2012 Garden Tour

East Garden: Early June

The straw is laid down and all supports are in.

Onions are growing in the foreground.

Lettuce is the bright, bushy stuff on the left;

Peas are the tall plants in the background.

East Garden: Mid-June

A couple of weeks later and things are really growing.

I took this picture while a storm was moving in --

thus the pink lighting.

East Garden: Mid-July

Things are way, way up.

Onions will be harvested in a couple of weeks, corn is coming,

and the cabbages are starting to curl inward.

 To think . . .

this delicate little darling becomes

an enormous squash.

 West Garden: Mid-July

The vining plants grow here:
Melons, winter squash, summer squash, pumpkins.

Squeeze gives Truen credit for the idea for this walkway.

Truby was so excited about his "bridge" --

he drew a model of what he wanted, helped Squeeze pick out the planks,

and acted as construction assistant.

All the three of the boys loooooove walking on it.

Our very own grapes --

The birds got the majority of these little beauties.

Better luck next year...?

Mid-July harvesting:

Zucchini, beets, scalloped summer squash, cucumbers

Truen set this up while I was making lunch one afternoon.

Isn't it just darling?

We spent a couple of days protecting it from Jamie and

admiring the color and size differences, until the novelty wore off

and I disassembled it to make room on the table.

It has been flooding tomatoes for the past three weeks --

German Pink, Manyel, Cherokee Purple, Black Plum

(there's a bit of scarlett okra in there as well).

See our beautiful back "steps"?  And that lovely bottom-landing carpet?

Squeeze's dad will be building REAL steps this fall (can't wait).

 Melons, zucchini, & Cinderella pumpkins
from the West Garden --
the boys love the treasure-hunt of picking melons,
Not to mention the succulent, sweet reward.


Diego's vegetable stand --
This is his second year of selling vegetables.
His stand is in the kitchen; doesn't he set it up so beautifully?
While he sells to anyone who visits the house (thanks Mimi!),
his most loyal customers are his Grandmas. ♥
The price?  One "hawk coin" . . . twenty-five cents.

East Garden: September

It looks a bit weedy and upkept by this point.

Cucumbers, corn, onions, and garlic are all done.  Some things are going to seed.  Second seedings of lettuce, radishes, cilantro are looking good, as are the second plantings of green beans and broccoli. 

The first planting of broccoli is putting out, big-time (though the florets are now about the size of your thumb).  Cooking greens are going full bore.  Tomatoes eggplant, okra, and peppers need to be picked every-other-day.

Our little franken-toddler has to be closely monitored these days.  He likes to stomp up to big green tomatoes or little peppers with uber enthusiasm, saying, "Rwwwwiiiiiiiipe!" and then lop them off their vines.  'Tis the season of life and garden.

The weekend tally

• 2 pints watermelon-rind pickles
• 7.5 pints charred chili BBQ sauce
• 9.5 quarts tomato sauce
• 1-2 pints tomato paste drying in the dehydrator (it started out as somewhere around 10 lbs of plum tomatoes . . . wow)
• 8 quarts sauerkraut decanted, fermenting vessels refilled with same amount of fresh cabbage, salt, and caraway seeds
• Went apple-picking and picked . . . uhhhhhh . . . 60 lbs?, 75 lbs? . . . 4 boxes full
• Picked a sack filled with black walnuts to dry (experimenting)

How am I doing this...?  Very simple.  Squeeze keeps the boys under wraps for the weekend (they play alongside him wherever he is working, or "help" him work) while I spend two days from noon to bed-time in the kitchen. 

I am a preserving machine this season, a force to be reckoned with.  I surveyed our jar storage this evening and realized that we might run out of jars (and/or be forced to use the pints when I'd rather use the quarts).  The tomatillo glut hasn't even started yet and I have big plans for mondo amounts of salsa verde.  !!!

This is amazing for two reasons.  First off, I've been semi-embarrassed in the past, wondering why I have been hoarding such massive quantities of canning jars.  It always seemed so excessive.  But this year?  Whoa baby, I'm on fire. 

And that brings me to my second point, which is . . . I am totally Wonder Woman this year.  It is amazing.  I can't believe the amount of food I am preserving!  I assume it is a combination of fabulous output from our garden and the accumulation of skills and experience.  I am so impressed every time I go down in the root cellar.  It already looks amazing.

And last but not least, Squeeze built a sandbox.  (Sorry about that terribly back-lit picture, it was the best I could do at the time.)  We've been talking about it for the past 3-4 years and finally got our act together and decided this was it!  The biggest hurdle has been deciding where it would go.  Squeeze used wood from our huge pile of reclaimed lumber, harnessing the charm of the "rustic" look.  He did a great job.

Last weekend's stats

• 2 pints watermelon-rind pickles
• 4 pints cantaloupe preserves
• 2 quarts dried plum tomatoes
• 11 quarts tomato sauce
• Still in the hopper (i.e. should have been decanted on Sunday): 6 quarts sauerkraut

You can teach an old dog new tricks (me)

Instilling a sense of duty has not come naturally to me as a parent.  I'm all about inspiration and affection, learning to love the world around us, taking time to appreciate "the little things".  But duty?  Not so much.  Duty is "boring".

However, in recent years I have come to realize that duty is a very important part of life.  In it lies the simple building blocks of daily life: respect, patience, perseverance, serving others, care of possessions, maintenance of living spaces, etc.  Without these habits built into life, chaos reigns.  Chaos is worse than boring - it is dreadful.

A habit is "an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary".  Of course we clear our spot when we are done!  X-Y-Z goes back on the shelf after I'm done with it.  And that life-simplifying mantra, "a place for everything and everything in its place". 

Without a doubt, order and cleanliness comes easier to some than others.  Children amplify the need for these life skills, or lack there of, beyond reckoning.  I fall into the second category.  Lack there of.  Doh.

I remember reading encouragement to involve young ones in chores right from the start.  It will often take longer, but it is worth the effort of patience and (sometimes) added work to train them to help.  While I am doing that with Jamie, I never really did with Diego until he was a bit older, perhaps around 3-ish.  Probably because most of the said-chores were not on my radar screen.  The messes seem bigger and more ominous now, but also . . . prior to children, my jobs were to wash the dishes and clean the cat litters.  Squeeze did everything else. 

It has been a slow transition over the years, but I now hold the reigns of household management.  Of course, this also involves cleaning up after three little rascals, but I am floored by the amount of labor that is involved in "just life".  The daily grind.  The endless minutiae of picking up, organizing, cleaning, re-organizing, picking up, cleaning it again, and so on. 

Without daily maintenance, I am toast.  The tsunami-force of the mess monster swallows one whole - mind, spirit and all.  It is like a black-hole of despair.

My recent understanding of all this has initiated a major overhaul this past year.  The boys are becoming more and more responsible in household maintenance.  We all live here, and while I am your mama, I ain't your maid.

It has been a work in progress for several years.  I've spent a goodly amount of time hammering out my own failings . . . developing standards and creating structure in my own daily/weekly routines . . . and while I am not perfect, things have improved drastically.

