The lady in the white pants

We went up to Patty and Bruce's house for dinner tonight. I actually thought, "Hmmm, I better bake these biscuits here in case they don't have an oven." 

Oh, they have an oven. And the porch of my dreams- the one that wraps around the house and has more than enough room for a dining room table, chairs and an entire living room suite. 

Patty made an ice cream cake for dinner. When Todd asked Grace where she got it, her answer was, "Go see the lady in the white pants."  like it was some covert deal.  I expected her to follow it up with something like "The code word is cake".

You are in SO much trouble

The three of you are tucked up in bed right now. Eleanor is letting out the occasional high pitched string of notes before your Granne or I tell you to shush. This lasts for about fifteen seconds before there is a foot thump, a bed squeak, a tap-tap and then another peep coming from one of you. 

We came up to Prudence on Friday night. An uneventful trip that found either me or your dad squished beside you in the car, playing a movie or talking to each other to keep the other awake while driving through the night.  We tried to consider every contingency; road work in Maryland, the regular traffic that everyone associates with New York and the parking lot they like to call Connecticut.  We had enough time and snacks to make it all the way up and to the ten o'clock boat in plenty of time with no stress if we left the house around seven or eight at night. 

We got here at four in the morning.  

Luckily, the sip-n-dip is open 24 hours a day and they had a clean toilet for us to use.  We weren't sure of the weekend boat schedule, so we went over to the ferry to check the schedule and take a quick nap in the parking lot. We're classy like that.  When the boat came, we were ready to go- doughnuts and treats for Granne and Grandbob, a walked pup and a gassed up minivan.  All in all, a successful trip with no hiccups.

And then....

While we were on the boat, you three decided you had been well behaved and sitting for long enough. Actually, Jordan was still taking it easy on us, but Grace and Eleanor were up and around in the van.  At one point, Eleanor and Grace were behind the wheel of the van. (Grandparents, take a deep breath. No, we weren't near the edge, the emergency break was on and we had removed the keys.) I mean, what could happen?

What could happen? Grace could find pennies. And she could decide that the tiny slot between the dashboard and the wheel would be a really fun place to slide these coins. Luckily, it didn't affect our ability to maneuver the van off the ferry and we made it all the way up to the house. We unpacked, hugged Granne and Grandbob and then put away all our bags of gear while Grandbob and Granne were forced to love on you little people.  After a tour of the house and the garden, we walked over to see Raya and spent a bit of time with Glenn and Jen before returning to our house AND THE BLARING HORN. 

Turns out those itty bitty coins had slipped down into the steering column and randomly hit the horn. They also blare the horn when we turn left. Fun, fun, fun.  I find this whole thing hilarious right now while I'm not the driver, but there is no way I'm letting your dad off this island without fixing this.  We tried to come home tonight from dinner on the West Side and the horn kept honking while we were following Glenn in the police car. Thank goodness we were behind him, because I'm sure at least a few houses were thinking of calling the police about the idiot making the noise violation at 9:30 at night. 

You father is not amused. 

Preparing for Prudence

Am taking a break from packing and listing to try and save my sanity.  How on earth do you KNOW that today is the day that I need to accomplish all four hundred and twenty seven critical things on my list before I can move on to the kinda-important list?  How do you know that today is the day to grind the raisins into the carpet for maximum schedule interruption? Is it pure instinct that led you to taking out the paints while I went to use the toilet? 

For two minutes. Two minutes, for Pete's sake. HOW DO YOU DO THIS?

Today is one of those days when I remind myself how unselfish and great your father is. How creative and kind. And then I still get cranky about all the crap I'm having to do around this house before we can leave this weekend for Prudence. 

My list for Prudence:

Have car serviced before we hit the road.

Clean out all excess globs of spare popcorns, cheerios and all raisin shrapnel. 

Have windshield repaired from trip to the airport YESTERDAY. (Like I needed another thing on the list...)

Pack up kids clothes- special attention to swim and rain gear.

Kids Medical Kit- poison ivy? Bee stings? Cuts? Scrapes? Splinters? Diaper Rash?  We're covered.

Kids Toys

Kids Art Supplies- all packed up and ready to go

Kids Car toys and snacks- do not forget the water bottles

Electronics- laptop, camera, phone. Trying not to forget any of the chargers, battery chargers or connecting wires. 

Food stuffs. Let's face it, you cannot make Thai food without fish sauce. Not going to happen and it's not something you're going to find at Marcy's.

Clean beds

Put out all the garbage.

Pack up dog food, leash, bed and poop bags. 

Arrange for the neighbor kids to come water my plants and collect the mail for the next two weeks. 

Pack a few clothes for me. 

Your dad's list:

Put space case on the car.

Pack his stuff. 

Yeah, that looks fair. 

Change In Plans

It's Saturday afternoon and we've got a full house. The rain has been steady all morning, but there seems to be a crack in the crowds and the sun is fading in and out.  Because of 

the heat and the humidity, we're hiding inside for a while.  

"I wanna be like you-ou-ou" is coming from tv and Jordan is dancing up a storm. "Give me the secret of fire, man cub" reminds me, fire building is one of the skills that you will have when you grow up.  Your dad is great at the grill, but when it comes to building a real fire in rain or shine, you'll be coming to Mom.  I can remember a time that the neighbors wanted to have a block party when we first got married and moved to Monterey.  The Coast Guard Guy from down the street pulled out his fire pit with three fire starter logs and announced that he had the fire all taken care of.  As he was putting the lighter to the logs I asked him where the rest of the wood was.  "This is it. These things burn for hours." 

It was three o'clock. 

I think your dad handled the delicate nature of the situation (my snorting in laughter might have been a bit of a blow to James's fragile ego) and we roared off in the Jeep to reallocate resources from the neighboring BLM land.  Twenty minutes and a talk with one of the Department of the Interior guards later, we came back with a Jeep full of wood and I started a fire that lasted until midnight. 

The last few days have been rough on us here at Quilt Camp.  Callum started feeling poorly on Thursday night.  He hadn't been eating dinner or drinking much and he started getting sick on his mommy's bed late Thursday, early Friday morning.  Michelle took him to the new emergency room at Stafford hospital where they transferred him in an ambulance down to Mary Washington.  Turns out he's severely dehydrated and had to have IVs overnight.  He seems to be doing better, but this is effecting their return travel plans to California. 

Tomorrow in Father's Day and I know how important it was for them to be home with Mark.  Now it looks as though they'll be staying through the next week. I'm thrilled with the opportunity to spend more time with Michelle, Callum and Katie, but not at Mark's expense.  Although we may actually have the time to finish the border on the daisies...hmmm....

Speaking of expense- the tickets came from using miles and on American Airlines. They have been completely uncooperative in changing the time or date of the tickets. Originally 900 for all three; the tickets will be six hundred dollars a piece to change! Whatever happened to the seventy five or hundred dollars to change a ticket??  I know that it's a sign of the economy, but we've tried explaining that this is a medical emergency and they seem to be void of all cooperation or compassion.  Air tran has tickets for 150 each that can get them home later in the week. Guess what airline we'll be using??

Katie has been spending her last few days with us and is enjoying her time running after Grace and Eleanor's rampages and chasing after Emily's tail. Jordan is thrilled with chasing after Katie. 

More later- your dad is back from the Home Improvement store and we're about to hang the mirror in the bathroom after you guys go down for naps.  Big hugs,  Mom.

Excuses, excuses

Again, I just need to apologize for not writing, but here are a few things I need to tell you about...I'll follow up in a few days. Promise. But for now, the whole reason I'm slacking with writing to you is because of Michelle. There have been chats, talks, conversations, trips, shopping adventures, food runs, more talking. 

It's all her fault. I was just sittin' there....

So here's what I owe you. Yes, you can count on me stretching this out over days. 

 

Your initial bags. This will make sense when I tell you the whole story. There is a closet full of cheery happiness in our hallway right now. 

Daisies. Your aunt Michelle suckered me. 

You may need to know about food runs. Not the icky kind where you have to go to the doc because you're dehydrated, but running out for a specific craving and/or want. And no, neither myself or Michelle are pregnant right now.  That's not even funny.

The story about you, your sister and the blue water bottle that I decided to just throw out. I was laughing so hard I couldn't even ask you what the heck you two thought you were doing. 

We had a pretty good day today. Nothing eventful, nothing noteworthy. I tried to lock in the picture of the three of you in front of the bookcase playing "tea" and passing the toys around. We tried to talk nicely to each other, we tried to play well with each other and we gave lots and lots of hugs today. I'm putting this one in the win column. 

Job Advice

As long as we're dispensing advice...

Dress for the job you want.  You want to be the boss? Then emulate what they're doing. Can't afford it? Save up and get the knock offs.  If there is ever a choice between the expensive outfit or the expensive shoes, get a basic outfit and go for the shoes. Cheap shoes will almost always be a dead give away and bring down the outfit.  This is one of the few times that I will highly recommend letting loose the cash as shoes do seem to get more comfy the more expensive they are. And no, you can't borrow my Cole Haan's that I'm still wearing from 2004. 

Learn how to give a firm handshake. I'm not talking wrestlmania here, I'm talking a firm steady handshake. For some reason, Southern women have cultivated a limp noodle finger shake and I find this unacceptable. If a man grasps just my fingers, I'm expecting him to have an Austrian or French accent and kiss the back of my palm.  If you need practice with finding the balance between aggressive-bone-crushing and assertive-hire-me-now,  we can work on it. 

We'll probably need to get a boy to get his advice, too. Just warning you in advance. 

Work on your listening. I know this sounds silly since you guys aren't even in Kindergarten, but you come from a long, long line of quick thinking women. Of course these quick thinking women also react quickly and sometimes without all the facts...so this may be an issue. We also talk. A lot. This is genetic but can be overcome with years and years of practice. I'm still practicing. Your father prays I'll get it someday. But for now, I found a great quote I need you to remember:

No one ever listened themselves out of job.

I love you, 

Mom

I'm talkin' here

Sorry I haven't talked in a while.  Michelle is here visiting and if I have the choice between sitting down and hashing out our day together or with the computer....the laptop loses every time. Michelle came on the fourth of June- the day after our Internet connection suffered a crippling blow. So for a long, long six days, we had no chance to hop online.  Not even borrowing a neighbor's network as this new, nifty Mac your dad bought for me has been challenging when it comes to oh-so-gently bending the rules. 

Callum and Katie are here and you've gotten along like a house afire. Sure, there have been the anticipated blow ups about someone touching Callum's trains or Eleanor going ballistic, but that's just to be expected. Grace keeps putting on her general's cap and trying to tell everyone what to do, Jordan hangs back and just cringes every time the herd of big kids come clumping through the room and Katie has the most adorable habit of giggling and squealing, "Mommy!" each time she sees or hears her mum. 

That's what Michelle says, "Mum." Not sure why that's relevant now, but I just felt like telling you.  We've been talking a lot this week about you guys and what we want to tell you...

So my handy, dandy piece of advice for you later on in life- just shush and listen to the story.  I'm finding more and more that conversations are turning into competitions.  NOT with your Aunt Michelle, but other people.  Callum is this brilliant kid who looks up the water spicket to see where the water is coming from and can tell you all the planets at three- he's incredibly bright! And I love hearing about Mark reading these great books to him.  Us? We read a bit, veg a bit, sing a bit and love on you. Not going to get you into Harvard, so if you miss the Ivy League you can trace it back to our lackadaisical approach to your preschool years. 

But I'll talk to another preschool mom about the kids and what's seems like an innocuous question from another parent about your development turns into a "oh yeah? Well MY kid can do this!" that tires me out.  Even chit chats with random people in public have turned into contests about what their kid can do better than my kid.  (And for the record, nobody wears cool shoes like you guys!)  I just smile, congratulate the other person on what an incredible kid/grandkid they have and tell them they must be proud. They don't need to know that you guys color like Picasso and cook up the best pancakes ever. 

So let me back track for a minute. I think what I'm trying to tell you to do is listen. Really listen to the other person and what they're trying to tell you. Don't think of what you're going to say in response, don't think of some one upmanship comment, but just listen to what they're saying.  You don't always have to have a better story, a similar event, or know someone who had the same experience. Give your story teller their due and just shut up and listen.  Your brain can pay attention to the story teller by asking relevant questions and you get the added bonus of having the story teller think you are fascinating.

I'm telling you, this is sage advice. In twenty years, you'll wish you'd read this more than once.