Towel Day

Happy Towel Day, everyone!

--Mama Coyote

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.

New Year's Eve

I'm sitting in Elijah's closet-bed (a pile of pillows and blankets), listening to Bach, and I can hear the family chattering happily in the common space. Daddies are playing Magic: The Gathering, Maddy is getting ready to go out to a party, Uncle Ap is playing video games. I'm not sure what Mama K and Elijah are doing, but I can hear laughing.

It's a relaxed time.

I love my family.

Mama Coyote

Stories for the Last Day of the Year

A couple nights ago, I went into the half-bath in Elijah's room to grab some toilet paper for the main bathroom. I stumbled over some toys and it woke him up. He sat up in bed and looked at me. I went over, gave him a hug, and apologized for waking him up.

Me: I love you, sweetheart boy, good night.
Elijah: /Bye/, Mom.

As annoyed as he sounded, it was hilarious. Two years old and already telling me to go away :p

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I've invited Daddy, Daddy C, Mama K, and the Visionary to be writers on the blog. I would like this blog to show all sides of poly parenting, and some stories from their perspectives. I would love to have the memories, in years to come.

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The upcoming Childfind appointment is... I can't decide if it's making me nervous or not. I'll be glad when it's done. I'll be annoyed if they won't give him any help. I'm nervous about giving him gluten and casein beforehand, just as I was the first time around.

If this appointment gets canceled with no warning, I am going to be angry.

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We have the entirety of the core family home today, and the plans are to spend the day together, relaxing and eating and keeping the house together. I have a few babyschool projects I might put together.

Elijah is watching Little Einsteins even though it is not noon (his normal time for being allowed to watch cartoons), because he ran up to me this morning and said, "May I have Rocket please?" without any prompting. Maddy and I both said, "...it's not noon! But... yeah, you deserve Rocket today!"

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Dinner last night was: Red beans and rice, and it was amazing. It is going into the regular rotation.

We're working on the polyfamilies.com method of shopping. This should be fun ;)

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That's it for thi morning. I need tea!

Mama Coyote

Good evening, 2010.

It's a new year!

Hi.

Goals:
-finish more books
-do one thing, say one thing, in life - every. day. (do something cool, talk about someone else's cool thing)
-try out new recipes

Anyone got any interesting ground beef recipes? I've recently acquired approximately 12lbs of ground beef that started out as really high quality meat... not sure why it was then ground, but I'm not complaining about free food.

So far, meat cobbler has been the most successful recipe.

December 24, 2009 - ASL Interlude

Elijah is 16 months old now, and is figuring out sentences.

This morning at breakfast, he signed, "More helicopter."

I agree, Elijah. I agree.

I planned today on writing about the turkey, and the lack of sleep, and the dishes in the bathtub, but now I sit here after a nice afternoon of food and evening of driving around pretending to be werewolves, and I'm a little nauseous because of an impending migraine and very tired because I was up till 6am with a sick (though not cranky) baby boy.

So maybe I'll write tomorrow.

Before washing the dishes in the sink and processing the leftover (very dry) turkey.

Good night.

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I am thankful for, in no particular order:

-amazing deviled eggs
-my husband
-my mother
-my grampa
-my babyface
-my dogs
-friends
-family of choice
-food
-a roof and a comfortable bed
-the Camarilla
-ASL

And turkey jerky and Amanda's awesome cobbler :)

Most life-saving meal this weekend: A McDonalds cheeseburger Happy Meal with fries and chocolate milk. OMG that chocolate milk was what I needed right then.

We have been to IKEA three days in a row. We have two Billy bookcases, a Benno DVD case, an Expedit 5x5 shelf system, three black shoe storage bins, a tube thing for Elijah to play with, babyproofing items, rails to hang kitchen things from, and and and... so much stuff.

We've also been to Salvation Army, yard sales, Craigslist sellers, and Bottom Dollar Food. We have chickens, a ham, tortillas, pork skins, broccoli, bananas. A computer armoire, an IKEA coffee table, candles, baskets, plushies for Elijah (given to him for free by the yard sale people), a toy hammock, magazines, clothes.

We've done so much shopping this weekend, and so much assembly-of-stuff. I feel like we got an amazing amount of stuff done, but also like I've done nothing. Ahh, perfectionism.

Tomorrow I need to get back to--
-cleaning the kitchen
-making food
-doing laundry
-walking the dogs
-shining the sink
-tidying Elijah's room at night
-relaxing!
-Katamari
-organizing stuff

Yeah.

So tired.

Perhaps tomorrow I'll write about being overwhelmed by the things I need to do, rather than doing the things I need to do.