Thnow!

Yes, sports fans, it is snowing outside. After a miserable and cold, gray winter, it is snowing. The first time in 08 here in our corner of Oklahoma. And my firstborn (including the dogs) are outside, after considerably pleading and coaxing, frolicking in it. Of course, Ian will only stay out long enough to get completely wet and muddy and cold before coming in and telling me that he needs a Coke to "make it all beddah." Previously, I told him that hot chocolate would warm him up and make him feel better but he has changed the text to include his own sneaky wants. He is usually happy with his hot chocolate and marshmallows. Mommy is no pushover.

We have been waiting for snow forever. We waited all day long and Finally! It's here! It remains to be seen whether or not we will get the forecasted 2-4". But there are some big, fat, gorgeous snowflakes careening steadily, so it looks like it could happen. It never fails to amaze me how beautiful it is. I, in all my worldly travelling and experience, have seen it five? maybe six times? It's mesmerizing to look out at it from your toasty living room (even better when you can sleep in and watch it through your window, but sleeping in is a fuzzy memory around here, kind of like trying to remember a hangover without having earned it with alcohol and that doesn't make any sense. I don't drink, so I have to imagine the hangover and I don't remember my college days very well when I slept in on a regular basis, i.e. as much as possible). If you go outside in your slippers and house clothes you can hear the pitter patter of tiny frozen flakes hitting every surface. Drip, drip, drip. The eaves are dripping onto you, getting dirty wet all over your freshly washed hair, so you take another step and your slippers are coated in wet, crunchy dandruff. This might not be a romantic time to mention yellow snow. So I won't.

But it's so pretty. I am always amazed at it and want to press my nose to the window of the kitchen door to watch it. And with that childish enthusiasm, I agree to let my boy go out and roll in it. Provided, of course that he watches out for the yellow and brown stuff. Ew. There's the call of the wild. We'll see what Erin thinks of the snow now that she is awake.

Love in the time of...Colic

No where, no time, no place is the best translation of love (I know that makes no sense) than when the baby is having colic at 12am. And 1 and 2am. And 3am. And 5 am. Especially after you have tried to put her to bed a few times, only for her to wake up wimpering and full-blown crying (tears and everything). And more especially after your husband has been called out once already and come home to the same noisy, helpless situation that he left 90 minutes beforehand. The cause of said colic? Mommy feeding Erin cereal (too much) at around 8pm. Especially since she had baby food earlier that day too (think eating 3 or 4 plates for Thanksgiving dinner and forgetting to wear your stretch pants). In other words, pushing two meals a day when one will do. Granted, my darling is a little dumpling, but she is perfectly fine with a big lunch and liquid dinner (and breafast. and second breakfast and supper and all the snacks in between). Mommy decided on trying the fast track to sleeping all night. And it worked...after the 4 hours of nonstop crying. Her little tummy was all tight and her roars were deafening. I had been up since around 8am (hello big brother who cannot sleep with all the daylight and singing birdies outside, even if the sun is not quite up yet) and was absolutely exhausted. Every woman knows that you cannot sleep well or at all if your baby is screaming. Even if Daddy volunteers for the night shift and tries to get you to get some sleep. Eventually, the tummy tightness subsided enough for a hot water bottle and swing time, where she slept fitfully. Enough for me to get an hour of sleep at a time. After some serious swing sleeping and a few hours, a diaper was filled a bit and the smiles returned.

And after some chocolate and pumping, my smiles returned too. And after my cop got up, I got a nap, which meant that smiles were accompanied by eyes that weren't red-rimmed and slightly crazed. So what is the lesson we learned today?? Hmmm....to try breakfast and lunch in small amounts? That baby is not ready for big suppers?? Whatever the lesson is, we've learned it! Pleeease! I'm ready for a full night's sleep. Um, let me rephrase that. I'm ready for quieter sleep? Since I'm up all night anyway, getting drinks, covering mr kickie who knocks the wall and his bed sides with flailing limbs, going to the bathroom, seeing why the dogs are howling, kicking my covers off and checking various wimpers from various members of the family, I guess I can't say uninterrupted sleep because I no longer remember what that is. I have a vague memory from college where I had sleep marathons, but never made it past the 14 hour mark. Yes, vague memories. ha ha. Now I'm happy for 4.

Nose juice and bulb syringes

Sounds yummy, doesn't it? At least it sounds a little more refined than what we usually call it. Brace yourselves, snot suckers. Ian and Erin both absolutely hate it when the Blue Beast comes out. Ian has learned how to blow his nose with a tissue, finally, though he will get air on it and then need a new one. Erin just starts crying and thrashing, hoping that if she squirms enough, I'll quit trying to stick the end in her tiny nostril and give up. Sometimes I do, because it seems like I am just sucking all the breath from her nose and missing the goo completely, which is kind of ridiculous when her entire nose is blocked. Anyway we have another round of winter colds, the last being in November. We went to a birthday party last Saturday at Fun City (a chuck e cheese type place), so it's pretty logical as to where we picked said colds up. So the humidifiers get turned up, the Vick's BabyRub comes out, as does the saline nose gel, tissues and the Blue Beast. Ian is still delirious with his good fortune with the tissues. See? There are some very positive things about growing up. Number one in this category being "too big for rectal thermometers." There's a real shuckster now. eek.

The highlight of my weekend, besides torturing my offspring with the Blue Beast, was Guys Night. Of course it was on Monday, which isn't the weekend, but who's counting? There were an assortment of guys, all but one from the police department (he's the mayor), 2 Xbox 360s, 2 tv's, an army game and Guitar Hero. This is where the sadness begins. Having heard about and seen the pictures from Rachel's foray into RockStar-ness, I was excited about seeing this. This is also the only game that Brian (the mayor) is good at, since he is hopeless (and I mean it) with video games in general, but for the sake of testosterone will suffer through it. Out it comes, the little plastic guitar with the multicolored tabs. I watch, fascinated as the teenage boy (he is a police Explorer and his dad is the asst. chief) starts a song (Of course I didn't recognize any of them, I am not a rock star) and amazes the room as he does not one but two songs on Hard. Once you get the rhythm down and the key placement, you can see how to figure it out. One problem, the cutting edge graphics on this new game system are so advanced that my poor beleaguered system cannot handle it. I have grown up on the water and have spent countless hours on boats. I have survived quite a few storms in the British Virgin Islands and the Gulf on sailboats and a catamaran. I have NEVER gotten sick or seasick or even queasy. Watching the video game graphics made me positively green. I haven't felt like such a wuss since...uh, I'm not going there. So ends my career as a video game player, at least if it's not the original Nintendo with Mario Brothers (cue theme music: duh dut dup, de doot DUP doop). I couldn't handle it and I apologize to the world. I have heard that it takes time to get used to. I almost feel like that guy on Survivor that couldn't keep down the seal guts or whatever that was they had to eat in that competition.

And the 360 is on loan until Brad remembers that it's here and picks it up. The Guitar Hero went home with Brandon, the expert teenager. And that was guy's night. I just kept my contribution with keeping Ian from standing right in front of the screen and I made cookies and Rice Krispy treats (which must have been good).

After that, the colds just multiplied. I made some hot tea this morning, spearmint. Ian was curious and wanted a taste, so I got him a straw and he tried it (if you're wondering about the straw, just let him take a drink our of your cup without one...ew). He said it tasted like gum and didn't want anymore. Finally! A drink of my very own! That and the cappucino I drink sometimes that Ian says needs chocolate. He is just hinting for his own hot chocolate with marshmallows. I sometimes think that is the only reason he plays outside on cold days. Since I don't have any pictures of people playing xbox or sneezing, I will post a picture that Chris took while he was feeding Erin some cereal (he did not get sneezed on during a mouthful; truly the world is not fair). At least with this cold, her appetite is not affected. Kind of like me. It kind of has to be the plague for my appetite to be affected.

I would write more on our exciting weekend, but someone just sneezed and it's tissue time again!

Fiasco

It was late Saturday night and all through the house,


only Ian was stirring, watching Mickey Mouse.


Erin and I were nestled all snug in the bed, with a cute little paperback inches from my head.


And Chris in his cop car and ice on the ground, I was wondering if another blanket could be found.


When out from the yard there arose such a racket, I sprang from my bed, forgetting my jacket. And what to my wondering ears do I hear, but Buddy barking madly. What did he fear?


I ran to the back door, past the couch like a flash, tried to slide the door open but the ice held it fast.


The barking continued, I called my cop. Stay inside he ordered, I'll come make it stop.


Okay, I'll quit with the prose, but admit it, you were excessively diverted.


Anyway, if you're wondering what happened, Chris drove up and I went outside in my nightgown and slippers, wrapped in a throw. He and his rider got out (luckily it was a friend) and Chris went to the side of the house to see what Buddy was growling and howling at. It was a fluffy spitting cat. Chris jumped the fence and chased him out and the cat and Buddy went tearing around the yard. Google (the rider) and I went around to the gate to head the cat off. There was an altercation with Buddy and the cat on the far side of the house, in which Berry is released and goes loping past the whole thing. In other words, if there ain't no dope, you're on your own, Buddy. (Berry is Chris's drug dog and too well trained to chase felines.) Buddy sustained some mild injuries from the altercation, but then again, he did grab the cat by the head and launch him a few yards, just not high enough to clear the 6 foot fence. The cat let gravity take over and used his chance to streak to the porch. Google cornered him on the porch. The cat broke our front porch light fixture and scared himself back into the rose bush where he met more of Buddy. After two more attempts, the cat found an opening and took off past Google and past me (I thought for a moment he would seek refuge up my nightgown and yelped rather loudly, but that only served to make the cat run faster).


Buddy was patted over loudly and rubbed hard, declared the victor and got his bloody nose wiped off. I snuck him some bacon treats after Chris and Google left. What a good dog! He's so ferocious now that he's an outside dog! And he's lost weight too!!! Woo hoo! At least one of us has.



And that's the action from our house. At least for now. And Ian's stuffy nose and the distribution of nose juice....but that's another story.

Love Is....

• Love is going out to the dirt pile in the backyard at 8:24pm in the freezing 18 degree dark to retrieve your 3 year old's newest shiny red Hot Wheel because he just can't sleep without it. And, incidentally, giving it a bath in the sink because it's "too dirty."


• Love is also pampering your husband because he got two wisdom teeth pulled out in the past week. One on Monday and an emergency one on Thursday. Poor guy. Tooth pain is nothing to mess around with.


• Love is also sharing your toys with your baby sister, even though she will most likely either chew on it or throw up on it.


• Love is a box full of fuzzy pjs and new socks from Gramma.


• Love is also giving away your favorite hoodie when it is too small, just so God can bless you with another one in your bigger size (Ian's Cars hoodie, also in the box from Gramma, with matching pants).


• Love is sneezing with a big mouthful of baby cereal and then laughing at Mommy when she makes funny noises about her new hairdo (Erin).


• Love is knowing that one day (sooner rather than later) your best friend will have her own little bean to spit cereal all over her.


• Love is sitting in the parking lot of the library with the kids in the car when your gum is bleeding from tooth removal while your book crazy wife says she'll "only be a minute." When has she EVER only been a minute in any sort of book gathering place??


• Love is chocolate chip pancakes on a chilly Friday morning when you heard Daddy offer Ian nuked leftover french fries....


• Love is changing the really really gross diapers that lead to emergency laundry and NOW baths.


• Love is finding ANOTHER long red hair in your sock and only mentioning it a few times before realizing that you don't do the laundry anyway, so why does it matter?


• Love is also finding a long red hair that is itchy inside your pants and trying not to get it out in Walmart and then feeling bad that you gave your husband such a hard time about the one in his sock.


• Love is one more glass of milk before bed even though you know that you'll be changing the sheets and pjs later.

• Love is reading a blog after waaaaay too many bullet points. Happy Friday night, y'all.

Back Seat Driver

Well, the war of the fleas continues. Part 3 of the Flea War started today when we let off Bug Bomb #3 and headed off to Fayetteville to pass away the time. Chris had the day off for sick time because he had a wisdom tooth pulled yesterday. Now we just have three more to go. Two of the three left in his mouth are fractured. The one that was pulled actually came out in pieces. It had a nerve showing, thus the pain from my caramel apple pie and everything else he ate after that....whoops. So he was banned from work for 2 days and was 'forced' to use some of his accumulated sick time....hence the 4 day weekend and Chris not being able to drink from a straw. It almost made me glad that I had my wisdom teeth removed while unconscious. Especially when I saw the copious amounts of blood that Chris kept spitting up. I found him a teabag to jam in there to stop the bleeding after the 6th or 7th gauze pad was hocked out sopping. Well, the teabag was too big (picky) and gagged him. Well, all I had left was my little mini teabags of spearmint tea, so in it went and the bleeding stopped (magically, I'm sure, because Chris didn't like the taste). Anyway, we decided to go on a relaxing trip to Fayetteville (relaxing for Chris: I had to drive) while the bug bomb raged. This time we got 2 packages of bug bomb.

We had decided to go see the new Veggie Tales movie for Ian, but there was the inevitable baby issue, the cost issue for all of us to go, especially if one of us had to keep leaving with the baby, and the fact that we didn't know how to get to the movie theater and we would have to wait 2 hours for the next one to start even if we did find it. So we moved to Plan B: Food!

We decided to brave Golden Corral with the kids and it was Mmm Mmm Good! Can anyone else taste the warm, yeasty rolls, where the steam breaks out as you bite into it?? And the honey butter they give with it??? And the sweet tea! Oh yes, folks. Mandi hit the buffet. And what was that? It's 3:53? And the steak breaks out at 4? Mandi had some steak too. Oh Yeah.

After dinner and dessert, in which Ian smooshed a bunch of M&Ms into a really delectable piece of gooey chocolate cake and then pulverized it all with his fork, eating a bite or two but mostly just mangling it, Chris decided to try Ian out with his first ice cream cone. Well, Ian slipped off of his chair after a few licks, nibbles and brain freezes, and smashed his cone all along the side of his face and onto his collar. The look on his face was priceless, but it took a long time to get him unsticky. After that he didn't want any more ice cream. :)

Then we hit Old Navy because there were huge 75% off signs in the windows. I love Old Navy sales. Then we hit Target (was this a good day or what?) to walk around and look. Then an unsuccessful trip to Lowe's. Tomorrow is probably going to consist of another visit to our local Lowe's for partition doors to our laundry room. If the house is going to sell for good $$, we've got to whip it into shape...and whip it good.

Back to the part about the title (Back Seat Driver), that would be Ian. I don't know how other kids usually are when they are riding in their car seat in the back on the passenger side, but Ian is intensely concerned about my driving skills. He wants to "catch" the truck 1/2 a mile in front of us. I must go faster if we are to do this. He doesn't want to wait for our turn at the red light or 4-way stop, he wants to go now. "Green light!" "Oh no! Red light! Stop! Stop! Stop!" When he is tired of straining his eyes to see ahead of us, he starts looking to the side, trying to see the bit of road visible out of his window. "Oh no, Mommy! Don't hit the tree [insert: cone, hole, puddle, other car, stop sign, curb, bank drive-in, etc]!" I spend most of my driving time tense from the screeches of "Oh no!" something-or-other coming from the back seat. Chris thinks this is grossly amusing. It just makes me nervous. What will I do if Erin turns out to be the same way??? I guess it will be time for the full-time car DVD player.

Caramel Apple Pie

Well, my best friend Rachel recently brought a fantastically funny blog to my attention. The same woman also has a cooking blog full of home cooked food. See side tab for both of these additions. Needless to say I am now a fan of the Pioneer Woman, who is a city-bred girl transplanted to a ranch in the MidWest. Before you start feeling sorry for her, have a look at her cooking pictures and her beautiful kitchen! And her photog shots of the ranch and her four kids. She calls her husband Marlboro Man (he's a rancher, hello!) and has given me plenty of laughs since I've started keeping track of her blog. More than laughs, I have appropriated an apple pie recipe that uses a crisp topping, chopped pecans and caramel.....Everyone together, Mmmmmm. I only had a few hiccups trying this recipe. First of all, our local grocery store, Harp's, did not carry the deep dish frozen pie crust. So I mistakenly got two shallow crusts (I was too lazy/impatient/whatever to clean the kitchen up enough to make my own crust and probably wouldn't have finished it in either case and pie would still have been a figment of my salivating imagination). So by the time I got the ingredients ready to stick in the pie crust, my crust was overflowing with apples and I still had to add the topping without it all sliding off into the bottom of the oven. I would like to note at this point that I DID clean the oven and have kept that part of my New Year's resolution. Notice that the cleaning the oven part was singular. I now assume that I will not have to do this unpleasant chore again unless forced. Now as soon as I dust the fans, I will be done. I didn't even bother to add the "Lose Ten Pounds" line on there. I am hoping (naively) that they will melt away on their own, especially after I make and consume this pie. Anyway, back to the part where I have apples exploding out of this short pie crust. I decided to get the other frozen pie crust out and fill it with the excess. Okay, done.

Now we can get back to the part where I was interrupted when I was making the crisp topping and the butter melted into the flour and I didn't have the right oats and instead of ending up with the crisp topping, I had a doughy substance that didn't look anything like Pioneer Woman's picture (she has pictures of everything...it's truly phenomenal and helpful). I debated over using it anyway and hoping for a miracle, then gritted my teeth and dumped the offending mass into the trash can. Since I used my favorite mixing bowl, I had to wash it (ugh!!) and use it again. I blame it all on the fact that I don't have a pastry cutter, not that I got interrupted ten or fifteen times to fix whatever was ailing Ian and clean up baby vomit. Oops, you're not supposed to think of apple pie and baby vomit in the same time frame, are you?? So I made the topping again and it turned out much much better. I also found some correct oats under the cabinet. I will never again confuse Quick Oats with Instant Oats. There IS a difference. So if anyone wants the bad kind (I'm too lazy to go look at the label, but they are in a Red canister. I had to get some for Ian's Halloween costume for his train's smokestack and I am stuck with too many oats), I have plenty. So I halved the mixture and dumped it over both pies (mistake number two, I think). They baked beautifully and the crusts were only slightly too brown. Then I forgot to add the chopped pecans on there in the last five minutes to brown, so there was that. Then I think I added too much caramel (even though there are those who deny the existence of such a state) for such a shallow pie. It would have been perfect with the correct amount of topping and caramel on a deep dish pie, but alas, it was too much for my stunted one. The result was yummy all the same, but I think all that sugar and goo aggravated my Hot Cop's sore tooth and he had a toothache for most of the night. Our friend, TowMayor (he's the mayor and owns and operates a Wrecker and Recovery business), who is of the mind that there can never be too much caramel on anything, heartily enjoyed his piece(s) and plans to return to help with the second pie. Which, remarkably enough, tasted just as good at breakfast.....

But the downside to all of this (besides the toothache) was that I was so busy making this pie that I neglected to remember that I needed the oven for the pork tenderloin I had planned for supper, so we had to make due with hot dogs (for the guys) and grilled chicken salad for me (see? I was good before I had all that pie...). So if you are interested in this pie (which you will be if you go to this blog and scroll down to look at the pictures), then go to the website. You will not be sorry unless you do not cook and then you can torture yourself by looking at the pictures and contenting yourself with a Lean Cuisine or McDonald's. Sorry.

Since I did not get a picture of myself and the infamous pie with Chris's cell phone camera, I'll post a picture that Chris took while I was peeling apples of Ian giving the baby some diluted infant juice. We are battling the constipation that inevitably comes with the addition of baby food. If the juice doesn't work, we are back to prunes and that produces emergency bathing of the baby and lots of extra laundry due to blowouts. Use your imagination if you don't catch my drift. Imagine lots of wipes and messy shirts, pants, carpets and baby clothes. :)

The Best Guy in the World

I would just like to take the time to officially announce to God and the world that I have the best husband in the universe. He works the evening/night shift as a police officer in our tiny town. We had an appointment in town today and he didn't want me to go alone with the kids so he roused himself out of the bed and went with me. He let me go into the appointment alone and kept the kids in the car. It lasted almost an hour. He went to Wal-Mart afterwards (he would rather have his toenails removed without anesthesia than go into Walmart) with us and strolled with me as I looked. There was a problem with Ian's chocolate milk (it didn't have a bar c0de on it) so I had to wait in the line for help and keep waiting as the employees had to do who knows what to figure out the problem. Half an hour later, he picked me up almost at the door as I exited. He took me to the library and let me go in there alone as well. Our kids are 3 and 5 months. They are not thrilled to be patient and stay in the car. The most amazing thing is that Chris did all this while he was tired!!!! When we got home, he had a little down time then put a million pieces of track together for Ian to play trains and played TickleBug with Erin so I could clean up the kitchen. Thank you Lord for giving me this amazing man!! I know that it's hard to tell those closest to us how much we appreciate them, but now everyone else at least knows how much of my slack that Chris picks up.
As a side note and update to the New Year's post, the bug bomb did not conclude the problem. Tomorrow we are bombing again, with some bigger and hopefully better bombs. If this doesn't work, Buddy may have to be an outside dog. Oh no!

A Buggy New Year

The first day of 2008 will forever be remembered as B-Day. Bug Bomb Day. Our resolution is to be a flea-free house with a flea-free Buddy (yeah, right, but we are eternally optimistic). After several failed attempts at flea eradication and being heartily sick of smushing the nasty little things, Buddy has been banned from the main part of the house and we are enjoying (Revelling in) being able to walk through the house shoeless without spraying ourselves down with Off Skintastic. Needless to say I enjoy not smelling pine fresh. I also enjoy not hearing Ian say "Itchy Mommy. I godda fee [Translation for those who don't speak Ianese: I've got a flea]."
And now we can return to the alternatve of putting the baby on the floor to play and resume locomotion lessons (chapter 2 in the book "How to be a Biped"). Which has inevitably heralded the return of the 'Crawling Is Fun' Winnie the Pooh, who simpers that and other choice phrases while he crawls across the room, sending Ian barrelling at me to hide behind my legs and peer at it from the safety of my knees. He never has liked that toy.
Ever since the batteries went on it and it started warbling in a deep slow-motion voice, Ian has not trusted poor Pooh.
Erin is happily ignorant of Pooh's Hyde character and enjoys him now and then. She probably would enjoy him more without Ian's theatrics.
Last night, on NY's Eve, I went to a dear friend's house, our friend Brian's mother. The kids love her, since she has a recliner, willing arms, and two huge buckets of toys. I love her because she is amazing and it would be a neat thing to pick up a trick or ten from her in the kitchen. We like to watch the Hallmark channel (she has satellite and we have one channel, PBS) and HDTV for the home renovation shows. Anyway, I brought over boiled peanuts that we had frozen from our Thanksgiving trip to FL. No one from around here has heard of boiled peanuts. The general consensus seems to be "Who in tarnation would want to eat a soggy peanut?" Well, everyone tried them, but my friend Donna was the only one who ate more than one. She says it tastes like a bean and it's not bad. So ha! Soggy indeed! :)
Happy New Year. This year I will try more new things, like oven cleaning and fan dusting. :)