A diamond in the asphalt

May 18th
My self depreciating behavior and lack of confidence was largely explained this morning as I realized I am now menstruating again. It's been a couple of years.. let's see.. at least 18 months I guess. So we are back in the "flow" of things. My aunt Susie joked one time that she only used 2 tampons in 12 years since she had 6 kids in 12 years. It's kind of nice skipping the whole thing.
Teig suddenly seems much older though. He's into everything now. Today I set a bottle of spray and wash outside his door while he was napping so I could put it back in his closet as soon as he woke up. When he woke up, I put him on the floor while I ran to get the door and he had somehow unscrewed it and was sitting in a pile of it soaked when I returned 2 minutes later. It freaked me out. I had him rinsed and drinking water so fast. Luckily I don't think he ingested any.. or much.. anyway, he seems fine. I know, putting it on the floor was a really dumb idea.

Kasey came over to pick up Sarah after school today. We talked for a little less than an hour. I showed her what I'm wearing to the Luau, and my new furniture arrangement upstairs, the pillow I finished, and an idea I have for a new painting.
She is so supportive and cool. I am going to miss her so much. I cut my own hair the other day and she gave me a quick "fix" before she left. She lifted the back a little and made a huge difference. What am I going to do without her!

Tonight Eirik and Joren helped me in the garden. I told Eirik I would help him make a glow in the dark Aang costume if he earned 100 stickers. He already has 35 so he was all over doing anything and everything possible to earn more stickers. He said, "anything you want mother." He brought me the shovel, the plants and helped stick them in the earth.
We put in all the fruit and vegie markers that we made out of tongue depressors and foam. The kids liked these. Joren really loved the baby onion and we had a whole conversation where he was the baby onion.
We were planting the watermelons today and of course he is really excited about his favorite fruit. They are supposed to be planted 10' apart. Come on! I don't have the kind of room. So I hope we can get a few watermelons this year. I only put them 2' apart. We put the deer netting up all around and over everything. The can't get to our garden this year!! Now I just have to water enough. Joren was really cute helping me shovel. He loves to dig and get dirty. Eirik is "not a grower" as he has explained. If he finds a worm, he yells for Joren to come pick it up so he can examine it because he's fascinated, but he does not want to touch them or get dirty. Joren loves to be outside. He is what I always expected boys to be. The both LOVE to collect nature and bring it home. We have so many collections! Luckily they now have a "fortress" to collect their sticks in because even though there is a "no sticks in the house" rule, I am constantly throwing sticks out the front door. Sticks and rocks and bark and acorns and feather and trash off the street.. it's all there, in every pocket, every couch cushion, dumped on the floor, in all their collection boxes. I do love their love of nature and their enthusiasm. Tonight Eirik picked up a piece of asphalt and brought it home to give me because he thought it was coal and he wanted to squeeze it really hard tonight and make it into a diamond for me. When Paul explained to him what it takes to make a diamond he started to cry. When Paul told him that he had brought home a piece of asphalt and that it was not even coal, he was devastated. I told him I would pretend that it was our very special diamond in the rough and I would save it to remember the special treasure he brought for me. That made him feel a little better. Then Joren found a hammer and sneaked away my "diamond" and smashed it into pieces to get the "diamond" out of it. This threw Eirik into a tizzy. I told him I would pick the largest piece and treasure it. Boy, what a sweet sensitive darling boy.This is a flower Eirik made me. He taped tulip petals all around a dandelion on a piece of paper attached to a tongue depressor. All his idea. So creative!
Tonight I had to out clean 100 moldy dandelions from a vase in my room. It was my mother's day present so that "if I ever felt like being fancy, I could just get a dandelion and put it in my hair whenever I wanted." Isn't that cute! (not the mold part, just the boys part.)
I let the boys watch Star Wars this afternoon after playing and going to school all morning. I made them popcorn at Eirik's insistence. After a few minutes he said, "you know what would make this popcorn taste so much better? Eating it with all my family, while watching this movie in the dark." He's right though. It's not a party unless everyone is present and we like movie party's all together. What a great kid.