Day 2

We've made ti through two days, and there was not a lot of "I am never coming back!" at the end of yesterday! She's still concerned (to put it mildly) about the water and its inherent vastness, but she was in it 4 times yesterday and did the boogie board relay. This was new to her, as she's only paddled in a pool on a surfboard... and once again, that ocean (really a bay) moves on its own!


You can see in that first photo how NOT DEEP the water is. But that's not what matters. She did something new, and didn't look like she was about to cry afterwards. She's also becoming used to the cold water. I didn't get photos, but they did mud puppies yesterday! What, you ask? Well, they roll in the sand, then run into the water to rinse off. After running a lap back and forth on the beach. They also did push ups, sit ups, up/downs... she's getting a serious workout, and I am LOVING the fact that she's tired enough to go to bed and sleep in the morning, haha!


While Bun was worked hard, the boys and I hung out on the beach. I have a nice little set up going, and am getting down the packing and pushing of a stroller that, if I think about it, has about 20+35+30+15+10+15 lbs of child and gear in it. I DO NOT want to be stranded for 3 hrs without something I could need, haha!! So I pack the tent, a largish cooler, my diaper bag, the Ergo (backpack carrier), another bag with towels/ change of clothes for boys, sand toys, beach blanket, *and* I even bring the boys, too. ;)

This is what I schlepped to the beach.


This tent was a really good purchase. I got it back in 2006 and it was well worth the $20 at Target. :)


So, while Bunny does this...


We do this.


And this. And we eat a lot of snacks.
Yesterday Carter played with other small children who were the younger sibs of Junior Guard kids. A lot of families have made beach days of it so far. I love this beach because it's so intimate that way. Yes, it is in a pretty famous beach town, but it's on the 'local' side of the wharf. The beach the MASSES go to is a very easy walk under the piers, but it's worlds away.

However, I have plans to let Carter ride some rides at the Boardwalk one day next week. That will be fun!


In other news, Cole is pushing up his massive body rather well now. :)

Little Guards, Day 1

2008-06-24 038, originally uploaded by Kristianna.

She felt The Fear yesterday. Not big fan of the fact that the ocean is very big. And deep. And it moves. But today is another day.

Bikini Beach Bear Cupcakes

Bikini Beach Bear Cupcakes, originally uploaded by Bakerella.

OMG these are too much. I want to make some. In about 4 weeks! OR, maybe as a treat for Bun's LG mates to take home the last day. Hmmm. We shall see. The innertubes are those lifesaver gummis, FYI. The bathing suits are made with candy writers.

My own litle hoarding disorder going on here...

You would think I am stoking up for Armageddon. Or a big snow. Or at least a good ANTM marathon on MTV or something, going by the insane amount of foodstuffs I have brought into this house today.

But no, I am preparing for something far more taxing. Every single weekday from tomorrow until July 18 (or whatever the end of 4 weeks is), I will be leaving the house at about 11:30, driving myself and 3 kids to Santa Cruz, pushing the boys in a double stroller to the beach to drop off Bunny, and not going to be home until probably about 5 or 5:30 each day.

If it were just me, I'd know what I need. Some water, maybe some wheat thins and the makings for a ham sammich everyday. But for my kids? The ones who eat all. the. time?????? Egads. Not having access to the kitchen *and* having to feed them basically 1 meal and 2 snacks everyday means I have to have my shit WAAAY together.

So I stocked up on things that are packable. 3 jars of peanut butter. 5 packages of trail mix. 3 boxes of crackers. Cereal bars. 3 cans of Pringles (which were a moment of weakness, as they were on sale and Bun was holding them with that puppy dog look). Dried raisins and apricots. Cheese sticks. 3 cases of bottled water. Plus our usual groceries for dinner and breakfast food. Paul had a hard time figuring out where to put it all away, haha. (He puts away the groceries--I figure if I have to go out running errands with 3 kids, I am going to do it on Sunday when he can put it away for me.) I've planned meals to the nth degree. I have my list of what to pack into the car (stroller, beach blanket, sand toys, etc etc etc)... I even went and changed the oil last week, haha!

