Monday, June 29, 2009

Unfortunate

Sadly, my camera broke again. The lens isn't retracting like it is supposed to.

My son saw something on TV about witches and warlocks, enough to get his little mind spinning and now he's afraid of everything. Going upstairs to go to the bathroom, going into a dark room to turn on the light, everything. Any suggestions??

We are into week 4, a much less busy week. Bubba is going to a Super Cool Science Camp, and karate and that is it. Good thing because my work schedule is HELL. 12 hour shifts from 3am to 3pm on Friday, Saturday AND Sunday. Just a few more of these 3am shifts and its nights for me! Instead of going TO work at 3am, I will be coming home FROM work at 3am. Quite a change, but I am looking forward to it. I will miss my daytime cops, but ... well the break from them will be good too.

Just a couple more weeks and we go camping! I bought a new tent, the one we used 10 years ago just wasn't going to be big enough for all of us. I thought I would give setting it up a try the day we bought it. Thing is, it had been awhile since I set up a tent and I forgot to do one teeny, tiny, little thing ... stick the pin-thingys in the ends of the poles. For the life of me I could NOT figure out why the rings were climbing up the poles and why the corners weren't tight and why the dang thing wasn't staying put. My Honey got home and asked why I hadn't put the pins in the ends of the poles and I was "OH! That's what is wrong!!" Quite a blond moment! Time to get my hair done I guess.

Speaking of my hair... I had a very bad dye job awhile ago. I will never do it again myself I promise. It's worth the hundred bucks to have a professional do it! I currently sport a reddish-coppery-brownish color that's alright, but just not me. Soon I will get it done again to my regular blondeish highlighted beauty. By a professional! I should get right on that, I have a class reunion coming up very soon. Am I really old enough to have been graduated for 20 years? Whenever I say it I feel very, very old. Very.

My workouts have been hit and miss. This is worrisome because I plan to do a triathlon next month. In less than a month in fact. Wish me luck!

Friday, June 26, 2009

Week Three

This happened last week. I think it loses something in translation, its a much better story "in person" but I was encouraged to post it, so here it is:

We had sent the kids out to play with each other in the back yard so we could get dinner going the other night.

Bubba comes hollering from the back into the garage "she hit me, Miss I hit me." It's not unusual, but we have been trying to be more consistent disciplining this particular kind of thing recently.

Anyway, I turn around and see Miss I haul off and (try) to hit him in the back. I sent her to her room and tried to console Bubba.

A few minutes later I went into Miss I's room "Tell me what happened. Why are you up here?" I ask. "Bubba was going to push me in the swing and I didn't want it so I hit him in the privates" she tells me completely straight faced in her 3 year old voice, complete with speech impediments (privates sounded more like "pybets"). It was all I could do not to start laughing so hard I cried right there. Luckily, I was sitting on the floor so I was able to hang my head so she didn't see me crack up. When I had composed myself enough, I looked at her and told her to stay where she was, I would tell her when her time was up.

HOLY COW! It was so stinking funny. And she kept saying "I hit him in the pybets, I hit him in the pybets" in a sing-song voice over and over as I tried to compose myself. Of course, I had to go tell her dad right away, he clutches his chest and gasps as he tried not to laugh out loud. She is something else. Never a dull moment!

That was part of week two.

Week three started out very bad. I picked the kids up from Grandma's on Wednesday and she was all but hitting them in the butt with the door on the way out they had been so bad. That kind of behavior continued until bedtime I guess. Fortunately, I don't have bedtime duty right now, I am usually in bed and/or asleep by 8, but they were at each other's throats the whole evening. I think they are spending TOO MUCH time together. Thankfully, Bubba has Super Cool Science Camp next week and I think that will help!

They both had swim lessons the past two weeks which was fun. I wish I had thought to sign Miss I up again, but I was kind of single-minded thinking they BOTH had to do it... duh, she can do swim lessons alone.

We are planning a camping trip in a few weeks, I can hardly wait! Sort of. I am a little concerned that things might not go very well, but the kids are excited, we are staying close to home if we need to come back and ... well, you never know till you try, right?

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Week two

How many weeks are there in summer?

Swim lessons started on Monday. Miss I did really well in her first lesson by herself. Bubba also did very well. I loved it that his previous teacher was there watching him as proudly as I was. She taught him everything he knows!

The kids spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday with grandma. She is so good to them! I am very lucky! She even fed them peanuts and cinnamon rolls for lunch one day, it just doesn't get any better than that!

We got the pool all set up and the chemicals all adjusted and the new vacuum hose working, so it is all ready to use. Hopefully it will warm up this week.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Week One

We survived week one.

I had Monday and Tuesday off so I made sure to take the kids to the park each day. I had a great idea to take them on a bike ride one of the days. Turned out not to be a good idea. Miss I isn't fast enough for me to actually bike with, so I had to walk my bike and then, of course, Miss I wanted to walk her bike too. It was a lot more tiring than it should have been! We did get a great treat at the bakery tho :)

Wednesday through Friday Grandma had the kids. She took them to the park every day too so they had a LOT of outside time. I also found them working on reading or writing each afternoon when I picked them up. That's a great grandma!

I got them signed up for swim lessons for the next two weeks and Bubba enrolled in a "Super Cool Science Camp" as well as a few weeks of a parks and rec program. Plus we are keeping Karate and the kids each get to do 4 gymnastics classes. Hopefully the variety will be good.

I am still planning on doing that triathlon in July, but I have not been able to keep a regular workout routine. Fortunately, today I got out for a bike ride and a run. I did a 10 mile ride and then a run. I have no idea how far I ran, I took a few walk breaks, but I know I covered at least the distance that I will have to do for the Tri. My Honey suggested that I just go out and do whatever, ride, run, walk for 2 hours since that is around how long it will take to complete the race. (I would like to keep it under 90 minutes, but we shall see.) It was good advice! Hopefully I can do a few more days of that before the race.

Time to go get cleaned up, we have a birthday party to go to!

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Food for thought

Friday, the last day of school, me and the kids are sitting in DQ having ice cream as an afternoon treat and Miss I says "Mama I felt sad today." Interesting, I think she never uses words like sad to identify feelings. "What were you sad about?" I ask her. "Beethoven." She says. Ahhhh, I think, here we go.

Beethoven was my Dad's dog. When we visited a couple weeks ago they had recently had to put him to sleep because he was very sick. When we were there and found out I took Miss I into another room and talked to her, told her that the dog was old, he had been sick, the doctors weren't able to help him and then he died. Simple words for a three year old. I hadn't told Bubba because it hadn't come up and he's not really an animal person anyway so it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

But now here we are in DQ and she says she is sad because of Beethoven and Bubba wants to know what happened to Beethoven. So I tell him the same thing, he was old, sick and the doctor couldn't fix him and he died. And I wait because I know my son and he is going to have a question or a comment. And he doesn't disappoint me.

"Mom, when you die do you want to be buried in a box or burned up?" (And we're off!) "Well," I tell him, "I am not sure if that's for me to decide. Maybe it should be your choice when I die." He declares immediately that he wants me buried in a box so he has somewhere to go visit. And then asks if I know anyone buried in the cemetery. I tell him yes, and also explain that when people are cremated there is a place their ashes can be placed so you can go visit too. He asks if we can go see it? I figured why not, it was early afternoon, the cemetery isn't far and we can kill two birds with one stone (no pun intended). "First," he says, "can we stop at home and get flowers for your friend's grave?" (Ain't he sweet?)

So we run home, I pick some peonies and roses from the yard real quick while they wait in the car and we head to the cemetery. First, I show them the mausoleum, Bubba and I inspect the place where urns go so people can visit. Then, we go looking for my friend Staci's grave. I tell the kids a little about her, and how she died. We also checked out lots of other headstones too.

As Bubba and I were wandering around, Miss I stayed behind at Staci's grave. It was interesting and very touching. I could actually hear her singing something to her. I don't know what, but I thought it was very sweet. It is interesting to note too, just to show the differences in their personalities. He was into the mechanics of things, how come people have large or small headstones? How come some of them have two names on them? How come? Why?? And she realized that it was a place to sit and be quiet and respectful.

*sigh* the interesting-ness of life huh?

Sunday, June 07, 2009

Official

Tomorrow, officially, is the first day of Summer Vacation.

Plans? Nope. I imagine we will spend a few hours at some park (we have many, many choices) riding bikes.

I went out into the garage the other day and found Bubba with a crescent wrench in his hand working on his bike. "What are you doing?" I ask. "Taking my training wheels off" he tells me. Sure enough he was. I helped him finish and then he just took off. Literally. On a two-wheel bike! All of a sudden I have a two-wheel-bike-riding second grader. *sigh*

So, spending time at the parks where the kids can ride is definitely a priority this summer! Makes sense to get out of the house around 10, take a picnic lunch and be home around 1 for a quiet/nap time. Wish us luck :)

Thursday, June 04, 2009

DW is gonna kill me


Isn't she adorable? That was nearly 2 years ago at a going away party for a friend of ours, that ended up coming home. And let me just say we both look WAY better now! :)

That baby in her belly will be 2 next month, hard to believe. But the reason I posted that picture is because I went and got that haircut today. Except I don't have blond hair anymore, its kind of ... well, coppery. Lets just say it was a home kit (or two) mishap and then a color correction. Fortunately my hair didn't all fall out! But I am stuck with a darker color than normal for another month or so, I kind of want to let my hair "rest" for awhile! But I am excited that I got it cut and it looks pretty cute. Just right for summer.

PS DW, I gave that picture to KB for the album for WP, hope you don't mind. It really is adorable!

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Feild Day

What fun! Field Day was a blast. I linked to last year's report so I don't have to repeat myself about what it's not.

My station this year was a relay-type race. What a blast! Great music, the MC did a great job again, and we got to do the chicken dance, some stomping song and the YMCA at the end. Its not very often I dance, but with 7 and 8 year olds, who cares? I tried to put it out of my mind that there were other adults there, I really didn't care, Bubba and I were having too much fun!

The BEST part was that Walt, the Wild mascot was there and so was their star goalie. Fun stuff. I was able to hang with Bubba's class at the tug-of-war station (did you know the rope actually has handles on it now so kids don't get rope burn?) and help the girls tug to victory over the boys.

They do a good job getting it organized, the kids go from station to station every 10 minutes. It works really good, they even have a rest/water station and a Popsicle station, now that's thinking!

Fun day, but there are only 3 more school days left...

Re-reading that post from last year made me laugh. Our lunch-fights were "TAKE HOT LUNCH, I DON'T WANT TO MAKE A LUNCH TODAY."