Adventures in "StoryVeale": 2010

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Secure Traditions

At some point this morning I looked down at my stomach and realized that I have a baby bump. Except this time, instead of a wonderful, active, precious little bit of baby, what's filling my stomach is something that would look eerily like my cooking pan about an hour after I've finished frying bacon.

The realization that I'm producing lard did not stop me from popping another chocolate into my mouth.

Yesterday I had a hissy fit because my childhood tradition was altered.

Some people have traditions of significance, they look back over the years and get misty-eyed thinking of how their tradition has sustained them through adversity.

Not me.  My security blanket is a little less beautiful.

Since I can remember there has been a microwave in the corner of my parent's kitchen. It, like most microwaves, contained a digital screen telling the time.

Their microwave broke last week and my parents, not having time to power shop for a replacement, settled on a hand-me-down, vintage brown and orange, blazing 500 watt, early edition microwave as a stop gap. It does not have the time on it.

My mind cannot accept this as fact in my world.

So yesterday morning, since I had plenty of time to think about it as Maggie was up before dawn again, I attacked my parents and told them that they were messing with my childhood security blanket. I needed a microwave that told the time!

That kicked off a whole adventure that resulted in a trip to north Phoenix, a microwave and sound system, my husband up to the wee hours of the morning installing said sound system, and my children visiting the Best Buy potty so many times it was like their innards were composed of leaky faucets.

All this after a loud, fun-filled morning making pizzas at my sister and brother-in-law's home.

What I've learned? There are some things money can buy and consistency/tradition, in this case, is one of them!

As I type, Isaiah is installing speakers in the house.  He's not quite crooning with happiness but I'm pretty sure this is going to go down as his favorite visit ever.

The girls have been bopping around like pinballs and I finally knocked them over the head with a hammer to get them to naps.  Not really, but they were a bit belligerent and Mia kept insisting that she wasn't tired because she was hyper.  Huh… You think?!

Now, time happily in the corner of the kitchen again, I'm leaving the sleeping cherubs and taking a trip to Prescott with my sister to get the new remote control and stock up on the essentials – like toilet paper in bulk from Costco.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Oooo, oh yeah!

Mia is in the corner singing a heartfelt, upbeat, "Oh, Oh, yeah, oooo, Oh, Oh, Yeah… You're the greatest in the world, oh, oh yeah," while Maggie strums on a full-sized guitar that dwarfs her body. It's the first time I've heard her croon quite like this and I didn't realize Maggie had such strumming skill, but… Well, it adds to the adventure of the day!

This kiddos slept until 7:39 a.m. this morning! I pranced upstairs with them singing the Hallelujah Chorus! Then I changed a diaper, fed them all and got ready for a coffee date with a good friend. It was a lovely start to the day.

It only got better from there. I grew up with a cool family and now all of us have grown up and have families of our own. We met at a park and let our horde of children run wild while we caught up. It was wonderful. All together we had 12 children under age 9 and almost as many adults (our age is a respectable 29. All of us.).

Having filled ourselves up with the joy of home and community, Isaiah and I decided that the real cherry on top would be a trip to Wal-Mart. Who doesn't love Wal-Mart?! It was inside the Wally-World bathroom that Mia walked up to Maggie, started slapping her face, then asked, "Is this annoying?"

I'm thinking by the resulting squeal from Maggie that, yes, it was annoying.

Where does Mia come up with this stuff?! It's impossible to say. She's hilarious, she's exasperating, she's one of a kind!

After we got home we had the Pajama Melt Down of December 27 (as opposed to the Great Pajama Meltdown of December 26 or the Waffle Meltdown of December 25. I'm certain that we are now on the eve of the Great Fingernail Cutting Meltdown of December 28).

This particular Pajama Meltdown was because the flannel ones chosen for tonight make Mia sweat. As she collapsed into a forlorn heap in the kitchen floor Maggie walked up and said, "Mia you are not using your honey words. Those are vinegar words – do I need to get some vinegar for you to taste?"

That's the first time Maggie's turned the table on Mia. Mia is frequently telling Maggie what her consequences are, but Maggie hasn't had the verbal skills to shoot back until now. The other thing I've been noticing is that every time Mia gets in trouble, Maggie is immediately behaving phenomenally. However, when Maggie gets in trouble, Mia skulks around in the doorways trying to overhear everything we say to her. I really need to read the birth order book to find out if this is typical behavior.

Mia has been busy with more than meltdowns (they just add spice to our lives and grey to our hair). In addition to performing her chorus of ooos and ahhs tonight, a few nights ago to stood in front of the t.v. and preached a sermon on the birth of Jesus and the salvation plan to my brother-in-law. When he had the audacity to glance at the t.v. while she was talking she stopped, pointed the pointing finger of conviction straight at him, and said, "You pay attention now! This is important!"

He obeyed. (And I had a moment of recollection of the 8 a.m. psychology class I substituted for this semester where I looked at a sleeping student from the front of the classroom and said, "Hello, (Buehler)? If I can't sleep today in class, neither can you – we're in this together, my friend!") She's no Billy Graham at this point, but she does have passion and creativity.

The last bit of news I have is that I've started a campaign to take my parent's dog, Sophie, home with us. She's the little poodle I got for them two years ago. We met in Amarillo, TX and I delivered a white fluffball small enough to fit into a 16 oz cup. She's terrorized them since then and now that they've gotten her pretty well trained I think it would be awesome if she came to live with us.

They aren't so keen on that idea. Which means that, randomly, I'm in the market for a little girl poodle – know anyone who wants to give me a good one?? Don't you think that a Great Dane and a Poodle are an awesome combination?! I see good stories in the future…

Monday, December 27, 2010

Short & Sweet

I'm standing at the counter of my childhood home. As a 1-year-old I grabbed a knife on the sharp edge and almost cut my fingers off at this counter. As a preschooler I hid underneath the dining room table and ate butter straight from the carton with a measuring spoon. In this kitchen – albeit with avocado green appliances – I climbed to the top of the refrigerator because that's where the cookies were, learned to cook, had countless conversations with my mother, and generally lived life.

