And now for the rest of the news.

Mother's day seemed to be celebrated for a week around here - YAY! It started on the 3rd with my surprise early Mother's Day present. Bill took the family to the Canby Plant Sale - a massive plant extravaganza at the fairgrounds in a nearby suburb. We all had a great time - me with the money Bill had just tucked in my pocket with the send-off "knock yourself out" and Bill pulling Audrey kicked back in the garden cart livin' large. I managed to more than fill the cart with everything from dogwood trees to giant clematis blooms. A supremely fun family outing. Audrey already knows the difference between evergreen and deciduous. A couple of months ago on one of our walks around the nearby pond we gathered various evergreen branches and I described the differences. Ever since then every single night after she's tucked into bed Audrey requests the "story about the needles." "Some needles are soft, some are pokey, some are round, some are flat, some are short and some are long...." and so on. This "story" is now required before sleep can occur. She's started telling this story to her "bedtime bunny" when she puts him to sleep - which has my gardener's heart warm and green.

Mom (Grammy), Michelle (Auntie Chelle) and cousin JayCe (cousin JayCe) arrived Friday afternoon for Mother's day weekend. Now that all the adult ladies in the family are mother's the holiday packs a little more punch. We started the weekend off right by meeting at a Japanese restaurant that has the grill tables where the chefs do all the fancy tricks (you know, Beni-Hana style) with fire and knives. I think we got the rookie - but it was entertaining just the same. Bill surprised us all by being there when we arrived, even though we thought he'd have to work and leave us on our own. A very nice surprise indeed. No sooner had the chef fired up the grill when he started smearing it with copious amounts of oil. To all our surprise he sent up a grill sized flame that had Audrey out of her booster seat, in my lap, with her arms clutching my neck screaming in just under 2 seconds. She's a little easily spooked lately, to say the least, and this one was a doozy. All the other tables looked over in surprise certainly expecting to see the toddler who was screaming laying on the grill or something of that ilk given the magnitude of her reaction. It was hard not to laugh at the whole scene but I did my best since Audrey seemed genuinely traumatized. This is converse to the month before when we lit a house sized bon-fire in our pasture to eliminate 4 years worth of collecting debris. She squealed with delight when that thing went up - so this reaction at the restaurant was not what I had expected. I guess she and her dad (both Pisces) are water signs through and through. (This fire-loving Aries was in heaven with the bon-fire as all the change that had taken place over the last few years on our property was summarily piled into a huge mound and sent up in smoke.) So when the chef did the firey volcano with the pile of onion slices I was equally entertained. JayCe thought it was pretty cool too. Audrey, however, shrieked in terror.

We spent the rest of the weekend hanging out at the house. No exhausting trips to shop or explore - just hours of eating, reading, playing outside, napping, eating and so forth. We even managed to get a barefoot-on-the-grass play session in the afternoon. It was pretty satisfying to be able watch the kids run and play on the new lawn. It was a short trip when they had to leave on Sunday morning but it left me plenty of time to mow the lawn... Oh, how I love to mow the lawn!

Unbelievably, I laid down the night after everyone left with a tickle in my throat that indicated I might be sick. I told myself it was just allergies, but by the end of the next day it was clear that I was sick - AGAIN. We just had Audrey's latest "re-check" the day before after her SECOND round of antibiotics. She's was doing great but if I thought if I pass this bug on to her and she ends up with another ear infection I just might have a nervous breakdown. The tantrums that ensued when she was at her sickest were earth shattering. One of the days went down in Audrey history as one of the hardest ever - even worse than colic because I couldn't swing or nurse her to sleep or vacuum the house for the 50th time to calm her down. (God bless that vacuum cleaner.) By 3 pm I had to start giving her time-outs for the meltdowns. It's torture to have to punish a sick child, but I had to do something or I was going to end up in a straight-jacket. After about 6 trips to the "naughty spot" the tone shifted and she started understanding that I had drawn a definite line in the sand but getting there was no picnic.


I managed, however, to occasionally distract her with several creative projects. Top of the list was the very first ever FINGER PAINTING! Audrey's skin is unnaturally drawn to being painted ever since we took her to a Holiday party where she got her face painted like a kitty cat. This was a huge success and we've got several albums full of hand prints to work with now!

Each moment that we continued to finger paint brought more temptation to paint the face instead of the paper. I gave up trying to dissuade her because she was having some real fun. Being forever the jokester she kept trying to paint my face too. As I was busy taking pictures I decided to do that next time. She ate dinner that night with the paint still on her face as she refused a wash. It was not until the absolute end of her bath that night that she would succumb to the washrag to the face! This art foray went along way toward restoring smiles all around.

I had a show last week with my favorite cellist, Skip VonKuske. We play together occasionally at Edgefield Winery in Troutdale. He's doing a "Mother's Play" month with singer/songwriters who are now moms in honor of Mother's Day. Always a good theme from Skip. I always have so much fun with Skip. It's been a long while since I've gotten behind the guitar, almost 2 months now, and it felt really good. I guess it always feels good but the thought of booking shows and getting back in to the fray completely makes me shriek in horror. I think I am ready to consider playing once a month or so. A slow and arduous return to art.

Audrey has taken to singing little "songs" that she's constantly making up. Almost everything she does has always been on a running commentary (and now I'm putting my sock on and now Mommy puts on my shoes. Here's my pink puffy coat. It's cozy... and so on and so on) but now this same commentary is being sung. (sung to the tune of "ring around the rosy") "Whoa whao whoa I'm carrying a basket with a ball in it. Carry it around and around and around." On Mother's Day she walked around intoning "Happy Mother's Day, Happy Mother's Day, Happy Mother's Day" to the tune of happy birthday. There was a time when there were so many birthdays in a row that by the end she would wake up every day and said "Today's bunny's birthday, I'm going to make him a birthday." This last "birthday" is code for "cake." For the longest time she thought that the cake was the "birthday." She dutifully sings "Happy Birthday" to bunny after lighting his candle "for pe-tend." The next morning she wakes and says, "Mommy, today it's your birthday, and mine." And we repeat the perpetual celebration all day long! I wonder who's birthday it will be tomorrow.