Snapshot Sunday

You wanted to see our toilet, right?




The after-effects of camping.

How it began.

Other snapshots -
Sunnymama
Heart Rockin' Mama
Lovely Kyre

Poodles, the 18th century, and magpies.

-Ainsley asked me to put this hat (scroll down to the debutante picture) - all pink and fur and ribbons - on Cygnus. I did and between giggles she said "He looks like a poodle!" It made me laugh because I don't think she's ever in her two-and-a-half years on this earth seen a real live poodle. She recently asked for a poodle book from the library and she went through it, but I don't recall more than a few of the poodles in the book being dressed up fancy.

-Every so often, Hannah says something that even I don't know where she got it from. The other day, Ainsley came into the bathroom where Hannah and I were, grabbed some bracelets and put them on. Hannah looked at them, noticed that the pink bracelet was not the closest to Ainsley's wrist, and decided to help her out with some fashion advice. "Ainsley," says she, "are you stuck in the Eighteenth Century or something? The pink goes in front."

Ainsley responded with her usual impertuable "Oh. Otay, Hannah." and moved the bracelet while I just stared at Hannah. "Where did you learn that, Hannah?" "I don't know. It's just in my brain." Fair enough. Luckily, Matt knew where she'd heard it. They'd watched some Duck Tales episodes on YouTube and the Eighteenth Century featured prominently in one of them. Random.

-Ainsley's at the cute stage where words that are similar get used in place of each other. Example: Killdeer becomes John Deere. As in "Mommy me just saw a John Deere! It was peetending to be boken!"

Or Rhubarb Pie becomes Magpie. As in "Mommy are you making magpie again?" (Actually, 'magpie' is quite common around here since it's Ains' current favorite word and insult. You get her frustrated and you're likely to hear "You .... you .... MAGPIE!")

-Hannah insists that Grayson's first word is 'Hannah'. She could be right. He says 'NAnnah!" clearly and frequently when he looks at her. He also says it clearly and frequently when he's looking at cats, dogs, birds, flowers, the sandbox, the bikes, and horse poo. But Hannah believes it's her name, so sibling rivalry has kicked in. Every time Gray says "NAnnah!", Ains gets right in his face and starts chanting "AINSley. AINSley!" She does this so much that if he were a parrot, he'd be repeating her name by now. In fact, I'm surprised that the local crows aren't flying around cawing "AINSley. AINSley!"

What is that on your feet?

Remember me mentioning that we'd have spotty internet connectivity for a bit out here? Yeah.

On to happier subjects.

This evening, when Matt came home from work, I told him that Gray was asleep in the bedroom and that I was heading out to plant more sunflowers. I came back in an hour later and Matt was crashed so I headed to check on Gray.

I'd left the door to the bedroom open, but it was now shut (by Gray when he'd gotten up) and it was locked (likely from Ains playing with it). No problem. It was one of those doorknobs with a hole in the center, so you could easily unlock it by pushing a match in there. Or a skewer. Or a chopstick. Actually, none of those worked like they were supposed to.

After a few minutes of trying to open the door, I could hear Gray going from wanting to come out to fussing because he could hear me but couldn't see me. I got Matt and asked him to try. When he started trying, Gray started fussing louder, so I laid down to look under the door and try to get him to play with my fingers to distract him.

When I looked under the door I saw the cutest little baby feet walking back and forth. Dirty little baby feet. When had he gotten in mud? I didn't remember him being in mud before he went down for his nap.

Then he walked away from the door and I saw it. His diaper. Off and laying on the floor and poopy and he was walking through it. Then he turned and came back to the door. Through his diaper. I was narrating this to Matt who decided right about the time he heard "OMG, it's poop!" that that doorknob needed to come off.

While he unscrewed the doorknob, I got the bathtub running and as soon as Matt got the doorknob off, he was handing the babe to me to wash. Washing Gray was much faster than scrubbing the carpet. That kid covered a lot of ground in the room in a few minutes. Mud would have been easier.

How hot is it now that summer is here?

Hot enough to melt crayons on the deck.


Hot enough to need root beer popsicles.


Hot enough to make a fruit salad.



It's always hot enough to tease your sisters.


Maybe a bit too hot to do 'training'.


But it's never too hot to go for a pony ride.


By the way, Ainsley's most common phrase these days is 'Change cothes! I change cothes.' Thanks to her older sister, she has figured out how much fun it is to change clothes ten times an hour. Go back and look at all the pictures again - fun stuff.

Pirates are funny.

Hee.

Hee hee.

Heeheeheeheeheehee!

Arrrggghh!!! Me im Pincess Piwut AINSEY!


Hee.

Art with flowers and fabric.

Before we moved, we made flower art with flowers and grasses from our property. I got the idea from OLM. Of course. She's full of lovely ideas.

We gathered up the necessary collecting receptacles. A bug net for Ainser...

and a basket for Hannah.

Then we filled the basket full of flowers and grasses and leaves.

The bug net got filled with chicken eggs.

Then we laid a piece of linen down on some cardboard, arranged the pretties on top, covered them with another piece of linen, and the girls took turns hammering.

I couldn't get pictures of their 'flower paintings' because they've carried them with them in their backpacks since we made them and... I'm afraid I can't find their backpacks. I know they're around somewhere. Maybe the car? Or the kitchen? Or under boxes in the craft room? I dunno.

Anyway, here's the one that they helped me arrange and make.

It's sitting in my 'to do' pile in the craft room. I was just going to put it in a frame and put it in their room, but it's calling to me. I'm thinking maybe I'll embroider to clarify and add detail? Not much, just a bit. I'm still thinking on it.

Getting ready for camping.

Doing a dry run tonight. I promised the girls that if it was a nice night, we'd pull out the tent and camp in the yard. When we got back from our chore run to the old house and I brought the tent out to the yard, both girls started squealing.

They squealed as I pulled it out of the bag.

They squealed as we set it up.

They squealed as they got sleeping bags and pillows.

They squealed as they brought out books.


And then they sat down on their sleeping bags, it got quiet, and I heard Hannah ask Ainsley "Now what?" Ainsley said "Don know, Hannah."
So they came out and started running around the tent and squealing like it was a Chinese Fire Drill.

We said good night to Daddy and went out to the tent. I read books while they alternately bounced up and down giggling hysterically and reorganized their stuff. Then Ainsley passed out. Then Hannah passed out. The squealing has stopped.

Now I have come in for some water and must head back out again. I am so glad we got the first-time-sleeping-in-a-tent squeals out of the way before any family reunion camping trips.

Good night!

Almost all of our books are packed up and sitting in boxes in our bunkhouse. Somewhere in those many boxes are the Little House books that are being asked for daily.

This has been my bookshelf for the last month or so.

That and about twenty or thirty library books in the bedroom book basket. And any books spread around the house. When we packed the house itself to move, these were the books that needed to come over.

My husband said something along the lines of "Wow. We do have a lot of books." Um. ... ... That's mostly library books. I hate to take him in the bunkhouse and show him the boxes of books.

Funny thing you notice when you move quickly is where your priorities are. Ice cream makes it, spoons don't.
So you use what you have and bring the spoons over on the next trip. And the chocolate sauce. Don't know how my priorities got screwed up enough to forget that.

Found beauty.

While cleaning up odds and ends to move, I found lots of random scattered beauty.

There was this little drawing by Ainsley -


and this by Hannah -



Pleasure is easily found in simple places, isn't it?

Snapshot Sunday

Today's Snapshot Sunday will be a bit boring for most, but is tearful for me. The house is shiny and sparkly and ready to go on the market. Three years of my life have been lived in this house. Two of the most important people in my life have begun their lives in this house.

I'm leaving the house where I gave birth to two of my children and came into my own in so many parts of my life. I'm very sad to be leaving it.

I've also spent the last two days scrubbing it. I'm very glad to be leaving it.








And I'm very sad to be leaving this tub. I tried to talk my husband into bringing it with us but I didn't get too far with that...


How it began.

Other Snapshots from around the blogosphere:

Ramblings
Heart Rockin Mama
Steph
SunnyMama
Amber
West Coast Girl
Leslie
Hope

Comment if you have a Snapshot Sunday and I'll add you!

