And just like that

We're done with diapers. We've actually been done for a few weeks. But when I realized yesterday that the poor kid only had a handful of "unnawears" and I had to go stock up for him, it kind of hit me that that's that. This moment is something we've been looking forward to for a long ass time while, and true to all the "been there done that" advice, Colin just kind of decided he was on board the toilet train and is exceedingly proud to show us all his good, um, works. Every time.

Not to say that we just let him run loose. He still needs an occasional reminder to go and welcomes a little assistance in the er, cleaning up department. But we are proud of our Bumble and our wallet is ever so pleased to be done with the diaper bill. We'll still have nighttime pullups for a while but I can roll wit dat.

A memorable moment.

What can I say? We have a new president. As I watched Barack Obama make his inspirational speech, I knew I'd never forget the moment. Oh, not so much for his words - which were eloquent for sure. And not really for the grandeur of the masses gathered in the Capitol, which bless their hearts - you couldn't get me near a crowd that big for anything.

No, the memory will forever be imprinted that as our 44th president addressed the nation for the first time, I was holding a bowl in front of Colin so he wouldn't barf all over the playroom floor. So were the tears for the dawn of a new day? Or were they connected to the gag reflex that was being tamped down as I tried to comfort The Boy while not getting too close to the aroma at the same time?

Something to ponder, that's for sure.

Life is like a Frigidaire...

Have you ever noticed how cleaning out the fridge is a pretty close metaphor for taking stock of your life?

First you delay. You open the door, shake your head at the mess inside, close it and walk away resolved to “do something about that” on another day. And then promptly forget about it as you plop down to watch E.R.

Every time you open the door you remember that you need to “do something about that” and maybe you feel a bit guiltier every day it doesn’t happen.

Finally, you decide that today is the day. You open the door. And you stand there. For a while. Where to start? Your hand hovers in the door section, over the myriad bottles of old dressing, jams, condiments and other odds and ends. Nope, too complicated. Have no idea when any of these things were opened and they are going to require the sniff test.

Or you glance down to the crisper drawers. Nope, I already know what’s in there. And it’s not pretty.

So you dig into the fridge shelves, since that is where things are kept but not kept too long. You toss long-languishing Tupperware filled with good intentions of leftovers onto the counter. These are the easy items, you can see into them to quickly identify what’s inside. And you know you can dump the old contents, sterilize with a hot soapy wash, and refill with new good intentions of “I’m sure I’ll enjoy that for lunch.” You pull out the food that still has some life to it and start to scrub down the shelves. There will undoubtedly be some crumbs and sticky spots to wipe up. Sometimes you have a chisel a bit on whatever it is/was.

Then you turn to the drawers. Easy enough to toss the cello bags of liquefied zucchini, brown lettuce and fruit that disintegrates in your hand. Gross?, Yes. Difficult to sort through? No. Then you pull out the drawers for a scrub and you wonder how in the hell all that… that… crap got in there. Dirt, bits of onion skin, crumbs. You aren’t a messy person. So who let all that detritus pile up? Oh yea. You did. In fact, you know darn well that these little treasures of decomp have been in there for weeks. But you just kept buying new produce to cover up the old.

Now comes the door shelves. NOT THE DOOR! Yep, the door. Now you have to reckon with the many bottles and jars that hide their contents behind murky contents, labels and lids. You have to guess just when did you open that bottle of Szechwan stir fry sauce and how long has it been in there. Hmm, that was the night… Hay-zeus! That was a long time ago! Toss. This jam is still good. Why don’t I use this honey mustard more often, it’s tasty. Do pickles go bad? Their pickled, but is that like, forever? What’s this? “sniff” OH GOOD LORD I’M GONNA YARF. “Hey honey, come smell this!!!”

Sometimes, but not always, when you think you are just about done you discover some random puddle at the very bottom of the fridge. You puzzle over the red sticky goop, or heaven forbid, blue fuzzy goop. It’s hard to get at. And you’re tempted to just stick the drawers back in and be on your way. BUT NOW YOU KNOW IT’S THERE AND ITS GOING TO HAUNT YOU!!! So you pull on the rubber gloves, contemplate a hazard mask, and advance with the Clorex spray.

In the end, it’s all worth the effort, and you vow to keep on top of it so that it doesn’t get so bad next time. Your hubby takes a look at the newly freshened fridge and likes what he sees. So you reach gently for him, smile, lean in and whisper in his ear, “you get to scrape all the moldy Tupperware into the garbage.”

