Are We Insane?

Before I show you the following pictures, a brief disclaimer: The answer to the question, "Are We Insane?" is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, "It's entirely possible. Probable, even."

Behold the very messy birthday party of a certain ten-year-old boy! The theme was "All Out War."

Activities:
1. Assembling and decorating water-zookas.

2. Using water-zookas to shoot down a fleet of paper airplanes.

3. Team water-balloon transporting -- no hands allowed! Successful teams get to throw cream pies in The Professor's face!

4. Water-balloon toss

5. Thirty seconds to eat as many M&M's out of a plate of whipped cream as you can with your hands behind your back

6. All-out war, using water-zookas, shaving cream, silly string, and water balloons. Let the record show that yours truly joined in the fun.

7. Dirt cake. Utensils optional.

How did we possibly make this ten-year-old dream come true without losing our ever-lovin' minds? Come closer and I will whisper to you our secrets.

1. This was a drop-off party. Our property does not have enough space for fourteen kids going bananas and fourteen sets of parents trying to make small talk and stay dry and cool. Only two parents stayed, and they helped out.

2. The Professor was in charge of planning and executing the activities. He did so in concert with two single guys from our home meeting, David and Jesse. Another friend, Steve, grilled all the hotdogs. We are currently writing David, Jesse and Steve into our will. Up to half our kingdom, guys.

3. I made really simple, eat-with-your hands kind of food.

And when the party was over, two of Ian's buddies spent the night and they hardly slept at all because they all felt the need to wake up at four a.m. to continue playing his new Wii Games but that is just something you do when you're a kid and so we didn't hassle them about it and we weren't even too late to our church meeting the next day even though the kids were like zombies and so all's well that ends well, The End.

The Smoothie Debacle

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, I made a fruit smoothie for the Professor and myself, since I nearly always have one for breakfast. Creatures of habit, we are.

I assembled my ingredients: Frozen berries. Banana. Fruit juice. Coconut oil. Yogurt -- one of the kid's leftovers, apparently, from a Tupperware-wannabe in the fridge.

Blend at high decibel level in geriatric Vita-Mix that probably blended when the Berlin Wall still stood. Serve to self and husband.

Take long, refreshing sip -- and wrinkle nose in disgust.

Guess what? That "yogurt" I was so thriftily using up? Not yogurt. Homemade garlic cream sauce. Never meant to be used in a fruit smoothie. Not even close.

It reminded me of a salient incident from my youth. Once upon a time, much longer ago, we five kids crowded around the breakfast table eating golden brown flapjacks the way only my mom can make them. I grabbed a dish of margarine (remember that stuff?) from the fridge -- at least what looked like margarine. I slathered it over my stack, drizzled on the syrup took a hearty bite -- and spewed it out onto my plate. The "margarine" I had grabbed? Not margarine. Garlic butter from the night before that someone had unwisely thought to store .... in a margarine container. Garlic butter and maple syrup? Some things were just never meant to be.

At this point my father intervened with one of this signature phrases: "Enough of this nonsense!" which meant that I was being a prima donna who didn't appreciate my blessings and consider the starving children in Africa. Just to show me how frivolous I was being, he slathered the stuff on his *own* pancakes and took his *own* hearty bite.

Realization dawned quickly.

"Oh. That IS disgusting."

I got a new stack of pancakes.

When I related the smoothie story to my father-in-law over lunch at The Good Luck Grill, he challenged me to find a deep inner meaning before writing about it. So here we go.

Plenty of things in life look tasty and tempting to me. If I just had _____, I may think. Then what? Well, then I suppose I'd be refreshed. Satisfied. Happy. Secure. Sometimes these things are as tangible as a fruit smoothie. Sometimes they're more abstract, like financial independence or impeccable taste/talent or soaring popularity or tons of blog comments that made it really fun to keep writing or children who always cooperated.

But I do wonder how many of those things, if I had them to drink from, might taste a bit different -- a bit less sweet -- than expected.

So far, I've run across only one taste that never fails to satisfy.


(Above photo by D. Sharon Pruitt)

The Cousins

There's just something about cousins. The relationship is different from that of siblings -- still close, but less, uh, complex. You don't get to choose them, and you may have little in common except a pair of ancestors, but sometimes, by virtue of age and proximity (or lack thereof), you end up as friends anyway. Friends for life. (Hi Katey!)

That's the way it is with my kids and their cousins. They live forty minutes apart. They're being raised in different nuclear families, one urban, one rural, with very different lifestyles. There's only one boy in the mix. But get them all together in one place, and it's like synergy on steroids. Three plus two equals one hundred and eight. There are no such things as indoor voices. Everything they do together is the Most! Exciting! Thing! Ever!

Take our recent trip to Colorado, for example.

Riding a miniature motorized train in loops around a plaza while wearing funny hats and blowing horns?

The Most! Exciting! Thing! Ever!

Hiking through the woods and pretending we're conducting covert ops miles from civilization?

The Most! Exciting! Thing! Ever! 

Riding a gondola halfway up a mountain over a nature preserve and spotting a beaver dam?

The Most! Exciting! Thing! Ever!

Entering the double digits together, only one day apart?

The Most! Exciting! Thing! Ever!

Creating an extremely loud performance combining every commercial jingle they're ever committed to memory?
 (I'll spare you the video)

The Most! Exciting! Thing! Ever!

Now, there are times when our eardrums are ringing and our lives flashing before our eyes as the mania unfolds before us. But at moments like these, we adults try to remind ourselves that these kids are hurtling, faster than we'd like, toward the years when stirring up a ruckus together on a tractor-drawn train might not be so cool. When they (minus the boy) might not spend hours dressing up their dolls and enacting convoluted dramas. For the precious present, they're still a gang, in the nicest sense of the word. And we treasure that.

Even though there are moments when we imagine them sitting a quiet circle, reading books and sipping lemonade as we carry on adult conversation in the same room and actually process complete thoughts in our brains, and think that surely that would be ...

The Most! Exciting! Thing! Ever! 

What Would Possess My Husband ...

... to risk life, limb, dignity and spinal alignment in a mechanical bull riding contest?

Um ... maybe to impress his boss? We were, after all, at the boss's ranch for a party of assembled mechanical engineers (I know; hang on to your hat!). 

I'll tell you a secret: I would like to own a ranch some day. Or at least, some beautiful property out in the country where my kids (who will remain frozen in time until I can afford said property) can climb trees and ramble through creeks and roam over hill and dale, completely disconnected from the electronic world. 

To be intimately familiar with settings like this: 

In the meantime, I am hard-pressed to think of a situation in which I would enter a mechanical bull-riding contest. Maybe ...

1. If another human being's life were on the line and I could only save it by participating in said contest

or

2. If I were wearing my jeans and Frye boots -- and the ground suddenly opened up and swallowed all the spectators. 

What about you? Do you ever long for the wide open spaces to call home? And what, if anything, would induce you to ride that bull? 

P.S. Check out our souvenirs! 

Visiting Our National Parks with the Young 'Uns

There's nothing like a visit to one of our national parks to shock and awe you -- in the best way possible. 

(Note: Garden of the Gods, pictured above, is not technically a national park but was given to the city of Colorado Springs 100 years ago by a generous citizen. It feels like a national park, though, so I'm counting it.)

Capulin Volcano National Monument

Great Sand Dunes National Park, where we followed the rangers' advice and got up onto the dunes early in the morning. We had to borrow some sleds from a generous family of hikers, because really, where can you buy sleds in Austin?

The Professor took the older two all the way to the top of the dunes (a 650 ft. elevation gain), stopping along the way to sled and slide. Caroline and I made it about halfway before choosing a nice location to roll around and make mermaid sculptures. To each her own.

I'll be quite honest with you. Two weeks ago we took Ian to Six Flags Fiesta Texas to spend our free tickets. The Professor and I made the conscious decision to put on our good attitudes and have fun, despite the searing temperatures, crowds, and long lines, because we love our boy. But as I sat there in our nation's largest sandbox, surrounded by views like this ...

and this ...

... I couldn't help but think, "This is ten times funner!" 

Yes, you heard me. I said "funner."

Here's what you all absolutely need to know about visiting national parks with kids: They have these fantastic Junior Ranger programs at each park, where the kids get books, choose activities in the park to complete (from trash cleanup to nature bingo to a little history research), and are then sworn in as Junior Rangers, complete with badges, certificates, and at Garden of the Gods, even an announcement over the loudspeaker followed by applause at the Visitor Center. 

As if that weren't enough, you can buy these nifty little passports for adults and kids for keeping track of all your national parks visits. The kids were motivated enough by the Junior Ranger badges and the prospect of stamps in their passports that we had to pull over at Capulin Volcano as we made our way home through New Mexico. 

Very cool. National Park geniuses, I salute you. 

Oh, and one more thing. Take advantage of the interpretive ranger programs! We sort of dragged our tired brood to the evening program on the pinon pine tree (not exactly a topic that would make them salivate). The ranger, a grandfatherly type, talked to us for forty minutes or so and then let the kids crack upon pinon nuts with rocks. It was the best thing since the sliced Wonder Bread their mother won't buy for them. 

"I never knew trees could be so interesting!" Ian gushed as we piled back in the car. 

The Professor and I barely restrained ourselves from celebratory high-fives. 

How to Make a Manifold Sandwich

"O Lord, how manifold are Thy works!" Psalm 104:24

The psalmist was right on, of course, but I'm talking about an entirely different kind of manifold here. The kind of manifold that's found under a vehicle's hood, although I, coming from non-mechanical stock, probably couldn't find it to save my life (that's what my husband is for!). The kind of manifold that can grill your sandwich, baby.

Note: This information is especially useful when you're driving through West Texas and your dining options are limited to either PB&J's or the fare offered by some very shady-looking diners. O Chipotle, why dost thou make thyself scarce???

Step 1: Assemble ingredients: Bread (gluten-free for me) and fillings. We usually do some kind of cheese, but on this trip I had found these squeeze packets of Justin's All-Natural Chocolate Nut Butter on sale, so we used those a time or two. Hey, Justin? Whoever and wherever you are? I love you.

Step 2: Slather outsides of sandwich with butter.

The butter is the key to everything.

As in life, so also in manifold sandwiches. 


Step 3: Wrap each sandwich in tinfoil, with an optional underlayer of waxed or parchment paper.

Step 4: Give roll of tinfoil to four year old for hours of origami-making pleasure. (Yes, that includes shoes.)

Step 5: Place sandwiches on either the intake manifold or the exhaust manifold, whichever you can actually reach.

Step 6: Close hood and drive to next rest stop (or about 20 minutes).

Step 7: Remove sandwiches from manifold.

Step 8: Enjoy your grilled sandwich!

Wish You Were There

It wouldn't be overstating the case at all to say that we had a wonderful time in Colorado. I'm not even sure why we came home. Someone, please explain it to me in sentences of five monosyllabic words or fewer.

 (Getting ready to raft on Clear Creek with Colorado Rafting)

 (This is what happens when I go souvenir shopping with my in-laws (not pictured)).

If all goes well, and my kids don't monopolize my computer by playing Toontown with their neighborhood friends (BIG SELF-PITYING SIGH), my plan is to blog like a madwoman about our adventures. And when I say "madwoman," consider the above photo and know that I speak from the heart. 

Stay tuned!