Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Outsmarted

This afternoon, in a mad rush of trying to finish up a sewing project that wasn't working well, nursing the baby, tidying up the family room (and the epic mess of post-fort-deconstruction AND an entire box of party crackers and a block of cream cheese-don't ask), presents to wrap, and a shower still to take:

Me Miles, if you touch that drill (toy) one more time before the family room is tidied up I will take it away for the rest of the day.
Miles Okay, I'm sorry. I won't touch it.

Fine. Except that he quietly went upstairs and came back down with ziploc sandwich bags on his hands, and picked up the toy drill and started back to his "work".

Me Miles, I told you not to play with that drill.
Miles No you didn't Mama. You told me not to touch it. I'm not touching it, see? I'm being really careful. I'm really not touching it one bit.

Oh my. He's three. And my head hurts.

Friday, December 11, 2009

For Jennifer

Because I was reprimanded for not keeping up with my blogs over the last month or two, and told in no uncertain terms that people want to know everything, even what we eat breakfast:

pumpkin seed cranberry granola, whole milk yogurt(organic), fair trade french roast coffee, whole milk (organic), canned pears (remember our pear canning session?! They're being eaten up like you wouldn't believe!), Emergen-C tangerine.

Everyone happy now?

Seriously, though, everyone is well (knock on wood) and happy (again, the wood....) and I'm elbow deep in cleaning and cooking and baking and preparing and we've got a birthday party and a Swedish supper party, plus a tromp up the mountains to find two trees, a church play for Avery to prepare for, a million gifts to make, lots and lots of good stuff to get to work on. I feel like the whole last month was lost to our weeks of sickness and despair, and now we're all jolly elves on double time!

So no worries. No good stories yet, but that's just because we're too busy to get into trouble!

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Pirates

My brother has a big boat that just happens to be in dry dock right now, in our very state, instead of Alaska. So we went to visit him a few weeks ago, before everyone got sick and everything in our house broke (Did I mention the stove broke on Thanksgiving? Did I?!). One of his crew members was there, working, when he arrived- a very sweet girl with tight black jeans, a striped shirt under a sweatshirt, severe black hair, some facial piercings and tattoos. She seemed quiet, nice, and smart, though she was mostly working hard most of the time we were there.
ANYWAY...
Yesterday Miles came running to me in the midst of the epic boat-fort building game he and Avery were engaged in, wanting, no NEEDING, to know the name of "Uncle Trevor's Pirate".
Uncle Trevor's Pirate?
Trevor's leg is broken, he was in a cast when we were there, but it didn't seem like a peg leg, did it? No one had lost an eye or a hand- no patches or hook-hands were seen. Finally I figured out he meant Shannon! Trevor's girl-crew member. His "Pirate". Of course.
Because ships have pirates. Duh.
And who else but a pirate would make gold look so fierce?
I wonder, should I take my kids out of this poky little town more often? Should they know that pirates aren't the only people with piercings and tattoos? How embarrassing will it be when they go off to college and think their dorm mate is a pirate?