Merry Christmas

Wishing a gentle holiday season to all...

paper cut theology

C. got her first paper cut ever, from a book that was her gift in the gift exchange at school. (They do a draw-your-name gift exchange...a little consumeristic, yeah, but at least you are limited to $5 for the gift you buy) To say she was shocked by the paper cut....would be an understatement. After the screaming stopped....

C: Where's my new Dora book?

me: I left it in the car. I'll go get it in a few minutes if you want.

C: That book hurt me. It's a bad book. It's Indira's fault. (she was the girl who gave it)

me: No, it wasn't Indira's fault.

C: Then it was the people who sold the book. It was their fault.

me: Look, you can get a paper cut from *any* paper, not just that book. It wasn't anybody's fault, it was bad luck. Sometimes bad things just happen.

C: It was God's fault.

me: Well, why not say it's the Devil's fault, then?

C: No, it was God's fault. He made the world and he made things this way and he did it. He's mean. He's mean to me. I don't like him.

me: ***laughing WAY too hard to make a constructive comment at this point...***

Still alive here

Just, you know, trying to keep up with the Christmas stuff. I swore i was not going to stress out about it this year, and i have been relatively successful with that -- only a little stressing out now and then. But with the lack of stressing out comes the lack of accomplishment, so i am trying now to catch up. I still have to finish knitting Theo's Xmas stocking, and gee maybe i should buy something to *put* in those stockings. Well, i have some chocolate, that'll do, right?

With regards to the previous post -- i never know if it is worth responding in comments, because i wonder if people look at comments. So yes, let me say this -- it took me a lot of work for 'fetus' not to be a trigger word for me, and due to the issues surrounding it, it is not a word that should be used by medical personnel when talking to their patients. For sure, the same is true with phrases like 'IUFD'...yeah i know that is what my chart says, but keep it on the chart where i don't have to see it, please. I have overall been blessed with compassionate doctors who manage this, most of the time anyway.

Rosepetal -- that is true, i had forgotten about that. I had to say 'mort-ne' plenty of times. Maybe that is why 'stillborn' does seem gentler to me....maybe it's just the contrast.

And yes, Nicolas's name is in fact pulled from ''Le Petit Nicolas" which we discovered and all read when we moved to France. They are hilarious stories! I always picture him like that, except with curly hair -- especially nowadays, as his age would now be the same as the Nicolas in the books...

A question of language

This is a comment that became a post...a reply to Charlotte's Mama who asked what words hurt us, after sharing her own.

I don't at all mind the word 'stillbirth'. I think it is a very correct description of the event, and more than that it is gentle in it's way. 'Still', come on here -- aren't we really saying 'dead'? But it is not called 'deadbirth'. Already, the use of the word 'still' is an attempt to shield us from the horror of the event.

But yes, it is an event we are describing. I had a still birth, rather than a live birth, and my son was stillborn. 'Stillborn' refers to his state, it describes him, it is a way to avoid saying 'dead at birth'. It is an adjective. The word 'stillbirth' is a noun, but it refers to the event, not the child. It is shocking to me, always, when i hear or read 'a stillborn' -- the word stillborn used as a noun, to refer to a baby. What a awful way to refer to a beautiful baby.

The word fetus, now let me have my say about that. I have worked long and hard in my own head to let go of my negative and angry feelings toward this word. It too, is a word that is descriptive -- of a state of human development. Like, say, zygote, embryo, neonate, infant, child, or adolescent. A fetus is a baby before the event of birth, and a neonate is a baby after the event of birth. Why is this a big deal? Why is it a big deal for me?

The problem is that this word, a perfectly good word for use in medical & scientific literature, was hijacked years ago in the States by the pro-choice movement. It was not used to mean 'a baby before birth', it was used to imply (and sometimes even state) 'not a baby until birth' -- that is to say, not a person yet. Big difference. And very painful to many of us who have lost a baby before birth -- how can you say he was not a person? I know so little of him -- everything about him is a mystery. I have lost a whole life of watching someone i love grow and learn. There is such a great love, and there is so little to attach it to, so few memories, so few facts. And now someone dares imply that this is worthless, this great love -- that it is all a chimera, because there was nothing to attach it to in the first place, because there was no person there? No, sorry, i don't think so.

But that is not the fault of the word fetus, that is the fault of the politics that has surrounded it for years. Yes, Nicolas was a fetus when he died, and so what? He was still a person who was here and is gone, who is missed every day, and whose worth is unknown and unmeasurable. But that worth was there, it is not to be discounted. And can not be discounted, by a simple word...a simple word which, quite frankly, merely describes his age. I do not appreciate it when people hijack words, for their own benefit. I will not allow it. I will take them back.

fall pictures

these were from a few weeks ago, before the hard frost hit.

a memorable spill

Chocolate chips....all OVER the kitchen. Someone didn't properly close the bag...i admit that this little adventure kept them occupied for a good long time, and i ended up with a nice clean floor. Something to consider....

Donate to a good cause & get a chance to win yarn

I found out about this on Ravelry:

Pennies for Bella

It's a donation drive for a little girl with Hurler's syndrome who is in need of a bone marrow transplant. They are trying to raise $25,000 toward the transplant. The company Sonny & Shear is donating 8 skeins of beautiful Yarntini yarn (& some other goodies) as a prize for donating to Pennies for Bella...your name is entered in a drawing once for every $5 donated, and if you win they will ship (even internationally) at no cost to you. Drawing is on December 5th.

If you want to donate, you can use the Pennies for Bella paypal donation widget, and just put 'Yarntini prize' in the note section of your donation.

C's bug purse

My friend S. told me about a purse contest, where you design a purse & the company chooses the best design to add to their product line. I told C. about it and she was eager to make one too. She happily drew her picture and talked about the ‘bug purse’ she was designing. She even labeled it 'bug', as you can see in the corner. Just in case there was any ambiguity.


Unfortunately she didn’t understand the whole ‘contest’ concept, and since she drew the picture she has been waiting for ‘that man to make my purse and send it to me in the mail’.

