It Might Kill Me

But Oh! how I'd love to own one of these. If you click on the link below, you'll help get me entered in the contest, so click! The drawing is in July.



I could haul the kids around without a car and with no emissions, other then the string of profanity left in our wake as I try to pedal us all up a massive hill to get to our house from town.

I have gone to take pictures of houses twice in the last week for my parents who might move to my gorgeous town. One was a no go, the other is really promising. They will live down in the flats of town; I could leave my Madsen bike at their new house.

Happy Earth Day

We had wheels again, albeit rented, and made good use. Earth Day was today, and I would have totally missed it had not a friend invited us to a local event. It was overcast, cool, drizzling, and uninspired, but the kids enjoyed the small gathering and craft events. Hula hoops, lawn bowling, make-your-own turtle and planting seeds all went over well.

The kids were exhausted upon returning home at 5pm. The original Pippi Longstocking TV series on DVD had arrived in the mailbox, as had the Sound of Music remastered DVD. Much excitement ensued. They collapsed in assorted tiny chairs to veg to Pippi while I made dinner for them.

Homestead Mama arrived home just as I served a delicious stand-by meal of mac and cheese with TVP with extra cheese and garlic, with sides of steamed broc and watermelon. They all ate, had a quick tubby and then watched the songs most loved from the Sound of Music in karaoke style, an option on the new DVD, while we dressed them for bed. Pequita makes me act out the youngest girl's part of the So Long, Farewell song over and over on our stairs. She scoots up on her butt while I sing, then go scoop her up and sing the end while she squints her eyes shut pretending to be asleep. Over and over, did I mention?

I bought Monito a digger excavator early in the day while on the town Commons playing with friends. He hauled it everywhere we went all day; the store, napping in the car, the playground, the Earth Day celebrating. He carried it out of the car and into the house, barely letting it go.He is, right now, post-tubby, clutching it to his naked chest as he watches songs from the Sound of Music. His love knows no bounds, apparently.

More Mazda Love

Jungle gym features optional.
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The Mazda 5 is OK!

I rented one for 2 days, and I've already decided that we are buying one this weekend. And when we get it, there's no way H-Mama gets to drive it every day. I haven't ever had a/c, cup holders, cruise control, LATCH car seat hooks, and I feel like my time has come. And there is an ipod input jack. Now I just have to figure out if it is a better deal to buy used or new (is there really a tax incentive for new Mazdas, or just the crappy American cars?)

The kids call it the Zoom car because I can't help singing the Mazda ad refrain. When we buy our own, she shall be known as Zippity (yes, as in do da).
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Milestone update

Pequita is into her puzzles with a vengeance. She usually gets a puzzle off the shelf, carries it to the dining room table [above her little brother's line of sight] breaks it up and then puts it back together before calling for my attention to admire it, "Mommy, puyyal [puzzle] all by shelf [self]!" She is able to overcome her desire to have all things to herself if we channel her into a help-your-brother mode. She spends a lot of time teaching him how to do complex activities that he wouldn't do on his own yet. The latest was moving furniture together in order to be able to swing her legs back and forth like a jungle gym. She worked out how to do this, then put all the furniture back and dragged him over to it and showed him, step by step, how to do it himself. "Hands heyah, Bubba", "No, foot dere", until he is swinging too. He loves all this. She has learned that if I don't answer to Mommy! after a while, if she hollers out my first name I crack to attention. It is really funny, mispronounced and all, but she is so proud. She is also happily mangling her brother's name when she diverts from her preferred 'Bubba'.

Monito really loves grabbing whatever his sister is coveting/playing with/ asking for and taking off. He runs everywhere, tucking his head and darting off. This has resulted in his first through third spankings, as parking lots and crosswalks are NOT the place for darting. This from me, the 'I won't spank ever' pacifist. Apparently I have a line that CAN be crossed. He is speaking in sentences like "Pequita wake up, Mommy!" or "NO! My toon [turn] now peese [please]". He is always the first one awake, and nurses *me* awake usually. He is in a phase in which he dotes on his Mama. The only time he refuses her and prefers me is if he wakes up in the middle of the night; the rest of the time he is keen to have Mama time. This is quite a delight for both of us. I get a rest, she gets his snuggly best. We regularly get the query, "Um, how old is he exactly?" from parents whose kids are 3.5 and smaller than him and not scaling the spiderweb rope jungle gym at the park. He wants to do everything his older more agile sister does, and thankfully is mostly willing to accept my help. Her I spot, him I hold and help along. I still believe we'll be on a first name basis with the E.R. staff before his young childhood is over.

When they come to me for help, I divert them to their sibling for assistance as much as possible. Much of the time this gets them cooperating, and is usually good for a laugh as well. They each have their strengths, and get a lot of satisfaction in being the one to be in charge.

Spring has arrived here at the Homestead, and being without a car most days we've been working to fill our days in the neighborhood. I bought a tow-behind bike pod for the kids on sale last fall and we just went and bought helmets for the kids. Thank goodness we didn't do it last fall, as Monito does not fit a toddler size, and *just* fits in a youth helmet. The sales woman's head fits in the same model he has. Sheesh, but he got the Homestead Mom family skull with a vengeance, poor boy. They each got to select their own color, and Pequita selected a nice neutral yellow one. The sales women asked if she should just show Monito the manly ones, and I said no, he can pick from all the available options knowing full well which one he would select. Pink it is. Since Pequita will grow into it next year, alls the better, eh?

We've gone for a few rides around our flattest block, which is about 4 miles. Towing 7O lbs behind my bike is surprisingly hard given my lack of fitness, especially up hills. The kids really like the whole process, particularly their cup holders in the pod. I make sure to select a route with cows, sheep and horses to ogle, and we sing the whole way. This is, actually, exactly my vision of parenting toddlers when I fantasized about it pre-child. Nice to have ONE fantasy come true.

Perfect Park

The weather is so great today. We spent the morning at my favorite park, the one with the best playground and surrounded by the lake. We met friends there, and it is really fun seeing the kids interact so differently than last summer. Now they seek each other out, take turns and share with a fair bit of success, and chatter about everything. My kids haven't seen their friend Sophie for 6 months, but they had a good time. At one point Soph sat down between them, put her arms around their shoulders and said, "you are my best friends."
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Big

After the veterinarian's office weigh-in, I wanted to check out the kids' percentiles. According to my wiggly measurements, Monito, at 22 months, is in the 97th percentiles for height and weight. My little monster. I'm glad we have plans to get a nice organic garden growing in the back yard as well as a few chickens and maybe a goat for milk and cheese, since clearly we won't be able to afford to buy enough food to sustain him through puberty.

I couldn't have foreseen him outgrowing his changing table, but clearly that has happened.

Pequita is in the 95th for weight and is down to the 66th for height. This would mesh with Homestead Mama's height and build, as well as the females in the donors family. Fairly traditional for Mexican indian heritage all around. H-Mama is an athlete; at 5'1" her build is compact, muscular and completely agile. She can do any sport she tries with an ease I - literally - only dream of. Her short stature has gotten in the way a bit, so we both hope for Pequita to at least crest 5'4" or so.



Pequita then came up to me with her measuring tape and wrapped it around my thighs, chanted some numbers and pronounced, "BIG, Mommy!" I said, "I know, little girl, I know." Sigh.

We also stopped for lunch at the Mexican place for burritos. They scarf them down.
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Car days

On the days I have a car, the kids and I run errand after errand. Yesterday we shopped for French doors to install in our kitchen. When we first gutted and renovated, we framed for this door, so we can just cut a hole through the wall and drop in the door - one really good bit of forethought. There are plans to build a stone terrace outside these new doors, but that is down the road. For now, we'll have a small deck and then a nice expanse of graded lawn to use as our outdoor eating area. With the recession in place, we aren't having any difficulty getting people hired to do the work.

Outside one of the places I went for a door quote there was a stream with a bridge. We had a super time collecting rocks and tossing them from the middle of the bridge into the water.

We also picked up a child-sized wheelbarrow at the home store. I didn't intend to get one, but Monito pounced on it the moment we entered the store, drove it all the way back to the door department, played happily with it while I chatted with the door salesman and then drove it back to the front of the store. He screamed at the mere suggestion that we leave it behind, and so he drove it right out to the car. Once home, when I asked him what he was going to do with it, he said "Rocks, Mommy". True to his word, he pushed it right over to the rock pile near the driveway, loaded it up and moved pretty big rocks around the yard. I had to bodily block him from taking into the house at the end of the day. .
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Evidence of productivity

Knitting again!
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Little Brother

The kids and I took two of the three dogs to the vet this morning for wellness exams and shots. That would have been a total nightmare if we didn't have exceptional dogs and pretty good kids. I jest. Sort of. Oh how my kids like to watch beings other than themselves get shots. They patted and comforted the pooches, saying 'its ok, don't cry'.

Anyway, after we weighed the dogs I tossed the kids on the nice big floor scale which they thought was funny. 30 month old Pequita tipped the scales at 35 lbs exactly. Her brother, eight months younger, weighed in at 35.6 lbs. He's as tall as she is as well. I don't know if this is normal boy/girl growth speed, but I'm still a little blown away.

(For any of you who know our dog Cody, she is hanging tough a year after her cancer diagnosis. Her thyroid tumor is ever bigger but she is not manifesting any symptoms. None of us expected her to live this long; while I love the new dog Cosmo, three dogs over 60 lbs is something I wouldn't have signed on for again. Oh yes, we used to have four. Sigh. Both toddlers like to help with the poop-scooping in the yard. I'm such a proud mother.)
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Junkies

Toddlers + silence = they found and consumed the basket of Easter candy to be doled out over the next week. I'll be offline for a while to deal with the looming maelstrom of sugar high. [The babbling I heard but didn't understand was my son saying 'no more candy...no more candy' as he checked all the eggs.]

Easter

I ended up having a great time today. There were a few hours in the morning, though, where the surging autonomy [that's toddler code for evil stage, tantrums, screaming and lots of 'NO, me! NO help! NO mine!'] peaked in both kids. There was a point where H-Mama and I were so DONE with the purposeful hitting, disobedience, not listening/ helping/ cooperating, refusal to sit in time out, and destruction of personal property that I told them "WE'RE GOING FOR A RIDE IN THE CAR" and marched them both upstairs with a grim face and wordlessly changed their diapers & dressed them. They could tell that the patience was gone, and were cowed into good behavior. We visited Auntie Kiko and her girlfriend and went grocery shopping, then home for nap. The rest of the day went so much better.

The good stuff from today? After Pequita woke the whole bed of us up at 6:45 am with a yelling, crying bad dream, it was so exciting to be able to go down and find Easter baskets that everyone was cheered up. They hunted for their Easter baskets and once they figured out what they were doing, merriment ran high. Monito's stomach had been wonky the night before, so we had no candy in the morning. A hard boiled egg and some fruit leather went over well. I had bought a bunch of small toys and non-candy basket fillers anyway, so they had plenty to play with. Monito's favorite toy by far? A new plate and set of nice silverware that is all his own.The kids are playing together really well most of the time now, and spent a full thirty minutes in interactive, cooperative play in their teepee. It is so exciting to have them groove on each other like that; it makes up for a lot of the pummelling that follows.

In the afternoon, we had a couple families over to hunt for eggs. Oh my goodness but the kids loved it. We spread hard-boiled eggs and plastic ones filled with mostly carob- and yogurt-covered raisins. We lost a few eggs to the dogs, who came out with our group and boisterously snapped up the hard boiled eggs. Apparently carob isn't good enough for them. There was pretend napping afterwards. This involves much kissing 'goodnight', covering up, squeezing ones eyes shut and then vaulting awake. Yes, my son is clutching the hose to a shop vac. No teddies for him.

I was stealing a couple minutes out of a busy day to read a blog or two and opened greenkitchen.com to find the video below. I scooped up the kids to sit on my lap - they were entranced and sat with their mouths open and their eyes dancing, much like I must have looked. We watched the whole thing, and towards the end had this conversation:

Pequita: Mimi, mya! [Mommy, me!]
Me: Yes, honey, I'd like to do it too. It looks like a lot of fun, doesn't it.
Pequita: No, NOW. NOW!

I watched with tears in my eyes at the magic. Then the kids requested MORE, so we watched it another two times, then we played it loudly and moved the desk chair out of the way and danced in the office.

I have so much love in my life, so much busyness, so much wanting, so much stress, so much beauty, so much richness. I think I may have to find the joy again, though. If this video makes me cry, I may have lost it a bit. Looks like we'll start by getting the Sound of Music on DVD.

Elves

I ordered a big box of wooden things recently from here. It is an amazing resource for imaginative play and most things are pennies apiece so it is easy to buy enough to satisfy two kids and the gremlin who steals small toys in our house. We've had a jar of wooden acorns from this store for a year that we play with all the time; we use them for food for our animals, we roll them, we use them as game pieces, and things to count. The most recent box full of goodness contained wooden eggs in 4 sizes, peg people in six sizes and styles, and a trio of lighthouses. The latter were a bit of a chancey purchase, but Monito LOVES his lighthouses, and carries them around chanting their sizes, "BIIIIIG, meedle, ay teeny." Pequita can't keep her hands off the 'peg peoples'.

I have been insanely craftipated [craft + constipated = when all my crafty impulses are stymied at every turn by toddler needs] and needed to JUST MAKE SOMETHING. I stuck Pippi Longstocking into the DVD player, put down a platter of watermelon, and successfully diverted the kids. I plugged in the glue gun - who has time to sew? - gathered my felt stash, and a few minutes later voila! Elves. Pequita decided they would live in the Haba jewelry box we got at the Salvation Army for $2 months ago. Perfect. I've seen them in a few places on the web, but this is the one I bookmarked. Check out her other items - we're definitely going to make some peg gnomes with acorn cap hats. Then I'll have to make a tree house for them to live in.