A Post Without Direction

I recently switched from yahoo to gmail, and I gotta tell you, I really love it. I've had a Yahoo account since 2000 and I used to be very satisfied with it and then slowly more and more spam kept slipping through and more and more of the mail I actually wanted was going into the spam folder. But so far all my gmail has gotten are warm fuzzies from my friends and family. I also like how it stacks up all the replies into one conversation so you can keep track of everything that was said without even leaving the current email. Small things make me happy.

And speaking of small things, I want to talk about my weirdo son. If you've met Iain you'd know that in preschool he could name every car on the street. Then he got sick of cars and started liking animals. It was because of him that I discovered one of my favorite creatures the Axolotl, which often looks like a happy little clown (and not an evil, scary clown, but one you would really like to know). Had it not been for Iain, I would have utterly missed the existence of these wonderful creatures and would have been a less happy person. My point though is that, despite his love for looking at the animals in the zoo, Iain was really pretty afraid of animals.

Then we got Mr. Giles and Iain suddenly believed that dogs were okay really, but he still believed that cats were the spawn of Satan and he didn't want anything to do with him. For the most part I really get that. He spent most of his life horribly allergic to cats. When Mason and I got engaged, and I finally allowed them to spend time together, Iain stepped into Mason's condo with is eleven-year-old, elephant-sized cat and immediately turned into a red, puffy, snot ball. So when Mason moved in with us, Gracie had to go.
But after two and a half years of allergy shots, I thought he'd be okay giving it a go. I was dealing with some hardcore baby fever that wasn't likely to be sated, and damn it I wanted a kitten. So we got one. When I told Iain we were getting a kitten, he freaked out. He was mad. He absolutely did not want it.
Guess how Iain spends his day now. Following that cat around, picking it up whenever he can. He puts it on his head and says, "Do you like my hat?" He puts it on his face and says, "Do you like my moustache?" He videotapes it sleeping. He is nuts about our little Willow, and he hasn't had a single problem with his allergies.

Cuz I Like To Fight! Fight!

Rory successfully tested for her Camo belt in Tae Kwon Do tonight (earlier than the rest of the class because we're going to be at her Grandma's birthday party during the regular testing).
She did a very good job.



For one of the things she had to do, her instructor told her to have a mean face. I couldn't capture it at the time because they face the instructor not the parents; however, I had her do it again for me afterward.
Does it remind you of anyone?

Status Update

Honestly I don't know what to say. I keep starting posts and not finishing them. Spending endless days with my kids is great. I really enjoy watching the physical progress they've made. I guess I've never realized how little actually happens at daycare. Now that they have the time to really play, they're suddenly very athletic.
I rode my bike with Iain the other day and really had to work to keep up. It's unfathomable to think that in April he couldn't ride more than 20 feet.
Rory, who wouldn't go under water two weeks ago, is now diving into the pool. She doesn't know she's diving though which is pretty hilarious because you'll ask her to dive and she will say she's afraid but then she'll stand on the top step of the pool arms wide and let herself fall face first into the water.
She's also super tan. More tan than I think anyone in my family ever gets. I'd say she doesn't get it from Mason either because he's paler than a ghost; however, he doesn't log the outside hours that we do, so it is possible. Trust me, I am a big spaz about sunscreen, especially since being outside started giving me hives. We all put on 50 + spf sun screen and continue to put it on all day long but she still has that deep tan.
Believe it or not we only have about three weeks left in our summer vacation. We register Iain for school Friday morning.

Because I Am Me

Many time I have professed my love for all things Joss Whedon and so I didn't want to slack off in my duties. Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog is fantastic.
There is nothing I like more than a good musical, unless it is a superhero musical written by Joss Whedon and starring Nathan Fillion AND Neil Patrick Harris. It was like someone came in and said, "How can we make Woodlandmama really, really happy?"

Well, thanks Joss you did it!

Also, if you think my love of Joss and Nathan Fillion is making me biased, Mason and Iain really love it too. So check it out!

The Many Random Things That Make Up My Day

Iain and I went to the library yesterday and got some books. Today, while waiting the requisite half hour in the doctor's office after his allergy shots, (and because we were once again Rory-less) Iain and I were each reading our books. We both went into such deep book comas that neither one of us heard his name called (several times) and the nurse had to come tap us on the heads. What is it that they say about apples and trees?

Iain has decided that he likes Suzanne Vega (of Tom's Diner fame). So we were listening to the song Luka, and I found myself babbling about what it was about and I guess I don't really know. Is it child abuse? Is it about some one getting beat up by their boyfriend? Why was I talking about this with and 11 year-old?

My cat likes to ride around on our shoulders like a parrot, which makes my husband happy because he likes to pretend he's a pirate, a weird pirate with a kitten instead of parrot, but then again Mason can't swim so he would never make a good pirate.

Sometimes (like right now) when I am laying on the couch the cat curls up on my shoulder. Only, since I am laying down, she's more on my chest than my shoulder so she looks like a furry flower accessory that Sarah Jessica Parker would wear in Sex and the City. So which is weirder, pretending you are a cat pirate or that you're starting a new trend of wearing giant cat flowers on your chest.

I should probably go to bed.

A Day Without Rory

This summer Rory was supposed to spend two and a half hours everyday at "Kiddie Kamp" which was basically just playing in the park with a teenager instead of mommy. Not enough kids signed up, however, and it was canceled.
So it's pretty much been the Mommy and Iain show for Rory, where we have to entertain her all day, every day, which usually just ends with us spending four hours at the pool because that's the only way to keep her 95% happy.. Neither Iain nor I have been too happy about it.
To remedy this, I signed her up for four days a week for the next two weeks Rory is spending her day at gymnastics camp. Even better than that, Mason is picking her up.
Today was our first Rory-free day. we celebrated by watching Independence Day and Contact on cable and then a couple hours in the library.
It was nice to have a fight free day, and I know that Iain appreciated the mommy time.
I didn't do too much today because I knew we had to get to a meet at five.
Tomorrow the cleaning starts.

What Are We Teaching Her?

My four-year-old daughter is in love with my eleven-year-old son's best friend. In her words, she "love, love, loves him."

He's not to impressed with her though. She can't understand why she isn't invited over every time Iain is. Unfortunately (or possibly fortunately) he doesn't do all the same activities that Iain does.

There is, however, a boy who is in Taekwondo with Iain and Rory and is on Iain's swim team. So today she told me that she would "act like she was (name redacted)'s one true love, just until she was around (I's BFF) again."

She did too. She flirted, teased and played with him for the duration of the invitational (which lasted from 8 a.m. until we left early at 4 p.m.). He was great though, considering he's a thirteen year-old boy. He played, teased and flirted right back with her.

So I asked her if she liked him more than (I's BFF), and she said, "Oh, no! I just pretended to love him so he would play with me."

WTF!!

A Post That Goes South Pretty Quick

I know that I am not posting like I used to post. Lately I've had longer and longer stretches where I've left the same damn thing up for a long time.
The truth is I have been writing posts, getting called away halfway through and I come back only to decide to not write that post because it's to whiny, boring, or bitchy. I've been spending too much time with my family and seeing very few people, I've found, has made me whiny, bitchy, and boring.

I do have a bajillion pictures. Some are from the 4th of July Parade that my kids walked in. Well, Iain walked the whole way, Rory got tired halfway through and ended up in the wagon that was meant to hold the extra candy with the two other Tiny Tigers whose parents were dumb enough to allow an under six to walk in the parade. A little boy, who I believe is under eight (because he was a Tiny Tiger not that long ago), pulled them despite many people (including the adult students) offering to pull the wagon for him.

I am glad that I took the wagon. The teacher had nothing but several one gallon buckets full of candy to toss. I suppose he though the kids would carry them, but I don't think they could have. The parade was two miles long, and they were the only ones that were going to walk it.

Quite frankly, I don't think the teacher thinks too much. He keeps trying to get us to fund raise for his for-profit school, and volunteer to help him build his new location, but none of these things will impact our children's education, they'll just help his business. I think that's fundamentally wrong (see there I go being bitchy).

So here they are at the parade.


Iain is still doing very well at swimming. His last meet (where the other team were uber-competative and kind of mean) He got three second place ribbons for the medley relay, the 50 breast stroke, and the freestyle relay, a fourth place for his 50 free, and a fifth place for his Individual medley. This Saturday we are going to an invitational which I imagine will take forever.

See I try to be nice, but I can't maintain it for very long. Maybe it's because the kids (who have always been in daycare or camp) are not used to spending so much time together and have done nothing but snipe at each other all summer long. I am looking forward to a break as Rory has eight days of tumbling day camp coming up and Iain will be spending time with his other Grandmother. Also school starts up again in one month and three days (not like I am counting or anything). Maybe I'll drum up a bit of goodwill by then.

I'm That Mom

I swam in high school. Swimming is hard, mostly because nobody gives a shit. Nobody came to just watch meets like they do for baseball or football.
So now that Iain is swimming, we go to the meets and the parents cheer while their kid is swimming until 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place is decided then they stop. Than that little kid who is trying so hard, but is a whole pool length behind everyone else is alone in the pool just trying to finish.
I hate it. Not even his or her parents are cheering like they're afraid to acknowledge that their kid lost the race.

So there I am, standing at the starting blocks because I let myself be talked into volunteering, and I cheer. I cheer loud because it's hard to hear when you're swimming. I hear myself, shouting and cheering and I hate it because not even the coach is cheering but I can't stand the thought that that kid is swimming in silence.

So I've become that mom and I'm sure I am mortifying my 11 year-old but I don't think I care all that much.

Some Pictures

Iain with his ribbons from his last swim meet with the "Nads"





And look, they're friends now . . .





. . . sort of . . .

So Happy!

Back in April my Windows Vista on my laptop decided it didn't like me and canceled my profile. After much swearing and anger I got it back, but minus all of my Firefox bookmarks and despite everything I did, I could not get them back. Everything else eventually came back, just not my bookmarks.
I admit to being lame and though I could come up with most of the places I go, I was missing a lot and had no idea what they were (duh that's why you use bookmarks).

Flash forward to today when my Firefox updated and I once again lost all my freaking bookmarks!

Gah!

I had just spent the last three months rebuilding and adding them, now it's all gone again!

So I decided, that I wasn't going to let Firefox and Vista get the best of me. So I read a bunch of websites about where the bookmarks would be (which I did before with no luck), ignored them all and found them on my own. I was able to, not only restore all of my bookmarks that got wiped out with the update, but also the ones missing since April!

Yay! Look out blogs-I-haven't-visited-in-three-months, I'm on my way!!!

Why I Haven't Been Posting More

You may have noticed that I've really slacked off on the posting lately.

Honestly, it is not my fault.

Success!

So several months ago, when I decided to be home this summer, I told my son that he was going to take up a sport. Unlike his Taekwondo, he would be expected to actually compete against others in this sport, and tough toenails if he didn't like it. Life is about competition and you need to challenge yourself.

Iain responded to this the same way he does everything, "eep!"

So he has been getting up early Monday-Saturday to participate on our town's swim team. I think at first he hated it. Although he loves swimming, he's more about playing than swimming back and forth. His first day back from vacation he hated me, hated swimming and wanted to quit.

That said, yesterday Iain kicked ASS at yesterday's swim meet. He placed in all six events that he swam in and LOVES swimming.

Just another instance of why it pays to make Iain do stuff he is afraid of.

Oh, and also the opposing team was called the Nadiators and their caps inexplicably had the word "Nads" written across them. What were the team parents thinking of? Did they really, really not notice? I couldn't stop snickering and Mason kept chanting, "Go! Nads! Go! Nads!" under his breath. Plus, 95% of the people wearing the caps were girls!

P.S.-This picture is not from his ass-kicking meet this is from the week before because before we left yesterday, I decided I would only end up with the same pictures as last week and didn't bring my camera (which is why there are no pictures of the Nad caps).

Meet Willow!

For reasons too numerous to go into here, we got a cat. A six-week old kitten to be exact.
We decided to ignore my son's hatred of all things feline (and also his allergy-after all he's been getting shots for almost two years now) and buy a cat; and I have to say he's really taken to her.

Rory wanted to name her Sandy (after the dog in Annie) and Iain wanted to name her Miss Kitty Fantastico (which is from Buffy). To compromise we all agreed on Willow to keep with the Buffy theme (my dog is named Mr. Giles) and not end up naming our gray cat "Sandy." Plus Rory likes Willow (especially when she's on How I Met Your Mother, Rory says she's really funny then- she doesn't understand about acting).

Anyway Giles is jealous, and eats her food, and they fight (like cats and dogs-sorry), but I think they'll warm up to each other eventually.

