Lockdown - 9 Days & Counting

I'm sorry I left you hanging with those YouTube videos and no interesting posts since December 1st! In the holiday spirit, we've had lots of red & green things happening: chicken pox, sore throats & runny noses.

To top it all off, I got sick too (and it's still hanging in there). I knew it would happen sometime, just another one of those parent paying-your-dues things. It's like returning to those first few months of parenthood:you sleep every spare moment you can. You doze on the couch holding 60 pounds of toddler, while Curious George hoo hoos in the background, you sacrifice hygiene to sleep during their nap time instead of shower. (Boo is a one hour napper max, so there's not much time.)

Self absorbed blogger that I am, I just realized that I've only shared MY discomforts, and not my children's. Poor Boo was the first one with this, she's had it over a week and is finally getting better. Bear has it too, although not as bad and his legs are covered with spots. One or two harmless little spots (that I thought were flea bites) appeared almost two weeks ago. So even after Frontlineing the dogs, more spots appeared. Turns out the spots are chicken pox, however, he was vaccinated for them (one of the things they include now in their shots) so his is a mild case. He's not even scratching. Apparently the vaccine doesn't give full coverage to all children, but he's still contagious. So we were escorted out the back of the doc's office,with firm orders not to go anywhere public until the spots are gone. Our play school had to be notified via one of those a mass emails. It's weird when it's your child that's the "case" they are talking about.

So our 9th & hopefully last day of lockdown continues.


P.S. Oh ya, & they turned 2 this week. More on that later.

Re Cut

OK, I stayed up too late on YouTube last night. It's amazing what a little editing can do!

Just another date movie



You'll never look at her the same way again...



Take my breath away...

Shhhh

Ok, another Yo Gabba Gabba plug here, but I love, love, love this video. The animation, the ingenius imagery of listening, the song...everything about it. My kids love it too, probably because of the repeated viewings, and now it's on their lullaby playlist.

'Listen' by Paco! on Yo Gabba Gabba

FYI: the YGG site won't let you use the back key to return here, so if you want to come back, a right click opening the link in a new window or tab is best.

You can find out more about the animation artist and the song on Yo Blogga Blogga

Red Wine for the Soul

Last night I had a last minute hook up with my friend 40licious and her significant other (first time meeting him.) M. stayed home with the kids, taking advantage of a chance to watch an action flick without me.

It felt so good (dare I say, nourishing!) to catch up, connect and have a couple glasses of wine with an old friend. She laughed at my jokes, she even said she misses it when I'm too busy to blog. (Aw, shucks!) Her partner is a great guy, I was immediately comfortable with him. So much that I found myself unabashedly discussing my birth experience...and all the gory details. (Hey, we were exchanging hospital stories and it's all I've got.) Let's just say he now knows way more about my uterus than most people.

So my friend, when you & your sweetie are weary of the sunny beaches, the endless mani-pedi pressure, Whole Foods, spiked Frappucinos and you've got a hankerin' for polar fleece, Carhartt's, Volvo's (sorry honey, the old kind) and off leash dog encounters, I know of a great Yurt. You can keep your high paying jobs! Why not telecommute from our wi-fi equipped Safeway Starbuck's? Where else can you enjoy your nonfat, soy, double latte with General Tso's chicken and a $5.00* take home pizza (*Friday only with a Safeway Club Card). You CAN have it all.

Our Pre Thanksgiving Thanksgiving

I just finished rubbing a raw turkey. I know how it sounds...actually, how does it sound?
Can you tell it's late and I'm tired?

Anyway, the point of this post is that tomorrow is our Thanksgiving. My stepdaughter V, her boyfriend and their new dog, Stewy, are coming up. M. asked me if I felt nervous about cooking the turkey this year. (I'm still living down our first Thanksgiving dinner in this house...where I proudly served a beautiful golden roasted turkey that was horrifically raw on the inside.) The next year, my paranoia made me resort to roasting the turkey in pieces. It's much easier and you know it's cooked, but it's not nearly as festive. Now, with a few holiday turkeys under my belt, I feel fairly confident (not too cocky, I don't want to jinx anything.) Somehow, I think celebrating on a different day also eases the pressure. I can't tell you why, but it does.

An added bonus is that tomorrow is a regular babysitter day, so we will have an adults only household for much of the day. I love my children dearly, but I'm really looking forward to that break. In light of the Thanksgiving spirit, I should say I'm thankful for it.

Fall 2009 Photos

I was just reading my posts and man...what a downer! We need to liven things up here a bit. So what better than photos of my darling children.

Fall 2009

The rainy season has officially started.

A trip to the pumpkin patch. I couldn't get any photos of Bear, he was running around too much.

Gee, why is Daddy's back always sore?

You turn your head for just a second...

Having fun with Dad.

Sunny day in the woods

Getting into dolls now

Oooh, I like petunias!

Yes, that's a scab on his nose from his first big face plant. Poor guy.

Your Intuition Always Knows

I noticed just a couple little oddities at first, not alarming, but nagging.

An upstairs bathroom window left open. ("I don't remember doing that").
A tupperware container full of change outside of it's normal drawer. The mattress pushed over slightly. (I don't remember doing that either").
A pile of hair bands spilled on our bathroom floor. (I know I didn't do that!)

After dinner, M & I tried to figure out which one of us left the bathroom window open. Was my memory getting that bad? There was no way someone could have come into our house. Our TV was still here, the computers were here, the house looked pretty much the same as we had left it. Besides, our German Shepherd and Lab were inside, surely they would keep someone out. But I just couldn't shake that nagging feeling of someone having been here. M suggested I check for the Ipod upstairs in the kids' room. Sure enough, it was gone.

When I saw the empty spot on the dresser, the hairs on my arms stood up. Strangers walked through our house today! In our kids room, in our room. Rifling through our nightstand drawers, pushing our mattress aside. After filing a police report, we spent the evening calling credit card companies and putting fraud alerts on our socials. The police suspect it was kids, taking just what they could carry. We live right next to the woods and they exited through a back gate right to the trails. In a way, it's a relief to think that it's kids and not some creepy man walking through here with other thoughts on his mind. But to lose the cameras, the Ipod and the baby monitor of all things...it's a bummer! I've always felt such security with our dogs here, but apparently they can be sweet talked.

I guess that's all for now. We have Playschool tomorrow and I'm the snack lady. Life goes on.