Through all these inner-workings and sight of tangible results, I've realized that instilling a set of expectations in the daily routine is key.  It used to be the darndest thing to have my boys get dressed every day.  And brushing teeth after breakfast?  Fergettabou'dit.  They hit the ground running for the play table as soon as their breakfast dishes were cleared.

But then it hit me: make it an expectation.  Schedule it in to the routine.  Normalize it into daily reality.  One small example of this is my recent regimentation of "morning chores", which is nothing more than clearing the table, wiping their spot, brushing their teeth, and getting dressed.  But now . . . if they forget, all I need to do is ask sweetly, "What do you need to do next?" and they know exactly what I am talking about.  There is no harassing and the work gets done, in large part because they expect it.

It is embarrassing to know that I am just figuring this out with a seven, four, and one-and-a-half year old, but things change over the years.  Demands and challenges are different, as are the levels of activity and distractedness.  And shoot, I'm an ENFP.  We don't do well with the "trivial drudgery of everyday life".  Heh.

What is best though, is that I've come to realize that I can make ANYTHING into habit.  Whatever portion of the daily grind I need them to take responsibility for . . . I can instill it as habit into their daily routine.  One at a time, slow and steady wins the race, but I can. DO. it.

And that feels very good.

The past is a foreign country

Retronaut: I am beyond intrigued.

People are people are people are people.  No matter when or where. 

I love stuff like this because it helps me get out of the entrapment of feeling like I am (or we are) "the first".  We are pioneering our own lives, yes, from birth to death - gaining the experiences and maturity that comes through living - but it has all been done before, a million times over.

Look into the eyes of some of these people.  I've seen them before.  I've seen them!  They are the faces of all of us.  Ever-changing, always the same.

Preservation blitz

It is the wee hours of the night/morning and I've been in the kitchen for most of the day . . . decanting sauerkraut, jamming and canning 12 cups of concord grapes, canning 9 quarts of tomato sauce.  I didn't get started until mid-afternoon, but crikes . . . I'm bushed. 

Tomorrow I will need to re-fill the Pickl-It jars with a fresh batch of thinly-sliced cabbage n' caraway seeds for 'kraut and quarter plum tomatoes for the dehydrater. 

I really should blanch and freeze kale and collards as well.  They "keep" so much longer out in the garden, but better to get a jump on it vs. waiting until I am totally burnt-out and the plants are half-dead.  I doubt I'll have it in me, though.  Maybe sometime this week.

'Tis the season.

Harvesting & homeschooling

I feel a burning lack of contemplative thought in my life right now.  I don't have time to read, I don't have time to sit and stare, I don't have time for blogging.  It burns.  I sat down to write a contemplative post today, but realized that I don't have the time or ability to hammer my thoughts into a cohesive thesis.  So I shan't.  I just can't.

Our tomato table is full to the brim, waiting for me to slice plum tomatoes for drying.  I hope to have enough big-juicies to make a batch of tomato sauce soon.  Salsa, too.  I de-stemmed 10 lbs of grapes yesterday, concord grapes from our neighbor Walentyne.  They are such a gorgeous dusky purple-blue, my heart leaps whenever I look at them.  The next step is to separate the skins from the pulp.  I am making grape jam, so I will then cook the pulp, strain the seeds, then add the chopped skins back to the greenish-goo, add a sweetener and vioa-la!, jam.

I looked around the house yesterday and remembered, "Oh yes, this is September".  Of course it isn't September yet, but the harvest has started.  Things are getting wild.  I want to keep my perspective this year, to remember that the house might look like a cyclone hit it, but the chaos is only temporary.  It is worth it.

I am also looking toward the reality that we are starting Year 1 . . . first grade . . . of homeschooling this year.  We will start in October.  I feel fairly relaxed about it as I did most of my planning this past spring (with two year of reading and research undergirding it).  We have cultivated our home and lifestyle as a rich learning environment, so even if we haven't officially done "school", our little fellas have been schooled in many life skills and sciences since the very start.  I am also realizing that I am of the "better late than early" variety. 

I will be following the methods and philosophy of the educator Charlotte Mason using Ambleside Online as my training wheels, though I will be using The Story of the World as my history "spine".  I will be very curious to see how everything plays out.  It will involve a lot of reading aloud, which I think we will all enjoy.  I'm not exactly sure how to re-organize our day to make everything work, but I have read enough about homeschooling to know that it might taking several readjustments before things gel.

Other goals include teaching Diego how to read (which I think he is totally ready for, it should be easy) and teaching both boys how to tell time, as they currently measure time by Mr. Bean episode-lengths.  I think I need a morning board, so I can go hard at it with the season, temperature, date, time, etc.  Any suggestions out there...?  For some reason, I can't muster the inner strength to actually make one (though it must be easy).

Olson Extravaganza

Posting a little sooner than last year . . .

My parents & sister left yesterday after a two-week visit.

We spent a week at our place and a week in the Twin Cities.

Lots of time with my sibs, grandparents, great-grands,

and a menagerie of extended Olsons.

'Twas good.

 The usual with Unky Erik

 The extended Olsons --

We had many a night like this.

Laid out flat at the beach --

three days without a nap'll do this to yeh.

My youngest sibs --

Snacking on homemade hummus

after splashing around with the nephews in the lake.

 Watching the koi at Como Park

Examining the fountain coins with Unky Andrew

 Blasting Grandma with the bubble gun --

She's the one that bought it for them! :)

Unky Jayna outright laughing --

Jamie's face was smooshed beyond belief in that mask.

Uncle Andrew & Auntie Brenda --

Keepin' it real with the kiddos.

Playing Go Fish with Grandpa & Great-Grandma

My lovely grandparents

"Up at the cabin"

The boys with their great-grands

and the friendly neighborhood kitty.

The last-minute goodbye photo 

Postus Interruptus

I am supposed to be putting a chicken into the oven to roast; but instead I am snuggling with my littlest guy, still groggy from his nap. 

He wouldn't be awake, except that Truen dropped an aluminum pail right in the front entry while begging me to come outside (as I readied the aforementioned chicken).  The giant reverberating crash that it produced as it hit the ground woke his baby brudder up.

Sheesh.  Go figure.

The last two days have been warm and sunny (and not the heat box we've been living in).  It has been delightful.  The entire house is open and breezy, flooded with fresh air.  It feels good to go outside.  Hearing the birds chirp under the shade of a tree with the breeze on my skin felt like a downright luxury this afternoon, especially after the weeks and weeks of scorching misery.

Ahhhhhh . . .

Jamie is up and running with his brudders, so I'd better get back to my chicken. 

We are finishing a run of two weeks with Squeeze working overtime, up an hour earlier every day and skipping his lunch hour.  It has been a grueling couple of weeks for him.  The poor guy was almost slug-like on the couch last night and eventually crawled upstairs to bed like a beaten dog.

A catch-up list

• Various posts keep running through my head.  The one stuck on repeat most recently would have been titled "Things I Thought I'd Never Hear Myself Say as a Mother", with the headliner of "Please get your face out of my butt".  Yes, I've said that.  More than once.
• But(t).  I'm not in the mood.  I'll just do a list-post to catch up on life.
• Jamie is starting to connect words with concepts.  Like today, when he put his fingers in the bottom of the glass sliding door, then held up his filthy little hand and said, "Doh-dee".  It took me a second for it to register, then I realized that he telling me that his hand was dirty.  The sweet little fella.
• Or yesterday, when we were in the garden and he was nervous around the sprinkler.  He kept on backing away and saying, "Cold! Cold!" whenever it veered in his direction.
• Speaking of veering.  I am actively trying to reprogram my nickname for Schtinky.  The time has come for a change, mostly because I don't want him to get upset about it as he gets older.  Recently I've been calling him "Voosy", which is Squeeze's nickname for him, or have defaulted to my new one: "Tsamie".  He answers to all of them.  Schtinky, Stinky, Jamie, Tsamie, Voos, Voosy.
• Our summer has been very hot and dry.  We've had one real rain in the last two months.  All the grass is brown and we are watering our young trees to keep them going.  Ditto on the gardens.  Squeeze runs the sprinkler almost every morning or night.
• Because of the heat, we are going to have AMAZING melons, squash, eggplant, peppers, okra, etc. this year.  It is looking doubtful for the tomatoes, though.  The plants look phenomenal, but it isn't cooling down enough at night and we are losing blossoms, especially on the big juicies.  No flowers, no fruit.  Frustrating.
• This is definitely the hottest summer we have had here.  Squeeze heard somewhere that these are the warmest temps in Minnesota since 1987.  In the past, we've run our air conditioner maybe once a summer, perhaps for 3-4 days, during a miserable run of hot, humid days; but this summer, the a/c has been on for most of July.  Life would be miserable without it, though I am getting very tired of feeling cooped up.  We have enough of that in the winter months.
• My parents and sister are coming for a visit next week.  They will be at our house for a few days, then we are all heading to the Twin Cities for my grandparents' 60th where we will meet up with another two brothers and a SIL.  One brother and a SIL won't be able to make it, so it won't be a complete reunion, but fun nevertheless.

Back to the old grind.  Nap/Quiet Time is officially over.  Goodbye, silence . . . you carressed my ears and mind, but my jaw still hurts . . .

I love my boys. ♥

The brudders with their great-grands

In Wisconsin, the week before last

Domestic bliss

We've been here for 5 years now.  A post on that fact (five. years!) brewed in my head for several weeks, but nothing ever came of it.  My thoughts aren't transferable amongst the screaming and I haven't had the inspiration to sacrifice my sleep/stare/read times as of yet.  Besides . . . that last post?  Yeah.  All hell broke loose with the brudders and the baby scribbled on the wall with a pencil in the chaos.  It just isn't worth it.

Nevertheless, we've been here for 5 years.  And it has been just this year that we are starting to get radical on improving irritating things about this house.

Squeeze replaced the high-tower toilet.  He replaced the leaky plumbing under the sink and the faucets in the bathtub and bathroom sink.  But most deliciously . . . we had our neighbor come this spring and install shelving into a long kitchen closet (it actually used to be an elevator) that turned a piddly few shelves into a true-blue Pantry Closet that I can't gush enough about.

Here's the BEFORE shot.  Why the previous owners had three shelves so-very-far apart is beyond me.

We were able to consolidate a number of scattered storage spaces into something entirely more efficient and amazing.  Seriously, we batted our eyelashes at it for days after install at the beauty of it.  We kept the light on in the evening that first night just to LOOK at it.  Storage room and plenty of it.  Shelves for food, shelves for surplus kitchen equipment, shelves for craft and art and paper supplies.  Shelves for games!  Shelves for toys.  Shelves for cookbooks.  Shelves and shelves and shelves!  The glory.

This is the AFTER shot.  Things are gotten even more wonderful as we have settled in.  Oh, the beauty!  It has definitely added to my overall level of happiness and sanity.  I am thankful for it every single day.  (The filing cabinet was moved to the bedroom closet and the food dehydrator went to the top of the dryer and we added a plant near the window.  Whee!) 

The three existing shelves went upstairs to the closet directly above this one (the top portion of the former elevator, about half the size of this one due to the slanting roof). It also only had three shelves, just as far apart. Squeeze screwed the two additional shelves between the existing so now we have five! shelves! in what we call the Holiday Closet. It is 100% seasonal decorations. Who knew one family could amass that much decor??

All the glory and grandeur of the reorganized closets has inspired us to finally organize the other storage closet upstairs.  Yesterday we went to what Truen calls "The Bernards" (AKA the hardware super-store called "Menards") and bought steel storage shelving.  The wonder!  I can't wait.  We are going to pull everything out of the closet this evening and reorganize.  The weather is nasty (90 degrees F and above), so indoor work is ideal.  It is going to be awesome.  Totally tubular.

Estoy aquí

Has it really been over two weeks since I posted last?  Ugh.  Time flies, especially with less an hour of down-time each day.  I could stay up later I suppose, but I'm just not willing to do that.

Updates?  The only thing I have time for is to report that I've started pulling out gray hairs.  Double-ugh.  Just within the last couple of months, I've noticed stray white hairs glimmering on the top of my head.  They are shorter, bristly and they stick straight up. !!! 

They are getting the boot.  I don't think I would mind so much if they laid down flat, but they stick up like little wires.

Lovely.

Tidbits

• Today I'm going to make garlic scape pesto.  I dropped last summer's pesto remnants in a glass storage container that shattered on the kitchen floor and honestly contemplated trying to eat it in spite of the glass shards.  It is that good.
• We killed another baby bird last night.  Not on purpose of course.  This time a robin fledgling that fell out of the tree in the front yard last Saturday morning.  We read online to leave a fledgling alone and let its parents take care of it, but we have three children under seven and it was in the front yard right outside our windows.  It didn't stand a chance.  They couldn't leave it alone and we weren't willing to spend an entire day or more fighting them off of it.  The boys did their best, feeding it all kinds of chopped worms, but in the end "mother knows best".  Sad.
• The linden basswood tree in our front yard is in full bloom.  It is literally buzzing with honey bees and its flowery fragrance is almost overpowering.  I am extremely fond of this tree, feeling thankful for it (and the people who planted it) almost everyday.  The shade that it provides our home and yard below it is so luxurious, a haven to hide under on a warm, sunny day.  It is downright gorgeous undearneath its leafy spread.
• Schtinky AKA Jamie has been very opinionated about which breast he nurses on for awhile now.  He now says, "ah-side" when he is ready to switch.  Before that it was just a lot of squeezing and shirt-pulling.
• Last Saturday I slept in until 9:00 AM, very comfortable and dozing in and out of sleep throughout the morning.  Ladies, it has been a long time.  Probably more than year?  Maybe longer.  This too, felt like a luxury.  Wow.  It was amazing.

I laugh every time I look at it

Post title: The Bright Side
Picture caption: Only one of them was aware it existed.

Endless giggles: Awkward Family Photos

Obsessed with "chesst"

All three of our boys are going through a chess binge (otherwise known as "chesst" at our house).  We have three sets: one cardboard and plastic-piece set from Wilburn, circa 1974, one wooden set from Squeeze's childhood chess obsession, and a small magnetic travel chess set, also from Squeeze's childhood.  He used to play against himself in the car.  All three boards are in circulation.

Diego begs both Squeeze and I to play every day.  Most of the game is punctuated with "No, a pawn can only move one space forward", which seems to be the rule he has the hardest time remembering.  He obviously has no ability for strategy at this point, but he loves moving the pieces around the board and capture his opponent's pieces. 

Truen likes to use the pieces for his own imaginative battle scenes, complete with sound effects.  He doesn't play "chesst", per se.  Like Diego, he can set up the board with the pieces in the correct spots.  "I know how to set it up, do you know that Mama?" he said this afternoon.  And he had, it was set up perfectly.  Wow.

Jamie is very interested with both the pieces and boards as well, not only because they are new, but also because his brothers' major "chesst" jag.  He likes to suck on the pieces and throw them around the room as well as scrape the chess board against the kitchen floor.  Uff.

It has been a intriguing phase to be thrust into.  Who would have thunk it?

Silver lining

Every cloud has one, right?

While I was vacuuming our gargantuan living room today (a later addition to this old, patchwork-quilt-of-a-house, larger than the size of our first apartment), I was able to think of some good things about being done with having babies.

• Not having to be pregnant again.  This is two-thirds good news, as I only truly enjoy the second trimester anyway.
• Along the same lines . . . suffering less wear and tear on my body.  This last time around, I remember feeling like I was recovering from pregnancy, not childbirth.  One would think it would only get rougher.
• Less expense in our yearly flight to Seattle to visit my family.  And less insanity en route.
• Not having to reconfigure how to share myself with four children.  Everyone wants to sleep with me.  Everyone wants to snuggle with me at the same time.  But there is only one of me and I only have two arms.  (Though Diego has been snuggling with my LEGS at night.  He wakes up on his own and then comes and snuggles in at the bottom of the bed.  I actually like it, unless I am so cramped that I am unable to move.)
• Done with diapers and night-nursing forever 'n ever.  Yes.  That sounds nice.
• Not having to come up with another name.  Weird I know, but I honestly consider it an unpleasant task.  It is just too hard.

We shall see.  Squeeze is 100% ready to be done.  I am probably 75% ready to be done.  I think.  Some days I am okay with the thought, but I mostly feel mournful and incredulous.

Seasons in clothing and life

I finally finished re-organizing the boys' winter clothing for storage in our household's biannual seasonal clothing change.  Just yesterday.  It is a task that I both enjoy and dread.

On one hand, I am pleased to remember how blessed we are.  I revel in the base-level practicality of it all, knowing that I don't need to even think about clothes for the next boy.  I like the nostalgia of memories triggered of my boys at certain ages.  I love the frugality.

On the other hand, it is a fairly sizable task to tackle while my three little guys dance around me.  It always seems insurmountable and I usually put it off for weeks and weeks.

But as I folded baby clothes yesterday morning, the ones that Jamie has grown out of, stacked upstairs for later organization, I felt the weight of sadness.  The memories.  Those little, soft baby clothes with the sweet-smelling, fat baby that goes in them.  My tender heart!  Indeed . . . babies are very likely becoming a thing of the past for our little family.  It makes me so sad.  I can't even bring myself to speak of it in certain terms.

No more babies?  Never to birth again??  Never to hold my own newborn close, savoring every little snort and grunt?  Never again?  It hurts, ladies.  It hurts.  And it is probably - I think - pretty much, most likely, the end.  Probably.  I think.

I know we must all go through it to some extent, but it is just. so. sad.

Just like brudder

Just like brudder.  Always.

It is so fun to watch the wheels turning in his little head,

seeing how he works it out to mirror his brudders.

(I remember my sister squatting like this with me when she was a similar age.)

On a sidenote: Truen wore those shoes when he was 2.5 years old.

And they definitely won't fit Jamie next summer.

Currently: Schtinks = 27 lbs :: Truen = 32 lbs

I thought I'd try to get a good shot of the three of them while I was at it.

No luck . . .

Though I do love seeing what each of them are up to.

They are sitting in front of the chicken yard --

currently we have 9 chick(en)s which we will butcher this fall.

(We liquidated our egg-laying stock last fall.)

Same thing.  Just like brudder.

He insisted on having his towel wrapped around him

just exactly like Truen had his towel wrapped.

He has been wanting to "help" in the kitchen too --

In this case, making ice cream.

Yesterday he was "helping" me pound bread crumbs.

On the step-stool, a good 2-3 feet off the ground.  Gah!

I spent most of my time hovering,

worrying about a misstep vs. getting dinner done.

(: But how I love this little brudder. :)

Squeezing in a post

There is too much to say and not enough time to write a coherent post, so I defer to the list-post.

• We had another huge green salad for lunch today, topped with tuna, sunflower seeds, raisins, radishes, shredded cheese and olive oil with balsamic vinegar.  It was scrumptious.  I am endlessly pleased that my boys eat this without batting an eyelash.
• I bought two quarts of strawberries from the farmers' market in Big Town, SD yesterday.  We ate sliced strawberries with breakfast, made strawberry-banana creamsicles this afternoon, and will have strawberry shortcake this evening for dessert.  Though actually . . . it will be shortbread.  Same-diff.?  Not sure, but it is gonna be awesome.
• Eating our strawberries this morning I pondered on the idea of eating seasonally and came upon something.  I realized that I don't mind eating strawberries just during June, or tomatoes in August and September alone, because there are so many other wonderful treats rotating throughout the year.  Citrus and soups in the winter months.  Apples in the fall.  Asparagus and spinach every spring.  What a rich cyclical bounty!
• Of course, we are eating home preserved and processed foods throughout the year as well, but there is something very special about eating fresh food in season.  I never would have known.  I'm so glad to have conditioned myself to this way of eating.  It is so much more of a thrill.  Honestly.
• We've been eating another seasonal treat recently as well: ice cream.  We have the ice cream attachment for our KitchenAid stand mixer (oh my goodness, if you have the mixer, buy the ice cream attachment).  Oh my, but what lovely delights that can be made with that little beauty!  And no filler.  Just cream, egg yolks, maple syrup, vanilla.  Yo.
• Our little Jamie.  What a cutie.  His new words are "Go!", "Hi", "Cheese" and he even said Grandma when prompted last week, though I can't remember how it went.  He likes it when I say, "One - Two - Three - Gooooo!" and joins me on the "Gooooo!", sliding down the slide or whatever other magnificent feat he's performing.  It's adorable.
• Speaking of the little bugger, I've added peeing on the potty right before bed to his potty-training regimen.  Every morning and every night, I sit him down and ask him to potty.  He almost always does.
• Two weeks ago, I noticed that his little hands were so dry that his thumbs were cracking.  Ugh!  It was terrible.  He squeezed a kumquat and cried and cried because it stung so horribly.  I started giving him cod liver oil in what we have now started calling "chewy pills" (AKA softgels) and they are healing nicely.  I tried giving him cod liver oil from this spoon this past winter, but he spit it out on to his shirt and peeeee-uewy, but that will stink for untold amounts of time. 
• I learned that trick from dealing with my own poor cracked thumb in the winter months.  Starting the year after Diego was born, my right thumb started cracking along the right-side of my nail line and nothing I did would heal it: lotion, ointment, band-aids, whatever.  It would heal up and crack right open again.  Oy, it hurt.  Enter cod liver oil, and *poof* gone.  It has threatened to come back in recent winters, but I amp up on the CLO and it disappears.

