Ophiuchus

Jan14

Last night Sarah one of my top news informants called me up and out of the blue told me that I was no longer a Taurus, I was an Aries.

While I processed that shocking information we informed John that he was a Leo he replied in a voice that made it clear that we were once again falling under the “crackpot” category:

“No. I am a Virgo.”

What I learned from my news informant was that all the zodiac signs have been shifted by about a month to make way for the sign Ophiuchus.

As an aside I’m really glad that’s not my new sign. I mean really can you imagine the poor people trying to answer a lame pick up line.

-“Hey baby, what’s your sign?”

-“Ophiuchus.”

-“Bless you.” -and they move on to someone they assume not to be diseased. On second thought this may be a blessing in disguise.-

A little internet research and it seems that this is actually 3000 year old news but for some reason it became popular this week. Since this news is 3000 years old there are sidereal zodiac signs and tropical zodiac signs and those who follow these things already know all about it, apparently it’s been accounted for – or something. A little more research and I discovered that delving into astrology websites while believing in none of it was on the verge of making me crazy. The interesting part of it all was not the possibility of my zodiac sign changing, it was that I cared.

Yup, that’s me a non-believer of astrology.

So why was I so upset when I found out I was an Aries?

Why was John insistent that he was still a Virgo?

Why did other friends I talked to react with shock and confusion?

As far as I know we all fall into the 70-some percent of the population that doesn’t believe zodiac signs have anything to do with anything, so what’s with the attachment?

Perhaps we need to look to the stars for the answers…

…or not.

The Plastic Bag

Jan11

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not always up to speed on world events, nation wide trends and pop culture. While I might cruise a political blog or two, I don’t usually make it to a regular news website, and hardly turn on the radio for music anymore much less news. Fortunately my friends know this and are kind enough to do things like call me and tell me if a tornado is on it’s way over as well as other happenings less life threatening but still important.

One of those news items that has filtered it’s way into my cozy life under this rock is that there is a growing trend to ban plastic bags. Madison (unsurprisingly) is on the anti-plastic bag bandwagon with a recycling program and thoughts of banning plastic bags altogether. I could pontificate on the pros and cons of this as well as the ridiculousness of passing mandates with fines that no one is going to attempt to enforce, but I’ll spare you all. Instead I’ll share an incident in which a grocery store plastic bag was the hero of the day.

This morning just after breakfast the girls took a bath together and life was good.

Then Clara pooped in the bathtub and full chaos set in.

Ivy jumped from the bathtub ran through the bathroom and into the kitchen yelling.

I removed Clara from the tub and as I was debating the best method of cleaning it up…

…Clara promptly pooped on the bathroom floor.

Ivy showed up freezing and wrapped herself in a towel, but not before dragging it through poop.

Clara, after being cleaned up from the bathroom floor incident escaped to the kitchen. (How you ask? Well I was up to my elbows in a bathtub full of fecal matter that’s how.)

Ivy watches and reports back with “MOM! Clara pooped in the kitchen… It’s really big and nasty!”

I finally got the tub cleaned and threw the girls back in aaannd the super pooper struck again.

Re-clean bathtub.

Put girls in.

Clean girls.

Clean bathroom floor.

Look in kitchen.

Wonder if there is any way someone else is going to clean up the “big and nasty” on the floor.

While I stall Clara starts attempting to leave the bathtub.

Now in a panic with visions of poop footprints all through the house I run for the pantry and grab The Plastic Bag.

Me, a lot of paper towels, some cleaning stuff and The Plastic Bag clean up the “big and nasty” in record time.

I curse our stupid kitchen floor with stupid cracks between all the stupid fake boards the entire time.

I throw a knot in The Plastic Bag toss it out into the mudroom just in time to catch Clara jumping out of the tub.

While drying her off I find more poop on her, or the floor, or me, it is unclear where it came from but the end result is the same…

… clean more stuff, again.

Finally I get the girls dressed and out of the way.

To do this I teach them how to be all American by giving them the computer, an armchair, a bag of popcorn and a cartoon to watch.

I clean more, mop floors, do laundry.

I pick up The Plastic Bag on my way out to do chores and swing by the garbage.

My point:

It takes a pooptastrophe for me to mop my floors and the plastic bag is not necessarily the epitomy of all evil.

Good Sisters

Jan9

They play together.

They run and dance together.

They sometimes cry together.

They giggle together while getting into trouble.

