Trinity is now 8 years old. AAACK!!! Phew. Okay, pardon the flipout there. I am now fine and will continue this message with no further flusterment (I made that word up. My spell-checker is now confused).

Since she is having a joint party in a couple weeks with two other girls from church, today we had nothing really planned. This morning I gave her a gift from me, which was her own set of crochet supplies (yarn, hooks, markers, scissors, and a case to carry it all in) and then I taught her how to chain. She did a nice long one, so tomorrow we will slip stitch the chain together and learn to single crochet which she can practice until her long connected chain grows into a headband.

She and her sisters got to play Cinderella again today, and since it was Triny’s birthday, she actually got to be Cinderella (since naturally there can be only one). They wanted music that was not Johnny Cash and was princess-y; but apparently nothing I had was suitable so they asked me to turn it back off and then they sang “Sing, Sweet Nightingale,” which is the song Cinderella sings as she mops the floors in the movie.

Trinity advised the other girls that they had to mop by moving their rags around in circles across the floor because that’s how princesses do it. I would have felt bad about making her mop on her birthday except that she was clearly having so much fun. I just got out of the way and told them “thank you” when they finished.

Then I had a bunch of errands to run and Trinity got to go with me, which is a special deal around our house. Dragging several kids on errands is something I try diligently to avoid; and if I make it out of the house, I tend to enjoy having no one with me so that I can hear my brain. We went to Walmart (bought her a crown and some Rainbow Chip frosting for the Funfetti cupcake mix I bought yesterday).

Then we went to Bob’s Red Mill and bought 25 pounds of flour (this is the third 25 lb. bag I’ve purchased in two and a half months). She decided that Jamba Juice might be nice so we stopped there for lunch. Then we went to the very exciting Albertson’s (grocery store) and picked up a few necessities like grapes and BBQ beans. As we were driving around she told me that this was one of her best birthdays ever. Yes, mopping and shopping for flour always make me feel special too….

Grandpa and Grandma came over to have dinner with us (spaghetti, garlic bread, and “cheese quesadillas as a side dish” with cupcakes for dessert, as per the birthday girl’s request), and just as we were finishing up, three little neighbor girls unexpectedly came over with a present for Trinity. They hung around and helped us eat our cupcakes, and then Trinity decided they needed to have a pajama party.

So the little girls ran home to put on their jammies, and then they all sat in our living room for an hour watching Looney Toons and SpongeBob while consuming massive amounts of popcorn (to sit atop their cupcakes and ice cream). Pretty good party for being completely impromptu. I even had just the right amount of cupcakes! Phew.

So now my daughter is eight. What a big girl. Here’s a picture from last week when we went strawberry picking with Grandma. I’m going to start calling this her supermodel pose (she doesn’t consciously do this; you point the camera at her, she looks at you, and this is what you get).

Happy Birthday, Sweetie! I love you.

Mommy

Specificity works! (also begging…). So yay! I got the fancy little slimline Casio Exilim camera that I wanted for my birthday (thank you parents, Hubby, and SIL). It’s teeny tiny so it fits in my purse/diaper bag/crochet bag, has video capture, and it’s even red. So cool!

Apparently if you email everyone who might buy you presents with the make and model of what you want, a picture of what you want, where to buy it, how much it costs, where to get online coupons for it, and that if they possibly might do a group gift, you are much more likely to get what you were hoping for as your birthday present. Who knew?

This is the first time I can remember that I’ve actually had something over about $30 that I’ve wanted for my birthday, so being that particular felt really weird but now I have a cool new camera. Yay! Plus my Hubby bought me this cool new Wireless SD Card that automatically uploads your pictures to your computer through your wireless network.

What that means is that all I have to do is be in the house and turn on my camera, and my pictures get sent to my computer. I don’t have to mess with adapters or any of that stuff. I do have to plug it in to get the video on the computer, but even that is pretty uncomplicated.

Last week Hubby worked 76 hours on site (as opposed to at home) between Monday and Saturday, so we basically didn’t see him all week. I spent most of the week trying to keep the kids nice and busy so they didn’t drive me totally crazy. We went to the park with the wading pool, the library, Grandma’s house, Bunya’s house (Grandma on the other side, the Russian side), and ate half a flat of fresh Oregon strawberries.

Since it is strawberry season, I had to make my favorite strawberry season breakfast that I (and now the kids as well) look forward to all year. See? Strawberry crepes. Just tell me this doesn’t look delectable.

What did you have for breakfast (also known as “neener neener, I had yummy crepes and you had nasty corn flakes”)? If you have only had those flavorless loser California strawberries that they try to pass off as real fruit in the grocery stores, you have no idea what you are missing. It’s worth living in Oregon rain country just to get good berries for two weeks in the summer.

As my son astutely pointed out, Oregon berries don’t have all that white blech in the center of the berry. They are red all the way through. I’m going to buy a whole flat this week so I can freeze half and, well, wolf down the other half. That should probably hold me for another year.

Okay, well I guess that covers this year’s ode to strawberries. I did make one other discovery recently that I am planning to put to good use this summer. As you know, me and mopping do not get along well. So the week before Family Camp I was trying to get the house clean in an effort to not have every ant in the county trailing along the kitchen floor eating all the leftovers my children graciously leave for them.

I asked my charming children who wanted to play Cinderella. The girls all tripped over each other with excitement so I gave them a mop bucket with some soap and each of them a rag, and they mopped the entire floor. Did a pretty good job of it too! Georgie decided he didn’t want to play (!), but would rather be the Wicked Stepfather and go around telling them all that they were having way too much fun. Overall it went very well.

This week I decided that this new game needed to be a more regular event, so they played again on Monday. Georgie decided he didn’t want to miss out this time and mopped as well. Unfortunately, this added an unstable element to the otherwise fairly tame mopping time, and I had to reprimand the children for trying to clean the ceiling by throwing the rags at it, mopping the walls by spinning cloths on them (which sprays mop water all over the house), and doing target practice by dropping rags from upstairs over the staircase railing to bullseye into the mop bucket. Should this behavior occur again next time, mopping will again become a girls only activity. Argh!

So I leave you today with some video of my mopping maniacs (note Faithy’s cute hat that I actually made). The video is about a minute long. Thank you, Mr. Disney!

In case you’re really bored and have 27 seconds more to burn, here is some video of Henry rolling over. It was late at night on Saturday while George was still at work so I was going to take pictures of Henry and fiddle with my new camera. He didn’t seem to like that idea though and immediately rolled over for the first time. I switched the camera to video mode, propped Henry back up (because he liked it so well the first time as you can tell….), and shot this:

Ciao!

So last week we were at Family Camp, and every year at camp they have a dance night (yes, at church camp. We go to a cool church). The dances are always set dances like the Virginia Reel and Scottish Jigs and things like that (okay, I guess my whole “cool” argument has just gone out the window). Half the people love this and the other half sort of wish maybe we could do some couples dances like the waltz or some swing. Nothing too radical here. We’re not talking the lambada!

Somehow this year we finally got to have two dance nights: one for set dancing and one for couples dancing. I think this may have had something to do with the fact that two of the three elders on the elder board are excellent dancers. One of them, my Dad, cuts quite the lovely waltz while the other one does a very energetic swing.

To encourage people to actually come to the dances and teach them how to do it, they taught a dance lesson for those two dances on the morning of the event. Now, I love to dance. Twirling around the floor is just bliss to me. Unfortunately, my handsome spouse thinks that dancing would be an effective military torture method. Naturally, this disparity of thought has led to much mutual frustration. However, I’ve been scheming for some time now how I might find myself a consistent dance partner. It’s easy! I just need to grow my own. Bwahahahahahaha!

And so my hapless nine year old son is the beneficiary of his father’s refusal to dance. I told the children before we even left for camp that we were going to the dance and that they were all going to the lesson and I didn’t want any complaining!! Naturally that prompted a slew of complaining from my son so I explained that he (and my daughters who were doing no complaining whatsoever) was GOING to learn to dance for three reasons.

1. So that his wife wouldn’t be stuck wanting to dance with someone who didn’t dance (I did omit the possibility that he could be the one stuck with a spouse who doesn’t dance).

