I've decided to move my blog. I'm going over to Blogger for 2 main reasons. First, in order to comment on my blogs here in Vox, you have to sign up for an account (which many of you have been so gracious to do and I appreciate it, thanks!) Secondly, we use Picasa to organize our pictures on our computer and Picasa can upload to Blogger directly, so hopefully it will make posting pictures less of a hassle. Also, it automatically saves drafts, so I can avoid the anguish of a suddenly locked up computer. (So I guess that makes 3 reasons)
I've tried it out with a few posts and I have liked it better so far, so I've decided to make the move. (I also tried it out a long time ago, so there are some older posts there too) So here's my new address, make sure you bookmark it!
Hope to see you there ;-)
And Casey says: don't forget, if you use a feed reader, update your feeds. (I think I know what that means, but I woudn't have been able to say it myself.)
Coulson's Nanna and Grandpa Bud invited him to visit them for the weekend. Just him, without Charlie. So Coulson was excited to have his very own special weekend with his grandparents. All morning long yesterday he kept asking, "when is Nanna going to get here?" and I kept telling him she would arrive sometime during Charlie's nap. Sure enough, she arrived and picked up Coulson during Charlie's nap. Well, Charlie had been hearing all the talk about Nanna coming throughout the morning and the first thing he said when we woke up, "Is Nanna here?" When I told him that she and Coulson had already left, he burst into tears. It took a while to settle him down and I had the insight to explain the situation as "Charlie's special weekend with Mommy and Daddy." I hadn't thought about it that way before the outburst, but once I did, I thought it was a pretty good idea.
(He finally calmed down after I let him watch some of the NCAA tournament because he loves any and all sports. Speaking of, I started out pretty well in my fantasy bracket for the first day and a half, but last night was pretty ugly for me!)
Since Coulson is older and can express himself better, Charlie usually just has to go with the flow. But yesterday afternoon, Charlie was able to call the shots. He got to enjoy the playground at his own pace and just be his natural, funny, goofy little self without any fighting or fussing with his brother to get in the way. And he is a pretty goofy little kid. I'm looking forward to a fun weekend.
North Carolina isn't one of those super important states like New York, or California, or Texas. We kinda get lost in the jumble of all those other states. Except in March. March Madness is the time for NC to shine. Let's face it, when it comes to college basketball, North Carolina pretty much kicks ass! (pardon the expression, it just feels good to say it that way.) So once a year I emerge from the sports-free cocoon that is my life (except for sports played by athletes in the 3-7 year old age range) and embrace the world of ESPN and all the stuff that goes with the NCAA Championship.
Tonight we filled out our brackets for a friendly online competition. Knowing nothing whatsoever about college basketball and being from NC, it's no surprise that 3 of the teams in my final four are from NC! The rest of the teams I chose randomly, relying mostly on rank, with a few upsets here and there to make it exciting. I used a coin toss once to decide.
Coulson had 2 criteria for his picks. First, most importantly, and following in his mother's footsteps, he supports the NC tradition. His secondary criteria was the name of the school – he went for whatever school had a funnier name. And those aren't easy criteria to work with – he was stumped when Carolina came up against Gonzaga, but ultimately he chose to honor his roots. He also thought Mississippi was a very funny name and laughed every time I said it, so Mississippi makes it pretty far in the brackets. Although he said he chose based on the funny names, I noticed that when I gave him the choice of two teams, he generally chose the team that I mentioned last, so no. 15 seeds Rob Morris, Cal St. and Morgan St. do pretty well until they meet up with a team from NC.
Casey also filled out a bracket, but he looked up commentaries on the internet, analyzed probablities and consulted with his father on his choices, so his approach was kinda boring.
Good luck on your own brackets!
When Coulson was about 6 months old, I read a quip in a parenting magazine that went something like this: "With your first child, you sanitize anything that the baby drops on the floor; with the second child, you follow the 5-second rule; by the time the third child comes along, if he can get to it before the dog does, he can have it." As I looked over at my firstborn child and my dog sharing some Cheerios under the kitchen table, I realized I was way ahead of my time. My personal parenting philosphy on germs is mostly based on exposure to build up immunities. I have followed this exposure philosophy, not out of science, but simply because cleaning is not my default setting in life and if you've ever lived with me or even just been to my house on a normal day, you know that very well. (I've always claimed that I'm an excellent mother, but terrible housekeeper, so I use "stay-at-home-mom" as my profession instead of "homemaker".) But now I can claim that my housekeeping habits are in the best interest in my children and here's the science to back it up: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/health/27brod.html?_r=4
I like reading the fine print on packages. Like the chicken I bought yesterday - In large print, the package proudly declared that no hormones or steroids were added to the chicken (or something to that effect, I didn't write it down), followed by a tiny astrisk. I followed the astrisk to the tiny print at the bottom and learned that "federal regulations prohibit adding hormones or steroids to the chicken." Wow, their chicken complies with the minimal standards of the law! They deserve a medal!
But the one that really has my head spinning is on the package of flushable wet wipes that the kids use to wipe their bums. I bought it because it can be easier for the kids to wipe their own bums when they are learning (ok, so I'm not really entrusting that task to Charlie yet). I figured that it would be easier just based on logic that a wet wipe would work better than dry toilet paper. But Pampers took it one step further: "Cleans up to 30% better than toilet paper" the package tells me. 30% A specific percentage makes me think they did some scientific, measurable, quantitative research to determine this. But I ask myself - How does one measure this type of cleanliness? And who wants to do this type of research?
Fellow NPR junkies will totally know how cool this is, but for those who don't have their local NPR station as the 1st pre-set in all their radios, here's some background info. StoryCorps is a national oral history project with a simple mission: "to honor and celebrate one another's lives through listening." Basically they have a mobile recording booth that travels around the country and people can make appointments to bring in a loved one and interview them for an hour. After the hour, they get a CD recording of the interview and the interview can be archived with StoryCorps and the Library of Congress.
Well StoryCorps has come to Winston-Salem and they started taking reservations for appointments a few weeks ago over the internet. Now, whenever there is a limited number of spots available online, I am always too slow - even when I log on right when the tickets go on sale - so I wasn't surprised when all the appointments were already full by the time I tried, but they had a waiting list in case of a cancellation, and I added my name to the waiting list, thinking it would be futile anyway.
So imagine my surprise when I got a phone call this afternoon informing me that there is an opening tomorrow afternoon. And it's not like tomorrow is busy enough since I am volunteering at a local ministry in the morning and going to the annual fundraiser for Women of Vision/World Vision in Charlotte in the evening. Sure, let's throw in another thing to do! Since having kids, I realize I don't like last minute changes in plans because the childcare arrangements can get so problematic. But thankfully my kind-hearted, loving, generous husband doesn't have to work and doesn't have any meetings tomorrow (a rarity on days that I actually want to do something...) So now I have to prepare for my hour of history.
The biggest decision is who to interview. I know my dad would be great - He loves to tell stories from his childhood. But I really want to interview my mom and talk with her about life from a women's perspective. I guess I want to explore how being a woman has shaped her life and how that in turn has shaped my life and the decisions I make as a woman, a wife, a mother. Of course, I'm not sure what direction the interview will actually go in, it's really more of a conversation than an interview, so I don't have concrete expectations of what information I plan to extract from my mom. I just hope that we have fun doing this together and that I get a chance to know my mom a little bit better.
StoryCorps offeres suggestions of questions to ask, so I'll probably check out some of those. (Also a great resource if you think this sounds like a great project and just want to grab a recording device and a friend) I also asked my oldest brother, a professional historian, for some guidance too. Now I have to go and pick some really good questions to get our conversation started.
I've been wanting to do this for a very very long time, and finally this weekend we were able to make it happen. We dumped the kids at my parents' house (we sold this to the boys as "A Special Weekend with Grammy and Pop-Pop, no mommy or daddy allowed") and enjoyed a weekend to ourselves. I call this Retirement Planning, because someday the kids are going to grow up and move out (and yes, they will be moving out because we'll charge an exorbitant room rate) and we need to be prepared for what it's like to be together alone. So far, we're doing okay, because it was a lot of fun to be together alone. ;-)
I'm trying to get out of the dating rut that we've been in lately, basically dinner and a movie once a month, maybe twice if we're lucky. So I'm looking into new, fun dates (I'm saying "I" because Casey thinks that dinner-and-a-movie is the perfect date, but he's going along my notion because he's wise and knows it's good for his health in so many ways.) So Friday night we just did a slight variation on the dinner-and-a-movie routine. We had dinner downtown at an Irish Pub, then went to see a play at the local university. We had a fun time and now Casey's even looking forward to seeing their production of King Lear this spring.
Then Saturday we took off for the mountains, the quaint town of Blowing Rock. We stayed at an inn that was just off Main Street, so we were able to walk around the town and visit the antique, pottery and gift shops without needing to get in our car. We took a hike along a creek with several waterfalls. It was a moderate hike, tough enough to give us a good workout without wiping us out, but something we would not have been able to do with the boys. We even did some geocaching before the weather got too cold. Sunday was pretty cold, windy and snowy. We did some shopping at the outlets and then warmed up in our room with some good books. Casey's reading Oliver Twist and I just started The Friday Night Knitting Club. Then we did something really crazy: We joined Facebook. We finally caved into the urging from our college friends, my brothers and (this is where we recognized that we are so not with the times) my dad and all his siblings who are all on Facebook. So now were having fun tweaking our profiles and re-connecting with old friends.
Then this morning we headed back home to see our boys. It was really nice to get away, but it was also really nice to hug our boys and see their smiles again.
So Coulson turned 5 a little over a week ago. It's so cliche to say that I can't believe he's that old already, but it's true. As you can tell from all the goofy expressions in the photos, he's an amusing kid with typical 5-year-old silliness all over.
I don't have any superheroes flying around the house these days; currently I am protected by the watchful eye of a Jedi Knight. Jedi Luke Skywalker to be precise. Everyday. I got him a black hooded sweatshirt and black pants so he could dress up as Luke (circa Episode VI: Return of the Jedi) during playtime, but that wasn't enough. Every single morning he wants to dress like Luke. When his black clothes were dirty, he would ask of every outfit we picked out, "Is this what Luke Skywalker wears?"
