Photo(s) of the (Every Other) Day

By Da Mama
These sisters have developed their own symbiotic system of Bella reading and Iris listening. Bella can read so well for an almost-first grader. She reads signs and advertisements especially well.
Daddy and Bella show off their superior paper airplanes. The paper airlines manufactured by mommy looked pretty after being decorated, but crashed and burned. The models by daddy, though not very flashy, certainly earned their wings.

Peace Love & Chocolate

By Da Mama

Long day today. I couldn't sleep last night and was up to all hours sewing a Frankenstine-ish Pillow out of one of Bella's baby blankees which recently became mysteriously fringed in silly putty. Had to cut the silly putty out. It was fun to make something nice and comfy out of a blankee that would have otherwise been tossed, but interesting to hand stitch with only a sewing repair kit.

Anyhow, I was tired, quite tired all day at work and daydreamed all day about sleeping. Todd is out tonight at the memory service of the dad of some of our closest friends here in town. Very hard, long battle with brain cancer. We send out love and strength to our good friends Jarred, Tara, Charlie, Rex, and Tommy.

The goal this evening: quiet and relaxation. And a whole lotta chocolate. The girls and I made a box of brownies and I found licking the bowl to be better than a spa to recover from my day. What else does a mommy need then Peace Love & Chocolate:

The Artist Known as Bella owes several of you art pieces. She's still in the creative-musing part of her process, so do not yet lose hope.

Kate, my mom mentioned you left a comment, but I don't see one from you. Wouldn't want to miss hearing form you. . .

Urgent Medical Alert

By Chip Chipheardt

No one thought it could happen on this street in this modern, Midwestern commuter town in this day and age. An age of rapid advancement, e-mails, cutting edge fashion and technology. An age of advanced medical treatments delivered at your corner urgent care center. The age of now. The age of the sparkling future.

The elders will tell of the affliction. They will tell and be hastily ignored by most of the denizens of this haven for young families. But listen closely and you will hear at least one young couple talk of the disease hereto unknown by most of their peers: Early Onset Nostalgia.

"It's hard to describe," the afflicted young mother described. "I think it all started with the Olympics. Just the sound of the Olympics on the television in the living room in the background of life. That sound took me right back to one of my earliest childhood memories. Were there summer games in 1980? I could look it up on the world wide intraweb, but have suddenly forgotten how. All I can remember is the smell of my mom cooking in the kitchen and the Olympics on television. Oh, crap, my heart hurts so bad I might puke."

"For me, it was the green beans," explained the young, afflicted father. "My wife grew several pots of green beans on our deck for the first time this year. She came inside with a handful one night last week and I snapped one in half and ate it immediately. That taste transformed me into a small boy in my Grandad's backyard, the smell of his garden, his smile and bright eyes, the green beans he grew each summer. I gotta have more of those beans. . ."

Typical Nostalgia normally strikes the elderly at a time in their lives when they can better cope with the side effects. Behaviors such as being frozen in place by a memory for longer than fifteen minutes, attempting to build a time traveling device with household appliances, and reenacting a conversation which occurred thirty years ago while in line for dinner, all seem less debilitating when experienced in a nursing facility. The staff of most such facilities are specially trained to treat those afflicted with the disease with kindness and patience.

Early Onset Nostalgia is highly atypical. Side effects become problematic due to the responsibilities of career and busy young family life. Feelings of shame and guilt often accompany the disease.

"I feel so bad," sighed the wife. "I have this great life right now. I am trying to enjoy each moment. I don't really want to travel by coffee pot back to the 1970's. . .but to play with my old Star Wars figurines in my dad's van while driving to Ocean City, just one more time, just one more time. . ."

Once in the grasp of Early Onset Nostalgia, the young couple found themselves quite unable to move forward with their current reality. "My eyes kept tearing up, "the young father reminisced about his reminiscence. "I passed a VW Vanagon on the road this week and I had to pull over to the side of the road. I could almost smell my own teenage, stinky feet which tortured my family on our long road trips."

But a late afternoon playdate brought a glimmer of hope for treatment and recovery. With an extra child in the house, the young mother was forced to be a bit more creative than normal to keep the kids occupied. "They started to fight over a cabbage patch kid, my old Corn Silk Kid to be exact, and I remembered that a whole slew of my old cabbage patch kids were up in the attic. So the kids and I went on a rescue mission."

"My mommy went up through the hole in the ceiling," the 3.75-year old daughter continued. "Then dollies started flying through the air at us."

The kids immediately began playing with the ressurected dolls and watching them brought the mother a sense of peace she'd not experienced since the affliction began. "Oh, I felt better right way. I knew then what we needed to do."

This weekend found the young parents immersing themselves in treatment. A young father said, "We took the girls to a matinee viewing of Star Wars Clone Wars. The theater was filled with other families just like us - parents in their 30's with young children. Looking around, you couldn't tell who was enjoying the movie more. I don't feel nearly as alone anymore. And then the girls ran around the house this afternoon playing with their Star Wars toys from McDonalds. They made shooting noises ('Pee-chew, pee-chew, pee-chew') and pretended to be Jedi Knights. It was great!"

Part of the Treatment Plan?

Other 70's-style activities enjoyed by the girls and happily encouraged by the parents included building a home for play figurines out of cardboard cereal boxes and stenciling with colored pencils.

The mother further explained, "My mom came up on Friday afternoon and cleaned my childrens' rooms, just like she used to do for me. I fell to my knees when I got home from work and saw those clean rooms. I was just flushed full of memories and I couldn't move out of gratitude covering 34 years. But then Iris came up and started throwing toys around her room and jumping in her pile of stuffed animals, just like I used to do and I was able to unfreeze and continue with my motherly responsibilities. Of course tonight the girls asked to go to sleep on the big pile of stuffed animals, and I let them. I took a picture of them all tucked in safe and felt warm and homey myself."

Lay Us Down. . . On a Bed of Stuffed Animals

Sadly, there is no known cure for Early Onset Nostaglia and it appears to be contagious. Several recent studies of the condition were discontinued after the lead scientific researchers became re-obsessed with Atari games and Etch-a-Sketches.

When told of these scientific failures, the now experienced young couple provided sound advice, "Those scientists should have their own children, immediately. Reliving their childhood memories through the newest generation is their only hope."

Question of the Week

By Queen Bee and Wild Iris

"Do you think we will EVER have cousins?"

Respond at will.

To Baama From Bella

Grandma,
Your picture is really good and you may not believe that I did it. But I really did, really did, really did. You can pick it up whenever you want. You may pick it up on Friday. I love you. Bye!

P.S. Iris loves you too. Bye. Happy.

ART SALE IN OUR YARD, Or Indoors Away from the Bees, Or Maybe on the Front Porch, But Only if We Can Run Inside If We See a Bee

By Da Mama

This summer we have attended several art fairs, including Art Fair on the Square (Madison) and Art in the Park (Lake Geneva). Bella especially enjoys looking at the art in various booths. She favors ceramics, jewelry, and furniture - the brighter and shiner the better. She always has money in her pocket to spend, but never quite enough. She will ask, "Mommy, how much is this (purple and pink flowered) mirror?" "Fifty." "I have fifty right here!!!" "No, honey, fifty dollars, not fifty cents." Obviously, Bella concluded, this art fair business is a great money making scheme, so yesterday she decided to have her own.

She worked hard all morning on art pieces to sell. She warmed up her creative muse with a dot drawing of me:

This particular piece was immediately claimed by the model and is not, I repeat, not for sale.

The artist then made several beaded bracelets and colored a picture from a coloring book. Satisfied with her inventory, she next worked on marketing. She an 8.5 x 11 inch sign on the front of our house:

End of marketing strategy.

The artist thought the best location for the sale would be near the street. She and Iris made a killing on a gaterade-n-popcorn sale in that location earlier this summer. But the bees are a problem. A serious problem. The kind of problem that makes two little girls run frantically from the car to the porch as though the front of our house is in the middle of a war zone. Every time. So she couldn't be that far from the house. She thought of being inside the house and tried that for a little while, watching from the front window for people to drive by and spot her HUGE sign. But that also did not work. She comprised on location and ended up on the front porch. She brought out a wooden display bench and a princess cash register and a 10-key machine for adding up sales. She recruited a sales assistant. She made price tags. She put on a dress. She and her assistant shouted to random passersby, "Sale! Art Sale! Sale! Art Sale at 317!" She had very little luck for so long that she almost gave up. She hit a low point when a wasp flew by and sent her screaming into the house.

As I was leaving to go to the store, she whispered, "Mommy, why isn't anyone buying my art?" My mind thought, "Because you had a poor marketing plan, and not enough inventory, and no one wants to buy another little kid's stuff." But my mommy heart thought, "Oh, my sweet little girl, if I could save you from every pain in the world including this one caused by all the moronic, mean, cheapskates who drove by without stopping (sorry if this includes any of you, our friendly neighbors), I would, oh, I would."

The best I could do in that regard was to come back from the store, pretend to be a passing stranger, and write her a check for $5.00 for one of the bracelets.

Later in the evening, she hugged me out of the blue and said, "Thanks for buying my artwork, mommy." Worth all 500 pennies.

Wild Iris Phraseology #1

OOOH LA LA!!!

Expression of pleasure after trying something new, especially food.

"This purple drink is OOOH LA LA!"

Bye, Bye for Now

By Wild Iris

Uncle Pheel and Auntie Coley are leaving for hot Florida. We don't know why. My mudder says its because they want to live near Coley's mommy and daddy. They will live near the ocean and we can visit Cinderella's castle close too. Today we drove to meet them and say bye, bye for now. We ate pancakes and drank coffee and saw a lake and a fountain and rode on a coach and pet a horse. We drank water and I got hungry and tired and then we gave hugs and said goodbye.

I don't want my Uncle Pheel and Auntie Coley to go and neither does Bella. They have come to every one of our birthday parties ever ever ever and we miss them. But my daddy says being in hot, hot weather will make them feel better than cold, cold weather and they will be happy. We all hope so.

Here are some picture from our day. . .

Pretty Fountain Girls
Carriage Riders

High on the Sass-o-Meter

Weekly Review

By Da Mama

Another work week almost done. Thursday night rocks, even more than weekend nights, because of the anticipation and hope for some time together this weekend.

Bella went bowling today for the first time ever. She expected it to be hard after her vast experience with bowling which mostly consisted of playing bowling on Wii (and most recently ended with a tragic Wii-to-the-head accident.) So she was nervous. But she did well. Said the bowling shoes were slippery, but she got three spares "not at the same time". She also scored better than several older kids in her summer adventure daycare camp and was proud of herself.

Iris has been a bit of a challenge lately, not that this is unexpected given her age. Her emotions lay so close to the surface. Most of the time she is good. Our little hippy love child likes to show her affection. But she also has a very quick temper and her good will can turn on a dime if you cross her. I can actually see a shadow of mean cross behind her eyes just before she loses her temper - phew she can get mad. This week I was carrying her to time out for fighting with her sister, and that dark shadow crossed behind her eyes, and she raised her little hand in the air and purposely scratched her fingernails across my bare shoulder. She immediately recognized her grave error; however, the damage was done. I keep thinking, if she is like this now, imagine her at 13 years old. . . In the photo attached to this post, I asked her to demonstrate her angry pout. Her sister had to help of course.

The Princesses have been running amok in our house this week too. Cinderella, Cinderella, Cinderella, we love you, Cinderella. At least my children love you. Da Mama ain't really so sure. I'm kinda tired of these Princesses. Not just because I've been overexposed, but also because those gals just wait around all the time to be rescued by various handsome princes. This is a theme that runs through not only Disney movies, but also most mainstream adult movies (anyone seen Spiderman III?). The more you notice it, the more you notice it. And I'm tired of it. How much of this really effects the way these young women view the world and their place in it? How much has this undercurrent effected my view of the world? How often have I unconsciously fallen back into the belief that a woman needs a man to save her, etc? I've felt this way before, that I just want to be rescued from whatever situation, and I get angry at myself about it.

So, I've been mad at the Princesses this week and told Bella as much. This prompted us to engage in The Great Princess Debate. . .

Da Mama: I'm tired of these Princesses.

Queen Bee: Why would you be tired of Princesses? I'm never tired of Princesses.

Da Mama: Because they just sit around waiting for Princes to save them and that's not the way the world works.

Queen Bee: Like which Princesses?

Da Mama: Cinderella for one. She just sings and dances and lets that wicked stepmother and stepsisters boss her around all the time and waits for the Prince to think she is pretty and marry her to get her out of that house. She should have said to her stepmother, "Stepmother, this house is part mine and this money is part mine and you don't have a right to boss me around. I'm leaving here and want my fair share. You and your stinky daughters can stay here and do your own darn chores!"

Queen Bee: MOMMY! But Cinderella was just a little girl when her daddy died. It wasn't her fault she lived with a mean stepmother. And what about Sleeping Beauty? It wasn't her fault she ate that poison apple.

Da Mama: Well, I'm just tired of watching those Princesses stand by while stuff happens to them. They should take action! Take control! Do something themselves.

Queen Bee: OH MOMMY! PRINCESSES AREN'T REAL!!!!

Wild Iris: You two stop fighting now!

Da Mama (Quietly turning to back to her eldest): Okay. . . But does your sister understand that they are not real?

Queen Bee: Probably. . . no. . . but we'll tell her when she gets older.

Good point. Anyhow, do I sound like a crazed feminist to even rally against these Princesses? Does it really matter? Today I discussed this with two of my dear work girlfriends and they looked at me like I was nuts. "Little kids should be able to fantasize about these things. They'll understand when they get older." Will they?

Beyond Princesses. . . Todd has been working hard this week getting ready for the Trek dealer show. He still has one foot doing his old job, and one doing his new, so that makes for some busy feet. We've both been crazy tired, I had a migraine earlier this week. . .he picked up a lot of the slack around the house and with the girls. I couldn't hope for a better partner in this happy chaos.

Family Fun Day at the Zoo*

By Da Mama

"We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo. How about you, you, you? You can go too, too, tooo. We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo."

Don't know those song lyrics?! Please, give us a call, and we'll sing them to you, loudly, repeatedly, and in unison, for more than one hour. Then you'll know for REAL.

We do love the zoo. And we sure did love our recent Family Fun Day at the Zoo*.

All of Iris' wild expectations were met by a trip on the steam train around the zoo followed immediately with a visit to the elephants. She was the very picture of innocent childlike excitement and delight, her eyes shining and her mouth lit up in a smile all day. She made me so proud because she walked around that zoo for almost five hours on her skinny little legs before asking to be carried. All you toddlers, preschoolers, even school age children in strollers, stand back from the wonder of a small child with leg muscles and endurance, driven by utter intoxication with looking at every animal at the zoo.

Bella was in her element, walking hand in hand with her Iris buddy, with her family, and able to talk, talk, talk to her heart's content. We gave her an allowance for the day of $10 in an attempt to control the begging for money and blind spending. This tactic worked fairly well. She spent her money within the first hour of the trip as follows:
$5.40 - - Twisted stick sucker with small stuffed monkey
$1.50 - - Ride on the steam train
$3.00 - - Ride on the aerial chair ride with daddy
After that, she found herself in the poor house, unable to purchase such luxuries such as Mold-a-Rama plastic animals and entrance to the shark petting exhibit. Buutt, of course, Da Mama and YerTheBestDaddy couldn't resist shifting some of our remaining family funds her way to partake in more fun. All the best laid plans. . .

My favorites are the bears - any kind of bear the zoo holds - black, brown, grizzly, polar. . I gazed at the bears with fond memories of my childhood study of bears, including writing scientific reports about bears. . .outside of school. . . for fun. Yes, I'm the kind of person who as a child wrote research reports for fun. And I still love to stare in wonder at those damn bears. I wanted badly to enter their exhibits and feed them fish and give them big hugs. Those large barriers are there for a reason, I guess.

Daddy soaked in the entire experience and showed his childlike wonder over the Mold-a-Rama machines. Do all zoos have those machines from the early 80s which make on-demand plastic animals? I love those things. Just walking past one of the machines, the faint aroma of burning plastic takes me right back to being a child at the zoo. And I don't think Todd had previously experienced the pleasure that comes with watching that machine make a molded plastic animal figure just for you. He shook his head in disapproval when I stopped to purchase a kangaroo for my own self, but then looked on with slightly more interest when Iris purchased her own koala. But the end of the visit, after the continual sun and fun had turned us all a bit giddy with tiredness and as we were headed for the zoo exit, we spotted a Mold-a-Rama for pink flamingos. Todd face just lit up - Iris' pre-zoo excitement couldn't old a candle to it - and that man needed one of those plastic flamingos. He needed it. But, to his great dismay, the hour of zoo closing had passed, and the machine had been turned off. His chagrin was so great that he actually looked around the machine for some sort of on switch or perhaps the plug was just unplugged? Nothing that easy should have been expected.

The day threatened to end on a somewhat bitter note until Bella chimed . . ."Hey, next time we come to the zoo, let's just put all of our money together and buy nothing but Mold-a-Rama animals. We'll get this flamingo and all the others that we didn't buy today! Don't worry, daddy, we'll get them all!"

Thus we ended our Family Fun Day at the Zoo* with hope and excitement reserved for another trip next summer.

*Family Fun Day at the Zoo is proudly sponosored by Aunt Ali. Aunt Ali is the greatest gift giver in the history of the world. Thank you, Aunt Ali, thank you for our Family Fun Day at the Zoo*!



Sitting in front of a dino we found.

Pouting in front of the Mold-a-Rama

Ruthie with her favorite animal.

Everybody needs a buddy on the train ride.

What Else Does a Mudder Have To Do at 1:22am?

By Da Mama

Going on seven years of intermittent sleep deprivation caused by various 3rd parties (ahh-low there children under my roof), and finally at a time when a full night of rest is solidly within my grasp, this crazy mudder now causes her own self to stay up late by completely restarting the family blog.

Why? Why? You wonder?

Because I like to create things. Huh. And start things over again. Preferably, at the same time.

So here's a start again. I've brought in some of my favorite posts from the last couple o'blogs and also a link to the original. See below.

Hopefully I'll get better at posting now so that you, the 2-3 loyal readers of this news through the years, will continue to check back here at least, like every two months, and find something new.

Love ya all!

Layin' It Down Old School

Love these old posts which continue to exist out in cyberspace due to the Massive Ineptitude of the Blog Administrator:

http://crazydreamyjoy.blogspot.com/

Coffee Talk with Little Ruthie

Coffee Talk with Little Ruthie
From Spring 2007

Today we are having coffee talk with our Goofy Iris Ruthie. In the last month or so she has really begun stretching her speech skills and we at last get to hear what's on Ruthie's mind. A couple of examples. . .
Exchange #1
Moderator: Iris, what would you like to be when you grow up?
Iris: A chicken. A small chicken.

Moderator: You want to be a chicken when you grow up?

Iris: YES. A small chicken. Or a dog.

Moderator: It's good to have dreams.

Exchange #2

Iris: I not scared boys anymore.

Moderator: That's great! You like boys now, right?

Iris: YES. I like Daddy. And Elijah. And Charlie. And Rex. . . . .And Daddy. That's all.

Exchange #3

Moderator (Upon seeing a stricken-faced Ruthie run into kitchen): What's the matter?

Iris: OOOOOOOOH, I lost my coffee! My coffee lost! OOOOOOH.

Moderator: It's right here. Here's your coffee cup.

Moderator's Mother (On telephone): Are you letting my granddaugther drink coffee again?
Moderator: Just a little.

Iris: OOOOOOOOOH, I lost my cereal. My cereal lost! OOOOOOH.

Moderator: You ate all your cereal. Do you want more?

Iris: YES. PLEEEEASE.

Sisters Marry Unexpectedly: Grandparents Will Not Approve

From Spring 2007
By Chip Chipheardt

Breaking news from the heartland of America today as two sisters decided to wed one another in an impromptu ceremony. "There wasn't much I could do about it," their mother explained, "It all happened so fast."

First, the retired make-up artist from Kiss arrived at the family home and painted both girls up in anticipation of the wedding ball. Then Franz Bonz, the acclaimed fashion designer from Sheboygan, outfitted both brides in complimentary Princess Wedding Dresses. After fully dressing, the eldest sister took her place on the Daddy Bench.

"The Daddy Bench is a bench full of daddies that mommies can choose from after they graduate from college," Bella explained. On this day, Bella was the only girl on the Daddy Bench and everyone laughed at her make-up and no one choose her for a long time. She was the only person left on the bench when her little sister arrived. Bella asked Iris to marry her and, when Iris accepted, Bella presented a lovely miniature flower bouquet.

As the early afternoon sun shone brightly through the windows, the girls danced their first dance together, then put on their high heels and walked into their future together in the other room. They rather quickly started a family of eclectic children including a teddy bear, doll, and several Elmos. "What's done is done," their mother sighed in resignation. "I just want them to be happy."

Six Children Five and Under Survive Afternoon Together

Summer 2007
By Chip Chipheardt

No one was more surprised than the lone adult in charge when six children survived an afternoon in a suburban backyard today. Iris (2), Bella (5), Sophia (5), Charlie (4), Rex (2) and Elijah (3) spent an afternoon together playing in a kiddie pool, painting pictures, running through the sprinkler, giving baths to stuffed animals, climbing on the swing set, playing house in a tent, drinking fruit punch, and eating all the snacks available in the house.

All this fun occured under the supervision of one woman who 15, 10, maybe even 5 years ago would have laughed out loud if told she would not only be put in charge of so many children, but would even enjoy it.

The large gang of children emerged from the afternoon with only one injury between them. "The funny part was that none of the kids got hurt when one would have expected, for example, when all six of them were sliding from way up in the playhouse, down into the pool. . . or when they were swinging each other too high on the hammock. . . or maybe when they were playing Monster Freeze Tag. Instead, poor little Rex hurt himself when he was just sitting on my lap - he keeled right over for some strange reason and bit his lip." The quick thinking, future paramedic, Sophia, quickly applied an Elmo ice pack to the injury and the crisis was soon over.

Other than a few minor scuffles over the control of the garden hose, a climate of peace and cooperation prevailed. "There seems to be a group-listening mentality. Sometimes I have trouble keeping just my two girls from fighting with one another for an afternoon, but today the big ones looked out for the little ones and everyone actually listened to me."

An anoymous neighbor reported seeing the woman in charge actually sit in the backyard hammock with a magazine for almost ten uninterrupted minutes. "I didn't think something like could ever happen in the world," the neighbor whispered, "Please, let's not talk about it or it may never happen to me."

The lone adult in charge waxed philosophical after the parents of the extra children reclaimed them late in the afternoon. "I love all those darn kids," the astounded woman said, "My own two, plus the extras. They can come over anytime."

Blankee Sniffers Unite!!

From Summer 2008
By The Leaders of the Blankee Sniffing Unity Movement


WE THE LEADERS OF THE BLANKEE SNIFFING UNITY MOVEMENT DECLARE OUR FREEDOM TO THE WORLD!

We are free to sniff on our blankees at any time, in any location, and in any company that we so desire without interference from outside sources.

We reserve the right to never again let our blankees run through the washing machine.

We are free to carry our stinky blankees by any means we desire, including "Linus Style".

We will not be asked to go to bed without our blankees for stinking and, if we are asked, we reserve the right to throw tantrums lasting no more than twenty five hours.

We may share the stinky ends of our blankees with any adult with whom we cuddle. Said adult must enjoy the smell or we shall take great offense.

We are free to gather in large groups with other blankee sniffers to advance our common cause.

We shall not be deterred. We shall defend our blankee stinking rights by force if necessary. Don't make us mad. Really.

Don't.