Vacation Sensation

A month ago we went to the Utah, it was a really nice trip, and now that we have been home a while, I am finally checking email, returning phone calls and even blogging. I was going to try to do a trip journal and share the day by day account here, and then I remembered, I have only a few minutes of sanity in which to type, so here are a few highlights.

The Drive: Call me crazy but there is something nice about spending that time together, Eddie and I actually talked about things going on in our life and future, and since the grandparents bought our family a portable 2-screen DVD player last Christmas, we actually got to talk uninterrupted. Of course it wasn't idyllic, but thanks to my Great Aunt and Uncle Donna & Hal, (thank you for the generous use of your home) we broke up our journey both on the way there and on the way home.
Eating out: I rarely eat out anymore, it was really nice to order things I like, try new things, and not do any dishes.

Seeing Family: We started out trip with Eddie's Sister Tammy and her beautiful family, they have a gorgeous new little girl and we felt honored to see her while she was still so fresh! The older kids are cute too and it means a lot to me that my children really get to know their cousins and count them as friends too.

We also had half of a reunion with my side of the family, My two older brothers and their families, My parents and my family all negotiated the hazards of large group activity and managed to have a lot of fun doing it.

My brother Peter has some of the cutest and smartest children I know, each more talented than the other, thanks to my sister in law Steph, I am sure.

We stayed in the same hotel as my brother Matt and his family, my sister-in-law Tia is not only beautiful and intelligent but she also has the added attraction of coming from really wonderful people. Her parents are kind and generous and fun, and I'm not just saying that because they bought me breakfast one morning. Her Brother Brad works at the Cottontree Inn, our accommodation in Provo I recommend it highly, continental breakfast in the lounge, indoor and outdoor pools, who could ask for anything more?

My niece Kirstyn was excited that she was staying to see Miley Cyrus at the "Stadium of Fire" for July 4th, what she doesn't realize is that to my girls, she is just as cool and amazing as "Hannah Montana".

Museums: We took the kids to the Discovery Science Center in SLC, and the Bean Museum of Natural Sciences and the Museum of Art at BYU.

Discovery was great for my girls, Liana didn't want to leave the 3& under section, she could have stayed in the "birdhouse" all day, after all, the sofa was just her size.

The Bean museum cannot be beat for price, it's free, the parking is free, and you can see "Shasta" the liger who my brothers and I agreed is the same one we saw alive at Hogle Zoo when we were kids - Of course I just googled Shasta and found she died in 1972, two years before I was born, so much for accuracy, maybe we saw her stuffed there.
There are worksheets for every age to hunt down data, including "how many Lions are there on the main floor of the museum?" I think the answer is 18 but maybe Shasta should count for 1/2?

The Museum of Art holds a special place in my heart, I used to work early morning janitorial there. They house of of my favorite paintings in the world, "Fallen Monarchs" by William Bliss Baker.

In addition, Eddie got a hair cut at the Bon Losee Academy, including an invigorating scalp massage and the highly complimentary advice that his hair is "perfect for a faux-hawk". We also swam in the indoor pool, visited with old friends and shopped for things we didn't need. All in all a great vacation.

Picture Pages

Last Saturday we went to take a family portrait, we hadn't taken one since I was 1 month pregnant with Nina and we didn't even like that one enough to hang on the wall.
The family picture we currently display looks like this:
So you can see that we are due for an update, something that includes all three of our girls and shows them to be the happy loving twerps that they are. That picture does make me happy though, after all, look at Liana, she is so cute in that picture and she is smiling. Look at it now folks, you may not see her smiling in a picture again for awhile.
I am not crazy about having my picture taken either, but I am avoiding the reality that is my chubby chin and wacky hair. Liana with her perfect skin hair and teeth, has somehow come to hate the camera already.
I hoped to have a smiling picture full of her joy of life and silliness to show in this post, these, however, are a few of the options she gave us to chose from.

