More signs of spring

Last week, (on Greyson's birthday, actually), I was one of the parent volunteers for Reece's class field trip to the Lake Metroparks Farmpark. You probably can't find a better place to see spring exploding all over than a farm, and we got a bit of everything. The kids actually had a schedule we had to keep to that involved milking a cow, grooming a horse, and clearing a garden plot. I see what they're doing out there, couching slave labor as a "learning experience"! Not only did the kids not suspect anything, they fought over who got to pull weeds. We parents all tried to figure out the trick so we could use it at home, but we concluded there must be something in the water, because it was just as cold, wet, muddy, and weedy as all our backyards are, and MUCH smellier. Really, with our wild rabbits, squirrels, a bird that built its nest in the wreath on our back door (and keeps dive-bombing Dan), and the garden plot, I could offer a similar field trip to our backyard at a bargain rate and much closer to school. Hmmm, I'm going to work on that...

Doing his part weeding. Luckily, parents weren't encouraged to participate.

He wasn't sure he wanted to do any horse grooming, but once he got in there, he was surprisingly gentle and enjoyed it.

Waiting for a turn to milk the cow, with Ella. He runs his fingers through her hair when they sit next to each other at group time, and she was very upset on the Thursday before Easter that she would miss him too much over the long weekend.

When they brought the cow onto the platform, all the women in the room who had ever nursed let out a collective "ooh" in sympathy. Experiences like this bring me closer and closer to vegan-ism.

How I spent my weekend

I heard there were a couple of minor events that occurred this past weekend, like a small wedding in England and a skirmish between US forces and some guy in Pakistan.

I, of course, had more important things to do than pay attention to such mundane news stories. I had to grab what little sun there was on Saturday and start planting the garden! With the help of the boys (at first - they quickly got distracted by pounding on rocks to see what was inside them), I purchased a variety of early season vegetables, herbs, and flowers and then put them into the very damp soil in our garden bed.

Of course, by the time I got around to taking pictures, the sun was gone. You'll just have to believe me that it was out for a while, although I'm starting to feel like I'm living in a Ray Bradbury short story. The upside? Didn't have to water that day, nor have I had to since.

Front row: Three little pea plants that started as seeds! It was a big risk, since I usually need all the help I can get to start and keep plants going.

2nd row: Garlic, chives (both Greyson's picks), dill, tarragon, basil (because, as Reece said, "we're going to grow tomatoes, and you have to have basil with them" - never mind that he hates basil), thyme 

3rd row: Spinach, kale, Brussels sprouts

4th row: Three butter lettuce plants (and two rabbits were spotted in our yard later that day - I'm not holding out hope that I'll actually get to eat any of the lettuce)

Very top of the picture: The chocolate mint plant is a perennial! Who knew?

Since you can hardly see the flowers in the planters, you'll just have to imagine how lovely they are. And they coincidentally match the fake wreath on the door. Probably because I always end up picking the same flowers in the same colors when I have a choice.

Eleven years old today

Greyson at age 2:

Age 4:

Age 6:

Age 8:

Today:

Happy birthday to our preteen, 11 year old boy!

Big day for Reece

In the span of one hour last Thursday, Reece earned the special belt in karate (given to the child who does the best job that week) AND got his first library card. Being six is very exciting around here.

March weather in Cleveland...forget lion or lamb, think schizophrenic

Wednesday afternoon:

Friday morning:

Different day, same old crazy

Last night, I was waiting in Reece's room for him to finish brushing his teeth so I could tuck him in. I heard a huge and fairly drawn out crash from the bathroom and then didn't hear anything else, so I raced in fully expecting to see Reece splayed out on the floor seriously injured. Instead, I found him standing by the toilet trying to look innocent with a shelf and all its contents strewn around and on the toilet (including a million pieces of glass that used to be a bottle of bath bubbles). Apparently, he had been standing on the toilet messing with the blinds on the window, put his hand on the shelf for support, and discovered that the shelf only rests on its holder and isn't, in fact, attached to anything.

The first thing he said to me was (in an annoyed tone), "MOM, why didn't you tell me it wasn't attached?" Because then it would have been fine that he was somewhere he wasn't supposed to be, doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing??

It gets better.

As I was cleaning things up and he was now, finally getting his brush ready, I said to him, "Reece, do you think you've learned a lesson from all of this?"

Complete silence.

"Reece??"

(With much exasperation in his voice) "MOM, I'm still thinking."

A tribute to a man of honor

I've been composing and editing this post in my head all week but am still not sure I've got anything that says what I want to, what I'm feeling. Mostly, I think I'm not even the right person to write this, but since I'm the one with the blog, I guess I'll have to do.

As pretty much anyone who reads this blog knows, Dan's dad passed away last weekend. It wasn't completely unexpected, but it was still a surprise because he'd been doing so much better lately. We've had an intense week since that phone call came in late Saturday night (maybe Sunday morning?). Dan flew down to Florida on the first flight we could get him Sunday morning, my mom drove down on Monday to stay with the kids, I flew out Tuesday morning, and both of us came home Friday evening. Last night we were saying we couldn't believe it had only been a week - it feels partly like a month went by and partly like it never happened. For me, a part of the strangeness is that I was on spring break and ended up in Florida in sunny 80 degree weather, even going to the beach one day. It's hard to enjoy the amenities while grieving, and it's hard to grieve in that kind of climate.

But what I really wanted to do was thank my father-in-law for being the man he was. He was the rock of the family, always steady and reliable and considerate and there. He survived a difficult childhood, World War II, emigration to Canada and then the US, a plethora of odd jobs, and no one ever heard him complain. He looked so much younger than his age that he was able to say he was 10 years younger than he actually was. He never wanted a fuss made about him, but because he was such a good guy, everyone wanted to celebrate that. He and Dan's mom welcomed me into the family and from day one (21 years ago) made me feel like I was one of their children. He showed his children how to be a great parent and spouse, and I am particularly thankful that he showed Dan that there is no such thing as "women's work". 

While I am jealous that Dan and his siblings got so much time with their dad, when I had so little with mine, I am also so glad that they did have that time and that I was able to share in a large chunk of it. It doesn't matter that he was 85 and had a bad heart - we all would have been happy to have had him around for so much longer. Have a good rest, Larry/Dad/Pop Pop. You deserve it.

Too much Sunday school?

Reece brought home the following piece of paper yesterday from school:

My initial reaction was, "Are we comparing our body parts to people who follow Christ, now?" Then I remembered there's a boy in his class named Christian. Heh.

Does it really take that much time to check things out before forwarding them??

I just received one of those forwarded-a-million-times emails about something supposedly horrific (this time an Amber alert) from a friend. It took me all of 20 seconds to find it on snopes.com and determine that it is (shock!) a hoax/urban legend. I know they don't really harm people, although in this case the Missing and Exploited Children hotline gets inundated with calls every time it gets sent out in a new wave of emails, but I'm just so tired of them! We've all been on email long enough to be able to spot these a mile away, or at least to check up on them before forwarding. So, while I used to just reply to the sender with the link to the refutation, now I Reply All. Just my little contribution to making the world a better place.

In other news, the boys still sleep in the same bed sometimes, and invariably we find them zonked in some kind of crazy position. Case in point from a few weeks ago:

Also, last week I turned the corner and saw this:

I fear this blog is just going to fall apart when the crazy leaves that boy in a few years. That or it will change to a police blotter log dedicated to him.

Mother Nature's kicking my...

So, I usually try to stay very far away from posting about the weather. Because really, everyone has it, it's always changing, and it just shouldn't warrant discussion in a semi-permanent place such as a blog unless farm animals flew or something equally amazing.

However.

Last week we had an ice storm, lost power for at least 12 hours, had two gorgeous days of iced-over everything and brilliant sun, then random non-weather, then a foot of snow in 10 hours, a snow day, Dan's car stuck in our driveway TWICE (Greyson and me alternating pushing and shoveling), and then a thunderstorm Sunday night that kept me up for an extra hour or so. So now I'm cold, wet, tired, and sore in muscles I forgot even existed. I'm just saying, could we have maybe a short break in between? I have to schedule a week-long massage to recover.

The pictures, as always, do not do it justice: