Lucy is here!

Puggle-extraordinaire is the 6th member of our family as of Saturday. She is tiny! She only wants to be held. She cried a lot last night. Not that into sleeping on her own.

As predicted, I am already sleep deprived. Oy.

Girls are contastantly fighting over who gets to hold her. Lucy has a hard time sleeping in MiniMe's lap, because MiniMe is four, and not capable of sitting still for more than thirty seconds. But Lucy loves Rosie's lap. Rosie who would hold her all day and night if I let her.

It is wierd having a new being in the home. Especially since Hubby and ARG are in Portland for a national tournament (top 16 in Under14 Saber! Go ARG!) But I miss them, and don't feel right when they aren't here.

Miss Lucy gets more adventurous and cute with each passing our. But, Ugh! that puppy breath.

Puggle Time

If I haven't been diligently posting to my blog this week, it's because I've been crazily preparing for little puppy puggle who is coming tomorrow! (jumping up and down clapping)



Awwwwww. What else can you say?

I've negotiated with the breeder. Trips to PetSmartCoMart have been made. I've spent way too much coin on puppy paraphernalia. Friends have been hit up for spare puppy gates.

We've watched puppy training DVDs. We've read books on crate training. I think we are about as prepared as we can be for the whirlwind that this little darling will be in our lives.

The girls are over the top and can't hardly wait until tomorrow. Soon they will be in little girl heaven. All that will be missing is the rainbow glitter unicorn.

Tonight is my last full night's sleep for a few months. I intend to enjoy it fully.

A Wonderful Day

There are few days that I truly consider wonderful. Today was one of them

No, nothing earth shattering. Nothing stupendous. Just a lot of really cool, common things happened today.

First of all, I got to sleep in. And for an added bonus, when I got up, I was the only one up. No kids. No hubby. The house to myself for an hour! Sweet. (and very unusual) I got some quality high school / homeschool research under my belt.

Then, I got to go for a beautiful walk with my bestest and oldest friend. It was especially valuable because she may be moving away soon, and we may not get to walk together for a long time. The spring breeze was cool on our cheeks, the sun warm on our faces. The hills were green and smelling fresh.

The afternoon was filled with gardening. After hitting the hardware store for supplies, MiniMe and I spent some time in the back yard planting seeds in the boxes. For something new, I am trying to grow a tomato plant this year. "San Francisco Fog" it's called. We'll see. We don't get too much sun here. And since I felt daring, I bought a wee basil plant to try. Who knows, maybe I won't kill this one.

There is something extremely gratifying about watching your kid work. I'm serious! ARG mowed, weed whacked, and did general grunt work for Hubby and me all afternoon. Rosie made pizza dough (for our signature barbecue breadsticks) all by herself. And after four months, Hubby completed his bea-u-ti-ful table for our gigantic TV to sit on. Isn't it great?



Late afternoon saw me preparing many yummies for an early dinner: mashed potatoes, bean salad w/ artichoke hearts, baked beans, bread sticks, marinades for pork and chicken. Hubby fired up the Q and we had a nice time sipping wine, grilling yummies and joshing with the kids.

Now, I am contentedly writing this post, looking forward to a good movie: The Americanization of Emily. At least I hope it is good.

It was a sweet day. And I'm so grateful for it.

Babysitting

Last night I babysat a little boy from our church. We'll call him Action. He is almost one, and therefore exceedingly cute.

MiniMe was beside herself. And she was all over him. Giving him toys, patting his head, trying to pick him up, and generally being a nuisance (albeit a sweet one). Rosie helped hold him when I had to go to the bathroom, and played with him as well.

It was quite the stroll down memory lane. You really do forget what it is like, managing a little person who is completely dependent upon you. Feeding, changing, playing, just staying in his visual range so he won't cry. I'm a pretty old hand it all that, so it's not too hard for me. It's fun to play peek-a-boo once in a while.

The highlights? Getting Action to smile by overreacting to his "kicks". Noticing that he was mostly interested in watching ARG and Hubby (those deep voices, I guess). Watching him go head over teakettle as he crawled up his unstable car seat. Oops. Having him fall asleep on my lap. Awwwwww.

But the part about babies that I don't miss? The tiptoeing around after they are asleep. "Shhhhh! Don't wake the baby!" Maybe most people don't share this neurosis, but I had (and have, apparently) an unusual fear of waking a sleeping baby. It has to do with the fact that I was always going to be the one that had to get up, feed and soothe, at ungodly hours. But it was strange that I felt the same way last night.

And have you noticed how, when you are trying to be quiet, you inevitably bump into every chair, drop or bonk things noisily, trip over toys...etc?

It was good to realize the freedom we have now to be ourselves at night, after the kids are upstairs. If they get up? We just send 'em back. Easy. We can go to sleep when we want, because we wake up when we want (by we, I mean me, as Hubby has to get up early 5 days/week). Plenty of sleep. No worries of sleep deprivation.

But all that may be changing soon. No, I'm not pregnant. It looks like we'll be getting a puppy. Either in the next few weeks or over the summer, we'll have a new member of the family. One who will require someone to get up with her in the night for potty breaks the first six months. Wha? Oh no.

Sleep deprivation here I come.

A series of links

Can this be true? Where is the outrage?

A very small number of taxpayers -- the 10% of the country that makes more than $92,400 a year -- pay 72.4% of the nation's income taxes.

A funny, but sad song about where we are as a country.

My Main Man, Ron Paul's latest outrageous legislation: The Case Against Income Tax.

Cool art blending virtual reality with "real" reality (courtesy ARG).

That's it!

Why I love him

Yesterday was our 18 year anniversary. I can't really believe I'm saying that. How old am I anyways? Yikes. Only old farts have had that many anniversaries.

We didn't get to celebrate too much. Partly because I forgot. Until two days before. Now if you know anything about me, you'll know I'm a planner. I get plans in place months in advance. I think. I ponder. I fantasize. I plan to my heart's content - but way before the actual event.

So when I scared my kids by exclaiming in dire tones "Oh my GOSH!" as we were falling asleep in the hotel (in Placerville for a fencing camp) on Saturday, it was way too late to start planning. Two days is not enough time for me to pull something together, especially when one of those days must be spent watching ARG fence.

Plus, our anniversary fell on a Monday. Blah.

But this morning as I admired the beautiful roses he brought me, I thought about some of the reasons I love him. Oh, I probably wrote the same post a year ago. But I'm too lazy and pushed for time to check.

So at the risk of repeating myself and boring all 7 of you, here goes:

Things I love about Hubby:

- he sings when he is happy
- when he is really happy, he RAPS!
- he still rides a sk8board
- he has the most integrity of anyone I know (though he CAN tell a real stretcher of a story)
- he gets up at 5:30am every morning to slog to work and provide for us
- he fixes my computer when it acts up
- he goes with out needed new clothes for months so ARG can keep fencing during lean times
- he takes ARG to tournaments so I don't have to (Whew!)
- he mows the lawn
- he let's me go to NYC (Yipeee!)
- he creates amazingly beautiful pieces of wood furniture
- he always supports me in my personal growth
- he makes time with each kid a priority in his life
- he loves all my cooking
- he doesn't forget anniversaries (unlike some people)
- he did the dishes last night (and the crowd goes wild!)
- he loves his crazy, forgetful wife!

FB

I've realized something about FB: only kids post interesting things everyday. Most of the adults just take endless "What B Actor are you most like?" tests and post the results. They infinitely poke each other, send easter eggs and vote for favorite dogs. Or they post, like, once a week (or less).

I include myself in the not posting a lot, adult group. Though I do try to do it every so often. It's hard to get to it sometimes. And sometimes I just don't have anything worthwhile to say. And the one time I took one of those dumb quizes; "What LOTR character are you most like?", guess who I was? GOLLUM! Wuh? Me? Gollum? Oh yeah, like I'm really going to share that quiz's results with the world. Hmph.

I definitely need to get more kids on my list. They find the darndest things! ARG posts all kinds of wierd links to videos and images and scary political exposés. Other kids say lots of silly (and amusing) things.

But the adults? zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...................

Bird Brain

Birds must be pretty dumb.

Or maybe just swallows.

Or whatever kind of bird that KEEPS TRYING TO KILL ITSELF against my front window!


Every morning this little fella bonks himself (herself? how does one know?) against the windows on the front of our house. He does it over and over again. First he flies to the railing on our little deck. Then he inspects the windows for a minute or so. And then he proceeds to fly right into the window - whack! He'll land on the railing again, and repeat the process. Over and over. And over.

Of course all that work gets the bodily functions flowing, and my railing and deck are now covered with bird poop. Yick.

He's been at it for a week now. As soon as the sun is up, he's there. He stops around 10am. He was quite a distraction to last week's bible study. "Paul was writing to the Hebrews in Jerusalem because..." WHACK! "He's trying to prepare them for...." BONK!

I've heard varying opinions about why this bird brain is attacking himself in our window:
- hallucinagenic berries
- thinking his own reflection is a potential mate
- an irresistible desire to learn probability and Latin word roots

It is pretty strange to be doing school with the kids, when every few minutes: THUMP! BONK! THWACK!

We've tried running outside and shooing him away. He just comes back. One day I closed the sliding glass door on a towel, hoping its fluttering might scare it off. Nope.

I've decided to try a variation of my cousin's suggestion (to buy a fake owl and perch it on the railing). Instead I have created the very ominous and intimidating construction paper owl/hawk/some sort of bird that might have talons:



Wouldn't you be scared?

I'll keep you posted.