They explore together.

They read together.

When I hear the sounds of scraping and dragging in their room at night and find the furniture a bit rearranged in the morning, I know I don’t need to intervene.

They are only moving Clara’s crib so that they can lay in their beds and hold hands together before they fall asleep.

They are good sisters!

Nap Time

Jan7

I love it and I hate it.

It’s the best part of the day or it’s the very worst.

Every day I look forward to nap time.

In addition to the cuteness factor of the sleeping kids nap time is:

the saver of my sanity,

the part of the day where I can relax and do whatever I’d like with no questions, comments or little helpers,

the part of my day where I can work on projects best left out of the reach of tiny hands, without jumping up every two minutes to keep those little hands away,

the part of the day where grumpy kids are transformed into happy kids.

When it’s over, all three of us are rested and ready to enjoy each others company again.

I love nap time!

Other days nap time brings out all worst parts of stay-at-home-momdom and rolls them into one horrible afternoon.

I turn into:

the schedule keeper,

the enforcer,

the silent gate keeper,

because if I don’t wait quietly, monitoring the situation for escapes or shenanigans, they won’t fall asleep or they’ll escape before they sleep and we’ll all be cranky forever…

… especially me.)

Those days the frustration level builds, the girls get more and more tired and I end up ready to run for the hills by the time John gets home. (Good thing those dogs of ours always need walking!)

Those days the three of us do not enjoy each others company when it’s time to get up.

I hate nap time!

The wonderful happy nap times go like this: I read the girls a pile of books, sing them a song if I feel the need to torture them further, and tuck them in and head off for a bit of whatever kind of rest my day needs.

Ivy is left with these choices:

1) Rest until Clara falls asleep and then get up.

2) Get up after she wakes up.

3) Get up when I come get her.

She’s been great, she knows that the best way to get Clara to fall asleep quickly is to lay quietly and pretend to be asleep herself.

Brilliant, Clara gets a nap, Ivy at minimum takes a bit of a rest and often nods off for a few hours herself.

Unless it doesn’t’ work.

Unless you find both of them in the crib.

Unless Clara throws all her blankets and half her clothes at her sister.

Unless Ivy performs a jail break and you find them coming down the stairs.

Unless you think they finally have really fallen asleep and as you are putting a coat of paint on shutters in the mudroom you hear mysterious noises upstairs and on investigating find them both playing together.

I was happily greeted with a “MOM!” from Clara.

Ivy told me that they were “just plain’ with blocks” as if I would be so excited to see them up and about and “done with our resteses”

I turned around and left the room and as my blood pressure fell back to acceptable levels cleaned up my painting things before heading back upstairs.

Now they have been admonished, separated, and put back in bed and I’m back to being the silent gate keeper.

Here I sit stewing that not only has nap time gone poorly and my shutter painting has been put on hold yet again but that the last of my Christmas chocolate is stuck in the room with Ivy.

Today I hate nap time.

I wrote this post yesterday mid nap time in the midst of internet issues and saved it to post later. Shortly after writing this Ivy came back down stairs and told me that she made her own choice (please note her three choices from above) (please note that the three year old gets to choose a choice, not create one). Her choice was that she decided she was all done taking a rest. The huge smile on her face when she delivered the news that she could make up her own choice and her insistence that it was the new plan may have pushed me over some mental ledge.

That’s the only explanation I have for the hysterical laughter that I tried to hide from her as I ushered her back upstairs.

That and the fact that she’s awful cute when she tries to be sneaky.

Now much later I can officially say that good substantial naps did eventually occur, and I was able to sneak in to get my chocolate.

Friday naps, a success… eventually!

No Snow

Jan4

It is winter in Wisconsin and we don’t have any snow at our house.

I hate that.

The dusting that we got overnight is not enough to make a snowman, go sledding on the new sled, or go skiing.

No matter how much a certain almost four year old asks in a day there is only enough snow to make grassy snow angles.

The only benefit that I can find in this nasty circumstance is that Clara can get outside again.

Not that she couldn’t go outside when we had ten inches of the white stuff, it’s just that now she can walk, and when she falls over she can get back up again.

This means that we have been outside for longer than it takes to get ready to go outside.

I count that as a major success!

Even with Clara’s increased outdoor mobility I still hate the cold without the snow, so I’ll keep on wishing for more.

In the meantime I have been thinking about people with little dogs.

In specific the people who shovel trails in their yards so their dogs can get around.

