Future Blackmail, Part 2

Here we have a little photographic essay on my son's (one and only) foray into cross-dressing.



We went to Cousin Jaida's birthday party last Saturday, and her Nana S has a big box of dress-up clothes and wigs. Obviously, it was a big hit with the kids. They were heartbroken when we had to leave three hours later.







I think this one makes him look like Shaun White. Well, you know. The hair part. Zaya becoming a snowboarder is second on my nightmare list only to him becoming the aforementioned cross-dresser.


This picture makes me afraid too, but on a completely different level.



The last thing I need is a Cowgirl Princess with that much attitude.

Luckily, she has her Daddy looking out for her.

Otra Vez

Once again, Zaya's hitting the Xopenex. I'm ready for spring, summer and the end of cold season. The poor little guy is already skinny and fair-complexioned, so when he's in the middle of an asthma attack, he's extra pale, with red eyes and nose, and his whole body shakes as he coughs and wheezes.

I know he doesn't struggle with asthma as badly as a lot of children, but I don't think it's ever easy for a mom to watch her child suffering. At least after this many years we recognize it for what it is right away, and know what to do for it.

Mim has a bad cold too, and coughs and snuffles and snores. It's been about a month for her though, poor thing. She wants to do breathing treatments like Zay, and doesn't really understand why she can't, though we've explained several times. I think the whole "you don't have asthma" thing just sounds like an excuse to her. We try to make sure she gets a chance to cuddle too, though, because I think it's really the attention that she's after.

We'll keep plugging along. Art is the only one in the house that isn't coughing and sneezing and using up Kleenex. (Zaya's teacher asked me to bring a few boxes for his classroom. Apparently he needs more than the rest of the kids combined.)Art hasn't shown signs of succumbing yet, but he's been buying a lot of orange juice.

Stalling Tactics

Zaya always comes up with his most complex questions or discussion ideas when he's supposed to be sleeping. It's that last snuggle of the day when we get hit with questions like, "What causes Crohn's disease?" and "What's the difference between a heart and a spirit?" and "How do I know that everything is still there around me when I close my eyes?"

It was this last question, a metaphysical twist on the old "tree falls in the forest" idea, that made me relate one of those very strange but vivid childhood memories.

I remember being very young, at Calvary church in Texas, and suddenly realizing that all those times when the world went black for a second, it was just me blinking. I would have to have been three, or possibly four, but no older. I distinctly recall wondering why no one else commented on these frequent, periodic blackouts, and then realizing that I somehow controlled them, and them pausing one of them, and realizing that it was my own eyelids, and I was just blinking. All of that happened in less time than it takes to relate, but it was earth-shaking.

I do not control what happens to these other people. I felt stupid, relieved and disappointed at the same time. All pre-schoolers are a little egotistical, I suppose.

Anyway, Zaya thought it was hilarious, and made me tell him "the story about you blinking" several times before he would go to sleep.

I live to entertain my children.

True Bliss

The thing Mim was most excited to see in Dallas were the elevators and escalators. In fact, the night before we left she prayed specifically that she'd get to see an elevator.

We finally found our way to a mall, only to discover that the escalators wouldn't start up for another hour. This is what children who wish they were riding an escalator look like.



Oh, and a little parenting tip. A good way to cheer up escalator-less children is to tell them to go stand by the sign and "look sad".

Luckily the big glass elevator was working well, so we rode that for a bit. It was a great success.



At long last, the escalators started began moving and we were in transportational paradise.





At least until Zaya caught the undersides of his wrists in the moving hand rail. I have no idea how that happened. I can't even think of what position he was in that would make that possible. I know he wasn't doing anything unusual, or I would have seen him from the base.

Mim was still a little too nervous of the moving steps to risk jumping out on her own, but she had a blast with Daddy.

All in all it was a great success. I dread the day when they start expecting things like Six Flags. The escalators and elevators are more my speed.

Here are a few pictures from our trip to Dallas. We have quite a few from the Science and Nature museums, but I'll start you out with a few from McDonalds. This is what happens these days when Mommy says, "Smile for the camera, kids."

See You Soon

We're taking a little mini, family vacation this weekend. We'll be in Dallas, visiting with Art's aunt and uncle and doing a little museum hopping. We also plan to go to Ikea. (I know, I know.)

I've packed everything I could think of that we could possibly need for three days away from home, but I'm sure I've forgotten something important. I always do.

Oh well, it'll be good improv training, I suppose.

Our internet is down again, so I'm writing this at the Public Library. Now if I can just figure out how to make sure I'm logged out of everything...

Back on Saturday, God willing.

The Return

Our internet died last Thursday, approximately 3 hours after the first ice storm of 2010 began. We never lost electricity, which was wonderful and completely shocking,(no pun intended) but we were holed up in our house for a few days. It was nice at first, but the children began to get a bit restless by, oh, Thursday afternoon.

On Saturday we took the kids sledding for the first time in their young lives. Art spent most of the morning making a sled for them (of course) but in the event we mostly used inner tubes from Grandpa's barn. (The hill had too many frozen clumps of grass for us to use the sled until they had been worn down sufficiently.)

All in all, they enjoyed the ice and snow, and I suppose I did too, since it didn't cause too much trouble. It is beautiful, you have to admit. Well, you would admit it if I had ever gotten off my lazy bum and gone out with my camera. Sorry.

All that to say, actually, that I have finally been reconnected with the internet community. I can't express my relief after six days of darkness and isolation.

OK, so I wasn't actually isolated, just net-less, but it feels like the same thing. I had so very many e-mail messages when I was finally able to check it, and I don't know if I'll ever catch up with everyone's blogs.

And the World Descends into Chaos!

This is what happens when you have a "sick day" with two children who turn out to not actually be sick. My whole house doesn't look like this, yet, but they're working on it.

I can't decide if my splitting headache is the result or the cause. Regardless, maybe it's time to relinquish the moratorium on video games for the afternoon.

Captured on Pixels...Part Deux

Here we have proof that I am actually at family events. This is a rare moment when I was in front instead of behind the camera. Whether or not that was a good thing, I'll leave to your discretion. The angle is funny on this one because Art is taking the picture himself.

The Immovable Rock

Any ideas for a way to dull the evil edge of this concrete step? It leads from our den into our kitchen. It used to be a little back porch before the addition was built onto this house. Art and I painted it brown and it looks cute with the rest of our den...however...

It has caused this:







And that bump is six days old, folks! Imagine what it looked like last Wednesday when my four year old was lying on the floor crying. In this picture I told her to "make a sad face" in an effort to get her to stop crossing her eyes. Yes, I have those other pictures too.

The step of doom has also caused me to peel a hefty chunk of skin back from the back of my foot. You know, the part that joins onto the toe? The part that bends every time you walk or move your foot in any way? That part.

The step must be changed somehow. But how? What can you put on the edge of concrete that wouldn't just look stupid? Taking it out is really not an option. There has to be something there to get up to the kitchen.

Captured on Film...er...Pixels!

Here we have photographic proof that Mim can be a real ham when she wants to. This is a very subdued representation of her silly dance.

Microbial Christmas

So, I realize that quite a while ago I promised to have some pictures etc. from the various Christmases. Better late than never, right? Right?

Here, then are the first of a series that we'll call, "Photos of Christmas Past."

This year was a super-geeky Christmas, and part of the geekiness was a set of plush microbes that we got for Zaya from ThinkGeek.

He received: Influenza A, Rhinovirus (the common cold), E-Coli, Streptococcus, a white blood cell and a red blood cell. (Then C'auntie S gave them some she had from a few years ago, including a louse, Gingivitis, Shigella and a few repeats.)

The kids love them, and they've already been snuggled with at night, flown around the house and invited to tea parties. E-Coli has been especially popular, because of all those great flagella. Here he is, enjoying his first flight and his first sip of tea.






I hope that I'm not the only mother with a picture of her daughter having a tea party with E-coli, but...probably...

Pensamientos

This morning I had the radio on in the car as I drove the children to school, as usual. The sound was going to both sets of speakers though, which is unusual, so the little tykes heard the reports of the earthquake in Haiti. I didn't realize they were listening at all until they started asking me questions.

At first it was the expected: What are they talking about, Mom? Where is Haiti? What happened? Were people hurt? When was the earthquake? Then Mim asked a question that stopped me in my proverbial tracks and made my heart hurt a little.

"Mommy? Where was God during that earthquake?"

"Father! I thought I had more time to work on my grown-up answers before I had to face these questions. I still haven't found my _How to be a Perfect Parent_ handbook, let alone studied the chapter on "Existential Quandaries and the Meaning of Life"!

How on earth do I answer questions for my children when I'm still asking them myself sometimes, Lord?"

But He's been talking to me about this one lately, and I stumbled through my response, trying to make it as Pre-School friendly as possible.

"Mim, God loves us very much, and He is there right now in Haiti with all those people. He was there last night when that earthquake came too. The problem is that we live in a very bad world because of sin. God doesn't make bad things happen, but he doesn't stop all the bad things from happening either. That's part of what it means to be a human on our Earth.

But we know that someday Jesus will come back, and it will all be changed. Then God will stop all the bad things, and we'll finally get to live in a world the way God wanted it to be before people messed it up."

I think the kids understood, at least I hope they did, and we moved on to other topics.

It left me a little spiritually shaky, though, I have to admit.

Then I remembered something else that has come to my attention a lot lately. Human tragedy only happens to one person at a time. When we think about the horrors of war and catastrophe, poverty and hunger, we think on a mass scale. We think of genocide and famine and earthquakes as the death of thousands. But it's the death of one. Each person caught in the middle of the terror can only lose one life, one time.

The tragedy, then, is how many people are left hurting.

And God hurts with us. At least we know He did when Jesus was on this earth. Jesus wept for the pain of his dear friends, even when he knew that Lazarus was about to be raised from the dead. He wept again for the city of Jerusalem, and what would happen to it, even though he knew that those same people would be screaming for his death and enjoying his pain in a week.

If God does not choose to deliver our world from all terror and pain, yet, then so be it. Men will continue to die, one at a time, and it will be no less a tragedy when one man dies than when thousands do, because they each lost only one life.

Those of us who are left, then, will wrestle through our fears and doubts and anger, and when we're out of breath and crying to God, "Where were you!" we'll find out that He was never gone. He is still there with all the strength we need to get through our one life, our one vapor, our one time.

Report - Cards and Other

Someday soon my camera and computer will be in the same room together. Until then, I'll just give a quick update.

School has started up again, and the kids are slowly getting back in the groove. They're more resilient. I think it'll take Art and I longer to readjust to the hectic schedule.

We've moved Mim back to half-days all week, because none of us could take the thought of all the drama we would experience every Tuesday and Thursday. Of course, this means Mim and I have to just hang out in W'ville for 3 1/2 hours on those days, but it's preferable to her crying so much she throws up. I felt so bad for her teacher!

We got their second 9 weeks report cards today, and they both did well. Of course, it's Pre-K and Kindergarten, so I wasn't exactly expecting them to be ineligible or anything. They had Satisfactory and Outstanding on everything except "Controls Feelings" for Mim. (See previous paragraph for proof) and "Listen's Well" and "Responsible" for Zaya. He had outstanding in Obeys and all those other things, so it's just a matter of him being lost in La-La land. (Or character land, more like)

I can handle that. I would infinitely rather have my children be overly sensitive, or overly imaginative than be rebellious or cruel in any way.

Now if I just had someone to give me a report card. I know I would get an A in "worries about children" and "tries to please everyone," but I'm failing miserably in "keeps a clean house" and "cooks wholesome meals." I'm also not doing to well in the "reads edifying non-fiction books instead of more Jane Austen." I've worked my way through the three big ones recently, (P & P, S & S, and Emma) and started Mansfield Park this afternoon. Bad girl. F.

Ornamental Tour

As I said previously, we did finally find our ornaments. The tree wasn't as naked as we had first feared. It's still not crazy-full, but I like it that way. None of that overbearing tinsel here.

I chose a few special ornaments to show you, and I hope you'll excuse the at times extremely inadequate photography. I yam who I yam.

This is one of the very first ornaments I ever received. Her only value to me is her age and her association with my parents and my innocent, blissful childhood. As you can see, she is not...beautiful...in herself. Her paintbrush is long gone, she needs a good comb, and she hasn't quite figured out the whole rouge thing.



These are the two manliest ornaments on the tree. The Klingon Bird of Prey I purchased last year when one of those fancy-schmancy little Hallmark type gift stores went out of business. It plugs into one of the little light sockets and threatens the arborial cosmos with little blinking lasers. I love it!

The second ornament is a star that Art made for me when we were engaged lo, these many years ago. He fashioned it from stainless steel, and sharpened the points so much that it could easily be a home defense weapon if we were burglarized at Christmas time. I'm not kidding; you could do some real damage with that thing!



This ornament almost always makes me cry. It was given to me by my father's mother, Grandma C when I was very young. (My cousins and I called her Nonnie) It used to have the most wonderful gingerbread smell, and I associated that smell with Christmas for many, many years. It's made of wax, and is actually very soft. Apparently I carved my initials in it at some point in the past. The reason it makes me sad is that my Grandma C died suddenly when I was only four years old. My mother was expecting my sister at the time, so Nonnie never even got to meet Claye, or my brother Elijah, let alone Art and my own children. This gingerbread man always makes me think of how the world can change forever, and quickly.



On a lighter note, this ornament, which I bought at the same little shop as the Klingon ship above, is my dream house. Well, OK, one of them. I would love a little country farmhouse with a wraparound porch. This one is even metal with a metal roof. We would love for my father-in-law to build us a metal barn house someday, and I'm still trying to talk him into making it two story, which he thinks is just crazy-womantalk. When I bought this ornament I took it straight to him as an example of how cute it could be. He wasn't convinced.


Here is the first ornament Art and I received as a young married couple. It's a little sappy, but that's alright, because I'm female and sappiness is permitted every now and then. I like it because the little couple are young and poor but happy together, which was pretty much our situation at the time. Life wasn't hard, don't get me wrong, but we are constantly amazed when we look back at how easy and carefree it seemed at the time. I hope I never have to live in a trailer that size again, but if I do, at least I'll have Art with me. (And a boat-load of junk. Hmmm. I'm not sure we could fit into that trailer, now that I think about it.)




Well, that's it. The Christmas tree tour is officially over. I promised myself I wouldn't write a ton about each one, but oh well.

Someday soon I'll be introducing you to a few of the things that made up our super-geeky Christmas this year. We had a blast with gifts this year, and my kids loved it!

Merry Christmas!

There's joy in abundance. Fill up on it!




From our family to yours

Go Get it Yourself

Monday night was the Annual Ladies' Christmas party for Grandma Lilibeth's church. Even though we don't attend this church, my father is the pastor, so we are involved and loved anyway. It's very nice. My mother and sister and I have attended the Christmas festivities for years now, but this was the first year I brought Mim with me. She took the following picture.



Grandma fared well at Mim's hand, but mommy looks a little cockeyed. Not her fault, I suppose.





Aunt Claye did a little better. Mim and I are decked out in our party duds.

The ladies tried a new place this year, as they are in a constant search for the perfect Christmas party location. This year they reserved a room and catered meal at "Ms G's Girly Store"*. We completely filled the lovely room set aside for us, but there were a few...unpleasant surprises.

The first was that there appeared to be a staff of two. One man was cooking in the kitchen, and one rather harassed woman was trying to wait all the tables, which were filled with the 30+ women from the church as well as the customers in the tables at the front that were left over. She was...cranky. I mean cranky enough that I was scared to ask for extra napkins, or other things she had promised she would bring. And we were very nice. Really. The youth director even helped clear tables and serve drinks. (In response to our having been told, "Go get it yourself," when we asked if we could have a drink.)

I don't understand why someone who doesn't enjoy serving would choose the food industry. Just because you know how to cook and decorate does not mean that you should start yourself a little restaurant. (And yes, I've worked in a restaurant before. I know what it's like.)

Also, making a good, or recognizable, cup of coffee appears to be much more difficult than I had previously thought. Below is a picture of my mother's cups of coffee and cider. Can you guess which is which?



The fuller cup is coffee. Yes, you heard that right. Does that look like coffee to you, or maybe a very weak herbal tea?

Yeah. That's what we thought too.

Every year there's a gift exchange. All of the ladies from the church have had "secret sisters" throughout the year, and the Christmas party is when they give the last gift and the official revelation of last year's secret sister. It's always a lot of fun to watch everyone get their gifts, and those of us who are just visiting exchange grab bag gifts. I knew Mim would be unlikely to enjoy the typical adult woman's grab bag gift, so I brought her one of her Christmas gifts from home.



I think she liked it.

Altogether the evening was fun. Even the frustrating moments were fun, because they were shared by all, and will give us a lot of good "you remember that lady who..." memories at next year's party. I'm looking forward to it, even if I have to get my drink myself.

*Name changed to protect the guilty.

Where, oh Where?

I seem to have mislaid my ornaments. I am missing at least one, and maybe two, boxes of ornaments. I know exactly what they look like, but they don't seem to be in any of my storage spaces.

The current theory is that Art packed them away inside of a large plastic tub somewhere. That's my theory, of course. Art's is that I put them somewhere "safe" and we will find them someday. Regardless, they are not on the tree. That much I do know.

Mim keeps telling me, "Mommy, our tree isn't really very pretty, is it?" And, well, no it's not, unless you're into the minimalist style of decorating. (Which Art is, actually, so he may have misplaced the ornaments on purpose. Hmmm.)

I bought a few candy canes, and used some big white ribbons from the kids' Christmas pajamas. At least we found the lights.



In an effort to cheer the little ones up, I bought some plaster ornaments from the Wal-mart craft section, and they've been painting this afternoon. At least we'll have a little color on the tree this year.



Update: We found the ornaments tonight! Art was sorting through his tool room and found the missing plastic tub. Yea!!

Yes, Deer

Art shot a deer this year, so we had a little meat-processing party last weekend. The result was two large bags of jerky, several pounds of ground, and a few steaks.



Art was the official touch-the-bloody-meat guy, and I just shuffled around and prepared the jerky flavorings. I did end up touching the meat when I put it into the marinade containers and when I hung it all. Yes, that right, I am just that tough.



As usual, we had an efficient assembly line approach to our tiny little slaughter house.

When it was over, I scrubbed and scrubbed anywhere they may have contacted deer blood. Blech.



And here we have what looks like a diorama of a fantastical butcher's shop, but is really the paper clip method of jerky drying that Art learned from the ever-wise "some guy at work". I don't know what we'd do without the combined manly knowledge of Art's coworkers. It makes me wonder what they learn from him and take home to their wives as Gospel-fact.

Anyway, I finally finished hanging and drying and smelling all the jerky, so we are officially done. I have encouraged Art to call that good for the year. I think we've got enough venison to get through the winter anyway, despite his misgivings. (It's not like we eat much meat anyway, but maybe he's just hoping.)

It's in the Genes

Here's a little conversation I overheard yesterday after school.

Mim: Zaya, we are going to have a new bathroom plan. OK?

Zaya: OK

Mim: Here's the plan. When you come in here and go pee-pee, then you put down this lid when you're done. That's the plan. Alright? Did you get it?

Zaya: Yeah. OK.