Sunday, August 28, 2011

Guess who?

For some reason I started the tradition of taking pictures of the boys in sailor suits when they were about six months old. Christian reached that benchmark this week.
I always laugh when people give us their opinion about the boys resemblance to us and each other. We get all kinds of opinions. Some who say one looks exactly like me, only to have the same child called the spitting image of his father the next day. Some people out in public will think they are twins (or even triplets!), and others who ask me if they are all related. I personally don't think they all look that much alike at this stage, other than being blue eyed with blond buzz cuts, but in looking through the old sailor suit photos, I was hard put to remember which baby was which. Can you guess?












Friday, August 26, 2011

Whatever Works



James's favorite Spiderman cereal bowl got a crack in it a few weeks back, so I was sneakily trying to toss it, but of course he caught me. "Mom! What are you doing? Don't throw it away!"
I explained that a bowl with a crack in it was not much use, but his face was so tragical that I relented. I figured we could still use it for goldfish crackers or something, so it went back on the shelf.
The boys have gotten old enough to get themselves a bowl of cereal in the morning, which is great for me. They usually do a pretty good job of not making a mess, and no more dragging me out of bed at o-dark thirty to feed them. When I got up this morning and saw the spiderman bowl sitting on the counter half full of milk and cereal dregs, I didn't think much of it.

But after a few sips of coffee, I remembered the crack and wondered why there wasn't milk all over the table. Upon closer examination, I found this.



What can I say? My son is a genius.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Head Gear

There are days when I try to figure out what makes my boys do the things they do.
Sometimes I think it is because they wish they had a little sister.



Christine?


Then I think that maybe they are trying to play a pretty lame game of hide and seek. You know, if he can't see you, you can't see him.




But then there are times when I have no idea whatsoever.



It can be rough being the youngest.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Sunflower Harvest!


The sunflowers were fun, but boy were they looking bedraggled after these hot August days. So the boys and I had great fun chopping down our sunflower forest the other day. Each flower fell like a heavy tree, scattering sunflower seeds all over the sidewalk for the birds. Not to worry though, I spent most of Saturday brining and roasting the rest so we have enough stored to nibble on for the next 20 years. The only problem is, no one seems interested in eating them.

Friday, August 5, 2011

Hint Hint

James is my boy with the sensitive nose, so he is always ready to sound the alarm when anything smelly comes to his attention. (read- "Mommy, Seb pooped on the floor again," or "The dog needs a bath mom!".)
Often, the first thing I hear in the morning is that the baby needs to be changed. This morning was no different. "Mom, you need to change the baby now- he is sooooo stinky." Then he will dramatically walk around with his nose plugged until I listen to him. I ignored him as long as I could this morning, trying to get my shower and breakfast going and a cup of coffee before I had to deal with the diaper. So James decided he needed to take further action, and when I finally got around to changing the baby, this is what I found.




Subtlety has never been his strong suit.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

His 'n Hers

When we first planted our garden, Steve was gung-ho for tomatoes. He had so many tomato starts flourishing on our kitchen counter, waiting for spring. Unfortunately, most of them shriveled up and died in the transplant process. Undaunted, he bought some little starts of exotic sounding heirlooms, tigrellas, cherries, lemon boys, even some sort of rainbow pineapple tomato.
Then Steve spent hours building a supporting trellis. It was ten feet tall, and perfectly latticed with twine in a lovely diamond pattern. I tried not to laugh, looking at our foot tall tomato plants and the giant ladder they had to climb. Steve has always been an optimist.

In the meantime, after looking at all our plants, I realized that we hadn't planted any sensible tomatoes like romas- my favorite tomato for cooking with. I mean, there are only so many things you can do with cherry tomatoes. So I planted my own row. Steve mentioned building another trellis, but I laughed it off. I would just buy some of those wire cages later if they needed it.
Well, things started to grow, and grow, and grow. I couldn't find any of those round tomato cages, so I bought some tall thin bamboo stakes. I spent hours hacking back the jungle of tomato vines in my row. They had gotten so heavy and tangled up that I couldn't tell which plant they were, and they were crushing all their own fruit. I finally got them all trussed up, and they looked pretty ridiculous, but at least they were in some semblance of order. I was pretty proud of my efforts, but then I turned around and saw Steve's immaculate plants, climbing obediently up his ten foot ladder- they had made it all the way to the top and then some!
When Steve saw my attempts, he didn't laugh too loudly, and merely hoped they would hold up. I somewhat grumpily replied that they might be uglier than his, but I was sure they would hold.
Alas for me, this tomato story is somewhat of a recurring theme in our marriage. When will I learn that if you do it well and right from the beginning, you won't have to come in later to try and fix your initial half-hearted attempt. These were my tomatoes this morning-



And these were his



In my defense, I must at least say that my plants seem to be producing just as well as his, which is the point, right?

Oh, and speaking of tomatoes, this is our little friend who has been guarding the fruit from vicious tomato sucking bugs. Isn't he a beaut? We have watched him grow from a little 1/2 inch fella to a rather impressive 2 inches plus. Not sure what kind of spider it is, but the boys have christened him Hairy Potter.