'Weening

After 9 years we finally reprised the Grand Pumpkin Tower of our engaged days. We thought we'd do it every year. Ah well. This year Mark did it with a massive sprained ankle and an absent wife. Also, what about changing color LED tealights?!?

Straight-laced superhero.

Sugared-up superhero.

Sweet superhero. PlanetGirl. SuperAlli.

What you can't see in this shady photo is the awesomeness of young Skywalker's vest. Made it out of an old dinosaur t-shirt and a raggy cloth diaper, if I say so myself. Simon and some acrylic paint made some hand-me-down camou boots sleek and authentic. Now go google Luke Skywalker episode V and see how spot on we were. All for 80 cents.

We leaf.

Looking forward to it

I think that all women can look forward to giving birth,

so that's why I decided to train as a HypnoBirthing childbirth educator. Soon I'll be offering classes in my area and I'm really looking forward to it!!!

The Mongan Method of HypnoBirthing is what I used for the birth of both my girls. It's a method of preparation for birth that teaches (really really teaches) you how to use deep relaxation and guided imagery to have an easy, comfortable (and often quick) birth. A major element of it is that fear causes tension which then leads to pain in your labor. The flip side of this principle is what I experienced: using this self-hypnosis I was quickly able to make myself comfortable (over and over, even with interruptions), allow my body to work efficiently and didn't need anything else for pain (the closest I came was feeling somewhat uncomfortable). I left my last birth thinking "I was really good at that! I won't mind doing that again!" I want to help other women feel similarly--and at the same time give their babies a gentle birth!

Of course, there's much more that HypnoBirthing teaches. It's a five week course (2.5 hours each session). It leaves you with so many tools and really empowers the woman's companion to feel like he can really help her as she goes through this major event.




I'm trying to come up with website name--any suggestions? LookingForwardtoBirth is the best I've got so far

What we are and what we are NOT. more info

Self-image is very important.
How to define yourself and see yourself is something we seem to be focusing on a lot lately.

Cases in point:

1. Allianna is NOT a princess.

"I am NOT a princess!"

Exasperatedly denied while presenting herself like this:

Don't even bother with the "m'lady" routine. She will not be amused. But her parents will be, so they'll keep it up for a good five minutes any time the shining purple appears. Aaahhh fun.

2. Simon IS Darth Vader.

Very Seriously.

IS he?

He's scary. He's serious.

What calls it into question?

The pink beads? . . . the backwards i'm-a-summer-reader conductor's hat? . . . the cougar seal?

3. Nimbus is depressed.

This one just has "IZ I next?" written all over it.

Notice the other cat hanging from the noose.

On that note, g'night y'all.

More info--the next day. Simon has a deep love for "mama kitty" who's the one hanging. He also has a deep love for flying things. So he combined the two, giving his kitty a spin on the hook that is normally reserved for his circling biplane. Nimbus, however, has no way of knowing that this is a good thing.

Well-rounded

Since we like books and we like prizes, we've been doing a lot more reading and library visiting with our summer days to take advantage of the library programs. Fancy Nancy has been unique in appealing to all five of our tastes (Mark can't stand most of the illustrations/plots that amuse me and I find the jr. nonfiction seashell and Star Wars dictionaries to be real yawners).

Simon channeled all of this Fancy Nance exposure into some creative 'dos for the girls this afternoon.

Afterwards he commented, "Wouldn't it be great if I could still do this for them when they're teenagers?" I told him I thought it would be pretty great, and all the girls would too.

ps. Mark Windexed our mirror YESTERDAY.

Hours

This is why we have hours of summertime. To catch The Big Bopper and his sixteen friends.

Duck duck duck duck duck . . . gator.

All of the Taye cousins a few weeks ago in North Carolina.

Allianna and Tessa go for their gator faces, while Jack decides he's going to go gator on Abigaelle after one too many of her superhugs. Simon, Zazel, and Alli are ready to "get this party started."

And with that the second annual Unbirthday is thrown for all the grandkids by Grandma.


With the notable addition of crab races . . . . when in Rome (or OBX), eh?

Getting seized by summer

In an attempt to have some summer fun before we get seized by heat and humidity, we have gone on two outings recently.

Since Mark's committed to spending most of the rest of the summer slaving over mice in an air-conditioned lab, we took our "last chance to go camping" on a very rainy weekend.

I paid for our campsite while sheets of rain fell outside; we had a brief hour (miracle!) respite from the rain to get the tent up. We didn't do any roasting, but moved our picnic inside:

This is where they started sleeping. We love our huge--and very rain-proof--tent! This was its maiden voyage; we heard tremendous deafening thunder and were woken by lightning all night, but didn't get wet! We had a bright green tree frog hiding under our rain tarp in the morning--guess he liked it too. :)

We weren't satisfied with just amphibians and raccoons, so the next morning we went on a soggy hunt for:

Mark plans to make a painting of this tree.

I felt like we were living in a dinosaur painting.




Mark, the alligator-whisperer, finally detected this:
It was a good personality test for our kids: Simon ran about 50 yards away and hid on the other side of the road, Allianna parked herself with a scowl in the stroller, and Mary Tessa trotted towards it. Until the gator lunged. For a turtle, but still, I grabbed Tessa and moved back. Mark was nearly weaping tears of joy and after we saw the gator put away 3 fish/turtles in classic gulpgulpgulp fashion he declared, "This makes it all worth it."

For me to be happy, camping needs to include hiking trails. We got lost, the thunder cloud found us, Simon hiked like a trooper even though he was scared and Mark and I carried girls and mud-laden strollers.

We prayed under this tree for the rain to slow up enough for us to make it back to the van. In about 5 minutes it did and we were happy to get the kids in dry clothes and food and away from hypothermia. Can you get chilled to the bone in Texas? Also, this happens to be our only picture with Mark in it. I am a terrible photographer and make him keep the camera in his hands. But it was fun and we want to go again tomorrow, just sans tent and rain.


For our second outing, we went to see our (mediocre) Astros play our Padres (go Padres!)--it was a win/win experience cheering for everyone.

Simon declaring with a satisfied air, "These are pretty good seats."



Mary Tessa trying to blind the batter with her blues.

All's good when you have licorice and peanuts.

We're off to the beaches of North Carolina next week!

Nobody peed their pants.

Mary Tessa pushed the shopping cart into a cardboard display and made it fall on an elderly lady.

I ripped off part of my thumbnail picking up a can.

There were at least 47 Chinese fire drills held in our car cart. More car evacuating than product selecting.

Two girls ate five packs of fruit snacks.

Tessa ran towards a car in the parking lot and I had to yell and she cried all through the parking lot as I held her and her dolly in a vice grip while pushing 319 lbs of cart.

And to think that this was the day I decided to try coupons.

Busted.

Mark comes home from work while the rest of us are sitting at dinner and is bemoaning to me that he went to a study group and they were all throwing around the "F"-word a lot. One of those conversations that you think you're having over the top of the kids' heads.

Allianna, to me: What is the "F"-word?

E: I'll let your dad answer that. [He brought it up after all!] Mark?

M: It's the very worst word you can say. You don't need to know it. It's very bad.



S: Is it "faint"? [phonics training is working at kindergarten!]

A: Is it "fan"?

They rapidly suggest lots of other "F"-words.

E: If you know it, it's not the word. You don't know this word.

A, contemplating: The "s"-word is "stupid".

E: That's one of them.

A: I know what the "B"-word is.

Not to be outdone, S: I know the "H-word". [walks over to Mom and whispers in her ear] It's hate. One time at pre-K [last year] Amirah yelled at lunch that someone used the "h"-word!

A: I know what the "B-word" is. I know it. It's "BUST-ed". "Buuus-TED."

S: Yeah, you're right. It is "Busted."

A: Busted. Busted. BUH-sted. [she likes the way it rolls off her tongue. she uses it in regular life almost as well as an adult uses the "d"-word. ]


Which fortunately didn't come up tonight.

Bright and lovely.

Mother's day was filled with things bright and lovely around here.

I woke up to a surprise installation art this morning (so THAT was why I had to go off by myself for two hours yesterday!). Bright, and quite lovely!!!!!

This one has "I [heart] M-O-M" dangling from its shwoops.

On Thursday I attended a Mom Makeover at Simon's kindergarten class. He's now seriously considering going to "doing make-up school" and is trying to decide which of his friends he'll room with.

Personally, I think accenting the shadow under the eye is an underutilized trick. Hair, make-up, back massage, nails and jewelry and then I was worthy of Allianna's "bright and lovely" overtures as heard here:

Letting your sister take your lickin'

Simon is a sweet brother. Mary had already finished her allotment of popsicles and he hadn't, so he let her have every other lick of his. Just plain sweet. Patient and kind. Generous and selfless. I could go on. I love that boy.

Public Service Announcement: Leave mothers alone

To all those service people who don't get it:

Please don't single out for suggestions, selective enforcement of rules, "hope you don't mind I tell you what to do" statements, mothers in the company of multiple children under age 5.

Situations where this would apply would be:

• Seeing a woman: 1) 20 minutes late to her child's swim class (due to inept car repair men) 2) herding child A "I don't hold hands in the parking lot even though I'm two" 10 yards ahead and child B "I'm afraid of having to go underwater" 5 yards behind and deciding to tell HER she can't use towels. Good moment to selectively enforce. Harangue. Not the mid-50s lap-swimmer, or various gentlemen. By all means, let THEM be. Get that woman who hasn't spent a complete minute either keeping a child from death's door or negotiating with them to please do (or do not do) something in years. SHE needs some intervention. Get her! If she happens to slip away, go for:
  
• the woman who's toddler's playing in lockers while she dries the eldest's swimsuit (who's waiting by himself out in the hall because he's too old and wrong gender) and she keeps the four year old emotionally satisfied as to why why why why something? It's five minutes from her kids' bedtime and they're in a rush to go get the hungry husband from work, so by all means, STOP HER and let her know how you've corrected her children.
  

They are in a state of constant hostage negotiation and are already being suitably harangued on every hand by their crew of children. Did you know it takes them 15 minutes of negotiations that would make even hardened SWAT members weep just to get those children legally restrained in a car? Do you know how many sets of rules such a woman keeps constantly in mind????? Traffic regulations, teaching every imaginable element of manners and social convention, nutrition requirements, child medicine dosage levels, elementary school attendance policies, schedules of 5 separate humans, carseat installation, intricate workings of various businesses just hoping to slip HER mind (car repair, door-to-door roofers, all dem bills).

*** ALL WE'RE ASKING FOR HERE IS CLEMENCY. LEAVE US ALONE. HELP, SMILE, OR STAY OUT OF THE WAY. WE'RE A TICKING TIME BOMB AND WE'RE LIKELY TO BE TICKING FOR THE NEXT 12 YEARS. PARDON EVERYTHING. ***

And don't think that I just sat down and wrote this peacefully in "my office" without 20 interruptions, including demanding that someone not put their underwear on someone else's head.


PS/ She's probably running on nothing but animal crackers for the last four hours.

What are the best things you've had to ask your two-year old to do lately?

Folky

This song is giving me new dreams of a family folk ensemble. If I can just get the other two to learn their parts. Even if it never makes it bigger than the living room.

Dad, I played mandolin by the bathtub tonight. It lifted my mood and I reminisced with the kids about you.



And finally, here is Hug descending a staircase: