinds of kids' books since before he was born. This, of course, is in addition to a plethora of other books: thrift stores are an invaluable resource for children's books. Gotta love 'em!

Can you picture it?

Squeeze and I have a dream of living more closely with the land: in a rural community. Not suburban. Not even semi-rural. RURAL. Presently, we live in Minneapolis (a mid-sized city) - in a sweet little 1920's bungalow on small lot. As in: if we wanted a garden, we'd have to nix the yard. We live 4 blocks off the freeway, on a fairly busy street, on a busline, and right under a flight path near the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. It can be rather loud.

We need a place that isn't out-of-this-world expensive and near a large enough town for Squeeze to find a job. Other than this, our main requirement is to be near some kind of family. I absolutely cannot live stranded without any family. Therefore, we have been looking around the rolling prairies in eastern South Dakota and western Minnesota and...this weekend...I think we may have found The One.

Imagine this:

• An old, interesting home that has been updated and impeccably cared for
• An apple tree
• A root cellar [!!!]
• Wood heat
• 2,000+ square feet
• 1 sun room
• 4 bedrooms (with curved ceilings)
• 2 dairy barns
• 1 hog barn
• 1 chicken coop
• 2 silos
• HUGE gardens (already in use)
• 15 acres
• Near a pretty valley town
• Near a lake
• Near a park
• Near a Natural Health store (in the middle of nowhere!!)
• Within a half-hour of my in-laws

What's a girl to do?

Has anyone ever had a favorite pet that can't stop peeing in unfortunate places? Like - the living room floor, the kitchen floor, the laundry room floor. We are in a complete quandry (or, at least, I am) over what to do about my most favorite cat, Lester. He is really causing problems (and has been for a long time): and a raw food diet and vitamins C & E aren't helping. We've had him for almost 7 years and I break down and cry at the thought of parting with him.

Squeeze says that thousands upon thousands of people have had to deal with this before us, and that the answer is simple: get rid of the cat. I know he is unhappy about it too, but his thinking is much more pragmatic than mine. In addition, I am willing to suffer [ahem - for another 10 or so years] for my affection while Squeeze is done. Finished. Ready to move on.

Has anyone else gone through this before? Or been close to someone who has gone through this? I need someone to wallow with.

Dum-ta (dump truck)

More words from my almost-18 month old:

• ice
• icy
• hat
• truck
• dump truck
• boat
• bath
• baby
• please [sign]
• apple
• night-night

Bupa and eel-like amphibians

My dad was in town for a visit last week. Starbeans calls him Bupa. He gets very excited when he is about to see him (or even thinks about him): we're talking - squealing, arm-flapping, bouncing, and passionate proclamations of, "Bu-pa!!!" And of course, my father simply loves it. They spent a lot of time playing, snuggling, and looking out the window for big trucks and buses. It was sweet.

Interestingly, Starbeans is equally enthralled by Squeeze's dad. He must be a Bupa's Boy.

We went to the Como Park Conservatory on Saturday. Has anyone in the Twin Cities been to the new exhibit?? It was AMAZING...almost worth losing the ethereal old fern room. Go. See it.

This is my brother (the floating head) examining what appears to be some sort of eel or worm, but is actually an amphibian. They never moved. They just hung there.

In the red

Oh my goodness...I've got nothing.
Absolutely, positively nothing of interest to say.

Hello Internets!

Live long and prosper

We are on a Star Trek kick. And when I say Star Trek - I mean Scotty, Kirk, Spock, Sulu, and Checkov.

Recent highlights:

• Today, Mister Spock said, "Vulcans don't bluff" in response to a challenge from a rogue captain trying to take over the Enterprise in Kirk's absence.

• The episode before that - as usual, the Enterprise was being pulled towards a planet by a malevolent unknown power, using all power to pull back and avoid being crushed: Captain Kirk told Scotty that he knew the ship better than anyone else - better than even the makers of the ship - but that if he couldn't get them out of that jam, he was fired.

• In that same episode, Spock was stabbed by a vicious flower, struck by lightning, forced to have an awkward conversation about alien reproduction with the crew, and caused an explosion by simply tossing a rock (from the alien planet's landscape) to the side after examination. Squeeze called it the All Spock Comedy Hour.

It's just....classic.

Reclaiming lost knowledge

I am so pleased. Two books arrived for me in the mail today, ones that I have been stewing on for months. We finally broke down and ordered them on Christmas Eve: a Christmas present of sorts. Neither books are available from either of the library systems we use (Minneapolis & Hennepin County).

The first, by my girl Aviva Jill Romm:

• Naturally Healthy Babies and Children: A Commonsense Guide to Herbal Remedies, Nutrition, and Health

The second, recommended by my girl Aviva Jill Romm, and written by Leo Galland:

• SUPERIMMUNITY for Kids: What to Feed Your Children to Keep Them Healthy Now - and Prevent Disease in Their Future

I've peeped at them a couple of times this evening, but now that Starbeans and Squeeze are in bed, the night is mine. All mine! I'll leave you with a quote that struck me strongly, something that I have been understanding more and more within the last two years - the lack of community we have fostered for ourselves in American culture.

Reclaiming Lost Knowledge

Because today we lack the extended community common to previous generations, this book is intended as a companion for parents, linking us all in an extended network of families committed to the well-being of children. This network is global. I believe that we can all support one another and reclaim our ability to care for ourselves through traditional, natural remedies if we pick up the threads of the old ways where modern technology took over and and combine the best of both worlds.

Introduction

Naturally Healthy Babies and Children - Aviva Jill Romm

F.B. in the W.

Some how, some way, someone did a google search for "fattest butt in the world" and landed on my blog. What the...?

Do I have a man-voice?

I had my final bloody wisdom tooth extracted today. Goodbye pressure! Goodbye tension! Goodbye over-crowding! (Or, at least, let's hope so.)

I had never been offered laughing gas before today, but I decided to go for the gold. After all, Lord-willing, I will probably never have another tooth pulled; I've also never had a cavity in my 29 years; so I took my chance while I had it. And oooboy, was it fun!

Here's how it went:

The little mini-mask went over my nose and I was told to breath regularly. We (the oral surgeon, his assistant, and me) were all watching the kids sledding on the hill across the creek as my frontal lobe started buzzing: it tickled. I began to melt into a relaxed state, recognizing that I didn't give a crap whether I was about to be poked with a needle or not. What the heck! It's just a needle! I told them that my frontal lobe felt like it was floating, and while I was thinking about it - my vocal cords didn't feel like they were attached to my body either.

"It's the gas," said Dr. Rahimi. I gigglegurgled a bit and then realized, "I feel like I'm talking with a man-voice. Am I talking with a man-voice? I mean seriously - do I have a man-voice?" I asked, barely able to hold back my giggles.

"No - that's the gas too," replied Dr. Rahimi, seeming quite amused. During this interlude, he had numbed me up with two shots of novocaine (saying, "Sorry...sorry..." as he poked me) and was waiting a minute before it took complete effect in my mouth. He then took an instrument that looked a lot like a stainless steel popsicle stick, asked me to tilt my head slightly towards him and said, "You're going to feel a little bit of pressure." He pushed on the tooth; I could feel slight pressure and hear some soft cracking; then he took some kind of dental pliers and POP - out came my tooth, like a snap. I didn't feel a thing.

I asked to look at it, which he allowed; the root was curved, like it grew in with devious secrecy because it knew there wasn't enough room in there. Seeing the tooth brought back a memory that sent me into a fit of giggles again: Dr. Rahimi pulled my first wisdom tooth (impacted lower left...oh was that was a painful SOB) in 2002. After that extraction, I asked him if I could keep the tooth and he very abruptly replied, "No! BioHazard!" It startled me a bit at the time, but I think about it now and it makes me laugh.

Being naturally open and particularly cheerful because of the laughing gas, I happily told him the story with a lot of hysterical laughter in between "and then you said..." and "No! BioHazard!" and then confided, "and you said it so mean!" They (Rahimi and the assistant) both cracked up and we all had a good guffaw together. It was great: getting my tooth pulled has never felt so good.

I have very little pain even now; I haven't taken any kind of pain killer and don't really plan to. It is a lovely, lovely feeling knowing that my jerky tooth is gone and that I'll never have to worry about an over-crowded mouth again. Maybe my teeth will even move back into place again. My FIL seems to think this is the case; I really hope so. Presently, my bite is completely off and I can't even shut my mouth completely because my teeth don't rest together anymore. We'll see. I'll keep you posted. Meanwhile...as The Maestro on Seinfeld says, "Let's celebrate!"

Long lost twins

Squeeze's Grandma keeps a vintage 1982 Montgomery Wards Christmas catalog out on her porch, under an arm-chair. On a quiet afternoon a number of years ago, Squeeze and I were breezily leafing through it and discovered, much to my shock/pleasure, the original advertisement for one of my favorite sweaters (I really like the zipper and the long zippery neck).

We were reunited again this weekend: only this time, I was wearing the old boy. Here we are (snuggling). I think the model puts a burly out-of-doors feel to it, while I am going for more the look of a relaxed amputee.