Hermie and Crawlie

Natalie used to have imaginary friends, Nomie and Sogee. They had their own voices, their own house in town that we passed regularly and Natalie would point out, and they would come to play, stay for dinner, and cause all sorts of trouble - mostly Sogee, he was a real troublemaker. On many occasions I told Natalie that I didn't think that Sogee would be allowed to come over and play anymore.

Sometimes I miss Nomie and Sogee or at least the way Natalie would pretend to be them and change her voice without missing a beat.

I went to pick her up from school one day, and she ran to me with wide eyes, "Mommy, can we take Hermie and Crawlie for the summer!?!" I couldn't find it in my heart to crush her genuine excitement, even though I had no idea what she was talking about.

I came to learn that Hermie and Crawlie are hermit crabs. I never had hermit crabs as a kid, nor do I remember ever wanting for one. But we are now the proud babysitters of two hermit crabs. Hermie is a big guy who is pretty active. The bro and I sat watching him drink? bathe? for a full fifteen minutes. I was both enraptured and disgusted by it. The bro loved every minute. Hermie then proceeded to start digging. When we returned later in the day he wasn't on his side of the tank, and I went into a mild panic wondering how this creature would be able to get out. I dared to stick my hand in there and found that he had burrowed himself into the sand under his water dish. Crawlie on the other hand is truly a hermit. He hangs out in his "Crawlie Cave" all day, and I have to check every so often to make sure he is still alive. Just what I need, a dead hermit crab. AND, they don't like each other, so there is a makeshift cardboard divider. I may have to beautify that.

This is what you need to know about hermit crabs:

1. They are kind of gross. Little rat, spider animals that live in a shell, and their little legs and antennae come out and I get the hebgebees. Yuck.

2. They are apparently a tad nocturnal and will tap on the glass at night, so keep them somewhere where no one sleeps.

3. Tap water will kill them. That's right, we have private school hermit crabs who can only drink bottled water.

4. I think these will be the first and last class pets we take for the summer.

Curious Kristen

This is Kristen.

She lives with Dan the Man, Nattie G. and Joe Joe the Bro Bro.

Kristen is very curious. After reading "Curious George goes to the Hospital" for, seriously, the 900th time, she still doesn't understand why the Man with the Yellow Hat doesn't take George to the vet. Furthermore, Kristen is very curious that no other medical professional at the hospital or the mayor, who is visiting, for that matter questions why there is a monkey causing so much mayhem in said hospital.

Also, Kristen is very curious why the Man with the Yellow Hat also has to wear a yellow outfit all the time. I mean, he is called the Man with the Yellow Hat, not the Man with the Yellow Ensemble. And how does this man get away with taking a monkey to all of these places: the hospital, the candy factory, the pancake breakfast, George is not a helper monkey, he is just a plain old, captured from his native habitat in a canvas bag monkey.

Kristen is curious to know if the Curious George collection is on the challenged or banned book lists anywhere, because in 2010, Kristen doesn't think that Margaret or H.A. Rey would be the acclaimed and beloved author/illustrators they are today.

I Can See the Light

The truth is, I am too tired to be witty tonight. I am overwhelmed and inundated with prizes for Natalie's end of the year carnival. Dan's office is FULL to the brim with junk that families at Oak Meadow no longer want and wish some other lucky family to to house. At the moment, it is my house. Last night, I spent over an our cutting out letters and gluing them to neon colored posters for our Children's House Prize Table only to ruin three of the five of them this morning - a morning that didn't seem to want to end- and ultimately just had to print boring 8.5x11.5 computer paper print outs because they needed to get to school to be laminated for said carnival.

But tomorrow is date night, and Dan and I are headed to a new tapas restaurant AND I have this fabulous little mosaic of cuteness to share with y'all. Stay tuned for an upcoming fashion show starring my very own Miss Natalie - Betsey Johnson and Patricia Field got nothin' on her!

Jammin

So very many barbecues this weekend yielded, two beer can chickens, three racks of ribs, two and a half pounds of salmon, tomato salad, spinach salad, coleslaw, apple pie, frozen key lime pie, summer challah pudding, and a leftover two pounds of strawberries.

My little family can do a number on fresh fruit, but we were full and I awoke this morning to see that these gorgeous red berries were quickly turning on them. I decided that this was a sign that it was time to learn how to make jam.

I thought for sure this was going to be an arduous process-- something that Ma would do on Little House on the Prairie over the open fire. I had resigned myself to the fact that I would get nothing else done today because making jam would surely take hours upon hours.

...but it didn't. It was so quick and so easy. Honestly, the worst part of the process was sterilizing the mason jar, and Pa came in and did that for me, all while we relished in how we could live off the land, and I could start to churn my own butter. Truly, this was the conversation we had.

Then, on the way home from storytime, I noticed that our local farm is open for strawberry picking, so now I can use locally grown strawberries, can, store, and gift them, like Diane Keaton in Baby Boom! (yes I know that was applesauce, but you get what I mean.)

And Karyn dared to suggest I just make smoothies...bah!

A Good Day

I really want to be blogging regularly and regaling you all with my fantastical tales of motherhood, wifehood, and just the general hilarity of being me, but it is nice outside, and I can't justify spending beautiful days inside in front of a computer when there are ants to be found, sunshine to be soaked, picnics to be eaten, bubbles to be blown, bikes to be ridden, wagons to be pulled, hops to be scotched, swings to be pushed, walks to be taken, and little hands to be held.

Spanglish

There are so many phases in the early years of parenthood. Knowing what each cry means, deciphering words that a little man says with his mouth completely closed, the list goes on and on.

In the beginning, the babies don't say anything and they can't understand, so pretty much Dan and I could say whatever, and it mattered very little. Natalie started speaking quite articulately very early on, so our candid conversations ended and we began using bigger words that we thought would confuse her and of course, the ever popular, spelling of words.

But now Natalie can spell, so Dan and I have had to find new methods of communicating things that we don't really want her to understand. Naturally, that lead us to Spanish. Last night, at dinner, when Dan had some suggestion how I could improve my home cooked meal that no one suggested or gave me any hints as to what they would like to eat for dinner, or any other night for that matter, he decided to switch over to our "second language." And he informed me that el proximo vez, el pollo necesita estar mas pequeno"

This did not go above Natalie's head. She turned to me and said, "Mommy, what does mas mean?" Of course I told her-- it means more.

"More small," she says.

As with the discovery that she quite consciously writes her name backwards and upside down, I was impressed.

But now Dan and I need to learn another language...I suggested Sanskrit. I figured it would be a while before she catches on to that.

In the Closet

When the bro isn't hanging out in the closets, he is adorning himself with shiny purple beads and rhinestone studded tiaras.

I'm not judging, simply observing.