2. Because at our church, we dance at almost every wedding plus other
events like Family Camp and in a few years he’s going to decide that hmmm, some of those girls are kind of cute and he might want to dance with one or more of them. The girls will be standing near the dance floor tapping their feet and looking around with big eyes, which is of course the universal sign for I sure wish one of these knuckle-headed boys would hurry up and ask me to dance, and if my son knows how to do it he will feel all cool and the girls will be pretty happy about it too.

By this time Georgie was rolling on the floor laughing. I proceeded to number three, which was of course….

3. So that I CAN HAVE A DANCE PARTNER!!!!

For some reason he seemed to think this entire conversation was funny. I told him to go pack some church clothes for the dance and four minutes later he came out to show me the shirt he was all excited about wearing because it would look very handsome. Odd how when you tell children they absolutely, positively must do something they aren’t really enthusiastic about doing and there will be no weaseling out of it, half the time it takes them less than five minutes to decide that whatever it is they were just railing against might actually be fun after all. Hmph!

So after I got them all mentally prepared for this whole dance thing, I noticed that the lesson was scheduled at the same time as the kids’ Nature Walk, which they all wanted to go to. But I conned sweet-talked my Dad into holding a separate lesson for the kids in the garage of the house were staying at. We managed to wrangle a few other stray children into coming as well and ended up with a nice group.

Georgie wasn’t too impressed at the beginning of the lesson and it took him awhile to really get his feet to move in a box step, but by the end of the lesson he was doing it perfectly and had asked Trinity’s friend Ruthie to practice with him (Ruthie just turned nine). They happily waltzed around the garage holding an animated discussion about the spider that was crawling up the wall and remaining completely oblivious to the snickering adults who were watching. I was pretty impressed that after half an hour he could not only waltz properly but stay on the
right foot and on time with the music while talking. Very complicated stuff!

So that night was dinner, chapel, and then the dance. When I went to go sit down for chapel, he cornered me in the doorway.

Georgie: I did it!

Me: Ummm, okay. What did you do?

Georgie: I went and asked Mr. Dahlin if I could take Ruthie to the dance.

Me (stuttering): You… errr… uhhhh…. you did what???

Georgie: He said I could dance two dances with her and that he would be watching me {here he mimics Mr. Dahlin by pointing two fingers at his eyes and then at me in commando hand gesture style}. He said if I did something he didn’t like, he would give me a big squeeze. I told him my Dad gives me perfectly good big squeezes, thank you very much. He also said that now I have to do something nice for him.

Me: Wow! Way to go, Georgie. That’s exactly what you should have done. How did you know to ask Mr. Dahlin if you could take his daughter to the dance?

Georgie: Well, that’s what you’re supposed to do! That’s what you and Dad said.

Me: Oh… ummm… right… Good for us….

I don’t remember saying that, but hey! I’m not going to argue with a child who says I told him to be polite and then actually went and did it without further reminder. What a good kid! He danced very well with Ruthie and they both looked like they thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I danced quite a bit with my Dad, which was a delight. He’s learned some new fancy waltz move that involves a half turn every step. This results in basically swinging and twirling around the entire floor and is wonderful fun (and good exercise!). My husband even danced with me. He
was at the waltz lesson and in the process of helping the kids seems to have become proficient in the box step himself. Hehe!

So phase one of my mission seems to be going along swimmingly, although now that I think about it, I don’t think my son actually danced with me. He danced with his sisters and my mother. Now I feel robbed. Oh well, I have more evil plotting percolating in my brain to advance this whole dancing thing so I’m sure I will get a suitable dance partner out of this yet. Bwahahahahaha!

Actually, I was quite surprised at Georgie’s attention to Ruthie. Trinity is such a pretty little duck that I always assumed that when they got older Georgie’s friends would be eying her. It never occurred to me that Georgie would be eying Trinity’s friends. Duh! Since they’re all under ten, no one is doing a terribly large amount of eying anyone mostly because Trinity’s friends don’t play with Bionicles and Georgie couldn’t care less about Polly Pockets, but I will file this away for
future reference.

Oh, and in case you were wondering about my philosophical rationale for teaching my children to dance (and really, who isn’t dying to know this?), my thinking is that I would rather give my children an organized outlet for contact with the opposite sex that is acceptable and in plain view than wait around until they discover that the opposite sex is oh-so-fascinating and let them come up with their own disorganized, sneaking way of expressing that since they have no appropriate way available to them. Yikes! That’s my big theory anyway. Guess we’ll see how that works out. The problem with child-rearing is that it involves so much thinking (well, that and poopy diapers)!

Rachel

This was the girls’ ballet recital from Sunday. You can tell who the big ham is in our family! In case you have seen us for awhile, in the beginning when they all line up Anika (our six year old) is the
teeny tiny one in the center and Trinity (our seven year old) is the
one on the far right who sort of looks like she’s not terribly sure
what she’s doing.

Rachel

Sunday night we had a BBQ and I tried out my MIL’s ice cream maker. OH MY GOSH!!! Well, that stuff is just too good to exist which explains why it had been completely devoured within just a few moments. I’m never eating store-bought ice cream again (hmm, that might be pushing it. Just forget I said that.) Here’s the recipe that we made. It makes 1 to 1.5 quarts of ice cream (pretty much fills a 1.5 qt. ice cream maker):~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream

1 1/2 cups chocolate chip cookie dough
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream, or whipping cream
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Chop cookie dough into bite-sized pieces. Place in a bowl, cover and freeze. Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk in the sugar, a little at a time, then continue whisking until completely blended, about 1 minute more. Pour in the cream and milk, and whisk to blend. Add the vanilla and whisk to blend again.

Transfer the mixture to an ice cream maker and freeze following the manufacturer’s directions. When the ice cream is quite stiff (about 1 minute before it is done), add the chopped cookie dough. Be sure to wait until the last possible minute or the dough will get sticky and unmanageable. Continue freezing until done.

Makes 1 quart.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few weeks ago I posted that Henry was a super crabby baby. Well, I think we’ve finally figured out the magic trick to get him to cool his jets. It’s a two part trick, which makes me feel better about it taking me eight weeks to figure out what it was.

First, I cut dairy (except yogurt), chocolate, and coffee out of my diet. That helped a little bit. Then I started making sure I burped the living daylights out of him after every meal. This entails serious whomping on his back for ten minutes to such a degree that when we’re in public people start looking at me like “what is that lady doing to that poor baby??” When I sit him on my lap and he has bubbles in his tummy, he stiffens up so much that I can barely get him to bend at the waist. When he’s all done burping, he’ll sit on my lap all relaxed and happy. That’s the test.

This pretty much clears up whole charming evenings of crying (like evenings at the theater but with more drama) and we’ve discovered that he actually smiles and is quite adorable when he does so. The big downside to all this is that I have to cut half of my favorite food out of my diet, and some days one must eat ice cream, especially if one has just foolishly made it themselves. George helpfully spent all day Monday reminding me that my five minutes of bliss produced twenty-four hours of misery. Thanks, Honey!

Unfortunately, now Henry is trying to come down with another cold so that’s making him slightly crabby. No one here has a cold and I don’t know of anyone at church or anywhere that has one either so I don’t even know where he got this (the last one was from his older sister coughing on his face). Argh! Hopefully it will be gone by the time Family Camp comes around in two weeks.

In potty training news (because I know you all like hearing about poopies and peepees), Faith is doing great with numero uno and disastrous with numero dos. It’s been what, three weeks now? She has yet to get ye old pooper in the appropriate receptacle. This is not a good way to please your mother, father, or older siblings whose bedroom floor you poop on (this was yesterday). Last night George woke me up around 5 am to tell me that Faith had exploded and he needed some help with cleanup crew. Thirty minutes, a bath, and a fresh change of sheets later, we made it back to bed. This qualifies in the mother and father not pleased category.

