art time!

I needed to wait until after Christmas to post these as they were made into a calendar for our families. But now they're all out and I wanted to share.

Our Christmas present to our siblings, grandparents, etc. was a calendar of ourselves. But we didn't want them to be any ol' pictures. So I came up with the idea last year to reproduce famous paintings. My plan was to do two a month and then we wouldn't be rushed. HA HA HA HA HA! Who was I fooling?

I completely forgot about it until late October.

But...I always do better with an impending deadline...

We ended up revamping our choices anyway because some paintings were too ornate or the costumes too difficult to reproduce and our budget was rather limited.

The unexpected part was that the kids learned all sorts of truths about paintings and photographs. As did I.

Truth #1 - Posing is hard work! And painful! Sometimes the shoots would take upwards of 30 minutes and we were constantly taking pictures and making minute adjustments.
"Move your foot just a titch more to the left."
*snap picture and compare to original*
"Nope, not far enough. A little more."
"Mom! My leg is starting to ache!"
"Just a few minutes more...I promise!"

Truth #2 - Paintings, while looking real, do not necessarily adhere to reality. My daughter, reproducing Flaming June, found that there was no way, short of breaking bones, to get her body in that exact pose. She's a child and the woman was full-grown, so there are some proportion issues, but frankly, I'm not sure even a professional yoga master could do it. Let alone fall asleep in that position! All the time the kids were realizing as they looked at these great works of art, "Hey! That's not even possible!"

Truth #3 - Photographs are just as dishonest. As a group, we were constantly looking at the paintings and asking, "What do we have around the house that we could use for that?" By the end, we were all outside-the-box thinkers. Strips of cut t-shirts became suspenders, a swimming medal, while being careful to hide the bright green ribbon, became a royal pendant, and very carefully placed fabric transformed into a beautiful, flowing dress, to name a few. And in the end, shoulders wrapped in towels, and bed sheets piled on heads, became pretty close representations.

(As always, click on the pictures for enlargements.)

clever swim-related title

I just had an hour's worth of work vanish with the wrong combination of mouse clicks. *heavy sigh*

To sum up in ten sentences.:

1. Four of the kids are on a summer swim team.
2. I have to get up early.
3. I'm not an early riser, but have always wanted to be.
4. Swim team has given me the opportunity to change my sleeping habits.
5. "Early to rise" necessitates "early to bed."
6. "Early to bed" sucks.
7. Swim team = crazy busy.
8. Crazy busy = 2.5 hrs a day (Tues-Fri) and 7 hrs every Saturday for 8 weeks.
9. Crazy busy sucks.
10. The positives of swim team outweigh the sucky parts...just barely.

In retrospect, I think this sum up version is better.

Dug and Tricia vs The World, part 8 - How to drive for days and days and days and...

A few weeks ago we hit the road. Oregon to Texas. 4896 miles round trip! Which, in case you wanted to know, is farther than driving from Los Angeles to Columbia, South Carolina and back again. Not only did we do this with four kids, ages 3 through 8, but we drove each way in only three days! (To put it in perspective, that averages out to 13.3 hrs of driving per day!) It was on this trip that we realized that we are a road trip family. We would rather explore the country through driving than skipping to the destination on an airplane. For us it's just fun. Our kids handle it great (for kids, that is) and even stopping at a rest area is fun. No, really. After driving for a few hours, getting to stretch our legs, read up on area history and trivia (they always have some sort of informational plaque/map of the area to read), clean up the van floor and getting a bite from the snack bag is a welcome change.

We actually drove a similar trip to Alaska a few years ago. Although about 900 miles longer, the Texas drive went much smoother for a couple reasons. Here's a little table to explain why:

	Alaska 2005	Texas 2008
Children’s Ages	1-6	3-8
Kids in diapers	2	0
Transportation	1984 bare bones dodge caravan, all blue vinyl interior with one bright red cloth replacement bench seat in back	2006 loaded Toyota sienna with dvd player and nav-center among other kick-hiney features
Lodging	Slept in van in rest areas and on side of the road	Slept in Marriott for free (perk from Dug traveling so much last year)
Meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner)	Bagels in van, pb&j in van, dinner out	Jamba juice and bagels in van, pb&j in van, dinner out (somethings don't change)

Can you guess the biggest factor? (Hint: the one with the 2 in the row)

The biggest surprise to me on this trip was the fact that even though we have a DVD player built into the roof of our van, the kids only watched about two movies a day. Once during the day and then once when it was their bedtime but we were still driving. They just weren't that interested during the day. I was so proud of my little guys.

