Today we had Henry's friends, Abby and Ian and their moms up from the old neighborhood. We went strawberry picking. Note that Grace wore her strawberry dress. Because your outfit should always coordinate with your event. She spent the whole time picking up teeny tiny strawberries and exclaiming, "oh, this is cute!" Olivia was all business. If the business was eating all you could stuff in your mouth. Something tells me we're going to be cleaning shit off the walls again...

Next year, Jack will be old enough for his first job at this farm, so he picked speedily to see if he could hack it. His flat was full by the time the other four of us had picked about a handful. He's very excited about working hard to earn a little money. I find this really odd, because I didn't know he knew how to work hard. If there were jobs for kids who debate their way out of chores, he'd make a mint.

Grace was showing me her hangnail this morning. It gave me the giggles. Because I'm a bad mom. I figure when she's a teenager in a band she can use this picture on her flyers.

Mitch is such a good dad. The kids wanted to camp in the backyard last night and, while my automatic response would have been no, it's a weeknight, after all, he was totally into it. Since I hate sleeping on the groundhave bursitis, I slept in the house in my nice, big bed with my 600 thread-count sheets and my remote control at hand so I could watch Access HollywoodCNN before drifting off. Jack started out in the tent, but grew bored with the younger kids' lack of ghost story-telling experience, and once they started drifting off to sleep he was outta there. It was a good night for all, as seen here by these happy morning faces.

Our weekend was pretty mellow around here. For us, anyway. Except for one bathroom incident, but more on that later. Jack had Hunter up, so he was fully occupied. Mitch took the boys on a long hike, his first since his accident. He's still sore today. He also spent a lot of time working on the neglected tree house and patching the holes in the walls that the kids have made since we moved here. I took the youngest three to the Coupeville Wharf Festival, because you can never have enough festivals in Coupeville, apparently. This one had a pirate theme, and I thought Henry would love it. He did love the idea of it, but when Captain Jack Sparrow and Davy Jones started a sword fight while talking to him, he tried to climb up the back of my legs. But the girls were already glued there. Then, there was a clown tragedy, in which a clown made a heart-shaped balloon for Grace and you would have thought he had ripped out one of the pirates' still beating heart and handed it to her, the way she freaked out. All of the terrors of the Wharf Festival were easily erased by a trip to the ice cream shop, as usual.

Yesterday, I worked on clearing the blackberry brambles and stinging nettles from behind the basketball hoop, because I'm tired of the kids playing basketball and coming in complaining of bleeding arms with angry welts. Big babies. Now I'm covered in bleeding arms with angry welts. I did find four missing basketballs, however.

It's strawberry and cherry season here on Whidbey. From that sentence, I bet you can tell I'm about to talk about the bathroom incident. Olivia was complaining of a tummy ache, and then she disappeared into the bathroom. Usually, she's a quick pooper, then she backs out of the bathroom, spreads her cheeks at the nearest adult, and shouts, "AM I DONE?" Well, she had been in there for a good 10 minutes when I heard her yell, "We're out of wipes!" Alarm bells rang and I hustled to the bathroom. How is it possible to hang upside down from the ceiling and rub your poopy butt on the walls? Mitch had shower duty and I cleaned the bathroom. The end.

I became one with Wal-mart today. Most people who know me know I despise Wal-mart. The problem with living on an island, though, is that it's sometimes the only choice. I needed things and I had three little kids with me. I could have gone to lots of different stores looking for the wide variety of things I needed, but, like I said, I had three little kids with me. Here is what I needed to get: Hershey bars for s'mores, a full-legnth mirror for my closet, vegetable seeds, kid shampoo, socks for Henry, contact cleaning solution, and a bathroom scale. Happily, it wasn't crowded and I located said items in record time. I should have been home free. As I was loading the conveyor belt with my stuff, I heard a blood curdling scream from directly behind me. Henry had grabbed a little hand-held fan from the shelf by the check-out counter and decided to cool Olivia off with it. Instead, he sucked up half her hair and the thing was still whirring around, but it was attached to her scalp. By this time about five people were in line behind me, and both Olivia and Henry were crying. Grace simply sat in the cart with a smug look on her face. It seemed to say, "Ha. Now my mullet is going to look better than your weed-wacker head." I took out my trusty swiss army scissors and snipped off as little hair as I could, but it was still a lot of hair. Paid, and got the hell out. Henry took one look at the back of Olivia's head as they were climbing into the van and started crying again. It looks like, um, like someone stuck a hand-held fan in her hair and turned it on.

