More later if I can actually think of something.

I prefer crunchy, but we keep buying creamy because it is easier for the kids to eat (zero choking hazard when there are no crunchy pieces). And we buy it at Costco in very large plastic jars that come in two-packs.

It stays in the cupboard above the toaster oven.

I just, um, appropriated a Reese’s mini Peanut Butter Cup from Ane’s Easter candy. Don’t tell her. Did you know that Reese’s had a mini Peanut Butter egg this year?? They were very tasty, let me tell you.

And here’s a funny peanut butter story:
When my brother, the Captain, was about 10 or 11, he had made himself a peanut butter sandwich as a snack and was eating it – and got peanut butter on his fingers in the process. Thinking he was unseen, he began to wipe his fingers off on the side of our tan cloth very-beat-up-and-loved couch in the family room.

My mother saw him doing it. “You’d better not be wiping your hands on the couch,” she warned him.

“I’m not!” he protested.

At this point, Kobi, our beloved Golden Retriver/cocker spaniel/Shelty mutt (who we all still miss to this day), went straight to the side of the couch and began licking the peanut butter off.

Busted.

*****

This week has been crazy, but I finally did get in touch with Tad’s new therapist. Our sessions will begin in early April, every Tuesday afternoon. Not the best of times, but we will take what we can. I just have to make sure that Tad takes his nap on time, so I can get him up in time to be a happy boy for the therapist.

*****

Ane was begging me to let her watch 3-2-1 Penguins! a couple of days ago. “Mommy, can I watch Penguins?”

“I’m thinking about it,” I told her.

Two minutes later: “Mommy, can I watch Penguins?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

Ninety seconds later: “Mommy, can I watch Penguins?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

Clearly fed up, Ane sighed loudly. “Could you think faster?”

Happy weekend, all!

Actually, if the lion had showed up, shouldn’t this stuff be melting?

The snow is about 5″ high here, which means we’re going to break out the kids’ boots and Tad’s snowpants! We’re staying home today, though the Webmaster made it to work. The current prediction is that it will probably melt off by tomorrow morning. We’ll see.

I promise to take pictures of the kids in the snow!

Yeah. A little bit of a surprise. The weather forecast said nothing about getting snow this low in elevation – just up in the mountain passes. I have no idea what this will do to my day. The kids seem to think this is pretty neat, though.

The shock of snow is right up there with Ane waking the Webmaster and me up with the proclamation of “Mommy, Daddy, my bloody nose went away!”

The Webmaster muttered to me, “Where did it go?” Fortunately, the damage was limited to a few drops on her pillowcase, so we got off easy.

This whole morning has been quite the adrenaline rush! I hope it calms down from here on out.

She has been admitted to the hospital because her temperature keeps spiking and dropping. The doctors (so far) are at a loss to figure out why. Initially it seemed they thought she had a kidney infection, but whatever additional symptoms she had resolved themselves with treatment, and then it was an ear infection, but now they are saying they don’t know why. So Little Mo, who’s white cell count is quite good at the moment, has to stay in the hospital until they can figure out what is causing the fevers and occasional vomiting.

Sadly, all this began shortly before her older brother’s birthday last Friday (we’ll call him Jay). He just turned 5. They couldn’t have a party, and even if Little Mo wasn’t ill, they have to be so careful about how many people are around her because of the possibility of infection. It’s just got to be so easy to forget your healthy child in the wake of all that you have to do for the sick one, and it’s no wonder that some kids with sick siblings end up resenting them, or wishing that they were sick in order to get some attention.

I would like to give Jay a belated birthday gift, but I don’t know much about his likes or hobbies. I know that you can’t go wrong with a gift card, but I thought movie tickets might be a fun idea. Anyone else got any suggestions?

Parts of it were very good. Parts were very, very bad.

The good: We had a nice visit with the Webmaster’s parents and extended family on Saturday. The Munchkin also got to try roller skating, and she has inherited both her daddy’s and my genes in that area. The skates were a little too big, and she couldn’t really control where she was going, but she had balance, determination, and some undeniable skill. And she LOVED it. The Webmaster and I both donned roller skates for a little bit ourselves as well, but my skates were too big for my feet and I felt really clunky. I didn’t fall down, though!

Also good: Went to the bridal shower yesterday, which was very pleasant and had yummy food. I’m glad I went.

The very bad: The Webmaster did a system update on the computer Saturday night after we returned from his parents’, and somehow, though the two programs have nothing to do with each other, the upgrade deleted our entire photo gallery from Picasa 2. The last backup the Webmaster had done was from mid-July. So, he stayed up all night frantically trying to retrieve what he could, and we began canvassing family and friends to see what they might have. Thankfully, my own files were unaffected, so pictures that I had posted on the blog or sent via email were saved – albeit in a smaller, resized format, but we are just going to have to work with what we’ve got. My uncle was kind enough to send us everything that he had from Tad’s first birthday party, which was a lot of good stuff. My mother remembered that the Webmaster had downloaded a lot of pictures of Little Cousin’s August visit to their system, which the Webmaster copied and re-loaded into Picasa. My mother-in-law has some pictures from events that we lost. A few more recent pictures had been printed once, so they were saved in the Walgreens’ system. Sadly, we lost a lot that are simply unrecoverable, and there were many cute ones of the kids that are gone. But, we’re moving forward, thankful that it was only a few months’ worth of photos, a portion of them were successfully recovered, and that I had posted so many pictures on the blog.

The moral of the story is: Always do a backup BEFORE a system update. Because no matter how much you think one thing won’t affect the other, it just might. Also, do regular backups to a safe location. And maybe, just maybe, we should print pictures more often.

Still, as I pointed out to the Webmaster, we still have healthy, happy kids to take pictures of. We still have their baby pictures. We didn’t lose everything. It was only a few months of pictures, and we’ve gotten some of it back. And the memories won’t disappear. While this was bad and sad for us, my mother commented that there is only one baby picture of her late father in existence, because the rest were lost in a house fire many years ago. A college friend of the Webmaster’s lost her wedding photos and her first son’s baby photos in an apartment fire some years ago. We are doing everything we can to make sure this doesn’t happen again to us, EVER. In the meantime, the rest of you – learn from this. Do a backup. Keep it current. You will never regret the time you take to do it. And if anyone has suggestions as to where the best place is to store photos online, or how you keep your own stuff protected, I would really love to hear it.

On a much lighter note, a charming little example of reverse psychology…

We went to my parents’ house last night so the Webmaster could recover pictures from their system. The Munchkin was drinking some milk at the kitchen table and coloring.

Auntie: “Finish your milk, Munchkin.”
Munchkin: “No!”
Gichan (my father): “Munchkin, finish your milk later.”
Munchkin: “Okay.” (drinks the last of her milk)
Auntie: (staring in shock at our grinning father) “I hate you.” (this was said tongue-in-cheek, trust me!)

Belle and her Mommy are arriving next Monday (that’s my baby niece and my sister-in-law, for those who don’t know), and I spent part of last evening hauling Christmas presents out of my closet and jump-starting the wrapping. I think I’m done with Belle, but I only have one thing for her Mommy and I’m feeling a little panicky… because we’re “celebrating” Christmas with them two days after Thanksgiving, which means I need to be done shopping, um, NOW! And she’s not making it easy for me to shop for her. At this rate, she’s going to end up with a gift card, but that may not be a bad thing, since I seem to be contorting my mind into knots trying to think of gifts for her. At some point, even I have to toss in the towel.

*****

On that same note of panic, CHRISTMAS CARDS!!!

I think that’s pretty self-explanatory.

*****

Ever feel like you should do something, even though you’re under no obligation to do it?

I spent 45 minutes at Bed, Bath & Beyond yesterday, the Munchkin in the cart as my trusty sidekick, reading 51 pages of a wedding registry and trying to buy a suitable bridal shower gift for someone I don’t really know. Yes, the registry is 51 pages long, because BB&B only puts 10 items on a page. The waste of paper is unbelievable. Yes, they registered for half the store, including china and flatware. Why am I doing this? Because this is a newer couple at our church, they’re getting married in two weeks, I don’t think they know that many people, and I have a sinking feeling that no one is going to show up to this shower. I probably wouldn’t have bothered, except that the Webmaster and I have struck up an acquaintance with the bride’s father, and my brother-in-law, Oddball, had a few college classes with the groom. How many degrees of separation does that make?

I’m trying to be nice, darn it. Plus it means that the Webmaster watches the kids while I go to the shower and behave like an adult, which is always good for me. And my trip to BB&B yielded a set of 4 Christmas stocking hooks that will actually hold our stockings without the sometimes obnoxious and often expensive tree/angel/reindeer/snowflake that would eat up space on our mantel. No more masking tape! Woo-hoo!

