Canning overload

Well, we got ourselves in over our heads today.

This was supposed to be our mellow last day before Sacha went back to work. We started out by pulling the kids in their bike trailer to Mateo's preschool for a test run. Then, we took the car to be serviced and randomly ended up at the dollar store after that, looking for decorations for Sacha's classroom.

We got home and immediately got involved with making a pie, which was delicious, but maybe didn't really have to be made today. Then, Sacha found a new carpet for her classroom on craigslist, which needed to be picked up tonight, a mere half an hour's drive away. Then, after naptime, we went to our neighbors' house to feed their cat and picked some tomatoes, which we added to our already prodigious supply of tomatoes and abruptly decided...well, to can them. Of course. It is the theme of the summer.

So, Sacha cooked up a vat of tomato sauce while simultaneously making dinner. Turns out that tomatoes need to simmer for a good long while before they really become saucy - like, as in hours. It was around this point that we realized that the kids were starting to lose it. We normally do pretty well between 4 and 6 pm, but not today. We tried to talk to my parents on the webcam and neither one of the munchkins could hold it together long enough to let their grandparents finish a sentence. I had the computer on Mateo's bed and pretty soon the jumping on the bed made it impossible to continue.

Dinner became a spectacle of throwing food and drink, with Natalia being the main culprit. Mateo did contribute an entire glass of milk to the floor, however. Sacha wants me to mention that it was an accident and he did clean it up himself, as he has had much practice at doing.

At that point, we had to stop and regroup...but wait, the tomatoes were still simmering. Somehow, they got finished and the kids calmed down and got to bed and the craigslist carpet was picked up. Somewhere in there, I decided that I really needed to vacuum. What can I say, the day was just like that. The house looked like a bomb had exploded and I needed to restore order.

Anyway, at this point, we are ready for bed. Let's hope tomorrow is more predictable!

Yum.

We had breakfast for dinner tonight. YUM. We made waffles from scratch and topped them with peaches that we picked yesterday and some bananas...and, of course, whipped cream for the grown-ups. It was completely and utterly satisfying. Somehow, waffles have become my thing and I've started adding lots of cinnamon and vanilla to the batter lately. It tastes delicious and the house smells divine, too. The kids, true to form, went mostly for the fruit. Both of them are obsessed with it. Natalia got so excited when she saw me cutting up the banana that she actually growled. Loudly.


On that theme, yesterday we made applesauce and then canned it. Mateo helped with washing the apples and Natalia...well, she helped with pilfering fruit from the fruit bowl, which we had put close to the ground to make more room on the counter, and eating as much of it as she could. She took (and consumed) two whole nectarines and a plum, and possibly more. At one point, I realized she had disappeared and so I went looking for her. I found her at the front door, on the far side of the house from the kitchen, noshing on a whole nectarine. She had taken it from the kitchen and toddled away to eat in privacy. She looked as guilty as a one-year-old can, which is not at all! (Here she is, after I returned her to the kitchen...notice the nectarine still in her clutches):


We're enjoying our last weekend of vacation before Sacha goes back to work. We have some pears ripening in the kitchen - our last canning project of the season - and a whole day of no plans at all tomorrow. Recipe for a great weekend, eh?

Summertime

Sacha's going back to work next week and so we are enjoying the last days of summer. Even though I am not a teacher, as the spouse of one, I would just like to state how much I love that Sacha gets summers off! It is the best thing ever.

Anyway, she's been doing some running around and getting things ready, and she had some errands to run this morning, so the kids and I went on an adventure at a local park. We met up with two other moms and their boys and really did it up. We played on the play structure, and the swings, and the teeter totters...and then we moved on to the duck pond and playing in the dirt and drawing with sticks and running, running, running. We all came home dirty and sticky and exhausted...and really, isn't that how summer should be?

Here are some photos. I've been waiting for both kids to be photographable at the same time and it appears I may just need to keep waiting. Mateo has FINALLY consented to look at the camera when I ask him to, but now, of course, Natalia would not consider doing the same for a million dollars. One day!

