Driving Home From Church

I pulled over twice on the way home from church to break up fighting in the backseat. The first time, I made them say something nice about each other. 

Luke: Pete's smart.

Pete: Nu-uh, Luke's the one that's smart! (smaht)

Carrie: (sing-song voice) You're both smart. That's wonderful!

Pete: (impatiently) Nooooo, Luke's da one that's smahter. 

Carrie: (not in a sing-song voice) Okay, say something else nice about Pete, Luke.

Luke: (not smiling at all, bored) He's funny.

Carrie: He IS funny. Okay, Petey, Luke is smart, now say one more good thing about him.

Pete: He has really long hair. (He has weally lond hay-uh.)

Carrie: Great! Let's get going.

Four blocks later, we pulled over again. This time I just made them apologize.

Merry Christmas from the Randolph-Sengs

 Our Christmas Tree

 Our gingerbread house. 

Below: Pictures taken at Luke's Christmas Piano Recital.

 Christmas lights at our house.

 Merry Christmas! No cards this year. We didn't get pictures made and I imagined you opening the card and saying, "No picture? Lame." So maybe next year. Until then...

 Showing the loot from stockings with Daddy. 

Two of the videos we made for family on Christmas morning.

Two love letters

I do not keep a regular journal. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I am very embarrassed by my teenage self when every entry, every entry! was about a boy. Not always the same boy, but you get the picture. Oh the angst, then and the angst now, remembering. Then there's the undeniable fact that sometimes I'm crazy. So when I'm crazy and I just have to let the dam bust, I write by hand on random loose-leaf paper. And I write quickly and sometimes I cross out paragraphs with large x's. And the handwriting is not neat. The letters are small and kind of spiky. And the lines scratch my unhappiness or anger across the paper. Then I fold those papers into quarters and stuff them in my dresser drawers. And I feel a lot better. But I don't want them bound into a journal! Hello, posterity, your great great granny sends you her love and...tempests. (yyeck-I don't want to be called Granny.) So, I begin journals when I am well and happy and spiritually on. But I'm only human and I don't always stay that way. And it's just too real.

But I do this instead: I blog, irregularly. And I write love letters and save them on my computer. (Sometimes a tad bit of the crazy seeps in, just in case you're worried that I'll only pass that down in my genes and parenting practices.)
Mostly, they are intensely personal and I feel like a traitor publishing them, so they stay private. But here are two I wrote tonight:

October 22, 2010 (wee hours of the morning.)


Dear Luke and Pete,

Tonight I made 2 fresh raspberry pies. I am very proud of myself. I put them in the freezer and we will bake them later. Raspberries were on sale for 50 cents a half-pint and that is a tremendous deal. Your father and I picked through them and tossed the moldy ones—they went bad quickly! That was frustrating. But, oh well. I told your Dad that if he didn’t help me do that, then he couldn’t have any raspberry pie (like the story of The Little Red Hen) because I did NOT want to do it by myself and he did NOT want to help. I won. He helped. Then he took out the garbage. Bless that man. I gave him packages I thought would be extra moldy so I wouldn’t have to deal with them. My selfish plan didn’t always work though; I got some really gross ones. Anyway, this is supposed to be a note about how I’m going to bake wonderful and delicious raspberry pies. Maybe we should call them Moldy Raspberry Pies because you guys always seem to think that gross-ness is hilarious.

Love, Mommy

Dear Brandon,

Tonight I slipped you the packages of raspberries I didn’t want to pick through. Thank you for helping me. I think you’ll like the pie.

Love you always,

Carrie

In the Rain with Pete

To be in love Is to touch with a lighter hand. In yourself you stretch, you are well.

-Gwendolyn Brooks

Pete and I had an impromptu walk in the rain today. I was supposed to be putting him down for a nap. Instead, we sloshed our flip-flop clad feet through the rivers of water in our neighborhood streets and gutters.

A man in the passenger side of a pickup truck gave me a thumb's up as he passed.

When we got home, we stood on the front porch and held our hands out to catch the water spilling from the roof. I wish I could transmit my memory of his wet skin, his hair plastered down, his laugh when he bent his head down to suck the shirt on my shoulder for a drink, how it felt to hold him on my hip in perfect health and happiness.



Also Gwendolyn Brooks : Exhaust the little moment. Soon it dies. And be it gash or gold it will not come Again in this identical guise.

Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn

Luke didn't finish his dinner the other night. He ate everything except his salad. I didn't make him finish it because he said he was full. But then he wanted a treat. Our conversation went like this:

C: I think you're too full for a treat.

L: No, I'm not.

C: If you're too full for lettuce, you're too full for a treat.

L: But only the lettuce parts of my stomach are full.

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Yesterday I asked Luke to watch Pete and KEEP HIM SAFE while I took a quick shower. I put the baby gate up and got ready for the day. When I came out, both boys were at the kitchen table, heads bent over in concentration. On the table, there was a full cup of milk, with straw, and a 2-Liter bottle of raspberry soda.

Luke stood up with a sharp knife in his hand, and said, "I'm sorry I got this knife out."

Turns out, he had also retrieved a sharp pair of scissors. He wanted to mix the milk and raspberry drink together to see what it would taste like. He wasn't strong enough to unscrew the top, so he had gathered tools to do the job.

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Pete still wacks people on the head and pulls hair and bites and yells and he also screams and pounds on the door of the dressing room when I won't let him out to go walk around Target by himself (making another baby in the dressing room cry.)

As we walked through Target yesterday, Pete was yelling (not crying, just yelling) and everytime Luke would get close enough, Pete would try to pull his hair. Luke was a pretty good sport. He just copied me and kept telling Petey, "You're dangerous."

The other thing we say to Pete is, "Stop hittin' your money-maker!" Because he hits himself in the head to be funny.

Oh yeah, he also has a fake cry that we love. He cries and half-smiles and then looks out of the side of his eyes to see if I'm watching and if it's working. It's not, but it's entertaining.

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This is Luke at swim lessons this summer. He didn't want to jump off the diving board. I knelt down beside him and gave him a stirring peptalk. "I believe in you!" ("@%^&! I was eloquent!" Name that movie for a date with me.)

Anyway, I was eloquent and he was unmoved.

Then I said, "I'll buy you an ice cream cone if you jump off that diving board." He didn't even hesitate or have to think it over.

Me & Luke at the Silent Wings Museum.

Huck Finn--I mean--Pete. After black beans.

I am in love.

So, it's my Brag, I mean Blog, and I'll post what I want to.

Words L. has used appropriately:

familiar (as in, "That looks familiar to me.")

surface (while smoothing the sand at the playground, "to make a flat surface.")

predator (reading a book about ducks: the mother duck will hide her babies from enemies. "L, do you know what enemies are?" "They're other animals that would want to hurt you, ya know, like predators.")

dissertation ("Daddy has to work on his dissertation.")

realize ("I'm going to realize my full potential." Hee-hee, just kidding. More like, "I didn't realize that...")

Vocabulary SAT, my kid's gonna kick your trash. (I'm so eloquent, he must get it from me.)

But he's still my baby:

"Mommy did you buy night-night underwear at the store?"

"No."

"Did you forgot?"

I love how he still calls McDonald's, Mickle-Donald's, too.

These pictures were taken back in December. L & P (They sound like a utilities company) wrestling. P. in the tub. L & P with our good friends' baby girl, J.

7 months old today

Words fail.

The Great Pumpkin

Trick-or-Treat!

Here are our pics from Halloween.

L.'s a construction worker, not Bob the Builder. P.'s the fattest little puppy you ever saw.

Things you might have overheard their dorky mom saying:

"Dat puppy needs to be put on a diet! Oh, it's a baby? Well, he's perfect then."

And,

"Say, 'I Love This Old House!'" (He said it! hee hee.)

I know he needs a haircut. BUT ANYWAY, we love "the fixin' guys" at our house. (This Old House, PBS) And that vest was made by yours truly out of a paper grocery sack. Just call me Martha.

The dalmation costume was made by me too. I'm freakin' amazing. Just call me...Target...3 years ago. (Little P.'s costume inheriting has officially begun. Next year: tigger. The year after that: Luke Skywalker...oh, wait.)