I hope this gets sorted out soon. This is the fifth child I’ve potty trained and none of the other ones had this problem. We’ve had other problems, such as Georgie not wanting to get off the potty if his poopies wouldn’t come out and one of the older girls (I think it was Trinity) being too scared to flush the toilet afterward. Both of those were sorted out by hitting on a story that helped analogize the problem to something that they were already familiar with. I started one last night with Faith that will hopefully make sense to her. If it does, I’ll publish it in the next post (again, I’m sure you’re dying to know…).

In the meantime, if any of you other Moms out there have encountered this problem and come upon some brilliant solution (or pedestrian solution or any solution), please post it. I’d like to have this sorted out before camp as well if at all possible. I hate potty training!

Oh, for you RCCers who are going to Family Camp and are looking for cheap croc knock offs for your children to destroy (those are the foam plastic clogs that you see everywhere you look), I priced them out all over and have the results posted on my new shopping/sales blog here (there’s always some good reason to start a new web project, right?). If anyone else is interested in coupons/codes, feel free to take a look. Only a couple of posts are there right now because I just put it up last week, but if you stick your email address in the form on the right hand sidebar, you’ll get email updates for new sales.

Rachel

So as you know, I’ve been having ice cream dreams what with the ice cream maker on my birthday list and everything (unfortunately now I’m off dairy so I can’t actually eat ice cream ). My MIL had an ice cream maker in her freezer that she’s never used so she sent it home with me when we were down there on Monday. Now I can cross it off my list! I’m going to the store this afternoon and hope to try it out tonight.

While I was looking for frozen yogurt recipes (which I can eat because dairy has live cultures that will make the dairy so it doesn’t bug Henry), I came across this amusing site on how to make ice cream with children instead of an ice cream maker. This looks like something my kids would love to do on a hot day. Plus, it has a whole explanation of the thermodynamics of ice cream making so it could qualify as a science project (did you hear that, Dad???). Here’s the link: Homemade Ice Cream Maker. Let me know if you try this out (and naturally I’ll do the same if/when we try it). Looks like the site has all kinds of other neat science toys and things you can do with your kids too.

Rachel

You know how some babies are easy going all the time and barelycomplain about anything? Well, Henry isn’t one of them. He’sdisturbingly like his older brother was when Georgie was a baby ~ fussy all the time and cries if you put him down for three minutes together. Kind of makes me worried, not for his general health or anything but that he’s going to be another high maintenance kid. Argh! That would make how many now? One, two, three, four…. Argh!

I was under the impression that when God blesses you with another baby that you weren’t planning to have, some unwritten code exists whereby He gives you a really sweet, mellow child so you can spend lots of time bragging to all your friends about how now you couldn’t imagine life without the charming new wee one and God really did know what He was doing. Silly me! I’m sure God really does know what He’s doing; however, I think the memo detailing the plan to me got lost in transit somehow. The Angel Delivery Service (ADS, sort of like the
heavenly UPS) is apparently slacking off on the job. Hmph! Maybe Henry will cure cancer or something. Yes, in lieu of further communication, I’m just going to assume that’s what the plan is.

The midwife was over yesterday, and I mentioned this to her (of course, he was charming and perfect while she was here as he normally is with company). Now I get to delete milk, chocolate (*sob*, my truffles, *sob*), and coffee from my diet for a few days and see if that helps. You know, all the things that make taste buds worth having. Blurg! I’m hoping this helps. Anika cried all the time when she was a new baby. She wouldn’t go down well for naps during the day and then was miserable when she was awake because she was over-tired.

When Anika was six weeks old, I came down with a terrible case of mastitis the night before we were supposed to leave for the beach with George’s family. The next morning we zipped up to the doctor, got some anti-biotics, and headed for the coast. At least there I would be able
to lie around and there would be more people to help with the kids. Unfortunately, the antibiotics made me throw up everything I ate so I was thoroughly miserable for the next 24 hours until I gave up the drugs. By that time they had worked well enough that my body was able to kill off the rest of the mastitis by itself.

