Midwest Mom

Coming Up for Air

2012-01-26T21:33:00.002-05:00

The time! I don't know where it goes...

Monday I volunteered at Harper's school in the morning and I'm one day short of completing a four day in a row subbing job, which has been fun but tiring. I come home ready to collapse in an exhausted heap except there is dinner and laundry and hair washing and lunch prep and, "Oh look someone pooped in his pants." (Yes, I can hear all of you who do this all the time laughing.) The children I'm subbing for are testing me because they miss their teacher (they are first graders), the children at home are testing me because they miss ME. Let's just acknowledge that that is a lot of testing for one person - thank you.

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Because time feels like it is slip sliding away Harper and I did an after dinner run to the craft store. We needed materials for her 100 days of school project and tonight seemed like the best chance to acquire said materials without both kiddos in tow. I greatly underestimated how quickly I could navigate the craft store with Harper. Also underestimated? The amount of patience the outing would take. I could practically hear some alarm going off in my head screaming, "Insufficient patience level reached! Abort current activity! Abort! Coping abilities reduced to dangerously low levels! Code red!" Harper pretended to fall asleep on the way home - perhaps she was trying to avoid unleashing the wrath?

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We've been talking to (nearly 4-year-old!) Michael about redecorating his room, which still looks essentially like it did when we brought baby Harper home from the hospital to live in it. His only requests? The color blue and party hats. Party hats? Maybe this is what he means by party hats?

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Harper was looking at a painting of the Last Supper and said, "Hey! There's Jesus and his twelve Recyples!"(Pronounced like a cross between disciples and recycle.) So, you know, those Sunday School classes are totally paying off.

Because I'm Not Sure I'll Remember

2012-01-14T22:48:00.000-05:00

A funny/curious thing happened in our living room Christmas morning... Michael began turning his back to us when he opened his gifts:

Oh dear boy... he insisted upon taking every last bit of the wrapping paper off before really looking at a gift to see what it was. We think he turned around because he didn't want anyone (read: Harper) telling him what his gift was until he was ready to look at it himself.

And if that doesn't shine a light on their personalities... Harper roaring ahead, without all that much regard for the speed of those around her; and Michael, oh Michael, taking his time, not wanting to miss any detail.

Happy 2012

2012-01-14T18:32:00.002-05:00

Ffffuuuuuuffff!

That noise? Was me blowing the cobwebs out of these corners.

So how are you?

We're fine here, truly, and I have no good explanation for my absence from this space. Can we just move forward and pretend it hasn't been several weeks since my last post?

Thanks!

Christmas Sights

2011-12-24T23:40:00.000-05:00

Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Holiday Frenzy

2011-12-23T23:36:00.000-05:00

I don't know if we just didn't feel this time of year was crazy enough, but the children finished school on Tuesday and Wednesday morning we headed down to the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area for a couple of family fun days...

First stop was an indoor water park where Michael was scared of pretty much everything, but still in awe of the place...

I snapped the following picture of Harper right before she fell off the lily pad and, er, realized the water was deeper than she thought. Oops. She recovered enough to enjoy some water slides and the wave pool, so no harm done.

After our water park adventure we ate lunch and then headed down to the river where we caught a surprisingly enjoyable marionette show, complete with meet and greet for the kids.

How cute is that bear? It looked like it belonged in a Jim Henson Christmas special - which I think is actually a testament to the talent of the puppeteer.

The show finished just in time for us to catch Arthur Christmas which we all really enjoyed (although it did get a little long for Michael, who was involuntarily giving up his nap...).

After the movie we headed to our hotel and the kids had the run of the pool before dinner.
Neither of them would hold still long enough to get a decent photo, but look! The whole pool just for them!

We spent the night in the hotel and, despite our very active day, no one slept much. Oh well. We hung out a bit the next morning then headed back to the river to visit the aquarium. With a quick detour in front of a giant Christmas tree...

Once in the aquarium Harper happily danced with "Rocky" and then was a "grand marshal" of the penguin parade - she was thrilled!

We enjoyed the "Scuba Santa" show in the aquarium theater and he even posed for pictures afterward.

We ended the day getting up close and personal with some sharks - look at those teeth!

We left the aquarium in the early afternoon and ate some lunch on the way home yesterday.

Today I have pretty much been in the kitchen all day long (cookies, soup, bread, caramel mix...) and tonight (as though they haven't had enough this week!) Matt and his dad and sister took the kids to a hockey game. Michael came home with a puck given to him by one of the refs.

It's a good thing Christmas is only two days away - after the week we've had it will take something pretty spectacular impress the kids!

On a side note, Harper keeps telling me that this is her favorite time of year. She says she likes the special treats and the presents, but mostly she likes being with the people she loves. Based on the greeting she gave her Aunt Meaghan today I think she means it.

A Visit With Santa

2011-12-16T22:49:00.000-05:00

Who knows if this is the last believing visit for our oldest? If so, it was a good one.

We visited Santa - and nobody cried! Or hid. Or refused to talk.

Success!

Can you see the line reflected in that huge ornament?

My how they've grown.

For kicks(?) you can click here to recall how last year's visit went.

Helpful (?) Holiday Craft Post

2011-12-14T23:45:00.000-05:00

Earlier this fall, before Harper's birthday, I began looking for gift ideas for her. We have very generous family members who give to our children at their birthdays and Christmas and they often ask for ideas - many of them don't necessarily know what we have already or what the children would enjoy.

As I was browsing in a nearby toy store I saw a kit for making Christmas ornaments. I liked several things about this as a gift for Harper:

1) It was a non-messy craft. She loves to do craft projects and I especially appreciate activities that allow her to feel crafty but don't use glitter, glue, paint, or clay. (That's what school is for!)

2) We could give them away as Christmas gifts from her. I still have a handful of ornaments made for me by former students, and smile when I take them out and put them on the tree. Of course we aren't at most of these people's homes for Christmas, so they never have to hang them and who would know?

3) I didn't have to store the finished project! My number one pet peeve about crafts (and really, lots of toys) is figuring out where to put them when they've been completed. Don't get me wrong, there is evidence of children's work all over our house, but we have limited shelf/wall space. Especially for things like the Sticky Mosaics - so nice to do, but then where do they go? In my case most of them are subtly disappeared while the children are in school.

So Harper received two kits for her birthday. One for the Very Merry Ornaments (Very Merry Ornaments Kit, here.) and one for Beaded Snowflake Ornaments (Beaded ornament kit, here.).

I want to be sure to point out that BOTH kits have been a lot of fun and a good quiet distraction during these crazy days leading up to Christmas. Having said that, the beaded ornaments turned out spectacularly, and the other set (Very Merry) I don't really see making it past this holiday.

Here's a photo of one of the Very Merry Ornaments:

Harper enjoyed making these - the sticker element was fun and the idea was to make a pattern of three different types of paper strips. I think this could be re-engineered to work a little better. The papers attach at the top and bottom of the ornament, but there is nothing but air (and a very thin plastic stick) in the middle. The papers don't really stay in place and I have noticed the little sparkling stickers are starting to fall off of the first ornaments Harper made. These are still cute, but I don't think they will hold up beyond one season. I wonder if some sort of ball to wrap the papers around would help?

The beaded ornaments are gorgeous and look like they will hold up - they also look like something I'd be happy to put on my tree. They could even be displayed after Christmas as winter decor!

Some photos of the process and the final products, working with the beaded kit:

The look on her face is saying, "Just leave me alone so I can finish this very enjoyable project!"

I loved that the beads came all neatly organized. The kit suggested working over a towel so dropped beads don't roll
away. I don't know if I ever would have thought of that but it was a brilliant suggestion!

Finished Snowflake and Mirror

Snowflake on the Tree

Another Snowflake on the Tree

Snowflake and Wine Glasses

I'm already thinking I might keep an eye on the price of the beaded snowflake kit and maybe purchase some for Harper to make next year... Maybe the price will drop a bit more after Christmas?

I'm not sure I would try the paper ornaments again, unless they made some changes to the structure of the ornaments.

I was also thinking it might be fun to try these for next year - we'll see if I remember in the fall.

Another Holiday Assortment

2011-12-12T23:44:00.000-05:00

Fun with the Nativity!

Bet you didn't know that Princess Tiana bunked down with Baby Jesus! Please note that the Wise Men actually brought flowers and other purple plastic objects. Purple plastic was rare and valuable in those days.

Also, Mary and Aurora were BFFs which is why Mary is sporting Aurora's crown. With those kind of princess connections, you'd think they might have found a better place to sleep than a stable. Where are the good fairies when you need them?

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I'm not sure what the excitement is, but Michael keeps asking if he can watch me wrap gifts. I think he's just interested in what the gifts are. He keeps asking, "Can I watch you wrap them up? Are you going to wrap some up now?"

He was very disappointed when he realized I wasn't going to show him all of Harper's gifts. I only showed him two, and let him choose one as his gift to her.

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I think I've mentioned before that Michael is a sensitive boy and can get emotional about movies we watch (I might have scarred him for life with An American Tail). So far about 50% of our Christmas shows have made him cry. The original Frosty the Snowman was the most traumatic.

He also gets upset when we sing,"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Every single time he asks, "WHY won't they let him play?"

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I always buy nice wrapping paper but I am a decidedly unfussy gift packager. I don't even bother with ribbon and/or bows most of the time and I've started to feel guilty about the boxes we use for gifts. There will be a nice gift, and nice paper, but in between - when receiving a gift from us - you are likely to face either a) a Circo brand shoe box or b) a Market Day chicken steaks box. Classy. What can I say? They are good sizes and I have an abundance of them. Still, I'm trying to use slightly fewer of those (I'll save them for mailing you things!) and go the more traditional shirt box route.

If you expect to receive a gift from us this year, just know that you should unwrap the box and open it or you'll have no idea what you're really getting. I also have a lot of American Girl boxes in the basement. I'd hate for you to think you were getting some accessories for Molly or Kit and be disappointed with an iTunes gift card...

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In a final, and random, note. I had a big spike in blog traffic today. Apparently someone found the Christmas craft we did last year and linked to it. If anyone clicks around on this blog looking for more craft ideas, wow, are they going to be disappointed!

In Which I Ignore My Own Guidelines

2011-12-11T23:12:00.000-05:00

Several years ago I wrote a little set of guidelines for giving gifts to teachers. (You can find it here.) One of the things I suggested was not preparing food for teachers. Or, rather, I cautioned that some teachers might not eat homemade treats. This is still true, but this year we have a lot of people we wanted to do some small holiday recognition for and making something edible just seemed like the best way to go.

AND I have a snack mix recipe that has always been a huge it, so I feel pretty confident that anyone who likes a little something sweet will either enjoy it or know someone who will happily take it off his/her hands.

The thing is, we will do a nicer/bigger gift for our children's main teachers. But, especially in Harper's case, I don't want to leave anyone out. Because of all the people who are part of our allergy plan at school I get a very concrete sense of the whole, "it takes a village," thing. We have 11 people we are bringing something to at Harper's school. And then you add the neighbors we usually give a little sweet to and Michael's 4 teachers and you have, well, A LOT of people to provide a gift for.

Don't get me wrong - I LIKE recognizing these people and thanking them for the jobs they are doing (or for being great neighbors!), so I'm not complaining, just noting, that I had a lot of people to make snack mix for!

I'm also really enjoying my new camera and this was a good excuse to take pictures of stuff.

Here are the ingredients:

This recipe pretty much had me at butter and brown sugar...

So you mix the dry ingredients in a roasting pan, then melt the sugar, syrup, and butter together and stir it for a very long time (lots of standing at the stove, this is a recipe that needs tending). Then you add the vanilla and baking soda, dump it over the dry stuff, stir and put it in the oven. Then you stir it at fifteen minute intervals for about an hour. Finally you dump it out to cool and it looks like this:

You will spend the next half-hour or so waiting for it to cool enough to be put into a container or gift bags/boxes. During this time you will need to stand guard and shoo away little children who will repeatedly enter the kitchen looking for, "Just one piece, please?!" And you will have to say no, because each batch will only yield four of these:

One down, nineteen to go.

I made four batches yesterday and then ran out of butter. Matt went to the store today and restocked my supplies - I will have another marathon day this week or next weekend and then we should be all set. That is, until it is time to bake cookies!

Yummy, sugary, goodness!

Winner!

2011-12-09T23:22:00.000-05:00

Hey guys - I need some help. "Gretch" won the music giveaway with comment number four chosen by random.org. But I don't know her and I don't know if she's a regular reader and there's no contact information on her profile!

SO - if you know her, please tell her she won and have her email me at kelseyjane (at) hotmail (dot) com.
If you ARE her, please do the same. Oh, and put "Midwest Mom" in the subject line or the message might get lost in my junk mail...

In the future I need to remember to ask for people to leave contact info when they comment on a giveaway - good thing I don't do this for a living!!!

(I am not sure if any of you blogged w/ a link to that giveaway, but if you did, you might want to mention to your people that they can click over here to see if they won!)

Tree Topper Before and After

2011-12-07T20:54:00.000-05:00

Well, I knew it would happen sooner or later. When I put up the Christmas tree this year, our tree topper, the one we've had all our married lives, didn't work. It had lights in it so it was something of a Christmas miracle that it lasted as long as it did. I have an oddly specific memory of buying it - nothing fancy... We were shopping together are Meijer and picked it up - for about eight dollars. It was a "grapevine" star, painted gold, and I loved the way it looked on our tree. I especially loved the play of the lights from the star against the ceiling...

I played around with it for a while and eventually figured out which bulb was out. Eventually I was able to get 9 of the 10 bulbs to light up, but I had images of the star repeatedly going out while on top of the lit and decorated Christmas tree and that would have made me really unhappy.

As sad as I was/am to say goodbye to that star, I figured I had better just toss it and find a new one.

I went back to Meijer, this time with Michael (times have changed!), and purchased a new gold star. I had the foresight to purchase one without lights this time. Incidentally, this one was also only eight dollars. As long as I'm careful packing and unpacking it each year, it should last a long time. While it doesn't give the same glow to the top of our tree, I still think it is pretty. And this gold star is a bit glittery so it is especially pretty with the tree lights reflecting off it in the evening.

I did not love it at first, but it's growing on me...

(Thanks to my friend Tracy for caring about my Christmas decoration madness and asking me to post about this.)

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One more day to enter the music giveaway! Nine more entries and I'll pick two winners, tell your friends! Enter here.

Randomness

2011-12-06T23:14:00.000-05:00

Human brains are funny... I was walking from the dining room into the kitchen and I had to duck under something that was hanging from the ceiling. It was after I had sort of reflexively ducked that my brain got as far as thinking there shouldn't BE something hanging from the ceiling.

It was a spider - whee! (At least it wasn't a mouse. I've been given the gift of perspective.)

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Our Christmas shopping is about 98% finished. I am good at shopping ahead, but it always lures me into a false sense of feeling prepared for the holidays when there is really a lot left to do (baking, wrapping, etc.).

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Our elf is hanging out with the nativity figures tonight. It kind of looks like he's holding the shepherd hostage.

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The new nativity set is HUGE hit. Michael calls it the stable and played with it every free moment of his day.

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Twins in Michael's class at school had a birthday today. I was supposed to send in a treat for him because they were bringing in doughnuts that weren't guaranteed to be nut free. This would have been no problem, except that I TOTALLY FORGOT. Good thing he can be fairly easy going. One of his teachers just gave him a safe snack they had and he was fine with it.

It is official: If I don't have something in writing I will completely and totally forget about it.

Jolly Old St. Nicholas

2011-12-05T23:58:00.000-05:00

Here's our fireplace this evening... notice anything?

Do you see the shoes?

If you know my children, you might imagine that the shoes left on the fireplace are just the result of less than thorough tidying. But no, they are there on purpose, anxiously awaiting St. Nick's arrival overnight.

Waiting shoes...

I've written about St. Nick before, but you can read more here if the details are fuzzy for you!

I will admit to taking a little license with the purpose of recognizing St. Nick's feast day. Normally our children receive an ornament from St. Nick, maybe some candy, and sometimes holiday books and/or movies. Because we pack ALL of the Christmas items away (movies, books, CDs) when it isn't December, I prefer not to wait until Christmas Day to give them those kind of holiday items.

This year St. Nick is actually bringing them a Fisher Price Nativity. St. Nick doesn't usually bring large items or toys but he is attaching a note to the kids explaining that he does not normally bring something like that, but he hoped it would help them remember what we are celebrating this time of year.... Both children had expressed an interest in the set earlier this fall (yes, Harper will still play with Little People sets!) and Matt and I didn't want to wait until Christmas and give it to them to play with for only a week...

Maybe we're missing the point of St. Nick, but I don't think we'll be scarring them with one out of the ordinary St. Nick year - and very few of our friends here recognize this day so it isn't as though they will be comparing their St. Nick experience with everyone else's!

If you do St. Nick what will your children find in their shoes this year?

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There's still time to enter the music giveaway - click here!

Holiday Oblivion

2011-12-04T22:45:00.001-05:00

Since the whirlwind that was November I can't seem to get back into a good routine, much of that is due to a long string of special events and busy weekends. While I have the sneaking suspicion that something BIG is getting away from me these disruptions to our routine haven't been all bad.

Today Matt and his parents took Michael to Cincinnati to see a Xavier women's basketball game. Harper and I got to head downtown to see a holiday window display as well as a performance of the Golden Dragon Acrobats. Holy cats was that amazing! It was a great way to spend part of an afternoon and I would have thoroughly enjoyed it all on my own - Harper's awe was like a cherry on top.

Earlier this year Matt and I decided to subscribe to a family entertainment series for four performances that take place in a historic theater in our area. Last month Matt and Harper saw a percussion group and in the new year we'll see a stage adaptation of The Sinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, as well as some kind of Magic School Bus performance. The tickets end up costing about the same as some of the community theater events we attend and we got great seats as subscribers. It was a great decision on our part and I hope we are able to purchase a subscription again in the future. As Michael gets older we'll either need to get more seats (right now we just have two) or we'll have to split the shows between the children.

Matt's parents joined us for dinner after the game and we watched the Packer game while we ate - a bonus of the living/dining room combo!

I didn't get a lot accomplished today - eh - that's how it goes sometimes. We've really been enjoying the last few weeks, just don't look at the state of my floors!

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Don't forget to enter the Christmas music giveaway! Details here.

Music! Music! Music!

2011-12-03T23:37:00.000-05:00

Ack! It's December 3rd and I still haven't started the Christmas music giveaway. Oops.

