It's been a while since I penned lyrics

Milk in glass bottles from a local dairy.

Serving my kids milk that's not hormone-scary.

Returning the bottles each week makes me sing:

These are a few of my favorite things...

(So I'm a little rusty...)

Hallway Architecture

Check out this Zhu Zhu Pet bungalow. I love what happens when kids unplug. Keep in mind our children do their fair share of playing Wii and watching movies, but I do love those times when hours of play happen without any electronic help.

And speaking of being unplugged, after nine months in Narnia, we finally finished The Last Battle. Sigh.

The only thing that's keeping me from crying about leaving Narnia is that we jumped immediately into...the Little House books. :)

Hello, Stomach Flu.

It's been a long time since you were here. Can't say that I missed you. At all.

How long do you plan to stay? Don't feel the need to visit with all of us.

You whine? You lose an eyeball.

I'm a sucker for a system.

Diana gave us this great responsibility chart. But its big, chunky magnets for each block made it a challenge to record TWO kids' weekly accomplishments.

After failing to find any small magnets, I resorted to making my own using little craft eyeballs and sticky-back magnetic strip. Amelia's are pink, and Evelyn's are yellow (coordinating w/the colors of their "blankies.")

We fill in the whole week at one go, and the goal is to keep all your eyeballs. (Notice the "no whining" blocks have DOUBLE the eyeballs of the other blocks...we all go through phases...)

I'll let you know how it goes. So far it seems very motivating, and I must say, it can really re-direct all our attitudes when I say out loud, "Think about what you're doing--do you want to lose an eyeball?"

We might be growing out the bangs.

But it will all depend on whether or not they can keep the clips/barrettes/headbands in their hair all day at school. Evelyn had to go to the nurse the other day "because my bangs were in my eyes." I think we may be heading to the Hair Cuttery.

So much has happened in two weeks! Deep Creek...a girls'weekend away w/Jen in upstate NY visiting friends Mindy & Raleigh (they nicknamed me Rip Van Winkle because I slept until 10:15 two mornings in a row!) and lots of goings-on for work.

Tonight is Halloween! Evelyn will be a "Swooning Princess" and Amelia wants to be Snow White again so she can bite an apple and "die" on everyone's porch like last year. Seems there'll be no lack of drama tonight!

Where Function Meets Form

Our kitchen, where breakfast bar stools become showpieces of the latest in shoe-and-dollhouse-doll art.

Metaphor for Life

Yesterday morning I was packing the girls' lunches as they ate breakfast.

"We don't like bananas, Mommy," they said.

"Really?"

"Yeah. We EAT them, but we don't LIKE them." Well, don't they just do me proud!!

Life in nutshell, said Alan later. You always gotta do things you don't want to do.

Then there are days like today. I'm supposed to be teaching. But yesterday I started getting VERTIGO. It's just the wackiest thing. I feel like I'm on The Zipper all over again. Not fun. I could count on 2 hands the number of times I've called in sick in 20 years. So it's a weird day. It's fun to be sitting here blogging, but not fun that my world is spinning. Who knows who they got to sub for me...my poor Friday classes will end up having my music classes only twice in all of October since schools are closed for students next week. Oh well. My mom gets vertigo, and it's good to finally know what she goes through--my heart goes out to you, Mom!

Sometimes, I guess, your world just spins out of control and you just hang on and hope you don't spill too much of your coffee!

Emergency Shopping Contact List

I am an Olympian procrastinator. I'd known for weeks that last Friday was the girls' first "Purple Friday" at school, but come Thursday evening, there was no purple in the house.

It's a good thing I have an Em

ergency Shopping Contact List. There are Courtney and Diana, whom I could call for what to wear with what for an occasion and where to buy it. There's my mom, who's totally in her own category & can be tas

ked with buying bulk items at Sam's Club, finding the most specific gift (Evelyn requested "A white dress--a beautiful dress--like a wedding dress--the most beautiful dress you've ever seen--with a big rose on it" for Christmas last year, and Mom came through 100%) or finding the most obscure and delightful treasures at yard sales (Whirlypops, toys that give birth, and lace curtains she made into veils for when the girls play "brides.")

But last Thursday night called for Darcy. I texted: "HELP! If you needed kids' Ravens gear tomorrow, where would you shop tonight??" My phone rang. "Target," she said matter-of-factly, "has good prices and it still looks nice. Wal-mart might be cheaper, but it's, well, Wal-mart-y. Old Navy has one girls' Ravens jersey...but I think it's only available online." When I bashed myself for procrastinating and wondered aloud how many other parents had left this job for the night before, she said, "They all have, Tina."

Sure enough, we found the shirts at Target, and sure enough, one of Evelyn's classmates was there, too, shopping with her dad! Darcy: 2 for 2.

Summer Memories, Part 1

These giants arose from the spindliest, most delicate little seedlings. Can't tell you how often I painstakingly propped and tied them to gradually taller sticks until they were on their own.

I think there's a child-rearing metaphor in there somewhere. :)

How was your 2011 garden? Ours wasn't stellar, but we weren't stellar gardeners. We have so much to learn. So far we've learned that if we had to subsist on our backyard harvest, we'd be dead. :) But I still like gardening. I like digging in the dirt, being outside, and sending the girls out there to pick tomatoes and snip basil. It's just so cute when they come through the back door with the hems of their shirts pulled up into pouches for produce!

Working Hard

If play is a child's work and necessary for healthy development, then we're doing just fine over here.

The newest obsession is playing "School." They each set up classrooms, and come downstairs in line (moving one animal at a time) to go to music in the living room or art in the bathroom. (Who knew the bathroom was so artistically inspiring? If they've actually MADE anything in art, it's been flushed, because there's no evidence.)

Finally, there's planning time, where the teachers prep the next day's coloring pages and peruse the texts.

It's all quite adorable. Get to work, girls!

"Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands..." (I Thess.4:11)

And I thought it might be funny to throw in II Thess. 3:10, so you know how seriously we're taking the work these girls are doing: "If a man shall not work, he shall not eat."

And that reminds me of Evelyn reviewing memory verses tonight. She asked me why people are always called "he" in the Bible. I said that it didn't really mean boys only, but is just a way of talking about people in general. Then she reviewed James 2:10 as"But whoever will keep the whole law, yet stumble in one point, he--OR SHE--is guilty of all." (Emphasis hers.)

We love a good climbing wall.

(Not to be confused with "We love climbing the walls.")

The Fischer Price Loving Family dollhouse people get lots of attention. Apparently they needed some exercise.

Impressively, no rubber bands or fasteners were used for these feats.

Perhaps our local Y needs a giant bureau for climbing. The chair in the dining room isn't cutting it. Actually, I retract that. I just had a flashback.

This Time Last Week

Hurricane Irene was coming. The storm shortened the Zeigenfuse vacation in the Outer Banks, and we benefited in an impromptu Hurricane Party.

Chips, salsa, games, and a good old-fashioned walk in the rain. We are thankful we suffered no power loss and no damage. We know lots of others who did, and of course the folks in New England will be rebuilding for a long time.

But we are thankful that Irene blew Amy and Jen our way for a day.

How Tomatoes Kept Our Kitchen from Going Up in Flames

OR.."How to strong-arm your parents into helping with your overdue spring cleaning."

OR..."How to become cynical about cheery, traditional Christmas poetry."

It was Saturday morning at 6:15 a.m. I put the kettle on to boil and went outside to weed in the garden. While weeding, I noticed some very ripe tomatoes ready to fall off the vine, and decided to pick these along with some basil to make some bruschetta.

When I walked in the back door with my harvest, there was black smoke from the ceiling down to my neck and the most poisonous, putrid smell. I ran into the kitchen, where foot-high flames were consuming what was left of one of those heavy, plastic lids you use to cover plates of food in the microwave. I'd turned on the wrong burner. I blew out the flames, then ran around the first floor opening windows and turning on fans--all with my face buried in a dish towel so I could breathe.

