Here We Gooooooo

Like walking on a waterbed.

In stilettos.

DON'T talk to me.  I'm trying to concentrate.
Who needs a work out, this is taking all I've got.

Who decided this was the better way to get around.

  Finally, home base.

A little bubbly anyone?

As I was reading various sites and blogs on the web this morning, eagerly anticipating updates from some of my favorites, I am lavishing every last moment of my break.  Two weeks from today I will be back in my classroom furiously preparing and planning and cleaning and moving things around, and just getting ready to meet my fresh group of shining pupils for the year.  So many things are going on within the school district this year, a carry over from a month ago when this past school year ended.  The budget for the state is in crisis, many school district jobs have been cut -- teachers and teacher assistants included.  Many teachers have been moved around to different schools (yes, this is traumatic.  We are a small district and each school is extremely diverse.  Moving to another school is like moving to a different land...).  I read in our (pitiful) local paper yesterday that it looks like 66 more jobs cuts with the school district could be coming up as well, not anticipated at first.  All of this goes along with the 10% paycut all of us well-payed teachers will probably have to take, and increased medical/insurance charges on top of that.  My point in mentioning all of this is such:

while reading this morning (how did I get so far away from that introductory point) I came across a GREAT word that I have decided to try to use more often.  It is one I am going to introduce to my class, and try to get them to use in their writing.  It is a word not to be saved for soft drinks alone...it is worth more than that.  And in times of frustration or sadness, or a day when things just need a little more oomph...I challenge you to use this word. No matter how silly it may sound at first, the more you use it, the more likely it is that others around you will use it, and so on and so forth.  It's like a Pay it Forward.

And the word is:

Effervescent!

Stop Splashing Me

Overheard at the pool...

'If you don't get out of here right now XXXXX (name withheld for privacy ha ha) you are going to really wish you did.' Personally, not the best threat I've heard.  I mean, no wonder the kid still didn't get out.  And I want to know now, 2 hours later, did he really wish he got out of the pool?

'Do you have to go potty? Do you have to go potty now?  How about now, are you sure you don't have to go potty, because it looks like you have to go.  How about we go to the potty.'  This is all in about the time span of a minute.  I felt like turning around and saying alright, not I have to go! I don't know if this child ever went potty, but neither of them got out of the water anytime after that....

"Mommy, I can't shake this booger off my finger.  Look, it won't come off".

Oh, that last one was my kid.

and the crumbs are free

I am having a garage sale.  I am having one RIGHT NOW.  I am watching 8 people get out of a mini-van to troll through my treasures while I pretend to smile.  "NO, the things in the ACTUAL garage are NOT on sale."  

"Yes, you can have that for $7...my heart is breaking, it really was a steal for $10, but okay. Your kid is cute.  You're lucky."

"Get your kid out of my garage.  There's nothing for sale in there.  Hey!  I said your kid is playing with my kid's stuff, and she's complaining.  And you don't want to hear her whine, so scat."

"WAIT -- skinny lady with the million tattoos.  Where are you going?  How could you pass some of this stuff up?  It's great?  Don't you want to buy a breast pump?"

SO, having this garage sale is an indication of maturity.  Or, what I really mean to say, is that it is making me feel old.  Now, I know I'm not old per se.... But having a garage sale gives you a certain 'status' in the realm of adulthood (no, I don't mean white trash status).  It means you definitely are a complete adult.  You are, after all, old enough and have lived long enough to acquire the means to purchase said garage, and if you're lucky the house to go with it.  Or at least make non-rental payments on it.  Anyone can have a kid, that's not maturity, that's biology.  But not everyone can have a garage.  

But wait, there's more.  Not only to you have to be old enough to have the garage, but you have to be old enough to have accumluated and saved enough treasures (crap) that surely anyone lucky enough to come to said sale would be walking away with the most amazing (again) treasures they surely couldn't find anywhere else.  I mean, where else could you possibly a toaster oven/rotisserie chicken cooker (at least that's what the box says it does, I do know for a fact it makes great toast) for $5.  Yes, there is that little corner of melted plastic where somebody put something on the darn thing while it was still scorching hot, but there's nothing wrong with that. Now you can just use that as a reminder to never let that happen to you.  See?  I saved you a possible fire hazard.  And guess what?  The crumbs are free. 

All in all, it is now complete, and we didn't make out too badly.  Didn't make a dent in the darn baby clothes, and a few other choice items, but we may try again in the fall.  Baby clothes are like mosquitos, just when you think you have gotten rid of some more show up.  

And the worst part of it all was one lady of abundance (and by that I mean, she was large and in charge!!!!) who was dripping -- let me emphasize that D-R-I-P-P-I-N-G) sweat.  And I'm watching her look through the box of $1 dollar baby clothes thinking, 'please hurry and leave lady. Please don't drip your sweat on anything here.  Not even my driveway.  Please oh please oh please.  Anything you want, you can have it for free -- what did you just do????  You did not just wipe the sweat off of your forehead, and now you are coming over here to purchase the $3 worth of clothes out of all that cottony goodness.  It's not worth it to me, take it, run!!!!!!  What?  You can't hear the voices in my head.  Oh no.  Oh no no no no no no no...yes thank you for your purchase.  Now, if you don't mind I'm going to go get some water to take care of the vomit in my mouth.  Take your crazy kid too.  There's nothing for sale in the garage, and he's bother my daughter.

Unless you want to buy a toaster oven. Remember, the crumbs are free.

More Friday

And so, after Bagels with Babes it was time for me to continue my Friday morning ritual.  A nice tall latte, mani-pedi with a Cosmopolitan (magazine, not the drink) in one hand and my ipod in my ears....sounds nice doesn't it? Except I don't drink coffee, only had one pedicure in my life and I'm not sure I want another one, have a stack of books waiting to read who has time for a magazine, and well, the ipod might be the one good idea there.  Actually, where I've been heading is the grocery store.

Usually the grocery store has turned into a family affair.  The four of us pack up our save-the-environment grocery bags (or at least we remember to bring them about one out of every 5 trips), plenty of snacks, and -- if I'm really on top of things -- the grocery list, which inevitably turns out being a toy for one of the kids in which case I am either asking to look at it, hunting for where it has fallen or where someone dropped it, or giving up and then leaving out some all important ingredient for which I then have to go out later in the week to purchase.  Anyways, it works out better that we all go.

I don't like to go after work, because taking the kids by myself is just a pain.  It's a constant game of outsmarting and anticipating what the next move will be just to keep them quiet and sane, and a game of "I want to sit, no, I want to sit in the front, I want to walk, I'm hungry" and that's just Greta.  Yes, technically I could go and keep them at daycare, but I just can't do that.  I want to get them as soon as I can.  I love their daycare, and I know they're fine there, but anytime I have to leave them even a minute over 8 hours I just can't focus.  SO, we go together.  That, and if I go by myself and Chris is at home with the kids, well, let's just say it's almost guaranteed that I will forget something important (even if it is on the list), not get something that we needed (because no one put it on the list) or I will by the store brand of a product.  And most of the time that is a no-no.  Not for me, I'm all for saving a few cents anywhere, but SOMEbody thinks that the store brands aren't good or don't work as well.  I have to admit, I'm finding out that a lot of times he's right.  I am planning a future post all about that....

Again, so we go together.  HOWEVER, now that I am on break, I have all the time to take and be the super shopper that I have never wanted to be.  I go to our beloved Super Walmart.  We do have a couple of awesome grocery stores around here, but seeing as we're still polluting the planet for the next 500 years with enough diapers to...well, diaper with and some little darling has constant diaper rashes so I buy the more expensive diapers...it's Super Walmart.  

I'm taking my time, strolling around, people watching --it's amazing how many people stand in the middle of the walk ways and just talk.  Come ON now, if I did have kids in a cart and a load of groceries to boot my good manners and proper upbringing would send nasty looks, verbal slanders and a bump to their cart, but not today.  Today, I have all the time in the world. 

 And boy, maybe I'm glad I don't usually.  Perhaps I need to stop looking so carefully and just crazily wave my arm and grab the product that I know I came to get and always by.

Let's take pasta for instance:  I know I said I usually buy store brand, but I'm branching out.  I don't look at prices (well, maybe a little) I look for health.  For crying out loud!  All of the sudden, there are about 7 different kinds of pasta.  I'm not talking the different shapes of the noodles.  I mean, enriched, whole grain, multi-grain, organic, plus (whatever that is), and the "white pasta with three times the fiber as much calcium as an eight ounce glass of milk".  My eyes are darting back and forth, I'm feeling a little panicky...I close my eyes and just reach.  Tada!  And at this moment, I can tell you I bought some kind of penne pasta that is not enriched or white.  Other than that, I give up.

One more thing...

...when did Dora start selling corn, and why? I mean, come on now.  No one else is on any kind of package here.  Elmo is not selling spinach -- not even Popeye is selling spinach -- Barbie isn't selling peas, I mean, it's just not happening.  Whose idea was this?  Nickelodeon?  Are they sponsoring corn?  Who gets the royalties, where do they go?  Does Dora the Explorer really sell more corn?  I didn't buy it just because Dora was on the corn, in fact, I DIDN'T buy it because Dora was on the corn.  Plus, it costs more -- I'm paying Dora the Explorer to be on my corn!  Dora, I don't even like corn, let alone you.  And, there's only one person in my house that does like corn and frankly, I am tired of seeing the corn once it makes its return trip and so I am thinking about not buying corn at all anymore, so there!

Now, if someone wants to put Hugh Jackman on a package of carrots, then I'll consider it.

Ahhhh Friday

The past few weeks that I have been on summer break from school, Greta and I have made it a habit to drop Clara off at school and go get a bagel, just her and I. So this morning, while I am getting the bagels I tell her to go pick out a table, and after asking me a half dozen times 'how's this one? No, maybe here.  Ooh, here's a nice table by the window mommy' we finally sit down.  She steers me to my chair, which, she announces, she has pulled out for me as she pats the seat.  And so, we had a lovely "Babes with Bagels" morning, as I have come to call it, and as we are cleaning up preparing to head to school Greta turns her head to the side, looks at me with heavy eyelids and says "Mommy, will you be my best friend?"  

oooohs and ahhhs aside, yes it was cute, she says this all the time and is really on a "best friend" kick.  It's funny (or frightening) to hear the daily run down of who is "best friend" status and who isn't because boy oh boy it can change at a moments notice.  I don't necessarily encourage this conversation though, because someday this keeping tabs of best friends thing is going to bite her -- hard.  I guess I'll just start preparing myself now.  In fact, it's Greta, I better start a list.

At the pool

  Checking things out at the pool.
Oh, hi there smiling lady!  Hi!

Floaties?  Check.  Ring?  Check.  Goggles?  -- not yet, soon.

Mom, honestly, if you want to take my

picture then move so I don't have to look

into the sun.  Hello already!

The Baby Diaries

I am finding age to provide me with remarkable opportunities in life.  As I have breezed through the first year of life, I have been able to put much of the label of youth behind me, and look forward to the knowledge and wisdom that growing older thus allows us.  And so, I begin to chronicle my adventures -- both those I choose and the ones thrust upon me.

Thinking about the risks involved

about the plan developing in my head...

I decide to go for it, and while mildly

unsuccesful, I emerge unscathed.

A new activity I carefully observe from afar....
And realize it is something best left

to others to assist me with.

Openers

On a blog I follow this person has a post about great opening and closing lines from books. They can be found on the American Book Review website.   It's no wonder some of these are classics.  I wish my life could be narrated with some of these.  How funny.

"The sun shone, having no alternative, on nothing new." --Samuel Beckett Murphy (1933)

"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."  —L. P. Hartley, The Go-Between (1953)

"I write this sitting in the kitchen sink." —Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle (1948)

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Make a Smilebox slideshow

We're Melting....

It is a very hot day here today.  Online I see it says 93, but the heat index is over 100.  Chris is laboring in this hot sun, and the melting breeze is no help either keeping his greens from wilting.  So, while he is baking we are at home trying to keep cool inside, but tempers have been wavering as Clara (must be) is teething and Greta is...Greta.  (A fine time for her to decide she isn't going to nap anymore.)  So, we had a little photography session, and then I had some fun on the computer.  And now Clara is up from a brief nap, and I promised to read books, so off I go.  

WATCH YOUR STEP...

...as we trip down memory lane for a moment.

The way our family used to look.

The quiet time we used to have.

   But who are we to complain.  

Real Success

I know someone who reads my blog and who seems to need some support, and perhaps some encouragement, to take the talent given and use this time to embark on new opportunities.  However, this person also needs some reminders, so if the following applies to you you'll know it, and even if it doesn't, perhaps you will appreciate the words anyhow.

You can try to convince yourself that wealth and success can create happiness, but the pleasure they supply is only a short-lived psychological condition, not real happiness.  Real happiness comes from a life well-lived. -- David Baird

It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation which gives happiness.  Thomas Jefferson

And perhaps my favorite....

Of course there is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional acceptance for life and what it brings. --Arthur Rubenstein (1886-1982)

lucky number 13

At least in our house, there is something about this number...13 1/2 to be exact.  Months.  Something happens to babies here when they are 13 1/2 months old.  They change.  Somehow, someway, sometime all of the sudden I just sit back and say "ugh!" what is going on.  Then I think and realize, oh 13 1/2 months old.  It's not like I have a million babies, and believe me this is it, so whether this is a pattern in other households I may be presumptuous, but here it's the truth and it's ugly.  

I remember it clearly with Greta.  One day, happy loving, fairly easy baby.  She did get quite sick -- double ear infection, high fever for several days, throat infection etc. -- and then after that, BOOM.  It was like someone whacked our house with a stick.  It was like a little toddler-coup.  Someone new was in charge, or trying to be, and was going to fight our retaliation to her rebellion every step of the way.  And with torture.  She was going to whine and tantrum her way into our submission, and then use sleep deprivation at night to further whittle away our nerves.  I remember many nights on someone's bedroom floor repeating "lay down, lay down, lay down" over and over again....thanks for the memories.

And so, while Clara doesn't seem to have the same caliber of revolutionary guns to break down our front, things have definitely changed a bit.  There are demands.  Many more.  And I someone forgot to let me in on what they were, or the language.  So the demands then become even more demanding.  I give the girl credit, for someone the size of most 9 month olds, she's got the strength of a 13 1/2 month old for sure, and then some.  She can be a bulldozer if she wants to get through to something, or she'll just sit on you.  She has this crazy throaty yell that has made its appearance -- it sounds like it would hurt your throat after a while, but clearly, as I learned at bedtime last night, it must take a really really long time to get to that point, because I caved.  However, since there have been several nights lately where I have had to get up, we really are going to have to go back to enforcing the "cry it out" thing, throaty scream and all.

Each time I think I am sailing into at least somewhat familiar territory, I am reminded that really I am just a visitor on a foray into the unknown.  I am not really fully in charge, it's just made to look that way, and as long as I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing there will be smiles and hugs and snuggles...but when the 13 1/2 month old has to take over, look out -- she's got a great big can of whoop ^$% and she's not afraid to use it!

     I know they look a lot alike, I'm just trying to figure out how much.  

                                             I thought these pictures were more similar than they look to me now.

     Oh well, I'll leave 'em up anyways.  Clara is the first one, then Greta.  

      I think Greta was 10 months or so in this pic.

Ahhhhhhhhh

Just trying out some photos as I think I have

the camera problem I was wrestling with 

finally solved.  

Had to pose Clara in her new chair.  Glad to finally

be rid of the high chair, I don't know why I didn't think of this 

sooner!  This is Clara munching on her morning snack, at 8:00am.

She's already eaten a huge breakfast.  I have to get a good naked 

picture of her to show off her tummy.  It is huge and healthy and 

just about as kissable as I've ever seen.  But really, what isn't!

The title of this blog should be read as a relaxing sigh, as opposed to the inane screaming way that I occasionally use those letters.  I hate taking so long between blog posts, but boy am I glad this week is done.  This school year is gone and it couldn't have come a moment too soon.  There will be no reflecting on this year, but I do look forward to the year to come, as I know I will have a really good group of kids.  I can't believe that this will probably be Greta's last year of daycare -- now there's a monetary relief -- and a year from now I will probably be sentimentally posting about her leap into Kindergarten.  How fun it will be to have her where I work all day!  I think.

Yes, the elephants are in focus and my daughter is not, I suppose you can

see my priorities in this shot.  This was at a new Africa exhibit at our zoo,

very nicely done.  As you can see, the elephants were not only busy, but 

we were fairly close to them.

By the way folks, after reading over my previous post, I know there were others who must have read the darn thing too, and NO ONE mentioned to me that I spelled breath wrong?  It won't hurt my feelings if you tell me these things, it is better than looking like a moron!  Or are we all a bunch of morons.  Breath, short e.  Put an e on the end changes the vowel sound.  

Take a BREATH so you can BREATHE.  

Alright, enough english lessons.  The next thing you'll know I'll be asking you to read a passage and discuss the setting and main characters.

mental camera

It kills me that I was not able to capture the moment on film: 

a fleeting blur of feet and arms flailing and waving...

a recorder to grasp the hysterical laughter ringing through the humidity

 and clinging to each drop of air...

something more than just the moment recorded inside of me, 

etched on each beat of my mommy-heart 

and reverberating on each sighing breath of happiness.

That moment of my baby's first steps.

Okay, so the QUALITY of the actual photographs has a little to be desired, but this was a short music concert (put on AFTER the pre-K class graduation which, while it was cute and I look forward to Greta doing it next year, was not something I felt like watching on a Friday evening) from the music class Greta takes at her school.  We were proud of her, because she sang MOST of the songs, and even did the little moves that she was supposed to do.  The 3 girls you see in most of the pictures are girls she has been with since she was a baby.  Greta and the girl in the flowered dress have been at the center when it opened, so when they graduate they will have been there longer than any other child.  (Personally, I think there should be a discount in there somewhere....)

dance marathon

Pick a song.

Any song.

Probably should be a fast one, with a good beat, although the ABC song has been known to work just as well.  But so has Witch Doctor -- the Alvin and the Chipmunks version of course.

Now crank up the speakers.  No, too loud.  It can't be too loud.  (Sensitive hearing you know.  Not me.  Her.  Well, she gets it from somewhere I suppose.)

Now go back and look at these pictures again, and put on your own dancing shoes.

Dance lessons coming this fall.

Feed Me!

Who can eat a half of a cheese quesadilla, a jar of pasta and 

vegetable baby food, and enough watermelon to feed a small 

village of starving peasants?

I'll give you a hint...

she's about 28inches and 18 pounds (maybe almost 20 if you do a

post-feasting weigh in) full of sparkling personality...

                 Those cheeks are there for a reason!