A Bird's Eye View

Birdie has been getting her darling little mits on the camera lately...

Bear Lake

bearlake2006 022_edited, originally uploaded by bonmama.

The days were awesome, with sand, sun and cousins out the wazoo.

Birdie does a great seagull impression

But the nights? Two words- ear infection.

Retraction

As Sushiboy so kindly pointed out in the comment section of my last post.... Dadguy's church calling is Executive Secretary to the Bishop, not Ward Clerk. I knew that.... I was just

testing
?
suffering a brain bubble
?
like most of you care anyway
?

For anyone LDS? you probably know that there is a huge difference in duties and time investment. Keep in mind that I am the same girl who refers to Dadguys Home Teaching (done by men only) duties as his Visiting Teaching (done by women only). I am aware of the difference, but that doesn't stop me from transposing.

Basically Dadguy's Sunday starts at six in the ugly AM, and goes until around four in the afternoon. He also devotes his Wednesday evenings from 8:30 till whenever.

Plus the phonecalls that he must closet himself to make and take. The closeting purpose is twofold. First the Chaos are drawn to a person involved in a phonecall like a loud and needy moth to a lightbulb. Second, the secrets and sorrows of the folks who need to make appointments with the Bishop become infinitely more guessable with every little bit of information. The Bishop never, ever discusses any of that with Dadguy, but as the folks wait around for their appointment to see the Bishop... they often do. Or drop broad hints. I know this because Dadguy has told me in a general way that they do, and I have to say, that for a couple who can't keep a Birthday gift a secret or a surprise for more than three days? We do good with leaving everyone else's secrets alone. Mostly I just don't want to know. Sometimes people talk to me about the happenings in the Ward, and I realise that I am one of the last people to know about this divorce, that problem with a wayward child, this mental illness, that difficulty with moral issues... frankly I like it that way. I have become the queen of the skip button when listening to our answering machine, and unaccountably absent minded when clearing the caller ID.

I am mostly OK with the way things are... after all as Stephanie also pointed out in the comments... it really could be worse. The Chaos don't know the difference, and once when the Bishop called Dadguy at home Birdie answered the phone... she handed the phone to Dadguy and said,
"Here daddy, it's your friend the Bishop"

Eeek!

july 013_edited, originally uploaded by bonmama.

Our Ward (Church congregation) was split today. Technically they took the boundaries of two Wards and rearranged them into three, but it's still called a split. The timing was a surprise, though the split itself was not. We were expecting it to happen this fall, whoops!

The new megabux houses that have gone up recently? Most of them lopped off and made into that new Ward. Sigh... I really liked some of those folks. Not to say that I disliked any of them... just that with the construction explosion going on around here I just didn't KNOW that many of them. Bummer.

Also a bummer? Dadguy is still in his calling as Ward Clerk. I need to be happy, and I'm sure we're getting our fair share of blessings for all the time that he devotes to the job... just, all that TIME! Grouse, grouse, gritch and complain... have a pretty picture.

Chaos Downtime

patio2 030_edited, originally uploaded by bonmama.

I love this picture, and I thought I'd give the Chaos a little "equal-time." Although lately, Pearl has been working on moving up ranks from Chaos Baby to full Chaos Girl. I'm thinking the crawling, when it happens like three seconds from now, will put her into the full Chaos bracket.

On Monday we vacate Happy Valley for Bear Lake and environs... should have good fun and good pictures upon our return.

3 of These Things...

Miss A tagged Pearl to do a 3 Things List. It's her first meme to go along with her first TOOTH!!!

3 Things That Scare Me
LaLa and Birdie in my face
LaLa and Birdie grabbing and shaking my excersaucer
Mama saying "NO" loudly


3 People That Make Me Laugh
Birdie
LaLa
Mama

3 Things I Love
My Mama and Daddy
My sisters
My Karen

3 Things I Hate
Mama leaving
Ear infections
Hard poops

3 Things I Don't Understand
Why Mama ever leaves
Why I only scootch backward and never forward
What I did to sit up just now

