Clan Donaldson

4H Cooking Show/Pinewood Derby

2012-01-29T14:35:00.001-06:00

It was a busy sort of Saturday around here yesterday.

Lotus had her first 4H exposition- which was something deceptively called a "cooking show". Since it overlapped Joaquin's Pinewood derby, the family had to divide and conquer. My parents were visiting over the weekend, so Lotus, my mom, The Jude, and I went to Lotus' 4H program, while everyone else went to the derby.

Lotus's inappropriately named "cooking show" was a five hour affair, which did not, like the word "show" would lead one to believe, have any sort of spectator section.
This proved to be problematic, since we had The Jude with us. The Jude does not do well in confinement.

For five hours.

For the first 45 minutes, it was fine, since all of the groups were busy assembling their table settings, which meant Jude could happily run around and speak without being shushed:

The theme for the show was "crock pot meals", and Lotus' group had chosen a variation on the French classic, cassoulet. But once the preparation was over, the groups were to spend the rest of the day in workshops or meeting with the judge. None of this classified, in my mind, as a "show", which I take to mean "to present or perform as a public entertainment or spectacle".

Luckily, there was a flock of geese outside, which the boy happily chased around for a while, having been told that if he caught one, he could keep it.

Luckily, The Jude's powers of stealth were bested by the geese's power of flight.

But eventually, The Jude tired of being thwarted and mocked by the geese, and he wanted to go inside. Since the prospect of keeping Jude silent for four hours at the notshow didn't sound like any sort of fun, my mom and I decided we'd leave for a while, and come back at the end when the winners were announced.

Lotus' group all earned first place ribbons for their creation, and Lotus just about fainted when she realized she got to keep her blue ribbon forever.

The cooking "show" ended with just enough time for us to get to the Pinewood derby and watch Gabriel's car run in the "friends and family" division.

We also got to see Joaquin win a trophy for placing second in his den.

Then we came home to have an early birthday party for my mom, but she was rapidly becoming horribly ill, and spent the final 12 hours at my house looking like this:

She's wearing three blankets in the picture. The house was 75 degrees, and she had been sitting by the fire. She had horrible chills, and only managed a smile here because her grandchildren were giving her gifts. And we'd made her drink a cup of tea generously laced with whisky.

'Cause that's how we treat our guests. We get them sick, then we liquor them up and send them home.

Conversion Story, pt. I

2012-01-26T07:23:00.000-06:00

In the "About the Clan" page, I refer to writing down the story of my conversion to Catholicism - someday.

Someday seems so nice and far off, doesn't it? You never actually expect "someday" to become "last night after the kids are in bed".

But, through the promptings of both the Holy Spirit and those of several friends, that's what happened. So following this fumbling introduction, you'll find part one of my conversion story. I have written it strictly out of gratitude for the gifts God has given me.

Anything good in this comes from Him. All errors in grammar and shortcomings in speech are mine.
_____________________________________

I was raised, in no particular order:

1. With both mother and father, who modeled what a strong marriage can look like
2. With one sibling, my brother, who used to be younger than I am, but since I’ve stopped aging, he’s now older
3. In a suburb of Detroit, in a dark brick ranch my grandfather helped build and my mom grew up in
4. Going to the same Presbyterian church my mom went to when she was a child

We went to church regularly, and I attended both Sunday school and youth group. Any other religious expression was an individual pursuit. I don’t remember reading the Bible as a family, but I do remember my gold foil “Good News Bible”, with stick figures and crinkly onionskin paper. I don’t remember praying much as a family, outside of grace before Thanksgiving dinner, but I do remember, from a very early age, talking to God.

Specifically, I remember talking to God every night, and asking Him to “put my Grandpa on”. I’d wait, imagining God going to get my Grandpa Bob, who had died when I was five. I’d sit patiently in silence, until I imagined Grandpa coming to the prayer line, and we’d chat for a bit. Then God would get back on, and we’d say our goodbyes for the night.

I remember my childhood religious formation being strong enough to forge that vital element- a prayer life, something I never ever lost.

I remember the rest of my childhood formation being tenuous enough that I had slipped it off by college.

My best friend in high school gave me a book to read right before I left for Michigan State. It was called Judas My Brother, by Frank Yerby. Briefly, it is a book that strives to strip Jesus, and by extension, Christianity, of anything Divine or mystical. It has footnotes and endnotes galore, and to a 17 year old girl with little grounding in theology, it was a revelation. With no education in Christian apologetics to help me critically consume the book, I was happy to embrace the whole thing. The ability to toss aside some Bronze-age set of patriarchal ethics all while spouting off quotes from a historical novel is extremely attractive to a new college student. So, convinced that at its heart, Christianity was nothing more than a monstrous tale of a monstrous God who sacrificed His own Son to Himself to appease His monstrous anger, I chucked it all.

More or less.

I still prayed. Every night. There was that remnant of my childhood faith that I couldn’t even begin to shake. Even if the prayer was nothing more than, “Thank you for this day, goodnight,” I still said it. I didn’t think too hard about who was on the receiving end of my prayer, but I always knew that there was Someone to whom I was grateful for another day of life.

Atheism or agnosticism were never serious considerations. At no point during my spiritual wandering did I contemplate either of them very long. Where I was, at this point, was a theist. Nothing more.

I think that when a person says, “I believe in God, but I don’t believe in religion”, there are only two options left for her. The first is slip off into profound lukewarmness, and to begin viewing God like a magic lamp, taken out when there is a wish to be granted. The other option is to keep looking for a deeper relationship with God, which means you have to keep coming up against the one thing you’d rather avoid.

I wasn’t looking to distance God even further. I wanted more. And so, like someone who keeps checking out the window to see if their family is pulling in the driveway yet, I kept returning to the subject of Religion. What was God? Who was God? What was the relationship between religion and God? Did we need religion? Did we need God? All the typical questions that we humans ask ourselves, and, like many others, I had no objective method to use in finding answers. I just knew there was something missing, and that something was God. I also knew that I didn’t want to run the risk of finding Him in some religion that was going to tell me things like “right” and “wrong”.

Pride is fun, isn’t it?

So, looking for a deeper relationship with God that didn’t attempt to burden me with annoying lessons on morality, I found myself become more and more enamored of the New Age movement.

(end part one)

Thank You, Everyone -and a Giveaway

2012-01-25T08:59:00.000-06:00

When I first started this blog, 3 years, 2 weeks, and 3 days ago, I did so purely as a lark. I do things like that, start something, then get distracted and -hey! something shiny!

Since then, the blog's readership has grown from consisting solely of my brother, mother, father, and mother-in-law, to including people on at least five continents (I'm still counting my cousin as my European reader, even though she's since come back to the States). This fact absolutely astounds me, and I want to thank every single one of you. I always think of this blog as a modern pen pal sort of thing, and I have met so many funny, intelligent, interesting people through it. Lots of the people I've met are also moms, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate hearing your words of commiseration after a particularly exasperated post (see: anything labeled "Gabriel" or "Jude")

I bring this all up for a reason. Yesterday marked two big deals for this blog.
1. The 58th person subscribed to Clan Donaldson. Again, for a blog that started out purely as a goof of limited interest to anyone outside of family, I am extremely amazed by this fact. Thank you to everyone who takes the time to visit me here, whether a subscriber, an occasional reader, or people who come to check in just to make sure I haven't gone off the deep end yet.
2. Yesterday, I had over 700 visitors. To this blog. In a single day. Speaking as a woman who often goes days and days without leaving the house, being under a sort of self-imposed house arrest where many of my jailers are only semi-verbal and all of them are insane, knowing that so many people have shared in some of our life makes the mommy isolation less intense.
Again, thank you to everyone who spends part of your day with us. I hope that I give you something for your time, a laugh, a feeling that you're not alone, a moment of gratitude that it's me, and not you. Whatever. Thank you. Know that whatever you've taken from this blog, you've given me much more in return.

And so, I'd like to give away something tangible. I have two sets of note cards from my Etsy shop for you.
The first one is a set of eight thank you cards.

They're purdy and they feature one of the mushrooms we found on our hike at Great Pond last year.

The second set has four different pictures from the Farmington Valley. There's eight of them, and they're also very purdy.

See? Purdy.
All you have to do is leave a comment at the end of this post.* It doesn't even have to be a full sentence. I'll leave it open until next Wednesday, then I'll draw two commenters at random (I only included that link because the fact that such a website exists is both fascinating and hilarious to me) and announce the winners on next Thursday's post.

Again, thank you to everyone who reads, comments, and contributes to this blog. I wish I had a million dollars and a pony to give away to every one of you, but if I had ponies, I suspect Lotus would refuse to part with them.

*Mom, you can't enter. You can't ask why, but it rhymes with "because your birthday's coming up".

Potato Soup Recipe

2012-01-24T12:02:00.001-06:00

Let's be completely clear about this: I Am Not A Food Blogger.

Not that anyone who knows me would mistake me for one, but whenever I do a post about recipes, I always feel like I need to make that clear from the getgo. Other topics I feel the need to proclaim my amateur status: fashion, medicine, home decor.

And you'll never, ever see me writing a post with child rearing tips.

Anyway, it's cold, it's snowy (here, anyway), and if that's not all you need to declare it soup weather, well, you probably don't like soup anyway.

In which case, avert your eyes.

Here's a recipe we've been making a lot lately and it is delicious. And features bacon. 'Nuff said.

Potato Soup
5 strips of bacon
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 tbs. flour
1 t. salt
1 t. italian seasoning or thyme (I've used both. They're both good.)
1/2 t. pepper
4 c. broth (we use vegetable broth)
4 medium potatoes, washed, peeled, and cubed
1 cup heavy cream (if you must, you can use half-and-half. Just don't use milk. And for the love of all that's holy, don't use that blue water stuff they label "Skim milk". That stuff will kill you. The end.)
shredded cheddar cheese for garnish
__________________________________________
Cook bacon, set aside, reserving drippings. Pour drippings into stock pot and saute onions and garlic in drippings until tender. Add flour, salt, herbs, and pepper, whisk well. Slowly add stock. Bring to boil. Add potatoes, and cook until potatoes are tender. Coarsely mash potatoes. Add cream and heat through. Garnish with chopped bacon and cheddar cheese.
Makes somewhere between 8-10 servings.

If you want to get really carb-tastic, make the soup with one of the two bread recipes I shared last time I got silly with the cooking tips.

Snapshots from a Sunday: vol. 3

2012-01-23T14:52:00.002-06:00

We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men.

~Herman Melville

Michelle @ Mamadart

sometime between midnight-1a.m. GST (4-5p.m. AEST)

Melbourne, Australia

While you all were tucked up in bed, here in the land of Oz we were enjoying being out and about in beautiful sunny Melbourne.
We started at the Lego Convention where at the end of seeing all the creations, the kids got to play with a wholenpile of Lego. And I complain when the Lego is tipped out at home, at least I didn't have to organize the clean up for this lot !
Then a quick drive through the city to the last game before the playoffs. Yes! we love Baseball and even though the rest of our country is off watching the cricket here we are enjoying what I think is the best game around !

Micaela @ California to Korea
between 3-4a.m., EST
somewhere in South Korea
Every Sunday we pass Korean churches on our way to our Mass at the chapel on post (the military base). Every Sunday my hubby and I talk about pulling into one of the parking lots and joining the Korean Mass. Alas, our bravery has failed us every time. I really don't know how they would handle our relatively large and loud family. This is a statue that I love love love because I love the simplicity. and I have always had thing for the ethnic versions of Mary. As I stopped to take my snapshot today, I noticed something new. Everyone who passed the statue stopped to take a deep bow. Even some people just passing by on the street stopped and bowed to Mary. It was very moving.

Grace @ Camp Patton

Who: his highness, Sebastian Xavier

What: titled, "no! no! no! no! no! no! do not smile. go to sleep."

When: 4:29 in the am

Where: on the floor but soon to be placed under the still erected and still lit faux tree where he will get his wiggles out until he cries and rewakes me up

Why: because babies are illogical and crazy and semi-nocturnal

Poppy @ My Big Fat Green Life

Where: The Richards Household, South Lyon, Michigan - Living Room

When: 5:30-ish

What: One of my many "knitting spots"

Why: It's the first thing I see every time I come down the stairs. This one is my favorite spot to sit and knit which also makes it the messiest.

Lisa @ All Things Gale

7:30 am - Frederick, MD
What exactly is an alarm clock???

Brooke @ Dietel Days
8:03 a.m.
Cibolo, Texas
Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey!!! Minus the eggs and bakey...

Ana @ Time Flies When You're Having Babies
9:39 a.m.
South Bend, Indiana: living room
Mike and Naomi's Sunday morning small talk takes an existential turn following the revelation that "life" for our 2-year-old has no significance outside of reference to the breakfast cereal. All too typical around here.

Colleen @ Martin Family Moments
between 10-11 a.m.
somewhere in snowy New England
Xander Blaise: Long morning nap after Mass

Stephanie @ Baca Ohana
11:15 a.m.
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Someone was really eager to help mommy pick out some glasses!!

Jessica @ Modest Mama
12:28 p.m.
Western Pennsylvania
3 years old

Amy @ So Many Things to Love
between 1-2p.m.
New Brunswick, Canada
Everyone is napping but Mama

Cari @ Clan Donaldson
2:13 p.m.
Regis Hair Salon, Simsbury, Connectict
Gettin mah har did

Dwija @ House Unseen. Life Unscripted.

between 3-4p.m., Michigan
Sometimes the most interesting thing going on in your house is....well, actually interesting. Pray for me, friends

Sarah @ With A Hopeful Heart
between 4-5p.m.
Daddy's Girl: Weekends are for time with Daddy and this little girl cannot get enough of it. She steals away one last moment while Daddy works on making supper.

Mary Kate @ Why Yes, I Am Crazy. Thank You For Asking.
between 5-6 p.m.
Chicagoland, Illinois
Here at the Dempsey Homestead, sometimes Ma Dempsey doesn't get her act together in time to serve dinner when some people are feeling the need for vittles. So, little Faith took it upon herself to pour a bowl of cereal and ask one of her big brothers to pour her some milk, all while the Italian Pork Chops were cooking away.

Jeanine @ And Then There Were....More
between 6-7 p.m.
Cleanliness is next to cuteli-ness.

Sarah @ Beautiful, Ordinary
8:30 p.m.
Santa Barbara, California
This is what happens when Mama and Dada are on the big computer-- she goes and spends some time on her own little computer. Not my finest moment of parenting, but not the worst, either. Small comfort. Now for snuggles and bed.

Melanie @ The Rosary Chick
10:15 p.m.
en route home from Jacksonville, Florida
Celebrating my birthday and my niece’s baptism on Sunday. A beautiful witness to life as my niece is adopted! I like to call the photo, roses for mommy. They were a gift to me. I know my children should have been asleep by then.

Lisa @ The Education of Mrs. Swanson
between 11p.m.-midnight
Memphis, Tennessee
No Pretty Shots Tonight, Kids: This is the aftermath of a 90 year old house's questionably younger plumbing rejecting a flush, ruining the tiles for good this time, and not before we got the boys' clothes in the dirty laundry. Did I mention this is the only bathroom for six people, one of whom is pregnant? And it's not working at all. I blame the ivy growing under the house.

_______________________

Again, a huge thank you to everyone who contributed to this project. Thank you for sharing a glimpse into your lives for all of us to contemplate the differences and similarities between us. I'm always struck by the intimacy displayed in all these pictures, and how beautiful every life is.

If you signed up and haven't emailed me your photo yet, it's not too late! Email it to me now, and I'll put it in the timeline.

If you want to grab a "Snapshots" button, here's the fancy code:

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One last thing before I go figure out the source smell/noise combo coming from the family room. Micaela-in-Korea sent two pictures of the state of Our Lady, and told me to pick which one to use. I want to include the other picture here, too, since it shows the faces of the statue really well.

I love, love, love bald babies, and this bald Baby Jesus is just about the sweetest thing I've ever seen.

If you'd like to contribute to next month's Snapshots, please let me know!

The Pinterest Effect

2012-01-22T11:53:00.000-06:00

So until someone comes up with a better phrase, I'm just going to call it "The Pinterest Effect", or "Pinterest Psychosis". You know- that madness that descends upon you after too much exposure to adorable handicrafts and recipes and causes you to think that you can do those sorts of things.

I fall prey to this all the time.

Like yesterday. Lotus was supposed to have her 4H cooking show, but it was cancelled because we got a fair amount of snow. So all day, it looked like this outside:

Seriously. It was like something out of Communist Russia.

So while the kids spent the day going in and out, in and out, sledding then coming in and disrobing, then spending an hour tracking down their gear so they could go outside again, I decided I was going to make this thing that I'd pinned the day before:

Only thing is, when I went to look at how to do it, I realized that it involved knitting.
I so don't knit. I don't knit even more than I don't quilt.

But I really wanted to make it. So, deeply in the throes of Pinterest Psychosis, I remembered that while I can't knit, I can fingerknit.

And the word "knit" is right there in the title, so it's got to be close, right?
I grabbed some yarn left over from my previous yarn project, and started finger knitting. I finger knitted the hell out of the thing, creating a strand that was something like 6 feet long.

I knit until the strand was long enough to loop on itself four times. Like this:

One continuous strand, looped four times, long enough to wrap around my neck comfortably. Then I took another strand of yarn and started weaving it in and out of each loop, sort of sewing the pieces together.

While doing all this, I was entertained by Gabriel and his friend, who had abandoned the sub-freezing temperatures of the outdoors, and instead decided to construct the "BIGGEST TRAIN TRACK IN THE WORLD!"

Only they ran into engineering problems early on. And I'd like to point out two things: 1. Gabriel changed out of the bathing suit for this activity and 2. There's something about Gabriel that inspires people to cross-dress.

The engineering difficulties soon went from puzzled to peevish to obnoxious, and so Lotus, who was also finger knitting a scarf, decided to divert the boys' attention and try to give them a tutorial.

Only her students clearly weren't listening.
While all this went on, I'd finished securing all my loops together, and had something that looked like this:

It was at that point that I started seriously considering writing this blog post under the lie that Lotus had made this whole thing, since I was beginning to suspect that my final product was not going to exactly match up with my inspiration piece.

But I forged ahead, and went to find a ribbon to bind it all up.
I chose a orange gros grain ribbon for two reasons- 1. I am convinced that orange goes with everything, and you're not going to change my mind and 2. It was the only ribbon I had.

So I ended up with this thing:

Oh yeah. Nailed it. Now it was time for the modeling.
I went upstairs, looked at myself in the mirror, and debated taking a shower first. But taking a shower is a really big deal, and so I just slapped on some sunglasses instead. Think more Audrey Hepburn and less dirty frumpy schlub.

Only, do you know how hard it is to take a picture of a neck cowl when you're taking the picture yourself? In order to not get an unflattering shot of the triple chin, you have to get the camera waaaaaay up in the air, and that messes with the way the cowl lays.

See?

It's like being in a contortionist act.
So I thought I'd ask Joaquin to take a picture of me, which is something I usually avoid at all costs. But I figured I could Photoshop the results into something vaguely acceptable.

Nope.

That's what I got. Which is probably no better than what the weird looking creation deserved, but I had one last trick up my sleeve.

I'd just change models.

Oh yeah!

Nailed it.

Please be sure to come back tomorrow, when the third installment of "Snapshots from a Sunday" will be up. That, at least, is one creative endeavor that I can't mess up.

Why This Blog Is Shooting Me In the Foot

2012-01-20T07:36:00.000-06:00

Last night, Gabriel said he wanted to go to bed.

At precisely 6:15 p.m.
On a day that he'd taken a two hour nap.

Knowing better than to delve too deeply into the mind of Gabriel, I told him to brush his teeth, get in bed, and I'd be up there in a minute.
When I got to him, he was tucked tightly under his covers, and something about the scene made my momradar go off. I pulled the covers back a little, and found Gabriel clutching two...somethings...tightly. I asked him to show me, and he revealed a couple of plastic soldiers. No biggie there. But what was up with the suspicious vibe?

That's when I noticed the lovely lavender ruffle 'round my son's neck.
He was wearing his sister's bathing suit. As pajamas.

I asked him why he chose this piece of clothing to wear to bed, and in typical Gabriel fashion, he shrugged and muttered something about "because it's what I like to wear".
With a final command not to pee in his sister's bathing suit, I kissed him goodnight, and turned off the lights.

Weirdo.

This morning, a well rested, bathing suited Gabriel snuggled up next to us in bed. Then helped make breakfast. Than happily inhaled his breakfast.

Then, in between bites of scrambled eggs and blueberry bread, he cheerfully told his sister (who had been staring at him, first in alarm at his ensemble, then in growing indignation that it was her bathing suit that was suffering the wrath of poor table manners), that he wasn't "even wearing any underwear in her bathing suit. Nope. Not even one pair of underwear."

Bless his heart.

So then I thought I could document this very special morning in our lives, and let today's post write itself.

And while I did so, I thought about how Ken and I sometimes talk about taking in foster children when ours are older. And I thought about how prospective foster parents are ideally run through a pretty vigorous screening process beforehand. And I thought about how this picture would look to a member of the state.

Man I hope that if we ever foster children, the person who is in charge of our vetting process has a sense of humor. And a Gabriel.

But I don't have high hopes for that second thing, since Gabriels are a rare bird.

Snapshots From A Sunday Schedule

2012-01-19T09:34:00.000-06:00

I'm such a cabbage head. Whenever a comment is left on the blog, I get a notification sent to my email. Lots of you have enabled whatever feature it is that allows me to respond directly back to YOUR email. But not all of you.

Which I didn't notice until just now, when I went to give my friend Colleen guff for not responding to some typically witty and charming message I'd sent her in response to a comment she left here. As I went to type the email, I realized that I was sending it, and countless other comment responses, to "noreply-comment@blogger.com"

Nice.

Which I bring up for two reasons:
1. I try to respond to every comment left here. I'm always so thankful that you take time to read this blog, and take even more time to respond to it. Thank you. Please know that if you've never gotten an email response from me, it's probably because I sent it to "noreply-comment@blogger.com".

2. If you haven't heard back from me regarding this Sunday's "Snapshots", it's because I sent the email to "noreply-comment@blogger.com". I now have threaded comments, so if you haven't gotten your time, let me know at the end of this post, and I'll reply in the comments.

If you'd like to allow me to email you directly, you can change your settings on your profile. The lovely Grace at Camp Patton has a post already written with instructions. And pictures.

Thank you, and sorry for the confusion!

The Inmates Take Over the Asylum

2012-01-18T16:36:00.000-06:00

I don't know how your Sunday mornings go, but over here, they are Anything But Peaceful.
In fact, I don't even need Wikipedia to tell me that the dude who wrote "Easy Like Sunday Morning" did not have five young insane people who he needed to get ready for Mass. Anybody who thinks Sunday mornings are anything other than horrifyingly stressful probably spends them the way Ken and I did, pre-conversion: reading the paper, doing the crossword, and eating a dozen bagels with cream cheese.

But now, our Sunday mornings involve a lot of screaming, and running around, and hunting down of misplaced items that for the love of God were just on the dang table!
And by the time we pile into the van and pull out of the driveway, inevitably, somebody is in Very Big Trouble.

This past Sunday, it was the entire posse of crazies, who had taken our family room and trashed it on the scale that one normally attributes to a meth-head rocker. Or a pack of rabid raccoons. On meth. Either way, it earned all five of them a wonderful two day fast from all screens.

There was great wailing and gnashing of teeth.

They moaned. They begged. They pleaded.
Then finally, they went to occupy themselves.

That Monday, I took the middle boys to their class. When I came home, Ken met me in the garage.
"Just don't yell at them. They worked really hard on it."

Oh good grief. The warning/guilt trip combo? I was only gone for two hours. And I had two of the crazies with me- how bad could it be?

I opened the door, and was greeted by this:

Life-sized super villains! Two Face peeked out from the family room, while Scarecrow and Joker lurked upstairs.

And from upstairs, I could hear a threatening raspy voice and a maniacal laugh. Not only were there life sized super villains in my house, they came equipped with sound!

Lotus and Joaquin jumped out from behind the drawings, gleeful and hyper. They demanded that I tell them, no less than ninety times, how much I liked their project. They demanded that I refer to the house as "Arkham Asylum" (done. it's how I usually refer to Casa del Donaldson, anyway). They demanded that I ignore the GIGANTIC HEAPING MESS THEY MADE OF THE LIVING ROOM as a result of the "creative process".

Ugh. This "punishment for trashing one room by taking away the cathode ray nipple" was not working quite the way I'd hoped.

Since the middle boys' class had involved unseemly amounts of time out in sub-freezing weather, I went to go take a shower. But I was too late. Some of Arkham's inmates had occupied the bathroom.

Out of all of them, this one was my favorite. There was just something about Penguin's face and monocle combo that just tickled me.

Until I took a shower, that is, and every time I opened my eyes, I had a momentary heart attack as oh my God, there is a person peeping at me from behind the bathroom wall!!!!
Every. Single. Time.

Boo!

Snapshots from a Sunday Sign Up

2012-01-17T06:26:00.000-06:00

This Sunday, January 22nd, there will be another Snapshots, and I'm looking for people willing to participate.

Check out the Snapshots page to see what you'll be getting yourself into with the project. I promise it'll be less painful than a trip to the dentist. Unless you either a. have freakishly perfect teeth or b. never go to the dentist because you know it'll hurt.

Send me an email or leave a note in the comments section and I'll get with you about available times.

Thank you again for your contributions!

Monday Classes With Mutt and Jeff

2012-01-16T19:06:00.001-06:00

In a fit of delirium, I signed Mutt and Jeff up for classes at the local nature center.
The nature center is gorgeous on the inside, looking like something out of The Hobbit:

The walls are covered with regionally-specific murals (honestly, I've learned more about the valley I live in from the pictures on the walls than I have in the two years of daily life here), there are dozens of stuffed animals posed in realistic situations, and there are live animals of varying levels of ick to keep everyone happy (yes, I'm talking about you, Blue Tongued Skink).

The women who run the classes have planned some fantastic lessons, with a great balance between lecture, hands-on, and creative activities. Each class has a focusing theme, with the overall purpose of the class series being instruction on how animals survive in winter.

This week's theme was "Insulation", and during the lecture portion, one of the teachers had a bear pelt to pass around for the kids to grope.

Then there were Barred Owl feathers (both primary and down) to pass around, a stuffed squirrel and model nest to observe, and a beaver pelt to feel.
Most of the sections are kept to that vital 15 minute mark. With children this young, attention spans seldom last longer than that, so from the lecture section, we moved venues and began our insulation experiment.
Honestly, from the standpoint of someone who has a Masters degree in Education, these lessons are remarkably designed. Not only did we get up and physically move to the next place, thus giving the kids a chance to move restless bodies, but the science portion of the classes are full of diverse materials to use during the experiment. Today's experiment, in keeping with the "insulation" theme, involved pairs of kids being randomly assigned two containers (lucky Team Donaldson got assigned pie plates. Oh goody), then, using the materials in the center of the room, create an insulated nest for the test container.

Here's where I would like to point something out. When, six months after the birth of Gabriel, we discovered I was pregnant with Jude, I walked around in a sort of haze for a while. Babies only 15 months apart? Are you kidding me? Yes, technically they're three months beyond being Irish twins, but good grief, they're practically only 4 minutes apart.

It's really taken me this long to realize that, at this stage in their lives, anyway, 15 months is a big deal. Because while Gabriel is very attentive and engaged, as the above picture shows, Jude tends to do a lot of things like this during class:

Bless his weird little heart. The class specifically cited the age range from 3-9 years old, and they divide the younger kids and the older kids into two groups, but Evil Genius just isn't ready for any kind of structured learning environment.

well duh, Mama.

So after creating our insulated nest for our tin pie pan, we went outside (which was barely in the teens), to conduct the next part of the experiment.

Now, this is the only place in the entire class that I wish there was a change in protocol. While I understand that the results of each student's expiriment will add to the group's knowledge, there are two practical reasons why one may want to cut the spectator portion slightly.

1. It's freezing. Actually, it's well below freezing, and just sitting around outside, waiting for the group to get to you will result in cold little scientists who quickly lose interest in anything other than hot chocolate.

2. Kids in the 3-5 year range quickly lose interest when there isn't something concrete to focus on, and so they'll start finding better things to fill their time. Provided these things aren't destructive or harmful, I say let them go, but the ladies leading the class seem to be more comfortable keeping a tighter reign on the kids. So activities like rock climbing or boot-skating on ice patches are quickly shut down, resulting in increasingly restless kids.

But, like I said, aside from that, the class is great. And finally the teacher got around to us, and poured liquid jello into our test tin and our control tin.

Which raised morale slightly as Gabriel investigated this strange new development:

While the jello was interacting with the environment, the teachers got the kids together for the hiking portion of the class. For this hike, each child drew an animal out of a bag, and was instructed to imagine themselves as that animal as they hiked. What sort of food would they be looking for? What methods would they employ to keep themselves warm? What sort of shelter would they use at the end of their day?

Again, a fantastic exercise. And it would have been great, if Jude hadn't have pulled a chipmunk out of the bag, and Gabriel a coyote.

They stood there for a moment, looking at their animals. "What does this eat?" Jude said, looking at his.

"Oh, seeds and nuts and lichen and such I imagine. Do you see any of those things?" I asked. Gabriel was looking at his.

"Hey! This is a coyote!" He said. I nodded.

"What do they eat?" He asked.

"Oh, squirrels and racoons and such." I was already freezing, and mostly wondering how long the kids were going to last in this weather.

"WAIT A SECOND!" Gabriel yelled, causing several alarmed looks from mothers and teachers. "DO THEY EAT WHAT JUDE IS?"

So you can imagine how the rest of the hike went for us. Gabriel kept trying to eat his brother, his brother kept trying to scurry up rocks to get away, and the teachers kept trying to get Jude off the rocks.

We came to Roaring Brook itself, which was mostly frozen and lovely.

Jude looked at it, and asked me if it was water.

"Yes. It's water."
"Is it cold?"

"Yes. It's cold."

"Is it frozen?"

"Yes. It's frozen."

"Can I go in it?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Can I fall into it?"

At this point I made sure I held tightly onto one of Jude's hands for the rest of the hike.

We stopped by the brook, where the kids were taught about blubber, and two "blubber mittens" were produced. A bucket of water from the icy brook was drawn, and the kids got to take turns putting their hands into the icy water, while wearing the blubber mittens, to see how warm they stayed.

blubber mittens= Crisco, duct tape, and plastic baggies

Then we headed back to the center, all the kids whimpering and shivering, and waited another 15 minutes while every experiment was individually measured and discussed.

Again, smart in concept, less than desirable in execution.

The group got around to us, where it was discovered that our control had frozen solid, but Gabriel and Jude's insulated nest had managed to keep the second tin slightly warm.

Then, my camera was so cold it refused to take any more pictures, we waited a while longer for the rest of the group to get measured, and then we went inside so the kids could work on their nature journals.

Well, Gabriel worked on his nature journal. Jude instructed me to write, "SNAKE! AIRPLANE!" and then, "MAMA, LOOK AT THIS BOOK, IT'S JUST LIKE MY BLANKET!" as he shoved a copy of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" in my face.

Like I said- even with a class as well thought out and designed as this one, those 15 months between Mutt and Jeff make a big difference.

The Mask of Pregnancy

2012-01-14T08:38:00.000-06:00

In an earlier post, I took exception to a description of chloasma, indignantly insisting that what was described made the woman look like a zombie (really, it made sense when I wrote it).

However, the wisdom of six weeks has revealed to me that the mask of pregnancy is not akin to a zombie, but rather more accurately described like this:

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Seven Quick Takes Friday: EXTRA- the Heather Edition

2012-01-13T13:35:00.002-06:00

1.
I have known my friend Heather for most of my life. We met in third grade. Think about this for a moment. She's not bound to me by blood or marriage, and she's STILL willing to admit that she knows me. For twenty eight years.
Heather is a deeply loyal person.

2.
Heather has sat through several movies that I love. She does not love them. In fact, she's created a whole genre of movies, and titled them "Fairy Scary Cari Movies".
Heather is a wordsmith, with keen powers of observation into the human heart.

3.
Growing up, Heather had the biggest family I knew. She's one of, I think, six children. She always struck me as more or less normal, so when Ken and I contemplated having a big family, Heather was one of the "success stories" I'd keep in mind.
Heather is to blame for my seven hundred kids.

4.
Heather used to have French exchange students come stay with her. I remember I developed an immediate crush on the boy, whose name I think was Bruno. In retrospect, there was probably nothing whatsoever to justify said crush, other than he was foreign. Heather has never once teased me for that embarrassing foray into French men.
Heather has way more embarrassing dirt on me than that.

5.
Heather is the only female in a house of five men/boys. She is still sane, and funny, and not particularly easy to rile.
Heather gives me hope that it's possible to survive horrific household gender imbalances.

6.
Heather came up to Connecticut several months ago, and was able to come see me. I was given absolutely strict instructions that I was NOT to take pictures of her. And I listened.
Heather has the power to make picture-heavy bloggers act contrary to their nature. Science has thus far been unable to determine how.

7.

Heather read my previous post, and Facebooked me the following message, "I can't even keep a blog and someone else provides my children the majority of their academic education...so you feeling guilty about this stuff makes me feel worse and that's not nice. So...to add to your list, you need to write something nice to me now."
Heather cracks me up. And makes me feel better. Both marks of a good friend.

Thank you for being such a good friend, Heath.

So, what do you love about Heather?

Seven Quick Takes Friday: Things I'd Like to Try

2012-01-13T12:19:00.001-06:00

(go see Jen for more)

1.
Making my own vinegar.
I'd just assumed that vinegar was like bleach or baking soda- a really useful thing that was too difficult to make on your own. But it seems that it's not a complex process, just a time consuming one.

2.
Getting through a day without yelling at anyone or silently seething/judging them.
I've started forcing myself to say/write something nice every time I run across something that pisses me off. For example, a friend of mine posted a link to a blog featuring a series of gorgeous, organized, sensory-rich activities they frequently prepare for their children. While I read it, all I could think were ugly thoughts where I imagined, then judged, every aspect of these poor strangers' lives. Then, I forced myself to write a sincere, positive comment. It wasn't much, "Hey, those glow paints look like fun!" but it was sincere, and it did help me realize that I was being an insane person.
Now I just need to figure out a way to curb the yelling. So far, all I've come up with is "staples".

3.
Getting through a single school day where I don't have to say, "kids!" "Lotus!" "Joaquin!" "ISABELLA!" five million times to get said sloths back on track.
I swear to you, when I taught at the public school, even if you took the two worst students I ever had, they were still able to focus on their work for more than 6 seconds. My current students, not so much.

4.
Making my own ciabatta bread.
Ciabatta bread makes really good panini. Caibatta bread is $3.79 at the store. Three dollars and seventy-nine cents for a stinking loaf of bread. This is madness. It would cost about 75 cents if I made it, and that includes utilities. The only thing stopping me is laziness, since the bread requires a starter, which means I have to plan ahead, which I'm famously poor at doing.

5.
Praying a daily Rosary.
I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I find it terribly difficult to stay awake during the Rosary. If I've made it halfway through the third Mystery, I consider it a major victory. Probably it has something (everything) to do with the fact that I tend to wait until I'm in bed, the sheets all warmed up, the pillow soft and the house quiet before I start.....wait? What was I saying? Just describing that setting made me doze off a bit.

6.
Praying a daily decade of the Rosary with the family.
This seems like it should be an easy, accessible goal. We get up, we knock out a decade as a family, we eat breakfast. Yay us. But oh no. I've brought it up with Ken, who shudders in horror just contemplating the effort required in keeping Gabriel (never mind Jude and John-Luke) from whipping a sibling in the eye with a Rosary-turned-helicopter, and that's as far as it goes.

7.
Making lists like these and not soaring off into a guilt-soaked shame spiral.
And it started out innocently enough, with a vinegar recipe...

Hanging Planter Instructions/Economy In Writing

2012-01-12T11:35:00.001-06:00

My friend Dwija is redoing her master bedroom. Currently in her bedroom, the light fixture looks like this:

And while for some reason she doesn't foresee herself keeping that particular light in the finished version of her room, she doesn't have to chuck the whole thing.

Oh no. With a few simple materials and about 20 minutes of time, she can have three hanging planters that will not only remind her of the good times she shared with the old ceiling light, but also make her feel good about reducing, reusing, and recycling things at hand.

Plus, I just made one of these suckers, and can knock out today's blog post writing about it.

So you remember these kitchen lights, right?

And you remember how long they sat around in the garage before they got installed? Well, as shocking as it may seem, casually storing opened items in our garage is not actually the best way to keep all the pieces together. Turns out that when stored in such an environment, tiny, inconsequential-seeming plastic rings will get lost, thus rendering the globe impossible to install.

Huh.

So when that happens, someone has to go out and see if inconsequential-seeming plastic rings are available for purchase (they aren't). Then someone has to go out and buy the cheapest glass light shade available, just to harvest the plastic ring. Then someone has to very firmly tell his spouse that yes, he does think it stealing to now return the light shade-minus-the-plastic-ring and he's not going to haul himself to confession for a stupid lamp shade part, and his spouse is just going to have to figure out something to do with the remaining glass shade.

So now I'm left with something like this:

and Ken suggests that I turn it into a hanging planter.

I'm not kidding you, that man is a treasure.

So I assembled the necessary objects:

Aluminum wire, copper color (yes, I realize I completely mangled the word "aluminum" in the above picture), wire cutters, a rock, and a bag of spanish moss. Total cost for the wire and moss, $7. I already had soil and a plant, so I didn't need to add that into the tally.

All you need to do is put the rock in the bottom of the lamp shade so it covers the hole, pack moss around it to fill any gaps, and slap your plant in there. Then you wrap the wire around the wide part of the glass and make a handle in whatever length you want it for your window.

Then you realize the balance of your wire placement is totally off, and the planter keeps tipping when you try to hang it, so you shove the whole thing at your husband who re-wraps the wire and hanger in a way that ensures it won't spill.

When it's done, you've got this:

And you'll find yourself suddenly envious of your friend with the fancy light fixture, since she'll have THREE shades to turn into planters, and you'll now have to add that to the list of items to be on the lookout for when garage sale season starts back up.

There it is- how you turn unwanted glass light shades into something nice.
And by "you", I really mean "Ken, who came up with the idea, fixed my messy attempt at executing the idea, and hung it up for me".

Show Me, Show Me What You've Got

2012-01-11T18:48:00.000-06:00

Ken was home for dinner today, which meant that I brought my A game to its creation. It's easy to do when one is treated to a serenade such as I was:

(the title should actually be "Show Me, Show Me What You GOT", not "God", but I'm too lazy and YouTube stupid to go change it.)

Besides the obvious, the absolute best part of this video starts at 0:13, when John-Luke, who had been observing the goings-on with open mouthed wonder, suddenly judges the artistic endeavors as "not acceptable" through a series of growls and severe head shakings.

How Pinterest Ruins My Life, pt. II

2012-01-10T10:44:00.001-06:00

If you have a Pinterest account and the slightest urge to use it, you already know that it is crack. It is the most addictive, dirty drug in the entire world, made by a psychotic 12 year old using Lego dust and battery acid.

I think my biggest problem with Pinterest (beside the time suck part) is that it causes you to risk huge portions of humiliation and defeat by convincing you that deep inside, just waiting to be released, is an artistic, creative sort of person. You're crafty! You can knit that hat! You're environmentally conscious! You can "upcycle" and "repurpose" that shabby old dresser! (kill me now. I just used "upcycle" and "repurpose". In the same sentence. I can hear my brother gagging from here.) You're just as talented as the artisan in Austin, Texas, who makes yarn wreaths like this:

Then sells them for $58 dollars because she's been in Better Homes and Gardens and you haven't.

Pinterest makes you believe that you can go to Michael's, and for $20, get all the raw materials to make your own yarn wreath, with the expensive one as inspiration.

And you honestly believe that it will not only be on par with the picture you pinned, but that most likely it will be better.

Curse you, Pinterest.

But let me back up, so you can appreciate the fullness of my humilation at the hands of Pinterest.

One of the walls in the Barracks hallway has three paintings on it. It looks like this:

Three of the kids painted me pictures one day, and were particularly aggressive about getting them hung. And I don't know about you, but when cornered by three little people brandishing paint-filled brushes in my general direction, I will always acquiesce to their demands. So that's how I ended up with:

R2D2, by Joaquin Donaldson, rendered in watercolors and marker

Orca Breaching, by Lotus Donaldson, rendered in acrylics

Pirate Ship! Argh! Pirate Ship With Pirates Using Canons! BOOM!, by Jude Donaldson, rendered in acrylics, watercolors, glitter, and unidentified objects found on the dining room floor.

An unusual and challenging grouping, to be sure, but there it is. My other two artists refused to be part of such a controversial exposition, and so I only had to find space and frames for three. Which left the hallway of the Barracks looking like this:

What to do with that empty space above the cabinet? How to fill it? What could I fill it with that would bring in elements from the art display to the right? Where could I ever find a piece that would complement such artistic talents?

Enter Pinterest.

So I went to Michael's, got my $20 in supplies, and went to make a yarn wreath of my very own, in colors that would complement the other pieces in the hall. It would be lovely! It would be artistic! It would be 1/3 the price of a bought wreath!

As I spent two evenings hand crafting what was shaping up to be, in my mind, something even better than the inspiration piece, I noticed Ken and the big kids eyeballing my creation.
"What?" I asked. They quickly averted their eyes, and began studying the ceiling.
"What?!" I asked again. Probably they just couldn't believe how awesome this project was turning out.
It was Lotus who said it first. "Oh! I get it! You're making a life preserver! That's really good, Mama! It looks just like one!"

What? A life preserver? What the...? And then, Ken said the same thing the next evening. "How's your life preserver project going?"
Clearly they were all in need of a visit to the eye doctor. I showed them my inspiration piece on Pinterest. They nodded, began whistling, and wandered off.
Quickly.

Humph. I'd show them. Finally, after hours of yarning and felting and cutting and hot gluing, my creation was done. Like a beautiful swan coming from an ugly duckling, I took this:

and improved upon it by adding my creative, artistic, genius touches, ending up with this:

What the...? Oh my gosh, it kind of DOES look like a life preserver! No, it's just the light, right? Certainly when placed in the setting for which it was created it would spring to life, right?

Life Preserver with Bird, by Cari Donaldson, yarn, felt, natural objects.

Curse you, Pinterest. Curse you with the fire of a thousand suns. Curse you for encouraging our silliness. Curse you for being so slick and pretty that we know we'll come back again tomorrow to do it all over again.

Random Roundup

2012-01-09T18:05:00.002-06:00

Here is a random collection of images that could warrant their own post, but I'm too lazy to do something that requires that much thought.

I hate to brag, and I hate to photograph food, but I'm going to do both right now. Saturdays are "homemade pizza/family movie night" around here. I'm pretty sure we could go toe-to-toe with any of the pizza joints in all of New England and come out the winner. We're talking homemade dough, homemade sauce, custom made, gourmet pizza. It's pretty darn good. Come over some Saturday, and you can see for yourself.
If only the movie selections were as reliably good as the pizza.

Ken found a million board feet of lumber on craigslist this weekend going for a song. Even better, the man selling it said it was reclaimed American Chestnut. Even even better, the man let Ken talk him down $100 from his asking price because was willing to take the whole lot. The stuff is gorgeous. It's got character, there's tons of it, and it's from a nearly extinct tree.

Only it's not.

Our good friend Andy, who is possibly geekiest/nerdiest person we know, identified it as oak, not chestnut. But it's still gorgeous, and it'll still make a cradle for the newest baby. Which Ken only has 3.5 months to complete, so he'd better get crackin'.

Ken's nearly done with the doll beds for our nieces. Which he's been working on for 3.5 months. This is why I'm nervous about the aforementioned cradle for the baby. If he takes this much time on doll beds, it's entirely possible that the newest Donaldson will be 5 by the time his/her(who are we kidding, it's a he) cradle is completed.
He'd better get crackin on those doll beds, too. And not just because they were meant to be Christmas presents- but also because Lotus' dolls have started squatting. Once you get doll squatters, it's almost impossible to get them out.

While Ken's been busy being a perfectionist over the doll beds, I slapped together some bedding for them. And then Lotus got all pouty, so I made a quilt for her dolls, too. I'm in the middle of writing a whole tutorial on the process, the working title of which is "how to make something that looks like a patchwork quilt for those of us who have never quilted in our entire lives even though our mothers make extraordinary quilts and you really hope they don't read the post about the process because they will wail and gnash their teeth in horror". You'll be able to find it at The Homemade Year. Go check out the blog- it's run by a friend of mine and her friend, and the concept behind it is to have an entire year where all the gifts you give are homemade. There's some great recipes/crafts already up, and the ladies have only been at it since the first of the year!

Mom, don't go read my post about the quilting. I'm not kidding.

And that's it right now. We took down the Christmas decorations today, which always makes me wonder where I stored my everyday decorations, because the house looks like a prison when it's back to normal.

A prison or an asylum, it's hard to tell.

Happy Feast of the Epiphany!

2012-01-06T18:44:00.002-06:00

So in my continued effort to celebrate the Liturgical calendar, and to pass along some sort of first generation Catholic identity to the kids, I thought we'd really focus on Epiphany this year (mostly because we'd missed/forgotten/ignored every other feast day in the year so far. Except Christmas. We got that one covered).

But still, the Visitation of the Magi to the Christ Child is a pretty awesome event. It shows that Christ's promise of salvation wasn't limited to the Jews, but was also extended to the gentiles as well. It shows that many times it's the outsider who recognizes Christ in a situation, and points Him out to others. It shows that no matter what your station in life, no matter how intellectually brilliant, amazingly rich, or stupendously powerful you are, a tiny baby, born into a poor, transient family, is King of us all.

What better way to celebrate that than with a big fat dinner of ham steak, au gratin potatoes, and chocolate cake? While wearing paper crowns? While the three year old is howling upstairs because he was a shrieking monster all day and finally, at dinnertime, the mother lost her temper and sent him away? And also threw a fork across the living room to demonstrate her displeasure? And then the six year old, armed with a sharp meat knife, decided to play sword swallower when he thought that same mother wasn't looking? And then the four year old nearly gouged out the six year old's left eye while attempting to "make the apple cider get down to his stomach".

That sounds like a wonderful way to not only celebrate the Liturgical year but also instill some sort of Catholic identity in the children, doesn't it?

Happy Feast of the Epiphany, y'all. Hopefully Jesus' ability to roll with the punches these insane people dish out is better than mine.

Ken's Last Day of Vacation

2012-01-05T12:26:00.000-06:00

I've talked before about how I frequently feel this overwhelming need to get out of the house and go somewhere. And "somewhere" doesn't count the following:

the grocery store
the library
a Cub Scout/4-H/pre-school nature class and/or meeting
a doctor's appointment
Mass
any retail store within a 40 mile radius of my front door

which pretty much covers every possible destination I'd find myself in a typical week.

So with the end of Ken's 10-day Christmas vacation staring us in the face, we thought we'd take a day trip somewhere. We sat around the table Sunday morning, brainstorming. No suggestion was discounted (as hard as that was, considering some of the suggestions included "Mars!" or "buy a horse to keep in the garage!"), and ultimately we decided that we'd head up the coast, with the L.L. Bean flagship store in Freeport, Maine as the ultimate destination.

From there, I did what I do best- poked around the internet to find a series of interesting possible sidetrips. Jude had really wanted to go to the beach, so I found a couple of state parks along the way. I also found a retired submarine-turned-musuem that I thought the kids might enjoy.

The next day, we got up, ate breakfast, and loaded up into the van. Three hours later, we were in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in front of an actual submarine.

The kids went nuts. They couldn't believe they were going to be allowed on to a real, live submarine. To be honest, when I found the place online, I couldn't tell from the website if people were able to tour the interior of the sub or not. I was relived when we learned we could, but I didn't have tremendously high expectations for it. After all, how much fun could an old hunk of metal be for a bunch of kids?

Foolish, foolish woman.

First of all, when you got on the sub, it was just like walking into a movie. Some Soviet-era thriller where the film was grainy and the accents outrageous. Plus, the sub seemed to have been designed for a crew the size of Muppets, adding a level of danger to maneuvering through it, amping the kids up even more.

I'm not exaggerating about the scale of the ship. Jude must have climbed up and into each of the bunks, because he was so astounded to find a series of beds that seemed to be custom made for someone his size. You can see from the above picture- there's not a whole lot of room left at the head and foot of that mattress. And these were the luxurious officers' quarters!

The fact that you could touch everything was fully appreciated by the kids. And by "kids", I mean people of all ages, since there were a pair of 20-something men who were having a blast sitting at the controls, yelling, "Dive!! DIVE!!" over and over again.
Funny to me, less funny to John-Luke, who really wanted his turn at the controls.

And then his brother jumped the line, which almost caused blood to be shed. But finally, he got his turn, and manned the torpedoes. Or the sonar. Or something.

Even Ken got caught up in the setting, because next thing I knew, he had adopted some fantastic Russian accent and started yelling at his crew that it was up to them to defend Mother Russia.

The hat was a particularly nice touch, I think.

Lotus hopped on the periscope to assess the situation.

Personally, I suspected her of trying to defect to America, but I had nothing in the way of proof. Until I looked out the periscope, and realized that she'd managed to steer the ship not back to Vladivostok, but to Portsmouth, New Hampshire!

(actual picture taken through the periscope. Traitorous minx!)

Gabriel was most excited that you could actually shave and go to the bathroom on the submarine, but was somewhat upset when it was pointed out to him that he wasn't able to avail himself of the facilities.

The kids had so much fun that they made us go through the ship twice. Then it was time to load up, and find someplace to eat.

We first debated trying this joint out, since I was particularly struck by the appropriateness of the name:

But ultimately, Portsmouth's traffic was too much for Ken to comfortably handle in Big B, so we got out of dodge and headed up the road. I found a brew pub outside Freeport called "The Great Lost Bear" and we decided to give it a shot. The menu I found online said that they had spinach pie, which won over Lotus faster than you can say, "they have spinach pie".

The food was good, the atmosphere striking that perfect balance between "busy enough for five children to be tolerated" and "not so loud that you suffer hearing loss from dining there".
Then Ken loaded up the kids while I paid. And left my debit card behind. Which I only discovered this morning.

We made our way to Freeport, where everyone agreed it was much too cold to mess around at any of the parks, and instead we terrorized the good folks at L.L. Bean for a while. Finally, night had fallen, children were getting sleepy, and the 4 hour drive back home wasn't getting any shorter.

On the way home, Ken went on and on about how awesome this part of the country was, in terms of adventure opportunities. As much as I hate admitting anything nice about New England, I had to agree with him. The power of a good day trip can't be overestimated.

More Thrilling Kitchen Updates

2012-01-01T17:01:00.000-06:00

The best part about DIY kitchen redesigns is that they take an extremely long time, thus providing me with plenty of blog fodder.

So yesterday, sometime after breakfast and before the New Year's Eve festivities began, Ken thought he'd address this:

Which had been the sight that had been greeting us in the kitchen for a good five or six months now. Let's be honest: wires dangling from the ceiling is sooooo "big city crack house, circa 1986".
Finally tired of the look, Ken thought he'd tackle the situation.

But right off the bat, it was made clear that this project was not going to flow in the same gentle, jovial manner as the tiling project did. Observe the, "Woman, get that camera out of my face or else I'm going to stuff you up in the rafters" look my beloved is shooting me.

I wisely backed up. A little.

But I must have overstepped some invisible boundary, because soon after this picture was taken, I was banished to the family room along with the kids.

And that's when the swearing, moaning, and grunting began.

It was all very primal sounding up there. I wisely loaded up the kids and went to procure provisions for the party. Which ended up being the best decision I made that day, since when we got home, this is what was in my kitchen:

Two lights, no wires or holes, and a pot rack- fully stocked with wine!- to boot. The only glitch was during the year of sitting around on a garage shelf, the second bistro light lost some vital part that was required to hang the glass globe part onto the actual light. So for the moment, we have a naked bulb over the island.

The whole thing is so painfully gorgeous and slick that I'm considering just moving into the room permanently.
The next step is to put in a faux tin ceiling, so we went to Lowe's today to go price out that part of the room. Somehow, I managed to convince the Boss to pull the trigger on a new dishwasher while we were there, since our current dishwasher has both cosmetic and functional issues. The cosmetic is no big deal, but the fact that it doesn't clean a single thing in the top rack, and all glasses come out dirtier than when they went in, is problematic.

I'm not kidding you- every single glass drinking cup in our house is coated with mystery particles that may or may not be the ghost of dinners past. I think the fact that I pour bleach into every load is the only thing that's keeping us from getting dysentery, since the chances of the stupid thing actually sanitizing dishes on its own are between slim and none.

Since we wanted a black dishwasher, we had to special order it, which we did. We left the store, happily anticipating the arrival of Saturday, which would see the delivery of the new dishwasher, and the subsequent hooking up of said dishwasher by Ken ($167 hook up fee? Whaaaa?). A new dishwasher!

I got home, made a beeline for my beautiful kitchen, and thought that as a gesture of goodwill, I'd unload and load up the dishes so Lotus and Joaquin could have a break.

And that's when it was discovered that, probably at the precise moment we were paying for the replacement, our stupid, backstabbing, useless piece of machinery dishwasher had given up the ghost. So now, for the next six days, all dishes will be washed by hand.

"The better to appreciate the new one when it comes," said Ken at the news. "Washing dishes by hand for a week will really make you happy for Saturday."

Wait a second. I'm the one who'll be washing dishes? For a week?
Maybe I can feign early labor, and have to go on bed rest.
But just until Saturday.

My New Year's Resolutions- for Four Lucky People Who Are Not Me

2011-12-31T08:08:00.001-06:00

Since I don't usually make New Year's resolutions, and when I do, I end up forgetting what they were sometime by Groundhog Day, I've decided to try something new this year.

I'm going to make resolutions for other people. And I'm going to keep them to it.

It's easy enough. All four of these people are individuals I would really really really like to see begin blogging. Heck, everyone has a blog now. My six year old son has a blog, for Pete's sake. And although he usually only posts things like "i love god" over and over again, he still maintains it with greater frequency than the four people I'm about to call out.

So let's change that this year, shall we?

1. Anthony and Heather: He's got spirited political opinions. She's got a funny, sardonic wit. They have four adorable, energetic boys. I've known Heather since I was eight, and known her husband Anthony since high school. So you can trust me when I say that these two should be writing a blog together. Between posts on the obsessive compulsive business laws in Florida (which dictate, among other things, the precise placement of a restaurant toilet), and observations on the intersection of Montessori education and alligator habitat, I'm pretty sure all readers of the blog would have a good time, and the chance at a lively debate.
Possible Title: When Zuhair Met O'Breen, as a nod to their Chaldean/Irish mashup.

2. Erinn: She's my cousin, so you know there's already a good genetic chance that she's funny. But in addition to good genes, I've mentioned before what an extraordinarily well traveled human being she is. In fact, I've done the rudimentary equations, and I determined that if she does two posts a week on previous journies, she could go a full year without even leaving her apartment, and never run out of new material. Bonus: she's intelligent, well spoken, AND good with children, so she could pitch the blog to adults or little people with equal success.
Possible Money Maker: sell .pdfs of possible itineraries to aspiring travelers. Give portion of sales to cousin.

3. Grandpa Ken: Another family member, but not one I'm related to by blood, so his humor is his own. And he is funny. At 82 years old, Grandpa Ken can tell a story like nobody's business. He still remembers details in conversation and setting that are astounding, and the range of his topics is epic. There's the tragic (the death of his mother Delphia at the hands of a quack doctor will break your heart), the funny (a mixup that involved a bank calling about a deliquent car note on a vehicle a different Ken Robinson bought his girlfriend. Grandpa Ken wasn't home at the time to take the call, so his wife left a message. I'm sure you can imagine what the message entailed), and the everyday (stories about his time in the military abound, but are always interesting). Grandpa has hundreds of stories, and I think the world would be a much more interesting place if he wrote them all down on a blog.
Possible Multi-Media Additions: some of the wilder stories could be filmed. There's nothing funnier than watching Grandpa's dead pan face while telling a story about pulling a fast one on somebody.

There it is. Four people who I have resolved should begin keeping a blog this year. There's plenty more, but experts insist that the secret to successful resolutions is to keep them small. Plus, since everyone knows the world's finished at the end of 2012, we're only talking about a commitment of one year. See how considerate I am?

Who do you wish would keep a blog, and why?

Kitchen Backsplash

2011-12-28T08:00:00.001-06:00

(EDIT: Ken just informed me that we've only been here TWO years, not three. Huh.)
Once upon a time, almost three years ago, I moved into a house that had a kitchen which looked like this:

(the adorable children were sold separately)

The counter tops were that plastic stuff. What does Ken call it? He gets irritated when I call it "plastic". Let me ask.

Corian. Right. Well, regardless of its brand name, it was brick red plastic with flecks of black. And its better qualities were not set off by the wall color, which I think is best described by using the phrase "dried pee".

Still, there were a lot of good aspects to the kitchen. Unfortunately, most of those good aspects were buried under layers of poorly executed home improvement projects and appliances held together with rubber bands and spit.

Slowly, over the last three years, we've been updating the kitchen, like I briefly showed here. It's a slow process, but when progress is made, it's amazing.
Ken has this whole week off work, and yesterday he wandered over to the home improvement store by himself to sort of do a recon mission on tiling necessities. He called me on the way home, agitated with excitement. He had found some kind of product that he felt would cut tiling time significantly. Mostly, what I heard on the phone was, "Blah blah blah, get your backsplash done today."

Backsplash done today? Yes please!

So the work began. As is the custom around here, I bundled the kids downstairs in front of a movie and made sure there were no stray neighbor kids hiding out. Ken tends to get a bit boisterous in his language during projects, and it's best to keep the human tape recorders away from Father Swears Like A Drunken Sailor.

I didn't even realize he'd started, since I didn't hear any swearing. By the time I realized he was working, and I was missing priceless photographic opportunities, he was almost done with the first step.

The tile was up, and Ken still enough good humor to pose for a picture in his fabulous new hat before moving on the the grouting step.
Mark this: no swearing, and still jovial enough to indulge me with funny pictures. I don't know how the SimpleMat works, but I'm positive that it includes mood-enhancing drugs.

When it was time to grout, Ken called in the child labor. John-Luke was the first to volunteer. All the rest were, like me, hanging back, waiting for the spell to be broken and the swearing to start.

But John-Luke's not scared of swearing OR giant water filled buckets, no mater how alarming the warning picture.

Grouting went even quicker, once the child labor wandered off to play with his new toys.

The last thing Ken had to do was put outlet spacers on the electrical- er- thingies, so they would come out past the tile, and the switchplates could sit flush. Even this went off without so much as a mutter from my beloved, and I forgot to take a picture of it.

And there it is! Coffee bar completed. New counters, new backsplash. And a bowl that we got as a wedding present from a friend's parents that has miraculously survived 12 years, 3 moves, and 5 children.

Next up: addressing the gaping hole and dangling wires in the ceiling!

If Gabriel Had a Gravity Switch

2011-12-27T09:05:00.004-06:00

Sorry about the previous post. Shutterfly told me that if I was willing to be a corporate sellout for them, they'd give me a $10 gift certificate.
And I use Shutterfly a lot.
And it made me feel like a professional blogger, earning money for content and stuff.
And $10 is a lot of film processing.

But you don't care about that. You care about things like this-

Gabriel, wearing the goggles and snorkel that Santa brought him, explaining how gravity works, and what he would do if ever allowed to turn it off.

(please, don't anyone get charmed by the cute and actually show him where the switch is, ok?)

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T07:31:00.002-06:00

Merry, merry Christmas from our clan to yours.

Now Jude would like to sing you a little song. And sway a lot. And be cute.

But you, O Bethlehem Eph'rathah, who are little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days. Micah 5:2

Baby Names, pt. II

2011-12-23T19:02:00.000-06:00

Radically awesome baby names aren't easy, but they're necessary.

To continue the rundown on how the minions got their monikers, we find ourselves with everyone's favorite evil genius....

The Jude.

Boy Choice: Jude Thomas

Girl Choice: Veronica Rosemary

Gabriel was only six months old when Jude was conceived, and let me tell you, the part that struck me with the most fear about having babies so closely together was this: what if we'd used up all the decent boy names? Six months wasn't a whole lot of time for a culture to come up with another amazing name, and we'd been through every single viable option.

Luckily, we both agreed that the girl's name from Gabriel could be recycled, so we only had to hammer out two names, rather than four.

Unluckily, Ken was flat out sick of the name game, and wouldn't play for a good four months into the pregnancy.

Even more unluckily (strictly in terms of names, mind you), we found out at the 20 week ultrasound that this newest addition to the Donaldson family was, of course, a boy. A name had to be found.

At this point we realized we'd have to do some room-shuffling to accommodate three boys, one girl, and us in a house that had only three functioning bedrooms. We moved furniture, we racked our brains for space-saving layouts, we repainted rooms in gender-neutral colors so everyone could go anywhere without having grounds to complain about paint choices.

It was during one of these late-night painting sessions, when my husband, buzzed on beer and paint fumes, agreed to a name that he'd poo-pooed just nine months before.

Thank you, Kilz, for providing a product with just enough head-clouding fumes to make my husband agree to the name Jude. Also, our godson had just been born, and was named Simeon Jude, so Ken had first hand evidence that not only long haired hippies used the name.

For the middle name, we settled on either Thomas or Anthony. Thomas is the middle name of my brother, my father, my grandfather, and so on and so on. Anthony was just a name we liked, but it was too tame to ever be a serious first name contender. We couldn't pick, so we let the kids do the dirty work.

Having completely forgotten about the staggering drawing power of "Thomas the Tank Engine", we honestly thought that there would be debate and consideration about this. We were wrong.

So Jude Thomas it was.

Boy Choice: John-Luke David

Girl Choice: Veronica Rosemary

I'm in total awe of people who wait to name their baby until they've met him or her. I want to study them like the alien species they are. How do they do it? How do they resist insisting that two sets of names be hammered out and set in stone by the 20 week ultrasound? How?

The closest we ever came to that was with John-Luke.

We found out we were pregnant with him right when we started looking for a new house. In fact, the positive pregnancy test got our butts in gear faster than anything else, since barring turning the master bedroom into a baby flop house, we'd completely exhausted sleeping arrangement possibilities.

Too busy searching for houses, we put off the naming longer than we usually do.

And then, Ford went and threw a major wrench in the works, and decided that we needed to conduct our house search first in Kansas City, then in Hartford.

By the time the dust had settled, and all the agony of moving more or less reduced to a dull ache, I was seven months along and we hadn't even played one round of "Cari comes up with names, Ken shoots them down".

We sort of toyed around with the name "Martin" for a while, but every time I said it out loud, I was reminded less of St. Martin de Porres, who was the intended namesake, and more of this fellow:

Don't get me wrong. It was a funny show. That episode where Gina gets a Stairmaster, and everyone starts telling her that she's been on it too much because her butt is starting to resemble a cement weapon is hilarious. But the dang theme song played in my head every single time I tried out the baby's prospective name.
Every. Single. Time.

So we had to ditch the name. Sorry, St. Martin de Porres. It wasn't you, it was me.

We had to endure 10 days at an Extended Stay when we first moved to Connecticut while we waited for our closing date. Everyone except Ken managed to pack a wicked bout of stomach flu into those 10 days, and I remember sitting on one of the lovely double beds, weakly flipping between a "Mythbusters" marathon and the local news, when I realized we didn't have a name picked out.

Ken in one bed, I in the other, we had our most joyless round namestorming we've ever had. Things perked up for a glorious 15 minutes when Ken didn't immediately dismiss "Malcolm" as a name. It was a triple threat- unique but accessable, the name of a saint, AND an awesome starship captain. For those 15 minutes, I floated in a flu and name induced euphoria and imagined the baby's future as a prickly space captain with a heart of gold.

And then Ken decided Malcolm was no good, since it would be too difficult to untangle it from associations with the other show featuring a character with the same name.

We sank into moody and unhappy silence. Unable to let go of my sci-fi space captains, I suggested Jean Luc. While not immediately shot down, it was anglicised into John Luke right away.
Negotiations had begun! John Luke as first and middle name? Or a double first? If a double first, hyphen or no hypen? I wanted a double first name, which struck me as very Catholic, what with all the Mary Graces and John Issacs and whatnot out there (ok, I'm really just talking about you, V., but all your names are very lovely), and John-Luke fit the bill. But I wanted people to know it was a double first name, and not try to get all sneaky/lazy and unpack the two, so I also wanted the hyphen in there.
Ken was willing to give me the double first, but took exception to the hypen. It seemed to strike him as effeminate and decadent. I wisely didn't force the issue, but planned on making sure I was the one who filled out the birth certificate.

The middle name was my oh-so-generous concession to my beloved, who had been, with increasing insistence each pregnancy, campaigning for a "junior".

Don't get me wrong- I think my husband has a lovely, manly, and distinctive name. It walks that line of being classic, but not outdated, everyday but still not terribly common. It's a good name.
But I really feel very strongly about each person getting a chance to develop his own identity, and I can't shake the sense that passing along an entire name from one person to the next, without even a generation as a breather, somehow stifles that. It's not that I don't have familial pride (see: name of blog). It's not that I have problems with naming people after other people (see: every name story so far in this series). It's not even that I dislike the practice across the board (the nickname "Trey" for the third person to use the name successively is endearing). It's just that it never appealed to me as something I would like to do to our children.

So using Ken's middle name as the middle name for the boy was my olive branch. And as an act of reciprocity, even though Ken grabbed the birth certificate paperwork first, he still included a hyphen without a fuss.

Boy Choice: Augustine Michael
Girl Choice: Veronica Rosemary
Aren't you rooting for us to have a girl now, if only to stop having to see the name repeated with resigned hope, baby after baby?
I'm telling you, we're running out of acceptable boy names. In fact, this sense of desperation hit Ken the hardest, because he came up with not one, but two names this time. Lotus and I had been pulling for Paulo, and we almost had Ken on board.
Almost.
But then he ran across the name Matteo and it must have passed his mysterious litmus tests, since he suggested it one morning.

It satisfied all the non-negotiables, even though Lotus and I were still partial to Paulo.
The boys were no help, since they all united under "Team Luke Skywalker", and were suggesting that we officially change John-Luke's name to just "John", to clear up any confusion about having two Lukes in the house.

Then just as quickly as the name Matteo was put on the table, Ken yanked it off. No reason why, it was just removed from consideration as mysteriously as it came.
In its place "Junior" reared its ugly head again.

One night, while idly arguing about the reasons to name/to not name a child junior, I started throwing out other names to stop the discussion from getting unfriendly. Ken, as usual, rejected them all. Every time I expressed the irritable observation that he did 99% of the rejecting, and 1% of the suggesting, he'd counter with, "What about Junior?"

Then he stopped, and said, "What about Augustine?"
I froze, like a tiger stalking its prey. Augustine was a top-shelf name for me, and one that Ken would never consider before. I nodded and said that it sounded good to me, did he really like it? He told me that he didn't hate it, but he wanted to let it grow on him. The wisdom of 12 years of marriage aiding me, I shut up about it.

A few days later, he'd decided that Augustine was a good name, and wouldn't Matteo go nicely with it? I agreed that it would, though I still liked Paulo better. Augustine Matteo.
Then the mecurial beast went and decided that it was time to have Michael as the middle name, since it referenced an angel, an uncle, and a cousin.

I moodily told him that middle names were the best place to showcase truly unusual selections, and I was seriously worried about the increasingly pedestrian nature of our choices. Each name was getting more and more normal, and if I didn't have a "River" or a "Coyote" as a child's middle name soon, I was going to have an epic philosophical meltdown. They were going to revoke my hippie membership, as tenuous as it had become.
Ken sighed wearily, and pointed out that "Augustine" could hardly be called "common", and didn't I think that I was overreacting just a bit?
Well I didn't, and I don't, but naming children, more than most things in the past 12 years, has taught me about the art of compromise in a marriage.

Plus, if I get my hands on this birth certificate, I'm going to spell "Michael" this way:
M-O-N-S-O-O-N.

Baby Names, pt. I

2011-12-23T14:18:00.001-06:00

We name everything around here. Everything. Examples:

kitchenaid stand mixer = Beulah
Ken's cars (sampling) = Victor, Thor, Orca
Cari's cars (sampling) = Jezebel, Tori
Vans = Baby Beluga ("Baby B"), Big Beluga ("Big B")
bottle opener = Kennebunk Mermaid

And, as I pointed out to a friend of mine currently attempting to come up with a name for her newest baby, for some reason, those names stick better than the names of my own children. No matter how unique a name we come up with, I always forget who I'm trying to bellow at in a pinch. Sometimes, the kids are perfectly happy to let me keep calling "Gabriel!", even though they know I'm clearly trying to get Joaquin's attention. However, if I accidentally call any of the boys "Lotus", they're sure quick to correct me on that one.

We love naming things around here. Ken and I spend many happy hours arguing over the name of each baby, while the kids throw out helpful suggestions like, "Luke Skywalker" or "Baby Little Foot" or "Mr. Butt Butt"*. Hundreds of names are hauled out, considered, and ultimately discarded. Other than the finish line, figuring out the baby's name is the best part of each pregnancy.

So I'm always fascinated by people who do not love the naming process in the same way I do. Another friend of mine, who is also trying to figure out a name for her newest, is one of these people. She has been agonizing over the baby's name- or at least she has been. I haven't heard much about it in a while, but I suspect that's because my constant insistence that "Coyote Monsoon" would make a really great name has finally gotten irritating.

It's gotten me thinking about how we arrived at the names we did. A process we've emerged from, emotionally unscarred, six times now. I love baby name stories. If I had been a boy, my name would have been Jason. I can't remember what Ken's name would have been if he'd been a girl, but I do know that my mother-in-law was planning on naming him "Carl", but my father-in-law wrote "Kenneth" on the birth certificate instead. It's so interesting to me, the names we'd almost been given, and the circumstances surrounding the choice.

Boy Choice: Ewan Michael
Girl Choice: Isabella Lotus
Ken and I agreed on the boy's name fairly quickly. "Michael" was after Ken's cousin, who had drowned when Ken was in high school. And Star Wars was in the theaters, so Ewan McGregor had suddenly made that exotic sounding name seem like something we could pull off. I thought it was awesome- when I told the seventh graders I was teaching at the time, they disagreed, however. They informed me that the name sounded exactly like "Urine" and the child would be a social misfit from the moment it was cast out of my womb.
God, I love seventh graders.
The girl's name was harder. Every single name I came up with, Ken would reject without giving me the courtesy of pretending to consider it. Did he ever come up with a suggestion? Hell no. He would just shoot down all mine.
Finally, we came across "Fiona", and thought it was ok. We hadn't seen Shrek, but when I told my seventh graders, they all informed me that this was the name of the princess. Unable to understand their unspoken subtext, I couldn't tell if this was a good thing or a bad thing.
For a while, Fiona it was. And for the first and last time in our child naming adventures, Ken let me pick the middle name. "Lotus". It was beautiful. It was exotic. It was spiritual but not religious-y. I loved it, and I knew even then that I would call the child by that name and no other, should I be gifted with a daughter.
And Ken fell for it.

While at dinner with friends of ours one night, they asked us what name we'd picked for the baby. We told them the boy choice, to which the husband kept a politely neutral face, but the wife burst out laughing. I think she told me it sounded like "urine".
(yes Heather, I'm talking about you.)
Then we told them "Fiona Lotus" for the girl's name. Then I looked at Ken, and he looked at me, and I said, "I don't really love that name, do you?" and he shrugged and made a vaguely pained face and replied, "Not really." So I said, "Then why are we using it?" and he shrugged.
So back to the drawing board. Which was a book full of painfully hipster names, along with a ranking system that included terms like, "Peanut butter sandwhich" for "eh" names, "pocket T" for names that were classic and went with anything, like a pocket T-shirt, and "Little Princess/Teddy Bear" for names that would soon become obviously dated.
Yeah, I know. We threw the book out eventually.
I was merciless. Every night, I'd torment Ken for a good hour, starting with the As and working my way through, reading every suggestion of "Parker", "Dar" and "Markin" with a perfectly straight face.
And then I got to the Is, read "Isabella", and Ken snapped out of his name-induced coma to comment.
"That's not bad." He said. "That's not bad" is pretty much the most enthusiastic response he's ever given about a baby name, so I took it and ran.

Not that it matters. I've been calling her Lotus all her life.

Boy Choice: Joaquin Orion
Girl Choice: Eleanor Orion
Three years later, we got to do it again. We were in the midst of moving from Michigan to Mississippi, and were occupied with that for a while. By the time the dust had settled, and we could get to slugging it out over names, Ken had already picked out the boy's name.
Only he wouldn't tell me what it was.
Nope. Wouldn't tell me. He said I could have veto power, but he wasn't going to tell me until the baby was born.
Ha. That didn't last long.
Now, I'd like to say that the choice was motivated by a deep level of piousness on our part, and so the Spanish spelling of Our Lady's father's name was a way of expressing that, but I'd be lying.
1. We weren't Catholic yet. In fact, other than a vague annoyance at Southerners' insistence on making their religion so public, we weren't even giving religion a single thought at this point.
2. Once again, it was movie-motivated. Ladder 49 had just come out on video, and Ken saw a poster for it. He thought the name looked interesting, then happened across an interview with Joaquin Phoenix, and was able to put phonetic sounds to the strange jumble of consonants.
Ken finally told me, I liked it, and the boy's first name was settled.

The girl's name came from the sign off a dentist's office down the road from us. Not kidding. We drove by it one day, I said, "Hey, what about Eleanor?" and Ken said, "It's not bad".
So Eleanor it was.

The middle name, which would have been the same regardless of the baby's sex, was a gift from the Universe. We were, as I mentioned, in the middle of a move. Ken had left a few months earlier, leaving me alone with a 2 year old, and a house to sell. When we finally got all the loose ends dealt with, it was Thanksgiving. Lotus and I boarded a plane, flew down to our new home, had Thanksgiving dinner, and then I flew back to Michigan alone. From there, I drove my car and the last of our belongings the 12 hours to Mississippi.Just me, the tiny baby hitching a ride in my uterus, and the song "Yellow" that was on aggressively heavy rotation on every single radio station in the country.

I sang out loud to the baby, urging him/her to "look at the stars/ see how they shine for you/ and all the things that you do" and I got very emotional and maternal while doing so.
Every time that song came on, I'd pass a semi truck with the word "Star" written in blue, and I would think this a very momentous event. Particularly since it happened at least half a dozen times during that trip. Frequency only proves that it's mystical, right?

So when the time came to decide on a middle name, I told Ken that it was out of our hands- the Universe had already decided that this baby was going to have the middle name of "Star".
Ken, still nursing the wounds of a daughter publicly called "Lotus", said no. But he said, "What about Orion? It's a constellation, so it's starry, and it references our song."
Well I was done. What woman wouldn't be? How romantic is that, to have your husband come up with a middle name that fits your whacked out semi truck/Coldplay hallucination AND manages to tie in the song you'd considered "yours" for over a decade?

Side note: for a good week or so after the baby was born, my dad walked around thinking we'd named him "Joaquin O'Ryan", and couldn't figure out where in the family tree we'd found that bit of Irish nonsense.

Boy Choice: Gabriel Vincent
Girl Choice: Veronica Rosemary
Ahhh....the first time "Veronica Rosemary" made its hopeful debut.
By this time, we'd converted, and found it a very lovely and practical practice to name your children after a saint. Lovely, because there are a lot of saints out there, and some of them have pretty kick ass names (Urban, Clementine, and Declan all being examples that have been hopefully submitted for Ken's approval. They are also examples of names that have been thoroughly dismissed by Ken). Practical, because like the living family member who now feels obligated to send at least a card and ten bucks each Christmas because you named little Francis after him, it is the hope that the saints will pray for those named after them.

Some, like Sts. Michael and Catherine, must be tremendously busy, so it's just smart to go for a lesser-known saint, who will have more time on his hands for intercessory prayer.
Imagine our pleasant surprise when we learned that we lucked out on the previous two names, and could now trust that Sts. Isabella and Joachim were praying up a storm for our children (though I'm always a bit irritated to see that Isabella has made the top ten baby name list for years and years running. Come on, people! Stop hogging the prayers!).

But now we had a theme going. Somehow, horribly, we painted ourselves into a corner and had to deal with it. Veronica met the dual criteria of "unusual yet accessable" and "saint", but a boy's name was proving more difficult.
Half-heartedly, I threw out the suggestion of "Gabriel". I'd suggested it for every baby so far, and Ken had shot it down for his own obscure reasons. But this time, he paused.
I suspect that, once again, it had more to do with a movie (we'd just bought The Patriot, and Heath Ledger's Gabriel Martin must have left a favorable impression on my beloved), and less to do with pious sentiments, but who cares? First names were agreed upon!

Middle names are always easier. After all, with the sole exception of our first born, we didn't really plan on using them unless the kid was in hot water. "Rosemary" seemed like a nice nod to Our Lady, and was ok with me, though I'd been hoping that Ken would let my first choice of "Easter" pass.
For the boy, I tried out a name I'd also trotted out on the two previous occasions. "Vincent" was a nice name, with equal parts holy (think St. Vincent de Paul) and creepy (the episode of the Muppet Show with Vincent Price was a defining moment in my childhood).
Ken never got on board, though, claiming that the initials "V.D." would instantly mark the child for a lifetime of taunting. I think it was nothing but name fatigue that allowed "G.V.D." to pass.

So there you are. The stories behind the first three. Later on, when I've done enough productive work to make it appear like I was doing it all day, I'll do the rest.

*all actual name suggestions from the kids

Brain Dump

2011-12-21T18:11:00.000-06:00

I know how ridiculous it is for someone like to me wail about being "sooooooo busy", but I'm going to do it anyway. For example, I have a date with four of my children to watch an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation", which we just learned is on Netflix streaming, and I've had to put it off for, like, the past 4 hours. Why? Because I'm cleaning up from visitors, and I'm not done Christmas shopping, and the ding bat OB office likes to schedule appointments in the days before Christmas.

Anyway, all this means that I've had two or three posts that I've written in my head, but haven't had the time to commit to paper. And now that I'm going to try, I've forgotten half of what I was planning to say, which is made even odder by the fact that I'd already edited pictures for the imaginary posts. So now I have several pictures that I'm unable to put into a linear narrative.

So I'm not even going to try. Here's pictures I've had waiting to post, along with disjointed commentary about each:

My cousin Erinn came to visit us last weekend. She currently lives in NYC. All week, I'd been planning on having her compile a list of places she's live/visited, but I forgot. So here's the list I compiled for her:
London, NYC, Egypt, France, Spain, several Eastern European countries I can't keep straight, Greece, Mongolia, Jamaica, Easter Island, Canada, and Detroit.

You know what we made this amazing, intelligent, beautiful world traveler do when she came to visit us?

A jigsaw puzzle.

This is her, thinking, "Do you have any idea how gorgeous the Tuileries is this time of year?"
I really don't. I wonder if they make a jigsaw puzzle of the palace.

And then, with no warning at all, this was unleashed on her.

I- really, I mean- no. There's no words for this image right here.

Oh, it gets even better when he then insists on kissing Auntie Erinn. Through the- whatever it is.

On a related note, Erinn looks almost exactly like Hello Kitty when she smiles.

Then I started a post where I took pictures of my favorite Christmas ornaments, along with a little story about each one. But I don't feel like doing that any more. So I've shortened it to two examples:

So when Lotus was born, I splurged on a professionally made Halloween costume. It was $25 (an outrageous sum for us to spend at the time on something as frivilous as a costume we thought we'd only use once), and in the shape of a peapod. I'm sure you've seen something similar seven hundred times, but a decade ago, it was very cutting edge.
I think.
Anyway, that sucker was the most durable piece of clothing we've ever bought, and it's since become the family tradition for each baby to go as a peapod for her/his/his/his/his/??? first Halloween.
My mother-in-law found this so-cute-it-hurts ornament somewhere and gave it to me last Christmas. It's one of my favorites.

