For Gingerstory and Grammy

Please note the Bracelet of Power on LaLa's wrist, be very afraid.

The following is not braggage, it is a yard update with Photo for my SIL who gardens vicariously.

I love my yard... we obsessed and saved and planned and then worked (Dadguy did at least) our cans off to make it happen. Today we took a sniffing tour of the front yard with one of Birdie's best friends and took big long whiffs of the following...

• Lemon Balm
• Lemon Thyme
• Apple Mint
• Lavender
• Lime mint
• Perennial Sage

and those are just the overt smell-pretties.

The final product of Birdie's snip-snip-ary of her own hairdoo.

A-B-C, easy as 1-2-3

We are gonna play a little game. I received the letter D from Nobody You Know, and as you can read I have chosen ten words that begin with that letter followed by a brief explanation about why I chose it or something... erm... explanatory about the word. If you too, want to play? just say so in the comments and I'll give you a letter then... you go play.

the letter D

Dominatrix- scary... the very first word that popped into my head upon receiving my letter from Nobody. Trust me... this isn't some unburdening of my soul or "too much information" it's just the mental first fruits from the mind of a woman in the hormonal flux of weaning. What, am I the only gal around here who's husband is thrilled for the end of lactation for more than just two obvious reasons? I am? Was that too much info after all? Well. Hm. At least it segues nicely into...

Domination- as in world domination. The two older girls have these sweet little silver and red bead bracelets that Dadguy gave them for Christmas two years ago. LaLa has been wearing hers for about a month straight, and yesterday morning Birdie found hers. I pointed out to the girls that they had on matching bracelets whereupon Birdie announced they were "Bracelets of Power" and they were gonna "take over the world." LaLa shoved her scrawny wrist over to Birdies and yelled "take obah da WOOOOOOOWD!" So look out you, the Chaos is coming.

Disgusting- the gooey, and initially smelly guck that came out of my sweet Pearl's little ear when her eardrum ruptured yesterday. Mother's Day weekend was pretty rough, and we thought we had a teether on our hands till Sunday afternoon when the drool and snot disappeared but the miserable, can't-sleep baby stayed. Off to the docs first thing Monday morning... but not fast enough I guess. Poor kid.

Dadguy- the guy who did EVERYTHING else this past weekend... He is my fairytale happy ending, he is my eternity and you can't have him 'cause he's MINE ALL MINE!! I can't say any more with out weeping. La!

Dork- I am one.

Dough- Chocolate chip cookie dough... I have been craving it for about a week and a half now. I may make some in a bit, but first I need to make...

Dinner- Skillet chicken in olive oil, steamed broccoli and, erm tater tots.

Downstairs- the basement. Dadguy has the pictures of the framed version of the basement up on his blog. The electrical part has started, but that's Dadguy's milieu... as is the next part after that, the...

Ductwork - more blah stuff that has to happen on this road to a finished basement. I am ready to be done and we have barely started! It's kinda hard because now that the framework is up I can just TASTE the finished rooms... mmmmmmmm! I'm already reading the decorating books and thinking about color and carpeting... drapery, what will go where.

Dammit- fine. Are ya happy now? I'm done and I finally said it, the second word to come to mind when I learned my letter was D. Now you know my dirty little secret... I cuss like a sailor in my heart of hearts. I cuss alot, and I use much worse words than dammit too.

A Slug Named "Butterfly"

Last week my mom introduced the idea of "bugs as pets" to the pet-starved Chaos Girls in a round about way. First let me say that it has been a long and cold winter in Utah, and we haven't seen many houseflies in these parts for some time.

New Mexico has plenty, and one chubby and somewhat sluggish spring fly was caroming about my folks front room. It was freaking the girls out... especially LaLa. Last year one of the first words out of the girls mouth was actually a phrase...
"Mack lack liiiiiiiie!"
translation: Smack that fly!

It's an uneasy combination of horror and a juicy, almost joyous squeamishness that she has in regards to flying bugs. It's fun to scream and run from bugs, but the horror part was taking a front seat ride this time out. The child has a scream that removes paint and I think my mom was done with listening to the shrieking so she told the girls not to worry... it was a TAME fly. She told them it was her pet fly. I pretty sure that Birdie knew she was joking... but she also liked the idea of having a pet that I cannot realistically put the ki-bosh to. She craves a pet. She still talks with longing about the three short days we had three fish. Dead, deader and deadest.

The day after we got home the girls found a "snail" in the backyard. For some reason the distinction of an actual snail shell is no distinction at all for them. They thought he was SO CUTE! They pleaded to keep it as a pet. I figured that it was either sacrifice a Kerr jar for a couple of days or smash the wee bugger right in front of the Chaos then and there. Either way he's out of my garden, but I opted for the kinder and gentler Kerr jar with a couple of leaves and voila... a pet. A slug that they poetically named Butterfly.

O, the girly raptures over this nasty stretch of movable slime.... Bleah!

I was washing dishes yesterday and had this conversation with LaLa.
LaLa: Mama, I lub da thnay-yo!
Me: Honey it's a slug, it doesn't have a shell so it's a slug.(this for the four thrillionth time)
LaLa: A tluggy?
Me: Mmmm-hm.
LaLa: I lub you Mith-toe Tluggy! (intoned to the denizen of Kerr jar which she has clutched to her chest) He mah pavo-wit tuh-low.
Me: Slug color?
LaLa: Uh huh, tluggy tuh-low.

Awwwww, how sweet! But you know that you just can't cage some wild animals... they kinda pine away. At least I THINK that's what happened to the dessicated smoodge of slime that Dadguy found at the bottom of the jar last night.

The Three Little Pigs

"Ya wanna hear a story?"

"Wait, I know it's in here somewhere."

"Ayuh, got it. Once upon a time..."

"... but the house made out of straw went KERFLOOEY."

"...and I'll HUFF, and I'll PUFF..."

"He blew and blew as hard as he could, but the house made of bricks didn't budge an inch."

"... and the pigs had wolf stew that night for dinner."

"The End."

Backyards and Ponys

Whew! I survived but I'll tell ya, I'm not gonna be doin' THAT again!

The Chaos girls and I went down to New Mexico to visit my parents. The drive takes around nine hours with adults... about twelve with little kiddos. This is a drive that is NOT A GOOD IDEA to do when it is just one The Mama on three Chaos Girls. We survived nicely due to the fasting and prayer that was done on our behalf... but when I think of how much fun it could have been? I get an ugly little shiver. We cut the trip a day short because of the homesickness that was rife in our little Chaotic hearts... Birdie sobbing her sad, wee guts out and me missing the Dadguy like fire.

We are back and the photo blogging keeps on keepin' on.

We are on a "My Little Pony" kick. Here are a pair in the backyard. Pipecleaners, construction paper, a pair of scissors and a crayon. Hours of fun. The End.

The drawing on top is Birdie's rendition of my take on "Wysteria," one of the "My Little Pony's." I am pretty impressed with both of us except apparently the pony is supposed to have whitish-silver mane and tail. Got the tail right by omission.

I love my Mom's backyard. She is an artist. We ate most of our meals back here.

More back yard. Three ponys are lost somewhere back here, hence the following...

Best purchases...
a brand new pony each for LaLa and Birdie for the trip home. A strap thingy to clip a binkey to Pearl so I could reach behind me and reinsert her plug into her yap as I drove... and drove and drove. A string of funky patio party lights for me just because after all of this I may want to hang myself and this way I can do it in style.

Evidence of Chaos while at my folks...
LaLa climbed into my bed and removed three sewing needles, seven straight pins and four T pins from a pin cushion. She scattered them around the bed and then fell asleep. At least I hope these numbers are accurate. So far nothing has been found the hard way.

Birdie gave herself a haircut.


Birdie's rendition of The Brave Little Toaster. Is anyone out there a child psychologist qualified to interpret drawings? This apparently is the whole movie with a dream sequence of Birdie's added for dramatic flair.

New Mexico

La!

I have been on vacation to the land of the zia... I am still here and it looks like my cold may have taken a turn for the green, but I haven't forgotten you my dear and sweet Internets... I am just too busy visiting the Rio Grande Zoo, eating copious amounts of green chili and pulling cactus spines out of my butt.

and weaning the Pearly girl. Sigh. I haven't mentioned it because it breaks my heart, she started out a champion nurser and I just knew we would reach my goal of nursing for the whole first year of her life. She is a biter. It started at two month of age and it's getting worse. If she actually had any teeth she would already have lopped off my nipples. Did I mention that it hurts?

Handily, the sudaphed I am taking in an attempt to not drown on my own snot is drying up my milk-supply and I think the baby, she don't care for the flavor of the "chili verde."

Two weeks ago we finally sweet-talked her into drinking from a bottle, and now if we can just find a way to keep her from ripping off the tops of the silicone nipples from the bottles with her gums we'll be in business. Huh, maybe she'll just be an early sippy-cupper.

We are all having a wonderful time and "wish you were here" etc....

Not a Photoblog

I promise this is not gonna turn into a photoblog... it's just that I am sick and overworked and my life looks better this way....

...everyone sharing a good joke.

Cooking experiments while I am downstairs re-booting the laundry.

LaLa going night-ops commando on Dadguys watch.

mmmm.... I don't have no stinkin' WEEDS! (heh)

What sleep deprivation? Let's Karoke!

Random Happy Crappy

The other day I was changing Pearl's di-pee-doo-bah when I happened to look up and witness LaLa hawk a two-year-old loogie into half a pastel yellow egg. She had her back to me, but by the time she had finished letting 'er drip I was leaning way over to the side watching very closely as she then carefully snapped the other half of the plastic easter egg onto the spit-in portion. This is a new skill... the putting together of easter eggs, not so much the spitting.

I was dumbfounded. I am dumbfounded often lately but this one really I could not wrap my head around. She turned and saw me practically laying on my side looking at her no doubt with a very amazed look on my face.

"Hee-ah Mama!" She says offering me her little surprise package.

"No thank you LaLa," a replied, "let's go throw this away in the garbage, honey. We don't spit in easter eggs, that's yukky- bleah!"

"Oh-tay Mama, I thawwy. Bleah!"

1)Birdie and I went for a walk yesterday. We took these pictures and I am inspired for next year... I said this last year but this time I will NOT be vastly pregnant in the fall (nor any sort of pregnant for that matter) and I really will plant the bulbs that will make this kinda springity-time lovelyness a reality!

2) I am going with my friend to see INXS in June... OH YEAH!

3)Tonite the wood shows up for the job and tomorrow let the framing begin! We are paying our neighbor to frame our basement and he assures us that he will be done by the end of the week. Dadguy is blogging the job.

Highlights

...of a flower hunt in our yard with Birdie.

Tra-LA

The past couple of days have really knocked me off my schedule. It's Spring Break in these here parts and I have two vital family members who work for the school district just north of us. They have each had themselves a round of watching my sweet Chaos, and in the past few days I have gone on a date with Dadguy, and taken myself shopping. Also I ate some Panda Express in a park and did not have to push anyone in a swing or share my eggroll. I purchased a new pair of sandals, a shirt and the fist skirt I have bought for myself since I was pregnant with Birdie... and that skirt was a maternity skirt. It's not like I have purchased any dresses either, but I'm not digging for sympathy. I have nice and reasonably fashionable clothing, which since I am the mama of three small and active cusses tells you that I fairly often and have very recently purchased clothes for myself. Anything that has been around for more than six months? is stained to one degree or another.

and AHEM. This is not even getting into the issue that my pre-Birdie clothing was three sizes ago. Three babies three sizes- I ain't liking the trend here. Wait, this is NOT where I want to go today! The first inkling I had that there were some mama's out there as fruity as myself was via a writer who keeps a weekly journal at ParentCenter.com. Her name is Catherine Newman, and the following is how I feel... (she calls her daughter Birdy, and for the purposes of this blog I call my oldest Birdie) Enjoy

"If we're not buried in snow, we can get to our pediatrician's office by walking through the woods (since they don't let you move into a basement apartment over at the ER, this seemed like the next best housing situation for a person like me), and so we set out. Spring was everywhere — in the mud and the sunshine, in the crocuses and the joyful tree song — and that little Birdy reached up and put her hand into mine. Just that: her warm little fingers in my fingers, her happy little self skipping along beside me. It's as much as I've ever hoped for in this life — that feeling of belonging together, or even (and this is a confession, because I know it's not quite right) that feeling of these kids belonging to me.

It must be what it's like to get an engagement ring from the love of your life: You flex your hand over and over to admire the sparkle. Here it is in the sunshine, here in the moonlight, here I am, wearing it while I pay for milk and eggs, the luckiest woman alive. Engagement. I am truly, deeply engaged."

more of her stuff.

Six Weird Things About Me: A Meme.

Nancy tagged me late last week and I have been thinking hard about this one. The biggest drawback to doing this meme on the Internets is that ... it's the Internets and y'all are some FREAKS! I used to think I was pretty weird but my quirks do pale in the face of what passes for normal around here and I am coming up with nothing particularly odd about my selfy-self. I had to go and quiz the Dadguy, and the strangest thing he could come up with was a combo me/him thing. I got's no OCDisms, and the bizare nature of the things I encounter as a mama makes my own habits seem tame and backseat. Being a mama also is a handicap in that the job tends to sand off all the knobby and gnarly bits that stick out on a person's personality, and if you breastfeed it'll even do it to yer boobs. Now if I could just get that sanding action on my hips it'd be OK... but "motherhood's" answer to that particular protuberance is just to swell everything else out so it uniformly matches. But I'm a blogger dadgummit, therefore I shall persevere in the face of dead calm and the mundane creature that I have become.

