Sals-lemon!

"I put the lemon in the sals (salsa), and it tastes like sals-lemon!" -Ally

Eye witness

10:45 at night,  I hear a whisper from the twins' room.

"Mommy... Daddy dint bwush my teeth!"

I sit down on Ally's bed, and ask, "Daddy didn't brush your teeth?"

"No," she says, clearly excited that she has my attention so many hours past bedtime.

"Well, how about I brush them?" 

"No, Daddy spose to bwush them.  But, he dint."

"Okay," I tell her, "I'll tell Daddy to come brush them."

"Okay," she says, pleased.

As I walk out, she says, trying not to laugh, "He the naughtiest daddy ever!"

When Dave comes up, he says, "Ally, I did too brush your teeth."

"No, you dint," she insists.  And to prove her point she adds, "I saw you not bwush my teeth!"

"It hurt my bottom"

This morning while I was trying to get Kate and Anna off to school, Luke and Ally were sitting on the stairs arguing.  Ally had a piece of her Baba's stuffing that she'd taken out of the hole in its butt and was flying the piece of "Baba's poopy" in the air around Luke's head making the "poopy" talk in a high pitched voice and say things like, "I so stinky!  I fly by you head!"

As if that wasn't weird enough, Luke kept yelling at her, "It hurt my bottom when you say that Ally!"

I couldn't make heads or tails (excuse the pun) of the "It hurts my bottom," so I asked questions.

"Why does it hurt your bottom?"

"It just hurt my bottom."

I clarified, "What hurts your bottom?"

"When Ally say that."

Still digging, I questioned, "Did she hit your bottom before?"

"No.  She just say that."

So, I thought maybe he'd heard the expression, pain in the butt.

So, I asked, "Do you mean Ally's a pain in the butt?"

And they both objected simultaneously, "I not a pain in the butt."/
"Ally not a pain in the butt."

Fine.  I give up.  I don't even care anymore.

J.J., you were right

We Geblers like to be right, especially with each other.  So, call this an effort to make things right with God before I encounter my possible death tomorrow morning (joking...mostly), but I have to admit something.

My brother stopped by for a visit yesterday.  He saw our green pumpkin sitting in the mudroom waiting to be carved and asked, "Is that a zucchini?"

I asked, "Is what a zucchini?"

"The thing in the mudroom," he explained.

"No," I said, avoiding the temptation to roll my eyes, "that's a pumpkin."  Then I talked down at his non-gardener level, "It's just green because it didn't ripen yet.  It would've turned orange if we'd left it on the vine."

So, after nap yesterday evening we were carving pumpkins.  I'd cut the top off the four orange pumpkins we'd bought for the kids, because the squirrels had eaten our ripe ones, and the kids were cleaning them out.  

I cut into the green one so I could clean it and marveled at how much easier it was to cut.  When I opened it, there wasn't a hollow spot.   For a second, I just thought the skin was exceptionally thick and tried to hollow it out.  Then I realized, the darn thing was a zucchini inside! 

The non-gardener saw something the gardener hadn't even considered. The zucchini plants had somehow cross pollenated with them pumpkins, and we had ourselves a "pumpkini."

I chopped the thing down the middle to verify.  It sure was more zucchini than pumpkin.  Zucchini flesh, zucchini seeds, just a pumpkin shape.

We've had "cucaloupes" before, when the same thing happened to our cucumbers and our cantaloupes, and those are dis.gust.ing.  But, this pumpkini (and another we found in the garden) proved pretty useful for pumpkini bread and muffins.

This fall

I've never been able to breathe through my nose.  Dentist visits were a near suffocating experience.  Mouth breathing in class got me more than one dirty look through the years.  And, I never understood the big deal about a stuffy nose with colds.

But, I did nothing about it for 36 years, until last winter when Dave pointed out that the reason I always feel tired might be due to the sleep disturbance he was hearing me have during the night sleep.  I went to an ENT who discovered I had a septum that was deviated in two places, incredibly large turbinates, and blocked sinus cavities.  He recommended surgery, and explained the recovery would entail a week off of work and not bending over for two weeks.  I said I couldn't take a week off of my work, and I put the surgery off another 6 months.

A few weeks ago, we were trying to decide what to do with Dave's week off this week.  He takes this time, because it's my favorite time of year.  Somehow we went from choosing between Door County and a longer trip to him convincing me I needed to get the surgery done, and we should do it while he was home from work.  So, I go in tomorrow.

But I've been a premenstrual weepy mess.  I am scared to death of going under, scared to death of the recovery pain, scared to death of having my nose packed full of gauze.  I'm going through my irrational plans of who should watch the kids after I die in this septoplasty.  And I'm grieving the fact that I'll be missing a week of apple picking, pumpkin farms, and (sniff) trick-or-treat.  I spent the last week, especially this past weekend, packing in every fall thing I thought we should do.  The kids didn't enjoy the majority of it.  Luke and Ally are only in the picture below because I promised them a sucker, and  Dave threatened Anna within inches of her life to force her to smile.  

Ah, the joys of autumn.

Oh, come on...

Early this summer, we drove out to Barthel's to go strawberry picking.  I'd checked the weather forecast that morning, and it was supposed to be beautiful.  Right as we arrived, we heard some thunder.  I didn't see lightning, so I thought it was probably fine; there wasn't supposed to be a storm.  And, I'd promised the kids we'd pick strawberries.  There was a line of cars leaving, but the owner, not wanting to disappoint the kids, said we could go give it a try if we wanted, but to leave if there was any lightning.

As we drove to the field, Kate was anxiously saying we were going to get struck by lightning.  I kept telling her it was only thunder; we'd leave if we saw lightning.  When we arrived, the teenagers who were working told us they were leaving, but they gave us a basket to pick into.  They assigned us a row, telling us they'd put us far away from the water pipe, since it's a conductor.  Kate was petrified, sure we were all going to die.

We didn't pick more than a minute before there was a giant crash of thunder and a huge bolt of lightning.  I got the kids in the car, and we left, with all of a dozen strawberries in our basket.

I haven't lived that day down since.  I'm pretty sure I never will.

I'm going to start a therapy fund for Kate, and earmark at least a grand as "strawberry picking in lighting."

In the four months since, every time there's a storm, Ally and Luke get nervous and Kate points out they're afraid because "I made them go strawberry picking in the lightning."

Here's what I found when I went to check Kate's "use your spelling words in a paragraph" homework this morning.

It's just too much

I told Ally we could make her Halloween costume today.  As soon as Dave left for work, she asked me, "We make my ballerina now?"

When it came time to try it on, I slipped it up over her pajamas.  She wasn't having that.  She stripped off her clothes and began to try out the "ballerina."

I have no words to describe the next ten minutes.

No...

Oh, my goodness.  This one just puts me over the edge.
I never saw Magic Mike, but this is just how I picture it.

One of those mornings

It was one of those mornings where I just sat down and marveled that I still have seven (pet included) family members alive at 8:45.  It was pretty touch and go for a while there.  I'm quite astonished that Finley is still breathing after the shenanigans she kept pulling.  She's lucky a replacement English Creme is so expensive.  And I'm relieved, and just a little proud, that Kate and I didn't literally fight to the death.  I think the credit for all the breathing that's still going on rightfully goes to Curious George, who selflessly stepped up to watch the twins so I could handle the rest.

The hair cut

I'm not sure where to start with this.  Should I start with the thing I was just holding in my hand?  I was going to post a picture, but it's seriously disgusting.  And this opinion comes from me, who spent six years getting pooped on at least once a month, and still gets more pee on me weekly than some people do in their entire lives.

It's not disgusting like poop or pee, it's just.. it's yucky.  And, it's not just me, Dave and I are both grossed out.

I think I'll start with Monday.  Monday I decided that Luke's hair needed to be cut.  It was growing over his eyes and it just looked shaggy.  Not cute shaggy, just "does his mom not see how bad her kid's hair looks" shaggy.  So, I risked Just Kidding Kids' Cuts.  Sometimes they do great, other times they... do what they did Monday.

Luke left that place looking like a cross between Justin Beiber and Winona Ryder in the late 90s.  They texturized the ends or something, and it was bad.  It was $20, and it was bad.

So, I spent the next three days looking at him and wondering what I should do about his hair.  I couldn't justify buying a second cut... again.  Then I spent today wondering why I obsess about his hair.  I care way more about his hair than my own.  The Justin Beiber/Winona Ryder cross would be an upgrade for me some days.  I don't obsess over the girls' hair.  Heck, Anna walked around with scrub brush length bangs for a few months, and, after the first couple days, I was over it.  And, Luke certainly doesn't care about his hair.  So, I decided we had to be done with it.  So, I texted Dave:

Then I sat Luke down at the kitchen table with the iPad.  I knew I couldn't take a scissors to it.  I have never cut his hair.  So, I got the clippers I use on Dave's hair, took a deep breath, and started in.  Luke looked away from the iPad once, like, "Hmm.  That's weird," but then went right back to the screen.  The hair fell in big chunks, cascading down his naked little back, onto the chair, and then onto the floor.  I didn't look at his face, just stuck to the business at hand.  I cut it just like I cut Dave's hair.

Ally was obsessed with trying to play on the iPad, so she ignored what I was doing to Luke.  Anna was enthralled.  She was giggling excitedly and jumping around the kitchen.  She could not believe it.  Then she decided the hair would be great for an art project.  I wasn't surprised.  Anna saves everything for an art project.  She grabbed a ziplock and started scooping the piles of hair into it.

All of the sudden Ally stopped fighting with Luke over the iPad and said, "Lukey, you look like Daddy!"

Anna looked up and laughed.  Then she asked if I could cut her hair like that next.

Dave walked in the back door, after he picked Kate up from gymnastics.   Kate took one look at Luke's hair and started crying. Then she refused to talk about it.

I finished the hair cut and finally looked at his face.  He looked really cute.  I could see his beautiful eyes, and his cute little face wasn't hidden by hair.  I liked it.  And, I wouldn't have to obsess over his hair anymore, because there wasn't enough of it to obsess about!  He looked suddenly like a boy instead of a toddler, but I ignored that and focused on how cute he was.

I lifted Luke off the chair so I could give him a bath.  Anna climbed on so I could cut her hair.  I ignored her.

After the bath Dave Facetimed his mom to show her the cut, and I took a couple pictures.

During dinner Kate finally spoke her mind.  "You weren't happy with how short it was on Monday?  That wasn't good enough for you?"

After dinner Anna hands me a ziplock bag.  I almost dropped it.  For a second, I thought there was a dead mouse in it, and then I was just confused what it was.  World's biggest hairball?

With a big smile, Anna exclaimed, "I washed Lukey's hair!"

Okay, I decided you needed a picture.

Church music

Dave and I have had disagreed about music in church services since... forever.  I can barely sit (much less stand) through hymns, especially when an elderly woman is belting them out behind me, but Dave doesn't mind them.   And, I actually enjoy contemporary worship music, but Dave is basically offended by it.  He doesn't find it "natural" to take what should be a hymn and put it to rock music.

That's why I had to laugh this morning.  I was combing Anna's hair and she chatted on in her five-year-old way,  "You know what I like more than anything?  Drawing and singing.  Oh, but I don't mean Bible songs.  Basically any songs except bible songs!"