Thursday, May 29, 2008

Where?

The answer to yesterday's photo quiz is.... (drumroll).... Thessaloniki, Greece! Ah... good times. Look for more reminiscing over the next few months.

Today is the last day of school. Talk about bittersweet. One on hand, I no longer have to get up at 5:30 every morning -- although, truth be told, I probably will because I like to get a headstart on my day and it's practically the only alone time I can get. On the other, I'm going to have to employ all my Creative Mama tricks to keep my lot happy during the day. What age is it when the kids can entertain themselves?

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Three years ago...

we were here. Can you guess where?





























Terrible twos

Hello, welcome to the part of the show where I gripe (once again) about the kids! What? You say that's all I do? Well, buckle up because I figure on complaining about them for at least the next four years.

Of course, there's lots of endearing stuff in there too. Like on Sunday when we were enjoying some delish grilled fennel (from this week's produce share) and D was simply loving it. She looks up and says enthusiastically, "I'm in town with this!" It took us a sec before we realized she must have heard the "went to town" phrase somewhere. Note to self: watch what we say these days. Also what we spell, since she's more than able to sound out words. And? If you see her silently mouthing consonants to herself? That's EXACTLY what she's doing. So no use spelling "I-C-E-C-R-E-A-M" any more. But you can try "G-E-L-A-T-O" since she doesn't know what that is yet.

ON THE OTHER HAND...there is the wacky crank-monster we know as A. Firmly and precociously entering The Terrible Twos, his favorites words are Mama and No. Often spoken together, at the top of his lungs, in a screech that can be heard three counties over. We are now the family that other parents look at and then exchange the wordless glance that means "whew, glad it's not my kid." I know, because we used to be the family that exchanged that glance -- back when D was our only baby, the most gloriously unfussy, uncomplaining, agreeable, reasonable baby that EVER LIVED. As for A, not so much. On the other hand, he's a snuggle bunny, cheerful (when he's happy), whip-smart and fearless. But sweet Lord, you can only take so much screeching per day. I'm usually tapped out by 9:00 a.m.

So, where do I turn for solace? Prayers & chocolate.

Have a great (short) week. Three days til summer vacation!!

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

All things Kindergarten

Jeezlouise. For the amount of hoop-da-lah, fanfare, etc. going on at school this week you'd think they were graduating magna cum laude from Yale with their doctorates. It's just Kindergarten. Get a grip.

We've got teacher appreciation stuff -- which I thought that was LAST week, but I guess that's teachers in general. This week it's D's teacher in particular -- Assessment Reviews, "graduation day," a Kindergarten play, a picnic lunch, and then we break for Memorial Day weekend only to have to come back for two-and-a-half more days next week. Unproductive days (after all, they've already graduated!) because what exactly are they going to have them do? I'd rather have them out of school for good on Friday so that we can get on with our summer.

Anyway. Exciting times. I will be a mom to a first-grader. A first grader who just lost her first tooth. Here she is, sorta being shy.








It's funny how one tooth out can change the way a kid looks. If I look at her pictures from a last summer she still looks so young to me. Now? Not so much. I can definitely see the young lady she is becoming.

Monday, May 19, 2008

I warned him

I told M that if he persisted in this activity that I would HAVE to blog about it. There are so many headings I could use: "How Not to Complete a Home Improvement Project" or "Other People Would Have Put Him Down First" or "Things Mothers Should Not See" or perhaps "Why I Can't Sleep At Night."










Luckily, they were both fine. This time. At least it wasn't the big ladder. He wouldn't have taken A up there. Right?

Friday, May 16, 2008

So much for all that

Well, so much for Going Green. It's back to typical Florida weather - in the high 80s/low 90s and about 354% humidity this morning. Needless to say we put the air back on. And of course one of our ancient, Jurassic-era a/c units failed to come on. The downstairs one this time. At least the warranty company had someone out here within two hours to fix it. So we're nice and cool again and my electricity bill will go back to being scary.

And speaking of scary, I just got a call from my doctor's office and hey ho! guess what? After 41-1/2 years of absolutely uneventful check-ups, including having two kids at an "advanced maternal age," they found something weird with my thyroid! I have nodules. As A would say, "Wha' dat?" I will have to wait in suspense to find out next week because they want me to go for some more testing, if I can coordinate it with finding someone to watch A, swim lessons, D's kindergarten graduation, her last Daisy meeting of the year and my chair meeting with the Jr. League president. Did I mention that A has croup and has been up practically all night for the last two nights? And so have I? Good times people, good times.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Going green

For mid-May in Florida, we've been having some really nice weather. After our big Mother's Day weekend, it cooled off considerably and we've actually had our a/c off all week. The windows aren't painted shut in this house so we've been able to open up and air out. It's a bit stuffy upstairs from about 5 - 10pm, but we just keep the ceiling fans going and not even the kids are complaining. We/I love having all this fresh air in the house, I don't even mind the heat right now, and it's something we were never able to do at the old house. I'm enjoying it -- and saving on our electric bill -- while we can.

Actually, we have the potential to be very green here. We already have solar power for the water heater, which is way more efficient than either gas or electric, so we may consider installing a converter box for the whole house. There was a large rebate for solar power available in Florida last year, but it just expired in December so we'll wait to see if they revive it. We can also tap into reclaimed water to water our yard, but we'd have to do a lot of prep work and I'm not sure if it's better than reviving our well.

And our final Big Green Moment of the week... we restart our membership in the organic produce co-op tomorrow! Hurray! The co-op actually opened a St. Pete satellite location to service all their members up here without us having to drive to Sarasota each week. I can't wait to see what's in my first basket.

OK.. gotta boogie. BigMan A is off at Mom's Morning Out today and I have 3 hours of chores to cram into the 45 minutes before I have to get him. Wish me luck!

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Naps

The Kid and I went to the beach yesterday. It's getting hot so our beach days are limited and we might as well enjoy them while we still can. We had a great time, just the two of us. We ran upandown, upandown. We juhjumped in the (big) waves. We splashed our toes and fee. We threw shells into the wawa. We ate french fries for lunch (I had 1 1/2 grilled cheeses with pickles too) and we played in the beach shower afterwards. It was great and so relaxing. Then, because we weren't tired at ALL when we got home, we played animal hospital and then took D to swim lessons (more running upandown) and then Daddy/M came home early so we had an early dinner and then played outside until almost 7 and then took a nice bubble bath and then finally collapsed into bed at 7:30. And we only woke up once all night to get a drink! Wow!

But we got up early because D had a dentist appointment so we played before and after breakfast, we played at the dentist's office, we came home and played at the kitchen table -- he showed me how he can climb, heartstoppingly, upandown from the chairs! -- and then we played upstairs a little. And THAT is how you get a 21-month-old to nap. Two days of almost near-constant activity = 2 hours of naptime.

I should vacuum but I'm not up to dragging that thing upandown the stairs so I think I'll just take the baby monitor out to the porch and have a little siesta. And I wonder why I can't get it ALL done.

Sunday, May 04, 2008

May is for movies!

Yay May! Two much-awaited events coming up soon... Prince Caspian and the new Indiana Jones movie. Squeal! Bringing together in one little month two of my favorite childhood things - Narnia and Indiana Jones. I must start plotting now to see them both in the theatre, no easy feat since it has probably been two years since M & I went to a movie together.

And if I were 15 years old? I'd have SUCH a crush on High King Peter.

Next weekend is the big Aunt Debbie's birthday/Mother's Day celebration. We are really looking forward to entertaining in our new house and having both my parents and my sister Jenn stay with us. Yay! O happy May!

Saturday, May 03, 2008

What I'm doing

12 hours into my new Healthy Eating & Weight Loss lifestyle, I find out about this little site:

http://www.tastespotting.com/

OMG. Well, I guess there's nothing that says I have to make (and eat) any of this stuff.

Friday, May 02, 2008

An open letter to the nice lady at my doctor's office this morning

Dear ma'am, I'm sure you meant well when that nurse announced my weight in an very loud "outside" voice and it was a number I'm used to associating with the phrase "second trimester" and you saw the look of utter dismay on my face as I turned around and lurched off the scale. However, you saying consolingly "that's what I weigh too!" does me no good since you are at LEAST 7 inches taller than I am. You only served to emphasize that I am both larger and shorter than I'd like to be. But I know you meant well.

So. No more ifs, ands or buts (butts). I can't change my height but I am willing to work on the rest. My goal? To lose a lofty, hefty 30 lbs. by the end of the year. Really -- that's only 5 lbs. per month! I can do it! I will start by not eating the entire, delicious, low-fat banana coffee cake I just baked. I will give it away instead. Hey, it's a start.