I love summer. Picked this stuff this morning and then couldn’t wait to eat it. Tomato Basil Sandwich. Sliced cucumbers. Asparagus Beans sauteed in garlic and red pepper.
Archive for the ‘Home’ Category
Summer Breakfast
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010It Was Totally Me
Monday, May 24th, 2010First of all, why do i always start my period when I am going to the beach??? WHY?!
Secondly, the movie Whip It was fucking awesome and I want to make out with Drew Barrymore for producing awesome chick movies.
Thirdly, Yes. That was me. The one who tried to smush down the recycling in the blue recycling bin in the garage? By stepping on the pile? Then bouncing up and down, wearing flip flops? Whose flip flop then got caught, neighborhood kids looking on, as she pitched backwards to fall on her ass in the driveway, a cardboard 12-pack box still stuck on her foot?
Yeah. It was totally me.
Nim’s Island
Thursday, May 20th, 2010For some reason my kids barely make a peep during this whole movie. I mean, I know why I don’t make a peep: Two words- Gerard Butler. But what is it that they love about it? Anyway, this is how they looked when I came upstairs to see why it was so quiet.
Full House
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010Not sure how this happened, but I have six kids this afternoon. They just crack me up, with all the sibling, gender, age, and birth order dynamics. Also all the funny faces.
Tiller’s Latest Song
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010Rollie likes to invent wind machines to scare people. Tiller likes to make up songs. I am not kidding when I say that my jaw often drops at the inventiveness of her lyrics. This latest song was performed on my patio yesterday afternoon. I missed the first few lines, but todd and I are getting better at catching her songs on the Voice Memo app on our iPhones.
To set the scene, she is standing on the brick wall beside our patio. Dash and I are sitting below, and she has her arms stretched out wide and is making eye contact with us as she belts these out, like she was some banshee Julie Andrews character. When she discusses that she is going to do something, she is referring to jumping off the wall and flying like a bird. The breathless part of it is her jumping off then climbing back up.
This all started when she told me that she had jumped off the wall earlier and she thinks she “might have flown up a little bit.”
These children, so very different, absolutely rock my world. Even Rollie, whom i overheard tell Todd as I was leaving for my run tonight, “I hope she doesn’t come home.” I mean, what an ass – I just finished cooking his dinner and then doing the dishes. And yet i love him anyway.
Yes, my feelings were hurt. Doesn’t happen often, but it happened.
Tiller’s New Do
Thursday, March 4th, 2010Yep. Tiller’s turn to butcher her own hair. I have to give her credit- it does have kind of an edgy Joan Jett look to it.
Best Husband Ever
Saturday, February 27th, 2010Woke up this morning to hear Tiller singing 12 verses of her original song, “Whole World Friends.” Then Todd whispered that he was taking the kids to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast (kind of a ritual for Todd and the kids on Saturday mornings) and then they were going on to Lowe’s for their free kids’ building seminar, and they wouldn’t be back until lunch.
BEST. HUSBAND. EVER.
What are you going to be?
Thursday, February 25th, 2010Tiller and I were sitting on the love toilets this afternoon. (That’s what we call our Jack and Jill toilets, right by each other, but separated by a door. You can hold hands while taking a poo. Love toilets.)
Me: “What ya been doing?”
T: “I’m playing doctor with Snoopy.”
Me: “Are you going to be a Doctor when you grow up?”
T: “Maybe.”
Me: “You will have to study hard.”
T: “I will have to go to college.”
Me: “Yes, you will have to go to college and then medical college, too.”
T: “I can be anything I want to be.”
I nod my head, smiling.
Me: “Yes, you can.”
[Tiller sits there thinking, hand on fist, elbow on her knee.]
T: “Mama?”
Me: [wishing I could just read my magazine in peace.] “Yes?”
T: “What are you going to be when you grow up?”
Me: “Gosh, I don’t know. For right now, I am your Mama.”
T: “You can be anything you want to be.”
Me: “Thanks, baby.”
I think I mostly am what I want to be, but it’s nice to have her support. And it is nice that we are doing something right. She has gotten the message: She can be anything she wants to be.
