Feb S.A.D.

Warning
Complainer below:
Like many people, I don't do well this time of year. From experience I usually try to plan a vacation at the end of February when I have typically been in emotional chaos. My vacation this year does not start for two more weeks and I am just trying to hang on with all of my might. I don't know if it's real S.A.D. (seasonal affective disorder) or just what everybody feels, either way, I wake up angry and anxious and want to wring a neck all day long and go to bed even angrier for no reason. Luckily, I know it ends and usually it just magically disappears with spring; so I'm hanging on. Unluckily for my children, I'm not a lot of fun right now. I swear if my kids get out of bed one more time I'm gonna.... !@#$#^W@%$^
Anyway, I'm not asking for sympathy or dinners or any crap like that.. I'm just venting like a big whiner.
PS. I love my peeps here, but I hate Detroit and all I want to do is make art and be mean to people.
I know I shouldn't post this. I'll probably delete it tomorrow.
there.

Teig 5 months

Brothers

What is that smell??........

What is that smell??........
long pause...

5 min later:
What is that smell!!??

Eirik: "Fine, I'll admit. A while ago I didn't wipe."

Spy Gear

I told you spy gear was important these days. Don't laugh, this is very serious and important.

Need I say more?

Little Slugger

Teig was cracking us up on this day. Eirik and I were playing baseball in his room and EVERYtime I threw the ball Teig would belly laugh. He has not been a big laugher so this really caught us off guard. He was just crazy about the baseball. He loved watching us play. I thought it was appropriate that he was wearing his only baseball shirt for the first time that day.

I have a hunch we might be going to a lot of baseball games for this guy. :)

Teig

I just couldn't choose .. so I am posting all of these pics of gorgeous Teig. Really, could he be any more adorable?

He's in the cute stage where he gets himself stuck under tables by scooting backward and not being able to more forward yet.

The Sun is out (sort of)

We had a break in the freezing temperatures this weekend and I sent the kids outside to play. Joren went straight to the puddle. I mean, what did I expect? Did I really expect them to not get completely soaked??? Silly mom. What fun would that be? I can't say enough how good it was to see the sun. My kids are glad too because I get pretty awful to be around when I have not seen the sun for a couple of weeks. Yes, that is renegade Tor in the neighbor's yard. The electric fence has been out for weeks stressing the crap out of me. Paul fixed it today and life is good again. The neighbors all think I'm a complete looser as a dog owner.. well I sort of am. It's a point of a lot of anxiety for me. I'm trying to relax a little. I really do want my neighbors to like me and not think horrible things about me, but how can they not? I let my dog out to do his business and then he runs off and I can't get him to come in. I make a complete a** of myself calling for him and bribing him, begging him, hating it the whole time. Anyway, like I said, the fence is back up. Yeah! Back to business.

Cure for the winter blues

I talked Paul into devoting a bunch of time he does not really have to another big winter building project. He cheerfully got to work constructing this awesome slide and fort for the boys. I think, and so do they, that they have the coolest dad ever.

Valentine's Day

I bought little red and white mailboxes this year for $1 each from Target and we each decorated them with our names. Our kids are finally entering the age where I get to do all of these fun things I have always imagined doing. We got to exchange valentines with each other for the two weeks before valentine's day. I have to admit; making valentines is kind of a guilty pleasure for me. I see them as a little piece of art and I can sort of insist that those around me join me in making art for a little while. I had valentine "equipment" out for about a week and a half straight. We made valentines as a family several times, once with cousin Dave. This picture below shows my sweet family "suffering" through the valentine's ordeal. :) (notice all the fake grins.) And I had friends over to make them some more. I had a great time and I cried over some of the sweetness my boys created. This one Eirik made for his dad is Luke Skywalker with a blue light saber..Paul went out of town for a week to the AOCD conference in New Orleans. We missed him a lot and Eirik came up with a very in depth plan about how we would welcome him home. We each made him a valentine to take with him when he left, and we each made him one to welcome him home. On the morning after he arrived home late the night before we executed his plan.
#1 Diet coke float with ice cream
#2 Muffin (I substituted scone)
#3 blueberries
#4 presents- (Eirik wrapped some of his favorite toys (and a bottle of Dad's deodorant which he calls Gatorade) in transformer wrapping paper)
#5 grapefruit- actually that was my idea
Joren practiced singing "I'm so glad when Daddy comes home for the whole week so he knew all the words when we sang to him." They were truly adorable waking him up early with all their overflowing love.
Here's Paul doing his best to be enthusiastic about getting his deodorant for a gift at 6:30 AM. :)I was in charge of the Preschool Valentine's day party for Eirik's class since I am the party mom at the coop. I always feel like these preschool parties are excessive, even though I plan them. There's always way too much sugar and the kids really don't expect anything and we probably overdo it. I still don't know where the line is.. but we went there.. again and probably crossed it .. again and had a nice time doing it. I made glitter wands to spread the love and hearts exploding in love (the pink cards with glitter everywhere) and heart shaped pbj's and heart shaped hot dogs skewered with speghetti noodles... anyway... it was over the top and totally silly but fun. Eirik sure has some cute girls in his class, but he wrote on the board when he got in the classroom "I love Kaitlin". (she's the one in the red velvet dress.) He told me the first day of class, "I think I'm in love." When Mrs. Tobias asked each kid who they thought of when they thought of love Kaitlin said, "Eirik". *WHAT* That's not supposed to be happening in preschool!


