Everyone’s a Specialist

Here is what we did the other day playing outside. It turns out Clara is a bit of a specialist…

I made Ivy a “helicopter” with some duck feathers and she ran all over throwing it around.

Clara ate a feather.

Ivy did somersaults.

Clara ate a water hose.

True confession time:  This is actually a picture of what happens when Clara is eating a water hose while Ivy is doing somersaults and my inattentive self is just sitting in the shade taking pictures.  Ivy unnoticed by me grabbed part of the hose, and was just starting to rip it out of Clara’s mouth as the picture was taken. Oops!

Ivy threw her feather some more.

Clara ate dirt. Then Ivy joined Clara and showed her how to pretend to be a dog and dig in the dirt.

The dirt that I had finally used to fill holes Storm dug as a puppy over two years ago.

I let them dig, I thought my little specialist could use to expand her horizons.

Then Clara ate more dirt.

I gave up on horizon expanding and we went inside for  nap time.

Delicious!…?

For dinner tonight we had shiskabobs with sweet potato, apples from our own apple tree, ham from our own pig, zucchini from next door, and pineapple. Served with our own sweet corn and brown rice.

Delicious!

Well,it could have been…

The epic badness I called dinner started around 4:30 while mixing everything up in the bag of marinade.  As I mushed and mixed my bag exploded spewing juice and chunks all over me and the floor. Of course a dog came running, and since I had no extras of any of the ingredients on hand I shoved the dog away, while frantically scooping everything up into a strainer and then attempted to wash it off in the sink. It was one of those times where you’d like to throw a fit and cry but since you are the mom nobody is going to help anyway so you might as well just swear a few times and get on with it.

So I did. Rinsed off, re-bagged, re-marinated, refrigerated, and well cursed, only a few hairs were left when it was time to make the skewers. Already dinner was not looking as delicious but I still had hope. Then John was late. This was a problem because clearly shiskabobs go on the grill, and clearly I have no business going anywhere near a grill. In fact I’m pretty sure the last time I tried I was 21 in collage and drinking enough beer that it didn’t matter how my brats (in buns!) turned out.  As John was delayed later and later I decided to bite the bullet and do it myself. It’s a grill, its charcoal, how hard can it be right? I can start fires, I can cook over fires, Ivy says she’ll help.

Turns out Ivy is no help.

I finally figured out how to get the charcoal lit with the help of the chimney thingy and get my skewers on, I’m so proud I take a picture.

At this point I’m still hoping that John will swoop in and save us, but it seems to be going OK… and going and going and going… then I realize that I am slow cooking my shiskabobs.

In case that didn’t make you gag, let me just let you know right now that slow cook shiskabobs that include ham are not good, not good at all. The girls and I are hungry so we eat it some anyway.  Ivy eats very little, then feeds the rest of hers to Storm while I am not looking. It’s bad enough I don’t even have the heart to yell at her for it.

All of a sudden I realized it was 7:00 (Clara’s bed time) I had more to grill, Clara seriously need a bath, food was out on the picnic table where the dog would grab it if I didn’t put it away, Ivy wanted to play in her sprinkler and John still wasn’t home.

So, I…

-stripped my filthy dirty daughter Clara naked

-brought food inside

-found Ivy’s swim suit

-put rest of dinner on grill (still assuming John will show up any moment)

-set up sprinkler

-moved Clara over to play in sprinkler with Ivy

-flipped kabobs

-finished cleaning up dishes from outside

-took dinner off grill, stashed in microwave so the dogs wouldn’t get it

-went to go get Clara for her shower (and mine too, don’t forget the spewing bag incident)

When I reached the girls Ivy looked at me and asked “Mom, what’s on your shorts?” After a flurry of questions, answers and running around the yard  I confirmed that Clara had pooped near the picnic table and I had carried her over to the sprinkler with out noticing, getting poop on my shorts, shirt, legs…

John got home while I was upstairs putting Clara down to bed. As soon as I got downstairs I told him that while dinner was in the microwave he might want to be careful, since in addition throwing it on the floor, and  slow cooking it I also had probably moved it around two different times with poop on my hands, but that I had only touched the wooden skewers so if he was feeling brave he could probably cut the food off instead of sliding it off, discard the end pieces and still salvage some of dinner.

Part way through my explanation John got a funny look on his face…I guess he was hungry when he got home.

John went and had a shot of Scotch, and I re-gave up grilling.

Sizzling Sixteen by Janet Evanovich

This is the sixteenth book in a series and I think there is some fun, familiar comfort in reading a book like that.

You know the characters – inept bounty hunters, police men, sexy capable men in black, bad guys and Grandma Mauzer.

You know the general theme of things- inept bounty hunters will mess up trying to get bad guys, sexy capable men in black will help bail them out, police will be involved, Grandma Mauzer will cause a scene in a funeral home, cars will get ruined, donuts and fried chicken will be consumed.

Then there are a few surprises – alligators, hobbits, lucky bottles.

Really how could you go wrong?

Would I recommend it? Yes, not the best of the 16 (My personal favorites are 10 & 12) but good!

P.S. These make the best adult read aloud books !

Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

I read this book after Pat Rothfuss recommended it in his blog this was not the first book I have read after his recommendations and so far I have yet to be disappointed.  This was not necessarily a book I loved while I was reading it, yet I couldn’t put it down.  Spanning topics like, women’s roles, desert life, racism, war, female circumcision, religion and death it was a heavy read.  Once I put it down I couldn’t stop thinking about it…including the nightmares it gave me.

Would I recommend it? Yes, nightmares and all it was unusual in a good way.

Bobble Head Girl

Today while running errands we all ended up at Farm and Fleet. Ivy and I left John and Clara to finish buying tires and headed off across the store to start on the rest of our list. I wasn’t two aisles past where we left them before I realized that I was missing Ivy.

In my world this is not a cause for alarm.

You see if Ivy is missing in a store all you have to do is stop and listen it’ll take about 5 seconds before you hear her talking. If you don’t hear talking, you’ll hear feet running, and if you don’t hear that you’ll hear her ask someone “You know where my Mom is?”.   So I stopped, listened and immediately heard something that sounded like Ivy…but not quite.

I soon found the source of the muffled noises when I realized my daughter had transformed herself into a walking bobble head.

Bobble head Ivy was dressed in her favorite pink stripy dress, purple flip flops, and black, adult size large, full face, motorcycle helmet. She was following me, walking a bit crooked from the restricted vision, with the helmet bobbing around on her head, chatting all the while.

Who knew that you needed a camera at Farm and Fleet?

Sprinklers

This year I bought Ivy a new sprinkler. I’m not usually all about buying my kids stuff like huge beach ball shaped sprinklers but since I ran over her old sprinkler over with the tractor I sort of felt I owed her one. The problem is that a huge beach ball that is a sprinkler was cooler in theory than in actuality, there really isn’t a whole lot of water that comes out and so it seems that in order for Ivy to be amused by it I need to make up games for her to play with it. In the past we have played things  like run and touch a color. The other good game I discovered is try and jump over the water while I take your picture. What a face!

That face almost worth the fact that she needs me to sit and play with her to play with it for more than five seconds. The plain old garden watering sprinkler, seems to promote solitary play but no, guilty me went and bought a “cool” one and now I’m playing too, and of course noone wants to play with a plain old sprinkler when you could use the beach ball one.. Clara on the other hand actually does like the new sprinkler better, the gentle sprinkles are just her style and she can pull up and stand on the ball while smacking the water. Sadly it is only a matter of time before Clara realizes that she could be eating rocks off of the driveway and makes a break for it. Then we made up a new game for Ivy called bring your little sister back up here. Oh and then sometimes Clara eats my tree. A fact that is completely unrelated to sprinklers but makes a good picture.

One Hundred and Seventy Seven

One hundred and seventy seven questions asked of me, from Ivy, from the time she got up from her afternoon nap until she went to bed.

That was over a period of two and a half hours.

Which puts her questioning rate just above one question per minute.

Then you realize that I didn’t actually talk to her for two and a half hours straight (because clearly my head would have exploded).  It was more like many minutes of blissful silence while Ivy was otherwise occupied followed by rapid fire questions as soon as she caught me again. At one point I counted seven questions in one minute. SEVEN in a minute, I’m not even sure how she manages to breathe.

Then she got back out of bed, and went to the bathroom and between hearing about the “mama poop” and the “baby poops” and getting her back into bed I had another 31 fired off at me.

That’s right a grand total of TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHT since five o’clock.

Yes, I know, learning, development, blah, blah, blah…

Just don’t come over here and ask me any questions, I’m not guaranteeing what the response will be.

Death by Drooling

My friend Jessie has two dogs, Finley and Cooper. Finley I introduced you to last week when I went to meet her, Cooper I left out of the e-mail because I was having trouble photographing him at his best.  Cooper is a super nice dog, and probably the issues with my pictures of him just had to do with my poor composition, poor lighting and whatever you call red eye in dogs.

Well, that and the drool.

As wonderful as Cooper is he has a tendency to drool in high stress (or moderate stress, or light stress, or exciting) situations. This makes him very lovable, a bit pathetic, and much to Coopers dismay does not encourage people to pet him.

Finley’s arrival clearly was a bit upsetting to Cooper and who could blame him, just look at what the little monster was doing to his feet!

Over the weekend Jessie came out with her dogs, visited for the afternoon and than babysat while John and I went out on a date.

YAY JESSIE!

Even taking into consideration the excitement of the visit Cooper’s drooling was not much improved. I was just starting to worry about the drooling and it’s consequences.

Worries like…

-Jessie is going to fall down becuase her entire floors will be covered with super slippery dog drool, then once she hits the ground Finely is going to maul her to death in a way only cute puppies with needle sharp teeth can.

-Finley is going to fall asleep near Cooper, Cooper will be scared to move, the drool will come faster, Finley will drown in the slime.

-Cooper is going to suffer from dehydration, causing Jessie to bring him to the vet, which will make him drool more, the vicious cycle will repeat until Cooper resembles a mummy.

Needless to say I was relieved this morning when I found this in an e-mail from Jessie:

” Cooper is starting to come out of his moroseness, he’s a bit more relaxed = less drool.”

Now I can stop trying to gather a Life Alert button, puppy sized snorkel, and IV fluids!  Maybe tomorrow someone will even get close enough to pet Cooper!

She’s Goin’ Up!

P.S. Pretend you can hear this song while you look at the pictures, I’m not computer savoy enough to make it happen so you’ll have to use your imagination, I give up!

P.P.S. Forget it I can’t even get a link to work tonight! Only a handful of you would get it anyway, you guys can go put your Road Rage album on,  the rest of you sorry, just enjoy the pictures.  I’m going to bed!