Amish Envy Club gets muddy

It was the third meeting of the Amish Envy Club this past Saturday. We had a glorious May day to transform the NeskeMoen back yard from patchy grass to....mud. But the gardens are bordered, the new grass seed is getting ready to sprout, and we even raised a trellis. We are still a long way from raising a barn. By the end of the day I was exhausted, a bit from the sun, the wind, and the work, but mostly from the laughs. The kids spent the morning by walking over to Como zoo (with some supervision of course) and the afternoon playing in the mud (without much supervision). They found giant nightcrawlers, creepy white grubs, and lots and lots of mud. They couldn't have been happier.

Watch your back, or your head

So Eli's threat for me to watch my back was real. I went to lay down in bed last night and removed the pillow that was propped up against the wall for reading. Underneath, perched nicely on my white pillow case were my dirty old running shoes. This morning I mentioned to Eli that I had found running shoes on my pillow and I wondered how they got there. With a twinkle he said, "I told you to watch your back." He'll get his. I'm off to plant something under his pillow right now.

Snuggling with Theo, and his things.....

Shortly after we finished our year on the compact we did indeed make it down to REI to buy the boys new bike helmets and sandals. Theo was in love with both of them and wore them right home from the store. The next morning Theo awoke just before 7am and came in for a snuggle. With his helmet on. I really wonder if he wore it all night. Later that week Jon replaced Theo's broken goggles with a pair from SuperTarget. The next morning Theo woke up around 6:30 and came in for a snuggle. With his goggles on. So imagine my concern when the next day Theo received a birthday gift of a (sharp) garden trowel and a big wooden peacock head on a stick (a scarecrow for the garden). I made sure I was up before Theo came in to snuggle.

Eli-isms

This past Saturday, Eli crawled into our bed around 5:30am. Luckily for all of us, he fell back to sleep. A while later he picked his sleepy head off the pillow, glanced at the clock, and said: "It's 7:15, please look around yourself, gather your belongings, and exit the bed." We did.

Yesterday, mother's day, Eli was snuggling on the couch with me. I asked him to go get me the paper. When he immediately jumped up to get it, I said, "Sweet! I can get this kid to do anything for me today." He shot me a look over his shoulder and said, "Yeah, but tomorrow you better watch your back!"

450 million years

This past Saturday the family went on a Science Museum fossil hunting trip. The day started in classroom at the museum making small books to use as field guides. We learned just a little bit about each fossil we would be looking for, including the fact that the sea bed the creatures lived in was full of water 450 million years ago.
After making the books and taking a whirlwind tour through the museum's fossil collection (where we learned that the museum doesn't like to use the word 'fake', they prefer 'cast', but our leader let us in on their little secret) we headed out on a yellow school bus for Cannon Falls. We had been told to use the bathrooms before we went, and I did, but after bounce number 37 I was already desperate! The bus ride took us to a roadside hill out in the backcountry of Cannon Falls. Within 27 seconds of getting off the bus Theo was holding a rock above his head and proclaiming a find. And sure enough, there were quite a few little fossilized sea creatures in his hand. We never found the coveted trilobite, but plenty of other cool fossils. After a sunny, windy, muddy day, we returned to 588 Brimhall and Theo and I washed off the fossils on the front stoop. Right before bedtime, I went to go get them to bring them in, but then I thought, oh well, those fossils have been outside for the past 450 million years, I suppose they can last one more night! Yikes.

Trying to be a duck

Last night we were driving home from a lovely bbq. As we topped the hill at St. Clair and Victoria I saw two high school kids in the park to the south (incidently the very park where Rodg proposed to Jean...57 years ago). A girl was videotaping a boy who was acting like a gorilla. I pointed it out to the family and mentioned that the guy really did do a pretty good gorilla. Eli says, deadpan, from the back seat, "Yeah, unless he was trying to be a duck. In that case he really sucked." Love that kid.

Slot machine eyeballs

So I've been having these vision disturbances for a while now.... I'll be looking at something, and when I go to look at something else it's like my eyeballs are in a slot machine and someone just pulled the arm down. My vision goggles around, refusing to focus on anything. This lasts for about five minutes and makes me want to puke. Mostly from the dizzy feeling, but certainly partly from anxiety. Then all the sudden it's like the three diamonds come up on the slot machine and I can see again. When this first started a year ago, I talked to my eye doctor and we were both convinced that it was from my new job responsibilities which put me in front of a computer screen for hours on end. But then it started happening away from the computer, and first thing in the morning, and a bit more frequently....so I went in to see my doctor, fairly convinced that it was a new manifestation of the ocular migraines I get every now and then. She listened to my symptoms and calmed me right down by saying, "We need to get you set up with an emergency visit to an opthamologist! Today!" Love that. So I drove up to Roseville thinking for sure my retinas were going to detach and pop out on to the dashboard. I was put through a battery of tests. I did enjoy some of them and was particularly impressed that all of the figures that I got to stare at trying to find the secret number in the pattern were bound in this discreet little black leather-bound book. I liked that touch of class. Anyway. After an hour of the technician poking and proding my eyeballs with various high tech machines, the doctor came in and after one simple test which only utilized his left hand and me staring at his face, he diagnosed my problem. Seems as I'm getting old. My old eye muscles can't rein in my eyeballs as well as they used to and when fatiqued they have a tendancy to goggle around like they are in a slot machine when I change my focus from far to near. He then said, "Now, you're not yet at the typical age for reading glasses, which is 40..." He sure is right there. I have at least 8 months and 18 days until I hit that number. "....And you don't really need the readers yet to actually read the text, but you've got to give your eyes a little break....." He convinced me that I wasn't so far gone that I have to carry them everywhere or be at risk of having to ask for help in reading the bill for dinner, but that if I'm kicking back with the New York Times, I should slip them on. Kicking back with the New York Times? What does he think I am, middle-aged???? He left me with the suggestion that I pick up the weakest pair at a drugstore. So here I sit, typing away with my fancy new reading glasses perched on my nose. Dang.