I have 4 pretty amazing boys to heart this Valentine's day but most of all I love my Dr. A. He is growing up to be one hunky specimen of a man. I feel like I have watched him grow up over the past few months. He is even getting silver hair at his temples. He is more dignified and sure and strong than ever. I have really wondered lately how I ever caught this guy. What a lucky girl I am.

Everything now land with a pet deer

Joren loves playdough, but he never really sculpts anything. Here he has made piles and lines and stuck toothpicks in them. This is about all I can get him to do with his playdough, but he likes to do it all the time. Is that weird?

Who's in there? My Joren loves to find unusual hiding places. This was a good one.

This is their eagle's nest. You can't tell but the car seat is perched on a small table in the corner of our dining room. They only fell out once doing this.

I can't remember which characters they were being this day, but they had to have colored bellies. Notice Eirik has a dog leash wrapped around his as his climbing gear or spy gear. Actually EVERYTHING is about SPY gear lately. He even confiscated my curling iron again because it has important spy potential. I love seeing what he finds useful in his spy bag.

Both boys have recently been totally into Blue's Clues. They both have little notebooks that our friend Ruth gave them that are perfect "handy dandy notebooks". I made little paw prints and sometimes give them three clues to figure out what we are going to do next or where we are going or something. They take it very seriously drawing each little picture and then sitting in their "thinking chair" to figure out the clues. This day they are even dressed in khaki and green like what's his name on Blue's Clues. mike? I can't remember. I love that intent "thinking" look on Eirik's face.


Joren has a new pet. It's a baby deer that he keeps in his pocket so that it will stay warm. It is the size of a pencil eraser. It is named Kiwi. It is always with him. Joren keeps tomato soup in his backpack to feed his pet deer. He "woves" his pet deer.

Eirik begged me to go play with him in "everything now land." I said, I don't know how to play that. He said, "Duh, it's where you get everything now.

Little Water Junkie

"I put water in my sock and ven I put it in my wego." (lego) Joren

"What if we just glue or tape some strings to the ceiling and then we can swing on them?" Eirik

What happens when I sleep in?

It's been a challenge lately to get enough sleep. It seems there is always a boy up at some point during most hours of the night. It doesn't help that I have this new addiction that keeps me up every night designing rooms. So, it made me laugh when I woke up the other morning to the boys chucking coins from their piggy banks at me from the top bunk since I was asleep in the chair in their room with Teig on my lap. There were a lot of coins. Lucky they are really bad at throwing. This morning was worse though. We let Joren fall asleep in the car at 5:00 last night by accident. If we would have woken him he would have not gone back to sleep until past midnight, and since we did not wake him when we brought him in, he woke up wet at 4:00 AM and was ready to start the day. I fell back asleep and woke up at 7:00 or so to him saying, "Mom, I found the water and the paints!" Can you believe that I was so tired that I actually could not drag myself out of bed to see what kind of mess he was making?? Luckily it was watercolor paints that he found and he actually used them on paper only as far as I could tell (minus his shirt which was covered, but I got to sleep an extra hour so I don't care.)
Another morning when I found myself too lazy and exhausted to get out of bed I went downstairs to find my kids helping themselves to Diet Coke and Cheese ball floats for breakfast. Lucky I was ahead of that catastrophe. :)

Another couple of funny incidents had me laughing. On the way to drop Paul at the airport Eirik said, "next stop, Airport!" Joren said, "Airport! That starts with T!! Airport, that rhymes with Airport!!" His excitement about his false discoveries was so funny to me. Then Eirik added to the laughter by exclaiming, "next stop.. Camelot!"

I was giving Eirik and Joren a time out for trying to kill each other the other morning. I was again doing one of my serious talks to both of them about how they should be best brothers and how we should treat one another when Joren suddenly interrupts with this enthusiastic totally non-related statement: "Like when I put a fish in a cat's mouth!" I chuckled and then continued the lecture when he interrupted again by asking, "what happens I stab a pocketknife in my leg?" I tried to ignore this one and continued until he interrupted ad asked, "what happens I put water in my sock and put it outside?" At this I knew whatever I was trying to say was not going to get through so I just laughed and let it go. It adds to the fun when Eirik is mature enough to totally see the humor in it and laugh with me. I love to see them growing up. PS. I know Joren is using his random comments to deflect my discipline. It is so genius.

Another good thing happened. I have been cutting Pauls hair for almost 8 years, and this week I actually gave him a great haircut! Finally I figured it out. :)