Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Mommy spit soup in the potty

I'm not ashamed to admit that I adore living fastidious.  I'm actually down in a rut on the days I realize that life has slowed down to a calm suburban crawl.  I love going out with friends, creating an adventure, or just hanging out drinking coffee, tea, beer, etc.  I love getting silly and laughing laughing laughing.

Last Friday Mari and I went to a bbq party at a friend's house and brought the kids.  The women were drinking pinot grigio with green tea ginger ale and a frozen strawberry as an ice cube.  They were so tasty and I had way too many.  Something artificial in the ginger ale made my stomach ache.  I woke up the next day with an awful hangover and wanted to lay in bed until 4 in the afternoon.

Mid day I started praying to the porcelin godess, ran into the bathroom, Kaio followed. I could not manage to shut the door because we had a towel hanging on top.  He saw me praying to the porselin god, "Mom, are you spiting soup in the potty?  Can I try?"
My god, I was thinking that I must be setting an horid example and I was.
"Mommy's sick.  Go away."

When I told my friend about it yesterday, she said, well I'm impressed that he is almost 5 years old and this is the first time he has seen you sick and hungover!

Way to look at the bright side.

My sister-and-law graciously watched Kaio yesterday since his school is on spring break.  She sent me an email mid day asking if I was alright, "Kaio's worried that you are sick and spitting soup in the potty."  Oh god now he's telling the world.  He probably told his preschool teachers, grandma, school administrators, and who knows!

I talked to him about it this morning, "Mommy's fine, I'm not sick any more, don't worry."

I can relate to Peter Pan.  I'm not ready to grow up. *sigh*.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

First task on the list: Make Coffee

I got over half of the to-do list complete, which is amazing considering the rough morning.  First thing on the list: make coffee.  By 11am, that was still the only task checked off.  The morning was disrupted by Nene painting the wall with her poo.  Heavens knows what could have come over her to make her think that was a good idea, but I made both her and Kaio sit in timeout while I cleaned it up (Kaio was already on route to time out for repeatedly climbing on the fireplace).  I told her no more drawing for a week.  On Friday night she had taken a marker and drew on my friend's wall.  It wouldn't come off and they are gong to have to paint over it.  So, I can't believe I'm restricting her use of art supplies!  But she needs to stop expressing herself at will.

No picture of the poopoo painting, don't worry.  Instead a picture of her being cute in a second hand dress I got for $4.

When I told Mari, he shrugged and said that he used to play with his poop all the time too.

So after the poo painting incident, I put my foot down and switched to a very mean mommy.  I made them 'clean' their room.  Basically meaning that I would hold things up and ask them where it goes, then give it to one of them to put away.  No one was allowed to leave till the room was spotless.  I also folded all the clothes in the closet, and moved Kaio's to the lower shelf where he can reach them.  Since he dresses himself now, he needs to be able to reach the clothes.  On days that I've forgotten to leave clothes out for him on the floor, he'll come into our room in the morning wearing a pair of Nene's pants.

We spent all day at home cleaning things instead of going to a museum 'to look at princess dresses,' (sigh) like we had discussed.  I was peeved and stayed pretty firm all day, but things worked out.  After a day of cleaning, the kitchen still remained only half done.  I really miss our maid!  She moved to Bolivia a few months ago.  I sent her a message on facebook begging her to come back.

Kaio's been a punk about eating lately.  He does not want to eat anything.  Everything is "yuck."  Today I decided to not invite him to lunch.  Like a coy cat, he eventually came on his own, sat down, and gobbled the food up like it was going out of style.  We did not have a fight over lunch today.  It helped that I made delicious coconut rice with sirloin.

Same deal with nap time.  I said that it was time to take a rest.  Kaio said "No!"  I took Nene up and mr. independent eventually followed.
He's such a lover boy

wild pansies growing in our yard.  another reason not to plant grass seed

checking out the native box turtle last week, at Meadowlark Botanical Garden in Vienna

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Bee Hive Experience

Mari and I have been taking an Intro to Bee Keeping class for the last two months.  The class was taught through the Beekeeping Association of Northern VA (BANV).  They hooked us up with a mentor, named Dave, and today we went to his house to check out his hives.  He had extra veils and jackets, which we wore with jeans.

Although standing next to the hives did not phase me in the least, once he opened them up and the bees circled in every direction, that was a trip.  Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Dave has 6 kids, 2 older boys and then 4 girls.  They all seemed pretty cool.  What struck me was the way they interacted with each other.  No chaos, everyone very calm.  One of the girls, I think she was around 6 years old, rested her head against me like a kitten.  I started instinctively petting her head.   Dave's wife said, "She's very tactile, she explores the world through touch."  Then she pointed to the feather in the girl's little hand that she caressed.  Behind us one of the other girls was swinging high on the playground, "Don't swing so hard, you might knock into your sister and then she'll fall over and it will be your fault."  Then Dave's wife looked at me and said, "She's our wild one."

I loved how she understood the differences in her children and just goes with it.  I could of imagined another mother telling her daughter not to nuzzle me, or apologizing for having touched me, and then freaking out when the other daughter was swinging too high.

The best part of the trip was when he let us taste a spoonful of last season's honey crop.  Most delicious!  I could tell that they have their stuff together and I hope I get to learn a little more from them both about bees and how to be a successful parent.

There's the queen in the bottom center of the comb frame. She has a large body and short wings

Lots of bees, a healthy hive
So many bees
Dave lives a few miles from our house and Mari suggested we bike there instead of drive.  Half way there, on the beautiful sunny spring day, I congratulated him for suggesting the great idea.  "Doing my part to prolong the recession and keep consumer spending low." He responded.
"What?"
"Yup, I don't want Obama to be able to say that consumer spending index is up and we're out of the recession."
here I thought that we were trying to save the environment.  I think the world needs a new way to gauge progress.  Consumption cant be the most accurate measure of prosperity.  Especially not when people are raising there own food and biking around town.

Building our Warre Bee Hive

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Got Confused?

We went to a friend's house last night for an impromptu dinner party.  This was the type of adult party where everyone brings their kids and there were a total of 8 kids running around befriending each other.

I walked out on the deck to two women conversing, "I was talking about how my kids ruined my life."
Typical girl talk right?
She has three boys, the oldest has Autism spectrum, the middle is an over dramatic pistol, and the youngest just wants attention.  "I turn into a crazy lady with them.  I find myself doing things, that if there was a camera, people would watch and think that I was a crazy lady."

I know how that feels! I often wonder 'what would supper nanny say?'

When she told this to her family practice doctor, the doctor convinced her to take a prescription for Prosac.  It really helped and she doesn't act so crazy anymore.
I warned her that it could ruin her sex life, which could stress out her marriage.  "What sex life?"
Oh boy.  Well maybe that is the problem.

I'm confused about life.  So confused.  But this week I've started to realize that the rest of the women out there are confused too.
found this charm hanging on a cherry blossom tree downtown

Loving the baby quails



Sunday, April 3, 2011

Earthquake March

Floating through the last couple weeks of the month of March, washing stress down with doubt.  Jumping from one responsibility to the next and fighting to not drown in the 'to do' list.  I have not been able to post for a couple weeks, basically since an earthquake hit my work life.  The boss of my boss was persuaded to resign, leaving a new Senior VP in charge, one who does not support the work we do.  This meant a total change in direction on activities and priorities.  I've been putting in extra hours to coordinate, while at the same time gloomy with feelings of being unappreciated.  I just wish they would let me go and set me free from the place.  Give me my three months of severance and let me concentrate on a new career.
On top of that I've had to find new renters for our house.  Kind of stressful to meet new people and show the house while others are living there.  We ended up having lots of interest and two concurrent applications.  Both would have been a great choice!  It helps that our house is Eco-Friendly, and that is a major selling point.  I just closed the deal with a couple from PDX who's moving out here.  They're signing a two year lease too, so this means I wont have to worry about finding new renters next year.  For two weekends I was showing the house and volleying emails.  Next we're going to have to make some minor repairs and such, but hopefully Mari can take lead on that.
Another major development has been the birth of our baby quails.  I plan to write a whole post dedicated to them, but haven't gotten to it yet.  We're raising quails for eggs. We incubated two sets of eggs earlier this month.  Six from the first batch hatched and seven from the second batch.  They're living in Mari and my room, scurrying and growing super fast.  Watching them provides therapy for me.  Currently they live under a calming red heat lamp and I love to sit and see them foraging for food or interacting with each other. Their songs are so sweet to listen to.  Full of dynamic random tones, like soft - squeaky  jazz music.
My mom's been gone all month too.  She takes trips to Florida to visit her brother and rental properties.  This time she's taking two singles cruises.  Not sure if I understand why, she has a boyfriend...  She complains about men all the time but leaves her really nice boyfriend for two months to go on some singles cruises.  I wonder if he'll still be around when she gets back.  I hope so because I do like him.  He's the least crazy guy she's dated since divorcing my dad.     
I also learned that my best friend here got dumped by her boy friend of 7 years.  Last weekend I spent all Sunday helping her move out of his house and into her mom's.  They've been dating for about the same time as Mari and I have.  I really can't imagine how hard it must be for her to adjust to single status again.  Being around her, I literary felt like the world was going to end.  Driving home from her house, I expected to see bombs exploding in the distance.  My imagination ran down a road of Independence Day like sceneries.  And I ended up worrying about whether we had enough flash lights, glow sticks, and gas in the car to survive until the sequel.
And finally, the one last big thing that's been eating my March 2011 away is that my brother's being deployed to Afghanistan.   He's excited about the opportunity to make a major impact in the world.  I feel pretty numb. Like I know he's going to be gone in a minute and I will feel scared and worried.  I know that the news will be even harder to listen to than it already is.  I know that I might never see him again.  I know that when I do see him, he probably wont be the same person.  So I'm trying to figure out how to say goodbye to that brother without dwelling.  I'm trying to figure out how to support him and am thinking about volunteering with a veteran's assistance agency around DC.  Although I haven't found anything yet.  What keeps nagging at me, is this compulsion to join him.  Not that I want to fight on the battle lines, but I would like to try to help the people be free from violence and empower women to develop the country.  I just keep thinking I'm in the wrong line of work!
With all those things going on, we've still managed to get some quality family time in.  Here are some of my favorite picture from the last few weeks.


















.

Share

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...