summertime... 

telling time

Since we grew sick of C's constant questions about when things are going to happen, how long until this or that, and his requests to warn him 30, 15, and 5 minutes before bedtime, we've been teaching him to tell time. He's had the general gist of it for several months now, but in the past two weeks something clicked and he can tell time fluently. In addition to knowing the current time, he can calculate how many minutes to the next hour, etc. in his head. While very exciting, we're a bit perturbed- without secretly changing all the clocks in the house, we can no longer send him to bed early without his knowledge.

book review

"We Help Daddy," by Mini Stein, is a Little Golden book from 1962. While caring for Benjy and Sue, who are about 4 and almost-2 respectively, Daddy is able to get more done than Dan and I could in a month of Saturdays. He fixes the attic door, weeds and waters the garden, trims the hedge, bathes the dog, paints the kitchen fence, and hangs a painting in the living room. Calculating best-case-scenarios for the times these things would take, and assuming that Benjy and Sue are able to manage all of their own physical needs without interrupting Daddy (even though Sue is pre-verbal), I can envision how all this MIGHT get done. But then they decide to build a birdhouse, collect and chop firewood, wash and polish the car, replace a knob on Benjy's dresser, and pull a nail out of the bathroom door. Finally, the poor kids get to eat supper, after which "we are very, very sleepy" (no doubt!) and they go to bed.

Based on my frustration with our task-completion time, Dan is convinced that I must have had this book as a child. I don't have any memory of it, but Pa Ingalls was pretty darn productive too, so perhaps my expectations are too high. Or have they sunk too low? We've needed to replace the knobs on A's dresser for about a month now; our garden is somewhat less of a Darwinian experiment than in past years, but it still doesn't look like our neighbors'; we're lucky if we get the kids bathed before they start to stink, much less the dog; and we've never built anything without having to re-cut at least one piece of wood that didn't fit the first time. We suspect, however, that Benjy and Sue's Daddy spent the last three months drunk every weekend, and Mommy has threatened to leave him if he doesn't take the kids and get this list done so she can bake cookies (we see her cheerily rolling out dough through the window in one scene) and make dinner in peace.

trip to the museum

C's spending the week at Camp Oma and Opa, which (along with the heat wave) made the idea of a trip to the (air-conditioned) state museum somewhat more enticing because his need to discuss the attributes of every model of fire truck used since 1850 wouldn't be hampered by A's need to "walk by self, walk by self, walking, walking, walking." Perhaps, though, if he had been there, she would not have inexplicably screamed in terror when we walked in the door (maybe the mastadont skeleton got her down?) and remain frantic until I begrudging took her to the mind-numbingly-boring "Discovery Place," designed for little kids who have no toys at home, and read her a book. After that she perked up and spent aeons (or did it just feel that way?) dropping plastic fruit down plastic tubes until, not surprisingly, she got hungry.

The only place we're allowed to eat in the museum is in the cafe, which is on the fourth floor; while there presumably are staircases to reach it, I don't know where they are, so we were limited to escalators and elevators. I knew she hated elevators, so we took the escalator; or perhaps I should say escalatorS, because they are set up so each run stops midway between floors and you need to turn around to get the the next set, just as stairwells are often designed in public buildings. This meant that there were actually six escalators between us and the cafe, and by number two she was starting panic. When we finally reached our floor (after all of about 30 seconds), I caved into her demands and let her know that we would NOT go back down on the escalators, which she repeated the entire time she ate her snack. The carousel distracted her briefly- not that she would RIDE it of course, but she enjoyed watching it go around and around and around and around and why didn't I bring a book? and around and....

