Can I get some service here?

Our internet service is pathetic, and it's starting to get on my nerves. I haven't actually called to complain yet, because I just know that as soon as I do they'll find out that it's our fault, not theirs, and then charge us yet more money.

I love living where I do, and I would never willingly live in a city without undeniably Divine instructions, but internet service here STINKS! Dial-up is a reasonable $15 a month, but that's dial-up, and we can't really do any of the things we need/want to do on the internet with dial-up. (i.e. Blogging, Art's work stuff, youtube - you know, important stuff.) Therefore we have to pay for high-speed. That would be $50 a month. And that's the only place around here to get high-speed. Forget all those package deals you get in the city, with TV, phone and internet all together for a low price of blah, blah, blah. They haven't made it out here to the sticks.

Instead, we get incredibly over-priced internet service that goes out in extreme weather, and by “extreme” I mean it's cloudy, windy or rainy. Or foggy. Or snowing. This is Oklahoma. There just aren't that many days without one or the other of those. No, it doesn't rain much, but rain and clouds are some of the few times when we're less likely to have 20 mph winds. You see the quandary there.

Anyway, all that to say that I'm typing blog entries into my word program, and we'll just see when I finally get to post them.

More Fun Times

Well, I reached another pinnacle of joy in motherhood this week. I pulled my first tick out of my daughter's delicate little scalp. That was a pleasant sight, let me tell you. There I was, innocently combing my child's hair, when all of a sudden I felt a tiny lump at the apex. Hmmm. She must've gotten food in her hair (again). I leaned in to get a closer look. No. Not food.

This little lump had six legs, a big flat body, and, presumably, some nasty, disease carrying mandibles embedded in Mim's head. (About like C in the picture) No, I didn't flip out. I've seen ticks before, of course. You know, on animals. Or other people. Not my baby. But I didn't flip out. I calmly called my mother-in-law and she handed me over to my father-in-law and he gave me clear simple instructions for removing the beast. They worked very well. Just for reference, those instructions were to grasp him as close to the skin as possible with a pair of fine tweezers and pull, slow but steady. Sure enough, the nasty critter came out, with a tiny bite of my one and only daughter's flesh still in it's mouth. I wrapped him up in an alcohol pad and stuck him in the refrigerator. You know, just in case, because I'm not paranoid or anything.

Anyway, that should him a thing or two, the little blood-sucking parasite.

Bedtime Thankfuls

Here's another Mim prayer.

“Dear Jesus, Thank you for today and thank you for all our flamly and all our fwiends. Thank you that we go to church. Thank you that I have a mommy to take cawe of me. Thank you that I don't do bad things today and thank you that I don't make you upset. Aaa-men.”

Her prayers usually consist of a long series of thank yous, which I can't help but think is probably refreshing to the Divine ear, if not always logical to us humans.

I love the complete innocence of this age when it comes to discussing one's own faults. Well, I could do without the Edenic ideas of clothing, i.e. they're not necessary, but it's fun to watch their little minds develop, even in the realm of modesty. They haven't either of them developed the ability to lie, and I dread the day it rears it's ugly head.

Until then I'll just try to enjoy the moments, and encourage them along.

90 Degrees

The children have red cheeks and they smell like puppies. Their feet are grimy and they've switched from hot to cold Ovaltine. Summer is almost here!

I only bribed them to come inside by promising them a video and some chocolate milk. Yes, I'm one of those moms. It works.

Swingset Saga con Photos

Well, we bought the swingset yesterday afternoon, and set to work right away. Although Art appears baffled in this picture, I think he was just concentrating. I was so proud of him for reading the instructions that I had to get it recorded for posterity.



We met C'Uncle M in Wal-mart, and recruited him for help, and then we also had Joe and Tina come over briefly and offer advice. Mr. Joe helped by taking Zaya for a little ride. It was quite a hit, and probably just as much fun as the swing set itself.



The slide was off limits for little bodies, but little cars were acceptable, so we propped it up on the old truck-bed trailer (a classy item quite popular around here) and it became a matchbox car race-track. This is an action shot. Lightning McQueen is that little brown blur on the slide. Just for the record, that trailer is not a permanent part of our landscaping. It's only being used for disposal of yard and remodeling materials.



C'Uncle M helped Art put the swing end together (while sneezing and sniffling; turns out he's allergic to cedar) and the kids ran around and entertained themselves. Zaya is holding a toy car in this photo that he named "Visor". Apparently it transforms into many other things. It is a helicopter in this picture. (Actually it's a little VW Bug car with flowers all over it. It's Mim's.)




After we got the kids to bed, Art, M and I all watched Jeeves and Wooster. (Funny, in that Wodehouse/British kind of way, and starring Hugh Laurie, which will throw you for a loop if you're a House M.D. fan.)



We started again early this morning, and Art and I got the swing set put together. (With help from the little guys, of course.) It took six hours and two sunburns, but it was worth it, because I think the kids will love it. (At least for a day or two.)



The boy who is pushing the kids is our neighbor, Carl. He was the cutest little ring-bearer about 7 1/2 years ago, and used to come over here and let me read stories to him. Now he's in our junior high youth group and plays with our kids almost every day. He and Zaya play Nintendo together, and run around outside, and generally amuse themselves, much to Mommy's delight.

Now if we had a fence...

I think we're actually going to go buy a swing set today. We've always wanted to build our own, but we finally decided that if we waited for that, we'd never actually have one until the kids were in high school.

The one in the picture is what we're wanting. It's from Wal-mart, and we're setting it up ourselves, so we'll see how that goes. I just hope it's sturdy enough to get our kids to junior high.

One slight problem is the rolling hills of our back yard. It looks as if some ancient tribe of druidic gophers had a thriving population; complete with cairns and quarries. It's all gone to grass now, but the archaeological evidence is still there. It'll be interesting to see how it all ends up, and I'll show you pictures.

Go and See

I'm heading to the big city for a seminar about Adult Literacy Training. We'll see how that all goes.

Since I'm too scattered and lazy to post anything of my own right now, I'll ask you to head over to Lilibeth's blog and listen to my brother Joshua (she calls him Elijah) singing snippets from his senior recital that we all attended last Friday.

He's got a great voice. Just listen for a little bit, if you want, then come back and tell me you enjoyed it. It'll make my day, really.

Fishing Expedition

It is spring indeed.

Sunday we had the first fishing trip of the season. It started with a rousing game of find the earthworms. Grandma and Grandpa T have a lot of different planting beds, and after a few false starts we found the mother lode of earthworms. Everyone loaded up and we drove the 3 miles or so to the lake.

They didn't actually catch anything, or even get a nibble, but that wasn't really the point. When you're fishing with a 2, 3 and 4 yr old, other factors are more important. ie No one fell into the lake. They only fought over the fishing poles a couple times. No one drew blood.

Next time we'll let Grandpa, the daddies and uncles, and Zaya all go to their secret fishing hole where there would be a greater chance of seeing, oh, you know, fish. We'll keep the girls at the walking track at the lake with us ladies. (Which is why we went to the lake in the first place.) They're just not quite ready for solo fishing trips with the men. Or, the men aren't ready for solo fishing trips with them, which basically amounts to the same thing.

Roll Over Picasso

I have to admit I've been a bit worried about Zaya's artistic abilities, because I never see him draw anything or even try to make a recognizable picture. I just assumed he had inherited my total lack of ability in the art field. And maybe he has, who's to say what the future holds?

However, when he had to draw a picture of himself helping someone in his Cubbies book, he drew this, which totally shocked me. What a bad mommy I am!

That is Zaya on the right, and he's holding a feather duster. Grandma is in the middle (apparently she moves so fast her legs just look like a blur, sort of like the Scooby Doo gang in the middle of a chase.) She is holding baby Alli.

I have never seen Zaya draw a stick figure. Not once. Since I've shown him how several times, I assumed this was because he couldn't do it. Obviously, he had just never felt like it before. He was too busy drawing galaxies, black holes and the Waterfalls of Junior High (see prev. post).

SuperZay!

Zaya doesn't really know much about superheroes yet, he prefers Nintendo characters, but he does know a pretty cool superman outfit when he sees one.

This was a birthday present from my brother and sister. (For him, that is. Not my birthday present you understand.) I think Art is doing an excellent job as prop.

Maybe Zaya can use his extra strength on my kitchen. It could definitely use some super powers, but I think I might have to just rely on Mr. Clean and the Brawny guy. (OK, so actually I use Pine-Sol and Kleenex Viva, but they don't have cool masculine mascots.)

All in all, I'm a little more comfortable with this than I was with the butterfly costume of last summer. Call me old-fashioned.

Goki's Tragedy

Mim and Goki continue to take the world by storm in their own little way. Yesterday, in the bathroom, Mim informed her daddy that Goki couldn't go pee-pee 'cause he's trapped inside his sailboat. Then she told him she was going to sing a song about it, and ran to the piano.

The song did, indeed, feature Goki trapped in a sailboat, in some urgency. She pounded away at the keys singing unforgettable lyrics like, "Goki in a saaailbooaaaat. "He can't go pee 'cause he's twapped and he's twapped again."

It ended with a driving beat accompanied by chords on each syllable, "He peed in the boat!"

Very heart-warming, and sure to become a top ten some day. I'm so proud of my little composer. Really, what mother wouldn't be touched by such delicate, nay ephemeral words?

We asked Mim last night what Goki looked like, and, after some thought, she said, "He looks like Bobo." We are no farther along, but now we know they're twins.

Help! Geeks Needed!

I need some technical assistance.

I'm trying to upload a video. I've done it once before and it worked just fine. Now I don't seem to be able to do it.

I use the video icon, it takes about 3/4 of eternity, and then instead of some HTML on my little page, it's blank, as if I hadn't just spent the last four hours waiting for my video to load.

What am I doing wrong?

Slothlike, Really

Well, no, we have not babystepped off the face of the earth.

See, I go through these different obsessions, very much like my father, and right now I'm in the middle of a reading jag.

I have a fairly limited number of authors that I truly enjoy reading, so most of my books have been read 4 or 5 times. When I do discover a new author, I read pretty much everything by them. Then I might not read anything for a few weeks. Right now I'm reading Ellis Peters' books; both the Cadfael series and the Inspector George Felse series. Between the two there are 34 books. My poor family!

I had Zaya take the above picture of his neglectful mother. It took a few tries, but we finally got one we could use. Mim, on the other hand, hasn't quite grasped the idea. Her picture is below.

I'm averaging a little less than a book a day, so, all in all, there isn't time for much else. I just finished one, though, so I'm going to rush around now and put some supper in the crock pot, do some laundry, and pretend to be a good mother.

At least until naptime.

And the crazy thing is that I don't really like Ellis Peters' style that much. They're OK, but fairly predictable and with unconvincing characters. Oh well. 11 down and 23 to go. Pray for Art, if you've got a spare moment.

Calvin and Hobbes, Anyone?

Poor guy doesn't have enough behind to keep his pants up! Oh, and I did not dress him this way on purpose, it just happened.

Remember those last formal pictures he took? I think we might be in trouble!

Easter Thoughts

Here was Mim's prayer tonight.

Dear Jesus, Thank you for today. Thank you that all us go to church. Thank you that my Mommy go to church wif me. Thank you that my Daddy go to church wif me. And thank you Jesus that Daddy not spit on the rug. A- Men!

Sounds like Daddy and I need to have a little talk.

A Little Pre-Easter Festivities

Yesterday was the Easter Parade at the Nursing Home here in town. We don't have a grocery store or a gas station, but we do have one of the best nursing homes in the state. It's clean, well run, and I wouldn't be afraid to put my own loved ones there, which is saying something.

Anyway, the Friday before Easter all the pre-schoolers get together and do a little Easter Parade at the Home. The idea is to wear your Easter clothes, but that doesn't always happen. I respect Murphy's Law, and I'm pretty sure there's something there about dressing your little ones in their fancy Easter outfit and sending them to an extended care facility.

Mim's dress is one I picked up last year, and she has a different dress for Sunday that was given to me in the intervening time. Therefore, she was able to dress up all floofy without Mommy being a nervous wreck. Jaida (and baby sister Addy) wore a cute little easy-clean knit, because her mommy is smart. (And has worked in that nursing home for years.)

That was yesterday. Today we decorated eggs in the morning, and the kids went to the town-wide egg hunt in the afternoon. We came away with lots of little toys, candy, (No chocolate. They learned their lesson last year when every child there walked out with sticky, brown hands.) and about $4.85 in change.



Our egg decorating was a big success this year, because I did not buy egg dye. I came across these great little dye-filled cotton swabs. All you do is snap one end and the dye runs out the other end and into the swab. They're fantastic. Then the kids just color with them on the eggs and the dye dries quickly.



OK, so it makes a bit of a mess on fingers, but so did the total immersion method. (Sounds a bit like baptism.)

Be that as it may, the results were a happy mom, two happy if slightly discolored kids, and nine colored eggs. Success all around. (Those in the left line are Zaya's, the two in the center are mine, and those in the right are Mim's. As you can see, I have no artistic tendencies to pass down, and can only hope my husband's genes will make up the difference.)

Thursday Thirteen #54

13 Most Romantic Fictional Couples

I'm not really a romantic per se, but hey, I'm a woman and we all, whether we want to admit it or not, love a good romance. I don't read any books that are just romances, but I don't enjoy many books that don't have at least a little bit of a love interest, because yes, I have two X chromosomes, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Likewise I don't usually watch movies that are just for the sake of romance, but I'm not above enjoying the occasional decent love story.

(In no particular order.)


1. Aragorn and Arwen - And no, I don't mean Liv Tyler and Viggo Mortensen. I mean the original characters from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. She, as an elf, gives up her chance to go to the grey havens and live as an immortal. Very touching.

2. Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane - I've always been a big Dorothy Sayers fan, but my favorite books are the little series where Lord Peter meets, falls in love with, chases and eventually marries Harriet. She gets on my nerves at first, but he is so much the perfect catch, that it makes it all worth it in the end when she sees the light. (The series with Harriet Vane is as follows: Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, Gaudy Night, Busman's Honeymoon.)

3. Princess Leia and Hans Solo - Come on, you know we all love the scene where he suddenly realizes that Luke is actually Leia's twin brother, so there is no competition for her heart after all. (He's dumb, but he's so very handsome.)

4. Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet - I love the book, of course, but I have to admit that I think of the actors from the A&E film version when these names cross my mind. Who doesn't love Mr. Darcy? And how many of us girls didn't dream we were Lizzy?

5. Donald Lockwood and Cathy Selden - This is the main love interest in the movie Singin' in the Rain. Gene Kelly...ahh.

6. Captain and Maria Von Trapp - I have to admit that I'm thinking of the musical here, and not the actual story from which it was taken, although I'm sure they qualify too. Yet another rags to riches, really, with a few twists. We girls are real suckers for the cinderella stories.

7. Sabrina Fairchild and Linus Larrabee - Both of these movies, the old one with Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, and the new one with Julia Ormond and Harrison Ford, are great. Every woman dreams of being swept off her feet by the man who could have anyone he wanted.

8. Roderick Alleyn and Agatha Troy - Alleyn is the Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard in the mystery stories of Ngaio Marsh. He falls in love with, and eventually marries, Agatha Troy over a series of stories. Very Wimseyesque as far as that goes.

9. Raoul de Valmy and Linda Martin - This is the love interest in Mary Stewart's Nine Coaches Waiting; one of my favorite books. (She wrote nine romantic suspense novels, and they're all very good. Her later stuff is annoying.) Yet again, the man is rich and powerful, yet somehow loves and rescues a fair maiden who finds herself alone and in distress.

10. Sir Samuel Vimes and Lady Sybil - These are two main characters in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, yes, it's actually satirical fantasy, but they make a romantic couple nonetheless, because of their flaws rather than in spite them.

11. Andrew and Princess Angelique - What, you've never heard of these star-crossed lovers? That's because Andrew is a rat from Wyoming, and Angelique is the princess of France's rat underworld. (Her palace is under the Louvre) These characters are from Dear Rat, one of my favorite books from childhood. And speaking of childhood....

12. Nancy Drew and Ned Nickerson - The poor man lets Nancy drag him literally all over the world, but that's romantic, right? He's always there for her, while still somehow attending classes at the mysterious Emerson University. I remember wishing Ned and Nancy would, you know, at least kiss or something. He kissed her on the cheek once in a book, and that was very exciting.

13. Amaryllis and John Guido - These characters are from The Magic Garden by Gene Stratton Porter. The story is not very realistic at all, but compelling, nonetheless. I read it as a child, on accident, because I had been told to read The Secret Garden, and got mixed up. I haven't seen the book in years, so I'm sure the relative romanticism of the couple has diminished a bit, but I remember them being oh, so interesting when I was young.


There, and now you all know what a sap I really am.


Check here for more Thursday Thirteen.

Blog, Blogger, Bloggest!

Zaya has recently fallen in love with superlatives. The other day he was running around the house saying,

"Big, bigger, biggest! Red, redder, reddest! Tall, taller tallest!" (and so on)

When he ran through the living room he was looking for superlative inspiration and came up with,

"Hot Wheels, Hot Wheelser, Hot Wheelest!"

Apparently there are still some aspects of grammar that are a closed book.

Musty Monday

I'm having a little trouble with motivation today. It's rainy outside, and I have no plans, so the only reason I really need to get my house clean is for my own personal satisfaction...and it's not working.

I would actually much rather be reading my book on the living room chair with some delicious pastries and big cup of real tea with cream and sugar. Unfortunately, I have no baked goods, real tea gives me heartburn and my children don't really like it when I sit and read and ignore them for hours on end.

Right now they are listening to the music from last year's VBS at Grandma Lilibeth's church. It's all very Jewish sounding music, and the kids love it. I get regular requests to "dance to Hallelujah!" which makes sense to me if it doesn't to anyone else.

As a side note, I highly recommend the books of Dorothy L. Sayers to anyone who likes a good British mystery with interesting personalities. I'm currently re-reading Gaudy Night and Busman's Honeymoon. Well, I've finished the first and started on the second. If you're new to Sayers I wouldn't recommend starting with those, as they are the last ones, so you won't know the characters as well as you'd want to yet.

The electricity is cutting on and off, so I'd better go.

Storms. Argh.

Babystepping Melodrama

Wild Hair Night, otherwise known as the Great Nap Scandal of '08.


Our church has AWANA as their Wednesday night program for the kids, so Zaya is officially a Cubby. A few weeks ago was Wild Hair Night for all of the AWANA kids, and Zaya was so very, very excited. For a full week before the advent of the special evening Zaya would wake up in the morning and say, "Is it Wild Hair Night?!"

On the Tuesday evening before the great day, Art did a practice run with Zaya. (The top picture.) Zaya ran around the house like a lunatic, thrilled as he could be with his wild hair.


However...

On the following evening, verily, the evening of Wild Hair Night itself, Zaya flipped out. He cried as I sprayed his hair, he cried as I combed it, he cried as his daddy fixed it in its previously wild position. Notice the pathetically reddened, tear stained eyes as his vicious, uncaring father holds him and his wicked mother takes his picture.



He had finally stopped crying by the time we got to church, and when he saw all the other kids he was excited once more.

Why? I have no idea, but it steeled my resolve to insist on at least a little nap each day, because I really just don't need that kind of drama in my life.