Just Gotta Write

Sometimes, even though I have nothing very nifty to say, I just have to write. Yup.  That's it. Just gotta do it.  Tonight, right now, is one of those times.  I itch to write.  Sure enough!  It's true. It's as clear as the tiny pointer finger smudge on my right focal lens.  I'm in the grip of a higher power.  Though my muse may abandon me, the juice is flowing.  Flowing.  Flowing. Streaming. Trickling. Petering out.  And . . . without saying so much as one brilliant thing, I've managed to come up with absolutely nothing to write about.  Hm.  Houston, we have a problem. Or, as Anders would say, "Houston, I have a probrom."



So, I guess I'll tell you about Church on Sunday.  Lately, Sacrament Meeting is a recurring source of amusement for the Bagel family.  This last Sunday was no exception.  In fact, if you were sitting behind or in front of us, you likely heard a few things you never thought you'd hear at Church.  Then again, perhaps I was able to clasp my hand over Anders' mouth before the worst was revealed. Nevertheless, our near-shame experience left Dan huddled in the corner of our pew, doubled over with silent laughter while I blushed a shade of red you "never did saw, darlin'!"

You see, Anders has this somewhat inconvenient body quirk that tends to plague him at the worst possible moments in his blessed little life.  In short, he often experiences discomfort originating in his groin area.  If you have little boys, you know what I'm talking about.  Only, with Soren the occurrence was never as frequent as it is with Anders.  Anyway, because we are very unabashed in our discussion of body parts, Anders is no stranger to the technical term alluding to his manhood.  So on Sunday, at exactly the wrong and perfectly mortifying moment just as the deacons are passing the sacrament, Anders begins to squirm and, HORROR, tug at the crotch of his khakis.  Quick as Obama can spend $3.27 trillion, my hand began to move.  And Anders began to speak.  "Mommy, you're hurting my (Mommy's hand over the mouth)." "Mommy! You're hurting my (mumble, mumble, mumble)." Squirm, squirm, "MOMMY!  You're hurting my (mumble, mumble, mumble - my hand is getting slobbery)."  And so it went on, for too long, with Dan shaking the bench in mirth and me ducking my head in the agony of embarrassment and humor even while wrestling the verbose little beast into silent submission.

For the record, I am innocent.  While Anders kept trying to blame me for his "discomfort," in truth, I had been minding my own business, holding my son on my lap, trying to listen to the talk being shared.  Nay, I will not be thy scapegoat, good buddy!

The second outburst actually happened before the first if I'm being chronologically honest here. As the deacons passed the bread, I took the opportunity to have a whispered conversation with Anders about the sacred nature of the sacrament.  I quietly reminded him that the bread signifies Jesus' body.  He stared at me.  And then I told him that the water reminds us of Jesus' blood.  He perked up.  And in a perfectly petulant and conveniently amplified voice, he declared, "JESUS' BLOOD??!!"  I giggled.  I'm sorry.  I couldn't help it.  And I watched my friend's back (sitting in front of us), suddenly hunch forward, shoulders shaking.  And all this while Anders looks around with an impish little grin on his face.  He knows when he's been funny, the stinker.

Ah, never a dull moment at Church with the Bagels.  And now, having satisfied the demands of my writing lust, I feel free to say good night.  I recognize that I've still failed to leave you with anything brilliant, but at least I hope you let a chuckle or two slip before you reached the bottom of this poor attempt at blogging I've posted today.

Tea Party at the SD Harbor!

Today our entire family headed downtown to show our support for the 2009 Tea Party Tax Revolts – a nonpartisan movement calling for fiscal responsibility in our government. I had a great time wandering through the people, snapping pictures and making friends. I left Dan with the boys and I don’t think he had a very positive experience since Anders was being a pill the entire time (growth spurt, maybe?). At any rate, I came back to a harried husband who quickly reported the evil doings of our two-year-old who had tried to make an art project out of the huge Constitution banner that everyone was signing. Oh joy.

Here are my favorite images from the event. Following these, there is a slideshow with more.

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Casting Call - Fathers

Do you want a free professional photo of you and your father?  Your husband with your kids?  You with your kids?  I have a special project that I'm going to be working on for the next few weeks and I'd love your help.

Check it out here.

Bye Bye March

Just a few miscellaneous pictures to share this evening.  The boys caught me totally by surprise when they approached me with these glorious mugs one morning a couple weeks ago.  I knew it had been too quiet, but I was working feverishly on some project and didn't want to take an investigative break. That'll teach me.  :0)

It actually washed off extremely easily.  Soap and water.  So, they had a blast coloring each other’s faces, then again splish-splashing around in a warm bath.  No harm, no foul, right?  Now I’ve just got to go tackle the marker on the closet mirrors and the crayon on the treadmill.  *Sigh*

The following are some great pictures of Anders that I got while we were playing in the backyard one afternoon a week or so ago.  I love his sweet little cherub face with his creamy complexion.  Soren is also featured in a collage at the end of this set.  He was blowing bubbles and got a mouthful of soap when they popped in his face.  I was lucky enough to get the sequence.  :0)

And last, but not least, these are some images straight from our garden.  There are shoots coming up everywhere.  Most are weeds, but there are clearly some veggies popping up, too.  We’ve got about three heads of lettuce making their way through the atmosphere, a massive tomato plant that you can see behind the watering can in the pictures featured above, some pumpkin and watermelon vines sprouting up out of the dirt, strawberries, blueberries, mint, chives, carrots, zucchini, Swiss chard, etc.  I am very excited about our garden! Mint is sneaky.  Never plant mint in your garden.  Never.  Unless all you want is a Mint garden.  We did.  And now we can’t get rid of it.  It’s popping up everywhere!  This year, we’ve planted our mint in a planter, well-contained, but as you can see, I am still finding shoots of mint sprouting up in our garden.  Everyday I pluck more out.  Sneaky.  So sneaky.  Belligerent.  Persistent.  And oh so yummy smelling!  I love to go outside and rub mint leaves between my fingers just so I can have the scent on me all day long.  It’s wonderful.

Earl Eat Tibet Earl Eat Who Rice

Tonight we played Chutes and Ladders followed by Mad Gab.  We had a great little family time with the boys and it was nice for me to get up and out of the bed for the first time in days (I've been sick . . . yes, again).  It's fun to see Soren arriving at a "big boy" game-playing age.  He actually respects the rules and plays properly.  Anders . . . not so much.  Tonight he attempted to use his Chutes and Ladders little girl game piece (What?!  There's only two boy pieces.  Gosh!) as a weapon of mass destruction reigning terror on the other little girl and boys navigating the game board.  Well, either that or his treacherous little girl would try to kidnap the other game pieces. Anders is boy, through and through.

Later on, during Mad Gab, Anders was attempting to attack the game box that Mommy and Daddy were playing hot potato with in order to keep it away from him, while Soren was busy giving the utmost attention to the facinating timer.  So I was basically reading clues to Dan, who was succinctly and correctly answering them all with a bored yawn.  All except one, that is . . . .

I read:

Nose Sects Beef Form Air Itch

And Soren burst right out with the answer, clear as bell, proud as a peacock:

"NO SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE!"

I guess our talks are sinking in.  Now, now, don't freak out.  We are very age appropriate. Basically his knowledge on this subject currently extends no farther than "don't do whatever it is that a man and a woman do to make a baby . . . before marriage."

What a bright little boy.  I think we'll have to save that particular card for the teenage years and play it as the first clue every time we pull out Mad Gab.  ;0)

Here's another one Soren got right away, don't ask me how or why.  I would venture to guess that it's because his practical Daddy always talks his fanatical Mommy down off her soap box by starting with this phrase:

Aim Adder Rough Open Yen

To play Mad Gab on the Internet, click here.  Have fun!

P.S. Did anyone happen to get the title? I'm going to follow it's advice right now so that I can enjoy General Conference tomorrow.  Toodle-oo.

Knott's Berry Farm

We have the coolest neighbors ever - Glen and Debbie. The boys love them. We invited them over for dinner a while back and they came bearing four tickets to Knott’s Berry Farm for our family! So, we used them this past Saturday. It was pretty darn warm (Why does that always happen to us? Remember this?), but we had tons of fun anyway. We made the day purely about the boys and spent the whole of our time in Camp Snoopy and the other area with the Log Ride (can’t remember what it’s called now).

In fact, *speaking of the devil*, the first ride of the day was the Log Ride. Anders and I sat in front; Daddy and Soren in back. I had the diaper bag with me because of course I can’t leave it in the stroller with my wallet in it and everything. But I wasn’t sure where to put it. The bench extends into the front of the pointed log, but it’s very narrow. I regarded the floor as an even more dubious option, however, as I noted the water sloshing to and fro through the cracks. So, the diaper bag was propped between my feet on the bench in front of Anders. And . . . of course it toppled from its precarious perch at the first slight bump. As it fell onto the soggy floor, that invasive water sloshed right into all 15 pockets and zippers and compartments that I just had to have when I searched for a diaper bag. I handed my drowned cell phone back to Dan to work on as we wound our way through the “upper rapids.” Anders got scared when we zoomed down a short drop in the dark, but following the free fall at the very end, the one after which I was sure I’d be calming a petrified 2-year-old, he turned around slowly, regarded my sprinkled glasses calmly, grinned and quipped, “You got splashed!” Soren, on the other hand, promptly declared that he didn’t like the Log Ride. And when we saw the pictures of us coming down the free fall, sure enough, his face said it all. His eyes and cheeks were all bunched up tight and it looked as though his heart was residing in his cranial cavity. When we got back to the stroller, we emptied out the diaper bag, arranging the waterlogged gum packets on the stroller tray to dry in the sun, and turned the whole thing upside down to dump out the excess river rapids we had retained. This was all performed directly in front of the massive line of humanity awaiting a turn on the Log Ride. People shifted, whispered, pointed, then made readjustments to their carry-on baggage. Rightly so. Rightly so.

Now, I’m not sure how many of you have been to Knott’s Berry Farm, but for me, it’s been years and years and years since I last went with my own family as a little girl. And I didn’t remember that trip at all. But I must say that on Saturday, I was fairly surprised at the Camp Snoopy resemblance to a county fair. Indeed, we had many of the same rides at the San Diego County Fair this last summer. Obviously, the boys were thrilled with whatever they could ride, but for me, I suppose I realized that KBF is really for the adults with its innovative, gravity-defying, twisting, turning, looping roller coasters. Dan and I realized that we want a day all to ourselves at a big theme park like Magic Mountain so that we can ride all the rides we always have to wistfully skip with young children in tow.

But really, seriously, we had a great time on Saturday! We even stopped to watch a couple of those crazy adult rides and in one instance, watching was perfectly fine for me. My stomach can’t handle extreme thrills the way it used to be able to. Or maybe it’s just that I feel my own mortality more . . . now that I have kids. Who knows?

THANK YOU, GLEN AND DEBBIE!

These guys held up our train (even tried to take my wedding ring).  Soren was afraid of them because they had guns.  I'm glad he has a healthy fear of fire arms, but we tried to tell him they were fake and he still wasn't having any of it.  Anders, on the other hand, marched right up there and made a "stinky face" for us.  What a ham.  :0)

Look at those rosy cheeks! It was definitely a warm day.