We ended up with a family portrait with a grump in it, secretly however, I kind of like it, I have candid shots of her doing all sorts of things, including big goofy grins, but now I have preserved for history this phase of her little life, when she made the decision to not smile and stuck to it with the fervor that only a 3 year old can have.

So long Santo!

More than 2 years ago, my daughter Ella was given a gift of 2 fish, she named them Santo and Donkgo (spelling here is approximate, we don't know where the names came from.) Donkgo died the first night and I expected little Santo to go the same way quickly, amazingly, he just kept going. He was with us for so long, he became the stuff of legends, we forgot how long we had had him and told people he was 4 years old.

Ella took this picture with her own camera, from her point of view, I think what it lacks in focus it makes up for in perspective and raw emotion.

I enjoyed his company when I washed the dishes, he liked it when we lit a candle near his bowl, he danced with the flicker of the candlelight.
He meant a lot to the girls, one of their first jobs was to feed Santo his fish flakes, one fed him in the morning the other in the evening.

Not to sound callous, but one thing he meant to me was not having a different sort of high maintenance pet, Santo only needed a little food here and there, his water changed once in a while, he was really pretty easy.

Yesterday, Santo left us. The years he spent with us have meant a lot to our family. I asked the girls if they wanted to say anything about him and here are their replies,

Ella -"We loved Santo, he gets to go with his brother again, we had him for so long, we had him for almost three years. He used to swim a lot around. He will be happy with his brother."

Liana - "Santo died a little, now he will swim to Heavenly Father."

Thank you Santo for giving my daughters the thrill of having a pet but not making my life any harder, we will miss you.

Facebook, or How I found my self again.

OK so it took me a long time to get bloggin, but it took me even longer to join the on line world that is Facebook. I don't want to plug a product, but I am amazed. You know the people that used to mean so much to you but you somehow lost touch with them?
They are lurking there in the shadows, and all it takes is a little search of their name.
I have in the last few weeks reconnected with friends from High school and college, corresponded with people from across the country and across the ocean.
I know that everyone is doing this, I am nothing special, but I've been thinking, "What is it that I am really getting out of this?"
In addition to reconnecting with friends, I am reconnecting with myself. (If that isn't destined for a Hallmark Card what is?)

I think it is too easy as a SAHM (Stay At Home Mom for those of you who, like me, have not yet joined the texting nation.), too easy for us to get absorbed into the lives of our children, we lose track of pieces of ourselves while we are keeping track of check-ups, diaper changes, school, dance classes, sports etc. In the recent weeks, I have remembered a bit of who I was in High School.

There were a lot of things about High School that make me glad not to be there anymore, Braces, Acne, Frizzy Hair, coke bottle glasses surrounded by 3 lbs. of pink acrylic, etc. But there were a lot of things about High School that were turning points in my life, things that make me, ... me.

There was the first time I auditioned for anything and when I failed, the techies welcomed me into the dark side of Theatre. The fellow choir members who let me tag along with them at Disneyland on our music trip to Florida. The friends who taught me not too take myself too seriously, the crushes who barely acknowledged my existence, and the foolish underclassmen who had a crush on me in my senior year, you taught me that everything in life is about perspective.

I owe my love of quality Theatre and my education, training, and eventually even my career in acting to my High School Drama teacher Mr. Collins who had enough faith in me to cast me in several roles, and to nominate me for a State theatre scholarship camp. Though I didn't make the cut of 12 students, I made #13 which was enough to convince me that with a little actual training maybe I might be good.

SO thank you Tenafly High School, thank you to my first crushes and best friends, my confidants and even to those "beautiful people" who didn't even know I existed. Now that I know how to find you on Facebook, I'll try not to lose you or the parts of me you inspired again.

Gardening on purpose (or with a purpose)

So my accidental flower was such a success (to me at least) that I decided to go ahead and branch out, the first year here we bought a $1.00 can of wildflower mix and let Ella age 2 1/2 sprinkle to her hearts content. Soon we had Zinnias popping out everywhere, a nice thing to have when you have a girl who loves to pick flowers.
Since the flowers were blooming and we still didn't have a definite landscape plan I decided to reap some benefits from our dirt and plant some produce.

(WARNING EXCESSIVE DISCUSSION OF MY PLANTS AHEAD, FEEL FREE TO STOP READING NOW! -Or you could scroll through and at least look at the pictures.)

I had the brilliant idea to plant a 6-pack variety of tomatoes and a six pack of yellow pear tomatoes (these are really great for kids, they look like little pears and are usually very sweet). Tomatoes are wonderful things however, for those of you who can add that's 12 plants and a billion tomatoes, especially since Eddie is allergic to fresh tomatoes. The bright side was that we made friends with the neighbors who were happy to take them off my hands, especially because I had also invested in a Basil plant and was constantly pruning to keep it from going to seed. I also made my own pasta sauces several times that summer. Even so a lot of tomatoes fell to the ground which worked out well because I haven't bought a tomato plant since, I just thin out the million seedlings that pop up each spring and keep 1 or two. I don't recommend this if you want big tomatoes, because all I get are the cherry/salad size ones.

The next year we planted carrots, another kid pleaser because they can pick them by themselves and they can pick them early or let them wait a while, in fact there were a few that were picked really tiny and Ella just replanted them, they grew bigger and she got to pick them again.Peas are also nice because they hide so well that it is almost a treasure hunt to the girls to find them. Of course when they get bored they go to the strawberry patch and enjoy easier hunting. Our strawberries are small and often as much seed as fruit, but they taste wonderful and they give the girls a reason to go outside every morning.

That year I also added pumpkins and zucchini squash. The pumpkin didn't turn orange until almost Thanksgiving, and it was strawberry shaped much to the delight of the small people in my life.

Last year I planted earlier and grew 4 decent sized pumpkins which turned orange in August. I was a little perturbed but I remembered that before refrigeration and imported produce people had squash in winter. I brought them in out of the sun and they were still good to carve for Halloween and make pumpkin mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving.
Zucchini and I seem to have a love hate relationship, the first year I tried it they came out great, lovely green oblongs that we grilled on the BBQ all summer and into the fall. Then last year, I think they had an illicit relationship with my pumpkin plants, really who could blame them for falling in love with such lovely vines and blossoms. The result however was a large, seedy, half-orange-too-firm creature that didn't taste enough like zucchini or pumpkin to be any good. This year I am again planting both, but in different locations and I started my zucchini first so maybe the timing will work out in my favor.

My favorite addition to our garden rotation has been the corn/sunflower section of the yard, we have a 1 foot wide strip of earth running the side of the yard I planted corn all along and a cluster of sunflowers every 6 feet or so. The Sunflowers grow so fast and tall that they give you something to watch and measure while you wait for the corn. The corn is worth waiting for, our ears didn't grow any longer than 6 inches and some cobs had only a few mutant kernels, but it was sweet and to Liana it was better than candy. I have begun a new endeavor to take some of the larger rocks out of that strip in hopes of getting longer and fuller corn ears, we will see what happens.

I think the reasons I like to garden are simple, I see a tangible rewards for faith and hard work, I spend time in the out doors breathing fresh air (such as it is this close to LA) and most of all, I see my children excited about eating fruits and vegetables.

The accidental garden

The past few years I have been trying to be a gardener, or as the girls say it, a farmer. It started when some Calla Lily bulbs accidently transplanted themselves in a pot I brought from our old townhome patio. I didn't even know what the green leaves that sprouted were, but since we had spent all our "available" monies on the house and the hardscape I wasn't willing to throw out the plant/weed till I knew what it was. It sprouted into a lovely little grouping of dark green leaves outside my kitchen window and gave me the comfort that at least I had "something" growing. Imagine my surprise the next spring when 1 tall beautiful white flower appeared, from the middle of my "weed" and amazingly, right at Easter time, I was so amazed.

The next year I had 2 blooms and I realized that the hole I had dug to put my origional foundling wasn't very big, so I carved out some more of our rocky soil and let the plant spread out, and I took some of the smaller offshoots and put them a few feet away just to see what would happen. Now I have 4 plants filling out my little planter, and this Easter, even though it came early in the year and I scrambled to find the baskets etc, my Calla Lilies knew and they bloomed magnificently. I guess I should take a note from the scripture

Luke 12:27-28

27 Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
28 If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?



I wish I didn't have to toil so much for the rest of my garden to produce, but I am happy that at least one plant is thriving, in spite of my attentiions, or the lack there of. I guess God knows that with Nina's arrival this past year I would need some encouraging to get out into the garden again this summer.

What kind of sick person are you?

Recently, here in our lovely home, we underwent a string of coughs, colds, ear infections etc. etc. etc. Even I who rarely actually come down with illness in my adult years caught a cold which didn't hurt but diminished my speaking voice to a hoarse whisper (not of course to be confused with the horse whisperer, a movie I didn't understand getting the attention it did.)

Now that we are all relatively on the mend (only two more days of antibiotics left for Liana) I am reflecting on my children and their personalities, and trying to remember what I was like as a child.

I know I was a dramatic child inside, when I was little I envisioned coming down with some mystery ailment that would be tragic yet beautiful. I always felt guilty if I had to wake my mom in the night because I had done something silly (like throw up on my pillow), so I would dream of an illness so terrible that it would justify the care I needed and everyone would feel sorrow and pity for me, and give me constant attention.
As I grew up I became more of an escapist, I wanted to read or watch TV, not talk or be with people. This worked against me, as I usually get sick only at important times, when I am actually supposed to be the center of any attention, like during the run of a show where I actually had speaking lines, or of course, right before my wedding.
I like to deny being sick as well, I remember in High school waking up to realize my left eye was swollen shut and saying to myself, I just need to splash a little cold water on my face and I'll be fine The pictures of that show tell a different swollen pink-eye story. When I was doing a run of Romeo and Juliet" in Thousand Oaks, I had laryngitis, I couldn't talk all day, but somehow thought I would be fine once the curtain went up. Of course I started coughing so badly in one scene, where I was supposed to be crying, that the actress playing the nurse actually left the stage and brought me back water and held me patting my back as I finished out my dialogue. (the local reporter thought it was planned and actually mentioned it favorably in his review -go figure, maybe if I had been sick more I would have landed more roles!)

In my current role as Mother I don't get to be sick, oh sure I may not feel well, but it seems unless my own Mommy is visiting I don't have the luxury of lolling around in my bed or on the couch. Those places are usually crowded with small people of mixed ages needing their noses wiped, or warm juice to drink (yuck!)
My girls seem to deal with illness differently, one is a drama queen, pointing out any little scratch and fretting about it constantly, even if it turns out to be marker, or a piece of food. One likes to shut down, and sit there, staring around her with soulful eyes not wanting to leave, but not wanting to participate in conversation etc. Then there is the baby who is so sweet I didn't even know she had an ear infection till the doctor told me at her routine check up. The amazing thing is, even though I get tired I never resent giving them the kind of attention they need, I realize I didn't need to feel guilty for waking my mom, it was part of her job.

So I am curious, what kind of sicko are you? If you are ill, what comforts you?

April Fools

This is Liana, she is trying to hide. What is she trying to hide from? She is trying to hide from this menacing baby....
These identical twins,...
and these evil twins!

Happy April all ye mortal fools!

Happy Birthday Dad

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!

Today was my father's birthday, and actually, since I live in the US and he lives in Hong Kong, yesterday was his birthday. I love my Dad, he has been a great father to me, provided all the necessities of life when I was growing up, and figured out how to give me many of the luxuries too, braces for my teeth etc. So what did I get my Father for his birthday?....

Nothing

Did I forget to get something? No, I just can't seem to find the right thing anywhere. He has worked hard in his life and has achieved much, He travels a lot now and has seen things I only dream about, he makes a very decent living and no longer has to support me, and my 5 siblings. I guess I feel like if there is something he needs, he gets it. Occasionally I find a book I think he might enjoy, but even that is only small repayment for the love of literature and joy in reading he helped to give me. I try to send pictures of my children fairly often and I look for things all the time that I hope might be a present he would enjoy, but mostly I think nothing is just the right thing. So tonight, I think maybe I have thought of something that He can really appreciate, and feel free to use over and over again, something he probably longed to hear many times over his years as my father, here it is;

"You were right"

There it is, in large bold print even, You DAD, you were right, in the following ways

1. When you wanted to provide for me in ways I didn't like, such as trying to use your contacts to get me an "easy" or at least clean job instead of me doing early morning janitorial work. At the time I had a huge "pride-induced" need to assert myself, make my own way, and spread my wings. Now as a parent I already seen the beginnings of this in my own girls, and while I don't regret the instinct to learn to do things on your own, you were right, I didn't have to do it with cleaning products at 5 AM each morning.

2. There really was someone for me. I remember once when you visited me at school, my senior year, post mission, facing graduation, and still oh so very single. I remember you asking me about my social life and being very quiet when I broke down and confided my loneliness and admitting that I too had concerns about my future and where it would take me. You were very reassuring and supportive and told me not to worry.
You were also right to like Eddie, maybe even more than I did, right from the very start. I got a little nervous when the two of you began conversing in Chinese and I didn't know what about, but you liked him and you didn't push me too much, and here we are married 7 years and 3 kids later.

3. You sent me to China. Ok you didn't actually send me, I chose to go, but when I graduated
and had nothing specific to do, you gave me a chance to go do something good, in a place where I had to rely on prayer and the kindness of English-speaking strangers to survive. You kept me from just sitting sround or from doing something dumb just for the sake of doing something. You also gave me a chance to be a minority, to live on the other side of the world and really embrace the love of most things China you gave to me in my youth. You taught me from the beginning that people are people, no matter the color of skin, shape of eye, or language they speak.

4. You helped introduce me to God. As a teenager, searching for answers to the future, I remember going to a youth conference where they sent us out on our own to meditate and pray for a while and they gave us envelopes to open after a while, inside was a note that I still have somewhere, it basically said that you had tested the Book of Mormon, and that you had gained your own testimony. At that time, I prayed, really prayed for the first time to know if God really exists, and I got my answer, I know that God lives and that He loves me. Later in my life I prayed about the truthfulness of the restored gospel and again received my answer, and this time, a clarity, that my whole life I have known that God loved me, because you and Mom loved me. You taught me to have faith and to serve God by serving others.
You were also right when you asked me to babysit children I didn't like and to be friends with the odd ducks or strays that ended up at our house for the holidays. You were right to make us go as a family to scout camp, to teach us to work and serve together.

5. You were right to make us garden, and really I can't remember if you really made me garden, I just remember that we always had something growing that was edible. I think I learned patience and appreciation for food from that time, and now if I don't have at least a tomato plant in my garden, I feel a little sad.

6. I could go on and on, and maybe I will in a more private email, but I wanted to say too, that you were right when you married Mom. As Eddie and I have figured out a few things in our married life, I think about the example of you and mom. You aren't perfect, either of you, but you are together, and that sticking together is harder than it seems sometimes. I see so many of my childhood and even more recent memories as studies in togetherness, whether it was a vacation or a move across country, we were a family together, for a great amount of time, and that's another gift you gave me, a really fun family.

So, thank you Dad, for all the lessons you have taught me in life, and all the advice I expect to still receive. Thank you for being a great dad and a fantastic Grandfather,
I love you Dad, Happy Birthday!

Necessity is the mother of invention

"Necessity is the mother of invention",
I believe this is true, but sometimes, being a mother also necessitates invention. I have been thinking of all the things I have created in my job as mother

Benedryl pops
There was a time when my daughter Ella had to have this lovely antihistamine every 4 hours for 5 days (due to her peanut allergy – I promise I wasn’t just trying to get some sleep.) After the second day, whenever she saw the dosing syringe come out, she ran. We had previously mixed said med with juice, but it was hard to predict if she would drink it all. In a flash of inspiration, at 3:30 AM I cut off the ends of an otter pop and filled the two sealed ends with benedryl and stood the little mini-pops up in my ice cube tray to freeze, the next two doses were an ease to get down and I thanked Heaven for it (while I ate the middle of the original otter pop!)


Expandable flat paper party hats
OK someone somewhere may have made these before, but they were probably made by another mom; who also forgot to buy party hats for their 3-year-old’s garden tea themed birthday party.


Brown bag birthday purses
This was a rough year for birthdays; my 5-year old decided the night before the party that we needed goodie bags. Instead of just giving the jewelry etc for the girls to wear at the princess party directly to them, we needed a method of containment and portability! It may seem extreme, but with a not yet 2 months old baby, a 3 year old, as well as said 5 year old, and a husband at work, anything seemed easier than a last minute run to the store. So, we made the purses from lunch-bags, ribbon and foam flowers left over from the aloha-themed-party the year before. Thanks to scrap-booking supplies I never seem to have time to use, the girls even had their bags monogrammed.


Recycled Hobby Horses
When it is raining for a week and your daughter declares that she and her sister NEED horses, you come up with these fine steeds
Lycee Lanterns
When you are Chinese, and you celebrate the New Year, you are given a lot of red envelopes, many of these you may reuse to give to other small children in your extended family, but some you must simply throw away, or must you?

In the past we have cut them up for valentines, glued them together to make belts, and cut them into tubes as bracelets (for tiny arms only.) This year Ella came up with a new idea, and together we refined it into the cutest little lanterns you ever saw (I haven’t lit them up yet, but I think Christmas lights would be cute)

Halloween Costumes

Ella at 4 wanted “Cinderella, but not the kind you buy” say hello to sequins and netting, and a lot of praying as you cut the fabric, pretending that you know how to make your own patterns and wishing you had taken that class in school.

Ella at 3 wanted to be a witch, no problem, but Liana at age almost 2 was inspired by Ella’s dance class and wanted to be a “peacock” Of course Peacock feathers are not cheap, so I ended up gluing a few brightly colored feathers together, and stamping a white "eye" on each stack, repeated a hundred times or so... and then sewing them on a Liberace worthy cape.

I love my work here at the experimental lab of life, what have you created out of need? I’d love to hear about it.!

Please take a moment to backup externally!

A few days ago, Eddie was on our main computer, fully protected with firewalls, surge protectors, etc., etc., etc., when the power went out, for just about 3 seconds. It was annoying, but not the end of the world, so after resetting a few household clocks, he turned the computer on again to finish what he had been doing. As he was starting up, the power went off again, for only 3 seconds, again, annoying again?
Actually devastating, apparently this is one easy way to corrupt Windows.

Now when we turn on our lovely computer, containing our precious thoughts and photos it loops around and around through the start menu. AAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!

So, while we are hopeful that the geek squad will be able to recover access to our hard drive, and thankful that we do have all our digital videos on tape, we are mostly wishful that we had an external hard drive or something so that we wouldn't have this problem!!!

Learn our lesson, make sure you are backing up regularly!

Older post new blog

I wrote this, my only other myspace posting, in September of 2007
This now exausts my source of old material, so for the 2 of you who followed me over from there, new material is coming.

Friendly little house fly
Ok, so I am having a minor crisis of identity, am I the mom who wants her children to be open to new things and see beauty in nature of all kinds?
Or am I the mom who is grossed out by things like bugs, in her house, on her children?

I always thought I was the former, I once held a praying mantis for five minutes so my girls could watch how slowly it walked, I have picked up more "roly-polies" than I can count so that my girls could hold them without squishing them in the process, I have dug up worms and millipedes and looked up everything from ants to wasps online so as to answer my children's queries, however, it seems that I have drawn a line without realizing it - FLIES.

Yes, flies, I hate them, they are gross, and they are everywhere, and my stomach turned when I saw my daughter hold one the other day.

My beautiful 4-year old came into the office where I was trying to check email for the third time that day, (if you ever want the attention of preschoolers, just try to accomplish something else). She had something in her hand and was talking in a sweet little voice saying;
"Hello little cutie, you are so friendly, you are so nice and not scary at all."

I assumed that she was talking to a little doll or toy until my beautiful 2-year old started chiming in. "Mommy, it's a fwendwy fwy, it doedn't fwy way or nuffin" (I recognize that the typing out of baby talk is enough to turn the stomachs of those of you without children by itself, sorry, but it explains why I didn't understand what was going on right away.)

I stopped what I was doing and found that there was indeed a fly in Ella's hand, that it would not/could not fly away, and that they were treating it as if it were the most adorable thing in the universe. She did stop short of trying to kiss it, but she was wanting to pet it. My inner squeam shouted "smash it and trash it!" but my mother censor realized I really don't want my kids terrified by flies and so instead I said "Wow, that is really something, you know honey, flies are kind of dirty sometimes, so how about if we don't play with them?"
- And before I could even suggest releasing it to the wild she smashed it with her fingers threw it in the trash and went to wash her hands - with soap!
So now, I have a new identity crisis, am I the mom who needs to teach her children about respecting all of God's creations? or am I the mom who is proud of her fly smashing kids?

old post new blog

I wrote this posting for my briefly lived MySpace blog, I still think it rather entertaining

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Mopping classes, starting now
This morning as I was waging another battle in the war against ANTS (A SoCal scourge) I was mopping my floor. And as I made the cursory sweeps of the mop Ella, age 4 1/2, observed as only a 4 year old would
"You are a really good mopping one Mom!"
"Thanks Ella." I answered sort of automatically, but since she stayed around to watch my technique I started paying more attention to getting every corner, every speck of debris or stain, and I was rewarded with the following;
"Maybe you could be a mopping teacher, Mom, and the ladies (a general term for women older than her babysitter and younger than her Grandma) - the ladies could drive there cars over here and park them at our house. And if any kids came they could just use our toy mop cuz it's a good one we got from Santa!"
"Mopping lessons huh? What would I teach them?"
"Oh, just mopping and stuff, and you could teach the kids to sing really good and you could make notes to cut up and give out and give each person the same notes, every single one!"
"Why would people come to mopping class?"
"Because then their kids could play upstairs in my room until it's time to come down and do the mopping."
I must admit, I'm seriously considering it, I mean aside from the time to converse with actual adults and the promise of children singing "really good", just think of how clean my floors would be! But hey! even if I don't make millions in the floor cleaning education industry, it's nice to know that even in the midst of tantrums and meltdowns, my four year old thinks I have something to offer the world.

Last Saturday was a big day for our little Nina, a celebration in honor of her surviving her earliest infancy, a 100 day celebration. Because she has survived for so long and seen so much, I thought I would take advantage of her wisdom and knowledge and interview her for you, the reader.

So Nina, how do you feel having reached this milestone in your life?

I heard it was some party, did you have a good time?

So, how was your experience being inducted into the wax museum?

I understand you have had some incidents with stalkers, what happened?

How do you reply to the rumors that you have a drinking problem?

What about the rumors of wild hot tub parties?

-At this point Nina’s representatives stepped in and reminded me that this interview was agreed to on certain conditions and I was unable to continue this line of questioning.


And what designer will you be wearing this season?

Thank you for your candor, Congratulations on your big day!

Once in a Blue Moon

The title of this blog is indicative of how often I expect to post. Not that I won't be brilliant all day every day as usual, but lets face it, I have three little girls and I don't get much time to type. I hope I can maintain my statistics of humor, I estimate that one in ten things I think are funny or poignant actually prove to be of worth, I promise to try to edit the 90% drivel.