A Daily Ritual Gone Awry

After a hard day at work and what I choose to picture as a perfect day at school Alex and I head out of La Petite. As a daily ritual Alex always stops by the cracker basket near the front door. In this cute little wicker basket are individual packages of club crackers (I think that's what they're called...the "elves" make them??). The ritual continues as we play 'can you find mommy's car' and we count to 3 and take a big jump off the curb into the parking lot. I open the backseat of the car and Alex in his "I do it" stage proceeds to climb into the backseat, scale the car seat and then plop into his car seat with a happy "I did it!". I should mention that he "delicately" throws the wrapped crackers into the floor board before his climb and gets to munch on his snack on the way home once mommy buckles him in. Of course this another opportunity for us to practice "may I please have my crackers mommy" and a "thank you for my crackers mommy"...really - that's what I hear him say (and then monkey's fly by and and m&m's fall from the sky...blah, blah).

ANYWHO to the "awry" part of this ritual. Today we have our perfect days, grab the crackers in said cute wicker basket, count and jump off the curb, find our car and then Alex realizes there's another car next to ours...but it's about his height...and the windows are down...and they have a floor board, so I am guessing he reasoned why not put the crackers there today. So with all his 2 year old might he chucks the crackers and they land perfectly in said strange car...but this doesn't stop the rest of the routine. "I do it" climbs into his seat and then demands his crackers..ugh, I mean he politely requests a snack of crackers... I look at the other car for a very brief moment contemplating the potential meltdown about to ensue vs. just sticking my arm into said strange car for the crackers that would, at this point, "save the day." Ugh...okay I can't do that...and I can't have a "melty' child. So a quick diversion into the promise of chicken nuggets and french fries for dinner 'saved' the night.

I finish the night, certain that it was intentional, for nights just like this that the daycare was built right next to McDonald's.

Flood Thoughts

Anyone else's allergies in full gear? I feel icky, icky, icky! I take two allergy meds each day and I STILL am having issues - blah. Matt pointed out that with all the mold, etc. from the flood that the counts have to be really high in Cedar Rapids now so he's not surprised.

It seems so uncouth to be complaining about allergies when so many others have gotten far worse handed to them over the last week. It's hard to get my mind wrapped around all the devastation -- if you stuck to the NE side of CR you'd almost never know anything has happened. The fallout from the flood is starting to become more tangible to grasp. Co-workers are sharing the stories of their relatives, friends who worked downtown are finding the status of their jobs up in the air, Matt's grandmother's house was deemed a total loss (she's in Florida safe and sound), and Reminisce is now front page news on KCRG.com -- their business is a total loss too. http://www.kcrg.com/news/local/20616484.html

Yet even in the midst of all of this people are keeping their chins up and trying to infuse some fun. I've seen some great forwards of "new shoes" for Iowans...they were high healed flippers. I've also received several heart warming forwards of stories about how great Iowans are that are appearing in papers around the US.

Today a co-worker shared the positive outlook of a flood victim she knew, who was trying to find the silver lining before the flooding occurred. She told us knowing they were in the area that was going to be flooded these people decided to remove everything from their basement and then filled it with clean water. Yes, the carpet,etc. was still going to have to be replaced...however the pressure of the water was already built up on the inside walls of the house so when the pressure from the outside flood waters arrived the foundation and structure of the house was intact...they further reasoned that if their basement was full of clean water that the nasty Cedar River water would not seep into their basement (or at least not as much I suppose) because there was no more room. I know, it sounds like an urban myth or something, doesn't it! I would love to see an interview with these folks!

I didn't realize the extreme damage that water could cause to the infrastructure of a city. Here's one last photo to leave you with for tonight. The message sent with the photo said this is Hwy. 1 South of Mt. Vernon

Is Your Mama a Llama and a Message From Grandma

So that was Alex's book in school today "Is Your Mama a Llama"

Is Your Mama A Llama?
by Deborah Guarino
Illustrated by Steven Kellogg

'Is your mama a llama?' I asked my fried Dave.
'No she is not,' is the answer Dave gave.
'She hangs by her feet and she lives in a cave. I do not believe that's how llamas behave.'
'Oh,' I said, 'You are right about that. I think that your mama sounds more like a…
Bat!'

So I'm guessing it's safe to say Alex was entertained today. Maybe this is why he's looking at me funny tonight :)

So I'm playing around with this whole blog concept and I really wanted to figure out how to get a message from Gran onto the blog. There was just something about it that struck us as funny. Cedar Rapids flooded on Thursday we received this message last night on Monday. Oh and I should add, if this is loud it may not be your computer it may just be her :) Love you Gran!

Gabcast! Message from Gran #1

I Want to Ride My Bicycle!

Yep, you guessed it...our cute little 2 y/o proclaimed this past weekend that he wanted a bike. Being the ever enabling parents we scooted on out to Target to get a bike...and quickly found that we needed to take our ever compliant tot to Wally World as Target didn't have what we were looking for.

Alex picked out a yellow and black bike with training wheels. Being the scrapbook minded mother, I quickly pulled out my oh so compact camera to record the decision making process.

Then the interesting part started. Apparently to Alex a bike is to be scooted or pushed...we tried diligently to explain the concept of peddling but somewhere between pedals and push down we ended up pushing back and putting on the brake to a happy proclamation that "I have feet!" So Dad and I pushed Alex, on his bike, from the back of the store to the register...yes, with the brake on the whole time...and keep in mind this is a toddler bike, so it's maybe 3ft tall and we are hunched over with our child happily explaining to anyone who would listen this was HIS bike.

When we got home of course we trodded out the helmet and tried the whole peddle concept again but our excitement over the bike soon faded into other outside exploration. Namely jumping off rocks and pulling leaves off mommy's plants. Oh, and we can't forget running to the neighbors, opening their gate and tromping through their backyard. Good thing their pond was empty and Alex stopped running after mom yelled for the umpteenth time. But what I find the most entertaining is that at no time did he stop to remove his bike helmet, so here is this kid running up and down the neighborhood with a helmet on :>

Flood '08

Obviously the BIG news around our area is the Flooding. Our home is nowhere near water so in terms of flooding we are safe.

Thursday night we received several calls and emails -- thanks to everyone for checking in on us! Three of those calls came from my employer, Matt's employer and Alex's daycare -- no one was to report anywhere, so we had an unplanned 3-day weekend. Of course, we all wish it could have been on better terms.

We spent Thursday and part of Friday getting ready for more storms that were supposed to come through the area -- ok, I admit I was a bit "Type A" about this...making sure there were flashlights, batteries, non-fridge food for Alex if the power went out and of course water, water and more water. At the time we just didn't know what was to come, if the power would be shut off for preventative reasons due to the flooding or if the water situation was going to get worse. A few more storms did come through the area, but nothing horrible -- power was never lost, so we were grateful.

The biggest impact to us has been the water restriction. Until this morning Cedar Rapids was only functioning at 25% normal capacity. Everyone was asked to restrict their water use to as little as possible. Yep, that means no showers, no dishes, no laundry, no watering the plants, bottled water for the dog and as little flushing as possible. Oh so fun. As the news is suggesting, our kitchen is stocked with paper plates and bowls and plastic forks, knives and spoons...and yes, ALL that bottled water. Matt's parent's are in an unaffected area and have been gracious enough to offer their shower and washing machine as needed.

This morning the news was good that water capacity is at 50% normal. The instructions being broadcast now are to use water on even or odd days of the month depending on your street address...so yeah for us, it was an odd day and we could get a little more done! Still not supposed to run laundry, wash cars, water lawns, etc....but we can certainly deal with that.

Here are a few of the pictures that are floating (no pun intended) around. I'm very sad to say that my favorite scrapbooking store is underwater in Coralville. It's a double disappointment as the store was closing at the end of the month. The store is on the Coralville strip so there have been some good shots of the area, if I come across one I'll post it too.

Well...It Has To Start Somewhere

In a moment of "everyone else is doing it" we thought we might as well too, and the "Mara Life" blog was created. We'd debated it for a bit - with Matt's computer skills he was leaning towards a traditional 'website', but I struck first, so easy-peasy blog spot it is.

Really, like the header says, our family and friends are scattered across the U.S. so this just makes sense. We'll keep our fingers crossed at staying current and see what day-to-day info makes the blog. We're looking foward to sharing!