This morning I pulled the car up the roundabout and stopped by the stairs in order to give Paris the shortest walk to the front door of his school. He lingered in the passenger seat for a minute, warming his hands over the heater vent before braving the single-digit temps outside. I know he doesn't want to go in, and that even after school he's going to be working all night on a project that's due.

Paris: *sigh*
Me: "Yup. Good morning, buddy - you can do it."
Paris: "It's morning."
Me: *nod*
Paris: "Friday morning."
Me *nod*
Paris: *epic voiceover- voice* "DAWN... OF THE FINAL DAY. 7 PERIODS TO GO"


At that moment I wanted to somehow have all the things that he was stressing about in his day be magically resolved, and I wanted to take him with me to run errands and adventure downtown so we could be together and talk all day. I love every padawan, but I don't think it's possible to overstate my like of my eldest son.

I introduced my children to hummus today at dinner. I insisted on the first two bites but by then they decided that they all liked it and we ate quite a bit. I'm very glad I have children who'll eat what I ask them to and who keep an open mind when they eat new foods.

But let's talk about my kitten!

My kitten wishes to be with us, always and anywhere we are. She is, however, smart enough to stay away from the table during dinnertime. The truth, as she knows, is that during dinner she is in grave danger of being unintentionally trampled by a random water-run (traditionally, a full-out sprint to get a refill of water) or spontaneous acting-out of a scene. Our dinners, always family affairs filled with wildly gesturing children and loud stories and laughter, are... exuberant, to say the least.

The last few times we've had family dinner our kitten has been sitting in top of our Blu-ray player, just under our huge TV and next to our Wii, watching us.

"Look what our kitten is doing! She's so silly," I said to Cai tonight, serving him another spoonful of applesauce.

"She's doing what you do," he said, stuffing about 3x more food in his mouth than I would have suspected would fit. Seeing me eying him judgmentally, he mumbled "Shorry, mummrs," around his mouthful and endeavored to swallow as much as possible so as to clear the evidence of his transgression.

"Take your time, Cai - chew, then swallow," I said automatically, adding "What do you mean, 'doing what I do'?"

Cai was too busy trying to chew his mouthful of food; in his place, Syd piped up.

"The thing with the oven," she said, picking up a piece of bread and attempting to butter it with the not-quite-pliable stick of butter, biting her tongue in concentration.

( This story, contrary to the lead-in, has very little to do with kittens.Collapse )

"Yes!" said Cai, and then suddenly everyone was back to eating and the conversation turned to 'What 4 people you would kiss if you had to'.


So now you know what my kitten does during dinner and what I do after. Which story could have been considerably shorter but... well, this is just how we do things here. Everything relates to everything else and everyone's connected.

Even kittens and mommersez.

I love the fact that friends everywhere are making movies. I wanna make movies too!

Maybe I'll go out in the 2-inches-and-falling snow we have today and take pictures. Only instead of interesting cityscape I have the rolling foothills and instead of a dog I have my 4 padawans! ...er, I'm not so sure anyone would be interested in that movie. Hmm.



I love to dress up and I do it fairly often because I work in a fun boutique downtown. My boss likes how I dress even though sometimes I am quirky, I admit. Like last Sunday when Eve had a little holiday sale, for example.

I got dressed, put on makeup and came from the bedroom ready for work.

"Wardrobe Consultation, if you please!" I chirped, stepping between Jme and Fareed Zakaria GPS, one of our regular Sunday morning TV shows. I turned a few times, spreading my arms out, so he could see what I was wearing. Black mini, heavy white tights, striped white & black & red sweater, ballet flats, and my hair up in a ponytail with a long white ribbon tied up in a bow.

Jme leaned back on the couch, evaluating the vision before him.

"Very cute, but, uh, you look like, ah, er... you kindda look like an ornament," he finished in a rush, wincing a little at having to say such a thing.

I quickly ran through all the possible connotations of 'looking like an ornament' while I stole his coffeecup and took a sip (EW how can anyone drink coffee so bitter and DARK! Manly men are crazy).

"That's absolutely perfect! Thank you, sweetheart," I said happily as I bounded back into the bedroom for my coat, gloves, scarf and purse.