Just in case any of you are still doing the old fashioned thing and actually listening to CDs I am going to give away a custom music mix again this year. You can only enter once, but I'll make one CD for every dozen comments. If 24 people comment, then I'll give away 2 CDs, 36 = 3 CDs, etc.

So spread the word! Share the love! Enter, enter, enter.

I will make the winner(s) a holiday music mix based on answers to a few simple questions.

I suppose this is also contingent upon the main computer not completely melting down...

I'm going to be quick this year, you have until Thursday, December 8th, to enter. I'll make midnight, Ohio time (Eastern), the cutoff.

Any comment will do, but if you can't think of anything maybe tell me what your favorite holiday tradition is.

Some of my Christmas music collection... just waiting to be a perfect CD for you!

Harper's Disney Trip (Yes,Three Months Later)

2011-12-02T16:12:00.000-05:00

I thought it would be fun to have Harper tell me about these pictures from her experiences at Disney World in September. Based on the less than enthusiastic nature of her narrative/responses*, I think I should have asked for her commentary a couple of months ago. Enjoy?

That is my brother's favorite ride. And it's my second favorite ride. I like to get squirted with water because the camel squirts water.

I got to help in The Festival of the Lion King. I got to go around the room with shakers. That's me in the orange shirt.

I met Jessie and Woody at the same time. I liked Woody the best.

(No comment on this picture...)

I met Mary Poppins. I did not meet her when I turned five and went to Disney. She is one of my favorite Disney characters.

I loved LOVED the golden coins that fell down at the end of the Disney Junior show.

This was our last day in Disney World. I met Tiana, the princess. That was our very last character.

The end.

*When I taught first grade I thought I would go insane from reading so many sentences that began with, "I like..." Dear Lord - that was always a goal of mine for the year, to get children to learn how to write sentences/stories that didn't begin with the dreaded, "I like."

Harper didn't start too many of these sentences that way, but still, the responses would have been more interesting a little closer to our trip.

Holiday Project

2011-12-01T22:48:00.000-05:00

Once a month or so the first graders at Harper's school get a project assigned for homework. I think the idea is that we talk about it together as a family and then Harper goes to school and presents her project to the class. They are graded on the project itself (whether they met the basic objectives) and then on their presentation.

In August/September the children had to make a poster about themselves. In October/early November they had to turn in a project about a fall tradition in their families. And this week they had to turn two "quilt squares," one written and one visual, about a specific winter holiday tradition that each child was assigned.

Does anyone else find it a little funny that Harper's assignment was nutcrackers?

Now I may be approaching these projects the wrong way - we usually do discuss them as a family but I make Harper do most of the work herself. This time we read some information about the history of nutcrackers and then Harper wrote a little something. Unfortunately there wasn't room for all of her ideas on her quilt square. She had to leave out the part she wrote about the ballet.

Here are her squares:

Her nutcrackers made me laugh. She was only going to make one but she kept making them so tiny. She finally decided to put several on her quilt square - a little nutcracker army.

I'll be interested to see how this project is graded - due to the traveling we did over the Thanksgiving holiday it may not have been our very best effort. Ahem.

Any interesting school projects for you this time of year?

Where Did November Go?

2011-11-30T21:03:00.000-05:00

I am always sort of sorry to see NaBloPoMo end. I enjoy posting regularly. My problem with November is that it is such a busy birthday month for us I end up doing a lot of quick and not particularly thoughtful posts. Oh well. I always intend to continue posting more frequently into December - we'll see.

The other trouble I have in November is that I find it really difficult to keep up with everyone else's blogs, especially those of you who are also posting daily. There are several HUNDRED posts sitting in my reader. So I'm just a bit behind.

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Am I the only one who feels like this month just FLEW by? I swear I was just feeling like November had sort of crept up on us and now it is over already.

Our Christmas decorating is on hold while I wait for one more strand of lights to arrive - I forgot that I was supposed to order two more to finish relighting our tree... My goal is to have it finished by Sunday (the lights should arrive tomorrow) before the Packer game. Watching football beside the glow of the Christmas tree is just about my perfect evening.

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For book club next month (next week!) we are reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. This is the kind of book that I have heard so much about, has gotten so much positive attention, I really feel like I should read it. (The Kite Runner was another of those books for me.) BUT the subject matter, from a distance, didn't really grab me. It didn't seem like something I'd necessarily enjoy reading, but another book club member recommended it and I had no problem giving it a try. I'm not even 50 pages in and I cannot believe how compelling it is. I have a history of coming late to good books, especially if they aren't children's books. Why is that?

Nuggets

2011-11-29T23:13:00.002-05:00

Our Elf on the Shelf is back!

The other morning Harper said to me, in reference to our elf, "Mom, I don't believe in most magic, but I really believe in Snowy!"

It was a shot right to the heart - I can practically hear the clocking ticking as these days of belief and wonder trickle away and I am going to treasure every last moment of them.

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Michael told me excitedly about how he had leaned over to pick something up, while on one foot, without falling (oh, my balance-challenged boy!). He was so proud as he exclaimed, "I did not even lose my balance beam!"

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We had to eat dinner without Matt tonight and, in a last minute fit of inspiration, we decided to eat by candlelight, with Christmas music playing. The kids loved it! Part way through dinner Harper noticed snow in the headlight beams of the cars driving by. The first snow, and a very little bit of it was sticking to the lawn. Harper and Michael were so excited they kept getting out of their chairs to look out the kitchen window. It was annoying - I'm generally a fan of everyone staying in their seats for dinner - but very sweet at the same time.

Ah Winter, I think we are ready for you. Please come and leave again by March.

Nuggets

2011-11-29T23:12:00.000-05:00

Our Elf on the Shelf is back!

The other morning Harper said to me, in reference to our elf, "Mom, I don't believe in most magic, but I really believe in Snowy!"

It was a shot right to the heart - I can practically hear the clocking ticking as these days of belief and wonder trickle away and I am going to treasure every last moment of them.

*****

Michael told me excitedly about how he had leaned over to pick something up, while on one foot, without falling (oh, my balance-challenged boy!). He was so proud as he exclaimed, "I did not even lose my balance beam!"

*****

We had to eat dinner without Matt tonight and, in a last minute fit of inspiration, we decided to eat by candlelight, with Christmas music playing. The kids loved it! Part way through dinner Harper noticed snow in the headlight beams of the cards driving by. The first snow, and a very little bit of it was sticking to the lawn. Harper and Michael were so excited they kept getting out of their chairs to look out the kitchen window. It was annoying - I'm generally a fan of everyone staying in their seats for dinner - but very sweet at the same time.

Ah Winter, I think we are ready for you. Please come and leave again by March.

900

2011-11-28T22:36:00.000-05:00

Apparently this is my 900th post... That's a lot of online rambling. Perhaps a contest will be in order once I reach 1,000. I'll have to think about it.

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I just finished placing our Elf on a Shelf out for the first night. This will mark the third year we've had an elf, Snowy, and I better be on my game because Harper told me this morning that she'd been up early looking for him.

There have been times the previous two years that we've forgotten to move Snowy at night. In the past it usually hasn't occurred to Harper to look for Snowy in his previous location. There have been a few mornings when we've had to scramble to relocate Snowy while stalling the children in their bedrooms.

We'll see how we do this year, I have a feeling it will be more difficult to convince Harper the magic is real if we goof this time around...

Any of you doing the elf thing this year?

'Tis the Season

2011-11-27T23:55:00.001-05:00

Did you hear a contented sigh a few minutes ago? That was me settling into the big chair in the living room and basking in the glow of Christmas lights.

Happy.

We're really only about 75% there with the decorating. We can't find the remote that turns on the outside (very meager) lights. The top quarter of the (artificial, obviously, but beautiful nonetheless) Christmas tree still needs to be lit and attached. The tree needs to be decorated. The boxes need to go back downstairs. But we've got a good start on things.

For the next six weeks or so, this living room will be my favorite place in the house. I will happily read Christmas book after Christmas book by the light of the tree, listen to carols, and enjoy the Santas and snowmen and the Willow Tree Nativity I love.

Need a little Christmas joy to rub off on you? Stop by for a visit!

We Made It

2011-11-26T23:03:00.008-05:00

We are back in Ohio and, in some sort of Thanksgiving miracle, when we got to Urgent Care we were the only ones in the waiting room!

It still took an hour and a half (with bonus chest x-rays) for the doctor to determine that Michael is most likely coming down with pneumonia. I am not generally a fan of throwing antibiotics at a situation if not absolutely necessary - but the doctor said if he was coming down with pneumonia and we left it untreated it could get worse quickly. Given that we only slept two hours or less at a stretch last night, I was not terribly interested in worse.

For now Michael is sleeping peacefully. We've got instructions to keep him calm/restful for the next two days.

I will try keeping him glued to the couch with Christmas movies and books for the next 48 hours. Not such a bad sentence.

Coughing

2011-11-25T23:57:00.000-05:00

Have I made any silly statements about how healthy(ish) the kids have been? If so, I'm paying for it now.

Harper seems to be doing quite a bit better, but now Michael has a cough that won't quit.

Please send good thoughts that we can get back to Ohio tomorrow and hold off on urgent care until Sunday...

Thankful

2011-11-24T23:27:00.007-05:00

In no particular order:

-Loving family (ALL of them!)

-Terrific friends that stand the test of time and distance

-Plenty of good food

-New opportunities

-The crazy kiddos (especially when they're not hopped up on prednisone!)

-Matt

-Security

-Hand-written letters

-The luxury it is to be watching television and typing from a beautiful kitchen in my parents' warm, welcoming home

Of course there is so much more, but those are the things that spring to mind at the moment.

Happy Thanksgiving y'all!

It's Time to Start the Music

2011-11-23T23:00:00.000-05:00

My sister and I took Harper to see The Muppets this afternoon.

I loved it!

I have always been a Muppet fan, but the most recent Muppet movies haven't been so great. (Muppet Treasure Island, Muppets from Space I'm looking at you.) The movie had lots of fun musical numbers and the children in the theater seemed to enjoy it and find it funny, but the best parts (for me) were all the references to 80's pop culture.

It was rated PG, but I can't think of anything that I worried about Harper watching during the movie. (WHY are there no G-rated movies out there right now? Pet peeve!)

I am wondering how many of you have fond memories of the Muppets and whether you're planning on seeing the movie.

Thank Goodness They Aren't Babies

2011-11-22T23:39:00.000-05:00

We made the trek to Wisconsin today, where we will spend Thanksgiving with my extended family.

Despite the very persistent and enthusiastic rain we dealt with for most of the trip we got to Wisconsin (from Ohio) in just over seven hours. Two main things helped make the trip quick:

1) The kids can eat dinner in the car.

2) We only stopped twice. (Once for food and bathroom, then one more bathroom trip.)

I remember when Harper was a baby and these trips home involved many stops for feeding. Often Matt would go in and eat somewhere while I sat in the car and fed the baby. Then he'd get me food to go and I'd eat in the car. Our stops rarely lasted less than half an hour and we couldn't get home without several of them.

There were plenty of less than pleasant things about the drive - but really it just means the children were arguing in the back seat, rather than around the kitchen table. That's life.

This traveling thing is SO MUCH EASIER than it used to be. For that I am very thankful.

Blerg

2011-11-21T23:03:00.000-05:00

It is 11 p.m. Harper is STILL awake. Why?

Two breathing treatments and a dose of prednisone. This is not what I expected when we went for her "well check" today.

It could be an interesting week. Please pardon me while I go bang my head against the wall.

Boy Genius

2011-11-20T23:08:00.001-05:00

I'm relaying this little story second-hand, so Matt will have to correct me if I have the details wrong...

Matt and Michael were sitting in the living room tonight. The television was on (showing the Bears/Chargers game) but it was muted. Matt looks up to see a play and says, "Yes!"

Michael observes the same play and says, "Interception!"

He was right...

How did he know that?

*****

My guess is that he was remembering a moment from the Packer game earlier in the afternoon when I said, "Yes! Interception!" But it's pretty good, either way.

*****

Later I was asking Michael what an interception was when Harper piped up, "Isn't that when the players do something they aren't allowed to do? Wait... that's just a flag."

She still has a thing or two to learn about football.

Harper's "Friend" Party - A Really LONG Post with Lost of Pictures

2011-11-19T23:09:00.000-05:00

I can't think of a better way to do this birthday party wrap-up post, so we'll sort of go one element at a time.

The basic facts:

       - party was comprised of 8 first grade girls, including Harper
       - party lasted two hours (long enough!)
       - dinner of pizza (carryout!), grapes, and carrots was served

The cake:

Did anyone really think I would get through birthday season without baking/attempting to decorate a cake?

Step One: Basic cake. Headache spared by not trying to cut it into particular shape, or even remove it from the pan.


Step Two: Cover in basic pink frosting. "Draw" outline for Harper's requested music note.

Step Three: Add chocolate frosting music note, attempt to stay in the lines, fail. Add sparkling accents. Harper was very concerned that I make the "slash" correctly. That's what she called the little detail on the music note.

Step Four: Admire sparkling accents closely... Harper LOVED those sprinkles.

The Goody Bags/Decorations:

First grade girls' goody bags: fruit snacks (last minute addition to bulk up bags), sticker sheet, two fun pencils, smiley face bracelet, ring pop, Bonnie Bell lip gloss.

I totally struggle with goody bags. I don't want to spend a fortune on them, but I don't want to fill them with cheap junk either. I don't want to give a lousy goody bag, especially when some kids give really nice gifts. I also don't want to give a goody bag that costs more than the average gift. Also, this soon after Halloween, I don't want to give all candy.

Goody bag / paper products table. We were actually pretty cleaned out of paper plates, etc. so we splurged on matching stuff from the party store. Turns out our "theme" was on sale.

We always splurge on fun balloons for the kids' parties, it is generally the only "decorating" I manage. I heart the owl balloon.

Harper had her heart set on a banner this year and it didn't break the bank either. I like that it is easy to store/reuse. Let me know if you want to borrow it! (Seriously.)

The Activities:

For about the first five minutes or so the kids just ran around like crazy as everyone arrived. It was insane. I wonder whether the parents were grateful to be dropping their children off, or concerned that I apparently had NO CONTROL over the situation...

I remembered late this week that I had some extra shrinky dink sheets - the kind you just draw on, not the pre-printed ones. I thought we'd start with those while Matt was out getting the pizza. The kids were pretty happy to draw on their pieces and no one freaked out and asked for a new one. I'd warned them ahead that I didn't have any extras. (I baked them while the kids were eating).

We ate about 15 minutes into the party. There was a burping contest going on the whole time - what the heck? The girls were MUCH more rowdy that I'd expected. I'm pretty sure one little girl didn't anything except dessert. I figured she'd be okay since the party was only two hours long.

After pizza/grapes/carrots/pretzels/juice I decided we needed to do a calm-ish activity. I gathered the girls in the living room for some charades. We used the cards from our Kids on Stage game. I just had the girls take turns being the "actress." They drew a card out of a cup and acted it out. Anyone could guess what they were or were doing. We did not do any score keeping. Each girl was able to act out two cards. Once everyone had had a turn, they each acted out one more. The girls enjoyed this more than I thought - I was worried someone wouldn't want to do the acting part, and made it clear that no one had to do it if she didn't want to. (Side note, I kind of hated birthday parties as a kid, I was afraid of having to participate in games I didn't understand or wasn't good at...)

We were half way through the two-hour party time when charades were wearing out their welcome so we headed back to the table for singing and eating cake:


The sparkling 7 was a pretty candle but the flame was impossibly small.

Opening gifts was the next logical step. It feels sort of strange to have everyone sit around and watch Harper open gifts, but that is pretty much standard for a birthday party.

After the gifts were open we were about half an hour from the end of party time. For the next several minutes we let the kids dance around with a video camera connected to the TV so they could watch themselves. I took that idea directly from Giselle and I would like to thank her because they loved it!


We do not have a tripod but made do by placing the camera on the entertainment center. It worked OK. The girls liked getting really close to it, which made me nervous, but they couldn't really knock it down so I don't know what I was worried about.

After ten? fifteen? minutes of dancing, the girls got a little wild - after the third or forth time Matt suggested they not throw things, it was time to transition to another activity.

We ended the evening by using the white board to play a drawing game - basically the exact same thing we did earlier but with markers instead of acting. I think every girl had had one turn and then the parents began to arrive.

All in all I would say the party was a success - the girls had fun and I'm pretty sure there were no tears.

Final thoughts:

- I should have had a calm activity (we made some coloring pages I should have used) set out as the girls arrived to try and avoid the first few minutes of everyone going completely insane.

- I should have waited to turn music on until the actual dancing time, again, to avoid some of the insanity.

- Eight girls was probably one or two girls too many. But which girls not to invite? These were all pretty good friends of Harper's. We could have easily invited three or four more. I'm so glad we didn't!

- Two hours was a great amount of time. If we hadn't been serving dinner it would have been too long.

- One of my concerns about "friend" parties is the gift part. As a parent I know it is difficult to buy gifts for a child you might not know that well. There are also a handful of things that are popular that I really don't want Harper to have - happily none of them appeared tonight!

If you read all of this, you deserve a treat. Do you want some leftover cake?

Little Girls

2011-11-18T23:21:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow seven first grade girls will come over to celebrate Harper's birthday. When we started discussing birthday plans we decided Harper could choose to have one friend come out to dinner and a movie or have a few friends over for a simple party at the house. She chose party!

So the party is tomorrow. There is a cake on the counter waiting to be frosted. Harper and I will assemble goody bags in the morning. I think it will be just fine, although I keep going back and forth wondering whether I have too much planned or not enough. We'll see. I'm sure you'll be holding your breath, waiting for updates!

Seven

2011-11-17T22:24:00.056-05:00

Dear Harper,

We have one celebration behind us (last Saturday, with family) and one ahead (this coming Saturday, with friends), but today is your actual birthday.

Seven years old.

This feels like a big year for you. It is your first year at school all day long. Your first year eating lunch away from us on a daily basis. Your first year with regular homework. Your first year with art class! First grade is the real deal and you, of course, are taking it in stride.

Not only do I remember my own first grade year fondly, first grade is the grade I taught (for four years) before becoming your mom. First grade is familiar territory to me, and yet it feels brand new in so many ways, experiencing this year as a parent and watching you meet the challenges of your time as a first grader.

What has changed about you in the last year? You are bigger of course, growing too tall for your pants at an alarming rate. You are a more comfortable and accomplished reader - a fact that has brought both of us hours of delight. I love being able to discuss books with you and watch you branch out on your own. The Rainbow Magic Fairies series is a favorite right now and yet, even as we buy them (dozens at a time, it seems!) I know they will rest on your shelf briefly and you will be on to bigger and better things. Your writing has blossomed, too, and I love reading the stories you concoct almost as much as I love the fact that it is no longer agonizing to work with you on thank you notes! You've even started writing in a journal of sorts, given to you by your Aunt Molly last year around this time. And you have pen pals, a sure sign that you are, in fact, my daughter.

You are so confident Harper. This is both a good and challenging thing, at your age. Your teacher tells us that you often need to be reminded that you, in fact, are not the one in charge in your classroom. You have a lot of learning to do to balance your natural leadership ability with the compass that needs to be tuned in to the feelings of those around you. You are most definitely a take charge type of person, and I've no doubt that you will continue to take charge as you grow. Right now you want to be a teacher yourself, and, while I know that may very well change, it isn't too much of a stretch to imagine you the "boss" of your own classroom someday. For the record, Michael would also like you to know that you aren't the boss of him.

Nana started you in a ballet class this year. It is a long commitment which will culminate in a big recital this spring. Once in the fall and once in the spring there are days when family members may come in and observe the class. This is your first experience with any kind of dance class and you didn't want us to come and watch. After much prodding you admitted that you didn't want anyone to see you because you didn't think you were very good. The other children have all had dance class before and I think this is one of the rare times that you've felt out of your element. You are used to things coming fairly easily to you Harper, and this dance class is a bit of a different story.

There are things to learn here... you will not always be good at something the first time you try it, try anyway. It is okay to feel uncomfortable and to make mistakes. We agreed to put you in this class knowing that you would be out of your comfort zone, wanting you to have an opportunity to truly grow. Still it broke my heart a little when you cried to me that you weren't good enough for anyone to watch you.

We came to watch anyway. And you, my dear one, were much better than you think. Sure you have things to learn, but I'm confident that you will learn them because you listen, you follow directions, you try. Will you ever be a ballerina, paid to dance on the stage? Eh. Genetics say probably not. Will this experience have been worthwhile? Of course. Will I be fighting back proud tears, watching you in your dance costume on stage this spring, even if you forget everything you are supposed to do? Absolutely.

At age seven, many of the things I've always observed about you are still true. You are stubborn. You like to be in charge. You are smart. You are beautiful. You are creative. You are a girl who makes me very proud to be your mother. And I love you with all my heart.

Happy birthday, Harper.

Love,
Mom

There are Worse Things

2011-11-16T21:57:00.000-05:00

When I got home from subbing yesterday there was a notice on our door that a crew was going to start working on a nearby water main this morning. From 8 a.m. until sometime after 1 p.m. we had no water at all. Now the water is back on but we can't use it for cooking, drinking, or oral hygiene. We might not be able to use it without boiling until FRIDAY. Blerg. Not the end of the world, I know, but kind of a pain in the butt nonetheless.

*****
I woke up this morning with the left side of my neck all knotted up - whenever I change the angle of my head or move my jaw or reach for anything with my left arm/hand, the pain just radiates through my neck and left shoulder. This is not fun. Advil is only providing very mild relief. I am pretty sure I just slept on it wrong, what was I doing in my sleep? What do you think the chances are that I'll wake up tomorrow and it will be all better?

*****

Remember when I worked full time that spring semester? Back in 2010? How did that work? I've subbed two half days in a row and I am wiped out. Guess it is good that I didn't get a job this year.

*****

Tonight I am grateful for clean running water (when we have it, 99% of the time), for all the days I wake up without being in excruciating pain, and the fact that I'm not working full time right now.

You?

Two Questions and a Statement

2011-11-15T22:58:00.000-05:00

Out of Michael's mouth lately:

Does the sun eat food?

Do they have butts? (Pointing to pictures of kittens in a storybook, one was on its back and fur was strategically covering everything.)

I see a ho truck!
("Ho truck," is how Michael says "tow truck," cracks me up every time.)

*****
My birthday was good. Coffee in the morning, subbing in the afternoon, PTO meeting after dinner, and out for margaritas after the PTO meeting - a pleasant and much enjoyed surprise. Now as my birthday present to myself I'm going to bed before midnight.

Impending

2011-11-14T21:34:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow is my birthday. I'm not generally one to freak out too much about getting older. This particular birthday gives me a small amount of pause, I'm about to have to check a different box when I take surveys.

Don't worry, I won't fret about it for long.

*****

I know I ask this every year, but here we are, mid-month, and I'm feeling slightly less motivated about the daily blogging thing than I did two weeks ago - so do you all have any questions to ask? Feel free to dust off your question from last year, because I didn't manage to answer all of them...

*****

I'm thinking it will be time for the Christmas music giveaway again soon. Every year I swear I won't acquire any more Christmas CDs - and yet I managed to get four of them (per request) as birthday gifts, AND I'm currently salivating over the next Glee Christmas album. Surely this is some kind of addiction.

*****

Matt took at a half day from work today to take me out for my birthday. (We can't go tomorrow because I'm subbing in the afternoon). We ate at Red Lobster - one of my favorites but not a good place for the kids. After lunch we hopped over to the discount theater and saw Crazy, Stupid, Love which I really enjoyed. It was a very nice afternoon and totally offsets the fact that I'll be working and attending a PTO meeting tomorrow!

Birthday Weekend the First

2011-11-13T23:18:00.000-05:00

It is possible that a luckier child/family does not exist. We've just had a really lovely birthday weekend. Everybody pitched in to get things ready yesterday and we had a delicious taco dinner which I highly recommend for a party because you can prepare everything ahead of time.

I thought Harper would go out of her mind waiting for the party yesterday, as it did not officially begin until four. AND we had to eat dinner before opening presents. Torture! Fortunately Auntie Shannon was around to help pass the time with a Can You See What I See? book.

This year Harper decided she wanted brownies instead of a cake (and the angels sang!). She did want some decoration on the brownies though - a multicolored frosting peace sign. I made a batch of plain brownies as well, for those among us who prefer not to have a side of sugar with our sugar. Incidentally I didn't need nearly the entire recipe's worth of frosting to decorate the 8x8 pan of brownies. (It's possible I had one or two spoonfuls of frosting with my coffee Saturday morning.)

Harper was thrilled with her brownies - even if they looked a little wonky - they tasted great. And the addition of seven crazy candles made them even more festive.

Harper received tons of great presents. And she cheered over every one of them. Well maybe not about the blanket that we got her for her bed, but she's cold every night so I know she'll appreciate it. There were games, clothes, books (lots of books, hopefully enough to keep her busy until Christmas), crafts, a princess Barbie, and a few items for her beloved Kit.

Below you can see Kit sporting her winter look - very stylish.

We enjoyed church and breakfast together this morning and then said our goodbyes.

Matt, Harper, Michael, and I were able to continue celebrating tonight. Ann made a wonderful dinner for my birthday and I also received lots of great gifts. (I am seriously spoiled.) One of my gifts was a new camera! The digital camera I had been using is older than Harper and something of a dinosaur as far as cameras go, I am so happy for a new toy to play with!

I hope your weekends were half as happy as ours. For tonight I'm going to enjoy the rest of the evening and not worry about the details of Harper's "friend" party (next weekend) until tomorrow!

Pre-Party

2011-11-12T23:31:00.000-05:00

Around 2:30 this afternoon the leaf pile in our front yard was the place to be. More about Harper's birthday celebration tomorrow, for now, please enjoy:

Start Celebrating

2011-11-11T23:50:00.008-05:00

Family members have arrived in town because we are kicking off Harper's week of birthday celebration tomorrow. Uncle Joe and my parents, sister, and sister-in-law were here for dinner this evening. One birthday present to me was that I didn't have to cook (for today). I also received some gifts this evening. I have two new Christmas CDs (before long it will be time for the giveaway!) and some new shirts from Land's End. I also got a new wool "swing coat" from my very generous parents. It has been a long time since I've had a nice coat to wear for church or other occasions that require me to go beyond my old fleece. It was the perfect type of gift because I can really use it, but would have had a difficult time spending that much money on something for myself.

Tonight I've been baking and preparing meat for the tacos we'll eat tomorrow. For our family celebration Harper requested brownies - so no cake drama this year. I'm very thankful to have a little break from that.

I'm barely able to keep my eyes open enough to create coherent sentences here, but I'm keeping the streak alive.

(Michael is talking, loudly, in his sleep about Clifford the Big Red Dog.)

Back tomorrow, maybe with birthday party pictures?

Full Moon

2011-11-10T23:14:00.000-05:00

Michael has been in a MOOD today.

We have up to half an hour between Harper's school drop off time and his, sometimes we use that time to run a quick errand. Today I told him we had to drive through and mail something at the post office... His reply?

"Awwww. Can't you just do it by yourself? I want to go right. TO. SCHOOL!"

However this same child looked up at me as I was walking him in to school and said, "I like you the best Mommy."

I don't know if these fluctuations in temperament are due to the full moon, to age 3.5, maybe to the huge shift in our weather over the last 24 hours...

Michael's Jekyll and Hyde thing has had me slightly worried about our prospects for getting a good family photo at the portrait studio tonight, fortunately it ended up working out okay.

We're about to have a houseful of company as we celebrate Harper's birthday this coming weekend. Next weekend we're having a second party with some of her friends from school. Wish us luck!

(P.S. Both Matt and I are still a tiny bit jumpy - one little mouse can really get into your brain.)

Ding Dong the Mouse is Dead!

2011-11-09T22:52:00.000-05:00

Mouse-Invasion 2011 is, at least temporarily, over!

Hoorah!

Oh you guys, I handled this in a completely ridiculous way. I KNEW I was being ridiculous and yet I couldn't help myself. Ah well, apparently I'm not going to be a mouse tamer in this lifetime.

We are already laughing about this, but trust me, if another furry friend shows up I will be right back on top of a chair, wishing Matt well from a distance.

In the madness of the great mouse chase I managed to grab the camera and get a photo of our two mouse hunters...

They were... not that much help.

Remember how we attempted to "lock" the mouse in our bedroom? When we briefly opened the door to get clothes and brush teeth this morning we saw no sign of the mouse. I was convinced that it had crawled into the heating ducts and would reappear in any room at any time. Well Matt went into the bedroom to change after dinner (we'd kept the door closed with a towel stuffed under it all day) and the mouse appeared on the floor next to my dresser.

Matt grabbed a bucket and dustpan and the kids and I stood with various containers in the hallway - backup in case the mouse got through Matt. Apparently the mouse had been moving a bit when Matt first spotted it, but by the time he was prompting it into the bucket he said he thought it was dead. We put a garbage bag over the bucket, dumped the mouse in, double bagged it for insurance (?), and took that thing to the garage (garbage day is tomorrow).

What the heck did the mouse die of? Did it starve in our room? Is that even possible?

Since none of the four traps we've laid out have been touched I'm choosing to believe that this guy was operating solo. BUT I'm still going to leave the traps set for now, and we're still going to have our pest control company come and take a look on Friday.

All's well that ends well? Let's home so, Mama needs some sleep tonight!

Oh Dear

2011-11-08T23:28:00.000-05:00

We have a mouse.

I saw it as we were finishing dinner.

I could write a lengthy post about our Mousecapades this evening, but I'm too pooped.

It is currently blockaded in our bedroom with two traps. Matt and I are sleeping in the living room and hoping maybe the mouse will be caught by morning...

I'll let you know.

Giant parenting fail tonight as I squealed like a little girl, many times, whenever I spotted the mouse.

Harper has been awake three times already crying/worrying about it.

Michael was upset he didn't get a chance to catch it himself...

I KNOW the mouse won't hurt me, but this situation is causing me a fair amount of STRESS.

Help Wanted

2011-11-07T22:19:00.000-05:00

I have a long list of things I was going to do tonight but my motivation has kind of waned and I was just thinking I would head to bed when I realized I hadn't posted yet. Drat!

Short on inspiration for today I am wondering if you could help me with two small problems.

#1: I had a recipe for pork tenderloin that I wanted to try. The piece of meat Matt brought home was huge, so I cut it up and froze half of it. The first half turned out great. Today I thawed the second half and prepared it the same way. Part of it cooked great, but about a 1/3 of it was undercooked - the cooked and undercooked portions were separated by a vein (?) of fat... So what happened? It was very strange and I'm not sure how to avoid such a thing in the future. If I'd cooked it longer, then 2/3 of it would have been overdone... What's that about? (If I'm not cooking w/ chicken, turkey, or ground beef I'm a little out of my element)

#2: I have a volunteer position at Harper's elementary school this year that requires me to send a LOT of email. I have noticed that email to Road Runner addresses will randomly be bounced back to me. It only happens w/ Road Runner emails and it isn't always with the same accounts. (I have Yahoo email) The worst part is that sometimes the bounced emails don't come back to me until a couple of days after I'd sent them. You can imagine this is a problem, especially because we are often dealing with time sensitive situations. Anyone know why that might happen and how I can stop it?

Please help our mom not give us food poisoning with her delicious but unevenly cooked pork. And deliver her from bounced emails. Amen.

Honor Flight

2011-11-06T22:40:00.000-05:00

I have been waiting for what feels like MONTHS to write about this one...

This weekend my father accompanied my grandfather on an Honor Flight. It is a really cool program that flies veterans to Washington DC so they can see their memorials during their lives.

Even though we were far away and couldn't be at the airport to meet the veterans as they returned to Milwaukee we still got to participate. On the flight my grandfather was given a packet of letters written by friends and family - just like mail call when he served.

I just had to share the items that Harper made to be included with our letters - I scanned them before sending them off.

First, a drawing:

Apparently Harper's idea of "soldier" is stuck back in the 18th century. I love the hat! And the fact that the guy is marching into battle with nothing but a flag. Please notice the moon reflected in the pond and the cattails, which Harper called, "You know, the plants that look like hot dogs." The black lines on the background hill are more soldiers marching.

She also wrote her own letter, with minimal input from me. You can click on it to read it more clearly:

Finally I have a photo I yoinked from my brother's Facebook page (hope you don't mind Jamie!). It was taken after my grandfather arrived back in Wisconsin.

I'm sorry I couldn't be there to welcome Grandpa home, but I'm glad we had the chance to send our thoughts in letter form. And I'm grateful we have a large wonderful family, many of whom were there to meet him. (Family members! Feel free to add your thoughts/experiences in the comments!)

Thank you Grandpa.

Weekend

2011-11-05T16:02:00.000-04:00

We're having the perfect kind of weekend around here - things to do, but not too many.

Today Matt took Harper downtown for a performance in a family theater series we subscribed to - they saw a percussion show. Think Stomp for kids... While they did that, Matt's father took Michael to a local arena for a train show - he was in heaven! Since I was child free for a couple of hours I did some damage at Hallmark. I was able to get our ornaments for this year, holiday wrapping paper, gift tags, and the birthday and anniversary cards I need for the next three months. It was incredibly pleasant to do all of that without worrying about what little hands were finding while I was distracted.

Tonight we are having another couple over to our house to play a card game that is well loved in our family. It's not a big or fancy affair, but I'm thrilled at the idea of more social time with adults. I feel like I should have something larger planned, since they are going to the trouble of getting a babysitter and everything. Hopefully we'll have enough fun that they'll think it was worthwhile.

Tomorrow afternoon Harper has basketball at the rec center and I'm planning on taking her to a local children's theater production of Gooney Bird Green. Between children's theater, community theater, and high schools in this area I think we could see a different show every weekend!

We'll round things out by having dinner with Matt's parents tomorrow night.

This will be our last sort of "easy" weekend this month. Birthday celebrations will take place over the next two weekends, followed by Thanksgiving weekend in Wisconsin. Before we know it DECEMBER will be here! Time flies.

And speaking of time flying, check out this growing up smile:

You may not be able to tell without enlarging the photo, but Harper has finally lost those first eight baby teeth. Her middle front ones are nearly all the way in and she continues to look ridiculously grown up to me... She will be seven in less than two weeks. In related news, I'm old.

A Thank You, An Answer, A Costume

2011-11-04T22:40:00.001-04:00

A Thank You:

You were all so nice to me after yesterday's post... That was sweet of you. I was basically boo-hooing because my child isn't perfect. Thank you for your support, but you should know I have taken my head out of my a$$!

One thing Harper's teacher said that I LOVED and is so true - if you list the traits you admire in adults and then give them to a six-year-old they aren't quite as desirable. I think all the things that make Harper difficult to parent and teach at times will serve her really well as an adult.

Moving on...

An Answer:

Bluedaisy had asked how I handle keeping Michael entertained while I do homework with Harper... My horribly unhelpful answer is I do it by the grace of God... Seriously. The most difficult part of doing homework with Harper is that she's sometimes too pooped to want to do it after school. Michael is (again, BY THE GRACE OF GOD) either happy to sit at the table with us and look at his books or color OR he will go into the computer room (w/in earshot) and play with trucks and toys by himself. If he's feeling needed/cranky he will insist on sitting on my lap while I help Harper. Not really a problem. The most disruptive he usually is is when he "reads" his books out loud at the table, interrupting Harper. Then we just ask him to go read in another room and he generally complies.

I do not know what to tell you to have this experience translate into your home... have only two kids? Make sure the second kid is pretty mellow and easily entertained?

Again, not helpful! Sorry!

A Costume:

I didn't get very many guesses as to what Harper dressed as for Halloween. Which makes me think you aren't really all that concerned about it, but I'm going to explain anyway. I'm stubborn like that. Now you know where Harper gets it!

So it all started because Michael was going to wear the same dragon costume as last year - Harper wanted to dress up as something that would go with his dragon... we talked about it and she finally decided to go as a storybook character - The Paper Bag Princess. Emily was right!

If you don't know The Paper Bag Princess, you should. It was first published 30 years ago but the story really holds up - a great early girl power story. My copy is from way back in my camp counselor days. It's still a terrific read.

Unfortunately it is not a very well known book because NO ONE knew what Harper was for a Halloween. One guy said, "Oh look! A UPS package..."

Fortunately she didn't seem to mind. Do we win any points for creativity?

First Grade

2011-11-03T22:35:00.000-04:00

We had parent teacher conferences at Harper's school tonight. And I don't know what to think about how our conference went.

I will say this, Harper's teacher this year definitely knows Harper better than any teacher she's ever had. And her teacher is willing and able to work hard to meet Harper where her needs are, which is awesome. All of this is good.

She also called Harper out on all the things she does that drive us crazy at home - being bossy, wanting to do things only her way, be so confident that she's inadvertently hurting others' feelings... I don't think she's a big problem child in the classroom. I do think she's going to have an adjustment period with Mrs. B who is going to hold her to a higher standard of behavior and really push her academically as well.

I think this year, even more than in the past, some of Harper's less admirable traits are coming forward in school and that's frustrating because of course I want her to show her best self to the world.

Don't get me wrong - I feel like Harper's teacher appreciates her and enjoys teaching her. Our conference was mostly positive. But there is a small part of me that worries that I have failed her in some way. Yes, the academic stuff is important, but I just want her to be a kind person - if I can't teach her that I think I've missed a critical part of what this mom gig is all about.

(It's also possible that I'm having an overly emotional response to all of this because I have been up too late every night this week.)

2011-11-02T23:12:00.001-04:00

I'll begin by saying that we got a really late start on Halloween this year. So late that I didn't even bother getting any of my Halloween decorations out - I left them in the bin and went straight for the Thanksgiving stuff... Matt and I were at a family wedding in Wisconsin the third weekend in October so we didn't procure pumpkins until Friday evening and then we only got one large one to carve - it seemed silly to carve two of them only to have them sit on the porch for less than a week.

It turned out to be a good thing we didn't get two for carving. The children were very cranky Saturday morning and ended up fighting and being removed from the kitchen. Matt more or less carved the pumpkin solo this year. He's a good sport.

Happy family before the madness.

In our community Trick-or-Treat was held on the 31st. This is not always the case. Our school district decided to have their celebrations on the 31st as well. Having all of this on a Monday was kind of a nightmare, but at least it is over for this year!

Here's a photo of Harper in her school's Halloween parade. The K-3 students dress up and parade around the school while the 4th and 5th grade students, and the parents, provide a captive audience. There are about 600 children in Harper's school so this is a big event.

After the parade, students went back to their classrooms for room parties. In Harper's first grade class each student had one pumpkin-shaped cookie to decorate with a small amount of frosting and a mini box of raisins. They also had water bottles, tube yogurt (which I think is disgusting, but not exactly horrible for them), and bananas. There's been a big push at our elementary school to have healthier snacks and not so much junk at parties - between that and the food allergies we tried to be really conscious about what was served. The kids did get to stir yellow and red food coloring into their white blob of frosting to see it turn orange - a little science thrown into the mix!

For any of you wondering - I made the pumpkin shaped cookies so they'd be allergy safe. I also spoke to the parents bringing in other food for the party and checked all the labels. It was great to have an event where all the food was safe for Harper and no one brought out any surprise candy that she couldn't have (which happened last year). I may have to write more at some point about how we've handled the allergy thing this year because there are lots of pieces to it, but this year we have an awesomely supportive group of families. (We had great support last year too, but the group was less aware as a whole, I'm not sure why.)

*****

Of course after school and after dinner it was begging for candy time!

I think Michael's costume was testosterone infused... Two minutes after he put it on he started to roar and smash stuff - he actually broke the pumpkin bucket he was supposed to collect candy in by slamming it into our kitchen wall. Next year I'm going to make him dress up as a pillow.

Some of you already know what Harper's costume was, but if I haven't told you, want to take a guess? I'll share the answer later this week.

The spooky pumpkin Matt carved while the kids were pouting.

The bottom picture shows Harper and Michael with some of their "safe" candy. We just confiscate the stuff they can't have and trade them something else for it. This year Michael got two cars and Harper got the DVD of a horrible Annie sequel that she loves (I found the DVD for $6 months ago and stashed it away for this very purpose).

This post has gone on long enough - I'm not a huge fan of Halloween and the allergy stuff does not make that any easier - but the kids were smiling at the end of it so I guess we've done our job!

NaBloPoMo

2011-11-01T21:52:00.001-04:00

Well hello there!

So it is National Blog Posting Month. My recent track record would suggest that it is next to impossible for me to post every day for a month.

I signed up anyway.

I wanted to begin with a post about our Halloween, but I cannot find the camera to download the photos. A Halloween post is better with photos. So maybe tomorrow?

I would have started this post this morning but I was too busy cleaning up after the dog. He ate a bunch of Hershey Kisses so I had to induce vomiting and then clean up the evidence of his Halloween binge. That was fun. In a related note, I don't think I'll be eating Hershey Kisses anytime soon.

Life has been crazy here, mostly in good ways, stick around this month and you might hear more about it.

When NaBloPoMo comes around I'm especially interested in your questions, so go ahead and ask away! As long as they aren't too difficult. My brain is fried.

Michael's First Disney Trip

2011-10-18T22:55:00.000-04:00

So I don't post for a week and a half and I come back to find the Blogger has gone crazy! I am not sure I like this new look (from the composing side) but I suppose I can get used to it... Right now it seems so bright I swear my eyes are hurting.

ANYWAY.

I have been meaning to post a little about our trip for, oh, about a month now, and just couldn't think of a way to tackle it. My ultimate decision is to throw a lot of pictures and sparse commentary at you. I like the way Carrie talked about their summer trip as it related to each of her children, so I'm stealing that idea from her.

And away we go:

This was our first character experience - Harper has Michael hooked around the neck so he'll stay close enough to be in the photo.

By the end of the third day, Michael asked for his OWN photo with Cinderella... Watch out ladies!

It is difficult to work napping into a Disney vacation, but sometimes you just have to close your eyes.

We rode the WDW Railroad several times per Michael's request. Every time he had to be reminded that it did not go fast, nor did it go through any dark tunnels!

I'm pretty sure this is waiting to ride It's a Small World. One of the few rides during which no one was scared of anything. We managed to ride it several times as well.

Aladdin's Magic Carpets was the first ride Michael experienced. Here he is with Matt, ride 2 or 3 of about 10 (not in a row).

The white trams that take people from the parking lots to the park entrances were some of Michael's favorite things. He loved them so much we brought a die cast model home with us. Matt says in a couple of years we'll go to Orlando, pay for Disney parking, and give Michael a thrill by riding the transportation around for a week. Who needs Mickey?


Michael was a trooper staying awake for a couple of evening shows and parades. He used that light up Mickey sward to fight bad guys, from the safety of our seats, during Fantasmic. As soon as things got scary he shouted, "Give me my sword!"

For my tastes, three years old is still a little on the young side for enjoying the Disney experience to its fullest (see riding transportation comment, above). Having said that, Michael enjoyed himself more than I ever dreamed he would.

Little things I want to remember about him from our trip:

Asking, as soon as we got on every ride, "How do we get off?" I think he was worried we'd ride off into something and never come back.
During our experience with Soarin' Michael loudly, and repeatedly, asked, "Are we in a mooh-vee?" Sorry about that other riders.
He told every single character that signed his autograph book, "Well we're stayin' at a condo..." And none of them could understand him. He also asked urgently for his book back if they didn't sign it at lightning speed.

Friday Morning

2011-10-07T10:36:00.001-04:00

I'll remember this, I think, like a marble in a jar, and have it to take out and hold when he is grown and surly and bristles at my touch. I will have this perfect autumn morning, sitting on a park bench, watching him battle monsters with a stick. When the beasts are vanquished he crunches through dried leaves, pin-balling from one slide to the next, then pushes imaginary friends on playground swings until they are all in motion. Swinging ghost children that I will recall when my own babies are in far away places. He talks to a cast of characters, not the least bit bothered by the absence of other children.

I will remember his brown shorts and the light blue and gray jacket he wears because there is a chill in the September morning air. He is Christopher Robin, this park his Hundred Acre Wood, and I can sit, watching, a little removed, because he is a big boy now and doesn't need a shadow to keep him from plummeting from the high places.

I will remember the sounds of the squirrels and the wind in the trees. The surprising volume of the falling leaves hitting the ground, the specific thud of acorns. I will remember the golden quality of the light, the type of light that makes me feel like I am living in a movie flashback, all colors softened.

I will remember this contentment and feeling happy in this moment. I will remember this peace.

I will remember this, I think, but even as I think it I know it isn't true. It will float away like so many other memories of their childhoods. So I will write it down. I will put a pin in the map of our lives.

We were here.

Talking with the Children

2011-10-05T20:42:00.000-04:00

I was teasing Michael tonight as we were getting ready for bed and I told him he should just go ahead and go to be with no clothes or diaper on...

"I can't do that!" he squealed.

"Why not?" I asked him.

"Because then I'll be naked in the morning time silly!"

Telling it like it is!

*****

Last week Harper says to me, "It's a lot of work being a mom..." Something she observed as I was making dinner/helping with homework? The she said, "What if I grow up and God gives me a baby but I'm not sure I want one?"

*****

So, yeah, the conversations I have with Michael and the conversations I have with Harper are pretty different these days.

Sous Chef

2011-09-28T21:53:00.000-04:00

To appreciate this post you need to know two things:

1) It's been months since I baked bread.

2) I am not a good enough cook/baker to necessarily notice if something seems strange as I'm doing it.

As we often do on Sunday evenings, we planned to have dinner with my in-laws last weekend. I offered to cook because I wanted to be at home while the Packers were on television (not a given in Ohio). Fresh bread sounded good to me so I planned on making some to enjoy with our dinner. Harper was being kind of irritating (not her fault, just comes with being six!) and I invited her to help me by way of distraction.

The kind of bread we were making is cheater's bread because it begins in the bread machine, but you end up baking it in your own pans so it doesn't have a weird bread machine shape or a hole in the bottom. I let Harper help put the ingredients into the bread machine and I happen to set the binder containing the recipe on the other side of the kitchen so I had her reading the (very simple) ingredients to me.

Harper had some trouble conveying the amounts when fractions were involved (1 1/4 tsp salt, for example), but reads pretty well so I trusted what she was telling me. We put hot water, bread flour, salt, sugar, and, finally, yeast into the machine, turned it on, and let it go to work. A few minutes later I looked at the bread machine and was surprised to see that the little window wasn't all fogged up like usual. I looked a little more closely and noticed the dough didn't look right, in fact, it looked more like batter.

I decided to pull out the recipe and double check - maybe Harper hadn't conveyed something correctly?

I knew right away was the problem was. Harper had confidently read to me, "1 cup sugar." I didn't question this, no fractions, and both the words "cup" and "sugar" were easy enough. Unfortunately what the recipe actually said was, "1 tsp. sugar." Just a slight difference there!

We had frozen dinner rolls with our meal. (It was too late to start over.)

I think Harper's going to have to do some more baking with me this winter - and we'll read the recipes together.

Reentry

2011-09-25T22:19:00.000-04:00

Er.

Hi!

It has been nearly two weeks since I last posted, which is a new low for me. Life just gets away, you know? It is easy to kind of toy with the idea that I might need to put this on the back-burner for a bit. But then thinking about it, I really don't want to abandon the blog. So here we are.

Some things that have happened:

We took the kids on a surprise trip to Disney World. It was awesome! It was super HOT. The kids were surprised but we don't have a great "reveal" moment, because Harper was mostly just annoyed that we weren't giving her enough time to tell us about her school day. I might post the video anyway.
The brand new van that we drove to Florida had some kind of computer glitch on the way home, one hour north of Orlando. We had to get it checked out before we could keep driving home. So the two legs of our trip home ended up being one hour and fourteen hours. The fourteen hour leg was a little rough. (The van is fine but what the heck Honda?)
Michael woke up sick the last day of our trip. We spent the first day home at Urgent Care - croup! So he missed another day of school, oops.
Harper didn't get sick until the Friday after we came home.
I'm still trying to determine whether I'm getting sick. Stay tuned.
I went with Harper's class on a field trip to a fruit farm. It rained most of the time. It POURED while we were on the hayride. It was memorable.
My mom was planning to come visit the week we got home (last week). She actually got to our house before we did, and cleaned it! Now that is a good surprise. My mom is awesome.

I'm sure there are other things, but that's what is at the front of my brain. I missed you!

Busy

2011-09-13T22:58:00.000-04:00

I didn't mean to leave that last post dangling there for so long - we've been a little busy this week:

Changes

2011-09-07T22:28:00.000-04:00

It's been blustery here - cold, gray, feeling most definitely like fall. (Except for last Saturday when we took the children to a festival in nearly 100 degree heat.) I'm feeling fully intrenched in our school routines and schedule. The seasonal shift is apparent in everything these days. It may be the changes in the weather that have me feeling like something is brewing, or it may be the humdinger of a surprise we have planned for the kids (If you know, don't tell!), but there is a lot of anticipation in the air in these parts.

And then this happened...

When I left the house after dinner, my odometer looked like this:

That's 191,132 miles people!

Upon returning home, my odometer looked like this:

204 miles down, lots and lots and lots and lots to go. Squeeeeee!!!!!!

Books!

2011-09-05T20:57:00.000-04:00

In our house we love to read. The kids love being read to, and they both love reading books on their own. Harper is at the stage where she is constantly surprising me with what she's reading. A couple of days ago I found her with Ramona the Brave and thought surely she wasn't understanding that on her own... but then I asked her about it and I think she is. I had her read a little bit aloud to me and in three pages she only tripped up on the word, "triumph." I find she stumbles over words that aren't part of her life experience. Some of the Magic Tree House books throw her for a loop, though they are easier reading than Ramona, because she has never encountered some of the history/geography in those books before. So we talk about it, she learns. Books are awesome.

I have been asked about how Harper learned to read early. The short answer is that she was ready and I know the things to say/do to push her in that direction. I keep thinking I might write a post to expand on that, but the really, really simple answer is this. Read to your kids. All the time. Every day. Make room for it. If you do that, most kids will learn when they are ready. The end.

When you do that, you'll also have kids who will spend 45 minutes at the kitchen table pouring over the first book orders of the year:

Harper was so excited to come home with those book orders, you'd think she was holding a winning lottery ticket.

When I was in grade school the mailman used to come during our afternoon recess. We always accosted the poor guy looking in his basket for book order delivery boxes. He must have LOVED that.

There's really no point to this post except to say it's back to school time. Book orders will be coming home. Buy some books. Read them.

And, in an unrelated note, is it just me or is this child looking achingly grown-up lately?

Also, I am in love with this song. Go and listen.

Michael's Turn

2011-09-02T22:04:00.000-04:00

Look who started school this week!

Last year, for various reasons, Michael's school experiences were a little random. He was in one early intervention program and a different preschool (each 2x/week) for the first 2/3 of the school year. Then graduated into our public school preschool program (where he received speech services) when he turned three. Michael didn't do well with all the back and forth. I don't know how much I wrote about it, but he cried almost every day at drop off for most of the school year. On one hand, it didn't bother me too much. I knew from his after school reports that he didn't cry long and was safe and happy at school. But there is still something difficult about walking away from a child crying, "Moooommmmy staaaaaaaayyyy!" as you go out the door.

Of course by the time he was reliably NOT crying, it was time for summer vacation.

This summer I left him in the daycare room at church during the week I worked at Vacation Bible School. He screamed every day. I did not find this encouraging.

Still, Michael seemed excited about starting school. He said multiple times he was going to be a big boy and not cry. Then, sometime the week before school started, we had this exchange:

Michael: Mom, I do not want you to leave when the teachers walk the kids to the classroom.

Me: When can I leave?

Michael: When the teachers bring us back to the moms.

Me: You want me to wait in the hallway when you are at school all day?

Michael: Yes!

Uh oh.

Still, the first day of school came (on Monday) and we had to drop something off in the office before school. Michael happily followed me to the office and back, clinging gleefully to his backpack, telling me, "I like my school!"

When the teachers came he looked a little nervous, but he didn't start crying and he didn't cling. I gave him a quick hug and kiss, a high-five, and then I ran away before he could change his mind beg me to stay.

Each morning I sort of held my breath, waiting to see if it would get more difficult as time went on. But every day this week he bravely held his chin up, stood in line with his friends, and waved good-bye.

He's had a great week, been participating in class, even allowed his teachers to cover his hands in paint. All big feats for our little boy.

I'm really proud of him. I think he's proud of himself, too.

First First Day

2011-08-25T23:37:00.001-04:00

Before I say anything else I have to thank you guys for all the support you offered after I posted my back-to-school worries. It is one of the handful of times (others - parties/holidays!) that I get really on the verge of panic over the food allergy situation. I know that I'm not a big target in the bloggy world - but you should see the kinds of comments that often pop up on allergy articles/blogs. Let's just say many of them are less than supportive. It means more than I can say that all I got was care and concern from my lovely webby friends.

I don't know that many of them read here, but I also have to say that the parents of Harper's friends have stepped up in a HUGE way this week so that she had someone (or two someones!) to sit with every day (at her peanut free table). The whole, "It takes a village," thing has never felt so true.

Harper herself was a complete wreck on Monday, the day before school. She was whiny and weepy and cycled from thinking first grade would be awesome to first grade would be awful about 368 times throughout the day. By lunch time I was hearing the siren song of boarding school. Because it (fortunately) doesn't happen too often, I kind of forget that this is how my dear girl works out her anxiety.

Are you surprised that everything has actually gone really, really well? :-)

All summer long I heard Harper say she didn't want to go to first grade because she loved kindergarten so much and didn't want to leave it. I had a hunch it would only take about five minutes in first grade for that feeling to dissipate and I was correct.

Harper, so far, is very chatty and forthcoming about her school day - especially if I don't press her about it all at once. She will wander in and out of the kitchen, dropping details like breadcrumbs, as I get dinner ready or do some cleaning up - I love it. And I LOVE what I'm hearing about what they are doing in school - I think she was placed with a great teacher for her personality and I hope Mrs. B is enjoying Harper even half as much as Harper is enjoying her!

We are so lucky.

***
File this under a problem I never thought I'd have...
.
Harper has suddenly decided that she loves reading more than TV (which is a huge turn-around, that child was TV obsessed by the time she was 18 mos. old). This, of course, is not a bad development but it comes with some unexpected (for me) issues. The primary one being that she keeps disappearing into her room in the morning to "get ready" or going down the hall to brush her teeth, then, when I check on her, she is just sitting on her couch and reading instead of whatever task I sent her to do!

I have actually contemplated whether we're going to need a, "No Reading Before School," rule, to go with the, "No TV Before School," rule - how crazy is that?

Big Sigh

2011-08-21T23:34:00.000-04:00

Okay, so, Tuesday is the first day of school. The first day of first grade. Which means our first experience with all day school and lunch at school. Lunch in the school cafeteria where peanut butter and jelly is a menu choice every single day. Deep breath.