3 Things On My Desk/Table
(I'm interpreting this to be my excersaucer)
Potato Puffs
Pony to soul-kiss
Seal to soul-kiss

3 Things I'm Doing Right Now
Nappy-doo-dah
Binking
Dreaming about crawling

3 Things I Want to Do Before I Die
That's too far away to even consider right now.

3 Things I Can Do
Sit up and try to crawl
Get really grumpy that I cannot crawl
Pull Birdies hair

3 Ways to Describe My Personality
Sweet
Calm except about crawling
Easily amused

3 Things I Can't Do
Understand why Birdie gets mad when I pull her hair
Crawl
Drive a car

3 Things I Think You Should Listen To
Birdie growl, howl and whail like a ghost
Mama sing
Sound machine set on "waves"

3 Things I Think You Should Never Listen To
People who say "Shut-up" that's a naughty word
The "Peter Pan" story on mama's ipod when I'm tired
"No"

3 Absolute Favorite Foods
Apple puffs
Pizza crust
Ice cream (Mama nonny)


3 Things I'd Like to Learn
How to crawl
How to read
How to play World of Warcraft


3 Beverages I Drink Regularly
Soy formula
Apple Juice
Water out of Mama's cup

3 Shows I Watched as a Kid
College basketball
Firefly in it's entirety during the first two weeks of my life
You've Got Mail (it's a Chaos Girl requirement)

Pearl tags...
Magoo
Tink
Thing 2

The Shape of a Mother

So I've got a new button over to the right, The Shape of a Mother. I first heard about this blog from one of Amalah's paying gigs, and ever since checking it out I have been cogitating. I was moved to tears in several specific places, and more than once I just started to cry from... I don't know what. The beauty? My personal sorrows? My disappointments and fears? Shame.

Still thinking.

I have had the button there and perhaps some of you have already tested to see where that rabbit hole ends you up at... I feel I should give y'all a disclaimer, especially those of you at work. There are pictures of real and actual mama bodies... and in some cases, all of the mama is shown. Some of the mama's have "bounced back" and some of them still bear physical reminders of their motherhood. Badges of honor, marks of travail.

I have never seen anything like this before. The closest thing that I have viewed was from off of websites I found after googling images of before and after surgical "tummy tucks." And breast lifts... reductions. Did you know that you can get a butt lift? I want one... of each. This may give you some idea of the paradigm that I have been operating under, my dirty little secret desires. Over the course of a week last year I would go to these websites and wonder and I would dream. I came to my senses and deleted these sites from my bookmarks. I have not been back there since. I wish I could say that I started to accept my body... no, it was a simple matter of reality... those procedures cost BANK. Who would take care of my babies while I was down during recovery? It is surgery with all of surgery's risks, and I am the gal who will not get on a motorcycle again until my youngest is eighteen.

At thirty seven years of age my body is a rather open bank book of give and take, gain, loss and destruction. The tattoos and piercings, the weight gain, overeating, the Slimfast, starvation, alcoholism, drug addiction, cigarettes, the past decade of clean living and the past five years of procreation. I have done some terrible things to my body... betrayal you might call it, this body of mine and I have betrayed each other in turns. Frankly I look at the devastation that bearing three children in my thirties has wrought on my body? It is just more of the same. The only new things are varicose veins, a few new spider veins and a more and smooshier middle, and some pounds that are still hanging out. Lots of pounds. The stretch marks are just kind of a bonus. By the time I gave birth to my first baby I had gone far beyond the "watermelon" look, I had marks that cross-hatched my marks. Marks on a belly that would never have seen the light of day anyhow.

Breasts, I have despised mine since they came to me, at age 13, covered in stretchmarks and with the nipples already heading south. They have always been too big in my estimation, an estimation that has been reaffirmed when it came to nursing and I discovered that I would have to hold my own breast just to keep from smothering my infant.

Still thinking.

I admire the women who have posted pictures and shared their stories. I am now thinking about my body in a different light... a saner light. Acceptance? Self love and joy in my body? Heh, nope. Not even close, but I am walking that direction now. In the meantime I have my babies, my exquisite daughters who need a mama who can teach them about their bodies. I have Dadguy who tells me that I am beautiful, looks at me like I am a work of art and touches me like I am a velvet and gold. I have my own heart and a mind that tells me to be reasonable. I have eyes that see the beauty of other women and their mama's bodies.

I am walking in that direction.

Comeuppance

Ever since I weaned my poor baby Pearl at the tender age of six months, she has been fighting ear infections. Hm, coincidence?

We have been taking drastic measures to prevent them... it's a little creepy that she has had three rounds of antibiotics by her eight month mark. She's on a soy based formula with an infant probiotic added to help her gut-flora (which, incidentally appears to be helping out in the constipation department). We make absolutely sure that she is never laying flat or close to flat when she drinks her bottles, never let water get in her ear, yah-da yah-da. You get the picture.

