So my sister Maria is here for 5 weeks <woot!> and somehow the weekend before Thanksgiving when we were in NYC to see A Steady Rain, we decided that if you do something for 21 days in a row it becomes a habit….

And… that we should join a gym and swim laps for 21 days in a row when she comes down to visit because we could motivate each other.

Why? Ya… I don’t know… it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Now granted, so far it has worked. We are 4 days into our 21 and we even got up at 6:15 this morning in the frosty weather and swam. But now I have a question….

I am going to feel less tired and better and stronger and slimmer and… and … and buff-er soon… Right?

Right?

Because right now, all I wanna do (yes I have Cheryl Crow stuck in my head too) is crawl under my desk and snuggle the dust bunnies.

I haven’t slept well since we started and I am sore and tired and my throat tastes like chlorine and I hate getting up in the morning and I am sore and I am thinking that the massages and facials ($20 1 hr special running at our local Massage Envy right now with membership or $49 trial 1 hr massage) we are planning for this Weekend as rewards might not be worth it.

Okay so really I am just sniveling. I am totally going to accomplish this, but I also realized this morning that I love my sister. Not just because she is my sister, and she is awesome and smart and fun and gets me, but because we complain the same way.

Oh we are going to crush this mutha. Don’t get me wrong… but we are going to happily snivel about it and enjoy each other’s grumpy company each and every frost covered a** crack of dawn for the next 17 days and then ever M-W-F until she leaves for India after that.

And that is wonderful.

That and the fact that she only laughed at me a little when it took me a while to figure out why - at the YMCA - there were no Hanukkah or non-denominational decorations up to celebrate the season…  <duh!>

Max: Mommy?
Me: mmm hummm
Max: Tonight, after I fall asleep will you move me into to your bed? Because if I feel that I am alone in my sleep, then I will dream of…umm… like… penguins that are mummies.
Me: Humm (I made a non comitial noise hoping he’d drop it) Settle down, close your eyes, snuggle up and go shluffies baby.
[after a minute]
Max: Mommy?
Me: mmm hummm
Max: I’m feeling concerned that this bed has monsters around it.
Me: You are feeling concerned? (where does he get this stuff!
Max: mmm hummm
Me: Well, this is MY house and no monsters can come in.
Max: Why not?
Me: ‘Cause I’m The Mommy
[Max is quiet for a minute while he thinks about this. Clearly "The Mommy" does have some mythical powers but he still had a question...]
Max: So if a monster came you would spray it with something and it would go away?
Me: Baby, I don’t really think there are monsters for real, but if one did come, yes I would spray it and it would run away. Now settle down, close your eyes, snuggle up and go ni-night.
[silence for a moment]
Max: What would you spray it with?
[sigh]
Me: Sparkle juice. (Sparkle juice? Really? What makes these things come out of my mouth?)
Max: Is sparkle juice like juice but with sparkles?
Me: Well it’s not like juice we would drink, but more like fairy juice with sparkles. It’s all pretty and happy so monsters don’t like it. So settle down, close your eyes, snuggle up and go sleepies.
Max: Mommy?
Me: What Max?
Max: I’m sweaty.
[I pull his duvet off]
Max: Thanks mommy that’s better! (Why does he sound so delightedly surprised?)
Me: You’re welcome baby, now settle down, close your eyes, snuggle up and go to sleep.
[another few moments of silence]
Max: Mommy?
Me: What Max? (still using a nice tone of voice but teeth clenched and about to lose the nice tone)
Max: I love you
[all annoyed wind taken out of my sails]
Me: I love you too baby, now settle down, close your eyes, snuggle up and go to sleep.

And shocker of all shockers?

That’s exactly what he did.

you know you’re a mom when it comes down to this: “Okay guys, I don’t care who did it. I just need to know if it is spit or pee.”

Ta-Dah!

My brother Jonah is a free spirit. He works on an island in the summers, taking out deep sea fishing charters, landscaping, house painting, and delivering pizzas. But then he spends the rest of the year traveling the world and surfing.

I know, sounds tempting doesn’t it?!

It definitely makes me crave dropping it all on occasion and homeschooling the boys on a beach near Cabo while running a backpacking hostel with thatched roofs…. Or …something like that. Not that I’ve given any thought to it or anything

His footloose and fancy free lifestyle does present a problem to me however when birthdays and Christmas/Hanukkah come around. Not - what to get the guy who has everything - but, what to get the guy who can basically pack up everything he owns into a backpack once a year. <gah!>

So his stocking has boxers, socks, deodorant, treats, toothbrush etc (yes, I play Mom in our family if you are wondering why I am in charge of my brother’s stocking) and his gifts generally run towards Borders or Barnes and Nobel gift cards, fleece, I would consider a good Leatherman or something except you can’t fly with them anymore, surf wax and other practical packables.

One year I made him a zipper pull for his backpack with a photo of my boys on one side and “Not all who wander are lost” on the other. Rather creative if I say so myself, but sadly not a good reusable gift idea.

He is also a huge Bukowski fan. (Did I mention he is an amazing writer? I am always amazed at how he can paint such an achingly bleak, harsh canvas with such simple words.) But this makes it difficult to pick books for him. I have already exhausted this quite helpful “so you like Bukowski, now what do I read” list on Amazon (okay so the list is really called “Bitter F**ks” but hey, this blog is supposed to be family friendly) and I am thinking the Twilight series might not be quite his speed….

So any suggestions?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Anyhoo, a couple of years ago when Quinn was a toddler, it occurred to me that the baby gates in our house kind of looked like jail bars. One day I took a picture of him while he was crying (mad because I took away the safety pin he had found under the refrigerator, not because he was in pain or sad) and holding on to the “bars”.

Later that night I downloaded the pictures and inspiration struck. “This would make a great t-shirt.” I thought. “Jonah could pack that it his backpack…. Hummm… he’s got to keep his street cred… I can’t make him a - World’s Best Uncle - t-shirt that’ll never make the cut…”

And from there the evil plan was formed…

So here is that first year’s Birthday t-shirt

I went with a Che inspired theme. It was a huge hit with the ladies apparently. Who knew!!

The next year Jonah sent us this photo

and I went with a Hawaiian Pin-up theme.

I think I either forgot or missed a year because in this one the boys are 3 and 5.

“Young Guns” just seemed appropriate at the time.

This year, Quinn decided to shave his head and I just couldn’t get the idea of a Buddha shirt out of my head.

so after bath one evening, two white pillow cases, an awesome Sanskrit like font and a

“Siddhartha Gautama” google search later, I had my inspiration for…

“Siddhartha Quinntama”. Now Captain Smarty Pants’ brother also has a birthday in this time frame, and it seemed like Max needed some representation this year, so for TA’s birthday I tried to come up with something for him. The first thing that came to mind was Maximus. So a quick gladiator google search came up with this

and an annoyed Max putting up with my photo shoot ideas came up with this

which resulted in “Maximus”

Happy Birthday Jonah!! I hope it was a good one!

And if anyone has any gifty ideas.. I really could use some ….

We’ve been nominated!!

Pecked by Ducks (yep that’s me) has been nominated by the Nickelodeon’s Parent’s Pick Awards as the best local blog for the Raleigh area. <garsh!> <blush>

Woohoo!

wait, let me say that again…

Woohoo!

I am beyond excited! Please vote for Pecked by Ducks. Voting will be open until July 15th and you can vote once a day.

May 17th was my sister Alia’s 30th birthday. She invited everyone to her farm in Vermont for a huge celebration/work weekend. I flew up to Boston on Thursday after work to join in the fun.

I met my baby sister Maria - she’s 24 now, so maybe I need to stop calling her ‘baby’…

<nah!>

my mom, and my mom’s sister, my aunt Sherri. We got Anna’s , argued over whether or not they could watch the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy, because I hadn’t seen the one before yet (it was on my Tivo at home) and packed for the morning.

In the morning we met one of my best buddies from Boston at the Deluxe Town Dinner (blue corn pancakes basically rock this world) for breakfast and then got on Route 2 for the drive west towards I91N.

Heading back to Brattleboro is always so surreal for me. It is familiar and different and I always think I am going to see someone I know, although it happens less and less these days. I lived in Bratt from the time I was 9 until I left for Boston at 23. That’s a large chunk of life. I learned to drive in this town, and navigating the familiar twists and turns created a feeling in me (good I think) that I can’t quite put my finger on.

Although I’d never been to Alia’s Farm, I’ve known The Bunker Farm since high school. My sister and her partners lease it from the father of one of my good friends from high school. I’ve swum in her pond, camped in her fields and gotten dropped off by my lacrosse coach in her front yard, to run my way back to school.

Driving up to The Bunker Farm as it is now was a strange sort of homecoming and it was quite an unexpected experience.

I live in my little suburban world with my minivan and corporate job. I shop at Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods and Target, take my kids to the pool in my development, and send them to the local public montessori school. Other than being way too far away from my family and friends in New England, in general I really love my life in NC. I am happy to be here, doing what I am doing for now.

But a lot of times I forget, however, that there is a whole other part of me that knows how to live another kind of life.

I know how to milk cows and collect eggs, how to cook with ingredients grown in the earth upon which I am standing. I know how to cook and bake for 30+ hungry workers, that you don’t multiply leavening or salt more than 2 or 3 times no matter how many multiples of the recipe you are making. I know how to weed and mulch and shake cream into butter. I know that carrying two 5 gallon buckets full of water is easier than carrying one and that baby pigs fed gallons of melted ice cream from a broken freezer, will go coocoo bananas for an afternoon. I know how to chop the head off of and pluck a chicken. I know how to direct groups of people working together on a project, and that if it frosts overnight, pouring a little bit of water on each plant that would not otherwise survive the frost before the sun comes up it will save it. I know how to can foods and what a root cellar is for. I know how to darn socks, why layering is warmer and how to do it. I know how to chop wood, stack it so it won’t fall down and bank a fire for the night. I even know how to card and spin wool, how to weave and make braided rugs and have pooped in an outhouse.

I know, you’re shocked right? Actually, I kind of am too. I do love and miss many of the aspects of farm and small town life. It’s just not what I am choosing for myself right now. And also, it is mostly impossible to survive financially farming these days which is a truly sad testament to the state of our world.

But being on my sister’s farm for the weekend I remembered some very interesting things that I had forgotten. I really do miss parts of that kind of life. The feeling at the end of a well spent day. The satisfaction of a meal grown and cooked right there. The feeling of community when you have people whom you have known for 26 years and who know what you looked like on your first day of school come for dinner. That I am super competent and strong and smart and capable. That I love being a mom and that I truly believe I need to change some things about my boy’s upbringing.

Specifically that in general they need to eat more dirt.

Between 30 and 40 people showed up each day to celebrate Alia’s birthday and to work. My brother Jonah, friends, neighbors, family and even some customers who stop now and then to buy milk, eggs and produce showed up, rolled up their sleeves and pitched in.

It was incredible! I was fun and hard work, and a sweet wonderful reminder for me. Am I going to move to a farm anytime soon? No. But it has helped me to remember some important things I had forgotten, helped me reshape my summer plans (I am bringing the boys back this summer) and given me one hellofva great weekend.

Thanks Lee, and Happy Birthday!!

Last Sunday was Mother’s Day. Captain Smarty Pants had an ultimate frisbee tournament on Saturday and Sunday (4 games each day) so I was coming up with things for us to do.

We decided to go to the library, Target, out to lunch and to REI to buy a tent, when Quinn said, “Mommy, I want to shaved my head.”
“You want to shave your head?”
“Yes.”
“Ummm…Ok…why?”
“I want to shaved my head.”
“All the way to skin or you want a buzz cut?”
“All the way to skin.”
“Well…how about we try a buzz cut and you see how you like it and if it not short enough then we can just shave more off.”
“Ok.”

So we went to Snip-its and asked the lady to give him a buzz cut.

This is how the first draft went, but it wasn’t enough.

When we were done with this he hopped down and said, with a big grin on his face, “Now I look like Michael.”

Wait for it…

Yep… Michael is the child in Quinn’s class who is going through chemo.

For a moment I couldn’t breath. Tears stung my eyes.

I am beyond amazed by the sweet, innocent empathy of my delicious child and I am tearing up again just thinking about it. I am not sure if he understands what Michael is going through or even the sweetness of the empathy in his little heart, but I’m so glad that instead of going with my initial impulse of “No…why?” I said “Okay…why?”

Side Note : Thanks Mom for for letting me pierce my nose and dye my hair blue and black and red and cut it A-line and wear combat boots to my high school graduation etc. all without blinking. I really appreciate your example of calm acceptance right now!

So anyway, I guess I have to now conclude that we aren’t doing too bad of a job encouraging our children’s emotional intelligence.

(Note: Names have been changed to protect those who may not want to be mentioned.)

I know, that sounds crazy, and not something one should make a joke about, so let me be more specific. I drove my husband and sons within hundreds of feet of a tornado yesterday.

Seriously.

We missed it literally by 1 to 3 minutes and I could see the swirling clouds over my left shoulder.

Just finding news reports to link to this post is making it hard to breath and I’m shaking.

So it was Cinco de Mayo, and since Rocio is from Mexico, Captain Smartypants and I wanted to do something to mark the celebration for her. I searched online and found that this awesome Mexican restaurant, Dos Taquitos in Raleigh was having a Cinco de Mayo party, so we decided to meet her and the boys there for an early dinner.

We arrived at 5pm and got right in. They had live music, lots of drinks (I only had 1- a pina colada of course) the food was amazing, Rocio loved it and by the time we left, there was a 3 hour wait for seating. Also by the time we left it was pouring down rain. We got on 440 South to Route 1 South out of Raleigh towards Cary when it started raining so hard I had to watch the yellow line to stay in my lane. When the wind started blowing sideways I asked Judd to check his iPhone because I had never seen anything like it before.

He said there is a tornado in Cary headed North towards Raleigh and that it should be at the intersection of Route 1 and Cary Parkway at 6:47 pm and to be careful that the tornado might be obscured by torrential downpours. We were on Route 1 and we looked up to see the sign for Cary Parkway. I looked at the clock… 6:48. Just then, we burst through a wall of rain into deadly calm and I swear to you the air looked green.

Ominous was the first word that came to mind. I have seen weather like that on TV but never in real life. Give me 7 feet of snow and I know exactly what to do, but I had never seen anything like that before. There were dark swirling clouds as far as the eye could see, roiling and boiling right at building height. Everything looked greenish and it felt… well, it felt dangerous. That was when I looked back over my left shoulder and saw the swirling funnel cloud reaching towards the ground not 1000 yards away. I told Judd to watch it.

He (Captain Smartypants) said well what are you going to do if it changes directions? And I said, I am going to stay calm and keep driving away, but if it switches directions I going to drive like Grand Theft Auto until we find an overpass or a good ditch so keep watching it.

Thankfully it kept going North and we kept going South.

Quinn was playing the PSP and Max was watching a video. They never knew a thing.

But seriously?

HOLY CRAP!