Weekly Winners VII

Fun with Mirrors.

"Hey! Who are you?"

"You're pretty cute. Just like me!"

"Gimme a smooch!"

"We could be sisters! Logan, you gotta meet dis girl!"

"Emma, what's goin' on?"

"Who's dat in dat other room? She looks familiar."

"Hey! Check out dis guy!"

"He's funny!"

Imagine this if you will:

Quadruplets.

Aieee!

More Weekly Winners here.

More of my Weekly Winners here.

Splish, Splash!

You've been missing pictures of the twins, haven't you? Well...okay! Here are a few to keep you busy.

"Bleah! Dis washcloff taste funny."

His own personal waterfall.

"You know what? I still taste good."

"Wooooooooo!"
Mopped the floor after this was over. Thanks, Logan.

Want a bath, Emma?
"No t'anks. I good. Got mine yestiddy."

This post brought to you by Sticky Boy.

Growing Challenge: Raised Beds

In case you were wondering why I haven't been posting as frequently, the answer is two fold.

• Part the first: in attempting to synch up the twins' sleep schedule, I've been tandem nursing. And ya know what? Ya just can't type when you're tandem nursing! I may had mad one-handed typing skillz, but my toes aren't that talented.
• Part the Second: it's Market Season! I've been taking piles of plants and selling them off at the Farmer's Market. It also means that my days are filled with watering and feeding plants, potting up little bitty plants and starting new seeds, repeatedly.
  
  Itty bitty plants. Lots of itty bitty plants.
  
  Pricking out and potting up calendula and lavatera.
  
  
  Putting plants outside in the sun, pulling them back in, culling the weak, ditching the dead and on and on and on!

So if you have a local Farmer's Market, you should head on down there to see what they have, meet the farmers and get involved in the local food scene. One of the best parts of being at the market, for me, is meeting all of the different folks who come through looking for plants. There are a ton of people starting gardens for the first time this year as well as folks who've been doing it for years. They all stop to chat with us for awhile while shopping. As a matter of fact, one set of folks came looking for me specifically since I was apparently getting a reputation as being The Tomato Lady! Aiee!

I can't help it, though. If you ask me about care and culture of plants, I can talk for ages. Also, I want you to have a good planting experience and if I can offer you details on how and when to plant those tomatoes, I certainly will! Also, since I raised them from itty bitty seeds, I'd like to see them go to happy homes.

So go on down to your local market and strike up a conversation!

In my own garden, work has finally begun on my new raised beds!*

Say it with me now: "Ooooh!"

"Ahh!" Upside down and in the wrong location, it awaits relocation and filling. And yes, my yard is that sloped. I'm so jealous of you folks with your flat yards!

Visions of tomatoes and green beans are dancing in my head. Also, mulching around the outside of the beds, ordering gardening mix to fill them with and starting yet more plants from seed! Woo! Squash!

A few weeks back I had started a pot with cilantro, carrots, spinach and scallions. They've finally decided to come up!

Cilantro, carrots and one puny spinach. Phooey!

Took awhile, too. Now I just need to keep the birds from eating them and they should grow on nicely. Next up, starting yet more basil from seed!

I still have huge piles of weeds that need ripping out. I started some of that work while Eric (Who built the beds.) and my friend Dave worked on digging post holes for the raised beds, late last night. As the darkness rolled over us and the temperature was dropping, I was scooping handfuls of last year's trees into my flower border, trying to find plants, instead of weeds.

Look! Mulch!

Today, while the twins are napping, I will sneak outside to continue ripping out weeds and throwing down mulch.

The weeds seem to be winning this battle.

I'm not getting it done as thoroughly as I might like to, but with my time being as limited as it is fast is more important.

Speaking of which, I've gotta go!

Tally-ho!

* Photos will be added later!

Beaten By Biology

I was at Market Wednesday night, and didn't get home until 9:15 pm with almost exploding breasts. I rushed in, grabbed my sleeping saviors and nursed them into deeper unconsciousness.

For once they are really really sleeping: they've been asleep for seven hours. But have I been sleeping that whole time?

Noooooo!

Instead, I was woken up by incredibly, exceedingly, painfully full breasts.

Not wanting to wake the twins, I pumped some. Now, thirty minutes later, I'm still so full that I'm beginning to feel nauseated by the pain.

I can't win the Sleeping Battle, can I? Beaten by my own Biology.

Guess I'd better go wake somebody. [Weep!]

Contagious

Is there a disease going on at elementary school that I missed the memo on?

It's as if being disrespectful is a disease. As if they go to school, see what the other kids are doing (and who knows where it started) and then decide to try those attitudes on for size. At home.

You know how you take your kid to school healthy and you see That Kid being dropped off who's sniffling and coughing and you have a bad feeling? Then later, when your child comes down with the sniffles, fever and wracking cough you're certain it was the fault of That Kid? Yet you'll never really know, because often the contagious ones aren't displaying symptoms that you can see. I'm starting to wonder if behavioral issues work the same way or if it really is That Kid who is often defiant and disrespectful to the teacher, their parents and/or other children that has infected the group around them.

My child, my eldest, my beloved daughter who is approaching seven, is driving me completely up a wall. I know I'm not alone, but the feeling of solidarity is not enough to get me through day after endless day of feeling broken, beaten and battered.

I swear, I sent a happy, outgoing, well-mannered child off to kindergarten and got back a shy, rude, miserable beast in return. What is happening in school?! What is happening to my kid?! What are the other kids like if everyone keeps insisting that my daughter is oh-so-much better behaved?! If this is well behaved in comparison, I shudder to think what the home life of the other kids must be like!

If I was a drinker, I'd be drinking heavily at this point.

I've talked quietly, I've yelled, I've given the single swat (Not the same as a spanking, I assure you.) on the bum, I've threatened to swat, I've ceded control over to her father, I've taken stuff away: playdates, movies, computer time, toys, you name it.

I am out of punishments. I am out of patience. I have no empathy left. All I have left are lectures. Constant, constant lectures.

I keep being told it's because of the twins, because she gets less attention at home, because she's "only six!", because she's almost seven, because she's so smart, because she's so emotional. Because! Because! Because!

None. Of. That. Helps.

This morning she turned her back on me and wiggled her ass at me because I asked her to brush her teeth. Yesterday, I asked her to go find her father for me and she asked me if she was "my slave or something?!", so I took away computer access for two days. Then, after screeching about losing privileges and finally doing as she was asked, when she returned, she was repeating "I hate Mommy!" over and over and over again. So I sent her to her room before the smackin' hand could come out and play. And the lying! I can't trust her anymore!

If this is "normal" I'm HATING IT and I want it to STOP.

Gods help me if the twins go through the same thing at 7. I'll run away from home.

Why can't she have picked up on the behavior of the well-mannered, confident, out-going seven year old?

Eric insists that this is a phase and that she'll grow out of it and that I'm just looking for the latest magical technique that will fix everything. He's right. I am looking for that magical technique that will fix everything and the answer can't be either as simple as Ignore her or Spend More Time with Her because I'm not going to last that long. I can't ignore or let her get away with being disrespectful and I don't want to spend time with someone so awful she sucks all of the remaining energy out of me. I don't have a lot of energy left.

Something's gotta give.

I'm afraid it may be my mind.