clean floors, dirty paws

There's a crazy critter on the loose. Caches was a raccoon, Ryan was a critter catcher, and I was a bunny!  Originally I was going to be a trash can but I figured it would be difficult to hold my raccoon when he became clingy.  Good thing I went with the outfit change because the coon was clingy in about 10 min.  Here we are...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN  Two really neat spiders in our backyard lemon tree! They are HUGE

A while ago I read a Huffington Post article that brought me to tears.  Not that it's a difficult thing to do, but this was truly touching.  I'd post a link, only I can't remember the title or author's name.  Sigh, I miss my brain.  Anyway, it was about how this woman, a mother, who was everywhere in her children's lives, but there was little to no photographic evidence.  She was always shying away from the camera, hiding behind it rather than posing in front. It really got me thinking about my own relationship with the camera;  I don't like it.  And my mothers relationship with the camera, she really doesn't like it.  Then I started to think back on all the wonderful photographs of my childhood, neatly organized in albums that I frequently enjoy browsing.  Fantastic memories, elaborate holidays, birthday parties, crafts, vacations, milestones, a lifetime of fun all made possible by my mother.  But my mother is hardly in the album at all.  Absent from my c

I can't do it... Not fully anyway.  I've been thinking a lot about the phases and stages of  life, my baby's life in particular.  Each new phase they pass through feels like it will last forever, only it doesn't.  There is no definite end or beginning it just is and then it is no longer.  And when a phase is over you can't recall when it started, how long it lasted, or even when it stopped.  Because life is simply a series of stages and phases.  I know I've had my fair share, right mom?  Yes, I went through a will not wear pants no matter what must wear a ruffled dress with matching bow AT ALL TIMES stage and guess what...I'm over it For Caches there is the sweet, limp infant stage The sleep a lot during the day phase The must be swaddled phase The nurse every hour stage The very short take an hour long nap stage The still present take a half hour nap phase The arms flailing, startle stage The unsteady figuring out the body stage The holy shit I

Ah, nursing in public.  Sounds relatively simple, doesn't it?   Baby is hungry and starts to fuss a bit so you find a comfortable spot, sit down, adjust yourself and all is right with the world.  Hum, it actually does sound rather simple when I put it that way.  Only it isn't so simple.  There is a learning curve. And dirty looks.  We can't forget the dirty looks. When Caches was a newborn I was terrified to nurse him in public.  Just thinking about it would cause me so much anxiety that for the first few weeks I made sure to be home for all his feedings.  There was a time or two that I fed him in my car with a blanket, but not in real, people walking by, public.  No way! Now as you know, Caches has never been a patient sort.  He has always gone from sleeping quietly to screaming in 2 seconds flat.  There was no sweet mouthing of a fist, no quiet nuzzle into my chest and there was absolutely NO WAY in hell he was accepting a pacifier.  It was woman, feed me, NOW!  So in

Way to slack off on posting pictures, Anne.  It has been months since a proper picture update and you guys, he is a man!  It happened overnight!  Woke up one day and BAM.  Where is my baby!?!?  I'm not fond of this growing up nonsense at all, but watching him grow and change each day is so amazing I guess I'll allow it.  Officially a toddler.  Internet, I give you Mr. Nessier I promise to post more pictures in the future, and by promise I mean I'll try to remember to not only take them but to upload and publish them.  And by more I mean I'm shooting for once a week.  Let's not get carried away here.  ;)

Last weekend we had hot dogs for lunch, which means we HAD to buy chips.  Because Ryan can't eat a hot dog without a chips, or a sandwich.  He also can't eat pasta without bread,  salad without bread or cake with any kind of frosting, and about 500 other food related stipulations, but I digress.  Well, the day following hot dogs, he left to go out of town for a few days.  Assuming the chips would go stale because I don't like chips, I threw the reaminder of the bag away. Today Ryan opens the cabinet.  "Where are the fritos?"  "I threw them away."  "Why?  I would have eaten them."  "I assumed they were stale."  "UHH...you are always throwing my food away when you assume I'm done or it is stale (and I totally do! haha).  What if I start throwing away your food, like cookies, when I assume they are stale?"  "That my friend, will not happen.  Cookies don't last long enough in my presence to go stale.&q

My mind is made up, I'm going to do it. Eventually... I myself am a creature of habit, I don't like abrupt changes.  And because I assume my son is the same way and he can't tell me otherwise, I will be doing this gradually.  Step one, talk about it, is underway.  No, I don't think Caches completely understands the concept or what I mean when I tell him that soon he can only nurse during the day and that nursing will soon go to sleep at night, but I am starting the conversation and including him in the process, and that makes me feel better.  Who are we kidding here, I'm the one who needs to feel better right now.  Can you say mommy guilt. I go through moments of tremendous courage and conviction where I am sure that it will be successful and everyone will be happier.  I can and will do this and it will go better than imagined.  And then I go through moments when it all seems so incredibly overwhelming that I want to just curl up in a ball and cry.  Rig

The chaos that is my life with these creatures, that is.  Abner is certifiable, Lilly is in the corner rocking, Georgia is on the table puking and Caches is following in their footsteps.  And who am I kidding, I paved the way for all of them.  Yesterday Caches found daddy's BBQ tools and insisted on carrying them around with him everywhere he went; with two dogs following behind trying to lick hot dog juice.  The big one lost interest but the little one's interest peaked when he realized that not only did the scraper smell like hot dog, but it reflected the sunlight.  OMG REFLECTIONS!!!  The bulldog loves a reflection.  Internet, I give you baby swinging with BBQ tools and a bulldog.  Enjoy

A few weeks ago Caches was sick.  The kind of sick where you ask yourself how a twenty pound baby can produce no less than fifty pounds of snot each day. The kind of sick that makes you realize that instead of changing your shirt three times per hour that you just need a giant shoulder pad for snot; you consider inventing one.  The kind of sick that breaks your heart as you watch their chest rise and fall, struggling to breathe out of their nose because they just don't quite understand how to switch to their mouth. Wondering why, oh WHY can't babies blow their noses!!??  The cruelty of it all!  Cue the snot bubbles, oh the snot bubbles.  Second only to the sneezes sending green snot rockets flying most likely onto your face, shirt number 5 for the day or your food.  And with that you are suddenly keenly aware that you are a mother, because if you weren't you would totally throw up when said sick baby decides to use you as a human Kleenex for the two banana slugs drippin

at least for a few hours. Weaning has been on my mind a lot lately.  Not completely, Caches is nowhere near ready for that and neither am I, but I feel like I need a few hours during the night when the neon light switches off, the doors lock, and the booby bar is closed for business. I had hopes that Caches would just kind of naturally start waking up less to nurse (he's typically up every hour, though every once and a great while he will give me two or gasp three!) through the night.  Okay, I actually had no REAL hopes, more like pipe dreams.  I know my son, and he has NO intention of giving up ANYTHING easily. Ryan Caches doesn't "do" change.  So why don't I stop talking about it and just do it?  Because I am afraid.  Like monsters under the bed to cut my achilles tendon fucking freaked out!  Each week I say, "This is the week I will partially night wean!  No nursing from 11pm to 5am! I am in charge!"  And then I have a good laugh at myse

It has been HOT the past couple of days.  So I decided to bring out the kiddie pool... and fill it with mud for my little pig and his rubber mallet!

Our neighbors across the street have a HUGE walnut tree in their backyard.  Every year around this time crows form I assume all over the city, come to feast upon the bounty of walnuts.  Seriously, it is like The Birds on my street right now. They pluck the nuts from the tree, use their beaks to unwrap them from their leathery outer coating and then fly up on the electric wires where they proceed to drop the nuts.  The hard shell cracks open on the asphalt and bing bang boom, they have a nut.  Pretty darn smart if you ask me. Anyway, today after getting Caches down for a nap I decided to enjoy the sunshine on the front porch.  I grabbed a snack, some nuts and a nectarine, and headed out.  It wasn't long before I felt eyes watching me.  It was the birds.  I continued to snack as word spread through the murder that there was a bowl of nuts just sitting out on an unassuming woman's lap.  Shelled nuts, no less. I watched as more and more crows gathered near my front walk.  I&