Needopedia

Kyla completed her Intro to Drawing class through the local community college this week. I remember thinking of her as an artist when she was younger, but the problem with siblings is that Piper eventually claimed the artist title. Obviously, more than one sibling can be creative and talented; I think in our household, Kyla has so many interests that “artist” just didn’t float to the top.

Anyway, to give Kyla her due, these are her two favorite pieces. If you zoom in on her self-portrait, you can see her pupils are CDs, a nod to her early love of audiobooks. She captured how she puts a finger behind one ear (it’s a bit of a neurodivergent regulation tactic), wears a ribbon as a headband, and often wears her dragon necklace. She’s really captured herself! Kyla would say it’s not so much talent as attention to detail and perseverance (which she has in spades), but I’m not sure it all can be separated so easily. I hope she continues to draw!

All–ALL!– of my family raved about the corned beef I cooked for dinner tonight. I can’t remember the last meal I made that everyone liked, which is as demoralizing as it sounds. I was horribly sick myself (and yes, still made dinner and Future Me has every right to be pissed about it), but for a minute, I actually felt good.

Now the trick will be to not fix it so much that they all hate it by April….

Wes loves parkour and has been going to a local gym for a few years. It’s always been the top two guys sweeping the quarterly championship and Wes vying between 4th and 3rd (and a trophy). This Saturday was a huge upset. Four trophies were brought out for the first ever first-place tie. The previous champion got 3rd. The previous runner-up came in second. And Wes was getting more shocked until he and another guy won first place together with identical times of 8.70 seconds. It was a very proud Mama moment and now we’ll have to do all the same routines for the Spring Championships– invite both my parents and drag along Piper as well!

Enough!

So far, I’ve only been out on Presidents’ Day and International Women’s Day, but I have a feeling I’ll have plenty of opportunities over the next four years.

It was estimated that about 2,000 came out for “No Kings” Day in February in Olympia.

I took seriously Dwayne’s comment that it’s hard to fit nuance into a protest sign. [“F*ck Trump?” Ew, no 30 seconds should ever be that awful, but yes, he is a despicable individual.] So nothing catchy, and still more signs than I can hold at once:

This article shows how peaceful protests that bring out 3.5% of the population is historically brings about change. Getting 11 million people out isn’t going to be easy, but I’m definitely in!

In January 2000, Dwayne and I had our first date. I was in my last few quarters of grad school, and needed to do some research at UW main campus library. Dwayne met me there to work on what was probably his Exotic Auto Club LLC, and then we had a late breakfast at a local dive.

Twenty-five years later, the products of that first date cooperatively grimaced on the steps outside that same library. Piper and Wes are feeling dragged around as we do dorm and campus tours (Kyla’s not the only one heading to college in the next few years) but I’ve enjoyed “enough for all of us” exploring biggest and most prestigious campus in our state.

Dwayne and I have conveniently celebrated Valentine’s on Feb.13, even before our little Sweetheart was born. This year, I surprised him with tickets to see a local evening light show– with only a tiny bit of snow. Dwayne manages to open his semiannual List of Reasons to Love Dwayne with chopsticks– a new feat.

Piper spent her birthday party helping her friends to Nugget to play simple board games.

We took her out for Italian for her 17th birthday on the 15th to avoid crowds and Dwayne and Wes made Piper flan from Grandma N’s special recipe. Then Piper got the next week off of school, so that’s really the best gift. 🙂

Piper has a sense of humor that delights me, an inability to finish the hundred creative projects that infuriates me, a brain that amazes me, and a cuteness that amuses me.

Big Sister is pretty much a pipsqueak compared to her Little Bro, hands down.

I bought a box of condoms today, even splurging on the variety pack. I had been threatening to for years, to some justified eye-rolling from my teens. But during dinner, I brought out the box, explained how condoms work and how they can fail and then we played with the “weird balloons”. This was not our oddest family dinner, I should make clear, and if I didn’t have pictures, I probably wouldn’t have even remembered this one.