4/5 The Day of "Creatures and Mayhem" and That's a Good Thing

Went out with my mom. We went shopping… or she went shopping and I came along, mostly. I did get the kids some used cartoon videos, but tried not to shop as it is not in the budget.

The hugeness that was Publix. I am not used to such big and busy grocery stores. Busy meaning it seemed to be like a community center, not just teeming and crowded with testy shoppers, like in Brooklyn.

The little used bookstore my mom took me to. It was so cozy, with different genre rooms and some finches in the window and seats scattered through out. It wasn’t actually that small.

Stopping for coffee and sharing a cinnamon roll with my mom and talking science fiction and other things.

G encountering a ladybug for the first time, letting it crawl around on his arm and giggling.

Ivy in her bed, kept raising her head to look at me, saying “mama” and I would say, “I love you.” and she would say “mama” and I would say “I love you.” and then she would smile and we’d do it again, and sometimes she would say “night night” and I would say “I love you.” and then she would giggle, and this went on until I finally just shut the door.

Uncle’s interpretation of my family (and his stories about me, like how I always put too much milk in my cereal and leave it and have since I was 4) Ivy is a sweetheart. G is dramatic. S has the soul of a poet and the heart of a pirate. That last had to be noted down because it was such a good line.

Uncle also said that he likes having us here because we get him out of his strange world. “I live in a world of creatures and mayhem,” he said. “And now they’re running around in your house. The boy is mayhem, and the girl is the creature.”

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4/4 The Day of Winding Down

S cooked dinner. He made New Orleans style red beans and rice. I didn’t have to do anything… although I did do more cleanup.

Chocolate. ‘Nuff said.

Syndicated sitcoms. I don’t know why I love them, but they put a cap on my day and help me relax and rewind.

Ivy and G holding hands as they walk down the sidewalk.

Finding childhood pictures of my mom and one of my uncles which are deadringers for G. All of a sudden, his looks make sense.

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4/4 The Day of Fresh Picked Grapefruits

Picking grapefruits off of our very own grapefruit tree. Well, it’s my uncle’s grapefruit tree, but he says he’s not that into grapefruits. The whole episode made the kids morning, watching me with the long stick and basket trying to capture the big round fruit.

One grapefruit was as big as Ivy’s head!

Man they were tasty, too. Didn’t even need sweetening. Is it just that they were free or that they were really good?

Going for a walk the kids, just up and down the street, but there were many things to see and explore.

Chasing G around with Ivy… I mean, I held Ivy out and chased him around as if Ivy was the weapon. Much squealing and laughter.

Call from old friend just touching bases.

Finished the book I’ve been reading for the last four months. It wasn’t my favorite of her books, but it was still good. Especially the ending.

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4/3 After Settling In, A Good Day

That S cleaned up all the toys we’d left in the tv room while I made dinner. Usually clean up is my duty, being the sahm, but while we have both been “on vacation” I am not the only one.

Crispy bacon. (But beware the eatus toomuchus. It leads to upsetus stomachus.)

Ivy kisses and hugs. She purses her little lips and leans into it. Sometimes she goes french.

Ivy’s big round belly.

The word “rotund.”

Reminding S that this was living, and it was pretty good, as he sat out in the garden, the blue sky above, the lush green, the trickling fountain into the fish pond, all as he was trying to deal with his native temper and impatience with the little ones and the world in general.

Return of the King on my uncle’s giant projection screen. G loves the hobbits, and he has actually seen the first movie multiple times (at first by accident, and then on purpose when I realized he could handle it.) He didn’t sit through the whole 3 hours, but bopped around playing, although he kept coming in to focus down. It got pretty scary for a while, he said it was “good scary,” but we almost turned it off. Then we got into the end of the movie, where Frodo is almost defeated, and G was so upset… but when he succeeded and Frodo wakes up in Gondor after being taken away from Mordor by the giant eagles, G gasped with joy. And then for the rest of the movie where everything is wonderful, he kept saying “more, more!” I’m afraid we have a boy who has been enraptured by movies.

Now past bedtime (with a wired young boy) and S and I are watching the special features/making of the movies. Making The Lord of The Rings is sometimes more amazing than the actual movie.

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4/3 The Day of Settling Into Patterns

This morning having coffee and doing crosswords/sudoku with S while the kids ate their cheerios and drank their milk and played. They are just a little bit self sufficient… enough to get as many cheerios into their mouths as on the floor.

Ivy’s cute blue and red and white gingham dress.

G’s khaki shirt and pants.

Ivy has discovered raisins. She nods her head vigorously when I ask if she likes them.

And G ate three handfuls of them. Maybe it will help him in the regularity department, because goodness, that is some wild drama. Uncle thought we were torturing the poor boy, and he was just pooping.

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4/2 Also the Day of the Moments After

Storm clouds rolling in, charcoal colored and bringing a cold wind to the semi tropical garden.

I love the sound of rain and thunder.

ANTM! And someone cried! I shouldn’t take such glee in these girls’ tears, but they are usually for very silly things, most often hair. So glee I take.

The moment when the kids stop crying in their room, no longer calling for mama, no longer asking for just one more stuffed animal perched on the bed, no longer needing yet another diaper change, no longer clamoring for just one more goodnight kiss and hug, no longer avoiding sleep and just… go… to… sleep.

And then, the moment, a couple hours later, when I have decompressed and relaxed and no longer feel flattened and exhausted.

Oh, the Frank O’Hara poem I read… Avenue A. So great. I should go write something.

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4/2 The Day of Committing to Happy Details All Day Long

Ivy’s pucci print inspired sundress in green and pink and black swirls. When she is in the garden, she almost blends in with the tropical gardenness of it all.

Making a list of things that G discovers in the garden.
a grapefruit half eaten by fruit rats
a swarm of fruit flies
a key lime, still good
a black snake, making it’s escape
a nice long new stick
a couple of rocks
a purple plastic fish dropped by a girl
a little brown lizard
the beginning swell of a baby citrus fruit, fallen off the tree before it could ripen.

Recommitting to poetry even though the goal scares the bejeebers out of me.

Making the decision to write down things for this list, even if the day is not done, because I keep forgetting good things by the end of the evening, partly because I am so tired then. And I want to pay attention to the details… maybe I’m thinking that I can turn them into poetry.

Ivy’s hair is coming in and it’s starting to ruffle a little on the top. I might soon be able to put some barrettes in there.

Pancakes for lunch, with lots of butter and syrup.

An extra cup of coffee. S is around all the time and drinks all my coffee before I can get to it. I had to make a new pot… well, I suggested “we” make a new pot, and S did it.

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4/1 The Day of Tots, Tater, Screaming, and Giggling

Setting up all G’s stuffed animals around the head and guard rails of his bed. They are all sitting up there, hanging out. It made him so happy. Of course, in the end all he cared about was that he was missing his little fishies, but when we came in with some fishies a few minutes later, he gasped in happiness and the crying stopped immediately.

Saw an absolutely ginormous spider making a web in a tree outside the house. I mean, like 2 or 3 inches across. I tried to take some pictures but I don’t think my camera was good enough. Scaryvelous.

Ate dinner at the burger joint, with grandpa and grandma. The kids discovered tater tots and were totally engrossed. The kids also danced and bopped their head to the guy who was singing.

Grandma is making inroads on getting Ivy to play with her. Ivy is very shy and mamacentric. She hides in mama’s shoulder when grandma comes along, but grandma still got some giggles and smiles finally.

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3/30 The Day of The Once Picky Eater and Her Wild Things

After dinner, milk sippy time, and Ivy had a little spill. G pointed out to me and seemed to want me to clean it up. I got a paper towel and gave it to him, and he ran over and wiped up the spill. Then Ivy got a hold of it and started wiping too, she wiped the table too. That excited G apparently, because when he got the paper towel back, he went off like a whirling dervish wiping every surface he could reach. Clean, clean, clean. He couldn’t get enough of it and it made him so happy to wipe everything down. My plan is to keep this going and hand him some dishes and a sponge as soon as it is feasible.

Chubby little Ivy running around the room while G got his story read. I think she knew Where the Wild Things Are at least enough to jump up when the wild rumpus started.

Checking in with some good blogs that I hadn’t read in a while. There’s some good writing out there.

I made a real meal. Well balanced, hearty, tasty. Meatloaf (with some veggies in it,) carrots with a sweet and salty glaze and some rice with a squeeze of key lime from the tree. I ate, the girl ate, the papa ate (although only two baby carrots) the boy however did not eat a bite, although he tried both the carrots and the meatloaf when I made it into a sandwich. He spit them both out, reacting violently to the onion, I think. Just didn’t like it. He got a reheated mini hamburger and was delighted. Even my uncle skipped the carrots, as anti-veggie as he is.

I said something about, “How strange it is that I am the least picky person in this house.” My uncle laughed, because he is the only person here who knew me when I was a kid and would only eat food if it was pink or red. On the plus side, if I was that picky and can now eat and cook all sorts of foods, then perhaps a picky child is not the sentence of doom that you always think when nothing gets eaten at dinner.

Catching most of the BBCSense and Sensibility even if it’s not very good reception.

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3/29 The Day of Grown Up Lady Things and High Tea

Leaving the house, despite babies crying and toddling towards me, arms outstretched, “mamamamamama!” My mother had to actually pull me out of the door to keep me from dragging the parting out.

Stopping for a coffee on our drive, where I got checked out by some hot Italian guy talking on his cel phone. Maybe I am not completely mommied out.

Driving out to St Pete beach, where my future SIL was having a bridal shower. Driving around down there, since we were early, looking at all the houses on the water, some mansions, some cottages… thinking it would be a really cool thing to rent a little house out on the beach for a year or two, enjoying the best of St Pete, before we pack up and move on to California (this would be before we had to send G to school.)

Meeting SILs family and friends and realizing that I am not as antisocial as I thought I was. I did quite fine in the room full of strangers, being helpful, making jokes, getting along. That’s right. This period of isolating childrearing is not actually the totality of who I am.

High Tea. Tea in a tea pot, little sandwiches, scones. Fruit w chocolate. Oh, and Mimosas.

I won one of the games at the shower, a memory game where I had to list all the items she’d shown from a bag. I only missed one. I am not as mommy-brained as I thought I was.

Meeting up with S and the kids and my step father after the shower. Realizing that without me around all the time, Ivy does a lot friendlier and is less clingy when she does see me next. Time for mama to get out more.

Uncle sharing some of his old work (animation) with us, and then telling us the plot of this serial story he was working on. Great story. I think it should be a novel, myself, and I am trying to convince him that he should write it. He once wrote a science fiction novel that was pretty good, but gave up on getting it published.

Spending some quality time with S. He seems to be getting back to himself which is a good thing all around.

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