Humiliate Swing your partner

Jack was complaining about being sore from PE last night, and we somehow got on the subject of having to learn square dancing in fifth grade. I was busy cleaning up after dinner, and Mitch said, "Yeah, I remember doing it after school. I joined the square dancing club."

I stopped dead in my tracks, a feeling coming over me like I'd just been handed a big, gift-wrapped box with a bright red ribbon on it.

"You mean, your mom made you join the square dancing club?" I said, trying to keep an even, disinterested tone, careful not to scare him off.

"No, I loved square dancing! It was my idea to join."

My laughter was long and loud, and then I called the kids into the kitchen to laugh along with me, because nobody loves to humiliate their loved ones more than us.

All Hail Mitch, The Square Dancing Fool!

Not quite ready for Depends

A while back, I was in a store with Mitch and I went to read the label on the back of a package. What the...? I had to hold the package waaay out in front of my eyes so I could read it. Of course I burst into tears. It was right after my 39th birthday. It was also a short time after that bitch checker from Walmart asked my kids if they were having a good day with their Nana (meaning me). I made an appointment with an eye doctor, and rescheduled it twice because I'm a procrastinator who doesn't like bad news. Finally, I made it to the appointment today. And yay! It just turns out that my contacts are all wrong. They did dilate my eyes and I keep bumping into the walls, but I'm hopeful that will go away soon. Getting old is dumb and stupid and ass poop. Fortunately, immaturity lasts forever.

Henry Scissorhands

Henry walked out of the school building with his Emmett Kelly Sad Clown face on today.

"Henry, what's the matter?"

(watery eyes) "We had a substitute teacher today. I was playing with my scissors, and she just took them away from me, and said I couldn't have them back for the rest of the year. And then, I cried for a while at my desk."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Hen, it sounds like you had a really awful day."

"Well, it was, but then Soandso* (the kid that bit him earlier in the year) was doing his Show and Tell, and he brought something that he'd stolen from the teacher a few months ago."

"What?! But how did that make it a better day?"

"Well, the teacher came back right then and saw it, and I just went from crying at my desk to laughing at how dumb Soandso* is."

And of course, normally, I wouldn't let Henry get away with calling someone dumb, let alone laugh about it, but this kid is probably going to grow up to be one of those burglars that robs a convenience store and then locks himself out of the getaway car. And you know, he did almost give Henry rabies or something that time he bit him.

*name has been changed to uh, protect the guilty

Snow Angel

I was awake all last night, fretting about the snow piling up outside, worrying about making it to Andree's memorial service. I could have made it, but never on time since the roads were so icy, so I opted to stay home. The kids had late start school, but I was super grouchy from being awake all night, as well as the guilt from missing the service, and as I watched them playing in the snow I just decided we'd all take the day off. No one loved a snow day more than Mrs. Rice, so we made a snow "angel" in honor of her. Then, we made hot chocolate. Twice. Then, Henry decided to make a "Snow Mitch", and I realized why he named it after his dad when I saw him foraging in the woods for dry moss to put under the armpits and on the butt of his snowdad. Boy, howdy am I glad I kept him home from school for this.

Snow Day

7 a.m.

Seamus likes the snow even better than the kids. He's like a puppy all over again.

The problem with a Wheaten in the snow is that the snow sticks to his fur in tons of little snowballs, absolutely impossible to remove. Clicking on this picture will give you a close-up of my misery. I spent 20 minutes rubbing him down and as soon as I was done, Jack came inside and Seamus shot out while the door was open. @#$%^&*&^%$!!!!!!!!

Baby it's cold outside

Jack was certain he could walk across the frozen pond, and I told him I didn't think it was a good idea, but it's only about 18 inches deep, so I decided to let him. I was laughing too hard to take the "after" picture of him when he crashed through the frigid thin layer of ice. Because that's how I roll. I laugh at my kids when they do dumb stuff, especially after I tell them not to do it. Instant Karma!

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming..

The thing about grief is, most people don't have time to wallow in it. There's swimming lessons to attend, the garbage still needs to be taken out, and the kids are always after you for things like food and clean clothes, or they can't find their Princess Kitty. So you push it to the back of your mind where you can still feel it lurking, and it bubbles up unexpectedly. Like, when your daughter (who has been afraid of the water for most of her four and a half years) suddenly jumps into the deep end of the pool in a surge of bravery and you burst into tears. But, Yay Gracie!

