To be a winner

Do you remember the first thing you won? Something you succeeded in all by yourself, with no help, or limited help from others?

I remember winning a poetry contest when I was in about 2nd grade. I wrote something about "Oreos and ice cream, such a lovely pair, I wish I could eat them everywhere!"

Ok, so I think there were more poems in it... it was a collection of poems and there had to be something else in there. Right? (I think there was a haiku requirement... "weep weeping willow, look at the soft fresh new dew, what a pretty tree"... rings a bell.)

I placed at gymnastics meets when I was a kid, winning first in one city meet at a pretty young age. I placed first on everything but the vault, which I placed third in, but still managed to pull the "all around" win. I remember the pride for that day like it was yesterday and I still have the ribbons and clipping from the newsletter.

Leif does well on soccer and his teams (both baseball and soccer) have won before. Not that they are actually supposed to know that, no score keeping and all... but tell that to a competitive nearly 6 year old. Scores are kept in their heads. And amazingly, they are very honest! When they lose, Leif declares a loss and doesn't sugar coat it. I think we underestimate our kids in this manner.

Leif had his first solo win at something this last week. We ventured to the Colorado Renaissance festival in Larkspur, CO with my sister and her family and Vargasgirl. For those of you from Washington, this is something like Leavenworth. The entire area is devoted to the Renaissance Festival and is the equivelent of a number of city blocks all in theme.

Leif is a gamer... he loves board games, iPhone games, Wii games, Leapster games... you name it. The kid loves games. At the festival were all sorts of skill games. Leif tested out many of them:

He succeeded at the rock wall only to find out there was no prize for ringing the bell...

I think the prize here is evident...


But Leif really honed in on the jousting:

While his sister watched... not thrilled that she couldn't do it.

Yes, he had to put that big stick through this little hole while flying through the air and steadying himself on a wooden horse.

It didn't happen. He got two tries for his money and walked away disappointed.

Then we saw the other jousting ring a little later and he convinced us to let him try it again. This one was a griffin, not a horse, that made all the difference I am sure.

Steady, steady...

Looking good!

He got it!!

And here is the part he was waiting for the entire day. The honor of standing on the podium while the referree announced very, very loudly to everyone around that Leif has succeeded at the jousting! Then he handed Leif a plastic knife with a sheath that has been THE object of his obsession for well over a week now. No plastic toy has EVER meant so much to him.

Funny things my kids said

In the Seattle airport, Skadi and I go into the crowded restroom where she promptly screams at the very top of her little lungs:

"WALK THE PLANK SCURVY DOGS!"

Scared two little old ladies to pieces. Sigh.

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Putting Leif to bed last night:

Leif: "But mommy, I want you to sleep with me!"

Me: "I love you honey, but I sleep in my bed and you sleep in yours."

Leif: "Well I don't understand your choice. I like painted rooms and I would only want to sleep in a painted room if I were you."

(If pleading doesn't work, change up the tactic I guess.)

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Skadi on the way home, last leg from Seattle to Pasco, headed down the stairs to the plane she turns around and looks at the woman behind us:

"I am going to Hawaii!"

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While in Colorado, Rick asked me to make a sign for the door downstairs so that the kids would stay out of the basement, where the kitties would be. Leif and I came up with a skull and cross bones that said, "Stay Out Scurvy Dogs". Leif was quite thrilled with it.

He came back up to me and told me that we needed a sign on the inside now that said, "Stay in Scurvy Cats!" Oh and he showed nearly every visitor all the while giggling.

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Leif inherited my talent for telling jokes. You should know that I have no talent for telling jokes and am somewhat notorious for getting to the end of the joke and blanking, which drove my husband up the wall. Now I don't tell jokes.

Leif has a joke he tells.

Leif: "What's your name?"

You: "[Insert name]"

Leif: "What color is the sky?"

You: "Blue."

Leif: "Which way am I pointing?" (He points up.)

You: "Up."

Leif: "Mommy (or whatever the name is) blew up! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

He has been telling us this joke for nearly a year. The kid is in sore need of a new joke because we actually forbade him from telling it anymore while in Colorado. It is that desperate.

Please help him.

Soon.

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Putting Skadi to bed last night.

Me: "Skadi stop it, you kicked my glasses!"

Skadi: "No mommy, your glasses kicked my foot and it hurt very much."

I didn't laugh. Instead I held her bedtime books hostage until she apologized for kicking my glasses. It took awhile, but she eventually came around to see things my way.

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Not a kid funny... but the sad truth. I am switching my comments over to moderated because I can no longer stand the spam my blog is receiving. I really believe that a blog should have open comments and it has always bugged me to have moderated comments, but desperate times in fighting spam call for desperate measures. My apologies to everyone and I will work to get legit comments turned around as quickly as possible.

Two lifetimes of stuff

Part of our trip to Colorado has included plans to clean out / organize / distribute the stuff that accumulates after a lifetime. My grandmother has gone into an assisted living facility in Denver, which means that her home in Casper needs to be cleaned out and sold. My mom passed away just over two months ago and her stuff needs to be sorted through as well.

The very obvious aspect of this to the family involved is that these are two different worlds. If you have ever been in my grandmother's house, you would never forget it. My grandmother is from the Depression era. This means that she does not easily get rid of anything, ever. Her house is stacked deep. My grandmother doesn't really clean, so the house is grimy as well.

As a child I spent many years at my grandmother's house. We used to explore her basement and find all sorts of treasures. We would play hide and seek, we would draw on the little chalkboard, we would play dress up in the stacks of clothes. We would play on the ancient electric piano and we would stay away from the very scary dolls in the corner. I looked at the basement this time around happy that my children weren't with me. Danger was everywhere!

My mother was the opposite of my grandmother and she always claimed this was my grandmother's fault and I believe her. She didn't save things. My mom is a clean freak who spent every Saturday morning cleaning the house from top to bottom regardless of whether it needed it or not. My mom's house is cleaner than I can ever hope that my house would be... and I pay for a weekly housecleaner.

When you walk through my mom's basement storage there are no sheets hanging from the ceiling to create rooms, instead, they have clear plastic bins with neatly typed labels describing the contents. As a kid I was often irritated with my mom for getting rid of things. Yes, I admit it, I have packrat tendencies. As an adult - and especially after going through my grandmother's belongings - I can appreciate more my mom's tendency to rid her home of clutter.

During our days of cleaning out the houses of mother and daughter we have discovered a few more similarities than we ever anticipated. Both my mom and grandmother have an affinity for beauty products, lots of different beauty products. In my grandmother's case it is beauty products from the last 20 years that she has received as gifts and has all this time "saved for a special occasion" - eventually never to be used. My mom bought really great stuff and wonderful smelling soaps.

My mom, like me, couldn't ever get rid of a book. I inherited my love for books from her. A love for a fresh, brand new, clean, creaseless book. And despite reading it and maybe not even liking it? Getting rid of a book is just not something either of us does with ease.

All of us? Huge fans of photos. None of us have ever thrown away a photo, no matter how out of focus.

We have all moved away from Casper, Wyoming. So cleaning out my grandmother's house had to be a quick activity. We squished it in to a few days where the three remaining brothers and myself and my cousin went up and grabbed items we "needed". By the time I got there, many of the items were gone. But I spent a few hours picking through items. I got the crystal bowl that I admired as a child and that I was told I would someday get. My cousin took the matching cake pedestal. My grandmother had set aside a number of things with our names on them, she labeled special things as to who they had belonged to or which family member had made what. She put non-sticky paper tags in photo covers that said who each person in the picture was. For as grimy and stuffed to the gills her house was, things were actually a bit organized. I will never forget the box I pulled out that was labeled, "Travel memories, throw away when I am gone".

It was sad to see the boxes and boxes of every single school paper that my mom and her brothers had ever completed going into the dumpster. We all worried about how much money was thrown away... my grandmother was notorious for hiding money. And we all wondered if we weren't throwing away old pieces of art that were just maybe a missing Rembrandt. But time... none of us had it to put towards picking through things paper by paper.

I drove off with my mom's wedding dress, some questionable valuables, a Little Black Sambo book, an original copy of Old Yeller, a blanket and pillow that my great grandmother made, the crystal bowl I wanted, a set of Depression glass with a very funky and fun pattern, photos, my grandmother's nursing service pins, and many coins of questionable worth. I packed up a stack of my mom's and my grandmother's school papers. (Me = packrat) I also grabbed my great uncle's purple heart and am hoping I can get his address and send it to him someday. I am sure he doesn't remember that my grandmother was holding it for him for some reason.

I helped my stepdad in clearing through some of my mom's stuff. I took a few of her cookbooks that I remember as a child and that held a few of my drawings as well as some of her newer cookbooks. I took her rolling pins and her good pie pans, her sweater from Ireland, some nice outdoor wear, loads of fancy soaps, lots of Aveda products (we both have a weak spot for anything labeled Aveda) and some jewelry.

Clearing out both houses provided very different experiences. Clearing my grandmother's house was enjoyable, an adventure coupled with a little fear of reaching my hand into each box. She has had a long and good, active life with a lot of accomplishments. Helping her on to that last stage in life.

