Frogs in my bed!

Mike here. Just wanted to document recent events for posterity.

Lately, Milo has been getting up in the middle night and coming to our room with a reoccurring nightmare. He says there are frogs in his bed. There has been a few times that we have heard him shriek in the middle of the night. Meg was telling me as I was starting my job in NC, Milo had a few of these similar nightmares in Toledo and he was inconsolable. Recently, he has been calmly walking into our room and informing us at 400am that there are frogs in his bed. We usually are able to scare the frogs away and put him back to bed.

It is sorta interesting because he is not inherently afraid of frogs themselves. Meg and Milo recently went to the natural history museum in Raleigh, and they had a reptile and amphibian display which included frogs. Milo apparently touched and handled every one of the animals they had on display. Also, our neighbors in Toledo had some concrete sculptures on their porch that were frogs doing human activities, such as reading a paper or smoking a pipe. Milo would often talk to the sculptures when he passed by them, and would offer them his favorite cars.

The other funny thing is the other day he woke up from a nap and told me there was fish in his bed. I asked which fish were in his bed, and he told me an anglerfish and a pufferfish was in his bed looking at him. I don't know if you have seen pictures of either, but both species are pretty freaky looking to me. I asked him if he was scared, but Milo told me they were friendly anglerfishes and pufferfishes, and they weren't bothering him.

Associations...

As mentioned in the last entry, Milo's getting pretty good at making connections with random things in his life. This morning he was in fine form...

We're back in the habit of going to the library for new books, and Milo picked a good one, called "Toot, toot, zoom" about a fox named Pierre who drives his little red car over a mountain to find a friend, and in the process picks up a goat, sheep, and bear who all end up being his friends. While I was dealing with my own mountain of dishes this morning, Milo had picked out a little red wooden car and was "toot, toot, zoom!"ing it around the kitchen floor. I turned and asked him what he was doing, and he said "it's the little red car like in "toot, toot, zoom!"

Then he went to his train table for a bit. One of his new favorite items is a suspension bridge, and after catching a little bit of a cartoon about the Golden Gate Bridge the other day, I asked him what his bridge looked like, and we talked about the Golden Gate Bridge on Little Einsteins. Little Einsteins is kinda hoity-toity for a cartoon, if you ask me, using classical music, famous art work, and landmarks from around the world, but after this conversation, I have new respect. I asked Milo if he knew where the Golden Gate Bridge was, and he said, "by Coit Tower." What? What's Coit Tower? "It's by the Golden Gate Bridge." Eh? Over to the computer, and as I'm sure any of you more familiar with San Francisco than me know, Coit Tower is a landmark in San Fran's Telegraph Hill neighborhood. You're right, buddy! Do you know where Coit Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge are? "By the redwood trees." Uh, yeah... Finally, I told him, all those things are in San Francisco. "Yeah! San Frisisco!" My kid's already reminding me of all the things I don't know.

Four generations...

We named Milo for Mike's dad's side of the family. Mike's grandpa is Milo Khan Schroeder, Mike's dad is Milo Lawrence Schroeder, and because he never liked his name as a kid, Mike's dad (Larry) named Mike, Michael Lawrence Schroeder, affectionately known as M. Lawrence the second by a couple of us McGrail women. Mike and I decided to go with family tradition, and when we asked Larry if this was okay that we name his grandson the name he never liked, and he simply said, "he can have it." We were lucky enough to grab this picture of all 4 generations of Milos and pseudo-Milos this summer...

In case I forget...

Loving how Milo's vocabulary is expanding all the time. And before I forget any more, wanted to jot down a few recent favorites.

"Hold Mommy and Daddy's hands?" as we're going for a walk. "We're all best friends!"

"Where's Santa?" Thanks to an entirely too generous family, our Christmas went on for well over a week, and now Milo doesn't understand where Santa has gone.

"I see a symbol!" What's the symbol, buddy? "It's a cross, it's a symbol for Jesus!" This one still gets me. We had a chat about crosses at church, now whenever he sees a cross on a steeple, this is our conversation. And now he's added, "What are the people doing in there? They're praying."

"I see those power lines! Just like in Hot Air Henry!" When we were in MN, there are significantly less trees surrounding the roads and you can see telephone lines and powers lines that much more. He was asking what they were, so I was trying in really simple terms to tell him about electricity getting to our houses by this lines, called power lines, and he goes, "oh, like in Hot Air Henry." So matter-of-factly. I forget that it just takes a good book reference and we're all good.

