let's all get on the same page

After listening to This American Life I feel the need to clarify the following points about Obama:

1. He's not a Muslim. He's Christian
(remember that whole crazy reverend thing? yeah?)

2. He's not a terrorist.
Just because his name rhymes with a terrorist means nothing.
My last name rhymes with Slayer.

3. He's not buddies with crazy people like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson.
Remember this?

4. Yes, he's black. (I can't believe that's really a problem for people.)
But he's also white, and was raised by white people.

5. He's not a "radical."
He's against gay marriage, which around here makes you a total conservative.

6. He's way more like Hillary Clinton than John McCain.
All of those pouting about Hillary need to calm down.

Okay, I just needed to get that out there.

bad juju moving in

It's 10:15 pm. Tomorrow is Halloween.
Kid C's costume is done.
Baby R's is done, although the pants are still in the washing machine.
My costume is about half-done.
Kevin's is half-done.

Baby R somehow got a stomach bug (the kind that hits you on the way out) and has passed it around to all of us.

And because of those intestinal cooties, I'm feeling like calling it a night.

After all, tomorrow I need to:

10am- take kids to elderly center for halloween party
then bring kids back before 11:30 to drop them off with Grandma
11:45- figure out how to spray paint a bunch of stuff (for the big Beautiful Day sign up bonanza when it's raining outside)
1:30- return to kids, and possibly take the trick o treating in either downtown Campbell or Willow Glen.
5:00 get everyone ready to go to church for our Halloween Party
(I'm not calling it a Harvest Fest, I mean everyone knows it's Halloween, and no one harvested anything around here. C'mon)
6:00 until cranky- party down in the rain at church dressed as bees.

I might be able to finish my costume in that window of time when Baby R is sleeping and Kid C is watching TV...

I dunno, I'm just pooped.

the weather is in on it

It has been sunny and warm for like the past two weeks. I mean it's practically like that every day here.

Tomorrow, it's supposed to be cold and rainy.


Good thing Kevin's costume involves a rainsuit.

The rest of us will have to huddle under an umbrella.

new series

November's series is about addressing destructive or growth-stunting patterns in our lives.

We think we're gonna call it "Unstuck"

Who knows if by the end of the meeting tomorrow if that'll be what it's about or what it's called.

oh boy

Yes.

kinda cool, kinda gross

Did you know that ladybugs did this?



I didn't.

Baby Tuesday

This morning both kids had diaper rash and I had 10 minutes to change them, dress them and put them in the car with their "breakfast" in order to get Kid C to preschool on time.

I asked Kevin to help me, which he did, very nicely. He put Kid C in the car for me, and I put Baby R in.

It's a 30 minute drive to preschool (yes, it's crazy and it just confirmed my thoughts of changing her preschool to something closer and cheaper). And at minute 20 Kid C says "I don't have any shoes on."

She in fact didn't have any shoes.

Sometimes there's an extra pair in the car for moments just like this. But instead all I found was two pairs of Baby R's shoes.

At 8:50am the only stores that are open are drug stores and grocery stores. I took a chance on a Walgreens on the corner and all I they had was one pair of those toy dress up princess shoes. I knew the teachers would be mad at those shoes (since I get grief over her wearing flip flops) but it was better than nothing, right?

I just picked her up and her teacher did indeed say that she shouldn't wear those shoes. I wanted to tell her the whole saga but instead I just said "yeah I know."

Last week, we went to all the trouble of fancy-fying her mary janes....

They were black payless clunky shoes. And so we spray painted them green, added glitter,
and glued on sparkley bug doodads.


much fancier.



Yesterday we went over for a playdate (you can't see, but I'm making a face while I type that word). And other moms brought stuff to decorate cookies.
Yep, wheels-off.


This one is sideways...I'm too lazy to change it.


They are so ready.


And then I took a picture with the flash-- less ready.




Kid C has a new friend, Kid A. (no relation)
Kid A shares her room with her baby sister.
And no toys live in her room, if they come in, they have to
go back in the playroom when they are done.
This kind of structure is foreign to me. Her mom seems to
have more of a plan than I do.

it's so cute, I should probably listen to it

Women are from Venus and Men do stuff like this

Kevin caught a rat with his bare hands last night!!!!

I mean, I know he's fearless, but I didn't really think he would walk into our bedroom shortly after I went to bed and say "look what I caught."


The man and the rat are real in the photo, the shirt was photoshopped on.

Shirtless rat-hunter, my husband.

He was going to let the cat "get it."
But I said that was barbaric, and begged him to take it far away from our house.

I wanted him to walk it all the way to the creek, but he took it to a sewer a couple of blocks away.

Baby Tuesday

Okay, it's 11pm and here we go.

