Resolutions, resolutions

Last year, I can only remember one goal we had for the whole year.  It was a family goal.  We were going to build a garden.  And build one we did.  

We build four 12x4 ft gardens and hauled in a truckload of compost and a truckload of topsoil (which we then shoveled into the beds.  I must acknowledge that I took 4 kids into Home Depot ages 6, 4, barely 2, and 6 months and ordered all the wood, and then got it loaded and tied onto the roof of my van by myself.  The attendant recommended that I use cedar wood as opposed to pine, but that meant going to a different store, so we stuck with pine.

Then we rented a hole digger, which is a two person task.  We dug the wholes about 2 feet deep and put in our posts, and then wrapped around the fence.

You can just barely see the tiny tomato and pepper plants we started from seed (we planted in February and put under them grow lights).  This was taken in late May. Madeline is quite proud of the visible growth.

Here's late summer.  My parents came and my dad helped build this awesome fence and he and my mom gave us some great tips and advice.  You can see how large the tomato plants are.  It was amazing.  We were so proud of our garden, and w\hen people saw it and we told them we had never gardened before, they would tell us things like, "Yeah, they say it's not really fair to compare gardening in MN because all you need to do it plant a seed and it grows like crazy.  

That's not how it used to be, I read a book about the first homesteaders in MN, called Giants in the Earth, and it was recorded that initially there weren't even birds in MN, it was so barren and desolate. 

While you can't tell because of the comparison to the tomato on steroids, these peaches are quite large, directly from the Amish.  This tomato was from a plant that our friends were throwing away.  It was our most plentiful plant.  It produced incredible amounts of magnificent tomatoes.

And just because I was so proud of the tomatoes, here they are again.

As we were planting our garden, I got the hankering to do some Raspberry plants, and drove over to WI with the girls to get 25 starters each of Golden Harvest and traditional Red raspberry plants.  Here's a picture of the donor's patch.  The girls have so loved the raspberry patch at both their grandparents homes that we wanted one here.

It was a wonderful experience, though many times we complained about the commitment we were making, both of time and effort.  The girls were thrilled to see the process of life take place over a season.  It amazed me as much as it did them.  

I started noticing so many things connecting our garden to our earth;  that the bees would often visit the pumpkins early in the morning, that even though my broccoli looked like it didn't have green worms, a soak in salt water proved otherwise, and so forth.  Ryan would often get home from work and we would all be in the garden checking out the new growth.  This would lead to us laying out watching the sky, or playing on the swing-set, or kicking the soccer ball around.  

 The boys loved sitting in the compost pile and making mud.  I think choosing one family goal is the way we'll head in terms of NY's resolutions.  

For 2011, we talked about implementing a second language in our home.  It wasn't something we were really ready to move on. I suggested that we identify some of our child-rearing goals and values, and that we work on establishing a culture in our family that meets our desires.

So, it's something that we are working on and exploring this year.  

(any other goals that we made for this year, we went ahead and scheduled them on our calendar.  We think this way we'll be more likely to achieve them).

Sam's Island

Yesterday I was still an innocent mother.  Only I didn't know.  I was cooking dinner for a friend who has just had a baby.  Ella, Max and Sam were all playing together in the surrounding vicinity. I was listening to NPR, mulling over how nice it was that Sam was playing with Ella instead of taking every item from my cabinets.  In the far distance, I heard Ella yelling something.  I assumed it was for me, and promptly tuned it out.  I heard something about Sam needing my help.  This is common (Sam needing my help and Ella yelling about that).  I'm of the belief that you should first let kids try to figure it out themselves, and frankly I was tired.  I had just had a silent negotiation on the couch with God about how I couldn't handle anymore poop from the kids and to please figure something else out.

A few minutes later Ella came into the kitchen.  "Mom", Ella has the perfect indignant tone and face (imagine hands on hips), "I yelled for you because Sam needed your help."  I acquired a serious expression.  "You left Sam stranded on a island".  Accusatory tone was strong here.  My serious expression faded for a hint of a smile (oh yes, Ella's imagination is above and beyond, I thought).  Ella saw it and looked stunned, confused. "Mom", more intent this time, "You left Sam stranded on an island of poop water".  Smile leaves my face quickly and I start running to assess the damage, thinking all the while that I had just had a conversation, apparently one-sided, with God concerning this very topic.  Ooh dear.  Yes, I did see the island, and Sam was definitely stranded on it.  It was his favorite blanket that he carries around everywhere, and it was quickly disappearing as an island, but Sam wasn't willing to give it up.  He was pulling and dragging it, through the poop water.  The poop water had overflowed from the toilet that Ella had filled to overflowing with toilet paper, and then flushed, and watched the rising waters without warning me.  The "water" had now spread from the bathroom, and was spilling down the hall way, headed towards the carpet.

I rescued Sam, washed him from head to toe, and sent him downstairs with Ella and Max while I cleaned.

All my bathroom reading material, my clothes, and several toys became collateral damage, as well as the numerous towels and wash clothes it took to clean up the mess.  I unplugged the toilet with a "snake".  It wasn't pretty, I felt violated, and had to leave the bathroom several times to recover from convulsive gags.  I repeated a mantra from one of the kids' books, "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can", until I finished cleaning it.  Then I changed clothes, washed myself off, and finished dinner for my friend.  

Are You Crazy about Cookies?

Madeline has been wanting to try her hand at selling something for several years now.  She finally has her chance with her girl scout troop.  She will be selling cookies to raise money for the girl scouts and for her troop in particular.  She is very excited and a little bit nervous.

Our most delectable Christmas Photos

front side of house

backside of house

My Big Helpers

Madeline's House

Not sure about Ella's expression

He likes to say "cheese" now for pictures

Madeline's present to Ella:  homemade necklace, bracelet, and Pokeman ball

Christmas Thoughts

Here's what we've been working on (and in the background, what Sam's been working on):

It started a few days ago when Ella got off her bus and told me she wanted to make some cookies for her bus driver.
"I think his name is Ralph, but you can ask my teacher to be sure, I'm certain she would know my bus driver's name" said Ella.
As she said this, I remembered the time that Ralph, had waited for Ella the time it appeared I wasn't home (and indeed I wasn't- I didn't know she had gotten out of school early that day).  When I didn't answer the door, he picked Ella back up on the bus, and dropped her back off after dropping everyone else off.  I'm very thankful for a bus driver who waits to make sure that Kindergarteners get inside the house before they leave, especially when it's often freezing when he drops them off.

I'm also thankful for Madeline's second grade teacher, who she describes as both silly and smart-the ultimate compliment.  "Second grade isn't even hard as first grade," she said.  That is a testament to her teacher and his excitement for education.

Ella is also enjoying kindergarten, many thanks to her teacher and helper.

I'm also grateful for the office staff at the school, who called me yesterday to inform me that I left my stroller outside when I left the school during the blizzard.  An observant man wheeled it inside with several inches of snow coating the seats when it was still there an hour after he had seen it the first time.  How they maintained their composure while they called me is an indication of their professionalism (though we did have a laugh when I came to get it).

Perhaps because I am my kids' teacher, trainer, nurturer, etc, I'm grateful for all the support staff who help make me successful at my job.  They work for pay, but no one can force them to care about my children, and I know that caring takes much effort.

And here are Max and Sam in another favorite destruction site.

\

O Christmas Tree

Ella asked me why our Christmas tree looked so much more terrible (her words, not mine) than other peoples, and I had to agree with her that it looked pretty bad.  After Sam pulled off all the lower ornaments, he managed to tip the tree over on him three times in the same day, so the rest of the ornaments shifted, and the lights on the top and lower third stopped working.  

Ryan and I decided to leave well enough alone and didn't try to fight the second law of thermodynamics, or the law of entropy, which states that the quality of matter deteriorates over time.  While I've no idea how to describe this in the science world, I need only look to my house for innumerable explanations in the natural world.

I was pleasantly surprised to go in one morning to discover Madeline's note to Santa, which brightened the tree immensely and stayed there until it deteriorated.

In case you can't decipher, she wants a "Wee", lot's of candy, her own laptop, more craft stuff and 100 dollar bills.

What a Find

Thanksgiving at the Swapps' found the boys divvying up remnants from childhood (not to mention from their parents' childhoods).  Since we've carried around Ryan's remnants of childhood from Utah to Virginia (I think he left them home when we went to Slovenia) and now to Minnesota, without once opening or paying homage to these boxes, I was a little hesitant about adding to our storage.  

Ryan has assured me that his backup plan, should medicine not pan out after these many years, would be to sell all of his old baseball cards, all of which are in immaculate condition.  I told him it might be a good time right now to sell them and kill two birds with one stone- we won't have to carry them around any more, and we could leap (well maybe hobble is a better word) out of the forced medicinal life of poverty that ends in middle age.

Nevertheless, we found this gem ( along with our new fake Christmas tree-to which I've been converted) among the baseball cards.  From what I gathered, this was worn by Ryan and perhaps all the boys as babies. It's quite stunning, and Sam has received many complements from it, especially when I proudly tell people that Ryan wore it as a baby.  

Since the only remnants of my childhood are the numerous beloved brothers and sisters I grew up with and the still wooded hills of Virginia, I can appreciate being able to see this outfit into the next generation.

Here's Sam in his element- removing everything from any drawer that won't fit a rubberband, and seeing how it rolls, or spills out  or crashes.

I've found Max to be quite the chaos contributor.  My rubberbands that hold the doors together have continued to disappear, and I recently dicovered that Max removes them for Sam and then joins Sam in whatever havoc he engages in.  

That is the price, I can only reassure myself of taking a shower, or vacuuming, or fixing dinner.  Sam has his favorite spots.  The garden tub in our bathroom is one.  Whatever isn't bolted down finds it's way there.  It's always the strangest assortments, like the pillows Sam managed to pull off my bed and chuck in the tub along with my makeup maneuved out of my drawer.  I thought to myself, "Well, Sam, I definitely wouldn't have envisioned those two together, but I see that you pulled it off magnificently".  It's almost sacrilegious how he manages to put together the most devastating of companions.  Like last week when I found him and Max in the kitchen, rolling bottles of carbonated water after they shook them up and down.

His outfit does make it a little easier to bear though, I get a smile watching him walk around in it.