It's nice to be home!

When we come back to Arizona, we enjoy seeing our immediate families and our extended "family" - the network of friends we grew up with. Thus far we have participated in several feeding frenzies – my waistline is dwindling but my tummy is satisfied. We've been able to watch Mia stick black olives on every finger and wave them around. I'm pretty sure that at least twice this trip I've put Mikayla down for sleeping and when she wakes up she's grown both taller and heavier.

Yesterday we went to the high school where my brother-in-law is an art teacher and the girls were able to do handprints and footprints. It was awesome! We stripped the babies down to diapers and let them go at it (wish we'd stripped Mia & Maggie down as well, but Mia was too afraid the police would take her away for public indecency and Maggie thought she had a good argument).

All this to say, I'm currently feeling so full of happiness that my normal sarcastic, zippy dialogue is lacking. But I'm sure it won't be long until I have something to say again – like how charming it was to have Mikayla attack my shirt with hands covered in mashed up bananas and sweet potatoes, then not discover one lonely chunk until about 45 minutes later when it found it's cold and slimy way onto the spot where my neck meets my chin. It was a surprise.

Hope you don't have any surprises like that anytime soon.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

It's a White Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

I woke up this morning at the blissful hour of 8 am, ages after my dear sweets had woken up to drool over Christmas presents and guess at what was in the shiny bags. They made out like bandits. Controversy ensued when Mia's doll came with a carrying pouch and Maggie's a bottle, so I've put those babies to nap time and I'm not sure when they'll wake up. They're very tired dollies.

I've also put my dear cherubs to bed because, somehow, a time change, late nights, Christmas excitement and an 11 p.m. Christmas Eve bedtime don't work well for the preschooler's system. Who knew?

A clever friend of ours here in the Phoenix metropolitan area has noted that we are enjoying a white Christmas this year – there are plenty of snowbirds busting out their shorts in the 70 degree weather to show off their sun-deprived appendages! This is the same friend who arrived armed at the Christmas Eve service last night – he brought a gun into the house of GOD! - so that we can transport the items across state lines back to Oklahoma. Apparently TSA would become concerned if his son tried to fly with the gun and ammunition. Government officials these days…

We have been enjoying our time with Isaiah's family very much – aside from the fact that it's DECEMBER and I'm SWEATING. The girls have been practically perfect in every way…

… Well, except for when Mia got in trouble and after I disciplined her she looked at me and said, "How can you treat a child that way?!"

… Or when Maggie experienced what I can only assume is hair envy and decided she didn't like the girl in the play area because she was "wearing a pony tail and that's gross!"

… Except that Mikayla is officially crawling, so we're keeping on our toes by diverting her away from electrical sockets and from eating the hair off the dogs.

One of my favorite bizarre memories from this Christmas will be the man driving an electric wheelchair down the road dressed in a white sheet with a blinking Christmas tree attached to the back. Isaiah wouldn't let me take a picture, even after he stopped and told us off for blocking the sidewalk.

Brunch is about to be served and I've been salivating for what feels like 100 years over the smell, so I'm going to sign off for now and go gorge myself.

And to you and yours, whatever may make up your "white Christmas," have a wonderful day and evening!

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Wadies and Gentlemen, Boys and Giwls... Welcome to the Big Ride!

'Tis the season for traveling long distances and we just completed a 17+ hour trek by car across the country I thought I'd share a few morsels of wisdom I've gleaned from traveling with three girls ages four and under and my husband, who is neither a child or a girl.

We'll call it… The Big Ride!

Tip #1: Avert your eyes when visiting gas stations. I made the mistake of examining my surroundings too closely in Sapulpa, OK. As I walked in the convenience store door what should I see but a heavily overweight man wearing a sleeveless white t-shirt that covered very little of his girth. The temperature was below freezing and he was coatless, but as I took a closer look I realized he had a built-in defense against the cold. He was covered in more body hair than I've ever seen on a real person. It was literally a pelt of body hair. That sight rivaled our previous winner of strange gas station sightings of seeing a woman sitting with an elk in her lap in the back of a Lexus.

Tip #2: The security of seat restraints is less secure than we believe. Though we have the girls buckled in their car seats according to law, they are both able to strip down to their underwear while buckled. This has become the ritualistic, drive to Arizona trip activity, usually happening around Holbrook. This trip they had less endurance for the clothing and we were lucky enough to encounter the stripping outside of Amarillo. So, with this in mind, it's not wise to look too closely at passing cars just in case you might see a Moon over the Hiney of some other acrobatic kiddo. Also, be aware that the call of the wild can hit anyone, so keep your own clothes on if the wild calls to you. They arrest adults for indecent exposure. Usually you just laugh at kids.

Tip #3: The hop-hop-shimmy is the best defense against blood clots. Modern medical research tells us that long journeys without movement can cause blood to clot in our bodies, which can lead to, well, death. No one wants to have "died of a blood clot in the big toe" written on their tombstone. I have discovered a fabulous way to divert this disaster. It's call the hop-hop-shimmy and it's just what it says. Hop with gusto three times then shake your backside as hard as you can in a solid shimmy. If you don't feel your backside jiggle hard you're not doing it with enough gusto. Trust me, it's refreshing and it makes your brain shake if done correctly. Blood clots, be gone!

Tip #4: Ode to the DVD player. Let not those naysayers tell you that video watching is bad for the mental development! Without said DVD player, our children would be a howling mass of chaos asking "are we there yet?" 9 million times instead of the trifling 50,000 times. Without the DVD player one is not able to hear quotes come from the mouths of babes like "Sting like a cadillac, sting like a beamer!" or, "My finger has a heartbeat." Nothing makes thy heart happier than knowing Hollywood is influencing defenseless preschoolers.

Tip #5: Do not fear the delirium. Isaiah says my road trip delirium sets in at mile 42, sadly I think he's really just noticing my natural personality at that point. However, I frankly admit that after the sixth hour things get a little coo-coo in our car. This last trip I found myself attempting ninja moves by maneuvering from the front passenger seat to rear passenger seat to change dirty diapers on my lap, hand out sippy cups and fast food, change toy batteries, etc. At the sixth hour I slunk down into the floorboard of the passenger side and began to moan. I may have bleated: "Please, tell me when it will all end!" at which point Isaiah may have yelled, "You can't handle the truth!" Or maybe not. All to say, delirium is part of what makes a road trip fun, dontcha know?

And that, my friend, covers my top 5 travel tips. If I think of more I'll share, but for the time being I'll simply say:

Happy Trails to you!

****** Update on the Hay family: the service for Jeremiah will be held Thursday morning. Please remember them particularly during that time.******

Monday, December 20, 2010

Life Happens.

"Mia got in trouble, Mikayla is crawling, Maggie dropped a 5 lbs. weight on Mia's big toe and I went to McDonald's wearing my nightgown without realizing it. How was your morning?"

That's the message I sent to my husband this morning via text message because he made the insane, soccer-fanatical decision to go with his dad to help coach a soccer game that started at… 8 a.m. I was wide awake at that time but instead of at a game, I was stealing the wi-fi signal from the McDonald's down the road. It was only after I had left the fast food restaurant that I realized I was in my nightgown, a pair of sweatpants, sweatshirt, and had not even considered brushing my hair. Yeah. That's what memories are made of. I'm a winner.

The biggest news out of all of that is that our dear little Mikayla is now mobile! We're calling her scooting the "Aspen-slide," after my niece, Aspen, who crawled with one leg curled up beside her. I've decided that this unique crawling technique is likely because of the tile/wood/linoleum floors that these girls spend the majority of their time on.

Regardless of the form of it, the truth is that Mikayla is on the move. She's also pulling up and taking assisted steps. Mia walked at 13 months, Maggie at almost 10 months. Someone please help me if our littlest decides to walk at 8 months!

We have been fully enjoying our time with our family. The temperature was almost 70 today. That’s crazy to me! But it's a dry heat, which I am so, so happy to greet again!

Maggie is proof that a year is too long between Arizona visits – she's been calling the cactus "cat-trees". We've also had a few random encounters: when we drove up to the house a woman riding a Rascal motor scooter flew by on the sidewalk wearing a white cape and toting a lit Christmas tree. Random. Then we stopped at Fiesta Mall for lunch between soccer games and were a part of a flash mob singing the Hallelujah Chorus. Also random, but much more exciting than Casper the friendly Christmas tree.

When we went to get the tree from the tree lot Maggie trotted up to the Santa Claus dressed up for photos and Mia hung back. I asked why and she wanted to know whether he was a real Santa or not because, as she explained to me on the trip out here, she believes in Santa Claus.

"Mommy, I believe in Santa. Well, I believe in God the most but then Santa after that."

I asked her if the tree lot Santa smelled like beef and cheese (yep, it's an Elf reference!) and she said no. But after we said we weren't going to pay $5 to take a picture with him I heard him say, "Darn!" under his breath, so I'm pretty sure it was just another case of identity theft for Saint Nick. That guy gets impersonated everywhere!

We've had lots of funny things and quite a few challenging ones. Mia, in particular, is struggling with the reality that she's not an adult. It causes much sadness, angst and gnashing of teeth for her. Yesterday I hit the limit and sent her to the Naughty Bench, only to remember that Popi and Mima's house doesn't have a Naughty Bench.

"Just… just, go to a corner somewhere and sit there and think about what you've done!" I said to her.

She went into the corner, sat on a small box, and surrounded herself with chairs. It was like her bat cave of remorse. Except that she's not really remorseful!

Those are a few of the adventures of our week, but I don't want to finish up without asking for help from you.

Some of our best friends in Oklahoma have two girls the same age as Mia and Maggie and then were blessed with natural triplets this October. The pregnancy went great and the boys have been doing really well even though they were born prematurely.

This morning when my friend and her sister went in to feed them they found little Jeremiah, just 2 months old, blue and unresponsive. Though he was life-flighted to Tulsa he did not revive and has died.

One of the things that is so difficult about a tragedy is that, if it's your tragedy the entire world slows down to the sound of your heartbeat in your ears. Your world goes numb, stops spinning. All of your nerve endings scream, How?! Why?! What now?!

Then comes what can be an even greater curse. You walk outside and there are birds chirping, completely oblivious to the fact that your world is shattered. Stop lights still blink, people honk their horns, ESPN still shows the highlights of the games… The world moves as it always has, unresponsive to your pain and disillusionment and distress.

It's even worse at Christmastime. People are preoccupied and stressed and excited. And that's a good thing, because that's a part of living.

In light of this, would you please pray with me for the Hay family? Not just right now, but consistently throughout the next few weeks? They are an amazingly strong family, but this is the type of challenge that brings even the strongest people to their knees. So, if you would take a minute regularly to send comfort their way it would be awesome.

Thanks.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Bird brained

I love my mother in law. Really.

You always hear these jokes about mother in laws and frankly, I've never had to experience any of that because when it came to that department I hit the jackpot.

Not only has she always been extremely loving and supportive of me personally, she will make insane statements. Like last night, after we arrived at the house from a full day of driving, she looked at us and said:

"Tomorrow morning I'll wake up with the girls and you guys can sleep in."

Oh. My. Heavens. My love knows NO bounds!

