Monkey Brains

Well, I've all but forgotten that our future hangs in the balance. Avoidance, denial, acceptance, all or some clearly in play here, but it feels really good not to be worried about it.

My parents are waiting on their mission call any day now.  I'm anxious to know where they'll be going and so are they.  I realized that our situations are quite similar at the moment. With the decision out of our respective hands, we both wait to find out where we'll be.              

We've begun the descent into the holiday season and I can feel the wheels picking up speed as we roll over the edge of the hill.  The kids have all kinds of little things going on forcing me into mind limbering mental exercises.  It's like I'm eighty and playing Sudoku to keep the old hamster wheel turning, only I'm 31 and I lying in bed at night thinking,

 Can't forget Ava's poster for her genre project tomorrow (which we totally forgot, by the way).  I need to make her bonnet for Colonial Day on Thursday and I should put money on her lunch account so she can buy lunch with Grandma and Grandpa on Grandparents Day.  Don't forget tomorrow's dentist appointment! Luke needs popcorn for his feast party on Friday, gotta get that at Costco.  I need to return the book I borrowed before book club. Don't forget to get the turkey I forgot to buy yesterday for the six sandwiches Max needs to make and bring for his sharing feast at school.  And don't forget to cut them in quarters! 

And so on and on and on...

Sunday night, right before bedtime I remembered that Luke was "Moose of the Week". The hamster hadn't run properly on Saturday, I suppose. So we borrowed a posterboard from the neighbor and whipped this baby up.

 Here's a closer look. I loved his answers and his spelling of "Engineer".

Last weekend we hit the zoo for one last fling before Grandma's membership ran out. The weather was perfect and we enjoyed ourselves.

The kids always love to climb on the elephant statues.

Want me to take your picture, Max?

 We started at the opposite end from our usual and consequently spent a lot more time in The Savannah.  The giraffes were a highlight because they came so close.  Ava pet this one quite a few times.

We loved the lions.  They were in perfect view as they sat on a huge rock on a hill.  The very next day, one of the male lions, in an apparently calm fashion, leaned over, wrapped his mouth around the neck of one of the females and killed her, just like that.  I believe that was the first time that has ever happened in a zoo setting.  It breaks my heart to think of it.

 We rode the monorail.

And finished with the birds.

Wherever we go and even with all of the beautiful animals we saw, my camera always seemed to find its way back to this monkey.

Finn at 8 months

I don't remember it being such a challenge with the others, but maintaining our home as a choking-hazard free zone is proving to be quite nearly impossible. And there's no denying it now, after weeks of planks, 

and downward dogs, wheelbarrowing, 

backwards moving, army crawls, and getting stuck under furniture,

 Finn  is officially on the move, making that feat harder than ever.

This video is from October 30.  His hands and knees skills have improved dramatically since then.

Now explain to me this, weeks before he developed the ability to pick up small pieces of food and self feed at the table, he stealthily managed to finger pinch the tiniest bits of carpet fuzz, paper bits, food crumbs, etc. and with expert precision, direct them to his mouth and dutifully attempt to swallow them down.

How does that work?

He barfed an entire meal up on my shoulder the other day, completely out of the blue.  It took me a minute to realize that he was gagging on a Halloween candy wrapper.  I caught glimpse of it for a second and tried the old finger sweep, before he finally swallowed it down, never to be seen again.  

Once more, I'm reminded to lower my standards.  Just keep the kids alive and I can consider myself majorly accomplished in life. Just keep 'em alive.

 Finn remains keenly aware.  Just as he's always been.  Stranger anxiety has never been higher and a couple of times now, he's done this similar thing. The first time, as Dan laid on our bed and Finn sat on his chest, Ava and I sat near by. We were casually chatting, when Finn picked up Dan's hand and shoved it in his mouth.  While definitely not noteworthy, it was cute and we giggled about it.  And then Finn looked up at us, his bottom lip started to quiver just as the tears flowed. The expression on his face said he was upset we were laughing at him.  And I know, at 8 months old, it's not really likely that he would care about such a thing.  

And I may have written it off myself, but a day or so later, he sat in his chair at the table while my mom was feeding him.  I sat at the table too.  Again, he did something simple and cute and my mom chuckled.  And again, out came the lip and the tears and that same expression of self conscious embarrassment.   You don't have to believe me, it's a crazy claim, but I know what I'm talking about.

His hair is growing in now, though it's natural inclination is straight up.  

It's kind of his signature now.  I smoothed it down after a bath yesterday and could hardly recognize him.  Not to fear though, as it dried it resumed it's prominent posture.

He's come to prefer his tummy for sleeping.

He is on the cusp of so many delightful little developments.  He will clap if you ask him.  He claps when I enter his room each morning to get him from his crib.  He has figured out how to click his tongue and he's beginning to mimic head movements.  

