Love

 

We celebrated our 3rd Wedding Anniversary on February 18th. Celebrated is a term I use loosely of course, since my husband is a "kajillion miles away", as Jude would say. We did get to have a long talk on the telephone though, which under the circumstances was a totally awesome anniversary present. I also received the most beautiful roses I have ever seen, but they arrived on the 15th. I think the florist was confused with Valentine's Day and all, and probably thought they were doing some poor guy a favor who had mistakenly ordered flowers for the 18th instead of the 14th. Which was fine, this way they sort of covered both events. I also got a big heart shaped box of chocolates because my husband knew I would probably be in need of some chocolatey comfort on our big day without him. Hes a smart man.

I have to say, I love my husband. This is a good thing obviously, since we are married and all. But the amazing part is that its been three years and I can say that I honestly love him more now then I did when we got married. Don't get me wrong, I was head-over-heels with buckets and buckets o'love at the time. Just hearing his voice made my heart race and my stomach flip and my brain melt into a totally useless glob that was capable of not a single coherent thought except "Dean!" I felt total delight when I saw him and total agony when he left. It was that make-you-crazy-love kind of love. You know what I'm talking about.

And then we were just sitting around one morning, and I said "What do you want to do today?" And he said "Uhm....I don't know. We could go to the park I guess." And I said "Do you want to do anything....important?" And he said "Ooooh....yeah, we could do that too!" And off we went. So I guess technically I proposed to him. Sort of. On that very Friday morning which was not even particularly special we drove to the mall, bought a couple of rings and proceeded directly to the courthouse in a love-induced haze. Which is something two people who are in make-you-crazy-love kind of love would do.

Here were are, three years later. I know its not an extremely long period of time, but it feels like we have been married forever. Again, in a good way. While I don't feel totally crazy and mindless every time I hear his voice now, I do feel something even better. Completeness. Total security. Calm. And a love that is this deep, rich, and indescribably gentle thing. A bond with another person that I could never have imagined. I am so grateful to have him not just in my life, but as my life.

And I can't wait for our 4th Anniversary, which we will be able to celebrate together.

Babes in the Woods

 

 

 

Ok, well, they aren't really IN the woods.....its just our backyard. But it is a wooded area of sorts. There are trees and shrubbery and leaves and pine needles and such. Much like in the woods. However, there is a dividing line between the real woods and our yard. Its called a chain link fence. It clearly defines "woods" versus "yard" by its mere presence.

The fence however seems to have failed us on more then one occasion. First there are the deer, who don't even give the fence a second thought when they gracefully hop over it to eat our grass. In fact, the word hop implies too much effort for the action the deer take when coming over our fence.....they sort of "plop" over it, as if our poor excuse for a fence it doesn't even merit running start. They have the same reaction to the dog barking at them, they don't bolt or dart or scurry or take evasive action. They simply plop back to the other side. They seem completely aware that the dog will not pursue them into the safety of the "woods", even though it is only our sad excuse for a fence the marks the boundary.

And now there is the Tree-that-fell-down-while-no-one-was-looking tree. This old rotten tree decided its time had passed. Here the tree had two choices: One was to fall in the WOODS where it would not bother anybody. The other was to fall OVER the fence and in to the yard where it could bother, uhm, Me. And although my husband posseses a chain saw I think the tree knew I would not be capable of weilding it in order to chop up its remains. Spiteful tree.


I came to realize this tree is just a symbol of my year so far. Things keep falling down and making a mess. A mess which I can neither predict nor prevent and most times cannot clean up. Now I just count myself lucky when the things don't fall directly on my head.

I am learning to, as they say, roll with it.

We played in the yard anyways. On the tree. Around the tree. Whatever. You can see little Hannah, standing on her own, pondering the wonderfullness of something she found in the dirt. And her very sweet big brother Jude giving her a gentle kiss on the forhead. And all three of them cute as can be sitting on the fallen tree. Cause if its going to be in the yard anyways I might as well make the best of it.

Pinewood Derby

 

 

 

 

This morning Eden participated in his first ever Pinewood Derby with the Cub Scouts! He really enjoyed it.

Last night we had to take his car to be "weighed in", since all the cars have to be 5 oz or less. These little wooden cars are marvelously complex, considering they are little blocks of wood on wheels. Everyone seems to have their own strategy for speed, where to place the weights, whether or not to glue the axels in, using graphite to make the wheels spin faster, and of course what particular shape to carve your block of wood in to. Being new to this sport and having absolutely no clue, we simply did our best. Eden of course painted the car, with some help from his dad while he was up at his house last weekend, and we got these application things that you put on with water or something that look like blue flames. I knew that it was pretty unlikely with my total lack of skill in the car making business that he would win, so I figured we might as well make it look as cool as possible. And it was definitely a cool looking car. It turns out it was fairly fast as well, just not quite as fast as the only other kid in his age group who showed up. Oh well. He got a shiny Second Place medal, and his little brother was especially proud of him. So it was a good morning.

Time

 

The magnetic calendar on my fridge is some days my enemy....And others my friend. Why is that? Because Time is a tricky, tricky thing. One day may seem to fly by in such a frantic rush its hard to believe there was a day in there at all and I feel fairly certain that the sun may have just decided to turn in early and shorted us several hours. And I imagine that guy in the breakfast commercials with his big round sun belly deciding to cut me some slack. He seems like a nice enough fellow, I'm sure he would. But then a week can in turn seem to occupy the space of an entire month with its reluctance to pass. Like dragging a screaming toddler through a grocery store. Everyone stares at you, struggling to maintain your composure while your child's wailing brings the entire store to a screeching halt. And no one can do anything to help you. But hey, you've got to get groceries. So you put one foot in front of the other and attempt to keep the little monster from getting the best of you.

Except with a deployment it turns out I am both the mommy and the screaming toddler. Dragging myself along through the days. Some days I'm just more of one than the other.

I mark each day off on my fridge calendar. I like to see the black X's. I like to seem them progressing towards the end of the month, filling the empty white spaces, designating that day as Done. Finished. One step farther away from the beginning. One step closer to the end.

The funny bit is some days I wake up, and decide that in itself is enough for the day to be considered Done. I need to mark that X just to keep myself motivated. I know the whole day is still stretched out in front of me, like a marathon I don't quite remember signing up for. But the day has started and so I reason to myself it is closer to ending than it was. Its not very logical, I know, but if it keeps me from crying in my cereal then its totally worth it.

Other days I get all the way up to bed-time and its the last thing I do before turing out all the lights in the house. I mark an X. That day is Done, and I am amazed. It wasn't hard at all! Whew! No major meltdowns, no total catastrophes. And quite possibly even some really fun and wonderful moments, mostly created by my really fun and wonderful kids. I really, really need more of those kinds of days.

I am a little concerned that at the beginning of February I will feel pretty let down when I have to erase all those black X's and start over. But at the same time I will feel thrilled at the action of erasing one month and starting another. Now if February could be free of dead chimney squirrels and the Pukie Fairies, it might become my new favorite month. Only time will tell.

Why I Don't Cook (Or: How to Amputate Your Own Thumb)

 

Ouch.

This is my thumb after an unfortunate run in with a very sharp kitchen tool. It would seem that the kitchen tool won this round.

My husband used to tell me, when he was home, that watching me use the knives made him "nervous". I don't cook much at all really, so the knives and I are not exactly well-acquainted. But today I decided to make chili for some friends who are going to come over tonight and keep me company while drinking a margarita or two. Making chili involves slicing and dicing a few vegetables, nothing too complicated. Dice an onion, slice up a red bell pepper, done! But noooooo. Not today my friends. Today, while dicing said onion somehow or other my thumb ended up UNDER the blade. Directly.

It literally took me about 5 seconds to even register what I had done. I just stared at this big flap of skin hanging of my now bleeding thumb. My brain was like "Huh.....Interesting. That appears to be our blood. I wonder how that got there......oh, wait a second.....wait........OUCH!" And then I went and stuck it under the sink. I decided it was best to simply lay the skin back over my wound instead of pulling it off. Cause that would hurt more. And I'm a nurse, right? So I totally know what I'm doing.....I think. I got it all rinsed off and held it with a paper towel for a bit. It kept right on bleeding. And at this point I decided it looked kind of cool and that I should take a picture. So I did.

Oh, and then the neighbor came over and we chatted on the porch for a bit and I showed her what I had done. And she laughed. And told me I should get a food processor. I have a food processor. So that only made it seem stupider.

