May: a Photo Essay

W 's favorite passtime

S Smiles at the baby in the mirror (and shows off his fun new diapers--size medium--in colors!)

Sucking on his fists. Another favorite passtime.

Now that he rolls over, he gets quality floor time with the doggie too.

Flowers and lawn finally in in front. Those bits of color are 'wave petunias' each plant is supposed to turn into a 2-ft mound of color...we'll see how they go! They've already tripled in size in their first two weeks, so I'm inclined to believe they will live up to their reputation!

Veggie garden in in back. (including the vital 15 tomato plants!) AND the wonderful new clothesline hubby built for me! YAY!!!

Dutch oven pit and patio in back.

...and the locust tree hubby brought home...can you see the pinky-purple blossoms? It looks like a robe locust but apparently it's an Idaho Locust...whatever! It will give dappled shade to our backyard in summer and pretty flowers in spring. :-)

"Flyboys"

And here is my first movie review!
This week DH and I saw "Flyboys." I don't recall having seen any previews for it, but dh had, and wanted to see it. I was very impressed with it!
"Flyboys" is about some young Americans who joined the French Air Force in WWI, prior to the USA entering the war. Airplanes were a brand new invention, and the ariel dogfight was adding a new demension to warfare. I particularly enjoyed the training sequence, where they taught the young men how to fly a plane prior to letting them actually go up; several of their methods were very amusing.
One of the young men was black, and some of the white boys were accepting of him while others were not--but they learned to work as a team in spite of previously-held ideas. One of the young men was deeply religious--I thought that modern hollywood would write a script that made fun of him for his faith, but in fact just the opposite was true. The other boys showed him the utmost respect, even when they clearly didn't feel the same way as he did. It's something I see so rarely in film that it really stood out.
Flyboys is rated PG-13, but there is a cumulative total of about 10 seconds of visuals warrenting this rating. There is no sex, no foul language, and the violence primarily consists of planes crashing down...except that there are a few brief moments where you see a burst of red as someone is shot (and then his plane spirals down...) The subject matter is pretty heavy--one pilot in particular really struggles with the fact of killing... I would not recommend it for small children because of that content...but I WOULD heartily recommend this movie. It's a good snapshot of history, presented simply and without apology. Add it to your WWI curriculum, and to your netflix queue!

Chocolate Cake

If you have not heard the Bill Cosby bit about chocolate cake, this will not be nearly so funny.

On Friday night we made a chocolate cake.
On Saturday morning, hubby asked Wolf what he would like for breakfast. With a gleam in his eye, Wolf said "Chocolate cake?!"
Hubby looked at him sternly and said "only if you sing the song."
Well, apparently we have taught our son well, because he gleefully burst into song "Dad is great, gives us chocolate cake. Dad is great..."
Daddy danced around the kitchen a couple of times to the music before getting Wolf a nice piece of (unfrosted) chocolate cake for breakfast.


Sunday evening Wolf came up to me and said "I have a song for Bear...'mom is great, gives us miiiiilk, mom is great, gives us miiiiilk...'"

See, we're teaching our kids good things! :-)

Chester and the Prius

So, Chester died. Well, at least, he had a heart attack... Chester is our 10yr old toyota, and at 190,000 miles, he cracked a rod, and gave up the ghost. It was either a new engine or a new car...please understand that when I say 'new' I actually mean 'old-but-hopefully-slightly-less-old-than-Chester." There is no way we can afford a new car right now, and we prefer a somewhat used one anyway since cars depreciate so fast.
After exploring the options, we concluded that the $1645 for a heart transplant (ie--new engine) was the best option. After all, Chester is only 10, gets REALLY good gas mileage, and probably has a lot of life left in him...if only he can have a new heart. The shop guarantees that the new engine will have less than 30,000 miles on it, so that's practically brand new for us!

While we were out and about, looking at alternatives, we concluded that what we really want is a Toyota Prius. Yup, the hybrid. It is SO COOL!!! It gets, oh, about 60mpg. In town. (It's actually slightly lower on highway, since it has to rely on more gas for longer distances and higher speeds). We had drooled over hybrid cars before, but I think we've now made a concrete goal: next time Chester dies, we will buy a Prius.
Probably a used one of course.

The only thing better would be a true electric car, but after creating one, GM stupidly withdrew it...stupid stupid stupid. That company is working so hard to refuse to make the kind of vehicles that the public wants and that the environment needs. I hate stupid people.

Now I think I need to go put a load of cloth diapers into my energy-star washing machine and maybe I'll change another lightbulb to a compact flourescent, just for good measure. Somebody has to save the planet.

Three Meme

OK, so, I didn't actually get tagged for this...but I saw it here and I liked it. :-) Besides which, three is my favorite number (and hubby's also).

Three Things That Scare Me:
1. the local drivers (who believe that a yellow light means "hurry up" and a red one means "hurry up more")
2. someting happening to a member of my family and my not being able to help or do anything
3. the dark (yes, still, even as an adult)

Three People Who Make Me Laugh:
1. my hubby
2. my sister K
3. my dog (oh yes, she's a people--just ask her!!!)

Three Things I Love:
1. my family
2. sunrise
3. a job well done and a good day's work

Three Things I Hate:
1. Walmart
2. Vomit
3. Hate itself--c'mon people, spread a little love around!

Three Things I Don’t Understand:
1. eco-UNfriendly people--how can you not care?!
2. why I had to lose three babies before I got to keep one
3. W's logic...or his jokes ("what's so funny about a joke? A JOKE!!! hahahahaha!)

Three Things On My Desk:
1. computer
2. ledger book with our finances
3. empty cereal bowl (yup, I was naughty and ate breakfast at the desk while nursing the baby and reading my email)

Three Things I’m Doing Right Now:
1. nursing my baby
2. listening to birds outside--I love spring!
3. procrastinating doing the dishes (I'm nursing the baby!)

Three Things I Want To Do Before I Die:
1. visit Scandinavia
2. own/run a Bed & Breakfast with my hubby
3. take an Alaskan cruise

Three Things I Don't Ever Want To Do:
1. skydive
2. ski
3. lose another baby

Three Things I Can Do:
1. sew just about anything
2. bake bread
3. ballroom dance

Three Things I Can’t Do:
[yet]
1. manage to get all the different parts of dinner to finish cooking at the same time
2. keep my mouth shut about stuff that matters to me
3. give up my faith

Three Things I Think You Should Listen To:
1. a baby's laugh
2. children singing (like this)
3. good advice from people who love you

Three Things You Should Never Listen To:
1. a baby's cry--pick him up and nurse him already!
2. insults or put-downs
3. songs with naughty words

Three Things I’d Like To Learn:
1. crochet (and better knitting)
2. better piano skills
3. how to be more non-judgemental

Three Favorite Foods:
1. italian
2. chinese
3. anything I didn't have to cook (I like cooking, I just get tired of it)

Three Shows I Watched As A Kid:
1. Mr Rogers
2. Square One (with mathnet!)
3. 3-2-1 Contact
yes, we were a PBS-only family. :-)

Three Things I Regret:
1. not learning piano a little better (I'm a rapid one-finger player)
2. not keeping a tighter budget, and the fact that we have two credit cards
3. I really can't think of anything else. I try to think about most things beforehand...so I rarely regret things...

Three Bloggers I'm tagging:
1. Lollymom
2. Katie
3. Kim
and/or whoever wants to, of course!
(please post a link to your post in the comments section...)

Singin' in the Shower...

As I sit here typing, W is in the shower singing at the top of his lungs a patriotic song they sing at school "We're the hope of America, stand and shout for America..."
It reminded me of something...
Today I was helping out in his kindergarten class, where they have a little bathroom right in the corner of the classroom. (I figure it makes sense for the kindergartners to have a bathroom right there--some of them are still on the two-second-warning level of potty training, and wouldn't make it down the hall to the main student restrooms.) Anyway, we were working on a craft when I heard singing...I looked around the room and could not see W, and realized he was in the bathroom. At home he will often sit on the toilet for 15-20 minutes, singing as he does his thing...sometimes he gets so wrapped up in his singing he doesn't seem to notice that he's finished his business and so he just keeps sitting there...singing his heart out... Well, it seems that he sings in the bathroom at school too. I wonder if the teachers notice?!

Cloth Diapers

I just had to show off a little...both my baby and his diapers.

I made these in a similar pattern to ones I had seen, but the color combinations are all my own, so these are literally one-of-a-kind diapers. As W likes to remind us all "S, you have some of the cutest diapers in the whole world!)

And, for what it's worth, we have NEVER had a blow out with these. Slight moisture leaks at the legs, but never up the back or poop everywhere. Truly, a superior diaper!

My Hubby

[daddy with newborn S]

My husband is so cool. He thinks I'm so impressive, and he loves to tell people how neat I am. The other day he told me about how he was telling one of his co-workers about how I made cloth diapers for our baby, and that I got "like 5000 snaps for $8." Truthfully, it was more like 2000 snaps for $20, but it's so endearing that he makes me sound so good. :-) I figure I'm just a mommy trying to do what needs doing and otherwise keep her head above water...but every now and then my hubby tells me I'm amazing, and it sure feels nice. Every mommy needs a hubby like that.

Multi-tasking

My baby can sleep, and eat, and poop, all at the same time.

Aren't you impressed?

A Dog's Name

[Koira at 6 wks old, April 2006]

We have a dog named Koira. "Koy-ruh" is the Sami word for "dog," but some days I wonder if we should have chosen some other name for her.

We could have named her "Vacuum." If you doubt me, come over and watch her some time. She sits behind my chair at dinner, because she knows that with a baby in my lap, I tend to drop things. She also follows me around the house, because she knows that every so often the baby will spit up some mostly undigested milk, and she likes this. She seems so intent on licking up the spit-up that my darling husband has even been known to call her over for a clean-up job...and she delightedly obliges.

Or maybe we should have named her "Foot Warmer." Alright, I confess I taught her this one...whenever I sit on the couch, she comes and sits on my feet. She's warm and soft and very gentle, and makes a great foot warmer.

We could have named her "Psycho Energetic Ball of Love" because she barks her head off if someone comes near the house, but would never hurt a soul intentionally... She has so much energy that she tends to knock over children with her exuberance; yet she will jump to take a treat from my hand with such gentleness that I have never feared a bite.

We could have named her "Mudball" for her backyard antics, or "Beautiful Devoted Obedient Mutt" for the way she will lay in our bedroom doorway patiently waiting for us to come out and play, but will not come in because she knows she is not supposed to.

But I guess we did name her all these things. After all, isn't that what makes up a dog?!