First First Day

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

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

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

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...

-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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Did I Mention?

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...

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?

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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?"

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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?

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

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

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.)

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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)

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.

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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.)

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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?

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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.

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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?