Zoo Keeper

A shark moved into our home this weekend (the land shark variety). She has picked up from her parents that sharks say "Nnnn...n Nnnnn...n" when they are stalking their prey. This is amusing because this shark was too scared to watch the Muppets Peter and the Wolf, so there is little chance of her watching Jaws anytime soon.



If you plan to visit in the near future, don't worry, this shark assures us that she is a shark "who doesn't chomp anyone."

A slippery eel escaped at bath time and ran down the hall in only a diaper. Said eel laughs a LOT and loves to be recaptured a million times a night.

a baby bird came to breakfast this morning, she got a little cranky though, so we asked for the shark who likes to eat shark seed. Instead we got a rooster, who crowed softly and let us know that she (yes, she) was a rooster who didn't wake anyone.

A parrot sits across from the rooster, it can get loud in our dining room when the animals are up.

I am told that there is a daddy coyote in the hills of my living room, but to spot him is rare. Elspeth only gets him out when she is bored. For the record, my husband loves it when she calls him coyote daddy. I guess it beats the phase where she was calling him "big daddy".

You may think it is tough to live on the edge of danger with all these wild animals. But I get by. I do have back up, I found my husband and elder child, wearing my new red bowls on their heads the other day. I raised an eyebrow and was informed that they were rescuing me from my garden.

Its a jungle in here . . . .

(Anne - Goofball is high praise in my family, you can see we value it highly)

Exciting Moments in Parenting

The "baby" slept until 6:45. Elspeth woke up on her own, and earlier than normal. She helped me water the garden and was cooperative through her breakfast. As Jeremy and I were sitting to eat our own breakfast, we heard a noise suspiciously like drawers in the girls room.

Not unusual, Addie is a notorious sock thief, but she was with us. "Was that a drawer, or something else?" Jeremy wondered. "Don't ruin my fantasy that Ella is getting herself dressed." I begged.

Suddenly, our beloved 3 year old (who can get herself dressed but has NEVER chosen to do so unsupervised) showed up in the kitchen fully clothed. You may think this is trivial, but this is the difference between a few minutes late AGAIN, and actually, calmly, making it to the office on time. I nearly threw a party, I did take a picture:

Suddenly, Jeremy laughed and lunged for the camera. I almost told him I had already captured the moment, when he asked if Ella seemed a little bulkier than normal:



I guess she does love her "huggy pajamas" as she calls them, an awful lot, and maybe she chose to leave them on deliberately. But it is supposed to be 90 and humid today, so we thought we'd better help her get out of her "layered" look.

I still count it as a win.

True Confessions Continued

I spent a lot of time being upset that my cilantro seeds weren't actually cilantro. Until one day, they suddenly sprouted the characteristic scalloped leaves I was expecting. There should be something on the seed packet telling you what the sprouts look like so you don't weed them.

This is what my little garden patch looked like in early June. I was excited that my bean seeds were germinating.
The innocuous looking plants on the left are cantaloupe vines. They say they need 4 feet, they lie.

The bean plants are now thick enough to hide my pepper plants. The same kindly neighbor who told us that our carrot seeds washed out of their planting row, also delivered some kind of contraption to force order on our bean plants. I feel guilty that these gate like things are still sitting in my garage, but I am not sure how to use them.

The cantaloupe have become the "thing that ate the northeast corner". Luckily, our neighbor doesn't live in her house our we would get complaints. Apparently cantaloupe do NOT respect fence lines.

I am so excited that little cantaloupe are trying to grow. Of course, most of them are on the vines that grew up the fence, and they will soon reach a point where they are too heavy and will fall. I am a little sad about that.

From deep inside our cantaloupe wilds, some brave carrot seeds refuse to be denied. Now I need someone to tell me when to pick them. As a root vegetable, I can't see the important part and I just don't know when they are done.

A harvest at last! Our tri-color bush beans are prolific. I will not bother with wax beans again next year (I have gotten 4 beans from them so far). We had a lot of fun picking these beans, and Elspeth was enthusiastic about eating purple beans. I forgot that they cook up green, and the romance was lost in heating . . .
Adwen didn't wait for cooking. She gobbled up the first purple bean that came her way and reminded me that this is why I am learning how to garden. So my kids can learn what a real bean tastes like. I didn't appreciate my parents going to all the trouble, and I expect my kids won't either (at least not any time soon), but when they eat something that has not been virtually stripped of all nutrients by rushed growing seasons or extended processing, it is totally worth every second.

Next year I am already planning a garden extension . . .

Excessive Drooler, but a Cute One

Confessions of a would-be gardner

I spent a LOT of time nurturing the plant pictured above before a kindly neighbor let me know that my carrot seeds had washed to other parts of the garden during all the rains, and that this was a weed.

For awhile this spring, this was the greenest thing in my yard. The maple grove. Unfortunately, it was in the gutters.

There are times when I don't think I am "getting" this garden thing. Next year, CSA.

Addie Fest (Part 2)

Our Party Girl went to bed long before we got to presents. So we gathered at a local hotel to have breakfast with family and let her get a few gifts in before everyone had to leave town.

What follows is the true representation of the morning, nothing has been altered to protect the crying and the just plain cute . . .

Turning 1 is like a cloudy day, you have good news and bad news.

Happy First Birthday Adwen Kate!

Addie Fest (Part 1)

Addwen Kate is not a party girl. She cried through her first Halloween party, she slept through her first Christmas party and she was pretty uneasy during the 4th. We weren't sure what to expect at her 1st birthday party, but the pictures tell the best story. . .

OK, this one is just cute. I wanted to put one of the many (many) pictures of Sofia screaming (she just loves to scream), but when all is said and done, I had to go for cute.

The birthday girl was pretty happy. Mostly because I sat her next to Rob. Every time I looked up, Rob was giving my second born more hot dog. Hot dog is Adwen's favorite food (she takes to it like a professional eater). Hence we finally have a picture of Adwen, at a party, not crying or sleeping.

I had the perfect dress for the occasion all picked out, then Grandma showed up with an even more perfect dress (and one for big sis too). It was helpful to have a back-up though, as the intro of the cake led to a bath and wardrobe change for our birthday girl.

I am fairly certain I got all the rules for Bocce Ball wrong in my head, but the kids don't seem concerned about rules. You may notice a trend from a previous post, Annie spent a lot of time in the swing.

Reason #2 that Adwen enjoyed a party for the first time in her life. Kevin pulled out the crazy baby look (and I am sure he will appreciate me posting it here). This made Addie laugh out loud.

The moment of truth in a child's first birthday. Will she eat the cake, will she understand that this is good? You can never tell until . . . .

We may have a party girl after all.

Independence Day

Our star spangled baby waiting for her cousins to arrive.



At last cousin Annie arrives. Elspeth will NOT ride in her swing, but she loves to push Anne!

Sofia Mae shows off her mad skills at climbing on things we would rather she not climb. She didn't REALLY hurt anything on my watch, but more on that in a future post.

When we went for ice cream, Ella chose a Popsicle. I thought this was a great choice until I realized that Grandma Mamgu had "helped" her put hot fudge on her Popsicle.

Ella got to end the evening with sparklers that both fascinated and terrified her.

Game ON

What Adwen ate for dinner:

Entire hotdog (more than her sister)

water melon

graham crackers

6 oz bottle

What Adwen ate for breakfast:

An entire pear (and signed for more)

Cheerios

She is back in action and ready for her big birthday celebration. It is raining today but the rain is supposed to move out of the area tonight and not come back this weekend.

Here we go again

Hand Foot and Mouth has moved from the toddler room down to the transition room. Addie's room is on virus watch, and really no one holds much hope that it won't hit the baby rooms adjacent. Addie went to bed not feeling well, and woke up with a fever this morning. Not high enough for HFM, but its still early. This is going to be a great birthday BBQ if the birthday girl has a highly contagious virus.

A kamikaze bird flew into a power sub-station this morning. Thousands of people in our area did not have power. Yes, that includes us.

Innocuous, but Elspeth is a bear in the morning until she gets her first cup of milk, and we weren't opening the fridge.

Feeling lucky to be at work right now.

ER or Ice Cream?

I got the dreaded injury call from daycare. Usually they assure me that Elspeth is fine, but this time they wanted me to be prepared that she had bitten clear through her lip and that it was swollen and painful.

Our pediatrician wanted us to go to the ER, in case stitches were warranted.

Seriously, this was a missed call. When I got to school, I couldn't even find the place she had bitten through.

Jeremy and I decided to completely ruin dinner by taking her for ice cream instead of the ER.

Elspeth was an enthusiastic supporter of Plan B.