Thinking about tomorrow...

and wondering if we can make a giant cake out of these recipes. We have at least 20 people in attendance tomorrow and at least two of the boys who are coming are allergic to milk; I just don't feel like saying "oh, except for you" one more time.


M, Milk-free; E, Egg-free; W, Wheat-free; P, Peanut-free; S, Soy-free; N, Nut-free

Double Layer Birthday Cake
M, E, P, S, N
3 cups cake flour
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups water
1/2 cup shortening
3 T. water, 3 T. oil, 2 tsp. baking powder; mixed together
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two cake pans. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients. Using an electric mixer, beat until well mixed, approximately 4 minutes. Pour batter into cake pans. Bake 40 to 45 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans 10 minutes before removing to wire racks. Frost when completely cooled.

Note: Baking powder is intentionally listed twice in this recipe. The combination of 3 T. water, 3 T. oil, 2 tsp. baking powder; mixed together is the substitution for 2 eggs.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Cocoa Frosting
M, E, W, P, S, N
1/2 cup milk-free, soy-free margarine, softened
1/2 cup Hershey's® unsweetened cocoa powder
2 2/3 cups unsifted confectioners sugar
1/4 cup water
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Beat margarine on medium speed in large mixer bowl until softened, about 1 minute. Add remaining ingredients. Beat on low speed until ingredients are moistened. Beat on medium speed until creamy.


• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Hershey’s Special Dark Bark
M, E, W, P, S, N

1 (8-oz.) package of Hershey’s Unsweetened Baking Chocolate, broken into pieces
1/4 cup plus 1 tsp. shortening
1/8 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups confectioners sugar

Grease 9x9-inch pan. Set aside. In medium bowl, microwave chocolate and shortening on high for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes, until mixture is melted and smooth when stirred. Add vanilla extract. Gradually stir in sugar. If mixture becomes too thick, knead with clean hands. Spread out in prepared pan. Cover tightly. Refrigerate until firm. Break into pieces. Store, well covered, in refrigerator.

Note: After changing the formulation on its Special Dark chocolate bar to include milk, Hershey’s developed this recipe for milk-allergic consumers.

Breakfast

Damn van

I am so not kidding. Damn. Van.

It sounds like a tractor again, despite Paul taking it BACK in and having the guy redo some something on it.

This morning, P-Daddy called me on his way to work to say there is a large puddle of transmission fluid (?) underneath it. "I didn't want you to freak out when you went out there, so I am warning you about it."

At least we hold the title.

ETA: our friend sent us instructions to " send your van off the nearest cliff, burning as it goes and then buy a hyundai"

Testing the van today

Wish me luck!

Can you guess where we are going?

I am trying to remain positive

But I am really hating my van right now. So I shall go on about the positive, and ignore my pounding sinus headache, in itself the just desserts for well, desserts.

On an upswing, we had a lovely weekend. We did. We got the van back Friday night* and on Saturday, drove to a friend's birthday party at Odyssey. The kids love what Chiknman refers to as "the human habitrail," and they did the party very efficiently. My kids havenever been to an arcade before, so when they took the children to that half of the play complex, their little heads started spinning. By the time we were ready (omg please let me out!) to leave, the children were, too. They each got puzzle boxes as party favors and the big kids actually put them together that night. (Their mom is not a fan of jigsaw puzzles, so I was pleasantly surprised by how well that went over here. )

Saturday afternoon, P-daddy got a gardening jig on and dug a new bed for our strawberries. He went NUTS, and built a rock wall around it and everything. I was really impressed with that, [pictures to come], and he was soooore the next day. :)

On Sunday, P-daddy went golfing and then we went to Penrose to scope out the perfect camping spot. You can reserve online, and WA State parks tries to make it as convenient as possible by including pictures , but ...if you can drive to see for yourself, it's so much easier. The tide was lower than any tide I have ever seen anywhere in my life. We walked into the inlet, out past the archipelago, for those of you who have been there. (Not the one on the left, the one on the right--- the two mile nature trail. ) People were clamming everywhere, bringing in geoducks and horse clams. We asked one man how he eats his geoduck and he said "raw." Um. yuck.

I finished two new beading projects! One for The GreenMama's birthday and one for a mother's day gift. GreenMama says the birds remind her of a happy childhood memory.


Valerie is so entirely suited to these happy marine colors. The jewelry is much brighter in person than is coming across in these pics.

Today we're off to the zoo for a birthday party in P-Daddy's car. Out! During the day! With people! And I get to give two of the bead recipients their stash! Yay!

*It is making clickety valve noises and on Sunday, when we drove back home fromPenrose, the gauges stopped working. The van would still run, start and go, but I couldn't see how fast we were going or whether we had any gas. Not acceptable after a 5 week sacrifice and 1650.00 expenditure.

I shudder to think where I'd be without my friends

They've been particularly kind to me this week in my transportation-less and resulting mentally fragile condition.

Mack came for Lunch with Friends Wednesday again, and bolstered my spirits there while we listened to the toddler mariachi band. Again. Her little boy is so eloquent he makes my kids look like slow talkers, and they're definitely not.

Nikay brought me down (so not fair, so not fair, so my travellin' turn) some visitation and tomato starts (enough to share with the rest of you South Sounders btw). We played with beads yesterday while the children enjoyed the company of like-aged homeys. Nikay is dipping a toe into the crazy-ass real estate market here and she's probably, for the first time, as frazzled as I am because of her exposure to the morass they call "the market" in Puget Sound. I have much compassion for her new found affection for their cabin in the woods.

