Easter Week-End Pics

In the late afternoon on Easter, the sun decides to show up for the party on our street! The neighbors gather for our annual, hard-charging, serious Egg Extravaganza. The girls are in complete, Egg-Hunt Party mode.

On the Friday before Easter, we head out to Oklahoma to attend my Aunt's 80th Birthday celebration (Great party guys!) amid strong winds and the kiddos bashing each other loudly with verbal insults (one coherent, one not)from the back seat. This is the view just outside my cousin's home, where we had the party, not far from my hometown. Wind farms have popped up all over the horizon in this part of the state. (you know, "where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain. . .")

We take the kids to a park after lunch to run off some energy built up from the long hours as a car hostages. Destructo takes off, running hard for a spot far away from any known authority.

Spitfire--Aspiring to great heights

Destructo and a new buddy at the party--mulling over issues of National Security. . .

Spring of Our Discontent

My hair stylist pointed out that I had some gray hair last time I went to see her (I will forgive her because it seems she doesn't yet realize how vain I am), and I am convinced that I have aquired more after last night. Who knows, next I may be sporting all-over blue and getting a senior discount at places. My kids worked diligently on getting into the Disgruntled Behavior Hall of Fame last night, beginning with our walk through the neighborhood. Halfway down the block, Spitfire and her good friend decide to turn back and ditch the scooters for their bikes, as I try to keep a giddy-with-freedom Destructo from angling into the street at each and every opportunity (we didn't bring his stroller this time, which turned out to be a grave miscalculation on my part). When we arrive, a dispute arises about scooters and bikes and who gets to ride which mode of transportation, and then Destructo squeals as though being put through a Chinese water torture when I try to get him buckled back into his stroller. In the end, the walk gets scrapped, and my clan heads back to our house across the street, amid desparing cries and accusations of war crimes against my soldiers. Inside, I put dinner in the microwave and try to tune out the sound of Spitfire wailing woefully at the open window (the neighbors think I am beating her mercilessly?). Instead of eating his dinner, Destructo decides to throw it, and then crawl up onto the table simply because he can, now that we have started seating him in a booster instead of his high chair. Afterward, out of sheer hopelessness, I take them to the park, dump them onto the open grassy area, and hope they run until they can't run anymore. Of course, kids at this age don't ever hit the "wall," as they are fueled by some type of magical energy bank that never goes dry, but, I reason that it is worth a try. We find some dandelions blooming.

Back at home, it's time for our bath and bed routine, which goes suprisingly smoothly. I lie with Spitfire as promised--the plan being to get up when she falls asleep. But at midnight I wake and find that I have carelessly wasted several hours of rare, me-time sleeping! Agh!! I get up, defiantly, and make for the TV, just as Dart Guy ambles back home from the dart league. My poor, better half is caught in a season of discontent, and doesn't quite know which direction to turn, having left this house only hours earlier while it was still inhabited by a right-minded, somewhat well-mannered, possibly even smiling, supportive wife. The only words of comfort I have for you Dart Guy are these: Your week in Vegas is just around the corner. Cheer up.

The Mystery Gum

As in most households with kids, we revere silence as something close to holy, though it is also regarded with a healthy degree of skepticism--what’s going on if the kids are quiet? When Destructo suddenly falls mute after a rousing, completely incomprehensible rendition of the alphabet tune, it is cause for mild to moderate concern. I go searching. When I find him, he is looking decidedly guilty, glancing at me warily from the corner of his eyes and trying hard to appear nochalant.
“What?” I say, suspiciously. “What have you done?” Guilty until proven innocent prevails at this address.
I can find nothing out of place, nothing torn to shreds, nothing adorned by great, flourishes of a so-callled, “washable marker,” nothing systematically disassembled and left in indecipherable pieces. I don’t know what to be worried about, so I ask him again, pulling his pacifier out so he can answer—and then I see it—the huge wad of vividly, pink gum stuck to the rim of his blue “na na.” As fast as a laser beam, his arm snakes out and grabs the gum-covered soothie possessively, plopping it back in his mouth and commencing a great, ferocious type of sucking. He dares me with his eyes to take it again.
“Where did you get that?” I ask, knowing he will probably take a page from Dart Guy’s play book and answer with a noncommittal grunt. Since we are not in possession of any pink gum here, I reasonably suspect this is of the ABC variety, and shudder at the thought of it. I can only hope it belonged to someone we know, and was not picked up at street side when they were outside playing. He sits blissfully watching me, then takes it out and strings it carefully across the room when I turn my back, singing the ABC song again. I guess the holy silence is over!

The offending suspect above--Dart Guy's shop vac--recently coughed up (with some help from Dart Guy) my wedding ring, which I hadn't seen in nearly a year. Important note to girls: this is a good way to end up with two wedding rings, although you may want to choose a variety of vacuum that works with a little less force/intensity-the ring has lost a bit of its luster. Nothing a good cleaning won't cure, I think. Cudos to Dart Guy for being the kind of guy who buys another wedding ring, no questions asked, and for spotting this little sparkle at the bottom of a grimy shop vac!
Here, I enlist Spitfire and her girlfriend to put a hex on Dart Guy's garden spot. It is a competition to see who can balance the longest--and who can wreak more havoc on the inner sanctom of his raised bed. All is fair in love and gardening!

Creature Discomforts

The land around our house is full of living things I’d rather not see, touch, or be near; though, to Spitfire and Destructo—it's a sporting paradise. Creature sport, that is. If it flies, crawls, slithers, boasts multiple appendages, has bulging bug-eyes or no eyes, is mud-covered, slimy, woefully scaly, or is protected by a hard outer shell (and I am not talking about an M & M), you will probably find it housed in one, of many, uniquely assembled containers around our home. Beware what lid you remove here.
“No snails!” I say forcefully, as Spitfire studiously examines the ground behind the porch, zeroing in on her victim. She ignores me, which is a favorite hobby of hers. Destructo, his head looking like a patchwork quilt since he rubbed liberal amounts of ketchup over its mostly bald surface at dinner, is more than mildly curious about what she sees. She growls at him when he gets near, and he shrieks back. It’s my turn to ignore. She merrily holds up her find for us to see.
“See! No snail!” she says triumphantly, her hand dripping with a long, squirming night crawler. I guess I should be happy--it's just an earthworm. Snails alarm me. Dart Guy is confused as to why your basic, mostly-empty shell bothers me, but fourteen million randomly strewn toys blocking a safe passage from hallway to kitchen doesn’t. I can’t say why. I’m sorry, Dart Guy. I know this causes a certain rise in your blood pressure. We do appreciate you keeping our residence above sloth status, even if we don’t tell you very often. Your spring cleaning has resulted in nothing short of a miraculous metamorphosis in our humble abode. I am shocked at the color and beauty of our floors you have exposed—who knew they looked so nice underneath it all?

Above is what can happen when you leave your child at home alone all day with his dad--boredom sets in and the electric trimmer comes out. When I left home this boy was perfectly whole, untroubled, happy, emotionally healthy--he had hair. Spitfire and I arrive home from a long day of girl bonding and lady-bug stalking to find Destructo in a state of anxiety--only a shell of the toddler he once was, lost and floundering in a world full of people with more hair (with the exception of Dart Guy, who took the clippers to his own head too). Okay, okay. I embellish some. Really he is fine, not scarred for life, but maybe I am, since Dart Guy took away most of the visible evidence that some of my DNA lurks inside of Destructo (curls). He does still have the brown eyes, which Spitfire recently informed me, on a tip-off from Dart Guy, means a person is full of. . . fish.



Below is only one of about fifty, poor, traumitized lady-bugs that had the misfortune of being captured on Saturday while Spitfire and a good friend ran wild at their camp-site. Said lady-bugs made the drive home last night in an empty raisen box and were easy targets this morning for Spitfire and Baldy Destructo, who decided to have a lady-bug throwing contest in our living room. We said a small blessing for our peace-loving, red and black friends.

Spring Garden!

It has been so long since I wrote in this blog, that I had trouble remembering my log-in. Of course, Spitfire, Destructo, and Dart Guy do not beg me to record things here since they are the embattled subjects of most posts, and instead, breath a collective sigh of relief when the entries have a dry spell. Sorry to end your nice respite, guys.
Our clan has decided to attempt a garden patch again this year, even though last year's effort plunged us into the red immediately and kept us there all summer by producing approximately five, sad, little, dilapitated, and withered herloom tomatoes, and a total of three string beans. Luckily, abject and total failure does not thwart us. This year, a competition brews--proposed by, none other than Dart Guy, himself, whom we have chosen, (during a specially called Session of the House that he missed) again this year to perform most of the work required to install our small, green enterprises. Dart Guy and I each get a plot or pot--Dart Guy plans an interesting pot-on-a-pole invention--and will get to use all the child labor we want or can induce by certain bribery.
Judging criteria of our dueling gardens' success has not yet been determined, but could mean the start of an elaborate counting system vunerable to scheming, conniving, and your basic vegetable "enhancement." If nothing else, this project will give us all a break from Fox News Channel and March Madness. May the best Gardener (aka conspirator) win!