There's nothing like having a crawling baby to remind you of how filthy your floors really are.

Normally, I can overlook the crumbs and general grime that accumulates on our floors, and I put off vacuuming or mopping just one more day. That is, until I realize you can no longer discern the pattern of the linoleum over by the stove through the spilled sauce, ground in crumbs, and fallen onion skins. It is at this desperate point that I pull out the bucket and mop and work through weeks of neglect. I am not an enthusiastic housekeeper.

But, with a baby that crawls I attempt to clean a little more often. Although I should probably vacuum every day, I do manage to haul it around a few times a week. Even with this extra attention, the baby still manages to find that wrapper that was pushed under the couch, or Polly's miniscule purse that was under the carpet. I have to rescue her several times a day, pulling out all kinds of objects from between her clenched teeth. Once I came back from the bus stop and noticed that she was chewing on something. Despite her howls of rage, I managed to fish out a .... tiny woodchip. Where she had picked it up? I don't know. All I know is that she had been chewing it for the last 15 minutes as we had walked to the bus stop, waited, and came home. I shudder to think of what she actually manages to swallow in the course of a day that I don't know about.

Yesterday we were sitting at the table eating dinner and I noticed that the knees on K's outfit were a nice brown color from her travels through the house. I got a great idea-- why not put all that crawling around to good use? Put the baby to work! I think I may strap on some swiffer cloths, and let her loose on the hardwood. At the end of the day I can remove them and throw them in the trash, and not pick up my mop for at least another day!

100 Books MEME

Here is a MEME I found online, and liked, so I thought I would post.

* Bolded the ones I've read
* Italicized the ones I want to read
* Left blank the ones that I'm not interested in.
* Put a DK next to the ones I don't know anything about. (This will really reveal my ignorance)


1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)

2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) (Loved this book, one of my all time favorites)

3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell) (Loved this too)

5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien) (Read the trilogy for the first time in the wee hours of the morning when I was up with E)

6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)

7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)

8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery) (I own all of them, and all the books by LM Montgomery, they were a favorite in the middle school years)

9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon) (DK)

10.A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry) (DK)

11.Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)

12.Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)

13.Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)

14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving) (Yes, thanks notiraglass for introducing me to Irving)

15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)

16.Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)

17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald) (DK)

18. The Stand (Stephen King)

19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)

20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)

21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)

22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)

23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) (Another favorite)

24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)

25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)

26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)

27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte) (Did not like, too much brooding)

28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis) (We are currently reading this as a family)

29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)

30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)

31. Dune (Frank Herbert)

32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)

33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)

34. 1984 (Orwell) (8th grade Lit.)

35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley) (DK)

36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett) (DK)

37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)

38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb) (DK)

39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)

40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho) (DK)

41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)(DK)

42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)

43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella) (A guilty pleasure, thanks to PCP for getting my hooked!)

44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)

45. Bible (God) (not the whole thing, yet, shocking I know, but something I would like to do)

46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy) (Ed got me this for Christmas, and I am looking forward to reading this tome on vacation this summer)

47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas) (Really liked this, as well as the movie)

48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt) (A bit too depressing for me, what with the gutwrenching poverty and death of children, but I am glad I read it for the historical perspective and compassion it gave me)

49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)

50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb) (DK)

51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver) (just finished this, as I just became a big Kingsolver fan)

52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)

53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card) (DK)

54. Great Expectations (Dickens) (9th grade Lit., taught to me by my own Mom, my English teacher for the year)

55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) (Ditto)

56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence) (DK)

57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)

58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)

59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood) (DK)

60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger) (Ed got me this for Christmas too)

61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)

62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand) (Freshman year of college)

63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)

64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)

65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis) (DK)

66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) (DK)

67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)

68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)

69. Les Miserables (Hugo) (Haven't read it, but have seen the musical once, and will be seeing it again in May)

70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)

72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez) (Sounds interesting, although I haven't heard of it)

73. Shogun (James Clavell)

74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)

75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett) (one of my favorites as a young girl, along with The Little Princess)

76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)

77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith) (This was the book to read in 7th grade, there was a waiting list in the school library)

78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)

79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence) (DK)

80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)

81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley) (DK)

82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)

83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier) (DK)

84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind) (DK)

85. Emma (Jane Austen)

86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)

87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)

88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields) (DK)

89. Blindness (Jose Saramago) (DK)

90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer) (DK)

91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)(DK)

92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)

93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)

94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)

95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum) (Does it count that I saw the movie??)

96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)

97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch) (DK)

98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)

99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)

100.Ulysses (James Joyce)

Super Baby Food

One of the last items we received from the farm was a humongous squash. I recently cooked it up into baby food for K. Here are pictures of the process.

1. "I can't believe you want me to eat the WHOLE thing!"






2. Steaming on the stove.








3. Puree










4. Into the icecube trays ( 9 trays + 13 babyfood containers= 50 meals)









5. Yum!

The #2 Rule

Because the weather has been so beautiful, the kids have spent a lot of time outside the past few days. Yesterday after lunch I shooed N and B out the door(I babysit 3 yr. old B and his 7m old sister, A, a couple of days a week). I periodically checked up on them, and they could be seen running around carrying stick two times their size, going down the slide and climbing the dirt hills that grace our backyard, leftover from the previous owner. About an hour later I called them in for nap time.

"Come on boys, it's time for naps, but first let's use the bathroom!"
N resisted a little, "But I already went!"
I ignored him, thinking that he was talking about earlier in the day, "You still need to try."

Since I put a pull-up on N for naptime, I sent him into his room bare-bottomed as I finished up with B. Once B was in bed, I went into N's bedroom. Now before I continue, I have to explain a game that my kids like to play when they are done their baths. They run into their rooms and crouch under their towels, pretending that they are "rocks". I am supposed to come in and pretend that I don't know where they are, "Where is N? I thought he was in here, but all I see is this little blue rock!" I then sit down on the rock to think, as they giggle and wiggle, and I usually end up with,"Wait a second! This rock has a foot/hand/hair! It's not a rock! It's N!" And then they get dressed.

So when I entered the room, N was crouched up in a ball on the floor, pretending to be a rock. Only this rock wasn't freshly scrubbed, instead it had some, um, natural materials clinging to it. "N! Did you poop in your pants?" I shrieked.
N immediately jumped up, the smile wiped off his face, "No! I didn't!"
"Yes, you did! Your bottom is all dirty," I then picked up his discarded jeans and underwear, waving the evidence in the air, "and so is your underwear!"
"No, Mama! I didn't--", N insisted, " I pooped on the hill!"
The hill? What the-- "What do you mean you pooped on the hill?"
"When I was outside, I pooped on the hill," N explained, his face crumpling and eyes welling up.
I was horrified, imagining our new Dutch neighbors glancing outside and seeing our son squatting in the backyard. "N! You need to come inside if you need to use the bathroom! You do NOT poop outside!"
"OK Mommy, I won't do it, ever again," N cried.
"That's right," I agreed, as I cleaned him up, "You know better!"

Later, as I was thinking it over, I wondered to myself, DID he know better? I didn't realize it was a rule that had to be spelled out. I had a list of rules for playing outside that I routinely quizzed the kids on, the number one rule being "No going near the water without a grownup", since our backyard ends in a reservoir. So when the boys went out to play after their naps, I once again went over the rules, just to make sure they were clear.
They recited them back to me:
"No hitting each other with sticks"
"No throwing sand, or dumping it in anyone's hair"
"Don't go in anyone else's yard"
I then asked, "And what's the most important, number one rule?"
N replied, "No going in the water without a grownup"
"Good," I continued, "And I have another rule, and it's the second most important one. NO POOPING OUTSIDE!"
"OK," N repeated, "No pooping outside!"
"And no peeing either," B added.

Indeed.

Little Man

N came running up to me this morning, "Hey Mama, whas this say?"
I squinted at the label on the cuff of his pajamas, "Um, Baby Place"
N smiled, and shook his head, thinking that I was teasing, "No it doesn't! Whas this say?"
When I repeated, "Baby Place", his denial got more insistent.
"No! It say 'Boy's Place'!"
I tried to pacify him, explaining that it wasn't pajamas FOR baby's, it was just the store's name. But his sense of Boyhood had been injured, and he insisted that it said, "Boy's Place".
I then told him to go ask his sister. "Hey E! Whas this say?"
I could hear E in the other room. "It says 'Baby Place'".
This just fueled the fire. His yells of "No! Boy's Place!" got louder, and he ran to the door of his room and jumped up and down. "No! This is Boy's Place! See? I a Boy!" then he ran into the nursery where I was with the baby. "THIS is Baby Place!"
I could tell that this was going nowhere good, so I finally agreed with him, "You're right- you are a big boy, and you are wearing Boy pajamas."
He looked at me , and asked to make absolutely sure, "It say Boy Place?"
I nodded, resigned, "Yes, it says 'Boy Place'."
Satisfied, he turned to go get changed. E was leaning against the doorframe, toothbrush in mouth, watching this exchange. As he passed her he said, " See E? It DOESN'T say 'Baby Place', it say 'Boy Place'"
E and I exchanged conspiratorial glances and she just rolled her eyes, but didn't contradict him.
She had just learned one of her first lessons in preserving the fragile male ego.

Spring Promises

Today, the taste of spring was in the air. It was a balmy 66 degrees, sunny, with a slight breeze. We spent a good part of playgroup outside, the kids running across the damp grass, the babies content to sit in their mothers arms, and all the moms happy for an unexpected, but welcome break from winter cabin fever. After everyone left, and the kids were down for their afternoon nap, I undertook a chore that I had neglected in the fall. A dusty box that had been sitting in the corner of our dining room held about 70 bulbs- crocuses, tulips, and irises. I had meant to get them planted in November, but the weather turned cold early this year, and I was unable to do it. I had almost resigned myself to not planting them, but then this break in the weather came. Sunday I went out to try to plant them since the top layer seemed soft, but the ground was still frozen about an inch down. But today I thought maybe... maybe there had been a long enough thaw...maybe I could dig the required 3 or 4 inches to bury the bulbs. So I knelt in the damp soil and plunged my spade into the earth, and found that I was able to dig deeply enough. It was a pleasant way to spend the afternoon, both experiencing the foretaste of spring in the air, as well as the anticipation of the joy these flowers would bring me in a few months. I love how planting bulbs are a special kind of promise. In placing these brown little lumps into the earth, I am trusting in the future, that the earth will continue its rotation, and that spring will come again, in glorious colors of pink, red, purple, blue and yellow.

New Year, New Blog

After 3 years at xanga, I decided to pick up and move house to Blogger. It is going to take some getting used to- new format, and stuff, but once I get it down, I am hoping to pick up my posting regularity. So here is to the first post of the new year.