Victor had his last appt to check that his leg healed well (it did – almost no sign it was ever broken). He was “the perfect child” the whole time. You know that child – when you’re out and you see someone else’s kid who’s *so* well behaved and *so* charming. That was Victor today. He did as he was told. He stayed put without me having to ask it of him. He put things back right when I asked him (in front of the dr. who was very impressed by that). He was adorable and chatty and very nicely thanked the lady for the lollipop at the end of the visit.

Lately he tends to swing between completely adorable, chatty, telling stories and letting us know that we’re his “brest friends!”, to tantrumy, demanding, ignoring, impulse-impaired 3yr old. It’s a wild ride.

Regarding Ethan’s brain, it’s brilliant. Tonight, at dinner, Ken asked Ethan to listen to the letters he was going to say and see if he could figure out the word. He then said “H-O-M-E”. Ethan almost immediately said “I don’t know”, but we pushed and I asked him to say the sounds those letters make. “Home” he said. Ken tried again. “C-H-I-C-K-E-N” I protested that it was “a bit challenging” and Ken agreed, but we waited and after a moment Ethan said “Chicken! Like Chicken Little!” Ken reversed tactics and asked Ethan to spell out the word “Large”. “L-A-R-G” We corrected him, though I pointed out that the silent ‘e’ in “Large” doesn’t follow the rules we’ve been teaching Ethan (that silent ‘e’ makes the previous vowel say it’s name). All in all we’ve confirmed that he can read in his head, and that he’s stunningly ahead of his age/peer group. I had him read some lists of the standard sight words for each grade (the Dolch lists) and he was getting ansy at the grade 3 level (bored, really – he wasn’t in the mood to read word lists) but could do them. For completing his first year of school we’re planning on taking him to his first theater movie (Toy Story 3) an giving him a gift card or cash for a book shopping-spree.

Hardware Edition Addition

For the tomatoes (still needs two rows of “beams” or “supports” across the top and will then have string hanging down to wind around the tomatoes like last year).

For the cucumbers – pickling cucs on the left, eating cucs on the right. We’ll be doing a ‘Florida Weave’ like we did last year. They’re high enough and large enough that we can now walk under without problems (last year was much too short).

I planted sticks! These are set behind the tiny little pea plants and will provide, hopefully, support for said peas to wrap around and grow up as they grow. It’s a new thing, so we’ll see how that goes.

We still have the arbour to build and bean/morning glory trellis to put up, but I’m very pleased to have the tomato supports in (y’know, now that I’ve planted out my tomatoes too early and they’re going to die, I’m convinced).

Never, in them, would I have imagined that having “baking soda” as the topic of a blog post would result in such a surge of spam posts. Seriously? People search for blog posts about baking soda so they can push their products? Crayzee! (and sad. very very sad)

In the attempt to make our home a less chemical place, I’ve been experimenting with “green” cleansers. I remembered that my Dad used to swear by vinegar and newspapers to clean windows (turns out the newspaper is unnecessary and I use a cleaning cloth). It’s done a great job, better than window cleaner, even, and certainly cheaper. I read that baking soda is a good cleanser so I’ve been using that on the toilets and the glass stovetop. Recently I had a failed experiment in the oven which left a mess and reminded me how long it’s been since I’ve cleaned the oven (um, never – we tried the self-cleaning once and nearly smoked ourselves out of the house). So I got a dual surface sponge and soap/scrubbed the oven window to little avail. Remembering the baking soda, I sprinkled half with soda and scrubbed it (not very hard, either). This is my result:

I’m never buying oven-cleaner again, fume free or not.

We’ve had more typical weather lately (inconvenient rain), so work hasn’t progressed as quickly as we’d like but we’re still ahead of where we were last year and on the brink of more activity this week.

This shows one of our two tire stacks, the hardening tomatoes/peppers/eggplants, and the pile of wood that’s going to comprise the arbour, tomato supports and trellis’. I’m pretty excited to see what Ken creates.

As things stand now we have green (and red and purple) things growing and I’m terribly pleased to see that in the garden after so long.

Compared to this time last year, I’d say we’re doing swimmingly!

At the front of the house, the daffodil bed is in full bloom and looking lovely (some are already fading, but the lavender is picking up steam and greening nicely). You can see the rhubarb in the background – another month, I think.

The raspberry/hosta wall is doing well – both got a great start to the season.

The “hole” in the middle of the raspberries is the new blackberry bush.

It’s small (the little black “crack” in the middle), and I’ve never grown them before so I don’t know what to expect, but in just a week it’s already putting out leaves, so I take that as a good sign.

On the sunnier side of the house, the living room wall now has shrubberies!

Left to right is the transplanted raspberry (which we’ll keep tied up this year, I think), the lilac (which is doing much better this year, though still no blossoms), the new currant (1 week in the ground and already putting out new growth), and the butterfly bush (the little pile of leaves to the left of the green things on the right) which is alive – I can’t say how it’s doing, it’s a new one for me. Hopefully I’ll be able to plant some flowers this week – poppies and hollyhocks and who knows what else.

I’m hoping to get the tomatoes, etc transplanted this week, as it should warm up enough for them. I put a few testers in the ground last weekend and though they aren’t *dead* per se, they aren’t terribly happy either. I’ve got lettuce, spinach and mizuna growing well, cucumber sprouts (though last year’s seed isn’t doing well and needs to be redone), loads of bean sprouts (!), and radish, beet, daikon sprouts. The carrots aren’t doing anything that I can see, neither are the turnips. I’ll likely retry the turnips in a week or so.

We’re keeping a closer eye on Ethan’s weight, because of his meds, and Victor’s overall size just because he’s huge and that’s amusing.

It’s been a bit over 6wks since we weighed them last, and Ethan’s weight has gone from 35.2lbs to 35.5lbs – not much, but at least it’s up and not down. He’s also been working on his height, since he’s grown an inch since then and is now 43″ tall (at what point do I start referring to his height in feet? 3′ 7″). His weight is now under the 5th percentile, but only by about half a pound so we’re not too worried (he’s always been down around the 5th-10th percentiles).

In the past 6wks Victor’s weight has gone from 37.7lbs to 38.4lbs, and his height is up to 40″ (3′4″) now (up 1.25″ from December!). He’s solidly at the 90th percentile for height and 95th for weight. I always figured on a few more years before Victor was bigger than Ethan – and it will be – but that was based on height. I didn’t realize the impact those extra pounds of muscle would have on the balance of power. They’re evenly matched now – Ethan’s extra height making up for Victor’s extra weight – but who knows how long that’ll last. Hopefully long enough for Ethan to get better at being a nice brother.

One of my more favourite things about this house is that it sings. It’s quite windy today, and on windy days when it’s blowing just right, the house sings. Low, almost moaning sounds like that you get when you blow across the top of a bottle/jug. Different areas of the house sing different tones – upstairs is a higher pitch and sounds almost whistle-y, while downstairs is lower and more moan-y. The back of the house has two tones that play together, like someone playing with a flute. I wish I knew how to make more wind music like this (chimes aside).

It was quite warm yesterday and last night – we were able to leave the windows open all night (and wake up at the ungodly-bird-hour). Today promises to be ungodly hot so we’re outside, Victor and I, until the sun gets too strong/hot. I’ve set up a chair in the front lawn where I can watch Victor wander about the yard, exploring and being a (semi-destructive) goof. There’s a lovely breeze blowing, the daffodils are bloomed around the tree, the weeping cherry in back is bursting with tiny pink flowers and the waterfall is trickling away up the hill and the birds are twittering and calling.

The soil temp is up to 60F so I’m starting hardening my tomatoes/peppers/eggplants – they’ll go in the ground next week. It’s a tad early, but they need it.

Victor just helped me remember what dandelion flowers smell like, and how much I used to enjoy that smell as a child. Such a lovely morning…

W00t! Our mortgage is now under the hump – the big number… we is less than that. Of course, it doesn’t mean much when the house is likely worth less than our mortgage (I’m a pessimist sometimes), but it’s nice to see that we’re on the underside of all those ‘0’s.

For those who’re just here for the boys, the V-Bunny wishes you a Happy Easter!

For those at all interested in the garden, we’ve already got lots growing:

First Daffodil’s about to open.

Rhubarb’s doing well (we’ll be able to harvest this year, finally!).

And seedlings I planted a few weeks ago are sprouting up (these are beets, but we also have spinach, lettuce, radish, daikon and turnips coming up, with chives growing like weeds).

We’ve had a productive weekend, too, despite set backs. I planted more seeds, though one herb bed wasn’t finished because we ran out of galvanized nails to attach the trim to make the bed – that’ll happen later this week, I think. I planted eating and pickling cucumbers, ripped out half the peppermint and oregano beds and seeded spearmint and chamomile in their place (the plants, themselves, were split up and tossed onto the hill in front of the house with the expectation that they’ll root themselves down and spread and choke out all the weeds). Mother of Thyme and Rosemary went into another bed, and once we have the nails we’ll have Cilantro and Sage in the other (the old Pumpkin bed). I also planted Dragon Tongue beans (for drying) and He Shi Ko bunching onions. This means all I’m waiting on are the squash, melons, and seedlings (pepper, tomato, eggplant, celeriac, luffa, leek), flowers and some live plants (blackberry, currant, butterfly bush and bleeding heart) that haven’t arrived yet.

I’m humming and hawing about hardening the peppers/tomatoes/eggplant because I worry about the temp dropping back too much – I’ll start them this week in small increments and keep a close eye on how they do. For now, though, we have this:

I widened and straightened the pathway/house-side bed, which helped a lot. We’ll be putting up the arbour and flower boxes soon, I hope, and the tomato and cucumber trellis/support system. We’ll add in the potato tires this weekend, I think – just store bought potatoes, this year, since it’s our first time. Right now I view it all as a somewhat clean slate, with seeds emerging and potential poised to burst forth.

After some more seasonably cool and wet weather this weekend, we’re due for some crazy warm, wonderfully sunny weather for the next week. Perfect since Ethan’s “spring break” is now (Thurs-Mon and a holiday weekend to boot… I’m not impressed). It should be warm enough in about an hour or so for us to go outside for a bit before lunch, and then we’ll go out again after naptime.

Sharon (Grammy) is visiting this weekend, so hopefully we’ll be able to get things done. Maybe paint the boys bathroom, do some yard/garden work, plant some herbs… who knows. It’s exciting, though.