Tool Girl

The photo is a little blurry and the accessories are hard to see - but here is Sydney working on the dryer, which Briton had disassembled and cleaned out. She found a pair of ear protectors which she wrapped around her waist as a tool belt.

(The dryer and a washer were for free, courtesy of the Wilde's neighbors, via the Wilde's, who are always looking out for us).

Highway Robbery

Last Saturday was our ward's annual "Spring Fling"/Easter Egg "hunt" (the eggs are scattered across the field in plain sight).

The only rule is only ten eggs per kid. It takes about 3 seconds to fill a basket with ten eggs. But there are some kids who take the Easter egg hunt very, very seriously and will collect them as long as they are out there:"Hey, kid! That's more than ten eggs!"

"I hope nobody is looking..."

Other kids could care less:

Bedtime Routine

It is rare that Talmage falls to sleep following the bedtime routine of story, prayer, good-night hug. As we leave the room, he usually is setting up his next activity - be it legos, coloring, etc. He'll kick around in there for a good hour or so before tucking himself in. When we go and check on him before we turn in, we navigate through little legos strewn all over the floor, papers scattered, clothes flung every-which-way ... (okay, so his room looks like that all day long. anywaaaay...).

Tonight was no exception, and as usual, I didn't pay much attention to the racket coming from his room after I'd said "goodnight." About 30 minutes after he was "put to bed", he called me into his room, "Hey, mom!" As I walked down the hall, he stood by his open door like a museum docent, hand outstretched to present his room to me.

He says, "Look! I tidied my room!"

And sure 'nuff. It was one TIDY room. There was not ANYTHING on the floor. He'd put all toys, odds-n-ends, a pillow, EVERYTHING, either on his bookshelf or stuffed into his closet.

"Wow, T!" I wrapped him in a hug and we laughed together.

He was so happy about his work. He gave me an impulsive bear hug back and then asked, "What day is tomorrow?" Enough gushing, already!

If The Shoe Fits, Or, Silence of the Lambs, Or, A Cinderella Story

Q: "What do you call a man with no arms and legs on your wall?"
A: "Art."

Q: "What do you call his arms and legs on your wall?"
A: "Pieces of Art."

Or Scarlett O'Hara.

Last week, I bought the above in a spurt of ebay-bidding mania. Because I needed one of her shoes (side note: ebay gives me ulcers). A friend's grandmother's Madame Alexander doll was inadvertently left in a big bin of stuff she was giving us for the girls' room. Before I had a chance to return it, the doll had gotten, oh ... kicked around. And one of the shoes went missing. I didn't realize it was a vintage, multi-million-dollar collectible item. I didn't even know what "Madame Alexander" meant.

It was a big relief when the ebay package arrived last night, eerily disassembled. The shoe matched and fit perfectly. Briton put the ebay doll together and so now we have our own one-shoed "Madame Alexander" doll (which we are NOT starting a collection of). It fits the girls' room decor very nicely.

(I found out, too late, from the MA company that you can buy accessories only. A little FYI for you if you ever need a solitary shoe and don't want to buy a whole doll).

Blogging by Proxy

With Aunt Autumn's permission, the following link HERE is to her blog/facebook album, where she journals her and Leslie's activities with the kids. And today they are at the beach. What a life!

Springtime,

... we welcome you with open arms.

(The neighbor's trees, signs of Spring for our cul-de-sac).

Stay awhile.

Stephanie's Music Group

St Patrick's Day Performance

This was the last day of Stephanie's music class here, since she is soon off to greener pastures. Thanks for sharing your light while you were here. Talmage loved music group.

(An attentive audience)

The Fourth Trimester

Have you heard of this term? It's the 3 months it takes for a newborn to adjust to outside life and the 3 months it takes the mom to "recover" from pregnancy.

The growing pains of the fourth trimester have been eased by the live-in help of four people: My folks and Aunt Autumn and Leslie. My parents are a whirlwind of productivity. Grandma takes over household duties:and my dad takes over fix-it jobs. After they left, Talmage said he wanted to be a "Tool Man" like grandpa. We decided it doesn't take a village to raise a family - it just takes four adults. One to manage the house, one to fix stuff and chauffeur, one to earn the living, and one to nurse the babies. Among other things, Grandpa fixed the fence that got blown over in the wind, finished installing a sideyard gate, built a shelf in the closet, re-wired the electricity for a new light fixture, and five minutes before they had to leave, both he and grandma each started and finished just one more project. Grandma was equally productive and furiously busy: cooking, cleaning, driving kids around, playing therapist. In fact, it was during one of our sessions where I was reveling in post-partum depression, that she taught me a new word: mamaracha. It's Quechuan for DOWDY. And it's okay to be mamaracha for awhile.

Now that they are gone, Aunt Autumn and Leslie have taken over the reigns. They are entertaining Talmage and Sydney all day long so I can recuperate in quiet, run errands, blog ....

These are pics Autumn took of their Monday and Tuesday activities.

From one mamaracha mama: I thank you; I love you.

A Close Shave

A Bingo Day

"Robin Barker." The judge read my name from the top of his thankless pile of felons. I approached the bench. He read my citation: Failure to obey police officer.

Guilty.

[Monk tone]: Here's what happened:


Five days before Clara was born, I got a ticket for bypassing a police barricade. Unfortunately, this was no Dukes of Hazard moment. It was a lapse of synapse. Or, as the citation says, "no culpable mental state" - which must be a law enforcement euphemism for "stupid."

Fast forward to March 9, two weeks to the day after Clara was born. Here I was, in the courthouse, pleading my case. The judge reduced my fine by 25% (the maximum allowed by law) - down to $215. Driving away, I heard an ominous sound from the back of the van. Our new van. The one with less than 500 miles on it. Sure enough. Flat.

I had luckily (or unluckily) pulled into a Schuck's parking lot. Cellphone-less, I asked to use their phone. But then, no one was home. The two nearby friend's who's numbers I have memorized were both out of state (as was Briton). The Schuck guy, Shawn, said he'd help me change the tire. Shawn jacked up the car (in more ways than one) and then asked for the wheel lock key. I didn't know where it was. Briton would know - but that meant I needed to get home so I could email him. I tried not to lose it by remembering I just needed to be patient. It's not like I had anything else to do. Meanwhile, Clara was fussy because she had a poopy diaper and was hungry.

Since we couldn't change the tire, Shawn had the (at the time) brilliant idea to sell me some fix-a-flat. NEVER USE FIX-A-FLAT! It will cost you more than the sticker price. A little voice inside my head, which I will call The Holy Ghost, told me not to use the fix-a-flat. But Shawn said it was safe to use and he's the Shmuck guy. So I paid $7 for the can. He even inflated the tire for me, assuring me this brand was safe to use on wheels with ... monitoring systems. Except as fast as he put the stuff in, the air fizzed out. There was a long gash in the side-treads. I was stuck at Schmuck's. And out $7 more.

Eventually, mom rescued us. By that time, though, I had been gone from home 3 hours instead of 45 minutes as planned. With no extra diapers, Clara had pooped through the one she had on, and peed through the cloth diaper I had replaced it with. Onto my lap. So not only did I smell like leaky milk, and spit up, I also smelled like pee. But I was holding it together, folks, I really was. I hadn't even cried. Yet.

We got home, Briton responded to my email (the key was at home), my dad changed the tire, and then we drove to the Honda Dealership where they could tell us if the flat was caused by a road hazard or a manufacturing defect.

They quickly told us two things:

a) the fix-a-flat hosed our TPMS device. Cost to replace? $100; and
b), road hazard. Warranty not applicable.

Cost to replace tire? $160. If my math is correct, by 5 p.m., this day had cost us $482. Because of my mistakes. For every mile on the car, I had made $1 worth of mistakes. Good thing it wasn't the Bogus! (it has > 145,000 miles).

Then, to top it all off, I was being whupped at Scrabble. While waiting for the verdict on the tire, my dad and I started a game on his palm pilot. Before you can say, "bingo", he had 106 points on the board to my zero. That's about when the tears started to fall...

Introducing...

Like Sydney says, we think Clara is cool!

You decided to arrive on your due date.

Thank you for everyone's warm wishes and everyone who has helped us/is helping us out. Clara is a wonderful baby. She sleeps a lot and is easily soothed. She is a light in our family. I love stroking her cheek and nuzzling her downy head. Her skin is peeling off, almost like an old sunburn. Although it is hard to miss sleep, I regret each moment that, like her skin, sheds a day of her newborn-ness. Talmage has taken to Clara with keen interest. He tells her jokes, ("kajunk"), shows her how he can stand on one leg, and asks to hold her. When he came into the hospital room, his face was beaming with excitement. Sydney is curious about Clara and seems to have accepted her arrival with imperturbable equanimity. It has helped that T&S have had a lot of attention from the grandparents. It has helped that I have had lots of attention from the grandparents. They worked like the dickens for three weeks (fodder for another post) and made the transition from two kids to three kids infinitely easier.