So it is that this morning when the girls heard an imaginary rooster crow and appeared with the first rays of sun, ready to face a day filled with wonder in a new location, Isaiah and I stayed in bed. Sleeping.

Hallelujah. (I put a pillow over my head to make it even better)

At some point near the decadent hour of 8 am the door to our bedroom creaked open. Mia appeared. Mia disappeared. I heard Mia tell my MIL, "I can't see anything in there!"

Maggie appeared at the door and walked in, stuck her face about a millimeter away from my own and breathed on me. Loudly.

"What's going on?" I asked her.

"I's need to tell you sumting," Maggie said. Then she turned around and walked out of the room.

"Any idea what that was about?" I asked Isaiah. We giggled.

Back in the living room, my MIL gave Mia a flashlight. The door creaked open again and Mia, unskilled in flashlight use but quivering in excitement at getting the chance to use one, flashed the light all over our room. All Over. Including our eyes.

In our newly rested state we thought that was funny.

"What are you doing?" Isaiah asked her.

"Where are the diapers?" she responded.

We got her diapers, she disappeared, and we continued, in horizontal positions, to greet the day calmly, quietly, blissfully. Happily listening to the sound of life going on without us.

Did I mention I love my MIL?

In the background of all of the playing, Beaker, the blue front Amazon parrot who lives in the living room, was having a phone conversation. 

I couldn't understand all of it, but could clearly hear, "Right... Oh... Yeah... Right... Yeah... Uh.. And uh... Ok... Bye..." Those were the understandable parts. The whole conversation, as best as I can record it was: 

"Hi! Wadda woah...uh.. Wacky wack, yeah, I half but... What? Yeah... Walkee wadda... Right.. I doh watt... Yeah... What's that?" I could hear my mother-in-laws voice in Beaker's conversation. He's very gentle and supportive in his tone.  

Beaker has always been at the house, and apparently he loves little girls which is one reason he's so talkative this morning.  I have to take Isaiah's word for that because I have not learned the nuances of bird behavior. (Bird-brained behavior I can nail, but only in humans, not in actual birds.)  When Beaker sees our girls he starts to flirt, puffing his feathers, climbing close to them on the cage bars and swaying back and forth.

Occasionally Beaker and the girls connect with each other. As we listened this morning Mia and Maggie were playing school and saying their goodbyes. Beaker heard them say "bye" and chirped a saucy "Bye!" at them from the living room.

Mia heard him offered him his own "Bye!"

Beaker said, "I love you! Bye!"

Mia: "Bye!"

Beaker: "Bye!"

(Repeat above "bye-exchange" three times.)

Mia finally says to Beaker, "Why do you keep saying that over and over?!"

Beaker didn't answer.

But he did start laughing.  A lot.  All for his own enjoyment.

Maggie demanded, "What are you laughing about?!"

Isaiah and I were cracking up.  Finally I looked at him and said, "We bred three times and we should probably take care of the offspring."

And he agreed.  So we're getting out of bed.  I'm going to kiss my MIL and start the day.

Merry Christmas.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

The Story of Jonah

A friend sent me a link to this video awhile ago with the note, "This is awesome! Mia should totally do this!"

I ignored it for, oh, six weeks or so, and finally watched it tonight. It's just under eight minutes long, but it picks up steam and gets better and better. I was laughing out loud and Isaiah is also completely charmed. Not sure Mia could pull it off, but this little girl is awesome!

The story of Jonah from Corinth Baptist Church on Vimeo.

Evaluation

When I drove up to the house this afternoon I saw my husband inside the garage chucking a piece of lumbar at the wall. Apparently we still have a mouse problem.

We are headed to Arizona tomorrow for Christmas, so today is a day of trying to get everything finished. It's not going well. I did get a chance to read all the course evaluations for this past semester. I oversee 14 sections of one class (yep, entering the grades for that one has been a blast) and then have four sections of my own I taught.

In general, I get good feedback from course evaluations and really look forward to reading them. I did have one student who I apparently turned off because I did get these comments:

"very intense, very harsh."

"Make the class easier, sheesh, we already have 15 other hours of actual work to do, don't have time to read all the asignments. Don't yell at your class please."

I feel like I can pretty much guess that I had one disgruntled student this semester based on these comments and I have to laugh because I can clearly remember the day I showed up to class and found that no one had completed the assigned reading. Which makes it really difficult to conduct an interactive discussion about the reading.

I went to the school of education office next door and got a roll of adding machine tape. I had the students hold onto the tape and give one reason why getting a college education was important. Then they held onto their portion of the tape and tossed the roll to another student. At the end of this there was a web of adding machine tape connecting all the students.

I put a folder on top of the web and told them that that folder represented the need for contribution into an academic community in order to have a successful liberal arts education.

Then I asked the students to give one reason why they hadn't shown up for class prepared. As they gave their excuse they dropped their part of the adding machine paper. It only took a few excuses before the folder dropped to the ground.

I explained that they were active participants in their own education and that by not showing up to class prepared they were actually damaging the community and themselves. I told them to leave the classroom and go complete their reading.

So, yep, this 'ol meanie instructor was very intense, very harsh, and did yell at her class. And I'm not particularly remorseful.

But so you don't think I'm all mean as an instructor, here's some of the good stuff they said:

"Every class in general was very positive. I went to that class and felt loved. And learned life lessons and other helpful things."

"There isn't much that can make this class better. This was my favorite class."

So there. I suppose I should go home and see if we have a dead mouse in the garage yet!

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Ingesting Rhema with Madge

Update: The mouse count is up to 15. The pinkies are no longer on top of the vanilla ice cream. I banished them to the back of the freezer, where they will be forgotten only to be discovered again in several months and freak me out completely. No, I don't know why we are keeping them in the freezer instead of disposing of them. Please ask my husband for the rationale.

Last night as we were enjoying our nightly toe-holding, t.v. show watching tradition we heard a strange sound. The toilet in the living area was burping.

The washing machine was running, but I blamed the garbage disposal. After running it the burping stopped.

For awhile.

Then Mia appeared from the bedroom and told us that she spit up.

Translation: we took the girls to see Tangled yesterday and she inhaled many, many Twizzlers, which made her puke.

God Bless My Husband, because he cleaned up the strawberry-scented vomit. But don't feel like I got off easy because when I took Mia to the bathroom to get cleaned up I found that the bathtub had vomited as well.

Discovery: Our child and our house have indigestion. Both smell badly. And look yucky.

Since it appears that there's a pipe problem in the house and no one will be around until tomorrow to check it out, we thought it would be wise to get out of Dodge for the day and braved freezing weather for a trip to Tulsa. Our temperature indicator warned us that ice was possible the whole way there, but we were not afraid. Nope, not us. After all, last week I went to a Christmas Party dressed like this:

After witnessing that there is very little that can scare Isaiah. Ice on the road has met its match in an Afro hairdo, orange quilted housecoat and alter ego named Madge.

(Yes, that's my real hair. I've warned Isaiah for six years that it could levitate and he never really believed me. He's convinced now.)

(By the way, it's taken several days for my hair to recover. I joked that I enrolled it into a 12 step program and had high hopes for a full recovery. Isaiah was dressed as an elf for the party. I learned that an awesome gift for a White Elephant/Dirty Santa game is a fish. Or a pregnancy test. Or hemorrhoid cream. All create quite a stir.)

Once we got to Tulsa we ran miscellaneous errands and did some shopping at our favorite cheapo stores. Then when the sun went down we took our little elves to the Rhema Bible College campus to see their holiday light spectacular.

It's no Red Rock Fantasy, but it was definitely worth the drive! Since it was so cold we didn't take the kids on the walk through the lit wonderland. Instead, we drove through several times and rolled down the windows so that we could hear the Christmas tunes.

Maggie thought that was wonderful, but Mia was cold. We asked if they could hear the music through the window and Mia said, "No! Because you turned the wind on when you rolled the window down!"

After turning off that pesky wind soundtrack (!), we all declared the Rhema trip a success.

In honor of our exciting weekend I will describe our current activities: Hubby's watching Undercover Boss, the dog just passed such smelly gas my eyes are watering and my baby looks like this:

So, I'm signing off. Love to you all!

Friday, December 10, 2010

somthing-cide

I don't know whether to call it genocide or muricide but I do know that murder was committed in the garage.

Muricide is the killing of a mouse, specifically by a rat. Since my husband was the killer, and he's generally not a rat, that's not really a the correct use of the word.

Genocide is the killing of an entire ethnicity or cultural group. And since there are still mice alive in the world that doesn't quite fit either.

But I can say with certainty that the mousey body count at our home on Hill street is 13.

In order to tell this story I have to admit that we have a messy garage. But since I've already admitted many other, more personal, things to you I may as well admit to the messiness of our garage. We hasn't been able to park our vehicle in there since June. Yeah.

Every year when the weather changes we have a mouse. The first year I told the story of the mouse here.

Last year we trapped a mama mouse under the kitchen sink and later realized there were baby mice living in the roof above the light fixture. They squeaked horribly for a few days, then died and the bathroom smelled of death for several weeks whenever we went in there and turned the light on. It broke my heart.

This year we suspected we had a mouse, but it wasn't until we saw the birdseed spilling out of its plastic bag in the garage that we were certain. Honestly, with a huge supply of birdseed right there and some foam pads for seat cushions, if I were a mouse I'd think it was a good place to live, too!

Isaiah put traps out last week but they've yielded nothing. Yesterday afternoon we went to WalMart for supplies for our student Christmas party and he announced he was getting some more mousetraps.

We left with cookies, punch, chips, dips and two types of mousetraps.

Then, randomly, on the way home my husband said, "I need a hatchet. Every man should have a hatchet."

"Is that like every woman should have a little black dress?" I asked him.

"Yes," he said. "Every man should have a hatchet." (pause for dramatic effect) "And a shotgun!"

I have no explanation for this conversation.

As I was preparing for the party Isaiah took the girls to the garage and set up his traps.

Once there he discovered a dead mouse in his roller hockey skate (perhaps overcome by the smell? We'll never know!). He found the tunnel in the foam cushion leading to a cozy mouse house. He told me the house was ingenious but he couldn't wait until they were dead.

The roller hockey mouse was a little... aged.

This morning when I took Mia to school I noted his success as there was a dead mouse in the trap at the side of the garage.

Mouse count: 2.

When I returned from taking Mia to school there was a mouse in the trap by the garage door.

Mouse count: 3.

I walked into the kitchen and Maggie attacked me with excited howls. I set my things down and turned around to see her shaking a Ziploc baggie in my face.

It was hard to see what was in there because she was grabbing and shaking the baggie, talking a mile a minute, while Isaiah was talking at the same time.

I finally figured it out. The baggie was full of baby mice. Ten baby mice, to be exact!

"Are they alive?!" I asked Isaiah – after all I hadn't been gone that long dropping Mia off at school.

"They're… Frozen," he answered with a glance toward Maggie.

"They's alls sleeping, Mama!" Maggie announced proudly, fondly caressing the pinkies.

I trotted out to the garage and heard the whole tale of how Isaiah came out with Maggie to check the traps. They startled two mice out of the plastic-wrapped foam cushion. One escaped, Isaiah set a trap in front of the exit, and the other mouse dodged past it and ran.

Curious as to why the foam he moved last night was re-stuffed with foam padding, he shook the cushion and out dropped 10 little mouse babies!

My heart began to break as I imagined that poor mama mouse giving birth to her precious babies and then seeing a giant shake them out onto the cold, hard concrete floor and being powerless to save them.

Isaiah is not bothered by anthropomorphic tendencies.

He used the pinkies as a biology lesson for Maggie, showing her about the babies and examining the organs that were visible through the transparent skin. Then he gathered them up into a Ziploc to show Mia after school and stored them in our freezer.

Isaiah realized I was looking at those baby mice with compassion as he told the story.

"It's a mouse! It's not a human!" he scolded me. He stopped as a new thought hit him. "If only we had a snake! We'd have a heydey with these pinkies if we had a snake!"

My stomach turned. I took pictures because I knew I'd have to blog about the genocide/muricide. Then I took the Ziploc baggie and put it back in the freezer. Isaiah reset the traps. Maggie crowed triumphantly about the whole affair.

Mouse count: 13.

At least two to go.

And I have "sleeping" pinkies on top of a tub of vanilla ice cream in case anyone wants to try a non-traditional topping when you come over.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

My Lunch Date

I had lunch with a really cute girl today who thought I was hilarious. Since that might be hard for some people to believe, I took this video:

High Heels

This morning Mia tried to convince Isaiah that she needed to wear her heeled church shoes to school. They are very small heels, but they do tap as she walks, which is part of their charm.

Mia announced that they'd be playing in the gym today and those were the only shoes that wouldn't slip on the floor.

When Isaiah heard her say this, I believe it offended him to his sneaker-loving, soccer-coach core.

In response to this assault my husband exposed his feminist side, unpredictably and charmingly reminding me of one of the many reasons I love him.

And how lucky I am that he's a Daddy to three girls.

He told Mia that she would Absolutely Not be wearing heeled shoes to school and came to where I was getting ready in the bathroom to describe the argument.

After describing the disagreement (Mia pulled out all the stops to try to convince him that the heeled shoes would be the perfect choice for gym time), Isaiah announced:

"Our girls are NOT going to be wearing high heels to school!"

I nodded. I could see it would be wise to say nothing.

He went on to talk about how women were being subjugated by the whims of fashion and willing to live their lives in discomfort for superficial reasons.

"Women only wear high heels because we've trained them to wear them and they think guys like them!" he exclaimed.

Preach it! I thought to myself, nodding wildly.

"No woman wakes up in the morning and says, 'Oh! High heels! My favorite shoes! I think I'll go hiking in these!'"

"I've never been hiking in high heels!" I averred.

He paused in his tirade, appearing a bit surprised that I had spoken.

"I agree with you!" I assured him.

Isaiah looked at me long and hard.

"She's not wearing high heels to school," he said with finality.

"No, she's not," I said.

The dress-shoe-hating love of my life took a deep breath, blew it out, and nodded his head definitively.

"OK," he said. And walked out of the room.

That's all he had to say about that.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Ninja Boogers

I'm sitting on my living room sofa in the dark. Isaiah has his computer open and is learning how to conquer the world of 3D filming thanks to an online tutorial. They could be speaking Na'vi for all I can tell. He's really excited about it, though.

The kids are asleep and I'm reading Facebook status updates and eating candies. Specifically, those little blackberries/raspberries with very small beads of candy coating.

I have Mikayla, Maggie and Mia snot all over me from a variety of emotional moments today. Somehow, I got it on my fingers and then ate it.

Yep. I accidentally ate a booger. I felt it, thought it was a candy bead, and ate it. Then it got stuck to my teeth.

Yuck! There's no way to make that ok. It doesn't help that my husband thinks it's hilarious.

Whatever. He shoots defenseless pumpkins in his spare time.

I'm proud to announce that we had five girls aged five and under in our house this afternoon and nothing has been destroyed (including my equilibrium!), no one was injured, no tears were shed (specific to the play date), and we also made baked apples.

That, my dear ones, is what I call Success! The baked apples were pretty good, too. I think they're going to end up as applesauce before too long. Yum – much tastier than booger.

On another note… It's the end of the semester, people are tense about the holidays and there's fresh drama with a side of crazy being served up all over.

With that in mind, I thought I would pass on a smile/gasp at the evidence of my ninja skills. (or maybe proof of my own brand of looney tunes.)

By pure happenstance, we got a photo of the lunge of Mikayla during our family photo session for Christmas cards. When she tried to leap from my arms my heart jumped into my chest. It was awful. She didn't escape though! I am also proud of my ninja reflexes which allowed me to catch her last week, mid-air, when she took a swan-dive off of the side of the bed.

She's quick. She's fearless. She's strong. She's learning to crawl and she's started pulling up on everything.

Sigh. We're in for it.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Great Pumpkin Massacre

In some neighborhoods, ruffians roam the roads around Halloween and Thanksgiving smashing pumpkins at will.

Not our neighborhood. In our neighborhood, pumpkins are left in blissful peace on front porches until they begin to rot, covered in mold and curling in upon themselves.

Our pumpkin experience this fall has gone from a sweet family outing to choose the perfect pumpkin to today, when I told Isaiah that the molding pumpkins had to disappear from our front porch before we hosted our Christmas party on Wednesday. Today is trash day and I gave him a gentle suggestion that the pumpkins find their way into the landfill.

At that point, his eyes lit up and his face broke open into a gleeful grin.

"Forget the trash! I want to shoot them!" he said enthusiastically. (In a female I might have called it a squeal of enthusiasm. But never would I ascribe such a squeaky noise to my manly man.)

Before I knew it he had a pumpkin hunting party assembled and was headed out to shoot the poor, plump orange symbols of fall.

It seemed a little mean. What had they ever done to him?!

I tweeted about his adventure and got several responses from men saying they thought that was awesome, a few responses from women who thought it was funny and one, lovely response that said, "I've never thought about doing that but now I'm strangely drawn to try it myself!"

