Garden Tour

Long overdue, I'd love to share some more of my garden with you....

This is how it began, in the fall of 2006. (One and a half years ago) Actually, how it really BEGAN is lost forever because certain members of our family were silly and forgot to take the "before" part of "before and after" photos.

Our backyard used to contain many miles of chainlink fence, a half dead compacted lawn, 6 forsythia bushes, scraggly junipers, and a big area of bark with a weeping cherry in the middle surrounded by a collection of ceramic animal statues. (which the previous owner took with her when they moved) It was about half the size it is now because the fence ended at the house corner instead of including our side yard.

So, this is how it looked once we had removed nearly everything living, started rebuilding the back stairs, started a new fence & installed our patio. And finally realized we should take some pictures.

And then....Ta da! How it looks today. (or Sunday actually)

As much as I love the hot tub, I sometimes wish it wasn't such a huge obtuse hulk of a thing. oh well. Now I know what you are thinking:

"How did that barren wasteland become such an oasis (crazy wild overgrown jungle) in just one and a half years?"

Two reasons

1) Lots of composted steer manure & garden soil that I used to make raised berms instead of sticking the plants in our cold mucky clayey soil.

2) Lots and lots of plants. Way to many plants. A serious plant addiction. As in, I'll wear 5 year old jeans if it means I can buy new plants instead.

Because who could say no to any of these beauties?

Cornus Kousa (chinese dogwood)

Foxglove from seeds gathered in our seattle garden. I love this creamy yellow one the best.

Iris chrysographes, a blue flower I forget, gold cone juniper in the background

Some sort of cistus. Sorry, too lazy to go find the plant tags. I love the delicate wrinkly petals.

My goal in the backyard garden was to have something smelling wonderful for most of the year. I will try to squeeze in almost anything that is reported to have yummy smelling flowers. My other love is big plants. Ones with huge leaves, tall flowers and gigantic proportions. But, it has to die to the ground and grow that big all in one season. Example below:

How on earth did I fit that into my tiny garden? Don't ask. It is smothering about 5 plants nearby and I really need to remove it. That's the story of my garden....things getting squished together. But I love how they spill over onto eachother. I like seeing flowers from my cistus hovering in a euphorbia mellifera.

The last part of our garden tour is the south facing side of our house where I grow all my food. I love growing food & wish I had at least an acre to do it in. But in a few hundred square feet on the side here I have: Blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, rhubarb, artichokes, a fig tree, currants and a hop vine. In the raised beds I grow LOTS of garlic, mostly exotic hardneck varieties. Plus tomatoes, basil, snap peas, kale, potatoes, carrots, fennel, onions, lettuce, zuchinni, etc.

First Steps

10 1/2 months:
It's official! Annika took her first unassisted steps today, lured toward the tv remote mommy was holding in her mouth. (I needed my hands free to catch her)

Hurray!

Beach Day

Hi mommy! What are you doing up on that rock? I wanna come!

And up she goes.... (it was a big rock! See how you can't even see the ground?)

Little Crabbies

With Saben, my parenting philosophy was that if I let him gently hurt himself trying something dangerous, then he would learn & know better next time. For instance, carefully allowing him to smash his fingers in the drawer so that he realized how it happened. This does not seem to be working nearly as well with Annika. She has smashed her fingers countless times & does it over & over. And she tries to climb barnacle encrusted rocks barefoot. (see above)

I kept thinking "oh, it will hurt and she'll stop". But she didn't. She even cut her little toe, but was so darn determined to get up on the rock that I finally let her do it. (I pulled her down several times and didn't notice her cut toe till much later. But you can see it in the photo. whoops.)

Toys

All this time I have had a couple hours worth of uninterupted play time for Saben at my finger tips. Or ear canals. ha ha ha! Before the kids were born, we used to swear the kids would only have a few toys a piece. No piles of toys everywhere for us, we'd teach our kids to be creative with what they had.

I realize now that there was a mistake in my thinking. Parents do not buy too many toys because they want to spoil their kids. They do it because they will do absolutely anything to keep the kids busy for 15 minutes so they can enjoy the rest of their dinner. Eventually we learn that even a $50 toy is not guaranteed to do that. But a .50 cent pile of Qtips might. The mysteries of toys.

Play Date

Everytime we go over, Saben likes to wear every single one of Lily's pretty necklaces. And bracelets. We generally have to force him to share the necklaces with her. I blame that LL Cool J book we got at the library. (because rappers wear necklaces, right? Not because LL doesn't know how to share.)

Later this morning he came out in this stunning hat.

"I'm ready for the soccer game mom"

Both are great....

For the record, I love the convenience & cost savings of not preparing/washing bottles when nursing, but I also love having the flexibility to give Annika a bottle in the shopping cart when she gets hungry. Mostly it is a life saver when we want to go somewhere & I know she is going to be hungry soon. And bottles are the reason she's been making it much much longer in nursery lately. And Kyle loves laying on the couch and giving her a bottle in the morning when I go work out.

Formula

We are planning a trip to Italy this summer and even though I am pretty nervous about leaving Annika for quite a while, I am very excited. So ....if you've been to Italy, tell me your favorite city. We are thinking Rome & Naples right now since we'll only have a week or so. I've been a bunch of places in the north, like Florence, Venice, Cinque Terra, etc.

Second of all, I started Annika on one bottle of formula a day to get her weaned shortly after her first birthday so that we can take our trip. I know I would never have considered it with Saben because I was completely in love with nursing. BUT wow. It is sooooooooooooooo nice. So convenient. It just makes everything so much more flexible to be able to offer her a bottle once a day instead of stopping to nurse.

No matter how dedicated you are to nursing, I would highly recommend considering it. I am not sure if there are any drawbacks I am unaware of, but it hasn't impacted our nursing at all so far, other than one less feeding a day. (its been 3 or 4 weeks I think) I am in love with it, but definitely still feeling sadness at weaning her so soon this time.

Did you know that all you have to do at Trader Joes or Haggens is tell them something you bought was bad & they'll give you a refund? You don't have to bring it in. You don't have to go to a special "returns" desk. Just tell the cashier and they will take the dollar amount off of your order. Its pretty nice, because I am always so peeved when I buy produce that goes bad in a day, or a bakery treat that ends up being stale. Totally honor system. I like it.

Freak

What is wrong with me, I can't even enjoy a kid's tour of a fire station.

"These are the jaws of life we use to cut open a car if you are in an accident and get trapped inside."

"This is what the fireman looks like in all his fire gear. So if there's a fire in your house and you are scared and hiding under the bed and you see him looking like this, don't be afraid. Don't run away from him, you need to go to him because he is there to help you."

Visions of my child in these situations dancing through my head...what fun.

One of my favorite pictures from April, click on the picture to get it big enough to see Saben's face.

Yah, cause why on earth would a mom want to buy a sweatshirt or pair of pants for her 10 month old this time of year? Apparently I should only be buying tank tops, dresses & shorts because there is not one single warm thing to be found in the entire mall. Look outside. It's June. Officially dubbed in 2007 as "Kari's least favorite month of the year."

Where to start....
Children. Sheesh. Who knew?
Saben is hilarious these days. He talks up a storm. And talks some more. And really, he never stops talking. At the very least he's making noises like pig grunts or talking about who the heck knows what. Most of the time it is adorable, sometimes its difficult to concentrate and every now & then I want to scream.

Pretty much every action I perform or noise I utter is met with questions from him. the notorious "WHY?" being a favorite.

Mom: "Come one...."
Saben: "Come on who?"
Mom: "I want that car to get going"
Saben: "Which car?"
Mom: "the blue one"
Saben "Why should it get going?"
Mom: "the light is green and its not moving"
Saben: "Why is the light green?"
Mom: "Because it is time to go."
Saben: "why isn't the car going?"
Mom: "well it is going now"
Saben:.....you get the picture, just continue for another five minutes until I say something else fascinating that begs for 20 questions.

My biggest joy is that Saben is finally nearly potty trained. It is still unbelievable to me that it finally happened and really, I have to agree with everyone else.... no magic tricks, it just suddenly clicked. Well, maybe one magic trick, but it is so gross that even I won't post it here, you'll have to ask me if you're ever struggling with potty training yourself someday.

I can't believe the days are over when I will drop human feces out of underwear and almost fall down as I accidentally step in it and slide across the hallway. How I will miss those days.

Speaking of gross, today they played the song "Mister hanky the christmas poo" in my exercise class. I've NEVER been one to laugh at poop, fart, pee, or other sick jokes. Really. But for some reason it made me giggle uncontrolably even though it was absolutely disgusting. It was really embarassing actually because I could not stop laughing and I was the only one losing it in the middle of doing our squats. (part of the hilarity was the fact that we were doing these squats & listening to a song about pooping.) I blame it on potty training.

We've reached an incredible milestone with Annika too. She actually made it through MOPS & a church service last week in the nursery! The first times ever! Honestly, we've been pretty sporadic at church lately because it is smack dab in the middle of her nap. And its the only service at our church that has Sunday school for Saben. Every single time we attend I spend half the service in the nursery. Then she's grumpy & our whole "schedule" for the day is completely screwed up.

Not to mention the fact that Saben generally throws a fit each week as we are leaving because there are DONUTS at church and he desperately wants one. It all adds up to a gay old time with plenty of good cheer by the time we leave in our car. But last week was awesome, and I actually got to hear the entire sermon. Because I like sermons. A lot. They always get me thinking.....

It actually amazes me how pastors always seem to include one point that is special, just for me, to mull over during the week. Even last week, when it was all singing & sharing time, they put in a special hymn for me that included the words "break me". As a mommy, singing those words makes me feel like I got punched in the gut. It takes my breath away for a moment.

I'll be honest, it scares me to death to sing those words. Which is why I decided to read our book club selection "the shack" this month. At first I was excited by "Theologically Controversial". Then AFTER I bought it, I read the back and realized it was about a young girl who gets kidnapped & murdered & how her Dad finds peace with God afterwards. Generally I avoid all movies and books about children dying.....But seeing as how it was in the context of something serious & spiritual I figured I should suffer through it. See how my book club picked a book I needed to read? Wasn't that nice of them?

So that's what's been on my mind lately. We still have men banging around in our basement every day and tons of important decisions to make like "which of these 30 toilets is the one for us?" as we remodel our basement. Seriously, is there anything worse than being stuck at lowes at 7:30pm with two cranky kids trying to make heads or tails out of toilets that range from $70-$300?

Oh, and Annika & Saben have not napped at the same time for a couple weeks now which is why I have been remiss in updating my blog.

Random Annika

Annika loves to eat paper.

When she is excited she bounces up and down, whether it is a delicious tidbit of food she has spied, or she just happens to like the music that is playing.

She gets very angry when we eat things and she does not get to try them. The other day at lunch I had some gyoza and she had peas & rice. She was screaming mad until I finally finished up the gyoza and then she went ahead & ate the peas & rice.

Annika stands for 10-20 seconds at a time without holding on to anything, but does not like to practice walking.

Annika still loves ripping up my flowers & plants. The other day she was ripping leaves off a garlic plant. Luckily I have a ton of them so I was just watching out of the corner of my eye. When I went to pick her up, she had the worst garlic breath ever and I realized she had been chewing on the leaves.

When she is not teething, Annika goes to sleep very easily. I just lay her down after she's nursed a while and she drifts off. Saben never did that, he had to be rocked & sung to.

Annika loves LOVES to be hung upside down, but going up in the air scares her a bit.

Annika is really a pest to Saben and loves grabbing everything he is playing with. This causes conflicts, to put it mildly.

Boot Camp Instructor (who also happens to be our pastor) trying to encourage us as we sweat our brains out during class: "

When I was in the Marines, we had to do this run on the beach once, and it was so difficult that only 6 of the 12 guys made it. I was running with one of the guys and suddenly he turns, pukes and then just kept on going. It was so awesome, I was so impressed, blah blah blah."

Kari (at the end of the particular thing we were doing):

"Once I knew this woman, she was in labor for 32 hours, and she just turned and puked and kept right on going. It was amazing."

I am madly, passionately in love with this book, "Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades" by Steve Solomon. It is one I've known about for a long time, but it is thick, with almost no pictures and sort of intimidated me. Finally I checked out a copy at the library and 3 days later ordered my own, it is that good.

Now I just wish I had 1,000 sq ft to garden instead of 72 sq ft. (actually I've always wished that) His techniques are perfect for a larger garden, but will translate somewhat to the tiny one I have. The best part is that his techniques actually make the 1,000 sq ft seem possible. He is all about saving time & finding the most effective ways to use your time & energy. And all his writing is backed up by science, his own years of extensive trialing and is very particularly suited to our climate here. (west of the cascades) Did I mention it is also all organic?

This could be an overwhelming book for complete beginners, but if you are really excited about growing lots of veggies for food, year round and have no idea where to start, give it a go. If its just overwhelming, try getting a few years under your belt first and then go back to it. Or just skim to his charts to give you an idea of where to begin & skip all the nitty gritty details.

I could go on and on about how this book challenges everything I thought I knew about growing vegetables, but I think you should just read it for yourself.

praise

Saben: " Mommy, I pooped!"
Mom: "Woo hoo! That is so awesome Saben! I am so excited!"
Saben gets up to look at it & points
Saben: "You like that big poop mommy?"
Mom: "uh...yah, I really like it"

What exactly am I teaching him again???

First words

Annika has said "mama" & "dada" for a month or so now, although not particularly discriminantly. I never know when to count first words because its so hard to tell with mama & dada, which are always first.

So second words.....
I started trying to teach Annika sign language for "All Done" and "more" during mealtimes. She really liked "all done" and soon would say "Ah Da" and wave her hands around. Not always sure if she really meant it, but this week she also started saying "Ma" one day when she was really hungry. No hand signs, but definitely wanted more food.

Thankful

So much to be thankful for these days.

• Seven years (today) married to my amazing, funny, sweet, very clever husband.
• Wonderful, awesome, fantastic friends who babysat the kids this weekend so that Kyle & I could celebrate our anniversary. We were able to go to dinner two nights in a row and take a short hike saturday morning.
• Spending all day working on our yard/garden for my special mother's day treat. I know, I'm weird, but I loved it.
• Annika sleeping through the night the last four days & taking some longer naps. I think the worst of the teething is over although she has one more bottom one that I haven't seen yet before she has 4 on top and 4 on bottom.
• Saben FINALLY pooing in the toilet as of last wednesday. Absolutely amazing. We've had some help from a Nemo pez dispenser and some luck.
• Started our basement remodel, finally. We are paying a friend who is out of work for a month to do a bunch of work on it and I am so excited about that. So glad for every moment that we will not have to be slaving over the remodel.

Pickin

Saben is sitting on the toilet and starts to pick his nose.

Babysitter: Why don't you let me get you a tissue to wipe your nose Saben.
Saben: No, this is how Daddy does it!
Babysitter: Well let me get you a tissue to wipe your fingers on then
Saben: No! Daddy does it like this all the time! (proceeds to wipe his fingers off on his FEET)

For the record, Daddy does NOT always do that despite Saben's claims.

Neighbors

A lovely small dogwood tree festively decorated with cans of Ranier, Olde English 800, some Miller Lite and one gorgeous bottle of microbrew.

Ups & downs

Annika has THREE teeth that are just breaking the surface right now and two that are barely poking through. So that is FIVE teeth all at the same time. And she has a cold. We all do. Needless to say, we are all a wreck. She is awake at odd hours every night and clings incessantly during the day.



Saben got into our top choice preschool! Woo hoo! I was feeling so depressed about trying to find one because I knew all the best were filled up. On a whim, I called anyways, and lo & behold, they were deciding that day whether or not to add an extra class. So he got into the extra class. Hurray!



I went to get my passport last week and managed to show up when no one was in line in front of me. We got right in! Definitely a miracle when you have two kids in tow.



I got a stomach flu yet again this weekend, threw up all day on Sunday. While we were in Wenatchee & needed to drive home that day. No one else has it yet, thank goodness.



I am starting to see changes from my boot camp class! Hurray for fitting into my old pants!



Saben has been pooping in his underwear for 2 1/2 weeks straight, going on months now if you ignore the times we took "breaks" and just wore pullups. He just does not even try and goes at random times every day. He often goes 3-4 times a day, just tiny bits, so I give him prune juice....but that makes such a huge mess, it is 10x harder to clean up. Usually he decides to go while I am nursing Annika... How am I supposed to "catch" him when I am frantically nursing, cooking, cleaning & still trying to find time to play with them? Sigh.

Winner!

Congrats to Ailie for winning my little contest, it is so fun to hear from someone new who reads my blog!

One more...

First person to email me their address gets a free subscription to Wondertime. (Apparently I have to buy 3 to get the good deal)


I'll let you know when someone wins....

For the record, when I once fasted for 48 hours with a whole group of college students, I was the only one who was dry heaving & throwing up bile after 28 hours. I get nauseous when I am hungry. The hungrier I get, the pickier I feel about what I want to eat. I've been on hikes where I am starving, but just thinking about a power bar made me want to be sick and I waited till we could get some "real" food to eat. Usually when I am that hungry I only want protein & carbs, but real ones like pasta, steak, pizza, etc. No chips, candy or junk food.

So I guess its possible that Saben inherited his throwing up on an empty stomach from me.... Darn it.

Bravery

The other day, Saben was riding his bike down the big hill by our house, turned the wheel too sharply & crashed. He got up nonchalantly and said "Woah! I crashed!" and kept riding like it ws no big deal at all. I didn't even think he'd gotten hurt until later I saw his arm & palms had scrapes on them.

This, from the boy who is afraid of his frog sippy cup because they have big eyes.

In other news, Saben refused to eat his chicken fingers & sweet potato fries last night, even though he only got a few sips of his smoothie which he loves. (not to mention he LIKES chicken fingers and has eaten sweet potato fries several times - but lately he's only wanted yogurt for dinner. Plain, with granola & a tiny bit of honey)

He was promised more smoothie if he kept eating the rest of his dinner, but he decided to be done instead. This morning, he was so hungry he dry heaved again. Crazy child.

My mom started a blog and has some really funny pictures of trying to get a shot with her & the two kids where they all look decent....

Advice

Here's what gets me. The only experienced people at parenting that I know are our parents, whom I love, respect and think did an awesome job of raising us.

But everything you read anywhere in mainstream child rearing psychology tells us to do it differently than they did it. Don't force kids to do things, just offer them carrot sticks and let them choose what to eat. Don't let your kids cry it out. Don't spank them, just use timeouts.

Its no wonder I worry all the time that we're screwing it up because all I can imagine is my daughter someday asking me "really? you never let me cry it out? everything I read tells me to let the kids cry it out". Because all the instructions will probably be opposite by the time she has kids.

(this has nothing to do with the actual methods we have chosen to use for parenting, I'm just pointing out the dissidence)

What we've been doing

Saben - 3 yrs

• Loves balls, especially golf, pool, baseball & his marble tower race
• Rides his glider bike almost every day and has learned to pick his feet up and coast along.
• Would eat the exact same thing every day if we let him.
• Likes to watch Blues Clues the most
• Is afraid of "Scary Eyes" which is anything from Snufalupagus to certain stuffed animals w/ eyes. (and yes shauna, that alien stuffed toy with the giant eye ball on its head you got him for Christmas? Freaks him out. Sorry!)
• Thinks Annika is ok and likes to boss her around which is sometimes helpful...sometimes not.
• Really enjoys singing and can actually carry a tune now
• Has tremendous energy and loves to run

Annika - 9 mos

• Loves to crawl around exploring & pull up to standing on everything.
• Bops up and down to music, especially the one her lion riding toy plays
• Would eat everything in the house if we let her.
• Gets to watch Baby Einstein each day so that mommy is able to take a shower. She hates being stationary otherwise and does not enjoy the exersaucer at all.
• Is not afraid of anything. She went through a phase of fearing men, but I think its gone now.
• Adores her brother and is learning to play little games with him. She is also just starting to show signs of getting pretty annoyed at him when he takes things away.
• Has zeroed in on her ring of destruction: First, eat video cassette covers. Come to computer & try to touch the blinking light which happens to be the power button. Next up is pulling moss & dirt out of mommy's potted plants. Then head on over the electrical outlets and gnaw on the cords for a while. (that mommy has already unplugged)
• Has learned to shriek/scream at the top of her lungs. Just for fun, or if she's impatient. (like in the restaurant when mommy isn't feeding her quite fast enough.)
• Has suddenly had trouble going to bed, 4 days in a row now & wants to nurse for an hour every evening.

Kyle

• Finishing up the new building where their business will be.
• Ripped out the heating ducts downstairs after the furnace broke just a couple months before we planned to replace it during our basement remodel.
• Going on "business" bike riding trips in Colorado.

Mommy

• Joined a boot camp class that meats at 6:30 am every morning.
• Decided to try their crazy meal plan that eliminates fat & sugar except for one "fun day" a week. (if I'm getting up at 6am, might as well go whole hog huh?)
• Is designing & purchasing the landscaping for the company's new building
• Organizing the basement remodel estimate process half heartedly and dreading the day it begins. Except she will be happy to have a new furnace.
• Is laying low and struggling to finish potty training Saben & get Annika the naps she needs.
• Really really needs to figure out preschool for Saben in the fall but feels completely overwhelmed by the prospect.

The winner...

Thanks for all the fun stories! I laughed at all of them and they really made my days last week. Here is the one that made me laugh the hardest:

My son Jenson, was about three, and tucked into bed. I came up because I could hear him still playing around and obviously not sleeping. I came in his room and found him with tampon wrappers on his bed. Weird. Turns out he was thirsty... he'd gotten himself a cup of water. And a straw. Made out of a tampon applicator he found in the cabinet. Sipping away, and very proud. You can't make that stuff up.

Even though its not publicly embarassing, Shawn still wins, because her other stories were really funny too! Shawn, email me your address if you want the Wondertime subscription and I'll send it your way.

For second place, I drew names and came up with FiveDays as the winner! If you want the subscription, just email me.

Thanks everyone!

Of all the tasks I do as a mom, the hardest one of all is....vacuuming.

First, there's getting all the toys put away so I can even get to the floors. Then the second I get the vacuum out of the closet, Saben starts whining & crying. He's afraid of it. He goes in his room with the door shut, but everytime I turn it off for a second he is out whining again, trying to get me to stop.

Annika meanwhile wants me to carry her while I vacuum. Which gets extremely tiring. Everytime I put her down, she is bawling something awful. I wish I could do it while they slept, but that doesn't work for obvious reasons.

Lastly, the mechanism that keeps the vacuum handle upright is broken so everytime I set it somewhere I have to lean the handle against something or it falls to the floor with a loud crash and probably leaves dents in its wake.

So I only vacuum every 2-3 weeks. I sweep the wood floors, but getting the area rugs clean doesn't happen super often. Luckily the dog cleans up any food messes and we all take our shoes off at the door, (well, everyone except the dog) so it doesn't get too disgusting.

Please?

Ok, I know that 20 of you checked my blog yesterday and only 2 people told me embarassing stories. Thank you FiveDays & Vale!! Please please please tell me a funny story. It can be about anything. Anything at all. Doesn't anyone want a magazine subscription?

To give you ideas, here is my most embarassing parenting moment.

As if it wasn't painful enough that I was up at 6am this morning, getting dressed to go to my workout class, as I put on my sweatshirt a big, black spider the size of a quarter crawled out & up my chest. I squealed quietly - loud enough to wake kyle but luckily not enough to wake the kids. Thank goodness it wasn't a cockroach, no one would have slept through that.

Kari's Blog Giveaway Extravaganza!!!!

As we approach this blogs 2 year anniversary (ok, its still 1 1/2 months away) I have decided to do a little contest!

In the comments section, please tell me a funny story about your most embarassing moment with a child under your care.

(you know, like the time your child crawled under the door in the dressing room while you were undressed and nearly escaped, but instead stopped to crawl under someone elses door? This hasn't happened to me, but it'd be pretty funny and embarassing if it did. hmm.... maybe we should just make up embarassing scenarios. Do you think that would be funnier?)

Lucky for me the prize does not involve a trip to the post office since I despise going there. The prize will be a subscription to my favorite parenting magazine, Wondertime. I might even give away two subscriptions if lots of people tell me funny stories. I just started a new "meal plan" that forbids the eating of butter so I could really use some cheering up. Please, please, make me laugh.

If you are not a parent and don't want a subscription, then I will just send you my best wishes for winning and instead send it to the runner up. Or maybe I'll think of something to send you in the mail, but no promises.

Judging criteria: Whichever story makes me laugh the hardest. I will rate my laughs on a scale of 1-10 and then pick a winner.

10 on 10 theme

Give up? My theme for the 10 on 10 was things that were ugly, but then slowly grew over the day to include things that annoy me. And then I tried to create something nice in a picture with all these ugly annoying things. Like seeing the good in the bad. See? Aren't I a deep wise person? Do you want me to be your guru? I have tons more where this came from.

10 on 10

(10 points if you can figure out what my theme for the day was....)

I've had people ask me how I get the fuzzy glow in the center of my photographs. (see the picture of purple flowers above for example.) It's pretty simple actually. Get your camera out & try to take pictures of your 8 month old, while feeding her rice goop. With any luck, some of the cereal will get on your fingers and somehow make its way onto your camera lense. Ta dah! Fuzzy romantic blurs in the center of your photos!

In the event that I suddenly come down with rabies

Yesterday, I got bit by a mouse. A wee white one running in the grass that the neighbor convinced me was somebody's pet. Always up for an animal related challenge, I grabbed it and it leaped 3 feet up in the air & out of my hands. Unfazed, I caught it again and just as the realization hit that I had no idea what I was going to do with a pet mouse, it bit my finger. Down went the mouse. Nonchalantly, it wandered through the grass and was last seen nose to nose with a cat who did not know what to do with a wee white mouse that refused to run away.

A bouquet for you

Birthday

The newest pool hall in town for tots? Oh no, that is now my sons room. Kyle's parents actually found him a kids pool table. I didn't even know they existed and he loves it. (he's loved playing with their pool table from the day they got it) Apparently everything is real, you could even just use it as a table top pool table if you live in a tiny apartment or something.

Saben had the loooooooooooongest birthday on record, we celebrated for about 3 weeks between seeing both families, having a small celebration on the actual day and then a party on Friday. It was a lot of fun though and I really enjoyed planning all the special things for him.

On his birthday we had a fun day playing with toys & riding his bike. We got him one of those kits with wooden nuts & bolts to build a train. Then in the evening we all went out to Chichettis Pizza and Mallard Ice Cream. Mmmm......

We had his kids party at the Children's Museum. Nine kids showed up to play for an hour in the museum and then we all went into the back room for Bagelry bagels & cake. It was really fun to see him have such a great time.

One of the best parts of planning Saben's party was taking him to Target to pick out the cake mix, plates, napkins, etc that he wanted. Being the non-commercial stooge that I am, I took him to the area with colorful plates rather than cartoon ones. He picked square yellow ones and square pink ones. I suggested perhaps red instead of pink, but promised myself that if he was adamant we'd get the pink ones. He didn't really care, so we ended up with a mix of red, yellow & blue decorations and "Funfetti" cake with chocolate frosting.


Annika's favorite part was the boat & posing for the camera. And sucking on everything in sight so that now she has a cold. But last time we went she brought home the flu, so I'm not complaining.

Garden

I was holding Annika on Sunday while weeding for a while. When I got tired, I sat her down on the sidewalk and she started pawing at the weeds & trying to get them out too.

Annika loves having plants in her mouth. She just sucks on the them and I only give her herbs.

She is particularly taken with my Fred Boutin lavender. I can't blame her, it is my favorite one too.

Dirty little baby hands. ahhhh.... I love watching my kids dig in the dirt, especially for the first few times when they are just discovering it. And maybe not so much when they are intent on moving my garden bed into their play area, one toy dumptruck at a time, like Saben last summer.

Happy Birthday Saben!!

Saben's Birth Story

Three years ago today....
I'm finally recording this somewhere permanent, I wrote an email to some friends about it and just now edited/added a few details. If you don't enjoy the details of childbirth, read no further.

On Thursday, March 24th, about a week before Saben was due (due date: April 1st) I stepped out of my car at World Vision where I worked and felt a little fluid leak. I went inside to clean up and then called the hospital. They said to wait a few hours to see what happened, so I just went to work like normal, but warned my boss who was then a nervous wreck. At noon I went out to lunch (olive garden) with my cousin who just happened to be in town from Wenatchee. She had been joking all along about me having the baby and when I told her what was going on, she insisted I go to the hospital. The hospital agreed when I called them, so off we went.

When I arrived, they had no idea why the fluid leaked, but my blood pressure was super high (about 140/90) and they said I had pre-eclampsia. (I had been retaining water like mad & had other signs as well) Did I mention at this point that my slacker husband was in complete denial and was still working? I didn't make him come in because my cousin was there with me, but he didn't even arrive until I had already been checked in & they'd started the pitocin to induce me! (6pm)

Kyle arrived and we sent my cousin (Amy) off to our house to get our stuff. The lame part was that I was so certain I would be late, I hadn't even packed my hospital bag. So she was running all over the house while Kyle & I described what to grab & where it was.

The hospital put me on magnesium to keep me from going into seizures from the pre-eclampsia and Kyle's family arrived to check on us right as I was feeling completely nauseous from it. The night passed uneventfully as far as I remember.

The next morning I talked to my friend Katie and found out she was in the hospital too! We had both gotten pregnant about a week apart and had been joking about talking on the phone while in labor. Sure enough.... We checked in late afternoon once we both had epidurals, but Katie beat me and actually got a different birthday for Leah since Saben was born just after midnight.

I didn't start feeling contractions till noon on Friday, the 25th. Through the night, they were there & frequent, but weren't powerful enough to do anything or to even hurt really. By 3pm I was hurting a lot and I think it was around 5pm that I was dilated to 4cm and begging for an epidural. But I was having these odd 2-3 minute contractions that would peak, go down, go up a little, then back down a bit, peak again... and after the long contraction I was only getting 30 second breaks before it would start again. The monitor looked more like large plateaus, rather than the peaks & valleys of a normal contraction.

I tried a few drugs first to see if that helped. It did, and I remember my water breaking as being one of the most phenomenal sensations I've ever experienced, but I'm pretty sure it was the drugs that made it so wonderful.

So off to epidural land. I really truly thought I was in love with the anesthegiologist lady, she was my favorite person in the entire world. At 7pm they told me I was already 8cm & would be pushing shortly...but turns out the resident who checked me didn't do such a great job (to put it mildly) and I was only 6cm when they checked again at 9pm.

At this point, Saben's heartrate was going down during the 5 minute long contractions I was having. My uterus was basically having super long contractions but never getting strong enough ones to actually get my cervix open. So they waited 2 hours and when I was still 6cm at 11pm they decided to do the cesarian. Oh, and I was running a fever, which they didn't like either.

So out he came!! I was half relieved & half completely freaked out. I think I shut down a lot mentally/emotionally at that point because it was just too overwhelming for my brain to comprehend what was going to happen. Being cut open while awake is pretty much my worst nightmare mentally. I actually tried to talk them into putting me under so I wouldn't be aware of the surgery.

Actually it wasn't that bad. I didn't even realize they had started and spent the whole time trying to figure out exactly what we had been doing one year prior. (lying on a beach in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt) Saben Luke Young was born at 12:30am, March 26th. I teared up when I heard his cries & then got to gaze at him while they sewed me back up. Part of me was still pretty freaked out that they were still tugging & playing with my guts though.

Saben got to ride in my bed with me back to our room and we tried to nurse for the first time. I'm still not quite sure what was going on, but I have never been so completely exhausted in my entire life. I actually was falling asleep while trying to nurse. Granted it 1:30am, but still....I blamed it on some drugs that perhaps the anesthegiologist gave me.

The first day was odd too, I think I was still in shock, it kept seeming like Saben was just some baby they had dropped off for me. It was only later that I learned that the Magnesium they give you can make you feel really strange like I felt. Luckily by the next day I suddenly was completely happy & excited - my emotions turned back on and I was in heaven.

Kyle was absolutely great through the whole thing, he blew me away with how fantastic he handled the whole thing.

We were in the hospital five days, four for me to heal & recover from the pre-eclampsia and then an extra day for Saben because he had lost too much weight. By the following Wednesday we were all home, safe & sound.

Wedding...

Movement

Annika has been going backwards for a few weeks. Last week she was sort of inch worming/lunging her way forward, sometimes on her hands & knees for a few inches. Then on Monday she finally really truly started crawling forward. She will go 3 feet now. Hurray!

On Tuesday a doctor finally cut my toe up. Yuck yuck yuck. I decided to just take some leftover oxycodene from my cesarian instead of going to Freddies to get Vicodin. I don't remember any side effects with it after my surgery, but man was I feeling it this morning. Dizzy, naseous waves mixed with high energy and little bursts of euphoria. It also made my toe virtually painless. But I think I'm done taking those for a while.