2WW2q1~@`w~!q

Title courtesy of Edward who likes to type.

I once told Steve that anyone who refuses to use a neti pot has no right to complain about a head cold. Like when Patrick used to say, "I'm bored" and I would make him clean the playroom (do you know what Patrick never says anymore? that's right; I'm clever) every time Steve started to complain about being congested I would ask, "Well, have you used a neti pot? Then shut up" and he would slink away to call some male friend who would no doubt gasp, "A COLD? MY GOD! That's terrible! You should go to bed and stay there for at least a week." But he wouldn't moan to me about it so... self-righteousness and efficacy, the gin and tonic of a happy marriage.

And then, this winter, he DID. Steve DID use a neti pot and he realized that I had been right all along (not that he said so, exactly, but I could tell he was awed and humbled in my presence) and suddenly the implication of my edict was realized. He has a head cold. He uses the neti pot. And he not only gets to describe his minute by minute respiratory issues in hideous detail, he gets to whine about them. On the plus side I fully expect the neti pot to reduce the time of my suffering (his suffering, whatever) by half. On the minus side the illness will seem four times longer.

Hmmm. You know, when Edward woke me up at three in the morning on Sunday he said, "Oh Mommy, Mommy, hold me. There's an owie in my ear. This is terrible." I thought it was adorable and compelling but it occurrs to me that in 40 years it'll just sound like whining to someone.

+

The whole family went to the farm this past weekend (my first time with Caroline and Edward since last summer; Steve and his friend have been de-deathifying it all winter) and it was extremely pretty. It has taken me over a decade to appreciate a Midwestern Spring. When I first moved to Minnesota I thought it was the sorriest excuse for a season I had ever experienced. I was used to DC where Spring shoves its tightly corseted daffodils right up into your face, the azaleas leave embarrassing marks on your collar and every dogwood you meet tries to grope your crotch. Here Spring is coy; just out of the schoolroom. It might offer you a glimpse of a grassy ankle but then weeks will pass before you get so much as a peep at its shy violets.

Three hours south of here and just across the river we didn't get the full burlesque of a MidAtlantic  *M*A*Y* but it was cheeky nonetheless and the kids (ours and theirs - they being our co-farmers) filled plastic cups with enough picked flowers to make our mothers' day breakfast table look like a parade float.

Next time I'll take pictures inside the house, if you're interested. It's amazing what Steve and friend accomplished with a million weekends, craiglist and a whole lot of paint.

+

Edward is a sweetheart. A loaded baked potato with extra butter and bacon. He gives spontaneous kisses with both hands cradling my face. He says things in the middle of reading a book like, "Oh I yub you SO MUCH." When Caroline started crying in the car because he had 40 cars in a case on his lap and she had none he said, "Oh I can help you!" Then he asked her about her favorite colors and what kind of car she would like and although in the end, of course, he never gave her one of his precious cars he did manage to distract her for at least five minutes with his cheerful conversation about cars he might give her if he were so inclined.

He also wants to be just like Patrick. I'm biased like a directional error but I think there are worse ambitions.

I love this picture. And I'm fascinated by the unintentional similarities.

More Edward in all his fake-crabby glory.

Just to add a data point or two to my theory of fluctuating electronic doomy doom doom doom:

- A few days ago the babysitter had just put the kids to bed when our security system spontaneously short-circuited, causing the fire alarms to sound without ceasing. A few minutes later the monitoring company called to check our status and when the sitter was unable to provide them with our secret password they called my cell phone. Me? I was watching Rio (meh) with Patrick in a movie theater and had courteously turned off my mobile electronic device. So ADT dispatched the fire department - as was right and proper - giving Edward a thrill, the babysitter a heart attack and Caroline... I think Caroline got ideas for her next performance art installment.

The security company could not determine why the main board fritzed so they replaced it and did not charge us for the service call. The fire department, however, was less understanding about their wasted trip. So as a cautionary tale - if you have a security system you might want to consider giving people who have your permission to be alone in your house the necessary codes to stop the shrieking should the alarm commit seppuku. You're welcome.

- I was going to add that my return to the farm this weekend was marred by the water pouring through the ceiling of the house where we had been planning to stay but considering the fact that the most recent inhabitants were a family of raccoons it hardly seems fair to attach cosmic significance to the plumbing failure. Less misfortune than inevitability.

- However, the fact that I came home from the farm on Sunday and found that our DVR had died ("Oh!" the Directv minion said brightly. "I know that error code! That's a fatal error!") taking five episodes of The Killing, the entire season thus far of Upstairs Downstairs, 62 episodes of Little Einsteins and heartbreak of heartbreaks the Turkish Grand Prix... all gone - that was clearly a continuance of our bad luck streak.

+

Speaking of performance art Caroline was clearly just born this way. Every goddamned day she seems to come up with a new way to do something ordinary.

Want to see what I discovered when I went upstairs to wake her up the other morning? She had gone off to do her morning closet shelves climbing exercise but this was what her bed looked like [click here.]

Honest to Betsy what do you DO with her?  

 I mean besides dress her in all the bright colors I have never been able to wear.

This is my favorite series:

Ah! A spring blossom!

Nature's first green is gold et cetera.

Splendor in the grass... glory in the flower

Aaaaaaaaand done.

So she tossed it over her shoulder and most likely stepped on it later.

Revel in nature's majesty? Check. Next up: flight!

Comments

[Shawna]

I love that picture of the shed with the red door!

And your children are as cute as ever, of course!

[quirkfarms]

yes please pictures of the farm house...houses? quirkfarms

[virtualsprite]

I live on half a Wisconsin farm - our land is half of an 80-acre plot. We got 40 acres and our neighbor kept his 40 -- so these pictures remind me of home. Only I live in north central Wisconsin and we don't have pretty flowers like this. If spring is coy there, it's a frickin' nun where I live.

[katherine]

Title nearly gave me a heart attack. I thought for a moment that you were entering a 2WW.

[SusanG]

I can't help you with the Turkish Grand Prix, but you can watch Upstairs Downstairs on pbs.org.

[Carla Hinkle]

I just finished reading (loving, devouring, obsessing over) The Wilder Life (which I highly, HIGHLY recommend) and the photos of the Midwestern Farm Spring have me all verklempt. Imagining Half-Pint et al frolicking through just such a spring 150 years ago. Sniff.

[Jen]

And The Killing from the AMC website. The detective reminds me of you, in fact. Tonight we catch up online with the two we've not seen yet.

Lovely pictures, all. Even the tub. Our middle son slept on the floor of his room (head right in the doorway) for over a year. Company would think it was odd when they saw him lying there on his floor in his doorway, but we got used to it quickly. Used the bed to store bedding during the day.

Grew out of our insistence that he stay in his room at bedtime. He'd get up, sit just inside his door and play with cars until he fell over from fatigue. We'd find him bowed forward, forehead on the hall carpet, cars and knees lined up with the edge of his room carpet. That morphed to just bringing a pillow and sheet to the floor.

Older brother complained one day that we'd never let him sleep on the floor. Why, be our guest, darling. He announced the next morning that it was stupid do that because it wasn't comfortable.

And that really sums up both of them, the striving second born and the mellow older.

[Terri C]

Caroline is so totally a force of nature... and I agree Edward could do MUCH worse than be like Patrick (though the school system may have the collective vapors when it is faced with the twins). I think Steve probably has a Sinus Infection. And it would have been MUCH worse without the neti pot. So there.

[Lisame]

The neti pot. Same story. Different location. I was rather smug when he finally bowed to my higher intellegence.

[Nancy]

ha ha... I thought 2 week wait as well!! Where did your babies go!? My God they are getting so grown up looking! Great pictures, it is amazing how Patrick and Edward's smiles look alike! I hope the cloud of doom moves swiftly away and all your electronics/appliances get under control!!

[Terri C]

Also I have to say, I looooove the farm. I would not like any of the work involved in keeping it up, unless I had lots of friends to help, but... the landscape? the flowers? yes....

[Christina]

Edward looks so much like you, and Caroline looks so much like Steve! They are both adorable (as is Patrick). Love it.

[Heather]

Love the bed in the bathtub. :-)

[Becca]

One time our landlines died (squirrels like to chew on the tasty wires), but first called 911. I learned of this when the cop showed up at my door asking what the emergency was. No one has ever figured out how this happened.

[victoria]

Oh, my word, your kids are adorable and make even my Grinch's heart grow four sizes with joy.

[Beth]

Edward has the BEST eyebrows. Might seem like an odd thing to say, but he really does.

[victoria]

Oh, your sentence, "Here Spring is coy; just out of the schoolroom" -- is that a Nancy Mitford reference? (When she wants to convey the attractiveness of a debutatnte character in "Love In A Cold Climate" or "The Pursuit of Love," she'll say "she was married the moment she poked her head out of the schoolroom.")

[RocketGrl]

Happy Lucky 13 Day.

You and the twinks made me a firm believer that 13 is Lucky.

[Monica C.]

A "grassy ankle" - hilarious!!!

You have pushed my nosy button: I want to see the inside of the house. :)

[parodie]

Oh my goodness they look so ... big! and kid-like! What did you do with your toddlers?

Hilarious as always. :)

[Ann]

The twins crack me up every time you talk about them. Edward looks just like my friend's kid, who sent his mother with a notebook full of questions last time I saw her because "Ann knows more about Harry Potter than you do, Mommy." And Caroline just makes me glad she isn't mine to chase. :)

[Kirsten]

I am going to remember the gin and tonic formulation! Love to read your posts and to hear about the kids. They are adorable.

[SarahB]

Ah, your farm photos made my heart ache. I grew up in the Midwest and now live in the DC metro area, and I always get a little homesick in the springtime, though springtime here is lovely.

And, as someone who saw a farmhouse in her family demolished due to disrepair, I'd love to see how you are restoring one. It would do my heart good.

[Debby]

So how is Patrick? This latest picture, he looks fantastic; the picture of health. And yes, Edward is his mini-me.

I had to look pretty far back to get other pictures of him. I guess it's because he's in school all day, but he is very underrepresentated in your blog photos!

[Ellie]

Oh, why did I read that bad luck post? Today is Friday the 13th, and one of my 4 girls had fever for a week and a stomach bug, her twin had a stomach bug twice, my oldest fell off her bike and screamed for an hour while trying-but-not-really to remove her band-aid the next day, my second daughter was covered in her sister's vomit, two ladies engaged in a screaming fit when one of them refused to let me sit in my reserved-for-strollers spot, we had a parking ticket, the car was damaged, the car has a flat tire, my husband lost another client and my husband forgot to send something for his taxes and has a 3000$ penalty. Those things never happen to us all at the same time. I really hope this is over now. It is a good thing I have your blog to laugh.
On the neti pot topic, before it was a word I learned to do a nose bath with salted water, just sniffing in the water from my cupped hand (and spitting it). I don't know if the neti pot is superior, but in both cases I guess you have to be desperate to feel better to shoot water up your nose like that.

[KR]

As a fellow redhead with a brunette daughter, I also dress her in all the colors I've never been able to wear, and she has the exact same bright rainbow-y plaid shorts and hot pink tank top ensemble that Caroline is sporting above. She hasn't worn them yet, but I hope she rocks them as well as C!

[Alexis]

Maybe the guys can't get over putting a schlong up their nose. Just sayin'.

[jen]

That title freaked me out. When I saw it while scanning my reader it looked like 2 week wait followed by a genotype. Weird, and you can tell where my head is. The children are beautiful as always, Caroline sounds . . . hmm, what's the word, exciting?

[Kristine (Mommy Needs Therapy)]

Your Edward, my Kiel, like two pees from the same pod.

And I too was a bit freaked when I saw the 2WW of the blog title.

[bethany actually]

Given that I grew up in the Midwest (Omaha) and now live in DC, I read the paragraph about the dogwoods grabbing you in the crotch, etc. with enormous enjoyment. I love your writing so!

[amanda]

Ok Ok Ok Ok, FIRST.

YOU HAVE BIG KIDS NOW. Where did the babies go?? Where did the toddlers go??? When did these... KIDS... appear?!

Second: you are hilarious and we adore you.

[Hetty Fauxvert]

That shot of the shed/farmhouse/whatever with the red door and the flowers off to one side. Wow. Very evocative. You didn't rip it out of a magazine, did you? :)

And Edward has stunning winglike brows. If he learns to quirk one of them at a time, any females in the vicinity will be instant goners. (As if they're not already! LOL!)

[Betsy]

That series of Caroline pictures made me laugh out loud (really laugh, not the slight grin an internet "LOL" conveys). I wish we were neighbors so my force of nature could play with yours.

I get happy every time there is a new post here. Your writing is awesome.

[Tine]

Goodness...Caroline really does wander around in the middle of the night and sleep in the tub! Part of me thought it was hyperbole (very funny, well-written hyperbole, of course!)...I stand corrected.

[Beth]

Your paragraph about spring should alone be a reason you need to write us (it's about all your readers, ya know?) a book...good goodness you're funny and brilliant. Maybe we need multiple books

And then, coupled with the absolute adorableness of your children? Please never stop the blog -- because as the mother of a thirteen year old daughter -- I can't wait to see Caroline's foray into teenagerhood. Perhaps they can give you multi-strength valium?

Thank you for sharing. Your posts are highlights to my weeks.

