Family is down!

Send help! No, actually, don't. We're fine. But we've all got some kind of nasty cold/fever virus, and what with Skipper's DTAP vaccination today, Cook's gum surgery yesterday, and a generalized sleep deficit, we're all pretty under the weather.*

After her appointment today, I can tell you officially that Skipper hates doctors. (She's been to a dentist, optometrist, and pediatrician in the last month, and all of the visits have gone quite poorly.** I can also officially tell you that she's officially smaller than average. She weighs half a pound more at 24 months than Dutch did at 18 months. She's healthy and thriving, though, and only screamed for seven-eighths of the appointment, which I considered a tremendous success. All afternoon she was going up to strangers and saying, apropos of nothing, "Me went doctor! Me got SHOT!!!"

*Though I feel pretty under the weather ALL THE TIME, what with the weather being evil. EVIL! Today I left the house at 8:20 AM, with Skipper in the Ergo. I schlepped the kids to school (.6 miles), dropped Dutch off and proceeded with Skipper to the doctor's office (2 minutes walking, 5 minutes on bus, 3 minutes walking). After her appointment, we took one bus, waited 20 minutes for the next, took that bus, went to the library, walked (.4 miles) to the grocery store, shopped, and then walked (.8 miles) home. We got home at 12:30. I walked only maybe two miles total, but I had Skipper lashed to me (plus groceries and library books) and it rained THE WHOLE &#*@_%^* TIME!!!!!!! I felt pretty sorry for myself. I (like many other Portlanders) am beginning to feel pretty wild-eyed and desperate about the endless rain.

**Behaviorally, not medically, I mean. Medically, we're good, though the eye doctor and the dentist both opined that it looks like she's going the same direction as her sister, so we will be buying braces and glasses for BOTH girls.

The news

I can't remember if Dutch was this awful when she was two. Skipper is just... awful. Scenes of inconsolable misery unfold every day, often following this template: "Me want dis! Me not want dis! Me DO! No! Me not want dis! Me WANT DIS!!!" and tears. She wants to do everything herself, but she can't, of course, because she's still very new and mostly incompetent, and then she gets furious. She constantly whines for the parent other than the one tending her at the moment. She hates it when we fail to read her mind. She tries to boss everyone around, and flies into a rage if we don't do as she commands. She's like Donald Trump in striped pants. She's AWFUL. She's also awfully adorable, which has got to be an evolutionary trick to prevent us from murdering her, because she gets pretty close to it anyway.

Apparently I've been saying "Skipper! Jesus God Almighty!" pretty frequently, because Dutch has now picked it up. Also the parental classic "Skipper! I have HAD ENOUGH!!!!"*

Anyway, I've had enough. If you'd like to take care of an incredibly two-ish two-year-old for a few weeks, let me know. We have a lot of boxes around here.

In other news, it's raining (still! again!!!) and Cook had gum graft surgery today.** He's limited to squishy foods for a few days, and his mouth hurts, but the surgery outcome that's bothering him most is that he has a bandaid stuck to the roof of his mouth, and it's driving him crazy. Just thinking of having a bandaid stuck to the roof of my mouth makes me feel uncomfortable, so I'm sympathetic. Also, he's not allowed to get his heart-rate up for a few days. No listening to the news!

*Has this ever in the history of parenting actually been effective in making the child stop being horrible? I mean, without walloping the kid while yelling at them.

**Bless you, health benefits. Bless you!!!

Seeking... bright... side..

I just went to a meeting at Dutch's school about the process for the 2011-2012 budget, and it was SO FREAKING DEPRESSING. Holy cow. The best possible scenario* involves cutting 1 to 2.5 FTE and the worst is more like 3 to 7 FTE. It's just brutal.

I think the reason I feel so bad about it isn't just that my kid is getting a not-so-great education,** it's that it's all of a piece with my feelings about the way the whole country is going. I absolutely hate that GE pays (pretty much) no taxes and kids in public school get no PE, no art, no music, crappy food, etc. Don't even get me started on Paul Ryan.

Anyway, it was terrible. I felt like crying. Dutch, however, got to watch a movie and eat pizza in a classroom while I was being tortured in the gym, and she had a great time. When we left, I told her that her school didn't have enough money, and she said excitedly "Well, we could give them some! We could give them, like, a HUNDRED dollars!"

*In which a bond and a levy both pass in mid-May. Because communities around the nation are really, really pro-government and pro-tax these days...

** Because my privileged kids are not going to be the ones who are most affected by this.

More new dresses!

Spies.

Dutch is reading over my shoulder as I type this. Things are getting dangerous around here - we can't leave books/magazines/notes/etc. lying around unless we want to explain them to a 6-year-old. Leaving aside stuff that's risque in any way (oh, Susan Elizabeth Phillips - to the high shelves you must go!), there's plenty of printed matter out there that I just don't want to be interrogated about.

Right, Dutch?

Like... war. Or... natural disasters. Or... the role of women in Hollywood. Or... death. Or... birth. Or... marriage. Or... well, really anything that requires more than a few sentences of discussion. Which kind of means everything interesting. Damnit, we need a professional tutor on hand.

Right, Dutch? It's time for you to go to bed now. GO TO BED!!!

Metaphor, and some helpful feedback on my BMI

Today I had to move some of the wild strawberry plants I put in a few weeks ago, because the soil was too clay-y where I'd put them, and they were sitting in a puddle way too much of the time. I lifted the poor things and looked at their sad, soggy roots, and I couldn't help but feel that I am also suffering from wet roots.

Damnit, BRING ME THE SUNSHINE!! I suspect that it's going to rain until July, and then it's going to be 95 degrees hot for two months, and then it'll start raining again. Bah!

Otherwise, no news. Except that Skipper asked to nap on my chest today and I told her she couldn't, because she's getting so big and she'd squish me. She said "Mama already squishy!"

So... maybe I shouldn't have eaten so many jelly beans.

Flowers

The weather has finally cheered up a bit. Just a bit. Friday was absolutely gorgeous, but we spent much of the day going to, attending, and returning from Skipper's 10-minute dental appointment. (She screamed. Nobody was surprised. Afterward, she staggered out into the waiting room and said in a surprised way "Me okay!") Some gardening happened, though,

and lots of basking in the sunshine. Today it wasn't so beautiful, but it didn't rain at all. We'll take it. We also received our second Easter package full of clothes and fun stuff. We found out that Skipper really, really, really likes jelly beans.

Dutch has spent much of the weekend hanging out next-door, where they've been having a yard sale. She adores Mrs. Neighbor, who is endlessly patient and kind with her, and she loves the rabbits who live there, too.

We went to the playground as a grand finale to the day. Skipper rode her pedal-less tricycle thingy, and Dutch rode her bike. Because, you know, she can ride a bike.

Happy Spring!

New Glasses!

Hey! Did you notice Dutch's new glasses? Her prescription changed (for the better! Yay!) and so she got to get a new look!

Another list

This is what we've planted:

alyssum (as pictured above - Dutch is in charge of them)

strawberry plants (wild and domesticated)

chives

arugula

mustard

kale (plants and seeds)

chard

lettuce

peas

vetch

carrots

calendula

parsley

blueberry plants

salmonberry plant

We've also planted some stuff inside - bell peppers, lupines, sage, and hollyhocks. We're awaiting delivery of four more plants - evergreen huckleberry, kinnikinnick, thimbleberry and another blueberry plant that we don't really have space for but that I couldn't resist buying.

Cook and I have clipped heaps of deadwood out of the inside of our front-yard shrubs. We've weeded. We've dug in a cubic yard of purchased compost, regular deliveries of rabbit poop from next door, and coffee grounds from the coffee shop across the street. We've limed. We've picked and murdered many, many slugs. We've mulched. We've buried half our lawn under cardboard, mulch, and new garden beds. Dutch has mowed the remaining lawn with our new reel mower. Today Dutch and I made slug traps using yogurt containers and very cheap beer. We haven't watered much, but that's because there's been plenty of naturally-occurring watering. I'm beginning to worry, though - the seeds we planted in one corner of the garden had a really low germination rate. I hope my dreams of greens all summer long will come true!

Spring is springing

The sun came out! Dutch has been scootering her school commute.

A bitter battle over bubbles:

And this is my all-time favorite picture of Skipper.*

*I also love that the concrete, the laundry, the ragged lawn, the random bits of metal, the too-big shirt, the crusty face, etc., all make it look like a photo from an article about something sad and poverty-related, like the toll meth takes on American families. I swear we feed and clothe her. We DO. And the WHOLE yard doesn't look like that. It DOESN'T!

Houseguests

Have you had house guests who stayed three weeks? IF you did, I bet they didn't do this:

1. Organize the basement and garage
2. Overhaul two large built-in cabinets (including scraping off old wallpaper, puttying/spackling/whatever all the holes and cracks, priming, painting, cleaning hardware, etc.)
3. Remove an old TV antenna from the roof
4. Build and install a new chimney cap
5. Install a motion sensor light on the garage
6. Remove and close up the mail slot and install a new mailbox
7. Weatherstrip the back door
8. Replace a showerhead
9. Replace a bathroom fan
10. Install a towel rack
11. Install new baseboards in the kitchen (and scrap and sand off the residue from the old brown vinyl baseboard)
12. Replace the thermostat
13. Clean or replace all the switchplates
14. Correct the basement bathroom venting (this involved cutting a hole in the side of the house)
15. Seal the bottoms of two overhanging parts of the house (this involved removing the existing "sealing" of multiple empty large plastic bags that formerly held steer manure)
16. Make 5 thousand trips to various hardware stores to find all the materials to do the above (and one trip into a dumpster to retrieve some nice plywood)
17. Umpteen other pesky things you wouldn't have gotten around to for at least five years, if ever.

We had houseguests. That's what they did. Also, they did some pinch-hitting baby-sitting, played with the kids, did lots of dishes, and were generally helpful and pleasant to have around. We miss them.