Recap

It really feels like Spring has sprung around here. This weekend was so great. The windows were open and we cooked out on our brand new grill. I made barbecue baked beans and cut up giant amounts of fruit from the local market. We saved some of the watermelon seeds and are going to plant them...somewhere. Last year I had watermelons growing in my compost pile. It was fun. Sometimes things really are free. I also plan on growing pumpkins from our seeds from October. If these experiments don't pan out, no big deal. I've only sacrificed a little grass and some water.

I also made sweet potato baby food, which New Baby just LOVED. He was covered from head to toe. And it was so easy, I doubt I will buy any jarred baby food at all this time. I had a neighbor give me a bunch of jars of baby food left over from her baby that are still good. I sent a good bit of them to the sitter and kept just a few. When she runs out, I will send her frozen stuff I have made ahead of time. I am kind of excited about it, actually. Of the jars we have, a lot of them are meats, which I never used to buy because they look just like cat food. Blek. If all else fails, I might actually feed them to the neighborhood cats! Who will, to pay me back for my kindness, probably poop in my pumpkin patch.

Our yard was filled with neighborhood kids yesterday. Brother was displeased about this because, frankly, he is a grudge-holder. Many of the kids had pissed him off in one way or another and he plain didn't want them around. I tried to reason with him.

Me: Honey, look at all these kids! This is great! You used to love having kids over.
Bro: They just want to be here because of the swing set and the barrels and the Nerf guns and the cool mom who gives everyone treats!
Me: (flummoxed) Isn't that what you want? Isn't that what every kid wants? I am pretty sure that is the wish on an episode of Fairly Oddparents!

But that's apparently not what Brother wants. (But he is not the only kid in the house who needs a social life, so he is overruled.) Brother wants his select friend (singular) to hang out. He sees all the other kids as 'using' him. And it does suck when kids want to come over to play with your stuff and not you...but they might be more willing to play with him if he weren't so grouchy about it all. He is totally my payback for being such a grouchy negative kid. I keep chirping at him, "Change your attitude, change your life!" which is stolen from Erin. But I think it is better than my parents' approach: If you don't have anything nice to say, don't talk. Boy, did I hear that one a lot.

Ah, parenting.

Weekend

The weekend is almost here and the sun is so shiny and beautiful and the breeze is so warm. I called Honey from the office to tell him to open up all our windows to let in the sunshine and air. Ahhhhh. I can't wait to go home. I am considering just leaving early.

I took off Valentine's Day in lieu of having President's Day (that's Monday. Don't go to the bank or post office!) off. So, no three day weekend for me, but boy do I wish I could have one. I am tired. And oh, I miss my kids. I feel like I never hold New Baby. But New Baby thinks he should nurse every time I hold him! (Honey says: Well, if you walked into a Baskin Robbins, wouldn't you want ice cream?) And I am fine fine with nursing a lot if he is hungry. But he is not. And therefore there is much biting and pulling and ouching and fussing as he latches on again and then gets mad that there is no room in his stomach. This morning, he was playing this game with me while I was trying to get a few more minutes of rest and he bit me so hard that I yelled so loud that Honey came running.

Man, that hurt. Good thing my kids get teeth late.

Still, I think that when I get home, I am going to go get a nice cotton quilt and lay it under a tree and bring a couple of toys to play with the Baby in the backyard. I miss him. I only see him a couple hours a day and it is trying because a) he is one of three little people demanding my attention and b) I am tired from working and c) sometimes I just want to sit and read and not have anyone ask me for anything. I have to work on c.

Know who is just a great big brother? Jelly Bean. When New Baby fusses, Jelly runs around and sings songs and gets him toys. He will come hug or kiss New Baby for no reason. It is really awesome. I wonder if it is more about Jelly's personality or the age difference, because let me tell you. Brother wanted nothing to do with Jelly Bean and will only reluctantly shake a rattle at New Baby if New Baby is screaming his cutesy little head off. Although Brother will readily admit that he likes New Baby way more than Jelly Bean. My response? Wait until New Baby can get into your stuff and THEN we will see how you feel about it.

Looking forward to the weekend. We don't have any big plans. I am going to try my hand at making some baby food. See if I can't dig up the other half of the garden and start my tomatoes and peppers (which should have already been done.) Maybe we will go see a movie.

Hope the sun is shining in your backyard!

Lunch

As Ma Ingalls always used to say, "It's an ill wind that blows no good." One thing about Honey not being employed as of late is that I get a lot of lunch dates. Which is good because I hate paying a sitter on top of normal weekly childcare for us to go out any other time.

Today's lunch at Wendy's was fun. Being with him is always fun. He brought our tray to a table near an older couple (Old folks love The Wendy's, yes?) and then went to go get drinks and ketchup for us, the sweetie-heart. The gentleman asked me if I liked my waiter and I told him, "Oh yes. He's really cute." Needless to say, he got a big kick out of that and chitchatted a bit with us here and there. It was kind of fun because he assumed that Honey and I worked together and weren't married. So he kept telling Honey that I was 'having a good time.' Which I was. I love being with him. He makes me feel all shiny and I am sure it shows.

Honey and I did have a bit of an argument over a reading selection I have to make. I am going to do a reading for Read Across America week for a couple of classes at Brother's school and there are no recommendations on what sort of thing to pick. So I wanted to pick a YA novel that started out pretty quickly. I was thinking of Fablehaven (but I don't think I could get to the fun parts in 20 minutes of reading), Dealing with Dragons (which starts out pretty good, but you don't really get to the dragons in the first 20 minutes), or Percy Jackson (which starts out with a warning...so always an attention getter, but I worry too many of the kids will have read it.) Honey wanted to know why I didn't choose Harry Potter. It starts off quickly, is immediately interesting, and I have read the whole series aloud to Brother, so I have the voices pretty much down.

But I don't want to read Harry to the class. While I lovelovelove the books, I know there is a lot of controversy surrounding the books. Children in my neighborhood are not allowed to read the books. Bringing a controversial book to my son's school does not meet my desired outcomes. I want Brother to be glad I came and not get any flack for it. I want TAP and the school librarian to be glad I came. I don't want any fallout from my visit.

Honey didn't agree with my self censoring. He stated that Percy Jackson and Harry Potter were practically identical (a fact that I concur with). He stated that I was validating crazy philosophies (which I do not necessarily agree with). He said we would have to just agree to disagree and he admitted that if he were in my position, he probably wouldn't choose to rock the boat either. I am of the opinion that it is not my place to wage war. I am not the librarian. I do not get to choose what is in the collection or develop their challenged materials policy. I doubt they even have a collection development or challenged materials policy. You pick your battles, you know?

Anyway, engaging conversation, cute guy, decent food and I made an old man's day. I think it was a pretty awesome date.