The baby awakes.  Much love.

Streaming

• Another windy day.  We've had several days of such fierce wind in the past week that it's just better not to go outside.  My hair whips around my face and practically stands on end.  The wind has battered a number of spring flowers into an oblivion and snapped several flowering varieties in half, including a cypripedium orchid that was getting ready to bloom for the first time in four years.  Boo.
• Schtinky AKA Jamie has started saying "poo-poo".  This morning as I walked into the living room with a diaper right after his bath, he pointed at his pee-spot on the floor (grrrrreat) and said, "poo-poo".  He has also pointed to Truen on the toilet and responded to my inquiry about poop in his diaper with "poo-poo".
• He also makes farting noises and laughs.  And holds objects that look like guns and makes the "pshw-phsw" sound.  Is that the youngest of three brudders or what??
• Diego is going through a huge obsession with the I SPY books.  We read through a few pages on an almost-daily basis.  He love-love-loves finding all the hidden objects.  He has also been using our wooden blocks, tinker toys, duplo blocks and little tidbits around the house to create his own I SPY scenes.  Some of the stuff he's come up with is quite well thought-out.
• Truen's current obsession is my jewelry boxes.  Last Friday, Schtinky attempted to climb our bedroom dresser using open drawers as a ladder.  I don't know how he survived unscathed, but he did.  (And nothing broke!)  Everything came crashing down, including a whimsical "jewelry tree" that Squeeze made for me a couple of years ago (an arty-looking tree branch stuck into brown aquarium-rock in a vintage plant-pot).  Ugh . . . the horrors.  We had weekend guests coming, so I did my best to pick up all the small pieces, but then had to move on to more important messes.
• So yes.  The jewelry.  I've never thought of myself as a "jewelry girl", but I have quite a lot of it.  It has been sitting out within reaching-distance on Squeeze's grandma's buffet in the living room, much to the interest of my little "Truby-ruby", as Diego is calling him these days.  Both my jewelry boxes and the box of my great-grandma's cheap costume jewelry bequeathed to me by my grandmother.
• He has to sit at the table to go through it all and puts all the necklaces and bracelets on by turn.  With a gleam in his eye.  "I'll wear this and this when I go out in public," he says, showing me his arm and chest.
• Truen has also been getting upset by being smaller than Diego recently.  He doesn't like that he is littler, that Diego will always be bigger, and will work himself up into tears, wailing, "and I am always getting hurt!".  Which is true.  He gets hurt with unbelievable frequency.
• His current injury is a scrape to the side of his right big-toe knuckle.  If you can follow that.  Diego basically slide into him while they were playing on the front walk, causing him to scrape that spot on the inside of his foot a number of inches on the cement.  It is a DOOZY.  Very nasty and hard to heal because it keeps on getting re-injured.  I've finally insisted that he wears socks and slippers inside and socks and shoes outside.  Enough already.
• Shifting gears . . . with our gardens completely planted, our focus has shifted to weeding and watering (especially with this hot, wicked wind blowing).  Soon we will be paper-and-strawing, though I am lobbying for just "strawing".
• The moths have been un-un-un-un this year.  They are everywhere.  If something hangs out on the line overnight, a dozen moths will be hiding under it.  Every time I open the garage door in the morning, a couple dozen moths fly out at me and make me squawk as if it were Hitchcock's The Birds.  It is getting down-right oogie.
• We found two baby blackbirds that fell from their nests last Friday.  The first was big and strong enough to put back into the tree so it could hop back up to its nest.  The second was too young, very fuzzy and just starting to get its feathers.  The boys have been begging to raid bird nests to get a "pet bird" (right, like that is ever going to happen), so this was the perfect opportunity for me to satiate that desire.  I reasoned that even if it ended up dying, it wouldn't have made it anyway. 
• Oh, they were thrilled.  So thrilled.  We found a wind-blown nest and Diego made it a soft bed of fresh grass inside it.  They fed it moths and worms and softened catfood (yuck).  They learned to tap the side of the nest so it would start peeping and begging for food.  They held it and fussed over it.  At one point I found Diego sitting alone, holding the nest and staring off with dreamy eyes.  "I'm just so happy," he said, smiling hugely.
• And then it died.  The third day. 
• Our theory is that it got too cold in the night (a storm blew through) and that it waited too long to eat that morning (the boys slept in due to late nights and all the thrill of our weekend visitors).  Saaaaad.  Diego cried (Truen seemed less affected).  The 13 year old girl who was staying with us brought it in the house as it was breathing its last, barely able to lift its head.  Oh, it was terrible.  Just terrible.  We were all sad. 
• But even then, I was amazed how quickly they got over it.  It was a good experience for the boy-ohs, though I do wish we wouldn't have let the little guy down.

Garden notes: fully planted

Is it Thursday already?

We had an extremely productive three days last weekend.  Squeeze took Monday off, an excellent move which produced some massive results.  Massive?  Yes.  Both gardens are 100% planted.  All supports (cages, frames, poles, wind protection, etc.) are in.

Stats from this weekend:

• 54 tomatoes
• 41 peppers
• 16 eggplants
• 6 tomatillos
• 4 varieties of winter squash (Buttercup, Butternut, Spaghetti, Triamble)
• Cucumbers (Lemon and Bushy)
• Summer squash (a yellow patty-pan and Black Beauty zucchini)
• Gourds, pumpkins
• Melons (Charantis and Sweet Siberian for sure)

We've been eating huge salads all week.  In fact, for lunch the other day I served the boys a giant salad with sunflower seeds, raisins, tuna chunks and shredded cheese with buttered toast.  They yummed it down and Truen requested it for lunch the next day as well.  I also picked enough spinach that all of us were able to eat it with dinner one evening in delightful quantities (we usually end up fighting over it).  With butter and salt.  Yo.

We feel very good with where we are at this year.  Very good.  "Experience is the best teacher" and man, we learn more and more with each passing season.  When a tactic fails, we take note and make sure not to repeat it the next season.  Or even accidental or circumstantial failures, like last year when we didn't get the tomato support fences up until early July.  It couldn't be helped . . . there was just too much else to do.  But this year?  The fences were already made (a huge boost in working towards our goal) and we got them in as we planted.  That is huge.

