Just falling from my head...

The kids have not been 100 percent this week. I didn't want to believe they were actually sick though. My head was buried firmly in the sand and only an over flow of poop could bring me out.

Yesterday on the way to Thursday morning Mom's group, Robin threw up in his car seat. He didn't want breakfast and said he wanted to wait to eat until we got there. That's not too unusual really. On the way out the door Dallas saw the vitamins and wanted one of each so we stopped for berries, gummies and bubbles then packed into the car. Since Robin puked a stomach load of vitamins and declared he was fine and wanted to keep going, he got really mad when I turned around to go back home, I was still standing in la la land. I figured it must have been because he had vitamins on and empty stomach because Doug complains about that too. Dallas and I have no problem with vitamins on an empty stomach, I almost prefer them that way. Robin didn't seem too sick the rest of the day. I was prepared for him to lay around and watch some muppet shows but he was up playing and singing all day. I was thankful no one was really sick.

Today I woke up early while the kids were still sleeping and took a shower, then I promptly go on packing lunch for our day out. While cutting apples, the phone rang, Robin rand downstairs and Warren started to cry. I went upstairs to find Dallas sitting up and Warren had crawled off the bed and was making his way to the stairs. He had poo soaked through his jammies.

I changed his very wet and poopy clothes and diaper and went upstairs to nurse. Dallas climbed from his bed and quietly and timidly says "Mama, there's poop everywhere and I stinky." I wrapped him in a towel and set him in the tub. The pants got thrown away. It was that bad. I cloth diaper and I didn't feel I could save these pants. It was bad. The poor little guy was such a trooper though.

Dallas discovered the joy of standing in the shower with warm water running over you. He wanted to stay there after he had been all cleaned up. For several months he would not get his head wet voluntarily and would not let you wash his hair but here he was, completely cured of that fear standing under the shower with water running on his head. I've never been on to like water in the face myself. I don't see how people in commercials can smile with their faces pointed into the spray of water. I can't wash my hair with my head hanging down either but that's what he was doing and he didn't get water in his eye either.

So on to what I'm thankful for. I'm thankful that I was too busy to eat breakfast before the kids woke up. Cleaning up Dallas caused heaving and it would have been so much worse to have to clean up vomit too. I'm thankful Costco sells boxes of exam gloves for days like this when you just can't bare to stick your hands in it. I'm thankful for my children's adaptability since we had a really fun day planned and we had to change gears so fast. I'm thankful for a stocked kitchen since the new plan is to cook with the kids today. I'm thankful for these new lights that I had not previously mentioned because they are really brightening up my day.

I went to find my iPod shuffle and I knew I had dropped it into my purse but I couldn't find it. This caused an impromptu cleaning to happen. I was surprised at what I found when I laid it out an looked at it. We all know the purse is a sacred place. A mystery of what wonders it contains. I'm going to share with you the contents of mine.

The purse it's self isn't huge but it's not small either. It's waterproof inside and out as it's really meant to be a nice diaper bag too.



Now I have said before but I'll say it again, I like to be prepared. In case of emergence, I'm your go to girl. Let's go over the picture.

All this stuff came from inside. It often also holds my D90 but today I had left it out.


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In the left hand corner we see the medicine cabinet. If you have a cough, sniffle, flu, gas, diarrhea, sore muscles, teething, low energy, bad breath, dirty hands, migraine, tummy ache or any other ailment I could probably help you out. These are mostly homeopathic with some essential oils, enzymes and cough syrups in there.

There's a small selection of cosmetics including three lip colors, three hair doohickeys and moisturizer. I'm not sure where the ear plugs fit in.

The right hand corner holds 1 lb dark chocolate covered apricots, half a bar of dark chocolate mint, one sucker, two buffalo bars, i package of baby rice crackers and four chai tea bags (two regular and two decaf. It's all sitting on a baby bib.

Back to the left we have all my tech gear: Macbook power cord adapter, 16g sd memory card, GoWear body monitor, Flip, Shuffle, iPhone, two sets of head phones. Yes, two ways to listen to music. There's also a headlamp that was very helpful in seeing into the bottom of the bag and a polishing cloth for removing finger prints. There is usually a Coolpix in there too but it's out getting charged.

I roll with a healthy assortment of toys such as two baby wearing figurines, a frog, pig and prickly polar bear, a deflated balloon (You never know when your going to have a balloon emergency) and four marbles. There's a roll of golden confetti in case the need for a party arises.

There's the expected purse things too such as keys, coupons, receipts, pocket knife, paring knife and a photo CD. I also had one mini purse, a phone case, wallet, coin purse and folding grocery bag.

Arts and crafts are very important to us. I come prepared with two crochet hooks and and a set of needles. Those egg cartons with the pipe cleaners are barnacles the kids made last week that they keep taking with us and putting back into my purse.

Office supplies are also a passion of mine. Here I have two mechanical pencils, three pens, a highlighter and a binder clip. I'm using a paper planner this year because I'm trying to be a little less techie and a little more tactile.

Then there's the change. That's quite a pile of it. It totals at $5.50 not counting the $3 in bills. When I went to shake the purse out on the porch sixty-two cents came dumping out on to the ground along with enough crumbs to feed at lease a dozen mice really well. It's the magic purse that just keeps giving!

I think what I've learned from this is: change is heavy, carry less change.

I now challenge you to post what's in your purse....

I just got this phone call from a number I did not recognize. I cautiously answer the phone "Hello?" A man with a rather stoned sounding voice answers back "Is Silver there?" I say "Excuse me?" He says "Um yeah?" I ask "Whom are you looking for?" the man replies "Oh yeah, Silver. Is Silver there?" I tell him "I belive you have the wrong number unless you are calling for my cat." He pauses for a second "Um ok, I guess I have the wrong number." then hangs up.

Robin hands me the bag of pretzels we are all sharing. He tells me "Your going to have to feed me one at a time." I ask him to put out his hand so I can just give him some and he yells "No!!! I can't!! I touched the cats butt with this hand!" While cracking up, I suggest that he go wash his hands. The look on his face was like watching a light bulb go off over his head. You've got to love little moments of honesty like these.

Today we have the fortune of seeing two Captain Bogg and Salty concerts and gleaning a plum tree in between. The first concert was at the Bothell Library. For the first time ever, I was at a library before it opened. This was mostly a coincidence though, we left Doug's car at the park and ride so we had to ride out together. We got our tickets and had a nice spot in the front on the side of the room.

Dallas wanted to be held, Robin wanted to dance and Warren didn't want the same thing from minute to minute, he likes to change it up. I'm finding it hard to meet all the kids wants while at times like these. The odd thing is, the most difficult part seems to be that my kids, although eating all the way there and with the promise of food immediately following, feel like they are starving to death it they have to stop eating for half an hour. Doug joked we should try worming them, lol.

On the drive down to Bothell we were listening to Emphatical Piratical and Robin wanted to request a song and we couldn't agree. Dallas clearly wanted Purple Tikki because when asked which one he liked he would chant back wee oh-oh wee oh-oh, although it's heehoo heehoo he most often sings which is Treading the seas for pirate gold. Robin said Buccaneering Bunny Rabbits aka Bunnyjacks and I really wanted to hear Who's At Captains Table. When we had the chance ask for these requests, regretfully they were not on the days playlists. I was asked if there was any other song and my mind just went blank. clearly the answer should have been Wind from Prelude to Mutiny. It's the song that draws us to the Pirate Festival in hopes that we get to hear it again. It has to be Captain Bogg's finest. When that song plays the energy in the crowd changes and you get a shiver down your spine of excitement. Perhaps it's too much energy for a mall to hold. Then again, the celling was pretty high.

After the Bothell show I packed the now half starved kids into the van and loaded their little laps with snack foods and headed for the plum glean. It was a glorious tree overflowing with mid sized yellow fruit that was quite delicious. The home owner and I picked as many as we could reach and as we did, Robin would find one in the tree and ask me to hand it to him. I asked what he was going to do with his plums and he said he wanted to give them to the pirates because they couldn't have trees on a pirate ship and it was sad that they don't go home at night to sleep in a bed because they have to stay on the ship. This spurred two topic: 1) boats, especially ships have beds and food, and 2) The band is made up of real people who have real lives. I didn't know he believed they were really pirates full time. I know we had this conversation after the pirate festival, perhaps it didn't really sink in. We talked about how all the band members have real names and stage names, they don't have to stay on a ship, and they get to go home to their own families too. He was much relieved. He was highly concerned that they didn't have enough to eat seeing as how Sunny Jim only makes cinnamon toast, which Robin has never had but he knew they needed fruit too. So here comes the plums. He had carefully selected what he deemed the very best from the tree to give to his pirate friends and I had just told him they didn't need them. He looked crushed. I quickly realized that I couldn't let his last hour go to waist so we decided that they were still a nice gift because the library and the mall wouldn't have great plums to offer so he should go ahead and take them.

We go to the Crossroads mall and he gathered his treasure to deliver and he was a boy on a mission. When we found the stage he froze and whispered "Mama, I need you to do it. I just can't." The band was still setting up so I carried them to the stage and set them down off to the side telling them briefly how Robin picked them some plums. Looking down at Robin, I could see he felt he did a great deed. He was very proud. To him, he was feeding some starving pirates who surly would starve on just limes and toast and four little plums would save their lives. When Doug met up with us the first this that came beaming from Robin, before even saying hello was "I gave them plums!"

We had a great time last night at the aquatic center. The first thing to note is it's well staffed and clean. there are several family bathroom/shower/changing rooms as well as the separate ladies and gents. I would have preferred larger lockers for that quarter they cost but we just locked up our phones and keys and brought the huge bright gym bag to the beach chairs and loungers. There were many. Warren was asleep and Doug didn't want to get wet and cold so he stayed out with the baby.

Since it was night, although it wasn't a very warm night, it wasn't particularly cold either. The thought of getting wet wasn't exactly appealing but I didn't feel like I would freeze either. I was glad to find that Pavy was not kidding, the water was heated! On to the features of this cool water park.

There is a lazy/rushing river depending on if your trying to go against the current to get out or not. There are plenty or intertubes of varying sizes. At one end there is a constant shower of water that fills these buckets that dump down on you. I don't really understand the appeal of suddenly getting drenched from above. The kids didn't either. It must be there to keep the staff in good humor. This river connects up to the landing pool for two huge twirling water slides. You need to be 48" to go on them. I'm not a fan of water slides myself but Robin was highly disappointed that he could not go.

They have a wave pool that has some really strong waves and goes to 6.5 ft. Dallas kept falling down and both kids went under for a second and decided they didn't like it after a short while. Robin kept braving it from the side and then backing out but I was worried about getting washed over Dallas or his falling under so the kids had to move on. The waves crashed pretty hard even in the very shallow part. I sent them to the spray island wading pool and got to go in the deep end for a wave or two. It was REALLY fun.

The shallow spray island/wading pool had many fountains spraying out but you could go under then if your not keen to be sprayed in the face. The kids could choose to stand or crawl for most of it and there are blue tile lines to clearly mark when it changes from one to two feet so the kids could see where too far really was. I didn't notice a line at the two to three foot mark but by then I was holding the kids so it didn't really mater. They were like fish there, not fearful at all just going for it.

When 10pm came around and it was time to leave we got a family restroom and found they have a shower in them and the water is also warm, warmer than the pool even. It made getting out and getting cold to change bearable. You pay to get in whether you swim or not. The cost was only $22 for all of us at the non-resident rate for the Wednesday night twilight special. It was a really great time and well worth the drive and expense.

Ah yes, the drive. We got back to Doug's car where he was too tired and had a nap, then we stopped on the side of the road so he could sleep a little more and I could change and feed the baby, After sleeping in the driveway, we didn't get to our own beds until 3am. Warren had been asleep since 8pm so after a couple change/feed combos, was ready to start his day at 8am again. I'm exhausted today after all the swimming and dragging kids through the water then staying awake to make sure we all arrived safely. I still hope we can go again next year.

But maybe I have said too much already. I feel like a dork.

I always feel like blogging in late summer. I think it's when I first started. Why? Captain Bogg and Salty I'd guess. I always right about the summer library tour. It's getting harder to find time to write though and as I found out today, it's getting harder to take photos too. I had a hold of two kids at all times at the show today. I hope I can get enough shots for a decent slide show.

I noticed on my phone, in my iblogger program, I have several unpublished blog posts. I realized the reason is I fear feedback or lack of. My blog auto posts to my facebook page. Is this a good thing or a bad thing, I have not yet decided.