First Annual Jones Family Dump n' Dunk

First we cleaned out my parents' basement of all the crap us kids have left there over the years.

Then we went swimming and baptized the babies in Hemlock Gorge.

Somewhere in there we also ate Miah's probably world famous, definitely family famous, biscuits and gravy.

And we hoola-hooped, trampolined, found a snake in the yard, ate a LOT of food...

So anyway. it was fun.

The Post Birthday Blog Entry

So, as usual the day itself was wonderful. I woke up and did not feel any older. I didn't find any new wrinkles or saggy spots (though granted, the time i actually have to look at myself in the mirror is perhaps 1.26 seconds/day). Ben took the kids so i could sleep in. I awoke to an empty house (which for some reason tends to induce panic in me initially, but then i try to take advantage of having two free hands and start about 12 different projects, none of which i accomplish by the time they get back). On the table was my birthday presents from Ben and the kids - new rain boots and a new Death Cab for Cutie CD. I did some cleaning and made a cup of tea and then Ben and the kids came home with my birthday breakfast treats (donuts and chai latte, yum!).

Oma came for her weekly Esther adventure. They explored Oregon Ridge beach. Asa and I took the opportunity to spend some time with Lali. We went to Wegmans and bought treats for my birthday dinner (consisting mostly of goat cheese and things to eat it on). Then we wandered a bit and bought shoes for Esther and a necklace for me.

Then we all came home and spent the late afternoon/early evening running around the yard and having fun.

Jes and Ian and Lali and Grandpa came for dinner. We had a smorgasbord of goat cheeses, crusty breads, babaganoush, hummus, tomatoes, salad, corn on the cob, and Lali's homemade mango-peach salsa and guacamole. For dessert we had bumbleberry pie made from one day's pickin's of berries on our hillside (Lali-made as well), angel food cake (a tradition and all time fav.), and chocolate cake covered in berries and figs and nasturtium flowers.

After dinner we had rip roarin' hoola-hoopin' fun. (If i really feel like degrading myself later i may post a video of this, ben took some seriously embarrassing ones...) Then Lali and Grandpa told the traditional story of my birth. I have to say now that i've gone through birth with our little ones, i'm more and more thankful that we chose the out-of-hospital, midwife, un-medicated, woman-in-labor is the boss birth.

Jes and Ian got me a t-shirt with a Capucine quote and drawing (super cute). Dad got me a gift certificate to True Value, Lali bought me some Wegman's goodies and a massage, Oma got me various delectable treats, and Esther told me "happy birthday, mama" upward of 1,694 times. She also told me at one point during the day "it's okay, i love you little mama!" and after i handed an extremely exhausted, up WAY past her bedtime, cake-smeared Esther over to her father to read the bedtime story she brushed her hand gently over my hair and groggily said, with eyes closed, "you're very beautiful, mama"

i want this one

if i had it to do all over again (and the money) i'd get this carseat

New Workout Routine

And now for something truly embarrassing!!!

Birthday Blather or is it Blither?

as in blithering idiot...

So, i'm doing this a whole three and a half hours early. Or rather, since i was born at 2am, five and a half hours early...

It's been a weird couple of weeks leading up to my birthday. Usually, i look forward to my birthday. Cake, presents, people i haven't heard from since my last birthday call to tell me they love me, my mother telling the story of how i was born, and everyone laughing at me because i can't remember what we did this time last year because my memory is CRAP!

But this year, not so much... something horrid has been lurking in my psyche. Something to do with 29. I thought it was a fear of turning 30 but i think it's a little more complex than that. I look forward to my 30s for the most part - the kind of sophistication you simply cannot attain in your 20s no matter how suave you are. But what that little bitch in my head keeps saying is "this is it! times up!" Some clock (not the baby clock, i destroyed that with a blowtorch after we got pregnant with Asa)is ticking away and driving me mad. There is only one more year left to get done all those things on my "To Do Before I Turn 30" list. See, the thing is, when you're 21 making that list it seems like you have forever to do it all and so much energy to do it with... and then you graduate college and you struggle to make it out of the post-college/pre-career waste-land and then, if you're like me before you even leave that waste-land (actually, i may still be there i'm not sure) you had babies...

