Fishing with Tinkerbell

This weekend we spent some time in Pewaukee and Grandma Mary took Ivy down to the bait shop to pick out her very own fishing pole. Ivy is now the proud owner of a purple and green Tinkerbell fishing pole and I am once again left wondering how I got a girl who’s favorite colors are pink and purple!

After dinner that night Ivy and her Grandma went down to the lake with Granny and Great Gramps to go fishing. I popped down for a quick visit after Clara was in bed, to find that Ivy had everything well in hand. Grandma had been instructed where to hold the pole, Great Gramps was holding the line, and Granny was in charge of the spare bobber.   As soon as I showed up, Ivy showed me the fish they already had, a perch that she had caught and a bluegill that Grandma caught. Then I was told to take a picture, that was my job.

Along with all the instructions she was reeling off Ivy was also in charge of reeling in the fish. Shortly after I got there she pulled in a big bluegill.

Grandma Mary: “Ivy it’s a monster!”
Ivy: “No, it not a monster, it a bluegill!” … “A BIG one!”

For the record

John said that in years down the road I get to sit around, eat bonbons and read books while he goes to work.

OK,  that’s not exactly what he said.

It was more to the effect of, “Just think you are putting in all your time with the kids now, and it’s hard, and I wouldn’t want to do it.  But all this time will pay off when they are older, down the road I’ll still be working and you’ll be done.” He was trying to cheer me up after a rough day. It worked. I asked if he would please write that down so we could refer to it at a later date.  He declined, and said he would never own up to such a comment once the girls are off to school or out of the house.

So I’m just saying, for the record, John said I can sit around and eat bonbons and read books while he goes to work.

That is what I heard, and I wouldn’t lie about something that important!

*What are bonbons anyway? Would I want to eat them while I read?*

Peek-A Who by Nina Laden

I’ll start this post off with a confession. I received this book from a friend, and when I got it I thought it was dumb. There are few words, few pages, I didn’t even think a kid would like it.

I was totally wrong.

At 7 months old Clara loves this book. She laughs at every page, loves the mirror in the last one, and it has the added bonus of being a board book so even after it soaked in a pile of spit-up it’s still readable.

Would I recommend it? Yes. Baby giggles and grins are worth reading a book adults cringe at!

Little Helper

I like to teach Ivy how to do things.  Right now Ivy wants to help, and is old enough to actually do it herself, if a bit slower and messier. So I try to squash my impatience and teach her how to do whatever it is she would like to learn. She learns, we have fun, it’s all good!

For instance:

Ivy saw me folding laundry, she wanted to know how, now she folds her own laundry.

Ivy saw me sweeping the floor, she wanted to know how, now she sweeps up my dust piles and throws them away.

She’s learned how to get dressed by herself (which makes for interesting outfits some days), navigate in the kitchen better than perhaps she should (When you wake up to your kid bringing you a breakfast of Swedish Fish candy in bed what is the proper response?) she helps feed the ducks, dogs and chickens, etc, etc.

The other night she saw me taking clothes off the line and wanted to help. We’ve done that together before and her job is  taking the clothes out of and putting them back in the laundry basket. But not this night, this night she wanted to do the clothespins.  I did that squashing thing with my impatience, tried to ignore the dew settling on the clothes, and helped her.  She took every pin off and then would yell “Catch it!”   I would catch it and put it in the basket. We had fun, she getting good at the clothes pins by the end of three loads that were hanging, but I’m hoping for the sake of my shoulders that next time she’ll be happy being the laundry basket girl again!

Moving Day

For the blog, not me. I’m not moving. No way! I’d have to pack, I hate packing. Blogs on the other hand, apparently you can push one little import button, and TA DA , new address, same blog!

https://behindthewillows.wordpress.com

I could make up all sorts of reasons why I’m changing, but mostly Sarah told me to… she’s bossy like that, you can check her out at http://thinkbigmuch.wordpress.com!

While you are checking out Sarah’s page be sure to look at On Tracking Your Favorite Blogs for a tutorial on igoogle and google reader. It sounds scarier than it is. I thought it was, but Sarah told me to start using it so I did, and I love it. Do you see a theme here?

See you on the new page!

Brimstone by Robert B. Parker

I’m actually still reading this book, it is the third in a series but I can say after reading the first two (Appaloosa and Resolution) that by the time I managed to get this posted I might be done again! Now before you point out all the reading time I have while sitting around nursing a sick baby, and accuse me of reading too fast let me say that these books are populated by gun fighters.  And these guys, they don’t chat much. The book looks big, but here is a typical page:

Notice the lack of wordage?  Not big on descriptions, not big on conversation. But do you really need someone to layout a western scene for you in great detail? The books make me chuckle, the guys contemplate human nature between shooting people, protecting the town whores, drinking whiskey and getting into and out of trouble, what more could you ask for out of a western?

Would I recommend it? Yes!  Start with Appaloosa, and think about getting two at a time from the library, they go quick!

The Up Side

Over the past few days I told people that one of the things I have enjoyed about blogging is that it gives me a chance to focus on something positive that happened in the day. Lately Clara has been having some trouble and a little positive focus has made a bit difference!

Today was yet another challenging day because Clara looked like this:
She spiked a fever, didn’t nap well, hadn’t slept well last night, and didn’t want to be put down when she was awake.

But as I went through my day I thought about all the things I could write about that made me smile.

First I found Ivy “reading” out loud to herself:
Next I saw more new leaves on my Tulip tree:
I considered writing a post about laundry. To explain that while I hate doing laundry my favorite part is when it is hanging on the line:
Then I saw Piper NOT causing trouble and remembered that I would like to elaborate on her craftiness one day:

And at the end of the day the sight of broiler chickens on fresh pasture made me smile:
All in all it was a tough day. When Clara needs more attention Ivy gets less, causing her to act up more, and to top it off John got home hours later than normal. But when I returned from moving my chickens, just in time to sit down to dinner John looked at me and said, “You seem happy.”

And he was right!

Sleeping Dogs

Some nights when I’m up after everyone falls asleep I wash eggs, or sweep, or e-mail, or read books, but not tonight. Tonight I’m bothering my sleeping dogs with my camera flash.

These are our dogs.

First we have my dog Piper. If given the option she would really prefer to be sleeping in our bed under the covers. I realize that this is ridiculous given that Piper is a 110 pound dog who can take up more space than I can our our full sized mattress. Which is why most of the time we make her stay downstairs on the couch.

I think Piper snuggles with the elephant she pulls out of the kids toy basket and hangs her feet over the edge of the couch so that she can try and look more pathetic when I walk past on my way upstairs. It doesn’t work. The food bowl she is wearing as a hat tonight, that’s a new one. I’m not sure what her plan is with that. But Piper is a crafty girl, she’s probably up to something.

Storm on the other hand, she’s not up to anything.

I’m sorry to report that sleeping upside down on the chair is a normal nighttime occurrence. Of course normal for Storm, isn’t necessary, normal.

OK, John will yell at me in the morning if I’m not nice to his dog, SO, truth be told this isn’t totally normal. If given the option, Storm would be sleeping upside down in the blue recliner, but there was a toy on it.

Syttende Mai and The Portage

Last night was the Syttende Mai Canoe Race. It’s a short 3.5 mile race into Stoughton with one little portage. That tiny little around a bridge and back into the water portage is by far the most interesting (and in my view completely horrible) part of the entire race!

Before we get into that here are some other facts you might want to know.

-My mom and John have never raced together before.
-Tyler and I have never raced together before.
-John and my Mom were in one boat.
-Tyler and I were in another.
-Tyler has never raced in a canoe before.
-We all paddled together once last Sunday, to teach him how.
-Mom sat with some lead shot in her end of the boat in attempt to trim it out.
-The start is a mass start, first come, first served on good starting spots.
-Always worried we’ll get there too late, we outdid ourselves this year with an hour long sit in our chosen good spot.
-The spot was a good one, we were all out in the first pack by the time we got to the first bridge and the river narrowed.
-Tyler and I spun out a boat of guys and sent them into the bushes.
-I maintain that I was going straight and that they got a bit sideways.
-We beat them.
-Tyler had a bit of technical I-don’t-really-know-what-I’m-doing-what-did-I-get-myself-into-I’m-not-paddling-quite-right-and-it’s-breaking-my-back problems just after that.
-While that was going on I had a bit of I-can’t-keep-us-in-time-when-you-can’t-decide-how-to-paddle-is-he-going-to-hate-me-at-the-finish problems.
-Those thoughts entered my head when I asked how he was doing and he said “Tired!”
-We were only half way at that point.
-Lily pads have great renewing powers for my brother.
-Out of the lily pads and on our way into town we hit our stride and caught back up to the pack in front.

Then came the portage.

All you have to do is jump out of your boat, pick it up, run around a bridge, put your boat back in the water, jump in, and keep paddling in a quick sprint to the finish.

Our portage:

We hit the shore, getting in the way of another boat that wasn’t exiting the water very fast. As planned Tyler hopped out grabbed the canoe and started running with it. I had hopped out and watched Tyler and the canoe run away from me. I’m certain I was running, but I was having a REALLY hard time catching him. I think it was only fear of my boat being dragged across the road that got my legs to sprint enough to catch him and pick the boat up. I managed to hang onto my end of it until just before we got into the water. The bank at that point is pretty steep, Tyler threw his end in and started getting in. No doubt he was assuming that I was doing something with my end. But I wasn’t, I was trying to catch up again. Somehow I got into the boat just as Tyler almost tipped it, (not totally his fault note, the part where I was doing nothing with my end) managed to help him get his paddle which was starting to fall into the river and we were off… the next bridge we went under a little boy said “WOW look at all the water in their canoe!” Fortunately after sucking air and wondering how on earth we could possible paddle after running, we stayed in our groove, had a great sprint to the finish, and held off the boats around us. We Sloshed all that water in our boat down the river for an 8th place finish overall and third in the mixed. Not bad for Tyler’s first race and our first race together!

John and my Mom’s portage:

They hit the bank and jumped out. My mom claims that John forgot the plan was that he was supposed to pick the boat up and run with it and she had to yell at him to get it as it continued to float down the shore without them. John says, he was “just getting my footing”. Whatever the holdup, the canoe was snagged and John took off running. My Mom also had a bit of a time catching her canoe and managed to catch it just before the road as well. The difference is she dropped it when she reached the other side. This is reported to have earned her a very dirty look from John. She claims he was pulling her and figured just dragging the canoe would be easier for him. John has no comment. They had a nice smooth entry and a great sprint to the finish in their attempt to catch the first place mixed boat. They couldn’t quite do it, but were sixth over all and second in the mixed.

We met up with our cheering section of Grandpa’s cousin George and wife Lois, Katie (the best short notice, Help I forgot I have children that need watching! Want to watch a canoe race? friend around) Ivy and Clara. We all celebrated by eating, hot dogs, jumbo hot dogs, brats, pulled pork sandwiches, corn on the cob, strawberry shortcake, fried cheese curds, lefsa, cotton candy and a walking taco. Did I mention there is a whole Syttende Mai festival in Stoughton? Did I mention all the food stands? Did I mention that it might be the best part of the race?

Today we’ll hang up our plaques we won, in the house!