I went on auto-pilot and just started scrubbing. The undersides of the cupboards and the microwave were black and had fine, sticky black strings hanging in clumps like mini stalactites. As I scrubbed, I just kept noticing more black strings...then black smears...then black particles...billions of them...all over the counter, the floor...and then it struck me. "It's everywhere!" And when Evelyn came downstairs saying, "What's that weird smell," I looked at her feet and knees: black. "What were you just doing?" I asked. "We were playing dollhouse upstairs." Upstairs! Yup. All the way to the third floor.

Thus began The Great Blackman Scrub-Out of 2011. I called my parents, sadly cancelling what I'd really WANTED to do that day--help Mom rearrange her living room--and they promptly and generously came over with buckets, rags, swiffers, and cleaning products. We all scrubbed, dusted, and vacuumed for hours. All the curtains & picture frames came down, the rugs went out, and the kitchen was taken apart and washed. Mom and Dad took the girls out to lunch while Alan and I continued. The worst of it was handled by Sunday evening, and right now everything looks back to normal--but, well, cleaner. :)

Alan joked it was the Spring cleaning we never did. The soot beautifully highlighted all the dust, dirt, and cobwebs that had taken up long residence. It has left an ever-so-slightly-tacky feeling on almost everything in our house, in spite of the scrub-out.

It's funny what you think about when you're doing manual labor for hours. I thought about Aunt Barbara and Uncle Diego, whose entire house burned when she was 9 months pregnant with Lindsy. My parents took us down to D.C. to help, and I was shocked at the damage fire and smoke do. I thought about people who go through disasters and lose everything, and about my father-in-law, who is on his church's disaster relief team and has seen that first hand.

I also thought about Clement C. Moore. You know, the author of "A Visit By Saint Nicholas," better known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas." He writes so airily about Santa coming down the chimney "all tarnished with ashes and soot," and makes it sound so cute and adorable. I'm afraid I judged Mr. Moore while scrubbing my kitchen on Saturday. I doubted he had ever actually scrubbed soot, but had left that job 100% to Mrs. Moore. Otherwise he would have written that part differently. I'll bet our friend Tim could come up with some funny, adapted couplets. And I'd venture to say Tim HAS cleaned soot before. He's just that kind of guy.

Alan asked me if I'd learned any lessons from this experience. My first answers made him roll his eyes, "Don't keep anything on the stove top? Actually put new batteries in the smoke detectors? Always bring the ripe food into the house before you weed the garden?"

"Hmm...how about don't turn the stove on and LEAVE THE HOUSE." Ah. Right.

So today Alan saw an online news article about Baltimore City giving away--and installing--free smoke detectors. So we have two new ones to go with the ones Esther gave us a couple of years ago for Christmas (which will be getting new batteries ASAP.)

And that was the latest catastrophe around here...until today's earthquake. :)

Since summer is half over...

...I thought I'd put up the summer curtains. I have no idea why I get such a kick out of changing & rearranging our house. (I'm too lazy to look for a "before" picture of our dining room. Basically the curtains were orange, the chair was in the right hand corner and the table had all its leaves and was centered.)

Since we've been slowly re-painting the girls' room, I moved ALL their toys to the basement. But the toys crept up, until the first floor was Barbie World. They were in every room. All the shoeboxes in the house were confiscated for Barbie daybeds, along with most of my dish towels for bedding. (Wish I'd taken a picture of that.)

Then I cracked. I stayed up until 1 am one night last week going nuts putting Barbie World back into the basement, vacuuming, and trying desperately to regain a bit of the order I crave.

Truth is, I love when I can overlook my desire for order and serenity so that Barbie World can coexist with our family for periods of time. I think my tolerance for it has grown, and it makes me smile to see the space beneath the dining room table transformed into a Barbie Palace (though it looks remarkably like a refugee camp.) But I do reach the breaking point, as I did last week.

Since then, there has been so much game-playing--Candyland (I should post Alan's variations for this classic board game), Memory Match, Go Fish, Old Maid, and a new favorite, "Pictureka." The girls even pulled out Twister and took turns being the spinner and the contortionist. We've also done kid-sized puzzles (totally my speed. I have no patience. Puzzles with 1,000 pieces make my eyes glaze over just thinking about them. But we can whip up a 100 piece Disney Princess in no time flat.)

It's going to be a busy rest of the week. The girls are in RVR's day camp again, Alan is teaching at a jazz camp in D.C., and I've got a lot of meetings for work. We are looking forward to being together on Saturday--maybe playing a few games in the (hopefully) still-serene, summer version of our living room.

Positive Peer Pressure

Two weeks ago the girls and I were at RVR for the week. They were in Day Camp, and in the evenings we enjoyed hanging out with some of the Ranch families. The kids would ride scooters and bikes around while parents chatted.

I was talking with one mom, when suddenly I heard Evelyn yelling, "Look, Mom!! I can ride a two-wheeler!!" Sure enough, coached by a fellow six-year-old, she'd done what she'd told Alan and me she would NEVER do. I guess it just took a little positive peer pressure.

The next week I took the girls to a local park here to ride bikes, and figured I'd get some exercise running as they rode. I got exercise all right--and they ended up waiting for me around every bend. Evelyn kept saying "Mommy, are you ok?"

So the positive pressure continues as I get back on the exercise bandwagon!

Parental Advice

When your barely-five-year-old decides to follow the big girls up a paved hill to descend with them on her scooter, DO NOT run up the hill after her and, as she begins to pick up downhill speed, make eye contact with her and yell, with a look of horror & anxiety on your face, "Amelia!!!!! Be careful!!!!"

You will seal her scabby fate.

Daddy is so creative!

Some of the best little rituals and traditions our family has have not been pre-meditated, and many of them have been inspired by Alan. (Maybe it's an improvisational jazz musician thing.)

Here is the latest inspiration--"Cheese Letters" (or "Letter Cheese?" I can't remember which they call it)--and it is, of course, a huge lunchtime hit.

The strong willed child...in writing.

First, let me thank everyone for praying for Alan's hernia surgery and recovery. It was a week yesterday and he's doing a bit of driving, has logged two long days running the board for a recording session at another studio, and is slowly healing. He is still uncomfortable, not sleeping well, and stiff from staying in limited positions, but he is already so much better than a week ago. Thank you also for praying that I would be a better nurse...more on that later. It's been a good week in my own heart and my love for my husband.

On another note, Evelyn's been writing a lot lately: letters to friends & family (and sometimes e-mails), stories, books, and has enjoyed putting random thoughts onto sticky notes.

A week or so ago, she and I were having a mildly heated discussion about a sandwich I wanted her to finish. I was weighing how far to take it (not wanting to make a mountain out of a molehill, yet still wanting her to know that food is a resource we have to use wisely), when she stormed off her kitchen stool and into the dining room.

I let her go, and turned to do some dishes. A minute later she stomped back into the kitchen, marched over to me, and said in a firm, angry voice, "Here! Read THAT!" as she stuck this sticky note on my shirt:






















I would like to say I have no idea where she gets this, but the good laugh my parents got out of this story says otherwise. I'll have to ask my in-laws how much blame the Blackmans get. :)

Caring for Daddy

The girls and I dropped off Daddy at the hospital this morning before school. He had hernia surgery, which went well. He is home recovering and, while in a lot of pain and very uncomfortable, has suffered relatively little nausea, for which we're grateful.

The girls were SO curious. First, I realized they'd not been prepared entirely for this--Evelyn thought we were all going to the hospital in an ambulance (which she calls a "siren.") So we set that straight. They LOVED it when they issued him his paper bracelet at check-in, and smothered him with hugs and kisses when they left with me to go to school. They are so stinkin' cute!

They are genuinely concerned for Daddy, and we've prayed for his quick healing and that we would be careful, gentle, sensitive nurses for him while he recovers. And they are just a tad distressed that this will temporarily disable Daddy's ability to play "Monster Bed," his most popular home-made game. "Well," said Evelyn this morning, "I guess YOU can play Monster Bed with us, Mommy." Then she sighed, "But it just won't be the same."

So until he recovers, we pray we'll be good caretakers for him. We've got to make sure the BEST "Monster Bed" monster heals smoothly!

No, the kittens are not ours. :)

They belong to a neighbor. I should have counted how many times the girls said, with that I-can-hardly-stand-how-cute-they-are tone in their voices, "Oh, MAMA!"