I'm going to do my allergy fretting/freak out right now in an attempt to let go of it before that first day.

The people at Harper's school have been great partners in this endeavor - setting up a peanut free table and making time for the children to wash their hands after lunch before going back to the nut free classroom. Harper will always have her EpiPens with her for any time that those other precautions aren't enough. Still, it is going to be mighty difficult to let her go and trust that everything is going to be okay.

Some people with food allergies have to ingest their allergen to have a reaction - others can react from the presence of their allergen in the air. Harper, to the best of our knowledge, falls somewhere in between these two extremes. We know she has had contact reactions in the past - so she is affected by merely touching peanut residue - hence the table and the hand washing. One frustrating question I have repeatedly been asked, by very well-intentioned people, is how far away Harper has to stay from peanut butter to be safe. I don't know the answer to this - since we have spent much of the last five years avoiding peanuts as thoroughly as possible. You can imagine, then, why it feels so crazy to send her into an environment where she'll be sort of surrounded by people eating peanut butter on a daily basis.

Every allergic family has a different comfort zone based on a combination of instinct, medical advice, and personal experience. On the spectrum our comfort zone is pretty tight. We proceed with fairly extreme caution in most circumstances and are constantly weighing the desire not to limit Harper's life with the desire to keep her safe. (We're really all doing that all the time, aren't we?)

Preschool, kindergarten, each new step has felt terrifying - but we survived.

First grade is next - I guess it is time to take a deep breath and jump.

Wish List

2011-08-17T21:33:00.000-04:00

Some things I would like, in no particular order*:

-a cure for food allergies

-my children to get along w/out screaming for more than 5 minutes at a stretch

-the ability to function on 4 hours of sleep or less (w/ no physiological/psychological effects)

-if my kids aren't going to eat what I prepare for them, I'd at least like them to stop preparing speeches about why they don't want to eat a particular item

-self-cleaning floors

-to know the right answer to the work vs. stay-at-home question (for our family)

-to recognize the right job opportunity when it presents itself

-a successful school year for my children

-a modest lottery win

(*This should not be considered a comprehensive list.)

And you?

Well Then

2011-08-09T16:47:00.000-04:00

Not so long ago I was in the library with the children. I think it was during one of the summer puppet shows (Michael was not a fan) because I was reading with Michael in the children's room while Harper attended the show. That day we happened to be reading Biscuit books.

As Michael and I were reading and discussing the pictures, an adorable little girl kept edging closer and closer, clearly interested in our story/conversation. At the conclusion of one book I asked her, "Do you like Biscuit? We're big Biscuit fans in our house."

She smiled at me and said, "My mother says they're twaddle."

Okay.

Um, I mean Biscuit stories aren't intricate but they are beginning readers so they really aren't supposed to be. They are sweet and easy to read to a squirrelly three-year-old who can feel competent as he chimes in to familiar sentences.

This little girl could not possibly have been more than five. It made me wonder what her bookshelf at home looks like... What else does her mother consider twaddle?

I can't argue that Biscuit books will go down in history as some of the greatest-ever contributions to children's literature, but I will happily allow my children to enjoy them for as long as they'd like.

Do you know Biscuit? Is my pointed disdain for Barbie books the same as this girl's mother calling Biscuit twaddle?

Please discuss!

Also, twaddle, I kind of like that word. I'm quite certain I'd never typed it before today.

My Children Are Not in This Post...

2011-08-08T22:21:00.000-04:00

-but my siblings are!

For some reason I have posted very little about any of the fun things we've done this summer (outside of my brother's wedding, and the usual, local stuff). Have I mentioned the fact that I spent not a single June weekend at home?

I think I was feeling a little extra, I don't know, cautious (?) about advertising our various trips away from home. Because so many of you readers are likely to run over and steal our one or two valuable possessions when we flee the coop?

Anyway, we've had a lot of good times this year and I wanted to share some of them before September descends, and then it will be holiday time, and before you know it we'll be taking NEXT summer's trips... ahem.

Back in June Matt and I were fortunate enough (let's here it for in-laws!) to attend my cousin Andrew's wedding in Wisconsin - without the children. There were various reasons for going child-free, one of them being the 10 or so hour drive we had to make on Friday, then again on Sunday.

One of the best parts of the weekend was having time with my siblings and all of our significant others...

I'm related to the blond people.

Here are Andrew and Marika leaving the ceremony:

At the reception, my sister and I got in some good time with our goddaughters. For several years we were the only four female grandchildren out of twenty. Now there are twenty-one grandchildren and five are girls. (Quick rundown of the family history - two boy grandchildren were born, then me, then my sister, then 12 boys, then Nicole was born 18 years to the day after my sister, then Natalie came along, then two more boys, then the youngest, Nora, who is younger than my son Michael. Got that?)

I think my eyes get progressively squinty-er as the night went on - due to excessive ~~drinking~~ dancing.

Aw - it's my mom and dad! You know what's great about having a wedding reception in the hotel you are staying in? Dad can run to the room and put his jeans on after dinner. We're classy like that in Wisconsin... some situations just call for party pants.

The other nice thing about the reception location = hotel was that Matt (who planned on driving Sunday) could choose to go back to the room and sleep after the reception, while I took the party bus with my dad (and assorted other family members) to a college bar to keep the dancing going into the next day. True story. I totally forgot that I am in my mid-thirties, and no one told my dad he's going to be 60 this year, we just kept right up with the young whippersnappers.

The above picture might be my favorite of the entire weekend - the bride, post-post-reception bar run, ordering pizza from their college after-bar hangout. And in case you're curious, yes I also had a slice at about 1:30 in the morning. It was great fun!

(It was less fun when Matt woke me up at 5:25 a.m. later that morning and asked me if I could sleep in the car while he drove.)

My liver respectfully requests that we bring the children to most future weddings and act in a manner more becoming for people of our age...

End of the Summer

2011-08-07T23:52:00.000-04:00

Whew - every time I sit down to post these days I can't believe how much time has slipped away. When the summer began I was nervous about how we would get through all of these unstructured days but we've been so busy that the handful of unstructured days we've had have felt like pleasant little breaks (well, except for the many many minutes my kids spend screaming at each other and refusing to clean up their messes).

Tomorrow we begin two more weeks of swimming lessons for Harper (four for Michael, but he only goes twice per week). The week Harper's swimming ends, school beings!

So I'm spending the next two weeks gathering and filling out forms, getting doctors' signatures, labeling supplies, etc., as well as spending plenty of time shuttling kids to swimming lessons, parks, the library, and maybe one more zoo trip.

Is your summer going out with a bang or a whimper?

Readers, Opinions Please!

2011-07-31T23:57:00.000-04:00

Hi all! We spent the last week on vacation and it was so incredibly relaxing - I read almost four books last week, FOUR! It was the first time in, let's see, about 6.5 years, that we've been on a vacation that really, truly felt like a vacation. For those of you with children still under age three, the future is bright my friends! Someday you will again be able to read a book next to the pool - while your children swim.

Between the week actually on vacation, and the many, many hours in the car, I had lots of time to read this past week - I did not want to be caught without a book. I had six books with me on vacation, four of which were hardcover books from the library. Lugging the books to Wisconsin and back had me thinking that perhaps a Kindle wouldn't be such a bad idea after all.

Then I read that, by the end of the year, you'll be able to check out some library books on a Kindle.This had been one of my major reasons for resisting the Kindle so far, no library books.

Then my sister's boyfriend gave her a Kindle for her birthday on Friday (Happy birthday, Shannon!) and I might have a little bit of Kindle envy.

So, I'm wondering, do I really want a Kindle?

My mother-in-law gave me hers to borrow for a bit, read a book on, see if I like using it... which is a good first step.

What do you all think of e-readers? Do you have one? Do you love it? Have your kids smeared chocolate all over it or thrown up on it yet?

I don't really plan on totally abandoning the traditional book format just yet (or ever), but it seems that having a Kindle might have some perks.

If you DO have an e-reader, how do you use it? How do you decided which books to buy in which format?

I keep mentioning a Kindle, because from what I've seen that really is the friendliest device for book reading, which is why I would want to own one...

Thoughts?

BTW, if you're interested, here are my thoughts about Kindle from two years ago, imbedded in an interview by my friend Erin... I pretty much stand by those sentiments, although these days I might be more inclined to encourage someone to give me a Kindle - 35 is a big birthday after all.

The Library

2011-07-25T10:26:00.049-04:00

I'm too lazy to look it up, but I am positive I have mentioned, on many occasions, how much I love our local library system.

Our local library branch has been a godsend this summer. When the times/dates of the summer library programs were published I sat down immediately and placed them on our calendar. We've attended story times, craft days, puppet shows, a Ronald McDonald show, live animal demonstrations... Harper's even taken a bubble-ology class which was a great introduction to the scientific process. We've been at our library two or more times a week every week since June 1st. In addition to all the great programming we've checked out tons of books and a few CDs and DVDs as well. In the past I've laughed about the 50-item limit on my library card, but this summer we've come close to hitting that limit several times.

Harper and Michael have enjoyed tracking their reading for summer reading club - I often hear one of them call to me, "Mom, start your timer!" I've also been reading library books for the adult summer reading club and I feel like I need to remark again on the marvel that is the automated library request system! When I'm chasing the kids around the library I don't always have time to look for my own books. I have as much fun browsing the online catalog as I do browsing at Amazon.com. How great is it to just click a button and a few days later the book I want is sitting on a shelf, waiting for me? LOVE. I appreciate this service in a whole new way since having children.

Twice in the last couple of years I have submitted requests for books that I was looking to check out, but the library didn't already have. Both times the books were ordered and set aside for me to check out first after they came in and were processed. Now there's some customer service!

Another really wonderful thing about our library right now is that the children's librarian at our branch is on the current Caldecott committee. Once a month she has a special read aloud time when children can explore some of the contenders for the 2012 Caldecott Medal and share their opinions - Miss Pat has assured them that she is taking their feedback into consideration as she prepares to make her recommendations to the committee. So, in a small way, my children can feel like they are a part of this year's selection process - they may not appreciate it now, but it will be really fun to see if the winner is a book that they enjoyed with Miss Pat this year.

I know that not every community has a library system as well supported or active as ours, but if you haven't done so yet, I really encourage you to see what your local library has to offer. As the school year concluded this I was seriously concerned that we'd drive each other crazy this summer and I am not sure I can fully express my gratitude for all the library has given us to do.

In a couple of weeks we'll go to the summer reading wrap-up party. That afternoon my children might earn raffle prizes as a result of the time they spent reading this summer - I know they'd be excited to win, but I also know they've already been rewarded by all the great things our library has to offer.

*****

On another note, we run into friends nearly every time we set foot in the library, so not only does it offer great services, seeing so many people we know there makes me feel more connected to our community as a whole. We don't exactly live in a small town, but this summer our library visits have given me that nice small-town feeling. Now I just have to remember to brush my hair before we visit...

All Hours

2011-07-22T01:48:00.000-04:00

My sleep has been really, really messed up this week.

One of the consequences of this was the fact that my alarm went off for AN HOUR this morning, while I had a very complicated Bourne-Identity-dream in which I could not get the beeping to stop. At one point, in the dream, I had something in my hand that wouldn't stop beeping (like Phoebe with the fire alarm) and I covertly deposited it in a coat pocket in a women's department store. Then I went out to the parking lot and stole a car with Matt Damon, but then something in the car started beeping. It was torture. I was really grateful when Matt (my husband, not Damon) came along and asked if I was ever getting up; that's when I realized I truly could make the beeping stop.

My sleeping is generally a little messed up anyway. I'm a night owl in a family of early risers and I find it nearly impossible to go to sleep before eleven. Usually it is closer to midnight and occasionally later than that. Which, as you can imagine, makes me a real peach when the kids get up at 6 or 6:30. Here's one of our dirty little family secrets - I don't always get up when the kids get up, especially in the summer. Often Matt will get them breakfast before he leaves for work and then they play or watch television until I manage to get out of bed - we live in a ranch and my door is open, so I can hear them, especially if there is a problem. All of this will shift a little when school starts again - I haven't driven through the car line in my pajamas, yet. Also, Harper is old enough to procure some types of breakfast for both of them and will often just do that if Matt is gone when they wake up - she often does this without even coming to see if I'm awake. Sad or awesome?

This year my "seasonal" (which are really year round) allergies have been worse than ever. I had been taking generic Zyrtec and it wasn't working as well as it used to. So this week I switched to generic Allegra. And it's sort of wonderful - my nose isn't running, I don't want to claw my eyes out! But there's one teeny, tiny side affect that I hadn't counted on... I can't sleep.

It isn't that I'm tired and I can't fall asleep, I don't even feel particularly tired. My eyes won't get droopy. Monday night/Tuesday morning I finally gave up and came out to the living room to watch a movie. On one hand, if I only slept two or three hours a night I could finally catch up on all your blogs and answer some email and label all those photos I've been meaning to get to... On the other hand, I'm pretty sure there would eventually be some less-than-ideal physiological consequences of not sleeping.

Do any of you have experience with this? I've not even been taking the Allegra for a week - maybe my body will adjust? Let's hope so, because being wide awake at 1:45 a.m. is really, really strange.

Just a Few More Wedding Photos

2011-07-18T23:23:00.001-04:00

I'm guessing you've all moved on from thinking about my brother's wedding, but I had a few more pictures I wanted to share...

Here's one of Molly entering the church - while it is really an example of how terrible my camera was working in that lighting, I actually kind of love how it turned out...

I hadn't even talked about the special outfit Michael got for the wedding. I found it difficult to find something that would be comfortable for him to move around in and feel good in the heat. As it turned out, post-Easter sales were my friends. I even found him a cute little pair of plaid shoes on clearance at Target the day before the wedding. $3.24!

Jamie and Molly used a guest book with Scrabble tiles on the front (I should have taken a photo of that but I didn't even manage to sign it...) and a wedding theme was (sort of) born. Saying the wedding was scrabble themed might be a little too strong, but they did put Scrabble tiles on their cupcakes and used photos of Scrabble tiles as the table markers. It was subtle and very cute.

I loved the simplicity of their centerpieces - the room was sort of bright and airy and these hurricanes suited it well. I also really dislike sitting at a table trying to have a conversation when the centerpieces block my view of half the people I am sitting with. I loved this choice.

I don't post many full family photos here - partly because it is so difficult to get all four of us to smile/look at the camera at once - how people with more children do it I'll never know.

It's too bad the flowers are blocking my brother's face in this shot, but it was a sweet moment. My kids love their Aunt Molly, and their Uncle Jamie, too.

You can tell Michael had been dancing up a storm - he couldn't keep his shirt tucked in! I worried that he would be shy at the reception but he was a maniac (in a fun way) and lasted much further into the night than I'd expected.

I don't know if you can tell from this photo - but my mom's dress had kind of a lacy overlay on top - during the wedding mass Molly's bracelet got stuck on it in the middle of the Sign of Peace! Someone undid the clasp so it fell off her wrist, then I reached forward to untangle it from my mom's dress and held it until I had a chance to give it back to Molly after the ceremony. Most people in the church couldn't tell that had happened, but everyone in my row had to stifle giggles for several minutes.

I love when I look through wedding photos and everyone just looks happy! Molly and Jamie were beaming - and the flower girl wasn't having a bad time either.

Since most of my extended family lives in Wisconsin and none of them live in Ohio, we decided to top off the weekend with an open house at our place on Sunday. We ended up having about 50 family members in and out in the late morning and early afternoon. We don't do a lot of hosting beyond having our own brother and sisters and parents here - so I was a little nervous. Fortunately things went really well and I loved being able to welcome aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents into our home. We were lucky the weather cooperated because it would have felt like a different event if we'd had everyone IN the house at once.

There were so many people at our house!

Overall the weekend was a huge success. I was so happy to share in Molly and Jamie's celebration and thrilled that Molly is officially a member of our family.

Don't Send in the Clowns

2011-07-13T00:14:00.002-04:00

I still have a few wedding things I'd like to share, but something happened this weekend that I want to post about while it is fresh in my mind.

If you know me on Facebook you may already have gotten the very short version of this story, feel free to skip ahead.

Harper had been invited to a birthday party for this past Sunday afternoon. We were sort of surprised to see the invitation because it was for a friend from preschool, someone we hadn't seen in over a year. I made the awkward phone call to RSVP which, for me, always entails asking about the food that would be served. As it turns out the birthday girl also has nut allergies - my initial reaction was that it would be the easiest birthday party ever, no need to worry about food. But then the mother went on to tell me where the cake was coming from - a local place that is not a nut free bakery. In fact, it was the same place that made the cupcakes for my brother's wedding. And we were told, very definitely, that the children should not eat those... Even the pretzels they served were a brand we NEVER buy because all the products have cross-contamination warnings on them. Everyone handles food allergies differently - and that alone is a topic that I could go on and on about. Fortunately this is NOT a post about Harper having a reaction to food at a party!

The birthday party was at a local park and the big entertainment was a clown/magician. Shortly after the party began, as most of the adults sat together under the picnic shelter, the children gathered in the grass to watch the magic show. A few minutes into the show, Harper was suddenly at my side, absolutely hysterical. She was sobbing and clinging to me and for what felt like a long time I could not, for the life of me, figure out what had happened. I worried that she'd been stung by a bee but I had no idea what she was saying. She was causing such a ruckus that I ended up walking her away from the picnic shelter to try to help her calm down.

I finally figured out she wasn't hurt, but she was emphatic about not going back over to the magic show. After lots of calming I heard Harper say something about the clown/magician having peanut butter. I thought maybe the clown was using peanut butter as a magic word. Then Harper insisted the clown had a peanut butter sandwich - what place a peanut butter sandwich had in a magic act, I couldn't imagine. Surely it wasn't a real peanut butter sandwich? Just then the father of the birthday girl approached us to see if we needed anything - he clarified for me that the clown did, in fact, have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Apparently the birthday girl, who is allergic to nuts, was asked to hold it at some point (And she did, and was fine, but yikes!).

After a little more conversation I realized that the clown had told the children that if they did or said a certain thing, she was going to open the sandwich and spray them with peanut butter!

Spray them with peanut butter.

Now, I am sure the clown never intended to actually spray peanut butter at the children, but I certainly understand why Harper reacted the way she did. Incidentally, aside from Harper and the birthday girl, there was another child at the party with nut allergies. While I realize the world is always going to have nuts in it, I'm thinking the clown may want to drop that bit from the magic act.

