Garden of Eden

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

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

Heat Wave

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

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

Videos: Molly Crawling and Molly Shouting

T-minus Four Months...

...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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quote of the Day #40

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

Quote of the Day #39

"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

"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

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

"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

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.