9 minutes left on the meter

(today’s pic is family/friends-only on Flickr!)

We went to D’s parents’ house today. It was beautiful out, so D’s dad made food on the grill. K loves to eat anything that used to have a heartbeat, especially when he can squeeze a wedge of lemon over the top of it, so he was pretty excited about the salmon. Winter is officially over (disclaimer: I know there’s such a thing as Spring snow) and we’ve spent a lot more time outside the past couple days. And B has been falling asleep much earlier in the evenings - definitely no coincidence.
(today’s pic is family/friends-only on Flickr!)

Lately B is doing this thing where he has to say goodbye 3 times. And even more specifically, he will say “See you later, bye!” and the person he’s addressing MUST say “See you later, bye!” back to him each time. On the one hand, I’m amused by this quirk. On the other hand, I’m mentally scouring the past 3 years of his life to try to figure out what I did to cause the quirk.

But otherwise, he’s a pretty typical 3-year old, I think - more so than K ever was - so I don’t usually worry about it too much. And that being said, sometimes it seems weird that with his personality, B is actually our kid - because he seems so much more “typical” than K does. I feel like D and I are pretty weird (well, mostly D, of course) and K always made sense as a product of the two of us.

Do I even need to say that I love all of my boys like crazy? I think it’s cool that they’re so different because they keep me on my toes and it’s never boring around here.

(today’s pic is family/friends-only on Flickr!)

Somehow, even though D is not working, Fridays are still more fun than the rest of the week.

We played outside for a while today and I’m excited about it being the first of many days that we spend plenty of time out of the house. B and R are still fighting off the last bit of the cold, but it’s not anything that’s slowing them down at all. Still, we’re planning on a quiet weekend, with a few day-trips in mind for next week.

When R was born - like right after he came out, I mean - it felt like he cried more than B and K did when they were just born (in hindsight, it was more that he probably would’ve preferred to be walked around asap instead of being put to the boob. The delayed cord-cutting wasn’t really conducive to walking, though). And I remembered feeling a little worried that I was going to have a grumpy baby for a while. It turns out that those worries were completely unfounded. R can get pretty yelly when he needs to, but most of the time, his smile is so big that it makes my face hurt from smiling back at him.

I sure am happy with the mix of personalities in this house.

(today’s pic is family/friends-only on Flickr!)

D went for another interview today. It seems like most of the engineering jobs are about an hour away. But at this point, we’re very sure that we want him to get a job much closer to home. Even just having him make that trip for one interview felt like a huge hassle - it’s been so nice having him home (or at least next door or at his parents’ house or running errands around here).

Today when I told K that he needed to wait a little bit before I would be ready to make some alphabet soup for him, he told me “you own the world.” It was his way of complaining about having no control over when he could consume one of his favorite foods, I guess. I didn’t feel too bad about it though because I did spend the entire day leading up to that comment helping him with food and a million other little things. After he told me that I owned the world, he told D “You’re her assistant.” I can’t really argue with that! Anyway, it did make me stop and think about what kinds of things K does and doesn’t have control over, though I did come to the conclusion that despite his feelings about having to wait for the soup tonight, D and I are doing a good job of giving him control over as much as is appropriate for an almost-6 year old.

My pic for the day is R in the wrap, once again. He spends a lot of time there, and I know I’m going to miss it when he’s too big to wear.

(today’s pic is family/friends-only on Flickr!)

We had a pretty healthy winter, but got hit with a gross cold last week that started with K, then B got it a few days later, and finally R ended up with it too. I think we did a good job managing it all, and I’m hoping that by the end of the week, it’ll be completely out of the house.

D is still looking for a job, so it’s been nice to have him around these past few days to help with the extra cuddling that the kids have needed.

When everyone is healthy next week, and while D is still jobless, we definitely want to get out and enjoy the weather & each other. At this point, it’s still possible that we could get snow, but if we do, it’ll melt quickly.It’s almost Spring, yay!

(today’s pic is family/friends-only on Flickr!)

We planted seeds today in a little greenhouse tray. Bisnonno supplied the potting soil & also supervised our work, so I’m sure we’ll have some success with our first attempts at getting plants started on our own!

I think Bisnonno said that the tradition is to get the seeds started around the full moon in March. I think I’ll be better off just remembering to do it on or after my birthday.

K had very little interest in this part of the process, and B was somewhat more hands-on, but I ended up doing most of the work. I think they’ll be more into it once there are actually some sprouts to watch grow.

We planted a lot of tomatoes, some strawberries, some lettuce, and some flowers. In general, I prefer to only garden with plants that can be eaten, or at least ones that are known to keep mosquitoes away (like marigolds) but I’m hoping that we’ll have some decent flowers growing by May for the kids to give to my mom and D’s mom for Mother’s Day.

I’m also hoping that this summer I’ll get a lot out of my garden experience-wise and produce-wise. Luckily I’ve got an expert living just a house away from me!

The kids really wanted to get out of the house today, so a little while ago we sent them, holding hands, over to my parents’ house to play. Whenever I have doubts about where we live, I think about all the reasons I want to stay and having grandparents right next door is a huge one. I grew up next door to my mom’s parents, and it was such an awesome thing in my childhood - not to mention how cool it is now for my kids to have their great-grandfather right around the corner!

In my picture for today, there’s Matilda the cat and in the background, next door, is my parents’ porch.

We gave R his first real bath last night. Up until now, he had just gotten good wipe-downs with washcloths. The other 2 took a long time to like the bath, so it’s not my most favorite thing in the world to subject a baby to, especially when our house is so cold. But it turns out that I was hesitant for no reason because R was completely psyched to not only be in water, but to also be so close to the faucet and to be NAKED - especially the naked part.

We’ve sort of quarantined our sicky family so that we all can rest up and feel better, but that combined with the rainy/bleak weather and it being soooo close to Spring but not quite there yet is making us all a little stir-crazy. Putting R in some water to see what would happen seemed like a good way to add some excitement to the day, and it worked.

By the end of his bath, there was water everywhere, and there were tears only because I made him get out of the water and got him dressed.

As much as I was in awe (and still am in awe) of how different B was and is from K, I am amazed that R still somehow manages to be so different than his big brothers. Hopefully his unique little personality combined with my journaling efforts will allow me to remember their babyhoods without mixing up the details too much.

(today’s pic is family/friends only on Flickr!)

I was taking pics of Nutella when K came over to see what I was doing. He ended up letting me take some pics of him, so he got to be my pic of the day instead of the Nutella - see how much I love him?!

A gross hacking cold has been going through our house. K started with it, then B got it, and R has a little bit of it. You can see the dry skin on K’s face from nose-wiping and of course the kid-trademark of a chapped upper lip is very clear in the picture.

K has been surprising me a lot lately with stuff that he knows that I didn’t realized he knows - most of it having to do with math and science. He also has been a lot easier to reason with and is FINALLY digging my sense of humor. He has his rough moments, but for the most part, we’re in a really good place and I’m enjoying this almost-6 age.

(Today’s pic is family/friends-only on Flickr!)

R is very much into the babbling stage right now. He babbles most first thing in the morning and then early in the evening. K is pretty amused by it and kept referring to it as “gabbling” the other day.

A few days ago, I bought a bulb of fennel and finally washed & cut it today. R saw me eat a piece and seemed interested, so I gave him his own stick of it. He loved gnawing on it and it actually was perfect for him - a little cold from being in the refrigerator, and rubbery for his little toothless gums to chomp down on. He didn’t actually ingest anything, but I think he at least got to taste it a bit.

When my family serves fennel, it’s usually accompanied by a small dish of “round and round’ - olive oil, salt & pepper for dipping. They call it “round and round” because you have to mix it around in the dish with a piece of fennel when you dip it. We haven’t had that in a long time, but I remember it most being served next to all the cut veggies in a small, round, crystal dish during holiday get-togethers.

Bisnonno saw R as he went through the kitchen to go home today, and I think he was happy to catch him enjoying the fennel.

Here’s the pic I didn’t choose for today:

I like making food in big batches and having them in the fridge or freezer for easy meals. Today I cooked some rice to have mixed with various things for the rest of the week. Tonight, I think I’ll make some guacamole to have with the rice, and with the addition of any combination of cheddar, sour cream, salsa, bean dip, and kidney beans, it’s a pretty good dinner.

I’m not good at making rice in a regular pot, but the veggie/rice steamer makes it so easy.

It’s always funny to me to read a recipe online and then in the comments, people say things like “this was a great recipe” and then go on to list all the changes they made to it to make it “great.”

I do it all the time though too, and I feel silly every time I refer to a recipe with so many “instead of’s” qualifying it.

Today I made banana nut muffins. Here’s the recipe I used, and it’s loosely based on one that I found in The All New Good Housekeeping Cook Book.

2.5 c. flour
1/2 c. oats
1/4 c. sugar
1 tbs baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
6 tbs butter
1 cup walnuts
4 bananas
1/3 c coconut milk
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

(The original recipe used 3/4 c sugar, no oats, only 3 bananas, regular milk instead of coconut & no baking soda. I also used my home-milled flour for it. And it called for the use of a pastry blender, which I don’t have.)

Preheat oven to 400. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda & salt. Add butter in cubes, and using your fingers, work into pebble sized pieces combined with the flour mixture.

In a food processor, process bananas, coconut milk, eggs & vanilla.

Add banana mixture to flour mixture.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin tray (I used muffin liners). Bake until golden & toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 25-30 min.

We were going to go bowling today & then I was going to bring K to kung fu. But K keeps getting settled in on the couch with a blanket - he’s working on fighting off a cold, so no bowling or kung fu for us today, which works out because it feels like we’ve been a little non-stop lately (in an effort to take advantage of these days that D has home with us; he has an interview tomorrow that could mean a good offer for him!) and I’m in the mood to hang out here and cook stuff.

The muffins were a good start!

Today I got a text message from my sister-in-law, just as we were getting our things together to head out the door to see her. She had made pizzas for us and the text message was a picture of them. I definitely did not need proof that there was some good stuff awaiting us, because D’s sister has a good track-record of cooking awesome things for us, but having a visual did help get the kids out the door that much faster.

I used to be a really terrible texter, but I’m getting better now that I have a phone with a teensy Qwerty keyboard on it. It’s not a fancy phone or anything, and I actually thought I had made a big mistake when I saw how little the keys were, but since they’re in the “right” place under my fingers, I actually am pretty quick with it these days. So I’m not feeling as much like an old, out of touch person with my texting abilities anymore - though the age thing doesn’t really hold much truth to it these days when I see my dad very carefully tapping at his phone as he sends his own text messages.

Getting the kids there, with the pizza picture dangled in front of them, was pretty easy. Leaving was not quite as simple. We had one who was desperate to get home because he’s not feeling well, and one that was refusing to leave (I can’t wait til R has an opinion about it, ack). But D’s mom knows her grandsons very well, and without too much angst at all, she was able to help us get out the door with the help of some Sunday comics that she had saved up for the boys to read.

I got my new lens today, and I think I just might be in love with it. I can’t wait to try taking some pictures in the daylight!

Life around here improved by at least 18% once the boys figured out how to put the train tracks together by themselves. We actually got a lot of these track pieces when K was maybe 2 years old, and I donated them to Goodwill because I knew that they’d just be a source of frustration for him, and ultimately us too. In hindsight, I probably could’ve put them in a closet and taken them out when he was older, but I’m in a constant battle against clutter and sometimes there are senseless casualties.

Since then, we’ve gotten plenty more tracks and trains, so it has all worked out. And instead of the frustration involved in not being inclined to put the tracks together, we get the frustration of one brother or another deciding that it would be a lot of fun to take them apart. But, really, the train tracks are a good thing - because without them, I would have that much less of D speaking with a British accent, and who knows how I’d survive without that.

You know how when you go to a restaurant, you usually get a salad before the meal? In our family, we eat our salad at the end of the meal. It’s on the table with everything else, but it usually isn’t put on someone’s plate until the rest of the meal has been eaten.

My grandpa makes the salad - it’s a simple one with Romaine lettuce as the base, and a mix of different vegetables depending upon the season, though it’s usually tomatoes, cucumbers, celery or onions, maybe carrots. The dressing is just olive oil & red wine vinegar, then it’s seasoned with salt & pepper. Whoever finishes the bowl often uses a piece of bread to soak up whatever is left, especially if there’s some good Italian bread on the table.

Today was my mom’s birthday & she celebrated it by making a nice Sunday dinner for us, though it was Bisnonno’s salad that made the cut for my picture of the day.

I’ve still only worn R on my back a few times. He’s much happier being snuggled in a tummy-to-tummy carry and since I’ve got a good selection of carriers to make sure he’s comfortable to wear in that position, I don’t mind it at all. I’ve been looking up different carries because I’m using the wrap constantly and there are different ways of tying it up.

I did end up getting a new, very colorful wrap. It’s shorter than my homemade one, so my options are different in terms of what carries I can do with it. But since it’s shorter, it’s a little less fabric too, so it folds up that much smaller for taking it along with me, and is less bulky when I tie it on ahead of time to be ready for popping him in and out.

Also, since it’s a little shorter, it’s also a good length as a scarf (when doubled up) - I found that out the other day when I realized my choice to not wear a coat (even though everyone else was bundled up) was going to mean a cold ride home from my in-laws. It was nice to have a socially acceptable reason to cuddle my new wrap.

(today’s pic is family/friends-only on Flickr!)

I got some cute pictures of little monkey toesies, and when I realized R was getting tired of the mamarazzi, I decided to try to get a few pics of his sweet face before I put my camera away. The pictures I got began with 5 of his fingers happily jammed into his mouth, but then he started to get a little annoyed. Bisnonno helped out with some clapping and talking, and R instantly switched over to “huge toothless grin mode.”

(today’s pic is friends/family-only on Flickr!)

Yesterday D, the kids, D’s sister and I went to The Children’s Museum in CT for the first time and we’ll definitely be going again. It was a small place with a surprising amount of things to do inside. We were there for over 2 hours and didn’t even get to see everything - partly because there was so much to see/read, and partly because B and K kept getting really involved in the things that we did see.

With B’s current tornado obsession, I think he could’ve spent all day rolling balls and watching them spin around and around in a vortex-like thing (I didn’t get to read the exact scientific explanation of that one). K really enjoyed making Lego vehicles and racing them down a ramp with some other kids. Every little exhibit, even the simplest ones, had clear directions along with more the more complex mathematical equations that related to them. It was a neat mix of information.

This weekend, my dad brought over a bunch of crayons, colored pencils, markers & stickers. I especially love the colored pencils, and even though I was in the middle of getting the house ready for B’s birthday party, I sat down and sharpened every one of them.

K and B aren’t really into coloring & drawing yet (unless D and I are the ones doing it while they give us directions) but I like to have supplies around for when they’re the least bit interested - and definitely some of it is for my own benefit. We have a little arts & crafts area all set up now, and having all that right there to use makes me happy!

We have a chair that happens to belong in the “free furniture that I actually really dig” category. When we moved into our house, my grandpa sent it over and we’ve made sure to have a place for it ever since.

I really don’t know what I would call my style, but I do know that I like this chair. I like the carved wood on it and I really like the colors & flowers on the fabric. Somehow, in all of my decor/paint experimentation, the chair has always fit in, and even when I feel like maybe it’s a little too nice for our “function over form”/”3 kids” lifestyle, I can’t even imagine getting rid of it.

I’m pretty sure the fabric is not original and that my grandmother had it reupholstered at one point - so it’s sort of neat to know that she must have really liked the fabric too.

We haven’t been easy on the chair. It’ll be in need of some repair at some point, but for now it does a great job holding clean laundry that’s in the folding queue and I think when it comes time to make more permanent (adult?) decorating decisions, it’ll be a good reference point.

We got a mini wooden bowling set for B for his birthday. The pins are 5 inches tall and the ball is 2 inches in diameter. I looked at some cute plastic sets, but when I saw the tiny wooden one, I knew I had to get it - partly because when I inevitably step on one of those pins, yes it’ll hurt me, but at least the pin won’t get crushed in my clumsiness.

Too bad my camera is not quite as indestructible. I dropped it for the first time today and only managed to avoid saying some really bad words because I was on the phone with a cat groomer. The camera seems to be working fine, except that it now rattles and I have to hold the lens against the body to make it work. So tomorrow will be an adventure in super glue land & we’ll see what happens after that.

As soon as my kids have been old enough to have an opinion about how their birthday cakes look, I’ve asked them what they prefer.

K also started at age 3, though that year it was “ice cream cake or regular cake?” When he was 4, I made a volcano cake for him and last year when he turned 5, I had the challenge of a dinosaur cake.

This year was B’s first year choosing what he wanted for his birthday cake.

“What do you want on your birthday cake this year?”

“Sprinkles!”

Even after giving him some other possibilities (the tornado cake I suggested was met with a very dubious scoff - like how could the awesome power of a tornado be harnessed by frosting?) he simply insisted that all he wanted was sprinkles.

After he changed his mind around a bit about whether he wanted vanilla cake with vanilla frosting or chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, we ended up going with a cake of one combo and cupcakes with the other. And both combinations were covered with plenty of sprinkles, of course.

K’s volcano cake and dinosaur cake really suited him (it sounds like this year I”ll be making an earthquake cake or an angler fish cake), and somehow B’s colorful sprinkles really suited him today too.

I was on a cleaning-streak and waited too long to take my pic for the day, so I didn’t have any natural light. I got this shot, uploaded it to Flickr, then cropped it & played with the Picnik editing stuff. All I ended up doing to it is using the “cross processing” tool and it’ll do for today

We got some package in the mail at some point that used a lot of big paper as packaging. I saved it for arts & crafts purposes & ended up using it to cover the coffee table so that there’s a huge drawing surface available to the kids. My kids aren’t really drawers or doodlers, so the heart I scribbled on to the paper as an example of “hey look, you can draw right on the table!” is there all by itself.

Well, it was all by itself until I put my mug on it. The mug was part of a Christmas gift and I love that it’s so tall. I like to fill it with the coldest water possible and then leave a tea bag in it, refilling it all day. I always drink my tea plain anyway (no milk or sugar, ever), even when it’s hot, and the plain herbal tea with cold water is a nice alternative to bit of lemon juice for something other than plain water.

I did a lot of furniture rearranging the other day and I’m happy with the end results. Our computer room (formerly a dining room - “formerly” because we decided that having a giant table that just collected clean laundry really wasn’t working for us) is now especially kid-friendly. Today I finished up organizing everything, and now I’d like to just sit in here and soak it all up and ignore the rest of the cleaning that needs to be done.

In the picture (it’s snowing!) you can see a little bit of the maple tree in my grandpa’s back yard, the roof of his garage, and a little bit of the pergola in my parents’ back yard. The evergreen is a tree that’s about halfway down our block. Whenever I notice it, I wonder how long it’ll be til someone decides it needs to be cut down, and that makes me want to plant a hundred more trees in our yard because I sure do like having them in the background.

We went to a butterfly place today. I guess I forgot who my kids were when I was so proud of myself for being a thoughtful and fun mom as I dressed my kids and myself in bright colors so that the butterflies might land on us.

I didn’t realize my mistake until we stepped into the climate-controlled (very warm!) room full of butterflies and just as the door shut behind us, K screamed as one haphazardly swooped by him. Well, actually, the door wasn’t even close to being shut - B had sort of stopped halfway through and decided that D would best serve as a shield.

Their nervousness did not dissipate the whole time we were there. They’d start to loosen up and explore until some rogue butterflies would get too close, and then they’d both yell and duck all over again.

At one point, there were 2 butterflies spinning in circles near the ground and when they got up very close to my face, I closed my eyes only to open them to K’s look of pure terror.

We had a little cardboard sheet to identify all the different butterflies we saw. D dropped it, and it made a loud sound when it hit the cement floor. K spun around and asked “what was that sound?!” D said “I dropped this.” After K turned around I whispered to D “Or ‘a butterfly just ate a little child!’”

I have to admit though that the butterflies can be a little intimidating. Some of them are HUGE. There was one species that not only had a big wingspan, but a fat, cumbersome looking body too. Whenever that kind flew around me, I stood really still thinking “please don’t pick me, please don’t pick me” feeling like I was a teenager again, trying to avoid eye-contact with the awkward boy that I didn’t want to dance with.

But still, it was a successful outing, I think. Butterflies (not the creepy ones) landed on K, R and I, and we did survive. We also got to pet a blue-tongued skink (even K pet it, which was a first for him) and watch a lot of cute little button quails run around, along with spotting a nest with eggs in it.

Here’s K protecting B from the butterflies:

A rice paper butterfly, I think:

A zebra butterfly on R in the wrap:

Before I knew what bento lunches were, I was making “snack trays” for K using a Pampered Chef setup that came with a freezer insert to keep the food cold. When K went through his extremely picky stage, I gave up on them, but decided to give them a shot again today. B was really excited to help me put them together, and I was happy to find that K (who is much less picky these days, but still has a hard time deciding when it comes to eating) was completely delighted with what I chose.

I didn’t know about bento lunches when I first started making the compartmentalized trays of food, but now I do - so I decided to try to make a regular old peanut butter & jelly sandwich a little cuter. Unfortunately, I don’t have any cookie cutters, but I do have a few shot glasses that seemed like they’d be the right size.

So yes, those pb&j sandwiches were cut into sweet, puffy little circles using a shot glass. Maybe next time I’ll use a champagne flute to be a tad classier.

The light was really dreary today. We had a mix of snow and rain, and it looks like plenty more of snow and rain to come. Of course, nothing really accumulates when the rain is involved, so it’s just cold and very slippery out there.

D was home all day today (yes, he’s been out of work for 2 weeks, but almost every weekday, he’s left the house before the rest of us wake up so that he can work on his resume & interview & run errands & make phone calls until he comes home at around 2) so the kids were kept busy with him. And I kept busy in the kitchen - 2 loaves of bread, a lot of chili, and a batch of applesauce. And laundry. And dishes.

Speaking of all that food, the other day K was describing the food pyramid in detail to R. R seemed uninterested, partly because he’s only 5 months old, but probably partly because his food choices have more to do with circle-shaped things than triangle-shaped things at this point in his life.

I was surprised by how much he remembered about the food pyramid - though I guess that has a little to do with me printing one out and using it as a visual to help explain why he needs to eat something other than just meat.

Even though the laundry part of my day feels pretty pointless (clean clothes, yawn!) it’s nice to have the fridge full of things that I’ve cooked.

We have these very old cast-iron radiators for heating our house. There are 2 different shapes/sizes - the ones under the windows are low and long, and the ones just against the walls are tall and skinny. When 2 of the rooms upstairs were gutted & redone, my mom painted the radiators a metallic silver, but the other 4 in the house still need to be scrubbed & finished.

I grew up with the same kind of heaters, so I find their hissing and clanking to be comforting. I don’t think I’ve noticed the pattern in our house yet, but I know that when I was little, first I would hear the one in the bathroom, then my room, then my sister’s room, and then my parents’ room.

I’m not in a huge rush to get the remaining radiators painted. Two of them are blocked by furniture to keep the kids away from them and the old paint on the one upstairs is in decent shape. The one in the kitchen (that is awesome for drying & warming snowy hats & mittens) has a pretty dishcloth from Portugal over the top.

One thing I’ve learned so far from taking a daily picture is that I’m happy with what we’ve chosen to have around us on our walls, floors, and furniture - so when we do finally paint the radiators, I’m pretty sure we’ll be going with plenty of colors.

This is what happens when I play with the kids’ toys. Are the dinosaurs just photobombers, maybe wanting to play, or are they hungry? I took probably too many pictures of many variations of this scene (the alligator and the otter didn’t make the final cut) because I was playing with my camera.

And now I’ve just managed to use the word “play” in three consecutive sentences. I’d go look at a thesaurus, but I really am not sure that’d be any better.

Well, ok, let’s see:

This is what happens when I cavort with the kids’ toys. Are the dinosaurs just photobombers, maybe wanting to frolic, or are they hungry? I took probably too many pictures of many variations of this scene (the alligator and the otter didn’t make the final cut) because I was carousing with my camera.

I totally could’ve gotten away with “disporting” in that last sentence there.

“Horsing around” was another option. D and I have been using that one a lot to describe the act of B repeatedly tackling K while K giggles like crazy and tries to convince B that he’s not digging it and to stop. It’s sort of hard to address seriously because it’s (usually) more of a game than anything else. So one of us will very mathematically add the phrase “horsing around” to the warning of “someone getting hurt” and then divide that by 2 to equal “this probably won’t stop until there’s a more tempting distraction.”

D and I have learned that interrupting that equation to make fun of the phrase “horsing around” doesn’t accomplish anything but to remind us that our love is strengthened by our mutual enjoyment of anything resembling old-timey language. And seeing as how we are both 30 and I can very vividly picture my mom and/or dad saying “horsing around” - well it’s almost an antique phrase at this point.

But anyway, today is Sunday, D is home - so I let him do the math of keeping 3 kids happy while I took 2348 pictures of a giraffe that I kept feeling like I should yell “run!” to.

We played outside for a little while today. It was sunny and warmish (45) but windy. It felt a little sad that there were more puddles and mud than there was snow, but the boys having fun and the bright blue sky made up for it, I guess.

This picture was taken in my parents’ yard. It’s the corner of their pergola (with some wisteria that had grown up the side of it) and a birdhouse shaped like one of those old campers that was a gift for my dad from us last Father’s Day. This picture makes me excited for the Spring to come, but I also wouldn’t mind some more decent snow before the winter is over.

R is still loving the heck out of being worn in the wrap. I’ve hardly had him on my back because he loves this cuddle hold so much. I love it too, actually. I love that I can feel his little body breathing, and the top of his head is so close for kisses. Wearing him this way feels like a big hug.

B turned 3 today, though it seemed that he didn’t believe it until he saw the cake with 3 candles on it. I forgot how much he loved blowing out candles until he blew out 2 of them at the beginning of us singing “Happy Birthday,” as soon as the cake was in front of him, and could only manage to hold off on blowing out the 3rd until halfway through the song.

He was very excited to see the word “birthday” hanging underneath the word “happy” in our living room. Last night after he went to sleep, I put up all of our decorative flags/bunting. He noticed it all, and appreciated it.

Along with the fabric decorations that I’ve gotten in the past year, I also have some cloth bags to use instead of wrapping paper. They’re all different sizes and patterns, and the kids seem to like them too. I thought they looked pretty this morning, so that’s my pic for today.

We gave B most of his presents today: 2 books - one about natural disasters because he’s in love with tornadoes lately, and another storybook that I got because I liked the pigeon illustrations; and 2 dvds - one about volcanoes and the other about extreme weather. There’s one more dvd, about insects, that was delayed so he’ll probably get that with the mini wooden bowling set that we’ll give to him at his birthday party.

I took my pic for today right after D got home from an interview, hence the melting snow on his shoe.

He offered to clean the shoes before I took the pic, but I told him he didn’t need to bother with it - partly because I had R in a wrap and he wasn’t cooperating with my photo angles anyway. But also partly because when D brought the shoes home the other day, I made a big deal about how I thought they were sorta hot and I thought that trying to make them look too good for this picture might cross some sort of line. I already have enough issues (quirks?) and I don’t need some weird men’s dress shoe lovin’ tendencies added to that list.

Well, I was going to write about the juxtaposition of “awesome professional D” with “awesome daddy D” in this picture, but it almost feels wrong to go there now that I wrote all of the above. So I’ll just stick with mentioning that I’m having one of many “crazy about D (and not just his shoes)” days and leave it at that.

After a long long long stretch of pickiness, K is finally branching out a bit.

I always tried to be patient with the pickiness because even though his likes were so limited, he was very happy to eat anything that once had a mother, a heartbeat, and/or a rush of adrenaline as it said goodbye to this world (”Scallops? Those are deep sea creatures! I’ll have some!” “I love pig meat and cow meat and chicken meat. One day I want to try horse meat!”) and he did eat a lot of things that most stereotypically picky kids wouldn’t even consider.

One of the newer interests for K these days is grilled cheese. It’s a little different than the kind of grilled cheese I grew up with as we only have whole grain sandwich bread, not white, & we don’t keep American cheese in the house, so we use Havarti. It cooks up really nicely in the cast iron skillet - so nicely (and quickly!) that I like making it almost as much as he likes eating it.

So there’s another food picture for my daily photo. I guess it’s no surprise because some days I feel like I spend all day thinking about it - breakfast, snacks, lunch & dinner for 4 people tends to add up (as do the dishes, but that’s not as pretty of a picture) especially when they often want different things at different times. Plus the whole breastfeeding thing for person #5 in the equation, but you won’t be seeing a pic of R’s lunch until he’s eating solids

Happy Day-After-Valentine’s-Day Day!

Recently, D and I had this long discussion about the consumption of sugar and/or high fructose corn syrup. By the end of the conversation, we agreed that it’s a good thing for our family’s health that we are able to avoid HFCS and don’t eat much sugar.

The next day he came home with a box of chocolates that was incidentally full of HFCS (and probably partially hydrogenated oils too, nice!). But it was shaped like a heart. So it felt like it was either a mixed message, or a pretty clear one, or that he had temporary amnesia; I definitely wasn’t sure how to take it, but to either show my appreciation, or defiance, or concern for his delicate mental condition, I did eat the chocolates inside the shiny red cardboard.

I have to say though that the half-priced, questionable chocolate I got today tastes even better than what I had a couple weeks ago. Mmmm, on sale.

(Today’s pic is family/friends only on Flickr!)

Pretty much ever since K was born, D has ridden in the back seat. For a few weeks, it was because we were first time parents to an infant and we both felt better with him back there. Soon after that, it became a case of trying to keep K happy because he really hated being in the car, and continued to hate it until he was at least 2.

By that time, he was well into his “crazy about daddy” stage and expected D to be back there with him. That overlapped with the birth of our second kid, and the cycle began again, so D’s official place in the car became the middle seat in the back.

D did have a few months wherein both K and B were cool with being in the car, and fine with D sitting up front. But then R was born and not only is D back in the back, but he’s allll the way in the back because of the current carseat setup.

So why D and not me? First of all, I like to drive. I always have (I liked it even more when I had a manual car, but having an automatic with kids in the equation does make life easier). And secondly, even just thinking of riding in the back seat makes me feel a little green - let’s not even talk about the idea of riding in the way-back like D does now.

I love that D is so cool with it, and having him back there has definitely made some rough moments much more bearable. I’m sure in the future the kids will remember him sitting back there with them, especially during long trips, and I think they’ll appreciate it at that point the same way I do now.

Here’s my pic from yesterday.

K and I both had dentist’s appointments yesterday. It’s still weird to me that I have a kid old enough to be going to the dentist - another one of those unofficial milestones that you won’t necessarily find in a baby book but that still feels pretty big and important.

Two weeks ago, when I put on the calendar that there was a dentist appointment planned for him yesterday, K freaked out — because he couldn’t wait for the day to arrive. He was SO excited about the appointment. I think he mostly likes it for the attention that he gets from the hygienist, and for the opportunity to talk about the things that he loves.

He also looks forward to the prize at the end. The last 2 times he’s been to the dentist, he’s picked out Disney princess stamps. In all my raging hypocrisy, that’s the one instance in which my Disney(especiallyprincess)-disliking self actually gives K a mental high-5 for his choice. I love that, in a lot of good ways, he’s still mostly unaffected by lots of societal expectations.

As for my pic - I wanted to take one at the dentist’s office, but decided that yesterday wasn’t the day for it (I’ll be there again in another 6 months anyway, if I change my mind about the potential weirdness). So I got a shot of a growth tracker that we got as a Christmas gift. Every couple weeks, K will tell us that he thinks he’s growing, so we measure him quite a bit. I ended up writing the measurements on clear tape so that I can remove any that are in the way of his upcoming brothers’ heights, but we have one done in permanent marker between the computer and living rooms.

K has been wanting to go bowling for a while now, so we finally went today. We did candlepins with the bumpers on the gutters. The boys had a great time and I have a lot of funny/blurry pictures of B doing his victory dances every time some pins got knocked down. Although those pics made me laugh as I uploaded & went through them, this one was one of my favorites (as the 2 argue over who is going to use which computer right now).

Sometimes I just stare at K because I can’t believe I’ve got a 5.5 year old who is totally becoming his own person with his own thoughts and interests and such a huge personality. He seems so big all of a sudden.

I’m a very happy vegetarian - I love pretty much every vegetable I’ve tried. In the past few years, partly due to the local/organic veggie co-op we became involved in, I’ve discovered even more great things to eat that just weren’t even on my radar.

One of the nicest parts about participating in the co-op is that an email is sent out detailing the veggies of the week along with ideas for how to prepare & cook them. But you can almost never go wrong with a cast iron skillet & some olive oil.

Tonight I made collards with onion & a separate skillet of seasoned potatoes with garlic, sour cream & butter. It was experimental & I managed to make a huge mess, but the results were good!

Today I used my sewing machine for the first time in over a year. One of the last times I used it, I managed to sew through my thumb. And, unfortunately, I’m not exaggerating about the “through” part: Entry wound, check; exit wound…ughhh…check. SO gross. Please don’t ask me how I managed to do that. Though, I think the fact that before I started today I had to move the speed from its fastest setting (speedy rabbit icon) down to somewhere closer to the slowest setting (charming turtle icon) might help even the most incompetent crime scene investigator put the pieces together.

My mom braved the Nor’easter (all 20 fluffy snowflakes - way to predict it, weathermen & school-cancelers!) to come over and walk me through adding a bit of ribbon to some cloth diapers I had so that I can tie them instead of pinning or using a Snappi. It’s a pretty simple project & now that I’m a little less scared of the machine, I hope I can find some more things to work on.

The cloth diapers I’m in the process of modifying are bamboo velour which is pretty stretchy & very soft. It also happens to be really hard to get a diaper pin through (my poor injured fingers don’t need any more holes in them) & is too smooth to be Snappi-friendly; but the cotton fabric that it’s embellished with is really cute and I’m psyched to be able to start using them again - especially the hedgehogs and the giraffes!

I made applesauce today. I kept it simple by just adding a little orange juice, a little maple syrup, and some cinnamon. It actually tastes really good. I put some in a Mason jar, which I might go ahead and freeze - unless it seems like we’re going through it quickly, and in that case, it just won’t make it to the freezer.

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have some snow pictures - supposedly there’s a storm headed our way. My parents gave B his birthday gift tonight, in anticipation of the snow. Now he’s got a really nice pair of snow shoes to play with tomorrow.

Doing the Project 365 has me feeling like blogging again, so here I am! I’ve gone ahead and posted everything I’ve written since I last stopped blogging (I did a little Livejournal then moved to just a Word document from 8/08 til now), so in case anyone wants to study up on the fascinating subject of moi, it’ll be easy to catch up with what’s been happening in my world. Writing from the past 2 years can be found by clicking the tag “ohai-atus” or by clicking on my February 2009 archives!

When I was little, my grandma used to keep little boxes of pasta in the bottom part of a china cabinet in the living room. Once in a while, she would let my sister and I open the cabinets and pick out a type of pasta for soup – orzo, alphabets, or stars.

Back in June, I made a giant kid-friendly calendar for the wall in the living room to help K keep track of “how many days til Kung Fu” and “how many days til Daddy doesn’t have to work”; all important dates are noted using either images I’ve printed from online, or some drawings I’ve made. Recently, I decided that Mondays will be “alphabet soup” days, and made a little picture to put on each Monday on the calendar.

The reasons alphabet soup is a treat at our house are probably a little different than the reasons for its specialness at my grandma’s house, but either way, I do like that the kids enjoy it a lot like I did when I was little.

When I was pregnant with R, I spent a lot of time up in bed, gagging my way through PBS cooking shows. I love those kinds of shows, so even though the pregnancy nausea made them a little hard to watch, I persevered. Not having cable will make you do things like that. You don’t want to know what else not having cable makes you do (hint: it involves creative antenna positioning).

Around St. Patrick’s day, there was show after show about Ireland and, of course, potatoes. I learned a lot about potatoes, that week, and have been a potatoholic ever since.

Did you know that you can yell “BS!” if anyone ever tells you that the majority of a potato’s nutritious properties are in its skin? It turns out that the nutritional value of a peeled potato is barely different than that of a potato with the peel. Please yell “BS!” at your own risk, though.

And in terms of nutrition, potatoes are pretty freakin amazing. They have a ton of Vitamin C & B6, and quite a lot of iron & folate, a little calcium - along with a little bit of a bunch of other things like zinc & magnesium & phosphorous.

So my pic for yesterday is of a group of potatoes at the Mel Veggie Spa. I’m a little obsessive about cleaning veggies, so I soak them in a dish of soapy-ish water before I scrub them. I made mashed potatoes yesterday, and they rocked.

I made a deep dish pizza-like dinner in the cast iron skillet last night (homemade pizza crust, feta, roasted red peppers, tomatoes & onions), and really, I don’t have much else to say about yesterday beyond that. It wasn’t a bad day or anything, just a blur.

Something I was going to write down for posterity today, though, that sort of goes along with this picture:

K asked me this morning “What is bread made of?” and I said “Wheat…” and waited to see where the conversation was going. K made it known that “wheat” was not the answer he was looking for, so my mom jumped in with “…salt, yeast….” and a few seconds after that, I realized that K was asking about what ELEMENTS make up bread - like carbon, hydrogen, sodium, etc. So we gave him a few of those elements as answers and told him there were lots more that we weren’t sure of. He was satisfied with that response and went off on a monologue about elements and the periodic table or something along those lines.

And with that I think it’s safe to say that K is very very much like his nerd father

I was pregnant with K my first year of having a Girl Scout troop and he came to every meeting for the first few years after he was born, when I could wear him on my back. But by the time he was 2ish, my mom started taking K to the local library on Girl Scout meeting days.

Soon after B was born, I gave up the troop because it felt like too much as a mommy of 2 little boys. It was something that I was doing for myself (and that I hope to do again one day) and it just made sense to stop when I did.

My mom and K had a break from going to the library too, but they’ve started up again. And it looks as if B will be joining them. K has got his own library card and usually brings home 2 books and a puppet. I love to see what gets picked out to take home - this time it was a book on earthquakes & another on the solar system, along with a frog puppet (it was just K with my mom today - B stayed home because D was here).

I still remember special things that my grandma & I did together, so I like seeing my kids have that with their grandma.

I had a smoothie for breakfast - coconut milk, orange juice, banana, yogurt, oatmeal (ground into flour) and honey. I only use a little bit of honey, but it was the prettiest ingredient this morning.

I like the challenge of finding things to eat that are not only good for my body, but taste good too. The tasting good is especially important for everyone else in the house, because while I don’t mind eating something for the health benefits and ignoring the flavor aspect sometimes, the rest of my family doesn’t really feel the same way.

But we’ve managed to find a lot of things that work for all of us, even though I’m the only one who drinks the smoothies so far.

Today’s pic is family/friends only on Flickr!

K’s hair was getting a little long, and he likes it with some length (he was really upset last time I cut it for his ring-bearer role). He also hates the process of having it cut, so I was fine with letting it be. B likes getting his hair cut, and I can’t even picture him with longer hair, but I actually didn’t mind the long hair on K; it suited him, especially with the nice curls and waves in the back.

But it was starting to get into his eyes and there was no good way for us to keep it out of his face, so I tried to talk him into letting me cut it for him. It didn’t take too much convincing, and the deal was sealed with the promise of ice cream, so I think it was just good timing and we were both ready for it.

With D’s hair and B’s hair, I just buzz it the same length all over using the clippers, and then neaten up the sides & back with a shorter setting & with scissors. I had done the same with K’s hair back in the Spring and he was so unhappy when he saw the results in the mirror. It came out fine, it just wasn’t what he liked.

So this time around, I told him I would do my best to keep some length up top for him. Cutting hair feels like an art project to me, so I don’t mind a challenge once in a while.

I think I did a pretty good job and his haircut doesn’t look TOO homemade. I did the first round on Monday night, after which K and B spent 2 hours playing in the tub, and then neatened it up last night. And most importantly, he’s happy with his hair (and I won’t have to cut it again for a while).

The pic for today was taken first thing this morning, with just K, R and I downstairs. The way the light is on him in this pic reminds me so much of the pics I took of the first haircut I ever gave him.

Another thing about that pic - he’s wearing a t-shirt of mine and it’s crazy to me that I have a kid big enough to wear one of my shirts. It’s a 3/4 length sleeve that goes down past his wrists, and the hem goes almost to his knees, but I remember wearing adult-sized shirts that fit me the same way when I was little. It’s one of the milestones that you won’t find in a baby book, which is why I always liked blogging about the random stuff more than trying to fill out the pages of a pre-written book.

Today’s pic is family/friends only on Flickr!

I did a lot of cooking/baking today so that I won’t have as much to do the rest of the week. B was happy to help, though it wasn’t really help because in order to have access to my flour, I had to convince him that, yes I did need more, and, no I wouldn’t use up all of the flour he was using to build a volcano.

He also made a pretty big mess, but I can’t complain about that because it really didn’t look much worse than what I usually do on my own.

He ended up playing with the flour for quite a while, and in that time I decided that even though he had washed his hands before starting, I don’t think I can handle the idea of trying to bake with it at this point. So it looks like B is going to have his very own container of flour to play with.

You can see in the picture that he was very intent upon what he was doing, and even though he was being so careful, he was very covered in flour too.

While B and I were doing this, K stayed far away (he doesn’t care at all for that kind of mess) and R slept on my back (yay!) in the Ergo. I wonder if, when R is bigger, he’ll be staying with K when the cooking/baking is going on, or joining B and I in the mess-making.

I wish I had zoomed out & hadn’t cut off the top of the tree, but I took this pic about 5 minutes after I woke up so this is what I have

The sun was shining when we woke up & then the flurries started. I love this kind of snow because it doesn’t even accumulate, it just swirls around in the air and I think it’s what life would look like from inside a snow globe. It’s hard to see in the picture, but the air is filled with snowflakes.

Sometimes I think about living someplace warmer and closer to the ocean, but then I remember how much I hate being hot and how much I like the changes in the seasons and I end up feeling pretty happy with where we are.

The tree in the picture is the horse chestnut tree in my parents’ back yard that I mentioned in my post from the 30th. I was standing on our back steps to get this shot.

All of us living so close is actually pretty golden because of the history - my grandparents lived in their house forever, and then my parents moved in next door to them when I was a couple months old. So my parents have already been in our shoes with the whole “living next door to your parents” thing. I’m very sure that it’s because they’ve had that experience that it works out so smoothly. We really aren’t all up in each others’ business.

And we know what to expect from each other. My mom always ran over to my grandma’s house when she needed an egg or an onion or something, and so she laughs when I do the same. In terms of the kids, my mom is fine with them going over to chill out, but I never ever just expect unlimited childcare - because that’s how it was with my & my grandparents when I was growing up.

And really, sometimes I joke that we see D’s parents (who live about 10 miles away) more than mine, but I think that’s actually true in the warmer months when my parents are vacationing more and we’re out of the house more too.

There have been some rough moments, but nothing major. And it’s only gotten better with time. D and I are comfortable with the way we do things (um, differently than my parents) and my parents accept that we aren’t going to have a perfectly manicured lawn like them, but will also go ahead and mow for us if they feel like it

Today’s pic is family/friends only on Flickr!

We had another Sunday dinner with my parents. My mom made chicken cutlets (which she has completely mastered & everyone loves). And she also tried something new - a homemade pesto/alfredo sauce. It was SO so so good. My mom always lets my sister and I choose what we want for dinner for our birthdays, and I think I might have to ask her to make the alfredo pesto again.

I brought over cinnamon rolls for dessert. I used the same recipe I used a couple weeks ago, but this time I put more frosting on top. My grandpa told me they were too sweet. Is that even possible?

I can’t believe that tomorrow is already the 1st of February. 1 month of pics down, 11 to go!

It’s another quiet Saturday at home. It’s very very very cold out, and our heat has been working hard to keep up with maintaining the warmth; I can hear the steam radiators hissing and clanking constantly.

The tv hasn’t been on at all today. The boys have been playing with D and I feel like we’re really settling into how things work with a big kid, a little kid, a baby and 2 adults.

In the first few months after R was born, I would go to hand him off to D and realize that he was already pretty busy with K and B. So I’ve (pretty happily ) gotten used to having my arms full of baby. I know that as soon as we’re settled into a pattern, though, that one or more of the kids’ needs will change and D and I will get to figure it all out all over again, but that’s ok - it keeps our brains awake.

The pic for today was actually the first shot I took of my mug full of ginger tea in the sunlight. I have a couple mugs that look like that, and I love them because they’re huge, and because I dig the horse chestnuts on them. My parents have a horse chestnut tree in their back yard, so my autumns were full of bright green maces and shiny, smooth chestnuts. Now my kids play with them too.

Today’s pic is friends/family only on Flickr!

R has started reaching for things, but what’s funny is that he doesn’t really have the whole “grabbing” concept figured out. So he lunges with his arms straight out at whatever has caught his eye.

Lately, Matilda has been catching his eye a lot - out of the 3 boys, R has noticed her at the youngest age. She has always avoided babies - her trust has to be earned if you’re under the age of 4 - but she’s really good at getting just close enough to flick her fluffy tail in their faces and then running off before some fat baby hands can get a hold of any of her fur. R doesn’t seem to have much interest in grabbing at her yet, but he is fascinated by her. He stares at her with huge eyes and his mouth open and is disappointed when she runs off.

She’s definitely used to kids at this point - which is why she knows they’re safe after a certain age. She cuddles up to K whenever she can, and is just starting to be comfortable with B. B likes to scare her and watch her run off when she’s sitting where he wants to be, but she’s figured out that he’s only noisy, not dangerous, so she’s starting to be more stubborn about keeping her spot.

B and K both interact with her very differently, so I’m curious to see what R’s relationship with her will be like.

Back in May, I bought a few sets of flags/bunting to use as decorations for various things. One of them was a set with 2 strands - one says “happy” and another that says “birthday” that came just in time for K’s 5th birthday.

About a month after K’s party, I decided it was about time to take the banners down, and was met with a lot of resistance from B. So we compromised by taking down the word “birthday” but leaving the word “happy.” I figured if I had to read one word over and over again, “happy” would be a good one. And it really was nice to have through the last couple months of my pregnancy when I was able to acknowledge that, yeah, I was ridiculously tired and in pain and ready for R to be born, but life was good and I was definitely happy.

I also like that it’s up there on the wood paneling that I resent so much, above the place where a huge accordion door used to hang, and against a paint job that is looking a little rough these days (as a girl who grew up with wallpaper, I’ve learned a lot about paint in the past 7 years). The “happy” reminds me that despite all the physical quirks, the atmosphere in our house is positive and that’s way more important to me than the cosmetic things.

So “happy” is still up there (right by the swing, appropriately enough), 8 months later, and I’m pretty sure it’s a permanent fixture.

With each kid, I’ve used a different combination of carriers & carries.

K started out in a ring-sling with the cradle carry, and we added in a pouch, an Ergo, & a mei tai for a while. Then he spent a lot of time on my back in a wrap at Girl Scout meetings.

B started out in the ring-sling too (though he didn’t ever like the cradle hold - it had to be tummy-to-tummy). Other than that, we mostly just used the Ergo, and because I was confident with my babywearing skills & he was so strong, I had him on my back really soon after he was born.

While I’m ready for putting R in a back carry to be able to get things done a little more easily, he doesn’t feel ready yet, so we’ve been doing front carries with the ring-sling, mei tai & wrap. I think he likes to be snuggled against me, and I don’t mind that so much either, so I’ll keep him up front as long as my back & shoulders can handle it.

It was 45 degrees out today, so it seemed like a good idea to put R in the wrap & bring the boys outside to play for a while. Of course, as soon as we did, the sun disappeared and it was pretty windy, but they still got to burn off some energy.

My grandpa’s driveway has had the same low spots & resulting puddles in it forever. It’s still pretty smooth, though, compared to the sidewalks, so it’s good for things like tricycles and rollerskates. And when it rains, the puddles are great for stomping.

My grandpa recently tried to repair one of the puddle areas in the middle of the driveway by filling it in, and I gave him a hard time about it because I really do love the topography of the driveway. But I couldn’t give him too hard of a time about it considering he attempted to fix it after seeing one of the boys fall because of it. I guess I’d just rather let my kid figure out the whole gravity thing rather than sacrifice a perfectly good puddle.

The good thing is that the driveway is winning the battle, and is starting to sink down again in the same spot. I might try to help it along by jumping on it whenever I get a chance.

Today’s pic is friends/family viewable on Flickr!

By the time K and B were 18 weeks old, I was able to just pop a boob in their mouths and that would keep them quiet for a few extra hours in the morning so that I could sleep. Every once in a while, R will go along with that, but it seems like more often, he wants to be up and moving.

K and B were pretty much boob-addicts and would take it whenever it was offered, but R is pretty clear about when he prefers an alternative. Sometimes he’ll take a half-hearted, obligatory suck, but if I don’t get the hint, he starts getting more vocal about it.

In the morning, when I realize that R is most definitely not going back to sleep, I sneak out of bed with him to go downstairs while his brothers stay sleeping upstairs.

Once we’re up and moving, he’s happy to wait in the swing and look around while I have a few minutes to finish waking up. At least he’s a patient (and insanely cute) morning person.

He’s not awake for too long, first thing in the morning, though. So he usually ends up on the boppy and back to sleep until his brothers get up or until Bisnonno comes over.

My goal for today’s picture was to get a shot of R’s fat baby wrists and hands, and I did accomplish that, so at least I can cross one thing off my “to do” list today.

Today’s pic is friends/family only on Flickr!

Yesterday I had R in the swing between the hallway & the kitchen. Today he chilled out in the swing between the living room & the computer room while D, K & R read on the couch (and Matilda the cat tried to get some attention).

Usually our Sunday routine involves either dinner with my parents or D’s parents, but today we’re continuing on with our quiet weekend around the house. The boys like it because they get tons of time with Daddy & I like it because as much as babywearing makes my life simpler, it still is easier to do things when I don’t have a kid strapped to me.

Today’s pic is friends/family only on Flickr!

I installed 2 sets of hooks for the swing - one set in between the computer room & the living room, and the other set between the front hallway & the kitchen. The swing is on loops of rope & s-hooks, so it’s really easy to move. I put it in between the hallway & the kitchen today so that I could cook while D played outside with K & B.

R was patient for me while I took pics without a flash, but he was much happier when the swing was actually in motion.

I really have been enjoying every moment with him and feel like he brings a sort of balance to the extreme opposite-ness of K & B.

He’ll be 18 weeks in 2 days. I’m relieved to not have a brand-new infant anymore. I think at this age, babies just get better with each day that goes by - squishier, more smiley, and just more personality. I actually feel that way with all 3 in their different stages, that with each day that goes by, they are more fun and more interesting.

We have two very old, somewhat dusty bottles on display in our computer room. One is an old glass Cott’s Club Soda bottle & the other is a Portuguese stoneware bottle.

The Cott’s bottle is filled with grappa - a 130-ish proof alcohol made by distilling grape skins & seeds (basically, the stuff left over after pressing the grapes to make wine). This is grappa that my Nonno (Grandpa’s dad) made a long, long time ago. I guess now that I’ve taken the picture and have it on my mind, I’ll have to ask my Grandpa some more questions about it, but I do know that my Nonno liked to put it in his coffee.

The stoneware bottle was brought back by my in-laws the last time they visited Portugal. It was made to hold the wine (I think Port) that D’s great-grandfather made.

The stoneware bottle is definitely nicer looking than the re-used (hey, Nonno was green!) glass bottle with the peeling paper labels, but I like that both were used by the same generations of our families, and for similar purposes.

The almost-3-year-old is really interested in tornadoes right now. He’s watched plenty of youtube/weather videos, but he also likes to play the very loud and very obnoxious “Tornado Button Smashing.” Well, he doesn’t really play it – he just supervises while someone plays it for him. But what he does insist that he’ll do himself is type his name in when a level is completed. The other night, without any prompting, he typed his name “b a s o i i” – which is actually very close to what his name is.
K has taken his time with spelling. He has never really been interested in letters and their sounds the way that B always has been. The other night, he very quickly added up 10 plus 10 plus 10 – he really enjoys numbers. So it’s been cool this week to have him spelling words in books to me and asking me what they are, and getting excited about sounding out words in some of his easier books.
My biggest goal for right now is to stay patient and let them both approach all this stuff at their own pace, even if it means sounding out the word “he” 10 times in a 10 page book.
Something else amusing to me lately – B calling his coat hood his “neighborhood.”

When K was almost a year and a half old, I bought a video baby monitor. We needed a monitor, and I used D’s birthday as an excuse to get a really nice, technologically advanced one. It’s been really neat to use for the kids, and considering that we don’t usually do birthday presents, it wasn’t that lame of a gift, really.

Besides D has had gotten a bit of enjoyment for himself out of it anyway. One time, I was getting dressed after a shower and heard D call up to me “Thank you!” Now I try to make sure that the monitor is turned off in the morning and after naps.

I have two pictures uploaded - one of a somewhat neat bed, and one of what it actually looks like. I decided to go with what it usually looks like.

In the past 6 years, we’ve had so many lightbulb-moments of “hey, wait, just because they (parents/friends/whoever) do it this way, doesn’t mean that we have to!” From realizing that we don’t have to have a headboard for our bed to deciding that wall-to-wall mattresses sounded pretty awesome, we’ve made a lot of decisions based on what works best for us.

We’re in the process of making the kids’ room more inviting. Right now, it’s got my old bedroom set, plus a toddler bed and a lot of time is spent in there playing, but not so much sleeping. My goal (which I hope will be met in the next 3-4 months) is to sell the furniture that’s in there and start fresh, because as nice as free furniture is, it doesn’t fit our needs.

So for now, the 5 of us can be found snuggled under our respective blankets in a full-sized and a king-sized mattress. Every night when I’m falling asleep & every morning when I’m waking up, I’m thankful that D and I have done things the way we have because it has made bedtime such a cozy, happy experience. It’s been such a good thing for us.

D and I started out sharing a twin bed and one pillow (we actually shared a pillow for 5 or 6 years - until I got pregnant with K and was super sensitive to everything) and now we’ve got a couple of beds, several pillows, a few comforters, 3 sons - and we still don’t have a headboard!

I did end up finding a recipe for cinnamon rolls made with whole wheat flour. They’re really good and pretty easy to make, so I’ll definitely be adding this to my list of things I regularly cook. This picture was taken before I put the frosting on them because I thought the swirls were pretty. What I cook/bake usually tastes really good, but isn’t usually as pretty as these rolls.

Yes, I did take out the table cloth and put it on the little table by the window to take this picture. I felt a little obsessive doing that, but not obsessive enough to grab the iron and get rid of the creases (though I did consider it) - at least you can tell it started out folded. Not everything stays in the clean laundry piles, I do put away some of it.

It’s a really gray day, and I think you can tell by the light in the picture. I like winter, but days like today are tough. Most of the snow is melted right now, and it’s even been drizzly and warm-ish, but real Spring weather is at least 2 months away, probably 3. I’m happy to let winter hang out a bit more, but it’d help if there was some snow on the ground. And I can’t wait until the boys are a little bigger so that we can go snowshoeing and skiing.

Here are the iced cinnamon rolls:

I’m hoping to find a good whole wheat cinnamon roll recipe today and maybe bake some today too. Lots of times, though, I’ll just use a recipe that calls for white flour and use my home-milled flour instead. When I do that, it usually comes out all right anyway.

Even though sometimes I miss the predictability of white-flour, I’m happy milling my own because I feel better when I’m eating whole-grain stuff and I like knowing exactly what I’m eating.

When it comes to cooking and baking, I wonder if I’m getting consumed by the housewife stereotype. But the thing is that I really dig the whole process and challenge of cooking from scratch.

That bright orange in the picture is the color of our kitchen countertops. I go back and forth between wanting to hug that color and wanting to tie it to a tree and kick it. It’ll be a while before we re-do the kitchen, so I’ve accepted my mixed feelings about it.

I was planning on organizing the kids’ room today, but got sidetracked when I went into the spare room and stumbled upon not only a bunch of old pictures, but also a stack of old emails from ‘97-’99 that I had printed out about 10 years ago.

So of course I sat down and looked through all the photos and read all the old emails. I think most of the emails were from before D and I even got together, and it was interesting to me that as much as we’ve grown up, we haven’t really changed much in how we interact.

One thing that I wrote to D was that I had decided to tell people how I feel about them - that I had done it recently with a friend who I admired and another friend that I valued, and that I wanted to keep doing that. Of course, I went on to tell D how I felt about him too. Looking back, I have no regrets about those times that I put myself out there, and I’m happy to say that I still think that’s important and it’s still something I try to do. It was neat to see that moment in my life preserved in typed words.

The photo of me in the picture I took for today was taken a few minutes after D proposed to me in July of 1999. And I’m pretty sure the photo of D was taken several months before that, soon after we got together, in the winter of 98/99.

I told Nicole & Rachel that I wasn’t going to get a pic of their faces, so that’s partly why I did the vignette edit with the dark edges. The 365 should NOT be used to make anyone uncomfortable, though I did make both of them wait a couple minutes to drink their coffees.

Rachel is the tall coffee on the left, Nicole is the short coffee in the middle (it’s even wearing her lipstick:lol) and I’m the bottle of Izze (with the straw sticking out of my head, I guess) on the right.

I love love LOVE black coffee, but I don’t drink coffee while pregnant and then for the first year or so of breastfeeding, so I haven’t had much of it in the past 6 years. The same goes for wine. I’m expecting to have more coffee & wine in my life soon, since we’re officially done now that we’re a family of 5 - and if I ever have any doubts about the latter, I will absolutely be drowning them in coffee & wine.

That sounds really unhealthy (both emotionally and physically), so maybe I should mention too that I miss running, and I don’t run while pregnant, and I only run a little for the first year of breastfeeding - so I haven’t had much of that in the past 6 years and am looking forward to having more running in my life.

There, that’s a good balance. If you’re picturing me, simultaneously buzzing on caffeine and wine while running around the block, you’ve just gotten a pretty accurate glimpse of some of my more ambitious dreams.

Today’s pic is family/friends only on Flickr!

Grandpa comes over here, looking like hell, and coughing and blowing his nose - and there’s no way I won’t let him hold R even though it’s a little hard for me to hand him over sometimes.

Every 3 months or so, Grandpa will show up with a cane and tears in his eyes and a big sigh and say “Well, I guess I’m going to have to start using this now…”

And then the next day, and for every day after that, he won’t have it. A few months later, he’ll have another bad day and come over with the cane and say the same thing to me, in the same dejected way.

He actually used the cane recently for almost a whole week. This morning he came over without it and he looked awful. He had walked to CVS (just across the street) and it had taken a toll on him. I asked about the cane. He said “only old people use canes” - another one of his usual lines.

Once, when he said that to me, I asked him how old he felt in his mind. I told him that I’m 30, but in my head, I think of the 23 year old me. He said that he thinks of himself as he was in his 60s.

I think of him as being that age too, so sometimes I’m surprised to see a very 87 year old man in front of me, feeling his 87 years.

It’s hard to ignore the “old” sometimes. I usually see him twice a day, and it’s always the first few minutes of his first visit that are most stressful - figuring out how he’s feeling, how he slept, what his mental state is and hoping that it’s a good day for him. And hoping that if it’s not a good day, there’s something I can do to help.

No matter what, though, all the worries melt away when he’s playing with my kids. He loves them so much. My whole family is very sure that if D and I did not live just a house away from him, Grandpa probably would’ve left this world many years ago.

So it’s not too hard for me to toss aside my neuroses and hand my newborn over to him as soon as he’s settled in “his” seat, in the sunlight.

Today’s pic is family/friends only on Flickr!

I’ve been out of the house with the 3 boys all by myself, but only for going over to D’s parents’ house. This morning was the first time I’ve put all 3 in the car by myself with the expectation of being somewhere at a certain time and having that “somewhere” be a public place instead of someone’s house.

We got there on time, even after I took 10 pics in the driveway (trying to get a good shot - sadly, this was the best. It was cold & first thing in the morning!)

I did have a little help, though, because we met a friend and her 2 daughters (who are very close in age to B & K) there. She carried R’s coat & offered to help me with more, but I really wanted to do it as much on my own as possible. The boys have been SO patient, waiting for R to be a little bigger and for me to be ready for it. We’ve all got major cabin fever at this point (the weather isn’t really helping), so it was good timing.

Today is the 17th anniversary of my grandma’s death. I was 13 when it happened, and back then I was as close to her as I am to my grandpa now. I grew up living next door to her, and she was the person in my life that I went to for almost everything and trusted most. I’m finally in a place in my life where I don’t feel absolutely crushed every time I think of her.

The picture is my grandma’s engagement ring. She really wasn’t into jewelry and I don’t know if I ever saw her wear it. D and I used it as my engagement ring, and I think it’s beautiful, but I usually only wear it for special occasions or when I’m thinking of her.

A couple of years ago, my in-laws had just come home from Portugal, and as always, they had little gifts for us. Some of the gifts were from the family that lived over there, and some were things that they had bought while out sightseeing.

Over the years and their many visits, I’ve ended up with some cute embroidered dish towels & pretty Portuguese gold jewelry. But my favorite gift ever has been a tiny plaque from Fatima that my mother-in-law bought for me.

I unwrapped it to see a picture of Mary & a few words that I could recognize, along with a few that I couldn’t. I had the general idea of what it said, but was a little surprised at what I thought it meant - so when my mother-in-law asked me if I knew what it said, I told her that I wasn’t completely sure, so she read it for me.

Across the top & bottom it says “God of love and peace” and “In Fatima, I prayed for you.” The center part says “Daughter-in-law, for me, a second daughter I will love for all my life.”

My relationship with my mother-in-law has only gotten better over the past few years. She is an absolutely amazing woman & in my mind, she’s an example of the kind of patience and strength that I’d like to have. I’ve really lucked-out in the in-law area, and this little souvenir from Portugal is just one of my favorite ways to remember that.

The cold I have is definitely running its course pretty quickly, but with a friend’s suggestion, I decided to give some ginger a try by making a tea with fresh ginger. I peeled & sliced about a 2-3 inch chunk of ginger & added it to 2.5 cups of boiling water. I boiled the ginger slices in a small pot for 20 minutes and was left with about 8 ounces of liquid when it was done.

I poured it into a mug with some lemon juice and drank it hot. It was really spicy & it burned my throat and I could even feel it in my ears - but it felt SO good. It didn’t taste so great, but I didn’t really worry about that because I was drinking it for such a specific purpose, and the sore throat and little bit of a cough that I had before I drank it was long gone by the time I got to the bottom of the mug.

I think that as more of an everyday tea thing, or as a “start of a cold” thing, I would boil the ginger & water in the same way, with the same ratios. But then I would dilute it with more water (boiling or cold), along with honey &/or lemon juice.

Ginger is now officially something I’ll try to always have in the house. Apparently it can be anti-inflammatory, is good for tummy issues (and nausea of course, though it never really touched my morning sickness), & is also immune-boosting. And it smells really good!

I’ve never really cooked much with ginger, aside from a few Indian dishes that I’ve experimented with, so I might have to try to find some good recipes.

We had dinner at my parents’ house tonight. My mom likes to cook a big dinner once in a while, so we aim for once a weekend. Tonight my mom made manicotti & meatballs. The manicotti noodles were handmade and so good. And of course the sauce was homemade. I never had jarred sauce until I moved into my own apartment in college & was still figuring out how to make my own. There are also 2 carafes of wine on the table - the white and red that we made ourselves.

The plate in the picture is D’s (though he didn’t get to eat until I was done because R wouldn’t let him sit down), and that’s our side of the table. I usually sit between K and B. I’m not sure exactly how everyone will shift once R has his own place though. My dad is at the end there, in front of the grandfather clock, and my mom and grandpa were sitting on the other side of the table.

We also try to visit D’s parents once a week, so between those two dinners and all the leftovers, my cooking week is pretty easy sometimes.

I can’t get ahead of the laundry. D never really did the laundry before R was born, and even with his help now that we’re a family of 5, we still need get into our stride with it. We have plenty of clean clothes, and the dirty clothes are all contained - it’s just that, unfortunately, both exist as strategically placed and not exactly picturesque piles.

Stuff that needs to be washed is in a basket upstairs, and in a contained spot next to the washing machine downstairs - and then there is a bowl on our kitchen counter that collects cloth napkins & dish towels, and a couple cloth diaper pails too. I also have a separate basket for baby stuff.

You’d think that a person less than 2 feet tall wouldn’t generate much laundry, but with the cloth diapers and the drooling and how messy nursing can be sometimes, he keeps me busy.

For the clean stuff - it’s all about the upholstered chair in our computer room and the spare room upstairs. Some of it is folded, some of it isn’t. The picture is clean diaper laundry that needs to be sorted.

It’s not really a dire situation or anything. We all have clean clothes, it’s just that nothing is put away and I’d really like for it to be. And if everything was put away, the laundry that still remains to be done wouldn’t seem like such an issue, I think.

We’ll get it all figured out, I’m sure - maybe by the time the kids are old enough to be doing laundry on their own.

Since this 365 thing has me writing so much already, I went and read through all the online blogging/journaling I did - starting in 2004, soon after K was born. I have a 63 page word document that I had finished reading by the end of the day. There are a lot of good memories in there, and I’m really glad to be doing this now.

In the more recent entries, of course, was R’s birth story. It was nice to read it last night because the midwife-assistant who helped deliver R (and who’s name is on his birth certificate) came by to visit this morning. In the birth story, I mentioned a necklace that D & K had made for me, and this is a picture of it. It’s 5 scallop shells (my favorite shell to find at the Cape), one representing each of us.

When we were at the Cape this summer, we went on a Critter Cruise (an educational tour of the harbor area) and when we were getting off the boat, I saw they were selling these kid-sized, plastic bracelets that were made from pastel colored scallop shells. It’s typical beach-area tourist stuff - and they caught my eye because I’m pretty sure I had one just like that when I was little. I mentioned to D that I sort of wished that I had gotten one because it just brought back happy memories. K overheard me and started asking questions, so we all talked about it for a few minutes and then moved on to other sights.

Later that day, when we were on the beach in front of our cottage, K had stumbled upon another scallop shell and he made sure to give it to me. I don’t know if it was originally D’s idea or if K thought of it himself, but K was very excited with the plan to make some scallop shell jewelry. I think it was supposed to be a secret or a surprise, but it was pretty easy to guess because K was so intent upon collecting those shells and getting giggly when he gave them to me, then whispering to D.

When we got home from vacation, D took the shells to work, drilled the little holes in them, and put a necklace together. He and K gave me the necklace on the day that we had our own little family baby shower that consisted of ice cream cake, mac n cheese, & making a belly cast. It was really sweet and totally made the day.

D had sort of MacGuyver’ed the necklace by using this stretchy rubber cord thing that he had found on my desk. It was fine, and the thought alone was incredibly special to me…but…I wanted to make it more permanent and jewelry-like. I had some hemp cord and I made a quick little necklace with it - not very different from the original (the shells were still in the same order), but more durable, something that would stay tied, and something that I could wear again.

The next time I wore it was the day R was born. I put my necklace on as soon as I realized I was definitely in labor, and it made everything just that much more special.

Today’s pic is a family/friends only pic on Flickr!

Today is one of those days where I wish I could call in sick, so pardon any incoherence.

I would say this is how R spends most of his day - in my arms, sleeping on/next to me, or strapped to me.

He’ll sit in the travel swing (that I’ve had since K and that we don’t even bother turning on any more because the motor is suddenly really loud - though there are lights and music) for a few minutes. He’ll sit in the travel swing for a little bit longer than a few minutes if his big brothers are singing/talking to him while he’s there; and pushing the swing, probably harder than they should. And we have a jumperoo, mainly because I’m entertained by them (no batteries in that one either, just because) - and he’ll chill out in that for a few minutes too.

But just like with the other 2, it just works to wear him. It keeps him happy, and that keeps me happy. He’s asleep in the carrier on me right now, actually, as I’m writing all this.

I can’t do things as quickly or efficiently at this point, with him being worn on the front. Soon I’ll be ready to start wearing him on my back, and dishes/laundry/whatever will be a lot easier. Though it’s nice to have that excuse right now

I’ve probably acquired too many carriers over the years, but they’ve all been well-loved and used a lot. I think it’ll be something that I really miss about having a baby/toddler in the house, but maybe one day I’ll have grandkids that I can wear

It’s been 6 months since my last homeschool update, and of course so many things have changed, and they’re all happy changes!
We now have a houseful - 3 sons (5.5, almost 3, and 15 weeks)! I’m excited to feel like our family is complete and to start living our lives as a family of 5.
My 5.5 year old, the first in line for our homeschool journey, is much more like a big kid these days. He’s excited about the prospect of being able to continue learning the way he has for the past 5 years of his life.
And, unsurprisingly now that he’s 5.5, we have had lots of questions about kindergarten/school for him - so we’re very much official in terms of letting everyone else know our plans.
We’re not official, yet, in terms of our Letter of Intent, but the city doesn’t need that until September, so we’ve got plenty of time. I plan on slowly getting things together over the next few months. I’m not feeling as nervous about all of that as I was 6 months ago, which is another happy change.
The almost-3-year old is very firmly into his toddlerhood right now, and the cool thing about that is watching him start to find his own interests and obsessions, and see how differently he learns than his older brother. I know some people don’t consider it “homeschooling” at this age, but it certainly seems to be the very start of it.
It’s only been 2010 for less than a week now, but I’m excited about this year. I’m doing a “Project 365″ - taking a photo every day and blogging a bit about it. Lots of my photos/blogs will be public: http://flickr.com/nineminutes

Yes, you are looking at a (freshly cleaned) NoseFrida. This thing that I was so grossed out by a couple months ago - it’s now the star of my 6/365. After freaking out about the idea of sucking snot out of my baby’s nose, I read many online reviews in an attempt to understand WHY anyone would buy this product and ended up convinced that it was a good (though still “ew”) idea.

R and I don’t really look much like the serene Swedish circle-heads in the illustration (for a lot of reasons). Even though the whole process is much more accepted by R than the old-school one involving the bulb syringe, he’s not exactly smiling up at me in utter awe that I’m exorcising the demon snot out of his tiny baby head. The first time I tried it, he did smile a little. But since then, the response is more of a confused/agitated/”why are we playing ‘look, the baby is a hookah pipe!’ again??”

So it’s worked out ok for us. It’s cool to be able to see exactly what’s been hoovered out of his sinuses.

And, in the same way I wish that someone would carry me around in a sling for a little while, I’m sort of getting tired of all the work involved in blowing my own nose. The sling wish seems to be answered with “one day, I’m going to have to get a hammock.” The NoseFrida wish has me thinking about the logistics of buying one of those spit-suckers that they use at the dentist.

On Flickr, I have a friends/family only pic for today!

The view from our living room window of our driveway & street - you can see D’s tire tracks. B woke up crying because D is back at work today. I guess he’s been paying attention to the big calendar I made for the wall of the living room.

For 2 weeks in a row, because of the holidays, D had 4 day weekends and it was really nice having him around. Just like I could never be bored as a SAHM because my kids are constantly keeping me entertained and on my toes, I’m starting to realize that my relationship w/D is taking a similar route. We’ve been together for 11 years now, married for 7, and as well as I know him it still feels like there’s always something new.

The first year of each of our children’s lives has been really hard (adjusting to the change) but ridiculously rewarding and right, and I’m really curious about how it will all play out this time around

You know you’re a parent when…there are rollerskates next to the tub in the bathroom.

K wanted skates ever since he saw Curious George wearing some, so these were a pretty big hit. They’re supposed to be worn with shoes, but K’s are too big to fit now, so he wears them inside & shoeless. Our downstairs is 3/4 hardwood floor & tile & only 1/4 rug, so even I am tempted to get a pair of skates and get around the house that way sometimes.

K is very cautious & gets frustrated easily, so it’s been cool watching him gain confidence on them & take more risks.

What’s not so cool is how noisy they are, with the clomping and the clanking and the rattling, and the gray hairs I get every time I hear that clomping and clanking and rattling become a little frantic and then end with a thud; and it’s after those stressful moments that having 1/4 rug comes in handy, for practicing and quieting purposes.

We had flurries overnight, which gave us a little accumulation. I really love the snow and cold (well, I don’t love it so much when it gets into the mid-teens and it actually hurts to be outside) and I don’t even mind shoveling too much, though with the patio, the sidewalk along the house, the driveway, and the sidewalk in front of our house, it’s a lot of work.

This pic is the fireplace in our back yard. My favorite thing that the fireplaces has been used for is roasting peppers. It makes me think of my great grandparents and their parents roasting their peppers back in the day.

My grandpa and I built it together soon after we moved in. I think I was very newly pregnant with K when we built it. My grandpa knows how to do so much random stuff - stonework & cement work & gardening of course - and I find myself scribbling notes on whatever paper is closest when he shares that knowledge with me. A few years ago he said “When an old man dies, a library goes with him.” I’d like Grandpa to be around at least for one more spring/summer so that I can have another chance to try to figure out how he grows such great tomatoes.

My grandmother died when I was 13, so I didn’t have a chance to learn lots of the stuff that I wish I had (though luckily my mom and aunt know a lot of that stuff - like tortellini making!) so I’ve been trying so hard to make sure that I take the initiative with learning from my grandpa.

I’m really lucky to have him around. He makes me crazy sometimes, and it’s getting harder these days because he’s not entirely “with it” all the time - but I have to say that as hard as it was for me to lose my grandmother when I was 13, my relationship with my grandfather is one of the best things to come out of that. I don’t know if I’d be as close to him if she was still alive.

it’s not perfect - it has it’s homemade quirks. But I’m proud of it because I did so much of it myself, with his instructions.
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