Of Fairies and Fish

The girls finished moving all of our fairy village into the greenhouse today- it involved galoshes, rain coats, umbrellas, and a little bit of haggling to figure out where everything went.  This is all subject to change tomorrow.  If I remember, I'm going to get some plants in there to over-winter and hopefully bring a bit of life in there.



We spent today running laundry, cleaning the kitchen, finishing up straggling school assignments, and just catching up on life stuff.  I let Cocoa pull me around the house by the hand, to play whatever he wanted to play.  (Spoiler: It's always catch.)  The kids were thrilled with lunch today- I served dates, cheese, crackers, grapes, chutney, hummus...and served it all family style on the coffee table.  I pulled it into the dining room, and we all sat cross-legged on the floor.  They thought that was nifty, and their faces were so close to their plates there was hardly any clean up.  Bonus!

A package arrived today from our favorite clothing company- the girls have been looking forward to this!  I wasn't prepared for the season change, and Ernie had just about nothing warm to wear in her correct size.  She had no long sleeve anything (shirts or sweaters), no rain jacket that fit...we ordered a few long sleeve tees for both girls, some jeans and sweats for Ernie, a fleece and rain shell for Ernie, and pink fuzzy bath robes for both of them.  They spent the rest of the day in those bath robes- I knew they'd like them, but I didn't know they'd like them THAT much :)  I ordered some hoodies to wear around the house as well, but E's was on back order and M's arrived 4 sizes too large (oops!).  I've promised the girls we'll make some skirts together, so that will finish off their winter wardrobe.  They've requested fleece skirts, so that ought to be warm!  I need to find some fleece that isn't thick, so they don't look like they're wearing blankets.

The salmon have returned to the Pacific Northwest, we went to the fish hatchery tonight to watch them battle up the creek and up the fish ladder.  I LOVE that Wonder Daddy gets home early enough to do things like this now- we're loving his new job.  (The ten-minute commute is a pretty good perk, too.)


Crazy Cocoa.  It was nippy tonight, but he took off running, shedding clothes behind him.  For some reason he couldn't run while wearing his flannel and rain jacket.  Goof head.

Mimi.  OH Mimi, your hair is so scrumptious.  We can take a moment here and thank my husband's family for that curl that doesn't stop, no matter how many times I trim her hair.  This girls' hair is always fabulous.







We crockpotted a potato soup today, and everyone enjoyed that after the cold walk at the hatchery...and then I ran away from home and spent the next few hours wandering Target.  Wonder Daddy is a saint, I know he has long days at the office and he still pushed me out the door when I joked about taking the night off.

A Slow, Sick, Week

Ernie started mentioning that her stomach hurt sometime in the middle of last week.  By Friday, all she wanted to do was lay on the couch with a blanket.  Saturday we let her go to swim lessons, and she was so tired afterwards she couldn't even figure out how to walk the length of the locker room to dry off and get dressed- I found her just wrapped in a towel in her soaking wet swim suit and staring at the wall.  She also started getting insane stomach pains- laughing or sneezing would set it off, without warning, and all she could do was cry in bewildered pain.  Heat packs on her stomach would help, or baths when it was unbearable, and she and I drastically reduced the size of her meals down to just a few bites at a time.  She spent all her spare time on the couch with a hot pack on her stomach.

Monday afternoon, it got so bad I called the local emergency clinic and our old pediatrician's office (our current pediatrician is out of town) and scheduled an appointment with the first person that called me back.  I couldn't make the pain be even close to bearable, and trying to literally support my daughter while she sobbed and gasped for breath was heart breaking.  She couldn't take a deep breath without screaming pain- she said it was like needles poking her.  I canceled all my lessons on the way out the door, and left my two other kids with my sister and drove to the next town.  The pediatrician asked if she'd had a fever (yes, about 99 degrees off and on) and about other symptoms.  Was it localized pain?  (No.)  Was it on the side?  (No- it was all the way around her belly and sometimes all the way around her back.)  She concluded that our fabulous Ernie was successfully and mightily fighting a viral infection in her intestines- the extra gas that caused was causing the pain, when the guts naturally contracted.  There's no cure for viruses, and all we could do is what we were doing: heat, Tylenol, tiny meals, and laxatives.  (Yes, we were already doing that too, assuming rightly that this was gas in her intestines.)



Her body is amazing, she healed fast (seems like we went to the doctor in the last gasps of that illness!) and then the next day Cocoa woke up with a fever.  All he wanted to do was lay on the couch watching Dorge (Curious George) and...that's it.  If I turned it off, he sobbed.  So, we left it on for two days SOLID.  It came on when he woke up at 7:00 am and turned off when he went to bed at 9:30.  He didn't nap, he didn't eat.  I could pull him away for maybe an hour at a time once or twice a day.  CRAZY.  I am so sick of Dorge, I can't even tell you.  By the end of Cocoa's illness, he was refusing all food and drink and only taking 20 minute naps on my lap.  So glad that's over too.

And then Wonder Daddy went to bed Friday night with the flu.

While I feel horrible for all these sick family members, to say I was burned out by Sunday evening was putting it kindly.  I felt horrible too, because this weekend was General Conference for our church and I couldn't even enjoy it.  All I could hear was "By the way, you're not trying NEARLY hard enough and you know it."  I know that nobody said that, but trying to take good notes of inspiration while being so physically exhausted (oh yeah, insomnia this week on top of Cocoa not sleeping through the night), and keeping an eye on the kids while they listened and played and asked for snacks....I am looking forward to listening to all those meetings again during quiet hours.  I heard some good things, too, and I read those notes often.

Sunday evening we all made a winter's supply of hot packs- I sewed up snuggly flannel pouches (monster print, Cocoa and Mimi are THRILLED) and Wonder Daddy helped the two little fill them full of wheat from our play bin.  Ernie was in charge of turned them all, and she sewed her own pack by herself.










Sunday afternoon, a neighbor gifted us with a tiny, folding, picnic table and chair set.  I set it up in the green house and let the girls moved their fairy play things inside for the winter.  This will keep them from falling apart in the rainy months, and will hopefully give the girls a warm-ish and dry place to be OUTSIDE this winter.



And now this week.

Cocoa.  Oh Cocoa.  How many blankets is enough?  Always one more than you have.  Cozy quilt from Nana, fuzzy baby blanket from a neighbor, and tiny green "lovie" from a friend.  He sleeps on the duck Wonder Daddy's Nana gave to Ernie for Easter back when she was Cocoa's age.  This is how he ALWAYS sleeps, except....


he's normally clutching Bippo....



and Boy (and trying to hold onto Orange, his water bottle.)


He fell asleep before he could get his arms full.  The kids and I managed to get through three grocery stores in three hours today, and it pushed lunch time back (and nap time) about 2 hours.  BUT, BUT, BUT the miracles were incredible: the kids were totally happy all the way through those stores, and Cocoa slept through all four of my piano lessons!  I was able to get dinner going this morning, which was important because today is the day I cook dinner for twenty ladies at the shelter and it needs to be ready in time for Aunt LoLo to pick it up and take it over.

That was a long week, I'm grateful for a fresh and clean one!

--Myrnie

PS- I just turned off the auto-date-stamp on my camera.  Whee!

A Clean Fall Day

Clean kitchen.



Kind of clean testing area



We're transitioning into Fall, and I am still going through and re-arranging furniture, donating, selling, sweeping, and occasionally throwing temper tantrums about piles of laundry that get kicked around instead of being put in a drawer.

I moved a big kitchen cart out of our small kitchen (it's 10'x10'- the textbook definition of "small kitchen" when you're looking for design inspiration.)  Having that extra six square feet of floor space is SO WORTH losing 6 square feet of counter space that was normally full of mail and confiscated toys.

Ernie did great on her first test of the year (we test every twenty lessons) and I'm really pleased with the curriculum this year.  She's doing great, there are lots of amazing stories, and it's all just clicking so beautifully for her.  She's growing up fast, and I'm just trying to keep up!

--Myrnie

September 25, 2013

Mimi requested a zoo visit on the way home from the gym- I was surprised, since it was raining, but happy to comply.  We went home to grab rain coats and boots, and I changed out of my Zumba gear, and we went to the zoo.  Beyond a short bus of senior citizens and their chaperones we were the only ones there!  It's a tiny zoo, though.  I love it more every time we visit.  Close, small enough for the kids to enjoy, and impeccably kept.  We said hello to the tigers and cougars, fed the alpacas, deer, emus, and wallabies, played peek-a-boo with the parrots, and waved at the lemurs.  Just like that, zoo is over!  I expected all the animals to be under cover and resting from the rain, but most of them seemed edgy today.  Tigers were pacing, and the cockatoo was muttering and sqwaking.  

The cup in Cocoa's hand was full of apple pieces- you can buy it from the front desk and feed the animals marked as ok to feed.

Monday night, Daddy chose the activity: the kids chose favorite songs from the radio, he looked up the guitar tabs, and we had an impromptu concert in the school room.  Cocoa grabbed a little guitar and joined in.

Everything is beautiful and green right now- the rains have returned and the yard is growing again.  Perfect herb weather right now- every few days I wander out with a pair of shears and snip parsley, chives, oregano, and basil for a fresh batch of ranch dressing.  (A few spoonfuls each of sour cream and mayo, a dash of hot sauce, a fistful of herbs all chopped up, and thin it with milk and a splash of lemon juice.). I have a big tub of greens from Costco and have made a huge salad every night this week- oh yum.  I don't often crave salad, but it's been delicious and easy.  I bought a bag of crumbled bacon too, because bacon is always a yes.  One night I threw in some grapes, tonight I sliced up criminis, an avocado, and a pocketful of romas from the garden and served it with a rice cooker of quinoa and a sheet pan of roasted cauliflower and chicken splashed with lemon juice when they came out of the oven.

I teach a group music class 4-5 every other Wednesday, and it's nice to have dinner ready to go when I finish teaching.  I had the sheet pan all ready to go in the oven and just had to make the salad and turn on the rice cooker.  Mondays I teach until 5:30, so that's normally our soup night.

Mimi requested a new sewing project the other day, and happily thumbed through my pattern book till she found a really beautiful glass- a margarita glass actually.  Umm.  I free-handed a glass of orange juice, kept the fancy piece of fruit, and added some swirls and a word.  She's learning her letters right now, so she was jazzed enough about all that to forgive the ommission of that really fancy stemware she liked so much.

Making the Fairy Houses

I loved doing this project with the kids.  We filled up a box with shiny things, and now the girls know just what I mean when I say "Please get the paint box, your smocks, and the fancy box."

Actually, we've done a lot of projects this week.  It's been nice to have our supplies organized and accessible again, with our new cubby system in the school room.  The kids and I made a new wreath for Fall, and Mimi adores it.  She loves anything fancy, and she loves building things.  Making jewel-encrusted fairy houses might be the absolutely perfect project for our pixie princess.

I should explain- we have decided that Mimi is our spring pixie princess.  She's flowery and warm and sweet, and sometimes she just showers and rages, and then everything is sweetness and dancing again.  Our spring pixie princess.  She prefers to be barefoot, and to eat nothing but sugar- if that doesn't say flower fairy, I don't know what does.  Bread and jam for her, outside, please!

Ernie is our water sprite.  When she's hot inside, she boils and steams and shouts.  When she's cold inside, she's sluggish and impossible to get moving.  But, when the weather is gentle she can be chirpy like a little brook and bring joy and life to everyone around her.  She can be impenetrable as fog.  She's deep like an ocean in her thoughts, and can be as still as a mountain lake.

Cocoa is our earth man.  Our dwarf.  Small, strong, agile, with a simple-minded focus on the world and what he wants; he's happiest when he's shoving heavy things around.  He's hard to divert from his path, and knows his own way.  He loves and accepts everyone he sees.

Daddy is the wind- he blows change and blessings and seasons through our lives.  He's the wind in our sails.  He brings the storms from outside our little home, and then blows them away again.

That leaves me- fire.  I come through and destroy and break down what I see that isn't what it could be, and I build and teach and nurture into something better nourished.

It's a silly little thing, but it's calmed the kids down and help them reflect on their own personalities, and helped them appreciate the personalities of other members of our family as we talk and giggle about our own strengths and weakness described this way.  Fairy time won't last long in our home, but for now it's a sweet way to look at and understand a big world.

Kids Made This: Fairy Village

Fairy fixation this week culminated in a late night run to the craft store for some bits and bobs for a fairy village.  We all painted our houses (and decorated) last night, and gave them a final coat of spray varnish this morning before setting up our village.

Going to the backyard, Mimi thoughtfully said "I don't know if fairies are real, but I HOPE they live in our houses!"

Mimi, modeling her fairy house.  Guess who's going to be trouble in a few years?  The girls coated their houses in flat-back plastic jewels left over from Mimi's birthday party.  We stuck them on with glue dots.

Those shorts go in the give-away box tonight.  Yikes.

Cocoa declined modeling his house: he chose to display his "logurt"

Setting up the village

Daddy's house in front, Cocoa's in back, hung on some branch snags above the village for those fairies that prefer to sleep off the ground.


Ernie's red-roofed house, and my leaf-covered house.  Notice the jars of "fairy dust" to help entice the fairies to come and stay, and replenish their stores.  Inside Ernie's house, you can just barely see a little wooden spool for the fairy to sit on.

Most of these supplies were already on hand- we spent about $10 at the craft store for the wooden supplies and varnish.

I look forward to adding to this village- already the girls have made a dance floor of leaves around Mimi's purple-roofed house.

Supplies:

Houses:

4" bird houses ($1 each)

craft paint

plastic jewels

glue dots

silk leaves

spray on varnish

wooden spools

Flower Pots

1" wooden  flower pots

silk flowers

Fairy Dust Jars

small jam jars

glitter

Paths

flat marbles

Fencing

doll house fencing

Sushi Night

I don't remember exactly why I had no dinner plans (it probably involved me spending my cooking time making the monthly dinner for the local women's shelter, and my LACK OF PLANNING that resulted in just enough food for them and none for us.)  Besides that, we love sushi and my kids just light up when you mention the word "Car."

Sushi, potstickers, seaweed salad, and some chopsticks and we were a very happy fivesome.  Ernie favors the little cappellini roe pieces, Cocoa goes for potstickers, Mimi like cucumber rolls and the egg maki, and Wonder Daddy just likes it all.  Deep fried, preferably.  My favorites are the salted mackerel and the boiled shrimp.