BecHa

The lego architecht

2012-02-15T23:03:00.000-07:00

This is another post where the parent (me) praises her child (Patrick) because the parent simply thinks their child is the best and a genius. I am going too far, I know.
My son loves legos. A lot of kids and non-kids do. What I like about Patrick is that he is able to follow the instructions to build the particular set. And when he is done, a day later he 'disassembles' the set and builds a variation of it. And another day later all the legos end up disassembled and in a big lego container box, and then the imagination goes.
Here he was building what he called 'his house'.

And then he built this vehicle, which I mistakenly called a car, he corrected me it's a 'plane car'. 'Forgive me for not making a big deal out of those wings son.' This may be the next and first new car I buy, when my son actually is old enough and designs a real one for his mom.

And naturally here is the 'plane car' parked in front of his 'house'. I love that arch, he must have gotten the idea from Paolo Soleri.

But what cracked me up the most, was not his architechtual or engineering imaginations, but it was him building Slimer from Ghost Busters with legos. My kids have been watching Ghost Busters lately, I even heard them trying to talk to some kids in the park about Ghost Busters, but the kids couldn't figure out what my kids were talking about.
Anyway....I present you Slimer.

Pain in the neck - for real!!!

2012-02-12T09:07:00.000-07:00

I ought to look up where the expression 'pain in the neck' came from. Here is where my pain in the neck comes from. After supposedly sleeping for 6-7hrs a night I wake up and I can hardly turn my head. My neck hurts, it feels like I've pinched a nerve. Occasionally this ache extends to my shoulder. Oh it's horrible. I have some suspicions and one fact. The fact is I sleep weird and that's why I wake up in pain. The suspicions:
1. sandwiched in between two kids will make you sleep weird. These two creatures I have, called kids, are sneaky. They will fall asleep in their own bed, and sometime in the middle of the night they 'migrate' over in my bed.
2. is it possible that somehow allergies + suspicion #1 are responsible for my 'pain in the neck'.
3. although I don't need to feed or change any babies anymore several times a night, someone or something wakes me up at least couple of times a night. You can't say that kind of sleep is any good.

Never the less this pain is real, and it goes off and on. I got it again a few days ago, it was so painful I couldn't even lift my daughter when she asked me to hug her and pick her up. So I am trying to remedy this pain myself, since I can't afford a doctor even though I have insurance.
Having a husband helps. He IS NOT a good masseuse, quite the opposite. He reluctantly tried to massage my pain spot, but he was rough, so I told him it's not necessary. This is how having him helped: his drawer has a selection of orphaned socks, some so stretched that you can't tell where the heel is if there wasn't a marking. I got one of those orphaned socks and filled it with beans. Yes, beans, and lentils and rice. I stitched the open end of it on my machine. Now I can heat this sock in the microwave and wrap it around my neck.

And then I remembered I have this tiny jar of some potent rub-on-muscle-warmer-Chinese cream. So I rubbed some on my neck and shoulder, put the sock around and took an ibuprofen.

Slowly I am recuperating, until the next 'good morning' when I wake up with a 'pain in my neck'.
PS. I did get an early Valentine's Day present, a pillow, a nice new pillow for my neck, and it's also supposed to help with my allergies.

Saturday in the park

2012-02-11T17:45:00.000-07:00

We went to a park today a few miles from the house. On one side of the park there is a canal I think it's the SRP (Salt River Project), it carries irrigation water to communities. Along the canal there is paved path where people run, bike, walk etc. But today we saw some people riding horses. It's probably hard to see them in this picture, but I didn't feel like getting to close to them and snapping photos with my cell phone.

I thought the kids would like to ride their bikes here along the water, but once we came close to the actual playground with swings, playsets and a sand box, their interests changed. But that's all right. Patrick said he was tired and didn't want to ride anymore and to prove this he was pretending to sleep on a bench.

I let him pretend, while I climbed on some of the playground sets with Maggie. Here is a picture of her getting ready to go down a slide.

And then they were chasing eachother around the sand pit.

And then back climbing to go down the slide again. Here is Maggie again, sticking her tongue out as she is climbing.

They even made some friends and played in the sand, until I offered a little girl to try Maggie's bicycle since Maggie wasn't using it and Maggie freaked out.

Handmade Valentines

2012-02-11T10:25:00.000-07:00

Sometime I think I create more work for myself than I need to. Raising two kids and working full time, I hardly have time to keep up with our house being clean and tidy, so why in the world will I make handmade Valentine cards for my kids to exchange in school on Valentine's day? Because I want to. Because handmade gifts are the best. Because very few people make homemade of anything. Because we live in a world where our food comes in a can or a box, and everything else is Made in China.
Now I am sure 3 and 5 year olds receiving handmade cards will not even know the difference, but it doesn't matter.

And because it makes me happy making things from scratch. So there...

PS. I did not make the candy.

Maggie's first mural

2012-02-10T20:54:00.000-07:00

The paper on Maggie's easel was already painted on, and I had forgotten to put in blank paper. So she moved on the the wall. I didn't mind. I now have a mural in my craft room.
It's difficult to see on the pictures I took of her handy work, but here is a peek.

I think it's supposed to be a turtle.