He LOVES to eat.  And even in all caps, that's an understatement.  His palate is becoming more discriminatory at the table however. (Though on the floor he still lacks any discrimination at all.  See above.)

He continues to be a bright spot in our home, guaranteed to improve any mood.  It's absolutely impossible not to smile when you see him. 

 

Max Saves the Day

I want to wake up tomorrow 15 pounds lighter.  I'd totally settle for 10.  Is that took much to ask?

My level of stress is easily manifested by how I eat and I classify it in two stages.

  Normally, I'm...normal.  I mean, I eat fairly well. I try not to eat too much, I try to eat minimal amounts of sugar and wheat since they seem to cause me the most trouble.  Generally, I function in a socially appropriate way (in regards to eating, that is).

Stress Level 1, where I presently find myself, is when significant stress comes along and I move from socially appropriate to garbage disposal.  I eat anything and everything regardless of whether I really want it, whether its worth the calories, or the sick way it's going to make me feel later.  It's times like these, that I am very, very glad I don't drink alcohol.  Right now, I just feel sick and can't fit in my clothes, but things could be worse right?

Stress Level 2 is when the stress escalates enough that I can't eat at all.

So I guess the bright side of all of this is that while I am totally ridiculous right now, I'm technically only moderately stressed, not an alcoholic, and still have an appetite.

The bad part is, I hate the way I feel, I hate the way I look, and I hate my closet and everything in it.

I waved Max off to preschool this morning in my old, worn out, crotchless yoga pants, faded tshirt, and sweatshirt jacket.

I took a two hour nap when the baby did.  Between the 12-14 hour days/6-7 days a week of Dan's work, plus Halloween, plus Young Women in Excellence and all it entails, plus organizing play group parties, driving carpool, endless ear infections, planning lessons, having four kids, worrying about our future, and life in general, we're kind of exhausted over here. Today was the first day in a couple of weeks to actually sit down (or in my case, lie down).

When I got up, I put on real clothes.  Real, nice clothes.  And I hated how I looked.  But the baby was crying and I had to run a few errands before picking up Max from preschool.  So I went on my way, dressed, but feeling bad and ugly.


When Max walked out of his classroom and saw me, his eyes literally shone.

"Mo-om!" he smiled.

"You look fantastic!"

"I love your red dress!"

And as we walked down the hall towards the car holding hands, He looked up to my face and said,

"I just love you.  You're my Mommy."

And for a moment I forgot every annoying thing he's ever done.

  For a moment, I felt pretty.

 My kids are changing me, shaping me, stretching me, and today, encouraging me.

Max reminded me that I am a mommy; a hard working, hard loving mommy.

Max reminded me today, that in the grand scheme of things, the woman I want to be, the one they are helping me become, is the kind who doesn't need to go around feeling bad about herself.

Halloween and Manual Transmissions

I don't know much about engines but when I turned 16, my first car was a Volkswagon Jetta with a manual transmission. It took me a few weeks, but soon I was flying around in that car just fine, and didn't even have to avoid the roads with hills. When that car caught on fire and died it's dramatic death, it was replaced with an old Acura hatchback, also a manual.  I drove it across the country and by the time it got to Utah by way of Texas, it was that car you never wanted to drive behind because it couldn't pass emissions. In fact, because of the horrendous amount of smoke pouring out of the tailpipe, I couldn't get a parking permit for college so I ended up parking in a hotel across the street from campus and praying everyday that I wouldn't return to a ticket on my windshield.  

I started dating Dan who drove a cute little extended cab Nissan, manual transmission, truck.  We got married and sold the Acura.  We replaced it with a new Corolla with, you guessed it, a standard transmission.  So, in my 16 years of driving, 11 of those have been in a car or truck, clutching and gassing and shifting. 

In that time, it became second nature to me.  There was no thinking involved, my feet and hands just knew what to do and when to do it.   

The security of Dan's job has been a blinking question mark in our minds for the past few months.  Rumors were flying that his office would be closed.  Being in HR has its perks and those rumors were confirmed to Dan and one other employee a few weeks ago and thus began the hours upon hours of work required to logistically perform such a feat along with the heavy burden of knowing the sad future of so many unsuspecting employees.  Our trip to NY was cancelled and the time was instead spent at the office 7 days a week.  I  was mummed to secrecy and even my broad and general blog post here last week was censured immediately.  I don't blame Dan, though.  But I needed a release and couldn't find it, because there was no where to go and no one to tell.  

Today Dan will meeting with laid off employees.  And in a few weeks we will learn whether he will join them.  As HR has it's perks it also has it's negatives.  You can't lay off the HR people until they've laid off everyone else for you first.  

I wonder what would happen if I sat behind the wheel of a standard today. I'm thinking it would come right back to me. 

Mostly, because I have been riding around with that old familiar hum in my chest.   My RPM's are rolling at that maximum point, the hum is loud, the engine is begging for a shift.  And if I want the roar to die down, I need to shift up. I'm not miserable. I'm not about to redline, but I either need to slow down or shift gears. Or take a nice little break in neutral.

Which would translate, I guess, to eliminating my stress (impossible) or increasing my ability to deal (probably impossible too).  Since neither of those are likely to happen, I have kept myself busy, so I don't have to think about it.

Now, I'm not the kind of person who likes to be busy.  I like to be productive but I don't get my kicks in life from accomplishing a million things. I'd rather accomplish a few things that I really enjoy doing. But I think in a subconscious effort to keep my mind from having any down time, I put the pedal to the metal. Starting with the headboard post a few weeks ago, and never letting up.  But at least I have been doing things I enjoy.  Like making costumes.  

Seriously, if I could get as excited about cooking and cleaning as I do about making Halloween costumes, this would be a different house.

   I started with Popeye and Olive Oyl.  My high school basketball coach used to say that I looked like Olive Oyl.  I was obviously much skinnier then. But we needed costumes for a party,  this popped into my head.

 My method for costumes is to gather what I can that works just how it is, then gather what I need to make the rest, usually from a thrift store or our closets. 

Popeye's shirt was a black shirt and a red shirt from the goodwill.  I cut out the collar of the black one, made the sailor collar from the red, and then attached them together.  I cut off the sleeves and added the blue trim and glued on the felt buttons.  The pants were a couple of dollars, also from the goodwill.  I glued yellow felt to a canvas belt he never wore.

And even without his muscles, Popeye is a great bedtime toothbrusher. 

I wrapped Dan's arms with quilt batting, cut the legs and toes out of some pantyhose, and slipped them over his arms. I drew on the anchor with permanent marker.

I ordered the hat and pipe from Amazon.

Olive Oyl started with a red turtle neck and a white ruffly women's blouse from the thrift store. I cut off the neck of the red turtle neck, cut off the ruffles from the white shirt and added them to the neck and wrists of the red.  Sounds more confusing than it was.

I took a black skirt from my closet and added yellow ribbon with removable Fashion Tape to the bottom, because I didn't want to ruin the skirt.

And when it was all said and done, I think we looked pretty great for the Halloween party we attended. 

When the dust settled around the kid's Halloween costume discussions and it appeared they were all in agreement to do Star Wars, I couldn't believe it.  You may remember last year that Luke refused to join Darth Vader and Princess Leia and was Mario instead.  

This year, they wanted to do Star Wars again.  Luke wanted to be Luke Skywalker. Max was set on Obi Wan Kenobi.  Ava wanted to join in, but feeling like she'd "used up" Leia from last year, she decided her only other option was Queen Amidala. And at that announcement, I said an internal, "oh, crap" because how do you make a Queen Amidala costume?  

 I was really excited that they'd all settled on the same theme though, so I didn't want to dissuade her.  As the mother of quite a little flock of children now, themed family costumes are really exciting to me. And I knew just the perfect Yoda.

But seriously, what else was I going to do?  Sit and think and wonder?  No, I was going to gather jedi clothes, sew jedi robes, find an Amidala dress and make a headpiece.  

The boy's were simple.  I lucked out finding everything I needed for their outfits on my very first Goodwill trip.  Then sewing their robes was as easy as it gets.

I thought about Ava's for a while.  I found a silky Renaissance dress, but for a while that's all I had. 

 Then I came across this green velvet house coat.  I chopped off the sleeves and added the trim from the excess hem of the dress to the collar.  

I knew I could not go for accuracy,  I was not about to reproduce Queen Amidala's signature red outfit.  I was going more for...Queen Amidala on a Tuesday.  

The head piece is a 3/4 of a styrofoam wreath form, attached to Ava's old head band, wrapped in batting, and carefully wrapped and hot glued with brown yarn.  I approximated the gold side pieces from pictures and drew them on cardboard and cut them out.  I taped up the edges, sprayed them gold, and covered them in glitter.  I hot glued them to the wreath.  I sewed a tube of drapey purple fabric and attached one side of one end to the back of the headpiece to finish it off.

I found a wrinkly women's linen jacket perfect for downsizing for a worn out Yoda robe.  

I realized my limitations and had ordered a crocheted Yoda hat off of Etsy near the beginning of October.

Unfortunately the hat I received looked more like an elf and less like a Yoda.  So on Halloween morning, after realizing I'd finished everything else, I sewed up a quick Yoda hat for Finn and loved it. 

A little face paint later, we had our completed Star Wars Quartet and four really happy kids.  

We went through the neighborhood while Mom and Dad sat on our lawn and passed out candy.  

Obi Wan ran out of strength on the second street and had to go home, but the rest of us went longer and further than we ever had before.

And they brought home the candy to prove it.  Now I'm getting further and further from my Olive Oyl ideal as I eat away my stress with all of their candy.

I have no idea what they'll want to be next Halloween but if they want their costumes to be this involved they better start hoping their mother has something she's trying not to think about.