How Far Is Too Far?

Last time A. went camping with the kids, he bought a sleeve of those big red Solo cups for the gallons of milk and lemonade he kept in the cooler. When he got home, I collected all of those and washed them to use again.

I used one of them on the Fourth of July to give the son home with me a very patriotic-looking watermelon slushie. After he finished his slushie, he started to throw the Solo cup away. I stopped him and told him I would wash it to use again. He was incredulous.

"Mom. Seriously? I have never heard of anyone re-using a Solo cup."

Really? I mean, is that really that strange? They're thick plastic! They're easy to wash! Why wouldn't you re-use it?

He was also shocked that I wash out Ziploc bags. And empty sour cream containers. The tray with top that A. brought home from a McDonald's breakfast. Pretty much any glass jars. And I sometimes save sheets of aluminum foil if they haven't gotten dirty, although I don't go so far as to wash those.

I even wash and re-use birthday candles.

These have been used I think twice and have at least one more use in them.

It never occurred to me that any of this was really that strange, but maybe it is. What do you* think? 

* Although I suspect that if you read here with any regularity, you are most likely also a re-user.

To Each Her Own

I was at the grocery store with the oldest son last week and I told him he could choose an ice cream flavor. He surveyed the options for a minute before deciding on black cherry.

That was pretty much the last flavor available that I would have chosen. 

These were the small cartons of ice cream, so I also got butter pecan for the rest of the family. All of them like that one, although again, I don't care about it at all. It doesn't actively repel me like black cherry, but I still won't bother eating it.

I did choose one for myself, though: chocolate moose tracks. Chocolate, peanut butter, and more chocolate? That's more like it.

A tale of two ice creams.

A. has always preferred fruit-flavored candies, ice creams, and desserts. I have always preferred chocolate. Preferably with peanut butter. He does not understand this. I likewise do not understand why anyone would eat black cherry ice cream when they could have chocolate moose tracks.

Variety is the spice of life, they say, and I guess that means our lives are plenty spicy.

So tell me: What kind of ice cream do you pick, given the choice?

On Singing

My brother's birthday was the past weekend. We have a tradition in our family of calling on the birthday and the whole family singing to the birthday person over the phone. I spent all day Friday reminding myself to call and sing when everyone was home after dinner . . . only to forget after dinner.

Boooo.

But! When I texted my brother to apologize, he said no worries, he had been at work anyway (he's an airline pilot) and wouldn't be celebrating his birthday until Sunday. Which meant we had another opportunity to sing.

To make certain that I wouldn't forget this time, I made a note to myself and stuck it on the refrigerator with a magnet.

I suppose a normal person would have used a note in their phone or something.

I sent this to my brother, and he responded that he thought I should keep it up there all the time, like a motivational "Live, Laugh, Love" reminder.

One thing I do not need to be reminded to do, however, is sing.

I love to sing. I do it all the time, often spontaneously. I have a pretty good voice, an incredible storehouse of songs in my head, and a remarkable ability to reproduce a melody. I sing a lot of songs from when I was a kid: songs from the radio, songs I learned in school, songs my family sang. 

I was very happy when our current priest instituted singing at our Masses again. I remember many of the hymns from my childhood and I sing those, too.

My mother is a singer and always sang in church choirs, as did my sister. I did, too, when I was younger, although I never learned to read music or sing parts well like they can. 

I feel like this is not as common as it used to be, however. Both A. and I were required to participate in elementary school choirs around 5th grade. I have never heard of this now, even in places much larger than here. A couple of my children are able to carry a tune, but not because of any formal training.

Do people not sing as much anymore? What do you think? Do you sing? Do your kids?

Never Have I Ever

We used to play a game sometimes when I was younger called "Never Have I Ever." The idea was to come up with things that were common, but that you had never done. I think of this game sometimes when I'm reading about other people's lives online and realize how odd my own life is in comparison.

For instance, never have I ever . . .

