Cold Temps and Warm Memories

Sitting by the fire, snug as a bug in a rug, just as my dad predicted we'd be today back in the days we insulated this house. This Halloween day where The Cat in the Hat, Little Cat A, Little Cat N and Sally went all around town at above zero temps is a distant memory.

Lasagna just out. Kitchen's a mess. Piles of laundry. Gotta bring more fire wood inside. One kid's napping so I figured why not write? I can barely keep up. It's been -30 to -40F outside the past couple of days. The dog hates it. He always refuses to "go potty" outside the first time we have these temps each year. Yesterday I didn't realize he'd pooped on the floor in the other room until my toddler told me to "clean it up." And I didn't realize he'd peed in yet another room until we were eating dinner and the baby crawled into it and fussed. This type of excitement is normal these days. It's usually not the dog, but one of the kids who's causing the excitement.

For us humans, who can bundle up, it's kind of a treat to have the cold temps because the sunrise (about 11am) and sunset (about 2pm) are to die for, and in between the sky is as blue as my eyes. I tried to photograph this without much luck.

We recently went on a trip to MN to see my parents. It's easier for me to remember milestones that occur in my kids' lives by the trips we take. This time, my son who has for about a year said "Dawah" in place of "Yes," said "Des" and now says "Yes" consistently. This is a kid who makes up many of his own words. In fact, he named himself "Nano," not very much like his name, and everyone's finally accepted it and joined him in calling him by that name. When we returned from our trip, he decided to do the ring trapeze at his toddler gymnastics place. For the first time, without being asked, he was not afraid at all. I find it fascinating how one day a kid will change his mind and decide finally to do something differently. The baby stopped army crawling and now crawls on his knees (maybe because grandma has carpet and that would be tough to pull a body on). He took up standing and now even cruising a tiny bit.

I can't remember without a picture, so I'm always photographing, printing, and putting in books the things we do. For sure the "firsts" are recorded. Here's the first time our 9 month old baby stood up. It was no problem at all. He saw the water and was so excited to get into the bathtub that he stood, beaming. He is such a doll.

When the baby turned 10 months is about the time that he and the 32 month old began to interact. It dawned on me that life is about to get much easier when we were feeding them both the same snack, Cheerios, on the airplane. A lot of time has passed since I started writing this post. We've eaten dinner, played trains, cleaned the kitchen. Right now they are watching Curious George together while the big brother pretends to feed the little brother peas with a spoon. They're both highly entertained. I can't wait to see what they imagine once the baby is walking.

Home Sweet Home

My cousin from Minnesota instant messaged me, "Are you home?" I replied, "Yes." She said, "Great, you can come over any time; I'll be at home every day running my daycare!" "Oh, no," I said. "I am in Alaska!" By "home," she meant where I grew up . . . which was where I was going to be but I wasn't there yet. I was still 3,000 miles away from her house packing my bags for the flight.

I refer to Alaska as "home." I have spent the last six straight years there plus the two summers before it. It is the place I know best as an adult. It's where I spent most of my twenties. I know where to buy supplies to repair the house, where all of the playgrounds are, the trails. I know where to look for jobs, to take a knitting class, to eat. It's where almost all of my friends live. And it's the place with which I identify best. That said, I think my husband, who was born and raised there, is my glue to the place. Take him away from me, and the "home" would be gone.

It isn't until I arrive at my parents' home in Minnesota, where I spent the first 18 years of my life, and where I have spent almost all of my breaks and vacations since, that I really feel "at home." Granted, it is probably partly because my parents are still there and in the same roles they were all of my life. My dad never sits still. I don't think he will ever realize how much physical labor he's done outside and inside the homestead here in his lifetime. To care for 575 acres is all he knows. My mom does her part too. She cleans and organizes excessively and does almost all of the cooking and other in-house chores too. She of course does work outside too but inevitably a lot of outdoor work (eg. snow moving, haying, gardening, mowing, building) is done with machinery and tools and those go along with the garage and is primarily executed by my dad. My mom is creative too, and smart. They are both full of good ideas, and I can't wait to see their creativity come back to life in full-swing when they retire and have more time. When we visit them, my husband helps my dad, and I find myself more and more tending to indoor chores and children with my mom.

Back to the point. I must have been raised in amazingly comfortable home. When I hear, at my parents' house, the clock ticking in the living room or the forced air heat kick on, I feel at ease. If my husband or my kid asks for scissors or some string, a hat, whatever, 99% of the time I not only know where it may be in my parents' house but also what color it will be when I go to get it. Even the simple items are ingrained in my mind. I don't even know my own home in Alaska as well and we have 99% fewer items accumulated in it. The child's mind is incredibly impressionable.

It is for me (and probably to my parents as well) satisfying to go back in time. My toddler sleeps in the twin bed I slept in almost all of my life . . . in my red room with the two windows, the flannel snowman sheets and the stuffed and framed snowman picture hanging above the bed, the solid wood floors that my dad refinished when I was a toddler, the same night lights, same dressers. I read to him, before bed, the same books that my parents read to me and I memorized as a child. He plays with my old toys. He rides the tricycle that I rode at his age. It fills my heart with joy.

It brings to me hope when I see my husband take an interest and when I help too at my parents' place. He took the lead role in canning their venison this year, something my parents hadn't done for 25+ years even though they have all of the supplies to do it. He will help my dad to process the rest of it tonight. He boiled a turkey. My mom showed me how to make applesauce out of the apples from their trees for my kids. We got 10 inches of snow and my husband plowed and snow-blowed. We are eating tons of hard-boiled eggs from the free-range chickens. I showed my son how to make a snow-man, something we can't do in Alaska because the snow doesn't stick. My husband is learning about the tractors. He mulched the blueberry plants, which produce organic food customers and for a local CSA farmer to distribute. He's out deer hunting with my dad, a past-time I never shared with him, but that provides organic meat for us every year.

It doesn't seem like much, but it is. It's living off of the land. Eating healthy. Working hard. And taking good care of the things you worked hard to get. It's being thankful for simple things. I think I inherited the values. I think my kids will too.

I'd like to see us and our kids continue keeping the farm up after my parents can't any more. Although I can't say for sure that we would be a success, I think we have the right ambitions. My husband likes to work with machinery, to hunt, and to prepare food. He does thorough, quality work with integrity. I like to be outdoors, to do for hours the same task, to eat food that is grown without chemicals, to breathe clean air, to fall asleep to the sounds of the wilderness, and to live as stress-free as possible.

I am so thankful to be able to fly home to this.

Be thankful for what you have.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Day 2 of The Shift

Yesterday, Day 1 of "the shift" was telling. I am in a daze. I ache all over. I couldn't sleep until 3am. I think it was a minor flu, too. We missed play date this morning because I just could not get our act together; instead, the baby is napping and the toddler is watching PBS. Being responsible for everything for 14 hours is much different than doing it for 9 or 11. When I say "everything" I do have to admit that it could be MUCH worse. My job as a stay-at-home mom does not leave me responsible for money, which is probably the largest responsibility and stress of all when it comes to living in today's world. Still, being a stay at home single parent for long hours is exhausting, especially when there is a house to keep up, various other business to attend, school, and most importantly 2 kids who cannot eat the same foods, nap at the same time, play together, or sleep through the night . . . not even close. I realize that if I microwaved our food and had the T.V. on all of the time, life would probably be easier; it's just not my style although I'm not too proud to resort to it from time to time.

It is ironic that my husband started the 12 (in his case much longer) hour shift yesterday, because just a year ago I wrote in this diary that I would not be married to a shift worker. It's funny how perspective changes when new opportunities and potential for growth are up for grabs. I could not be more proud and supportive of what he is doing right now. To gain experience supervising 9 guys who are older than he is, the shift will likely be temporary as this is his 4th major role with the company already in less than 10 years. Still, I can feel the stress not only of being responsible for our home and kids but from him too. It's been about 2 months now that he's been working extremely hard. He came home happy at 7:30 last night, but I absorbed the stress rolling off of him. I'm sure that the last thing he wants to do when he comes home is take care of us after taking care of people all day. He wants to eat dinner, to shower, and to relax. Me too.

I found myself last night having desires I've never had before. I wanted to go outside, to exercise, to read, or to watch a funny or enlightening movie or TV show--past times one of my good friends has but that I've never shared with her. Her husband works the shift too. It may be the cause. Well, not that I've never had these interests before (you know I love the outdoors and a good movie), but I mean at 9 or 10pm at night a burning desire to escape. When I couldn't do these things because the kids wouldn't go to bed when asked, I was crushed and frustrated. Upon inspection, I realize that all of my desired escapes are alike. They are all known to help relax and to relieve stress. I must have been much more stressed yesterday than I had been in a long time. Good thing I recently acquired my energy back from the birth 9 months ago. I couldn't imagine doing this while being pregnant. I felt more weak last year at this time than ever before in my life. It is tough to feel generally ill of the time, to have a compromised immune system so that you're sick all of the time, be responsible for growing a life, and to want to sleep but be unable because you're in charge of a little kid. I'm glad that is over.

Anyway, last night I picked up a book and read until midnight. The last time I did this with something other than a textbook (and I only read textbooks in the morning) was probably a year ago when a book on contaminants in the home came out. I actually gave my textbook a try and because I was reading about "Energy and the Environment" by Ristenen it fueled my tension. I tried to documentary, but it was about biodiesel fuel . . . enfuriating. I looked at the bookshelf. I knew Elizabeth Gilbert would be good for a light and easy read. My mother-in-law left me her book "Committed," because I said I enjoyed her "Eat. Pray. Love." Since then, my mother and one of my friends has borrowed and read it, so the book is definitely been well-used and loved and last night it was loved by me. It was nice to read something by the fire without any interruptions. On Friday, if I'm over this little bug, we'll drop the kids off at the daycare of the Alaska Club and work off some more stress.

My kid is at my side whining pathetically. It's at times like these when I see the value of the close-knit extended family that the childless Elizabeth Gilbert disses.

I have a feeling this is going to be an interesting winter in my book.

YES! M-AEST

Transfer Courses									Institution Equivalent
	Term	Subject	Crs No	Course Title	Credits	Grp	Grd	D	A	Subj	Crse	Course Title	Credits	Grd
	201002	BIOL	F694	Environmental Microbiology	3.00		A		O	BIOL	A6	Departmental Elective	3.00	A T
	201002	ENVE	F644	Environmental Mgmt & Law	3.00		A		O	AEST	A6	Departmental Elective	3.00	A T
	201002	ENVE	F646	Unit Processes - Biological	3.00		A-		O	AEST	A6	Departmental Elective	3.00	A T
	201002	ENVE	F649	Hazardous & Toxic Waste Mgmt	3.00		A+		O	AEST	A6	Departmental Elective	3.00	A T
	201002	ENVE	F652	Intro Toxicology for Engr & Sc	3.00		A		O	AEST	A6	Departmental Elective	3.00	A T
	201002	ESM	F605	Engineering Economic Analysis	3.00		A		O	ES	A6	Departmental Elective	3.00	A T
	201002	STAT	F402	Scientific Sampling	3.00		A		O	STAT	A402	Scientific Sampling	3.00	A T
	Total Credits Accepted:				21.00
What is all that junk? Well, it is the final word that one of my largest hobbies for the past 3 years is going to amount to a master's degree in Applied Environmental Science & Technology. Yes, all of the courses that I took in Fairbanks are now transferred to Anchorage and my Graduate Study Plan is signed and posted. It took about a year and a half to get this done, because no one has tried to do what I'm doing before. Regardless, all I have to do is finish the last 9 credits. The problem is . . . I already know what I want to do my second master's degree in . . . but still have no clue what to do for a job. Oh well, life is short and I love to learn. Maybe if I go for a master's in Natural Resource Management I'll discover what I want to be when I grow up (besides a mother, wife, student, outdoorswoman, and wanna-be photographer).

Capture Life. NOW!

After hearing about two of my relatives pass away in the past two months, I have to say that life is unpredictable. R.I.P. aunt Dory; 49 is much too young for an unexpected heart attack. And R.I.P, uncle Ron; who knew a case of pneumonia could bring you literally from one world to another? It just goes to show that you don't know what is going to happen from one week to the next.

When we fly our little family of four down to MN to celebrate my dad's 60th Birthday next month, we're having our 3 present generations photographed at my parents' 575 acre 5 generation farm by Katie Jeanne Photography. She has kindly offered to travel 90 miles (one-way) out into the boondocks to capture some memories for us. I figure if we're going to capture some memories at the farm, what better time to do it than right now. No one in my immediate or extended family has to my knowledge ever been custom photographed. Don't get me wrong; my mom's side of the family takes a lot of photos. In fact, my grandmother left us an entire walk in closet full of them. But, the problem with this is that the people who take the photos never get to be in them.

Until then, I've been working on some projects of my own. Let's be honest, we don't always have the money or want to allocate the money to hire a professional custom photographer. And, after 6 years in Alaska and 3 years in my new home, I've come to terms with the fact that we're staying, so I might as well decorate those pretty walls . . . or at least send out some Fall Equinox or Winter Solstice greeting cards:

Something is better than nothing. Even if you don't have a camera at all, you can always go to Sear's Portrait Studio. They continually have Free Offers with little fine print. Online there are coupons for a free session and a free print (or more) at absolutely no cost. You can go back as many times as you want for free as long as you bring a coupon each time. You may not be able to get your whole family in the scene for free, but you can do individual shots if nothing else. All you have to do is print the coupon, make the appointment, show up, and order your free print. It's true, the resolution is not great, and the paper quality is very poor, but you have to keep in mind that it's free. Even if the product is not nice enough for your wall, start an album or even just a 3-ringed binder and save them. It's nice to have large prints to look back on. Here're two, our baby learning to lie on his belly and toddler eating a cookie so that he'll stay in the photography room long enough to be photographed, I liked enough to hang in the kids' play room: $30 ($15/10x13 frame)

Capture memories yourself and print. We get together with my parents who live a day away by airplane several times a year, and I always love the photos that they take of our family because they are completely candid. Events like my son unscrewing his play table, climbing out of the dog kennel, or peeing off of the front step are memories that should be taken and printed if nowhere else at a place like Shutterfly, where a 4x6 print is only 9-10c. There's nothing worse than not taking any photos than taking them and letting them sit on a hard-drive unseen. Stick them in a photo album. If you have the memory space, keep your camera at the highest pixel setting because you never know when you will fall in love with one of the photos that you take and want to blow it up really large. After filling 6 albums (almost 1500 photos--really), I had these images blown up and mounted on metal, so that they will be durable enough to live by our woodstove for years to come: $100 ($50/16x16 metal print)

Buy a nice frame. It doesn't matter if I'm buying a carseat or a picture frame; I ask myself the same two questions. Is it easy to install? And is it easy to clean? You will notice that you have to pay just a few dollars more for frames that are easy to dust (1 piece of glass and few ledges, nooks and crannies) and that have mounting hardware. Yes, it's hard to believe but if you're not getting a custom frame you should always look on the back because it doesn't always have the basics! And trust me, it's worth the extra because frames are reusable and will last pretty much forever. Most photos I take would not look any good blown up. Either the baby's drooling or the toddler has a snotty nose. There's a blade of grass in front of someone's face or the light isn't quite right. But, you know, in a nice collage frame, they look okay together, and as the boys grow older, more collages will be made. In fact, this is already the second one I've done in the past 6 months. It costs essentially nothing to update your frame so your guests have something new to look at from time to time, in our case, when they first walk into our home: $30.80 ($30 frame, $0.80/8 prints)

Leave room to grow. An absolutely amazing natural light family photographer, MachC Photography, recently gave me some great advice. 1) Before you order prints, canvas, standouts, buy frames, or whatever, cut out a piece of paper the size that you think you want and tape it to the wall where you want it. You may be surprised that you have been thinking too big or too small. You want to make a statement and you want the faces to be big enough that they can be seen. That said though . . . 2) Leave room to grow. And this can mean 2 things if not more. Don't necessarily print as big as your pixels allow or as big as your wall can handle right off the bat. You may want to add more images later or you may in the future want to print a different image even larger. For example, we have a giant wall in our master bedroom and I plan to fill it with prints on black standouts (a cheap alternative to canvas--neither require frames) for years to come . . . below, to the right, to the left, and beyond . . . memories of every age, every season, everyone: $40/16x20 standout

You get what you pay for. Just like most things in life you truly get what you pay for. A professional photo lab like Black River Imaging or a semi-pro lab like Mpix (easier uploading software than BRI) is going to give you a much better result if you're printing your own images than any of the well-known consumer labs. They have the right paper, the right printers, and the right mounting products to make your image look great and last longer than you. But, they're not miracle workers. You need a properly developed high resolution image to start with. If you don't have the time or don't want the stress, leave it to the professional custom photographers. You pay them to capture timeless high resolution images in perfect lighting and make them into products that you will treasure, well, forever.

Photos are for people who want to be reminded of specific moments in time, who are not afraid to see or share who they really are, or appreciate creativity and art. Nothing's stopping you. Capture this moment before it's gone.

Update: Summer Part 2

1) Travel. In August, baby N traveled with me to MN for his first time. The trip was quite busy, but some of the main events included a mother/daughter kayak trip; visiting with my uncle and aunt who were up visiting from VA; celebrating my cousin's wedding, bachelorette party, and her son's baptism; attending my 10yr high school reunion; and having a memorial service for my dad's younger sister who sadly passed away from a heart attack at age 49. N and I met the other 4 baby cousins, who are essentially the same age.

To digress, since I moved to AK permanently after having spent 2 summers up here, I've flown back to MN 10 times: Jan 05, Jul 05, Sept 05, Dec 05, Aug 06, Dec 06, (in 07, we built a house), Jul 08, Jun 09, Dec 09, and Aug 10. My parents from MN have come up here to AK to visit 10 times also: Jun 05, Jun 06, Nov 06, Apr 07, Oct 07, Dec 07, Mar - Apr 08 (separately for the birth of baby A), Dec 08, Mar - Apr 10 (separately for birth of baby N), June 10. We didn't try to make it even; it just turned out that way! Anyway, as a result my husband, our children, and I are very close to my parents, which is extremely important to us. Along the way, we've also helped each other out a lot. My dad helped us out tremendously when we built our house, and both my mom and dad provided a lot of help with both the kids and other projects when they've come to visit. On the flip side, my husband (he's only been down to MN 3 times though) is able to help out on their farm, haying and splitting wood, when he goes. We're going in November for my dad's 60th birthday, and the whole family is able to go, so my husband will get to help out on the farm once again.

2) Chores. It never ends around here. I keep journals for each of my kids so that they may read about the ups and downs, their talents and achievements of childhood when they're older. I realized yesterday 5 months have passed since I last wrote to them in their journals and my oh my have they grown up since that last journal entry. I blame this lapse in time on the chores that make the days fly by so quickly. My husband has finished preparing for winter. This includes gathering all of the summer outdoor tools and toys together and storing them, bringing the boats in for safe storage, and preparing many cord of wood for us for the winter, which is by far the heftiest task of all. (It is nice to burn renewable energy though not to mention that it saves us a lot of money in fuel oil). I do the majority of the cooking and cleaning and laundry, but my husband still plays a major role. He likes to help with the cleaning and he is quite a fantastic cook. I earned my keep as a gatherer this summer and picked tons of rasperries and blueberries, some of which I preserved as jam and syrup and some of which we will eat in yogurt over the winter. But, most of the time is consumed in daily tasks such as preparing meals, cleaning up after, keeping us clean and dressed. It is amazing how much more time this takes when you have two children rather than one. The 3rd "child," the dog barely ever gets his nails clipped anymore or gets a bath or a brush; to compensate, he does get extra food, so I don't think he minds much that he is at the bottom of the chain of chores. Sometimes people ask, "Would you like some fish or a houseplant?" The answer is "No, it will probably get lost in the mix and die so why bother trying."

3) Work and school and daycare. My husband has been working 10-12 hours a day and for the first time ever last weekend brought his work home with him (something he has always tried not to do). This is mainly because in a few weeks he will take a new job as a Reliability Supervisor. So, now, he is finishing up his old job which is neither reliability nor production. He is a Technical Trainer and is giving a 3 week long training session to a few of the reliability operators among other things. I will graduate with a Master's in Environmental Science this spring. So, I am taking a course on Energy this fall and will have a Risk Assessment and an Environmental Chemistry course next semester. So that I can find the time and energy to study somewhat uninterrupted, we budget for our oldest child to go to daycare two mornings a week. He looks forward to it because he has several great friends there, one of which he potty trained, and of course there are a ton of toys there. I like it because he learns good manners there and also does preschool activities.

I have been working on several other projects, which have consumed a lot of time. They have been frustrating for me, so I will bring them up when I see results at a later date.

Adios, summer! It may have been the best and the fastest so far. They always say that time flies when you're having fun.

Transition to Winter

The transition to winter is slow this year. The orange leaves hung on the birch and aspen for quite a long time this fall, 3-4 weeks I would say. During this time, we did an awful lot of hiking. Our baby at 7 - 8 months was just big enough to ride on my back in the Ergo, and our 2.5 year old was just small enough that my husband could carry him in the Kelty pack. It'll be interesting how we will travel next year. I anticipate that I will carry our food, the eldest boy will walk and the new toddler will graduate to my husband's back. On the left is the very last hike we did as a family this year. It was also the last day that the trees held onto their leaves.

The next day, it became cold. And a few days later, I got my wish albeit the leaves rustling in the wind. At 31 degrees, my husband and I and two friends took our kayaks out on the upper chena for a few hours. I wore 4 pair of wool socks under my rubber boots, goretex lined pants over long underwear, 2 warm polyester shirts plus a hooded fleece, hooded gortex jacket, life jacket, and wool hat. I was warm until the end, when it became quite breezy and started snowing on us. During the 8 mile jaunt, my husband and I definitely improved our tandem kayak skills, roughed up the bottom of the kayak quite a bit, and saw some pretty sights, while ice formed on the sides of the river.

The next week, it warmed back up to the 50s and 60s Now, 2 weeks later and heading into mid-october, it is still warm enough that we can hit the playgrounds and be comfortable without winter gear. I have no complaints about this slow transition to fall. Winter is long enough as it is up here in Fairbanks, Alaska.

River Boat vs Kayak

My husband loves river boats, and I love to kayak. This summer, the river boats have won by a landslide.

My soon to retire in-laws recently bought a chunk of land only accessible by boat. In effect, they bought a new boat and gave this 35 year old one to us. It is a used and an abused gas-guzzler, an airboat converted to an inboard, the boat my husband grew up riding in.

It is nice that we have had a motorized boat all summer in addition to our tandem kayak; we do live on a river after all and it only makes sense to keep a boat parked out front. Potentially, our whole family could ride in it. And for as little as anyone that I know uses their boats, it is most definitely smart to have one that is free or almost free, reliable or not.

Still, I'm not always thrilled about this boat or any other boat. It's a time and a money sink from which I reap few benefits. Between this boat and 2 others, my husband has been on 3 long Tanana River Trips, bear-baiting, 2 Salcha River trips, and almost 10 Chena River trips. He's also been fishing in Chitna. I have been on 0 motorized boat trips. I did make it on the river 4 hours this summer in Alaska, 2 with friends on a raft and 2 on our kayak on a date with my husband. My parents spent 2 hours in our kayak when they came up to visit also. And when I visited my parents in Minnesota, I took a kayak trip with my mom down a river that was quite beautiful but we were challenged by 3 log jams along the way.

I'd really, really like to spend a half day or a day on the upper Chena River, the North Fork specifically, in our kayak, but my husband tells me it's not going to happen because no one will want to watch the kids. Today would have been a perfect morning to do it, but he is on the boat now, taking a short trip up to the landing to take it out of the water for the year. I asked him to keep the kayak out . . . just in case. The snow isn't here yet! And the river is calling my name.

There to me is not anything better than listening to the water trickle, the leaves rustle, and the paddles hit the water as the sun shines on my face.

"Pee Floor"

Every parent has a story about something their toddler did that was absolutely embarrassing. My kid peed on the floor of a store.

It's fun to watch these kids grow up. I swear, my kid is an absolute genius and a moron. He amazes me by the things he knows and he annoys me by the things with which he struggles or pretends to be ignorant about. You never can predict their accomplishments and their downfalls. And they, all toddlers, are different.

My son has friends that are very close in age. To generalize a few of these children, one kid is kind of a bully. He'll stand on furniture and hold up toys another kid wants like he is going to hit them with the toy. He'll hide toys that other kids want under pillows or just plain steal them away. But, this kid is also an amazing athlete. He could jump off of the couch at the age of 1 and at 2 I saw him jump off a ladder that was taller than I am. He is also very smart. I can see that he notices details in his environment that many children are not yet able to absorb. Another friend of my son's is a cry baby. He can't share and when he has to or when his toy is stolen, he bursts into tears. He didn't walk until he was almost 18 months old. But, this kid has a great aptitude for language, can speak in complete sentences at the age of 2, is very kind, and also incredibly patient.

My kid is the one who pees and poops--anywhere. Since pretty much the age of 2 he's been potty trained. These days he is nearly two and a half and we give him a lot of leeway. He poops when he wants and sometimes has to be reminded to go pee, but usually he is in control of this too. He can even hold it through naps and through the night now. The problem is that we have been possibly a little too flamboyant about his peeing habits.

His 5 grandparents cheer when he "pees rocks," "pees grass," "pees trees." The babysitter was thrilled when I said it is okay that he pees outside on these things because I guess most parents do not allow their children to do this. "They must use a toilet," they say. Our child gets fun stickers for peeing outside at the babysitters house. He is rewarded with a cookie every time he poops in his potty; he hasn't had an accident for months. My cousin who is a daycare provider warned me that he may try to pee in strange places, like house plants and drains, if we allow him to pee anywhere but the toilet. Yet, daddy taught him to spell his name, to pee on car tires. We and the grandparents have videos and photos of him peeing off of the front steps, of pinching his nose closed and grunting as he poops. Honestly, it is adorable and humorous to us. But, we have confused him somewhere.

Before we walked into the store, I asked my son, "Do you have to go potty?" "No, no, no potty," he replied several times. Once we were in the used toy/clothing store, he found what (I think) was a giant plastic twin bed. It looked like a playground. It had a door that opened and closed, was taller than he is, and there were two chairs inside. I'm not sure if he thought he was in a plastic portable potty or if he thought he was at the playground or if he just thought it was okay to pee on the carpet. But, I turned away for about 20 seconds and he had peed on the floor inside of this thing and was pulling his pants back up.

As we drove home, I told him that he was a very bad boy for peeing in the store on the carpet. He knew this and made the cutest thoughtful face all of the way home in the quiet car. Anyway, I just thought I would tell this story because typically he only amazes me by what he knows and by what he can do. He is growing up in leaps and bounds. And he is the sweetest and most beautiful little boy and big brother for which we could ask.

0.5 and ALMOST 2.5 Photos

From time to time, I aspire to start a photography business, to spend the big bucks and have my family photographed by a professional outdoor photographer, to snap that one perfect image that would unedited look amazing blown up and pressed onto canvas.

I dream sometimes.

I think the reason that I don't do many photo shoots is because I'm afraid of disappointing myself, of realizing I really don't have much talent, discovering my camera isn't good enough, or of spending a lot of money and being disappointed by the work of another photographer. I know taking a digital photography course would give me a ton of confidence but so far it just hasn't fit into the schedule.

This is what I came up with 5 minutes one day and 5 minutes the next day. My kids are easy subjects because they're adorable even when they're grumpy. I forced myself to take some photos now because my son is almost grown out this antique yellow sweater. My German step-grandmother knitted it for me (I think) when I was born. Or perhaps it was handed down to me too in which case it's probably over 30 years old.

It's hard for me to choose sometimes. Is it better to have the subject looking at the camera, or just catch them mid-play?

I love how my sons can already play together. People who have kids further apart just don't know the sweet childhood interaction they're missing out on.

Changes

I feel fall coming. And by fall I mean a brief, frosty season and then 6 months of bone-chattering cold. We recently had a long week of 85-90, humid (for us), and it was brutal. If you're like me and you've lived in Fairbanks for over 5 years your body is conditioned for the cold; anything over 80 feels like fire. We did playgrounds, lakes, pools. And yesterday the Tanana Valley State Fair started and it has been raining and cool ever since. Any Fairbanksian will tell you when the fair comes, it rains. This is how I know summer is almost over.

There is a 3-day long country and bluegrass festival in Anderson, AK (near Denali National Park). My husband had driven to Chitna, 7 hours south to dipnet salmon from the Copper River. So, our friend Sadie helped me take the boys down to listen to music for the day. We met our Good friends down there. And all of the kids were on their best behavior.

After a lot of brining and mess in the kitchen, I smoked 2 loads of salmon like this. Mostly red salmon, some silvers. It takes about 8 hours to smoke a load of salmon. I smoked about 35 fish tails after my husband vacuum froze the main portions of the fish.

And what we didn't smoke or freeze fresh, we canned. We preserved 45 fish total. The weekend my husband went, Alaska residents were allowed to take home 40 fish each. Somehow we ended up with a few of his dad's fish. I'm not even going to relay the 3 day long fishing adventure. It was utter chaos but a ton of fun. I'm so glad I wasn't part of this dirty work.

Today, we met all of my closest friends at the middle school swimming pool in North Pole. My husband had gone to high school where the pool is and he was VERY pleased to see that since then they have installed water-injected slides. It was our baby's first time swimming, and he did fabulous.

I am cloth diapering my son. I find it to be actually more convenient than disposables. They have such great technology now. I never have to run to the store for diapers again . . . or take out the trash. Here my son sits with all of the diapers and covers that I will need to diaper him until he's potty trained. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. And trust me. If I like this, anyone can do it, because really I'm kind of a lazy person.

They sell a washable diaper pail liner and bag for your diaper bag, so once you're ready to do the wash you just throw the bag and the diapers and covers in the washer with the Charlie's soap. No mess. No stench. No gag. No puke. You could put them in the dryer, but I actually use my stairway railing. It's so dry in our climate that they dry very quickly like this and I feel better about saving some of our planet's fossil fuel.

And look at this cutie. He is eating baby food now. So far only rice, oatmeal, and bananas. I've decided not to make his baby food. I've never been very excited about food preparation. I have a two good friends who LOVE to cook and my husband does too. I envy them. But, when I found organic food stored in glass jars at Walmart for a reasonable price, I knew this was the way to go for us. I hadn't found a food processor or baby food maker or freezer storage trays that met my approval and I'd been looking for a while.

Update: Summer Part 1

Nag nag nag. Okay, I'll blog. I'm not a brag blogger or a blogger with really any good ideas to share. I'm not bored, procrastinating, lonely, or cold, which are my biggest reasons to blog, but there has been a lot going on so I better keep up with it anyway.

The smoke just rolled in as I wrote that last sentence. I have a feeling that this is the first day of many yucky smokey days, because we've so far had in my opinion the best summer since 2006 and 2007. Not too many wasps, not too hot, not cold, not too rainy, and most importantly no smoke from Alaskan fires gone wild.

We've had a decent mix of work and play this summer.

My husband is a workhorse when it comes to firewood. He's taken advantage of the state, borough, and federal firewood cutting areas and has found a lot of good wood at a minimal cost. He's gotten 2 loads from a state area past Salcha, 1 load from an area nearby that is open because it was burned in a fire last year, 3 loads from the Army Corps at the Chena Flood Control Project, and 1 load from a friend who wanted some trees down. He's had a little help from both my dad and his dad, which was wonderful. This photo shows the first 3 of those loads. 5/7 loads are cut, split, and stacked already. We hope they will be dry by winter.

The trees we purchased from the Alaska Conservation district were pretty much a success. We helped all of the 25 white spruce through the dry spell of early June by persistent watering. They budded and doubled in size. The 15 jack pine on the other hand have pretty much died. 2 might live, but I doubt it. I suspect these bareroots came from a different farm from the spruce and were not cared for properly.

Our two year old son is really into summer. I think he is going to be a lover of the outdoors just like his mom and dad. He wears his red rubber boots and a hat everywhere he goes. To him, they are the best tools for outdoor play. He uses a real hammer and pretends to split wood like his dad. He spends hours watering . . . the garden, sandbox, slides, stairs of his playset . . . anything. He LOVES to go to any playground and over the last couple of months has gotten very brave on slides and ladders and climbing onto toys all by himself. I would say most of all he likes to watch tractors load piles of dirt, ride 4-wheelers and lawn mowers, and go to his great-grandma Carol's house down the street to play. He also loves to wear his helmet and ride on his dad's bike. I have so many pictures that I don't know how to choose.

He's doing great with potty training. He pees outside without any prompting because it is fun to pee standing and write your name with your pee and he loves to poop inside because he gets a chocolate/vanilla stuffed cookie once he's done. We learned that if you have a boy, you must have a Baby Bjorn potty.

My parents came to visit for over half of a month. They and we had a fantastic time. We went to the Botanical Gardens, the Large Animal Research Station, Chena Lakes Recreation area, and some play dates and field trips at various parks and even at an organic CSA farm. We went to a concert, a band at a coffee house, and had a big BBQ here. They went to the Golden Heart Revue, a comedy show about our gold mining town, caught 75lb of Halibut and other fillets outside of Prince William's Sound (and it was sunny in Valdez!), and got gold at the El Dorado Gold Mine. We took in all of the solstice activities--dressed up for the sun run in gold with a bunch of friends, went to the fair downtown, and the midnight sun baseball game (which went to 3am!) And that's just half of it. We were BUSY and the weather was fantastic.

While my parents were here my husband and I went on THREE dates. This is notable, because I think we probably generally only go on 3 dates in an entire year. We went kayaking down the Chena, to dinner/drinks/movie at the Blue Loon, and to drink beer and play horseshoes with another couple who had a parent in town to watch their kids at our local bar. It was great! It's just not that easy to get out at night when you have kids. People offer to babysit, but they're not really that serious about it when it comes down to it.

We took our almost 0.5 and almost 2.5 year old tent camping. Our older son fell into the bonfire for a split second while he was throwing a tantrum because he wanted to take a marshmallow off of the stick by himself instead of having his dad feed it to him. My husband has super speed in emergency situations, so he was pulled out unharmed. The baby loved the tent. And so did our older son. He begged and begged to go night-night in the tent until he got in there. Then he repeated, "NO MORE CAMPING." My husband after stories and songs offered him visualization of great-grandma's house, 4-wheelers, and piles of dirt and the boy became so happy that he went right to sleep. Our baby is quite agreeable and our toddler has slept many times in a tent that he's had in his room so we knew going into it that it would probably be a pretty easy trip considering the age group we were dealing with.

Well, our baby is grown out of our abundance of under 15lb disposable diapers and doesn't poop constantly anymore. I am off to Blueberry Baby to make our purchase of organic cotton prefolds. For about $100, the cost of a month's worth of disposables, I should be able to diaper him until he's potty trained.

Also, he's almost 6 months old, which means I am about to feed him single grain brown rice. After rice, other solids, which I will make myself. This way I can feed him organic food affordably and also avoid the plastic packaging that contaminates commercial baby food.

So, I will be busy diapering and feeding, cooking and cleaning, but mostly playing and napping.

I love being a stay-at-home mom.

Thumb Could be Greener

The misconception: I always thought that gardening is really easy. It seemed like in Minnesota while I was growing up we would just plant things and they would grow. It didn't seem like we watered much if at all unless there was a drought. And in the fall we were bombarded by produce. My parents grew hundreds of experimental blueberry plants (from the University of Minnesota) that started out so small they could fit into a paper towel. They also grew hundreds of beautiful evergreens from bareroot. It felt like the bigger challenge was keeping things from growing. We were always weeding the gardens and our blueberry farm and mowing the lawn . . . always. Now, I realize my mom's degree in horticulture, her training and network as a master gardener, and her extensive experience from seedlings to soil types and from pruning to pickling played a hand in gardening ease . . . this, coupled with my dad's hard work and intuition. I'm sure too they were experimenting and doing a lot of the work while I was sleeping in until 9 or 10 in the morning.

The background: Last year was my first summer gardening on my own, gardening in Alaska, and gardening in raised bed style. I was pretty successful. So, this spring I tried something new and started seeds in the house. My neighbor is a seasoned gardener. In her small lot, she has 5 giant raised beds and 2 greenhouses and she's only lived here 2 summers. Her tomato and pepper plants are jaw droppers. She told me that to start seeds in the house, I would need a light. She starts her seeds in January so she can start harvesting in June, so I didn't trust this completely. We have a lot of sunlight starting in late February and our living room has extremely large windows. I read on the internet that the low e coating on our windows would not take out any visible light needed for photosynthesis, just ultra-violet and heat. A friend in Minnesota told me she was highly successful in starting tomoto, peppers, melons, etc in her house without a light and my mom too told me to go for it.

The problem: So, I started watering 3 flats of tomato, green pepper, and chili pepper seeds in my house without a light. It was a failure. I had probably a hundred seedlings come up, but they were tiny. Six were sizable. I transplanted those six to my garden and cared for them until one day my neighbor told me "Those are NOT tomatoes or peppers!," right after she identified some wild daisy in an area of my tundra lawn and told me to dig it up and move it somewhere safe. Well, it turns out that my successful seedlings were probably from the worm vericompost dirt that I used to fertilize my soil, not from the seeds I bought and planted. I'm still not sure if they are cucumber or squash or what, but they are from some type of leftover vegetable we had and fed to our worms. Because they were stretching toward the windows, they are leggy and I don't think they'll survive. Next year, I will try a light and use packaged soil.

The other problem: I allowed a friend to help with the planting process and, in her excitement or because she was distracted by my two year old, she planted crooked and too high. I replanted today and now it is much easier to water. She brought to us and planted 2 cucumber plants, 1 tomato (my son had a pair of scissors and cut the tops off of the other 3 tomatoes right in front of her eyes while I ran into the house to get something), and 4 gorgeous pepper plants that my neighbor gave to us.

The good news: All of the pepper plants and the giant grape tomato plant from my neighbor have fruit and will ready in a few weeks. They smell so good. Also, currently, my husband and I are watering 40 White Spruce and Jack Pine trees that we planted bareroot (half are out of hose's reach so we're using these barrels and the orange truck). For sure a few of the Jack Pine are dead, but it looks like most if not all of the White Spruce are doing well so far. The White Spruce are native, and the Jack Pine are not, so this is not a huge surprise. The 3 European Bird Cherry trees and 2 large Birches that we planted last year for our wedding anniversary survived beautifully, even though the cherry branches were pretty badly damaged from moose grazing. Cooperative extension says to prune them this week. Next winter, I'll bag the cherry branches to deter the moose.

It's a learning process. But, with little kids around, it is a great hobby. They like to play with water. And watering is a nice thing to do outside the house for an hour, or two, or three after they go to sleep.