At Least I Don't Burn the Beer

So, Phil sent just me this picture.

Some people would probably be offended, but I just had to laugh because that is pretty much a good representation of my cooking skills. I also had to laugh because not two minutes before getting this in my email I had been fishing a piece of burning toast out of the toaster with a huge plastic serving spoon that just happened to be the closest thing to me at the time. I came about two inches shy of hurling the toaster off the counter when I pulled the plug out of the wall. It's a good cooking experience for me when whatever I'm making doesn't set off the smoke detector, so today was actually not a complete failure.

My breakfast, plus "EW, time to scrub the sink with bleach!"

Stuff I can't make:

• Chili. This one only partially counts. I have this awesome vegetarian chili recipe that is one of the only things I make that turns out half-way decent. I always (seriously ALWAYS, like every! single! time!) end up scorching some of it to the bottom of the pot, but I've learned that I can ladle off the unburnt part and generally salvage most of it. 
• Toast. See above. I like to blame this on our $6 toaster.
• Toasted tree nuts of any kind. Almonds seem to be particularly problematic. They say that "a watched pot never boils." Take my word on it, a watched pan of toasting almonds totally burns... really quickly... like one second they are raw, and then a beautiful light brown color, and then, between the time it takes to turn off the heat and pull the pan away, they are black and smoking. 
• Hard boiled eggs. You'd think this would be an easy one, but did you know that eggs will actually EXPLODE if you forget to turn off the burner and then leave it the pot on the stove long enough that all of the water evaporates?! You do now! In fact, they explode with such force that some of it will end up on the ceiling. They also make a loud POP noise when they blow up.
• Margaritas. Well, really, anything involving a blender. When we moved out of our old house and were taking the furniture out, we found strawberry margarita on the family room wall, which was like 30 feet from the kitchen. Apparently that's how far strawberries fly when you forgot to put the lid on the blender.  

I can make macaroni and cheese, veggie burgers (in the microwave only), spaghetti with jarred sauce, and salad. I also serve a mean bowl of canned peaches.

I'm also really good at ordering take-out and putting it on plates.

Finally, just like the fifties housewife in the meme Phil sent me, I'm good at opening a nice, tall, bottle of beer. Thank goodness for that.

Blizzard Bags, the Bane of Parents Everywhere

As I mentioned in an earlier post, this winter has been ridiculously cold and snowy, and we've had more than our fair share of missed school because of it. Yesterday was our eighth calamity day, which took our grand total for the year (so far) up to five days more than the school had allotted. Anything over those three days planned days, and the children are supposed to make them up at the end of the school year.

In an attempt to get around this, there has been legislation in Ohio to add extra allowed calamity days "just this once" since it has been such an unusual winter and it's screwing up everyone's schedules something fierce. At first, it looked as if this might be the solution we (parents, teachers, and students) had all been hoping for. It passed the Senate but then it got stuck in the House and hasn't moved anywhere for nearly three weeks. I'm sure there are legitimate reasons people oppose it, but one of the reasons I read claimed that teachers would be paid for work they are not doing. Ha! You have GOT to be kidding me. Don't even get me started on underpaid, underappreciated teachers!

So, moving on to Plan B. Apparently, in 2011 someone proposed the idea of the Blizzard Bag, and it passed legislation. It is basically a packet of schoolwork for students to do at home when there is another canceled day of school. We can use up to three of them and have each one count as a make-up day instead of having to tack on extra days at the end of the year. The children have two weeks to complete each packet. Sounds like a wonderful idea, right?

WRONG!

Blizzard Bag #3 -- a.k.a. Mommy Torture!

Clearly, the person who proposed the Blizzard Bag idea never had children. Quite possibly, they have never tried to teach a child. Certainly, they have never tried to teach MY children, especially when they'd rather be outside building forts and throwing snowballs at each other.

Each Blizzard Bag packet is about nine pages long. Each page requires approximately three questions from each child. That's three Blizzard Bags, times nine pages each, times three questions per page, times two children. That's approximately 162 Blizzard-Bag-related questions. That doesn't even count the 500 times they each asked if they could take a break, or go to the bathroom, or get a drink of water, or one of a million other things they came up with just to get out of doing their work. That's like 1,162 questions! Snow days are exhausting.

Here's an idea. How about we take that money that we're saving by not paying those horrible, undeserving, free-loading teachers, and write every parent a Blizzard Bag check instead. Believe me, we've certainly earned it.

Ruby Sue and the Wart Lip

After Ruby Sue had lived with us for a few months, it was becoming increasingly clear that this dog had ISSUES. She was constantly licking everything in sight, and carrying things around in her mouth, and trying to sit on us whenever she could. The sitting thing would have been cute if she were, oh, maybe 15 pounds. At 55 pounds, however, it was really just pretty frustrating. The vet said she was a puppy trapped in a dog's body because she wasn't properly socialized when she was young. All I knew was that she was ANNOYING AS HELL! Whenever we tried to sit on the floor (as you often do when you're six- and eight-year old children, or the parent of kids those ages), she would be right there, on top of us, plopping her fat, furry butt on us and licking our faces. UGH!

That's when she developed a dog wart on her lip.

Back to the vet we went... again. The older I get, the more I realize that the adage is true--you really do learn something new every day. Apparently, facial warts are very common in dogs, especially dogs who are two years old and under. In fact, there are entire websites dedicated to selling (unapproved and kind of sketchy) holistic products that claim to prevent, treat, and eliminate warts on dogs. Who knew?

Here's the technical description from petmd.com of what she had, in case you're interested. If health-related stuff grosses you out, I advise you to skip this paragraph.

The term papillomatosis is used to describe a benign tumor on the surface of the skin. A virus, known as the papillomavirus, causes the growth. The general appearance is wart-like, raised, with the central surface having an open pore if the wart is inverted. In dogs, the warts are most commonly presented in a raised manner; however, inverted warts are not uncommon. The pigmented appearance normally presents as a rough surface that is flat in appearance and black in colour. 

Blech!

The vet assured us it was really not anything to be concerned about. Ruby Sue had likely contracted it from another dog (which made me wonder how many other "new-to-us" dog owners from that rescue were dealing with the same issue at the same time as we were). It didn't require any treatment or medicine, and would go away on its own, probably in a few months. Basically, we just had to look at it for the next several weeks, and think about it any time she got near us. Humans can't contract it from dogs, but it was disgusting, and it really didn't help with the whole bonding experience.

"Hi, Owen! Allow me to lick your face with my wart lip! Then I'll sit on your lap!"

Thankfully, the vet had been right. The wart lip did go away on its own eventually. I'm sad to say, however, that the licking, carrying stuff around in her mouth, and trying to sit on us, have not. Two years later, and we're still trying to coax the unsocialized puppy out of this crazy dog's big body.

At least once the wart lip went away, it wasn't *quite* as annoying.

I guess that adage it true, too--everything is relative.

Introducing Ruby Sue, Rescue Dog One of Two

Our demure girl, Rika, set the doggy bar really high!

I need to preface this post by saying that the first dog Phil and I adopted together was The. Sweetest. Dog. Ever. She was calm, quiet, gentle, and rarely barked. When we picked her out, she was in an outdoor kennel with her brother from the same litter. As we approached them, the brother jumped on top of the dog house, put his ears back flat against his head, and barked at us really loudly. The sister, on the other hand, sat there grinning at us and wagging her tail. Phil and I looked at each other and announced, "We'll take that one!" She was a Norwegian Elkhound and we named her Rika, which means "friendly and approachable" in the Norwegian language. Rika was with us for ten and a half wonderful years, and when she passed away, my heart was so empty that it literally hurt.

After nearly two years of begging and pleading with Phil and regularly sending him petfinder.com listings of adorable, pathetic dogs in need of rescue, he finally caved. We had loved the Norwegian Elkhound breed, so I had looked into rescues and shelters that might have a dog that was at least partially an Elkie. Finally, I came across one that sounded great. The listing said she had been a stray when she was found, and because of the way she reacted to men, in particular, they were pretty sure she had been abused at some point in her life. She was estimated to be almost two years old, weighed around 40 pounds, and she was part Elkie. She needed a loving home like ours where she could feel safe. I was sold.

I ended up driving two hours from home to pick her up, and if it hadn't been for that, I probably would have taken one look at her, turned around and said, "Um, not what I was expecting, but thank you anyway." As it were, I had been in the car for a long time, had gotten lost twice, and was just relieved to have finally made it, so, when I walked in and she was more like 55 pounds and was jumping and pulling on the end of her leash and was barking the loudest bark I had ever heard, I was hesitant but determined. After all, I just knew that it was more nurture than nature that made dogs be good pets (because, obviously we were awesome doggy parents and had been fully responsible for making Rika the awesome dog she had been). I convinced myself it would all be fine, and I lead her to the car and let her hop in the backseat like Rika had always done.

On the two-hour ride home she barked in my ear the entire time, ate the travel trash can and 90% of the trash that had been in it, chewed through her leash, and peed on the floor... twice. OMG, what had I gotten us into?!

I wasn't willing to admit defeat just yet, so when I got home, I let her off her frayed leash and showed her to our fenced backyard. She ran like the wind, circling the yard, darting up and down the steps to the deck, jumping and twirling and leaping with joy. When the kids got home from school, she ran over to meet them and introduce herself, and she did just fine. The kids were thrilled. I was right after all. She HAD needed us, and perhaps we even needed her. It was going to be okay.

Like the wind!

Owen, Phil and Natalie meeting the new dog.

Then she knocked Owen over, scared Natalie up into the tree fort, and jumped in the pond. The OMG-what-had-I-gotten-us-into feeling returned full force.

In the goldfish pond!

Over the course of the next few days, it followed that same pattern. She was fine for a while and then she'd do something totally crazy. What the hell? This dog was NOTHING like what I had expected or wanted. She was NOTHING like Rika. She barked a lot (often at nothing in particular), she NEVER held still, and she completely obliterated anything with stuffing in it.

 

We ended up naming the beast Ruby Sue, after a character in "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" because they expressed many of the same qualities--brown eyes, kind of cute but kind of homeless-looking, and no social tact whatsoever.

One of the many iconic scenes from "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation."

I really struggled with what to do. This dog was not what I had expected at all.  I cried. I cried a lot, actually, because instead of filling the hole that Rika's passing had left behind, this new dog just made it even worse. Truthfully, I wanted to give her back, and so did Phil. Every time I thought that Ruby Sue was starting to calm down, she'd chew on something else, or jump on one of us, or knock something over. However, she already had a new name, and a crate, and food, and a few toys, and the kids would be absolutely crushed if she didn't stay, and we'd made a commitment, so we kind of had to keep her. Maybe all she needed was more time to get used to us. After all, we had proven we were awesome doggy parents before. She probably just needed some more nurturing and then she'd be just fine.

The Winter That Would NEVER END!

This has been THE! LONGEST! WINTER! EVER!

Winter in Ohio sucks pretty much every year. It's cold. It's dark. The "color" (if you can even call it that) gray is everywhere. Because of repeated spells of ridiculously low, sub-zero temperatures, the insane amount of snow, one crazy ice storm, the POLAR VORTEX, and the unbelievable number of school delays and cancellations, however, this year has been worse than anything we've experienced in a long time. Here's a glance at what our weekly schedule has looked like for the past month and a half.

As you can see, we have had a LOT of snow days. We've had so many, in fact, that we have maxed out our pre-allowed five calamity days and are now in the position of having to dip into our summer break to make up for the extra time the kids have missed. (Edited to add: as of last week, our school has adopted the "Blizzard Bags" solution to avoid having to stay open into June. I promise to weigh in on this decision at another date, perhaps when my patience is a little thicker.) Also, "snow day" actually is kind of a misnomer. We have had more cancellations due to dangerously low temperatures and ice accumulation than actual snow this year. I will add, too, that cold weather days are even more frustrating than real snow days because you pretty much are trapped in the house because it's too cold to play outside, and the car either won't turn on at all, or has some weird/scary noises and issues if it does actually start. 

In any case, my family is luckier than most because I work part-time at Granny's Garden School, and we hold classes only during planting and harvesting season. Therefore, I'm off for the vast majority of the cold winter months. This means when our schedule is disrupted, Phil and I generally don't have to scramble around to figure out which one of us will rearrange things... again... so someone can be home with the kids... again. The downside of this arrangement is that every time there is some kind of delay or cancellation, I'm always the one who is home with the kids. Believe me, it's not as fun or as easy as it sounds. Actually, I take that back. It *is* kind of fun at first. It's by the fifth or sixth time in a row that things start getting a little insane. It looks a bit like this: 

Snow Day Number One 

How exciting! A day off! Let's make a snow fort, bake cookies, and drink hot chocolate! SO GLAD we wore our pajamas backwards and flushed ice cubes down the toilet last night! I love hanging out with you guys and I know you love hanging out with me just as much! Life is AWESOME!  

Snow Day Number Two

Well, that's a bonus. We can do some cool tricks that only work when it's super cold out -- turn boiling water into steam, watch bubbles turn to ice, freeze a wet shirt in six minutes flat! Then we can spend the rest of the day in front of the TV watching movies together. So fun! You guys are the best.  

Snow Day Number Three

It's okay. I got this. Yes, I know you're starting to get bored. Let's have a jammie day and order pizza. Why don't you read a book? Stop picking on your sister. Don't tease your brother. PLEASE find something on TV other than Disney XD. Are you seriously STILL playing Minecraft? Ugh, Mommy needs a timeout in her room by herself! How much longer until your father gets home?

Snow Day Number Four

Well, at least they canceled last night instead of giving us a 5 a.m. wake-up call this time. How about you play with some of those million toys you got for Christmas? No? Okay, I know! You can clean out the toy cabinets! Doesn't that sound like fun!? Seriously, stop picking on each other. I mean it. Really. I'm not joking around. Listen to what I'm saying - STOP IT. You can't keep your hands to yourselves? Fine! Then go to your rooms! SERIOUSLY, GO TO YOUR ROOMS AND LIKE IT!

Snow Day Number Five 

OMG, really? Again? You have GOT to be kidding me! What do you mean it's too cold? It's like ten degrees warmer than last week! "That which does not kill me makes me stronger." "That which does not kill me makes me stronger." "That which does not kill me makes me stronger." I repeat it in my head approximately two-thousand times.

Snow Day Number Six 

Ugh! Mommy needs another time out. Unless there is blood or fire, DO NOT disturb me... and if I find out which one of you has been flushing ice cubes again, I'm taking your iPod away for a week!

So, there you go. I think that by now, my kids are just as sick of hanging out with me as I am of hanging out with them. I love them. I really do. And I know they love me as well. We have just had a crazy amount of together time this year so far and it's beyond time to get back in a regular, predictable, boring routine. 

That which doesn't kill me makes me stronger.
I am going to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger during his prime-steroid-use years at this rate.

P.S. It hasn't been all bad. Here's a sampling of a few good times this winter. :) 

     Desserts at IKEA in -10 degree temps. Our windshield washer fluid was
frozen solid and the minivan was making some concerningly weird noises that day.

Damp t-shirt experiment in -12 degree temps. It took six minutes to completely freeze.

Huge slabs of snow/ice. This was on snow day number five.
Praise the universe, it was warm enough to send them outside!

Snow drifts as tall as mailboxes (and tiki torches) in the balmy 28 degree weather.
Thank goodness we are one day closer to SPRING!

Introducing Owen, Child Two of Two

Then there were four... people, that is. Little Owen joined our family 23 months after Natalie was born.

9 lb. 4 oz. of pure love! Yes, I know he was a BIG BABY.
Pretty much every person who ever saw him told us so!

I could tell from the first time I met him that he is an old soul. He just had this look about him that said, "Yeah, I know what's going on. Been there, done that." He even resembled a little old man. When he got old enough to walk, he would often saunter around with one hand in his pocket. He's intuitive, and curious, and so, SO smart. He's also the funniest kid I've ever met, and he comes up with at least one crazy question or comment or observation every day. A random sampling:

"Mom, I'm so tired I could sleep on a bed of nails!"

"How do lice go on vacation? Wait for it... They go to the hairport." 

"Mom, what's the scientific name for the word "booger"?

"Don't ever lick your lips when you're getting a haircut."

"I need to go take a shower. I do some of my best thinking in there."

"Mom, are there wild cows? Like, where do cows come from? Are they native somewhere?" Me: "Um, I have no idea. We'll have to look that up." Owen: "Okay. Hey, can we get some spray-on jeans?"

"Uuuuuggggghhhhh! Why is it that summer is like a rocket but the school year is like an old lady running a 5K!?"

"Mom, can I have a toad?" "No." "A parakeet?" "No." "Salamander?" "No." "Ant farm?" "No." "Tree frog?" "No." "Okay. How about a toad?"

Owen loves playing sports (soccer, in particular) and being outside. He's a big reader and we often have to make him turn off his lights at night because he'd stay up all night reading if we'd let him. He's really into learning about science and nature and animals, and he is the proud father to a bearded dragon named Fireball. He has more energy than any other child I know, and he is always hungry. Seriously, always. He's stubborn and clever. He's adventurous and curious and absorbs new information like a sponge. He is a good friend to his classmates, an annoying little brother to Natalie, and the best son I could ever ask for. He's my little buddy.

Owen, third grade, age 8 1/2. Still my little buddy... for now, at least! 

I'm dreading the day when he no longer wants to climb into bed and cuddle and chat before school. (I did go to school today to volunteer and got a hug from him, however, so I'm hanging onto the hope that maybe it will continue for a little bit longer at least.) Every once in a while, I'll catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye and I think, "WHOA, when did he get so tall?!" It's funny, because I think I still picture him as my little preschooler who'd hang out and go shopping with me when his sister was gone all day, but he's grown a lot since then. This child has so much potential; I can't wait to see what he becomes when he grows up!

Until then, I'm just trying to savor every minute.

Introducing Natalie, Child One of Two

8 lb. 11 oz. of pure love

After Julius (our first "baby") had lived with us for a few years, Natalie joined the family. I know I'm a bit biased, but she's a real sweetie (except when she's around her little brother, but I think that's to be expected). She amazes me every day with her creativity and kindness.

Natalie is extremely sensitive, pretty reserved, and rather shy, but this year I'm starting to notice that she's growing out of that a bit. Maybe middle school has given her some much-deserved self esteem. She's into art, animals, cheer, friends, playing outside with the neighbors, watching silly shows on Disney XD, and goofing around on her iPod Touch. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that last night she taught me how to turn off an annoying delivery alert noise on my tablet. She's smart and has a crazy good memory. She can recall things that happened years ago, including what we were wearing, specific things people said, etc. For some reason, this hasn't translated into schoolwork... yet... but we're working on it. Wouldn't that be a great skill to have?! She also seems to be the only one in our family (for a few generations, in fact) who has any sense of direction. When she was three years old, she could tell us exactly how to get from our house to Gymboree for tumbling.

Natalie, age 10

For her eleventh birthday, she asked to redecorate her room. I'm all into this... except that the state of her bedroom often (read: almost always) looks like something out of the "Hoarders" show on TLC. We have, after much discussion, many trips to various stores, and a few false starts, picked out some new bedding and tween decor to match.

The next step will be to choose a paint color. We have told her that once her room is picked up enough that we can wipe down the dresser and shampoo the carpet, THEN we can go to Lowe's and pick up some paint swatches. Anyone want to wager how long this will take her? My guess is mid-March. I have been secretly going in there when she's at school and pulling out a few forgotten stuffed animals, cheap plastic knick-knacks, and random art supplies every day. If it weren't for that, I'd estimate her finish date to be around the fourth of July. 

After a clean room and new paint, we'll put on the new bedding and start accessorizing (which is really the fun part!) I'll post a picture when it's finished. As long as we get it completed before her twelfth birthday, I'll be pretty proud. Only 345 days to go!