Soup Day

I made soup today.   It was enough days past Thanksgiving that the leftover phase was over and I was faced with a ham bone with a good bit of meat still on it that I wanted to take advantage of.   I took my son to the store so that we could round off my soup recipe with a few ingredients I was missing.   We got back and my daughter helped me make the ham and vegetable soup I've been making ever since my mother taught me how to when I was small.   The soup simmered on the stove for some hours and then everyone had soup for dinner.

I wonder how many other Americans were making soup today?  I wonder what calendar day of the year has the highest incidence of soup making in homes.   I'm sure I could look this up, but there goes the sense of wonder, right?   Maybe I will when I finish this blog post.

My reasoning in thinking today may well be one of the highest soup-making days of the year is because Thanksgiving leftovers make excellent soup to start.   It's been enough days of eating the leftovers in their originally-served form to make many people tired of them and it's cold (or it commonly is this time of year.)

I love soup.   I think I'll be eating my soup for at least a week.   I like this soup so much that I don't mind at all.   The only thing I don't like about this soup is I like it so much I overeat because I have too many bowls.   It is possible to gain weight eating soup, trust me on this.

The Big Boy Update:  Although I didn't look up details about my "soup day" thought on the internet, I do go to a browser many times each day for various things.  Of late my son has been asking what,   "<thing one> and <thing two> make."   Most of the time I can answer him because I know what seven and four make as well as what twelve and three and three and three make.   Sometimes he asks tough ones though.   He's been on a color combination kick lately and I wasn't really sure what pink and orange made so I went to a higher authority: the internet.   I told him, "ah, it makes salmon or coral, depending on how much of each color is added."  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  We got our Christmas tree today.   It's not decorated yet, but it's up in our basement.   My daughter came in from playing outside before dinner, walked over to the tree, hugged it and said, "I wuv you."

The Search Engine Resume Skill

Do you remember when search engines were just getting traction back in the early 1990's?  It was an exciting time because we suddenly had the ability as end users make a request for specific content and have suggestions returned to us.   If you asked your question correctly, you could get meaningful results.  If you didn't ask your question specifically enough you would get garbage—or quite possibly porn—links instead.

I remember honing my search engine skills.   I knew all about the "-parameter" option that would help eliminate undesirable results.   For instance, if I wanted to search for a bikini top for my Jeep, I might enter, "bikini top jeep -ladies -model -nude."

Back in the nineties, knowing how to properly specify a search engine string was a skill not everyone had.    Back then, not everyone could sift through the internet via a search engine and get useful results the first, second or even third time.  I helped out enough people that I felt like I could add, "proficient at searching the internet" on my resume at one point.

Today, the search engine battle is largely over.   A few major companies have won market share and they did so by providing an excellent product.   Today, you don't have to be experienced.   You can just type into that top little area some words describing what you want to look for and you're going to get some good results.   You don't even have to go to a search engine to do so.   You can type straight into the URL field and your browser will forward the request on to your preferred (or default) search engine.

The Big Boy Update:   Blather.   My son was washing his hands using a lot of soap.  My mother told him to lather his hands.   He told her he was getting a lot of "blather" and he was going to help his sister get her hands blathered too.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Pocus pocus!   My daughter and son had a magic wand today that they were using to perform all sorts of magic with.   Mostly the magic was to turn people into frogs and then back into people.   My daughter didn't quite get the "hocus pocus" phrase though.   She insisted on calling out, "pocus focus!" as she waved the wand in our direction and exclaimed we were now frogs.

The Bed Rail Mystery

We had a set of bed rails we used for the children when we travelled over the last year or so.   There were multiple locations we'd visited that had twin beds we could put them on to prevent any roll-off falls my children might have had.   But as we packed for this trip I noticed they weren't in the usual spot so a hunt ensued.

My mother and father had kept them the last two trips at their mountain house so we assumed they were there but when I called, they said they had looked and didn't see them.   We looked in the children's storage area and the attic and no luck finding them at home.   My husband and I are pretty organized and these bedrails aren't that small so it was a bit unexpected that they were missing.

We decided at that point that the children were old enough to not need bed rails (due in part because of the missing bed rails.)  So we headed to the mountains and hoped for the best.

In their bedroom in the mountains we stuck a large throw pillow against the corner area of the night stand at each bed and put the children to bed at night per usual.   And no one has fallen out yet.   I came in one time to find my son lying sideways on the bed with his head dangling over the edge so I rearranged him.  Other than that, I think they've graduated from bed rails.

The Big Boy Update:  My son has been saying lots of things lately that are so very toddler-appropriate.  Here are a few of them:   My father-in-law was out in the snow for a long time with my son (who never seems to get cold.)  His mittens were wet all through after climbing several trees so my son had finally had enough.   He said to Grandpa, "let's go inside, my hands are freezie."   After drying off, we got ready to go out to eat.  I asked my son which shirt he wanted to wear.   He pointed to the basic blue shirt with the horizontal yellow stripes on it and told me, "that's my electricity shirt.  I want to wear that one."  He's called that same shirt his electricity shirt before, so he must know what he's talking about.   Then, as we were leaving the restaurant from dinner tonight, my mother pointed out the first-quarter moon, showing only the right side of the moon visible to the children.   My son said, "where is the other half?"

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter decided to read some books to Mimi today.   She read not one, not two, but four books to her.   She read every page too saying things like, "beh dah bluh deh" and other non-word syllables.   My mother said if there had been more time, she would have gladly read more books to her.

In the Absence of Cooking...

...we had a delightful Thanksgiving.   We're at the mountains visiting my parents.   My in-laws are here as well and today at noon, dressed in our holiday best, we went to my parent's country club for a Thanksgiving meal.  Not one of us cooked.   No one had to clean.   It was so nice.

We got dressed to go with: my son had on a green vest and my daughter had on a green sequined dress.   They looked much more dressy than they normally do.  We decided to take pictures.   My father set up a camera on a tripod with the timer set and every was called into the big room.

Unfortunately,  family photo was mostly a failure due to a tantrum my son was throwing.   He had started the tantrum some time before and was getting more and more upset as he wasn't getting his way—which was random and mostly irrational.  

We got to the country club and my son still wasn't able to compose himself, so he and I stood outside until he finally calmed down (or got cold enough in the snowy weather).   After that, he was a model child for the remainder of the time.

We met the club manager and many of the people working for the day's holiday service.   I thanked them all for working on Thanksgiving as I got food from the buffet.   They were all so friendly and happy—it must be a nice place to work for.  

They had a magician coming around the the tables doing magic for the children.   My children loved the foam balls he made appear and disappear in their hands.

The food...oh dear, it was good.   There were so many things I wanted to eat that there just wasn't room for.    I ate more than I should have, but I'm not sorry one bit.

We came back and my mother-in-law an I made cookies, some of us played Scrabble and there was an adventure had in the snow by the children and some of the grandparents.

It's been a good day.

The Big Boy Update:  Where are the handlers?   We were watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade this morning and my mother-in-law was explaining to my son about the handlers and how they held on to the large inflatables and walked them through the parade.   We kept looking for a view of them, but usually the cameras were focused on the inflatable itself.   At one point my son got very close to the television and looked like he was looking for something at the base of the table it was set on.   As we were telling him to move back, we suddenly realized he was trying to look into and below the bottom of the television to see the handlers who were out of frame.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Stair stepping.   I noticed my daughter has gotten big enough now to take stairs like adults do: one step at a time.  She's taller at three-years-old than her brother was and can take the stair steps with ease.

The Difference of a Day

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.   We'll be celebrating with both my parents and my in-laws and I'm looking forward to the time we'll all share together.   Today we arrived at my parent's mountain him and my in-laws are arriving shortly.   My mother was playing with the children out in the snow so my husband and I decided to go do some quick shopping before the holiday got into full swing.

We went down to the shops and got a parking space in the front row.   As I walked into stores I was greeted with enthusiastic sales people, eager to help me—even if I didn't want any help.   We had a pressing need to go shopping (we had forgotten something) and I was necessarily wary of the pre-Black Friday prices.   But what I found surprised me.  

I was told by sales people in store after store that everything in the store was fifty-percent off.   They had to get their sale signs up before tomorrow; they had to mark down items before the early Black Friday sales started.  So, everything was already on sale.  I got through the entire outlet mall in record time, finding several things I didn't even know I needed ("needed" being completely subjective.)

These same stores will be mobbed after Thanksgiving tomorrow.    It will be hard to find help, because everyone will be busy ringing up the lines of customers.     I think I'm going to shop on Wednesday before Thanksgiving from now on.    What a difference a day makes.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was playing out in the snow with a spiderman toy, talking to himself when I heard him say: "this is Spiderman's invention.  He gave it to me when I was Peter Pan."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter said today, "oh no, my tutu came off!"   I said to her, "I think you mean 'tattoo.'"

The Under-appreciated Cleaner

My children were eating dinner at the two bar seats beside the kitchen sink tonight.   They were lollygagging.   They were dawdling.   They were fidgeting.   And most of all, they weren't eating their dinners.   I didn't mind if they didn't eat their dinner, because they could eat a larger breakfast in the morning.    (This is what happens when you don't like or want what's been served to you.)  

