House Party Time!

Big sister J turns 6 on the 21st of April and wants a Dan Zanes house party dance party. :) Very cool, but he makes me miss Brooklyn so very much. My father lived in Brooklyn, too, and I spent many summers growing up there around Flatbush Avenue and Prospect Park area. Dad worked at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, which was walking distance from his ground floor brownstone "garden" apartment (he did amazing things with that tee-tiny back yard!). And tomorrow Dad would be turning 60 were he still alive. I miss him lots sometimes, and think of him quite often, still.

teeth

Little Miss M now has four beautiful shiny white top front teeth (caps) and two tiny little fillings. Everything went suprisingly well and we were out of that horrid hospital before noon. Dentist did say that had we waited longer, she may have needed a root canal!! ACK! She's still a little groggy, and her throat hurts from having been intubated, so she isn't eating any food, but has been nursing quite well so I'm not terribly worried...yet. I told her she could nurse all she wants today when I had to refuse to let her nurse this morning before going in. She is napping, which explains how I managed to get some computer time. If you don't hear from me for a while, I'm nursing the little one and will get back to you soon-ish.

ETA - me, I'm still suffering hot flashes but the migraine is just an echo of the one I had the other day. Now if DH would only relax, we'd all feel better.

Monster of the Month Club

The girls especially enjoyed this book by Dian Curtis Regan link about a homeschooled little girl name Rilla whose mother is a crazy hippie (my girls are quick to point out so am I, and my oldest apparently can relate to how Rilla feels about it). Rilla is given a membership to the monster of the month club and gets a new monster each month. So we got the second book, Monsters in the Attic from the library a few days ago. If you have kids between 6-13 years of age (IMO it really is geared for the 10-12 year age group), check it out from your library real soon! But as we have started gardening (albeit a bit too early apparently) we are currently reading The Secret Garden again so Monsters in the Attic will just have to wait. Don't bother getting Secret Garden from the library (link, in case you've been under a rock all your life), just buy a copy so you can read it seven hundred times if your kids are anything like mine or like I was as a child. One of my favorite books of all time!

Other than that, had a monster of a migraine yesterday, and hot flashes kept me up all night long. But I'm holding myself together, really I am. Worst thing about it was that empty bottle of migraine pills! I thought, since the bottle was still there, that I surely had one left. :P

weather woes

I was starting to think maybe I waited too long to start planting in the garden... Now it's turned a bit chilly and we're even expecting frost this weekend! ACK! At least the spinach will be okay, it likes cold (and I sowed more spinach seeds just yesterday). *sigh* That's Springtime in Tennessee for ya'.

on other fronts, I have completed my first project using the new old Kenmore sewing machine and am loving it! Spent about half the time I normally would have using the Singer, and did a better job at it, too. Was starting to wonder if I were blaming my own shortcomings on the cruddy sewing machine I had, but turns out I'm a much better seamstress than I realized. I suppose you are only as good as the tools you use. Perhaps using that other machine has made me better, because I had to be so careful of what I was doing all the time?

Little one's doctor visit went very well yesterday (had to have a physical exam prior to going to the hospital to have her teeth fixed), though we did have to wait about two freakin' hours! Apparently there's a flu epidemic here that I was unaware of. Even got to talk about cloth diapers with another mom in the waiting room. I could tell she was okay when she carried her baby in her arms, rather than hauling him around in the baby bucket. The doctor asked me why I didn't want my children vaccinated, then seemed to agree with me when I explained my reasoning to her. She wanted to know all about the gluten sensitivity, and probably would have talked to me for hours about that if she'd had the time for it. Did mention that I should try cutting back on how much my child nurses, but I was expecting her to say that. She did not look at me like I had three heads because my three year old still nurses multiple times each day, nor did she even utter the word "wean". She didn't even fuss at me for not bringing my kids in for regular check-ups. Overall, one of the most positive experiences I've ever had with a doctor. Maybe they aren't all agents of the devil after all.

For Susan

I wish there was something I could do or say to help you feel better right now, but I know I can't. I doubt there's anything in the world could help after what happened to your son. And I know you probably aren't reading this either, so that makes it easier I suppose to attempt to offer sympathy after you have experienced my own personal worst nightmare imaginable. Even so, it feels half-assed and empty when I type the words, though I am feeling so much more than I could ever express. I'm thinking of you right now, and I guess that's all I can do. Wish it was more.

my new baby!

looky looky! Isn't she beautiful? And so well-behaved. What a nice, quiet baby she is, too. And sturdy!




Oh, but just wait, it gets better!
Look, it's TWINS!! Yes, two identical "vintage" Kenmore 158.18030 sewing machines. Hard to call them vintage when they aren't any older than I am. *sigh*



and things...

s-s-s-s-scared

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't terrified about the upcoming trip to the hospital Friday to have my youngest child's teeth repaired. What else would get me up at 6am, when DH is not up and getting ready for work? What really scares me is that I just realized why I'm so afraid. My mother cannot have anesthesia, it would stop her heart (and did, once). Not only that, but about eight years ago, the one and only time I can ever remember in my entire life that Mom took antibiotics, it caused her to have what they called "organic psychosis" which was the scariest thing I had ever experienced up until the birth of my first child. Obviously, I do not have the same issues with anesthesia nor with antibiotics (well, not that particular kind, I'm allergic to different antibiotics) as my mother, but neither do I share her particular food allergies. My child does have the same food allergies as Mom, what if.... I'm making myself ill just thinking about it. At least she'll be in Children's Hospital, where presumably, they would be best equipped to handle an emergency situation. But it is the same building where it took several days for them to figure out what was wrong that time mom reacted to those antibiotics, just kept saying they'd never seen anything like it before.

stuff

I think I finally killed my sewing machine. It was limping along, now I can't spool thread onto a bobbin anymore. Like I needed an excuse to buy a new one... I did manage to figure out a bathing suit (top) pattern to fit myself, though! They just don't make them to fit larger than C or maybe D (if you're lucky) cup sizes. I suppose I'll get enough fabric to make three, that way I can experiment around until I figure out the best way of constructing it. I always have problems sewing stretchy fabric.

started feeding the dog this supplement lately. she doesn't really like it, it's in a powder form, but it has already made a difference in her itching and hot spots problem. Only problem is it is made of wheat, and the children and I are highly sensitive to gluten. We just make real good and sure to wash our hands.

The electric company had people cutting down tree limbs from around the power lines (which run behind our house rather than along the street), and our little garden got trampled. Not sure what is gonna make it now, but I will probably get more seeds anyway. Need to put some sort of fence around it, more to keep humans out than the critters. Planning to plant greens all around the perimeter for the bunnies, outside the fence. It always worked for my Gramma.

fertilizer?

for the most part, I am the world's laziest gardener. I don't use fertilizers nor do I buy topsoil or commercial mulch. I don't double dig my planting areas. I do let the leaves that fall from the maple trees on our property lay in a pile over winter which helps control weeds and the worms do the work of composting and enriching the soil. I had a compost tumbler that recently had to go, but I rarely rolled it on the ground, usually only when I added stuff to it (which wasn't that often).

this year is different. I have been adding all our kitchen scraps to my leaf pile, and I have been watering and turning it often. So far, it's fun for me and is very good exercise. I even bought some kelp meal which I added to the newly planted seeds and seedling transplants, and to my compost pile.


baby gourd



watermelon












So far, and it's not yet April, I have planted the above pictured gourds and watermelons, as well as zinnias and sunflowers that the children started indoors. I have planted the seeds of spinach, more sunflowers (the others didn't survive transplant shock), and some of the beans from a 15-bean soup mix I like to eat. We also planted assorted leftover seeds from previous years. What I'm doing new this time is that I put all the leaves last fall in the spot where my garden is, and just left them there all winter. DH mulched some of the pile with the mower, and I've been adding kitchen scraps and turning it regularly. I simply raked the edges of the pile back, scratched at the earth underneath with my garden rake, and planted things there, with the compost taking up the middle and one end of the bed. The bunnies and squirrels have not intruded or eaten my baby plants... yet. They got all but a few scraggly bean plants last year and I had no harvest except one little carrot and an oddly-shaped cucumber.

muddy kids

...are happy kids!

The girls were digging for treasure and artifacts in the backyard yesterday.

him been hit in the head?

Almost all of our transplanted seedlings survived. The sunflowers didn't make it, but we planted more seeds directly outdoors and they should do well as long as I remember to water them occassionally. Neighbor was watching a little girl last week, and she (the little girl) came over to play in our yard while we were outside. I was planting seeds in our garden, and she asked what I was doing. I told her I was planting spinach. "where's the plants?" she asked. I told her they were inside the little seeds, told her how they would grow into plants just like the picture on the seed packet, and gave her some to hold and examine. She thought that was really cool. All three girls (my two and the neighbor's friend) held seeds and handed them to me one at a time while I planted them. I wasn't sure if it were okay for her to get muddy, so I did all the dirty work, much to my children's displeasure. She also had no idea how those little seedlings were watermelons, they didn't look anything like watermelons to her, so I explained how the plants would grow bigger and before long they would make flowers and then fruit would start to develop.

But funniest of all were her comments about DH's motorcycles:
"Who rides that motorcycle?" she asked with very wide eyes.
"The girls' Daddy does" said I.
"why?" even more incredulously.
"because he thinks it's fun" said I.
"WHY?!!"
Before I could answer this, she said in a knowing tone, "Him been hit in the head?"
LOL!

I wonder what the neighbor woman thinks of us. Have never spoken to her, but I did meet her husband when they first moved in. I can't imagine letting a three-year-old play in the neighbor's yard without adult supervision (yes, this really happened. One morning the little girl was in our yard before we came out to play.), but she has no children of her own and maybe just doesn't have that same level of apprehension that Mommies get. Then again, I can't imagine a child not knowing that food comes from plants or that plants grow from seeds, either.

puzzles for kids

My oldest child loves working puzzles and word and number games. I stumbled upon this site without even trying, I clicked an ad for it I saw elsewhere. Anyway, there's free printable puzzles and such, though I don't know about their age categories. For my almost-six-year-old, I printed two puzzles that seemed on her level, one each from the 3-4 year and the 9-10 year age groups. puzzles4kids.com

My three-year-old would not be interested in these things yet, so to be fair I suppose I will print out some coloring pages for her. I have quite a few links to printable coloring pages. Why, I do not know, seeing as how the coloring book shelf is overflowing! Anyway, here's my favorite one, the one I go to first when child needs to color a specific something. Plus, they have lots of mandalas, which I sometimes like to color myself when the girls really want me to participate.