Wuv and Other Things Abstract

Today Tristan said "love", although I didn't really get it at first.

T: Gwass. Horse. Rough Gwass.
M: Horses rough grass?
T: ROUGH gwass. Wuuuuff gwass. Horse.
M: Oh! Horses love grass?
T: Yeah, eat. Horse wuv gwass.

Later he sat hugging his blanket and looked over at me and said, "Wuv."

We're sitting now watching Finding Nemo while we're waiting for Dad and Julius to get back from baseball practice. He leaned over at the beginning of the movie and said, "Sad. Nemo, sad."

I said, "Don't worry, he'll get happy soon. Just watch." And soon he was happy and Tristan smiled really big and said, "Nemo. Happy!" And life was good.

Love, sadness, happiness. Big day for abstract concepts at our place tonight.

I'm So Disorganized

Trying something new to get more organized. When people call me I jot notes down on little pieces of paper, so I end up with hundreds of little pieces of paper that I have to deal with and until I deal with them they hang around like awkward nerds at a dance party.

So I'm thinking I'll try a notebook instead. I am hopeless, frankly. And pessimistic about ever becoming tidy.

Making Conversational Progress

Tristan is going fast forward on his ability to speak and now is actually making some conversations.

I was working on the dishes after dinner:

T: Pime out. Dewyus. (Time out. Julius.)

Me: Is Julius on a time out?

T: Naughty.

Me: Was Julius being naughty?

T: Mmhmm. Pime out.

And he's VERY SERIOUS about telling me. He holds up one finger and points at me to make his serious point. Sometimes he will tilt his head down and look up from under his eyebrows and nod, very serious.

I nearly die from the adorableness of is all.

Soap Stars

The boys and I made soap stars. No equipment or special ingredients needed. Super easy! See instructions below.

My kids like to play with the soap in the bathtub and they ended up wasting a lot of soap. So instead of having to police them in the bathtub and holler at them all the time about using all the soap I decided to make them their own little mini soaps that they can use.

Bear in mind, I am not a soap expert so there might be some weird variations if you use a different soap than I used or add anything like coloring or scent. I'll just tell you what I did and you can experiment on your own and not hold me responsible if you make a big kitchen disaster because of my shoddy instructions. :)

What you need:

• one bar of Dove soap
  
• cheese grater
  
• small container of hot water and a spoon
  
• bowl
  
• optional: a mold, ice cube tray or mini-muffin tin
  

Before you begin, cover your work area! The soap sticks to stuff like crazy and is a huge pain to clean up!

Grate the soap in a bowl. Spoon in 1 tbsp of hot water to start and then smoosh the soap around with your hand until it's soft and you can shape it. It might take an additional tablespoon of water. IMPORTANT: LESS WATER IS BETTER. DO NOT ADD TOO MUCH WATER. (That's the most important hint I can give you.)

At this point you can shape the soap into balls and be done with it if you just want round balls of soap. One time I added some lavender and made soap balls as gifts.

If you want shapes you can press the soap into a mold of some sort. The best thing I have found so far is the flexible silicone molds they sell as ice trays at party stores or Hobby Lobby. You don't have to oil them to get them out of the pan. If you use something like a regular ice tray or the muffin tin you should probably spray Pam in the container.

Use a spoon to press the softened soap into the molds. (For what I was doing I only did it halfway because I wanted the tiniest bars possible.) If you don't like that the soap looks lumpy on the exposed part you can wet your finger and rub them smooth, just don't use too much water. Try to pack in the soap really well so when they are dry they will hold together well.

Let them sit overnight and then pop them out of the mold and let them cure for a few days. They should be completely dry before use.

Depending on big your bars are you can get anywhere from 4 to 15 mini-bars out of one big bar of soap.

SQUEEEEZE!

Things that make me want to squeeze my kids until they POP!

1) Julius, while watching the news with us, says, "I finally understand why you like watching the news so much. This is really good stuff."

2) Tristan laying his face against my face and saying, "Mommy!"

3) Tristan hugging me in the funny little way that he hugs me.

4) Julius and his silly magic tricks that aren't magic.

5) Long conversations with Julius.

6) Tristan's hysterical laugh when he gets tickled.

7) How brave Julius is when it's time for another surgery.

8) Tristan saying, "ha ha, get me" and not having a clue what it means.

9) Tristan pointing to a cloud and calling out its shape.

10) Julius learning to read and the adorable pictures he draws.

I'll stop at ten or I'll go on forever!

Not What You Think

This looks like Julius is kicking the baby in the face, but he's not. Tristan is hugging his shoe. I have no idea why and not really sure I want to know.

The Things You Do

The things you do to get your kid to eat.

Tristan didn't want to eat until I offered to feed him through the back of the chair. Then suddenly dinner was fun and interesting.

Sushi Again

A very crummy quality picture of Julius having sushi. He's practicing hard with the chopsticks!

Tristan Tries the Helmet

Thanks Aunt Tati

Julius loves the Bionicle he got with the birthday money you sent. He built it all by himself! (Ask your brother why he has this funny look on his face.)

Glad to Be Back!

Well, it looks like we're back. We had the blog posting fiasco, then in a moment of Dorkitude I decided what I really needed was a new, more modern phone. After I realized what a dumb idea that was I took it back the morning after I got it and finally, finally managed to get my old phone (a PDA) cooperating with Blogger.

Whew. I should get combat pay for this job. Or at least healthcare. Or at least a cold drink. Right now I don't even get that. I just spent the last five minutes trying to talk my husband into taking me to Taco Bell and I might have even failed there.