Verbal Curiosities- I have just recently hooked back up with a looongtime friend a la the power of the Google. YO J-Rat! She is the Dread Pirate Rackham for those of y'all that read my comments section, and one of the things she asked me was did I play language games with my girls.
"Huh?," sez I.
This is an aspect of myself that I take for granted, the hashing of language in game format. I make up my own swears or co-opt stuff to swear with. Great words like "fibblestacks," and "happity-crappity." The stuff that goes into my Blog? it's all stuff that is likely to come out of my mouth. I don't just save the twelve dollar words for writing with, by cracky I use those suckers in conversation alongside crudities and nonsense. It's a wonder that my girls are able to speak at all considering the gibberish they have been raised on.
example from this afternoon...
"You guys want some chicken nuggets for lunch? Nick and chuggets? Nikkin chuggahs"
"Nikkin Chugget?! Yay I'll have some chicken nuggets," replies Birdie.
"Chickity, chickity nug-nug-nugities!" I sing back to her. Then I enter the Beasty Boy zone with a "Chicky, chicky check a microphone check!" and end with the "CHK chk-ah-chk-AHHhhhh," from Yello's song "Oh Yeah."
which segues nicely into my next oddity...

I think I'm onstage... or something.- I sing stupid ditties and then break out into an accent "Au Francais." I used to try to keep it at home and under wraps, but as a mom I've gotten lax. I forget where I am or start singing my message onto someones answering machine. If I had a little more pride it might bug me more. Every grey hair, mud encrusted tub-ring and poopy diaper will come back upon the Chaos Girls in spades when they hit puberty and the "parental-shame" factor kicks in, they will die thousands of times over from the humiliation of having such a mom... Mwahhahahahahaha!

Something weird about me is that as a child and even still, after all the damage I have perpetrated on my olfactories in the form of addictive stimulants both legal and illegal, I have a scary-good sense of smell. My sniffer is just short of wondrous and is only just shy of the sensitivity of Dadguy's nose. Don't bother hiding to eat chocolate in our house, we know what you are doing and what brand you are eating. This sniffer of mine makes the next quirk even more inexplicable because....

I think there are few things funnier than farts and fart jokes. I will never be mistaken for a classy, elegant lady because, to my great shame I will laugh if someone passes gas around me. My brothers and sisters share this same weakness for flatulence humor, and especially in the case of my three sisters and myself, will laugh in the same key and cadence, which will invariably cause us to laugh harder and harder till one of us passes out or the top of our heads pop off. Family reunions are great because another thing we all share is the genetic pre-disposition for food intolerance's which cause... you guessed it- gas. Toot-toot... POP!

Food intolerance's- I am lactose intolerant and am allergic to tree nuts. This isn't so odd till you know that I married a man who is unable to eat meat. As an infant and then toddler he would not eat meat, with the curious and notable exceptions of very crispy bacon and very thin chicken broth. Later even the bacon dropped from his diet. This is not to say that he is a vegetarian as there are precious few vegetables that he can eat, and even fewer that he will eat. His diet is heavy on the dairy and cereal. Dinner time is fun. It's all gonna be over if I should happen to develop, as many of my relatives have, Celiac-sprue and can no longer eat wheat or gluten in any form. Pray for us.

Last but not least, I think that I am perfectly normal. This seems weird to me because I grew up feeling so very out of place and strange. I used to think myself ever so unique and spent alot of time emphasizing my eccentricities. HA! Who has time for all that! But maybe when my kids grow up and move out I'll join some gaggle of old biddies who wear red hats, and even then chances are that I will not be the ONLY gal to show up to meetings on a motorcycle. Maybe though... this blogging experiment has given me a false sense of normalcy, because have I told ya? Y'all are some freaky peeps!

*Edited to add: and speaking of the freaks out there I have a special request for the following to do this "Weirdo" meme... c'mon! Let yo freak-flag fly! If you've already done it...erm...well, don't be offended that I forgot you already did and just shoot this loser a link to where you have it posted from ohhh, say two weeks ago? Ha ha, and we'll both laugh when I re-read it and realize that I actually commented on your rendition of "6 Weird Things."
Mama D
Toronto Teacher
Soggy Cheerios
Fantastagirl
Trippin'
and Dread Pirate Rackham

Flip-Up!

I would like to direct every one's attention to the new and KILLER addition to my sidebar.... this week instead of my usual Friday Freakout (not a blogging thing... just a, y'know, me thing) I have been awarded the much coveted Friday Flip-up Award...wOOt!!!

Fine... so I had a Freakout yesterday anyways, but only because I knew nothing of my elevated blogging status till Saturday evening when I checked my email.

This is now the Award Winning Blog of Chaos In the House of the Mama... insert the dancing of the Funky Chicken here.

Please be aware that I am doing OK... I have had a few folks in RL express a little concern in regards to my equilibrium based on a certain amount of , erm, tension they had sensed via the ol' bloggity-doo-dah here. Yeah... Dadguy was putting in a crapload of overtime. For example on our Anniversary he put in around twenty hours of uphill-both-way-in-the-snow database debasement a la new customer. Pearl was being a stinker, LaLa is two and Birdie likes to wander the neighborhood in her panties. I have had two offers to watch the Chaos Girls next week so I can get some downtime, I think it was the reference to duct tape that has 'em concerned. I'm not going mama-postal, but if you think I ain't taking my sis and my MIL up on these offers you are SMOKING CRACK! As it is, I gotta hit it because it rained last night and the girls have been outside and can you say pigdog?

I know I can, WOOFOINK!

And this would be the plush pony that the Easter Bunny gave Birdie this morning. Almost made it twelve hours... almost.

"I said no pictures! Freakin' paparazzi!

100th Post, or My Internet Glamour Shot

The thing about this blog... no matter what kind of horrendous day I've had, no matter how filthy my kitchen floor, this place is always lovely and pristine. Sure blogger may get fritzy and have the occasional Smenita, but I never have to clean up after anyone outside of the occasional spammer in the old comments section. Even that is perversely satisfying because once you get rid of it?... that particular hunk of spamola? It stays gone! No one's diggin' that bad boy out of the trash or the rag-bag, aghast look upon their angelic faces...

"Mamaaaaaaa! Dat myyy! No fwoah away inna dahh-badge!"

I love it! Once I post it it stays posted. I don't have to re-post the same blasted hunk of literary crap eight times a day to keep it comfortable and /or smelling nice.

My failures even read pretty OK in bold black print on my cheerful sunflower template of joy... sometimes I like to go back and re-read the things that I have written, because with just a joke and a tweak I have downplayed the tears and made my role as a mother seem almost comprehensible. By taking my whole-being frustrations and putting them into words have forced them into sentence structure that I CONTROL.

and I gots me some spell check... don't always use it, but I've got it when I need it.

But a blog is like a photo. While it's great that you can make your life seem interesting and pretty with some good lighting and a little bit of Photoshop, without the panoramic 360 and the smell-o-vision of reality you will never really know what it is to awaken with LaLa snugged up close to you, as you breathe in her wispy, honey colored hair. Never have a true sense of her heart thump-thumping away in her Popsicle stick ribcage... a small but valiant heart which owns me through and through.

