Pink Prickly Pear

Yay/Boo: The inmates are running the asylum version.

Yay: My "picky eater" two fistin' pears.  

Yay:  The other one.  Crazy.  But happy!  So happy!  Cannot squelch her joy!

Boo: The fireplace is not a great place to play (purely from the perspective of the mother and family laundress).

Yay: The removable top of my sewing table is the perfect size to hide the fireplace!

Boo:  Uh, sewing table?!?!?  No sewing table.  No sewing table.  No sewing table.  No sewing table.  I am gutted.

Related boo:  The underside of a workbench is not the most attractive addition to our decor. 

Yay:  Spaghetti carbonara with organic bacon for dinner last night.  And leftovers for lunch.  It's the little things, isn't it?

Yay: Reading Watership Down aloud with the whole family.

Possible impending Boo: Claustrophobic nightmares (mine - not the kids, they are as tough as nails) brought on by sympathizing with the plight of anthropomorphic rabbits.

Keepin' it superficial since 1973*

 

I'm going to grow out my hair again.

Except, my method for the awkward stage involves a headband, but the boy wears a headband.  That is too matchy-matchy for my taste.

Yesterday I wore a baseball hat, but I only have one and I can't remember how I acquired it.  It's not to my taste and after wearing it out all day, Mr. Pear had this to say, once we got home:

We're home now, so you can take off your hat and Cagney or Lacey out...

To which I thought:

No nookie for you Mr. Pear!  Even if it is Saturday night!**

Anyway, he may make fun of my most awkward of stages, but I will keep him around because today I went out for lunch with my ladies and didn't come home until 5 0'clock (again with the birthday thing!) and he still did umpteen loads of laundry and vacuumed and made us dinner and cleaned up the kitchen afterward*** as well.

Oh!  And this too!  I was looking for some fun baby game on the internet this afternoon ( I ran out of creative finger plays and the kitchen was hot! hot! hot!) and found this.  D'anjou enjoyed it muchly, but I suspect I enjoyed it more.  It's not the little Roland 303 I always wanted, but I can play pretend with the best of them.

^{* In which I reference the 20th anniversary of my 16th birthday.  Except it was last Sunday, not this one.}

^{** In which I pretend to only have sex on Saturday nights, to great comedic effect.} 

^{*** Spellcheck sez that "afterwards" doesn't have an "s" at the end of it.  I'm not so sure, but my spelling mojo sure has been off lately, so I will acquiesce.}

Let's put Thriller on repeat today, shall we?

Mini-Pear has declared Halloween her favorite holiday.  She ran into our room this morning and dove under the covers with us, "Happy Halloween!" 

Halloween.  I could take it or leave it, but I'll try not to squelch the kids' joy too terribly much.

 

Our park day's Halloween Shin Dig (organized by Mini-Pear) was a raging success.  Potluck contributions were the bomb.  I ate very well, as did the boy, but apparently it didn't stop my little kitty from hunting mice.  All we want for Christmas is hanta virus!

 

Close inspection of both pictures will reveal the kids in matching tie-dyed costumes.  Insufferably cute, and once again, we demonstrate our homemade costuming prowess!

Photos, mostly.

Inspired by the Calder Jewelry show at the San Diego Museum of Art.  Wire and wire cutters = intense focus for hours on end (and some pretty cool jewelry for mama!!!).

 

He had to check it out!  Just in case, you know, the basket was more comfortable than the seat.

Patiently waiting for me - it is always a mad scramble for keys, sunglasses, diapers, snacks.  It's so easy for her to escape into a book.

 

Cutest TV zombies ever.

Playing Slamwich with Granddaddy (my mum and dad drove across the country!).  

 

Dinosaur face off!

Tic Tac Toe at the new Children's Garden at Quail Botanical Gardens (Pretty great!  Review forthcoming!)

 

Tomato zombie?

It's almost Halloween (as Mini-Pear continually reminds me), which would explain why the candy corn is almost ripe.  Yeah, and you thought it was all high fructose corn syrup and food coloring!

