Resident Toy Stasher

One of my fears as a mother of only boys is that they will move away from home at 18 and call me only once a year on Mothers Day.

But I'm thinking maybe my concern resides in the wrong direction. We had to cut the nipples off of Jamie's bottles and hold a funeral around the trash can in order to wean him off the bottle. We had to shoot his diapers with a 12 gauge shotgun in order to potty train him at the tender age of 3 1/2.

And today, he pleaded with heart wrenching eloquence over every broken and worn out toy I threw away, as I tried to clean out and reorganize his room. Clearly the child is not fond of change. Maybe I should stop worrying about things I have no clue about.

Helicopters For Breakfast, and Your Elbow: The New Finger

I knew I was in for trouble today when Jamie tried to insist he sit in his carseat backwards today. Somehow I missed the memo that today was opposite day... at least for Jamie. "Look Mom" he said, pointing to the blue sky, "The sky is RED!". I peered up at the sky looking for a red plane, or maybe even a pinkish cloud as Jamie laughed riotously in the back seat, completely tickled at his own joke. It might have been funny if we weren't en route to his scheduled speech assessment. The one year follow up from last year (can't believe it's been a whole year). He can talk a thousand times better (which isn't difficult since before speech therapy, he didn't talk at all), and although I realize he has some issues with clarity and enunciation, I was looking forward to impressing the friendly staff with how much he'd improved. That was before I knew today was opposite day. If I'd known, I would have stayed home and saved the gas.

She asked him to point to the sleeping puppy, he pointed to the playful kitten.
She asked him to point to the orange circle, he pointed to the purple square.
She asked him what his name was, he said "Santa Claus"

Poor lady... I wanted so badly to help her, but she insisted she was fine. How was I supposed to explain that I knew where this was headed, the impish grin on his face was a dead give away. She tried to get nicer and sweeter, but it just made Jamie think it was funnier and funnier to thwart her every question.

She asked him where he went to bed, he said "in the kitchen".
She asked him what his favorite food was, he said "helicopters".
She asked him to point to three animals, he pointed to the chair, apple and scissors.

By this time Jamie was hanging upside down on his chair, using his toes to point to the pictures she was showing him. "No Jamie" she said sweetly, "don't use your feet, use your finger". He promptly used his tongue. "No Jamie" she tried again "Not your tongue, give me your finger."
She guided his index finger towards the picture. He quickly switched to using his elbow. "Jamie!" She said in super nice, pretend horror, "Is that your finger?"

"Yes" Jamie said, "This is me giving you the finger."

I don't even want to know what that speech assessment is going to conclude.

Oh, and sadly, opposite day met its untimely death this afternoon, because sometimes four-year-olds just don't understand when enough is enough of a good thing.

Mistborns and The Rebellion

I completely lost Jim to the distant and faraway city known as Luthadel, right around the same time Jamie and Charlie decided to morph into The-Children-I-Do-Not-Know.

I didn't think there could be any downside to a husband that has no problem letting me read whenever and as much as I want. After growing up with books hidden under the bed, books read with the hasty guilt of being caught, and books stashed in the bathroom (or hanging out the bathroom window on a rope after my siblings started doing regular sweeps of the bathroom), I thought I'd died and gone to heaven when I married a man who understood and sympathized with my addiction. The only problem is, he gets equally as lost in a good book as I do...except he takes three times longer to finish it. And don't take that as a sign I read fast, he just reads that slow.

I admire slow readers a lot more than I admire fast ones, but when Charlie has mastered the art of climbing onto the kitchen counters, and is simultaneously sharpening his temper tantrum skills, Jim's desperate hand gestures of "you won't believe what's happening now", are hardly consoling to me. Jamie, on the other hand, woke up two days ago and suddenly realized that he has been blindly accepting his chores and duties as if they were reasonable, acceptable requests. He plotted his revenge and started his ill-fated rebellion by wrapping his legs around the table, making clear eye contact and saying firmly and authoritatively "No. You're not the boss of me.", when I asked him if he'd fed the dog. This continued (and continues) over every little thing, from finding his shoes, to excusing himself from the table. He was a relatively well behaved four year old not 48 hrs ago, and I'd like to know what happened. For some reason, Jamie can't get it through his head that his parents are also equally stubborn firstborns, who can and will exercise an infinite amount of discipline and perseverance. Something Jamie always has to learn the hard way. In a way though, I can handle Jamie's outright mischievousness better than I can handle Charlie's quiet subterfuge.

Either way, I need to go find myself a good book. This week is going to need it.





(I know this one is out of focus, but it's the only one I have. :-( )

Grace and Panache

When you're a kid, it never occurs to you that you are currently creating your past. Heck, I can barely remember this as an adult.
Grownups tried to warn me with their whole "When I was a kid..." but when you are eight, even Christmas to Christmas and birthday to birthday seems like an unfathomable distance, let alone the realization that you won't always live in the same house, have the same friends, or play in the same backyard.

Somehow that inescapable truth hit me like a ton of bricks... 2009's last punch on the way out. Jim and I were up in Pasadena to welcome in the new year, and somehow our spontaneous date turned into an even more spontaneous jaunt to my childhood home. Unsurprisingly, everything looked smaller, and yet still exactly the same. There was the rolling picket fence across the driveway that my dad installed to keep us kids from accidentally chasing a ball into the busy street, the river rock wall with geraniums that my dad and Grandpa built and the bike path that went behind our house. Jim and I parked the car and walked along the trail. We used to have a garden behind our back fence, but it now more closely resembles a jungle. I tromped through it and stood on the spot where my four year old self asked Jesus into her heart... back then it was just a tomato garden, now it's just a spot where my 26 year old self tries to catch a glimpse of me when I was Jamie's age. So bizarre.

We stood on our tiptoes and peered over the back fence into the back yard. Jim acted like he was committing some sort of crime, whereas I felt just as "at home" as I always felt there. I'm sure the neighbors or police would have understood. I could have pitched a tent right there on the spot and never moved. I miss the fact that all my people are growing old, and changing. I'm changing. I know this year will bring good changes along with the bad changes.

I pray I have the grace to survive it.

Petrified Spider Legs (as in turned-to-stone)

You can always tell how unproductive I've been, or how depressed I am, by the state of my home...

...And it is currently spotless, which translates to me being a complete, and mental basketcase.

I've always bemoaned the sad state of my cupboards to Jim, and he always points out the hours I've spent writing, taking pictures, and playing with the kids. Well right now half my kitchen has been overhauled, Jim's dresser has been emptied, sorted and reorganized, and I have bags of stuff ready for the Salvation Army. Conversely, my camera and I aren't on speaking terms, the dog is hiding under the table, and the kids are watching Wonder Pets.

I was supposed to feel a wonderful sense of accomplishment at the sanitized state of my home, but instead I feel...well...still ho hum. Not only is my ability to create, and accomplish anything at an all time low, but I'm also not likely to succeed at proper housekeeping any time soon either. Because lets fact it, I really like to look at my toilets as fungal gardens, and my floors as 24hr soup kitchen for colonies of antenaed insects. It's also not going to win me any points with the more orderly people in my life when I prove yet again that my skills lay more in the picking up and putting away of toys, than they do in cleaning and reorganizing.

I'm not sure if I'm in the minority on this, or if other people only deep clean their house when they are depressed too. On a side note, if anyone has any tips on keeping ones house clean, I'm all ears (because maybe I'm not truly a hopeless case). The petrified state of certain spiders found in the dark recesses of my shelves was alarming.

Life on the hill

Jamie uses a tea infuser to catch tiny pretend butterflies. Cute except for the part where he keeps opening the door to release the butterflies and the dog runs out to chase the rabbits on the lawn. Apparently we have a lot of invisible butterflies in this house. That and the constant Monster infestation we always have, while little tea balls may be good for catching butterflies it takes a big yoga ball to take out a monster. The 32 inch sphere is supposed to be my computer chair to help me build core muscles, but instead it flies around the house taking out gremlins and other suspicious creatures hiding behind the couch.

Charlie (although not on crack, or alcohol or any other known substance other than copious amounts of yogurt) is...well odd. He spins round and round before collapsing on the floor in laughter before he gets up and does it again. He also boogies everywhere, all the time, and eats like he's a starting linebacker for a Texas highschool. His pediatrician however is worried because he's so scrawny he doesn't even register on the growth chart. Considering I was the smallest person in every sunday school class until I was 16 makes me think it's more genetic than malnourishment, but I'm still spiking all his food with whole fat yogurt or olive oil. Jamie and I (as firstborns) want to know though, is it normal for second-borns to be an emotional comedian from sunup to sundown? We're quite dubious. We just want to know that wearing underwear on your head while climbing a dresser, falling down in giggles and climbing back up it, is expected behavior.

I'm so far in over this whole book writing thing, it's not even funny. I'm totally and completely stuck and I'd throw the whole thing in the trash if Jim wouldn't growl at me. I've read so much good stuff lately and so much bad stuff that uncomfortably resembles my own writing that it's left me more blocked than processed-carb-fed-human (dont think about that one too long). I cant give up though, and as much as I'd like to throw in the towel, it's just a matter of "when" rather than "if". I'd appreciate any techniques or help if anyone has them. Right now my characters are boring me to tears. Someone please rescue them.

Rubber Rooms and Hill Fairies

There are few things I dislike more than pizza which puts me somewhere in between a person with no soul and a person with no taste. Or maybe both. I'm eating it now and it actually tastes good, which proves what kind of day I've had; It may or may not be the first thing I've eaten all day. (and should also reassure anyone that I can and will eat pizza happily if you serve it to me at your house).

Sometimes I'm convinced I was born with the missing genetics to be a mom. You know how they tell you your own baby's wails in the middle of the night will wake you up? Wrong. As evidenced by my parents once coming into Jamie's room in the wee hours of the morning to find his newborn self screaming bloody murder while Jim and I were passed out on the floor. Sleep deprivation does have its limits.
The pediatrician happens to agree I'm a horrible mother. They called today at 4pm "Mrs Ramsey, were you going to bring Charles in for his TB check?" Crap. They are seriously the only practitioner/therapist/doctor we have or ever have had that didn't give reminder calls (our dentist will even text you a reminder). I survive on reminder calls. I know I shouldn't, but the truth of the matter is I can hardly remember to take eat breakfast most days let alone remember that Charlie's vaccines on Tues included a TB shot that needed to be checked in 2-3 days. The stone-cold lady at the front desk had no mercy on me, and I am dutifully repentant.

I was already having a bad day, but by the time I spent over an hour in rush hour traffic for a ten second confirmation my son doesn't have tuberculosis, I literally got home and wanted to scream into a pillow...until I heard Jamie screaming outside. I rushed to see what the problem was, only to find it was a happy conversation between him and "my friend in the hill", because yes Jamie discovered his echo today.

We laid down on a rock and yelled at the echoes till Jim got home with beer and pizza. Good man.

Our satellite dish is broken and rats have chewed through the electrical wiring on the hot tub (which oddly enough resembles an old monitor plug...who knew?). The kids have declared that in case of such emergency (the lack of Little Einsteins in the morning), they will instead dig holes and play in the mud. I'm supposed to be impressed they get Barnabas to dig holes for them, but I'm not. And yes Jamie, I have noticed he can dig faster and deeper than either you or Charlie.
We have played in the mud every day since last Thurs, not counting the weekend, and each time it started without my knowledge. It's like they wait and watch, distract me with a plea for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and Bam! they're out the door and in the mud before you can say scudder's-all-natural-peanut-butter. I do what any self respecting person would do in the same situation. I join in on the mudflinging until all we can see is the whites of each others eyeballs and then I hose everyone off. The lawn gets watered, the kids get bathed, and everybody's happy. Until the next day when they do it all over again. Urgh.




I'm snowed under an immense pile of photo editing and even with the addition of Lightroom, thirty min of Dora the Explorer would help tremendously. I'm putting up a few of a family photoshoot this afternoon, and some of a wedding I shot last weekend. So if you want to check them out, go take a peek at my photography blog.

The New Pecking Order

We got Chickens!



Six of them to be exact. And they're all different colors, shapes and sizes, although this one is the cutest in my opinion. She doesn't have a name yet, but check out those rockin blue legs. We ordered them in April, so we had pretty much given up ever seeing them and then Jamie arrived Sunday from his grandparents house belting "CHICKENS...we've got CHICKENS!!" which sent us scrambling trying to figure out what to do with them. They ended up in the garden, but they've since learned how to jump the fence so Jim is frantically building them a coop, and until then Barnabas alerts us to when they've escaped.
At least thats the idea.

And yes, this is my new blog. While you're here you can add it to your subscriptions. ;-)
The xanga one has lived a good life and is passing on to the next life.