job descriptions

It's so funny how the boys go back and forth as to how cooperative they are about helping. O is in a lovely phase as far as being helpful goes. He loves to be given a little job, or to pick something up for me, or to sort the silverware. N, well, at 18 months, N would clean the room up as fast as his brother dumped stuff out, and until recently, he kept his room very neat most of the time. He has an enduring appreciation for tidiness. Cooperation, however, is not so high on his to-do list at the moment, and we have to be a bit firmer to get him to help out than we used to have to be, unless it's something novel. I swear they hide from me to make their plans for taking turns, because that's just how O was until pretty recently.

We talk a lot about how everybody in a family helps keep a family going. That's made for some interesting conversations. Let's see: Mama and Daddy both work, clean, cook, drive, "wash things" and take care of kids. Mama and the boys do the garden and chickens, but "Daddy sometimes lets out the Ladies (hens) and digs". The Ladies poop for us (er, make compost for the garden), and give us tasty eggs. Our black lab guards the hens from hawks, "walks us" and protects us from monsters. Our cat catches mice and keeps our laps warm. I'm sure the boys would feel insulted if I didn't tell you that they make their beds (I know it doesn't look like it, but they try), set and clear the table, wipe the table when asked, pick up their clothes and put them in the hamper, and pick up their toys.



Thankfully, there are things that are both helpful and fun, and both boys are equally enthusiastic about cooking and baking. In fact, they apparently have an "infectious enthusiasm" for those things that has influenced how much of it they do in preschool. They made Stone Soup there the other day (real soup made with a stone, along with all the things that the kids were assigned to bring from home), and Miss Karen was thrilled to let us know that Noah ate four bowls of it. She couldn't believe it.


Above, they're making corn muffins, and then, of course, they need a little distraction until the oven timer goes off.



And now that winter weather has set in, we've gone from spending a whole lot of time in the back yard to spending it on the other side of our stucco exterior, at the kitchen table. Puzzles, games, playdough, drawing, eating, more puzzles....















We did have to get outside to check out the 1-inch snowfall we had, though. The Ladies were a wee bit put out: they were lifting their feet way too high just to be dramatic and bok-bok-bokking with extra fretfulness, if that's possible. Listen, girls: we get eggs, you get heat lamp, got it? Not such a bad deal.


Back to this little guy for a minute. Did you notice anything common to the 1st and the 5th picture? Go ahead, I'll wait.

That's right -it's these:


The bunnies, which are probably in many more pictures within four feet of N. That's because they've been within four feet of N for most of his at-home life. My mom gave each boy one shortly after birth, and N spent his first three years trying to get Ollie to take proper care of his. It was not at all unusual to see a two-year-old N try to hand his brother his bunny, and have O reject it and for N to burst into tears.





About 6 months ago, N finally gave up and took permanent possession of both bunnies, giving him, in effect, twin attachment objects. He carries them around, crooning to them and making the "bunny face". He tucks them lovingly into bed. He confessed to me a while back that he loves to have two so he can have a "new cold one" to cuddle when the other one gets too warm against his skin - which freaked me out, because my entire life, I've had an obsessive habit of turning my pillow over all night long to feel the coolness against my chin.

But I digress. N has, in recent weeks, seemed to be showing some signs of a waning, or at least ambivalent, attachment to his bunnies. He keeps putting them in almost out of reach places, like the edge of the fireplace mantel, or pushed back on the counter, and then losing his resolve and running to rescue them. A couple of times, he's insisted that he doesn't need to sleep with any bunnies, only to come out of his room in a panic. several (no doubt tortured) minutes later.

Then, a couple of days ago, I found this:



Well. Who knew how quickly we could go from beloved to rabbit stew? Break-ups can be so messy.

We think they're still good for something, though:



We've all got a job to do. Even the bunnies.

this picture speaks for itself

Foreclosures in our neighborhood. We live at the green dot. In the beginning, they'd have For Sale signs, but now, the banks often don't even bother to list them with a Realtor. The only evidence is that the lights are never on, they look abandoned after a while, or have electrical shutoff notices pasted to the front door. There are blocks on the North side where 80% of the houses are foreclosed and empty.

terrible disease

Oli*ver is pretty sick with bronchitis, and is having to keep quiet. He’s on prednisone to help him beat it, as he was deemed to be in pretty rough shape when the doctor saw him on Friday. It seems to be helping, but we’re all sleep-deprived from the coughing and night-waking and worrying, so it’s been a rough few days. It’s a little early in the cold season to be making to do lists for just how we plan to get 2 very active boys through an afternoon indoors.

N and Ollie may have a seat on the afternoon preschool bus, and to try it out, N had to ride home all by himself, since O was out sick.



He thought it was all a grand adventure! It is nice to see each boy alone a bit more, even if with Ollie it’s in the middle of the night. O is napping 2 or three hours a day (usually it's between nothing and 45 minutes or so). I took just N to the store yesterday when J came home, and to church this morning as grandma watched him. At church, N told people that Ollie has a “terrible disease”. He made an awful face when he said it too—that boy has a flair for the dramatic. In case you’re wondering, I did make him cut it out. Then he told people his brother was “not missing, just very, very sick”, again with the face. It was so odd and funny to be at church with just one boy; it made me realize how much people look out for us. People were always trying to find my other boy for me or offering to watch N so I could go find Ollie--and here I get annoyed because people are always stopping me when I’m trying to get out the door with them.


In any case, we’re surviving, watching Milo & Otis together on the couch with some popcorn, playing with clay, and improvising. In other news, Ollie is left-handed like his mother. N is not.

city life (our version, anyway)

Ollie seems to have a special relationship with this chicken. She won't let me near her, but O picks her up all the time, and she really doesn't seem to mind. We're getting about 3 eggs a day now, but this one's not laying quite yet.

them apples

A recent family trip to the apple orchard an hour away. It was a gray, chilly afternoon, but there were plenty of delicious Harroldsens that are now in our fridge, and we all had a lovely time.

investments

Yesterday, the boys and I took a Saturday morning field trip to the car wash to get our filthy car cleaned inside and out. On the way there, we’d been listening to National Public Radio talking about financial news, and as we were pulling in and I turned off the radio, No*ah asked me, “Mama, what is a good investment?” Well, isn’t that the million billion dollar question, I thought. I didn’t quite know how to explain what the man on the radio was talking about, so I mumbled something about how it had to do with finding a good place to keep your money. As I handed the cashier my debit card, he asked, “Mama, is that a good investment?”

Today, though, sitting in church and listening to the offertory music, I realized I’d gotten it all wrong. I’d answered way too narrowly, way too literally. An investment is where you put your resources, and there is more than one way to define that. Jokes aside, there are still, and will always be all kinds of good investments, even if right now, we can’t get a good return on our money. Church and faith are, in my opinion, one of them, but so are family, friends, good food, love, art, humor, shared public institutions, an appreciation for the natural world— I could go on, but I think you get the idea. There is plenty to invest in that will give us a better and more certain return than modern market capitalism is capable of at the moment. In uncertain times like this, it’s especially worth remembering.

I had a bit of a frustrating morning at church, with too many trying transitions between the service, fellowship, Sunday School, not to mention all the potty breaks in between. As much as I love going to church, I do get tired of doing the whole morning on my own as Jo*el plays piano in a different church (not that it would be any different if we attended there), and my 2 somewhat clingy boys are getting over head colds. I was tired and impatient when I got home, and it would have been easy to spend the short time that both boys napped picking up the house and grumbling. Instead, I fed the boys lunch, J and I put them to bed, and then I invested in beets and potatoes and carrots from the garden and the Farmer’s Market.

After the boys got up, I invested in a few stories, and a good snack, and I told the boys a bit more about what I thought a good investment might be. then we enjoyed the beautiful fall weather and spent some time playing in the backyard with Jenn*fer and Z*oe.

We finally found our very first egg from this flock.

This week, I’m going to tune into a little more silence, and a little less market news. I’m going to see my writer’s group friends, and clean out our gutters and upstairs, and cook squash soup. Mea*gan will come over to turn our compost pile in exchange for said soup, and we 2 married women will catch up and talk about our investments.

some things we do at home

The boys have nursery school, their Early Childhood class, and 2.5 hours of church every week, so sometimes it's nice to just stay home.



Actually, N is much more of a homebody than his brother. The other day, after a family outing, O began his familiar refrain of "But I don't want to go home!" N said, "I can't wait!"



N is especially into crafts and blocks, but both boys love them.



The boys brought letters home to decorate and bring back to school. They stay up all year in the classroom and are used to talk about letters.



N is starting to write his own name. Both boys are picking up letter sounds and can often tells you what letter a word starts with. For O, this is really sudden--he had no interest in any of this until a couple of weeks ago, which was fine with me, but now he's starting to put real effort into cracking the code. Both boys are also really interested in counting and numbers, often adding on their fingers. They bring lots of colorful artwork home.

Playing Bingo, a nice gift from Omie

Who needs toys when you can "sail to Holland" in a cooler?



N peeled the carrots, while I sliced the last gorgeous red-picked tomato of the season. We've got many green-picked ripening well, but it's not the same.



Look, Omie--the boys love a soft boiled egg with strips of toast!

The ladies are almost old enough to lay, and we're anxiously awaiting the day.

Chickenball must always be played with mis-matched rubber boots. It's, like, a rule.

We had 28 church parents and children in our yard for a kid-friendly potluck and party last week.

The kids has a blast, especially Oli*ver, who really loves to dance.