Mahalo.ne.Trash

Looking in through our back door before I left for work this morning.

After his month 13-15 hunger strike, MarMar finally decided he'd like to eat once again. The mouthful of new teeth, rather than a mouthful of teething, is helping a lot. He's 75th percentile in height, 10th percentile in weight, but gaining fast! Here's a quick summary from today's smorgasbord: one pack of instant oatmeal 2 graham crackers salami fold-over sandwich half cup of grapes half of a bagel w/ peanut butter half cup of chicken ABC soup (mommy's original recipe) 3 apple wedges 1 fish stick half cup of cous cous 2 florets of steamed broccoli 5 x 8-oz sippies of whole milk (yes, a forty of whole milk)

I had one of those nights. I just kept tossing and turning, thinking about all the things I had to do the next day. Sleep simply would not come, but the decision to just wake up was similarly elusive. So I turned for an hour, then another. Finally I surrendered and forced myself out of bed half-awake. I had to figure out something to do that required very little brain power. My brain needed to be soothed. A couple episodes of the Daily Show, my old observing-run stand-by, were out. A book would be nice, but my attention span was shot. Oh, I know: Youtube! I surfed around a bit and stumbled upon this video of a Sufjan Stevens concert that was televised on PBS a while back: Youtube - Sufjan Stevens - part8/8 - Chicago That did the trick. I'm relaxed and ready for bed now. Let's hope that sleep will follow me to the bedroom. If not, then the video of The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades... should do the trick!

this morning the boys and i headed foothills of the san gabriel mountains for a hike. along the way owen informed me of his plans for getting his own dog (a topic of frequent discussion in our family lately). owen: mommy, maybe when i'm 6, i can have a dog me: i think that would be great, we could bring the dog hiking too owen: how about a brown and white dog, that's medium-sized? me: okay owen: and we'll call him "musk" me: that sounds like a good plan owen: am i going to be six in one month?

with my mind on my monkey and my monkey on my mind

after an extraordinarily long trip to the post office with 6 boxes to send, a toddler strapped to my back, and a 4-year-old with a broken arm in tow, i decided it was time for a treat. so we headed to the fair oaks pharmacy and soda fountain in south pasadena. it is still a week before thanksgiving, but the drug store was totally decked out in christmas paraphernalia. owen got such a kick out of the christmas trees that were different colors and marcus had such a great time flinging his rainbow sherbert on owen as he saw each bus through the window.

last sunday a trip to the playground got the best of us and landed owen in the ER with a broken arm. tuesday's trip to the orthopedist and additional x-rays indicated that surgery was in order to set the bones and pin them in place. he's been a trooper about the whole thing, and he's adjusting to life with one arm quite well. thanks for all the well wishes for speedy recovery. he'll likely be back on the monkey bars in about a month.

*disclaimer: i'm a bit too proud of how the boys' costumes turned out this year. it was owen's idea to be penguins (he's had a real thing for antarctica lately) and this easy pattern made the process of making costumes so much fun! now, having said all that, aren't these the cutest penguins ever? mar gets his costume nice and dirty owen perfects his waddle mommy makes the final adjustments mar hams it up working his first hard candy, a sugar free cough drop trick-or-treating and meeting lots of our neighbors