The last time we saw Ruby Brown was Tuesday morning. We have a very sad little girl now. Ironically, as much as we joked about tying bacon around her neck and throwing her to the coyotes, Ruby had (has?) become a pretty decent pet. We finally got her skin condition under control, thanks to Seamus' dog food which cost $80 a bag. She stopped pooping in the laundry basket because we started to let her go outside a bit. She also let Olivia push her around in her dolly stroller. Jack doesn't know yet--he's in Seattle at his buddy Dylan's this week. Olivia has thoroughly searched the house daily, and she makes me take her through the woods to hunt for her. The other two kids aren't really concerned. Like me, they aren't huge animal lovers, although Grace did enjoy putting necklaces on Ruby (is it any wonder the poor animal disappeared?). If not for Olivia, I am pretty sure they never would have noticed Ruby was even gone. Last night we watched a sweet movie called "Duma" about a boy in S. Africa who raises a Cheetah but takes it back to the wild, where it finds a mate and lives happily on the Savannah. "That must be what happened to Ruby! She must have found a friend," I say, glancing at Olivia. That's my story and I'm sticking to it, anyway.

My goal for this summer was going to be to spend more time playing with my kids, rather than setting them up to play by themselves so I could do important things, like shop online. I'm learning, though, that they don't want me to play with them. I'm no good at playing action figures with Henry. I always try to talk the problems out, instead of solving them with Attacking Fists of Fury or Laser Swords of Disaster. The girls are more tolerant, but mostly they relegate me to tasting their play food concoctions or holding their baby dolls while they do important things like make play food concoctions. God forbid I should enter their play kitchen area. Everyone knows mommies aren't allowed in the kitchen, because I make food that's sensible, like a plastic ham and cheese sandwich. Not birthday cake/pickle/tomato/chocolate milk soup. Jack will play a board game with me if FORCED, but he makes sure I know it's a BORED game. He also hates it when I tip the board if I start losing. Whatever. So, I'll just shop online while the girls bring me heaping plates of food of questionable compatability and Henry dresses up in his superhero-of-the-moment costume and attacks me from afar, unaware that I'm aware I'm under attack. I'm still going to make Jack play bored/board games with me. I just love that panicked look in his eye. I can see him wondering if I'm going to sneak in conversations about Peer Pressure, or god forbid, GIRLS.

So, the kids only lasted until 10:30 in their pjs, then they wanted to do something fun. Day one of vacation and already bored is not a good sign. We all got dressed and put our sunblock to protect ourselves from the harsh Pacific Northwest, um, cloud cover, and hit the trail at Ebey's Bluff (or, as Grace calls it, "Ebey's Bluffalo"). Olivia was delighted to find a porta potty at the trailhead. She loves using them. It's so disgusting. Grace took one look inside and said, "even if I had to pee really, really, really bad, I would rather go in my pants than pee in there. Besides, mommy always has extra clothes." Henry said, "Well, it's really too bad you aren't a boy!" and at that, he turned and shot a perfect yellow arc off the bluff toward Admiralty Inlet. What nice children I have.

9:00 am, the first day of summer vacation. The school bell would be ringing right now, but alas, it is Spongebob that is nourishing their minds. They had leftover Father's Day cherry pie for breakfast and I'm making them stay in their pj's all day. That means I get to stay in my pj's all day. Yay for summer!

Yesterday the girls went over to play at our neighbor's house. They have a 3 year-old daughter. She's an only child. When I went to pick them up, the mom said Grace kept walking around saying, "where is everybody?"

Olivia: "Mommy, I found my doggy purse. Now I have enough purses and I don't need to buy any new ones."

Grace: "Don't let Aunt Kimmy hear you say that."

Yesterday was Jack's elementary school "Moving on Ceremony". Middle school next year! The rest of this post is for the grandparents, because it's strictly a proud mom bragging. The first surprise was when Jack walked up to the podium and delivered a essay he'd written about "Why his parents are awesome." I've barely understood a word Jack's said in the past two years because of the mumbling he inherited from his dad, but lo and behold, apparently he also inherited his dad's public speaking ability, because not only could I understand him, his speech was well-written and funny, even if it ended with the line, "although my parents are often embarrassing, they're always funny." Then all the kids got awards for various character traits. Jack's was for 'integrity'. They apparently didn't have the category, 'Most in Need of a Haircut'. Finally they handed out a handful of Presidential Silver awards for academic excellence. Jack didn't get one. That's because he got the Presidential Gold award for being in the top 1% in the country (ironically it was partially based on WASL scores, which Jack's mother lobbied against the kids being required to take). I glanced at Mitch, and the big baby had tears in his eyes. Wuss! In the morning, before the ceremony, Mitch was even complaining about kids getting too many accolades for something as stupid as finishing the fifth grade, and "hell no, we're not getting Jack a gift for it." Then, after he got home from work (after the ceremony), he brought Jack the air-soft pistol and rifle he's been dying for but his mean mom wouldn't let him have (Nana, it's lighter than a BB gun, and yes, it comes with all kinds of safety gear and the little kids aren't allowed out of the house when he's using it.) I'm not quite sure what the logic is in rewarding academic success with a weapon, but the wow factor just wouldn't have been there if Mitch had bought Jack a dictionary, I guess.

While I'm reporting on my kids' successes this week, I'll add that Henry won an award at school for reading the most books (70!) in kindergarten, Grace learned to write her name, and Olivia finally can wipe her own butt when she poops. YEAH, BABY!

I went to the boys' school for Field Day, and this was the scene as I walked onto the field. Our local fire department brought their trucks and gave the fourth and fifth graders their fire hoses for an ultimate water fight. It looked like some kind of Lord of the Flies liability nightmare, but the screams from the kids were pretty ecstatic. Soooo wet. Henry's kindergarten class was even soaked from the off-spray. Ya gotta love Coupeville.

Yaaawn. I'm tired because I didn't get to bed until 1:30 am. Last night was Pete's high school graduation ceremony. He was five months old when I became his nanny, now look at him! He's taller than me and wearing a Big Boy Suit. The ceremony was a good four hours long. They had each kid sit in a hot seat while they talked about their achievements and future plans. Since it was private school, it was 'national merit scholar' this, and 'Harvard' that. I was extremely disappointed that no one was going to be a waitress at Denny's or live in their parents' basement and become XBox champion of the neighborhood. All the kids were poised, talented, and very smart. Whatever. Since I was his nanny for all those years, I know how Peter got that way, but where did all these kids come from? At my PUBLIC high school graduation, most of the kids couldn't even make it through the ceremony with their eyes open, let alone perform and look gorgeous. We didn't need all that fancy book lernin'. All my parents' money would have been wasted if they'd sent me to an expensive private school, only to have me end up as a professional (now I just do it as a hobby) ass-wiper. And no expensive education can teach you how to wipe another person's ass as well as I can....

As the kids and I were coming into the driveway today, we saw a newborn fawn coming out of the woods with it's mama. Wobbly first steps and all. For the first time in recorded history, all four kids were completely silent for several minutes while we watched the fawn try out it's new legs. What's a bigger miracle? Simultaneous silence by my children or a newborn deer?

It was a pretty uneventful weekend around here. Henry was devastated by the mysterious death of Hansa, the 'baby' elephant at the Woodland Park Zoo. They shared a birthday and he spent Friday morning in tears about it. The girls and I went to the Honey Bear in Coupeville and picked out a soft, cuddly elephant to try and cheer him up. It didn't really make him feel better, but it hasn't left his side. Mitch got sucked in to Hen's Sad Clown Oil-Painting face and promised to take him to the zoo to say goodbye. We drove down on Sunday and actually had a great time at the zoo. There was a hilarious/sickening fracas between two Siamang monkeys and a squirrel that snuck into their exhibit. Let's just say we tore our eyes away about the time part of the squirrell's tail became separated from it's body. Finally, a zookeeper intervened.

Jack had the great idea to go to Chinook's for lunch. He didn't want to order off the kid's menu, insisted he was starving and wanted a lot of food, so he ordered off the regular menu. As the food was being set in front of him, he was slammed with a migraine and had to go rest on the patio outside while his meds kicked in, and he fell asleep and hit his head on the table. His siblings happily ate most of his food. As we were getting in the car to leave, he said, "I feel so much better now, where's my food?" Yes, we suck. We got Jack something to eat and headed home.

Four more days of school!!!!

