I was only gone THREE days

Steve, recently deemed St. Husband by my mom and aunt, is really a great guy. While I was in Michigan the last three days to see my dad, Steve sent me this video for my birthday.


See!!! That's seriously the sweetest, most touching thing anybody has ever done for me. The big lug.

Also, he tended to the girls, endured a killer stomach bug (which I have also, which we believe to be gifted from Penny earlier in the week) and always helped me make tough decisions. He really is great.

But in three days, he made lots of little stupid husband mistakes. Since his sainthood means I won't actually nitpick him apart right here, for fear of massive retribution from my family, I will say that when I left on Saturday, Carolyn was just a sweet, forthright 3-year-old.

I came home to find her a seasoned liar.

Fibbing is probably more accurate, and she's not even all that good at it.
One day, she was kind of grumpy when Steve asked her what sound cows make.

"I don't know," she said.
Steve asked her if they say, "Moo."
"No, they don't say Moo," she said. "The say Do."
Really, Steve said. Do?
"Yes," she told him. "They used to say Moo. Now they say Do."

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

And yes, I blame Steve. St. Husband Steven James Gardner made our perfectly sweet daughter into a liar. And secretly, I think he's kind of proud...

Bad day

Here's picture from less than two weeks ago...

Seriously. Look at the happy healthy dad. He's old and all, but still, he's great. Except that today he had to go to the hospital and they found out he had a heart attack.

Shit....

Other people's parents have heart attacks. Not my parents. So you see why I'm so surprised. My mom and aunt have taken care of everything, and they say everything is fine and that dad's fine, but I still feel like a horrible daughter, several hours away trying not to think about how slowly this day is going.

So, I decided to bake myself a birthday cake. It's a butter cream cake that has a whopping pound and a half of butter, but you do what you can to get by. Carolyn's very on-board with this idea.

So ends the summer of Chris

It's been fun. Really it has. Riding around town on my bike, going to the pool.

But my super-easy, carefree summer life is at an end — abruptly. After a series of trips with the girls, more freelance and my new decision to take an anatomy and physiology class, it's no more easy street (Annie reference) for me. And it's too bad, because I really enjoy being tan and well rested.

It's a lot like living in Normal. This summer, when the roads were clear (important for anybody new to cycling) and I didn't have to run into a tiny co-ed leaning over her mostly empty shopping cart gabbing into her phone in every aisle at the grocery store, I came to appreciate small-town life. But they're back... The students. And while I thank students for giving me a lively little downtown with good restaurants and such, I hate them.

They're dirty, mostly stupid and just annoying. At Kroger yesterday, a pretty little thing was stroking her hair when she asked her boyfriend: "What's the difference between white vinegar and balsamic?

Well, one is used to clean toilets and the other is for eating. But whatever. I left her to mull over this quandary.

And I leave you with the idea that I'll be posting less. I'll try to keep up the pics, but there will definitely be less musings. For you, it's like summer break in a college town.

Bliss.

Descent into madness

I'll say this about our overnight trip to Chicago — we're better prepared then most when the apocalypse happens.

Steve and I have a long and storied history of not doing things like other people. Instead of driving in a nice air conditioned car, we take a crowded train. Instead of taking cabs, we take the subway. Instead of being normal, we insist the modern conveniences that make our country great are a practice in excess.

And so when we take pictures before we board the train, and Steve said now starts our descent into madness, he knows what he's talking about.

Our trip was mostly great. We ate at great restaurants, had fun with the girls, enjoyed the sites. But when we had to leave our favorite restaurant early because the screaming girls refused to eat (and they ALWAYS eat at Frontera, because the food is THAT good) and I was left alone to scarf my sustainable seafood while choking back tears, you know the descent has begun.

Thanks goodness for the margaritas.

And here's the kicker. There was a couple on our train with two girls (5 and 3) who were obviously video watching, minivan driving, American Girl type people. After thoroughly judging them because they both stole our elevator and our prime seats, they saved our ass by inviting our girls to watch a movie with their girls on the trip home. And to boot, they were incredibly friendly.

Turns out we are not superior. We're just a stinky, tired family whose long road to crazy was much shorter than expected.

Now, see our photos.

Just in time

Penelope finally said OK to the water park slide. It took all summer, and the pool closes in a week, but she did it!

Now, that's all she wants to do.

Dumb dog

It's all about Annie. That's why Carolyn suddenly needs to hug and pet Fife all day long. And I could tell her a billion times not to step on Fife's paws, but it took Annie's love for her big shaggy dog Sandy to teach Carolyn that stepping on paws is just wrong. And now she's trying to teach Penelope.

Annie is a wonderful movie. I don't think I ever saw it as a kid, and the only reason we own it is because my father-in-law bought it for Carolyn, presumably to irritate Steve, who has horrible memories of his sister's constant loop of the catchy musical on the VCR.

But I just love it. I love Carol Burnett as the evil Mrs. Hannigan. I love the sappy music. I love the orphans. I love that I always get weepy when they sing this:

True he ain't pedigreed, Sandy, there ain't no better breed.
And he really comes in handy,
'Specially when you're all alone in the night
and you're small and terribly frightened it's
Sandy, Sandy who'll always be there!

But most of all, I love that Carolyn loves Fife enough to bury him beneath a pile of her dolls.



It's high praise indeed, as you can see. It's also one of Carolyn's favorite pastimes.

My new table

Steve bought me two bar stools the other day. Yes...

And not "yes" for the reasons everybody thinks, although I'm not opposed to drinking tequila on a barstool.

No, these stools are for the girls. They can sit at the counter while I cook, which keeps me from stepping on them because they refuse to leave me alone when I'm in the kitchen. Bonus, they can help.

Like Carolyn helping me shuck corn for lunch. Corn, incidentally, we drove our bike to get yesterday straight from Farmer Henry.



And here are the girls this morning, "helping" me make pancakes.

We love a parade

In the last few years, the family and I have been to our share of small-town parades. And yet I never quite got it. Neither Steve or I are from small towns, so we were always left feeling, "What is so great about a parade?"

Well, Carolyn filled us in Saturday. It's the candy.

It was the first time she really "got" the parade candy. You should have seen her standing there, timidly waving to the passing cars, waiting for them to toss handfuls of Tootsie Rolls at her. It was a really crappy parade, all in all, but it was the most fun I'd ever had at one.

Here are some pictures.




In the afternoon, we went to the pool. Yes, again. It's just such a wonderful, wonderful place. And yesterday, temps in the mid-80s and humid, there was little else to comfortably do, yet the pool was almost empty. This meant I could sit back and watch the girls – with no chance of losing sight of them in the crowd – and stay for almost two hours.

Anyhow, this is what two hours of pool looks like when you get home. Early bedtimes are a wonderful thing.

Hot dogs and poop = pool fun

I don't know what came over me today. On the way back from the pool, I stopped and got a chili dog and french fries.

Now, occasionally I leave the pool a little hungry, from the water and sun and such, but rarely do I desire anything larger than a small salad, dressing on the side, after spending time at the toddler pool.

Because while there are a good share of normal moms, there's a disproportionate amount of women who instructed doctors to return their bodies to circa 1992. I totally know it's possible to mostly get back in shape, but there's only so far a women with three kids can go before a tuck-tuck here and a lift-lift there happens.

Also today at the pool, I was pondering the contents of my pool bag, which I always take even though it's an extra 10 pounds in the back of the bike. When I was sorting through the sunscreen and plastic alligators, I came across two plastic bags.

Why do I need plastic bags?

Here's why.

When your baby girl has a big, wet, carrot-induced, sloppy... well, you know... when you change her, you better hope you have a plastic bag. And when the towel you changer her on is rendered unusable, you better be thankful you have another one.

And I was.

Computer savvy

A few days ago, Carolyn asks Steve, "Can we go to pbskids.org?"

Sure, Caillou isn't the biggest branded character around, but there's still danger lurking on PBS. Anyhow, Steve said OK.