My little Birdie. I haven't even attempted to address her odd little speech quirk, or is it an impediment?... that sometime nasal thwump and sometimes almost Yiddish throat clearing sound that she makes when pronouncing her "S's." I know that some day this quirk will be gone, and though I know it cannot stay, I will mourn it's going. Sometimes I look at her and feel like I am dying... I still go in a night to watch her sleep.

and the baby, what with the intoxicating baby smell, and the not sleeping when I want her to, and the vile game of POP that she plays when nursing... yeah Pearl, I mean YOU.

The other day Dadguy said to me, "you might want to watch it. Sometimes on your blog when you refer to the girls as the "Chaos Girls" it's like you aren't joking anymore."

I said, "how very astute of you."

I can feel all righteous and penitent by mentioning that I have been a bit of a crusty bee-hatch, and most all of y'all will obligingly assume the best... um, except for Dadguy who knows for a fact what flavor of bee-hatch I have been! But you never can tell with bee's, and it's hard to think the worst of someone you either are related to (hey there ya CRAZIES!) or that you only know cyberly. Only now Amber has met me in RL and I can only hope I didn't come off as too much of a drip. Which by the way Amber? I promise, next time I will be waaay more interesting or clean the house or something! Ha ha, or something. Can I offer you some Cheerios?

Toddler Jihad and a Pink Shirt

Out-witted, out-gunned, out-numbered and out of my freakin' mind. But at least I'm in the pink!

I am done to death by the incessant demands that have been made, and I am through with trying to put a happy face on it. It is entirely beyond my ken how any woman does it and I am sick to death of feeling like a failure. Being a SAHM is the everything job, and I can't be great at everything... can't even seem be passingly competent at huge swaths of everything. I keep trying though, and here's the shocker...

I.
Keep.
Failing.
Miserably.

Ha ha! No really, I suck at it! The everything part anyways! Don't listen to those people over there who are saying..."but of course you can't be great at everything! Nobody expects you to!" because those folks are the same people who will give you that "disappointed look" when you screw the pooch on their little patch of everything.

Ya wanna know what really bites? The things I'm pretty ok at are the intangeables and the unmeasurable. Like the unmeasurable talent of refraining from allowing my head to pop off of my neck and go spinning around like a fizzing-whizzer when LaLa turns around to wipe her green-slug mustache of snot off on my bath towel hanging cozily on it's towel bar, instead of using the tissue IN HER HAND like I had just asked. The intangible talent of... well I have to have at least two mama talents... so it must just be sooo crapping intangible that I don't even have any idea what the hooty-patootie it is.

Last night Dadguy was trying to console my weeping self by coming up with things that I AM doing right. Like how happy the girls are. Only, does that mean that any clinically depressed kids out there just have mama's who are suck-butt at raising them to be happy? I think that there is every possibility that the Chaos Girls just came pre-mixed to be happy while engaging in domestic-terrorist activity.

Hmmm... here's a talent- I woulda made a pretty good Marine. You know, with all that sleep deprivation boot-camp crap. Constant barrage by the enemy under hostile conditions, lousy food that you only get three seconds to eat, and that with someone screaming at you from over your shoulder. Double-timing it to storytime with a huge pack on yer back, carseat with twenty plus pounds of all-American baby in the crook of an elbow and two kids singing off-color military marching songs, their faces painted with Crayola washable watercolors in camo patterns.

I don't know but I been told,
Mama ain't a slave cuz she cain't be sold!
Thound off! One, two!
Thound off ! Four, sebbin!

Hmmm let's take this just a step further... I think I'd make a wonderful great big old Marine boot camp Sargent screaming orders and instructions to her hapless little grunts.... only they don't obey because who can respect a drill Sargent that looks like a fat and sloppy housewife who's roots are showing?

So today I bring out the big guns. When all militaristic metaphor leaves me as FUBAR as I started, I put it on, my super-hero-chick-shirt. The mystic pink t-shirt of strength and mesmerising. The one that emphasises my big guns!

I put the shirt on and Pearl instantly stops her anguished wails of "You never let me do anything funnn!" and I swear that her eyes get those funny spiraling swirls in them as her iris's contact and swell.

"Piiiiiiiiink... there are black squiggles on the piiink." she says... only she's actually five months old so it sounds more like "bbbbththhbthhhbehhh."

Two year olds fall limply into blissful naptime slumber at the first sight of the shirt, and four year old girls?... well their cute little girlfriends call up and ask them to play over. I wear the shirt and the dishes wash they ownselves, baby! You can call it pimping, whatever... I highly recommend the shirt.

Alive, Only Just

When every brain cell has surrendered to the inevitable slosh of a "working weekend", and that is a slosh without any chemical assist THANK YOU VERY MUCH! In cases such as these, I just go ahead and post pictures of some cute kids.
and here they are... the cute kids. That's all you get. Apparently that's about all I'm getting too. Except for maybe I'm getting a little loonier (yes, I AM counting Dadguy as one of the cute kids).
Back when I was pregs with my first, I had been complaining about how exausted I was and how I couldn't seem to accomplish anything. My friend to whom I was whining said that whenever she got discouraged or worse even, when her husband would come home and look around the house then look at her and ask...

"...sooooo, what did you do today?"

She would answer, "oh, I made a human nose and continued work on the miracle of a human respiratory system. What did YOU do today? Honey."


Well, I ain't pregs right now (thank the heavens ABOVE!), but I know my answer to such a question today would be...

"I've refrained from killing them honey. They may yell a little when you remove the duct tape, but I did let them live, I did let them live."

Six Years

Happy Anniversary Dadguy! Teller of "dad jokes," scratcher of my back, bringer of the bacon and player of Candyland extraordinaire. Six awesome years together, we really ought to do something to commemorate.

Sigh...

y'know, we have a great marriage, but we are pretty boring. I guess there's not a whole lot of rock 'n rollin' a pair of marrieds can do on a tight budget with two kids and an infant... and his work isn't being cooperative. I guess we'll celebrate next week.

Anyone out there have any killer idea's for anniversary celebrating? Otherwise we are probably gonna go to the Brick Oven, have dinner and go home, hopefully sans kids but even that is not a given.

Sigh... it's raining again.

Viral Fun

I have a case of the The Indie Virus as started by Chris Pearson of Pearsonified. That Crazy MamaD, she gave it to me... durn her hide anyway!

The experiment, henceforth referred to as The Indie Virus has two goals:

• To bring exposure to lesser known blogs (especially those outside of Technorati's top 100)
• To explore the metrics behind a viral linking campaign launched by the "little guys" (less popular blogs).

Well, fiddle dee dee! I ain't little and I ain't a guy but I'm pretty sure that my blog is a "little guy" so it works for me! In the spirit of the experiment I shall infect every "guy" blogger that I link to... little or not!

Dadguy... Ba-dah-BING! Hey, it's not a meme- it's an experiment! The Indie Virus
Nobody You Know... Whuh-POW! The Indie Virus
Saving Sanity...Sha-ZAM! The Indie Virus

Yo "J"

The following is for my homegirl "J" y'all know who you are.

I have a friend who is less than enchanted with her pregnancy experience... it's her first glow-in-the-dark, technicolor experience with the whole "Motherhood" thing, and for some crazy reason she is not thrilled with the puking and edema. Not ebullient with the roundness of her self, and people around her are giving her crap for her "bad attitude." I remember my first pregnancy. The only things that it had going for it is that I had wanted it real bad and it was novel. The following two pregnancies? Not so novel. The fact that we plan on having one more? Purely inexplicable.

I love my kids, but what freak of nature out there really enjoys pregnancy? Fine. Yeah, I know there are a few, but let's get this straight for the purposes of my rant y'all are freaks.

I just say this because this is the jumping off point. If people are giving her crap for her less than enthusiastic gestating, an activity that I equate with a moderate to severe car accident, they will probably be giving her blank looks when she announces that she is running away when the kid turns two and demonizes. Well, I say BAH! and have a nice day.

Oh, and check out what this esteemed blogger has to say re:Mommydom.

Slovenly

I am way behind on my housekeeping and upkeep of EVERYTHING. I have been very lackadaisical in my linky-dinky-doo's. Not like there are a bunch of new blogs that I read because I can barely keep up there as well.

There are a few choice bloggity-deedle-dees that I have been frequenting and I want to give them their props...
for quiet contemplation on my relationship with Deity...Animal Crackers and Cocoa.
for a beautiful spot and a great read?.. The Bees Knees.
for a short walk down Mama memerory lane is the Toronto Teacher Mom Blog.
an awesome friend a la Internets and all around superhero... Fantastagirl.
a Sistah Mama and RM, and she is danged funny to boot... Tripping Over Cobblestone.

springity-ding-dong

a few happies from the House of Chaos

growing, growing....
















SPROING!

this house

People are moving out of this neighborhood in droves. It's a great area, so a surprising number of folks are moving a whopping few blocks away... well, building and THEN moving a few blocks away. This little neighborhood is kinda what you might call "starter homes" mostly built by one particular builder within the past five years...and our house was actually one of the cheapest of the selection that they offered. The homes that are going in a few blocks away are nicer and larger.

I have a few big gripes about the house... like the kitchen is at the front of the house with no window to watch kids play in the backyard. The kitchen has the tiniest skrids for counter tops and minimal storage (drawers and cabinetry). The only way to get to the backyard from inside the house is via the garage, so I have a visual of kids walking or running past the van parked inside on their way to the backyard and in their hands they have, well, it's the Chaos Girls it could be anything, and the anything is gouging a long scratchy crevasse in the paint job... the end. And the laundry is downstairs I don't care for that.

Dadguy and I have talked about doing what everyone else is doing, and upgrading to larger and nicer. But the time just isn't right, and my main dissatisfaction's with the house are outweighed by the way that I love the vaulted ceilings in the front room, the large bedrooms and the fact that we have only lived here for four and a half years. Sheesh... we have yet to even paint!

I don't really have a beef with the size of the house overall... there is a little less than 1200 finished upstairs and almost the same amount unfinished in the basement. The plan is to finish at least a family room, stairwell and a hallway with doors so we can shut the doors to the unfinished bits down there... and we have the dough socked away for it if we are careful and do most of it ourselves... ooops!

Yesterday I remembered another thing about the house that I love... the way that it feels when you step into it from playing or working outside. The way that it smells. It's kind of similar to the sensation of coming home from a long trip, similar only stronger. I don't know how or why, but I love the way it feels and I love the yard that Dadguy and I agonised over. I love the flowers and shrubs most of which are freebies from the yards of various family and friends. The few precious plants that came from my Granny's yard. I love the trees that came to live with us last year.

The Iris are sending up stong looking green blades, the periwinkle has popped in a couple of protected nooks and the flox had two wee blooms before surrendering to the Chaos. It is finally starting to resemble something close to springtime around here... and I feel like I have room to breathe again. Move? Not on yer life!

Ummmm... tsk!

Every night, well most every night for the past few weeks... could it be a month? Two months? who knows.

Let's try this again for the sake of simplicity. Every night for the past month I have asked the Chaos Girls as we are finishing off "bedtime procedures" what was their favorite thing about that day. Birdie will hem and haw and then give me an answer like "school" or "maked a cake with daddy." Every night LaLa will answer...

"Ummmmm... tsk, pony dash."

First off, as far as I can tell a "pony dash" is an amalgamation of all the My Little Pony's, games and pretend involving said plastic characters, video, online website and games and the coloring books to boot. Her answer for everything used to be "pony dame," which we finally translated as "pony game." But now? Now... it's "pony dash." There is a pony named "Rainbow Dash," that was a favorite of Birdie's for a while. Dadguy and I think that has some part of the "pony dash as the meaning of life," thing. That, and it's fun to say.

"Pony dash."
"Pony dash."
"Pony dash."

the "Ummmm, tsk" part? Apparently that is a verbal quirk of mine. That's what I say when I am thinking. I only know this because both of The Chaos use it as a conversational place holder for when they are thinking or deciding something.

"Birdie where the ever-livin' crap are your shoes?"
"ummmm.... tsk, they're inna van."

"LaLa, which shirt did you want to wear today?"
"Ummmm... tsk, dithh one!"

Oh, yeah! Mom, I looked up "Meme" and found the following.

meme
/meem/ [By analogy with "gene"] Richard Dawkins's
term for an idea considered as a replicator, especially with
the connotation that memes parasitise people into propagating
them much as viruses do.

Memes can be considered the unit of cultural evolution. Ideas
can evolve in a way analogous to biological evolution. Some
ideas survive better than others; ideas can mutate through,
for example, misunderstandings; and two ideas can recombine to
produce a new idea involving elements of each parent idea.

Use of the term connotes acceptance of the idea that in humans
(and presumably other tool- and language-using sophonts)
cultural evolution by selection of adaptive ideas has become
more important than biological evolution by selection of
hereditary traits. Hackers find this idea congenial for
tolerably obvious reasons.

Holy Pump Up The Volume, the truth is a virus! My favorite is the "parasitising people" part, it's all so very ghastly for such a wee blogger jogger, it seems much more apt for those horrendus forwards that clog my email in-box. Gadzooks! If I have to wade through one more blasted cute-sy, semi-animated, inane and quasi-Christian forward that promises good luck if I forward the ponydashed thing to fifteen of my friends within the next ten minutes...!!!

Gahgk!!

Lack of Personal Dignity

It's been about a week since my last real post... nothing huge has happened. Oh, except I read a book! I don't read too many new books lately, I have a very hard time concentrating and a very hard time keeping track of what all is going on... book-wise and life-wise. Huh, I used to be pretty smart. I also used to have short term memory retention. And bladder control. And actual proper sentence structure.

I feel like a freaking sieve.

Yesterday morning we awoke to an inch or so of snow accumulation... not enough to grace my blog with yet another picture of a snowman, but certainly enough to gripe my very soul down to the nub. As I walked out my front door to teach Relief Society it was still snowing. If I hadn't been desperate to try to keep company of the Holy Spirit I would have let 'er rip with the swears right then... as it was, when I showed up before class started and stood waiting in the hallway for the Sunday School class that was still going to wrap it up and leave, I noticed four women waiting as well. Older women... well, older than I but not OLD... sharply dressed... gracious and friendly. Heh, you Mormon women out there are already laughing. You guessed it, the Stake Relief Society Presidency decided to pop in for a visit on the day that "yours truly" was scheduled to teach. Those of you not Mormon? Those ladies are the big wigs for the area, and while they are the most elegant and kind women you could hope to meet and I KNOW would never judge me for a poor lesson... it would have been nice to make a good impression.

The topic of my lesson was "The Blessings of General Conference," and I have a hazy memory of likening my function as the teacher of this lesson, sandwiched as it is between last weeks "Teaching and Learning by the Holy Spirit" and next weeks " General Conference" as that of a cheerleader ... and the lesson itself ? A pep-rally. It's possible that I may have pumped my fist in the air and shouted "Woooo HOO!" but I'm fairly certain that I kept both feet on the ground and did not do any actual cheers with words in them.

"We are the crowd YEAH!
we say it loud YEAH!"

I have an all-too-clear memory of telling everyone that one of the blessings of G.C. was the fact that it was bi-annual and therefore a handy reminder to rotate the water in your food storage... and change the batteries in the smoke alarms.

You didn't! Oh. Yes. I. Did.

It's all I can do not to second guess myself. When I first got this calling to teach in Releif Society (thankfully only once a month) I received the strongest impression that I should play to my strengths. One of my strengths is that I am fairly comfortable in front of people. Possibly a little TOO comfortable yesterday, but there it is. I felt like my job was to loosen everyone up and get them engaged. To get things going, and then step out of the way of the lesson being taught.

On that front I feel like I was successful and that a wonderful lesson was taught yesterday. I know that I'm geared up for Conference... I just sometimes wish, especially when there are new folks that don't already know what's coming at them when I teach... I wish that my strengths included a little more, y'know... personal dignity.

smenita

OK... I really am still reading all y'all! I really want to comment on your blog!

Blogger has other ideas, and it can be summed up in one word verification "smenita." Yesterday at some point I commented on Mama D's blog... then I read the next post she had done and had myself something to say to that too. Only I got the exact same WV and have ever since, only blogger won't actually take it.

So I have been MUZZLED, and I don't like it. Freakin' "smenita."

Licking Rocks

Aaaaand here is where everyone gets to feel like a way better mom. At least a way better mom than me.

My two oldest girls are what I call mouth-smart. They have always had a sense of what is too big to swallow, or what would be unpleasant to swallow. Because of this I have yet to go through any choking scares with my kids. I have been privy to choking scares with other peoples kids... and it was usually involving plain old food, bread and the like. Because of my girls being mouth-smart I have been way more relaxed about some pretty big mommy no-no's. Like pop corn. Never had a kid choke on popcorn... and I know that you are not supposed to give it to babies, yet you will find us picking the hulls off of popcorn pieces and giving it to anyone with more than one tooth in their head.

I'm not 100% brain dead about it, like I don't allow stuff of any sort in a mouth when a kid is laying down... that's just plain stupid even for adults. One day we went to a friends house that was fabulously un-baby-proofed when the Bird was around a year old... unbeknownst to us Birdie immediately found the button box. She was running around with that funny face, so I stopped her and requested she "spit it out." It was almost never a fight to get her to spit stuff out because there was every chance that I would inspect the item and give it back. In front of our hosts she proceeded to spit out thirteen buttons and one penny. Alright, no... she did not get any of those back. Buttons, rubber balls, marbles, coins... I'm not a complete dolt here. But... ummm rocks?

Yeah... ever since a kid was mobile to the point of walking steadily and competently (relatively)... for Birdie around eleven months and for LaLa it was about fourteen, I have let them put rocks in their mouths. Hey now! It's not that I encourage this kinda crap, but when you are outside for a few hours each day I defy you to stop it. Especially with the Chaos Girls! Seriously, my thinking was that I could follow these kids around no-no-ing them and rock removing all day and I would at the end of the day be worn to a frazzle and they would have sampled the crud off of maybe thirty seven rocks. On the other hand if I allowed them to continue with the three small pebbles in their mouths currently, they would happily suck away and in the end sample the crud off of less than a dozen rocks. A few pebbles may have been swallowed and processed, but no harm no foul.

As I said, so far my older kids are mouth smart... I will be closely watching Pearl when the time comes and I make no assumptions regarding her skilz. I just think that you should know that I think it's funny the other day when I heard Birdie explain in all sincerity about rocks to LaLa.

Birdie is holding a smooth grey river stone from our front strip. The stone is oblong and about the size of her palm extended. LaLa inspects the rock and reaches for it.

"Nooo, La! This is a special rock!" Birdie tells her.

LaLa looks at her older sister quizzically

"See? It's a licking-rock," She tells LaLa as she puts one end of the rock in her mouth.

Chaos and "licking-rocks," these things are the warp of my day. Trying to reason with the unreasonable? That is the woof. Such is the fabric of my life right now.

S**W!

My goodness Blogger has been as grumpy these past few days as I have!


Here is a happy snowman... Do you see him in all his wintry glory? Do you see how jolly he is? Switch it up and that is exactly how grumpy I am at his very existence.

Sure he's handsome... and the girls love him to pieces, I'm just crusty that there was enough of the blasted "whitestuff" to even make him.... see? no four letter words on THIS blog site! My only consolation is that he is as bald as I am becoming. That's why he wears the hat. I need a hat. My hair is coming out by the fistfuls and it it very.dark.brown. That is... when it's not grey.

Also? I am exhausted. Pearl has been playing at sleeping the whole night through for the past two weeks. Just when I think she really means it, she gets up every two hours for a night and my body is shutting down. Oh... and the Chaos Girls all of a sudden need only nine and a half hours of seep a night. That's what they tell me anyway. I, myself have gone from needing a total of seven hours of sleep in a 24 hour period of time to needing nine or ten hours. WHAAaaaa? This sleep crap is really cutting in to my blogging habit!

On Saturday before we got dumped on again I was taking a nap. Ahhhhhh... blessed survival! Birdie wanted to go outside to play so Dadguy said she could if she got herself dressed. She did such bang-up job that he told her she just needed to grab a jacket before she went out. She did. Her two year old sister's jacket. And she wore it. As you can plainly see. It is the pink thing on her head.

The shoes? They are from last winter and I have NO IDEA how she jams her feet in them let alone how she can stand to hobble around while wearing them. Holy foot binding batman! But, y'see... they light up when she limps about in them so it is....
well, still a mystery.

Clouds of Glory

The Pearl! She changes sooooo fast.

The rolls! Aghk! The rolls must be squished....

Birdie is starting to put some things together and reading is right around the corner. Gadzooks! She sounds out words with varying degrees of success, and she tried to write her friend Madaline's name the other day by sounding it out... she spelled it MATN. She did completely succeed in spelling C-A-T to accompany the picture of a very whiskery cat that she had drawn. This she did with no assist.

LaLa, her face has changed again. Every day it's easier to understand the complete sentences she speaks in. Her darling little lispy voice can be heard singing and chatting to herself... the kid, she rarely shuts up. Which is fine... except when she screams? She shatters glass.

"wing ah-wown ah woah-theeth
pock-ah foo ah poe-theeth
ash-esh, ash-esh we ahh fahh DOW!"

This is such an exciting and happy time, but at the same time I am a little in awe and slightly intimidated by the amazingness of these girls that have come from the mix of Dadguy and I. These beings trailing clouds of glory, Children of God... my sisters.

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar. Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory, do we come From God, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy."
-William Wordsworth

Mama Nightmares

Today I was informed that one of my personal terrors has happened. Not for me, but for a local family. I switched Birdie to the morning class in her preschool because a spot opened up and because there were a few problems with a couple of rougher kids. Today when I went in to pick up my Bird the teacher, who is also a friend of mine asked if I was OK with her signing a card for the family of one of her afternoon classmates. I remember him. Quiet kid... cute little boy. Apparently my daughters name was the only word that he would ever voluntarily say in class.

He died in his sleep this past weekend. There HAD been a few health problems, but the family had thought they had discovered the problem and had fixed it. The thought of this boys mother makes me want to curl up and cry.

On that happy note... it turns out that another, but far less horrifying of a fear has also come to pass. I have made myself google-able for some less than friendly folks. While checking my Statcounter I see that my blog pops up as numero uno if you google "anti-mormon blogger template," because apparently someone did. On the lighter side I show up as option number three if you google "putrid baby gas," and number four for "computer generated lala tones." It's the "freak mama." and "mama licking" searches that make me laugh.

Well... I gotta go have a good cry and a life, maybe get a clue while I'm at it. Happy to you.

Tree Angel

While LaLa takes a nap, and I sit in my Chair with a swaddled and nursing Pearl, Birdie and I watch the trailers at the beginning of the Lion King Video. They are advertising George of the Jungle part two. It appears to star some Brendan Frazier look alike guy, and he does look an awful LOT like Mr. Frazier... but they do not ever actually say his name, and he is a big enough star that I think he'd get himself some billing if he were in this newest incarnation of the "George" saga.

I meander.

He does his signature "AHAHhaAAAAAHHHH!" and smashes into an enormous jungley tree trunk, and as his body falls off cartoon-like, the tree is left with the impression of a mans body.

Birdie turns to me and says, part statement part question, "he swinged on that.... leaf?"

"That's a vine honey." I say, and because I am a smugly helpful scholastamom I then ask, "what letter does the word vine start with?" Really, I promise that they did the letter "V" in the pre-school this week, I'm not always so annoying. Always.

She looks at me and I can see that I have derailed her thought, but she is a trooper and gives me a "vuh-vuh-vuh-vine, the letter "V" mama!"
Quiet a minute, she regards the TV screen which is now displaying the George of the Jungle II logo. Then she turns to me with her face alight again and says with Birdie animation "He swinged on the vine and SMASHED into the tree," here she whams a fist into her other hand, "and he made a tree angel!"

Letter "V", indeed!

Hot Dogs and Lemonade

I have learned alot as a mother... one of the greatest things that I have learned is that whenever I get an opportunity to play to my strengths, to go for it and hold nothing back. Because baby! I got me some serious weaknesses and I get to showcase those bad boys on a daily basis; patience, multi-tasking, house keeping, temper, time management, cooking mmmm... I get giddy as the list goes on.

One of my strengths is a decided want of dignity... I promise, that can be a strength! As in I am fairly unafraid to make an ass of myself if it will get me where I want to go. And my willingness to look like a dip is actually quite necessary, because I am a dip and therefore... well, y'all can do the math on that one.

In High School I had a friend who had an abnormally high threshold of pain. If say, he crashed into you during phys-ed going for the same kickball pop fly he was probably going full bore because for him to slam into a wall or bash into the bleachers or knock the spinal column out of your body was nothing... he paid no price. Sure he knew it would hurt you, and so he tried to keep track of other folks, do a little damage control. He was also black and blue alot. I think I'm like this guy only with the high embarrassment threshold thingy. Public speaking, performing and singing in front of other folks with only a passing voice and ok pitch?... well that takes a pretty high embarrassment threshold. Got me one of those.

The normal things do embarrass me... you know social stuff and real life stuff. But when it comes to getting up in front of a few hundred people and laying down an "Elephant Rap" complete with lifelike rendition of a bull elephant's trumpeting and my buddy blowing beat box on the other microphone? I say bring it ON! It's not really that I am a better storyteller than most folks, it's that I am willing to do it and do it loudly and with as much panache as I can swing.

Yup, I've got a slew of passable accents and puppet personalities. Mime? Ha! Did that too. I make up stupid words to songs the same as the next mom... you KNOW you do! You sing about...
"stinker pants pooty pants,
do a little nasty dance."
or
"New pants new pants
how-do-you-do pants.
New pants, new pant for your bum
New pants, who pants?
whoopedy-doo pant,
new pants oooo pants!
rum-pum-pum!"

You just don't often post in your blog the lyrics to the amazingly banal songs you sing, for all of Internetdom to read and marvel at your lack of personal dignity.

and when your kids want to hear the "hot dog song" before they go to bed and you have absolutely NO freaking idea what they are talking about then you sing
"...hot DOOOooooogs and lemonade!
popcorn my teacher made,
and then we ate some cake.
Hot dogs and lemonade!"
over and over again, to virtually no tune at all. I am the Queen of whatever it takes...



This is the cake we made a few days ago...and then LaLa get's her solo in "Hot gog a lem-uh-lay, hot gog a lem-uh-lay!"

I'm raising some freaky Chaos Girls and I don't even care... much. I mean, I know they'll take some crap from other kids growing up... and I'm sure that I'll humiliate and horrify them when they are teenagers, but won't those things happen to varying degrees anyway? The only difference between the way that I will horrify my kids and Polly-go-Sweetly horrifies her kids is that my girls will be somewhat justified. Because I will be that parent who breaks into song walking through the grocery store... that behavior didn't genesis with my babies and won't spontaneously end with their childhoods.

It's good to be the Mama!

...and the Little Girls Sing...

...and the little girls sing "doot doo-doot, doot doo-doo-doo-doo..."

Our household has hit survival mode... boy is this familiar. What with the hacking and puking, the snot and the trots whoooooWEEE! we are a veritable viral parade. I won't give ya all the specifics, we shall just leave it at the eternal question WHY?