Oh, you know, she is awfully spoiled, but i can’t bear to disappoint her.

sick

Well, C. has had a cough for 4 weeks. I have had it for the past 2 weeks or so. M. had a high fever on Tuesday, which stuck around until Thursday night when it broke. Then i thought he was getting better but all he wants to do is sleep. Literally, like hours a day -- 12 hours at night and 3 naps during the day, and whenever he is not sleeping all he wants to do is lay on my chest and stare at the TV like a zombie. But they can't find anything wrong with him, so they say it is just a virus. This afternoon, i came down with it too....my body aches and all i want to do is sleep. C. also took a 3-hour nap with me this afternoon....though she seems plenty spry now. I am laying on the couch, it hurts to move. So that's the update from here...

read this

I don't talk about politics here, as a rule, but i loved this article about the election:

Tears to Remember by Judith Warner (NY Times website)

It is beautifully written and expresses much of how i feel....

harvest

Pumpkins, picked on Halloween. Didn't manage to make a jack-o-lantern....but they are eating pumpkins anyway.

Dia de los muertos 2008

Well, *this* post falls under the category of 'better late than never'.



So, this was my ofrenda this year, and it looks much the same as last year. Except the almost complete lack of marigolds -- which caused me much consternation. This year i grew an heirloom striped variety from seed, which had huge, bushy, ugly plants that took over the vegetable garden. The flowers were pretty, though, and i said to myself, repeatedly over the summer, 'this is horrid but at least i will have a pretty display for Dia de los Muertos!' Unfortunately a frost came the day before Halloween, and did them all in. Which also was unexpected, because the modern marigolds are more hardy than that (they can weather a light frost...)

I found the whole exercise of putting up the photos quite upsetting this year. More so than usual, i mean -- it bothered me for the whole 2 days that Nicolas' ultrasound photo was in the center there. It finally occured to me why it bothered me so much -- because now i have all the kids' baby pictures in a row on the mantle in the other living room. But to put Nicolas' photo with the dead folks, i had to take it out of the display in the other room...leaving a hole there. The whole episode was too close to my actual life.

But at least there were some nice-looking roses to cut. And a new candleholder -- that blue thing on the right, that my friend S. brought back for me from Maine after her mom died. So, somehow it fits well.

tagged

Kalakly kindly tagged me though i have been neglecting the blogsphere of late. Luckily i have a pile of horrible papers to grade so of course i made this meme a priority.

Okay so I have to answer these mind blowers with a single word answer and then pass the joy on to 7 others....Here goes:

1. Where is your cell phone? Purse
2. Where is your significant other? Office
3. Your hair color? Brown
4. Your mother? Difficult
5. Your father? Uninvolved
6. Your favorite thing? Kids
7. Your dream last night? Knitting
8. Your dream/goal? Self-worth
9. The room you are in? Office
10. Your hobby? Knitting
11. Your fear? loss
12. Where do you want to be in six years? Here
13. Where were you last night? Bed
14. What you're not? Working
15. One of your wish list items? Health
16. Where you grew up? PA
17. The last thing you did? Teach
18. What are you wearing? Skirt
19. Your T.V.? Toshiba???
20. Your pet? None
21. Your computer? IBM
22. Your mood? Sick
23. Missing someone? Everyday
24. Your car? Filthy
25. Something you're not wearing? Bracelets
26. Favorite store? Bon Marche (it is not my fault that the name of the store is two words!)
27. Your Summer? Over :(
28. Love someone? Yep
29. Your favorite color? All
30. When is the last time you laughed? Today
31. Last time you cried? Today

OK, 7 people...do 7 people even read this blog anymore? -- Catherine, rosepetal, Kristin, Kathy McC, Kerrie, delphi, niobe

M's sweater

As promised, some pics.



So now M and T do have essentially-matching sweaters, but i have not yet been able to get a picture of the two of them both looking at the camera.
Most of my pictures look like this. I love the way the back of this sweater looks, so i don't so much mind. I actually like the back better than the front.

Don't worry, C. has one too. Her buttons are different than those of the boys, she chose them herself.

back from my mom's

and i had a very restful weekend. LOL about Connie's comment earlier -- actually, no, nothing has changed here, with regards to my mother. Except maybe my definitions of 'restful'.

What is quite funny is that this weekend, she managed to put it very succinctly herself. She had offered me a hairbrush, as she had an extra, but then she was grousing about which one was really the extra she was going to give me. 'This one -- no, the other one, the handle is softer...you know, i am very particular now about everything, i have lived alone for so long. It has to be *exactly* the way i want it, and no other way."

Indeed.

This weekend, we had no conflicts, because i was just happy to lay around and do whatever she told me to, even if i didn't *really* want to eat that egg for breakfast. And if there was something annoying or upsetting that she said, i could just ignore it.

And i got some knitting done, i basically finished M's sweater. Pics tomorrow, i hope, once i put on the buttons & weave in the ends.

I really needed a break, though, so it was good that i went.

off to my mom's for the weekend

I am flying out tonight to visit my mom, i will be away until Sunday night. I am going all by myself, no kids. Wow it has been a long time since i have been away at all. So i am trying to consider this a vacation.

Ha, it's pretty pathetic that *this* is what i consider a vacation. At least i should be able to get some knitting done. And she promised to give me her whole stash of yarn (since she can't see well enough to knit anymore). So that is something to look forward to....a big present!

no crisis this weekend!

*and* we got the scaffolding down. My house is scaffold-free! Well, at least the front of it is.

Remembering our Babies

this weekend's crisis...

...was a bedbug scare. I really thought we had them, when Chloe woke up on Saturday morning with a rash all over her legs. She had had the rash 2 days before that too, and i thought it was an allergic reaction to something. Looked like hives. On Saturday morning it still looked like hives but there were some discrete ones which could've been bites. There is in fact a bedbug problem in our neighborhood, it's not just my friend H's house but it is everywhere.

So yeah i washed everything from her room and searched and cleaned and slept in her bed myself, but eventually there was no evidence whatsoever that it *was* bedbugs. I know they hide, but really there was *nothing*. So i have no idea what caused the rash (i recently bought some oxyclean & used it in some laundry loads, maybe that was it? But i bought the 'baby' no-additives version) but i think it is not bugs.

Last weekend's crisis, which i think i did not remember to write about here, was dh being in the ER overnight for some very serious pain in the gall bladder area. But they have no idea why because he has no stones & every test comes back normal. He is still in pain daily but it is much less than the attack for which we went to the ER. He has an appointment with a specialist in a few weeks, maybe they will be able to find something then.

Then through the week i was sick...and my internet is down at home a lot, and you know how it is. I am getting more caught up with stuff but i really can't seem to get into the groove this semester, for whatever reason.

more cute baby stories --

I was teaching the boys to blow on their food, because it was hot. "Hot" is another word they know. T got the concept quickly but M kept putting the food in his mouth first and *then* blowing.

M sings. He sings the ABC song though of course he can't sing the words so he just sings the tune with 'da da da da da da da'. The other night i had put them to bed but T was crying and couldn't settle down. So M started singing to him -- 'da da da da da da da....'

Oh, about the twin language thing -- i have heard that it is very rare, and i have also heard that it is common. So i have no idea! Maybe i should look into it. When i have the time, ha ha!

Yeah, this blog is lousy these days. Call it a dry spell....

cute baby stories

The boys are talking more to us, but it has become clear that they can communicate quite sophisticated concepts to each other in their babble. The other day, T. was sitting playing quietly with something while M. wandered around looking for trouble. He opened the closet and found A. who was hiding there! He turned over to T and said 'Ah ya ya da da ayanama' or some such thing. At which point T put down his toy, walked over, and peeked in the closet. And found A!

T has 6 teeth now, and M has 5. Again the 5th tooth is opposite (T's is on the left, M's is on the right of the two upper teeth). I found T's 6th tooth quite by accident. He was chewing on a packet of that silica gel dessicant which is clearly labeled "DO NOT EAT". So i had to pull all the little tiny beads out of his mouth and got bit quite hard for my trouble. I had no idea he had a tooth back there, but he sure knows how to use it.

Speaking of biting, that goes on a lot. Often i think it is unintentional, a kiss gone awry somehow. But also there are some new babies at daycare, who are apparently nursing. Which i know because now T will come up to me, lift up my shirt, and bite me in some random spot. Lots of shirt-lifting lately. It makes me feel kind of bad that i weaned them, maybe T wasn't really ready yet.

We were at a neighborhood barbecue a few weeks ago. Max scored a whole pack of cigarettes that somebody had dropped, oops. Luckily we got them away from him before he decided to try 'em out. Later in they day the hosts had taken all the food inside but we were still playing in the backyard. There was a little girl there eating a cookie, and Max immediately honed in her and followed her around saying 'Eat? Eat? Eat????' in this plaintive little voice. And making the sign for more. Finally she spun around and yelled at him 'NO, BABY! You can't have my cookie, you are a BABY! Go ask your mom for some BABY food, babies eat baby food!' Yeah, ok, so she was a bit of a brat, but it was absolutely hysterical.

See, that's what i am telling you, i have a million of these, but haven't been writing them down so i have forgotten so many!

earlier every year

Yesterday i noticed a crew working on the trees next to a big building near the boys' daycare. They were trimming the trees, and putting Christmas lights up.

'What?' i said. 'Oh, it must be October 1st.'

out of the blue

On Friday, we were walking home from school.

"Do daddies have babies?" asked C

"No, only women have babies. Mommies. Only mommies have babies." i said.

"Why?"

"Because only women have the right parts. We say a mommy has a baby in her belly, but it isn't really her belly. It's a special place, called a uterus, and only women have them. That's the difference between women and men."

"Oh."

We plod along in relative silence for half a block or so.

"Why did our baby die?"

**double take on my part, she has never brought up Nicolas independently before**

"You mean our baby Nicolas, why did he die?"

"Yes"

"Well, it was an accident. Sometimes accidents happen."

"But why?"

"We were at the hospital for him to be born, but he died. It was an accident."

"But why?"

"Um, we don't really know...the doctors don't know....that's the thing...um...sometimes these things happen...."

"But WHY????"

"OK, look. When the baby is inside the mommy, the baby is attached to the mommy with a cord. The baby is inside, right? So he can't eat or breathe air, but he doesn't have to, because he gets everything he needs from the cord, from his mommy. We think something went wrong with Nicolas's cord, that he couldn't get what he needed to live."

"Oh."

**silence -- she ponders this, while i wonder what the people walking around us think of this conversation**

"I don't want babies to die."

"Me neither, sweetheart."

**ok, i nearly lost it here, but i don't think she saw me tear up**

"But our babies were born, and they were alive."

"Yes, we were lucky, everything went right with M and T."

"and me too, and A too"

"Yes"

"You were more careful?"

**wow, blame the mother starts early, huh?**

"No, i was equally careful with all of you. But Nicolas died and you lived, and i don't really have an answer for why."

"Oh.......can i have a fruit snack when i get home?"

"After you eat something good for you, sure."

yeah, i'm here, thanks for asking

and no bedbugs yet, though i did see something which resembled a cockroach this morning. It scurried under the stove before i could smash it and look at it properly. Then 5 minutes later i saw another bug in the same vicinity, which was clearly not a cockroach but is one of those beetles which look similar. So i am hoping the first was not a roach, but instead i saw the same bug twice. We have spiders all over the place, too. These colder nights always make this crap happen.

The boys had their 15-month checkup yesterday & seem fine. I have lots of cute stories but no time to post them, i had better do it because otherwise the stories will be forgotten.

I guess i am OK but it seems to be a rough fall for me, mentally speaking. I have been trying to adjust to the new semester with it's crazy schedule and though i am not caught up yet, it might happen soon. If i would stop reading blogs and start working. So, ok, maybe i should do that.

yuck, bugs

Ok, if you have had the misfortune of spending hours in my basement (say, doing laundry or woodworking), you would have seen many a House Centipede. Truly, these many-legged things are rather gross, but dh told me 'oh, they eat other bugs', so i largely have left them alone.

Except now, they are coming up into the main part of the house. Yesterday i took out a big pot to boil water for pasta, and saw one running around inside it. Yes, i let out a yelp and dropped the pot. Dh saved the bug by dumping him outside, but was not so amused today when he lifted something off the floor and another one shot out from underneath.

On the other hand, H. (the bible-study play-group woman) has recently been battling an infestation of bedbugs. Bedbugs, omg! Just around the corner, too. And these many-legged things eat bedbugs, according to wikipedia anyway, so i am inclined to cut them some slack. Because, though they are awful creepy, they are nowhere near as bad as bedbugs.

But how do i keep them out of my pots?

another milestone

M. seems to have discovered temper tantrums this morning. Hmmmm. I thought i had a little time for that, they are not yet even 15 months old (that will be next week). But there was apparently some huge dispute over the fisher-price barn....should the cow go in or out? Oh, my, the turmoil!

Oh, and T got tooth number 5, actually last week, the day after he chipped off tooth #4.

thank goodness all mornings aren't like this....

I won't even bother to write it out...sigh. It involved lots of poop, the usual assorted screaming, and hubby who put my phone in his pocket to do me a favor by bringing it downstairs for me, then forgetting and leaving the house with the damned thing. Already late, with babies amusing themselves by shutting each other in closets, the last thing i really want to is to search the whole house in vain for a cellphone.

I'm having a little trouble adjusting to start of school, i think. Remember, i tell myself, that this is a period of transition. That, and the usual depressions, would explain my lack of posting or reading here. Well, you know, that is how it goes.

Yesterday was the first day i had to actually take out the jackets. It is really fall, after all. Where oh where did my summer go?

Autumn smiles

Denise asks what makes us smile in autumn, so i thought i would ask the family.

C: cupcakes for my birthday!


T: Eat!

M: Eat! More!

(so, i guess the same as C. Mind you, they say 'eat' and sign 'more', it's cute)

A: It's cold, so the mosquitoes die.

Me: Baby steps

pumpkins starting to turn

and yummy yarn being knit into a warm sweater...
Dh: ***censored**** I won't write that, this is a family blog!

If you run before you can walk....

...you are likely to end up doing something painful, like breaking a tooth. Which is what happened to T yesterday. Chipped that new tooth clean off. Can i still say he has four of them?

What is it with this boy? Is there some kind of curse to being Twin B? I mean, M tumbled down the stairs a few days ago (no, not *all* of them, just a few) and he was just fine. Barely cried. M bounces, whereas T breaks. What is up with that?

I did, however, finish his sweater. This is the Elizabeth Zimmerman Baby Surprise Jacket pattern.


You might think that i am just attempting to preserve anonymity by posting pictures of the backs of my children. In some sense that is true, but it seems that 95% of the pictures of them are of their backs now....so maybe it is just the way it is at this age.

C's 4th birthday

She insisted on a pink cake, of course. Chocolate inside with pink frosting.

toddlers

The boys' walking shoes came on Thursday. In celebration they have started walking all over the place. In different directions, of course.

some milestones

T got his 4th tooth last monday (august 18th, not 2 days ago). He is working on teeth 5 & 6 which seem to be coming in at the same time. M got tooth #4 today.

T actually walked yesterday -- not just a step or two. He took off and toddled halfway across the playground before he realized what he was doing & sat down. M has not done more than 4 steps but he does those 4 steps on a semi-regular basis. C has this doll high-chair that they both like to push around but it gets stuck when it hits a rug. So M can lift it up and put it on the rug, and then lift it up again *clunk clunk clunk* as he lifts it up, moves it, and then moves his feet after it. I mean, come on, if you can do that...you can walk, so walk already.

It is always difficult on the playground, they are always trying to eat the mulch. So i took them to a different playground that had that rubberized stuff...(not the shredded tires, the soft rubber surface). I turned around to see stuff smeared all over M's face -- he managed to pick apart the surface and put it in his mouth...

I got them fitted for their first real shoes on saturday the 16th, but they didn't have two pairs of different colors in the right size so she said she would ship them to me, it would be just a few days. Hem, i am still waiting...and if you are familiar with the saga of the expensive pacifier clips, you will see that there is some kind of pattern here.

not dealing well....

I am just not really mentally balanced properly these days. And school starts next week, C's 4th b-day is this weekend, MIL visits, yadda yadda. I have been taking St. John's Wort, maybe it will help. In the meantime, i think i will just knit, zone out, and watch TV.

where did *this* come from?

"Gimme a peach mama, now!"

"What?"

"Gimme a peach! And a straw!"

"I thought you didn't like peaches."

"No i want to drink juice! I want to stick a straw in it and drink it!"

"Well you already had one juice box today."

"NO! I want to stick a straw in the peach. And drink the juice."

???????!!!!

shucks, thanks!

Kerrie gave me an award! Awww!

In my turn i nominate:

Candy at Inca's Sewing Blog
Lori at Losses and Gains
Denise at A smile a day
Rach at finding wonder in the mundane
and Rosepetal at Moksha who actually gave me an award a while ago that i neglected to pass forward...i just never got around to posting that.

Ooops, i was only supposed to do four, right? Uh, well, ok, i cheated.

ARGH

My teaching schedule for Fall is totally fucked up. Classes start in a week and i just learned that MY class was given to someone else and *I* have been assigned to teach a class that meets at a time which causes me a childcare problem. A class that i specifically told her that i could not do for this reason. And since classes start in 10 days, i don't think i can get out of it NOW. I am SO ANNOYED!!!!!

At least, if i have to teach this other class, it is less work because i have done it several times before. In fact, i hadn't even started preparing for the original class, which would have been a lot of work for me. So procrastination saves the day there....sigh. But now i will have to get a, uh, babysitter.

more knitting

So, i finished my first infant burial gown. Can you guess who chose the hot pink ribbon?


No, i was not entirely forthcoming, i only told C. i was making a "baby's dress, to give to the hospital." She was pretty insistent about the hot pink, so fine, it works for the photo anyway. I presume i will change it before donating it, though i don't have enough of any appropriate color left at this time...someone keeps finding my ribbon and cutting it up for party invitations and whatnot.

I cannot say i am extremely pleased with the result, though it isn't wholly embarrassing. It is actually the same sweater as before, made longer & turned around. I had already made half the sweater, you see, but then it occurred to me that i could just mod it and make a gown, as Candy has a request for some in that size. So i did my best, and though i think the proportions are a bit off, it should do. It ties in the back, with the ribbons. I ran out of yarn, or i would have made it longer. I actually had to take apart the hat i made that went with the sweater, just to finish the gown. Oh i was pissed off about that, too.

I found it extremely difficult to make this thing. Not that it's ever a lot of fun to make things that you know are going to be given to dead babies, but i did quite a lot of hats before, without having great difficulties with it. A little difficulty with the hats, yes i remember, but this was a lot worse. The sweater, i also made for this purpose (though i know the sweater may well go to a live baby too) I am not sure why the gown was so heavy a project. But it certainly was. It has basically been laying heavily on my shoulders all week...and knitting it, i just wanted to cry and cry. The whole thing is just wrong.

In some sense....in another sense it is just right. Babies are going to die, after all. This particular thing that i made is in Nicolas' size (coincidentally), though i think it is too girly for a boy really. Even if you put in a blue ribbon....it is sort of odd, five years later, to realize that i could have made him something appropriate for him in those three days we were sitting there in the hospital waiting for him to be born. I never made anything so quickly, really -- i am not used to using patterns & without a pattern it just takes longer (you have to figure everything out). So it did not even occur to me to try to make him anything at that time. We had one of those infant sack/gown deals for him, and a matching receiving blanket. MIL had bought them for him actually, and i figured we would send him off in that, because though i didn't like it that much, it would at least sort-of-fit him, since at 34 weeks he was going to be a little small. After he was born and we left the hospital, i got it out of the basement storage space, washed it & brought it all to the people for the funeral. I didn't have a hat for him, though, so i made him one...and it was a mess, because i had no double-pointed needles so i couldn't do it right, but at least it covered his head. I forgot to bring him any socks, he had no socks on.

So maybe this is not the thing for me, making burial gowns for babies. Or maybe it is just the shock of the first one, or maybe i am just being hormonal. I think i will try some live baby knitting for a bit (C really wants a pink sweater. With purple flower buttons.) and then maybe come back to this, and see how it goes.

raising girls

C jiggles her little butt and sings "Shake, shake, shake yer booty!"

"Stop that!" i say, "That is not nice, i don't like that. Where did you learn that? Did you learn that at school?"

(actually i know she did, on the playground, but that is another story.)

"No", says C, "I just know it."

"Oh", i said, "You just know it. You were born with this information."

"Yea....no...i learned it at the doctor. I learned it when i was a baby and just borned and i went to the doctor and i learned it there."

Okay, then....that must've been some newborn checkup....

zucchini cookies

I just made those Zucchini and chocolate cookies. They are really tasty, nice soft texture. I made them very big (like 4-5 inch diameter) and put more chocolate chips than called for (i used 1 1/2 bags). Then i took a cookie, put vanilla ice cream on top, and drizzled with hot fudge sauce. I would show you a picture but it was eaten too fast to take one. Highly recommended.

Don't even ask

I got A his tetanus shot, but i had to pay out of pocket ($100) for it. I was unable to find an open urgent care that would see him before 5Iand take our insurance. Probably could have managed not to, by spending another hour or two looking for another place, or just waiting until it was after 5, but at some point it just becomes easier to pay. Especially when you are toting around 2 babies & have to pick up the girl soon too.

I got home to a bill for $200 for Theo's most recent ER visit because the insurance company said the ER was 'out of network'. Huh? My fabulous new doctor's office SENT me there. It is most definitely in-network.

Then there is a whole other OBGYN saga which has been going on for a week (no, i am not pregnant, don't worry, Aunt Flo saw it fit to come *as* i was peeing on the stick.) which has resulted in my STILL not being able to see a doctor and just giving up. That's OK, i'll simply live with this constant stabbing pain in my left ovarian area. (i did manage to get an u/s which looked normal so what are they gonna do anyway?) My mother says she used to have that pain & it goes away if you drink cod liver oil. OK then, i will try that. And my neighbor has a convenient bush in her yard, that i can just crawl under and die if need be.

Is there any wonder...

...our health care costs are out of control?

A stepped on a rusty nail while shoveling out the garage. It was a bad rusty nail (stuck in the dirt for 30 years, probably) but not a large puncture wound (no stitches necessary). So he needs a tetanus shot.

I called the new clinic and was put through to the appointments person.

'This child is not in the system yet, i do not think we can see him. We don't have any appointments anyway. I will put you through to the triage nurse.'

The triage nurse said, 'He needs a tetanus shot.'

'Yes', i said.

'You will have to take him to the nearest Emergency Room immediately.'

Are you serious? He doesn't even need to see a doctor, he just needs the damned shot. But NO. Eventually she agreed to have another nurse call me back about if he could possibly get a shot at the clinic within the next week. Are you serious???

'It depends on how that clinic works', said the triage nurse, 'if they have a nurse there available.'

Right, because there are no nurses at the doctor's office.

T's first step

was yesterday, but he made, uh, only one. Does that count?

in the absence of anything interesting...

...i can talk about knitting. Because that is what i have been doing a lot of anyway.



Here is the 5-hour baby sweater. It takes more than 5 hours, of course! But not that much. Sorry the picture isn't that good (flash & white yarn & all). I made this & a matching hat for donation to Emmazing Grace. I still have more yarn so i am currently making another one. After that i have, well, 10 more projects lined up.

it's hard to discipline when you are laughing

So, i admit i was ignoring my child & letting her watch TV while i talked to my mother on the phone. C had asked to go outside and draw with sidewalk chalk, but then a show she liked came on & she watched it quietly while i gabbed. However, when the show was over & i said 'ok, now it's time for bath & then bed', she said 'i want to go chalk' and didn't like it that the answer was no. We went back & forth a little and the she lost it -- threw herself down and screamed at the top of her lungs:

'I can NOT TOLERATE this!!!!!'

ok, it was more like to-we-wate, but you get the idea. I had to throw her in her bed immediately for being rude, but it was SO hard to not laugh...

M's first steps

were today! Just a few, outside. And T has not walked yet...but you know it will be soon.

a failure of felting

[picture removed]

Oh no, Mama! My hat is TOO SMALL!

When things are bad and getting worse....

I never listen to the news. The news is just depressing, and if something truly juicy happens, someone will tell you anyway. Like, when i went to pick up Miss C and my neighbor said,

"Hey, do you suppose the mayor is out of jail yet?"

"Huh?" i said, "He's in jail again? What for this time?"

"The judge told him not to leave the city, right? But he went to Canada, several times apparently."

OK then. Sheesh. It's not like i think our mayor is an upstanding citizen or anything, but does he have to constantly flaunt his total disregard for the law? I know he thinks he is above the law, and he probably is, at least around here. But i don't see why he has to be so blatant about it. My neighbor compared him to Al Capone, and there is something in that.

Now it is not clear to me if the reason he was not to leave town was the (alleged) perjury resulting from the text-message scandal, or the (alleged) punching of a cop last month, or even perhaps the (alleged) murdered stripper. I don't read the news, you know. And this 'scandal' becomes rather complicated. It certainly seems to go from bad to worse for poor beleaguered Kwame.

So it is in his honor, as he spends the evening behind bars, that i present Mzfitzita's meme:

When things are bad and getting worse, keep a cookie in your purse!

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Cookies (from recipezar.com)

Ingredients

* 1 cup butter, softened
* 2 cups granulated sugar
* 2 eggs, beaten
* 4 cups all-purpose flour
* 2 teaspoons baking soda
* 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 2 small zucchini, grated (you want it to measure approximately 2 cups of grated zucchini)
* 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
* 1 1/2-2 cups walnuts, chopped (optional)

Directions

1. First you will want to preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Spray cookie sheets with cooking spray or line with Parchment paper.
3. Next you want to cream your butter and sugar together in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy.
4. Then you want to add the egg, flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt into the butter mixture, gradually; mix well.
5. Stir in the zucchini.
6. Fold in your walnuts (optional), and chocolate chips.
7. Drop by teaspoonfuls with two (2) inches between each cookie-- onto the cookie sheets.
8. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden.
9. Do not over-bake, or you will not enjoy your cookies.
10. Let stand to cool for 2 to 3 minutes, then remove and place on wire racks to allow to cook completely.
11. This recipe makes a lot but is easily halved to make 4 dozen instead of 8!

Full disclosure -- A and C were absolutely scandalized by the thought of putting zucchini into chocolate chip cookies. So i did not make these cookies yet, i was forced to default to the Toll-house cookies on the back of the chip package.

another daylily post

Well, this is probably the last post on this subject for awhile, though. I have them all labeled now. I think i have pics of them all in the previous post so i will not redo that but there is one more that just bloomed (just = 2 weeks ago, but whatever)



The color isn't quite right on my screen. In the garden it is really more of a school-bus yellow, so i decided to call it 'school bus'.

Then, for completeness, here is a picture of 'reactor red'
The other thing i neglected to write down was sizes & bloom order. So here that is,though from memory so not exact:

Eenie Weenie -- smallest, earliest.
American Revolution -- medium size
Little Grapette -- medium size plant, small flowers
Raspberry -- small (dwarf)
Not Kate -- medium
Siloam Gumdrop -- medium-large
Virginia Peach -- medium-large
Downing Street -- large
Reactor Orange -- medium plant, small flowers
Alina -- medium-large
Sashi's Choice -- large
Nearly Wild -- starting the midseason. Small flowers.
Reactor Red -- large
Toftrees Yellow -- small (true dwarf)
School Bus -- late & large

Did i forget anyone?

wonky internet

I have been mostly offline due to my computer at home not being able to connect for more than, say, 15 seconds. I think dh has fixed it now, but we will see if it stays fixed. I have some posts to make but we will see if i will have an opportunity to make them. The good part about that is that i have almost finished the boys' winter hats!

"I see the problem", said dh, "The computer is too old, it can only connect to the router in A's room, and the babies knocked that over."

Too old?

"You need to get a new computer if you want to buy Spore", said A a few weeks ago. "That game will not run on any of the old machines we have now."

Too old?? The machine is two years old. Two. The fact that two years is too old for a laptop is just depressing.

too damn many hobbies

So, msfitzita enticed me to join Ravelry for which i am exceedingly grateful. What an excellent site! I am so excited about knitting again!

I have not knit in more than a year. I bought wonderful (and expensive) yarn for the boys' coming home outfits and never managed to finish more than, say, 1/4 of one sweater....if that. I guess i should dig it out & look. What am i going to do with that yarn? Maybe i should make myself something fabulous, after all i am the only one around here who actually appreciates it.

Anyway, that is a project for the farther future -- in the near future i want to make the boys some felted hats, and i have to make their Christmas stockings.

But now, imagine trying to find the time to knit. What with the daylily garden that needs to be completely redone and the vegetable garden that is a mess as usual and Nicolas' scrapbook which has fallen by the wayside yet again...though i did make good progress there for awhile...and Chloe's summer scrapbook which is a new project and her upcoming birthday party (invites + cake + etc etc) and not to even mention the beading....oy.

Too many hobbies!

Well, we will see. Maybe i can find some time to do it, at some point, somewhere. In any case i think it would be helpful to me to actually *finish* something for a change. I can probably make the felted hats fairly quickly, that is an easy pattern. I don't really know if this link will work but it would be this one -- Three-striped flopsy

Book meme

I am such a complete time waster. I am doing this meme for no particular reason except i saw it on Our own creation and The Twinkies and i was curious how many books from the list i had read myself. Since, you know, i don't read anymore. So here it is.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline (or mark in a different color) the books you LOVE - mine are in red
4) Reprint this list in your blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve only read 6 and force books upon them.

The premise of this exercise is that the National Endowment for the Arts apparently believes that the average American has only read 6 books from the list below.


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (i've read some of it, does that count?)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (Complete? Are you kidding? But i have read about half of 'em)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks (what is this? I have never heard of this)
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (umm, i saw the movie, ha ha)
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens (my favorite Dickens novel)
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (good & long!)
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (LOVED it as a teenager, don't think so much of it now)
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh (i swear i read this but i have no memory of it whatsoever.)
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis ~ I’m not sure why this is separate from #33.
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (i liked this a lot)
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (i really enjoyed this book! Page-turning fun! But literature it is not...Why is it even on this list?)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (can you believe i never read this? Mean to read it since Bon's post on it which i am too lazy to look up & link)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (loved it as a teenager, not sure what i would think if i reread it now)
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon (this is a really good book!)
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (hated it when i read it as a teenager, loved it when i read it as an adult)
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (This is the best beach book ever. What fun! I love Dumas)
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding (i read some of this i think, but not the whole thing)
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (Forget it! I will never even bother to try.)
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White (loved it as a girl)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare K, why is this listed separately from 'the complete works'?
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (Loved it as a child, now i think it is one of his weaker ones, really. My true favorite is "Danny the Champion of the World")
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

63, i guess that is not bad, considering i never read anything.

finally, a use for the garage

I thought it was pretty clever to string the clothesline there -- we all have a big blind spot for the garage anyway by this point, so why not take advantage?

Note that i have been meaning to put up a clothesline & line-dry the diapers for, well, months -- since it got warm. So, it took me some time...but at least i got it done before summer is actually over...

and T's first word is...

...pigeon.

So, we were outside, and i said, 'oh look boys, there's a pigeon.'

'pih-juh', says T.

I looked at him.

'Pih-juh', says T, pointing at the scruffy disgusting thing. (i am not a fan of pigeons, rats with wings that they are)

Yeah, okay, one baby says mama for a cracker, the other doesn't say it at all. But pigeon, he knows.

odd thing about a daylily

Yesterday was a *perfect* day for gardening. Mid 70's, beautiful sunshine, low humidity. So, when i dropped the boys at daycare, i simply could not find it myself to go to the office.

However, i did not do any work in my garden. No. Since apparently i don't have enough weeds at my own house, i went to weed the beds at C's school.

Now, *that* is a project that spiraled out of control. All i meant to do was pull some weeds around the playground, and all of a sudden i am building & edging beds, putting in a carpet planting, mulching, putting in tomato plants etc....so now i am the garden lady at the school. Great.

"Hey, it's C's mom! Hi, C's mom! Where is C? What are you doing here?"

"C is having a nice time at the beach, she'll be back next week. I am here to pull the weeds."

no wonder those kids look at me funny.

There were a lot of weeds but i got rid of them rather quickly. "Wow, you do that so fast! What a good job!" said one of the teachers. Another one of those bizarre compliments, what are you supposed to say to that? "Uh, well, i've had a lot of practice."

Anyway, then i went & moved some phlox & daylilies from my garden to the school. The phlox is all volunteers & i am trying to get rid of it. The daylily, well, i just looked around and picked the one i hated the most. It was this one, 'big yellow'.
It is actually a very bright sunny yellow color. Ugh it totally clashed with every other one i have. The whole border looked much better once i pulled it out. I split the clump (brutally, unfortunately) and took the now-2 plants to the school.

But once i planted it at the school, i decided i loved it and it is SOOOO beautiful. Now i want it back! I will have to take a better picture.

I know i am not supposed to move them in bloom but i had to do the phlox before it seeded itself all over the place again so i figured i would do these too.

So my problem with the damned daylilies is just that they are in a mess in my own garden, that is why i hate them so much this year! In fact if i can just find the time to restructure the whole border, i will be a much happier camper.

a post about poop

Well, usually i don't post about poop but sometimes we all have to break our own rules.

Guess what i found in M's diaper tonight? A bead. He ate a bead. A pink bead. One of those plastic, 1/4 inch (about) ones that are commonly used in little black girl's hairstyles. We don't have any of those at home (as much as C. would like us to, she is always asking me to put beads in her hair.)

In any case, it explains why he was up much of last night, and had diarrhea yesterday.

Now, the bead almost surely came from daycare. It is possible, i suppose, that he picked it up elsewhere and the diarrhea was coincidental. For example they were crawling in the grass a little yesterday at the park. So i can't be 100% sure but the likelihood is there. So, tomorrow, i will have to have a little chat with Ms. D (their teacher). I don't want to get D. in trouble, so i will not talk to the director (Ms. P.)

But it does remind me that i meant to write about the conversation i had with P. about the other baby's surgery. It went something like this:

Me: I was concerned because N. had that surgery, i was afraid that T got him sick.

Ms. P: Oh, no, N. had some germ. It was on his face, from his excema.

Me: Yes. I am concerned that it is the same germ. Effectively they had the same surgery, within 2 weeks of each other. The infection was in N's face, and T's neck, but they both had an abscess drained.

Ms. P: Oh....yes, they could be related! I never even thought of that!

Me, goggling at her: you.....never even thought of that???

(Oh, infants are hospitalized for surgery so regularly around here, we don't even think about it??)

Ms. P, defensively now: Well, i knew he had surgery but i didn't know what kind of surgery he had. D. talked to his dad, not me.

(so, the guy didn't come and tell you specifically as well as telling D, like i did, and like he should have. But shouldn't you have flagged him down yourself to find out, isn't it your JOB to know what is happening in your childcare center?)

Me: Well...it would be nice to know. T had a staph infection but it was a methicillin-sensitive staph. Do you think you could talk to N's father and find out what bacteria he had? They should know by now because they will culture it.

Ms. P: Yes, i will ask him when i see him today.

Well, of course then i left on my 'vacation' to my mom's so i never heard anything. Seriously? I doubt she even asked. Because what does she need the health department coming down on her, right?

I am not pleased at all. But honestly the rest of the places around here are worse.

ummm....goddamn

here is another fun media event, straight from yahoo news. Read at your own risk, very ugly.
Suspect in pregnant teen death had baby obsession

Not to defend the clearly insane in any way but HELLO? If the baby dies when you are 7 months along, it isn't called a miscarriage.

I had thought this had been made clear by now, but evidently it has not been. People are apparently dense about such things, and language does matter. A lot.

Reminds me of recently when i was watching some repeat of Law & Order and they had some dumb murder/baby-stealing story...the baby-stealing woman was also said to have had a 'miscarriage at 7 months' or whatever. It was such a bad episode that it was laughable, of course you could tell it was one of the newer ones. 2005 i think -- i looked it up. I was a bit shocked, i mean they usually do better than that with respect to 'current' issues. If it had been, say from 1995, i would have been less surprised. I had thought that stillbirth had been more in the public eye lately, at least a little bit, due to the passing (or not) of the MISSing Angels Bill in so many states. Well, i guess not. The irritating thing about that show is that since it was a repeat, it was a bit late to be sending angry letters. Like the thing above, it is an AP story/headline -- who do you send angry letters to?

flickr photos

OK, i will set up a flickr account. Email me if you want access. Few new pictures now, dh has the camera in the caymans.

well, i have accomplished *one* thing

I cleaned up my blog, removed kid pictures & names, and made it public again. Okay then. If only the rest of my 'problems' were so easy to deal with.

It was interesting to read back through everything. I have looked back before but not through all the posts. I do think the blog has wandered lately into too many cutsie baby pictures which was not the original intent, so that will now change with it being open again. Now the difficulty is going to be to not screw up & type people's names...

indeed, it is 'Siloam Gumdrop'

I am slowly editing my old posts with an eye to reopening my blog to the clamoring general public and i found this post from a bit back. 'Something like bubblegum'. In fact. Now all is clear.

Doesn't it strike you that i have been fucking obsessing over the name of this damned daylily? It surely would strike you if you looked through three years of varied posts on the subject. I honestly can't figure out why it bugged me so much.

Reading that post reminds me that i always meant to take a picture of the twins sitting on either side of that sink, to show how big it really is. They are a little too old now though, i am afraid they will crawl out and fall? Well, maybe i will try...with some safety measures.

Little Miss at the beach

Apparently C is very much enjoying the Caymans...the pictures are small, because i just pulled the thumbnails off the web. But you certainly get the idea.

I finally figured it out!

No, this is not 'raspberry candy'. It is 'Siloam Gumdrop'. I saw the picture of 'Siloam Gumdrop' & finally i remember that there was one my mother called 'gumdrop' so this must be it. She just mixed them up somehow.

Whew. It took me 3 years to clear that up (if you look at posts from previous years you will see that). At this rate i will die before i have the rest of them figured out.

more teeth

M & T both woke up today with a new tooth! So now they both have three -- 2 down, one new one up. Oddly enough, though they got the tooth on the same day, it is a different tooth -- M's is on the left & T's is on the right.

neighborhood excitement

I was just out walking the boys before bedtime, and i happened upon a new grocery store that opened, around the corner from my house. It is a small Indian & Asian store. Well, seemed mostly Indian food to me. I am very excited! I am always happy when any new store opens around here, but a grocery store is the coolest. We used to cook Indian food often (i have a cookbook somewhere) back when dh was a vegetarian. Then we got away from it, but now with this new store maybe we can get back to it. And eat less meat, that would be very good. I just have to find the damn cookbook...or maybe someone can send me some recipes or something? If you have any, i'm open to new things!

Of course, the kids aren't, so C will pitch a fit.

daylily issues

OK, i am really going to try to fix the mess in that daylily border. I don't want to move them now, while they are blooming, though (plus i would have to make the new bed & we will just wait to see when the hell that is ever going to happen anyway). But while they are blooming i have to mark them, and figure out where to move them to. One of the current problems with the border is that when i put them in, most of the tags that my mom put on had been lost so the colors totally clash. And small ones are in the back, and big ones are in the front. A real mess. Here is some proof:

Of course not close enough so you can really see the weeds ;)

The other issue i have (which is less of a problem than an annoyance) is that i don't know the names of most of them. It isn't important to my mother, apparently, to keep the names straight, because she gives them new names -- 'i bought this one to represent you so i call it catherine'. Great, like that helps me. So, for the 20-odd daylilies i have, i think i know 3 names for sure. One or two i have guessed from online pictures. But for the purposes of labelling them, i mean you have to label them something. I would love to label them correctly, but with 800 named daylily cultivars i guess i am probably out of luck. So i am giving them names, like my mother, just for fun. If anyone knows what they actually are called, please enlighten me. (i also have a few which are simply not named varieties, bought for a song from an old guy who bred them in Virginia. So those i name with impunity)

Let's call this one 'toftrees yellow'. (Based on its origin, hum.) It is not stella d'oro, it is more yellow. It is very pretty and the plant is small but it kind of clashes with everything else.
This is not a named variety, so i asked C what we should name it, and she said 'Alina'. (That was the name of a little girl she was playing with at a playground recently). This is actually one of my favorites, though in VA it was more brown and less red, and thus prettier. Oh well.
This is 'American Revolution', one of the few i am sure of.
I decided to call this one 'Big Yellow'. Wow, i am really creative sometimes.
I suspect this is 'Downing Street' but i am not completely sure. He is kind of a yellowish-apricot color.
"Eenie Weenie", of this i am sure. Except that for years i thought it was "eenie meanie". Heh.
"Little Grapette", another one i am sure of.
This is a very pretty little dwarf one that looks 'nearly wild', and thus i will call it that.
My mother gave this to me and claimed it was catherine woodbury, which it clearly IS NOT. So i will call it 'Not Kate' until further notice.
I was also informed this was 'strawberry daiquiri'. Well, someone has registered that name it seems, but i cannot find a single picture on the web which makes me think that she is totally mistaken. I thought last year i had solved this riddle & that this was 'strawberry candy' but this doesn't look like it though my mom's version does look like 'strawberry candy'. My best guess is that this plant is really 'raspberry candy' but i would not stake my life on it.
This is raspberry something or other. So i will call it 'raspberry something'.
I have no idea what this is, except it is a named variety. I will call it 'reactor orange'.
This was A's choice out of that guy in VA's daylily field, so it is known as 'Sashi's choice'.
This is just a peach-colored ruffled one from VA that i picked because on that day it looked nearly white but in fact it is certainly quite peach. Hence, 'Virginia peach'.

When more bloom, i think i will have to write down more names. That is the easy part, the digging up & sorting is the hard part. If anyone local wants any divisions, i should have extra of everything except 'american revolution'. I will probably actually dig them up in fall.