My brother and I used to gleefully play this upon-reflection-horribly-obnoxious-game every Christmas called, "This ornament is MINE!". While decorating the tree, we would pull out all the ornaments we particularly liked, and insisted that they were ours, gifted to us by some relative or other. At first, my mom would try and set us straight, but as the years passed, eventually she just tuned us out, and my brother stopped fighting me for rights to the rusty brass cutout of an angelic choir.
Don't be sad. It just means that I WON! because when Ken and I got married, my mom gave me two of the ornaments that had been "mine" since she got them sometime in the 60s. This blown glass robot is one of them. Look at this thing! It is glorious in its Atomic Age kitschiness! It's a turquoise robot, for Pete's sake, with a bright red alcoholic's nose! It is one of my favorite ornaments.

Finally, I close this brain dump blog post with a final picture:

Everywhere I turn in the house, I find these castles, courtesy of Jude. For a boy whose block supply has dwindled to a pathetic 13 blocks, he has amazing range in architectural design. On the one hand, I can't wait to see what he's able to build when Santa brings him the giant new set of blocks. On the other, I'm not sure I'll be able to move anywhere without having castles topple down around me.

The Dinner Bell

2011-12-19T19:46:00.000-06:00

What I Love About This Picture:

1. I am both far too old and still too young to wear Santa hats in public. But I did it anyway today, and embarrassed Lotus something fierce.

2. Ever since a family friend pointed out that one of my eyes is freakishly bigger than the other, I've tried to cultivate a sort of pirate air in self-portraits to offset it. I think it goes nicely with the Santa hat.

3. You can see our dinner bell over my shoulder. And yes, we use it. Feeding time at the zoo, y'all!

You Know What?

2011-12-18T20:08:00.001-06:00

You know what?
I'm still sad/pissed off/scared/confused/guilty about Father Pinto's death.
And it's reminding me of every other loved one's death I've experienced since I was of the age of reason.
And I have a routine doctor's appointment tomorrow, which always makes me irritable.
And I really, really, if-you-put-a-gun-to-my-head-would-say-the-same-thing certain that I am most like Bones in the original "Star Trek" series".

And my blogger friend Grace always links to other people, and in the world of blog etiquette, I love that.
And my blogger friend Dwija always connects with so many other bloggers, and and I love that too.
And my friend Jessica, who is my friend through Grace, who is my friend through Lisa. I love all of them, too.

So, I really think that "being Kung Fu" translates roughly to "acting like you're drunk when you're really not".
Goodnight. I'll be myself soon.

Rest In Peace, Father Pinto: 1948-2011

2011-12-16T09:58:00.002-06:00

About five years ago, my best friend Kim invited me to something she vaguely called "a prayer group". At the time being a fairly recent convert, I had no idea what to expect. I dimly imagined a room full of middle aged ladies, praying the Rosary and then maybe swapping potluck recipes, but despite this grim image, I agreed to go.

That day ended up being one of those Really Big Moments in my life.

The "prayer group" she was talking to was a monthly meeting of the Disciples of Jesus and Mary which is a spiritual formation program developed by Father Santan Pinto. I don't think I've ever written much, if anything, about DJM here on the blog, and I don't think I will today, either. However, I will say that the spiritual formation I've received through the program has absolutely changed my life. Forever, and for the better. If you'd like to learn more about the program, I'd be more than happy to talk to you about it; leave me a message in the comments and I'll email you.

Right now, though, I want to talk about Father.

Father, being from India, had that accent that sounds like warm. Just warm. You'd listen to him speak, and you were drawn in by the warmth of his accent and of his words.
He was a large man, extremely tall for an Indian, and built like a giant teddy bear. Between his voice and his appearance, you could easily caricaturize him as a cross between Ghandi and Santa Claus.

Until he got angry at you.

(Father and I pose for Janice. Christmas, 2009. I'm five months pregnant with John-Luke in this picture. Two months later, we'll be in Connecticut. I'll see Father one last time.)

Woo-hoo, could that man deliver righteous chastisement. I remember one incident, when he was visiting Mississippi and giving a talk in my friend Janice's house. We were meeting in her schoolroom, located on the top floor, with limited seating and very warm air. One of the people who was sitting right in front of Father started taking off her sweatshirt, but was having difficulty removing it. She struggled with it for a while, finally got it off, then tried tying it around her waist.
Suddenly, Father stopped his talk. He turned the full force of his gaze at the woman, who was sitting less than three feet away. In no uncertain terms, he requested that she stop making such a disturbance, if she needed to leave, someone could show her the stairs, and if she didn't need to leave could she kindly stop distracting him while he was trying to speak? Only he said all this in much, much longer form. And in a very angry voice.

(actual room, different time. You'll notice the two seats directly in front of Father are empty. No one wanted to be the object of Father's anger!)

So much for Ghandi meets Santa Claus.

He knew he could be harsh. He knew he sometime chose to handle situations in a brusque manner when a different man would handle them more gently.

He didn't care. "I want people to come to the formation process because of what it offers them, not because of me. Who am I? I won't be here forever, but the need for spiritual formation will be."

He was wise to do this. God lavished such gifts on Father that there very easily could have been an idolatrous cult of personality that sprung up around him. Having him hear your confession was a horrible and amazing experience. He knew when you were holding back. He knew when you were focusing attention on the wrong problem. Despite his public displays of harshness, he was always unbelievably generous and kind in the confessional. Receiving the Sacrament through Father was one of the clearest examples of Christ working through His priests that anyone could ask for. People would murmur comparisons between Father Pinto and Padre Pio. They would say he could read souls. But they would say these things quietly, because they knew how angry he would get if he heard.

Father was a storyteller of the first degree. He would tell such stories about the amazing things that he'd experienced that until you were part of one of those stories, it was easy to accuse him of poetic license.

(Father, Ken, and Jude. Don and Janice Brewer's house.)

The last time I saw Father, he had come all the way from New Jersey to bless our house. He was visiting the East Coast to give a retreat, and had made time in his busy schedule for a six hour round trip to come serve us in this way.

It was June, and the wild blackberries were more abundant than they've been since. The kids went and picked them in anticipation of Father's visit, while I frantically tried to clean the house. We had contracted with a neighbor to put a new roof on, and he had scheduled materials to arrive sometime that week. Imagine my horror when not one, but two flatbed semi trucks showed up in my driveway, with six million bags of shingles to be dragged up to the roof. Father was due any minute, and all you could hear was the stomp, stomp, crash! of people walking on my roof, throwing materials around. I remembered how irritated Father had gotten with the removal of a sweatshirt while he was trying to work- I was certain he would be so distracted by the sounds of construction that he'd refuse to even come inside.

What could I do? I resigned myself to a certain scolding delivered in an Indian accent and greeted Father when he got there. Father didn't so much as glance at the trucks, or the workers, or the mess. He came inside, which was suddenly, blessedly quiet, and asked for salt and water to bless. He closed his eyes, and I expected him to begin a traditional prayer for blessing salt.

Instead, there was a long, long pause. I thought that Father had chosen to bless the salt using mental prayer, but then he began to speak. He asked God to bless the salt and the water, and through faithful use of the sacramentals, bless the house. He asked specifically for God's protection on all those "working on the house", which struck me at the time, since the roofers had left for the day.

We then walked around the house, and Father blessed each room. Afterwards, he sat and ate the berries the kids picked and drank ice tea while telling us a story about a pet python he had been acquainted with.

He regrettably had to cut his visit short, and while I walked him to the car, my parents (who had come to visit) pulled up. They met Father, shook his hand, and waved to him as he drove off.

That was the last time I'll ever get to see Father in this life.

The next day, my parents came with us to Mass. We had taken two cars, and Ken and my dad got home first. My mom and I pulled up a few minutes behind them, and we saw the two of them talking to one of the roofers who had started work earlier that day. The roofer was making wild gestures with his arms, in the direction of the roof, and both my husband and father had concerned looks on their faces.

The roofer, it turns out, had been nailing down shingles when suddenly a football-sized swarm of yellow jackets boiled up out of the eaves, and headed straight for the roofer. Finding himself engulfed by the swarm, he tried to get away from it as quickly as he could. Somehow, he managed to not only get off the roof without injury, but he didn't suffer a single sting. He kept looking at his bare arms in amazement, shaking his head.

I thought of Father's specific request that God protect all those who were working on my house, and thanked Him for granting His protection.

I think about Father's prayer every time someone is incredulous when they hear that despite having so many wild boys, the only emergency room trip we've ever made was for Ken. Which, as I've discussed at length, could have been so much worse than it was.

Father Pinto, a child of God, a man of profound spiritual insight, and a wonderfully complicated human being, was killed this morning in a car wreck in India. While I am happy for him that he gets to go home in time for Christmas, and forever grateful for the DJM group he founded, I am so sad he's left us. He traveled so much, and his schedule was so busy, I knew that I would have to wait a very long time before our paths crossed again.

But I assumed that they would cross on this side of life.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord. Let perpetual light shine upon him. May the soul of Father Santan Pinto rest in peace.

A Jumble of Objects

2011-12-14T09:54:00.000-06:00

Quiz Time!

Q: What does this jumble of objects have in common?

A: It's a bunch of crap you grabbed from under your couch which you only discovered because you dropped a Twinkie and saw it when you bent down to retrieve said Twinkie.

B: It's a handful of objects you used to teach math, science, religion, and art this week. 'Cause you are awesome like that. And then you ate a Twinkie.

C: It's probably something that you're going to blab on and on about in this blog post, and by the end we'll all wish that you'd just go away and eat some Twinkies.

If you picked C, you're right! A is clearly wrong, because I would never bend over to retreive a dropped Twinkie- I'd have one of the kids do it. B is also wrong because we're not doing school this week. So, by simple process of elimination (and a passing familiarity with this blog), C is the only possible answer.

Man, I want a Twinkie now.

Anyway, that jumble of objects is our collection of The Yearly Christmas Ornament.
The Yearly Christmas Ornament is a tradition that I ripped off from my mother-in-law, who did it when Ken and Debra were young. (here is where I would include a link to my mother-in-law's blog, but she doesn't have one, so I'll put up a picture of her third child- the furry Missy:)

Anyway, The Yearly Christmas Ornament is where we decide on some object that best represents the most monumental event that took place during that year. It shouldn't be fancy, ideally it's a found object, and no matter how humble, it goes up on the tree (my mother-in-law has an ornament that represents my sister-in-law's crazy baby hair. It is HILARIOUS, and I wish that I had a picture of it to show you. Best. Yearly Christmas Ornament. Ever.).

Examples:

1999

The tulle, ribbon, and stars from the candy we had at the tables from our wedding. I ate the candy, and kept the tulle. It's the first (and probably most lovely) of The Yearly Ornaments.

2000 and 2001

A key representing our first house, which we bought in 2000, and a tag from one of the two greyhounds we got in 2001. The house was a great starter home, and one of those hounds was the best dog I'll ever have (the other one....well....she tried real hard).

2002

Lotus was born. This is her hospital bracelet. Now, before I go on about how tiny the bracelet is, and oh my gosh, I can't believe her tiny little wrist fit in there, I would like to apologize for the picture. Hospital bracelets do not make for particularly stunning pictures, and you're going to be seeing a lot of them.

Ok, commence cooing.

2003

Again, like the Christmas pictures, there is a weird gap for this year. I've been racking my brains for an explanation. It's not like somebody died that year, and so Christmas was a sad affair. Honestly, I can't explain it.

2004 and 2005
2004 was the year Ken and I trained for and completed (!!!) not one, but TWO triathlons. We were studs. And considering the first one had the swim portion take place in the Straits of Mackinac, which are cold and deep and full of scary fish, it is nothing short of a miracle that I completed it, since I'm scared of living water.
Joaquin was born in 2005, and so here is the second of our ill-photographed baby bracelets, attached to the bracelet I had to wear.

2006
We entered the Church this year, and the ornament is made from the dreary felt stoles that they gave Ken and me to wear during the ceremony. But, as is probably expected, I don't care how tacky and shabby the stoles were, they're something beautiful now, and this is one of my favorite Yearly Ornaments, in terms of aesthetics.

2007 and 2008
The birth of my almost-Irish-twins. And the only two babies I had who were delivered by the same doctor!

2009
Ken and I celebrate our 10th anniversary. Since the 10th is the "paper anniversary", we thought it appropriate to make the ornament out of it. Lotus, then 7, was the artist.

2010
John-Luke's hospital bracelet. Again- look at how tiny! I die!

2011
This year's ornament is going to be a doozy. We figured that the biggest thing that happened to the clan this year was Ken trying to hack off part of his hand. And oh yeah the ornament is going to feature The Finger. I can't wait!

Anyway, there it is. Twelve years' worth of strange and obscure ornaments. Tomorrow I'll show you some of my favorite other ornaments, and then I'll do the money shot of the tree. Which, I promise will look less like this:

(from the fantastic "Just a Girl" blog. Check out the link to see the tree at night. Not only is it gorgeous, but she's got some amazing star effect going on with the lights that I'm now going to spend all day trying to replicate.)

And more like this:

The Best Skin Balm I've Ever Used- Enthusiastic Product Recommendation

2011-12-12T15:14:00.002-06:00

This is The Jude:

You know him from such places as "Evil Genius Trying to Take Over the World". But every evil genius worth his salt has some sort of fatal weakness, and in Jude's case, it's sensory issues and some wicked sensitive skin.

That boy gets eczema something fierce. We've tried every single over the counter option known to man, and nothing- nothing works. Often times, the rash areas get so bad that the skin breaks open, so any lotion you would put on there ends up causing him horrible pain, and you feel so awful that you wish you could perform a skin graft in your kitchen with yourself as the donor. We've been reluctant to take him to the doctor, since they'd just start out with giving him perscription strength steroid creams, and even the OTC strength burns him so much that he just screams and screams.

When we were visiting my parents for fake Christmas, we went to this set of touristy shops, full of local artists, pottery places, and soap makers. One of the stores, Misty Mountain Soap Co., had a display of something called "Herbal Healing Salve". It was the sort of thing you see in natural health stores everywhere- a circular tin of a soft solid goo, that claims to heal everything.

I would have walked by and not thought anything more about it, but I noticed on the wall behind the display there were dozens of email printouts. The emails were all unsolicited customer testimonials from people who had bought the salve and had amazing results. Of particular interest to me were the emails that told of the effects the salve had on eczema.

For $7.50, I was willing to give it a try, so I took it over to the cash register. The woman working the shop was super friendly, listened to my story about my son's gross skin problem, and directed me to the only product in the whole store that wasn't made on premises, a brown chunky soap made through a fair trade co-op with woman in Africa. The combination of the salve and the soap, she assured me, would knock my evil genius's eczema out of the park.

The tab was now up to $12.50, but the woman kept throwing free sample upon free sample into my bag, and I figured the bill was still cheaper than the co-pay at our doctor's office, so what the heck?

I got home, put the salve on Jude's neck, folds of his elbows, and in his armpits, all the places the rashes were most frequent and worst, and then steeled myself for the screaming.

The screaming never came. Jude closed his eyes and sat still while I lotioned him up, then ran off to play, without so much as a grumble. This, in and of itself, was a miracle.

The next morning, though, what I saw was even more miraculous. The rashes on Jude's skin were almost completely gone. All the redness had disappeared; they were no longer raised and angry looking, and he told me they didn't hurt him anymore. There was still a whitish discoloration of his skin, and it was rough and sort of scaly. However, two more days of putting the salve on took care of even those issues.

I kicked myself for not taking pictures of the before/after, but honestly, I didn't expect too much from the salve, and photographing it never even occurred to me.

A few days later, an opportunity to remedy that presented itself. Jude had started licking his bottom lip, and within a day, there was a line of cracked, scabby skin (isn't this the most charming blog post you've ever read from me?)

I apologize for the quality of the picture, but you can still see how awful his skin is. All that dark red is scabby, chapped skin. I put the salve on him three times a day, and now, two days later, it looks like this:

( don't confuse cookie crumbs with chapped skin, ok?)

This is the most amazing skin balm I've ever used, and like I said before, I feel like I've sampled more than my fair share of them. Every single thing in the ingredient list is recognizable and natural, as in "hey, I grow half of those things and the other half my neighbor grows!" sort of natural. The smell is not perfumey, and not overly reminicent of hippies. My cousin says it smells like focaccia bread, probably due to the rosemary.

On your skin it feels more oily than lotiony, but it absorbs very quickly. We've used it with success on eczema, chapped skin/lips, and pimples. The woman at the store also said that it was effective on stretch marks, but I think it'll take more than a single tin to cover the amount of battle scars I've acquired so far.
The product is made on the store premises, by a mother and daughter team. You can read their story here.

I've also used the lotion bar that the lady gave me as one of my free samples, and it is equally amazing. With all the wood floors in our house, and no working humidifier attached to the centeral heat, it gets so dry here that my skin sometimes feels like it's made of thin paper, stretched too tightly over my bones. The usual sort of lotions I buy by the bucket during the winter last for a portion of the day, but no longer. I rubbed the lotion bar on my legs Sunday morning, and right now, Monday afternoon, they still feel fine. While the skin isn't as soft as it was all day Sunday, it's not itchy like it usually is if I go more than 12 hours without putting lotion on.

The company sells its products online, via their website, and if you're still Christmas shopping, I couldn't suggest a better gift.

Christmas Pictures Over the Years

2011-12-08T14:10:00.004-06:00

You know that scene in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation when Clark gets trapped in the attic and ends up wearing some Gloria Swanson-esque turban and watching old movies?

That's me every year when I open the decoration box that has the collection of Christmas pictures through the years. I end up weeping, while the kids play the annual edition of "which dang baby is that one again?"

It never occurred to me to take a yearly Christmas picture. My parents, being smarter than I am, started the tradition for us when Lotus was just a baby, and they watched her while I was at work. Thank God they did, because with the strange gap of 2003, I have a picture from every year we've had children, and I clearly get more emotionally unstable about their importance to me every year.

So today, when I unpacked the pictures, I got all weepy, and decided I should scan them in to the computer, in case anything ever happened to the originals. And then when I saw the horrible state most of the pictures were in, both in terms of composition, and quality, I figured I could go ahead and pretty them up as best I could.

Let's see how long it takes before I start getting all weepy again.

2002

Lotus- 5 months old- living room of my parents' house in Walled Lake, Michigan

This was the one that started it all. Mom and Dad took the picture, had it printed, and gave me a framed copy. Look how adorable! Look at the cheeks! Oh my gosh, it's like baby Lotus ate regular Lotus! And she can't even sit up yet, so she's propped up in that ubiquitous Boppy Pillow every first time mom gets. Random question- I think my friend Heather got me that pillow- is that right, Heather?

2004

Lotus- two years old- Windyke Country Club, Memphis, Tennessee

So, being lazy and not yet appreciating how much these yearly pictures would come to mean to me, I dropped the ball on 2003's picture, and we skip directly to 2004. By now, I was pregnant with Joaquin, we had moved to Mississippi, and we would attend "Breakfast with Santa" at Ken's parents' country club for the next two Decembers. Here's Lotus, wearing one of those adorable little velvet numbers that you cry when they're too old to wear, looking all sweet.

2005

Lotus and Joaquin- three years and six months- Windyke Country Club, Memphis, Tennessee

The second "Breakfast with Santa". I'm not sure what the kids are doing, but they're clearly simultaneously ignoring Santa and causing him some logistical problems. Again, Lotus is in one of those velvet dresses I miss having a little girl to dress in.

2006

Lotus and Joaquin- four years and eighteen months- front room of the house in Olive Branch, Mississippi

Our first attempt at the "do it yourself Christmas picture". The greyhounds kept getting in the way, and that furry lump next to Lotus is Stella, trying to nose her way into the action. Joaquin is in the middle of saying the word that he learned that day- "hat!" And man- that carpet that they're sitting on was filthy. I'm cringing right now, thinking of how gross that carpet was, and that I let my babies sit on it. Ew.

2007

Lotus, Joaquin, and Gabriel- five years, two years, and six months- in front of the fireplace in the Olive Branch house, Mississippi

The first of many fireplace pictures we'd end up taking. Also, you'll notice that I reused the red and grey jersey shirts that the big kids had worn the year before. And Gabriel's shoes! My sister-in-law gave them to me, and I loved those shoes. They dutifully served two Donaldson children, back-to-back, before disappearing into thin air. Best of all in this picture? Gabriel's face. I die!

2008

Lotus, Joaquin, Gabriel, and Jude- six, three, eighteen months, and three months- fireplace again! Olive Branch, Mississippi

I love how two years in a row the number of kids increases. That cracks me up. Also filed under "cracks me up" is the fact that I clearly tried to match the boys' clothes, but found nothing suitable for Lotus. And don't even look at the feet. Every single year the shoe situation is what almost makes me call "Uncle!" on the whole picture.

2009

Lotus, Joaquin, Gabriel, Jude- seven, four, two and one year(s) old- that damn fireplace again, Olive Branch, Mississippi

This was the year that I swore I would never again take a picture in front of this fireplace. I hated it. First of all, why do you even need a fireplace in Mississippi? Second of all, gas prices skyrocketed while we lived there, so we had the neighbor convert the thing from gas to wood burning. Only the fireplace wasn't built for burning wood, and so it would frequently flood the entire house with smoke, setting off every smoke alarm in the neighborhood and very nearly killing us. Which is exactly what happened while I was trying to set up for this picture. The stupid Duraflame log I'd lit started filling everything with smoke, I had to air the whole house out, track down all the kids again, and convince them that they were not going to die if they sat that close to the fireplace.

And you know what? You don't even see a damn fire in the picture!

2010

every single person in the whole Clan- ages varied and occasionally lied about- in front of another fireplace, West Simsbury, Connecticut
I'd been thinking about how I really appreciated the Christmas pictures I received where the whole family was in the shot, and not just the kids. Don't get me wrong, all the kids I ever see in the Christmas pictures sent to me are adorable, but there is something very satisfying about seeing the whole family. So this was the first year I made everybody endure the photo shoot, which I quickly learned meant my workload would increase exponentially. But bless my dear husband's heart, he got me both a tripod and Photoshop for this picture, so I could take 15 different shots and layer them altogether so that we looked like a faintly normal family. Jude, as usual, cried, and at least one person pictured has no shoes.

This year's picture has been taken, Photoshopped, and sent to the printer. It's already made me cry, but not from nostalgia. More from sheer frustration. Oh, and the fact that the newest member of the family is included, which means I have to suffer the humiliation of mailing out pictures with my grotesquely swollen self is front and center. I need to time out these pregnancies better, so they don't occur during the month of November or December.

There you are- nine years' worth of Christmases, in eight pictures. What about you? Do you do Christmas pictures at all? Do you include the whole family? Do you take them yourself, or hire someone to do the agonizing for you? Include links to a Christmas picture blog post, if you have one!

Slotted Spoon

2011-12-08T07:58:00.001-06:00

We're having cereal for breakfast this morning, which never happens around here. The kids are bouncing off the walls, they're so excited. When Gabriel heard what I was feeding him, he ran to get his "special cereal spoon".

It's a slotted spoon.

When I pointed out that he had to drink all the milk poured in his bowl, and didn't he want a different spoon to help with the job, he just stared at the spoon with a puzzled look on his face.

"What's wrong with this spoon?" he finally said.
"Well, there's holes in it. It won't hold any milk."
"That's fine. When there's milk in it, the milk takes out the flavor."
When I pointed out that if he ate mouthfulls that contained both milk and cereal, the flavor ratio wouldn't be all that altered, even though the medium through which the flavor was conveyed may be different.

He just looked at me like I was crazy. Finally, with that tremendously patient voice that people reserve for speaking to someone very, very stupid, he said,
"That's why I got my special cereal spoon, Mommy. The holes let the milk out, but the flavor gets stuck on the spoon."

Actually, it may be conversations like that drive our cereal ban more than anything else.

My Pregnancy, 19 Weeks

2011-12-07T15:36:00.001-06:00

This article is from a fetal development website. My increasingly exasperated comments are in red.

Your pregnancy: 19 weeks
How your baby's growing:
Your baby's sensory development is exploding! (exploding? Really? That's the verb they're going with here? Exploding? As if gestating another human being isn't alarming enough, now we have to worry about uterine explosions?) Her brain is designating specialized areas for smell, taste, hearing, vision, and touch. Some research suggests that she may be able to hear your voice now, so don't be shy about reading aloud, talking to her, or singing a happy tune if the mood strikes you. (If she's like the rest of my children, she's less engaged in developing her hearing, and more anxious to learn how to tune out the sound of my voice.)
Your baby weighs about 8 1/2 ounces and measures 6 inches, head to bottom — about the size of a large heirloom tomato. (I've mentioned it before, how creepy I find it that these sorts of websites liken my developing baby to food items. Kumquat, clementine, turnip. And now "large heirloom tomato". I find it difficult to believe that people have an easier time contextualizing their unborn child with that description rather than "half a foot".)

Oh sweet baby Jesus! That child is eating my fetus! Or a large heirloom tomato. I'm not sure.

Her arms and legs are in the right proportions to each other and the rest of her body now. (Well thank God for that. But I'm more concerned about her cranial size. Because let's be honest- those suckers look like aliens for the first few months.)

Woosh. You know, now that you mention it, I'm glad you mentioned the arms. This little guy looks like a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Her kidneys continue to make urine and the hair on her scalp is sprouting. A waxy protective coating called the vernix caseosa is forming on her skin to prevent it from pickling in the amniotic fluid.

How your life's changing:
Think you're big now? (Oh, are you going to start in on how big my ass is getting, too? Well, you'll have to get to the back of the line, Mr. Website, 'cause there's a dozen people in front of you yakking about the junk in my trunk.) You'll start growing even faster in the weeks to come. (And this would be why I assume it's a man who wrote this. "Think you're big now? Hahaha! It's only going to get worse, Tubby.") As a result, you may notice some achiness in your lower abdomen or even an occasional brief, stabbing pain on one or both sides — especially when you shift position or at the end of an active day. (Go ahead and say it. "You're unlikely to feel any pains in your ass, though, since it's so amply padded.") Most likely, this is round ligament pain. The ligaments that support your uterus are stretching to accommodate its increasing weight. This is nothing to be alarmed about, but call your practitioner if the pain continues even when you're resting or becomes severe. (Again, written by someone who has never experienced a damn thing he's writing about. "Round ligament pain, tra-la, tra-la. It's nothing. Suck it up, Lard Ass." Anyone who's ever had round ligament pain knows that it's exactly like having a white-hot iron knitting needle plunged directly into one labia, and then ripped all the way down one or both legs. Which is why you'll never see me writing text for a website about survivors of white-hot iron knitting needle accidents that says "This is nothing to be alarmed about, tra-la, tra-la.)

This? Oh this is just one hundred knitting needles, about to be heated up and plunged into your body. No biggie.

You may be noticing some skin changes, too. Are the palms of your hands red? (What? What if I'm not a white woman? What if I'm color blind?) Nothing to worry about (then why did you bring it up, you jerk? Now I'm going to be staring at my dang palms for the next five months!) — it's from the extra estrogen. You may also have patches of darkened skin caused by a temporary increase in pigment. When these darker patches appear on your upper lip, cheeks, and forehead, they're called chloasma, or the "mask of pregnancy." (I'll show you a mask of pregnancy. Hang on.)

There. That's exactly what you just described. Dark patches on the upper lip, cheeks, and forehead. Now, in addition to telling me how fat I'm going to get, you've also likened me to a zombie. Don't expect a Christmas card from me.)

You may also notice some darkening of your nipples, freckles, scars, underarms, inner thighs, and vulva. (No. I'm not running an image search for any of that, thank you very much.) That darkened line running from your belly button to your pubic bone is called the linea nigra, or "dark line." (I prefer my dear friend Debi's term for it, "The ripe stripe".)
These darkened spots will probably fade shortly after delivery. In the meantime, protect yourself from the sun, which intensifies the pigment changes. Cover up, wear a brimmed hat, and use sunscreen when you're outdoors. (Translation: Cover up! Think of the children! Dear God, their sweet little eyes will burn in their sockets if they happen to see your hideousness!) And if you're self-conscious about your "mask," a little concealing makeup can work wonders. (Yeah. I wasn't self-conscious about my "mask" until we had this little talk....You know what else would work wonders? A baseball bat to my monitor.)

Decision Guide: Naming your baby
For many couples, settling on a name for their baby is a lot of fun. For others, it's a tortuous process (kind of like reading this article) of negotiation. Either way, it's an important decision because you're choosing something that will last a lifetime (unless your little one decides to rename herself along the way) (That's why I'm setting aside $139 for each kid and just naming them whatever the hell I feel like. If they don't like it, I'll hand them the money, direct them to this website, and tell them to go buck wild.). Here are some factors to consider when you're deciding on a name:
Sound and compatibility How your baby's name sounds when it's said aloud is one of the most essential things to think about. Is it melodious? Harsh? Does it go well with your last name? One thing to avoid: Choosing a first name that ends in the same sound as the beginning of your last name. (This is the stupidest, most random thing this article has said. Why? Why is this the ONE THING TO AVOID? Hmmm? Yeah, that's what I thought. You got nothing, Mr. Stupid Fetal Development Writer Man. Whose name is probably Tom Miller. Or Steve Veracruz. Or David Donaldson. WAIT A MINUTE, THAT'S MY FATHER-IN-LAW'S NAME! You got something against my father-in-law's name?)

This is what came up when I ran an image search for "Tom Miller". Are you going to look at the soulful, sincere eyes of Grandpa Miller and tell him that his parents screwed up naming him?

Uniqueness An unusual name has the advantage of making your child stand out from the crowd. On the other hand, a name no one has heard of and few can pronounce can bring attention your child might rather avoid. (When we're shopping in an area with a large Hispanic population, no one ever is confused by Joaquin's name. However, they are puzzled by the fact that both of Joaquin's parents are clearly gringos.) Spelling variations can help make a name unique, but choosing a name with numerous spellings can cause confusion in your child's life for years to come. (Just ask a poor little girl with a uniquely spelled, common name, growing up in the 80s before CafePress allowed everyone to be their own print shop. There wasn't anything with "Cari" on it. The sweetest thing my grandma ever did for me was buy me soaps with the name "Carl" on it, and scratch off part of the "l". True story.)
Relatives and friends Many parents choose to name their babies after a grandparent, another relative, or a close friend. Don't want too many Michaels in your house? Look way back in your family tree for hidden treasures. (Great-great-great uncle Huldan or great-great-great-great-grandma Shubael would certainly be tickled to know their names are kept alive.)

On the other hand, this is what I got when I ran a search for "Shubael". Clearly, you name a child Shubael, you run the risk of having grandchildren dressed in stupid outfits like this one. Fair warning.

And if you're worried about hurt feelings, consider a first name from one side of the family and a middle name from the other. According to a BabyCenter survey, middle names are a must for most parents; 98 percent give their child a middle name, with 7 percent of those parents giving their child two or more middle names.
Ancestry and heritage Your child's heritage is an essential part of who she is, and you may want her name to reflect that. Skim history books focusing on your family's country of origin to find appropriate possibilities. ("Cracker Ass Cracker Whitey McWhiterton Donaldson has a nice ring to it, don't you think?)
Meaning No one is likely to treat your daughter Ingrid differently because her name means "hero's daughter," (anyone named Ingrid is probably 6 feet tall and can kick your ass with one hand. So you'd better treat her differently because her name means "hero's daughter".) but the derivation of your baby's name is something you may want to think about. Use BabyCenter's Baby Name tool to learn the meaning of over 5,000 names.
Initials and nicknames People, especially kids, can be cruel when it comes to nicknames, so try to anticipate any potentially embarrassing ones. Consider your child's initials as well, so you don't inadvertently saddle her with a doozy like Z.I.T. or P.E.E. (Oh please. If we did this, I'd never have gotten to use "Vincent" as a middle name, since my husband insisted that "V.D." was unacceptable. This, despite the fact that no one but he and 70 year old ex-sailors even use that term anymore.)

Pictured here: Huldan Nagle, sailor, 70 years old. Frequent user of the phrase "V.D."

Many people going through pregnancy like to refer to their growing baby by name — or nickname. What about you? (I like referring to my growing baby by the following terms: Fruit of my Womb- in caps like that-, Heritage of the Lord, and Arrows in the Hand of the Warrior. It's Biblical or nothing, buster.)
One of the best tests for a baby name is to yell it out loud, preferably at a playground. If you feel uncomfortable saying the name in that setting, it might not be the best choice. (I would feel uncomfortable yelling the name of my pre-born child in a public setting, no matter what the name was. Seriously, did this person just suggest that a pregnant lady waddle her fat assed, zombie faced self down to a public playground and start yelling random names? Because that's what I think I just read. You know what? I'm feeling cranky enough that I might just do that exact thing. So if you see a fat, waddling, scary-faced woman at your playground, yelling "Augustine Michael? Veronica Rosemary?" then leaving without any children in tow, it's probably me. Come say hi. Or cover your children's eyes. Your call.)

Fake Christmas in the Smokies

2011-12-06T20:06:00.001-06:00

Hello. I'm Cari, and I'll be your tour guide through this blog post.

First, get comfy in that slice of van seat you've been given. You'll be in it for the next 16 hours. You will be surrounded by people who look like this:

And who will occupy themselves by doing things like this:

You will be forced to listen to "The Twilight Zone" audio dramas for the entire time, and if you're male, you will have to pee in a cup during rest stops, since you've lost your shoes somewhere in the van and there's no way anyone's letting you go into a gas station bathroom barefoot.

But when you get to the Smokies, you'll see things like this:

and you won't even have to leave the comfort of your parents' deck to do so. No, seriously, that's the view from the backyard. Totally worth having to shove Lego wheels between the toes of 4 year old boys to keep them happy during the car ride.

Then, you'll have a family Christmas party. And there will be lots of good food and good people you haven't seen in a while. But since you'll try to get candid shots without your subjects getting self-conscious, you'll have to take pictures without the flash, and at odd angles.

Then people will want to give your children presents. Which turns your children into room-wrecking machines. But cute room-wrecking machines.

And then, your best friend will drive six hours from Memphis to come see you. And you'll be stupid excited, and so will she, but her husband will glare at you like this, for dragging him along:

And he'll be thinking this:

Even though he'll deny it. But the camera doesn't lie, does it Ben?

You will get to see a lot of children under one roof, and miss Memphis so badly it actually hurts.

But then the sun will set, and you'll be so overwhelmed by the beauty that you will forget everything else for a while.

Then you'll have fake Christmas with just your family, and you'll get to surprise your grandma by showing up all the way from Connecticut, even though she was told 740 times that you were coming.

Then your spoiled kids will get even more presents, and they'll once again turn into cute room-wrecking machines.

And you'll crack up at what your brother wrote on the card for his niece and nephews' gift, because in real life, he's possibly the most articulate person you'll ever meet:

Finally, as it's time to pack up and load back into the van, since you only had 48 hours to spend with family, you'll realize two horrible, horrible truths:

1. The wrong person was given the sound-deadening earphones

and

2. You didn't get a single picture of your dear mother that wouldn't immediately result in her cutting you out of the will should you post it on the internet.

Home Sweet Home

2011-12-05T19:46:00.000-06:00

We're back from a extremely enjoyable, but marathon-esque trip to my parents in the Smokies. The trip back home took a little over 16 hours. With a stop somewhere in the middle to visit a brake shop for a car repair.

My camera is now buried under an avalanche of shockingly disorganized objects, I feel like something that should be locked up in Hershel's barn, and I'm pretty sure nothing I've written so far makes any sense.

But here's a pictorial representation of how the youngest member of the clan enjoyed his car ride home:

Traveling Light

2011-11-30T11:56:00.000-06:00

I'm praying that somewhere in all this:

lies the magic bullet to kill my car sickness.

And if not, I can add tequila, and I'll have the makings for a seriously odd cocktail.

The Beard

2011-11-29T10:58:00.001-06:00

So back during the carnage that was winter storm Alfred, Ken and I had exactly one fight.
It wasn't born of perfectly understandable frustration of caring for five children in a community with no power. It wasn't about a lack of heat, or a pregnant wife trying to cook three meals a day out of camp fire rations, it wasn't even about having to keep a hundred little children locked up inside for the first 48 hours after the storm due to the danger of falling trees.

Nope. It was a knock down, drag out fight about Ken's job.

Ken, for those of you who don't know, works for Ford. I'm the first one to say that Ford has not only put food on our table and a roof over our head, it has done so with a wage that allows a man to be the sole breadwinner for a family of seven. But in trade off, Ford has some interesting notions about work hours.

Ask my mother-in-law. Her husband also worked for Ford, and when people would ask her what his hours were, she'd shrug and say, "His work day starts when he leaves the house, and it's over when he gets home."

And that's about as specific as a Ford employee can get.

In the 11 years that Ken's worked for the company, his schedule has remained consistent for exactly none of it. It's not an exaggeration to say that there aren't two consecutive weeks where his schedule remains the same. Shoot, if we get two consecutive days where his schedule remains the same, it's a banner week.

I tell you all this because during the power outage, his warehouse was without power for the entire eight or nine days we were without. The first day he had off work. The second day, his boss went in to a warehouse without power or heat, and started making calls to Dearborn on her cell phone. She lined up a generator to be brought in on a semi truck to power the building. She spent hours and hours in a cold dark warehouse figuring out a way to power up operations.

When the generator was lined up, it was Ken who had to go wait for it. At eleven o'clock at night. In a parking lot of a dark industrial complex while his pregnant wife and five children were at home. A home that had no house phones, and the only way to make the cell phones work is by walking up the driveway, into the common area, and sort of thrusting the phone into the sky until it takes pity on you and picks up a signal.

He left at six that evening, since he had to singlehandedly unload something or other off of trucks that were slowly backing up at the warehouse. I gave him the stink eye the whole time he got ready.
"Why you?"
"Because it's my job."
"It's your job to go into a warehouse with no power and unload trucks and then sit in that same dark warehouse while you wait for a semi truck to unload a generator? That's your job?"
He just did that thing husbands do when trying to calm down increasingly hysterical wives. He tried to hug me. Displaying my stunning emotional maturity, I pushed him away and stomped off.

When you have no power in late October and live on the East Coast, it's dark- pitch dark- at seven. So you go to bed. Because there's no heat, no power, and nothing else to do. Ken said he'd be home around midnight, so I thought I'd sleep until then, and get up with him when he got home from his stupid job.

I woke at 12:30, and he wasn't home. I figured he'd be home soon, and wasn't about to get out of a warm bed to wait up for him. I'd wait for him right there. Then I fell asleep.

I woke with a start, grabbed the cell phone, and saw that it was two in the morning. Two in the ever loving morning. And no Ken. Frantic, certain that he'd been in some accident while unloading trucks, or that some looter, out looking for warehouse supplies to steal from dark buildings, had come across my husband in the pitch black parking lot and shot him.

These are all perfectly logical leaps in the thought process of a pregnant woman.

I grabbed some boots, stomped up to the top of the driveway, and tried to get a signal on the cell phone. It was a completely clear night, there were a million stars, my breath was like a cloud hovering in the air, and I couldn't get that stupid phone to work. Suddenly convinced that a fisher cat was perched in the pine tree above my head, and was going to launch itself at my face, I went back inside to grab the keys to the van so I could drive down the street, leaving five sleeping children, so I could call my husband in a fisher cat-free environment.

The phone finally worked, and Ken answered. He was safe, the semi truck had been severely delayed, and he was finally on his way home.
I stopped listening as soon as I heard he was alive. I just started swearing. At him.

But let's not dwell on that, shall we?

Anyway, I tell you all this for a reason (!). One, to show you the amazing work ethic my husband possesses. This man gives his all for his job. I hope that our children see his example of a hard worker and take it to heart. Additionally, I hope that they ignore my example of a lazy schlub and pray for me.

I also tell you this to explain the beard. It seems that the fellows at Ford corporate, hearing about how the folks at the Hartford warehouse went above and beyond the call of duty and job description, decided to make an internal video for leadership about the work effort.

And they wanted Ken to speak in the video.

Ken doesn't really do public speaking. Which he tried telling his boss, who didn't care. She just wanted to make sure that he was "cleaned up", pointedly looking at Ken's fabulous beard, which was slowly creeping up on ZZ Top status. He agreed that it was probably time for a trim, and came home to break the news to me.

I loved that beard. It was outrageous. See?

Isn't that thing a work of beauty? I love the way it's shot with silver, the way it whispers of good New Englandy things: camping, maple syrup, crazy Vermont farms with turquoise pickup trucks doubling as lawn art and raised beds. That beard was epic, and was only getting better.

Then, after 45 minutes in the bathroom, we had this:

And that's a thing of beauty too. Now it looks like Sawyer from "Lost". A sort of "I'll play by your corporate leadership video games, but only marginally. Plus, I'll look even more like a badass now."

Not everyone has the ability to roll with the punches the beard dishes out, though.

Lotus was extremely angry. There was stomping of feet. There were plans to retrieve the large mass of hair from the garbage and braid it back in. There were headlocks.

That poor man. Between hormonal, hysterical wives who swear at him like drunken sailors, and children who use him as a human punching bag, it's no wonder he puts in the work hours he does.

New Header

2011-11-28T13:01:00.000-06:00

In an increasingly obvious attempt to avoid packing for our trip this weekend, with all the cleaning, organizing, and planning it entails, I made a new header for the blog.

It's one of the shots from yesterday's always ~~painful~~ memorable Christmas picture shoot. Believe it or not, this one almost made the card, since 3/7ths of the people were at least facing the camera. You know why I focus on nature photography? Because trees and flowers and fungi and such don't have faces with which to either turn away from the camera, or to arrange in expressions such as these:

I don't have the bladder strength to post what Joaquin and Gabriel were doing with their faces. Not yet. Reviewing the pictures yesterday just about wrecked my abdominal muscles for good.

It's not an accident that the blog subtitle reads as it does.

Meanwhile, In the Garage

2011-11-27T10:41:00.001-06:00

And the number one reason why I haven't posted the Thanksgiving blog:

This has been going on in my garage for the better part of the weekend-

That's my tiny little child, using power tools. Power Tools.
For those of you who look at the above picture, and see only a tender moment between father and son, please go ahead and review the Great Finger Lop of 2011.

Here
and here

See? See why I've been hovering around the garage like some mother hen, trying to shove all my chicks under my wings and for God's sake, away from the power tools, don't you know what your father did to himself with those things?

As soon as those fool men are done trying to make my life miserable by slicing off digits, I'll be able to post a proper blog. Until then, I'll be mapping out the quickest routes to the hospital.

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-22T08:15:00.001-06:00

How to tell that you're a (mostly) vegetarian house:

In the final days before Thanksgiving, the call is sounded. Through a mysterious means of avian communication, turkeys from all over are alerted...

...they learn of a place of refuge, where they will not run the risk of being the meal...

...but rather where they can find a meal for themselves.

But the problem with turkeys is that once they feel safe somewhere...

...they'll make themselves at home and move right in.

Hand me the hatchet, Ken. No turkey's going to soil our brand new roof. I'm getting us a Thanksgiving dinner!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Hug you and yours and I'll see you again on Friday.

Snapshots from a Sunday: vol. 2

2011-11-21T10:01:00.003-06:00

Thanks to everyone who participated in the second Snapshots. Again, I'm so grateful for the glimpse everyone's given into their lives. While I've yet to convince the men that they can play, too, I do know that the women who've submitted pictures cover a wide spectrum of political, religious, educational and economic experiences. All these amazing, unique people, and every one of the pictures helps provide an anchor point for us to use as common ground.

We really are more similar than different, and every life is a unique, never again seen gift.
_______________________________________________________________________________

Candice @ Candy Apple Smiles
4:51 a.m., Lawson House
My little "work" area calls, but the bed is louder.

Poppy @ My Big Fat Green Life

When: 5:47 a.m.,

Where: The Richards Household, South Lyon, Michigan- My hopelessly dreary basement

What: Ironing Napkins

Why: I believe they were multiplying like the Adipose when I wasn't looking.

Mary Kate @ Why Yes, I AM Crazy, Thank You For Asking
Between 6 and 7 a.m., Chicagoland
On Friday night, my dad sent over a lovely bunch of flowers "just because" (just because he's an awesome dad!). Because my husband and I were running out to a party for one of his co-workers, I asked our 16-year-old son to put the flowers in a vase with water. Later that evening, after we were back home and everyone was tucked in for the night, I remembered to look for the flowers; they were nowhere to be found, so I thought I'd wait until morning to ask my son where he had stashed them. The next morning, I woke up and immediately paid my visit to our 1st floor bathroom. While I was brushing my teeth, I saw something out of the corner of my eye... just peeking out from beyond the shower curtain.... MY FLOWERS! In water, yes. But, instead of a vase they were in a blue plastic pitcher that was sitting in the the empty bathtub. With 6 (almost 7) kids, I have learned that it's not worth asking "why" anymore. (And, yes, our 1st floor bathtub desperately needs refinishing. It's on THE LIST.).

Lotus @ Horses and Whales
7:41 a.m., West Simsbury, CT
God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy

Lisa @ All Things Gale
Between 8 and 9 a.m., Frederick, Maryland
Unresponsive toddler + 3rd trimester mama = improvising

Grace @ Camp Patton
Between 9 and 10 a.m., Camp Patton
Lots of Patterns (tangible and not)
1. gorgeous tapestry chair
2. both sides of nursing cover
3. Julia's (larger babe) clashing pants and tunic
4. Julia stealing Sebastian's pacifier and trying to jam into another facial orifice
5. my perpetual perch....day in, day out

Lisa @ The Education of Mrs. Swanson
Between 10 and 11 a.m., Memphis, Tennessee
The potty training and therefore bare-bottomed Little watches his older brothers playing outside.

Jessica @ There Is A Light That Shines
11:09 a.m., St. Louis
In St. Louis at the moment, hanging out at Camp Patton and learning the ways of motherhood. Turns out those moms aren't lying. It really is hard.

Micaela @ California to Korea
12:30 p.m., Daegu, South Korea
Here Kevin is showing the kids the illustrations from The Story of Dr. Dolittle by Hugh Lofting (on the iPad). They just finished it last night. He read a chapter or 2 each night before bed, but didn't want them getting up to see the pictures all the time, so now he's making up for it.

Sarah @ With A Hopeful Heart
1:37 p.m., Scene from the Patio
Our first snow came yesterday, leaving us with about four inches. This is one of my favorite places to take seasonal pictures of my home.

Amy @ So Many Things to Love
Between 2 and 3 p.m., New Brunswick, Canada
What to feed a flu-ridden house on very short notice.

Cari @ Clan Donaldson
3:11 p.m., St. Catherine of Sienna Catholic Church, West Simsbury, CT
We arrive (late) for Joaquin's First Confession. Father is giving a talk on the importance of seeking and giving forgiveness while I make myself inconspicuous by taking pictures.

Dwija @ House Unseen
5:26 p.m., Michigan
After being instructed to go into the disgusting disaster of a play room and not come out until it was clean, I found my children doing this. This obvious act of non-cleaning. In fact, the mess was getting worse as they careened around in circles. So I went to bed.

Kerry @ Signing Life
Between 7 and 8 p.m., Long Island, NY
Wearing this jersey and preparing for the NY Giants game at my boyfriend's house
_________________________________________________________________________

For those of you who remember the last volume of Snapshots, Grace from Camp Patton welcomed her beautiful son Sebastian less than a week after providing us with that shot of the most glamorous pregnant woman ever. Welcome, Sebastian! We'll have you and your adorable sister blogging in no time. And thank you to everyone who participated and visited.

If you want the grab the "Snapshots" button, the code is here:

And if you want to participate in next month's Snapshots, email me at clan_donaldson (at) yahoo (dot) com