Abby’s bird, as I mentioned before, is named Pretzel. He’s a big dork. We’ve had him for a month now and he’s shown zero improvement in settling down and being a good pet for Abby. I’ve had a number of birds since I was young (a couple parakeets, a lovebird, a green cheek conure, and I nursed a surly, sick double yellow headed amazon back to health for a pet store once who didn’t like to be held before I got to him).

I thought I was rather proficient at hand training. So I called the pet store and voiced my frustration, hoping for some words of wisdom and she unexpectedly offered to take him back.

Abby’s not ready for that yet, so I asked for help instead. The lady said to take him out and hold him against my chest, talking softly and that it was way too early to expect him to sit on our finger out in the open without trying to fly away. It could take several weeks of this before he’ll calm down.

Well, the other birds I’ve had got over it soon enough, but I’m willing to try. He does seem to like being caved in like that. He relaxes a bit.

Dumb bird.

I’m back from Oregon. It was a really nice time with my mom at the Black Sheep Gathering. My mother-in-law didn’t feel up to coming, which is probably a good thing ’cause I don’t think she would have made it for a number of reasons, the first being that the drive down was a nightmare.

A couple hours south, I was in a construction zone, concrete barriers right on the edge of each side of two lanes of southbound traffic. Cars and semi-trucks everywhere. No shoulder. And there was a huge rock in my lane. If I’d been in my Expedition, I would have driven over it. But I was in Nate’s car, and I wasn’t sure if I had clearance to get over it without damaging the underside of his car, so I slowed down (which put the semi right next to me) and moved as far to the right as I could without going into the other lane. It wasn’t far enough. I hit the rock and blew my tire right out. I turned on my hazard lights and slowed to a stop in the left lane. I called 911. A state patrol trooper pulled up behind me and turned his lights on to get me off the road. I had to drive awhile on a blown tire to get out of the narrow, no shoulder lanes and move off to the side. The trooper lectured me a little about stopping on the road, but really, I couldn’t get back up to freeway speed with no tire, and the right lane was moving by me too fast for me to merge, so I’m not sure what in the heck I was really supposed to do. He had to go help out on a rollover accident, so there I was, with a baby, on the side of the freeway in a construction zone. Two of the men working construction put my spare on for me, (so kind), and I made it a few miles south to a tire place that checked the air and lug nuts and told me being a fill size spare, it’d last through the weekend.

So that could have been much worse, but as it is, was extremely stressful and put me back a few hours.

The class on Saturday was really great,

but you have to braid standing up. My mother-in-law wouldn’t have made it. But I bought her a book and a kit and took notes, so we ought to be able to make some rugs together once she recovers from her second surgery coming up in a few weeks.

It’s really easy to braid and sew, provided your roving is consistent. I’m wanting to make rugs from my batts, so I’m hoping I can make something consistent to work with. Having samples of good roving will help. I was sitting next to a couple of shepherdesses that had also hoped to make rugs from their own batts which is really cool and helps me feel a little less insane.

While it is easy, I think I’m going to have to rip out the sewing on my started rug because I pulled the thread too tight, and it isn’t wanting to lay flat without a little coaxing. And while I don’t feel ready (as in, I’m busy and don’t have a lot of time), I think I should start making one soon so I don’t forget the little tips and tricks I learned in class.

We’ll see how that goes.

I hit really bad traffic on the way back (on a Sunday afternoon. So irritating), so while I’d hoped to be back by 2 for Father’s Day, after leaving late and traffic delays, I didn’t get home ’til, close to 6 if I remember right. Max was amazing on the drive both ways. On the whole trip in fact. He didn’t cry at all.

It’s officially summer vacation right now, and gray and wet and cold outside. Lovely. I have a ton of housework to do today that I plan to get the kids in on. Last summer, Monday was our cleaning day and then we didn’t have to work much the rest of the week. It worked out really well, so we’re jumping right back into that this summer.

I’m actually writing this on Thursday night instead of doing something critically important, like packing for Oregon. It won’t post ’til Friday though, because I don’t tend to like posting twice in one day. So here it is…

I’m really not one to yell at my kids

They might disagree, but really, they have no idea what it means to be yelled at. If I’m grumpy at all, in their mind, I’m yelling at them.

But if I get anywhere close, it’s after the long, drawn out process of getting them into bed. And it’s kind of unfair to them because it isn’t usually any one of them that drives me nuts, it’s a matter of sheer numbers.

When the kids go to bed, I do things. I’ll be cleaning up (shocker), or merely moving around the house. If I walk by their bedroom for any reason, I get this…

“Mom?”

“What?”

“Do you think that sometime we can ….. (fill in the blank with something completely random and ridiculous)”

“I don’t know. Go to sleep.”

Silence. I take one half step before the other bunkbed pipes up.

“Mom?”

Sigh. “What?”

“I’m firsty.”

“Go get a drink, and get back in bed.”

I might make it into my room at this point, and on the way back down the hall the other bedroom chirps,

“Mom?”

Louder sigh. “What?”

“I need you to fill out this thing for school tomorrow morning. It was due two days ago.”

“Fine. Remind me in the morning. Goodnight.”

Pause. One step later. “Mom?”

“What?”

And someone launches into an obscure story I’m barely able to, and even less in the mood to follow. I usually interrupt with something like,

“It’s an hour and a half past your bedtime. Go to sleep.”

“But can I just finish…..”

“No. Goodnight.”

And then I’m done.

“Mom?”

“FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, WHAT???????”

Pause.

“Nevermind.”

Every night is like this, I swear. The only thing more irritating is when I don’t in fact end up walking in and out of my room at night. It becomes too much for them, so they have to bring their contrived emergencies out to me and every single one of them is back out of bed.

People may joke about using shock collars, (you know, for dogs?) on their children. This is not very funny, and I’d never. However, I did learn one thing from dog ownership that is directly applicable to, and effective with children and that is….

Squirt bottles.

I admit, I use them. It’s a tremendous stress reliever. It’s non-violent. I usually end up laughing. After screaming, so do they. Good times all around. And they tend to quiet up and stay in bed. Just sayin’.

Now that I’ve ranted and mellowed out some from bedtime and after bedtime, (and the kids are even dry), I can talk about Abby’s graduation. It was lovely. She was lovely. Fortunately, she sat right in front so I could see her.

Max has finally had it and is screaming on the floor. Time to feed the baby.

I’m in Oregon today, I’ll be back on the blog Monday with tales of rug braiding. I’m so excited.

It may not be perfect, but Abby feels like a princess, and that’s what matters. Her hair is, like, 2 feet long, so I’m pleased I was able to tame it into anything usable.

Graduation is at 1:30. I’m borrowing Carol’s camera again and planning to stake out a seat at 1. Which means my boys will have to behave for almost 3 hours. This’ll be interesting.

I’m already showered and dressed this morning. We’re heading out to finish Father’s Day shopping, buy road trip food for my Oregon excursion, and pick up water bottle hangers for our new “hamster playgrounds.” I’m sure I’ll post more about those later. I had this brilliant idea that our active hamsters might enjoy a large playground type setup for a few nights a week, and it would give the girls an opportunity to interact with and handle their new pets more often. Good times all around?

Well,

Papu likes his playground so much that when we put him back in his cage last night (because we didn’t have a source of water yet) he went a little crazy and started insanely gnawing on the bars (which is very, very bad. They can push their teeth up into their brains if they do that, or damage them enough that they can no longer eat).

Great. Try to do something nice…..

So, he spent a waterless evening last night living large in his playground (when I toddled out last night for Max’s feedings, he was going nuts on the huge wheel) and I’m off to the pet store this morning.

Remember when we found the second goldfish in the pond? We thought he was black, then discovered he was chocolate colored? Well, in another few days, it looks like he’ll be completely orange.

I’m kind of annoyed. Chocolate was cool.

So, here’s Ritesh (pronounced rit-esh) the day we pulled him out of the pond…

Here he is on June 5th…

and here he is today…

The stinker. There’s only a trace of brown left.

Out of the 4 or 5 fish that could have parented the two of them (I don’t remember when Alexander died), only one was solid orange. The others had a lot of white on them so who knows what these two will look like down the road? But, they seem to have healed from the broken pond they were rescued from, and are living large in their clean, 29 gallon tank in the kitchen, where they’re fed extremely well every day.

And they really love the bubble wall. It’s fun watching them play in it. If I were in there, I’d probably hang out in the bubble wall, too. I bet it feels great.

I have so much to do before Friday. Abby’s graduation ceremony is tomorrow and she wants a fancy up-do. I don’t know how to do much with hair, so that’ll be interesting. We all need laundry. And I’m not done assembling Nate’s Father’s Day present yet, though I’m close. It’ll be a little adventure for him and the kids to do while I’m driving back from Oregon.

So, at Veronica’s birthday party a Saturday or two ago, as I was taking pictures of her opening her presents, I commented on how incredibly short she is and she shot this look at me.

(she’s not sitting down in that picture)

I happened to catch it with the camera and it amuses the heck out of me.

We had another great day at the beach yesterday.

I love this annual field trip. Kayak Point is a gorgeous park.

I didn’t take much in the way of pictures this year, because between Max, Clark, and the three girls who might as well have been preschoolers with the amount of assistance they required, I didn’t have time to do much of anything.

I swear that with the three full classes of kids and many, many parents that were there, 80% of the time “mom!” was called out, it was directed at me.

On Friday, I’m going to Oregon (hopefully with my mother-in-law if she feels well enough) to take a class on rug braiding! I’m SO excited! I’ve wanted to do this for years. My mom is meeting me there to watch Max for the day, and we have a hotel room for a couple nights. It should be tremendous fun. This will be the first year that I stay in a hotel at this event. Usually, I pitch a tent in the field behind the sheep barns which I also love to do. (Falling asleep to the sound of a bunch of disgruntled, displaced and complaining sheep. I always fall asleep giggling).

I hope it goes well. I have all sorts of ideas for colorful, braided wool rugs in my house. Nate isn’t so enthusiastic.

All three of the girls’ classes are going to the beach today. I’m busy packing the truck and getting everything together. It’s a hectic morning for an extremely relaxing day. I look forward to it every year.

I wanted to take my guitar up with me today, but didn’t want to worry about it being damaged or stolen. Nate suggested I buy a cheap guitar for just such occasions, so I spent Thursday and Friday hitting pawn shops, music shops, local eBay listings and Craigslist (the boys were SO patient and amazing) looking for something cheap that still sounds good enough that I’d enjoy playing it. On Friday, I found a bargain that ended up being an eBay listing from my local music shop. I’m really excited. It’s a cedar/mahogany Walden that was dropped in the store so it’s cracked on top (but my luthier can glue it to keep it stable). It was cheap, and it’s fabulous! It’s going to go everywhere with us this summer.

Gotta go. The clock is ticking and I still need to gather beach supplies for 5 kids. I’ll check in tomorrow.

I got 2, 2 hour stretches of sleep last night. Wanna hear about it? Might as well since it’s Monday, which has unintentionally become my official, solitary posting day each week.

So, I couldn’t fall asleep. I finally managed it around 1:15. At least, that was the last time I looked at the clock before falling asleep. And at 1:45, Max woke up to eat. So I fed him and made it back to bed at 2. At 2:23 I woke up from a nightmare where Nate wasn’t home late at night (imagine that. Not quite sure where the line between reality and dream is there…..) and the power was out and the phone wasn’t working and a creepy guy was pushing something sharp into me and I was carrying Max and trying to hold him out of the way so he wouldn’t be hurt.

Nice, huh? And it only took my brain 23 minutes to come up with that one.

So I distracted myself thinking about Bollywood movies and drifted back to sleep. Max woke up again to eat at 4. And at 6. At 7, our alarm went off so we could rouse everyone and go out to breakfast for Veronica’s birthday before taking them to school.

(Oh, happy birthday, Veronica).

I snuck in a 25 minute nap between 10:35 and 11 this morning, aaaaand that’s about it.

Yeah, I don’t feel very good right now.

Last week was a doozy for Nate. He was hardly home. But, I knew it was coming, so I made plans to keep my birthday fun.

In the morning, before Nate went to work, I opened some very nice gifts. Guitar pedals, a recording mic, cables and stuff.

The boys and I met Nate for lunch at Fatburger. (I should have taken pictures).

I went to the store and bought a lemon cake mix so that when the girls came home from school, they could make my birthday cake. They were very excited. (I should have taken pictures). And they did a great job, except for adding 1/4 cup of water instead of 1 1/4 cups of water. But we fixed that before it went into the oven.

They made a simple dinner for themselves so I didn’t have to cook.

They sang to me. Liv took pictures of that part.

And I took a picture of them.

I got them in bed promptly at 8, and some girlfriends came over to eat indian take-out and watch Jab We Met, one of my favorite Bollywood movies. Then we stayed up talking ’til 1am.

Which meant I was half dead all of Friday. But it was a good time. And they brought me chocolate and flowers.

Yay! And I’m now half-way to 70! That’s so weird.