Frankenstorm

Frankenstorm really did a number on us. The dark gray gloom and rain, rain, rain started days before the storm hit. We are now on what I think is our 7th straight day of dark daytime skies and almost constant rain. I'll be honest with you, my mood is gloomy and I don't have much energy for the kids. But I just read a dear friend's blog, and she's really inspired me to take advantage of what today is handing me and get down on the floor some serious playtime with the kids. So I'm going to make this post brief... I've got some playing to do!

Even though we don't live along the coast, we were greatly affected by the 1000-mile wide storm that was Sandy (not to mention the nor'easter and artic winds that clashed with Sandy to create the Frankenstorm). The worst part of the storm was Monday night. When the power went out at our house around 10:30 p.m. we saw what we thought was lightening. It only took a moment for us to realize that the odd green flashes we were seeing were not lightening, but the transformers in the neighborhood blowing as trees were toppling over onto them.

On Tuesday the rain and some smaller gusts continued. Most of the schools were closed because they were without power. As I reported our own power outage, the power company's website informed me that 30% of the county's customers were still without power! The storm did minimal damage to our yard. Lots of small branches and almost all of our tree's remaining leaves were now on the ground. It looked almost as if a tree had exploded into a million tiny pieces. Wet leaves were also stuck all over our house, giving it a polka-dotted effect.

(Ugh, I'm getting wordy like I usually do, so I'm going to really pick up the pace here.)

Today is Thursday and we are living at Adrian's mom's house, with about half of our fridge's contents shoved into her extra fridge. Our power has not been restored yet, and we've been told that our neighborhood is a low priority and we should expect to be without power for several days. Even though we have a gas stove and could potentially tough it out at home, the house is WAY too cold (the outside temp is in the low 40s). Trick-or-treating for most of the area has been postponed until Sunday, but the kids were able to go to school yesterday where they enjoyed dressing in costume, a school-wide Halloween parade (indoors b/c it was still raining), and classroom parties. For our Halloween evening, Oo entertained all of us by reading aloud from several Halloween story and poetry books.

Unfortunately, the school roof sustained some damage from the storm, and the principal had to cancel school today b/c the conditions inside the building were "not safe" for the students and staff. The "not safe" part of her email has me concerned. Is she talking about a lot of slippery puddles, or has the old building's asbestos been exposed?

I could worry about the school's roof. I could also worry that we still won't have a porch light to turn on this Sunday. I could worry about how Adrian's going to miss trick-or-treating b/c he's scheduled to work a school fundraiser on Sunday. I could worry that our pumpkins will be rotting by Sunday, especially the one that Adrian spent over an hour carving to look like Luke Skywalker. I could worry about all of the food we had to throw away and need to replace.

I could worry, but I won't. Things could be much worse. So many people lost their homes and all of their possessions in this storm. Some even lost loved ones. We're mildy inconvenienced. That's all, no more. We're staying in a warm house with loving family. The kids have no school today, and, other than a load of laundry, I have no chores. You know what that means? Time to play!

Cul De Sac

There's a comic strip in the newspaper here that my mother-in-law and I have really taken an interest in reading. The strip is called Cul De Sac, by Richard Thompson. The reason we like it is because the main character, a girl named Alice, closely resembles our own little Miss Oo. Here are a few particularly Oo-like strips:

The following strips from last week's paper depict what it's like to run errands with Oo.

That's my Oo, always sparkling full of ideas. Take today, for example. As I write, she is busy drawing pictures that she plans to sell from a table in our front yard. Despite the fact that she's able to complete each drawing in 60 seconds or less, she's priced them at $10.20 a piece. What's motivating her to make some extra cash today? The house three doors down from us is for sale, and she wants to buy it. She doesn't like living with our rules, so she wants to live on her own. She said that if she buys that house, she'll be close enough that I can see her every day and won't miss her, plus I can still make all her meals and drive her to school.

Wouldn't it be nice to be 7 years old again? To truly believe that once you own a house you are no longer subject to rules? Kids feel angst and stress just like grown-ups, but the simple solutions they come up with are so full of promise and bliss. As a parent I'm often torn between teaching the kids about reality vs. just letting them have their dreams.

Through the Eyes of a 5-year-old Boy

I bought a new dress for a wedding we're going to this weekend. (Actually, Adrian bought it for me last night. He took me dress shopping on HIS birthday. If that doesn't qualify him for Husband of the Year, I don't know what would!)

The dress is black with ivory polka dots; it has a thin ribbon around the waist and a bit of poof to the skirt — very girly. When Oo saw the dress this morning, she loved it so much she gave it a kiss. T took a long look at it, then said, "It looks like it has bird poop spots all over it."

Hmmm... I wonder if I'll feel pretty wearing the dress, or if I'll be too busy trying to contain random bursts of the giggles.

Vacation!! (day 8)

We are home safe and sound now. We arrived at midnight on Saturday, after a grueling 14-hour drive for a 12-hour trip (there was a lot of vacation traffic and an accident in a West Virginia tunnel that held us up for almost an hour). Adrian went back to work this morning, the laundry room is full of sandy clothes, and every room in the house is cluttered with all of the kids' toys that they missed (they somehow managed to play with everything yesterday).

Here is the last post from our vacation:

Day Eight

Today is our last day here. Good timing too, because T is officially done with vacation. Adrian, Oo, and I want to enjoy our last day to the fullest, but it took a lot of convincing and the companionship of a toy T. Rex to get T to leave the condo this morning.

Not much of a hot-weather person, T was refusing to outside. He no longer wanted anything to do with the beach or the pool, but it was too nice of a day for us to take turns staying indoors with him. With a little creative thinking, I got him to go outside to take pictures of his plastic T. Rex splashing in the pool and stomping on the beach. T thought this was great fun, and we were able to keep him outside for most of the day.

In the evening we all got dressed up and went out to dinner at the Salt Water Cafe. Adrian and I ate there when we first vacationed in Garden City (before Oo was born). Adrian, Oo and I started with sushi as an appetizer — Oo likes California roll. The kids and I then had simple salads with honey-lime dressing, and Adrian had the She Crab soup (we had it 8 years ago and it was as good as we remembered). For our entrees, the kids ate grilled salmon and rice, I had the lump meat crab cakes, and Adrian had the mahi mahi.

Here we are in a courtyard outside of the restaurant.

The kids had plenty of popsicles and sorbet during the day, so we skipped dessert and headed home, but not without first stopping for a picture in front of a fun souvenir shop.

Back at the condo, it was baths and bedtime for the kids. Adrian and I stayed up later to clean some of the condo and do some initial packing. Tomorrow, we'll rise early, throw everything in bags, run the vacuum and head for home. It's been a wonderful vacation. The weather was great, and I loved how close we were to the beach. But my favorite part... my favorite part was spending so much time with the three loves of my life.

Vacation!! (day 7)

Off to a slow start today. All of the swimming and sunshine is wearing the kids out, so they've been sleeping later and later. This morning, Adrian and I were actually able to enjoy some coffee and conversation before the kids rolled out of bed. The kids have always been early birds, so the quiet morning was much appreciated.

We spent most of the day at the pool. The day was really windy, and the waves were too intense for boogie boarding. Adrian tried to go out there once but got smacked around and beat up by the waves. I had wanted to go out too, but if it was rough on Adrian, there was no way I was going to attempt it. The wind really picked up in the afternoon and a lot of beach umbrellas were blown across the beach.

It grew cloudy and lightly sprinkled briefly while we were in the pool. T grew tired early, so Adrian took him back up to our condo. While Oo and I were practicing our back-floats, we saw a rainbow over us.

Oo would never admit it, but I think she's starting to feel a little homesick. When it was time for us girls to go up for dinner, she showed me a little garden she had found. She said that her feet haven't touched grass all week and that it felt so good to walk in the grass.

Adrian made pasta for dinner. After dinner, there was some play time and lots of snuggling with the kids. While we were putting the kids to bed, various folks on the beach began setting off fireworks. This has gone on every night that we've been here, but tonight's fireworks were more abundant than usual. The night was too windy for fireworks, but that didn't deter anyone. Sure enough, a firework blew into some dunes and caught the tall grass on fire. Idiots! No respect for nature!

Adrian and I watched the commotion from our balcony. It took a long time for the fire department to arrive to put out the blaze. As soon as the fire was out, we went to bed. It was a little early, but we were hoping to have another quiet morning where we'd wake up before the kids.

Vacation!! (day 6)

Day Six

This morning we went to the Ripley's Aquarium. There was a hefty admission price, and in typical Ripley's fashion there were some hokey exhibits (like the lady in a mermaid costume swimming with the manta rays). However, their collection of sea animals was impressive, and the shark tank where the sharks swim over you was really, really cool. T was hoping to see a sawfish (an endangered species that we've only ever seen in books), and the aquarium had FOUR!! T was so excited! There were also nurse sharks, moray eels, jelly fish, and leafy sea dragons. I took a ton of pictures. Here are a just a few of our favorite animals:

After a late lunch, we headed down to the pool and beach. The pool was unusually crowded, so we spent the majority of our afternoon at the beach. Today's sand construction project was a couple of cities divided by a canal system. Oo was City Planner, drawing the outlines for the canals and doing some digging and constructing on the side. Adrian was General Contractor, T was Exterior Designer and Landscape Artist, and I was Excavator and Photographer. Below are a few pictures of the project. I love Oo's canal design, and my favorite piece of T's work was the dead fish he stuck into the top of one of his towers.

For dinner we went to a little restaurant called Hamburger Joe's. We stopped there for lunch our first day in town — Oo loved it and begged to go back. The burgers there are thin and similar to McDonald's, which [sigh] is probably why the kids like the food there. The walls of the place are covered in dollar bills that customers wrote on and stapled to the walls. Neither of our waitresses could tell us how the tradition started.

While we were waiting for our food, T and I played with my phone's camera, and Oo read a book. She's currently reading "The Borrowers," and she takes it every where we go.

Vacation!! (day 5)

Today we went wild and mixed things up a bit. Instead of doing pool, lunch, beach, pool, we did beach, lunch, pool, beach. Whoa! Crazy, I know. The morning started out pretty dark and cloudy, and the weather websites were giving us conflicting information as to whether or not it would rain. We thought we'd better start out at the beach so that if it did rain we wouldn't miss out on any ocean time.

Our objective today was to build a sand castle. T had never built a sand castle before, not even on our beaches back home, so the three of us tried to help him out. Without intending to, we apparently annoyed the crap out of him because he started kicking things over and filling in the moat. He had a little time-out on the beach blanket, where he worked his frustrations out by trying to throw handfuls of sand at us. It wasn't long before he calmed down, and came back to join in the construction.

Adrian and I are so proud of T; no matter how upset he gets, if you leave him alone he can calm himself down. And today, not only did he calm himself down, but he also figured out how to deal with our intrusive coaching. When T returned to the castle, he started making sand molds that would just collapse into heaps. Adrian tried to show T how to pack sand firmly into a mold, but T informed him, "Dad... it doesn't have to be perfect."

T couldn't care less about the castle, he really just wanted to move sand around and make beeping noises like construction trucks. So, the rest of worked on the castle while T added to the hustle and bustle of our construction site. We didn't make much of a castle. It was more like a pyramid surrounded by fort walls and a moat. The morning's clouds disappeared and the day was sunny and hot... weather that's better suited for jumping in the waves rather than digging in the hot sand.

After day full of sunshine and play, we filled up on tacos for dinner and watched part of the Planet Earth series of DVDs (click here for the website) before bed. We started watching these shortly before our vacation. The images in the DVDs are breathtaking — the footage draws our kids in and holds them captive. And Adrian and I love that the videos teach the kids so many amazing things about animals, geology, and geography. It was a nice relaxing way to end a "busy" day.

Vacation!! (days 3 and 4)

Day Three

Today was all about swimming. Swim at the pool right after breakfast, then have lunch. Swim at the beach after lunch, then go to the pool again. For dinner we went to a pizza place. Those of you who know about our new dairy-free diet may be confused as to why we chose pizza for dinner. Well, we've seen some positive results from giving up dairy. But to be sure what we're seeing is really from giving up dairy, we have to reintroduce dairy to see what the effects are. Usually, it takes about 20-30 hours for digested dairy proteins to affect a person. We'll see sometime tomorrow afternoon or evening how cheese affects little Miss Oo.

Below are some pics from the pool.  The swimming lessons have finally paid off for Oo. She loves jumping into the deep end, doing the back stroke for the width of the pool, and trying to do hand stands. T is currently in a phase where he doesn't want his face wet. He was as happy as could be when we put a life vest on him and he could doggie paddle fearlessly through the pool. He even started jumping into the deep end too, but we still had to be there to catch him. His bravery with the water is increasing daily on this trip. Perhaps he'll be dunking his face in by the week's end.

Here are some pics from today's fun:

Day Four

Oo wanted to wake up early to look for sea creatures on the beach. To ensure that she would wake up early, she set her own kind of "alarm." She wrote "Wake at morning light" on a piece of paper and stuck it under her pillow. Lo and behold, her alarm worked! She woke me up at 6:30, and we tiptoed out the door without waking the guys. We didn't see many creatures, but we did find this little guy. Any of you know what it is?

After our morning nature hunt and breakfast, the four of us repeated yesterday's schedule — pool, lunch, beach, then pool. The day was much like yesterday, with two exceptions: dolphins and a shark! During our beach time, as the kids jumped in the waves and Adrian bobbed around in deeper water, the lifeguards started blowing their whistles and telling everyone to get out of the water. Oo and I went up to a lifeguard to find out what was going on. A shark had been spotted! The lifeguards told us not to go any further into the water than knee-deep. Determined to see a shark, I stood there at the water's edge and scanned the water for a dorsal fin. I stood there a long time, and Adrian made fun of me for it, but I didn't care. What else was I going to do while the kids played contently by themselves?

For dinner, Adrian made salmon in a orange basil sauce. Yum! As we were finishing up, I glanced out the condo window at the ocean and saw a dorsal fin! "Shark! I yelled without thinking, and I ran out onto the balcony. Adrian and the kids ran after me to get a look. As I pointed out where I saw the fin, the creature surfaced again. What I thought was a shark was actually two dolphins swimming together. Shark or not, seeing a large sea creature so close to shore was still pretty cool.

After dinner, we went looking for shells on the beach. Oo carried a bucket with her, but T did not want to take anything with him on the walk. Apparently, T regretted his choice because a few minutes into the walk he threw a fit and demanded to go back. Oo and I continued on the walk, while Adrian headed back with T. But not too much later, we bumped into Adrian and T again. Adrian said T ran as fast as he could on sand all the way back to the condo's ground-level storage closet. Then T stood there and begged for Adrian to unlock the closet. When Adrian opened the door, T dashed in, grabbed a small shovel, and started running back to the beach as fast as his little legs would carry him. Adrian locked the closet and ran after T. Together they ran on the beach trying to catch up with me and Oo, but T stopped periodically to dig small, random holes in the sand before breaking into a run again.

Below is a pic of the kids and I on the beach, shortly before T left to get his shovel.

Vacation!! (days 1 and 2)

(Rather than post vacation pics to Facebook, I've decided to blog with them. The blog will serve me better as a travel journal that I can read later with the kids.)

We've arrived in Garden City, SC!! All of us are so happy to be here — Adrian was in desperate need of a vacation, while the kids and I really needed some uninterrupted time with Adrian! In lieu of postcards, I'll try to blog regularly on our trip.

Day One

We left on Friday at 9am sharp — the EXACT time Adrian wanted to leave! Unheard of, I know. (And it'll probably never happen again!)

Before every trip, I always shop for books and activities to occupy the kids in the car. Oo dug into her new stuff right away, riffling through her bag like it was a Christmas stocking. T, on the other hand, had no interest in what was in his bag. He spent much of the long day in the car simply sitting and looking out the window. Such a mellow dude. The kids were so good in the car, and we ended our day's travels in Greensboro, NC, just in time for dinner.

Our plan was to take a dip in the hotel pool after dinner, but a thunderstorm nixed that idea. So instead we got some cookies from the hotel lobby and kept our Friday night "Movie Night" tradition with a pay-per-view movie ("The Lorax") in the room.

Day Two

After enjoying a good breakfast buffet, we left the hotel around 9:30. Thanks to an app that my dad told me about (Super Pages), finding a Starbucks close by was very easy. We only had 4 more hours of driving to do, but the trip felt waaaay longer than that. The kids had given us all of their patience during the first day's drive. If I had a nickel for every time the kids asked "How much longer?"...

Saturday is check-in day for the condo crowd, so traffic was a beast! The last 10 miles of the drive were slow moving, and the excited anticipation of playing in the ocean was making the tension in the car escalate beyond measure.

Even though it felt like we'd never arrive, we pulled in before 3pm. The kids ran around the condo squealing while Adrian unpacked the car and I made up the beds. While Adrian ran to the grocery store (which he reports was as jammed as the road into town), I took the kids to the beach for T's first dip ever in an ocean.

Incidentally, Oo's first dip in the ocean was when she was 19 months old (and we just found out that we were expecting T).  Here's a pic from that trip to Kitty Hawk, NC.

Okay, so back to the current trip... The kids and I played on the beach until 7pm. When we got back up to our condo, Adrian was still unpacking groceries. Poor guy! We decided on a quick dinner of hot dogs and beans and then headed back down so that Adrian could enjoy some beach time.

Adrian and Oo started with a dip in the pool, while T and I went for a sunset walk on the beach. The water had receded, so there were shells everywhere. As T explains it, we didn't walk very far because there were so many shells to stop and look at. We even saw a little crab scurry sideways; he was almost too fast for us to see. T and I took these pictures of each other on the beach, and the last pic was taken when Adrian and Oo came to join us.

 

We stayed on the beach until it was almost too dark to see. Someone way down on the beach was setting off fireworks. Bedtime came late, and the kids were exhausted. I don't think we'll get much relaxing done on this trip. But that's okay. Play and family time together can be just as restorative.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

Oo doesn't have school today; it's a Teacher In-service Day. The kids woke up before me and made me breakfast. Oo made me my usual — a bowl of FiberOne cereal with soy milk. The bowl of cereal was just about enough food to feed one of her baby dolls, so I made a second bowl when she wasn't looking. T filled a cup with fruity Cherrios, pretzels, and chocolate cookies. He didn't feel brave enough to pour the heavy carton of milk, so he left it dry. (Whew!) I told him he made a very good choice.

In addition to having a long weekend, we also have the pleasure of pet sitting Oo's class pet, a bearded dragon named Murray. Here's a conversation I had with Oo just moments ago...

Oo:  Can I hold Murray?
Me:  Yes.
Oo:  Wait... can I hold Murray?
Me:  I said, "yes."
Oo:  Okay. It's just that my ears... whenever you're talking, they just automatically turn off.

Play-Doh Slave

They say a mom holds many job titles: Nurse, Short-order Cook, Teacher, Friend, Psychologist, Janitor, Laundress, Dietician, Social Director, Chauffeur, Bodyguard, Personal Shopper, Baker, Law Enforcer, Cheerleader, Hair Stylist, Toy Repairman, Tower and Train Track Engineer, Storyteller, Secretary, Mind Reader, Dishwasher, Referee, Librarian, Comfy Chair, and Pack Mule, just to name a few.

Well, I can now add "Play-Doh Slave" to my résumé.

For the past I-don't-know-how-many months, T has been OBSESSED with Angry Birds, which is interesting because we have a no-video-games policy in our house. His first exposure to the birds was a YouTube video we watched together. ("Wait," you say, "there are YouTube videos of Angry Birds?" Yes, not only are there some promotional videos that were made by the company, there are a SLEW of animated videos made by fans.)

Since gaining interest in Angry Birds, T has begun a collection of Angry Birds items. He has two Angry Birds games (not video games, but the kind where you have to build the pigs' houses with blocks), some figurines, an Angry Birds kite, pencil toppers, stickers, plush toys, and an Angry Birds t-shirt that he wants to wear every... single... day.

One of T's favorite videos to watch is of a little boy named Evan who is showing off his collection of Angry Birds that his dad made out of Sculpey clay. That video inspired T to build his own Angry Birds out of Play-Doh. But when he found that his Play-Doh skills didn't quite produce the quality he was looking for, he pouted, and then he blinked those baby blues at me. Now, I'm his Play-Doh Slave.

Anywhere from once to three times a week, T digs out the Play-Doh and I start taking orders. He usually requests the birds in the same order: red, blue, yellow, black, white, etc. Sometimes he wants me to make the birds from the Angry Birds Seasons or Angry Birds Space games, and every now and then he'll dictate the design for a new type of bird. But he ALWAYS wants me to make the pigs — he loves the pigs. Oo gets in on the act too, she's not a fan of the characters, but she likes making her little brother happy.

After the characters are all created, T usually wants pictures taken of them. Once he even made a video that was almost word-for-word the same as Evan's Sculpey-clay video! (I'd post T's video here but it's way too long.) Here are some of our pictures:

Adrian teases me about being a Play-Doh Slave. He says that T has me wrapped around his little pinkie. And yet, since I first started drafting this blog entry, Adrian downloaded Angry Birds onto his phone so T could play the game— yep, breaking the no-video-games rule. So... who's wrapped around the boy's little pinkie now?

A Practical Approach to Interior Design

We're finally going to paint the upstairs bathroom! I've been wanting to do so ever since we painted it 8 years ago. It's a sunshiny yellow, cheery and light. But I don't like it. The yellow makes everything look dingy, and it makes the beautiful azure tiles on the floor look like teal — I hate teal. We decided to paint it white. GASP!! I know, I know, we said we'd never have more than one white room in the house, but white really is the best choice for that bathroom.

On Monday afternoon, I decided to trek to the paint store to get some paint chips. I told the kids to put their shoes on so we could run a quick errand, and I was met with the expected barrage of questions: Where are we going? Do we HAVE to? Do we hafta go NOW? Why do you hafta to paint the bathroom? Why don't you like yellow? What color are you gonna paint it?

When I told the kids we were going to paint it white, T did not take the news well:

T: (in a loud, panicky voice) But you CAN'T paint it white because then the WHOLE potty will be camouflaged!!!  (a pause, then very quietly...)  I won't be able to find the potty.

Overheard

Yesterday, Oo was reading the Sunday funnies from the newspaper, when she said something that I can honestly say I've never in my life heard anyone express...

Oo: [squeal!!] Mary Worth is getting so exciting!