How To Distract Boys Who Are Worried Their Kitten Will Die

During tonight's shower & get ready for bed extravaganza, the toilet was filled and not flushed and our kitten, an adventurous sort, leaped up to investigate. She slipped on some drips on the seat, though, and fell in. SPLASH! She immediately leaped out and began to lick her leg. EEEEEWWW! KIPPAH'S DRINKING PEE-PEE!

Chris, being of sound (if angry & frustrated) mind, picked the dripping kitten up and deposited her in our shower, where she could be enclosed for a nice wash. The children finally got their wits about them and fled to their beds, tearful that the kitten might be about to die. SHE DRANK PEE.

I washed the kitten. Then, as Chris hadn't been successful at calming the boys, I went in...with this:

"Drinking pee-pee is gross. It is disgusting and you should NOT do it, BUT...it will not kill you. In fact, if you are stranded on a sailboat on the ocean, you should drink your own pee-pee, you should not drink the salty ocean. If you are stranded in a sailboat on Lake Erie, though, drink Lake Erie - it's marginally better than your own pee. IF YOU ARE NOT STRANDED ON THE OCEAN IN A SAILBOAT, do not drink your own pee. Even though it won't kill you."

Lars tried to interject with a question, but I cut him off, "NO QUESTIONS. GO TO SLEEP."

Both boys seem to have forgotten their worry that the kitten might die.


cross posted at Worst.Mama.Ever.

No Longer On His Menu: Corn on Cob, Whole Apples, Candy Dots

7:10am - Ross climbed out of bed and farted and Lars hollered, "My tooth came out!"

Ahhh...morning boys.

Mastering My Inner Squirrel

As summer wanes, I usually begin to stock up the pantry. Despite the fact that snow here barely lasts long enough to get hungry, I'm not comfortable facing winter without at least a few days' worth of food in long-term storage. I expect I'll retire to Florida with kitty litter and a blanket in my trunk, too - old habits are hard to break.

This year, though, I'm mastering my need to stockpile. In spite of the calendar, we are eating down the pantry and emptying the freezer. Why? Because in just a few weeks, we will be living without a kitchen and my desire not to move or throw out a lot of food is stronger than my need to horde for winter.

Last week, I pulled a sirloin roast out of the freezer. It was too big to make just for us, so we called in Bibliofilly & Robert for help. They gamely arrived on Friday in time to help us finish off a couple of cheeses before the meal. In a gracious gesture, the meat thermometer volunteered not to be moved. The roast was still delicious.

Die Siedler von Catan

Our family souvenier from Germany is a board game, Die Siedler von Catan. It's a game of strategy and luck, you collect resources to expand your settlements to a certain size before your opponents can expand theirs. The board changes shape every time you play and resources are collected based on die rolls. A band of robbers move about the board whenever a seven is rolled, depriving you of resources from a particular piece of land and also stealing some resources from your existing hand. Extra points can be earned from things like having the longest road, the largest army or plain luck - you can trade three resources for a development card that might have a library or marketplace worth a point. Lars is especially fond of the game. As soon as he gets over his love of the longest road (he builds ALL his roads before anything else), he will win the game. Until then, I win all the time. I can trail the entire game - by enough points to get depressed about - and then, suddenly grab four points at once and surpass everyone at the end. I like to think it's due to my superior intelligence and ironclad strategy but a lot of it is luck. Either way, it DRIVES CHRIS NUTS. He doesn't mind losing sometimes but losing ALL the time, especially when he's feeling confident of a win right up until the moment of the loss, really gets to him. I'm coaching Lars in head-to-head games a couple of times per week with the hope that he'll be able to share the winning sometime soon!

Germany, Part 1

A month ago, I was lounging (as much as one can lounge while on vacation with kids) in Germany, surrounded by family, friends, amazing sites and great food. Thanks to the digital age, processing our copious pictures did not break our budget - instead, they just take time to sort and process into sizes I can share. I'm about half done, so here's the first batch of highlights from our trip.

We visited Ronneburg as our first outing - a fabulous castle that has been carefully kept. Other castles I've been to can be described as picturesque ruins, this one seems as if it's just waiting for you to pull up with a moving truck. Unlike historical sites in the States, Ronneburg is a self-guided tour, with very few places cordoned off so you can take your time and let your imagination run as you wander freely. Don't miss the "Guide Peacock" (he's inside) in the pictures, he was Lars' favorite part. A bucket is provided at the castle well, so you can drop a little water down to hear how deep the well is. Ross took a video; so did I.

