Rowan turned Three! Three short years ago our lives were permanently altered and we became lucky parents to a wiley sharp chatty lovely sweet rascally little boy. We love him beyond recognition and thank our lucky stars for this boy shining light on our path. Here he is working at the sink.

Here is my Milo boy, in all his nine month glory, crawling pulling up and really only protesting when he is hungry.

He has a big voice, this guy, and a great sense of humor. He adores Rowan, and thinks George and I are okay too. We are so lucky, and so thankful

My friends Jade and Lyle need you to send her love and hope for her little girl. I haven't posted about her, but I think about her all the time. She's getting ready to have a large operation in Minnesota and we need to rally the forces and shower her with all the good we can. She's got a rough go of it, and her parents too.

This struck me today like a lightning bolt when I read it: from "dalai mama" a regular feature in Wondertime Magazine. It is a surprisingly good publication most of the time. I have my beefs, but if you know me, you know I always have my beefs. Anyway.

She's writing about her daughter being sick, again. "I try to remember that there are parents everywhere, wheeling and dealing with God over their children's lives, for whom a garden-variety virus would be something like a gift."(WT, May 2008)

My friends are these parents.

The other line that comes to mind is from Tim O'brien, who sang, in There Ain't No Easy Way "I prayed to the father to the moon and the sun, I prayed to anyone or anything that could get the job done."

And we do too, for them.

Fur producing dog and cat free to any home

We should know better, but apparently we needed one more lesson from our animals. We (all four of us--RARE) went out together to look at helmets and bags for DR and DH after a nice meal of salmon and rice pilaf. We carelessly left the half a piece of salmon on the stove, (of all the places) and a loaf of bread on the counter... (of all the places!)

We arrived home from our fun little excursion to three remaining slices of bread on the floor (i bought the loaf yesterday.) And the SALMON on the FLOOR, nibbled on. Because the container was still intact on the stove we believe that the cat is guilty for the salmon, and we know the dog who wouldn't come out of the room is guilty for the bread.

Damn animals.

Okay, now it's spring-

I got to ride my scooter to the library today, and when i filled the gas tank it cost me 3.20. Used to cost two bucks way back in 20o4 when I got it, before I had two children! I love that scooter, and today is gorgeous, probably 70 degrees out front. If I wrote poetry I would write an ode to my Kymco, how awesome to tool down the street

Rowan chipped a tooth last night by swinging on a swing and colliding into part of the swingset. I missed it of course, and he came crying with blood coming out of mouth, (not a lot) and I just feel so terrible. If you know me at all, you know how my interactions with the dentist are never pleasant. It's not the dentist's fault, its just my terrible teeth. In any case, since I found out I was pregnant with Rowan, I have continually begged the powers that be that these children get GEORGE's genetic makeup for teeth. And my heart just sinks thinking about taking him to the dentist and his tooth getting rotten or something because he damaged it swinging into a pole.

The zinc paint/color on the pole is on two of his teeth (!) blech. I have been planning to take him to the dentist now that he's almost THREE!!!! on Friday, and I am just so unhappy to have a real reason to go there.

screen time

Thought I'd pass this along to whoever is interested, I don't have the energy to give a good summary, just click on the link and see where it takes you.

http://www.screentime.org/index.php?id=1

The city of Denver offers free "how to compost" classes, and every one of them in MAY is already full. there are plenty still open in June July and August!! yikes.

We got our peas planted in the ground. It was my goal this year to have pea plants, and I did it! now, hopefully they'll grow. I guess I'll sign up for a class in June for composting. I feel grumpy since it's the first week in April, and that feels so far away.

off to bed, we had a great pizza night with Helen, Annika and Aunty Rachael. No pics because the camera is with G in Fruita.

rave

While doing homework (both boys are actually sleeping at the same time, after weeks of conspiring against me) I found this fun resource with real, actual librarians to help you... 24/7 baby! As I was writing below (yes, incoherently, and incompletely, forgive me--I am constantly interrupted) about using Google for searching, here is a great research/information alternative:

AskColorado: http://www.askcolorado.org/info/index.html It's a group of statewide librarians who provide (quality) help on whatever you want to know about... they even offer it in SPANISH. how cool is that? Maybe I could work there some day, it might be fun to mix up with a face to face job. FTF as they wrote in the last paper I was reading. There's Milo... He can tell when I am gloating about naptime.

time, flying

Well, finals came and went, and I was sure that I'd be lounging around catching up on posting when I was finished freaking out about my schoolwork. This didn't happen though. In fact, days went by where I didn't check my email, I fell behind on reading the Annoyed Librarian, my favorite library blog, and I didn't even read any good books.
That part isn't entirely true, I borrowed The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency on cd, since I read it long ago on my friend Megan's couch in Oak Creek, CO and proceeded over the years to plow through all the rest of the series which is a mighty fine read, let me tell you what. In any case, I got it on CD because although the books are good, the books read by this wonderful woman narrator are even better. Really. So I've been driving around ignoring the boys and continually turning up the volume in the car, (that's where the cds are) so that I can catch part of the story before we arrive at our destination. It has made me a decidedly more distracted driver, and this is very bad news indeed, considering my usual distracted state. Ah but to hear about Zebra Drive, and Mma Ramotswe, it is so engaging and lovely.
I had one of my two classes for this quarter today. Two Reference courses. George asked me what that meant, and I told him I was going to find out really soon. Reference, does anyone use this service which is the most important job of a librarian? Confess people, do you think--ah, I'll ask a librarian and they will have all sorts of novel, high-quality sources for me to search and find the answer to my question.
No, you don't, you go above, and you type it into your google bar, and sort through junk to find the best choice there, and hopefully you get your question answered. I am the first one to tout the glory of Google. Like this blog for example, google at it's finest (though it's named blogger....).

But, once I can tell you more about what Reference really is (ask me in ten weeks, i should have a much better idea), I think you may look at your local librarian with new eyes. I may not make it in this profession though, if everyone keeps talking about the old lady with the bun. really. Is that what you think of too?

I have a great memory of Justin's eyes lighting up (our friend who works at the San Diego Wild Animal Park- not sure of his title, but he works as a zookeeper, and then does other things too) when he talked about the librarian who worked there. Someone who helped access important information competently is the jist of what I got from what he said. This is more along the lines of what I think of when I think of librarians.

I love going to the reference desk, you ask a question, and the person knows the answer! immediately! what a nice thing, this is.

Now to bed, before one of the two of our boys would like me to not be sleeping. Ah yes, but I did promise to not talk about that didn't I?

The Business of Being Born

This documentary is worth watching more than one time. Please see it if anyone in your life is thinking about having a baby. The trailer is powerful, the link is on my sidebar. Don't think that you aren't interested, it's compelling and a different way to see something for our culture.

I had two babies at home, and although most people I know know this, almost none have ever asked me why or what it was like. This video does a good job of describing my discovery process, the things I learned while researching birth in the US and portraying the utter beauty and bliss that accompanied the births of our two boys. I was transformed as a person because of my birth experiences, and they permanently altered the way I view myself. I got to visit other worlds on my way to bringing these babies here, what a gift.

Order it on netflix and watch it with someone you love, it is so lovely.

http://www.thebusinessofbeingborn.com/