6 word memoir

If you had to sum up your present state of being in six words – what would you say?
Here’s mine.

Mother, Wife - create, balance, communicate, question.

Here we snow again!

It’s snowing. Again. But, surprisingly, I’m not worrying about it. I have no big plans to fret over, my pantry is stocked and I feel like after our last adventure – we’re set to handle anything. Well, we still don’t have a snow shovel, but we’ve been improvising.

At the end of my last pity post, Rob had trekked down the hill to get some milk and fresh food, and I was glued to the 24/7 (literally) coverage of ARTIC BLAST 2008. Duh du duhhhh.
Colin was happily cozied up with a blanket and a movie and I began to get a bit anxious about Rob’s whereabouts. I was making my umpteenth window check and I saw him trudging along, with a box in his hands. I thought it was chains, and got a bit giddy. But I didn’t want to ask again if we could drive. It was up to the Safety Professional to make the call.

As you know, he gave the Go For Go and I started to scramble to pack. In hindsight, I have to wonder just what I thought we were getting into. I guess I’ve seen too many news stories about the families that think their all snow driving savvy until they get their shit stuck in a snow bank and end up drawing straws to see who’s going to lose some toes or worse.

Since it was already around 1pm, I went into high gear Bear Grills mode and packed extra blankets, pillows, emergency toilet for Colin, boots, jugs of water, cups of milk, peanut butter, tortillas, cheese sticks, fruit cups, sandwiches, DVD player, books, kitty litter (for traction), crayons, granola bars… I know, right!? I had Donnor Party thoughts in my head even though we were getting onto I-5 (a slightly major road) and going to my parents house, not the short cut to nowhere with a broken down cabin at the end of the road. But in my defense I was just trying to be prepared and keep my boys warm and fed if something happened to take us off-road.

It took us two hours to get from our house to Salem, which normally takes under an hour. Portland, bless it’s granola-lovin heart, doesn’t use salt on the roads, and the gravel trucks were nowhere to be seen even on the major freeways. As much as I was scoffing at questioning Rob’s insistence that we needed chains with my four-wheel drive, I have never been happier to be proven wrong. We had one moment of sliding, even with all our traction devices, but other than that, it was mainly just trucking along at 25 mph until we cleared the snow zone.

We hit the Siskiyou Pass, the second big worry about the drive, at about 9ish, with strict warnings about chains/ 4x4 required to get through. We had to admire the road crews in that part of the state, who were actually stopping and turning people around if they didn’t have the right traction. In Portland, chains were “required” but as far as we can tell, “required” stands for, “we’re not checking, we’ll hold up traffic to bail you out, so go ahead and do what you want with your low-clearance cars that can’t clear the foot of snow out there since the news stations need something new to talk about.”

I took over for the last stretch of driving and aside from nearly making deer sushi it was clear sailing and we hit the compound around 1:30 am. Rob was handed the golden halo of Son-in-Law done good for the whole week. Even got a mincemeat pie out of the deal.

Christmas was great. Colin is really getting into the spirit. But luckily not so much that he felt obligated to get up before 8am. He kept coming back to the empty milk glass and cookie crumbs in awe. The gaggle of cousins kept him in a whirlwind of motion and high emotion all day and we were all glad when it was time to toss him into bed.

The week flew by as usual, all my plans to see friends and others kind of came and went. But I was happy to do nothing, just hang with the family. We packed up and headed North on Sunday, arriving to our familiar, mostly melted landscape. It was good to be home, and the Soss was ecstatic to have us back to warm his bed, but I admit that the post-holiday grumpus was worse than usual for me. I ho-humly schlumped and sulked my way through the short work week (imagine, the gall of them to require me to actually earn my paycheck…) and lame-assedly celebrated New Years. Well, I can’t say we actually celebrated New Years since we were asleep by 10:30. We’ve never been big New Year revelers.

We undecked the halls this weekend and I’m feeling better now that home and our routine is getting back to normal. I got to hook up my new sleek External Hard Drive, pop some popcorn in my Whirly Pop, try out my new wickedly sharp Wustoff Knives, wear my new warm Wildcat Socks and drink Starbucks to my heart's content. Today I finished up some craft projects and roasted a chicken. It's the simple things, really.

Happy 2009!