Sugar High

It's All Saints Day, and approaching 7:30 a.m. Usually by this time, Isaac has been up about 1.5 hours and Anna is groggily lounging on the couch waiting for the warm milk to hit her blood stream. But today they are barely stirring. The excitement (or the sugar?) kept them up past 9 last night, and now they are sleeping it off.
Part of the excitement was that we had another family over for dinner and trick-or-treating. I made a yummy pinto bean and mole chili and a baked pumpkin filled with rice, raisins, apples, and cinnamon. Almost a dessert, really. Our guests brought an excellent chicken soup and bread, which was very fortunate since neither Jon nor the kids actually liked the chili. Was it the kale I snuck in there? The kids didn't eat much anyway -- too excited. So after the grown-ups quickly ate we headed out the door.
The actual trick-or-treating was good fun, as always. We know a lot of the kids on our block, and it's great to see all the costumes and wander around with everyone. Anna's Winter Queen outfit was lovely and sparkly and served as a nice contrast to Isaac's deep and dark Darth Vader. Jon also wore a Vader costume, so they were a funny pair.

This year, we noticed that Anna and Isaac have very different approaches to candy collection. I believe Anna's stream of thought went something like this:
"I am a beautiful Winter Queen! I am skipping/floating along to each house, I love seeing my friends, and enjoying the wonder that is this annual candy-coated event. I AM EXCITED!"
Isaac's stream of thought was more like this: "It is time to go to work. I have donned my costume and am ready to receive the candy that is due me. This is my job. This is what I do. This is what I was born for. I am serious about this endeavor."

All that to say Anna loved the event-aspect, whereas Isaac loved the candy-aspect. To further illustrate this point: Once we returned home, Anna delayed candy consumption in favor of drawing in a little notebook she got at one house. Meanwhile, Isaac held on to his candy basket like a drowning man holding a life raft, yelling in protest if anyone came too near. "I got it FIRST!" he would announce.

Over the course of the week we also managed to carve four pumpkins, including the mega-squash, which we proudly displayed. The two little ones ended up as Minnie Mouse and a Storm Trooper, while the big guys were a little harder to recognize. One was the classic Snoopy sillouette, as he rises up out of the pumpkin patch. The other was Pumpkin Pi: a pumpkin outline with pi carved in the middle. I wonder how many people "got" that one? Anyway, Jon did a great job carving the big guys with the saw - I didn't need to do much detail work after he got through with them. I'd post pictures, but that's just one step too many today. Maybe tomorrow. In the meantime, I have some chili to heat up for dinner (because it literally took all day to write this post). And they all better like it. (But if not, I saved some of the soup.)

Has it been that long?

I guess my last post was in September, which does not seem that long ago. In truth, I am not a natural journal-keeper, so blogging has been more of a discipline than a hobby. But I think it's important to document this little slice of life for the kiddos sake, for my sanity's sake, and because I know you're reading this, Mom.
Usually at this time - the time that Anna is at preschool and Isaac is napping - I am madly cleaning something. But I had some minor oral surgery on Wednesday ("subepithelial gum grafts") which are more painful than expected. So here I am, slightly strung out on Vicodin, sporting jowls like Ron Perlman, trying to ignore my mouth. I'm such a wimp about these things. The worst part is that I'll have to do this twice more over the next 16 months. Ack! Anyway, enough complaining. Before you know it I'll be moaning about my sciatica (whatever that is) and then there's no turning back.

It's been a busy few weeks (is it ever not busy? of course not!) so I haven't been keeping up. Jon's been on multiple trips (is he ever not traveling? of course not!) and during his last one I just gave up and stopped cleaning, stopped cooking, and tried to take a step back. By the time Jon returned much catch up was, and still is, needed. At the same time, I'm trying to adopt a more zen-like attitude towards home-keeping. This entails an increase in playtime with the kids (to the detriment of cleaning), and a decrease in apologizing for the concomitant mess that our guests encounter. I report that follow-through on this plan has been intermittent.

In other news, we've been engaging in many autumn activities. Heading out to the pumpkin patch is always a big deal. Anna picked out a few pumpkins immediately, but found it difficult to narrow things down. Isaac took a more circuitous approach, unable to settle on anything, overwhelmed by the selection. Like snowflakes, all pumpkins are wonderfully individual when you're a toddler. Anna did her best to guide him, helping him select a little Isaac-sized one. We also bought a pie pumpkin which I'm going to stuff with rice, raisins, apples, and nuts, and bake to yummy perfection on Monday. A perfect Halloween dinner.