Why does it all kick into high gear during the oh-so-precious night time hours?... my "can finally get it done, have some time to myself, I need to sleep too guys!" time, and it's not just the kids. Yesterday I suffered through the death-dealing gas and the most horrifying incessant burps (my own thank you) and yet, these are things I can do in my sleep. No, the exercise portion of that particular malady began at 1:32am. I know this because that is when my eyelids flew up and the "whoop whoop whoop" of my internal alarm system indicated to me that there was a fire down below. Between nursing twice, LaLa waking at 5:45 and my own sprints to the loo, that hour and a half from midnight to the moment I was hearing a strange man hollering in a Scottish accent something about how "she can't take any more Cap'm, she's gonna blow!" was the longest stretch of sleep I got. No matter how you patch it together, twenty minutes here and fifteen minutes of unconsciousness there will never a good nights rest equal. Dadguy did his level best though... bless his soul.

See? I only gave you some specifics.

The rest of the week is kinda hectic, kinda sad... it's a heck of a note that here we are with Dadguy's Grandma F, and I am just now starting to understand how very gone from mortality my own Granny is. Y'know, because I'm happy for her, I really am... it's just this hole that is left. Things can never be the same again.

"Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
Oh, look out you rock ’n rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
Pretty soon now you’re gonna get a little older
Time may change me
But I can’t trace time
I said that time may change me
But I can’t trace time"

-David Bowie
Changes

Sweet Sabbath

I would think that it was the unsettled quality of the weather of late...
it could possibly be my hormones. Some of it is just living and some of it is the dying. My heart has been especially tender of late.

Yesterday Dadguy's Grandma F. died. It was not totally unexpected, but right now when I have my own Granny so fresh on my mind...well. She will be sorely missed. Once again it is not mine to tell other than she was well loved, well lived and is once again with her sweetheart.

Today Dadguy was just not up for the whole church thing which is doubly understandable because his Sunday schedule starts with a 5:30am wake up call and doesn't end until 4:00pm. He stayed home and I got the interesting experience of taking all three of the Chaos Girls with me to church. I suppose that I could have left a kid or two home with the guy... but that's hardly a break now is it? Anyhow, it 's amazing how well things go when I just lower my expectations and relax. The only rough patch comes at the first anyway... the dreaded Sacrament Meeting, as in Shhhhhhhh! An hour and ten minutes of worship with the entire congregation present. Granted, in a Ward such as ours the expectations have already been lowered a bit from the word GO. There were twenty new babies born last year alone, and children ten years and under make up a full half of the membership. Still, as the Deacons pass the Sacrament itself every parent pulls out all the stops to have as quiet and reflective a period of time so that all the rest of the congregation do not assign the title of "Loudest and Most Unruly Brat" to one of their brood. I'm no different. Dadguy and I have a sippy cup of juice or milk held hostage to the behavior of Chaos and the girls usually comport themselves fairly well. I don't think we have the title yet... Yet.

Today LaLa was getting restless as the bread was being passed, and she was starting to poke and pick at Birdie who was otherwise staring off into space thinking little Bird thoughts about flying pony's. I grabbed LaLa, plunked her on my lap and began whispering into her ear. In case you didn't know, whispering is a highly effective way of getting a two year olds attention. It's loving and intimate and they have to shut their own pie-holes in order to hear what you are whispering to them. I was going for a teaching moment.

"LaLa, do you see that boy passing the bread? That bread symbolises the body of Jesus who died for us," I breathe past her sweet smelling wisps into her ear.

"Oh!" She pipes in her piccolo voice, "I YIKE da body of Dee-thuth!"

Her voice is a pebble in the relative silence of the Sacrament reverie as the congregation shuffles, shifts and coughs to cover snorts of mirth. Ahhhh, sweet chaos.

Saturday Smiles

My wee Pearl is a watcher. It's more than a little scary because she will watch TV... actually watch it. Although you may be increudulous at that statement when you hear that she really likes professional basketball. I'm serious, Dadguy found that out and he is the KING of whatever works when it comes to screaming babies. Maybe she likes all basketball on TV, I dunno, we aren't going to try that kind of experiment. It comes down to her enjoyment of a good show, and yesterday I realised that is why she is such a content baby. Around here there is always a good show going on and the costumes are lovely. It's like that Madness song "Our House"...

"Our house, it has a crowd
There's always something happening
And it's usually quite loud"

Here is a short lil' show that you shouldn't miss... picked it up at Animal Crackers and Cocoa.
She found it at Danielle Bean's.

Family Rocks

Just this past Sunday we had a family gathering... it was truly a hoot! We all packed into my oldest sister's house. Of my immediate family there was only her and her family of five, my little brother Freakboy, his wife and their two redheads. Daguy and I brought our total household of five and the rest were some of my cousins and their broods. An Aunt and a couple of Uncles rounded out the whole affair and is there such a thing as a step cousin? 'Cause if so, we had two of those. Total I think there was around eighteen kiddos aged ten or younger plus a handful of teenagers in attendance. I know this is so much minutiae, it just struck me that I grew up like this. Not so much the second cousin factor, but the feeling of loud and loving family and the tons of kids. The enchilada's, the pot of beans and a whole lot of popcorn. My Granny called us all "turd-munkles," and though it may sound odd it's name I bear with pride. Collectively we were and are "Grand-brats."

Right now I miss my Granny and Pa so bad... please stay with me just a minute while I swallow past this rock in my heart. I have never begrudged them their passing until now. My Granny had cancer and was more than ready to go, and Pa followed her nine months later. I think he was ninety seven? They both left this world in the bed they shared in their own damn house. They passed with dignity.

My Mom had three sisters and one brother, and while my Uncle Sam has never married, his sisters have more than made up for it with their kid totals ending up at 6,6,5 and 11. I'm not kidding, she popped out eleven kids...wheeew! I have many memories of family "do's" with packs of snot nosed cousins roaming and tumbling and beating on each other. It was good and I want that kind of love and security, that sense of family and belonging for the Chaos Girls. I think they get a good solid dose on both sides...

I make a point of filling all prescriptions at the downtown pharmacy here, it was owned and run by Dadguy's Grandpa. Now it's owned by Dadguy's Uncle Mike and while I'm pretty sure we get a family discount on the scripts, that's not why I go. I go because the place has a lunch counter/soda fountain that hearkens back to the day when Dadguy's dad and his buddies would stop by after dropping off their dates and make themselves a burger and malted. They could do this because he had a set of keys to the place and his dad trusted him to clean up the grill after. This was back in the day before it would occur to a Dad that there might be a problem with giving some teenage boys access to a drugstore unsupervised, and there never was a problem. This is the same lunch counter that Dadguy grew up at. These are the stools that I get an inordinately peaceful feeling seeing my own girls perched upon, licking a soft-serv cone while we wait for our prescriptions to be filled.

Family. I've got a rock in my heart today, or is it in my throat? I'm not trying to be mysterious, I just have been at it for this whole naptime and half a box of Kleenex and can't type out what has eaten my lunch in a publishable way. It's just so much raw and painful crap, all tied up in the not-so-mysterious or unusual self destruction of a cousin, a nephew, a brother or a friend. Drugs, alcohol...I have had my fill of them and their destruction. I have a rock in my heart and today the keyboard can't seem to dislodge it.