The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Control Issue:

A friend of Bill's just cleaned up our hard drive and did other stuff to our computer, which is good, because it's running faster and more efficiently, BUT I can't find everything and some things appear to be completely GONE and it's driving me nuts because I am not the one who did this and handing the reins over to someone I've never personally met and don't KNOW drives me NUTS. So that's where I am. And now Julia's awake so I have to go. I'll write again when I have recovered some of my sanity about this "new and improved" ("and I can't find my things!!!") computer of ours.....

Sharing Toys

I'm hoping I do this right...but anyway, the attempt in progress is to post a photo of Julia in her car seat one recent morning, with "Pink the Pig" (see this post for info) on top of her and her older brother standing nearby. He had just given Pink to Julia, after insisting, most of the rest of the time, that Pink is his.

Anyway, I thought it was a funny picture so I figured I'd post it, as I am in need of funny things today.

(P.S. - Hooray, I did it right.)

Grant me...

Serenity

Courage

Wisdom

..............again.........

No details, no specifics here.

I can't. Won't.

Instead, I will eat healthier and start walking next week and start working out and do what I can to change the things about ME that I need to work on

and do this with a vengeance and a fierceness full of redirected anger and frustration and sadness

Because I am the only person I can "fix"

And in taking care of ME
I can take good care of my little family
in our little house

And that is where my focus needs to be.

So, difficult as it always is

I will duct tape the torn sections of my heart
And step away from the quicksand.

And pray.

Lovely...

And I say that with a good deal of sarcasm. I've got a temp of 101.2, I woke up achy and chilled...just lovely. I think it's a sign that I am not supposed to be trying to accomplish so much during the day time...especially since I don't get all that much sleep at night. But it's hard - so many things around here I want to do while I'm home, and when Julia's napping it's the perfect opportunity to DO things. But. I'm not going to DO much of anything today. Except the dishes and one load of laundry because Bill needs a dress shirt tonight...but other than that, nothing. I swear. Just waiting for the tylenol to kick in so I can go have something to eat. I'm too chilly right now to eat, and what I want to eat is cold cereal, but not til I feel warmer. I hate feeling sick. And Julia is due to wake up soon from her morning nap, so after that, and after she's fed and tired again, I will take a nap while she takes her next nap. I swear. Okay, going now. Oh, one more thing - Alex had his 2 year Dr's appt yesterday - he's a quarter of an inch shy of 3 feet tall, and weighs a little over 29 pounds. He is Mini-Bill, build-wise. I wonder who Julia will take after...genetics are so much fun.... Okay, really going now.

...to sleep, perchance to...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

but there's little likelihood of sleeping, is there? I tried, honest I did, to take naps twice yesterday, but the first time Julia woke up and even though Bill had her I could still hear her screaming and wailing while she waited (HURRY UP!!!!!!!!!) for him to get the bottle for her, and in the meantime, her cries woke up Alex, who only wanted MOMMYYYYYYY because he wasn't feeling well, so I had to get up, couldn't ignore him calling for me like that. And the other attempted nap after that - well, I managed to sleep about an hour and a half that time, but then Bill's Aunt Ruth and Uncle Don dropped by to see Julia, and so Bill came to get her - she was sleeping in the room with me - and I had to get up to be sociable...so there went that opportunity. And of course Julia got hungry while Aunt Ruth was holding her and started crying and my BODY responded and I carred her into the kitchen (Julia, not Aunt Ruth) to get a bottle warmed up and noticed that on the left side I had leaked so when the bottle was ready I handed Julia and the bottle off to Aunt Ruth and went upstairs and changed into drier clothes and came back down to smile politely through my desperate need to be sleeping. And last night Julia only slept for an hour and a half at the longest, which was the first stretch - from ten to eleven thirty. After that it was half an hour to an hour at most each time. I watched the beginning of a movie (As Good as it Gets), went to bed, and was back up with Julia in time to see the last fifteen minutes of it. Then she was completely awake from three til four thirty

we had Alex's birthday party on friday - just family, which includes Emily, because she is kind of uber-family in a way, and earlier that day I had gone to Toys R Us to get a few last things and saw Bill's cousin Kristin, who I haven't seen in over a year or longer...her younger son is half a year older than Alex, and we were talking, catching up, and I noticed that my sentences were rambling all around in circles and other shapes and it took every bit of my concentration to bring them back to the original topic...

and I remember another time in my life when I was very very tired...and it was at a baby shower for Betsy, and I'd made a baby quilt, by hand, and, true to my procrastinating nature, I'd stayed up all night finishing it and had about two hours of sleep...my mother came to the shower too, my sister was living out of state and unable to...and because Mom had recently had surgery on her foot I had to drive, which was probably not the safest option, but it was the only one short of hiring a chauffer...and I remember sitting there with all these other people in this church basement, and I felt like Alice in Wonderland - very distorted, and BIG. And when Betsy got to the quilt, she unwrapped it and held it up for all to see and announced (in what seemed like an enormously booming voice)

"Jayne made this!"

and pointed at me and all heads turned, it seemed, to stare at the Clifford-the-Big-Red-Dog-sized person teetering drunkenly on a folding metal chair behind them...I smiled back stupidly, politely, red with embarrassment and horror at the sudden attention...a balloon character rejected from the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade...just hovering there, leering at people...

I was at my mother's and my sister's houses today earlier (not at the same time, of course) and especially at my mom's I could just feel myself ABOUT. TO. SNAP. from being tired and humorless and did I say humorless? I meant it, but despite the VERY CLEAR WARNING SIGNS my mother thought it would still be fun to tease me...I just worked really hard on keeping my mouth shut and my VERY STRONG URGE TO SCREAM AND SWEAR AND RUN AWAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY to myself...and so we are all still on speaking terms...and now I am home and Alex is asleep and Julia is asleep and I just had a piece of pizza that Bill picked up but NO, I can't really take a REAL nap because Bill is finishing up a 15 gallon batch of beer for our third annual clambake/cookout/beerfest this summer (next month) and so I have to be READY so if Alex wakes up I can keep an eye on him until the brewing is done and the beer is in carboys and the propane flame is out. And then, after I feed the chickens and gather the eggs, I WILL be taking a nap. I don't care if it's at dinner time, either. I'm taking a nap.

Gotta go, Julia's awake again.

This is one way people go insane, isn't it?

Tastes of Summer

Tonight's dinner was the following:

Smoked salmon (that we brined yesterday and put in the smoker this afternoon) and potato salad.

Here's how we ate it...chunks of smoked salmon on a Ritz cracker with a small dollop of sour cream - trust me, it's a fabulous combination of flavors and textures.

The potato salad was this:

About a dozen small-ish red-skinned potatoes, cut into 3/4" cubes (approximately), boiled until just barely fork tender, then tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper, smashed garlic (about 6 cloves), and fresh thyme and sage leaves. I put this mixture on a small metal pan and popped that into the smoker while the fish was going, and left it for a couple of hours. Just before we ate, I tossed in a quarter of an onion, minced, and some fresh mixed baby greens from the garden and a little mayo to bind it all together. It was really, really good, if I do say so myself.

And we had some wine - a Kendal-Jackson blend of Zinfandel and Shiraz. All-in-all a rather (okay, I almost wrote "gusty" as an adjective to describe the meal...I am still trying to figure out what I really meant to write...but actually "gusty" kind of works....) boldly flavored meal. It was yummy.

Also - we have fresh baby peas ready in the garden (whatever Alex has not consumed already)...and a few strawberries, too. And (please try to contain yourself) - little baby tomatillos have appeared!

The tomatillos are a big deal to us - last year our friend John was in charge of starting all the plants from seed and he somehow FORGOT to start the tomatillos. (Not that we didn't have dozens of other things growing, but still...) So we're particularly excited to have them now.

That's about it. Julia's waking up from her late afternoon/early evening nap. Hopefully I can keep her up for an hour and a half or so, then give her a good feeding and maybe, just MAYBE, she'll sleep for a whole 3 hours straight after that...of course, now that I've said something, it ain't gonna happen.

But I've got hi-igh hopes, I've got hi-igh OH SHUT UP JAYNE!

Okay, bye.

Welcome to Those of You From the Other Side...

Specifically, those of you who are visiting from this post over at Sheila A-Stray. Thank you, Sheila! Just a note - I am in complete sympathy with my husband regarding the following:

The other night I was trying to get Julia to settle down, but she is a very vocal little person, even when she's happy, or asleep - she grunts and sighs and makes other little noises that are cute except when the adults would like to go to sleep. So I was actually trying to burp her the other night, and Bill had rolled over, a pillow clutched to his head to drown out any intrusive sounds...and I was TIRED and just wanted Julia to burp so she could then settle down and go to sleep, but that wasn't happening, and Bill moved around or something, or sat up, or stretched his leg, or moved the sheet around a bit, and my tortured paranoid mind IMAGINED that he was on the verge of outrage (which he rarely is, so I'm obviously insane) and I - with absolutely no real reason - wailed/growled/snarled: "I'm doing the best I can!" And he said "Jayne, did I say anything?" and I whimpered "no" and he mumbled "you do this to me a lot" which I suppose I have done lately because I am hormonal and tired and possessed by demons. So naturally I burst into tears. He, wisely, ignored me and tried to sleep. I had all these wild, retaliatory "oh yeah?" kinds of things I wanted to say, but as time wore on, the "oh, yeah" statute of limitations was running out and I would have sounded like an idiot if I were to finally trot out my pathetic laundry list of complaints 20 minutes later...plus he'd be sound asleep and would be annoyed at being woken back up and not so receptive to all my constructive criticism...fortunately though, the shaking of my quiet sobs somehow soothed Julia to sleep, so I guess the whole bizarrre episode was for the best.

I am quite sure I am often a nightmare to live with - particularly right now. But fortunately I've got a couple of redeeming features that make it worthwhile to stick around. I just wish I could remember what they are....

Monday Morning's Post

(Since I don't even know what this will be about yet...there's the title.)

Yesterday Bill asked me how much sleep I think I'm getting in a night...and so I thought about it, and figured out that it's about 5 hours, broken up into smaller bits, in between Julia's awake periods.

And before anyone suggests that Bill take one of those night time feedings, let me just say that since he's working and I'm not at the moment, then we've agreed that I will be the one with the interrupted sleep at night, since I have the opportunity (which I rarely take advantage of) to take a nap during the day and he wouldn't. Plus, he is one of those people who really requires 7-8 solid hours of sleep and I - as proven by first one child and then the next - am not one of those people. Sure, a solid 7-8 hours of sleep sounds nice, but since I wasn't even sleeping well in the last couple of months of my pregnancy anyway, it's not all that big a deal to be sleeping even less now.

Though I will be happy when the periods that Julia sleeps lengthen....

But enough of that stuff....

Yesterday Emily took Alex to the mall to a Build A Bear store in one of the malls around here.

Emily, for those of you who don't know (and because I'm too lazy to link to any previous descriptions), is our nephew Joe's girlfriend and Alex's baby sitter. We consider her family. She lives about 10 minutes from us, and Alex adores her. Actually, we do, too. Emily will call up, out of the blue, and ask if she can take Alex for a couple of hours. (Joe does, too, when he's not in Iraq) Anyway, that's what happened yesterday - Emily got out of work early and offered to take Alex to the Build a Bear place in the mall, so after his nap, that's where Alex went.

Bill said, after Emily's phone call, that he doesn't think he could ever be as nice as she is. I agree - he couldn't. It's not in his nature to offer to take anyone's toddler for a couple of hours. Ever. But Emily is great with kids, and with all her babysitting history probably has more experience with small children than I do....Plus, she's genuinely a really nice person.

So - off they went, and I couldn't enjoy the toddler-free hours at all because I'm bordering on insane and all I could do was wallow in sleep-deprivation-induced Mommy guilt ("I should be the one taking Alex to fun places! I'm a loser mommy!!!") and my typical control-freak worry that SOMETHING BAD would happen. So while Bill cleaned the hardwood floors and Julia napped, I sat and watched some of the Boston/Kansas City game and worried and, yes, cried a bit. I was overjoyed when they got home. I'm just a wacko.

Anyway - back to the bear thing - Alex came home with two creations - (Emily is also one of the most generous people I know) - one for him - a lion wearing cut-off jean shorts, brown sandals, and a brightly-colored shirt with turtles all over it - and a pink pig wearing a denim dress. The Lion's name is Mufasa, the pig's name is Pink. Each comes with a birth certificate and a little cardboard box "house."

The pig is supposed to be for Julia, but Alex really likes her too, so since Julia is actually smaller than the pig right now and doesn't appreciate the pig yet (especially when Alex, in a moment of magnanimity (is that a word?) places the pig directly on top of Julia while she's strapped in her car seat waiting to be brought out to the car). Both pig and lion spent last night in Alex's crib and rode with us to daycare this morning.

He says "pig" like this: "paaage" - in other words, it rhymes with "page" but the "g" is still like the "g" in "pig", and he draws out the "a" a little.

As we were driving to daycare, Alex had both animals on his lap in his car seat...and he was talking - either to them or to himself - and suddenly my mommy super-hearing picked out the anatomical term "peepee" and I threw a glance back to see just how anatomically correct Mufasa was, but no, my innocent almost-two-year-old little boy had his hand up under the pig's dress (She is wearing white satin underpants, too, by the way) and before looking back at the road in front of us I realized that she was face down...

"Alex, that's her tail - pigs have tails."

"Tay-ull"

"Right, tail."

Oh, he's funny.

And now Julia's making little snorting, grunting noises, so I believe she'll be waking up soon. Time for me to get off the computer and get some other things done, I guess. Laundry, laundry, laundry...dishes...OH - we bought a salmon fillet yesterday - going to put that in the smoker this afternoon, it's been brining since yesterday. Should be a yummy dinner.

Have a lovely Monday, all!

Do Not Expect Anything Coherent

I need to take a nap. But I hear Julia waking up, so I'll have to wait til she takes her next nap later this morning before I can lie down and be unconscious. I had a bit of a nap the other day and I should really make it a point to take a nap at some time every day...but I have a hard time doing that because there are so many other things that I either want to do around here or feel I should do, and for some reason maternity leave this time around seems so short...even though I have til mid-August...but it's already June 4th, and somehow that seems like there's only a few days left...ridiculous, I know, but that's the state of mind I'm currently in. The Ridiculous State. I went out and started a wine collection yesterday. Ta-da. Oh, the humor that arises when you are toting a two-week-old in a Baby Bjorn carrier and pushing a shopping cart with eventually 32 bottles of wine up to the register. The UPS driver behind me in line, who was buying a case of Heineken (he apparently likes the taste of skunky beer) asked if I was making up for lost time, or something like that. I joked that yes, it had been 9 long, dry months, but actually I really didn't care about whether or not I could have alcohol during pregnancy. It's not that huge a deal to me. Of course, the 32 bottles look like they say something else, but they just say that I sometimes go overboard when I'm starting a project of any kind. Why start small? So anyway, I had a lovely little time browsing the wine shelves and picking out bottles from vineyards all over the country and the world, just at random, for the most part, with a couple of old favorites thrown in, too. Now I have to fix up one of the closets in the basement to store them. I need some shelves or racks for them...will either build them or buy them. Haven't decided that yet. Bill didn't believe me when I said I'd bought 32 bottles. It was pretty funny - he didn't believe me til I brought him to the boxes and made him do the math. But they will last us a while. I don't drink much at a sitting, and at this time I can't/won't anyway, because I'm nursing Julia and also a drop of alcohol will make me very sleepy, sleep-deprived as I already am, so the bottles are more for future consumption than for the present. Today I would like to finish cleaning/cleaning out my kitchen. That will be my primary goal, I think. That and a nap. If I have more time to do something else, maybe I'll start creating the office area in this music/computer room where I now sit. I want to move the mail and the bills-to-be-paid OFF of my work areas, OUT of the kitchen and INTO their own little corner of the world. I should also wash Julia's hair. She likes that. She is very cute - she smiles in her sleep, and I can't wait til she smiles for real, on purpose. With her eyes opened. Alex is still very sweet to her. I am psycho mom. That's why I'm really going to make myself take a nap. I have just a few drops of patience left in me, and Alex doesn't need to see my eyes start spinning around in my head over trivial things. Okay, well, it appears that Julia is going to take a real nap, not just a little one, so maybe I'll go now and take out my contact lenses and try to fall asleep. Of course, this iced coffee that I've been drinking probably wasn't a bright idea...but then, I haven't had a ton of those in a LLLLLOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG, LLLLOOOOOOONNNNNNNNGGGGGG time. A ton of bright ideas, I mean. I've had more than my share of iced coffee. Oh, hey - Alex makes up songs. There is the Mommy song: "Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy"...and the Julia song: "Joo-ya, Joo-ya, Joo-ya, Joo-ya"...and "Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy"...and he'll go through all the relatives and his friends' names...it's very cute. Too, too cute for me. I might cry now...I seem to be doing that a lot lately too. The other night I was trying to get Julia to settle down, but she is a very vocal little person, even when she's happy, or asleep - she grunts and sighs and makes other little noises that are cute except when the adults would like to go to sleep. So I was actually trying to burp her the other night, and Bill had rolled over, a pillow clutched to his head to drown out any intrusive sounds...and I was TIRED and just wanted Julia to burp so she could then settle down and go to sleep, but that wasn't happening, and Bill moved around or something, or sat up, or stretched his leg, or moved the sheet around a bit, and my tortured paranoid mind IMAGINED that he was on the verge of outrage (which he rarely is, so I'm obviously insane) and I - with absolutely no real reason - wailed/growled/snarled: "I'm doing the best I can!" And he said "Jayne, did I say anything?" and I whimpered "no" and he mumbled "you do this to me a lot" which I suppose I have done lately because I am hormonal and tired and possessed by demons. So naturally I burst into tears. He, wisely, ignored me and tried to sleep. I had all these wild, retaliatory "oh yeah?" kinds of things I wanted to say, but as time wore on, the "oh, yeah" statute of limitations was running out and I would have sounded like an idiot if I were to finally trot out my pathetic laundry list of complaints 20 minutes later...plus he'd be sound asleep and would be annoyed at being woken back up and not so receptive to all my constructive criticism...fortunately though, the shaking of my quiet sobs somehow soothed Julia to sleep, so I guess the whole bizarrre episode was for the best. Okay, that's it for me for this morning. I'm going to go attempt a nap now. I could keep typing, but that's what happens when I'm overtired - I babble endlessly. Just ask my sister. I've had to tell her to just hang up on me when I talk like this. It's the only thing that will shut me up. Okay, ending this post right NOW.

Memorial Day Notes

So we went to watch the Memorial Day Parade where my sister lives so we could see her kids march - and my father also marched (of course, but I wasn't thinking that comprehensively before...) with other veterans from WWII. Hard to believe my father was a part of that generation, of that war - he is very youthful and most people are surprised to find out his actual age. Which proves that years alive mean very little in the grand scheme of things.

Alex enjoyed the parade - he's never seen one - all the noise and the fire trucks and the bands and some horses...plus the company of his grandmother (Grammy, aka what sounds like "Terry") and his Auntie Mere and Uncle Jacques, plus our friend Beth and her kids, Ceiliedh and Conor.

We all sat (or stood) on the front lawn of my parents' "old" house - they have not closed on it yet - I think the projected date is the middle of this month - I could be wrong - so while it's still in the family, we have it for parade viewing.

After that we went to my parents' new house for lunch. Then back here - nap time for Alex and Julia, work outside time for Bill, and I don't remember what I did - time for me.

Not much else. Puttering around without a car today, which doesn't matter to me - it's pouring rain, perfect day for doing laundry (ooh, exciting) and dishes (jealous yet?) and other little projects.

Princess Julia is taking a nap now...

I'll try to write again later. For now - I feel the need to empty the dishwasher and get the kitchen looking nice and tidy again.