More notes from this spring:

• April 2nd
• April 23rd
• May 7th

The boys and I were in Minneapolis last week, staying with dear friends and visiting with my brother while he was in town.  We hit up the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Como Park, Minnehaha Falls, hung with our buddies, satiated my cravings for Nepali and Middle Eastern food, spent time with a friend and her new baby and visited with a college roommate (and her children) I hadn't seen in almost 9 years.  A very full and rich few days.

More spring notes from the garden

One of the nests we are watching this spring:

Aren't robins' eggs so gorgeous?

That blue . . . so hopeful.
Mesmerizing.

We are catching up from our dry winter with a downpour of spring rains - 5 inches in the past 3-4 days.  Work in the garden this weekend was muddy.  We slogged around with muck all over our boots, getting taller and more heavy-footed with each step as it compacted underfoot.

We didn't get into the garden until Sunday, as it was raining buckets all Saturday day and night.  And what a sight it was.  Totally overwhelming.  With all this rain (and last week's temps in the 80s F), everything has been growing in turbo-speed and it felt like the weeds were the most prolific of the bunch.  It was discouraging.

But we rallied and attacked and by the end of the day, things looked pretty darn good.

I weeded the peas, celery, lettuce/radishes, spinach and garlic.  Squeeze weeded the carrots, kale, collards and chard; he also prepped the cabbage bed (which involved a full-on frontal attack on mats of grass), then planted the cabbage seedlings. 

Those poor little cabbages . . . they have been sitting outside for the past week "hardening off" (AKA getting used to outside temps) and have been absolutely assaulted by the weather.  They've been drowned several times, blown-silly by fierce winds, hammered by rain, and just this past Saturday night, pelted by hail.  Squeeze had to don the rain slicker and rescue them from certain death.

We ate a yummy-delicious salad of lettuce and radishes last night, composed entirely of newly-seeded plants . . . the earliest salad on record.  (Other early salads have involved cold frames or mild-winter survivors.)

2012 Spring garden notes:

• April 2nd
• April 23rd

The Brudders

Schtinky has really enjoyed the slide this spring.

(Another road-side treasure)

Truby was SO proud of spelling his name.

"What are the letters in my name, Mama?" he asked,

then found each one and put them together on the front of the refrige.

I didn't have the heart to tell him about the extra "P"

(: Not that he would have known anyway :)

These mangled letters have been in many-a-mouth over the years.

Diego's special request: 

A picture of him snuggling with a carved wolf at the airport.

His sweetness gives me a happy smile.

Wouldn't this just have been so great??

Dern camera.



Still learning

We've lived here for 5 years this July.  Un-un-un-un.  And though it does feel normal by this point, I'm still amazed.  "Time flies."

I can remember back to the spring of 2008 when I was so utterly horrified by the amount of flies in the house.  They came creeping and crawling out of the cracks and buzzed at the windows en masse when the weather warmed up a bit.  Oogie, it was gross. 

(And I don't know why . . . but it hasn't been as bad the past couple of years.  I can't imagine we've done anything different?  Maybe 2008 and 2009 were particularly bad "fly years".)

With that, I was shocked to understand the purpose in the fly-tape I had previously observed in rural homes.  I had always thought it was so disgusting, wondering why on earth anyone would want something so repulsive in their house . . . then finally realizing what a necessary evil it was.  Fly-tape covered in dead flies is better than the little buggers buzzing all over your house.

Well, now I've come to another realization.  One that involves dirty carpet at the bottom of the steps of an outside entry.  Yuck.

We use our back door as the primary entrance in our home.  It's closer to the garden and garage and just easier.  But.  When the sunroom was added on to the house, the previous owners never installed a cement patio, sidewalk, or even proper steps.  The steps to get up to the sliding-glass door are nothing more than stacked cinder blocks.  This is a project on our long-term TO DO List that just hasn't had priority due to time and the intimidation factor.

However . . . as the years pass, things are getting dirtier and dirtier.  Where there used to be grass, we now have a growing DIRT PATCH with a 1-2 foot radius at our back entry.  It is ugly.  But worse, it is filthy.  We are tracking dirt and pebbles into our sunroom entry like you wouldn't believe.  It looks like a dirty sandbox after 1-2 days.  Very disheartening. 

I never contemplated cement landings at the bottom of stairs.  They were always just there in the city and suburbs.  (And I'm sure in many-to-most rural settings as well, but not at our house.)  But now I understand their purpose: the grass and ground will wear away with that much traffic.  Duh!  I'm so sthmart.

Which brings me to something else I've turned my nose up in the past.  Dirty carpet at the bottom of steps.  Revolting.  But folks are just trying to keep their houses a little cleaner, right?  Yes.  And while I know our temporary solution will not involve dirty interior carpet attempting to stave off the inevitable, I finally understand why it was there.  It makes sense to me.

I'm still learning.  Always.

Schtinks

Peering in at our new chicks this past weekend

The communication is pouring out of little Jamie.  I'm always amazed to see the wheels turning in his little head (though I suppose I shouldn't be).  It's adorable.  He generally doesn't say things when we ask him to, but they crop up on their own easily enough.

The past few days it has been names.  A first, aside from "Dada" and "Mama".  He will walk through the house looking for me, hollering, "Mama-mama-mama-mama!" on repeat.  But this weekend, I heard him say "D-go" in the living room, mimicking me as I was calling his brudder back into the kitchen.  And yesterday Squeeze walked into the living room right after we had been skyping with my sister . . . Jamie pointed at the computer and said "Dayna".  Just like that.

This weekend, it was just Jamie and me at the grocery store; he heard the intercom and signed "phone" to me.  (It was the sweetest thing.)  He also signed "phone" as we were ringing my sister on skype, now that I think about it.  And last night at bedtime, he was signing "milk" and "snuggle" in between the hollering screams and chest-pounding.  My chest, of course.  Heh.

More spring garden notes

This weekend we planted:

• Onions
• Scallions
• Leeks

Squeeze did all the leeks, I did all the scallions, and we split the onions 60 (him) / 40 (me).

The weather has been very chill for the last couple of weeks, often down to the low-mid 30's F at night.  We've lost a couple of early iris blooms because of the cold, as well as the new-growing asparagus spears we hadn't picked yet.  But good news: the asparagus is sending up new shoots again and the celery didn't die (we were afraid it might languish into an oblivion).

Sprouting beautifully in the garden are:

• Peas
• Lettuce, radishes
• Spinach
• Broccoli
• Kale, collards, chard
• Dill, chamomile (both reseeded from last year)

We enjoyed our first lettuce salad of the season this past Saturday night.  All four of us wolfed down with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  With scallion-laced scrambled eggs and basmati rice with a peanut/curry sauce, it was heavenly.  We can hardly wait for the next harvest!  Oh, it will be grand.  Garden lettuce!  There is no comparison.  And we did get a chance for one scrumptious side of buttered asparagus before the cold spell put an end to that.

Squeeze also harvested catnip and nettles this past weekend, which we dried for our 2012 tea supply.

Previous Spring 2012 garden notes.

United we stood

This past weekend, Squeeze and I got involved in a dispute over bath towels.  It was a classic tussle over pet peeves, with arguments dissected into a million little pieces - a disagreement that would have sent us into a tail-spin for days at one point in time.

But instead of fighting tooth and claw over the aggravating minutiae of how we didn't agree, we ended it with a good chuckle and a kiss.  We still didn't agree, but the storm blew over and left us on the same team.  We even laughed over our different angles on the issue and all the same, old hang-ups.

Fifteen years of practice, patience, affection and further understanding has brought us to this point.  What a wonderful place to be.

I am . . .

• Researching homeschooling.  I've hammered out my philosophy and methodology (Charlotte Mason Method / Charlotte Mason), but now I am looking into the reality of putting that in motion . . . analyzing booklists, curriculum guides, others' experiences and brainstorming possibilities.
• Watching Jonsi's "Go Do" with the baby on my back while posting on my blog.  Now that is multi-tasking.  (Loving the bird motif.)  My brudder is EO.
• Prepping for a late Easter celebration with Squeeze's family on Sunday.
• Coddling my left pointer finger after a whack with a sharp chef's knife last week (it slipped on an onion).  Uff.  It didn't bleed much because I was so quick to put pressure on the cut, but I did FAINT 10-15 minutes later as I was attempting to look up stitches in a reference book.  Thankfully Squeeze was in the room and caught me as I tipped backwards.  Un-un-un-un.  He dragged me into the living room and laid me on my back.  Everything I had been thinking about that day was swirling around in front of my eyes like a funnel until I surfaced, which felt like waking up out of a deep sleep.  I heard Squeeze telling the curious boys, "Mama fainted" as I was coming to.  It was the strangest thing.  My finger hurt much less after I fainted.  Odd.  And Schtinky was trying to lay on my head as I lay there. :P
• Cycling again.  After 15 months of respite (and actually, 24 months including pregnancy), I have to start thinking about charting again.  Bah.  Though I do know how lucky I am....
• Busy.  I can't believe how busy I am.  Hardly a moment for contemplative thought, let alone any extras.
• Happy.

Jamie

Lil' Schtinky is 15 months now.  I actually had to stare at the calendar and use my fingers to figure that one out.  It is just amazing how things change.  I know I knew Diego's exact age with each passing week and month (and possibly even Truen's), but with Jamie?  I just round up or down. 

"He turned one at the beginning of January," was my reply when people asked how old he was while we were at my parents' house.  Geesh.  There is just too much going on to be able to keep track.

A few things about Jamie --

• He has 11 teeth: 4 on top, 3 on bottom, and 4 molars
• New words include "mama", "dah-dao" (all done), "bel-bo" (belly button), "tinky" (you guessed it . . . Stinky), "uh-oh", and "der deh dis!" (there it is).
• He also said "brother" on the flight to Seattle but I haven't been able to get it out of him since.
• He signs "milk", "more", "all done", "food", "sharp", and "hot".  We are working on "please" and "help".
• He was absolutely CRAZY about my mom's horse and my parents' dog when we were home . . . it was all excited arm-flapping and squeals when he saw them for the first time.  He followed Joey (the dog) around and would get down on his hands-and-knees and laugh when he got close enough.
• He called the horse "ba-ba", or something like that.  Isn't that terrible that I can't remember?!
• His climbing obsession seems to have diminished somewhat.  He still climbs, but it isn't with the force it once was.  Thank goodness.
• His new-found interest is terrorizing his brudders.  Not that he's trying.  He just wants to do everything they are doing.  He want to be right there, right in that exact spot, and will rip toys out of their very hands.  There has been a lot of screaming and biting going on.
• Since we've been back from Western WA, he has been sleeping late in the morning, taking an afternoon nap (mostly) in conjunction with his brudder(s), and going to bed with all of us at night.  It has been nice . . . before we left he was getting up and going to bed earlier and was unable to make it to the afternoon nap, which usually resulted in a quick cat-nap around noon.  I either kept him in the backpack to ensure it was a short one, or would wake him up with his favorite home video (him dancing to Vivaldi) after 10-15 minutes.  Just enough to refresh him.  I will do anything for a simultaneous napping session!
• Jamie loves his daddy as much as his udder-brudders.  He lights up and runs to the back door with the rest of the crew if/when he knows Squeeze is home.  He wants to be held and will sidle in for squeezes and snuggles.  It is just the sweetest thing.
• He is still a total terror at meal-times.  We try to keep him as busy as possible.  The latest tactic is putting his food in a little egg-cup and with the a matching spoon, but after a few days he is losing interest.  I can't wait to enjoy my food again.
• He usually only says, "mama" if he is running after me, tired or hurt or needing me, and it sounds like this, "mamamamamamamama!"  Squeeze gets the happy, smiley "dada!".
• Some of my favorite moments with him are when he is sleepy or in need of cuddling . . . I hold him in my arms in front of me and he'll lay his head on my shoulder and it feels like we are puzzle pieces tightly fit together.  It feels so good and he smells so sweet.
• I have recently realized that I have worked the mournful feelings of the end of Jamie's baby year out of my system.  I was really sad about it for awhile.  The baby year is just so special (and tiring, let us not forget).  And now that that sadness has passed, I have re-realized how much I enjoy this age.  I LOVE the second year.  I love that they are still babies, but more independent.  Learning, laughing, toddling.  The regular mom-checks.  It is such a fun age.  I am really enjoying it.
• Schtinky is OBSESSED with his belly button and has been for well over a month now.  He walks around for most of the day with his finger in his belly button.  He keeps his finger in mine while nursing.  We regular talk about and examine his, mine, and Squeeze's belly buttons.  My poor belly button was red and sore in the middle of March from being poked and scratched at so much.  He finds it in the night while nursing.  He calls it a "bel-bo" (as opposed to Diego's "bel-buh").
• I wonder if my belly button will be to Jamie as my neck is to Diego and my armpits are to Truen...?  Then they will all have their special nook or cranny of my body.
• He definitely looks more like my side of the family.  My mom said she was reminded of me at this age while we were home.
• He has the lightest hair-coloring of the boys, with blonde highlights in the sun.
• He says, "Uh-oh!" when he drops something.
• He will nod his head "yes" to any question asked of him.
• He went through a little obsession with kissing and would start smacking his lips with a little "mpha-mpha" noise when he started thinking about it.  Then he would kiss everyone in sight.  Adorable.  A couple of times I would start hearing the "mpha-mpha-mpha" coming from behind me while he was in the backpack and I would turn my head to receive a smooch smack! on the lips.  He would stand up and grab my face if I didn't get at it quick enough.
• His run is like a hopping-bounce, but he does get places faster.  And it is usually in conjunction with a big smile lighting up his face. ♥
• The little fella.  How I love him!

Spring garden notes

We are a full month and a week ahead of last year and with hindsight we are realizing that we could have planted the cool-growing varieties several weeks ago.  This weekend it was in the 80's F.  Very weird for the end of March/beginning of April in the Midwest.  Very weird.  With last year's lengthy fall, the almost-snowless winter and now an early spring, it feels like we have barely had a break from the garden this year.