Finally she tired of the carousel, which meant, of course, we needed to return to the first floor. She liked the elevator about as much as the escalator. It must have been a horrid 20 seconds for her, because the whole REST of the time we were at the museum I heard nothing but "no more escalator. No more elevator. All done escalator elevator. Bye bye escalator elevator." This may have been annoying enough as mere background noise, but she generally demands confirmation following her every utterance so I needed to drone "that's right; no more elevators or escalators" continuously as well. Plus, in order to overcome the trauma of the experience, we had to go back to Discovery Place, and I had to hand her the orange to drop down the tube about 50 times, and occasionally vary my response to "that's right, the cabbage doesn't fit down the tube" when appropriate.

It was nearing naptime (well, not really, but I had to factor in the mile-long walk to the car since I'm too cheap to pay for parking, and the inevitability of being stuck behind a bus on the way home) so I said, "We need to leave in 10 minutes." She stops (holding asparagus and an apple), frowns, and says "Stay 15 minutes" before returning to her task. Luckily she can't tell time, because we were outta there in 5.

Our "parenting retreat" to Twin Trees went well; illnesses and fear of precipitation reduced our numbers, but we still had four families join us. And given how hard it was to get into the kitchen, especially after the roof started leaking, I think I'm glad we didn't have the eight that had planned to come! The kids ran wild inside on Saturday, but Sunday dawned beautifully- sunny, warm, no humidity- so they were able to get out before driving us insane. So maybe we'll do it next year- but it is soooo much work to go up there for just one day!!!

I recently discovered a local radio station with the tag line, "We play anything." I thought that this was a rather dubious distinction, but given the other options out there (106.5, which exclusively airs George Thoroughgood and the Marshall Tucker Band, and 99.5, which limits itself to "Benny and the Jets" and Matchbox 20), I kept listening. I immediately learned that they would, indeed, play anything; the song that endlessly repeats "Amadeus" was followed by the theme song to the TV show in which Tom Hanks and some other guy had to dress as women in order to keep their apartment (were sit-coms already DRAGging so hard by 1981 that they needed to invent a gimmick like that?), which segued into "Smokin' in the Boys' Room." This was followed by the president of Siena College, who enlightened listeners with a biography of the "Saint of the Day." I thought it was a funny way to advertise a school, but since obscure martyrs are much more interesting than the other stations' morning shows, I found myself tuning in more and more. (Beware sneaky Franciscan conversion techniques.) Other advertising was rare, and despite the hit-or-miss quality of the music, it was indeed MUSIC rather than babble (except of course for those pesky saints).

Last night, I mentioned the station to Dan, who'd also heard and been amused by their proud proclamation of unselectiveness, and he wondered if they were mostly-request and if they were run by Siena. I poo-pooed both these ideas; other than the informational interjections, they made no mention of a college affiliation, and they never had callers on the air to dedicate songs, which is fairly standard when requests are played. But it turns out that he was right, which explains the lack of advertising and the random play list. It does NOT explain why the DJs never acknowledge their connection to Siena, unlike WRPI which points out its affiliation every seven minutes; must be another subtle conversion/ marketing tactic. And the lack of on-air callers still seemed pretty strange, until I read a little more about it. Turns out they banned airing call-ins because they feared they were being used for gang communications. Why the thugs don't use cell phones like everyone else is beyond me, but all-righty.

Enjoying his moon pinata 

Oma and A decorating for C's birthday party

C's stellar cake thanks to Sarah

I made the Coop Scoop!

http://www.hwfc.com/CoopScoop/Jul06/staffprofile.html
(The print version has a picture, too.)

 

 

 

walking in the water, a new favorite activity 

wild strawberies 

Weekend adventures at Twin Trees 

July 4th- in a pinch, A can still nap in the sling, but she hangs out a lot more now

So a fluke of a late night, a traumatizing fireworks-watching experience, and mere luck led A to sleep something like 5 hours straight last night, giving Dan and I more deep sleep than we've experienced for month. And did my body take advantage of this rare experience by sinking into a much-needed oblivion, or dreaming of kittens and rainbows? Noooo. I had a dream about the guy on the left in this picture. Everyone gets two guesses of who he is; if you get it right, I'll make you a t-shirt.

 

A's crib mutterings at bedtime tonight

Feed da birds, tuppence tuppence tuppence a bag

eight nine ten eleven

Nana play toys. E-I-E-I-O.

No kick Mommy. Hurt Mommy.

Noisy roofers. Roofers go home. Roofers sleeping. Woofie sleeping. Daddy sleeping. Daddy sleeping right now.

--------------------

Daddy soooo wished he had been sleeping. Instead, he was cleaning out the mudroom so the contractors could work on it, now that they've FINALLY finished our roof. Meanwhile, as soon as A fell asleep, I opened up the bottom of the dishwasher and ran it to see if I could figure out why water was pouring into our basement. Luckily, I didn't have to spend too long lying on the tile floor with a flashlight to see that the leak is related to the float. Now we need to figure out whether we can fix it with a gasket of some kind or if it's going to be an even more painful replacement.

More evidence that A is a Day girl

Sign of the times (C's started making birthday presents for Sarah already)

Trying to make a Lego land rover for Tristan's birthday (since Lego doesn't bother :) 

C's wonderful wrapping paper for my birthday presents last week

In which we find it even more unlikely that C will ever fit in with the other Delmar kids-

and it's our fault.

He sings, "Gravity girl, gravity girl, living in a massive world" to the tune of "Particle Man" when Alyra plays the drop-stuff-and-hope-someone-picks-it-up game.

Dan's new camera is magic, because it can capture Sarah's eyes when they're OPEN. 

Now that the kids have a new table, maybe they'll stop fighting over the THREE chairs that were in the kitchen before. 

This is BEFORE she fell on her butt and wanted dry clothes- 

Memorial Day at Twin Trees 

I convinced Dan it was his turn to put A to bed, which meant that I had to go catch the garter snake poor C discovered on our porch. While I attempted to do so (and failed- I'm hoping it left on its own accord and is not lurking underneath something), I realized that I had just agreed to chase snakes in order to avoid putting my daughter to bed, and still felt I had the much better end of the deal. This is a sign that SOMETHING needs to change....

Memorial Day

When I told Cadao we were going to the parade, he said they'd learned about Memorial Day at school. "It celebrates veterinarians and people who help people and stuff like that."

Dan wanted me to stand next to him to hold the roof panel while he cut it. That lasted about 3 seconds, until the sparks started flying.  

The new-and-less-dangerous roofing method 

Another trait A inherited from the Day side

At the playground today, a very "helpful" 2-year-old wanted to follow Alyra around everywhere and talk to her and TOUCH her and all sorts of awful stuff like that. Alyra of course hated it, and she finally planted her feet, screwed up her face in frustration, and screamed, "PEOPLE!"

Oh, I forgot to mention-

Dan was BAREFOOT on the roof.

 

Noah, luckily, did NOT fall off the roof 

work circle 

our first work circle

For a few years before A was born, we had a work circle with five other families. We met monthly at one family’s house on a weekend morning and worked together on projects until noon, when we ate lunch together. All except one of the families in that work circle moved or got pregnant about the same time I did, so it sort of fell apart at that point.

Recently we joined a newly-formed work circle, and as the only family who’d done it before, we got the first work slot to show everyone else How It’s Done. Hosting an effective work circle usually requires a large amount of planning; in addition to serving a meal to 10 adults and 6-ish kids, which in itself is not an insignificant endeavor, we make it our goal to get the Most Work Possible out of every member of our work crew. This means having multiple projects going at once, all the materials and supplies at hand, and something that can be accomplished in the presence of children (who should not be in the area during asbestos removal or rusty-nail collection or the like).

With only two weeks to prepare, during which we had several other commitments, we didn’t get as much planning done as we’d like. We did have several fairly small projects to do, such as moving a bookcase, and the neverending weed-clearing in our yard is good to suck up hours of anyone’s time. But we decided to start off with a literal and figurative bang- replacing the roof on the shed.