Once Harper calmed down and I promised to sit with her for the rest of the magic show (one of the other parents assured us the peanut butter portion was over). I was really, really proud of Harper for deciding to stay and have fun with her friends. If she had asked to leave (I mean after her initial panicked reaction) I probably would have taken her home.

As I sat with her in the grass, watching card tricks and appearing bunnies, I had to work pretty hard to hold back my own tears. I couldn't stop thinking about how terrified she must have been, thinking she could be sprayed with peanut butter at any moment, worrying she was about to have a reaction.

The rest of the afternoon passed without further incident - all's well that ends well I guess. And Harper did come home with some pretty awesome mermaid face paint:

Flower Girl Day, In Pictures

2011-07-10T22:58:00.000-04:00

My grandmother, my mom's mom, made Kit a wedding day dress to "match" Harper. We kept her close for much of the special day. This is one of several pictures we took prior to the ceremony.

Kit was fortunate to have a turn holding the flowers. Lucky doll.

I loved Harper in the light through that window in St. Mary's Hall. My camera didn't quite work with me on this one, but I still love the idea of this picture, even I didn't capture the light very well.

You wouldn't know from this shot how insanely nervous she was... "What if someone trips Mom?"

Another pre-ceremony shot.

One of the photographers helped Harper use the professional camera to take a photo of Charlie; there is something about the positioning of her body in this shot that I love - a little professional.

Finally, entering the church! Someone at the back told us that Harper took his hand, looked at him, and said, "Charlie! Smile!"

After the ceremony I took one photo near the echo spot (UD folks know what I mean). She wasn't unhappy, just in need of sunglasses.

Harper and Kit were happy to pose for a few more shots, post wedding.

Testing out the dance floor and twirlability of her dress...


Harper enjoyed dancing with my cousin's daughter, Rebecca. (I realize the dance floor pictures are weirdly lit...)

She looked like a natural with the tambourine.

If you enlarge this picture, you'll get a pretty good idea of Harper's dance style! That is her serious dancing face.

Sooner or later even the flower girl is too pooped to party.


Harper took one last look at the dance floor while she waited for Matt to bring the car around. What a night!

The Rehearsal

2011-07-10T13:25:00.002-04:00

I am just not quite sure how to talk about the wedding - I mean, it was my little brother's wedding - which feels/felt monumental to me in ways that it is unlikely to feel monumental to you. For example:

Those two groomsmen have been friends of my brother's since grade school. The taller one? I used to babysit him. It is kind of strange to look at that man and think about how I used to help him with his jammies and brush his teeth at bedtime!

The bride and groom managed to strike a nice tone between serious and not-too-serious. I'm impressed that Molly had the ribbon bouquet from her shower - I don't recall whether I had mine for my rehearsal or not...

Harper and Charlie (Molly's nephew) did a good job of being cute - which is really the only requirement for flower girls and ring bearers, right?

The highlight of the evening, for Harper, came after dinner when Molly gave her a gift - a white clutch with fabric flowers on it. Inside was a box of sparkling hair clips that Molly wore in her brother's wedding, passed along to Harper for the big day.

And speaking of hair - I am not sure you can see it, but Harper had two little pearls nestled in her hair for the rehearsal dinner. Those were hair pins that I wore in my hair for Erin's wedding. Not something special that anyone would notice, but it mattered to me that Harper could wear something I'd worn for another beautiful summer wedding.

Teaser

2011-07-03T21:58:00.000-04:00

I know the flower girl isn't exactly the star of the wedding weekend... but nobody told my camera.

Did I Mention?

2011-06-29T00:33:00.000-04:00

As usual, when there is a lot going on, I completely fail to post. Even though we've had three very eventful weekends in a row and I have tons of fun pictures to share, I've not managed to transfer any of it to the computer. We've got one more crazy weekend before things settle down (sort of) for another couple of weeks. This summer is absolutely flying by...

I don't know about you but I always have a bunch of posts in the back of my head, or sometimes listed in a notebook somewhere, that I intend to write but never quite get around to - well one that I've been sitting on for almost two years has to do with this picture:

That's a photo of my younger brother (by nearly nine years!), Jamie, and his fiance, Molly. The picture was taken two years ago - I think on the very day they got engaged, though my memory is a little fuzzy on that.

So yes, I have been meaning to write about this for nearly two years, but I'm finally getting around to it because the wedding is this weekend! My little brother is getting married this weekend, which is sort of equal parts weird and wonderful.

We love Molly - from the very beginning it was easy to see that she was a good fit for our family. We really could not ask for a sweeter, kinder, sister to add to our bunch. She's also funny and smart and a very good match for my kind, funny, smart kid-brother.

Congratulations to Jamie and Molly! Surely I'll have pictures to post, and more thoughts as well, after this weekend. Especially since Harper is going to be a flower girl (wish us luck!).

Difficult, This Parenting Is...

2011-06-16T20:49:00.000-04:00

I have a slew of things I want to write about today (I almost wrote "whole slew" but is there such a thing as a partial slew? I don't know, this is why I'm not an editor.) but first and foremost on my mind right now is that I am having a very frustrating day.

VERY FRUSTRATING.

My children don't listen to me, and they argue (All the time with the arguing!), and they don't put things away, and today Harper told me I was lazy... I deserve a gold medal for not taking her head off right then and there.

Oh you guys, I know this is all normal stuff, blah, blah, blah. But man, it can really wear a person down. There are moments, just moments mind you, when I am just at the brink and I look around and think, "How did this get to be my life?" And, of course, there are the opposite kind of moments, like these, when everything seems wonderful and rosy and I wish it would take much much longer to pass than it is actually taking.

Listen to all these unique feelings I'm having about motherhood!

These last few summers have been angst-ridden as I've looked for jobs and applied for jobs and even had a couple of interviews - and yet, no job. And in many ways I'm very happy to have no job (outside the home) just now. We are once again in a place where our lives could look drastically different in 2.5 months and I would like to mentally prepare for that. But if I mentally prepare for that, before something actually changes, then I just have to get my brain to do a u-turn to feel happy (as I do, in theory, right now) to continue this stay at home gig. The mental/emotional gymnastics I'm doing over here are exhausting.

I try, really really try, to be more zen about what is going to happen. I keep saying that I'm good either way, job or no job, and that is true. But I'm better if I know which way it is going to be. And these teaching things? Often still unresolved in August - why school districts? Why?

*****

Yesterday we were at a playground and a "big kid" (11? 12?) was on a part of the playground equipment that I think of as a zip line and Michael walked beneath it. She ended up kicking him in the face, knocking him off his feet, and sending his head toward the platform she was supposed to land on. I just happened to look up and see it happen and it was a truly horrific moment. The kind that will be etched into my brain forever. Residing right next to the time he fell over in Lake Michigan and could not get up for what was probably a couple of seconds, but felt like an eternity.

He's fine, but has a giant goose egg on the top of his head. No bleeding and no concussion, but my stomach turned when I felt that thing. And I did call our doctor's office because neither of my kids has ever had a huge bump on the top of his or her head before - it freaked me out just a little bit. Kids' bodies are kind of amazing, no?

*****

I was just thinking that there were a couple of things Michael's been saying lately that I hadn't written down yet. Did I mention how, when he wants you to read an entire book (versus just one story in it) he'll ask you to, "Read it all up?"

He also seems unable to grasp the pronoun, "us," and says, "we," instead. For example, I might say, "We're going to the zoo!" And he might ask, "Are all of we going?" Or if he sees I made a dessert he might ask, "Is it for we?"

******

I kind of hate to bury this link at the bottom of the post, so I may post it again someday... but it appears that I have found my people.

First of Many?

2011-06-14T23:20:00.000-04:00

I have always been a music lover and, since the children were born, I have looked forward to the day when one of them might be able to enjoy a live performance with me. Harper has already been to many stage performances, plays of the musical and non-musical variety, but tonight was her first concert.

It felt like kind of a big decision to attend, not because of ticket expense (it was $2 Tuesday!), but because the show didn't begin until 8 p.m. - otherwise known as bedtime for Harper. But, again, for $2 I figured even if we only made it through the first hour, that was a pretty good return on our investment. So we packed up the picnic blanket (the venue has a lawn) and some snack bags and hit the road.

I don't know if any of you watched The Sing-Off this winter - the groups we were going to see both performed on the show. We saw our local high school a cappella group as well as Committed, the winners of season two.

The venue is an outdoor one, so we spread our blanket on the lawn and settled in for an evening of great music. I had a small shock when the high school group named their members and I realized one of the students from my very first first-grade class was up there performing. The friend sitting next to me asked whether I felt proud or old and the answer was, "Both!" This particular student was the type that had a difficult time with the restrictions of a traditional classroom and he and I and his parents worked together to make sure he had a successful year in first grade - he was so creative and intelligent, I used to say I knew he would do great things if he survived his formal schooling! What a treat it was to see him up there performing, all grown up and wowing the crowd.

Harper loved the music and was entertaining the people around us with her wacky dancing. Over the course of the evening it got dark, the moon rose to the right of the stage, and Harper snuggled into my lap. The air grew cooler and we wrapped ourselves up in the blanket as the stars began to appear. A child after my own heart, Harper hung in there until the very last song.

I imagine this night will be just one blip on the timeline of Harper's childhood memories, folded in and blurred among picnics, park days, basketball games, library visits, and probably too much television. I, on the other hand, will never forget the experience of being bundled up under the inky night sky, sharing one of my favorite experiences with my daughter for the very first time.

Might Be Open for Business

2011-06-08T23:30:00.000-04:00

Harper has turned her room into an office. She piled some throw pillows and blankets on her bed, sits there with her lap desk, and "works". Last night she slept on her floor so her bed could be her new couch (since the couch is a desk). Tonight, thankfully, she moved back to sleeping in the bed.

As all good offices should, Harper's office has signs* on the door:

If you click on that photo above, you can probably read some of the signs, but just in case you are having trouble doing so, here is a closer look at my favorite:

I'll translate, just in case your kindergarten spelling is rusty, "Yell in room before entering if no yell back I am not in."

There you go.

*Tonight, before bed, Harper added a not-originally-pictured sign. It says, "sleepping". I imagine she'll take that one down in the morning.

Thank Yous

2011-06-08T00:07:00.000-04:00

In what has become an end-of-the-school-year ritual for us, we spent the final days of school making note cards and writing thank you notes to our teachers. It was quite an event this year - in the waning days of school we sat down and Harper made a list of people from her school she wanted to make notes for. Here is the list:

principal
classroom teacher
reading aide
counselor
librarian
music teacher
gym teacher
school secretary
school nurse

She wanted to give each person a set of handmade note cards and write each of them a thank you note. She was up until 10:00 the night before the last day of school writing!

We LOVED how the cards turned out this year; she painted/stamped a few but mostly drew with colored pencils. The following information totally falls under the category of items that probably aren't interesting to you but I want to record because my memory is so horrendous... Here are some of the things Harper drew: a girl on stage singing into a microphone, a girl climbing a mountain, wedding items (she's going to be a flower girl in July), a rocket blasting off from earth, a chick (as in fuzzy, yellow chick) going to school, and a teacher at a chalkboard saying, "Booooys..." (asking the boys to pay attention/be quiet). Many of the drawings were labeled which only added to their charm. I wish I had thought to scan some of the images...

She wrote some hilarious things in her thank you notes as well - and I hope it is clear that the messages were 100% her own. Some of my favorite quotes were:

"Thank you for teaching me to be strong in my body." (for the gym teacher)

"I really liked the song about Charlie, did you make it up?" (for the music teacher)

"You are pretty, I like your colorful dresses." (for the counselor)

"You are handsome every day. Did you know I want to be a principal?" (for the principal)

It strikes me that things I find kind of sweet from a six-year-old would be terribly inappropriate if I'd written them... but surely no adult could be offended by a note in six-year-old writing saying they are good-looking, right? (I hope!) I hated to censor her thoughts since she did such a nice job of writing them herself (the first time it hasn't been like pulling teeth.)

*****
Michael is still pretty much in the land of scribble/doodling and not yet writing his own notes so there isn't quite a much to report on that front. His speech teacher used one of the notes he made to thank him for the notes (did you follow that?) and then he wanted to write on it and send it back to her. He still asks us at night whether there will be school in the morning.

More Odds and Ends (mostly about the USPS)

2011-06-01T10:31:00.000-04:00

I stayed up waaaay too late Monday night getting the following assortment of packages ready to be mailed:

Some of them are more difficult to distinguish than others so I will tell you that there were seven different items there, as well as some letters that were already prepped for mailing that came along for the ride. This means that some of you might be getting mail from me this week - bet you wish you knew who you were...

In what can only be described as a post office miracle I walked into our local branch at 9 a.m. the first business day after a holiday weekend and there was, wait for it, no line! I don't know what your post office experiences are like but there is usually a line ten or so deep at this particular branch and I generally do anything I can to avoid it on a Monday or a day after a long weekend. I was stunned. So stunned that when two older ladies came in behind me to buy stamps I graciously waved them ahead - how annoyed would you be if you just needed a couple of stamps and got in line behind the woman with seven packages to mail? Annoyed.

Then I had a nice chat with the post office lady about upcoming stamp issues. That is not a joke. In other words, I am a dork. I had some of the new "love" stamps which I had preorded online (again, dork) but they didn't have in our local post office yet. She saw some on my envelopes and we spent several (dorky) moments going on about how gorgeous they are. Yes, I am a person who cares what my stamps look like. I should probably stop talking about the post office now.

*****

I'd like to say we've been doing lots of park picnics as seen in the photo above, (Gee, kids are so attractive with their mouths full of food!), but that would be a big lie. I know the weather has been sort of universally horrendous lately but last night our local weather person informed me that we'd had rain 23 out of the first 30 days of this month - no wonder everyone feels like they are going a little insane. This also explains why yard/electrical work we've been waiting on for weeks and weeks is happening today, effectively ruining my last "child free" morning of the school year. I also invited a friend home with Harper for the afternoon, not knowing that we'd likely be without power for a good chunk of time. Guess the windowless basement playroom is out... Harper has not taken very well to the heat so the afternoon with no air conditioning should be great fun. (Yes, we have our air on - it was in the 90s here yesterday and the day before.)

*****

About once a week for the past couple weeks we've been fortunate enough to help some friends out by babysitting their adorable baby one afternoon/week. Harper officially wants to adopt him (we said no) and Michael asks nearly every morning if he is coming that day. The last time he was here the kids entertained him with bubbles until Michael accidentally smacked the baby with the bubble wand in a fit of exuberance. Fortunately no babies or children were harmed in the bubble activity or picture taking thereof.

Who knew bubble blowing could look so gangsta'?

Or so suspicious? Do those two have a secret?

*****

Tomorrow is the last day of school in these parts and I'm equally anticipating/dreading the summer. Some sort of massive parenting fail (on my part) is at play in our household because my children will not stop fighting unless maybe they are asleep. I am a little concerned that their fighting is going to hamper our ability to do anything fun this summer. I will keep you posted.

*****

Speaking of school's end - these last two weeks have seriously kicked my butt. A small part of it is the re-spraining of the ankle which slowed me down considerably last week. I swear every time I turn around there is something else that needs to be done re: the end of the school year. Most of it is stuff I'm perfectly happy to do, even enjoy doing but not a) when it crops up with no notice or b) when 37 things crop up at once. Anyone else feeling a little overwhelmed with the school wind-down this year?

And if you haven't shared already, how do you plan to pass the (endless, endless) free time this summer?

I Have a Friend Who Wrote a Book!

2011-05-24T16:06:00.000-04:00

Way back in my college days I was fortunate enough to meet Jen Violi. We worked together on campus ministry projects and became friends. Easy to do as she is such a marvelous person. Here is a photo of us from St. Patrick's Day 1999:

(Hello college! Yes, my hair is in pigtails, it was a party...)

Flash forward to 2000 when I moved back to my college town to begin teaching Jen and I became roommates. We had two great years sharing music, movies, books, wine, Gilmore Girls, and our own stories. I didn't have to know Jen for very long to realize what a talented writer she was. And apparently I'm not the only one who things so because her first actual novel has been published! She will have a book, available in libraries and bookstores, with hard covers and a picture and HER OWN NAME ON IT!

Hooray Jen!

I am kind of in awe that I know such a phenomenally talented person and am fortunate enough to call her my friend. I am not-so-patiently awaiting the arrival of her book, which I pre-ordered of course. Today is the official release day and I'm starting to rethink my pre-order, because it means I could have the book today but it isn't in my actual hands yet... Come on post office, get a move on!

You know, you can order Jen's book, too, if you are so inclined. It is called Putting Makeup on Dead People and is available lots of places, including Amazon. I haven't read it yet, but I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.

Congratulations my friend! I know this day did not come easily and I'm so proud of you.

One Good Book

2011-05-23T13:24:00.000-04:00

I realize I’m late to this particular party but a couple of weeks ago I read Catherine Newman’s Waiting for Birdy. Is it any surprise that I loved it? As I turned the pages I was simultaneously cursing myself for not having read it much, much earlier (when I was pregnant with Michael would have been a good time) and feeling an odd sadness as I was reading it, that I would never again get to read it for the first time.

I loved everything about that book so much that I happily would have crawled inside and lived in those words. While I read I wanted to BE Catherine Newman but, perhaps, with less tofu. (I love her writing but she’ll never be a kitchen muse for me, too many beans and nuts for our allergic household.)

Tofu aside, there is a lot to admire in those pages. I especially would have loved to carve out a life in which writing was my job – to earn money doing something I love, something to punctuate the space between laundry loads and bedtime stories, and to do it as well as she has. Catherine Newman has a way of describing things that makes me recognize and feel my most ordinary and everyday thoughts as though they were remarkable revelations. I was struck, over and over, as I read, thinking, “Yes, that is it exactly!”

As much as I’m sorry I didn’t read this sooner, or when I was in the same position with one child at home and waiting for a second, I don’t think I’d hesitate to offer it to any mother, regardless of the age or number of her children. So if you are one of the probably five or fewer mothers on the planet who has not read Waiting for Birdy please go do so – right now!

P.S. I sprained my ankle AGAIN. I can't even begin to say anything else about that right now.

Misc.

2011-05-18T17:33:00.001-04:00

Let's ignore the fact that I haven't posted in 9 days and just jump back in, shall we?

*****

Six-year-old's spelling question, "Are there two t's in 'water'?"

Three- year-old's spelling question, "Does m start with car, Mom?"

*****

We got home from the school run at lunch time yesterday, I opened the basement gate to go and move some laundry and inadvertently shut the dog in the basement. Then he pooped. To say it has been wet here lately would be an understatement. And I guess we've done too much running the dog out on the leash and not enough giving him time loose in the back yard. So poop in the house? Totally our fault. Still I was not particularly thrilled with adding "cleaning dog-soiled carpet" to my to-do list.

*****

This time of year means resumes and cover letters and then wondering if the ringing phone means an interview and if the interview means a job. Not my favorite cycle - especially since so many interviews in the last three or four years have NOT turned into jobs. But here's the thing - I'm ambivalent about whether or not I actually find a job for next year... The type of job I want does not come open very often and is highly competitive, at least in our area. So if I EVER want to go back to working outside the home (I do) I pretty much need to apply for any available positions. Last year there were two positions open in a district I would have loved to work in - I had a couple of interviews and was really excited about the possible jobs which didn't end up being offered to me. I'm trying not to think too much about the possibility of a job and how that would change things for our family (in ways good and bad). I'm trying to let things happen as they should. Still, I'm finding it difficult not to obsess - an especially bad habit as the schools may not even begin conducting interviews until summer break.

*****

We're having chicken casserole for dinner tonight - you?

More Kidspeak

2011-05-09T22:37:00.000-04:00

This morning Harper asked me if I was wearing mascara. Sometimes I do, but today I wasn't.

She followed up by saying, "That's good, I don't like it when you wear mascara or lipstick, especially lipstick. Then you look like a movie star. I don't want you to look like a movie star, I just want you to look like my plain regular mom."

Funny, right? If I am dressed up (and mind you, that doesn't take much) Harper will often comment that I look nice, but apparently she doesn't like it, she's just already been socialized to comment when I appear to have made an effort.

It reminds me of experiences I occasionally had with my first graders when I taught many years ago. 99% of the time I wear my hair pulled back. This was the same when I was a teacher. On rare occasions I would wear my hear down to school, here are a couple of the comments I would get:

"Miss M - your hair got long!" (As though it was wondrously longer overnight.)

"Your hair is different. I don't like it. Can you put it back the usual way please?" (That from a very dear little boy who was NOT a fan of change.)

Kids!

These Kids of Mine

2011-05-04T23:02:00.002-04:00

The children have been cracking me up lately - these aren't especially coherent thoughts, but here are some recent examples:

Michael, we think, has an imaginary friend. He's been talking a lot about Miriam lately - and for a long time I thought he was talking about my friend's daughter Miriam. Until yesterday when he was practically in tears on the way to school because he forgot to wake up Miriam. I asked where Miriam was and he told me, "On the floor next to my bed." So yes, I'm pretty sure a new imaginary friend has entered our lives. I told him I'd wake her when I got home from dropping him at school and he said, "Sank you Mommy."

Another Michael story - he has picked up a new phrase, we think from the speech therapist at school, and now often asks us if we're able to do things. As in, "Mommy, are you able to get me some milk," or, "are you able to pick me up from school?" It is so stinkin' cute!

Harper has been cracking me up with her writing lately - she can be oddly formal when she writes something. Over the weekend she was going to attend a classmate's birthday party. I gave her a blank birthday card to write in and here is the message she came up with all by herself, "Dear A, Happy birthday! You're a friend who will never be forgotten. Love, Harper" I have no idea where she came up with that - A's parents are probably going to think we're insane.

We Walked!

2011-05-02T22:40:00.000-04:00

Saturday dawned, well, not exactly bright and sunny, but NOT raining which was good enough for me. After literally months of begging for funds, we were able to put our feet where our mouths were, or something like that. This year's March for Babies will also be know as, "That time when both children basically refused to cooperate for the same photo."

This one looks okay, but only because their sweet faces are so far away.

Our March for Babies walk takes place in a local historic "park" where several ancient buildings have been brought to rest. Here are the children sitting on the porch of one of them:

We timed things so that we didn't have to wait around too long before the actual walk began.

Things started off well. Then, after about three minutes of walking, Harper lost a balloon she'd been given and became practically inconsolable. I love the idea of all of us walking this event together every year. I don't always love actually doing it... to be fair, three miles is a pretty long walk for a six-year-old.

Even Michael got out of the stroller to walk/run for a bit (he tripped and fell at the end of the sidewalk) and Harper rode in the stroller for a few blocks which seemed to help her mood. And, of course, there were more balloons to be had at the end of the walk. All's well that ends well!

I did even manage to remember to think thankful thoughts a few times during the walk - grateful for my two children who were there with me and feeling compassion for those whose babies will never walk with them.
A HUGE thanks goes out to all of you who supported us with contributions and well wishes.

We did it!

Miscellany And One Final Plea

2011-04-28T21:18:00.000-04:00

Thank you thank you thank you for your humble and perfect responses to yesterday's post! I hope it was clear that I wasn't trying to say I was a terrible parent because of a few less than perfect incidents. It felt a little like confessing. I know that we can't be perfect or great or even good with our children every moment of every day - it was such an odd affirmation to hear your stories, or even just to hear that you had stories you weren't comfortable sharing. No one is perfect, amen. That is why I love the whole bloggy community thing. You are my village.

*****

Oh wow, I am so so sorry about the weather down south yesterday. It's all horrifying. And after the recent massive tornadoes in other areas... this is not good for my severe weather anxiety. Twice this year we've had tornado watches that extend into the wee hours and I cannot make myself go to bed when we have that threat of severe weather. I'm an insanely sound sleeper 99% of the time and I have zero confidence that I would wake up if severe weather hit in the middle of the night. So I just stay up and wait. Last night we had a tornado watch that wasn't set to expire until 3 a.m. Fortunately it was lifted around 1 a.m. but that is still a late night, even for a night owl like me. Do any of you have weather radios? Would THAT wake me up at night? Suggestions please!

*****

May I make a quick plug for the post office? I love the post office and now they are starting to make all the new stamps they release the "forever" kind - meaning they will still be good even when there are rate hikes in the future. So go ahead and stock up at $.44 a piece - they'll always work!

*****
My cold is going away and my ankle is feeling much, much better. This is good news because our March for Babies is on Saturday! We've been in ark building mode here, so relentless is the rain, but Saturday it is going to be sunny and dry! Good omens all around! I would LOVE to see our amount raised hit the $2500 mark. Which means we need about $250 more. Many of you have already given, but if not, please consider lifting your couch cushions and peeking under the floor mats in the minivan and see if you can find even $5 to contribute. I'll say it again, every little bit adds up! And if you're really motivated to help you can send your own blog readers or Facebook followers our way, just have them follow this link. Thank you!


Michael and my dad say, "Come on! It's for the babies!"

Falling Down on the Job

2011-04-27T13:08:00.000-04:00

I have had a few phenomenally bad parenting moments in the last couple of days. And I don't just mean reacting less than patiently when someone dumps and nearly full cup of juice all over the lunch table. As much as I cringe to think about them (one way worse than the other, but neither winning me any awards) I am going to share here with the hope that you will make me feel a little better by sharing your own semi-horrifying parenting moments or that someday someone else will be feeling badly and read this thinking, "Well at least I'm not the only one!"

The lesser of the offenses was brought to my attention this morning. I had paperwork from Michael's school because his "physician report" was outdated. We live right around the corner from our pediatrician so I assumed this would be no problem - after dropping the kids off this morning I hustled over there and was handing the paper off to the receptionist who thought she'd just check on the date of his three-year well visit. The only trouble being that he didn't have one. After all our winter illnesses and trips to the doctor I apparently overlooked the fact that he should have had another visit in there. I just completely and totally forgot. I think I also forgot his eighteen month appointment. Sorry, second child of mine. What is wrong with me? It isn't like we just had a busy month and I didn't get around to scheduling it - the thought of scheduling it never entered my mind.

So now it is scheduled, for Friday morning, and our paperwork will be straightened out by next week, but that was certainly an embarrassing couple of moments with the receptionist.

But now comes the really bad parenting moment - the one that could have had significantly tragic consequences and, I'll tell you right now, thankfully didn't end up badly. (Well unless you count my sobbing into a bowl of carrot peelings during dinner prep, which I don't.) Yesterday, late afternoon, I made a perfectly reasonable attempt to use the bathroom with a little privacy. A couple of minutes after I sat down, Matt returned home from work, walking into the house and yelling, "Where are you? Do you know that your children are outside?" Um, no, I did not know that they children were outside (they couldn't have been out there for more than thirty seconds as I was moments before listening to the never-ending chorus of their arguing), I did not hear any doors open or shut, nor did I grant anyone permission to leave the house.

Even if we didn't live on a busy street (we do) and it wasn't about five p.m. and thereby an extra busy traffic time (it was) I would not let the children out into the front yard by themselves. Now I have, in the past, allowed Harper to walk to our curbside mailbox, which opens from the back, to place or retrieve some mail. BUT only during less busy traffic times and with my watching her every step from a front window.

What happened yesterday, apparently, was that Harper decided to take Michael outside to get the mail. And Matt pulled up as they were out in the yard. The chances of one of them getting abducted right out of our front yard are pretty slim, but, the way people on our street are prone to ignoring the 25mph speed limit, getting hit by a car is not so unlikely. By the time we, not so gently, hurried the kids back inside Matt was angry, I was angry and relieved and embarrassed and frustrated, and the kids were totally oblivious that they'd done anything upsetting. This is about when I burst into tears over the carrots because, really, is it so much to ask that I should be able to go to the bathroom without fear that my children are placing themselves in mortal danger and I am completely unaware of it? Should I still be bringing them into the bathroom with me? Ugh.

I mean, miraculously, we're all still here and safe, missed doctor's appointments and random front yard wandering aside, but I'm still feeling a little inept.

Okay, your turn, feel free to go anonymous in the comments as you share your parenting mishaps - extra points if the children were technically in danger but not actually injured.

Sure I'll Have Some Cheese

2011-04-26T21:56:00.000-04:00

I feel as though I should warn you that this post might tend toward whining and you should feel free to skip/delete it from your reader and just come back later.

I pulled up the blog earlier today and the fact that it had been eight days since I'd posted was enough to make me groan and close the tab. For me blog writing is a lot easier if I am in a fairly consistent groove. If I miss an entire week my mind starts thinking, "Hmmm, was it really worth all that time? Maybe not."

I'm also sort of underwater on my blog-reading right now - which inevitably leads to a lot of skimming/skipping on my part and then always feeling a little wistful about what I might have missed.

Things kind of went off the rails after I twisted my ankle last week. I was uncomfortable and frustrated with my inability to do simple tasks without what felt like an inordinate amount of effort. And when I did start to feel a little less achy I was overwhelmed with all the catch up work I had to do to be ready to go to Wisconsin for Easter.

Our Easter was actually lovely and I will try to write more about it when my mood has improved a little.and I've downloaded some of the photos.

We left Wisconsin after dinner on Sunday night, planning to drive all the way home (about six hours from where we were celebrating). The thought was that the children would sleep in the car and maybe wake up for school on Monday. I was also hoping to avoid the hassle of unloading all of us into a hotel room for a few hours sleep and then hauling everything (or watching Matt haul everything) back to the car. We did make it all the way home (arriving around 1:30 a.m.) and the children did sleep in the car. Of course they also slept late enough not to make it to school. You know very well if we'd done the hotel thing they'd have sprung awake by 6:30 a.m. and then cried about not being close enough to get to school on time!

I also developed a cold sometime over Easter weekend. Sometime Thursday or Friday I started not to feel so great and it escalated to Saturday night when I had one of those fitful nights where you keep waking up and despairing that it isn't morning yet. On the drive home I went through four of those pocket packs of tissues. I could stuff a mattress with the tissues I've used in the last four days. It is just a run-of-the-mill cold but I could still do without.

That might be enough blathering for tonight. I've missed all of you!

*****
Oh! This weekend is the March for Babies - if you were thinking about donating to our team, now is the time! Please look for the links to the right. Thanks!

Oops I Did It Again

2011-04-18T15:48:00.001-04:00

So not that long ago I was having a conversation with someone and I was recalling a time in college when I'd run with friends and they would point out every curb, pothole, and uneven sidewalk so I didn't trip and injure myself. This is because I was prone to tearing the ligaments in my ankles - usually while I was running or playing sports - and they were trying to be helpful. Of course it is not all ALL humiliating to have people running beside you pointing out every inconsistency in the road... Can you see where this is going?

Today I was walking Michael in to school. I turned my head to remind him to try not to suck his thumb at school and misstepped on/off the curb. Next thing I knew my leg was buckling and I was feeling that all too familiar sensation of things popping and snapping as I fell none too gently to the ground. Grace is not my middle name. Fortunately (?) this move was executed in front of a bus driver, several teachers, and all the preschool parents and people thoughtfully came out to see Michael the rest of the way into school and assist with ice and things. I did manage to drive myself home - maybe not the smartest idea in the history of the world, but it was less than two miles and I only had to stop for two lights and to turn into my driveway.

Sigh. So we've had to move a dentist appointment and work out some other arrangements to get the kids back and forth from school tomorrow in case it doesn't seem wise to drive. I'm not even going to think about the rest of this week - when I should be doing laundry, packing, and gathering Easter Bunny items - GOOD THING I did my Easter shopping early or we'd be in some real trouble...

My Life in Music

2011-04-17T22:11:00.000-04:00

I am pretty sure I've always loved music. My first real musical love was Madonna. Other early favorites were Cyndi Lauper and Debbie Gibson. But sometime in junior high/high school two things happened. The first was that my musical tastes started to be influenced by songs I heard around summer camp campfires. The second was a friend introducing me to the music of the Indigo Girls. I have diverse-ish musical tastes but the type of music I gravitate toward most is of the singer/songwriter variety. I still purchase music, having it playing in the house and car all the time, often request/receive CDs as gifts, make mix tapes, and see live music whenever I can (generally not that often).

Many of the artists I listen to I associate with specific times in my life - for example I still have a crystal clear mental picture of the little yellow boom box I had when I first heard Ellis Paul's music, specifically his song, "Did I Ever Know You," on a mix tape a friend had given me. It was the winter of 1998, my senior year of college, living in a house with five of my best friends. Later that school year, in April of 1999, I heard Ellis Paul live for the first time. He is a master performer and storyteller. Since that first show I have convinced many a friend to come see Ellis with me in Ohio, Kentucky, and Wisconsin. I have probably seen him perform eight or nine times in the last twelve years.

I enjoy his shows so much I can't even complain about the fact that we had to wait half an hour in the rain for the doors to open at the venue where Ellis played last night. None of the four people who came to the show with me had ever seen him but I think they were all glad they'd come along. In case you missed it a couple of years ago I posted videos from a December 2008 Ellis Paul show - go ahead and click through to enjoy.

Ages ago I received an email from Ellis Paul's manager containing a link to a free download off of his most recent recording. I already owned the CD, but you can find the free song download here. He also has a recording of children's music (and more on the way, I hope) that is definitely worth investigating if you have children.

Ellis Paul's songs are moving stories and whether they make me smile or cry I am always touched when I listen to his music.

I hope my kids grow up loving music as much as I do - as I sat at the show last night I found myself wondering how old Harper would need to be before she could come with me - probably quite a bit as the show wasn't over until 11:30. She'll be a lucky girl if Ellis is still touring once she is old enough to tag along.

On April 14th

2011-04-14T23:02:00.000-04:00

Today is my mom's birthday. Happy day to you, Mom!

The weather was gorgeous here today - hovering around seventy degrees, not a cloud to be seen... so it seemed like a perfect day for our first 2011 visit to the arboretum. I love to go this time of year to get a look at the spring blooms, especially the tulips.

Often my mom has visited us this time of year and I've been especially missing her this week as everything burst into color. Soon the landscape with be dotted with pink-purple redbud trees and Harper will remind me, every time we see one, how much my mother likes them.

I long ago accepted that we would live far away from my parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents. I love my life here and the family I have nearby. I know that I'm fortunate to have good relationships with our family members that are spread out across the country.

But on days like today I wish I could just call my mom and say, "Hey, come meet us at the arboretum. It's magnolia time."

She could help me make the kids laugh so they aren't so stiff in their photos.

She could help Michael spot fish and exclaim over "his" ducks.

She could witness the turtles so happy to see the sun that they piled on top of one another to be closer to it.

She might even grow tired of the children shouting, "Look at this Mugga!"

But probably not.

We all do our part so that our family feels close even as we are far away. Still I wish she were here today.

We love you!

As Good A Day As Any

2011-04-13T21:36:00.000-04:00

I intended to write this post yesterday as it was the 95th birthday of the beloved Beverly Cleary*. Her Ramona books were among the first I checked out (over and over and over again) from my grade school library, read on my own, and held a deep and abiding love for. They were part of my first private reading - where the voices and characters came to life in my own mind, rather than being read aloud by my parents or even a teacher. (Although several teachers did read us Cleary books and that was awesome too.) One's private reading life is something I have thought a lot about lately as more and more often I come upon scenes like this:

I was so, so thrilled when Harper began to learn to read. It was an exhilarating journey to share with her and I loved being witness to the transformation that took place as she moved from sounding out first words to fluently reading sentences, then paragraphs, then pages, and now many entire books all by herself. She can't read everything but I'm impressed by what she is capable of, and so incredibly proud of her. And all of a sudden, I feel a little panicked, too. Our shared reading is slowly but surely becoming HER reading. She doesn't need me to be much of a part of it anymore.

I feel fortunate to know that it is still valuable to keep reading aloud to children who have learned to read themselves and in the fact that Harper still allows us to read to her. She often pleads with us to, "Please read with LOTS of expression!" Our days of shared reading are not over yet, but I see where this road is leading and suddenly I feel like she blew threw a critical phase of the whole reading together thing and is moving forward while I'm back here yelling, "Wait! We haven't read Owl at Home! Or all of the Mr. Putter and Tabby books! Or every Henry and Mudge!" Cynthia Rylant and Arnold Lobel alone could have kept us in delightful reading material for years... I kept thinking there was so much time. Sigh.

I'm also starting to come to terms with the fact that I might not read everything she reads. I want to know and talk about what she is reading but our tastes do not always align well. As much as I want to share reading with her I feel no need whatsoever to delve into any more Barbie chapter books like the one she recently brought home from her school library. When I saw that thing I was exceedingly grateful that she can read on her own!

