01.02.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:02 pm by Anne
Lily and Emma are excellent big sisters to Piper. I’ve noticed this lately, especially when Piper howls over any given injustice. This morning Piper howled at Emma near the breakfast table. Emma glanced at Piper standing on the floor, picked up her own toast and juice, and moved over to the next nearest chair. This allowed Piper to sit at the table too.
A few moments later Piper was howling again. I had taken her empty sippee cup and placed it in the sink…which was apparently very insulting to her. She screamed at me and yelled “No!” as I worked in the kitchen. “Use words, honey.” (It is a very common phrase for me.) But the girl is stubborn. She continued the noisefactory and stumbled over to the sofa where Lily was trying to watch Sesame Street. Lily got down and softly said “Come here, Piper…” and then held her baby sister in her arms. The crying stopped and Lily’s eyes were closed while her arms wrapped around Piper so sweetly.
Some days having three girls is just perfection.
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11.07.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 4:24 am by Anne
Santa Fe, NM hollyhock
Originally uploaded by Dux
I know about being left out of things. Maybe everyone does. How silly is it to be affected by something you didn’t care to attend in the first place?
For example:
Emma’s class has ten children. This past weekend, one of the girls had a birthday party and 8 of those kids were invited. Emma and another little girl were not.
It’s not as if I have a strong relationship with the Mom, or the child for that matter. To be honest, the few times I’ve seen the little girl in action, I thought she was a little B. She and Emma lock horns since Emma won’t be pushed around. (I admire this in Emma. Her assertiveness will serve her well.)
So okay, no big deal, right? Who cares? Before I even knew about this minor infraction and was making an invite list to Emma’s upcoming party, I asked her who she would like to invite and that little girl didn’t make the cut.
4 year old’s can make the call about who they want at their party, right? But I still feel slightly sad for Em. (Thankfully Emma doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the whole thing.) Who in their right mind wouldn’t like her? She is so awesome!
Is this why I have insomnia at 3:30 in the morning? Who knows? What’s more, who cares?!
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11.02.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 3:46 pm by Anne
pinkiepie
Originally uploaded by Dux
Just when you thought you could relax a little…I mean, Piper doesn’t put non-food items that could become choking hazards into her mouth anymore…that was a big hurdle to overcome. (Bring out the Polly Pockets toys!)
Yet again, Shan and I learned that Piper still cannot be trusted.
Today while I was reading up on histograms (pages and pages over the internet basically all saying the same thing) and as Shan half-snoozed, half-watched Harry Potter (the best movie to put on when you don’t know what movie to put on) with the girls, Piper decided to get into trouble.
Out of nowhere I heard her begin to wail, then Shan’s exclamations, and ran in to find them at the kitchen sink. Piper had slathered liquid handsoap from the bathroom all over her arms, neck, hair, and face…especially her eyes and was rubbing her soapy knuckles into her eyes making everything worse. I picked her up and started dousing her face with water, Shan grabbed a towel and wiped the slick goo off her face. It was awful. (thank goodness they don’t make soap with lye anymore. )
So we are back to keeping all non-necessary rooms closed off. At least for, what, another three years?
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10.28.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 12:05 pm by Anne
So what is going on at school? Lily’s school is not allowing the kids to dress up for Halloween. I remember looking forward to getting dressed on that day, to playing games with the class, to policemen led assemblies on the ‘dangers’ of eating your candy before letting mom and dad inspect it, the parade…oh man. That was the STUFF.
But now?
Dressing up in costume, apparently, is a no-go. I don’t know if it’s due to fundamentalist tempers or political correctness or what, but how sad to remove it from the year. (It most likely goes hand in hand with the distrust of Christmas and its subsequent replacement with Winter Holiday. GAG on that one too.)
I spoke with her teacher briefly about it today as I helped with lunch…you know, opening milk cartons, slicing apples, tearing open packets of ketchup for the chitlins nourishment and she described the holiday kibosh as a method of controlling the older kids from being ‘too scary’ for the little kids. I kind of get it because I desperately want to think there is a great reason to taking away the fun but it still doesn’t quite wash in my book. Then the teacher added that when tthe class works on their ‘fact or fiction’ part, in February, that the children will be encouraged to dress up as a character. So I guess that is something but again, it’s just not quite right.
Oh well, Lily…join the fold now. Get used to paying higher taxes and living with more restrictions. YAY! Hopefully your generation with stop the insanity that ours seems helpless to control.
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10.22.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:53 pm by Anne
I should have known better but no.
Shan decided we should have both sets of grandparents and his own parents over for supper tonight… that is, until he discovered my crock-pot creation (guinea fowl in white wine) would only feed our family of five. So it got moved to tomorrow night. Which is great, except that I had already been to the grocery store once today, with barely an incident since the older girls were both in school.
Now I’d have to go back, with Emma and Piper.
So we did. And it all started out grand, they both fit in the front of the cart shaped like a small car, they both got a free cookie to munch on, and they weren’t fighting at all. “I could do this more often!” I idly thought, while headed to pick up the very last item I needed. Why do I do that?
While deciding between the bleaches available, thankfully there aren’t many, Piper decided to climb out and wound up thunking head-first out of the car. She was crying, and as I walked over to help her up, I noted blood on the floor. “Piper is huuuuurt!” Emma informed me and when I bent down to examine the damage I saw that Pipes had split her lip. Again. (She does this OFTEN lately, I guess it’s because of her enormous teeth.) And of course blood is gushing down her chin and dripping on her jacket. Luckily we were in the cleaning aisle so I pulled open a pack of overpriced papertowels ($4.99 for two!) and dabbed until the bleeding mostly stopped.
Is it possible for us to go anywhere without it turning into a mess of some kind? Wait. Don’t answer that.
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10.21.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 6:16 am by Anne
bee good
Originally uploaded by Dux
I was folding laundry when I heard the familiar loud call of my youngest.
Piper: Mommy!
Me: Yes, honey…
Piper: Mommy!
Me: Do you need help?
Piper: NO!
Me: Okay. Are you hungry?
Piper: NO!
Me: Do you want juice?
Piper: NO!
Piper: MOMMY!
So I walked into the kitchen, wondering what it was Piper was going to show me. And there she was. Sitting in the middle of the table, completely bare-assed, in a giant puddle of urine. Her diaper? Oh, it was right next to her on the table, like a discarded candy wrapper.
So the next time you eat at my table, forget all about this little story.
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10.16.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 2:56 pm by Anne
bridesmaid flowers
Originally uploaded by Dux
So we went to Houston last weekend for a good friend’s wedding. Lily was the flower girl. This was her second gig as such and I knew there wouldn’t be any problems.
We stayed at the Woodland’s Resort which sounded fabulous…and it really was. Lovely, surrounded by trees, punctuated with gorgeous ponds, and hiking trails…and the accomodations themselves were nice.
I hired a sitter online through a service called Care.com, over the span of a few months leading up to the wedding, I interviewed a number of potential sitters before choosing Abbie. And people, don’t believe it is an easy thing to do…I was pretty freaked out the day of…all manner of frightening images involving the babysitter and my kids came to mind. Until I met her in person. You know how sometimes when you look into someone’s eyes you just KNOW they are good? That’s how it turned out for us.
Lily met the ringbearer during the rehearsal…he was a cute boy who just turned 5 and they got along famously, as the only two children in the wedding.
The following day, my friend had asked me to accompany the wedding party to the spa in order to shoot a batch of candids. It was a great experience as I learned about bounce in a big way. The spa area we glommed onto consisted of about 3 separate rooms: one big-ish and two smaller ones. I was having to re-adjust the flash constantly, and that was nervewracking but good. Lily, on the other hand, as an almost 6 year old having to sit still for 5 hours with a bunch of old biddies…she did pretty well. And of course, everyone freaking adored her.
It must be an ancredible feeling to be so admired. 
The wedding was one of the nicest I’ve been too…with a smaller crowd of around 100 people. Lily came oiut, slightly piulling the ringbearer along…tossing rose petals until they were completely gone from her basket. (I became the last minute, spur of the moment videographer but of course ran out of tape right before the “I do” moment. eh.)
Wedding Review:
The food: TASTY, the drinks: NO COMPLAINTS, the dancing: THANKGOODNESS FOR THE DRINKS, but mainly and most importantly, you know how sometimes when you go to a wedding you are surrounded by people you have nothining in common with and who you don’t really enjoy being around (especially when paying a sitter 12 bucks/hour?) It was so not the case here. I finally got to meet all of the bride’s family and friends that she had talked about for the past 12 years, and it was instant goodness. I loved them all.
Once we loaded up for the drive home on Sunday, everyone was a bit exhausted, and the girls were not looking forward to another 4 hour drive. Lily burst into tears. “I miss my friends.” she said, referring to the 4 bridesmaids who had taken to allomothering her over the past two days.
“Yeah, I know honey.”
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10.09.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 4:01 pm by Anne
Look at this. Just look at it. Damn William’s and Sonoma for making something so ravishing. Did you notice that the apple will be 2 to 2 1/2 lbs? Sheezuz.
Today has been another crazy day of all out craziness as I try to prepare for this wedding coming up over the weekend. Lily is the flowergirl…the pretty pretty flowergirl. The flowergirl who LOST HER FIRST TOOTH today at school! I got an email from her teacher which reminds me once again, How the hell did our parents get by without email?
Piper is responding to some serious rash cream after suffering with the worst diaper rash for the past three weeks. Let me just tell you…when you take the baby to the doctor and show the rash and the doctor says, “Oh no. That is not a yeast infection…try some of this forty dollar diaper cream you can only buy from a compounding pharmacy and you will need to call 48 hours in advance of when you need the cream…” I suppose you can believe him or her. However, if said rash does not go away and three weeks later the baby screams in pain at every diaper change, and walks around the house clutching at the diaper while saying “Ouchie!Ouchie!”, make sure you go back to the doctor. On our return the doctor said, “Oh yes, this is a textbook case of a yeast infection. Here, let me give you a perscription for a good antifungal.” Doctor also added for my information that rashes change over time…so there you go.
And now for a few words about Emz. She always cracks me up and here are the top three of late:
“Let’s play dead princesses…do you want to be the purple or the pink one?”
“Mom? What does throw-up taste like?”
“When you were a baby where was I?”
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10.03.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 3:25 pm by Anne
golden chrysanthemum
Originally uploaded by Dux
Once a month I volunteer in Lily’s class to read three books to the kids. Today was my first time and while Pipez stayed home with Gramma, Emma tagged along with me.
I walked in, took my place at the big rocking chair, and all 17 children clamored over…excitedly introducing themselves, complimenting me on my outfit (I shit you not.), asking if Emma was joining the kindergarten, etcetc…
The three books I brought were:
How I became a Pirate
Olivia and the Missing Toy
Julius, the Baby of the World
All I can say is wow. WOW. Little boys. WOW. One little thing kept talking to me, pointing out he knew this book, telling me his soccer shirt number, wanting Emma to sit by him. Asking if the Lilly character in the book was my Lily.
I thought for sure the pirate book would keep them all engaged, what with the silly storyline and fantastic artwork, and it was a good starter. Julius, the Baby of the World kinda lost a few of them for a bit (subtle humor isn’t for every 5 year old)…and then Olivia reeled them all back in again.
It was so much fun! I can’t wait for next month….hmmmmm…what to read, what to read, what to read them.
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10.02.08
Posted in Uncategorized at 1:28 pm by Anne
Especially me.
Dear Bon Appetit,
As both a lover of fine food and a photographer, I have reached the end of my rope. For the third issue in a row, the cover photograph has blasted me with garish ugliness. There is entirely too much contrast (due to unskilled lighting) and the color is anything but appetizing. Last month’s picture of the bubbling pot of chili resembled so much outhouse waste.
I reccommend you find someone with more talent ( My five year old daughter would take nicer pictures with her Fisher-Price camera.) because these ugly photos do not compel me to make any of the recipes nor choose to continue my subscription.
Sincerely, Anne
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