I should be packing right now. We’re leaving tomorrow on a 2 1/2 day road trip to all parts of New York and I have done nothing yet in the way of packing for five people and a dog (we’re going to a farm. He’ll love it.)
I used to have the kids pack their own toys and books to occupy themselves in the car, but they tend to grab things like plastic tacos and kitchen spoons and things they find really fascinating at the moment but whose entertainment power lasts less than the time it takes us to get to the end of the block. Then they use these things to hit each other the rest of the way.
Okay. I’m going to pack now. Here I go. To pack. Baby steps. Any minute now I’ll start. Ooooh, but I could make cookies instead.

Vera Violet Vinn is Very Awful on Her Violin

The “v” button on this computer is missing, requiring many very tricky machinations to spell words like…well, “very.” When Timothy noticed this morning, he said, “Well, Dad, it’s a good thing you don’t have to go to viagra.com.”
I don’t want to sound like one of those annoying people always bemoaning what this world is coming to or anything, but it would be nice if a guy and his six-year old could sit and watch a baseball game of an afternoon without the commercials prompting questions about impotence. I’m jussayin’.

Okay. So. So far this summer, the kids and I have been to Nebraska where we went to a zoo, a museum, and drove to Iowa just ‘cuz it was there. We’ve been to the Lookout Mountain Nature Center with giant stuffed (real) animals and animal bones and skin the kids could touch and destroy. We’ve seen petrified trees at the Florissant Fossil Beds, spent the day at Rocky Mountain National Park and visited countless local parks with an array of fountains to run through, sand pits to play in, lakes to swim in and trails to hike. We’ve seen mama and baby deer, chipmunks, squirrels, buffalo, elk, ducks, and geese all in their natural habitats. In less than a month, we’re taking a family road trip to New York, both upstate and down.
I tell you all this because if you ask Timothy, he will probably repeat what he told his dentist and tell you he is spending his summer playing on the computer.

Born to Run

I’ve taken up running. Yes, voluntarily and not towards food or away from danger. I’ve tried this a half dozen times since I was on my Jr. High track team but this is certainly the longest I’ve stuck with it — probably because I bought myself some running shoes and I’m too cheap to not use them.
I made the mistake of telling my sister a few months ago that I was planning to run the Bolder Boulder, a 10k race here in Boulder (natch) and about two weeks after I opened my big mouth, she called to say she was flying out from CA to run with me. Which led me to question whether she knew me at all. Apparently there are still people in this world who take my ridiculous claims at face value, rather than letting me drift Walter Mitty-style through life, dreaming but never achieving. Blech to them.
So I had to keep running because my sister, who actually runs for fun and is nine years younger, was coming out to make sure I ran this whole race without stopping.
When I began training, I was thinking that perhaps running would be good for me. Not only was I being healthy, I would have an hour all to myself. I figured I could meditate…pray…have some time all to myself. So far, my praying sounds like this: “Dear God, please keep me alive long enough to make it back home.” I have never been so healthy and felt so close to death.
I did it, though. I finished my race and I ran the whole freaking thing (minus 2 minutes to go to the bathroom. I was so worried I would dehydrate that I drank way too much water beforehand). It was awesome. I passed a guy in a gorilla suit, some ladies bellydancing on the sidelines and a frat house with a large sign in front that said, “You run, we drink” with a bunch of guys in the front yard who could only have gotten out of bed that early in the morning because they knew they’d be drinking beer on their lawn.
Now I just have to keep it up. I’ve gone a few times since my big race. This morning I was out running and I passed a patrolman in his car, using his radar gun to catch speeders. When I suggested he might need to use it on me, he laughed…rather rudely, I thought.

Happy Flower Day

I think Chris is even more excited than I am about Mother’s Day. That’s because, in Colorado, it is also the grandest of all state holidays — Planting Flowers Outside Because There’s a Fairly Decent Chance They Will No Longer Get Snowed On Day.
I promise we are not a bunch of lushes (recent blog posts notwithstanding) but we did happen to buy a house with a wet bar in the basement. And Chris does like to mix himself an occasional cocktail when he gets home from work at night (I know…I’m supposed to have it waiting for him along with his newspaper, pipe and a few pleasant, non-stressful conversation topics. Add it to the list.) But about six weeks ago, I started feeling the need to see stuff grow. I bought an indoor planting tray, about 20 different kinds of seeds and a giant bag of dirt. And since it was still too cold outside to actually plant them out there, I invaded the Wet Bar Fortress of Solitude and converted it into a potting station. After I potted everything, I crammed stuff onto every windowsill and available space (above four feet high — I learned that the hard way when Caleb dumped an entire tray of seedlings on the carpet) near a natural light source. When it’s nice out, I’ve been spending about ten minutes moving everything outside because the plants like it out there. When it snows, I run out in my bathrobe with my bare feet shoved into Chris’s shoes to move it all back inside.
So this weekend, I shall move all my vegetables and flowers outside, hopefully for the last time. But if they all die, I’m never going to hear the end of it.

Alexis

When she is good she is very, very good and when she is bad she makes me want a drink before church on Sunday morning.

This morning she didn’t want to get dressed. She finally agreed to get dressed but didn’t want any help. When I went to check on her five minutes later, she was laying in bed with her blanket on and when I asked if she was okay, she gave the lamest fake cough I’ve ever heard. She wanted to wear a T-shirt when I asked her to wear a dress. When I agreed to the T-shirt, she wanted a dress. When it was time to get in the car to go to church, she changed her mind about her dress and wanted a different one. She told me to wear my brown boots instead of my black boots and when I looked like I might not, she started to whimper (I will admit I caved on that one — it’s very possible she was right).

When we got in the car, she didn’t like the music. Any of it. Then she yelled at me for alternately snapping, clapping and bobbing my head. So I did all three.

If she’s this bad now, it can only get better, right? She has nowhere to go from here and will grow to be a happy and well-rounded teenager with nary a trouble? Right? Right?

Don’t Worry About Me, I’m Used to Suffering

It’s Day Three of my fight against strep throat and I seem to finally be winning (not whining, winning. Shut up.) I don’t know how it is that I can pop out three babies on the large side of average with relatively little fuss, but a case of strep makes me cranky and, occasionally, a little weepy. I suppose it’s because strep messes with my ability to eat and nothing ought to interfere with my eating.
I felt good enough today to take the kids hiking. It’s supposed to rain over the next few days so I figured I’d better get everyone out of the house today. People tell me I’m so good about taking the kids hiking and having them play outside but what they don’t seem to realize is that it’s a supreme form of laziness. If no one’s in my house, no one’s messing with my stuff. And taking a 6 and 3-year old hiking isn’t really physically demanding. So I wear them out and then they come home and sit comatose in front of the TV and everyone’s happy.

While we were hiking, I suggested we sing a few songs. It helps 1.) to keep the kids from realizing exactly how far I’m forcing them on their death march and 2.) to alert the bears and mountains lions so that they will hopefully run away. This is what The Experts advise. If I were a hungry bear or mountain lion, I might perhaps run toward the sound of a tasty snack but apparently they tend to do the opposite. So we were singing. I wanted to sing old Girl Scout camp songs I learned in sixth grade. Timothy and Alexis chose instead to sing “Heartbreaker, ” and “Don’t You Want Me, Baby?” So maybe that’s what scared the animals into hiding.

On the way home, we passed a cute little antique store in the mountains. I knew we were in no shape to go in. But I also know that I’m not getting up there again any time soon. So I made everyone get out and after various threats and a very long stare at the two kids capable of doing the most damage, we went in. Alexis had gotten her pants really dirty and was wearing a long sweater that arguably covered her but kind of made her look like a flasher. Caleb had had an accident and was wearing only a T-shirt and diaper (I’d like to say that’s not how he normally dresses, but…) and Timothy just looked like a six-year old boy who had been hiking. ‘Nuff said. To be fair, they did last almost 20 min before trying to play hide and seek amongst the overly stocked tchotchkes. The lady behind the counter kept staring at me until I felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. And when I checked out, I apologized for the noise and she said, rather weakly, “Oh, that’s all right. We love having them in here.”

Liar.

The Chick Magnet

Timothy has two polo shirts — exactly the same except that one is green striped and one is blue striped. I think I got them as a two-fer last summer. Today he wore the blue one and when he got home, said that tomorrow he was going to wear the green one. Since he once tried to wear his pajama shirt to school and doesn’t really seem to care much about his clothing, I asked him why. To which he responded (verbatim), “Jamie told me she liked my shirt. So it’s reasonable to think that if I wear the green one tomorrow, she’ll like that, too.”

My six-year old is making wardrobe choices based on a girl. Hellllllllllllllllllllllllp meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Poor, Poor Me

I have strep throat. I’ve always thought of strep as a childhood illness and yet here I sit, gritting my teeth and breaking out in a cold sweat every time I swallow while the three kids run around like happy little monkeys — singing and yelling and playing and only pausing occasionally to tell me my breath smells funny.

I thought about telling the doctor this morning that I thought I had swine flu, but I decided he probably wasn’t in the mood. The nurses said they had just fielded a call from a woman who was on the Internet and had discovered an outbreak of swine flu recorded in the 1850’s in which 1,000 people had died. The nurses said she wouldn’t be comforted by the idea that there had been any medical advancements in the last 150 years. I’m trying to imagine having to spend an entire workday talking to people who think they all have the swine flu.

I thought this would at least be a good opportunity to lose some weight since it hurts to eat…but really the only thing that feels good is ice cream. So there goes that.

So I realized when my facebook status updates started getting to be three and four paragraphs long that it was probably time to resume blogging again. But I’m facing a bit of an existential crisis.
My brother just moved to Italy for two years…my sister is interviewing for a job at Stanford Med Center…my dad is testifying in DC before subcommittees and other important-sounding people and both my parents are talking about travel to Italy this summer and the purchase of a cabin in Tahoe. And I…I am excited when someone stops going to the bathroom outside like a dog and starts using the potty.
No, no one needs to remind me that this is an important job or that it’s one of the hardest jobs in the world or anything like that. I just need to wallow for a few minutes in my winter doldrums which should be gone by now but have been reignited by a spring storm newscasters are calling the worst of the season. I shall pull myself up and cure my own malaise the same way I usually do — with a reminder of a greater spiritual purpose and a generous dose of chocolate.

Actually, using malaise in a sentence and discovering I spelled it correctly has made me feel better already.