After several more minutes the bleeding stopped. I washed it one more time, careful not to displace the skin, and then bandaged it up. Then I went over and swore at the onion and the knife. This was clearly their doing after all and not my total lack of coordination while using pointy things. Why were they consipring against me??? All I want is some freakin' chili, is that too much to ask??

The chili is now simmering happily on the stove, while my thumb is still throbbing. It better taste good is all I have to say.

 

Welcome to the House of Puke (Or: Lora Just Can't Catch A Break)

The Pukie Faries are visiting.

This morning around 2 a.m. Jude came in my room. "Mooooommmyy, my tummy huuuuuuurrrts." I said "Ok, baby, come lay down with me." And he went to sleep.

At 3 a.m. Eden comes in my room. "Moooooommmyy, my tummy huuuuuuuuuurrts." Again I said "OK, baby, come lay down with me". And we all went to sleep.

At 3:30 a.m. Jude sits bolt upright in bed. "I'M GOING TO THROW UP!!"

Me: "GO TO THE BATHROOM! GO GO GO!"

And he runs to the bathroom with his hand over his mouth. As soon as he steps over onto the tile floor there is a loud *SPLAT*. So....he didn't quite make it to the toilet but at least it wasn't on the bed or carpet, right? He then threw up a second time in the toilet.

I told Eden to go back to his room because Jude was sick. I changed Jude's clothes and cleaned up the mess with my handy dandy Clorox Hard Surface Spray. That stuff rocks. Then we went back to bed.

At 4:30 a.m. I hear a noise in the hallway that sounds remarkably like a bag of marbles had been dropped to the floor. But it wasn't. It was just Eden having his visit from the Pukie Faries. On the floor AND the wall. I'm not joking.

The noise and accompanying smell made Jude dash yet again to the toilet. Where he not only puked, he had diarrhea. In his pants.

The goal today is to keep them both from breathing on, touching, kissing, or really even looking to closely at their baby sister in the hopes that she will not have a visit from the Fairies as well. However, given recent events in the last month, I'm not holding out too much hope that my luck is going to change now.

I can't seem to catch a break.

The Traveling Daddy

 

The Traveling Daddy

 

 

 

 

Dean doesn't know it yet, but today he went to Fernbank.

Actually, we all did. My friend Joy called this morning and said:"Hey, lets go to Fernbank, I have season passes!"

Since we sat around in our pajammies all day yesterday, it felt like getting out of the house might be a good thing.

So we went, and it was really fun. The boys hadn't seen their friend Noah in forever. Noah was so overcome with excitement that the first thing he did was run up to Eden and Jude and shout "Don't even THINK about it!!!". I am not sure if he was really talking to them, or himself. Hes one of those kids with boundless energy who's voice carries for miles, even indoors. He makes more noise and body movements then all three of my children combined. Needless to say, we didn't spend much time in the "museum portion" of the museum, but instead headed directly to the designated play areas after a quick lunch.

I decided to bring the Daddy Doll with us for this little family outing, for a couple of reasons.

1) Its fun carrying a miniature version of my husband in the diaper bag and

2) I though Dean might get a kick out of seeing photos of himself at Fernbank.

So first we planted Dean in the garden, then I took a picture of him with baby girl by the window, then we stood him near a dinosaur that would make him look giant, and then we took a family photo. Between photo-ops he was gently stuffed back in to the diaper bag, unless Hannah asked for him to come out which she did periodically. I think just to check on him and make sure he wasn't too smooshed. She would give him a hug, a gentle pat on the back, and then hand him back to me with a "Tank too". (Thank you is her newest word.)

The boys spent most of their time being "Bears". Eden of course was the biggest bear, and was in charge and kept the littler bears in line to the best of his ability. Noah doesn't "keep in line" very well, but if anyone can manage to do it, Eden will. They had some small puppet animals which were their prey. They then stockpiled all the dead animals in their cave and growled at other small children who made the mistake of getting too close. Hannah spent a lot of time "feeding" the baby birds sock worms and looking at herself in the mirrors. Fernbank is sooooo cool.

When everyone was done with that we went on to the secondary playplace, and then to the interactive science exhibit. None of these things though seemed to hold the magic of the "dead animals and the cave game", so we didn't stay long. We went back to Joy and Noah's house for some Chick-fil-a and playtime before heading home. The boys were totally bummed we didn't get to spend more time at the house, so we promised to get them together again soon.

Kids with Daddy Doll

 

Just too cute.