We're Baaaaack!

Kind of sort of.  Along with a blogging break I also took an unexpected picture taking break and everything else break.  There's been a lot of good, bad and ugly in these parts. Oh boy, has there been a lot of ugly, but we are back.  I think.

Let's just start off slow why don't we.  I thought we'd start off with a little "what we are listening to now" post, to help get you out of your Christmas music rut, and into a random music rut.  We are always here to help.


FIRST
Before you click play on this particular piece, you must turn the volume up to 11.  Preferably on a really good set of speakers.





The husband brought this home and we first listened to it in the car with the speakers blaring.  It was great.  The kids will listen to the rest of it, begrudgingly, only after we listen to this part three times.  OK, maybe four.  Or five.  Mikey calls it the fighting waves song.



SECOND
After Great Grandpa Livovich died, his son (Mike's Dad), (are you confused yet?) gave us some of his CD's.  Great Grandma is deaf and has no use for the music.  The husband has recent memories of sitting in a hospital room, holding great grandpa's hand, listening to Glen Miller, so he started playing it for the rest of us.

I know every single word of this song.  We may have listened to it a couple of times.





We also borrowed "The Glenn Miller Story" from Mike's parents, and it was great.  Starring Jimmy Stewart and June Allyson, it is full of 1950's gems, wholly unexplainable to the kids.  Our other favorite?




I could listen to the Glenn Miller Band all day.  And some days I have!  Per the kid's request, of course. I'm nothing if not an indulgent mother.


THIRD
While I could listen to Glenn Miller all day, The Andrews Sisters not so much.  Too syrupy.  When we mix them in with other, less sweet tunes, they're quite enjoyable.




Beware:  This song does bring up some uncomfortable topics.  Things like, "Mom?  What's 'pet'?  Why are they mad about a girl who likes to pet?"  Of course I answer their questions with a very honest and straightforward, "Let's ask your Papi when we get home."  Works for me!


FOURTH
With thanks to Jalapeño Peppers, we've been enjoying the up to date Puppini Sisters quite a bit.  Still lots of boogie, but a bit less syrup than the Andrew Sisters.





FIFTH
The Elia received an iPod for Christmas and she has been greatly enjoying having her own music on it. She's been listening to Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Natalie Merchant and Cat Stevens.  Oh, what will we do when she starts developing her own tastes?

This is one of her faves right now - and of course it has become ours, too.






SIXTH
Then we play these two really loud, so I don't go into diabetic shock from all the sweet music.






Both lots of fun.


What about you?  What have you been listening too?


SEVENTH
Are you still with us?  Did you shlog through the music?  Did you skip the music entirely?  It's ok.  One last gem just in case I was becoming vain:


Papi (singing): I've got a love-ly pair of coconuts...  (you know, from Gnomeo and Juliet)

Mikey:  Mama's got a HUUUGE pair of coconuts!

Elia: Mikey, you don't know what a coconut is.

Deli:  Yes, they are big, and mama has them thiiiis big, and they drop down low....

Elia (with a sigh and an eye roll):  No, Del.  Coconuts are big, brown, hairy balls!


Oh man, the Papi and I were laughing so hard by the end of this conversation.  Time to close the door while I dress, methinks.

And then there were haircuts

We started with a fairly decent Blago.




Stopped for a moment at toupee with lollipop.

Took a breather for some naked mirror gazing.

I can assure you the Papi was not also naked.
It just so happened I cut his hair as well, and he took his shirt off.
Or so we want you to think.

And we ended up with a young and spastic Dr. Spock.

I think I want my money back.

More!

It's no secret around here that we have been loving The Sisters Grimm series. We are currently reading book seven - how many books are there? the husband asks - lots and lots. My sister told me about them and we can't get enough. We love fairy tales already, and these books are just plain fun.

The girls put on a play for us, you can see below Henry, Veronica, Sabrina, Daphne and Jake Grimm, preparing for something.
The something was difficult for the girls to agree on, there was some giggling, maybe a little whispering and a whole lot of eye rolling. We never did figure out what that "something" was.




At one point Josie laid her head on the footstool/stage and said, "This isn't a play, THIS is a disaster!"

The audience didn't seem to mind.

And last but not least,
we have discovered the perfect way to deal with the Deli boy when he is naughty.
We send him to the corner and tell him to think about his actions
and all of the implications they may have.

"how do you affect the world around you Del?"

It seems to be working.
Or maybe he's just scared out of his head.
Either way.

why? how do you spend your days?

I couldn't figure out how to make this shorter, so only watch what you want.  There is no big pay off at  the end.

Poetry Wednesday, Vol. 91

The kids and I really enjoy Scranimals by Jack Prelutsky. We recently rediscovered our torn and tattered copy, reading at odd times of the day. Last night we read it for a bed time story. I have to admit, when we first opened the book a couple years ago, I was less than excited about it. The poems and the ideas just didn't grab me. But the kids loved it. Every new animal was endlessly fascinating. They spent entire minutes drawing new variations of animal/fruit/vegetable hybrids. So we kept reading the book. And as it so often happens with Stockholm Syndrome I grew to love the book. Now I don't just read it, I actually enjoy it!

And next time we are at your house and you serve us radishes, you will understand why our pronunciation of the name is just a little off.

Jack Prelutsky



In the middle of the ocean
In the deep deep dark,
Dwells a monstrous apparition,
The detested RADISHARK.
It's an underwater nightmare
That you hope you never meet,
For it eats what it wants,
And it always wants to eat.

Its appalling, bulbous body
Is astonishingly red,
And its fangs are sharp and gleaming
In its huge and horrid head,
And the only thought it harbors
In its small but frightful mind,
Is to catch you and to bite you
On your belly and behind.

It is ruthless, it is brutal,
It swims swiftly, it swims far,
So it's guaranteed to find you
Almost anywhere you are.
If the RADISHARK is near you,
Pray the beast is fast asleep
In the middle of the ocean
In the dark dark deep.

Del, you're lucky he didn't have a Sharpie.

This was not my fault.





I was the one driving.
The Papi did this to Del.

It's like a frat house on wheels.

Minus the booze,
but there is a lot of belching and gas release on a regular basis.

I don't know what would have happened if there had been a marker in the glove box.

flutter by

For the Mikey/Elia birthday we bought butterfly nets with real! live! butterfly! larvae!
I thought this was a good idea, you know, science, learning, good for the brain, connect with nature and all that, but have you seen butterfly larvae? Yuck.

Double yuck when they are in their little plastic tub contentedly munching on the beeswax looking stuff on the bottom and dropping copious amounts of beeswax looking pellets of poo. Those spiny little worms (caterpillars, Mom, Elia inserts with an eye roll), started out teeny and grew disturbingly fast. All on my piano in the living room.

Nature is ugly.

But the butterfly larvae happily ate their stuff-in-a-jar, grew big and fat, and did just what they were supposed to do. They built crysalids, a fascinating process, and then they sat there. And sat there. And didn't move. And sat some more.

Really, it was only about 7 days, but that is a looooong time for a three year old.

We were rewarded though! Our patience, our willingness to beat back the shudders of revulsion and not drop the whole thing in a trash can just so I could get it out of the living room paid off! We had butterflies!

The literature warned us that not all the butterflies would emerge from their crisalids, but all of ours did! An example of fine parenting on our part, I like to believe. Did you know when they emerge that a red, blood like substance sometimes drips down the side of the netting? It's not blood, it's meconioum. Even in such beauty, nature is gross.

Our butterflies emerged! We gathered hyacinths in vases, we put paper towels drenched in a sugar water solution. We managed to keep all the butterflies alive until the outdoor temperatures hovered above fifty five. Well, we managed to keep almost all the butterflies alive.

When we unzipped the netting to release all our Painted Ladies, we found one floating in the water of one of the hyacinths. It must have been in there overnight. It wasn't fighting, it wasn't moving. Our first casualty.

I removed the flowers from the net and helped Del and Elia set them free while keeping a watchful eye on the Mikey, who sometimes likes to bat things out of the sky. I did not need our second casualty to result in the banishment of a brother. Josie fretted over her little dead butterfly the whole time, not able to watch the beauty of the others flying by. After the rest of us watched for a bit, I heard,

"Mom! Look! It's alive! It's alive!"

Josie had pulled the floater out of the water and was showing me how it was weakly moving it's wings. Small signs of life indeed. Upon closer inspection, though, I found that the poor thing had been in the water long enough for it's back legs to begin to disintegrate. The body looked a little gelatinous. I told Josie that the butterfly was suffering and the kindest thing to do would be to place it on the ground and step on it. *GASP*

Not the right thing to say.

So we delicately placed the wounded butterfly on a hyacinth. We watched it weakly flutter it's wings and we prayed that it would get strong and fly away in the night. The butterfly was gone in the morning. I couldn't tell you for sure what happened to it, I have my suspicions (no I did not go out and squish it, I'm not THAT mean!) but Josie insists that it got strong and flew off to warmer gardens.

And that's my Josie.

And lest you think that everything around these parts is all maudlin sentimentality, I leave you with my favorite butterfly picture EVER.  Drawn by the Elia when she was just a few years old.  I've featured it on this blog before, but thought it was due for another round.  The beauty and sentiment in this simple drawing continues to amaze and delight.  I hope you enjoy it just as much as we do.


Are you ready?

Poetry Wednesday, Vol. 87

There were a good amount of thoughts in my head for this poetry day.  But as it happens, things get busy, we are a bit stressed, life is moving at the speed of light.  I need a mental break.  Thanks to the Writer's Almanac, it has arrived.  Thanks to Billy Collins, I can look forward to another rainy day with a smile on my face. 

What She Said

by Billy Collins

When he told me he expected me to pay for dinner,
I was like give me a break.

I was not the exact equivalent of give me a break.
I was just similar to give me a break.

As I said, I was like give me a break.

I would love to tell you
how I was able to resemble give me a break
without actually being identical to give me a break,

but all I can say is that I sensed
a similarity between me and give me a break.

And that was close enough
at that point in the evening

even if it meant I would fall short
of standing up from the table and screaming
give me a break,

for God's sake will you please give me a break?!

No, for that moment
with the rain streaking the restaurant windows
and the waiter approaching,

I felt the most I could be was like

to a certain degree

give me a break.

ok, now we're ready

Really. Who do those children belong to?

NOW. We are ready.

A Super-tastic time

On Saturday, we celebrated Mikey and Elia with a superhero birthday party.  We somehow managed to not take any decent pictures, and now Blogger/Picasa is not allowing me to post any edited pictures, so once again you get the grainy ones.  Enjoy.  

All the friends arrived and donned their super capes (courtesy of a a Super Grandma - she sewed up 20 capes, can you believe it!) and joined the festivities.  We played pin the rope on Wonder Woman, find the Kryptonite and bash the pinata.  

We did not take pictures of the fun, but we did take one hundred different pictures of the Suuuper Caaake! (sung out loud in a big Taaa Daaa!)  It was indeed super.  It was amazing...ly...

Super...

...roBUST...ly..

can't.  look.  away....

What was I saying?

Oh!  Yes!

The cake!

It was awesome!

And also made by the Super Grandma.  Did we make anything for this party?  No.  We just decided a theme, then called up Grandma and Grandpa and had them make us stuff.  They ARE super heroes that way.

  You should get you some of them.

The little heroes of the day loved the cake.

We didn't take any pictures of all the goings on, maybe because we were having too much fun celebrating two of our sweet kiddos with a great bunch of family and friends.  Thank you to you for coming out and joining us. A super time was had by all.

No Respect

THE QUEEN

Also known as "this is what I wear on Wednesday"

Aaaargh! Queen! Gimme all your moneys!



I said, gimme all your moneys!
Or I will take it by force!
I have a knife!


Aha! I got the moneys! aaargh...

Lonely Hearts Club Band

So the girls were playing pic-nic in the porch and the dictator, I mean Elia, was commanding her subjects around. Do this, do that, wait here, pour me some tea, sit in that spot...

Something caught my ear, though. Did she just say that? There it goes again! Yes, yes, she Did just say that.


"Josie, don't pour the tea yet, we have to wait for Grandma and Sgt. Pepper."

Happy Easter!

The girlies enjoyed their egg hunt. They found jelly beans, a few quarters and some fairy paper dolls. And lots and lots of candy!

While we were all distracted with the egg hunt, the Del Monster found some Peeps!

Mmmm! They are good!

After church, there were more Easter baskets.

There was Easter cake from Grandma. There was lamb and basket, both very, very good.

Some playing with Great Grandma. Mikey loves to steal her cane.

Deli also discovered Deviled eggs. Almost as good as the Peeps.

Almost.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

Our leprechaun had a little trouble making her way over the water... something about night blindness, couldn't see the way, trouble with snakes, I don't know. anyway... she arrived in time for spring. Happy Saint Patrick's Day to all of you.

Monkey on my back

Dread Pirate Roberts

and some captured urchins...

The other stage

Soon after the babies begin to crawl, they begin to explore. They go all over and get into everything.

The big draw for all my kidlets has been the onions and potatoes. What is it about onions and potatoes that taste and feel so good? The papery skin you can peel and crush? The mesh bag you can smoosh in your hands and suck on?

The potato that is so sweet and cool? So soothing to the teething gums?

I don't know how many times I've cooked with potatoes that have teeth marks all over them. As if they've been attacked by a rabid hamster. Or the Pickle.

Mmmmmmm, good.

On a side note, the garlic is also tasty. The Pickle was crawling around working something in his mouth, so I stopped him to see what it was. He saw me coming at him and, ptuey! spit out a chewed up piece of garlic! That clove was clean and sucked dry. And Del has not been bitten by a vampire since...