A day worth remembering?

There are a few things I'd like to remember about this day:

* Jack has taken to using the colloquial speech of his people. However, he hasn't figured out exactly how to use it in context. Case in point: "It's as quiet as a mouse in here." or "Ellie, you're a chicken!" and they start acting like chickens... Jack: Knock knock? Parent: Who's there? Jack (looks around the room): Chair. Parent: Chair who? Jack: (repeats "chair" three times, just like the "banana" knock knock joke) finally, who's there. Jack, looks around: "Ceiling you glad I didn't say chair." Laughs.

* Robbie sincerely took to crawling today. He has been rolling and inching around, getting on all fours and scooting, but today, he became a room-t0-room mommy hunter. And he fell off the bed...again. When am I going to figure out that the edge is fascinating to him? I'm a bad mom.

* Neither Ellie nor Robbie napped today. Oh sure, Robbie took two, 15-minute naps, but does that really count? All day crying sorely tested my ability to love my babies. I got absolutely nothing done except...

* Ran 3 miles. Three miles used to be my every day run. Now, it's an accomplishment. I've gone up to four, but I'm now feeling good running 3 miles a couple times a week. I will absolutely be ready for the five-mile run on March 14. Now, if I could just stay away from sweets, I have a shot at losing baby weight.

* Hugh Jackman is not only tall and handsome, he's hysterical. Case in point, see this.

* I am very, very, very sad, no destitute over the death of newspapers. I can't go into it now. I have too many words saved up on the topic. Your Kindle is not going to feel or look like paper I don't care how portable it is. Government needs the Fourth Estate. Maybe I'm just sad that the thing I love to do the most aside from my children won't be there when I'm ready to go back. Sad, sad, sad!!!

Winter musings...

I think my previous post was a scream to no one in particular that I am tired of winter. As a general rule, I detest poetry with few exceptions. ee cummings is an exception (Pablo Neruda is the other and this old book of children's poetry Bob has lying around is winning me over.) Every time I think of spring, I think of that poem, of puddles and happiness. And I just want winter to be OVER. In the long-gone single days, winter was a sign to put on more clothes when jogging (not too many because you don't want to overheat...) or just go skiing. I stink at skiing, but I love it. I learned to ski when I was about 24 during a media day event at Heavenly Ski Resort at Lake Tahoe. I was the dumb reporter who showed up in jeans because I didn't know any better. (Yes, jeans at Tahoe's premier ski resort. I was too stupid to realize people were looking down on me.) I'd like to think I had some natural talent, but I arrived at skiing far too late in life to do much more than clumsy snowplows down intermediate runs. I loved it anyway.

I say "loved" because I haven't gone skiing since 2006 when I tried to follow Sophie down a black diamond run and did some fantastic acrobatics down the slope. I'm considering giving away my skis (which are too long for me anyway...) With children, winter starts to make me feel claustrophobic. I bundled Jack and Ellie up one day to go play in the snow. It took about 40 minutes to get everyone wrestled into their clothes and after 18 minutes, Ellie had to come back in. It was only 18 minutes because I refused to let her give up after something closer to five. I was so stir crazy last week, I handed Bob the baby and told him I'd be back in an hour. I laced up my running shoes and took the dog on a 4-mile run in 28 degree weather. It was so cold my muscles (as they are...) kept cramping, but that one run has kept me going through the rest of the week. As much time as we've spent inside, you'd think my house would be spotless. Hmmm. So, now I don't ski and I don't find enough time to clean. Hardly seems fair.

The kids are as stir crazy as I am. Bob said the words "take a walk" today and Ellie, recovering from a cold, snotty nose and a cough, bolted for her shoes and coat and was at her dad's feet in seconds. ANY excuse to get out. ANY. Even half a block in the wind (I'll probably regret that...). Better than nothing. Winter, GO AWAY. I want to putter in my gardens, the flowers out front and the vegetables in the back. I swear I will file for a permit and put a fence up this year around my front yard. I want my fresh garden spinach. I WANT to dust dirt from the sandbox off my children. I want Vitamin D from the sun.

But it's still February. And because it is still winter, we are using our wood stove. Bob likes to say we're "off the grid" to which I respond, "You know, except for the fridge and the TV and the freezer and the lights and the computer and..." A wood stove is a great way to keep a house nice and toasty. Usually, our home is somewhere in the 80s. I like it that way. However, tonight Bob decided to completely load the stove while we were out for 1 1/2 hours so the house wouldn't get cold. He forgot to turn the damper down and when we got home, it was 96 degrees inside. I know I was just complaining about the cold, but 96???? The kids were sweating as I put them to bed and he's upstairs asleep with a fan in the window trying to cool the upstairs off.

Homes are easier to manage when husbands don't stick their noses where they don't belong. Like in the wood stove. I would never have let it get over 88.

Spring in February

in just-e.e. cummings

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles far and wee
and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring
when the world is puddle-wonderful
the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing
from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it's
spring
and
the
goat-footed
balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

Notes on a day #2

* Temperatures have been in the low 20s to below zero for weeks. There is two feet of snow in your yard. You wake up to a 45 degree day. This is shirtsleeve weather and your son says in wonder, "Look, mommy! The sun!"
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* If you are running late for church and find yourself doing 68 in a 55 zone, count your blessings when you find that the state patrol car is two cars ahead of you at the stop light.

* Little girls look lovely in Easter dresses in February. They can spin and declare themselves dancing princesses and it will not change the fact that taffeta and dog hair do no mix.

* Even though you should have, it was hard to stop the dancing princess in her February Easter dress from twirling and dancing to the closing hymn. Ellie rocked "Testimony." How could a mother destroy such joy for the sake of reverence? :)

* Mother begins to dread the paper onslaught at the end of every Sunday. Must think of a folder system for Primary art. She does not appreciate trash can suggestions.

* Jack and Alyssa have known each other their whole lives. Alyssa will be five this year, Jack will be four and the boy girl split is becoming apparent.
Alyssa: Jack, let's play ponies.
Jack, running in circles and crashing into a couch: No, let's play race cars. Race cars are more fun.
Alyssa whines and pulls out princesses. Jack concedes, picks up a Poly Pocket princess and says, "Alright, but there's a mystery and they disappear." He then flies the princesses to some unknown destination, helping boy play and girl play coincide peacefully. And then they wrestle.

* Try prying a dancing princess from her Easter dress in February.

* If your husband decides to run for a position on the village board, take a breath, break out your copy of Photoshop and do as much in-house design work as you can to save campaign costs. Here's to hoping he wins. (Aha! My very own puppet village trustee...)

* Finally, if you are eating dinner at your friend's house and the husband runs into your van while leaving to provide service to a friend, take a deep breath. Cars can be fixed. Dents can be repaired. Life will go on.