The upshot is, something in there is working and she has been almost my sweet "bob" once again. I say almost, because there has been the endless grousing and gritching about that first *&$@ tooth. Her grousing, my gritching and FINALLY! the tooth. I first felt it yesterday afternoon, a sharp little bit of shrapnel in her gums, what we in the House of Chaos lovingly refer to as a "poke." Good on ya girl! Yesterday she took a good and happy nap, the relief was palpable. I'd take a picture of her "poke" and post it for all-a y'all to admire...but she won't even let me peek. But it's there. Did I mention that she is a biter?

Yesterday two of the blogs that I read compulsively- an old friend (whom I am still crushing on, thanks!) and a new girl-crush, wrote about their sleep deprivation issues. In my defence I felt deeply for them... but distanced. The Chaos Girls have been getting most of their ooompah out in the summer sun so they have been sleeping even sounder than usual, and Chaos Baby? Weren't you reading? We HAVE our poke! There will be "No new poke! Read mah lips, no new poke!"

...and there wasn't.

My hair... gadZOOKS, what a sorry sight. It has been bugging me for about a month, hanging lank and dull, roots showing, unmanageable bleah. I had a hair appointment at 8:30 last night and I am so cool, I had all three girls down and dirty, locked and loaded before I walked my sassy self down the street for a new doo, highlights and wax. Happy to you, Dadguy! When I rolled in around 11:15 lookin' sharp, he had everything going like clockwork. Which is not to say that everyone had been asleep the whole time, but it was the standard Pearl "going-to-sleep-at-night-issues" and he had her rockin' the baby swing, if ya know what I mean. Since I knew that I had until 7-7:30am when the Chaos reengage, I stayed up until almost one looking purty as a picture and feeling pretty pert as well.

Comeuppance started around 3:30 and extended to around 6:30. Birdie woke up and crawled into our bed... fine, except she kicks and squiggles and wasn't going to sleep. Finally after a half hour of bee-bopping I walked her to her room, and sat in the rocking chair for a few minutes while she settled in to sleep. I guess I dozed off, because I awoke in the girls room maybe an hour later to a horrible smell.

Here is what went through my fuddled mind....

Whuh...? (snif) Oh NO! LaLa must have pooped her pants in her sleep! (never mind that she has not done so in over a year) Should I wake her up and change her? (I realise I have been dozing with my mouth open, and then shut it) Wait, the smell is gone. (experimentally open mouth again) ACK! Not that stupid "zackly mouth" joke, noooooooo! (I drag my poop-breath self back to my own bed... it is almost six in the blessed)

Six thirty I am re awoken by a sobbing Birdie who has just had a nightmare that I drove her to her Aunt Robbie's then left her in the van alone, and the inside door handle is gone. Since I am such a sucky dream-mom I try and make up for it in real life and let her come back to our bed where she snuggles right up to me and is out in fifteen seconds. LaLa wakes up at seven, and the mighty, fabulous, hunky, darling Dadguy gets up with her and lets me sleep in till eight.

Comeuppance, and sadly, my perky new doo has taken an overnight beating and my right brow is red and puffy still from the waxing. Zackly, no kidding.

Elementary School Memories: A Meme

As a disclaimer... I would not normally inflict my grade school recollections upon my blog in one glommey mess, and by extension upon y'all, but I have been hit with the meme. Mama D got me, and since I seem to have fared a little better than she did in the younger years... here it is.

Back when I was a wee five year old, the State of New Mexico did not have public school Kindergarten. I remember that I started off the school year down in Las Cruces where my dad was still a Cop, moonlighting at the Honda Cycle Center and finishing off his Masters in Business (Business Management?). My folks had sent me to a Kindergarten. I don't know if it was a "Catholic" Kindergarten, or just held at a Catholic church, but I do remember my teacher had the thickest and most glorious hair that she kept in one single braid. That braid, if my memory does not exaggerate, was four inches in diameter.

I have a few singular memories about the place and the kids, but the defining experiences would have to have been during recess. The kids segregated themselves into boys vs. girls. The boys chased and "captured" the girls and put them in "prison" under the metal jungle gym. I'm sure that a boy or so tried to "capture" me, apparently I wasn't into it. Nah... instead I donned my crocheted turquoise and white poncho and became some sort of avenging angel superhero. I would swoop in, impervious to the efforts of boys to stop or capture me, and set the captive girls free. As a five year old I couldn't understand why one or two of the girls wouldn't run when I "freed" them. I also remember thinking that most of those who ran sure didn't try very hard to not get caught again. In retrospect I'm surprised that as many allowed themselves to be set loose as they did. One way or the other, the game would have been much shorter lived without all my hard work (mm-hmm kudos to me). As it was, this seemed to always be the game that was played during recess for the first few months. Then a girl started attending who wore a black leather jacket and size nothing cowboy boots. She was a true tomboy, and she would climb to the top of the jungle gym with the boys and sit up there and laugh at the dumb girls down below. Me included.

Halfway through the year we moved. At our new house in Albuquerque I did not attend Kindergarten probably for a whole slew of reasons... money, time, finding a new place to send me yah-da, yah-da. My three older siblings went to their new schools and that left me home with my Mom and baby brother and I guess I was lonely. My mom tells the story of coming into the living room in our new house and finding me watching Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. He was apparently doing his "won't you be my neighbor?" shtick, and I was watching with tears streaming down my face and in a little hitching voice I answered,

"I'll be your neighbor, (sniff) Mr Rogers. (sniff, sniff)."

Another move later and we were in the house on Kiowa where I would spent the rest of my non-teen childhood. The school I attended was a public school but kind of experimental and had, in addition to the standard curriculum a pretty cutting edge gifted program. I got put into class after class of brainy kids and we were constantly having a great time learning stuff via Bloom's Taxonomy. I think because of the structure of the classes that I was put into from third grade on, I was saved a lot of the grief and crap that I experienced in first and second grades at the hands of some real "Mean Girls In Training." Girls who invented really great games like... ditching. The way you play ditch is you tell one "friend" that you will meet them at the swings and then hide by the tires and watch as the "friend" waits and looks baffled and hurt because you are not there. Also there must be three or more girls who do the watching and they must giggle and snicker at the pathetic and stupid "friend" as the hapless girl realizes they have just been ditched. Those girls will then later act as though nothing had happened. That sucked. The leader of this fun little social group was named Sherrie Dalton and she had straw blond hair that was naturally curly and hung in perfect ringlets. I know she was the leader because she never once got ditched, she always watched and laughed. To my knowledge I was a watcher only once, at least all I remember was the once and that sucked too. I wasn't able to laugh and snicker appropriately because I felt like puking when I saw the look on Terry Bowen's face, a girl that I really did like and who had done it to me several times. I didn't like her very much after that. I didn't like any of them very much after that. I didn't understand why they enjoyed watching and laughing. I know that I'm making myself out to be this saintly little squish-heart, it's not that I think I was all sweetie cakes and lovey-doo it's simply that these were some very important and defining moments... and I am a terminal squish-heart.

There are a few other stories where I don't smell like roses... like the time in first grade that I got dared to go tell Chuck what his name rhymed with. Dared by those same girls, come to think of it. I did and thought the kid was a complete wienie when he told the "On Duty." Sherrie Dalton, Terry Bowen and I all got sent to the principals office and I just knew that Mrs Provanzo was going to call my folks. I even had worked out in my head what the dreadful punishment was probably going to be.... washing the dinner dishes for a whole week! Imagine the fullness of MY joy when we walked out of there with just a talking to, w00t! I'm pretty sure that our folks would have indeed gotten a call if the principal thought for half a second that we had any clue what the word meant. Personally I'd never even heard the word before, yet sadly I struggle to this day keeping that little bomb of a word to m'self.

There ya have it... a slice of life. The End

I'm thinking about tagging YOU next, so be nice.

Etymology

In the House of Chaos we occasionally have a word that is... an organically grown word. An evolved word.

For instance a diaper is called a "doobah." Why? Let see, why indeed? For some reason one day I told LaLa to go to the front room for a new diapey-doobah. She thought it was funny, to call her diaper a diapey doobah and started calling them that all the time... it has since shortened into plain old "doobah."

This is a decided change from what I used to call a diaper change when Birdie was wearing them. We called them "new pants" back in the olden days. We had a song for the changing of the guard back then...

New pants, new pants
Kalamazoo pants
new pants, new pants
for your bum

New pants, Eww pants
Whoopity-doo pants
new pants new pants
rum pum pum

New pants, who pants?
How do you do? pants
new pants, new pants
Tum tee tum

....sung to the tune of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which is strangely fitting now that I come to think of it. Hey Chitty, you Chitty, pretty Chitty Bang Bang!

All kids are "Bob." How did I get to the point where I am calling all three of my girls by the same rather truncated boys name? Hm.

There is a song that my Mom used to sing to us kids.... and here we go with the somewhat moronic lyrics again, but at least these aren't my moronic lyrics.

Clap, clap, clap your hands.
Clap your hand together.
Clap, clap, clap your hands.
Clap your hand together.
La la la la la la laaaaa.
La la la la laaa laaa.
La la la la la la laaaaa.
Clap your hands together.

Somehow, when LaLa was a baby the song went from "La la la la la la laaaaa," to "LaLa LaLa LaLa Loo." Then LaLa's name shifted to LaLa-Loo, and La-Loo-La. Then because it is such an oh-so-obvious thing to me... Babah Loo, Babah Looey, then Babah Luigi. Bob was the next step. I took that step and here we are.

Am I alone in my freakishness? Please, help me feel better about my insanity.* What are
your words? Pet names?

*As though I really care. I AM a freak. The End. I am, however, interested in your odd and organic words. Share. Please.

** Edited to add: I think that I meant Babaloo, only EEK!

Discomfort Food

I love oatmeal. I have always, to my knowledge, loved to eat oatmeal. The squishy goodness of it is comforting and bland. It's like toast made from white bread except you get to feel good about eating it because it's good for you. It's healthy and whole-grainy, I am even an aficionado of it's weird viscous/lumpy texture.

Gerber makes a baby wash and lotion in their "Grins and Giggles" line called "Oatmeal." The smell of a baby after being washed and greased up in the stuff makes my eyes roll all the way back in their sockets, it smells so good.

My mom used to cook up a batch of oatmeal stiff and good, then we would take cans of evaporated milk from our food storage and thin it down.... a dab of cinnamon, a splot of honey or brown sugar and you knew you'd had breakfast that morning. Occasionally there would be pecans or raisins to liven up the job even further.

Comfort food.

No more. No more for me, thanks. When I was pregnant with Birdie I noticed that I could no longer eat oatmeal. At first I chalked it up to general pregnancy.... erm, flatulence. Expectant moms can just expect to be a bit gassy. After I gave birth it was oatmeal as usual no problems so... rock on! Second and third pregnancies I paid steeper and steeper prices. I could no longer even eat a bowl of Cheerios with out trouble in Gotham City.

Here I am eight months postpartum and it is official. DENIED. Punishment is immediate and swift and encompasses more than just a bit of bloat and gas. Can I just tell you how bad this sucks? The list of foods that I can eat is being whittled down... and they are GOOD foods! Tree nuts of any sort... used to be I could get away with a little especially if they were cooked. No more. Milk, ice cream, yogurt? Gone, I am lactose intolerant.

I guess I shouldn't whine. I know for a fact that it could be so much worse. There is Diabetes and Celiac that runs in my family that could make my dietary life just so much more of a party. Just.... oatmeal?

Cee-mint

Ok... so I haven't been exactly forthcoming in regards to the haps around here. In my defense, I didn't want to jinx it. Now it is mostly done and I have some pictures to prove it.

Here is the first thing you see as you walk out my back door.



another angle.



and here is a patch of yard that is at turns a swampy pit from the hose and a crispy weedy mess... 'cause it's Utah and 'cause the sprinklers don't really reach here.



Heh... hit a snag! The folks who built our house were known for cranking out the maximum amount of house for your money, on time. Quality? Mmmm... not so much.



A snag of the two year old variety.



An elephant.




Now we wait 24 hours, wash and seal with clear.




True love.

*Edited to add: Eh, haven't got the Flickr thing down... click on the Flicker badge in my right hand column... it will take you to my Flickr account and a clearer image.

Just to...

... get that last whiney post off the top of the page! Turns out the mystery plant that smelled "oniony"?

Ahem.

It is garlic. The pods at the top have been splitting and little plump seedy things are jammed in there like sardines. And they, they smell exactly like garlic. Upon googling up some images of "garlic plants" I find several pix that are dead on. Unless I read it wrong, this September we should have a pretty decent crop o' garlic. The bulbs. That's what ya eat.