Pretzels and Komodo Dragons

I have declared today a Mother's Day, no particular reason, we are mostly healed up from our past few weeks and despite being rather tired from all the gardening around here ( another post I promise) we are doing fine. Abby has had a few exceptional moments this week where i am really appreciating this little person that grew inside me. We will start with "Mom, what's it like being an adult?", asked on the way to the swimming pool on Sunday morning it sort of took me off guard. A pretty advanced question I think , I tried ot give it an advanced answer:

Being an adult involves being tired a lot because there is a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it in, like chasing little girls and making supper and laundry and mowing the lawn. It is fun but not as fun as being a kid because there is more responsibility and you can't really do whatever you want, in some ways you are more restricted than when you were little. But being an adult is great because you can have a loving husband and family and terrific little girls who make you smile and fall in love all over again.

But I still think about my response to this question and wonder if I would answer the same thing if asked again this sunday, or next week or next year. I guess technically I don't feel that much different than I did 10 years  ago before I turned 18. Which where I grew up means : Yay! you are an adult and somewhat responsible and we'll give you keys to a car, and you can buy a house and get your own food and drink up a storm if you choose. Many things have changed since that time, I am comfortable with who I am, as a matter of fact I LOVE who I am which I don't think I ever would have said back then. I have these great girls that are amazing every single day even when I want to pull my hair our and hide on my own island . ANd a great husband who not only is my Hubs he is my friend, he is my perfect fit , the other side of the equation, really M=S in this house.

But being responsible sucks a lot of the time in other ways, no you can't play video games all day and order pizza and let the kids run wild and never wash or clean up anything. Well..... okay technically you could and I think I've seen a few "Supernanny" shows where a few if not all of those things are going on at the same time in a home. But we don't do it here. We have agonizing decisions over how to parent, what rashes to pay attention to, which are just from grass, thinking that bump in the night is a child falling from bed, a window being opened by a stranger. Wondering about nutrition, sleepcycles, weaning, nursing, weaning, nursing, about the right school for an obviously sharp little mind asking questions that should be beyond her years. So what is it like being an adult?


Abby: Mom I want to see a real live chameleon right now
Me: Well honey, I'm not in the habit of keeping real live chameleons in the car
Abby: why not?
Me: well I don't think they would like it in here
Abby: Oh, well if there was a chameleon in here it could eat some of my pretzels
Me: well I think they eat bugs Abby, but he might try a pretzel
Abby: do lizards have teeth?
Me: some do, I think Komodo Dragons have teeth
Abby: They are bad lizards
Me: No they aren't bad, they are just aggressive because they eat meat and they have to hunt it to eat it, that's all
Abby: Well do you think a Komodo Dragon would eat a pretzel?
Me: No Abby they like meat
Abby: well what if I threw it at him?
Me: well no probably not because they like meat
Abby: Well what if I threw this whole cup at him? and all the pretzels were in it?
Me: I think he might say , no thankyou I like meat
Abby: Well then I would give him chicken.

Mother's Day

Well I've been avoiding posting about Mother's Day as it wasn't really all that great over here, actually it was downright dismal. Seth has had a headache for the better part of the last week complete with dizziness and nausea and.. well yes vomiting too. All those quirky side effects of a brain injury that no one know how, or why, or when they happen but they do. SO Sunday morning was filled with leftover coffe, make your own breakfast and get the kids out of the house so that Seth could rest. We went swimming which was pretty fun, the kids are great at the pool and we have a good time. Then back to the house, scrounge up some lunch, put Norah down for a nap.. oh wait she isn't napping this week. Anotehr fun side effect of feeling discombobulated because her dad now lives in the bedroom with the blinds closed. So get Norah up after an hour of singing the alphabet, head out to Lowes to buy myself some flowers. Okay just so everyone knows, Lowes, on Mother's Day, which was warm here in Spokane, in the Garden department with two kids both tired from swimming, freaked out from no daddy time and both napless...... bad. bad bad bad. I got tired of Abby continually running away bu hersell so I let Norah get out of the cart too so they could run away together. I figure if anyone tried to nab them they would have their hands so full by the exit they would ditch the kids and run for their lives. So we got some nice plants, and some cow crap, and the oh so nice lady at the checkout asked very sweetly how my Mother's Day was going and she got an honest answer. She may think twice about asking again, or at least check for the level of harried involved before opening her goddamn mouth.


Then we trouped home, and then voila, Norah fell asleep.. great right? Well at 3:30pm .. not so much. SO she napped for a whole 40 minutes which was just enough time for me to get elbow deep in making dinner on the barbeque because my *&%(*& oven STILL isn't working. Well that's another post entirely. And when she woke up she was oh so friendly and smiley, I mean she might have been underneath all the whining and the crying and the moaning and the cranking. I hel dher on my hip while I chopped vegtables and barbecued meat and then we all sat down to eat dinner, with the blinds closed. Not sure if the blinds were closed to keep the sun out for Seth or so I could pretend to be on an island, in the dark, by myself. BUT managed to wrangle the kids into bed so they could scream and whine for an hour before finally falling alseep. And the best part? well falling asleep at 9pm of course.

These photos are not from Mother's Day, I decided not to take any photos because something about documenting such a disaster seemed morbid. But these are some great dress up shots from earlier this week and sometimes we all need a Giraffe costume.