Ordered groceries online. I suppose it would be possible for me to do this at the Walmart I go to. I see the shoppers racing around in there with their giant racks, and I think they'll even load them into the car for you. I just have never done it. Given the amount of complaining I see online about grocery substitutions or subpar produce choices, it is not something I will ever choose to do as long as I am able to shop for myself.

Even if I did order groceries online, I would still have to sort everything and load the coolers to transport it 100 miles home.

Used an Uber. The first time I ever heard of Uber was about ten years ago when my brother mentioned it. He was somewhat incredulous that I had no idea what an Uber was. We were sitting on the porch at Blackrock at the time, so I just waved my hand around and said something like, "You think that would exist out here?" I have still never lived anywhere where it might be an option.

Ubers don't drive these roads.

Paid for anything with my cell phone. Almost everyone at the state fair paid for things by waving their phone in front of those little boxes they hand out of the window. I don't have any apps for payment on my phone. 

Read a book on an electronic device. I read things on my laptop, but only short things. I have no interest in reading a full-length book on a screen. As you can tell by the numerous bookcases in my home.

One of many.

Bought a frozen pizza. I guess I have nothing against frozen pizzas in particular, except buying the number I would need for my family would take up a lot of space in the coolers I have to transport everything home in. Also, I never really think about buying frozen food at the grocery store. Except frozen strawberries and peas.

Frozen pizza would mean less space for cream, milk, and ice cream.

How about you? What have you never done that most people take for granted?

A Non-political Poll

We have a poll of great import today, and it has nothing to do with the presidential election. It may be divisive, however, so I'm asking everyone to please remain respectful. 

The question at hand: What is the best Halloween treat? 

I am of course thinking about this because we've had the Halloween haul in our house for the past week, and it's always interesting to see what everyone chooses to eat first.

So much to choose from.

One son goes right for the Skittles.

One will allow no one to touch his Reese's.

Another can't choose and eats indiscriminately.

And Poppy? Her favorite was this weird novelty thing that looked like a paint roller and was rolled over the tongue.

A. has a great fondness for popcorn balls, which are a packaged thing I had never seen before moving here. He will also eat all the sour things, chewy things, and generally non-chocolate things that I always considered the garbage candy. He even likes Laffy Taffy, which is sort of inconceivable to me.

As for me, I'm mostly with the Reese's kid--particularly Reese's Pieces, although they are rare--but I do love Hundred Grands, which don't really seem to be a thing anymore. I don't think any of the kids got any this year.

Luckily for me, I seem to be particularly sensitive to chocolate that picks up the taste of other candy, which happens when they're all jumbled around in a bag. The chocolate will taste a bit like the lollipops or whatever, which I find disgusting and which keeps me from eating it. No one else seems to notice this, though, so I guess that's just me.

So tell me: What is your favorite Halloween treat? And bonus question: Do you notice that weird flavor transfer to chocolate in a mixed bag of candy?

A.P.D.: The Bedtime Edition

I am an early to bed, early to rise person. I have always been this way. Even in college, I typically went to bed before 10 p.m. This was a problem because re-runs of "Seinfeld" started at 10 p.m. and my roommate always watched them, which meant I was trying to go to sleep with the bantering of Jerry, Elaine, and Kramer filling the dorm room.

I hate "Seinfeld" to this day. 

Anyway.

Now I'm a really early to rise person. I can't sleep past 6 a.m., no matter what time I go to bed. Waking up that early means I need to go to bed early to get enough sleep. This becomes an issue for me in the summer, because it's hard to go to sleep by 9 p.m. when it's hot and still light outside. I still go to bed early, but I can't always sleep. So pretty much in the summer, I sleep from about 10:30 p.m. to around 5:30 a.m.

I see a lot of sunrises. Not so much with the sunsets.

In the winter, I will actually fall asleep by 8:30 p.m. and I usually get up by 5 a.m.

And yes, my children go to sleep later than I do. I do the bedtime read-aloud and prayer for the younger three kids at 8 p.m., then get myself ready for bed. They can read on the couch until 8:30 p.m., and then they go to bed. But at that point, it's up to A. to actually keep them in bed, because I'm out for the count.

