Mondays with Val-Val

School has started back up and so have our weekly dates with Valerie. While the older cousins get a good start on their week of homeschooling, the "littles" and I get to go play. The last two weeks we've spent the morning at the zoo. Thanks to the family pass from Grandma and Grandpa Beck - and since Valerie is only 3 and therefore still free - it makes for a fabulessly cheap morning! Just $3 for all of them to ride the carrousel and 50 cents for me to feed the sheep and goats.

We get there right when it opens and pretty much have the place to ourselves. Instead of having to pull the kids off the safari jeep screeching (the kids screeching, not me - well, at least most of the time it isn't me) they can play on it until they get bored! It's fantastic!! The monkies are totally active, the sloth bear is sitting by the window to get fed, and the red pandas are pacing instead of holed up in their cave.

 

 Hope it stays warm enough so that we can enjoy a few more weeks of this!

 

 

"I go back to AIRRRRRRPORRRRRT!!!!"

I'm now two weeks into my three-week stint as a single mom. For anybody who doesn't know -meaning anybody who has not been close enough to hear the blarring music at my pity party or felt the earth-heaving sighs - Benjy has been in Africa for the last 14 days. Or "Aferkuh", as Riley says. He is there to help in the building process of a new hospital in Togo, West Africa. So far he has completed 3 kitchen installs and a few other small jobs, mostly in missionary housing and the guesthouse. He sounds tired but happy.

And we are here.

Thanks to family and friends, we haven't had too much down time to ponder our loneliness, although Annie does remember it once in a while and gets carried away to "the depths of despair."

Riley is persistent in believing that every time we go to church, daddy will be there. And every time we pull up to the house and he sees the red car parked in the driveway, he yells out "Daddy's home!" Poor kid. I really should take that car and park it down the road, out of sight. But there's only a week left. One week! And then the day will come when Riley shrieks "I go back to AIRPORT!!!" and I'll be able to scream back at him "OKAY!!!"

There's been a lot of screaming. And a lot of Curious George. Not a whole lot of cooking, though. I think I've only cooked twice. The first week we just steadily made our way through mountains of leftovers from the early Father's Day, early Birthday, and Last-Meal-Before-You-Leave feasts that I had made for Benjy. THAT was a LOT of MEAT!!! And this week we've been living off of handouts from all the kind people that have taken pity on us and invited us over to eat. I have not had to resort to mac-n-cheese once! NOT.EVEN.ONCE! {Not that mac-n-cheese isn't my secret favorite and I don't have 50 different ways to serve it.That's not the point. Focus.}

But like I said, we've stayed really busy. There was cherry-picking:

And a theme day:

A trip to the cabin:

And an over-night with the cousins, a day at grandma and grandpa Beck's, an outing to the Benzel Plantation, an evening at the magical Kert House of Fun, and a trip to Amy's Garden Farm. We fall into bed exhausted every night.

We've got some more fun things planned for this last week. Possibly even a home-cooked meal! I don't know, let's not dream too big.

Annie-Girl

So my little baby - who was actually not a little baby at all - turned 4. It's strange to even write that, as if I'm starting some fictional story. There's no way that 4 years have already gone by. I feel like I should still be waiting for her to be born.

Life changed so dramatically when she came that there's no way to bridge my life before her and life now with two kids. My life has been lived as two different people - me as not-mom and me as mom. When I answer questionaires about what my hobbies are I still write 'reading and scrapbooking'. But do you know how long it's been since I read Jane Eyre ? That's right - 4 years!

I know it's going to change as the kids get older, and I'll be able to merge the two people back together into one person. But I'm not so sure that's all that appealing, because it will mean that my kids aren't little and needy anymore. As much as I love to look at Annie's baby pictures, I also hate it! I feel like I've forgotten so much already. Like a few weeks ago when somebody was remembering how Annie used to call ice-cream "hymoon" - it was almost like remembering a dream. I had completely forgotten to think about that! And there are so many things I'm forgetting to remember.

So I better write down a few things about my 4 year old before she's 14 and isn't telling me 5 times a day that she loves me "more than everything in the world, every night and every day, for ever and ever until we go to heaven." Her exact words.

So... she got to take ballet classes this spring, thanks to Uncle Chuck and Aunt Missy, and was such a good little ballerina. At least for the first half hour of class each week. That seemed to be about her limit for taking orders from somebody else - a very new and 'edifying' experince for her.

With her new ballet bag she got for her birthday and "Crocs like Ally"

It's her cheif joy in life to have sleep-overs, and she begs every day to be able to invite somebody over or to be allowed to spend the night at somebody else's house. A couple weeks ago, when I went to pick her up after a sleep-over with Grandma Cook and a day with cousins, she absolutely wilted the second I walked in the door. It just sucked all the joy right out of her to think her fun was over. But then she got invited to spend the next 2 nights with Grandma Beck and the other set of cousins who were visitng for the week. 3 nights in a row that she was away! And it was glorious fun for her!

She just taught herself how to snap her fingers and whistle. She usually only takes one nap a week. She loves to paint and swim. Last week she learned how to pump on the swing at the cabin and now she'll go outside by herself and swing for half an hour. And she's really into making up her own Bible verses, which almost invariably end with "until we go to heaven."

So Annie, I love you with all my mom heart, every day and every night, for ever and ever, until we go to heaven! And even after that.



Me and my "little" 2 month-old baby

It's coming...

04.03.12
My back aches, my arms are sore, and my feet are FILTHY! I've been working in the garden!

Benjy got the ground all ready - and by the way, sectioned off more area, doubling the square footage we had last year. It's going to be crazy!

And then we had a string of warm days and I finally couldn't stand the temptation any more - I went to D&B Supply and plunked down $20! Now we have strawberries, onions, and spearamint in the ground. I'm starting cucumbers, zuchini, summer squash, carrots, cilantro, basil, green beans, and sugar snap peas from seed because how else are we going to economically fill this massive garden space with plants?!? We'll see how it goes. The trick will be keeping Riley away from it all. Last year I tried to start things from seed but gave up after I went out to the backyard one day and found 15 little mounds of dirt all over in the grass where Riley had dumped out each seed pot. I was only gone for 2 seconds!

04.18.2012
Cucumbers, zuchinni, and summer squash starts are growing like crazy. The basil looks good too. Looks like the green beans and sugar snap peas aren't going to sprout - will have to try again. I'm not sure if the onions are going to make it, I've apparently been over-watering. Oops.

05.14.2012
I now have zuchini, summer squash, cucumbers, watermelon, and peppers in the ground. About half of the onions have come back to life. A few of the carrots sprouted and there are flowers on the single raspberry bush. AND 4 tomato plants are in the ground - the beginnings of my tomato jungle!

(Keep this picture in mind for a stunning before-and-after comparison)

Roma tomato plant - fresh salsa, anyone?

Green pepper plants

05.26.2012
Nine tomato plants have made it through transplant and are putting out new leaves. One even has a flower! Seven little watermelon plants are working on their fourth set of leaves. Somehow there are six cucumber plants out there in the garden - I don't know how that happened. Didn't I say that was too many last year and that I was certainly NOT going to plant that any again? The spearamint plants are growing like crazy and we've been enjoying fresh-brewed iced tea with it. We've also had several salads from the lettuce and spinach starts that a friend gave us - she came over with two shovel-fulls of garden in a cardboard box, we stuck it in a planter and that was that! Instant salad.

Sadly, the green beans and sugar snap peas never made it. Riley is an aggressive waterer. But it's not too late so I'm going to try again. IT'S NOT EVEN JUNE YET! Besides, who could turn down helpers like these?

"Happy to you!"

That's Happy Birthday in Riley-ish. This time to my big sister. And again - this time very late.

I was going to do a Top Three of Serena memories too, like I did with Chuck, but they almost invariably end with one or the other (or both!) of us wetting our pants laughing so hard. Not really something I want wafting around in the blogosphere.

But that's my relationship with Serena - it's not so much about the big moments but all of the little ones. And they've gotten better over the years with each new stage of our lives. We may not have been the best of friends when we were younger (and she has the scars from me digging my fingernails into her arms to prove it! Which by the way, were not undeserved - I have scars on my soul... like from her telling me mom and dad didn't love me and that's why I got disciplined more... but I digress...)

Each stage of our lives has made us better friends. She does things first and then helps me know how to do them. Like college, when she was a senior and humbled herself to be roommates with me my freshman year, sat with me in chapel, ate with me in the cafeteria, let me tag along on trips and meals out with her and Marc, ... got me through that first hard year away from home (FAR AWAY from home). And then after she was married, letting me spend Sundays for the next 3 years at their house, hosting birthdays and holidays, bringing me medicine and a heat pad when I got bronchitis, taking me along to the beach and the movies, ...

And then early marriage, living in the same apartment complex, spending Sundays together, going to Dodger games, living in a gangsta's paradise, working together at Legacy, ... Most of my teaching style I picked up from her. Those are good memories.

And then - the greatest stage of all - being moms together. I've watched (and copied) everything she does and have learned so much from her. Like how to hold onto a child that is kicking and screaming and somehow get them buckled into a carseat with a 5 point harness - has come in very handy. And even more importantly, that that same child doesn't do that anymore so I just need to persevere with my own little tornado.

So Serena, I'll just say this: I do not know what I would be like without you. I really don't. I love you very much.

"HAPPY TO YOU!!!"

Ok, so maybe just one wetting-my-pants-laughing-so-hard story. So we were heading into a store one time, I think I was in about 11th grade, and on the sidewalk I saw some pennies and nickels. I got pretty excited because hey, a penny here and there might not be a big deal, but a whole handful? And nickels? So I started picking them all up. And then I saw there were dimes! And QUARTERS! Like somebody had just tossed their change jar out of the car window. We had started laughing so of course I suddenly needed to find a restroom. I heaved all of my loot at her and went tearing into the store to find a bathroom (which was way at the back of the store!) only to discover it was one of those kind where you have to insert a quarter to open the door. By the time I got back to Serena and all the quarters it was too late.

Happy Birthday, Little Brother

So I was planning to write this post 10 days ago so that it would be up for Chuck's birthday. It was a good plan. But now I see that I haven't posted anything since March 9th! And that after all my big pep-talk about trying to write once a week! In my defense, I did write at least 5 sensational posts in my head while washing dishes and folding laundry. But once I sat down at the computer I decided I better just check e-mail real quick, and then one tiny peek at another blog, which then reminded me to...

Anyway, and because I love lists (especially prioritized lists), here is my
Top Three Moments with Chuck:

1.  Accidentally rear-ending another car while in a borrowed van. We were laughing at some idiots who had just rear-ended the car in front of them when - crunch! It wasn't as bad as it sounded because the car we bumped never pulled over. So about 2 miles later, Chuck pulled off the highway (yes, he was driving because, although 2 1/2 years older than he, I still did not have my license) and the only damage was to the license plate frame, which we tossed. Did we ever tell you about this, mom?

2.  Bumping into some nuns while high-tailing it up the Bell Tower on the Mount of Olives. I was home for Christmas break and Chuck needed an accomplice - preferrably one he could outrun. The nuns must have been under a vow of silence because we made it to the top, snapped some pictures, and then snuck back out the unlocked gate we had slipped in through.

3.  (Or #1, whichever way you look at it.) Skydiving with Chuck and being so scared that I could.not.even.scream. Just bellow like a cow. The plane ride up was the closest I've ever been to hyperventilating. Which worked out okay because jumping out of a plane and having tiny balls of hail pelt your face while falling through clouds for 30 seconds is a good way to quit hyperventilating. It takes your breath away entirely and kind of puts a stop to all that silly worrying about being able to regulate your breathing. Because now you're worried about more important things.

Before

After



So Happy Birthday Chuck! Hope there's a new Top Three twenty years from now. I'm just scared to think what might be on there!

The Princess & the Pinball

A couple weeks ago, some friends were asking about if we were considering having another baby and if so - would I want another boy or girl. { NO, THIS IS NOT A SURPRISE POST ABOUT A NEW ADDITION TO OUR FAMILY SO JUST GET IT OUT OF YOUR HEAD RIGHT NOW!} And I had one of those moments where I started to answer and then realized I didn't actually know what to say! Which would have been a good cue to stop talking. You would think.

So anyway, that has caused me to do a lot of thinking lately about these two little humans that live here with us. And how different they are from one another.

Annie is very focused, hard to distract or disuade. In fact, she'll argue about everything on the agenda because she only wants to keep doing what she's doing right now, this very moment. She doesn't want to go somewhere and then once we get there, she can't bear to leave.

Riley, on the other hand, zooms from one thing to another. His time limit for everything is about 3.5 minutes. That includes meals, baths, riding in the stroller, ... Really the only thing he will truely focus on is mischief. That's when he can really buckle down.

Annie loves to be indoors; Riley wants to be outside.

Annie's world revolves around storylines and pretend. She can sit and look through books or play Polly Pockets for an hour. She'll beg to watch shows all day long. And I can't even count how many times a day I hear "Pretend that..."

For Riley, though, it's music. Any music, from Benjy practicing guitar to music in stores (which he always notices, no matter how soft) to somebody's ringtone. And he always picks one song per cd that he wants to listen to over and over and over again. Sad to say, his favorite right now is "Kiss the Girl" from the Little Mermaid, or Sha-La-La-La as he calls it. Much more manly.

Riley loves broccoli and tries to reach over and steal mine off my plate; Annie worries over any little speck of green herb because it might be broccoli.

Annie loves to color and draw pictures; Riley only likes to do so in my Bible or day planner. (Yes, I'm old-school like that.)

Annie is very verbal and likes to explain things and have rules for how everybody is to do everything. Riley just wants to run and jump on things and wrestle. His idea of communicating is a high-pitched
scream that sounds like a teapot.

Annie eats and draws with her right hand; looks like Riley's going to be a lefty.

Riley sucks his fingers, loves blankets and stuffed animals, and really gets a great deal of satisfaction out of going to bed and sleeping. For Annie, it's more of a punishment. (Although she is making tremendous improvement in this area!)

Annie desperately wants friends around to play with. Riley just wants people around to bite. And pinch.

So as for whether I would want another boy or girl, it's a good thing it's not my decision because I still don't have an answer to that question. Unfortunately, though, I just keep on talking...