Faking It

This morning when we woke to a winter wonderland outside and a huge flock of red winged blackbirds I thought we’d better go take advantage of what may be the last good snow day.

So during breakfast I took stock of the situation.

Ivy was better, but cranky from being cooped up.

Clara was not feeling as well as Ivy, but definitely on the mend.

And as evidenced by my multiple trips to the bathroom during breakfast, I was feeling decidedly worse.

Left with no option other than to survive the day I took the plunge…

…some herbal tea, a neti pot, a handful of Tylenol, a Diet Coke and it was snowman making time.

Clara ate snow and cried.

Ivy made tracks, snow angels and a snowman.

I helped with the snowman, held Clara, took pictures, and pretended I felt fine.

Faking it with Diet Coke.

It’s not the answer to a quick recovery, quite the opposite I’m afraid, but it gets us through the day!

Hanging On

It’s been a rough week here.

After the fun of the Birkie weekend, and the relief of having Piper back home Ivy got sick,

and then Clara got sick,

and then I got sick,

and now from the way John sounds he’s getting it too.

Life here hasn’t been the best, there have been tears, and fevers, and puking, and coughing, and more tears.

It has made for sleepless nights and difficult days.

Tonight  I accidentally used kid number one to knock kid number two  off a chair. Kid number two went flying to land flat on her back, which horrified me so I dropped kid number one, and ended up with two kids screaming on the floor.

Then when they were both safely tucked in bed I had a few tears of my own.

Because even though I know it was an accident and everything is OK, there is that nasty mommy guilt.

Because even though I had no idea Clara had climbed up on the chair I still used Ivy to send her flying to the floor.

Because even though I dropped Ivy because she wouldn’t put her feet down and stand when I asked her to so I could check Clara, I still dropped her to check her sister.

All those people with their warnings about parenthood; in addition to being obnoxious they were wrong.

It’s not the sleepless nights that will get you.

It’s not even the subtle and not so sublte lifestyle changes that occour after you have children that you need to watch out for.

It’s the mommy guilt.

It’ll get you every time.

Yup, It’s been a rough week, but we are hanging on…

… I just hope someone gives us our chair back soon!

P.S. I have no idea how Clara got herself in this predicament today.  I walked into the kitchen and found Clara looking fairly happy and stable, so I snapped a quick picture before helping her down.

Ivy was nowhere to be seen.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

With all of the books that I review I hardly ever feel the need to either push a copy into your hands and compel you to read it or snatch it out of your hands if I’ve hated it.

But sometimes I do.

If I was into writing lengthy reviews, I’d go on about how this is a fantasy, but don’t judge it by the genre.That even regular fantasy readers will find it to be something beyond the ordinary. That the book has depth… deep, dark, depth. That it’s the first of three and the second came out this week. That it is the first of a trilogy; sequels I love, never ending sagas I do not, trilogies are perfect. That Pat Rothfuss is a Wisconsin local and Stevens Point Alum. That of all my favorite authors, he’s the only one who’s blog I follow because he’s a darn funny guy. That I’d love to sneak into your house and place it on all your nightstands and then steal the rest of the books in your house forcing you to read this one.

But I don’t really do that sort of thing.

Would I recommend it? Yup.  If you’d like to check out Pat Rothfuss’s website just click the image of the book.

Be a Better Spouse Challenge

The author of  Motherhood Uncensored is doing a “be a better spouse challenge” for the month of March.

John and I discussed that while we are already perfect, it couldn’t hurt to stay that way so we are going to follow along.

If you are interested you can find the first day here Day 1: Let bygones be bygones.

Keep in mind that this is from “Motherhood Uncensored” I doubt this will be your normal self help program, instead it’s bound to be, interesting, humorous, thought provoking and, of course, completely uncensored.

The Birkie

You know those canoe races I do? The ones where I can’t beat my Mom?

You know that triathlon where the boys couldn’t beat her even when they worked together?

The training my Mom does for the event this last weekend is no doubt why none of us can catch her all summer long.

For 18 years my Mom has skied the Birkebeiner, a 50 Kilometer ski race from Cable to Hayward. Of course being my Mom she doesn’t just ski it, she does disgusting things like come in third in her age group in a race of more than 8000 participants.

While I do ski I haven’t yet done a Birkie, instead I’ve tagged along with Mom and her friends as a spectator on most of the Birkies in the last ten years.  So this last weekend I drove all by myself to meet up with my brother so we could watch our Mom ski the Birkie, a very cold Birkie.

When Tyler and I got up Saturday morning, we noticed it was a bit chilly.How cold was it you ask?

Too cold for GU that’s how cold.

For those of you not up on your gooey supplements GU is an energy… uhh… goo that athletes can eat during races. It comes in a little foil pack that can be…well… gooed out into their mouth easily delivering a shot of carbohydrates and other important stuff. It helps a person do crazy things like keep skiing for hours in below zero weather.  Often in the Birkie you will see racers staple the GU to their numbered racing bibs so they can grab it and rip it off and eat it without stopping.

On Saturday morning thermometers were at ten below at start time. At that temperature nobody staples on their GU. At ten below they would be GUsicles, nobody wants a GUsicle.

After delivering a hitchhiking skier to the start of the race Tyler and I had  hiked out along the trail at the halfway point to watch for Mom. The first sight Tyler and I had of herwas as she came barreling across the trail at us yelling “Get my GU! Get my GU!”

This raised some questions in our minds.

A: Why she couldn’t get her own GU?

B: Where was the GU? Did she have it? Were we supposed to have it?

C: Were we going to be in trouble later for fumbling the GU feed that we didn’t know we were supposed to be doing?

D: Did the race and the cold do her in? Had the last of her marbles been lost on the trail?

E: If “D” is even a question why do both of us keep contemplating joining the insanity and racing ourselves?

While Tyler and I stared in confusion Mom made it clear that the GU was tucked into the hip of her ski pants and that she needed it out and opened up for her.

Now.

Tyler, the dutiful son, dug it out, opened it and looked up to Moms best impression of a hungry baby bird on skis.

I, the not so dutiful daughter, took pictures.

You don’t get to be one of the fastest grandma’s in the Birkie by hanging around with your kids midway through a race.  In seconds she had sucked her GU down and was headed back down the trail, leaving a her son staring at an empty packet of goo wondering what had just happened.

Tyler and I continued to ponder what had happened as we scooted down to Hayward where we were able to catch Mom on the trail one final time as she came across the lake before finishing in town. It wasn’t until later when she had sort of warmed up that we got the answers to our many questions.

A: Her hands were frozen and she knew if she were able to get it out of her pants she’d never get it open

B: It was of course stuffed in her pants so that it wouldn’t freeze, she was expecting us to be there and was watching for us so we could help her out. Poor watchers we had been distracted by one of her high school skiers moments before and would have missed her if she hadn’t come at us yelling!

C: Nope, ever since the time the group of us giving her a personal feed tripped her… twice… so long as she stays on her feet it’s a job well done!

D: It appears some marbles have remained in her head. It’s possible that after a night with the shotski they left, but that’s a whole different issue.

E: I have no idea.

Congrats to Mom and all her friends – Not only did you have great ski’s, but you did it with minimal frostbite!

Anne, as soon as your ready to commit to that babysitting I’ll send in my registration for next year! 🙂

If not I’ll see you at the finish line!

Have fun at worlds!

Sofa Sweet Sofa

After an emergency vet visit and surgery followed by a two day recovery at the vets office Piper is back home!

She’s got a line of staples up her belly, bottles of pills, restrictions and schedules but Piper is back on the couch for the rest of her recovery.

It sure was a welcome sight when I got home tonight!

 

Little Ballerina

We love to talk about how our kids are just like us, a combination of our best and worst traits.

It starts at birth.

“She looks just like you!” –  “She looks just like John!”

Those comments always made me inwardly laugh.

Ivy didn’t look like John or I, she looked like a startled monkey, and even on our worst days of sleep deprived new parents I don’t think we sunk that low.

Then as personality surfaces we move from looks to acts.

Ivy:  She’s stubborn like me, outgoing like John, she stays up too late reading books like me, and she talks non-stop like John.

But we are all wrong.

Ivy is, and always has been, Ivy.

She may share the trait of contrariness with me, and she may have Johns tendency to preform for an audience.  The combination could result in her dancing opposite of everyone else at her first ballet recital with a grin on her face and a smile for the audience, but our little, pink, tutu clad, ballerina is all Ivy.

She always has been, and I’m certain she always will be.

After all neither John or I have ever been into pink!

Old As The Dinosaurs

We don’t watch a lot of movies. Partly because we are without that whole TV thing, partially because I’m indifferent to many movies, and partially because there is too much other stuff to do.  But every now and then when John is away and Clara goes to sleep early Ivy and I have “girl night.” We’ve done different things but most often we paint toenails and watch movies. It used to be that we could choose from a variety of movies, Beauty and the Beast, Shrek, Toy Story, Milo and Otis… but now Ivy has become terrified of anything scary and refuses to watch any of those. Our choices have dwindled to a leapfrog video that if I hear again I might be forced to smash with a hammer and Seabiscuit. Seabiscuit is a great movie, Ivy loves the horses and the racing, but it’s not all exactly four year old material.

Last movie night we watched Secretariat.  It was a good move, nothing scary, lots of horses, lots of racing, and most importantly nothing a four year old shouldn’t see.  It was a welcome change to see Ivy shaking with excitement instead of fear while we watched.

The races were by far her favorite and she gave me a running commentary on every one. They went something like this:

Mom who is going to win?

Mom the blue one (Secretariat) is in the back.

Now he’s running faster mom

Oh he’s going so fast!

Look, Look he’s beatin’ those horses.

He won Mom, aren’t you so excited?!??!

After it was done she was full of questions about the people and the horse wanting to know if we could see him and if he was real. Here is part of the conversation that followed:

Me: Secretariat was a real horse, but he lived a long time ago.

Ivy: A long time ago before I was born?

Me: Yup, a long time ago before I was born!

Ivy: You mean when there were dinosaurs?

They say kids age you but I had no idea by how much!

My Editor…

…he knows how to spell, where commas are supposed to go and he’s cute.

A few hours after I publish a post, my faithful editor fixes them. Unfortunately those of you who are getting the first version are missing what my other half does for them, and some days (apparently today was one of them) it’s a lot!.

And so…

Apologies to those of you who subscribe via e-mail and get what is usually the unedited post.

And …

Thanks John, you are the best editor/husband/father of my children/climber of trees/chicken butcher/griller/foot rubber a girl could ask for!