So tell me: What time do you typically go to bed and wake up?

A.P.D.: Indoor Temperature

For most of the ten years we lived at Blackrock, we had no air conditioning in the house at all. Our bedroom was upstairs, with windows facing the setting sun. Upstate New York--especially when living by a lake--is incredibly humid, and surprisingly hot in the summer. This meant some very uncomfortable temperatures in our bedroom at night.

Anytime I saw a nighttime low that was 70 degrees or above, I knew I would be getting no sleep. It would be well into the 80s in our bedroom, and so sticky that my skin would feel simultaneously hot and chilled from the clammy sweat.

It was very unpleasant.

Here, where the air is significantly drier, I start to notice a change in my comfort level at 80 degrees. Our furnace thermostat is in the kitchen, so I know what the temperature is in there. Our bedroom is right off the kitchen, and is usually about the same temperature.

Last night when I went to bed, it was 83 degrees. That's a little too hot. I didn't feel comfortable enough to sleep until about 10 p.m.

When I woke up at 5:30 a.m., it was 73 degrees. That's a little warm, but I could still drink hot coffee without sweating too much.

The sunflowers and sage have been enjoying the heat a lot more than I do.

In the winter, I set our furnace thermostat overnight to 57 degrees. I mostly do this because otherwise it will cycle on and off and wake me up in the early morning, but that is actually a comfortable temperature for me to sleep in.

During the day it's set to 65 degrees, but with our woodstove going, it's usually between 68 and 70 degrees.

So I guess my ideal indoor temperatures are less than 60 at night and about 70 during the day. 

I have a small window of comfort, apparently.

So tell me: What is your ideal indoor temperature?

A.P.D.: Dream Houses

Yesterday, pretty much out of nowhere, Poppy said, "I would like to live in a mansion."

Okay. 

"Why?" I asked.

"Because it would have so much SPACE!"

Yes. That it would. My first thought--and response to that--was that also all the SPACE needs to be CLEANED. This being my experience at Blackrock, which is not a technically a mansion, but is also not a normal house.

Poppy acknowledged the truth of that, and then she asked me what my dream house would be like.

This is a fun question. I will answer it here for you now.

Random photo of part of our current house, which shelters us adequately, but is neither photogenic nor my dream house.

I like stone houses. Not brick. Stone. They just look nicest to me. They also have excellent insulating properties, and tend to be cool in summer, warm in winter.

I like one-story houses, BUT, I also like the bedrooms to be separated from the living areas in some way. My current set-up of having my bedroom open out to the kitchen is not ideal for me. Stairs serve the function of separation in a two-story house, but so do courtyard-style houses. 

Houses built around courtyards are my favorite style. You can have wings of the house that are far enough away from the living areas to be private without having stairs. And then, of course, you have a courtyard, which are the perfect outdoor spaces. 

I like doors in the interior of houses. These open-plan houses that are so common now are not for me. I like to be able to close and open doors as needed.

Although I acknowledge its utility, I do not like heating with wood, and my dream house would be heated electrically. I know this requires depending on the electrical grid, and thus comes with a lack of independence, but I really don't enjoy messing around with wood, propane, natural gas, or anything else.

I do like propane fireplaces, though. They're nice. Clean, and they provide the cozy atmosphere of a fire.

I like carpet in bedrooms, but rugs and wood floors everywhere else. 

I don't like those open showers that have become so popular. I like contained bathrooms, with the shower and tub together. It's nice if the toilet is in a separate alcove, though.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but you're probably getting the idea.

So! How about you? What is your dream house?

 

A.P.D: The Theater

I was talking with a local friend of mine the other day about movies, and she mentioned that her youngest daughter--seven years old--had asked her if movie theaters are actually real. She had never been to one, you see, or even seen one. This made me realize that my youngest two had never been in a movie theater, either.

Partially this is a matter of distance, of course. The nearest (tiny) theater is 90 miles away. The nearest multi-plex is around 150 miles. One way.

