rainbow

A rainbow so awe-inspiring that we just had to take a picture- and the kids each drew a picture :)

He's cute

(pic is that of clay (not)posing for a photo shoot)
and some days that is the only things that saves a two year old from his mother.

Clay has had quite a day today. We made caramel apples last night and Clay has been munching on them off an on all day. Everything he touched turned into fly paper. The door knob, the walls, my pants. I would be walking around doing things like scrubbing bathrooms, and all of a sudden my hands would be stuck fast to my pants. It happened several times before I located the cause.

He was in the laundry room, he opened my brand new container of laundry soap and it was all over the floor. Now my high efficiency machine is going to have to handle 1/2 tub of laundry detergent soaked up by dirty towels and clothes.

Of course, when I had to go packing Clay was doing his best down there too. He managed to pull of box of inventory on top of himself, then opened my "Samples" box and proceeded to dress himself in samples 3 sizes too small.

He ran around naked, 5 minutes after I dressed him. He used his hands to feed himself yogurt, all over the office room floor.

He tried to wipe himself during a diaper change- with his hands. He ate Ewan's crayons, tried to eat a grapefuit whole (on top of a pile of newly folded clean laundry). And of course manages to giggle loudly when he tries to pull up your shirt while you are on the phone.

So you see, if I wasn't so attached to him (visualize caramel hands stuck permanently inside Mommy' shirt) I might be willing to give him up to the next person who dares call those little imitations of adult kind cute. The next one is probably me.

Tough Work

It's hard work being an example. This morning Mike was complaining about a headache and generally allergy issues. He was planning on staying home. But my boys, have learned they are boys and will someday turn into men, like their father. They wanted to stay home too. Galen said he had a headache. Ewan complained about a tummy ache.

I told them they have to tell Dad to stay home. And before I knew it he was up and showering. He realized that they boys were following his example. This delay made us late to church, but we all made it.

Having 4 little mimics might be the best character development for him. I wonder what will happen when I have some little female mimics?

I am there fore may I be

It is very strange to have mornings where I am the only thing moving in the house. The others are all out already, and then I have an hour or so before Clay baby awakes.

It feels kind of weird to not have anything that needs my attention right now. It is not that I do not have enough to do- it is just that none of those things are demanding my now.

I think having a little bit of quiet time helps to establish the fact that there is something underneath all the layers of persona we put on. Underneath the business person there is a mom. That underneath being the mom, I am a woman, underneath the woman there is a me- a unique person with interests of her own. Interests, that have been tucked away so long, that I almost forgot there was a me, almost forgot there was a center bearing up all these roles.

And you know what? This me likes music, and nature, and dancing. This me likes witting and poetry and prose and art.

When one strips away all the "have to"s and "supposed to"s and "needs to be" one finds that there is something worth doing all the "have to"s and supped to"s and "needs to be"s for.

Kind of just helps to add perspective to daily life.

women time

When I asked for a little bit for feminine energy around here, my cat started mewing at me. "Feminine, not feline." I told him.

So being Saturday, after a very busy week of cleaning, homework, laundry. cooking, gardening and shipping, I thought it might be time to reach out to some women kin. I only managed to reach one of them. But she took me to an arts and crafts fair- where I actually found a few things I liked, and added a few touches of (dare I say "pretty") to this house. Let's just say, we have lived here for over a year and I think this is the first thing that was bought to do any form of indoor decorating here. (if you don't count that paint for the kid's room).

And then we visited a quilt show. And quilts embody many of women's amazing charateristics- they are so full of feminine energy. I love how women work as groups on quilts, I love the hours of intricate work, the careful sewing together of so many scrap piece to create something so warm and beautiful- and that they have to see the whole picture of what they are doing, when all the men see are piles of old clothes. Quilts also represent many hours of unselfish service, so humbly done.

Who needs TV?
Children are so funny. I find myself laughing 100 times per day at them. I just turned up the heat- it got a little chilly last night and Clay started dancing on the heater vent.

frost!

Man- that was a thick frost. Cold too. I always thought we had way too many blankets floating around my house- but when I had to tuck my garden in last night, I used most of them.

It still looks like I may have lost anything that touched the tops of the blankets, but I won't know for sure until it warms up a little more.

not too bad

well, this morning I set about upon cleaning my children's rooms. Their rooms are on the weekly rotation of chores, but somehow almost always get missed, or maybe it is that they just never looked like I cleaned them.

Last night I realized it was time to get this done, as my 4 year old old hasn't wanted to sleep in his room for a while. So I started by putting his mattress back on his bed, spraying it down with thieves and then proceeding to add the requisite layers of mattress pads, waterproof pads, sheets and blankets. (and in search of sheets, I realized once again that we are decidedly low on children's sheets. That is because one of our little creative, and resourceful geniuses has been known to taking scissors to the sheets that are so nicely put on bed and making everything from spider webs to superman capes from them. ) I also swept out his room. (Ha, one room mostly done last night!)

So this morning I took a garbage bag upstairs and emptied the other's room, made their's. That is, after I found their sheets stuffed inside some Halloween costumes. (see pic). Of course they have very few toys left heading into the holiday season. Ian has been hard at work with a screw driver dismantling every toy with screws- at least he has left the majority of the door knobs alone this time. And their shelves are now filled with stuffed animals- and a box of legos.The bed are made and the extra blankets are folded. The rooms are swept- the only left to do up there is scrub the bathroom- which incidentally is my normal Monday chore.

regarding the pic- these are the "clones" they made of themselves.

A ramble of thoughts

A truely Hysterical Story on ebay
I liked it so much that I marked her blog.

I felt a little better after reading that, when syrup covered babies eating dog food is normal- I feel I am doing just fine. Luckily, nothing quite like that happening here- thank goodness. Mine is more an orange covered baby- eating one bite out of every fruit on the fridge.

So now you are probably wondering: how did getting the boys off for their first day of school go?
It went real easy
The boys were excited. So exited that they also had a very hard time sleeping last night, and Ewan did wake up at 4, and was told it was too early before he crawled in with us.

Maybe I just need a double King bed... and forget separate bed rooms, but then mike and I would need to find a nice wide couch for his office.....
Very much like like talking to each other on the phone because we can't even hear ourselves over the noise when we are in person.

I did do a good job with breakfast though, had pancakes ready by 7am.
Everyone is healthier if we actually feed them real food. I am trying to do that every morning, but I know my waking up is hard to do- so I do have a box of chocolate grahams waiting for that last minute breakfast, on the way to catch the bus.

And of course, I am sending lunch with Galen- but Ewan prefers school lunches. Ewan never liked what I packed anyways. He prefers a little more typical kid stuff probably, Like the zipper pants thing. Because his brother is so abnormal and life around here is not quite typical,he has a need to be normal.

Galen doesn't even know what normal is, and that's ok. I find Galen a little easier sometimes
Almost feel like it is a guilty pleasure to enjoy the fact that he is perfectly happy with the more available, healthier un-normal things in life.

Hormonally Speaking

Over to the right, on my sidebar, it says : I like chocolate, hot sex (with my precious hubby) sorry everyone else! and love babies.

That is true, but now I am going to tell you why I like them.

I like chocolate because it is full of hormones of the Phenylethylamine family. These include stimulants, antidepressants, and many other pharmacological usages, I also like chocolate because it is high in iron. There are some brands of dark organic chocolate that are so high in iron that all I would have to do to reach my USDA daily allowance is to eat 3 bars. - Now that is what I call a supplement!

I like hot sex, because it too is full of hormones. These hormones include: Oxytocin (hormone of love, bonding and the like. Also a pain killer), Dopamine (similar to heroin), Phenylethylamine, pheromones (the smells of connection and dirty socks), and seratonin (a mood lifter and calmer, similar to prozac). These hormones come wizzing out into your brain (and body) at an amazing speed of 250 miles per hour when you orgasm.

And why do I like babies? well, babies, when done right can give you shots of many of these hormones each time they feed. And when they get older, a cuddle will bring those hormonal memories back. In fact, in my not-so-humble opinion, if everyone breastfed their babies stressed out house wives would be much harder to find.

I find it absolutely amazing how well hormones work in our life if we let them do their jobs. This of course is assuming that we set up our lives so the hormones will help us and not hinder us.