Two, and three.

While Damm is off on an army adventure we have been having adventures of our own. Here's meself and the kiddos at the Butterfly Museum in Houston: A closer look at the Orclette's "Fancy Nancy" type hair (Fancy Nancy is a children's book character. She is always dressed fancy , hence the name): Fun at the park. Forget the slides, lets play with rocks and dinosaurs! At the NASA Space Museum. My dad works at NASA (not one of those getting laid off) and we figured the kids should see it, since the whole astronaut era is over (at the moment at least). At the Space Museum (that's not the official name, just what I call it in my head) they had various kid activities. They enjoyed the ball park the most. Miniorc finally figured out how to dunk the basketball. He had been just pushing it. The Orclette can jump in all by herself. No fear there. The YMCA we've been taking lessons at has a Splash Park. Both the Orclette and Miniorc enjoyed running through it. So ther...

The rain in Texas is incredibly different than in New Mexico. In NM it'll rain for maybe 15, 20 minutes and then it's over. Everything is muggy, if you have a swamp cooler it feels like it's continually raining in your house, and then the sunshine starts. I don't like sunshine after the rain. I'm actually not a huge fan of sunshine; my house has sunlight-blocking curtains over all the windows and I keep lights off if I can manage without them. It's like a nice cozy bear den. In Texas, which is where we are at the moment (visiting my parents) it rains for a good long while. Frequently it even stays dark and overcast after it stops raining. And because Texans would never hear of having swamp coolers (because in this humidity it wouldn't work at all, whereas in NM it just doesn't work during the summer months. Works fine in spring and fall. Yeah, it's totally wrong) the house stays nice and cool, and it even gets a wee bit nippy. I'm also soaking up...

Last night I was up past midnight watching The Return of the King . I didn't finish, but I figured my kids probably wouldn't sleep in if I actually needed them to sleep in, so I called it quits right after the battle for Minis Tirith. I was woken up this morning by my daughter, the Orclette, telling me quite seriously that "It's morning time momma. The sun is up! We need to be up! It's morning time!" She does this every morning, so it wasn't a shocker, but I haven't been sleeping well lately. I believe I growled at her and then groggily made my way to the coffeepot. She didn't stop there, however. She thought it'd be a great idea for me to get her milk and could she please sit in the chair that I painted with flowers and turn on a movie and oh could the drink be milk and I am cold momma so I need some cold water to make my tummy feel better and where is my milk? As you can imagine, I did not find this amusing. I think I had managed to get the ...

As anyone should know, little children + food usually=grossness. Sticky messes, bread that had milk/juice/whatever spilled on it, food that has picked up additional flavor from being on the floor, etc. I didn't have any problems with encountering child-enhanced food until this past week. You see, I'm mental , as Ron (from HP) would say. The calorie count would get messed up if I shared with my kids or if I ate something they shared with me. So we just stayed far away from each others food. I had a recurrence of pericoronitis, however, and was anxious to get started on the antibiotics. I was in my car, racing to get to work on time, and couldn't find any type of liquid. Finally I spotted one of the kiddos' drinks, which I thought had contained water and/or gatorade. So I washed my antibiotics down with it. Then it struck me that the "water" tasted a mite funny, and then I noticed there were red dots in the cup. I still don't know what the red dots were, a...

In case you didn't know, the Women's World Cup is currently going on. There was a teeth-clenching, tension-building quarterfinal match-up between Brazil and the USA which we managed to win in PK's (penalty kicks, taken when the game ends in a tie and both 15-minute overtime periods have been played and the teams are still tied). Japan, a team who hasn't really been considered a team likely to win the tournament, beat powerhouse Germany in their quarterfinal 1-0 in one of the most splendid displays of defensive and technical skill I've seen. Then Japan beat Sweden 3-1 in the semifinals, proving to everyone that a collective playing style can win games (I've said that all along but the commentators didn't agree with me until Japan scored their third goal against Sweden). The USA beat France 3-1 in a slightly less emotional game. So now it's the USA vs. Japan in the final game on Sunday. I'll be cheering for the USA, although Japan is now my other team...

Last fall I had a powerful hankering for pumpkin bread. I think it was around September/October. Went to Walmart and lo and behold: no pumpkin. Desperate for pumpkiny goodness I finally ended up buying organic pumpkin puree from the local health food store. It had a very interesting taste, but it was pumpkin. So I stockpiled pumpkin puree throughout last fall when Walmart finally started carrying it. I'd buy 4-5 cans a week, use 2 of them (reduced calorie/fat and protein enhanced pumpkin bread was a staple because everyone liked it) and save the others. Didn't actually end up with as many as I had wanted (there were weeks I forgot to buy pumpkin so I had to use what I had) but enough so that, when the pumpkin craving hit, I was able to make pumpkin bread. I have now used the last of my hoarded pumpkin, and man is that bread good. Here's the recipe, in case you wanted it: 3 C. Flour (I use a combination of white and whole wheat) 2 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. baking powder (the...

It all started at 13, suddenly jerked out of bed and started doing pushups and sit-ups with no control over his body. Other events happened along the same time as well. Walked past a sign up for swim club when his body stopped listening and he just walked over and signed up. Random sudden loss of control became common. He’d lose control every morning and night for what was apparently a regular workout session; same with swimming; same with weekend runs. He had no control over what he ate but only ate healthy. Side effects of this were nice, a healthy strong body with excellent form and reflexes. But loss of control was harsh. Testing showed he could slightly hold back intensity or contribute to it but mostly control wasn’t his. His hobby was apparently to be a puppet, a glove to someone else’s hand. As a side effect, he laughed at others ideas that “such and such teacher was controlling” or that “so-and-so’s parents were so intrusive”. Teenage movies about kids wh...