Decked out

We just finished up our 17-week time with our student nanny. It ended up taking much longer than 17 weeks, but she came about once a week for quite awhile and then finished with three days in a row. Since she was going to be here for three days, we thought we should try to accomplish something...so we ended up deciding to re-stain our deck. We had last stained it three years ago, when Mateo was gestating, and we had no idea what we were doing. We accidentally used an opaque stain, which is basically like painting it with regular paint. We meant to buy something more transparent, but didn't realize our error until we had already done most of the deck. We also used rollers, which is apparently a no-no. It ended up really uneven and didn't exactly look high class. Like so:


And that was one of the more even parts. In addition to looking bad, the paint also wore off really quickly in the thinner parts, so that the deck was hurting after just a year or two.

This time, we wanted to do it right. We read up, rented a pressure washer, and spent a couple of hours pressure washing it. Then, we used a paint stripper to get the remants off, which was an incredibly laborious process and really should have happened before the pressure washing, but oh well. After that, the deck looked like this:


Finally, it was time to stain it. We followed the advice of the guy at the home improvement store and used rags to work it right into the wood. We then followed up with paint brushes, so we got a nice good coat all over the deck.


We went with the same redwood color as before, but this time we got a transparent stain. These photos don't really do it justice, but it looks awesome. It's evenly stained and will be nicely protected from the huge amount of rain coming to it in the winter time. We are very proud of ourselves for getting it done!

She walks!

Little N has been motoring around on her own two feet more and more this week. Check it out!



PS: We had a lovely day with my mom today. Thanks, mom!

New stuff

So, at virtually the same moment that I announced here that Talia could walk, she lost interest. She's been doing some walking, some crawling for months now. One thing we've learned about her over the past 13 months is that she likes to do things on her own time. She has approached everything this way, from her birth to nursing to learning to crawl and then to walk. She's getting to the point now where she seems to be making progress again, though. She now commonly will walk across the room or toddle across the bark chips at the park. She seems like she's on the verge of a breakthrough, but I think she's the only one who knows the timeline!

Our favorite girl has been working on a lot lately, and has been especially interested in conquering the equipment at our local park. She's learned to go up and down the stairs and to go down the little slides like a pro. For how tiny she is, she lacks nothing in terms of bravery! She loves to throw herself down the slides any which way. Today, we were at the park and she discovered the joys of pushing the empty stroller around the basketball courts. Several times, she tripped and skinned her knees, but got right up and kept chugging along like she didn't even notice. She's a tough cookie!

Just wanted to jot down some of what she's been up to lately. Even with all the new stuff, one thing hasn't changed: she has us wrapped around her little finger just like she always has!

Home front

We made waffles this morning for some friends (and us!) and the kids had homemade whipped cream for the first time. I'm sure it has been noticeable that we've been on a kick of making more things ourselves...and we finally decided that the spray whipped cream had to go!

We've been doing a lot of food projects around here this summer - we've picked a zillion pounds of fruit, canned peaches, made pickles, started making the five-minute bread dough again, etc. Today I got all motivated and actually cooked something new for dinner! It involved cutting up a whole chicken, which was a new experience in and of itself, and then smothering the pieces in butter and cranberry sauce and orange zest and such. We just watched Julie and Julia (after reading the book several years ago) and so all the butter seemed appropriate!

Anyway, the kids loved the whipped cream and so did we. It might have to become a part of our weekend waffle tradition. Sadly, our homemade strawberry jam, which we mostly use for waffles, is almost gone already and we are wishing we had picked even more strawberries!

All of this is to say, in a roundabout way, that I am loving being home. I don't miss my job very much, if at all. Not that it wasn't a good job, because it was, but it is the best thing ever to be with the kids all day long. I feel so, so grateful that we can do this.

So, here are some photos from the day.

