Mommy's Day "Off"

As I type this post, I am tucked in my bed, still in my jammies. Ava is still asleep and Liesl is in bed with me, reading her new library books. Friday is typically my day "off" in which I try not to schedule anything at all...we just take the day as it comes. No doctor's appointments, no playgroups, no evening job assignments (there never are any jobs on Friday nights anyway--Deaf people have social lives too), no running to the bank, no demands on our time of any kind...except, of course, if we change our mind last-minute and want to go somewhere. (It is my day off, so I reserve the right to go anywhere I want, if I want.)

I also try to refrain from having people over at our house for any reason. Most of my mommy friends understand when the laundry is spread out on the floors of three rooms, in four different phases of washing/folding/sorting, and that our living room has pretty much transformed into a music practice room with instruments and music stands and sheet music and rosin and other violin paraphernalia everywhere (so watch where you step, and don't even think about sitting on the couch--that's for the violins). But even with the most understanding of friends and visitors, I don't want to even have to blink an eye at my domestic chaos on my day "off." Sometimes we must schedule something on Friday, but believe me, it is never my first choice.

Within 2.4 minutes of waking up each morning, Liesl usually asks, "Where are we going today?" or "Are friends coming over today?" ("Friends," to Liesl, means company of any kind: a playgroup of kids, some of my adult friends coming over for tea, Jehovah's Witnesses ignoring our 'no soliciting' sign and knocking to save our souls, or the dishwasher repairman. Really, everybody is Liesl's friend.) Both girls dearly love to go out, and I always enjoy it too...but sometimes Mommy needs a day where nobody will care if she's dressed like a ragamuffin, and doesn't need to go through the slightly complicated load-up-the-van-and-lock-up-the-house-while-keeping-two-tiny-kids-safe-and-alive-with-minimal-screaming routine.

Today wraps up a few very busy weeks of social activities. Last week on Tuesday, we hosted our vegan/allergy-friendly potluck. The following weekend, a group of my Bible study ladies came over for a potluck dinner in our backyard. It was an opportunity for fellowship with some of the ladies who have not been able to attend our Thursday morning group for a while due to full-time jobs or other daytime activities. Last Monday, my parents brought my wonderful (if not a tad rambunctious) nephews out to my house to play with their cousins. And yesterday evening, last but definitely not least, I hosted a coupon class, where a local woman who appears to be acquiring a cult following works the coupons and sales--and I mean works the coupons and sales, people--to save about 800% on her grocery bills each week. And no, I'm not exaggerating or joking.

Add all this into the usual weekly jaunts--Bible study on Thursday mornings, violin lessons on Wednesday mornings, appointments, grocery store trips (with two tiny kids both wanting to ride the penny pony, Meijer becomes an event, believe me), library trips, music class, playgroups, Mom's club outings, and whathaveyou--and Mommy needs a day "off." I am POOPED. I get up, make Tom's coffee and breakfast, pack his lunch, and get him out the door; and then I plop my arse back in bed and snooze until the inevitable obnoxious stomping pitter-patter of little feet. Then we have a leisurely breakfast--Mommy still in her jammies, which is not the norm at breakfast--and watch a little Curious George or Signing Time. The day's activities still happen (violin practice is high priority, and I really can't get away with not feeding the children) but the flow is much more relaxed.

So while I was typing this post, Liesl has asked, in between Miss Spider's Tea Party and The Cat in the Hat, "Where are we going today? Are friends coming over? What are we doing today?" (Nowhere. No. Nothing's on the books at the moment.) Today is Mommy's day "off."

In another half hour, I guess I'll have to feed them breakfast. And then, tackle the laundry. Yup, it's my day "off." Yee-ha.

Bible study potluck last weekend...we had about 17 kids and 12 adults. Our backyard was made for gatherings like these.

Two baby raccoons crashed the party. They've probably crashed neighbors' garbage cans as well. But aren't they cute???

Liesl completed her first sticker chart that I made, to encourage her violin study. She gets a sticker for every "good practice" (i.e., no fussing or putzing, no whining, staying focused and cheerful). We practice twice a day, so the chart fills up in 2-3 weeks. The reward for a full chart of stickers? Going to the Silver Dairy for ice cream as a family. Which we did last Sunday.

My sister's children also take music lessons and classes. An all-cousin band: Alex, 12, on alto sax; Zach, 7, on the piano; Liesl, 3, on the violin. Oh, it was a delightful musical experience, all right.

After they promised to behave for one "serious" picture, they begged to do a "silly" picture, so I let 'em rip.

Oh, what the hell. Let's do one more silly picture.

Ava's contribution to just about every social gathering.

The boys and girls together were enjoying themselves tremendously, but it was raining and we had to stay inside. My house was in serious danger of being trashed, so Grammie and Papa treated everyone to a few hours at Jungle Java. (Bless you, Mom and Dad.) Here you see Liesl, Alex's behind, and some random kid's behind.

The "Toddler Safari" area. Ava must've gone down this slide 432 times.

My 64 year-old mother proving that Jungle Java isn't just for kids.

Wordless Wednesday

Rebecca, Rebecca...How Does Your Garden Grow?

Our gardens are in! :-) I always breathe a sigh of relief when everything is planted...we can kick back, relax, and watch it grow.

(That is, until the weeds come in. Oh, crud.)

Our pepper garden. We showed restraint this year. Only 81 plants.

Garden plot is 25x25'.

Close-up of Tom's outstanding planning job. He measured, cut, and laid out the the landscaping fabric. We are hoping it will last several years. Weeding will be minimal this year. What a great guy.

Our front veggie garden. Corn, zucchini, cucumbers, snow peas, radishes, spinach, tomatoes, dill, cilantro, and my prized Chianti sunflowers are planted here. It will look a lot more interesting in a few weeks.

Garden plot is 25x20'

The landscaping by our back patio is really coming along. We have been adding to it slowly over the years, as time and finances permit.

The red flowers in the left forground are Liesl's "violin flowers." She and I stopped at a nursery a few weeks ago and bought them as a treat for practicing so well that week, as well as having a terrific lesson. She is terribly proud of those flowers, she planted them herself and waters them every day.

Herb garden. I also planted strawberries in here. Why? Because I'm stupid. They spread like crazy, and the birds and animals usually beat us to the fruit. But Liesl and Ava LOVE those plants.

My mature vermicomposting bin, before I harvested the castings and sorted the worms.

I harvested a full bucket of nutrient-rich castings. Here is just a handful.

That's worm poop, folks. Lots of it.

A handful of the worms that I salvaged from my bin. I set up a new bin for them, and will be starting a second bin in a month or two. They were a little teed off at me.

Those pots contain two kinds of ornamental peppers: Medusa and Black Pearl. Even though Tom started these seeds the same time as the other varieties, they are still tiny plants, which is normal for these varities. They are so cool. The peppers they produce are edible...but they're too pretty to eat.

More pictures soon...we have many flower beds planted!

From Zero to Mozart in 8.449 Months

Ok, so the big surprise that I kept hinting about, that happened on May 17 at Liesl's violin recital? I played too. But doggone it if I decided to videotape it with my camcorder instead of my dinky little point-and-shoot digital camera. The reason? I wanted a better quality video than my little camera can take.

However...in order for one to post a video taken from a camcorder, one must be at least slightly adept in the process of transferring the video, editing it, and, in the case of YouTube, shrinking it to an acceptable size. I do not qualify for that "adept" category. (If I told you how much raw footage I have of Liesl as a baby on those tiny videotapes around the house, you'd probably laugh.) I have software and the manual...I just need about 12 hours of uninterrupted time to sit down and figure them out. That's a tall order with a 3 year-old and a 1 year-old in the house.

At any rate, I played in the second violin section and performed the Mozart Trio in D Major, K. 439b. The surprise was that I started practicing this piece with 12 other musicians--including our teacher--in chamber music rehearsals for an hour and a half every week, starting last January--just 4 months after I had started violin lessons for myself.

So after 3 months of totally freaking out on a daily basis working very hard to practice and learn this piece, I got up front with the chamber music group and...it was over in 15 minutes. It was a pretty great group. I quickly got over being uncomfortable about being one of very few adults in what I thought was supposed to be a kids-only environment. I made a lot of interesting, talented friends--most of them a third my age. I learned an incredible amount in 3 months--about the complexity of playing the violin, about playing with a group of talented musicians, about how hard people work (and, indeed, how hard some don't work) to become polished musicians, and about people themselves. (I also consumed more than my fair share of cookies at these rehearsals.) And last but not least, I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent in those rehearsals. Those benefits were far more rewarding than the actual 15 minutes of performance time on May 17.

All in all, I am pretty proud of myself. I played clarinet and piano as a child and young adult, and I played them well--but not brilliantly. But the violin in comparison is a much harder instrument to learn. It was even harder to learn with two tiny children running around at my feet, beating on each other while I ignored them in favor of practicing scales creatively taking part in my personal practice time. And yet, I did all that in less than 9 months. If I can do that, I can do just about anything.

So I know I'll get the video up on YouTube. Someday. Like, before I'm 85.

Liesl played too! Variation D of Twinkle Twinkle. She's the youngest student in the studio to complete this without stopping. (Thank goodness for violin recitals--the flower girl dress got worn more than once!)

One my buddies in Miss Sharon's studio, Ann. She is 11 and is a very talented violinist. She also has one of the nicest, brightest, funniest personalities I've ever seen in an 11 year-old.

She is heading to Interlochen's advanced violin program this summer...we hope to visit her there over a weekend.

Liesl hanging out with her buddy Claire, the other 3 year-old in Miss Sharon's studio.

Howdy.

Thanks to the fabulous FAMC, we spent a morning at the tremendous Real Life Farm in Canton. We were lucky that many of our friends joined us, so we all got to enjoy the farm together. It was an experience I would have absolutely loved as a kid. They get to torture handle baby animals, ride horses, milk cows, and go on a hayride. It was without a doubt one of the best outings we have had with FAMC--and believe me, that's saying a lot, we always have fantastic times and outings with FAMC.

"Look, Sarah! It really is a goat!!"

Liesl feeding the baby goat. Ava was on my hip in the sling during this shot--she would have NOTHING to do with the goats, or most of the other animals. She preferred to observe from afar.

Ava a bit sceptical about the bunny. She was very interested in it...she just didn't want to touch it. (Who could blame her. Doesn't that baby bunny look horrifically dangerous?)

Liesl's really not torturing this kitten...honest. Please don't sic the ASPCA on us. The kitten--who was obviously lacking in some common sense--was actually trying to get back into Liesl's lap when I took this shot.

There were lots of barn cats and kittens roaming around. It made us miss Whinnie, Tigger and Abner a lot. It has been odd these last few months living in a cat-free house, after having cats for so many years. It was nice to get a kitty fix at the farm.

Liesl holding a baby duck. Oh, dear Lord...that poor duck.

"You gotta be kidding me."

Farmer Don, explaining that milk doesn't magically appear at the grocery store in plastic cartons.

"Yes, children...this really is where milk comes from."

I don't really need to caption this, do I?

They actually encouraged us to put our children in the pigpen with the baby pigs. Oh, if only my mother had taken me here as a child...she'd have had so much more ammo when harping on me about cleaning up my pigsty bedroom.

Laugh it up, kid. I'm showing this photo to your prom date.

Krista, Elyse and Liesl: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil...just be the evil.

Liesl riding the horse...I got to lead, which was great for me. Ava...not so much. I'm thankful that slings and horses are naturally on opposite sides. It was good for Ava, though...it was as close to the horse as she was gonna get!

Here, Ava was ardently signing "duckduckduckduckduckduck" while screeching in delight. Really, the many ducks and geese wandering around was the highlight of the afternoon for her.

Babies. Love. Babies Lovin' on Babies.

I love how babies are attracted to each other. Everywhere we go, Ava is loving on someone else's baby (whether she knows them or not, and, indeed, whether she has their consent or not.) And often, when we go out to parks or Mom's club events, little children flock to Ava and to my friends' babies.

This is my friend Tracey's 3rd son, Mattias. He is 12 weeks old. (He's just entered that delightful golden phase of babyhood--still tiny and cuddly, but smiling those toothless smiles, cooing, gurgling. Ohh...there's nothing like it.)

I realize calling Ava a "baby" is a bit of a stretch--Ava is 19 months, but she is still MY baby. And she's still so little, and cute, and very evil smart. But she looks positively HUGE next to Mattias. (And yet, he has more hair than Ava does.)

Vegan Homeschooler's Potluck

The girls and I got together with some friends of mine (and their kids) last winter. All are homeschooling families and sort of crunchy--Birkenstock-shod, baby-wearin', school-at-home, natural-birthin' kind of crunchy. We discovered that everybody had some sort of food restriction, be it health-related, allergies, or religious. We met again today, this time at my house, and set out a challenge for ourselves: Make a dish that everybody in the group could eat (whether they wanted to or not didn't make a difference.)

Here was the list of restrictions:

* No meat
* No dairy
* No eggs
* No wheat/gluten
* No nuts/peanuts
* No mushrooms
* No coconut
* No strawberries
* No bananas
* No citrus
* No garbanzo beans

So it sort of turned into an ultra-vegan-allergy-friendly potluck. We embraced the challenge, and the food turned out to be delicious, and the company and chat was even better. We definitely ate a lot of veggies and whole grains, and tried new combinations of ingredients that we normally wouldn't have bothered with. It was also a way to walk in another person's Birkenstocks shoes for a while, because several people in our lives have to eat this way forever. The black bean brownies for dessert were absolutely amazing...I don't think I'll make "normal" brownies again for a long time.

Now on to make the Kraft mac 'n cheese and canned beans for dinner tonight. (Just kidding. Sort of.)

This is the roasted, peeled eggplant before I ground it in the food processor with the rest of the ingredients for baba ganoush. The eggplant looked disgusting, like a butchered eel--and I watch Top Chef, so I know what at butchered eel looks like! But the finished recipe tasted great.

Boys will be boys--and girls will follow suit. We have a terrific climbing tree in our backyard.

Baby Mattias, asleep on his mommy. Only 12 weeks old. Precious. Perfect.

I got to hold Mattias for a while and sniff his head. (Several of my fellow newborn-lovin' friends out there will understand the "sniff his head" thing. The rest of you will think I'm weird.)

Ava loves babies.

"Where is that smell coming from?!?!?"