Now to just do and enjoy it. It'll be like a month-long vacation at the beach, but where I have all my home stuff at the end of the day. Yeah, that's what it'll be like... vacation! (repeat repeat repeat...)

One HELL of a day at the beach!

Santa Cruz Bolt in possible Waterspout?, originally uploaded by Star Lit Lotus.

So it was like 372 degrees yesterday. More or less -- hey I'm no meteorologist; I'm simply going by what my gut tells me it was. Weather Underground says it topped out at a mere 105.

I had decided the day before that no way, no how was this woman standing in a sunny park with her small kids for the birthday party Bunny had. Was calling the child's mom to say sorry but we have to run away from home, and the friend's mom offered to have Bun come and hang with them for the day. Since they were having a lot of water play at the party, and they also have a/c, I said, "Sure!" and dropped her off on the way out.

The rest of us went to Santa Cruz and decided to go to Natural Bridges, since it was so hot, and NBs tends to be the coolest spot (usually I'd skip that beach, since it's not warm on a mild day). We set up and just as I was putting the shade tent up, it started to... rain? RAIN? Who ordered that? It was only spotty rain, and we figured ti would pass. But then BOOM, BOOM!

Lightning! Funnel clouds! Evacuate the beach! At least that's what the freaked out lifeguards told us.

Soooo, we packed up (thank goodness I have a lot of practice at it) and walked to the car. It was weird, since off the beach there was no evidence of the storm, really. We drove to en outlook and watched the weather fireworks (which also started more wildfires, yaya). Then we diceded to go get something to eat at Las Palmas.

Carter wolfed down a whole serving of chips and guacamole, Paul had 4 tacos with rice and beans, and I had a burrito. Yum. Oh, and we each had a beer. Cole was really good, and chilled out making cute faces and noises at everyone, and then we went to a playground for a while.

So, it was not a very normal day at the beach, but we made lemonade and enjoyed ourselves nevertheless.

Tomorrow is day 1 of 19 weekdays in a row--except July 4--going to the beach for Bun's Little Guards. I have bought a lot of snacks, bottles of water, and about 3 gallons of sunscreen. :)

Another 109 day. Boo.

I accidentally gave myself heat exhaustion today. Whoops! See, apparently, you should drink more than a cup of coffee and about 2 ounces of water total in a day if you plan to go to a park where it is in the upper 90s to low 100s. Go figure! Man, heat exhaustion SUCKS. First I felt dizzy--whenever I turned my head, I felt like I was spinning (it was actually like those spins you might remember from being really drunk in bed after a party in high school or college). Now, that shoulda told me something. I figured I was a wee dehydrated, but Carter did me the favor of dumping my water. Then when I refilled it with ucky fountain water, he begged all that off me. See, now he's smart enough to know when to drink water!

Also, I only planned to be at the park for 2 hours. But a friend called who I had not seen all week and we stayed so she and her kids could play with my kids (and so we could chat). So I ended up being there for 4 hours. On 2 sips of water. AND I nursed the baby. And I'm sure I sweated plenty.

So, yeah, that is how you get a nice case of heat exhaustion. After the dizziness came a someone-hit-me-square-in-the-forehead-with-a-hammer headache and nausea. I barely felt okay to drive home. Then my husband suggested maybe I was about to have a heat stroke. I looked it up, as I drank some water and um, yeah, I could have, seeing as I was also sweating profusely.

Anyway, all's well that ends well. I took a shower, put the baby down for a nap and took advantage of the 2 yr old ALSO SIMULTANEOUSLY napping, and slept for an hour, after asking/pleading with Bunny to, please, for the love of all that is holy be good.

So I'm fine now.

Oh, and it's going to be hotter tomorrow. Nice. We're going to the beach, since it'll be 15-20 degrees cooler there. Which means Miss Thang will miss 2 birthday parties, but I am sorry, there is no way I am taking her to a birthday at a park tomorrow. I'll buy her some ice cream or something to make up for it. Sister gets invited to more bday parties per month than I did annually anyway. ;)

What Nothing is... a relative definition.

Sometimes, when you have had 5 hours sleep, you just gotta let the 6 year old take a 15 minute long shower. Because then she's happy and not asking me to do anything for her. Which she does a lot. Especially this BOOORING week between end of school and beginning of her lifeguard camp at the beach. Bunny does not suffer inactivity well. Man, she would have been a pip growing up where I did.

For some reason the word indolent pooped into my mind when trying to figure how to describe my summer days as a child and teen (and quite a few of them in college, too). Then I became worried -- do I really know what that word means? I have a killer vocabulary, but a lot of words I know only from context of having read them and I have to think for a long time when my husband asks me for a definition. So I looked it up. Yeah, I do know that word. And yes, my summer afternoons were indolent. ;) To the point of sloth, I tell you. But hey, sloth is green, right? Not going anywhere is green, heh.

My kids are used to a lot more activity. So we go to the park everyday (even this week when we're doing 'nothing'). Nothing is a highly subjective term, I have learned. To me growing up, nothing was pretty damn near NOTHING. Maybe my sister and I would walk to the stables or around in the woods or to the creek. Maybe we'd pretend the shadows of all the old trees in my yard were houses and just pretend all afternoon. We had a really well, I'm going to go ahead, be un-pc, and call it a retarded game of tag, that somehow was one person inside the house and another outside the house, and we'd try to figure out which window the other was at and scare each other by screaming and jumping into the window. Maybe we'd really get bored, dig up the little 'onions' of onion grass, and piss off my parents by making 'soup' in the bird feeder. There was a lot of playing in the pool. Many afternoons we HAD to be inside because of thunderstorms. So we watched movies and maybe my mom made us tea and cinnamon toast with butter an sugar (yum). We'd go weeks without seeing other kids besides me and her, really.

To my kids, nothing is going to the park for 2-3 hours, playing in the pool every evening after dinner (and much of the afternoon on weekends), having friends over to play, going to friends' houses, tons and tons of crafts. I don't know, their nothing sure is more something to me! But then, if I asked Bunny, she might find the concept of wandering over acres and acres, and ACRES of land, and getting to see horses exciting. I guess familiarity breeds 'nothingness'.

Afternoon at the park

2008-06-17 034, originally uploaded by Kristianna.

Today I schlepped the kids to Jiffy Lube for a not-so-jiffy-quick oil change, then checked out a park that's actually rather near our house, but whic we'd never tried. A nice mellow time was had by all. Not much to report, but it was very pleasant, and everyone got along, which is always nice.

And Cole is a cutie-- this was taken while I was lying on the blanket with him on my belly. Baby and leaves against sky... what more could you want to look at?

Already bored.

Hahahaha! I knew it. It's not even technically day 2 of summer vacation, since Bunny is still asleep, but she's been officially bored for about 24 hours anyway. My evil plan is to have her bored this week whilst I drag her and the kids around on errands like -- Ooooh! -- the oil changer place and -- aaahh! -- the DMV (actually AAA, but even their shortish line drives Bun up the wall). Then the following 4 weeks we'll be far from bored as we go to Cowells Beach every weekday for Little Guards.

In the meantime I have administrative things to take care of here, and they're going to be booored. Well, except that we're going to the park for a couple of hours every afternoon. And after dinner I get in the pool with the big kids and play and teach Carter to swim. Which is not nothing, but there was a lot of TV yesterday, too. Bah, it was probably easier when there were not Noggin, PBS Kids, Sprout, Nick Jr., Disney, and the plain PBS stations (which show kids shows most of the daylight hours anyway)... they have too many choices to fight over. Oh well, no TV on the beach. ;)

Red Bow Ties Were COOL in 1973.

Paul_John_Portraits_0002, originally uploaded by Kristianna.

So I broke out the box of hilarious photo badness that is my poor husband's legacy of childhood portraits again tonight. This one is pretty fantastic.

First: my brother in law is the older child. The one who looks like a girl. For the record, he's not a girl. My mother in law must've missed the memo on that one when she was styling his flowing locks.

