(no subject)

I haven't been at the computer much over the last few days.

Wednesday and Thursday my sister was over for many many hours. We took walks with all the kids (WE HAVE SEVEN KIDS! My SISTER AND I have SEVEN kids), cooked/ate, looked at silly crap on the internet, laughed, talked excessively and eventually sat everyone under 12 down with a movie while continuing to cook, eat, look at silly crap on the internet, laugh and talk excessively.

Great things happen when we get together - dark chocolate with candied orange peel, for instance.

FRIDAY I get up, I open the freezer, I say rhetorically to nobody "Where is my coconut mango ice cream?" and Elise goes "Mom!! C'mere!!" I followed her to my bedroom, where she reached down under the seat of her miniature fluffly upholstered pink chair and grabs it. Closed, SEALED, and room temperature. "Me hide!!" she told me joyously.

I was not joyous.

Friday we ran into my friend Melissa in the grocery store while passing out fliers for our book fair under the guise of shopping. Also, the free cookie lady at the bakery asked me, "Do you have a sister who looks, like, exactly like you but has half as many kids?" "Uh", I answered, "I do have a sister, though neither of us think we look anything alike, but she DOES have two kids -" "Yeah, and she carries the baby girl in the front thing that ties around the back?" "FINE, yes, that's us. GOSH!"

That evening, my friend Kristin brought her kids Darian and Naja over to hang out while she went and did henna at some Indian gathering. I mystery shopped us all free pizza for dinner. It is not fun trying to keep seven children and two teenagers at bay while you photograph some pizzas that just got delivered a bunch of different ways and fill out forms, but whatevs.

Two teenagers because Robby called and asked, "Hey can I spend the night?" "Sure", I answered, "but Kristin and Darian and Naja are so you may end up somewhere bizarre or possibly even substandard".

K, D and N were spending the night to help facilitate Kristin getting up to help with a hot air balloon launch in the early AM. These are the kinds of ways she supports herself - henna and hot air balloons. Belly casts. Belly dancing classes (back in the day). She's also a La Leche League leader and an organizer of large community events.

DID I MENTION SHE BOUGHT A PLANE TICKET AND IS COMING TO NYC TO STAY IN OUR APARTMENT FOR 3 DAYS WHILE WE'RE THERE? SO EXCITED!!!

Grant: I don't know if it's a good idea for Kristin to come.
Me: What? Why?
Him: She could be a bad influence.
Me: What the hell do you think I'm gonna do?
Him: Spend money.
Me: ...oh. That. Yeah, that could happen.
Him. Uh-huh.
Me: Well, Kristin is like, thrift store queen. We'd be going to thrift stores.
Him: *mimicking* IMAGINE how much money I could SAVE in a THRIFT STORE!!!
Me: ROTFLMAO

*flash forward to Kristin raving like a madwoman on my round spinny chair, with two fistfuls of cash, about how she's taking an empty suitcase with her because of the fabric stores she's heard about in the garment district*

I can deal with it. She gave me a couple of twenties off the stack for babysitting, as well as bringing home a large quantity of authentic homemade indian food from her gathering.

When she got back with all that, I was baking 8 pans of brownies for the book fair. We stood around in the kitchen with Robby - skinny, towering over us in his 15 year old flamboyant glory - laughing and stuffing our faces for an hour or two. This ended with me putting a note on my oven door, where it was all stored:

"If you turn this on, or open it AT ALL, I will kill you in the night while you sleep. Serious business. Love, Tina/Mom :)"



The book fair went pretty well. Gloria came and hung out with me all day, and I hadn't really talked with Dennise (store owner) for a long time (it used to be a very regular thing). I did not make very much money - like $40 for us? - BUT. I made a connection and now have an appt on Monday afternoon with some people who run a local Migrant Children's Association, to see about them buying books for the kids through funding from The Children's Trust, so that could be big stuff. Dennise is also letting me "Tag along" and set up an Usborne table at a Monstessori School fair she's been invited to in December. And, $40 to hang out with Ananda, Gloria, Dennise and Robby all afternoon could really be worse. Grant brought the other kids for a little while, Laura made an appearance with her kids, and eventually "the bookstore kids" were there for Annie to socialize with. Robby, Ananda and Aaron walked down to an art gallery as we were closing up and the guy there was apparently super eager to give them a tour and let them paper mache and all kinds of hoohaw. Gloria and I took the three of them over to the sub shop afterwards, where they made us want to die with a neverending stream of Annoying Orange reenactments.

I am having a hard time since I got home. My husband works ALL. THE. TIME. during the week now. We talk almost only by phone, email and facebook chat through the week (hi, libido of doom - it's just you and me!). If I DON'T stay up until 4 am, I won't see him that day :/ There are 2-3 day stretches when he literally never glimpses the children awake. I appreciate his hard and neverending work immensely and tell him so frequently. Also the times when during his brief stop in he changes two light bulbs and the AC filter and cleans a bathroom. So the weekend comes and I'm like a love-starved, attention craving junkie...and he is like somebody who really, REALLY wants to veg out and play Street Fighter all day and into the night. I try to give him a lot of space and time and be understanding. I feel irritating when I'm rubbing on him lovingly, though he assures me I'm not, and smothering when I try to pry him away from that fucking ga the game.

I have major negative associations with guys sitting around playing video games. Childhood stepdad issues. Not interested. *sigh*


Other than all that:
-cleaning frenzies
-prayer
-fanfiction
-dressing dolls with Elise, and worrying about how much I'll miss her and how my breasts will explode while I'm gone and how I want her to understand I'm coming back once 4-5 days have passed, with nothing but phone calls and emailed pictures
-Isaac's building wooden block pirate ships and lego submarines and performing shows with them - being happy that him and Jake are SO THRILLED that I'm leaving and they get to play with Daddy and all sleep together in one room for a WHOLE WEEK...I am so HOOKED. UP.blessed to have a man that's easy to trust implicitly not just to keep them alive but to really treat them well and do it right when I'm away
-reading Ananda Schooled and worrying about how she is acting very clingy and sad-in-advance about me leaving for a week - I'm devising a plan to help her, including mailing her letters right before I leave so she gets them while I'm gone, and giving Grant a week's worth of notes from me to stick in her love letter pillow each night
-trying TO NO FREAKING AVAIL to pull our sleep/wake schedules earlier and earlier because with JUMP and girl scout camp and VBS, it's about to get really hard all of a sudden if nobody can wake up in the MORNING
-my cat caught a mouse in my house, which means there WAS A MOUSE IN MY HOUSE. Then it got away, which meant there was STILL A MOUSE IN MY HOUSE. Today Grant went to put on his unusually stinky shoe and found it wouldn't slip right on like usual because...it had a dead mouse in it. Because Chrysanthemum really does love him best of all o_O