*****

The sun came out yesterday, and I took the kids to the park for a short playtime before we headed off to Obachan’s for our weekly lunch (which we haven’t been able to do for two weeks because the kids were sick). It was very wet, and I took a towel to wipe off the play equipment, but they had a pretty good time, except when Tad tried to run back into the parking lot. He wanted to run, and I was trying to keep him near the Munchkin so I didn’t just abandon her. He also sampled the bark, which was rather damp for his tastes. Apparently he likes his bark dry, thank you.

*****

And to wrap things up on a lighter note, Juliet found this site via her other blogging gig, did it for herself, and so I decided to take a crack at it. So, I present… myself and the Webmaster as South Park characters. Everyone should give it a try!

Happy weekend, everyone!

I’ve been hearing that the 10 year reunion is always the strangest – people desperate to prove that they haven’t physically changed, they are financially successful, and are eager to flash around whatever status symbols they may have acquired over the past decade to prove their worth.

All of the above was true at my reunion, at least on Friday night.

To get an idea of how I have personally changed, here’s my senior picture from ten years ago:

And here’s what I looked like on Friday:

I’d like to think that I’ve matured gracefully. You be the judge.

Anyway, the Webmaster and I arrived at the reunion party late (traffic was hideous), but that really didn’t matter except that the food was out and waiting for us when we arrived. I immediately ran into a few people I knew, but as I scanned the list of people who had registered to be there, I counted up about half of that list that I actually could remember from high school – about 40 – and only about half of those that I would actually want to talk to. Fortunately, I met up with those people quickly, and they seemed geniunely pleased to see me, as I was to see them. (One guy point-blank asked me, “So, do you still read at 80 miles an hour like you did in high school?”) I had pictures of the kids with me, and they were suitably impressed with their cuteness. The Webmaster worked his charm – he could talk the legs off a table if he wanted to – and had a decent time of his own. At the end of the evening, though, it was easy to say “good-bye, see you in another ten years” to some people. Mostly because they had been my friends of circumstance – same classes, same lunch period, same school activities – but we had grown apart enough that while we can be friendly and cordial, there is nothing to bind us together now other than this reunion and fond memories. And while that’s not a bad thing, it also means that it didn’t hurt to say good-bye.

Mr. Comedy – the one semi-famous classmate of mine – tried to do his stand-up routine. He was funnier when he wasn’t doing his routine, and was just making off-the-cuff remarks about school, former classmates, and asking, “Why are they carding us at the bar? Don’t they know we’re here for a TEN YEAR REUNION?? We’re all legal now!!” A little too much profanity for my taste, but it was better than I had expected it to be.

Another classmate of mine had bought the outrageously priced class directory ($10 for a stapled booklet), and graciously let me look through it. I copied down a few email addresses of people that I’d lost contact with and really wanted to talk to again, got both email and street addresses of people who were there, and we went home when it “officially” broke up. I was tired, my ears were ringing (it was LOUD in the bar), and I was wondering who would actually show up to the reunion picnic the next day.

About 20 people (not including spouses and children) came the next afternoon. The park where the picnic was being held is less than 2 miles from our house. It was kind of a joke when people were asking me where I lived now. “Um, only a couple of miles from here!”

At Friday night’s bash, all the “popular” people quickly found each other and began shooting the breeze and having drinks. All of us not-so-popular people and former brainiacs tended to meet and greet each other, and then gradually drifted out to the edges of the room. Saturday, both the popular people and the not-so-popular people brought their kids to the picnic, and the kids didn’t care who was popular in high school. They simply sized up the other kids, found them to be the right size and age to play with, and started playing together, thus making their parents talk to each other.

I spent some time talking with some spouses who hadn’t come the night before, and had a lot of fun chatting with other moms and dads about the kids – most of whom were under the age of five, so we were all going through much of the same things right now, like potty training and beginning preschool and keeping the kids from eating more than one sugar cookie with thick orange frosting at the picnic. The Munchkin was overjoyed at the prospect of so many kids her size at the park, and she played her little heart out. Tad climbed to his heart’s content and forgot that gravity existed, making me run to catch him when he decided to swing off of a 4-foot-tall platform on the play equipment by himself. I got some more addresses, and had a fun thrill when a guy who I wasn’t sure would remember me introduced me by name to his wife, who was really nice – we had a lot in common. Their oldest son and the Munchkin were digging a dirt pit together.

And then a good friend of mine showed up – she hadn’t come the night before, and she brought her husband of a few months with her. It was great to see her again, and we spent a little time catching up. Mr. Comedy showed up again – wearing the same clothes he had worn the night before, which he made no apologies for – but he just wanted to see who had come and catch up with people, not be the entertainer. The picnic was miles away better than the party the night before, and it came to an end far too soon. Many of these classmates live out-of-state, so I probably won’t be seeing them again for a while. Some live closer by, so I might get to see them sooner. And some – well, I’ll be emailing my newly-married friend so we can go out for coffee sometime soon.

So that was the reunion. All in all, it was a positive experience. I think I may even go to my 20th, and I hope that some of these classmates and friends that I connected with again will go as well.

Other things of note today:

Happy 26th Birthday to the Captain!! He got all of his birthday packages already, and probably already ate all the cookies we sent him. This is the second birthday that he’s spent in Iraq, but I think we’ve all tried to make it as happy as possible.

Little Mo is back in the hospital. Though the doctors are hopeful that she is in early remission (!!!), her white blood cell count is low again. Her mom has a bad case of the flu and Little Mo’s system may be trying to keep it away. Despite this, her prognosis is good. Her bone marrow test revealed less than 1% cancer cells present, which is a very good sign. She will still have 2 and a half years of chemotherapy to go through in order to try and eradicate any cancer cells that may linger on. Please continue to keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

And the Munchkin was given a play table and chairs by her Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa, which has become the focal point of her playtime. She immediately set up her plastic tea set on it, and had a tea party with Great-Grandma when she brought it over. A couple of days ago, I caught the Munchkin dragging Tad down the hallway toward her “tea party,” saying, “Come on, Tad, it’s time for tea party!”

“Um, Munchkin?” I said tentatively. “Maybe Tad doesn’t want to play tea party right now.”

She looked me dead in the eye. “Oh, no, Mommy. He wants to.”

BUT we had a fabulous weekend. First of all, the 2000 Honda Odyssey is ours! I’m calling it the “Shuttlecraft Odyssey” because it sounds so Star Trek-like and cool. Shut up, Oddball, I can hear what you’re saying right now. The Odyssey is great. It’s going to take some getting used to, size-wise, but the handling is marvelous and the ride is great. It is so much more spacious than what I’m used to, and the kids really seem to enjoy it.

We broke in the Odyssey by taking it to Whidbey Island on Saturday for a day trip to Fort Casey. (Some pictures from the trip are in the Photo Gallery.) In real life, Doc is not only the father of the Brain and Head, he is also a professor at a local university, which just happens to own some of the old officers’ houses at Fort/Camp Casey. For a comparatively small fee, faculty are allowed to rent space at the houses. Friend, Doc, the boys and Friend’s immediate family had all been there during the week, but we couldn’t get away until Saturday. Some of Friend’s family was still there, who we know pretty well (especially Friend’s parents – long story for another day), and the weather was just perfect. So we lathered up the kids with sunscreen and took them to the pool.

The Munchkin was initially enthusiastic about going swimming. She loves the water, but once we were in the pool, she was really apprehensive. The camp has two pools – a 3 foot deep one, and a typical pool that goes from 3 to 7 feet deep. We were in the 3 foot one, but the Munchkin could not stand alone in the pool – she is exactly 3 feet tall. This meant that either the Webmaster or I had to “help” her swim and stay afloat. For an independent-minded little girl, this was very unnerving. She wanted out after about 5 minutes, and it took a great deal of coaxing (and some special Daddy support and “swim lesson”) to get her back in.

Baby Boy, on the other hand, was a total water baby. HE LOVED IT. Since he’s so little and used to being carried, the depth of the pool had no meaning for him. He weighed next to nothing in the water, so while the Webmaster focused on the Munchkin, I was walking across the pool, skimming Baby Boy along the surface and giving him the sensation of swimming. He would have stayed in for a lot longer, but it was late in the afternoon and a breeze was coming off Admiralty Inlet, making all seven of his teeth chatter when he wasn’t neck-high in the warm pool. So I walked back to the house and gave him a quick bath in the kitchen sink, and once he was done, Friend’s mother got him dried off and dressed while I bathed the Munchkin and got her squared away.

The Webmaster and I took the kids for a short walk before dinner, and Friend has not yet forgiven me for what I made her do after dinner. The Webmaster, Doc, Friend’s father, sister, and brother-in-law all went up to Ebey’s Landing to walk a trail, and she and I took all four kids over to see one of the many bunkers around the fort. And when I say “took”, I mean “dragged over a very large field with a soccer camp in progress and tried to keep the kids from kicking the chalk lines in the grass and getting chalk all over their shoes to see a concrete bunker that the kids didn’t care about.” I think Friend would agree with that description. The best part for the Munchkin was seeing a group of wild bunnies frolic around near the bunker. However, she wanted to pet them, and no wild bunny in their right mind is going to sit still for a 2 and a half year old to pet it. “Bunny, come back!” she cried after them as they hopped away. It was pathetic. Ever the drama queen, she sat down in the grass, heartbroken, and covered her face with her hands. When the Brain and Head went over to her and tried to sit down with her, she got up and moved about 10 feet away from them before sitting down and covering her face with her hands again. This pity party was private, apparently.

We left Friend and Doc and company around 9 pm, with the kids in pajamas. They were fast asleep before we got to the ferry dock, and barely awoke when we put them into their own beds an hour and a half later. Yeah, we wore ‘em out good.

Sunday, we celebrated baby Jav with a party and barbeque at Scrap Mom and Gaming Dad’s new house. Jav is almost 3 weeks old, and still has this blond wispy hair and big eyes. He’s not quite back up to his birth weight yet, but he’s on his way up and is oh-so-very-cute. He’s got his maternal grandpa’s nose. The Munchkin played pretty well with Princess Em, Scrap Mom and Gaming Dad’s 3 (nearly 4) year old daughter, but they are both oldest daughters who believe that they are the reigning queen bee. It’s hard to say how this dynamic will play out as they get older, but so long as they are supervised, they seem to get along okay. Baby Boy impressed everyone with his walking skills, but was totally ignored by Mighty Boy, Princess Em’s 18 month old brother and future football player. Princess Em liked playing with Baby Boy, though.

After such excitement and activity over the weekend, I now have to think of how to keep the kids entertained in such warm temperatures without resorting to the TV. Any ideas, people? I can’t go to the mall all the time…

1) So, I post on Child’s Play x 2 and I must look very pathetic. There is one comment on my guest post, and it’s mine. My ego has been sufficiently deflated. Despite my apparently large readership in Lewis County, Washington, it is clear, once again, that The Corner is still a small place in the great big blogosphere. Okay, I’m done with my pity party.

2) I feel like an extraordinarily crappy mother. Easter morning, just as we were about to take pictures of the kids (the very one that I posted a couple of days ago, as a matter of fact), Baby Boy throws up all over his khakis. Besides the feeling of panic that comes with your baby vomiting, there was the “what is he going to wear now?” dilemma. Fortunately, the Webmaster had dressed him in his new, 9 month sized khakis, which are still a little large on him. His 6 month sized ones were clean and ready to be worn, so we got him into dry pants while the Munchkin kept exclaiming, “Baby spee up! Baby spee up!”

And as soon as we get the clean khakis on him, he throws up again. This time, though, he misses everyone’s clothes (I am holding him horizontally with the floor so the vomit goes straight down) and hits the carpet, and in the vomit is a piece of plastic wrapper about 2 inches long and a half an inch wide. It was blue. We have no idea where it came from. Clearly, the poor kid wanted it out of his tummy. He was fine after barfing it up, and our Easter progressed normally from that point, sans vomit.

Fast-forward to last night. The Webmaster had choir rehearsal, so I was home alone with the kids. Baby Boy has two new teeth bulging out on either side of his top two teeth, so he’s on the crankier side of things. So as I was doing some research on the computer and the Munchkin was watching a movie (as she gets to do on Thursday evenings because Daddy’s not home and Mommy wants her sanity), Baby Boy, fussing and whining, crawled over to me. I picked him up, and then he began to gag. I caught most of the vomit in my hand, but he tagged his overalls, my jeans, and my socks as the overflow hit the floor. And the cause? He had found a piece of bark on the floor and decided that it might make a decent snack. The bark’n'vomit, all in my hand, told a different story. After changing my own clothes, I stripped him down and gave him a bath in our kitchen sink, and he was so wiped out that he went to bed early.

Good mothers would vacuum more.

3) Today is the day – I am signing up to be a Stampin’ Up demonstrator. The Webmaster has informed me that I need to at least try and make money off this hobby. So I will become a crack dealer instead of just a user. Only kidding… I am looking forward to getting out of the house and doing camps, using my creative skills, and at least supporting my habit. Now I will have an iron-clad excuse to buy stamps! Ha ha!

Have a good weekend, everyone!