Mayhem and Magic

Lamps and Backyard Boxes

We ordered new lamps for the living room a loooong time ago and they finally arrived, so we picked them up at the furniture store today.

Beloved put the two boxes in the back of the van, and I wondered which one contained the floor lamp because neither box seemed tall enough.

Having never before purchased a lamp costing more than $50, I mistakenly assumed that when you pay a bajillion dollars for a specially-ordered floor lamp that it arrives as a fully assembled lamp.  Do not be misled, any of you shopping for floor lamps!  All floor lamps come in pieces with a long wire through the parts, whether you buy them at Wal-Mart for $10 or a fancy furniture store for way, way more.

The kids were asking to play with the boxes before we even got home.

Remember how we purchased a lovely jungle gym and Beloved sweat and labored for days to get it all put together?  Well, the boys were just as thrilled with the lamp boxes as they were with the jungle gym. 

First they pretended that Sparkle was a daddy lion and Pumpkin was a mama hippo, and they lived next door to one another in their separate caves.

Pretty soon someone was invading someone else's space.

And things quickly degraded from there into some kind of wrestling match.

That's really pretty much how it always ends up around here anyway... 

Happy Thoughts!

Here's a happy picture!  Beloved finished building the jungle gym.  The boys have been swinging and sliding and climbing...  It's great!  It took about two minutes before they tried putting other random items down the slide besides their own little bottoms.  (Actual items down the slide:  a truck, a trike, many balls, grass, rocks, drinking glasses, and a banana.)  They've also gone down the slide headfirst, upside down and standing up ("surfing"-- how do they know what surfing looks like?).  No major injuries so far, thank goodness.

I have not called R yet.  I didn't want to call while I was anxious or upset.  And I do feel...  somewhat less anxious and upset.  Still confused. 

The ups and downs of an open adoption relationship are difficult to blog about, by the way.  There are privacy issues for sure, for R and Pumpkin in particular, and our whole family in general.  Would I tell you if for some reason (please, no) Baby A had been removed from R's care?  I'm not sure.  Would I tell you if R just...  I don't know... decided that Baby A was a lot of work and maybe it would be easier to leave her with someone else?  Again, not sure. 

Now, if her daycare fell through and she was left without any acceptable options?  That I would probably share, because then it's not just about our families, but also political and moral issues of justice, wealth, and race.  Those things, I think, need to be exposed and discussed without judgement or shame. 

Have I already stepped over a privacy line that should not be crossed?  If I never again blog about where Baby A is, you might assume the worst of R.

It's easier to talk about the things that are unreservedly positive.  Phone calls and letters and birthday cards from first family...  all good things.  Questioning the care and/or safety of a sibling?  Potentially not good, and much much harder to talk about in a postive way that does not contribute to negative stereotypes about open adoption or first families.

Back to the happy!

Yesterday I was blow drying my hair.  Both the boys like to watch this, and they love when I unexpectedly turn the blow dryer on their feet!  They just giggle and giggle and shriek about it.  Anyway, Pumpkin was watching admiringly, and when I turned off the hair dryer he told me,

"Momma, you look just like Ariel."

High, high praise indeed!

Back to Work

Last week was so fun.

The kids had a blast with my parents.  They went swimming, did craft projects, baked, wrestled, played soccer, read a million books...  Every single fun thing that kids do with their grandparents, they did.  Quality time was spent, memories were made, photographs were taken.

My mom and I went furniture shopping, and I bought a chair for the living room.  We rearranged some furniture.  She helped me look at paint samples and start on some other fun home decorating projects.  (I'm kind of terrible at home decorating sometimes.  Certainly I lack confidence at it.  So when my mom is here I almost always recruit her to help me with one or two things.)

Beloved bought a play structure from CostCo, and he's been working hard to get it all put together.  His hands are bruised from pushing down on the drill!  It's not done, but it's getting there.  (And isn't that an oxymoron-- "play structure?"  Weird.)  We're planning to put in a sand box around some (or all?) of the jungle gym ("jungle gym" is better than "play structure", isn't it?), which I know the boys will love.  It makes me happy to anticipate them playing in the sand this summer, and it makes me feel like we're making progress on those things I have felt like we are "behind" on.  (Here's a post about that from a while back.)

I took a few days off last week, and it really felt almost like a vacation.

So...  This week is kind of lousy.  I am working all week (usually I have Fridays off).  Ugh.

The weekend was sunny and warm.  The boys played in a sprinkler in the back yard.  The last few days have been cloudy and raining.  Seems appropriate.

Here's a picture from a sunnier day last weekend!  That's Pumpkin, skipping through the sprinkler.  His swim suit is on backwards, but who cares. 

The second picture is of fearless Sparkle at the pool, about to leap in regardless of depth or adult supervision.  Later he may appear to be drowning, but if you come near him he sputters and bubbles, "Don't help me!"  Then he must be saved, though he will protest that he was just about to stroke gracefully to the side of the pool all on his own.

                                                            

Home Tour: Playroom

Come down the hall to the playroom. 

(Anyone still catching up?  Here are the Entry and the Office.)

Here we're coming through the doorway.

From across the room, you can see the door and the wall with most of the toys.  Tucked in that corner are two folding chairs, an easel, and a tent made from canvas and PVC pipes.  Usually either the tent or the easel is out on rotation, but for some reason they were both put away when I took the pictures.

