Free Animals Looking at Contained Animals

In other words, we went to the zoo.

Yesterday we were headed over to western Iowa to celebrate the 90th birthday of Derek's grandmother.  We decided that since we were already making the drive, we'd introduce the family to the Omaha zoo.  None of us had ever been there, and everyone raves about it, so it was time.

When we left home, the outside temp was still below zero, but Omaha's forecast promised to reach TWENTY WHOLE DEGREES above zero.  It was glorious.

Knowing that this was the expected weather for the day, I'd asked around as to whether or not a winter trip to this zoo was worthwhile; although we are hardy Iowans, both Derek and I start to chafe at dragging frozen younglings around for more than an hour.  I was assured that there are plenty of indoor areas for exploration.  There were.  More glory.

That place is vast.  I'm sometimes bothered when visiting zoos, as I hate to see big animals cooped up and pacing back in forth in small pens.  We did see a bit of this- I mean, it is a zoo- but each holding area for the animals was quite large, and the employees we spoke with repeatedly mentioned "enrichment;"  that ball is for enrichment, that fabric is for enrichment, the scents they spray on those poles are for enrichment.  So the animals aren't just shuffling around listlessly in tight circles.

Those same employees also encouraged questions be asked of them, which our kids never ever ever have a problem with.  They were grilling the young lady in the "elephant family quarters" when one of our children asked where the elephants came from.  She pointed to two and said they were from Africa.  The third one there at the time was from the wilds of  Toledo.  Someone asked how they got the elephants from Africa, and she replied, "Well, we made a deal with them:  there was a drought there, so we sent water and food, and in return we got two elephants."

Caedmon waited a beat and then asked in a bewildered voice, "How do you make a deal with elephants?"

We all learned a lot, is what I am saying.

Because it was cold out, many buildings were nearly deserted, like the cat house.  I watched the big cats slink around and marveled at how awkward and weird humans are.  Then I was overcome with gratitude at these brains of ours, because we are not exactly stunning physical specimens, are we?  I had no idea the zoo would cause so much introspection.

The gorillas were definitely one of my favorites.  Their area was sizable, but several of the gorillas hung out right next to the glass.  (Plastic?  Plexiglass?  I don't know what it is.  Something blessedly strong.)  Adelaide and I lingered a while to watch this mama and her baby sleep, which is super creepy now that I write it down.  Well, it seemed sweet at the time. 

We did other things there, too, like visit the aquarium and the jungle and the desert dome, but please don't worry, there is no tedious play-by-play imminent here.  I'll just say that Derek had fun scaring everyone in the desert dome, Adelaide is afraid of bats, Atticus is afraid of the American alligator's mating call, and  those gators are huge, especially when you're viewing them in a man-made swamp meant to echo the bayou and those gators are in open water on the other side of a net.  I'm sure it was all very safe, but the effect was eerie.  Well done, Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium (OHDZA, for short, as I'm sure exactly no one calls it).

Also I now do my best to always stand uphill from Adelaide in photos with the kids.  Why do these children insist on getting taller?

The desert dome, where we all felt properly warm for the first time in months.

Productive Procrastination

We've started the welcome process of taking down all our Christmas stuff.  I can say "we" because I recruited Daughter to help gather all the holiday stuff and place it in a designated location, so I'm not finding things my eyes apparently slide right past throughout the spring and summer.

She promptly broke the "flame" off of one of the battery-operated candles we place in each window, rendering it non-functioning.  She has been relieved of her duties.

This was one of the first things to go:

It's a bundle of pine boughs I cut from our giant pine and looped with a buffalo-check scarf, hung on the front door.  From the outside, it's festive and charming; from the inside, I startled every time my peripheral vision caught sight of what was surely a large, hulking man peering in at our family goings-on.

We are also evidently building shelves for our pantry today.  We went and bought the lumber for it yesterday, and Derek keeps talking about measurements and notching and other things my brain glosses right over.  What this brain does understand is that while Derek does mystical things with the wood in the freezing basement, I will be painting the pantry a nice, bright white, all the better to see the truly alarming number of cans of Ro-Tel we apparently possess. Why do we have so much Ro-Tel??

Although, if we're being honest, it's not Ro-Tel, it's Casa Mamita Diced Tomatoes and Chiles, which is the Aldi version of Ro-Tel.  Also we have so many cans of the stuff because I buy it.  Mystery solved. 

We hauled the crappy wire shelves that came with the house and that we've lived with for 8 1/2 years out of the pantry last night, and the floor underneath got a proper scrubbing for the first time since I was pregnant with Caedmon and had to chisel a dead mouse embalmed in Karo Syrup that had tipped over at some point during the night and embalmed the mousy corpse in sugary goodness.

It's a laugh a minute around here, is what I'm saying. 

So now the pantry is scrubbed and awaiting paint, which I suppose I have put off for long enough in writing this post.  Blogging is good for so very many things.

Big Fat Update- Kind of- and a Winter Hike

Well!  Long time, no blog!  It's hard to force myself to spend any extra time on the laptop when I'm now working on it for hours a week at one of my new(ish) jobs.  I hesitate to even mention it, because the company I work for is super weird about confidentiality and constantly reminding its employees that THIS IS PRIVATE INFORMATION and TELL NO ONE and IF YOU TALK WE WILL COME FOR YOU IN THE NIGHT. 

I'm kidding, of course, about at least 40% of the previous sentence.  Good luck figuring out which part. 

And no, I'm not in an abusive professional relationship, and no, I was not recruited by the CIA.  Just typing that last phrase made it hard to type this one, because I'm giggling somewhat madly at the idea of working for anything like the CIA, what with my utter lack of a poker face, ability to get lost in a cardboard box, and penchant for giggling madly. 

Really, though, I've found a meme that describes at least one aspect of this work rather well.  Thanks, memes.

Still, I'm not ready to finally put this blog out of its misery and kill it off, so I'm declaring (yet again, somewhat wearily) that I will be attempting to post with some degree of consistency!  Just like I did in ye olden days when our chillins were little and nap time equaled blog time!


Um, let's see.  It's cold here.  Yay, Iowa.  Derek and I have agreed to jack our house's temperature all the way up to 70 degrees to combat this forecast:

I don't think I'm really allowed to complain about today's temp, as the high is supposed to be above zero, but tomorrow and Monday, look out:  I will say what I want.  You get to do that when the temperature isn't supposed to be above zero for days.  It's in the Iowan handbook.  I have no idea what's in the Minnesotan handbook for negative temp days.  "Congratulations, it's Tuesday, now get back to work"?

Because we knew this cold front was on its way, I took the kids on a forced march through the snowy forest preserve yesterday, although I charmingly called it a "Winter Scavenger Hunt" because they tend to balk at anything that calls to mind gulag-like conditions.  Maybe all three of them were Russians in their former lives?  Never mind that I don't believe in reincarnation.

Wow, ANYWAY. 

Seen above is the list of things we were going to be hunting for on our hike, a thumb belonging to Caedmon, and a face belonging to Atticus.  Pop quiz:  Which of our children is still young enough to be fooled by exercise disguised as fun?

Really, though, what is it about children and their inability to stay off the ground?  Even now, at any given public space that we enter, I'll turn around and at least one of them is rolling around on the ground.  I don't know what this is about.  They like getting the crap from other people's shoes in their hair?  Children have a better barometer for what's better for their bodies than adults?  I mean, who can tell?

Oh, look, they're on the ground again.  Imagine that.

Lest you think our hike was all fun and games and our lives are snow-winter-perfection, may I submit this photo for your consideration:

He had just learned we not even halfway through our hike.  That is not a happy face.

Not to worry, though, he got back on the ground- well, onto a log over a frozen creek bed- and everything was better.

We made it back to our vehicle, I mused aloud that we could make another loop through the preserve, as we'd only been out for around an hour, and Atticus climbed a tree in protest, saying we could go but he'd stay and take a nap in a tree.  We've read The Little Match Girl four times in the past month, so he knew how this would end.

In the end we did not go 'round again as I decided we had properly celebrated temperatures in the teens, so we went home, the kids got hot cocoa, and I got to be the adult and stay outside for another hour shoveling and waiting for the plow to charge by- for our more southerly friends, the snow plow drives by so fast it throws all kinds of snow from the street up onto the sidewalk that you have to shovel that mess, too, so you're not really done until it's gone by.  It did not complete our street until after I had come inside and hung up all my wet snow gear.  Naturally.

Fatigued Soccer

Somehow Atticus sprinted and dribbled and kicked his way through nearly one entire soccer season with his mother taking nary a picture, despite him both loving the game and being really quite good at it.

Finally, though, I managed to get my act together.

As ever, click to embiggen.

It was a good game, and according to Derek he played well.  (I always think he plays well, even when he has apparently done something less than great.  This is because I am still baffled that any child of mine could have so much as a modicum of athletic talent.  This boy has dodged all the genetic bullets my DNA could throw at him, which let me assure you, are legion.)

He, like, runs toward the ball, over and over, and chases after it for close to one hour straight.  This is amazing.  Let's also take a moment to appreciate the kid above on the right who may be having some kind of existential crisis.  "But why do we chase the ball?"  I feel you, buddy.

As well as he played though, and as happy as I was to have finally remembered the camera, it was kind of a tough game to watch.  Atticus is normally more or less tireless during these games of his, but on this Saturday, he was sluggish and slow compared to his normal self.  He would kick the ball, or pass it, or whatever, but then instead of sprinting after it as usual he'd just stand there, or walk.  I couldn't figure out what was wrong with him until Derek said, "Well, he didn't get any sleep last night, remember?"

Oh.  Right.  Night terrors.

We've experienced the effects of our son's night terrors for years now, but it was still pretty upsetting for me to see it so clearly, how exhaustion was keeping him from doing his best.  I realize it's just a kids' soccer game, with minimal repercussions, but watching all those other kids bounce around out there, it was evident how different Atticus's reality is from theirs.  And that sucks.

How to tell if Atticus had a rough night:  look for the bags under his eyes (illustrated above) and the thousand-yard stare.  Same goes for his parents, with the addition of slow download speeds for his mom.  Please allow an extra ten seconds' worth of blank staring when asking her a question. 

The day after this game, though, I was talking to another parent about her little girl, who has Type I diabetes, and who has had to re-orient her family's life around this diagnosis.  It was a good reminder that all families have invisible struggles, from night terrors to diabetes to children who give their mothers that birthed them a hard time about listening to Christmas music in October.  THERE IS NEVER A BAD TIME TO LISTEN TO CELTIC CHRISTMAS, OKAY, UNGRATEFUL PROGENY?

Know who he reminds me of, though, in this red jersey of his?

Especially when he's looking all tall and stuff?

His dad.

He's the tall one in the middle there.  Comparing the two, I'd say the genes are strong in this one.

Maybe Yoda had night terrors, too.

Soccer season is now over, which Atticus is already grieving.  I'm excited about the time this frees up, but am wise enough not to say so.  It's already given us extra orchard time!

Stories for Two Out of Three

I have yet again had a talking-to with myself and said that I am not to let this little piece of the internet waste away with but a single post a month.  We've been busy little bees-

and speaking of bees, those things stinging our children were not bees but the vile and depraved YELLOW JACKET, and once I took the time to do two seconds of investigating I found that why, yes, there was a hole in the ground with a steady stream of black- and yellow- banded winged insects streaming into it, and if I hung around for more than two seconds that trend would reverse itself and a steady stream of those same insects would begin filing out, heading straight for my own apparently threatening body.  The internet is divided on what to do about this, so thus far I have fallen back on one of my greatest strengths and done nothing.

- so, yes, busy little bees we have been indeed, with both the boys having birthdays and turning different ages, which is helpful for me because all three are now back to their evenly-spaced, stair-step ages, so I don't have to look like a terrible mother when people ask me how old they are, as I stand there and try to remember just what age our own children are right now.

Adelaide seems to be feeling the full eleven-ness of her eleven years, which I will explain with a small story:

There was recently a lock-in at our church for sixth graders.  Adelaide was willing to go and participate, but kept bemoaning the fact that it didn't start until 9 p.m., and didn't those leaders understand that only gives her around two hours of fun?  I tried to explain that the point is to try and stay up all night, to which she responded with a harrumph and more grumbling about needing her sleep and how kids her age need a good 10-12 hours a night and are the youth group leaders responsible adults or not if they don't understand that?

But off she went, towing her sleeping bag and pillow, fully planning on using both to good effect.


I picked her up the following morning at 8 a.m.  She was holding two doughnuts and a full package of Oreos.  The youth group leader told me he was pretty sure she hadn't slept at all.  She confirmed this.

I knew what this meant.

Adelaide is right to put a priority on sleep.  She does and has always needed plenty of sleep, for with proper rest she is her usual delightful self, but without, she regresses in age by around 70%.  And sure enough, halfway home she burst into tears because I laughed too hard at one of her jokes.  Derek suggested she stay home from Atticus's soccer game to sleep, which she did, but then we attempted to rouse her for the afternoon, not wanting throw her sleep schedule off any further.  What we got for our efforts was a vengeful she-beast who wailed every time she was reminded that no, no, she mustn't go back to sleep, she must stay awake for her own good.

Approach with caution.

Eventually self-preservation won out and I did let her lapse back into slumber for the bulk of the afternoon.  By Sunday she was more or less back to normal, so I suppose it all worked out.


Atticus has been running around playing lots of soccer, of which I have zero pictures.  He has scored the majority of goals for his club soccer team, of which I have zero pictures.  Does this mean they revoke my soccer mom card, or did that automatically happen when I told Derek I still don't understand what "offsides" means?  At least it looks like I'm in good company:  a google search of "soccer offsides" gave me a bunch of results, naturally, topped with "How to Understand Offside in Soccer:  11 Steps," "What is the Offside Rule in Soccer? -dummies," and a 4-minute YouTube video of a soccer coach trying to explain this rule.  No wonder!  You're going to lose me in any situation that it takes 11 steps or four minutes or whatever to explain a sports-related rule.

Other than photo-less soccer, Son the Elder has also been harvesting his sunflowers for seed so he can plant more in the spring, because he really does love to grow them.

Note that he wears his shin guards to do so.  This is both practical for gardening and so that he can return immediately to soccer after finishing.  And regarding the knife:  I've found that even my more reluctant gardeners are more likely to join in when I tell them they can use a knife at some point.  This kid merrily sawed away at all our sunflowers, some to dry for seed, some to leave on the table on our back deck to try and draw the birds in closer.


We do still have a third child, and he has been doing things, but darned if I can remember what they are.

Fake Farm Fun

We visited the orchard one day a couple weeks ago after school.  I'm leading school tours there again this fall, giving our family free admission; somehow Derek managed to avoid going all last year, so we were quick to drag him along this time.



I probably shouldn't say "dragged," as he was happy to participate in every activity there, which was plain fun for the kids and mixed fun for me as I was reminded that some people are irritatingly good at most everything.

Of course you can successfully rope pretend cattle, Derek.  Of course you can.

And pull a tractor up a slight incline with two of your children.

Although I'm shamefully excited to report that were unable to budge that thing until I joined in and pulled, too.  Raw animal strength, that's me.

He finally found a chair big enough for him, and then stepped onto the jumping pillow and thrilled/ terrified his family by bouncing right next to us and sending us all sky high.  The kids actually handled this better than I did, as every time he'd start to jump my way I'd mutter, "NoNoNoNoNo" and slowly crumple into myself.  It turns out I'm a bit of a baby about being shot five feet into the air.

We entered the corn maze, which seemed like a good idea until my family deserted me- Derek in the vast, 5-acre maze, the kids into the much more manageable kid's section.  I followed the kids in, took three turns, and got lost. 

This was a bad idea.

Plus my phone was about to die, so I resigned myself to a life of ferality within the corn.  But lo!

After my trusty guide gently led me out of the agricultural labyrinth (aka activity made for six-year-olds), I was too scarred to continue.  Or we were all hungry?  I don't remember.  This is why I need to stop trying to write these posts in six different sittings. 

[Enter abrupt ending here.]

Birthdays and Band

Yesterday was Caedmon's birthday.  He is seven, and when asked what he wanted for his birthday dinner, out of all the things in the wide world I could make for him, he requested mac and cheese.  I don't know if this is a subtle commentary on my cooking, or he just has strange tastes.

Speaking of strange tastes, Adelaide recently undertook her first foray into marching band.  She plays percussion, so this is a fun experience for her; this is in stark contrast to my experience of being a flautist in marching band, where you are the musical equivalent to a Puritan-era child:  there to be seen and not heard.  Yes, yes, you can play the piccolo, and while this is fun for the two whole songs that feature piccolos, you must have a high tolerance for extremely high pitched sounds right up against your ear.

Because we knew Adelaide and the rest of the middle school band was going to be playing at last week's high school football game, we carried ourselves off to the field, where Derek watched his high school alma mater absolutely crush our home team throughout the first half, and I chatted with friends and contemplated the merits of getting a shirt that reads, "I'm just here for the marching band."

Half time came, we listened to Adelaide and the sixth graders play, then the upper-grade middle schoolers, then the high school marching band entered the field and strutted their stuff, with the now tiny-looking sixth graders watching in awe.  As we were leaving, Adelaide talked about how excited she was for marching band, and how she couldn't wait to perform in high school, but the thing that she's most looking forward to are "those really cool hats!"

In case you're confused, no, our marching band has not departed from tradition to wear something new and different.  She really does mean those bucket-looking hats with an abnormally large feather protruding from the top.  Remember though that this is also the girl who wore a fuzzy cat ear headband more often than not all last summer and into the first month of school.  Maybe she just likes having unusual things on her head?  Either way I'll take it, as she also just showed me the "warm up" worksheet for this extra-curricular math club she wants to take part in, which she described as "hard but fun," and which I gazed at and had to suppress the urge to rip into tiny pieces.  Anyone else have dormant feelings of rage stir at the mere sight of middle school math?


I guess this is what all Daughter is talking about when she proudly identifies herself as a nerd.  Or is it a geek?  All I can ever remember is that she is profoundly offended when I mix her up and refer to her as the wrong one. 

"If the permutations of the letters in the word SURE are numbered 1 through 24 in alphabetical order, what number is RUSE?" 

The good part of all this nerdiness (or is it geekiness?  I'm sorry, Daughter, I know this is making you very angry) is I can email her band memes and she finds them funny.