*sigh* But at least I'm back in the blogging action! Yay.

More antics to come.

Thanks Shannon

My very special friend Shannon sent Julius and I a book called "Wreck This Journal". So awesome! Basically you do terrible things to the book. Here is Julius with the book after we burned one of the pages.

Go check out the journal. It is fantastic for anyone with kids or anyone who feels like they need a little help breaking the rules. This makes you do it! (Also, if you feel like ordering this book, or others, for yourself... shameless plug: Clicking on the link and ordering from here helps support all my blogging sites.)

Also, over at that page there are 50+ pictures of wrecked journals that are pretty cool.

Shannon knew we'd have fun with this one!

Guitar Hero

Tristan rocks down in an Indiana Jones hat and an electric guitar.

Last Day of Speech Therapy

Tristan has finally caught up and no longer needs to go to speech therapy. Her he is climbing the gravel pile on his last day there with Miss Gina.

Still No Pictures

Yeah, well you'd think being moderately skilled with technology I would have fixed the problem with this blog, but haven't.

In the meantime, here is yet another tap-dancing interlude to keep you amused (or possibly sickened) while I'm frantically working behind the scenes. That noise you hear is me banging my phone down onto the tabletop repeatedly.

* * *

Tristan: (pulling the cord out of my laptop)
Me: Tristan, put that back.
Julius: No, don't do it!
Tristan: (looking between the two of us trying to decide who to listen to)
Me: Tristan, plug the cord back into Mommy's computer.
Julius: No, really, don't. Don't do it! Listen to me!
Tristan: (he looks convinced by Julius and begins to set the cord down on the floor)
Me: Who can spank you?
Tristan: (plugs the cord in)
Julius: Oh, man!
Me: (looking at Julius) Mommy wins. Again.

MUAHAHAHAHAHA!

Cool New Balloon Trick

Still no luck getting our technical problems fixed. The phone company thinks it's Blogger. Great. In the meantime, here is how my morning started:

Julius: Mom, do you want to see me shoot balloon air out through my nose?

Me: Um.... Yeah, I guess so. (Honestly, I really wasn't sure I wanted to, but was trying to be polite because I like him to have good self-esteem and think his mother cares about Stupid Boy Tricks.)

Julius proceeds to blow the balloon up, then release the balloon and somehow directing the air to shoot out his nose. (How does he even do that? And without gagging himself or falling unconscious which is what I would do.)

This has the added bonus (for him) of long strings of mucus to fling out forcefully, waving like slimy pennants at a windy stadium.

I shriek and dive under the table yelling, "OH THAT IS SO GROSS. STOP DOING THAT! GO BLOW YOUR NOSE. NO... WAIT WAIT... you HAVE TO go show your dad that trick!"

About half an hour later we did a retrospective of the event. He came and sat next to me, a thoughtful look on his face and said, "I can't believe I can shoot balloon air out my nose."

I said, "Yeah, me either."

We Interrupt Our Regularly Scheduled Program

We're having some technical difficulties over here. Sometime between March 2nd and now my phone will no longer post to the blog. It's gone completely on strike. Or it might be Blogger since I can send messages to other places and not the blog. Regular readers know I post to this blog almost exclusively to this blog via phone.

So, bear with me. The family has not gone on hiatus or to the jungle where there are no cell towers. Nor something worse and far more sinister. And also we don't have chicken pox or any other contagion. Nor did we eat trunk tamales and die.

Nor did tiny little people come to carry us off to see Gulliver. We also did not sign up for any experimental NASA Family space programs in which we'd be shot into the vacuum of space at high speeds. (Because, honestly in that scenario it would not be the vacuum of space that would kill us... it would be space madness.) I also, despite unconfirmed reports, have not lost my sense of humor.

Speaking of space madness, you can enjoy this in the meantime. It's one of my favorite cartoon episodes. The clip is long, but guarantees you will fully integrate the term "space madness" into your vocabulary as I have.

How Smart My Kid Is

Tristan and I just spent the last 10 minutes playing, "Catch the Pointer" in which he tries to poke the cursor on the monitor and I move the mouse around and pretend the little pointy hand (cursory thingy) is trying to get away from him.

As far as fun-factor is concerned, this closely competes with the game "Catch the Flashlight Beam" in which I sit on the couch and shine a flashlight around on the walls and furniture and both boys fling themselves around wildly trying to capture the light.

I really should get some of these moments on video. I could be rich.

Dig It

Tristan digs in the potted plant at Miss Gina's.

Superheroes are Clean

Superheroes always make sure they put their trash in the trash can.

Who's There!?

Who's following me? Oh, nevermind. It's my shadow. At first I thought it was something far more sinister!

On the Alert for Danger

Our intrepid superhero gazes out over the landscape to make sure all is well. No crime here!

Why I'm Cold

What kind of big dork goes into the snow wearing crocs? That would be me. My boots were at the office and I couldn't find my sneakers. I think the boys hid them thinking it might keep me from going. WRONG-O!

All I can say is, "Brr!"

The Road Less Traveled

I don't know if you can see it but what is in front of the vehicle is a "road". Yep, that's all they're giving me. This is a fun and crazy job sometimes.

In the Woods

It's 24 degrees and a light dusting of snow on the ground. I'm in the woods with clients on a road too rough to drive. They are walking down the mountain to find the swimming hole.

You know that ass I had this morning when I left the house? I've frozen it off.

Okay, actually it's nice out here. No screaming kids. ;)