Birdhouses, Beaches and Birthdays

Last Saturday was a very special day. It was beloved Aunt Joyce's birthday. Well, actually it was several weeks ago and we've been trying (unsuccessfully) for weeks to orchestrate our schedules to meet up Aunt Joyce and Mr. Jay to celebrate. We finally had a semi-conducive weekend, so we took it. Our original plans were to have an outing at the Huntington Library, but I was on call for work and had to stay local, so we forced them to celebrate by coming to us. It was a fun time nevertheless. Gramlynne also came by to add to the chaos.

We started out with gifts - they were lawn & garden inspired. The kids had painted Aunt Joyce yellow bird house that looked just like our house, and they made her a cement garden stone imprinted with their footprints. (OK, so there was some adult supervision involved...)








Then there was a trip to the beach for lunch and a stroll.








And finally, back home for the requisite birthday cake!

I think the thing we like best about Aunt Joyce is how seriously she takes her responsibilities as a role-model and mentor.

Evidently Mr. Jay shares my attitude of "I've made my bed, now I've got to lie in it."

Sickos and Sandwiches

It's been wicked hot the last couple of days, and it hasn't helped that we've had kiddos running some pretty significant fevers. L started shaking and quaking in church on Sunday (and we don't even go to that kind of church). When we got her home she was running a fever of 102.5°F. She continued to radiate the rest of the night with the fury of a million burning suns, of course wanting to cuddle up with Mommy and Daddy who were already quite sticky and bitter at the general ambient temperature to begin with. It lasted all day Monday and finally broke around 2am last night, again while cuddled up next to her perspiratorily penalized parents.

This morning she was a creature returned to her right mind, but that's only because the fell demon of trembling had only relocated one bed over. So now all day long N has been quaking and shaking, whining and fussing, and generally in need of an exorcism. You know he's sick when he asks to go to bed at 6:00.

We took his temperature. Wow!



OK, so maybe the demons of Photoshop have been joining in the fun, but it was still a little high.

Too hot to make dinner, Stacy subcontracted the job out to me so I swung by the store and got all the fixings for mongo sandwiches. Mounds of turkey, beef and salami, tucked in with tattered blankets of Swiss cheese, slathered with mayo, mustard and horseradish, bedecked with lettuce from our garden, red onion, and some fairly cardboardesque tomatoes; a drizzle of olive oil and wine vinegar and a dusting of salt, pepper, oregano and thyme. All this, as one might say, "sandwiched" between a huge loaf of bisected french bread. Perfection!

L, obviously intimidated by Daddy's handiwork.

Underwear and Whipped-cream Hair

Lately N has been (shockingly) asking to be potty trained, and has successfully undergone a few trial runs and shakedown cruises in big-boy underwear. He's quite proud of himself and wants to be sure everyone in the family is intimately aware of, and immediately updated to, any changes in his various bodily functions.

Tonight, as a reward for his burgeoning alimentary maturity, I introduced N to that most American of coming-of-age traditions, the hallowed direct-sucking-of-the-aerosol-whipped-cream-straight-from-the-can ritual. All concerns of dairy-induced asphyxiation aside, my little protégé quickly became a master of the craft and made his Daddy proud. Unfortunately his enthusiasm became so intense that we ended up in the odd position of having to curb him with the withholding of the whipped cream until he ate all his dessert.

Strike Six! They're out!

1) A day in the sun running around the garage sale.
2) No nap.
3) A late afternoon drive to the Valley to visit great-grandparents.
4) A dinner from 7:30-8:30.
5) A quick swing through Burbank to drop off stuff for family friends.
6) A homecoming at 9:45.

Put them all together and you get a lot of fussing, pouting and whining, and eventually this:

Memories Like the Corner of My Garage

We're divesting today.

For Stacy, having a garage sale is a little like selling a piece of your soul. The thought of some undiscerning slob walking away with our prized possessions for pennies on the dollar is an abhorrence. After all, that lid-less lavender tea pot with the burnt orange place mat was a gift from great grandma during her semi-senile years and has been building a wealth of sentimentality tucked in that box in the back of the garage for the last decade. And that macrame owl that lets you put in pots of artificial zinnias and plastic marigolds was inherited from Aunt So-and-So after she died of severe bad taste.

Sta:	"I can't believe that ingrate wanted to talk me down from a dollar on that shirt!"
Ste:	"Would you pay a dollar for that in some other smuck's garage sale?"
Sta:	"Well, no, but this isn't any shirt - this shirt is the one N wore the day he projectile vomited for the first time. That's significant."
Ste:	"I see how that might drive up the price."

