More math fun

 This is pre first grade math. So I suppose that would make it kindergarten math. But he was in between grades, so I guess you can call it what you want. I do. It's very liberating.

Anyway,I found some pictures from our trip to Grampa and Gramma B's farm last summer.

Here is a six year old boy on a banana yellow bike with a banana seat.

 (This is the kid's bike that my brother spray painted yellow and rode around campus when he was in college. No, I'm not kidding. He really did. I love my brother.) 

This is my brother holding our nephew at our parent's farm. He's tall. And he doesn't ride kid's bikes around anymore. Now he rides the metro. He's some important C.O.O. for a nonprofit organization in D.C. I don't really know what he does. I just know he gets to boss people around. And he works too hard. He calls me on his cab rides home from work when I'm getting my kiddos ready for bed. That means it's 11 pm or so his time. And it's often on a Saturday. I told you he works too hard. 

So back to the math.

One boy on a bike

Plus one mud puddle

Equals one dirty and very happy boy.

I'm beginning to see a pattern here.

Mum's the word

This is my girl. When I asked her what she was doing,

she told me she was watering our yard. 

 One

 bucket

 at

 a

 time.

She was at it again this morning, too, before school started. 

You have to admire that kind of persistence.

Especially considering no one ever planted grass in our yard. It's just dirt, rocks, and weeds.

I won't tell her if you don't.

My greatest fear

Okay, so maybe it is not my greatest fear. Fear is not the term I'm really going for here. Neurosis might be more fitting. Or perhaps it is more akin to being a hypochondriac. However you would like to label it, my fear/neurosis/hypochondriacness (That's a word, right? It is if I say it is.) is that I always think that I am pregnant. Always.

Now, I know where babies come from. I also know how to prevent babies from making a home in my womb. There are many methods for this. However, I doubt the effectiveness of all of these methods. Let's just say that one of these methods failed me once and I am now forever jaded. Now, every little muscle twitch, gas bubble, or sore spot suddenly turns into a baby kicking me from the inside. I do no let myself go and take pregnancy tests all the time. Not that I don't want to. I would love the reassurance of a single line instead of two, but I won't let my craziness go that far. It's my little way of keeping a lid on the crazy.

But maybe I should just get a stock pile of prego tests because my real greatest fear is that I am one of those women who goes into the hospital because they think they have appendicitis and really they are in labor for babies they didn't know were growing inside of them. That's my real greatest fear, I think. Well that comes in second. First is something bad happening to one of my kids or my husband. Obviously.

Time for another disclaimer. I love my children more than life itself. I would do anything for them. I can just hear people calling me a horrible baby hating mother right now. So to all of you, I love my kids and I LOVE being a mom. It's just that I'm good with two. I like the size of our family. Besides, DH said if I ever did get pregnant now I would have to have two because we couldn't have just one kid that was so much younger than the older two. I say bahumbug.

These are my babies when they were still babies. I love them. Even the one in the middle.

Anyways, if I ever did get pregnant I would be happy, even thrilled, about it after the initial shock wore off. I am of the frame of mind that babies are never a bad thing. Just sometimes unexpected.

Local schmocal

There are many fad diets out there. There are many that completely eliminate food groups. I am just not the kind of girl who can do that. If a diet states in its rules that I will never be allowed to eat lima beans again, then I will suddenly crave lima beans like a hormonal pregnant woman. Okay, so I may be a little off about the lima beans because I will never crave them, but I will tell you that I have never craved an apple so badly as when I tried the Adkins diet. A diet that eliminates whole grains, fruit, and most vegetables but allows you to have all the butter you want just doesn't seem healthy to me. Call me crazy. 

One thing that I will never be able to eliminate from my diet is dairy. A) I love all things dairy and cannot picture my life without it. B) It's good for you. And C), I grew up on a dairy farm and just cannot fundamentally support a diet that would jeopardize that livelihood for some farmer. In fact, I love local dairy farmers so much that I have recently started purchasing milk from Alaskan farmers. There are only four of them. I have to pay over a dollar more per gallon of milk when I do, but it is worth it when I know that the milk I buy is coming from the cows that I see when I drive around. I'm also a sucker for the "little guy" and I would always rather buy something from a small family business than a large corporation. My goal this summer is to buy all of my produce from local farms. Okay, so all might be pushing it, but I'm going to aim for at least most of my produce from local farms.

This is my dad and my girl checking the fence line on the farm where I grew up. It is now for sale. 

Excuse me while I go cry. 

The one thing that makes me feel okay about that is that some other kid will get to grow up on a farm the way that I did. It's just one of those things that the heart and mind will have to agree to disagree on.

Anyway, if I can't support the farms in the area I grew up in, I can at least make sure I support the ones in the place that I now call home. And speaking of supporting the locals. My DH and I just watched documentary on beer ( I know, we are weird. We like documentaries.) and I have one local thing that I think everyone can agree on that is better that the giant corporation's.
You guessed it.
Beer. 

Now go support your local economy and buy some beer.

I have a problem

 The first step is admitting it, right?

I have always had dry skin, but that is not my problem. My dry skin issues are not nearly as bad as the picture above would make it seem. 

My problem is a that.... I am a lotion hoarder.

I would estimate that about 50% of bottles above are actually empty. But the thing is, they are not really empty. They are only empty enough that the pump can't reach the bottom and get the rest out.  But I cannot throw that bottle away. I simply cannot do it. I can feel the weight in the bottle that tells me that there is still a usable amount in there. Turning it upside down like we do with the ketchup bottle doesn't help because the pumper makes it difficult. This pile is actually a bit of an improvement because we moved last summer and I actually purged most of my stash. 

I realize that this makes me look a little insane. I'm seeking professional help.

But if you think this is bad, there is no way I'm showing you my makeup bag.

Shenanigans

My boy was an early walker. Parents and grandparents always tend to encourage early walking. If you have kids or grandkids, please stop all the early walking encouragement. No good can come of it. Let me assure you. Once they can walk the shenanigans begins. 

Case and point. In photos.

This is my Sonny Boy. 

He was 9 months old in this picture. I grow giant babies.

He found the cake that I had made DH for his birthday.

I left the cake on the table. It never once occurred to me that it might not be safe there because the only two people in the house were me and a 9 month old boy.

He then decided to lick the frosting off the table. It looked like he was playing a giant harmonica. He just kept moving his mouth from one side of the frosted table to the other, licking up as much icing as he could.

I suppose I can only blame myself. I shouldn't have left it within his reach. Because I'm sure there are lots of other 9 month olds who have monkey arms and can reach cakes on tables. I'm sure he's not a freak of nature or anything like that. It's totally normal. I should have known better.

I fixed it and we ate it anyway. Baby slobber and all.

Important: Something you absolutely need to know about me

I once touched an elephants butt.

There, it's out there. I've come clean.
I feel much better now. Phew.

Here is the evidence. 

Gees, it was really hairy too. Just look at that.

And boy, I had a lot of hair back then also.

I stumbled on this picture as a was going through old photos and I really have no recollection of this moment ever happening. You would think that something as momentous as this would be forever ingrained in my memory but alas, it is not. Thank God for cameras or I wouldn't remember anything.