This is where the recalcitrant blogger apologizes...

... but does not promise this won't happen again. He shamelessly throws in some cute pictures of his kids having fun......on one of the many trips and adventures (some of which he even remembered to bring the camera to) they have had this summer. I am sorry. I will try to do better.

But now I have to go back to sleep.

Why We Live Here - #3

Strawberries.

And not just that they grow around here but that they grow 21 steps from our front door.

And not just that they grow 21 steps from our door but that M's mom planted them.

And not just that M's mom planted them but she comes over and picks and prepares them (M helps too) so we can eat them at all hours and in all forms.

Oh and don't forget the peas, too. Mmmm.

Weekend Wrap-up

Weekends around here are always a bit chaotic. But it’s a familiar chaos that we’ve grown to, if not love, at least appreciate. But this past weekend was more. Chaotic. Than usual.

First, I thought I’d check out the surplus sale that one of our local universities has every year. I figured I’d get there 15 or so minutes early to be ahead of the crowd, which actually put me about halfway in the eventual ½ mile line waiting to get in. I was hoping to pick up some bikes cheap but by the time I found the bikes someone had already swooped in and picked up everything interesting. Oh well, I only had about 20 minutes there anyways because then it was on to….

Soccer Fest. We survived it. Barely. Older Boy had 3 games, each about 25 minutes long, at 8:30, 11:00 and 11:30. I brought all the kids with me so for most of the time they sweated, got sunburned, whined and waited in lines to get in or on the huge inflatable slides and bouncy rooms that were set up in strategic places around the edges of the soccer fields. I also lost the Girl, too, when she, apparently, got out of one of the bouncy rooms about 5 feet from where I was standing (and had been for hours) and inexplicably wandered off in the wrong direction. She wasn’t wearing her glasses, which was probably part of the problem. I didn’t see her wander off, of course; it probably happened when I was trying to find the boys who were off either waiting in line for or in other bouncy rooms. So I’m craning my neck to see which of the zillions of kids in their gaudy polyester soccer jerseys is mine, and by the way, what color t-shirt did Younger Boy have on and where is that Girl? By the time I concluded that the Girl was really lost the boys were both in their bouncy rooms so I couldn’t set off to find her until they emerged. They weren’t impressed with me or the situation.
“Boys, your sister is lost and we’ve got to look for her.”
Older Boy – “Is it time for my next game?”
“No, its time for us to try to find your sister.”
OB – “I don’t want to go look for her.”
Younger Boy – “Yeah, the lines are really short here, you go look Daddy.”
“No, we are ALL going to stay together and shout your sister’s name until we find her or we collapse from heat exhaustion.”
OB – “It’s not FAIR! We didn’t lose her, you did!”
YB – “Can I have a hotdog?”
We found her, eventually. She saw us from a distance, squinted, came back towards us until she was about 10 feet from us and then, of course, burst into tears. When she finally calmed down enough to sob out some words she asked,
“Daddy, why did you get lost? I was trying to find you!”
Then we ate hotdogs and later….

I went to the mega home center to get a new screen door to replace the one the kids tore off the hinges by going in and out, singly, NEVER together, one billion times. Taking it out of the van and wrestling into the garage I noticed that the bad smell in the garage that I’d been denying for some time could no longer be denied….

So I traced it back to one corner and concluded it must be coming from the old sewing machine I got at a thrift store last year that had never smelled before. I opened it up and it sure smelled bad but maybe it wasn’t the machine itself but one of the garbage bags of clothes underneath and around it that I was supposed to have put up in the loft, um, ages ago. Yep, one of those bags was pretty smelly. As I gingerly pushed aside some clothes in the bag I saw fur, so I screamed and ran to find M of course.
“M, I think I found the source of the smell in the garage. There’s FUR in one of the bags of clothes”
“Fur?”
“Yeah, like some animal crawled in there and died or something. Come and take a look.”
“What kind of animal? What did you do with it?”
“A DEAD animal and I didn’t do anything with it. I don’t want to touch it.”
“ “
“ “
“Well at least drag the bag out of the garage so it doesn’t stink it up anymore. Which bag was it?”
“I think it said Girl 6-7.”
“Aw man, those were GOOD hand-me-downs.”
So I dragged it out to the driveway and left it because it was getting late and I’d already spent too much time obsessing over ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’ that day.

The next morning when M went out to get the paper she confirmed that there was something dead in there alright and now there were flies. And she was preaching in a couple of hours so what were we going to do with it? The kids weren’t up and we hadn’t had coffee yet so we figured, what the heck, lets get this over with. We went outside in our pajamas and I dug a hole and then dumped the bag of clothes into a pile on the ground. I gingerly pulled clothes off the pile until M reported seeing the fur.
“So what do I do now?”
“BURY IT!”
Some people set aside special clothes to be buried in but this little possum was buried with girls size 7 pants and two shirts. R.I.P. stinky little fellow. And speaking of stinky little fellows….

Younger Boy has finally shed his training wheels and can ride a two wheeler. In the rain. With no shirt on.

Happy Airplane Day

On the Wednesday before Memorial Day 2001 we got a call from the agency we were working with to adopt a baby from Korea. We had done all the paperwork, background checks, inspections and notarizing and were expecting our boy to travel in July or August. They called to tell us he had passed his physical and was cleared to travel earlier then expected. This was great news! When might he arrive? Saturday. Umm, like in 3 days? We were not quite prepared, emotionally or otherwise. But we got the room painted, the crib assembled, house cleaned and got a friend to drive us to and from Dulles airport for the delivery. On Saturday morning, 7 years ago today we got our ride to the airport where 20 or so friends and family met us, along with another expectant family, someone from the adoption agency, all the other people who had reason to meet the Korean Air flight from Seoul and the other 10,000 people who are flowing in and out of Dulles at any moment. We waited, dazed, tired, excited for the arrival to be called and then the first people to come through the doors. When he left Korea the day before he was 4 months old to the day. The family that brought him over were some of the last people to come through immigration and customs that morning. But there, amid the “white zone is for loading and unloading…” and “unattended baggage will be confiscated and subject to…” announcements and all the rest of the airport hubbub we became parents. And this guy became our son. Happy airplane day 2008.

(Note cashmere romper. That is about as sensible a baby gift as a Porsche or a crackpipe. He wore it twice, for a total of 180 minutes. Thanks Heather!)

Yell and Spell

Hollered between the living room and the kitchen:

"What does a-u-r-r-y mean?"
"Aurry?"
"No! H-u-r-r-y"
"Oh, hurry, like what we always say to you when we're trying to go somewhere."
"What does L-a-u-r-a mean?"
"Laura, like Nesha's mommy."
"What does c-a-u-g-h-t mean?"
"Caught."
"No! C-a-u-G-h-t!"
"Right, caught, like 'I caught your cold'."
"Well that doesn't make much sense."
Welcome to the English language, sweetheart.

Cheap, Lazy & Neurotic - Part 2

I hadn't planned on going to the Live Wax Museum because this was Good Friday and for some reason I had the day off but the kids had school, so I was supposed to, you know, tile the bathroom floor that day. But I was feeling pretty darn great because I'd a)dismantled one of the most important rooms in our house and b)returned from an errand on time so I figured I could give myself an hour off to see what this Live Wax Museum was all about. Although the last time I was in a wax museum was on our family trip to California when I was 6 and it gave me the serious heeby jeebies I figured a bunch of 1st graders wouldn't be too scary.

Turns out, every kid in Older Boy's class was a different historical figure like Ben Franklin or Sacagewea or the Statue of Liberty (historical figurine?) and they had all painted backdrops that had a big white button glued to them. Here is OB, guess if you can tell who he is portraying:

OK I gave you a little hint. His backdrop is war, I think. Unfortunately his button was 'broken' so when a museum visitor pressed it George just stood there. After a few more concerted pressings George would cheerfully volunteer to kick the wall as the button was out of order and then he would swing into action:

which went something like this:

[Note: you may need to turn the internet to 11 to hear this but there is something loud at the very end - beware!] The kids all did their spiels in the lunchroom with all the other 1st grade classes and the kindergartners roaming around pressing all the buttons so there was no way to hear what any of the wax museum figures were actually saying.

This seemed like a worthwhile outing and soon we were on our way home and I was planning the next step of the project. I figured I had another hour or so to work since M always took the boys with her when she took the Girl to her dance class. I was rather surprised when, after everyone had snacked up, she and the Girl got in the car and left - by themselves. Seems the boys only went with M because, on all the other Fridays, I was at work and since Daddy was clearly NOT at work today and in fact was messing around doing really cool things ["no you may NOT use the toilet that is sitting in the bathtub. Get out! GET OUT!"] there was no way they were going to boring old dance class.

No problem, I think, we'll all go to the hardware store to get the nails I forgot on my earlier trip to the lumber yard. The boys weren't going for that, either, and now I was seeing my confidence head on down to the poolhall with my wallet in its pocket. Did I mention that its Good Friday and M, being a pastor, has to go to work at 6:00 tonight? Do you hear that bang and the tinkling of broken glass? That was my window of opportunity slamming shut.

Why We Live Here - Second Reason

When I come back from a work errand and forget to bring my bike into my office and it sits outside, in plain view, leaning against the front of our building on one of the busiest streets in town for hours and does not get stolen. It helps to have a really really ugly bike.