The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Overboard

Well, maybe not. 

But I got more seeds.  So at this point, here's what's going into the garden, plant-wise:

Intelligent Gardeners Wear Gloves

It's one of my favorite kinds of mornings:  pouring rain, windy, dark, chilly.

I very nearly went back to bed just now (Julia woke up a little while ago and I just put her back in her crib), but figured I should do some typing now, if I'm going to stay current with the whole sunken boat thing.

Let's see....

The last time I said anything about this was Wednesday morning...that afternoon all I really did was mark out an area for the garden with little scrap pieces of wood and then mark the outline with the edger.  The edger, if you don't have one, is this half-circle shaped piece of metal on the end of a broom handle.  The round edge faces down, and is sharp, like a knife blade.  The flat side of the half circle is bent over about half an inch on either side of where it attaches to the broom handle - so you can put your foot on it to push it into the soil.  Did I make a decent picture for you?  Hope so.  The edger is a major player at this point.

Anyway, I marked the garden out in kind of a blobby circle/oval/cartoon character conversation bubble shape and called Bill over to take a look.  Alex was home too - Bill took him to the zoo that morning.  There are now THREE giraffes!  Very exciting.  Anyway, Bill came over and I showed him where I wanted the boat to go within the blob shape, and he just looked at the whole thing and said "It's big."

Yep.  It is.  It's a good deal bigger than I'd originally planned.  I blame the gas company.  They came out and marked where the gas line is, and it pretty much runs right through where I wanted to sink the boat.  So I had to move the boat back so that I don't hit the gas line when I dig the hole for the boat...and so of course the garden just wouldn't have looked right way back in that corner of the yard.  (I say "way back" like there's an acre of property in the front, but no...it's not all that big at all.)  So I enlarged it.  It will take up most of that part of the front yard.  I left paths about three feet wide so the lawnmower can go through between this garden and the others.  But that's about it.

So anyway.  After he looked at it and said "It's big" - which was loaded with way more than just FACT.  There was a heap of skepticism and doubt and disbelief, I believe, mixed into those two words.  But - to his credit - he did not follow his statement up with "what are you, nuts?"  He just nodded and smiled (a grimace of fear) and went back to what he was doing.

I got the edger.  Now, operating the edger, in theory, is like using a shovel.  You position the edge where you want it to go in, and then place one foot on the top of the blade, and push.  That doesn't work on a lawn where all the grass and crabgrass and bits of moss have tangled their root systems in with the tree roots that run along there.  So either I'm just totally without the proper leg strength, or the lawn was reinforced really well.  It didn't want me there.  But.  I am stubborn.  Or determined.  Or both.  So MY method was to position the edger, with the handle perpendicular to the lawn, and then JUMP onto the thing with both feet and MAKE the blade cut through the matted grass and root systems.  So there.  It was like jumping on a defective pogo stick.  There was no bounce.  Sometimes, though, there was a really tough section of lawn or a thicker tree root that I couldn't cut through and there was not even a downward motion to cushion my jump.  I'd be there, perched on my edger, struggling not to fall over.  Remember the Tin Man doing his dance after singing "If I only Had a Heart" and at one point he just stood there and looked like he was going to fall this way or that way, and Dorothy and the Scarecrow run over and try to stop him from falling?  I kind of looked like that.  The Tin Man.  On a defective pogo stick.

Well anyway.  Like I said, Alex was home, and he wanted to help.  Bill wasn't doing anything Alex was interested in, but I had made an outline in the front yard and Alex, for a time, decided he wanted all the pieces of wood I'd used.  So as I'm jumping onto the edger - did I tell you it's not a BIG thing - maybe 8 inches or so?  So I did a lot of jumping.  Alex would meander around and take a piece of the wood - or start to - and I'd yell "NONONONONONONONO!  Here Alex, you can have THIS one."  (One I'd just passed.)   

After a while he got tired of gathering sticks and wanted to get my attention by working his way closer and closer to the street.  That worked, of course.  We took a break.  Went inside.  Juice for him, big thing of water for me.  It was hot here on Wednesday.  In the eighties.  I went back to my nogo stick (heh heh heh, get it?) and Alex stayed on the front steps, drinking my water because it was in a cool water bottle instead of his run-of-the-mill sippy cup.

So I finally finished my outline.  And it was getting late, we were going to need to get Julia at daycare and make dinner and all that...(actually, dinner was probably in the works by then - ribs on the grill) But I really really really wanted to start ripping up the lawn within my blob outline.

Now.  We have a rototiller.  I may have mentioned it in the other post.  It rips up the lawn.  Tills it, with round blades that go around and around.  Saves time.  Very efficient.

I chose not to use it.  Partly because I didn't want to use it near the gas line.  I think they run around 18 inches deep, but still.  Better safe than exploding.

So it was more fun with the edger.  Here's the orderly, methodical side of me helping out the creative "I'm going to paint on a BIG canvas" side of me.  I laid out a grid of sorts, with the edger.  In workable sections at a time.  First made several parallel lines this way...then perpendicular to them that way...so I had little rough squares of sod to deal with.  And then I knelt down and peeled (ripped, tore, yanked, pulled, wrestled) the grass up.  Got a section done and loaded onto the wheelbarrow and wheeled it around to the back to what became, eventually, a really big pile of dirt and grass.  Why didn't I shake all the attached dirt back into the garden-to-be, you might ask?  Because Bill had put down some kind of fertilizer that is supposed to kill seedlings (presumably the weed and crabgrass kind, but who knows...our front lawn has never looked lush...hmmm...) and I didn't want the poison going into my new flower bed and killing all my babies.

So - big pile of dirt and grass.

I did one little section Wednesday night, just to get the project started.

And oh, what a project it was.  But I went to bed happy on Wednesday night.  Dirt ground into my fingers that refused to be scrubbed out...but the joy of a project begun in my heart.

Thursday, we took the kids to daycare and came home, had some breakfast, and I got started.  It was a much cooler day - I started out with a tee shirt, sweatshirt and coat, but quickly lost the two outer layers after a bunch of jumping on the edger.

Did I mention the garden outline was big?  I think I did.  But just in case I didn't - it's big.  With the exception of a quick trip with Bill to Home Depot and a break for lunch and a break to go get the kids from daycare...plus a few trips inside to blow my runny nose or to pee, I spent ALL DAY hopping onto the edger over and over and over and over and over and then kneeling or sitting on the ground ripping up the lawn, section by stubborn section.

The best part - which happened early on - was that I found an arrowhead.  Really.  At first I thought it was just a little rock, then I thought it was a thin chip of slate - but no - it's an arrowhead. 

Bill is SO jealous.  Really.  I showed it to him and he was immediately ten years old.  And it was not fair, apparently, that I found it, when he's done SO much digging in our yard prior to the start of my project, and also because he's ALWAYS wanted to find one.  ALWAYS.  So it's not fair.  But too bad.  I found it, and it's mine.  So there.  Plus, if he had dug up the yard two years ago when I FIRST came up with this idea, he'd have found it.  So tough.

But apart from that little archaeological thrill (and trust me, lots of little Indiana Jones analogies ran through my head while I was edging and ripping that day...little scenes I was going to use to describe his imagined attempts to get the arrowhead from me...but I didn't type that night and I don't feel like going off on that tangent now.  You've probably seen the movies - you can imagine it.)

The other thing that kept going through my mind while I was edging and ripping was the phrase about biting off more than you can chew.  And that, while I intend to finish this, and so it is not MORE than I can chew...it's certainly going to take an awful LOT of chewing before I'm done.

I came pretty close to finishing.  Just one section left, but I was slowing down by then and it was getting dark.  And I was sore.  Very sore.  I don't normally jump onto an edger seventy-five billion times in a day, so lots of muscles in unexpected places began to protest and then to picket and to riot and pretty soon I just had to stop.  I was sore.  I know I said that already.  But I really need to emphasize it.  S-O-R-E.  Sore.  Head to toe.  And to finger.  I had about a pound of dirt ground into my hands and embedded deep beneath my fingernails.  So I stopped.  The last section had been edged into long strips of grass.  Didn't have the will to finish the grid at that point.  So I put the edger and the wheelbarrow away and went inside. 

Later that night I soaked in a hot bubble bath, which felt great at the time but didn't do anything to prevent me from moving slowly and jerkily, kind of like a marionette.

The next day at work I found that when I sat for long periods of time, like a minute or so, everything stiffened up and I had to really focus on not looking like an idiot when I walked.  I forced myself to ignore the protests from those normally silent little muscles and WALK like a regular person WALKS.  It was a long day.

I finished the ripping of the lawn last night.  It rained on and off all day.  I wore my yellow raingear - the stuff I bought to wear on fishing trips.  (I'm wearing it in that picture in the upper right corner of this blog, in fact.) I looked like the Gorton's fisherman's insane sister out there, kneeling, sitting, sprawling on the wet ground, clawing at the grass while rain dripped on me from the tree branches above or poured on me as a passing shower went by.

I amused myself by imagining what people must be thinking as they drove by.  Words like "lunatic" and "whacko" frequented these thoughts.  But I persevered.  And this last section - actually the last part of this last section - was the WORST.  I was close to the tree at this point, so the roots were bigger and closer to the surface and therefore woven tightly into the root systems of the grasses.  The lawn did not want to let go. 

(Oh, and by the way, this tree I'm talking about - it's barely that any more.  So many branches have either fallen off or have been trimmed away that it really doesn't do a whole lot of tree-like things any more.  It isn't going to throw a whole ton of shade on my garden, for example, because there aren't a whole lot of branches that will bear leaves.  It's main function is to wear the big yellow ribbon that I put up when Joe went to Iraq.  And that's enough.)

So anyway...the very last of it...this section roughly two feet by four feet...this was my battle.  This was my hell.  This was what had me practically prostrate on the ground as I tried to wrestle the last of the sod away from the dirt and tree roots.  Inch by muddy inch.  My face in a grimace at times...and me muttering TO the roots or grunting or swearing.  My hands were nearly black with mud.  My face was streaked with dirt - my war paint. 

And then it was down to a section roughly a foot square.  At that point I was just grabbing tufts of grass, handfuls of dirt/mud, picking out the grubs (there were a TON of grubs in all this.  Lots of earthworms too - I kept them but put the grubs on the wheelbarrow of death.)

And finally - a little chunk was left - two handfuls in size, torn out of there one blade of grass at a time, it seemed.  The whole experience was nothing like giving birth, but it's the only analogy I can come up with.  Both started out relatively easy - yeah, I can DO this!  And by the end I was ugly and insane and I just wanted (grunt) to (grunt) get (swearwordswearwordswearword) this (expletive) OUT!.  (Actually, I didn't swear during either birth.  But really - there is another plane of existence you go to toward the end of labor and it's just a dark, raw place.  And no, I didn't have an epidural either time, why do you ask?)

And that's probably why the analogy came to me - I didn't want to be pain free during birth - and I wasn't, trust me...better yet, ask Bill - he witnessed it all.  And I didn't want to use the rototiller to rip up my garden spot.  This is what I'm like, apparently.  I wanted to FEEL childbirth, and I wanted to really WORK this garden with my own hands.  And also - I believed that I could do it.  (With Julia, though, I had a harder time - and I actually asked for a spinal, but by the time the guy got there to put the needle in, I was 9 centimeters and figured there was no point.  But I did come close.  A pitocin drip makes for a very different kind of labor.)

Back to the garden.  Anyway - I finished.  Threw the last handful of grass and mud onto the wheelbarrow and said "So there!" out loud.  I stood there for a moment, looking at what I had accomplished, and I felt very good about it.  I wheeled the last of the sod to the BIG pile in the back (I will take a picture of that pile today, because it's BIG.) and put the wheelbarrow back in the garage and went inside.

I peeled off the muddy jacket and pants of my bright yellow raingear ensemble, and took off my muddy sneakers and socks, and washed about ten pounds of dirt off my hands.  There's still a pound left under my fingernails that I couldn't get out.  And that brings me to the title of this post.  I didn't wear gloves.  Why?  I don't know.  Another weird quirk of my personality.  And one I plan to change, because during my barehanded digging and clawing frenzy, I have caused myself some lasting pain in the middle finger of my left hand and ESPECIALLY the index finger of my right hand.  (All this typing hasn't helped, either, but it had to be done.)  It looks like the dirt went WAY in and kind of (if you're squeamish about stuff like this, stop reading now.  They all lived happily ever after.  The end.) ripped the nail away from the flesh underneath, and I'm really not sure if some of the darkness under there is blood or just dirt or both.  It hurts like hell.  I soaked in the tub again but that didn't get any more dirt out, even scrubbing at it (and screaming silently because it HURT) with a nail brush didn't do much.  So I smushed in some neosporin to hopefully prevent it from getting infected, and today I'll maybe soak it in salt water because for some reason that seems like something that might help.  Like gargling with salt water when you have a sore throat.  Who knows.  It will probably sting a LOT.  I won't like that.

But that's the price you pay for the satisfaction of having done the job yourself.  No, not really.  That's the price you pay for being stupid.  So I'll wear gloves from now on.

And that's where things are at this moment.  I'll take a few more pictures this morning - of the completed blob and of the pile of dirt and grass.  Have to finish the roll of film before I can post anything but I will put up pictures periodically.  Maybe I should take a picture of my fingernail for you too...

Depending on what the weather is supposed to do, I might get a mess of top soil and work that in...then peat moss and manure...we'll see.

In the meantime - learn from my mistakes:  When clawing at the earth, wear gloves.

Julia, the Intercostal Clavicle, and the Turnpike from Stockbridge to Boston

Yes, look at the time.  It's after two in the morning.  Julia woke up an hour ago and she just FINALLY went back to bed.

Ordinarily if she wakes up and won't go back to sleep right away, I fix her a 4 ounce bottle and we go downstairs to the basement where the TV is and watch Nick at Night - I think I've mentioned before that she has a crush on Will Smith. 

Well, her timing was wrong, so I started looking for something else to watch - and found Bringing Up Baby. 

Didn't help at all.  She woke right up.  Loved the leopard, first of all.  She was screeching and babbling in utter delight at the TV every time the big kitty cat made an appearance.  But that wasn't all.  She seems quite taken with Cary Grant too.  She just watched him, eyes unblinking, her little mouth (now with THREE teeth!) in a silent "oh"....I am not making this up.  It was very cute.

Anyway.  After a while of this, I realized she wasn't going to go to sleep at all if I kept watching the movie, so I went back to Nick at Night and watched Murphy Brown find out the sex of her baby.  And I stood there in the dark trying to hold Julia in a comfortable, relaxing position for her, alternately patting her back and rocking her, so she would go back to sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep...but she kept fussing.

So I did what I used to do with Alex.  I sang.  And for some weird reason, even though my brain stocks hundreds of song lyrics and melodies, the only thing I can come up with in this situation is "Sweet Baby James."  So that's what I sang. 

And she stopped squirming and fussing - immediately - and just stared up at me. 

I had her cradled in my arms (my left hand eventually went numb - she's not as tiny as she used to be), rocking her back and forth, singing in my James Taylor voice. 

...there is a young cowboy...

And her eyes were unblinking at first, just staring (probably in horror, thinking "boy, she really has an awful voice") and then........

...he works in the saddle, and he sleeps in the canyon...

her eyes began a series of progressively longer blinks until, finally, finally...

...deep greens and blues are the colors I choose...

I finished the chorus,

...and rockabye, sweet baby james...

and carried her

                          back to

                                          her crib.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh........ 

Goodnight, little moonlight lady.

And It Begins...

The Battle of the Boat

I've been trying to plan a garden for the front yard.  At first I was going to make a raised bed around the tree we've got out there, but the tree is really close to both the street and the edge of the border garden that runs the length of our front walk.

So even though part of me was determined to make it work, just so I could have a big, showy spot for my iris plants...the other part of me wasn't satisfied with what I was seeing in my mind's eye.

Last night I measured out a rough rectangle that included the tree in the front left corner...figuring that the irises and other flowers would take up the other three quarters of the area.  I put sticks in the ground to mark the corners.  And this morning when I looked out the window at it...it looked stupid.  Even the finished product in my head, while filled with irises and whatever else I decide to put in there...still looked stupid.  Bill stared at it too, and said he was having trouble visualizing it.  He'd said the same thing a couple years ago when I had this idea of half sinking a small old dingy in part of the yard and having a garden "pour" from the boat.  He couldn't visualize that either.  So we used the little boat for a giant ice bucket for cans and bottles of beer and soda at the cookouts we've had...and that seemed to be the boat's job.

But then this morning, when I was kind of babbling on about the feeling of the garden that I wanted to create...and that I didn't want it to look stupid or awkward...Bill suddenly said "Well if you want to sink the boat, go for it."

(imagine "Ode to Joy" right about now)

And that was it.  I am psyched.  I can see the finished garden...lots of blues and whites to kind of give it a watery feel...and then the other iris colors along the borders of the walkways, where the purpley blue irises have been since Bill's mother and I planted them right after he and I closed on the house. 

Bill's big concern is that it not look dumb, having the boat there.  So, to set his mind at ease, we'll drag the boat around to the front yard and kind of position it the way it'll be once it's "planted."  I think I will make him a little model of the way I want the whole thing to look...just so he can see that maybe it won't look stupid after all.

We'll see.  I think it will be nice and relaxing to look at.  Kind of free-form, spilling out of the boat and making a rough, soft-edge triangle in the front.  I think I want to plant some baby's breath in and among the irises too...I have a pink baby's breath plant...but these would be white...kind of the froth on the waves....we don't live near the beach like we did before we bought this house...but I think I can create a little of the flavor of it.

We'll see.

But at least it's a nice project to start planning...and it looks better in my mind than that rectangle did.

I will let you know how it goes. 

The Blue and the Green and the Gray

Okay.  This just bugs me.  I was just typing this long post about how inordinately happy I was about something, and the side of my hand banged against something on the keyboard and this screen disappeared and suddenly there was some news site instead.  All my typing - GONE.

Grrrrr.

Well, I can hear Julia starting to wake up, so I'll have to condense this now.  DAMN IT ALL!  I hate when that happens. 

Okay.  So anyway.  This week the lucky people of my town were given brand new shiny and clean trash and recycle cans.  BIG ONES.  Not the little rectangle recycle bins we had prior to this.  NO.  Each recycle can (one blue, one green) holds something like 65 gallons, and the gray trash can is EVEN BIGGER.

One trash can per household, though if there are more than 6 people in your family, you can get another one, I think.

Anyway, they are trying to encourage more recycling, which is why only one trash can.  And they won't take stuff in additional garbage bags lying on the ground beside the gray can.  NO.  Every bit of garbage must be contained in the trash can with the lid CLOSED.  They've done some sort of research and if you are recycling properly, all your garbage (even in a house with two kids in diapers) should fit.

I am so excited.  I know.  I need to get out more.

But you don't realize what this means to me.  And so I will tell you.

Before this, all our paper recyclables went under one of my work bench/table things in the kitchen.  It always looked grubby, even if everything was tidily tucked into paper grocery bags or one of the empty diaper boxes that we always seem to have kicking around.  Plus, Julia currently likes to pull out the newspapers and surround herself with all the sections she didn't get to read during the week.  It's very cute but still - I have to pick the papers back up several times a week and I could be doing other things.

So now - all the papers can go right OUTSIDE and into the green can because it has a LID and the stuff won't get wet.  YA. HOO.

So now I can use that space for something ELSE.  Have no idea what, but it's terribly thrilling all the same.

And ALSO, the bottles and cans and stuff can go directly out into the blue container instead of into the smaller, lidded trash can we've kept by the back door - emptying it into the blue bin when it was full.  No.  That trash can can go bye byes.  Or can be cleaned out and used for something else.  But it won't be something interesting to Julia any more because she can sense when something is "YUCKY!" and beelines straight for it every time she isn't reading newspapers.

Also - because the old bins are relatively small and not lidded, most of the shredded paper ended up in the garbage.  I'm not proud of this, but it was either that or it would blow down the street like parade debris, and I don't think THAT would be all that good for the environment OR for our relationships with the neighbors, either.

SO.  I'm all wound up about this.  I've already started filling the green recycle bin.  And next I plan to set up some sort of little can under the sink, probably, for stuff for the compost heap.  MORE stuff that won't go in the garbage.  Actually, we compost anyway.  But these shiny new plastic can things have lit some sort of Reduce/Reuse/Recycle/And Don't Forget To Compost fire in me and I see this all as a big, fun CHALLENGE.

Bill is already annoyed that there's only one trash can and what do you do if you were planning to clean out the garage and you KNOW you'll have more garbage than will fit in one can.  I told him to call the mayor.  And to just give it a try first anyway.  Jeez...all this time I thought HE was the positive-thinking person in the family and I was the voice of gloom and doom!  Apparently I was mistaken!

So anyway, Julia's definitely awake and growing tired of hanging out in her crib with no newspapers to read.  So I'll go now.  Maybe there's something in the kids' room that I can toss into one of the recycle bins! 

I have this terrible urge to go through the house shredding every scrap of paper that doesn't have a really, really good reason for staying here.

I need to restrain myself just a little bit, I think, so I don't burn out from my feverish zeal.

Trout

Yesterday, for those of you not up on these things, was, as I have stated before, my husband's High Holy Day.  In other words, Opening Day of Trout Season in Rhode Island.  I've written about it before - if you care to learn all about the rites and rituals involved, this old post should fill you in.

Bill went with his friend John this year.  They caught 11 trout all together.  The limit is 6 per person.  Bill caught 10 of them, John caught one.  Same canoe, same kinds of bait, fishing in the same spot.  And they were just drifting, using power bait (which stinks like anything but it smells quite appetizing to hungry trout) and waiting to feel a bite.  So it's not like John did anything wrong...except that he dissed the Fish Gods.

You laugh, but I have seen proof of it before, and I have no doubt that this is what happened to him this year.  The fact that before he insulted the Fish Gods he had caught a trout and after his blaspheming he caught no more is indisputable.  So what other conclusion can be drawn?  Bill, on the other hand, was prepped and ready to go the night before, as he always is...and he was even going while terribly sick with bronchitis, or something like it, sacrificing his health in his devotion to the Fish Gods.  He is truly devout. 

He and John had made their plans earlier in the week.  John was to arrive at our house at 4:30.  Since this is John, and time runs on a different clock in his world, Bill figured he'd get to our house at 4:45.  It was later.  But before that, I'd say at approximately 4:27, Bill started the annual Fuming About John and How Late He Always Is and If John Is Not Here By Ten Past Five I'm Leaving thing.  He does this every year - or actually every time he and John make plans to go fishing - or plans to brew an all grain batch of beer, too - that involve John arriving at a precise time of day.

Well, John arrived a few minutes before five, so after hazing him a bit, Bill handed John a mug of coffee and they were on their way. 

The disrespect part came while out on the water.  John had caught a trout, and somehow they ended up talking again about how John was on the verge of being late and upsetting the Fish Gods, and John said something along the lines of "F*** the Fish Gods!" and "I spit on the Fish Gods!"  I don't know how accurate that is, but the sentiment is there anyway.  Well, it's lucky for John that the number of The Fishing Faithful far outnumbered him and his sinful words.  Otherwise the thunder would have rumbled, lightening would have struck John, and all the trout stocked in the pond would have dragged him into the water and feasted upon his charred flesh. 

So instead of wrecking the fishing for everyone else yesterday, the Fishing Gods just cursed John and caused the power bait on his line to smell like DANGER DANGER DANGER to the trout, and so they did not go near it but instead were tempted by the power bait of Bill, which smelled like...oh...like grilled trout smells to me.  VERY VERY YUMMY.

And that's what we had for dinner.  (Bill and John had it for lunch too, but I wasn't home.)  Grilled trout.  With some wood chips in the grill to create some smoke.  The flavor was fabulous.  Had that with some spaghetti that I tossed with spinach that I'd sauteed in olive oil and a little puree of roasted garlic...some salt and pepper and tarragon, and some grated aged Asiago cheese.  The only downside of the evening was after I'd swallowed my last bite of trout.  I missed a bone.  Trout have lots of very very thin bones that you either have to pick out ahead of time or resign yourself to picking out while you eat.  I missed one.  I felt it in my throat, on the right side, not very far down but too far to do anything about without triggering a very violent gagging reflex.  So I tried eating more spaghetti, in big mouthfuls, to try to grab the bone from wherever it was lodged and drag it down the rest of the way.  Then I drank big gulps of Reisling, which didn't help either but I'm sure contributed to the little headache I had when Julia woke me up at 4:15.  Finally, somehow, the sharp little pricking sensation went away, so I didn't have to worry about somehow choking to death or bleeding to death in the middle of the night.  Not that I really think that would have happened but I like a good worry before I drop off to sleep, don't you?

So that was yesterday.  But I left out one part.  My BIG PLAN, for myself, for that morning, was to spend the time between Bill leaving and the kids waking up as time FOR ME.  Time to sit and read the "Tastings" column in Friday's Wall Street Journal because I didn't get a chance to on Friday...drink some coffee at a leisurely pace...maybe write in this oft-neglected blog...or whatever.  But just some quiet time for me.  And the kids have been waking up around 6:00 lately, so I figured I'd have an hour, and that would be a nice start to my day.  (Oh, and yes, I was up at 4:00 with Bill because MY role, in the rites and rituals of Opening Day, in case you didn't read the old post I linked to in that first paragraph up there, is to make the traditional Fried Egg and Cheese and Ham on An English Muffin sandwich for Bill - and for John if he is on time and therefore Deserving of It.)

Well, like they say, the best laid plans...Julia was AWAKE at about 4:30.  She was very happy to hang out with her beloved Da Da! for a while.  And then Alex woke up at 5:04 - minutes after Bill left.  So no free time for me yesterday morning.  Ah well.  I got my hair cut and my eyebrows waxed yesterday afternoon, and my sister watched my kids for me, so that counts as quality time for myself.  I certainly look a tiny bit better than I did before.  Every little bit helps.

So that's about it for the moment.  Bill's rehearsing with a colleague for a faculty recital on Thursday...Julia is taking a nap...Alex is in the living room playing with Legos and talking to himself.  I hope to be able to post again today...we'll see!

Worth It

This morning was full of the usual insanity as the two adults and two children that live in this house did their usual weekday morning stuff to drive each other crazy.  I drove to work tense and mad at myself for yelling at Alex earlier, and annoyed at Bill for pointing it out to me as if he never loses patience.  (At least that's how it sounded to me).

Anyway...long day at work, also had to bring Julia to the doctor - yep, another ear infection - or the one she just finished antibiotics for never went away. 

And now we're home, and after a bit of post-daycare Wild Thing-ness from Alex, here is what has prompted me to write:

Alex and Julia crawling - both of them - from the living room toward the kitchen.  Alex in front, pausing every so often to summon Julia with a little beckoning motion and an encouraging "Come on, Julia!  Come on!"  And she makes her little happy noises, and flashes her big fat-cheeked two-toothed smile at him, and follows.

And then the two of them are standing at the child safety gate that separates this computer/music room from the hall.  The gate comes up to Alex's waist.  Julia is about five inches taller than the gate - when she stretches up - and so just her spikey hair and little forehead and big blue eyes and huge proud smile appear above the gate.  And her two little hands grip the wooden frame of it...Kilroy-like.

And now they are both in the living room.  I don't know exactly what they're doing...but Alex is laughing, and Julia is making happy little squawking sounds, and no one is crying.

Of course, as soon as I typed that, Julia started crying.  But she stopped just as quickly, so I think it was just annoyance.

And now Alex is calling to me "I got Julia's hair!  I got Julia's hair" so there could be another cry of annoyance or anger or pain or just-you-wait-buddy-til-i'm-a-bit-bigger-and-you'll-get-yours soon.

But no.  Quiet.  They are playing together.  Or playing in the same room and occasionally interacting.  Sometimes they just make faces at each other and laugh great belly laughes over and over and over.

Two children under the age of three is insane at times.  But I'm so glad I have the two of them.  And glad, more so, that they have each other.