Mateo and his beater:



Natalia and hers:



Swimming lessons:



My culinary creation:

Drawing

These last few weeks, Mateo has been more interested in drawing. Frequently, though, he asks me to draw stuff for him, and then he likes to draw over my drawings. This is all good and fine, and he thinks my drawings a great. . . but I must admit that some of my kindergarten students were better drawers than I am. My drawing of a pictures looks pretty close to what it did when I was in first or second grade. When I was in high school there was a teacher that was supposed to be an amazing drawing teacher, but I took pottery instead, because I was convinced that I was a bad drawer anyway, so why try.

This last week I reserved a book from the library that has very simple steps to make all sorts of animals. The book came in today, and I am not sure if Mateo or I was more excited about the book. I would let him pick out an animal, and then I would make the drawing for him. I think we were both equally excited about the whole process. And at the end of each drawing, Mateo would say, "That's pretty!" Now, that's what I call motivation!

Then, you know how I get obsessed by things and just can't stop, I looked up "draw squad" lessons online and started drawing while Alayna was working out this evening. I actually drew for a full 40 minutes. And during that time, I wasn't thinking about the upcoming school year or any of the 100 things I have been obsessing about lately. (99% work related) I was just drawing! So, while I can not say I am an artist by any stretch of the imagination, here are my very first attempts at 3D drawings.

Doctor's orders

I keep trying to remember to write down some things M says, so here's a conversation from yesterday.

This is random, but I have this patch of skin on my inner arm that looks like an old lady's. Well, maybe an older lady's. I know, I am getting older, but this area doesn't look like the rest of my skin. I don't know if I have eczema or it's just irritated or what. Anyway, we packed the kids into the car for swimming lessons yesterday (note to self: in the future, scrap the swimming lessons when it is cold and rainy outside) and Sacha and I were discussing my skin as we drove off.

Sacha: Well, it does look weird. Maybe you should get it checked out.

Alayna: Maybe I'm just getting old. It does look funny though. I wonder what's wrong with it.

Mateo, from the back seat: It has dirt in it!

Moms: (Silently laughing) Oh, it does? Thanks for letting us know!

Mateo: What you need is some neosporin and a band aid.

Because neosporin and a band aid can solve everything!

Being lectured on why not to lecture

Although the school year does not officially start till September, I had my first in-service training day today. My goal for the training was just to meet the new people at the school where I was going to be teaching. Really, that was my only goal. To start to make some connections for next year. And, since my goal was ohh soooo lofty, I can say that I accomplished my goal!

The training was decent. What it had going for it is that all of the presenters really had a great sense of humor. If I ever do trainings with adults, I hope that I can be half as humorous as they were!

What I will never, ever, get is why trainers seem to forget their point when they are talking. Shouldn't they be modeling what they are preaching? All five people that talked focused on two things: building relationships with people and having your students involved. All of this happened over 6 hours. How many times, over the first 5 hours, were we asked to participate by talking with a partner? One time! It is somewhat hard to build a relationship if you can't talk with the person next to you. Lol.

Thankfully the last presenter was engaging and actually had us talk with each other. And over the course of lunch I also talked with my new colleagues. So, overall it was a good day.

It seems like Alayna also had a great day with the kids and after we got home we had swimming lessons at the local public pool. We have a great teacher this year who has us singing songs, and doing all sorts of activities with the kids in the water!

Beaterville

This morning, we met up with some lovely ladies for breakfast at a neighborhood haunt. It's called Beaterville and is decorated with some appropriately old, beat-up cars. While we enjoyed catching up with one of the Js, the other one was running Mateo around outside. They got to see a dog getting a bath at one store across the street, got a sticker at the knitting shop next door, and then spent a long time exploring the ancient car artifacts outside the restaurant. I think he had a far more eventful breakfast than we did!


Both kids really did well at the restaurant, though. M especially, since he had a late night last night at Grammy's birthday. Happy birthday, Mom! And, the baby, too, as she had been under the weather the day before and made a rather sudden recovery yesterday afternoon. She was still feeling a bit on the quiet side, but all better and acting much more like her normal self.


After naptime, we packed up and headed to Washington Park for a free summer concert. We got to see Devin Phillips and his modern jazz quartet, which was cool. He came here from New Orleans after Katrina and ended up staying. We also got to hear local celebrity Storm Large, whose personality turned out to be just as large as her name! Mateo was enthralled with the intstruments and such. He stayed rooted to the spot during the warm-ups, as his little buddies swirled around him. I think that was his favorite part!


Natalia loved the music, too, and especially liked clapping when the songs ended. She bopped around our blanket and made friends with people sitting around us.


Despite being advertised as family friendly, the venue forbade kids to be in front of the stage and the front section was designated as a "quiet listening area". I'm sorry, but isn't the front supposed to be where people get to dance? They gave a little talk before about how they were glad to welcome children so that they could learn how to be "good audience members." I thought it was a better opportunity for them to learn how to appreciate music!

Anyway, the weirdest thing happened at the end. After some more listening and Mateo getting his arm painted by the face painting people, we decided to pack up and head out. We walked up a million stairs and eventually got to the car. M, who had been behaving pretty well, was a mess all the way home and we couldn't figure out why. When we got home, he randomly laid down on the floor in the front room and Sacha saw that he had a big welt over his eye. It looked like someone had punched him! I guess we'll find out tomorrow if he's going to have a black eye or not, but either way, it had to have hurt.

We thought maybe one of his friends had accidentally hit him, but he kept insisting that it had happened as we were leaving. Later, he said that a frisbee had hit him the face as we were walking out. I was with him the whole way back to the car, as were Sacha and Talia, and none of us saw anything unusual. And he never cried or anything. So, who knows. I was going through photos for this post and came upon this one, which I took to show the cool firetruck (upside down) on his arm, from when we were leaving. Both eyes look fine in this photo, so it must have happened between this and the ten minutes it took to get back to the car. I guess it will remain a mystery. It can be rough being two and a half sometimes!

Adventures

We're having quite the adventurous week. Due to a series of events involving Sacha's dad, a minor foot procedure, and a subsequent infection that nearly got out of control, my lovely wife is up in Washington lending a hand on the home front. She left last night and will probably be gone until tomorrow or the next day. Amazingly, after over a year, this is my first time ever being alone with the kids overnight by myself. Last night actually went okay, except that I went to bed way too late and our son got up WAY too early.

Other than the early wake-up (which I shouldn't really call early anymore because he gets up at the same time every day - between 5:30 and 6 am. There was a period of time in which he would consider sleeping until 7:00...but those days are gone for now) we had a great day together. We were busy! Mateo and I kicked the day off with a bang by throwing together a peach cobbler and some scones before Natalia got up. I've been having him help me bake forever and he's getting pretty good at dumping in the ingredients. He can even scoop them up himself sometimes.

Then, we all had breakfast and pretty soon, it was time for Talia to take a nap. She was just a mess all day. I'm not sure if she was missing Sacha (which we all were), or teething, or having a delayed reaction to the shots she got last week. They did say she might be pretty uncomfortable in a week and it's been about exactly a week. Either way, I pretty much held her all day long, because she would fall apart if I put her down.

So, pretty soon my mom came over for lunch and we all had fun. I think Mateo talked about 95% of the time she was here! He wanted to show her EVERYTHING in the house. We had the cobbler along with homemade vanilla ice cream. Yum!

Then, we had naptime and then a busy afternoon. We brought dinner to some friends who are expecting twins and the mom is on bedrest. Seeing his friend's mom pregnant totally rocked Mateo's world! You'd think he had never seen a pregnant lady before. He seemed shocked that there were babies growing in this lady's tummy and kept asking "But why?" I tried to explain the whole egg and sperm thing, but he clearly did not get it. It totally cracked me up!

Anyway, then we went to the farmer's market with one of Mateo's neighborhood buddies and his mama and little brother. We had a great time, as we always do with them. The boys shared a hawaiian pork burrito for dinner and successfully passed it back and forth many times.

Meanwhile, Natalia chowed down on a fried noodle dish, and I do mean chowed down. The girl can eat! She had one plastic fork in each hand and was attempting to shovel the noodles down as best she could. At one point, she looked up with a mouthful of noodles hanging down to her chin and she looked like a combination of a college student eating greasy food and a puppy dog scarfing down dinner. The cutest thing ever. Then she helped herself to the cherries our friends had brought. She used her newfound pointing skill to point insistently and repeatedly at the bag of cherries, and then decided to just crawl over there and attempt to help herself. She is quite the little communicator in her own way!

So, after a quick stop at the drugstore for diapers, and a lengthy bedtime process, the kids are asleep and the house is mostly cleaned up and I'm going to bed. Whew!

Pointing and Spanish

Both children have had interesting new things that they have been doing. Natalia has finally seemed to gotten the concept of pointing! It started that when I would nurse her I would do things to keep her interested in nursing, like signing milk, clapping, giving her five or pointing to parts of my body and saying what I was pointing to. (Nose, eyes mouth etc.) She seemed to really like the pointing, and two days ago started pointing herself. Now, it seems like she points at everything!

Some of her favorite things to point at are some pictures we have of her Bubby, Papa, Grammy and Grandpa. She also likes pointing at a balloon that was in one of the hospital pictures when Mateo was born, and Te Te as a baby. Outside of pointing, her favorite signs these days are "baby" and "sign." She more frequently says baby, but she also can do the sign for sign.

Mateo has made some interesting leaps in Spanish. Ever since he went to the Aprende con amigos summer camp for three days, I have noticed that he is much more interested in talking in Spanish. I know that it has been shown that whatever language adults speak in a school setting tends to be what kids what to emmulate, but it has an interesting difference to see. Obviously he can say way more in English, but when I am talking to him in Spanish he seems to try to say more things back to be in Spanish.

And . . . he read his first sentence in Spanish today! Mama va a la casa. (Mom goes to the house) Then, he had a wonderful time drawing with markers his picture of Mama at the house.

Camping, yes or no, yes or no . . .

This weekend we were planning on going to the PLOP camping trip with all of the other Portland lesbians out there, and then the weather hit. The 100 degree weather that I barely managed to stay sane through. Thank heavens for kiddy pools, basements and our mini-air-conditioning unit. We have all been sleeping in our bedroom area these last few days due to the extreme heat and the lack of insulation in our house.

After some thought, we decided that if we could barely manage to get through the 100 degree weather in our house, that 90 degree weather in a tent that cooks in the sun all day, would be just insane. So, we called off the camping trip and decided to stay home, instead of heading out east on Friday.

Friday at 2:30pm, though, after Alayna and I both took an unexpected nap while both kids were napping too, we were feeling optimistic about the world and decided: let's go! So, we started packing, and were actually out of the house 1.5 hours later, in the height of rush hour. We ended up eating on the road, instead of at the campsite, and arrived at the lovely group site along the Clackamus river a little before 7pm. Yes, it was very hot, but the site was in the woods, and next to a river, and was just beautiful.

Mateo enjoyed his first roasted marshmallow. Natalia ended up sleeping in our kiddy tent, which acted as her own room, and went to bed around 10pm, sleeping through till 6am. Mateo slept in our fabulous tent that I think must be around 35 years old (thanks dad) and was much taller than anyone elses tent on the trip.

We had a great time playing at the river, making smoores, chatting with old and new friends and enjoying being in the woods. Alayna really didn't enjoy the sleeping on our leaky air mattress (not that I blamed her), but overall we really had a good time.

Here is a picture of Mateo just getting his feet wet in the water:


Mateo, after playing in the water, who struggled to stay awake on the walk back to the campsite. Eventually we told him that if he wanted to be carried, he couldn't cuddle. Sad. I of course love cuddles, but even more I love a boy who sleeps in the car during a long car ride!




We decided to come home today to say goodbye to our friend and the doula to both of our children who is going back east to become a Nurse Practitioner.

Here is one last picture, totally unrelated to the post. This is Natalia who was having a wonderful evening with Apa: