Soccer Boy

He is ALL about the soccer...

I picked out his clothes and called him out to take pictures... He misunderstood - he thought I said, "get dressed and come play soccer". Easy mistake.

I remember when he would pose and smile and let me take pictures of him...

Now he is all about the action shot.

And the high kicks, "watch me do a high kick mom!"

He gets fancy too...

And if I request a "normal picture" from him - this is what I get...



Bribery does work though... these only cost me ten pennies.

A post from Winny...

First we move to a new home.

It's only a day or two until SHE shows up...



(And have I told you how needy she is? It's ALL about her.)

And if it isn't about her, then it is about this little princess...



Sure, you might think she looks innocent enough sitting there...



Maybe even cute. Ok, we will call her cute. I am annoyed by her cuteness.



Cute no longer. Not when this starts to happen.

Oh well. I could walk away. I suppose I will.

And we won't even talk about this. Ever again.

Son of the Safety Man

I can be a touch neurotic when it comes to worrying about wacky things my kids could do that could hurt themselves. I retain all those stories about wacky things other kids have done and how they could go terribly wrong.

The physician I used to work for had awhile there where his four year old was sleep walking. Sleep walking down the stairs and straight out the front door and down the street. Imagine answering the phone in the middle of the night from your neighbor saying they found your daughter about four houses down in the middle of the street.

Yeah, I can't either.

This is why I have child locks on my front door.

A coworker of mine heard a crash one afternoon while she was at home with her kids. Went into her five year olds bedroom and his dresser was toppled. He had decided to stand on one of the drawers and it wasn't attached to the wall. She said it just made her sick as she showed me the aftermath of the heavy, heavy dresser on the floor. Kids have been seriously injured in accidents like these.

I warned Leif the other day that his dresser wasn't attached to the wall like it was in the old house yet, so I wanted him to be very careful and not pull hard on it because it could tip over.

The result of this statement is one freaked out child.

Leif will not get clothes out of his dresser at all out of fear of the dresser toppling over on top of him. Poor kid gets terribly freaked out when the dresser even wobbles a little when *I* am getting his clothes out.

"Mommy," he has told me for the last three mornings, "we need to get the safety strap on this so it doesn't tip over on me!"

AB is working on it. (Lowes did NOT carry them in the childproofing aisle he discovered this evening.)

My daughter the yeller

Skadi has never been quiet.

Since the day after she popped out of my stomach she made her needs, wants, desires and whims known.

Nothing has changed in 2 years.

I guess I never really envisioned my little girl to be a yeller, but she is.

Tonight in the kitchen we hear the garage door go up.

"I think daddy's here," I say.

When suddenly Skadi screams at the top of her little lungs, "DADDY!!!"

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The other night I asked Hans for milk for Skadi.

She then yells, "DADDY MILK NOW!"

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We were in church on Palm Sunday. Skadi decided she no longer cared to sit in the pew, so we headed to the "cry room" where we could still see Daddy and Leif and our friends and their daughter.

Skadi realized this.

"DADDY! Hey DADDY! I here! See me! WEIF!! Hi WEIF!!"

Thank goodness it is sound proof.

What ever happened to...

Miss Pink Post-Doc?

Glad you asked.

Way back when, on my then favorite project a young post-doc was brought onto the project. She was a recent Ph.D. grad, newlywed, optimistic as hell, go getter chemist extraordinaire and newly employed by our project.

And she drove me insane. She wore pink every.single.day, she had a pink phone that she would prop up so that she could see her dog’s picture during teleconferences. And she carried a big pink water bottle. She was naïve, laughed way too loudly, wore too tight of clothes, and was just plain annoying.

This was a few years ago.

She came onto that project at its height. We were busy and happy and well funded.

As all successful projects do, they end. Miss Pink Post-Doc was unable to obtain funding to continue her post-doc at the lab and then she found a job at an external lab. A year after she brought her pinkness into our project, she was gone. I thought I would never see her again and surprisingly enough, I was a touch bummed by this.

She kind of grew on me. She was incredibly smart and made me feel like a slacker chemist around her. She never failed to ask about my kids and she nearly always had a smile on her face (though the gafaws still occasionally made me cringe).

A few months ago one of the guys on that project, now a manager, hired her into his group to help a couple of guys working on my big project. They needed help and it was an opportunity to bring Mrs Pink back. So thanks to the concept of matrix management... Mrs Pink now works for me.

She still laughs too loud for my tastes (yes, I tend to be quiet), she still wears her clothes a touch too tight (but apparently she likes them that way because they are new clothes), but I like her. I really do like her.

She is sharp. She is punctual. When I ask her for data she gets it, or she walks to my office and tells me why she doesn’t have it. We talk about marriage and kids, her desire to have a baby, where to get the best coffee and we trade “so I heard…” statements.

She sits beside me in our monthly meetings. I know where she started from, I can see her ambition and potential. I don’t expect I will ever be best friends with Mrs. Pink. But I like her and appreciate her free spirited nature.

So do I have much to write about Mrs. Pink? Not really.

She’s cool.

Weekend Wrap Up

We spent this past weekend working really hard to convince our children they are not, in fact, neglected. We were very much paying attention to them… out of the corners of our eyes while painting and painting and painting some more at the old house.

On Sunday we resorted to calling in the hired guns, the former neighbor girl, to entertain the neglected children while AB and I tackled the tremendous paint job.

The front two rooms of our old house are actually much like the front two rooms in our current house. Formal dining room on one side and office on the other.

I am not a big fan of formal dining rooms. I would much rather have a single large dining room off the kitchen. I truly don’t need a room that will be used only once in a blue moon when guests are over or for holidays. But so far, both of our houses have had the formal dining rooms. I think it is a room I will enjoy having someday when we can afford to buy a nice table to put in there.

But until then… it remains the room where the extra boxes get stacked.

And the fragile breakables are stored in my hutch that I really love. Someday I will put a big table that can easily seat 8 people. Someday.

