why I let Superman jump off furniture

Just look at that smiling boy.

Ready

Set

FLY!!!!!!

baking cookies the Wohlmut Family Way circa 2009

1. Gather all ingredients and interested parties.

2. Referee disputes over who gets to put what ingredients in the bowl.

3. Take a deep breath and count to 10.

4. Ignore large piles of flour on the table, it all cleans up.

5. Ignore that extra scoop of sugar going into the bowl...no one eating these cookies is expecting to stay on their diet.

6. Let Noah crack the egg(s). Think..."the frosting will cover any shards of eggshell, won't it?"

7. Warn Lucy that the mixer will be turned on momentarily. Lucy should then proceed to hide in the bedroom with Daddy. Afterall, the mixer is "too loud!"

8. Find the stool so Noah can reach the bowl.

9. Have a quicky safety lesson about eletric appliances.

10. Make a quick sign of the cross and tell N he can turn on the mixer.

11. Wait,

12. and wait.

13. Try not to sigh audibly as N decides he too would rather hide in the bedroom w/Daddy and L until the mixer is off.

14. Mix ingredients, don't forget to add time in for interruptions from children every time you stop the mixer, "are you done with the mixer yet? Okay, don't turn it on 'til I'm back in the bedroom"

15. Listen to pitter patter of feet running down the hall, wait for door to close. And resume mixing.

16. Chill the dough for an hourLet N put the saran-wrap over bowl (amazingly he will be better at this then you are)

17. During this hour you will be required to play a variety of games, most having to do with dinosaurs. Or you may be asked to read the same book again and again to Ms. L.

18. Try and slip in a shower, you'll feel better.

19. Dough is ready!

20. Agree that the farm animal cookie cutters are just as Halloween-ish as Ghosts and Pumkins.

21. Roll out dough.

22. See N dumping a pile of flour on the table. "the duck needs a pond to swim in" (remember why you didn't want to get the farm animal cookie cutters out)

23. Take a step back from the table, breath and remember baking cookies with kids is not really about the cookies, it's the 'process'. Count to ten and repeat if necessary.

24. After about 20-30 minutes of kids pounding cookie cutters into the dough, making footprints w/the animals, arguing over who gets which rolling pin you should have enough cookies on a sheet to put in the oven.

25. Realize you just don't have the energy to make more then two sheets worth, breath...

26. Have Daddy strip children of their flour covered clothing, and clean them up.

27. Stare at the mess and wonder if the pick-up fairy has a cousin who does kitchens.

28. Remove cookies from oven.

29. Let kids have a cookie each, no matter how close it is to a mealtime.

30. Put remaining dough in the fridge, and plan to finish cookies after kids go to bed.

31. Look at kids eating their cookies, listen to their joy in talking about the 'turkey' and 'cow' cookies.

32. Smile...breath

33. Clean up and if necessary take another shower.

Monday, Monday.

This is what greeted me this fine Monday morning. I knew I should never have rolled over for "five more minutes" of sleep. Oh, but the wind was howling and the rain was pelting the windows. I just had a feeling it was going to be a long day and I was going to need all my strength. Besides, N wasn't even up yet and Patrick told me that L was happily mezmerized by Curious George on PBS. So, really what could go wrong?

20 minutes later I hear N at my bedside, "mooommmy, I'm hungry" "Okay, buddy I'm getting up" I roll out of bed, grab my bathrobe, stumble down the hall and... "Holy Shi....." (bite my tongue) What a sight! I really don't know what to do first, pee, laugh, cry or clean her up. So, being who I am, I naturally get the camera first, take a picture, pee and then begin to clean her up.

Grease paint, clown make up, this-shit's-never-gonna-come-off-is -it stuff! Out came the baby wipes, they did a little damage control. I must have spent five minutes trying to get the baby oil opened, because now my hands are covered in grease paint and some genius has decided that baby oil needs a child proof cap on it! Breathe... Put the child in the bathtub. Oh, now it's all fun and games. "I need a toy mommy" Reach for the soap, blink for just a second, and voila now she's washing her hair w/her grease paint covered hands. Shampoo, lather, rinse, repeat as necessary.

20 minutes later and things are somewhat restored to normal. There's still a slight rim of white around her eyes, but I'll deal with that later. Breakfast is now 40 minutes late and we have a play date arriving in 20 minutes. Okay, I'm gonna take a quick two minute show. Everyone cool with that? I mean I do it every day without incident. Today will be just fine.

6 minutes later. "Mommy, L's dumped the whole box of Multi-Grain Cheerios (tm) all over the kitchen floor"

"The whole box, really? That's funny N"

"But, Mommy they're everywhere"

"Shit!"

Grab the robe and the broom, and what the hell the camera too.

... L trots off to her room to get a broom and sweeps up right along side me. (sorry no photo proof of that...ha!) We get the mess cleaned up, breakfast on the table. It is only 10am.

What I learned today

Today I learned to always check that the keys you grab on your way out the door are actually the keys to the door. I learned that libraries close when the power outage lasts longer the 10 minutes. I learned that coffee shops, however, will stay open whether they can run the register or not.

Today I learned that you might be able to get the screens off the windows to the house, but if the panes are shut tight there's no breaking in. I learned that using a credit card or debit card is not really an efficient way to get back into your house. I learned that it is possible to climb on top of two lawn chairs w/out falling (don't try this one at home kids) but it really doesn't give you that much more height.

Today I learned my kids are troopers. That to them being locked out of the house w/out keys or cellphone is not a big deal. A trip to the coffee shop and then the local art store are a grand adventure. (why I had my debit card in my pocket is still a mystery, but I'll thank the fairies for it just the same) I learned that pretty much, as far I can tell, my entire neighborhood works day jobs. (or won't open their house to a strange women and two kids) I learned that even on the windiest of fall days L would rather take her coat off then wear it, 'any more time!'