I didn't see Jme roll his eyes or shake his head but he was smiling when I came back out to him.


Anyway, I wish I had more parties to go to where my friends and I could dress up and be glamorous. I wish I could spend long evenings dancing in velvet-hung rooms or eating and laughing in a candle-glow circle. I'm too busy working and going to school to make real friends with the fancy downtown drinking/party crowd who make a lifestyle out of this sort of thing - and plus I don't want that lifestyle, I just want to do it very once in a while (I couldn't really afford to hang out often having champagne at Suite200, anyway). It's more than a want, really - it's a longing. I suppose the best solution I have is to have more fancy parties myself? Anyway, I wish that I were in Stockholm this season - Sandra has gone to about 5 parties and she has a ton more to go! Look how wonderful:

nathalie's 25 birthday party. from Sandra Beijer on Vimeo.

I'll have to wait until late January, when I have access to the software on the school's computers, to think about making movies again. But maybe I should start planning now for that party, eh? You're invited, of course :)

Good Morning! It is cool this morning but it's supposed to get up to a perfect 87 degrees! I stayed up cleaning 'till 2 last night! We are not talking about if I finished getting my room cleaned!

So tonight is date night and as usual we'll be at The Museum of Contemporary Art's Mixed Taste lecture series. But after that, oh yes AFTER that, at around 8pm, who KNOWS what will happen! You know what kind of things happen with The McLandsborough and I on Friday nights? Things like inflatable deer heads.



Seasiren and boyfriend were rather surprised that we showed up at a rather small bar (The Cruise Room) carrying inflatable deer heads, but they're such great sports that they immediately turned our double date into a triple date! Bill and Susan Deer had an AMAZING night. [For notes on each picture, click on the picture to go to my Flickr page]

I got tons of pictures - everyone who commented to us or looked interested, I took a photo with the Deers. Here are some of them: ( Say hello to my leeeettle friend...Collapse )

I have visions of a little house, tiny and manicured yet architecturally interesting inside. It is a favorite day-dream of mine. The elements of this house, inside and out, often change to suit what most pleases my mood right at the moment.

( Tonight, I clearly see my little house..Collapse )

I was with Gala and Nubby. They wore matching outfits as usual, white and blue, Gala in a dress and Nubby in pants. I suspected they were a couple and I wanted to say to Gala, "How much of this relationship is because you just broke up with your guy?" but I understood the draw to 'dulling the pain in someone new' and I thought our friendship was too new to get so personal right away. I decided I'd wait to talk some sense into her until we hung around for the day, later in the evening over dinner. And because I know that Gala and Nubby always take a picture of what they're wearing each day, I said, "Hey, while I'm here... let me take your picture for Outfit of the Day together!"

They enthusiastically agreed and headed around to where there were a series of stairs at the side of a building. They went to the second floor to pose on the landing there and I shifted the cigarette to the right side of my mouth so I could bring the camera to my eye. I centered them interestingly in the shot using one of the handful of composition tricks I knew. If only I had Dream Worlds, this shot could be so much more interesting I thought, referencing an expensive book I really want but which has to be ordered from the publisher in order to get it to my downtown Denver's Tattered Cover. Up on the stairs, Nubby motioned me to wait while she fixed her hair.

( I started thinking about the cosplay photoshoot I'd done of my friends last week.Collapse )

I was going to work on my illustration skills tonight by going to Dr. Sketchy's after I got off work at 5, but I think I'll take it easy tonight - I'll draw two pages tomorrow. First thing I'll do when I get home is jump under my covers in bed and get warm while I figure out that dream! Then soup and homemade foccacia for dinner, and then I think a little hot chocolate is in order - maybe some popcorn? Oh, and Pawn of Prophesy, my favorite go-to feel-good book! Am I the only one with a book like this, or do you have a favorite book you pick up and put down whenever?

Anyway, I wish everyone a very good evening. <3!

I was careful not to be too silly around my children.

( Once upon a time...Collapse )

SO. The story. The story of when Cai, my 6 year old crazy son, had to put the breaks on me. Yesterday.

