Pop and chomp

I found out something about my daughter today that is so trivial but so interesting to me.

She can put a DOT in her mouth and suck on it until it is gone. Not chew it immediately, suck on it. She sucked on one small DOT until it disappeared, which took over 20 minutes. OVER 20 minutes!

I find this so fascinating because I could never, would never, have the jaw discipline to do that. If something goes in the gaping whole in my face, the jaw chews it: a sucker, hard candy, soft candy a cough drop. I instantaneously destroy anything popped in there.

What makes one wee four year old want to savor that for so long? What does that say about her and her personality? Will she remain a savor-sucker as an adult?

Do you suck on candy until it melts to nothingness or do you put it in and chew it to bits?

Wonder

There have been several moments this fall when I have caught KP standing and staring at something that seems magical to him, like leaves falling down off the trees and rushing around him, full moons dangling in the night time sky and this little puff that just happened to land right on his arm.

These are the moments, that as an adult, you get to live all over again through the eyes of your own child…and how wonderful those moments are when you take the time to just sit back and look.

Vegetable matter

Every Wednesday during the summer we would receive a box of vegetables from the farm we bought a share in. It was like getting a gift every week and you were never really sure what was going to be inside. It made cooking spontaneous and exciting, no longer did I plan that portion of the meal, I just Iron Chef’d it all week long.

The hard frost came along with the last box of the growing season yesterday…until next spring sweet veggies.

Sadistic little buggers

Yesterday the kids and I watched a boxelder bug land on the wall by the sconce while we were eating lunch. We kept watching it as it made its way closer and closer to the light.

The energy at the table started to increase as the kids started cheering this little bug on. It kept getting closer. Then the chanting started. “GO INTO THE LIGHT, WHERE IT’S NICE AND WARM; GO INTO THE LIGHT, WHERE IT’S NICE AND WARM!”

And just so it’s clear, my kids know for a fact that if a bug goes into the light…it will absolutely fry itself to death. And they kept cheering anyway.

End of an era

This past weekend we got to hang-out up north with some friends and all of our kids. The breakdown looks like this: 4 adults, 6 kids (1-6 year old, 2-4 year olds, 1-2 year old and 2 twin 1 year olds). We kept all the kids but the twins in the same room for purposes of sleeping, with everyone on the floor but KP who was in a pack-n-play.

He quickly realized he was big enough to jump out of the pack-n-play and for the rest of the weekend I would find him in places he shouldn’t be once he had escaped from his sleeping pod. The best was when I peeked in on the napping twins to find KP kick’n it in the crib WITH THE TWINS.

As PJ and I were enjoying watching Meredith and Matt this morning with my first of several cups of very strong coffee, CT and KP walked into the room.

Me: Heeeellooooow boys.
CT: Mom…mom…it’s so great!!! KP can get in and out of his crib HIMSELF.
Me: You didn’t help him at all?
CT: NO!
Me: He can get in and out and you did not help him at all?
CT: Mom, mom…I didn’t help him at all. Mom, it’s soooooo great!

And as great as it was to see how proud he was of his little brother and how proud KP looked as his older brother told me of his great accomplishment, what no one but a parent realizes is so how NOT great that is.

EPT

I took a pregnancy test today. I know, I know…crazy. Crazy on so many levels that I would like to spell them out for you (1) not trying to get pregnant (2) I have implanted in my uterus an IUD with a 99.9% effectiveness rate (3) I’m pretty sure baby number four would put us in the poor house as well as put me into a very tight straight jacket.

You see, I took it not because I really thought I was pregnant but because I wanted to rule it out. I’ve been having headaches for the past few weeks and just started to realize that they aren’t really going away. A normal person would first think of colds, allergies or maybe even stress to be the cause of these headaches. Me, no, I like to think BIG. Big like pregnant hormones pulsing through my veins.

This BIG thinking of mine brought me all the way to the store to purchase the test. As I peed on the stick in the Lifetime Fitness locker room and watched the urine seep into the window that will await my fait, I found myself feeling slightly excited. And once the time was up and there was only one pink line, instead of two, I felt the tiniest twinge of disappointment.

Can’t you just die already?

I find it so funny. The feelings I have in spring and fall and how equally strong but opposite they are, one for death and one for life.

The past few days I have done nothing but walk past my planters, which I have tended to religiously for the past five months and hoped for nothing but the first frost. I am done with them and want them dead.

Of course I can’t find it in myself to just pull them out and end it early, stopping the madness before their “quality of life” becomes trash. I must make them suffer to the bitter freezing end.

If my parents were smart they would read this and immediately call my brother and ask him to make all their future health care decisions.

A snap shot of our day together

As I was up on the ladder trying to wash some windows PJ was picking hydrangea leaves and singing:

I loooooooove my daaa-aaa-deeeee. I loooooove my maaaa-aaa-maaaa…but not toooooooodaaaaaaaay.

Note to self

It takes four days to be able to make it down a flight of stairs without pain after running a marathon.

The “thing” I shouldn’t be doing

Seeing this cute little hat started it…It started me knitting again. I saw a hat identical to it last year in the yarn isle of some random shop I was in and almost picked up the knitting needles, but then thought better of it. Then I saw it again, on mightygoods.com and thought “well hell, I LOVE that hat, I can make that”.

Since I need to buy a baby gift for my neighbor, who is due in January (which is plenty of time to get this little project done) I thought to myself what better a gift to give than a beautiful hand made baby hat. Wouldn’t you want that for your new little bundle of joy? I decided to take the plunge. I bought the needles and the oh so cute-soft-snuggly yarn and got to work.

I just wish I could purchase the patience to finish the fucking thing because I now have started it and ripped it apart and started it again, FOUR times.