But before that day comes we have to sell our old house. Which means painting the two rooms in the house that were never painted and still sport the old crappy construction paint and are scarred with nail holes from what seems like 430 pictures, 218 shelves and one wall mounted light. The walls were in serious bad shape.

So I picked out two colors. AB picked out two colors. Then we met somewhere in the middle at a color that seemed to be tan in the chip, but has later been determined to be pinky-tan. AB and I keep reminding each other that *we* don’t have to live in it.

It actually doesn’t look so bad completely painted. But I won’t be putting Behr’s “Comforting” in my house.

The wall scars are covered and right now that's what counts.

The front rooms don’t *pop* like I wanted them to. Or like I envisioned with a trendy light brown. They kind of just look a different shade from the prior color. But no one should walk in and look at the walls and say, “you are kidding me?”

Instead I hope they walk in and look to the left and right and say, “nice and serene”. (Before they hit my orange kitchen.)

We need to paint the main hallway in the house for the same reasons, paint job just beat to pieces.

This evening while I went and got my hair cut AB took the kids and the dogs to the old house and worked on yardwork (pruning). And I am going to take a halfday this week at some point and do some touch up painting in most of the other rooms. We are getting close to being ready to list the house for sale.

I finally broke down last week and told Leif that IF we sell the old house than we can “probably” get a Wii. This has morphed into the daily inevitable question from him, “can we sell the house today and get a Wii?”

Amazing how the two seem to rank equivalently with him. House can be traded for a gaming console.

AB and I are getting a little weary of our every weekend being either packing or unpacking or painting. It will be well worth it in the near future, we do know this. We just look forward to the day when we are moved in, our house is sold and facing a weekend with nothing on our schedule. Days we can wake up and say, “what do you want to do today?” And the other person says, “I don’t know, what do you want to do today?”

Our daily routine will be dictated by “want” and not “need”.

Skadi pretty hair

Skadi bumped her chin on something this morning and cried and cried. I finally got her to stop by suggesting we pick out some bows for her hair. She selected three.

It took some thinking early in the morning, but I figured out how to get all three in.

Then Leif heard the camera and had to drop everything (his shoe) to get into the picture...

A very confusing topic - Holidays

The period between January to Easter is a very difficult time for Leif. We go from having some fun holiday every month or so, to nothing.

There's Valentine's Day in there. But to a little boy, Valentine's Day isn't overly interesting. There's mommy's birthday and daddy's birthday and even Skadi's birthday. But once again, no big fun holiday until Easter. But even then, Easter doesn't hold a candle to Halloween for Leif.

He loves Halloween. Every Tuesday is "movie day" at school and the kids can each bring in a movie to be voted on by the class to watch.

Every Tuesday for the last few months Leif has hauled in "Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie".

The class has watched it zero times. Still Leif is determined and not deterred in his goal to make Halloween a year round event. He has decided this year that not only will he have a birthday party, but somewhere he got wind of a costume party and has decided that everyone should wear a costume to his birthday party.

I refuse to do this to the other parents. Yeah, not only do you need to go out and buy a present, make time in your weekend for a birthday party and get your child there, hang out and then leave with a child hyped up on sugar? But yeah, also, put them in a costume.

Umm no.

I thought about letting Leif wear a costume. Or saying "costumes optional", but that puts pressure on the parents too. I think we will go with just no costumes.

Not a day goes by that Halloween isn't mentioned. Including the drive home last night.

Leif: "How many days till Halloween now?"

NM: "Oh about 7 months to the day."

Leif: "How about 7 days instead."

NM: "Nope, months. About 210 days." (I thought about reminding him that his birthday comes first, but then we would have gotten back onto the subject of costume birthday parties - a notion I am trying to squash.)

Leif: "Hmm."

NM: "But Easter is in 12 days!"

Leif: "How about 2 days."

NM: "Nope, 12 days."

Leif: "How about 10 days?" (He is learning the fine art of negotiation thanks to dinner time.)

NM: "Everyone celebrates Easter on the same day." (Yes, I know Eastern religions are a week later, but I wasn't going there.)

Leif: "Who says?"

NM: "God says."

(Silence from the back seat.)

Leif: "So the bunny belongs to God! I finally figured it out!"

Skadi Stats

Skadi had her “well baby” appointment last week. Or she was supposed to be a well baby… she wasn’t really… she was sick with a cold/cough/fever baby. But she didn’t need shots, so that was great. The whole appointment was funny.

We arrived and Skadi bee lined for the toy area. Kinda old, icky, crud laden toys. But since they aren’t hers, they are ultra-fascinating. Whenever a nurse would come to take someone back Skadi would get up and walk to the door obediently. I would return her to the toy area. Then our nurse came to get us – who she knows – and she sat there playing and didn’t want to come back.

Fickle child.

They put us in the “procedure room” since one of the other rooms was having a light replaced.

Yep, that’s where you put a toddler, in a room with LOTS of exciting things sitting around.

Anyways…

The nurse got her stats and leaves. Skadi gets down from the table and says, “okay, all done now!” And she walks to the door.

Umm no. The doctor hasn’t come yet, that was the nurse. Then we did the wrestle the toddler in a so-not-babyproof room for 15 minutes. Not actually a bad wait.

Anyways…

Her doctor comes in and we talk. We talk new houses. We talk about our boys (she has three, I have one) and compare notes. Then we get to the girl at hand.

I answer all the questions, “yes she seems to be healthy”, “yes still in daycare”, “yes, she is pointing to items and saying what they are”.

“Skadi what is this?” Kristin asks her pointing to the chair next to me.

“I want to sit in the green chair!” she exclaims plain as day.

Kristin’s jaw dropped open. “She is VERY verbally advanced,” she tells me.

I think with the second child you (or at least I) quit looking at the metrics. I have forgotten for the most part when Leif hit little milestones, big ones I remember or I wrote about. But I am thinking, “really? She can talk well, yes, but that advanced?”

