Weekend Round-up

We had a fun weekend this past weekend. Corin and I went to the Sugarland concert on Saturday night, which gave the kids an always-welcome opportunity to spend the night with GranNan and Poppy on Saturday night. Corin and I had a great time at the concert and dinner with our friends, and we became new fans of the opening act: Jake Owen. He was as good or better than Sugarland.

On Sunday after church, GranNan and Poppy had a prior commitment and Corin wanted "greasy food" - a rarity for him - so we ended up at the Varsity for lunch. Nothing like a good ole chili cheese dog from the big V. And the kids always look cute in the hats.

Sunday afternoon after naps, we took the kids to Monkey Joes to burn off some energy. I won't go into detail, but suffice it to say that P has not outgrown her fear of Monkey Joe. Poor child had nightmares that night and is still talking her little stuffed bunny out of being scared of Monkey Joe. Bless her heart. But she did have a few moments of fun. Here she is sitting alone, bouncing and singing at the top of her lungs as if no one else was in the room. Perhaps she was in her "happy place."

Oh, and finally, I've had this vision for quite some time of having some sort of art display "wire" in the playroom/office so we have a place to look at the kids' art before it gets tucked into the bins in the garage to be saved for posterity. My vision finally became a reality on Saturday morning when Corin installed the star art clips I purchased on-line at The Land of Nod. Super cute result. (The picture doesn't do it justice.) I love it! And the kids created all manner of new masterpieces to go on display.

Sassy

We had gymnastics this morning and Pressley had a grand ole time, as usual. Nothing really to report about that. But, you may have noticed in some of my previous posts that my baby girl is in desperate need of a haircut. So, on the way out of gymnastics, I called the kids' salon we go to in Decatur (Salon Red Kids) and asked if they could accommodate a walk-in. They could, so we headed on over, straight from gymnastics. And I didn't have any shorts or a skirt to put on P, so I just let her go in her leotard. Sans skirt.

When we walked in, they told me Natalie would be with us in a minute. I am usually not particular about who cuts my kids' hair, so I did not say "Hold the phone... Who the heck is Natalie and where is Shantay?" In retrospect, perhaps I should have. You see, Natalie asked Pressley if she wanted her to wash her hair or use the spray bottle. To my surprise (and, in retrospect, perhaps to Natalie's surprise as well), Pressley chose "wash it." So Natalie put her on two booster seats and tried valiantly to get a 3 year old to lean her head back into the sink bowl and keep it there. I decided to read my magazine and pretend I wasn't paying attention. When P started making a bit of a fuss, I walked over to try to help. Natalie soon finished washing and pulled little P's head out of the sink bowl. No squeezing out water first... just had her sit right up. And THAT was when Natalie realized for the first time that she didn't have a towel handy. Not only was one not handy, there was apparently not a towel to be had in the WHOLE salon. So I ended up standing there holding Pressley's wet, dripping hair in a ball while Natalie jogged three doors down the street to the big girl Salon Red. By the time she came back, I kid you not, the entire back of Pressley's leotard was saturated with water and the water was running down her bare legs (front and back) and into her shoes. Seriously. Natalie towel dried P's hair, but pretended not to notice she had soaked the child from head to toe.

Then she proceeded to do the slowest kid's haircut I have ever witnessed in my life. And I have witnessed some slow ones. Like the time Evan got his hair cut at big girl Salon Red by a girl who must have still been in cosmetology school and had clearly never cut a child's hair - ever. But Natalie takes the cake. She cut P's hair for a full hour. Luckily, P was in a reasonably agreeable mood since she had just come from gymnastics and Little Einsteins was on the t.v., but still. An hour? Seriously? And I only heard P ask once if she was almost done. An absolute picture of patience.

That is the end of my rant. In Natalie's defense, the hair cut is super cute. I told her a bob, which she apparently interpreted to mean "inverted bob", which P has never had before. But, despite the painfully long time it took to achieve it, it is very sassy little look. I'll let you be the judge:

First pose: Catwalk-pose-with-sucker-stick-in-mouth

Second pose: Catwalk-pose-with-sucker-by-side

Third pose: Just-so-you-can-see-it-from-the-back.

And yes, that is the same skirted leotard you've seen many times before. When we came home from the haircut, we had to immediately get out of the soaked leotard, so she opted to get right into the skirted one rather than waste time on putting on real clothes.

All of the gymnastics and hair cutting has apparently worn her out. As I type, she is still napping and has crossed the 3 hour mark. That NEVER happens.

A random collection

So, there is no cute or clever title to today's blog post (to the extent that I ever come up with a cute or clever title...). Today is just random little bits of information with a few kid photos thrown in.

First, Pressley's new favorite thing to have for lunch is a "pizza" that she makes all by herself. It is made up of one Arnold's sandwich round (both halves), some Ragu pizza sauce, and mozzarella cheese. Well, usually mozzarella cheese, but today we were out, so we used cheddar. She is very insistent on doing it herself, so I put a spoonful of pizza sauce on each half of her sandwich round and then let her spread it herself. Yes, it is messy, but she enjoys it and I bite my tongue. Then, I put the cheese in a little bowl for her and let her decide how much makes it onto the pizza and how much goes in her mouth. She really is very precise about the cheese. She knows exactly where she wants each shred to go. This is perfect though, because usually the oven is properly pre-heated by the time she finishes.

She is really into cooking with me, so I'm encouraging it and I plan to let her take it over entirely by the time she turns 13. Is that too much to ask?

[Oh, and yes, I do acknowledge that she is wearing a leotard - with a skirt on it - and today is Friday, so we are either 4 days late or 3 days early for gymnastics. It is not a battle I choose to fight, so the leotard with the skirt on it (complements of her cousin Abby) is her new uniform around the house. So far, I have been mostly successful in getting her properly attired before we venture out in public.]

Just in case you are not quite convinced how much she loves the pizza making and the cheese-eating, I captured it on video.

Our next project for the day was.... wait for it .... shrinky dinks. Seriously. Did you know they still make those? I did not. Pressley got a book a while back as a gift. If you gave her this book, please forgive me that I am just now getting around to making the shrinky dinks. Any time a book has art supplies attached to the front, it gives me the heeby geebies because all I can think of is what a mess it will make of my kitchen. I'm trying to learn to chill. Really I am.

Anyway, I cleaned out the "art cabinet" yesterday and Pressley found the book and once again got out the clear plastic sheet with the fairies on them and began coloring them with the enclosed colored pencils. Eventually, I sat down with the book to investigate what one was supposed to do with said plastic fairies once they were colored and I discovered, much to my delight, that they were shrinky dinks. When Evan got home, I announced that we were going to do a "science project" (because I don't think he's really all that into anything involving fairies). And we finished coloring and cutting out the pieces and then I went to get the baking sheet. They were intrigued. And then once those suckers went in the oven they were alarmed. I was too. I had no recollection of the extent of the shrinking and the curling. I was sure I had done it wrong and I would have to go on-line to get some new fairies, but, I'll-be-derned if they didn't eventually start to flatten out - just like the instructions said they would.

And, voila! Tiny fairies!

And then, Evan insisted that I sew his patch on his brand new karate Gi at that very minute. The sensai had told them that their mommies can't just iron them on because they will fall off after a few washings. Instead, they must be sewn on by said mommies, even if those mommies have all the sewing skills of a small child. So, I put on an episode of Tom and Jerry, got out the tiny sewing kit that was in our room on our honeymoon in Italy, lo all those many years ago, and went to work. Here is the finished product:

[And, yes, I acknowledge that his name is written on the Gi in sharpie, but I will have you know that that is what the instructions said to do. It said specifically to avoid the temptation to have it embroidered because that is expensive and children grow quickly. That is almost a direct quote. So there.]

But how cute and proud is he? Totally worth the needle injury to my thumb cuticle.

Y'all have a good weekend.

Family Flag Day

Today was Family Flag Day at Evan's school. As part of his homework for the past 2 or 3 weeks, we've been working (or assigned to be working) on our family flag. It was to contain pictures, words, symbols, etc. of things that are important to our family. We started ours on Wednesday. Shhh. Don't tell Mrs. Appling. Today was the presentation of the flags in front of the class and the parents, followed by lunch (at 10:45), which consisted of family favorite dishes brought in by each parent.

Evan did a really good job. We talked about things we like to do as a family and came up with: traveling to the beach, the mountains, and New York; church and worship; school and education. We also talked about that mommy is from Atlanta and daddy is from Knoxville and those are the cities where his grandparents live. So we had pictures of all those things, as well as his handwritten words for beach, mountains, New York, God, Knoxville, Atlanta, etc.

You cannot imagine how hard it was for me to let this be his project.

The older I get, the more I realize what a control freak I am. I didn't know that about myself when I was younger. But, I wanted SOO badly to straighten pictures, write words myself, tell him exactly how to arrange the whole thing, etc. But I couldn't. I knew that. So, I sat on my hands - almost literally - and let him put on crooked pictures, words whose letters were all different sizes, and in the most haphazard fashion imaginable. And I wouldn't have it any other way. He thought it was a masterpiece. And so did I.

See what happens when you give up a little control?

Here is Mrs. Appling with the class sitting quietly - criss-cross-applesauce - before the presentation of the flags.

Here is Evan doing his presentation, with me as his prop and his prompter. The first few kids presented without parental intervention, but one kid wanted his mom up there, and from then on, all the kids had to have a parent. So, the guy next to me was kind enough to take some pictures for me. Yep, you can call me Vanna.

And, finally, here are the kids eating their very early lunch: hot dogs, pigs in blankets, chicken fingers, banana bread, brown rice (that was ours), chicken-n-dumplings, chips, cookies and cupcakes. It was a very well-balanced meal.

And here are some close-ups of the flag:

The mommy brain mush

So, I've already admitted this week that I forgot to order Evan's school pictures. I wish I could say that that kind of thing is an isolated incident, but I would be lying.

Monday night during dinner (while still wearing her j'nastics leotard), Pressley spilled what we call "red juice" in our house on the front of her light pink leotard. Despite her protests, we stripped it off of her immediately after dinner so I could put it in the wash. (She was so devastated about taking it off, that to head off any fit-pitching, I dug out a hand-me-down leotard of Abby's from a drawer and let her put that on.) Anyhoo, so I took the soiled leotard upstairs, sprayed it with Spray and Wash and then decided not to waste a wash cycle on one little thing. So I threw in the rest of the "lights". When that did not make a full load, I threw in a bunch of whites for good measure. Then, I proceeded to run the load. Later that evening, on a roll, I took those out of the wash, put them in the dryer and filled up a load of darks. As I was putting the detergent in the load of darks, it suddenly occurred to me that I had skipped that step with my prior load. Yep, I ran a full load of lights and whites with nothing in there but water and a couple of sprays of Spray and Wash. And there were undies in there. And you know if you have kids that sometimes the undies are not in any condition to go through the wash without the detergent, if you know what I mean. (When, oh when, will they learn to be more, ahem, thorough?) Do you know that despite all that knowledge, it took me over 24 hours to decide whether to fold that load or re-wash it? Shame on me. Ultimately, I did the right thing, of course. I shoveled all of those "clean" clothes right out onto the floor so I could put the darks in the dryer, but it just broke my heart to have to re-wash "clean" clothes. Why (oh why) do I continue to make more work for myself?? It certainly is not that I don't have enough chores to do without repeating some from time to time just for kicks.

On top of all that, there are the constant notes coming home from both schools:

• Pressley's immunization records are out of date! She is in danger of getting kicked out of the program if you do not update her immunization records. (Oh, you mean that thing I've had in the desk since her well visit in April? You need that??)
• Evan's library books are over-due. Don't you know that Wednesday is library day? (Evan says if he doesn't bring back last week's books, all he can check out is a magazine. Bummer. And shame on me that he knows that.)
• Pressley needs a family photo at school. She is the only kid without a photo of her [loving] family on the family photo wall. Oh, and bring an extra outfit while you're at it. You haven't brought back the extra outfit we had to use the last time she spilled an entire cup of water on her dress.
• Umm, did you realize you'd been writing the tuition check for the wrong amount for months? Five dollars a month adds up. Pay us or else!
• And on and on.

Is it just me, or are all mommies of pre-schoolers and early-schoolers this absent-minded? I used to have a pretty sharp little brain. I wish I knew what happened to it...

J'nastics and school pictures

Pressley had her very first gymnastics (j'nastics) class today. She was SO very excited about it. I told her she could either wear shorts or a leotard and she insisted she had to have a leotard. So, we went to Target a while back to peruse the leotard selection. She absolutely had to have one with a skirt on it. But then, a week or so later, I got our registration packet from the gym and it said the skirts were not allowed. So, we took it back amid much crying and lamentations. But, this morning, she didn't seem to recall any of that. The skirtless leotard was every bit as exciting as anything with a skirt could have been. She was very eager to put it on -- and despite the fact that j'nastics was over at 11 a.m., she has worn it to the grocery store and the bus stop, and it is looking like she will wear it through dinner.

The class itself was a big hit as well. She had it built up in her mind to the point I was afraid it might be a real disappointment. But, no. It was all she had hoped for and more. She was definitely the best listener and follower of instructions. She loved every hop, roll, balance walk, climb and slide. She went back through each series of movements many, many times while the other kids wandered off to explore the gym. It was all very cute.

And, as an aside, there was a woman there with her daughter and her 16 month old son. I never had to lift a finger or chase that child even once, but he totally wore me out just watching him (and his mom chasing him). All of the moms had to move the purses into another room because he was pulling out inhalers, feminine hygine items, sunglasses, lipsticks - you name it - he was pulling it from someone's bag. If anyone out there was holding out hope I'd change my mind about having more children...this weekly gymnastics class is going to be the best form of birth control - ever! Yes, siree. Once you are past the point of chasing a very active 16 month old around constantly, it just loses its appeal. Well, to the extent that was ever appealing in the first place.

And on an unrelated note, Evan's teacher sent me an e-mail today around 1:00 saying that he fell on the playground, had a red mark on his face, but ice had been applied and he was fine. OK. I'm used to this sort of stuff. After all, he is a 5 year old boy. No big deal, right? Except that today was school picture day. I had assumed that pictures would be long finished at 1:00 in the afternoon, but Evan told me that he had his picture taken after he fell on the playground. Surely he is mistaken, but just in case he is not mistaken, here's a little preview of what his first-ever yearbook photo will look like:

Not that he is not just as cute as a button any way you slice it, but I would have preferred that there be no slicing (or scraping or scuffing) until after his first yearbook photo. Which, by the way, I forgot to send in the order form for, because -well- I'm just that flaky sometimes. So, there will be no evidence aside from the yearbook. Unless I can figure out how to finagle a late order. Which is not my favorite thing to do because I don't like to have to admit to anybody that I'm flaky. I prefer to let people think I intended not to order any prints of my kindergartner's first school photos. Wait, is that worse than being flaky?

BTW, I've added a bunch of new photos from our beach trip and the annual puppet center fundraiser (The String Fling) under the September 09 photo tab.

Fun, sun, sand...oh, and I'm gonna need a new purse

We just got back from the most fabulous holiday beach weekend with some dear friends. We went to WaterSound, Florida. The place we stayed was amazing. We had near-perfect weather. The company was great. The only thing that would have made the weekend any better was if we had all been healthy. Our friends' youngest was suffering from a pretty bad bout with asthma and had to be treated with multiple breathing treatments and medications while we were there. And, he had just the most pitiful cough (all night) you've ever heard.

Then, there was Pressley. I'm still not exactly sure what was up with Pressley, but Saturday night, we had a very long dinner experience during which all of the kids complained about freezing to death and pretty much refused to eat anything. Particularly P, who wanted to be held throughout dinner and ate maybe 3 french fries before declaring she was done. After dinner, we stopped at the grocery store and both E and P fell asleep promptly in the car while Corin ran in to pick up a couple of things. When we got back to the condo, I went to unbuckle P's car seat straps and she made a horrible face and started crying. Thinking she was just exhausted and ready to get out of the car, I consoled her and immediately scooped her up, holding her over the same shoulder where I had just hung my unzipped purse. I'm not going to get too graphic here, because I think yall are bright and can connect the dots. I'll just say that P was not simply exhausted and ready to get out of the car. She had an upset tummy, and now I'm in the market for a new purse. So, Corin slept in the kids' room that night with Evan and P slept with me. I basically slept with one eye open all night and every time the child moaned, I sat bolt upright and threw a tupperware container in front of her. All for naught, since it was apparently an isolated incident.

Sunday, Evan started complaining of his throat hurting when he swallowed, and by yesterday it was clear he had come down with a full-on cold. He basically laid in my lap the entire time we were at the beach and laid in a chair wrapped in a towel at the pool. Poor baby. He is home from school again today. (For those of you keeping count, this is the 3rd sick day in 4 weeks of school. But, the school policy clearly states that he should not come to school with a fever and I don't want some epidemic of the swine flu to break out and get blamed on me for sending my kid to kindergarten with a fever and a hacking cough... I'm just sayin'...)

Anyhow, we still managed to have an absolutely lovely time. I love, love, love the beach and was very sad to be saying goodbye to that particular slice of beach heaven until next spring at the very earliest. But, then, all good things must come to an end I suppose. So, until next spring - hopefully - so long WaterSound. I will miss you!

The kids waiting to go out to dinner.

Ready for ice cream!

Fun in the sand.

Feeding cheese crackers to the birds (I'm certain it is good for them).

Giant turtle in the pool.

Sick kid number one (Pressley on Sunday)

And, sick kid number two (Evan on Monday)