Questions

I don't even think I can possibly convey the amount of questions that are asked and answered in a given day around here, but imagine yourself doing cartwheels down a steep hill, just going end after end after end after end until you collapse. That is usually the point I am at when I say that we are going to play the quiet game for a while and see who can go the longest without talking. It usually lasts about 30 seconds, but sometimes that is enough to just let me catch my breath and prepare for the next flood of questions. I want to answer them all because I love Mia's curiosity and desire to learn, and I want to foster those things within her, but it is so so so so hard. I'm going to try to re-create the car ride to the doctor today. I doubt I can do it justice, but here goes.

Mom, are ants poisonous?

No

Why not?

They just aren't.

Are snakes poisonous?

Some are and some are not.

Some are and some are not?

Yes

Why?

That is the way that God made them.

Why are there fire ants and sugar ants?

Because there are different kinds of everything.

Are there girl fire ants and boy fire ants?

Yes

And girl sugar ants?

Yes.

Are sugar ants girls and fire ants boys?

No, there are boy and girl fire ants and sugar ants.

Are there grandma and grandpa fireants?

Yes.

Where do ants live?

In ant mounds.

Why?

Because they need a place to live, just like we do.

Where do they get mounds?

They make them from little bits of dirt that they pick up and make a pile.

Why do ants try to steal our food?

Because they get hungry.

But why do we not want to share with them?

Because it is our food.

But they want to take little bites?

Yes.

Why they cannot take big bites?

Because they have little tiny mouths

Why we can take big bites?

Because we have big ole' mouths.

Ok, so this was about 3 minutes of our 10 minute drive. Add three more conversations like this to round out the trip, and that is how we spend all of our time. Whew!

This past weekend we went on a little hike, Daddy, Mommy and Baby. Baby did not want to hike. This little 15 second video sums up the first part of our trip.

So then, we did this for a while... have you ever heard of NWH (Nursing While Hiking)?

Then daddy decided it would be fun to play with his glasses. He was walking behind us so that he would see if they got dropped, but while he was taking pictures somehow they DID get dropped and he did not notice. We went back through the pictures and retraced our steps, like ok, she still has them in her hand by this log, but no longer has them by the time we get to THIS log, but alas, they were gone. It really stunk because those were Rex's brand new glasses that he just got last month, but it was kind of a blessing because I really didn't like those glasses but didn't think we should spend money on a new pair just because wifey didn't think they looked cool enough.

October update!

I always think that when Mia goes out of town I'll catch up on stuff, like blogging and cleaning and organizing and stuff around the house, but then when she comes home I realize I have gotten none of those things done. I see now that it isn't Mia who actually prevents me from doing these things; in fact she is at the age now where she can be quite helpful and fun to have around. She keeps it noisy and energizing to say the least. Her little sister now, is the one who is a work preventer. She wants to be held or carried always still, so she just lives on my back in the Ergo. Also, Mia takes nice long naps (well they are getting shorter now, but she has always slept between 2.5-4 hours in the afternoon!) but again, Eleanor is a barely there napper... she gets up around 8 or 8:30, sleeps for MAYBE two hours in the afternoon, then is up until we go to bed around 10:30 or 11. Can you believe it? At 9 months old. I am so spoiled with how much Mia has always slept, I just don't know what to do with a baby who is always awake!

I had some really funny stories to share, but of course now that I have a second on the computer to write I can't remember them. I should start writing stuff down...

I've been talking to Mia a lot about not touching her face and washing her hands all the time because of how ravaged our area is right now with flu, but I think she has it a little bit confused. We were in the car and she said, "Hey mom I washed my face!" (with water from her drink) "Can I touch it now?" she'll ask. Or Rex was holding her and she asks, "mom, is my face clean?" "um, yes I think so" I reply... "Oh good I can touch Rex's face now!" as she proceeds to give him a "good hard squeeze and good hard kiss" she calls it. When she goes to her dad's she gets to play with her cousins, one of whom she is madly in love with, KJ. He is 7 months older than her, and the exact same size, and they just look like crazy little twins when they are together. I told her that this time when she goes to visit to be very careful around KJ and not touch her eyes or nose or mouth without washing her hands because he goes to school and I don't want her to get sick because so many kids at school have been sick. When I told her she was going to see her dad, she said, "Can you call him and tell KJ not to come?" I thought she just had it backward and so I said, "yes dear of course KJ will be there." "No! She said, I don't want him to come because I don't want to get him sick!" That is true love guys. Seriously. That she would sacrifice seeing the love of her life, that they have already planned (I'm not kidding) their wedding, and what they are going to wear (she a beautiful dress and he beautiful clothes with a flower) and where they are going to live (on Grandpa's farm), and I have even been invited to throw flowers!, so that she wouldn't risk getting him sick, well who knew 3 year olds could be so self sacrificing!

