Barb's Evolving Project

Monday, August 1, 2011

Last Weekend in July

It's been too hot to run the dryer and we're running out of clean baby clothes,
so Eva celebrates the end of the NFL lockout with a hand-me-down Packer onesie.

Cooling off with an outdoor bath

Sam helps with the shampoo

The Bug Lockers
Some of the best money TT ever spent...
In order to make room for the moth in the laundry room, Sam has
to decide whether to liberate the crane fly, the may fly, a baby
grasshopper or the two unfortunate dissimilar beetles that share a locker.

One of Eva's favorite snacks... veggie Baby Mum-mums

After seeing Nolan playing baseball with his daddy,
Sam takes a sudden interest in T-ball.

The definition of COOL

The outdoor fort

Eva just wants to play music

Lining up his next shot at the flag that marks the sewer vent

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Distraction

My cell shows that the Saturday night call lasted twenty-nine seconds. Twenty-nine seconds in which I said nothing but “Hello” and then Mom told me that she had driven herself to the ER and that she “almost called an ambulance and it was probably a mistake to drive myself but I was in so much intense pain and I threw up and I just wanted to get here and I’m calling to tell you to keep your phone on in case something happens.” She was panting as if she had just finished sprinting. And then she hung up. I didn’t get to say anything else. Just hello.

Read the rest here.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Flying Ponies

On our way in to town this morning, Sammy and I were talking about the clouds. We were winding along highway 35 between the Nathan Wolfe Memorial Wildlife area where Sam recently told me “things that suck your blood live” and the Trempealeau Wildlife Refuge where Sam says “that funny duck with the big head swims.” A half dozen white egrets stretched their necks to fish near the wild celery, and a few others sat in the crooks of a dead tree that reflected on the water. As our Subaru slowed to let a train clear the tracks in front of us and the bright sunlight behind us created dramatic whites and grays on the clouds hanging over the bluffs, Sam told me you can’t move clouds with your mouth like you can the fuzzy tips of dandelions.

See the rest here.

My amazing friend Katherine who is taking some time off to welcome her new son and prepare for her book to be released in October, asked me to write a guest post for her, and I was honored.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Bouncing Genetics

When I was a child, my mother used to leave me in my room to nap and I'd bounce against the side of the crib, little-by-little moving the crib across the room. As I got older I would sit on the living room couch watching TV and throw myself against the cushions on the back. Our family termed this strange rocking behavior that caused strangers to ask if I might be autistic "bouncing." And despite my mother's best efforts to break me of this habit that would tangle my hair and destroy the legs of her furniture, I still did it even in college, occasionally bouncing my way across the state as I drove home for a weekend visit.

If the video I posted of Sam at this age didn't convince you that this is genetic, then check out his little sister:

Monday, July 18, 2011

Mommy, I Love Fireworks!

Yay, fireworks!

The show lasted 20 minutes, but the memories will last a lifetime. This was the first year Sam has actually been awake for the fireworks our neighbors shoot off in the backyard during their annual family party, but he'd been excited about it all day. He talked about it while we were in the pool and while we were eating burgers and while he and Ham were running around the yard shooting each other with water blasters. He shivered with excitement when I told him that he had to get out of the pool and dry off before the show started. He told me "this is a good spot" as he pulled his little blue adirondack up next to me on the porch when the first warning shot of the evening went off. And from the very first light explosion, Sammy was riveted. Wow! Whoa! Wow! That was a big one! That was a loud one! That one went really super high! Eva slept through the entire show, and I even went to make sure she was still breathing because I didn't think anyone could sleep through the mortar rounds just 50 yards from our house. But she'd had a long day in the heat, and she, like her big brother during previous years, was nearly comatose throughout the entire evening. When I attempted to put Sam to bed at 11pm (with friends still sitting in lawn chairs surrounding citronella candles and whipping glow sticks into circles), he laid down next to me and said "Mommy, I love fireworks!" He wanted to know if we could have them at his birthday party and why he had to go to bed when everyone else was staying up. So up he got, and I let him snack on cheese and chips and popsicles and show off his dinosaur toys and his Paper Jam guitar to the big boys in the kitchen until the last guests left around midnight. An evening I'll never forget.

Waiting for our friends to arrive

Cooling off in the pool

Eva rests in the shade

Stella's turn

Ham grabs dinner before the show

Ready for fireworks

One last dip in the pool before the show

Sam shares glow sticks after the show

Sarah and James enjoying their night out

Here are some brief snapshots of Sammy watching his first fireworks show up close.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Simply Impossible

Sarah, Sam, Ann and Zack at the La Crosse Loggers game

It's simply impossible to describe how much fun we had with TT and Ann and "the cousins" last weekend (and I'm too exhausted to try). In our four days together we hiked Brady's Bluff, rode carnival rides and threw darts and "fished" and ate cheese curds at Catfish Days, heated up at a Loggers game, cooled down at the beach, made and decorated and ate a birthday cake for TT's special day, and managed to find time for playing in the pool, harvesting the garden, battling with water pistols and soaping up the slip n' slide. And Grandma babysat while the two mommies ran in the Catfish Days 5K/10K. I'm still not sure how we did so much. It was a perfect weekend, and I present a few photos with a link to many more.