What I Believe

I didn't think I would be all deep thoughts in this blog, but sometimes serious things come up that deserve some air time.
I know some of you out there might not be of like mind, but I believe that if two people love each other and wish to enter into marriage, that all of these couples whether or not they consist of one man and one woman, or two men or two women, deserve all of the recognition and benefits our country and states provide. Period. I'm attaching a link that says it far better than I can. Because there is not enough love in this world for us to be bickering about whose love is better or more deserving. Click here to read the eloquent article from Vicki on Prop 8.

Oh, and here's a funny blog about it, with some great wedding photos, be sure to click on the more, tab, too.

Overheard

"Doodle, stop kicking me in the boo-tocks."
"What do you mean, boo-tocks? I'm kicking you in your BUT-tocks."
"But it's Halloween. They are Boo-tocks. Like ghosts' butts."
"Hmmm....I think skeletons have those too."

Kids Halloween Brunch This Weekend!

So we went to a Halloween party for ourselves for our kids, hosted by our friends, the B family. B family has a wealth of experience hosting these get-togethers and were the masterminds behind the original "Drinks with Kids" parties, which basically mean we drink beverages around our kids. Brilliant! Sometimes we have babysitters when the Nutty family hosts, but usually there is one adult who gets stuck graciously volunteers to drive home and is therefore sober enough to take care of the kids. Not that we are lushes or anything... I mean we only went through about 8 or 10 bottles of champagne today. Hey, there were like 9 adults there! No worries! And we drank at least 2 gallons of orange juice, too!

Actually, some of the families with kids who take naps and are fed real vegetables left early and the core group remained. So with our kids playing nicely and champagne on ice we had some stimulating conversation (all of you dbs out there know who you are). I was openly mocked for asking someone if they were on "the face book" and we discussed the election and some other stuff that I just can't remember right now. And I apologize to T for asking him a million times about his job, when in fact he is a real estate agent and his job is pretty much in the toilet. It was the mimosa talking.

So thanks to the B's for a super great party and thanks to Ms. B's Brother who brought some great champagne and didn't mock us too much. It was so great in fact, that poor Dan was treated to three napping ladies in the car on the way home.

(Oh and not to worry, we were FINE. Dan wanted to be sure you all know that I took some dramatic license here, and we were not stinking drunk in front of our kids.)

I've posted some photos of our adorable offspring in the slide show in case you are interested.

Jamming out, 70's style

So today in the minivan, somewhere between the farmers' market and Target, Brickhouse came on the radio. Doodle exclaims from the back seat, "Turn it up, Mom! That Brickhouse is my favorite song!!" Moo says, "Turn it up, Mom, real loud!!" Doodle sang the chorus and Moo chimed in with the "Shake it down, shake it down now."

See, I love 70's music. Currently in my car is a two disc set of 70's Gold (purchased from Costco, in case any of you are 70's music freaks like me) and the essential Earth, Wind and Fire. I happily received the entire Neil Diamond music library for Christmas one year. I know, it's a problem....... and, as an aside, aren't you totally creeped out that "Sweet Caroline" was actually written for a pre-pubescent Caroline Kennedy?? It almost ruins it for me.

A few songs later, Doodle says, "Nama loves this one!" It was "I Feel Love" by Donna Summer. Yeah, I KNOW she likes that one. See, I come by my taste in music naturally. I have vivid childhood memories of my mom blasting the radio and singing at the top of her lungs in her giant powder blue Mercury Marquis to either 70's, Motown, or Broadway musicals (a different story for a different day).

When my mom took the girls a few weekends ago. I left my music in the car. When she returned the minivan, she remarked at how much she liked the radio station I selected, and was astounded as to how few commercials there were. Uh, Mom? That was the 70's Gold CD, not the radio. There are like 20 songs on each disc. At least now I know what get her for Christmas.

So we rounded out the errands trip with YMCA. Doodle wanted to know what the YMCA was. Great....where to go with that one? I told her that it was a great workout place and sometimes they are also nice hotels. What??? It was the best I could do at the time!

Chalk it all up to another issue they will be dealing with in therapy.

My Secret is Mary Freaking Poppins

Some of you wonder how I manage to work, spend time with my kids, volunteer and generally show up most places with at least some makeup on and talk in complete sentences. Some is accomplished through not much sleep and type A energy. Some is due to Dan and family and friends' support. But mostly, it is possible because we have our very own Mary Poppins. For those of you who have ever tried to secure childcare, you understand how difficult it is to find someone great. If you find someone who has half a brain, is pleasant, dependable and on time, you feel like you have hit the jackpot. The Nutty Family, my friends, has not only won the lottery, we are up to our ears in Mary Poppins goodness. She is kind and cheerful and crafty and my kids love her. I will brag for one moment more, bear with me. So......the illustrator from Fancy Nancy was coming to our local bookstore and I emailed Mary Poppins. If it were me, I would have taken the girls, had a book autographed, and left it at that. But Mary Poppins got the girls all excited, they dressed up like Fancy Nancy, had the book autographed (in pink pen with hearts, no less, addressed to Princess Doodle and Princess Moo Bear) and......wait for it, TOOK PICTURES!!!
Whew, I am basking in her greatness. So here is a shout out to Mary Poppins, you know who you are, thank you for all that you do for us. We heart you. If you want a different nickname than Mary Poppins, let's talk. That's all I had in me today.

Oh, and she is young and cute and hip - not schoolmarmish at all.

One more thing.... when I showed up at Family Fun Day at preschool, there was some confusion with some of the new moms and dads. Seems as though they had met Mary Poppins at drop-off and pick-up and they had met Dan (he's home some Fridays) at drop-off and pick-up and because they are blond and the princesses are blond they made some assumptions and....thought that he had scored a hot,young, trendy wife! Sorry to ruin your street cred with the preschool set honey!

Edit to add that in addition to being awesome yesterday and most everyday, Mary P spent the morning in between gymnastics class and a b-day party for the girls' friend, at Target searching for pirates to go with a b-day gift that I came up with that had a pirate raft and a pirate island, but no pirates. She rocks!

Instant Karma's Gonna Get You- Squirrel Style

So..... many of you have asked about the squirrel bite in my tagging post. That bite, in an of itself, is not very interesting. However, I have a colorful history with these suckers.

In our old house, I started hearing noises....the pitter-patter of little feet in the eaves. I thought we had mice so I called an exterminator who told me that I had squirrels! He taught me the following facts:
1. Squirrels can squeeze through a hole the size of a quarter.
2. They mate like crazy if they find a warm place to do so, i.e. your heated eaves.
3. They are territorial, so they will return to the nest.
4. It is illegal to kill squirrels in my state.

Very helpful, thanks. So we bought a humane squirrel trap. We learned that you catch more squirrels with peanut butter than cheese (Good one Dan! They'll love the Kraft singles!). Every morning for more than a week we would catch a squirrel and drive them miles away to the forest preserve (aka squirrel park to my kids) where they could be reunited with other squirrels. After we trapped and released for a while, Dan got up on the roof to seal off the tiny entrance. Thus, I thought my squirrel days were over.

Fast forward a year and we moved into a new house, another 100+ year old house. We got all garden-y at this house. One day, Dan in an effort to be helpful, comes home from the Costco with a ginormous bag of gladiola bulbs. We're talking more than 100 bulbs. And I planted every one of those suckers and I don't even LIKE gladiolas. Guess what? Squirrel fact #5, Squirrels LOVE plant bulbs. They are like CRACK to squirrels. Forget the nuts, plant some bulbs! The squirrels ate some in the fall and the remainder in the spring when they sprouted. Needless to say, I was pissed.

Enter the squirrel bite. We had become a popular hangout for the squirrel crowd. Party in the nerds' yard, bring your squirrel posse! I was feeding them bulbs and the neighbors were feeding them nuts, why wouldn't they like our yard? One day, I was going into the alley, not paying attention and laid my hand on the ivy covered fence gate. A squirrel was there, he bit me and hissed. Thankfully, no skin was broken so no rabies shots for me!

So then I blog about my squirrel bite. Enter Karma, with a capital K. Not 24 hours after I post about the bite, I'm in the guest room at night and hear scratching. Damned if it wasn't a varmint trying to chew his way out of the wall. I wake Dan. He was really helpful, "Go back to sleep honey, you're imagining things." Ha! In the morning he claims he was just trying to get me to go back to sleep but really believed me, but I digress. The varmint was bigger than a mouse, trust me, and he really liked the taste of the wood trim. I spent most of the morning stomping on the floor and knocking on the walls yelling, "Show yourselves you little bastards!"

So my hero puts out the squirrel trap, and not 24 hours later, there is silence in the house, no varmints. Dan finds a squirrel hole on the roof (he's now an expert on identifying squirrel gnaw marks) and seals it up.

Which brings us to squirrel fact #6, Squirrels read the blog.

For your viewing pleasure, I've inserted some gratuitous Star Wars-themed squirrel pics. And if you want to see way more photos of squirrels dressed up in funny outfits, click here it's where I got the photo of the Darth Vader Squirrel. I rather enjoyed the site, seeing someone dress up the squirrels and post some humiliating pictures of them on the web. Take that squirrels!

Ethiopian Food Experiment

We tried our hand at making homemade Ethiopian food yesterday, and it went pretty well. We made Alicha Sega Wot (mild beef stew), kik Wot (red lentil stew) and Warm Cabbage (from Marcus Samuelsson's cookbook, The Soul of a New Cuisine. The recipes for the Alicha Sega Wot and kik Wot were taken from the ethiopianspices.com website, where we got some of the spices and the bread, the injera. Next time, I would make a few adjustments, like less oil in the beef stew, and no lentils in the warm cabbage. Also, I mixed red and green lentils in the stew and the green cooked way longer than the red, so the consistency is a little off. I had to add way more water (2+ cups more) to the lentil stew than the recipe called for. One tip, the beef stew can be started on the stove (I browned the meat and caramelized the onions first) and then thrown in a crockpot (5 hours on low). Also, thanks to the staff at our local Penzey's Spices. They helped us find some spices from the Samuelsson cookbook that go by other names than the names he used in the book.

On a side note, Dan made the cabbage dish on his own, even making the Ethiopian spiced butter, the nit'ir quibe. He's getting to be handy in the kitchen, branching out from the grill, spaghetti, frozen pizza, and trader joe's simmer sauces.

They're Not Young

So for the last three Saturday mornings, I've been volunteering with the Obama campaign. Basically, I get up super ass early and help prepare volunteers who are going to canvass in other states (my state, thankfully, is very blue). Sometimes, I bring breakfast treats--note that Obama volunteers seem to love Dunkin' Doughnuts (the chocolate ones-- jelly ones and those big long johns with vanilla icing just sit there), diet coke, and coffee. Coincidence? You be the judge.

Anywhoo, when I started to volunteer, I received emails from a coordinator who used phrases like, "if you like that action, you can show up at.....". Based on these emails, and all of the talk of young people getting involved, I expected to show up on that first Saturday and see all of these 20 and 30 year olds sipping their lattes, talking politics, texting, super excited...maybe even a few teenage environmentalists. Boy, was I wrong!! The coordinator who sent me the hip email is probably a very spry 68-72 year old who talks about her retired husband needing a walker occasionally. The woman who prepares the canvassers clocks in at about 62, and one of the senior organizers is a 48-50 year old woman. They ARE energetic, and devoted to the cause, but they are not young. Most of the volunteers aren't spring chickens, either. I think one week, out of about 50 volunteers, we had two teenagers and one person in her 20s. The majority were in the 50s and 60s.

Now I'm proud of these folks, and they make my measly effort seem pathetic. I'm glad that they've made me one of their peeps, but it was a surprise. I suppose in other areas there are more young folks, or they are participating on facebook or something--but in my neck of the woods, they are mature.

So here's a shout out to my Dems, I'm off to make my phone calls for Obama.

P.S. If you live in my state (you know who you are) and want to help, let me know and I can hook you up with my campaign friends. Oh and vote early if you can.

Tagged!

Ok so Cheryl tagged me...and to be honest, this freaked me out. Even though I went public with this blog to the CHSFS adoption forum and a few friends, I never imagined that anyone would ever really read my blog. In fact, I was too scared to install a counter lest it would stay at 5 for like forever. I truly thought that only my best friend R was reading. I was wrong. So here goes with the tag, and thanks to Cheryl making me put myself out there.

1. I have a pathological love for my minivan (Toyota Sienna, for those of you who care, bought used with less than 30,000 miles on it, on my 4th wedding anniversary).
2. I have a pathological fear of vomit.
3. I love most 80's movies, most notably Top Gun, and could watch it for hours reciting the lines.
4. I may be the only person in North America who doesn't like cinnamon.
5. Despite my allergies to and disdain for most normal household pets, I will spend days nursing our parakeets and beta fish back to health.
6. I was once bitten by a squirrel.
7. I have a nerd fetish (according to my DH). He might be right, I have a soft spot for the intellectual dorky looking men. Notably, I have a love for Al Gore, Noah Wylie in his ER days and Michael Cera.

I'm going to tag a few folks who probably don't even know I've been reading their blogs, so this should be interesting: Julie, Holly and the Steinbergs. Most others I read have been tagged before.

These socks were made for walking.....

I have about 15 socks from my girls that are without partners. Every load of laundry I do, I hope to make a match, to no avail. They are unique, too, not just the white ones. We've lost socks with hearts, socks with stripes, socks with bows, yellow socks, purple and green striped socks, socks with ice cream cones on them, socks with minnie mouse on them, socks with monkeys on them, etc. We have equal opportunity sock loss going on.

I found one hiding the other day in between the cushions of the couch (gross, I know, but we have two little girls, people!!! Our cleaning person and my husband can only do so much). So I asked the Doodle where she was hiding the socks. She replied, " I don't HIDE them Mommy, they just walk away." "Well, why don't you stop them, then?" "They are sneaky and fast."

Lucky Number #13

So, after this last round of referrals, we are #13 on the unofficial list for CHSFS! I'm still not expecting a referral before December, but I am heartened by the fact that the list is moving. Here's hoping for another batch of referrals real soon!

Overheard

Doodle says, "Moo, you hurt my feelings today when you were at the jungle gym at the park and didn't want to play with me."

Moo, "Well T and I were playing knights and princesses and if you wanted to be a knight or a princess you could play with us."

Doodle, "But I didn't want to be a knight or a princess. I wanted to play climbing trees."

Moo,"We didn't want to play climbing trees. Knights and princesses only."

Doodle, "You hurt my feelings."

Moo, "Ok. Next time if you want to play you need to be a knight or a princess."

Doodle, "But I don't WANT to be a knight or a princess."

Moo, "Ok. Whatever."

And that was the end of it. Weird, just when I think they are just little girls, they act like they are about 30 years old, totally in touch with their feelings.

The Accidental Pumpkin

So we composted our pumpkins from last Halloween. A few seeds must have gotten through to the composter because we had some weeds in our flower beds this summer that looked quite a bit like pumpkin vines. We let some vines grow and lo and behold we are growing ourselves a pumpkin. You can see it in this photo peeking under the leaves. I think we might also be growing some corn. Stay tuned.

Riddle me this....

Why is it that when my children go to Grandmas' for the weekend, when I drop them off, my heart is about to break into pieces, but when it is time for them to come home, I'm not ready? Seems like just when I am remembering who I am as a person, not just a mom, and who D and I are as a couple without children, they are back? I'm not complaining, something felt right last night with a little person snuggled up next to me. But I wonder.....

Also, I would like to know why we were always late to events before children? Did we just have our heads up our you-know-whats? We're actually reasonably on time now and life is more complicated. Deep thoughts.

This Pisses Me Off.....

So Bushie is now cutting birth control supplies to women in Africa....see link below. So we'll cut off birth control to poor women in Africa because we are pro-life but because there are fewer or no options for family planning, more women will die in childbirth. So that make sense. Not. Add it to the list of why I hate Bushie. Thanks to my friend S, who passed this along.
NYT Op-Ed Article- Can This Be Pro Life?

If you are interested in women and their birth experiences in Africa, and more specifically fistulas, you might want to read The Hospital by the River: A Story of Hope by Catherine Hamlin and John Little. Here's a link to the book on Amazon

Crafts, continued

Another craft for the week was to tie-dye white t-shirts, using the white circles as pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns. We got through the whole rubber band phase, and my children did not abandon me until stirring the shirts in the dye became "boring." My fingernails are still a bit orange.

Fast forward to the decorating stage. I have the tendency to be a bit of a perfectionist. Crafty doodle did not disappoint. She put on one big rubber band and made a shirt worthy of the cover of a crafty magazine. While I was helping the Doodle, I hear these noises coming from Moo: Pshew, crackle, zoom (make rocket ship noises to yourself here). I was afraid to look up. She had put about 50 rubber bands on her shirt, so I knew that there were plenty of pumpkins to fill in. Well, as she describes it, her shirt needed a little green zoom, Jackson Pollack style. Both shirts are cute, and reflective of their personalities.

Eat your heart out, Martha!

So, I hate when other moms post photos of their crafty projects. I am jealous of their crafty ability and their wonderful results, and frankly, I'm tired of the bragging. Do you know what happens to people like me? Karma bites them in the ass and they get a daughter who LIVES for crafts. Seriously. Every day I hear, "Mommy, can we do a craft? Please?" What's worse is that I think she has more craft ability than I do. Actually, I know so.

Because we are spending this coming weekend away from the kids and I have some guilt whenever we do, I went to the crafty store and bought some supplies for this week. One craft was a gingerbread haunted house. Should have been easy, fun even. Not really. For the life of me, I could not figure out how to put the remarkably similar pieces together. Enter the Doodle, who figures it out in about six seconds. Schooled by a five year old.

Note that the Doodle would not pose with her masterpiece. Her sister, the Moo, is not shy about grabbing the glory.

Moving on Up!

This is my first post, so don't expect much. We got some great news today, that our placement agency, CHSFS, has started referrals again after a looooong hiatus. The new "unofficial list" is not updated yet, but by my count we have moved from #22 to #17. This move puts us in the top 30-35 families waiting for an infant (previously, we were in the top 40). Woo Hoo!

Of course, I had given up on a referral before the holidays, so we went ahead and took a family photo this weekend. I would love to send an annoucement with our family holiday cards this year!