Misc. Updates

I realize there a few outstanding issues worth updating. First, the clock (nicknamed "Bug" for some reason by the children.) Bug has totally been worth the cost. There was one morning -- I think it was only the 2nd day we had it -- that the twins decided to ignore Bug and got up when they felt like it. We had a quick, but serious and semi-sleep deprived talk with them about how this was not OK.

Somehow -- without inventing anything or being even mildly threatening -- this was enough to work. Because other than that, they have obeyed Bug's color commands like a dream. They are so excited to bust into our room to tell us that Bug has turned green, it's even cute. It will be even cuter as we secretly advance the time Bug turns green to slightly later and later times. (On the parental scale of deception, we figure this is fairly low.)

So the twins' sleep situation has been at least temporarily resolved. This brings us to the other dependents in the family: the chickens. While I was away for a few days for a work trip, KLC decided to pull the trigger on getting two more chickens. Yes, we are now up to four. (For those keeping track, the old ones are Buffy and E.B. The new ones -- once again named by the children -- are Fluffy and Mingo, which is short for Flamingo. Again, this is our fault for letting the children pick the names for anything beyond their stuffed animals.)

All is now well on the chicken front, but the doubling of the population did bring some new issues. For one, we needed to expand the footprint of the accessible outdoor area for the chickens. This involved rotating the coop by about 45 degrees and going to my worst nightmare favorite store, Home Depot, for even more "poultry mesh," aka, chicken wire. All of the "ladies" seem to be getting along now, so I think we once again have a happy hen home.

Finally, there's Zeek. The cat has seemingly made a full recovery from his uber-expensive surgery. From here on out, however, Zeek will be an exclusively indoor cat. While this doesn't always sit well with him, it's the only way we can ensure he doesn't do something similarly painful (for him and us) again. This does keep him safe and sound, but he does protest -- wait for it -- sometimes at 4am. So between the twins, chickens and cat, we plan on getting a solid night's sleep some time later in the decade. Or maybe the next one.

Our Great Hope

It's a little strange to put so much of your future in the hands (no pun intended) of a piece of plastic made probably in China, but this is what we've come to. Here it is, the sole hope for our sanity. Meet Teach me Time, the talking alarm clock.




Before you realize think that I've completely lost my mind, let me tell you how one of the twins apparently does not need as much sleep as the other. And, this translates into this twin -- who has long since figured out how to dismantle any doorknob obstacle -- coming down to our room at varying unacceptable hours.

Now, I'm a morning person. I was a rowing team in college that meant I got up before dawn for years (for some inexplicable reason.) But there's something completely different about being woken up by a little person who really wants to talk/play at this dark hour, versus waking on my own or even choosing to get up to exercise. I can't explain it, but I'm sure some parent out there has documented this.

Anyhow, we've tried eliminating naps, which has gone fairly well. Both kids are tired in the evening when they should be, but it's the morning that seems to make no sense. Because it seems the later we have them go to sleep, the earlier (at least one of them) seems to get up.

This brings us to putting all of our hopes and dreams for complete sleep cycles into this little guy. It is supposed to change color to let the kids it is "wake up" time and, therefore, ok to leave the room. (If you've ever tried to tell an almost 4-year-old kid that it's not appropriate to get up at a certain hour, you'll know how successful this is.) If this device keeps the twins in bed until a reasonable hour, I'll buy stock in the company. I promise.

$80 and a 6-pack of Beer

That's what it took for us to procure a chicken coop (delivered -- details to be discussed later), a bunch of accessories, feed, and, of course, two chickens.

Before I go further, let me back up for a minute. For quite some time, KLC has been semi-obsessively somewhat intensely talking about getting chickens for our yard. She went a took a class on a recent Saturday, has read books and blogs, stalked neighbors who have them (no, not really), and basically done as much research on the topic as one could reasonably do.

The general plan was to finish our yard this year and consider getting them next year. It's not exactly that I didn't share her unbridled enthusiasm for the chicken plan (ok, maybe not to the same exact level). It's just that I have the tendency to get overwhelmed when there is more than one thing to do around the house. Since we are still trying to finish up planting in the front and back yards, I was taking the wait-a-while approach.

All of that changed when we went for a walk in our neighborhood on Saturday evening sans children. We passed a yard sale less than two blocks from our house with lots of stuff for sale, including their chicken coop, etc for the above mentioned price. Now, I'm not sure if this is happening in other parts of the country, but having chickens in Seattle is a common occurrence if not a borderline epidemic. I'm not quite sure why this is, but the city recently passed an ordinance that allows up to 8 chickens on properties within the city.

Back to our story. The people selling the coop were a couple of hippie/hipster 20-somethings who were moving to Alaska in a week or so (you know, the type that can make you feel very old and boring for having a mortgage and a minivan.) Anyhow, they were very nice and offered to deliver the coop if we wanted it.

We went back and forth on this for a little while. Certainly, the price was right (it can cost many times more for a new coop, or even a used one on craigslist, not to mention the chickens and accessories.) The main problem was our new fence. The we-are-total-yuppies fence that we cringed at hurting because the coop would not fit in the gate. Yes, the coop had to go over the 6-foot fence.

Here's where the beer comes in. Never underestimate what friends of 20-something hippie/hipsters will do for a beer. That's right, this guy and his friends essentially hoisted this rather heavy small building over our fence, with a little help from us, and placed it into the backyard. And we did, after that, give them a beer.

So we are now the proud keepers of Buffy and E.B., two chickens that have each produced one egg every morning. This is exciting for many reasons, not the least of which is that we eat a lot of eggs. (KLC and I are both pseudo-vegetarians who eat fish and dairy and definitely eggs.)

The girls, as we call them, don't make too much noise (the city of Seattle was smart enough to ban roosters) and eat a lot of our food scraps. Not to mention that they are pretty cute and kind of funny. I'm sure my Nebraska ancestors who actually farmed for a living are somewhere laughing at the idea of my learning how to corner a chicken to get them back into the coop while living in the middle of a city, but that's where we are.

That's it on the animal additions. But maybe we shouldn't go for any more walks for a while, just to be sure.

Vacation 2.0

The last time I posted, I reveled in our upcoming mini breaks for the week. I should have knocked on wood. That's because on Friday, two days before we were supposed to leave for Suncadia, our cat Zeek came in from a brief jaunt outside limping badly.

A note on Zeek for those who have not met him. KLC found him as a kitten curled up on her scooter while she was living in Taiwan about 10 years ago. She fell in love with him, nursed him back to health, and flew him back to the US after her year there. He even has a passport. Zeek, in short, is a survivor -- and basically like one of the kids.

We took him to the vet that Friday afternoon and they told us he managed to completely tear what is the equivalent of ACLs in humans. He would need (ridiculously expensive) surgery ASAP -- meaning Monday. So, this meant our trip to Suncadia was out.

Zeek had successful surgery on Monday and returned home on Tuesday after a tormented night at the vet's. (Every time we talked to the vet's office while he was there after the surgery, the staff would describe him as being fine but "crabby" or "grouchy." Clearly, he was not happy about the accommodations.) Once home, he quickly tore off his bandage that held his morphine patch that should have stayed on for 5 days, whined about being in his crate (did I mention we're not supposed to let him jump for 8 weeks?), and otherwise did everything he wasn't supposed to do post-op. And, Zeek, being Zeek, is totally fine.

The good news is that we were able to find someone to take Zeek in so that we were still able to get to the Oregon Coast. We drove down to Portland on Wednesday, picked up KLC's mom, and headed to the beach house on Thursday. KLC has some great pictures of that salvaged trip on her blog, so I won't duplicate the effort of describing the trip too much here. I will say, however, that it was a great break and I only wish we were there for a full week.

And Suncadia? They let us rebook so we'll be heading there for that night a bit later this month. Vacation 2.0 turned out to be just as good as the original we planned -- just slightly modified with a little bit of stress thrown in.