Patriotic Hair Bows

I finally figured out how to make the curly Q ribbon. After months of work, I don't like them. lol. But here is the finished product. I guess it kind of looks like there are little firecrackers exploding on her hair. But that's just my observation, you might think she's cute.

P.S. They're all skiwampas because she had been pulling at them all day. But even before that, they didn't look too much better.

Painting Pictures

It's not very often that I will post a bad picture of myself on my blog, so feel special. Not very many of the pictures turned out. I got a lot of pictures a blue wall or a bathtub and you can't really tell what color the walls are. So here are the 3 best. They are good progression pictures. All 3 are taken in the Babe's new room.

This first is a terrible picture of me so try to focus on the wall.

The next is the 2nd coat where the Babe is "helping" for the 2 seconds it took to take the picture. Don't worry, there isn't any actual paint on his roller. And me in the same clothes I wore for the entire week. We'll get there in the 3rd picture.

Now the 3rd picture is the Babe acurately describing what me, the hubby, my 2 children and my mother (who graciously watched my children all week) felt like at the end of the painting week.

Tomorrow perhaps I'll have my house in shape enough to take some moved in pictures which will show the colors of the walls also. But no promises this time.

Internet!!

Yeaaaaaaa! We are back online. Today I finally got my internet connected. It wasn't lack of trying. It is just very hard to find an internet provider here. I had to finally ask the ladies at church who they used. And I promise (for real this time) that I will have painting pictures up tonight.....

It's Offical!!!!!

The house is ours! We went in yesterday and today and started painting. So it's really offical. More painting pictures to come. Today I went outside to take the beloved picture of us in front of our new house with the sold sign and guess what? They had taken the sold sign away! Without even asking the homeowners. So here is the beloved picture minus us and minus the real sold sign plus the dummy sold sign.

House Closing

Today was the big day! We signed our lives away in a million places. We are offically homeowners*. The actual signing process wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. Today I got all the paperwork and read it all which was exhausting. They clarified all my questions, explained how everything was "unimportant" except like 3 pieces of paper, and we signed away. It was fun. They lady brought us in drinks, cookies, crayons and a coloring page (of course for our son) and our children still had major meltdowns. Afterward, we went to Target and let the Babe detox for a while.

Here is a picture of the blessed event:

This may be an actual picture of the real signing or just a dramatization.


This may be an actual picture of the real amount of paperwork or just a dramatization.

* Well not offically because the sellers have to sign and the transaction has to fund and record. So not quite yet but close enough.

Dietary Breakthrough

The Babe has made a breakthrough in his picky eating! He has sucessfully eaten a corndog (including the hot dog part) for 2 days in a row. This is exciting because he doesn't eat meat usually. I guess you could consider a hot dog meat. But come on, what kid doesn't eat hot dogs? We are thrilled! Perhaps tomorrow we'll try something green.

Success

The swimming lesson today was pretty much successful. There are 6 kids in his class 3 boys and 3 girls. One of the boys and one of the girls (who are friends) are completely out of control and the teacher spent most of the time trying to keep these 2 from drowning themselves. The Babe spent most of his time hanging on to the wall. But the neat part was, I could see the teacher show him something, tell him good job when he tried and then he would just light up at this praise. It was a very sweet mommy moment.

The success part comes this afternoon when we went swimming in our pool. I took him out there while the Little Lady was sleeping just before Daddy got home from work. And I encouraged him to do some of the things that they taught him at class and he did them! He successfully kicked across the pool while holding onto a noodle (unassisted) and he jumped off the side while holding my hands. He also went all the way under the water for a few seconds (in hopes of grabbing a penny off the bottom....motivation). This wonderful swimming session ended after I left the Babe with the hubby. Apparently, the Babe almost drown. Well probably not but it scared the hubby and the Babe. So we'll see how excited he is about going to lessons tomorrow.

Swimming Lessons

Tomorrow the Babe is starting swimming lessons. How scary?! I called the place to register him and to ask how it works. I ask if I was supposed to get in the pool with him and they assured me that wouldn't be necessary. Then I ask if I was supposed to stay at the pool during his lesson. The lady told me I could run errands (for the all of 30 minutes during the lesson). Then I ask, "what if he drowns?" To which, I got the response that they would be with a lifeguard. You know he's your first when you ask stupid questions like that. I should have ask if he drowns do I get my money back?

The Babe is super nervous about swimming and I'm guessing that he'll come home telling me he's not going back because they made him do something scary like put his face in the water and blow bubbles. But that's the beauty of paying someone else to teach him to swim, I don't have to force him to do that.

So we embark on a new adventure tomorrow. The adventure of carting kids around to various "lessons." Everyone told me how exciting this would be but somehow I'm not feelin' it.

The Dirt Eating Monster *UPDATED*

Ok first, Booki Baaki survived more than 24 hours in my house. But not much more. He stopped eating his wilted old celery and no one gave me any suggestions on what snails eat. So I didn't want to starve him to death.

Well actually, I let him out to crawl around on the table (which in and of itself is gross but I sterilized it thoroughly afterward) and I forgot about him and he fell off the table and cracked his shell. I then felt bad for him and thought that he could go heal in the wild.

