Saturday, October 20, 2012

Capturing Memories

As I've mentioned before, there aren't very many photos of me with my kids.  And there are not likely to be many more, as the camera and photos are almost exclusively my jurisdiction.

But what if I take pictures of myself with the kids?  Brilliant!  Precious memories via mirror.

This particular precious memory that I captured yesterday is the memory of that one time I actually showered and wore something other than my threadbare old fleece.  That is, a moment that was not so much precious as miraculous.


Charlie, however, is still in his fleece.  He hasn't showered, either.

I don't think this method is going to work very well with Cubby, however.  

Friday, October 19, 2012

Love/Hate

Fall is such a nice time of year here.  The weather gets all dry and sunny and cooler.  The leaves are lovely colors.  The backbreaking garden work is over for the year.

But it's such a damned mess.

The black walnuts try to break our spirits and our backs every year by dropping hundreds of pounds of disgusting walnuts that must all be picked up one by one.  Then they drop the little twigs that the walnuts grow on, and those twigs get all bunched up in the rake, making them also very annoying to clean up.  And THEN, they drop their leaves.

All the other trees drop their leaves too, of course.  We have really, really old trees around the house, in keeping with our really, really old house.  And those old trees are very large with many, many, MANY leaves.  So fall ends up being a few weeks of raking and burning leaves, with fun breaks for walnut disposal. Every day.

Cubby does not make this any easier with his insistence that every leaf pile is begging to be waded through and turned into more of a leaf carpet.  That then must be raked up again.  But you know, that's the beauty of fall when you're a child.  Because when you're a kid, fall isn't a season of neverending yard work--it's just fun.  So I just rake the piles all up again when he's done.


It's a small price to pay for good memories, don't you think?

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Glory Be

I went to bed at 9 p.m. last night, as always.  But Charlie . . . oh, that Charlie.  He didn't wake up to eat until almost three in the morning.  ALMOST THREE!  And that means I slept ALMOST SIX HOURS!  In a row!

I'm pretty sure there were angels singing somewhere.

I shall suitably reward the child today by feeding him on demand, making sure he has a dry diaper, and protecting him from his menacing brother.  So, just like every other day, except with maybe a little smaller black circles under my eyes.

P.S.  Wanna know something funny?  Charlie is wearing nine-month onesies.  At three months.  Holy huge baby, SLOW DOWN.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident


Growling at the dinner table does not endear you to your dining companions.

Wine is not an acceptable beverage for a toddler.  Neither is coffee.

Circular saws are not appropriate toys for two-year-olds.

Spitting on the coffee table is not okay.

Head-butting the baby is absolutely not okay.

Likewise kicking.

Screaming at full volume in the house is not pleasant for anyone else in the house.

Dogs do not appreciate having handfuls of fur forcibly removed from their bodies by small fists.

Self-evident . . . unless you're two years old.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Where To Start

Yesterday was such an exciting and eventful day, it's hard to know what to focus on.  So we'll just talk about everything in order from least exciting to most exciting, okay?  Okay.  Onward.

Hey!  Remember that time a wasp was hiding in my jeans and stung me on the leg?  That was so fun, let's do it again!

Yes, lightning has struck twice.  Or, in this case, the wasp community has struck twice.  Luckily, the only one around to witness my frantic haste to drop trou and kill the attacker was Charlie.  Also luckily, I wasn't actually holding him at the time.  More disturbing than the actual sting was the fact that I had already been wearing these jeans for six hours when the wasp stung me.  Which means it was just hanging out in there, waiting for its chance.  Creepy.

Also kind of creepy?  A hat made out of raccoon skins for my adorable older son, courtesy of my mountain man husband.

I should perhaps first explain that A. trapped raccoons last winter and sent a few of the hides to be tanned, with the express purpose of making a hat for Cubby.  The skins have been sitting around for months, and yesterday A. took needle (and pliers, because pushing a needle through tanned skins is a bitch) in hand and made his very first fur garment.


He sat like this for a REALLY LONG TIME.  Sewing tanned hides is no joke.

He used these instructions as a guideline, though he did not elect to attach the raccoon's face to the hat.  Because I wouldn't let him.  A. remarked that he figured I probably wouldn't let Cubby wear the hat if I was faced with the raccoon's final grimace of rage every time my child wanted to keep his head warm.  That is correct.

He did put the tail on, though.  Because what's a coonskin cap without a tail?


Cubby the Cossack.


My husband and my son, two of a (sort of weird) kind.


And this is Cubby explaining the hat is too itchy.  So A. glued a flannel liner into it.

Okay, so it's kind of bizarre, but it is pretty impressive that A. managed to make it from live animal to hat.  I haven't yet found anything A. can't do.  Providing it's something he actually wants to do.

And in other wildlife news, remember the fox attack?  Well, besides the dead hen and the two missing chicks, the rooster was M.I.A.  We didn't see him at all on Saturday, so we figured he was another casualty.  But then, yesterday when we were sitting at the table in the breakfast room eating lunch, what did I see go lurching by the window but the toughest damned rooster in the world.

He was kind of a mess.  Most of his long tail feathers were missing, his comb was swollen, and his head was hanging as if he had some broken bones.  A. went out to examine him and return him to the coop and reported he still had both eyes and his beak, plus some wounds around his neck and chest that were already healing.  The fact that he managed to make it back to the house from where ever the fox dropped him is a good sign, and there's a pretty good chance he'll recover.

If he does, he'll cease being "the rooster."  Because if ever an animal deserved the name of Lazarus, this one does.

And now I don't know where to end, so we'll just stop here.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

The Garlic Is Planted

No thanks to Charlie.  He didn't want to celebrate his three-month birthday yesterday by planting garlic.  He thought we should be inside woodstove-bathing:


The winter alternative to nekkid baby time on the lawn.

He was happy on a blanket outside with us for about as long as it took A. to dig the garlic bed for me.  Then the MiL took him so I could actually plant the garlic, and that didn't go so well.

Gardening is not a particularly calming and therapeutic activity with a background soundtrack of a baby screaming.

But!  I did get the garlic in the ground, all 100 cloves of it.  Let winter begin.