Busy, Busy, Busy

So things have been a bit busy around here. Nothing too unusual, it is Christmastime after all, but busy nonetheless. I am always amazed come January when I feel like I have nothing to do. Because compared to November and December I truly don't have anything to do!

The kids had a Christmas party yesterday. Well, I had a Christmas party and invited the kids and their friends is really how it went. I don't recall them doing much to get ready for it--other than cleaning the house under protest--because in the end they are not at all horrified by their friends seeing the toilets dirty. That won't happen until much later in life. I think the party went well. They made some ornaments, decorated gingerbread men cookies, played Christmas bingo and had a gift exchange. Oh, and they had lunch. There was a total of 17 kids including ours. So it was a bit hectic with kids going here and there. I was in a mental fog for the rest of the day. Well, a more severe mental fog than normal.

And this week will be travel prep. We are heading off to Chicago for Christmas (for the first time since 1999). The kids are really excited, but two of them are bothered by the fact that they are going to miss school on Friday morning. Seriously. They are having a half day and they can wear their pajamas and there is going to be a Christmas sing-along so it's like we told them that we were canceling Christmas. The moaning and wailing and gnashing of teeth is pathetic to watch. I'm certain we'll be hearing about it when they are trapped in the car and bored on Friday. Yes, we are driving to Chicago. Yes, it's a long drive. Yes, please pray for me. This will definitely be an opportunity for God to work on my patience. You can be sure I will be letting them watch movies on the laptop the ENTIRE drive. Happy passengers is my one goal. So, they'll be switching between video games and movies as often as is necessary. I offered to have our own sing-along but that was met with much derision. Apparently it's not the same if you aren't in your jammies with hundreds of other elementary school kids.


We're seriously hoping for snow--once we arrive that is. The kids want to play in the snow something bad--you could even say they are dreaming of a white Christmas....(now I KNOW you all heard Bing Crosby in your head just then.) Yesterday my parents got a whopping 9 1/2 inches at their house. Unfortunately that snow won't look very pretty by the time we arrive. So we are praying for pretty, white, perfect-for-building-a-snow-fort snow that arrives on December 25 after 3:00 p.m. (when we arrive at my parents' house from my mother-in-law's). Not too much to ask I don't think. :-)

Time to go wrap some presents. Don't know when I'll be back on here so Have a Merry Christmas if I don't get back before then.



Here's a few pictures I've taken lately:











Some of the gingerbread men from the party

Noah's first cast from his fractured growth plate. I forgot to tell you that he fractured his growth plate which was something I didn't know you could fracture. So he's been in a cast for about 4 weeks now. They put a new one on last week because of the pleasant aroma coming out of the first one. Apparently that is standard procedure these days with casts.












Our family Christmas picture. We even got Macy the Wonder Dog in there. And it didn't take very many attempts. Really. Seriously. Well, maybe it took a few tries...

















Katya at her Christmas concert.



















Noah at the same concert. I can't get enough of him in that shirt and tie.











Emily's choir Christmas concert. They sang a lot of songs in different languages. A lot. And did I mention that there were 6 different choirs singing those songs? It was a bit on the long side...

Money's worth

We're all about getting our money's worth around here whether it's at the doctor or the dentist, so today when I took Katya in to have a baby tooth pulled (just so we can go drop a ton of cash on braces in a few months, but that's a whole 'nother story) it was very gratifying to get our money's worth. That is one serious baby tooth!

I mean, look at the octopus-like roots on that thing! That baby was never coming out on it's own.

During the same visit--because I'm all about doing things at the same time and saving myself trips--save money, save trips, it's all the same--Tommy had some work done on his front teeth. Quite a few of his teeth have some serious issues--most likely as a result of poor nutrition in utero and as an infant. His front teeth were half good and half bad. The lower half has really bad enamel and is very thin and jagged. He needed to have them built up so that they didn't break off at some point while he was eating a potato chip or something. That is still a risk, but the bonding should buy us time before he needs to have them crowned. Here's the before and after:

Before (it's hard to see them, but trust me

they were jagged)

After

He sure is a handsome little fella!

To Chaperone or Not to Chaperone, That Is the Question.

Tommy's class went on a field trip today. As field trips go this one sounded pretty fun--lunch and a show at the Broadway Palms Theater. I have done my share of not-so-very-fun field trips (the rock museum (twice!!) with the rock Nazi museum guides who clearly should not be in a job that involves children!) so I volunteered to be a chaperone for this one but I was told my services would not be needed as they had already filled the chaperone slots. Oh well. So, this week I got three days of subbing jobs instead with today being a day at home. Yesterday I found out that one of the other moms couldn't go and my friend Kathy was hoping to go but couldn't find a sitter for her kindergartner for the afternoon, so she suggested that I go. I thought about it for a few minutes and then decided that I needed to be home for the day and so I offered to babysit her kindergartner instead. When I spoke to Tommy's teacher about it she was putting on the hard sell--I'm guessing because it should be a fun field trip for the parents to sit through. Unless she was hoping that I would be just the right parent for those boys that need some extra "encouragement" for proper behavior (including my own)...Anyway, I stuck to my guns and said no.

And then this morning, being the genius parents we are, we realized that they are eating lunch at this place. It truly never crossed my mind before this morning, probably because field trips don't usually involve eating anything except a bag lunch. And of course our Tomster is on his special water and carrot diet and I had to leap into action to figure out what he was supposed to eat. Thankfully there was a website for the theater and they listed the choices for the "kid friendly" buffet: hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken fingers, pizza and macaroni and cheese. I'm hoping there are fruit choices in addition that they just didn't mention since fruit, historically speaking, isn't "kid friendly"--otherwise Tommy will be filling his belly with hamburger patties and bunless hot dogs.

It's at this moment that I suddenly was overwhelmed with thankfulness that I was not going to be a chaperone--a buffet with second graders?????????? Wow, I think I made the right decision!! Buffet means carrying a plate of food some distance while attempting to not spill it--which 7 year olds are not exactly always able to do. That's too much stress for me! If I didn't work with elementary students several days a week it would have been a different story, but this would have been like work--with a "kid friendly" buffet and no paycheck! So, I'm going to get laundry done (well, work on taming the beast anyway) and enjoy being home and maybe actually get dinner ready early tonight! (it could happen)

And I will look forward to hearing how Tommy enjoyed the play and his hamburger patties buffet.

It's Alive!!

Okay, this is reaching epidemic proportions. It's crazy out of control. I'm talking of course about my laundry. It's absolute insanity in my laundry room every day since the temperatures dropped and everyone decided to start wearing jeans and long sleeves. There have been times lately when I have wondered if my neighbors were sneaking into my house and putting their laundry into the hampers. How could we possibly have this much clothing that needs to be washed daily??? I mean, I'm not a total idiot (well, most days anyway), and I can do the math: 7 pairs of jeans and 7 long sleeved shirts/sweatshirts (plus of course the requisite 3 shirts layered underneath for the female children to create the "right" look) equals a lot of clothes. But it is unrelenting!! It's constant!! It's becoming like the Hamper That Ate New York, er, well Phoenix! Every year about this time I have to rethink my laundry patterns, but I think my kids all had major growth spurts or something so that all of their clothing is much bigger and therefore takes more space in my rather large washing machine than it did last year. I don't know if these machines are rated for constant use like this! And our poor machine has already been given a terminal diagnosis. The last time it broke the repairman said we may only have a year left--an estimate that I'm sure didn't have hard labor factored in! I'm certain you will be hearing the death knoll for my poor faithful washing machine sooner than later. We'll say some kind things about her as she is wheeled out of the house that sad day. And you can be sure I'll replace her with the largest capacity machine I can fit in that laundry room!!

Dang, I was cute!

My dad periodically goes through stuff in his office and when they come to visit he usually shows up with a variety of treasures. This time I got a Heinz ketchup magnet (?) and some old pictures. One is a picture of me from my freshman year in high school. Very early 80's. Very attractive. And he also gave me this...






I sure was a cute baby if I do say so myself!!

