It's just the beginning

of things going wrong in the garden.

Here are a few early season notes:

1. One of my irises is being devoured by slugs. I think this is unfair. It's too early in the season for pests. It's rainy and 46 degrees today. And who has ever heard of slugs eating irises? I think this particular plant is going to get trashed anyway. This is its second home in my yard and it must not have decent drainage because it is not flourishing the way I would like.

2. It has not been a great year for daffodils in general because of the cold. But I noticed something. I have planted smaller varieties in front of my larger varieties hoping for a layered look. Unfortunately they don't seem to be blooming at the same time, while the very similar looking miniature daffodils up the street bloomed three weeks ago. Grrr. I am not ripping them out.

3. My mom and I planted some seeds during the winter. Unfortunately one of the containers I used had an aluminum bottom, and it has not retained water at all. The soil is bone dry while the other four are like little terrariums, and look like they may be hospitable to life. I can only hope my mom's coral star Columbine faired better.

Hodge Podge

1. My little brother (ok, little brother-in-law Randy, not Ethan) has a CD coming out. And since most of my regular readers, population= 5, better known as the Buffalo-DC-Vienna axis, have met Randy, I thought I would mention that the CD release party for Let's French's debut, Victory, is May 19th at the Black Cat in DC. Sadly I will not be in attendance, but maybe some of you locals want to check it out. Wondering what they sound like? http://www.myspace.com/letsfrenchdc.

2. Recently I was pleased, thinking years of subscribing to Magnet magazine finally paid off when my promo CD arrived and it was the new Dinosaur Jr. CD, Beyond, a full week or so before the official release. I was not going to buy it, but I was also not going to look for other means to acquire it because if a project involves Lou Barlow either I get it legitimately or not at all. But I have never really forgiven J. Mascis for mistreating Lou (I'm that friend who secretly fumes when you take back the lousy boyfriend), so I didn't want to give J. my money either. But after listening two it a couple of times I think free was just about right. Did they always sound like a nebulous classic rock band? Lou's songs are fine, but what was he thinking allowing that terrible picture of himself in front of Stonehenge? Couldn't someone Photoshop out the zits? I'm glad I didn't spend any money on it. I'm still waiting to feel like I come out ahead on the Magnet freebie CD.

Correction: The lousy picture of Lou actually appears in the magazine, not inside the CD, if anybody cares. I still think they should have done something about the zits on his chin.

3. Yesterday Henry got off the bus, along with the boy across the street, B. B was crying because he had been bitten by another child. The child bit through B's windbreaker and turtleneck and the bite broke the skin. This varmint of a Kindergartener has bullied both Henry and B before and B's mother and I had discussed how the "next time" we would take action. I felt terrible that "next time" turned out to be so painful.

4. I just got done paying over $500 to get Cary's car to pass inspection.

5. I let Lucy take a musical microphone with her at nap time. Do you think she'll sleep?

Little annoyances, big plans

1. I have been asked by my brother-in-law to be at my in-laws house before 7 am tomorrow to let in piano movers in my in-laws absence. (They are moving the piano to Texas on his behalf). I think we will have breakfast at Tim Horton's after.

2. I tried to reheat my coffee in the microwave. I set it for 5:50 instead of :55. It boiled over. I am drinking it anyway.

3. Cary just left on a four day trip with his friends to the Adirondacks, so I will be on my own with the kids. I just put a 12 pack of beer in the fridge if anyone wants to come over and join me as a surrogate parent for the weekend. I will cook anything but hot dogs. I have big plans to watch an episode of Nova that I saved on TiVo.

4. I banged my shin on the elliptical machine at the gym yesterday and took such a large chunk out of my shin that I was able to remove a visible chunk of skin from the foot pedal. Yeah, totally gross, I know, but at least I cleaned up after myself, and no, I didn't use the gym towel either.

Never doubt the power of antibiotics

Lucy actually requested what Henry was eating for dinner, which happened to be a peanut butter and banana sandwich. And she ate close to half of it. Unbelievable.

This is a child who would scream bloody murder if I offer her a banana under regular circumstances. She also drank close to 12 oz. of apple juice. Bring on the food pyramid

Is Lucy finally ready to give up the endless cycle of milk-crackers-milk that has sustained her for the past 15 months? This may be a fluke brought on by raging hunger. We will have to wait and see.

Also, Lucy finally admits to being "three years old." It only took an extra six weeks. Lord help us when she turns 30.

Cutting out, Cutting off, and Coughing it up this weekend at our house

1. Friday night we had dinner at my in-laws. As I was helping the kids put the toys away, or rather putting the toys in spite of the kids, I got a sliver from the bookshelf. It was immediately decided that my father-in-law, who is a physician, would remove it for me. None of this let's just rip it out with an old pair of tweezers when we get home stuff for me! The next thing I know he and I and Lucy are standing in the half bath and he is using a hypodermic needle to poke under the first layer of skin to dislodge the tiny piece of wood while Lucy says, "Mommy touch wood! I watch, I watch!" After the third try he got the thing out, and Lucy cheered "Yay Grandpa" then I needed to sit down and put my head between my knees, while he said to my mother-in-law, "Eh, take her, leh, I think she is going to faint." Fortunately I recovered my level headedness. I was going to need it.

2. Saturday night we had dinner at my parents house because my brother was home for the weekend. Henry scarfed down three or four hot dogs for dinner. At the time I thought this was fine because he had a swimming lesson that day and he is usually starving all day long afterwards. In hindsight, I should have cut him off at two.

Sunday morning he came into my room and woke me up to tell me that he threw up. "Mmm. OK," and rolled over to go back to sleep. He seemed fine and I wasn't too worried. I thought he coughed up mucus and neglected to get a tissue. I could not have been more wrong. Actually, he woke up. Grabbed the blanket that Lumpyhead's mom crocheted for him when he was a baby. Vomited into it. Dropped it onto the floor. Vomited onto his comforter. Dropped that onto the floor. And went back to sleep. His room was vile. He has now received a lecture on the importance of chewing his food before swallowing it. Before I had even washed my face that morning I gathered up the soiled laundry, and tried to remove as much of the nastiness as I could before I washed it. Amazingly, everything came out of the laundry looking completely devoid of what it had just been through. But I may never eat another hot dog again.

3. I am taking Lucy to the doctor this morning for the following undiagnosed conditions: low-grade fever, extended crying, food refusal, croup-like cough, wheezy breathing, repeated nocturnal bowel movements, diaper rash, perpetual indigestion, and vegetable phobia.

UPDATE: Lucy has walking pneumonia, poor thing. According the the Physician's Assistant we saw at the Pediatrician's office today, the diagnosis explains all of her symptoms, except of course the vegetable phobia. So he prescribed an antibiotic, and a probiotic (lactobacillus powder). We will see how this ying-yang regimen works on Lucy's long-suffering system.

Steadily improving pronounciation breaks my heart!

Lucy is swiftly moving from referring to herself as "Fluflee" as she has for months and months to actually calling herself "Lucy."

We play a little game where I innocently say something like, "You're getting so big!" And she responds with indignation, "I'm not big, I Fluflee!" But I can hear "Lucy" creeping in and know that my dear sweet Fluflee will soon be gone, and she will indeed be big.

This blog has a soundtrack!

I never have to worry that I am ever the only one having a bad day, or stay down in the dumps for too long. I just pop in Of Montreal's exquisite newish record, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, and remember three things:

1. Kevin Barnes who singlehandedly wrote most of the songs on the record, was consistently having like the worst day ever, again and again, but that didn't stop him from writing some of the most creative songs about his deteriorating mental health that I have ever heard, and setting his lyrics to upbeat, ever changing music.

2. It's impossible to feel bad while listening to this record in spite of the subject matter. Both of the children love it(they have no idea what it's about) and we all dance and sing along.

3. Of Montreal is one of those bands I knew about but never really liked. Which is why I just got the record even though it came out in January -- it took three separate rave reviews to convince me to give it a whirl. It goes to show that you never really know what the future holds -- even though it's a small event, that a band I never liked could evolve and release a record destined to be a household classic leaves me feeling strangely hopeful, like anything is possible.

Parenting Meme

Lumpyhead's Mom tagged me to do this Parenting meme, originated by Daddy L of the Jasper Chronicles. Here are the questions and my answers:

1) What was your biggest surprise when you became a parent?

That my children's personalities bare little or no resemblance to my own, but greatly resemble my husband and his family. They are loud (mostly singing) and constantly in motion. But they are also very outgoing and loving.

2) Name some things you vowed you'd never do, but find yourself doing now.

Make three dinners every night.

3) What's the one thing you thought you would do, but actually don't.

I thought I would have more than two kids.

I also thought I would be more involved with Henry's school once he started, but I have been so unimpressed by everything and everyone there, particularly his teacher that I have been a bit soured on the entire experience.

I am not going to tag anyone because I don't have three parents with blogs to tag. However, if anyone reads this and would like to do it, please feel free to leave a comment so we can check out your answers.

No Joakim', No Foolin' around -- stuff went wrong

1. Not only did Cary fail to win the Best Pool Ever by the narrowest of margins, losing for the second year in a row to Mommy at Work's Dad (Grampa at Work?), but my enjoyment of the game was interrupted by Lucy. Lucy woke up screaming at about 10:30 and really didn't go back to sleep for good until 1:00 a.m., so I went from happily drinking a beer with Cary, watching our hope of winning 30 odd bottles of good wine slip away, to sitting in a darkened room with a cranky 3 year old reading the books that I have already memorized because I didn't want to turn on any lights.

2. Yesterday I spent more than an hour pointlessly hooking up my parents web cam and signing up for Skype in an effort to be able to chat with Auntlyh while she and her lovely husband are in Vienna. I say pointless because I cannot figure out how to make it work for the life of me. I suspect it has something to do with the microphone not being properly configured, but it will have to wait for a day where I have more patience because it caused the computer to crash, and I am too sleepy to sort through it all now.

3. I saw a reporter from Vanity Fair magazine on the Today Show this morning espousing the argument that all women should work and put their kids in day care because 40% of those women will get divorced. She said something like, "you women who stay home are taking such a gamble that your husband will die or divorce you. It's really dangerous." Umm, going to Iraq is dangerous. Getting married is sometimes not the best idea, but I wouldn't call it dangerous. And I personally have no problem with day care, or with my friends who have chosen to use it. I do, however, have a problem with that kind of logic. Why didn't she just say, "Twentysomething young ladies, don't even marry, you are taking such a risk! Don't Kiss Him -- He Might Have Cooties!!!" Talk about an agoraphobic way of living your life and so unhelpful.

I tried to look up the article on Vanity Fair's website, so I could refer to her by her name, but no luck -- maybe it will come out next month.

4. One good thing did happen. If you go here you can read another review by me at venuszine.com. Sweet.