Pre-vacation countdown

Two days to go until the kids & I leave for a few weeks in NC - hurrah!!!

Three's Company will be on hiatus until July as it's hard to post with company here, and cleaning and packing to do, and kids to play with (or turn TV on for.)

So stay tuned for pictures and more.....

Happy Summer Days!

What did he say?!

When D was learning to talk, her word for elephant sounded a bit like she was saying "f**kint" and going to the zoo was an exercise in avoiding other people around the Wild Africa display for fear that the general public would hear her exclaiming in delight "f**kint!!" when she saw the majestic beasts. After a few months of extreme embarrassment, including one incident in the Library's kids' section, she grew out of it and it's become an amusing family (adults only!) anecdote and we're all over our elephant-avoidance phobias. Until this weekend. When we found out that A's words for both Fruit and Fork sound exactly like "f**k." How exciting! I can't wait until the next time we're in the produce aisle. It was easier to avoid elephants.

*sob*

Look I what I found this morning when I sat down with my coffee, clicked onto tastespotting.com as I do every morning and got ready to peruse yummy treats from fellow foodies all over the world:








Why? WHY? WHY????? Lawyer M says it was probably a piracy thing, internet sharing of copyrighted materials, blah blah blah. Whatever. I can think of two cookbooks that I would never have bought - or even heard of - if it weren't for the delicious reviews I found on tastespotting. Doesn't that make up for the occasional posting of a photo? And sure, I can understand if people were posting tons of recipes right out of a book, but the vast majority of posts were either home cooks dabbling with their OWN recipes or people who made tweaks to book recipes and then posted the results.

Now I have to go and try to find all my favorite food bloggers on my own.

I am so sad.

Summer school

This week we started our REAL summertime routine - swim lessons, camp, vacation and SCHOOL! Lucky kid to have a mom soooo concerned that she will lose all the skills she learned in Kindergarten that I am making her practice them over the summer. Lucky kid? Or crazy-ass, uptight mom? Hmmm. We read a lot anyway, so I'm not including that in the routine, but I've decided that for one hour every day we're going to practice the other two Rs. Even A is getting in on the action by learning colors, shapes and numbers. He astonished my mom over the weekend by counting to 5, but I think that's just because it's my "mom count" as in "you have FIVE SECONDS, mister, to get over here." They hear that a lot too.

What else do we do for an hour each day? Play at the park (PE), make/eat lunch, do a craft or art project, sit in the car while Mommy goes to Starbucks, and they get to watch one hour of commercial-free TV or a video each afternoon, preferably while I make dinner. What I wouldn't give for an older, teenage-style child that could reliably watch the kids while I make dinner. I'd invite one of the neighbor girls to come over, but I really don't want to pay a babysitter, I just want someone to pry the kid off my leg so I can saute some chicken. I realize that was sortof the role I played in my family growing up and I sincerely hope ('cause I don't remember the details) that I was a help to my mom and that when she asked me to watch the kids I didn't gripe too much.

To all my East Coast friends -- stay cool!!

Am I a bummer?

We've almost completed summer vacation week 1. So far so good, and this was technically our week "off" when we had nothing scheduled or planned -- for the kids at least. I'm still waiting on the results of all the testing I had done earlier this week.

Next week we start swim lessons, then we have a week of Vacation Bible School and then the kids & I will head to NC for a couple of weeks in the mountains with my in-laws. Ahhhh..... two weeks off enjoying the beautiful Smoky Mtns. and the cool nights and cool mornings and Uno on the porch and it's just my favorite thing to do in the summer. And it will be even better this year because my brother in law (Colonel Mike) and his family are going to be coming out for the July 4th weekend too. Hurray! If there is one thing I love it's big crazy family gatherings. It will be the first time that we're all together at my MIL & FIL's house since they moved there and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm sure the kids will explore every inch of the mountain -- I'll just have to convince D that she can't do it in a skirt.

Have a great summery weekend!

Summer vacation - day 4

So today is our first real day of summer vacation not consumed with heat, a/c repairmen, appointments, meetings or radioactive isotope thyroid scans. Wheee!

Of course, M is out of town. He had to drive to the Other Coast of Florida for a deposition (taking one, not giving) and he has to go back again of Friday. Which means two days this week of essentially being alone with the kids. Which means... BAKING! I'm making Fruited No-Knead Bread by combining two or three recipes I found on the internet. Yum. Of course the long rise means that I probably won't be baking it off until Friday, but no matter we'll have it for the weekend.

I'll use the next few days to recognize opportunities to be a patient mom and try to stay engaged with the kids. This is the hardest part of parenting for me. I can always think up other stuff I should or could be doing. I've been toying with the idea of turning the computer off during the day to reduce the temptation to send some "quick" emails, or surf my fave bloggers for just a "few minutes" or play a "quick" game of Scrabulous. But the notion leaves me feeling seriously disconnected and then I'd be wanting to do all the above in the evening when I should be spending time with M. And it's not like I have an internet addiction (OK, maybe a wee bit with Scrabulous - but I know that's a passing fancy and I'll get bored trying to break 700 every game.) but it is a convenient way to grab some quick quiet time.

Oh well. Time to go play!

Oh summer

Nothing like a little hardship to put life in perspective.

Our a/c (upstairs this time) quit on us yesterday. Nothing like no a/c on a hot summer Florida day. It was about 90 in the bedrooms last night - there was no breeze so I didn't see the point in opening windows. The fans were going full blast, I had about an inch of baby powder on me trying to keep cool and dry. M wimped out needed a good night sleep, so he went downstairs to sleep on the couch.

Stupid summer.

Of course, the warranty company, ever helpful, said they'd have someone out on Monday. So we're looking forward to one more night in the sweatbox. We're hoping -- in vain? -- that if we wait them out eventually they'll figure out that they have to replace the a/c units and we won't have to shell out the $15-20K it will probably cost to replace them and fix the ductwork, etc. But in the meantime, the units appear to break down at least once a month. Not a big deal when it cools off at night, but I don't think it got much below 80 last night.

AND, of course, tonight we won't be suffering alone since my parents are coming up tonight to help watch the kids while I have the testing done on the growths they found on my thyroid. The good times never stop.