I Wanna Be A Princess

When I was little I always wanted to be a princess. When we were at the land of the mouse, I took a picture of Cinderella's coach. We hadn't paid the over $50 extra per person to go to the fancy party, but I got a picture of the coach and the man I married has the ability to Photoshop me into the coach.

It's okay, my castle would probably be drafty anyway. Although, since it's still hot here, I wouldn't mind a little draft. We are all having a dreadful time with our allergies, and I can't wait til the first really cold night so that all of those pesky pollen things will get out of the air. It doesn't help that we've also had almost no rain for months.

The smiling child has been so sweet lately. He's decided to take the princess into his loving care and is teaching her baseball. Since baseball is his first love, it was a natural that he would want to teach someone else. The middle child is totally unwilling to let his younger brother teach him anything, and the teen is much to mature to play baseball out in the yard; so that leaves the princess.

I have a princess - I must be the queen. Yes, the queen of all the land. Right now my royal minions are setting the table for dinner. The queen has proclaimed that we will have lasagna for dinner. All hail the queen.

Just hope that the minions do the dishes.

Ed and the Socks

After all of the commotion during the beginning of September (vacation and hurricane) I didn't think I'd ever get around to starting my Sockamania socks. But, since I'd sort of promised myself that I'd make a valiant effort to knit all of the socks for the year, I went ahead and started them.

Turns out these were pretty easy socks to knit. Easy in that I didn't have to keep looking at the pattern, not easy in the knitting. I had to keep counting to make sure I put the cables in the right place. But they're worth it. All orange and yellow - sort of Longhorns meet cheddar cheese.

I always have to take pictures of my socks to post to the knitting blog, and since the sun was getting lower in the sky, I went outside to try to get a nice picture. Everytime I put my feet out for a picture, Ed had to get in the frame. I had pictures of my socks and Ed's nose; my socks and Ed's tail; my socks and Ed's hiney. This was the best picture of my socks and Ed. Isn't he a cutie?

Just Call Me Lois

When the show Malcolm in the Middle came on the air it felt like they had a hidden camera in our house. Every week we would sit, nodding our heads and laughing. Not that our house was quite as bad as Malcolm's house, but there were enough similarities that when Lois got pregnant at the same time as I did we became really suspicious.

Anyway, in the first episode Lois is doing laundry and decides to put her shirt in the wash. She picks up the basket full of clothes to fold and answers the door; forgetting that she doesn't have on a shirt.

So...I was putting clothes in the wash and realized I needed to wash the pants I had on. I took off my pants, put them in the wash and like a good mother, went into my bedroom to put on new clothes. You would have thought I was nekkid!

There was yelling, eye hiding and lots of groaning. Jeepers - I only took off my pants. I didn't answer the door or anything!

Reminder to self: If you want to clear a room, just take off your pants.

Ode To Joy

Music is alive and well in our home. The princess has learned how to play Ode to Joy and since her brothers know a lovely version as well, it's a song we are hearing a lot these days.

Is there anything that makes the $$$ spent on music lessons more worthwhile than hearing all the children playing a song together? Next we'll be cutting up the curtains to make clothes and climbing mountains while singing. Who will play me in the movie version?

Did Freud Like Bagels?

For the past two nights my dreams have been full of bagels. Eating bagels, buying bagels, smelling bagels. I told the man I married about my bagel dreams and he asked why I hadn't just gone to the bagel store. I'm not sure of the answer. I woke up this morning really wanting a bagel - even decided that I'd take my refillable coffee mug so I could save money on the coffee I would drink while eating my bagel. I wondered if the bagel store was making their fall bagels yet - they have a cranberry walnut bagel that is heavenly.

But I didn't go to the bagel store this morning. I'm still thinking of bagels, so I've told the kids that there will be a bagel trip in the morning. The smiling child suggested that we buy three dozen bagels. This is not as crazy as it sounds. We generally buy two dozen bagels: That's five bagels on the drive home, five more for a mid morning snack, five for lunch. The end of the first day sees us with with less than a dozen bagels remaining. The boys especially love the chocolate chip bagels - they're like cookies for breakfast. I love the cranberry bagels with turkey and spinach for lunch.

If the bagel store was open in the evening, I'd be on my way. I'm going to set my alarm clock. See you at dawn in the bagel store. I'll be the one with the coffee, bagel and several quiet kids.

Another Day, Another Load of Laundry

Oh, how I wish there was a laundry fairy! Or, a washing machine like they had in Lost in Space. They just put the dirty laundry in, and a few minutes later, took out clean, folded and covered in plastic wrap laundry. Being ecologically sensitive, my fantasy washer would eliminate the plastic wrap part; but clean and folded would be wonderful.

The man I married and the middle child are still at the fencing tournament. They seem to be enjoying it, although the middle child was too young to fence and was a bit disappointed (you had to be 13 to fence with the adults). The man I married thought it was for the best, though, because he didn't think adults would be comfortable fencing against a child who might just beat them!

All of this has left the smiling child feeling a bit left out. The teen loves to have time away from the middle child, so he's happy. The princess is a princess no matter the situation (she's currently outside with three dolly strollers, three dolls and the swing set). I have to do laundry, so it doesn't matter who's where as long as there's some ice tea and the possibility of knitting.

This leaves the smiling child.

He's playing video games, but they aren't quite as fun without his brother. He played tennis with the princess for a while; but she wanted to include the dolls and he had to draw the line. We're going to grill burgers for lunch, so at least there's a bright spot in the day for him. We may also go get the car inspected - and that always means that we'll sit at the DQ and have an ice cream cone. That should return him to smiling status.


Is it wrong to wish for rain? It's been so dry here, the grass is brown, everything is covered in dust. A nice rainy day would be lovely. While I'm at it, I also wish for cooler weather WITHOUT increased allergies! We only have a few weeks a year when the weather is perfect, and those are always the weeks when the allergy counts are highest.

When I was young I used to spend most of the summer outside; barefoot, running in the grass, sitting under trees with a book. Summer here is too hot to do any of those things. If you are outside barefoot you'll burn your feet. The grass is brown because we're on water rationing. We don't have any big, shady trees to sit under. So I wait patiently for those few weeks a year when the weather seems to want us outside. I live for those weeks. And when they arrive, so do the itchy eyes and runny nose.



I'm going to save up my pennies and move to Tahiti.

Where Has The Week Gone?

We got back from vacation a week ago. Already it feels like we never left. I always promise myself that the "vacation" mindset will last for months, but it usually fades by the time the vacation laundry is done. Since there was the possibility that we would have Hurricane Ike guests, I did the laundry quickly and the vacation feeling was gone within a day or so.

But, luckily the hurricane didn't destroy our potential guests home, so we didn't have house guests. Now all we're left with are pictures and lots of lollipops (one of the few things that I could buy with our snack tickets and bring home).











Thus far this week, we've adopted a bird and I've been knitting like crazy. I had two KAL's to knit, 5 name cloths for Marilyn, a pair of socks to finish, and a pair of socks that need to be finished. Here's pictures of everything except the socks that aren't ready yet.












As usual, the name cloths will become swiffer sweepers. The princess likes the floor to be shiny and I don't like to dissuade her from cleaning, so she can have as many swiffer covers as she needs.




















The man I married and the middle child have been gone most of the week because our local fencing club is hosting a tournament. The middle child fences (and very well, I might add) and the man I married likes to take pictures of fencing - so they make a great pair. So the teen, the smiling child, the princess and I are on our own this weekend.

I took the smiling child and the princess out to Taco Bell for lunch because the smiling child loves Taco Bell burritos more than anything else in the world and he hadn't had one for several weeks. Such a small thing to do for such a huge smile! Then we went to see if our local bookstore had a game magazine that the teen wanted (no luck), and ended up buying the smiling child another book about baseball (he loves baseball almost as much as Taco Bell).

We finally decided that we would make burgers on the grill, so we dropped by the store to get the fixin's. Now the boys are playing video games; the princess is watching tv, the bird is singing and the dog is following me around and would be sleeping at my feet if I were to be kind enough to stay in one place for more than a few minutes.

For the dog's sake, I'm going to sit in the living room with a nice glass of ice tea and knit on my socks. I'm a giver.

Mei Mei Escapes

Here's the bird story:

When you start to train your little bird friend, you stick your hand in the cage to get them used to sitting on your finger. Apparently the idea is that the bird bonds to you, thinks you're a fellow bird, and when out of the cage, will happily fly back to your finger. Now, I'm not sure how/why this would work - birds don't hang out sitting on each others fingers, but then I'm no bird expert.
Anyway, I was standing there with my hand in the birds cage, and he just flew out! There was lots of running around and screaming - I like to think it was more like controlled chaos; the smiling child took the dog to another room, the middle child turned off the ceiling fan and the poor little bird flew into the wall a few times before finally landing in a corner behind a chair.


Cool headed as always, the brave mom went over, climbed over the chair (no small feat) and picked up a scared bird. Now that I think of it, prior to the wall banging the bird didn't hang upside down in his cage (or get his head stuck in the little ladder that leads to his mirror).

On a more positive note - we found a web site with recorded parakeet/budgie (Hi C!) sounds and we play them for Mei Mei. He listens to the sounds and tweets and chirbles along with the recordings. So sweet.

A Bird, A Dog, My Life

Confession: My kids like to watch Super Nanny. They call it the naughty kids show. Anyway, there's one scene when the father is totally out of control; the child says that he wants a toy back and the dad replies "I want my life back." Our entire family thinks that this might be one of the funniest lines on television.

So, whenever things get wacky at my house, everyone shouts, "I want my life back." This never fails to bring great guffaws of laughter. Unfortunately, it's true! Aren't there moments in everyone's life when they just wish that they could go back to a simpler, less complicated time? The question then becomes: Just how far do you need to go back in time to get to a simpler life; and would you really want to go back?

With the chaos that is my life (the reavers did it), one might think that I'd want to go back to a child free life. I'm not so sure that's true. While it would be nice to have a child free day or two; I can't imagine my life without my children. What about a life without anyone to worry/care about?

I had my adult, living alone time. It was nice, it was quiet, I wasn't lonely. But I outgrew that and wanted more. I do miss those wonderful days of only having one sweet little baby. The ability to expend all of my energy on my precious child. Unfortunately, you don't realize how fleeting those days are until they're over. I've always been a bid sad that none of my other children got that one on one time; that sense of newness, that my first child had. I know intellectually that each child has a special place in my life, and that each one benefited by being born into a large and loving family. But still, I wonder if they missed out by not being a first child.


We've recently acquired a baby parakeet. A friend of the man I married found himself with a slew of parakeet eggs and was more than happy to share the joy. So now we have a bird. The princess insisted on getting a green bird - the middle child and I wanted a blue/purple one, but the princess won. The princess also wanted a girl bird, but alas, I think that our bird is male (don't tell her).

A bit of quarreling left us with "mei mei" as the name. It is an homage to Firefly, and is a Chinese word with a loose meaning of dear little sister.




Now, I love parakeets. They're cute, easy to take care of, live quite a while and make sweet little sounds. Mei Mei fits right in to my dream. Unfortunately, we didn't consult with Ed.

Ed (who can, incidentally, jump quite high for a dog his size) was instantly interested in the bird. We set the bird cage on the table so that everyone could watch as it just sat there (birds take a bit of time to settle in). Ed wanted to see the bird. When he looked at the bird, he wanted to touch the bird. It should not be a surprise to say that when Ed touched the birds cage, the bird squawked. When the bird squawked, Ed got excited and jumped up on the table.

The bird cage is now sitting on the kitchen counter bar. It's at least four feet off the floor. Ed can jump at least four feet. There's nothing quite as funny as standing by the bird cage, talking to the bird and seeing: Ed, Ed, Ed, Ed as he's jumping up in the air.

For now the bird is safe. He sits in his food dish, and hangs upside down a lot; but he's safe. Tomorrow I'll tell you about his first foray into the house.

Life Lessons From Disney World

We just got back from two weeks at Disney World. Here are the things I learned from the experience.

1. It IS the humidity.

2. Lines don't get shorter just because you whine.

3. Daddy's sweat marks look like Mickey Mouse.

4. When someone says to keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle, they really mean it.

5. When a mommy and daughter walk around aimlessly, they still look mah-velous.

6. It is actually possible to provide my family with too much food.

7. Even rich people look frumpy when they're sweaty.

8. Crocs with socks are better when it's hot.

9. You can fit two weeks worth of dirty laundry into four suitcases.

10. I have wonderful kids.

Stop the World, I Want to Get Off

Hormones are a terrible thing when you're getting older. They run your life. They make you cry, they make you scream. Sometimes it feels like the world is spinning so fast that you have to hold on tight or you'll go flying off into space.

I totally know why women take homone replacement. If one little pill a day can relieve these symptoms, then the side affects seem like a small price to pay. Maybe one day I'll break down and just get a prescription, but until then, I'll continue to scream and cry and hold on tight.

It doesn't help at all that I'm living with a pre-pubescent child who is apparently feeling the same things!

For now, I'm planning to keep trying to eat right (although I truly believe that chocolate should be counted as a drug and that my prescription insurance plan should pay for it), get some exercise, get some sleep and try to find humor in each day.

My humor for today: I was complaining to a friend that I was too old for something, and the princess came in and said that 29 wasn't old, and that I wouldn't be old until I looked like grandma.

I'm going to go buy the princess a present.

He Loves Me, He Really Loves Me

Well, after my tears on Monday, the man I married marched down to the dog boarding place to make them apologize for upsetting me. After lots of "sorry's" it turns out that what they so indelicately called "coping issues" turned out to be that Ed just really, really loves me.

Apparently Ed loves me so much that he just can't seem to cope without me. He doesn't mind me leaving him at home - he's got the house to guard and all; he minds me leaving him somewhere else. He's just worried that I won't be safe and happy if he's not there with me.

After being reassured that the dog place will indeed take good care of our baby, the man I married and I decided that it would be better for everyone concerned if he took Ed to doggie camp and not mom. It's a good thing too, I would have just been crying the whole time anyway.

We never leave our babies, and he's my baby. The man I married knows that Ed's my baby, the kids all know that Ed's the baby of the family. The princess even calls Ed her little brother and says that we need to get Ed a little brother.

So, we'll be leaving our baby in capable hands. The man I married will call the doggie camp from time to time to see how our baby is coping. We'll have fun; we won't worry; everything will be okay (repeat over and over until convinced).

Now I just have to figure out a way to pack without the dog seeing me. We've been told that if he sees us packing it will stress him out. My decision: Stress out the dog or stress out the man I married. You see, the man I married would prefer that I have all of the packing done now - a week ahead of time. But since I have to pack under the cover of darkness, I won't be finished until much closer to departure.

Now I'm stressed. Where's that margarita machine?

Homeschooling, Dogs and the "S" Word

The biggest question people always ask about homeschooling is about socialization. How do you socialize your kids? Do your kids get enough socialization? I've never had a problem with my kids and socialization. My dog is another story.

Poor Ed has to go to doggie camp while we're on vacation. We tried and tried, but it really won't work to take him along with us; so he's got to go.

We found a place that looks like it should be fun for dogs. Apparently it's not fun for Ed. The dogs are divided into groups and spend the day playing in fenced in yards. They go on a hike in the morning; the take an afternoon nap. Sounds like lots of doggie fun. Not to Ed.

Ed doesn't like to spend the day with other dogs playing in a yard. Ed doesn't believe that he's a dog, and doesn't like the commotion. Now, we have four kids around all day long, so it's not the noise. I really believe that it's because Ed doesn't know he's a dog. He thinks he's a real boy (like Pinocchio).

So, here we are, a week before we leave, trying to help Ed develop the "coping skills" that he apparently lacks. I'm used to people having negative comments about my parenting skills - we do things outside of the norm. I'm confident that we are doing what's best for our children, and they are wonderful kids who have proven us right. Unfortunately, I'm not so secure about my doggie parenting skills. When the doggie place told me that Ed didn't have "coping skills" I was reduced to tears. Multiple questions about how to help him develop coping skills was always met with "We've got trainers who can work with you." I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars to change my wonderful dog. I just want him to not be so sad at the doggie camp.

The man I married and I have lost hours of sleep worrying about poor Ed. Will we be able to enjoy our vacation knowing that Ed is sad? Will Ed suffer permanent damage from this? Will our poor baby be mad at us forever for leaving him?

This morning I decided to Google "dog coping skills" to see if there was any helpful advice. Amazingly, it was all about "We've got trainers who can work with you." Finally I found a little article containing some helpful information. So today we begin the week long attempt at helping Ed to develop his coping skills. First on the list is a visit to Pet's Mart. The we'll drop by a restaurant that lets dogs on the patio.

Wish me luck. My poor heart just can't take the stress!

The Good, The Bad and The Itchy

First, the good: I finished my August mid month dishcloth for The Monthly Dishcloth KAL. It's pretty, and since I have tons of variegated yarn that I need to use up, it's wonderful.

The bad: Fireants. Why do we have fireants? Normally I'm totally willing to accept that some, otherwise yucky, animals have a place in the ecosystem. But fireants - they serve no purpose that I can even imagine if I try. The poor children of the south can't really ever just run outside in their bare feet to play. They must always be mindful of fireants. Even little bitties understand about fireants.

You really can't get rid of fireants; you can just encourage them to go somewhere else for a while. They're always around, and they always return.

Now to the Itchy: I got hot last night, so I took off my shirt in the middle of the night. I set it on the floor next to the bed. So far, not a problem. Ed woke me up to go outside around 7 am. Still, no problem. I reached down, picked up my shirt and put it on. Problem.

I walked into the kitchen and felt stinging all over. I turned on the light to see what was going on. Fire ants were crawling all over me!! I swatted off what I could and then went in to wake up the man I married so that he could get the little demons off my back.

For some reason, the fire ants had decided to colonize my shirt during the night. Now I know that Ed loves my dirty clothes; but I had always assumed that was because he loves me and likes to be near my smell. Yucky, yes, but it makes sense - he's a dog. But why the fireants? There was no food, no water - just a shirt.

Needless to say, the fireants are now gone. There weren't any that we could find outside of one or two who'd been shaken from the shirt when I picked it up. The shirt is in the laundry (even though I don't normally do laundry on Saturday - this was a special load). I'm a bit gun shy about putting any clothes on, but because the teen would probably die if he saw me without clothes, I'll conquer my fear.

All of this is actually due to hot flashes. Another reason to be a grumpy old lady.

Reading and "Mental Pause"

This is our second year of using Sonlight for school. The kids all like the books - yeah! Unfortunately, I now have four kids reading a minimum of 2 books each a week. My original plan was to read along with the kids.

That plan flew out the window almost immediately. The teen was reading Scarlet Letter. I kept up for the first two days - then fell behind. I tried to convince him to give me a few days for catch up, and he agreed - but even with that help I couldn't keep up. So, Scarlet Letter was abandoned.

I can usually keep up with reading for the smiling child, but am currently two days behind. My plan is to catch up today. What do they say about the best laid plans?

The books for the middle child and the teen are all hard enough that I really need to have my own copy. The teen and I tried to share a book once and it always worked out that he was actually reading the book at the very moment that I had time to read. So I decided that whenever there is a book with chapters that take me more than ten minutes or so to read, I would just get my own copy.

This is a great plan - we have Half Price bookstores all around us. Since the books are almost always classics, they are generally easy to find. I say "generally" because some of the books have proven impossible to find used. For those books, I order them new and acknowledge that I won't even try to read them.

So there I was, trying to read along with my kids (I don't read the novels aloud because there is always someone who feels the need to either talk or sing or play guitar whenever I start reading), and I was somehow unable to finish my reading.

I finally discovered that my biggest problem is that there is NEVER a quiet moment in my house! I really mean never. Either someone is talking, asking questions, practicing music, or in the case of the princess, just jabbering and singing. I find myself re-reading the same sentence over and over and still not remembering what I read.

You'd think that I'd just start reading at night, but nooooo! It's not quiet then either.

So here I sit, trying to make it through the reading with the smiling child. Luckily (?) I don't have copies of the books the middle child is reading. I've admitted to the teen that, although I really wanted to read My Antonia with him, I just won't be able to do it. Thank goodness that the princess's books are simple. That I can handle. Let me tell you about "Pat the Rat."

Good News:

1. I got an "award" for finishing my socks on Ravelry.

2. The middle child was playing something that sounded so much like Stairway to Heaven, that I have him listening to the opening so he can have something new to play!!