marc has set up the computer to boss me around while he’s at work. we call it a “schedule”. a voice will boom out on the hour and remind me of what i am supposed to be doing. anyways, yesterday jehu came tromping up the stairs from the playroom. “mother,” he said, “god’s been talking to me again. he says that you are supposed to clean the kitchen.”
i always wondered why he ran straight up to his room when his nap was announced. now i know.
on the left is jehu and on the right is my sister’s son, lestat. what i conclude from this that the otto gene pool is not solely responsible for the extreme delectableness of my spawn. obviously my sister and i pack some redeemable genes somewhere. all this time i just thought it was my husband who made my children beautiful and i just gave them bad teeth.
i think the balloons are a nice touch.
i got this off the femina site. you should just run right out and read the rest of it. it does crack you up.
we were made for each other. i found this by accident on craigslist the other day. my mother-in-law bought it for me for my birthday/christmas present. (she recognized the hand of fate as well.) i am so terribly pleased with myself i can hardly stand it.
partly because it’s pink, but mostly because of it’s size. it’s perfect for that tiny hole of a dining room. anything bigger and you would have to squeeze to get into the kitchen. anything smaller a 4 normal sized human beings wouldn’t fit at it. as is, we are entirely at our ease.
sitting down to dinner last night my husband suffered a bit of shock. sinking into his comfy chair surrounded by the beaming faces of his entire family, it was too good to be true. “is this the first time we have ate together since we moved?” he asked. indeed. sad but true.
i love having a table.
toddler style. my boys love these books. if you get a chance, pick up some stuff by harry j. baerg. there are no bunnies in dresses in these (i can’t stand bunnies in dresses). the first book i got my hands on was “molly cottontale.” a comic strip book of all kinds of animal adventures. (where you see the food chain well at work.) it was love at first sight. below are a pack of orcas having a nice whale snack. and on the left, blower the blue whale, body slamming a squid into an iceberg. after which he was eventually harpooned. you can make lots of good stuff out of whale you know.
to boot, aunt becca made gideon a stuffed orca for christmas, right in line with his obsessions. we were really impressed.
also for christmas, megan got gideon some more out of print harry baerg books. meet humpy the moose. i had fun giving her a hard time about her selection. “thanks for the bloodshed megan.” serious. to begin with, humpy had to watch two bull moose fight over his mother. one pierced the other moose in the skull, who died. unfortunately, they became stuck together. which was quite fortuitous for the passing bear, who ate them both. the author was sure to put this in good light, “and what do you know, now there was enough food for the bear and the foxes and the birds and the wolves. no one went home hungry that day.” later on humpy‘s mommy beats him up and then abandoned him during his nap so she could run off and give birth to her bastard moose (from when she was sleeping around on humpy‘s dad). in spite of it all, humpy grew up to become a fine specimen of a moose. there he is on the right showing a few wolves who’s boss. “the victorious humpy. master of all he could see.”
megan also got the boys “chipmunk willie.” she had brighter hopes for this book, i do believe. but upon flipping it open the first thing i met with was this phrase, “and then there were only two little chipmunks left in the family.” it turned out to be a nice little lesson in natural selection. the picture below is from another harry baerg book i was able to score at the library. the caption reads, “sue steps out.” (onto duck.)
and it’s not that i’m vicious (the poor otto kids). really. i just firmly believe that animals are animals. i don’t like over glorifying them in our minds to lesser evolved humans who wear bloomers. we tend to project our humanity onto all manner of creatures when in reality they lick themselves, eat their young and poo with impunity. one of my goals in raising my children is to give them a healthy view of the world and reality. we’re not going to put rover on life support for a month and then hold a mock funeral after grandpa runs over him. we’re going to get our gun. death may be in the world, but christ has conquered death. so take it like a man. at the same time i don’t believe in any kind of cruelty or “sporting” when it comes to animals. “a wise man hath regard for the life of his beast.” i want them to be responsible while at the same time maintaining the distinction that animals are animals and people are people. it still confuses me that so many “peta” and “pro-choice” stickers co-habitate on the same bumper.
and this is a page from another classic megan book. (that girl really does have issues. don’t look at me.) but books are so fun to think about, and all their implications. i find it weird when parents let their kids drag home anything from the library. i have so much fun playing book nazi. “veto, veto, veto.” i try to stay away from dumb books and especially books that appear to be illustrated by somone missing their arms. and, of course, books with animals parading around as humans. to me it just smacks of amalgamation and romans one, where people exchanged the truth of god for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator. doing anything to obliterate his image in themselves. it just feels wrong. plus, you just can’t make a rabbit look hot. stick her in as many dresses as you want, and she will still need a good waxing.
of my house. now isn’t that excitement. it isn’t very big and a little on the stark side. but i do have plans (evil plans).
after watching this i realized that i smack a little of harpie, english may have been my second language, and that i left out a bunch of stuff. fortunately, you aren’t that interested in the fact that someone sawed all the door moldings off two inches from the floor and that i am going to have to replace them all someday. as it is, while eating breakfast i just end up staring at them in horror. the nerve, how could they?
p.s. the fabric swatch preceding the video is what i am thinking of paneling my new cupboard doors with in the kitchen. what do you think?
i stumbled upon these in flickr. the alternative universe of my dreams i believe.
only there are no swords. where are the swords?
i made this for my niece and nephew for christmas. jo-ann’s has the free pattern here if you want to try your hand. but i must warn you, it takes a mile of fabric, another mile of batting and you have to sew a mile of cording. suffice to say, i am not making one for me and mine.
yep, the party’s over.
however, it was the biggest hit with jehu. he crawled in, looked around and excaimed, “oh! i feel so safe.” yes, it’s a big bad world out there son. so he cozied up with his animals, flashlight and blankies and didn’t budge for the rest of the afternoon. but i’m still not going to make him one. nope. never.
jehu received a set of paintable dishes for his birthday. i did what came natural.
it’s a birthday plate, of course. (i’m all about traditions.) the cup, on the other hand, is for the disease ridden. it is prominently labeled with eew, bio-hazard, unclean, yicky sicky, warning, ! and mr. yuck. (all to make it perfectly clear.)
we used the leftover paint on the door stop, jehu’s hair and my newly refinshed floors. which wasn’t all according to plan, just another reason not to paint with three year olds.
while we’re on the subject of specialness, last night we went to visit our friend billy. he works at a home for autistic teens and was telling us how he got to play ping pong against three of them (at the same time) that afternoon. “they all thought i was john mcenroe or something. it was great. …i just wish we were playing dodgeball.”
his mother near smacked him at that point, but i about died.
yet another flattering nickname for the princess. she of the very substantial eyebrow. but it grows on you, really. i quite like her stolid little brow. and her very gigantic brain. not to mention her frequent dirty looks. and the waft of her drool saturated baby stench. ahh. what a girl.
girls are the best.
and if you can’t see, she is modeling her “i can kill you with my brain” shirt, made for her by aunt becca.
(i bet she could.)
the child’s a prodigy. i’m just glad her eyes came uncrossed. that was a little much.