Today, I set up the old Mac downstairs for Carolyn to use, and it went a little better than I would have liked. She picked up using the mouse in like 30 seconds and started playing games on her own in about 10 minutes.

It was pretty amazing.

Here are some pics of the girls on another nature outing (because our lives rarely revolve around media, of which we are lacking), a picture of Carolyn this morning (tell me she doesn't look like Boo from Monster's Inc!) and video of Carolyn singing. It's a real song, "Little Mr. Roo" from my favorite children's CD, although it's a little hard to tell.

Also, new post at Gristmill. It's about food and it got people all wound up. I stopped paying attention yesterday.

Things you might not know about the girls

Penelope: We're almost positive she's going to be left handed.

Carolyn: Knows all the words to the Winnie the Pooh song. "Winnie the Pooh. Cuddly little snuggly all stuffed with fluffies."

(note: I actually saw somebody else write out the lyrics last night and they were completely different then mine. So I looked it up and it's actually " Tubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff. He's Winnie-the-Pooh." I guess nobody really knows the words.)

Penelope: Loves to dress up. I just bought a glass pitcher full of beaded necklaces at a garage sale last week for $4, and Penelope is way more interested than Carolyn in draping them around her neck.

Carolyn: Can remember I told her I would buy ice cream at the grocery store three days before I actually went shopping.

Penelope: Thinks the bike is a car.

Carolyn: Loves the part in the Wizard of Oz where the wicked witch says, "I'll get you my pretty. And your little dog too." She makes me say it in my mean voice over and over again.

Penelope: Caught herself with one hand when she fell through monkey bars a few weeks ago. She is so much more coordinated than the rest of us.

Carolyn: Insists on listening to her "grown up" CD every times she goes to sleep. She knows the words to the first song, "She's Got a Way" by Billie Joel.

More pool fun. This time, with pictures!

We love the pool. Love it. Love it. Love...

Anyhow, we go several times a week. I venture to say we've gone about 75 percent of the days it's been open. We have a membership, so we usually only go for about an hour, which is totally perfect.

So here are some pics and a video I took today, just so everyone is jealous by our super fun summer. Enjoy, suckers...

I am no longer a hypocrite

The Mazda has been sold.

This means that my pretend one-car family is now actually a one-car family. While we've taken advantage of this second car less than a dozen times in the last year, it still feels scary to not have that option.

Plus, I loved the Mazda, the first car I ever bought new. Farewell sweet Protege. Fly thee to the moon. Or to Eureka, Ill., where you live now.

Oh Carolyn

Carolyn and I haven't had the best mommy-daughter thing lately. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, has been an argument. Wonder where she gets that???
So I almost doubled over on the floor today when she gave me this...
Cooking Macaroni and Cheese for dinner, so it's kind of hot in the kitchen, where everybody insists on occupying space.
Carolyn opens the refrigerator.
"What are you doing in there?" I ask, ready to pounce.
"Coolin' off."

Trust me. It's the funniest thing that's happened at our house in days.

When festivals attack

It's always a little disappointing when a trip to the downtown festival is substantially less fun than, say, a trip to the post office. Or the doctor. Or crazy Auntie Lucy's trailer home with her 15 smelly cats and homemade peanut brittle.
Yes, it's another edition of "We are awesome parents."
The family and I decided to check out the Sugar Creek Art Festival in downtown (recently renamed, for whatever reason, uptown) Normal. It has a lot of nice stuff. Art stuff, but also music and festival food and at least one guy who photoshops the heads of dogs on people. But here's the first problem: It's roughly 115 degrees in central Illinois in July and our kids are Pig Pen-esque.
So when I took the bike, parked it too far away from where we set up shop, went back to get it and finally reconnected with the family, I knew deep down that we had erred in judgement.
In the meantime, Steve was bombarded on all sides with families choosing to stand directly between him and the band, which was about half a football field away, a grandpa feeding his group to a round of ice cream cones and little kids delving into their endless candy supply.
And to top it all off, Penelope lost her balloon right before we left and cried all the way home. All two-miles, 115-degrees of it.
Sometimes I think, "Man. Look at all these families having an great time at this thing. What is our problem?" I believe our failure to see an SUV with mega-air as a viable solution is a beginning to understanding the slightly sticky, extremely sweaty approach to child rearing we have come to love.
That and we just can't say no to festival food. Bad festival food. Bad.

