Filling in Some Gaps (or Who Pulled Her Chain?)

So, what have we been up to for the last two months, anyway?  From the time we got home from Thanksgiving in Florida until we arrived home from Lake Tahoe seems like a total blur.

That sounds entirely too pretentious.  So, so sorry.  Getting adjusted after being on vacation with Mike's family in November was difficult.  It's always hard when we visit with parents, because they often do a lot of the day-to-day work that one does when at his or her own house (The main thing I do when we travel is laundry...granted, my family can generate a good bit of laundry, but doing laundry when you are not home is just different.  There isn't as much, for one thing.); I didn't cook at all, and while I tried to help clean up sometimes, there was always someone else to do it before I could get at the mess.  Re-entry into the real world after these experiences is always...well, you know when the space shuttle comes back into the atmosphere and it's so hot the tail end of the thing just about catches on fire and there is a lot of shuddering and there is a great likelihood that parts of the shuttle will fall off or burn up?  Well, it's a lot like that.   

I immediately got started on laundry, but remained behind the entire time between the two trips (we left again on Christmas Day).  I know I did some schoolwork with Michaela, and Christian went back to school, and Eliana...hung on me?  Danced around?  We did some Christmas shopping (by the way, I don't recommend shopping for your kids' presents while they are with you...not at all) and decorated a tree, and baked cookies for Christian's class party (which Mike discovered the BEST sugar cookie recipe EVER, and that is saying something because I hate, HATE making cut-out sugar cookies, and these were [dare I say it?] fun to make) (or at least enjoyable).  I prepared for our trip to Lake Tahoe, hunting and gathering all manner of snow/ski attire for my family, which, haha, joke was on us, since it didn't snow there before or during our trip.  But we were certainly prepared for very cold weather, a blizzard even.

We also addressed the issue of Michaela's thumb.  Remember when she sewed her thumb on Halloween?  Yes.  Well.  It had been hurting ever since (um, duh).  We took her to a hand doctor who told us that, yes, there was a very tiny piece of needle still in the pad of her thumb, and we could leave it and see what happened, or she could try to get it out right then (a week after it happened), or she could try to get it out after a few weeks/months/years.  We decided to wait and see if it would wiggle its way to the surface of her skin, because, hello! homeschool science...the weird things our bodies do with foreign objects.  And wouldn't that have been crazy if we had actually seen it poking through her skin one day and plucked it out with tweezers?!  You wouldn't do that in the public school science class!  (Maybe the bathroom, but...let's not go there.)  (Literally or figuratively.) 

After several more weeks Michaela came to the conclusion that it hurt a lot, and when she did things like button her jeans or anything that required pressure on her thumb it was very painful.  Or at least quite painful.  She's so calm about things like this that I have a hard time gauging exactly how serious any given pain might be.  At any rate, I took her back to the hand doctor and she could tell that it had moved closer to the surface and we all decided that we (used extremely loosely) would go ahead and try to remove it.  This required a shot to numb the area, which was (understandably) the worst part.  Michaela was such a strong patient.  Then it was a matter of waiting until the medicine had kicked in enough for a cut.

The doctor had the tiniest of knives, or scalpels, or some cutting utensil, and she made an incision that was as small as she hoped to need...and there the fragment was, right where she cut (she could feel and see the spot where it was, so it certainly wasn't a blind effort, but it could have been deeper than we thought).  She plucked it out with a pair of tweezers and stuck a band-aid on Michaela's thumb!  She wrapped it with that sticky brown tape stuff and sent us on our way. 

We were in and out in time for me to get Christian from school.  Once we picked him up, it was clear what needed to be done.  Post-operation frozen yogurt. 

I mean, is there anything else after such an ordeal?

Siblings did not complain.

Unless I tried getting a picture.  Ha!  But I was sneaky and successful!  Extraordinarily useful skills for a mom, I have found. 

I want to try to get some pics from our Tahoe trip (there are a few on my phone, but all others were taken by my brother-in-law and have yet to be acquired) (hint, hint, Bobby) (because I know you totally read my blog) (Wendy, will you tell Bobby that we would like pictures).  Once I get them, I will share some of those stories with you.  There are no bears in the stories, but I was really afraid that there would be.  Or mountain lions.  It was quite tame, actually.  Only dogs.  (And wouldn't you know I'm the one who stepped in poop on a hike?  Yes, of course I did.)  Stay tuned.  And I'm sorry I always talk about poo.

To Swing

Such a wonderful thing.

To fly on a swing.

To bask in the glow.

To swing to and fro.

To dangle and cling.

To not sit on a swing.

Eight and carefree.

Four, a stinker monkey sweet-pea.

What a wonderful thing.

Simply, to swing.

She May Look Pretty in Pink...

I turned around this afternoon and gasped.  I cried out,"A princess!  Where did a princess come from?!"

The princess laughed airily and replied,"It's Eliana!"

You can dress her up in fancy clothes but she remains an impish little monkey who likes to climb on people, wrestle with her brother (or whomever is around), trap you, fuss about ridiculous things, and refuse to eat chocolate covered peanut butter.  But she does have a snuggle-foot, so there's that.  And after the fussing she hugs me and says,"I love you," which I'm pretty sure is her way of saying she's sorry.  Most of the time I don't know what to do with her.  Keep loving her, I suppose. 

Just Another Fall Day Mid-Winter

These crazy children love to play in the leaves.  (When I think of dead leaves scattered all over the yard, I can't help but imagine the squirrel poo that is on them.  I didn't mention that to them.  Wait.  Yes, I did.  I am so not a nice mom.)

They don't just like to run and jump into the pile.  They like to be buried in the pile.

Although after several minutes, Eliana wasn't so sure about her state of burial.  How long was she supposed to stay in there?

She was happy enough once Christian helped her out of the pile.

Then he dove in.  And quickly covered himself head to toe.

(Shudder.)

There was a lot of raking.  And some instructions (Michaela is an expert in giving instructions).

Eliana had so much fun the first time, she wanted to be buried again.

But she did not want her whole face covered.  And guess who couldn't resist?  Just one small handful over her face?  Actually, I don't know exactly who tossed gently placed the leaves in her face, but...there were repercussions.

She recovered quickly, and if you look carefully you will see that that is a fake cry.  Very noisy and whiny...but no tears.

Leaves in their hair, in their clothes, in their shoes...

I'm sure they showered leaves out of many hidden places that night. 

Behind...Just a Little

I was walking through the house tonight, after sweeping the dining room, and noting the dishes in the sink, rinsed but not loaded because the dishwasher is still full of clean dishes (which I did a day late).  The laundry has already piled up significantly since our most recent trip, one of two in about a month's time.  Before each trip I was able to conquer both my laundry pile as well as my kitchen counters; just prior to the second trip I even rearranged furniture and got the back half of our house (downstairs) orderly so that Christmas morning wouldn't be like celebrating amidst a scene which might remind one of a bombed area or a looted house. Unfortunately, and what seems like too soon, I am behind again.  Much like I am with blogging.  

It struck me as I walked past the precarious placement of dishes in the sink, which is (if I do say so, myself) a masterpiece, that being behind in these things means that tomorrow I must just start with one thing.  One load of laundry in the morning.  Move on from there.  One blog post at a time, try to get going again.  

I'm not sure that I can truly get caught up...but I can be telling stories.  So, beginning tomorrow, I hope to start story-telling again.  And laundry folding.  (Okay, I don't really hope to fold laundry, but it has to get done. So...we'll call it hope for the sake of poetic writing.)