His new idiosyncrasy is plurals. He adds an additional "s" or "es" at the end of things that are already plural. Like "shoeses" or "coacheses" (what trains pull). Quirky.

Our ultrasound pictures of the new baby are on the fridge by the back door, and whenever we go outside he says "there's the baby in mommy's belly."

We've been praying before we go to sleep, and generally I ask who he wants to pray for, he goes through his list, and we pray. What I love about this is usually the front-runners are always the same, Grammie, TomTom, Nana, Booka, and Jake (guess cousin Jake needs a lot of prayer ;), but the others eb and flow more naturally. Maybe the simple mind of a 2yearold, maybe the moving of the spirit, but depending on who we've been talking about or seeing, or for no reason at all. Aunts and uncles and cousins often make the list several times a week, and tonight, without any natural reason I knew, Grandma Sue (my mom's mom) and Grandma Julie and Grandpa Milo (Mike's dad's parents).

EDIT: I forgot another great one the Mike reminded me of. One of Milo's new favorite movies is the new Winnie the Pooh, and while trying to open a couple of particularly well taped Christmas presents, Milo muttered under his breath, "oh stuff 'n' fluff." I love the he picked up on and used in the appropriate context the expletive of Pooh. Cracks me up.

And since I mentioned them above, I should probably post the ultrasound pics, huh? These were taken when I was about 21 weeks along. Mike knows the sex of the baby, but I'm still digging the surprise, so if you somehow find out through the grapevine, just don't tell me :) Everything's looking great, we're all good and healthy. Baby's due May 1st, but if I don't labor spontaneously before then, we'll have a scheduled c-section just to be careful since Milo was a c-section.

One of my favorite holiday memories...

One of my mentors in life just blogged about giving this time of year, and it's provoked me to share a memory. I don't want to embarrass anyone, so we'll just say that a couple near and dear to me provided this memory for me.

They had heard of several families who going into the holidays were struggling to make ends meet, and decided on their own to do something about it. They purchased supplies for full holiday meals for each of the families, packaged them up, and attached anonymous notes letting them know that these items came from people who knew and cared about them, and simply wished them a merry and blessed Christmas.

They drove to each house, parked a little ways away, left the packages on the doorstep, rang the bell, and ran back to the car. They waited just long enough to make sure someone received the items, then drove away. No one, other than those who were there, ever knew who did this.

I know I love to get a great gift just like the next person. And I do love to give a good gift, but in my pride, partly I think I like to give great gifts because it's gratifying to me to know that on some level, I'm good. I'm a great gift giver. I don't give just to give, I give for that gratitude that follows the giving. It's still selfish giving. I will always look to this memory as the example of truly selfless giving, that doing good when no one's looking.

I don't remember who those families were. I don't remember what I got for Christmas that year. But I'll always remember that example of how to give.

Non-failure...

To follow up on that last flop in parenthood, thought I'd share a fun time Milo and I, and then Mike joined in too, shared getting ready for the holidays. I had debated whether he was too young to help with the baking of the famous sugar cookies, batch #1, but I figured, why not?

We started one afternoon before naps, I mixed, Milo helped me count how many cups or tablespoons of things that we needed, and then we rolled out the dough. I mostly rolled out, he told me what cookie cutters to use, where to put them on the dough, and then he pushed the cutters through the dough. Overall, it worked quite nicely. I had thought we'd let them cool and then decorate them after naps, but alas, the two-year-old demon reared its ugly head again, so we decorated the next day. That worked out well as it meant Mike was able to help. We frosted and Milo was on sprinkle patrol. Just don't tell anyone from our small group in OH how many times Milo licked his fingers between cookies. I tried to wipe as many times as possible, but that colorful sprinkly goodness was too much for him :)

Overall though, a grand success, hopefully one to be repeated a few more times before Christmas actually arrives. And Blogger is being ridiculous with pictures so I'll see if I can post some later...

Failure...

Tonight, even most of today, I am a failure as a parent. Not that this hasn't happened before, but Milo now has the ability to respond to my inability in much more harsh ways. I'm not actually sure if it's him or me, but it feels like me. This morning he was up early, so I was up early. I started out slow, we ate breakfast, and I started unpacking and moving things around with fervor. I've found I need to make use of these rare moments in pregnancy when some energy plus lack of nausea gives me a small window of opportunity. Small, lasted about an hour to ninety minutes. At which point, Milo got a little whiney, I got really tired and a little more aware of my rounder self, and we curled up on my bed with the computer tuned in to some favorite cartoons. I actually dozed off, not that that bother Milo, just meant he got to watch more.

Finally dragged myself up again, got us both dressed and decided we'd pack a lunch so we could head to the park when Mike got home a little after noon. Milo's been liking to help me in the kitchen, so I asked if he wanted to come sit on the counter. Yes. Ok. On the counter, I started to pull stuff out, he pitches a fit. OIy. Do you want some cars? No! Do you want to sit on the counter? No! Ok, down to the floor. NO! I WANT TO SIT ON THE COUNTER! I WANT SOME CARS! I try again and again to explain to him that when he says no, that means he does not want what I am asking, that if he does want that, he should say yes, or better, yes please. We're in the midst of this hopeless discussion when Mike comes in. Now it's escalated to Milo crying and yelling, "Mommy hold you Mommy hold you!" Bless his heart, Mike steps in, allowing me to pack lunch. The park was fairly successful, and after a little picnic and a lot of play, we headed back.

Some resistance to nap, but nothing I couldn't handle. He slept for a good 2, 2.5 hours and woke up super crabby. Usually I'd just leave him in bed and let him cry it out, but partly because I knew Mike would be heading to sleep, and partly because I thought a little mom-cuddle time might remedy the situation, I got him up. Bad idea. Cuddling work long enough for Mike to go to bed, then all hell broke loose. Everything I did or didn't do was wrong and resulted in screaming crying. Managed a decent dinner with the help of a Thomas episode, my kid's a couch potato at 2, another failure, we fought over him watching another one, then he didn't want to watch another one and wanted to finger paint. Okay, fine, I pull out some paints I managed not to pack and set him up. That lasts about 90 seconds before he wants me to paint for him. I try helping him paint, but that irritates him more. More tears and screaming. I have him sit on a chair with his blanket for a minute to regain control of his breathing. It's about 6:30pm and I'm praying for bedtime. Screw it. Ready for a bath, buddy? No bath!! Okay, straight to bed? NO, I WANT A BATH! Not this again. Go upstairs, run the bath, he brings some cars to play with, get him in the bath and he freaks out again. Throws his cars out of the tube, then screams that he wants his cars. Not going to give in to that one at the moment. He's crying, I'm trying to rub his back, which he seems to really like recently. Kinda helps. I ask him if his tummy hurts, thought he just ate fine, he says no, not that that means anything to him. I ask him if I can feel his teeth, which he always finds kinda funny, and is a good way for me to check and see if his molars are coming in. NO! Okay, out of the tube, into jammies, I pull some books and tell him to pick some to. He sees one of the ones I picked, usually one he likes, and he freaks out. I bring my pile to the rocking chair and sit, watching him cry, baffled. He finally comes over with a book, I read him about 8 books, stretching time to a little after 7pm, we rock a I try to snuggle, but now he's all energy and wants to tackle Sally who's by his bed. Fine. He does, then I do manage to tuck him in, he freaks out about a blanket he doesn't want, I cover his feet with it, give him a drink of water, say goodnight, and escape.

I can't believe I even say the word escape when it comes to my kid's room. I know that parenting isn't easy, I know I'm not always going to be the best, I know that my kid is 2 and going through all kinds of crazy changes right now, geographically, socially, physically, but how have I completely lost the ability to communicate with my child? How have I already forgotten how to find a way to steer him straight and find the balance between happiness and direction? I'm so tired tonight. And I really want a glass of wine and a pint of Chubby Hubby, neither of which are possible.

We moved.

Here we are in NC. Kinda crazy, but we're really liking it so far. Mike picked out a great house for us to rent for a while so we can figure out the area, spend some time becoming parents again, you know, all that stuff. Milo seems to be adjusting well. Gotta say, it's great not having to worry too much about how much this will affect him. He still talks about people in Toledo, but I don't think he really gets what's happened. The most significant thing with him was his 15 hour sleep last night. Mike put him down for a nap around 3pm, he woke at about 4:15pm asking for some milk, went back to sleep, I started to worry about him being alive around 6:30/7pm, went to check on him, and he was half off his mattress (were mid-transition out of the crib = mattress on the floor), covered in his stuffed animals. I tried to gently move him back on his bed, he kinda whimpered and asked me to hold him, so we cuddled for a bit, and he passed out again. I even changed his diaper and put jammy pants on him without him waking. He stirred at about 1am, then about 5am, again asking for milk, I'm sure he was starving, and then was up about 6:30am. He was a peach today, great attitude all morning, super cute and funny. One of those mornings when I'm really grateful I don't have to go drop him off at someone else's for the day.

I'm moving a bit slower these days. Morning/anytime sickness is lessening finally, but not gone yet. I still require a nap pretty much every day. I'm anxious for my nesting stage to kick in, so I can really pull this place together, but I'm making progress. And we've got 4 bedrooms, so if anyone's up for a visit, let us know.

Mike seems to be loving this new position too. The team here seems a good fit for him, good for his personality and development plan as a pharmacist. And not gonna lie, I'm not missing the on-call or working weekends!

I am glad we're back together as a family again. A month was kinda tough. Mike and I saw each other one weekend in there when we were looking at places to live, but Milo didn't see his daddy for over a month. Though he is very resilient, his attitude in general, but specifically when I wasn't around or trying to leave him in the very able care of babysitters or nursery staff left much to be desired. He was really clingy, cried when I left which he didn't do much before, and spent some extra time in time-outs. He also had a couple of sad nights with bad dreams, all of which people have told me were indicators of him just knowing that his dad wasn't there. Again, just glad it's over.

Now he's busy saying things like, "Mommy you come with me to North Carolina?" and pretty much perpetually when he's not around, "where's Daddy? sshh, Daddy sleeping?" and one of my new favorites, "that's really wonderful!" He's thrown that one in once or twice in surprisingly appropriate times. This pic is one that my dad/moving truck driver-extraordinaire snapped enroute; we had stopped for lunch, and Milo loved to get up in the "penske truck."

**Mike Edit**


Milo has discovered how to use the itouch recently. He likes playing this puzzle game that involves routing cars and trains through busy intersections. He has beaten Dad's high score already. I was telling Meg I'm not sure whether to be proud or ashamed as a parent... :)

It reminds me of this video I saw recently; a commentary on where future generations may be heading?

Try and tell me I don't have the cutest kid...

While Mom, Dad, and Heather were on Milo-duty recently so Mike and I could try and find a place to live, my dad snapped these shots with his phone. I'm all about just calling it a day for senior pictures. Seriously, can we really do much better than this? I know, I know, everyone has the cutest kid. And I'll try not to brag him up too much, this will be a moment for me, just let me have it.

On the same trip, on my way back through, we were sitting out on the deck having dinner, and Dad was messing with Milo, both of them sitting across the table from me, tickling him, make him crack up, all the things that are super helpful when trying to get a 2-yr-old to eat. Mike called, and while I was talking to him, all of a sudden, Milo starts repeating with more and more intensity, "What's wrong with Milo. What's wrong with Milo? What's wrong with Milo?!!" He had somehow become wedged between the highchair and table during one of the ticklings, and couldn't quite articulate in his confusion that something was wrong. And yes, we're still working on the third person reference. I think it's kinda funny.

On another front, our little family decided that we didn't have enough going on, and we'd add one more major life-change to our plate: I'm pregnant. Hopefully coming up on the end of the first trimester soon as I'm feeling pretty tired in general and over being nauseous and sick. We're really excited for another little Schroeder to be joining the clan around the end of April!

Kids say the darnest things...

Funny story that happened a while ago...

We were walking through Macy's looking for some birthday ideas for my (Mike's) mom. At this point, Milo is getting a little squirrelly as it is getting close to nap time. But, he's still being a good kid having fun running through the store between the clothing racks. We wandered into the "intimates" section thinking maybe some nice new PJs might be nice. At this point, Milo goes into the lingerie section of the store where all the bras are hanging from the racks. At first, he thinks they are pillows (afterall, the larger cups are closer to the bottom), and he proceeds to lay his head against them. "Ohh...soft." Then a leopard print one catches his eye and he wanders towards it saying "Uh-huh...that's cute." From there, he is going around grabbing all of the various lacy and printed bras, critiquing them with "that's cute," and "that one is nice."

Mom is very embarrassed at this point, and Dad is very amused. Must have learned how to shop from watching Mom and Grammie.

Um, yeah...

So we're moving. Again. Exactly 16 months after we moved to Toledo, we're now moving to NC. Mike's company offered him a pretty great opportunity, one that he's pretty psyched about, so we took it. That means he starts work on Monday, October 3rd. Yes, that's 10 days from today. Granted, we knew about this a couple of weeks ago, but he only interviewed for the job the last week of August. All that to say, everything's moving really fast, except me. I'm having a little bit of a hard time wrapping my brain around this one.

I'm actually really excited about everything that matters. We're moving to a little town outside Raleigh, which is an awesome area that both Mike and I love. Mike's job will be a grand improvement over his current one, everyone we talk to who knows anyone from there says it's such a great place for families. When we visited for a weekend when Mike interviewed, I found my new favorite farmer's market that's open year-round until 8pm every night. And all the homes we're looking at seem wonderful, and a great match for this new stage in life.

Maybe things are just moving faster than my brain is processing. Maybe I'm having a hard time explaining this to my new-found, dear friends here in Toledo. Maybe I'm more resistant to change than I would choose to admit, even good change. Anyways, I haven't started packing yet. But that's what tomorrow's for, right?

Milo says...

Some other funny or impressive Milo-isms:

-"Schmutz" I'm personally very proud of this, though I'm thinking I've been mispronouncing the yiddish word "schmutz" all these years. Milo appropriately uses it to identify anything that shouldn't be there, i.e. "Mommy, some schmutz on me" (when there was dirt on his knee), "little schmutz on there" (when there is something on his hands or on whatever he's eating...) Highly useful term, I must say.

-"Daddy body slam!" Perfectly emphasized when Mike was laying on his back during a picnic recently. Soon followed by the appropriate action. Also works when wanting to smash our fluffy Siamese, "Charlie body slam!"

-"It disappeared!" Milo said this as he was covering his dinner with an empty bowl. I know, not earth shattering, but I thought fairly impressive for a 2-year old.

-While waiting in line to board the zoo train, Milo was low to the ground doing a low squat shuffle with his butt a couple inches off the ground and advancing through the line past unsuspecting people. When I asked him to come back, he turned around with a big grin on his face and said, "Milo sneaky!"

Miles of Smiles...

I used to call you that, when you were tiny and had just learned to smile. You smiled at everyone and everything. Put a camera in your face, and you grinned. And this year you turned 2, and your smile literally went for miles.

It started at Nana and Booka's house in MN, where you graciously shared a celebration and cake with me, and got to spend some quality time with your namesakes. Hanging with Grandpa Milo and Grandma Julie, reading with Grandpa Milo, running in the yard with Booka to set a fish in his pond! Good thing you got to see
him go in because everytime you went to look for him after that he was hiding under a rock. Nana made one of your favorites, just for you, 'ghetti and meatballs! Booka works hard a teaching you all kinds of bad manners, and we all love it! Nana even got you a new Lightning McQueen suitcase with wheels that fell over and slammed onto their kitchen floor; you were scared of it for a while, but now I have to hide it in the closet because you always want to pull it everywhere you go! You also got to splash in Dandy's pool with Nana, and use your new watering can to water Nana's garden. And nothing beats walking to the parks by Nana and Booka's house with the great
slides and swings. Booka's got you hooked on underdogs now. And one of your highpoints of this trip: going to see your first movie! Cars 2, of course. Booka wouldn't wait so your daddy could take you, he loves to steal those firsts ;) Your eyes were the size of saucers the whole time, but you sat so well through the whole thing.


Then we jumped another plane where we continued the birthday celebration in NJ with Grammie and TomTom, Auntie Heather, Auntie Mandy, Jake and Sam, and the whole Furler Clan. On your birthday, we went to a model train exhibit that you didn't want to leave; you climbed on a play wooden train outside, and you oogled all the different
kinds of trains inside, chugging on their miniature tracks. Then we went to the zoo, and on this trip, your favorite thing was actually a couple of goats that kept nimbling your fingers with their lids through a fence. We ended the trip with rides on the carosel and a trackless train and then a picnic of one of your favorite things, McNuggets and fries! The next day, we had your first pool party at Grammie
Sue and Grandpa Al's house, where you cried about getting in the pool before you realized that it was fun to float in that pink floatie with a couple of your cars. Then you got to eat one of your other favorites: pizza! And you snubbed your nose
at the fancy cupcakes that Grammie and I went to 2 different places to find. But all the other kids at your party loves them, Jake, Sam, Louisa, Henry, and Drew. I don't think baby Clara got to try a bite, though Grammie tried to feed her some.
All your new friends already knew you so well and gave you all your new favorite cars and books! And then you got to drive in TomTom's RV most of the way home.
Between the trains, planes, and loads of different automobiles, oh and the bikes, not a bad celebration for a 2-year-old who loves things that go.


Love you, buddy. Happy belated birthday! Looking forward to seeing so many more!

The perfect day...

Today was one of those unplanned, unscheduled, perfect days. Don't get me wrong, mostly I am a list maker, appointment maker, and schedule keeper, though often late for any and all of the above. But today, we had no plans, we just did what we wanted to do, when we wanted to, and it was great.

Mike worked the obscenely early morning shift and was home by 7:30, and sent me back to bed. Very nice man that he is, realizing I'm next in line to catch the plague that Milo has been surviving, he let me sleep 'til about 10. We then took our time, doing the "what do you want to do?" "I don't know what do you want to do?" dance. We had both looked for fun 4th of Julyish-type things to do, but seems as though most of those happened over the weekend.

So we finally decided to grab some food and go to a park. Milo was on board as long
as there were slides and swings involved. Right as we were walking out the door, Mike got paged in. No worries, we're flexible today. Drop Mike at work, go grap some take-out, go back to get Mike, eat lunch in the car 'cause Milo and I were impatient and hungry. Grab Mike, head to the park. Slide down some slides, relax in the shade. Hey look, there's the ice cream man. Milo's never had an ice cream from a real ice cream truck. Mike holds him up and he points to the one he wants, a perfect "snack sized" option ideal for toddlers with no attention span, even for ice cream. Back to sit in the shade, eat ice cream, then back to the slide and swings.

Gets hot and maybe sunburn-inducing bright. Milo hears a train whistle. Want to see the train? Okay, let's see if we can find it! Sure enough, Daddy's a pretty good train chaser. He finds one that's stopped along the track, and he and Milo get out to take a closer look. Then it starts to move again, and so do we.

Milo falls asleep in the car on the way home, and I join him in nap mode when we get back to our place. Mike's still working overnight, so he too heads to bed shortly. When Milo wakes up from his nap, we meander down to the garage, hop on the bike, and go to water our community garden. Milo hangs out, sits on a towel eating goldfish, then off to help me water the plants, then off to play with his trucks. We take the scenic route home, along the river, check out a momma and some teenage ducklings, feed them a few of the remaining goldfish, go across a cool bridge, and then back home for dinner, bath, and bedtime stories. A great day. Not particularly patriotic, but full of fantastic moments.

Couple cute/funny Milo soundbites...

"Love you Charlie!" with his face smashed into the cat's side. At least we know he's not allergic.

Mike and I have decided that euphemisms are not always helpful, especially with body parts so we'll just call them what they are. So Milo's sitting on the couch, fully clothed, the other day and he just says, "penis." I reply "Where's your penis, Milo?" He says, "it's hiding."

We're at Red Lobster. After checking out the live lobsters in the tank, a great employee even pulled one out for Milo to see and touch, TomTom passes a lobster tail carcass for Milo to check out. "Cockroach?" he asks. Hee hee, I can't even help myself, I'm laughing out loud. "Cockroach! Wall-e da bug da cockroach!" he yells, grinning from ear to ear (translation: Wall-e's pet bug the cockroach, he's into that Pixar flick now, and he loves that cockroach)

Where do Nana and Booka live?

Happy 32 Handsome!

He'd never tell you himself, and he always makes sure the wait staff knows not to sing to him, but on his day, I guess it's my right to announce to the world that my man has survived one more year. I do say survived because I think esp. this past year may have been a little tough on him. I know I have been. And Milo's into his two's already though his birthday isn't until June. And yet here he is, with a great job, taking great care of his family, setting us up well for the future asking all those questions about saving for college for Milo and the like. Mike is an internalizer, and this is a little tough on me his verbal-tirade-inflicting wife, so sometimes we have to dig a little bit, but he's also so talented and so smart. He has seen much and sometimes calls himself cynical, and maybe that's true, but he is also good and generous. He loves to give nice gifts; now that we have a little more cushion, he gives so generously without much thought. And as we start to formulate the priorities in our lives, who we want to be as parents and role models for our kid, I love that he gives so quietly and effortlessly. He is also the best dad. He loves to take Milo out on an adventure. Whether it's a walk down the street to the park, across town to the "good" park for swings, slides, and flying a kite, or over to the Imagination Station, Mike loves to have fun with Milo. He also loves that Milo loves things like fries and pizza and Chipotle. He gets almost as excited as Milo over things like the moon in his room and building things out of his leggos. Happy Birthday, Mike. Love ya.

Manos Garden...

I've somehow been included in an exciting new adventure. I think sometimes God has a way of answering prayers before you even know how to ask for it. My friend Jackie and I had been looking into getting into a community garden and not having much luck, as most plots were full with waiting lists, far away, or not easy to work with. I happened upon a free garden class at the library downtown here by us, and all of a sudden made a couple of connections. I realized that one of the guys I had been trying to contact about a garden was an expert at the class, and then we started talking, and I'm putting it altogether and he's telling me about a couple of potentials. I gathered his and a few other's information, and left excited and not so scared (Mike's dad justifiably reminds me of my "black" thumb :)

After emailing this guy again, I arbitrarily picked this garden about a mile from me because it was the closest one. He then connected me with the gal in charge of that garden, and after emailing her, she sent back a reply saying they were having a meeting regarding that garden the next day. I scrambled to get my babysitter lined up, everything worked out, so I hesitantly attended this meeting the next afternoon.

I rapidly realized that I was in over my head in terms of experience, and then realized that this was not exactly what I initially thought. I say at a conference table in a house belonging to the botanical gardens surrounded by 4 master gardeners, the seeming main guy, Michael, with the non-profit associated with the botanical garden for a group called Toledo Grows, the gal in charge of this garden, Alison, and it sounded like several other projects, and a couple of other community members who seemed well-versed in gardens, plants, and ...birds? I was a little confused.

Then it starts to come into focus that this garden isn't really established yet, but not only is it going to be a community garden, it's going to be a project that handicapped adults in Toledo will come and work, in addition this woman, Helen who works with these adults, is also in partnership with a birding society at Cornell and they have interest in making this an urban site to watch local fowl. Helen is also in partnership with a corporation that supports this program with the adults and several more so there's various funding options available. Three of the 4 master gardeners are newly graduated from their master gardener's class and excited about taking an active mentoring role in this locations, it's in an interesting location in Toledo highly connected with the arts community, so there's already been a mural painted onsite and this whole group wants to continue this commitment through other art structures or works and in the actual layout of the garden. They have already started in motion the necessary steps to get it on the weekly art walks in the summer. There's another gentleman, Brian, at this table who is a contractor who also works with at-risk kids, kids who have been in juvenile detention and the like, who is on board to build a terraced garden complete with rain collection barrels, all sorts of raised beds, and a rain garden, whatever that is. And then there's Susan, the master gardener who taught the class I took at the library who is also connected in various ways to the local community college and thus has student volunteers available and some funding as well.

All of this stuff that is way over my head is flying back and forth across the table, and I'm watching all this like a tennis match, and then they turn to me. Why am I here? Uh, well, I'd like to try not to kill some tomatoes, maybe some peppers or peas...? Alison graciously steps in and explains that I live in the area and represent the families in the area. Wait a second, represent? I've somehow become a participant in this project that has the power, knowhow, and ability to create this space that will literally change the face of this part of the city. What?

I called my mom, all excited and overwhelmed, and she says that I have to blog about this! And I'm like, yeah, okay, write about how I'm this random, under-qualified, most-likely-to-kill-anything-that-grows stay-at-home mom who's going to try and blend into this group until they realize I'm ruining my corner of their art. But then again... So here's where we're starting, an empty lot with a beautiful mural on one end. And I've even started some tomatoes, peppers and peas from seed. Maybe I can do this. I'll let you know.

Yummy yogurt

Just cute...

Some recent cute pics, nothing in particular...