Oskar High Fives Elena

I'm just going to start by saying that tonight Oskar high fived Elena in the face. He was in the tub at the time so it left a bubble hand print on her face. It was very hard to convey my anger while suppressing my laughter while looking at Elena's stunned bubble face.

Siblings! Sure, he's got, like 10 lbs on her, but you can't deny they look pretty similar.

Sometimes when I'm doing home improvement projects I feel like a monkey in a lab. I know what I want to do and how to do it but I don't always have the right tools for maximum efficiency so improvisation is key. For example, someone (in my mind, it's Sir David Attenborough) who is watching might say:

"Hmmm. She has thirty 50 lb bags of paver base to move. She moved the first three one at a time and now she is standing there and it looks like she might be thinking. I wonder what she's thinking. Interesting. She's moving the car. Oh, and now she's moving the bikes. Looks like she is going for the trailer. She is! She got the trailer! She rolled it to the pile of paver base and now she is loading the paver base bags on to the trailer. Oh my! Looks like she forgot about physics. That second bag teetered and tottered the trailer the other way. She puts about 8 bags on the trailer and then pushes it through the garage- reducing the distance she needs to carry each bag by 60-90% depending on the final destination of the bag. It isn't a perfect solution but with the tools she was provided I would say she's done splendidly. Well done, monkey, well done."
It's possible I let my mind wander too far when doing physical labor.

It's odd that all the projects I do create havens for that which I despise most.
"Hey! Lets put landscaping rock around the house!"
-Turns out very large spiders are very large fans of the environment this provides.
"Let's excavate for a patio!"
-Spiders like wompus, giant dirt piles too. Who knew?
"Okay, this patio is taking forever, but it's not like the materials are going to go bad."
-Well, that's true. How did you like killing those spiders you found every time you picked up another bag? What about the earwigs? Did you like the earwigs? Haven't seen those in a while!
"Let's just put a pile of brush and twigs in the back of the yard- we'll burn it off eventually."
-Aragog or Shelob- pick your fantastical giant spider and she could live here considering the amount of webbing we have in that pile. We also used to find the hawks lurking around there. It may or may not be a refuge for small rodents. Or maybe they enjoy a giant spider as a snack. We'll never know for sure.

Speaking of the hawks, I think they are gone! It's been a while since I've seen them, or a small bird carcass. And other birds have returned to the yard. It is quite pleasant to hear bird calls that are not screeches or the sounds of birds being attacked to death.

She is getting extremely hard to photograph. She is so fast.

I believe that violence usually does not solve problems. The version of me who finally gets her kids down for a nap after a long morning of single parenting and no sleep the night before just as a dog of unknown origin starts yipping outside highly disagrees with rational me. Luckily we don't let that version of me make many decisions and that dog owner remains unpunched in the face.

This happened:
BOOM.
"Oskar, what happened?"
"I broke the side of my head."
"Okay."

We successfully made it through the madness of two days with two kids at 2 outdoor fairs/festivals. It was absolutely exhausting, but the weather was phenomenal and we had a lot of fun. RennFest was full of interesting people as always, but my favorite person I saw was Doctor Who (11, for those of you who are interested). He really sold the act by never walking or interacting with anyone. He just wandered around looking and observing things. It was great.

I told Oskar to keep his sucker away from Elena because she obviously can't have candy.
He rolls around in front of her and sings, "Deeeeelicious!"

Elena and I discovered that she can easily fit a ping pong ball in her mouth without causing distress. She has a really big mouth. Then I poke each of her cheeks and it pops right out. She finds this quite amusing. For those of you who are not aware, she is walking and has been doing so for about a month a half. So yea, we're busy. Today especially we are struggling with Oskar not knowing what he can and can't do to Elena. For example, hugs are okay. Laying on top of her, not so much.

So sweet.

My major victories of late have been finishing my patio and Costco's new milk jugs. Man, they were bad. I wrote a comment card and then they were fixed. I know many people probably complained and the switch was probably in the works long before my comment, but I'm calling it a victory. I can now hold a baby and pour a glass of milk without spilling. That's all I was looking for.

Everyone is welcome to come over to enjoy a homemade margarita on the patio. And by homemade, I mean factory assembled by Costco. Feel free to critique the patio as you see fit. Understand then, of course, that in doing so you are volunteering to fix it and you will receive no margaritas. That is all.

Tadaa! Coming soon: furniture and depending on sales, maybe a new grill!
Obviously there is still some finishing work to be done, but I think we should all be
impressed that I pretty much made this all by myself. Yay me!

I signed Oskar up for a Ninja Zone class and it's probably the best parenting decision I've ever made. He is in Lil Ninja (3-4 year olds) and we go on a weekday morning so there is just him and one other little guy there with an instructor. It is so much fun to watch him learn how to do stuff (and watch his instructor laugh at him because let's face it, Oskar is a hoot). The video below isn't showing up in great quality, but hopefully you get the idea. Oskar is the one going across the trampoline. This was a couple weeks ago now and it is amazing how far he's come even since this video.