[Rebecca]

Twinlets are looking like little people and not like babies any more!

[winecat]

I agree Edward could not pick a better role model than Patrick.

As for Caroline I'm interested to hear about her next episode of performance art - what inspiration, a fire truck.

Last but not least what happened to those adorable little toddlers? When did they turn into adorable little kids?

[Amy]

I'm relieved that I'm not the only nut here that thought the title was about a 2WW.

And yes, I would love to see pictures of the farmhouse!

[Heather]

So sweet!!! Love the pics! And I love that Edward wants to be just like Patrick and Caroline is awesome being the busy creative princess. You have awesome kids, but you know that already.

[Jen]

Just wanted to clarify above that my confused mind said The Killing was online, when in fact, I was watching it from On Demand with at least a week delay in it appearing on there.

[Courtney]

I have to stop reading your blog at work. I LOL and people look at me like I'm having a fit.

I love Edward's eyebrows....very Jack Nicholson

Caroline, oh Caroline. You will never ever be bored with Caroline around.

Can I come and visit your farm? It looks so wonderful! Yes photos inside PLEASE :) :) :)

[liz]

My son has the egg shirt Patrick is wearing in that photo.

I love your photos, and Caroline is quite the creative spirit!

[Mel from Michigan]

Yes indeed Jen. The first thing I thought of when I watched The Killing was "That's the woman in MN with the twins!!! Julia!"
Eerie really :-)

Of course I couldn't find a picture to show my boyfriend, so he thinks I'm crazy!

[Crystal]

Ha... I've been telling John since he was two that my FAVORITE words are "I'm bored". As I go all Lucy in "Sloooowly I turn. Inch by inch" maniacal... The boys know they had better come up with some reasonable facsimile for I'm shmored, and fast, because my chore list is long, and getting longer by the minute, and boy could I use some help... You are clever, Julia, if I do say so myself. :)

I've been telling folks I never appreciated spring. Growing up in L.A., the seasons are Rainy (brief), Sunny and 78 (our version of "spring"), Ungodly hot (tooo damn long) and Sunny and 78 (something resembling fall on Mars). I never understood the appreciation of spring, there is no green in LA, only brown. Spring preceded "hot", the longest and my least favorite season, as far as I was concerned, they could both hustle along and bring on the fallish weather. There is something about snow up to your armpits though that makes one appreciate things like mud, and... you know, earth.

I had to laugh at Lee, 21 of our acres are open pasture, the remaining a solid wall of trees on 3.5 sides. He's been saying in the weeks since our snow melted (with increasing hysteria) "Do you think the trees died? They have no leaves." No dear, I don't think it likely that some hundred and fifty + trees all spontaneously died due to one oddball winter. Sure enough we have leaves, and (bottom of the) thigh high grass to be hayed next month (craigslist rocks, amen) and wildflowers and songbirds and I'm positively giddy.

Me, the cloud-worshipper. The one my daughter accused of being Emo before there was Emo (Mom, you were GOTH! she hissed when she came to live with us after her parents gave her the boot... no kidding kiddo, where do you think you got it from?).

I like spring. The mud, the gray, the rain... I'll like it more when we have a barn proper to lock the horses in during inclement weather, but even through the inconvenience of trying to set up a homestead of sorts with a crazy spring... I love it.... Strange.

I can't imagine Caroline with any other name, but she has a hefty dose of Jackie, don't you think? She knows how to make her presence known in a most unique way...

[Tripta]

the bathtub picture made me laugh out loud.
more pictures of the farm, please! (i know, am echoing a lot of others here...)

[SusanG]

I did not notice the 2WW in the title until I read it in the comments. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that she has hidden that code for us to discover and until she expressly denies it, I will assume it is true.

[suzi in Vegas]

hulu.com

Get thee an output cable from your laptop or PC and hook to TV and stream what ever you missed on your DVR. It is good. It makes me happy. Its basically netflix for television. But instant gratification for new episodes.

I used to take naps under the sofa when I was C's age... I had a fondness for removing sofa cushions and making a nest in closests, corners... I think even a book case once (take out middle shelf and all materials and climb in to nap. Safe, comfy and secret and clever. YAY!

[Rebekah]

So much I would love to respond to here, but am running out the door for our middle boy's pick-up and just have time to say HOLY CRAP PATRICK IS TALL! When did he get so BIG?!

[Jan]

OK, help us non-geniuses/whatever out.
What does:
2WW2q1~@`w~!q
mean?

[Kez]

I've decided the title means Edward is left handed.