Here's a close-up of the shelves.  Did you know that big sturdy shelves are really, really expensive?  Like many hundreds of dollars!  These, however, were about $75 each at Lowes, which is way more our speed.  The things on the two lower shelves are "in rotation" right now.  The boys are not allowed to take things down from the higher shelves (for safety reasons), but if they specifically ask for something we do bring it down.  (Though as I'm looking at the picture, I see that one of the bathroom stools is in front of the shelf...  Hmmm...)  The balls and blocks are always available.  The big grey bin is full of dress up clothes. The map wasn't supposed to be hidden, but we moved the shelves a while ago, and never moved the map.

The mini trampoline has seen a lot of use.  The horse is not my favorite toy because it takes up a lot of space for the amount of time the boys play with it.  My sibs and I had a similar horse when we were kids, and we loved it.

And moving on...  There's the TV, the dollhouse (link is about buying a dollhouse for my sons), and a shelf with some DVDs, books, and a few random toys.

The back wall used to have a big quilt hanging there, but we took it down recently because it seemed like the sunlight was fading it a bit.  There also used to be two small armchairs in here, but I hated how much space they took up.  I like the openness of the playroom without them, but Beloved and I miss having someplace comfy to sit when we watch TV.  Any suggestions?

Here's a better view of the reading area.  I love that little table and chairs.  It gets used for reading sometimes, and for crafting sometimes, but honestly it gets used more for climbing and making "forts."  When they want to read, it's more common for the boys to grab their books and then sit on one of the big pillows (which I think you can see in the previous picture).  We recently put away most of our board books, and now our book collection looks so much smaller to me!  I rotate the books that are out on the table, usually three or four at a time, and that really seems to draw them into reading more.  I'd like to have a shelf that makes the fronts of the books visible for easier selection by preschoolers.

Well, that's it for the playroom.  More than you ever wanted to know, right?  Next up is the kids' bedroom.

Home Tour: Office

Okay, so I said I was going to show you the living room next, but my pictures of the living room didn't really turn out.  So why don't you just come on upstairs, and I'll show you the office.  Yep, right up the stairs.  Then turn to the right, and there's the office doorway.  This is the fourth bedroom of the house, but with Beloved's job, we really needed a home office.  This room was the only one where we could set up the computer when we moved here (before wireless!), so this room was it.

Come on in!

Let's see...  The desk is one I've had since middle school!  It's a piece of formica countertop on plywood.  The chair we bought used from WSU about eight years ago.  Those need to be replaced, but they're not high on the priority list.  Next to the desk is a shelf that holds the printer.  There are pictures of our familys all over in here.  Above the desk is a group of pictures of Beloved's grandfather, who was a pilot in World War II.  The chair was my grandmother's and I love it.  It's called a breakfast chair, apparently, but I don't know why.  The plant stand beside the chair is a great spot to set your drink while you're reading.  Go on, try it out.  Comfy, isn't it?

Oh wait, before we move on, I'm going to make you admire this closet because I just got it cleaned out and organized last month.  Why, yes, those are the complete series of Deep Space Nine and The Next Generation on DVD.  You see how they are all together and lined up on the shelves?  Lovely, isn't it? 

Well, now that we're upstairs, why don't we just go on down the hall and I'll show you the playroom... 

Home Tour: Entry

Welcome!  Come on in!  The coffee's on and the banana bread is cooling, so I'll just show you around before we sit down for a nice chat.

The first view of the entry is what you see as you come in the door.  The living room is to your right. 

The second picture is of the entry from the living room.

As you go down the hallway toward the back of the house, you'll pass one of my favorite groups of pictures that we have displayed.  All of the pictures were taken near Duluth, Minnesota on the north shore of Lake Superior, which is where I was born and a special gathering place for my family.

At the end of the hallway is a little alcove thing which I think is intended to display great art, but we just have a little welcome sign.  The flowers in the basket are mostly dried roses that Beloved has given me.  (Um, he actually gave me fresh flowers, and I dried them.  Just in case that wasn't clear.)

The things I like about this part of the house are the tile and the banister, both of which we had installed after we moved in.  (Oh, I'll have to show you the Before pictures, too!)  I like that there is an entry, and a space for people to kind of be in the house without really being in the middle of our living area.  (You know how some houses have the front door that opens right into the family room?  That would drive me a little crazy.)

The things I don't like are that there's kind of a lot of empty wall space along the stairway.  The color was supposed to be a neutral, but in low light it looks pretty pink.  Hate the pink.  Hopefully we'll be able to have it repainted in the next year or so.  There's also a hole in the wall (I think you can see it in the second picture) where the doorknob hit the wall because the door stop fell off.  We should get that fixed, too, but we're kind of waiting until we do the re-painting.

Next up: the living room.

Dyson for Us

After much reading of online reviews and going to various stores (and then back to the stores, still not making a decision, etc), we ended up with a Dyson.  Target had the best price (better than Costco), and a $60 Target gift card with the purchase. 

It's a "slim" model, but still weighs about 15 pounds. 

It seems to really pull a lot of nasty junk out of our carpets, so, you know, I think it will work out okay.

I'm thinking of doing a little "Tour of Homes" (except it will just be my house) over the next few days.  Come see my super-clean carpets!