Summer is Here!

Yup, today it finally hit the 90s at lunchtime. Time to start running earlier in the day. I can't believe there was a time that I'd go our running in the full sun at noon when it was 95 degrees outside. It's a miracle I didn't collapse of heat stroke along the way.

Summer camp time is here, no more homework, no more school books! Hurrah! Sometimes I don't know who dreads homework more, the kids or the parents. It's certainly nice to have a break for the next 10 weeks. Part of me wants to give D a break from all things school related and part of me wants him not to lose what he learned in third grade. His teachers told me at the end of the school year, "Expectations in fourth grade are very high." Good grief! How could they get higher than in third grade? What are they going to be doing, calculus?

We have grand notions of a daily journal and a half hour of math here and a half hour of reading there but I don't think I'm going to push it any time soon.

Sometimes, summer vacation is meant to be just that: V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N.

New Look

OK, so it's one of the 10 or so defaults that Blogger provides but I thought it was time for a new look on this blog. Maybe it will inspire me to write more often.

So while I'm here, here's a silly haiku:

Cookie dough to sell.
No trans fat I do proclaim.
Little League does well.

Spring is Coming

Conversation last night:

Papa: "See the tree outside? There are two flowers that have already bloomed. In a few days, that tree is going to explode with flowers."

thirty second pause

P: "Mama, I want to see the flowers go BOOM!"

School Talk

Last night, just before I turned out the lights in the boys' room, D asks me a question. He's in third grade this year.

"Mama, is today the 9-1-1 day?"

I think to myself, "9-1-1? Oh, 9/11."

"Yes, today is 9/11."

"Mama, a long time ago that's when the planes crashed into the building."

---pause---

"Yes, sweetie, that's what happened."

A long time ago.

Seven years ago. D was just over a year old and we were living in Philly. A lifetime ago for him but just a moment ago in my memory.

We remember.

When I Grow Up...

P: "I want to be a praying mantis. No, wait. I want to be a beetle-hunting wasp."

What do you want to be?

The Dreams of a Preschooler

Here's a snippet of P's conversation with me the other morning. He wandered into our bedroom, hopped into bed and without further preamble, told me this:

P: When you lose, you don't cry.

Me: Yes, sweetheart, that's right.

P: Somebody has to win and somebody has to lose.

Me: Right again.

...pause...

P: Do you want to sing the ABC song with me?

I wonder what he was dreaming about.

Cousin Camp

Eight kids between the ages of eight and four. Three mommies between the ages of, well, let's skip that bit. :) Four summer days. What did we get up to?

Monday: Fun with Boxes Day! Who knew how much fun could be had with some moving boxes, a little bit of string, some masking tape and an adult wielding a box cutter? Just add creativity and you have some houses (with attics and garages), a tunnel and a pulley system for relaying messages.


Tuesday: Water Day! We've still got our 10-ft diameter pool up in the back yard and it was put to fine use as the eight kids were in and out of the water over the course of several hours. First, the splashers, then the non-splashers, repeat.

Wednesday: Field Trip to Coyote Point Museum. Admission was free as it is every first Wednesday of the month. The kids had a great time running around the exhibits, playing with all the hands-on projects, running around the exhibits, reading about spiders and hawks and snakes, did I mention running around the exhibits? Then we spent another couple of hours at the most awesome playground that the kids have ever laid eyes upon.

Thursday: Crafts Day! We made Cousin Camp shirts and decorated visors and flags. The mommies has as much fun as the kids with all the paint and glue and decorations.

I had a wonderful time with the kids and with my two mommy partners-in-crime. The shirts we made today for ourselves say STAFF on the back. That's us.

The best parts of the camp were seeing all of the children having so much fun with each other and becoming better friends in the process. There was very little conflict, only minor scrapes and bumps and not a single second of TV watched during the entire time. Truly amazing!

I hope we do this again next year. I really do.

Who's That Whining?

Oh wait, it's me.

M is off to Virginia for five days to represent the four of us at our niece's high school graduation. It's great because it's a wonderful celebration and a happy reunion time for the three brothers.

However...

I have a cold. Yes, a standard head cold. Yes, the kind I've had before and will no doubt have again. The kind that saps your strength and leaves your nose red and chapped, your throat scratchy, your lips dry and your head feeling like it's been hit with a three pound hammer.

I want *my* mommy.

It is now 5:38 pm and I am counting down the minutes until bedtime when I can get the boys into bed, take a dose of NyQuil and go to sleep. But first I have to rustle up some dinner.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

My Kids Crack Me Up

I've been meaning to write these down before they slip my memory.

"Mama, what are eyebrows for? They're hairy."

"Do mosquitoes bite ducks?"

Also, have I mentioned their obsession with the word 'b*tt'? Yes, it's quite delightful.

Sigh.

The boys are quite inventive. This has led to improvisation on songs that we know and love. We now hear:

Mary Had A Little B*tt
Baa, Baa B*tt Cheek

Who's that Star Wars character that's the son of Darth Vader?

You got it: Luke B*ttwalker.

Somebody save me from 4 and 8 year old boys!

Just Call Him 60 Cent

Sunday afternoon drama in our house:

I'm in the bathroom and hear a commotion outside. I come out to see D in tears, M looking really concerned and P choking, trying to stick his fingers in his mouth to make himself throw up. I hear M curse and I spring into action, pick up my little boy, turn him upside down and whack him in the middle of his back, hard. Ching, ching, ching. What comes out?

Two quarters and a dime.

Good Lord! We could have lost my little boy. Then I held him while he cried and coughed and then proceeded to throw up on my shoulder. But he's alive, so all is ok. He's alive and all is ok. Turns out that Big Brother PUT the coins in Little Brother's mouth. Why? Heaven knows. They do know that they're NEVER, NEVER to do that again. Scary. Very scary.

But he's alive, so all is ok.

Just.Keep.Breathing

Sometimes my kids drive me absolutely crazy. Tonight was one of those nights. How hard can it be to write a five sentence paragraph? Apparently, it's harder than figuring out a solution to the Iraq problem.

I tried to be calm. I tried to be rational. I tried to reason with D.

But I failed. I lost my temper.

Argh.

Broken Record

Do your homework.

Clean up your toys.

Brush your teeth.

Get dressed.

Lift the seat.

Flush.

Wash hands.

How do you ask nicely?

Put on your shoes.

Where's your (backpack/jacket/homework/library book/underwear)?

Don't hit your brother.

I love you, too.

I'll always love you.

Diabolical Plan

My brother and his family are visiting us this weekend. His three kids and our two kids had a 'conference' on Friday night. Today, we found the minutes in the form of a list on a sheet of paper:

1. Trick parents
2. Pooh drop (many times) - I'm really hoping they're referring to Winnie the Pooh
3. gather weapons
4. gather tools

The kids range in age from 8 to 3. Should we be scared yet? :)

Learning the Alphabet

This morning, P is snuggled up beside me and we're going through the alphabet. I shall transcribe the highlights:

A: apes aim
B: birds poop
C: cats purr
D: dogs bark
E: eagles sweat
F: frogs hop
G: giraffes eat mangoes

He has an imagination, that kid. It's either that or the books they're reading in preschool are more goofy than I anticipated.

The Eternal Question: Why?

My son, P, the philosopher in training:

Why do we have to wear underwear? (while putting on his jammies after bathtime)

Why do you have hair on your arms, Papa? (at the dinner table)

Why, as parents, do we feel compelled to answer these questions?

Why?

Unblocked

So I've been hitting the wall in terms of thinking of new things to blog about. Good thing I had the day off today in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. and that D, my older son, had it off too.

This afternoon, after a morning of me working on the computer and him coloring away in his room and then watching way more TV than I should have let him watch, he looks at me and says, "Mama, I know what we can do and it's not TV or computer games." Then he leaned in close and whispered in my ear, "Let's cook together." Now, do I have a sweetheart on my hands or what?

We had a blast making chocolate chip cookies, measuring out the ingredients, mixing them up and rolling the dough into balls. Savoring the fruits of our labor with a glass of cold milk rounded out the experience. Then he said, "Let's snuggle, Mama."

What self-respecting mommy can say no to that?

I don't know how long he's going to want to snuggle with his mama but I'm going to take advantage of every opportunity he gives me. All too soon, I fear, he'll be pulling away and wanting to go his own way.

As M came home from work, we were rocking out to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. His request: "You Wreck Me." Atta boy!

A Tale of Two Bruises

Exhibit A:

The Bruised: Me, in nage role
The Bruiser: J, in uke role
The Implement: shomenuchi strike
Lesson Learned: Don't meet an incoming overhead strike with your wrist. Blend!

Exhibit B:

The Bruised: D, 7 years old
The Bruiser: P, 3 years old
The Implement: plastic trashcan
Lesson Learned: Don't hit your older brother with a trashcan. Also, don't antagonize your younger brother when he has a plastic trashcan close at hand.


(These were taken last week. The bruises have both faded, D's faster than mine. Ah, the amazing healing powers of youth.)

My Silver-Tongued Little Devils

P: Mama?
me: Yes?
P: You're my best girl. kiss, kiss, kiss


D: Mama?
me: Yes?
D: The Christmas lights are beautiful...pause for half a beat... and so are you.

Watch out ladies, in about 10-15 years, you are in big, big trouble.

The Letter of the Day is F

F is for

• Flu shot: This morning, we drove out to the clinic to get our annual flu shot. P is pretty stalwart about getting a vaccination but D, my sweet, sensitive D, is beset by a deep...
  


• Fear of anything remotely resembling pain. So there we were, in the room where all the nurses were set up, and D just tried to shrink into invisibility. Clutching his little stuffed puppy, which I thought might give him some sense of security, he looked at me with this really scared expression on his face and tears started to roll down his cheeks. What kind of a heartless mommy am I? Sigh. The kind that doesn't want her kid to get the flu. So I sat down with him in my lap, while two nurses helped to hold him still and a third one administered the shot. It was over in an instant.
  


• Feast, which was our breakfast after the clinic outing. We went to The Original Pancake House (not the original one, of course, since we didn't go drive to Oregon) and got a ridiculous amount of food for ourselves. Most of mine came home with me. See the Apple Pancake on their website? That's what I had. Mmmmm, I'm thinking of it right now. Good thing I've brushed my teeth already or else I'd have dropped this laptop and headed straight to the fridge for a little snack about two minutes ago.
  


• Fence: 'Tis finally finished. A weekend project that stretched well over a month because of (a) industrious little boys 'helping', (b) M getting sick, and (c) me being at a conference last weekend has been completed! Hurrah! It is a sturdy fence and, if the Big One does hit, it will definitely still be standing.
  


• Football: Was there a big game on this afternoon? He, he, he. Yes, we did catch some of it and it was good. However, I didn't see all of it because I was busy feeling...



• Fast. The last time I had timed myself on a 2.5 mi run, I did it in 23 minutes and I really was pushing it. Today, I set out with the good intentions of running 5 mi but just couldn't go through with it and fell back into my old, familiar 2.5 mi loop. Felt slow and then the music picked up and so did I. 23:33 with a brief stop to retie my shoelaces. Didn't feel like I had gone all out though.



• Finished.
  

Halloween Aftershocks

Left-over candies and chocolates that lie in wait for me in the cupboard, tempting me to eat them.

Two little boys who can't wait to go trick-or-treating again, today.

Two very well worn costumes - Buzz Lightyear and Woody.

One carved pumpkin, carved in record time.

One bowlful of drying pumpkin seeds, will they ever get roasted?

Two sparkly orange pencils. (Pencils! Who gives out pencils?)

Left-over candies and chocolates that lie in wait for me in the cupboard, tempting me to eat them.

Get behind me, candies!