"What's your favorite chicken, Gramma?"

Today we went to the fair. I packed up both kids, the double stroller, and my grandma, and we drove 30 miles to the local county fair. This was made much more interesting in that Rowan had his 6 month shots this morning and has been a bit of a pill all day. I wouldn't have even attempted this endeavor, but I had promised Lola that we would go see the animals, and she has been holding me to it for the last few days. Lola was like a pinball in a pinball machine, ricocheting from one animal cage to another. Her favorite had to be the poultry barn.

"This one is my favorite!" she said, pointing to a weird rooster with a puffball hairdoo.

"This one is my favorite!" she said again, this time pointing at a loud goose contained in a hay bale enclosure.

You can see where this is going. She had to have at least 20 favorites.

We saw the goats and the bunnies, but couldn't see the pigs (darn!) or the cows (double darn!) because the kids were showing them for ribbons at that time. Instead, we walked through the craft and food barns. Rowan took it all in. He actually thoroughly enjoyed his outing.

After Lola endured the arts and crafts barns, we let her go to the carnival. She insisted on riding the helicopter ride, which cost me two bucks and a trip to the ticket booth, complete with a lovely interaction with a toothless carnie. Anyway, Lola did a wonderful job riding the helicopter like a big girl all by herself.

After that we rode the carousal. Well, first we had to visit Miss Toothless again, as Mommy lost two bucks worth of tickets. Arg. Then we played one carnival game, and another freakin' 2 bucks won her a tiny stuffed fish, probably made in China and tainted with lead.

Overall, we had a great time. We ended our outing by eating a gigantic elephant ear, which I learned is different than a funnel cake only because the elephant ear is made from a dough while the funnel cake is made from a batter. Yikes.

This was our second big day in a row. Yesterday we went to ride the combines with Grampy. I nervously handed my kids up at least 10 feet to my dad for a very good picture. Then Lola got to go for a combine ride while Rowan posed in the wheat, and tried to poke his eye out with the wheat stalk. After Lola's ride I was able to convince her to pose for a couple more pictures, but she wouldn't look at the camera. This was because the entire area was teeming with gigantic hopping grasshoppers. She couldn't stop obsessing about the bugs, and we ended up catching one later. I think it might still be loose in my Jeep. Probably a crispy critter by now. Oh well, it should fit in nicely with the moldy goldfish crackers and other debris under the seat.

Overall our week was pretty good. I have enjoyed having some time off from work, but am coming into a 5 day on call stretch. Hopefully I will come out the other side alive and kicking, and will be ready for another break with the kids.

"Summer's over Mommy"

Well, I guess summer isn't officially over until the end of September, but it sure feels like it. There is a chill in the air, and we actually had to turn on our heat yesterday morning. Wil resists turning on the heat like it might cause the plague or something. It took me pointing out that Rowan's fingers were turning blue for him to allow me to set the thermostat at a whopping 65 degrees. Ooooh, tropical temperatures here! Not!

Lola is sad to see the summer go. I put away her pool, and cleaned up her water toys. She asked me this morning if we could have another summer. I told her that we would have to wait a whole year for another one. Unfortunately, Lola thinks her birthday is always just around the corner, and that Christmas is always next week, so the concept of an entire year is out of her grasp.

I got a lovely break from work last week...6 days off in a row! Wil had to work, however, so we were looking for things to do since the weather was so crummy. I happened to be breezing through a gem book looking for info on garnets, when I stumbled across a page about opals. It mentioned that there used to be an opal mine in a small town nearby. I was pretty sure that the town had long since disappeared, but I knew that there was a road with the same name near here. I drove the kids over to my mom's and picked her up for a road trip.

"We going on an adventure, Mama?" Lola asked...to her any trip in the car is an adventure!

We drove to the road I was thinking of, and sure enough found evidence of homesteads and a grain depot that marked the spot where the town once existed. I was driving down a gravel road when suddenly my mom spotted an old iron gate amongst the thick bushes off to the side of the road. We backed up and got out of the car to explore. The gate marked the entrance to a cemetery! The trail up the hill was overgrown with wild grasses and rose bushes. It was eerily quiet and very peaceful. We trecked up the hill and found very old headstones and grave markers hidden in the thick brush. It was obviously uncared for, but strangely pretty there. Hundreds of iris grew in the grasses. This place must be beautiful in the spring. I can only imagine the hundreds of iris blooms among the gravestones.

We spent about 1/2 an hour exploring the cemetery. Lola thought that this was a great adventure and helped us find the old headstones in the overgrowth. Of course she had no idea the significance of the special ground we were exploring, but she seemed to enjoy the outing. I took several pictures of the lonely burial ground hidden in a thicket in a wheatfield in the middle of nowhere.

The kids and I came home refreshed somehow from our experience on the hill. I spent the rest of the day feeling blessed that we live in such a pretty place, and thankful for our family and our lives.

"Farewell to my tree" and "Mommy, look a building!"

Well, our tree is gone. I'm actually a little sad about it. Seems that our big white birch tree ended up catching some weird tree disease. It leafed out this spring, but slowly turned brown as the summer went on. I was in denial, but Wil had the neighbor (who apparently is the local tree expert I guess) look at it and he declared it dead. This tree was not only very pretty, but it was the only tiny source of shade on the west side of our house. Without it, I'm afraid we will fry even more than normal on the deck. Above is a nice picture of my tree when it was alive.

And here is the series of events leading up to its tragic end.


Lets all have a moment of silence for my tree.


Ok. Moving on. Today we were all in the Mom-mobile going to town to run errands. Lola was jabbering away in the back seat as usual. Suddenly she was quiet. Wil and I stopped talking...it was a deafening silence. Lola is never quiet....it was as if she was pondering something great. Usually when she is quiet like this she is preparing to say something immensely adorable. At this point we were driving through the suburbs of the city. We waited, knowing that she was about to say something awe inspiring and amazing.

"Mommy! Look! A building!!!"

Wowee. Really.....a building, in the city? No way! It was as if she had just now noticed that buildings exist in this particular town....we laughed and laughed, and of course then she laughed too, but with that "why are we laughing, oh well, I guess I will just join in" kind of laugh.

Rowan spent his day learning how to manipulate his hands enough to grab his binky and maneuver it slowly into his mouth. This is a major milestone in my book. Forget rolling over and sitting up, my kid can pick up his own damn binky!!!

Our awesome neighbor (the tree expert) brought us some fresh green beans tonight. Instead of asking for her usual goldfish night time snack, Lola wanted green beans in her monkey bowl. Ok, whatever, more power to her! What kind of kid eats raw green beans for a snack? That would be my kid!!!

"He's my best pony ever!!"

Well, after a year of searching, we finally have found the perfect pony. I guess he really found us! Wil was on the phone with a long time friend and client of the clinic, when they got to talking about how many horses each person had. Wil mentioned that although we have two (crazy people, I know) we were looking to make it two and a half. The woman he was talking to just happened to be looking for a home for her childhood pony. That is how we ended up with "Chocolate", a small brown, shaggy 28 year old pony with Cushing's Disease.

When Lola saw him, it didn't matter at all that he is old and slow. "He's my best pony ever!" she announced. You might notice that something is missing in our first picture of Lola riding her new pony. You get one guess. Look closely....closer.......

Pants! Shortly before the pony arrived at the pasture where we anxiously awaited him, Lola had to pee. Well, apparently Daddy hasn't yet noticed that Lola doesn't have a penis, and didn't hold her up while she struggled to pee in the grass, resulting of course in a stream of pee running down her leg and soaking her little shorts. So our very first picture of Lola riding her very first pony will be memorable indeed!

A few days after Chocolate made himself at home with my fat mare in their pasture, I picked up a tiny kids saddle and accessories. Now Lola can ride her pony in style!!


In other news, Rowan has decided that he does not like teething...not one little bit. He has been very screamy lately, and has also taken to waking up at 5:30 am instead of 7. Not cool. Luckily, since I am usually in a sleep coma at that hour, Wil gets up with the little guy and they do guy things. They make coffee, have a bottle and watch the news. This morning Rowan helped Wil can peaches. Lola and I stumbled down the stairs at 8 am to find several jars of sweet peaches already done.

Rowan is getting really good at picking things up with his hands, and now everything goes in his mouth...the newspaper, his toys, Lola's hair, the cat....etc.

I bought a bath ring and the kids got to take a bath together for the first time. They both thought that this was awesome. Hmmm. Wonder how long that will last? This will be great blackmail in about 12 years or so....

Tonight we went for a nice evening walk (nice for everyone but me, as I was pushing at least 80 lbs of kids and stroller over our bumpy farm road) and took some of my award winning (not kidding, I really did win an award) artichoke dip to some neighbors. We hung out on their new deck for awhile, and suddenly Lola started screaming, collapsing into a little ball on the deck. Wasps were swarming all around her. Of course I yelled "Wil, grab her!" and we all ran for her. Wil scooped her up and amazingly she only had one little sting, but her whole ankle swelled up. Poor little thing! She cried and cried until the neighbor offered to let her feed the ducks some bread....immediately the tears melted away into smiles!

We walked back and another neighbor stopped us to give us a big container of freshly picked blackberries and a five gallon bucket of cucumbers. I am having blackberries for desert tonight, and I bet Wil and Rowan will be doing some early morning pickling tomorrow!

Finally, a couple of funny things that Lola has said recently. At church a couple weeks ago (why oh why does she always say these things at church of all places????) she walked up to her Sunday School teacher and announced "I have poop and pee in my butt" and then she ran away to play.

Yikes. What do you even say after that? I just shrugged my shoulders and said, "Well, I guess she is right..."

Today I discovered that our elderly cat had pooped in the shower in our laundry room. I didn't really freak out because we hardly ever use that shower.

"Wil, Harley left you a surprise in the shower...can you guess what it is?"

"Hmmmm, a turd?" he answered.

"Yup" I said

"I wanna see the turd!!!!" yelled Lola from the other room.

She doesn't even know what a turd is, and yet she has to see it. Wow.

Here is a cute picture of what Lola is like after being awakened prematurely from a nap. Just thought it was funny....not so funny in person, but funny in the picture!

Well, I have 48 straight hours on call coming up, so I had better go wind down for the night. Got to put Mr. Crabby Pants, and Miss Benadryl for Stings to bed soon. Then on to the blackberries. Should go nicely with a lovely glass of wine. Mmmmm.

Just a few more longers please?????

A familiar routine. It is way past bedtime. We have watched our nightly show (the Upside Down Show), had our milk, read our books and brushed our teeth.

"OK, Lo, time to pee and get up to bed" I say.

"Just a few more longers?????" she pleads.

Cute.

Lola has lots of these weird little twists on normal English language. Pobo Cats, for example. We picked up this strange game at a thrift shop a few weeks ago. The object is to put your little foam cats on these plastic catapults (get it, CATapults, ha ha) and then you drop something on the other end of the catapult thus launching your foam cat across the room. You can only imagine how much fun this is for a 2 year old, and how non-fun it is for Mommy to pick up the ten assorted foam cats as the fly across the room, bouncing under the couch, zinging off Rowan's head, and ending up behind the china cabinet. Anyway, she calls this game "Pobo Cats". I have no idea why.

Noodles are "loo loos", any young woman she doesn't know yet is "Teacher", and if you ask her what her brother's name is, she will answer "Baby Brother."

We have been super busy lately. I had to throw a baby shower, we drove 2 hours to see some extended family, and then we had a huge yard sale. The yard sale went well overall, considering it was an all day event and we had the kids there. Lola developed "yard sale-itis" however, and suffered a sad 103 degree fever that night. It was mysteriously gone the next day.

Rowan started fussing and drooling a couple weeks ago and I thought, oh boy, teething. Yay. Well, after a few bad days I took him to the doctor for a check, and it turns out the poor kid had a double ear infection! Sad! So we put him on amoxicillin. You might remember my woes about getting medicine into Lola when she was a baby. Rowan is about a million times worse. I don't know how he does it, but he can get the whole dropper full in his mouth, hold it there until I'm not looking, and then projectile spit it all over whatever is in front of him at the time. It is amazing he got any drugs at all!

Rowan is now a hefty 18 lbs and he has been eating like a little piggy lately. We have started feeding him breakfast in addition to his usual dinner. It has been fun experimenting with different foods. Pears, apples and sweet potatoes are in, as is oatmeal. Peas are definitely out, along with rice cereal. He has been totally into the jumperoo lately, and really gets going in there. The other day I caught him sleeping in it, snuggling with his rainbow hedgehog. I was vacuuming....works every time!

We finally got our new deck finished. The old deck was so scary that I can't believe we actually walked on it. It was totally rotten. The new deck is that fake wood and looks really nice. We put gates on either side to trap Lola in. I have been able to open the door and boot her out onto the deck to play and get some sunshine while I get some things done in the house. Unfortunately since it has been hotter than the 7th layer of Hell lately, we can only play on the deck in the morning and very late evening without melting into puddles of grumpiness.

Lola has been doing awesome at swim lessons. She graduated to the swim belt recently. I asked her if she wanted the noodle or the belt and she turned down the noodle. Amazing! She is a total noodle freak! I put the belt on her and off she went. The kids in the lesson looked like little wind up swim toys, their little arms and legs paddling madly as they inched across the pool with parents wading along behind them. We took her to the aquatic center where there are slides and water toys, and she did great! I think swim lessons are starting to pay off.

Finally, Rowan has really started to belly laugh. I have been trying to get this on film for weeks now, and I have succeeded. Lola is the only person who can make him laugh until he actually gags...and then starts laughing again! He has also managed to come up with a really dirty look that he saves for that last bottle before bedtime when he really wants peace and quiet. If you dare talk while he is trying to concentrate on eating, he shoots you an exasperated dirty look. i'l try to capture it on the camera, but it may take awhile.

Well, time to put Lola and Rowan to bed. Rowan is all swaddled up, despite it being freaking 100 degrees out. I think that kid will be swaddled until he goes to college! Anyway, Lola has just come up and asked for a few more longers. She doesn't know that in the morning we are going to meet her new pony! Yay!

"Lola, eat your octopus please, then you can have ice cream"

Wow. Chalk that up to another sentence that I never thought would come out of my mouth. We are on kind of a health kick here lately, so we were having stir fry the other night. I bought a frozen seafood combo, which had little bits of octopus in it. Sounds gross, I know, but they are kind of like eating a rubber suction cup that tastes like soy sauce. Lola thought she needed to eat some with us (she had chicken nuggets for dinner before Wil and I sat down to eat late) and she actually enjoyed her octopus. The tentacle sticking out of her mouth was a bit disconcerting, but she ate quite a bit.

Lola got to help Grampa drive the big tractor the other day. She loved it! It is funny, Lola can sometimes be such a little diva, and then turn around want to drive a big dirty tractor. Last weekend we went to the next town over to ride the speeder cars. These are tiny little 2 to 4 person railroad cars that come to town once a year. Since Lola loves trains so much we figured she would really enjoy it! After a 30 minute ride all she had to say when asked if she had fun was "I saw a horsey!" Well, she seemed to enjoy it, especially the part where there are no doors on the cars, just a sheer drop off. She was buckled in, but still, I was peeing my pants. Rowan actually seemed to enjoy the ride too, and watched the scenery pass by, eventually falling asleep.

After riding the rails, we went to a going away party for friends at the park. The kids turned on the water and created a huge moat around one of the trees. They were covered in thick slimy mud. Good times were had by all, except the parents who probably spent the rest of the day like I did....cleaning mud off their carseats and wiping up ring around the tub!


Rowan started eating applesauce yesterday, and really likes it! He is feeling much better after surviving a 36 hour 102 degree fever for no reason. He was down to only 24 oz of formula per day rather than his usual 36 to 40. I was worried, but he drank 8 bottles today, plus a big bowl of applesauce and cereal. Yippee!

Today was back to the grind. Poo. Well, big procedure at work tomorrow, so going to bed.

The toilet is NOT a wading pool

So the other day I escaped. It's not like I don't love my children and my husband, but sometimes a girl's gotta get outta here for awhile! I left the kids with Daddy for a few hours, planning on doing a little child-free shopping, followed by a dental appointment. For those of you who know my feelings on all things dental, you realize that this was nothing but pure torture at the end of an otherwise lovely day. Anyway, the shopping was lovely. I had lunch by myself, and it only took 15 minutes! I had almost forgotten what it is like to eat without constantly stopping to save a drink from hitting the floor, cut a hamburger into bite sized morsels, or wipe sticky hands before sending a kid into the playland. Even the dental appointment couldn't ruin my day completely.

Somewhere mid-day, I called home to check in. Wil told me that I would really rather be at the dentist than home.

"Why???" I said, not really knowing if I wanted to find out....

"Well," replied my exasperated husband, "Lola had to pee, so after awhile I noticed she hadn't come out yet."

"Uh oh" I interrupted, knowing where this was going.

"So I went in to check on her" he continued "and she was STANDING in the toilet trying to flush herself down to the tractors."

I must explain the tractors. When Lola was starting to potty train a month ago, there were tractors down our road putting in new sewer line for some housing above us. When she asked what they were doing, I told her they were putting in the pipes that our poop and pee goes through on its way to the sewer plant. She asked if that is where her poop and pee goes. Not wanting to shatter her little dreams, I told a white lie. Somehow I don't think our septic tank is nearly as impressive as imagining her pee shooting down the pipes and past the tractors.

Side note: Many times when Lola uses the potty, she says "bye bye plops (poo), have fun going by the tractors!"

Anyway, he found her standing in the toilet. Wil has little patience for these things, and she had already been warned not to play in the potty. So, she got a little spanking, and was told not to do that again. About that time Rowan started crying, so Wil went to check on him. About 5 minutes later, he went back to see why Lola was still in the bathroom, only to find her and the bathroom covered in lavender vanilla hand lotion. That was the final straw. Lola found herself put promptly in bed for a nap.

I'm glad these things don't just happen on my watch!

The Forth of July was awesome! We went to a friend's house in the mountains for a lovely party. This friend has a swimming pool, and Lola had a blast swimming around with her little life jacket on. Later, we bought illegal fireworks at the Res, and came home for a neighborhood get together at our house. We are on a big hill, so we could see the whole town's fireworks that night. Both kids insisted on staying up late to watch, and Rowan did great! He watched the artillery shells with big round eyes and seemed to have a good time. Lola got to hold a sparkler all by herself, and I tried not to wet my pants watching her twirl in circles with a flaming hot stick clutched in her tiny fist. All in all, the Forth was a blast!

On Saturday, we rested, as the kids (and Mommy) were cranky from staying up late. On Sunday, we took the kids crawdad hunting. We had aspirations of a great big crawdad boil feast later, but our biggest catch was about 2 inches long. Oh well, Lola had a wonderful time catching "crabs" and Wil even touched one or two. What a weenie! We brought a few home, and most of them went to be with Jesus, but we still have 3 left. Amazing. Not as hardy as hermit crabs in the hands of a 2-year-old.

Today was back to the grind. Lola and Rowan unhappily went to daycare, and I went to work. Well, have to work tomorrow too, so I had better hit the hay.