Jack's been struggling, too. The girls will be starting kindergarten this year (see! watery eyes as I type that sentence), and I've been talking about getting some kind of part-time job. I caught Jack throwing out the classified section of the paper and he went off on how we don't need fancy vacations or video games (really? I wished I'd recorded that), but "we need to come home to a mom, not a babysitter." And then, just as I thought my heart would explode, he added, "Besides, you never even finished college. What kind of job could you get?"

Jack has always had a love-disdain relationship with school, mostly disdain, except in first grade. The night of his first day of school that year, he couldn't sleep because he was giggling too much , from happiness. Something about his teacher, who had greeted the children that morning wearing a sash, pageant-style, that said "WELCOME BACK!!!!!!" in glittery letters. Also, no student was allowed to leave at the end of each day without a hug from her (voluntary, of course, but there were no first-graders who didn't want a hug from the sparkly, larger than life teacher). I started volunteering in the classroom, and was amused to see that Mrs. Rice had the students give each other daily shoulder rubs, and there was always dancing. Nearly every day, she would give her students little pep talks about how it doesn't matter how much money you have, how smart you are, how handsome or pretty. The only thing that matters is your heart, and it is your gifts that you have on the inside that will give you a beautiful life.

Mrs. Rice was the kind of teacher you would dream about for your children to have. She managed to always acknowledge each child's personal gifts, and encouraged the children to express these gifts to each other. It was a well-behaved class, not because the kids were afraid of punishment, but because no one wanted to disappoint Mrs. Rice. She truly made the world a better place, and I'm sure the lessons that she has lovingly taught to so many will continue to make the world a better place.


Andree Rice passed away this morning from breast cancer, and now, I believe the world is a little bit worse off without her in it.

Odds and ends.

I've been very busy purging crap around here. So far, I've organized my computer area, the art/craft cubbies (really, an entire wall of stuff), and yes, even my closet (I even got rid of six pairs of shoes!). I'd forgotten how big my closet is-- I think it may be big enough to put a single bed in there to banish 'people' to if they're snoring and waking me up.

Also, as you can see from the above picture, we've been playing beauty shop. These hair-do's, combined with the outfits, make the girls look like they're ready for the Early Bird Special in Florida, circa 2068.

Below (insert comment about how much my camera sucks), is a blurry picture of Olivia, right after she jumped into the deep end by herself and swam all the way to the other end of the pool. You can't see the deep valleys of her dimples, but she is smiling ear-to-ear. Henry is also doing amazingly well. He remembered how to swim, and now he's learning to dive. So far, only belly flops, but we're hopeful he'll figure it out soon.


And then there's Grace. Here she is on the steps, hiding from my glare at her refusal to blow bubbles. Finally, last night, she caught my glare and I think she could read my exact thoughts ("Goddammit, Grace, we're not paying good money for you to be sitting on the steps and playing with a Goddamn rubber duck, now get your Goddamned face in the water and blow some Goddamned bubbles, Goddammit!" ) And! She! Blew! Bubbles! And then she gave me a glare right back that said, "There's your Goddamned bubbles, now leave me the hell alone so I can play with my duckie. Bitch." Or something like that. Anyway, it was a very proud evening for us at the pool.

I have a dream....

A dream that one day, I won't hear the word 'fart'. I won't hear laughter about farts . I won't hear fart jokes. I won't smell farts. When the dog farts, I won't hear four voices raised up in song, "Doggie Fart! Gladdens My Heart!".

A while back, Henry let one rip right at the dinner table. "Henry! What do you SAY!" I demanded.

Long pause....."Thank you, God, for that awesome fart?"

My dream, obviously, is not nearly as grand as Martin Luther King's, and of course I have lots of other, less shallow dreams, but this is my dream for today, nonetheless, since I'm stuck in this house with four fart-joke loving kids and a gassy dog.

One for the therapy couch

We live by the holiday around here, as in, the day after one holiday ends, the kids start prepping for the next one. So, today the girls had me haul out the valentine-making art supplies. They spent the entire afternoon making stacks of valentines. Occasionally, Grace would ask me to spell a friend's name, but Olivia was silently diligent. I glanced at her tall stack of valentines and noticed that there were no names on any of them.

"Olivia, how will you be able to tell which friend gets which valentine if there aren't any names on them?"

"These ones aren't for my friends. They're all for Daddy."

Anybody want a free castle room?

Henry: Mom? I don't really like castles. I like Star Wars so much better (watery eyes, sad face) .

Kate: (sound of crickets)

Jack: (bursts out laughing) Wow, Henry, you should tell Dad that the MINUTE he walks in the door!

Kate: (pokes self in eye with sharp stick).

This site crashed, I'm sure it was nothing I did (because I'm so tech savvy-so what if I don't even own an ipod, there's nothing wrong with 8-tracks). I lost my old format, so I'm temporarily using a pre-made template. If any of you have a problem with that, I refer you to Grace's hangnail. ^

One step closer to having our own dungeon...

We finally got around to painting Henry's room this weekend. He's had boring white walls for a year, so we thought it was his turn to have his dream room. At first he wanted Spiderman, and we were all bored by that idea, but luckily, Harry Potter came into his life and he wanted to live at Hogwarts.

Also! A painting tip: It always makes things go so much faster if you have lots of help.

The final product, and yes, those are electric torches that actually flicker. Henry decided he needed our good oriental carpet and also stole the red velvet curtains from the tv room. Cozy! I wonder what prospective buyers will think when we sell this place. Maybe I should hang some shackles on the wall.

Electra

"Olivia, thank you for making me this beautiful beaded necklace!"

"Well, I gave it to you because Daddy doesn't wear necklaces."

The next day, I notice Mitch wearing my necklace. "Yeah, Olivia said she made it for me at school."

______________________________________________________________

"Olivia, are you my girl?"

"Well, sure, but I'm really Daddy's girl."

And if she catches me being cozy with her Daddy, her head explodes.

Name the capital of Kentucky

Jack complained all the way to the Geography Bee that he didn't want to go, because he might miss the "Office".

"But Jack, it's a repeat."

"Mom, a rerun of the Office is better than a stupid Geography Bee."

Okay then. So, his heart wasn't in it, but he was the only kid that answered every question correctly in the first 7 rounds. In the end, he got beaten by an adorable, super excited red-headed eighth grade boy. When I complimented him on not missing any questions, he claimed that was "only because he got lucky and got easy questions, now can we go so I don't miss my show? And I'm never doing that again, either. It was completely boring." I tried to follow the questions, but it turns out I am actually REALLY dumb at geography. Who knew?

Swimming lessons, part deux

Last night was Henry and the girls' first swimming lessons since about a year ago. Mitch had to take them, too, because I had a co-op meeting. I was nervous though, because Grace pretty much didn't even get her toes wet the last time she took lessons (not to mention calling her male swimming teacher a "big shit!"--we raise 'em charming around here, we do). But now she's four years old, and apparently that's the magic number, because Mitch said she did really well. Olivia is in a higher class and practically swimming on her own, and Henry apparently forgot how to swim, so we're trying to figure that out. Apparently he thinks swimming consists of flailing and bobbing epileptic-style in the general direction of the side of the pool. Last year he had beautiful strokes, side breathing, the whole package. Then, Mitch had his own epileptic seizure when the men's polo team came into the locker room to shower while the girls were getting their jammies on. Penises everywhere. Excuse me a moment......

Okay! So, on Thursday he has to take them by himself again while I take Jack to the Geography Bee (Sorry, we're geeks around here. Geeks who cuss a lot.). Mitch says he will not step foot in that locker room with the twins and all those penises again, so I've got to figure out how he can get three dripping wet children into the car in freezing weather. Lots of towels and blankets, I guess.

Cupcakes, how I love thee

I'm not ashamed to admit this, but maybe a little embarrassed. When I have a few minutes to kill, but, say, not enough to actually play a game of computer scrabble, I go to flickr and look at cupcakes. Yep, they have pages and pages of cupcakes people have taken pictures of, and some of them are fantastic, and some of them are kinda lame, like mine are--filled with good intentions but slapped together without love or precision. Cupcakes make everyone happy, and it ticks me off when the schools have the 'No Cupcakes Allowed on Birthdays' rule, because, Jesus, a cupcake never killed anyone. It's all about the healthy and whole grain, and it makes me sad, sad, sad. Even here in Coupeville, where all the bus drivers give the kids candy, they have that stupid cupcake rule. I tried making some whole wheat pumpkin muffins for a class treat and they tasted like ass in an accordion-pleated liner. God Save The Cupcake, I say.

Check it out for yourself:

http://flickr.com/search/?q=cupcakes

Also, another site I like:

http://cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com/

In an effort to get my kids to eat more vegetables, I painstakingly cut the carrots into teeny tiny "fairy strips". This is how Olivia let me know what she thought of my fancy-ass carrots.

There was an old woman who lived with some shoes....

I have one more resolution to try and maintain (no, it's not cleaning out my closets--sorry, mom). Today I noticed that the toes of Henry's shoes were peeling down. I asked him about it, and he said, "Oh, that's probably because my toes press against the inside of them." I am awash in shame, shame, shame, because if you'll glance to the right, you'll see the results of my Nov-Dec shoe binge. Six pairs of shoes, one pair of boots, two pairs of slippers (Mitch, if you're reading this, just cut that number in half--I'm totally exaggerating). Meanwhile, my own child's poor toes are smashed into his only pair of shoes (okay, now I am exaggerating, he also has hiking boots, but they're probably too small now, too). Of course, we got right online and ordered him the coolest pair of shoes he could find (yes, they were on sale, Marci, but 8 bucks shipping). Then, I went upstairs and stared a good, long time at my pile of shame in the closet. Henry recently had a homework assignment where he had to count every shoe in the house. I found him in my closet with little tears brimming the top of his eyelids, because he kept losing track. At the time, I just figured he was a shitty little counter (I kid!). Anyway, no more shoes for me for the whole year. Or six months at the very least.

I just noticed a bunch of pictures left on my camera. Here are the last of the holiday photos:Making cookies on Christmas Eve for Santa. And mommy.
Smoked turkey leg with no teeth. The best!
Dude, Santa totally came to our house!

The interior of the house has been stripped of all things Christmas, and I feel kind of melancholy about it. We had such a great month and memorable, relaxing holiday. It wasn't hard to beat last year, what with Mitch recovering from surgery and heavily medicated, piles of moving boxes everywhere, the kids trying to make friends in a new school, etc. My mom came for Christmas last year also, but arrived with pneumonia, so there was that, too. Here are a few pics from the past month. Above, the girls were helping to make Christmas candy for the neighbors. And when I say helping, I think everyone knows what I mean. Below is a pic of our annual gingerbread house. This is one of my least favorite holiday traditions, but Mitch and the kids love it. Hmmm, let's see. Mitch designs it (thank GOD for that master's in architecture), the kids frost and decorate it. I get to shop for all the stuff, make the dough, painstakingly measure out the dough as per Mitch's blueprint, bake it, and assemble it. With real candy stained glass windows! I can't believe I didn't get a close up of the gumdrop Jesus Henry made hanging above the doors of the cathedral. This year, it ended up making our New Year's bonfire smell delicious. Not my gumdrop Jesus!

My ginormous first ever fake tree. Yep, we had two Christmas trees this year, and that's a lotta freaking ornaments to put away. It took me two days. I would love to have a Christmas tree in every room, but the divorce rate is already way too high for that. Wishing you peace and better hair than any of us have on this windy ferry ride in the New Year. Oh yeah, and damn you, Santa, for bringing a new Candyland game into our home. Damn you to the South Pole.

Resolutions 2008

Well, here are our official New Year's Resolutions. Keep in mind that these are not the resolutions I would have picked for my family members, but they claim they get to make their own, like this is some kind of democracy around here.

Mitch: Spend more time at the gym (boring! good for you, honey!)

Jack: Learn to play the guitar

Henry: Spend more time with Anthony. And beat Super Mario Galaxy.

Olivia: Find a real fairy in the forest, and share my Barbie computer with Grace.

Grace: "I don't know what a resolution is."
"I don't know what a goal is."
"This year I want to go to kindergarten and wear a new outfit, like a new twirly girl dress."

As for me, I'm not really going to try and swear more. I'm just going to try and get by on the normal amount of cussing, and anyone who knows me can tell you that is more than enough. My real resolution is to prep, plant, and most of all, maintain our giant garden this summer.

The fairy thing is thanks to Jessica's daughter, Lucy. She brought an adorable book about how to find fairies when they were up for New Years', and we took all the kids on a fairy hunt in the woods (does it go without saying that Jack declined?). We put some food out in a circle of mushrooms, where fairies are apparently known to dance. Came back the next day and discovered the food gone! And! Gold and Purple Fairy Dust in it's place! Holy Shit! (See, I know how to keep a resolution.)