Photos of the Boys

If he becomes fluent in Turkish before the rest of us, we'll know why.

 He's loves this little Turkish dictionary.

 Ice cream!

 Brothers in the sand box.

How the sand got on Reuben's head.

 

 Brothers in bed.

Brothers in the kitchen.

Charlie likes to eat peanut butter by the spoonful.

 

 Making a sassafras burger.

(grilling dinner at Turkey Run)

 Um, sassafras please.

(Sassafras is a tree out in these parts.

The leaves can be 3 shapes:

a dinosaur footprint, a mitten, or a football.

Isn't that neat?  A tree with 3 different leaf shapes?

The boys look for them when we hike and snack on the edible leaves.)

 Brothers all together.

Our Twelfth Anniversary

Back on May 6th...

(I realized as I organized this post that...

if one is blogging about a date then...

she's not going on enough dates,

youknowwhatI'msaying?)

In our driveway, headed out.

Giddy to be going out with an empty back seat.

Where to?

Turkey Run...

 Getting ready to hike trail nine.

It's the farthest out and we only hike it without kids.

Which is twice now.

 Surprise waterfall

 Trying to take a self-portrait with the waterfall,

but we keep blocking it.

Everybody to the left.

There.

 Cute in grey.

Lunch at the Inn.

I'd like another pot roast melt please.

 After lunch and lounging in the lodge

we found this shelter house and watched the rain.

 Here's a tour of the little shelter house in the big woods.

 Trying to start a fire with our car lighter.

No go.

But you could imagine.

 Cheers with our elder-approved bubbly, Martinelli's.

Thanks again to Debbie for giving us a day together.

I love my man

and love spending time with him.

He is my favorite.

I think it's amazing that there is a person who knows me really well...and likes me, you know?

Like, he wants to be with me always and forever.

That's a lot of overlooking my long list of faults.

I can trust him

and talk about whatever with him

and be all different kinds of personalities around him

and he likes my sass
(Sass.  With an "S")

and he's patient when I'm an emotional mess.

And look at his smile.

And his eyes.

I love his hands.

He has good hands.

Hi sweet man.

I love you.

The Pool of Death and The Sweaty Drive

Which leads us to The Pool of Death (renamed from The Bloody Pool).

But I decided it's too boring of a story to tell.  Just shards of glass and rusty metal, filmy/dirty water, pain and tears, a trip to Urgent Care, x-rays, a wheelchair, and antibiotics.  Which led to being late to the whole reason we were in Missouri... the family reunion.

And now after three weeks of phoning the pool people, they are sending us a check to pay for the medical services.  What a treat.

And Peter's okay.

Let's move on to The Sweaty Drive.

This very same day (which was back at Memorial Day weekend), we drove home.  Five minutes into our five-hour drive, the air conditioning stopped working.  It was in the 90s.  Hot and sweaty, yes?

Nope.  Well, a little.  We rolled down our windows and let the wind blow.

Sounds sad to you maybe.  You're feeling a little bit of pity.  You don't need to.  I immediately realized what a grand blessing this breeziness was.

I couldn't hear the kids in the back seat.

Do I need to say anything else about that?  Perhaps only if you've never traveled with children;  in our case, three boys smooshed shoulder to shoulder to carseat in the back seat.  I don't even want to think about it long enough to put it in words.

The drive was pleasant.  I heard nothing but the silence of the wind roaring in my ears.

So Paul's out helping a drunk woman whose husband has kicked her out.  He's been gone about an hour and I just heard a police car siren.  So maybe he'll be home soon.

I, on the other hand, just enjoyed a cup of ice cream with chocolate chunks and am ready to share some recent happenings.

We've got The Naked Ladies at the Art Museum, or The Bloody Pool, or The Sweaty Drive.

I know, The Naked Ladies.

We went to St. Louis last weekend for a family reunion, during which we spent a day doing touristy things like visiting their free zoo and equally free art museum.

*Tip - Even though you'll be tempted to go to the zoo when it opens at 8am to avoid the heat and holiday crowds, don't.  All we saw for 2 hours were the zookeepers cleaning out the habitats.  Bummer.

So Charlie fell asleep on our way to the art museum.  He snoozed on a lovely leather couch in the foyer while the other boys toured the museum.  To quench my boredom of sitting next to a sleeping child, I read a brochure about the museum.  It listed several famous artists and their paintings that were housed in this building.  One was Henri Matisse's work called Bathers and Turtle.  Do you see where this is going?  No?  Let's continue.

After a while, the boys return and I ask Peter if he saw the VanGogh or the Monet or the Matisse one about some bathers.  He said he had and he wanted to show me.

So Paul stayed with Charlie while Peter led me through rooms.  "Here it is, Mom."  Yep they are definitely bathers with a turtle.  A large painting of three large naked female bathers looking at a turtle.  Here...

So my nine-year-old son and I stood there to take in this early 1900s work of art.  Of naked women.  There was no shame or embarrassment, except the giggling I was hiding inside.

Then I turned around and Paul, Charlie, and Reuben had joined us and Paul pointed out another Matisse.  A sculpture.  Of a naked woman.  So our sweet little conservative family encircled the piece to gaze at its artistic wonder.  "What is it?" Reuben asked.  "A woman," I said.  "Oh."  Uh-huh.

And then I took a moment to look around the room.  All paintings of naked women.

I had sent my son on a hunt for naked women.

I could see this being a fun game when he's a teen.  I'll say, "Hey, Pete, did you see that one by So-and-So called Swaying In the Wind?"  And then he'll take me on a hunt for it and he'll get all embarrassed when it ends up being naked women.  And he'll say something like, "Ah Mom, not naked women again" and turn all red and then I'll giggle.

But for now, it's all art and we're all mature about it.


Paul's back.  The sirens weren't for him.  He said it was trippy and after much screaming, all is apparently well for the evening.

The other stories shall come henceforth another day.

Hello

As I have naught a bit of interesting news to share, I have nothing to fill this lonely space.

But maybe the inspiration shall one day return.

Until then,


Oh, you should click over to this post by my 'friend' Kristen.  Oh my, I was laughing so much.

The time kids and i drank beer at target   Click on that there.

Doesn't that sound funny?  Here's some of her dialogue with her kids at the eatery in Target...  But really, click over to her blog to get the full context of the story and some photos...


Kembe: “BEER??  We’re getting BEER?  Yes!! I love beer!”

India: ”Mom, thanks for getting us beer!”

Me: Guys, that’s not beer. And please use your inside voice.

Kembe: Yes, this is beer!  It’s beer and I love beer.

India: It’s what daddy drinks!  Yum. This beer is so good.

Kristen: IT’S NOT BEER. It’s soda. Lower your voices.

India: Mommy, I know this is beer. I’ve had it before. 

Me: When have you had beer?

India: That time someone took pictures of us. They took pictures of us with beer and then they let us drink it.

Me: WHAT? SOMEONE TOOK YOUR PICTURE AND GAVE YOU BEER? WHO DID THIS? WHAT HAPPENED? TELL MOMMY WHAT HAPPENED!

Kembe: That time with Eli and Cora.

Me: (heart rate resuming normalcy). Oh. Yes. You guys, that was Coke. Not beer.  You’ve never had beer.  This is called soda, okay??

A Dreamy Day

Happy Anniversary to my main man and me.  We were romantically betrothed twelve years ago.  It was sweet.

Today was sweet too.

My dear, dear mother-in-law gave us the day to go.  To go away and be just us while she spent the day with three high-energy boys.  It's a strange feeling to just be he and me.  And we loved it.

We went to Turkey Run State Park and hiked trail 3 to trail 10 to trail 5 to trail 9.  It sprinkled a bit, but the thick forest worked as our umbrella.  Two hours of talking and holding hands and just being he and me.

Then we went to the inn there for lunch.  Pot Roast Melt.  So yum.  Tender beef, swiss cheese, grilled onions, rye bread.  With mint M&Ms Debbie gave us just before we left.

Part three was spent in the lodge.  We, being uberly nerdly, sat on a couch with our shoulders snuggling... and read.  No one was trying to crawl up on our laps, or pull us into another room, or need... anything from us.  We could just be, you know?  Parenting is great.  It's special and fulfilling.  But a break from parenting is also great and special and fulfilling.

So on to part four of our dreamy day...  As we left the lodge it started to rain so we drove to a shelter house with a picnic table to share our annual bottle of Martinelli's.  The rain turned into a thunder storm, but we were very dry and snug in the shelter.  Paul tried to use the cigarette lighter from our car to start a fire in the fireplace, but it wasn't hot enough.  But you could imagine how cozy that would have been.  We sat on the table sipping from wine glasses we brought from home and enjoyed the sound of the rain and the little peeks of sunshine that came and went.

And then we drove home.  Charlie and Reuben, who had not seen us for seven whole hours, came running and squealing to us at the door.  Sweet boys.

And sweet Debbie for caring for them.

And sweet man who loves me abundantly.

When I Was Adopted

The other day Reuben asked me about when I was adopted.  I think he wanted to know where I lived after I was adopted.  I don't remember exactly what he asked because I was trying to quickly take in the idea that he thought I was adopted.  Which makes me wonder if maybe he thinks everyone was once adopted.

I replied to him, "Remember, I grew in Granny's womb.  Granny is my mom."

Rube - "Oh, yeah.  Then where did you go/who took care of you when you came out of her womb?"

Me - "I lived with Granny and Granpa.  They were my family and took care of me."

I think his five-year-mind moved on to something else and our conversation ended there.  But what a realization for me - to know what he is thinking and how he is trying to figure out the world.

He was adopted, not being raised by the woman whose body he came from.

He knows that Peter grew in my womb, that the doctor cut me open to retrieve him, and that he still lives with us, his birth parents.  I guess that's why I was surprised he was globalizing adoption.

I hope he will continue to verbalize his thoughts to me and that I will be able to help him make loving sense of his world.