Büdingen is the town at the foot of the castle. We enjoyed wandering around a bit, had some ice cream and played on a Spielplatz (playground) - the first of MANY we visited along the trip. Pictures here...

Near Katja & Tommy's home is Edelbrennerei Dirker, maker of fine schnaps in every flavor (except maple, which we've decided might be a good idea). Their Apfel Strudel schnaps is just heavenly - I'm content to just sniff it but it tastes good, too.


Wuppertal has a hanging train! We stopped for an amazing ride on our way from Frankfurt to Dortmund. We also had lunch and a stop in Starbucks (our only for the trip) for a blast of caffeine and warmth. Picures here; video here.



Seligenstadt featured my favorite sign of the trip, at the road to the ferry across the Main. There's also a beautiful Benedictine Abbey, which was founded in 830. More pictures here. We had ice cream while waiting for the return ferry - another theme of the trip.

I Go To The City For Work And Just LOOK What Happens

Vertical Naps

Bethany sent some lovely compliments about my blog recently, mentioning that one of the things she likes is the occasional cute kitten picture. Since I'm still working on the Germany pictures, here are a couple of cute kitten shot to tide you over - Kippah folds herself vertically to nap:

I am working as fast as I can on the Germany pictures both because I want to share them AND because I will be able to blog about our kitchen renovation very soon...we go to contract tomorrow!



Finally, today is the one-year anniversary of breaking my leg. I'm happy to report all my bones are back together and no, I'm not planning to break anything in memory of last year's experience.

At The Boardwalk

It's the part of summer when Bibliofilly's niece is here to visit, which means many things to the three kids between us...namely mini-golf, ice cream, and the beach. This year, we all did mini-golf and ice cream but since we just got back from Germany, we weren't going to make the beach. Never one to shrink from challenge, Bibliofilly offered to take the kids - Robert's car would fit everyone and then her niece would have someone to play with. We compromised on sending Ross with them for the day. Lars spent the day with his friends at Summer Playgrounds and then played World of Warcraft as a treat when he got home. The beachgoers arrived back at our place in time for dinner, full of sun, sand, and stories shared over the meal (grilled pork with apricots & red onion - yum).

In other news, Chris solved my photo problem by setting up a 500GB RAID array. Now that my computer isn't choking on 40GB of picture data (not all from Germany), I can run my photo editor again, which means Germany pictures will come soon!

Note To Self

Memorize official name of important professional panel you are on; "Green Code Thing" just doesn't pack the right punch.

Recurring Fantasy - Monkey Edition

Two summers ago, Monkey Rescue was born. In the years since, Monkey Base Camp has been revisited often. Adventures are had, jubilant reports are brought back to the house to share over snacks. Less often, the monkeys are all on vacation so important repairs can be made to Monkey Base.

When maintenance had been completed today, I asked if Ross knew where the monkeys had gone. "Not really, but I'm sure they couldn't go anywhere exciting because they don't know the rules about your shoes and your belt at the airport."

"Monkey's don't generally wear shoes or belts," I pointed out.

Ross gave me an exasperated look. "The monkeys live on a jobsite, Mama, they have to have work boots and tool belts."

Vacation Spoils

In addition to approximately 20kg dirty underwear, we smuggled brought back:

• 2 tubes mustard
• some Zuckerrüben
• a new Spätzlepresse
• 2 litre Kraftbräu flask
• 1.5 litre schnaps
• 2 bottles Kleiner Feigling
• a puzzle
• a poster
• a game
• a couple of books
• 2 model cars
• 1 lizard named Upsilon
• 1 frog called Spike
  
• 3 kilos Gummi Bears
• 2 kilos chocolate
• a tiny tripod LED flashlight
• a garlic press
• kitchen tongs
  
• a shirt from Modehaus Hochstetter
  
• 6 pairs Birkenstock
  

First Day Home

The children must have been worn out from travel yesterday, as they did not get up at 2:30am! They slept until 3:30am. Everyone was up, dressed, and fed by 5:30, so our guests took off at 6:00am for parts north. Fraukow and the boys really miss Joe and Chris' Mom and Dad are stopping to pick up their new puppy on the way home, so the early start is good thing for all. Also? It's 8:30am and I'm already unpacked and doing laundry here. I'm back at work tomorrow, so today's my day to recover the house and get groceries. The kids can't do their playgrounds program today, due to rain, but it's probably good for them to have a quiet day at home, too.

We made it home! We had no problems with the flight or customs or the shuttle (the shuttle rocked so much that we will certainly be using that service again). We ordered Thai for dinner and watched a glorious rainstorm from the sanctity of the porch while Chris and his Dad went to get the food. Most everyone has turned in, the few of us left up are struggling. I'm torn between fighting for 8pm to attain normal time faster and going to bed now so I'm better prepared for the kids, who will no doubt spring awake at 2:30am, looking for breakfast. We tried to explain the finer points of jet lag but I'm pretty sure they missed the point completely.

Vacation, Last Night

Löwen und Tiger und Bären, oh vey!

Home in 24; just not ready for it to all be over.

Vacation, An Update

In case you don't follow my Twitter, Germany rocks. Let's do the numbers so far:

• 4 countries: Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg...three of them at once!
• 786 pictures (the keepers will someday show up in my Flickr)
• 5 rainshowers, mostly at times we were planning to be inside anyhow.
• 1 completely amazing double rainbow
• 6 children
• 4 ice-creams
• 2 rental cars, one from France
• 1 hysterical childrens' show about reproduction and birth
• 15 postcards
  
• 2 Roman ruins
• 4 buildings built in 830 (or earlier); still in active use today
  
• Between us all, more glasses of wine than can be counted using ordinal numbers

Miss you (and your blogs) all; home on Thursday.

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

Tuesday will bring five guests to our house for an overnight pitstop before we all head to the airport to begin our vacation - two weeks in Germany! I'll be toting electronics but have no idea if, or how often, I'll be able to blog. If there's a gap, count on stories and pictures upon my return!

Conversation Shorts

Me: I've had to change the bank password AGAIN. Do you care?

He: Are you dead?

Me: Not yet.

He: Then, no.
=========================================

She: You guys didn't show up for the party! Are we shunned?

Me: *sigh* *eyeroll* Hampers flew at heads, walls were pounded, loud bad words...

She: Everything ok?

Me: In the end, sure.

She: *conspiratorial grin* Glad you didn't come, then. By the way? I'm TOTALLY using this as an object lesson for my kids.

July? ROCKS. (A List)

* Money for new kitchen!

* Completely unexpected professional honor of such magnitude that I had trouble breathing when I got the call. I feel SO not worthy but am delighted all the same.

* Three Wishing Wells on a row. Not the middle, so I still have reason to play...

* New printer - one that actually prints without incantations and chicken killing.

* Playroom has been kept neat for three weeks on end, so far. Yesterday, the boys cleaned up when they were done WITHOUT BEING REMINDED. Mamas everywhere are dropping in shock. A brief interview revealed the boys have realized they like going in there to play when it doesn't look like a swirling, toy covered death trap.

* Hot new haircut.

* Germany! Two weeks.

* Chris weeded his dresser and his desk. I know he only worked on his desk because he was looking for something (and no, I did not plant what he was looking for at the bottom...) but still.

What other wonders might this month hold?

Daddy Said We Could Dig

"Mama, I'm going to meet Ryan on the far side of the shed, by Rachel's house. We're going to DIG!"

"Wait! You're going to what? Dig?"

"Daddy said we could dig a hole the size of a hockey net!"

"Do we have bodies to hide? I shouldn't think you'd want to bury the hockey net." I get only a puzzled look in response. I try again, "Why are you digging?"

"Because it's fun." Of course.

Later, I find Chris. "You told the kids they could dig a hole the size of a hockey net?"

"Oh, did they work on it today?" He looks pleased. I nod and wait. "We've been talking about a compost, right? And we'll need a hole to start it in?" Comprehension dawns and I marvel at my husband's brilliant plan.

Pantene Beautiful Lengths

I donated my ponytail to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths program! I forgot to bring a camera to my hair appointment, so there are no pictures of the actual event, only before and after pictures.

Before:




















After: