Romance

Happy St. Valentine's Day! We are all sick here, so we kept things pretty low-key. I made chocolate-filled pastries for breakfast (which the kids hated) and a flourless chocolate-hazelnut cake with coffee ice cream for dessert (which the kids hated), and Chris whipped up some perfectly cooked delmonico steaks with a rosemary wine sauce for dinner (which the kids hated), so I would say that V-day around here was a success.

Claire began the day by inventing a song that has stuck in my head all. day. long. The lyrics are (frighteningly) as follows:
The girlfriends! And the boyfriends!
They love each other!
They love each other, and they marry each other!
Oh the girlfriends and the boyfriends!

Later that afternoon, Chris and I took advantage of a quiet moment to exchange cards. Every year we just write little letters to each other for Valentine's Day, so we both read our cards and then met in the middle of the kitchen to give each other a hug. As I went up on my tiptoes to give my husband a little kiss for Valentine's Day a voice suddenly piped out loudly from the bathroom beside us.
"I'm going to make a poopie!" yelled Abbie.
We paused, then smiled and rolled our eyes at each other before I went up on my tiptoes again.
"It's a big one!" immediately came that distinctive little voice, "Wow, it's pretty stinky in here!"

It was very romantic.

On top of everything else, poor little Lucy is very sick. She hasn't been sleeping well, and the poor thing has just been exhausted and frustrated all day. So here's a parting picture of tired little Lucy, asleep in her highchair just before dinner.

Notice, as well, how I've subtly managed to place that gorgeous flower arrangement in every picture? Chris very much so surprised me with that, as we usually really only do the card thing. (The flower delivery guy was impressed as well, I could tell, since he came to the front door: the door we never use because the path that leads to it was long ago reclaimed by the - muddy- earth, and the wooden steps that connect to it are, besides shedding half of the peeled white paint, warped and sagging, preventing the screen door from latching. So this man, in order to present me with this huge bouquet of flowers, had to stand on those rickety steps while I first had to kick all of the coats into the living room to access the door, and then had to un-do the bungee cord that we've tastefully employed to keep the screen door from flying away. I'm guessing that he was thinking the flower-money would have been better employed on other things, perhaps a bungie cord that doesn't clash with the decor. I was just happy with the flowers, though!)

Here you go, Andy!

Chris had his first cooking class, "knife skills" on Monday but he had to miss it. It was really a shame.

He missed the class because he sliced off the top of his finger while chopping herbs.

And actually, the herbs aren't supposed to be chopped at all - lightly pinching the stem and running your fingers down it cause the thyme to simply fall off in perfect little flakes.

So, it was a real shame that he missed that class.

The jury (me) is still out on whether he needs to go see a doctor or not. The top of the finger wasn't technically severed; it is still hanging on by a thread, like Nearly Headless Nick's neck. Part of his nail came off, but it is still attached to the flap of rogue skin hanging off of his finger, and that seems.....uh, not ideal, in my opinion. The attendant at the gas station claims that Chris doesn't need to see no stinkin' doctor, though, so what do I know.

In any case, his brother naturally wants to see the wound. Every single picture I took is fuzzy, for some reason, but it gives you the general idea. Hope you're impressed, Andy. As to everyone else, you might want to avert your eyes.

There is charisma, and then there is scary, sold-your-soul, mesmerizing charisma. You decide.

Beth loves words. She loves learning what big words mean, and integrating them into her vocabulary. She also just loves the way some words sound, and she'll often repeat new words to herself over and over as she is doing chores, just for the pure joy the sound makes.

Yesterday, as she was doing her homework she began to repeat something over and over. "Barack Obama," she said. "Barack Obama. Barackobama. Barackobama."

"Where did you hear that?" I asked her.

"On the news. I think it's the name of some guy. Is he the new president?"

No, I told her, he isn't. At least not yet. Beth lost interest and went back to her homework, until a few minutes later I heard it again. She couldn't help herself.

"Barack Obama," she said as she scribbled the answer to a math question, "Barack Obama. Barackobama."