Jon also picked up two pumpkins, these grown by his coworker with a talent for gargantuan squash. They will be carved by sawzall on Saturday. Last year we used our giant pumpkins to make a snowman. This year perhaps a "Pumpkins Crossing" theme, or maybe something princess-ish. We could use our Yugoslavian finger squash as a crown. (Our CSA gave us the finger... squash. Ha! That joke will never get old. Right? Right?! Never mind.)

One thing we did not do this year is a Fall Walk. Previously, the kids and I loved to meander through our subdivision and look at the autumn decorations, the colorful trees, and enjoy the crispness of fall. This year, both kids have been getting nightmares just from the innocuous decor on our street. Isaac won't go to bed without the light on, and says everything is too scary. "Ghosties! Ghosties!" he says. Anna has been doing better, but was on a bad run of nightmares in early October. So, thanks to the houses that go a little too far with their Halloween decorations, we've been keeping it close to home. Our house sticks with scarecrows and pumpkins, thank you very much.

Some good news: Anna and I were able to come to a compromise on her costume. I wanted something easy to put together, warm, and inexpensive. Anna wanted something magical, pretty, and didn't want to wear anything over or under her costume. The winner was "Winter Queen" or "Winter Fairy Queen" depending on whether she's wearing her wings. We started with the wedding dress my mom made a couple of years ago, and added a belt fashioned from leftover silver material. Silver stars and hearts (made from cardboard and aluminum foil) hang from the belt, and the rest of the material can be used as a shawl. The dress is short-sleeved, so we bought some white leggings and use them to cover Anna's arms. Finally, aluminum foil to make the wings and crown sparkle. Voila! Winter Queen!
I wanted Isaac to be a tiger again, but he's really into Darth Vader. So I spent $20 and got him a costume. They only had a medium, so he should be able to wear it for... 6-10 years. I call that an investment! It's warm, but all black. He's practically Invisible Pedestrian. Maybe I can convince him that a flashlight makes a good light saber.

On your mark, get set....

So much for blogging once a week. I was almost able to keep up in August, but everything begins in September and it's been a little hairy around here.
Now when I say "everything" begins, I mean Everything. Let's do a little review of the month, shall we? The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Good:
(1) Preschool. Yay preschool! We all love preschool. Anna goes in the afternoon, ostensibly during Isaac's nap, so it gives me a solid two hours to clean. I gave up cleaning in August, so it felt good to give the house a good once over during those early weeks. As for the school girl, she seems to be enjoying herself. It's hard to get much information out of her, but I can at least find out what "job" she had, what the snack was, and some loose outlines about what pretend game she played outside. I can hardly wait for parent-teacher interviews, to find out the inside scoop.

(2) Bible studies: Since the kiddos have come along, it's been difficult to work biblical study into my day. So I've appreciated a return to group study, providing that extra motivation to delve daily into the Word. There's a women's study I've been attending which has become invaluable to me. Unlike other aspects of our church involvement, all I need to do for this group is show up. I'm not involved in child care or logistics or even snacks. While I enjoy helping out with junior church and organizing the logistics for our couple's study, everyone needs a time where all you do is "get fed."

(3) Gymnastics: Both Anna and Isaac are enrolled in classes. This has been a great activity for both of them, and many thanks to my friend Michelle for getting the ball rolling on that. Anna's class is small, meaning less time waiting in line. She's also with a friend, improving her experience ten-fold. Isaac and I take a parent-tot class, and it's super fun! There's an obstacle course, trampoline, and a foam pit. He likes these just fine, but I think his favorite activity is running around in circles on the soft floor. Ahhh... two year olds.

Bad:
(4) Business travel: Not my travel of course, but Jon's travel. I suppose it's no surprise that his trips were curtailed in the summer months, but it made his three September trips a bit of a shock. None of them were terribly long: just two or three days. I feel like a baby complaining about them, but we were pretty out of practice. And creating new weekly routines hard enough without haphazard Daddy absences. I remind myself that the alternative is living in D.C., and then I feel better.

Ugly:
(5) The End of Naps: They're not totally gone, but Isaac skips naps about twice a week now. He is not a happy awake toddler, but instead a cranky pants sensitive awake toddler. So these days get a little rough around the edges. On the bright side, he will actually go to sleep a little earlier on these days. Sometimes.

(6) Illness: And with the beginning of Everything we have the onslaught of virus season. Isaac was our canary, coming down with a cold the first week of September and it has not gone away. He was on antibiotics for an ear infection, which I would have normally tried to avoid. However, given #4 I was not about to risk a sleepless night. Fat lot of good it did. The day after his last dose the nose started running and he complained of ear pain. I'm trying to wait it out this time, but it's a been a week...
In other news, Anna is on her second cold. Those flu shots can't come soon enough.

So that pretty much sums up the month. Things I'm looking forward to, during this last week of September:
A girl's night out to Ikea (how suburban is that?)
Jon not traveling
Maybe saying goodbye to the mid 80s temps? I'm so done with hot weather. So. Very. Done.
Healthy kids?

Last Hurrah

We've just completed a mini-vacation, our last hurrah before preschool and classes and bible studies and other fall what-nots. We spent two nights tenting at Union Reservoir. Our first camping trip as a family! You see, after Anna arrived we limited our camp outs to those with my parents and their RV. After all, grandparents and an RV are handy when kiddos are small and need a lot of stuff and a lot of sleep. Now that the kids are a bit older, we decided to break out the tent and give it a try on our own. I have great memories of camping in a tent trailer with my family when I was a kid, and wanted to expose the kiddos early. I also wanted to camp by a lake, since our Canadian forays involve mountains.

I was nervous about it, but thanks to a good amount of planning and some creative packing we had a lot of fun. Not a lot of sleep, but a lot of fun. Anna loved loved loved being in the water, and could not get enough of the waves on one windy afternoon. Isaac was less enthralled by the whole beach experience. Instead, he was happy to just be outside, running around the camp site kicking his ball and playing cars. We cooked dinners over the campfire, which is what I love to do. Fire roasted food is just sooo yummy. The simple hamburger becomes a different creature when cooked to smoky perfection. Marshmallows were roasted, of course. This is one tradition I can do without. There are few foods I will spit out of my mouth, but the bloated marshmallows is one of them (blue cheese is another, but that's a different story).

Our biggest challenge was settling down Isaac in the evenings. Apparently, running and jumping around in a tent is super-fun and incredibly stimulating when you're two. It is also stimulating when you're four, but four knows when enough is enough. Two just keeps going and going and going until Daddy must speak firmly and said two year collapses in a sad heap and cries himself to sleep. I suppose it didn't help that the tent was rather warm, owing to the unusually hot August we've been experiencing. I am so done with August and 90 degree weather.


One thing we learned is the need for more sleeping mattresses. We cobbled something together for each of us, but let me say that a yoga mat really is not for sleeping on. It just really is not. We also learned that we don't physically have room in the car to camp for more than two nights. At least, not at a beach. Beach stuff takes up some serious room. A good excuse to get a bigger vehicle? Perhaps! Overall, it was a fantastic time. I'm not sure we'll camp at Union Reservoir again - little shade, "generator friendly," and kinda noisy - but I'm looking forward to our next outing. Whenever and wherever that may be.

It's Still August

What to do with a single small turnip from my CSA? Creamy turnip hash! Too bad no one likes creamy turnip hash.

Observation: Jon's family eats more salad than any family anywhere ever.

What I have learned from musicians in my family: Isaac should avoid trumpet and Anna should avoid clarinet and bassoon. Oboe, harp, piano, and guitar are a go.

What I have recently learned from going on a walk with my children: I should not go on a walk with my children. No, wait. That's too harsh. Rather, here are the conditions under which we shall not walk: (1) with a side-by-side double stroller, (2) when it is too hot and/or too sunny and/or too cold and/or too windy, (3) when someone has the smallest inkling of being tired, (4) when we have a destination in mind, (5) when there is not a fourth person to aid in divide-and-conquer strategies, (6) when I have not packed a six course meal into twelve separate-but-equal containers, (7) when we are not at the zoo.

We went to the zoo and had fun! By which I mean there were no melt downs, animals were viewed, and no children were misplaced at any point. Fluke or result of my new zoo strategy? We'll find out this coming week, as the end of August appears to be a sweet spot for zoo visits. School is in but it's too early for large school groups to begin wandering around. So what is my new strategy? The two main elements are: immediate and large amounts of food upon arrival, and no stroller. The former eliminates constant stopping and rooting for food every 5 minutes, and the latter ensures greater flexibility as I sprint to prevent Isaac from diving into the polar bear enclosure.

My father-in-law is on Facebook. Surely the end is nigh.

Isaac peed on the bathroom rug. And yah, that rug really tied the room together.

Actual rain during an actual afternoon last week. Autumn, you are on the way!

Next time I'm mixing a mojito, I will finish making it before I turn to other things, lest I again dump cornstarch into the concoction.

Starting to think about this year's Christmas country: Tibet. Just thinking. Haven't actually researched anything yet.

Other things of which I'm thinking, but doing very little about: Anna's kindergarten, Halloween costumes, shrubs, reorganizing various drawers and cupboards, swim and piano lessons for Anna. There's a few other things, but it's Sunday so I'm going to go take a nap.

August: The Sunday of Summer

August seems like the last day of a long weekend: sweet and mildly depressing. With schools beginning mid-August in CO (what the #!*@&??), this feeling grows more profound the older my kids become. I don't remember this sensation growing up, I suppose because school ended in June. Thus the beginning of August felt like Saturday night, and the end more like Sunday afternoon. I'll stop the analogy there.
A nice aspect of this month has been visiting with family that have come through our area. Anna and Isaac had loads of time to play with their cousins, and we've been fortunate to have Jon's cousin stay with us for a couple of days and join in the fun. These times remind me why we moved here in the first place, and reinforce our confidence in the decision. Family is so very important.

Sleep is also very important, and we continue to struggle on that front. The party-like atmosphere has made bedtimes even more of a battle, and naps are all over the place when they happen at all. So it's no wonder that the kids spent the last 24 hours fussing and bickering and flat-out fighting. But Isaac's asleep now, and Anna's had a decent rest, so everyone is in better spirits. Even me!

In other news, I'm already debating whether to rejoin our CSA next year. I like the fresh veggies and the variety and the "oh, what's in the box this week?" anticipation. [Kohlrabi! Amazing space alien vegetable!] But in truth it's a lot of effort for very little consumption by anyone other than myself. I do count it a victory that Jon ate a good amount of kale cous cous salad (among his least favourite foods), and even Anna had a helping. I'm alternating weeks with another family, so maybe if we do the same thing next year it will be doable. And maybe the kids will eat more greens as they get older. Maybe even Jon will eat more greens. I am skeptically optimistic.

Kale is not the only thing in season around here: Legos have arrived in our home. For some time Anna had expressed interest in Jon's Star Wars Lego sets so the other day I finally sprang for some pinkish blocks. (Pink to balance out the large number of Star Wars and Halo-themed sets that we already have. And she just likes pink. And why do I feel like I have to justify this, anyway?!) She enjoys creating amazing little structures and houses and castles and vehicles and will sit there for literally one or two hours working on stuff. Nothing else has ever held her attention like that. Pretty cool. So far, no Lego pieces have been spotted in the toddler's mouth, which is even cooler. Now if only it wasn't so horribly expensive.

Sleepytime Bird

One of the gadgets my parents own is a record-to-CD converter. You remember records, right? Like CDs, only huge and double sided. I love this device since I'm able to pass on some of my childhood musical memories to my own kids. Like Sesame Street's Sleepytime Bird, Music Machine, Little Marcy (whose voice drives Jon up the wall - tee hee!), and various stories. It was a little weird to find out that we owned about 6 Smurf recordings (but possibly timely, given the recent movie), and even weirder to try to explain to Anna what Smurfs are.
We were listening to one of my newly minted CDs driving home last night, and I found it sweet that Anna fell asleep listening to songs with which I was so familiar. Truth is, we've been using CDs (mostly audible books) a lot to help Anna fall asleep. She seems to be following the same pattern of sleep disturbances that I had as a child, which makes me sad. Sleep and I have never satisfactorily connected, and I really wanted things to be different for Anna. But try as I might to control the "nurture" of things, "nature" is just a little stronger than I in some areas. And so it is that we've had two horrible horrible nights of sleep recently, and there is something a little depressing about starting off the week as a zombie.

On the bright side, we managed to eke out some fun events recently. Jon and I managed to get it together enough to see the latest Harry Potter movie. Against my advice, he mentally tallied up the cost of this movie (which was an IMAX, since that was the only showing that fit our schedule) including babysitter, etc. And it was a whopping $80! No wonder we rarely go out to movies. But I'm glad we did - some movies (like this one, and Super 8 which we saw while in Canada - I just love suspenseful alien movies) really do best on a big screen and the costs are easier to justify. That's what I tell myself, anyway.

We've also done quite a bit of swimming, and I love seeing Anna improve dramatically in this area. She's always been water shy (no water in the face, please!) but is at least tolerating the discomfort more and more. And she adores the pool, so that counts for a lot. Isaac is less comfortable, so taking them both swimming is nearly impossible for one person. I've been lucky to have some help from family and friends on these last trips, and we have one more swim outing planned this week. It will be just me and Anna and I'm glad to get some one-on-one time.

That's it for now. Isaac decided not to nap this afternoon, so I have to do some extra domestic juggling today. Thank goodness for television! I need them distracted while I make a grocery list. Joining a CSA was fun, but requires a little extra time on the planning front.

I'll sign off with this modified quote from Jon. Can you name the movie?
"I must not fear.
Fuss is the mind-killer.
Whining is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my children.
I will permit their fuss to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fuss has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain."