Half Dozen

Four Star

2011-08-30T15:54:00.000-07:00

On the same street at the kids' gymnastics center are several hotels that cater to mid-budget beach goers.

Today, while passing a chain hotel, I heard Annike say under breath, "gross."

Annike is a shushy talker, all hers s's are said "schhhh" instead of "ssss". It's heartmelting. I attribute it to her terrible fall from the bathroom counter our last night in Ann Arbor. The fall that landed us in the ER with a middle of the night surgery involving reattaching the front of her tongue to the back of her tongue. Even to this day, she has an inflexible divot half-way back on her tongue. She also mispronounces her r's, just like Petra did.

So really, what she said sounded more like this, "gwosch."

Then, "you know when you go to vischit people and it isch faw away? And you can't stay with them beausche theiw housche isch too schmall? And scho you gotta schtay at a hotel?"

The rest of us, "ummmm . . ."

Annike, "you know?"

Us, "yes?"

Annike, "well let'sch nevew schtay at that one. It schays on the schign that they have 'weekly ratsch'! That'sch scho gwosch! Why wouldn't they juscht get rid of them?"

Soren is long back to his book by now, Tova gives an empathetic "eww, rats."

Petra and I sit and think, out loud repeating, "weekly rats?"

Then we giggle.

Weekly rates.

I love being her mother. I do.

Annike is my funny one.

Love the One You're With

2011-08-21T18:39:00.000-07:00

If you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with. Do do do do do . . .

Makielski's. All you A2 people know what I'm talkin' about. Makielski's is a verdant and lush orchard filled with every species of blackberries and raspberries and gooseberries and pumpkins here on God's green earth. We go there every year, sort of. Kind of. Now we go their in our hearts. Because Makielski's is in Ann Arbor, one of the top 3-cities of the world. Annnnnd, if you recall, we don't live their anymore. We gave up Camelot for burnt toast with a side of ocean. Not bad, mind you, but we still have our I'd Rather Be in Ann Arbor bumper stickers.

Ok, so whaddya do when your stuck living over in Burnt Toast? Well, you do what you always did and go pickin.

Tovey got confused and nabbed an alarmingly large gem from her nose. That's not what we had in mind.

Unlike Makielski's, with 7-fields encompassing hundreds of acres, the place we went to up in the mountains was 3-1/2 rows that were 20-feet long. That's it. Just one kinda berry. There were plenty of bees, which was a relief. Not so much of a relief were the snakes curled up under the tender, wet leaves. But we managed. And I was teary, homesick, but determined that my puddin-babies are gonna grow up right -- with raspberry thorns stuck in their finger tips and snake wrapped around their ankles.

That's Baby #3 there. She was a good picker until the snake incident, then she mostly snake hunted.

Baby #4 likes bees and snakes. She's a lot like Nutmeg, troubles with leaving all the little creatures be. Plus, I don't even know how she got a hold of that shi-shi in her mouth.

I take it seriously. The kids had the buckets so I had to use my skirt, probably just like Laura Ingalls Wilder. I wonder how Laura handled snakes? I run and scream and have to cardiovert myself. My heart is still flip-floppy.

When people ask me how old the twins are, I don't correct them, and then I tell them that Jack and Annike are 6-years old. It's all true. They are 6-six old. And, they're strikingly similar. Jack Henry Viking was our boy for the day. On Friday, Soren was one of theirs. Even Steven.
(Oh, I was still holding raspberries in my skirt.) (I wasn't trying to be sassy.)

All my Viking children. Soren is too cool for smiles. He also doesn't have teeth anymore.

Pa and Ma Viking and the minis and the corn and the field and the mountains and the most fabulous smell in the air. It's breathtaking in ways Back Home isn't, and I get an extra child or two out of the deal sometimes, and so I'm trying to make Burnt Toast the way we are. It's not so bad, spread it with something sweet and it feels just about right.

Once Bitten

2011-08-18T16:45:00.000-07:00

One of the things I did while you were away was this, I did a cake decorating class. I didn't really want to do it. It was a holiday gift from my well-intentioned husband, groan. After all, what working mother has time for cake decorating? A cleaning lady, now that is a gift every mother could use. And, I'll tell you this, my husband certainly wasn't doing any laundry while I was away.

What ended up happening is that I went t0 work and whined about it. Whine and complained until one of the doctors that I work with got so fed up that she decided to take the class with me just so she could prove me wrong and get me to shut-up already. Every Wednesday for a month we went to class at the local high school. For three hours a week we crumb-layered and iced and piped and rolled and so on. We were placed in the beginners group on the grounds that neither of us had any formal training. That is when I decided it was a competition between me and that richie doctor with her fancy MD degree. I secretly spent each class peering over at her work, jumping at the chance to laugh hard at her mistakes. It was a lot of fun. One time I laughed so hard at her Big Bird cake that I squirted blue icing out of my icing bag and onto my Cookie Monster cake. That was not funny.

The story doesn't end there, though. It was a little bit fun. Because we also laughed at and with the people in our class. There was a 60-something father of two with gobs of money who was there to learn a hobby and establish residency so his youngest could go to UCLA. There was the 60-something Japanese granny with limited English skills who had never, ever heard of Sesame Street let alone Big Bird (you should have seen her Big Bird cake on Sesame Street day!). The four of us were way copacetic, laughing and joking and secretly trying to one up each other in Beginning Cake Decorating. There was a T.A. with the sorriest bunch of decorating skills I had ever seen. Lastly there was the head honcho, Miss Linda.

Now, Miss Linda was a piece of work. She was probably about 5'5" tall, and 300-lbs. She was chronically breathless, could hardly walk, and had perfected the eye-roll and huffy breath. She had mad skills. She was also a bit celebrity, having appeared on some cake show as a contestant and then later a judge. On both wrists she wore braces due to injury after years of squeezing icing bags and rolling fondants. Several of her toes were numb from her years of living as a diabetic in a cake store. When she walked she would grab on to the nearest counter, or chair, or person then shuffle her feet until she could grab onto the next object in front of her. If you were that object and you were in deep crap, one false move and you were both toast. Linda love to slap the icing bag out of your hand for poorly piped decor, and then growl at you mercilessly as she showed you the right way to do it.

Idle chatter is how we spent our time as we worked on those cakes, so by the end of the class we all knew each others' life stories. My family's diet was no secret to the rest of my group, who was supportive and curious. As a self-proclaimed food snob, I'm accustomed to receiving lots of feedback about my snobby and wayward living. One day Linda and the T.A. were simply agog when they learned I am a vegetarian. Upon sneerily proclaiming it to the entire class (the Intermediate and Advanced groups shared the same home economics classroom with us), she loudly announced "my God woman, you know you're gonna DIEEEEEEEEE from that." Then she avoided me for the rest of the class like I had The Clap, which was fine by me because it was flower week and my roses were looking really shitty and quite frankly I was afraid of her.

But, we loved Linda and it turns out that I liked cake decorating. No my husband did not try to get a load in or pack the kids' lunches or clip their toe nails. But when the month was winding down, Tricia and I were on the quest for more cake knowledge. Linda invited us to come to some classes at her store for free! Because she liked us so much! But she wanted me to eat some Spam before I came because I made her uncomfortable with so much asparagus blood.

And that is what we did. We drove down San Diego on Monday nights and sat in a big class room with 25-inland women far, far away from our tight knit group of beachcombers. And then we signed up for more classes! Fondant! Drawing on your cake! Rolled butter cream!

It wasn't too long before the office found out about our skills, soon we were in charge of the desserts for each celebratory event at the office. Baby showers. 50th birthday. Saint Patrick's Day. Office manager's birthday. Usually, Tricia baked half the cake, I baked the other half. We both filled our own and then I would decorate. It had been going along well until recently. After a long night of call, Tricia came home and baked her cake all the while struggling to keep her eyes open. Then she dropped them off to my house, where I was supposed to carve them, crumb them and then decorate them.

We were making a baby shower cake for one of the young women who worked our reception desk. I had the cakes centered on the counter while I was working on making a Hispanic skin tone frosting, which isn't easy. Everything was well out of Maggie's reach.

It turns out it wasn't out of Nutmeg's reach. My poor mom began screaming in absolute despair, and I turned around to the above horror. My heart sank. I had 12-hours to make a new cake and fill it and crumb it and ice it and decorate it and it was already close to midnight (give or take 3-hours). Which is what I did.

And we all lived happily ever after. And this baby got eaten. And the mama was very happy. And everyone, ev-errrr-yyy-one, thought this baby looked just like what the new baby will probably look like. And so there you go.

Containment

2011-08-08T19:12:00.000-07:00

This is the story of how one quiet-ish Monday, Tova and I found ourselves without any big kids to cramp our style. After doing all our drop-offs at soccer and gym, Tovey told me she wanted to buy some 'sishy cwackerz' -- fishy crackers, duh -- and eat 'em all up, yum, yum, yum.

We buy our fishy crackers in bulk, and two things happen when you buy fishy crackers in bulk. The number one thing is that children untwist the twisty tie and take a handful and then shove the bag back in the sorry-excuse-for-a-pantry that we have in our sorry-excuse-for-a-kitchen. Basically they get stale, or spilly all over and then the mice come or we have stale fish. Either one is a bummer. Ok, the number two thing is that our mutt-puppy dog and our pure-bred wiener dog are geniuses! They can muster up the know-how to break through our baby proofed pantry doors (blue rubber bands wrapped around the door handles) and steal the plastic bag with the goldfish and then eat the plastic bag with the goldfish inside.

At first it doesn't sound like a bad plan, right? Cause who wouldn't want their dogs to eat plastics bags, then the poop would already be bagged up. Turns out, that's not how it works. The plastic ends up mixed in, you see. Mixed in, sadly.

Now you know where I'm going right? We needed another container. A container to keep the mice out and a container to keep the fishies fresh and a container that was eat-proof (not putting Maggie past it, but I'm always hopeful). All our other containers were tied up with oatmeal and pretzels (Maggie doesn't like pretzels) and Honey Nut Cheerios and granola and all that crap.

So, sishy cwakerz store and then the 'tainer store. Tova wrote the plan on her map of the zoo with a highlighter and off we went. She was happy-dappy, singing her fave song about the juke box and rock and roll. Last stop was the fancy outdoor mall by our house, with many 'sountains' (fountains) and the 'tainer store.

And before you knew it, we were done with the 2-errands Tova had on her list. Listen, I know what you're thinking: 1) but they really were Tova's errands, her original ideas 2) you're probably thinking I'm the kind of mom that drags my kids everywhere on errands and such and then lets them pick a fun one to do so that they don't think the whole day was a big wash (I am, but that's not what happened today). Tova carried the bag with 3-cereal box sized containers, and we headed out the front door toward home. There I was yapping away about washing our 'tainers, drying our 'tainers and then filling our 'tainers with all the fishies and then how we must only eat a little bowlful. It's funny, I thought, how I suddenly don't hear Tovey dragging that bag of 'tainers behind her.

Gasp!

I was alone, looking like a lady with a few-hundred screws loose baby-talking to thin air about goldfish crackers and portion control.

A few frantic nanoseconds later, I found that girlfriend around the corner. She has a thing for fountains, and this mall has lots and lots of fountains. I'm thinking she went out the side-door to see the fountain, dragging her container bag with her.

Well, there she was, paralyzed with her jaw dropped, little drips of drool dangling from the corners of her mouth. Her eyes were dancing and awestruck, her chubby little finger pointing at side-by-side escalators. Barely audible, her tiny voice was whispering "alligator, alligator, alligator." And when a taut woman with bouncy body parts jumped onto the escalator, yoga mat tucked into the crook of her elbow, Tova gasped and shook with joy.

Slowly, she turned and as she did she noticed me watching her a few feet away. Her precious brown eyes, as big as chocolate covered doughnut holes, welled up and implored me without a word but saying so much -- "Mommy," they said "it's all I ever wanted, all I ever needed." Then she gently parted her rosebud lips and let out the sweetest sigh ever heard on this barren earth.

And so I had a choice. I could have been the mommy who stuck to the plan, wrangled up my toddler and pressed her into her car seat with my elbow and forearm holding her in place and my other hand snapping her up at 5-points while she wailed in mortal rage as her hopes at sacred escalator ascension were dashed by evil, evil mama. But who wants to be that mommy?

Most of the time not me. And, just who on earth was I to be a heart breaker? Who? I'm nothing without these babies, so if life is about the simple pleasures and cheap thrills then let's do it.

39-minutes later, pudgy baby hand in my hand, we rode up and down that escalator on 11-round trips. A couple of times we went and splashed our hands in the 'sountain', buuuuut mostly we did 22-escalator rides.

You know that song about Charlie, the man who gets stuck on the M.T.A 'neath the streets of Boston and never returns? Well, my life was starting to sound just like a Kingston Trio song.
And then it came to me, bribery.

"HeyTova! Remember those goldfish crackers in the car?"

"Yeth."

"Well, how about you and I go home and wash the new container and then pour the gold fish in. We'll have to get off this escalator of purgatory, but I'll let you use the scissors to cut the bag open."

She had to think about it for a bit, purgatory or scissors. Think, think, think. She really loves scissors.

"How about we wide da alligator fwee more times, den we comed home and I cut de sishy bag open and I get to pour dem aww by myself and you don't help me and den I eat dem and you don't eat mine. Fwee more time I wide dis fing."

And that is how you pull yourself out of purgatory. You simply offer your child something to gouge their eyes out with and then some cheesy sodium to wash it down.

Three more round-trips on the escalator and we were home with her cutting open the bag of crackers, pouring it onto the floor and table and a little bit into the container.

Peace, love and containment,
K-Mama

Unembattled

2011-08-02T20:49:00.000-07:00

I swear this is my last summer as a working parent. I told Lars this yesterday. He is, apparently, disbelieving. But, running this household really requires at least one adult more present more often.

Take today for example. I forgot to make the pizza dough last night, so that meant I had to make it today. It takes 4-hours to rise, not to mention the time it takes to make. Because I need to leave her with the car during the day New Nanny picked me up from work, then the kids and I dropped New Nanny off. That's 20-minutes I had to subtract from pizza dough-ing. Then at home, I had to clean-up the tissues that Nutterbutter had pulled out of the box. Another 5-minutes negative from my dough-ing. I quick started the water for the yeast, but didn't take the kettle off until it whistled. Knowing it was probably too hot, I sprinkled the yeast anyway. After that, we whisked Petra off to gymnastics 20-minutes away, and then the rest of us off to Trader Joes. Home 57-minutes later, but the yeast wasn't foamy, it was just plain boiled. Now I was like negative 98-minutes! I had to start over.

But, when you're starting over and a little huffy, you can't help but notice the other things that are wrong about your day. For example, 6-bananas with fruit flies all around, very ripe and very splotchy. That means banana bread.

So, there I was, needing to double the pizza dough recipe and make the banana bread undoubled. Which is how we ended up with banana-y pizza bread.

And the kids. Something needed to be done about the kids. Soren was, and is, engrossed with the 4th Harry Potter so he was all set, but those little baby girls were something of another sort. I'm not one of those mamas who loves cooking with her kids. I like to do it my way, and I like to do it without talking. I don't necessarily like to let Annike over-stir the batter while singing her rendition of Sir Mix A Lot's "Baby Got Back", which I've heard at least 72-times today. Let me tell you, it got old after the first time.

So there I was, with Annike bumpin' to "Baby Got Back", trying to be more like one of those patient mommies who happily cooks with her kids.

Tova was wailing "I Love Rock and Roll". She leave out the part about the dime, skips right to the juke box bit. Hard on the nerves.

Tova also got pokey with the dough and stuck her fingers right in there. See that? How's a doubled dough to survive?

As if it wasn't crowded enough in that little kitchen, Nutmeg curled up in her favorite kitchen napping spot.

But, well, then they do little things like this. Things like holding the dough up, naming it Baby Ivy, and patting it on the back til it burps.

Then rocking it.

Or pretending to swaddle it.

And, cooing to it. Annabeaner is a great cooer.

It makes me sigh a little happy sigh. Just a little one.

We set that dough to rise on top of a heating pad, whispered sweet nothings to it and gave it a few gentle pats. I'll be darned if that dough didn't double in 1-1/2 hours! We punched it down, and then let it set for it's second rise, also done in 90-minutes flat! And then another improbable thing happened. Neighbor DJ came over, said something about being hot and then took Soren, Annike, Tova and Nutmeg back to his house to swim.

Suddenly, I had a coo-less and dog-less house (unless you count Maggie, but she's mostly cow and only 7% dog). Without so many helpers, without so much burping of pizza dough, I was able to get a few other things done.

And that is the story of how I was able to make 4-whole wheat pizzas, 2-loaves of banana bread sans fruit flies, and 2-dozen Viking muffins some with and some without granola, and clean up the kitchen, all in time for dinner.

Puppy Wuppy

2011-07-27T14:24:00.000-07:00

So, here's the deal. Around here, there are several grades of animal shelters. There's the one run by the county that is filled with pit bulls and dingos and feral cats. There's the Humane Society, where they have 3-legged goats who fell off tractor-trailers, abandoned pot bellied pigs, bunnies galore and a handful of adult pit-bull mixes, a rare puppy or adolescent dog, and 1,000 cats and kittens. Finally, there is the well-funded boutique shelter that flies in Golden Retrievers from Taiwan and mutts from Utah. They have a large selection of puppies and young dogs who won't eat your chickens.
So this is what I imagine went through Lars' head several months ago on one of the occasions that I tried explain to him, without whining, that I can't help it that my body keeps telling me more children are in order -- it's my biology, and he's a biologist after all. He of all people should get it, no? Ok, where was I, oh yeah . . . back up to that almost sentence at the start of this paragraph. Here's what he was thinking (I'm paraphrasing): "One time I saw on TV how at a zoo in China a mama chimp had just had a still birth and the mama panda in the next cell over was rejecting her offspring so the zoo keeper brought the baby panda over to the mama chimp and darn it if that panda baby didn't latch on and darn it if that mama chimp didn't love that baby panda like her own and then she was okay and didn't want anymore babies. Heyyyyyyy, how about I go buy my wife a puppy!"
Later, we drove out through the prickly heat in America's wealthiest zip code to that boutique shelter and we picked us a puppy. And by we, I mean Lars. Lars drove us out there and Lars picked himself a puppy. Per his specifications the dog needed to be chocolate in color and lab-ish in breed. Per my specifications, she or he needed to be young enough that we could train her not to eat the chickens. Chase those spoiled rotten fat birds, yes. Eat them, no.
Enter Nutmeg Buster Brown Viking, our chocolate Chesapeake Labrabeagle, our not so cheap boutique shelter mutt puppy. She's smart as a whip, as sweet as an unripe lemon, precious as a diamond. For the first week, Magdalena Humphindinkelheimer ignored her and us. Beginning of the second week, she tolerated her. And now, after months of Viking living, Nutty and Maggie are BFFs. The romp together, bark together, pee on trees together and over-take our master bed together. Now, nightly Lars takes the two dogs for a walk to the 'big park' in our subdivision where all the neighbors bring their dogs. Everyone knows her pitiful orphan story and has fallen in love with her and her floppy brown ears.
Remember when I said she was smart as a whip? Well, it's mostly true. For example, Maggie demonstrated proper doggie-door use to Nutmeg a handful of time and BOOM! we've got a potty trained puppy. Dinner time in the Viking home? Look under Tova's chair, there's Nutty sitting under it with an open mouth waiting for Brussel sprouts and pie crust. Want to have a good time? Sure, go ahead and join my mutt-pup up on the trampoline where she likes to jump with and without the kids.
Now here's the part where I tell you about how she doesn't have the sense that God gave geese. You may recall how our bee population in this country plummeted. In response Lars and I planted a bunch of water-wise bee friendly plants and bought lots of vanilla Haagen-Daaz. We were gonna bring those bees back, by golly. Truth be told, our front and back yards are buzzy in the afternoons with lots of mostly aloof and historically gentle honey bees.
Unlike the bees, aloof is not something Nutmeg does well. Nutmeg wants to know what everyone is doing all the time, and if she can sit on your lap and lick your ear lobes at the same time then she is truly happy. Too bad for Nutmeg that she can't on the bees' laps. Too bad for Nutmeg that she doesn't speak English, because when I told that twerpy pup to leave those honey bees alone I didn't know that her response to me was "fat chance woman."
Had I known, I would have given her a time-out for being sassy. That usually fixes 'em right up. Like I said, I didn't know that she was not minding me.
25-minutes before we had to leave to get Petra and pick up equipment for Lars' new soccer team, it's always in the 30-minutes before you have to be somewhere, Nutmeg came running in to the house from the backyard. She was a little bit yelpy and a lot snorfly and very much pawing at her face. I said her name in a scolding manner, to which she looked up at me. Holy moly, call the ambulance this dog has turned into a bobble head. Her face was beginning to bloat and swell right in front of me. I grabbed her in my arms, screaming my bloody head off for Lars, who came running. Panic stricken he ran to the next door neighbor's house, who after his own unfortunate bee sting incident always keeps Benadryl on hand. While my puppy's eyes were swelling shut and her snorfling grew more pressured, her little nostrils were closing in, and her face was now 2-times it's usual size. I called our friend Mike who knows a little bit about everything. In less than 5-minutes, Lars was back from the neighbor's and Mike was here with some liquid Benadryl, and EMT kit with oxygen and his extensive veterinary knowledge (former vet tech cum computer geek). With a syringe full of children's Benadryl, Mike shot it to the back of her throat. I grabbed my stethoscope, only to hear tight wheezy lungs and a pounding heart. Mike monitored her color while Lars scolded her in his nice-daddy voice. Gradually, agonizingly slowly, her right eye began to open. Then the right side of her face began to unswell. Her left eye came next, the wheezing stopped and her heart rate returned to normal. The side-effects of the Benadryl kicked in, soon enough Nutmeg was zonked out on Mike's lap with all of us surrounding her sitting on the kitchen floor. When Mike left, her droopy and swollen jowls resembled pendulous hippo testicles. But she was alive, Mike had saved our dog's life.
This morning, Mike called me at work to check on Nutterbutter. Back to her normal puppy pokiness with only a bit of swelling on her left cheek, our dog had gone from being an orphaned puppy in a kill-shelter in Utah to a mutt with the love of all our neighbors and computer geeks who will leave their families at bed time to go do an emergency house call. Right now, she's laying on the grass watching the bees buzz from afar and practicing being aloof.

Don't Call It a Comeback

2011-07-26T17:38:00.000-07:00

It's funny. People keep emailing me and telling me to get busy with blogging again. I've been here the whole time! Hmmmm . . .
Well, anyway, here's a quick update of all that's happened since my last post:
1) Soren turned 8
2) Petra turned 10
3) Annike turned 6
4) Petra got straight A's (Annike and Soren are numerically graded)
5) Soren has developed a love of dance
6) Annike made the gymnastics team
7) we got a new nanny, sniffy sniff
8) our friends moved in with us for a bit, we got two more kids out of the deal
9) I had to go to Las Vegas without the kids (work trip) and I yearned for them every darn night
10) we got a puppy, we named her Nutmeg
11) Petra got her braces off
12) our friends moved out yesterday
13) Petra went away to camp, left me for an entire week
14) I'm still not pregnant, and since our friends moved out we're down two kids and the house feels a little lonely and very empty

Maybe I'll post again tomorrow. I love you all, thanks for the support you've given me. Saying all that nice stuff about my writing, you're the best!

Chicken and the Egg

2010-12-11T14:38:00.000-08:00

Our First Egg

Thelma has been laying for about a month, beautiful tan eggs with bright orange yolks. She's very proud of herself, Millie's become quite jealous (see 2nd pic from the top) but heavily gaurds the coop from any poor soul who dares venture by when Thelma is in there laying eggs.

PS - the golf balls are in there to get the chickens to lay in the nesting box, once Millie starts laying then we'll take them out.

"I'd rather be in a room with 3-Maggie farts . . ."

2010-12-09T16:52:00.000-08:00

I have dubbed it "one of the most ill-fated Thanksgiving road trips in American history ".

That's how this sad tale begins.

When it's all said and done, you may wonder just as I have been, if God is sending me a message: "Thou shall stay closer to thy home."

It all started the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Since Super Nova Baby Tova's birth, TG has been my favorite holiday. I was thrilled to be taking 8-days off of work and was looking forward to the drive from SoCal to Austin. Singing rounds! Playing the alphabet game! Drinking pop and eating Cool Ranch Doritos! What could be better than 21-hours of family togetherness in our brand new 2007 minivan?

Huh?! My friends, what could be better?

Well, we left the house 3-hours later than expected. No biggie, cause you can drive 80-MPH once you get out there in the desert.

3-hours into our road trip and only just past Yuma, Baby Tova Margie said, "my tummy hurts." We took her chips away from her, had her take a sip of water and that was that. Moments later, she said it again and then . . . hork. Barf down her face and car seat and legs and so on. A couple more barfs, now with me in the back seat cupping my hands beneath her mouth. We were finally able to stop at a rest stop that had no facilities. We did our best to wipe the muck away from Tova's seat and body, changed her clothes. We diagnosed her with car sickness, hopped back in the van and turned off the little t.v. we brought along to entertain the kids.

Shoulda turned around. Mark my words, we shoulda turned around.

Tova proceeded to vomit all the way to Tuscon, which normally is a few hours from Yuma but in our case was many hours due to frequent stops for fresh air and emesis evacuation. By this time, of course, Soren was in the way back complaining of a tummy ache. We pulled into Tuscon, only 5-hours from our home, with me straddling the seats holding a cupped hand under Tova and a plastic bag up to Soren's mouth. And as we did, in reference to the bile-ish vomit smell that had overtaken our new car, Petra exclaimed, "I'd rather be stuck in a room with 3-Maggie farts than this." Lars and I heartily agreed.

We passed many horrified guests in the lobby of the Holiday Inn as we tried to discretely rush past them to our dinky room for the night. Holiday Inn was kind enough to lend us their laundry so I machine washed the car seat covers while Lars hosed them out in the parking lot. We scrubbed Tova clean and did our best to catch vomit from Soren and Tova as they barfed their way into Monday. While my favorite son has the wherewithal to aim and place his vomit in sinks and toilets and trash cans, Tova does not. Her puke hit the beds, the floors, the walls, the chairs. It was a full-on revival of Airplane.

The next morning by 6 am both of the pukers were stable and no one else was complaining. We called Per and Kathy, consulted with them, did they want us to still come? If not, we were only 5-hours from home and it would be no thang at all to just turn around. "Come!" they urged. So we forged on, only 5-hours into our trip, it would make for a long day.

Feverish, but not nauseous, we got Soren and Tova comfortable in the middle row and sent the girls to the back for safe keeping and sister-time. We angled our way to two lane country highways in the middle of Texas, crossing paths with deer, jack rabbits, armadillos and big black things that looked suspiciously like hairy hippos (it was dark, the mind plays tricks on you).

Blessedly, at 2 a.m. on Tuesday morning, we made it to Austin, to the home of my brother- and sister-in-law. 15-minutes after settling into bed, Petra appeared at my bedside. It wasn't good.

Pattyboomers and I rushed to the bathroom. I held back her hair, while she puked in the sink. As I was shoving her emesis down the drain with my bare hands, Lars poked his head into the bathroom . . . and just in the nick of time. With one fist wrapped around Petra's hair as she continued to launch her cookies into the sink, he had his right hand wrapped around my hair as I upchucked into the toilet. Over and over again, Petra and I went and after each session I cleaned up with bleach because Lars does NOT do puke. This is how our night went.

By late afternoon, we were well enough to endure laying on the couch, cradling ginger ale. The next day we all managed to eat a little. By Thanksgiving, Per and Kathy's middle child was hugging the porcelain, too.

Tarnation! We had brought the plague 1/2-way across the country and infected the innocents.

Then Soren was bit by a spider and his leg swelled up to the size of my big ol'butt and he couldn't walk.

Friday I was well enough to borrow their neighbor's steam cleaner. I cleaned out our car, Lysol'ed the car seats and all the hard surfaces.

Saturday it was time to head back home. We wearily piled in the car (except Soren, who limped/staggered), each of us 3-lbs lighter than before and started off.

Now Tova, that Tova girl of ours, well she can be a handful at times. As we were rolling through the countryside, Tova quietly and timidly mentioned that she had a boogie. I handed that squishy bunned baby a tissue and focused on the map. "Mommy," she whispered, "owie boogie."

I turned around. It seemed the crayons and coloring books that I had handed back to my beauties had inspired Tova to be artistic in non-traditional ways. With an orange crayon dangling from her right nostril, Tova had tried to entertain herself rather questionably. She quickly removed the crayon, smiled at me, but I could see the tip was not on the crayon.

Rather, the tip of the crayon was stuck way the heck up her nose. Try as we did, that tip would not budge. It was causing her pain, not to mention distorting her face with a distinct bulge up in the bony part near her eye. Seriously.

Ohhhh man oh man. We followed Lars' iPhone instructions to the nearest ER, checked Tova in, and then sat down next to a decrepit cowboy. The staff was sweet and kind, which was good, because Petra was having a holy conniption feeling all sorts of guilt for having handed Tova the big kid crayon and not the fat baby crayon. As the nurse was fixin' to prepare us for a removal of a foreign object from the nasal cavity, Tova sneezed. And then again. And again! And I'll be damned if that little orange tip didn't wiggle it's way down. We all sat, holding our breaths as Lars gently stroked Tovey's nose until POP! Out it came! Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. And amen. We high-tailed it back to the van and sped off westward.

The next day was Sunday, November 28th. Of course it was Tova's birthday, but we were still on the road so we didn't tell her. Didn't want to get too crazy with our celebrating and then have karma come and chew our arms off for being too jubillant.

Finally, home to the crisp, dry plot that holds our crumbling, termite infested house with a loving and farty Bassett Hound there to welcome us back. Ahhhh, no place like home.

Pig in a Blanket

2010-11-17T14:59:00.000-08:00

Ours has been a house of various plagues this week, to tell you the truth I'm surprised the health department hasn't shut us down . . . or quarantined us . . . or culled us.

Anyhow, we're in survival of the fittest mode, and when it's like that I just can't give you chicken updates. I can, however, provide you with riveting visuals of our aging hiefer hound who insists on sleeping on the softest and highest points in the house that her stubby legs can heave her to. She also likes a blanket for swaddling. Oh to be a dog! One round of grass and voila! You have an episode of puking on the lawn, you lick it back up and you're good as gold.

God Bless the Wild Beasts

2010-11-11T16:37:00.000-08:00

I went outside to take some snap shots of our bountiful garden but Maggie followed me out and ended up distracting me with her smooshy face. Poor hiefer got her lip stuck up in her cheek. When I pointed it out to her, she got all sensitive on me. Too late for sensitivity. Lordy, I have a stomach ache from laughing at this hairy pooch.

She's a lot like Tova: doesn't speak much English and smells a little funny.

Despite the language barrier, though, you gotta help a sister out when her face gets lopsided. It's kind of like not telling a perfect stranger that she has a piece of broccoli stuck in her two-front teeth. It's the right thing to do.

This one, though . . . sheesh, this one huffy breathed at me and then acted like she had some other business to attend to. Somehow Surfin' DJ next door is, you know, just so very meaningful for a Bassett Hound with collagen deficiencies to monitor.

She tried to ignore my guffaws. She tried, but I was really rolling on the ground by now because a Bassett Hound is just one of those types of creatures that once you start laughing about 'em you can't even bring yourself to stop. Even now I have a little chuckle in me, ooh owww my abs.

Her lip had almost completely plopped out of her mouth, but she still wouldn't give me any eye contact. She was rankled. A wrinkled and rankled stubby legged cow of a dog.

Back to the lip tuck trick. Do you think she does in on purpose?

And then suddenly, she flopped to the ground (2-inches below her floppy belly).

Turns out she was just trying to work in her daily exercise. Treadmill is in the shop, don't ya know.

Pilates, mostly she does pilates.

This is one of her favorite yoga poses, though, it's called Side Down Dog.

It's a good thing she stays in such good shape. She has her work cut out for her, all that protecting of eggless chickens from nightly raids by coyotes.

This is her ab workout. I believe she calls this one Upward Facing Dog with Toe Touch, the toe touch is for added difficulty -- of course. Maggie LOVES to feel the burn.

Don't let your eyes betray you, this nose to the ground maneuver quite honestly requires years of training and dedication.

Post work-out C-Shaped Stretch.

Then snap up to four paws to do the final Shake Off.

It's imperative to engage the ears and lips in a bidirectional trajectory, otherwise the work-out is pointless.

And lastly, stare regally off into the distance with your lip untucked and your muscles bulging. That, my friends, is how you dissuade mockery and laughter while gaining respect of mammals everywhere.

PS - Her 10th birthday is 12/07/2010; send bones, bricks of unsalted butter (she's watching her blood pressure), organic crunchy peanut butter, fluffy pillows, and loaves of freshly baked bread.

Desperation

2010-11-08T16:46:00.000-08:00

Back when Tovey was a teeny-tiny and wouldn't take bottles from Daddy while I was doing my long nights at the hospital, Tova manage to find solace in a battered old baby blanket of mine. The blanket, which I named Mankee (pronounced main-key), is as old as I am. He, Mankee is after all a boy, cuddled me on countless occasions quieting my prickly nervous system as I waded through playground disasters and boy troubles and even an occasional college mishap. Mankee maintained his lovely bright yellow rectangle shape, lovingly knitted by my recently departed Grandma Peg (this is the grandma for whom Tova is named!). No wonder Baby Tova took to this relic of love and peace and comfort, Tova and Mankee -- meant for each other.

Sadly, these days, Mankee is more of a mangled and knotted lump of entangled 70's yellow and orange yarn. I sometimes think the only thing holding dearest Mankala together are those knots. But Tova doesn't mind one bit. As she dozes off to sleep at night or when she's stressed and needing a little loving, she sticks her head into Mankee's big gaping holes and fixes her fingers through small openings in Mankee's ragged flash. Then she'll press Mankee tenderly to her cute nose and inhale Mankee's pheremones. Quickly her eyes will roll back in her head, a little drool with dribble from the corner of her mouth and she has become serene.

You just can't give away your baby/childhood/teenage blanket! This is a perfect and very natural transition for my old pal. However, given Mankee's current health issues, my mother sought fit to knit Tova a new blanket. This new blanket, lovingly knit just like Mankee Sr, has been renamed Gwamma Blankie by Tova and instead of replacing Mankee it appears that Mankee has become the mentor for Gwamma Blankie. Instead of fresh and taught Gwamma Blankie accompanying Tova to school (where she stays in Tova's backpack until naptime), Mankee still assumes nap duty with Gwamma Blankie filling in as the role of Robin to Mankee's Batman. In fact, both are frequently snuck into Tova's toddler backpack by a sympathetic older sibling where the two blankies bulge out willy-nilly but happily fulfilling their baby soothing duties.

Attempts to fix Mankee, to piece Mankee back together with new knots and knits and stitching, have all failed and alas Mankee has become even more jumbled and knotted and therefore, even more loved. Given the fragility of Mankee's loose strings and 33-year old yarn, and also recognizing that Mankee was with us for better or worse, my mother brought us a mesh bag designed for washing intimates. Much to Tova's horror, we place Mankee and Gwamma Blankie in that bag together for a good routine washing. After soaking through her diaper last night (Lars was in charge, I was at work), Mankee was pungent and terribly needful of a cold cycle.

Though I tried, unlatching Tova's curled fingers from Mankee's impaired physique as she slept sweetly, her sympathetic nervous system went into flight-or-fright mode and she thundered at me to cease and desist. I, somewhat taller and stronger than Tova, won that worrisome tug-of-war (worrisome because it's hard to imagine Mankee can take much more abuse without pouffing up into a big fluff cloud). I quickly threw Tova's blanket friends into the intimates bag and hit go on our washer. This brought her to near hysterics as she watched the carnage ensue from her spot perching just outside the washing machine. Her face contorted with absolute worry and sorrow.

And now, I have a sleepy baby restlessly pining for her Mankee, ohhhhh Mankee, MankeeMankeeMankee, little fingers searching for a substitute at the fringe on the scarf around my neck, imploring me to bring her fuzzy yellow buddy back from the brink.

Treacherous Mommy. Traitor.

Goodbye Old(ish) Friend

2010-11-04T21:23:00.000-07:00

Dearest Vee Dubby,
The other day, when your transmission went gorky as I was pulling into oncoming traffic and you wouldn't go into first . . . well, you came through for me. You did your darndest, thunked into first after a harrowingly long interval and then sputtered me off the in the right direction. I'm sorry for what happened after that, and well after that and after that and even after that. Fact is, Dubby Dude, you're better off now. I appreciate the way you made me look cool, the way you perched me high above all the other cars so I could see their drivers texting and driving, the way you fit 2-surfboards, one Bassett Hound with a window phobia, and four children (two of whom are very prone to motion sickness) all in your muy fabulosa back seats.

Okay, so here it goes: I'm sorry we decided to sell you to Henry and Kate, I'm sorry we decided to replace you with a brand new 2007 fully loaded (cloth seats, no DVD) shiny Honda Odyssey, I'm sorry it didn't work out. I miss you, I care about you and I want good things for you.

Live long and prosper. May the spirit always be with you. May your new transmission, put in by your new ma and pa, be everything you've ever dreamed of.

XOXO,
K-Mama

Bionic Arm Days

2010-11-02T20:13:00.001-07:00

Soren sustained a fracture in his right hand while riding a bike at a birthday party (I won't go into anymore detail for fear of embarrassing the parents of the birthday boy). To tell you the truth, Soren was really stoked about his bright green cast and all his new super powers (mega handball serves, weapon like abilities for threatening sisters, etc). His pain was also immediately relieved when the cast went on.

Much to his dismay, the cast did have to come off. That was yesterday. He was a little nervous about the circular saw bit, so he got a quick tutorial from this totally straight-laced guy here.

And away he went . . .

It was very noisy.

And a little scary!

He could finally tie his shoes again!

Then we had to wait for x-ray. Tova was exceptionally disturbed by it all and explained to Soren, in arresting detail, how "Guy. Cut. It. Cut. Cut. Cut. Soren owie? See me arm?".

So, Soren showed her his poor little dirty arm. There was a piece of artificial turf stuck to it, other than that he was good to go. We go back next week for another follow-up.

Reconciliation

2010-11-01T18:56:00.000-07:00

Let's make-up and be friends again, okay?

Half Dozen I've missed you, so let's give it another go around.

Since September 27th all sorts of stuff has gone forth -- and more not. I'll list a few things, but because I don't want to spoil future posts (yes! future posts!) I'm not givig it all up.

1) Annike's kindergarten teacher wants her to do 1st grade part-time
2) Petra completed a fantastic first competetive gymnastics season, made it to sectionals, where she fell off the beam (her best event) and she still scored high enough that she qualified for the State Meet coming up mid-November
3) our beloved bus broke
4) I'm sadly not expecting
5) I delivered a breech baby
6) our Mildred and Thelma still have not laid one darn egg
7) we were completely surrounded by howling coyotes last night
8) Tova uses the potty with 50% accuracy
9) Lars and I went on a date
10) Soren is no longer damaged goods . . . (see next post)

Flies

2010-09-27T17:07:00.000-07:00

Down here in this dusty corner of the country, summer passed by without so much as a whisper of a hot day, let alone a heat wave. My kids spent the first month of school wearing jeans, t-shirts and the occasional sweatshirt. We even had a smattering of light rain, a completely uncharacteristic event for my new home.

Did you know we've been here three years now? Three years! Leaving Ann Arbor doesn't hurt quite so much now, everyone was right the pain isn't so sharp but just sort of stingy and throat lumpy. Thanks all of you, Everyone, who told me I was going to be okay and that time would heal these wounds. Everyone, except Carolyn, that is. Carolyn read some geologic study about how California shouldn't even be here and soon enough it was going to crack off of the continent. She warned me not to buy real estate and she told me to hold on tight in case the cracking episode happened while I was still here. Love that friend of mine, though, I didn't take her real estate advice and second guess it every time we get a little jiggle from being perched atop these big old fault lines.

Now, here I am in my real estate digressing about things. My Coca Cola Zero is sweating, I'm sweating, my kids are sweating and my dog is sweating. I've got sweat rolling down that space between my boobs that most California women proudly call their cleavage (price approximately $10k), but my boobs are still solidly Michigan and so I am fortunate enough not to have a little pond gathering at the apex where my girls meet.

The weather has changed suddenly. It's hot and crispy. You singe your hand on the handle just trying to open the ding car door. And because we don't have air conditioning we have every fan in the house on pointing them at our faces.

I boiled some pasta for dinner while some of the kids were at the neighbors and Tovey was sleeping. There is just no reasonable excuse to cook dinner with everyone in the house on a dry 94-degree day. I threw together a pasta salad and some corn bread and then when I put it in the fridge to set and gather all it's flavors I also shoved my head in there for a quick couple of moments. Until I saw the strawberries sweating. Sweaty strawberries are even less attractive then a sweaty, full-grown mama of four so I crawled off that bowing little shelf next to the left-overs and tried to get pragmatic about it. At least I wasn't having to witness the "beauty" of all those wretched fall colors that old people and people with country kitchens wax nostalgia about. I find nothing fabulous about fall colors. Hello?! Fall. Is. Cold.

Who the heck cares about hot ciders and woolly sweaters and homecoming games? Ugh. Fall means winter and winter means snow and crawling around on Highway 94 in a white out at 19 MPH heading off to the hospital to catch some baby in the middle of a snow storm. One time it was soooo cold that I slammed my fingertips into my old VW hatchback, I didn't even realize it until I tried to walk away from the car but couldn't cause part of me was still in that ding car.

I do feel a bit like an 3rd world: lethargic from heat, a skinny baby at my boob and flies hovering around my face. And what exactly is it about that heat that brings out all those flies? But no sirree, I cannot say that I could swallow another Michigan winter. The milk and honey on this side is just as sweet, thank you very much.

Git tuh gittin' . . .

2010-09-01T22:57:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, I whine bunches and gobs.

Thing is, if you end up totally satisfied with your life then what else is there to work for? Huh, huh, huh?

Since I've been in a bit of a hippy phase since I was 12-years old, I am more than familiar with all those songs out there about seasons changing and how it really means that babies get older. There's some peace and love in 'em, too. I do remember those parts. But it's the parts about the winds coming in from the West and blowing yer baby clear up in to personhood with legs that can walk and mushy cheeks that can talk . . . it is those parts of the songs that sting me like hot pokers.

You'd think that with all the peacing and loving we listen to in my little shack that my husband would go ahead and gimme another baby. He, apparently, thinks peace and love also means not overpopulating our planet.

Sometimes I try to get all Holy on him, seeing as that was his fire and brimstone upbringing, but instead he finds some diversion like playing "No Woman, No Cry" on his guitar with his chin pointed up to the stars. Hello? Anybody in there? He's gone and tuned out.

Tova may be our last Viking. I can't hardly believe it.

And then, you know what -- aside from me having all sorts of good baby names left -- you know what?

Today was Tovey Marge's first day of preschool.

The long walk to the front door, giving my baby away to the baby snatchers at our preschool.

Already busy with Montessori work.

Bye-bye, says Mommy.

Don't let the door hit you on your back porch on the way out, says Tova.

Two Down

2010-08-29T22:30:00.000-07:00

She got hit in the mouth with a soccer ball, got some loose teeth, couldn't take it anymore so Daddy done pulled 'em out. First night, Tooth Fairy gave her a down payment so then Annike got to bring the teeth to school in a baggie for show and tell the next day. Second night, Tooth Fairy was apparently busy and didn't come back. Third night, $6 appeared and all was right with the world.

How do you make time fly?

2010-08-24T22:19:00.000-07:00

(That's a joke.)

How do you make time fly?!?

You throw a clock out the window.

Or . . . you become the mother of the most amazing children in the whole world and you send them off to school.

And before you know it, three years go by.

The first picture was taken on the first day of new school right after we moved to California. Soren was 4 and starting preschool, Petra was 6 and beginning 1st grade, Annike was 2 and starting preschool and our little Tovey wasn't but a twinkle in our eyes. Now the kids are in 2nd, 4th, and kindergarten! Other than a few tears at the door, Annike's first day of school last Monday was a success.

Farm Girls

2010-08-18T17:42:00.001-07:00

How are the chickens you ask?

Millie and Thelma celebrated 3-months of life on the 5th of this month. They're plump and juicy with only a few more months left of growing. Hopefully we'll get some egg laying action toward the end of winter 2011.

After a lil' Viking unlatches their coop in the morning, Mildred (a.k.a. Millie) will walk down the bridge to the feeder below while Thelma jumps out. They usually have a bit of breakfast under the coop, make plans for the day, clean their beaks on the cement and then head out into the wilds of the backyard.

For the most part, Maggie is fairly ambivalent about them. But, around 7:30 in the morning they'll start pecking on the slider, begging for treats and that's when Maggie typically jumps into action. I usually send the kids outside to scatter organic oats and flax seed, they usually let the girls peck some bites from their hands before throwing it onto the grass. Sometimes we feed them parsley, apricots, apple cores, corn on a cob, even bread. They love it all.

Maggie loves to help them, and they let her without giving up their own position in the pecking order. It seems Maggie's just another one of the hens to them.

And that's how they spend their day, picking at worms and bugs, sharing oatmeal with Maggie, chirping at each other and pecking at our windows. At dusk, they head back up the ramp to their coop on their own volition and snuggle up on their roost. By dark, Lars has the door latched and the girls tucked in.

It's a good life for my animals -- cowish doggies, sea monkeys, hens, Viking children and bearish husband.

The Ship Came In

2010-08-10T18:50:00.001-07:00

My new cell phone arrived today, I've activiated it and it's set to go. Could you do me a favor and text me so I can put you back in my contacts. Make sure to say who you are.

Oh, and I do fully understand that I could just transfer info from my old sim card to my new. Feel free to pull the old one out of my besieged phone, step right up.

Stories of a Viking Matriarch

2010-08-09T15:21:00.000-07:00

This is a true story.

You will read it and hope it's not true but it is.

It all started on Friday. Maybe it started on Thursday.

It all started on Thursday night. I couldn't find my cell phone charger for my cute little green Samsung. It was plain gone, not anywhere. Vaporized.

Back to Friday now. Friday I began my day with my usual -- lip gloss, hair in a bun, heels on feet, a quick check in the mirror, brief case over right shoulder, car keys in hand and kisses to the kids. I cloppity-clopped down the walk to the driveway with my dying cell phone in my bag, and except for keys my hands were empty. Lars hadn't made the coffee that morning, I was going to have to shell out some cash for my usual SBux that day. I hopped into Hope's little sports car, as per our usual car trading when she has more than one of my children at a time.

Work was anemic with a puny patient load that had me cutting out of the office early and a little cranky. Before I ran home, the next stop was Starbucks and Best Buy. Well, probably Best Buy and THEN Starbucks. It's not like you want to have an incident where you get some electronic equipment all frizzled out because your shakey hands dribbled coffee onto the Nokia display.

After getting a ridiculously priced replacement charger for my cutie pie phone, I headed to Starbucks. Because I'm a nice employer, I made sure to call Nanny Hopey first to get her order too. Hope advised me that she and most of the kids were at the beach, and could I please pack everyone a picnic lunch to have before I met up with them? Suddenly, it was my turn to place my order . . . oops, instead of ordering a half-caf, non-fat, tall vanilla latte I just ordered a non-fat, tall vanilla latte with all the caffeine that SB has to offer. Oh well, I needed a pick me up, or something like that.

I rushed home to throw a lunch together, tossed towels and swim suits into the beach bag and then zoomed off to get Annike from her gymnastics boot camp by noon. Made it to Annike in time, still sipping on my latte with my empty stomach. Felt a little jittery, but finally managed to parallel park at lifegaurd tower no. 30 -- only 2-towers away from Nanny Hope and the kids. I finished the latte just in time to feel all that caffeine settle into my bladder.

Annike and I bounced toward the beach with all our gear, including my brief case which held my now semi-charged phone that I had plugged in for a few moments while making lunch at home. Man, did I have to pee. After plopping our stuff onto the beach, I got my car keys from Hope and then schlepped over to my car with my briefcase among other things that didn't necessarily benefit from being on a sandy Pacific beach in the hot sun. On my way to my Bus, I passed a port-a-potty, it made me shiver but at least I fully understood what my options were. I dropped my briefcase into the car and grabbed my cell phone out of it. Then, on the way back down to the beach I decided that I would indeed absolutely need to rendez-vous at the port-a-potty.

Before stepping in to that blue little silo of depravity, I took a deep breath, held it, then burst into the stall.

And success.

Almost.

As I reached for my cell-phone, gingerly resting on the sloping lid of the toilet paper dispenser my body refused to forget that fully caffeinated latte I had poured into it that morning. My jittery and shakey left hand did not firmly close around my adorable, green celly. As I whirled around to step out of that azure tower of terror my fingers released . . .

and my cell phone went flying . . .

with a sickening 'kerplop' (lots of emphasis on 'plop') . . .

it landed into the juicy goo below.

Yes. It landed into the toilet.

In it.

OMG.

I stepped out of the port-a-potty. My heart racing. What to do?

Leave it. Just leave it.

Oh no! I just bought that charger! That expensive charger. And now, come to think of it, I remember the guy at the AT&T store telling me that if I ever break or damage another cell phone all I needed to do was bring it back in and they would replace it for me.

Talk about OMG. There were no other options. I went back in.

I stared down into the abyss, surveying the landscape. The toilet was filled with a blue solution that smelled like an elementary hallway just after the janitor cleaned up puke off the floor. I couldn't gauge depth, but I could definitely tell that my darling phone wasn't alone down there. It had plenty of company, if you know what I mean.

I cried a couple of tears. Then I transferred my bracelet to my right arm, mysteriously forgetting about my wedding ring on my ring finger. I rolled up my sleeve of my tres chere Banana Republic blue-and-white-striped oxford. Just to be safe I rolled it up to my underarm. And since deep breathing seems to be a habit of mine lately, I filled my lungs with putrid, rank, blue-goo, port-a-potty air.

I plunged my left arm into the center of the toilet. Objects burst away from my extremity from the force, only to bump back towards me, lightly tapping my forearm. I quickly tried to remember anything I learned from Mr Troost's AP physics class, recalling equations involving trajectory and points of initial impact. Bingo, search the left Kelly, stay to the left.

In the left corner of the hole, my finger tips found my cell-phone, fully submerged and resting at the bottom of the unit. I pulled it out, flicked off a bit of saturated toilet paper and then with the phone tightly in my fingers I ran from the port-a-potty as fast as my former track star legs could go. At that moment Hope turned to see me running toward her, but instead of stopping at our beach blanket I continued my sprint all the way to the chilly water. I plunged my left arm over and over again into the water. I dropped to my knees and with my right hand I grabbed fistsful of sand and scrubbed my left arm under the waves.

Hope's initial look of alarm turned into muted laughter, her mouth frozen in a wide-open lockjaw, eyes squeezed shut as she gasped for air. Apparently, other beach goers found me alarming -- my crazy run down the beach, my screaming, the vanilla latte pouring from my nostrils in my emetic coniption.

The kids were paralyzed, questioning looks on their faces. What the Hell is wrong with our mommy?

Finally, slowing my breathing down to a mere 50-breaths per minute, I walked back to our blanket. My hands white and shrunken from the water, I finally let go of the cell phone, chucking it into the sand angrily. I silently poured an entire bottle of hand sanitizer onto my arm, sniffing and feeling the pain of e. coli and listeria permeating through my skin. I relayed my tale to Hope, gesticulating wildly when half-way through my story I felt my wedding band fling off my finger and land onto the sand.

"Don't move," I screamed. "Nobody frickin' move."

The kids looked at me with horror in their eyes, our neighbors clicked their tongues at my monstrous language use. Hope, near hysterics with her legs crossed to keep her bladder from failing her, spotted a man 50-feet down the beach with a medal detector. She brought him over to our site and he set to finding my wedding ring.

We eventually found my wedding ring. The day eventually, mercifully ended.

When I got home, I tried again to sanitize my arm with rubbing alcohol and then Scrubbing Bubbles spray. When I felt quasi-reassured that I had killed every agent still living on my skin, I got into a scalding hot shower. After that, one final application of rubbing alcohol.

That evening we delivered my cell phone, sealed in a zippered sandwich baggie, to the AT&T store. It turns out the insurance plan does indeed cover port-a-potty incidents. Tomorrow, a third party will deliver my new phone. Niether cute, nor green but definitely de-shat and safe for human use.

Sadly, this is a true story. It will follow me always. It will never leave me. I am forever altered.

The moral of this story (it has nothing to do with Starbucks coffee or bringing one's cell phone into dirty environments): piss yourself, it's more convenient then a port-a-potty.

Chevaliers de la table ronde . . .

2010-06-15T22:02:00.000-07:00

"Chevaliers de la table ronde . . .", it's an old French drinking song. Some of my mom's French buddies taught it to me long before I knew the difference between cabernet sauvignon and riesling. Not that I didn't know my colors at the age of 4, but when you're a little half-breed traipsing across the European continent in a 20-year old Peugot with an equally aged tent to you wine is just wine, regardless of the color.
Mostly these days, I'm trying to drink more wine. It's better for my heart, it's better for my initial 2-3 hours of sleep and night, and it's better for my husband that I'm cross-eyed when I swat at him for farting on me.
Tovey doesn't mind it. But what I really should be drinking is dark beer because my breastmilk supply is pitiful. Heineken Dark and a couple of tabs of fenugreek.
I just wanted to check in, say hi and tell you to come back for a visit soon. I'm working on some thoughts, trying to figure out how they'll sound on "paper".
Much love from your glass-is-half-full, hen-loving, mother of four but wantin' more,
Kelly

Cow Girls

2010-06-02T17:22:00.000-07:00

There's nothing like watching your babies shed their down and grow feathers.

They're doing a great job at scratching in the dirt, pecking in the grass and they just love to roost.

Nothing like an old rusty Radio Flyer to get a cow girl in the mood to get her roost on.

Now if we could only get the coop finished, er . . . started, and get them out of our dining room.

For Reals

2010-06-01T18:50:00.000-07:00

I can't remember if I mentioned this or not, so I suppose I'll tell ya anyway. A couple of weeks ago, Tova was supposed to have her delayed surgery to fix her ears. It ended up not happening because she got a fever and ear infection. It was disappointing and frustrating. Not that I was looking forward to it, but because I really needed that chapter of my life closed forever and ever. I hadn't been sleeping or eating well in anticipation of it, up late at night worrying about Tova's hearing, complications with the scalpel, adverse reactions to the anesthesia and so on. There was a lot of strife associated with the cancellation of the surgery. Dumb stuff, but when you're told your baby could go deaf then you imagine every bad scenario and grit your teeth with each passing moment that goes by.
Her surgery was rescheduled for today. Dr P had recognized that we were stressed, so he got us a much earlier time than the failed May 18th surgery.
At about 5:50 this morning, our poor nanny stumbled into the house to take over with the big kids. Lars and I stole jammied Tovey from her bed and then strapped her into her car seat in our heated car for the drive all the way down to the children's hospital in the city. Tova woke briefly, uttered some confusing remarks and then flopped back to sleep.

Huh?

The walk from the parking lot to the surgical center felt like the walk to the electric chair.

She walked off the elevator all by herself. Note to self: stop using the aperture setting in a dark building on a moving object.

The waiting room was so much fun! She met a friend for life, or at least during the pre-operative wait. Cute little Cole's surgery was about 1-hour before Tova's.

Fun and games . . .

at first . . .

but soon the hunger set in, and that was awful for all of us. We had to keep her with an empty stomach since midnight. She kept doing the sign for milk, which means she wants to breastfeed, clawing at my shirt and screaming. She was jittery and kept falling to the floor. This was by far the worst part. She started having a hard time around 8am, the surgery was scheduled at 9am, but then got delayed 50-minutes due to an emergency. Needless to say, I was in tears.

Reunited! Dr P said the surgery went really well. When we went into the PACU they had her in a crib (which is very new for her), strapped in with a big Velcro seat belt. She was sitting up, looking around the room through narrowed eyes. The nurse gave her to us right away and encouraged us to breastfeed her at that moment. Then she brought Tova a grape popsicle (above). After she was discharged from the hospital, we came home whereupon I had a sudden urge to sleep for a year. All that stress lifted off of me and holy mother of pearl was I tired. Tova and I both fell asleep for hours, but we've made it through the day and for that I'm rather thankful.

Leaving.

2010-06-01T06:27:00.000-07:00

Leaving for the hospital in a few moments. Tova doesn't have a fever. Her nose isn't even running. Surgery is this morning, for real, this time. Please send positive thoughts Tova's way.

Due

2010-05-25T18:58:00.000-07:00

I'm sure I've told you all the story of my first three children's due date.

I must have.

It's quite funny and goes a little something like this: Petra was due May 10, 2001, Soren was due May 10, 2003. Apparently Soren's due date was a bit of a mystery, but I remember being told he was due May 10. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Annike was conceived without me having a period since before Soren was born, not to mention a lost pregnancy between the two of them. Lars and I had tried for March, then April. I showed up at my midwife's office, we did an ultrasound, a couple of measurements showed May 9, a few showed May 11, and so on. The midwife and the doctor hemmed and hawed until I chimed in, "how about May 10?!".

This is how come my first three children have me celebrating 3-birthdays 3-weeks in a row.

In the moments between gasping for air, there are these episodes where we move in slow motion. The previous year has caught up to me and my angel-headed baby of 4-years has peacefully climbed up to the next rung and voila, she is five.

For her birthday, Annike wanted to go back to Los Angeles to see the La Brea Tarpits. Which we did.

We also went to the candy store at the farmer's market. Everyone got to pick sumpfing.

Mommies, Daddies, you know this face. This is the one that happens right before they ask, "how many may I have?"

"Cuz mostly I schee scheventeen fings I want, ok?" I'd have said, sure baby Mommy wants you to have 17-things. Annike's daddy gets grumpy on birthdays and holidays and candy-buying days, so he barked back that "one is enough." Oy.

"Huh?" She looks at me, hand on hip, eyes saying - "can you believe this guy?" Our eyes connect, she orders blue rock candy on a stick. There's a candy store in La Jolla that legends are made of, we're totally going there someday soon.

The kids and I are breathless at the possibilities. Lars takes aim from behind the camera, "don't get too crazy . . ."

Then, on the shelf at the candy store, what little trip wouldn't be complete without attempts made at a potrait of the Fab Four?

Tova got a candy necklace, cuz she should have candy now that she's 17-months. She was a little perturbed that we would put her candy on her neck, like we were trying to strangle her or something.

Daddy showed her the ropes, though.

A short time later, she had it all figured out seeing that she's so smart and all.

Finishing up at the Pits, where Annike picked out a punch balloon and a tar pits coloring book for presents, I just knew I'm the luckiest mama to have these puddings in my life.

Poor Beanie's back started hurting.

She didn't even want ice cream, which seemed pretty serious to me. Annike loves ice cream and she loves her birthday and she really likes dead mastodons, but she just wanted to sleep or cry. We gave her some ibuprofen and 1700-mgs of kisses, she went to sleep and we ate ice cream in her honor.

Later, on the way back to our piece of rock on the California coast, we stopped at an IHOP. She was happy by then and was still overflowing from having got to buy candy from the candy store.

New Babies!

2010-05-20T21:12:00.001-07:00

It's surprising, I fully admit it.

What you don't know is that Lars and I have been scheming for quite some time now about adding to our little family. I know what you're thinking, "Gosh, Kelly, you still struggle to get Soren to blow his nose and Tova's still nursing, how could you possibly have more time for an even bigger family?". We're doing it anyway!

Did I mention that there are two of them? Yes! Twins. It's so exciting.

Girls. Precious baby girls.

Did I mention we've already brought them home?

Did I mention their names are Mildred and Thelma? Thelma is named for Lars' late maternal grandma, a hearty Norwegian farm wife. We thought it was a good start for our little Thelma. Mildred was named by Petra, in keeping with our tradition of Petra naming our babies for us.

The girls are 2-weeks old now.

Did I mention that they're Buff Orpingtons?

Yep, chickens.

Petra, with Mildred, and Soren, holding Thelma.

Annike, making one of the babies walk the plank over her brooder.

They got their first outdoor experience in our vegetable patch this afternoon. They were squealing with delight. Almost right away, Thelma -- the bigger of the two, found a dried up worm. Thelma ran to one of the Brussel sprout plants to have some alone time with her wormy, but Mildred was right on her tail.

Mildred wasn't the only family member right on Thelma's tail. Maggie is quite excited about our two new punks. She's very excited thinking about them becoming fat and juicy spider and compost fed hens. She can't wait to have dinner with them.

In fact, Mildred and Maggie weren't alone in hot pursuit of Thelma's tail feathers. Before they had a chance to escape under the zucchini, Tova made a grab for Thelma's hiney. Tova's a quick little imp, but she let go as soon as we all started screaming at her.

Thelma thought the best of her new digs and opted for a quick escape. She's not so subtle about it. Plus, she can't fly. Plus, she would never leave Mildred.

Stay tuned . . .

Where's Maggie?

2010-05-10T13:15:00.001-07:00

Maggie is pretty much in shape with her inner-Zen self. She doesn't find any cause for extraneous activity. She believes in doing what needs to be done in order survive, all the while maintaining a fairly meditative state. Please don't assume that snoring sound coming from her is indicative of deep sleep. Maggie would like it known that Basset Hound snores and Basset Hound ohms are almost indistinct. Of course, Lars and I can tell the difference but it took years of paying attention and a couple of hurt feelings ("Maggie, for Pete's sake, yer not doin' anything!") along the way before we sufficiently trained ourselves to note the difference.

We are talking about meditating dogs now, aren't we?

Sheesh, I can't say for sure anymore.

Mostly, Maggie is meditative.

But sometimes she catches a scent . . .

from over there . . .

and being a hound dog, she feels compelled to follow it.

All too often, before we know it, Maggie and her nose are gone!

We look in all her favorite places, like her queen size bed . . .

her corner of the sofa . . .

and in the little nest she's made in the ivy underneath our orange tree.

The thing about Basset Hounds is that just when you think you know them, just when you go ahead and say something about Basset Hounds out loud -- "oh that little Magdalena Humphindinkleheimer is a creature of habbit" . . . well, you end up being wrong.

Turns out, Maggie Beast likes to shake it up. So, after an hour of searching and tearfully calling for her, she's found in the shade of the trampoline -- deeply meditative.

Although, it's not unheard of to 'lose' her to a pile of freshly washed clothes that are waiting to be folded and put away.

Intervention

2010-05-04T21:50:00.001-07:00

Right before dinner tonight, I noticed Petra and Tova playing in the backyard in their jammies. Petra had plunked Tova on an old rusty tricycle that showed up at our doorstep one day; she strapped a helmet on her and then tethered her legs together with an orange jump rope. The Petra used the jump rope to tie Tova to the seat. I should have intervened, instead I watched and waited.

A short while later Soren joined them and then the plan clearly started to evolve.

If she was nervous about anything, Tova certainly didn't let it show.

Annike caught on to the adventure ensuing, and she scrambled to take her place. With a second jump rope, a scooter (also left mysteriously at our door one day) was attached to the back of the trike.

Then, peddling as fast as he could, with sharp turns and off-road detours, Soren pulled them all for a ride.

This feat would have never been possible without the vehicle donations and two (probably) stolen jump ropes. Oh, and four kids. You need four kids to do this kind of work.

Half Way Up, Half Way Out

2010-05-02T21:49:00.000-07:00

A long, long time ago on Petra's 2nd birthday, exactly 1-week after Soren was born, she and I went out into our massive backyard, poked little holes in the soft dirt next to our chimney, threw in some seeds, sprinkled them with water and then left them.

Several months later, the seeds sprouted sunflowers. They grew beyond where our roof met the walls of the house. Later they grew up to the roof line, depositing seed across our shingles.

She was 2-years old. We had tiny Petra and her tiny new baby brother. We had a tiny house. We drove tiny cars. We were a tiny family. But, we had these huge sunflowers. They were probably trying to tell us something. There was some foreshadowing in the stems of those suckers.

Over the years, things changed. And now, here we are. We're so much bigger. I suppose I'm probably romanticizing those early days, the simplicity we had in that little blue house of ours with just two small children so close in age that eventually people began to think they were twins. I marvel now at the thought that Petra is the one who started this all.

Unbearably and without much foresight, Petra Leigh turned 9-years old today. As the clock struck 1 o'clock this morning, Petra managed to turn nine in her sleep snuggled next to her homey and little sister. Shortly after that, she groggily flopped onto our bed, complaining that she couldn't sleep because Taylor was kicking her too hard and Annike was snoring too loud.

She was eager for 9-years old. She had blueberry pancakes this morning, then kissed me goodbye before she flew off to Taylor's place to go bareback horseback riding. I stuttered, came up with an excuse to nurse Tova but then couldn't take it. Instead, I grabbed my camera and ran after her. I mean, really, you all know what is on my mind. Birthdays are tough for me. I lament and flubbber. I make resolutions to give them a better childhood, to be a better mother, to do more good stuff and less screechy stuff. Of course, this time of year is rough for me. Soren starts it all with his birthday, the next week is Petra's, the next week is Annike's, and the close of the month marks Lars' birthday.

I'm running out of time with my kids being children and my husband's birthday just means I'm gonna be older soon too and I'll stop remembering things sure enough and I haven't even ordered my walker or big sunglasses that stick on over my readers and wrap around the sides of my face!

Today, Lars said the most horrid things. Awful things. I almost feel as if I couldn't say them here, now, today, under these circumstances. He said that she, at age nine, is half-way grown up now. He said she was half-way outta our house.

We took her out to lunch with her favorite two sisters and her best brother. We went all the way to the big city, she wanted to go to Corvette's Diner. Which we did. I made her order from the kids menu. I didn't even let her see that they serve Cesar salads there, she just had to order from the kids menu, else it woulda stung too much. She had pop, which is expressly forbidden in the world of orthodontia. She had French fries, which is what 9-year olds do. She had a milk shake, which is what birthday children do.

She did big girl things, like dances that people did back before even I was born. She did sassy eyes and brazenly looked into the camera . . . 'I dare you, fools, to say I'm still 8!'

Then at home she nestled into the front lawn and wrote down all her 9-year old thoughts and feelings. But, when I look at her pages, they were filled with her outline for her upcoming book report. On her birthday, which is on a weekend, she worked on her homework? She's like a 19-year old. She does these things because she wants to go to UCLA, 3rd grade achievements weigh heavily in their admissions process.

Later she humored us with our age old tradition of planting sunflower seeds on her birthday. We planted them all over our front yard. Now, though, I know better. I know that when they reach our roof, really what they're trying to get me to establish is that my children are going to reach new heights soon whether I'm ready or not.

The Bad Child

2010-04-28T21:40:00.001-07:00

Soren, on the right, on his 7th birthday with his friend Grant.

There are a lot of very redundant types out there. Lots of people who want to put others into slots and categories, it makes life neater for them. They live in a world of absolutes, where a person is either A or B, a person could never be partly A and partly B. God forbid that person isn't either.

People often ask of me, "which one is the bad one, which one is your problem?", this is a reference to my children. People who think of themselves as the 'good child' love this question, they love to know who the bad ones are. When you have more than a couple of kids, you're bound to get this question. I choose not to answer it.

My kids are neither A, nor B. They are an alphabet of adjectives. Nuttiness. Joy. All that stuff that makes us laugh and glimmer. All that stuff that exasperates us. My children are all of those things, each of them capable of any range of rare expletives and frequent praise worthy events.

Having a sibling helps me understand it from my kids' perspective. My brother and I were different kids. Undoubtedly, we were very categorizable for those who choose to walk through life that way. It's nauseating, really, because it gets you in a rut. In our case, because my brother was the 'smart, good one' (and because Category People love mutual exclusivity) I was always perceived as the 'dumb, bad one'. I wasn't bad, nor dumb but the label stuck. For much our of family, I believe they still think that way. Family has the hardest time with labels, labels don't evolve. All families want to remember are the few dumb and bad things you did, never the smart or good things that you predominated with. Families and their labels. Category People. I snub my nose at you.

It's my brother's birthday. My brother-in-law will celebrate his birthday tomorrow. And most significantly, for me, my darling Soren celebrated his 7th birthday this week. As mommies, we owe it to our children to do a quick and dirty ripping off of all those ugly and not so ugly (remember? smart and good?) labels.

Birthdays are a big deal for kids, but what a lot of people fail to consider is the importance of that day for the woman who is raising that most beautiful son. Birthdays are a chance for a mother to be self-reflective and review the choices she has made. It's another opportunity for us to consider, am I doing the best I can? Is my 'best' good enough? Have I loved and cherished my baby the way he deserves? Have I sincerely apologized and asked for forgiveness when I fell short? And then, most importantly, how am I going to proceed knowing that one of the most, important people on this earth came from me and needs me to make this world stunning?

Mommies everywhere, new and old, our precious children are valuable and deserve us more than we deserve them. Birthdays are our days to remember elation and responsibility that comes with the title of Mommy. And lest we forget, their weaknesses are ours but their strengths are their own.

Happy Birth Day to mommies everywhere. Let's remember our places as lovers of the best that is yet to come.

Earyngitis

2010-04-20T21:12:00.000-07:00

Tova is a spunky fella. Impish at times. Today, Hope said she took off her shoes and then put them away in the correct spot on her shoe shelf. What a kid!

Tova's appointment with the specialist went well a couple of weeks ago. Dr P told us that Tova's hearing changes were probably not permanent, hopefully with cold and flu season abating she would be infection free and her ears could start to heal. Surgery was discussed briefly and hypothetically, but mostly we heard what we wanted about her hearing issues and left happy. Dr P made arrangements for Tova to be seen by him again in 5-weeks with the stipulation that if there were any changes in her health or our perception of her hearing that she was to be seen by him (and not our general pediatrician) ASAP. He gave us the number to contact him and then we said our good-byes.

Tova is a tricky kiddo. See? She can shovel sand with her eyes closed! On Sunday night she woke up after an hour of groaning and crying in her sleep. She began tossing around, staggered drunkenly to our bed tripping over herself multiple times. It was early, early morning and I was quite sleepy but I could tell that her equilibirium was off. I dragged her into our bed where she threw herself about like she couldn't tell up from down. She also started to act nauseous, spitting and swallowing hard like she was about to vomit. Hours went by like this, but clearly escalating discomfort. Then suddenly, she stopped crying and fell asleep, snoring away between the two of us.

Monday morning she was still fast asleep when I left for the barrio clinic, so I kissed her and left. Certainly she was feverish, but still sleeping comfortably. Lars called Dr P, our pediatric ENT guy, at the number he gave us. He called multiple times starting at 8 a.m. By noon, I had a text from Hope saying Tova wasn't herself and she was going to bring her to my work 45-minutes away because she was worried. Hope and Tovey arrived, burning up and red cheeked. Because midwives are nurse-practitioners trained in the full-range of family practice and not just OB/GYN I am fully qualified to assess an infants' health. My barrio clinic has excellent tools, so I gently arranged her head on Hope's shoulder while she slept and visualized her right ear (the problem ear). Big bulging and bright red tympanic membrane, turgid and fluid filled. Clearly problematic, clearly re-infected. Just as I turned her head to check the other side, Hope gasped because fluid was draining from her ear, some of it bloody. I looked in her ear and it looked a lot like the right except the membrane was ruptured and oozing. It certainly explained her previous night's symptoms. Poor little guy.

With Lars having difficulty contacting the right people, I placed a phone call to our pediatrician, explained the clinical data and got her an appointment. Lars drove home from the city, Hope drove home from the barrio and then Lars took Tovey to the regular pediatrician. She confirmed what I saw and then wrote another prescription for another round of antibiotics. As he was leaving, Lars got a phone call from Dr P's office. He needed to be downtown at the children's hospital clinic at 8:00 the next morning. This morning they drove downtown together, Hope took the big kids to school and I did my normal Annike drop-off and went to work. At the specialist, the exam confirmed what I determined (for free!), Tova got another prescription for antibiotics to use in addition to the Suprax and a surgery date for May 18, plenty of time for her to kick this infection. The hearing loss she's currently experiencing is TEMPORARY and should resolve with the surgery.

I don't get overwhelmed easily or often. As a working mother of four children -- who choose not to do their own laundry -- getting overwhelmed has no value. Today though, I'm feeling a bit edgy, cliffy even. My eldest, a competetive gymnast, is injured and is now on day 10 of pain and limping. My son has left his reading book at school 6-school days in a row. I'm having emotionally draining childcare issues. I've got a baby who can't hear a damn thing, has blood and crud draining from her ears and is on day 3 of a fever. My dog keeps wetting my bed because she's old and tired and old. There's a mouse in my house, it leaves little notes to me in the form of poo. My husband loves to talk about bad news. And, there's a volcano erupting in Iceland, grounding my flight plans to the Mediterranean where I was planning on going to escape it all. With the lottery winnings. The lottery I was supposed to buy a ticket for. Then win. I forgot to buy a ticket. The trip was theoretical. It's raining in Southern California today. I've run out of bleach spray and don't have time to disinfect anyway. Irk.

That's All She Wrote

2010-04-19T11:12:00.000-07:00

My parents got Annike a new bike as an early birthday present and I wasn't going to allow training wheels.

You can do it Daddy.

No matter how cute and precious they are, sometimes you've just gotta let go and see what happens.

And sometimes on their very first try, they show you that they have all sorts of hidden talents.

And maybe you sort of have to run after them cause you don't quite believe it.

But it's truly true. Some things they can just do. Without you.

Whoopah!

In Good Company

2010-04-18T22:09:00.000-07:00

When you spend much of your waking hours air born, you're bound to hit a pothole in life's occasionally bumpy road. Petra has been limping around for about a week, I thought maybe her sneakers were a little tight. On Thursday she told me her heel hurt but that it was "only a little" and that she didn't need anything for it. By Saturday morning, with 9-hours of gymnastics practice behind her and three in front of her, she told me again that it was hurting. For any other kid, including my own, this would be equivalent to crisis mode. I called her pediatrician, who runs a puppy mill as far as group practices go, and got her in for a 9:40 a.m. appointment with the athletic pediatric nurse practitoner (coincidentally named Kelly, coincidentally saw us last year when Soren had that awful bout with pneumonia). She thinks Petra may have some developing tendinitis or inflammation of her growth plate in her foot (sounds eewy but apparently not uncommon). Either way, treatment is the same, and if it's not better in two weeks then we re-evaluate. Good by us, Petra feels a bit antsy on the other hand.
We got her some heel cups, per the PNP's recommendation, which Petra finds quite soothing. Tova does too, we've found then in her mouth several times.

When she's not at gymnastics, she's supposed to rest her left limb on ice. She prefers to rest it on ice on her piggy pillow. Piggy pillows make everything better. Baby sisters think icy piggy pillows must be nice, cause this baby sister plunked herself down on Petra's piggy pillowed and pilfered Petra's ice pack. Eventually she got her own bag of ice. This went on nicely, until . . .

she took her ice out of the bag and started eating it, dripping frozen drooly drops on to Petra's perfectly plush piggy pillow. Petra rolled with the punches, perservering per usual. Poor Petra.

In addition to stretching, Petra's new program includes pampering. We're supposed to massage the tissues in her leg a couple times a day. Of course, Ms. T needs pampering alongside Petra so she plopped next to Petra and propped her pudgy, stubby legs atop a pillow, pointed to Mommy and demanded bilateral lower extremity manipulation. It was only after much time had passed that I realized I was using sun screen to massage their legs.

Tooooova? Cannn yooooou hearrrrr me?

2010-04-05T18:22:00.000-07:00

Recently Petra stuck her nose right into Tova's face and spat "Tooooova? Cannn yooooou hearrrrr me?" Of course, Tova stared blankly at her and then slapped her in the face.

One of the things about being some one's mommy is that that little baby of yours is perfect, no matter what. It doesn't matter if they tantrum 12-times a day, or if they pick crusty boogies from their muddy noses and pop those morsels of crunchityness into their mouths. It's the just the way we do, us imperfect mommies loving our very precious and perfect babies.

We're primal people, mommies, no different than sea otters or elephants. Our passion and love for our progeny is monstropolous. It drives us to insanity! We do everything we can to serve the world to them on silver platters. Any of us would do whatever it took to protect them from bad things, bad guys, bad dreams. All us mama bears here on this planet, we're mostly doing the right thing.

And, try as we might to teach them up from down, left from right and poop from high quality gardening soil, somethings sometimes still go wrong. We did our best, but our best wasn't quite enough. Tricky and sneaky things happen. Tough things that leave you wondering why everyone made you feel like adequate Vitamin D and vegetarian sources of Omega-3 fatty acids had all the answers. When good isn't good enough, you don't give up! Nooooo we don't! We sniffle, maybe pout, but we're mommies and we rule the world! Even when tricky little pooey things creep up.

Maybe your precious and perfect baby is a different perfect, like ours is today. For now, and probably since August, that's our gal. Differently perfect, with an imperfect mommy who wants to serve her up with a lively, buoyant and happy world on a cute little platter just for her.

Last week we were told with deep and apologetic sighs that Tova's recently diagnosed hearing impairment could be temporary. The "p" word (permanent, duh) was graciously not discussed. Our own hearing tests at home, like the one where you slam The Riverside Shakespeare anthology onto the hard floor behind her or the whisper into her "good" ear, confirm more selective hearing than the complete hearing loss in her right ear and greater than 50% hearing loss in her left ear that the doctor confirmed. I mean, you tell me, how does deaf baby sing on key or have such a wide vocabulary or listen earnestly to me when I sing pitchy French lullabies to her as I nurse her to sleep? Whatever it is, in the fact finding weeks to come, we know that at 16-months she's in a critical time period for language and social development. Maybe it's a simple fix, like talking louder (cause seriously, we can do loud round this house). Possibly more. So armed with our list of questions and our babbly baby we're heading off to the local children's hospital this week to see the 'best doctor' and get to the bottom of it. I know that we're all so happy and so excited that Tova is in our family that we're happy to do whatever we gotta do to make her a happy fella . . . maybe even including giving her one of Soren's ears, as he so generously offered.

Child of Mine

2010-04-04T17:36:00.000-07:00

After a bit of a rumbler this afternoon, in which I had to dash to the bookshelf to keep the pottery and baby pictures from falling to the floor, Petra was reduced to a shaking and shivering heap of sobs. She clung to her Daddy's leg in a doorway, crying out for help. I will admit I myself was a bit nervous when this earthquake seemed to last a bit longer than the average quivers that we tend to get. But Petra, who is normally stoic, was beside herself.

This is a child who doesn't mind being upside down mid-air.

Secretly, I'm a little glad. I love it when she needs us and comes to us to bury her wet face in our arms.

I feel compelled to say something corny, and against my better judgement --here it is: they grow up so fast!

Any old scrubber.

2010-04-03T09:49:00.000-07:00

At the beach the other day, Annike went nuts in the tide pools. She came home with a large barnacled, seaweed encrusted shell. It was very messy. Our friend Karah told her that if she let it dry out in the sun and then scrub it with a scrubby and some soap then it would clean up nicely in the way that my 4-year old baby imagines in her wildest dreams.

As soon as we got home, she set to work, scrubbing at that remnant of sea life, grunting with each muscled little stroke.

What a precious baby she is!

Fastidiously working, nothing could deter her from turning that shell into a sparkly and precious treasure.

What better to use on such a project than Petra's sparkly, pink toothbrush? Makes sense.

Maggie Getting Fresh

2010-03-22T08:09:00.000-07:00

Back in the day, about 2.5 months ago, we used to buy 'healthy' bread. We were committed for Oroweat loaves, better known as Brownberry to you Easterners, because it is the most healthful and least junky. My kids and husband liked it, fact is, even my doggy liked it. But one day, I was reading the back of the plastic (ugh) bag and saw they were putting high fructose corn syrup into the 100% Whole Wheat bread that we were buying! I was aghast, I felt betrayed and I knew I could do better and for much less than $4.99 a loaf.

Ever since that day we've been making our own bread at home. It's not been easy, especially in our family where we buy very little prepared foods or 'snack' foods. When the kids come home from school, it was easy for them to grab some bread, toast it and spread something on it to hold them off until dinner. Now, it's a little more complicated, takes lots of planning and take about 4-hours to make a single loaf. But it's worth it because I put in only organic ingredients that I buy in bulk, no fillers, no preservatives and certainly no high fructose corn syprup. Of course, now Oroweat no longer uses high fructose corn syrup and is still readily available for purchase at any supermarket.

Anyway, the bread is really enjoyed by the kids. We have trouble slicing it with our bread knife and it's a bit of a process to get even pieces to everyone in the morning for their toast. Take this morning, I cut off a piece for little BeanaMaria, put it in the toaster and then left the rest of the loaf on the counter because I thought Tovey might want some in a little bit. I brought Annike's to her and then took care of a few things in another part of the house. When I came back to the kitchen I saw my Maggie wrestling with something outside, a big puddle of drool forming underneath her face, and Tova trying to get out the doggy door while shouting speci-al epithets at the top of her baby lungs.

It turns out that Maggie, who is shaped a bit like a strech limo, likes the bread quite a bit. She has no qualms about helping herself.

Here she is working on the last 1/4 of the loaf, having already devoured a 1/4.

I always thought dogs were carnivores.

She's got a tongue like a frog.

Sensing me watching her, she rushed to grab the rest of the bread and flee.

No remorse.

Maybe just a little guilt.

Guard Baby

2010-03-19T13:52:00.001-07:00

Sheesh. I almost forgot my password, it's been so ding gone long since I had anything to say.

'Anything' may be the wrong word. Usually I have lots n lots to say. Fact is, I was having a material problem. Bloggable material, or the inspiration to turn into into bloggable material was more precisely the problem.

You know when you're a working mommy with small children and everyday seems like a miracle? Like, for example, you got to work without crashing the car while applying lip gloss. It's a big deal! Certainly seems important, but when you set down in the Gramma Room cum Office to say sumpin' about it, I don't know -- the magic just goes away.

So then, like, my mom came because Nanny McHope went to go visit family back in CT. Phew, does my mom keep us busy.

Then Lars left. I was alone in this huge 1600 sq foot house, all alone. Except my kids. They were here, too. And Maggie. She's no good, though. Strangers come in the house and she rolls straight to her back for them to rub her belly. Her bark is absolutely fierce.

Anyway, it was right before my mate went away that we established a new security system at our house. We fondly call it the Guard Baby Protection System. Freaks everyone out when they walk up our front steps. Don't even think about breaking in, you'd be a fool!

He's watching you . . .

Yep, so that's what we've got for when my burly husband is in St Louis. A genuine guard baby. Beat that!

10 Things to See and Do When You're In LA

2010-02-13T09:10:00.000-08:00

Get out and enjoy the fresh air!

Fine theatrical performances.

Great public works of art.

Make use of the reliable transit options.

Get to know the locals and the fabric of their lives.

Admire the impeccably mainted historic sites.

Take in the breathtaking views of the natural landscape.

Take in the traditional architecture.

Partake in local traditions.

Take note of all the melons.

Tova's Day Out

2010-01-20T18:27:00.001-08:00

Down here in my snug little corner of the country, wrapped up in mountains on three sides and then snuggled into an ocean on the other, bizarre things are happening with our usual 75-degrees and sunny. Very strange.

Of course, being a northerner all of my bluishly pale existence, I find 75-degrees rather odd truth be told. But this post isn't about me (really, it is, I always bring it back to me . . . I'm so self-centered), it's about the sky and the winds and the sun and the dirt that holds me to this dear earth of ours.

Right now, that precious dirt is washing away down my hilly street out onto El Camino Real several blocks away. On that notable California road, that sends itself careening along California's length just like one of our famous fault lines, cars are pressed up against each other with their silly little California drivers jerkily applying breaks after having forgotten those rainy rules back from Driver's Ed days. Finally, I find myself tucked into our sort of new and partially repurposed and practically freshly adorned office to tell you about all this quirkiness.

Let me start by saying that our nanny answered the phone today to be confronted by a spastically perky water district employee who excitedly informed her that the Lars Viking Family had just won an award for our family's water conservation effort. In these here parts, water conservation is huge, in the past year our tidy little group has taken on conservation with renewed fervor. The newspapers and local websites are riddled with pictures of tanned and wrinkled farmers holding handfuls of their parched soil to the wind, weepily watching it blow away with the Santa Anas and her relentless and fiery sisters. Finally, it has become shameful to wash your car with anything more than a small bucket of water, my neighbors no longer even sneak out in the middle of the night to spray off their dusty drive-ways lest they get spotted being so raunchy during the day, newly constructed pools sit dry in beautifully landscaped back yards, and the lagoons' waters are have been quickly receding back to the ocean.

Down here, we are thirsty. Parched and dry mouthed. We've been heaving and choking on our dry air, with arched eyebrows we worriedly implore the sky for relief. But at 75-degrees and sunny, it's hard to complain.

Monday the sky began to mangle itself around it's own cloudy entrails, pulsing and contracting and chilling the air to a frigid 55-degrees. Finally, no longer able to sustain the pressure, a slow and soft leak of tiny droplets began to sprinkle toward the ground. But just like when any one of us tries to just pee a little bit when we have a full bladder, just like us, the sky above us wet its' pants.

Now we are soggy Californians, walking around schools and malls and Super Targets in our soaked-through Uggs that were formerly meant for decorative purposes in our typical balmy times. There I was scrambling to get out of the Super Target parking lot with my mushy boots on, practically tossing my middle children into the van while Tova stared around her with wondrous eyes. What could this be she wondered? It's not a shower, and yet here I am all wet? She patiently sat in the cart, diligently strapped in for safety while I threw our purchases in to the back end of the car, the trunk door pathetically shielded us from driving rain. In order to close the trunk on the van, I had to nudge Tova and the cart forward so she wouldn't get bashed. Now, out from under the roof of the trunk door, Tova became a sopping and curious victim of the wetness as she quietly took it all in. At last, everything put in it's proper place, we pulled out of our parking spot into the dark, angry evening.

The drive home reminded me of those Michigan white-out days when you couldn't see 2-feet beyond your windshield, oblivious to what may have been going outside the bubble of one's own car. But instead of that magical quiet that accompanied the blankets of snow laying themselves down, this rain was loud like a symphony of freight trains driving just over your head. The kids sat quietly in the back end, sensing my tension as I maneuvered our tin-can through the streets. Driving through our hilly streets can be an adventure on a dry day, but on a dark and rainy night, driving up hill is like trying to drive up Victoria Falls with water speeding down the hill exceeding laws of physics and celebrating Newtonian parables. And then, as suddenly as the deluge had began, it quickly transitioned to a lazy drizzle. My colleagues on the road, shaken and not trusting of another imminent blast of rain, continued to cautiously creep along the streets, upper backs hunched toward their dashboards, hands furiously clenched around the steering wheels of their Porsche Carreras and Audi A6s. It was then that I realized that the car was awfully quiet. I looked in the rear-view mirror, with Petra accounted for at the gym, there was Annike in her Marathon zonked out and mouth ajar, Soren dozily twitching in his booster seat. But Tova, who sits in a rear facing position behind the passenger seat, I could not see. Where the F-Bomb was Tova? Holy Mother of God! Please (gasp) Lord (gasp), my baby! My Tova! At that moment, I could not, just could not remember getting her into the car after loading up the laundry detergent. All I remembered was pushing her out of the way as I slammed the trunk shut. Gulp. Is she careening down El Camino Real, strapped into a Super Target cart, narrowly missing ostentatious and big bellied SUVs at they fish-tail on their monstropolous wheels?

Just as I was about to scream to the middles (my middle children, that is) the wind and the rain picked up again. The could not be roused despite my loud begging, the rain was louder than me. Tell me you see Tova in her seat, I commanded. I screamed, but I could not overcome the blasts of wind and thunder. God have mercy on my soul, what kind of pathetic mother leaves her baby in a parking lot, tethered to a shopping cart? With traffic around me skidding through stop lights and swerving through lanes, I had to keep my eyes on the road, lest I too become a victim of the weather. Terror rose within me as I imagined all the scenarios in which she surely enduring at that very moment. My darling sweetie-pie, in her pink and red striped pants and a red sweatshirt with a heart embroidered on the tummy, must be so angry with her mommy right now. I could only hope.

But before me a pause, a break up ahead, I wheeled my head around, craned my neck toward her end of the car, and there out of the corner of my eye was her tiny little Robee attached to her foot, which was attached to the rest of her precious body and very much inside the car that I was presently driving.

Today was a good day, the farmers can grow avocados again, Tova had a nice nap, and I still have not become the what-kind-of-mother mother.

Plans for being gooder.

2010-01-19T21:34:00.000-08:00

Recently, we had a family meeting about the meaning and purpose of resolutions. In addition to the resolutions I generously assigned everyone, the kids managed to come up with many on their own. Some of it seems repetitious but that's only because it really important to me, er, us.

Some of the resolutions that didn't make the pictorial:
1) less beer
2) more water
3) sit-ups
4) read more books
5) toes pointed, arms by ears and legs straight
6) eat politely
7) stop losing stuff

I won't tell you who came up with which ones for themselves, but I'm thinking you can probably figure it out.

Well, we'll be doing our best and all. Especially on getting along better and being nice to the siblings business. If they don't, they'll really get an earful . . .

Petra Lou Retton

2010-01-18T18:45:00.000-08:00

At 8 am on Friday morning, Petra presented to a gym in Nevada for her first gymnastics meet.

Coach Quin, from the optionals team, came by to pump the girls up. Petra nervously put her hand in the center of the cheer, her cute little curls bobbing about as she quakety-quaked.

Here she is pictured lined up with her teammates and some of the other girls from her rotation.

She accepts last moment advice from her ever-supportive Coach Wendy.

One quick glance at Daddy before her floor debut.

Nervous Mommy.

With floor and vault successfully behind her, Petra's coaches prep her for bars.

Here, she achieved her top score of the meet.

The most difficult event came last.

Mid-scale.

Receiving her 3rd place medal for her bars performance. Her first meet!

On beam she achieved 5th place and on floor 6th place, both placements earned her a spot on the podium and shiny medals. In the all-around, she was in 6th place, placing higher than any of her teammates that day.

Triumphant, her hardwork helped her team clinch the 5th place position out of 70+ teams competing.

That is the story of our weekend, which is now over, though I suspect Petra's turn as a competetive gymnast are only just starting.

Quickie!

2010-01-14T12:19:00.000-08:00

Speedy, speedy, quick, quick.

I'm ok. Really, I am. Sometimes it's hard, but my kids are good, and I'm good. I'm trying to make everything work out perfectly, and even if it doesn't the world will be a better place just for having tried.

The big news around here is that we're leaving for Las Vegas in a few minutes. We're driving out on Lars' wheels with the whole famdamnly to cheer on Petra at her first big gymnastics meet. My parents are meeting us out there, probably as moral support for Lars and me cuz that man and I are near bout jelly inside with all our nervies. I'm not worried about her performance or anything, I'm just nervous thinking about her being nervous. Well, that and a squeech nervous about doing her gymnastics hairdo with all that mousse and hairspray and glitter.

Please send love and courage to Petra as she heads out for her first big girl adventure.

PS - I just got back from the dentist! Did all my pre-crown/follow-up root canal business. He said I have beautiful teeth, 3 of which need fillings. $700 out-of-pocket to fix me up good like. Just saying -- if you got any cash just laying around my dentist sure could use it on my behalf.

It's a recession of mothers.

2010-01-05T19:32:00.000-08:00

I've gone back to work full-time. I did not forsee this happening to me. Somehow, I imagined that being the mother of four angelic children exempted me from full-time work, the way it does for the Mormon mommies in the neighborhood.
This is my husband's fault, as usual. He refuses to make another $100K a year. I've explained to him, rather nicely a few of the times, that all he has to do is make more so I don't have to. He declines, citing "reasons" (air quotes would be used here if we were talking in person) he finds reasonable ("they just don't give out $100K raises!"). Who are "they" I wonder? I should like to meet "they", because while my husband is typically impervious to my suggestions and, er, orders, I find that others can be swayed more easily. Lars won't introduce me to "they", he says that would be career suicide. Still, seems strange as I am quite nice and rational, "they" would probably find me rather pleasant.
But, lady friends you know what I'm saying, fathers just don't care to grasp our mommy way. Lars (who by all accounts is an excellent papa) thinks nothing about leaving for work in the morning, feels no urgency on his ride home. When he's at work, he doesn't quickly jot down an item on the crumpled grocery list in his pocket, or check his cell phone every 20-minutes to see if the school called about a broken pinky toe, or sigh deeply and smile sadly as he mournfully pictures their faraway faces. He is blissfully exempt, as fathers are, of feeling the long ago cut umbilical cord tugging at his navel.
I, on the other hand feel the constant phantom pains of that severed umbilical cord. I tear up when I pull out of the driveway in the morning, my eyes filling with saltiness as I roll down my street in neutral to save gas. I heave little gulpy breaths as I drive toward the barrio or the cougar office. During the day, I refer to them 4-times hourly, ad nauseam I'm sure. After work, I race out of the office, breaking traffic laws in order to expeditiously get to my children. When I see them, I melt, I mourn, I break off little pieces of me and feed me to them as mommy snacks.
And despite the misery at having to leave them, despite the biological pull back to them, here I am, schlepping around Southern California in the middle of the night speaking Spanish and delivering babies.
Of course, this gives me miserable feelings and sentiments. Resentments (my poor patients, but not husband). Tears. Arguements. Resentful children. That is the worst . . . resentful children. They're right, though, I've left them for what I hope is a temporary stint as Primary Financier of All Things Viking.
I try to sneak in my work hours so the kids notice less. I work when they sleep, I sleep when the go to school. I work only while they are at school and then have them walk home to cover my fitting in extra patients long after the school bell has rang. But a lot of times, it just can't be avoided and they come home from school and I'm not there and won't be for quite some time. Or just as bad, their Daddy takes them to a Saturday game or party or playdate and he doesn't even care to, he doesn't even want to be there, he has no passions for playdates. Or, a get together of family friends is happening, all the other kids have both parents present, but not mine because I'm away at the hospital while Lars is soaking up the jolly good times as the eldest daughter of one of the families trails our imps around. In some ways, I admire and envy the easy ways my husband can parent. I envy his complete apathy to missing pick-ups and shopping trips that I inflate with meaning that probably isn't relevant or meaningful.
No matter how I try to rationalize it, I still end every conversation with myself this way, "what kind of mother . . .?"

I'm sad, friends. I know my fellow working mommy friends occasionally feel the same sadness that I feel today, that we're a sometimes sisterhood of just gettin' by mothers. Lest you fret too much, my just gettin' by friends, my apathetic father friends, my stay-at-home friends and all my in-between friends -- lest you fret -- you should know that I am a wine-bottle-is-half-full type of gal, today is but a blip in my near eternal sun shiney-ness. You should know that I let these whiney, self-pitying, and demoralizing times last for only a few moments before I get started on the rewiring of my hardware. I just need you, my friends and co-conspirators of modern work-life division, to slowly nod and whisper your resigned snippets of shared remorse with me. Friends, tomorrow we will prevail. I love you and goodnight.

Status Post

2009-12-28T20:28:00.000-08:00

So here it was, Saturday already. With the good feelings of Christmas behind me, the extent of my mouth pain began to strike me down. Saturday night I couldn't eat or sleep and the Tylenol with codeine wasn't holding me. I woke up Sunday morning in a fog with a swollen and immobile jaw, but could do nothing about it because I had to work that night and it wouldn't be prudent to head to the hospital for a night shift with narcotics in my system. Strangely, by night fall at the hospital last night I began to feel a wee bit better.
As I drove home from baby-catching this morning, wide open freeways ahead of me, I started to feel pretty darn positive. I could probably get rid of this tooth problem without any interventions, for sure.
Have I ever told you how Lars used to want to be a dentist? He loved teeth back when we were little guys, back when we both had a great metabolism and with great abandon could eat the gourmet French fries at the deli I toiled away at in my high school years. Well it is true, Lars had big dental dreams ahead of him. We'd put our heads together late at night, while our other teenage counterparts were making out, and plan our future of me making it big in Hollywood while he attended UCLA dental school. It was a pretty sweet gig we had going. Ah me. Anyway, Lars interned with a dentist when he was in high school and he actually learned quite a bit.
Funny how that dental internship learned him real good how to deal with his crazy wife.
When I got home, I was ready to tell it on the mountain that my teeth done got saved. I mean, not a stretch, after all it is the season for miracles. And just who, who, who, who are you to tell me that one of those tiny little miracles couldna crawled up into my teeth and laid some baby miracle eggs, huh?
Mighta been the lack of sleep. Mighta been denial. Call it what you will. Lars'll not call it anything, instead, he'll call every endodontist on our MetLife plan to get me an ASAP consultation. Which he did. For someone who refuses to floss his teeth, he sure knows a lot about teeth.
And so, with enormous boobies (from not having nursed all night and the pump en route to DC back to my expecting and imminent SIL), I have yet again found myself in an awkward situation while I try to explain to toothy professionals why I (a well-insured, employed, middle-class white woman with four children to model good behavior for) have not been to the dentist since my Ann Arbor days. Yes, Ann Arbor dentists are better. Yes, the Ann Arbor dentist knows about my stainless steel medical equipment phobia. Yes, the Ann Arbor dentist always readily admitted that my teeth were better than Lars' because I flossed. And still, it is no excuse.
So basically what happened is that my poor bones and ovaries were exposed to 10-kabillion units of radiation for the x-rays taken as proof for the insurance company that this was indeed a case of emergency mouth death. Then, my mouth was propped open with a propper upper and then, OMG, came the stainless steel syringe with a ginormous needle which was used not less then 7-times to (per the endodontist) "numb things up, make the pain go away." Okay, whatever crazy person. For the next 2-hours that crazy sadist lady took circular saws to my head and cut holes in my skull, all the while my mouth was being rammed open at 180-degrees by that very unpleasant propper opener. My funny husband, he's so funny (I'm laughing), thought to pack along my iPod for me -- as if listening to Bob Marley and Green Day was gonna make the whole procedure a bit easier. Though I dutifully listened, little could be done to address the rising panic that was festering just under my ribs. At the end of it all, the professionals told me that I was a wonderful patient and they really didn't see how I had a phobia because I was "just so calm." I think I probably just blacked out.
Well the deed is done. I've gotta imagine that it's some sort of love, or something, that inspires a man to schedule an emergency root canal for his wife. Makes me wonder, with the recent observance of our 10th wedding anniversary last week-ish, what kind of appointments will herald our 20th anniversary? Gotta be love . . . (this is me signing out as I drift off into the codeined mystic).

Panama, Erie, Root: One of These Things is Not Like the Other

2009-12-25T20:23:00.000-08:00

Twas two days before Christmas, when hour after hour
Kelly did moan and groan with teeth that felt sour
It was quite difficult to sort it all out while working at . . . work
But man! Holy cow! It hurt even to smirk!
The evening came, and to my home I did rush
But the traffic it certainly proved to be too much.
Too late to call a professional asking for an appointment at least
So instead of relief, there was a dinner party and Christmas feast
Alack and alas, dinner I could not tolerate
My Santa Fe Salad just sat on my plate
With grimace and agony, I grabbed at my left jaw
And ordered a drink from the first waitress I saw
Home again, home again, jiggity jog
But thanks to Irish Rootbeer I was in a fog
By the next morn, much throbbing ensued
And to my dental benefits my eyes did perused
I called all the dentists on my in-network plan
I would go to the dentist (thanks to insurance Mr Obama Yes I Can!)
But as it was nearly Christmas all my calls were ignored
As it turns out, even Muslims and Jews could not be implored
Not a phone call answered and the pain getting worse
I was beginning to think it was some kind of curse
"What should I do?" I cried out in distress
As the moments ticked by, I became more of a mess.
With guilt in my heart, to the kids dentist I texted
And it my brief note, the panic she detected

"I'll look in your mouth, we'll give it a whirl.
But I'm at the movies, with Arianna, my girl.
After the credits, at my office around two.
I will try to help and see what I can do."

And so in that pediatric dentistry chair
I lay in discomfort, nearly pulling out my hair.
Tap-tap here, and a whip-whap there
A dental exam and an x-ray to spare

My worst fears were confirmed by Dr Houri that day
An infection needing root canal and probably decay
My head hanging low and just filled with shame
Poor attention to my teeth, I am to blame!
Can I help it if I 'Mrs Natural Childbirth'
Am afraid of the dentist for all that it's worth?
I'm afraid of the poking, the prodding, the anti-fun
And so for two years the check-ups weren't done
And now here I am, on Christmas indeed
With antibiotics, pain killers and fears not relieved
I'll be a big girl, on Monday you'll see
I'll make my appointment for endodontistry

The End

2009-11-23T13:44:00.001-08:00

There seems to be something about a family with four young children that strikes pity into the hearts of many folks. Perhaps it is because my husband and look younger than our true ages, many people mistake us for early 20-somethings. They assume things, like: 1) we are prohibited by our church to use birth control, 2) my husband is military and these are post-deployment babies, 3) we're mentally challenged. Of course, non of this is true. But, none the less, we still get lots of pity.
There are benefits to the aforementioned pity. Before I get started, though, I want to clarify a few things. For starters, each of our pregnancies was planned. Secondly, we are not any of the following: crazy, overwhelmed, burdened, unhappy, or stressed out. We run a tight and happy ship, with well-rounded and well-fed children. Every night, we have dinner together as a complete family, our bathrooms have toilet paper, my children's clothes are clean, and they arrive at school on time everyday with their completed homework in hand. Lastly, we can afford them. We're not destitute, which isn't saying we're rolling in it cause if you've got $50K to give then we could use it terribly.
Despite all this, people seem to want to give us things. This can't be more true than when we're at some sort of family oriented party. For example, yesterday, Soren's competitive soccer team had an end of league season (we're faaaar from done with this whole thing) party. Each family brought some sort of dish to pass and the hosts provided the hot dogs, brats, beer and $1.2 million dollar home in Rancho Santa Fe to party in. We showed up with our veggie dogs, whole wheat buns, and fruit salad in a carved out watermelon. The Indian family on the team brought an amazing curry and naan. The middle eastern family on the team brought some sort of grain, fresh tomato, and bean dish and pita and hummus. The Hispanic family brought some salsa and crisp corn tortillas. All the other white people brought typical white people things. It was a great array of food, a good time was had, and I happily stumbled out of the party with 3/4 of a Corona Light under my belt.
At the end of the party, there was a huge sheet cake with chocolate mousse filling, gobs of frosting and a black and white soccer ball iced onto it. The cake was so huge that despite the 40 or so of us there, we couldn't even finish half. As we were leaving, the proper British hostess (more recently here from the Bay Area) offered to send us home with some of the food spread. We are so pitiful appearing that people feel the need to send us home with leftovers. This is one of the benefits of seeming pitiful, destitute, Mormon, enlisted and mentally challenged. When you leave foody parties, you often end up going home with yummy doggy bags.
I smiled to myself, imaging all that great food coming home with my poor, starving children. Lars rubbed his hands together, tongue in the corner of his mouth at the thought of the delicious curry and naan for dinner. If we were lucky, maybe she'd thrown in a couple of Corona Lights and a few Modelo Darks?
She comes out of the kitchen, smiling broadly at me and hands me a large tin laden with food inside. Lars and I hop in the car, and then safely out of sight, I take the top of the tin.
Cake. Half a frickin' sheet cake. No Middle Eastern grains with fresh tomatoes, no curry, no guacamole, or standard white people food. No beers even. Just half of a sheet cake meant to serve 80.
I suppose this is karma. After every holiday, I bring in my children's left-over candy to my barrio clinics in the inland where those kids don't have toothbrushes, let alone routine dental care.
Well, there must also be something about being pitiful that makes people think you need chocolate mousse sheet cakes instead of walnut-couscous salad with scallion vinaigrette. Go figure.
And, just now, I ate 2-pieces of it for lunch.

Exercises in Breathing

2009-11-20T15:47:00.000-08:00

I'm quietly positioned, flat on my back just like the article tells me to. This exercise is to "quiet my mind". Okay, I'm flattening out . . . just a sec', there is a Lego dude poking me in my left butt.

(-Mommy, what are you doing? -I'm breathing, Soren. Leave Mommy alone. -Oh, can I watch you? -No. -I'll just watch you quietly. -Whatever.)

Toss it away. Reflatten. I'm flattening. My belly's just a scooch slidey, though, so I gotta squeeze my ribs together. Sort of makes it so I can't breath, but the article says flatten. Should I be wearing a couple of sports bras?

(-Mommy, for how long are you gonna breathe for? -A long time, I hope. -Oh. long pause Are you still breathing?)

Okay, now it says "begin with a deep belly breath." Now, as a lady, I gotta say this feels a little awkward since it's hard to do a belly breath without the junk in my trunk oodling out a bit. Not to mention, my ribs are squeezy. This all feels a bit counter productive, and painful.

(-Mommy, please can you wipe me? -Be right there, Annike.)

Get this, now I'm supposed to say some thing positive in the form of a word or phrase. But I can't think of anything to say except "Hi, how ya doin'?" Which sets me to laughing. My ribs become unclenched, my boobs start shaking and I go fetal because it still burns across my c-section scar when any sort of effort is applied to my abs.

(-Mama?! Mama?! -She's in here, Petra! -What are you doing, Mama? -She's breathing, you can watch quietly. long pause -Excuse me, I tooted. -You're excused, Annike. giggles ensue)

Next, I'm supposed to exhale out all this negative stuff. Instead I accidentally belch because I just finished giggling, swallowing big heaps of air in the process.

(-Nah-nah? Nah-nah-nah? Ma-ma? then spitting and pulling of my hair)

Okay, so here's my thing, wouldn't a splash of wine be a bit simpler?

Probably, Too Much Information

2009-11-18T15:34:00.001-08:00

Have I mentioned that Tova's been walking for almost 2-months now? Since then, my System has gone to the dogs (the dog from the previous post). Clearly, Tova's walking has everything to do with it.

For example, I have found Petra's toothbrush in the toilet. I had to pretend something else terrible went and happened to it, otherwise Petra would have shrieked her brains out. She loves that ding little baby of ours, but it would upset her dreadfully to learn that her toothbrush passed away in a receptacle for . . . umm, you know. I told her we left it at Elise's, that held her.

Tova's walking is also the reason why I fell 17-loads behind on laundry this week. I fell behind 17-loads! If Tova weren't walking, I wouldn't have to wash her socks. Socks are an awful thing. Plus, in her new found height, Tova pulls the drying clothes off the line and drags them around on the sidewalk chalk covered patio to the point where they need rewashing. With walking comes confidence, with confidence comes more dirt on the clothes and in the mouth, with more dirt in the mouth comes nasty out of diaper experiences.

On top of that 17-loads of laundry (not to mention this week's 24 that I need to get started on) I'm still playing catch-up from last week's of episode Me vs. the Clean House. Tova goes from room to room depositing things where they're not supposed to be, her hands are free so she can carry stuff around now. Little trinkets of the girls' suddenly appear in the grass outside. Lars' socks, from the Clean Sock Basket, end up in her mouth as she traverses 4-rooms in the house to end up plinking her baby fingies on the piano near the dining room.

Today, Tova snuffled herself awake at 7:10 a.m., which meant I had a narrow window in which to Booby Snack her before she got up and started poking around on her baby feetsies; not to mention, I had to scram for my 8 o'clock patient. On top of that, today was a big day at work. Today was the day in which we were having our TG potluck. I made an apple-raspberry pie. It needed to be impressive and dramatic, from taste to presentation and most importantly to where it happened to be displayed on the long table in the break room. Very important.

I had to get out of the house to procure a good spot!

Tovey snacked. Then I raced to get dressed (can't get dressed before feeding the Tovesters, otherwise I end up with drool and snot on my professional clothes), throwing on my fabulous Bohemian outfit in a jiff. With time to spare I peeled out the door, kissing the kids and husband in my wake. Breathlessly, I scooted in the car with my beautiful pie, sliding across my driver's seat only to incur a wedgie in the process.

The pie and I arrived in one piece. I got the coveted spot on the break-room table, and then went about my day seeing patients happily and without trials or tribulations. Except one thing, that wedgie I had from the morning slide across my car seat seemed to be unpickable. Inoperable. Granted, I was wearing my new cute undies designed to make behinds coveted by all who gaze upon them and to reignite passions in marriages that have gotten ho-hum. But still, I'd worn this particular pair before without any problems.

No time to bother, had patients to see. Babies to scan. Mamas to reassure. Endocervical cells to collect. Lumps to diagnose. And, oh dear me, there was the matter of that most impressive pie. Finally, our lunch hour arrived, with my panties in a bunch I plunked down in a chair amidst all my colleagues. I watched them devour my pie, licking their lips, oohing and ahhing with pleasure. Of course, I felt completely satisfied. Happy, well, except for the undie deal. But as a dehydrated breastfeeding mother, I never have to void and so no reason to stop at the WC to check the situation of the unpluckable undi-grundi.

End of the day arrived, I raced the kids into the house, headed straight for my room to change out of my work clothes and whaddya know?! My undies -- inside out and on backwards! Well, I'll be damned if that doesn't explain it all. With little time to dress this morning, chasing after Tova with my arms barely pulled through my dress and all this in the darkness of daylight savings it's no wonder. If Tova just blobbed around in her bed like a good baby should, then absolutely none of this would have happened.

On another note, it's a great professional advantage. Now, when my patients call me with complaints of discomfort in their nethers I will firstly advise them to check which way they happen to be wearing their skivvies that day (then charge 'em $70 bucks for treating them).

Maggie and the Technicolor Dream Coat

2009-11-12T19:08:00.001-08:00

The life and times of our sweet Magdalena Humphindinkellheimer are filled with riveting tales of love, loss, humor, deceit and adventure. Her life of intrigue is kinetic and fast-paced, complex to the core.

Recently, Maggie was inspired to change her looks. Don't be fooled by her blase demeanor, she really found it all quite fantastic.

Just another day for our ebullient hound dog.

I would never . . .

2009-11-11T19:38:00.000-08:00

I would never bore you with annoying pictures of my kids in Halloween costumes. How irksome is that? To look at pictures of other peoples kids, as if they were cuter or more special than your own. Plus, it's really hackneyed. I mean, for crying out loud, I'm striving for originality here.

Keeping that in mind, the following may or may not be my children just prior to pillaging the outer reaches of the globe/subdivision on their most recent Viking exploits.

I absolutely cannot say with certainty that I clearly or vividly may recall when this picture might have been possibly taken. Really, sort of, I can't exactly particularly remember.

Besides, Halloween was quite some time ago. I only bother to bring up current events.

Work and Life

2009-11-09T09:22:00.000-08:00

I'm a failure. I'm being driven to the ends of time on an exhausting and elusive chase. I've read about it in magazines for mothers and parenting families. I've watched Kelly Ripa exude it in her Electrolux commercials. I've watched other mothers from afar, gazing upon them as they seemingly manage finishing out a work day, clickity-clack home in their Jimmy Choo's, where they empty the dishwasher and fix a nutritious dinner while their kids sit quietly (and happily) around the kitchen table scratching out answers to math problems with their perfectly sharpened pencils.

Maybe my problem is that I don't own a single pair Jimmy Choos, we could start there. But really, really I have tried to close that gap on the work-life balance heeled and unheeled. In fact, I have been known to harriedly vacuum my entire house with my dress pants and heels on in a matter of 20-minutes just so I can convince myself that I am truly a master of all my domains. Okay, this also may have been done on some very repressed, sub-conscious level just to prove something to my husband. Unfortunately, or fortunately, high-heeled vacuuming is not something that happens regularly in my world. Despite the house needing a thorough vacuuming everyday, it often goes to an every other day sort of thing. Despite my best efforts at establishing a system, so that the dishes or the laundry or the itty-bitty scraps of paper from kids' projects never get the best of me -- despite my system, there are shortcomings. As it were, The System happens to apparently be my system and mine alone. Not my dog, nor any of my four children, including my amoral 11-month old baby (who has been walking for 1-month now and in her hands-free glory picks up various kitchen objects to deposit into the toilet - and vice versa) and certainly not my husband care for my system of hooks and well-labeled bins, or daily jobs, or spacious compartments, or sanitizing sprays or my constant reminders to put things away in the "correct spot."

Alas, the job of keeping house is mine and mine alone.

Which is why the following happens while I am away at work on my 14-hour nights:

This, sadly, is only a representation of 1/3 of our house. I crave domesticity in violent waves, tearing ruefully at my ever-sagging cheeks when confronted with the task of reviving my ailing system. I become poetic about the covers of Real Simple, taking notes on the 100-Ways to Have a Clutter Free Home, allowing myself to become rosy-cheeked at the thought of chronic perfection. I allow my imagination to play the If Only Game -- e.g. if only I had a cleaning service, if only I was a stay-at-home parent, if only I had $250K . . .

But as I sit here, the reality of the situation becomes garishly apparent:

1) I fed my kids warm, toasty Petit Pain aux Chocolat this morning (2-strikes: one for morning junk food, the other for not dealing with the baking sheets)

2) There is a wet spot on my leg (3-strikes: Tova has a nasty diaper from being on day #8 of antibiotics, she's still in said diaper, I transferred her to the floor)

3) Clothes on the line (2-strikes: they are now dry but yet to be put away, there is a laundry basket waiting to be hung out to dry since last night -- shame on me for not doing a better job at controlling the weather)

4) Chalky footprints throughout the house (3-strikes: I haven't mopped yet, the chalk is still out on the patio not put away, Tova was just eating that chalk)

I'd keep going, but I really need to change Tovey's dipey. And bathe her. And put her clothes in the washing machine.

So, I guess my answer to Real Simple and the the BS load of crap about the work-life balance is the following:

Kelly's 7-Ways to a Simple, Clutter Free Life

1) Get rid of all yer shit

2) Teach the baby to use a potty

3) Join a nudist colony

4) Stop using silverware when eating

5) Eat only take-out (with your hands)

6) Don't buy sidewalk chalk, regift it wherever possible

7) Shape up! Cause Lord knows, if I don't have my shit together not a single one of the rest of ya' does -- and that's the truth. Frickin' Kelly Ripa . . .

2009-11-06T21:19:00.001-08:00

I know it's been a while. I'll be back soon. There are no good excuses, but I've missed many of good stories to tell. I missed the opportunity to tell you the story of how I was recently awoken at 1:00 a.m. by a mysterious phone call only to see my husband in our back yard, standing among the clothes pinned to the clothesline, relieving himself. As if we didn't have toilets or something . . .

Soon, friends, soon.

With much love,
Kelly

Dear ZPG

2009-10-14T18:58:00.000-07:00

This is about an imaginary conversation I have in my head all the time.

Well, I suppose it's not actually imaginary, I'm actually having the conversation. The conversation, you see, is between me and . . . me. And, I suppose that since I am real on all fronts, a little too real for a certain husband of mine I am afraid, then the conversation is in fact real and not in the least imaginary.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've been working out a dialogue so that I can be prepared for the iffy possibility that the population management people may come after my family some day.

Wowee, do I sound nuts or something?

Mebbe I am.

But, but, but, but, since NPR doesn't come in well on my radio in The Bus, I spend a lot of time while I'm driving watching all of you in your own cars talking and singing to yourselves. I'm not so different from the rest of you, I just happen to bring up my idiosyncrasies in a public venue.

Okay, back to the population control folks. See really, I agree with them. If we all keep careening out of control like we are, then I have too many kids for this failing planet to support. I was irresponsible, I put my own interests before those of the greater good. It's true. I knew all this long before I chose to go forth and multiply, I knew I was gonna replace more than just myself.

Having said all that, I am unapologetic (mostly, cuz honestly, which two kids would I put back in? Quite frankly there ain't much room in there for any of 'em.). As the mother of four, and hopefully someday more, I have a bigger responsibility than most to make my family's carbon footprint as teenie-weenie as possible. I also have a bigger responsibility to consistently and frequently do The Right Thing because the consequences are farther reaching compared to raising a single biological child.

Quite frankly, without my kids, I'd probably wouldn't be out "there" being a do-gooder, guardian of mothers' and coastal lagoons. I wouldn't care so much about who is in charge of the country, the world, or my city. My four kids make the future tangible and meaningful. Without those little nut-butts, I would be schlepping around my home in a Snuggie, eatin' Lean Cuisines, watching DVR'd episodes of Oprah, and thinking about how much this place needed someone to get their butt in gear and do something about "it" but never really doing very much at all. So, in rebuttal to the Zero Population Growth folks, who scorn my family for being on that slippery-slope towards super-sized, here's what we are doing:

I'm raising them right. They're being raised with a conscience. They're going to vote meaningfully as adults. They're always do The Right Thing by humanity, community, ecology and all the good stuff that ends in the letter "y". They have a strong sense of morality. If they lose sight of those damn morals I'll beat the Hell out of them with a can of low-VOC paint . . . see that's funny because -- oh never mind.

Secondly, my kids are thin and physically fit; therefore, they don't take up much space.

Thirdly, we are vegetarians. We're not contributing to the ruination of the planet by eating methane-farting cows. Here, Annike demonstrates how to choke down Daddy's dahl, naan, and aloo chat.

We eat organic and local. Easy to do in these here parts, but done none-the-less.

Also, with help from Little Tovey, we make our own beer right in our closet. No harsh chemicals. No noxious by products. No waste. Same bottles used over and over. Good, clean drinking. Saving the Earth one beer at a time!

I am a midwife. I promote self-care, personal responsibility, investment in the present and future. I encourage my patients to empower themselves, so that they in turn can also do The Right Thing. Eventually, their children will learn to do The Right Thing.

When my children take baths, I don't empty the tub down the drain. I fill up buckets with that bathwater and I use it to water the plants outside. Believe me, this is a real pain in the ass.

"If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down." Oh, for crying out loud, not sure my puddins stick around long enough to listen to the second half of that verse. But I'll be damned if my toilets aren't filled to the rim with tinkle before they get flushed.

We compost.

Waste not. Okay, waste less. For example, everyday their lunches (and mine and Lars') get packed in reusable containers. No plastic baggies, no juice boxes, no disposable applesauce containers. There's room for improvement, without a doubt, but we're off to a good start.

We use Energy Star Appliances.

We dry our clothes on a line. In an article by Natural Home and Garden, you can read about the significant benefits of line drying. Since we've started, we've dropped our energy use by nearly 20%. Our energy bill, in the high-priced zone of the country that we live in, totals $75 for gas and electric. Not bad for a stain-troubled family of 6.

So to those esteemed champions of sustainable living, the ZPG people, with whom I have frequent imaginary discourses with -- my kids are gonna be so amazing and so incredible as adults that they'll be like negatives to population growth. They'll turn this Earth around, clean it up and whip it back into shape.

And to my pals out there, you can do the little things. Lots of good little things. They don't seem like much, like drying your undies out in the sun one day, washing the floor with your bath water, or even not flushing after every pee. But, with The Right Thing always on the forefront of your mind it won't take long for all your little things to add up and make a Big Right Difference.

Gas Guzzlers

2009-10-04T20:01:00.000-07:00

We're having a cold front down here in Southern California, the windchill has got my fingers all bluish at the tips. In fact, our high was only 64-degrees today. Might as well be back in Michigan, all this frigidity.

So anyway, I sloppily puttered around the house today, dressed in my denim capris, woolly zippy-hoody, ski socks and my husband's overstuffed slippers. I did some laundry, vacuumed, you know that same ol' same ol' stuff that women have been longing to rid themselves of for centuries. Then, because I'm feeling a scooch under-the-weather and because every visitor at our home this afternoon said I looked a bit feverish, I climbed under our sturdy couch blanket (made with Michigan nights in mind) and curled up on our futon. And, in a completely out of character move, I turned on the TV where I dozily caught up on Project Runway and nursed Tovey endlessly.

In the kitchen, Lars and Mike happily chatted about the physics of beer as they set about on their semi-regular Sunday Beer Making Day. I half-listened to them trade microbiology hypotheses and give each other advice on best gadgets for fermentation. Occasionally, Mike popped in the family room to say a few words to me. One time, he angelically took sleepy and ornery Tova from me and bounced her until she succumbed to a nap, her snotty and drooly cheeks smooshed into his dark shirt.

Mike left after the beer was safely stored on top of my heating pad. Lars began making Tofu Pad Thai, smells of lime and rice noodles filling the house. Wild kids flapped around on the trampoline, duking it out in a game they made up and refer to GaGa. The few straggler kids, (who aren't ours) waited for a parent to come fetch them out out of our yard, mashed with our babies yelling and screaming in unison -- some crazy mob of nutbutts in a full on chorus of "mine" and "cheater" and "you hurrrrt me" and, of course, "I'm telling!".

Later was dinner. Excellent, as usual, courtesy of my husband -- what he lacks in laundry skills, he makes up for in dinner serving. As we were all sitting around the table, one of the kids (I can't remember who now) brought up the digestive system. And for those of you who have discussed the digestive system with your children well know, this topic cannot be complete without the special highlight of the whole process . . . poop! Round and round they go, happily throwing out the words poop and dookie with utter exhilaration. Poop! They were thrilled, tickled at the idea that they could use Potty Talk at the table, exploring the limits of what falls into the tidy circle of relevance.

My husband, with a glint in his eye, fervently engaged in the discussion. From melons to cucumbers, bread to ice cream, he and the kids determined together what came out as solid and what came out as liquid. And, as many of you who are familiar with my husband know, never one to miss an opportunity to put it into music format, my husband broke out in a robust version of They Might Be Giants' latest hit "Solid, Liquid, Gas". Having thoroughly discussed the first two states of matter already, Lars found it absolutely delightful to pass a large and loud fart as he sang out "gaaaaas." This, of course, sends my older three children into giggle fits sending Lars on repeat performance of the aforementioned song and "act." The rest of the evening seemed likely to deteriorate from there.

Sitting quietly this whole time in her corner of our kitchen table, 10-month old Tova happily munched on her tofu and rice noodles. With determined patience, she stoically endured the shenanigans of the evening, never making a peep. And, except to occasionally suggest that she wanted more raspberries by bringing the fingertips on her two hands together for the sign for "more", we really didn't have cause to disturb to her. However, seemed like Bitty Tovey had had just about enough of it once Daddy got to singing. Around the time of the third encore, Tova thrust her two baby hands into the air and waved them side-to-side, then said "ahhhh duh!"

To you non-sign language speakers this may not seem huge or momentous or amazing or any of that, but to those of you in the know, you would have already recognized the sheer enormity of what just transpired. Tova looked her daddy and her naughty siblings in the eyes and told them to "shush" the best way she could. Not only did she do the sign-language for "all done" but, she also spoke. All of us stopped and stared, mouths dropped open. Moments later, we burst into applause, and this time Tova gladly joined us.

Project Maggie: Part Two

2009-09-28T11:13:00.001-07:00

Prject Maggie: Part Two, In Which Maggie is Schooled on How to Place Her Head and Ears Out the Window of a Moving Vehicle

I mean, c'mon! How amazing would that be for her big ol' Dumbo ears to be flapping out the side of our VW Bus? Nevermind our poor success rates from years past, today is the day! Get ready California. No, no -- even better -- get ready world . . .

First things first, Little Maggie, you are sitting in the wrong seat.

Move. Please?

She's all smiles as we head out for Operation Ear-aqi Freedom.

Maggie, you're facing the wrong way. The window is the other way.

Success! Can you believe it? After all these years of prodding and cajoling, she finally does it!

Not sure this really counts though. Fact of the matter is, the car wasn't moving. Secondly, Lars was standing on the other side of the window calling to her. Thirdly, her ears never made it out of the safety of the car. Well, it is a step in the right direction.

Project Maggie: Part One

2009-09-27T13:35:00.000-07:00

Since the time we first received Maggie in our lives, we've set out two goals for her:
1) swim in a large body of water like a rugged, athletic macho dog
2) stick her head out the window of a moving vehicle.

Today's post is about the first of our two goals for Magdalena. However, much of what we've learned from our attempts at raising Maggie as a proper dog comes straight out of that old adage, "you can lead a Bassett Hound to water but you can't make 'em float."

Enter Dog Beach:

Running and sniffing and sniffing and running . . . far away from the water.

She made a friend.

And kept running.

Won at King of the Hill, but still no water.

Kicked sand on other people's belongings.

And then finally consented to a brief foray at the water's edge.

Wear she got her paws wet . . . and her ears.

Can't say that you can call this swimming, but near bout was.

Poor short legged doggy.

Even after taking the leash off her, she didn't run away from the water. She sure wasn't thrilled about it, either.

Half-smile.

"Can we wrap up this lesson?"

2009-09-25T08:18:00.000-07:00

The other day, while picking Soren up after a whole day of school, I noticed something a little quirky about his wardrobe. At first I thought it was a theme day at school, but then I noticed none of the other children were dressed like him. Then I realized that my Main Man had committed a major wardrobe gaffe and I needed to get home pronto to document it on camera and share it with the public, loving and supportive mother that I am.

Step One: Engage him in idle conversation while snapping pictures of his sweet, winning smile.

Step Two: Zoom out just a scooch, act non-chalant as you take pictures of the evidence.
Still don't see it?

Step Three: Lovingly point out to your son that his shorts are on backwards, complete with plum jam stain from his PB&J at lunchtime.

Step Four: Take pictures of him on the floor, laughing his brains out.

Now that's just dang funny, ain't it?

Taco Tuesday

2009-09-24T21:31:00.001-07:00

Very occasionally, she'll eat something besides a non-food item. Tova is very fond of Taco Tuesday. This picture is to prove to you that we feed her stuff besides sand, in this case black beans, refried bean and tomatoes.

I gotta say, bean dipeys are almost as exciting as sandy dipeys.

Eating Disorder Continued

2009-09-20T17:32:00.000-07:00

No matter what we offer her at home, from Cheerios to booby snacks, nothing -- and, I mean nothing - - sates this baby's appetite like a couple of five handsful of sand.

Maybe it's a thirst for sea salt?

Iodine deficiency?

Probably, a craving for Eau de Dead Poisson.

Mystery, none-the-less.

Sticks, hair and dirt are a close second.

Over Two Weeks Ago

2009-09-18T15:59:00.001-07:00

What is that face for?

Come on Sweetie Petie, show us what ya got!

Nope, that's not what I was referring to.

Stop bein' a goof.

Let's see 'em!

Petra Leigh!

Give me a break . . .

Ta da!

Petra's braces went on a couple of weeks ago. Within six days her front teeth were straight. Can we take them off now? Or, how about we just stop paying for them?

2009-08-31T22:30:00.000-07:00

You know what? Sometimes I can take it. Sometimes it keeps me awake when I should be sleeping.

First of all it starts with money. See, I'm the CFO in our family venture. Lars doesn't do well knowing about profits and losses. There's only so much a nerdy scientist can handle when it comes to losses. Oh, he'll take the profits. He'll take the profits, even if that means being awake from 1:00 a.m. until 5:47 a.m. with a screaming baby who wants nothing but booby snacks and not some BPA-free, latex-free almost-as-good-as-the-breast good-for-nothing contraption because her mama is away at work. He'll take the profits but he could go without the losses.

Mostly, though, you can't make profits out of spending $93.81 at Trader Joes. At some point you're gonna have to write that down in your check book registry as a loss. You gotta write it down even though it is food that is going into your body, like Scandinavian Blend Half Light Half Dark fair trade coffee, so that you can go to work and have energy to make the profits. You just can't spin that $93.81 into a profit. That isn't the kind of math likes to do.

Instead, I stay up late doing clandestine bill-paying, check book reconciling, and down to the penny financial planning for the months to come. It has to be clandestine because Lars feels awfully pukey when he knows I'm hunkering down to manage that money business.

Recently, I took 10-days off of work to manage some family priorites. We learned a good financial lesson from that 10-day Family Management Episode. Primarily what we learned is that I can't take any more time off of work, like ever. I made the mistake of telling Lars that we needed to tighten our belts the next couple of months to make up for that Family Management Episode.

Lars got a bit squeezy in his chest and started blinking his eyes like he was watching a ping-pong match on fast-forward. Of course, everything is fine, it always has been and it always will be. I just can't take time off of work, that's all. That's okay, cause braces and other miscellaneous orthodontia are way better than Disney World.

Then on top of the Family Management Episode putting the near-final wrench in our Disney World and Operation Home Addition plans, Lars' work is going through a little something. Pfarma recently made plans to acquire another major pharmaceutical company. That acquisition is slated to take place in September. Included in the acquisition plans are plans to lay-off 19,000 workers. Lars was kindly notified that lay-off decisions would be announced by December.

Between the two big hits (okay one is only a potential hit) we've made some spending decisions. For example, in honor of the kids first day of school we did . . . nothing. In the past we have taken them clothes shopping where they could each pick out a brand new outfit. This year not even their socks were new. We haven't dined out in a month, not even for a Slurpee or a bagel or a chai tea latte. For the recent round of birthday parties, blessedly all for girls, we made hair bows here at home with supplies we keep on hand. In short, I have every penny accounted for and spoken for. There's little elbow room, and if all goes according to my evil plans then we're going to ride through this without a scratch.

Of course, we're on pins and needles waiting for The Big Announcement from Pfarma. I suppose this is what many other fellow countrymen feel like, all pins and needley. You wonder to your pincushion self, "what can I tell my spouse?' or 'how do I get the kids on board?' or 'do I take on more hours at work, thereby paying the nanny more, thusly decreasing take-home pay only to make a couple hundred extra bucks not to mention more time away from the kids?" I suppose this is what most of us are going through. It makes the line between what is important (kids, health, marriage) and what seems really important (fiscal health) get very blurry. Where do you draw that line? Isn't one more important that the other? Isn't money just a thing? And yet, we have to be on solid ground at all times, we can't risk spillage on the financial end. The first day back at school for the kids Lars and I dropped them off inside their classroom with many kisses and much fanfare. Then, as soon as their classroom doors were closed I rushed off to the clinic in the barrio to fill in for a midwife who had emergency gall bladder surgery. Originally, I had requested the day off but I was feeling ansty to bring home some unbudgeted profits, so I made a couple extra bucks and was able to sock it away as cushion, but in doing so caught some flack from a friend for working on their first day and disappointed the kids.

Working motherhood sucks sometimes. The work-life balance is always just beyond my fingertips. Is there a real cost in not picking up a few extra hours here and there? Sometimes, a lot of times, I just don't know the answer and this is what keeps me up at night.

But not my husband, nothing keeps him up at night. Oh, to be a man.

And then again, maybe tomorrow, we'll come into a modest sum of money. If that happens, I plan on sleeping well and keeping my lady parts. Lord knows, we only need one man in this here family.

It's Not What You Think It Is, At Least I Think . . .

2009-08-29T08:05:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, when I was at the barrio clinic, temperatures in that area soared to 109-degrees by noon. Fortunately for me, I live coastal. Typically this means that there is a night and day difference in temperature, with the coast being much cooler and breezier. I guess, compared to 109-degrees you could call the 90-degree temperatures that we've been experiencing over here on the edge of the earth as cooler.

We don't have air-conditioning in our house. From what I gather from most other people in this area, you don't need it but maybe a few times a year. That said, all newer homes have it. Our dated and not-so-spring-chickeny home would probably burst into flames if we added it. We patiently wait for the night to fall, when temperatures drop immensely and the earth cools off. Then we sit around in boxer shorts and tank tops with all the fans pointed at us, eating popsicles and not touching each other while we wait for our house to finally cool off.

Yesterday was prickly warm by 8:00 a.m. It was the school's Walk-t0-School Day which meant I had to get everybody pulled together with teeth brushed by 7:30 to get to school on time. Keeping in mind the weather predictions, I put on one of the two pairs of shorts that I own. Shorts for me are typically reserved for in-home family days, occasionally I wear them around DJ and Courtney who are pretty much family anyhow. The point is, I don't typically wear shorts but yesterday I did because it was damn hot. It made my heart feel a little squeezy with my legs out there in public for everyone to see, but then again, just about everyone else was in shorts and it weren't no thing for my legs to be in shorts either.

Eventually, the end of the day came closer. In the afternoon I brought all the kids with Petra and me to her gymnastics club, which is situated in a little cranny overlooking ocean swaths with cool, salty winds tickling your unshaven and shorted leg. I relaxed back in a hard plastic chair, sleeping Tova situated at my side in her stroller, Annike and Soren safely playing on the generously treed lawn outside the building. I propped my feet up against the parent-viewing window, legs stretched out before me exposed from ankle to mid-thigh.

It was out of the corner of my eye that I spotted it, in between takes of watching Petra looping around the uneven bars, a small discoloration on my leg. Now I know what you're thinking, I'm notoriously fond of baby poop stories and it seems like this is headed that way. Bear with me.

Upon further inspection, this thing on the upper inner thigh of my left leg was about the size of a quarter but more oval than circle. It was flat against, or rather, in my skin. Purple, pink and red little dots at the surface. Not painful and not swollen. With great horror I wondered, "is this a hickey?"

Now before you going thinking things, let me make it quite clear to you that I am a 30-something married woman with four children and a career. I have absolutely no time in my life for "fore"-activities that involve hickey making and the like. That is just ridiculous of you to even go there. I'm ashamed.

And yet, there it is, a hickey on my inner thigh. I suppose that this will just have to be one of life's mysteries, like the Bermuda Triangle, and I will never fully know the answer.

Now You Can Begin to Understand

2009-08-24T15:15:00.000-07:00

See, the deal is that I want to blog everyday. I want to tell you all the true, funny stories that happen to my family and me. I have tons of ideas swimming around in my head and mean to have them down on that virtual paper the moment they come to me. That's my plan.

Thing is, this is what typically happens: With my mom here, which makes things easier and less complicated, I theoretically have more time to catch-up on everything. But what really happens is that I sit down to nurse Tovey right before I plan to blog. But then I have to help Soren blow his nose right after that. After that I have to go wash my hands. As soon I wash my hands, I hear Annike calling me from the potty. She needed some help wiping. Washed my hands again, only to find that Tova has pooped out. Onsie off, baby in the shower. Then dry her off, calendula to her tushie, moisturizer all over. We make it back out to the family, Petra has single-handedly turned it upside-down and then vacated the premises. I chase after her, regaling her with the virtues of cleaning up after oneself.

After supervising Petra, I finally sit down to tell you the funny thing that happened on the way to the _________ when I realize that I've forgotten what I was going to say but have some vague sense that it really wasn't that funny anyhow.

Anyway, Annike was starting to look like green haired muppet with all the chlorine in her hair (see her ends in the above photo?). Today, I took her to the nearby children's' salon where they offer a treatment for just this problem. In spite of all our new cost cutting behaviors, part of Operation Finance a Home Addition, I left that little kiddie salon having spent $27-dollars getting the green out and the ends trimmed off. She is now fully restored to blond with hair texture that no longer resembles sticky, moldy hay. Earlier, before all the aforementioned nose-blowing, buns-wiping, daughter scolding hullabaloo, there was a really funny angle to this story. It evades me now.

More tomorrow.

But then again . . .

2009-08-14T15:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning Lars woke up around 6:40 a.m., stumbled through the house, crashed into the wall in the family room only to surprise Petra. Petra is never awake at 6:40 a.m., she's not a morning-type. In fact, we have a pulley system hooked up to her loft so that we can heave her out of bed in the morning. Not yesterday morning.

Lars found her sprawled out on a yoga mat doing sit-ups and push-ups.

Sometimes I really don't know about her. If it weren't for her startlingly Lars-tastic features I'd almost wonder if they switched her out at that busy old University of Michigan on the day she was born and now some other couple has a couch potato kid.

I suppose her early morning workout is why she has a six-pack and I do not.

Call It Whatever You Want . . . I'll Call It Rotten

2009-08-13T18:55:00.000-07:00

My husband and I don't even agree to disagree, that's too disharmonious for me. I need everyone to think exactly the same way I do.

They should agree with me, too.

Always.

And not just my husband. Really, I like the kids to think their own things, as long as it is what I would think about that very same thing.

You pickin' up what I'm laying down?

Imagine my chagrin when Tova decided to think something else about things. In particular, night related things. Like sleeping.

I'm really tired. Washed out. Lethargic. Inconsolably exhausted.

When that old fart sneezed on me on Sunday I fell ill, remember? Then Tova and Annike got it. Annike is a champ, a true hero of getting-betterness. Tova hasn't figured things out just yet, so instead of focusing, she's been spending her days blowing green snot bubbles out of her nostrils at our nanny -- who is only recently semi-comfortable with body fluids.

That is how Tova has been spending her days, well, that and eating Chinese checkers pieces. As to how Tova has been spending her nights, well let me tell you . . .

I'm so grrrrrrr-frustrated at feeling this pitiful. Makes me more pitiful. Makes my contacts pop out. Damn brand-new contacts.

I . . . just . . . need . . . sleep.

I told Tova. I think.

For sure, I told my husband. I especially told him (can I say that?). I told him 2-sleepless nights ago at 4:00 in the morning. I cried it out at the top of my whisper, hoping and praying it would have an effect on his sleep through anything at any time man-brain.

Wah, wah, wah. Working everyday with this dang virus and a sleepless baby and no sleep.

Probably, Tova feels just as miserable as me. She can't breathe through her nose because there are green and yellow rivers of boogies. She wakes up every couple of short something-or-others to ask for help and a little boobie snack. Lars suckers out her nose in his sleep, then I hook that little fella on my ta-ta that faces the center of the bed (so she won't roll off the side of the bed) and lay there while she nurses with my eyes close, in misery, waiting for her to stop using me as a pacifier. Then I get 35-minutes of sleep until we're at it again. In the mean time, my left boob becomes engorged and 8-times the natural size a boob oughta be.

Don't ask me why I only feed her on the inner boob at night. I don't want to talk about it. It was awful. (She fell off our bed one night as I was nursing her on lefty! Just fell off! My tube sock boob couldn't hold her! Dang it.) I don't want to talk about it. Don't make me tell you.

Tonight is the night things are going to change. My husband is going to have to accept the fact that while this could be a teensy-weensy bit teething, and a teensy-weensy bit growth spurt (his old standbys when the baby shit hits the fan) that this is really a cold and that if we're going to get through this then I am going to have to sleep tonight. As in this night. Red wine, vicodin, ambien, Nyquil -- whatever it takes, thy will be done.

He plans on going surfing tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. I guess he's taking Tovey Marge with him because I, for one, do not intend to be operable.

Potty Talk

2009-08-11T17:20:00.000-07:00

Today was a rough day. First of all, I got new contact lenses, but to clean them one must only use the tres chere Opti Free brand. This really irks me because I have 37-bottles of a store brand in my closet but can't use it because when I do it feels like someone is squeezing hand sanitizer into my eyes. Plus, it is allergy season in SoCal so I can only wear my brand new contacts for 7-hours before I need to take them out and soak them in generous amounts of aforementioned, and over-priced, OptiFree.

And then, on top of that, on Sunday some old fart sneezed on me. Now I'm sick. Because I can't stop sucking on my baby's face she is sick now too. And Annike. Annike is sick. And the thing is, it just feels like some one is poking bristly pipe cleaners into my right ear and out my right nostril then looping back through into my left nostril and out my other ear. Somehow my throat and eyeballs are involved too. Today, at my lunch moment (not hour, but moment) when I finally had the chance to duck outside to meet up with Nanny Hope and my two little girls (big kids at camp) I laid my eyes on Baby Tovey. Oh, oh, oh what a sight! Tova's face was puffy and bright red, snot trickling from her nose, tears from her eyes, boogies all over. A very sad sight indeed. She couldn't nurse through it all so she just blobbed there in my arms all juicy and drippy until 3-seconds later it was time for me to get back into the ultrasound room.

Home again. Tova the Puffy One was able to nurse. We said goodbye to Hope and then went to get the big kids, who were waiting in the parking lot of the Y with Karah. Karah took one look at Tova and said "Allium Cepa."

After the pick-up we rushed off to the orthodontist. Petra had her spacers installed in a jiff. I paid the $500-deposit -- oh s$%^, I really hope there is money in the account but no time for worrying about it cause I gotta get some of that Allium Cepa.

Across the parking lot we went. Inside the whole foods grocer (not to be confused with Whole Foods, sadly) we made our way over to the health aisle. All the while, it should be noted, a strange odor was trailing us. The health aisle lady took one look at Tovey and agreed, Allium Cepa. But just in case, a free sample of Camilia was given to us because Tova also is cutting her first two teeth at the same time! Because we invited the neighbors over for dessert, fruit shortcake, we needed to jet! Jet! Okay, we got in the very long line becaus apparently every other check-out specialist was on break. We got down to two parties in line in front of us, Annike patiently waiting with all our provisions in the kiddie grocery cart, Petra valiantly entertaining Baby SickyPoo, me trying to do a quick accounting of our checking account . . . and there it was again, that very strange odor! The 11-parties in line behind us were staring at us. Oh no. The odor. I suppose the odor is coming from someone in my party.

"Mommy," Soren looks up at me with pleading eyes "I have to go potty."

Of course, this is the way it always works. It's almost my turn in a very long slow line and one of my kids invariably has to take a dump.

"Can't you just wait?" I whisper, not wanting to sound impatient.

"No. I have to go now," he whispers back. "Now!"

We get out of line, it's getting serious. I grab Tova's stroller, running for the back of the store. Soren leads the way, grabbing his swim trunks up around his legs. Annike is in hot pursuit with the kiddy cart, snapping at the heels of all the other shoppers in the store. Soren runs into the men's room. I wait. He comes out smiling, whew he made it.

We head back for the line. We are now at the back of a huge line, people in front smile sweetly like they want me to know that they understand what it's like to have worked all day and come home to 2-sick children, take all of them to the orthodontist, need to catch up on groceries and then have to leave the grocery line because your kid almost had a code brown. I typically can't stand that kind of stuff, especially if it won't get me my spot back in the line. Leave it to Soren to make everyone feel really uncomfortable.

"It's a good thing I didn't poop my pants this time cause I don't have any undies on. It would have gone on the floor!" Then, he makes that cute little laugh that little boys make when they are thoroughly impressed with themselves.

Today, of all days!

2009-07-28T19:38:00.000-07:00

If I could figure out how to post video, then I would show you the video Lars took of Petra after her surgery. Needless to say, she made it through safely and came out of the anesthesia very groggy and saying all sort of uncharacteristically goofy things (you know, for being such a vewy sewious child). At lunch, I ran home to check on her and to feed Little Tovita. When I arrived home she had just finished barfing and was still very dazed, dried blood covered her mouth and little sutures were popping through the very large (newly large) gap between her two front teeth. I nearly vomited myself.
To be quite frank with you, you'd think that after sewing up torn up vaginas all day long I could handle sawed-in-half mouth bones and oral sutures. I just suppose that you can't control some of life's mysteries. Birth canals win, hands down.
Anyway, she was fairly confused and sedated still so I jetted back to work. At the end of my day, I flew home to find a new and improved Petra. Except for the mouth bit which just rattled me more and more.
By dinner, which was soft food made to accommodate Practically Perfect Petra, the sight of her mouth was beyond revolting to me. Every time she started to talk I would feel my insides shiver. I tried just looking at her eye balls when she was talking, but I have a very active imagination and I got carried away. Before I knew it little tiny pukes were coming into my mouth. Then I tried to look at her through narrowed eyes, I mean for crap's sake I'm her mother. What kind of mother can't even look at her poor suffering child? Puke or no puke, I was gonna look her in the face with eyes wide open.
But, holy cow, her mouth! It looked agonizing with a big crack in her jaw right between her two front teeth. Oh Lord help me, if that little bitsy puke didn't rush into my mouth. I swallowed hard and turned to Lars, ignoring Petra who was yabbering on and on with her mouth wide open, and I tried to engage my fabulously toothed husband in some piece of conversation. All the while my chi felt tingly and raw and shivery and I felt like the worstest mother on this whole godforsaken planet. What the heck was wrong with me?
I decided the best way to keep her mouth shut was to get something in it. Fortunately, yesterday I went to the city's crappiest and junkiest grocery store to buy Petra all manner of frozen treats. I rushed her to the freezer where she happily selected rootbeer float ice cream. I plopped huge scoops into a bowl for her and gently-roughly pushed the bowl under her chin. Whew. Whew, whew, whew.
Please meditate for me tonight. Help me to find the strength to be a good mother? Show me the way! Please! And then, after that, say a little prayer that this is the last surgery any Viking child will ever have to undergo cause I'm just about positive that I would keel over at the sight of a lobectomy or appendectomy or ingrown toenail-ectomy. Keel over!

Post-operative Petra, fresh out of the shower. Mouth closed, TYVM.

The rest of the rest. . .

And just when you thought it wasn't possible to get any cuter, she did.

As promised, Lars in a suit on the day of the big interview. No news yet. No news is good news.

Fat Tova, who crawled off my bed today and did a naked dive on to the floor, subsequently bonking her head on our hard floor. For comfort she nursed and then slept for 2-hours. Lars just woke her up to feed her dhal and quinoa with bananas. Guess it'll be a late night.

Soren is away. I miss him terribly. I remember all the good about him. He's with his Gramma and Bubba on a golf and tennis vacation. He's precious and sweet and never naughty. Never.

That's the news from Viking Village, where all the women are wimpy and all the 8-year olds have fractured mouths.

Impacted

2009-07-27T15:27:00.000-07:00

Petra is darling. Everyone knows it.

Since the time of her first dental visit, we have known that Petra has an extra tooth.

The extra tooth is between her top two front teeth.

I'm not much of a waiter, but we waited for it to come down. We were told that it would come down around the time that her regular two front teeth would come down. That it would just fall out because nothing is holding it in. It would be simple and wouldn't impact anything.

Now she's 8-years old. She lost her two front teeth last September. Neither of her 2-front teeth is fully down yet because of the extra tooth. The extra tooth is making such cramped quaters in there that, in fact, none of her front four teeth has had the opportunity to do what they need to do.

Our dentist tried everything to get it out. She couldn't do it. Plus, she has a close relationship with Petra and can't stand the idea of causing her any pain.

That led us to the events of several weeks ago. We went to an oral surgeon. He had rude office staff and wanted us to pay out-of-pocket even though we have excellent insurance. Plus, it was determined that the tooth is fully impacted into her upper jaw and requires an extensive out-patient surgical procedure to extract. Hence the general anesthesia.

Bad feelings. Surgery cancelled. Second opinion. Two orthodontist visits.

Tomorrow, Petra has out-patient surgery scheduled. She will be going under general anesthesia. The tooth is coming out. Then it's popsicles and smoothies for a week (or 12-hours, anyway). I can't believe all this for a tooth.

Anyway, no out-of-pocket expenses. Unless you consider the orthodontia, which goes on in early September after the spacer and brackets are on.

Have I ever mentioned that I have 4-kids?

Sadly, we will not be taking the kids to Disney World this October as planned. Happily, Petra's beautiful smile will be back.

Before Dental Work Begins

Quickie

2009-07-16T09:03:00.000-07:00

1) We cancelled Petra's out-patient but under general anesthesia procedure. We're getting a 2nd opinion. She's 8-years old and only weighs 50-lbs, all of which is sheer muscle (pics of 6-pack to come). There is no reason to do general anesthesia to remove a tooth, unless of course you are an oral surgeon and you really like power tools. Dr 2nd Opinion has loosely pledged to us that she will work with our dentist to try and get it out with just laughing gas. Otherwise they're sending her to another oral surgeon who said he would do it with IV sedation. Either way, her horrendously crooked front teeth are on their way to getting fixed up -- courtesy of our recently upgraded dental plan and less out of pocket expenses.
2) This is my last week of crrrrrrrazy working. After that it gets more manageable. We can start eating dinners at home again and maybe I'll vacum and put the dishes away. Then again, maybe not. . .
3) We are done mourning for Flippy the Fish. He is but a pleasant memory.
4) Did I ever tell you Petra got moved up another level in gymnastics? Yeah, she did. She's sooooo amazing.
5) The check engine light on one of our three cars mysteriously turned off. We're not pursuing it.
6) We have three cars because we basically have three adult family members, including Hope, our nanny. We're sooooooooo snooty.
7) We're getting rid of our cute little VW Golf before August 22 (when we would have to renew licensing and registration). It only fits 50% of our family and smells like barfed-up chocolate.
8) We're not replacing the Golf. We'll be your average, over-consuming American family with too many children for the Earth to sustain with two cars. But, both of them will have all the appropriate peace sign, U-M, and vegetarianism bumper stickers on it so that people on the road will have plenty of reason to believe that we're doing everything right.
9) Soren is in 3-soccer games this weekend. He debuts as goalie at approximately 2:30pm. Grandparents will be there to revel in the joy that is my little man.
10) Lars had a job interview on Tuesday. He wore a pinstripe suit, red tie, and he got his haircut and then spiked it (pics to follow). He looked very charming and handsome. I believe the interview was an excellent exercise in putting-oneself-out-there in a struggling economy. We shall have more news next week. In the meantime, Pfarma has our back . . . until a major acquistion goes though in the fall; then we'll be toast.

Love to you and yours!
Kelly the Viking Ship Captain

PS - Tovita and Annabeaner are well.

Fidelity to the Law

2009-07-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

I am not, in fact, referring to the most recent Supreme Court nomination.

Fidelity to the most predictable and most true of all the laws of nature, that's what I'm referring to here.

Some of you have already heard via my Facebook post, it's sad but true. We lost little Flippy this weekend.

Flippy the Fish. You know, Patty the Fair Fish's adopted brother?

He fought hard, but in the end, fidelity to that most inevitable law of nature won out. Flippy was flushed down that holy well of goldfish light, on a Sunday no less. (That's the goldfish Sabbath.)

Flippy was Soren's fish. Soren was having a good day, a great day rather. He was selling fresh lemonade on the end of our driveway with his sisters and the neighbor girls. We didn't want to burden him with that information just yet. Taylor, neighbor girl, came through the house on her way out to pick some more lemons off the tree when she noticed me peering into the fish tank.

Poor TayTay. She was the first little guy to see Flippy in the throes of death. Not the kind of peaceful goldfish death when you just happen to wake up one morning and find 'em dead. Floating serenely. No sirree. Full on death throes.

Finally, it was over. Lars flushed him off to meet his maker. That was the end of it.

Petra, most observant child, noticed Flippy's absence.

Holy Hell ensued. She screamed and wailed and cried at the top of her ever-loving lungs. She cried to the mountain tops.

"Ohhhh, Flippy's dead."

Flippy can't be dead, she stated calmly. She began to search. More and more frantically as the moments past. Flippy? Where are you Flippy?

She turned to me. She turned to Daddy. She turned to Patty and Andrea. She begged us all for answers. Who would do this, she implored. Who did this?

She blamed PetCo for selling us a "bad fish."

She blamed the guy "who makes babies and fish get born."

She got mad. Really, really mad. She stomped her feet. She threw herself onto the ground and banged her little fists on the floor until they were red. She said bad words like "hate" and "stupid."

Then she got forlorn. She sighed over and over again. She wailed because Flippy was gone and "it huwts so badly." She began to mutter under her breath about "poow, poow Flippy . . . he didn't get much time here . . . now he won't get a sunken treasure ship to play in . . . all those poow childwen in Iwaq and Afghanistan who have no school and have to covew theiw faces . . . I lost my dwess at the beach . . . Maggie's gonna die too . . . Mommy's gonna die . . . Meme died . . . Gwandma Peg died . . . evewybody dies . . . ow, they don't get to go to school and have to covew theiw pwetty faces . . . then they die."

Lars tried to focus her. They sat on the rug, commonly referred to in our house as Tova's Rug, and Lars said to her, "let's just talk about Flippy Petra."

"Tell me what you liked about Flippy."

"I loooooooooved uh uh uh heeeeeee Flippy. I loved him so much."

"And what else?" She's brings up the"twoops in Iwaq" and he refocuses her.

"Flippy was so cute. He looked like a cow, eh-cept he wasn't, he was weally just a fish."

On it went.

Finally, finally, she took a deep breath, "he's just dead now, isn't he?"

Shoulders hunched over, eyes to the ground, she slipped off to her bedroom.

It was like the Kubler-Ross stages of grief compressed on fast-forward. Wiped Lars and me out, had us in tears with all her pain and agony.

And that was how it went last night. Of course, if you're a neighbor of ours then you heard the whole darn thing.

Oh the Places I've Been

2009-07-10T17:40:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile. I want to tell you all the funny stories (15-year old pregnant girl story coming soon), but there hasn't been an opportunity. Here's the deal:

Petra is having out-patient surgery next week under general anesthesia. Insurance pays for 80% of the procedure, none of the anesthiologists fees. We have to pay those out of pocket the day of the surgery. $600 the first hour, $100 each additional 15-minute that he spends with my out-cold daughter. I want to vomitit, vomit, vomit.

I've been trying to acclimate at New Job with Mr Doctor OB and the three other physicians there. While Mr Doctor and Dr Favorite are great, Dr Boss is a little gruff to say the least but seems to like me and want good things for me. I go with the flow because she's . . . well, she's the boss and I'm new and not very doctor-y. Then, on the other end, there is Dr Hates Kelly's Guts. Very stressful. I do my best not to let it get me down. When she barks at me I try to kill her with kindness, big smiles, lavish thanks on her for "showing me the way," and all that yadda-yadda hoo-hoo. On the days that we're both in the office together it's pretty stressful for me, on the days that I'm there and she's not I'm left to read the notes she leaves me -- they always end with little smiley faces that I'm near 'bout positive have darts coming out of their eyes.

As if all that weren't enough, I'm still getting my donkey kicked by Old Job. Lately, I've been working over 40/hours a week. Drama happened at Old Job (where I'm happy, and comfortable, treated collegially and most importantly loved by ALL). One midwife had a heart attack, one had a bowel obstruction that required major abdominal surgery, one finally retired at the age of 78-years old. All within one week. We went from being a well oiled machine to GM before Chapter 11. Then, one week later, one of our midwives broker her arm. You just can't do it with a broken arm. Doesn't work that way. When the meconium hits the fan then I'm the crunchy granola hippy who is breastfeeding an infant every 2-hours with four kids and a second job that they call in to pick up all the pieces. I'm sure it goes something like this, Midwife Boss and Midwife Scheduler, "We're four midwives down." "What are we going to do?" "I know, lets call our least available midwife and make her come in. No big deal that after she pays taxes and childcare for 4-kids she make approximately $0.30 cents."

I'm a sucker. I'm also a team player. I love my preggos in the barrios and I love their babies. That is why I've been spending more time with them (and the cougars at New Job) than I have been with my own kids.

Lars is considering leaving Pfarma. A new position has been applied for at a start-up with BIG scientific names. Celebreties in the scientific world. He told me they are the Michael Jordans and Larry Birds of his line of work. He told them his price point. He told me last night that he can't manage with me working so much, that it scares him that I make more than him, that he's right about ready to end this salary competition here and now, and that if he gets New Position with Big Names then I will have the opportunity to cut back at Old Job when I'm done taking it for the team. He wants me to spend more time making New Job with Ms Onry Butt/Dr Hates Kelly's Guts a bigger and better venture. And he wants me spend less time working (and kicking his donkey on the earnings end).

I want a long vacation, flat abs, perky boobs, great highlights, and 3-cars that do NOT presently have the CHECK YOUR FRICKIN' ENGINE light on.

And two more babies.

And a box of custard filled donuts.

Patty

2009-06-30T21:44:00.000-07:00

Meet Patty!

Patty is Petra's new pet. After work and camp today, we schlepped down to the fairgrounds where we all over did it on bad rides, awful fair food, and ishy animal smells in the 4-H barn. Toward the end of our night, we took a shot at throwing ping-pong balls into a glass bowl. Petra, Soren and Annike each had 5-balls to throw for a total cost of $2 (money borrowed from my mom). Petra scored big, cries of triumph heard through the land as she and I shrieked with elation. And now, Patty is the newest Viking family member. A $.13-fish. Named Patty. Petra named her after herself (Lars calls Petra "Pattyboomers").

Here is Patyy, pictured in the Solo cup in which we received her. Sad. Lonely. Neglected. Hungry.
We couldn't leave her like that! We told the kids that we would make a quick stop at the pet store on our way home from the fair to buy Patty some fishy food. Alas, we arrived to the parking lot, Annike had to potty, Tova was mad and Soren was asleep. Long story short, we had two cars with us because we met Lars at the fair so my mom took the younger three back home and Lars and I ran in with Petra to the pet store.

Turns out our $.13 fish, bought for the price of 15-ping pong balls at $2, created a soft spot in our hearts. After all, we couldn't leave her in a plastic Solo cup with all sorts of BPA and who knows what. Could we? So in addition to her fish food we got her a teeny weenie tank. And some rocks. Well, a filter too cause that is just common sense. Some water treatment stuff. Of course, Patty was lonely. So very, very lonely. Our poor hearts couldn't take it. We bought Patty a brother (yet to be named by the sleeping Soren) and a sister named Andrea (meaning brave, picked by Annike) -- Brother and Andrea totaled $.26. The mansion and supplies, on the other hand, came to a total of $24.99.

It was well worth it. The look of joy and pride on Petra's face as she sunk that ping pong bowl into the glass bowl was priceless. Anything for our little super star.

Whaddya wanna bet they're all floaters in the morning?

Food Groups, According to Tova

2009-06-27T21:13:00.000-07:00

Tova has some ideas about eating that are a little different from most of the rest of folks around. For example, she could be insanely hungry and her nanny or Lars offers her a bottle only to have her turn her head away in disdain. Other times, she's quite adept at bottle feeding. She likes her baby oatmeal just fine, some organic pureed mixed vegetables will also do the trick every now and again but if you asked Tova what the food pyramid looked like, it would go a little something like this:

Okay, so here we have Tova showing you how to partake in the middle of the food pyramid.

There are some schools of baby thought out there that you put your sand in some sort of delivery medium. Tova prefers the grab-and-stuff approach, very hand-to-mouth.

And stuff!

Mmmmmm, that's great.

Second helpings are a must. All that grainy goodness . . .

What I meant to say is, "all that gritty goodness."

Bottoms up!

Burp! Excuse me. Giggle, giggle.

Never one to turn down a third helping, she dug back in.

Awwwwww, how cute?

Playing Catch Up

2009-06-25T12:49:00.001-07:00

A lot has happened. A lot. The camera was gone for most of it (TYVM Lars-Mr-Fix-Things-That-Ain't-Broke).

Petra goes to a horse show, she decides she'll be a cowgirl-farmer.

Tova takes solids.

And, then eats paper.

Petra contracted a communicable disease and missed 1-week of school.

It was really awful.

With a lot of bed rest she eventually got better, in time to return for the last week of school festivities

Annike, with Miss Chamali, had her last day of school.

She also said good-bye to Miss Holly, see you in the fall!

She may have stopped school for the summer, but she sure as heck didn't stop being precious.

They're both pretty darling.

Tova told Annike a secret. I still don't know what it was about, but Annike promises me that it was REALLY funny.

Tova wants to crawl.

Peek-a-boo! Petra's last day of 2nd grade.

Here with her good pal, Maddie.

Good-bye Mr M! It was nice working with you.

Soren wished his wonderful kindergarten teacher a fabulous summer.

Then it was time to go crazy at a friend's last day of school pool party.

Annike surveyed her options . . .

and decided on the hot tub.

An expectant Mama Morning Dove heard there was a midwife in the house and so set up camp in our nectarine tree.

I paid the kids to help me wash all the chairs and stools. I still owe them each a dollar.

We went strawberry picking with Gramma.

Finally, Tova is growing back some fuzz on the right side after the unfortunate incident of Annike and the kiddie scissors vs Tova's hair.

THE END.

Alopecia Baby

2009-06-09T20:16:00.000-07:00

Okay, so yesterday was a miserable day. I mean, it was sort of miserable and sort of regular, and then , of course, it was a little bit funny. Funny because that's how it unfolds round these parts sometimes, drama and comedy are close bedfellows in this here casa.

Okay. Okay. June 8 didn't start out like most everyone else's. It was a busy night at the hospital for me, which ended with me delivering baby number kabillion of the night at 0641 in the morning. The patient was trying my patience and I just wanted the night to be o-v-e-r. Long story. Needs to be shorter. Condense, I will try. So, anyhow, there I was, sitting on the end of Lucy's bed while she was in the mind-over-matter stage of pushing her baby out. That's the stage, as many of you natural birthers are familiar with, where that sharp and pointy baby's head is crowning, ripping your poor hiney to shreds, bomb exploding in your sacrum, legs trembling, air being sucked out of your core but the baby is right there and could be born any second if you could just say "#$%^ it" and let your body finish the contraction. If you're a midwife and you're at this stage (you personally) then you have to act cool and laugh with it (remember that, Jess, old pal), but if you're an everyday type then you have a green light for screaming your ever-loving brains out until your sweet baby emerges and is plopped into your sweaty arms. Okay, those are the two options. Nowhere, I repeat, nowhere for God's sake is it at all acceptable that while in the midst of pushing your FIFTH (5th, one two three four five), yes fifth, baby out should you stop pushing after birthing the baby up to only her eyebrows, then proceed to climb up to the head of the bed, and calmly look at me and say "no puedo." Never, ever. I tried, I did. All night long I tried to be sweet and kind and midwifey to contrary Lucy. No puedo my ass, Lucy. If you no puedo, then I no puedo. I no puedo help you missy. Now push. But push she wouldn't. Heart tones on that poor little baby were less than 100. No puedo. I calmly advised her to push. I sweetly begged her to push. I caroused and cajoled. I cried out, "puuuuuuuuuush." No puedo, I can't. Then I took Lucy's head, pressed my forehead against hers and spat out (in Spanish), "if . . . you . . . do . . . not . . . push . . . now . . . your . . . baby . . . will . . . die!"
Then, her response, "no puedo." Of course you can woman! You pushed a 9-pound baby out of your 4-foot 7-inch frame 2-years ago. Golly dingbat, cheese sauce rice, oh for crying out lound -- I shouted. Baby is wilting. The nurses stared at me with fear and anger in their eyes. Things were getting out of control. We were all in disbelief. I wrapped my hands around the baby's eyebrows and I pulled. I got the rest of the head. Still no help from the world's wimpiest patient I've ever dealt with, ever (okay, well since January). I placed both my hands into her vagina and tried to cork screw the baby out (a true obstetric maneuver). A little bit of shoulder. Limp baby head drooping downward. I swept the baby's posterior arm (or down-side arm) out, and swept is simply an understatement because the word swept has a very carefree connotation. You don't "sweep" anything out of a canal that has the suction force of a lamprey, you more or less heave. Then I pulled with all the strength the good creator gave me, grunting at her with my efforts "pujale, pujale, pujale porrrrrrrrr favorrrrrrr!" Baby out. Cord clamped and cut. Baby handed to nurse. I rushed over to the warmer where we did respiratory resuscitation. Waaaaaaaaah! And, whew. Baby's arm/clavicle was broken but otherwise Little Man was right as rain.
I came home, exhausted and annoyed. Frustrated and ornery. Baby Tova and I had a long day together of me craving sleep and her denying me of it in favor of nursing and smiling at me. After I gathered the rest of my Viking crew in the afternoon, I came home and fell to the couch, confident that Tova could be off my boobs just a little bit because the rest of the Nut Squad was home to entertain her. The most regrettable thought I had all day . . .
It's always Soren who catches them in the act. Poor little Tattle Teller, never knows when the time is right to snitch, this time he waited a little long. He was the one, at the age of 2-years, to come across Petra as she cut 10-inches of hair off her head the summer she turned four. He was the one to come to me yesterday to tell me, "Mommy, Annike's cutting her hair." Sho' nuff, I ran over to Annike, kiddie scissors in hand with her pony pulled over the top of her head snipping her ends. I snatched the scissors, grabbed the crying Baby Tova and sent Annike elsewhere. All I wanted was sleep. Oh, dear sweet Sleep, how I love you. How I want to carress you in my arms. Oh dear, I fantasized about sleeping while I stroked Tova's little head. Oh dear me. Oh dear God, what is going on here?! Tova's head felt odd, bristly, buzz cutty. Oh mother of pearl. I yelled out in my most magnificent gravelly mad crazy mama voice, "Annike Maria . . . "
She began to wail.
Tova's hair. No more. Cut willy nilly, here and there. Her precious downy hair cut off her head by a pair of Play-Doh encrusted kiddie scissors.
Lord help 'em all. Those poor chilluns of mine. The poor neighbors. Poor baldy Tova. Most of all poor me, the unslept mommy at the edge of the Cliff of Holy Nuttiness. I had few choices. Too few choices. The children are alive, most of all Annike is still breathing. I, myself, took a good breath shed a quick tear that came out of nowhere and then called my husband, whereupon I busted out in guffaws telling him the story of our cosmetelogically oriented preschooler. We shared a nice moment reflecting on the little aliens we brought into this world. Later that night, I was finally able to meet up with sleep in my bed. All is well, if not a little hairless.

Courtesy of yo' mama!

2009-06-05T19:17:00.001-07:00

In preparation for Soren getting his photos taken tomorrow with the rest of his Hip Hop dance class I cut his hair in the backyard. I chose the backyard, as opposed to our usual kiddie salon, because Lars is eternally griping about the cost of a silly old haircut. Not that Lars would know about real costs of haircuts, Lars doesn't get haircuts unless GymFriendJen does them for free in our neighbor's yard. Enough! Enough about Lars! This is about Soren and the nice-right haircut his ol' Mamasita gave him today.

Such a handsome fellow, talking to his daddy about crystals.

While I was cutting his hair, he told me all about leaf fish. How those tricky leaf fish can hide from predators quite easily because they look just like a regular old leaf. Neat, huh?

Anyway, I'll say that haircut went pretty well . . . don't ya think?

Grumpy Mommy Monday and Other Tales From This Viking's Ship

2009-06-01T20:45:00.000-07:00

Oh dear, I fear I've been away a bit too long. I understand you've all been longing for some gut-busting stories. The fact of the matter is that the past 2-weeks just whizzed by and here I am, a near blogger drop-out. So very much has happened, most of it wasn't hilarious and some of it was so hilarious that I nearly had to go out and buy myself a pack of Depends . . . and yet, those were the sort of things you had to be there for.

All I've got is news, and here it is Grumpy Mommy Monday so who knows how it'll pan out (GMM occurs when I work the previous Sunday night and the go on with my day without sleep). Not even any pictures, which leads me to #1 news item of the day:

1) Camera Lars was "fixing" our perfectly functioning camera on Thursday when he broke the lens. No pictures, this is very sad because some picture worthy events were not recorded simply because my husband is unable to abandon his boyhood obsession of taking things apart just to see how they work. It reminds me of the time, while we were in undergrad, that I spent all my earthly wealth to buy him a fantastic watch for his birthday. We went to China Gate, the best nasty Chinese restaurant in A2. Upon opening the gift, he quickly set about taking it apart. Soon the springs in the watch gave way and the watch burst apart, little pieces of watch sproinging up into the atmosphere then buh-dah-boinking down on to the dirty carpet below. It was no use trying to pick up the pieces, that watch met a swift end. This time was a little different, for starters the camera was a birthday present for me and secondly Lars managed to break MY birthday present on HIS birthday. No camera, no pictures. Good thing I still have my sense of humor.

2) Tova's Eating Disorder Ocassionally, Tova will take a bottle. Our nanny, Hope, has had the most success out of anyone. Sometimes Lars has a stroke of luck, as he did last night, when she took a full 4-ounces while I was a work. These joyous events are still few and far between, but they happen often enough that we can appease Dr Pale Skinny Californian over at the Puppy Mill. Additionally, Nanny Hope and Daddy Lars have been feeding Super Nova Baby Tova oatmeal. She likes it. She likes it in her mouth, squished between her fingers where lengths of my hair are also tightly wrapped, on her eyelashes, and up her nose. And for safe keeping she likes to store some in the folds of her neck. She weighs over 16-pounds (50% at 6-months) and 27 and some odd inches (90% at 6-months). Not crawling. No teeth. She nurses as often as there is a fully-loaded boob around to latch onto, namely mine.

3) Annike the Champ Annike has moved up the ladder in the elite world of toddler gymnastics to fall into the coveted rank of Baby Team. Okay, it's not really called Baby Team and she's not a toddler anymore but the thing is is that I pretend she's still a tiny widdle baby and thusly, rename all her activities accordingly (Baby Soccer, Baby Ballet, Baby Team, Baby Pee Pee and so on). Today was Annike's first day of Baby Team. Petra led her out to the floor where she got to warm-up with the big girls, including with Petra. Her new coach introduced her to the other girls, all 5 and 6-year olds, and then they started their Baby Workout. There are a few things in this world that Annike fears like no other. What are these things, you ask? In no specific order, they are: George Bush, brussel sprouts, swimming in the big pool without DJ or Daddy, dinner without dessert, and the Big Trampoline at gymnastics. Coach Jill led Annike's troupe over to Big Trampoline, where she gave the girls instructions and then had them wait in line to do their skill. Next thing I know, zoom! A flash of black and purple and blonde goes streaking across the length of the gym, underneath the uneven bars where big girls are practicing mill circles, through the straightaway where the team girls are running to the vault, leaping over low beam after low beam, then artfully ducking under the high beams as she sprinted over the spring floor through the double doors into the lobby of the gym. But she didn't stop there! She kept running through the busy lobby, where several parents saw the ado and spread their arms out to catch her in Little Gingerbread Boy fashion. She raced through their legs straight for the door to the outside. She kept running! She was out the door in 3-seconds flat. Tova, who was quietly nursing, was tossed into the hands of Gym Friend Jen, I followed in hot pursuit my bra flaps unhooked, my button down cardigan open and flapping about. Annike, up ahead, was scrambling down the stairs as fast as her fluffy little legs would go. Sobbing! I heard sobbing, almost shrieking. She gathered speed at the bottom of the steps where she darted across the corner of the parking lot, heading straight for the ocean just beyond the Coaster tracks. I ran, I ran with my flip-flops spanking my heels with each step, calling to my baby, "Annabeaner! Mommy is right be-gasp-hind gasp you!" She stops dead in her tracks, pivoting on her tiny heel, pumps her sweet arms at her sides and throws herself into me. "De go-ols (girls), "she sobs, hysterically "de go-ols on Baby Team aw too bigger dan me. Dey beat me up de wope. Dey beat me up de Big Twampoline. Dey beat me up." Her little lip quivered, tears gushed down her cheeks and onto her neck all the while snot from her nose dripped into her mouth. I carried her back in the gym, I held her to me, and we watched those big girls with all their fancy big girl moves. We don't let our children quit. Our children are instructed, above all else, we expect them to be a positive participant and to do their best. They don't have to be good, but they have to be positive. Well, that, and I bribed her with a Slurpee for tomorrow after school if she gave it her best. That cheered her right up. I transferred her back to Coach Jill, who is not loving and cuddly like her old coaches Heather and Rebecca. She stomped over to the center of Big Trampoline, put on a smile, gave me two thumbs up and then shouted "Mommy, I can see your booby."

4) Kelly Gets Drunk It's true. Friday night. I drank a full Tecate, then a glass of red wine. Then I think I drank a full Corona Light. The next morning, though, I found a Corona Light opened sitting next the catsup in the door of the fridge with the top off, the neck of the beer gone but the rest was there. A suspiciously familiar placement. But I'm sticking to my story, I drank two beers and one glass of wine. With no fewer than 27-guests, I had a killer birthday party in honor of Lars turning 32-years old. I made 2-pies with my GF. All my friends joined me in jolly and resplendent glee. Our collective children played in our basement on the gym mats, in the trampoline, and out on our newly contructed swing-set. I was dancing to Run DMC and Sir Mix-a-Lot, egging my husband on to do the worm on our 'wood' floor (bruising came later) and lettin' loose. Our house boom-boom-boomed from the end of the Lakers game until the wee hours of the next morn.

5) The Issue of Thorne Wednesday night, 5/27/09, we took the kids to a horse show seeing as how Petra plans to be a farming cowgirl. Petra was enthralled, though was disappointed that there was no wrangling of things or lassos or barrells to speak of. On our way back up the coast, in the quiet car that had 1-sleeping baby and 3-drowsy cowkids Annike's little voice squeaks out, "when is Thowne gonna be hewe?" Petra and Soren shush her, coaxing her back toward the peace and tranquility of star gazing along the ocean in a perfectly silent car. We arrived home, kids shuffled off to bed with flossed teeth and jammied feet. I tied up a few loose ends and the threw myself into bed, where I lay nervously. Listening . . . Bam! Bam! Bam! My husband's voice erupts as the door puffs open, "what the faruncle!" Har, har, hars fill the house as mens' voices boom. I raced to the foyer, Thorne was standing on the tile, dressed in his Red Wings jersey, arms open to Lars' leap toward him. Beautiful Breck beside him, I welcome them to our home and breathe a sigh of relief that I no longer have to keep that surprise from my husband. Elation sets in. 2,300-miles Thorne and Breck traveled to surprise Lars for his birthday. Annike drowsily trips out of her bedroom, blinking into the light of the family room where she sets her eyes on 'Bubba Don' and shyily smiles at him, huggin him and then scuffles back to bed. Later that night, as Lars and I lay in bed with Thorne and Breck just down the hall in the Grandma Room, Lars whispers to me that he is not only surprised but overjoyed. Sparks shoot from his happy eyes and he falls asleep with a smile on his face. All is well with the world.

6) The Daily Grinds I've been working a combo of Old Job and New Job, kind of hoping New Job will grow and Old Job will shrink. Things are good. The awkwardness of working with Mr. Doctor OB is subsiding. Besides, I have a job, unlike dear friends at Visteon, Chrysler and GM. For all the 14-year old mamas at Old Job and all the 53-year old cougars at New Job, the daily grind is fun and interesting which is far more than most can say.

Bussin'

2009-05-15T09:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Lars took the day off of work so that we could go car shopping. The night before we found the perfect 10-passenger Sprinter on-line. So perfect because if would fit our current family of 6 plus four more, you know, just in case my uterus was ever revived from the un-living to one day carry quads.
Alack, alas, it was not to be. The Sprinter didn't work out, so we went with Plan B.
Plan B had historically been Plan A for most of our lives, and unlike my uterus it WAS revived yesterday.
On our way up to LA to look at the three cars that we had picked out, Lars and I discussed our negotiating plans, our bottom lines and our upper limits. We went to the first lot, test drove the car with a moon roof, I did the talking per Lars' request and then went to the next lot. (The first lot was a for-sale-by-owner lot, so the guy that owned the place was not the salesman he simply acted as intermediary).
On our way up to the next lot, in a not so nice area of LA, we reviewed our bottom line and steadfastly agreed how the deal would go down. Our terms or walk away. Our terms.
So, we trot over to the car where, Juan, the slippery salesman lecherously eyes us. He pops open the trunk end, the engine, shows us the seats and then sends us on our way for the test drive. Lars and I review our plan again, our set-in-stone plan. I slapped Lars on the back and gave him a you-can-do-it smile. He weakly smiled back at me as the color drained from his face, we pulled into the lot and then he turned to me and frantically whispered, "I can't do it, you do it."
Ugh.
Now here is the moment in my life where I can choose to pass it back to my strapping man-of-a-husband and tell him all about gender theory. I could be a weenie, too. Or, I could show the world how it's done, write the manual and make millions. This would be the first time I've bought a car without calling my dad first, but we just bought our first California house without his input (always had it with the other houses) and I was feeling like I could DO it! I'm choosing millions! No weenies for me!
I hopped out of that cute little ol' car, strutted over to the engine where I opened up the hood, hands on my hips I said things like "hmmm, err, pwwwshh," and all those manly noises that go with car buying. I kicked all the tires with my flipped-flopped feet and didn't even flinch. Then I walked over to Juan, crossed my arms in front of my ginormous ta-tas, looked him in the eye and said, "Juan, we'll take it. And, Juan, my amigo, I will pay you the full price that you have listed on the front of that vehicle."
Juan smiles at me.
"But, Juan," I say "that's out-the-door. I'm talking tax, I'm talking title and I'm talking licensing."
His face falls, he throws his hands up in the air. We go back and forth, back and forth. He comes down a scooch, I come up a scooch. We get to our upper limit, I use the Hail Mary of, "Juan, see, here's the deal. I've got a husband and four kids to support. I know you don't want them going shoeless. My little girl wants to take ballet, Juan. See Juan, if I pay you that price, then basically what you're asking me is to tell my little girl that she's never gonna be Maria Tallchief. Now Juan, I appreciate what you're telling me. I can see that it's a nice car. I really can. She's drives real good, Juan. But this is my bottom line."
Juan stutters. He tells me he can't go any lower. I pick up baby Tova and I walk outta there, the superhero that I am. But wait, something is not right. My husband is still standing there, mouth agape, staring at Juan and the vehicle beside him. I get in the car, I yell to Juan/Lars,"you have our number Juan, so you just go ahead and call us when you change your mind. WE'RE LEAVING NOW!"
Lars slowly walks over. He gets in the car and shuts the door. Then he turns to me, and in the voice of a mother deeply disappointed in her child he says, "Kelly."
Wh-wh-what?!
'Scuse me?
Super-hero-money-saving-million-dolla-momma say what?
We start driving back to the southbound highway. I demand Lars for an explanation of his "Kelly," comment. He says, we shoulda bought it. Water filled his eyes.
We agreed! We agreed ahead of time. We said we wouldn't go over our limit, not for nothin', not for one dollar and not for one penny. No way! No how! I did what HE was supposed to do and then got the "Kelly" for it.
I nearly ripped his eyeballs out, 'cept I had just trimmed my nails so I didn't have any leverage.
Next thing I know, that man of mine is screeching around the median in a u-turn, fire in his once damp eyes. "We're going back. We're buying it."
"Oh noooooo we are not dear husband!"
"Kelly, I want THAT car."
And before I knew it, we were back in that hot and sticky used car lot. I told him I was NOT getting out of the car. We agreed! We were not gonna buy it!
He said, "I'll talk him down. I'll get him to do it."
See, that's the funny thing about it (and all you ladies out there know what I'm about to say) . . . see folks, you send a man in to do a woman's job and the next thing you know, you're paying full-price for the vehicle outta your very own check-book with your very own signature. Weenies. Lars and I are a bunch of VW lovin' weenies.
But, we are also the refined and barely-speaking husband and wife MicroBus owning duo . . .

Welcome to our nutty little Viking family, you fine specimen of German hippy engineering. May the force be with you for another 100K miles, my brother.

Aaaaaaah! Aaaaaaah! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

2009-05-12T15:48:00.000-07:00

My baby! My baby! She was here just last night. I kissed her in her bed, tucked her in and checked on her twice. My baby! Someone took my baby! Just yesterday she was a bright, beautiful 3-year old in my arms. Ohhhh, ohh, ohhh, my little tiny Annike.

Then overnight, my darling 3-year old Annike disappeared. Just vanished. How could this happen?

Have you seen this beautiful 3-year old child anywhere? She's gone. Never to come back, forever changed.

My 3-year old Shmooshykins is gone forever. Thoughtfully, the Toddler Monster left a 4-year old Annike instead.

Little Annike Beaner turned 4-years old at 5:49 a.m. PST. We did what we could. We crossed off her birthday on all of our calendars, we put books on her head to stunt her growth, we swaddled her and cradled her in our arms to make her small again. That little punk had other plans, and now here we are with a 4-year old. Lord have mercy on my poor mama-heart. Cause I very nearly believe that it was just yesterday when I was screaming at my husband to drive the damn car to the hospital a might bit speedier or else our baby's birth certificate would have read Place of Birth: I-94. Well that about does it. I crammed 3-babies into the tight space of 3-weeks over the span of 4-years and every ding birthday that goes by just breaks my heart.

From now on, they're all grounded from growing. Except Tova. She can grow a bit more cause my ta-tas are a little sore.