Clearing my mother's house is bittersweet as I held items in my hands that I knew my mother still had dreams of using. Things that she should still be using. Helping my stepdad move onto the next phase of his life.

Fridays = Mondays?

Since when did this happen? And is anyone else having this problem?

It used to be that Wednesdays were my busy work days, now it is Thursdays and Fridays.

Mondays are those notorious days that everyone rolls their eyes about. Maybe if you have a big week, people will meet on Mondays and assign duties on those big projects. I have never been on those types of projects. Mondays tend to be quiet in my world and I think that is the case around the lab. No one I know is usually swamped on Mondays, we need to ease into the week.

Tuesdays aren't as relaxing as Mondays. I think we start on Tuesdays to slowly ramp up the week. Tuesdays are days commong for meetings. Clients - at least mine - usually travel on Mondays and start their days visiting on Tuesdays. Tuesdays are nice days.

Wednesdays were always my busy days. I think it is the day that a lot of people get busy. Wednesdays are common for meetings and wrapping up or continuing client visits.

Thursday is when my week starts to kick into full gear. One of my clients and my team hold our weekly teleconference. And because we are gluttons for punishment... or we just like each other a whole lot... we then hold our internal meeting afterward.

I walk in on Fridays with my "Friday latte" and it is quiet. A lot of people take Fridays off (I assume) or they come in early and leave early. Or something. Or maybe they are just like me... and really, really busy.

My Fridays lately have been absolutely swamped. This morning I was in at 7:30 for a teleconference with an east coast client who was hoping to escape early in the afternoon. Then I had a number of other meetings thrown on my schedule. This doesn't seem to be an anomaly.

Fridays? Busy in my book.

Anyone else?

July Goals

My goal for the month of July is to decide on a design tactic for my dining room. I have no intention of tackling the decorating in July - just too much going on - I just want to have a strategy in mind.

Part of that strategy allows for time to convince AB of my plan!

In no way did I expect to have this complete by July 4th.

Ok, so it isn't totally complete as in paint this color and start here and stop here.

Nope, my first goal was to convince AB that the dining room needed to be addressed. Thanks to my sister in law, who has been residing with us for a few months now, this became a little easier.

"Well we actually have been using the room a fair amount, that makes it easier to justify" AB relented way too easily. "What were you thinking?"

"Slate," I replied.

AB's eyebrows raised in an intrigued manner.

"With some sort of light neutral, like a tan or something, just a bit darker than the off-white that is already here, something close to the color in the coffer," I went on enthused by the lack of puking noises on his part.

"What would you paint?" he asked.

"The wall with the buffet, the wall with the arch and maybe the stairs wall," I replied.

"Well you probably would want to hit some in the coffer I think," he goes on. (This is going well... maybe we can do this!"

"And in an ideal world we would dump the light fixture and the curtains too," I said seeing my chance.

"Really?" AB said, "but I thought those were your favorite things in the house?" He joked. "What do you think of doing it in one of the textured paints?"

Ok, so maybe we haven't been through the hardest part yet, selecting the actual colors... but I am making up for only having four recipes written out from June's goal!

Fishergirl

I was born in Central Wyoming to a father who enjoyed fishing and a grandfather who lived fishing. From a young age I had a pole in my hand.

Through the years I continued to fish even into high school. I went fishing on occasion with one of my best friends, Brian, from high school. I remember one night camping out at a lake around a bunch of old people (who were all quite nice) and fishing. The wind blew so hard that night I feared the tent was going to blow away with us in it.

Given that my husband's moniker is "Alaska Boy", you can probably guess that I have fished in Alaska. One of our most recent trips I even outfished AB for sockeye!

One of my favorite Alaska fishing memories is fishing with my mother in law at 1am with wine glasses in our hands. We have fished in a number of different places in Alaska - the Kenai peninsula, Talkeetna area, and King Salmon.

AB hasn't fished much in this area though we keep talking about changing that. Leif has a desire to fish and he caught his first fish, a nice rainbow trout, in Alaska two years ago. AB needs to get out there with Leif.

AB has his list of fish to catch - salmon shark tops the list, but includes sturgeon and tuna.

For Father's Day this year I decided to get AB a sturgeon fishing charter. I conspired one morning (while in a meeting) with a coworker who is an avid fisherman. When I told him what I wanted to do he rattled off a phone number. One of his good buddies is a guide and would be happy to take AB out.

I called and organized the trip after giving in and divulging to AB my plans. See putting anything on AB's schedule is hard. AB was thrilled.

Unfortunately the first trip was cancelled. There is an issue with trying to get a single guy, one guy I mean, on a charter. No guide is going to take a single person out. The guide worked with me trying to fit AB on with other groups, but it wasn't looking good.

Finally one evening I said to AB, "I could probably go with".

I hadn't really thought about it to that point. It isn't an inexpensive venture, but I love fishing too. AB smiled. The big issue with doing this lies with the kids. Being out of touch of the school, the kids in daycare, is a tough thing. Thankfully we have great friends who can back us up!

I called and asked him to fit us in and offered a few days. Thursday night he called and asked if we wanted to go out the next day. Even though my gut said no way, too short notice, what about the kids, this is less than 12 hours notice, I agreed to go.

AB caught the first sturgeon.

I got the second... when our guide saw him jump he had me sit down in the chair and brace myself...

Then he jumped again and I completely freaked out!

Once I got the fish all worn out - after about 20 minutes - I passed it off to AB to pull in. (Which only took about 40 minutes or so!

Hello big boy!

8-9 feet long, 200-300 lbs, and about 60-70 years old.

AB holding on to his mouth. I got to do that too! Then we let him go.

This is me bringing sturgeon number three!

Me and my fish! This one was only 25 years old or so. (Then we tossed him back in.)

Then I caught a catfish... that was a surprise. It was our guide's first catfish on the river after 14 years of guiding!

Skadi's word of the week

“Trash”

Definition: Messed up.

Common Usage: Trashy, Trashed

Examples:

The Tivo recorded a glitchy Dora the Explorer that kept fading in and out.

Skadi: “Change this mommy, this one is all trashed.”


The Tinkerbell DVD has seen better days…

Skadi: “No, we can’t watch Tinkerbell, that DVD is trashed.”


At bed last night.

Me: “Look at that cute little tushy!”

Skadi: “No mommy, I am not a little trashy.”

Things I Like Part One: Books

The first book I ever learned to read was called “Cat and Dog”. It isn’t terribly pc anymore, the dog threatened to do all sorts of things to the cat, including making a “catcoat”. But I loved that book and read – I mean memorized it and would “read” it to my parents over and over. My love for reading, like many people I know, has thrived over the decades.

I know I have blogged many times about books and reading. I thought I would start a post series on things I like. Here is post number one – books.

The last few months my need to read has accelerated. I believe it to be pure escapism. When I am laying in bed in the evening, it is easier to escape into a book than lie there thinking about “stuff”. I think about work, which isn’t a bad thing. But it isn’t like I need to think about work at that time of night. I think about my kids. Are they sleeping well? What are they dreaming about? Will Skadi wake up tonight? How many times will I have to put her back to bed? Are the kids breathing? Did they get wrapped up in their blankets too tightly? I better go check on them.

Then my main reason for escapism lately, I miss my mom. Please God be taking care of her. Is she watching over us? Were there things left unsaid? How is Rick doing? What is the life celebration going to be like? Am I going to be able to hold it together in church this week? Why? Why her?

And then the inevitable… Will I get the same cancer? What can I do to make sure I don’t? Do I need to go to the doctor? What if it is genetic? Can they do genetic testing? What if my kids get cancer? What is up with that funny two toned mole on Leif’s finger?

The thought process above? That is why I have been inhaling books lately. Check out my GoodReads.com list if you don’t believe me.

In September 2009 I finished “The Good Earth” by Pearl S. Buck after 3 months of reading. Loved it. I moved on easily to “Shanghai Girls”, similar genre and era, but told from the opposite perspective of Buck’s book. Loved it as well.

After I finished “Shanghai Girls” in January, I hit a stride that is still going strong.

“Look Me in the Eye: My Life With Asperger’s” (blogged about previously.)
“Embroideries” by Satrapi
“Twilight”
“New Moon”
“Stones into Schools”
“Eclipse”
“Breaking Dawn”
“The Help”
“Garlic and Sapphires”

I read them all between February and now. This is a lot for me. I know people who are fast readers. I am not ashamed to admit that I am a slow reader. Very slow.

I have three books started right now:

“American Pie: Slices of Life (and Pie) from America’s Back Roads” – I picked it up off my mom’s bookshelf while I was in Colorado shortly after her passing.

“The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters” – a book recommended to me by an online friend and it fit straight in with my favorite genre, historical fiction, particularly of the North American west.

Then my sister sent me my mom’s Kindle. Before I register it in my own name (and lose her downloads) I decided to read the books on there that I am interested in. My mom raved repeatedly about “Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet” shortly after she read it. It was on my Amazon wish list. I am 14% complete with that (Kindle fulfills my analytical analytical nature for quantitation) and certain that it must be spectacular for my mom to rave about it since it opens up talking about a widower who lost his wife to cancer at a young age. Bitter, not seeing the sweet yet, though I know if my mom did, I will too.

I am loving the Kindle so far. I have the Kindle ap on my iPhone, but I rarely use it. Only when I am stuck somewhere, by myself (i.e., no kids in tow begging for games on the phone), and bored of Fruit Ninja or Skeeball or Cribbage. Kindle for the iPhone is fine, but I am not wow’d.

I am wow’d by the real Kindle.

AB and I have opposite bedtime rituals. He showers and crawls into bed in complete darkness, with no distractions (yes, I like to talk, but I curb this) and falls asleep (hopefully). He struggles with falling asleep. I get into bed and read. I grew up reading myself to sleep. We have gone around about this a few times, I don’t like to get up and sit downstairs and read. I like to read in bed. And the reading lights are all too bright for him to sleep.

So like my preteen self, I hide under the blankets with my book and reading light until AB starts to snore. Kindle is a serious enabler here. At 8 ounces and with no pages to flip against the sheets I can read and read and read. Once AB is snoring I can carefully come out of hiding and resume being 38 and not 10.

I have a stack of books in waiting – my next book club book: “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” which I am really looking forward to. I am envisioning a book something like Leslie Marmon Silko’s “Ceremony”, which I read in college and loved. I also have “The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner” sitting on my bedside table.

On the floor, waiting to move on deck is “My Life in France” by Julia Child followed by a good 10 other books I have picked up in the last few years, but not yet cracked.

Things I like? Books are up around number one.

Bean Speak

Skadi's new preschool teacher has a tendency to call the kids, "darlin". I am not positive if it is just girls, or boys too. I haven't heard it out of Leif, so I am thinking just the girls are darlin'.

Skadi: (to me) "Come on darlin', come in my secret fairy house."

Me: "Why doesn't Leif crawl in there with you."

Skadi: "Because brothers are not allowed in secret fairy houses."

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Skadi: (at bedtime) "Darlin' I want you to read the poop book to me."

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You get the idea, we have all been Skadi's "darlin's" this weekend.

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We have switched from doing Friday lattes to Friday mini doughnut day. Ok, the kids have switched from ordering Friday hot chocolates to doughnuts... I am still a latte person. That's not to say I don't WANT a mini doughnut and if I have been good during the week I might partake. You know you get the third one at such a discount if you order three...

Leif: "YAY chocolate doughnut for me!"

Skadi: "YAY pink doughnut for me with sprinkles!"

Leif: "YAY chocolate doughnut for me!"

Skadi: (sounding very seriously) "Leif that sign right there says I am sorry there are no more chocolate doughnuts, you have to have a pink doughnut."

Leif: "NO MOM! WHY DON'T THEY HAVE CHOCOLATE DOUGHNUTS! NOOOO!!"

Me: "Leif, can Skadi read?"

Leif: "No."

Me: "So when she tells you what a sign says, why do you believe her?"

(Pause.)

Leif: "MOM! THEY DON'T HAVE CHOCOLATE DOUGHNUTS!"

Me: "Yes, Leif, they do. She was just teasing you."

Skadi: (Giggles)

Leif: "That is SO mean Skadi!"

She so has his number.

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Skadi is a very apologetic child. Anything done on accident she is quick to apologize for. The things done on purpose, you may NEVER get an apology out of her short of threatening time out. She is so apologetic sometimes, that I have been telling her she doesn't have to apologize ALL the time, only when she hurts someone. Because she will apologize for touching you.

Me: (After stepping on the side of her foot.) "Oh, I am so sorry Skadi, are you okay?"

Skadi: "Well it hurt an awful lot, but you don't have to say you are sorry."

So far, explaining to her when to use sorry? Not so successful.

On kids and sports

I remember pontificating one time, okay, maybe more times than once, that I thought kids were overscheduled and that *my* kids would only participate in one activity at a time outside of school (Spanish lessons, music lessons and Tumblebus aside since those are extracurricular through school, during their time). If there was more than one activity they wanted to do, then they had to make a decision.

This week my son has two tennis lessons, one soccer practice and swimming lessons.

In my own defense, tennis is ending this week and soccer is just starting. So there is really only one week where this craziness of three sports has taken hold.

Swimming lessons are every Saturday morning. Leif could kind of care less about swimming, but his sister is a fish. It would be easy to let swimming fall off Leif’s schedule, but both AB and I feel that swimming is an ultra-important skill that our children must possess. Our family cabin is on Puget Sound, about 100 feet from the water. There are boats and watercraft of all sorts during the summer. Not to mention that AB grew up swimming and it was his sport of choice. Oh and did I mention that we are hoping for a trip to Hawaii this coming year and want the kids to be able to swim... like in the ocean.

Then you toss in there the sibling factor… Skadi lives every day of her life looking forward to Saturday swimming lessons – this IS her one activity. She knows all the swim teachers and they know her... well. Since she was in parent-tot she was a little swimming star. The teachers love teaching Skadi because she does anything they ask. (This is the one time every week that Skadi does as she is told.) Check out the picture from the one session where her teacher decided to pass her up - way up. She did quite well, but it looked pretty funny in the picture her standing there with a 6, 7 and 9 year old and she was 2.5 and in a swim diaper.

We opted to put her back with kids her own age and the teachers promised not to let her stagnate - so far they haven't!


We did the divide and conquer thing one session where I took Skadi to swimming and Leif stayed home with daddy. And it isn’t that it didn’t work… it just wasn’t ideal. We like being together as a family, even if it is just for an hour of swimming lessons with mom and dad on the sides watching the kids perform.

This was really that turning point when we realized that one activity a week wasn't going to work for long.

Tennis. When I was five years old my mom put me in tennis lessons and I wore the cutest little white skort and went to Mike Cedar Park for my lessons. One of the older boys in my lesson made a snide comment to me – he made fun of me for having Kool-Aid in my water bottle. I responded in the manner that most girls that age would – I stuck my tongue out of him. My mom saw too. I thought I was going to be in so much trouble, but she thought it was hilarious. I played racquet sports off and off through my life. Mostly racquetball, like my mom and stepdad, but I also dabbled with tennis. Leif became strangely intrigued with tennis after playing it on the Wii. A few months ago he started asking for tennis lessons and I scrambled looking for options.

See as a working mom, you are terribly limited in summer sports activities. No one wants to teach summer sports on the weekends! I finally bit the bullet and signed Leif up for four lessons over a span of two weeks as an introduction to tennis.

I sort of expected he would take the class, realize he wasn’t Andre Agassi (not that he knows who Andre is), and move onto something else. Instead Leif has declared that he “loves” tennis and it is “even better than baseball”. And not terribly surprising since the kid loves sports, he isn’t half bad at it. He was sporting his wicked backhand today. Yes, he knows what a backhand is now.

This is where mommy guilt stings. Because I can’t justify to continue taking off at 9:30am Monday and Wednesdays to go grab Leif from school (where he misses ultra-important calendar work) to drive across town for a half hour lesson, then drive back, deposit him back at school and run back to work and get there by 11am in order to further his tennis interest. Can I? I keep telling myself he is only 5 and 11/12th. There are going to be plenty of summers when I am clamoring for camps and such to enroll the kids in. He will probably get his fill of tennis then.

Soccer. Oh soccer, the most beloved of Leif sports. We do soccer through the YMCA in the summers as well as indoor soccer in the winter. And this year, given Leif’s enthusiasm over soccer, we have registered him for the competitive league that starts this fall. I think this officially makes me a soccer mom putting Leif in this league. Leif is all about soccer and during every recess at school he can be found on the soccer field. Daily he begs me to allow him to wear his cleats to school. Today he wanted to "just bring them in case" his teachers decide he can wear cleats on the playground. The boys cheer when he arrives in the morning and direct him to which team “needs help”. Leif very willingly complies because like his father, he likes to help the underdog. Not doing soccer? Not really an option unless I want one unhappy little boy.

I know people who slam sports, who think it ridiculous that we spend time running our kids around for sports practices and events. To each their own. Both AB and I were raised in families that prided physical activity. AB and his brothers were diehard swimmers. I was lucky, my mom worked at the YMCA and so I was able to take every single class I wanted to (hello disco dancing!) and my mom was lucky that she didn't have to pay for childcare.

I played volleyball and basketball from 5th grade through 9th grade, competed in track and field and competed in gymnastics through 10th grade, until I got an afterschool job instead. I ski both downhill and cross country, played tennis and racquetball (2nd in State Juniors in Wyoming), softball (which I absolutely despised though), swam and most recently ran (which I really need to get back to).

My parents taught me I could do anything and enabled me to pursue my interests. I wasn’t great at every sport, but I enjoyed them (except for softball) and learned the value of physical activity.

So when I run home from work on Monday and race to fix a quick dinner to eat on the run to soccer practice that starts at 6:15pm… yeah, it’s not ideal. But it’s the best we can do right now as working parents who are striving to enable their kids’ dreams. Not every child dreams about sports.

Mine does.

June Goals Update

So you may recall that I took a low-key approach to getting back to my monthly goals. As the month is nearly 2/3 over, I thought I would update.

My plan was to copy my routinely used recipes onto recipe cards and put them in some sort of filing system. I bought a cute little cupcake binder with divider tabs (that I later discovered were all dessert oriented - lame). This weekend I picked up an inexpensive recipe box as another option. Those tabs were only slightly more useful lumping together "main dishes", for example. No breakfast tab, go figure.

I thought I would start this by keeping a stack of recipe cards on the counter. (Done) And then when I make a recipe from my scary folder of recipes, I would write it on the card as I made it. Slowly but surely this way I would work my way through the scary recipe folder.

It is the 22nd and so far I have written...

TWO recipes!

My Cajun Chicken Pasta recipe. Or I guess I should say Pioneer Woman's Cajun Chicken Pasta recipe (which is to die for).

As well as my puff pancake recipe.

Yay me!

Ok, so I suck.

This Friday when AB and I sit down to watch a movie on our brand new TV, I am bringing my scary recipe folder and cards over and I am getting busy.

But really, somewhat like my March goal with the cross stitching, a huge part of the goal is to set up "the system". Get the recipe cards, storage options and all and get them ready to fill so that when I have a recipe that is deserving of its very own card, it has a place to go! (Do not ask me how much of The Orange Tree I have cross stitched.)

July?

Decide on a color scheme for the front entryway/office/dining room part of the house. I didn't say act on this. Nope, no painting. Just decisions. And convincing my husband that *my* color scheme trumps anything that he may come up with in retort (because he never likes mine right off). Because he will do this. He fancies himself somewhat of a designer - but don't tell him I told you this.

Aunt Annie's Alligator

I have lucked out - both my kids went through a "Dr Seuss's ABC's" phase. This was one of my favorite books as a child. I can recite it by heart.

But what I really love about this book is hearing Skadi's running commentary on every page.

Me: "Barber, Baby, Bubbles and a Bumble Bee"

Skadi: "Yeah, but bees sting."

Me: "Camel on the ceiling"

Skadi: "I want a camel on MY ceiling!"

Me: "Goat, girl, goo goo goggles"

Skadi: "I am a girl!"

Me: "Jerry Jordan's jelly jar - "

Skadi: "He made a big mess, look it's on the floor!"

Me: "Many mumbling mice - "

Skadi: "I don't like mice, turn the page." (This used to be one of my favorite pages!)

Me: "Nine new neckties, a nightshirt and a nose!"

Skadi: "I have a big nose!" (At this point I argue with her about the size of her nose. It is small.)

Me: "Painting pink pajamas, policeman in a pail, Peter Pepper's puppy, now papa's in the pail"

Skadi: "That's so silly, why are they in pails?!"

Me: "Rosy's going riding -"

Skadi: "NO! Say Skadi's going riding!"

Same thing with Young Yolanda... but by then I have remembered...

Me: "A yawning yellow yak, young Skadi is riding on his back!"

Skadi: (giggles)

Me: "A Zizzer Zazzer Zuzz as you can plainly see."

(This is where there are problems...)

Skadi: "What is a Zizzer? Does he bite? Why does she have long hair? Is she going to eat those childrens next to her? Why is she bigger? Does he bite? Why does he have teeth?"

It's a miracle I made it out of there!

I was chatting this evening on FB with a friend from high school. One thing we always had in common was a love for music. He told me what he was listening to right now - Sam Cooke - and because I am not a naive young teenager anymore afraid of not knowing something, I admitted that I wasn't familiar with him. My friend then typed "American Idol".

And fear set into my heart. Must change the subject.

And a whole new type of nervousness kicked in... the "I can't admit that I have never seen American Idol" type of nervousness.

Nope. It's true. Never seen American Idol.

I blogged recently about how AB and I have dropped off the face of the planet with respect to TV.

Thanks to Facebook I knew to set the Tivo for Top Chef - though I am certain that Rachel or Vanessa would have clued me in. I also knew that a new season of Entourage would be starting soon.

AB says we don't watch TV because we have a crappy CRT TV.

Yes, we do have a 12 year old or so CRT TV, but the thing works. And plus, we never watch it.

My mom was an avid TV watcher. And she admitted it proudly too - she loved watching TV. When I was a kid our evenings were filled with watching TV. Cosby Show, Different Strokes, Mork and Mindy, Dallas, Charlie's Angels... you name it, we were there.

After my mom passed away we opted to do a few things in her memory. One was to plant some roses in our garden and get a stepping stone to create a living memorial to her.

The other was to bite the bullet and buy a new TV. This one pleased my husband greatly. But really, last I saw my mom she said to me, "I don't understand, high def TV's just AREN'T that expensive anymore!" I didn't tell her we just never watched TV, though I think it was obvious when I hadn't seen any of the HGTV episodes and admitted to having never seen a long list of shows she watched.

So really, it was an appropriate thing to do.

AB researched what "we" wanted. And then one night a little over a week ago we sat down and placed the order for the top of the line, 50" Panasonic Plasma TV. And a blu ray. And a new receiver with DVR. And an articulating mounting arm.

We are going to get back on the TV bandwagon one way or another!!

We thought that was going to happen this weekend.

I came home over lunch today to receive this nice, nifty new TV from the shipping company that drove it over to our little town from "the west side".

They unloaded it, brought it in, unpacked it.

Then the driver sat shaking his head.

"It's broken," he announced.

"What?" I asked.

He beckoned me to the other side of the TV and there before me was a massive crack across the screen.

"Wow." I said.

"That's a shame," the driver said.

"Wow," I said.

The driver picked up his phone and called the distributing warehouse to tell them it was refused for the crack. He pointed to the Amazon.com number for me to call at the same time. I did, and told them it was refused.

They quickly credited the account, but told me since it was a third party seller fulfilled by Amazon I would have to go reorder it online, they could not simply replace it.

That... has proven more difficult than I anticipated since it appears that cracked TV may have been the last one on earth like it. Or at least the last one on earth for what my husband deemed to be an appropriate price to pay.

Ok, so back to the point. Appears our foray back into watching TV? Delayed.

But someday? I will know who Sam Cooke is, or what the flap is about Cougar Town, and I can even see myself delving into Pawn Stars. (Which is about as appropriate as my mom's love for "Ice Road Truckers".) Maybe I will return to getting my Adam and Jamie fix? Big Love was supposed to redeem me this past year and make me love TV again. Top Chef will make me want to go cook. What is going to make me want to waste my time in front of the TV instead of on the internet?

The really weird things my kids say

Skadi: "See I am happy now, I am not sad anymore. Instead I am just looking outside and thinking about how weird the trees are!"

Me: "Ok, why are the trees weird?"

Skadi: "The purple trees are weird mommy. We have lots of weird purple trees."

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Making his Daddy Proud

Leif: (While shopping for Father's Day Cards) "LOOK MOM! PRINCE NOVAMA! PRINCE NOVAMA IS ON THAT CARD! THAT FATHER'S DAY CARD HAS PRINCE NOVAMA!" (Seriously like top of the lungs in the crowded Father's Day aisle. I see people craning their necks to see what he is pointing at.)

Me: "Leif, it's President Obama, we have President's, not Prince's and that probably is NOT a good card to get your father."

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Leif: (speaking to me) "Hey babe,"

Me: "Hey babe? What happened to mommy?"

Leif: "You're a babe!"

Me: "You should know that I may choose to remind you of this when you are 16."

The dreaded sleepover party

When I was in first grade my parents invited all the little girls in my class over for a sleepover.

A few went home, my parents called their parents when the girls didn't stop crying.

At least one wet the bed - or the floor - given that we were all in sleeping bags on the floor.

Who knows when we all went to sleep.

And my parents made pancakes for what seemed like hours the next morning.

When it was all over they sighed that it would never happen again. And it didn't. My sister never had her sleepover party.

Sure we would have sleepovers, but these were individual girls and never a sleepover party.

So why I didn't just immediately say "no way Jose" when Leif started talking about a sleepover party, I have no idea. I did say, at the time, well you have to pick 3 kids at the most IF we did that. Trying to play to the notion that he would only get three gifts. Is it awful of me to do that?

What I really should have said was the thing that my friends told their daughter, "nope, you can have a sleepover when you are 7, we can start planning it now".

Leif's proposed guest list has included two of his close female friends. I told him that I was pretty sure that their mommies were not going to allow them to spend the night with four little boys.

"No mom," he replied, "we are big boys."

"Well that just bolsters their case," I told him.

Nope. I didn't think way back when the topic first came up. And so now we are feeling a bit stuck. And yes, I do get that I AM the parent and can just say no. And we tried that.

"Leif," I said, "daddy and I just don't think you are old enough to have a sleepover party."

"I really think that I disagree with you,"he replied, or something like that. His exact words are evading me, but AB and I both sat there looking at each other wondering if he was 5 going on 17.

Yes, I could just say no. But it is hard when he has his heart set on something so strongly.

I have been working to entice him away from his plans for weeks. After the party at Coach Brett's (that was always a very exciting thing when he was littler) a week ago, that he had loads of fun at, I pushed the issue. "Are you sure you don't want a Coach Brett birthday party?"

He looked at me like I was an idiot.

I suggested Rollerena, which was the leading candidate last October thru December, despite the fact that Leif isn't so hot on rollerskates. At the time I was a bit turned off by the notion, but somewhat entertained as I heard "Skateaway" in my head as I whizzed around the rink.

Rollerena is no longer a candidate, despite my mentioning a few times, "but they have air hockey!"

Friends have made suggestions, what about the Children's Theater? The Court Club?

Then I hit on an idea.

"How about Chuck E. Cheese?" I heard myself mentioning to AB one evening.

"Fine," AB said.

So today Aunt Tara and I packed the kids up and headed to Chuck E. Cheese to test the waters.

This is a huge accomplishment for me. I don't do Chuck E. Cheese. See this happened while I was in Colorado and for some reason it hit me then like a ton of bricks. And I never set foot in Chuck E. Cheese again and I cringed whenever anyone suggested taking the kids there.

So it was a huge step forward for me to walk through the door and get my and the kids hands stamped (so that when a child leaves, they make sure it belongs to the person the child is leaving with). Right there? Big red flag, that I am sure is supposed to make me feel better...

We got a pizza, we spent our 35 tokens (about 6 put into games that didn't work). And I told myself I could do this. I can do this. I can host a Chuck E. Cheese party and no crazed gunman is going to come in. Really.

We left after the kids redeemed their 60 tickets for a pink plastic ring, a tiny rubber snack and three lollipops. Total ripoff.

But I told myself I could do this. I can bite the bullet and send out Chuck E. Cheese invites.

Then tonite we set to talking about the options.

And Leif says, "no, I really just want to have a Wii sleepover party with three boys."

Ok. Fine. Done.

I am getting off cheap this year. The cost this year will be a mere one sleepless night.

(Wondering how much I can pay Aunt Tara to hang out downstairs with the boys and get them to bed while I snuggle in my nice bed?)

Funnies

Leif,

Ken Yokum to birt.

Love, Cate

Poo



Translation:

Leif,

Can you come to my birthday?

Very sincerely, Cate

9:00am



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Ponies



AB has a habit of saying, "well I want a pony" whenever the kids ask for something unreasonable, which is most of the time.



And for the record, he does not want a pony. Neither of us really cares for horses and most definitely has no desire to own a horse.



Skadi: "I want that toy!"



AB: "Yeah, well I want a pony."



Skadi: "Daddy, you do NOT have long hair."



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In the car on the way home.



Leif: "Mommy, I have been waking up at night and I am SURE that Mina is checking in on me and tickling my feet!"

(Mina is the Elf that checks up on the kids every Christmas and reports their behavior to Santa.)

Skadi: "Me too! Mina has been coming to my room too and tickling my feet!"

Noted that it is nearly 6 months till Christmas... I am thinking Mina may pop in for a visit!

A most difficult topic

One of the single hardest things in dealing with my mom's death has been in regards to my kids. Death is just not an easy subject to get, like at all, for the younger set.


When AB and I told Skadi that grandma died, she looked at us and said she wanted to go play with her dollhouse. We didn't expect much more, but still felt the need to say it to her.


Leif was a different story. He knew for months that something was up. We said daily prayers for grandma, we talked about her being sick and late in the process we admitted that grandma probably was not going to get better and was probably going to die. He sobbed and sobbed one evening that he didn't want grandma to die.

Neither did I, sweet boy.

When my mom died we sat Leif down and told him. His first response was an angered, "I wish she would have washed her hands." Because no matter how many times I have tried to explain the difference between a communicable disease and non-communicable disease, he just hasn't gotten it. "But my teacher said that handwashing prevents diseases!" He tells me. I can't caveat it because that isn't what his teacher says.

And I am resisting the urge to talk to the teachers about specifying the difference between diseases we catch through germs and those that arise from different sources. Because I see how this can quickly become complicated to 3-6 year olds.

Leif has handled it quite well to this point and tends to tell us that "but it is okay, because she is with God and she isn't in pain." And at Sunday school the other day when Skadi started talking about grandma dying, he was quick to explain "well she had this disease".

When I had kids I never gave it a thought that my mom would not be here to share them with me. We live far away from family, but somehow my mom always made it closer between webcam sessions, visits and little packages that would arrive for every holiday and some non-holidays as well.

I lost my grandfather when I was 13 years old. At that age I well understood the concept of death and that my grandfather had been sick for a decade with congestive heart failure and diabetes. No one was terribly surprised when he passed away at 72.

Surprisingly it has been Skadi who has been stuck on the topic of grandma passing away the last week. Nearly every time we have been in the car she immediately starts asking questions.

And not all of them are easy to answer.

"Where did grandma die?" (This one is easy, she died in Colorado at the hospital.)

"Where is grandma now?" (She is in heaven with God.)

"Like Jesus?" (Yes, I guess like Jesus. Though Leif reminded us that grandma did not die on the cross like Jesus did.)

"Where is heaven?" (Umm, way way high up in the sky, where she, God and Jesus can watch over you.)

"Is she on top of the clouds?" (I believe she is on top of the clouds.)

"Can we visit her on the airplane?" (No.)

"When is she coming home?" (She isn't coming home.)

"When will she come see us?" (She isn't going to come see us anymore.)

"Why not?" (Because she died, like how flowers die and turn brown, or like if you step on an ant and it is dead. Realizing of course that now she is going to think that grandma was stepped on...)

"Did grandma die?" (Yes honey, grandma died. Here we go again.)

My stepdad picked up some materials from Hospice to help with explaining death to kids this age. I get the whole keep it simple thing. But I suck at that. I tend to take things to a complicated level - more complicated than it needs be level - very quickly.

I ordered about four books today from the extensive list that Hospice provided after studying the Amazon ratings trying to find books that jive with our beliefs. Customer ratings can be a wonderful thing... or they can really suck up your time and make you a neurotic consumer.

This evening I asked Leif to say prayers. For the second night in a row he declined. "I don't have any prayers tonight," he told me.

"Sure you do," I said. "Think about prayers about keeping everyone healthy, or helping us all be happy, or being with grandma in heaven." I listed the options off.

"I am tired of sad prayers mommy," he mumbled to me half asleep.

"Then how about a happy prayer," I said and quickly tried to come up with a happy prayer. What exactly is a happy prayer? I have my own belief on the things that we should and should not pray for. And I am not sure what it stems out of. But in the moment I could only think of one thing that so violated my thought of what prayers should be about.

"Pray to God that you get some nice things for your birthday," I said to him.

And he did.

Getting back to it

That is my goal for the month of June. I need to get back to working out every morning. I need to get back to eating well - okay, so I always eat "well". What I really mean is that I need to work at eating healthy and not snacking. (I truly do not know why those Cheez-It Duos beckon me like they do.)

I have added only one June monthly goal on top of this.

And I think it is an easy one. A good one for easing back into life as normal.

I need to organize my recipes.

I love recipes.

I tear them out of magazines, I print them up on the computer, I have e-mails from friends with recipes. I really love recipes.

What I don't love is the big vinyl folder that I keep them all in. I flip through page after page vaguely remembering if the recipe I am seeking is on a printer page or on a half magazine page with or without a picture. No organization whatsoever.

I also have a big binder of recipes sorted in pockets by type of food. It was a good organizational tactic, until I got the vinyl folder for "everyday" recipes.

Oh and did I mention there is a drawer in my coffee table with recipes?

And I also tried the journal book with the names of recipes and online sources. (Flop.)

Bookmarking is a good option... if I know exactly what I am looking for.

So the plan is that when I make a recipe that I have made more than once and know I will make again, to pull out a recipe card and write it up on the card as I make it. Then I toss the sheet of paper and file the card in a recipe binder that I bought today.

I bought a cute little cupcake recipe binder, only to get it home and realize that all the tabs are for desserts.

And well, desserts? I have a repertoire of like 5.

My mom's rhubarb custard pie, my mom's chocolate cake, nectarine pie, the chocolate chip cookie recipe on the back of the Nestle bag and my great grandmother's sugar cookie recipe.

I don't need tabs for those.

AB suggested I just "cross them out and write over them". My sister in law said I could print up little labels on the computer and then cut to fit the tab so it looks neater.

Guess who is more in tune with me? Yes, it bothers me that the tabs are wrong, therefore I need a solution that isn't "cross it out"!

So there it is. My monthly goals for June. Exercise. Quit snacking. Pay attention to portions. Consider rerererecommitting to Weight Watchers.

And deal with the disorganization that is my vast collection of recipes.

Critic for a day

I haven't been wow'd by a meal in a long time. I think the last really fabulous meals I ate with my family (i.e., excluding last week's trip to New Mexico) were in Seattle. We ate at Wild Ginger on our trip for Mother's Day and had a most fantastic sushi dinner in Belltown with the kids in a tiny little place that our concierge assured us was kid friendly. It wasn't really from first appearances, but they were good - they entertained and fawned over the kids while AB and I ate some truly awesome sushi.

Unfortunately, I don't usually hold high hopes especially when we eat out in town. Tonight was no different.

Right now I am reading "Garlic and Sapphires, A Diary of a Critic in Disguise" by Ruth Reichl. I really, really enjoy Ruth's writing. This is her third novel I have devoured. As I read, I think about a life on a different planet as a food critic.

So here I sit - living out my little food critic fantasy.

This evening we went to "Fat Olives", the new Italian joint. We passed two families leaving when we walked in wearing our standard clothes, not dressed up. I thought seeing families leave was a good sign.

We waited only a few minutes for the table for 5, which was really just a card table looking thing with a high chair perched at a corner.

Ever try to feed a three year old - or any small child for that matter - at a corner of a table?

As we headed in my sister in law pointed to the small print at the bottom that expressed disdain for crying children. Ok, so it cited the bad acoustics, and then asked that any small children be removed outside while dining. I guess I just think that if you are going to have a whole menu page devoted to pizza, then instructions on how to deal with your children are probably not hitting the target audience. And really, this are is like huge on kids, people like it here because it is a great place to raise kids. Kid unfriendly restaurants are just a bad fit.

I believe that the attitude tossed our way by the waitress was probably thanks to the kids. Or maybe that we weren't dressed up. Or maybe both. She was hurried and short with us.

The selections weren't abundant, and there was a little concern at the table when at 6:30pm two of the specials were nearly gone - one serving of pork shank left and three of the lamb. We ordered a small pizza for the kids, I ordered the house calzone, AB ordered the pork shank and my SIL ordered the lamb.

I asked for milk for the kids, which they did not have milk. Yes, seriously. We ordered instead a bottle of apple juice for them to split.

A few minutes after ordering the waitress came back and informed AB there was no pork shank left and handed him the menu.

Over the years we have had opportunity to eat some really fabulous meals and we have spent the last decade or so refining our cooking. AB cooks meat quite well and will only order meat in a restaurant when it is a type he doesn't cook. So the waitress repeatedly recommending the rib eye or the pork tenderloin was going nowhere fast. He finally settled on a clam and mussel Alfredo sauce dish.

The food arrived and was fine. The lamb was done nicely and tasted good. But it was a boring dish. No pizazz on the lamb. It was served with asparagus and potatoes. Both prepared fine. But for AB and me, this is a routine weeknight dinner that we can whip together in 45 minutes... blindfolded.

AB's pasta was lackluster, he felt the sauce didn't match the seafood. Though he said "it is fine". My calzone was good, though I have to admit that I far prefer the calzones from the restaurant near work. The best dish at our table was the 12" pizza that the kids had. They ate it well, each tackling nearly two pieces.

The food was fine. But at the price we paid, we would be hard pressed to go back. Except maybe for the pizza. But I wouldn't go there to eat the pizza... we would pick up and bring home.

One star of five.

These are a few of my favorite songs...

My music tastes tend to change with the wind. I can tell you what my favorite songs are now, but who knows if they will be my favorites in another week.

Same with books.

Lately I have found myself gravitating to the "oldies". Going back to the music I listened to growing up. I think this probably has a lot to do with my mom passing, but the songs that are hot on my iPod, weren't necessarily her favorites.

When I think of my mom's favorite music, I think of things like Mamma Mia and other contemporary musicals. These were her favorites most recently.

My music tastes as a kid reflected my parents. That's one of the advantages to having young parents... I KNEW who Ted Nugent was back when he actually sang instead of pontificated. (I suppose if at 3 years old you think that knowing the words to "Cat Scratch Fever" was an advantage...)

As I got older and lived further away from my parents, our tastes diverged, though my mom and I often compared notes. When I discovered Greg Brown recently, she was the only one on FB who jumped up and said, "he is one of my favorites right now".

My parents fell on the Stones side of the fence - not the Beatles side.

Me? Well this is one of my top played on my iPod right now.




Leif's first song he declared as a favorite was "Yellow Submarine". This was when I fully understood that 50% of his genes do come from his father.

When I was in high school I picked up "Tangled up in Blue" for my mom. Her copy was worn out.

I couldn't find a good video that wasn't a cover, but one of my favorite lines ever:

"I like the smile in your fingertips, I like the way that you move your hips, I like the cool way - you look at me. Everything about you is bringing me misery."

Another top song right now on my iPod.

One of my favorites now is an old song that I despised as a child... after all it was country and by Kenny Rogers of all people (everyone say "ewww" like an 8 year old little girl). Then I found this cover and the world changed.





Something about this one though just screams "like".

Next on my list of most played?

"Domenik the Donkey" (thank you Skadi) and "Who Let the Ghosts Out" (thank you Leif). We just won't go there. And yes, there is a reason that the play number of these two horrible songs is exactly equal.

My mom went through a Johnny Cash phase too. I don't know that "Long Black Veil" hit her favs, but it is getting loads of play in my car.

I haven't been able to touch some of my mom's favorites with a ten foot pole yet - "Me and Bobby McGee" for example. I suppose it is easier for me to skirt around the edges right now.

When I was at my mom's shortly after her passing going through the computer I went through her playlist. The song that blew me away on there was this one:



I went through a big Terence Trent D'Arby phase when I was what... about 14? I played this all.the.time.

I guess at 14 (or whatever I was) I was too absorbed in myself to note that my mom had fallen for this song too.

The funny things that we discover after the fact.

Oh and this one? I can listen to. Because my childhood memories don't include my mom singing along to this one.

The little sister

This evening Leif rode his bike all the way to the middle park. With us all in tow of course. When I was a kid it was probably fine for me at that age to venture that far out.

But I guess I am just one of those overprotective mom of a less than confident little boy.

There was little whining along the way, I suspect mostly because he had a target in mind.

The coveted middle park.

The park where we quite often run into other children his age, and most often from his own school.

This evening was no different. The one little boy who lives on the park, who is not my favorite child, but I am learning to tolerate as I see that he may have less confidence than my son and his actions and the things he says that make me cringe are most likely stemming from trying to appear cool to my son.

Two other boys showed up who are also the same age as Leif and know him from school. Two boys that I far prefer and at least one of them I know his parents through work pretty well and am confident that they share similar parenting values. The boys were instant chums and split up for a quick game of soccer where the boys argued over who got to be captains and who got to be on my son's team. In talking with the other parents, they admitted their kids were not much for soccer, or for that matter any sports. Which is fine. AB and I enjoy sports and Leif has easily glommed onto this.

After soccer the boys went to the playground equipment and played and chased each other and enjoyed each other's company.

There was one other person in the park this evening.

One very lonely little girl.

Skadi stood around, refusing to join the soccer game (which didn't hurt my feelings any - those big boys can be a bit rough). She wouldn't go near the boys.

Instead she came and stood by me and said, "those boys are mean to me".

What she really meant though was, "those boys have stolen my playmate from me".

On a normal day a trip to the park is usually a solo venture for the kids where they play together and run around together.

My baby got her first taste this evening of not being included with the boys.

This maybe a harsh realization as she moves up to preschool this month and suddenly sees that her brother does indeed have a life outside of playing with /tormenting her.

Skadi moped around the park a bit, whining about the mean boys. AB finally went over and took over Leif's place being "the grumpy old troll who lives under the bridge" and coming up with wacky riddles for her to cross the bridge. AB didn't once ask her a math problem - it was a nice evening for Skadi in that respect. (Leif made up for it later though when he quizzed us the entire way home... what's 1600 times 1600 mom? Well then what is 2,560,000 times 7? We may be introducing the concept of a calculator sooner than normal.)

It's one of the tough lessons growing up. Realizing that siblings have their own friends.

On my way home!

I don't normally travel for work. Like at all. I send people on travel. But me? I just don't travel.

It's not that I really despise business travel. Actually I like it a bit. I like going to a new city, eating good food that isn't available in my small town, shopping at places we don't have (hello Trader Joes, Whole Foods... yes, I grocery shop on travel). I like to be a bit of a tourist and try to usually set aside a bit of time at each destination to see things I wouldn't normally see and to take in the local culture.

But traveling is difficult for a working mom. I miss my kids deperately. I am lucky that I have a very capable husband who supports me in my career. But being a single parent for a week is rough. Not to mention my husband's work schedule - he works four 10 hour days, leaving the house at 5:30 am and returning at 6pm thanks to the nearly hour long commute. Me being gone? It's just hard on the whole family. People tell me that it is good for the kids to rely on others, to rely on daddy. Maybe.

Lately I seem to go to DC every 6 months or so, which is one of my favorite destinations. There is so much to see and do in DC. Over the years I have hit most of the Smithsonian museums, the Korean War Memorial, the Vietnam War Memorial, Arlington National Cemetary, the Lincoln Memorial and the WWII Memorial. Not to mention hanging out in Georgetown, seeing an opera at the Kennedy Center and mastering the Metro. The Air and Space Museum has the best gift shop. A normal tourist would likely see all these things in a single trip. But when you are factoring in that I am fitting this all in between meetings and most of these sites are only open 8am to 5pm, I have done pretty good with my DC trips. AB is headed to Baltimore for a week of business travel in June. I am very excited for him and am planning his itinerary.

Last week I flew to DC, managed to eat good sushi one night, got up the next morning and headed to the meeting then took the most crowded Metro ride to Union Station (this was my little bit our being a tourist where I wandered Union Station for 30 minutes and bought two little trinkets for the kids). Then I boarded the train to Philadelphia to spend two days with my most favorite client.

That was a whirlwind trip. No real touristy things on that trip. Next time I am in DC the Spy Museum is on my list. My coworker tells me that the gift shop there rivals the one at the Air and Space museum for bringing goodies back for the kids.

I went to Albuquerque this week. I left Monday afternoon and hung out with the work crowd that I haven't hung out with in years. It started stressful for me, but ended okay, save for the miserable presentation I gave at the end. I think my mind had just given up. I don't know how people who travel regularly do it. I truly don't.

My willingness to go to Albuquerque for the entire week was prompted largely by the fact that I have never been to the desert Southwest. I find this odd particularly since I grew up in Colorado. It just isn't that far away from Colorado!

I had a teleconference on Wednesday that I had to sneak out for, this provided a good opportunity for me to duck out for the entire afternoon and fulfill my need to be a tourist for a bit.

I headed down to Old Town Albuquerque and immersed myself in the culture.

Oh and I did a bit of shopping too. I also roasted... After weeks of cool weather back home and cool weather on the east coast, I was completely unprepared for the heat of Albuquerque.

The best food I ate during this trip was a visit to Little Anita's in Old Town. I wasn't terribly hungry, though I needed to get back to the hotel and get some stuff done there. So I grabbed a bowl of green chili and a couple of sopaipillas.

AB asked me if the green chili was better than his. What an unfair question!

AB's green chili is hotter than hell and he smokes the meat he puts in his chili, which imparts a smokey flavor to the chili. It wasn't better, it was just different. I would have called this green chili mild, and I was surprised by the chunks of potatoes. The meat was the standard pork but simmered to shreds. And the sopaipillas... Sopaipillas are the reason I never made it to the cupcakery across the street from my hotel.

I gave my failure of a presentation on Thursday... normally I do well at presentations. This one I faltered. (Tritium Producing Burnable Assembly Rods, Tritium Producing Burnable Assembly Robs... why could I not say this? And why did I have to attempt it over and over?)

I headed to Whole Foods, then a quick trip to Trader Joes. I picked up Meditteranean style munchies for dinner, as well as a half a bottle of wine (and another corkscrew, this one IS going in my luggage for good so I don't have to keep buying them while traveling) also a slice of ultra dense chocolate cake.

I did succeed in finding a variety of frozen chilis to take home to AB this morning that I packed in my luggage and hope stay frozen for the day of travel. If not, I suppose we will be making green chili this weekend!

My next trip is slated for mid-August to head back and see my favorite Philly client again. AB is hoping that the fact that I have my next travel scheduled isn't indicative of a trend that seems to plague the majority of my coworkers. Nope. I am going back to the no travel mantra. Ok, except for my annual program review with my second favorite client... and maybe for the summons issued to me by favorite client. But other than that? No more business travel!

Venturing back

In a way, it is hard to get back to blogging. I have this huge list of blogs to write about, but I haven't really felt like blogging, I have been overly busy and well, I just haven't been in that frame of mind. I blogged, in large part this last year, for my mom. She loved the safe haven of my blogs and hearing the stories about the kids. I purposely kept the majority of the cancer details out of my blog.

I enjoy blogging. It's cathartic to me. So the best thing to do is dive straight in I suppose. This is going to be an unusual post from me. It's lengthy (that's not unusual, I tend to be wordy, but you can deal or click away). There is love. There is anger. There aren't too many laughs. And not a dang thing funny that my kid's have said. But it is what it is.

My mom passed away after a 14 month battle with a rare type of liver cancer called cholangiocarcinoma. She was the picture of health so recently, nearly vegetarian, a marathon runner, a hard worker. And young. She was only 56. She had done everything right. She was not one of the risk categories for liver cancer. This took us by storm.

She battled hard until she could battle no more. The problem with rare cancers is that the drug companies don't invest resources into making drugs targeted at a disease that only 4000 people in the US get a year. All the chemos she tried were being used "off label". She battled and battled. When she wasn't on chemo, she suffered heartache. She needed to fight.

When I visited her in March her oncologist took her off chemo and very kindly and tenderheartedly suggested Hospice. Only 6 weeks later, on May 10th, the day after Mother's Day, she lost the hard fought battle.

She entered the Hospice ward at a hospital a few days before as they were unable to care for her at home. At that point she was lost in her body. She did not speak, nearly comatose from what I understand, but eventually did start responding a little in her own way and finally saying a few words on Sunday.

On Mother's Day she mustered an "I love you" into the phone. I didn't hear it, though I think I had the phone up to Skadi's ear at the time. My baby heard her grandma tell us she loved us.

My mom passed away quietly that Monday. Her breathing had changed that morning and while holding Rick's hand, she just quit breathing.

It has been a very surreal experience. I flew to Colorado that Tuesday morning, afraid to look at anyone for fear that they might expect me to speak to them. I buried myself in "Breaking Dawn" - the least likely book to remind me of my heartache while I travelled. On Tuesday when Rick picked me up, my guard came down. We cried and talked for three days.

The after.

I have learned through this experience how atypical my mom was. Also how I have apparently inherited this atypical-ness. And why this is atypical and not typical, because I didn't realize beforehand that there is certain expectations that those left surviving are "supposed" to uphold. It appears I have faltered in many of them.

My mom did not want a funeral or burial service. This did not surprise me at all, I remember when I was 13 years old and my grandfather died and how my mom complained and was creeped out by the whole process. Instead, we will give us all a bit of time to mourn and then hold her Life Celebration in Colorado on July 17th.

I have felt through the last year or so a lot of judgement placed on me, my mom and my family by others. There are times where I wish that I wouldn't have even shared what is going on so that *I* don't have to live up to what other people expect in situations like this. So that *I* have not had to explain to others my mom's wishes.

I have often wanted to yell at people. (And I don't normally yell... but anyways.) I have wanted to YELL, "What do YOU believe I should be feeling? Why isn't my path appropriate? Why can't you accept the way MY family is without forcing YOUR expectations on me?" I found that much of the perceived judgement came only from those people who in no way had persevered this magnitude of loss, could in no way have any idea what was going on.

Those friends of mine who had or are going through similar issues, were the softest, the gentlest and the kindest.

Everyone is different. My mom was a different person. An intensely private person. My mom took huge pride in my sister and me. In me, she was proud of my degree, proud of my work, proud of my kids, proud of where AB and I have positioned ourselves in our lives.

And I will never forget one of the last things she told me in person as I hugged her small frame goodbye for the last time.

"You are where you are supposed to be. You have your family. You need to stay there and take care of my grandbabies. A lifetime is not defined by a moment in time, a moment of passing." She didn't want an audience. My mom never wanted an audience in her entire life. She wanted to go quietly, softly and rest in knowing she had passed her being on in at least five people in the world - myself, my sister, and our kids.

It felt right for me to return to work shortly after my mom's passing. Truly, if her passing had been less expected, not something we prayed to God about to take her softly and to remove her suffering, then I would have needed a lot more time. But my grieving, my getting used to losing her, was something that was spread over a year. I grieved with every setback in her diagnosis, every scan that showed the cancer advancing, every doctor who regretably, could not help her. I grieved. I hoped, but I was also a realist and therefore I grieved.

I embarked upon two weeks of business travel a week after my mom passed. For months I had talked to my mom about this travel. She knew how I loved going to DC and she knew how I looked forward to riding the train to Philadelphia and then spending a few days gawking at big-ass boats like a tourist. She was excited for me to go to one of her favorite places, New Mexico, and to experience the desert Southwest. In those last few months of her life, she raved about sopaipillas and art galleries and her love of New Mexico. Not going on my travel served little purpose. I knew that my mom would have wanted me to go.

During these past three weeks one thing that happened that shocked me, was that "friends" were defined. I bonded with Jen from high school who was losing her sister in law in a similar fashion through cancer, her sister in law died days after my mom did. I bonded with Erin from high school who lost her father and was a tremendous resource. I met my mom's closest friend, Noreen, who was a tremendous sounding board for me during those last few weeks and the person who kept me talking and sharing experiences with me when she lost her sister to cancer.

I hung with one of my coworkers in DC who knew exactly what had happened, had prayed for us, and then didn't let me out of his sight. I had to convince him I could walk across the street to Starbucks by myself (and to the shop next to that to get Advil for that raging headache). He didn't say a word, but the way he looked at me out of the corner of his eye asked me if I was ok every hour or so.

My very close friend Melissa kept it real by e-mailing regularly, asking only occasionally how things were, but all the time realizing that life still goes on and sharing all those little details that friends share about their days.

I cried with Rachel whose father has recently been diagnosed with a rare cancer.

