Art of Flattery

Relevant background info:
synes = think or feel in Norwegian
Laney regularly mixes Norwegian in with her English. Anyhoo. . .

Laney likes to give compliments. She adopts a very girlish, sweet tone and says, " I like you" or "you're pretty." Today, she told her father, "I like you best. And Mommy. And Nicky. I like all of you three." She was also in a kissy/huggy mood and gave them generously.

The other day, she pulled me close and whispered in my ear, "Mommy, I synes you're not stupid. I synes you're pretty."

Awww, kiddo. Sniff. Sniff. That's the best compliment ever.

What's that called again?

A couple of people at my husband's work really enjoyed a batch of butterscotch-oatmeal cookies he took with him recently. When trying to recall the magic ingredient, he just couldn't come up with the word.

"What was it called again?? Butter? Butter-something. Buttercrotch? No, that can't be it."

No, honey. That's certainly not it.

"Here you go, lovely co-workers. Have a chomp on some lovely buttercrotch, why don't you?"

Needless to say, he knows the correct name for the magic ingredient now. Buttercrotch is not it.

Candyland

The rules of the children's game, Candyland, are simple. One chooses one of four brightly colored gingerbread men and places them at the start. Then one picks a card from the deck of face-down cards and moves the gingerbread man forward to the appropriate spaces, generally one or two colored spaces. To make the game more exciting, there are several points along the trail with a special picture, a gummy drop or lollipop. If one gets the card with one of the special pictures, one moves to that space. It can be a great leap forward or back, depending where you are in the game. The object of the game is to reach the Candy King's castle first.

My kids love this game. Laney, especially, LOVES this game. She wants to play it all day long. ALL. DAY. LONG. Now, I know what you're thinking.

"Nothing sounds more exciting that an all-day marathon of Candyland. Playing the game again and again and again and again must be such fun!"

You'd be wrong, my friend. Oh. So. Very. Wrong.

Mostly, it's a problem of the rules. There are The Rules, and there are Laney's Rules. She knows how to play correctly. She has even done so on occasion, but she prefers to live dangerously, playing by her own Candyland rules.

Laney's Rules for Candyland

1. The picture cards are the best cards. The others, boring. Take all the picture cards and put them on the top of the draw pile. Even if the cards are face up, act surprised and happy when you pull your favorite, the lollipop girl. Joyfully move your gingerbread man to the appropriate space. When all the picture cards have been drawn, put them back at the top of the pile and start again. This way, the game NEVER ends, because you move only among the "fun" spaces. Remember to act surprised every time you pull a card from the pile.

2. When forced to use the boring ole colored cards, if it indicates you are to move ahead to the next blue space, you can really move back a blue space or ahead three blue spaces, or to another colored space of your choosing. If your picky older brother starts yelling about "cheating" and "not playing with you anymore," just shake your head from side to side and say, "Noooo." Watch his face twist in frustration. You can also yell back, thus increasing the amusement of the other players, namely, mommy.

3. You can decide to be a different gingerbread man at any point in the game -- your older brother's will cause the most excitement. If he objects, just pick up his gingerbread man and run. Run until he catches you (because he is bigger, stronger, and faster) and wrestles you to the ground. Scream at the top of your longs in outrage. Don't give in until the fight ends in tears for both of you. As you may have guessed, mommy is generally very entertained by this behavior.

4. When you are finished playing, scatter the cards to the four winds and hide the gingerbread men. When no one can find them later, act very confused indeed. If mommy does find all the pieces and puts the game away, let her have her minute, then drag it back out and ask to play again.

One can never play too much Candyland.

Laney's Hair

Pre-mommy-of-a-three-year-old girl, I thought my relationship with my daughter's hair would be one of joy. . .of braids and ponytails, pretty bows and clips. I was excited about all the cute pigtails and fun I would have with my daughter's hair. What is it about little girls' hair, anyway? She was so adorable and would be even cuter with bows in her pretty hair.

I didn't think I'd have to wait too long. When my son was born, he had a head full of thick black hair that quickly grew into a head of thick light brown hair. I could have put little choking hazards cute clips and barrettes in his hair by the time he was four months old. Laney was born with a bit of downy brown hair, but not near as much as Nicky, and it grew slowly.

Then, finally, FINALLY her hair began to grow out. First, it was her bangs. I thought I would let them grow out and just put them back. Clip went in her hair, two seconds later, little baby hands took them out again. Clip went back in, one second later, little baby hands took them out again. It was a battle of wills. I, of course, lost. Poor thing went around looking a little shaggy until I finally gave in and cut her bangs on a regular basis.

Then, last summer, her hair was just long enough to really run a brush through. Not long, just long enough. As I gently pulled the hairbrush through her hair, it felt unbelievably good. I had no idea that brushing my daughter's hair could make me feel so gooey inside.

I remembered all the times I sat in a chair as my mom brushed my own hair and braided it or put it up -- the brush tickling my scalp before it began the descent down the long length of my hair, lightly tugging my head backward. I could feel the my mother's hands gently parting my own hair and forming it into braids or putting it up in a ponytail.

Now, it was me on the other side of the chair. I was doing the brushing and running my fingers though my daughter's silky soft hair as she sat quietly in the chair. The surge of memories from the past, of me and my mother, combined with visions of the memories-to-be, of me and my daughter. The past, the future, and the now, all connected through this ritual, the brushing of hair. It felt a little weird to feel this sudden onslaught of emotions over a simple, everyday thing, but I was a little emotional. I loved brushing my daughter's hair.

That feeling lasted exactly one afternoon.

The problem is my daughter comes with a strong personality, one that isn't so fond of having her hair brushed. Actually, she hates it and carries on like a lunatic whenever she sees the brush coming toward her hair. From that blissful afternoon to the present-day, our hair-brushing ritual has degenerated into me chasing her around the house with a brush. If these walls could talk. . .

"Laney, get over here now!"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Most days I am bothered to try and catch her. Often enough, I get the brush through her hair a few times while we're both on the run. What a ridiculous image. How did I end up here, again?? Maybe I get a barrette in to try and keep her long locks out of her face. She yanks them out and throws the cute little barrettes on the floor.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I don't WANT to wear these! I ALWAYS have to wear these!"

If I try to force her into submission, she shakes her head violently and musses her hair with her hands, tangling it further.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Is that me or her? We're usually screaming in unison at this point.

Our hair-brushing encounters often winds up in tears, hers, and migraines, mine. That's when other memories of me and my mother come flooding back. Her, in the mad dash of the weekday morning, yanking my hair back into a quick ponytail while tangles were brushed quickly and painfully into submission. All the while, I was yelling, "Ouch! Stop! You're pulling my hair!" My tears. Her migraines.

