So many things to say!

Holy wow!  Every day there's something new coming out of this boy's mouth.  All of a sudden he knows a lot of his colors.  No, really.  I've been working with him on them and the only one he would say was green.  And he had a made-up word for the word color (kwee was what he said).  Now he says, "Momma, paint?  I paint?"  And as I was filling his paint palette up he'd name each color, pink, red, blue, green, brown, white.  He calls purple, pink.  He calls black, brown.  He won't even try to say yellow and can't say orange but at least he tries that color.  He says gray and he has a facination with the color pink which is a surprise to us!  In this picture he's showing me his car, "Wook, momma, wed (red)!" 

Juice box (he loves words that end in the X sound like bricks, stick, rocks, etc.) which he picked up from Despicable Me.

Sorry (well he says, "hawwy") and "I no sorry."  That's a fun one.

I want that (oh great, like I needed him to pick that one up) or I like that - we can't figure out which one it is.

I think we're getting I love you but it's very, very sporadic.

When he wants to watch something on the TV in the living room he refers to it as the big TV.

He also tells us, "Cook!" when we're in the kitchen.  Tonight I was in the office working and E said, "What's for dinner?"  G promptly replied with, "Daddy, cook!"  Good boy...

He will grab the phone and ask, "I call nana?"  And then when she answers (or when she doesn't it more like it) he leaves her a message full of, "Nana?  Hello?"

He'll pat my head or stroke my hair and tell me, "It's okay, momma, it's okay."  When he doesn't want to go down for a nap he will say, "No momma, get up!" or, "No nap!"  He also tells me, "Momma get up," when he comes into my room to wake me up in the morning. 

The other day that ASPCA commercial came on about abused animals (you know the one, it has that "Angel" song by that Sarah chick) and he went up the TV, mesmerized and said, "Momma, goggy (doggy) sad.  Goggy sad."  Then he proceeded to "pet" the doggy on TV and said, "It's okay, goggy, it's okay."  Yeah, I cried.  As if the commercial itself isn't heart wrenching enough, G's commentary made me well right up.

Today we went outside and played even though it was raining a little and when E came home, G told him, "I play in rain.  Wet!  Hair wet!"

He tells the dogs, "Bow-wow (Siren) in," or, "Pubby in, and he points to their kennel and holds the door for them. 

He now grabs himself and says, "Pee pee," or, "Darrett pee pee," but it's not always that he has to go potty.  I heard him say the word poopy the other day but I haven't been able to get him to say it again. 

Speaking of pubby, we've found that G can actually say puppy but apparently Crash isn't puppy he's Pubby.  :)  I should have just named the dog Riot like I wanted instead of letting E & G have Crash.  Anyway, my sister had bought G a Melissa & Doug stamp set when she was here over Spring Break.  One of the stamps was of a dog paw and G was quick to tell me, "Wook, momma, puppy paw."  Not only did he know that it was a puppy paw but then he dipped his finger into the ink pad, put it on the paper, lifted it up triumphantly and declared, "Wook, momma, a Darrett paw!"  I smiled and tried not to smooch all over his super cute face. 

Ten on Tuesday!

1. What is a food that you never thought you would try, but then tried and liked?
I tried sushi once over 10 years ago and all I can remember is that I hated it enough to never want to try it again.  Fast forward to a few weeks ago, I gave in and tried it again and loved it.

2. Do you subscribe to any foodie publications? If so, which ones?  
I don't.  I do, however, frequently clip recipes out of different magazines but they have to be ones that I can actually see myself making.

3. What ingredient do you find yourself reaching for the most when you cook?
Cumin.

4. Are there any foods that you hated as a child, but then learned to like as an adult?
Uh, none that I can think of off the top of my head.  Didn't like onions as a child and I don't care for them now but I add them to most things that call for them as I like the flavor they add, I just don't like the texture when eating them so I usually give them to E!
 
5. What do you like to eat that others may consider weird?
Venison or other forms of wild game.

6. What is the weirdest ingredient you’ve ever cooked with?
I don't cook with weird things because I don't eat weird things.  I'd have to say it's fresh ginger.

7. Do you have any major food allergies?
Nope.

8. Is there an ingredient that you would like to cook with, but are intimidated to try?
There are all sorts of ingredients I would like to cook with and am intimidated by!  I'd love to cook scallops because I love them but I don't want to ruin them and end up not liking them.

9. Do you bake?
I do when I have the urge.  It goes in stages.

10.  If you could go on any “foodie” show to compete, which one would it be, and why?
I don't want to compete on a foodie show but I do want to guest star on Diners, Drive-In's and Dives for a few weeks, eating until I puke.

Tough old bird

Have you met my grandma Elsie?  If you have, count yourself as a better person for just having spent time in her company.  She turned 85 this month.  My grandpa has been gone for 16 years now and she's stayed so strong even without him around.  I can only hope that I handle being widowed as graciously as she has (let's face it folks, there's a strong possibility unless E figures out how to get rid of me first).  She's funny, she's determined, she's a proud Christian woman who admits that she's fallible, she's strong, she has a big heart, she is a great mom and grandma. 

I can't say "from my earliest memory" and recall anything particularly noteworthy involving my grandma, it's just that she's always been there, she's always been a part of my life.  So many pictures from my childhood include her just as so many of my memories do!  Her house holds so many memories for me too - I can close my eyes and picture holiday celebrations from different years and sometimes I can still hear the voices of my cousins as children (and the voices of aunts and uncles yelling at us).  I remember what smelled like when Grandpa came in from his shop and took off his boots using the old wooden shoe horn.  I remember Granny making sloppy joe's on her giant sized family griddle.  There was always a pot of coffee warm on the stove and someone, if not all of the adults had a coffee cup in their hands.  I remember endless supplies of Kool-Aid in her fridge.  I remember which cups and dishes were my favorites and where they were kept in the cupboards.  I remember back before the 2nd bathroom was built upstairs and how everyone wondered how that house had gone through so many people with just one bathroom!  After that bathroom was built I remember being told that since it had the fan in it, one was supposed to poo upstairs.  If we poo'd in the downstairs bathroom Grandma would light a match and holler about the stink or she'd spray the entire first floor with Lysol.  Yum!  Ooh, and there was a laundry chute in the main floor bathroom so one of us would run down to the basement (where the washer and dryer was) and the other would drop stuff down the chute to see if we could hit the person below.  Good times, good times. 

I remember the long closet that we grandkids used as a secret passageway and for hide and seek.  It was dark and scary and musty, filled with my Grandpa's old Navy uniforms (as in the U.S. Navy, not the Old Navy), prom dresses of bigone era's, a graduation gown or two and so many other things that I can still picture!  We'd get yelled at for playing hide and seek in there because we messed up the "organization" that someone had done.  Yes, now I snicker when I say that.  I remember sliding down the stairs on my butt, even having butt races down the stairs.  That was pretty brilliant of us.  Or what about the fight over who got the top bunk?  One cousin I wouldn't let sleep above me because he was known as a bed wetter.  I was kind of a jerk like that.   

I remember Uncle Mike's room being off-limits and how Granny kept his cigarettes on the ledge above the basement door.  I remember there being a sock hung over the corner of the door to Granny's room but I can't remember exactly why it was always there, it had something to do with making the door shut tight.  I loved to go into her room on Sunday mornings before church and watch her put on her bright red lipstick.  I remember her leaving earlier than the rest of us because she was a member of the choir.  I remember how they didn't have cable so the little white tv only got basic stations and sometimes not very well.  It sucked when we were bored because there wasn't anything to watch but it's not like it mattered, if there was football or news on, Grandpa had control of the tv anyway!  I can't even begin to tell you how many times I got my fingers pinched in that damn retractable child gate at the bottom of the stairs.  Or what about the swing and tireswing the backyard.  Try as we might we could never tip that thing over, Grandpa made sure of that and if we tried, Granny would be rapping on the kitchen window and shaking her fist at us. 

I take after her one way, I'm a night owl just like she was.  I remember the whole house being quiet and I'd tip toe down the stairs and Granny would be sitting at the dining room table reading or thumbing through magazines.  I loved going through her stack of catalogs like Fingerhut and JC Penney, etc.  She was pretty much always the last person to go to bed and magically it seemed like she was always the first one up too.  Grandpa went to be really early (seriously, like 7 pm early) and we'd get the hushed yelling, "You guys had better quiet down up there because if you wake up Grandpa..."  That was all the threat we needed but, hey, kids were built to be noisemakers!  That's why coordination comes at a later age (well, for some folks).

 

And the baking, oh my, her baking.  She doesn't do it anymore that I'm aware of (and I've searched for evidence when at her house) but who can blame her?  My Dad would always plan on being at Granny's house on a Saturday because that's when she baked fresh cinnamon rolls and bread.  I couldn't tell you how many rolls or how many loaves of bread she baked but it sure seemed like an endless supply!  There was an ancient little green table that she kept near the bottom of the stairs and when the dough was rising it'd sit there with a white handtowel over it.  Yeah, I peaked at it, a lot!

Watching her make rolls and bread was fun too, especially when she took the extra time to tell me each step she was taking.  I wish I'd paid better attention, darnit!  Her arms, shoulders and back were muscular from beating dough into submission and then rolling it out.  My second favorite part of the process was how she smeared butter and sugar onto the dough, then rolled it up.  My most favorite part was when she'd cut a length of twine, twist it around a finger on each of her hand, slide it carefully under the big roll to a certain thickness and then pull the string together and cutting the rolls quickly and efficiently.  I miss the smell of Granny's cinnamon rolls and the taste of toast (and jam of course) made with freshly baked bread when we got up the next morning. 

Less than a year before my Dad died she started to change.  I'm not completely sure what was going on other than she was in a lot of pain and really sick. 

I brought G to meet her when he was about a month old and I remember how much my heart swelled watching her hold him and thinking to myself, "Now I totally get why you had 10 kids, Granny!" and I hoped that just being around her would rub off on me and maybe I'd be a good mom too.  I was so glad that G and my Granny got to meet each other. 

 

Sometime between that summer of 2008 and when Dad died in February 2009 things started to change quickly.  I remember talking to her on the phone and she didn't really want to talk and sometimes it seemed like she'd forgotten who I was.  She didn't make it to Dad's funeral because of how sick she was and that was simply heartbreaking. 

It was okay though because my uncle stayed home with her and a lot of members of her side of the family made the drive from Minnesota for the service.  I heard that they video taped it and took it to her so she could watch it.  She was at the graveside service that we held since Dad wanted to be buried in his hometown but she was so tiny and frail and had to sit in a chair with a blanket wrapped around her.  She had to be helped or carried everywhere and she just didn't "look" like my grandma.  She was diagnosed with cancer when they found that she had broken her back and once she began treatment she started coming back around to how I remember her, mostly.     

For her 85th birthday this year she had her leg amputated, lucky her huh? 

I know it was the last thing that she wanted to have happen but if I know her at all, she'd just say it is what it is and it couldn't really be helped.  For the last 2+ years she's relied on her children that live near her to help her out since she still lives at home, alone.  I want to go visit but I don't want to "disturb" her either if that makes any sense.  G takes up all of my attention, especially when we're in someone else's house and with my luck he'd try to make off down the highway with her prosthetic leg (I don't even know if she has one yet).  So do I ditch him?  No, I want her to see him still.  Do I wait until he's older and a little bit better behaved?  No, then she might be gone.  I'm carrying a lot of guilt about this can you tell?

The woman is an amazing creature and I'm so grateful to be loved by someone like her.  I'm proud to be Elsie's granddaughter.

Making time to play

You are worried about seeing him spend his early years in doing nothing. What! Is it nothing to be happy? Nothing to skip, play, and run around all day long? Never in his life will he be so busy again.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Even though I didn't feel good since I had my first Humira shot in a month (thanks to Blue Cross being dillholes)  but when I saw the sun coming out I knew that G and I needed to take advantage of it so we went outside to play and get our vitamin d!!  First I made G pull his wagon over to the dumpster since the garbage needed to go out.  Why is it that it takes him 15+ minutes to get the wagon from here to there when it's loaded with garbage and yet it only takes him about 2 minutes to get from the house to the highway which is a further distance even!  As my Dad would say, "He likes to fiddle fart around!" 

 

Mostly all we did was jump in mud puddles until G got so soaked that I had to bring him inside lest he catch cold.  I love how something at simple as a mud puddle provides such wonderment and entertainment.  Once he didn't want to jump in the puddle he switched to throwing gravel in it.  Once he was done throwing gravel the task then became finding bigger rocks to make a good splash.  Then he had to figure out which of the puddles was the deepest, etc.  I love just following along behind him and watching and sometimes he even lets me play too. 

Oh and you might notice in one of these pictures that it appears as though G's fingernails are painted.  And that's because they are.  G saw me painting my toenails and he all but begged me to do both his toe and fingernails.  My favorite part is if you'll notice he has pretty pink fingernails...wit dirt caked underneath them.  Ha!  E could only laugh and shake his head when G showed him the "pretty." 

In case you didn't already know, I love being a mom!

If a child is given love, he becomes loving ... If he's helped when he needs help, he becomes helpful. And if he has been truly valued at home ... he grows up secure enough to look beyond himself to the welfare of others.

DR. JOYCE BROTHERS, Good Housekeeping, Aug. 2010

We went to town today so E could see the ENT and get his ears tested for hearing aids.  Thankfully there is a park across the street so that's how I kept G entertained.  He loves playing and especially with other kids.  He's so dang outgoing but that seems to put most kids off for some reason which makes me sad.  He'd run up to kids coming to the park and say, "Hi, I Darrett," while pointing at himself.  And they'd just look at him like there was something wrong with him and try to wald around him.  Please tell me it won't always be like this - that I watch my boy himself out there time and time and time again only to be rejected even on such a petty level?  Of course in true 2 year old style he threw a heck of a hissy fit when it was time to leave but if we'd let him, he'd hang out at the park for hours and hours. 

 

 

 

 

 

On our way home Ed spotted a bald eagle and I had my camera and long lens with me!  I hopped out and took a few shots of the big guy before he became annoyed with me and took off.  That was my 3rd bald eagle in 5 days time!

When I got home and was taking the pics from my camera and putting them on the hard drive I saw a picture of G in the swing and it reminded me so much of the first time I took him to the park, first time he sat in a swing.  So I put the two together for comparison.  Oh how much has changed in two years time!  He's amazing!

I shoulda bought a Lotto ticket!

I had the best two days, Sunday and Monday.  The only crappy part was that they involved taking my sister back to school and leaving her there.  On our drive to Moscow on Sunday I saw a bald eagle perched in a tree hanging over the highway.  I pulled over and started snapping pictures since I had not only my camera but my Mom's 70/300mm lens in the car with me!  This is the first time I've gotten to take pictures of an eagle and although I probably see them more than most people, I don't see them enough!  He started look at me like he was about to either come peck my eyes out or drop a load on my head so we headed on our merry way. 

We cheated by using the GPS to get us to the Taco John's in Lewiston but it'd been awhile since S got to go to one so we went there for a quick lunch and the obligatory "Lookie what I'm eating" picture that was promptly posted for our older brother to see. 

Once we got to S's dorm it took a little while to get all her stuff moved back into her room but with some teamwork we got it done.  Girls rock!  I had warned S back in November that if she didn't borrow a vacuum from the janitorial staff that I would bring one from my house and I would use it.  She hadn't done it and I knew it so I that's one thing that I packed in, a vacuum.  I piled everything on her bed and set out to vacuum a floor that hadn't been cleaned since S moved in last fall.  Oy!!!  Oh and might I mention that this was mainly because I was sleeping on the floor (on a pseudo air mattress) and I'm just anal retentive like that. 

We went to the grocery story and I happily piled stuff on S and her wheelchair since pushing a cart would have been a little tricky and ridiculous.  I also made her run over to JoAnn's with me to pick out some flannel since it's ridiculously on sale.  I think I have a fabric addiction.  I wonder if Blue Cross covers that?  S then took me to dinner at an Asian Fusion (i.e. sushi and shit) place and even though the service was really crappy we had a good time.  That was the second time I'd tried sushi, the first time being at least 10 years ago when I took one bite, spit it out and swore off sushi for the rest of my life.  Well this place changed my mind, it was deliciousness wrapped in seaweed!  Oooh and the wasabi - hot hot yumminess!!!  Too bad we barely made it back to the dorm before my gastrointestinal system balked at the wasabi and raw stuff and I had to push S off the elevator and make a run for it.  It was totally worth it though and I would go back for more ass burning goodness in a heartbeat!

We hung out in her room for awhile before going to bed.  S snores, a lot.  Seriously, she's as bad if not worse than E and in  my usual style I was not the first one to fall asleep.  Thankfully I'd been warned about the snoring so I had brought along ear plugs.  They did cut down on the snoring but didn't mask it completely.  I still managed to get some sleep. 

S's caregiver came in bright and early but they didn't wake me up until after S had been showered.  Then I hoped in the shower as well.  The night before I had decided to call in the am to see if the dentist in Cd'A could fit me in that morning (Monday) to fix two fillings.  I knew it was a long shot but when I called the said, "Would you like to come in at 10:30 or 11:00?  It was about 7:15 at the time and I hadn't even showered yet.  I felt so bad because I was going to go to breakfast and then class with S (her parasitology class) but instead I had to head north to get to the dentist in time.  She took me to the bagel place on campus and then she went off to class and I went back to my car, crying because I had to leave her.  Ssh, no one tell her that though, I don't want her to know I'm a bawler, I am the tough one after all!

On my way north, between Moscow and Cd'A something on my left caught my eye.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing...another bald eagle!  Yeah, you read that right, totally different area, totally different bald eagle, even better opportunity than the day before!  I made a u-turn on the highway and got as close as I dared without disturbing it too much.  I hopped out of my car (which was parked almost on it's side in the culvert so I was far enough off the highway) and stood by the fence.  The eagle was just sitting on the fencepost.  He watched me and I watched him and I don't think I took a single breath the whole time.  He was so amazing just to look at.  Imagine my surprise when I got back in the car and started looking through some of the pictures I'd taken and said to myself, "Whoa, I think I got a few good ones!"

 

If the bald eagle wasn't awesome enough I also stopped at the elk farm that I had completely forgotten was on 95.  Hey, be kind, it's been almost 10 years since I lived up there!  Elk are such beautiful creatures but I'm looking at the bulls with their giant racks and thinking to myself, "Oh man I bet you taste good!"

 

I made it to the dentist in time and as I was sitting in the chair I noticed all the birds flitting about outside the window.  When I was done with my appointment I stood at the back corner of the dentist office and again with the 70/300mm lens captured some shots of what I believe are finches.  All I know is they are quick little beakers!

I had already called Mom and she got off work early.  We did lunch and a little bit of shopping and then she sent me back on the road.  The drive was quiet and it was so strange to be driving and not constantly looking in the backseat and talking to a little person and keeping him entertained.  I won't lie, it was equally nice and sad at the same time and by that point I was really ready to get home to my kidlet and his daddy.  Going across the shortcut I saw at least 100 deer in the fields, some that were even nice and close to the fence.  Too bad I hadn't come across the road earlier in the day, I wouldn't have had to use a flash and the color would have been better! 

I made it home, of course, and no one but the dogs came out to greet me!  That's alright, I know they missed me even if they had so much fun together!