conversations with invisible pigs and sheep

My bedtime routine — iPod with Master and Commander & iPad with Solitaire and Monopoly and PvZ.

His bedtime routine — do everything possible to avoid sleep.

I went to bed early, gave out extra kisses, popped in the earbuds.

He pops in. “Can I lay with you? I want to go to sleep with you.”

Me: “Give me and kiss and go back to bed.”

A few minutes later, I start hearing a strange musical noise. I check the iPad, the volume is completely muted. I’m thinking it’s some recording artifact on the audiobook. I hear it again. It’s constant. It’s annoying.

I take out an earbud. The music is louder. The music is in my room. “Don’t cross the street in the middle in the middle in the middle in the middle in the middle of the block…”

Me: “Colin!”

Him (peeking out from behind my door, with his MP3 player): “It’s your favorite song. I brought it for you. Can I play Monopoly?”

Me: “How do you know I’m playing Monopoly?”

Him: “I could hear you.”

Ok, not “real” diving, but going underwater to retrieve something (we have a cool set of torpedos that skim the water and then sink…).

Colin learned to swim a couple weeks ago, so now he can jump in and swim to me when the water is over is head, and he can play alone-ish in the three foot water at the pool.

Yesterday, Jim was retrieving the torpedo, and Colin wanted to give it a try. He was having the hardest time getting the right motion down to get all the way to the bottom of the pool.

Jim, trying to be helpful in his own way, tells Colin, “Remember, you have to push the X button to dive” (like in video games where the character needs to “dive”).

Fast-forward, and little Colin is standing there in water up to his chest, goggles over his eyes, his hand in a fist, pressing his thumb down, repeating, “press X to dive, press X to dive…”

Year two of gardening. Last year, I had to buy tomatoes at HD because my (started from seeds) didn’t flourish. At all. The HD ones were mis-labelled, because I wanted sandwich size, and got grape tomatoes instead.

This year we started seeds inside again, and then after transplanting them, the bunnies ate the tomatoes. A good good friend gave me some replacements, and we have three big fat green tomatoes right now. The pumpkins and zucchini from seeds are doing very well, so big with lots of blossoms. I think the mistake this year was too many (four) big plants. They are taking over everything else.

Colin and I installed the “Bunny Stopper 3000″, a barrier of vinyl-coated chicken wire stapled and staked to the inside of the wood barriers. That saved the new plants, and is supporting the pumpkin.

I think next year I’ll need another raised bed, and that will give me more room for these guys.
The garden is thriving, and growing, but we’ve only had lettuce and basil so far. I think the squash are going to over take it.

I was going to let it stagnate, as the domain expired. But I picked it back up again, so. We’ll see. Summer has started, and it’s not easy.

I had to lock down the photos of the boys in Flickr, so if you can’t see them, create an account, and then add me as a contact and let me know. I’ll mark you as a friend and then you’ll be able to see the pics again.

…and the blog is ignored.

We’re counting down the days until school is out. Sixteen days, and three of them are half-days. We went to the pool yesterday, and plan on going after school on Wed, Thur, and Fri. Of course, now I still need bathing suits for both boys and a sun shirt for Jim and towels…

The garden is in, and in the ten days since I planted and transplanted, the seeds have been sprouted and thinned. The transplants are a different story. The basil is fine, the calendula (a flower) is OK, and the pumpkin is so-so but seems to be recovering. The tomatoes and pepper plants didn’t make it. I checked on them yesterday, and all the leaves were gone, and one of the tomato plants was all shriveled up too. Of course, I’m sure it didn’t help that the timer for the sprinkler was wrong, set to water for zero minutes. So it missed getting watered for two and a half days. But that’s all fixed now.

I also set up a pretty sweet sprinkler system. It cost about $125, but it’s run by timers, and the hoses run along the house, not the lawn. It makes edging a little harder, but it’s way better then having hoses on the lawn and brown grass! And eventually, the spots where the hoses run will be flower beds, and edging there won’t be a problem at all.

In Colin news, he’s now fully potty-trained. There were some setbacks early on, but the enticement of a new train and fear of what would happen to the train (going back to the store) if he kept backsliding, worked. He’s even dry at night!

Since Colin is a big boy now, I gave into the peer pressure, and gave him a streamlined summer haircut last night…

My moppet before his haircut….

…is turned into a hooligan after it:

Dad and I are wondering why the Easter bunny doesn’t clean the kitchen and make the coffee before he leaves.

After staying up past ten last night, the boys were up before seven, Jim got Colin out of his room to go to the potty, but wouldn’t let him get undressed.

Since we’re all having Easter candy for breakfast, I’m hoping they crash hard and early, so we can all get a nap in before Easter dinner.

Last night, at the Vigil Mass, Jim had a rough start, with the dark church (not liking the dark), and the smell of the incense and lilies (with his oversensitive sense of smell). We really thought he was going to be looking for an excuse to leave, since Colin got to stay at Matt’s with his awesome babysitter duo. Instead, he turned himself around, put down the comics, and followed along in the missal with me, and…

he sang. I don’t know if he was inspired because the psalm was familiar, or if he was just into it, but he sang with me. He loves music, he’s been making up songs later, loves when we blast the iTunes in the house. So this feels like another big step in getting for next year. I’m just bursting with pride.

I vowed not to go out of the house today, and just clean and do laundry. I’m enjoyed last night’s pot roast for brunch (a new weird trend of mine, dinner for brunch — last week it was cheesesteaks leftover from my b-day party). Also, listening to Don’s tape imports of his dad.

Took Colin “toy shopping” in the basement for puzzles, and he ended up coming up with a themed Duplo block set on the first run, and then more Duplo blocks and a matchbox car set on the second trip. He is just having a blast.

I got a free photo book from Snapfish, and I’ve been working on re-creating the ones I made in Shutterfly of the boys last year. Snapfish is cool because it links to Flickr, but I realized that my early Flickr imports were edited for size. So I have to re-import all the photos I want. And the Snapfish photobook layouts are just sub-par to Shutterfly. But free is free. Too bad it’s taking forever to get this done.

I am fascinated by the field across the street from Jim’s bus stop. It started last year, when I was waiting for the bus the day after a snowstorm. Anyway, I’m making it a photography project.

In the morning, the sun rises behind the trees. By the time we get there, it’s over to the right a bit….

By afternoon, with the winter sun behind me, the field and trees have a golden glow:

The clouds were moving fast, bringing in a cold front…

In a mad dash to GET IT DONE already, Colin’s room was ready to go live today. We got the old bunk bed out last night, and then I built the bed and had it waiting this morning.

And then I quickly found out the my original plan of using the crib mattress for a toddler style bed wasn’t going to work, as his crib mattress was too long and too skinny. So, I went to Plan B, which was to use just the mattress from Jim’s old old bed, which I think used to be Don’s bed before we got married. Anyway, our only non-IKEA twin bed. That mattress fit, but the bed was too long for the way I had the room laid out.

So then I re-arranged the room again, and again. Got it right on the fourth try. Brought in the rocker and the dresser and the toy box and some pictures. Etc.

Then it was time to go and we were out all day. Didn’t have time to put the curtains up until right before dinner. After all the effort I went through to get them (IKEA trip, so glad it’s so close), it’s obviously how “well”‘ they are made. They have an obvious horizontal pattern, and its repeats are lined up properly. So I have to re-do the rod pockets before hemming them.

Anyway, he’s in bed, asleep, in his new room, in his new BIG BOY bed. Go Colin.

jim: “I’m going to wear my glasses in case they teach us stuff today, not to look handsome…”

crazy caroller

Jim’s Christmas play was/is today. They split the school in half, and each grade performs part of the play. There’s a dress rehearsal in the morning that we attended.

While waiting, Colin decided to catch “humbugs”. I have no idea what these are (except for that they are invisible) or where he got the idea about them. Like Dad said last night, he’s our weird one.

I took a video of his part, he goes by in a flash (blue vest, blue-gray hat, gray scarf), but I was too far away for it to be clear.

The pics of him on stage didn’t come out either.

I’ve also been on a finishing frenzy with regards to knitting. Finished mittens for me, Jim’s sweater, the Carr baby sweater, and a shawl which I’m keeping for myself. It’s medium blue which is a weird color, and I ran out of yarn before the edge could be properly finished, so it’s a little wonky. I haven’t even blocked it, but it’s been nice in the afternoons for keeping warm.

Jim’s sweater:

Baby sweater:

Haven’t even gotten pictures of the others yet…

In the time of Facebook, the blog gets ignored. So let’s see what’s happened in the last few weeks…

We (I) got the upstairs hall painted right before Thanksgiving. It looks great, and it’s so nice to finally have color up there. Can’t wait to get the rest of the foyer painted. Still have one vents to put back and have pictures to hang.

Dad re-configured the living room including the “media” furniture. It has more of a media center appearance, keeps all the equipment cool AND out of reach, and we still have toy storage. Overall, it is just nice.

I’ve almost Christmas shopping. Got a great deal on a Flip Ultra camera. Thought I might let Jim try it out. Here’s the first video I made: