Banana Cake and weekend outings alone

I wonder why I didn't order a large print of that one? Thats her "Franken-Tilly" look. She gives it all the time.

I awoke to a bowl of over ripened bananas on the kitchen counter. Where as other fruit over ripening is a sad frown upon our wastefulness, over ripe bananas mean only one thing. GRANDMAS BANANA CAKE! So, while all the babies were napping, I made a quick cake and now Lucas and Matilda are happily running around the playroom with their small slices clutched in sticky little hands. Its sort of like velcro- their fingers- only its flavored with jam and butter. :-)

Yesterday, I took a book to Starbucks and spent three hours reading. The book was "The Highland Fling Murders" by "Jessica Fletcher" (Donald Bain). Right now I depend upon reading to keep my 'little gray cells', as Poirot would say, from deterioration into baby wipe residue. I read every night from 9 until 10 p.m., then happily slumber until the entire baby routine begins around 7 a.m. the following morning. I haven't seen a television show in over a year that was geared toward anyone above the age of 3, I am completely behind on current events (for a brief moment over the weekend when I saw someone with a sports Jersey that said "OBAMA 08" I wondered if he played for the Atlanta Falcons before remembering the heated primary), I don't know a single song composer whose currently in the top 40 and have no clue whats playing at the box office. I am like a "time capsule" from 2006. People could interview me to find out what 2006 was like, since most everyone else has forgot it already. This isn't as bad as a friend of mine whose hairstyle is a time capsule from 1985. And the weird thing is she is too young to have actually worn that hair style in 1985, so its something she discovered years past the styles prime and adopted for herself anew.

But, I will not sacrifice my "me time" which for me is a murder mystery- favorites in the cozy theme- and a quiet corner. I have been reading Agatha Christie, Rex Stout, and Donald Bain of late. I found just such a comfy chair Saturday and spent three hours engrossed in a light fun book with a character I am attached to from television viewing (when I had that). I have been over my days of reading Vonnegut while in a state of perpetual mourning for years and rather enjoy being swept in something fun and only slightly spooky. Hey, if its not "Mrs. Wishy Washy" I consider it Pulitzer material.

So back to my comfy chair... apparently the comfy chairs in Starbucks are viewed as "couples only" chairs and no one would occupy the one next to me. Either that, or I smelled like baby formula. Not having to SHARE my corner meant I could completely curl up sideways in the chair and let my ankles drape over the arm of the opposite side. I had one entire alcove to myself. Every once in awhile a couple would walk over and stare at me for a moment, perhaps wondering how long I would be claiming ownership of the "comfy chair corner". I wanted to yell "Take your expensive coffee and get a room!". Hee, hee. Another young man sat beside me briefly with his laptop and kept eying me in a most conspicuous fashion and I suspect he wanted me to make eye contact so he could then ask how long I would be hoarding the mate to his comfy chair. Poor fella, I outlasted him, too. When his lunch companion arrived, he cocked his head toward me and rolled his eyes and said "Lets find a secluded corner" and they walked away discussing their upcoming power point lecture. Hmpfh! As if I would be insulted by his snide little stare and purposefully loud annoyment. On the contrary, it just made me appreciate my comfy chair all the more, so I sat my book on it and went and purchased a second over priced beverage to savour while staking my claim to it. I may ask if I can rent this chair every Sunday afternoon from 1 until 4 o'clock. What I drank was some sort of apple cider with caramel, whipped cream, and cinnamon that tasted like a warm apple pie and came in at 470 calories. *That* part, thank goodness, I didn't learn until at home or I may have suffered from an imagined sense of bloat at having downed it so quickly. Not knowing how sugary it was (in a caloric sense) just made the afternoon all the sweeter itself.

OK, Lucas and Tilly finished their cake and Matilda asked me if they could "Scribble". I am right here outside their playroom, so I can enjoy their company and catch up on my blog at the same time. I gave her several color safe markers and two sheets from their coloring book. And now the entire back wall of their playroom is decorated with multiple colors and I snapped a picture of her with a silly expression that says "Uh Oh!" that I will update this entry with sometime in the course of the week. :-) Lucas, on the other hand, now has two green feet.

Here is my grandmas cake, and a picture of my current favorite sleuth:

Maw Maw's Banana Cake

2/3 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda ("sodie" as my grandma would say)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup mashed bananas (we use FOUR)
1 teaspoon vanilla

As with all grandma cakes, there isn't any whipping the sugar and cream together, or sifting the flour. Just combine and pour into a 9 by 13 pan and bake it at 350 for about 25-30 minutes.

Bug races

(when do I find time to compose short stories???)


I don't guess there was a place alive as boring as Miss Nelson's Sundy school class.

First off, there was just three of us.

My brother, Billy, who is only 6 and its just not fair to a six year old little boy with an magination like Billy to give him Miss Nelson's class. I will splain that later. Then there's me and I am seven. And then there's Molly, and she is also seven but when push comes to shove she is the first to remind you that she was born in April not June so she is technically my senior and owed the respect that comes about with age. I think thats hogwash myself. She may be two months older but I was a preemie and s'possed to have been born 6 weeks earlier which would of made us almost twins.

Miss Nelson was a nice enough lady and 102 years old if she was a day. On count of only having three pupils in her Sundy school, she didn't work very hard on her lessons which is what made the class so trying on Billy and us. I guess we were lucky as the older classes all had hard lessons and some of the kids would pretend to have sore throats to miss them. But none of us had it as good as the nursery where they sang sweet songs like "Jesus loves me" and made crafts with popsicle sticks and glue and got a snack with juice. I loved the nursery and was sad when Billy and I had to graduate. I specially miss the snacks.

Miss Nelson started the same way every Sundy. She'd pull out her lesson book the church gave her and ask us to turn to page number something while she'd stare at her copy real hard like then change her mind and look up and say "What children your age need to know about is THE DEVIL!". She said this with a sternness in her eyes that used to scare us until we saw her look that same way at a church supper when the pastor got a second slice of cake before she and Mrs. Thompson had the first. He cut into line and everything which made for quite a scandal and all the ladies were unhappy and said so. Except for Mrs. Fuller who had made the cake and was flattered. I don't think the pastor ever did know he did something awful because he went and had a third slice.

But back to the devil. So Miss Nelson would lean forward and stare sternly at us and tell us that kids our age didn't hear enough about the devil anymore because parents didn't want to scare us and wanted us to know only about heaven but what we didn't know was that there was a devil and we would surely get to meet him real fast if we didn't mind our parents and behave like Jesus. Then she would cite some examples of devil behavior and tell us we should think about that and then she would look over at the clock and every single Sundy say the same xact thing. "OK, I am going to rest my eyes a bit before Sundy service while you children read your lesson and think about the things I have told you".

I told my daddy about her once and he said that it was a perfect example of the differences between baptists and methodists. Only I don't know what he meant and I am not sure which one Miss Nelson is.

And then she would fall asleep while she rested her eyes.

The first few times she did that we would just stare at one another and wonder when she would talk some more. But she never did. A long time would pass and then someone would come by and tap the door for us to go on upstairs for service and then she would say "Huh?" and rustle and jerk startled like and then rub her eyes and say "Time for prayer!" before headin up to church.

So while she was asleep we would play games. Sometimes the game was to see how many times we could count a certain word in the lesson book and whoever counted it the fastest and most right won. But this wasn't fair to Billy as he wasn't that good of a counter. Molly always won cause of being 6 weeks older than me. Even when she didn't win she said she did and there was no arguing with her as she would get loud and wake up Miss Nelson who would tell us more about the devil.

Then sometimes we had races. We raced bugs, frogs, and little cars when Billy had them in his pocket. I guess thats what I will tell you bout today.

The church basement was kinda damp after a rain and we would have these large bugs that were crunchy if you stepped on them. I am not sure what they are, but we called them "Water roaches" because they only came after a rain and they looked menacing like a roach would if he wasn't fraid of people.

We would catch a couple and then get up against the cement wall in a corner and put them down and then drawl a line with our lesson books about five feet away and wait and see whose water roach got there first. Billy was good at this game. He would always catch the fastest water roach because he wasn't scared to pick them straight up and he crunched the ones that tried to get away. I don't think I am a prissy girl like Molly is but I really don't like the sound of them crunching. And if you let Billy, he would just spend the rest of the class stomping them behind the old musty bookshelves just to see us squirm and make quiet faces. Its hard to squirm when you know it might wake up Miss Nelson. And you just couldn't let Billy's magination run wild like that because before too long he would be dancing and making faces to see how long we could hold our giggles in. Once he took his fingers and stood behind Miss Nelson making devil horns and Molly and I almost burst. My dad had popped in to tell us that we would be missing sermon cause my mom felt bad and saw Billy making fun of "poor ole Miss Nelson" and all the way home we got a speech on something called "reverence".

But I was talkin about the races.

It was one one of these races when Molly got herself all worked up. She was a "sight", my grandma would say. It had been a good rain the day before and Billy caught FIVE water roaches to race instead of only two or three. Molly never could get on her knees with us because she wore only good dresses to Sundy school on count of her being an only child. So she sat in a chair that she pulled to the corner.
Well, on this occasion one of the water roaches went crazy and climbed the leg of her chair and went right up one of Mollys better dresses that she said came from a "mail order catalog" which meant it was nicer than any of mine because mine came only from Sears which everyone has access to.

Molly just opened her mouth and screamed. She stood up in the chair with her fists clenched down by her sides and opened her mouth wide and screamed and screamed and her face turned as red as her hair and poor Miss Nelson fell out of her chair and took Molly by the arms and yelled "Whats a matter with you girl?" and shook her.

Molly was always one to think fast and she said "I got to thinkin about the devil and it gave me a fright, Miss Nelson". Molly could really pour on the syrup when she wanted to. This seemed to impress Miss Nelson and she patted Molly on the head real sweet and said it would be better for us if the Devil always gave us a fright and on that Sundy we got two lessons even before sermon started. After that she was partial to Molly and would ask Molly to sit beside her and acted as if she was the only person in the class who understood her lessons. I told my daddy about it one night and said that I was tempted to tell Miss Nelson that Molly had drawn a picture of her in the back of her lesson book with bug antenna on her head and wings but daddy asked me what Jesus would do which was his way of saying I better not.

And what made me mad about the whole incident is that it was the first Sundy that I was going to win a race and Billy crunched my bug before I could capture him for the next class.

The end.

Hello again!

I don't know how often I am going to be able to blog, but, I made my blog public again, and lets hope the previous novelty wore off and it can remain that way as I have missed sharing my pictures and family fun with my friends who do not have a blogger account to log in. Also, I must be a mild exhibitionist because its just not as much fun to blog from a closet. :-)

We had these professional portraits taken two weeks ago. Tilly and Lucas are now 20 months old, and Ewan and Rowan are 8 months. Having pictures taken with four *babies* is very hard. Tilly, for instance, is suspicious of people who try and make her laugh with Alien Teddy Bears and fans. Lucas wants to dance. Ewan is perfect and could sit and be photographed all day- if you are smiling at him, he loves you! And little Rowan is only photogenic until its time for a nap, and then he has little meltdowns and has to have his tiny thumb pried from his mouth.

Well- whats new? Tilly now talks in full sentences although they are sometimes silly and don't make much sense. Last night at dinner she said this "Dada Boogie banana look banana". Because Duane offered Lucas some banana on the table. She calls Lucas "Boogie".

Lucas knows his colors and is experimenting with pouting and whining. Ugh. THAT is very tedious. He has the face of an angel, yet he can snarl up his lips and furrow his brow and look like a troll- minus the purple hair. I have this horror now that its what *I* look like when I am angry since he and I have the same facial features and the propensity to make similar expressions. Its funny how your children can teach you about yourself as I now try to avoid furrowing when I am angry.

Ewan has been sitting since he was 5.5 months old, but has no desire to move. He likes to sit with some toys and a book and will entertain himself forever this way, looking up and smiling now and then for the effect of cuteness.

Rowan is crawling and all over the place but not really sitting exactly. He props himself up on his hip for balance and slowly is becoming more and more upright so thats his "sitting" I suppose. He also says "Mama", "Dada" and "Baba" and has since he was 6 months old, but he doesn't know what these objects are or that they necessarily have any special significance other than he is exercising his vocal cords.

The big twins consolidated their naps and take only one a day now, which means my formerly wonderful TWO 2 hour blocks each day while they were all sleeping at once now only consists of a one hour overlap between times one set goes down before the other set gets up. This I have not parted with in a ladylike fashion. For two weeks I protested and laid them all down at the same time as usual and insisted they all sleep or at least pretend to sleep. Lucas and Tilly would toss toys from their crib and jump up and down the first hour, then sleep half an hour then jump up and down some more and wake up grouchy and angry. But, I still did not immediately succumb to the loss of my precious 2 hour blocks of "me time"- which was used for exercising and a bath. Then, for the second nap time where I would get an ADDITIONAL two hour break to do laundry, Lucas and Matilda would have a party that would end with poopie diapers and paci tossing and screams of distress. Finally I decided to consolidate and Lucas and Tilly now take one 3 hour nap a day and wake up rested and happy and ready for their lunch. I no longer bathe. I just can't get it into the schedule. I normally collapse for an hour and sleep until I hear Ewan and Rowan waking up. If Duane gets home early I take a bath then, if not, I sleep in my own filth until time will afford it. :-P

Its time for everyone to get up- so more soon... I hope!