During the afternoon that first day, my MIL went to put Anika down for a nap. She walked in, ten seconds later she walked back out, no crying came from the bedroom, and Anika was sound asleep. George and I both looked at her. Ani had been flipping out completely when we put her down and wouldn’t stay asleep for anything. Apparently Mom had swaddled Anika (yes, we too had done this), turned on the fan and off the light (yes, good), laid her on the bed and then left. Being the thoughtful parents that we were way back then, we had been trying
to….. comfort her and walk her around and cuddle her.mWhat dumb ideas! That was the problem alright. We immediately adopted this new streamlined bedtime routine and were promptly rewarded with a happy baby.

I keep getting the feeling that there’s some simple little key like this that we’re missing with Henry. He does almost exactly the same thing ~ crummy nap habits and super cranky which I think is related to being over-tired, all of which I think may be related to being gassy (hence the dietary modifications for Mommy). I hope it gets sorted out soon because I’m really getting tired of listening to him cry (and so is everyone else). Plus, when he’s happy, he is sooooo cute! I prefer the cute. I know most people like wailing babies better, but oh no, not me. I like the cuteness. Okay, well he just woke up from the little snooze he was doing next to me and is now fussing, of course, so I’m off to go do baby stuff. Ciao!

Rachel

Okay, my birthday is coming up next month (June 20) and I know you’re all dying to know what to get me. Usually when people ask me what I want, they get a deer-in-the-headlights stare in reply, but this year I actually have two things I reeeeeally want but would never get around to actually buying myself because they seem too splurge-y.

Anyway, here’s the list in order of most important first:

1. Casio Exilim 7.2 Megapixel Camera ~ Red This is $135 on sale at Circuit City plus they often have coupon codes that would get it down even further plus free shipping. Other places carry this too for similar prices so thereCheck here for codes. George has his big, fancy camera but he has to do a bunch of monkeying around to get the pictures off of it and formatted into something I can post here on my blog, which he never seems to get around to doing when I’m ready for them. I WANT PICTURES OF HENRY (and probably some of those other kids once in awhile too)!!! Blurg. This camera here not only takes pictures but a few minutes of video and it’s tiny enough to fit in my purse (plus it’s red, which makes everything better). Nifty!

A case for this camera would also be nice. Here’s one for $14 on Amazon:

And an SD card for $6 on Amazon:

2. The other thing I’ve been looking at for several months now is an ice cream maker, but a slacker one that I don’t have to do anything with (like crank or mess with ice or salt). This is the one I would like: Cuisinart ICE-30BC 2-Quart Automatic Ice Cream Maker for $80 but Bed Bath and Beyond carries it and they have 20% off mailer coupons regularly. There is also a 1.5 quart one that comes in red, which is of course very tempting since it’s red, but this one is bigger and we have a rather large-ish family (you may have noticed). Here’s a list of other places that carry this item. Some of them may have discounts and things as well.

And the Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Cookbook to go with this would be quite fancy ($10 on Amazon). Plus, when you come visit me this summer, I’ll make you home made ice cream. YUMMMMMMMMYYYYYY!!!

3. Lastly, I’ve been looking at the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day cookbook for $19 on Amazon. I have two excellent artisan bread recipes that I make regularly and love so I’m looking forward to seeing the variations that this has. So cool!

Okay, so there’s my pathetic birthday begging. That stuff is probably all out of price range for whomever might be buying me presents. Maybe a group gift…..??? Okay, well I’m glad I’m done with this. Now I feel all ooky and weird. What’s wrong with me?? How hard is it to make a birthday wish list??? Sheesh.

Rachel

As is usually the case after I deliver a baby, my computer is driving me nuts. I have some brilliant business idea and am gung-ho for a few days. I purchase a domain name, set up a website, and research and install some software (I actually did all of this last week). Then due to crazy hormones, exhaustion, children all boinging around in Tigger-ish fashion, and a general lack of sleep/food/time, my brain goes into a gigantic fuzz and I don’t feel like actually doing anything constructive when I’m online. So after I do my regular computer work for Gymboree News, I digress into general time wasting that looks like this:

First, I will go to Gymboree/Gap/Old Navy/Crazy 8 websites and place several items in my cart where I will not actually purchase them but where they will sit for several weeks until they sell out.

Then I will go to eBay and search for clothes for the kids or myself and place several items on my watch list where I will not actually bid on them but where they will sit until the auctions end.

After that I will hop onto my blog reader which automatically checks for updates on all my favorite blogs. There I will find out that it is James Marsters’ (Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) birthday or that some new Firefly figurine is coming out. These are not actually things that I care about.

My other blogs will tell my that my friends are potty training their children, my SIL is painting their house, and my other BIL & SIL are doing well with my new little Ethiopian adoptee nephew. These are things that I do care about, but they take up a lot of time (much in the same way I am taking up your time by posting about fluff. Bwahahahahaha!).

After I’m done reading all that, I’ll go over to the Drudge Report and read important world news so I don’t sound like a total imbecile who has no idea what is going on if it doesn’t involve things like how many hours a night her new baby sleeps and whether or not she can get her children to eat salad.

Unfortunately the site also has links to insidious entertainment news and I always end up on one of those stupid British tabloid sites like the Daily Mail reading about English rockers that I’ve never heard of and how their legs are too skinny or they got plastered last weekend. Why, why do I do this??? I know; I have no self-control.

So last Friday after spending an hour and a half on eBay looking for a new beanie for Henry to wear to Family Camp next month since obviously babies need cute hats and summer is not beanie season and he is growing out of his current set of cute beanies, it occurred to me that I had yarn, crochet hooks, and a little booklet on how to crochet a hat upstairs in my closet. I do not crochet. Or knit. Or do anything that involves craft or art or making pretty stuff with my hands. However, my Grandmother does. My Grandmother who lives in Arizona.

Last year (or maybe even the year before) I purchased these items to give to Trinity for her birthday. We were going to be with my grandparents around the time of her birthday and I was thinking that maybe my Grandma could teach Trinity how to crochet. Since my Grandparents live in Arizona and we don’t see them more than once every year or two, this would be a good opportunity for her to get to know Grandma better.

Then it occurred to me that Trinity was probably a bit young for this (although she may be getting close now) and that when she came back home wanting to do projects, she would come ask me a bunch of questions that I wouldn’t know how to answer and then she would slink away in disappointment. Obviously that’s no good! And so the supplies have been upstairs in my closet for two years.

In a rush of disgust with my computer and how much time I spend doing precisely nothing on it (half the time I even watch TV over the top of my laptop in an amazing display of wasting time two ways at the same time), I ran upstairs to start my new half-cocked crochet project. I opened the booklet expecting useful instructions and was greeted with this and entire pages like it: “2nd rnd: With B, ch 1. 1 sc in each st around. Join with sl st to first sc.” Since my children ran off with my universal secret decoder ring, this meant nothing to me. The booklet had diagrams and a key to help you decipher all the ridiculous abbreviations, but I was fairly sure that by the time I figured out what I was supposed to be doing I would have too much arthritis for it to be of any use.

What to do? Return to my computer, of course! No, not eBay or the Drudge Report this time. Google! You can find anything on Google and when you type “How to crochet a baby beanie” into the search box, it comes up with all kinds of websites including how-to videos on YouTube where nice ladies with slightly southern accents actually show you how to crochet hats. Perfect!

I discovered all this around 11:00 on Friday night and when I finally found the end of the yarn after half an hour of poking around the skein, I was ready to go. So I crocheted about twenty stitches, got tired, and went to bed. Saturday I worked on it some more, tore it apart about six times, and by Sunday night Henry had a new red hat. Pretty cute one too! Monday and yesterday I made and finished a matching one for Georgie and now I’m working on ones for all the girls. Heehee! Now while I’m wasting time in the evening letting my brain decompress from all the craziness during the day, I can actually make something while I watch TV. Ta da! Plus I can crochet while I nurse. I can also type while I nurse but only when he’s nursing on the left side because I need my right hand to do it…..

So that’s what’s been going on around here. Well, unless you count things like laundry, cleaning, nagging kids (name Georgie) to get their homework done, cooking, and potty training Faith which I started doing yesterday, training children to not “whack” each other (as Faith keeps complaining that Kyra has been doing to her), and all the other super-exciting Mom things that keep me running from the time I wake up until the time I drop back into bed. But really, why would you want to count that? Just because it is pretty much the composition of my actual life….

Rachel