So what did they do? Well, before we left I got on the magical interweb and did some research ('cause, you know, that's just what I do) and I looked for anything and everything that would keep kids busy for 72 hours in a car. (One really awesome website, MomsMinivan.com is, as the Brits say, brilliant!) I printed off a bunch of paper-based games, typed out a list of activities requiring brains only and brought along crafty stuff.

The number one best thing I brought was...*drum roll*...pipe cleaners!! I know, can you believe it? The kids loved them. By the end of the trip they had gone through close to 800 pipe cleaners! I bought the big multi-color packs and literal hours were spent creating little fuzzy sculptures. And I'm not talking about the thirty minute spurts that seem like an hour. I mean real hours.

The kids each made a bird cage, complete with bird, and hung it above their heads. The van was filled with princess hats, glasses, magic wands, pinwheels, cupcakes, chili peppers, people, cats, penguins, chickens, musical instruments, and more all made out of pipe cleaners. At this very moment, Dug the Dog, our van mascot is sitting playfully and loyally on our dashboard. He was made the first day and only once (when we were back in Oregon and driving through the windy Columbia River Gorge area) did he leave his post. If you are going on a road trip, go to a craft store, throw down the six bucks and buy a 500 pc multi-pack. It is sooooo worth it.

The second most popular items were the sketchbooks and Crayola Twistables crayons. I got each kid a spiral-bound Crayola sketchbook for a couple bucks each and two packages of the Twistables to share. (Twistables are awesome!! They don't break as easy as crayons and they are much easier to hold. They also don't require a sharpener!) Their favorite drawing activity was a game that my brother and I used to play when we were on roadtrips. My mom would say one item at a time and we would have to draw it on our paper. When we were both finished with the item, she would give us another and so on until our papers were filled. For example, she would say "tiger" and we would have to draw a tiger. Then she would say "table" and we would add the table somewhere on the page: under the tiger, in the air, on the tiger, wherever. And an important aspect was the secrecy. No looking at anyone's drawing until they were done. Absolutely no peeking. Finally, when there was no more room or our drawings seemed complete we would have the "Great Unveiling" and hand our artwork over to our mom for her evaluation. When Mom had seen them, she would always write some comment like "Great Job!" or "Excellent" or even just a big smiley face on our drawing. It was so silly but so fun. I decided to share this with my kids and they loved it! And I had so much fun looking at how they had decided to put their drawings together.

The last thing the two oldest kids really liked was Battleship. On the MomsMinivan site I found a printout version and printed out a bunch of copies. (Along with the rules, lest I forget.) It ended up being quite a hit. Oh, and I bought these little $7 lap desks at Michael's for each of them. That was definitely one of my better decisions ever. They used them not only for their activities, but it made eating on the go so much easier. They also fit perfectly over their bottom seat-only booster seats.

Things not so great: tin foil, tic tac toe printouts, books. The tin foil was supposed to be a sculpture building tool. They could use it to make crowns or swans or whatever they wanted. It ended up being too difficult and they mostly just made little balls that they threw around. Big mess. I left the roll in Texas with our friends. As far as tic tac toe goes, I had printed out sheets of tic tac toe squares. The kids played but in hindsight, I didn't need to print them out, the kids can make their own just fine. So it's not that this one was not used, it was just unnecessary. Next time I'll save the paper and just let them make their own.

Last item: books. Now my oldest daughter is an avid reader so this doesn't apply to her. She tore through three novels on the trip. The other kids brought books but they didn't really read them. The one exception being the Encyclopedia of Animals. That one is three pounds and just stock filled with pictures and info. They repeatedly went to that one since there's always something new in it. The little story books were looked at the first day and not again the rest of the trip. I brought books to read aloud but in order for the kids to hear me well I had to be facing backwards and I got a little queasy. Lesson learned: Trips that are only a couple hours are fine for little story books, but if we go on a really long road trip, only really long books will be allowed. Novels or huge books. The others just become van floor fodder after the first day. And, muy importante, don't read while facing backwards.

There's only one more thing you need to know: When you hit the rest area, EVERYONE GOES. Don't let anyone get by with "But I don't have to go." The proper reply is, "I know. But let's just go and see if there is any peepee hiding." If you don't, you will regret it because there is nothing more annoying than pulling back onto the freeway and a little voice from the back whines, "Mommy, I haf to go poddy aftow all."

The Pee Chronicles

Having four children five years apart has more than its fair share of drama. Mine seems to be centered around pee lately.

My firstborn, Dodge, was a classic toilet-training example. Very average. Nothing too sinister, nothing exceptional. His nearest-to-criminal act was determining that peeing into the dirty clothes basket was preferable to peeing his pants. Considering that his room and the bathroom are on different floors, I can’t argue with his logic. My problem is that he didn’t tell me. I only figured it out when I emptied the hamper into the washing machine and was almost asphyxiated by the ammonia fumes. (It had been a few days since the incident. Time for the smell to just fester and build.) To his credit, he confessed during my not-as-calm-as-I-should-be interrogation.

Second child, Scoochy, was the dream toilet trainee. We used the book, Toilet Training in Less Than a Day with great success. From that one day, she has been perfectly trained and has probably had accidents less times than I can count on one foot, including night time. Unfortunately, you don’t truly understand peace until it’s ripped violently away from you. This brings me to my third child.

Princess Cutie-Pops, is my second daughter. She has beautiful red hair and the fair Irish complexion to match. Adorable freckles dot her nose and the tops of her cheeks. Long, red eyelashes frame her dark, brown beautiful eyes. She’s definitely my most affectionate for when she smiles at me and says, “I love you, Mom!” (which she does often), it completely melts me. As she bobs away to go play again, it’s as if she has warmed the air with her presence. My eyes start to water and I suddenly realize that the temperature has raised because the furnace has kicked on. And my eyes are watering because the ammonia vapor rising from the heating vent is burning them. Cutie-pops has struck again. When questioned, she will eventually come clean, and the reason is always the same. “Mommy, I had to go to the bafroom lily, lily bad!”

She has peed, I’m sure, in her pants more than the toilet. And this is two years out of diapers! She locked herself into our minivan and peed at the door, she has peed right in front of the toilet innumerable times. Other crime scenes: her bed, my bed, her brother’s bed, in front of her dresser, in her dirty clothes bin (took a cue from big brother on that one!), in every room of the house: including hallways, stairwells and all rooms of our three-bedroom basement apartment. I thought she was a hard one to deal with when it came to Destination: Toilet, until her younger brother “came of age.”

Tank is our fourth child, second son. He is the toughest little guy I’ve ever met. It takes a pretty hard fall or drastic injury to make him cry, i.e. stepping on a nail or cuts that need stitches. With that much grit and gumption, it’s no wonder that he has been a bit difficult to potty-train. He’s been out of diapers for about five months or so, but he has already surpassed all three of my other children in terms of creativity during urination. He has sat next to me on the arm of the computer chair and peed, all the while missing the chair completely and saturating the floor below. He has been sitting at the dining room table and, without looking, peed under the table onto his brother sitting across from him. One time he was sitting on the toilet, my eldest squatting in front of him, keeping him company. Tank relieved himself but unfortunately wasn’t “aimed” correctly. At least he wasn’t aimed at the toilet correctly. He was perfectly lined up so that his brother was rudely interrupted mid-sentence! Yech!

One morning, way too early, I awoke to “Tank peed, Mommy!” Not my favorite alarm-system, I can assure you. I grabbed a towel to drop on the crime scene so I could return to bed for a little while before truly dealing with the situation. I couldn’t find a wet spot. I searched everywhere. Nope. Nothing. Nada. Maybe he actually used the potty chair, but because he took off his clothes and was running around naked, his siblings assumed he had peed his pants. In my "the-car’s-moving-but-there’s-no-driver" mental state, I naively believed this must be the case. I found my way back to bed.

Fast forward several hours. The night before I had done the dinner dishes but lazily hadn’t washed the cookie sheet. (Read: It doesn’t fit in the dishwasher.) I had just cleaned up lunch dishes and the kitchen was all clean but for that one item, which I had overlooked at breakfast as well. Okay, I thought, I’ll do it now. I picked it up and turned without really looking at it and the centrifugal force of me whipping around caused a bunch of liquid (that wasn’t there the night before) to come sploshing out, all over the counter, floor and fruit basket. Surprised, I saw that there was a good amount of “apple juice” still in the sheet. A thought dawned on me. I froze. My mind leapt through the possibilities. No, it couldn’t be. I leaned over wishing, hoping, praying that the soft smell of apples would waft up to my nose. Please, please, please…no! My olfactory senses were greeted with that pungent tang of six-hour-old pee. My son had very carefully peed right into the cookie sheet. Not a drop was missed. The only mess was from me and dang, it was a doozie.

Maybe somehow all these little trials are preparation for something bigger or are little parables for “greater” truths that will make me a better person. That's what I'm hoping for. All I know for sure, though, is that it could always be worse and I had better be thankful for what I’ve got. Even if it is a 30-pound urine machine with the creativity of da Vinci.