Stacy is learning the hard way that sentimentality contributes zippo to net worth. (OK, so maybe I'm exaggerating our conversation a little.)


But I have my heartaches too, not with the kiddie crap I've been trying to get out of the garage for what seems far longer than we've had kids. My separation anxiety kicks in anytime something even remotely tool-like or utilitarian actually gets bought. I put our a set of three-headed track lights. They were decent looking and clean and I always thought I'd put them up somewhere, but never found a spot and was pretty sure that I wouldn't find a spot in the near term. So in the spirit of recovering real estate, I added them to the sale pile for $5. They were snapped up within a minute, so I was immediately plagued with self-doubt and accusation. "I probably should have asked $10... If I had held on to those, I'm sure I could have found a good use for them. That guy practically stole those!..."

The kids seem to be having mixed reactions to the whole thing. L has been very generous adding all N's toys to the pile, but seems quite concerned that we're selling baby bottles and other infant paraphernalia. I keep going back into the house and finding stuff squirreled away back inside.

N just wants to wear all the sparkly red Dorothy shoes that L is supposed to be selling.

So if you want to get some priceless memories for a criminal steal, our junk is for you! But just remember, if you actually buy anything, we'll resent you for it forever.

Breakfast of ADD Champions

Stacy is pretty good about buying the kids somewhat healthy, though thoroughly tasteless breakfast cereals. I was quite surprised when I actually tasted one of the boxes that I've seen around quite a bit. It was pretty good -- too good to be healthy.

Concerned, I quickly scanned the ingredient list expecting to see the usual line-up of malfactors. Much to my surprise, the obvious offenders where nowhere to be found, so I was forced to conclude it was healthy indeed.



I bet it would be even healthier if they added a little emulsion of agitated bovine lacto-lipids.

Purging the Attic

Spring cleaning! All the junk in our attic was becoming a seismic risk, so we decided to actually do the purging we kept talking about doing. We were already planning to do a garage sale next weekend, so now we'll have stuff to sell.

L and N were quite intrigued with the attic, so they were each hauled up to the nether reaches for a bit so they could cover themselves in fiberglass and termite droppings as we hauled down the bags and bundles.



Stacy began going through the bags of kiddie clothes (easily 90% of the junk up there) and getting teary. The maudlin conversation began to take on a repetitive tone.

"Oh, that's the dress she wore on Easter! Remember?"
"Ahh, No."

"Oh! That's the outfit the Cases bought her. Remember?"
"Ummm, No."

"Oh! L's first Halloween costume! Remember?"
"Errr, No."

"Oh! That's the sundress you got her on your trip to Washington! Remember?"
"Hmmm, No."

While we were distracted with the sorting, L slipped off and somehow managed to fully assemble all the pieces of an old high chair (sans the nuts and bolts) and climb up into it, swaying alarmingly. Meanwhile N fed most of his apple to our dispirited Betta fish. Old costumes, however, quickly refocused attentions in less destructive directions, leaving Mommy and Daddy to return to recovering the living areas.

Morning Muppet Melodies

Yesterday L's friend Gracie came over to play and brought L and N a bag full of beautiful hand puppets that she didn't play with any more and wanted to pass along. We tucked them away quickly last night and it wasn't until early this morning when they were actually discovered by their new puppeteers.

Today was my last day of jury duty and therefore my last relaxing morning of kicking back until my 10:00 court time, but I was up around 6:00 this morning anyway trying to get back onto a work biorhythm. I was sitting out on the couch reading quietly when I heard the rustling of a plastic bag behind me in the kitchen and the double squeals of delight that surely indicated the plethora of puppets had been uncovered. There was a moment or two of excited whispering from the kitchen that had all the hallmarks of a plan being hatched. Presently my quiet was run asunder by a sudden, shrill, and not-too-in-tune rendition of It's a Small World at copious volume. Not quite sure why I was being subjected to this particular melodic favorite of mine (a favorite kind of along the lines of kidney stones), so I turned to see where the "music" was coming from. And then I realized: I hadn't been cruelly transported by some evil sorcerer to the It's a Small World ride; the ride had come to me!

For the next fifteen minutes I was treated to an endlessly repeated, though quite spirited duet of the song (and it's amazing how much "endless" can fit in fifteen minutes), while a parade of puppeteers slowly marched past me wearing various hand puppets, each rather spastically gyrating to the song. Each new pass featured a new and different hand puppet. It was hard to tell if the puppets were purporting to sing the song, or to be having long, sustained, dramatic seizures.