I'd spend longer watching this than the movie.

Apart from the distance for us, though, I feel like there just aren't as many theaters as there used to be. I guess because everyone just streams movies at home now.

Going to the movies was a significant part of my teenage years. Tucson had a few options for second-run theaters where they played movies after they were out of the big theaters, so we could go see a movie for two dollars. My friend and I would sometimes see two back-to-back, and we went almost every weekend.

The last movie I saw in the theater was Maverick, with A. in Tucson. It was fun, and I still love going to the movies. Even if I feel like there are very few movies worth paying to see anymore.

So tell me: When was the last time you went to a movie theater? What did you see?

A.P.D.: Books!

I have to sub at school today--today I will be imparting wisdom to the second and third grades--so it seemed like an opportune time for an Audience Participation Day. Also, I have a question for you. Which we will get to at the end.

So! Let me tell you what I'm reading right now. (Can you guess the question yet? Bet you can.)

I don't actually have a lot of time or mental energy for reading at the moment, since life seems to be moving at a rather breakneck pace right now. But that doesn't mean I don't read. It just means I usually re-read something.

I'm a big re-reader. And my favorite books to re-read are my Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters books. I have a couple dozen of the many she wrote during her career, and they're good for re-reading because they don't require a lot of brain power, and are entertaining.

My current re-read is Houses of Stone, which I must have read at least eight times, if not more.

The second re-read right now is one I've only read once. I'm re-reading it at work on my lunch breaks. It's 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement, by Jane Ziegleman. It is, as you might have guessed from that very long and descriptive title, a food history book.

The last thing I'm reading is the Bible. Despite being a reader (obviously), I have never read the entire Bible. I thought about doing one of those guided reading things, that give passages to read every day with little lessons about them, but that seemed like too much work. So I just started reading. I'm currently finishing the Book of Numbers. I only have the mental strength and focus to read the Bible first thing in the morning when no one else is awake, but it's going fairly quickly. Luckily, I'm a fast reader.

And now, the question! What are you reading? I need some new ideas. Hit me.

Closing with a rare photo of a unicorn spotted in my hallway.

A Question for You

If you've been reading here a (very) long time, you might remember that I used to do Audience Participation Days sometimes, wherein I ask a question of you. I'm going to do it again today, because, well, I have a question for you.

As you know, our pipes froze last week and we were without water for a few days. It was irritating, but not the end of the world. We knew the pipes would thaw sometime. Several of my co-workers and our neighbors had water issues too, so we could all commiserate together.

Random old photo that has nothing to do with the subject at hand, but a nice (patriotic) sunrise nonetheless.

My family, however, was sort of horrified that we temporarily didn't have any water. It occurred to me that never once in my childhood or young adulthood had I ever been without water for longer than short power outages. Now it seems normal to me to sometimes go without running water for short periods of time, but that's because I've lived rurally for so many years.

So this is my question for you: Have you ever been without running water? For how long?

Friday Food: Birthdays and Burritos

Friday 

Short version: Leg of lamb with yogurt sauce, roasted potatoes, green salad with ranch dressing, crustless pumpkin pie with whipped cream

Long version: This was A.'s birthday, and he requested lamb for his birthday dinner. I used a boned leg roast from the ram we slaughtered a bit ago, marinated it in olive oil, vinegar, garlic, and salt, and then just roasted it in the oven. The yogurt sauce is just drained yogurt, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and garlic. It's delicious with lamb, and also on the roasted potatoes.

The roasted potatoes are cut up potatoes covered in fat--this time the lard from the pork roast I had made recently--and salt, and then, well, roasted at high heat. Way better than they have any right to be.

After making our pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, I had enough pumpkin cooked down with sugar and spices for another pie. I had frozen that, so making this crustless pumpkin pie was as simple as thawing the pumpkin, adding all the dairy to it, and baking it on Thursday to have it ready for the Friday birthday dinner.

The baking is where it all went sideways. 

It wasn't even close to done after 25 minutes, so I left it in there. And then we were doing Zoom school because of the snowstorm, and the one boy's basketball game got moved up two hours so I was getting him out of the house to meet the bus . . . and I forgot about the pumpkin in the oven.

It ended up baking for I think just over an hour. It seemed very . . . firm when I took it out of the oven. Overbaking custard--all the eggs and cream and all makes this basically a custard--is disastrous because it separates and gets all weepy and wet. Not appealing. I crossed my fingers that the squash in this would make it sturdier and better able to handle (way) overbaking, and stuck in the refrigerator until Friday.

And lo, it was fine. Tasty, even. 

Nice to know that pumpkin pie filling isn't ruined if you forget about it for a few minutes in the oven. Or an hour. Ahem.

Saturday

Short version: Thrifty lamb stew at home, spanish tortilla and cocoa on the road

Long version: This stew is the sort of thing that makes me feel very clever.

I had quite a bit of the leg of lamb left, but leftover lamb is definitely not as appealing on its own. A. was feeling poorly, so I decided a stew was in the order, using the leftover lamb.

I also used the liquid from cooking the pork roast, some of the last tomatoes from the box in the kitchen, cooked in the microwave and pureed, the last of the garden parsley that's been in a jar in the refrigerator for, um, two months, AND the last of the yogurt sauce with some cornstarch in it to thicken the liquid. Many things were used up. This makes me happy. And it was very tasty.

Thrify stew.

I was driving a couple hundred miles to a basketball game, so I left the stew for the ones at home. I brought with me some of the spanish tortilla I had also made earlier in the day. I mostly made this because I had some bacon that really needed to be cooked. It also used up the two egg whites left after making the pumpkin pie filling, and the very last of the garden tomatoes.

So long, tomatoes.

The basketball player and I ate this in the car on the way home. A reasonably portable food, and way better than anything at the concession stand.

Sunday

Short version: Pork ribs, elk steak, fresh bread and butter, broccoli, crispy rice treats

Long version: I had one rack of baby back ribs in the freezer that I cooked this day, although it wasn't quite enough for everyone given how many ribs my boys will eat. So I had some leftover elk steak, and I supplemented A.'s two ribs with some steak, too.

And then everyone ate two pieces of the bread I had just baked, which rounded out the meat.

I left some of the broccoli raw for the children and gave them ranch dressing for it.

And the crispy rice treats were a bit I took from the big batch I made for our new nine-year-old's birthday treat. Well, one of his treats. Since his birthday was on Monday, he had both school and his First Communion class. He asked me to make chocolate cupcakes (Grandma Bishop's, of course) with peanut butter frosting for his school classmates, but he also wanted to bring something for his First Communion class. 

There are only five students in this class, but then there are parents and a bunch of younger siblings that stay for it, so I needed enough for about 15 people. And I was not going to be baking and frosting more than a dozen more cupcakes. Crispy rice treats are way easier. They also have the advantage of being dairy-free, gluten -ree, and nut-free. And delicious, of course.

Monday

Short version: Birthday sandwiches, barbecue potato chips, ice cream sundaes

Long version: Our new nine-year-old requested this meal. He loves sandwiches more than anything, and I first thought it would be fun to get one of those giant sandwiches for him at Subway. Then I found that the Subway nearest us--60 miles--doesn't make the really big sandwiches. And the cost of getting a foot-long sub for every family member would be . . . a lot.

So instead I got three long loaves of french bread, three kinds of deli meat, three kinds of cheese (pre-sliced, because it was a party), lettuce and tomatoes, added mayonnaise and mustard, and let everyone go to town.

That's a big sandwich.

We actually only ended up using one and a half of the loaves this night. One half had been used for bread pudding for the requested birthday dessert. That left one whole loaf, plus more of all the meat and cheese, for another meal.

I made salted caramel sauce the day before, then chocolate shell (melted chocolate chips+coconut oil) and whipped cream this night, and set out chocolate and vanilla ice cream and sprinkles and everyone got to make a sundae.