Dan ordered the materials to arrive a week in advance, and started roof-demolition on Thursday; he was out there again at 7 a.m. today to get good start before the work crew arrived at 9:30. What with the expected demolition-and-tarpapering and the less-expected carpenter-ant vacuuming (maybe we should try to get in a Dyson infomercial for that) and the pre-drilling of the roof panels (oh, we got metal, of course; we couldn’t make it easy and cheap by getting asphalt shingles like everyone else- which means we can NOT move from this house for at LEAST 30 years), however, it was 11:30 before the metal started going up. Everyone worked ‘til 12:45-ish before having lunch, and then two families (thankfully) stayed on to finish.

Finally, everything is done except for the last pieces on each side, which need to be cut. Since it’s 2:30 at this point, the roofers start putting up a tarp so they can finally go home.

It’s at this point, when we’re almost done, that Dan decides to hurl himself off the roof.

We suspect a broken foot. Dan hobbles around with ice while our friends do a beautiful job of cleaning up. (I, incidentally, was all-but-useless for much of the work circle because A was extra-needy; which means our friends slaved away while I watched.) Andy, who is a doctor in his spare time when he’s not fixing our roof, needs to be at the hospital immediately; he sends his wife home to get him less mossy clothes and then borrows our OTHER friends’ car to take Dan to the hospital with him. (In this way, we managed to inconvenience as many people as possible while I still got to stay home and watch other people work.)

Andy fast-tracks Dan at the hospital so it "only" takes him three hours to get in and out, and to hear that his foot is in fact NOT broken, just horribly painful. (Hurray!) Dan gets 8 x-rays and a diptheria vaccine, and Andy waits around to deliver him back home again. Are our friends amazing, or what?

Incidentally, we just made up a budget a few nights ago. Should Dan’s medical bills fall under "medical" or "home repair"?

In which A absorbs more Rain family culture

-Due to C's endless repetitions of his Mary Poppins medley, when he sings "feed the birds..." she pipes in with "twopence."

-When she wants someone to get out of her way, she says "beep beep." "Beep beep Paco!"

-She's started teasing Dan. She says "Yucky Daddy!" to him with an evil grin, and runs away laughing.

C's a suck-up

After coming home from the co-op today, Dan was kind enough to keep feeding the kids in the kitchen while I ate dinner. C roamed into the dining room and tried to chat, and I told him that I was wiped out, needed some peace, and would be much more pleasant to be around after I finished eating. He said, "I always think you're nice to be around because you're my Mommy." Way to make me feel guilty-

renovations

Since we decided we don't have the energy to build an office outbuilding this year, and Dan nixed the idea of converting our closet into a bedroom for A, we decided that we should instead confuse our lives by transferring all of our furniture from room to room instead. While final positioning is not yet complete, C's room is now downstairs in our former office, and A is in his old room. The computer and office stuff are in our bedroom.

We're getting more sleep with A in her own room (well, except when Paco keeps us up all night with his elimination needs, but we're hoping that our most recent financial sacrifice to the veterinary gods will take care of that problem). C's craft table, formerly occupying a corner of our dining room along with several less-than-attractive blockades to prevent toddler invasions, is much better off in his new gated-off room. The bedroom/office is less than ideal, but it's not awful either. The main thing I hate is having C sleep downstairs. Though we leave our door open, I still don't trust that we'll hear him if he calls to us. He's old enough now to seek us out, but I still wish that adding another upstairs bedroom were a simpler prospect....

A is proudly displaying her younger-child status with her latest language addition- "me too! me too!" She spends a lot of time picking "dindy ion fwowers" and "eyelet fwowers" (dandelion and violet flowers). Colors are becoming more interesting; the "black cat" in her tractor book is her favorite, and today she pointed out "Dee-dahs orj shoot" (Cadao's orange shirt).