When I was 7 or 8, my mother took me took me to a beauty salon and spoke conspiratorially with the beautician in Japanese. When I left, I had a little pixie cut. My mother also got me a perm once, leaving me with a semi-afro, a highly unnatural look for a half-white, half-Asian girl, but that's another story for another day. I never thought I'd want to do this, but I some days I want to give my daughter her own little pixie cut and be done with it. I'll spare her the afro.

I will wait until after Christmas pictures, at least, but I don't know if I can wait until she's 7 or 8.

There is no gown

When one moves to a new country, one inevitably compares their new country to "home." Things are done differently here and there. It's not always good or bad, just different, although one's stage of culture shock can color the comparison.

In the early stages, the honeymoon period, ones sees only the positives of the new country and feels secure in the decision to have moved. They can't breathe in enough of the crisp, clean air. The beautiful scenery astounds them on a regular basis. Medical care is free. Crime rates are low, literacy rates are high. It's cold but not THAT cold, and summers can actually be quite pleasant and warm.

In later stages, comparisons become less favorable. People begin to have doubts. They begin to wonder -- wonder why the hell they ever let their husband drag them to the end of the planet where one could buy a small plot of land in the rest of the world for what it costs to fill up the tank of a car, where people don't tell you to have a nice day, where it is never, ever, ever, EVER warm, and for the love of all that's good in the world, why the hell don't people hold the damn door open for those that follow?!?!?!

Oh, sorry. Lost my train of thought. By the way, it's not as if I've ever thought those thoughts. I'm just sayin', hypothetically speaking. . .

Where was I going with this?

Vaginal exams, right.

Didn't see that coming, did ya? Since I didn't move to a country with a vastly different culture from my own, I was never hit with big waves of culture shock. Instead, it was always the small things that would startle me into the realization that, yes, I've moved to a different country. It's in the subtleties that I notice the difference.

Small things, like in the control of the underlife. (Tee hee. Norwegians don't understand why sometimes their lovely language can send me into peals of laughter. A womanly exam is called an underlivets kontrol, meaning an underlife appointment, but kontrol sounds like control. . .get it?? Voice tapering off as no one else finds it quite so amusing.)

So while the big picture is not much different, it's in the details.

In both countries, when a woman submits to this decidedly unpleasant but medically necessary part of preventative health care, she is shown in to the examination room and told to undress.

In the States, after a woman undresses and lays her neatly folded clothes on the chair. I can't be the ONLY one who does this. She puts on a paper gown and drapes a paper blanket over her lap while she waits for the doctor to come in. You know, to protect her dignity for later when she is laying back on the table, legs in stirrups while a total stranger inspects her most intimate regions with a spotlight. Many American doctors also have some kind of picture on the ceiling for the woman to stare at while they are trying to pretend they are somewhere else. Oh, look! Pretty flowers! I'm in a garden. Twirling! Dancing!

As much fun as you could have making light of all these little niceties, hours of unadulterated laughter, I'm sure, you miss those niceties when they're gone. Desperately.

In Norway, there is no paper gown.

Do you hear what I'm saying?! No paper gown. This means that once you're undressed, you stand there, naked (or, at least, half-naked). What exactly are you supposed to do when standing naked in an unfamiliar, well-lit room? Just get on up in the chair, put your legs in the stir-ups, and wait? You don't want the doctor to think you're unprepared, do you? Or start rifling through the drawers to take your mind off the fact that your ass and, gulp, front are just hanging out in the breeze? We're never more free than when we're naked, so maybe we could just start dancing to pass the time.

The worst was, the worst was, please don't tell anyone. I'm just sharing this with you. . .and everyone else with an internet connection, but really, it's private. The worst was, shortly after my daughter was born, I had to go in to the doc for a check to make sure all was okay with my underlife. I had only recently moved to this country and didn't understand the no-paper-gown-thing. The dressing/undressing area was at the back of a cavernous exam room, which was roughly the size of a football stadium. I dutifully went back, undressed, and looked desperately for the safety of a thin paper gown. There was none. The doctor and the nurse and, I think, half the hospital staff waited for me to come out. Finally, someone asked me if everything was okay, clearly expecting me to walk out in all my post-baby nakedness to the exam chair, which was placed on the other side of this gigantic room.

If I think about it now, it was probably that moment I began my descent toward Stage 2 (everything in the new country sucks) culture shock. And of course, there are no pictures on the ceiling here. Doctors don't chat away. Instead, they do the exam in cold, stony silence.

Generally, I appreciate the European/Norwegian attitude toward nudity. I think it's much healthier than our puritanical American attitude. Nudity is natural. It's not that people run around in the streets naked (too cold), but children's butts aren't blurred out on the television either, because really, we're talking America's Funniest Home Videos not depravity.

I also think this attitude lends itself to healthier body images. In any case, people shouldn't feel uncomfortable in their own skins. I can respect that. A commonplace medical exam is not exactly the time to be modest. All of the other stuff is simply unnecessary. I can understand that, too.

But seriously. What the hell is so wrong with paper-gowns?!

Fun Links for Friday

Have way too much time on your hands? Then check out your color vision. Why not? It's Friday!

Warning: Doing so may make you feel blind and dizzy for a few minutes following.

The best score is zero. Mine was 7. I almost went blind getting that score!

Early Bird

You know what I envy my daughter?

BESIDES her youth and her perfect, unblemished complexion. . .

I envy her the way she wakes up in the morning. The rest of us in this family are slow to get out of bed -- the two adults being the worst. If we had our way, we'd never get out of bed. (Not as sexy as it sounds, really. We're talking about snuggling under our own covers, in blissful sleep, inflicting our morning breath on no one). Nicky also loves to luxuriate in the mornings. If I don't miss my guess, he will be crawling out of bed at two in the afternoon when he's a teen. Don't get me wrong. He's not difficult in the morning. As long as I let him wake up at his own pace, he gets up and gets dressed easily. (We'll see how that changes once he HAS to be up early for school).

Laney, on the other hand, bounds out of bed. I often hear her wake up. First, the covers rustle as she rolls this way and that in those last moments of sleep. Suddenly, she pops awake and pat-pat-pat-pat, I hear running across the floor, full of life and full of chatter. If I have to wake her up before her own internal clock has, it generally takes just a soft whisper in her ear that it's morning, and she sits straight up in bed, still half asleep, but quickly forcing herself alive.

She is so excited for every new day.

I hope that she will always love coming awake in the morning. I hope that she'll always bound out of bed because there is so much she is excited to do that day. Of course, it won't be every day. I just hope those days outnumber all the others. Of all of the dreams and hopes that I have for my daughter, that she continues to love starting her day is at the very top of my list.

Election '08

I was fascinated to see an advertisement yesterday on TV2 (one of the larger TV networks here) for 24-hour Election '08 coverage. This is the American election we're talking about. The Norwegian elections are next year.

It made me really stop to think how powerful the president of the United States is. His (one day her) election is covered the world over, not in passing, but in 24-hour special coverage.

A little ironic. Most Norwegians can tell you who the president of the U.S.A. is and many will watch this coverage of the next president. Most Americans, however, don't know the difference between Norway and the Netherlands. No! They're not the same place! And yes, Seven has been asked if they have wooden shoes where he's from after he has said he is Norwegian.

Many Americans can't even name one other world leader. I can, but I cheat, because I live in a foreign country. I know the Norwegian prime minister is Jonas Stoltenborg. (Ha! Just kidding! Trying to give the Norwegians in the crowd a little heart attack.)

To be fair, Americans live in a country of 300 million people. There is a lot going on there. Like everything American, the election is BIG. Big enough to travel oceans and make it top news in other places.

In honor of Election '08, the cutest election conversation ever.

A friend of mine told me her son's class is studying a little bit about the elections and is holding a secret ballot. My friend's son said that he has decided to vote for Barack Obama. His four-year-old sister chimed in, "Yeah, I'm going to vote for A Rock Omama, too!"

I'm sure one could collect all the cute ways kids say the candidate's name.

*For those of you who don't know and are curious, the prime minister's name is really Jens Stoltenberg (2005 - ). You never know. That piece of knowledge may be the answer that will win you a game of Trival Pursuit one day. Hang on to it.

You know you're out of it when. . .

When you think you've been doing a better job of posting to your blog and realize that you've posted LESS this month than in any other. I think I might have been fired if I was actually getting paid to write this thing.

Do you ever read the comments? I try to post back to comments. So even when I don't post, I might be on here commenting. Maybe.

Others post funny or touching stuff, too, but I haven't been too successful in getting others to comment, yet. Then again, maybe it's better this way? A blog is kind of an ego-trip. I can go on about myself without having to actually listen to what others have to say. It's all about me, baby!

I hate that when you're, you know, like, talkin' and talkin' and still talkin' and then you look up to see that the other person has this glazed look in their eye just waiting for you to shut up. And when you do, they just, like, talk and talk and keep ON talking. And you start thinking about what you're going to say when they finally shut their yap, but their mouth just keeps movin' and movin'. Jiminey! Don't they ever shut up??

See, with a blog, you avoid all that.

This month, three years ago

My due date had come and gone, and we were anxiously awaiting our second baby. According to the ultrasounds, we were expecting a little girl. A daughter. I would finally be able to indulge in all the sweet, ruffly stuff that I couldn't buy the first time. As one does, I wondered what this new little one would be like. What would she look like? Would she look very much like her brother? I knew from the souvenir ultrasound picture that she had a cute nose and a perfectly-shaped, four-chambered heart.

I'd begun having contractions in the middle of September. Twice they'd gone on long enough for us to stop and time them. I thought she might even come early. Not so. She was just making sure we were paying attention. Even before she was born, Laney made everyone in the room stop and take notice of her. Then, on a cloudy afternoon in October, she made her entrance. She was here. Our baby girl.

Three days old

I was more confident in myself as a mother this time around. No longer scared, but still worried. Would I be a good mother of two? Sometimes I wasn't sure I was a good enough mother of one. How much would our family change? A lot? Too much? But mostly I worried for Nicky. How would he handle sharing his spot at the center of our universe? Turns out, he handled it fine. There were a few bumps along the way, to be sure, but she flowed easily into our lives. Our family was complete, because she was now a part of it.

I would swear to you that Laney smiled at four days old. Despite what the baby books say, it's not totally unbelievable. Had she been born two weeks early, instead of two weeks late, she'd have been a month old by then. I have, however, dutifully recorded a date for her first smile on a day in November, at about the right time frame. Truth is, I'd been seeing little grins for so long that I wasn't sure when she really did smile for the first time. She simply is and always has been smiles and sunshine. (Okay, mostly smiles and sunshine. She's got a temper, too, that child).

Now, she's three. Three! I can't believe it's already been three years since we brought her home to us.

Sometimes, I wonder where this little girl comes from. This little girl who loves to make people laugh. A little girl with a sunny personality who charms family and strangers alike. A little girl whose exuberant enthusiasm knows no bounds. She certainly didn't get those traits from me. She is Tigger to my Eyore. I leave it to you to decide who is Piglet and who is Pooh in our family.

It's appropriate to me that she was born in the autumn. Just as we head into the dark Norwegian winter, when the nights are incredibly long and the sun doesn't rise above the horizon for two months, we have her -- our own little ray of sunshine to light up the house on those dark winter nights and keep us going until spring.

Happy Birthday, Little Miss Sunshine!

Three weeks old

One month old

Two months old

Eight months old

Ten months old

One year old

Two years old

Sugar and Spice. . .And everything nice. . .That's what little girls are made of.

Touche

Laney was walking around, arching her back, and sticking her stomach out as far as she could.

Seven teased her. "Do you have a big stomach?"

She didn't miss a beat and said nonchalantly, "Not as big as yours."

Nice.

Tact. We'll work on tact.

The gliding chair

Seven bought me a gliding chair and ottoman shortly after Nicky was born.

We had a big living room, not a lot of furniture, and a baby that wouldn't ever let us put him down. Nicky and I spent A LOT of time in that chair. The chair faced the sliding glass doors to the backyard. Much of my time after Nicky came into the house was spent looking out those windows and at the big shady tree we had in back.

Sometimes I resented it. I spend my whole life in this damn chair. Other times, I reminded myself to appreciate it. I will only spend this one small part of my life in this chair. . .and soon it'll be gone.

For whatever reason, a few weeks ago, Nicky couldn't sleep. He asked me to lay down in bed with him, so I did. He began whispering to me about the dreams he had had -- one a scary one in which one of his toys had come to life in the box. I let him talk, knowing that these moments would be fewer and further between, and suddenly it was very much past his bedtime.

"Can we rock in the rocking chair," he asked me quietly when I told him I was to go. I thought about it for a minute. It was already so far past his bedtime, so I figured that a few minutes wouldn't hurt.

The glider sits in the corner of the kids' room loaded down with stuffed animals and other miscellaneous toys and stuff. We never found the right place for the chair in this house -- too many small rooms, too much clutter. Laney and I never quite got the same use out of it.

I took down the stuffed animals and threw them in a heap on the floor and sat down. Nicky crawled into my lap and we rocked in the chair the way we used to do. Sort of. He is much too big to sit comfortably on my lap now. He turned this way and that, curling his feet up, then stretching them out, trying to find a comfy spot and never quite finding it. We rocked for a few minutes anyway and then, content, he went back to bed and fell quickly asleep.

I think it was a little bittersweet for both of us -- that moment Nicky understood that he was just too big for the rocking chair. It was a part of his past -- a part he'd long-since outgrown. We can't have those moments back, even when we want to, even when we try really hard.

There's a tired mommy in the rocking chair and a baby who curled into her just so.

Where we were married

Do you know that show Little Einstiens -- children's television that pretends to be intellectual by throwing in a couple of classical music bits? Laney loves it.

In one episode, the four explorers are flying over Florence, Italy in their little red spaceship.

"Hey, pappa and I got married there," I said, pointing at the television.

"In a spaceship?"

Um, no. In Florence.

Mommy better watch herself. . .

Yesterday, Nicky threatened me with the following:

"If we don't play one more game of Uno, I won't snuggle with you tomorrow."

I can't tell you how hard it is to keep a straight face when you're being threatened with the word snuggle.

Tower of Babble

The observant among you may have noticed my little 'translator' on the side of the page. At the quick press of a flag, my blog is instantly translated into several languages. Cool.

I added it on to the page in the hopes of translating the site into Japanese. My friends and family in Japan could read what I wrote and be a part of my blogging experience. The first time I clicked on the Japanese flag and my words came up in Japanese, I was thoroughly impressed. It would take me ages to translate one of my own posts. My Japanese is not all that good. This was done in a matter of seconds. Very cool.

Then I started reading the translation. Ummmmmmm, not cool. English to Japanese or vice versa is notoriously hard to translate. Grammatics, word order, colloquial expressions, well, basically everything is completely different in the two languages. Computer translations have been very unsuccessful for this very reason. Apparently, they still are unsuccessful -- at least, the free download-off-the-Internet-types are anyway.

For example, my intro:

I am two 29-year-old mother. I am America. My husband is the Norwegian language. Yada. Yada. I speak one language and two other broken fluently. I have a riddle for your benefit: my mother is the Japanese language, my father is an American, my kids are the Norwegian language, so what does that make me?

You get the picture. The widget is aptly named Babel Fish.

My mother told me to take the tool down immediately as it makes me sound like a tool and a raving lunatic in Japanese.

Raving lunatic is not the image I was trying to send across the language barrier.

Today is the day

If my daughter had come on her due date, today would be her birthday. Instead, she decided to grow to gigantic newborn proportions and come fashionably late. Very fashionably late.

Like mother, like daughter. She will spend the rest of her life trying to get places on time. (Although I did my mother the favor of staying normal newborn proportions and arriving late. Then again, I came into the world ass first. That couldn't have been fun my mother).

It wasn't actually Laney's fault she came so late. I'll explain, but I need to back up for a second.

When I was still pregnant with Nicky, I went overdue. We hadn't decided a name for him. We were torn between three combinations. I went in to work the first Monday after my due date had passed and someone I worked with asked me what we were going to call the baby. I said I didn't know yet.

He said, "That's why that baby hasn't come yet! He can't come into this world without a name. You need to give that child a name."

I told this to my husband, and we picked our son's name and had a little "naming" ceremony. There was some flashcard waving and chanting involved. Sure enough, I went in to labor that night.

Fast forward two years -- we were torn between two first names for Laney. When I went past my due date again, and she showed no signs of coming, I told Seven that we should have another naming ceremony. This time we weren't as serious. Just silly. Days passed, she didn't come. I was huge and heavy and was tired of carrying her around on the inside. I told Seven we are going to do the naming ceremony again. We discussed changing her name to Laney, but I said we could stick with the 'other.' She still didn't come. The next day I wrote my parents that if she didn't come that day, then I would change her name to Laney. I went into labor shortly after midnight.

She just didn't want to be Helena. She's always known what she wanted. If I had known she'd be so determined and stubborn, I'd have given her name weeks earlier!! Her birthday would have already passed in that case.

An old bag of shoes

In the process of de-junking our attic a few weeks ago, I was handing down boxes and bags of who-knows-what to Seven. There was tons of stuff we needed to go through. How is it that we have a huge attic and no storage space? Oh, because our attic is filled with all kinds of useless crap antique things.

We inherited this house, which means we inherited the long-since forgotten things being stored in the attic. Additionally, we had to find a place for our things, the ones we shipped here but didn't have space for. We piled that stuff on top of what was already up there, so the attic became a great big pile of junk stuff. For the last few years, I have felt the weight of the cluttered attic suffocating me. This is the year we were going to get it organized!

Yeah, right.

We have, at least, started, despite my husband's protests.

On the appointed day, I handed down box after box. I handed down many a plastic bag. Who knew what treasures these boxes and bags beheld?

We found some things that were to be kept, like old linens handmade by Seven's grandmother and some old photographs. We also found all manner of junk, including some broken old trophies with no names, dates, or apparently memories attached and a tacky hula doll and wooden chickens and faded bed sheets and parts of furniture and stuff we shipped half-way around the world for no fathomable reason. . .this list could go on forever.

In the midst of it all, I tore open an old, gray AAFES bag, ready to throw its contents away. Instead of immediately tossing the contents in the ever-growing "Toss" pile, I sat there for many minutes as the memories came flooding back.

In the bag were some of Nicky's old shoes.


There were the first pair I'd bought him, a pair of brown sandals. I never bought baby shoes for him. I figured, if he can't walk, he doesn't need shoes. He didn't get his first shoes until he was one. He still wasn't walking by his first birthday, but I held out hope. Since we were celebrating his birthday in Hawaii, I bought sandals. He didn't use them much and they still look brand-new.

The little blue tennis shoes, though? The Sketchers? Those were his first 'go' shoes. Those are the shoes that he wore once he really knew how to walk. Those shoes went racing down the hall of our apartment building in Japan. They trekked all over Tokyo with us. He was wearing those while we were moving to Norway. These are the shoes Nicky used as he explored the world on two feet for the first time. These shoes don't look brand-new. They are dirty and beat-up. And a reminder of when my baby boy was one.

As I handled the blue shoes, I suddenly regretted throwing away Laney's silver shoes. They weren't her first shoes. (Her first real shoes were bright pink winter boots that we paid a small fortune for even she only needed them for a few months. We still have those.) The silver shoes, though, those were her favorite. She wore them everywhere last summer, even when playing. They weren't the best quality and were quickly run ragged, but she loved those shoes, and when she outgrew them, we bought her another pair, one size bigger. I wished I had the first pair back -- a tangible reminder of the time when my baby girl was one.

I packed up the old shoes, including the newest pair of silver shoes (too cold to use them now), and put them in the gray bag. They were going back into the attic. To add to the clutter. To collect more dust. In all likelihood, to be thrown away by the next generation of attic cleaners for whom those shoes will simply be trash.

For me, though, those beat-up old shoes are reminders of the chubby feet and little toes that used to fit into them, of the time when my kids were my babies. The next time I see those shoes (Have I mentioned there is a lot of junk in that attic I have to go through?), my kids will have undoubtedly outgrown several more pairs of shoes. They'll be off exploring the world in their larger shoes, on their own or with their friends.

I'll still have the little ones, though, the ones from the time we explored the world together, their hands in mine.

A conversation

Kids say the weirdest things when they think you're not paying attention. We were lying in bed this Sunday morning and Nicky crawled in with two favorite characters. The following is an excerpt from their conversation.

A conversation between Spiderman and a transformer called Bulkhead

Plllllllllllllwwwwwwwwwwfffffftttttt. (Extreme farting noise)

Bulkhead: Æsj! Gross! Spiderman, why did you fart?
Spiderman: I just wanted to.

Suddenly, the two begin wrestling. Conversation moves on.

Imagining this conversation taking place in real life between the real Spiderman and Bulkhead sent me into peals of laughter.

Kids are just goofy.

Blogworld

I had begun to notice that the chaotic state of my house was in direct proportion to how much I neglected it by doing other things. . .like blogging. I decided to neglect blogging for a time to bring my house back into control.

It's not, but close enough, so back to blogging!

Who do you want to be?

Laney loves the movie Barbie and the Twelve Dancing Princesses. Barbie is the best princess, of course, but I guess they had twelve so they could get in as many of hair color/eye color combinations as possible to appeal to little girls. One thing I don't understand is why there are eleven other sisters and Barbie gets to do everything.

In any case, the princesses are beautiful with brightly colored gowns and flowing hair.

Laney asked me, "What princess are you?" I decided I would be the one in the red dress, because she had dark hair like me.

"Which princess are you," I asked her, fully expecting her to say the 'pink' princess.

"I'm the cat."

Of the twelve beautiful princesses, Laney only wanted to be Barbie's cat Twila. Just when you think you've got them pegged. . .

More on Body Functions

One of my kids will be talking and start shifting from foot to foot. They keep talking or watching tv or even drawing. Hips start a little wiggle and feet shift from one to the other and back again.

"Do you have to pee," I ask.

"No."

"You look like you have to pee," I say.

"No, I don't have to pee," comes the irritated response.

We both move on with other things. Usually, I'll be engrossed in some task.

Suddenly, panic.

"Mommy, I have to pee pee! I have to pee pee! Hurry, before it comes in my underwear!" That's Laney.

"Mommy, I have to pee, but you have to carry me up the stairs because it's coming too fast! Hurry!" That's Nicky. Who is five. Who ends up carrying himself up the stairs anyway.

One wonders why these children just won't heed their bodily needs BEFORE it becomes an emergency. Why?!

Pekepølse

Dette er hva Laney kaller salami (spekepølse).

Blogus Interruptus

What happens when life gets in the way. . .

Final Destination

And from the family vacation story that would NEVER end. . .

Our last stop -- Kirkenes, Norway.

What? Never heard of it? Where HAVE you been?? Anyway, Kirkenes is the Norwegian border town into Russia. It was, apparently, one of the most bombed places in World War II, caught in the cross-fire between Russia and Germany. This was our actual destination, as it is where my husband is from and his sister's family still lives. While it's not the most northern city in Norway, you aren't going to get much further north in the world than this.

Besides the visit to family, the highlight of our trip was a visit to a little church at the end of the world, King Oskar II Chapel. It is in the middle of nowhere, built on the rocky coastal slopes. King Oskar built it to mark the Norwegian land.

Beautiful in its simplicity.

One of things that has always stuck me about the culture since moving here is how trusting and honest people are. The key to the church is kept at a military post a few miles up the road. One leaves their info there and takes the key to the church and drives away. As it happened, someone else had the key. As we drove past them, we stopped their car, and they gave us the key. Smiles and waves all around, and we moved on. I just don't see something like that happening in the States. Americans are much to paranoid about others. Maybe it's just that this American is much to paranoid about others, but if some guy was trying to flag my car down on a deserted road in the middle of nowhere, I'd be very suspicious.

Afterward, we had a picnic at the beach nearby -- a warm, summery day in Kirkenes. The temperature was actually pleasant and relatively mild, but it wasn't bikini weather, you can see.

That was the end of the road. Literally. Otherwise, we would have ended up in the ocean or in Russia.

After our days in Kirkenes, we took the long journey home. The never-ending day works out in that way. You are driving all night, but it doesn't feel that way. Nicky even stayed up to 11 p.m. in the car that night, despite his tiredness, because he was so fascinated by all the beautiful colors in the sky.

As an aside, he's noticed that colors come earlier in the day now, signaling the approach of winter and the coming of the dark season.

Nicky's House of Style

He's not particular about which shirt or pants he has to wear, but my five-year-old has several hard and fast fashion rules.

1. DO wear rainboots. . .ALL THE TIME. No matter what the season or weather, rainboots complete any look.

2. DON'T wear shorts for any reason. No matter what the season or weather, shorts are always OUT. Bare legs in the breeze, ugh!

3. If your mother forces you to wear shorts saying something akin to, "It's HOT outside. We get one day of summer around here, so you have to wear shorts when it's warm," then pull your socks up to your knees. Shorts with knee high socks are always cool and prevent you from subjecting others to the sight of your bare legs.

4. Tuck your pants legs into your socks. Pants legs flapping about is not only annoying, it's unstylish.

5. Gloves are IN in the summertime, especially dirty gardening gloves. Wear them whenever possible.

Of course, all of Nicky's fashion rules make sense in context.

1. Rain boots -- why mess with Velcro and other nonsense when you've got slip-on comfort right there?

2. Shorts just feel weird. It's like being half dressed. We live in the Arctic after all. He's just not used to shorts and sandals. In his defense, he wore shorts every day in Hawaii, where the heat was just too much for him.

3. One feels less naked when socks cover the bare legs.

4. Okay, this is just quirky -- adorably, lovably quirky, but quirky nonetheless. I think he likes to show off the fancy socks. Those cool Spiderman pictures get lost under the pants. What a waste that would be.

5. Dunno about this one either. He just likes gloves. They keep your hands from getting dirty (very important to my little man), and they make you look more authentic when you're playing the goalie in soccer.

Kids make me laugh.

Sometimes, I find myself arguing, then wonder why. Why is this so important? Live and let live, right? My kid will argue and whine if he has to put on a t-shirt in warm weather, but he wants to wear his Buzz Lightyear costume and rain boots into town. Well, whatever.

Hey, I used to think that styling my hair into a mile-high pouf on the top of my head made me look good. I used to spend an inordinate amount of time in the morning spraying that pouf. I imagine I single-handedly created one small hole in the ozone layer with as much hairspray as I used to use.

People who live in glass houses. . .and all that.

Kids are good for the ego

Laney saw a picture of an actress in a Renaissance-style dress that pushed her breasts into her throat.

She says to me, "Her these (referring to the actress' breasts) are up there. Your these (referring to my breasts) are down there."

Hey, kiddo. Watch your mouth. They haven't sunk that low yet! Have they? Have they?! Oh, no! I've gotta run and check! Oh, good lord! Am I a dwarf with sagging boobs?!

Strawberry Fields Forever

If you'd ask me ten, no, five, even two, years ago to compile a list of "100 Things I Will Never Be Interested In Doing," then I am pretty sure "Gardening" and "Picking Berries" would have been on that list. The local Safeway has a lovely selection of fruits and berries, so why on Earth would one bother to go to the trouble of growing one's own? Worse, why would one spend one's precious free time out in the woods looking for berries?

Now, I'm learning to enjoy both. This has everything to do with kids, of course. I still think I'd prefer buying to growing if it were just me to think about. Seven? He's a good man, but if it were just the two of us, and he wanted fresh berries, he'd be out there picking them himself.

We have wild raspberries that grow out on the back of our land here. Last year, the four of us would tramp through the mile-high weeds to find the raspberry trees and pick the berries. The kids didn't necessarily enjoy the picking of the berries, but they definitely loved the eating of the berries.

As for me, it felt good to see the kids eat something straight from the earth. There were no pesticides. There was nothing artificial put into the ground to produce larger berries. There were just the berries Mother Nature saw fit to plant there. Fresh. Pure. I felt so close to nature. I also felt the kids got a better appreciation of the miracles that the land can produce. Never mind that I'll most certainly come across an article about all the fresh, pure bacteria that thrive on wild berries. . .

I decided we should try to grow strawberries. The kids LOVE strawberries. We live in the country with wide open spaces, so this year we planted our first plants.

The blurry thing in front is a blossoming strawberry plant.

The same plant with strawberries.

The taste test.

It was a bit of work to plant the patch and tend to it. It's taken some time, research on my part, since I didn't know a damn thing about growing plants. I even dealt in a little cow poo fertilizer. (Yuck! This is just to get them started. After this, the plants are on their own. They'll have to suck the nutrients out of that ground!) It hasn't felt like work at all, though. It's just been. . .fun. Fun to watch the plants grow. Fun to see the first strawberries blossom. Fun to watch how protective Laney is of 'her' little patch. The birds ate the first of the strawberries, so she and Nicky were insistent that I cover the plants to keep the birds off of them. Laney loves to go down and check on the strawberries. "The birds CANNOT eat my strawberries!" Next year, I plan to plant her and Nicky each their own little strawberry patch to tend.

The kids also love blueberries. Blueberries abound in the hills around here. It is very common for Norwegian grandmothers to take to the hills in the late summer to pick blueberries. It's less common among the younger generations, but a lot of people still do it. You can come back with pounds of blueberries, if you're good. I prefer to eat the berries freshly picked. However, you can get so much from one trip, you can also make your own jam or jelly. Tomorrow, we're making blueberry muffins. Yum.

Picking berries.

Raspberries are late this year, but we'll be out gathering what we can when they're ripe. The longer I live in the country, the more "country-fied" I become, and I love it.

I draw the line at caring for farm animals, though. If I start blogging about milking my own cows, then there's no turning back.


I've become someone else.

War of Santa

Ooops, sorry. We return to posting, um, Tuesday!

Apparently, there is a little battle between the Norwegians and the Finns as to who is the rightful 'owner' of Santa. Is he Norwegian? Is he Finnish? Each country stakes their own claim.

It makes sense to me that he would be Norwegian as the northernmost part of Norway is quite a bit closer to the North Pole than the northernmost part of Finland. Click here for a map as verification. However, I think the Finns have won the battle. They simply 'do' the Santa-thing better. There is a town called Rovaniemi, which lies just south of the where the Arctic Circle intersects Finland. The Finns claim that Santa has set up his headquarters just on the Arctic Circle and Rovaniemi is the place to go to be if you want to be seen with the real Santa.

I'd read online about the Santa Village in Rovaniemi and hoped we'd be able to take the kids one day (since it's closer than Santa's headquarters in Canada, or Colorado, or Minnesota, or whatever other wintery place he's set up shop!) Turned out, we could do it this year, since it was on the way (sort of) to our final destination. I love the story of how Santa's home is near an ear-shaped fell so that he can hear all of the children around the world. I was pretty excited about the stop.

As we drove north of Rovaniemi, we saw big signs for the Santa Park coming up, so we turned in. Santa Park is a cavernous enclosure with an Elf School where you learn to speak Elvish, a ride through Santa's workshop, a post office, a workshop for making your own Santa decoration, ice sculputres, and a musical show. It was really well-done and we took our time to see all of the sights. My pictures don't really do the day justice. . .I could have sworn I took more photos. Hmmm.

The kids by Santa's Sleigh. Don't tell Laney, but she's sitting on a reindeer pelt. The people of the Arctic use reindeer fur as a way of keeping warm -- as seat cushions, in clothes and footwear, whatnot. It's a little morbid, however, if you think that your in Santa's Village and one makes a big deal of his reindeer friends . . .Dasher and Dancer still pull the sleigh. Blitzen? Don't ask.

The kids watching the Elf Musical, which was really fun. Note that they are also eating a very healthy Santa diet.

Santa's Workshop. I only took two pictures (both bad), but it was pretty incredible. It was very much like a Christmas version of those Disney rides at Disneyland. You sit in a little cart that carries through the Christmas world.

We also got a photo with Santa. He also looked unbelievably realistic. We couldn't take a picture though. You know, we had to BUY their picture, which we did, of course. I just don't have a scanner to scan it in. I also forgot to take a picture of the kids learning to speak Elf. It includes making funny sounds with various hand movements to call up the 'magic.'

A great day all around. I was a little confused though. It didn't quite seem the same as the website described. I don't remember the site saying anything about walking though a cavern or the Elf School. When I asked about the letter from Santa, they said that was a different 'company.' Oh, I thought. I'd just have to check the website again, maybe you could only order the letter online.

As we drove out of Rovaniemi the next day, past Santa Park, and a few kilometers further north, we passed Santa's VILLAGE. We had spent the whole day in the wrong place! We were here. Turns out that the folks at EuroDisney had come up to design this new Santa Park, the one we were in, which also explains the Disney 'feel' to the place. You can also see the difference in the website design when Disney's money is behind it.

We'd still had a fun time, even if we weren't where I thought we were. We have an excuse to pass by Rovaniemi again. I really enjoyed it there.

Now, I'm thinking that the Finns will have to begin battling amongst themselves to figure out which is the real Santa Headquarters.

As for the Norwegians, the only real effort I've seen at capturing the spirit of Santa is a giant, faded, air-blown Santa figure wobbling in the breeze. It was attached to a restaurant somplace I don't remember. No contest.

Without further ado. . .

Family Vacation Photos! The thing about blogging is that you feel bad when you don't post. And since I've said for over a week now that I would post some pics from our road trip, I've felt the the weight of not having posted them rest heavily on my shoulders ever since. I NEED to get those pictures up, I would remind myself, as if people were waiting with bated breath.

It's a little ridiculous, actually. If you think about it, I'm a little like that obnoxious uncle when you were growing up who thought that other people really WANTED to see his family vacation slideshow. Slides. Remember those? Anyway, if he didn't subject innocent visiting family members to his slideshow, their lives would somehow be incomplete.

Here's the world's biggest ball of twine.

Here's me in front of the world's biggest ball of twine.

Now here's one of Aunt Mae in front of the big ball of twine.

And Cousin Lulu. . .

Twenty minutes later.

That big blur is little Juniper running after pigeons. See the pigeons, there? Those smudges. So hard to get those moving pictures! Harhar. You may have noticed after the tenth blurry image or so.

And look! There's a side-view of the big ball of twine.

So while I'm sure the world outside my little bubble has continued to move along despite my not having posted my pictures, here for your viewing pleasure. . .a trip through northern Scandanavia!

Because I said I would.

First Stop: Overkalix, Sweden

Overkalix is a quaint little village on the banks of the Kalix River. Many of the houses are painted red with white trim and the lawns are beautifully manicured. However, the only reason we stopped here is because the hotel had a big pool. You know you live north in the world when you drive down to SWEDEN to lounge by a pool. Oh, and the weather was better earlier in the day.

Bathing Suits Optional -- Laney was so excited to take a dip that she put on her floaty things before I could get her bathing suit on.

The kids in the pool

And that was about it. We really had a lovely time, but I don't think there is much blog-worthy to write about. . .except that I really wish some parents would keep their very loud, splashy children out of the baby pool -- especially if they're, like, 12 years old.

Stay tuned for the exciting next segment, in which we visit Santa in Rovaniemi, Finland.

I apologize in advance to my beautiful, loyal readers for my erratic posting in the past two weeks or so. We'll returned to regularly (ha!) scheduled posting on Monday.

Take only what you need to survive. . .

The day we left for our trip, Buzz Lightyear (aka Nicky in a Buzz costume) insisted that Nicky wanted his Spiderman suitcase and that he, Buzz, knew exactly what to pack.

Advised to pack wisely as there was limited space in the suitcase, Buzz and Laney went to work packing the suitcase with the bare travel necessities.

Unwashed black Spiderman costume
Unwashed red Spiderman costume
(Really! What does Mommy do all day long that these essentials weren't handwashed before the trip?!?)
Tigger book
Piglet book
Pink plastic cup, one
Baby Doll
Christmas stockings for Baby Doll
Fingerpaints (OF COURSE, Mommy will let us fingerpaint in the car!)
Crumpled Spiderman magazine
Spiderman figure (not included in photo, because Mommy didn't see him)

Adventures in Bathing Suit Buying

A friend of mine sent me her humorous tale of bathing suit shopping with a three-year-old. It's too funny not to share, so with her permission, here you go.

As if buying a bathing suit at my size isn't humiliating enough, my lovely daughter has to make the shopping experience even worse! Seriously, never take your kids bathing suit shopping with you!

Last weekend, I decided that I needed a new bathing suit. We have several upcoming pool parties and a weekend beach trip, so I figured I'd go and look around. So off we went to the mall, and my daughter insisted on coming with me.

OK, fine. Not in the plan, but whatever.

We go to Macy's and as I pass the really cute, tiny, two-piece things, my daughter announces for the whole store to hear, "We have to look for a BIG bathing suit for you, right, Mama?" I think she meant adult-sized, as opposed to kid-sized, but it sounded so bad!

As I'm going through racks of depressing, modestly cut one-piece numbers that scream "middle-aged and cellulite," she adds, "Yeah, you need to find another bathing suit because yours is TOO SMALL, right?" This comment is bad enough if it were true, but it's NOT true! I'm still the same size, but the suit is just getting old and faded! Whatever, let it go, let it go...

As I'm trying the suits on, she starts cracking up and yells, "I can see your boobies and belly button!" I heard some stifled laughter from several rooms!

Then she asks, "How come you're taking off ALL your clothes?" Again, not true -just the bra, I always keep my panties on when trying on swim suits! Anyway, I couldn't find anything that looked decent so I think I'll do what I should've done in the first place and order something online.

I think this is the beginning of many situations like this one...

Yeah, shopping ain't as fun as it used to be!

New Baby

We were in the grocery store when a woman passed us with her newborn.

"Mommy, can we have that baby," Laney asked me.

"You want that baby?"

"Noooooooooo, not THAT baby. We can't take baby away from her. We can buy a new baby!"

Later, I heard a baby wailing loudly. We passed the same mother again as she tried to wrestle her older child's hands out of the candy dispensers, while baby screeched her protest at being left in the carrier. From the look on the frazzled mother's face, my guess is that we might have been able to buy THAT baby at that moment. Her brother would have been thrown in for free.

No, kiddo. If this mommy's going to be buying anything, it's first-class tickets to an expensive Caribbean resort, so she can lounge around in a big straw hat with a good book in one hand and a daiquiri in the other.

Friends

I was changing her for the morning when Laney says to me in her cute voice, "We are friends."

I melted inside.

"We ARE friends," I said and gave her a hug.

May it will always be that way, baby, even when you're sixteen.

Here's the thing

I really am here. I have lots of pictures. I'm dying to bore you with all my pictures. I just have to learn to download them into the computer since we bought a new camera, which comes with new software, new software that threatens to destroy my already overburdened computer.

So in the meantime, here's a forwarded email that I rediscovered in my cluttered email box. It's obviously dated. Checks? SOOOOOOOOOOOO 1999. It's all about online banking these days. And obviously I care nothing for the writer's integrity and plagiarize freely here.

Child Activated Attention Deficit Disorder

This is how it manifests:I decide to do the laundry. As I start toward the basement, I notice that there are cheerios all over the floor and my house keys are in the cereal bowl.I decide to pick up the cheerios before I do the laundry. I lay my keys down on the counter, put the cheerios in the trashcan under the counter, and notice that the trashcan is full. So, I decide to take out the trash.But then I think, since I'm going to be near themailbox when I take out the trash I may as well pay the bills first. I take my check book off the table, and see that there is only one check left, my extra checks are in my desk in the office, so I go to my desk where I find a sippy cup full of juice.I'm going to look for my checks, but first I decide I should put the sippy cup in the refrigerator to keep it cold. As I head toward the kitchen with the sippy cup a plant on the counter catches my eye--it needs to be watered. I set the sippy cup on the counter, and I discover baby wipes that I've been searching for all morning. I decide I better put them back in the bathroom, but first I'm going to water the plants. I set the wipes back down, fill a container with water and suddenly I spot the TV remote, left on the kitchen table.I realize that when I go to watch TV, I will be looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the plants. I splash some water on the plant, but most of it spills on the floor. So, I set the remote back down, get somepaper towels and wipe up the spill. Then I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day: the laundry isn't washed, the bills aren't paid, there is a warm cup of juice sitting on the counter, the plants aren't watered, there is still only one check in my check book, I can't find the remote, I can't find the wipes, and I don't remember what I did with my keys. Then when I try to figure out why nothing got done today. I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day long, andI'm really tired. I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail. Do me a favor, will you? Forward this message, because I don't remember to whom it has been sent. Don't laugh--if this isn't you yet, your day is coming!

Sad, sad, sad thing is. . .I was kind of like this before I had my kids to blame!

We're BAAAAAAAAAAAACK!

Did you miss me? You -- one of the three people that reads this blog.

I will soon post the obligatory photos and the exciting tales from our journey -- romance, suspense and adventures on the high seas. . .

Or day at the hotel pool and visiting the wrong Santa Park. Same thing, really.

Mommy, are you a dwarf?

We caught the end of a documentary about a woman with restricted growth disorder, i.e.- dwarfism, coming to terms with her condition and meeting others like herself for the first time.

I explained to Nicky that she had a condition that did not allow her to grow to a normal adult height and that she was very small, not much taller than he was.

He asked me, in all earnestness, "Mommy, are you a dwarf?"

Hmpf.

What's he trying to say? I am 5'2", first thing in the morning at my full height, thank you very much. Dwarf, indeed.

I didn't take it personally, as later, he asked, "Mommy, am I a dwarf?"

Personally, I prefer the term vertically challenged.

Summer Vacation

The family and I will be interrupting this blog to take a short vacation.

What?!

You thought my life WAS the vacation??

Well, hmpf.

I do. . .stuff. My hobbies include collecting scrapbook paper (I never actually cut it to form any kind of scrapbook, but, boy, buying that stuff is FUN. . .ooooh, and all the cute embellishments that are piled on top of the paper. . .very productive hobby), collecting photos in boxes (Albums? Who needs albums?), saying that I'm going to bed early (then staying up half the night on the internet), complaining that I'm tired, reading books (okay, starting to read books, but never finishing, I guess my hobby now is reading pages), buying houseplants then killing them, the list goes on and on really.

Since we'll actually be on a road trip, I may not have easy access to computers will focus my attention on my family. I will keep trying to post, but if the posts seem sporadic, you know my excuse. I am not shirking my blogging duties. Just wanted you to know.

In Loving Memory

Our digital camera is officially dead.

Despite the fact that the 20-minute delay in taking pictures had begun to annoy me greatly, it was still a very active part of our family. We bought it a few days before Nicky was born, so that we could send pictures to our families, none of whom lived around us at the time. (You can't force your newborn baby photos on your friends and family unless they are close by. Digitals are the answer to long-distance baby photo overload.)

If we'd bought it a year earlier, we could have actually had digital pictures of our wedding and my pregnancy. Most importantly, we might actually have a digital skinny picture of me, instead of all the swollen, 'just-had-a-baby-or-two' pictures of me. The new bane of my existence is trying to find a decent Facebook photo of myself -- one of me alone, with only one chin, that is blurred just enough to hide my age. . .they don't exist.

Our digital was a patient creature. I think the cause of the 'lens error' that led to its eventual death was all of the times it was forced to take the SAME photo 30 times in attempt to capture a just-right image of my children. Anyone who has attempted to take a picture of two small children (especially if one of them is a toddler) in the desperate hope that all will look at the camera at the same time and not make some annoying sweetly goofy face knows that 30 takes is a minimum. So in loving honor of our camera, one of those times. . .

MAY 2007

Laney is sweet, Nicky has 'hangover' eyes.

Nicky is sweet, Laney MUST inspect baby's head at that exact moment.

Laney is reasonably sweet (mommy'll take it!), what the hell is Nicky doing with his face?!

This whole situation is getting old. Their lips are tired of attempting smiles. Is that a tiger growl? But hey, they're both looking at the camera!

Laney's had enough. She's outta there, but she'll smile on the way out. Nicky has begun to find this whole process tedious. Mommy is clutching the camera painfully, it can feel that it's time is drawing near and there aren't many good years left. . .

Cats

We were at a small country fair not so long ago and went for the kids' activities. They had face-painting. Nicky held back and didn't want to participate at first, but after seeing Laney all done up as a kitty cat, he decided he wanted to be a tiger. Once he had his fierce tiger stripes in place, ones he didn't have to draw on himself with ballpoint pen, he was so careful with his make-up that he didn't even want to eat cake lest he mess up his tiger mouth. This post is here simply for gratuitous "look at my adorable children" reasons.

Have you ever seen a cat ride a horse?

This month, five years ago. . .

When the month started, I waddled when I walked, could no longer sleep on my back, and desperately missed a regular an occasional after-work beer. It had been a long time. . . My pregnancy had come easily, unexpectedly, and had gone smoothly. My life was still my own, and it felt familiar to me, even if my body didn't.

By month's end, it was a completely different life. I was a different me. I was mother to a beautiful baby boy. My first child. A baby boy with a head full of black hair and eyes the color of the deep blue ocean. I had wondered what he looked like. Now I knew. I didn't realize he'd have so much hair. I didn't think his eyes would be so blue. He had a cut on the side of his perfect little nose, we still don't know what from. He had all his fingers, all his toes. He had the sweetest, smallest ears. I had never seen him before, and yet he was instantly familiar to me. It was quite remarkable to me that all those baby parts had fit inside my body not so long ago.

Who was this child? The one who seemed to know his place was with me, despite my own ambivalence and uncertainty about being his mother. I was so scared. He wasn't. He simply was. He quieted when I held him. He cried only when I didn't. He was so clear in his eyes. He seemed to look knowingly at the world around him. He didn't have that cross-eyed newborn look.

Although he could get that, too.

I wondered if I'd be a good mother. . .if I was worthy of him. I wonder that still. Sometimes, deep down near the core of me, I worry that I'm not. I can only hope that I am. At the very least, I try. I've never tried so hard at anything else in my life. We've had our ups and downs, Nicky and me. He's taught me a lot. I hope that I sometimes return that favor.

When he was born, I didn't think I knew him. How could I, I thought. I've only just met him. I see now that I knew him better than I thought. In the womb, he didn't punch or kick me often. He rolled and pushed. If his foot was tucked uncomfortably under my rib, I could push it softly, and he'd move it. Ever gentle and agreeable. He's not about big movements. He rolls when life pushes. He doesn't kick or punch his way through. He's often content to sit quietly and get lost in his drawing or in his own imagination. He doesn't clamor for attention or go out of his way to make himself noticed.

They say still waters run deep. This child is still waters. You could drown in the depths of him, and he's still so young.

He'll be five this month. This sweet baby of mine. He's growing up. Much too fast. I try to savor every moment, but it's like trying to catch the falling rain. The drops come so fast and just disappear. Time just flows. Quickly. By.

Home from the hospital
At two months

At four

At six months

And more. At one year

Two years

Three years

And four

Happy Birthday, Sweet Child!

*Quick note. Today is not Nicky's birthday. July is just his birth month.