This just doesn't look comfortable, but it is how she ends up every day after our walk. Between nap time and when Rex gets home (between about 4:30 and 6:30) we are so bored and have nothing to do (now that we are dinner sharing and I don't have to cook!) so we go for walks. Miles and miles we walk, for usually an hour to an hour and a half, up and down the street of our neighborhood. Eleanor looks at stuff and clicks her tongue (her new trick) and I answer and hours worth of Mia's questions, and we count things and spell things and just "bisit with each other" as she calls it when we have time to just hang out and talk. It is quite nice.
I talk a lot about all this healthy eating we do, drinking raw milk, making yogurt, soaking and sprouting beans before we use them, all sort of stuff my family especially thinks I'm crazy for, but don't let me get ya' fooled. I still feed my kids corndogs sometimes, and Eleanor can eat a whole one by herself!
Oh, and now we have this to deal with. We really really really really need baby gates. Sorry its goes sideways, hope you don't strain your neck watching it!

An after and during picture of our front door. I forgot to take a before picture, but imagine all of that raggedy white paint was chipped and peeling dark brown stain, and the trim around the door was chipped and peeling navy blue paint, and horrible gold lights and horrible ugly door. Here is what we have now though. We think the brightness of the red takes your eyes away from the ugliness of the rest of the house. Ah, so many more projects to come!

And finally, you would think after this summer's gardening fiasco that I would have given up, but no! I know that everything in my garden and flower beds died, but I made lots of mistakes, not watering regularly, planting things that were pretty but not suited for our direct Texas blazing sun. Not to mention the fact that we had the second hottest summer in recorded Austin history (for realz, like 6 more days over 100 and we would have tied the record!) and everybody's everything was cooked, even our neighbor's beautiful yard that they have professionally cared for is all dead, so I'm not taking it as a personal failure, and I'm trying again. These sprouts are some different lettuces, and some cilantro, and I'm gonna plant some garlic. Not going overboard, just some things to play with. Ok, well I think I've taken up enough of your time dear readers, I'll post more next time Eleanor sleeps until 11 am and Mia is out of town : )

My new dinner share blog!

I've started a new blog chronicling our dinner share... I thought about just copying and pasting the recipes onto this blog, but decided it would just fill up with cooking stuff and this one is supposed to be about the kids and our lives, not just dinner. Anyhow, the blog link is over on the side under the "Our friends" section of this blog. Hopefully this will be a way to share some yummy recipes and cooking inspirations for all of our friends!

both girls are napping right now, which has been a more and more rare occurence. Eleanor's sleeping patterns are all over the board. Mia was always such a scheduled sleeper, having to nap at exactly the same time and go to bed at precicely the same time every day or she just fell apart. This past Sunday, Eleanor took a 10 minute nap ALL DAY and didn't sleep until Rex put her in the Ergo on his back around 7 while we packed up to leave his parents' house. She doesn't even get fussy, just kind of climby, and then toward the end kind of slow moving and lethargic with that million mile stare, then she just falls asleep. She has fallen asleep before on my hip while I was just carrying her around the house doing stuff! It is so amazing how very different children can be from one another. Anyhow, we never know at night if she is going to wake up once or 10 times, sleep in her own hammock or need to be cuddled up next to me nursing, we just have to play it by ear every single night. Oh wait, pause for a sec, I have on the cooking channel right now, and Giada is making procuitto wrapped scallops. Yum. Oh, and here comes Mia downstairs from her nap, hair all crazy, carrying her bottle. Yes, she still drinks from a bottle at night and for naps at our house and my moms, but evidentally not at anyone elses. Maybe when she is 4 she'll give it up!
We decided to change her mother's day out program and take her out of swimming and put her in tap instead (so now she'll have ballet, gymnastics and tap). It was just traumatic for us all, every week when we told her it was ballet day- she would cry and whine and say she didn't want to go. When we get there she gets super excited and has a ton of fun, but she has so much anxiety about going underwater at the swim part that I was afraid that she would start connecting that feeling with ballet in general and would grow up hating to dance. From someone who grew up loving to dance, I would so hate for that to happen, so we'll try tap for a while and we can see if it makes her more excited about going. I just figure, we signed her up so she can have fun and if she isn't having fun then it is silly to spend the money. We do really want her to learn to swim, but maybe she just isn't ready. We'll try again in the Spring maybe.
On a more thought provoking note, wherever we go it is no surprise that Mia makes friends. Super good friends as far as she is concerned. Whenever we leave places that she has been playing with some kid or the other for a while she always asks if we can go to their house to play with them again. I usually respond by saying that I don't know where they live. She then got smart to that and will say, "well, why don't you call them and ask them?" I explain that I don't know their phone numbers, so she has recently figured out how to get around that as well. She has started taking it upon herself to ask people for their phone numbers and where they live to save me the trouble. She did this at Rex's cousin's wedding (the lady was his cousin's wife's mom, but Mia had never met her before) and this past week at Chick Fil-A. She made this big deal begging me to get the mom's phone number, right there in front of the mom and kids. It was really awkward! What is funny is that is how we have made some of our good friends- Rowena and Jesse who stayed with us for a while we met at the gardening store and Rowena and I exchanged numbers after the girls hit it off playing, and it is how I met Darby who we hang out with like every day, so how do I explain to her the difference? I told her we only get phone number of our very good friends, not all of the people we meet, but she says everyone she meets is her really good friend. How do you explain to a child that in our society we are supposed to shun strangers and not speak to anyone or try to make friends? (of course I am kidding, but that is how society runs itself in most cases). Rex says I should tell her we don't have time for any new friends, but that isn't true, so maybe we should get everyone's phone number that we meet, and if we can get together we do and if we can't we don't... who knows how many folks' lives we could get involved with? Especially since in our community groups we are going through a series on reaching out, involving yourself with others, living in community, getting to know your neighbors and strangers and people that you would normally just walk right by. Maybe she has it right and we have it wrong. Maybe instead of teaching her to be more isolated and private, maybe we should learn to make more friends everywhere we go! I'm not sure, but it definitely makes me think.
Well, this is long enough for today, I hope it all makes sense and isn't full of too many typos, it is hard to type with Phinneas and Ferb on the tv with a kiddo begging for chocolate milk. Next time I'll try to update on: our raw milk deliveries and making cheese and yogurt and starting a new dinner co-op!

you know you are sisters when...

I remember my sister Jessica and I would do crazy things together when we were young.. one really funny example I can think of is figuring out a way to both use the bathroom at the same time... one facing forward, one backward, and two tiny tushies can fit on one toilet. Well, the other day Rex says, "Hey, what is that on Eleanor's face? Is it a booger?" Mia then pulls it off, pops it in her mouth, chews a second and replies, "Yep, it was a booger." I just have to enter that into the blog chronicles to remember forever... : )

The elusive laugh..

It is really hard to get Eleanor to laugh usually, and even harder to catch it on film. She is such a pensive little thing, and she'll smile at you, but getting an actual belly laugh is really hard work. She was letting it rip last night (she thinks her dada is really funny!) and I happened to catch it finally! It is so cute, I think she sounds just like a little squeaker toy!

Dinner share

We are in the midst of our first week of a dinner share... I'm actually just filling in for a couple of weeks for a gal who is out of town, but nonetheless, for the next two weeks this is what we are doing:

Sunday night when we got home from the zoo, there was yummy hot dinner waiting for us on our front porch. Veggie chilli, quinoa salad and fruit. Yum!

Monday I made hummus, falafels, taboule salad and cucumber mint yogurt, enough for our family and three others. I delivered dinner to the three other families, which took about 15 mintues because they all live within 2 miles of our house.

Tuesday night around 6 there was a knock at our door, and presto, dinner again! It was a delicious spicey vegetarian meal with green beans and cucumbers with dill and yogurt.

Tonight (Wednesday) we are eating all of the leftovers from the previous nights

Thusday we are getting dinner delivered again.

So, this is how it works! One night a week you make dinner for yourself and 3 others, and deliver it to them, then 3 other nights you just sit back and dinner gets delivered to you! It is pretty cool in that (a) I have only cooked one night this week and we have had fresh homemade dinners every night and (b) you get such a variety, because everyone cooks differently, uses different spices and ingredients so you aren't stuck eating your own concoctions every night, and (c) it is soooo cheap! To make dinner Monday it cost about $25 and 2 hours and that is all we will spend on groceries all week, well besides lunch and stuff, but for dinner, that is it!

So like I said, I'm just filling in for a couple of weeks, but it is pretty awesome. This group is also vegetarian, so we couldn't keep it up forever, but another group is trying to get off the ground that is a gluten-free/ with meat group that I might try to get in on . I would definately recommend trying this out! I added a link to the blog for this dinner share over to the side of my blog... each lady writes on the blog the recipie and cost of each dinner, so if you are interested in any yummy vegetarian meals, check it out!