Tuesday, May 31, 2011

A day of pools and quotes.

"Hi, bigger Mama!"
"Hi, littler Elijah."

"Come on, Grandmere, let's go in the pool!"

"Try'n go Grandmere's house find Emily!"

"NO DADDY!!! SEE PICTURE OF THOMAS!" (When he didn't want to talk to Daddy B on the phone, and wanted to see Thomas on Grandmere's computer.)

"Fred is cute!" Fred is a cat.

"Hi, bigger Grandmere!"

"Come on, Mama, go inside try'n eat eggs."

Elijah, Remmy, Beanie and I are in Kentucky until further notice, for the artist Sharaya Miracle's first gallery showing, and then to be out of the way of the reconstruction at the house (to repair the damage done during mold remediation).

There is lots of time for relaxation, crafts, computer time, and reading. It's good.

But I miss my cat, I miss Morning, I miss my family.

I love you guys. I'll see you when I get home :)

--Mama Coyote

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

The two impediments to productivity today...

A cat blocking my sewing machine and Muppets/Sesame Street Nostalgia on Youtube. And people wonder why I'm so lazy.

Towel Day

Happy Towel Day, everyone!

--Mama Coyote

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Baby animals make everything better

Zooborns has saved my day. This was a cranky, lazy day, where I spent most of the day in bed playing WoW. Then, I looked at baby aye-ayes and tigers and dik-diks (seriously, an antelope the size of a small dog, look them up, I want one now, but the cats would eat it).

So the moral of the story is: when in doubt, contemplate baby critters of your favorite species.

Breakfast

"Hi train. You look happy!" Oh, small child. You're so awesome.

I'm sitting at a wonderfully clear dining table. I need to empty the dishwasher and reboot the laundry and spend a few minutes decluttering the bedroom... then I will sit, and I will braid yarn. Actually, first, I'll most likely talk to the remodeling guy who's going to show up. But after that! I will braid yarn.

Ummm. Hi.

This is not a particularly useful post.

But hi.

There's a little boy dancing at the table. He's amazing :)

--Mama Coyote

Monday, May 23, 2011

Titi Bug doesn't have issues, she has a subscription

So, I'm trying to figure out why I'm always sick. One person, a Pagan Reverend who is like a second (or rather, at this point, 18th) mother to me, suggested I get checked for Lyme's, which may be dormant, and Lupus (oh, God, please, not Lupus). Also, B12 and B6, which I probably need more of, being mixed and part Native American. I'm also going to try and take a few different cleansing baths and see if that won't at least help me.

I guess it would make sense if I have Lyme's and didn't know it. I remember, back after Ap went off to boot camp and I was often alone in the house and bored silly, I'd walk what must have been five miles to the library to surf the net and sit in good A/C. Once, while sitting at the computer, I reached up to play with my earrings, like I do when I'm thinking and I felt what I thought was a scab. I picked at it and got a tick in my hand. I crushed it between my thumbnails and thought little more of it. Not long after that, Tim and I moved out and started going to school and trying to keep my own household and I thought the stress made me sick. Maybe it was Lyme's and that's what's wrong with me.

In either case, I'm going to try attacking this from both sides. I have plans for a Chaplet for my own purposes. I'll post about it here and maybe that will encourage Mama C and M. to make more craft posts (*nudgenudge* C'mon, ladies, don't leave me hanging). With any luck, that'll give me a spiritual edge while the doctor and new vitamins give me a physical edge. I'll post more when I have it.

--Titi Bug

Friday, May 20, 2011

"Rice cake! Yummy rice cake! Kyle, you try a rice cake?"

"Elijah is happy!"

I had multiple dreams this morning. There was one about wandering around a convention with Anthony Hopkins, pretty much forgetting I was there for Camarilla games, because spending my time with Anthony Hopkins was way more interesting, especially back in his room...

And in another dream, I found a spinning wheel of this style. Except with dreamworld modifications. It was not very awesome to use, and I kept holding the roving too tight (which is something I do in real life). So in my dream, I was practicing spinning. For real. It was kind of awesome.

But not as awesome as spending my nights with Anthony Hopkins...

--Mama Coyote
"Hi Mama, nice to meet you. I'm Elijah!"

"Elijah close the eyes!"

And he can count!! He can count! I'm so excited. He counted my fingers, and my lips. It was so awesome!

"Mama making eggs for Elijah!"

"Elijah try'n eat eggs."

My joints are so very swollen this morning, and there was no purring kitten to soften my morning (he was out in the living room). But there was a very happy little boy who wanted to play peekaboo and talk about trains and counting and lips and eyes and fingers :)

The house feels lighter after its surgery. I want to take the opportunity to have built-in shelves in the bathrooms, and I really, really want to put in frosted glass between the rooms and the stairwell, because it's really nice to have it so open and airy and bright. But that's probably not going to happen ;)

Good morning. Time to declutter now, before this afternoon's vet appointment of insanity. We're taking two dogs and two cats, all at once, to get checked over for ringworm. And Remmy needs shots. And I need to pick up new medicine for Beanie because the mold guys sealed up the closet that the medicine was in, and we can't unseal it until the industrial hygienist comes back to check things out.

Hello, world!

--Mama Coyote

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Mold Remediation and Thoughts

"Play in the park today, Mama.". Certainly, little boy

The mold remediation people are here, and Aaron Neville is playing on the CD player next to me. They've sealed off my bedroom... Which isn't really awesome, because all three dogs and my computer are in there. I'm blogging from my phone (which is awesome).

This is a reminder to myself: I want to do an intro page, a "what and who this blog is about" page. Profiles and pictures (or avatars) of everyone and all the animals, and little introsucrions, links to their blogs, business, a charity, whatever. Mayne some recommended links. I think it'd be awesome. And this is a big crew to keep straight without a guide :)

-Mama Coyote

A peanutbutter moment.

Elijah jumps up and down in front of the refrigerator, staring up at the peanut butter way up high. "Little Elijah can't reach!"

I need to get a video of him talking. I want to remember how strange his modulation is, and I just can't do that in text.

-Mama Coyote

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Thanks

I want to write a post, but I keep thinking I should write something really awesome and profound, and that just plain isn't happening this morning. My thoughts keep flying away halfway through, and my eyes are feeling heavy. It's been a week of storms and it's going to continue. I love it, but the rollercoaster air pressure takes its toll.

I want to write some sort of really awesome, informative post about living in a commune, about living a poly relationship, about raising a child. I want to write about how medicinal marijuana should be legal OR I should live in DC. I honestly don't understand why the painkiller that has the least likelihood of destroying my kidneys and liver is still illegal. That just makes no sense to me.

I want to write about dog training, and that we're taking two dogs and two cats to the vet on Friday, and the crafts I'm doing. I want to write about Elijah's development, about the changes in the household and the family, about food. But for some reason I just can't seem to do it.

Maybe if I set an alarm on my phone ;)

I really should make a crafts post. Maybe that's what I'll do next.

To everyone else -- thank you so much for posting. I love that we can make this a co-operative project. The more we write here, the more memories we've recorded and can look back on. Thank you all.

Daddy B - Thank you. You know why.

Daddy C - Thank you for sticking with us, thank you for being patient with me, thank you for all your help.

Brother Emo - Thank you for your love, and the joy you bring to my life. Thank you for talking, and thank you for being real.

Maddy - Thank you for sticking around. Thank you for helping me when I'm overwhelmed, and thank you for jumping right in and doing things and providing an example to me that it's possible to finish projects.

Jag - Thank you for the circus, and for our random talks and sharings of music. Thank you for being around.

Ti Ti Bug - Thank you for being Puerto Rican :D

Uncle Cat - Thank you for coke floats :)

Mama T - Thank you for being a role model. For not being one of those horrible mothers. For being a positive role model instead of a negative one for me.

And thank you all for loving Elijah. Thank you for contributing to the core of this household.

--Mama Coyote

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Silly Clowns, Scary Stunts, and Happy Elephants!

This past Sunday I was lucky enough to take Mama Coyote to her first circus show ever!

It was raining a bit and we were told the show was sold out...which kinda sucked, but then this man in a small car came around saying that they were gonna do another show at 7:30, which was pretty cool because they were not supposed to have a show at that time.

I've always wondered how life in a circus would be like. It must be fun, getting to play with animals, travelling all the time and getting to see new places. Yet, something tells me that it must be a bit depressing as well.

Anyways, we had pretty good seats because we got VIP seating...nifty huh?

The show started with a couple of tiger trainers, who had about 10 tigers with them. This was one of my favorite parts of the show...probably cause I like tigers a lot. The female trainer was very nice to the tigers, but the guy seemed a little mean. Yet, the tigers were very well trained, which is pretty amazing considering their predatory and wild nature.

After that they had some trapecists? I'm not sure if that's the correct term or not...but that doesn't really matter. This part was also a lot of fun, and I remember hearing that it was a family performing together, which I thought was kinda cool.

There were a variety of clown acts, which I won't get too deep into because they were mostly just fillers in between the real cool stuff...hehe, plus both of us agreed that clowns are silly and not that funny.

There was another trainer lady who came out with a camel, a horse, 2 ponies and 2 poodles. She didn't seem to be as good of a trainer as the tiger lady, especially because her tiny ponies seemed confused and would go berserk every now and then and tried headbutting the larger horse. The poodles were fun too.

While on the topic of poodles, and dogs overall, there was this other lady that came out with a bunch of them later on. She was riding on a small pink car, which looked like an oversized version of those Barbie toy cars. Most of her poodles had pink fur too...except for that one token black poodle...who was the super poodle, and super excited. This part of the show was fun, and there was this adorable little poodle pup who was hopping through metal rings and going haywire all over the place.

At one point they finally brought out the elephants! We had seen one of them outside while we were waiting to buy tickets, and they were offering rides before the show too. This was pretty cool because they had one of the trainers riding one of the elephants bareback as they came out. It was a pretty nice show, and elephants are just plain awesome. I made the observation that they always look happy for some reason...must be something about the way their mouths are shaped.

They also had another group of trapecists or acrobats, or whatever you want to call them. They were a larger group, all female for the exception of a young boy amongst them. They were dressed like pirates when they came out...which totally had me like "WTF?!?!?" when they first came out. However, their show was one of the better ones in my opinion. It was just cool to see how they appeared to be "floating" in the air. One of them was doing her tricks on what looked like a fishing net...maybe it had to do something with the pirate theme, but it was pretty cool.

To end the whole thing, they brought out this large metal cage globe thingy that looked straight out of a Mad Max movie. They had a couple of people with motorcycles inside. Another bike came out riding his motorcycle while the cage was brought out and then went inside once it was set up. One of them started riding at a fast pace inside the cage, slightly above the heads of the other two. My heart skipped a beat every now and then as I waited for something awful to happen in front of my eyes!

Suddenly, the biker fell off his bike as he was coming to a stop. The crowd fell silent. I watched nervously, praying silently that he was ok. After a few minutes he got back up with the help of the other bikers and some of other circus folk that rushed to his help. People clapped loudly as he stood up and exited the cage.

The show went on with other two bikers pulling off some pretty cool stunts inside the cage. The biker in green turned out to be a 12 yeard old girl! I thought that was pretty hardcore.

To top it all off they did the classic "cannon ball man" stunt. They brought out this huge cannon that was attached to a truck and had this guy go inside. They set up a net on the other end and "BOOM!" The guy went up flying in the air and landed safely on the net. It was kinda cool, but that thing was pretty freaking loud too!

Overall I had tons of fun, and it was kinda nice to get some bonding time with Mama C...plus now I can proudly say that I took her to her first circus show ever! :D

Signing off...

Jag

Monday, May 16, 2011

Joy

The scent of honeysuckle just came in through my window :D

Oh hello world.

So far this morning, Elijah has:

Run up to me... or into me, depending on your perspective... licked me... then asked for a shirt.

Said, "It's /broken/!" while he was out of my sight... oh my. (It turned out to just be a cat toy. And I fixed it. Kinda.)

Tried to put a hat on as a shirt.

Waved and said hi... to his belly.

Said, "Cat in the Hat /everywhere/!"

Said, "Help eyes!" because he'd put applesauce in them.

And we've only been up for two hours.

Oh hai o.O

:)

--Mama Coyote
I've watched cassette tapes go from widely used to almost non-existent. I've also now found that in my household, it's hard to find a CD player, or a place to put the few CDs I do still have. We also have three VHS tapes that I've had for years, but nothing to play them on.

Things come and go so fast now--I'm only 27. That's really young. It's not like I'm 87. When I think of all the things my grampa saw... wow.

What else will I see come and go?

The CD player in the dining room plays Aaron Neville in the mornings. I don't know why.

-Mama Coyote

Thursday, May 12, 2011

A morning :)

Because of the work being done on the house, Elijah is temporarily sleeping in a playpen in my room. The past two mornings, he has climbed out of the playpen and into my bed. I have woken up to, "Good morning, Mama! You look happy!"

And just now he said, "Mama making eggs for Elijah!"

How can I resist?

Time to make breakfast :)

-Mama Coyote

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Computer Names?

So, I bought parts for a new computer today. I need a name for it though.

We've got a tradition of naming our computers after scifi droids, robots, and computers.

So far, I'm leaning towards going with HK-47. He's funny. My computer is gonna be black, red, and big. And AWESOME. Don't forget AWESOME.

What?

We just got kicked out of an empty skatepark for practicing parkour. Where are the parkour parks?
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Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Children and Drugs

I'm trying to find out the correlation between childens' minds and psychedelics, disassociatives, and deliriants. Reading what others have posted about what this child is saying, I'm wondering if he's tripping constantly, or if he's just that damn weird.

LOCKDOWN

WE ARE ON CINNAMONING LOCKDOWN

THIS IS LIKE DEFCON 1 HERE

NO

MORE LIKE DEFCON -5

YEAH, IT'S THAT SERIOUS

Aloe Vera Drink

I finally figured out what bothers me about it. It smells and tastes like Grape Koolaid!

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Two Posts in One: Awesome Mother's Day & Containment Rooms

Sunday was a great day, even though I'd been up late the night before. I managed to sleep well, and get up early enough to get going and get out the door. Some friends of ours were headed to the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, and let me ride along. Conversational topics on the drive were geared toward energy work, urban witchcraft, and creation. It was great.

We wandered, and played, and watched a sheepdog demonstration. Yet again, I had a reminder of why I should be working with my dogs every day; and yesterday and today, I have stuck to that. At least 5 minutes a day with each dog is not nearly enough, but it's certainly better than nothing.

I ended up bringing home some handfuls of roving, the knowledge of a drop spindle lesson and a wheel-spinning spindle, and a small frame loom. I've been trying to figure out and learn some techniques. And I need to grab my drop spindle and work with it, but right now I'm just longing for a wheel. It was so very much easier and more fun than using a drop spindle.

I also brought home a pin that says, "I spin therefore I am." I thought it entirely appropriate for this household, whether I'm spinning fiber or not ;)

When I got home, Daddy B had done 8 loads of laundry (and put them away!), played with Elijah a lot, and tidied things up. And Daddy C had made bacon before he had to go to work. It was a great thing to come home to. I was able to settle down and eat, and then play, and sleep.

Thank you to all my boys and to my mother and to my friends for my awesome mother's day :)


And as for the containment rooms... multiple parts of the house are sealed off with plastic because an industrial hygienist said, 'There is mold. Seal it off now.' There are very loud air-cleaning machines that are, well, loud. And they shake the floor. And it's very interesting and strange and I cannot wait for all the work to get done. We'll have two remodeled bathrooms by the end of it all, and hopefully the house-cancer that is mold will be eradicated from the house for good.


I also want to take this opportunity to rearrange Elijah's room and possibly take the bookshelf out of it. His room is so tiny that space is at a premium. I want to put up more of the IKEA Wall Pockets to get the books off the shelves but keep them on the walls. And I'm not sure what other methods to use to store things. But I want Elijah to have plenty of floor space to build with his trains. A small loft bed would help a lot. I really want to attach a slide to a small loft bed for him, too :)

I should make his closet usable again. Right now it's full of stuff he's not using, but if I clean it out I can use its shelves for books and school stuff.

Any other small-space storage ideas are welcome. I'm trying to figure out multiple ways to use shoe pocket things, too. Lots of toys, books, office supplies, and random other stuff in this house, and they all need places to live. Labeled boxes are extremely useful, too. These are things I need to remember.

Perhaps if Elijah's bookshelf comes into the dining room where we already have a short bookshelf, put the bookshelf fish tank on the middle shelf, and then labeled boxes full of office supplies, spices, whatever else we need to have right next to the table.

As strange as it may sound, getting a bigger TV (some day) will help us regain some space in the living room. Right now, our TV is an old CRT, and taking up a lot of space. A flatscreen hanging on the wall will free up a lot of space.

Hm. I'm just rambling now. Oh well. This will make sense to people who live here... and to people who don't, once things get done and I take new pictures :)

I have so many ideas. On days like today, when I feel good (thanks to plenty of sleep and a nice long walk with the dogs), I want to do everything. I want to make everything, and make our space happier and healthier. I need to slow down and do it a little bit at a time.

I love you all, my family. Thank you for my life.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

KISSES!!!!

My current favorite thing to do to Elijah is kiss him. Apparently, he loves it if you kiss his ear, to the point where he'll squirm away, talking about how "it tickles!" then run back over, grab your head, and put your face right back so your lips are over his ear again. He also does this on command if I say "Kiss ear!" So cute! Can he stay this way forever?