She likes what she sees

Abbie, to her reflection in the mirror:

You are golden!

I am golden!

I love you, golden girl!

She then blew herself a kiss and wandered away.

There really is such a thing as too much self-esteem.

It's all over, baby

Lucy is officially walking.

She is nine months old.

Heaven help us.

Outside of the Castle of Miracles

Outside of the Castle of Miracles
Originally uploaded by moleshollow

Let's see if I've done this right.

If I have, these pictures should show you where we have been for the past week! Look for a huge old post soon detailing how wonderful the trip was, and in particular how wonderful both the Make a Wish Foundation and Give Kids the World Village are!!!!

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Time for a break

Things have been kind of crazy around here lately, so I think I'm going to take a break from the blog for a while. Check back in a month or two, hopefully I'll be back in form by then.

And I know it needs to be said: No, I am not pregnant. :)

trying to wink

Sometimes I can forget that she is still such a little girl!

On the way to school this morning, Katie and I had the following exchange:

Katie: There is something that I have been keeping secret, but I think I should tell you.
Me: (trying very hard to keep my voice neutral) Okay....
Katie: I don't want my friends to know this.
Me: Well, I can promise to not tell your friends, of course.
Katie: Okay. Well....(in a whisper) I think I can breathe underwater.

The healing power of Rock-n-Roll

Yesterday was a crappy day. I'll spare you the gory details, but it began with a roaring fight about a baby Panda bear at 7am, and slouched to a close with a defective diaper and a shirt, pants and socks (mine) drenched in urine at a public event.

Once the girls were in bed, however, and I dragged myself down the steps to exchange a few words with my husband (responsible for all of this, in a sense, because half of the genes that went into creating these little monsters came from him!) everything turned around.

Why? Because of this:




It is the best video game ever made!!! Anything that can take a tired, ragged housewife who faintly smells like baby pee and turn her into a Rock god is on the side of the Angels, if you ask me. I have no talent when it comes to videogames, and I bring Chris' scores down because I can't move out of the "easy" mode, but.......when the crowd starts singing along to the music I really, truly feel like I am making -- I am invincible.

The view from my room

This is my constant scenery these days: Lucy hanging on to my leg. She is really under the impression that baby-hood is for suckers, and she's determined to claw her way out of it as quickly as possible. She started crawling around 5 months, then quickly began to pull up on things. At 6 months old, she can already cruise all around the house, provided there is something to hold on to. Her favorite pass time is to seek me out, and then prevent me from moving anywhere by pulling up on my leg and then refusing to let go.

All of this precocity, however, comes with a price. Lucy's life is in constant danger, because my brain cannot keep up with her physical acumen. She fell down the steps three weeks ago because I misjudged how quickly she could make it from my side to the basement door. Yesterday, she again fell down the steps because it never, ever occurred to me that she could crawl all the way up them.

I was digging around in Katie and Beth's closet when it happened. The girls had all been playing in the living room, but suddenly - as a herd is want to do - they all moved upstairs. They closed the door to the steps, but I guess Lucy felt left out because when Beth opened the door she discovered the little thing almost at the top of the flight. Lucy was startled by the door, however, and she jerked back and fell all the way to the bottom. I heard the scream (both Lucy's and Beth's - who was almost as upset) and I somehow made it to the bottom to scoop Lucy up. I honestly don't know how I got down the steps - it felt like I just jumped down the entire flight, but something tells me that's just the adrenaline muddying my memory. My heart can't take much more of this, though, and I am pretty sure that Lucy's head really ought not take much more. So, back in the kitchen it is, acting as a human crutch for my baby who so desperately wants to learn how to walk. At least I know she's not in mortal peril when she's hanging onto my leg.

Walkin' in a Winter Wonderland

It is snowing today! Chris got a good crackling fire going around noon, Claire and Abbie and Lucy spent over an hour staring out of the windows just watching the snow falling, and Beth's teacher reprimanded me for not putting her in boots. * Winter has officially arrived!