Kristin decided to push it a little, “Skadi what do you like to do?”

“I swim in the water with daddy,” she says.

“Ok then!” Kristin exclaims, “that was a 7 word sentence!” She goes on to tell us that with second children you often see extremes in language development. They are either more verbal because they listen to their older siblings and learn from them. Or they are less verbal because they don’t get a word in and the older child speaks for them.

Anyways…

It was a good appointment. Skadi was happy as she got a sticker and lollipop (yellow). She is taking after Leif in that her favorite color is yellow. The Peeps this year? All yellow. (I did buy orange and green for their baskets – maybe that means *I* will get to eat some!)

Oh and stats…

Weight – 27 lbs (she is finally up a few pounds instead of losing!) and 57th percentile

Height – 35” and 81st percentile.

And if the old wives tale is true… Skadi will grow to be 5’10”. I was a tall child too though – and height didn’t pan out for me.

Being PC

I had a funny thing happen at work today.

My team has been very busy. We have a demanding client who we love. In one year we have seen our $500K project with 5 people working on it balloon to a scope of between $6 to $10M and a team of about 20 people. It is a great team for the most part and they are busy working their butts off keeping our client happy.

I like keeping a foot on the technical side even though my main role is in management. So today I e-mailed one of the task leads and asked him if he wanted me to tackle a document that needed to be written up?

My phone rang about three minutes later and I picked it up.

"I love you," he says.

Then he stammers and says, "I can't believe I just said that, oh my goodness!" He goes on to tell me about another project he has and how busy he is (which I knew) and stammers through the 15 minute discussion while we agree that yes, I will tackle the document.

I didn't think much else about the conversation.

Then my phone range about 3 minutes before I was walking out the door and he admits that he has been preoccupied and upset with himself for what he said earlier and wanted to know if I was totally freaked out?

I told him that I took his statement as I thought he had intended it, i.e., a huge relief that I was going to take something off his plate that needed to be completed. And truth be told I didn't think anything otherwise until he started correcting himself. And even then - I knew what he had really meant, I didn't suddenly start thinking "J loves me!"

That 5 second comment from a stressed out person in a work place had him so worried about being fired that he had to clear the air. Which was fine. But for a second there I wondered what we are coming to - or what we have become that we have to worry so much about context.

And then I remember back to another project I worked on. Sigh. The one where the guys would walk in the lab and announce to me, "hey honey, I am home". And how tired I got of being "the woman of the group" and when it started dawning on me that as a post-doc my role should have never been "procurements".

So maybe the rules there are for a reason. Even though my former group toed that line far more than my task lead did today through purposeful comments.

Shades of grey.

Skadi-isms

Skadi got up this morning and the very first thing out of her mouth was, “I want hot cocoa and go swimming!”

--

Apparently one of us says “just a minute please” fairly often because Skadi has taken to replying “minutes pees” whenever she feels rushed.

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“I DID IT!” is Skadi’s exclamation. I think she gets this from Dora. She is very much into her independence, we routinely hear from her, “my do it” when she doesn’t want any help.

And when she says that you may as well get up and walk off and leave her, because it may drive you insane not to offer an eensy bit of help to her, which will just result in a complete body flailing meltdown. After a little while she will give in and come request help.

Occasionally though she surprises us and manages to get herself dressed or do complicated tasks that we think no 2 year old should be able to do.

Then she exclaimes, “I did it!”

And then she does the “I-did-it-dance” whereby she wiggles her body around, bobs her head up and down and rotates her right arm in a circle (as though she was stirring a bowl).

And it is quite addictive. AB and I both find ourselves declaring “I did it!” and you may even get a glimpse of the dance out of one of us.

(Must stop providing source of entertainment for coworkers.)

Not so mysteriously absent

And the packing continues, and continues…

Actually this weekend I got a lot of packing done, not much else, but a lot of packing. I am actually finding the packing to be somewhat cathartic. I like the process of cleaning everything out, of sorting and purging. AB has even gotten in trouble a few times for packing things that I wanted to tackle.

But okay, that phase is nearly behind me. Now I am to the just dump it all in a box stage and my mother in law is working hard on that aspect for me today.

Nearly nothing about this process is going smoothly. Once we surmount one hurdle we have another thing pop up. Last week we finished off the inspection documents and the whole water damage thing only to have an appraisal pop up. After being told for weeks that we didn’t need one, the underwriter changed their minds at the last minute. Seriously last minute. Like as in send my husband reeling over the edge last minute. Like last minute in may not be able to close on time, last minute.

All the ranting at least resulted in one thing good, we at least don’t have to pay for the appraisal now.

Our biggest issue that no one seems to get is that we don’t want to move on the weekend. Yes, we have wonderful friends who we can shuttle our kids around to. But we value our time with our kids and want to be in the house getting them settled in, not moving.

We will see what happens.

In other news, I am driving to Oregon to pick up “Skeeter” on Sunday. Her new name is tentatively going to be Freya, named by AB. We keep repeatedly nixing “Obi Wan Kenobi” as her new name. (That one really isn’t bad though compared to the prior options.)

Thank you Leif.

One day at a time. Today I have successfully made it through work obligations. We will see what tomorrow holds.

Adoption proceedings

We have been so busy lately with readying ourselves for our new house that my blogs have been few and far between. I hit on a number of things to blog about nearly every day, it just seems to be a matter of having the time to sit down and write about it. Our house is a mess of boxes and whatever time I have in front of the computer is quickly translated into a need to get up and put things in boxes out of fear that the day is going to arrive that the movers will be here and we will not be prepared.

In the midst of all of that some of you know (those of you on Facebook mainly)… and some of you don’t know… that we will be adding to our family.

And this will be happening potentially this weekend.

We have one last hurdle to clear in our adoption process… a home study.

I can't help but compare this process to our friends’ adoption process of their daughter from India and am happy it is moving quickly. But at the same time I am amazed how long our process is taking given that our addition to the family runs on four legs and not two.

Looks like Winny, huh? But it's not.

Meet "Skeeter".

My mom told me about picking her cat out at the pound and the works of art who came in to adopt at the pound and how no one is checked thoroughly – like a couple who brought in a dog to surrender it and left with another dog they “just couldn’t resist”. Umm hello. You dropped a dog off. This isn’t Blockbuster movie rentals.

I can understand why the process to adopt a child is ridiculously long as far as dealing with lawyers and sometimes other countries and all the hoops and hurdles. We are talking about a person here. But when it comes to a dog? Really, how much worse can adoptive wannabe doggy parents be comparatively? (Hoping that doesn't make me sound insensitive to dogs.)

About a year ago we filed application with the BSCA (Belgian Sheepdog Club of America) for a Rescue dog. We filled out the paperwork and then did an hour long phone interview with a volunteer from BSCA. She also talked to our vet and Vargasgirl confirming that we were up and up people. Not the type to take a dog and abandon or abuse it.

I don’t think I ever really thought anything would come of our application. We were told Rescue Belgians are few and far between because as a purebred, they are a sought after breed. They are not a common breed and people who seek out Belgians as pets most often have experience with the breed and not to mention the copious amount of money a purebred Belgian puppy costs. You know those wasteful spending reports? The ones that cite your city spending ridiculous amounts on a police dog? They aren’t that far off base given that many are Belgians.

This one is Winny. We bought her for $50 out of a box of puppies at 10 weeks old. She isn't purebred - she is 75% Groenendahl and 25% Siberian Husky - or at least that's what we were told. Her Belgian stands out big time, even people who know Belgian's don't usually pick up on her bit of Husky until told and then you can see it in her face, she doesn't have nearly such fine features of a Belgian.


We were told there are more people who want a Rescue Belgian than there ever will be dogs. Plus the fact that we requested strict screening of any potential dogs – they have to be friendly with children, other dogs and a big nearly 20 lb cat. Rescue dogs often have issues and so the likelihood of all this coming together might require an act of a higher power.

So I guess when I saw Skeeter from just outside Boise, Idaho on the BSCA webpage last week I thought she was a long shot. There for about a millisecond I told myself we have so much on our plate right now, how could we adopt another dog too? Then the whole act of a higher power thing kicked in and I knew I had to at least try.

I e-mailed hoping to get our name in the queue and was told our application must have been lost, she couldn’t find it (which was why we hadn’t received a phone call). At this point I admitted my husband what I had done and waited to have him roll his eyes at me. But he agreed that it seemed right and if we don’t jump on this now, we may not get another opportunity. It wasn’t long before they found our application and we had phone interview number two.

That was almost as long as phone interview number one.

This Saturday after swimming the coordinator for the Pacific Northwest phoned and chatted with AB. Her concern, that was not really addressed in our phone interviews, was about our dog Winny. How will Winny handle a new dog?

AB tried not to laugh, remembering that none of them has met our big soft hearted lump of a dog. They don’t see how invigorated and happy she is to meet other dogs on our walks. They don’t see that at nearly age 10, a companion would do her a world of good and may reinvigorate (we hope) our old girl. AB talked about how well Winny will do with a companion and agreed that yes, certainly she could surprise us and reject another being moving in on her turf, but it is unlikely and something we would have to deal with regarding any dog, like one of these furrballs that was born about 4 weeks ago instead - whose webpage kept beckoning me.

This one looks JUST like Winny did as a puppy.

I guess he satisfied the coordinator since our next phone call was to the foster mom in Boise.


This call I made. She told me about "Skeeter", she is crate trained, but not housetrained. (Ugh.) Was probably a malnourished backyard dog and really just needs some love. She strives to please and to interact with people – to the point of chewing through her tie to go be near people a few weeks ago. She is very intelligent, learned to sit and heel within about 30 minutes. She told us they had rejected one adoption request to ship her to the east coast and another adoption request from 100 miles away because the woman didn’t have a fence. She also then asked if we could take her this weekend?

I wasn’t quite ready for that since I was hoping to be in the new house before taking her, but since that package was presented to us and includes transporting the dog here to minimize our travel, we will take it. Dogs are resilient, I am sure moving into a new home and then into another new home in less than a week will be the least of what "Skeeter" has been through in her 15 months.

We had our home study this evening where Winny was tested at the new house with another young dog. She passed with flying colors and the home study volunteer said a few times he wasn't quite sure what he was doing there, the house was great, yard was great and Winny obviously loved companionship. Now Winny will have a sibling… or a daughter… or best friend... hopefully not nemesis.

The last bit to figure out (aside from what color of collar to buy her) is her name. One of my coworkers (who does dog rescue) insists that we change her name from "Skeeter" saying she will learn quickly her new name and the poor dog should not be known for the rest of her life as an annoying bug. I kind of agree, it would also symbolize a new start for her. “Skeeter” isn’t a name I would have picked out, but is better than some Leif has come up with so far. (Ba-doopa, Parumba and this morning found Leif very obsessed with genitalia in coming up with names… lovely.) AB and I discussed Freya this evening as an option (sticking with the Nordic theme).



Any name ideas that do not involve references to genitalia (aka four year old potty humor) would be most appreciated!

4.5 going on 14

NM: "Look Leif, your new shoes are here!"

Leif: "Cool! Open them!"

We open them up.

Leif: "Are they Skechers?"

NM: "No, they are Keens."

Leif: "But I wanted Skechers."

NM: "Well Keens are better then Skechers."

Leif: "No, they aren't. Bridger has Skechers and they are black and orange and I want shoes like his."

NM: "Well I am sorry. I thought you would like these."

Later...

AB: "I hear you got new shoes?"

Leif: "Yep, but they aren't Skechers."

AB: "Well maybe when you wear out these shoes you can get some Skechers."

Leif: "I am going to go find some on the computer and find some Skechers."

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NM: "Leif what are you doing?"

Leif: "Reeelaaax mom."

AB: (stifling laughter.)

Beefing Up

I don’t think we had really paid attention to the fact that beef has been dwindling in our diets until last night. I cook a lot of fish and chicken during the weeknight. However, beef, aside from one or two standby dishes each month (mainly tacos), is mysteriously absent.

Part of it is the fact that I do most of the weeknight cooking and aside from browning up ground beef on occasion I don’t tend to buy or cook beef often. It isn’t that I don’t like beef – I actually love beef, far more than chicken, which given complete power over my family would probably also become a rarity on our plates. But AB likes chicken breasts and the kids will eat chicken. So I cook chicken.

My husband tends to be a touch obsessive about how meat is cooked. By meat, I mean beef in general, large cuts of pork, chicken breasts (only ever grilled) and fish (though I can get away with searing tuna and halibut inside on my grill pan lately). Not only should most meat be cooked over hot charcoal according to AB, but it should also be of a certain quality and have a yet indescribable appearance to it - an appearance that I will likely never understand. I have only a touch more success picking out beef at the grocery store then I do fish.

Anyways, getting a meal on the table that came from a charcoal BBQ takes time – and my kids don’t like to wait for dinner on weeknights. I don’t like them to wait for dinner either because then I find myself being forced to say “No” repeatedly. “No you may not have fruit snacks”, “No you may not have cookies”, “No you may not fix soup or eggs”. Etc.

Last night I was making a quick jambalaya (Zatarains) for AB and I. My kids are wusses and cry when they eat anything hot. So tonight was a night when they got to pick their dinner. I asked Leif what he wanted.

“I want rice, corn, two crackers and a steak,” he declared.

I nearly stopped in my tracks. So just to confirm, I asked him:

“You want steak?” I asked.

See Leif is not a protein kid at all. He has never cared for meat and in the past couple years we have resorted to holding his dessert (i.e., his before bed snack intended to get food in his tummy so he doesn’t wake up at 2am hungry) hostage until he has eaten his meat. It is a battle every single night.

“Yes, I need steak,” he declared.

I picked up the cell phone knowing AB was on his way to Albertsons to get Andouille sausage.

“Hey, would you also pick up a small steak we can panfry for Leif, he says he wants steak,” I relay to AB.

“NOT a SMALL steak,” a voice came from the back seat of the car, “a BIG steak, I need a BIG steak.”

“Ok,” I tell AB, “you heard him, he wants a big steak.”

My kid was asking for a food he normally won’t eat well, I was going to indulge him.

AB also apparently decided that HE was going to indulge Leif as well. He brought home a 0.8 lb Ribeye. A big steak. And not only that, but a good steak. I tell you, AB has standards.

We then spent the next 20 minutes debating on how to cook the steak for Leif – seasonings and method, because we weren’t starting charcoal for the BBQ’er.

In the end it was seasoned with Alder smoked salt and pepper and then pan fried in my grill pan (which AB balked big time when I bought it from IKEA, but we actually use pretty regularly) with a little olive oil for about 1 minute on each side and finished in the oven for a nice medium rare finish.

And it was tasty! I almost wished I was eating steak instead of jambalaya.

Ok, I did wish I was eating steak instead of jambalaya.

Leif chowed his slices eating probably about a third of the steak. Another third AB and I nibbled at and we tossed the last part into the fridge. We talked briefly last night wondering if Leif was craving steak because he needed it, was he maybe anemic? We have fought anemia with Skadi for the last year. Maybe we just need to eat more red meat?

This morning when we got up I asked Leif what he wanted for breakfast today.

“Steak, eggs and a banana,” he answered.

So he had steak, eggs and a banana.

Star Wars decor

Things are actually moving forward with our house right now. The former owner was apparently on vacation and since getting back from 2 weeks basking in warmth out of reach of technology has jumped on providing us with all sorts of information on the water damage of the house.

This has renewed my enthusiasm and optimism that we ARE going to be moving and I have gone back to thinking about decorating.

We promised Leif a room decorated how he wanted since he feels that his Safari themed room is a touch baby-like. I beg to differ, but I also have no problem enticing him into his new room and creating excitement for the new house with a brand new room themed and decorated how he wants.

See how I have matured - I actually kind of like themes! I am really showing my age when I admit that I am considering wallpaper in this house too.

Back to Leif... his choice is Star Wars The Clone Wars. (And I am eternally thankful he didn't pick Transformers or Spiderman.)

About the only thing Leif seems concerned with is that General Greivous is painted on the wall.

We have asked him to pick out a color, from the many, many paint chips I have accumulated. This garners frustration and a declaration from him, "I just want General Grievous colors!"

Of course what you could take from this is that he wants the same colors as General Grievous - and then take to matching up chips to Grievous. But if you took it this way, you would be wrong. He JUST wants General Grievous painted on the wall.

Umm no.

I did paint an elephant on his wall in his current bedroom and yes, I did actually major in art for a little while. But no. I am NOT painting General Grievous on his bedroom wall.

In some effort at meeting at a halfway point AB and I have found cardboard stand up posters of the characters for his room for not terribly expensive. At least not the prices of the vinyl wall clings.

So AB and I have finally reached a compromise on wall color - he wanted bright blue and I wanted grey. He declared grey not a "kid's color" while I said, "blue? Like on all the walls?" We have found a blue that I can live with nd matched it up with a paint chip and AB finally has agreed to let me do one wall grey - pointing out the fact that Leif will also have the blue dresser and there is a very real thing known as too much blue...

Those of you out there who whine that your husband's don't have an opinion on anything? The other side of the fence isn't so rosy either. Try decorating with a husband who fancies himself a decorator! (Those of you guys who know AB didn't know this, did you? Tease him, maybe I will get the decorating in my domain.)

So we have the wall color, we next addressed these cardboard cutouts... Which ones?

My vote is of course for Ahsoka - she rocks. And Yoda. Because you just HAVE to have Yoda. And while I love Commander Rex, he is toting a gun and since I am on the no play guns band wagon (slowly being pulled off by my son), I would rather stick with the light sabers.

Of course AB is the rational one and suggests we ask Leif.

"I want Obi Wan Kenobi," he says upon finding out there is no General Grievous.

"Amazon doesn't carry Obi Wan," I told him.

We left it at that and later I decided to search for other characters outside of my "go to seller" Amazon with my Prime shipping.

Sure enough I did find Obi Wan...

AND

I made the executive choice to stick with the cartoon cutouts and not the photograph because I am sure that either Leif (or more likely me) would turn around and nearly pee my pants routinely seeing someone real behind me.

The real reason though? The Obi Wan photograph one would maybe have to go in our bedroom...

I kind of have a thing for Ewan.

Ok, so our Star Wars bedroom is well on its way to being planned out. I have the duvet cover I ordered from the UK because it is so much better than the ones you can get domestically. I have Clone Wars sheets - cheap rough things, but Leif will love them. And I have ordered the duvet insert (from Amazon).

Decorating kids rooms? SO very much fun!

(Skadi is much more adept to picking out pretty colors on the paint chips -- she gravitates to yellow and bright red.)

**For pictures of the completed room - alas without General Grievous since nobody carries the cardboard cut out of him much to my son's disappointment, check it out here.

Silver Mountain

Skadi riding the gondola. She loved the "airplane" and asked to go on it repeatedly.

AB and Leif skiing.

Skadi "helping" Leif ski.

AB is still smiling.

Wow... off the "moving carpet" all by himself! (Oh and btw... love the moving carpet!)

Hugs from Exi, consoling Skadi after discovering there are no bunnies on the "bunny slope".

Hangin' out by the black diamond runs.

Skadi lives up to her namesake - "Norse goddess of skiing and snow sports." She kept exclaiming, "Skadi ski now".

The water park was fun too.

The creature from the deep... (Leif likes to put on his snorkel and mask and float the lazy river - and he is freakishly good at it.)

Yes, my camera IS waterproof.

Leif and J

Skadi floating the lazy river. She ditched the tube shortly after and decided it was best to just float in the life jacket - and yell at mommy everytime I touched her. "SELF!" (Meaning, "I do it myself." This is all I hear out of her lately.)

"This is so much fun!"

"This is so neat!"

Going down the baby slide together.

Skadi and Exi at the water park.

It's raining, it's pouring

The rain was really coming down this evening when I went to get the kids. Seriously pouring.

NM: "Hey Leif, why does it rain?"

Leif: "Because it's cold."

(Ok, he didn't say "because it does" - moving in the right direction...)

NM: "Do you know where the rain comes from?"

Leif: "I do mommy! It comes from the rain forests. They are forests of trees full of rain and when you chop a tree with your ax, it rains. Lots of people are chopping trees with axes right now."

NM: "Where are these rain forests?"

Leif: "Well there's one in Apple Tree." (His daycare room.)

Okay then...

---------------

NM: "Skadi who did you play with today?"

Skadi: "Exi."

NM: "What did you play today?"

Skadi: "With Exi."

NM: "Did you play with Maddie today?"

Skadi: "And Exi."

NM: "Did you play with anyone other than Maddie and Exi?"

Skadi: "No, Exi."

NM: "Who is your best friend?"

Skadi: "Exi."

An update of sorts

We have been a house of sickos since Sunday. Skadi spent Sunday afternoon throwing up, then it hit AB on Tuesday and finally landed on Leif and I last night late. He and I hung around the house today and recovered. I am hoping now that we are all on the mend and able to escape with healthy bodies this weekend. We have been talking about putting Leif on skis for a year now and if we don't take advantage of the snow now, it won't happen this year. We are meeting some friends with children of the same ages at Silver Mountain for a weekend of ski and water park. The plan is to put the boys in ski school Saturday morning and do a variety of things with the girls, go out and play in the snow and play at the water park and parents will rotate kid duty with skiing.

We are poor right now... or at least we don't want to spend money, so aside from the condo and the ski school for the boys, we are going budget style and cooking meals at the condos instead. I have a big list of stuff to get at the grocery store tomorrow. AB and I really need a mental break from both work (since we have both been high stress with work lately) as well as dealing with home stuff.

First things first though - thanks for all the thoughts and prayers for my mom. The tumor on her liver was cancerous, however was surgically removed in its entirety with clean margins. The cancer was the primary cancer and no other sources could be found. She will spend the next 5-6 weeks recovering and will be closely monitored from now till eternity for more tumors. We are praying that it was a single episode and not another will ever be found.

Speaking of praying, apparently we have been saying a lot of prayers for grandma. Skadi has taken to walking around and saying, "Grandma A-MEN!"

I am sure I speak for the collective that you don't realize how lucky and blessed you are to have people in your life until you are faced with the fact that we are all mortals. Really makes you step back and put things into perspective.

The last thing we are stressing right now about is our new house that we are to close on in a few short weeks. We have been working hard to pack our house up and get ready to move.

Of course wouldn't you know that SOMETHING had to pop up. When we first met with our agents they told us that "something different always pops up that you have to work through on a house, it never fails". Or something like that. My house was going to be the first for them that went smoothly.

Was.

Nearly two weeks ago I phoned our insurance company to get a quote on insurance. They phoned me later and asked that dreaded question, "did you know there was a claim filed on the house last July for water loss?"

I replied that I didn't know this.

And not a minor claim either, $21.8K.

This isn't just a pipe breaking, this is either major excavation for a ruptured main or complete removation of walls inside.

And not on the disclosures either.

The relo company we are purchasing from denies knowing anything and has said they would attempt to find the former owners.

Supposidly they have attempted, though we are skeptical since they keep responding that they can't find them when in the stack of documents we got from them has their names (which I Googled and found their current locale) as well as his business e-mail. Once I had our agent's blessing I popped an e-mail out there to him asking what the situation was.

We really want the house. AB who was once on the fence with the house is now in love with it, I have always thought it was the right house for us. So we want the house, we just want to know what happened and what we need to watch out for, who made the repairs and any warranty information.

So far, no news. This is not one of those cases where no news is good news. No news for us right now is a big red flag. What is being hidden?

We are stressed about what we are supposed to do now? Proceed with caution? Or jump ship?

Stay tuned.

Skadi counting to 10

Ok, so she was a littie distracted. Really she can do it. We had practiced a few times and I didn't realize she could do it on her own until we were at the doctor's office the other day and she sat in the waiting room and counted to 10 loudly so everyone could hear her.

Gotta love Excel

100+2150-1500+133 = Mar-3

Differences

When Leif was 2 years and 4 months we moved him into a twin sized bed. In order to entice him, my mom bought him Nemo sheets for his new bed since he was HUGE into "Finding Nemo".

We put the sheets on and I remember him being happy. But more of a happy like, "oh look someone put material with Nemo painted on it onto my pillow, neat."

(Nothing like the skis today.)

I was shopping at Target and found a set of Dora twin sheets on sale for $10 and grabbed them. Skadi doesn't have a twin yet, she is sleeping in the queen sized bed in her room. Because all second children get to do things earlier and get bigger, better things.

Ok, so the doing things earlier part is generally true. But she will be getting a twin bed when we move.

I washed the pillowcase and threw it on her pillow.

"DOWA!!!" She squealed. "DOWA PILLOW!" She pointed repeatedly to Dora.

Then she took her pillow and layed on it in the middle of the floor and slid around the floor. Praised Dora a little more and then hauled her new prized possession off.

Leif is a pretty even keeled kid. He is happy go lucky most of the time with a few dips and a few peaks. His dips don't last long and he quickly returns to his happy kid place.

Skadi has mood swings like a pendulum. She is way way up and way way down. I asked my mom if she got this from me - was I a moody little red haired girl?

Short answer? No.

Time to blame my husband's side of the family!

THE best

Getting into the car:

NM: "Hey Leif, there's a surprise for you in the back of the car."

He peeks over the seat.

Leif: "NO WAY! SKIS! ARE THEY MINE?"

NM: "Yep, they are for you." (Purchased used from my field services rep after his two kids plowed their way through them.)

Leif: "I LOVE THEM!"

Hitting our strides

I had to check our horoscope tonight. AB and I are both Cappies and when big things happen I like to go back and retroactively check to see if I should have seen it coming.

This is ours today: "Your vision is as clear as a bell today. It's time to finally make a big decision."

Ok, that says nothing. Because everything today had nothing to do with either of us making decisions. It's all about the fruits of our labor coming to fruition.

AB called to tell me that he was moving back into his old group and that yay, he didn't have to be the one to make that decision, it was being made for him. As it turns out, while he will be in his old group, he also may bump his head on the moon. He won't go back to working as a grunt in his group - nope he will be in a very visible position near the top of the ranks where he will "get to know upper management very quickly". He will be the final check for all the safety, industrial hygiene and environmental work on the entire site. It's huge.

Today I managed to hit eight of eight. Today mid-day I got an e-mail announcing that one of the concept papers I submitted to the client I swore I would never work for again made the cut.

Then five minutes later I got the second one. The second concept paper I sent them made the cut.

Five minutes later the last one arrived. All three concept papers I submitted made the cut and are now on the list for full proposal.

Three full proposal packages due March 13.

Two days after we close on our house.

Convenient, eh?

Oh and my eight of eight comment? This fiscal year I have submitted eight concept papers and all eight have been accepted for full proposal.

My funding stats aren't so pretty. The only two I have heard on weren't funded by the client. I will hear on the next three sometime in the next few weeks. And these last three? Sometime this summer. But if a couple of them make the grade than I will need to hire at least one post-doc.

My last kudo came when I got a phonecall from a manager with NASA who would like to come visit my team in the first part of March to discuss an opportunity to work with them on the upcoming proposed moon and Mars missions.

Yes, I did dance in my office.

And my team leads' use of profanity was strictly in a positive sense. "F---- YEAH!"

We rock.

A Skadi Funny

We were having breakfast this morning when Leif decided to divulge what he got everyone for Valentine's Day.

"Daddy, I got you chocolates," he said. "And Skadi I got you candy."

Skadi pipes up:

"I want money," she says.

We all bust up laughing.

"You cannot convince me there isn't something in those girl genes," AB says.

Skadi reveling in the attention continues on...

"And jobs too!" she exclaims.

"And you can't tell me that the kids don't pay closer attention to the TV than we think!" I said to AB.

Fox News Sunday was on with ongoing debate on the economic stimulus plan.

The other child

So many of my recent blogs have been about Leif. Yes, I do have another child, a girl child, named Skadi.

She will be two in about a month and a half and has fully embraced the terrible two's.

I fear this is one of those times when I said repeatedly that the terrible two's didn't exist for Leif and that I didn't know where that statement came from - that karma is biting me hard. We will see what happens when Skadi hits two officially. I might be pleasantly surprised. Or not.

Skadi is at that funny stage where she is developing her own statements and mannerisms. She has this way with telling you something very important where she opens her eyes wide and nods her head as she tells you as if it is the most important thing she will ever say. And it is too freaking adorable.

She has a few trademarked statements, one that has stuck with the.entire.family.

"NNnnnnnnnnnnO!" You have to really string out the "nnnn" part (for about three full seconds) and then a short but loud "O".

This is most often used in conjunction with another word.

"Weif".

"NnnnnnnnnnnnnO Weif!" is the most common phrase to hear leave her little lips. And she has to point her finger and shake it when she says it.

None of us can say no normally anymore.

There are two other words that she utters regularly:

Elmo. This one she has down pat and has for some time. She loves the furry red monster and for some reason even likes the mime's Mr Noodle and his brother Mr. Noodle. She regularly laughs at them and sighs, "Mr. Nooooodo!"

The other one is a new one - DoWa.

Leif kind of lived in his own world and didn't soak up much from other kids his age were into for a long time. I did say he used to right - because this isn't the case now. Leif went OCD with Curious George for well over a year. Before that it was Nemo. Then Monsters. He would watch one thing and one thing only forever, repeats and all. Then one day he would be done with it. And his preferences never had a bit to do with what other kids liked.

Skadi is a different beast. I put a Disney Princesses t-shirt on her that she received from family friends for Christmas. She actually smiled once the shirt was on her, pointed to her belly and said, "Princess shirt!" I didn't know she knew princesses.

Same thing with DoWa. Leif was playing Deigo and Dora games on NickJr the other day. Skadi walked up and quite loudly squealed, "DOWA!!"

So apparently she likes Dora. Leif has some competition for his TV time (finally) - maybe there will exist some balance with Transformers.

(Transformers, more than meets the eye. Transformers robots in disguise. Autobots rage their battle to destroy the evil forces of the decepticon! Transformers!)

Crafty Craving

Leif has been asking for a new blankey. He still loves his current one that I made him sometime before his first birthday. Around the house he is blankey attached hauling it everywhere with him.

My little Linus.

He used to occasionally haul it to school with him until the day a year or so ago when I got a note in my box telling me not to allow him to bring it anymore from his former teacher. So now it doesn't leave the house except when we go somewhere to spend the night.

He has been asking for a Star Wars blankey to go with his new Star Wars bedroom in the new house.

I am sure I can find Star Wars fleece at JoAnn's.

I just need to mentally prepare myself for this trip to JoAnn's. Fabric stores are my serious undoing.

I will go straight into the store and walk straight to the fleece. Pick out a Star Wars fabric with a grey fleece for backing and go straight to the cutting counter. Anyone have a pair of those horse blinders that race horses wear? Can I borrow them?

I will not walk by the embroidery floss and look at the fabulous colors and all the neat cross stitching gadgets (I have been aching to cross stitch big time).

I will in no way go look at yarn and knitting needles along with a "How to Knit" book to satisfy my current need to learn to knit cute little hats and scarves and maybe mittens too.

I would never flip open a pattern book to the page of cute little girl summer dress patterns.

And no I don't need any funky buttons for my old Pea coat that I just dug out.

And the last thing I need to think about making is a new quilt.

...

Maybe it is best if I just found Star Wars fleece online and ordered 2 yards??

Frustratus Maximus

Laryngitis.

I haven't been so frustrated in a long time.

I woke up this morning unable to speak. I squeaked instead. I couldn't order Leif to move quicker with any effectiveness so he missed TumbleBus. Oh well, he has two more opportunities to catch it.

I dropped Skadi off and yes, got to explain to the teachers that I could not speak.

I got to work and one of the guys on my project came to my door to find out why I had e-mailed instead of walking down the hall.

"Oh that's why!" he says within minutes. And proceeds to talk. And expect responses.

AB called and laughed when I answered the phone - then recommended that I not answer the phone anymore. I took him up on that suggestion. I ignored the phone ringing (pretty sure my neighbors wondered what was up with me) and then got messages and e-mailed people right back.

I had a teleconference at noon. THAT was going to be interesting since I phone in from my office. I e-mailed and let my coworker and the organizers that yes, I would be phoning in, but I had no voice.

They didn't really believe me or something. Normal protocal is that I phone in and after the beep you announce your name and company. I couldn't do it.

Suddenly the booming voice on the speaker says, "who just signed in, announce yourself".

I squeaked, "it's NM from XNL."

Of course it couldn't be dropped and a couple of the others on the telecon decided to ask me all sorts of questions then.

My afternoon was quiet.

Then I went and got Leif who thought it was HI-LARIOUS that I still couldn't talk. He took to whispering too.

"Speak up honey," I would squeak, "I can't hear you."

"You speak up too mommy," he would say, "I can't hear you either."

Sigh.

The worst of the whole day was going to get my haircut. I needed a haircut bad so I didn't want to cancel it. But try sitting in the chair unable to speak a word! My stylist took pity on me and made an effort not to ask too many questions.

AB got to do both bedtimes tonight since my reading abilities are on hiatus.

Hoping for a voice tomorrow!

Oh and I AM blaming this on my girlfriends, we yapped and yapped yesterday!

I really don't let Leif watch Big Love...

Leif told me this evening he is going to marry Cate, Niranjana and Sophia and they are going to have 146 babies.

"How are you going to feed all those babies?" I asked him.

"Well," he said with his hand on his hip, "they will just eat carrots."

Where Darth Vadar lives...

There is this certain denomination that is pretty prevalant in my town. Other places I have lived you could allude to the denomination without risk of offering offense. Not here. I have absolutely no problem with the religion. I am not in the group that would declare "cult" or not be friends with someone from this religion. I am a somewhat religious person myself and I believe strongly in freedom of religion. I just don't happen to be on the side that shares their beliefs, not a big deal.

This particular religion built a large temple strategically located with the intention that it could be seen from any point within our area. I worked with a guy a few years ago who prided himself on the fact that their temple coule not be seen from his home. As I have said before, no problem here with the temple really and no problem that our new house is two blocks from it. You probably couldn't ask for better neighbors than a church.

See the problem comes though in that a few weeks ago I happened to mention in passing in the car, what one of Leif's best friends declared about that building:

"Darth Vadar lives there."

This one little statement has taken on a life of its own.

And it is only going to be worse now that we live right behind the temple.

This may be the reason that Leif's bedroom faces the opposite direction into the hills and NOT down the street towards the temple.

Now whenever we drive by there, we hear statements like, "did you see Darth Vadar yet?" or "Daddy and I are going to take our light savers and go find Darth Vadar" or "Darth Vadar lives there and he isn't going to scare me!"

(And AB rolls his eyes at me.)

I suppose someone will tell me this is how religious intolerance happens.

Really, I didn't mean to start this. And I am trying to nip it in the bud.

But it is sort of funny.