I’m just wondering… …would it work?

The Evil Koala

Jan2

Here is the thing.

Those changing tables in the bathrooms with the cute little koala bears on them. They look all handy and useful, but really they are evil incarnate.

I will change my kids in the car, in the lawn, or on a floor in the corner before I will chose one of those “helpful” devices.

Why?

I’ll tell you why…

For starters bathrooms in Wisconsin are cold. In the summer they always seem to be air conditioned to death and in the winter all that tile never heats up. Therefore the evil koala bears and their hard, weirdly curved, surfaces are also cold. If I were the type of mother who brought along extra blankets and changing mats, this probably wouldn’t be a problem, but I don’t. Therefore every time I’ve stuck an infant on one of these no matter what condition the child was in before we started I had an immediate transition to a child screaming bloody murder. And we haven’t even started the fun of the actual diaper change yet.

It is even worse if you have a child about 15 months old. *note, this age is not a coincidence* This age looks at the plastic monstrosity and sees some sort of awesome jungle gym. That empty hole that’s supposed to be filled with liners, just an extra handhold to help out while you strive to climb away.

Next we have the size issue. The tables seem so big, until you have a child all stretched out screaming and kicking held down with one hand and a diaper bag in the other. Clearly the diaper bag needs to get set down someplace, but unless you want to set your diaper bag on the child and, depending on the age, either risk suffocation or having the contents of the bag thrown all over the floor you need to set it on the floor. This means that if you forgot to pre-pull anything you may need out of the bag before starting the diaper change you will be forced to do crazy contortions in order to get what you need out of the bag that’s been left on the floor as you keep the child from rolling/crawling/jumping from the “cute” little bench. There is of course the handy dandy safety strap that you can strap them in with… right, good luck with that.

The final evil kicker? 75% of the time the changing stations are located in one of the stalls in the bathroom. Why? Why would you do this? So that a mother holding down a screaming child on a cold hard surface is also forced to deal with the dirty looks of the women standing in line to use the actual toilet? Seriously? That had to be a childless man who thought that one up.

Why am I on such a rant about changing stations?

I’ll tell you why…

On the way home on Christmas weekend we stopped for some fast food and a little leg stretching. Clara needed a diaper change and John kindly did the deed. John does not share my complete hatred of the changing stations so he waltzed into the men’s bathroom, changed her diaper and waltzed back out again. Unfortunately approximately 67 seconds after her first change it was very apparent that another was needed. Since we were already inside and the weather was a bit chilly for a front seat of the truck change, I picked up the ready diaper bag and headed to the bathroom.

It was bad.

It was very bad.

That day I added to my list of reasons I hate bathroom changing stations.

#32 – No matter how bad it is, you can not call your husband into the woman’s bathroom to help. No one is OK with that, except for you, the queen of poop, and apparently, in this case, you don’t count.

I had just finished cleaning the poop off of Clara, the table, the wall and the floor.

I was still trying to pick up my mess and clean the poop off of myself as Clara ran around the bathroom topless (did I mention the poop on the clothes?).

She was near the door trying to figure a jail break which I was mentally encouraging (John was on the outside after all) when a woman came in. The woman made all sorts of fluttery noises about almost running her over, and then picked her up off the floor and out of the way of the door while I washed my hands.

Nice, right?

Ummm, sort of. There is nice and then there are the noises that women who think a child is being woefully mistreated make when they are pretending to be nice while they are actually appalled at what they see before them and wish they could swoop in to save the poor unfortunate child.

What I didn’t know is that apparently some strangers do actually swoop in and pick up your child.

What I also didn’t know is that I’m not so cool with random people picking up my child if her life is not in mortal danger.

What I do know is that when I see those kolas just one look at their beady little eyes and I can see the evil.

The Christmas Cookies

Dec29

Yesterday I wrote about a few of the traditions in my family, but the Connell family Christmas Cookies were too big of an event to fit on the same post. Now that my laundry pile is much reduced I’m back to tell you more than you ever wanted to know about our Christmas Cookie making tradition!

The event begins a day or two ahead of the gathering of people when Grandpa and Granny (sometimes with assistance by others) use the old hand grinder to grind up almonds and lemon peel and mix them up into the dough. Just the making of the dough is a bit epic, and we haven’t hardly started yet!

Next we gather as many family members (and sometimes brave friends) as possible into the farm house in Pewaukee where we will shape and bake the cookies.

Once gathered the cooking making begins with the rolling. That’s grandpas job and has been for as long as I can remember. Sometimes he has helpers, sometimes he smashes the dough into his helpers face to make “nose prints,” sometimes it’s hard to be Grandpas helper.

Then a cutter must come and trim edges.

They are followed by the butterer…

…who is followed by the sugerer.

Once sugared they are cut into squares, or if Ivy is helping something with about four sides, not necessary straight nor uniform in size.

Then they are finally picked up and baked.

After baking they are cooled on racks before getting put away into the tins. This has been my Dads job for many years. This year there was much harassing about how he is almost as good at it as the 90 year old lady (my great grandma) who’s job he inherited.

Which brings us to the next part of the tradition.

The harassment.

The cookies are too thin, too thick, not buttered enough, too little sugar or not enough. “Your making postage stamps again!” is often heard to be yelled at a cutter. Oddly enough, Granny in the baking position gets very little flack on her work, I’m thinking this isn’t a coincidence.

And all this fun, it’s been going on for years.

I asked Grandpa this year just how long we have been making Christmas cookies.

He said: “Since 1848.”

He was kidding.

Just a tip, never trust Gramps, they don’t call him “The Big Fink” for nothin’.

Then Granny told how they were not always made this way. My Great Grandma used to cut them out with a round cutter and dip them in butter and then in sugar. Granny thought that was ridiculous therefore we don’t do it that way any more. After we got that story behind us (it’s a yearly event) we attempted to figure out just how long we have been making the Christmas cookies. It turns out 1848 isn’t too far off. The recipe is entitled “Lena Puchners Christmas Cookies”, it calls for 5 cents of potash, (we’ve updated that to baking soda in our new fangled ways and the cookies seem no worse for the wear) and in the top corner is written “Hayton.” This means -stop reading now if you want to save yourself from the family history- that the Connell family (my Moms, Dads family) had brought the recipe to Pewaukee with them from Hayton Wisconsin where they used to live before my Great Grandfather (James A Connell – Grandpa’s Dad) bought the farm in 1913. My Great Great Grandfather (Richard Connell) had died when James was only 16 and so when he came to Pewaukee at the age of 28 he brought his mother (Betsy Amelia, who is sometimes called Betsy and usually called Amelia which always manages to confuse me) and her Christmas Cookie recipe along with him. Shortly after they were joined by Jessie (my Great Grandmother) the maker of the round cookies.

What does all this mean?

It means that while we have no idea who Lena Puchner was, or how long before the move Amelia may have made the cookies, we do know that Lena’s got some pretty darn good cookies and my family has been making them for at least a hundred years.

Now that’s a tradition.

Cheerful Noncompliance

Dec29

Today Ivy was exercising her mastery of the art of cheerful noncompliance.

Giving any sort of direction she would cheerfully tell me “No thanks!” and dance off in the opposite direction or say things like “I’m writing a Christmas Card to Johny. How do you spell Love Johnny?”

When taking a shower with Clara she cheerfully washed Clara’s hair after I had to her not to, all the while telling me how helpful she was.

When told to get dressed she continued to turn a 70 sheet tablet of colored paper into confetti (also known as dinosaurs, sailboats, and trains) which she would give to Clara (the confetti spreader), while telling me she was putting her clothes on in “just a moment,” all the while turning our house into a colorful fire hazard.

When asked to sign her name on a birthday card under the writing, she smiles and says… “How about over here?”

The worst part is she knows what she is doing, as soon as she pushes things a bit too far she happily dials back down, right before she pushes a few more of my buttons with a big smile plastered on.

The girls are having a lovely time.

Ivy is skating the edge of getting into trouble and squeaking back out of it.

I’m beyond crabby.

Is there anything worse than a kid who cheerfully ignores all suggestions/commands/threats/demands/if/then statements and then at the last second happily complies?

It’s enough to make me want to throw that noisy-smiling-confetti-making little face out in a snow bank.

I think I need more Diet Coke.

Traditions

Dec28

Back from the long weekend of Christmas celebrations we are tucked back into our cozy house reliving the love and beauty of the season…

Sort of.

We are back, the house is still freezing cold, the laundry is sorted and piled on the floor, the hunting stuff is strewn about, the new toys (for young and old) are piled up waiting to find new homes in the morning, the children have only recently stopped yelling and requesting water, Piper is shivering on the couch under her blanket and worried we might leave her behind again at any moment, and the cat is doing her best to be on top of everything.

John is updating our yearly Christmas Book (one of the best newlywed gifts ever by the way) and I’m doing my blogging thing while a fire is trying desperately to turn our frigid house cozy.

Happily home.

Sort of.

Despite my dubious enjoyment of our homecoming we did have a great long Christmas weekend filled with traditions.

My Dads side of the family is traditional in their traditions. (Is that possible? Lets say it is.)

First we stuff forty to fifty people into one house.

They all bring food. (Can you get more traditional than that?)

There is traditional food like stuffed Vienna bread. (If this didn’t show up I’m afraid my mother would be forcibly ejected from the house until she went and made some.)

And there is not so traditional food. Aunt Jeanie always brings something interesting and new, this year she made Spanakopita. I’m not sure what it was, there was something green inside and I ate it all anyway. It was good, very good.

The next tradition is that we squish everyone into one spot, ask my very Finnish family to have patience, stand still, and do what someone else tells them to while we take a picture. (HA!)

Miraculously this seems to work every year. The picture taker puts up with a lot of abuse but the picture does get taken. This year cousin Jack took the picture. (He does that now, if you need a picture you should find him. If he can get this family to hold still and smile he can do anything!)

Then then evening turns into a mass of talking, eating, running kids and game playing.

Can you have a tradition of noise? There is a lot of noise.

It used to be the uncles (five of which are my Dads brothers) would play Scrabble and then another group (headed by most of the five in-law aunts) would find the new nosiest game ever (think Pictionary) and see how many dirty looks they could get from the serious Scrabble players. The last few years I haven’t seen a scrabble board but the noisy games have continued. It just goes to show, Scrabble is nice but you just can’t make a tradition out of it like you can screaming answers above the din of a noisy house… or something…

On my Moms side of the family the traditions are older a bit more reserved and to be honest, a few of them are decidedly odder.

We eat things called prick headed monkeys. They are much tastier than they sound and involve no monkeys whatsoever.

This year was the 98th year the Connell family ate a Christmas dinner around the same table. (unless it was more, but we can only say 98 years for sure)

Every year Grandpa hangs his ornament on the tree while telling the story about when he “was just this high” it broke and he fixed it with Micky Mouse bubble gum. (It’s still fixed by the way, Mickey Mouse bubble gum has some incredible staying power.)

We cook a pudding that is only mildly edible, light it on fire and than smother it in something called hard sauce to make it palatable. In the last few years John has been leading the family in singing “Varsity” while the pudding burns.

Finally there is the making of the Christmas cookies. This actually occurs sometime before Christmas, (we are clearly too busy singing and burning things day of) and is an EVENT. Since it is an EVENT it’s getting a posting of it’s own, stay tuned!

I offer no explanation for any of this other than it is – tradition.

Traditions, love em or hate, you just can’t have Christmas without em!

Hope your Christmases were merry and your laundry piles are small!

Little Christmas Helpers

Dec23

My little Christmas helpers are sooo… umm… helpful?

Today Ivy was wrapping the present she made for Clara. Since Ivy has never wrapped anything before I was helping her out. This in itself was sort of a dubious plan. I’m a really bad present wrapper. If you get a nice looking wrapped gift from us it came from John. Nevertheless we were trying. We cleared a space on the floor, pulled out the paper, tape and scissors and in a flurry of questions we got to work. As we unrolled a brand new roll of wrapping paper, (and because if you wait until the 22nd to buy wrapping paper you can get it on sale and get the fancy kind with the squares on the back that you never otherwise would have bought) Ivy stared at all the squares rolling out before her and said:

“MOM, IT LOOKS JUST LIKE A MAP! … Now, Lets see where we live.”

Then we spent a few minutes finding our imaginary house and all our friends and relatives imaginary houses on an imaginary map. Ivy couldn’t understand why I was laughing and why on earth I wanted to get back to wrapping a gift when we were having so much fun with our map.

Helpful may not be precisely the word for my Christmas helpers but between Ivy’s involvement in everything, Clara’s tree un-decorating and shooting Rudolph (While I admit to disliking Rudolph it wasn’t my idea. Ivy suggested the activity and when I questioned it I was told “He’s a deer”. Hard to argue with such logic… ) it’s been quite a time around here!

We’ve got maps on the wrapping paper and we ate an imaginary Rudolph dinner.