The girls came up with an awesome game outside: they made complex mazes out of their footprints in the snow, and we spent a good long time trying to find our way out of them. I thought my maze was pretty cool - it took me a good 20 minutes to make it, and it wound all the way around our yard, but the girls told me that it was too easy. I will get my revenge the next time it snows.

*(Come on! Who needs to go through the hassle of boots in order to walk two feet from the door to the car, and another 10 feet on - shovelled!!-cement from the car to the school door. Her feet don't get wet. She hardly even needs a coat, she spends so little time in the actual outdoors.)

Is waterboarding at the Dentist's next?

I'm kind of weird about my eyes. I recognize this. I freely admit that a fear of ceiling fans (which could fall and slice your eyes apart while you sleep) and umbrellas (a dozen spikes hovering just above the level of your eyes??? Hello!!) is not normal. When the girls get pink eye the medication is administered by Chris, because I just can't bring myself to do it. If Chris is not available I drop the liquid near their eyes and then tilt their heads until it runs in more or less the right direction.

So. I'm kind of weird about my eyes. I've put off going to see the eye doctor because I know that they use eye drops to dilate your pupils, and I wasn't sure that I could handle it. My eyesight is not improving on its own, though, so it was time to suck it up and go in. On Wednesday I walked into an opthamologist's office for the first time in 10 years.

Initially, things went very well. I flinched and closed my eyes when the nurse put the drops in, but it only took four or five tries until it worked. (That may seem terrible, but I was just happy to have managed at all.) I asked the nurse how long it would take for my pupils to dilate, and she said, "Oh these drops aren't for dilation. It's to numb your pupils. Now hold still please and I'm going to push this little rod against your eye to see how firm it is."

Can this be possible? She was so very cavalier about the whole thing, as though shoving a glowing blue rod into your eye is no big deal, as easy and routine as reading those little letters on the wall. I literally jumped out of my chair and said, "Are you serious?" The nurse just looked at me as though I was being completely unreasonable. "Of course," she said, "How else can we check for glaucoma?"

I felt that it was unnecessary. I realize that I'm not all that knowledgeable about eye stuff but I didn't think it was a huge risk to assume that I don't have glaucoma, considering the fact that I am not going blind nor am I 80 years old. The nurse called the doctor in for reinforcement, and I suddenly found myself at the receiving end of the standard good-cop/bad-cop technique. The doctor, not to put too fine a point on it, was a jerk. I was stuck in that stupid plastic chair between the compassionate nurse and the evil doctor, as all the while a glowing blue rod was poised mere inches from my eye. I, as anyone who has ever watched Jack Bauer at work knows, had no chance.

Once I was done sobbing, they let me out into the waiting room while my pupils dilated. (Yes, I handled the dilation drops just fine, as they suddenly seemed very benign compared to the glowing blue rod of death.) There was another woman in the room who also looked like she had recently been crying. Once I sat down, I leaned over to her and said, "I didn't realize that a visit to the eye doctor came with a lesson in medieval torture." The woman laughed nervously, but just then the Evil Doctor walked past and shot me one of the most venomous looks I've ever encountered. I was completely cowered, and for the remainder of my wait the other prisoner.....um, I mean patient, and I sat in meek silence as we tried to make out the words in magazines through our distorted vision.

Moral of the story: there is no way in Hell I'll ever set foot in that office again. I have to wonder though: Is this really normal? Is it really a routine practice to take a glowing blue rod (the glowing and the blue is important) and shove it into the eye of every patient who walks in the door? Chris claims that his office checks for glaucoma using puffs of air, but I assure you that this was no puff of air. It was a glowing blue rod, and they put it directly INTO MY EYES. Please tell me that our society has not degenerated so much that everyone, everywhere should be expected to meekly line up and let some masochist in a white coat shove foreign objects directly into their eyes. Please give me some hope for the world.

Photo for Christmas card, take 1

Aaargh! I took close to 30 pictures yesterday, and this is the best I could come up with.
I don't think it is possible to get all of them to look at the camera, keep their eyes open, and smile without grimacing all at the same time. I need to up my photoshopping skills.

(By the way, Mom - the sweaters were a big hit!!!)

Thanksgiving by Beth

I am thankful for the trees. I am thankful for my sisters. I am thankful for my family because thay take care of me. I am thankful for my health. I am thankful for my teacher so I can lean. I am thankful for the car so I can go placeis.

Elisabeth

The cutest thing ever. Seriously

I really wish that I could upload home movies to our computer! I came downstairs yesterday right as Chris was putting a video on the t.v. for Abbie.



It's a favorite song of the family's right now, and I've heard it playing from downstairs many, many times but I didn't realize what big things were going on down there. Abbie has memorized the entire video. She follows along, and does every single dance move right along with the "1234 Girl." She even has Chris trained to swoop in during the scenes where the crowd picks the singer up, and he holds her in the air while she continues to dance. At the end, when the crowd dissapears behind the singer's back, Chris crouches down and pretends to hide behind Abbie.

It is perfect. And it was so freaking adorable that it almost made me cry. I love this kid! And I love this man, who has clearly done this hundreds of times while nobody was looking, playing this silly little game with this silly little girl and not caring even a little if it makes him look silly, too. It doesn't, of course. It makes him look like the best daddy ever.

they never understand that I really am in charge

Abbie really likes potato chips. So, today, she tried to wheedle some out of me before lunchtime. The strict rule around here is no snack-y things until after lunch. (Of course, had the email about her MRI come by then she may have encountered less resistance to her charms.) I kept firmly saying, "No."

Abbie was getting frustrated, and I could literally see the wheels turning behind those big blue eyes. She finally leaned in close to me and whispered very slowly and distincly, "If you do not give me a chip, I will not say please."

If she had been saying, "If you don't eat your meat, you won't get any pudding!" the tone would have been no different. I looked down at her and she had that don't-make-me-come-over-there Mommy Look, directed straight at me. Then she cocked her eyebrow. She clearly felt that she was fully in charge, and that withholding that "please" would punish me good and plenty.

No chips for her. But I hightailed it out there as fast as I could go, before she could see me laugh.

"Unremarkable"

"Unremarkable." It's a beautiful word! We got the official report today from Abbie's MRI, and they've seen no increased tumor growth, and less enhancement. The report ended with a sentence that made me so happy I laughed out loud:

The remaining spinal cord appears unremarkable with no contrast
enhancement appreciated.

After all that Abbie has gone through in the last year and a half, it is a miracle to think that her poor little traumatised spine is now "unremarkable." Do you know what that is? It's remarkable!

Why do moments like this seem to belong so particularly to the colder seasons?

Maybe it's the fire.

I am having what I used to refer, in my naive college days, as "an intrinsically happy moment." I was sitting on the floor, by the awesomely smoky and warm fire in the living room, flipping through a magazine to get ideas for Christmas. The girls were all playing in the hallway, perfectly in harmony: such moments are all the more sweeter for being so sadly rare. Lucy was sitting beside me, practicing her standing skills by pulling up on my knees, and all was quiet and cozy and right with the world. Chris came in to throw some more wood in the fire, and he brought me a glass of wine. Life could not possibly have been better.

I'm still sitting by the fire right now, on the laptop Chris gave me this summer, and I can't help but think about the different types of happy moment that come with each new season. For my money, nothing beats the cozy, rich warmth of fall and winter. It's chilly outside, and chilly in parts of the house; the warmth of the living room is so much more luxurious in comparison, and the crack and snap of the fire, the smell of the wood, the glow of the embers are so sensual (as in, they affect all the senses) that we are all lulled and mellowed. Even our Loudest (you know who she is) is quiet for once. (Well, quiet-er.)

I'm so blessed. I always know it, but moments like this help me to really feel it. Isn't that the way it's supposed to work, after all? Knowing a thing in our minds is never enough, not for the long term: we need to feel it through our bodies as well. And so God gives us, among other things, cold days. Cold days, and a fire for warmth.

(This happiness and relief, for the record, is due entirely to the cold/warm dichotomy. It has nothing to do with the fact that Abbie is in diapers today, taking a break from potty-training. Really, it's all about the fire.)