At first I looked for orange and told him that it was like Luke's orange flightsuit, but he wasn't too impressed with his flight suit because there is no light saber involved. Then I progressed to "earth tones" because it was like something Luke might wear on Tatooine (Episode IV). And now it's anything comfortable, "because Luke has to wear something comfortable when he's Jedi fighting and this is comfortable, so yes, Luke would totally wear this." After some persistence on my part, he's finally accepted that almost everything in his closet is something that Luke would wear. Now he wants to know which color light saber goes with each outfit. Apparently Luke has a blueish-white light saber in the earlier movies, and a green one later, when he wears the black outfit. Our big birthday gift to him was a homemade Jedi cape to wear that we are quite proud of - crafted from a real pattern (Butterick B4319) and sewn on my own sewing machine. I'm not a sewer, so it's a pretty big deal for me.
He had a dinosaur birthday party and everyone had a great time. The kids made dinosaur masks and then we went on a dinosaur "imagination adventure" (kinda like the animal safari from last year's birthday party) where we went back in time and looked for inflatable dinosaurs and dinosaur eggs in our backyard. The dinosaur eggs, one of the party favors that each child took home, contained a 3-D dinosaur puzzle which turned out to be a mental exercise that challenged the adults for hours, so now I have to apologize to all the parents for sending such a horrible brain teaser home. Many of the moms have super-glued the puzzle together so that their children never, ever take them apart again.
Coulson is enjoying getting older and being able to take care of other little ones. He's the oldest child in our small group from church and he likes his position of helper. There are two other boys Charlie's age and one a little younger and Coulson especially likes the younger one. He watches over him at the playground, keeping him away from the edges, directing him to the safer slides and holding his hand on the bouncy bridge. It's very sweet to see him so caring to a younger child.
Because he's not with his own brother. A while ago, someone asked me if the boys got along and I absent-mindedly answered "most of the time." I reflected on that answer later as the boys were screaming at each other and realized I totally lied. They didn't get along at all. Charlie is old enough to know how to push Coulson's buttons and Coulson knows how to really get Charlie worked up, so they pretty much pick at each other all day long. Many many many time outs and confiscated toys later, they continued to be at each others' throats. But recently I got smart and told them they couldn't watch any TV until they played together nicely. Miraculous transformation from both of them! So now sometimes I do find them getting along. Charlie has started to get into pretend playing, so he can play along with Coulson now. Usually Coulson tells him what to do or who to be and Charlie goes along with it. It's a lot of fun watching them become playmates. And then they watch TV.
He's getting a little bit better about playing on his own, although he still strongly prefers to play with someone else. Friends are always super important to him and he's learning to branch out and make new friends. He notices the oddest details about things and asks an amazing amount of questions. He's starting to get interested in reading and he's learning bits here and there, but he doesn't quite have the attention span to sit down for a short lesson. He loves books and will drop anything if I want to read to him. He also loves to hear stories and sometimes will tell some of his own stories. Unfortunately for my readers, he tells his most interesting stories when I can't record them, like when I'm driving in the car, and when I sit down with him to type up a story, they are still amusing (to me, at least), but lack some of the spontaneity of his original tales. But he is very creative with his words and I look forward to seeing that develop as he gets older.
Yeah, I think five is going to be a good age.
"Charlie, what are you going to do today?"
"I'm gonna get my booger and put it on my finger," (holds up pointer finger) "and put it here" (wipes finger on his shirt)
At least he's not eating it! I can't wait to find out what he plans to do tomorrow.
When I was pregnant with Coulson a little over 5 years ago, I fell in love with the cake served at one of my baby showers. It's the sheet cake from Costco. It's huge, serves 44, comes with a mousse filling and it's only $15! For that price at the grocery store, you can get a cake half the size with no filling and it's not as delicious. Oddly for a life-long chocoholic, my love of Costco cake is limited to the white cake with white buttercream frosting. Chocolate cake just isn't as exciting.
If you've ever been to one of my kids birthday parties, you've enjoyed this cake (except for their first birthdays, we made our own cake for those special days). In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if subconciously the main reason that I enjoy throwing birthday parties for my boys is so I can get this cake. And all the extra cake from these parties is not a problem because the Costco cake freezes beautifully! We freeze it in smaller chunks so we only have to thaw out a few servings at a time (yes, this is a well thought-out process for us.)
Well, Coulson's birthday party is Saturday and now he's old enough to have an opinion about things like cake. We were at Costco and I was asking him what decoration he wanted on his cake when he suddenly stated, "I want chocolate."
"Chocolate filling? Okay."
"No. Chocolate cake. With chocolate icing."
At this point, I was about to state my usual, "Well, that's not a decision you get to make, that's a grown-up decision and you have to live with whatever I decide." But I realized that it was his birthday and he probably should get to decide. But I was the one doing all the work for the party, this cake is my payoff, said the little voice in my head.
Well, my maternal love won, so Coulson, when you eat your chocolate cake on Saturday, just know how much I love you and remember the sacrifices I've made for you!
