Ear Infection Day (kinda like a Snow Day plus antibiotics minus sledding)

So after a rough night of DaVinci in a crabby mood and then crying about her ear, I sort of knew I wasn't going to have a quiet day in the office. Sure enough, in the morning her ear was still bothering her so I called off work and we headed to the Doctor's office to hear that, yes she has an ear infection. DaVinci wanted to check with the Doctor to make entirely sure that she had a DOUBLE ear infection (to compete with Little D's ear infection last year). Yes, that's right, the kids have had a total of one ear infection each including this one, and I would like to keep it that way.

I would have gotten some work done if DaVinci were feeling worse (she would be napping, watching movies, reading quietly), but it turned out that with Tylenol, she felt ok, and wanted to hang out with me. There wasn't really enough time to go back to school, and its not as if she is missing a major math test in Kindergarten, so we stayed home the whole day. 99% of the time if DaVinci doesn't have school it also means little brother D is home and she does not get enough of my undivided attention. So we started playing with her stop-motion animation kit she got for Christmas. It consists of a lot of clay, a camera on a long cord (re-used from Z's XBOX), and an amazing Klutz book that comes with free software to help you make movies. DaVinci has recently become obsessed with The Nightmare Before Christmas, and I thought this would be an awesome way to combine that love with her love of art. On Christmas Day, she was a little too overwhelmed by everything else and all the fun that was being had, so when we started on an animation using D's Christmas Playmobile toys she ened up leaving to do something else. I was at that point having so much fun that I kept going and made my own short animation (which you can see at the end of the clip above). P.S. it is AWESOME to have a kid who likes many of the same kinds of things I do, and that I can get her presents that I would get for myself if I had more time to use them!

So this video was the most productive part of our day, and when we got D home from school, even he was able to join in on the fun. Enjoy!

Puppy Kindergarten Rebels

Tashi and I just finished week 5 of a 6 week Puppy Kindergarten Class. I will pause for your laughter...

Yes, I know it sounds silly. Yes, I think the class may be featured on an upcoming episode of "Portlandia." But I am serious about having a dog who is well behaved, can be mellow in the house, is nice to all other people and dogs, etc. A dog that is a pleasure to have around. And since we have never owned dogs as adults, I wanted to get some help to jump start training. Thus - puppy kindergarten.

HOWEVER.... I am not sure I am a "puppy kindergarten" kind of person. I think that in an alternate reality, one in which I never had kids, I could have been. But not in this reality... Here I have an actual child in a class which doesn't have to have her species as a qualifier. It's not "human kindergarten," it's just kindergarten. The real kind. The class has ten dogs, 8 of which are accompanied by couples, one is a woman with a kid who hasn't been to class in weeks, and then there is me. I felt like everyone was thinking "Oh, poor dog, being raised by a single parent."

I really like Tashi a lot, love the googly eyed look she gives us just for being around, the willingness to follow commands if there are treats at stake. Buuutttt... I don't think I LUUUVV her. Some of the other dog owners (although they refer to themselves as mommy and daddy in regards to their pup I will not) have the same teary proud eyes that I get when I see DaVinci or Little D do something remarkable. When Tashi catches on to a new command, I wanna give her a high-five, a knuckle bump - "Yeah we totally nailed that one!"  She is my bro, my dude, my companion, not my child.

When the puppies all get to play together, the instructor divides the room in two so the bigger and bolder puppies can play on one side and the smaller more shy dogs can  play on the other. I have had Tashi around a lot of dogs now, mostly adult, anywhere from the neighbor's Chihuahua to a friend's Saint Bernard. Tashi does great with them all, and rarely gets the smack down telling her that she's overstepped her boundaries. Most of the other couples at puppy class hover right over the dogs while they are playing and pull them apart frantically at the first sign of what looks like puppies having fun. It is a bit overwhelming, and sometimes I get the distinct feeling that they think I am raising Cujo, even when their dog goes with wagging tail right back into the fray.

And here I go making yet another excuse about the photo - I tried to take some at puppy kindergarten, but Tashi and I were too busy hiding smokes behind the cafeteria with our leather jackets on. And sexting. (does that make me sound a little more current? I am pretty sure the rebels aren't dressing like The Fonz anymore.) The photo above was taken today, and you can see how her scruffy fur on her face is growing longer and longer. She is looking less and less like a Bernese, but also taller and taller, so not much like a terrier either. And maybe next week I will post about our child with hands for feet (see far right of photo - super freaky).

Eggs!

I have been mocking the chickens behind their backs for months now. They should have started laying in late August or September, but there were no eggs in sight. We would search the yard, seeing if they had just laid them somewhere else than their coop, but no. People would often ask about how they are doing and I was embarrassed to admit that they had failed in their primary purpose.

Finally after looking on the web and talking to other chicken minded people (bird brains?) I decided that perhaps they should be old enough to lay, but that the hours of daylight, temperature, blah blah blah let's wait and see what they do in the spring.

Then comes late November, and we get Tashi the Wonder Pup. After letting her run in the yard with the chickens a bit, and then catching her grabbing Gertie's tail and thinking Tashi had killed her, I put a stop to their sharing the yard at the same time. Now mostly the chickens stay in the coop and run, and Tashi gets the yard. If I know we are going to be gone for a number of hours with Tashi inside in her crate, I will let the chickens out to roam.

I swear not more than three weeks after getting the dog, suddenly the chickens are laying eggs. First Gertie, then Maybelle. Its as if keeping them cooped up is helping them to lay eggs. Perhaps they aren't burning as many calories running around the yard, or maybe they are not filling up on grass and rocks and are instead eating way more of their chicken pellets? Totally crazy, but there you have it. If you are wondering how I know who is laying what, it is an assumption I have made based on the color of the chickens' ears. I read that the color of their ears (a little unfeathered spot where you would think their ears would be) is the color of the eggs they lay, and I have always admired Gertie's bluish-green ear spots. Maybelle's eggs followed about a week and a half later, and are the nicest off white (my sister mockingly pointed out that one might call that color "eggshell white"). I also read that the color egg a chicken lays is the same color she was born in. I find a very lovely symmetry in that. I can't seem to take a picture that quite captures the true color of the eggs, but I put a store bought egg on the right in the photo above for comparison.

It is so nice to have backyard eggs. They do indeed taste fresher and more "real," and DaVinci loves going out to collect the eggs and is super cute as a farm girl. And Z is just happy that two of our animals are finally earning their keep. (Just wait until I give him the cat/dog hair sweater for his birthday!)

One Man's Trash...

Why, you may ask, am I showing you a pile of our recycling? Oh no, sir or madam, this is the contents of ONE DAY'S WORTH of art that DaVinci did at school today... ONE 6 HOUR PERIOD, in which I am assuming she also ate, had circle time and a couple of recesses. Most of these objects, I was informed, are "boats that really float!" Boats that in a former life were tape dispensers, glue stick boxes, coffee lids, toilet paper rolls, etc, etc, etc. I am all for re-use but it feels like these days we are just ending up with all these reused items that then become our burden to dispose of. Both of my kids are virtually dumpster divers for art supplies - today I put a throat lozenge in my mouth and Little D immediately grabbed the wrapper and said "I could make art with this!" On the one hand, there is no need to spend money on art supplies and the trash gets a second use, but then on the other hand it becomes art that is actually a piece of paper with a plastic cough drop wrapper taped to it which just means more time for me to dispose of it properly.

The whole process of dismantling DaVinci's art is very difficult for me. What is the proper length of time to keep said "art?" Often her work is three dimensional, so storage is difficult, and scanning is out of the question. She seems to like the process of creation, and then is very excited to show us her work and talk about it, but never seems to care about it after that. Mostly I recycle all the worksheets and such the day it comes home, but I am always nervous that she is going to say "Where are all my amazing boats?" and I will have to tell her that they looked more like trash than boats. We started a bin above the art supplies that we try to put art work in for a holding period just in case one of the kids ask about a recent work. That seems to fill up in a day or two. We also have a bag in the closet of "keepers" that we would like to scan and preserve... you know... the next (first) time the scanning bug hits us. It is overall way more than our little old house has room for.

I know, this is no major problem, and I don't honestly spend much of my day worrying about it. But hey, please give us a break the next time you visit and it looks like a recycling station at my house.

In unrelated news, I was SUPER sick last night and this morning with a cold and felt perfectly awful. It was amazing to see how well little D rallied when it was supposed to be a "Mama and D day" (a day which does indeed come with a theme song) and instead of needing my attention every 3 minutes, he played quietly by himself all morning. This allowed me to doze on the couch until about 10:30 (unheard of in the past) at which time I woke up feeling quite a bit better. Yay for the kids getting bigger and better all the time!

First Day of School

What can I say but that the end of vacation hit us like a slap in the face? It all started with us waking up 15 minutes later than planned because the alarm on my phone didn't go off - which when I complained, Z the tech geek says "Oh Yeah there is a problem with the latest software update and the iPhone alarm doesn't work." What could they have possibly done to screw up the alarm? Were they working on a way to stop time and then accidentally messed with the alarm clock? That would be the only reason I would find acceptable (especially if I actually could stop time with the touch of a button).

This was an especially important day, because Little D started a new school! We are super excited about this place and wanted him to start things off on the right foot. As I have said before, he feels things very strongly, and does not feel any compunction to get along just for the sake of getting along, so I am WAY more nervous about introducing him to a new place than I am to introducing DaVinci. Z rushes DaVinci off to school (late) and I rush Little D out the door to his brand new school, forgetting 1. my camera to take the all important 1st day of school shot and 2. my phone, which serves as a great "oh crap I don't have a camera" camera. We get him to his classroom, I hang out for a few minutes, drawing and playing legos with him, helping him talk to the kids and teachers. Since I know D and how much he likes to look at pics of our family and talk about what we are doing in the photos, I worried that he might feel a little uncomfortable on his first day so I wanted to make something special for him to bring. I printed out two pages with photos of our family and D doing some of his favorite things (Boardgames! Scuut Bike! Playing Knights!). He LOVED these pages, and showed them to both his teachers, and they talked about them at circle time with the whole class. It served the exact purpose I wanted it to by giving D something concrete to talk to other people about. Yay me! And.... then I left, leaving my purse behind in the classroom, because that is the kind of day it was.

When I came back to pick him up (and my purse) I realized that my wallet was also in my purse which also meant that I didn't have any money to put in the meter so I could run inside and get D. I scrounged around in the messy car, finally scraping together $0.40 for 15 min on the meter. D's teacher said his first day went well, and D had no complaints. He had a good time playing outside and had drawn a good number of pictures. Now if I can just get my act together, maybe we can BOTH have good days.

After picking him up, I took him to pick up a "Congrats on your First Day of School" Cookie - and that will have to serve as the photographic reminder of his first day of school.

To the Mountain

Anyone who spends any time around me has heard me talk about how much I love Portland. I feel so lucky to live in such a cool town with so many great things to do for both adults and kids. One of the many awesome things is that you can get up Mt Hood in 1.5 hours and play in the snow anytime between Dec-April. We decided that the best way to spend the last day of winter break was to hit the slopes for some serious sledding. The temperature was cold, but it was a clear, bright, beautifully crisp winter day and the snow was positively sparkling in the sun.

Little D, who is either SO EXCITED or SO MAD flipped the coin and decided to be awesome today. He loved sledding, never complained about snow in his face or climbing the hill again and again. We found an awesome natural snow cave under a bush and spent some time playing hibernating bear. He laughed, smiled, glowed and made me happy to be alive.

DaVinci, typically our agreeable little girl who is amenable to almost everything... Our daughter who will wade up to her waist in freezing water for way longer than anyone else I know... The girl who is a rockstar in almost every way - must have decided the day was lacking in fuss. She complained that her toes were cold (with 2 pairs of socks and snow boots). After Z gave her a pair of his socks and I got her to sled 5 times (promising her that at the end of 5 sleds her toes would NOT be cold) her toes were fine, but her chin was cold. She wasn't terrible, she wasn't throwing a fit, but after we made the effort to get up to Hood, I wanted everyone to enjoy it, dammit! Our last day of vacation! Suck it up and have fun! Yes, the bad mommy in me was thinking "I hope this girl has a fever and that is why she is being a pill." But no. Home and inside, she was back to her exuberant self. It was very odd, especially for her. I guess what I finally figured is that it is much easier to have a 6 year old who is complaining about things than a younger kid. The rest of us had a great time, and she even managed to have moments of fun between complaints. Practicing for when she is a teen, I suppose.

Dogs and Cats, living together - MASS HYSTERIA!

So we have now had a pup for over a month. Tashi is half Bernese Mountain Dog, half unknown. Everyone who sees her has an opinion about the other half, and the general consensus is some sort of terrier (I typically follow this up with a somewhat inappropriate joke about a Jack Russel convincing the Bernese to scoot over and stand next to the bench he's on).

We have never owned a dog as adults, and both of us had fairly untrained dogs growing up. So it was with more than a little anxiety that we decided we had the room, time and love for a dog in the family. I read 1 million books on how to raise the perfect pup (which brought me back to 6 years ago when I read the millions of baby books in preparation for parenthood), and haunted PetFinder on a daily basis. I have always wanted a dog when the time was right, and with me working part time and us living in a neighborhood great for dogs this seemed about as good as it was going to get.

Finally, I saw Tashi and her two sisters (at the shelter they were given the crazy names of "Islands in the Snow", "Hard Candy Christmas" and "The Gambler") on the internet and rushed to the Humane Society. She was the scruffiest looking dog of the three, but right in the middle in terms of temperament. I wanted the kids and Z to come out to meet her but DaVinci had a fever, and so I was left to make the decision on my own. I went for it, and then stood waiting to adopt her and trying to stifle the panic attack. Fortunately I ran into a woman who's daughter is in class with DaVinci and she talked me down and told me it would all be OK. I am SO happy she was there. We brought her home the day before Thanksgiving as a nine week old, 13 pound needy little pup.

She is still very much a puppy - we have to give her plenty of opportunities to pee in the yard, she gets excited to see EVERYONE and EVERY DOG and cannot help herself but to jump up on them because she is SO EXCITED TO SEE THEM!!!! In a playful mood, she uses her mouth too much. But there is so much about her that is perfect for our family. She is not phased at all by the constant NOISE in our house that primarily emanates from the Little D. That boy is almost always making very loud noises. He will also grab Tashi by the head and push her face into his belly, which she doesn't seem to mind. She will sit for anyone, lay down for Z and me, walks well on a leash when the kids aren't with me, and only barks when she is trying to get the cats to play with her. Which, crazily enough, our cat Fibonacci - who hides all day while the kids are awake - is totally into playing with the dog. And as you can see from the picture, Tibby will put up with anything if it means she gets more food. As you can see, Tashi is not very uptight about food, and doesn't mind sharing. I will try and get a better picture of her (and her scruffy mug) the next time I write about doggy antics.

We know we are in for a wild ride, and I still sometimes worry that she is going to magically turn into a complete hellion and ruin our lives, but for now we have a very cute little (and quickly growing) pup who is fitting into our lives just fine.

DaVinci as a 6 year-old

One of my close friends Sarah started a daily blog 6 months ago where she posts one photo, every day, and with it a little something about the day. This means that on Christmas, she had to pick one picture to describe a whirlwind of activity which is quite a feat. But more meaningful to me are the days in which they live their regular lives and nothing out of the ordinary happens. Then we get to see the stuff that makes up their lives, the minutiae that makes up a family of four. I love her blog, and the complete picture she is able to capture by posting every day.

This is what I am attempting to create for myself: a memory bank of small moments. The lives that we live as a family right now with a 3 year old, a 6 year old, a pup, 2 cats and 2 chickens in an AMAZING city with wonderful family and friends close at hand is not the life we will live forever. Time with kids passes so quickly, and they are changing every day. I want to remember the funny things they say, the things they do that drive me crazy, the library trips, the awesome evenings that are a family bike trip to Hopworks (which we call HUB-O for a complicated set of reasons).

So let us begin with the moment captured above: my darling daughter. We gave her the middle name DaVinci so she would be inspired by a man who was both an artist and an inventor, and she has grown into this role already. She is constantly possessed by the need to create, to the point where she is incapable of doing anything else before her ideas are on paper.

This morning we are preparing for tonight's New Year's Eve party at our place, to be attended by three other families we have had the honor of being friends with for the last six years. I told DaVinci that perhaps we should have some sort of craft for the kids to do when they got here. We decided on paper lanterns, and DaVinci immediately got to work on a "sample." This was after creating an illustrated shopping list for Z to get groceries with and making a wooden person with a craft kit her Aunt got her for Christmas, all before 10AM.

There are two main downsides of all the creativity. 1) We do not have near enough space to store all the items she creates. 2) Chapped Lips. Like me, her ability to think is directly related to the distance her tongue sticks out of her mouth. No amount of chap stick seems to solve the problem.