First Communion class was canceled, so I had a big pan of crispy rice treats at work with me that I didn't need. So I just made a tour of the school, giving treats to everyone I encountered. In this way I got rid of all the treats and didn't have to bring any home. Yay.

Tuesday

Short version: More sandwiches

Long version: I went to the school staff Christmas party this night, and A. used the rest of the bread and things to make sandwiches again for the children. No complaints.

Wednesday

Short version: Breakfast burritos

Long version: Scrambling eggs with cheese and salsa and putting that in tortillas was about all I was capable of after work this day. It's not a bad dinner, actually. Uses a lot of eggs for this crowd, though. I used fifteen.

I also had some weird "ranch-style" beans we had gotten from commodities that I used in some of the burritos. They had a gross tomato sauce on them, which I rinsed off, and also jalapenos in them. That's why only some people ate them.

Thursday

Short version: More burritos, carrot sticks with ranch dip, ice cream

Long version: I had taken out a bag of elk fajita meat to thaw and I was sort of planning on making stir-fry, but then one of the kids was sent home with the remains of a seven-layer dip. It was mostly beans with some salsa, cheese, etc., so I decided to use that with the meat to make more burritos. 

Please note I managed a vegetable this day. But then it was followed by small servings of ice cream with some of the leftover salted caramel sauce, which the children definitely did not need after all the treats at their school Christmas parties. 

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?

Achieving Perfection

Today we scored with perfect weather. Perfect. For me, anyway. It's 65 degrees, sunny, high pressure, and a slight breeze. After days of low pressure, unseasonable heat*, clouds, and sometimes high winds on top of all of that, this is bliss.

I realize, however, that perfect weather is a highly subjective thing. My mother--a woman famous for wearing long underwear in Tucson, Arizona--almost certainly does not consider 65 degrees perfect, no matter how sunny it may be.

Which begs the question, my lovelies: What do you consider perfect weather?

* Apparently, 85 degrees is so hot for here that Charlie's T-ball game on Monday was almost canceled for fear the kids would suffer from the heat too much. My Arizona- and Florida-dwelling family members are no doubt rolling their eyes at that at this very moment.

A New Marketing Angle

I've noted this before, but the 30-Day Shred DVD is an excellent source of entertainment for the preschool crowd. Do you think Jillian Michaels has considered this demographic? Because I think a Mommy and Me Shred class would be a smashing success. In a city, that is. But since I do not live in a city where any kind of exercise class is held, I just held my own in my living room.

At 7:45 this morning, I was already counting the hours (12) until the kids' bedtime--always a terrible sign.  It was gloomy and misty outside, screamy and boring inside. I was contemplating without any enthusiasm the idea of using my precious nap/cartoon hour to exercise when I decided the best thing would be to just put the damn DVD on and get it over with.

I thought I would get through maybe ten minutes of it, if I was lucky. Charlie did have an initial objection: "Mom, we're not dressed like them. You can't see our belly buttons."

I assured him that the workout could still be done with covered-up belly buttons. To which he replied, "Oh, okay. It doesn't matter what you're wearing, only what you're doing."

Exactly. Deep Life Lessons courtesy of The Shred.

Charlie actually did the whole thing with me, to the best of his ability. He particularly liked the jumping jacks and the jump rope part ("I like all the jittering around," was his commentary). And how I sang "Row Row Row Your Boat" during the dumbbell* rows. Because that's the kind of shit you have to do to get little kids through a workout video.

Jack was less absorbed and did try to crawl underneath me while I was doing push-ups. There was also one incident when he fell on my head while I was doing crunches, but otherwise, he was pretty good. And we actually completed the whole thing.

Then Charlie decided he would make up some more exercises for me to do, which were oddly similar to the ones we had just done, and I was all, "Yeah, no. I'm done, Tiny Taskmaster."

It was surprisingly amusing, though, and now I still have my precious hour to do other fun things like prep dinner.

But only 8.5 more hours until the kids are all in bed! Better than the 12 I started with.

* Minus the dumbbells, both because I don't have them at this house and because there is no way I'm letting those within reach of either Jack or Charlie. I ain't no fool.

A.P.D.--Let's Talk Bathrooms

I just finished scrubbing my bathroom with a scrub brush. I only did about half of it--the wall behind the toilet and about 2/3 of the wretched shower tiles, which are the two most mildewed areas always--because it took 45 minutes of intense scrubbing and that was as much as my hands and wrists could do without giving out. An hour and a half of such labors would render me crippled for life.

I keep thinking maybe my problem is that I just don't do it frequently enough. But then I also think that I just can't imagine wiping down every surface of my bathroom every single day, which I think is what I would need to do to keep the mildew from taking over.

Bathrooms in old stone houses are mildew-making factories. Just FYI, if you're on the market for an old stone house.

So please tell me, my lovelies: If your bathroom is mildew-free, how in the hell do you keep it that way? Do you clean it every day? Do you scrub it hard every week? Am I just lazy, or do I really have the most mildew-prone bathroom in the whole country?*

* Don't answer that last one, because it may be a combination of the two and, well, I kind of know I'm not winning any awards for zealous housekeeping. But who wants to scrub walls when there are potatoes to be hilled and tomatoes to be staked?

Oh, right. Costumes.

I was supposed to post the requisite "cute children in adorable costumes" photo yesterday, wasn't I? Eh. Here it is:

Cute children (courtesy of me), adorable costumes (courtesy of my mother). Plus a dog.

As you can see, Cubby decided to be a fighter pilot. Actually, he wanted to be a parakeet, but there is no such thing as a non-creepy parakeet costume, so I sold him on fighter pilot by saying he could be like Baca. Baca is my dad. He was a fighter pilot for many years. Cubby's suit has a patch for the F-117, which I found out was the Nighthawk. My dad never flew this plane, but I don't think there was an option for an A-10 fighter pilot costume on Amazon.

Charlie wanted to be a bull. This is a very cute costume. Though I did make him promise before I put it on him that he would be a nice bull like Ferdinand. Not that Charlie would ever dream of charging at anyone while in his bull costume.

Especially not his baby brother the lamb.

Jack is dressed as Cubby circa 2010. Because the third child always wears the hand-me-downs, even in costumes.

And one last Halloween note: When A. was offered the Halloween bowl to choose his treat after dinner, he chose Sweetarts. Really. Out of all the chocolate in that bowl, he chose Sweetarts. That's like the garbage candy I always tried to trade away first as a kid. Given our basic incompatibility in matters such as these, it's amazing we've managed to stay married for over a dozen years. Or maybe that is the reason why. Sweetarts for him, Kit Kats for me, and everyone's happy.

Happy day after Halloween, my lovelies.

Leashed

I'm on day four of Mia's convalescence, and I can already tell you that if I had to live somewhere where a dog could only be leashed and walked by me to go to the bathroom, I would not have a dog. What a drag, man.

She's getting better about being a leash dog. When I first started taking her out, she would just wander around aimlessly, stopping to stand around and sniff the air, maybe just flop down on the grass. Basically, acting as she usually does when she's outside, because she is never outside on a leash. 

Thankfully, she's slowly gotten the idea that when she's out on that leash, she is out there to relieve herself. So now when we go out, she's pretty quick to sniff around, find her spot, and get the intended activity over with so we can go back inside. 

Even so, whenever I can get A. to do it for me, it's like a great gift has been given to me. Because wrapping up a dog's food in plastic and walking her on a leash multiple times a day is not really something I felt was missing from my life. Especially when I have to figure out what to do with a crawling infant while I'm wandering around with a leashed dog. Or when I'm walking the dog on one end of the leash and Charlie on the other end of it, because he wants to "help."

Anyway.

I take her to the vet tomorrow to get the bandage changed. I am not at all hopeful that the bandage will be left off, which means at least a few more days of the leash. But eventually, she'll be let loose to get her foot as wet as she wants and wander aimlessly once again.

Freedom will taste sweet indeed. For both of us.

My Father's Daughter

The day after The Big Storm, Cubby, Charlie, and I went out during one of Jack's naps to start dragging branches from the uprooted tulip poplar out of the driveway. Cubby and Charlie were all about helping for the first couple of branches, but then Cubby realized how many branches there were, and how long of a drag it was to get them to the gully, and how interesting the water in the gully was.

So when I pulled a few more small branches out the mess for him to drag, he informed me he was done helping. Oh yeah? Think again. At five, he's old enough to help. So I told him that. He responded with whining and ended with the question, "But why do kids have to help? Why don't the grown-ups do it?"

"Because," I said. "You live in this house, so you help take care of this house."

My brother and sister are now thinking to themselves, "Geez, Kris. When did you turn into Dad?"

My father's stock response to our own whining about chores as children and teenagers was, "You live in this house, you work in this house." Obviously a lesson I internalized well.

Cubby dragged one more branch and then started claiming he was tired. My response to this was also less than sympathetic (mostly because I knew his exhaustion would vanish as soon as he was playing again and racing around like a whirling dervish). "Daddy gets tired when he's working too, you know. But does he stop when he's tired? No. He finishes the job. And you will too. Drag one more branch and then you can play."

He did it. I suspect there will be no lasting physical effects from my enforced labor. Although in thirty years, he might find himself forcing his own children to do yard work and using the very same phrases he heard that day from me.

Family traditions are the best, aren't they?

So Sorry To Keep You Waiting

What's that? You're* dying to see photos from Easter and can't imagine what's taking me so long to post them? Oh, okay. If I must.

Don't worry--there was a basket for each child. I didn't make them share.

Charlie wasted no time eating his entire chocolate bunny. At 7 a.m. Good thing I got the small hollow ones.

Cubby elected to eat his Cadbury egg first. A good choice, in my opinion.

They found some technicolor eggs and collected them in a very Easter-y metal bowl.

Okay, do I win some kind of crafting award for cutting out totally asymmetrical eggs and adding patterns for the kids to fill in with glitter glue and stickers? Thought so. This was our entire effort at decorating. On our filthy door.

What I do not have photos of:

Cubby and Charlie fishing in the snow with A. and Mr. Jason.

The twenty people that gathered at our house in the afternoon for an Easter dinner that included a pork loin, a ham, and a leg of lamb. You want meat? You come to our house.

The five million dishes the MiL did afterwards.

* By "you," I of course mean "my mother."

A.P.D.--The "F" Moments Edition

"F" could stand for fed up. Those moments when just one last irritating thing has happened to push you over the edge. Probably not a big thing; just a small thing, but a small thing on top of all those other small things that all add up to an "F" moment.

"F" could stand for fed up. But what it really stands for is another "F" word that I try not to say around my kids, but definitely think in these moments.

I had one of those moments this morning. We were getting in the car to go to preschool. I had already nagged the older children through going to the bathroom* putting on boots and mittens and hats and not hitting each other and actually getting out the damn door already.

So this was my admittedly negative state of mind when we emerged into seven degrees and six inches of snow on the ground. The older kids wanted to play in the snow. I made them get in the van. I got the baby in on his side, then trudged through the snow around to the other side to buckle Charlie in. Cubby refused to even try to buckle his own seatbelt, on the grounds that his gloves were too puffy and it was too hard. Probably true, but still kind of annoying, as I then had to trudge back around in the snow to buckle him in and shut his door.

And then, just as I was about to shut his door, about a cup of snow fell off the roof of the van and directly into my open purse.

I shut Cubby's door and had my "F" moment as I attempted to scoop out some of the snow without losing any of the contents of my purse in the snow on the ground. They didn't hear the word, but I said it. And it wasn't "fed," either.

Have you had any moments like this lately?

* We have two out of three out of diapers now! Hooray! And don't ask me how pathetic and cliched it makes me feel to devote so much thought and effort to other people's bathroom habits.