Now i'm not saying i haven't reached some huge milestones, but lets face it, who REALLY finishes the To-Do Before You Die list even after you find out you have a week to live? So now i'm trying not to panic and am re-working my list to look something like this:

To Do Before 30 i mean 50

And to make myself feel really good I've made this:

Things I Have Done Before I Turned 29

• gave birth to Esther (72 hours of labor - i don't care who you are, that's an accomplishment!) i should also add "parented her for almost 3 solid years"
  
• gave birth to Asa (only 10 hours of labor and an absolute picnic!) and "haven't slept since january" - i'd be a shoe-in for people capable of withstanding interrogation techniques
  
• married the only man i ever wanted to marry (hi honey!! look at me i'm being positive (if narcissitic)
• been sky diving
• gone swimming in the atlantic and pacific oceans and put my toes in the indian ocean
  
• crossed the u.s. in a car/truck more than 12 times
• drove around downtown seattle with a mask on pretending i was bank robber on the lamb
• went rock climbing with Lynn Hill
• graduated college
• got a job as a grant writer (hey mom, look at me! i'm being paid to WRITE!!)
  
• moved back home
• built (or had my husband and father build) my dream house
• driven several really fast cars
• started to learn to ride a motorcycle
• spent 3 months backpacking Alaska (on my 25th birthday i woke up inside the Artic Circle)
• backpacked all over the southwest including the grandcanyon, the superstition mountains, grand gulch, and Ute Mountain Tribal Park
• soaked in hot springs in Idaho
• flown over the ice fields of the Yukon (in a teeny tiny plane)
• officially lived in three separate states
• gone through 9 different addresses since leaving home (if you count the three months in my car and living at my grandmother's house while she was in Papua New Guinea)
• owned 7 different vehicles
• can make a good loaf of homemade bread without a recipe
• had one essay published in a literary magazine
• been to Sri Lanka, Dubai (just the airport though), Finland (Helsinki for 8 hours), Russia, England, and Scottland (and Canada too, but that doesn't really count...)
  

striking resemblance to Golem?

Carnival.

Dragon Train and Fun-nel cakes.

The Natural Defense Mechanism of Toddlers...

We're visiting Lali in the studio. We're all sitting on the floor rolling a ball to each other. Esther gets a little overly excited and throws it.

Me: Esther don't throw it please, roll it.

A little later, the same thing; she throws the ball out of sheer excitement.

Me: ESTHER! Please don't THROW it. ROOOOLL it!

Esther: Pat it, mark it with a B, and put it in the oven for baby and me... (complete with hand motions)

I had to hide so she couldn't see me giggling... she did anyhow...

Belated Thank You

I just wanted to thank everyone who responded to my identity crisis post.

Beth, Terri, JesKa, and Cassie you guys are absolutely AWESOME! thank you, thank you, thank you!

(and Cassie, Max is VERY, VERY cute, so glad i got to meet him this weekend. Smooch that chin for me!)

one more for good luck

my father is the king of the four leaf clover. He's found upwards of 13 a day this season alone. Also, he says he thinks it's a cry for help. As he's looking for these little buggers he hardly sees any honey bees. So on that note, I'm hoping to have a full hive by my birthday (and maybe FOR my birthday? hint hint** buzz buzz**)

I still have yet to find even one four leaf clover. (Miah and Ceci, the one i found while you were there was a set up. Dad found it first and I asked him to leave it there so i could pretend to find it while someone was looking ... hehehe... )

so i realize this blog is very feast and famine but here's another new post...

Her favorite thing to draw (although it is not pictured above) is Harry Potter. I'll have to get a photo of that soon. She also, apparently, carries him around in her belly "But someday he'll grow up."

Pictured above is Ceci - Esther's person art tutor and designated Creative Director of the hollow. We love you Aunt Ceci! -- oh and here i would like to point out that it is my brother's fault that Esther can use the word Cephalopod in a sentence.

My little singer song writer.

She takes after Ben. These are lyrics taken from various songs i've heard her sing over the last couple of days.

"Ooooh Dadddddieeeeee! He's a guy... and we're waaaaaaalking... He's got a skunk in his mooooouuuuthhh!!!"


"Nothing is REAL!! Everything is NOT REAL!! But it iiiiiSSSS Real, In my SHOOOOOOE!"


"Asa isn't big yet. But he'll be big some DAAAAAY! And then he'll walk with me to LAAAAAALi's HOOOOOOUUUUUUSE!

P is for Poop

Esther does her business, wipes, climbs down, looks in bowl

"It's a P mom! Because P is for Poop!!! HAHAHAHAHA!"

I look in the bowl too - it is indeed in the shape of a P.

Hello, my name's Esther.

These are those pictures we'll look back on and go awww... I personally like them because she's the same color, shape, and size as the watering can.








I told her to smile...

OOOOOHHHHH!!

Odd but Better

Today was a weird day but has left me feeling much better than my doom and gloom post from yesterday.

Asa was up all night again. Esther woke up at 4:30 this morning and refused to go back to sleep. Then Asa woke up just as i was sure i could get her to go back down and all hell broke loose. So i took one for the team and let ben go back to bed for a bit and i took the kids. Asa takes his first nap of the day around 9am so as it approached he became fussy so i roused Ben, put a movie on for Esther, a pot of coffee on for Ben, and sat down to nurse Mr Fussy-pants. by 9:30, the pot of coffee was full and cold, Asa was asleep upstairs in his crib and Esther, Ben, and I had all fallen asleep half way through A Grand Day Out. I awoke some time later with a sweaty Esther arm over my face and Ben and Asa upstairs playing something i like to call "thump, thump, screech." After Esther woke up we decided that all this rain and recent ranting warranted a family adventure (particularly one that involved fench fries).

Our outting was extremely successful and we came home with lots of treasures - a few goodwill goodies; records including patsy cline, the smothers brothers, and my personal favorite, the super hits vol. 2 which features people like otis redding and the beegees; a $3.00 hammer; a musical airplane; a small wooden airplane with a moving propeller; 6 unused napkins; a blue plastic bracelet; and a white trash t-shirt that makes my milkers look HUGE!

we've just had a lovely dinner of tofu sandwiches and left over potato salad which i just topped off with the first scoops of a brand new quart of chocolate velvet soy delicious.

so with our freezer full of promises, a young and yet unsoiled night, a booby shirt, and a great present for my dad tomorrow i will leave you with a few videos to ponder:

this first one is a sample of how esther greets her little brother every morning, with a lovely and very long version of happy birthday.



this second one is just cute but she's a little too quick to be caught on camera so beware those of you who get car sick.



And this last one is her with her new favorite after nap snack. not very filling but oh how fun.

Identity crisis or no sleep blues...

i think i'm having a mommy identity crisis. it's slowly dawning on me that i am not the kind of mom i always thought i would be. i'm much more like that hypothetical mommy that i swore i would never be. it depresses me how little "fun" i actually have as a parent. don't get me wrong, my kids are great and very funny... but about 97.4% of the time i'm yelling, or scolding, or teaching, or they're crying, or i'm crying... i don't know that i ever thought being a mom would necessarily be easy perse, but i certainly thought it would have come more naturally to me. there's some sort of mommy-instinct or "mother's intuition" that i seem to be missing. and it's not like any of this is all that new of an epiphany but most of the time i can comfortably ignore the nagging feeling that i'm one of those mommies (the kind who bribe, the kind who have children who protest by SHRIEKING*, the mean, unattentive, too busy, inconsistent, worried about how clean the house is, that thinks her kid is smarter than every other kid - and that's not necessarily a good thing, the kind who puts on Wallace and Gromit for the 3rd time today so she can sneak into the bathroom to eat the last traces of the chocolate velvet tofutti** because she doesn't want to share)... lately, it just makes me sad. and the real kick in the pants is how easily ben seems to have adapted to fatherhood. i know things aren't easy for him either and that he doesn't necessarily have some sort of super psychic power over the children (what i wouldn't give for mind-control capabilities these days). i think it's more that he seems more... um... content. meanwhile there are those awful rotten days where i am just waiting for the neighbors to call CPS for all the screaming and when those glorious CPS reps show up at my door i won't say anything i'll just hand them the screaming biter, and shove the very dirty, loud toddler that has been recently evicted from either under the table or from around one or both of my legs and i will skip away down the lane a whole 3 inches taller from the weight that is no longer crushing my will to... well to do what ever i want... which, sad as it is, runs more towards having 5 minutes alone in the bathroom than going to france and buying shoes.