So you're not getting enough pics, huh?

I know sometimes it feels like you just don't see Carolyn and Penelope enough. More pictures, the grandmas clamor, because there are other moms out there posting like 50 photographs a day and they know it can be done, if only I cared enough.

Oh you sneaky Catholic moms with your quiet guilt. I hear you.

Loud and clear in fact. In the last seven months, we have gone from zero to three cameras. First, I bought a really cheap one to keep me in the game. Next, Aunt Sandy donated her camera to us. And finally, last weekend, Aunt Judy gave us her 5.1 megapixel Sony, the same camera we finally put to rest (um, stopped working due to excessive abuse) less than a year ago.

So here's what you want, family. More pictures. And speaking of guilt, Steve and I really could use some alone time so our marriage doesn't come crumbling down around us. Hint, hint.

First, here's Carolyn and her cousin Jeremiah. The girls ADORE Jeremiah.

Next, Penelope. Girlfriend has a runny nose, greasy-sunscreen hair and still looks fab.

Finally, all the kids right before Jeremiah went home.

Beets and broccoli

I'm only slightly bragging when I say Carolyn would rather eat broccoli than chicken nuggets. If she gives up all meat by the time she's 12, I wouldn't be at all surprised. But my dreams of a veggie lover were crushed tonight as I was making roasted beets and beet-green pasta.

I was skinning the beets, which I think are the most beautiful, most exotic, most delicious vegetables in any garden. There's something about the deep, velvety color mixed with such sweetness.

Anyhow, I was cutting them when I gave Carolyn a little piece. She literally made herself gag so she wouldn't have to swallow it.

"Yuck," she said. "That's really gross."

Oh Carolyn. Poor, misled Carolyn. I blame Steve, who said beets remind him of communism. They stain everything they touch. And they're used in a lot of Russian dishes. Or something like that.

Nature-y

The girls and I went down to the stream the other day to check out ducks and fish and stuff. It was pretty funny, because Penelope has taken forever to get used to the pool, but she walked across the stream (me: "Um, Penny, why don't you come back honey. Penelope....") like she was raised on a river.

She did lose one of her boots that day, which kind of stinks, but it was still a lot of fun. As you can see, they didn't let the river-depth/boot-height ratio limited them.

A series of humiliating events

Do you know how annoying unpacking can be? Well, try it after you packed, drove 180 miles, ate at two fast food restaurants, shopped at Wal-Mart and then returned home because you were sleepy.

Yeah. I pretty much hate myself too.

The girls and I were on our way to Michigan to see Julie, one of my all-time favorite peeps. And while it's impossible to articulate what happened to me, let me say there was a lot of screaming and crying involved, only the girls were perfect.

A friend of mine I had intended to meet for lunch said, "Good for you for knowing your limitations."

I think she meant, "You are such a loser." Anyhow, my stress list was running a teensy bit high. I have five stories out with editors, only one of which has actually been edited (you can see it here). My inlaws are arriving at my house hours after I had scheduled to return to Normal.

And finally, I had a pretty awful case of insomnia last night coupled by a headache I realized was the result of grinding my teeth.

Excuses, excuses. I had a 2-day window this year to see Julie and totally blew it. Good for me, for knowing my limitations.

Hooray for me...

Top five

Here's my Top Five indications I haven't spent enough time cleaning the house because it's so nice outside.

5. When you find your long-dead cat's Christmas stocking in the middle of the living room. In June.

4. That kind-of icky, rotting food smell is not coming from your refrigerator. It's coming from your stove.

3. It makes about 45 minutes of scavenger hunting to gather all the stuff you need for the pool. Every time you go.

2. You only go into the basement rec-room if you absolutely must.

And 1. When you shampoo the carpet, instead of getting that mildly annoying, not completely unpleasant, chemical smell, it makes the living room stink of wet dog.