Day 172: constant chaos (of the tiny and happy variety)

This is why I don't get much done during the day.

Even the simplest tasks (like trying to fold a blanket and put it in a box) become cumbersome and complicated when two kids want to dance on the blanket and a third wants to ride in the box and needs a push from a fourth and yet another is on my shoulders because whenever I sit on the floor what I'm clearly saying without needing to speak a word is: I want everyone to climb on me now! Right now! Hurry, before I think about getting up!

I'm annoyed by how maddening this all is.  And then my runaway box (turned indoor sled) that I'd been crawling after with a three-year-old still attached to my back crashes into the superhero who turned my blanket into a cape and suddenly I'm at the bottom of a pile of hysterically giggling little boys who seem to think an old box and a new blanket are the best toys ever. 


Really, as far as problems go, this constant state of chaos and lack of productivity is a pretty great one to have.

Day 171: Azia & her dangerous decorating

After more than a month as a disaster zone, Azia finally got her room cleaned up a few days ago (with way too many hours of my help). And then I noticed today she was already starting the "decorating" again. It looks like she simply hasn't got around to putting away her Easter dress. I know better.

Azia has a hard time keeping her room tidy. As much as she enjoys it when it's clean, it's just very against her nature to keep it that way. In addition to her problem of sometimes throwing most of the clothes she owns on the floor when deciding to get dressed and also liking to work on huge craft projects much more than picking up any of the supplies related to those projects, Azia also likes to tie and hang random objects she finds interesting all around the room: toys, favorite articles of clothing, any of those art projects she's always creating, garbage found on the way home from school...anything really.  Doing this with one or two things wouldn't be so bad, but like everything Azia does, it can easily get out of control. Once she took all Zoran's shoe laces out of his shoes to tie all his little matchbook cars from the underside of his loft bed. It was like a giant fleet of flying cars. Another time she took all his hangers out of his closet and hung them underneath this same bed instead. I guess it was more interesting to have all the clothes in full view. She once covered her entire room in glitter. She was so excited to show me how it flew up everywhere when she jumped on her bed. She was trying to recreate the effect she liked & had seen in one of the little snowglobes we had out for Christmas.

She is getting a little less destructive as she get older, but the same tendencies are still there. When we were cleaning this time it took me about a half an hour to unhook and untie all the random coin purses and fake flowers and barbie parts and feather boas from out of all the holes she'd discovered in each of the different branches of her floor lamp. A few months ago she used all her dresses (pinned and safety pinned and knotted together) to make a new sort of curtain for her canopy bed...much more interesting than the boring black one I got for her. 

I hung this dress back in the closet before she got inspired again.

You Capture: Vibrance

Sunrise through the livingroom window: 3-23-2011

 I loved the idea of this topic and then realized tonight I hadn't taken any photos for it. But, in looking through the photos I did take of the last week, much of it seemed pretty vibrant.

The kids spending more and more time outside in sunny weather getting ready for spring sports:
(And maybe this week we'll actually find all the right equipment!)

A whole evening of writers (mainly high school students) preforming their slam poetry:

Loved the vibrance of this high school football player/ poet

 An afternoon with friends to celebrate a ninth year:

An afternoon of international food and culture:

Lex at the University of Montana's 20th Annual International Food & Cultural Festival

And the destructive and beautiful vibrant power of fire:

Day 170: Going to great lengths

to annoy a cousin.

Poor Nana wasn't feeling real great and was partly waiting & watching for Mom to come down the driveway and partly trying to take a nap, but Lex really wanted to get in her face and annoy entertain her. When he couldn't get directly in front of her because the way she was resting, he ran outside, shoved the little picnic table up to the window to stand on, and tried to get her attention through the window.

It's so nice to have great cousins who always want to give you a lot of attention.

Day 169: Spring Cleaning

My entire house is in serious need of some spring cleaning...clutter & disorganized closets and a layer of dust covering everything. I put Zoran to work scrubbing walls while the older two were out cleaning the yard, but the sad part is that even as meticulous as Zoran is (and he actually loves scrubbing things and washing dishes...I'm pretty sure it's too good to last) my walls are all completely disgusting -- at least from about the four-foot mark to the ground.  It's not so much that they need scrubbing as that they need complete repainting.

The really disheartening thing is that I've been cleaning and organizing things for hours and hours every evening for the last week and it really seems like I've made no progress. I also have all sorts of important paperwork piling up, so my new plan is just to get one area, room, closet or whatever accomplished every day so I at least have some visible accomplishment but hopefully avoid getting so incredibly behind in everything else.

Day 168: Go thank a Fireman

IHF: Slice of Life

A few weeks ago when I was complaining of all the work I needed to do (piles of final papers to grade) my little sidekick Lex got everything ready for me to work in my bedroom: laptop plugged in & open, diet coke from the fridge (2), my glasses (which he was wearing to keep "safe") and some TV turned on (probably could sense I didn't really want to start reading papers). Now if only he could drive to the store to buy me chocolate.

Day 167: my boys & our differing ideas about the dump

It seems clear to me that the dump is a service for dropping off, disposing off, or just generally "dumping" unwanted garbage. Israel and his dad, on the other hand, believe it is a place for great treasure hunts. It often defeats my purpose of sending them to get rid of junk when they come back with just as many "treasures" as they dropped off.

Today is was some 8 tracks--like six or so containers full. And no, surprisingly no one who lives here has an eight track player.

But we are going to have to go to the dump again in the next week, so there is always hope.

Day 166: Derby Night

The Hellgate Rollergirls moved from their Toole Ave. location and had their first bout in the Adams Center.  Dev and I and Brain and Aspen took all the girls (all five girls . . .) down to Missoula to watch. It was pretty fun, but looked like it would be even more fun to play. I only have about a 60% grasp on the rules, but the main things seem to be moving forward quickly in the right direction around the track and preventing anyone from the opposing team from passing you. Of course I'd imagine even those become more complicated when you try to do them on skates.

Azia and Jenna were ready to play, too. Azia started begging me to buy her roller skates about halfway through and Jenna was searching the program to see how old you had to be to sign up. They were really excited that the team they were cheering (loudly) for won and had picked out their favorite players by the end of the night. On the way out the field house they were practicing body blocks and checking each other into the walls.

Day 165: First Picnic of the Year

Sort of. We didn't leave the front yard and it was more a snack than a meal. Still, we had an old Buzz Lightyear blanket to sit on, didn't have too long an interruption from the outside playing, and I didn't have any dishes to do afterward. Overall, I think it still had some of the most important qualities of a good picnic.

Day 164: The Reappearing Christmas Tree

Apparently this has been on my back deck since shortly after Christmas. I'm just now realizing this since this is the first time it hasn't been covered in piles of snow since then. Obviously we haven't been shoveling all the decks.

Its probably time for some Spring burning.

You Capture: Youth

Youth. I spend most of my days surrounded by youth, but I find my definition of what that actually means is always changing.

It used to just be these little people.

Then one day I realized my high school students began to seem pretty youthful. A couple years ago I realized I was referring to the college students as "kids."

Lately I've been really amazed at how youthful my mom is. Who knew grandmothers could be so young?

More and more it seems behavior rather than age that urges me to think of people as youthful.

But it's still those very behaviors that some of the youngest people I know do so well that seem to keep people youthful:

always being ready to try new things, to figure stuff out

constantly solving problems and figuring out how to do things you've never done before

and of course, one of the most important qualities of youth:

 always being ready to head off on a grand adventure. 

Day 163: The 2024 MHS Basketball Team

Okay the math I had to do to come up with the date 2024 just made me feel really old.  I can't have kids going to school in the 2020s. That's so far into the future. Will they even have basketball then?

If so, these boys will be ready. We had to shake off the snow to bring the hoop inside. After they got over me not letting them play basketball outside in their shorts, jerseys, and basketball shorts in the snow this was a pretty good alternative.

Day 162: Hey Lex, your shirt (and your feet) are on backwards!

Day 161: Super Moon

I don't know if it actually seemed any bigger or closer than other full moons, but for once the sky was clear and bright and you could actually see it. Lately we've had such overcast weather I've hardly seen the moon.

I didn't have a tripod or a plan to take photos, but when we got home at about 2:00 a.m. the sky was nice and bright. At 6:00 a.m. after an ambulance call it was still the same story. It was bright enough that I could take this relatively focused image with just my hand held camera while standing on my deck.  

Day 160: In search of Bigfoot

Since we weren't so successful in the search for leprechauns a few days ago, we've moved on to searching for Bigfoot. Yes, lately I've spent a large portion of my timing searching for mythical creatures.

We didn't find him, but we did have a pretty cool search team. Adult field trips are always fun. Also, maybe our search tactics are improving. Last year Michael was the one lone team member who found a balloon. This year we came back with three. (And we got four prizes because Deva and I used our impressive teamwork skills to get ours so  she convinced them we really both deserved a t-shirt.)

Next year we'll catch him for sure.

Azia as Amelia

Azia has been a little obsessed with Amelia Earhart the past week and a half. She had a little research project for school where she was to pick a person to learn more about and a project to show what she learned. She picked Amelia Earhart and decided on the option where she'd dress like her and read a paragraph she'd written to the class. You can tell she has been living with Israel. She had no idea who Oprah was (the person Jenna chose) but she was really excited about a woman aviator from more than 100 years ago. 

She's been reading some of Israel's Ameila Earhart books, googling things, watching youtube clips, drawing pictures everywhere, creating dioramas and ABC books (two of the other options) and writing little lists of facts and paragraphs and stories about Amelia Earhart on little scraps of paper and leaving them all around the house. I've been collecting the written stuff as I found it laying around & tucking it in the little folder she made at school. Last night as we were finding all the pieces for her costume and getting all the things she'd written out, I told her I'd type it up if she read me the parts she wanted to read to the class. Of course Azia didn't think this was necessary. She just took the pile of papers and was just going to wad them all up and shove them in the pocket of her leather aviator jacket (which her big brother bought for her at the Folkshop for her costume for $4.95.) When I suggested that maybe wasn't the best organization system for a presentation she told me she didn't really need them anyway because she probably had a lot of it memorized.

After we started typing it she thought it was getting really long but didn't want to edit it because she thought it would be cool if it was the longest one in the class. We had to leave out some of my favorite things she'd written because (as she explained) she didn't know if they were really what happened or what people were thinking, it was just how she imagined it. And then there were just great lines like "she is rilly, rilly smart. I think she could be a teacher or nurse or even a secretarie" and "she is so brave she will have fun in heven."

Azia generally doesn't give school another thought after she leaves for the day (even when I strongly try to focus her on thinking about it) but every once in awhile she latches onto things she likes and really gets excited about learning. 

Azia's Amelia Earhart Report

Amelia Earhart was born July 24, 1897 at her grandparents’ home in Kansas. When Amelia was seven she built a roller coaster with her sister Muriel and the neighbor boy Ralphie. It was up on top of the garage and went all the way down to the ground. She said it was like flying. That was when she first wanted to fly a plane.

Amelia’s grandparents had lots of money and she and her sister Muriel moved to Iowa to live with them. Amelia was 10 years old when she saw her first plane in a grassy field at the Iowa State Fair, but she didn’t think it was interesting at all just sitting there.

When Amelia got older she decided to be a nurse and she volunteered at military hospital until  World War One ended. She went to college to be a doctor but quit after just a year and then decided to go stay with her parents in California. There at Long Beach she went on her first flight. She knew as soon as they took off she wanted to fly a plane herself. She bought a plane she named “The Canary” and started flying it.

On April 27, 1926 her life changed forever when Captain Railey called and asked her if she wanted to be the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. She finally did it in 1928 with Wilmer Stultz and Slim Gordon. Even though she said the two men did all the real work, all the newspeople were more interested in taking pictures and talking to her since she was the first woman.  After that she started learning more and doing long flights by herself.

In 1937 she decided she’d try to fly around the world.  She left Florida and went to California, and then on to Puerto Rico, Karachi, Calcutta, Rangoon, Bangkok, Singapore, Australia, and New Guinea. She was on her way to Howland Island but no one ever saw her again after that. No one knows what happened to her for sure. President Roosevelt sent nine navy ships and 66 airplanes to look for her.  The search cost over $4 million but no one ever found her. 

Day 159: This is what you wear for a little after school breakdancing

They told me so.

And they're obviously cool enough to know these things.

St. Patrick's Day 2011

Israel and Lex figuring out their green outfits the night before.

My kids love St. Patrick's day. Actually they love holidays or celebrations or occasions of pretty much any kind.  If they involve dressing up, chaos, parties or community events,  even better.

 St. Patrick's Day involves all of these things and the idea of small, mischievous little leprechauns, so it's pretty exciting. My children are also small, mischievous creatures so I think they feel some sort of kinship with the little people. Azia and Zoran were arguing yesterday about whether or not leprechauns were real. When they asked me, I told them I'd never seen one so maybe they were just made up. But I also told them I didn't know how to prove they weren't real either and asked them if they knew how. They thought about it for awhile but apparently couldn't think of anything because then they started designing their trap. 

They have been trying to catch a leprechaun for a few years and just this year Zoran asked me, "What do we do with it once we catch one?" I told him I had no idea. He then walked off thinking about it. Not sure if he ever figured it out.

Since they didn't catch a leprechaun again this year, I guess he has another year to figure it out. I heard Zoran and Azia arguing about it and Zoran thought it was Azia's fault because he wanted to make the same trap as last year but put it in a better spot. Azia blamed it on me & told Zoran I made the lousy trap this year that again didn't catch anything. (I didn't, but I may have suggested strongly Azia go with the super-simple design of a hidden trap door rather than begin weaving a cage she would disguise in fake clouds and rig to a pulley system that she'd run from her bedroom through an outside window and into the living room where she'd set up the bait: a diorama sort of set up including rainbows and fake money. It was 10:30 at night after all. )

Lex is probably more trouble than a leprechaun. When Zoran got up and was surveying the chaos caused by leprechauns he found a few other messes that Lex created after everyone else went to sleep & they were attributed to the leprechauns as well. I'm pretty sure Lex didn't have any help from leprechauns.

Lex also has a strange mischievous temperament. He loved the upside down, overturned furniture all over the house. Israel asked him if he did it and he just looked around from his perch on top of the crooked couch, shook his head yes, and said "Yep!"

What's wrong with him? You aren't supposed to willingly take credit for trouble you don't cause!

The kids seemed to think the rainbow the leprechauns painted was some sort of speed track. They were all running in little circles around it all day.

It was also more fun to lay on than the regular, non-painted ground.

I didn't realize how how much the kids liked the rainbow until they were very sad when I scrubbed it off the floor after they went to bed. The older kids thought we should've painted over it with clear paint so it would stay there forever. Lex was mad when he woke up and it was gone. He wouldn't talk to me for 15 minutes or so when I told him I washed it off. When he saw these photos, again he told me he wanted to put it back on the floor.

I think KaNana had the fanciest St. Patrick's Day outfit. Though Paisley did have miniature little leprechaun hats in her hair.

We had a green toenail painting session.

Since no one likes corn beef (except Dev) or cabbage, we stuck with variations of the same meal we had last year. Lucky Charms for breakfast (my kind of cooking!) and soda bread and chicken stew for dinner. Last year after the leprechauns dyed everything green and the kids were not that interested in drinking the green milk (or eating any of the other various green foods). They also think our green eggs on Sr. Seuss day are a bit strange. They are, however, a fan of green shamrock milkshakes, especially since we don't generally have desert with lunch. I guess ice cream is good no matter the color. I also made Guinness brownies which I didn't share with the children. Zoran found them the next day and ate some anyway. He was a fan of the super dark chocolately stuff. Israel thought it was weird to put beer in brownies. I thought they went pretty well with milkshakes.

We headed up to the parade in Ronan in the evening. It was pretty short this year. Not even any green horse!

Still candy though! Lex had his older siblings retrieve it for him and fill up his green hat.

I got Azia this headband a few weeks ago and when she got it out to put it on & found the dollar price tag she asked me. "This is only one dollar? It is much too beautiful to only cost one dollar!"

This photo is just strange. I have no idea what that green stripe is. I've never seen anything like that on any of my digital photos and it isn't on any of the others I took at the same time. It almost looks like one of those leprechauns is trying to tie up Israel up with some mysterious floating green magic rope.

I once again tried to get a photo of the kids together. So, naturally Lex went flat to the ground. I wonder if I'll ever be able to get a normal photo of them together.

Zoran didn't come to the parade because there was a wrestling meet that night. He didn't want to be late to warm up. Azia, on the other hand, didn't even want to go to the wrestling meet once she knew there was a parade. She's not quite as devoted as her brother. She did make it back in time to wrestle, wearing her plaid socks, her headband, and with three St.Patty's Day buttons pinned to her singlet. At least I let her keep the socks on.