Behold my car

I'm too tired to put up all our Vermont pictures, but I know you're all dying to see the car :P. Here it is, in its deer dented glory.




Robert asked the mechanic how the hood would look if we just tried to bang it out into something resembling "shape". The mechanic look incredulous. "It'll look like fucking hell", he said. I think he was right. More tomorrow!

Update, but no pictures

Hello from Vermont!

We traded part of my parent's time share for a week up here in Stowe. It's beautiful and we are all loving being in the mountains. But, we forgot the USB cable for our camera, so no pictures until we get home, I'm afraid.

If I could, I'd show you our car! What's so exciting about our car? Well, we ran into a deer on our way up here. It just leaped in front of us as we were going 75mph on the freeway. Upside: we are all OK. Downsides: 1. car is not OK 2. deer was not OK 3. we did not get to turn the un-OK deer into delicious meat for our family and friends. We were pretty disappointed that we'd killed a deer and couldn't eat it. Anyway, the hood of our car is a crumpled mess, the radiator is damaged, the front grill just gone. The A/C may need to be replaced too, and a couple belts nearly tore. An employee at the lodge referred us to a mechanic and we are really pleased with him (in fact, Robert and Zion are dropping the car off there now...we couldn't get a rental car any earlier). As fate would have it, he's from Brooklyn, but escaped to VT (his words) 40 years ago. He still sounds like a New Yorker. Here are two overheard phone calls on our behalf from this morning:

#1. "Hey, Enterprise. This is Dan from Dan's Auto. Yeah, I got a family here needs a car. Whaddaya got that's cheap, ASAP?"

#2. "Do you have any Subarus over there that are all fucked up?"

(Working backwards in time here) Last night we had dinner at a place that has won some New England BBQ awards. Didn't knock me out, but our waiter was this neat-o hippie type in his late 40s who chatted us up about Papua New Guniea, the South Pacific, his wife, kids, the off grid house he's building (he invited us up), the early 20th century anthropologist Malinowski, and the film he made in PNG that's being released by a Swiss company (or German, I forget. His dad is Swiss German). We also discussed our poor battered car, parked outside. He stared at it thoughtfully as we told the story of the deer and said, "Yeah. Subarus are good" before walking away to help someone else.

Before the deer incident we stopped off at the Farmer's Diner. That place is ethical AND delicious! Seriously good burgers. They're located in this fake little VT crafts village (there's a glass blower, a cheese shop, a not too tasty VT winery, a toy museum...you get the idea), and there's a little train that runs around the perimeter. Naturally the kids wanted to ride the train, and we let them ($4 a pop, ouch!). Zion also enjoyed walking on the train tracks. "Look mommy!", he said, "I am walking on the train tracks! I am a rat!"

That's my New York boy.

Summer in the City

OK, I'm sure you're tired of hearing about my family's bathing suit saga by now, but I can't resist filling you in on the final installment (I hope it is, at least!). The size small was too small for Robert in the legs. He bikes a lot you see, and his legs are all muscle-y. So what fits him in the waist doesn't fit him in the legs. He tried every brand of bathing suit at Target with the same results. Then Robert had the brilliant idea of going to EMS to look and yes! It worked! It turns out, rather unsurprisingly, that sport/outdoors stores sell clothes that fit sporty outdoors types of bodies. Crisis averted.

In other news it is crazy fucking hot here. At 1045am this morning it was 98 degrees in the shade on my deck. Too hot.

Yesterday was nearly as hot and we went to the zoo. Zion's school was closed and a bunch of other parents were meeting up with the kidlets, so we joined in. The trip had been planned for a couple weeks and my kids were really looking forward to it or I probably would have bailed. Who want to tramp around the Bronx Zoo with half the kids in New York on a balmy, 97 degree June day? Oy.

But it was fun, despite the heat. We rode the Bengali Express for the first time and discovered that THAT is where the elephants live. Who knew? Hey, we've only been going there regularly for 2 years :P. In our defense it's the furthest point from the parking lot we use, and there's nothing over there the kids have much interest in, so we'd just never hiked out that way before.

Here we are on the Bengali Express. You can't really see it, but I'm wearing a lovely knit tank top I just finished. When Kerri saw me she gasped, "A sweater??" Not exactly the reaction I was hoping for ;) But it is cotton and it was actually quite cool since the knitting was a bit more open than other tops I own so the breeze could get through. What breeze there was....



The kids on the Bug Carousel.





Feeding the animals.

And sizing

We went back to Target today. Liel got an 18month size suit (she's 2 1/2, but skinny) and Robert got....wait for it.....a size SMALL. Yep. My 6'1", 200 lb husband is apparently "small". Wonders never cease (nor, apparently, does vanity sizing).

I saw a bit of this with the girlie suits, too. Tops that hooked in the back were o-u-t. Why? Cause the back strap literally hung off my back in a size medium. A small was too small in the boob, and still too big around the band. I am not tiny (I wear a 34" bra band if you're curious), just average. How do tiny people find clothes these days?? I complained to my mom this morning and she said, "Yeah...I've noticed your dad isn't a size XL anymore, but I just thought he was shrinking". Nope. The clothes are growing!

Bathing Suits

Yesterday I did something I hadn't done in more than 5 years. I bought a bathing suit. Truth be told, I haven't worn a bathing suit in more than 5 years, either- before I got pregnant with Zion. I haven't been living in fear of The Bathing Suit, but between having a newborn, and then living in Ohio and New York beach and pool opportunities have been kinda thin on the ground, you know? But in a week we will be at a lodge in Vermont, and the lodge has two pools. And in August we will be in the Wisconsin lakes with kayaks and boats and, well, water. In the lake. So, it was clear I needed a bathing suit. (I did try my old one on. The top was too small and the elastic was shot. How the top can be too small is a mystery to me, but more on that later.)

But not just me! The kids don't have suits that fit them, either. And Robert? He's been wearing the same pair of black trunks since high school. And he's used them for painting a house. And the elastic in the waist is gone. Oh, and they are a size XL and he only has a 32" waist. So we were a family in need of water gear.

Since I was clearly going to try things- a lot of things- on, the task of shopping for everyone fell to me. So yesterday morning I went out. I'll sum up my two hours in the store by saying that I spent a fair amount of time in the mens, boys, and girls departments staring at bathing suit displays. In the end I brought home black and white trunks for Robert (too big, have to go back, and I got a size L, too!), a blue and white bikini for Liel (too big, has to go back. I thought about getting her a one piece but realized what a hassle this would make using the potty and changed my mind. Plus her cute belly can poke out this way!), and blue and white trunks with sharks for Zion (the fit, thank goodness. And he likes them, and is pleased that the sharks look happy). I ended up with black boy shorts that can be scrunched on the sides to look more like a regular bikini bottom. I've always felt that boy shorts just drew attention to the widest point on my body, so I was surprised that I liked these. But (and here's how you know I'm getting old)- they have coverage. Even in bikini form. So they won the prize for bottoms.

Tops were trickier. My boobs are more or less the same size they were before I had kids, but not the same shape (more's the pity). Stuff fits, but doesn't look as good. Ha. As if I'm smokin' the bikini! Anyway. I brought home two tops- one bikini top (trust me, my body looks weird in a one piece), and one tankini top. I still don't know which I prefer. Or which I don't prefer. Meh.

I read an article recently about how women size themselves up relative to other women and seek a mate who is more or less at their level. Men do not do this. They apparently lack whatever it is that allows them to gauge themselves relative to other men, and they seek the hottest girlie they can find, even if she wouldn't look twice at them.

It applies to bathing suits. Really.

Potty chair mind games

About a year ago Liel started wanting to use the potty. She was 19 months old, and were living in a sublet house in Pittsburgh while Robert did research. I mention this only because the only bathroom in the house was upstairs so I was constantly snatching up my toddler and racing up the stairs, since she announced that she needed to potty about 8 times more often than she actually did.

Anyway, she was potty trained long before her second birthday, much to our surprise (yes, I know other kids do this, we just hadn't ever thought ours would. Robert's mom reports that she sent R to preschool with "spare clothes" because he wasn't potty trained but they wouldn't let him go to school if he wasn't so...). But. She only likes to go potty when she thinks it's the right time. And in her 2 year old wisdom she rarely thinks that time is before a nap, before we leave the house for 4 hours, or before bed. And oh how she fights it! We just ask her to sit down and try- if she really doesn't have to go she can up and go on with her day. Our persistence is starting to pay off, as she now makes only a weak and rather ritual protest when we ask her to try to pee.

So tonight after she brushed her teeth I told her it as time to pee. "I don't need to potty" she whined. She pointed at the small potty chair (as opposed to the seat that goes on the regular toilet). "I want little". I set her on it and went to find Fluffy. When I returned she again informed me that she didn't need to potty. "OK", I said. There was a pause. "I pooping", she said. I quickly whisked her off the little potty (that thing is a total pain to clean) and set her on the big toilet, happily noting that the little potty was empty. Liel squawked with indignation. "I don't need to potty!"

"I'll sit here with you", I assured her, sitting down on the stool the kids use to reach the sink.

Liel was unimpressed. "No," she assured me, rather crossly, "I don't need to potty!" She frowned and jutted her chin out, concentrating. "I don't need...to....potty", she grunted, doing just that.

"Oh", I said, trying not to laugh too hard. "Are you done?"

"Huh."

And that is why we ask her to sit on the potty before bed each night.

My kids are built to last

Way back when Zion was a wee tyke, when we lived in Brooklyn, he learned to open the fridge door. It was summer, it was boiling hot, and he figured out that there was cool air in the fridge. I'd find him parked there rather frequently on hot afternoons. Despite the annoyance of having to constantly ask him to keep the fridge closed Robert and I were pleased with this new skill, as it indicated his ability to get food and feed himself if, G-d forbid, anything happened to us while we were in the apartment. As Robert said, "Now our kid would be a survivor!"

So here we are, nearly 3 years later. Liel has not mastered the art of opening the fridge, but she does have a brother who can, so we're still feeling good about that. And, much to my delight, as I came into the kitchen to make tea this morning, I discovered the kids playing at their play kitchen. And what were they playing? Canning. They had raided my canning jars (really just used for jam) and were filling them with their wooden play fruit, "so we'll have food for the winter", as Zion assured me.

I was so proud. Rock on with your self-sufficient, DIY attitudes!