A Day in the Life

I can’t quite seem to get back to East coast time, and have been staying up way too late, which is a real problem since the kids never left the East coast.  M is away for the weekend, so I watched The Other Boylen Girl last night and worked on my latest knitting project (and yes, I still have the other two in progress as well).  Then I just HAD to finish my book before bed.  Sigh.

I did finally find the card reader in the bottom of the very last bag I unpacked, so hopefully I will start getting some pictures up today or tomorrow.  And then I really need to work on all of the various volunteer things I managed to commit myself to this summer.  Once I finish those up, I need to cut myself loose from several of them.  I think the CSA board will be the first to go, as there will be plenty of folks who will happily jump in there.  I would also like to get off of all the committees at A’s nursery school, but don’t really see that happening unless I pull her out.  Sigh.

Have a happy Sunday.  I am looking forward to a happy Monday, as both kids have gymnastics camp every morning next week!

I now have the memory card (not the one that was lost, I fear that one is gone for good), but I cannot for the life of me find the damn card reader.

At least that is easily solved by a trip to Target.

I also managed to make it a full six hours alone with my kids before launching into the standard “If you do that ONE MORE TIME there will be SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES” tirade.  And C landed himself into the self-proclaimed “longest time out EVER!”

It’s good to be back.

I’m back!  And will share pictures of Alaska (Yes!  Alaska!  Yes!) if I can ever find my way through the disaster that is our luggage to find the card reader.

In the meantime, I leave you with this nugget.

C: “I missed you!  But not too much because I got ice cream and muffins and pancakes.  When are you going away again?”

M and I are sitting in a series of airports today on our way to a grownups only vacation while the kids enjoy some time at “Camp Nana.”  I emailed the kids while waiting for our first flight, and got the following responses back from them.

Dear Mommy and Daddy:

I feel better and I do want to watch the fireworks on TV and MAYBE go to see
them again.  Why did you bring my old crocs because these are getting to
small on me.  I didn’t get up until 9:10 this morning.
We’re going to the library today.  I had Total cinamon Crunch, cantaloupe,
peaches and milk for breakfast.  I love you very much and I miss you
already.  Thank you for the note.  C wasn’t being nice to me but we
worked it out.

Have a nice vacation.

Love, A

dear mom and dad,
i got up at 9:15.
love
c

I am spending my tenth aniversary watching my husband and his family battle it out over a decidedly un-bloggable issue.  And also doing laundry because if I’m sitting around trying to be supportive and yet non-participatory, I might as well be productive.  I am thinking it is probably a good thing that I am several days behind in laundry…

M: “So I am thinking about solar panels for the house.”

Chichimama quiety rejoices and then nonchalauntly says, “Huh.  Why?”

M: “NOT because of the environment.  Let me be clear.  It is because Nancy Pelosi won’t let us build nuclear power plants and they are forcasting increased power demands and an inability to keep up the supply.  And I like my lights on, thank you very much.”

Chichimama: “So I have Nancy Pelosi to thank?  Excellent!”

M: ” I am NOT green.”

Chichimama: “O.K. dear.”

M: “Oh, and I’m going to start biking to the train.  So you can use the Honda instead of the gas guzler.  But I am NOT green.  Make sure you make that disclaimer on your blog.”

Chichimama (singing off key): “It’s not easy being green…”

According to a promotional email I just recieved from Gap, the pleated, high-waisted jean is making a comeback.  I tell you this beacause the fear I felt when I announced the come-back of the skinny jean (well ahead of the curve, thank you very much) PALES in comparison to my fear of the pleated, high-waisted jean.  While skinny jeans don’t do much for me, the pleated, high-waisted jean actually adds many, many pounds to regions where additional poundage isn’t needed.

Who ARE these people who decide fashion trends and WHY do they not consult me first?

• Why hello there!  It looks like it has been a while since I have written anything besides “Thank you so much for a wonderful year!  (Insert child here) has had a great year and will miss you so much (over the summer/next year).  Have a great summer!
• I had no idea that June was such a horrid time of year with two kids in school and enrolled in various and sundry extracurricular activities.  This week alone there have been two concerts, three end of year parties, one award ceremony, two end of year pizza extravaganza’s, and three last minute “OMG, we have to have a PTA/Board/committee meeting before the summer” meetings.  Next week looks no better.  This is one of those things that someone should tell you before you decide to have children.  Right after the description of how horrid the first few weeks post-childbirth are.
• If I never see a piece of pizza again I would be very very happy.  Actually, I take that back.  I would love to see some kind of pizza other than the plain old cheese dripping with oil variety from the not so good place that delivers.  But since clearly that isn’t happening anytime soon I will go with the “I never want to see another piece of pizza again approach.”  To my dismay, greeting me in my inbox this morning was a “Great news!  We will have pizza as a team after t-ball today!” email.  So clearly someone out there hasn’t listened to my pleas for pizza cessation.
• Last night we went to a grownups-only neighboorhood party.  Where, thankfully, there was no pizza.  M and I were two of the youngest folks there and were the first to leave, at 11pm.  C woke me up at 3am concerned about some noises outside and I discovered that the host hadn’t been kidding when he said it was a group of late-night partiers.  They were still going strong.  I am looking foward to that stage of my life.  Although I can’t see a scenerio in which I would ever willingly be up until 3am.  Even in college, 1am was my limit.
• BTW, the TV tokens have been a huge, huge bust.  I can’t decide if it was my control-freak nature or the kids inability to be rational at 5pm, but the last two weeks have basically been filled with temper tantrums and tears when the TV tokens ran out and I just couldn’t take it anymore.  So we have moved onto the dictatorial “There will be no TV before 5pm, and you may only watch from 5pm until dinner” approach.  Which seemed to make everyone except Mike temporarily happy.  He feels I am not allowing them to learn to take resposibility for their actions.  He may be right, but self-preservation in light of the looming summer with no school or various and sundry extra-curricular activites took precedance in my book.
• And now, I am off to start my day of fun-filled end of year activities.  Hopefully I will resurface in another week or two once everything is officially over for the summer.

On a new pink bike, with tassels. And a basket on the front. And a dress, perfectly matched to the tassels. Because one must be lady-like and coordinated, even when riding as fast as the wind.

We instituted a new concept into our house today, the concept of the TV token. I had gotten fed up with negotiating over TV/computer with the kids, and decided to put the “power” of when to watch into their hands. So we headed to Target and bought a set of cardboard coasters for a dollar at the dollar bin.

We decorated an old tissue box to deposit the tokens into, and I set a few lot of ground rules. TV tokens can only be redeemed when there is actually time to watch TV. As in, not five minutes before we left the house or ten minutes before bedtime. Each child gets one token per day, plus two extra tokens because I am nice like that. Each token is worth half-an-hour of TV or half-an-hour of computer. No more than four tokens can be redeemed in any given day. If anyone whines about an extra show, or the fact that they had used all their tokens and it was only Wednesday, too bad and they loose the extra tokens for the following week.

I gave each kid their tokens for the rest of the week at 3pm today. The first token was redeemed at 3:01pm, despite my comments that it was a gorgeous day and they already had sunblock on. The second token was redeemed at 3:31pm, and there are grand plans in the works to redeem another two tokens right after that.

We’ll see how this works. Personally, I’m betting on A figuring out how to hoard her tokens first as she has already tried to convince C to combine their tokens together to watch a movie. But I have a feeling the learning curve is going to be a bit steep for the first week or two…