Midway Farm

Auction Madness

2012-02-02T18:52:00.001-05:00

I discovered our local auction house a few weeks ago, and have very much enjoyed a new source of great deals. Plus, the process is so fun because of the suspense. I have not actually bid on anything live at an auction—that would require hours of sitting there waiting for an item with a small child or two—but I’ve placed absentee bids, and get lovely emails on Friday afternoons after the auctions letting me know of my success.

My coup de gras this week was buying a set of sewing items for $25, clearly from an estate. Maybe this doesn’t seem like a great deal to you—admittedly, it was the very top of my bid range—but at $4 for a spool of thread these days, sewing stuff can really add up. I thought about the woman who assembled everything as I organized my new treasure this weekend—clearly a bit of a packrat, because there were definitely over 100 spools of thread. But she devised some ingenious storage solutions for the thread so not only will I never have to buy thread for the rest of my life, I will always have amazingly organized thread (yes, this is something I worry about).

She also was a button hoarder which makes me the proud owner of a large collection of buttons. This is very ironic because my grandmother was a button collector and it was a hobby that never really piqued my interest. These buttons, thankfully, are not valuable buttons, but they look very much like fun crafty buttons to make all sorts of weird projects with and to let kids string and sift and sort (once they reach the age that they won’t eat them).

Her collection also included 7 thimbles, oodles and oodles of needles (again, one of the things I will never have to buy), scissors, extra pin cushions, all sorts of fasteners, razor blades, threaders, gauges and some eclectic small instruments whose function I still don’t know, and others that I’m sure I’m forgetting.

So while I technically didn’t need any of this, I’m pretty sure it’s a good investment… right?

Molly walking 2

2012-01-19T18:31:00.002-05:00

Here are Molly's crazy walking skills again. :)

Yesterday was my first day…

2012-01-19T07:42:00.001-05:00

…in FOUR months without using crutches at all!!! I walked into a small store, put Molly in the shopping cart and almost cried it was so easy to shop like that. I am so incredibly excited and thankful. The best thing is being able to walk around the house holding Molly. (The ironic thing is that she started walking everywhere a few days ago so now she suddenly wants to be held less!)

I’ve already gotten the question twice yesterday: when am I going to start running again? DON’T THESE PEOPLE UNDERSTAND??? My goals right now have nothing to do with running. Running is not anywhere on my radar screen. My goals are to be able to carry loads of laundry, to climb the stairs confidently, to walk wherever I want without strategizing how to complete a task with the fewest steps, to be able to shop at a store like Target without using the electric buggy, to be able to sit in a chair without pain, to get cleared to be able to stretch and do yoga, to chase my kids outside, to be able to run to pick up Molly when she is in danger or falls, to garden, to take the dog and kids on walks, to go on hikes as a family.

I haven’t been officially cleared by the doctor to be off crutches (that comes Monday), and I do have the sense I might have done a little bit too much yesterday… but still, yesterday was a very sweet day and hopefully there will be more to come.

Hanitizer

2012-01-19T07:33:00.001-05:00

Hand + Sanitizer = Hanitizer

Tucker is losing his cute little words, but this one is hanging around, and I’m certainly not correcting him anytime soon!

Bay-Bee

2012-01-15T08:13:00.003-05:00

Molly’s favorite word is “baby.” She pronounces it with a husky kind of voice, drawing out the syllables. Three months ago “baby” meant a doll or her favorite bunny lovey but now her use of the term has broadened to include anything that she wants. If she is sitting in her highchair asking for “baby” and pointing to the counter, who knows what she wants, but chances are it is some exciting food item and not her lovey.

I’ve been trying to get a video of her asking for baby because it is the quintessential Molly moment, but it is surprisingly hard to catch even though she says it all the time. Partially this is because if I don’t drop everything to go look for what she wants when she says “baby” she enters into hysterics. Have I mentioned that mealtimes are sometimes tenuous?

Here is a video of Molly toddling around. She is using walking as a mode of locomotion more and more, switching primarily to walking in the past few days. The video was from a few days ago and doesn’t do total justice to her efforts because her sleeper made her keep slipping.

The Best Post I’ve Read in a Really Long Time

2012-01-06T21:32:00.001-05:00

My sister-in-law just sent me the link to this post, and it is the best thing I’ve read about motherhood in a long time, about the nostalgic old ladies who come up to us young mothers in every store, telling us that they enjoyed EVERY moment of parenting. I literally laughed till I cried when I thought about one day being a nostalgic old lady myself and instead coming up to that young mother with the cherubic hellions in her shopping cart and choosing my words a little differently: “It’s helluva hard, isn’t it? You’re a good mom, I can tell. And I like your kids, especially that one peeing in the corner. She’s my favorite. Carry on, warrior. Six hours till bedtime.”

http://momastery.com/blog/2012/01/04/2011-lesson-2-dont-carpe-diem/

Thanks for the link, Liz!!!

Ikea Trip

2012-01-03T16:50:00.001-05:00

We went to Ikea to pick up a bookshelf/room divider for our dining room. This excursion has been on our radar screen since October so it was no surprise. We went into the store at 10 am, I told Austin it’d take about an hour. We left the store at 11:05 am with the bookshelf we wanted and a few other great deals on things I’d been looking for off and on. The kids had a great time playing in the kids area, and enjoyed hot dogs on the way out. Successful trip, right?

Austin’s narrative:

How could our trip have possibly been any harder? It is a good store but Jackie just needs to go there healthy, by herself, for a whole day. We were going there for ONE thing until Jackie started looking around, leaving me with the kids without a cell phone so it was unclear if we would be able to find each other. We got the wrong cart and had to switch. Then I pushed a fully loaded flat bed cart with stuff that didn’t fit and had to be precariously balanced, with a baby on my shoulders. I had to leave the store in the middle of the trip with the kids to deal with an urgent bathroom situation. Molly ate a price tag and then ate my hot dog. And Ikea doesn’t even give you bags! To top it all off the bookshelf didn’t fit in the car and necessitated an hour of rearranging at 7 am before we could drive home.

So, who do you believe???

Disregard that last post…

2012-01-02T09:27:00.001-05:00

If any of you use a reader that automatically emails you when I post, you may have noticed an odd post from me last night. I have the bad habit of using the draft feature of my blog as a note pad to cut and paste interesting blurbs from things I read around the web, and one of the blogs I follow had posted some resolutions I thought were interesting—much better than the general “I want to lose 10 lbs and exercise more”—so I cut and pasted them into that draft feature, to remember them for later… and accidentally published it. Oops! So, in case you were wondering, I did think those were interesting resolutions, but they were not actually my resolutions or my words (actually they were a compilation of some highlights from various blogs).

This raises the question: do you all ever take notes online (or when you’re on your computer in general)? I sometimes use email drafts for the same thing… but again, it has the same problem as not really being for that purpose. What program(s) do you use?

Happy New Year!

P.S. Anyone have any interesting resolutions to share?

Tucker’s Photo Essay of Everything Else

2011-12-29T09:43:00.001-05:00

Tucker’s Self-Portrait Photo Essay

2011-12-28T17:21:00.001-05:00

Merry Christmas

2011-12-28T08:17:00.001-05:00

We had a nice Christmas celebrating with all of the grandparents. The highlights included Molly walking more than 3 or 4 steps for the first time, Austin and I getting to go to church alone on Christmas day, and a delicious and relaxing Christmas dinner (thanks, Helen!). Molly’s favorite Christmas presents were some plastic bracelets and Elmo silverware (that apparently really hit the spot to chew on), and she actually didn’t tear into wrapping paper like we thought she would. She actually didn’t like the opening process at all… if it was something she was interested in, she wanted it NOW. And if it wasn’t something she was interested in, she wouldn’t look. Tucker’s favorite presents were a real kiddie digital camera/video camera and a puppet theater and puppets. I’m going to need to post videos of his shows and some of his own movies and pictures. I think he’s up to about 300 pictures in the past three days. I’m not sure any of them will ever be able to get deleted because he never gets rid of anything, ever.

Tucker got a green monster hat for Christmas so Molly went to the kitchen and got her green frog hat to wear.

Celebrating with Henny and Papa

I might’ve woken up first, thinking I heard Tucker… and ended up waking Molly and Austin while Tucker slumbered on till past 7.

Daddy’s girl dresses her daddy.

Santa knows the way to Molly’s heart: a banana!

Our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

2011-12-28T08:00:00.001-05:00

Tucker’s friend Henry had TWO Christmas trees, so Tucker begged to get a table tree. Austin and Tucker went into the woods and found a little evergreen to cut down to fill the need, and Tucker decorated it just perfectly. I didn’t have a stand so I taped a mason jar to a square of cardboard, and tried to wedge it into the mason jar so it wouldn’t tip over. I need to work on my wedging skills next year (actually, next year I’d pack it into the mason jar with gravel).

Quote of the Day

2011-12-24T09:23:00.001-05:00

Scene: 3 am, Tucker is outside our door

Austin: What’s wrong? [Follows Tucker to his room]

Tucker: I don’t have any sheets on my bed!

Austin: Where are they?

Tucker: I don’t know, but don’t check the closet!

Austin: They’re not wet? You don’t need to get changed?

Tucker: It’s a trick! They’re in the closet!

Molly helps Austin workout

2011-12-21T09:36:00.003-05:00

Molly is definitely Daddy's girl, at least lately. On Monday she was so much more content sitting in a stroller watching Austin workout than having my undivided attention inside. Austin took her interest in stride and let her help him pull the sled with weights on it.

Quote of the Day

2011-12-18T21:16:00.001-05:00

Austin: Tucker, please stop making that noise.

Tucker: It’s not me, Daddy, it’s a wolf!

Ben’s Christmas Indiscretion

2011-12-18T21:14:00.001-05:00

Yes, Virginia, Ben ate the gingerbread house. No, Virginia, the gingerbread house did not agree with his tummy.

Last year we put the gingerbread house on a waist-high bookshelf in our sunroom, this year it was in the dining room window. But we put up our tree the other day, and had to move end tables and lamps, and something ended up right in front of the window, blocking the house.

What did I do? I moved the house to an end table that was now in the dining room. This end table is kitchen table height, every inch as high as the shelf we used for the gingerbread house last year. But when I was moving it, Ben happened to be in the room, and a piece of candy happened to get knocked off while I was transitioning it. Ben helpfully cleaned it up.

My lab may be dumb, but he knows what food is. And he figured out that that gingerbread house was food. Thankfully it didn’t have very much chocolate on it.

Fast forward several hours: throw-up on floor greeted us as we returned from our morning excursion. Honestly, this didn’t even raise a suspicion because Ben eats so many socks and other things so that he is always throwing up (I had just cleaned up a regurgitated sock that morning). But he kept drinking water so I did look around to make sure all our playdoh was accounted for (it was). Playdoh also does bad things to dogs’ tummies.

I figured it out after I put Tucker down for his rest time. I was going down the front stairs and saw the destruction. Actually, there was one very unique thing about this indiscretion of Ben’s: he wasn’t able to finish the whole house. In fact, he only got about halfway through--he ate two sides and a roof more or less—this is the first time he’s ever not successfully finished an item of food (that I know of).

Oh, and one more thing: Tucker still hasn’t figured it out so shhhhhh!!!

O Christmas Tree

2011-12-17T09:44:00.002-05:00

We made our annual pilgrimage to the best Christmas tree farm ever. The only problem with it is that it takes much too little time to pick out a tree if you're trying to make it a family outing. We tried to be REALLY picky this year, but still was out of there in 25 minutes, including loading/unloading kids and tree. The highlight this year was when the tree almost fell over on Tucker, which the video actually captured!

Tucker's Christmas Concert

2011-12-17T09:34:00.003-05:00

Tucker's preschool had a Christmas concert on Thursday night that was highly entertaining. Tucker was in the second row behind a little girl in pink so it's hard to see him (he's wearing a green and red stiped polo shirt). I wasn't sure if he'd sing or not, and was surprised by how excited he was and how into it he was. By the end of the concert I think he was the only boy left in his class still actually singing!

He looked forward to the concert all day, and took a bath and picked out Christmas clothes all by himself with no prompting besides asking him to at the dinner table. Wow! He did have a moment of stage fright when we were walking to the concert hall (the local middle school auditorium) when Austin told him this was where the big boys went to school. It took a lot of reassurance to convince him that it was, in fact, just his preschool friends that were going to be there that night.

Besides seeing my little man sing, the other highlight was the youngest class--the two and three year-olds--that had two boys who stole the show. Someone had taught one boy how to bow low, and he spent the first half of the concert continually bowing low. Another little boy in that class had the only solo of the night when he started "This Little Light of Mine" about 10 seconds before everything else--yelling. I think throughout the concert he was as loud as almost all the other kids put together.

Quote of the Day

2011-12-15T12:38:00.002-05:00

“Is that tent bigger than God?” -Tucker

Thought of the Day

2011-12-14T09:28:00.001-05:00

“Take time to be holy. The word holy does not mean goody-goody; it means set apart for sacred use.” – Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

Quote of the Day

2011-12-13T13:22:00.001-05:00

“Heavenly hosts sing wa-wa-woo-wa!” –Tucker, telling me the words to Silent Night

At church this week, Tucker really got into the Advent singing. He sang with real pleasure and definite gusto—Austin and I had to restrain our giggles and smiles because Tucker can get quite self conscious these days.

I wasn’t sure how many other people could hear him, but it turns out his voice carried from the altar to the back row because we had people from both places commenting on his singing. In fact, Fr. Glenn said that he heard Tucker and his first impulse was to laugh and then his next impulse was to cry it was so beautiful. “That is how it’s supposed to be done!” he told us after the service.

Visiting the Salt Mines

2011-12-11T20:11:00.002-05:00

Austin and I went to Williamsburg for a night away from the kids (thanks Helen and David!). We didn’t actually go into any of the Colonial Williamsburg buildings, but enjoyed walking around the town, and even stumbled upon a glorious Christmas concert at the Bruton Parish Church. Since we were late, we got the only seats left—front row!

One of the highlights was getting to visit a salt spa the next day. Basically, it’s a room with 15 tons of salt making up the walls and the floor, simulating a salt cave. You sit in chairs in the cave, and it’s supposed to purify the lungs and help all these respiratory ailments. Apparently the idea originated from the Polish salt mines in the 19th century—all the miners were so remarkably healthy that a doctor started examining why.

I’m not sure one session has cured Austin’s asthma or my allergies but we definitely emerged feeling very relaxed and refreshed. I highly recommend visiting a salt spa if you have the opportunity!

Silly Molly

2011-12-09T18:02:00.001-05:00

Do you usually eat with your favorite clothes? Molly does. She likes to go to her dresser and pull out the things she particularly loves (her favorite is a black and white polka dotted long sleeve shirt), and then carry them around with her like loveys. At first I thought that maybe since she liked these items so much she might want to WEAR them, but I was wrong. If I try to dress her in her favorite clothes she shrieks and throws a tantrum and rips them off, because it means she will no longer be able to hold them. For this reason, she has never actually worn her favorite polka dotted shirt.

In other Molly eccentricities, this is her eating her first banana of the day. This banana is not just a banana, it is love, obsession, comfort, EVERYTHING. She keeps her mouth on the banana the entire time, with steady pressure (no actual taking bites/chewing then going in for more)… it’s a continuous lean.

And here is Molly trying her best to start painting. She desperately wants to be able to do all the art Tucker does and she actually does draw with some of the paint/markers/crayons/pens… but she, surprisingly, is also wildly erratic with these implements as well and creates quite a hazard to the house.

Gingerbread Fun

2011-12-09T18:01:00.001-05:00

Helen treated us to another Gingerbread workshop. We were more prepared for the rigors of house decorating this year, and Tucker was even better prepared for the amount of candy that was going to be available.

Santa was there and waved a bell over Tucker’s head to determine if he has been naughty or nice. The bell indicated nice… I wonder then why he has lost TV privileges and dessert privileges this week? I must be confused. :)

Incidentally, Santa was also very scary. Tucker made sure to look away and cover his ears when Santa addressed him. His awe of Santa made it too much to take in at once.

My son is a complete pack rat and insisted in collecting every scrap of leftover candy to take home. It wasn’t just about the candy either, he collects tiny pieces of everything that anyone else in the world would throw away. It makes craft time with him challenging, and I frequently have to raid his art area to throw away the detritus. One of his favorite things right now is cutting paper into miniscule bits and calling it “wrapping paper” and then insisting these scraps are all treasures. Hmmm. At least in this candy case we convinced him that 1/3 of it needed to go to Henny and a 1/3 of it needed to go to Luisa, so we only got 1/3 of the leftover candy junk.

Tucker’s New Love

2011-12-07T13:55:00.002-05:00

Tucker has a new love in his life and her name is Candy Land. I was wondering when he would get interested in board games and actually following the rules. When he was two he received a fishing game as a present and it immediately dispersed around the house as fodder for random imaginative things (fish sandwiches, treasure, etc.). I tried to play it with him but the idea of the thing was completely lost on him.

Fast forward two years to Candy Land. We gave it to him for his birthday in September and it took a couple months for him to warm up to the idea of following rules, but now he is absolutely obsessed. In love. Transfixed. He still is torn whenever he receives a bad card about whether he REALLY should follow it because as he states almost every turn "I want to win." But, my secret to getting him to follow the rules is to remind him that if he goes backwards like the card says the game will be longer and we will play longer.

The one thing to be prepared for is that when he asks what piece you want to be because you can choose first: whatever piece you pick is going to be the one he wants. Related to this, my other big Mommy secret these days is when Tucker has leftovers in the fridge I want him to eat, if I offer them to him and he says "No, I don't want that." All I have to say is, "Okay, well maybe Molly wants them instead." The idea of Molly taking something that was his stuns his little brain and suddenly he does a 180 and is begging for his leftovers.

Quote of the Day

2011-12-07T10:01:00.001-05:00

“One day the sun came out and shone on all the daddies and all the mommies and all the boys and girls so they would know how great Jesus is.”

-Tucker, telling me what he drew his picture about

Here’s a picture of my sensitive artist (you may notice that we have turned his train table into a large art workspace at least temporarily—how can he be so big already?!):

Craft Time

2011-11-29T14:27:00.001-05:00

A month ago I decided to turn a basically unused corner of my office into a craft area. With a lot of help from Austin, it turned out spectacularly. So now instead of hiding random materials in spare closets and hauling it all out when needed, I get the luxury of an eight and a half foot work surface and more storage than I can fill up… yet.

I wish I had taken before pictures. The only things we bought for this desk set-up was the cabinet on the right ($30 from the Habitat Store), some white wallpaper tiles for the pie safe, white paint and sealer for the desk, four 12x12 cork boards and fabric to cover them to make the fun red and white bulletin boards ($14). That puts the transformation at less than $100, and most of the paint and sealer will be left over for future fun. Most of the materials came from pieces of my father'-in-law’s office in Annapolis that he recently dismantled, though it took some ingenuity to reconfigure it in a way that would work here.

I also collected all the spare containers I could find in the house and took them all out back and spray painted them so they’d be in the same range of colors. I also took a gold lamp and turned it bright and white. The only thing left to do is let the paint on the counter fully cure (approximately two weeks) and then I’ll seal it with an acrylic polyurethane to make it durable enough to stand the test of projects.

The big question is: why am I sitting on the couch blogging when I could be crafting?

Quote of the Day

2011-11-26T08:33:00.001-05:00

Tucker: I smell something.

Me: What is it?

Tucker: I think it’s the cake in the fridge for later.

***************************************************************

Me: What did you dream about last night?

Tucker: I dreamed about the shadow in my brain.

Quote of the Day

2011-11-25T08:08:00.001-05:00

Papa: What does okay mean?

Tucker: It’s what you say to get out of timeout.

Quote of the Day

2011-11-17T08:35:00.001-05:00

Austin: I need more contact lenses.

Tucker: You need more Father Glenn-ses?

Molly rolling around

2011-11-16T08:09:00.002-05:00

This video is of Molly rolling around yesterday on the couch, generally having a fabulous time.

Bible Study Concert

2011-11-13T20:11:00.003-05:00

I find this video hilarious. Tucker had a concert last year where he was so animated he was the star of the show... no longer! The shy monster has gobbled him up and this time he stood in a corner looking at his friend. I think he mouthed the words once!

My Molly Monkey

2011-11-12T08:47:00.005-05:00

I dropped Molly's last nursing session ten days ago, thinking it would be a pretty drawn-out and horrible experience since she was so attached to nursing in bed in the morning. Wrong. She has not been mad or frustrated at me at all, and seems to enjoy her new morning routine as much as the last. So now she watches the news with Austin while devouring one or two bananas. In fact, she is such a Daddy's girl that she probably likes this better because she gets to snuggle with Austin. The actual banana-eating session is pretty funny; she eats them in a trance-like state with her mouth leaning into the banana and eating it in one continuous-pressure mouthful, much like a snake with its prey.

I was getting groceries a week ago Friday and a woman couldn't believe I was buying three bunches of bananas. I told her they might get us through the weekend. Another friend mentioned that her family can't go through a bunch of bananas before they go bad. I live with a bunch of monkeys. Yesterday, Molly ate four bananas, and would've eaten more if we had let her. (We usually try to keep it to 2 or 3!)

In other news, Molly is still crazy. I found her yesterday standing without holding onto anything on top of one of Tucker's chairs. Since she isn't able to stand for more than a few seconds without holding onto anything, this is a precarious situation. As long as she doesn't get hurt, she loves falling. She used to love climbing up the stairs, but now climbs only enough that she can slide down them on her stomach.

Molly likes playing with Tucker's Halloween candy, but I was under the naive impression that she just liked the shiny wrappers and didn't actually really understand it was candy. Yesterday, Tucker was eating Starburst and I let Molly have a second package to hold while I read them books before naptime. Somehow Molly managed to get hold of one of the little pieces I had unwrapped for Tucker from his package and completely ate it in the space of time that I was reading Tucker a book. She was very smart about it--was facing away and apparently absorbed in another task--and by the time she turned around I could just see the red juices around the ring of her mouth. She was delighted and showed me that there was only a tiny sliver left in her mouth. What 12 month-old can chew Starburst? In fact, Molly finished her piece before Tucker did.

Molly is doing things Tucker didn't do at her age. She already takes markers and crayons and draws on paper. She loves puzzles--I keep a puzzle in her crib and hear her trying to put the pieces in during naptime (and she can do ones that are easy shapes like circles). And one of her favorite things is putting things away, organizing and sorting--I think she may have gotten my organizational tendencies. And she also already knows how to jump. I don't think Tucker left the ground like that till he was two!

On a side note, Molly was 20 lbs 4 oz and 30 inches at a year, which is pretty average, though a bit tall. I realized if I don't report that here, I will forget!

Quote of the Day

2011-11-12T08:44:00.001-05:00

“My cheese is dead!!!!” –Tucker, screaming down the hall at 2 am

Lots of singing: processionals and light up shoes

2011-11-08T19:18:00.003-05:00

Here are a couple recent videos of Tucker. The first is his rendition of a processional at church… he was carrying the Swiffer around the house as a cross while chanting until Austin made one of his own. The lyrics to this song he made up make sense, but sometimes he sings Jesus chants to the tune of Old Macdonald, and in fact, the other week I think the lyrics went something like “Old Macdonald tickled Jesus….”

The second video is Tucker enjoying some new light up shoes by dancing in circles to make them light up.

Happy Halloween!

2011-11-01T14:07:00.001-04:00

We began our Halloween celebration on Friday at Tucker’s school. Everyone dressed up as a character from a story and brought their book in for show-and-tell, then they paraded around into the other four year-old class.

Tucker dressed up as Ben, our dog, this year. He was quite adamant that he was NOT Spot the dog, but I managed to still send him with a Spot book because surprisingly, Ben is not the main character in any books that we own.

I got his costume off ebay but it was too small so I had to use some fabric from the legs to extend the hood and then make the costume end with the body and not have legs. It worked well enough. Tucker was happy.

Molly enthusiastically helped celebrate at Tucker’s school. She especially enjoyed her first strawberry cupcake.

Tucker’s class (one little boy is missing)

Tucker’s beloved Miss Karen and Miss Kim

Our actual Halloween day celebration was a bit chaotic. Tucker fell asleep during rest time (a once a month occurrence) so we missed our afternoon festivities. Which meant that Molly celebrated Halloween by screaming while I put her ladybug costume on and then wearing it for about 10 minutes on the porch before going to bed. She was especially not impressed by the hood. Wearing a hood is child abuse, in case you didn’t know. But at least she posed for a few pictures. She also had a ballerina outfit, but it is a little small and I couldn’t manage to get her in it. I think if she worked on being more docile it might be possible, but not with her current commitment to cooperation and dressing up.

We ended up going trick-or-treating in a friend’s neighborhood at the last minute since we slept through our afternoon festivities. Tucker’s never done actual trick-or-treating before and I think it was a little scary but very fun. My friend Katy had told me that her neighborhood was known as THE Halloween neighborhood in our area, but I was not prepared for all the streets to be completely lined with the cars of people who had driven in just to trick-or-treat. It was a complete zoo. The houses in the neighborhood were decked out, though I celebrated by helping pass out candy while my mom accompanied the trick-or-treaters.

Ben and Ben

Enjoying the fruits of a long evening.

Me and the Old Ladies

2011-10-20T19:58:00.003-04:00

My new favorite store is Walmart these days. Me and the old ladies love those motorized handicapped carts with the little basket out front. Molly likes them too and has learned how to drive when my attention wavers for a second. She prefers to navigate the store with one hand on the wheel (is she a backseat driver already?). Tucker isn't as enthusiastic as expected, perhaps because he kept falling off. Surprisingly, those carts probably weren't designed for three people. I really should take a picture of the three of us whipping through the aisles. It definitely beats grocery shopping on crutches. (Two more weeks to go!)

Happy Birthday, Molly!

2011-10-16T08:08:00.005-04:00

Molly turned one on Saturday, and we celebrated up in Annapolis with a last trip to the Blue House.

When I think of Molly, I think of what a force she is. She is like a whirlwind, so intense and ACTIVE. I joke that she can levitate by sheer force of will. I think of unsuccessfully pinning her down for diaper changes--I really cannot change her diaper alone sometimes. Of crawling up the stairs as fast as she can, while looking back to make sure we're chasing her. Have I mentioned she is fast? Tucker never liked being outside before he could walk, Molly doesn't let a little grass stand in her way. Every pair of pants she owns have dirt stains on the knees. She loves the sandbox, driving the Cozy Coupe car, and crawling as fast as she can to the electric fence near the chicken coup (after all, what's better than electronics?). She has never fallen back to sleep in bed after nursing--not once this whole year--and instead prefers to shout at us until we get up. We are not going to get lazy on her watch.

I think of her huge smiles, and the best laugh ever. Of giving her kisses on the soft part of her neck which gets her every time. I think of her perched in Austin's arms, supervising the meal-making process (because it's always better to be in someone's arms than down on the ground).

I think of ridiculously early bedtimes, cheese as a separate food group, and sucking on bunny's ears as a pacifier. Three words: "Mama" "Dada" and "Baby" (for her bunny lovey). I think of her watching Tucker in the car, and looking at him like he walks on water. Of putting things on and off (like beads), in and out of containers, puzzle pieces--all with focused intensity and a pause to make sure she has an audience. I also think of leaving a swath of destruction... taking every plastic bag out of the sandwich bag box, and the ziplock boxes, and unrolling the foil and the plastic wrap... and then moving on to the CD drawer to chuck every CD on the ground.

I think of screaming during loud car trips, crawling up to the piano to bang on it, meals that last 30 seconds in her highchair because it's more fun to eat in our arms, and every mealtime ending by chucking everything she can find off her tray with as much force as possible.

I love you, my baby bug. I just hope we can keep up! Happy first birthday!

Mushroom Walk

2011-10-09T13:49:00.003-04:00

September had 20+ days of at least a trace amount of rain here in Virginia, which means our mushroom population enjoyed a renaissance. Tucker loves to find mushrooms and show me (it is always urgent that I drop whatever I am doing to look). I proactively addressed the situation by taking the camera and searching for every mushroom I could find with him in the yard. We got a lot. (Note, this was a couple weeks ago, the crutches have put a damper on these kind of activities for the moment!)

Quote of the Day

2011-10-09T13:47:00.002-04:00

"I want to play golfball!" -Tucker

(Any real sport apparently needs to end in "ball")

Bye Bye Marathon, Hello Crutches

2011-10-05T16:17:00.003-04:00

Well, my plans for the Richmond marathon are done. I did a little 10k race two and a half weeks ago, and noticed a little groin pain about mile 3. That's odd, I had thought, and continued to run. After all, the pain wasn't so bad. Until I stopped. Fast forward to now: the MRI yesterday confirmed a pelvic stress fracture, which are "notoriously difficult to heal." Hmmm... not what I like to hear from my doctor.

I am the proud new owner of a set of crutches. Gee, thanks.

Thankfully I am physically able to walk in a pinch, but I've learned enough about these fractures to have great respect for how long they take to heal if not treated well. Based on the internet forums I spent copious amounts of time last night perusing, it seems pretty common for people to report being out of running for a year. I'm hoping for three months.

Right now I can't even really pool run. I actually was pool running for the past two weeks, and that was what convinced me that I couldn't possibly have a stress fracture. Stress fractures are only supposed to hurt after doing weight bearing activities, but somehow mine hurts after I pool run... so it HAD to be muscular....

It is a little tricky navigating the world with a baby on the hip and crutches. The pic is of me looking particularly svelt this morning trying out the front pack-crutch combo.

Quotes of the Day

2011-10-03T19:13:00.002-04:00

Tucker: We're animals too, right, because we're camels?
Austin: You mean mammals?
Tucker: Yep, mammals.

*******************************

Tucker: What are you going to do with all this basil?
Me: I'm going to make pesto.
Tucker: No, let's make pie with it.

Quote of the Day - the Facts of Life

2011-10-02T17:26:00.001-04:00

"Did Benny come out of Mommy's tummy?"
-Tucker

Quote of the Day

2011-10-01T10:23:00.002-04:00

Tucker: Let's go ask Daddy! He knows EVERYTHING.
Me: He does?
Tucker: Yes, I think he does.

Sock + Ben = Sad Dog

2011-09-30T14:14:00.004-04:00

Ben is recovering after having an adventure with one of Austin's socks this week. Namely, Ben ATE one of Austin's sock, and unlike Tucker's or Molly's socks (which he routinely eat), Austin's socks are large and it got stuck.

But, rest assured, with a one night stay at the vet, the sock passed through our valiant dog without surgery. The vet also took a picture of the amount of grass that Ben threw up after he arrived, apparently it was about 8 cups worth and completely astounding. You gotta give a dog kudos for being able to impress a vet with something like that, because usually they've seen it all.

The minute Ben got into the car on our way home, he grabbed a plastic bag and started eating it.

Will he never learn?

Quote of the Day

2011-09-26T16:09:00.002-04:00

Today Tucker was talking about whether dinosaurs were real, and trying to make sense of them being extinct. He said, "Did the dinosaurs die on the cross?" Then he asked if they were in heaven with Jesus and if heaven is big enough to fit dinosaurs.

According to Tucker clowns, pogo sticks and pillow fights are NOT real.

Quote of the Day

2011-09-21T14:51:00.001-04:00

Tucker: What’s that on the floor?

Me: A tomato peel.

Tucker: No, it’s a red frog!!

Happy Fourth Birthday, Tucker!

2011-09-19T18:27:00.001-04:00

Tucker turned four yesterday. We celebrated with a fun party with friends on Saturday, a family party on Sunday, green and yellow cupcakes, a Mickey Mouse cake and a homemade pinata (which incidentally is not a great craft to do with a four year-old).

It is unbelievable how big Tucker has gotten; he is definitely a little boy now, and his toddler-ness is long gone. It is bittersweet for me to see him grow out of the cute baby stage into such a fun, fast-moving, independent boy. I love that he still is a snuggler so I can still get short moments of holding my oldest baby tight!

It has been fun to see Tucker’s personality continue to emerge and flourish this year; especially with Molly in the picture I feel like I now have a little bit more of a reference point about what is Tucker and what is a developmental stage.

When I think of Tucker, I think:

Kind. He is so gentle hearted and truly thinks and cares for others. When he hears Molly cry, he runs to her saying, “I’m coming, my baby!”

Sensitive. His eyes frequently well up with tears at a sharp word. Oh, how I wish I had more patience!

Talkative. He literally talks non-stop. He can talk even the (second) most talkative person I know into the ground!

Focused. When I see him with other kids his age, Tucker is definitely on the serious end of things, and he has a level of focus for things that interest him beyond his years.

Outdoorsy. He knows more about what’s going on outside our house—the chickens, the garden, etc.—than I do. He’s like the postal service: neither sleet nor slow nor rain nor anything can keep him from going outside.

Reserved. Tucker isn’t truly shy, but it takes him a little bit of time to warm up to a new situation.

Creative. Tucker marches to the beat of a different drummer. He loves getting dressed up in crazy outfits, he loves crafts and making things—but he wants to do it HIS way, which is more interesting. He is beginning to show interest in sports, but he has little interest in rules and organized games.

A few other odds and ends:

Tucker’s favorite color is green. Yellow is second, but no longer tied for first. Tucker frequently checks what Austin’s wearing before he picks what he will wear for the day. Tucker’s favorite toys are his ride-on truck and his Magna Doodle. He especially loves to attach the shopping cart to the truck so that he can tow a trailer.

Tucker loves to play hide and seek, make caves, play the tackle-wrestle game with Daddy, hold hands with Molly in the car, pick anything in the garden, check on the chickens, help Austin with projects, read in his room. He has left his obsession with cars and trucks behind and I rarely see him playing with them anymore. He prefers art and music and puzzles.

Oh, my boy, I love you! Happy Birthday!

Yogurt Really Is a Finger Food

2011-09-16T07:53:00.001-04:00

Molly does not like to be fed anymore. She is irritated by the idea that she can’t do everything by herself. But… she loves yogurt. What’s a mama to do?

A: Make yogurt balls.

If you mix yogurt with enough rice cereal it goes from a liquid into a solid, and becomes a finger food. I have felt pretty smart for my mad mama skills… until this morning when Molly set out to prove to me that she can turn solid yogurt into liquid yogurt again if she rubs it on her tray enough.

As you can tell from the pictures, she was pretty pleased with herself.

Pillow Wipes

2011-09-15T21:21:00.001-04:00

Tucker has been talking endlessly about pillow wipes lately. It took me a long time to figure out what he was talking about. He told me pillow wipes were not real. He told me they were like diapers getting all strewn about the living room floor. That was about as much description as I could get out of him.

So… take a guess… what ARE pillow wipes?

PILLOW FIGHTS! Apparently he misheard the word on a Winnie the Pooh cartoon and thought they were an item, like a baby wipe. That item, I think in his mind was the pillow disintegrating into bunches of feathers all over the room.

Austin and Tucker had a pillow fight before nap time, but Tucker is still not convinced that they are anything other than pillow wipes. And that they are not real.

Incidentally, I also learned from Tucker that pogo sticks are not real because Tigger used one in the mud. No amount of convincing could change that opinion either.

Quote of the Day

2011-09-10T19:53:00.001-04:00

“I’m a little wiggly so I need some popcorn so I can stop wiggling.”

-Tucker

Obviously.

Hide and Seek with Tucker

2011-09-10T19:50:00.001-04:00

Tucker loves to play Hide and Seek. Playing with him is a unique experience.

First, his counting is always different every time. Today he counted to 10 three different ways!

1-2-3-4-7-8-9-10

1-2-3-4-7-10

1-2-3-4-10

He also likes to tell me where to hide. Then he counts and goes looking for me, and pretends to be shocked when he finds me. He also likes to tell me where he is going to hide, and is similarly delighted when I (shockingly) find him.

Usually Molly hides with me, and thinks the game is the best too and squeals wherever we hide, which tends to take away any remaining suspense.

P.S. Here are my Redskins twins. Tucker discovered that Molly has a Redskins jersey that fits and has wanted both of them to wear their jerseys and match most days this week.

Alice in Wonderland

2011-09-09T19:03:00.001-04:00

Last night I led a discussion at my book group about Alice in Wonderland. I vaguely remember reading it as a child, and after several years of picking bad books to lead, I’ve decided to stick with classic kids lit. At least it will 1) be short and 2) not be racy. (Yes, one year I picked a Kingsolver book that involved a lot of fecundity that really wasn’t what I was hoping to discuss with lots of friends from church.)

I actually did not enjoy the book. I kept wanting to find the point, the plot, the action, the logic. And that’s the problem, the book has no plot. It’s entirely character driven, which is a bit hard for this Type-A person to appreciate. The characters are crazy, and fascinating, but there’s also this somnolent air of boredom.

It is definitely the best book I’ve ever read in recreating what a dream feels like, with the crazy nonsensical scenes coming one after the other with only vague connection. There are other fantastical dream-like children’s books (Peter Pan, Wizard of Oz) but both are still more more plot driven. The feeling of the book, the disconnected-bored-slightly crazy-disjointed dream-like state actually reminds me of the feeling I got from reading Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

But, the beauty of book group was that I left having an appreciation for the book. I went in wondering how in the world this could have been the most popular children’s book in England for years and years and remain popular worldwide even today, and I emerged with the answer: the book approximates how a child thinks. A child experiences the world as a succession of scenes, with little framework to connect them all, little understanding of why X is happening or past/future. Instead the child is essentially in an eternal present, enjoying each experience as it comes along without connection to anything else.

I also realized that the Alice stories also are somewhat similar to stories I make up with Tucker. We like to play a game with his sticker book, where he picks a scene and I start to tell a story about the scene. One by one he puts down random stickers and I have to include them all in the story. This delights Tucker to no end, and it IS possible to connect almost any disparate random sticker but it does produce a certain Alice-like quality.

First Day of School

2011-09-08T16:13:00.001-04:00

How did my boy get so big? It is amazing. This is him on his first day of school yesterday, totally excited, after having a fabulous day. This next picture makes Tucker look like he’s about 8. I can’t believe how big he is.

We tried on clothes the other day, to make sure things still fit, and I discovered his new shoe size: size 13. What? Here’s a picture of how big his shoe is compared to mine. I’m getting nostalgic….

And here’s his first day of school art work:

He even got a “Terrific Ticket” (for doing something terrific that his teachers saw) on the first day and has been going around showing it to me ever since. Aw.

Quote of the Day

2011-09-08T16:04:00.001-04:00

Tucker: Can I have Ducky?

Austin: No, we’re eating dinner.

Tucker: I’m not going to eat him!

Peach Picking

2011-08-30T08:23:00.003-04:00

The cousins went peach picking together yesterday and had a fabulous time bouncing in the little red wagon.

Quotes of the Day

2011-08-30T08:18:00.005-04:00

"You guys think I'm a nut but I'm not." -Tucker, out of the blue one morning during breakfast

*****************

Austin: A couple more minutes in the garden and then it'll be night-night time, little buddy.
Tucker: A couple more minutes in the garden and then it'll be night-night time, big buddy.

*****************

Tucker: Why does the screen make noise when I shut it?
Me: Because it's hitting the door jam.
Tucker: Ha! That's funny. The door isn't jam!
Me: [Trying to explain...]
Tucker: The door jam is not the kind of jam we eat?
Me: No.
Tucker: The door jam is not sticky like the kind of jam we eat.

Produce Flaunting

2011-08-30T08:13:00.002-04:00

We have been accused of produce flaunting because of this impressive display of butternut squash in our windowsill. There are several more in our pantry (ones with blemishes that won't store well) and more than a dozen still out there. If you had this much butternut squash wouldn't you flaunt it too? Of course, the only thing better than this much butternut squash would be this much of several varieties of squash because then it'd be even prettier. :)

Quote of the Day

2011-08-21T07:42:00.001-04:00

Tucker: What are you making?
Me: Diced tomatoes.
Tucker: Dust tomatoes? Ha! That's funny. [Driving around on his truck, looking around the kitchen] I see dust tomatoes!

[This was actually from several weeks ago, but I was waiting to upload a picture, and then forgot. They don't look very impressive because I should've cooked them down longer so the sauce would be thicker and they wouldn't separate like they are in the picture. Oh well.)

Home Sweet Home

2011-08-20T20:50:00.007-04:00

We arrived home Friday evening after our epic East Coast road trip. We were gone 12 days, stayed in 5 different places and spent 6 days in the car (well, 4 full days and 2 half days). It is so good to be home.

Molly celebrated by sleeping 18.5 hours yesterday.

The highlight of the trip was the time we spent at my mom's house in Vermont. We got to relax, see friends and play. The second week we also saw a lot of friends and my new nephew Dylan, but had to battle through several cold rainy days at camp in Maine, very little sleep, and then several grueling back-to-back days in the car. On our way home I spent a lot of time looking at the Virginia page of our atlas, noting all the fun vacation spots within a four hour driving radius. :)

Here are some pictures:

Vermont

2011-08-13T19:51:00.003-04:00

A few videos from our time at my mom's house. Her connection is so much faster than ours, I need to post videos while I can!

Molly picking blueberries:

Tucker blueberry picking:

Tucker and my mom doing a dress-up parade (there have been a lot of parades this week at her house):

On an unrelated note, I was a bit surprised at lunch yesterday that our waitress didn't know that wheat was in all bread. Hmmmm.

Where does milk come from?

2011-08-10T15:26:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, on the second day of our drive to Vermont, we started passing a lot of dairy farms. I told Tucker that those cows give us the milk we buy.

Tucker: Where does the milk come from?
Me: People milk the cows....
Tucker [interrupting]: I think they put buckets under the cows and catch all their poop. Cows' poop is white, and that is how we get milk.

We have since cleared up the confusion. It turns out milk is NOT cow poop.

In other news, we arrived at my mom's house in Vermont yesterday afternoon after a relatively good (but long) car trip. We were concerned Molly might scream for hours on end like she did on the way to Chattanooga, but we thankfully managed to avoid endless screaming. Of course, she barely slept. What other 9 month old only naps for 40 minutes on a 8 hour car ride? That is a LONG time for her to entertain herself. I went to the thrift store last week and got a bag of items that she had never seen before so I could give her new things in rapid succession. The list included: my little pony, baby doll that talked, kaleidescope, bracelets, light up squishy ball, etc. It was well worth $6.93.

We spent the night at a Days Inn in New York on the way. We splurged on two rooms because there was no way anyone would sleep if all four of us plus the dog were in one. Plus, what in the world do you do when the baby needs to go to sleep at 6 pm but it's a wee bit early for the rest of the family to retire?

Tucker and Molly were thrilled by the hotel. Molly chased Tucker around the rooms, and Tucker wanted to go to bed right away (at 5:30 pm) because he was so excited about the bed. Tucker was also thrilled that he'd be in the same room as Molly. She went down a little after 6, and was quickly out like a light. We sent him in somewhat after 7:30 pm. For the first half hour he was totally silent and we thought he was asleep. But then the excitement got to him and he started making a bit more noise, and woke Molly up (she's a very light sleeper). Then he spent the next hour making faces and hamming it up for her while she sat up in her crib and grinned at each other. Silly kids.

Today is our first full day in Vermont and we had gorgeous weather this morning to pick a ton of blueberries and take a ferry on a 20 minute ride across Lake Champlain. I think I can get used to this vacation thing.

Molly's Unusual Eating Habits

2011-08-07T21:36:00.003-04:00

I was nursing Molly before she went to bed tonight; like usual she was totally distracted. The world is very interesting and new when you're nine months old. She has a habit of eating for a few seconds, then arching her back and looking around, then eating some more. Tonight I noticed a new variation on the theme: she would nurse for a few seconds, then come off and eat her toe for awhile, nurse for awhile, then eat her toe some more. She seemed equally pleased with both of her eating options.

Quote of the Day

2011-08-02T08:06:00.002-04:00

I was looking at a pair of shoes online, which were pictured lying on some gravel or something. Tucker was working at his Magna Doodle next to me, and turned to look at my computer.

Tucker: What are the sandals doing there? Why is no one wearing them? Because the sandals are dead? And no one can wear them if they're dead?

Hmmmm....

Quote of the Day

2011-07-31T07:42:00.001-04:00

Tucker: What are you making?
Me: Diced tomatoes.
Tucker: Dust tomatoes? Ha! That's funny. [Driving around on his truck, looking around the kitchen] I see dust tomatoes!

Quote of the Day

2011-07-30T15:58:00.001-04:00

"I want to watch Build the Bobder!" Tucker (ie Bob the Builder)

Climbing Stairs, Throwing Food and More

2011-07-27T19:49:00.004-04:00

A day in the life of my kiddos....

Tucker singing "Patty Cake" to Molly... though for some reason he has turned it into "Peavey Cheek" instead of Patty Cake.

Molly crawling up the stairs and feeling very pleased with herself. She's only 9 months old, I can't believe she can do this already!

Oops... did I throw that? (Molly eating.)

Tucker explaining why it's necessary for Molly to swing with Ducky. I listen to these explanations all day long (and they are usually much more elaborate!)

Molly pics

2011-07-27T19:34:00.001-04:00

Molly loves to smile for the camera so I get so many good pictures. She's a cutie!!!!

This is her doing her favorite activity: organizing our CDs/DVDs. It's Austin and my favorite activity too, because she doesn't ask to be held.

Garden of Eden

2011-07-27T19:10:00.008-04:00

A month ago our garden looked impressive, but we weren't actually doing a lot of eating from it. The bounty arrived a couple weeks ago, and we are striving to keep up. Austin is an amazing, devoted gardener and Tucker is his little apprentice. Tucker can't help himself but spend his days in the garden. Every opportunity he is out there checking for raspberries and corn and cucumbers.
Amazing corn...

Next year we'll do bush beans so it's easier for Tucker to pick

Raspberries and blackberries are threatening to take over the world!

We planted lettuce in a pot on the north side of the house this year so we can have some even when it is really hot--we need to do more next year because it worked!

I love winter squash!

Good thing we have a whole field of it!!!

These are our cukes starting to climb a trellis (we succession planted them after the sugar snap peas).

LOTS of tomatoes. I think I have some canning to do! We are especially loving the Roma tomatoes.

We actually have peppers this year!

Tomatoes and blackberries from today...

Tomatoes from yesterday (plus the pot of tomato soup I made in the fridge!)

Carrots galore!

My gardening efforts with the flowers are so sad compared to Austin's green thumb in the vegetable garden. But then again, my "efforts" are just about nonexistent!

Quotes of the Day

2011-07-26T16:32:00.004-04:00

"We're skipping rest time just like chickens!" -Tucker

Heat Wave

2011-07-22T19:55:00.003-04:00

It's hot here today. The heat index was supposed to be 118 degrees because of the unprecedented humidity (and this is Virginia, it's always humid here), though the actual temperature was "only" in the low 100s.

What I really want to say, though, is that my beloved husband is crazy. He worked out today, outside, lifting weights, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. The temperature in the weight shed? 107 degrees. Really? Who does that?

Quote of the Day

2011-07-21T09:32:00.000-04:00

"When will we blow dry the bananas?" -Tucker

Videos: Molly Crawling and Molly Shouting

2011-07-14T09:23:00.002-04:00

T-minus Four Months...

2011-07-13T19:40:00.004-04:00

...until my first marathon! I've always figured I'd do one sometime or other, so a couple of months ago I felt like I needed a personal challenge that broke the monotony of stay-at-home-motherhood and decided why not now?

So far training is going well. I have some nagging IT bands (knee) that like to get tight, but nothing that ice isn't keeping under control. This is impressive to me because I always get hurt when I run on treadmills, but because of the summer heat and a lack of childcare, I'm having to do a lot of my running in the gym where they will take my kiddos.

I'm doing a local training program, though I haven't actually started doing my long runs with them (apparently for Nov. marathons, you don't actually need to really increase your mileage substantially til end of July/beginning of August). But the great thing about this training program is that I'm learning a lot of interesting tidbits about running.
1) The less noise you hear when your foot strikes the road, the less pounding you're putting on your body. This is totally obvious, but I never knew that before.

2) The most common cause of shin splints after bad shoes is over-striding (taking too long of a stride). For every 20 seconds, one foot should land on the ground 30 times. This is easy to count when you run.

3) Hydration belts are awesome. I haven't been drinking anything on my long runs until this past week when I got a Nathan hydration belt. It was amazing, and it made 12 miles feel like a breeze.

4) The closer your long run gets to being 50% of your miles for the week, the likelihood you'll get injured goes way up.

5) The best treadmill ever is a Woodway. It is unlike any other treadmill I've been on. It's full suspension with rubber treads and feels like you're running on air.

6) Running at a 0% incline on a treadmill is like running on a .5% negative slope outside, so I always set my incline to at least 1%.

7) The first mile should always be your slowest, and the first 3 miles of a marathon should be your slowest.

The training program has all these pace charts about your marathon potential based on your average long run pace, and a two mile time trial. It's fascinating, but I feel like it's baloney. I can't imagine finishing in less than 4:30 but the pace charts say my race potential is closer to 4. Riiiight.

Probably the most helpful thing about the training program is that I have to fill out a detailed daily training log so it is keeping my nose to the grindstone and me on target to meet my weekly mileage targets. Right now I'm at 30, but I think the goal is to be at 55 before November.

Two Pleasant Surprises: Pingo and HP Customer Service

2011-07-13T19:37:00.000-04:00

I have had two really great experiences lately with companies. First is Pingo, a calling card company. I know, no one uses calling cards anymore, except me, but if you do, Pingo's the way to go. It has an easy access number to remember (1-888-YO-PINGO) and it recognizes the phone you're calling from so you can just enter the number you want to call directly. Amazing. They need to do a better job advertising... or maybe the problem is that there are so many other random calling card companies out there advertising it's hard to wade through the junk and figure out which one's actually have a decent product.

My second commendation of the night is for Hewlett Packard customer service. My laptop has been having a power issue, and since it's under warranty, I've needed to be in contact with them. First, I didn't have to call and wait and talk to anyone at any point during my experience. Instead, I just had to email, and tech support got back to me within a couple hours EVERY SINGLE TIME. Amazing. The tech support didn't work and I had to mail it in for a repair (twice). Then they forgot to send my power cord back. Then they only sent half a power cord back. So I'm not saying HP necessarily has great computers, or that they are good at repairing them... but at least they are responsive and it is an easy process. THAT is worth a lot to me. If it was Dell I would have had to be on the phone for hours and hours to deal with these issues. I probably would have just given up.

Tucker's Steadfast Love

2011-07-12T19:33:00.006-04:00

Over the past year Tucker's interests have broadened from a fixation on moving vehicles to art and music and books (along with enduring favorites gardening and home improvement). But two things remain that have stood the test of time: Tucker's ride-on plastic truck and the Wheels on the Bus CD. It is amazing to me the enduring charm of these two things. Tucker never tires of them. Obsessed is another word. I'll be interested to see if Tucker makes a fuss when Molly starts loving his ride-on truck too.

In other news, Tucker has started napping again. He's napped more in the past couple months than in the year before that. Bizarre but nice (except for the fact that I lose Molly's entertainment for the afternoon when he sleeps).

Molly's Accomplishments

2011-07-12T19:18:00.002-04:00

Molly is taking off right now and I am running behind, trying to keep up. She has been scooching around a bit for several weeks, but yesterday she perfected a true let's-chase-a-ball-across-the-room crawl. A few days ago she also learned how to pull herself up. Yesterday I watched my little baby crawl over to her brother playing at the train table and pull herself up next to him to play with him. How can she possibly be that big already? It is amazing.

I've spent today trying to make our house a little bit more safe for her now that she has access to everything knee height and below. It's a challenge with Tucker around too. I sequestered all his tiny toys and removed the balloons Tucker loves to play with (choking hazard if they pop), and then vacuumed everything is sight, especially the bugs that somehow come into our house and die on the floor. Molly apparently finds them fascinating and tasty.

It's so fun watching her enjoy her new abilities, but it is a tough stage for me. She pulls up, but she has no sense to hang on. She pulls up but she's wobbly and falls backwards or forwards. And she has radar for little shiny objects like coins.

Her other amazing accomplishment is four new teeth that have poked through in the past week, all at once. She is celebrating this accomplishment with no longer wanting baby food. Her skills at regular food are a bit lacking at this point, so mealtimes consist of her yelling at us, not wanting to be in her high chair, and then trying to grab our food and fling it onto the floor when we hold her.

Wishing you a belated Happy Fourth of July! Here are pics from the neighborhood parade that Tucker and Molly marched in in Annapolis.

Warrior Princess Shouting

2011-07-05T19:33:00.004-04:00

Today we were pondering the meaning of names on our ride back from spending the Fourth of July in Annapolis. Molly spent most of the ride home yelling at us, loudly. That girl is feisty! At 8 months old she is starting to crawl, can go from lying down to sitting up, and is generally about ready to conquer the world. She likes to yell during mealtime, regardless of whether she likes what she's eating or wants to continue to eat. Austin was speculating in the car that maybe "Molly" means "little lion ready to devour daddy" or something like that. The actual meaning is "bitter" (or, if you want to be all positive on us, "of the sea"). I don't think our Molly is bitter, I think the meaning really should be "warrior princess emitting blood-curdling screams" or something like that.

As for the rest of us...

Tucker: Derived from the Old English verb "to torment", for someone who softens freshly woven cloth by beating and trampling it under water. Hmmm... I'm not sure what else to say.

Jacqueline (female version of Jacques, which is a version of Jacob): 1) May God protect or 2) Supplanter (ie Jacob supplanted Esau's birthright). So I guess I'm a protector and poser at the same time.

Austin: Great or Magnificent. Boring (not you, sweetie!).

HGTV

2011-06-20T08:31:00.003-04:00

Helen and her friend, fabulous interior designer Jay Alexander, visited last week. After their visit I had a new house! Furniture magically switched places and somehow it all ended up looking better than it did to start. Jay also gave me some good ideas for future projects, and some ideas I'm still warming up to, like painting my kitchen red! The only person sad about the changes is Tucker who keeps asking "will the rooms NEVER go back to how they were?" My son does not like change, so I've simply stopped trying to convince him that these changes are good.

Sunroom:

Living Room:

Dining Room:

My office... oh, wait, a gigantic four person tent appeared in the middle of the room--I don't think Jay recommended that!

Quote of the Day #41

2011-06-20T08:28:00.002-04:00

"Will you keep growing and need a new house like a snail does?" -Tucker

Quote of the Day #40

2011-06-13T14:23:00.001-04:00

"Molly June Bug is my little present from God." -Tucker

Quote of the Day #39

2011-06-13T08:39:00.001-04:00

"Dear Jesus, thank you for our baby. Can you give us another baby when our baby grows up? Amen." -Tucker (have I mentioned Tucker REALLY loves Molly?!)

Quote of the Day #38

2011-06-10T08:10:00.001-04:00

"Mommy, I think I have a bug in my eye. How will we get it out? I don't think the dustbuster will be able to get it out." -Tucker

Sleeping in a bucket

2011-06-07T19:41:00.004-04:00

Tucker has taken to napping again sometimes if I tire him sufficiently out at the pool. Of course, the boy does not nap conventionally. He burrows under sheets and blankets and falls asleep in "caves" or, even better, falls asleep with his head in a bucket. Hmmmmm....

He also enthusiastically wears one of my shirts to bed sometimes. Since the shirt "fits" him, he is convinced that he and I are the same size. The pic below is him making dried bananas with me first thing in the morning. Whenever I ask what he dreamt about, he always says "I dreamed about making ____ [insert whatever fun food he wants to eat]."

Here's Tucker with his first face painting. A yellow shark on one cheek and a green fish on the other. Whenever we go to a place where there's face painting the line is sooooooo long. I decided to buy face paints so we could do it at home and dissolve the mystery behind the activity and hopefully skip some long lines in the future. We'll see how it works.

And here are my kiddos at the dentist today. Tucker was not interested in sitting in the chair this time, but I told him he could hold Molly if he sat right in it. So yes, he got his teeth cleaned with his baby sister in his lap. She was enthusiastic about everything and seemed very intent on discovering what this teeth thing is all about (I keep thinking she's about to get teeth b/c she gnaws on everything, all the time, but so far nothing but cute little baby gums).

Some other highlights recently include:
*Tucker giving Molly his ducky or Willis and going without one of them himself so that she can have a "special sleep." Wow. That is love.
*A new obsession with blow drying hair. Apparently his preschool teacher Ms. Betty blow dries her hair. It is a great treat for him these days, though he was a bit confused at first about whether a blow dryer was or was not a hair clipper for actually cutting hair.
*Speaking of confusion, I am continually entertained by Tucker's use of hot/cold. He says things like "I am SO hot, let's snuggle under the blanket." or "I am SO cold, let's turn on the fan." Of course, most of the time he is neither hot nor cold and just wants to make a "snuggle-sleep-party-cave" or play with a fan. He also continually misuses the concept of "later." Whenever I say later he immediately launches into a "Will we never do that again???" in quite the sob story voice. I must hear that question 20 times a day, even about things he doesn't particularly like to do.

Quote of the Day

2011-06-02T18:14:00.002-04:00

"Mommy, why do you have berry feet?"
-Tucker, wondering why I changed shoes at a stoplight. He is convinced that shoe-less feet are "berry" feet not "bare" feet

Memorial Day

2011-05-30T17:06:00.007-04:00

Happy Memorial Day! We are in Lookout Mountain, Georgia overlooking the grand city of Chattanooga, Tennessee where Liz and Matt live. This is our first trip down, and it has been a wonderfully relaxing weekend, at least after we arrived. Driving down was a bit dicey. A couple weeks ago Austin said he was nervous about Molly and the 8 hour-plus drive. I told him that Molly has never cried in the car and she'd do fine. Ha! Sometimes my husband is right.

Molly celebrated the trip by screaming. She is a feisty little thing and got it in her mind that she did not want to be in her car seat and did not want to sleep... and she expressed her opinion at top volume for most of the drive, just wailing. At one point Tucker was so sick of her crying that he decided to join in and hysterically screamed as well (sort of in jest, thankfully, but that only made the situation a little bit better). It was so ridiculous I ended up taking a few videos of the car ride just for posterity, which there is no need to share unless you enjoy the sound of a baby crying. A lot.

Ben came with us on the trip, and has been the highlight of the vacation for cousin Emery. She crawls around the house after him and says "da B" ("the Ben"). She is very respectful of him, almost in awe, but is totally, completely obsessed. She will need to come live with us in the summers as her parents say there is no dog in her future at home.

In other news about Ben, he is too old to jump into the back of the car, so we have to lift him up and down every time. He doesn't like this. The second morning we were here, he snookered someone into letting him outside to do his business and took off to explore the neighborhood. This was highly out of character as he hadn't even eaten his breakfast. I guess he is having as much fun here as we are.

Other highlights: a hike, a party yesterday (the girls wore matching dresses courtesy of Henny), and visiting downtown Chattanooga. Fun!!! You really need to check out the picture of Austin and the kids on the hike--wearing Molly in the front pack while having Tucker ride on his shoulders. Pretty impressive.

Recent pics

2011-05-25T18:25:00.003-04:00

Kiddos hanging out at church...

Mad baby!

Kite festival

Ben doing some babysitting

Quote of the Day

2011-05-24T20:50:00.001-04:00

"Let's stay in bed all day, snuggling like puppies!" -Tucker

"This looks like chocolate." -Tucker, holding a piece of ginger

Quote of the Day

2011-05-23T08:01:00.002-04:00

"My tummy hurts. I think if I watch TV it will feel better."
-Tucker

Kite festival

2011-05-22T08:09:00.004-04:00

Yesterday the kids and I went to a kite festival while Austin worked all day. We had a good time and I have pictures to post later. Tucker was a lot more interested in the moon bounces and picnicking than actually watching or flying kites, and we had a fun morning. When Austin arrived home, he asked Tucker what his favorite part of the kite festival was. Immediately Tucker said, "I LOVED the bathrooms!" No discussion of moon bounce or the bubble machine or the new playground or the kites or our picnic--nope, Tucker loved the port-a-potties.

Some other endearing things Tucker has started doing:
*When someone calls, Tucker wants to speak with them, no matter who it is. If it's someone he actually knows, he gets the phone and runs away with it so he can have a long and private conversation.
*Tucker got into a phase recently where he spent a lot of time making snacks. He would get a container and go into the pantry and mix together as many different snacky things as he could find, stir them with a spoon and divide it all up into a bunch of different containers. Ben liked this phase a lot.
*Whenever I ask Tucker what he dreamed about he always replies "making muffins!" and then promptly asks if we can make some.
*Tucker loves mailing letters right now. He has been stealing so many of my envelopes I finally got him some little ones of his own at the dollar store. He stuffs them full of paper and other random things and I'm pretty sure he will find a way to get them into the mailbox.
*When we go on walks and there is no mail, Tucker is so disappointed that we have gotten into a routine of finding a special treasure--usually a stick or a pine cone--to put into the mailbox so it won't be empty. I think our mailman is probably confused. A couple months ago Tucker fervently wanted to paint our mailbox so it could be "beau-T-full" but thankfully seems to have forgotten about this project for the moment.
*Tucker loves getting his own cup of tea in the mornings. He specifies what kind of tea it is. Today he is drinking "Daddy Tea mixed with Big Boy Tea" but sometimes he wants "Mommy Tea" instead.
*Tucker loves investigating his closet and pulling out clothes that I've squirreled away for when he's bigger. He has found some car pajamas and a car sweatshirt, new khakis, new shoes... and each of these things are so much more special since he discovered them. Of course, we never know what he might be wearing when we go into his room after rest time.
*Tucker LOVES the dustbuster and the vacuum. He loves the vacuum's "magic wand" attachment and is on a personal mission with the dustbuster to rid our house of stinkbugs.

Tucker is also in a phase where he has been doing some not-so-endearing things as well. The past couple months have been very challenging for us in terms of discipline. Tucker is focused, reserved, exuberant, cautious... and very strong willed. Recently we have removed almost all of Tucker's toys in the house to get his attention regarding some major behavior things, and I have learned that he is also very resourceful. The toys have been gone for at least a week and a half and although he's noticed, he has had no lack of things to do. Everything that boy puts his hands on--Austin's tools, cooking stuff, Molly's toys, Molly herself, Ben's toys, the dustbuster, the vacuum, cleaning supplies, gardening things, CDs (even without a CD player), his own clothes, the chickens, and especially paper and writing utensils--becomes a toy.

In other news, Ben surprised me this morning with throwing up a good sized piece of gravel/small rock--probably 3/4 of an inch by an inch and a half. He has eaten and thrown up many, many different things but a rock is new. It must've felt like having a pill stuck in his throat, except for the fact it was about 50 times the size and sharp.

B

2011-05-11T15:25:00.003-04:00

Tucker loves to begin words with a "b" regardless of whether they start with it or not.

Here are some of the b-words he's been using lately:
b-monitor (monitor)
b-mote (remote)
b-nelope (Penelope, a girl in his class)
b-grola (granola)
b-nilla (vanilla)
b-flower (flower)
b-parade (parade)
b-tivity (nativity)

Not sure why everything is better with a b, but apparently it is, and I never correct him because it's so darn cute.

Quote of the Day

2011-05-07T14:10:00.003-04:00

Tucker and Austin are driving together and they pass a port-a-potty by the side of the road.

Tucker: I LOVE those potties! They are my favorite!

Hmmmm... I think we need to give Tucker some lessons in class.

Quote of the Day

2011-05-06T07:53:00.001-04:00

"Someday, Mommy, will we go to all the libraries in the whole wide world?" -Tucker

Quote of the Day

2011-05-04T20:46:00.004-04:00

Tucker runs into the kitchen and says to me, "I was making Molly into a cake!"
Tucker runs back to Molly and says, "I'm going to eat you right up, little cake!"

The pictures below are of Molly as a cake.

Molly is 6 months old

2011-04-29T19:38:00.005-04:00

Molly June bug hit the half-year mark a couple weeks ago, so I think it's time to give a little baby update. I've been thinking about how Molly is different from how Tucker was at her age. So far what I've noticed is:

1) Molly is not as snuggly. She tends to keep her head up (not nuzzled into you), and she doesn't like to be held all the time. When she is held, she prefers to face outward so she can see what is going on.
2) She is a go-getter. She lunges for what she wants and is a persistent and clear communicater.
3) She doesn't like to be dirty. Tucker couldn't have cared less about messy diapers.
4) She is more physical than Tucker was. She turned over a lot earlier and the thrill of being able to do that herself makes her like tummy time a lot. I suspect she'll crawl way before Tucker did--she already manages to thump, thrust, rotate, and twist all over her crib (actually, I just ordered a breathable crib bumper so that she will stop getting stuck in the slats). She sleeps on her stomach now that she can put herself in that position.
5) She is less cautious than Tucker. She likes to be swung fast and thrown into the air... this is how to get her really laughing. Tucker was always a bit unsure about these things till he got used to them.
6) She loves to eat. Tucker refused solids till he was almost a year whereas Molly was drooling over our food by 3 months. She leans in and tries to get what we're eating. She has sucked the juice out of a broccoli twig, has gnawed on spiral ham for Easter, mashed up sweet potato fries and insists on three meals of solids a day (in addition to not giving up any nursing sessions). The funny thing is that even with her zest for food, she is much smaller than Tucker--she weighed in at 16 lbs 8 oz at 6.5 months, which is 12 oz less than Tucker weighed at 4 months.
7) I think Molly's not as smiley as Tucker. When she does smile, her whole face lights up; she has a truly beautiful smile that illuminates her. She's not stingy on her smiles, but my memory of Tucker is that he was always grinning.
8) She is not as good a napper as Tucker. Part of this is due to the fact that her naps have to work around our schedule, but Tucker was much more consistent.
9) She is much more focused on other kids. Obviously this is due to having a big brother, but if she has a slightly older child to watch, she will be entranced.
10) She loves TV. Tucker didn't notice TV till a lot older, but Molly has been craning her head around to watch for several months now.
11) She loves Ben. If Ben is around, she has a hard time eating because she just wants to watch him (and he loves to be around Molly during mealtime). I don't remember Tucker having this fascination with Ben so early.

Ways my kiddos are the same:
1) They are both stinkers with refusing bottles. We are trying with a sippy cup for Molly now because at least she enjoys it and doesn't scream.
2) They both love to be outdoors. This is the antidote to fussiness.

Ways Molly and I are the same:
1) We hum when we eat something we like.

We love you, Molly June Bug!

Quote of the Day

2011-04-28T18:00:00.001-04:00

Austin: I need a beer.
Tucker: You need a deer? Where is the deer?

The obsession continues....

"Cute Little Fella"

2011-04-25T18:34:00.004-04:00

-Austin, talking about the four inch gecko/salamander-esque lizard that has gotten into our house.

I don't appreciate lizards inside my house. Let's rephrase that a little more accurately: I hate lizards in my house. But Austin has a point, and here's why:

I was downstairs on my computer last week and I heard Austin say "Oh, crap!" as he went up the stairs. Since he didn't call for me, I stayed put, wondering what was going on (if it was something about the kids, I was pretty sure he would've called for me). I heard a small racket for about thirty seconds and then he rushed down the stairs and outside.

At this point I got up to determine whether Austin was doing some sort of home improvement project and had severely injured himself. Instead, I found him coming back in with a bath mat, looking a little sheepish. Apparently, it was crossing his mind not to mention to his wife that he had just pinned a medium-sized black snake down in the upstairs hallway with the Swiffer, and then captured it and took it outside with the bath mat.

So, there you have it, the gecko (or whatever it is) is a lot cuter than a three foot long rat snake.

P.S. We suspect that the snake got into our attic by climbing the big trees that hang over our roof, and dropping onto the roof. It's anyone's guess how it got into the living space, but I am insisting that we get that investigated by a pest control somebody in the very near future.

And yes, we are

If one is good... six must be better

2011-04-22T19:27:00.003-04:00

Tucker has some interesting dressing habits these days. He gets dressed in the middle of the night. He wears several different layers of socks or shirts or whatever else strikes his whimsy. His shirts often are on backwards. He likes his underwear backwards too because the big picture is on the back and he likes to see it.

Things got even more interesting this week when he decided he really wanted to be like his daddy, so he stopped wearing shirts to bed. It was pretty ridiculous to walk into his room to see a little bare-chested boy sprawled out across the bed (keep in mind our house is not especially warm this early in the season).

Tucker has also decided he wants underwear like Austin. Austin happens not to wear Thomas the train underwear, so Tucker has taken to wearing his old training pants that are a solid color to be more like his daddy. Today I made his little world when we bought real boxers for him. To celebrate he spent the afternoon wearing SIX pairs of underwear. Two new boxers. Two training pants. Two character undies. Surprisingly he had a difficult time going to the bathroom with all those layers.

The most ridiculous bedtime ever

2011-04-17T19:23:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago Tucker had his first sleepover with his friend John. John's parents were going to a late-night event at their church so John came over to start his night's sleep at our house and be whisked away in the late evening when his parents were on their way home.

Tucker was beside himself with excitement. He ate a banana and about two bites of vegetables for dinner, and incessantly asked when John might arrive. I told him half an hour. He asked how long half an hour is. I told him about the time it was going to take Austin to come downstairs and eat his dinner. Tucker then started inquiring fervently about Austin's progress in the shower and what foods he was going to eat, as if rushing Austin through these events was going to make the time go faster.

John arrived and Tucker was ecstatic. We let them stay up an hour playing, and Tucker achieved new levels of hyper. He wanted to play with everything, with John at once. John was a little overwhelmed by Tucker's attentions, but held his ground pretty nicely except for when the ferry operated by Tucker was attempting to knock out John's train on the train table, and when the dinosaur came to attack him. A timeout helped Tucker regain a sliver of composure, but not much.

Both boys were in their beds in Tucker's room by 7:30 pm. As I walked out of the room, I wondered if they would fall asleep before John's parents came back to pick him up (at 10:30 pm). For awhile it was in question, but they did end up falling asleep at the reasonable (in such circumstances) hour of 9 pm. In the intervening hour and a half, Austin and I were treated to quite an earful. I don't know if I've ever heard such a long conversation between a two year-old and a three year-old boy. I wish I had had a recorder to immortalize their soliloquies.

John: My parents are gone.
Tucker: They're at church.
John: But I can't see them.
Tucker: Let's look out the window and check.
John: But we just looked out the window.
Tucker: But we haven't looked out the window again now.
John: Okay.

Mostly they talked about whether the lights should be off or on, and whether it was night-night time or not. But most of the time it sounded more similar to a "Who's on First?" skit than a conversation. One child would be speculating about whether Austin was in his office, and the other would be talking about the lights. Then it would shift and one would muse on whether it was, in fact, bedtime, while the other narrated what they were seeing out the window. Tucker is very sad he cannot have sleepovers every night. But don't worry, we read about Froggy's sleepover every night instead.

Quote of the Day

2011-04-17T19:19:00.002-04:00

#1: "Remember, babies always cry!" -Tucker

Tucker reminds us of this several times a day, when Molly's crying, when Molly's not crying, when Molly's asleep, when Molly's awake--it really doesn't matter. I feel like my three year-old is trying to give me sage parenting wisdom. Hmmmm...

#2
Austin [to me]: Dear, could you...?
Tucker: Where's the deer???!!

#3
Tucker and I are on the couch in the living room, snuggling under an afghan
Tucker: Do you think a deer will eat this blanket?