I've got a fever, and the only prescription is...

...alternating doses of ibuprofen and paracetamol every 3 hours. That's only funny if you've ever seen this sketch on SNL, and then it's hilarious.

Despite near-constant fevers, colds, and other sundry illnesses (Oliver's temp was up past 104 on Tuesday so I took him to the ER, but neither they nor his paediatrician the next day could find anything wrong, and today it's back up to 104 again, and Sebastian is making a run for it at over 102), life continues on here in Barcelona.

I went to Utah in February for about 10 days to get some stuff taken care of for my visa, only to have things delayed upon my return to Spain, to the extent that in another month half of what I did there will need to be re-done (and the other half, another month after that). We're still hoping I can have everything sewn up before this summer so we can start processing Marie's, Oliver's, and Sebastian's, that way they can come and pick them up after the vacation. If not, they may have to miss the trip and come over a month or so later.

The day after my birthday Marie and I went and saw Roger Waters perform The Wall, which was an experience not to be forgotten. Unfortunately, none of the videos I took will transfer from my phone so I can't show off. I've never been like a HUGE Pink Floyd fan, but this was AWESOME. And not just because I inhaled enough weed second-hand to give me the munchies (not really, but still awesome).

Marie is doing her best to keep it together and does really well with the boys. They keep her hands well full especially when they're ill, but it helps having the office so close. Although I do get mighty sick of that 5 minute walk after doing it up to 4 times/day.

Oliver started putting sentences together at the beginning of the year and he gives a non-stop commentary of life's goings-on. "Cat is sleeping, Papa eat cereal, one lamp on one lamp off, don't eat that Baby, climb on Papa like mono (monkey) climbs tree, cleaning truck outside!" He loves to sing, count (in English he always forgets "ten," and in Spanish he always skips right over "cinco"), and do the alphabet. Can recognise all of the letters with varying degrees of accuracy, but W seems to be his favourite. He also thinks R is called "bunny rabbit" and Z is "Z for zebra".

Sebastian is a mover and, to a degree, a shaker (loves to clap). Will not sit still, and has cracked the code of mobility (scooting) so nothing lower than 12 inches is safe. He seems especially fond of my flip flops. Oliver is pretty good about keeping the toys that he doesn't want S to play with up on the couch, and giving him other toys to play with to keep him distracted and when they take baths there are Oliver toys and 'Bastian toys, which seems to work pretty well.

That's about all from us now. I've got to wake up boys and force medicine down their throats to keep them at reasonable temperatures. I posted a bunch of videos to my YouTube today, below are a couple of the boys just being themselves. The first one was taken while Oliver was in the stroller behind me ready to go to the ER, holding a bucket in case he threw up again. Now THAT'S what I call good parenting!

In this one, that's a spider puppet on Oliver's hand.

So that's all for now. I just posted this to my family's blog and figured might as well throw it on up here as well, in case anyone is at all interested in a brief but thorough update.

(It looks like when I embedded the vids it cuts a bunch of them off. The direct links to the two can be found here and here.)

森の木琴-- Or whatever that says

Video via little brown pen.

I love finding amazing and beautiful things that other people do. I like to fool myself into believing there's a bit of that creative genius inside of myself as well, I just haven't had time or resources to let it out. I know it's a lie, but it's a pretty lie to me.

Also...

... I think this is awesome.

And I ordered some exercise DVD's to use while Andrew is gone and I can't get to the gym and I'm just fascinated by how bad the girl's Botox is. It's hard to get past and imagine she can move her body when her whole face has the animation and capacity for expression of a Muppet's.

Slowly breathing

Image source: Jen Stark

Doing a little CPR on the blog tonight but i just haven't been able to stop thinking about these art pieces. I came across this artist, Jen Stark, while doing something other than anything I really needed to be doing and I am fascinated with her work. I couldn't stop thinking about it all day. She does these incredible sculptures with cut paper and they just made me feel happy. I love modern art-- it took me a while to realize that I find it even more inspiring than the classics, although I've cried just looking at the David. Modern art sticks with me and I get so excited when I find artists I love. I like to think that given enough time and resources I'd be able to do something as beautiful or moving as they do but the truth is that never in a million years would I have thought to stack pieces of paper and make amazing sculptures out of cutting it up, nor will I probably ever have the time or talent to try. We're just going to have to start an art investment fund because I'm pretty sure owning one of these sculptures would make my life complete.

It was later in the day as I kept thinking about Ms. Stark's work that I realized why it spoke to me. This is what it's like when I have a good giggle session with Bastian. My life seems to go from ordinary white paper to ordinary white paper spewing rainbows full of happiness, despite still being made out of ordinary things. There's no fantastic miraculous change to the basics of my existence-- I'm still carrying baby weight, I still have to think of what to make for dinner, I'm still trying to care for the boys without Andrew here right now, I'm still wearing clothes that really don't inspire me-- my life is still just ordinary paper. On the outside my life is plain white paper. But I giggle with Bastian and all of a sudden none of that matters and all of those ordinary things spring to life and I am just happy to be there engulfed in that moment with all of the richness of my ordinary existence. It's like ordinary me in exploding in Technicolor and I'm happy. Giggling with O is a whole different experience and laughing with Andrew is even richer. Still have to find art pieces that express those.

Just had to get that out. I'll post about all the other things anyone who still has faith in this blog might be hoping to hear about later-- Christmas, O's birthday, all the fabulous things about S that I love, and photos.