Tag Archives: John

Roses and Noses

Clara used to put everything in her mouth, and I mean everything, if you don’t believe me read this: The Second Child

For the most part Clara has stopped attempting to eat inappropriate things, and moved on to new bad habits.

Yesterday it started with a pomegranate seed…

…in her nose.

A quick blow of the nose and out it came. I tried to tell her that it was a bad idea to put things in her nose. But clearly I didn’t make much of an impression because a few hours later she came down with a small plastic rose in her nose. Plastic roses are apparently much less comfy on the nose than pomegranate seeds. This time Clara was willing to believe that putting things in your nose hurts, and agreed not to do it anymore.

Not long after John got home from work  Storm, my camera and I headed outside for a walk.  When I was only a few pictures into my walk and barely beyond the yard I was called back into the house. Less than thrilled about returning so soon I expected bloodshed or some other equally bad catastrophe to have occurred. I walked in to find John looking slightly panicked, Jane screaming, Clara looking like she just got yelled at and Ivy sobbing in the bathroom.  That’s when I learned that I forgot to tell Clara not to put things in other peoples noses either.  A quick blow of  Ivy’s nose and another rose was produced.

John, who had been assembling tweezers and headlamps while I went for Kleenex,  profusely apologized for his panic and lack of common sense.  Feeling benevolent I decided to chalk the loss of his reason up to three crying girls. That sort of noise scrambles my brain on a daily basis and since there wasn’t any bloodshed in the house yet I didn’t think it should start over a missed walk.

Then I turned to a still sobbing Ivy to ask the question. Why? Why would you let your little sister shove a small rose up your nose?

I am ashamed to say that I couldn’t ask my poor crying daughter this without a massive fit of the giggles, and so tried to be content with the completely unsatisfactory answer of “I didn’t know what she was doing.”

Really? She got it that far in and you didn’t figure it out? Really?

Deciding that laughing while continuing to question Ivy wasn’t helping and that she had learned her lesson about allowing Clara near her nose without any further intervention on my part  I took the screaming baby into the other room.

Soon everyone had stopped crying and life was back to normal. I was left with the impression that while it’s good to be needed I’d like to be needed a little less and get out a little more.

We’ll be working on that.

I’m thinking maybe earplugs for John so that his brain can continue to function no matter the circumstances and nose plugs for Ivy – just in case.

I Don’t.

You know how you hear stories about women becoming unnaturally upset with their husbands while in labor?

I wasn’t.

He was reading aloud Peter Capstick’s accounts of water buffalo attacks, what’s to be upset about?

It seems more natural to be upset that John got to move and play and go places in the first week or so after Jane was born while I took care of her.

I wasn’t.

The desire to leave the house wasn’t even close to stronger than the desire to take naps with my new baby.

Perhaps a screaming fit could have occurred when faced with poopy diaper #5,689 with two year old helping and husband at company Christmas party.

I didn’t.

He deserved a night off after a few weeks of nonstop caring for all his girls.

When I’m  awake late at night with Jane while John sleeps…

I don’t.

So long as I don’t dwell on how I’ll feel the next day it’s often nice and peaceful up at night with Jane.

But when I’m awake late at night with Jane while John snores…

…I seriously consider grabbing his lower lip and pulling it over his head while screaming all sorts of irrational things and blaming him for the entire experience.

I don’t.

But perhaps I see what those women in labor are all about now.

Camp Out

It’s possible that a combination of the new baby, the unfavorable weather and general life with the almost five and two year old have brought John and I to the end of our patience… and sanity.

Possible.

Really possible.

Today John came up with the brilliant idea that he and the girls were going camping. Chores were done in the morning, their room was cleaned and in the afternoon we erected our tent in their room. Once John convinced Ivy that they were playing camping and not “You be the prince I’ll be the princess” we had a fun afternoon. There was “sleeping” and playing in the tent, fishing down the stairwell. (Ivy caught a musky, John caught a tiny blue gill  and Clara caught a “gill” but she said it was no good and she threw it in the garbage… or so I heard.) Then John and Ivy cooked baked potatoes and hot dogs in the wood-stove for our camp dinner.  In general it was an afternoon of fun, lots of sanity saving fun.

Then tucked in their new sleeping bags, flashlights beaming, the girls  were ready for their exciting night of camping out… …for about five minutes.

Then Ivy tearfully hollered that she wanted to sleep in her bed…

… and Clara didn’t, but nobody wanted to be lonely, but everyone needed water, and Clara needed Chap Stick, and it was too dark, and, and, and….

Ahh camping…sanity.. patience… they were good while they lasted.

A Long Time Ago…

… in a galaxy far, far away…

No really,  it was actually just in Stevens Point Wisconsin and it wasn’t that long ago.

My husband, who at the time was nothing more than the guy with the crazy hair and the cute smile…

…that I’d have liked to have been dating but wasn’t yet, was swimming really, really fast.  Fast enough that even though, we weren’t dating yet I have never been allowed to live down the fact that I did not attend the national meet that year to watch his 400 medley relay win for the second year in a row re-breaking their own national record.

When you factor in the other fantastic swimming (and diving) that went on that year that earned their team of six men fourth place overall…

…well it doesn’t seem to matter that nothing more than a bit of pool side flirting had gone on between us yet, I’m in trouble for life.

This last weekend we were again in Stevens Point joined by many family and friends to watch John and his fellow relay members get inducted into the Stevens Point Athletic Hall of Fame.  It was pretty awesome, big banquet, video presentation for each inductee, a chocolate cake on every table, the works. At the end of the night he walked out with a gigantic smile on his face, and this to hang on his wall…

Photo enlarged to show detail.

In actuality the big fancy award went to the coach since they were a team and they each got… well, something to take home, but that not the point. The point is they were an awesome relay of guys, it was great to see everyone for the weekend and even better to see them get to stand up, relive a bit of the “glory days” and get recognized for what they had done.  The other notable point is that after a weekend of fun with old friends (which followed the previous weekends Alumni meet with even more old friends) I think we need at least another week to recover!!!

The Keys

I lose stuff. Well not all stuff.  In fact, like most of the mothers on the planet, I’m usually the one who knows where the – pajamas, swimming suit, toy horse, tape measure and dogs are.  My wallet and keys, that’s a different matter.  I have misplaced my wallet so many times it no longer bothers me. I’ve yet to truly lose it and eventually hours, days or weeks later, I find it again. Same with the keys. Once I tried carrying a purse. Not a good plan, then instead of losing just my wallet I’d lose my wallet, keys, cell phone and purse. After kids showed up I tried using the diaper bag as a purse – same problem.

Now I have a system. My wallet is tiny, it fits in my pocket, mostly I leave it in the truck. My keys I also leave in the truck. When I go out in public I leave my Great Dane in the truck and figure truck, keys and wallet are safe behind her big, slobbery barks. When Piper needs to stay home I cart them around and it usually works out. Except when it doesn’t.

Many months ago I lost my truck keys. The good key ring. The one with all those little tags from stores ( and libraries) that I have collected over the past 10 years and can’t seem to get rid of just in case I stop by a Sentry store and need to save $.50 on a bag of grapes.  I looked in the truck (because that’s where I keep my keys) and then I looked in the basket on the fridge (because that’s where John keeps keys) and then I looked again and again. I looked in unlikely locations and I questioned Ivy repeatedly.

No keys.

John harassed me about losing keys, I ignored him.  Months went by. John locked the spare (and only) set of keys in the truck and I couldn’t harass him as much as I wanted to because it was pointed out that if I had not lost the other set a locksmith would not have been necessary.  More months went by.  I used the spare keys, life went on. John occasionally would bring up how I lose keys and I would agree that yes I really seemed to have lost them this time.

AND THEN

John checked on the bees.

Guess what was in the pocket of his bee suit.

What followed was some very childlike and very satisfying crowing in the kitchen that detailed just who it was that  really lost my keys.

What Happens in May

What happens in May is that the lawnmower breaks.

Last May I wrote about the difficulties in fixing a lawn mower with help.  (You can read all about it here: New Respect)

This year the lawnmower had difficulties beyond my paltry mechanical skills so I laughed and took pictures while the girls helped John.

That was fun until he looked at me with this smile on his face and said something to the effect of…

….”If you don’t put your camera down and get YOUR girls out of here I’m going to feed them to the pigs, throw the lawn mower in the neighbors pond and run away to Acapulco.”

So the girls and I left him to his work and did the only other thing to do when the lawnmower is broken, we made dandelion crowns. Because when your grass has grown tall enough that you can lose a Great Dane in the yard (Really, it was that tall!) the dandelions have nice long stems for braiding!The lawn mower was back in service today and we finished mowing the lawn for the first time this afternoon!

Our Life

Once again I’m being reminded that it has been many days since I’ve had something to share, but there have been reasons for this people, many reasons!

There was a horse fair, and a ballet recital and a trip to visit Sarah, that included a birthday tea party for her daughter. Once that was all done and we were back home it was Monday night.

At this point I did at this point attempt to put together a little post of our weekend fun, but then Tuesday night happened.

Tuesday night, was quite a night.

Things happened.

Lots of things.

All at once.

From what I can remember, though not necessarily in this order, it included things such as: peeing on the floor, breaking a glass, dogs barking, cars honking, chasing ducks off the road barefoot, Kamikaze kids jumping off the couch, false starts on dinner, missing ingredients, the cook being locked in the kitchen for protection from the kids and dogs,  messing up recipes, John announcing that he was “OUT OF PATIENCE!”, some pee in a potty chair but mostly on the floor, dinner eaten, bath time, blueberries eaten- everywhere, and finally the real reason why there has been no updates since Friday. Pee in the surge protector that the computer plugs into.  It was chaos, and through most of it I was cooking dinner in the kitchen laughing so hard I was crying.

Laughing with John because this is our life.

It’s a great life.

But some days….some days you’ve just got to laugh.