Amish Horse Auction

Over the past weekend, we went to an Amish horse auction.  It was our first time, but we'll definitely go back.  When we do, I will make a bigger effort to get our daughter to dress less like a princess and emphasize the dignified darker colors.  Blending in is ok as a survival tool.

There were many things for sale that we may have enjoyed biddng on but the kids refused to participate in quilt browsing, preferring to frolic with the myriad rabbits, pygmy goats, chooks, or horses - Oh! the horses!  Each one had to be cart-driven by one of the hosting Amish men to show off their chops.  This fellow seemed to be the local Amish favorite, causing a wave of twitters amongst the young Amish girls I stood next to.  He was a handsome fellow, almost making the dutch boy haircut work for him. 

It definitely speaks to who I am that I simply couldn't get past the sad fact of all that black suiting made of polyester double-knit.  Gack!  There is nothing less comfortable, less attractive, and scratchy.  It can make you sweat on a 30 degree day,  but it does indeed wear like iron.  The poor Amish elders must miss the days of wool and cotton.

There was much physical investment that helped the naps and later bedtimes.  Bale jumping, ring around the rosy, and running amongst the barns. 

  We passed the parking lot on the way back to our car.

Very nice, but I love my Mazda.

Wool Longies, Just in Time

I believe that in the winter, one wears layers. When outside, we have thick down coats on, woolens wrapped around all our exposed skin, and warm sturdy boots. Inside, we aim for 3 layers on top and two on the bottom. I keep the thermostat at a frugal 65 degrees day and night. We have friends who keep their houses 80 degrees and their kids play all day in t-shirts and thin pants, which boggles me a bit. It would feel lovely on our skin, but offends my sense of season.

I was recently shopping for woolen long underwear for the kids since the winter is sustaining the cold temperatures and snow that I so love. $70 for a set of long johns - and I'd need at least three sets - quickly set me on to a new path and I decided to sew my own. I bought a bunch of wool and cashmere adult sweaters at the local thrift store and felted them in the washer, folded them and then waited for the trifecta of enough time, energy and inspiration to strike at the same minute. It took about a month.

You can find other folk's tutorials here and here. I just winged it after perusing those posts. My kids are big enough that pants to fit them used both entire sleeves and most of the chest of the sweaters; this gives the pants a slightly "built-in panty" look, like I did a far sight more sewing than I actually did. Pequita's pants were made from a matronly vintage pink boiled wool cardi, Monito's from a women's merino sweater that hadn't been in fashion since I was 11 years old, dancing with a sweaty Kelsey Mason to a young new band called The Police. The sleeves were so long that when he wears his pants, they fold up almost his entire lower leg; these are like having on leg warmers over pants.
Both kids loved them. Cozy, stretchy, and made just for them. (I am really lucky that they get a thrill out of that, enjoying the process of making as I do.)



In the above photo, I asked them to smile at the camera so I could take their picture. Pequita opted to have me record her for all eternity earnestly singing her favorite song, Ariel's aria from the Little Mermaid. Monito? He's my little ham.

We ran errands all morning, ending up at Jillian's Drawers, an amazing cloth diapering/natural toys web business that has a home base in my town. They sell the special pacifier that Monito requires, and the kids love their selection of toys. Pequita was playing with the wooden toy kitchen while I chatted with the lovely owner and then I saw it, the expression of surprise and panic on her face that could mean only one thing: accident. Her play lately has been increasingly focused; she gets very deeply engrossed in her imaginings. It has caused a few accidents as she misses her body's cues that were before huge red flags for her. So there we were, on the store's carpet (of course) with no extra pants or socks, soaked from the waist down. The owner couldn't have been kinder, and whipped out some absorbent cloths for me to remedy the situation. I squeeze-dried the wool pants for a minute and they were fine, dry enough to comfortably wear out into the cold. I LOVE these new pants! I'm delightfully motivated to transform the rest of the stack of sweaters into pants. That might mean a continued diminished blogging level, but I'll do my best to balance all my creative endeavors.

Gingerbread Houses

We did our annual trek to the mega grocery store today to participate in the gingerbread house building class. For $10, the kids each get a base house and all the royal icing and candy they need to decorate it, and I don't have to clean up or to chisel the icing off my kitchen afterward.

We had some friends join us this year and it was a huge success. Monito really shone, wielding the icing bag like a culinary school graduate. I barely had to help him - he actually had some good design ideas. I built him a chimney, and he let me ice & decorate his ice cream cone tree because I was itching to do one of my own, but other than that he worked until his supplies dried up. Pequita, on the other hand, could barely take time off from her candy consumption to bother sticking some to her house.
This gave Auntie Kiko free reign, and together they did a lovely job. We now have 2 hardening houses covered in contraband drying in the pantry behind the baby gate. We'll pick at them for a few days and then they will disappear.

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By the way - the two sites below are chock full of holiday (and year-round) crafty goodness for those of you so inclined.

The Crafty Crow
Gingerbread Snowflakes

Bounty

One week's fruit share in 2009

(not including the 2 other grape clusters and
4 plums the kids ate on the way home)

We belong to both a veggie and fruit CSA here in town every summer. It supplies us with a week's worth of fruit for eating; many weeks I bought extra fruit from the CSA wholesale to preserve and also because my kids can consume massive quatities of fresh fruit. It is all coming to fruition now, as the snowflakes are falling (as I write this - yay!) Sour cherries, peaches, pears, apples, all by the 5-gallon bucket or bushel crate. I was a tad busy in the evenings.

A couple days ago, I served the kids canned peaches that I put by this summer.
They were complaining about all the apples I was serving them, and I made a huge flourishing presentation of peaches in (very light) syrup over Greek yogurt. They were properly awed, and we got to discuss how these canned peaches happened, where they came from, how much fun it is to have yummy summer food on our table when it is too cold for it to grow outside. I am pleased that they seem to understand the food cycles of our household, and realized I need to start planning our own garden layout for next spring. Hopefully, we can do more seed starts ourselves and buy fewer young plants. I expect to remain a member of the two CSAs until our own gardens supply us with enough food.

The kids and I make our weekly trip to the farm to pick up our fruit and veggies an event. We see our friends there, pick flowers and tomatoes and herbs and fruit in the u-pick fields, we play with (chase) the chickens and guinea hens, and Monito caresses the tractors (only after greeting them by name. "Hello, Green Tractor. Hello, Big Yellow Tractor with Dragging Thingy" Mommy needs to learn the names of more farm equipment, clearly.) I consider it early homeschooling about food, science, nature and the seasons that we get to do out in the sun.

Halloween

Halloween was a raging success this year. We started working on the fear issues months ahead of time, visiting Lowe's no fewer than 5 times a week to deprogram both kids out of residual holiday terror from last year, but particularly Monito, with the scary battery op witch who cackles, stirs her cauldron of spells, and - most notably - blinks her leering red eyes when the motion sensor detects small children nearby. We started out with them in the cart squeezing shut their eyes while I raced by at top speed, ignoring the Walmart-like greeter Lowe's now sports by the doors. We graduated to the same thing but on foot, and the kids would peek at the witch from the safety of the paint aisle, 40 feet away. By the time Halloween was upon us, they were both sauntering by her and pulling up her skirt saying, "Look, Mommy - she doesn't even have legs. She's PLASTIC, not real." I was so proud.

We did buy a couple of used costumes, but mostly they outfitted themselves from our dress up box. We did two events this year, the local grocery store's trick-or-treating on Thursday, and then for the first time we actually walked around in the dark going door-to-door asking for candy.

Monito, their buddy Captain America, and Pequita, all ready to go. With a little coaching about what constitutes a good house to approach (decorations, porch light on) the kids took off. Captain America was a trooper, methodical and diligent in his careful collection of treats. Monito couldn't get past the CANDY! in his PUMPKIN! and had to stop and eat piece after piece. Pequita was clearly more interested in the thrill of the hunt, and raced from house to house screaming LIGHT ON! LIGHT ON! as she speed walked the neighborhood. Clearly, we'll be graduating to the bigger hunting grounds next year, the Mecca of all things Halloween, Fall Creek. It is 10 square blocks or so of densely populated neighborhoods, where nearly everyone participates. These are the people who have to shell out the big bucks so they don't run out of treats on the toddlers by 8 pm when the serious trick-or-treaters start their rounds.

Our first year in our house, four miles out of town, no sidewalks, rural but still populated, we were visited by only one family. A woman saw all our hopeful decorations, artfully carved pumpkins, lights blazing and stopped her minivan full of kids to come to our door. As they each took a couple pieces of our mounded bowl of candy, she explained that we wouldn't get anyone at our house; all the families from three towns head down to Fall Creek where the candy is dense and easy to get. I was crushed. Luckily, I had lots of candy in which to drown my disappointment. She was right, too - we have never had any other trick-or-treaters since. We are raising a generation of soft kids. I remember ranging far and wide for our candy as a kid. We had to pass by swamps, fields, deserted houses and dark forests between houses, which really made it more fun and scary.

My kids had a few pieces of candy on the actual holiday, then traveled with their Mama on Sunday. Monday was candy day; right before naps, I handed them each their loaded plastic pumpkin full of candy and told them that they could eat all they wanted. Oh, the rustling, the deciding, the laying out of options and game plans. That was all Pequita. Monito just started eating and kept going until I said stop. My boy, he can concentrate like the dickens. After that, I told them that in the night, the Great Pumpkin was going to come and trade in all their left over candy for a toy, and in their bloated, sugar-sick state they seemed a little glad to hear it. The next morning found a few Little Critter Pets (or whatever they are called) and a stuffed Max and Ruby doll in place of candy, and everyone seems to be happy with the holiday.

Fall Hiking

When in doubt, go outside.

The kids are as invigorated by the weather change as I am. We are hiking a couple times a week, along the lake front where we can find driftwood and fish carcasses to talk about, in the woods where there are mushrooms and fairy houses to see, in our back 40 (or 10, which it actually is) where we track the bird nests which are full or empty depending on the season, the snake migrations and collect deer bones.

Last week we went to a nearby state park and walked part of the way around a large lake. It was a treat for us all, and the kids played with the mushrooms and gave me heart attacks as they wended their way on the path bordered by a steep drop off into the lake with a fair bit of skill. A picnic at our halfway point and then we retraced our steps. I used to feel it was very important to make it all the way around a path/ lake/ circuit so we had Accomplished Something, but when I listened to the needs of the kids we toned it down and did some delicious backtracking. They don't understand the accomplishment of 'finishing'. They revel in welcoming old friends, like the rotting log they just climbed on, the giant mushroom they buried in leaves and now uncover, sloshing through the same river they've already sloshed through. If I follow their lead there are so few complaints, so many joys, such easy learning and being.

I don't know as much as I think I do.


Not so much joy here as panic as Pequita almost dropped my beloved and god-awfully expensive digital camera. Her first photo shoot - not bad framing for a kid who'll be three this Sunday, eh?

Duck Derby

Releasing 36OO rubber ducks into a gorge river was a truly magnificent event. Each duck was numbered and the numbers raffled off for a fund raiser for our local cooperative extension. We will make a tradition of this for sure.

First Hot Day

We had a really full, nice day. The Volvo was leaking oil so Homestead Mama took it down to get looked at this morning; the kids refused to be left behind, so she took them along and to a diner for breakfast. I slept in.

At 11am we attended the season opening of the local Children's Garden with some friends. There were festivities and lots of playing in the sandbox, watching the mating frogs trail eggs in the pond, playing in the tiny house made of straw bale construction, and building fairy houses. Pequita really got into this, and ours was rudimentary by my standards, but she insisted it have a bed made of cattail fluff, a picnic table and enough chairs for the fairy and her friends, a little walnut shell of water in case she gets thirsty, and some seeds for food. We built it at the base of a tree so we could do it in the shade, as it was eighty degrees and sunny. It was so much fun - this is definitely something we'll do around our house.

At noon we jumped in the car and headed to the closest Mazda dealer which is an hour away, ensuring the kids would nap on the way. We bought a car today, an 'O9 Mazda 5 micro-minivan crossover. Whatever. Consumer Reports loves it, and it gets great mileage for a car with 3 rows of seats. It is still under warranty, as it has only 6k miles on it; some Mazda manager had it as a job perk. It is superfluous that it is a beautiful red, comes with a spoiler, moon roof and - Homestead Mama's favorite thing - custom carpet mats. What really matters is that *I* will have to be the primary driver, as H-Mama's commute will blast through the warranty in a few short months, whereas my in-town meandering will take a lot long to reach 36k miles. I am going to make waterproof slipcovers for the seats, since they are pale beige it would only be a matter of days until the specific slick layer of toddler goo permanently marred the perfect interior. We'll go and finalize the deal on Tuesday. I have a doctor's appointment a few miles from the dealership anyway that day to start seeing about filling up the other seats of the car. More about that in another post.

We stopped on the way home for Mexican food and the kids were so good that we decided to give them the gift of their first A&W root beer float for dessert. Both H-Mama and I have really wonderful memories of going to A&W as kids, the wooden-handled mugs, the joyful treat of it all. Our kids loved it; you can still sit in your car and order food, but we sat inside at a table. You have to order your food from a phone hanging in your booth, which was the source of much amusement.

It was a super day. Full, sticky, too sunny, really busy, but successful on every front. The kids were asleep quickly, as will we be shortly.

Dive In, The Water is Great

We went back to the YMCA yesterday and went swimming, and it was a huge success. My kids have blossomed since I last took them swimming. Pequita has always loved the water, but has been - blessedly - cautious. This summer, she really loved the ocean and jumping in the waves. Today, she revelled in the baby pool. She has little fear of the water, and figured out that she can stand unattended in the shallow end of the baby pool; she loved clinging to the filter lip of the pool and moving from one side of the pool to the other all the while telling me to 'Go 'way! Go 'way!' It is a gratifying to see her develop independence like this. She loves beyond measure to jump off the edge of the pool into our arms.

Monito is still more cautious than his sister, but was game for all we did. Floating, jumping of the sides of the pool, blowing bubbles. He was content to stay in our arms while in the water, but was so very excited. We can sign up for a swim class without a Y membership; it looks like that's what we'll be doing. With a response like this, wouldn't you?

YMCA, I hardly knew ye

We have been paying for the local YMCA for several months and not going. The kids refuse to stay in the free daycare rooms; four times of being pulled out of the pool, or worse yet, the sauna, to return to an inconsolable child in the nursery was enough for me to take a break. In an effort to save money, we've cancelled it. The last few days of our membership coincide with Homestead Mama's vacation, so we've been going a lot as a family. After a couple days without leaving the house, we popped over at 6pm the night my parents left to release energy by running after basketballs. Homestead Mama was on the varsity ball team in high school, even at 5'1". She thrills the kids by lifting them up over her head and pushing the ball out of their hands towards the basket. The kids feel like they're shooting the ball, and they get it in a surprising percentage of the time.

And I am on the varsity nursing team, and did what I do best. In public. The teenaged boys also on the court missed a lot more shots once I started tandem nursing on the sidelines.
I realized recently that I am one of a very few moms still nursing a kid over 2 years old. If anything, Pequita is nursing more now than ever. I nurse both kids on demand, and it isn't unusual for me to be strolling along the main drag with one kid alongside me and the other in my arms nursing away as I walk. Or to pull over the grocery cart and let both kids tank up in the cheese isle. I barely notice, but I suspect everyone else does. I feel a bit like an ambassador for nursing; even if folks think it a bit odd, it is good for them to see it happening. I always knew I wanted to nurse the kids for a long time, but didn't realize I'd be one of a tiny constituency doing so.

Treetops

I haven't been to our local nature center for a few years. It all seemed too old for my kids. Today, in a fit of not knowing what to do with us all, we went there. It sports a live animal display inside, as well as many skeletons and stuffed [eeeew] native animals. BORING. In the acreage behind the building, there is a butterfly house, a raptor cage and a 6-story tree house built by, I think, Bob Leathers. SIX stories of climbable tree house. Whatever made me think this wasn't right for a two year old?

The approach.
Climbing the ladders.In the attic six flights above the forest floor.
We all loved it. We will, I suspect, go there at least once a week through the winter in all but the coldest of times. It is relatively safe, and the babes can only fall 6-8 feet instead of the possible 6 stories. The stairs loop around all over, and there are ladders to each floor and some secret locations as well. It is all open to the outside but has 1" mesh screen cladding all exterior sides.



On the way home, we stopped at the consignment store and spent a few dollars on this very special chair. Oh, happy day. While it is ostensibly for both kids to share, Pequita didn't remove her heiny from it for almost an hour of dinner and Sesame Street musical DVD. She has found her cozy spot, and it is set for the winter. I guess I'm in the market for a wing back chair for Monito. Sigh.

Evening

We spent the early evening working off the sugar from our french toast at brunch at the near by park. It is right on the lake near our house. The migrating geese are plentiful this time of year and amazing in their numbers and volume. We threw rocks into the lake, played on the playground and carried some nice driftwood logs home to use when we rebuild our stairway. I have so much gratitude sometimes for my family and life.

State Fair

Free tickets again this year to the state fair. Last year, Monito was three months old and Miss Pequita was terrified of the goats. This year, we rode rides and were largely uninterested in the boring farm animals.
Giraffes, however, were another thing. Feeding them carrots was a blast, and Monito kept asking for MORE! MORE!

Lifetime Quality

Both Homestead Mama and I grew up with parents who worked hard for what little they had, and like most folks have grandparents who lived through the depression and passed on frugality as a lifestyle. While this frugality seems to fade a bit more with each generation, H-Mama and I each have parts of our lives in which we live very conservatively and purposefully more out of choice versus need. We strive to live with less consumption both to save money but also to keep frugal habits that we can pass on to the kids. Frugal living is a muscle that must be flexed; it is all too easy to get in the habit of buying whatever you want.

I remember my father's workbench in the basement, the surface covered in decades of paint drips and nicks from tools put there by many previous owners. The edges of all the shelves rounded and softened with years of use. The vice clamped permanently onto the edge of the bench was good for many fun experiments. The smell of sawdust, paint thinner, oil, and that cool, dusty but embracing smell of basements accompanied all our activities down there. I love that scent to this day. We got to spend our precious alone-time with Dad down there, doing projects, playing, and being taught how to use tools. It was a huge treat to be allowed to help change the powdery mantle on the lantern before a camping trip, or have his big hand cover ours and guide the wood burner as we made patterns and burned our names onto mother's day projects. I got the Visible Woman model for Christmas one year and Dad spent hours at the workbench putting her together alongside me.

Homestead Mama remembers her first solo woodworking project at her dad's workbench - a boat made with scrap wood and nails. As many nails as she wanted [do you see where this is going?]. Her dad gave her the hammer and let her whack away until she felt it was done. She was so proud of her boat, and her father encouraged her wildly. She sadly, and much to her father's dismay, insisted on filling the bathtub for a maiden voyage. All the structural integrity offered by the better part of a box of nails holding the boat together was the source of the devastation of all her hopes and dreams for her beloved boat as the water rose around it and over the top of it as it failed to float. In confused desperation, she picked it up, dried it off and set it gently upon the surface of the water. It made an audible clunk as it hit the bottom of the tub, sinking like a ten-penny nail-encrusted stone.

My dad had all his paintbrushes carefully washed and wrapped in newspaper to protect the bristles and hanging in the tool cabinet. They were years old, but the bristles were in perfectly good condition due to good care. This same respect for paintbrushes was instilled in both H-Mama and I, so when we bought the Homestead we invested in Purdy paintbrushes which will last through decades of painting if you care for them well.

Over the past few years, as our own work on the Homestead has lessened, we've loaned out our painting supplies and other construction materials to friends to help out their projects. Everyone has been generous to us with their time and tools, and we are happy to pay that forward. However, I was ready to paint the new kitchen shelves and couldn't find any of our brushes. Very sad, as I assume they died a lonely and paint-encrusted death long before their usefulness should have been up. So when Homestead Mama and I went to pick her car up from its oil change site yesterday, we stopped at Home Depot on the way home to buy some paintbrushes. At $15 or so per brush, this is an expense I had hoped to not have more than once, but we now have a few new brushes to get our immediate projects taken care of. I'll build our supply back up over time so as not to crack the budget. H-Mama called in a take-away order of Indian food for our dinner and drove home with the sleeping babies, leaving me to pick up the food. I drove by the restaurant and noticed how packed it was, assumed that I had at leat 25 minutes to waste before the food was ready and headed over to the massive book sale that our town puts on twice a year to fund our library. It was torture to leave after only 15 minutes or so - I've killed entire afternoons at the book sale before - but I still managed to score a bunch of books to help me crack the mysteries of child-rearing. I'll have to play years 4 and 5 and 8 by ear since they didn't have the books from the much-recommended Ames and Ilg series for those years, but otherwise I'm good through puberty. I feel more confident in my parenting already, and at at the huge bargain of about $1.50 a book.


You can see some some crappy books fell in my bag on the way out and I was too lazy to pull them out.

Mary Mary Quite Contrary

If Mary = Pequita, then yes, contrary it is. She is going through a developmental spurt that prompts her to sag as if boneless to the ground and lie there like Gandhi passively resisting any sort of intervention by me or H-Mama. Two seconds is far too long for her to be expected to struggle with any task; after that she flings things away from her and either wails or growls, depending on the prevailing emotion. The only saving grace is that the spells are short-lived. One of the parenting books I like says to talk to a kid like a caveman during these episodes, keeping any complicated words out of it since they are shut down anyway. Sage advice.

On a lighter note, we have joined a CSA this year. My herb plot is near the kitchen and after two years of lying fallow due to pregnancies and babies it is 2/3 cleared and almost ready for the first crop of lettuce, tomatoes and basil, marjoram, thyme and whatever else strikes me as yummy this year. The oregano comes back each spring, which is always a treat. The CSA will give us a weekly crop of organic veggies that will cost out at cheaper than the grocery store and also supports local farmers. Win-win. Maybe this summer we can get our big plot at least tilled in preparation for planting next year; right now it is just a marked off acre in the field we own next to the house and a dream. A few beds prepared each year should be manageable, no? We'll see.

Hometown Love

I met some friends for brunch on Saturday. We are planning another big moms group family party, where we rent out a gymnasium and each bring a big toy or wagon or slide. Potluck food, a little spiked punch for the parents, and loads of fun. Lots of talk of travels, food, children's issues, you know, what constitutes edgy topics these days. We had our party planning discussion over fried eggs with apple, potato and sausage hash and lattes (mmmm) and then headed off to the new boutique baby store a block away. It is delightful - the owner had been running it out of her home for a while, and just got a storefront. She had all the fun, funky and expensive toys that I'd been reading about on the web but never got to touch. All things cloth diapering, maternity and nursing garb, lead-free toys, the perfect birthday present for my nephew who is turning two (!) in March. She also carries many different types of slings and carriers; I rented a KarmaBaby pouch sling to see if it would work for us. I have been meaning to whip up a pouch for ages out of some of my extensive fabric stash, but the time keeps eluding me. I could really use a pouch NOW, since I have to haul at least one baby outside with me for a quick potty run with the puppy. My wrist pain makes carrying a floppy 25 lb + baby around while also holding onto a vigorous dog on a leash more than uncomfortable. (Have I mentioned how excited the concept of getting Cosmo trained to the invisible fence makes me?) Anyway, the pouch sling will work but is fairly unattractive - they call it mocha; I call it ugly brown. I shall cut a pattern and find the time to make one. We did manage to talk the store owner into offering a door prize for the party which will be fun. I could easily spend a gift certificate in there! We'll approach a few more local stores. It is good that the moms group is 50+ strong and growing. There is a lot of power in numbers.

I had time left before H-Mama expected me home, so I zipped to the feed store to get nice big raw shank bones with bits of meat on them for the dogs. Big crowd pleaser, those. Anything I can do to help Cosmo piece together the difference between baby toys and dog toys is good. The baby toys do smell less like beef - he ought to be able to grasp that. Then on to the grocery store for a few items and a rolicking nice chat in the magazine section with a couple of novice knitters debating the necessity of following what the pattern said and actually buying a bowl the size of your head upon which to dry a felted hat. Um, you have your HEAD which is the exact right size to mold it to, right? These two pleasant women pegged me for a new mom immediately as I was swaying markedly as I perused the renovation mags. They had seven boys between them - egads! Then home to my family and a lovely warm afternoon in the house with the weather raging outside. As the afternoon wore on, we all needed a bit of distraction so we went off to the science museum with the kids. Pequita loves the turtles at the sea turtle display especially right now. After only an hour, we had closed down the place and we popped by Target to get some toxic fluid to keep my gas from freezing in the predicted 5 degree weather. We had a family nurse in my favorite spot in the Global Bazaar - private, but not hidden, with lots of gewgaws for Pequita to mess around with. They had a lot of boats on display in the mall, and I wanted to let Pequita play on her favorite, a huge pontoon boat with white leather seats. No go, though - there were a bunch of teenagers hunkered down. I figured that we could scare them off if I tromped up there with the baby, but I actually said to H-mama, "No, let's let the mall rats have their fun on a Saturday night." Um, when did I get OLD?

Sunday morning we went to the dog park to romp Cosmo. Since he isn't allowed loose in the invisible fence yet, he needs to RUN once in a while, and my town just fenced in three acres in the park for dogs. As we arrived, the 20 mile-per-hour winds picked up and a lot of snow started blasting down and the temp dropped to about 15 degrees. Most folks took their dogs and ran, but we just loaded the snowsuited kids into the stroller, snapped on the rain covers for some wind protection and took off for a walk. My kids watched Cosmo and Homestead Mama romp inside the fence as we walked around the perimeter. My Phil & Ted's stroller made it through two inches of snow on a grass path beautifully. Somewhere along the way they both fell asleep, and H-Mama and I had a nice time sitting in the warm car with sleeping babies watching the storm. Very peaceful, and their aren't too many moments like that together.

C'est moi

My dad took a picture of me in my element when he was here - bopping around with the babes in the stroller decked out in snowsuits & sipping hot liquids.

We Love Democracy

I took the kids with me to vote. Never too late to start changing the world.

Operation Sleep: day who-the-fuck-knows

Monito woke me up four times last night, but a few minutes of bouncing on the yoga ball was sufficient to get him back to sleep. There was no long 5-hour stretch of staying awake. And Pequita has slept well at night. She is, however, still struggling to nap in her crib during the day. Homestead Mama put her through the crib-training paces this morning, and ended up bringing her downstairs again after an hour of no-sleep-just-screaming, which is what we agreed to do. After that, we kept her awake all day, and I took both babies to the local indoor play space from 3:30 - 5:30 pm for a change of pace, and to give H-mama some quiet time to herself in the house (she lets me sleep in each weekend mornings when possible). Pequita was asleep in the car within 2 miles, but I woke her exhausted butt up once we arrived 6 minutes later. She played hard and with excitement for two full hours on no naps at all; by the end she was coming to visit and lean on me more and more. Monito stayed awake and engaged the whole time. Then we went home for the yummy pork loin in lemon garlic sauce that H-mama cooked while we were gone. Homestead Mama took the night shift of putting her to bed at her regular time, 8 pm. She nursed her with a book, and carried Pequita barely awake into her crib. a couple foot kicks and Pequita was out. She's still down 90 minutes later. Monito was awake for a long time giggling, playing with me and being his new mature self. He's asleep now, and I'm going up to take advantage of it shortly.

As an aside, I am going to love the indoor play space this winter when the playgrounds are all covered in ice and snow. It is a large gym that has many stations - two slides, a big play structure with tunnels, a fleet of ride-on vehicles, and a large area with diverse smaller toys. All the climbing structures and the small toy area are on top of 2" thick gymnastic mats. Pequita proved that her spacial relations are still not quite developed, as she made a big to do about stepping up the 2" to get on a mat, and instead of walking off the other edge, she would approach it with trepidation, kneel down at the edge and spin around, doing the dismount backwards on her hands and knees. This is how she now gets off the couch, the window seat, all high things. The 2" of the mat clearly concerns her. It is really funny to watch. Hopefully I can get it on tape before she learns to do it differently. All this from the girl who after two supervised times on the 4' high slide did it over and over again by herself. Up the stairs, walk along the top edge holding on to the railing, sit down at the top of the slide and jettison to the bottom with enough speed to fly off the lip and bounce a couple times on her butt on the floor. Each time this happened, she would sit and clap for herself for a few seconds, then get up and rush off somewhere else. That's our girl.

Even though it was 75 and muggy today...

Winter is coming. How about a non-baby photo?

I have a meeting tomorrow - Saturday! - morning at 9 am at a local coffee house. A subset of the Mom's Group are is meeting to map out an actual schedule of regular events so the long New York winters don't consume our souls. We can't count on running into each other in the parks any more. I love this town - this group of women is increasingly interesting and fun to be around, as we all get to know each other. I'll be almost stag - I'll leave Homestead Mama and Pequita at home and just tote the boy, who'll sit agog and grinning or sleep through it. I intend to splurge and get a big double-shot latte and maybe a scone. I told H-mama that I won't be long, but I'm already having fantasies of getting a New York Times and staying a little longer than is necessary, enjoying the Pequita-less peace.

I'll be very pleased to have a schedule of events with other humans. I'll be trying to fill up my family's winter dance card, as we ALL do better when we aren't stuck in the living room all day. I'm finding that I need to work a little harder then I expected to figure out how to be a happy SAHM - there is a marked difference between working 50+ hours per week in my old office and filling that time myself.

LINK:
Check out the census info for your zip code here. Interesting to see how you measure up to the Jones's.