It was then that I had it explained to me that they would really like cookies.   That would be just the thing.   I explained that once they had eaten all their broccoli and rice, they would be eligible for a cookie.   They became suddenly interested in their food.    They started eating.    And as it always goes with rice, they started spilling things on the floor.

I knew they did this.   I didn't think it was all that bad in the past.  They got done, ate their cookies and headed off somewhere.   That's when I saw the mess.   The big mess.   The rice all over the floor and the cookie crumbs on the chair.   And how did they get the rice to fall that far away from their chairs?    That's when I realized we were missing our cleaner.  

Our dog is visiting my in-laws.   My dog loves my mother-in-law.   I knew the dog cleaned up any droppings, but I didn't have a true appreciation for the scope of the job until tonight when I was on my hands and knees, wiping up rice and cookie crumbs.

The Big Boy Update:   We had our school's Thanksgiving celebration in the classrooms today.  My son's class all went around and said one thing they were thankful for.   My son said, "I'm thankful for daddy coming to my class."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter can completely wash her hair on her own.   She lies back and gets her hair wet in the tub, squirts shampoo on her hair, rubs all around making a nice lather and then rinses it off.    Sometimes she washes her hair two or three times.

Fitness Update:  Five miles.   It was unseasonably warm weather this morning which made for a fun run.

The Sandwich Crust Consideration

We have to be careful as parents.  Children want to push and test and see what they can and can't do.   They're all about boundaries.   Or at least they are at three-years-old.   I have a strong suspicion they will continue to be all about boundaries until they're grown and out of the house—and I wouldn't be surprised if they still tried to push boundaries even then.

If you give a child one jelly bean will they be happy?  Yes, they probably will be.   But I would bet a large sum of money that that child will ask for a second jelly bean.   I'd put even odds that the child would ask for a second jelly bean even before finishing the first jelly bean.   They might even ask for a second jelly bean before you've placed the first jelly bean in their hand.  

You have to make a decision in your mind about what you're willing to do and what you're not willing to do and you have to, must do, and without fail, follow your plan.   Unless, that is, if you want your cute little children to become whining, yelling, screaming, tantrum machines.   They're going to do this anyway, but it's how often they do it and to what degree they will go until they realize they're not going to win and give in that you're working on.

If you set a precedent that they can get another jelly bean if they're persistent enough and wear you down with asking, begging and pleading, I can assure you you will get a lot more of the asking, begging and pleading in the future.

Have you been out to a restaurant and seen a child get ready to throw a fit and then the parent says no in a serious but emphatic voice and then seen that child accept the decision and move on to something else and not be upset by it?   Have you seen a child throw a tantrum in a restaurant and watch as the parents give in to whatever the child wants just so he or she will quiet down and not be an embarrassment?   I expect my children do to the former, not the latter.

Point in fact, my children are still learning and we are dealing with a lot of the second scenario right now.   My husband doesn't like our children to make loud noises and disturb other tables around him and I agree, it is rude and inconsiderate.    So, we end up hauling our children outside until they calm down.   (And by children, I am mostly referring to my son, who is very strong-willed and opinionated.)

But we are not giving up.   We don't plan on giving up.   Today my son picked up his hotdog and was horrified that there was black char on part of it.   He declared it yucky and I was afraid he was going to throw it on the floor (which would have been the end of his meal, no matter how hungry he was.)   He was upset and started making this annoying wailing noise he makes when he desperately needs to ingest some calories.    My husband took the hot dog and was about to get the black off when I realized we were at a precedence-setting junction.

I said something and my husband agreed saying, "yes, it's like cutting the crusts off a sandwich." So he handed the hot dog back to my son, telling him if he didn't like the black part, he didn't have to eat it and we could give it to his sister.    My son ate the hot dot.   He stopped complaining about the black char.   Undesirable precedence setting event avoided.

I liked my husband's analogy of the crustless sandwich situation.    The crust doesn't taste that much different than the bulk of the bread, but if you start off cutting off the crusts, you may well find yourself cutting off the crusts for a long, long time to come.

The Big Boy Update:  My son used a urinal today.   I don't go into the men's room with him so I didn't know if he'd ever done so before.  My husband said he's done it once before, and that today was an easy one for him because the urinal went all the way down to the floor.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Ghi Ghi and Gah Gah.   My children have two "friends" they include in their games together sometimes.   These two friends aren't full imaginary friends, but references to people they want to invite places or bring a meal to or perform some sort of medical experiments on.   Their names come up all the time.   My son corrected my pronunciation today so at least I know I've got their names correct now: Ghi Ghi and Gah Gah (not related to the Lady Ga Ga I'm fairly certain.)

Fitness Update:  It may well be that our trainer is trying to get us to pre-burn off all the calories we'll be eating on Thanksgiving.   It was a tough day at the gym.   My neighbor, Uncle Jonathan and I also signed up for another Marathon that's in March of next year.   This one isn't on pavement, which makes me actually interested in doing it.   We've been looking at training schedules today and it looks like we're going to need to get serious about training in less than a month.

The Raggedy Writer

I try to write this blog using correct grammar, I try to punctuate the content in these posts using standard rules.  I do my best to write without too terribly many typos (even though they sneak in all the time.)  And I try not to be too dreadfully dull.

Typos seem to run amok in my writing, but since most days I "write and run," I can accept the ones that sneak in, it's the punctuation that bothers me the most.  For instance, should there have been a comma before "write and run" in the sentence above?  Should there have been one after the quotations and if so, should it have been inside or outside the quotation marks?

And terminal punctuation.  Does that give you fits too? For example, take the sentence: "let's meet at eight." Does the period go inside or outside the quotation?  I thought I knew the rule (it was dependent on the quotation: inside for stand-alone clauses, outside otherwise.)  And then I found out that rule was Brittish and that American rules were, "firmly established" in that punctuation was always inside the ending quotation mark.  Or wait, it was if the punctuation was a period of a comma.  If it was an exclamation mark or a question mark then the rule varied based on the sentence.

I thought I had it.  I thought I understood the rules and yet with more reading the situation turns out to be even more complicated.  I'm not giving up though.  So if you don't mind my grammatical and punctuational errors, (and my desire to use made up words like "punctuational,") then i'll keep writing, typos and all.

The Big Boy Update: My son came downstairs this morning, climbed onto the bed and told me, "i want chocolate cake for my birthday." Then he said, "is it Christmas already?"

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter asked for a paper towel at the restaurant the other day. She brought it back out to our table and then I realized what she wanted. She wanted me to tuck it into the back of her shirt to make a cape.  She wore that paper towel cape for almost an hour.

Fine, Beat Each Other Up

This morning I had had it.   The children weren't being kind, gentle, gracious or even friendly to one another.   My daughter was wanting to hit her brother over the head with a small, wooden toy.    My son wanted to make monster sounds at her, bear his, "claws" and push her down.  

Normally I would step in.   This morning I decided I was mad enough (at something entirely unrelated to the children) and I let them fight it out.   I wanted to see what would happen.  

I told them I was not going to help them and if they didn't like what the other one was saying or doing, then they could go somewhere else.   And then I watched and waited.     Interestingly enough, the physical fighting part was over fairly quickly.   They were annoyed at each other for a very short while and then they were the best of friends, happily running off together on some adventure that got them locked outside without jackets on in forty-degree weather.  

In short, they worked it out.    It's important that we help our children learn that physical violence isn't the best way to work out differences.  They're young and they are learning to express themselves in words and in order to do that, they need to understand how they feel.   It's a lot for three-year-olds (wow, still strange thinking I have two children of the same age right now.)

But sometimes, children need to be physical.   They're not monks in meditation all day and it's not fair for us to expect them to behave as such.   I didn't see either of them doing anything dangerous or harmful; they were just mad and wanted to express how mad they were (at what, I really don't know.)

I'm going to see how they work things out on their own more in the future.

The Big Boy Update:   My son is learning things at school.   He successfully zipped his own jacket two times today, including lining up the initial tab to start the zip.   He also wanted to talk to me all about the second hand, minute hand and hour hand on the clock today.   He was quite interested in counting out the seconds, even if he wasn't sure what he was counting towards.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter likes to color.   Okay, scribble.   More like make a mess on a piece of paper.   But things are starting to take form of late.   She does more curvy lines and tries to make something specific, telling us exactly what she's drawn.    Today, she colored in a shape on one of the dry erase boards.   She worked very hard to stay within the lines.    We had talked about this a while back, but she didn't have the fine motor skills (or perhaps inclination) to do it.   She was quite pleased with herself today when she colored in the penguin's body.   Then she immediately got the eraser and wiped it clean so she could do it again.

Fitness Update:  Five miles.   This is an interesting five miles though.   It's not running.  It's not even outside.   Today we spent time in the house, went to a two-hour birthday party and then came home.   It's bedtime now and we're still in the house.   My iPhone tracks steps and apparently I've done almost twelve-thousand steps today, racking up over five miles of distance walked...mostly in the house.   I knew I moved around a lot in the house, but I had no idea.

The Unnecessary Ugh

Something snuck up on me.   It was one of those slow sneaking things just like a cat does when it's stalking a bird.   By the time the bird realizes the cat is there, it's just too late.   This is a post about pain.   It's about my neck and my spine and how, well, there are issues.

Somewhere around this time last year or maybe at the beginning of the year this year I started feeling something in my left arm.   It was vague bits of paresthesia running down the top of the shoulder.   I thought, "well, that's not good, let's hope it goes away."   It came and went and it was vague and not that often and I hoped it was an alignment issue in my spine.

I had the chiropractor do an entire workup on me, including X-rays, to help them as they adjusted my spine.   I didn't want to know the results, but since they hadn't gotten any diagnostic information since 2005, before my first fusion, I though it was time.   The one thing I did talk to them about was where things were getting worse and that wasn't a surprise either.   My spine is fused from C5-C7.   The area that was degenerating the most was C4-C5.   My spine surgeon had considered fusing it back in 2005, but decided not to.

I have high bone density so I was fairly certain my vertebra were doing that thing they do oh so well, growing bone and working towards fusing that junction all on its own.   But I hoped it would get better and leave the left arm out of it in the process.  

It didn't.  The paresthesia got more prevalent and towards the latter part of the year was happening a lot of the time.   This means there is pressure on either the spinal cord itself, or the bundle of nerves coming out of the spine, heading down the arm.

As the year drug on something else happened that I didn't quite connect.    I just didn't want to work out any more.  I didn't want to run; I didn't want to go to the gym and I really didn't want to do anything like train for a race.   I just wanted to get in bed at the end of the night and sleep as long as I could until the children woke me up.

Things just hurt.   It was like nerve pain all over when I moved and it was frustrating that I couldn't really get out of nerve pain.   I thought I may have brought it on myself because I stopped taking anti-inflammatories, but after several months without, there had to be a sort of leveling-out.   Besides, the pain I was feeling (for the most part all in the trunk area) wasn't inflammation pain.  I know all about inflammation pain.   It was like my nerves were just angry—and that anger was spreading and getting worse.

I saw a commercial for Lyrica and nerve pain and I made a decision I was going to do something.   I was going to go to my doctor, get a referral to a pain clinic and see if I could do something for a few months to calm my nerves down.   I talked to my neighbor about it (the doctor) and she said that like a wildfire, sometimes you need to quell the entire fire and that looking into something made a lot of sense to her.

I had been saying of late how I felt so old and how nerves seemed to get more sensitive with time and that I'd heard the saying that older people felt their, "bones ached" and that I felt like that all the time. How was I going to make it to be a grandmother if things were this painful now.

But back to the Lyrica commercial.   I had been prescribed Lyrica almost ten years ago when it was newly out.   It helped.   I remember it helping a lot.   What if I was just having nerve-related spinal cord myalgia? Would some Lyrica help?

I made an appointment with my general practitioner and saw a new doctor I'd never seen before.   I was quite impressed with him.   He understood my reticence to take medication and my feeling of pride in not being on any medications.   I was on so many for so long and I don't want to go back there.   Having to be on a prescription medication now makes me worried it's the beginning of the end and it will never get better from here on out.

He though Lyrica would be a good idea to try and understood I wanted to do it for a few months and see how it helped.   He put me on the lowest dosage you can be on and I'll see him again in a month.   Then, he did some tests to see how my strength was and if there were any nerve issues.  

I had had progression of the arm situation in the last month, meaning it was getting worse.   I now have phantom itching down the arm a lot of the time.   I know that's not good.   I also know I need to get it checked out to find out what needs to be done next and I plan on doing that.   I also worry that's going to be the beginning of the end as well, but it's got to be done.   He told me everything looked great...except the left arm.   He showed me reactions and compared the two arms.   The left has nerve damage and it was quite easy to see when he showed me.     Oh well, I knew it was getting worse.

But on the up side, I've been on the Lyrica for four days now.   I have been looking forward to going to the gym and it hasn't been awful when I'm there.   I don't dread getting down on the floor to help my children get dressed and I've found myself expecting things to be painful that turn out to be not at all painful.

For example, I was in the kitchen and something dropped on the floor.   I leaned over to pick it up and exclaimed, "ugh" because I knew that motion was going to be painful for me to do.   But it wasn't!   I didn't need to say ugh at all.   I was so surprised.   I was so relieved.   I was so excited.    Then yesterday I was putting my daughter into her seat and she dropped something between the car seats.   I looked at it and thought, "well, I'm not getting it, it will have to wait until we get home."   And then I realized that I was thinking that because it looked painful to lean over.   But was it?   I reached down, got the toy and smiled...because it didn't hurt.  

I hope things keep not hurting.   I didn't really realize how bad it had gotten.   The spine problem is still there, but this is a good step for now.

The Big Boy Update:  "I think he's at the exercising house."  Uncle Jonathan sent me a link to a funny YouTube channel.   It's a comedian and body builder making fun of all sorts of things that happen at a gym.   My son came over and wanted to sit on my lap, asking what the person on my screen was talking about.   I told him he was at the gym (cringing as the man spoke an uninterrupted chain of swear words).   My son was entranced.   He wanted to know all about this working out thing (he's never been to the gym with us.)   After a minuted he told me, "I think he's at the exercising house."   I told him I thought he was right.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had a speech and language screening test today at school.  Her Receptive Language Skills (language comprehension) and her Expressive Language Skills (language usage) were at a "pass" level.   She was also a "pass" for Fluency/Voice (rhythm and smoothness of speech).   Then there was the Articulative Skills (sound/pronunciation) section.   She got a "Pass with age-appropriate errors".   I wasn't at all surprised at the errors that listed: "Used W for L, W for R, F for TH, B for V"

Fitness Update:   We stayed for extra time today and did ten minutes more workout than normal...and I was okay with it.   The reduction in nerve pain is making a tremendous difference in my overall mindset and ability to do things.

Microwave 7

We have a microwave that's primarily black.   The area in the kitchen it's in has sunlight land on it much of the day and as I walk by, I can see all the smudges and marks we've made with our fingers as we've entered times to microwave and opened and closed the door.  

Commonly I'll sweep back by with a cloth and clean up the marks.   I do this because I have a tidying problem, but then you all knew that.    As I clean off the microwave keypad, I can tell which numbers are used more than others.  The other day it reminded me of scenes from movies where someone has to guess a key code and they do so using information gleaned from which numbers or keys were most commonly pressed.

The one on our microwave is a busy number.   So is the three for thirty seconds.   I use the two a lot because I do twenty seconds for breads.   Forty, twenty-five, fifty, even sixty or ninety seconds are things I might enter into the keypad.    But what about seven?

I don't know that I've ever used the number seven key on the microwave.   Maybe there are settings I might use like seven for seventy-percent power, but I don't know if that's even an option.  

The seven key might be broken for all I know.   Maybe it's not even connected.   Maybe, just maybe, if I use the seven key I'll find out I'm the winner of something unexpected like my own island in the south pacific.

Tomorrow I think I'm going to microwave something for seventy-seven seconds, just to see what happens.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was sick and vomited several times recently.   Each and every time he seemed almost sorry to have made a mess.    If it was in the car, he would quietly sit with it all over him and follow our directions on how to get out of the seat so as to not make more of a mess.   When he got sick in the house, he was holding his hands over his mouth, literally trying not to get it everywhere.   I told him it was okay and he needed to get it out.    What a thoughtful guy.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Where's Mickey?  My daughter got a new Mickey Mouse stuffed animal for her birthday.   Not an hour after opening the present, my son got sick and threw up all over it.   My daughter helped me with the wash and because the top of the washing machine is glass, she watched the load in progress.   Mickey would appear and then disappear within the load as it spun.    She was very happy when he was clean.

Fitness Update:  Today we did only two things at the gym.   Two very long alternating sets of stuff that was designed to make your legs very very tired.   I wonder how they'll feel in the morning?

Walking Chivas and Regal

I didn't baby sit much when I was young, but I did do other things from time to time.   One time my mother asked me if I would be interested in walking some dogs for neighbors who were going out of town.   I liked dogs, so I said sure.

I hadn't been to this neighbor's house before as it was a good bit around the corner from where I lived.  At that point in my life, four houses down seemed like an entire other neighborhood.  

When I got to the house the dogs were barking in the back yard.   They had a huge back yard with lots of ivy-covered ground and old growth trees.    The dogs, named Chivis and Regal, came running up to the gate and were happy to see me.    My mother told me they were named after a famous alcoholic drink which was brown in color.    When I saw them for the first time I didn't think doberman's looked at all like the brown liquid in the bottles in my parents cabinet.

I went into the back yard and played with them for a little while and fed them.    Sometimes I would take them for a walk.   I didn't need leashes I was told because the dogs knew how to heel.    I didn't know what heeling was but my mother told me it meant the dogs would stay by my side.  

I haven't seen dogs do this since that day, but those two dogs would come out of the gate get on either side of me and walk right along with me down the road.   One of them—I think it was Chivas—wouldn't even stop to go to the bathroom; he would just leave a zig-zag trail down the road as we walked.

I believe Regal died over the winter for some reason and the next spring when I was asked to walk Chivas again I remember wondering if he was lonely without his friend.   I had a conversation with him about it as we walked down the street together but he wasn't able to tell me.

The Big Boy Update:  We heard this key child phrase for the first time ever out of my son yesterday: "can you buy me that thing on TV?"

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter figured out how to spin and spin and spin the office chair tonight.   She spun herself, Papa, her brother and then she spun herself some more.   I remember how much I loved spinning around in a chair when I was young.

It's Okay, I've Worked in Fast Food

Let's rewind to Practice Thanksgiving last Saturday night.   It was a great night.   I'm still thinking about it.   I'm particularly still thinking about it because a turkey has a lot of fat in it.    I know, it's terrible, right?    Wait, what?  You mean you don't know what I'm talking about?  

I know my sister-in-law does.    She and I have talked about how much fat and grease is involved in cooking a bird.   The bigger the bird, the more the fat and grease.   When you make a turkey, there is the pot you cook it in, the place you carve it when it's cooked, the platter you serve it on, the pan you make the gravy in, the plates you eat it on and everything else in your kitchen or at your tables that interacts in some way with that turkey.   It all gets greasy.

Today, four days later, my husband still hasn't gotten all the grease out of the baster top.   I'm getting tired of looking at it in the sink.    If he didn't love making a turkey so much I would request we just go and buy one in the future.   My husband does make a damn good turkey though.   He's been working on his gravy too and this time, he got it just right.

When it comes time to fill up my plate, I almost always get very little turkey.   I'm more about the side dishes.   We have a friend who's vegetarian and he never, ever complains or even says anything.   He put the few things on his plate that worked for him and had a full meal.  

When the meal was over the cleanup started, amidst the continuing adult chatter.   My vegetarian friend wanted to help, but he didn't really know what to do so he asked me if there was something he could do.   I saw the big pan of gravy and asked if he could put the remainder in a container and put it in the refrigerator.  

I looked away to wash another wine glass but when I turned back, I saw him doing a very good job of getting the gravy into the container while trying hard not to smell it.    I said, "Nitin, I forgot you were vegetarian.  I'm so sorry, would you like another job?  I can do that."   He said, "I just got a whiff.   It's okay, I've worked in fast food."

I couldn't help it.  I laughed.   That gravy, no matter how good it was to me, was unsavory to him.    He finished the job though and put the container in the refrigerator.   Then he helped me dry dishes while we talked.

Turkeys are a lot of work and a lot of grease and to some of us, a delicious part of Thanksgiving dinner.   But not everyone sees turkeys the same way.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was home sick today.  He was lethargic all day, although he had no fever.    We were planning on going grocery shopping.   My daughter said we should get some bwanas.    My son said to her in a correcting tone, "no, they're not called bwanas, they're called blanas."  I told them we would be sure to get some "bananas".

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had an edamame bean the other day and she was playing with it.   She decided she wanted to see if it would fit up her nostril.   When I saw her doing this I told her beans didn't belong in her nose, they went in her mouth.    I also told her to ask me about when the doctor found a pea in my nose when I was three.  

An Un-parented Meal

Something happened this weekend that hasn't happened before: my husband and I were able to sit at a table and have an entire meal while talking to our friends.    Well, okay, it's happened before, but not in this particular way.   It's happened lots before children and it happened a good bit when the children were small enough to nap or go to sleep early, but for a number of years the children have needed a lot of, "management" during meals.  

Management involves helping them eat, telling them they have to eat, telling them they can't have candy for dinner, explaining that they can have more french fries as soon as they finish the broccoli, getting a towel to clean up the spill, stopping them from touching the other child's food, explaining that we eat with forks, not our hands, agreeing that chocolate milk would be wonderful but that we're having regular milk tonight, etc., etc.

My children don't have eating problems.   By that I mean they eat when they're hungry and stop eating when they're full.   Some meals they eat a lot and some meals they hardly eat at all.   It balances out and they have flat abs but are well-muscled and I'm almost jealous of their tiny little physiques.   As they've gotten older they've gotten better at feeding themselves without much help.   They're good at putting their plates up on the counter when they're done so the dog won't get on the chair and eat their food and they're competent at wiping their hands and face when they're done.

So this Saturday at Practice Thanksgiving dinner we put out their plates and beverages and we sat down with our friends to have a nice meal and conversation.    I forgot about my children.   So did my husband who was at the other table.  We had friends of my children there and all my children wanted to do was play with their friends.   When everyone was done eating they all romped upstairs to play.   The sounds of running feet and laughter meant things were all okay, so we kept eating.

It wasn't until the dessert course when both of my children were getting tired and cranky that we had to intervene and get them ready for bed.   I thought back on the night and remembered myself as a small child at friends and family gatherings.   I remember my parents sitting at tables long after the meal was done, talking about all sorts of, "boring adult stuff" and drinking wine or scotch.  I didn't understand why they would want to just sit there, but I was glad they did because that meant I got to play with my friends for longer.

Now I'm the parent who wants to sit at the table and have that boring adult conversation with our friends while drinking a glass of wine.   I'm still in no particular hurry for the night to end though.

The Big Boy Update:  He knows the story.   I've heard that children will learn a story you read to them and then will be able to read it back to you even before they can read because they've memorized the story.   I found out my son can do this last night.   My daughter was having a hard time settling down so I told them I was turning off the light and I was going to tell them the last story in the dark.   It was a pretty easy story and I thought I remembered the general gist.  As I started telling them the story my son would cry out, "not yet.   She falls on her cotton stuffed bottom first."   And he was right, I had forgotten that part.  I let him help me through the story in the dark and was very surprised by not only his knowledge of the order the story was told in, but also the exact phrasing used in the book.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Butt medicine.   My daughter says her butt hurts her.   We're not sure if it's itchy or painful but on two occasions now she has decided to self-medicate her butt.    She goes into the drawer with the children's medication and gets something and puts carefully on her finger and then applies it to her butt.   The first time it was a hydrocortisone cream and the second time it was a bacitracin ointment.   The second time I found out about because our cleaning lady came out and said, "Is it okay that she's putting medicine on her butt?"  We had a conversation about asking for help if you needed medicine because an adult would know which medicine is the best to help.   This morning she was looking in the drawer again, pulling out each tube and asking, "is this butt medicine?"   I'm not certain anything is wrong, but her annual wellness appointment is tomorrow so we'll have the doctor take a look just to be sure.

Fitness Update:  I went to the gym this morning.   I haven't been much or very regularly of late.  I've been looking at the clock to see  how long we have left and I haven't been doing my best workouts.   Today for the first time in a while I think I was glad to be there and in no particular hurry to leave.  I know a lot of it's pain-related but some of it must be motivational as well.   Regardless of the past, today was a great day at the gym.

Lessons, Work and Freedom with Responsibility

My children go to a Montessori school.    There are a lot of comments I hear people make about Montessori education that aren't particularly accurate.   People have heard things fairly extreme, such as children do whatever they want and that all the teaching is done by older (and apparently indentured) students.

Montessori is a little difficult to easily define.   All the certified Montessori teachers I know have said the same thin.   But I can tell you this: the classrooms aren't out of control and the children don't get do "whatever they want to."   But there is a basis in those statements; it's just gone a bit awry.   I think one of the best phrases I've ever heard to describe a Montessori classroom environment is that the children have, "freedom with responsibility."

Yes, they can choose their own work.   But that work must be work they've been given a lesson in.  That might mean the work is too advanced for them and they're not yet ready for it.  It also demonstrates control as a child must request to be introduced to a new activity.   Part of that responsibility as they get older is a balanced education, which means you can't avoid math just because you don't like it.   Each student makes a lesson plan with their teacher that covers all curricular needs for the child.    The child can then choose their work for the day, but their work selections across a week would need to balance out.

And what about children teaching other children?   Yes, children do that.  But that's no different than what happens in your back yard.  My daughter knows how to do the most death-defying moves on our trapeze bar on the play structure.   She has learned how to do this because an older child, Keira, showed her how.

Montessori classrooms are mixed ages about over a three-year span.  Children like to help and many times an older child will offer to help a younger child with some activity or work.   I asked my daughter's teacher if there had been issues getting the new shoes on we'd sent in the week prior.  I knew they were a challenge for my child.   The teacher said, "I haven't seen any problems, but it's very common for an older child to step in and help a younger one if they see that child's having a difficult time.

From a lesson standpoint, other children can give lessons as well.   Let me interject here that a "lesson" is something you are given by someone that helps you understand how to do a particular "work."  For instance, I might give you a lesson on how to fold an origami duck.   You would listen to my words, follow my instructions and I would make sure I gave you help if you needed it and answered any questions you might have.    That's the basis of a lesson.  

We give lessons all the time at home here, such as "would you like me to give you a lesson on how to get toilet paper off the roll?"  This turned out to be an important lesson, because without that lesson (and the expectations it set) there was a lot of unnecessary unrolling of bathroom tissue.   My children knew all about lessons, immediately stopped and got ready to "learn something new." They now know how to select a reasonable amount of tissue and how to tear it off.   (Sometimes we have to have remedial lessons on this point, but hey, unrolling a roll of tissue is kind of fun, I agree.)