The Person You Are Going to Be

Somewhere along the way, I heard that you are the person you are going to be by the time you are three. I don't remember where I heard that, but I remember utterly disagreeing with it. I think there are other things that shape you along the way. I didn't buy it.

Until lately.

When Iain was 3, he loved cars. I mean he LOVED cars. He knew what they all were. He would recognize a car a half block away and announce it. "Mom here comes a Chrysler blah blah blah." If you ever doubted that he was right, and went up to double check, he was always right on.
He had all his little Matchbox cars and he'd bring them up to you asking you to tell him what kind of car it was (they usually have the type written on the bottom). Sometimes the car didn't say, it just said "Malaysia," the country where the car was made, but Iain wouldn't buy it.
"I see words!" He'd exclaim, "What do the words say Mommy?"
"Malaysia, Iain. It's a Malaysia Car."
Once when my friend Leticia and her husband were watching him, he brought his cars. Jorge was quizzing him on each car. Then Jorge held up a car and asked what it was and Iain answered, "That's a Malaysia car."
Leticia said, "No, honey, there's no such thing," but Jorge turned it over and started laughing at what he read there. What can I say, he wouldn't take no for an answer.
Then when he was about five, he decided that he had learned all he could ever learn about cars and became obsessed with animals. Much the way he was with the cars, he set out to learn all there was to know about animals, and he pretty much succeeded. People would call him to ask him about animals. One of the 7th grade teachers, who helped out with after school care had my kindergarten son in to talk to her class. The cars were tossed under the bed forgotten and then eventually given away to other kids who actually wanted them.
Then he liked imaginary creatures, then music.
Now all of a sudden it's cars again. Though he doesn't remember anything he learned as a three-year-old, my eleven-year-old Iain is obsessed with cars again. He's already plotting the car he wants when he's sixteen. I haven't the heart to tell him we can barely afford college let alone a brand-new VW Beetle or a Porshe (which evidently were created by the same guy says my little guy and I won't question him- after eleven years I know better).

So I guess you are the person you are going to be when your three, or at least the person you are going to be at eleven. I bet he wishes he hadn't let me give his Malaysia cars away (they were always his favorite).

A Different Time

When I was a little girl, my sisters and I would put a record onto my parent's turntable and jam. Not only would we sing and dance along, but we'd also act out the songs or albums. Sometimes there would be outfits or props. We'd dance to Michael Jackson's Thriller, the original soundtracks of Oliver, Annie, or the Sound of Music.
Like my sisters and I, my daughter loves singing and dancing along to music. She, however, is missing one thing. Mason and I don't have a stereo. We have our computer with a better sound system than anything we could afford and we have speakers to hook up to our iPods, that's it.
Iain has a CD player (that he'd never share) and speakers for the iPod he bought himself.
So today I broke down and let my four-year-old daughter buy herself and iPod Shuffle. At first I felt bad about it. I kept thinking, "Why does a four-year-old need an iPod?" But all day long she has been singing and dancing all over the house, a happy as happy could be. So I remind myself that things are different than they were when I was little and deal with letting my daughter be very happy.

Boring Post

Since our vacation, we've kind of been trying to last on very little until Mason's net payday. Luckily it's today. So I was in desperate need of a snack, but there were none to be had so I decided to try and make hummus. We've had some dried chick peas in our cabinet for awhile, and I checked out the Internet and ran into some problems.
Every recipe I found was super complicated, but they all had the same basic ingredients so I decided to wing it. The results were pretty good. It isn't the best hummus I've ever had but it isn't even close to the worst either, and it works well with the Triscuts that my kids won't touch. I guess that I better replace the chick peas though for the next time we can't afford snacks.

Dead Tree for My Mom

Dead Tree for My Mom
Originally uploaded by ejsm219

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

My daughter really, really, really wants to learn to read. She doesn't care that she's just four. She wants to read and she wants me to teach her. So we've been working on phonics. You might say we're getting hooked on them.
Today she really got it. I asked her out of nowhere if she could remember what letters get together to make the "chuh" sound. She got them in the wrong order at first but came up with a bunch of word with the "c-h" sound in them. Some were even words we hadn't talked about before.
Then about three hours later we were watching Underdog and she asked how to spell "charge." I asked if she remembered what made the "chuh" sound and she knew right away.

Super-awesome!

Bliss

I got up this morning and Rory was at daycare for the first time in two weeks. It is, however, her second to last time to go there, which makes me slightly sad as it will take away my only free time. Mason (and I, sort of) feel that it doesn't make a lot of sense because she will be in school three days a week next year and I won't be picking her up, she'll go to after school care until Mason gets her. This was decided, of course, before the park district canceled Kiddie Camp, which was supposed to allow her two hours of playing at the park with kids her own age everyday.
Then I dropped Iain off at swimming with his bike so I wouldn't have to pick him up. This made it possible for him to sleep in (all the way to 7 a.m.) but also made it possible for me to not sit in a hot parking lot for a half hour while him and his friends goofed around smacking each other with wet towels (or whatever happens in boys' locker rooms).
So, for the next two hours I am a woman of leisure. No Zack and Cody screaming out of the TV, and making my ears bleed. No endless bickering over who is in charge of the TV; Rory is a Disney channel girl while Iain prefers the Discovery Channel- I agree with Iain, why is everybody so screechy on the Disney channel? No endless questions about if I was a character on Daria or a hobbit, what would I do, or requests for me to do that funny voice that sounds like Sandi from Daria
Just silent bliss!

For The First Time

Iain just finished The Hobbit for the first time and is starting The Lord of The Rings trilogy. I am a little proud and slightly jealous that he has this great experience ahead of him. Awesome!

Homeward Bound

Well after a week of intense activity, we've decided (or rather Mason and the kids decided) that we should cut our vacation a little short and head home to rescue our puppy from boarding, and enjoy a couple of days at home in our flooded town.
We've already made it back to Topeka, the most boring town that kids could ever be in love with. Seriously, we went to see beautiful mountains, and got in some of Iain's boring-ass scientific crap. Literally. We watched a program at Pike's Peak where a park ranger showed us different animals' poop. We saw Santa Claus in June for Rory (who vows she loves him more than even Aaron- Iain's friend who Rory is obsessed with) at an amusement park 100% designed for kids. We went to a zoo, AND a water park, and yet to them nothing is so awesome as Topeka where all we did was take some silly pictures and hang out in our hotel. Kids are weird.

On a positive note our day at the water park washed away a lot of Rory's scabs and she's left with pretty pink "new skin" and you can hardly tell she fell down at all. Mason was annoyed when I made him pick up triple antibiotic cream at the store, and Rory hated me every time I applied it, but, damn, does that stuff heal cuts fast.
Anyway I'll leave you with some of my favorite pictures from Garden of the Gods and the Denver Zoo.

The Girl Who Fell Down

My husband sometimes does stupid things. Let's face it, everyone does stupid things, but the fact is my husband does stupid things that often have a bad result. For instance, his car hood stays up on its own. My car hood has a prop bar. Once when he was looking under the hood, he forgot that 5 minutes before he put up a prop bar and when he couldn't close the hood he slammed it down so hard that he snapped the metal prop bar in half, now I have to prop open my hood with a snow-brush. He did something similar to my ice maker and a million other things.
By far the dumbest thing he has ever done was to drop my daughter on her face in a bunch of gravel. He has terrible night-vision, but he was letting her ride on his shoulders in the dark because she was tired (good dad), he thought he'd take a shortcut (that wasn't actually a shortcut) through a campsite and tripped on a faucet and they both went down. He landed on his knees, she landed on her face. So, does this accident make him a bad dad?
I was walking three feet behind them talking to my son when it happened, does that make me a bad mom?
From the looks we've been getting lately, the answer is yes.
It's funny how kids have no qualms about asking us about her face, but the parents, who are supposedly being tactful, look at her then us and you can see the judgement in their faces even if they don't say a word. They think that we beat our kid, or are at least neglectful.
As we walked through the zoo today, we got those looks a lot. Never mind that our daughter was sitting nicely in the wagon and their kids were running around throwing fits and not listening. They looked at her than us, and thought in their head, "Look at her face, they must be bad parents."
So why should I care that some zoo parents in a city 1,000 miles away from my home think I am a bad parent? Because every mom at some point wonders if they are a crap parent.
Don't get me wrong, I know I am not a crap parent, my kids are happy and brilliant (and that's not just my own opinion) but if I were a great parent, would I, after what happened last Friday, let this happen:

Some Pictures to Make You Wish You Were Here

Doing Fine, but Looking bad

Her scrapes look bad, but she is feeling okay.