She's all loose teeth, gaping smile, wrapped up in a book by herself.

My beautiful baby.

*If you don't know Beverly Cleary's mouse books and have a child in 1st -3rd grade or so (boy or girl) you really should know them. They are wonderful. HUGE hits when read aloud to each one of my first grade classes. They are The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Runaway Ralph, and Ralph S. Mouse.

Thoughts on Blogs and Blogging

2011-04-11T19:47:00.040-04:00

A few weeks ago, when I was interviewed about blogging, I was frustratingly tongue-tied. (Number of times it took me to correctly spell tongue, about fifteen, I have always had trouble spelling that word.) Afterward I thought and thought and thought about how I came to blogging over five years ago and why I still do it today.

I laugh now to think about what a BIG DECISION it seemed to begin blogging. Somewhere I have a couple of notebook pages with possible blog titles on them. Midwest Mom surely wasn't a stroke of genius, but I guess it seemed better than whatever else I'd thought of at the time. I worried a lot about whether I would have anything to say... I wondered whether anyone would read it. I also wondered whether I would want anyone to read it. For a long time I contemplated blogging anonymously but ultimately decided that part of the point was to share our lives with the family members and friends who were far away. For me, making the decision to blog non-anonymously also meant making a decision to leave some things out of the blog.

Have I ever written before about what a lifeline some parenting blogs were to me in Harper's early days? I felt like I'd found a secret club where people told the truth and it was okay not to 100% love everything about parenting all the time. I didn't know if I could be that kind of lifeline for someone else, someday, but I try to hold myself to a certain degree of truth-telling in this space. I love my kids and I love being a parent, but I hope I am open and honest about the less-than-glamorous aspects of this job and the many, many faults I have discovered in myself while doing it.

I do wonder how things will evolve over time. Harper is definitely aware that I share stories and pictures online and I know in the not too distant future there will come a time when she won't want me sharing so much about her. And I imagine the same will happen with Michael. Maybe that will be a natural conclusion to writing in this space? Maybe it will evolve as I evolve and I will find things beyond potty-training, speech therapy, and TV limits to discuss?

Another wonder I have - and I try very hard to stop myself from asking very often - is who is reading here? Some of you I know, of course. I know that some people read every time there is something new and others only check in once in a while. I think there are a few people who click over from Facebook and a few who read through Google Reader - but I have no idea how either of those things come together and fit with the number my counter says come here from day to day. Mostly I make peace with the fact that I will never really know those things, but I still wonder. Just like I wonder how, if you don't know me in person, you got here in the first place. If you never leave a comment, why not? Don't be shy!

I have said that I would write here even if no one reads because it is such a good tool for reflecting and such a good record of my children's lives. But one of the things I love about blogging is the sense of being part of this larger community and reading your thoughts makes me feel more a part of the conversation, rather than just an eavesdropper.

So here we are, 827 (!) posts in, and I guess I want to thank you for reading and say how glad I am I started doing this and how grateful I am to have staked a claim in this community - even if Twitter is slowly making me obsolete.

Tender Heart

2011-04-08T14:24:00.001-04:00

I think we all love all of our children - no one is going to argue that - but am I the only one who sometimes feels differently toward my children? It makes sense, right? We have lots of friends and family we love, but our feelings toward them aren't all identical. I know my children are young and have lots of growing and changing left to do. I know my feelings about who they are and what they need from me will also change over time.

Harper needs her mom the way all kids do, but she has never really seemed to need extra from me, and seems to be actively pushing a way from me much of the time.

Michael is a totally different beast. Where Harper pushes, Michael curls in, snuggles, clings. There are days I swear he would crawl back into the womb if he could.

As I tuck Michael in at night he always asks me, tearfully, to stay in his room. When I ask why he wants me to stay the answer is always the same, "Becat me luf you." (Because I love you.)

If I am leaving the house he always looks at me and says, "You no go."

It is April and finally, three days in a row, he didn't cry when I dropped him off at school. (But don't worry too much, he never cried for more than a few seconds after I left.)

Last week, in the midst of our time with visitors, I had to run with Michael to his first dentist appointment.

Waiting room Michael - BEFORE the traumatic dental experience.

Can you imagine how well my sensitive boy liked having strangers poke around in his mouth? He did NOT. And I underestimated how difficult it would be as Harper's first dental visit ended up being a piece of cake.
There was a lot of screaming, thrashing, begging to go home. We'd get him to calm down (he was trying so hard to cooperate) and then as soon as he felt any kind of dental instrument in his mouth he would freak out all over again. It was horrible.

The hygienist had the patience of a saint and remained very calm, for which I am so grateful. I had some serious cut and run reflexes firing in my brain. It feels completely unnatural to force a child to stay in a situation which he perceives as being terrifying/painful - especially one that goes on for a significant amount of time. Handling vaccinations pales in comparison to this dental experience - at least they are over quickly.

SOMEHOW his teeth eventually were cleaned and he even tried to put on a brave smile for a picture. You'll notice he was allowed to rinse the old fashioned way - the hygienist knew not to go near him with the squirter and suction things!

To add insult to injury the dentist himself snapped at me when he was trying to get a look at Michael's teeth. He wanted me to be quiet (I was still doing my best frantic verbal calming) so he could talk to Michael, which is fine, but I wasn't the screaming three-year-old and I would have appreciated some manners.

By the time we got back into the car I was exhausted and shaking - which sounds kind of ridiculous now but you weren't there - you didn't hear the screaming.

The whole dental thing just made me think about how deep my instinct is to want to shield Michael from the world.

Of course I don't want Harper to be hurt or scared or sad either. She just seems...tougher, somehow. I worry a little less about what the world is going to throw her way because she strikes me as such a capable kid.

I don't want to protect Michael to the point that I am holding him back. I hope I am just honoring who he is and how he is different from his sister. He needs a little more hand-holding for now. Whether it is a boy/girl thing or first/second child thing or just a Harper/Michael thing - he doesn't seem in such a hurry to grow up and that's really fine with me.

*****

P.S. A few weeks ago Lucy Sisman interviewed me - the resulting profile is running on her website this week.

Picture Time!

2011-04-06T21:03:00.000-04:00

Yes, this is one of those posts that might not be of interest to many people. As opposed to my typical posts which obviously appeal to the masses...Anyway, those of you who know both Tracy and I might get a kick out of seeing a glimpse of her visit.

Here are a few pictures from last week (Was it only last week?!) when my friend Tracy and her 3 (!) beautiful daughters made the drive from St. Louis to visit with us. They arrived on Sunday. On Monday day we were also joined by another college friend, Lesley, who thoughtfully brought gifts for all five kids.

Ruth and Harper exclaim over their new Disney Princess lip gloss.


Miriam looks on as Michael drives his new cars.

On Tuesday we decided the weather had warmed up just enough that we could sneak the kids out to the park to burn up some energy after naps. We took Tracy and her daughters to a newly renovated city playground.

Harper is in the middle of that giant slide - see how tiny she looks - that thing is HUGE!

Harper and Ruth conquered the climbing logs, over and over and over...

Martha and Michael took the little kids' equipment for a test drive.

Miriam and Harper chillin' in the kitchen before dinner. My kids could not keep their hands off Miriam - they loved having a baby around!


Look at how full our kitchen table is! When it is just the four of us we fit comfortably around it we don't need the leaf. I loved having such a full table (we even tucked a little table in the corner for Ruth and Harper)!

Eventually (Wednesday morning) we had to say goodbye. It was so much fun having them visit and I hope we haven't scared them into never coming back!

It was fairly impossible to get a photo of all the kids looking in the same direction, let alone smiling! Somehow they seem fewer sitting on this couch together than they did when they were running loose...

Michael was in LOVE with Miriam. He is still insisting he's going to marry her and gets really upset when Harper asks him to choose someone else - that is what passes for lunchtime conversation BTW.

Follow Up and Fundraising

2011-04-03T22:17:00.000-04:00

Wouldn't you know, the kids did wear us down, sort of. We compromised by letting them sleep in the family room at the back of the house and telling them they'd be moved to their rooms if they weren't asleep by 9:00. Harper and Michael were absolutely giddy at the prospect of camping out. Miraculously, they did fall asleep. Even better? In the morning they woke up and Harper popped in a movie - delaying the waking of the parents. We may have to give in to this kind of camping more often!

Yes, that's Harper's head poking out of a Smurf sleeping bag!

The March of Dimes dress fundraiser was a HUGE success. My friend Liz donated over $400 from the sale of the dresses to our March for Babies team, helping us exceed even our adjusted goal. Since there is nearly a month to go before our walk I plan to continue fundraising (and gently reminding you that it isn't too late to contribute).

Someone recently asked how we managed to raise so much money. The easy (and not necessarily helpful) answer is that we are blessed with incredibly generous family and friends who support us in a million ways, donating to our March for Babies team being one of them. Here are the other things that I find helpful:

1. Don't be afraid to ask. This is the third-year we've raised money for March for Babies. At the beginning of each year I send out one mass email to pretty much everyone on my contact list asking them to donate. Matt does the same. I feel like one email isn't too intrusive, and easy enough for people to delete if they so choose. In the past if we hadn't quite met our goal and were getting close to the walk date I did send a reminder email.

2. Use social media. I have continuously/shamelessly begged for donations through this blog and through Facebook. I figure those things are easy enough to skim/ignore if you have already donated or don't care to donate. And people don't feel compelled to respond if they can't/don't want to donate the way they might with an email or in-person request.

3. Start early! This year was our earliest start yet. I think starting early helps eliminate a situation in which a person might want to donate but just doesn't get around to it quickly enough.

4. Make it personal. For several years I agreed to mail out neighborhood envelopes asking for donations for various causes. While I would occasionally get some money back I eventually stopped doing it because the return didn't even seem worth the time it took to address the envelopes. Yet, even in a difficult economy, we've been very successful fundraising for the March of Dimes three years in a row. People close to us understand what we went through when Michael was born and know we feel strongly about the importance of the work done by the March of Dimes. I know that I am more inclined to respond to a donation request when I know WHY the recipient is important to the person asking for money.

5. Create partnerships where possible. The dresses Liz made were a huge help to us this year and she's already agreed to think about doing the same next year, as well as also creating a March of Dimes shirt for little boys to go with the dresses. Another friend makes stamped cards and has offered to sell bundles of them to raise money for our team in 2012.

How about you? Do you have any terrific fundraising tips? I'm already thinking of next year!

Assorted

2011-04-01T13:45:00.000-04:00

It is April Fool's Day, but I'm letting you know right now that there are no pranks in this post. Not that there will even be anything you'd likely think was a prank....
My kids think they are camping in the living room tonight - despite my repeated reminders that they do not have permission to sleep in the living room tonight. They have a whole thing set up, including having set out their clothes for tomorrow.
I took Harper to have professional photos taken today, wanting to capture the toothless grin before her adult teeth give her a crazy looking mouth for the next few years. It was bunny time at the photo place and Michael even wormed his way in for a few shots. We did not go there for bunny pictures and yet I ended up purchasing some - slick move photo place.
It is the LAST DAY to purchase the March of Dimes dresses/tops my friend Liz created with 100% of the proceeds going to our March for Babies team. Links to the details are in my previous post, in the sidebar, and all over my Facebook profile. Thanks to everyone who has already supported us and/or shared the links!
We're Catholic, it is Lent, it is Friday - that means fish for dinner (no meat today). I'm going to try lightly breading and baking some haddock fillets. I really like cod but I'm finding it tricky to cook because it is so thick... if you have any good fish recipes for a picky family, let me know.
We just signed Harper up for a second round of acting classes - this makes me want to do a larger post about the kinds of opportunities we decide to offer our children. Thoughts?
My kids are lining up next to me for an after lunch Girl Scout Cookie, elbowing each other and arguing over who gets his/her cookie first. There are only two of them - it is ridiculous.
I highly recommend having visitors during spring break because here we are on the technical last day of spring break and the kids aren't driving me completely bonkers yet. In a related note: Who wants to visit us this summer?

The camping set up - please note the dress and leotard hanging at the corner of the fire place. Those are for dance time. Guess who gets the leotard.

Visitors!

2011-03-29T14:37:00.000-04:00

Hello all!

There will be lots to post soon, but right now we have out of town friends visiting. One of my college roommates is here, from St. Louis, with her three little girls (ages 3, 2, and 10 months) and all of the kids are out of their minds with excitement. I will share photos of the bunch later this week. While we do have out of town guests now and then (mostly my mom) this is the first time anyone with small children has come to visit and spend the night. I LOVE it. You should all come and stay with us.

I'm mostly posting today for two reasons:

1) To let you know we're still alive over here.

2) To gently nudge anyone who is still thinking about donating to our March for Babies team. Matt and I have ended up with a little friendly competition over whose people are going to donate the most money to our team. My relatives count for my side, Matt's for his. Friends who knew Matt first count for him, mine for me, and so on. There are probably only a handful of Matt's friends and relatives who read here, so if any of you readers donate (And some of you HAVE! Thank you!) it totally counts for my side of the contest. I'm just saying. And there is a month left to donate - all you have to do is click on the box on the right! Every little bit helps! No amount is too small!

Oh, and if you buy a March of Dimes dress/top from my friend Liz, that helps (my side!) too. Here is my friend Emily's post about the dress she bought her daughter, Katy. So cute!

Why Can't I?

2011-03-24T16:16:00.000-04:00

Here, in no particular order, are things I feel like I should be better at by this point in my life:

1. Checking to make sure I have all the ingredients I need before I'm four steps deep into cooking/baking something.

2. Ironing.

3. Frosting a cake.

4. Wrapping presents with wrinkle free results.

5. Wanting to eat/liking fruits and vegetables.

6. Planning ahead for events like the kids' birthday parties.

7. Formulating comments ahead of time so I don't spend a good 30 seconds blathering incoherently when I call somewhere to ask a question - particularly if I'm calling the pediatrician or the kids' schools.

8. Time management.

9. Keeping my emotions in check.

10. Prioritizing (see # 8).

11. Making pork chops without setting off the fire alarm.

12. Not losing my temper (see #9).

13. Keeping the house clean.

14. Waking up to my alarm. (Sorry, honey!)

Many of the above are things I feel like my mom is really good at and I thought would sort of come naturally once I turned 18 or maybe 25. No dice.

Were there things that, when you were little, you assumed you'd be good at when you grew up? Are you?

Double Knotted

2011-03-23T23:01:00.001-04:00

Harper learned to tie her shoes today!

I have been meaning to teach her, really teach her, forever. I have certainly tried to show her more than once, but it kept coming up while we trying to get out the door, so you can imagine how well that went.

I'd temporarily forgotten an important element of teaching kids to tie shoes - you need to be on the same side of the shoe as they are. Long laces help too. I was in an education store the other day and picked up a set of shoe-tying lacing cards (like these). That was all it took - Harper learned in about three minutes and then switched to practicing on her actual tennis shoes.

Shoe tying is a little accomplishment that feels like a game-changer. Harper can now officially tie her shoes, count by 2's to 100, get herself a reasonable breakfast, and set the DVR. This evening she retrieved a load of laundry from the dryer while I was getting Michael ready for bed. I will teach her to fold a fitted sheet and I anticipate she'll be in her own apartment before the end of the year.

*****

One other quick Harper story-

Yesterday Harper made me a lift-the-flap book. She used the school directory to find the first names of some of her friends' mothers. Then she glued a bunch of flaps into a book and put a question mark on the outside of the flaps. Under each flap was a drawing of a woman, labeled with the name of one of my friends. How sweet is that?

Incidentally, do you think children are equipped with some kind of meter which signals them to do something sweet/kind/lovely just when we're ready to throttle them? I'm beginning to have my suspicions.

Homework

2011-03-22T22:31:00.000-04:00

Last week Harper came home with the March kindergarten newsletter which included some homework instructions. Each kindergartener was to take the provided piece of paper and draw a map of his/her bedroom. We discussed the assignment just enough for me to be sure that Harper understood what she was supposed to do and then I let her go and do it. Here is the result:

If you click the image you should be able to see it much better. In case the spacing/handwriting is throwing you off, here are the things she labeled: door, closet, book shelf, love seat, doll house, books, chair, basket, radio, dresser, me (her), Kit (her doll), Max, (her stuffed dog), bed, and lamp. She also drew a quick Michael's room, though some of that is cut off, as is the road she drew outside her window, because the paper was a little larger than our printer/scanner thing.

It certainly isn't the neatest work a kindergartener has ever done, the scale is off, there's lots of smudgy erase marks, some of the perspective went a little awry, and yet I LOVE it. I love it so much. I feel like it looks pretty much like the essence of kindergarten work. I can tell how hard she worked by all the detail she included and the fact that everything is carefully in its correct place. And she was so proud that she did it all by herself.

I have no idea what the teacher's goals were for this assignment, other than the obvious one of making the children think about how maps are a spot/space viewed from above. I don't know if she will be expecting something neater and cleaner, maybe with more parental guidance. I do know that this is one of the mountains of papers that come home from kindergarten that I will be saving. She'll enjoy looking back on it one day.

Bummer

2011-03-21T15:51:00.002-04:00

The first time we sat down to eat ice cream together as a family I cried.

It was the first time were able to go out for ice cream together. Because of Harper's peanut allergy most ice cream places are completely off limits. Then, a few years ago, a seasonal place opened not far from our house. It sold ices, frozen custard, and was nut-free! I will never forget the first time we sat at one of those tables with Harper and enjoyed our treats.

For several weeks we've had the opening day (this past weekend) marked on our calendar and have been gearing up for the first visit. Of course that was before we found out we could no longer go there. Yesterday we found out they've added all kinds of peanut containing products to their stores and it really isn't safe for us even to walk in any longer. Boo.

Now I'm not going to jump up and tell people to send angry letters or boycott the store (you'll notice I haven't even mentioned their name), but we are so, so disappointed.

There are very few places where we can enjoy a meal or snack out with Harper and it is really too bad when we have to cross another one of off our list. Being able to take your kids out for ice cream in the summer is such a simple pleasure and one we really enjoyed, at least for a couple of years.

I will admit that I shed a few tears yesterday when I found out about the menu changes. I know it is silly to cry over something as inconsequential as not being able to go back to an ice cream place, but I think my tears were more about the barriers Harper's allergy represents for her, for us as a family. There are so many normal things that we have to think twice about doing. And I worry often about the ways Harper might be limited as she grows. I know that having this allergy doesn't mean that she won't have a full and happy life, but it is difficult not to feel discouraged now and again.