The Siren Call of Redbox

The day dawned, and that's about all I'm going to say about that. Okay, okay...we skipped exercising. P-Daddy is still under the weather and after we came downstairs around 6am we decided to forgo working out until he feels better or Saturday, whichever comes first. So, we laid down on the couches and the 3 of us slept in for a few more hours (P-Daddy, L and I). P-Daddy decided to stay home and the kids were really good about pretending he wasn't here so he could get work done. As a treat I decided to go out and get Subway. Unfortunately so did every labourer in my area so I spent a long time standing in line with all the gardeners, construction workers, electricians, plumbers and roofing guys in my area. Finally got the three sandwiches and decided to check out the offerings in the Redbox - our nearest subway is in a gas station so that is why there is a Redbox there.

P-Daddy has been wanting to see Notorious, and they had it in so I grabbed it as a surprise. When I got home the kids (and P-Daddy who kept surreptiously turning around to look at it while ostensibly typing on the computer) were engrossed in a Jericho marathon. Spent the afternoon chilling and getting alot of housework done. Maybe P-Daddy should work from home more often because eventhough he doesn't get as much accomplished, I do.

The milk had finished fermenting so I went about making cottage cheese. I tried a new method - the Crock Pot - and it worked even better than my double boiler norm. L hasn't been feeling well, so I spent alot of time nursing her and cuddling. She also got some good naps in (which is harder than you think with three older siblings) and I think she will soon feel better. She just has a bit of a stuffy nose, but it makes breathing difficult because even with all that mucus she still breathes through her nose.

After dinner watched the movie, took a bath but C joined me so it wasn't long or relaxing. Kids went to sleep (so did P-Daddy) and I watched a little telly with L, then called it a night after reading another chapter in my book.

Wet Wednesday

I don't have much to post for gardening. The garden has loved the rain we are getting and we have loads of things sprouting up. The back yard is a giant mud puddle so the floors and carpets are a disgusting shade of brown. Phil came home to work again today and he is not feeling good (nothing to do with pigs, I assure you), and the kids seem to be under the weather too (not sick, just blah). Cleaned, looked up Latin curricula online (yup, I will teach them Latin) - it is somewhat hard to find secular Latin curricula. Most are religion-based and use ecclesiastical spelling/pronunciation. I found some that can be used for young kids, and some for older. I think I will use the Minimus program for when they are little and then either flow into the Cambridge Press program and/or Lively Latinn. Go ahead, say it "Classical Geek". Yes, and damn proud of it.

Made dinner, went for a walk (we skipped the exercise this am), L was having trouble breathing because of her stuffy nose so I took care of that. Let the kids watch a movie called Hoodwinked , but C fell asleep 10mins into it. S and X liked it and then went to sleep after some milk and cuddle time. Now I am off to watch Grace is Gone in bed with P-Daddy.

Stranded at Wich Wich

Monday was pretty much a bust of a day. I had a killer headache so we pretty much sat around and pissed the day away. I also felt like a horrible, unobservant mother because I think I have finally figured out why X gets all emotional and uncontrollable, loses his coordination, gets confused and has problems with his speech sometimes - hypoglycemia. I was watching Mystery Diagnosis last night and a toddler had it and I just kept checking off symptoms as they listed them. The kicker and why I feel like such an idiot - I have really bad hypoglycemia!!!! I spent large portions of my late teenage and 20s years (my parents never believed me when I was a child/young teen and said I was faking it) at the endocrinologist being weighed, poked, having blood sucked out, fasting, etc. However, my symptoms are different than his - I get shaky, dizzy, my vision and hearing tunnel and then I black out. Fun shit!!! So, on Monday night right before bed, X had a massive tantrum and P-Daddy brings him up to his room where he continues to freak. P asks for an apple and some cheese to test the hypoglycemia theory. It was incredible. P said that as soon as the food hit his stomach, his body relaxed, his temper cooled down, his eyes cleared up and his speech became intelligible again. I have been pretty bad lately about my diet lately, but I am going to put both of us on a specific hypoglycemic diet and see if that helps. The difference in him is night-and-day with even just the little we have done. Going to make shopping harder but hey, he's my baby.

On to Tuesday. The boys sleep in late which is frustrating because we need to leave the house by 9:30am to get to Capoeira class on time. They finally rouse at 8:45am and I super ninja mom feed, wash, dress and load all of us into the car in record time. X loves his class, and S was pretty understanding about the class being just for X. I got to spend some time talking with other moms about homeschooling (especially teaching Latin - I took 2 years of it in high school) and knitting.
Here is a video of his class - he is the one in the tye dye shirt doing the freestyle dancing.



As we were leaving, AC called and asked if we wanted to head over there for a playdate, eventhough we were looking after SRC that night (so AC and RR could do their labour/delivery hospital tour). I offered to get sandwiches from a shop I have been wanting to try. Got the sammies, got back in the car, and ..... nothing but the ominous click, click, click of a starter that won't turn over. Called P-Daddy (thank god we got cell phones) and he was going to head home anyway as his computer at work died so he borrowed booster cables from RR (they work together) and came to our rescue. We headed to ACs and he headed home. The kids ran wild, we came home for a bit, the SRC came over and all chaos broke out. It was hilarious!!!! They left at about 9pm and we headed to bed after getting the troops calmed down.

Here is a video of what our evening was like. Please excuse the end where I accidentally turn the camera straight up my nose - the dog knocked me.

Songs that Break My Heart

I've decided as a fun little thing to do, every Sunday I will (try) to come up with a List. This inaugural list is of songs that break my heart. Doesn't necessarily mean they are sad or about love and loss, there is just something about them that makes me melancholy, verklempt, nostalgic. So, in no order....

1) Mad World - Michael Andrews. This is from Donnie Darko, not the original Tears For Fears version which I find just too bouncy...the juxtaposition of the lyrics and the beat throw me off. In this version you can hear the pain behind the lyrics, the disenfranchisement, the sense of nothingness.

2) Hurt - Johnny Cash. Shit, this is almost painful to listen to. Knowing the story of Cash's life makes Trent Reznor's words just beautiful and agonizing. Don't try to watch the video if you are depressed. And, as much as I adore Trent Reznor (and I do) his version doesn't make the hair all over my body stand up.

3) Baby Mine - Yes, this is from Dumbo, but it has always made me cry. Damn Disney and his mother issues!!!

4) Slipping Through my Fingers - ABBA. I'm not sure this would have made any sense to me before I had kids, and especially daughters, but now the words and sentiments behind it make me weep at the thought that some day my babies aren't going to need me.

5) Fire and Rain - James Taylor. It makes me hurt for my husband and in-laws.

6) Red Guitar - David Sylvian. This is one of those "moment in time" songs. Every morning my brother and I would load into his car to make the drive from the South Shore to Downtown Montreal to go to our private schools. We always got stuck in traffic on the Champlain Bridge. To me this song is my 17 year old brother in the driver's seat, window rolled down, hair blowing in the breeze coming off the St. Lawrence River. Despite everything he has accomplished and done since those long-ago days, this is the image that pops into my head when I am asked to describe him. Shit, now I'm crying.

7) The Theme song from Star Trek the Next Generation - don't ask, I don't understand it either, but whenever I watched this show the opening always left me a little misty. I think it is something tonal in the actual piece of music.

8) Killing Me Softly - Roberta Flack. How can you not understand this one? Obviously she was feeling some very heavy emotions.

9) I Don't Want to Talk About It - Rod Stewart. Yup, I have a soft spot for Mr. Stewart who saw me through my biggest break up.

10) I Can't Make You Love Me - Bonnie Raitt. I am in love with the rough, smokey quality in Bonnie Raitt's voice, but I love the way it smooths out here. Also, she tapped into the way I felt about someone in University. Thank god for Maturity and Mr. Right (a.k.a P-Daddy).

11) I Will Follow You into the Dark - Death Cab for Cutie. I always imagine P-Daddy and I as really old people when I hear this song, and it makes me sad to think about one of us leaving the other one behind. Love isn't painful, but full of joy. The thought of losing love is what hurts. Bloody Hell, I'm misting up again...I'm blaming it on the onions I was just chopping this time. I never cry in real life - I seem to reserve it for commercials and music.

12) How Soon is Now? - The Smiths. Oh come on! I was a teenager in Montreal in the 80s and 90s. You knew I was going to have this song on. It is a plea that shot straight to my soul...I didn't feel loveable, but I still wanted to be loved. Oh yeah, did I mention I had issues.

13) Ordinary World - Duran Duran. This is just a beautiful song about the loss of popularity and youth and how to relearn how to live. Reminds me of my youth and reminds me that I too am getting older.

14) The Mission - Ennio Morricone. The tonal quality of this piece is so moving, and gets me every time.

15) Tears in Heaven - Eric Clapton. I can't understand how anyone survives the death of a child, especially in such a horrible accident. I would spend the rest of my life wondering what my child was thinking as he was falling, if he thought about me at the end, if he felt much pain, and worst of all, if he knew what was about to happen. Even before I actually was a parent this song just killed me.

16) Landslide - Fleetwood Mac. This is another one about getting older and remembering youth. Jesus Christ, I'm really not that old, maybe I am just nostalgic.

17) Superstar - The Carpenters. Okay, so this one is really personal. This song makes me sad for the loss of such a brilliant talent, and it makes me sad for the years I spent destroying my body in the same way - at least I didn't die. The song itself is sad because it is about loving someone who has lied to you and left you. Luckily I have never experienced it, and never wanted to be a groupie so I can't personally relate to the song. (the song is about a fan who has had an affair with a superstar and still believed that they will be coming back for them).

18) O Mia Babbino Caro - Puccini. Otherwise known as the song in every Merchant Ivory film...makes me long for places I have never been in times that will never be again. I am so going to add Room With a View to the Netflix queue. The lyrics are about a girl expressing to her father how much she loves a boy and the lengths she will would go to to be with him.

19) Grace of God Go I - Flogging Molly. It's just sad but true - our lives are destined and shaped by chance; pick one path and you change the course of your travels through life and you lose everything that you would have had if you had picked the other path. One path could contain joy and love while the other pain and sorrow. It is just chance, grace, kizmet which path you choose.

20) One More For my Baby - Frank Sinatra. I have always loved this song and the story it tells about the "end of a brief episode" and how you can tell that it was much more to him. However, now it has much more meaning to me as it was the song playing on the Ipod when Lorelei was born.

21) Stairway to Heaven - Led Zepplin. "There's a lady who's sure that everything that glitters is gold". Took me a long time to realize that money doesn't buy or assure happiness and I regret all the years I literally spent trying to buy joy and love.

22) Paint it Black - Eric Burdon. I like his cover of the Stones song. It is another moment in time thing - Jen Abe and I and Tour of Duty a Vietnam show from the 80s. This song is forever associated with war for me. Besides which, I love Eric Burdon and think he is very under appreciated. I couldn't find a link to his studio recording of the song which is waaaaaaayyyyyy better.

23) Fade Into You - Mazzy Star. Let's all pause for our 90s emo moment and our desire to totally be consumed and consume someone.

24) In Your Eyes - Peter Gabriel. Do I even have to tell you what moment I associate this with? Lloyd Dobler!!! As a young girl all I wanted was the grand gesture of a guy standing outside my window blasting this tune at me. Then as I got older I lost the desire for grand gestures - they don't keep you warm at night, rub your aching feet nor act as your anchor when you are adrift in a sea of pain and doubt. Lloyd was a brilliant dream, but I prefer a real man. Still, Lloyd has a special place in my heart and always will.

25) This Woman's Work - Kate Bush. Equally beautiful is the Maxwell version, but I am a big Kate Bush fan so my heart stays true to her.

Sunday, Meat Day

For those of you who don't know I was a very strict vegetarian for 15 years - you know, the kind where I wouldn't eat something if a utensil that had touched meat then touched my food. A few weeks before I had X in 2004 I got my one and only graving (yes, throughout all 4 pregnancies I have only had 1 craving) and it was for prosciutto. So we started adding a little meat back into our diets. Then, it became a crutch - it is alot easier to slap some cold cuts onto a bun than to come up with creative lunches, and it opens up a vast new array of fast food opportunities. I have never really liked the taste or texture of meat (I only ever ate chicken, beef and pork) and still have some issues with the taste of chicken and the texture of beef. I have been moving us back to being vegetarian for health, budgetary and psychological reasons (you try explaining to a very sensitive child that pigs don't make the bacon, they are the bacon and you will understand). So, now we only eat meat on Sundays, and I think I may just forgo it all together again.

We were up alot last night because L was still having a rough time with her allergies. We got up and started our 2-mile Leslie Sansone walk. Yikes I thought the 1-mile was bum-busting but this one really works it. Keep smiling, keep smiling, keep smiling. The boys joined us again but lost interest really quickly when they realized the kicks weren't karate kicks.

For b-fast I make bacon and eggs - fuel for the mega clean-up I had planned for the day. I had a picture of this, but P-Daddy accidentally took the camera to work with him instead of his phone (okay, you caught me, I write these the next morning, so I am actually doing this on Monday). We made the mistake of letting the kids watch television in an effort to keep them out of the way while we cleaned, but it backfired and they got really over-hyped and crazy. I tend to limit the amount of tv they watch - a few shows in the morning which have educational value, then once a week they each get to pick a movie, and maybe a learning video. Got on with the cleaning, made yogurt, made dinner (Filet Mignon with Italian gravy, diced bacon potatoes, and asparagus - filet is the only beef I will eat). Exacerbated the kid craziness by letting them watch The Mask so ended up staying up until 11pm trying to get everyone to sleep...might explain why P-Daddy mistook the camera for his phone.

Books, Food, Good Mood - Learning how to put words together

Late last night S started having trouble breathing and he kept gagging on all the mucous going into his throat - stupid allergies - so I gave him a dose of allergy medicine. We woke up the next morning and he was still stuffy and so were C and L. Despite this, S and X joined us for our morning exercise routine.

The kids love the library and I had some books to return, so we packed up and headed to our nearest branch. I also had a book waiting for me so I picked that up, each of the kids got 2 books, P-Daddy and I each got a fiction book and I picked up a copy of The Story of the World, vol 1 - Ancients to preview and see if I wanted to use this to read history to the kids. I am very interested in a history curriculum called History Odyssey by Pandia Press which uses Story of the World as a required resource. So, I need to decide if I want to use the History Odyssey or SOTW as a stand alone.

I also picked up another book to read to the kids. It is called What the World Eats . Amazon review from Publishers weekly said "Adapted from last year's Hungry Planet, this brilliantly executed work visits 25 families in 21 countries around the world. Each family is photographed surrounded by a week's worth of food and groceries, which Menzel and D'Aluisio use as a way of investigating not only different cultures' diets and standard of living but also the impact of globalization: why doesn't abundance bring better health, instead of increased occurrences of diabetes and similar diseases? These points are made lightly: delivered almost conversationally, the main narrative presents friendly, multigenerational portraits of each family, with meals and food preparation an avenue toward understanding their hopes and struggles. A wealth of supporting information—lush color photographs, family recipes, maps, sidebars, etc.—surrounds the text (superb design accomplishes this job harmoniously) and implies questions about global food supplies. Pictures of subsistence farmers in Ecuador cultivating potatoes from mountainous soil form sharp contrasts with those of supermarkets in a newly Westernized Poland. Fact boxes for each country tabulate revealing statistics, among them the percentage of the population living on less than $2 per day (47% in China, where the average daily caloric intake is nonetheless 2,930 per person); the percentage with diabetes; number of KFC franchises. Engrossing and certain to stimulate." Thought it might be good to show the kids how other children live and eat in the world.

Keeping with the food theme, we decided to try a local chain called El Pollo Loco for a snack before heading home. I made lunch then headed to the grocery store. It is my goal to keep our food budget at or below $75 per week, which includes all b-fasts, lunches and dinner. We also spend about $200 a month at Costco buying cleaning supplies, pet supplies, and bulk items, so our grand budget for food, pet food, and cleaning supplies is about $500 per month. This also includes 1 bottle of wine per week and 2 bottles of beer per week. We only eat meat once per week, Sunday, so that reduces cost and we rarely eat out. I make almost all of our food, including yogurt, cottage cheese, baked goods, granola, etc.

As you may have noticed from my title, S is getting better at finding "blends" in words - like two Os put together says ooooooooo.

We tried to watch Will Smith's movie, Seven Pounds, but neither of us was in the mood for it, and had no idea what was going on anyway.

All-in-all a pretty quiet Saturday.

Peace.

TGI Phriday

San Antonio hosts a large 10-day long Fiesta every year. Today was the Battle of the Flowers Parade and it is such a huge event, P-Daddy got the day off work. No, we didn't brave the parade with 4 small munchkins, but watched it on television. Other than that, we had a good day of cleaning, catching up on things, etc.

Made dinner, went for a walk, and then watched Mamma Mia! I saw this movie in the theatre but forced P-Daddy to watch it. He is part Swedish, so is genetically predestined to love ABBA.

It was nice having P-Daddy home on a Friday and the kids were really excited. I sent them out on a worm hunt to see if our escapees were hiding under the small hugelkultur pile we have started...idea shamelessly stolen from Suzanne at Sweep Gentle. Need to get this book (Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture) I've seen mentioned.