From the Mouths of Babes in May

Linus: I'm going to put this food on my spoon, but I'm not going to eat it.  It's just for decoration.

Me:  Linus, don't pick your boogers.
Linus: Well don't look at me.

Eileen: 1-2-2 Timeout!

Linus composed a knock knock joke of his own and thinks it's hilarious.
Knock-knock.
Who's There?
Jimmy Olsen.
Jimmy Olsen who?
Crack-er (spoken in a slightly evil, menacing voice)

Eileen: Knock knock. Jimmy Olsen. Crack-er.

Linus:  (on the way to a hike) Excuse me Mommy, but any tantums we leave.  Sometimes my body gives me tantrums.  Not little tantrums but big tantrums we leave.  Those are my deals.

Eileen: Batman. Batman. Da na na na na na na na na na na Batman. Batman.

99 Monkeys and Green Bananas

I try to do my best to support small local business and love taking advantage of my walkable neighborhood.  Today we decided to walk up to Phinney and check out some new places.  Linus impressed me and walked/ran all the way up the hill to our first stop, Starbucks.  Not only is it about 10 blocks, but it is a very steep hill.  We then walked along checking out some consignment shops.  When I could hold him back no longer, I finally let Linus go into Green Bananas.

Green Bananas is new and a pretty cool place.  The 99 Monkeys part of the business sells gently used toys that have been cleaned and re-packaged using green materials.  They had an impressive collection of Care Bears.  They were mostly smaller toys, with lots of play mobile and Thomas.  They also had some cool vintage toys.  I found a Tinkerbell comb, brush, and mirror set (in original packaging!) from the early 1980s.  I swear my neighbor had this when I was a kid.

Green Bananas other feature is that it is a drop-in art care facility--that is to say that you can drop your child off for up to four hours and someone will read stories and do art projects with them.  We saw in a flyer that the theme this week was Riki-Tiki-Tavi.  Being a fan of snakes, this is one of Linus' new favorites.  Green Bananas was doing a special art project where kids got to make their own sock puppet mongoose.  Eileen and I hung out in the store for awhile until Linus told us it was okay to go.  We ran a few errands and came back to find Linus engrossed in art and reluctant to leave.  We came home with a sock puppet, felt snake, water color, and drawing.  He is already talking about going back.

As a stay at home mom, it's nice to know that I have another option for brief childcare when I need it.  Unfortunately, they currently don't take kids under 2.5.  Kids don't have to be potty trained.  It's $9.50 an hour and $6.50 for each additional child.  Right now they are running a special where new clients get the second hour free.

I hope this place sticks around.  I think it's a great resource.  I'm looking forward to doing a purge of our toy room and taking them in to consign.

It's a Mad Mad Bridal Shower

My sister, Sally is getting married this summer.  I have been bestowed the title of maid of honor.  Amid the hubbub of Mother's Day we also held Sally's bridal shower.  Having now attended multiple showers in my time, I wanted to make this shower special.  We wanted sophistication and fun, and decided that best way to make it happen was to have a Mad Men brunch.  Really it was probably more of an excuse to have a reason to buy a cute new dress.  Thank you Modcloth.com!

Finally I had a reason to wear my pearls.  My sister, Beth, said I looked ready to host a republican luncheon.

I am grateful that two of Sally's other bridesmaids handled food and decorations.  One of them lives in a building with a multi-purpose room we got to use for free.  One less stress and thing to coordinate. My sister, Beth, handled the music and did a great job.  She made a mixed CD of music from the show. I really wanted to make the shower special and unique.  I made gift bags for every guest filled with vintage candies from the 1960s--squirrel nut zippers, neco wafers, 100 grands, etc.  Anyone who watches the show knows there is a lot of smoking and drinking. This made candy cigarettes a necessity.  

Besides being in the gift bags, boxes were left around the room for easy access and "smoking."

We started things off with a fashion show so everyone could show off their Mad Men outfits.  I love how everyone really tried to go with the theme.  There were quite a few beehives being sported. The outfits were a hoot.

I had a lot of fun finding prizes for the games.  I tried to keep everything in theme, so I got things like a martini shaker,  drink making gadgets, how to be a good wife book from the 1960s, glamour dish washing gloves, etc.  I got almost everything at Costplus World Market.

I spent a lot of time researching games.  First up was "Mark Your Man," a take on pin the tail on the donkey using the Mad Men Belle Jolie campaign.  

The ladies had to pin a lipstick kiss on Don Draper.  To my discomfort, my mother won. 

Please note the candy cigarette hanging from my blindfolded sister.

We also played a game call Pass the Present.  It was fun and easy.  My favorite game by far was an ad making game.  I found old bridal ads from the 1950s and 60s.  Guests had to come up with a new tagline for the ad, then we all voted on the best one for each ad.  I am blessed to be born into a family of intelligent and witty women.  I was laughing so hard I cried.

My final contribution was cupcakes.  I have never baked cupcakes from scratch before so I decided to get my Martha Stewart on.  I made strawberry cupcakes with lemon cream cheese frosting.  I watched multiple youtube videos on how to frost a cupcake.  They turned out great but the process of frosting them almost sent me over the edge. I will definitely use the recipe again.

Planning a bridal shower is a lot of work. Wow.  The shower was a ton of fun, making it all worth it. I loved getting to see all my aunts and cousins.  Here's a few shots.

My mother

Sally, the bride to be :)

My mom with her sisters

Me, my sisters, and cousin, Emily.  Emily won the fashion show.

Sally and Mom

Theme parties are fun.  I may need to find another excuse to throw a Mad Men party, especially so I can get more uses out of the dress.  Zooey Deschanel might be able to pull it off as an everyday look, but I don't think I'm there yet.

18 months

A year and a half has come and gone.  Baby Eileen is quickly trying to lose her title of baby.  In celebration of this momentous occasion, Eileen got to go to her 18 month check up.

Here are her stats:

Height:  31.75 inches      50th percentile

Weight: 24.6 pounds      50th percentile

Head Circumference: 19 inches     90th percentile

So there you have it, she is incredibly average except for her large head, which must be storing a rather large brain.  At 18 months, Eileen is a wunderkind of words.  I am constantly shocked by the depth and breadth of her vocabulary.  She has already started memorizing books.  Her sense of humor includes pretending to snore and sneeze.  Thanks to her big brother, Eileen is well versed in super hero and can often be heard declaring, "Batman!" as she moves about the house.  She has also developed an appreciation for bugs and snakes.  She wants to do whatever Linus is doing, mimicking both actions and words.  It is not uncommon to find Eileen sliding around the house hissing and then saying, "snake."  She likes hanging upside down, ring around the rosie, sitting on things, outside, reading books, and playing with the toy kitchen.

Eileen is still a girly girl at heart.  She likes "pretty" things, especially lace, jewelry, and flowers.  Given the chance to choose her own clothes, she will go for a dress or something with flowers.

Despite all of Eileen's big girl aspirations, I'm not ready to stop calling her Baby Eileen yet.  Maybe she is destined to be like Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing.

Motherhood

There is no better time to reflect upon motherhood than on Mother's Day.  I have dreamed about being a mother since I was a little girl.  Even at the young age of three I thought about what it would be like to have my own home and care for children.

As one of four children spaced closely together.  It never occurred to me that getting pregnant wouldn't be easy.  The road to motherhood was a humbling experience.  After one exceedingly long and miserable pregnancy,  I joined the ranks.  It was kind of like joining a secret society that I hadn't quite realized existed.  My whole world view changed.  Suddenly, I was deeply affected by commercials and while once a little weepy during Dumbo, I needed boxes of kleenex.

I've always been a serious person and struggled with open affections.  Sometimes these tendencies were mistaken by others as being cold.  While I still take a fairly serious view towards the world, I have softened.  Having little children changed me.  When I went back to work after Linus, my principal and several co-workers commented on the change.  I wasn't bad before, but they noticed how I seemed less stressed, more carefree.  As a teacher, motherhood taught me how to finally let go of the control I was constantly trying to maintain.

My children make me want to be a better person.

Today my family gave me what I needed most, quality family time mixed with lots of alone time.  I got to sleep in and read while they went out to the local French bakery to bring me back coffee and yummy goodies.  After some bed snuggling and eating, I read some more and took a shower.  While I got ready, Linus and Dave picked me a lovely bouquet.

When I came downstairs, not only were kids dressed, but Dave had already packed everything for a picnic.  We walked to the Woodland Park Playground for some fun, before walking further to Fremont Peak Park.  The weather was perfect.

Linus took this pic.  He loves using my camera and he is getting pretty good.

Sadly, I enjoyed the sun too much and got very sunburned on the walk home.  Back home, while the kids napped, I got a mani-pedi.  Dave and Linus stepped out for a little bit and brought me back a beautiful necklace.  FYI.  Linus cannot keep a secret.  I even had time today to do some writing before my sister, Sally, and her fiancee, Bryan came over for pizza and watching the new Muppet movie.  Once the kids were in bed, Dave and I enjoyed some lambic and fancy dessert.  It was a near perfect day and I feel very loved.  I wouldn't trade my little family for anything.

Stirring Passions

Fun Fact:  I was the number one reader in Tacoma the summer after 5th grade.  This feat is even more impressive because I did it while still watching at least 6 hours of television a day.

I loved reading as a child. It was my dream to become an author.  My grandmother was a constant source of encouragement, gifting me with notepads and pens, books for budding young authors.  She would regularly ask me how my writing was going. Then I got to high school and a few honors English classes later any joy I ever derived from reading and writing was destroyed.  I found reading painful and boring.  I came to believe that I was borderline stupid and void of any writing talent.

Luckily, during my junior year of college my major required me to take a class called The Literature of Nature and Place.  I had never read nature writing before. The class was a far cry from a critical analysis of A Tale of Two Cities.  Suddenly, I wanted to read again.  I read nature writers, books recommended by Oprah, Harry Potter, anything I could get my hands on.  It felt so good to enjoy books again.  These days I get to share a love of reading with the lovely ladies of my book club.  It's hard to find time to read sometimes but I love my Nook and its ability to let me read late into the night without bothering Dave.

Now to the point of this post.  At the same time that I rediscovered reading, my desire to write came back, but I never had an idea that I felt I could write about.  I thought about writing my memoirs, but then worried about some ex-boyfriend coming out of the woodwork to air dirty laundry.  Keeping a blog has been very therapeutic, but it's also made me want more.

When I decided to quit my job, I knew I would still need to get clock hours in order to keep my certification current.  I decided to make some headway on them and take a class at the community college.  It gave me an excuse to take a writing class.  For the past month I have been taking a class on writing books for children and young adults.  I was nervous about what kind of writing I would be subjected to by others, but have been pleasantly surprised.  I've learned a lot about the process.

On my way to my first class I finally got an idea for a book.  I couldn't wait to put pen to paper.  It practically wrote itself.  I was nervous to share it with the class, but got really great feedback.  I strongly disagreed with a few suggestions, but others really did improve it.  Since then I have managed to do a little more writing and it's getting easier.  During the last class, several different  people told me they thought I had real talent.  I'm not saying this to blow my own horn, but rather because of how much it meant to me.  I have a hard time accepting compliments and I really have always felt like my writing was just not good enough.  This class is really helping heal some old wounds.

I'm not sure what happens next.  In the next few weeks, we'll learn how to try to get a book published.  I like my book.  I wrote it for Linus.  I am under no illusion that it would ever get published, but I'd like to give it a shot.  Otherwise, I will just have to do my own illustrations and make a special copy just for Linus.  I know he'll love it.  In case you're wondering, the book is about a little boy who wants a python for a pet.  In the meantime, I am really excited to rekindle a passion I thought was gone.

Huntin'

I recently started watching my friend, Colleen's son, Ari, two days a week.  It has been a surprisingly smooth transition to three kids (knock on wood).  Ari is two.  You may ask, what does one do with two little toddler boys and one toddler girl?  Huntin'.  That's what.  Bug hunting to be specific.

First specimen: small spider on porch.

 Of course there was the requisite viewing of the dried worm on the side of the garage.

 At 17 months, Eileen sometimes takes life very seriously.

I love this shot.

All bugs were released.  I think most escaped any severe harm.  Linus is still heartbroken over "Buzzy" the housefly he captured a few days ago and I made him free.

All I can say is bugs.  Ew. Gross.