Yay/Boo It's almost August already! Edition

Yay! Jogging along the coast! D'anjou was most amenable to hanging in the stroller, which hopefully translates to daily jaunts along the coast and more energy for a mama with a regular workout!

Related Yay! Jogging works, as demonstrated by my super high performance wicking action jogging shorts being way too big.

Related Boo! Big jogging shorts chafe.  New smaller jogging shorts a tiresome expense.

Boo! I wasted hours last week on a missed connection/let's-meet-up-later-when-you-and-the-children-are-even-tireder-and-hotter craigslist pick-up of sturdy wooden blocks for the boy.  The acquisition of new objects brings me no joy, but the boy needs things he can maneuver through space and it would be nice if those things were not my glasses, the dog's water bowl, various expensive digital devices that need not get drooled upon.

Yay!  New sunglasses for me.  The first and only pair I tried on in my quest.  Can't beat that with a stick.  Less wrinkles?  We'll see.

Boo! Still haven't mastered the Kitchener Stitch!  My knitted diaper cover project languishes.  I just need a solid block...maybe...ooh...a whole hour. 

Yay/Boo combo (it all depends on your p.o.v.) D'anjou is pissed mighty indignant about our newly installed baby gates.  

Yay!  Mini-Pear was fierce sparring this morning!

Boo!  Lack of sleep is cumulative.

We moved our computer upstairs.  It's conveniently out of the way from babies who like to chew on wires (still haven't figured out what to do about the walls), but very inconveniently out of the way of stay at home mothers who feel like blathering on about nothing in particular and hitting "publish now" counts as a "creative outlet".  Hmmmm, when I put it that way, maybe it is conveniently out of the way.

***

So, we recently celebrated our tenth anniversary.  At the county fair.  With the kids.  Hey!  We eloped to Vegas, were you expecting just the two of us to head to a Balinese resort for couples massages and snorkeling?  Mini-Pear and Mr. Pear went on all the vomit comets.  I held the baby and our water and just-in-case long sleeves and watched teenagers performing the dance of summer courtship.  I had a funnel cake, which was excellent, because really, who fucks up hot fried dough with powdered sugar on top.  A couple of hours later, I had a totally nasty barbeque beef sandwich.  Not nasty like Janet Jackson, just regular nasty.  I threw it away after two bites.  Which left me with plenty of room to share a caramel apple stack.  Caramel apple stacks are a vast improvement on the lowly caramel apple.  No swiveling away from your eager little teeth and rolling off down the midway, plus there's all that caramel left in the bottom of the cup for you to slurp. 

Love caramel.  Also, obviously, love Mr. Pear.  Like, more than caramel.  And sometimes with caramel, but that's a whole other (private! locked!) entry.  

There's a special place somewhere for Craigslist no-shows on gorgeous Sunday afternoons. 

Whatev.  We enjoyed ourselves anyway, so I suppose it's neither here nor there.

Last week, Mandy sent us home from what can only be described as a canning party* with a pile of peaches.  I was determined to make a pie, and I was going to have to be quick about it, because those delicious peaches were going fast.  I also had to be realistic.  D'anjou was not going to wait in the wings while I messed about with pastry, so I settled on a crumble (with a quick and dirty topping of flour, sugar, butter, oatmeal and almonds).  Once all my peaches were prepped, it was obvious we'd eaten too many peaches, so I added blueberries.  The end result?  A whole lot of yum.  There was not a lot left over.  We like sweet treats.  We like to eat them at 11:30 in the morning on a Sunday.

Sunday in pictures?

My babies sharing a quiet moment together.

Catching up to the rest of the family on the way to the park.  I love stepping out our door and seeing the ocean.

Smiley boy.

I love this picture of my thoughtful girl.

What do you do with the red wax that comes on your baby bella cheese?  We make gum.

D'anjou gets his first shiner.  Explora-boy meets table leg.

^{* As always, she has posted some excellent photos of the event over on her blog, so pop on over for a look-see!}

It was not a lazy Sunday.

We were out the door before 9 a.m. to get Mini-Pear up to the dojo for a special training on the beach. 

I just wanted a lie-in.  Not that we get them anymore with the boy.

I think this (not so great) photo illustrates their relationship.  My quiet girl, occupied with a project; my persistent boy, after her attention.

Not that they don't have totally sweet moments.  His face lights up when he sees her.  She spent a good deal of time art directing a new toy for him.  She cut out the pieces and begged me to sew them together for her, after her attempts at gluing ended in a sticky mess.

He loves it.

"Got! Got! Got!" he shouts.  It's funny to watch him attempt to crawl around and keep a tight grip on his new softie at the same time.

Mini-Pear and I rode our bikes over to a friend's house this afternoon.  Mini-Pear is going to be cat sitting for them.  I suggested we just ride over.  She seemed a bit dubious, "Isn't there a big hill?"  There is, and I think she was more nervous about riding down it.  I was impressed that she actually rode all the way up it on our way back home.

I've missed my bike.  I don't think I realized just how much until this afternoon's jaunt through the neighborhood.  When I first moved to DC, I didn't need a car.  I used my bike pretty much everyday.  I rode from my little studio apartment with the red brick floor in Adams Morgan up to work.  There was one summer where I found myself doing a lot of night riding (spare me the David Hasselhoff jokes), sometimes with friends, sometimes just on my own.  Most of the time I didn't even have a particular destination - there was just something about pedaling along under the yellow street lights, generating my own cool breeze in the hot DC summer night.

*

Have you tried an aprium yet?  I am generally skeptical of cross-bred fruits and vegetables, but I am tired of the ever available local strawberries and if I eat too many mangos my mouth gets all itchy (because mango, wouldn't you know, is apparently related to poison ivy) so I thought I'd give them a go.  They're good.  I'm having a hard time restraining myself from eating all of them.

*

Mr. Pear is supposed to come downstairs and watch Weeds with me, but I think he's fallen asleep.  I don't know how he fell asleep.  Our asshole neighbors are having a loud party.  Why are they assholes?  Well, they park in my driveway for one, and for two?  They have their million dollar deck wired for sound.  And what do they play on this surely expensive system?  The radio.  That's sort of worse than playing bad music, because at least bad music just means you have your personal taste and I have mine, but listening to the radio tells me you have no ear whatsoever...

How many times can you say whoo-hoo?

Speaking of music, I can't believe how many of you had never heard the song I linked to in my last post.  Mr. Pear actually thought it was a song I'd made up...like I actually sat down and composed my own original lyrics about flatulence.

Thigh rolls! We have 'em!

Yoga just might win one of us over yet!  Or maybe he's just practicing his push-ups. 

There's a lot of co-operative building happening around these parts lately.  It looks like d-anjou is poised to carefully add his red block to the top of the stack, but he's just gearing up for the demolition stage of the game.  

***

It's all cloudy and wet today.  I shouldn't complain.  We get over 300 days of sunshine a year.  It's spoiled me.  Every rainy day feels like a personal affront.  I never seem to have an adequate Plan B for rain.  Actually today's plan calls for some shopping.  I seem to have melted our mattress cover (in the dryer, not via nocturnal spontaneous combustion or anything quite so dramatic).  Sharing a mattress cover-less bed with a baby?  Not advisable.  Especially with my fancy new mattress.

We're also looking at acquiring a portable air filter for the house.  Nothing like having another baby to kick fretful mother into full gear.  We should have bought one years ago.  Since moving to the left coast, Mr. Pear and Mini have had a lot more colds and things than they ever had (ie. pretty much going from none to a lingering thing every other month or so).  I'm thinking it's something different in the environment here.  Plus, as perpetual renters we don't have quite as much control over our interior environment as we'd like - off gassing new carpets and the like.  There are some pretty industrial models out there that purport to kill viruses in addition to sucking every last micron of dust, pollen and pet dander out of the air.  Ahhhh, to never have a sneezing fit again...