Nature vs. the Clintons

Once upon a time, on a warm, sunny Thursday, a small family, who ran out of money, was forced to research free activities in town. Internet research yielded the following result: walking outdoors. The family thought this sounded like a reasonable activity and decided to give it a try. I am a member of this family. You may know this about the Clintons: we have every desire to be outdoorsy and adventurous but somehow we can't quite be compared to those people who carry Camelback drinking packs and wear hiking socks. I'm not a fan of bugs or being in uncomfortable temperatures. Both of these factors are generally present when walking through a forest in late July. The picture below is a nice look at one of the paths we took.


In an effort to avoid an insect attack, we used the bug repellent wipes to their fullest ability. I was hoping they would keep the ticks off of us (this is my number one fear when outside in a wooded area).


Mark quickly set the pace while investigating the right path for us. We ambitiously decided that the 3 mile trek might just be the challenge we needed (though we verbally reserved the right to turn around at any time and head back).


Eli followed at his own 3-year-old pace, while eating a rice cake. We wanted to keep the day "natural".


The boys took a moment to enjoy the view. This is my favorite picture. Luckily you can't hear Mommy nagging Daddy to make sure he holds on tightly to Eli, lest he plunge into the murky water straight ahead.


Notice in this picture Mark has acquired a hiking aid. The stick was not weight-bearing, but rather a defense against the hundreds of spider webs that stretched across the path and jumped out to envelope our faces. When one of us would walk through one, you would think we had just walked through electric fencing...


Eli and his mommy stopped for a posed picture. Yes, we are both wearing University of Utah shirts. We were trying to convince the Illinois nature that we were from out west and experienced enough not to be intimidated by it's piddly spider webs and swooping beetles.


Moments later, Eli got tripped up by a mean Illinois tree root. He did not want to continue with such a dirty leg until I assured him I would clean it the minute we got back to the car. You never can be too clean when hiking. Before you blame my influence on the lack of outdoorsiness displayed by my son, let me share with you what happened minutes before. We came upon a muddy area at the bottom of the hill. Mark paused and looked at it while we considered turning back or going through it. I suggested he carry Eli through it. He corrected me by saying it wasn't Eli he was worried about, it was getting his [somewhat] new shoes dirty with mud.


Eli pointed out to his rotund mother the paths on the map. He literally was saying this, "Here's the pink path we are on." "Here's the lake." "Here's where we couldn't find any sand." (we stopped by the lake before finding the trail in search for a beach) "Here's where I fell down." and "Here's where I got mud on my leg." He seems to be better at reading a map than his illiterate mom. Thanks Dora the Explorer for the help.


Eli was telling us he was too tired to walk and he just wanted to go back to the car. He didn't like the bugs in his face and he wanted to trick his mom into carrying him for the remaining mile back to the car. He also found it necessary to stop and step on every berry visible on the path. We made excellent time on our hike.


So, while there were certainly spider webs and dive-bombing bugs, the Clintons enjoyed nature today. We are decidedly going back to conquer the hiking paths again. Next time I will wear a hat so I don't have to be paranoid about ticks dropping in my hair the entire time. Mark will wear his alternate pair of shoes and Eli will bring his outdoor adventure attitude.

Cherry Bombs

This week, I came upon a great produce sale at the local Meijer. I got pounds of cherries for cheap, rock hard nectarines (the only way my family likes to eat them), and sweet corn (which it turns out I didn't pick very well because it wasn't that sweet). I love a good sale. Unfortunately in our house, anything perishable quickly gets forgotten and turns into jellied mush in the bottom of my refrigerator drawer in no time. In an effort to prevent this unnecessary waste, I have been pushing fruit on everyone for the last two days. Eli is happily consuming all the bitter fruit I can give him. For two days in a row, he has eaten cherries aplenty (which he says he has never had before, can this be true?). I am going to include pictures of his post-cherry indulgence below. He liked playing with the stems. He first pretended they were arrows (like in his Robin Hood movie) and kept shooting them across the table. Then he kept telling me they looked like bones (where he is seeing femur shaped bones, I don't know). And finally he ended up rubbing two stems together and humming, pretending he was playing a violin. Why do I ever bother buying toys for this kid when discarded pieces of trash will be just as pleasing?

But here is the hitch in this happy tale. It is a well known fact that cherries contain some kind of cursed ingredient that will upset the tracts and lead to toilet overuse. In Eli's two day cherry feast, I neglected to account for this. So tonight, while in the care of his father, the poor boy complained of stomach pain and then descended into a state of perpetual flatulence. All because Mommy can't resist a good sale... I guess I should be glad they weren't having a sale on Milk of Magnesia.

This is Eli's attempt at a posed smile

Violin

Bones

Arrows

A Buggy Situation

It's an interesting thing to be a mother and to analyze the things that were passed down to you from your mother and the things that you, in turn, give to your children. It's no secret to anyone who has spent some time with me that I have what you could call "an issue" with bugs. I am not someone who jumps on a chair and screams if there is a spider nearby, but instead, at the suggestion that there could be a bug crawling on me or in my hair, I get all itchy and paranoid. I fear ticks and head lice and worst of all, any bugs crawling on my food. Perhaps this is why I have a mental problem with eating food fresh out of someone's garden. It feels cleaner (though less fresh) from the grocery store. Yes, roll your eyes and judge me now, but this is just a factual statement about my irrational feelings. Since my sister has some similar feelings about bugs, I have decided to put the blame on our mother (isn't that what my generation is supposed to do? blame our parents). I have strong memories of paper bags of corn coming to our kitchen from a local garden or farm, still in the husks. She assigned us to the de-husking and de-silking detail. Pulling back the husks would inevitably reveal giant caterpillars or worms on the corn, which would disgust me. My mom would tell us to get tough and brush the insects off, which was unthinkable. She also would take us to a farm owned by a friend of our family. There we would buy fresh eggs and chicken. When I say fresh, I mean it would still be walking around when we got there. She would have us stand back and observe as the chicken would be beheaded and of course when it's body would run for cover after. She wanted us to be hands-on, so when the chicken body was recovered, we had to help with the feather removal. I can still remember the look of that nasty skin after the feathers were pulled.

What she had was a desire for her children to "get tough" and have new experiences. But somehow I still turned out to be a wimp. I want to go camping and do outdoor things but I struggle when I'm there. I would rather hold my pee for 40 hours straight than crouch in the woods and urinate. Today, I was given a number of ears of corn from an obliging community garden (Thanks Dave) and as I stood over my sink pulling off the husks, I had this terrible anxiety about the bugs that could be residing inside. I had the same feeling you get when you try to open those biscuits in a can; you just peel and wait for the pop. Luckily, the bugs were wise enough to escape my notice. There were, however, several caterpillars in the bag which was transporting the rest of the corn. I gave the bag to my mom (payback).

So the question I ask myself is, what am I teaching my son with my wimpy ways? We didn't want him to be one of those kids that had an over-interest in bugs and would stick them in his mouth. But isn't there a nice medium? Mark suggested that I have gone the wrong way with Eli after I told him the following story. Yesterday, I discovered a new ant population in our house that seemed to be climbing into our kitchen from a hidden hole around the sliding doors. I loudly (though mildly) cursed their existence after I found them. Eli ran over to see what the problem was. I went to step on them but he quickly stopped me, warning me that these were friendly ants and they were just trying to find their families. So, in order to oblige his reasoning, I found a piece of paper and tried to relocate these nasty little things back outside (though when he wasn't looking I performed a mass murdering of all the poor little soldiers). I have a rule about bugs. Outside, I will not disturb you bugs, but if you dare to come inside my house, you will be executed (unless a toddler grants you asylum). I've tried to explain the rule to Eli but he is all or nothing. Either kill all bugs, outside and inside, or save them. I preferred the saving option after he went through a brief violent stage where he tried to smash every living thing he saw.

Will Eli look back on his childhood and blame me for his view of insects? Will he tell stories of saving earthworms from wet parking lots and ants from kitchens? Or will he somehow learn to be one of those fearless men who stand up and kill spiders and remove mice? If only I had valuable skills to pass on to him other than the proper use of "well" instead of "good", he might be in better shape. Thank God Mark is around to pick up my slack.

The Price of Cheap

As someone who dreams of being frugal, but makes poor choices on what to spend on and what to skimp on, let me share with you a small list of things I have learned not to go cheap on.

Toilet Paper - rough stuff or single ply make an uncomfortable mess
Diapers - sheets, clothes, and car seats can be ruined by this decision
Garbage bags- dropping bits of litter on the way to the bin is frowned upon
Tampons - this needs little explanation
Birth Control - ...
Hair Dye - Meet purple head
Cat Food - Cheap food makes cheap, fat cats with urinary tract infections who have the desire to pee on my clothing

Here are some things that I take joy in skimping on:
Wine - I love me some cheap wine!
My entire wardrobe - although my appearance may directly contradict the wisdom of this choice
Pets - I like the mangy rescues
Clothing for a second child - sorry, we just had more money the first time around

There have also been dozens of things I have spent hundreds of dollars on throughout the years that have turned out to be complete money and time wasters. My particular weakness is for things that are advertised on TV. If it promises to calm wild hair, I have bought it. Examples: Revo Styler, Split Ender, Giant round brushes, Metal flat irons, Hi-Tech shampoos and conditioners, not to mention the get-you-skinny-in-5-minutes workouts...

Yes, there have been lessons learned. I am still learning where it is appropriate to save money, and to spend it. This unlucky list will likely be building for the rest of my days.

Holiday Heredity

When you think of possible dangers for your child during the weekend of the 4th of July, typically your mind will go to wayward sparklers or kids burning their eyebrows off in the driveway. Personally, we faced none of those this weekend.

Instead, in the course of the few days of celebration, Eli managed to skin his knees on the sidewalk hundreds of times. During the cooler days, so much falling was not really an issue because pants would protect his tender skin, but now, in the days of shorts, his knees tell the story of carnage. I'm starting to think I might be errant in my belief in his superior coordination because clearly the boy has some challenges when it comes to running and staying on his feet. I see him begin to lose control and I start to cringe. Maybe it is because he is moving faster than his feet can keep up with, because he is a superior athlete after all. (:

Yesterday, on Independence Day, came the worst of the weekend. We went to my dad's for a cookout and as usual, as soon as we walked through the door, Eli and Sofia were tireless in their running and extremely loud voices. Every time we go over there, without fail, Eli gets injured in some way. We really don't have this problem at home, but there's something about that house. Conditions might have improved had Eli decided to take a nap in the afternoon but true to form, on a big day, he always prefers to sit in his bed and sing loud songs and make his mom crazy with his lack of cooperation. And with a lack of sleep comes a lack of control and an increase in clumsiness. All was going relatively well until the kids found a Darth Vader mask to play with. They took turns putting it on and screaming and calling each other monster. Then Eli decided a wise move would be to put the mask on without matching his eyes to the holes and to run full speed ahead. His progress was immediately halted by the corner of a wall striking his forehead. He ran into the kitchen where I was standing, looking for comfort for his already swelling bruise. We iced his head and told him to take it easy but he already was insisting on the return of the mask, which was not granted.

Also in the course of the night, Eli fell down their stairs (I think this was pre-wall contact) but tucked his body in and managed to barrel roll down and had no injuries to report after. I was once again impressed with his abilities and started seeing a place for him in the Navy Seals.


As I write this, I am reminded of the thousands of stories I have been told (or experienced recently) of me falling down. My favorite involves me jumping out of a moving golf cart to rescue my ball but getting caught in the process and violently getting splayed out in the rough. It seems that besides his stubborn and sometimes bratty tendencies, Eli might have inherited his mother's idiotic clumsiness. Sorry Mark, even though he looks like a miniature version of you and you brought some nice athletic possibilities to the table, it seems the recessive scrapper might win out. Let's just hope his hair doesn't turn into a giant mushroom like his mother's.


Here is a picture of Eli showing you his bruise. In the bright light of the kitchen, the darkness is washed out, so it seems rather insignificant.