Don't Get Too Excited

Ummmmm....I think I've been away too long. I feel out of my depth navigating the "new" blogger dashboard. Is it new? Sheesh.

And I don't know how much I'll continue blogging here, but I've stumbled on a few things lately that need to be recorded (mostly for me) and this seems the best place to do it. 

Today, it's a list. We did some room re-arranging and organizing for the boys in preparation for back to school and I helped Charlie clean his dresser out and move his clothes to a new one. His whole bottom drawer, as it turns out, was dubbed his "treasure" drawer a while back. 

He hoards, people. It's scary but also insanely adorable. About a third of the way through his treasures, I decided I needed to make a list of everything he had going on in there, because it says so much about Charlie. 

It also says a lot about me, because I could TOTALLY understand why he was keeping about 75% of what he was keeping. And that is scary.

So, here you go:

CHARLIE'S TREASURES

(the quotes are his commentary)

• 2 dried grapevines with really cool spirals
• 18 perfectly sharpened pencils
• assorted sticky-backed craft jewels
• several hundred 1x1 legos (the boys have a complicated trading game in which these legos are currency - Charlie's rich)
• a cast-off cosmetic bag filled with 8 bluejay feathers
• 11 beer bottle caps
• a handful of Ukrainian kopeks
• 4 birthday cards from his grandmas
• 1 Valentine from his Mom
• 2 miniature paper airplanes
• part of a packing box - "Because when you put the two pieces together it makes a perfect circle."
• 1 shiny rock - "It's so cool, because it's shaped like a van...and a gun."
• 1 empty wipes box and 2 empty small mailing boxes - "In case I need to keep small things."
• 1 large top of an acorn - "The inside part grew smaller and smaller so I just kept this part."
• 1 favorite Matchbox car
• 2 ziplocks of Legos, one of which is only red pieces 
• 2 shells of large pond snails
• 1 dry snake skin
• 3 plastic knives
• 1 ziplock of shells from the beach
• 1 crow feather
• 2 empty ziplocks - "Also for small things I might need to keep."
• a milk jug
• a syrup bottle
• a tennis ball
• a small mostly in tact bird's nest - "I'll keep this out until the end and put it on top, so it won't get broken apart."

Will You Do Me A Favor?

My husband hates when I preface a request with that question. He says it's unfair on the one hand because he has to agree to the favor before he knows what it involves, and it's silly on the other hand because I know that he's not going to say no anyway. He prefers that I just get out with it, no preamble, no simpering, no attempt at endearing eyelash fluttering...

Anyway.

Since my last post, Henry had pneumonia, Calvin had bronchitis, Charlie and Jane are still coughing and snotting, and I can't lose the rattle / scratch in my own throat. I want to fumigate the house and never go out again, it's making me so frustrated. But a visit to the ER and a few nebulizer treatments later, I think we really are getting better. I'm not too bad a whiner, I don't think, but this prolonged viral cycle is getting me down.

Anyway, again.

I have a personal writing project that I need to work on offline with a really concentrated effort to finish this month, and then - here's where you (and the favor) come in - I am moving my blog to a new place. I have a couple online security things to tackle and I want a new flavor for my blog, so I'm working on a new platform. I'm planning to switch during February and be up and running a little more focused, a little more anonymously, and a little more regularly on March 1st.

So, after all that preamble, here's the cut and dried request: If you would like to follow me to my new digs, please email me (codeyellowmom[at]gmail.com) with the words "new blog" in the subject line and I will put you on my contact list when I get the new blog underway. I will not use your email for any other reason (unless I already do!) and I would love to have you along when I get going again. I won't be redirecting Code Yellow Mom there or publishing my new site address here, so be sure to email me if you are interested. (Grandmas, I will email you automatically.)

Happy February!::simper, simper::eyelash flutter::

"Why Be You When You Can Be NEW?!?!"

We recently watched the movie Robots again...and again...

While the kids watched in the back seat and I listened from the front, I remembered the ad campaign launched by the smarmy new CEO under the direction of his diabolical mother with the intent to make millions: all based on the fact that no-one would be able to fix themselves up with spare parts anymore - they would have to completely remake themselves whenever one little part became obsolete or damaged.

Hmmm. It got me thinking the last time I watched the movie, and it got me thinking this time. On the one hand, I'm a total believer in "new" - and I love new starts and new blank books and the idea of being "made over." I think there's a delicious and wonderful true element of hope and possibility in all that.

But I also think we overwhelm and choke the essence of who we really are when the "new" we desire at any cost is someone - or more often, someTHING - that is not really our true self.

And I think there's a lot of power in using the best of what we've got, taking a hard look at what's damaged and obsolete and making it better, but most of all in loving who we really are and what we really have, enough to keep the good parts and make them shine, shine, shine.

That's what I'm going to work on more. Sometime soon.

***

And that, mys friends, was my best effort at profound and/or interesting tonight...

Since right after Thanksgiving, we have had at least one - if not two or three - people in the house sick: stomach bug (at the risk of proffering too much information, I just have to say that watching a little half asleep boy in the middle of the night try and figure out if it would be better to sit on the toilet and lean over the tub or vice versa is one of the saddest sights ever), flu/severe colds, inexplicable aches and high fevers, and pneumonia (poor David!). All of it (except the pneumonia, thank heavens) has cycled through most of us at least twice now.

Copious amounts of laundry, lack of sleep (or lots of bad sleep?), still having to be the mom even when I feel like gunk, not being able to do anything but ride it out, holding hot little whimpering babies...It's one of those times that I just must say, "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired!!"

I think we are slowly getting better - Henry and Jane are still down, but hopefully in the next day or two, we will all be on our feet and feeling good as...new?

Maybe.

New, but with all the same laundry piled to the ceiling, right? Ah well. C'est la vie.