You guessed it. Ngaire has swine flu.

At least, we’re pretty sure that’s what it is. She shows all the signs (fever, coughing and sneezing, lethargy and poor appetite), and the regular seasonal flu has yet to infiltrate our sector of the Frozen North. My kidlets are always at their sweetest when they’re sick, and we’ve passed an enjoyable (rainy) day reading books, watching movies, and drinking lots of fluids. It’ll be interesting to see if the rest of us succumb … we could be in for a lot of sick days.

It’s NaNoWriMo, and after years of kinda-sorta wanting to give it a try but not being willing to make the commitment, I’m going to give it a shot, though I’m only aiming for 500 words a day. 1,000 seems a bit daunting. The Husbandlet has been joining me in nightly writing sessions. We feel very virtuous and productive.

Now I must away, as the little bitty one is mewling.

Ngaire, handing me the tail of a toy snake: “Let’s all be curious.”
Me: “What does ‘curious’ mean?”
Ngaire: “It means holding a snake. Or a penguin.”

* * *

Our stuff arrived! Most of it, anyway. We are missing a few boxes, two lamps, and our bed frame. We have also acquired most of someone else’s bed (headboard, sides and some metally things), a box of kitchen stuff that isn’t ours, and a shelf or something that also doesn’t belong to us. Ah well. I’ve been happily doing laundry and dishes, and most of our stuff is settled in the house. I must say, it’s nice moving from a small place to a larger place, in terms of finding a home for everything with minimal trauma.

Yesterday and again today, I have exited my house only to have a small rainstorm open up on top of me, which disappears a few moments later (right after I’ve canceled all plans to go outside, because it’s raining). This makes me wonder whether I’ve managed to mildly annoy some minor rain deity.

Also, yesterday, I was changing Liam’s diaper, and he peed and hit himself in the eye.

Yesterday was the Husbandlet’s 30th birthday. Happy day after birthday, Husbandlet! I scored some frozen rhubarb from his boss’s wife (it grows like crazy around here; her parents PLOW IT INTO THE GROUND because they can’t harvest it all … I weep at the thought) and made rhubarb cornbread for breakfast and rhubarb cheesecake for his birthday cake. (The Husbandlet loves rhubarb, so I thought an Iron Chef, rhubarb-themed birthday would be fun.) I also got him some Weird Al CDs. We wound up the evening introducing Ngaire to Running with Scissors.

* * *

Apropos of that, Ngaire just came upstairs singing, “He left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye, saying, ‘Soon I’m going to be a Jedi.’” Then she came and gave me a kiss, and said, “Goodbye, Mommy.” I said, “Are you going to be a Jedi?” She said, “Soon.”

* * *

The only thing worse than finding cockroaches in the office? Finding BABY cockroaches in the office.

* * *

Apparently, today is National Popcorn Day, or something like that. Ngaire made a shaker out of a vitamin bottle filled with kernels at preschool yesterday. This morning, she and Liam emptied the whole thing all over the basement. Popcorn kernels are a lot harder to get out from the cracks under moldings than you might think.

* * *

We have harvested gallons and gallons and GALLONS of berries. We have frozen some, dried some, flavored homemade fruit leather (or “boo,” as Liam calls it, for some reason) with some, and made pie, crisp and juice. We feel like Real Frozen Northerners.

* * *

Now that the berry season is coming to an end, the Husbandlet has slowed down on checking satellite footage for the best places to go berrying around here (I’m serious!) and has begun a new obsession: Learning how to grow mushrooms at home. I do not say “obsession” lightly or inadvisedly. The man has to be pried away from his mushroom-related books and websites for even the most delightful of alternate activities. He is constantly coming out with abrupt sound bites about the ease of growing various species in various materials. (“Did you know that you can get ____________ to grow in coffee grounds/old phone books/your hair if you stand still long enough?”)

Let’s just say, I’m making sure to keep in constant motion.

* * *

On the other hand, “Pretty Fly for a Rabbi” is possibly one of the most wonderful songs ever, parody or no.

I have a confession to make: I kinda like Taco Bell. Every so often, I feel the urge to drop by and just see how it is doing, and partake of its bounty, before we go our separate ways. I will make it clear at the outset that the Husbandlet considers these visits highly illicit. However, they continue; though never in his presence. I wouldn’t say that my relationship with Taco Bell is anything but intermittent … certainly not in any way intimate.

So imagine my shock when I received this today:

I was equally taken aback when, upon opening the packet, I merely found hot sauce inside, instead of the two-carat Tiffany sparkler I’d had in mind.

Oh well, I guess I’ll keep these (and the guy who gave them to me, of course):

* * *

Any guesses about what happened here?

Yesterday, the Husbandlet and I unpacked most of our books and put them on bookshelves.

(N.B.: Our stuff has not arrived, but we mailed all our books to ourselves because the Media Mail rate was cheap, expecting to have our books be the last things to arrive. Ironically, of course, the books got here before anything else.)

We picked up one tall bookshelf at a garage sale, and our house has some built-in shelves in the basement/kids’ play room. I must say, our house looks a lot more homey with our books out. Unpacking our books and organizing them was like spending the afternoon with old friends.

During the preparatory stages of book-sorting, I got out the Windex and cleaned off the office bookshelf and the Husbandlet’s new-to-us desk (he got it from a business in town that was downsizing). Then I noticed that the phone was sitting a little crooked on its stand. I pushed the phone’s base down. Not much happened. I picked the whole thing up and tried to straighten it. Nothing doing. I noticed a strange, sweet smell emanating from the phone … somehow, this smell was all too familiar. So I pulled the base off the stand and

OH MY GOODNESS I AM STILL SHUDDERING

found two large but somewhat unhappy-looking cockroaches nesting in the stand, in the part that rests against the back of the base.

I took the stand outside and shook the cockroaches into the street. Then I went back inside. It occurred to me that perhaps, in doing this, I had inadvertently introduced the hearty Eastern Seaboard Cockroach to the Frozen North, thereby creating an infestation that would torment the place forevermore. So I went back out, found the roaches, and squished them.

(They hadn’t gotten very far. It was about 40 degrees out, and I had dropped them on a very wet, paved street. They had made it to the rivulets of water at the side of the road.)

In the meantime, the Husbandlet had unscrewed the cover off the back of the base, and had found ANOTHER cockroach INSIDE.

People, those roaches had been living inside our phone for the last month at least.

I’m sorry, but I didn’t get any pictures.

For the purposes of a little background, we give our in-utero children the names of marine animals.

(No, I am not announcing another pregnancy.)

Ngaire was the Squid, and Liam was the Remora. Shortly after each of their births, we received a care package from one of my college roommates, containing lots of yummy Trader Joe’s goodies (Alysia works at TJ’s), AND …

hand-knitted,
originally-designed
Squid and Remora toys!

So, I must say that from the moment we discovered Rhiannon’s conception and started calling her the Ctenophore, I started looking forward to seeing what Alysia would do with that one.

The package arrived a few days ago, and this is what she did with it:

People, this woman is a total knitting genius! This is one of the most gorgeous soft toys I have ever seen. And Rhiannon absolutely adores the tentacles (I have mentioned her love for cloth-type things, no?).

If you have any desire to sleep through the night, don’t drink a cup of coffee after dinner. Even if you somehow manage to fall asleep, your breastfed baby won’t.

* * *

At lunch today, Ngaire said, “Mommy, you look just like a reindeer.”

I said something along the lines of, “??????”

She explained, “You’re cute like a reindeer!”

BIG daughter points.

* * *

One thousand words:

This one really isn’t as good as the one I can’t remember.

The kidlets and I visited some folks in town the other day, and for some reason, Liam was totally terrified of their dog. This was truly bizarre, because Liam generally loves dogs of all sizes … usually, the dogs need to be scared of him. But every time Liam spotted this tiny, fuzzy, friendly dog, his whole body would go rigid and he would emit a blood-curdling shriek.

Me, reporting back to the Husbandlet later: “I totally can’t understand it. Liam completely freaked out every time he saw that dog.”

The Husbandlet: “What kind was it?”

Me: “A little poodle.”

The Husbandlet: “The boy has good taste.”

Me: “It wasn’t all poodle … it was a mix of some kind. Cockapoo? Rottpoodler? Labrapoo retriever?”

The Husbandlet: “Rhodesian poodleback?”

Apparently, there is a reason for all the lush greenery of our new home. And if you don’t jump at every break in the rain to go outside, you might miss your chance for the next few weeks.

The Husbandlet and I had a very witty conversation yesterday morning, and I was all, “I have to blog this!” But now, I can’t remember it at all. It was witty, though! You would have been proud to know us!

Rhiannon won’t take a pacifier and isn’t terribly interested in giving her fingers more than a cursory mouthing. But! She LOVES cloth. It doesn’t even have to be in her mouth; if she can feel the soft fuzziness of cloth against her lips, she will smack happily at it, even in her sleep. Once in a while, she really scores, by figuring out how to get a handful of cloth into her mouth, and then there is bliss indeed.

Ngaire had another abdominal migraine episode on Sunday night. I kept her home from preschool just in case it was actually a stomach virus, but by about 8:30 that morning, she was fit as a fiddle and saying, “I feel all better. Now can I go to preschool?” Alas for her, not only did she have to take Monday off, her teacher is at a conference far, far away over Thursday and Friday, so she only got two days of school this week.

I used the four-wheel drive on our SUV, Persephone, for the first time today. “Roar,” said Persephone, and we totally conquered a big pile of torn-up dirt road, much to the delight of the kidlets in the back seat.

Speaking of the kidlets when they are in the back seat, we have discovered a new Sandra Boynton CD. I have to say that “Speed Turtle” is one of the Best Songs Ever, especially as it’s sung by Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. I’ve always liked their sound. Ngaire likes “Singing in the Shower,” and Liam is especially fond of the Gorilla song (which is mostly just a lot of repetitions of “Banana”).

Due to a conveniently timed (for us) federal investigation into our moving company, it looks like we may be getting our belongings … they may not arrive for another month or so, but hey, at least they’re on their way.

Boy, I wish I could remember what that witty conversation was.