'member that time?

hey, 'member that time when i was sixteen years old and peed my pants at the sweet corn festival?  then 'member how i couldn't find my mom so i sat on the sidewalk and cried for like an hour until she found me?


...yeah, me neither.  that never happened.

atticus' new truck

as you probably know from various previous blog entries, we keep our toy collection to a minimum and let atticus play with random crap around the house.  (no, we do not voluntarily allow our child to play with literal crap.)

a while ago, todd's brother sent us a huge box of hand-me-downs from his son for atticus.  (holla atcha, mike neese.  get a blog.)  atticus immediately attached himself to the box everything came in and started calling it his truck.  in a surge of "i'm a great, fun mommy" energy, i decided to cut cardboard wheels out of the last box he had been playing with and attach them to the new box. 

no, those are not breasts, you sicko - they're wheels and i'm artsy.  you don't know me.

after a few flopped attempts at attaching them safely with paper clips and then staples, i busted out the super glue.  but it used so much super glue that i decided to just stick with the two wheels...yes, like two breasts.  i guess you were right.  and i'm not artsy either.

you still don't know me.

baby feeding tip. you're welcome.

penelope has been gobbling up solid foods lately - ENTIRELY different than atticus at this age.  she cries when people have food and she's not being fed, and she acts like she's totally starving.  emotional eating - that's my girl.

anyway, i was watching the duggars one night (yes i watch the duggars and yes i wish i was one of them because they love the lord and they shop at aldi) and michelle (or 'chelle, as i call her when i fantasize that we're besties) was feeding one of her babies.  she laid her on her back on the couch with a towel under her and fed her that way.  and gosh darnit if that's not the best idea ever.  the food stays in their mouth as though that's where it's meant to be - no need for bibs, etc.  plus, i've noticed it helps penelope keep from spitting up as much afterwards.

not that i get the chance to do this very often - she likes being able to sit up and see everything.  but it really does work when i can get her to figure out that i'm trying to help her, not trying to force her into acting like a five-month-old baby when she's clearly a big girl.

'member that time?

hey, 'member that time i played with that deaf girl, and she was climbing up the slide but i wanted to go down the slide? and 'member how i tried to tell her to move but, well, she couldn't hear me? and so 'member how i went down anyway and totally shoved her out of the way?   ....'and then member how she somehow communicated to my mom that i pushed her and i said i didn't?

well, i'm coming clean. i did it.  and shoving a deaf person has surprisingly not been the brightest highlight of my life.

orchard fun!

a few weeks ago, we took the kids (and my parents) to center grove orchard.  i'd never been there, so i didn't really know what to expect, but i had heard it was a blast.  not that i didn't believe people, but i didn't quite understand how giant slides and apple picking all fit together.  well, i have now seen the light and was definitely not disappointed.

that's right, todd's a cowboy.  nbd. 

and apparently so is atticus.



playing in the 'corn pool'

milking his first cow...I'M SO PROUD!!!!!!!!!

atticus was teething and kept his hand shoved in his mouth most of the time. 

penelope spent a good portion of our trip sleeping.

in the funny, random school house.

'member that time?

hey, 'member that time when it was the first day of kindergarten and i complained all day of not feeling well but no one believed me? then 'member how i cried so hard i made myself sick and puked on some fifth graders?  then 'member how the bus driver had to mop us all up with paper towels?

it's a good thing i make friends easily or the embarrassment of this day would have haunted me...

penelope at six months

so, since penelope will be seven months old in like a week and a half, i figured i'd get a quick post in on how she's doing.

she's still as chill as ever, and a GREAT sleeper (although daylight savings has really thrown her for a loop).  she usually wakes up around 7 or 7:30 and takes a one-hour nap in the morning.  then after lunch she takes a four- to four-and-a-half-hour nap (yes, really) until dinner time.  then she goes to bed at 7pm and sleeps through until the next morning.  i am not kidding.  her threshold for being awake is two hours-ish, but even that's pushing it.

while she's awake, she loves playing with atticus' toys, chewing on her feet, and playing in the exersaucer.  unfortunately, she's also highly aware of other people's food at this point so she's been eating some solids.  (i was really hoping to wait on most of that until she could "self-feed".)  she is also really aware of other people's presence, and is starting into her 'separation anxiety' phase.  she has laughed a few times and has recently discovered that there are ears on the sides of her head - and won't stop messing with them!  she has two tiny teeth (but don't let them fool you - they work well even though they're tiny.)

i worry about her a lot.  she's really tiny.  at her six-month appointment, she weighed 12 pounds 10 oz (1st percentile) and was 26 inches long (61st percentile).  also, her head is in like the 70th percentile, so she's like a lollipop.  (a cute lollipop, but a lollipop nonetheless.)  she's able to sit in the bumbo or stand in the exersaucer for a while, but then her head gets so heavy that she can't hold it up anymore.  she gives up on tummy time after only a few seconds, and pathetically just lets her face fall into the carpet and cries. 

i spend a lot of time second-guessing myself.  even though she doesn't act hungry or anything, i still worry she's not getting enough or growing fast enough.  and i know that all kids are different, but when i see other babies her age hitting milestones that she seems a long way from reaching, i struggle against thinking that i'm doing something wrong. 

then i worry that worrying about her makes me seem like some kind of helicopter mother who has no inherent instincts regarding her child, and honestly, i feel like that a lot of the time. 

anyway, i don't really know why i got all emotional there at the end - i wish i could chalk it up to being drunk or something, because that seems to be a valid excuse for all kinds of things, especially if you model your life after celebrities like i do.  and anyway, i don't really know what i'm even looking for - advice, encouragement, truth, i don't know. 

so...thanks for bearing with me.  i promise i'll be funnier next time.  in the meantime, have another look at my beautiful daughter:

with her grandpa tony

she was a lamb for halloween 

kitchen tip. you're welcome.

the other day i really wanted popcorn but this is what our pantry looks like at the moment:

you can see a 10 lb bag of whole wheat spagetti there on the left ($4 at the amish store- whuuuut.*), a jar of blue popcorn, a jar of oat flour; then on the bottom we have a can of water chestnuts, some sardines in hot pepper sauce (leftover from when i was pregnant), a can of mandarin oranges and a jar of peanut butter.  that little blue crock is full of butter that i keep at room temperature.** yes, the fixings of a delicious meal, i know, but nothing that would help me pop my popcorn.

i ran out of lard, coconut oil, and bacon grease.  i don't keep vegetable oils in the house.  butter burns before it gets hot enough to pop popcorn, and olive oil would just taste gross, i think.  i also don't have an airpopper.

what's a hungry girl to do?

i just stuck a bunch of kernels in a paper sack and stuck it in the microwave.  voila.  homemade popcorn without any fancy machinery (other than a microwave i guess) and without oil.  just throw on some salt and butter.  you're welcome.

and also, does this picture not make your mouth turn into a faucet of saliva?

* thank you jeska for the loan of the word.  it seemed appropriate.

**a tip within a tip:  as long as butter is salted, you can leave it at room temperature pretty much indefinitely.  so no need to buy those fancy spreadable butters (or worse, margarine).  don't try this with unsalted butter, though.  again, you're welcome.

who'd have thought quilters were quirky people?

i've been taking this quilting class downtown over the last few weeks, and i'm one of four people in the class.  there's a youngish single girl, and a guy and a lady who are both in their sixties from what i can tell.

the other night, the 60-something-year-old lady's phone rang.  and what ringtone did she choose to signal that her sister was calling?  that 'she's my cherry pie' song.  and, because it was 'dancing with the stars' night and apparently this requires extensive complaining about how horrible bristol palin is, it rang OVER AND OVER AND OVER.  and every single time, it was ridiculously awkward to hear that song coming from a grandma's purse.

moral of the story: don't ever listen to that song, but if you feel you must, retire it by age 40.  after that you just become the pervy old guy (or gal) in the corner who makes everyone else uncomfortable.  and never make it your ringtone, regardless of age.  and if you MUST make it your ringtone, please turn off your phone while you're in public and/or around children.

i feel violated.

'member that time?

hey, 'member that time when i was little and i was all like, mom will i get flowers someday? ("flowers" was nice-girl speak at our house for "boobs.") and my mom was all like, no probably not. and 'member how i thought she meant i would not have ANY boobs and that i'd have two divots on my chest where boobs were supposed to be? and 'member how i cried about that?

well, and anyway, i grew up to grow giant melons and that showed her.