Hide-And-Seek

My kids love to play hide-and-seek, and they want to play all the time. The funny thing is that they are notoriously bad at hide-and-seek.

When we first started to play, I'd walk around saying, "Where is Nicky? Hmmm, where could Laney be?" It would take one second, then one of them would call out, "I'm here!" They'd come out of their hiding place, almost always the same hiding place, in the closet. The more we played, the more hiding places we found, but always, they would give themselves away before I actually found them -- not that I ever have to really look or anything. They both like to hide under the covers, but they can't lay still. It's just so fun to see the covers rustle and move and ask, "Where's Laney?" She always responds, her voice muffled, "I'm here!" Nicky keeps quiet, but sometimes his foot sticks out.

Nicky, being four, has become better at hiding, but there aren't that many places to hide in the house. However, he's still not a good seeker. Once, Seven hid in a corner with a blanket over him, a very large, out-of-place heap of something, and Nicky walked by ten times.

Before Laney hides, the conversation is often something like this.
"Mommy, look. I hide in my bed."
"Don't tell me. You hide, I won't look."
"No, mommy! Here!"
"I have to find you," I say as she crawls under the covers, fully expecting me to go away and count.

She will also dictate where you should hide when she's the seeker. She'll tell you exactly where to hide, go off to 'count,' then call out, "Mommy, where are you?"

I love listening to kids count. Unfortunately for me, Nicky knows how to count now. I no longer get to hear one, two, then up to nine, twelve, seventeen, twenty, twenty-nine, twenty-twelve. I miss that. I really do. I do get to hear Laney though. She's got her own counting style. One, two, three, four, nine, eight, nine, four, nine! I think she likes the number nine.

Laney is also a group hider. She likes to hide with people. Yesterday, I wanted to hide in a back corner, so I grabbed a blanket and scrunched into the corner behind a bookcase. Laney followed, grabbing her own blanket. There was not enough space for the two of us. She just sat down in front of me, munching on an apple she had in her hand, putting the blanket over hear head. Her feet still stuck out, but at least her head was covered.

Nicky's not the best seeker, but he found us easy enough. I don't know if was the exposed feet or the crunch-crunch of the apple that gave us away.

Bite my head off, why don't you

I've been wondering about a curious phenomenon. There are these little jelly candies shaped like men. They are gummy, chewy and coated in sugar, or at least a sugar-like substance. Very healthy, I'm sure. Let's call them Jelly Men.

My kids love Jelly Men. They especially relish in biting their heads off. Like so.

They call out joyfully, "Look, Mommy! I ate his head!" They laugh uproariously. Then they bite off his limbs, one-by-one.


If you think about it, this is quite a disturbing inclination. Why is it that the slow, deliberate amputation of a man-shaped candy should bring such joy? I know that I eat gummy bears in one of two ways. I take a handful and shove them all in my mouth at once (very feminine), or I eat them slowly, biting the head off of each little one. I'm wondering if there is some biological explanation for this. Is it a primal human instinct? Is it our primitive hunter roots coming out?

Or is it that this kind of sadism only runs in my family?

Credit where credit is due

It is so easy to complain when the kids drive you crazy, so its important to brag on them when they've been nice.

This morning, I heard Nicky wake up. I fell asleep again and didn't hear a thing until Nicky came in. He crawled under the blankets with his father and described how he and Laney had been playing this morning. They had played with trains. They had built blocks. They had played in Nicky's bed. They had built blocks in Nicky's bed. Actually, it sounded like they had done a lot.

"What time is it," I asked Seven.

"Nine-four-one," responded Nicky looking at the clock.

9:41?! I dont think both Seven and I have slept in until nine-four-one on a Sunday morning since before Nicky was born almost five years ago! The kids had played quietly in their room from the time they woke up -- no fighting, just hanging out and having a good time. They didn't come in and pounce on us and begin fighting in our bed. They LET us sleep in! Then when they were ready, they came in to get us -- Laney with a little morning wake-up call for Pappa in her diaper. It was at her request that Pappa change her. Who am I to fight her on it?

I should note that usually the weekend morning pounce is quite nice. However, it's generally a limited-time offer. We know quickly when time is up. First, it starts with cuddles, then it quickly dissolves into kicking and shoving and warm blankets wrestled off onto the floor.

Just one of those days

There are days when my children can play together, the picture of brotherly and sisterly love. I can go about the day, accomplishing a thing or two, while they talk, laugh and play. We all come together to eat, color, and do other activities as a group, then they break away to do their own thing. They share when they are asked to. They want to do the same activities and generally enjoy each others' company. Life is easy.

Then there are days like today. Every two minutes, one comes in crying about the egregious offenses committed by the other. It's impossible to get anything done, because as soon as I start something, I can hear the piercing shrieks from one or the other as the atrocities mount. I have been trying to clean the kitchen for the last two hours, not that anyone could tell.

At one point, Nicky came racing into the room, while Laney shrieked bloody murder. He had in his hand a little piece of I-don't-know-what, some small strappy thing, that I'd seen in Laney's hand some while before. "Mommy, you have to hide this," he said trying to enlist my help in tormenting his little sister. I just sighed, took the strappy thing and gave it back to Laney. Nicky didn't say anything, knowing his plan had been thwarted and not really caring that much. They just moved on to some new way of annoying each other.

So if you were to walk into my kitchen and become alarmed by the health hazardous state, I will only accept 80 percent of the blame. The rest we can all blame on my kids and their refusal to share a bowl of grapes or to continually grab things from each other or just plain being pains in the ass.

Small World

Last night, I went downstairs to grab something when I noticed that there was a documentary on the television. Just as I passed through the room, the voice, speaking in Norwegian, began talking about Okinawa. It was such a surreal experience for me to listen to a voice describing the people and culture of Okinawa in the Norwegian language. It felt like two wildly different parts of my life colliding. I couldn't help but think what a small world we live in.

The documentary was about longevity. This part of the documentary focused on Okinawa, because Okinawans are on average the longest-lived people in the world. The highest percentage of centenarians per capita live on Okinawa. Women live an average of 86 years and men until 77, and they apparently do so with much less cancer, heart disease, and cases of Alzheimer's than in the West. The scientists were trying to discover why. The documentary mentioned a few things, so I thought I'd share them here. Hey, why not, right? That's why you love reading my blog. . .the wealth of knowledge I bestow upon you.

Secret 1. Eat a 'rainbow' diet of colorful fruits and vegetables. Okinawans eat a lot of vegetables, including a very purple sweet potato. They also eat a lot of tofu -- more than even the mainland Japanese.

Secret 2. They are active in old age. My grandmother is a good example. She used to walk a lot. She broke her hip and after that began walking much less. Her health began to deteriorate pretty quickly after that. I remember I went to visit when I was 19 or so. We had gone shopping, and I was carrying a relatively heavy bag of groceries. I think I must have looked hot and sweaty or something, because my 60-year-old grandmother grabbed the bag away from me and began walking with it. When I tried to take it back, she absolutely would NOT let me. I felt terrible. I was young and strong and my GRANDMOTHER was schlepping our groceries around.
Secret 3. Hara hachi gu. This means something like "80 percent full." Basically, don't stuff yourself until food comes out of your ears. It is bad for your health. It's kind of funny. I had never heard this expression before. It's a common one, and I lived on Okinawa for eight years as a child. I came to Norway to learn it. Amazing what you learn on the television.

There you have it. The secrets of the Okinawan fountain of youth.

A matter of discretion

Let's take another stroll down memory lane, shall we?

Shortly after my daughter was born, my mother called to ask me what I might need for the baby. In addition to all the pink, ruffly, and girlish necessities, I requested a nursing cape. We had only recently moved to Norway, and I hadn't been able to find one. I couldn't understand it at first. Nursing in public is widely accepted in Norway, how could they not sell nursing covers? I've since noticed that Norwegian women are very adept at nursing without exposing any inappropriate parts. In one swift movement, baby is latched on. I was never quite so confident that I could manage it all so gracefully.

I nursed my son for a year in the U.S. When we were out among people, that meant a lot of going back to the car, or finding a bathroom, and basically trying to find a 'private' place to feed my son. I wouldn't want to expose anyone to the sight of (lowering voice to a whisper) my breast, would I? That would be unseemly.

We Americans, we'd rather see a decapitated head in a post box on C.S.I., then be exposed to the sight of a woman's nipple. My husband and I were discussing why that was once. I said it was probably because the decapitated head wasn't real. He pointed out that most exposed breasts aren't real either. Touche.

In any case, I am what I am, to include my prudish American sensibilities. The thought of accidentally exposing part of my breast, or worse, part of my nipple to the outside world filled me with terror. There are no high-end department store lounge-type bathrooms where I am. Nursing is widely accepted here so hiding out in a foul-smelling cramped bathroom to nurse my new baby seemed a little ridiculous. I thought a nursing cape seemed like the perfect compromise. I could find myself a nice corner in a cafe, while my daughter nursed discreetly under the drape -- a calm, gentle image, isn't it?

So I asked my mother for a nursing cape. She obliged. My mistake, however, was in not specifying color. I had wrongly assumed all nursing capes came in drab shades of black or brown or navy. Discreet colors. Apparently not. My parents live in Hawaii, where everything comes in Hawaiian print. My mother thought it would be a great idea to send me a HAWAIIAN PRINT nursing cape -- a BRIGHT PEACH, BIB-SHAPED, HAWAIIAN PRINT nursing cape. This was not my idea of discretion.

To top it off, my daughter was not a gentle nurser. She liked to look around, wave her hands and feet, and just plain wiggle. I really never understood what she was doing down there. Sometimes it felt like a wresting match between my daughter and my breast. So it came to pass that we would be out and about, and my baby would get hungry. Just like in my fantasy, I'd find a quiet corner in a cafe and sit down.

That's where the similarity to my imagined nursing scenario ends. I must have made quite a sight. I would put on my giant, peach, Hawaiian-print bib and nurse my daughter. Meanwhile, she'd begin to wriggle, flailing her tiny hands and feet, causing the colorful cape to twist and turn alarmingly. Sometimes a little fist would poke out from underneath here, then a little sock-covered foot there. I imagine the poor Norwegian passers-by, usually old, retired people, couldn't figure out what they were seeing at first. So in my effort to be discreet, I made more of a spectacle of myself.

I eventually had to ditch the cape.

When I took it out to take pictures for the blog, my kids thought it was an apron. Here is the subtle, yet lovely print.

*Nursing Tip for U.S. moms: Nordstrom's has the best bathrooms for nursing. They usually have a small little lounge area with comfy couches that are away from the toilets. The ones I've been in smell nice, too. So if you ever need a place to feed baby, the first place you should head is the restrooms of high-end department stores. It's sometimes nice to just have a nice, quiet spot to be with your baby, especially in a crowded shopping center, regardless of whether you are shy about public feeding or not.

Bless You

Laney came to me with a package of tissues today. She wanted me to hide them in my sock. Ummm, okay.

"Mommy, put this Bless Yous in your sock," she tells me.

She also calls a sneeze a Bless You.

All dressed up. . .

This past weekend, we celebrated Norway's Constitution Day. There are a lot of similarities in between American and Norwegian national day celebrations. In both countries, people grill hot dogs and eat ice cream. There are parades. There is a lot of flag-waving. There is patriotism and pride in country. There are speeches, generally boring ones. The boring national day speech is a phenomenon the world over. It transcends cultural divides, maybe it could unite the world. "The road to world peace is paved with recollections of being forced to sit through long-winded speeches by old men on the country's national day."

I digress. . .

However, unlike the 4th of July, where traditional attire for the day is shorts and t-shirt, May 17th is a formal occasion in Norway. Norwegians eat their hot dogs wearing suits and dresses or the national outfit, called a bunad or festdrakt. Norwegians wear bunads during special occasions -- for weddings, coming-of-age celebrations and on May 17th. The national day IS a special occasion.

Last year, the plan had just been to put Nicky in a suit and Laney in a pretty dress. However, I tried a bunad for Laney and she was so adorable, I had to have it. Last year, I wasn't sure about the short pants look for boys -- very American Revolution, so Nicky wore a suit.

17 May 2007

(2007 was a year of struggles in getting Nicky to look at or smile for the camera)

Ta-da! Laney in her bunad.

Now, there's a smile from Nicky.


This year, though, I decided I wanted them both to wear traditional dress. Nicky can wear suits forever, in any country. Bunads are special and uniquely Norwegian. It's a part of the culture he's growing up in -- and if I don't miss my guess, my 14-year-old Nicky won't be caught dead in one. My 4-year-old Nicky doesn't care as long as cake and ice cream are around. I can't believe I didn't have one for him last year. They were both so, so adorable! That's fact, buddy. This mommy's not at all biased.

17 May 2008 (actually, these were taken on 16 May)

You want pictures of the actual day? Okay. Okay. Twist my arm. Here are MORE pictures of my kids. With all that goes on, it was a little harder to get decent pictures from May 17 itself, but it feels like cheating to have ones from the day before.

Now, I'm hooked on bunads.* I guess it's one of the side-effects of being from a country that doesn't have a traditional costume. It becomes very, very addicting when you move to a country that has one. So they will both be in bunads until they are old enough to complain until my ears bleed. Probably around nine or so.

*Or is it called festdrakt? Traditional bunads are embroidered, very expensive, and made by a seamstress. The clothes my kids are wearing are mass-produced and sold in the local kids' store. Anyway. . .

As an aside, my mother dressed me in a kimono, traditional Japanese dress, every New Year's Day when we lived in Japan. One year, I cried and complained and was totally awful. Maybe that was every year? Well, one year, when I was nine or so, was worse than all the others. I'm sitting in the corner sour-faced in every single picture. Gawd, I was a horrid child. That is true testimony to the strength of parental love. Sane people would have left me by the side of the road with a sign, "Free to a good home." My parents took me home and loved me anyway. At least, they took me home. The love part, you'll have to ask them about.

For everything you ever wanted to know about May 17 or bunads. Click here for photos about the Norwegian bunad tradition.

Gratulerer med dagen!

Happy May 17th! Today is Norway's Constitution Day. (Basically, the Norwegian equivalent of July 4th in the United States.) It's a big holiday here. Parades. Lots of flag-waving. Lots of cake and ice cream.

I think Spiderman may just be Norwegian. See how well the flag matches the outfit?

Psychosomatic

My daughter's finger hurts. All of the time. Usually at bedtime. It's not always the same finger. Despite the fact that there is no open wound, she needs a band-aid for it to feel better. Failing that, tape will do.

What do you think it could be?

Where is my Transformer?

Nicky asked me this last night. He was tired and almost near tears. He hadn't seen it in a really long time. Where was his Transformer? The small gray one that was about five pieces that could become a spaceship.

I knew exactly where it was. I just couldn't tell him. How could I? His young heart would never understand.

The short answer, the cruel truth is. . .

Well, I threw it away.

The thing is, I didn't think he'd miss it. Why does that kid remember everything?? It was a small gray Transformer that he'd gotten last year. It "transformed" by breaking into small gray plastic pieces that ended up all over the house -- an arm/wing here, a leg/spaceship fuselage there. It was small. It was cheap. Nicky rarely played with it. In fact, I threw it away in parts. I was cleaning and could only find two or three pieces, so threw those away. Then found another part later and had to throw that away because it was no longer a whole. In fact, it's been gone for months, and he hasn't noticed until now. I just couldn't take more crap scattered around -- one more incomplete toy that was here and there and everywhere.

It's all part of MY slow, yet inevitable transformation. I'm becoming my mother.

It's not a bad thing. I adore my mother. She's fantastic. She just has this "thing" about throwing everything away.

It is well-known in my family that if you want to keep something, you have to hide it from my mom. Once she gets into a cleaning frenzy, everything is fair game. Doesn't matter what it is, if she can't find a place for it, she tosses it.

My dad always jokes about one Christmas when my mom, in a haste to get rid of all the Christmas wrapping and ribbons, threw out one of our Christmas gifts, too. To be fair, we have no proof of this. We just know that one of us couldn't find something later that day, and we all blamed my mom.

I can honestly say that I didn't understand her or empathize with her until about a year ago. There's nothing wrong with cleaning, I'd say, but you don't have to THROW EVERYTHING AWAY. When we'd ask her, "Why do you throw everything away?!" Her most frequent response was, "Because I can't take it anymore!"

My transformation hasn't happened overnight. It's been slow. It started with my husband's newspapers.

Seven collects newspapers. He doesn't read them. He doesn't have time for that. They come in the mail. He sits down to read one, reads a little, then one of the kids interrupts by jumping on him and demanding his attention, or maybe his wife comes in and nags him about something she needs him to do. He puts the paper away to read later. The problem is that ANOTHER newspaper comes in the mail the next day. And the next. They just pile up. He keeps tucking them away in the belief that he will be able to read them all. Sometimes I just want to shake him and yell, "PILED UP NEWSPAPERS ARE LIKE AN AVALANCHE. YOU WILL NEVER GET AHEAD!! RUN! RUN! RUN AWAY FROM THE AVALANCHE!"

On top of it all, he buys magazines. They pile up on top of the newspapers. It is a never-ending cycle.

I couldn't take it anymore. I told him to read all of those newspapers or throw the damn things away. They just stood around collecting dust. If he couldn't read them, then I was tossing them out. It's gotten to the point that I go through the advertisements in the mail and throw them away before he can see them and start collecting them. The idea of one more unread newspaper-like item lying around the house makes my eye twitch.*

Then there are the kids and their toys. The toys were relatively easy to keep under control when there was just one kid. He had a lot, but none of them had small pieces, and he didn't scatter them around too much. They were also mostly of the unisex, pre-school variety, which meant we didn't buy many more during Laney's first year.

Suddenly, the toys began raging out of control. The number of wooden train tracks for Thomas multiplied. Duplo (big Legos) were brought in. Girl toys found their way into the home. We got Power Ranger and Spiderman figures. They each come with little weapons that end up everywhere. They also lose arms and legs, which is just more stuff for Mommy to find all over. I've tried. I've tried just putting them back. Putting them back together. I've tried to keep some semblance of order to the toys. It doesn't work. I have to draw the line somewhere and "toy parts" is my line. If I find toys, I'll put them away. If I find toy parts without the other parts in the near vicinity, then it's a toss up.

It takes exactly 3.5 seconds to trash a room I've spent ages cleaning, and this scenario repeats itself endlessly. I simply don't have the patience to keep track of all the toys and all of their parts all of the time.

So when Nicky asked me about that Transformer I'd thought he'd forgotten, I realized my own transformation had begun. It'll take another decade of toy picking up to be complete. I knew if I told him the truth about the Transformer, he'd ask me why. Why did I have to throw everything away?

And I knew the answer would be, "Because, baby, sometimes I just can't take it anymore!"

*I know this isn't just me. A girlfriend told me that she sends her husband out on "errands" so that she can toss stuff. If he's around, he'll try to keep it. However, to this day, he's none the wiser. He just thinks he's read all those newspapers.

Photographic Genius

Nicky loves the digital camera. He's actually quite good at taking pictures, and the instant gratification of seeing his work on the display screen in the back has instilled quite a love of photography.

His first attempts ended in blurry images of his hand or the floor. The digital camera is perfect, because we could delete those pictures immediately rather than spend the money to have them developed only to be tossed out. The delete function also works nicely when he's taken an unflattering photo of my ass. Thankfully, those pictures will never see the light of day.

In a post that I guess I can file more for memory-keeping rather than for its interest to others level, I thought I'd display some of his work.

Here, notice the composition, the careful attention to detail.

See how Lightening McQueen is placed on the mousepad just so?

The home-made dragon is very well-centered, I might add.

He is very proud of his new rainboots. Laney was too, so they both wore them around the house. (Fresh out of the bag and not after they'd been trekked in through the mud) Laney's color-coordinated look is straight out of the magazines.

Here he experiments with varying basic elements in order to best tell the story. First, posing without the Spiderman mask.

Then the same pose again with the mask in place. (Nicky loves his Spiderman costume)

No experiment in photography would be complete without up-the-nose self-portraiture. Note how he plays with various expressions.

Shameless photo opportunity

Through it all. No matter what. How could I not love these faces?

(That's pista on the cheeks, if you're wondering).

A day in the life. . .

The problem in trying to keep an upbeat blog about the adorable day-to-day things your kids do is that when you're in a crappy mood, it's hard to find anything fun to write. I could go on and on about things that irritate me, but really, who wants to spend their time reading a blog kept by an overwrought, emotional woman ranting about her day?

Well, you, apparently. You're still here.

Bless your heart.

So my day was something like this. (Keep in mind that all times are completely made-up. I don't wear a watch. I never know what the hell time it is. I use clocks mainly for decorative purposes. )

7 a.m., maybe 8 a.m., 9? Kids wake up, make lots of noise, come in and pounce on us. We get up to see it's snowing outside. It's May something-or-other and it's freakin' snowing! Did you hear me? Snowing! This day is not starting the way it should. Everyone who pities me for living here is right. This is miserable. Ugh. No! I refuse to let the weather get me down. I have a good life here. Repeat, I have a good life here. I HAVE a. . .life here, anyway. Besides, poor Nicky is depressed enough for the both of us. "Why won't the snow go away, Mommy? Why?" What can I say? I want him to be happy. Besides, it's a holiday today! Pinsedag -- whatever that means.

9:02 a.m. Seven announces that he's still going to work. He works, therefore ruins, every holiday. To be fair, the snow would have ruined any good weather plans we had anyway, but it's just more fun to blame things on my husband.

11:05 a.m. I need to fix some buttons on Nicky's outfit for May 17 (Norwegian Constitution Day). It's a beautiful traditional outfit, recently bought at a store for very modern prices. It's a little too big, so I need to take it in. Nicky tries it on, and I mark where I need to put the buttons with a light-colored marker. I know there are pens made for this kind of thing, but I don't have one.

11:18 a.m. I leave the room to grab a needle and some thread.

11:21 a.m. I come back to find that Laney has begun writing on the coffee table with the unattended marker. I take the marker away, admonishing myself for having left it unattended. Didn't I just write a post on this? Will I ever learn? Just...a...little...slow...on...the...uptake, aren't we?

11:31 a.m. I start fixing the buttons. I begin to think about all the women who have had to "take in" the clothes of their kids over the generations. It feels so. . .so motherly. I feel so motherly. You would think that, by now, these motherly moments would cease to surprise me. They don't. I'm often taken aback by the fact that, wow, I really am someone's mom. I sew buttons. I read bedtime stories. I tuck my kids in at night. Later, I come back to check that they're still under the covers and warm enough. I do all of these things gladly and without thinking, because I am a mother, their mother. I am in constant awe of these two small people, in a way that only their mother could be.

I keep sewing. Sometimes, I look at Nicky, and I can still see reminders of his sweet baby cheeks. In the very next moment, I think I glimpse the man he is going to become. Will he always be the same sensitive soul? Will he be a doctor? Or a dancer? I often watch Laney play and wonder about the upcoming adventures of her life. Will she travel? Will she fall in love? Will she be a dancer? Or a doctor? And sometimes when I watch either of them, I think, "So that was you, the one who was kicking me from the inside all those years ago." That's who the faint lines on the pregnancy test came to be. Nicky. Laney. My kids. I am amazed. Maybe I'll blog about that.

11:38 a.m. I'm still feeling warm and fuzzy inside. The kids want to watch a movie. I don't have the energy to get them dressed to go out. It's snowing in May, for crying out loud. We have the perfect excuse to be indoors. I can do motherly things, and they can cozy up with a film. I make some popcorn.

11:52 a.m. I need to iron the white shirts they'll be wearing for May 17.

12:07 p.m. I finish ironing and come in to find that Laney has scattered popcorn all over the living room floor. My motherly feelings begin to fade.

12:37 p.m. The dryer peeps. I go upstairs to take care of the laundry. Maybe I can even get something written down for the blog? Wait, I've got to vacuum up the popcorn first.

12:37 p.m. and 47 seconds I hear a loud crash and bang. Nicky's hysterical voice is calling, " I'm sorry, Mommy! I'm sorry!" I go downstairs to see him holding a picture that he has knocked off the wall. The frame is nicked from where it crashed into the floor. I finally get him to calm down long enough to tell me he was kicking a ball, which he knows he's not allowed to do, and it crashed into the frame, knocking it down. He is already hysterical and sorry. In a move that should secure my nomination for the Epitome of Patience Mother of the Year award, I gently give him a hug, simply say that accidents can happen and remind him not to kick the ball in the house anymore.

1 p.m. I still haven't vacuumed the floor. Concerned that Laney hasn't been drinking enough, because she struggles with constipation (and my insistence on talking about my kids' bowel issues continues), I pour them both a drink before I get started.

1 p.m. and 47 seconds Nicky spills his drink all over the table. It begins dripping all over the floor. My head wants to explode. My warm motherly feelings are gone, all gone. They are replaced by feelings of desperately wanting all this to be a bad dream. Instead of being a button-sewing, pop-corn cleaning, drink-mopping, laundry-washing, shirt-ironing, ass-wiping maid servant, I am going to wake up drunk on red wine next to a naked Johnny Depp my husband.

4:57 p.m. As I'm sitting typing away on the blog, Laney begins to cry, panicked. She's just had a potty accident. It's my fault. It had been awhile since her last bathroom visit, and I should have reminded her to go. Instead, I sat around typing on the computer.* I've set her up for failure. I have now secured my nomination for Piss-poor Mother of the Year.

5:35 p.m. Aunt Flo has made her monthly call, which explains the lightening-fast, Linda Blair-like mood swings and all-round pissy demeanor. (Or is that just the unfortunate effects of a bad personality?)

6:30 p.m. Pizza! We eat pizza, which Laney adorably calls pista. No cooking. Minimal dishes. Everything is better with pista. Life is good.

*I should note that my husband was hogging up the one toilet at the time. I have the right to remain defensive.

Chocolate is good for the skin!

This is what Laney looked like eating a chocolate cookie in a controlled environment at roughly the same age. You see, I don't exaggerate these things.

Embarrassing Moment

I may have to number these "Embarrassing Moment" posts as there are many, many of them. It's just a matter of how strong I am. How much am I willing to share with my Internet audience of five?

Last summer, I had taken the kids up to visit my in-laws, while Seven stayed behind to relive the glory days of bachelorhood work. I was only there for two weeks, so I brought a little cash and a debit card, which Seven assured me had money on it. The town of Alta is no shopper's paradise, so I didn't need much.

Fast forward to a cold, blustery summer afternoon in Alta.

Laney and I had gone to the town center to do a little shopping. I saw some things for Nicky's upcoming 4th birthday that I wanted to pick up. I took my selections to the counter. While the salesclerk rang up my items -- *sniff, sniff* -- I noticed a familiar, yet unpleasant, smell coming from Laney's direction. Just great. She needed a diaper change. She was also rifling through the selection of sweets that the store had infuriatingly left within her one-year-old reach, and no amount of "put that back" would do. I was beginning to sweat. Well, we were out of there in a minute.

"Your card's been declined."

"Huh?" Seven had told me we had money in that account. It must be a mistake. Flustered, I tried the card again. The stench of Laney's diaper contents was wafting through the cashier area and filling the space as a line formed behind me. The card was declined again. While I was otherwise distracted, Laney had managed to open a few of the chocolate pieces she was playing with. I looked down to see her munching quietly, her little face and hands smeared with stolen chocolate -- stolen because I didn't have any cash on me.

Red-faced and ashamed, I tried to explain in my broken Norwegian that I didn't have cash and had to come back. The girl just looked at me. She was young, probably 18, with little empathy for a foreign mother who couldn't pay for her items or speak the language or control her child who, incidentally, stank to high heaven.

I stammered an incomprehensible apology and backed my way out of the store, trying to maneuver my giant Norwegian stroller, roughly the size of a small bus, and my poo-smelling, chocolate-covered daughter past the other people in line. Had the store somehow shrunk during this time? Why was I suddenly banging into people and displays? Everyone was now staring at me. I think people might have stopped to gape in at the store windows. I can't remember. It's all a blur now.

When I was able to call my husband, I explained what happened, worried that something might be wrong with the card. Such naivete.

"I transferred money this morning, let me check," I heard him typing and clicking on the other end.

"Oh."

Never a good sign. I could feel myself getting all sweaty again.

"The money from this morning hasn't gone through. Sometimes, it takes 24 hours," he told me from his nice, pleasant office many, many, many miles away. "I'll transfer money from a different account, and it'll go in right away."

WHY THE HELL DIDN'T HE TRANSFER THE MONEY FROM THE "INSTANT" ACCOUNT IN THE FIRST PLACE??????? Gee, wasn't that 24-hour time delay something that he could have thought to mention a little earlier? I didn't say anything.

We have more effectively opened the channels of communication on this front, but I'm warning him now. Karma's a bitch, my man. Karma IS a bitch.

Just for a fun. A picture from that fateful trip.


The kids with their grandparents (Bestemor and Bestefar).

When to sweat the small stuff

Nicky, the tiger pirate

At some point last year, my kids came in with "tiger stripes" drawn on their faces and arms with pen. Nicky's markings bore some semblance to tiger stripes, while Laney had just covered her face in green marker. They were supposed to be drawing on paper, while I went in to the kitchen to finish the morning dishes and grab a cup of coffee. I didn't want to make a big deal about it. Kids do these things, right?I just said they shouldn't draw on their skin. Blah. Blah. And since it's Mommy who throws the vast majority of temper tantrums in this house, sometimes I just have to let these things go.

It's always the wrong stuff. . .

The problem is that over the next several months, the kids would come in looking like "tigers," pen marks drawn all over their faces and bodies. What could I do? I couldn't suddenly throw a fit when it was no big deal before. Now, a year later, Nicky has outgrown this phase for the most part. Laney, on the other hand, has taken to coloring in her nails (and fingers) with Sharpie markers. Have you ever tried to get Sharpie marker off of baby nails? What a nightmare.

Just hide the markers, you say? OF COURSE, I will hide the markers...and all the pens...and all the pencils...and all other writing implements. However, I'm telling you now, the only thing this guarantees is that some day in the not-so-distant future, I will need to send a box somewhere and will be tearing through the house trying to find those damn Sharpies, having completely forgotten where I've hidden them.

I guess the upside is that while I'm banging drawers open and closed, running up and down the steps for the 15th time thinking "I KNOW I put them in the desk, dammit," Laney will have found said Sharpie markers and be sitting quietly someplace "painting" her nails.

Mystery of the Missing Piglet

Piglet's been missing for awhile. Laney has a few stuffed animals from Winnie the Pooh. Piglet is her favorite, because he's pink. I'd noticed that he'd gone missing and went looking for him. He wasn't in the usual areas -- the kids' room, their play area downstairs, the bathroom. It wasn't an emergency, but I kept an eye out for him.

Yesterday, I cleaned my house, well, part of my house. The sun shone brightly in the windows and beautifully lit up the rooms of our old farmhouse. . .and cast a spotlight the dust collecting on furniture tops and the grime on mirrors left by little hands and noses. I had never really gotten the term "Spring Cleaning" before. Why does one feel the sudden urgent need to clean in the springtime? I just didn't get it. That's because I've spent most of my life in warm climates somewhere in the near vicinity of the equator. This means slight temperature shifts and a relatively similar amount of daylight from season to season. In the case of Hawaii, virtually no change at all. The weather in Hawaii is so BORING, I would lament. Yeah, my life's been hard.

Now I know. The cold, dark winter does wonders for hiding shoddy housekeeping. The spring brings it all to light. So everywhere there was dust! And dirt! And grime! I felt the first twinges of spring cleaning panic rise.

You know how it is. You start with the mirrors, then you notice the dust on the cabinet. Then you wipe that down and you see the floor needs vacuuming (again) and maybe a good wash. Then you realize you haven't cleaned under your bed in awhile. . .

As I followed the never-ending trail of dust under the bed, there he was! Piglet! He was trapped under our bed with dust bunnies and a multitude of other toys -- a power ranger, a missing stacking cup, a rubber ball, a. . . Wait a minute. Why were half the kids' toys under our bed? Didn't they have their own room with beds for toys to get trapped under? Egads, the toys all needed a vacuuming. When the hell was the last time I vacuumed under here? Good lord, it was a ticking time bomb of dust allergies waiting to happen! Oh, hey! There were those other socks! You know, the ones that I thought the laundry machine ate up leaving a lonely other half behind. Nope, right here all the time.

Seven really should have married himself a better housewife.

Well, at least I've found Piglet.