Today, The Green Mama came to visit in her own new found freedom as her dd's schedule has suddenly been freed into "Yay! Friends! We can DO things!" We traded kitchen gadgets, war stories and bean recipes. And yes, played with Beads. We also chatted about homeschooling, which is always a favorite past time of mine.

I have been obsessed with my beads lately. It's been a long standing love of mine, and I do mean LOVE, but I haven't been producing anything for years. Suddenly, BAM! I am back in the swing of things, stringing beads and feeling the inspiration. It's been a joy. I think planning Snaygirl's mother blessing and searching for just the perfect beads for her labor necklace must have turned a switch back ON.

I finally finished the Brazilian Goddess' earrings and felt like I owed her a little interest, so I strung a matching bracelet. The beads are freshwater pearls, garnets and fused cobalt glass works.

Unable to be with her, I made Dalicious a labor gift of her own, also of freshwater pearls and charms, with a goddess anchor.

Well Tuesday didn't happen

Wednesday is winding down and I still don't have my van back. We have some very odd vehicular issues. The same thing happens again and again-- LONG stretches without a vehicle for Lory-- no matter how new or well maintained the vehicle is. I guess there could be worse things with which to be saddled, but it does make like ...inefficient.

today we had hailstorms-- two of them-- in which the sky grew swiftly dark and belched out large, pea-sized hailstones. It was so white on our porch that ~D~ thought it was snowing. Then it would revert back to sunny, blue skies. April showers bring May.....hailstorms?

Nikkkkkkkkkaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy

Supposedly the magical day is Tuesday!

Popcorn for breakfast

Today the kids had popcorn for breakfast. We popped corn on the stove then served it in cereal bowls with milk, just as G&N learned from Alton Brown's Good Eats. Talk about child-led hilarity. They seem to like it, but I am not sure if they'd tell me if they didn't.

I told R-dreamer about it, and she remembers the same experience at a Farm school when she was young. She told me it made such an impression that she begged her mother for popped corn for breakfast the next day.

~G~ says "It was kind of weird feeling on the top of my mouth. It was a little tasty. It just needs some sugar on it. The TV show said it was healthy, and the guy who loved Popcorn ate popcorn all of the all of the time!"

Cheesecake and Chones

That was the theme of this week's Wednesday with Friends. Why yes, they are related, but thankfully not directly. At least not immediately! :)

Why I blog

As tagged by the lovely Niki. I used to think blogging was a huge waste of time, and somewhat egotistical.

1. Since before my children were born, I have journalled. Never very consistently, and somewhat dully, since when I did write it would be with great emotion about something going on in my life at that time. It would pop up in my journal without any context or seeming relation to what had just gone before. After the birth of my daughter, I committed to keeping a journal for her specifically, so that we could both watch her grow. By this time, I had moved my journal to electronic format, but I kept hers in a lovely paper book. However, even with one child I found finding the time to write it all out tedious, and inserting photographs, as all parents are wont to do, even more annoying. So within the first year I switched hers to Word.

When ~N~ was born, same thing. Soon it became insane, and maintaining three journals in electronic form was just as unpleasant for me as one in written format. Further, our lives were so entwined it didn't make sense. It seemed contrived to try to break out parts of our days to write to them individually, and typing the same thing into each journal just wasted time in my opinion.

2. The pictures became the most efficient way for me to express myself anyway. There is little need to write a two page missive when a sequence of three shots carries the story so much better. I enjoy photo entries so much, and they really do speak more than words.

3. Even before we moved to Washington, we had family and friends far away. Even people who do not have direct access to my blog benefit from a handy cut-and-paste into an email. It's so much easier to have everything in one place, even for me, and it becomes a powerful record of our life here. Even in the short two years I have been actively blogging, I have watched the children grow and change dramatically and I value capturing that metamorphosis.

4. Blogging has given me access to a form of Internet community I really enjoy. The blogosphere is filled with as many opinions as there are people, but unlike chat boards, you can be very specific as to who and what you allow to cross your personal mind's eye. When I was preparing for my last two births, I read blog after blog, grateful for the generosity of the women who shared their home birth stories and images, as they bolstered my own courage and informed my expectations. I pay that forward with my own published birth stories. With our homeschooling journey, it is the same, but I get to do in the now and actually exchange practical ideas and philosophies in real time. Even with activism, we in the blogosphere actually learn from one another, alert one another, and bolster our scattered communities with a unified purpose when we need to.

5. I have also found that the blog has strengthened our shared experiences with our real time community. Writing about our adventures engenders a fondness and a shared memory that we all get to revisit from time to time. Going through the archives often brings a smile and a "Oh yeah, I remember that!" Because I know they are reading everyday, it helps me to update on things that have happened when they may not have been around.

Before blogging I didn't really realize how varied and full our lives are. I simply found myself so caught in the day-to-day race of diapers-cooking-cleaning-laughing-loving-learning that I lost sight of how much was actually transpiring. I value this record now, and I like to think it serves a purpose greater than just my personal journal for our lives.

Hmm. To tag? I tag Danelle78, simply because her blog name is the titular question, and Mack, because she needs an excuse to update her blog, and MelissaTulip, because I'd be interested in the answer!

Another new thing learned

An acute allergy attack looks a lot like skull fracture.

You'd think in the land of the Wolfmeisters that we'd be used to allergy issues, but it was "the wrong child" whose eyes swelled his face into bruised distortion last night. Mere seconds after he'd slipped on a wet bathroom floor so badly that his feet came to rest on the sink, his eyes started to swell shut. I know they weren't swelling before, because he was going into the bathroom to check out a scratch on his cheek that I'd just pointed out to him.

"It sure looks like an allergy attack, but to what???" We gave him benadryl, we held him all night and we made sure he wasn't sensitive to light, in pain, or incoherent.

"It sure looks like an allergy attack, but that was a hard fall... why on earth now? And why is it bruised???" He swore he didn't hit his eye on the way down, and he tells the story the same way each time we ask it. We thought... maybe Romulus? He'd been on ~N~'s lap just prior to the bathroom incident.... he got a haircut earlier..... maybe?

This morning, when 12 hours of sleep and an adult dose of benadryl hadn't reduced the swelling on ~N~'s left eye, we decided to take him in.

My last bit of cool, seasoned parental calm went out the window when I considered the consequences of "what if I am wrong?"

We called the Pede on her cell phone and she saw us the first hour the office opened. They checked his orbital bones, palpated his head and checked for any fluid building behind his eye.

Just a bad coincidence that it started just after his hard fall. After dissecting the situation here and with the pede, it was Romulus' haircut that caused the drama. Our poor poodle was so disgusting that every bit of the pollen from this spring was embedded in the dog's dreadlocked hair.

Yes. A bad coincidence. But it had me scared. It had me praying for something instead of my normal, private "thank you" pulses to God. For this 24 hours it was a cradled, sleeping head and a whispered "Please help my child." It's easy now, with the full knowledge that everything will be fine, to think that this is melodramatic. But when you're there, in the unknown, it's all you can do to steel yourself against dark waves of fear. As it stands, gratefully, he will be Just Fine. The swelling is going down incrementally.

Now I can go back to being thankful again.

Nursing fashions

Click the link above to see more. I love these paintings.

Happy Earth Day

We tended our trees and fortified the big, back garden.

Tidying

Updated pix on

Life is Good

Lotsa Lotsa

and

Easter

We scaled the secret staircase

Remember this post?




We went from the beach to the top of the cliff up the secret staircase. Even the kids made LOTR jokes because we felt like Frodo and Sam following Gollum into Mordor. Thankfully, only the steep climb was even remotely like the film. We hadn't attempted it before yesterday because I didn't think D-baby could manage it. In some places, someone had built footholds into the cliff, as you see in the picture, but most of the time it was like a very narrow game trail with an unforgiving drop off through the blackberry thickets to the rocky beach below.

The big kids were fast as lightning. What's narrow to a 35 pound person? The toddler, however, had more of a struggle, but only because his legs were so little. He loved every second of the climb. I used my walking stick to dig into the trail ahead of him, as I arched overhead, and he used that as purchase to keep going. It wasn't great for my back, but baby was way-safe and I got to ignore the vertigo I get on high, narrow things. The big kids kept stopping to enjoy the view and expound "Whooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa look how high we are! " which, spaz that I am, would make me look. oooooooooo don't look, ~L~

It was a beautiful climb, though, beautiful, beautiful. When we go back without toddler, we'll be able to see all of Gig Harbor from some points. The problem is this: it doesn't lead into the Harry Potter woods. I am proud to note that it is exactly the same latitude as the HP woods, but I forgot about the cul de sac that abuts the woods just before the cliff. We crested the rise and abruptly found ourselves in someones back yard (sound familiar?), but fortunately there was a construction site just next door. The kids wanted to go down the way we came ("um, no kids, I will talk to the neighbors before we'd do that") We skirted the existing house and walked the edge of the construction site to get to our street, far above where we'd normally take the path down to the beach. To those who know the walk, we were in the cul de sac with the beautiful Rainer view and the rental house I constantly lament).

G: That was COOL! I have to peeeeeeeee!!!!!!
N: Let's do it AGAIN! Right now!
D: DO it again! This way! This way!
G: I have to peeeeeeeeeeeeeeee (runs home)

The compromise was that the boys and I went into the Harry Potter woods and took the forest loop back to our property. When we got back to the property but were still in the forest, we saw a beautiful red-crested woodpecker. The boys and I just stood and watched it for minutes. After the boys had been in arms for as long as I could stand it, I started taking pix. He was pretty far away, but you can make him out.




I think P-Daddy was invigorated by our escapades. After digging in the garden bed with Daddy, D-baby crashed out and G went into a painting odyssey. P-daddy took ~N~ on a walk and did the HP loop themselves. This time, a pregnant doe crossed their path (in our yard, people!), pretty much unperturbed by their presence.

Later, as we were releasing into the rose garden the ladybugs we bought at home depot, ~N~ exclaimed "I have had an AWESOME day!!!"

Me too, baby boy.

Life is Good

It is. It really really is.



----------------------
Explanation:


So we actually drove in the van. We've been given the green light to drive it locally, but with a failing head gasket and a scary engine whine, I don't do it. At all. So for two weeks I haven't driven the van. This day, however, I had to because I was tired of not depositing a big fat check that's been on our desk for at least that long.

So, we drove to the bank, then the Petco to get crab food, then Home Depot (in GHN, these stores are all within a quarter mile of each other) to get the soil amendments we need for the new bed and flowers for G's garden, which suffered a BiscuitBoy plot.

It just felt good to be OUT like citizens again. D-baby was so inspired by our journeys that he started volunteering for Home Depot. The checker was so amused by it she could barely talk, but I got the camera out. (Guy behind me was PISSED, too. Butthead.)


On the way home, we saw that the tide was so low on the Purdy Spit that people were hard to SEE at the edge of the water. That inspired our own beachy adventure. Life is good. Yes, yes, yes. No schedule but our own.

Lotsa Lotsa

6 Kids. Two days.

Day one: Cold and rain. Two brawling minie-minie-mine two year olds. Theatrical event! Wooooooooooo! Watch ~L~ scramble as all planned activities are exhausted by 11 AM. Watch children en masse decide not to cooperate on large activities and break into teams of two, intent on very different activities in very different parts of the house.

Day two: Sunshine! Thunderstorms forecast for the day. "Get out get out get out while you can! Sunshine!!" Watch ~L~ toss kids and energy bars outside while ~L~ prepares gigantic breakfast of fruit and whole-wheat-oatmeal pancakes with soy ice cream. Eat breakfast, sunshine still holding, toss five kids out--one two yo down for a three hour nap. Woot!

Toddler one goes live, toddler two starting to fade. Move party to the front yard with giant amounts of tents, tunnels, ride-ons and sidewalk chalk. Fullout sunshine at this point.

Lunch and snacks picnic style in the front yard. "Eat! Play! Eat! Overmuch!" Watch ~L~ toss food, popcorn, fruit leather, energy bars, watermelon, pancakes, milk, juice bags, water, anything to fuel the festivities.

Climax day with P-Daddy returning from business trip and Nikirj coming home, big walk to the beach and much kiddie whining from both big girls that

they're hungry.

Mother Rising

We had a mother blessing yesterday for Snaygirl. I'd never been to one before, much less planned it. It was beautiful. It was a perfect collection of mothers, too, to bolster her before her new journey begins. We read this to her:

Within you the tree of life

within us

springs the very

seed and substance

of life itself

within us

lives the mighty

faith and power

to heal ourselves

within us

the heart of true love opens

breathes and nurtures

the soul of the world

within you

flows the luminous

essence and presence

of divine wisdom

within you

your awakening spirit

illumines the holy path

of personal transformation

within you

the tree of life blossoms

creates and gives birth

to radiant living miracles

-Shiloh Sophia McCloud

There is such a power in intention. Given the love and care that went into the preparation for this, both from the planners and the participants, I had expected things to go well for Snaygirl, no matter what actually transpired during the blessing. What I did not expect was a blessing for me as well. I was able for the first time ever to cook for and plan an event for a personal situation. I have worked with others professionally, but never with another friend as a friend for a friend. I have made beautiful tables before, even worked brought in another chef to do so, and then had to walk away, satisfied with the work but idly wondering what the participants would say and do. I was joyfully.....blessed....to enter a new phase in my own life where, yes, I can work well with others. This was done in a circle of filial love and trust and respect. It was awesome.

Head Gasket

Among the many two word phrases in the English language you never want to hear, surely

Head Gasket

is up in the top twenty. Maybe it's ranked the same as

Replace Engine

Diffendoofer Day

My kids are in a mega-workbook phase. While it's weird for me, I am rolling with it because well, that's what "child led" means. We read the Seuss book "Hooray for Diffendoofer Day!" and I explained to the kids that it was about homeschooling.

For those of you who haven't read it, it's about a group of children who attend Diffendoofer school, whoch hosts a wholly unusual curriculum of random activities, seeimingly without any academic merit. They just have fun all day.

Big Brother comes in and makes them all take a standardized test, which makes the principal freak out, because if they don't pass the kids will be sent to the other school-- an interesting description of public school follows. Their teacher explains that the children know far more than they think they know, and that the test will be simple. Not only do the kids ace the exam, they are floored with how little of their knowledge they had to use to do it.

I am not exactly sure how connected to this story my dd's recent affection for traditional worksheets is, but she's had a lot of fun using her grade-level's workbooks in math, science and social studies, and trouncing the pages. It's nice to watch her realize that she does indeed know a lot more than she thinks she does, and to muster her own faith in our little home education process.


On other fronts, D-baby was making huge strides in potty learning. We use the toilet with an inset, and a stool for him to climb up. He was using the potty every day for a little while to make his deposits, and was only having accidents on the carpet, and needing diapers to sleep.

In the past couple of weeks however, he's gone crazy. His molars have come in with a vengeance so he's had a personality change, and he's decided the toilet is the devil. Worse, he's been both refusing diapers--they're for babies-- AND using the toilet. He's been dropping loads and making fountains wherever he wants. This, needless to say, is a problem for my family. With the stress of no transportation combined with the stress of teething combined with the stress of spot cleaning NASTINESS off the carpet, my life has been suckage lately.

Nikirj brought her fully trained toddler over and I was hoping-- since they originally were on a par with this, together-- that he'd be re-inspired. Instead, when he saw toddlergirl climb up onto the toilet he FREAKED out, yelling at Nikirj, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ~N~ will fall innnnnnn! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Get her!"

Ah! So! "Did you fall in D-baby? Did you fall in without telling anyone?" He just burrowed into me at that point and wouldn't answer.

Yesterday, I bought him pullups (yes, I know. I probably hate them more than you do, and he has his own cloth underwear, but I am desperate) and made a huge deal about them. I also reintroduced the potty and explained that he could NOT fall in if he always used his inset. I said "You're a big boy to use the toilet, but you have a tiny butt. That's the only reason you use the inset. If you use the inset, you can't fall in, ok?"

I think that worked because now he's back on track.

Holy Moly, I sure hope so.

Uncle Bill

I am stinging from this loss. I am not one of those people who moved across country and had my relationships persist as if I had never left. So, I haven't talked to Uncle Bill in two years, since we moved out of the neighborhood adjacent to him. Bill and Deanie were cornerstones of my childhood. Very simple, salt-of-the-earth people, they were family icons. They didn't do much outside love their family and their church but they were just really, really good at it.

Bill, at 19, married Deanie when she was 13. They stayed together for the rest of his life and had three strong sons who all smile the same--just like their Daddy. Bill was the family fix-it guy who would come to work on your toilet or car, whether you asked him to or not.

They didn't really understand me when I grew up, or why I couldn't stay around my toxic mother (whose behaviour they blame on her divorce and my slacker sister) but they never treated me poorly. I feel bad for Deanie. Beyond bad. I can't imagine losing a partner of 56 years. I just can't.






William William Reese Harvill, 75 of Charleston, SC, entered into eternal rest April 1, 2007.

Bill was the son of the late John and Elsie Harvill. Mr. Harvill proudly served 26 years in the United States Air Force, retiring at the rank of Master Sergeant. He was a devoted member of the First Church of the Nazarene on Yeamans Hall Road in Hanahan, SC. He is survived by his beloved wife of 56 years, Elizabeth "Deanie" Donnally Harvill, three sons, David and his wife Kathy of North Charleston, Ronald and his wife Christine of East Hartford, Conn., Daren and his wife Anna of Warner Robins, GA; seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, one brother Phillip "P.O." Harvill of Biloxi, MS. A funeral service will be held on Thursday, April 5, 2007, 1:00 PM at CAROLINA MEMORIAL FUNERAL HOME CHAPEL. Burial to follow in Carolina Memorial Park. The family will receive friends from 6:00 to 8:00 PM Wednesday, April 4, 2007, at CAROLINA MEMORIAL FUNERAL HOME, 7113 Rivers Avenue, North Charleston, SC. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the First Church of the Nazarene Memorial Roll in honor of his name. Visit our guestbook at www.charleston.net/deaths.

Life is Good Conference

I want to go to this so bad. Unless the van gets repaired quickly and economically, it's not going to happen this year either. I am so disappointed. Water pump? Crankshaft? WTF is wrong with it. In defiance and desperation I drove to Target in it this morning anyway to get the motrin for the screaming, molar-affected toddler. On the way home I noticed it was pulling hard to the right as well.

This weekend has sucked on so many levels.

Of course, once we got home, toddler produced the motrin bottle I couldn't find, which prompted the trip. He'd squirrelled it underneath the couch. Ugh.

You can tell the weather is nice

by when I disappear...........

Pictures to come. :) Pictures here! :)

We went on an Easter egg hunt with the Schnayfamily at their church. Children in G's age group, hunting eggs, are like locusts swarming a wheat field. It was funny-scary. The men in charge of the Easter Egg hunt were endearing. It was a fabulous, well-thought-out event and the kids all had a blast. They had an Easter Bunny there, which was nice for the kids, but they also had Knights of Columbus wandering about making sure every child's basket was full of eggs and bags of candy. Very sweet.

Who needs Easter Eggs when you have colorful boys to take home?

Meeting Easter Bunny for the first time. That's as close as he came, and that's quite a grip he has there on Mommy's hand. He didn't cry, but he surely wasn't moving any closer to the big furry thing.

~N~, showing me his take. ~D~ and Schnaybaby in the background, trading their take.

This is a little girl who takes her egg hunting seriously.
(Yes, there was an egg under there!)

At home, we dyed Easter eggs using dyes we made from coffee, blueberries and greens. We also used some oil-based dyes that let the eggs get a tie-dyed appearance. The children painted the eggs with a food-safe paint first and then dip dyed theirs: amazing.

The children begged, when it hit 70 degrees and was "so hot, Mom, like South Carolina, to have the sprinklers run. Despite me thinking "Holy Moly they're NOT from the South anymore," I admit I indulged them.

After all, it is my responsibility as a homeowner to test the sprinkler system come Springtime, yes?

The celebration of poopy day

This story never made it out of draft mode, so I cleaned it up and posted it for you guys today. It's worth the click: ~D~ and the flaming sword of justice


Yesterday we had the Mackattack people over. I would identify them as the "eww don't lick that" people, but given that this day was all about poop I wouldn't want anyone to connect those two concepts. We didn't scoop poop before they played, which turned out to be a mistake. Although, come to think of it, that might not have mattered anyway, as D decided to drop trow and plop his own contribution right in the middle of the play area. Poor Mack could not breathe at this point, not from the fumes, but from the hysterical laughter into which the shock of it tossed her. I think what was more disturbing was the fact that doggies like to clean up toddler poo. They've very helpful that way.

Her own lovely dd, age 8.5, stepped into some doggie dirt and didn't realize it. When she tracked it into the kitchen, I asked her to remove her shoes. She did so but missed a bit and got some on her hand. Being an 8 yo girl, she started shaking her hand in disgust. I begged her "no, no, honey! we don't fling poo!" Another incongruous statement, and both Mack and I lost it.

Poop or not, the day wore on and the kids were all covered in grime. It was a nice 48-hour draw the-kids-off festival and now we're all tired.

So tired, in fact, that my toilet-striking toddler has pooped twice this morning on the carpet. I think I liked it better when he was lighting it on fire.

Montessori in Mexico

See link.

My goodness. She makes Montessori materials by hand, she knits and she builds sustainable housing in a gorgeous part of Mexico. I am in love. Ach so!

Lunch on Wednesdays

Today it was the C-family. Funny, last week it was the C-family! We love the C-family.

This week, they came down and the kids had lots of fun in the backyard. Ok, in the house as well. And in the front yard too. Just, lots of fun.

I didn't use the pressure cooker though. No beans for Niki.

My CD burner refuses to open so Nikirj was kind enough to spend several hours burning our digital pictures to disk. Some of you know just how big a gift that was. Now, I am free to take apart the computer and fix the drive door without fearing loss of precious, precious data.

Rock on, Sister Mama!

Code Yellow

You learn something new every day.

For instance, just yesterday I learned that at Target, the missing child protocol is called Code Yellow.

That's what they start saying into their walkie talkies as they fan out looking for your runaway toddler.


Yes, that's what I learned yesterday.

So yes. A few small repairs.

The water pump is misbehaving on our van, it would seem. The van is not overheating, but there is a scary whine now coming from the engine which is not related to the transmission, and the van is intermittently leaking coolant. Sometimes, no leakage, sometimes a whole LOT of leakage. So the family is grounded for a while. Which sucks, but not TOO much. Hopefully we can get this taken care of sooner than later.

We were grateful to get home Saturday after a particularly large coolant dump in a parking lot of a garden store. Schnayboy responded to our plaintive cry for help, via an answering machine and some cell phone calls. It was weird-awesome. We feel so alone out here most of the time when it comes to things like that. No longer do we have aunts / uncles / parents / friends around every corner to come help us. It is very comforting to know we have that to some small extent again-- someone who could come right then.

Yesterday ~G~ spent hours finding four leaf clovers in the backyard. We had a nice batch of them this year, and she even found a five-leaf one, which thrilled her to no end.

We had our first family fondue party this weekend. The kids had a blast, although I won't be making the Swiss for them again. Next time they'll get the cheddar pot! :)

My significantly different-from-me sister has been emailing me again. I am concerned about this. I gave my estranged family my new addresses and phone numbers when I got on the plane in 2004. Not once have either my mother or my sister acknowledged my D's life. No calls / letters / anything to any of us in years, even before we left SC. Now my sister has done two emails in a month and it's nerve wracking for me. My mother signed up to watch my children's youtubes. I got a letter from a cousin of mine on that side, who is trying to plan an impromptu family get-together, so I KNOW they have my address here. They just don't give a shit.

I won't say it doesn't haunt me-- I think the mother wound never heals, really-- but this tentative bullshit isn't working for me either. I am so starved for it that while intellectually I feel like my mother is spying on me, the broken, crying child in me is pathetically satisfied that at least she's curious. My sister will bore of us, and carry on with the rest of her weirdness.

It's April

It is officially April.

Next month, five people I know will be giving birth.

Next month, two of them will experience their entire perceptions of life, law, gravity and the universe change.

Memery

OOOO another hobbit house

Another earthship type house. I am fully cognizant of my in-the-dream place right now, but I hope to infect Paul with the possibilities that we have before us. I like our house fine, except that it's wholly grid dependent. It would be fine as a passive solar house, but whoever built it oriented it improperly on the lot, so it actually superheats the house during the summer, rather than cools it. There's no feasible way to retrofit that, so I can just dream of another plat of land....somewhere.....

It's much more rustic than what I want to actually live in but I am thinking this would be a fab playhouse!

Sleepovers

G was 10 months old on her first sleepover. She stayed with her grandparents, while P-Daddy and I went to Myrtle Beach overnight. She stayed up all night, ate things she shouldn't have and they let her CIO. Flash forward to now, at 6 years old, where she is on her first cognizant sleepover. She's with the C-family, with whom she has woken up many times before, and I am not worried about her. But I do miss her-- I forgot last night and was jarred a bit when I checked on her before I went to bed.

I was proud and a little sad when the phone beside my bed didn't ring.

I hope it is just my tiny anxiety about this little separation manifesting itself, and not a harbinger, but I dreamt of my Grandmother last night. My Grandfather wasn't there with her in her kitchen, but her mother and her sister--both deceased-- were. Many of us were there, eating and being loud together in a Southern, family way. My dh woke me from my dream, which made me angry. I didn't show it, but I was upset to leave my Grandmother's table when I didn't strictly have to.

Three days in a row

And yesterday, while dh and ds shore fished, ~G~ and I made a fire on the beach. I love this life.


Probably my fave pic ever.

There's a sleeping toddler beneath those bundles.

That's our beach. That cliff? That's our neighborhood.

A secret way home, through the Harry Potter woods.

A seal washed in with the recent high tide, probably casualty of a boat prop.

Well it didn't work

the sun didn't show and it sprinkled all day--but we had a fabulous time. FABULOUS! FABULOUS!


Nikirj and MacAttack came over with their three kids each. If we'd had sun, more people would have showed but it was probably perfect the way it was. All the kids got along well together and their field trip to the low tide beach was fun to watch.

I should probably note that all but two of the children were waiting just outside the front door while MacAttack and I gathered the last of the bags and food (which we didn't eat on the beach anyway, because it was too wet down there). When Nikirj appeared in the front door to check on them, they literally ran down the street toward the beach, her own toddlerness in tow. So she phoned us en route to let us know that "we aren't in the front yard anymore, and your boys don't have coats on."

Investigating the little critters and learning about what they eat and how they move made for great fun for all of them, and the tide was so low we could get to the abandoned pier, where the little monkeys climbed for a while before deciding hot chocolate and cookies was incentive enough to eave the beach.

Not before one of our little monkeys decided to lick a fiddler crab, which decided to latch on. We think the fiddler crab is probably in the sewer system now.

The vortex took hold, and even got me too, because by the time we all straggled back to our house, P-daddy was home. That really jarred me, because I had no idea it was 5.30. So we had cookies as promised, then cobbled together an appetizer / soup /sandwich bar supper for everyone. It was cool. Even with a toddler jumping off the new bunk bed-- I guess it's ok because she landed on her feet!

And MacAttack brought us SAUSAGE! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

More pix on nikirj's blog!

Sunshine, Sunshine

I am calling forth the sunshine that I had been promised when I invite an atomic butt-ton of people to our beach today for a picnic. The tides are finally in summer mode, which is great-- yards and yards of beach--but I wanted the whole tamale. A friday, with sunshine, and an afternoon low tide makes for a damn fine playdate.

And now, it is grey. Grey and cold. I have faith. It is the PNW! Weather changes on a sneeze.

N is contributing to the calling!

A lot like pizza

Nikirj couldn't conceive of a pizza made with tofu as a crust, so I made some "pizza bites" to show her how it's done.

The recipe is taken from Fran McCullough's tome The Low Carbohydrate Cookbook.

Once the tofu is sliced then and pressed out, you pan fry it:

Add salt, pepper, and herbs to taste:

Add the cheese and sauce:

Run it under the broiler for crisping:

Finis! And it's tasty!

Had a wonderful weekend

We really enjoyed the break from the constant rain and got our backs into it in the back 40. We have been trimming the trees and pulling out the dangerous crap we never noticed from the winter falls. N was instrumental in this, and enjoyed how "strong" he is by felling and hauling the tiny trees.

G and I went Sunday to purchase a hermit crab for N. She knew that was the plan, after sufficient waiting time after his goldfish finally passed. She was pretty insistent, and he was happily floored when we came home with his new friend.

Mother Blessing

something I painted for a friend....

Homestyle Defenders

A cool op/ed piece from up there. I had to include this!

Matt Ramsey, The Province
Published: Sunday, February 18, 2007

Some things -- like stripping naked, making breakfast and sipping coffee in the buff -- are better done at home.

Comfort and privacy, not to mention nonstop nude coffee action, are the primary reasons Euphemia and I are opting for a home birth assisted by midwives.

Now, if it's your desire to have a hospital birth, with or without midwives, then power to you. Whatever floats your boat on the amniotic sea is your business.

Unfortunately, domestic delivery for anything more than a pizza is often viewed with a skepticism bordering on reproach, which is why I find myself in a position potentially as hazardous as buck-naked bacon making -- Homestyle Defender.

Home birth is dirty, we are told, dangerous for mother and baby, you'll have to sterilize the house, boil the cats in bleach, etc., and even then you're taking a huge risk. It hurts too much to do it without drugs. Plus you'll annoy the neighbours. You're a crazy hippie, global warming is a myth and your mother dresses you funny.

Here is what a year-long study comparing outcomes between home and hospital births among B.C. women who were able to choose between the two found in 1999: nothing.

Fewer interventions during labour for home birthers, fewer maternal infections, fewer episiotomies and no significant differences in perinatal mortality. Oh, and because women who are able to birth at home typically stay there, homestyling is cheaper for the system, too.

The study concludes: "There was no increased maternal or neonatal risk associated with planned home birth under the care of a regulated midwife."

Studies in New Zealand, the U.K., U.S., Switzerland and the Netherlands have made similar conclusions -- home birth with qualified caregivers is as safe as birthing in a hospital. Just last week, another study showed women who choose caesarean section without medical justification face a five-fold risk of postpartum cardiac arrest over natural births and the wound infection rate was five times higher. The old-fashioned way, vaginal delivery, is actually safer than a C-section.

That may be surprising, but so are many accepted elements of birth we just assume are correct.

For example, lying down with feet up is the worst position imaginable for a labouring woman, like standing on your head and attempting a bowel movement. The beetle-on-the-back position grew popular only after Queen Victoria decided in the late 1800s that chloroform was precisely her cup of tea. Vicky huffed and puffed on the stuff while birthing so was naturally unable to stand up. The upper classes must have assumed she was on to something good, adopted the recumbent pose as fashionable and the rest is history.

Victoria also married her first cousin and claimed she smoked cigarettes to keep the flies away, but who doesn't?

Pregnancy is not an illness and we are not going to treat it as such. If we need to go to hospital to safeguard mother or baby's health then we will go and do whatever is needed. In the meantime, the coffee is on and the curtains are drawn at home -- where women gave birth long before there were hospitals.

mramsey@png.canwest.com

Matt "Homey" Ramsey, whose wife Euphemia is due March 20, writes regularly about The Grub's impending birth in Unwind.

A solution!

Do you think this weaning bra might work?

from Qarin

Stalkerazzi

We're having a troll problem on my favorite message board, so I temporarily disabled my blog while I took care of bidness over there. We're back up. To our so exciting, scintillating, earth-shaking revelations.

All the things I want to write about I can't because the blog is so public anyway. I like it that way, but I want to ramble on about things that are private in nature. I want to talk about my pregnant friends, but that stuff is theirs to tell. I want to talk about the blessingways another friend and I are planning for our beloved mommies, but I can't because that would ruin the pleasure of the details. I want to talk about my marriage, but the contents of those kinds of discussions aren't appropriate for what is largely a blog about my homeschooling, and the issues I have are subtle to the extent that a reader who doesn't know us both wouldn't get it anyway.

So I am feeling very odd. Odd indeed!

I made a new category label just for this post.

New!

New belly pix on Dalicious!

Little Mommy-- Files of evidence

~G~ changing ~D~' diaper (she's 4 here)


This was right around the time Nikirj explained that wool catches really well. Those bedsheets got changed daily prior to the switch to fluffiness!

On Polar Bears and Evil

Right up there with my feelings on pseudoscience are my opinions on it's blood-brother, scientific censorship. Don't like the obvious conclusion drawn from overwhelming scientific data? IGNORE IT! HIDE IT!

WASHINGTON - Polar bears, sea ice and global warming are taboo subjects, at least in public, for some U.S. scientists attending meetings abroad, environmental groups and a top federal wildlife official said on Thursday.

Environmental activists called this scientific censorship, which they said was in line with the Bush administration's history of muzzling dissent over global climate change.

But H. Dale Hall, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said this policy was a long-standing one, meant to honor international protocols for meetings where the topics of discussion are negotiated in advance.

The matter came to light in e-mails from the Fish and Wildlife Service that were distributed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Center for Biological Diversity, both environmental groups.

Officials want advanced notice
Listed as a "new requirement" for foreign travelers on U.S. government business, the memo says that requests for foreign travel "involving or potentially involving climate change, sea ice, and/or polar bears" require special handling, including notice of who will be the official spokesman for the trip.

The Fish and Wildlife Service top officials need assurance that the spokesman, "the one responding to questions on these issues, particularly polar bears" understands the administration's position on these topics.

Two accompanying memos were offered as examples of these kinds of assurance. Both included the line that the traveler "understands the administration's position on climate change, polar bears, and sea ice and will not be speaking on or responding to these issues."

Polar bears are a hot topic for the Bush administration, which decided in December to consider whether to list the white-furred behemoths as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act, because of scientific reports that the bears' icy habitat is melting due to global warming.

Hall said a decision is expected in January 2008. A "threatened" listing would bar the government from taking any action that jeopardizes the animal's existence, and might spur debate about tougher measures to cut the greenhouse gas emissions that spur global warming.

So basically, don't talk about that yet! Environmental scientists discussing the drowning polar bears because well, the polar ice caps are melting? Whatever would make that a cause for environmental concern? UGH!

For me, this obnoxious, fascist censorship is a clear acknowledgment that Buscho is well aware of the implications of it's environmental :cough cough: policy. It should be ashamed of itself. Not just for it's policies, but for partisan-politicizing a global crisis. That is so wrong.

I have worked for government agencies before, so I well understand the sensitivity a job like that requires. You're not allowed to speak to anyone publicly without a list of talking points because even if you're a secretary, you're going to be cited as a "government official." The press will run with that if it can. But this is global, people. Global.

We won't stop polar bears from drowning or the honeybees from disappearing from the East Coast until we acknowledge that this is not a partisan issue.

Anaphylaxis

Link so I remember where it is:

http://blog.naver.com/oise523?Redirect=Log&logNo=80005491141

Still Spring Cleaning

It amazes me how much cleaning one house can tolerate, particularly when you have five people and a zoo. I am not talking about the regular ho-hum stuff, I am talking about the wonderful everything else.... the windows, the gutters, the sidewalks, the interior walls.... the spaces behind the appliances. Everything. Compulsive neat freaks really need to own homes. And maybe visit mine. A lot.

Almost done with the boys' room. Their nightlights are installed and that half is painted. D slept two nights in, then yesterday decided diapers were GREAT and he needed to stay up until 11 PM. So he slept with us. I am not crushed; I've had three children, so I get it by now that we're still headed in the right direction even if he needs to backpedal a bit. That's a lot for a little guy.

Friends coming over today. I think I will finally bust out the wiggle room junk.


eta:
Ok so I didn't do that. But I did enjoy my friends' company! And the sun came out! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY!

Updates

D-meister insisted on sleeping in his own bed last night. We didn't even suggest it. He even helped build the bed, and wouldn't let me lay down with him. I can't tell you how stoked I am over that. Let's see how that continues when the novelty has worn off..... If I get my way we'll keep the novelty happening until it's become a habit!

I have been one week on this diet. I know, I said diet. My energy level is up and my weight is down by 6 pounds.

IKEA today, to get D a nightlight of his own.

He says he is a baby....

and I will gladly go along with that because, after all, he is my baby. But this week he has voluntarily ditched the binky ( "the chickens ate it Mommy!" ), started wearing underwear full time in the house, and has refused to use the toilet inset for several days.


So, baby or not, he's feeling his boyness and we're going to reward he and his brother with the long-promised bunk beds. Our assumption has been that we'd get a set that matches G's, but Schnaygirl gave P-daddy a tip for a deal he couldn't refuse, and those are the beds we went with. They were inexpensive enough to match-beat IKEA on the beds I wanted so I was fine with it!

Anyway, whether he migrates to his bed is at his discretion, because he has gone through some big developmental milestones recently, but should he choose to add sleeping independently-- beneath big bro, of course--to this list, we're certainly going to enable him!

Bye bye, random, leftover, snowboarder dude! The before shots (as always, click to see):

Sad Today

Life is so good for us right now, and so hard for so many of my friends.

I am counting my blessings and blowing belly kisses to my friends in pregnant bubbles, safe from the hubris!








btw-- I got your message today.

My own blog is about my family and is supposed to be a celebration of our life, a record of our time here. Of course it's going to be positive. If you have quit me, that's your business, but just know I won't ever be able to remember you in a wholly negative light. You changed my life in a fundamental way, and that's not something I will forget.

Musings on the infancy of parenthood

I remember when my dd was born, how the world had changed.

all newborns look / act alike

wait for the differentiation, the problems

the kids, the talent


bewilderment to surety to acceptance of others

some stuck in dogma, some mired in whatever floats your boat

shock of peanut allergy to shock of liking homeschooling

now: life is full of babies and challenges and death and choices

globalization of human experience. focus from our child's eyes to the world around us