My Alligator Purse

I want to preface this entire post by saying I love our cat. He is wonderful to our kids and to our friends children. He is patient and polite when 1 year olds pull his fur, he lays still when William uses him as a pillow and he even lets the kids carry him around sometimes. He is the best cat to have with a family.

Lately though he has become high maintenance. It started weeks ago with constipation. I couldn’t get a vet appt so I used Vet Google to find out how to solve his problem, short of an enema of course. We ran out to the store to buy canned pumpkin, baby food prunes and wet cat food. After two all day vet stays he was rehydrated and given pain meds. Then he began symptoms of a UTI; peeing all over the house and trying to pee every 10 minutes. Another vet visit later, more meds and he was doing better. When the pain meds ran out we had another bout of UTI-like symptoms.

That’s when the doctor started saying my cat is stressed. Really?! What exactly is stressful about his life. Half of our house is off-limits to kids, but not to kitty. His food, water, house, and blanket are all in the off-limits part of the house. What exactly is stressful about being an indoor cat that is fed multiple times a day.

The vet suggested multiple litter boxes, multiple water dishes and a few other homeopathic changes. I skipped the extra litter box, if the 6 adults have to share one toilet than the cat only needs one toilet – not two. But I did spend over $100 on a water fountain type drinking fountain that runs all the time, making me think my washing machine has over-flowed, and a pheramone diffuser in the main room of the house so the cat feels calm; think Glade plug-in for cats.

At one point I told the vet that I couldn’t see how the cat was stressed; we are a one pet household and he has full access of half of the house. She responded, “where there are a lot of kids there.” Yeah, because I am going to chose the cat over my kids.

A week later it started up again. We ended up putting the cat on oral narcotics as needed. The original directions were for 3 times a day at $4 a dose. But we have weaned him down to every other day at this point. I think this whole would be easier if he could just say “it hurts right here”.

The diffuser is plugged in, but I haven’t noticed a difference in his behavior unless he is on the narcotics. I still haven’t seen him drink from the fancy water fountain. I have had to refill it, so I hold out hope he is drinking it, rather than the water evaporating. At this point we have managed to avoid kitty Prozac. He seems to be doing okay now. Maybe he just needed a little attention so he didn’t get lost in our big family.

On Alexander’s 2nd birthday he tried to drown. We went to Vegas for the weekend with friends and took a quick dip before dinner. I got in the pool with all 4 kids, 2 water safe, one terrified of the water, and Alexander. I put his swim vest on his. And I still Thank God that I did. The big kids swam around, throwing balls and racing plastic boats. William entertained himself on the stairs in his vest. He isn’t confident in the water and stays near the steps, which is fine with me since he isn’t completely water safe. But Alexander has a zest for life. Everything he does is big. He took to immediately jumping off the side of the pool and into my waiting arms.

We took turns; William jumped, then Alexander jumped. I should have known that it was an accident waiting to happen when Alexander starting jumping at the same time as William. I put both boys on the stairs within arms reach of me, took a sip of bottled water and answered a question for William about what kind of dessert we would be having for Alexander’s birthday.

Then I turned behind me and saw Alexander floating face down prone in the water. He wasn’t struggling, he was still. I scooped him up and he immediately started coughing and breathing. He must have climbed up the stairs, walked behind me and jumped in all without me noticing. Alexander was done swimming after that. I wouldn’t let him near the pool anymore.

I am still in shock now that there were 4 adults in the pool and a professional lifeguard and no one noticed him. Caskey tries to comfort me and say that he must have just popped up when I noticed him. Also, he wasn’t blue so he must not have been in the water very long. But it was enough of a scare that I won’t take 2 non-swimmers in the pool anymore.

I can’t believe that all of my boys have been born with a sense of humor. Alexander’s latest joke goes something like this.

I went into his room to find him in his crib completely naked, again. He is going through a stripping phase. I wrestle him into his diaper and then leave the room to get his jammies. When I get back he is laying face down in the crib fake snoring. When I exclaimed that Alexander must have fallen asleep, he jumped up and laughed. Apparently he thought he pulled one over on me.

I confess I hate the park. I do not enjoy taking the kids to the park at all. There is sand and dirt, bugs, restrooms that are too far away, which means taking all 4 kids to the bathroom together or letting one or two go alone. Its a hassle to pack everything up.

Instead we have a lovely gated yard complete with a swing set in the back. The kids can play outside, use a clean restroom all while I catch up on dishes or laundry. The kids really rule the outside of the house, as long as they don’t break anything. They can arrange their play equipment, have a picnic on the grass, go barefoot and dig up my planters. The trade off is that we don’t go to the park.

But every once in a while I do take them to the park. Just this last Sunday we had an outing of buying new soccer equipment for the impending AYSO season. I packed a dinner and blanket and snacks. We bought the new balls and cleats and brought along our goal. Even though the park was packed we found a spot on the far side of the park that was mostly shady and away from everyone else.

Caskey and I settled onto the blanket, enjoyed the shade and read our books. I was hoping for an hour or two of reading while the kids played and ate dinner. The weather was perfect.

The kids didn’t last 20 minutes. Every two minutes one of them was complaining about not wanting to play, its too hot, they are too thirsty. Oh my! No playing was done and certainly no relaxing. We packed up and headed home.

That is why I don’t take the kids to the park.

I enjoy making cakes for my family; birthday, Halloween cupcakes, First Communion, etc. The only occasion I don’t make a cake for is my own child’s baptism. I figure I get a pass since the baby is only about 6 weeks old.

William is fascinated with airplanes so this time I tackled my toughest cake yet, a 3-d sculpted airplane cake. Long ago I opted to never buy cake pans; they were costly, about $20 per pan and I only used them one time. I found that a bit of research online, some photocopies and templates and I could make any cake out of a few regular sized cake pans; rectangular, circle and square.

I found Andrea’s website were she made a GeeBee Model Z plane for her sons 4th birthday party. I modified the design a tad because I didn’t like the oversized cowling.

I have to say it was the hardest I have ever done, mostly because I redesigned the nose and the cockpit a few times. Then I made the fatal mistake of not buying Wilton food coloring. I decided that the grocery store food coloring would be bright enough. It wasn’t. His cake came out a little too mint-green for my taste.

But once I added the tail numbers William didn’t even notice the muted green coloring.

I baked three 9×13 rectangular cakes according to Andrea’s instructions. But since I redesigned the nose and cockpit I believe two cakes would have been sufficient. I printed out the templates on Andrea’s website for the plane. The nose cone is 2 pieces of cake stacked. The shape is a freehanded semi-circle.

Bare bones plane

Added a different nose and cockpit than Andrea's design

Andrea’s design of the cockpit calls for two pieces of cake fitted together like a puzzle piece, but since I had so much extra cake I simply cut a piece that was oblong and then shaved down near the back end. For the tail I used a graham cracker covered in frosting.

I put some colored frosting into a ziploc bag and snipped off the end to write on the cake and add the white for the cockpit.

The wing numbers are his initials and B4 (birthday 4)

The number 4 seemed to be an appropriate tail number

Sunday we had a spontaneous day of friends, watermelon and pneumatic rockets.

My darling husband is an engineer. He spends all his free time tinkering and building and reading about how to build. He recently came across instructions in Make Magazine for paper rockets powered by compressed air. And given William’s fascination with all thing aerospace . . . . it seemed like a fun activity to do with him.

This isn’t my husbands blog, so I am not going to give you schematics or instructions on how to build the launch unit. I do know he redesigned it slightly to be less expensive. He only used only pvc pipe and a sprinkler component for the launch unit. Then he attached that to an air compressor and portable battery – the battery was the “launch button”. He is hoping to redesign it with an actual button.

Launch Unit

Launch Unit

Then the kids set to work making their very own paper rockets. We had several extra pieces of pipe to use as a template for the rocket. The main components of the rockets were ordinary paper, scotch tape, and packing tape. Optional items included a nose cone and tail fins. The key to a paper rocket that flies is covering the entire rocket in packing tape and leaving no weak areas for air to get through. A weak rocket results in confetti. We probably had as many confetti rockets as we did fliers.

Designing the paper rockets

Children also had the option of decorating their rockets, but after the first few went up (and sometimes broke) we had to beg them just to put their names on the rocket. The adults became a little competitive too. Our ‘winner’ for the day was another dad. His rocket flew the highest (twice) and across the street. A few other rockets got lost in trees or on the roof.

3, 2, 1, . . . . Blast Off!

Now that we have spent a few hours experimenting with the rockets launcher I can’t wait to play more with rocket design. For kicks I decided to launch a pool noodle. We cut it in half and then taped up one ends with packing tape for a good seal. It didn’t go very high because of the weight, but it flew.

Pool Noodle Rocket

I was born and raised in Los Angeles, in fact, I currently live about 2 miles from the hospital I was born at. Everywhere I drive are memories of my childhood. But shockingly I had never been to the Coliseum or the California Science Center located at 700 Exposition Park Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90037.

William is fascinated with all things flying right now. In fact, I believe he has appropriated Caskey’s subscription to Model Airplanes. Unfortunately the Santa Monica Museum of Flying is currently being renovated so we needed to find an alternate outing for William’s 4th birthday.

We settled on the aerospace wing of the California Science Center. After perusing the website it seemed like the perfect place to visit. Not only is the museum free, but it is centrally located and has several full size planes on display. The website also talked about tons of hands-on activities.

The aerospace wing is an entire 4-story building shared. Half of the building focuses on planes and aerodynamics the other half focuses on outer space. The bottom floor has about a dozen hands-on activities including a virtual hang gliding machine and an area to test the aerodynamics of different wings. The kids spent the majority of their time down there trying everything out.

Exploring the hands-on activities

The 3rd floor has a full size police helicopter that still has steering capability. Children were able to take turns inside pushing on levers and pedals. Not only was it tons of fun for kids, but it was a great photo opportunity.

William flying the helicopter

The wind tunnel was another favorite. Children could wear airplane wings and pretend to fly in the wind tunnel.

Connor really flying

There were several computer modules set up where people can create their own planes or space craft and go on missions. On the space side there were models of the Hubble Telescope and a moon rover.

Unfortunately there were a lot of displays that were broken or not working properly, about 1/4 of them. In addition the elevator was out of order the day we visited. It didn’t seem to bother the kids much, but as a pregnant lady I would have appreciated the elevator and a tad more seating. Our outing had 6 children ages seven through 1 year and it kept everyone busy for about 2 hours. We didn’t rush, but we could have probably spent another hour there. But this pregnant lady was getting tired.

We intend to go back very soon. I love that it is free and there are several different sections including tons of hands-on displays. There are some special pay areas like the IMAX movies, the traveling exhibit (which is currently Mummies) and a climbing wall. The gift shop is large and and well-stocked, but I managed to stay out of it this time. There is also a McDonald’s inside the museum in case you get hungry.

But it seems there are tons of other non-exhibit things to explore; a rose garden, pathways, a playground and of course the Coliseum. It would easily take a few days to see everything. But at $8/day for parking you don’t want to spread it out too much.

I think Lainy Ann is going to be a politician. She can convince Connor to do ANYTHING. Lately he has been saying “I hope the new baby is a girl because Lainy Ann wants a sister.”

A few days ago after nap/rest time Lainy Ann and Connor told me about their plan. They were going to pool their money and save up for something that was in the American Girl Catalog. Warning bells are going off in my head. I know there is lots not right about this ‘plan’, but walking the fine line of letting them spend their own money and making good decisions and letting Connor be taken advantage of was going to be difficult.

Connor starts to tell me all the great aspects of this ‘plan’. The set they want to buy has 2 dolls; a boy and a girl so Connor can have one too. Well, Connor never plays with dolls and Lainy Ann rarely plays with hers. So spending $95 on dolls doesn’t sounds like a great plan, especially since Connor will be footing most of the bill.

I remind them that if they both have $50 right now that they can buy two Nintendo DS games right now instead of waiting to buy dolls later. Not only is that a better purchase, one they both will like to use. But its significantly cheaper as well.

Off to the store we went with Lainy Ann’s $7 and Connor’s $45. The idea was that they could buy 2 games; one they both agreed on and another than Connor chose. The deciding process was a nightmare and emotions ran high. But finally it was time to purchase. I herded 3 of the kids outside with me while Connor and Daddy stayed inside counting money. They came up a little short (tax will get you every time) and Daddy covered the difference. He gave the cashier a $20 bill and kept Connor’s bag of change which was mostly pennies and slightly less than $20.

Oh my! If looks could kill! Connor was angry and hurt that Daddy had stolen his money. We went round and round with him about how Daddy had paid the lady and we didn’t want to hold up the line by counting out all the pennies. We talked about returning the games so he could have the money, but he wanted both – money and new games.

Connor would not or could not understand. So we went home and counted out the money. It equaled $17 dollars, which meant Connor still owed Daddy $3. He has been doing more chores ever since to earn more money. I hope he has learned a valuable lesson about trusting your daddy at the store and when he says “I will take care of it” just say “thanks dad”.

Each month I sit down with the monthly Westways magazine and go through the calendar section. For those of you in the east, Westways is a monthly AAA publication touching on all things travel. In our quest to get the most out of life and teach our kids about everything we sit down with this magazine and figure out what adventure to go on next. That’s what the Monster Van is for: Adventure!

This weekend was the Annual Butterfly Pavilion at Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Gardens in Claremont, CA. We enjoyed the Cecil B. Day Butterfly Center in Callaway Gardens when we were in Georgia a few years ago, so this seemed like a great idea.

Admission for adults is $8 and children 3 and up is $4 BUT its an extra $2 per person to see the Butterfly Pavilion. Well, that’s the only reason we were there. It cost us $38 just for admission, but the parking was free. For that price I decided we needed to make good use of the gardens. But these gardens feature native California foliage. Maybe I am the wrong person to ask, but to me those are weeds.

The trails are nicely maintained and yes it was nice to walk through the gardens, but it certainly wasn’t $38-nice. I could have gone for the same walk in my free mountains and seen the same things. All I could do is hope that the butterfly pavillion was worth the money.

It wasn’t. The Butterfly Pavilion was a screened in tent the size of my living room erected in a clearing. While the docent was knowledgeable and the butterflies were plentiful we were done hunting for monarchs and caterpillars within 30 minutes. There were about 5 varieties of butterflies in the enclosure and a nice explanation at the beginning about the life cycle of the butterfly. The kids had fun watching the butterflies land on us.

Our entire excursion lasted less than two hours. There just wasn’t anything else to do. There were no grassy expanses where the kids could run and do cartwheels. There was no picnicking allowed. For $38 we could have visited the Kidspace Museum, which is 30 miles closer, for the entire day. They also have special events including a butterfly release.