Ok now to the monster. Isn't she crazy?! Look at that hair? I'm sure I had it put in some cute bow that she pulled out in about 2.5 seconds. Since the Little Lady has started crawling, we can't keep the dirt/sticks/old dried up nasty food/trash out of her mouth. She crawls around our apartment and finds the nastiest things on the ground. Yesterday, I turned my head for 2 seconds while cooking and sure enough she had gotten into a bag of potting soil we had just outside our door.

*UPDATE* The hubby came home and wanted me to add that she not only got into the bag of potting soil but SHE WAS EATING IT!

The Father I Married

This month the Blog Exchange is tackling “Dads” in honor of Father’s Day. You can read my post over at Simply Nutmeg. Welcome Nutmeg, who is hanging out with us today!

My husband is controlling. He refuses to admit it, because he's too controlling to accept somebody else's opinion. We dated for three years before we got engaged, and he managed to hide this side of his personality the entire time. He was all, "No, you pick the movie! Where would you like to have dinner? I'll listen to whatever music you feel like hearing."

Really, when you're young and dating, the decisions are all little ones.

And then I said yes.

Nathan has been Best Man at like maybe a hundred a few weddings and he always includes this little ditty in his speech:

After Einstein and his wife were married for thirty-five years, someone asked them what their secret of married success was, and Einstein answered, "Before we married we made a deal; she could make all the little decisions, but I would make all the big ones. So far there haven't been any big decisions."

We've had a lot of big decisions.

The problems started when we tried to plan the wedding. I wanted tradition. Nathan wanted to get married on Halloween, have a costume reception, and make "Love is kind of crazy with a spooky little girl like you" our wedding song. Can you imagine the mother of the bride in a gorilla costume?

Then came buying the house. The day our realtor showed us the house we live in right now, I thought it was so ugly and disgusting I wouldn't even look at the second floor. Did I already mention we're living in that house right now?

Then we started decorating. And picking paint colors. I think there's something soothing and clean about an entire house painted in linen white with bright white trim. Currently we have a dark blue room, a dark red room, a dark green room with darker trim, a bright green and blue room, a brown room, a purple room, a pink room, and let's not forget the clouds in the entrance hall.

I thought all husbands cared more about football than house wares and when asked to help choose the new dishes, all husbands said, "Whatever you want, dear. I just want you to be happy."

Nathan loves to choose dishware. And curtains. And bedding. Don't even get me started on wall art.

Then came naming our children. I could write volumes on this experience alone, but I'll keep it short.

Top two names on Meg's list: Emma and Samuel.

Top two names on Nathan's list: Akahana and Geronimo.

You may be thinking that I actually won that one if you know the names of our children, but then you clearly don't know all of their names. They have eighteen between them and Madigan's third name is Akahana.

Right now you might be wondering what it must be like to parent with somebody who has to stick his nose in every stinking thing, and I'm going to tell you:

I have never had to sit up with a sick child without Nathan either right by my side or taking his turn.

Nathan goes to every parent teacher conference, every back-to-school night, every play, and this year took off from work for a first grade Poetry Breakfast.

Nathan really wants to hear how my day went when he gets home from work.

Nathan took all four kids to Take Your Child to Work Day and they stayed the entire day.

Nathan reads books on how to raise strong girls.

Nathan asks other parents for advice.

If a toy breaks, my children turn to their Daddy to fix it.

Nathan has made a mix CD of special songs that each of our children listen to as they fall asleep.

Nathan will lie in bed at night next to me for hours discussing how we can best educate our children, how to handle Rowan's temper, or how to get Finn to take naps.

When Keira got hit in the eye with a ball this weekend at a neighbor's, she ran all the way home and threw herself into her father's arms. (I was with her at the neighbor's.)

Nathan once drove to twelve McDonalds to get the girls a specific Happy Meal toy they really wanted.

When prenatal testing revealed a very high likelihood that Madigan would be born with Down's Syndrome, Nathan said, "So what? She's still our baby."

My first three children are Daddy's Girls. Finn is not. He's a Daddy's Boy.

Nathan works two jobs and sometimes only gets two hours of sleep at night to make sure his kids make it to Disney World and can look forward to college.

Nathan and I take turns reading novels to the girls. Nathan knows what he will be reading for the next twenty years.

If one of the girls really loves a book, Nathan will read it himself after she has finished. Sometimes he will read it out loud to me.

When the girls say something funny or tell an original story, Nathan writes it down and saves it.

Nathan knows the names of every one of the girls' friends, where they live, the names of their moms and siblings, and a little bit of their likes and dislikes.

Nathan saves every piece of art our children make. He asks them to explain each piece to him, and he writes what they say on the back.

When Madigan was two, she ran a mysterious fever of 105° for seven weeks. Nathan never left our side except to keep his jobs.

When Finn had surgery at 28 days old, Nathan never left our side for a minute and slept in a chair holding his baby, tubes and all, for most of the first night.

When Nathan watches old videos of the kids, he cries.

When Nathan measures the kids and marks their height on the wall, he cries.

When Nathan sees a bride dance with her father, he cries.

And as I write this, I cry.

Nathan is controlling. I wouldn't change him for the world.

A writer, editor, teacher and mom to four little menches, Nutmeg takes life with a grain of salt and a little vodka. You can visit her cyber sitcom at www.simplynutmeg.com.