Delivery Man

Some people go through all of the trouble of going to an appliance store to get a refrigerator and then have some men in a truck deliver it. Not us. We like to do things our own way.

Who needs a delivery truck when you have a strong husband and two daughters willing to walk beside him?

Here's the rest of the story...we were looking at getting a refrigerator to keep in the garage for the tons of food we buy to keep our brood happy and growing that never seems to all fit in the refrigerator we have. But refrigerators cost a lot of money so we hesitated. And thankfully so, for in waiting God gave us an idea! Our old refrigerator was at our old house which we are renting out. And our renters had recently bought their own refrigerator. So I asked them if they were using it, and they very kindly said that we needed it more than their family of 3 did so we could take it back. Yippee! Now how to get it from that house to ours. Hmmm. We called several friends with trailers but none were available. Our friend Carol, the ever resourceful one, suggested Sam rent an appliance dolly from U-Haul and walk it over since it is only 4 blocks away. So we did. And for the measly ten dollars to rent the dolly I got a refrigerator in my garage and the priceless memories of my husband walking four blocks with a refrigerator. Not something you get to see every day! And you can believe he got a lot of interesting looks along the way! Two guys were standing in the park watching him walk past with their jaws on the ground. They sure had something interesting to talk about at dinner with their families that night!!

Adding Insult to Injury to Injury

Yesterday Sam painted the final wall in our bedroom that was waiting to be painted. Yay! A finished project! And paint fumes! So I slept on the couch not wanting to asphyxiate myself. Having inhaled the fumes for hours already Sam felt he had built up an immunity and went ahead and slept in our bed. At 3:15 this morning I was awakened by Noah who was crying and clearly in pain. "My ear hurts really bad and Daddy won't do anything about it!" Assuming that his dad just hadn't actually awakened fully, I got up and came to the rescue...or tried anyway. In my "It's-three-in-the-morning-and-I-can't-quite-think-clearly" fog all I could think was the fact that there must be a rule in the ear infection kingdom that says they may only show themselves between 2-4 a.m.. I gave him some ibuprofen and I think I said something along the lines of "Let's see if we can just get you through to the morning" but it may have sounded more like "Lesheifweekengetyoootoomonin." I gave him a heating pad to lean against and told him to try to get back to sleep and wake me again if it isn't getting any better. Yeah, that lasted about 30 minutes. Clearly ibuprofen was like a pea shooter at this King Kong ear infection (which by the way I had been watching for since he has been sick for the last ten days and he had shown no signs at all). So, I went and got Sam up. I told him Noah has an ear infection and had tried to wake him up but clearly didn't succeed. "Oh, I woke up, I told him to lay down with me." Oh, silly me, why didn't I think of that? So Sam won the privilige of going to the ER based on his home "remedy" for earaches.

Sam and Noah headed off for the ER around 4:30. They got to see the new Banner Gateway Hospital and Sam says it's lovely. A few other more urgent cases came in right after them, so they had a bit of a wait. When the doctor finally came in and looked at Noah's ear she said, "Whoa, no wonder that hurts!" Apparently it was a "raging" ear infection. She very kindly gave Noah some pain medication at that point. Since we are all about saving money, we went for a 2 for 1 special and had them x-ray his ankle while he was there. Talk about being efficient!! It turns out that his ankle is not broken, but is sprained badly with possible ligament damage that might require casting. As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I don't like paying a co-pay only to hear that nothing is wrong, so I feel like we got our money's worth in that trip for sure! They splinted Noah's leg/ankle/foot and then sent him home with some prescriptions.

They stopped and got donuts on the way home--which was very thoughtful--and then the rest of the family got ready to go to church, leaving Noah and I behind. I headed off to Walgreen's to pick up his prescription and 7 minutes later my phone rang and Noah informed me that he had thrown up. "Oh, Buddy, I'm sorry. Are you okay now? Um....did you make it to the bathroom?" (After 4 months of chemo I try to avoid vomit any way I can--and thankfully he had made it!) I wasn't very thankful for that pain medicine at that point (having been administered on a very empty stomach!). I got some Sprite and his scripts and hurried home--although I did stop at Safeway to rent a movie for him to watch. (Earned some Good Mom Points there!)

He has proceeded to spend the day on the couch alternating between nausea, vomiting, high fever and general discomfort. I decided to skip the pain medicine that was prescribed to him since it needed to be given with food (very wise I think) and gave him ibuprofen in between ralphing sessions when I could get a few crackers in his tummy.

This poor kid is having a very rough weekend. And it's a three day weekend too to add insult to injury to injury. What next? The plague?

"But I'm at Costco..."

So, on Friday I'm at Costco and I am reaching for my phone to call Emily to let her know where I am and my phone rings. Always weird when that happens. So, I answer with a pleasant "hellooo." And she responds with, "Mom, Noah says he thinks he broke or sprained his foot." Unusual greeting if you ask me. No preamble, no gentle lead in, just BAM. And I will readily admit to rolling my eyes a bit at this proclamation. You see, my precious Noah is a bit dramatic when it comes to injuries and so it is hard to know when there is truly something wrong. I was at Costco with shopping to get done and so I was erring on the side of "right, whatever." So, she puts Noah on and he proceeds to start crying into the phone, which you all know means I can't understand a single word of what he is saying from my aisle in Costco. After a few "Honey, I can't understand you, please calm downs" I finally understood that he wanted me to come get him because he couldn't walk home because he hurt his ankle at lunch recess. But I'm at Costco! At that moment God sovereignly ordained that my friend Laurie walked out of her house and saw the tears streaming down Noah's face and came over to help. He handed her the phone and she agreed to take him home for me. Mind you, I'm still thinking "right, whatever" when it comes to this injury. So I continue shopping. (yes, I am the Queen of Compassion) Then I call Sam to ask him a question and I find out that they had called him too (apparently I didn't hear my phone the first time they called) and so he wanted to know what was up. Hmmm. They called Daddy at work, maybe he is actually hurt. So, I called Emily back and by this time they were home and she had Noah laying down with an ice pack on his ankle. "Is it swollen?" "Ooooohhhhh yeah." "Great." So, I got home checked it out and discovered that there was indeed an actual injury. One certainly worthy of tears at the prospect of walking home 4 blocks. What I'm still trying to process is him not going to the nurse's office to have it looked at when he was clearly in a bit of pain from lunch time through 2:45! I guess he was okay sitting at his desk and didn't have to get up all afternoon so it didn't bother him too much. Until of course it was time to leave.

Thankfully, our neighbor is a paramedic and he graciously came over and looked his ankle over and declared it to be truly injured, i.e. sprained or possibly broken. We are in the let's wait and watch it stage hoping upon hope that it is not broken and that we will not have to go to the urgent care and have an xray because that is certainly way more painful than a sprain. So, Noah has had to lay around with his foot propped up and iced. Which isn't so bad for the first few hours, but it does get old for an active 11 year old. And the hopping on one foot thing started out strong, but isn't something that can be kept up for an extended period of time. And then the Lord provided through Rachel's teacher who had a pair of crutches in her garage. How, you ask, did we find out that she had crutches? Well, she was very sweet and came to Rachel's soccer game this morning and during our conversation I mentioned that Noah had sprained his ankle and we didn't have crutches so he was trapped at home. And voila! A short time later we had crutches. So now he is Mr. Hopalong Cassidy and you can bet he loves the attention! Our neighbor did mention to him that girls will fall all over him if he is on crutches and I did notice a little smirk on his face...

Once again proof positive that there truly is never a dull moment around here.

It's beginning to look a lot like...November?

Okay, there are just some rules in life that should never be broken. I'm not talking about wearing white after Labor Day or wearing a hat in a building or anything minor like that. No, it's something way more grievous than that. I'm talking about waiting until after Thanksgiving to put up Christmas decorations. I have historically had a hard time when I see one of our neighbors' lights go up the week before Thanksgiving. It's like they just want to skip over Thanksgiving entirely. And you can't claim to be putting them up early to avoid the freezing weather like in the Midwest. I just feel like there should be some sort of order to this whole holiday thing. All I am asking is that you wait until Thanksgiving has been officially celebrated before we jump into Christmas. I want to enjoy the Christmas build up and it is nearly impossible to fully enjoy it when it lasts for months. So you will understand my irritation when I was walking home from the kids' school Thursday night after Noah's music program and I see this:



The reindeer and candy canes are a little blurry because I took the picture from across the street. But you can see Santa in the background. I mean, come on people, it was only Nov. 8 when these decorations went up. NOVEMBER 8! They took down their Halloween decorations and put these up in their place. I had seen them earlier in the day and I was hoping against hope that they would at least have the common decency to wait to turn them on until it was more appropriate, but alas, they clearly don't have any respect for tradition. I'm on the verge of shopping around for lighted turkeys and pilgrims to give to them to use for the month of November because they obviously feel the need to have lawn decorations from September on and in the absence of Thanksgiving related yard decor they have jumped ahead to the Christmas stuff. It's just wrong. I'm going to have to avoid that corner for the next couple of weeks so I can prevent myself from hyperventilating over the tragedy of it all. So, please, if you care about my sanity at all, please, please, please wait until after Thanksgiving to decorate for Christmas! Thank you for your support.

I'm hours away from being taken seriously...or not

This will be my last post from my 30's. Yes, it's true, when I awake tomorrow morning--without an alarm clock mind you as a special treat to myself--I will be 40. Wow. Is this when people have to start taking you seriously and really consider you an adult? I hope so. I've always wanted to be an adult...some day. In my case it probably won't alter much though as I will still be me and not necessarily worth taking seriously. :-)

I subbed in a kindergarten class today--and I actually enjoyed it. They were an obedient bunch (for the most part) and they made me pictures and hugged me throughout the day which can only make you feel special. I told them it was my birthday tomorrow and they all said, "Ooooooooo. How old will you be?" You should have seen their faces when I said I would be forty. I might as well have said a hundred and eighty three. They started offering up how old their moms were and several decided their parents were 60. I'm sure their parents would appreciate being aged by several decades.

So, in honor of my big day tomorrow I am meeting a friend at The Coffee Shop for some yummy Hot Cocoa in the morning, going to Joe's Real BBQ for my free lunch and then for dinner we are going to Joe's Farm Grill for free cheeseburgers and fries for the whole family (it's their Customer Appreciation Day). You've got to love free. :-) Anyone that wants to join us for my birthday dinner at the Farm Grill is more than welcome. I thought it was very sweet of them to throw me a birthday dinner (they're calling it customer appreciation so that no one is offended if they don't do the same on their birthday).

If it looks like milk...

(Kristi encouraged me to blog this conversation. I was thankful to have a witness.)

Tommy (drinking a glass of milk): This milk looks like milk but it doesn't taste like milk it tastes like something different that looks like milk but it's not milk.

Me: Huh?

Kristi: What does it taste like?

Tommy: I don't know. Well, I know, but I don't know what it's called but it looks like milk.

Me: Huh?

Kristi: Huh?

Rachel claimed to have understood what he was saying, but at this point we still do not know what he is thinking his milk tasted like. The answer is trapped in Tommyland.

Projects, Dizziness and Ick

I've kept my husband plenty busy today. He finished painting the master bathroom and a wall in our bedroom. Let's just say it took a little longer than he anticipated. Hours longer. Yikes. Really we need to start factoring in that unexpected extra few hours whenever a project is started. But we are both, for some reason, serious time under-estimators. Sam's area of major underestimation is home projects and my weakest area is cooking. It always seems to take longer than I think and therefore I always start it later than I should and therefore we usually eat later than we'd like. You'd think I could adjust this little habit I've formed by just starting a half hour earlier or something, but no, my way is much more "exciting" for everyone involved.

Now Sam is hanging some shelves and a thing-a-ma-bob on the wall for me. It's a cool looking metal thing-a-ma-bob to add interest to our wall. It's working, I'm interested in the wall now. He loves when I come home from the store with yet another item to hang. Really he does. Truly.

I had some side effects this week, which surprised me. What that means is that they have been seriously reduced lately, which is a huge thing to praise God for. But then when they hit I'm wondering what is wrong with me and then it dawns on me that I take a very powerful medicine to keep my leukemia under control. Oh, that's right, I have leukemia. Darn, I keep forgetting.

Like right now, I'm feeling a bit dizzy. And I'm quite tired and forgetful this week. Quite. The fact that it is 9:35 and I am not falling asleep on the computer tonight is pretty impressive. Of course I am dizzy and attempting to type so if my words start to come out sideways, I apologize.

No exciting Tommy stories this week, uh, er, month. I'm sure he has done something worth noting, but refer to the last paragraph where I mentioned that I am quite forgetful this week and we'll just chalk it up to that. I'll try to think of anything he has done that is noteworthy.

Well, that's it from Dizzyland. I just thought I'd check in because it's been a while. I'll tell Tommy to do something really ridiculous tomorrow so I can post it.

Oh, wait! I remember something that Sam did that is just as ridiculous and I told him I would blog about it. He likes to eat peanut butter out of the jar (all the while I am attempting to teach my children about manners and germs and things like that) and the other day he dropped a big bloop of p.b. on the floor while we were talking. Without skipping a beat in the conversation, he reaches down with his fork, scrapes it off of the floor and proceeds to eat it. I, the Manners and Germ Teacher, could only stand there with my mouth agape. What was that???? I mean the man is 39 years old and this is how he chooses to mar his mother's good name?? I KNOW she taught him better. But then again, she probably mentioned that eating pizza or birthday cake out of the garbage can was a bad idea or that pork accidentally left on a grill for several days should not be eaten. And yet her son has over the years partaken of the aforementioned foods from the aforementioned locations. All I can do is watch from the sidelines in horror and hope my children don't see. Because I know a certain little fella--one who has previously wiped something off of a shelf at the dollar store and then licked his hands--that would most certainly follow in those footsteps!!

The Best Laid Plans...

So it was a good plan. My plan. A not too over planned plan. One that I liked. And then there was Tommy. I can just imagine the grin on God's face as he was deciding to place Tommy in our family. He probably thought to Himself, "Well, that should shake things up nicely. Every day. Hee, hee, hee." Although God's laugh is probably far from a hee, hee, hee kind of laugh. But he would probably hee, hee, hee when thinking about Tommy's escapades. Me? I just sigh.

So, this week I was scheduled to work every day. BUT, I was working half days Monday, Tuesday,Wednesday and Friday. So, it was nicely planned as far as I was concerned. I was going to help out a couple of teacher friends and get stuff done at home as well. Perfect! Right.

Well, Monday I got some stuff done during my afternoon off, so that was a good start. When Tommy got home that afternoon he had black stuff all around his eyes and on his glasses. "What is all over your face??"
"Oh, it's dirt oil."
"I'm sorry, what??"
"Dirt oil from science."
"Much clearer now. Can anyone give me a translation on 'dirt oil'?? Anyone??"
Thankfully Rachel stepped up to the plate. How she knew what he was talking about I'll never know. "It's humus Mom."
"Come again??"
"Humus, you know, soil."
"Oooohhh. Dirt. Soil. Dirt oil."
"So, how did you get humus on your face?"
"Well, I was supposed to smell the dirt oil to see what it was like and I breathed and it came onto my face."
"Great. Go wash your face and glasses and don't breath on humus, uh, dirt oil anymore."

So, we went on with our afternoon and evening and things were fine. He even took a bath to remove any other traces of dirt oil. Or so I thought.

Day 2 of lovely plan: family wakes up with Tommy's eye red and watering profusely. "Um, I think there's some dirt oil in my eye." I had him flush it with water and then sent him to school figuring it would work it's way out eventually. Or not.

His teacher saw me in the hallway after I was done with my class and said it was getting worse even though he had been to the nurse and done an eye wash. Ugh. Fine, I'll look at it. Yep, it's worse. I guess I'll take him to the doctor. So, Tommy came home with me. Ate his lunch with his eyes closed because it felt better and then laid on the couch with his eyes closed until it was time to go to the appointment I was able to schedule for 1:40. We started calling him Helen. The next step was going to be to spell w-a-t-e-r in his hand.

So, we went to the doctor. She did another eye wash and then checked for any scratches on his eyeball, of which there were none to be seen. Gave us a scrip for eye drops and sent us on our way with Tommy saying, "It still hurts." while I'm paying our co-pay. She did another quick rinse and checked his eye further and saw nothing. So, Helen and I ran a couple of errands to try and recoup my perfect plan for the day. My only response to "it hurts a little" was "close your eyes." It stopped hurting so it was an effective treatment!

So, Helen felt a little better that night, but still could feel something in his eye. Went to bed and woke up with a swollen eye lid. "Cut me, Mickey. Cut me." I threw my hands in the air and sent him off to school. I checked him at recess right before I was going to call the doctor again and it looked a little better. I mean, the hurting was gone and it just looked bad so it was improving as far as I was concerned! So, I decided to wait until lunch before I called. At lunch I checked (when I should have been on my merry way through my well planned errands) and it was significantly better so I decided against going to the doctor and hearing them say, "Yep, it's swollen. Probably just irritated. That'll be $25." By 2:45 it was mostly back to normal and I am pleased to say I saved myself 25 bucks.

His teacher was horrified that he had hurt himself. She said she'd been doing this experiment for years and never had any problems before. Yes, but now you have Tommy. Oh, and it was discovered upon further cross examination that he "accidentally" breathed on the dirt oil TWICE. I pointed out that only one of them had the potential to be labeled accidental. The second time had another word reserved for it. And yes, it's the opposite of smart.

So, I still haven't gotten all of my errands done. But I did get some quality time with Helen, oh, I mean Tommy, and in the end, isn't that a better thing anyway?

Budding Musicians

These are our budding musicians on the night of their first concert of the year. To see Noah in something other than a t-shirt and jeans was a major thrill for us.







I couldn't get a picture of her during the concert (the darn strings teacher was standing right in front of her the whole time!) so I had her do a pretend shot.

Susie Homemaker and Gluten Free Hot Cross Buns

Miracles never cease. In the span of two days I successfully altered a recipe to make it gluten-free AND I hemmed a pair of pants. What next?? Making my own croutons? (GF of course) Well, I doubt that will happen. It seems utterly pointless to me to make my own croutons when they come in a bag at the store really cheap. But who knows, at this rate anything could happen.


The recipe I altered was for corn bread. And the kids really liked it! Points for me! It's not exactly high on the gourmet scale, but still it was a regular recipe that needed changing and I didn't have a gf recipe to use and I figured it out all on my own. Well, with the help of a book. But on my own with a book! Although when I said I was making gf cornbread Katya said to me in her best "duh" voice, "But it's made of corn." Um, and flour. "Oh." Clearly a lot more education is needed in regards to what makes something gluten free. Did I mention that Tommy at goldfish crackers in his class on Sunday? Yeah. A LOT more education is needed. And Mr. I'm Not Supposed to Have Sugar tried to score a sucker..."for someone else." Right.

And believe it or not I have never (before yesterday) hemmed a pair of pants. I'm not sure how I've avoided it so long...maybe never buying something that needed to be hemmed...or waiting until my mom was visiting to ask her to do it... But I got Noah a pair of pants for his band concert and they had to be hemmed. I'm actually hoping to be able to have him wear them through the upcoming growth spurts so I left a large amount of fabric to be re-hemmed at a later date. Which will undoubtedly be my second pants hemming in my life, because I don't plan on making a habit out of it.

Speaking of the concert, there is nothing like a rousing rendition warm up scales and "Hot Cross Buns" to really stir your heart. I think I speak for all of the 5th grade band parents when I say I am utterly thankful that he won't have to practice Hot Cross Buns ever again. For about two weeks he only knew that one song and yet was still required to practice for 20 minutes a day. WHAT??? How many times over and over do you suppose you can play Hot Cross Buns in a 20 minutes timespan??? Too many to count and just enough to drive me insane. And I'm quite certain he was not playing about the gluten free variety.

And this post wouldn't be complete without a few precious words from Tommy. He was using good grammar skills when trying to determine the meaning of some of his spelling words this week. One of them is "research." He looked up at me and said, "Does that mean when I look for something again?"

Gluten free people coming together!

God is so gracious to me. In the midst of my, well, less than positive attitude regarding this whole gluten-free situation we find ourselves in, God is providing resources in terms of friends and acquaintances who have headed down this path previously and figured out all of the stuff I don't feel like figuring out! How cool is that??

I actually just figured out that I just need to have a type A person who attacked this gluten-free problem and conquered it to give me all of their information! I don't want to be the one who is trying out new recipes in the hope that they aren't nastified, but I'd be happy to take my type A friend's tried and true recipes!

The amazing thing in all of this is how many people have someone in their family who cannot eat gluten. Seriously, this is way more people than I ever imagined. I think this is going hand in hand with the epidemic of peanut allergies these days. I mean, everyone I knew as a kid ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Everyone. Not these days. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting someone who is either allergic to peanuts or gluten. And you definitely couldn't say that when we were kids.

Let there be light

Noah: Mom, Tommy left our bedroom window open.

Mom: Tommy why did you even have the bedroom window open when it is over 100 degrees outside?

Katya and Tommy: Because we were making a video and it was too dark.

Mom: So, you opened the window?

K & T: Yes.

Mom: Not just the blinds--the actual window with GLASS in it?

K & T: Yes.

Mom: And it got brighter in the room because you opened the glass window?

K & T: Yes.

Mom: I really wish my eye would stop twitching.

Welcome to My Gluten and Sugar Free Nightmare

This gluten-free/sugar-free diet may just be the end of me. Eating out specifically is going to be very interesting. (Not that we go out very often, mind you, it's just that this will make it that much more difficult and that much less common. And I'm the one who likes to eat out because that means someone else is cooking and cleaning up!) Even foods that are typically gluten-free are not necessarily gluten-free at a restaurant because of cross contamination. Which makes it that much more difficult to order something. So, kids, how does water and carrots sound? Yum!

We went to Costco today and got lunch after church. We got Katya and Tommy hot dogs which we intended for them to eat without the bun. Tommy opened his and immediately chomped down on the whole thing, thankfully in full view of Emily who swiftly pointed out he was not supposed to eat bread. Oops. So, he had to spit that bite out into a napkin in my hand. That is one of the things you do not anticipate as you become a mom--the whole spitting things out into your hands thing. At least I had a napkin. Without it he would have had to hold that nastiness in his mouth for a long time while I went to go get a napkin. We're talking significant chewing that took place before he processed Emily's admonition and ceased chewing. So anyway, Costco's food court is not exactly a gluten-free haven. They can have hot dogs or sausage or salad. And Katya would probably rather starve to death than have salad. And one hot dog without a bun does not really fill you up. At all. Nor does it take long to eat. So they finished very quickly. Had a second bunless dog and then sat and watched everyone else eat. Gee, eating out is fun!

And yesterday I took Tommy for a hair cut. As we were leaving he said to the lady with his cute little upturned face, "May I have a sucker?" Thankfully I was there to throw myself in between him and his "crack" before he had it in his hot little hand. "Tommy, what is a sucker made of?" "Um, sugar?" "Yeah, just a little bit." Here's a carrot for sitting so nicely for the haircutter lady.

And this Friday Katya's class is having a reward party and they are going to have pizza and frozen drinks from Bahama Bucks. I think she can have the drink because they do have sugar free options, but the pizza is out. Which means she has to have different food than the rest of her class. It's supposed to be a reward, but it looks like she is going to get the reward of making her own yummy lunch. I can't think of a food that she would see as a reward outside of the pizza party her class is having. More carrots? Mmmmm.

As if I needed one more thing to have to manage in my already oh-so-empty-schedule. I also had to send in some sugarless treats for Tommy to replace the ones the teacher gives out as little rewards as well as something for him when kids bring in birthday treats. Luckily Tommy is easier to please than Katya. I found a package of individually wrapped dried apricots and plums that I sent in for his replacement (I suppose more kids will eat "dried plums" than "prunes") . I think in the end he likes the additional attention that having a special diet brings his way. He repeatedly tells people that he eats "healthy" and implies that he really prefers it that way. Right. Katya, on the other hand, doesn't want additional attention, she just wants a cupcake. Or two.

So I am having to expend way too much thinking power for things like meal planning and grocery shopping. Thinking power that I most definitely did not have extra of. I'm actually reading labels now. (Shawna S. is laughing really hard about now.) This is way too complicated. If only I liked to cook and come up with nutritious, yet tasty, gluten and sugar-free options for my whole family to enjoy. But, I don't. Not even a little. And even if I wanted to I can't because I am spending so much time trying to wade through the ingredients list of every product I purchase that I have no brain cells left after that! It looks like Katya and Tommy are going to need to learn to enjoy carrots. A lot.

Night of the living living

The other day one of the kids asked me why my parents' house is right by a cemetery. I responded that there was a cemetery there and then the builder started building houses nearby. To which another child responded, "A cemetery?? You mean with dead people?" No, this one is special. It is reserved for live people. Specifically ones that ask ridiculous questions. We'll have to stop by next time we're in town

Yuma

Katya and I had a safe trip to Yuma. It was actually very nice to get away with just one child. It was so very quiet. We listened to the Chronicles of Narnia on the way there and back--which did indeed make the drive go by faster. We stayed in a hotel, well, a motel really. I think that's what you call the run down, two-story, pool-in-the-parking-lot-in-front joint we stayed in. It backed up to a gas station so there was quite a bit of noise coming through the 300 year old bathroom window. We just kept the door closed to muffle it.

I got to catch up with a few old friends that I hadn't seen in years. That was fun. I surprised one friend at her office (she had no idea I was in town) and we had a very fun time catching up. Her daughter used to babysit Emily and her daughter is now a beautiful 27 year old woman. Yikes.

We also got to see the world's most idiotic, ridiculous movie. Katya really wanted to go see a movie, and try as I might to tempt her with cable TV at the Happy Travel Motel, she was hoping to milk this "being by myself with mom thing." I fell for it and we went to the only movie that was playing that was age appropriate: "Mr. Bean's Holiday." After the movie, Katya walked out and said, "That was strange." If she thought it was strange--and let me tell you that her standard for a good movie is pretty low--then you can understand why I sat through it with my mouth gaping open in shock and awe at the utter stupidity. Noah called me in the middle and I willingly went out to the hall to chat with him. Thankfully Katya filled me in on the scenes I missed. She didn't understand that I didn't want to know what happened.

After the movie we went shopping at Yuma's new mall. Ooooooooo. When we lived in Yuma (during Sam's 6 year Marine Corps career) it was the equivalent of Retail and Restaurant Hell. Seriously. Unless they had it at Kmart or Sears you couldn't get it. And let me tell you that it was a very old Kmart. Very old and very icky. And I remember vividly the day that Red Lobster opened in town--there was a line around the building waiting for them to open the doors. Very sad, I know. I watched it happen with a mixture of pity and horror. So, the fact that they have an actual mall with actual restaurants and a theater with more than 4 screens is pretty impressive. I actually forgot I was in Yuma while we were there. And Katya successfully spent some of her birthday money on some clothes and jewelry. She is a jewelry addict at this point. The good news is that we found a store with a bunch of jewelry on clearance.

On Wednesday when Katya was done with her testing we even took some time and went to the Yuma Territorial Prison. Always a good idea when it is 110 or so to visit something that is predominantly outdoors. Thankfully there is a museum with a/c so we spent time in there cooling off. It was actually very interesting to read about some of the convicts and very educational for Katya since she was missing school. Am I a great mom or what???

Katya's testing went well. We won't find out the results until the tester compiles the results into a report which takes her about 20-30 hours to write. Yikes. The more I learn about dyslexia the more fascinating it becomes. It's not at all about people reading backwards but it is a language processing disorder. If she is dyslexic it would explain a lot of the problems she has in acquiring new vocabulary and finding the right words in a conversation. I'll be sure to let you know if she is or not. Regardless I saved myself a bundle by driving to Yuma for the testing. If she isn't I won't feel as bad as if I had spent the over $1000 to have her tested. That's like when I take the kids to the doctor when they are sick--I find myself seriously hoping they have an infection or something to justify my co-pay. I hate paying $25 to hear that they have a cold. So spending over $1000 to find out that she doesn't have dyslexia would probably send me over the edge.

We ate at several restaurants while we were in the Big City o' Yuma and I made some assumptions about what food had gluten in it and in some cases I clearly guessed wrong because whatever we ate on Wed. caused Katya to be sick on Thursday and to have to come home from school. I think it helped her see more clearly why she is on the special diet though. So in the end it probably ended up being worth it for a slight attitude adjustment regarding the "I can't eat anything and I'm not happy about it" diet.

And Tommy's teacher says he is doing much better, which I can only attribute to his new diet. He has not brought her to the point of wanting to run out of the classroom screaming for at least two weeks so there is a great deal of improvement. Way to go Tommy!

Well, I'm off to watch a movie. We are babysitting my favorite baby in the whole world, Jackson(who to be honest is actually almost 2, but in my eyes still a baby), and I need to wait up for his mom and dad to come pick him up. And then in the morning we have week #2 of two soccer games a couple of hours apart. Rachel's is at 11:40 this week so it should be nice and cool. Sure, maybe I'll bring a jacket.

Suzy Slide Grease?

Ok, it didn't even take me a month to have something to write about. Tonight one of our children did something quite humorous that I must share about. Sam and I are still laughing. I will change the names to protect the not at all innocent.

A child came down to say goodnight and Sam noticed lip gloss of some kind on their lips (which gives away the gender in this case--either that or we have some very weird things going on with our boys). "What do you have on your lips, Child?" "Oh, it's a chapstick that Sibling gave me." When Child came to see me to say goodnight, having overheard the conversation and noticing the high sheen and fruity scent on said lips, I queried, "What did you say you had on your lips?" "It's a chapstick that Sibling gave me." "Looks too shiny to be chapstick," I say. "I'll go get it and show it to you." So Child proceeds to run upstairs to fetch the chapstick that she insisted she was wearing to prove that it wasn't lip gloss as I was so rudely insinuating. She comes back downstairs and hands me a tube that looks like chapstick. Only it isn't. Child didn't take the time to look at what she said her Sibling gave her before coming up with her lie to cover up putting lip gloss on. It was "Cork & Tuning Slide Grease" that had apparently gotten left out by our fifth grade trombone virtuoso. For some reason she felt she needed to avoid having us tell her that she shouldn't wear lip gloss to bed--a punishment worthy of fear to be sure--so she decided to tell us it was chapstick instead and felt confident that she could produce the "chapstick" she had seen as "proof" and thus not get caught. Oops. Slight miscalculation on her part. Next time she'll probably remember to read the label. Or not.

Monthly update

Once again, I'm not really sure when my life became a constant merry-go-round ride, but I am confident that the ride started spinning faster the day I became a mom of five. And the fact that I truly thought it would be no different to have five than it was to have three just proves the fact that I am certifiable. I mean, really, not a day goes by that I don't think back to my thoughts of "what's the big deal about five kids?" No, I'm not very smart at all.

Hmm, where to start with the latest edition of "What's happening in Melindaland?"...

Well, we had our first soccer games of the season today. Noah's was at 9:20 and since we remembered to bring our beach umbrella, we were actually relatively comfortable in our portable shade. Sadly Noah's team lost--but there was a controversial goal that they scored but the referee declared it to "not have crossed the line" or some such thing. Our boys vigorously declared it had crossed said line. So in their minds it was a tie. They'll be talking about how they were robbed for weeks.

Rachel's game was at 12:50. Yes, you read that right. Soccer at the peak of the afternoon in 100+ weather in Phoenix. I don't know who the genius was that thought of that schedule. The parents were melting on the sidelines and it is a wonder that the girls were able to remain standing let alone run up and down the field. At each break the parents were dousing the girls with water and getting them to drink as much as was humanly possible. Apparently our team was better hydrated because we won in the end. We should have had a kiddie pool for them to jump in and splash around between quarters. Maybe next week. I'll put in a call to the team mom. Which is most definitely not me. She is a lovely, very organized woman with only two children. She probably takes naps every afternoon and remembers her own name all of the time. But my life is "richer," and remembering your name is highly overrated.

The current state of hecticness (is that a word? not that I wouldn't use it if it isn't, I was just asking) in our home is caused by the frequent soccer practices that have occurred over the last few weeks leading up to today's opening games. We waited quite a few years before allowing our kids to join organized sports and now I remember why. They both love soccer though and seem to be pretty good at it, so this might be our lot in life for a while. Tommy would like to play football someday as soccer doesn't really interest him. He is going to have to take a number though because he'll need to wait a couple more years til I get the hang of this 3 nights a week of practice business. He plays one-on-one with Sam in the backyard so that will have to suffice for a while. We'll have to start having him watch games on weekends so he can learn by observation.

I'm certain the fact that I have substituted 8 out of the last 9 school days has contributed to the feeling of hecticness (hectarity? hectivity?) as well. The problem was that I had committed to covering for a teacher who was gone for a week to go get married (at the Graceland wedding chapel in Vegas no less--two Elvis impersonators sang at the wedding--ah, to each his own...) long before we knew when soccer practice would start and what days it would be on. Needless to say I will be scaling back on my subbing during soccer season. For my sanity and the sanity of those around me.

This week I had to teach a group of 1st graders the concept of contractions. It wasn't pretty. I mean I had it all going on--the apostrophe "eats" the 'wi' in will and we are left with 'I'll' kind of thing--or so I thought. When I asked them what the contraction of 'I will' is (after going over this ad nauseum) I got a variety of answers: I'wi, I'will, I'wll. Yeah, nevermind. Your teacher will be back later to deal with this mess. I've given you all I've got. So we moved on to our next worksheet which confused about 1/2 of the class as well. Clearly I am not called to be a first grade teacher because I don't have the patience for that much confusion. Sadly, several of them didn't seem qualified to be first graders!!

We went camping over Labor Day weekend up near Payson. We went with four other families and it was a lot of fun even though it rained--downpoured actually--the first night. Thankfully our friends had an extra tarp that we could hang over our tent that was filling with water. And thankfully our friends had campers so a couple of our kids could sleep with them so they didn't have to sleep on the wet floor. We only had two air mattresses so that would have left the floor people floating--not to mention very wet. Rain always makes a camping trip interesting--and memorable. Oh, and I think the entire metropolitan Phoenix area was in or near Payson for the weekend because it took us a whopping 4 1/2 hours to get home. It does tend to take a while to anywhere when you are in bumper to bumper traffic moving at a whopping 15 miles an hour. Thankfully we had a cd set of Chronicles of Narnia and we listened to The Horse and His Boy and Prince Caspian and as a result could have cared less how long it was taking because we were so into the stories.

Katya's birthday was also Labor Day weekend. She is now 13. She wasn't overly excited to celebrate her birthday while camping, but we made her food requests (mashed potatoes and corn--her annual starch fest) and had a gummy worm/bear/bug "cake" (a 9x13 pan filled with gummies that was a real crowd pleaser with the kids) and so I think she was ok with it.

She is actually having her birthday party tonight. She has some friends sleeping over. They've had dinner, painted their nails, played Dance Dance Revolution and a karaoke type game on Playstation, watched a movie, eaten junk food and giggled until they fell asleep. I'm certain some of those activities will be repeated in the morning when they awake. Thankfully we moved the playstation downstairs so we won't have to hear them if they decide to start very early.

We discovered last week that Tommy is intolerant to gluten and so he is now on a gluten-free diet. Sugar is also like crack to him so we have taken him off of that as well. He eats carrots and water now. Well, not really. There are a lot of foods he can eat, we just have to choose more carefully. This new diet should help alleviate the problems he has with his lack of focus and impulsiveness. He has been doing a great job in school since we took him off of his "crack" so I am hopeful that this may have been an underlying cause to some of his problems. He had a post-birthday party sugar high one Monday and his teacher was ready to throttle him by lunch time. Once we learned about the sugar-crack connection it made sense as to what caused the erratic and incredibly frustrating behavior that day!! Sugar binging on Saturday!! The doctor said that gluten intolerance is genetic and so we have put Katya on the same diet, much to her chagrin (she has some of the same focus problems that Tommy has).

I am taking Katya to Yuma this week for some testing for dyslexia. A tester down there is going to test her for free in order to get certified as a dyslexia specialist. The testing would normally cost $1000 or more so that would explain our willingness to drive to Yuma for it. I'm looking forward to having some hang out time with Katya as well. We'll be listening to the remaining Chronicles of Narnia cds so the drive will be over in no time.

I think that's all I can think of for right now. So I'm going to bed. Apparently this is now a once a month blog so I'wi...I'will...I'll see you in October.

Mommy New Year

Yesterday was what Sam has dubbed "Mommy New Year." The house was as quiet as I had hoped and I remembered what it was like to think a complete thought. I thoroughly enjoyed my day. Thoroughly. Even as I type right now I am amazed at how quiet the house is and how radically different it looks and sounds when the kid tornado hits at 3:00.

Emily started high school yesterday. We went on Tuesday night to meet her teachers and I am telling you that campus is HUGE. Oh, and the kids are HUGE. My little 14 year old will be walking the halls with huge 18 year old football players. Not to mention that weird guy we saw with the spiked mohawk wearing a kilt. Seriously. A kilt. I'm sure he hangs out with the football players and cheerleaders on weekends. Right. High school hasn't changed much since we were there. Except for that kilt--no one in my high school wore a kilt.

Em had a good day and was able to find her classes with ease thereby escaping every freshman's nightmare of getting lost. She had a hard time finding her bus at the end of the day and had to run to it in the nasty heat, but that was the extent of the hardship. I'm looking forward to hearing how day 2 went since she didn't have the first day nervousness to deal with. She already had homework last night and tomorrow she has a test in English. Day 3 and a test. Very unlike the other kids at the elementary school who were spending the first day being indoctrinated with the classroom rules and did getting to know you activities all day. Katya heard about one of the other 6th grade classes who had to do math and language and stuff. You know--work! Clearly that teacher didn't get the memo. Katya was horrified for her friends in that class.

So, here is the breakdown: Katya is in 6th grade--her final year in elementary before heading off to the junior high. Noah is in 5th grade and has Katya's teacher from last year--which is nice for us to not have to get to know someone new. Rachel is in 4th grade and has Noah's teacher from last year. This is actually proving to be a bit confusing for me because I am used to Mrs. B's stuff being for Katya and Ms. J's stuff being for Noah, but now Mrs. B's stuff is for Noah and Ms. J's stuff is for Rachel. I have enough trouble keeping track of things without added confusion. I'm sure there will be more than one time when I send the wrong kid with the wrong paper. They'll have to get over it. Anyhoo, Tommy is now in 2nd grade with a teacher we have never had before. I don't think anyone has prepped her for the Tommy experience, but she has 20 years of teaching under her belt and she should be able to handle him. Theoretically. The good news is that his first grade teacher misses him--seriously. So, he's a tough one to handle, but his personality and the cuteness factor clearly make up for that. Of course the passage of time helps too.

Tommy's class is in a portable building this year because the school has grown so much. His teacher likes to refer to them as the "chalets"--which I think has a nice ring to it, as compared to the "double wide trailer trash out back." This means the long walk to the bathroom (which is inside the building) is going to be frought with temptations for him to be distracted by the children who are on the playground. None of his cohorts from last year are in his class this year though so that is very good news. He told me the story of a boy at his table yesterday who was hiding one of the girl's nametags. The teacher had to ask him THREE times to give it back (Tommy delivered that news with much horror--3 times!). My response was this: DO NOT become friends with that boy!!!! Stay away from him!!!! Tommy always seems to be able to find the one kid in class that is a bad influence on him and then we (and his teacher) end up telling him he can't sit with him at lunch or sit by him in class or look at him, etc. I'm hoping this year is different. Hey, a girl can hope!

So, now I'm off to pick up my little darlings and to witness the force of the kid tornado (level 5). And then we are off to a DBacks game tonight with our friends the C's. Yahoo!

Pictures

Here I go binge blogging again. I think I need therapy.

I figured I'd post some pictures from our vacation since the disk is sitting here next to me and if I don't do it now odds are I never will (remember how I said I would tell you about our trip to Montreal?). We spent a week enjoying the fantastic weather and our friends' hospitality in beautiful San Diego. Any family that can have all 7 of us come stay with them for a week deserves an award.

Here's a link to a slide show of some of our pictures. http://slideroll.com/?s=yqbs8ru6

5 days and counting

Just a few more days. School starts on Wednesday. I'm seriously looking forward to being in my kitchen Wednesday morning around 8:30 and hearing the wonderfully comforting sound of the refrigerator humming. I remember last year on the first day of school discovering that the refrigerator actually makes a sound and it seems that in the frenzy of noise and activity we like to call "summer vacation" I have forgotten what it sounds like.

Now a disclaimer: I love my kids. I do. Most days. It's just that they are 5 whirling dirvishes--very loud whirling dirvishes--pulling me in 5 different directions at all times. It's exhausting. And the fact that in just a few days they will have something to keep them occupied all day--I mean besides asking me their full quota of questions--is a huge thrill for me. I'm done being Julie the Summer Cruise Director. No one wants to play the games I had planned on the Lido Deck and I am clearly not cut out for planning fun-fun-fun 24/7. Julie made it look so easy back then--but she had Gopher and Isaac helping her out and she didn't have to contend with 110 degree temperatures.

So, I'm turning in my clipboard and sending them off with their backpacks and lunch boxes and hanging out in my unbelievably quiet kitchen for the day thinking entire thoughts without interruption. Except for that pesky humming sound.

Bad Chili

I got a recall notice from Costco today. Since they listed the specific items I bought that are covered by this recall, this reveals to me that Costco knows everything my family has eaten since we got a membership. Some people might feel like this is an invasion of their privacy, but I'm thinking it could be handy if my doctor ever asks for a food history. "Hold on Doc, I'll just call Bill over at Costco really quick and ask them how much red meat is in my diet." I'll keep buying my m&m's and ice cream at Wal-mart though. There doesn't need to be a written record of how many m&m's I have ingested over my lifetime. Although I can tell you that so far there has been about one every sentence during this post.

A funny thing about this recall notice is that it is for some packs of canned chili that we bought. They listed four separate packs in the recall notice and said that the company was voluntarily recalling them regardless of the best by date on the cans. Now, our family only infrequently eats said cans of chili and so the fact that they are including the last four times I purchased it calls into question the effectiveness of this recall. Um, we only had four cans left out of all those cans that we bought months ago! And why are we recalling all of these cans of chili? Possible botulism. Hello? That's a little late now that we only have four cans left! And since the letter says to seek immediate medical care if we have any of the symptoms listed it leads me to believe this is quite serious. But, they said that there has been no contamination found to date. So, explain to me why it is being recalled since it has already been fully digested by my family and so far they can't find any contaminated cans? And don't you think I'd have already had my family member seek medical care if they were having trouble with speaking or swallowing? That seems an obvious sign that all is not right. Especially in our family--someone stops talking or eating and we check for a pulse.

Maybe I'll start calling Costco every once in a while when I'm bored to check and see how many packs of frozen chicken I've purchased over the last year. This could be a fun game to get a little bit more out of my membership.

Pumps, Too Many People, and Providence

Ok, so on Friday I was running errands with Katya and Tommy (side note: Katya, for whom the English language is still a bit mystifying said, "How many errands are we running from?" which gave me a mental picture of running down the street with an angry mob of errands behind us). So, we were down at Gilbert and 202 when the car started to make a weird noise when I was turning. Then I discovered that my power steering was gone. The fact that we used to have cars back in the old days that didn't have power steering is mind boggling after how tired I was driving without it! So I called Sam and told him and we arranged to meet at the mechanic at University and McClintock. I started driving up 101 and was about at Elliot when something told me to check the temperature gauge. So I did. Yikes. It was above the normal line. Not good. So I called Sam to see if I should pull over and while I was talking to him the temp kept creeping up so I pulled over on my own initiative. Sam said to turn the heater on and I should be ok to keep driving. When I started back up it was still above normal but below the H. As I came up to 60 it very quickly moved toward the H and by Broadway it was pegged I was getting off at University and while I was still on the off ramp the car DIED. Now I have no power anything--including power power. Praise God there were no cars on the frontage road and I was able to coast and turn on to University where Praise God once again there was an AM/PM mini mart right there and I was able to coast--and turn with all of the strength in my body while simultaneously applying both feet to the not-power brakes and praying that no one comes in front of my path. Or to the side. Or anywhere near me whatsoever. I came to a nice stop along the curb and completely out of the way of any other drivers and put it in park while smoke rose from the hood. At this point I heard Katya and Tommy say, "uh oh" which was there first words in quite a while since they very wisely decided not to add to the stress of the moment by asking questions like "what's wrong with the car?" or "why are you gritting your teeth and grunting while you are driving Mom?" They were left to ponder those mysteries in the silence of their own minds. So at this point I called Sam to tell him the good news--we were at a mini mart and they had Diet Coke and Icees. We spent the next few minutes recalling God's graces in this whole ordeal: we didn't die on the highway (the car or us), we were able to get into the am/pm's lot, the am/pm had icees and diet coke (I got the one with vitamins making it a health drink), we were only a few miles from Sam's office, we have towing/labor on our insurance policy and they set up the tow truck for us, we got to see what smoke coming from the engine looks like. The list is endless really. Sam got there and took us to McDonald's to hang out and have some dinner while he went back and waited for the tow truck. What a great husband. We had been to the library earlier so I sat and read one of Emily's library books while the kids read and played with their Happy Meal toys.

The good news was that the problem didn't cost thousands of dollars and I didn't damage the engine beyond repair. It turned out to be...the water pump. Now I know you are wondering, like I was, why the power steering was the first thing to go when the water pump went bad. Apparently when it seized up it shifted or something and threw off the belt that runs the power steering pump. Not that I understand that, it's just what I was told. It was fixed by Monday afternoon and I am back in business running from more errands.

The weekend was interesting though since we only had Sam's car that barely holds 5 people. Quick math: 7 people in our family-5 seats= 2 people on the roof. Actually this providentially happened while Emily is in Chicago visiting her grandparents. 6 people/5 seats. Once again God had things all figured out for us and Katya had a sleepover Saturday night and so she was able to stay there until after we got home from church. We got our numbers down to the proper people to seat ratio for church and spent the rest of the time at home.

As Pa Ingalls always said, "Alls well that ends well." Now if I could just shake those angry errands.

Beets and what???

I was looking through a magazine yesterday and I came upon the food section. Now, something you may not know about me (or maybe you do) is that I am not exactly adventurous when it comes to food. I am known as Mrs. Vanilla (although not in the area of ice cream). So, the fact that I actually looked at the recipes instead of just skipping over the section is a surprise as it is. And how was I rewarded for this trip through the food section? With something that might tempt me to set aside my vanilla ways and try something new?? I think not. They should have just titled the section "The Nastiest Foods We Could Think Of" or "What To Do With The Veggies Almost EVERYONE Can't Stand." The first recipe--under a section they ridiculously named "Veggie Recipes You'll Love" (I don't think so.)--was for Shredded Beets with Celery & Dates. What? I'm going to LOVE that combo? I can't think of anything more repulsive. Well, actually I probably can. But that is just nasty. Why don't we just cut up some brussel sprouts and toss them in there too? And the next recipe sounded just as yummy--Red Cabbage Spaghetti with Golden Raisins. ew.

The great humor in all of this is that my husband would LOVE both of those recipes and would be thrilled if he came home and I announced we were having nastiness like that for dinner. He eats everything that I consider too weird to look at. And really enjoys it. Like on our recent trip to Montreal (which I have yet to blog about--I'll get around to it someday) when we ate in a French restaurant (I had a steak thankyouverymuch) and he had a 7 course meal that included foie gras (mushed up duck liver for those of you who happily did not know up until this moment) with apple jelly. I actually had to look away. He was practically licking the plate.

So all of this just proves that God has an incredible sense of humor (for those of you who thought that he was a stuffy old grumpy guy, you are wrong). He married up The Cheeseburger Queen(ketchup only--although I do put lettuce on them now--living crazy) with the King of Gourmet. If I go Home and Sam gets the opportunity for a second wife, I'll put in a request for a gourmet cook who likes beets and duck liver mush.

Sorry it's been so long...

Hmmm. Seems it's been a while since I've written. I've written some blogs in my head, but they just haven't made it onto the computer on their own initiative. Not sure why. Maybe it has something to do with the kids being home from school and needing, well, anything and everything every time I turn around. They are high maintenance little buggers. I only have so many brain cells available and they seem to use them all up by about 10 a.m., so you guys are left in the lurch. Bummer for you.

My mom ended up coming for Emily's "promotion" ceremony, which was nice. It made it a little more of a special occasion for Em. And Grandma ended up taking her shopping at Fashion Square--where Emily had never been before--and so Em was in retail heaven. Grandma let her pick some things out--without giving her a budget beforehand. Luckily for her Em has some self control. She came home with several bags of stuff (and instructions not to make a big deal of it in front of her siblings) along with a huge smile on her face. A very happy, post-shopping teenage girl.

Katya, Noah and Rachel are all taking summer school classes. Katya is taking a strings class to keep up her viola skills. I can't say that she loves it, or even likes it, but I think it is a help to her in more ways than one and so she is enduring it for a few more days. Noah is taking "Creative Cooking" and loves it. We affectionately call him Billy Baker because he loves to cook so this class is right up his alley. The teacher has to do all of the cooking (for insurance reasons I am quite certain!) but they help add the ingredients and get to sample the results and bring home the recipes. Rachel is taking "Math Games." They cover all of the major math concepts in her grade level, but in game formats so that it is more palatable. She has convinced herself that she doesn't really like math and so we thought it would be a good way to help her overcome that feeling. She has had fun and likes her teacher, so hopefully she has changed her mind about math in general.

Emily is taking a "distance learning" class in computers. Basically it is teaching her Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. She has to have a 1/2 credit of computers for her graduation requirements and so we are getting it out of the way this summer. After seeing just how basic it really is I am glad she didn't take it during the school year. The upside is that it would have been a great blow off class. She just follows the instructions in the book and creates documents and manipulates data. Something she has been doing for a couple of years on her own with her different school reports. I would personally rather see them offer typing as a class like they used to do, which would significantly improve the rate at which she could do her reports. It's painful to watch the hunt and peck method.

Sam and I got to go to a Diamondbacks game--in style--with our friends Wally and Mrs. C. We were in like the fourth row behind home plate. Amazing seats. They had wait service for food and drinks!! No vendors yelling in our ear and throwing bags of peanuts over our heads! I ordered nachos and they were there so quickly it was like they were waiting for me to order them. I am spoiled evermore and it will be hard to go to a game without the fantastic view and perks. Oh, and Sam scored a foul ball! He was thrilled because it was the first time in all of his years of going to baseball games that he came home with a ball. All that said, we would enjoy hanging out and watching paint dry with Wally and Mrs. C (who we do not see nearly often enough), so the game was just the cherry on top.

I had a doctor's appointment last week and everything is hunky dory. My doctor, whom we affectionately refer to as Jack, though not to his face, asks about Sam at each visit. Next time Sam is coming with so that he and Jack can have some quality time. He tells me each time that Sam is a funny guy. He told me he will never forget me because he said he was not looking forward to giving me the bad news that I have leukemia and he was floored when he came in and we were joking and laughing with him. He expected tears or anger, but certainly not laughter. So, we made an impression on him. And he thinks Sam is hysterical.

My latest side effects are the ever present swelling and what we now call the "gurgly murgly." Let's just say that it has to do with my intestinal tract not appreciating the gleevec. But, I wake up and breath in and out each day so far, so what's a little gurgly murgly in the face of cancer? :-)

We had Katya's teacher from last year--who will also be Noah's teacher this year--and her family over for dinner yesterday. We had a very nice time. They have two little kids that were swept up by our children and whisked away to play for hours on end leaving us a chance to visit. A few hours before they were due to arrive, I got a bee in my bonnet and decided the family room furniture needed to be rearranged. My amazing husband very graciously stopped playing his PS2 game (after he got over the shock of the fact that I was serious) and came and made that happen for me--including moving a large mirror and rehanging several pictures! He even spackled and painted over the old nail holes! Now that's service!

Ok, I think that's enough of an update for now. That should tide you over until July. Or maybe I'll do my usual binge blogging over the next couple of days. You never know...

pictures of our recent activities

Noah's state project


the "flowers" the kids got me for Mother's Day. I'm not a big flower person, so they got me some of my favorite candies and put them in vases with tissue paper flowers and included some Stewart's orange cream soda and IBC root beer to "water" them. Mmmm. My kind of flowers!


Tommy on the phone with his buddy Cameron.


Rachel in her fly costume


Could he look any more pathetic waiting to open those presents??? Apparently the waiting was pure torture.


Katya playing her viola


Emily's bobble head trophy


a painting that Emily did in art class recently that floored me. She made this for a friend who loves dance.

Friendly (and cheap) can

One day recently Rachel was looking at my can of lemonade and said, "Why do cans say "Hi, me five cents?" I had no idea what she was talking about until she pointed this out:




She went from thinking it was a friendly can to planning how she could collect cans and bring them to Hawaii or Maine to recoup all of that dough we were tossing in the recycle bin.

Just take a left, and then go, and then a left....

Tommy's friend Cameron called this afternoon. Two first grade boys on the phone is quite funny to watch and listen to. I tuned in as they were discussing the bird's nest on the front of our house and whether or not Cameron may have been past our house and seen it. (Cameron has never come over). Five minutes of conversation on our house being the one with the bird's nest in it. And then for some reason, Tommy doesn't think Cameron has actually seen our house. So he says,

"Have you seen my house? Well, there's a white gate....but not a gate...a little thing....but you would see some roses, oh and a stone, well not a stone--I don't know what it looks like." (silence while he listens to Cameron) There's a little stone...it's on Washington, the street is on Washington." (more listening)

To me: "Mom? Are we on Washington Court or Washington Drive..well, Washington Court or...I don't know what the other one was...(asks Cameron) Do we live on Washington St.?"

Me: "We live on Washington Ave."

Tommy to Cameron: "We live on Washington Ave...go all the way to the stop sign and then walk until there's a thing where you can go left. Go left and then go until you see a stone where the little chips are. (whoa, Cameron is confused by "chips") Don't you have those brown things with stuff in it?" (listening...and somehow Tommy feels that there is understanding on Cameron's part) Yeah, there's a stone in those chips." (please understand that we have no wood chips by the stone--there are chips by the roses though--so Cameron would never be able to find the house with these descriptions. As if the gate/not a gate thing was a clear description.)

At this point Cameron asks him if they could maybe have a play date some day to which Tommy replies, "I can't." Cameron wants to know when they could. "'Prob'ly when I'm not grounded and get a lot of green cards." Cam wants to know why he is grounded. "Because I lie to my parents." Later I found out that Cameron's response was: "What? I do that every week to my parents!!"