but just now it occurs to me why so many people read dooce. because... i'm not alone... so if you're out there, reading this and not shaking your head thinking i'm nuts and half way through dialing CPS yourself give me a shout out... i could use some solidarity just now...


*oh the shrieking. albeit, it's happy shrieking but it's that earpiercing, just-this-side-of-a-dog-whistle, the skies are about to open and swallow everything, air-raid siren, we're all about to die, someone's hearing aid is malfunctioning, faulty microphone on stage SHRIEKING!!!! i gave birth to a banshee... and the other one thinks it's funny and does all she can to encourage said SHRIEKING!!! i have fantasies about calling him up when he's an adult and when he answers "hello" in his cool, suave, grown-up, chest-hair voice i will SHRIEK directly into the mouthpiece for a good solid 20 seconds and then hang up... oh and just for real fun i'll do it at 3:29am exactly.

**and the tofutti isn't because i'm being good and health conscious, it's mainly because if i eat any sort of dairy or even walk through the refridgerated dairy section Asa is up howling 12 times in the night rather than his standard 5 times.

Doctor's visit

Asa had his first doctor's appointment yesterday (aside from his two-day and three-week check ups at the birthcenter). It went well. He got his first round of immunizations (i know, i know... ). Poor kid. He did stellar though - well Ben says he did. I had to work yesterday so Ben took Asa and i missed it. Which is probably better for everyone as I'm relatively sure immunizations are part of a larger conspiracy and my children tend to know when i'm anxious and thus freak out a bit more than they would normally.

Ben says Asa is 19lbs, but i think he messed that up and will be weighing him myself later on this week (i don't have a scale and have to go to Lali's and Grandpa's house and use theirs).

In other news, Becky and Alan are on the two week count down to their nupituals. I'll be hosting a small bachelorette party here in honor of the death of Becky's single-personhood (which, in all honesty started getting gravely ill as soon as she and Alan started dating).

And to top it all off, here are few pictures of my extremely white amish husband and Esther (who insisted on wearing my t-shirt after she got out of the pool) in the garden.

pictures...because i'm too lazy to be witty...

No, he's not dead, just sleeping...


I'm pretty sure the next few pictures are from when i caught them plotting to over-throw the regime

Mr. Chubby Legs

Hair, what the crap are you doing these days??

So, j and I went for the long anticipated haircut yesterday. First time i've ever had a haircut by a real stylist person... oh wait, no there was a guy in Sri Lanka that did a trim for me. We went to Sprout an organic salon in Hampden. So the first two pictures of of the haircut i left the salon with -- but this is after i woke up this morning and realized i hadn't any idea how to style the thing...



So then, after several hours today of feeling weirded out by my hair i armed Ben with scissors and he "fixed" it. He actually didn't do such a bad job. I know many of you out there who know Ben are wondering why in the world i would do such a thing but i was desperate...


So these two are post Ben with scissors... There's not a whole lot difference when you look at the pictures... but it's much shorter on top now...

Anyhow... i'm trying to decide whether or not to go even shorter...

How Country are we?

So Long Ooo-gobs of Hair

So this is it for these long locks. s of Saturday they're on their way to enrich the life of some bald kid.