Yesterday was the girls' four year-old check-up. All was going supremely well as Olivia impressed the doctor with her physical agility and Grace impressed him with her verbal ability. Then, at the end, the doctor said they would need three vaccinations today. Before the word "vaccination" was even out of his mouth they both began wailing at the top of their lungs, each trying to outdo each other in the volume department. The doc left, and while we waited for the nurse to come in with the dreaded shots, I plied the girls with M&Ms to try and get them to relax. As soon as the nurse walked in, they started screaming again and didn't stop until the shots were over. It took two nurses and myself to hold them down. When Olivia saw a tiny pinprick of blood on her thigh, she vomited all over herself. Chocolatey, boogery barf. Then, Grace, smelling the vomit, also barfed. At this point it was 3:15 and Henry was due to get off the bus at 3:40 down in Coupeville, so my only option was to throw the vomit-splattered girls in their carseats and hit the road. They were still crying, and I had to pee. The smell of vomit combined with my need to pee and my stress about not meeting the bus was a really swell combination. At 3:42 I pulled onto my road at the same time as the bus. I almost peed my pants with relief.

I picked Jack up from soccer last night and he was very upset. Apparently he had gotten into some serious trouble at school. A kid wiped yogurt on him at lunch, so Jack picked up his spoon to fling some yogurt back at the kid (according to Jack, this was all in fun). Well, the kid ducked and the yogurt hit the wall. The lunch lady went nuts and made a big deal out of it, calling Jack's teacher over. So, today, Jack has to have lunch in the office. Mitch and I couldn't get too upset over it, but we did act concerned and gave him a lecture, while secretly laughing about the Yogurt Incident of 2007.

Anyway, as luck would have it, I had ordered 'Jesus Camp' from Netflix. Let me just say, that if you want to watch a horrifyingly scary documentary that makes 'Inconvenient Truth' look like an episode of Dora the Explorer, this is the film for you. It's about an Evangelical/Pentacostal Christian Camp for kids where they're training their kids to little soldiers for Christ so they can take over America with their messages of hate and intolerance. I'm not exaggerating. They use those words in the film. So, for fun, I told Jack that Dad and I had paid a deposit on a new camp for him, since he seemed to getting into trouble a lot at school, what with walking home in the middle of kindergarten, causing his third grade teacher to go insane, and the abovementioned yogurt incident, and they sent us this 'informational dvd' about it. After a minute of watching, he started laughing, getting the joke, but he couldn't stop watching it like it was a particularly gruesome trainwreck. Unfortunately, I think it gave him nightmares. I guess my job is done as far as the Yogurt Incident of 2007 goes.

Olivia and Grace have really been fighting lately, mostly over ownership of their new birthday toys. Today I broke up a particularly nasty fight.

Olivia: "I don't like Gracie."

Me: "Well, I know sometimes you feel like that, but the nice thing about being sisters is that deep down, you always love each other. "

Grace: "Yeah. Really, really, really deep down."

Mitch was home with the virus this week, but hopefully we've kicked that bitch to the curb. My routine was all messed up by having Daddy stay home. The girls were delighted to watch dick flicks* with him and take naps when the mood struck them, insuring that they'd be up late into the night while he retired early. Inappropriate tv, dragging all their toys around to be in whatever room he was befouling with his germs, and ignoring my attempts to give them wholesome snacks or play outside. Glad you're feeling better and back at work, darling.

*I got this term from my new favorite website: http://www.urbandictionary.com/ where I learned that while he was sick, Mitch probably felt like a 'bag of smashed assholes'.

Grace: "Mommy, what will I do when I'm as big as Jack and none of my cute clothes fit me anymore?"

Me: "Well, I guess we'll have to buy you some new ones."

Grace: "That's what I was hoping you'd say."

Last night's soccer game was against a select team from Anacortes. Our team arrived, some wearing red shirts, others wearing red pinneys, all wearing a variety of cargo shorts, sweatpants, and soccer shorts, and all tried to outdo each other with wacky soccer socks. Anacortes arrived wearing complete matching green and white oufits from head to toe, each carrying a matching sports bag. Even their shin guards were all the same. Their parents popped up shelters to sit under. We huddled under blankets in our little chairs or stood. Coupeville got the first two goals and Anacortes' coaches freaked out. They were screaming at the top of their lungs at the kids. Our parents moved as far away as we could because their coaches were screaming so loud. Even when their team got a goal, they got screamed at for doing it wrong. Towards the end of the game, one of their kids took a ball in the face and he dropped to the ground in pain. His teammates hesitated, but their coach screamed, "DON'T LOOK AT HIM, KEEP PLAYING!" At this point the Coupeville parents began to boo their coach. And then, the game was over. We lost by one goal. It was a lame-ass game.

Saturday the girls and I went to the farmer's market for our weekly produce run. We were coming home along Parker Road, in which the speed limit near town is 25mph and turns to 40mph as you get about a mile down the road. You can probably see where I'm going with this story. Driving for 20 years in Seattle, I am not accustomed to going 25 on an open road. It seems interminably slow. Going 5mph in I-5? Sure, because there's all these other cars in your way. Whatever. Anyway, for the first time in my life I get pulled over (except that one time when I was 18 and visiting friends in a bad neighborhood--they thought I was buying drugs based on my appearance), and I wasn't sure if I should feign ignorance, make an excuse, or cry. I decided on a lark to own up to my mistake.

Me: "I am really sorry. I know it's a 25mph zone and I was probably going too fast."

Officer: "You were going 40. License and registration please?"

He goes back to his squad car for a few minutes and the girls are beyond excited by this turn of events. He comes back.

Officer: "Do you live on the island?"

Me: "Yes, actually I live down this road, which is all the more reason I should have been aware of the speed limit. Again, I'm really sorry."

Officer: "I never let people off with a warning that try to make excuses, but since you owned up to it, it's your lucky day, ma'am. You just saved $140."

So we get home and I tell the girls let's try and keep this little event to ourselves. I've never seen them scramble out of their carseats so fast to run and tell on mommy.

"Daddy! Mommy got stopped by the police!"

I walked into the house and Henry was writhing on the couch, holding his ear. Because my children only get ear infections on the weekends so I have to take them to the ER where my copay is $150. After the doc gave Henry some medicine to make his ear feel better, Hen said, "can we go down to the cafe and see if they have any of that chicken rice soup and one of those ice cream bombs they have in their cooler?" There's something wrong when your kid knows the daily special at Whidbey General.

So, by my calculations, I only came out $10 behind today, since I didn't get the ticket I deserved, but did have an ER copay. Also today, Mitch chainsawed down a tree that was blocking sun from our vegetable garden and Jack and Dylan built a cool fort on the beach that only the sons of two architects could make. It had a special "total destruction stick" that you could pull out to make the entire thing collapse at once.

Jack had a hard time separating 'stuff' from things he likes to do, because there isn't a lot of stuff he has to have. Here's his list:

Jack's favorite stuff

my fleece jacket
my roll of money
mussels

Henry wants in on the favorite stuff action:

Henry's favorite stuff:

Legos
Disneyland
your cooking, mom (I swear I didn't pay him to say that)
George Lucas
money for free
my skeleton t-shirt
my skull backpack
Tobasco with chipotle on my eggs
potatoes cooked any way (that's my boy!)
'Fudge' books
'Harry Potter' books
all my action figures

So I'm watching the Sound of Music with the girls yesterday while the sun shone outside. We pulled the heavy draperies closed so we wouldn't be bothered by that pesky beautiful weather. Of course they loved it, although Grace was concerned with Maria's ugly short hair. I told her maybe she cut it herself, and you can bet that shut her up. I'm such a mean mom. Anyway, they loved the 'Favorite Things' song and it got them talking about their favorite things.

Grace's favorite things:

unicorns
my new pink sparkly purse
lip gloss
my makeup kit from Mackenzie
glitter
scissors
all my pet 'wormies' in the garden
my fancy bed but I still don't like going to bed
riding a pony
chicken nuggets

Olivia's favorite things:

horsies
Daddy but not when he goes to work
swimming
opening presents
dogs
cats
bunnies
my princess kitty
rice krispies with chocolate milk in it
my pink high top tie-up shoes

After they spent a good amount of time discussing their favorite things, they noticed I was sitting there and asked me what mine were. They were so bored with my answers of a healthy family, polite children, etc. and they made me make a list of my favorite "stuff--you know, not manners and clean kids, but stuff you like, mommy,".

Kate's list of 'stuff I like' (not stuff like my family, because, duh, they're my favorite)

Tobasco with chipotles
TV for the kids in the car (when we're on a trip)
my KitchenAid mixer
tylenol pm
pjs
dry champagne
bunnies in the yard
lattes at 1pm
pretzels dipped in fat free yogurt with curry
sharp kitchen knives
l'occitane hand lotion

That's it. I mean, I like a lot of stuff, but in the course of a day this is my favorite stuff that I wouldn't want to not have. I guess I could take 'bunnies in the yard' off my list, but I like them a lot, so...

What's your favorite stuff? List it in the comments.