This weekend we planted:

• Spinach
• Kale
• Chard
• Celery
• Lettuce & Radishes
• Peas

Outside hardening off but still in flats are the alliums: onions, scallions, leeks.  Still in flats inside, in sunny windows and/or under lights on heating-mats, are some of the heat-loving varieties: tomatoes, peppers, misc. herbs, eggplant.  And now that I think of it . . . cabbage.  Maybe broccoli too?  Squeeze is in charge of logistics and I just got home, so I am a little out of touch.

We are still in the process of adjusting to being home.  Things are going so nicely compared to last year, for which I am thankful and making a point to consciously remember and feel grateful for.  It has been total cake compared to all the sickness of last spring.  The adjustment is mostly just sleeping times (wake, nap, bed-time) that are a little off.  But we are slowly transitioning.

I still have the feel of a refreshed perspective on life and I can tell that Squeeze does too.  It feels very good together again.

Home again / Home again / Jiggety-jog

Here we are, at home again, again.  And I didn't miss any flights, hallelujah.

I will never forget the spring of 2011 arriving at the gate in Seattle just as the door was closing, pushing a loaded stroller, the baby hanging in the sling in front of me while literally dragging the wailing 3 year old, the 5 year old trotting alongside of us holding on to the stroller.  Why Truen wasn't in the stroller I'll never know (or remember).

Or, same flight, at the layover of my re-directed route to Salt Lake City, feeling like an earthquake survivor, yellow baby poo smeared all over my pants (mid-flight poop blow-out), grappling with the aftershock of missing the last three of our four flights and realizing that something in my plan of attack needed some major adjustment.  Yeah.  It was lovely.

But this time my dad accompanied us to the gate with a pass from "special services".  I was jittery while waiting in line the brief few minutes it took to get to the counter for the pass.  And though we wouldn't have been late to the gate anyway, it definitely allowed for a more leisurely walk and an extended good-bye.  I was so grateful for my dad's presence. (Note to self: do this every time.) 

I even got to go to the bathroom all by myself, a rare-known treat these days, to which my dad so hilariously quipped, "I'm a big girl now!" when I told him how surreal it felt as I washed my hands and walked out of the bathroom door completely unharrassed.  Oh my . . . it makes me chuckle even now.

Squeeze met us with lots of hugs and happiness at the airport for our 10:50 PM arrival.  We got home somewhere between midnight and 1:00 AM and finally simmered down enough for bed-time around 1:45 AM (though that would have been 11:45 PM to our bodies, which had adjusted to Pacific time).  The boys ran around, reacquainting themselves with the house and exclaiming how different it looked and how good it felt to be home.

And, LOL, the next day Diego even protested the need for a nap, saying, "but there are so many adventures to have at home now that we are back at our house!"  But let the record state: he was sawing logs within minutes of laying down.  We were zonked.

It feels good to be home (MN).  Being home (WA) was such a good break in the action for me.  Re-connecting with roots.  Soaking up the green.  Leisurely visiting with family.  The pleasure of seeing my boys know and love their grandparents and aunts and uncles.  Experiencing respite from the "usual grind" and the ensuing feeling of a refreshed perspective on life . . .  yes . . . it has been good.

Much love to all.

<< Memory Transport >>

We're still at my parents' house, savoring every moment . . .

At home I usually use either Dr. Bronner's Sal Suds or OxyClean to remove stains from clothing.  Sal Suds is particularly effective on grease stains and will remove the problem even after going through the dryer, while OxyClean removes almost any grime with a long, hot soak.  I'm sure you all have hammered out your own methods.

So the other day when I needed to attack some greasy-grimy clothing, I pulled out my mom's weapon of choice: Spray n' Wash, and was instantly transported to the free-wheelin' feelin' of the exhilaration and excitement of being home for Christmas break during college. 

I thought about it more and realized that my parents still had a houseful of kids at that time and two grimy teenage boys who were full-bore in their glory years of wrestling and puberty.  The washer/dryer set-up at my parents' house back then was in the back entry, entirely open to the rest of the floor and the downstairs had a permeating scent of Spray n' Wash.  And no wonder.

Amazing how a scent can conjure such memory and emotion. Freedom. Enthusiasm. Discovery. Missing my main squeeze, but enjoying the drama of it all. Spending time with immediate and extended family. Seeing old friends. Thoughtful daybook entries. Watching my sibs play Legend of Zelda on the Nintendo64. Slow days. Inspiration. Cloudy skies. Endless free-time. Showering whenever I wanted to. Sleeping in. Freedom.

Ahhhhhh, it was grand.

Home again / Home again / Jiggety-jig

We are back at my parents' house in Western WA and I didn't even miss my flight to get here.  We flew out of Sioux Falls, where we walked outside and climbed a rolling stairway to get onto the plane.

So far we've stayed home a lot, and have seen a couple of aunts and a grandma, a brother, a sister, and a SIL.  The boy-ohs amassed a large collection of pet bugs stored in plastic containers within the first couple of days.  They have spent a good chunk of time in the misty, moisty mornings, when cloudy was the weather, outside.  Truen has his very own spotted pet slug and Diego has the tiniest little brown salamander that he found in the crook of a rotting log, about the half the size of my pinky finger. 

The grass is green, the trees are budding, crocus and daffodils are up, and the birds are twittering.  Spring . . . the most beautiful of seasons here in the Pacific Northwest.  Ahhhhhh . . . I am soaking it in.  Though Squeeze did report that it was in the mid-60s F at home yesterday.  Yow!  Talk about unseasonably warm.

My parents heat with wood, so the house is toasty warm and the boys are running around in their undies for most of the day.  They do that at home too, but here they have a valid excuse.  It is haaaaaaht.  I'm in a t-shirt and little pants vs. the woolens I usually cavort around in at home in the winter.

I am enjoying the relative leisure of being here, my main job being to keep these wild things tame.  I'm cooking and cleaning as well, but it has a different, less suffocating feel to it.  And there is so much less of a toy mess to wrangle.  A nice reprieve.  And.  And!  I should say.  I'm trying to relax and enjoy my boy-ohs.  Play.  Read.  Snuggle.  I do all these at home too, but I feel less pressured to finish and start on some other task here.  It feels good.

My dad is reading Prince Caspian aloud to us, which brings a menagerie of memories and atmosphere back for me.  Diego is transfixed, Truen listens while he plays, and I try to keep the baby under wraps while sitting and listening, which involves a lot of belly-bouncing and lazy nursing.

So here we are.  Home.  It feels so good to be a daughter again, re-connecting with my roots.

Love to all.

A word to the wise

Don't try to teach your baby brudder not to bite by sticking your finger into his mouth and saying, "No biting . . . no biting . . . owww!  No biting!"  It doesn't work.

Meanwhile . . .

The brudders last week before nap/quiet time

Totally unposed: this is how I found them.