Today I learned that swinging on the neighbors front porch w/my kids is a great joy and I'm secretly glad no one was home. I learned that there is plenty adventure to be had in my neighborhood even when the wild winds are blowing, the power is out and no else seems to be home.

Today I learned that sometimes an unfortunate turn of events can be turned into a grand adventure. Although I'm sure its safe to say that by the end of the 2nd hour we were all tired of our new coloring books (that we could only read as the colors are in the house), and playing hopscotch in the wind.

Note to self - grab the right keys and put you cellphone in your pocket!

Fall preview

Fall is here! We've been to the corn maize and the pumpkin patch. This weekend it's the apple festival with apples and even more pumpkins! The Wohlmut's are out and about and enjoying the bounty of harvest time in Oregon. I hope you, dear readers, are out enjoying these beautiful bountiful days as well.

The kids continue to grow by leaps and bounds. N no longer looks like a baby or even a toddler. He looks like a BOY! Every time I look at him I am amazed at how much he has grown and changed. As fast as his body is changing, his mind is changing even faster. He's reading all that he can get his hands on these days. Can't find him, chances are he's sitting on his bed pouring over his "Living Life" encyclopedia. In addition to the reading he surprised me this week by writing out "Tasmanian devil", not only did he write it but asked no help from me for the spelling of the words! He also wrote out the word snowflake, but that word was really all the letters on the page, like a hunt a word jumble you had to put them together yourself. Still, this is one of those moments when I say...'he's only 4?'

L, is our budding artist and resident comic in training. Tell her its going to be a craft day, and she'll scramble to the kitchen table faster then you can say, 'jackrabbit'. She likes it all markers, crayons, stamps, stickers and water colors. She make smiley faces and apples, and whatever else strikes her fancy (the above is entitled "clown") Beware however, turn your back and she's apt to have drawn kitty whiskers on her face and stamped hearts on the kitchen table. (This artist's muse must not be contained.)

Got a joke to tell? L will laugh at it and then promptly steal it, she'll find her version of the joke so funny that she'll laugh too hard to even get it out. She never tires of knock knock jokes or pratfalls. She'll leave 'em laughing in the aisles even as she's breaking their hearts.

Never a dull moment with these kids.

More photos and tales of the grand autumnal adventures to arrive after the weekend's festivities.

He's Four

N approaches a new teacher at preschool this week.

"What's your name again?"

"Melinda."

N walks away. Time passes, N returns.

"M-E-L-I-N-D-A Melinda"

"Wow, did you read that somewhere?

"No, I sounded it out. It's only three syllables"

He's Four?!?!?

N and I reading quietly on the couch. I hear some sniffling from time to time. I absentmindedly ask if he needs a tissue, without actually looking up. "no," comes the reply. Sniffing continues. I notice out of my peripheral vision that N is licking his hands, like kitty paws, repeatedly. Often.

"N, why are you licking your hands?"

"Because they have snot on them."

He's Four.

Playing Doctor

Some kids play house or school. I played hospital. I remember that this was something that I did on my own, without other kids. We had an old metal baby-doll crib with sides that went up and down that made a perfect hospital bed. So it was there that baby Tender-Love tm (I cannot recall her name, probably because my mother always suggested names for my dolls and it never occurred to me that I could choose one on my own) spent many a day and night ‘recovering’. She had lots of surgeries and even more casts.

Ah the casts. It took me a long time to get the formula for the casts just right. First I tried strips of Kleenex in baby powder and water. That was a bust. The baby powder just floated on top of the water and would never create a paste. Then I tried just using wet Kleenex-but that just became a mess of wadded up wet tissues. Finally it was a combination of flour water and paper towels that did the trick. It took awhile to create the casts as all of the ingredients had to be obtained when no one was looking (in other words 'stolen') The water was the easiest to obtain. The paper towel a bit trickier, as I didn't want to draw attention to the fact that there might be a mess to clean up (why else would I need a paper towel?) But still the paper towels were easier then the flour.

The flour was kept in a tin way up on a shelf above the stove. Getting the flour required moving the stool over to the stove and then climbing on top of the stove top to get the canister down. The next trick was to get the lid off with out making any noise or without getting flour everywhere. Somehow I managed to get it all accomplished and downstairs I went to cast her up. That poor doll had casts from head to toe. (Funny, I don't recall if they ever dried or how I got them off. Certainly not a saw like they used in the hospital on me!)

When she had casts on both legs then the iv bottle could be hooked up as well. This was a ingenious invention, if I do say so myself, of an empty glass medicine bottle, telephone wire, and a sewing needle with an eye big enough to get the wire through . Once the wire was secured to the bottle and the needle attached to the wire than the everything was ready and the iv could be inserted. Yes, it’s true that poor doll not only was bound in plaster but now she would have needle stuck into her arm as well. By the end of that dolls career as a professional patient she had more track marks then a junkie on Burnside. I'm not sure that doll ever recovered.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out why I played hospital with my dolls and animals. I spent much of my childhood in and out of various body casts. Sometimes there were surgeries involved, other times it was simply traction and then casts. (hmmm, and I wondered why that full body mud wrap at that fancy spa led to an anxiety attack) In between the surgeries, tests, casts, doctor visits and wheel-chair rides I did my best to be a 'normal' kid. But, just about the time I got back into the swing of it...childhood... there be a "new" procedure awaiting me and I'd loose traction (no pun intended) and it would be months before I could be 'normal' again.

Normal... who needs it? Not me...not now. :-)