Back to the student's teaching students thing though.   So what if a child wants to learn something they don't know how to do?  The teachers are busy at the moment but there is a five-year-old who very much wants to show a three-year-old how to use the safety glasses, vice and saw.    This is exciting for the older child.   And sometimes, the younger child  understands another child better than they do an adult.

So there is freedom in the classroom, but it's responsible freedom.   I think about my life as an adult and I can draw a parallel.   I have the freedom to get in my car and drive anywhere I want.   However, I use that freedom responsibly by following all the traffic rules.

This is not at all what I planned on writing about today.   I had a whole topic in mind but I wrote the first paragraph and then I spent all the above talking about the educational environment I see my children thriving in—an environment we try to extend into our lives at home.    My post was meant to be about something I saw that don't fit into that mentality.

So should I just end the post and finish this tomorrow?  Hrm, the kids are quiet upstairs and I don't hear my husband asking, "when you're finished I need to get some work done at the computer if you're available to watch the children."   So with that said, I'll go on to my initially intended topic.

My daughter and I attend a gymnastics class with my neighbor and her daughter on Saturdays.  It's fun, you spend time following your child around and helping them through whatever the teacher is asking them to do.  Some of the children are too shy to go out in the gym alone without a parent in tow so at this age it's a parent/child class.   The class starts with fifteen minutes of jumping into the foam pit which is where the teacher is sitting.   He throws blocks of foam at the children to entice them to jump in...which they love.

Next we "warm up" by sitting in a circle doing little things like sitting "criss-cross apple sauce." (We called it "Indian style" in my day but apparently that's out now.)  They do leg straddles, touch their toes, roll backwards. do butterfly flaps and donkey kicks among other things.   The teacher is a big man with a delightful personality for children.   He can make any child smile.    He can correct a child in such a way that to the child as well as to the parent he's not correcting them, but doing more of a "here's how you do it" thing.    That's fairly important too, because these children have both attention span, timidness and lack of bodily control to contend with.

There is, however, an air of a "structured activity" going on.   When he says sit criss-cross apple sauce, you're suppose to be sitting that way.  If you're not, then you're doing it wrong.    There was one mother that told her child if he didn't do it exactly the way the teacher told him to do it, she was going to pull him out of the class.  This child wasn't even three-years-old.

That's when I got the "freedom with responsibility" thing going off in my head.   Does it matter if my daughter is sitting quietly and listening to the teacher on her knees instead?   What if she's touching her toes, but doesn't have her legs straddled?   And don't get me wrong here, this is not the most highly-compliant age we're dealing with.   These children have challenges doing the things the teacher is requesting in general, which is why we do them every week because they're still learning.

It was just a vibe I got on Saturday that made me glad my children are getting the education they are.    There is value in differences.   There is also value in structure.   But there seems to be a good balance in knowing the importance and place of each at their school.

The Big Boy Update:  Projectile vomiting.  My son may have gotten into a peanut.   I'm not sure if it was that or something else, but he did the most amazing vomiting to get it out of his stomach.   His stomach was full and he was trying so badly not to make a mess.   He was very sweet afterwards.  I told him it was all right.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   My daughter has two words that are making me laugh of late.   She has a "Nin-Gin Turtle" jacket instead of a Ninja Turtle jacket.    And then this afternoon she found a baby and the baby had a little pacifier that stuck in its mouth.   She use to call them, "fas-sires" but since she hasn't had one in a long time she remembered the word as "fas-supp-eyer".

Practice Thanksgiving

We hosted Practice Thanksgiving tonight.   We invite our good friends over for a dinner together thanksgiving-style to celebrate the beginnings of the holiday season.   We've done this for several years now and it's always a great evening.

Everyone brings a dish (shared across a list so there aren't duplications) and my husband makes the turkey.   He worked hard on the turkey over the past two days (brining, cooking, etc.) and it's mostly gone.   The other dishes were all homemade and quite good as well.

We had the great fortune of picking a date when our traveling friends were stopping back in town.  We hadn't seen them since they left a month ago and everyone was happy to see them and hear all about their new life on the road with three children and two adults living in a forty-one foot rig.

There was wine, there was hot spiced cider, there was a growler of beer and there was a lot of food.   The children ran around upstairs playing together, having all sorts of fun while the adults sat at the tables, eating and talking.   It was a lovely evening all around.

The Big Boy Update:   My son was absolutely thrilled when his friend, Gavin, came in the door this evening for Practice Thanksgiving.  He and Gavin played for hours while the rest of the adults socialized.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was doing something and I wasn't paying attention.  She was sitting on the floor and she was telling me something.   When I said, "oh, is that what you're going to do?"  She said, "it's all part of the plan."   Where did she hear about the plan, I wondered?

The Sign of Fifty-Three

Sometimes you don't realize how much you need something, or even how much you use something until that thing isn't there for you any more.   For example, I have absolutely no idea how many times each day I look into the rear-view mirror to gather important information to help me drive.   But what if last night in the middle of the night, evil elves came into our garage, completely circumventing the alarm system of the house (they could have burrowed up through the cement floor) and removed my rearview mirror in a random, malicious act; how long would it take me to notice the fact this morning?

I get the children in the car, put my key in the ignition and then exclaim, "hey, where did my rearview mirror go?"  I ask my children who took the mirror—certain one of them is to blame—but after protests of innocence, we head off to school without the mirror, because I hate being late.  During that short drive I can guarantee you I'd know just how much I was dependent on the mirror being right where I expected it to be, doing its job passively and without complaint.

The good news is, my rearview mirror is still in place.  But today I had another one of those "unappreciated dependency" things happen.    Today was suppose to be cold.  I had gotten out warm clothes for my children and told them they would be wearing their warm jackets today to school and then this morning as I was making breakfast I noticed it was fifty-three degrees outside.   Hold on,  I don't remember it being that warm when I opened the door for the dog to go outside.   When I re-open the door to let the dog back my thoughts were confirmed: yes, it is definitely cold and no, it is not fifty-three degrees.

I look at the thermometer again and it still persisted on a temperature of fifty-three.  Only wait a minute, hasn't it been fifty-three degrees outside consistently for something like the last three days?  Wait, what just happened?  The digital display on the thermometer in the kitchen flashed bars across all readouts (this is one of those fancy devices that tells you more than you most likely need to know about the weather.)   Then it hits me, the batteries are dead on the transmitter outside and the inside component has just been hoping the data hasn't changed since the last update.

I take the children to school because I can't do anything about it now.   When I return home to change the battery I have to hunt down our tall ladder next door because our neighbors, like many people of late, have been upgrading their light bulbs to LED versions and needed a tall ladder to reach some of their fixtures.   With the batteries replaced in the transmitter I had digital confirmation it was no longer a constant fifty-three degrees outside.

While I was replacing the batteries in the unit, I was reminded of my childhood.   I would wake up early—as young children tend to do—and go to my parent's bedroom.  I would walk up to my mother's side of the bed and engage in some conversation with her while she tried to keep sleeping.    One of the things I would do is check the temperature with the thermometer outside the window in their room.   I would check the temperature and run excitedly back over to my mother to tell her what that temperature was.  

I learned how to read that thermometer when I was fairly young.   I would tell my mother it was "forty degrees" or "seventy-three degrees."  My mother taught me that freezing was at thirty-two degrees so it was always exciting when the temperature was below freezing as that could mean snow.   One day I got confused though because the temperature was unusual and I didn't know how to read the thermometer correctly.   I came over to her bed and told her it was, "oh-dee degrees."   I had never seen a temperature of zero before.

To this day, that same thermometer is still attached to the window frame outside my parent's bedroom.  It may not give you lots of extra information, but they haven't ever had to change the batteries and there's a good chance it will outlive the thermometer we have in our house.

The Big Boy Update:  Weather was also on my son's mind today.   He asked me if it was going to snow.  I told him I would look at the forecast and see if there was any precipitation coming our way but that even if there was, it would only be rain as it was not cold enough to be snow yet.   As I looked at the radar on my phone he asked me, "can you check Thomas's island for rain on the forecast?"  I told him I didn't see any rain on the radar for the island of Sodor (which is where Thomas the Train lives.)

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  In the car today my daughter made another random statement reaffirming her love of all things green.   She said, "I like green houses and green lights," (as we passed under a green traffic light.)

Bowling Beginnings

My husband and I have been trying to come up with something to do for my son's birthday party in a month's time.   We can invite friends to the house, which we do for at least one of the two children, or we can select a location that can host a few or a lot of children.    When they're young, the choices are limited and in most cases, whatever you do needs to account for the additional headcount of the adult(s) that will be there with their very small child.  Oh, and ideally you don't want it to be something one of their classmates did for their birthday party only a few weeks prior.

We were thinking things over when we got an invitation to one of my son's classmate's parties and I thought, "that was perfect, why did't I think of it?"  This child's party is a mere two weeks prior to my son's and the children attending will largely be the same.    So back to the internet and some more thinking.  

We'd been considering a bowling birthday party but came upon another idea that ended up being what we went with: something inside, accommodates large numbers of children and their adults and is quite reasonable in price.   I didn't think too hard about it, I booked the venue.  (It's an indoor playground).

Back to bowling though...  My only hesitation was that we had no idea if my son even liked bowling. What if he hated it and we'd just planned an entire party with his peers at a bowling alley.    Even though we'd booked his party location, we decided to try out bowling with the kids for an hour this afternoon.

They got the shoes, picked out balls balls way too heavy for them (because color is more important than weight when you're three) and were ready to bowl.   My daughter liked the slippery shoes and did this sliding dance thing for a while in the lane beside us.

My son really liked the ramp thing they brought for us that he could roll the ball down.   They liked hitting the pins.  They didn't care how many they hit down.  They didn't care who was winning.   My daughter wanted to put the heavy balls on top of the roller thing, but she couldn't carry them well (the ones half her weight, in particular) and would drop them.   I really though there was a significant chance we'd leave the bowling alley to go to the doctor to get a foot x-ray for broken toes but we lucked out.

Twenty balls is a lot of balls in weight and movement for small children.  They very much liked the entire experience, but one game is enough for three-year-olds.

My husband and I felt strange too.  We used to play in leagues in that bowling alley.   We didn't have our balls or our shoes and we had both forgotten a lot of our form.    I don't think I've bowled since I was pregnant with my son, so it's been over five years.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son was adamant he was going to lift the heaviest bowling ball (my husband's) and carry it over to the ramp, hoist it up and roll it down.   He did it too.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter liked to, "chin bowl."   She would put the bowling ball up on the ramp and then not push it down for some reason.  My husband would check on her to find her with her face right up against the ball (it was pretty much at head height).  She would gently roll it down using her face.

Fitness Update:   This isn't exercise so much as it's an observation.   When I bowled before I used a light bowling ball.  My friend used a heavy ball for a woman and I always wondered how she did it.   Today, I picked up my husband's much heavier ball and decided I liked it much better than the one I'd selected.   I suppose all that working out has made a difference over time.

The Walk Behind Car Parking Worry

Yeah, I know, that title is a mouthful.   If I wasn't tired right now I would spend at least two minutes trying to come up with something a little more direct, a little more clear, or maybe I'd come up with something vague that makes you say, "what's that all about?  I'd better read on and find out."   But I'm tired so all you get tonight is the reminder phrase I stuck in my blog post list yesterday.

I walk behind cars all the time.   We all do.  Most of the time when you're walking behind a car it's because you're traipsing through a parking lot, heading into a store or building or you're coming out of said location, heading back to your vehicle.

Each of us has walked behind countless parked cars in our lives, not being overly concerned about it. Think about children and what we tell them; we don't say, "don't walk behind those parked cars," what we say is, "don't walk across the street without looking both ways for moving cars."   As far as my young children go, they're not even allowed to walk across a road without holding hands.   But...when we get into the parking lot the rules are a little less strict.   They can walk beside us, as long as they're staying close and not dashing out into the parking lanes.

Just yesterday I was walking behind a parked car and I noticed someone in the car.   Not to worry, I walked right past the rear bumper because the car wasn't on.   The car wasn't going anywhere, so no danger.  I stayed closer to the car because there were cars moving through the lane itself.    Right as I got towards the latter half of the car I heard the engine turn on and I stepped quickly out of the way.

Then I got to thinking.   What if all these cars in these parking lots were electric cars?  What if they all moved out of their parking spaces silently like our electric car does?   How do we know when we're safe?  We don't have the warning sounds of an internal combustion engine running to let us know we'd better proceed with caution.

How will things have changed in ten, twenty, thirty years when electric cars are more and more prevalent as we walk through a parking lot?

The Big Boy Update:  My son told me the other morning, "I see some firewood on your butt."  I was afraid to ask him what he meant.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter asked Uncle Jonathan what was on his shirt.   He said, "Cacodemon" (one of the enemies in the video game Doom and a pretty scary albeit low-resolution demon).   "Oh," she said and immediately went back to eating her dinner.

Double Threes

I have two three-year-old's now.   As of today, my daughter is three.  My son won't be four for another month.   For one month each year my children are the same age.   Kind of exciting.  Sort of terrifying.   Mostly fun.

We celebrated my daughter's birthday in a fairly casual style today.   She got up and Uncle Jonathan stopped in after working out to wish her happy birthday.    At school, my husband and I met her class at eleven o'clock to do the classroom birthday celebration which was very charming and made us both smile.

We were greeted at the door to my daughter's classroom by my daughter herself.   She shyly grabbed our hands and escorted us into the classroom.   Everyone in the class was sitting in a big circle on the floor, very quietly.    We sat down and said hello to the class.    My daughter was asked to select a helper to hand out the birthday snack and she chose Isley, who lives in our neighborhood.

For birthday snack, we're asked to bring in something healthy that is gluten-free and has no nuts due to dietary restrictions in the class.   My husband was going to make gluten-free muffins but there were many ingredients he would have to buy that we might not use again (such as special baking powder) that would just go to waste.   I think my husband was all for it, but I asked if we could try finding something at Whole Foods instead.    What I decided to buy was—get this—vegan white cheddar popcorn.   It was flavored like white cheddar but was completely vegan.   I grabbed some great looking grapes and sent them in in the morning.

The popcorn had already been placed in small paper cups.  My daughter and Isley walked around the classroom handing them out.   This took some time as the popcorn was falling out of the cups and they were very interested in putting it back in, setting the tray down, more falling out, repeat.    With the advice and guidance of the teachers, they handed out the popcorn without help.

Then the birthday song was sung.   In Montessori schools they commonly sing a different song and do a different celebration.   There is a candle in the center of the circle representing the sun and a small globe representing the Earth.   My daughter held the globe and we all sang "The Earth goes 'round the sun, the earth goes 'round the sun, it takes twelve months to go around and then Reese was one."   This is repeated three times, once for each year of her life while the birthday child walks around the candle slowly.

My daughter did a very nice job of not going too quickly and aging herself beyond her three years.   She then helped to blow out the candle and sat back down beside us.   During all of this, the entire class sat calmly and quietly, not interrupting, listening and being patient and not having one single bite of the popcorn.   I am always impressed with our teachers and the education our children are getting.

We had four pictures of Reese to share and told a little story about her birth and the other pictures.   Then we presented a gift to the class from the class wish list.   My husband had selected practical life trays in green and blue and a collection of miniature vegetables and fruits for sorting work.  Then the teacher said, "if your paper cups are still in the shape of a cylinder, we will collect them and use them again later."   Some of the children had been playing with their cups but many of them helped to collect and save the cups.   The concept of sustainability is taught even at the youngest classrooms in our school.

We then thanked the class for sharing in their celebration and headed outside until dismissal a few minutes later.    It was a very nice celebration.   We're looking forward to celebrating with my son in a month when he turns four.

The Big Boy Update:  You're a bad guy.    This bad guy thing is going on and on.   My son is no longer telling people he wants to kill them, but he's telling everyone and everything they're bad guys when he doesn't like something, doesn't get his way, is bothered by something, is mad, etc.   We know he needs to express himself, but we're trying to come up with a way to help him explain how he feels without labeling everyone as bad people.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Three.   Today my daughter is three.   She is a very happy three-year-old.   We had the honor of Mimi and Gramps coming to town to help her celebrate today.   They took us out to lunch at our favorite lunch Japanese/Thai restaurant and then Mimi spent all afternoon with the children.  We had phone calls from many family members wishing my daughter a happy birthday and a special visit from our next-door-neighbors with gifts for my daughter and an early gift for my son's upcoming birthday next month.   It was a great third birthday.

Annual Meeting

I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to tonight or dreading it.   We have our annual homeowner's neighborhood meeting in just over an hour.  Most of our neighbors are very lovely people.   I don't know that there is a single family truthfully that hasn't been nice to me.   It's a friendly place to live.  

There are, however, some people with very (read that as "VERY") passionate feelings about pretty much anything and everything in our neighborhood, the builders, the developer, the neighbors, the speed at which we're driving our cars, and lots of other things that are important to them, but not as much to most of the rest of the neighborhood.

I hope tonight will be a positive meeting; several people have been so caustic to the developer that he will no longer return their emails and calls.

Everyone has strong feelings about their own things, it's what makes us different.   I just dislike people who seem to want to argue for the sake of arguing or—and this is my pet peeve—can't see anyone else's perspective but their own.

The Big Boy Update:  At my daughter's birthday party yesterday, my son went outside and said aloud (to anyone who would listen to him), "everybody, I'm the king of everything."  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is learning numbers and letters at school.   She's not completely figured out the difference between the two as right now, they're all just symbols to her.   She does know you put multiple of these things together and they make something.   Yesterday she asked me, "what does A, R, S do?"   I told her it made the word, "ars" (I just made it sound like arse), She asked me several more letter-based word spellings, none of which were words.   Then she asked me what 7, 8, 9 made and I told her "seven-hundred-eighty-nine".  

Green Birthday Party

Today we celebrated my daughter's third birthday with some cake, ice cream and pizza at our house.   I had a great time.   My daughter, my son, their friends and all the adults had a good time as well I think.   Birthday parties are just fun events and they don't have to be too complicated for a three-year-old.

We started off today by phoning my mother, who was in the mountains, and all singing happy birthday to her.   My in-laws had just arrived so we had quite the chorus in the living room for her on the other end.    After that I stuck the children in front of the television so we could get everything ready for the party.   My daughter had, "helped" with the cake yesterday and it was sitting on the counter for when guests arrived.

We decided to have everyone spend time in the basement with the doors open to the back yard because the day was nice.   The children arrived and pretty much took care of themselves.   We had some neighbors and some friends from our school and everyone seemed to have a nice time socializing together.

Pizza arrived, which was eaten quickly as the party started at noon.   After that, more playing was had and then we all went upstairs for the lighting of the cake and singing of the birthday song for the second time that day.    My daughter almost set fire to her hair but fortunately just missed as she successfully got all three candles blown out.  

My daughter wanted green and lots of green so my husband made her a wild safari cake and dyed the white cake inside green.   He made the icing himself and put animals all over the top.   It looked great.   It tasted greater.   (That's not correct, I know.)

After the guests had left and in the lull before dinner we opened some presents.   We had requested no presents (something that's popular to do now) but many times people bring a gift—I have been guilty of this in the past myself.    My daughter got two books we read tonight, a picture bingo game that's going to be a lot of fun to play and some magnetic geometric shape builder things from my in-laws among the presents.

Her actual birthday is Tuesday.  We plan on having a small celebration with my parents, who are coming to town for a few days.    We'll give her our gift then, which is another book with a lady bug that moves through the pages.  

It's been a great day all around and I think my daughter had a very happy birthday party day indeed.

The Big Boy Update:   As I was leaving with my neighbor to help walk her four daughters home, my son wanted to follow us.   We sent him back after he sadly told us he wanted to come and babysit Gigi (who is three).   My neighbor's five-year-old daughter leaned over and told me in a whisper, "I'll tell you a secret: I think Gigi has a crush on him too."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Today was my daughter's "Green" (as in color) third birthday party.   She had some of her closest children friends from her school and neighborhood.   We asked her who she wanted to invite and we weren't at all surprised with whom she picked.

Fitness Update:  Three very quick miles while the last of the party guests were leaving.   I helped my neighbor walk her four girls home and then she and I ran out a mile-and-a-half and then back before she had to head to the airport.

To Walk in Someone Else's Shoes

I mean this literally.   Today I was at a friend's house.  They don't wear shoes in their home and I was running around in my socks with my two children and their kids.    I had parked in their driveway, blocking in the other cars.    At one point, someone needed to leave and I needed to move my car out of the way.

I went to the garage with my key and realized I didn't have my shoes with me so I slipped on the clog-type shoes the mom had sitting outside the door.    It was a short walk to my car but it felt strange.   First off, I don't walk in clogs ever, so non-bendy shoes was an interesting experience.

The other way it was different was that the mom has a gait in which the outside back edges of the shoes wear over time.  The clogs had some wear on the back edges and it felt odd, like I was about to fall outward at the ankle, with each step.

I wonder how my shoes would feel to someone else if they walked in them?

The Big Boy Update:   Scream Time.   I swear (I swear a lot some days) that when my son watches television or gets time with the iPad, it turns him into an angry monster.   Even if he has warnings that the show or time will be over soon, he just becomes irascible for a good while afterwards.   Sometimes he will even scream in frustration.   I'm renaming it, "scream time" instead of "screen time".

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   She was eating a squeeze pouch of apple sauce in the car this afternoon.  After she was done apparently there was a song she liked on the radio and she decided to have her apple sauce dance.   She called out to me from the back seat, "mom, the apple sauce is dancing" and gave me a demonstration, making the apple sauce pouch dance between her hands, as we drove down the road.  

Lazy Crazy

This morning my day was moving at a slow pace.   I got up early and went to the gym.   I suppose my heart was moving at a quick pace when I was doing the crazy exercises the trainer had us doing, but I wasn't in a hurry.  

We got the children ready for school and my husband left to take them there.   I had time to get things done and it was plenty of time to eat a calm, relaxed breakfast without having to eat the remnants of my children's meals and finish a coffee without realizing I'd even started drinking it.

I had a phone call and text message about substituting, but I wasn't able to because I had children in the afternoon.   After several calls, we worked out a solution: I'd bring my children back to school and help at the same time.    This sounded like a good idea.  

Lunch went well and my children fell asleep on the way home.   We woke them in time to get ready to go back to school and then things started to get hinky.    Both children didn't want to be woken up, pulled out of the car to go to the bathroom to be put back into the car to go back to school.  

I got to school and my son was happy and fine.  He loved after school.   Some of his friends were there and there were new activities to do.   My daughter was not happy.    She was very not happy.   She started to cry and wouldn't let go of my leg and asked to please go home.  

She wasn't hungry and she didn't want to do anything, including playing with one of her best friends at school.   But I couldn't leave.   I needed to negotiate conflicts between children and help out the other teachers.  

I eventually put her in the minivan with the door open and latched her into her seat.   She was less unhappy there and really didn't want to get back out of the car.   She asked me to close the door at one point.   It was right about then that I remembered the emergency Advil we had in the go bag in the back of the car.   I gave her some (she didn't want it,)   I explained it was't a choice and eventually she drank it.    I did these things in-between going back onto campus and checking out what was happening with the other children.   (The primary teacher was sick but two teachers were already out and she was stuck at school.)

Soon enough it was time to go back inside and I was going to have a tough choice.  Leave my daughter in the car and lock it and go inside or drag her unhappy, crying self in?    That's when the main teacher did a student count and told me I could go because there were legally enough children that only one teacher was needed and she could manage them fairly easily inside versus outside.

On the way home my daughter started to get back to normal (that means the Advil was kicking in), but I'm not sure if she's actually well.    We'll find out later tonight when the medicine wears off.

The Big Boy Update:  As we wanted in the school drop-off line yesterday my son asked me, "what are those doors on the roof?"  I didn't know what he was talking about until I saw where he was pointing.  "Those are skylights", I said.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  After my daughter's difficult time at after school today (see above), she was almost normal on the way home in the car.   She and my son started playing the eye spy game.   She said, "I spy with my little eyes I smell like a snake."

Fitness Update:  Gym on a Friday.   Sweating happened.   Muscles were tired.   I survived.

Please, Don't Answer the Phone

Tonight for the third year in a row, I participated in our children's school's Annual Fund Phonathon.  I was with some good friends from the school that are all positive and supportive of the school in so many ways.   It was an exciting and fun night for us all.  

It wasn't that way for me two years ago when I entered the classroom on the eve of the phonathon though.   I was a wreck.   I didn't want to call people.  I didn't want to ask for their money.   I didn't want them to think I was begging.   I wanted to say I was sorry for wasting their time.    And above all, I just didn't want them to answer the phone so I didn't have to talk to them.

This isn't uncommon, I know.   I understand fundraising now and I didn't mind calling people tonight, even people I'd never met or grandparents who didn't know who I was.    I spoke with several very nice people, one of whom I wasn't sure I was going to get off the phone with before our calling window was over (he was that enthusiastic about the school).

It was a successful night.   We raised nearly one-third of our total annual fund goal from taking two hours to call families and friends of the school.    We had several people cancel at the last minute, so we picked up more names on sheets and made calls to additional people.   It was a busy night as well.

I got a lot of voice mails and I left a lot of messages that I will follow-up with tomorrow with emails asking the family to consider a gift (or a larger gift than last year) to the school's annual fund and I'll have some nice responses from families that I contact if the last two years is any indication.

It's taken three years, but I no longer stare at the phone, not wanting to dial the numbers, hoping that the person will please just not answer the phone.

The Big Boy Update:  Zero.   My son clearly understands that when you don't want any of something you want zero of that thing.   If he's angry (like he was this morning) and you offer choices, he may well tell you, "I want zero."  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Hello Kitty underpants.   My daughter came home in underpants that weren't hers today.   They were covered in Hello Kitty and she really liked them.   We don't have many girl underpants because she's never expressed interest in things other than Superman, Batman, Elmo and non-girly (read more boyish) styles.    So today after lunch we went to Target and got her some Hello Kitty underpants of her own.   She was so pleased by them she went through three pair before dinner.  

My Husband's Fitness Update:  My husband got the new Microsoft Band this past weekend.   It's like a fitbit but with more features and integration with his cell phone.   He's set for himself a walking goal each day.   Last night he hadn't reached that goal so he and I went walking around the neighborhood for about a mile-and-a-half.  We did intervals of fast walking and slow walking to try and up our cardio.   Walking felt slow to me in comparison to running, but it was a nice night out without children in the neighborhood.

Bang & Olufsen

I made a decision to put away my favorite stereo today.   I bought it when I was in my first house, shortly after graduating from college.   I had always wanted a Bang & Olufsen stereo but they were outrageously expensive.     It was sleek, it was sexy, it was different looking—it hung on a wall.    When I got it in 1993 no one had anything like it.    Sometimes, people would know the brand and would ask all about it.    Mostly, people just thought it looked interesting.

I don't know how loud the volume went, but at volume two, the sound was barely audible and yet just as clear and beautiful as the sound at volume forty-five.   I never turned it up louder than forty-five because my ears would have revolted.  I could have added seven sets of speakers total to this little thing and it would have happily played sound to all of them, but I only ever used the one set it came with.

I didn't buy it new, it was far too expensive.   I got a refurbished unit from one of the few stores in the United States at that time, in Atlanta Georgia.   I called on the phone paid for it with a credit card and they mailed it to me.   I spent $3,500 on it in 1993 which was outrageous, but I have never regretted spending that money for a single day.  Did I mention it was heavy?   I never put it on a scale, but it easily weighs fifty pounds so hanging it on the wall was something I did carefully.

The glass doors on the front were motion activated  When you moved your hand in front of the controls, the glass doors quickly swooshed to the sides just like elevator doors did in Star Trek.   This was made possible by two small motion sensors at the top of the unit I never quite figured out the location of.   When both beams were broken, it knew you wanted to interact with the controls and the doors slid to the sides.

The model I had had a CD player, an FM/AM radio and an audio cassette deck.   Just a few model years later, the tape deck was removed as it was almost outdated even when I got it.   It's the only means I have at this point to play any old audio cassettes I still have (I think I still have some somewhere).

The CD player had it's own motion as well.   The door to the CD player would glide upwards, letting you remove the CD from the spindle on which it was carefully balanced.    It was so graceful to watch; people thought it was a neat bit of technology.

As I'm writing this now, everything about the stereo seems so common, (aside from the cassette player and the weight) but back in the early 1990's, it was neat stuff.  

Ever since we moved into the new house I haven't had the unit plugged in.   It's been sitting on a dresser in our bedroom, looking elegant and technologically beautiful, not doing a thing.    Within the past six months right behind the corner of the stereo I've had a little Bose SoundLink.   This tiny thing is cordless, connects via Bluetooth to my phone in five seconds, goes anywhere with me and sounds terrific.   So it seemed the time had come to put the Bang & Olufsen away.

Today I lugged it to the attic.   It wasn't easy.   I didn't trust myself to put it on a high shelf because of the weight and unwieldiness of the shape.    As I put the remote beside it struck me that it's been over  twenty years that I've had that stereo in the bedroom with me.   I'm going to miss it; but I'm definitely not getting rid of it.

Below is a picture of a model a few years newer than mine without the cassette deck.

The Big Boy Update:  My son does this Transformer thing he's made up.   He lies down completely flat with his legs straight, his arms straight by his side and his head lying down.    When he does this he's in, "vehicle mode" he tells us.   (Transformers have bot mode and vehicle mode.)  He will do this anywhere, including the middle of the street.    The other day coming home from the grocery store, my husband was talking to my son but he wasn't responding.   When they got home my son told him, "I couldn't talk, I was in vehicle mode."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I went up this morning to check on the children.   I walked in and was immediately concerned because my daughter wasn't in her bed, but there were no sounds coming from anywhere indicating she was awake and playing.    As I looked to the top bunk to see how my son was, she say up in his bed beside him.   I'm not sure why she wanted to sleep in his bed, but they were both apparently comfortable.

Fitness Update:  Fast three miles (well, slow-running, just not much time) this morning in the dark.   I think we would have made four but we got side-tracked on an iPhone issue and stood in the road, cold fingers not working the touch-screen well, to see if we could figure out a solution.

Suddenly Sick?

My children were uncharacteristically unhappy, mean, physically rough and cranky tonight at dinner. I took them home and planned to separate them into two separate rooms until bath time but by the time I drove into the garage at six o'clock, both children were asleep in the back of the car.

I brought things into the house and cleaned up things in preparation for the end of their day and bath time.   I turned on the light in the garage at six-thirty and they work up fairly quickly.   They were unstrapped but they were too busy moaning and crying to get themselves out of their car seats.  

Not to worry, usually once they get into the bath they get over the sleepiness and are happy and playful and it's difficult to get them out of the bath.   But in this case, the angry, crying, moaning and wailing continued.   Even when I got them in the bath they weren't happy at all, acting like they didn't know what to do but anything was awful and a terrible thing to have to deal with.

I took my daughter out of the tub, dressed her quickly and took her up to bed hoping she would calm down and go to sleep an hour early (unheard of in our house).  My son was being particularly combative but he calmed down enough to get dressed and take some Advil before going up to their bedroom.

During this whole time, my daughter had been moaning in her bed upstairs, which is not like her at all.   When I got back up there to put her brother in bed, I gave her some Advil in the hopes she would calm down too.    It worked, eventually.

Neither child has a fever, but it may be on the way.  Our neighbor's daughter has a fever today but it didn't present until after she felt sick.    We'll see how our two fare through the night.

The Big Boy Update:  Yesterday my son asked me, "do girls have holes in their ears for earrings?"   I don't know what prompted the question but I told him about earrings and let him look at the holes in my ears.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Wet underpants.   This has and is still a repeatable topic.   There is nothing wrong with my daughter medically, but she wets her pants multiple times each day.   I really don't think she minds being wet or minds changing to dry underpants and pants.  Her teacher at school says she never seems to mind and sometimes she goes and changes own her own.    We're still working on it and I believe someday she will be wet pants free, but for now, we're doing a lot of underpants washing.  

Fitness Update:  10,021 steps, six flights of stairs and 4.35 miles walked.    That's what my iPhone 6 tracked today without me doing anything specific.   It's a feature of the newest iPhone and it's been tracking that information since the day I got it.   My daily average is 14,274 steps, fourteen flights of stairs and 6.11 miles.   I had no idea how much walking you get done in the normal course of the day's events.

My Lost Vanity (Among Other Things)

This is one of those catch-up posts.   I've been stacking up blog post topics for a while now so it's time to take some items off the list.  

Let's start with my lost vanity:
The thing is, this isn't what you might think.  It's about the word, "vanity".    I can not explain how this has happened, but ever since we moved into this house I have a hard time remembering the name of the thing in your bathroom with the sink and the mirror.   I know it's a counter, but I also know that's not the word I'm looking for.   I picture in my mind the brown and cream marble countertops in the bathroom as I try to drag the word to the forefront of my mind and then I start sputtering words to describe the area I'm referring to.   I must be getting into a repeated mental block not unlike when you think that new neighbor's new name is Betsy or wait, was it Stacy and you're remembering it wrong again?   You can talk yourself out of the correct word that way (or at least I can).   I'll hear my husband ask, "did you see my name badge?"  I'll answer, "it's in the bathroom on your sink, er, counter...dresser...vanity!"  We both think it's both funny and pitiful at this point.

Stay-at-home Mom Costume:
There was a dad at the neighborhood Halloween costume party on Saturday that was dressed up as a, "Stay-at-home mom".  He had on yoga pants, athletic shoes and a tight workout shirt.  He was carrying his Vera Bradley diaper bag around on his shoulder and had his cell phone tucked into the chest area of his shirt.   We all thought it was hilarious, especially because he was pulling off being a mom really well too.   The thing is, he nailed it.   It's what I wear, including sticking my phone in my shirt if I don't have my purse with me or a pocket handy.    It's what we're all wearing to the toddler play dates and the neighborhood yoga classes.    I am the stereotype I realized.   So funny.

Five Years of Twitter:
I rarely use Twitter.  In fact, I'm not sure how long it's been since I last posted: possibly over a year.   From time to time I check to see if anything interesting is happening with the few people I follow.   What I didn't realize was how long I've had a Twitter account when I got their, "happy five year anniversary" email last week.

Situationally Ignorant:
Sometimes I realize how not "with it" I am.   I went with some girlfriends on our street to a gala this past week.  It was one of those things where you pay a lot of money to get in so you can then spend money at the shops there.   While we were walking around having a good time, I realized I don't know a lot about popular brands, the "in" restaurants, where to go for a spa treatment, and the latest fashion styles.   My friends don't care about status and don't buy something just because it's expensive, but they all seemed to be more in tune with the hot things, places and foods than I was.

Park Engaged and You're Welcome:
A few weeks ago I parked on a mostly flat parking lot and started to get out of the car.   Have you had that feeling before where you think your car is rolling, only to find it's the vehicle beside you that's moving and you're staying still?   I had that feeling, but in this case, my car—the Tesla—was the one doing the moving.   Not to worry though, the Tesla noticed there was no weight in the driver's seat and before I could even react it put the car in park for me.   Thanks to whomever added that feature in at Tesla Motors.

Someone Once Said: 
This line was the very last line of the last episode of the new Cosmos series.  It's a quote from Carl Sagan.   I'd never heard this quote before and I can't tell you how many time's I've thought about it after watching the show...

From [the] distant vantage point [of deep space], the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there—on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. 

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity—in all this vastness—there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.  

The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was talking about Pahmer again in the car on the way to school.   He told me about a second person named, Palm.   When I asked who Palm was, he told me he was Pahmer's grandfather.   I didn't think too much about it until this afternoon as I was putting him in the car after lunch he told me about Pahmer and his grandfather, Palm again.   We may well be inviting them to Christmas dinner at the rate my son talks about them.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I was in the tub yesterday morning and my daughter decided she wanted to get in too so she got in.   A few minutes later I noticed my daughter was working on washing my knee—specifically the birthmark on my knee—to see if she could wash off the dirt.