On Friday I suddenly decided to go to Uesugi Farms in Morgan Hill. It was right at Baby R's naptime when I decided to leave and also right about lunchtime. I thought this was perfect since it would take us about 30 minutes to get there.
But-- Baby R didn't sleep. He sensed something was going on and instead made excited faces and jumpy poses in his carseat the whole drive.
As I parked the car, I mentally changed our plan of spending the whole afternoon there at the farm to instead maybe just a couple of hours.
We made it though lunch just fine, but shortly after he turned into Mr. Turdly. It's his version of Mr. Hyde. He kept crying and running off, and the last time he broke from my grip he ran off and face-first into a wheelbarrow handle. And then a school trip chaperone gasped and asked him "where is your mother?!"
"Yeah hi, I'm right here." 10 feet away trying not to strangle some food line buttinskies.
(What is it that makes people cut in front of me in line when I'm holding a crying/yelling/kicking baby? Do they have no conscience at all?)
I think we broke even. He had that tantrum-wheelbarrow incident and made a scene about being strapped in the stroller for the last 30 minutes. But they got to ride the carousel, see the pumpkin pyramid, and eat ice cream.

And the drive home was nice and peaceful, because he finally slept.


Random post-carousel pic.


Kid C is doing her John Travolta impression.


"Hmm, this will only suppress my rage for about 4 minutes,
and then I will throw the spoon and resume freaking out."


Kid C was actually really good all the way then end when I
told her we had to go because of Baby R.
Here she is upset because we're about to leave.
I did feel kinda bad for her, her brother being a party pooper.


The AIDS Walk was on Sunday.
I think that's the last time I'll be wearing those gauchos.
The pregnancy need for them is over. I'm currently in the
market for a yoga-pant to replace them.
And Baby R was sure that somehow that balloon ribbon
was climbable.


I made this chicken and two chicks out of play-doh today.
I thought they were so cute that I took a picture.


Two pictures. Kid C has a certain routine of play-doh
art commissions for everytime we take it out.
Baby chick, bunny, river, garage, trees.
Today I mixed up and made a whole chicken family
and some nests.


Baby R can now climb up onto the barstools, as of this afternoon.
He's already fallen off them twice since then.


He's an awfully good eater in that barstool though.
And exceptionally cute.


Chubby arms.

"Auntie" Sam purged her plush penguin collection and sent it to the kids.
They loved it. I thought for sure one of them would jump in with them,
but instead they carried them all around the house.



And finally a little insight on how I keep the kids table clean.
Their janitorial service pays for their room and board.

"please hold"

I like to stuff a day so full that you can't even zip it. Baby Tue will probably be really late...

sweepy

I don't usually do quotations, but since I'm purusing them for a project I'm working on, I'm sharing this one with you. Because I really really really just want to go sleep right now.

Think what a better world is would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o' clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap. -Robert Fulghum

dear public diary

1. I haven't checked my voice mail in months.
Because I have forgotten my password number.

And I tried once to reset it online, but the website was messed up. And I just gave up.
I wish I could access it just to record the message "I can't check my voice mail, sorry."

My phone also has this annoying glitch in it that fails to identify most people's numbers that I have saved in it.
And so I get dozens of text messages everyweek that I have to just guess who they are from based on context clues. Because I'm not about to go through my entire "address book" in the phone to figure it out.
It plays favorites-- about 6 or 7 people it recognizes everytime.



2. I'm in a recycling slump and Real Simple magazine it to blame.
I normally don't read Real Simple, because I have decided, in my very opinionated way, that Real Simple is just Good Housekeeping with sans serif fonts.
A "real simple" magazine, wouldn't have ads for commemorative plates, or prescription drugs (whose side effect warnings take up 4 pages). If it were "real" then the front of the magazine would be a photo of my dirty living room floor, and if it were "simple" it would come to your house automatically for free.
But I digress.
I bought an issue of the magazine to just have some peaceful non-thinking reading without articles about "what men really want" or "how to lose 20 lbs with carrot juice."
But when I read an article all about what can't be recycled, I found myself dispondent by the end of it. I wanted to believe in a subconcious way, that if it's made of plastic, they will find a way to recycle it. But there are so many things out there that contain multiple types of plastics melded in one item, that it's impossible to recycle, according to RS. The only happy thing I read was that paper recyclers can filter out metal staples and other little bits like that, easy peasy.

Ever since I read that article I find myself recycling less. Granted I'm a little stressed lately, and often I like to take my anxiety out on a #5 yogurt cup and toss it in the trash. But now it's like I have a little Eeyore voice in my head that says "it doesn't matter, no one else cares, why should you?"
I hope it's just a phase. I think a fresh recycling bin system will snap me out of it.


3. I'm a moody worker and I wish I weren't.
This is because according to the Myers Briggs personality standards, I am a "feeler."
And so I live my life more or less to how I feel about things.
Luckily, I'm pretty rational, for a feeler, and I really don't like drama or getting emotional.
But I wish that I could just say "Brain, this is what Body needs to get done today. I don't care how you do it, just make it happen."
I know that there are plenty of people that have that kind of control. I call them "organized."
I tell myself there's a trade-off somehow in it. That if I were more organized, then I wouldn't be able to name all the characters on Gilligans Island or sit in the grass and contemplate dandilions on a whim. I dunno.
The picture above is one of my current projects. The other, being Kyle's painting, is of most importance, and need to be done ASAP. But all it takes is one of the kids to have a tantrum, and I no longer feel like trying to get anything done. It kills my mood. I wish I could push past it.



4. We have mice living in our garage.
Our cat for once has a real purpose, and she has killed 4 of them already. Which is kinda bittersweet because they are very small and cute and all they do is eat the dog food and startle me when I'm doing the laundry. But I guess I can't exactly have pestilence in our home, so it's for the best in the end. She doesn't mangle them either which I think is nice. She does however display their corpses proudly where we are sure not to miss them, which is not nice.


5. I never get to go to the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin thing.
This is really minor, but I have always wanted to go.
It seems like millions of other people from the Bay Area also want to go. And they don't have kids, and they are willing to sit in traffic and then walk really really far, in order to be part of the action.
I've never been, but everyone tells me it's total mayhem. (the exact same is true for me and the Garlic Festival, though I'm not as keen on going to that).
I wish they put it on for a whole week, but I only have until tomorrow at 5pm to decide to go for it . Tomorrow is family fun day after all. ;)

pig flyer, they win

nothing wrong with a pig on a cop flyer, right?

okay, fine, I changed it to a cow.

Baby Tuesday

After reading a chapter in Breathe, I have tried to make a conscious effort to "keep the Sabbath" and only do stuff as a family and really just be together, not work on projects or splinter out. It's nice. At least I think so. I think Kevin would rather watch football, but I think it's nice.
So with that in mind, I offered that we all go to the Junior Museum in Palo Alto, that has an itty bitty zoo. Well, I really wanted to go to Happy Hollow, but I looked online and it's closed until Fall 2009! No capybaras for a whole year!



Big Thayer and little Thayer.


Mommy are you sure these plants eat bugs?



He has never looked more like Archie Bunker than here.


That glowing orb is Baby R's head.
There were big fierce geese inside this paddock.


Yarr, mateys. Me thinks me sees dar terrapin.


I think these her stage persona or something.
I told her to smile and this is what she did.


She gave a short informative monologue all about ferrets...before I turned on the camera.


It's October, and that means AIDS Walk and Halloween.
Here is our Walk banner, by yours truly.
And Kid C modeling her new black tutu that I sewed for her costume.
We're all gonna be bees, and Kevin's gonna be a bee keeper.
Super cheezy.

dangit!!

I got my very first speeding ticket this morning.

I totally deserved it.

I did one of those "oh no the light is turning yellow, I gotta get---speed-- doh it's red--stop"

And so I did 60 in a 45 zone in order to get to a red light.

Arg!!!

It's been one of those days in which I make alot of bad decisions

I think I need to go here.

how I have exercised design constraint

How to motivate around 1,500 people to get out and do something nice for someone else?

I'm not entirely sure, but hopefully my booklet will help.

Here are some sample pages.



booklet cover


page 1 (the text is yet to arrive to me, just pretend it makes sense)


kinda like a table of contents, but I'm thinking I won't include page numbers.



first project explanation page.
(those are kevin's feet in the photo, from last year)
And yes, there are big time typos, I see 'em too.

yeah, I like know people and they do stuff

A guy from our small group made this short film.



I really liked it, I thought he did a great job.

Baby Tuesday

Yes, it's the "hey, um, could you take a picture of us" picture.
I'm the only one who was awarded points for paying attention.
Oopsie, I kinda matched Baby R...and my living room.


He may be a scrapper and a biter (he left a big hematoma on the back of my thigh!)
but he's a good boy when it comes to "look at the camera!"


Um, where ya goin, C?


H-hey, success. Both looking at me!
Go Team Thayer.


He did this on his own. He's so gosh darn cute!


Kid C didn't really get what we were doing, but still wanted a part of the action.


Ain't she a prize?
Yes, there's our 11 dollar pumpkin.
The rest of the country is in a recession, but these pumpkin peddlers, they are the fat cats of the produce market.


Oh and 8 dollars to jump in the jump houses.
Now that she's not scared of them anymore (at least the ones without slides)
I indulged her.

Shmoopie.



Thump thump thump....nope no good.
Thump thump...hmm too young!, next pumpkin.
Thump thump thump thump...all signs point to yes, it's a winner!


Even though Kevin grew pumpkins this year, we went ahead and bought a big fat one.
Since the ones we had were little cuties compared to the honker from the patch.









The whole day was really good. Especially considering Kid C completely flipped out on me at a restaurant with our friends and their well behaved kids, the night before.
She hadn't had a nap and she blew up like a powder keg. My friend who doesn't have kids was elected/volunteered to help me back to the car with both kids. Baby R was quite pleasant by comparision.
It wasn't until well into the wee hours that her frenzy subsided.
Don't mistake that to mean that I was trying to console her for hours and hours.
She just was wacked out in her room, sleeping for little bits and then waking up and moaning about the injustice of it all. At about midnight, we went in together and I got her to calm down with the offer of some yogurt. After that, peace in the valley.