We have lots of friends who like guns. And apparently don't like pumpkins.

Pumpkin pity does not abound in our family either and before too long Isaiah sent me pictures of the remains of the non-squash, non-gourd edible decorations.

(Sean's dog's giving it the once over to see if it's edible... though it's hard to see, the dog decided to go for it and ate a large mouthful. On a random note, and because what kind of update is this if I don't mention excrement?!, the veterinarian told me that if your dog is having trouble with stinky anal glands you can feed them pumpkin because it pluffs up their... ahem... output... and thus gets the glands emptied more effectively. I'm all about natural solutions - who isn't?)

As I looked at the pumpkin puree I realized… I was a little jealous. I wanted to shoot the pumpkins, too!

But, alas. I had to stay home with the sleeping baby. Boys get to have all the fun.

Since I don't have gunshots still ringing in my ears, however, I've been able to sing the background song from the 2010 Punkin Chunkin commercial all day.

"I like 'em big. I like 'em chunky…"

All the better to shoot you with, my pumpkin dear.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Maggie on Codeine

We had an excellent day yesterday riding horses with friends and relaxing as a family.

Today has not been so relaxing. Since it's not even noon yet I'm going to hope that the afternoon and evening make up for this morning.

Long story short, Maggie has an owee that took us to the emergency room this morning. She's absolutely fine (or will be once the antibiotic has run its course), but it was still an adventure.

Afterward in the car I took this video. We now know how Maggie reacts with codeine in her system. She heard a song, Outcast by Kerrie Roberts, come on the radio, announced, "I like this song!" and started the wiggle.

Enjoy!

Friday, December 3, 2010

Mohawk on my Mind

It's Friday night, the kids are asleep and I have a mohawk on my mind.

While I am of the opinion that the bob will reign forever, there are few hairstyles that have long outlived their usefulness, mainly the mullet and the mohawk.

I'm not sure why the mullet ever came to be, except perhaps it was a practical way to shade your neck if you didn't have a hat (fyi, the female mullet is wrong under all circumstances). The mohawk, as I understand it, was a statement of outrage and punk attitude at the start.

What I do know is that I should not be seeing either of them on a potbellied, sweatshirt-wearing man in the seat in front of me at the movie theater and yet tonight, against all reason, I did.

Earlier this evening my true love and I went on a date. For us, this means that once a month we drop the kiddos off at the school for Parent's Night Out from 6 p.m. -10 p.m. The kids look forward to this like it's the biggest treat in the world (well, Mikayla doesn't care yet, but Mia and Maggie look forward to PNO very, very much).

We dutifully show up as the church bells are striking 6, leave our cherubs with pizza money and teachers, walk to the car, and look at each other wondering what we're supposed to do next.

Frequently we drive to the mall, which has a movie theater, get there, decide we might as well eat, look at the movies playing, decide ticket prices are highway robbery, wonder if we should shop, then realize that our best shopping haunts are Goodwill, the consignment store, Ross and TJ Maxx because we're cheapskates, sit on a bench, hold hands, and try not to fall asleep.

A bit before 10 we roust ourselves, wander back to school to pick up our sweeties, munch on leftover pizza from the school, bring them home, put them to bed, and then sit on the sofa next to each other, holding toes (because we have a big sofa and we each like to lean on the armrest so we really can't hold hands easily) and go to sleep.

We are the life of the party, I tell you. Pure, raving excitement 24/7 around here.

I have no idea why I gave you so much detail. On with the rest of the story.

Tonight we went to the mall, ate pretzel bites, loaded my purse with cinnamon bears and Swedish fish from the candy store, and went to see Unstoppable.

(Which was very suspenseful and good, minus the expletives which I didn't like hearing but were placed in the story line at spots where a simple, "Well, Daisy Dumplings!" wouldn't effectively convey the depth of emotion of the characters dealing with impending death.)

In the seat in front of me was a man with a mohawk. Not a young, punk rocker kid. Nope, a man older than myself, hair shaved except for a two-by-two-inch landing strip down his noggin. Not spiked. Just lying there like a scalped toupee.

I begged Isaiah to take a picture of it. He refused, saying it would be rude.

I reminded him of the photo I talked him into taking during our PNO date in October, where we went to a yummy hibachi steakhouse and sat next to a couple on a first date who checked their phones all night long and whose most animated conversation came when they were comparing phone features. It was a hilariously date of what not to do.

Tonight, in response to my nagging, Isaiah pulled out his phone and I held my hand in front of, but to the side of the mohawk, as though I was newly engaged and needed to send an MMS photo of the ring. We were close snapping the photo but…

… There was no flash. I have finally found an area where the features of my Blackberry are better than the features of his iPhone! Victory! (I hate the iPhone because I hate touch screens, but I do have to admit it's a pretty sweet little piece of technology)

(And once again I ramble. Focus, focus, focus.)

So, defeated, I came home, put the kids to bed, and pondered the complexity of a middle-aged man sporting a wimpy mohawk then decided to find a picture for you on Google images that would express the strangeness of the sight.

I Googled "Mohawk."

These shoes came up. I could search no more.

These shoes are being purchased by someone, somewhere, this season. They were designed for the 2010 Yves Saint Laurent collection. I am overcome.

Perhaps I should buy them and wear them taped to my head to imitate my mohawk man. That would make a fashion statement.

I have no more words.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Preach It

I cannot give you a good explanation why I've been writing so many updates lately except that I have just really been enjoying both writing and my children. I hope you've been enjoying reading (or are at least kind enough to smile politely and nod!).

I had no intention of writing tonight, in fact I have a steamy, hot date with the laundry. It's waiting to be folded and, because I'm not in an exclusive relationship with my laundry, after the laundry date is finished and those irritating baby socks are paired I have another meet up scheduled with the dishwasher and the sink. If things get boring after that and I still have some scoot left in me I could always go dancing with my old flame, the broom. It's a busy life I lead!

Instead of dating tonight, I found myself frantically typing what was coming from my kiddo's mouths in hopes that I could share it with you and it would bring you a smile as well.

A few years ago Mia got a green miniature Bible from a Gideon who came onto our college campus. (I'm thinking he may have been a little misdirected, as our students typically own multiple Bibles. It's not the typical college campus. Mia was thrilled to accept his gift, however.)

Mia loves that Bible and has often preached from it. Maggie hasn't ever given us a sermon, however, so tonight I was tickled when she told me to listen up and opened the pages ceremoniously.

"This is my God talk," Maggie began. The fact that the Bible she was using has pieces missing from the cover because she used it as a teething toy was not important to her.

"God, help us make joyful noises and keep us safe from the bad animals. Amen," Maggie pronounced.

I waited. She took a deep breath and I readied myself for round two of instruction. She surprised me when she began to sing.

"Acha, catcho and am says. Eh, tidoban," she belted out. (I'm spelling as phonetically accurately as I can. It was definitely a song of syllables, perhaps African in origin?) Then the finale: "Ah say, vavula, say say!"

I was scrambling to get all of that written down as best I could. I was speechless and could only clap in appreciation of her insight.

Mia grabbed the Bible from Maggie and announced she was going to talk now. She took a deep breath but Isaiah jumped in front of her, beginning to quote Psalm 23.

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want," Isaiah said.

"Be quiet – that's rude!" Mia chastised him. "It's my turn to talk about God!"

Mia started again:

"The Lord God is my Shepherd. I love the Lord. But the most one that I love is God."

Isaiah kept quoting the Psalm until he got to the end. Mia kept shushing him. Then she continued:

"The Lord of God's Shepherd," then she, too, began to preach via song (much more melodic than Maggie's), "I believe God, I do not believe anybody else but I believe my mom and dad."

The singing stopped and she finished in a scary voice, "But! There is another man. He is bad! He is the king and we shouldn't pray to him!"

She stopped, fixed me with an eagle eye as my thumbs worked frantically to get all of this down on the Blackberry to email later, and said, "'Katie H.' is at the end. Mom, can you spell Leland?"

And that was the end of the revival and thus, my evening story. Goodnight.

(I honestly don't know where they come up with this stuff. I promise, we don't have TBN on in the house non-stop, we don't preach non-stop. They just really like to talk about God. And tell us to be quiet so they can perform!)

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Fa-la-la-la-la-la-FLU-ee!

Today we ventured out en masse to the doctor's office. It was time to get flu shots.

We skipped out on flu shots last year even though they were strongly recommended and I was told by the doctor that, as a pregnant woman, I was putting my unborn child at risk if I didn't get the H1N1 vaccination.

I was highly skeptical of the H1N1 and became decidedly obstinate about the whole issue. Instead we stayed home more, avoided crowds, used hand sanitizer until our hands were chapped, and regarded other people with great suspicion, particularly if they sniffed, coughed, or cleared their throats.

If they sneezed we screamed, "CODE RED!!!" and bolted away from the them to a safe distance of at least 50 yards and then pointed our fingers accusingly, bellowing, "Infected one! Infected one! Infected one!"

I may be embellishing a bit here. Or maybe not. You be the judge.

Regardless, lo and behold, none of us caught the flu and my unborn child came out alright.

However, in the whole flu-shot/germ-avoidance process I learned:

If you can smell someone's breath you're close enough to them to get their germs.
Computer keyboards are the #1 place to spread germs. Evidence that we should stop using technology and move to the woods to be eaten by bears.
Shopping carts are a breeding ground for disease. It's a nonstop germ rave on the handles.
Door handles and light switches are silent sleepers for germ ambushes.
Escalator handrails are full of germs because kids lick on them all the way up and down while ogling storefronts.
Phones, with their speakers that you put moist, warm breath on all the time, are a great way to share disease. And probably head lice, but that wasn't covered in the Oxford list of places to find germs so I can't be certain.

(As another, unrelated, little factoid, a few years ago I learned that staph infections are most commonly contained and grown in the nostrils. It's a warm, moist environment and those little staph germs escape in sneezes and, ahem, booger transactions.)

In the interest of keeping this a bit shorter, suffice to say, we didn't get flu shots last year. But we got them this year. Which has required, count them, FIVE visits to the pediatrician because they want to give a booster shot a month after the initial prick if you didn't get the H1N1 last year and, of course, we have staggered appointments so the girls are basically all going one at a time.

Sheesh.

Not only has that equalled five office visit co-pays for us (for which I am thankful we have insurance… but still…) and five chances to convince the girls that shots don't hurt for long and the Tinkerbell sticker at the checkout is worth the risk, it's also five golden opportunities to remind myself that sometimes your entire value in existence is to act as a form of birth control for all outside observers.

(Of course, we're at the pediatrician's office, so perhaps someone should have gotten to our audience long before us to preach birth control. Just sayin' - I'd say the milk is already spilled. Or the bed's been made. Or the cow's out of the field. Or… Well, you probably get the idea.)

Our visit wasn't bad. Really. At least after we pulled Maggie off the lid of the fish tank, pried Mia, screeching, out from under a the chair where she was hiding to avoid the shot, and worked our way through a box of Kleenex trying to keep Mikayla's teething-induced runny nose under control... everything was flawless!

I may be embellishing the story right now for fictional flair. Or maybe not. You be the judge.

I'll just share a lesson learned: either get your stinkin' shots in the right timeline so you don't have to register the pediatrician's office as a secondary home – or – live out in the woods where you won't be interacting with others but also run the chance of being eaten alive by bears.

We're moving to the woods next week to take our chances with the bears. Or maybe not. You be the judge.