I sobbed under Heather's hand in the bathroom at work when I got that phonecall.

My Philly client took me off to the side after our review and wanted to know how my kids were doing with my mom passing, and when I started talking and kept talking and finally had to tell myself to shut up, she asked me more questions to keep me talking.

I drank beer with my lead engineer and talked NBA finals, never mentioning my mom. His kind e-mail to me days before said it all.

There are others. I can't list the compassion of everyone during these last three weeks. But actions resonated.

Life goes on. I am grieving. I will be grieving for a long time.

But I am not fragile. I will not break. I have two children who, for the most part, haven't felt the impact of the loss and who still need to go to school daily, finish up baseball, still behave like the biggest goofballs alive, and strive to make me smile. I love life. I am dealing with my loss my way and when I am able.

Obituary

Barbara J. Carbaugh, 56, passed away peacefully on May 10th, 2010 at Pathways Hospice Care Center located in McKee Medical Center, Loveland, Colorado. She lost her 14 month brave and courageous battle against liver cancer. Our loss is great, however, we are comforted to know she is now pain free and in God’s loving hands.

Barbara was born in Casper, Wyoming on August 2nd, 1953. She graduated from Natrona County High School in Casper, then from Casper College with a degree in business administration. She was employed at the Casper YMCA where she was the membership and racquetball director. She moved to Fort Collins, Colorado in 1986 with her future husband, Rick Carbaugh and her two girls.

Barbara began working for Inhausen Research Institute in Fort Collins and learned the pre-clinical bio-medical research business. She managed the business for many years and purchased the company in January 2007, renaming it High Quality Research. She welcomed the new duties including marketing and quickly added new clients from Colorado as well as national and international companies. Her honesty and integrity created a positive business and personnel relationship with her clients. Over 25 years she has researched many products which may help other cancer patience. She was an active member in many bio-medical and research communities. She sold the company to her general manager of many years on April 30th, 2010. She and her survivors take great pride knowing she spent these years helping mankind.

She loved life and had many diverse interests and hobbies, but none more important to her than her great love for her husband, daughters, grandchildren, family and friends. She spent several years as a skilled racquetball player and teacher before her passion turned to running. She ran the Bolder Boulder for many years, then always seeking a greater challenge started running half and full marathons. She completed nine marathons including qualifying for and completing the 100th running of the Boston Marathon. She was an avid hiker, baker, traveler and loved to read.

She is survived by her husband Richard "Rick" Carbaugh of Windsor, Colorado; daughters Dr. April Carman and husband Hans of Richland, Washington; Angela Allie and husband Joel of Denver, Colorado; mother Shirley Jeanne Walker formerly of Casper Wyoming and presently residing in Denver Colorado; brothers David Walker of Denver, Dr. Michael Walker and wife Laurie of Sitka Alaska, and Robert Walker of Casper, Wyoming; grandchildren Nick and Celeste Allie and Leif and Skadi Carman. Preceded in the passing of her father Eugene Lemuel Walker.

All of her family wish to express our deep love and appreciation to all of the caring, talented and compassionate medical staffs of Front Range Cancer Center and Dr. Robert Marschke, Poudre Valley Hospital, Medical Center of the Rockies Radiology Department and Pathway Hospice and Care Center.

The world is a better place because of what you do and how you do it! Bless you all.

Barbara will be missed and loved forever and never, never forgotten. A celebration of her life will be held at a later date.

Skadi Speak

Skadi: "I have a mini to go put in my mini bank!"


Alternative: "I have moneys to go put in my mini bank!"


Translation: "I have a penny (or any single coin) to go put in my piggy bank!"

Mini = single coin.
Mini Bank = where you put your coins one at a time.
Money = Plural of mini
Piggy = Just the shape of the mini bank

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One of my favorites recently:

Leif: "Hey Skadi, do you like Green Eggs and Ham?"

Skadi: (Stuffing cereal in her mouth.) "No, Go fish."

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Every once in awhile I get bored of Dora. We read Dora books every.single.night.

Every night.

I beg and beg for one of the many, many other books in her bookshelf and she says no. Only Dora.

So sometimes I make things up.

Like: "Hello Skadi, I am Swiper would you like a cookie?" Instead of "Swiper, no swiping!"

So I was a bit surprised when she responded quickly without missing a beat and a completely straight face - I go for the giggles, I want giggles. But I got a straight face and a simple response:

"Hi Swiper, yes, I would like a cookie, a caramel cookie!"

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I had a stomach ache and was laying on the couch.

Skadi took my temperature (with her doctor's kit), listened to my heart and stomach with her stethoscope.

"Here," she said, "I get you a blanket."

She covers me up.

"Ok now," she continues, "Push the baby out."

AB's head whipped around quite fast! My jaw dropped open.

When I inquired at school no one had any ideas. I loved though that Ms. S admitted it was her, that she was the one expecting (a widow in her mid-50's with boys my age). They did tell me that one of Skadi's "friends" (term used loosely - she has a lot of conflicts with this one little girl) has been telling everyone her mommy is going to have a baby, though no one thinks it true.

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And wrap up with a Leif one.

Leif has been a bit emotional lately.

Ok, so he has been a lot emotional lately.

Everything bugs him, you can't look at him sideways. His feelings get hurt very easily. Most of all, he seems terrified of not having me around. I think this is common at this age, but it is also a bit more prominent with my mom's health. This absolutely breaks my heart.

The other night he was hugging me, "Mommy, even when you are a grandma, I don't want you to move out of this house and leave me, ever ever. I want you to stay with me always."

This is of course, contrary to him telling me the other day he was getting married and moving to "her" house. When I said I would miss him terribly he agreed to split the nights between "her" house and ours. One night at "her" house, one night at our house.

Well at least he is honest... I know what I am watching for in another 22 years!

Privacy? What's that?

We seem to have a bit of an issue in our house.

Modesty.

A lack of modesty.

I keep hearing that just one day the kids will want their door closed, they will close the door when they use the restroom and they won't run around naked. I ask Leif if he closes the door to the bathroom at school knowing that it is up to each kid, "sometimes", he tells me, "when someone tells me to."

Typical, oblivious little Leif.

My son is going on 5.5 and it hasn't happened. He desires no privacy.

It isn't like AB and I are hippy parents. Our parents weren't nudists, we weren't raised in the buff.

You may have noticed pictures of my daughter in the blog... she starts out the day in one outfit, changes a few times to suit her mood and then finally mid-afternoon has had it with clothes and runs around in her panties... if we are lucky and can convince her to keep those on.

I leave our bedroom and bathroom door open on weekday mornings since while the kids sleep, I work out and then shower. They come in when they wake up and tell me they are up (me in various states of dress or undress), then they crawl in the bed and watch whatever happens to be on the little TV. I don't lock my door. My son sees me nude, but it's no big deal to him. Will it be at some point? Or will it just become a big deal to me?

Leif is better about keeping his clothes on than his sister, but he is often seen carrying his clothes to a particular place in the house to get dressed - to be near whoever.

Our friends' daughter (age 6) spent the night a few weeks ago while her parents went to a nice wine and food dinner. At one point she told Leif, "I need some privacy". And Leif wasn't joking when he said, "what's that?"

She had her pajamas on when Leif walks in naked, carrying his pajamas to get dressed near everyone else.

Giggles erupted!

I quickly directed him back to his room to get dressed. Oblivious-ness set in again, "I just want to get dressed where I can talk!"

See Leif and Skadi also still bathe together at 5.5 and 3. We have tried for the last six or so months to split them up. We have tried alternating bath nights, we have tried consecutive baths, we have put them in different bathrooms. Somehow they migrate together. If it is Skadi's bath night, then she is begging Leif to get in and play mermaids with her and he is all too willing. If it is Leif's bath night then we are physically restraining Skadi and locking her out so that she doesn't get in with him.

Which is less healthy?

Within a day or so we give up these attempts and let them go back to their baths together where they play and laugh and blow bubbles and see who can float the longest.

I am waiting for that day that Leif requests privacy... though right now I am thinking Skadi might reach that milestone first, given history.

Then again, maybe not, and maybe we are just hippy nudist parents.

(Oh goodness, wonder who is going to be directed to my blog now with keyword searches...)

The Institute of Pie

I am a fan of pie.

You have to be to be in my family. Though stopping there doesn't really suffice. Because everyone likes pie, right? Of course they do. But coming from my lineage makes one an automatic pie connesiur and there exists a gene in the Perchert - maybe even all the way back on the Turnquist line that once properly activated also makes you an excellent baker of pies.

My great grandmother had it. My mom had it. I worried it skipped a generation, until mine was properly activated. My grandmother never activated hers and on the rare occasion she was forced to make a pie (after my mom moved away), she did the absolute unthinkable and bought refrigerated crust. My hipster mid-20 something year old cousin in Portland? She makes a mean pie too - I have seen the evidence on Facebook.

My daughter is getting the proper inaugeration as well.

She is being raised right, her gene will be activated.

Or maybe it already is.

"Mommy, look I have the flour on my nipples!"

I actually make pie with my clothes on... it helps with this problem.