Hopefully the pictures of my new hair cut will be much more flattering.

Ode to EEEEN

This is a special post for one of our childrens' most favorite people in the universe, eeen (also posted here as, i of the j&i combo).

eeen has an incredible talent for making things, especially very fun things. He was one of those guys from high school that i really wanted to be friends with, but never could figure out how to manage it. He almost made a whole three-piece suit out of newspaper. I am super jealous of his ability to come up with fantastic ideas and then PUT THEM INTO PRACTICE... i'm lucky if i even get to the "thinking it up phase." Anyhow, he made these two things for his best little buddy, Esther or should i say, Esther2ooo.

My slippery grasp on astrology, Babies, and How i am cheating on this blog with facebook

I think my seventh moon is in the house of "screwing with your finances and other bureaucratic crap" because my credit card company misread my payment check and deposited it for $900 less than what i wrote it out for, the insurance company has their little head up their big patootie (what else is new, right?), and it took me almost 3 hours to post a payment to my student loan corporation that neglected to tell me that they were going completely wireless, thus my payment is 4 days late... sigh.


In other news, Have i mentioned that Esther is POTTY TRAINED?? I'm sure i eluded to it here and there but this is the official announcement because it's just SOOOO awesome to be changing the dipers of only one kid rather than two. I mean there's seriously only soo much poop one person can handle in a day... So hoorah for Esther and being so awesome. Hooorah for the power of stickers and chocolate to a toddler. and hoorah for cutting my work load down by at least 13%.

Esther is turning into an artistic genius - i think this is owed to our letting her write on the fridge with dry erase markers...


We've begun putting Asa in the Johnny jump-up. I have an awful tendency to mock him when he's in it though. "Who's a real boy?", "Am I mommy or the puppet master?" I admit it, i'm cruel. After all he's not crazy about it, but it does allow me about 15 minutes of hands-free chore time - just long enough to make a cup of tea and take a dump without a baby on my lap. Also, you wouldn't know it by looking at this picture but Esther really is Ben's daughter and not Owen Wilson's love child.

And...

Dear Blog,
I'm so sorry I've been cheating on you with facebook. I know it's wrong. It's just out of sheer convenience you see. My true love is and has always been reserved for you and you alone. Unfortuantely, with all the chaos in my life facebook seems to make it a bit easier to update lots of folks with very little effort. Perhaps you can see fit to believe in polygamy, just this once.
Sincerely,
You Snoodly-poo

My Mother's Day

Despite the fact that i am not HIS mother, Ben went on a mission to Ma Petite Shoe and managed to score himself some serious "good husband points". Am I a lucky girl or what!?

Asa laughing

3 Esther Stories, a tidbit about me, and several words i cannot live without

Esther Story 1
me: Esther do you understand? Are you listening to me?
e: Uh-huh (looking at everything but me)
me: Esther! Look at me when i'm talking to you
e: uh-huh (still not looking at me)
me: (Claps hands loudly) ESTHER! LOOK AT MOMMY'S EYES!!
e: OH! They're beeeauuuutiful!!!!

Esther Story 2
While watching me change Asa's diaper.
e: Is that his belly button mom?
me: yep that's his belly button.
e: what's that? (pointing to his penis) Is that his peanut mom?
me: (stifling giggle) pe-NIS.
e: (moves away quickly) HE PEED ON THIS??

Esther Story 3
Esther is drawing on the refrigerator with dry erase markers (yes we let her).
ben: Esther, those are beautiful pictures you're drawing!!
e: Daddy... don't be mean.

my tidbit: because my eyes are my best feature (i mean aside from my sharp wit and astounding sense of humor) i have a desperate fear of going cross eyed. So when people say things to Esther like "your face will be stuck like that" i feel like whacking them on the back of the head.

and because i've been thinking about it for a week or so for some completely unknown reason - several words i think i'm head-over-heels in love with:
Trousers
Boulevard
Pilfer
Obsequious
Vacillate
Gregarious
Defenestrate
Ogle