Overheard...

at our old house tonight, while I was cleaning in the kitchen and the girls were sitting in the hallway.

Hannah showed Ains her necklace and said "My grandpa gave me this necklace. It means a lot to me. He died in the Great War of Possachossa."

Ains replied. "Mine Gandpa killed by shark." After a pause in which her sister didn't sound impressed enough, she added "And a tiger. And a cawkadile. Mine Gandpa very dead."

Update.

Our move sped up unexpectedly with the availability of my father to help move the 'big stuff' (which quickly turned into 'everything in the house') over the weekend.

This has made my internet access patchy as we're not set up here at the new place until June 8. Posting will be sporadic for a few weeks. Also, I've added two new links to Snapshot Sunday, so check those out.

The birding here has been a bit more ... in your face than at the other place. Ainsley walked out on the porch yesterday morning and left the sliding door open about a foot. Hannah, who was sleeping on the couch, woke up to a barn swallow flying over her head. She had a smile on her face all day and Ains was thrilled because she got to use her bug net to catch the bird and put it back outside. Catching it wasn't hard - we just stuck the net over the bird as it sat at the window.

Later in the day we went into the pasture to measure out Hannah's running track and saw some killdeers running around yelling at the dog. I thought that we might be lucky enough to see them playing at having a broken wing and sure enough, they did. Then I turned around and saw the cutest thing - about five little baby killdeers running around in the grass. Five inches tall, four of those inches legs. We called Cygnus back and got out of there before he saw them. I need to try to get a picture of them. Soooo cute.

We've also gotten to see American Avocets at a little pond near here. I wish that I had the ability to easily add pictures from this computer. One more thing to figure out in the next few weeks.

Snapshot Sunday

How it began.

Check out these other Snapshot Sundays. Comment here if you want me to add you!

Heart Rockin' Mama
Sunnymama
Arizona Sunshine
Sherry

Added since Sunday:
Rinnyboo
Steph

How unschoolers learn about reproduction.*

*Please note that this is not how unschoolers learn about reproduction.

Yesterday morning, when Hannah was making pancakes, she asked for help flipping some of the smaller pancakes. This is what I saw when I looked at the grill.


That and this:

Of course, I just had to make up a few more and turn it into an object lesson.*

Two people met and fell in love.

The inevitable happened.

And they had a baby.

It's like finding the Virgin Mary on your griddle, but this one teaches you a sex-ed lesson. Or something.

*Again, this object lesson didn't happen with my kids. It is just for my blog. In fact, I never pointed out to my daughter that the first pancake looked like a fetus. I did not want tears as soon as the fetus' umbilical cord fell off or her sister ate the head. I also never pointed out to her that the second looked like sperm. We'll have that conversation another day.

More food as body parts posts here and here.

Kiddy goodness.

H: Mother, try my food.
S: Are you sure? I don't want to eat your delicious dinner.
H: Of course, please do. It would please me greatly.


H: (After I said that I thought my hair looked nice) Be careful, Mother, or the water nymphs will throw you clear up in the sky like Cassiopeia. That's what they did to her when she was envious.
S: Envious?
H: Um, no. Vain. The nymphs were envious. She was vain. But Andromeda wasn't vain. She just got put in the stars because her mother was vain and her father couldn't kill the sea beast himself.
S: Oh. What was the king's name? I've forgotten.
H: Carl. It's not Harry. That's not a very kingy name. His name's Carl.



The girls are playing their magical creatures game at the table right now. All of the sudden I hear Ains squeal gleefully "I got the HANUMAN! Yay!" Hearing that little voice say hanuman makes me smile.

Meet Dora and Boots.

But, shhh... they're taking a nap.

Once Hannah started pretending, at around 18 months old, she hasn't stopped - sometimes for days at a time. She would bounce from pretend to pretend and we were expected to keep up. If she looked up from a bowl of water that I'd just put down for the 'puppy' and I said something to the 'puppy' but she was now a horse, that could be very bad.

Now that she's older and her pretending has gotten more sophisticated, her sister's starting to pretend independently from her. This means that while sometimes she's Boots to Hannah's Dora, she's more often somebody or something completely different than Hannah is, which means that I have to pretend two completely unrelated storylines at the same time. It can be challenging, but so much fun.

The Perfectly Ugly Storm.

We had a fun day today. Packing, playing, walking, pond exploration, bike riding, egg gathering, tea party-ing. All day. Until 5 pm. Then the perfect storm hit.

Outside, the wind picked up and dust was blowing everywhere. We had to come back in the house but Ainsley still had a ton of happy energy. So did the puppy. Teeth and skin collided, and a tired 2 1/2 year old burst into tears. To make things simpler, the puppy was sent onto the porch where he promptly decided to try and maul one of the kittens, sending Ainsley into a panicked, screaming tornado who couldn't hear her mother yelling at her to get out from between the puppy and the kitten. Her kitten was in danger and her mother was asking her to leave it to the puppy.

I was so scared that the puppy's heightened excitement would lead to Ains getting bitten and was trying desperately to detach myself from a clinging, crying one-year-old who I didn't want anywhere near that situation so that I could save the kitten - and I was tired, hungry, and frustrated with the ever-constant wind and that my daughter couldn't see that she should immediately obey me because mommy just knows best. I yelled. I yelled loud and I yelled mean - it can't even be written off as an 'I was so scared for you' yell - and I broke my little girl's heart. She doesn't cry often, but when she does, she means it. It's a whole body sob because she just has so much sorrow that her whole body shakes with it. Tired, over-excited, thirsty from our long walk, and scared of a puppy's teeth but willing to risk it for her kitten, and then mommy yells directly at her. This made a good day into a bad day for everyone involved.

When their daddy got home, he took them to the store so that their energy and my energy could disengage a bit and they could calm down. I'd not only terrified Ainsley, I'd scared Gray and Hannah. As they were leaving Hannah turned and said "I know you were cranky and mean, Mother, but I forgive you. Ainsley will too." Good lord.

Matt told me after the shopping trip that they worked it through with him, talking about it, and what they remembered was that "Mommy had a bad day. She got angry and it was a bad day." It was one hour. ONE HOUR in an otherwise beautiful day. But they remember it as the whole day.

And this is why four out of the twenty books I kept for our temporary moving bookshelf are parenting books.

I'm not one to post in detail about hard days, but this wasn't a hard day. This turned into a Bad Day. One of those days different from the times when patience is thin, tempers flare, and family members have to remind each other to 'be peace'. One of those days when you look in your child's tear-filled eyes and think "I suck." I've only had a day *this* bad one other time since I began parenting, but this time was worse. Then it only affected my one child but today it affected all three of my children. I do indeed suck, if only for tonight.

Everyone's asleep but me. Matt played with Ains while I cuddled Hannah to sleep and then he went to bed while I nursed Ains. She woke up as I laid her in bed, took my cheeks in her hands, kissed me, and then went unconscious again. I think Hannah was right and she forgave me. I hope that she has forgiven me. I'm sitting here going over what happened, what triggered that reaction in me, how to handle myself and the situation better next time and reassuring myself that I am not my mother. But it's cold comfort to say "At least I didn't hit her" when she remembers the violent voice and demeanor.

I'm reading portions of Raising our Children, Raising Ourselves. I'm crying over the damage I did to my child and the damage that was done to me as a child. And then I'm going to bed and we're going to wake up tomorrow and start over. I'm going to take what I learned today and that will make it less likely to have such harshness occur again. I'm going to forgive my parents a little bit more and I'm going to try to forgive myself.

Tomorrow it will be back to happier posting - maybe even the fun stuff we did today - but tonight this is my reality.

What to do while mom packs.

Build farms.

I got boxes for packing from the recycling center. I was a bit .... optimistic when I picked out some of them. They were too big. You couldn't lift them after they were packed. (I didn't discover this until I'd very proudly packed two of them full.)

So I gave them to the girls to play with on the porch. They ended up making stalls and hallways and a farm kitchen.


Here's one of the ponies. (Very dark in her stall.)


And here's the other.