I get dressed for school, get the kids up and dressed and fed, and leave at the same time they do: them to walk to school, me to drive to the bus. Yesterday it was typical Colorado fall weather - winter in the morning, summer during the day, and cool fall at night. So dressing for school, we all wear layers and modular clothes. My favorite changeable item of clothing this season is my long knit socks - and by socks, I mean two to-my-butt almost-tights. The great Fall thing about them is they turn into knee-high socks with a few rolls down, then slouch socks for mid-day, or they're warm and snug as tights, all the way up, when I'm headed home at 10pm. I <3 long socks!

ANYWAY (and I realize I've lost all the boys already), yesterday morning I was telling Maddie and Syd and Cai how I had on AMAZING INCREDIBLE SOCK TIGHTS.

"Let's see!" said Maddie, and Syd added, "Let's see! Let's see!"

I wouldn't have if Paris had been around - a 13 year-old does not need to see his mother's underwear. But since it was just the girls, and Cai's still a baby and doesn't hardly even care about that whole boy-girl difference...

( Oh yeah. I showed them.Collapse )

Cai snickered. "You have Picachu on your underwear..." he snorted, and turned to go up the stairs, yelling, "PARIS! GUESS WHAT MOMMERS DID..."

Oooooooh dear; Now I was in BIG trouble!

Today was all about the bean and bacon soup.

See we had the soup last night with dinner, but I put in too much Lawrey's Salt with Tabasco and I was the only one who liked it. So I put it in the refrigerator after dinner and Maddie off-handedly said, "mommers, why are you even putting that in there? No one's going to eat it!" and A Thought was born.
__________

I wake my children up with a backscratch and a little light talk about the day - what it's like outside, what to wear, what breakfast is, what's going on at school, what the plans are for snack or afterschool or that evening. This morning I made sure to talk about it being April Fools Day - tricky, and full of jokes and silly things. A pretend sort of day. Believe me, for a child as young as Syd and Cai the world is still a surprising place with new things happening all the time and new rules about how to live popping up all over. A bit of advance notice does little to mediate the shock of the new, as you will soon see.

So everyone clear on that, up and dressed, the padawans came down to a breakfast... of bean and bacon soup.

( Oh em GEE, WAT?!?Collapse )

I am fairly certain that one or two dreams tonight will involve horrible scary soup. Also, I will not be able to serve bean and bacon soup for a great long while.

(TOTALLY worth it!)


PS. Best Internet April Fools Joke: World of Warcraft: The Molten Core. Watch the trailer - and then scroll down for concept vs. ACTUAL screenshots. Hahahahaha!!

On Tuesday Paris slunk into the kitchen, bonelessly slumping against the counter and surrounded with a miasma of world-weariness that only a pre-adolescent can generate.

"Moooooom," he wailed, "I can't STAND this week. It shouuuld be Thursday tomorrow! Can't you make it Thursday tomooooorrow?"

Stopping in the middle of drying off the plethora of pots and pans I had washed, I raised my eyebrow at his posture and plaintive tone. Wordlessly I handed him my towel and a wet pan and said,

"Paris, I'm a little busy right now and I've got a lot of work to do by Thursday. But I'll tell you what; you wait until tomorrow and I promise to make it 'Thursday tomorrow'. Now dry these pans while I load the dishwasher, villain." I added, mock-scornfully.

His eyes clouded with thought for a second, and then he let out a bark of surprised laughter.

"That's a GOOD ONE, mom!" he said, giggling and straightening up to dry the pan with vigor.

We finished the dishes together and he even wiped down the table while I did the counters, chatting and singing to the kitchen radio. I didn't hear any more complaints about the week going too slow, so I assume he's satisfied with how I kept my promise. ;)

__________

( And then there's the matter of my 120 new best friends, all of whom only come to my kneesCollapse )

I could be wrong.
I could be the only person who calls little babybottoms by this name, but I think not. And unles this company has a marketing department of 4 people, someone should have said,

"Well, the product is fine, but, um...maybe the name is an unfortunate choice? I say we go with the second choice of 'Rolly Polly Cocoa Oh-lies'."

Unless it is a nefarious plot to drive mothers everywhere crazy by encouraging children to make jokes about our butts the whole of breakfast. And not very good jokes, at that.

Guess who's having gruel for breakfast tomorrow? Bwahahahaha!