Good Day Sunshine
Monday, February 22nd, 2010Woke up yesterday with a slight headache, but once I had lunch I felt fine. Spent the whole day outside with the family. Todd (finally) put up my Bulldog bird feeder. I moved Eddie Rabbit back to the edge of the treeline in the backyard, so that he will peek out at us on the patio. We cleaned the patio off, and I moved my new planters where I wanted them. We put out more birdfeed. Checked on the hydrangea I put in (it was one of my birthday gifts). Hung some wind chimes. Todd cleared out a huge section of our ivy and some ugly bushes (no idea what they are, but neither of us particularly like them). Talked about ideas for bed plantings in the future. Looked at bulbs starting to poke up through the ground. Oohed and aahhhed over the yellow crocus popping up around my Redbud. Picked up sticks. Poured pea gravel in the walk near the garage where we get a lot of runoff.
All the while, the kiddos ran around doing a “scavenger hunt” in the yard that I set up before we started. Then, Todd showered and we took the kids to St. Bede’s for some bike riding. One thing I hate about my house is that my street is a cut-through and jerks drive over the hill two houses up from me so fast that the kids wouldn’t have time to get out of the way of a car speeding. Our driveway is too steep to really ride. So, we take them to the park, or to the cul-de-sac up the street to ride. St. Bede’s is the best, though. A large, flat, shaded parking lot where the kids can ride in big sweeping circles. Rollie has gotten great at riding without the training wheels and Tiller is a daredevil with her training wheels. She almost flips that bike over three or four times whenever we take her out. It is gut-wrenching and thrilling to watch them.
Came back home, had a beer while grilling chicken and asparagus, and then ate that with scalloped potatoes. Yum.
Good day. My kids watched ZERO television yesterday. I LOVE warm weather.
Rollie Looks Into a Wardrobe (with Lucy, of Course)
Friday, February 19th, 2010Last night, Rollie chose a kids’ version of one of the Narnia Chronicles (the kids’ books are called “World of Narnia”) for Todd to read to him and Tiller. It is called Aslan, and Todd just said that it was “very abridged.”
After school, I let Rollie play some xBox, since it is friday, and he kept his four scoops, and he had no homework. I wanted him to go outside and play, since it is so nice outside, and we agreed that he would play 30 minutes of video games and then go outside.
Well, he got up and turned the tv off by himself. I did not know that kids were capable of this, but i did not show my alarm, but just rolled with it. He then turned to me and said, “Mama, do you care if I don’t play video games, but don’t go outside, and maybe read one of those wardrobe books?”
Um, does the pope wear a funny hat?!
“Of course,” i said, “where did you put your other ones?” I thought that he meant that he had another of the World of Narnia books and wanted to read it.
“No, I mean the ones with the numbers.”
Oh. He means he wants to read THE Narnia Chronicles.
(Side note: Yes, Todd and I are nerds. The series is on our bookshelves. Along with TLOTR, Harry Potter, and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series. You know, kids books for nerdy kids and their nerdy parents. Commence fun-making.)
Todd and I thought it was so cool he wanted to read the Aslan book last night, and we discussed whether he could read the real books and thought maybe they were too hard for him. But when he asked me i said, “Well, you can try one. Sure. It is a pretty big boy book, but I think you can try it and you let me know if you have questions about it, or don’t know a word, okay?”
Because i didn’t want to tell him that he couldn’t read it, if he wanted to try, but i also didn’t want him to read it and find it hard and then never go back and try to read it again, because let’s be honest, if you never read The Narnia Chronicles, there is a fundamental gaping hole in your childhood reading and, very likely, your soul.
So, here i am, working on some editing, watching him on the couch with a down comforter pulled over his legs, and his head on a pillow, and he is reading the first chapter of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, and I am about to die I am so nervous, but he appears to really be reading it, and . . . I think Todd and I could very likely explode at the dinner table tonight if we get to discuss Narnia with Rollie over dinner.
Update: He just asked me what “inquisitive” and “jollification” meant. Love that he is reading stuff that isn’t dumbed down. Makes me feel like we might be doing something right.
At least for today.