Two years

"I'm still wild but not lost from the thing that I've chosen to be"

Wow - the kids are two! I know I've been pleasantly distracted by the endless stream of changes and developments in our lives and I apologize for the lack of photos to share with everybody. It just seems that when I finally get the time to upload a batch of photos, I have a hundred or so more to download off the camera.

Ty and Erin had their 2 year checkup last week. Ty weighed in at 26lbs and Erin has overtaken her brother at 26lbs, 7oz. I've abandoned all hope of getting Ty to eat what I cook for Erik and I. While Erin will eat anything she can catch with a fork or spoon, Ty prefers pizza and a homemade vegetable conglomeration of squash, carrots and potato spiced with cinnamon. I often hear of parents hiding veggies in their children's pasta. I have to hide pasta in my son's vegetables, as futile as that would be because he consistently finds the offending noodles and ejects them, clean.  Every. Last. One.

Both are talking up a storm. Erin is quite the chatterbox and a budding macaw. Needless to say, any and all words of an unsuitable nature are carefully avoided - not always successfully. Ty on the other hand doesn't have Erin's vocabulary, but I was relieved to discover after reading the milestones in the Toddler Years Handbook that Ty's vocabulary includes at least 50 words - evidently the minimum for a child of two. I'm sure nobody but Erik and I care, but here they are...

apple, again, arm, banana, blue, bye, call, dada, down, dessert, eight, eye, fan, feet, fish, five, fork, four, grapes, green, hair, hello, help, hide, home, knee, knife, mama, milk, more, night, nine, nose, oatmeal, off
okay, on, one, onion, orange, purple, red, run, seven, shoe, six, so, ten, three, two, up, yellow

There are more than this list and I hear new words every day.

They're into size 4 diapers, size 7 shoes and balls of all sizes. Erin loves to help me make banana muffins and spinning in circles until she's too dizzy to stand. Ty loves playing the piano and building tall towers with lego.

They are learning how to be gentle with the cat and Riley has been extremely patient with both of them. An astounding feat considering he was never fond of anything less than 4 feet tall.

Two years.

"Because you thrill me, silence me, still me. Prove things I'd never believe"

Two years ago, I was so unprepared for this journey. Two years later, I can't fathom the passage of time that has brought us to this point. Whenever we can share a snuggle or a passing hug, I instinctually call them both "baby". Erin will now stop and look me in the eye as she claims, "I'm not a baby. I'm a big girl."

In two more years, I'll be registering them for school...

Thank you for calling Tide

A few days ago, I'm doing laundry and come to a load of kids' clothes, blankets and such. So I load up the washing machine and run the water and get my bottle of TideFree to add. Except the bottle is empty. No worries, though because I have a brand new bottle. Just have to unscrew the cap.

But the cap doesn't unscrew. It's been hermetically sealed by forces unknown to the common everyday domestic engineer and I lack the necessary strength to separate cap from container. So I, of course, fall back on plan B - the resource of women everywhere who, for generations have asked hubby to get the lid off.

But, Erik also lacks the necessary strength to separate cap from container so while man-with-a-plan goes searching for implements of destruction, I decide to call Tide for the combination of required skills to open my bottle of detergent.

Being a large corporation, Tide has one of those fandangled answering systems to properly route your call to the proper department. While I'm waiting for the option "If you can't seem to get into your detergent, press #" to come up, I'm trying to wriggle a butter knife (because sharp objects and I have this ongoing bloodthirsty relationship) between the cap and container.

"If you would like more information on our products, press 1"

I'm sure I can get this knife in here...

"If you would like to know where to purchase Tide products, press 4"

Just a little bit more, I think I'm making progress...

Too much pressure and not enough counterforce results in said butter knife skipping across my middle and ring finger ... ouch ... blood everywhere.

"If this is a medical emergency, press 9"

Well... It is now!

Um, yeah, hi... I seem to have amputated part of my hand trying to open this bottle of TideFree. Do you want to call the ambulance or should I?

Erik emerges with the proper implements of destruction to separate the cap from container and pours the contents into the empty bottle while I'm upstairs bandaging my wounds. The laundry process was resumed and in 4-6 weeks, I'll get a coupon in the mail.

Thank you for calling Tide.

Truth and Knowledge

A friend of the family prepared a very special gift for the kids.

He brought the kids' birth info to his Hindu spiritual leader who figured out their Hindu "horoscope". I don't mean horoscope as we understand it here in the west. The date and time of birth is used to calculate the name of a Hindu god or ideal. Pursuing the qualities governed by that particular deity will bring the child a lifetime of good karma.


A gift of good karma.  Wow! 

For Ty:
Satish
- the Hindu word for truth.

"The Hindu tradition encourages Hindus to seek spiritual and moral truth wherever it might be found, while acknowledging that no creed can contain such truth in its fullness and that each individual must realize this truth through his or her own systematic effort. Our experiences, and our dialogue with others - especially with enlightened individuals - provide various means of testing our understanding of spiritual and moral truth.

Although Hindu scripture, based on the insights of Hindu sages and seers, serves primarily as a guidebook, truth comes to us through direct consciousness of the divine or an ultimate reality. In other religions this ultimate reality is known as God. Hindus refer to it by many names, but the most common name is Brahman."



For Erin:
Saraswati
- the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music and creative arts.

"In Hinduism, Saraswati represents intelligence, consciousness, cosmic knowledge, creativity, education, enlightenment, music, the arts, eloquence and power. Hindus worship her not only for 'academic knowledge', but for 'divine knowledge' essential to achieve liberation from the suffering involved in being subject to the cycle of repeated death and reincarnation."

What a fascinating gift. Thank you, kind soul.