Thursday, February 28, 2008

Squirrel Energy

Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that we don't live in rural Alaska any longer. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that there are 3 grocery stores and a warehouse club within 5 miles of our house -- no planes, ferries or excessive shipping costs involved. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that this is the end of February and stocking up for winter is almost at an end. Sometimes we remind ourselves of all these things and fail miserably. Which is why D. came home from BJ's with 32 bottles of juice.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Six Things

Six Things About You @ Age 6



Your current favorite food is meatballs, with or without sauce

You come into the bedroom every morning to snuggle and you get mad if I'm already up

You like to call us continuously "Mom! Daddy!" for no real reason, just to make sure we're still there

Sometimes you just start singing out of happiness

Lately you have been shouting "NO!" really loud in your sleep. Or laughing.

You love swimming! You just went to no bubbles at swimming lessons.








You are very sensitive

You love to create art

Your current favorites are Ben10 and Thunderbirds

You love Tim Horton's donuts, especially vanilla dip

You take dinosaur chicken nuggets to school for lunch every day

You like to wear all the same color: red shirt, red pants, red socks

Birthday Party Realities

We had the boys' birthday party this past weekend. Their first "kid" party. When your son looks up at you and says "can we have our friends instead of your friends at our party this year?" you realize that yes, you have to do the kid party.

Most of their friends and cousins have done things at various bounce house places, a farm, a gymnastics place -- in other words, somewhere other than their house where everything is provided, you don't have to clean up and it costs lots of money. So naturally, D. and I decided we should have the party at home. A good old-fashioned home party like the kind we remember having as kids.

We set the guest list: 3 school friends each, 2 cousins, 2 mutual friends. With the birthday boys that made 12 kids. We set the theme: super heroes! and asked all the guests to think about their super hero name and power. We got the craft/favor: decorate-your-own canvas capes from Oriental Trading and masks from Party City. We set the menu: hot dogs, pizza, various chips and juice boxes. We ordered the cake: yellow with raspberry filling, with red, white & blue icing with yellow stars, very superheroish. We got ice cream skippy cups for the birthday boy who doesn't like cake. We organized the activities: decorating said capes, training exercises (an obstacle course in the basement play area), a graduation ceremony where they get their capes and mask, a scavenger hunt for glow stick necklaces (power magnifiers), and a rescue from a burning building (a decorated wardrobe box). Everyone rsvps yes and we're good to go.

Here is my planned "schedule" for the party:
3:00 guests arrive, have their identity "scanned" and decorate
their capes
3:30 everyone goes downstairs for the obstacle course while I heat-set the designs they've drawn on their capes
3:50 Everyone comes up to eat pizza & hot dogs
4:15 We have our little graduation ceremony and everyone puts on their superhero garb and I get lots of photos
4:20 We do the scavenger hunt for glow stick necklaces
4:30 We do the burning building rescue of stuffed animals
4:45 We have cake and ice cream
5:15ish Everyone departs

Here's reality:

3:00 Guests arrive and some have their identities scanned (most did not get this at all). They begin to decorate their capes. Some do not want to decorate their capes but want to play with our many toys. Husband and I express surprise at how many parents elect to drop off and leave. (We have had this conversation before at bounce house places, etc. and have come to the conclusion that we are just hyper-hawk paranoid parents.)
3:20 A pack of cape and mask wearing superheroes commence running all over the entire house, including the upstairs which is off limits.
3:30 Said pack goes downstairs and begins training on their own. Husband realizes this and goes down to supervise.
3:40 Half the pack comes upstairs and starts doing puzzles, art, taking out trains, etc.
3:50 Everyone comes to table for pizza & hot dogs. Listen to many voices saying they don't like pizza or hot dog or this kind of juice box, etc. etc. Most eat or drink something with only a few dissenters wandering around.
4:00 Pack runs around for 10 minutes while food is cleared.
4:10 Scavenger hunt for glow sticks begins. Some do not get the concept of "find only one" while others do not want to find any at all. Some wear them, some do not.
4:15 Commence burning building rescue with stuffed animals. Have conversation about how it doesn't matter that animals can't talk or call for help and why they are in the burning building in the first place. Everyone does at least one "rescue," some grudgingly. Several do 5 or 6 rescues. Everyone has an opinion on which stuffed animal they want to rescue. At this point the box begins to break because you have cut too big a door into it along with a window on the opposing side and 12 crashing 6 year-olds take a toll. The ones who do not want to rescue more than once resume their previous activities: running in pack, art, puzzles, toys, jumping around downstairs. Simultaneously supervise potty trips & coax wanderers from upstairs.
4:40 Cake and ice cream. Singing of the happy birthday song many times as well as blowing out the relighting candles. Have to microwave skippy cups for 5 seconds each as they are frozen solid and plastic spoons are breaking.
5:00 More playing and merriment.
6:00 Last guest departs.
6:05 You and husband exchange a look and simultaneously say "Next year, bounce house."
7:00 Eat rest of pizza and hot dogs with in-laws while cleaning up.
7:30 Convince birthday boys to open gifts. Thankful for gift receipts, separate gifts into 2 piles, keep and exchange.
8:45 Two happy birthday boys express delight at party and fall asleep content.

Did our moms just make it look easy?

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Grocery Shopping & Gender Differences

I forgot it was Super Bowl Sunday and went to the grocery store this afternoon. Not that I had any choice, all the cupboards were bare. And since there were many more men than usual in the grocery store, something I have noticed in the past became even more apparent. Maybe you've noticed it too? It seems that men and women grocery shop in very different ways. And I'm not talking about what's in the cart, I'm talking about the process. For instance:

Women wheel the cart around the aisles or carry the basket with them. Men leave the cart or the basket at the end of the aisle and carry armloads back and forth. (which can lead to an argument if you are shopping with your spouse and your purse or your child is in the cart)

Women wait in one place at the deli counter, trusting that the nice deli slicer person will remember our faces or our coat color and be able to find us again. Men follow the nice deli slicer person from slicer to slicer, up and down the counter. Women ask for "half a pound of Battistoni hard salami, sliced thin." Men point and ask for "half a pound of that."

Women use coupons. Men don't.

Women may or not follow a shopping list. Men, if they have been sent by their spouse, always have a list. And will still have to call home 3 times to ask for help finding the things on the list.

To be fair, you can substitute "Home Depot" for grocery store and reverse everything in favor of the men. Not that I intend to be stereotypical in any way, shape or form, you understand.

Saturday, February 2, 2008

I didn't see my shadow today...

because it's snowing. I've always wondered what all the fuss is about the Groundhog predicting an early spring or more winter. It's February 2, people! In six weeks it will be the middle of March and the first day of spring is March 21. So the way I calculate it, whether Phil sees his (her?) shadow or not, it's still gonna be winter for six more weeks. Right?

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Lots of Random

This will be a whole lot of unrelated random stuff ...

I never got around to sending Christmas cards since I didn't have a recent picture of all of us and whenever anyone was around to take one, someone was missing. So they have turned into New Year's cards. But I still need someone to take the photo. Anyone want to come over and hold the camera? It still counts as Happy New Year if I get them out before Valentine's Day right? Edited 1/26/08: The cards are out! I mailed the last batch today. So look in your mailboxes loved ones!

And speaking of Valentine's, we got all the Christmas decorations put away and while I was at it I took the opportunity to put the boys' special ornaments into their own boxes with labels saying when they received them and from who. They got a lot of ornaments before they were even born! Then I figured I may as well reorganize all the other holiday decorations. The basement was full of things I hadn't put away from autumn/Halloween/Thanksgiving and Easter was mingled in with St. Patrick's -- in short, the kind of task I love. The kind that is relatively unnecessary in the large scheme of things and therefore must take precedence over everything else. So now every event has its own little home. And I see that for an irish girl I am pathetically deficient on St. Patrick's Day decorations, but if I even think about acquiring any more Easter stuff you should cut off my marshmallow peep supply. I put up the Valentine decorations yesterday (you know M. was happy!) and even found some nifty blinking heart lights to put in the front windows. They look really neat at night.

We still haven't figured out what to do for M&P's birthday which is fast approaching. They have been to a few birthday parties for classmates at bounce houses and those kinds of places and I know they really want to have a "friend" party rather than the big family party we usually do (which considering it's mostly our friends that come I can totally understand). Most of the places I've checked into are reasonable in price if you break it all out but still more expensive than I was expecting. Or they have a big minimum to meet, like 15 or 20 kids. We could easily meet that if we invited everyone in both classes but do I really want to be in close proximity to 30 six-year-olds on a sugar or adrenaline high? We could do something at home with fewer kids. Or take a few kids to an activity like bowling. They seem to be happy with either option so long as there is cake, ice cream and friends. What to do, what to do?

Still working on getting the blasted wallpaper off in the hallway. Scraping it with a razor blade is the only thing that is getting it off so it's slow going. Now I wonder if we should keep going or just put up 1/4" wallboard over the whole thing or wainscoting or something. And if I even mention putting wallpaper up in the next 50 years, you have permission to make me eat paste.

Have you heard about one little word? This is something that Ali Edwards started a few years ago on her blog and it has caught on with a lot of people. I was intrigued by it and thought about what my word for the year should be. Possible candidates were joy, love, share, create & simplify but I think my word is going to be BEGIN. Kind of a strange word to focus on for the year I know, but my reasoning is that a lot of what I want to accomplish doesn't get done because of my tendency towards procrastination. When I finally get started (wallpaper notwithstanding) I find the task I've been putting off takes a very short time and I'm left wondering what took me so long? So this year I am going to remind myself to just BEGIN. Even if something takes a long time to complete, it'll never get done unless I start. So whether it's laundry, losing 30 pounds or organizing the closets, this is the year that I am going to take a deep breath and just get started. Wish me luck!

There is also something called the 365 photo challenge, which is basically taking one photo a day for an entire year. I'm intrigued by this too, but not going to do it this year. Maybe I'll try and commit to doing a whole month first...

I've been participating in the Layout a Day (LOAD) Challenge over at Big Picture Scrapbooking. Due to a bout of stomach flu and other stuff I haven't been posting or even doing a layout a day, but when I get going I scrap 8 or 9 at once so I'm still caught up. There are more than 2000 scrappers participating and 14,000 (yes you read that right!) layouts posted to the gallery. As a relatively new scrapper, I haven't done this many layouts ever, never mind all in one month. And I'm trying very hard to use the supplies I have already acquired and not buy anything new except adhesive. So far so good since I got a new goodie fix due to a Christmas gift from my niece. Thanks H! I'm having lots of fun with this and getting a lot of ideas and inspiration as well, so thanks to Lain for doing this for all of us! If I figure out how to post a separate photo album on here, I'll put up some photos. Edited: There is now a Flickr badge to the left! And here is a link to the photo album there if you want a closer look.

My new-to-me tv find is Heroes. Love it! I could have done without the graphic violence in the first few episodes though. I love how with each episode there are twists & turns -- "he's a bad guy, no wait, is he a good guy, no, maybe he is a bad guy, just what is going on here?!" What super power would you like to have? I think I'd like to multiply myself to get more done and still be able to sleep 12 hours a night :-D

Speaking of sleeping, did you ever have one of those nights where you keep having bizarro dreams and end up awake imagining all kinds of scenarios that will never ever happen but that you now feel prepared to handle? It's not just me, right?

Swimming lessons started up again last week. P. is in his element, so excited when he realized where we were going. They are "lobsters" this go round which means that they are in the pool on their own with the instructors and Mom & Dad do not have to get in the pool. (Yay!) And they both did a very good job listening to the instructors so that was a big sigh of relief for us. We were running late (as usual) and halfway across the parking lot I realized that P. was missing a shoe. Ok, that's not uncommon, he takes his shoes off all the time. At least he kept the sock on. We go back to the car and I can't find the shoe. Thankfully there is no snow and it's relatively warm, and hey, we've already been across the parking lot once, so we just go in without it. Once D. arrives and they have started their lesson, I go back out to do a more thorough search. I find several empty Tim Horton bags, lots of broken crayons, a full juice box, some knights that have been missing from the castle playset and lots of dried up raisins. No shoe. Now I am panicking a bit. They are brand new and cost $55! Where is that shoe? Would Stride Right possibly let me buy a left shoe for half price? He couldn't have thrown it out the window because now that he's figured out what that button is for I have the parental window lock on. I search the cargo area of the car and find several dirty socks, some empty plastic bags, lots of emergency gear, and the container of dish detergent I forgot to bring in from the last trip to BJs. Now I am questioning my own sanity and powers of memory, did I even put the 2nd shoe on him? D. thinks I am a nut and volunteers to go look for the shoe since he often finds the thing I swear is lost forever. But he doesn't find it either. All the way home I am going a bit loopy thinking about the shoe. M. suggests I pray to "that saint guy." What the heck, we all say the poem and ask St. Tony to have a look-see around and get back to us. When we get home, there is the shoe, tangled up in the hallway rug. It must have come off as I herded everyone towards the garage. Where was it that I go to apply for the "most observant mother" award?

Monday, December 31, 2007

Relentless Part II

We just returned last night from my family's Christmas party in NJ where the boys had a fantastic time running around with all the cousins and being spoiled by the aunties & uncles. I still haven't moved all the furniture back from hosting Christmas dinner for D's family. There are some new toys mixed with the old ones, a lot still in their packages and I think P. hasn't even seen everything in the bag of gifts Santa left him. I just put together the walls of our gingerbread house so we can decorate it (with leftover Halloween candy) later this afternoon. When I go down to the basement to start the mountain of laundry we somehow accumulated in 2 days, I'll get out the horns and party hats for our little New Year's Eve celebration before the boys go to bed. I'm wondering what I can turn leftover ham into that will still be festive and more importantly, get eaten. You know, general mid- and post-holiday mayhem. You've probably got it at your house too.

And then it happened:

M. came over and asked "don't we have any Valentine decorations we can bring up? How about Easter then?"

Aaaaaargh!!!!!