My daughter's class is doing their Famous People Project, and each child has to choose a famous figure in history. They then write reports on their subjects, and---on the specified day---dress up as the person they're featuring and give an oral report in the first person. When Chickadee first started talking about this project, she said she would probably be Laura Ingalls Wilder. I wasn't surprised; she loves the "Little House" books beyond reason. (I did worry, just a little, about a classroom full of Lauras.) But when the time came to start working, she picked someone else. Puzzled, I...
We waited and waited, and had 60+ degree days in November, and just the other day Monkey sighed and huffed, "Is it EVER going to be winter, Mama?" I was hoping the answer was no, but alas, I am not in charge. Also? It is hard to take a picture of children who are spinning and twirling and catching snowflakes on their tongues, but that's okay. Right now, they're having a blast. They don't realize this is the first quarter inch of what will ultimately total up to a bazillion feet of that stuff. Heh.
I don't take the kids to the grocery store with me all the time; in fact, most of the time I'm organized enough to go without them, because it's vastly preferable. When I go alone it's much quicker and there's less whining. But this week I am completely off my game and swamped, to boot, and so I looked up from my work about ten minutes before the kids got home and realized that I would have to take them with me and go get some food. [Aside: Joshilyn was describing something unpleasant to me on the phone today and said that she'd "rather eat a bug." There was a pause as we considered the...
I used to think there ought to be a law that when you're selling a coordinating set of something---say, matching brother/sister Christmas sweaters---you have to list them together on eBay rather than as separate auctions. Because there is nothing more annoying in this world than agonizing over how high you bid to try to secure BOTH items, as having one but not the other is useless if what you really want is the set. But after explaining auctioning and bidding to my daughter, and winning the first sweater (much to her delight), I sat here refreshing the page on the second sweater. We watched...
"Mama, do you think I had a good day today?" "I dunno, Buddy, did you?" "What do you think?" "Well, I sure hope you did. I think you probably did. Should we look?" "Yes. You should look." "Okay, go grab your book for me." "Did you know that I drew all of those smilies myself?" "Yes, I had a feeling that you had. Well, that is awesome." "Yes." "Have I told you lately that you are my very favorite boy in the whole entire world?" "I know." (Happy Love Thursday, everyone.)
Good news! Through a mixture of planning, assisting, and bribery, I was able to get the kids to clean up the damn playroom already. I know you were all really concerned about it. I discovered that with three of us and about an hour, and a liberal application of "Well, I suppose you COULD keep that, but I wonder if Santa will think you have room for anything else...," almost anything is possible. If by "almost anything" you mean "enough cleaning happens that the carpet is revealed and can be vacuumed." At one point during a tense "you're really too old for this toy now" negotiation, Monkey...
Today Chickadee snarled and grumped her way through the morning, moving at top glacial speed and crying at any and all of the following suggestions: That she get out of bed, that she get dressed, that she move a little faster, that she select a food for breakfast, that she join us for breakfast, that she remember to take her backpack upon leaving the house. It was a really splendid way to start out the day. My favorite was when I called up the stairs to see if she was on her way down and she screamed back "I'm brushing my hair! Do you WANT me to look like it has birds' nests in it??" I sort...
Today I am obsessing over Matters Largely Unbloggable™, which leaves me precious little to offer. Not that that's ever stopped me before. Ahem. In lieu of anything even smacking of cohesion, I give you the following unrelated bits and also a chance to win a fabulous mystery prize: Thing the first: We didn't go to the movies this weekend. The children elected not to finish cleaning the playroom on Saturday, and by the time we got through church and grocery shopping and eating lunch today and I had the AUDACITY to suggest they take another crack at it, their anguished wailing made it...
I'm taking a break from yelling at my children to sit down and breathe deeply and count to ten. Or maybe ten million. Last night I came up with a shockingly simple premise, and I even laid it out for them before bed so that there would be no surprises today: If the playroom gets picked up in the morning so that a person can actually, I don't know, WALK IN THERE without tripping on or otherwise stomping and breaking things, we will go see Happy Feet at the theater this afternoon. I may have even offered to buy popcorn. I will give you three guesses---though the first two don't count---as to...