OR, she was so baffled by how to work with my husband's crazyass hair that she didn't even notice the older child. I mean, oh. my. goodness. That poor child's hair is all over the place. Seeing this makes me very okay with him losing his hair. The 1/2 inch of hair that I keep cropped close is actually such an improvement when you look at it that way. So, yeah, he's lucky to not have to deal with that stuff anymore.

Now, please try to work your eyes to their necks. I know, it's hard to focus there -- there is A LOT going on pattern and texture-wise here. I was so distracted by the fact that both boys have wide wale corduroy jumpers on, by John's awesome shiny shirt so cleverly clashing with Paul's criminally ugly diamond pattern that I didn't even see the ties for a while.

See now, my mother in law is a lot of things. She's really kind. She has a good sense of humor. But oh MAN is her fashion sense suspect. Remember when those terrible matched nylon running suits were in fashion in the early 90s and how people who never broke a sweat were wearing them? Well, she had a few sets of those, the most memorable being a teal and pink number that made a swish-swish noise as her arms and legs moved. All I'm saying is, I'm certain she spent a lot of time picking out these outfits and was not even drunk when she did it. I suspect she felt the ties were the element that really brought together this look.

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

The other evening Bunny and I were talking and she asked me something about how breasts work. hey, I nurse a lot, and she wanted to know why women have larger boobs than kids and men.

Anyway, I was explaining about how the glands themselves grow, and also how there are 'tubes' inside the breast where milk forms, which also takes up space. She interjected, "Oh, yeah, I know, those are the ducts!" I said, yes, that was the right word.

Carter, meanwhile, was playing right near us. He perks up his head and says.... wait for it....
"I yike-it ducks! Yellow ducks!" (I like ducks. Yellow ducks.) He had the biggest, most open smile on his face, and clearly was very happy to have something to bring to the conversation. Man, I love that kid.

Beans, beans, good for your heart...

Made taco salad for dinner the other day and made for the second time ever, homemade refried beans. Really easy and yummy.

Take one can of whole pinto beans, undrained, and dump into a saucepan. Add about 1 tsp each of garlic and onion powder... and 1/2 to 1 tsp of cumin. If, like me, you only had garlic salt, be careful. ;) If you did have plain garlic powder, then add a little salt, too. Now, you could be done here. If you're making tacos from scratch (and not a taco seasoning packet), then you probably have some tomato sauce lying around. I always buy the 14.5 oz cans, and the recipe only needs 8-12 oz, so I dumped the rest of the tomato sauce into the beans. It was good! I made it once without, and that is fine, too. They're different, but both good.

Whatever you add, bring it all to a bubbling boil, then mash the beans until they're of the right consistency. No lard, no weird ingredients... I read a recipe that calls for chopped onions, but I have NEVER actually seen onions in refried beans, so I went the powdered route.

Enjoy. No photos of this. Refried beans ain't pretty, folks.

Not quite Pompeii, but...

Yesterday evening there was a grass fire nor very far from home. Weirdly, I'd driven by it as it must've been starting, going by the start time of 3 p.m., since it was in the dry grass by an off ramp I used to come home from the park.

We enjoyed a mellow afternoon at home, and I spent a good little while with the bigger kids playing in the pool. By the time that we were going inside, I noticed the sky was getting dark. Since it's nearly the summer equinox, it's generally still sunny at 6:45, but not yesterday. The sky was sepia.



The light inside the house was unreal. Creepy, really.

This is the REAL color of things. The sun was also a crazy glowing red.

This morning the sky is promising to look much more normal as the heavy fog we got last night burns off. However, everything outside is covered in a very light layer of ash. I went out to pick some apricots and noticed white flakes on everything. I'm so glad we are washing Paul's car for Father's Day today or tomorrow and that I hadn't already gone to that effort!

No more teachers, no more books...

