Come Home Soon Daddy!

I'm growing up fast!

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary! We had to celibrate without daddy. 14 years - and this is what we have to show for it! Daddy sent two dozen roses and mommy splurged and bought the cake at Costco. Then proceded to leave it in the bottom of the shopping cart, but thank goodness the nice Costco employee stopped her and put it in the front seat of the Suburban before we peeled out of the parking lot.

Let us tell ya, that was some good cake!!!

The Tower of Brothers

Kind of like the Tower of Terror at Disneyland, but the after effects last longer,...

Trip Down Memory Lane

Happy Anniversary! July 2004 on our way to So Cal from Boise, Idaho. This is July 4th at your parents' house. Yes, when Jared was young enough to wear tie-die.




This is the kid who is going to drive me to smoke or drink bourbon. One or the other. Very soon.



Are you ready for another one? Only 13 more weeks,...



See how much Max has grown? Our little rescue pup is now a seasoned world traveller!

I bought a ridiculously HUGE and expensive chocolate cake for hubby and my 14th anniversary that I will share with my boys tonight after the Kindergarten picnic and Jared's football practice. How romantic. : )

Farm Boys

Helping Grandma tear up the backyard so we can put in a deck. (That picture coming soon!) Well, not us, but the amazing Tim-the-Handyman.



Amazing what the dangling of allowance will do. And the chance to drive the tractor. We had every tool we could find out there - hoe, horse pooper scooper, snow shovel.



Even daddy had to help. (cut our time in half having him there actually.)



So Sabrina and did what we Richardson women do very well; supervise. We went for a walk and came back and those lazy boys STILL weren't finished.



Happy with the results. And so was Jo Jo the Clown.

Fear Factor Part II

Oi vey. When we were in Banda Aceh we started what I called 'Fear Factor Aceh Style' to get the poor little kiddies to take their anti-malarial medicine. (This before the baby got it ANYWAY so we stopped that ridiculous killing of our livers,..) I'd cut my pills up and grind them down with spoons and then carefully put them in a small amount of pop (electric melon flavored fanta perhaps.. or sour green apple. Soursop flavor wasn't too big in our house.) We'd have oreo chasers since even THAT couldn't disguise the awful bitter taste of those little pills.

So now here we are in the states and they actually MAKE Fear Factor popsicles. Some are black (see above tongues) and some have gumball eyeballs embedded in them. Fantastic!

Untuk 'Pa

Okay, sorry. Daddy asked for pictures of his brood, so here goes. I am catching up. These are from the six year old' s birthday this past beginning of August. We had a race car theme. We have created a weird little ritual with him where he requests his fav food of the year and I work it in somehow. Last year it was candy corn. This year bean sprouts. Go figure.



Check out that dynomite cake! My mom helped, so she broke my streak of ugliest birthday cakes known to man. I was trying for a Guiness Book record. Maybe next year,..



Now, THAT is a smile that says, this is a GREAT party!



Games! Must of the cuz's came and we played a car race game, pop the balloon with yer butt and find the bubblegum under the whipped cream only using your face. I don't know if the kids had more fun or the adults who got to watch all this silly behavior!



And of course the loot. Kyle was very happy as he got everything he wished for. It's easy to shop for your kids when all their toys have been left behind in Indonesia. Try it sometime!

You Go, Girl!

A HA! I am NOT ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE! This awesome link brought to my attention from my lovely friend who is about to pop her forth (thanks Teri!) And yes, I'm jealous. I want 100,000 hits on my blog and book publishers calling me. And, yes, Wendy, I am working,.. promise,...

EBay listing a bid for moms everywhere

Diapers No More!

One of the front page articles on Yahoo News talks about 'Parents begin potty training at birth.' This was also practiced in Indonesia for you skeptical parents out there! Yes, I'll admit that I am a little too Americanized to take my babies to a tree in the back yard and make hissing or grunting noises to make my kid go to the bathroom.

Let's be honest; I have enough trouble reminding intelligent potty trained boys that they need to LIFT THE SEAT and AIM PROPERLY. Light saber wars with urine over the toilet, trying to spell with the stream or a basic 'hands off' approach to the whole procedure will warrant mommy finding you with antibacterial Lysol and paper towels in hand.

And I already have trouble reining in the typical boy behavior of peeing in the great outdoors. Hearing the tale of my three and their cousin in the front yard in front of the neighbors peeing on an anthill as a form of war on nature did not sit well with my civilized sensibilities. Maybe because I'm a girl and the whole squat process involves me not thinking about "hmmm,.. what shall I write in the snow today?" but more like "I am NOT going to pee on my shoes this time,.."

And don't get me started about the whole hiking in the woods, digging holes and burning your used toilet paper. GADS. Spa me for goodness sake; isn't this why I had boys? So my husband can go camping in the woods with the kids and leave me alone?

But okay, already. I feel bad that I have a land fill in my name because I've had four babies all using disposable diapers. Yes, shame on me. So, I did purchase the cloth diapers and the diaper cover. I've consulted my college friend Craig, who will always be a better domestic goddess than me.

I've been 'circling the wagons' so to speak for a couple weeks now, not really sure I'm ready to do the whole cloth diaper for eliminating thing. But I opened the package and stuck B into one yesterday and it worked! No leaks! The diaper cover is HUGE however, and if she didn't have my big butt before, boy does 'baby got back' now. Good thing most of her pants are long, as she'll need those couple of inches to cover that nice bustle she has grown with the plastic pants.

I have realized that I need more than one diaper cover. Duh. I've tossed the soiled diaper into the vat of cleaning solution, but have done nothing more than peer at it. I did take the easy way out and put her back into a disposable for night time, but I'll make sure that soiled diaper gets company today if for no other reason I make friends for it so I can clean it in the washing machine without too much guilt. Typical of me to go from personal landfill to excessive wasting of water to clean the one soiled diaper I can muster per day. Why isn't anything just EASY?

So the more I think about it,.. this house does have five acres.... and an awful lot of trees.

Conversations with Long Lost Husband

Okay, we are pretty pathetic. Rob and I talk every day, sometimes twice a day. Unlike most techies (which I guess I'm not) I hate Skype. So, instead of being disconnected 20 times during a conversation, we usually use the traditional phone and calling from Banda Aceh, Indonesia to Olympia, Washington, boy do we have the phone bill to prove it. You'd think we were love struck teen agers instead of old married farts celebrating 14 years this coming Tuesday. (This is your last hint, hubby!)

It takes me back to our engaged years when, for one and a half years, I lived in Washington and he lived in California. We bought SouthWest airline tickets in bulk, drove to meet each other in Oregon, used lots of stamps, and had enourmous phone bills. Rob took on a second job as a personal trainer at a gym and scraped his pennies together to eat at Del Taco. I stopped in whatever locale he was living in at the moment on my way to and from sales jobs and trade shows in the contiguous U.S. Nothing like having my luggage lost on my way from St. Louis in January where it was 30 degrees, to in Sacremento where it was 90 degrees and I had to wear a sweater and jeans.

And for the many times we've been apart like this when living over in Egypt, we have this same silly behavior. Which is good, because it is hard to hold onto a marriage if you don't communicate. We've gotten good at this, but it's never very fun. On my end, it's a little less taxing because the kids are bigger and don't require super human attention all the time any longer, and I can rely on them for help. That has been the biggest change this time around. It' s amazing the power an allowance wields in this house. It's gotten little boys to change diapers, dress the baby, take out the garbage and the recycling, make beds, put clothes away, dust, vaccuum, pick up outside toys and get the mail. Although the last time the six year old got the mail, we found it scatter over five acres of lawn for the next few days.

At the end of our conversations we sign off and I hand the phone to the littlest gal who is 19 months old and loooooves the phone already. She uses everything as a phone; tv remote, building blocks, spoon, you name it. Anyway, we give her the phone and she wanders around the house saying gobbledy gook until Rob hangs up and the phone starts beeping at her because we haven't replaced the receiver yet.

Typical conversation:

Rob: So, on my way out to one of the job sites there was a dead crocodile and a dead goat in the road. A bunch of us went to Sigi's house in the jungle and ate wild boar that a local friend of his shot with a bow and arrow.

Me: Uhm,.. we went to Red Lobster??!

So, when I was recounting this conversation to my mother she must have seen that twinkle in my eye. The one that always yearns to be doing something adventurous (not that raising 4 1/2 kids isn't adventurous; trust me). So, she slammed her hand down on the arm of the chair and said to me, "If you go back over there I swear I will check myself into a mental institution." Okay, mom, I promise to stay put,.. for a while longer anyway. : )

Hormones and the Dentist

I'll blame it on the hormones. But I have an aversion to dentists and haven't been to one since I lived in Boise, which was oh, when my six year old was one. That dentist told me I probably had an extra nerve in my jaw and that might be why no matter what I get zinged and require twice as much pain killer. That and I'm neurotic, and that can surely mess with the pain centers in your brain.

Never mind the fact that I have a receding gum line due to clenching and grinding my teeth (not due to stress, I'm sure!) and the little plaster I had on one fell off the last time I was pregnant (that baby is now 19 months old) and I just pray that nothing gets stuck in that little creepy hole on the side of my tooth.

So today I had a follow up appointment with the kids' dentists here in Olympia, Washington. And let me tell you, if they would only take people who have already attended their prom, I would go to the dentist. The dentists are Psaltis and Rowley and they rock. They are all so kind and gentle and give you bubble gum smelling laughing gas (oh, excuse me, 'magic air') when you sit your little hiney in that chair for a procedure involving 'putting those sugar bugs to sleep.' Sign me up!

So anyway, I'm fine with the whole cleaning thing; a little anxiety here and there, but I can handle it. Who doesn't have their neck hair stand on end when they hear that tooth cleaner buzz away? And the whole trick question of 'so,.. do you help (fill in the blank with your child's name) brush his/her teeth?" What do I say? Do I lie and say, 'yes of course, two times a day and we make flossing together one the ways we spend our quality time?" Or do I tell the hygenist the truth and say, "Well, what do you think? I'm pregnant with my fifth kid, I'm closing in on 40 and my husband is in Indonesia at the moment. I tell them to brush their teeth, but I am too lazy/tired/distracted to actually climb the stairs and help most days. But I do smell their breath when they look truly suspect."

Then, after the answer, (which is always yes, now, isn't it? Don't lie to me.) they give the kid those little pink tablets to chew explaining that after chewing, the pink will stick to any places the kid didn't brush properly. Well, the six year old chewed and gave me the biggest, most fushia smile I have ever seen. If Dracula had been feasting on Barbie, this is what he would have looked like. And then, when the dentist finally came in, all six foot six inches of him looming over the small child in the dentist chair, and pronounced that he had a small sugar bug, I felt as though I had flunked my final exams and needed to attend school all over again. Thank goodness the other two kids had a clean bill of tooth health as my neurotic, competitive self felt as though I had to redeem myself to this educated adult.

So, we go back to the dentist today. I drove the non dentist needing kids to their Grandma's house for some play in the park time. Good thing for me, because as soon as the hygenist hooked that little six year old up to the grape smelling magic air hose and escorted the seven year out to the hallway, my 'I'm the toughest mommy in the world' demeanor broke down. I CRIED. Yes, I CRIED when I told the nice prepubescent dental hygenists that I had a phobia of the dentist. I CRIED when I told them that the kid would be fine, but I wasn't sure about myself. Gads. They were so nice. They told me how brave I was that I had come back to the room, that some parents didn't even do that. They told me I could leave whenever I wanted. They almost reached in their pockets to give me a golden coin so I too, could get a special prize and a sticker for being a good visitor to the dentist.

How pathetic is that? The kids saw nary a tear, as the seven year old was lounging in the hallway and the six year old was basically high as a kite. Is it the pregnancy hormones? Is it the stress of life, of having a brother in law with major cancer and my husband gone and getting my kids in yet a new school and worrying about the six year old and his speech impediment and the suspicion that he is dyslexic? Is it the fact that I'm not in my own home and won't be until January and at that time it'll be more of getting kids in yet another new school and worrying about the six year old,.. but with a brand new baby? Am I being tested until I scream 'Uncle!' at the top of my lungs? Some days it feels that way.

At least the dentist is only twice a year, but in my personal pergatory I seem to be living, when you multiply that by five children, that means I have to go ten times. If I actually include myself in that equation, we are talking one dentist visit PER MONTH every year until the kids move out of the house. And that doesn't include sugar bugs, sealants, and I don't even want to consider this,... BRACES.

Third Culture Kids

This from my friend and colleague Lisa; a link to a Wikipedia article on children raised outside of their primary culture. I think it is very true; as an army brat and now having taken my kids to live in Egypt, the Phillipines, Indonesia and Southern California (just kidding on California,.. kind of,..) I can say that I relate to a majority of what the article states. I've always thought of myself as kind of a chameleon and remember consciously thinking about the fact when I hit the states in high school that I had to make an extreme effort to 'fit it' when I got there. That I had a choice to 'sink or swim' and I'd seen a lot of military brats like myself sink if they didn't figure it out quickly.

I was lucky to find someone naive like my hubby who thought moving around the world would be cool and was able to continue doing it. Since we are both over achievers, we have moved a little TOO much,.. (well, and the whole September 11th thing really screwed up the game plan and kind of sent us into a tail spin) and are thinking of settling down,.. for a while. Until we get a majority of the kids booted out the door. (As our friend in Boise smartly told us, "My kids' graduation present from high school is going to be a set of luggage and a one way bus ticket.") Then it's back to dreams of me looking all ethereal and giving loving children vitamin K shots in deepest, darkest Africa. Yuck, yuck. I can dream, right? But seriously, we greatly enjoyed our CRS adventure and hope to do it again, although it's tough to be an adult and say no for the greater good of the family. Two bouts of malaria, two bouts of Dengue fever, me as their teacher, friend, mother, cook, confidante, etc,.. no hot water, not a lot of power, and lots of bugs makes me look forward to unlocking that front door in Yucaipa, California again. But we haven't seen the last of the great big world.

Football Camp 2007

Man oh man. My biggest kid's first overnight camp and I still managed to go up and get a glimpse of him every day to make sure he was smiling, talking to other kids and generally looking happy. Psychotic, I know.

This was Offense Defense Football camp with all sorts of tough guy coaches from highschools, colleges and universities across North America. It was five days of eight hours playing serious wear-your-pads-because-you're-gonna-get-hit-football. I couldn't believe I was letting my baby do it!

I thought I'd gotten over my angst during his first year of football when I complained to his first coach with the Yucaipa Thunderbirds that I've spent the first eight years of this kid's life teaching him to be nice to others and now he's learning to knock people over and steal things like balls. The coach took some extra time and listed out all the pro football players who are either ministers or take up knitting in their spare time. See, nice guys. Really.

So, now my kid's dream is to be captain of the Notre Dame football team. Ugh. Not only does he choose a private school on the wrong coast far, far away from mommy, but it's football. Tennis is a nice sport. So is golf. Not many people get hurt playing golf. (Except my grandpa who, seriously, hit a ball on the fairway and it hit a tree, hit his head and knocked him out cold. We ARE polish, you know.)

So, after a lovely week of eating PLU cafeteria food (hated it), having a room mate who was not a younger brother (loved it), and proudly displaying his raw knees and camp crotch (argh! some things a mother needs a little warning for beside, 'Hey mom, look at this!'), we have these nice photo mementos:



Water break - the only week when it was above 70 degrees here in the northwest (waaaay above 70 degrees) and Jared has to play football in all those clothes.



Hangin' with the big boys.



Uhm,.. guess the cheer section needs a little work....Sabrina, the game's over here,...



Football!



Yikes, all that testosterone in one dorm.

Chuck E. Cheese

Visit to Chuck E. Cheese during Jared's football camp: (While the big brother is away, the mice will play,...)

d

Never too young to play skeeball!



The big game:

Baby's First Visit to the Big Cheese

Oh every baby should be so lucky as to scurry around with that bigger than life size hairy rat known as Chuck E. Cheese. While Jared was at football camp, the little kids requested a visit to Chuck E. Cheese, one of my most unanticipated restaurant visits until I realized they had a great salad bar AND served beer. Cheers to the Cheese!



Poor baby, we have to go here to slide or else use the brothers' skateboard ramps in between the brothers' trying to break bones as they 'catch air.'





Sabrina's first kissin' fella



So much fun!

Kyle's First Lost Tooth!

One of life's milestones; Kyle, our now 6 year old lost his first tooth. We didn't even know he had any loose teeth; maybe he had no idea what a loose tooth even felt like. He had grabbed a nectarine (unhairy peach as they are known in this family) and ran outside to play. He came in a few minutes later asking excitedly if his tooth had fallen out. Lo and behold, it had! It took oldest brother Jared's careful inspection of the nectarine to find the embedded tooth, which mommy carefully stuck on a napkin and put on the kitchen counter. Then subsequently forgot about it and threw it away with all the rest of the day's rubbish laying around the counter. Good thing the tooth fairy found it, brought it back to Kyle's bed, and replaced the tooth on the napkin with the dollar. Those fairies sure have a nose for teeth!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Happy Birthday to me,
I live with monkeys,...

I've been thinking all day and I don't know how to finish it. Such a nice day, however. My husband got me a dozen red roses on time, even though he's traipsing around the God forsaken Indonesian jungle. The boys made the best scrapbook ever with Grandma. I will continue to make scrapbooks for Grandparents at the holidays because now I really know how exciting it it. My oldest son made me breakfast - we'll forget about the first two frozen waffles he burnt and tried to pass off as edible,.. and he made a great chocolate chip cookie cake with Grandma, as well.

I share this birthday with my bro-in-law who is recovering from colon cancer surgery, so I was tasked with making his cake. It was requested of me to make a fire truck cake since he's a fireman. I did it, I got it up to his house unscathed! And I told him if he took enough pain meds and looked at it, it would actually look pretty decent. (I'm trying to be known as the maker of the most horrible birthday cakes ever, but I seem to be improving now that I've learned what a wonderful invention the star tip is for frosting!)

It was a fantastic day. The sun even shone here in the great northwest. About time, we all needed a break.

Well, I seem to be entering the third quadmester of my pregnancy. I have four different 'seasons' when I am pregnant; the first quadmester is extreme airsickness although I am standing on the ground; the second quadmester is superhuman weight gain, the third is using my body as a personal floatation device (major water retention) and the fourth is the feeling like one of the those chickens you cook in a crockpot. You know the one; nice and tender and when you go to take it out to put on the table the leg you grab with the tongs falls off. That's me; major flexible ligaments. I have some sort of wacky ability to pop all sorts of joints; I consider myself my own chiropractor. I can even pop a bone on top of my foot. So when I'm pregnant parts of my hips and pelvis I thought were one solid mass start to shift around in uncanny ways.

Anyway, I realized that I am in the third quadmester this morning as I was attempting to remove my rings to slather myself in tanning lotion. Nothing worse than a bloated, fat, close-to -40-white pregnant woman I say. And I've heard that tanned skin hides cellulite. And I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you.

Well, really should go. Tough day ahead; funeral for family friend who died of lung cancer. Although I didn't know the man well, I did know his mother a little and I know my husband who is traipsing around the island of Nias (hit by 9.0 earthquake after the Indian Ocean tsunami) looking at the devistation and making a recommendation to CRS for future work there, would want to be there. And it's good for these boys' I am raising, to wear pants for one day in their lives and go be considerate to others.

Then over to bro-in-laws house to be a commercial break in everyday post cancer operation life for a couple of hours. I have to say that all the post op patients I've seen on Grey's Anatomy and House didn't prepare me for this. I'm so mad that with cancer, it seems that sometimes the cure is as bad as the disease. I joke with him that he is still the good looking Richardson brother, no matter what.

Have a good day. If you need a great break and a laugh, check out the book 'Momzillas' - kind of a 'Devil Wears Prada' for us brood hens of the human race set.

Words of Wisdom

Some of my favorite little words of wisdome come from Mass. It is absolutely great to get to listen to a priest who has been creating homilies for decades. These speeches have been fine tuned many times and come from the heart, and can weave together those old and new testament passages with the psalm and the Gospel in ways that I can't imagine.

It reminds me of going to an art museum in Vancouver, B.C. when I was in college. I am a very black and white, take-it-as-it-is person. To visit this museum was so insightful because I was with a friend who could look at those sculptures and really figure out what the artist was saying. What an eye opener for someone like me who looks at a collage and says 'what a nice collage.'

So this past Sunday, it was awfully comforting to hear the readings and the talk discuss how much it doesn't matter how financially stable you are in this world, prepare for the next. This in light of my very sick brother-in-law who is in the hospital for the second week fighting colon cancer. The family is so worried about his wife and four boys. But I can't think of a better family to have worry about you; we are all so generous and giving (yes, even me, if you catch me on the right day!) and I know we can all handle this. I wouldn't exactly call this experience a 'gift', but I think it is a gift to have the grace to see the positive side of something like this. Hopefully we will all be able to do that in our own ways. We are only human, after all.

I'm really sick of the whole cancer thing, actually. A very nice man my husband grew up with just died of lung cancer on Friday. Robby, you will be missed. A great woman who mentored me in my spiritual family at St. Francis in Yucaipa lost her two year battle with cancer a week ago. Pat, you will be missed. An incredible man who worked for my very best friend at my great company lost his valiant battle with pancreatic cancer this past week as well. The one dude I could always depend on for a smile and always have the time for me. The one cool dude who always remembered who I was no matter what neck of the world I had flown in from for a meeting or whatever, who would walk across a crowded hallway and hug me and tell me how nice it was to see me. Ben, you will be missed.

So, as I sit hear trying to offer support, meals, baby sitting service and an ear to my husband's family, I feel so helpless. I want to fix things! I am worried because my husband's maternal grandmother and grandfather both died from cancer, his mom had recurrent breast cancer and his dad had colon cancer. Now, his brother has cancer. I've already scolded his other siblings for not getting breast exams and am finding a way to get colonoscopies covered through health insurance when they aren't 'old enough' yet. Thanks Mr. Beaureaucrat,.. So, as my friend and colleague said to me when I explained my angst, "I guess when you tell your husband to check his butt, you really mean it." Exactly.

So, again, talking about stability and 'having enough', the priest on Sunday told this great joke:

A professor asked his students which man was more satisfied; the man with 10 children, or the man with 10 million dollars. A student raised his hand and answered, "The man with 10 children."

The professor asked why this was his answer.

The student explained, "The man with the 10 children doesn't want any more."

Ha! Tell that to the Duggar family, who I think is kicking our collective parenting asses in the old 'my kids are well-groomed, smart and articulate' categories. Holy cow. Unfortunately I happened to read an article on how important chores are to a child's life the very same day Mrs. Dugger popped out her 16th or 17th child (I've lost count as I'm sure she may have) and that resulted in my oldest sitting on the bathroom floor with a pink sponge scrubbing the linoleum whining about being Cinderella. (Sorry Jared)

Which leads me to another random joke told by another good friend and excellent orator, which is good because he too is a priest:

A boy was getting ready for his first communion and first reconciliation (first confession for you non Catholics out there). His little brother walked into the room and said, "Well, good. Now I can really tell you you can go to hell."

Email me if you don't get it. I'm cracking up!

On a happy note, I am blissfully healthy in my pregnancy finally and gaining all sorts of weight because of this human tape worm and the stress of this cancer crap. Hate all those 'sticks with bellies.' Can't wait to drink a beer.

Golf Tournament for Thad

Graham Fire & Local 2175
Present
The 2nd Annual
“Golf Tournament”
Spanaway Lake Golf Course

The “Golf Tournament” is being presented to raise money for a fellow firefighter who has been diagnosed with colon cancer.

The event will be on Friday, August 31st with registration beginning at 0830am and start time at approx. 10am. Raffles and silent auction will follow the tournament.

The tournament will consist of a 4 person scramble – with at least 3 drives from each person. Prizes will be given to 1st to 5th place teams and the last place team. Single prizes will be given to the people with longest drives, and closest to the pin on par threes.

The cost is $120.00 per team ($30.00each person) with registration forms in by the 15th of August. Cost does not include cart. Registration forms should be dropped off at Graham Fire Station 21-1(10012 187th St E) – Attn. John Corak or mailed to: 9802 346th St So. Roy, Wash. 98580 Attn. John Corak

Registration



Team Name: ____________________


Player # 1:_______________________ Player #3: _____________________

Player #2: _______________________ Player #4: _____________________