Dallas. Shiny Dallas.

We're in Dallas now. I didn't realize how much I missed the city till we came here and were surrounded by all this blessed beautiful concrete and shining glass. The dirt and shrubs of the New Braunfel's countryside just doesn't compare sometimes.

I grew up in the suburbs of Austin. Not nearly as picturesque a skyline as say, New York or Hangzhou, China, to name a few of our recent haunts, but I still feel most at home where there's a comfortable silence and the plant life is in a calculated spot; Where your feet burn in a pleasant way from playing on hot concrete without shoes and the streets at night are lit by gently humming street lamps, making pools of yellow light.

New York was like that at night. Calm and quiet. At least on the Upper East side where I lived. I used to take walks to get that serene feeling back. I'd walk up and down the streets and through the trails of Central Park at 2 am, smoking a cigarette and listening to pop rock on my phone, counting on being mistaken for a tall man to keep me safe... I used to be an idiot. A very lucky, manly looking, idiot.

So you can imagine why I was excited to get to visit Dallas with Lark and small kiddos. YAAY (relatively) large city!

The first two days were great. We got some shopping in, relaxed in our room that magically cleaned itself each day, drove on freeways, saw our reflexions in glass covered buildings, and hit up the Perot Museum. Larkin climbed some frogs:

and feigned mild interest in the dinosaur exhibit till he figured out they weren't going to fight.
"Dinosaurs RAAWWR!! Dinosaurs fight! Dinosaurs fight!"
"No Larkin, they're stuck that way. They can't fight."

*Larkin runs away from me and said dinosaurs and around a corner.*

*This blurry mess is the best picture I could get before Mr. ADD ran off to the next thing*

Fun times.

The next day was the worst though. Lark and I had maybe eaten a bad burger the night before, or maybe had Malaria that decided to go away in 24 hours. Either way, we were knocked out. I lay like a lump in bed, trying to become one with the comforter when I wasn't running to the bathroom or jumping up to stop a small person from hurting itself. Poor Lark still had to go to school though and ran laps to the bathroom and back from class where they were practicing their auctioneering monologues (I have 10, now 20, can you give me 20? I have 20, can you give me 30? I've got 30)  

*I think their final is to sing this song.*

Being sick is the worst. Being sick and having to still do stuff is even worser though. It might be the worst worst of all the worsts. 

So other than spending a day turning our guts inside out and contemplating setting fire to the burger joint, it was a pretty jolly day. Definitely one for the books. Books that we would burn. Along with the burger joint.

Everything turned out well though. We woke up bright and shiny today. Dallas was still here, although a little less sparkly and both of us can stand straight and eat food! And coffee. That's the important one. I even have plans to venture out to the zoo after small people's nap time. 

Adventures. Adventures.

I hope we get to see a platypus.

~Izzy~

My Snotty Sweet Musical Boy

Recently Larkin has started requesting that we sing him songs. In the house. In the car. He wants to hear "Tinkle Sar, "Jindle ah de way", and "Row, Row, Row". One after another after another. When singing "Jindle ah de way" (i.e. "Jingle Bells") I've noticed that no matter how hard I try, I end up spouting the tune in minor and sounding like Tim Burton's characters playing their carols in Halloween Land.

It's beautiful.

It's got me thinking about what weird quirks and habits of mine the little man is going to pick up on.
Is he going to be a grown up singing Christmas carols like bad omens? Will he pronounce "Valentines" as "Valentimes"? Will he have an affinity for anything sugary, procrastinate like the plague, and be scared of touching raw meat and other people's dirty dishes?

It crazy to think that someone is looking to little 25 year old me for his perspective on life. I feel like I left highschool yesterday, not like someone who's qualified to direct another person on how to live.

The little person in question is now crawling onto my lap, to cuddle while he barks like a dog in his  small soprano voice and tries to lick me, but manages only to wipe his snot on my face.

Being a mother is surreal.

~Izzy~

Holy Patootie (add cliche about time here)!

Sooo it's been almost two years since I posted on here. Good gravy things have happened.

My sister had a baby.
Lark's sister had a baby.
I got all fat again and had a baby.

 *The absolute cuteness right? I'm too lazy to ask for permission to post pictures of her new cousins, so just imagine more cuteness in baby form*


There's a lot of babies.
We moved back to America and rediscovered the joys of cheese and enforced safety regulations/codes.
Settled on a ranch in Texas and started working for Lark's dad's company.

*That's Lark working. He doesn't always work on top of vans. Just on good days.*

Larkin's grown up and become a walking, talking 3 year old.

The earth has continued to revolve around the sun and I continue to eat candy like it's going out of style.

It's been a crazy two years. If this were Family Guy, there would be a humorous flashback here, probably involving a lot of baby poop since that's what we've been up to our elbows in. Potty training is a five letter word beginning with a "B" and no, not "bread" or "board". Good guesses though.

We're trying every strategy we can think of. Begging, pleading, redirecting, distracting, bribing, but poor little Larkin just hates the toilet and runs screaming if we catch him trying to go and want to put him on the toilet. He's at the point now where he goes and hides behind chairs to go to the bathroom. I'm thinking eventually he'll get potty trained. He'll probably get embarrassed of the diapers when he's changing in the locker room in middle school and will just potty train himself. At least that's what I'm hoping.

*It'll be this little girl's turn soon enough. Hoooooray!*

Life is good. God is good. We're set up for the zombie apocalypse when it inevitably happens. We're living a good 20 minutes from any store and 40 from any small town worth mentioning. Our seclusion will serve us well when it comes time to avoid the noxious people eaters. Also, we've been working on our gardening and hunting skills, so if you know us and like us enough, it'd probably be to your benefit to give us a shout to get added to the screening list of peoples who can come chill at our country fort when the zombies take over. It's a good idea. Just saying.

Lark is as fantastically silly and hardworking and eccentrically, charmingly, wonderful as he usually is. He's recently taken up brewing his own beer and reading as many Chinese art books at once as he can carry from one room to the next at the same time. He's crazy busy photographing and putting online the odds and ends that are collected for the website (ex: these mummy death shrouds!!)

I believe it's next week that he's scooting off to Dallas for crazy intensive auctioneer training. He will learn very important things for the fine antique business, like the different cuts of beef...Yeah.. It's required by the state...

Not much has changed for me since I've been back. Except I have more hair. For a while it was pink. Then purple. Now an odd sort of red.

It's evidently how I entertain myself now.
 Side note: If it was possible to take coffee intravenously, I would be all about that shiz. Small babies with small stomachs eat too often to allow tired moms to sleep like normal human beings.

More later.
Izzy