It's the end of an era, people! Bunny has finished Kindergarten! I'll talk some about her final moments leaving the class another time. I'm still too close to it, and the stingy feeling might come back to my eyes... :)

After "The Final Pickup", we had a lovely meal of Happy Meals for the kids who eat real food, and a chicken sammich washed down with about 2 quarts of sweet, sweet Diet Coke for me. That celebratory feast finished, we went to the park for a few hours.


Bunny and all her classmates were given a parting gift of bubbles as they left the room. Thank goodness I loves me some bubbles, too, and had 2 bottles in the car, so there was parity.


Carter's bubble blowing skills are still nil. Gets soapy lips and little else. :)


So he happily played in the shower of bubbles Bunny made. As did quite a few other children. People like bubbles. Bubbles make everyone happy, pretty much. You show me a person who hates bubbles, I'll show you a grump. Or maybe someone who had a bubble pop in their eye as a baby. I dunno...


Then the kids put on their swim stuff and played in the sand and water for a good long while.

Me? I sat in the shade, thanks. Cole?

He did this.

Then some of this.



And this. You get the gist. He scooted around on his back a lot, and looked at the leaves against the sky.

After about 3 hrs we went home and now we're in the home stretch until bed time. I'm hoping they all sleep in tomorrow. That would be AWESOME.

Last Day

2008-05-26 113, originally uploaded by Kristianna.

Just dropped off Bun for her FINAL day of Kinder. And it was a hard one for her, since she had to be at school at 8:05, not 11:30 like she is used to. Bunny had a hard time going to sleep last night, so it was like waking the dead this morning. She tried to convince me she didn't need to go, haha.

This has been such a year for Bunny! She went from being *only* a preschooler, used to always having a half dozen moms she knew well (and me 1/3 of the time) in the classroom with her to going 5 days a week, doing homework, and being safety marshall for her class, which means she escorts people to the office and takes notes to the principal, as well as knowing what to do during drills or emergencies.

She's made some great friends, both in playgroup and class, and had a close friend move away, something she is still processing. She's learned to write more than her name and the very few words she was interested enough in to learn before, and can reason out some hysterical phonetically spelled sentences. She can add and subtract (some) and has learned so much from the visits from the Wild Bird Center. She went from counting to about 13 before losing it, to, well, I generally ask her to stop at about 201, since I know she knows the 'tricks' and could go up to 1000 and beyond and, um, I dont' want to listen to that ever again. ;)

Her report card will come home with her when I pick her up in a couple of hours, so I will have more boasting to share then. :)

Can't get 'em all...

Sometimes it may seem like I'm living my life through the lens of a camera, since I'm always noticing when I see a good photo possibility. I whip out that baby all the time, and have a great time doing so.

But sometimes you gotta let one get away. Yesterday Paul was carrying around our beautiful baby boy, and they looked to nice together, but since Paul was also on a tangent talking, I deemed it prudent to not get up and grab the camera. While I was *technically*listening to him, he'd have assumed I was not, so that photo will have to just be in my widdle brain. ;)

It was nice, though! Great evening light, they both had white tees... oh well!

Can you imagine?

Penguin kids meal for my boy, originally uploaded by luckysundae.

Having time to make this? Of course some of this woman's obentos are in a book... I would not want to eat it after working so hard. And for me, it would be really hard!

Preschool Prep?

http://www.preschoolprepco.com/h/i/index.php

There are now teaching tools to prepare kids for preschool? What do you need to know to be adequately prepared for PREschool? I don't even think learning much beyond adequate social skills seems important for IN preschool, honestly. Learning letters, numbers, that's also nice, for sure. Kids are supposed to PLAY--not spell play--when they are that little. Just sayin'.

I think I will be skipping this one for my 2 yr old, thanks.

Snippets.

Cole's starting to use his little hands to play with toys more. This was a fun one: push car off tray, Mama picks it up! Push off, Mama picks it up!


The planets aligned and Bun finally got the chance to work on riding her 2 wheeler yesterday at the park. We all went, and Carter was upset he didn't have a bike to ride.


VERY upset.


Want go home, Mama.


Look at that face! He's watching Bunny and Paul go around the edges of the park. They're a good 150 yards away, and what a searing look. I wonder if they can *feel* that?


I don't think he is appreciating my taking photos right now. Whaddaya think? ;)

Luckily I had a treasure in the diaper bag. Bubbles! That turned him around and he spent some time not blowing bubbles (he puts his lips to the wand and breaks the film almost every time, but he had fun, so it was all good as far as I am concerned).


Well lookie there! She's flying solo!


I goofed and forgot to bring the back carrier, so Cole had to deal with being in my arms on my hip and lap.


He worked on his spit bubbles.


Just that morning I was on the phone with my father, saying Cole has not yet put his toes in his mouth. I guess he heard me and decided to fix that.


Tired of working on the bike riding, Bunny and Paul joined Carter to play for a while. Then it was time to go home, eat lunch, play in the pool some, and go to friends' for dinner.

Had a Manhattan last night. Man, that is one strong drink. But oddly still palatable. Not something I think I'd order, though. Toodles!

Warning: the following post contains extreme cuteness.

Carter only has a few stuffed animals, compared to his sister, who is a stuffed animal freak, I tell you. She LOVES realistic stuffed animals and has like 50...

Carter, notsomuch. He has a few, and has not really seemed that into them, except to play with Bunny with them, until recently. He does sleep with one now and then, but for the past few days he has been really into one my father sent to him for his first Christmas when he was 7-8 weeks old. It's nearly as big as he is, and very soft.

Here comes the cuteness. I don't name animals for my kids. I might help name them if Bun asks for ideas, but it was not until recently that Carter ever considered that stuffies have names. I asked him what his dog's name is. He looked down thoughtfully, and then back to me. "Dog Friend." And Dog Friend it is... his first named stuffed animal. I'm sorry, but that name is precious. And I am so glad he didn't say "Booger" or something like that. ;)

Hmmm.

Worm Farm, originally uploaded by .Angeli.

I sincerely hope this is the least appealing image I ever find reason to post on this blog. :)

I'm considering a work bin for the summer at least. You can set worms free if you hate having them, right? Like, in a hole?

I don't want to commit to having worms forever if I hate it. But I am really interested in this kind of composting. Supposed to be AWESOME top put on the soil around your plants. Plus the kids would enjoy it.

And in this month's Family Fun magazine there is an article on it that makes it looks so simple and finally explains it so thoroughly that even I feel like I have all my questions answered about how to change the compost out, etc.

No decision yet.

Chugging along.

Yesterday Bunny's class had a very special morning. One of her classmates' Grandpa has built a mini railroad into his property, seriously! When I saw that we had the chance to go ride the train at Heather's grandpa's house, I figured it would be kind of lame, honestly. But this man ain't messing around. I guess this is the Lionel train set taken to the nth degree.


The entire perimeter of the property (just a normal house in a normal neighborhood) has tracks. In the front yard, the tracks are embedded into concrete, and form the borders of flower beds, and goes along a retaining wall. In the backyard they use 1" pickets as a base for the tracks.


Since the driveway is lower than the retaining walls, there is a removable trestle that bolts in when grandpa has the train running. Like I said, this is not too shabby!


Bunny rode it quite a few times. Younger siblings were also there, but Carter is not one to jump first and ask questions later. He *loved* watching the train. Clearly ached to ride it. But it goes along a wall with a sheer drop of 2.5 feet! That's dangerous, don't you know??


So, he and his buddy Derek played with their trains they each brought from home. See that wall, tall, eh?


There were also snacks. Mmmm. Gummy fruits.


Run, the train is coming by at nearly 1 MPH and might jump its tracks! Run!


Bunny knew he just needed to feel safe. "Come on Carter, want to ride with me?"


He held on TIGHT.


All aboard!


This might not be so bad after all....


Yay, they made it! He rode it one more time, the same way, protected by his big sister, who really was so sweet to help him through his anxiety. Yeah, they fight, which is normal. But they're also pretty good friends when you get down to it.

And after we dropped Bunny off at school, Carter took on the Dark Side at the park. A 2 yr old's work is never done, I tell you.