chicken

i was the little girl who brought animals home. and now i am the grown woman who plans on having a little house with a lot of land and an elephant. so do i really need to say anything else except for ava named them both "sprinkle" and "drizella" and cried when she found out they both had lost their mommy and their daddy? then she tried to hold them, which didn't go over well.allow me to end this post with a little shout out to my husband. sometimes i hear couples say things along the lines of, "my spouse and i were made for eachother" which always leads me to make a face (i have a very low tolerance for cheese). i don't know if i was so much made for ryan, i think perhaps i am more difficult and someone who was made for him would be a bit more agreeable, but i think that ryan was made for me. it was like god's peace offeringto the world for putting me here or something. if you all have to deal with me, you might as well have a ryan to make everything much better.

what i mean by all that is this: ryan doesn't care much for animals. what he does care for is cleanliness, which is harder to come by if there's an animal around. so despite the numerous moments of cringing when he's seen me walk in the door with a box that has holes cut into the sides, he never really complains. and i think that's really cool of him. also, very tolerant. and nice.

sheepish

the new laptop is here and i was so excited about it in the car i kept annoying ryan. not on purpose, of course. but nonethless, the man was annoyed. i could tell by the way he was grinding his teeth. it could have been the random squeals and the need to grab on to whatever part of him i could reach and shake. yeah, that sounds pretty annoying.

the positive side: well, i can use the internet. also, the computer doesn't take so long doing things it forgets what it started doing in the first place and begins telling me about what it was like to live during prohibition. i am grateful. there are only so many stories i can handle about alcohol that was made in the bathtub.

also, everything is nice and clean and portable and fast and capable. . .

the down side: well, today i learned just how bad my computer monitor was. and how bad all of those photos i've been taking and trying to edit have been. and i feel glum about many things. one being my photography and how hard i've worked just to see that everything looks awful. i feel so terrible that i've taken pictures for people and edited their pictures and made them ugly. i owe you all. big time.

the good news is that i can fix all that. no more ugly pictures (no more excuses, anyway)! if i have taken your pictures and offered you something ugly, i owe you new ones. and nicole, you lucky duck, i waited to edit your pictures on the new laptop instead of the old desktop, so you have nothing to worry about.

i'm excited for the things i'm going to learn. i'm excited to access the internet with a swiftness that spells more frequent trips. and i'm excited to actually produce decent pictures.

i feel unstoppable.

costco pound cake

i don't know what IT is, but costco pound cake is where IT'S at. is there anything better? anything more more moist? anything more filled with that smooth, delicious butter flavor? how could you even consider baking something without real butter when this pound cake is the perfect example why all things MUST contain butter? and what would you do on a summer's evening when you're surrounded by friends, a barrel of fresh strawberries and another of fresh whipped cream? what could you possibly substitute that coscto pound cake for?

nothing.

ava agrees with me because at this moment, she's holding her slice in one hand and wildly gesturing and speaking with her mouthful to the walls of our house. i'm not clear on the words, but i know she's talking about this cake and urging our walls to go out and get some NOW.

it is a favorite.

82

5 things

5 things i stink at:

1. seeking medical attention on my behalf. i'll put up with anything as long as i don't have to perform the chore of making a doctor's appointment.

2. finding my most important items. question i most often am heard saying, "where are my keys/phone/shoes?"

3. doing things early or on time.

4. paying bills.

5. calling/writing/emailing back.

the computer is broken. a laptop has been ordered and is due shortly. i'm excited to post! the goings-on around here have been good!

81

5 things

5 songs that make me smile and always will:

1. close to me by the cure

2. california/case of you by joni mitchell

3. go your own way by fleetwood mac

4. don't do it by the band

5. it ain't me babe/buckets of rain/hurricane/my back pages by bob dylan

and yes, i'm aware i cheated. so what?

garden party

a favorite: eating a dinner outside that includes fresh strawberries scooped "out of a barrel" (mario).

this is seth

i know.

i can't remember too well, but i just don't remember enjoying ava this much. that is saying a lot, since i distinctly remember enjoying ava greatly. seth is such an enjoyable thing for me. i just adore him. and i know that should go without saying, but i have to admit that i am continually surprised by the amount of love i feel for this boy. perhaps i doubted my ability to love another as i loved ava. well, i do. i love seth as much as i love ava, but i love seth because he is seth, just like i love ava because she is ava. and i just love them!

for awhile now, boy child has been crawling backwards. this results in many a tear and a great amount of frustration. you can just see it on his face as the object of his desire continually moves further and further from him. he'll stop, rock back and forth, focus so hard on moving forward he'll actually shake, then crawl backwards. this means he ends up under beds, in corners and in the wrong room. ava finds this greatly amusing. i find it completely adorable.

he has also learned how to pull himself up so he's standing. this is great because it allows him access to all sorts of lovely forbidden objects. the only problem is the fact that once up, he cannot get down. well, that and the fact that he knows where certain desirables are kept but he can't get to them since they require forward motion.

and just last week he put two and two together and began his movement forward. now all is at his pudgy fingertips. he can gain access to the remote control and, my personal favorite, crawl after me and climb my pajama pants until they fall down.

this, of course, means i am discovering that although two years ago my house was babyproof, it is no longer that way today. seth and i race to see who can discover all of the tiny things on the floor and dispose of them the fastest (i throw them away, he just eats them). a friend of mine said that once her son started to crawl she felt like her job became to simply keep him alive. if seth doesn't choke on one of cinderella's tiny little glass slippers, then he'll choke on the button he found under the couch. on the positive side, he's the one making the floor underneath the dining table so messy and now, he's the one keeping it so clean. it's not too gross to let your baby eat the cheerios from only an hour earlier is it?i tell him if he keeps all of this growing up, i'm going to have to have another baby (and i'm not ready to). i think it must be the saddest feeling to know you are holding your last baby.

i think i'm going to write this down as a reminder to myself for later: you love being a mother. you were made to form your children and then hold them.

80

happy mother's day!

5 things

do you see the love in his face? he's looking at his sister.

5 things that give me happiness:

1. when seth gets up in the morning and i sing the good morning song to him and he gets so excited his face nearly cracks in half.

2. when ryan gets home from work and ava shouts, "daddy! my daddy's home!" and runs to give him a hug and he nearly melts all over her.

3. the way my legs feel after i've exercised.

4. cooking. or baking. especially when it turns out well and i feel that satisfaction that comes with having created something.

5. drinking tea with milk and honey.

mr. president

so president obama has been in office for some time now. and ava has finally taken notice of this. and has embraced him openly. she simply thinks he's great and spends a great amount of our dinnertime telling us what barack obama has been up to lately.

"how is barack obama?" ryan will ask.

ava will give her little mouth a sympathetic little twist and reply, "he's sleeping. he had a hard day." or "he's feeling kind of happy right now. he went to swimming lessons."

she feels no affection for biden, however and will not acknowledge the man when we mention him.

"did he have swimming lessons with joe biden?" i ask. no reply. after staring right through me for a moment, ava tells me,

"barack obama is feeling sleepy. he's gone to bed."

and later, in the car, ava announces, "i read a book about froggies."

"oh yeah?" i ask.

"yeah, i read it for three hours."

"really?" i ask, impressed.

"and barack obama read a book about giraffes. he loves giraffes."

i know the man (i mean, president) has his own twitter account, but i find ava's updates far more interesting.

big kicks and big ice cream scoops!

the swim lessons march on. and ava really came to do two things: 1) trust ryan-the-swim-teacher and let him do things like hold her by her torso horizontally on the top of the water to encourage her to "kick big kicks" and "use her ice cream scoops". ava spent most of her time clinging to ryan-the-swim-teacher's hands to make sure he didn't let go, keep her neck at the most awkward angle manageable to ensure that none of that water gets on her face and not kick her legs. because she is concentrating so hard on ryan-the-swim-teacher not surprising her with an inpromtu drowning, she can hardly hear him prompt her to kick. however, i consider all of this an improvement because the girl child was not crying.

yet on monday, she cried. sort of hysterically. and when ryan-the-swim-teacher attempted to take her out "swimming" she sort of scaled him and wrapped her little body around his head, only stopping there because there was nowhere to go. ryan-the-swim-teacher could not see, nor smell, nor talk nor hear. he tried reasoning with her and mumbled something incoherent. ava just shook her head and sobbed, "NO! NO! NO!" this happened repeatedly. i tried reasoning with her but honestly, i'm not much help. i can barely get her to keep her clothes on. plus i kept laughing. finally, ava unwrapped herself and ryan-the-swim-teacher set her on the steps to "chill out" (ava's words, not his) and teach the other students.

this involved a young boy named dane who was allowed to swim by himself. ryan-the-swim-teacher stood three feet away from the wall, reminded dane to use "big kicks" and "big ice cream scoops", then pushed him off. dane drowned. without a single kick or ice cream scoop, the kid flailed himself to the bottom of the pool, kicked himself off from the bottom and managed to grab the side of the pool. it was awful. holding my breath and the sides of my chair, i watched his little wet head pop up as he yelled, "MOM! DID YOU SEE ME? I SWIMMED!!!"

to which dane's mother replied, "wahoo! great job, dane! thumbs up!" (she's cheesy, but sweet).

what else happened? oh yeah! a terribly irritating mother who over-mothers watched her little girl have a private swimming lesson with angie, the pool manager, a woman i have come to really respect (not for this instance, but others). angie was teaching this little girl (maybe 18 months?) to put her face in the water by having her grab rings from the bottom step of the pool. after watching my daughter freak out and suction herself to the head of her swim teacher because he tried to help her touch the surface of the water, you can only imagine my amazement as this little girl did exactly as she was asked. very impressive. so despite the fact that the over-mother-er was cheering in a baby voice (a particular pet peeve i share with ryan) and was continually interupting angie to repeat to the child what angie had just said, only in a baby voice, i was interested. angie and child moved on to kicks (and i suspect, to get away from the over-mother-er), but she stood by the side of the pool, cheering and gooing. ryan-the-swim-teacher came along to scoop up the rings left on the step to try and get his class to stick their faces in the water (can you guess if ava did it? can you?) and over-mother-er tried to stop him.

"i don't think that's a good idea." she said. ryan-the-swim-teacher deals with parents all day, so he did what experience has taught him to do: he ignored her. she persisted, "my daughter's not going to be happy when she comes back and those rings are gone." she said, louder this time. ryan continued to ignore her and dropped the rings on the steps, telling his class (ava, dane and another little boy named eli) that they were going to grab the rings. offering ava his hand, he tried to encourage her. ava grabbed at them with her toes, and when that failed, retreated to the top step to calm her quivering chin. over-mother-er tried again, "my daughter was getting those rings from the bottom step."

ryan finally acknowledges her by looking over to the otherside of the pool, where angie and child are practicing kicks on a kickboard. then he turns to over-mother-er, "the toys are for everyone." is all he says. then he offers dane his hand. dane doesn't need it. he sort of flops on to the water and scrambles for the rings. over-mother-er then moves her mouth into an angry thin line, stamps her pedicured foot and goes over to the basket of "everyone's" toys, digs through for some rings, finds the remaining four and goes back to her seat, holding them on her lap.

that's right, ladies and gentleman: someone didn't learn to share. how am i supposed to have children when there are all of these crazy parents running around, making sure that their child gets the best and who cares what's left over for everyone else?

ugh.

i love this whole mothering gig, but sometimes i feel nothing but dismay for many of my peers. and disdain.

so, here we are on wednesday. time for another swim lesson! let's hope the over-mother-er doesn't show up, that ava will at least go out into the water today and that dane doesn't drown.

whoever said motherhood was boring obviously never put her kids in swimming lessons.

april favorite

79

eating string cheese

she stole my blankee

happy bearsday dear bumbi. . .

happy birthday to the sister. she's twenty.

woot.

the title comes from chitty, chitty, bang, bang for all of those who were deprived like ryan.

ps i liked having a sister growing up. who else could i pretend to snore for and therefore drive crazy?