Blue Watermelon

Now that we're firmly into summer we can do summer things. Keldog and Raelin met a good friend and her daughter at a little local beach for a few hours of hang time. Before they went Kelly had cut up the rest of a watermelon that Raelin and I had eaten a bunch of for breakfast.

When they came back from the beach, there was a little bit of the melon left, though it was all gritty with beach sand. I ate it anyway since you don't really have to chew watermelon =)

Anyhow, an hour or so later I was giving Raelin dinner and she started talking about watermelon and something like the following conversation ensued:

R: watermelon

M: what about watermelon?

R: want some

M: well, we don't have any watermelon

R: watermelon at the beach

M: that's right, you went to the beach and you ate watermelon there, now it's all gone. There was a little bit left but it was all yucky with sand.

R: water....melon....blue....

M: ummmm, sweetly I really have no idea what you're trying to say

R: blue watermelon

M: blue watermelon?

R: blue watermelon, want some

M: that's great, though I've never seen a blue watermelon. the watermelon you ate today was red.

R: green watermelon

M: yes, watermelon is green on the outside and red on the inside and you eat the red part.

R: eat the red part

M: that's right, it's like an apple that's red on the outside and white on the inside and Raelin eats the white part (we peel hers).

R: Raelin eat the white part. Want some white part

Anyhow, she happily snarfed the rest of her grilled salmon, steamed chard, beets, and cauliflower =)

Quick Raelin Vocab lesson

Her words are coming along, though she sometimes has her own version that it's hard to tell what the hell she's talking about:

tune-up = tulip. About a little over a month ago when all the tulips had come up, Kelly cut one for Raelin and put it in a little jar, which somehow got left out on our car. I was holding Raelin on the front steps and she starts saying "want Raelin's tune-up, go get it" over and over. I asked to to point at it and she pointed at the car, so we walked over and she proudly got her little tulip in a vase and pronounced "Raelin's tune-up!" The vase has a little wire handle, so she started swinging it "Raelin swinging tune-up..."

posquito = mosquito. We went for a little walk the other day and ended up at the end of our street where there's a little creek. With the damp air the mosquitoes and black flies are quite a bit more numerous than at our house, which is only a couple hundred feet away. Anyhow, Raelin wanted to stay and examine the buttercups and lupin, both of which grow in great numbers in less buggy areas, so with that announcement I picked her up and off we went. Now occasionally she'll announce "too many posquitoes out there" while pointing in some vague direction...

goodmorningcomputer = computer. Not sure how "computer" got turned into "goodmorningcomputer." Think it may have it's roots in an early morning when I'd go around the living room with her saying good morning to everything...

hellochair = high chair or chair. For those reading the blog for awhile you'll recall this one, but I'm putting it here again for posterity =) For those not in-the-know, Raelin made the jump sometime back that since "hello" and "hi" are used interchangeably as a greeting, why not for her high chair, which has since become known as the "hellochair." She also has started referring to my office chair as "daddy's hellochair" (which she uses to play on daddy's hellocomputer)...

and the best: puggler = plug (the prongs on the end of an electrical cord). I'm in the process of building a new deck (with a *lot* of help from some key contributors) and so stage the tools and equipment just inside from where the deck will go. This happens to be right next to my desk, which is a favorite play place for Raelin =) Anyhow, a few days ago she and I were sitting down here and out of the blue she says "that's the puggler over there." Being totally baffled I ask her to show me, so she marches right over to one of the coiled extension cords, picks up the prong end and definitively says "this is the puggler, here."

Raelin Memory Lane

Last summer when we were out in CA I took Raelin to my dad's animal hospital to see the animals. The staff there is at this point all women, and having not been in the area for many years I know very few of them.

Anyhow, so I'm standing there with Raelin watching the techs work and Raelin says in her voice, which seems in this moment to be very loud: "want to see daddy's pee pee?"

I'm somewhat shocked and flustered, so I mumble something back about only seeing daddy's pee pee at home in the bathroom...I mean, what the hell does one say and not have it sound either a) totally puritanical or b) totally sick? I was certainly at a loss.

Raelin, on the other hand was no where near the same state, and followed up her initial request with "want to see daddy's nipples?"

Oh boy, uhhhhhhhhhh..."no nipples here"....

While none of the staff acted like they'd heard anything out of the ordinary, or anything at all, my ears were burning. Needless to say I announced a quick good bye and headed for the door...

Eating in Bed

Yesterday I was getting Raelin ready to go outside for a quick jaunt around the yard, to see the mailboxes, perhaps some neighbors, etc.

Anyhow, Raelin's on her bed as I'm picking out some clothes, and she sits down, picks something resembling a large grain of sand off the sheet and asks "what's that?" I turn and somewhat nonchalontly say something like "dunno". She then says "Raelin eat it?" to which I emphatically reply "Sweetie, it's not a very good idea to eat things we find in the bed".

My idea falls on deaf ears as she puts it in her mouth. I tell her to spit it out, but the mystery object has stuck to her tongue, which is also sticking out.

I move into action and pluck the offending nugget away. Turns out it's an old dried up booger. Gross.

Juggling (and the joys of home ownership)

OK, work's going totally nuts with big projects wrapping up and starting, a couple medium-sized gigs mixed in, and the spattering of ongoing client work and random requests that come flying in.

Add to that the house issues (more on this in a minute), being a dad (one of the best), and a hubby (the other best), and there's not a whole lot of time left over for much else.

So, house stuff...well first off, not really house-related per se, but there was a young moose in our neighborhood this morning, and I got a great sighting as I returned from the store this morning with some of our staples: half and half and butter =) Anyhow, quite a little northern living experience to see a moose cruising around the 'burb...

But that's neither here nor there. Our septic system, however, most certainly is. Rewind a few months to the snow melting and the ground showing itself after many months. What's supposed to happen is all the water runs off, then grass grows. For those unfamiliar with a septic system, it goes like this: everything that goes down the house drains enters the septic tank, which separates out the light stuff that floats, the heavy stuff that sinks, and starts a bacterialogical process to break it all down. What's left is effluent (stinky liquid) and sludge (stinky black mud stuff). The effluent flows out of the tank as new discharge comes from the house into the tank. The effluent flows into a distribution box which channels it into 3 perforated pipes that flow in a leach field where bacteria in the soil cleans the last bits of yucky stuff out and leaves clean water to reenter the ground water.

Getting back to the grass growing part. I noticed sometime in April that there was a patch downhill from the leach field that wasn't drying out and growing grass. In fact there was effluent seeping out at the surface, which is not ever supposed to happen and can signal the end of a leach field's life. A new leach field can cost anywhere from $7,000 - $15,000, so this is not a happy prospect. After going back and forth with the septic guys, one came out and dug up our distribution box only to find 2 of the 3 leach field pipes blocked by mud. So I shoveled all that crap (literally at one time =) out, mixed up some concrete and proceeded to patch up the dist box where the mud had washed in (and I think some effluent was also leaking out). Nothing like mucking around in partially-treated sewage; at least it was our effluent...Anyhow, later in the day Keldog and I had a little house meeting thing where we decided to pull the trigger on our long-awaited deck replacement project...

The deck that was on the house when we bought it was in bad shape. I didn't realize just how bad until I tore it down over the last couple of days. It was clear though, that with it's lack of child-safe railing at the least that it needed work. This spring parts of it had also gotten noticibly more springy, which is not a very comforting feeling.

The short of it is that the deck was now a go, so I ordered the lumber, got out my new circular saw, and started planning the dismantling. At first I just found rot, and as I cut away all the decking the frame was feeling more and more wobbly. Again not the most happy feeling to be walking around 9' above assorted rouch-cut lumber with a power saw, so I cut the rest down from ladders and scaffolding.

By end of day yesterday I was pretty beat and had come to a nice logical stopping point that left our back stairs intact. What I didn't count on was the carpenter ants that had taken up residence in this part of the deck. The initial demolition disturbed them enough to have them out looking for a new home, and our nice wood-framed house is right next to the deck. Today I was working and looked over only to see a couple carpenter ants cruising along the basement floor, and so back out I went with the saw, hammer, and ladder to pull down the last section and with it I hoped all the ants. The first part was successful, though the ants are already established in our house; hopefully not very thoroughly. I still have a couple bits of wood (the old ledger for those interested) to remove that will show a couple other things.

That's the house update for now...