Breakfast with my mom; The dog park

My mom and i went out for breakfast this morning to celebrate our birthdays...although, since she paid, i feel like we were celebrating my birthday more than hers, so ... Thanks, Mom! We went to a place that just opened yesterday, and it was adorable. I would want the person who decorated it to come and decorate my entire house. The food was fine. Neither of us was overly impressed with what we got, but maybe we just chose things that aren't the best? But the conversation was superb. I love hanging out with my mom!

Emma was completely hyper and desperate for someone to play with this afternoon, so i took her to the dog park. She flitted from one dog to another - wrestled with this one under the picnic table, chased that one around the park, sniffed noses with every dog in the place. (As an aside, i was watching, and she didn't jump up on a single person. Progress!!!)

Meanwhile, i watched the people. Most of the people who bring their dogs to the dog park are pretty laid back and friendly. There's the odd person who comes in a suit, crosses their arms, and glares around, but most people either just sit and watch the dogs or chat with other people or some combination of the two. And then there's this one girl who's been there many, many of the times that i've been there. She has a giant dog named "Boo," and she's kind of ... loud. She'll talk to the dogs, but she's obviously actually wanting other people to hear her, even from across the park. I'm not sure if she's a really socially awkward extrovert or if there's another explanation, but man, she's loud.

And then i read and read and read. "Ender's Game" with Houston. "The Last Present" with all three kids. "Harry Potter" with Katrina. By the time i finished, Katrina was all, "Would you read more?!" and i just couldn't. We're so close to being finished with both Ender's Game and Harry Potter, and both of them are to the really sad, stressful parts. Sniff!

Previews

Every six months, the movie theater by us has a free thing where you can go and watch an hour and a half of preview for movies that are coming out in the next several months.

I actually kind of love previews, which is really bizarre, because i generally don't want to know anything about books or movies before i see them. But! If i don't KNOW yet if i want to see it, then i need to see the preview so that i can know! Plus, i on purpose try to remember which movies i want to see while simultaneously forgetting everything that could possibly give away anything. (I'm a complicated, illogical mess.)

Anyhow. Tonight Beth, Stephanie, and i went to the preview night. And it was fun, although there are a lot of movies coming out soon that have stressful previews. I'm kind of exhausted. 

Scanning

I've spent hours and hours today scanning old pictures. I'm making progress, but i just have so many pictures! Right this very minute, i'm super-annoyed with myself of the past, because i have a whole book in which i actually glued in the pictures. To scan them is a long, agonizingly slow process.

I'm really happy to be finally getting all of my pictures scanned. I've scanned all of my grandma's pictures and all of my mom's pictures and all of Juanito's mom's pictures and a lot of pictures for friends, but i'm only now actually scanning my old pictures. I'm finding pictures that i'd started to believe were lost and pictures that i'd forgotten about. Yay!

Karla and Emma

I got to go out for dinner with Beth and Karla tonight. It wasn't planned - things with Karla often aren't - and it wasn't for a long time, because Beth and i were planning to go to zumba, but it was fun. We laughed and laughed and just had good conversation and caught up a bit on life. Friends are the best.

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A few days ago, i bought a dog toy at the dollar store. It was an adorable little fox stuffed animal, and after i got it home, i started thinking that maybe one of the kids would like it for a present instead. Juanito and i were in the kitchen, and i was showing him how cute it was, and Emma was wandering around, oblivious, and then i accidentally found the squeaker in the tail and squeaked it, and Emma skidded to a stop, whipped around, and stared at the fox. 

And that is when i realized that she thinks that everything that squeaks is a chew toy for her.

And THAT is when i finally understood why she thinks that the guinea pigs are so interesting. Because they're very squeaky.

Happy birthday, Mom!

Today was my mom's birthday. She and my dad came over for dinner after church - pulled pork sandwiches and the first corn on the cob of the year. So delicious. And then, of course, cake. Yay!

She requested something lemon-y, so i made lemon bars. (It was nice of her to wear a shirt to match!) But i also made brownies, because i assumed that she and Juanito would be the only ones who'd want lemon bars. Turns out, though, that Zane loved them and even Katrina really liked them. Weird! The two kids i'd least expect to like something different.

I think that my mom is so beautiful, inside and out. Growing up, she was all i knew, so i don't think i ever really appreciated her for all that was. My friend Karen would tell me that my mom was so great, and i'd think, "Well, yeah." It was after i was an adult and we started going out for breakfast and spent hours talking - after i was married and had a job and had some perspective, and after we became friends as well as mother-daughter - that i think i realized how really great she actually was.

And then i had kids and realized that i had no idea what i was doing, and then realized that maybe she was faking it some of the time too, that i realized how genius she actually was at being a mom. I always, always believed that she just knew things. Knew what to say and how to be and what was needed. She was either just way more prepared than i was or she was just amazing at making me believe that she had the answers when she was trying to figure it out herself. Either way, it was comforting, as a child, to think my mom had it all together. And it's comforting, as an adult, to hope that maybe my kids feel the same way.

So happy birthday, to the best mom i've ever had! I love you!

Book club, Carnival, and Movie night.

On Thursday, we had book club. This month's book was "The Pearl That Broke Its Shell," and it has the distinction of possibly being the first book we've done that everyone has finished AND really liked.

The funny thing is, i was totally dreading reading it. I knew it was coming up, and i just thought, "Bleh!!! It's going to be all depressing and slow to read!" Except that it wasn't! I read it fairly quickly, and although it WAS fairly devastating at times, it had just enough hope to keep me from being completely depressed.

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On Friday, the kids' school had their yearly carnival, which we ... hate. It's just loud and crowded and the games are lame and it's just the worst. Several years ago, in a desperate move, i said, "What if we have our own carnival!? At our house! Just for us!" And the kids loved it. So now, when the school has their carnival, we have our own carnival.

We made our own pizzas and played silly little games (Hit the ping pong ball with a nerf gun! Roll the marble onto the target! Stack dinosaurs into the tallest tower!) for tickets. And then they can use their tickets to get prizes that i've picked out - things that they'd actually probably like and use, like post-it notes and that cord that they use to make bracelets. They're happy. We don't have to go to the carnival. It's all good.

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Tonight was movie night. It was Juanito's turn to choose, and he chose "The Room."

I think this movie actually just beat out "Luggage of the gods" as the worst movie i've ever seen. It was cringe-worthy at times, and completely hilarious (unintentionally), but just so awful that it almost defies description. We all laughed and laughed and also had to look around awkwardly because.... It was So! Wrong!

Even taking the movie out of the equation, though, it was a fun night. We grilled using the grill that i dragged home from someone's trash last fall. Juanito fixed it up, and it works great. We have a propane grill! One that's big enough to do more than a teensy bit of stuff on! YAY!

Linda and Andrew and their kids and Stephanie and Beth all came over, and i really love my friends. I love that my kids love their kids. I even love that they all like Emma, which means that she's so much calmer than when people try to keep her away from them. 

Earth Day

Today was Earth Day, and as chance would have it, Zane's class had a field trip to the local recycling plant this morning.

It was pretty fascinating to see how the whole place is run, and the kids all seemed to really enjoy it. I'm not sure how much Zane will remember, partly because he wiggled and squirmed the entire time the lady was giving her presentation. He's the wiggliest wiggler that ever was. But he was really interested in everything once we got to see the place from the walkways. Sadly, something was wrong with the machines, so they were down the entire time we were there - they turned off five minutes after we arrived and turned back on about 30 seconds before we were leaving the building. Unfortunate timing, but the giant bundles of recycled stuff was still pretty fascinating.

Bittersweet

Katrina and i are nearing the end of the last book in the Harry Potter series. It's my favorite book in one of my favorite series, and i'm both really happy about reading it and really sad that it's almost over. Plus, it's such a great, amazing book, but also really sad, so there's a whole bittersweet feeling on so many levels. (And, once i'm finished reading it with Katrina, there's only Zane left to read it with, and then it's finished. And that's also pretty bittersweet.)

At the same time, Houston and i are nearing the end of Ender's Game, which is another of my favorite books. I really love reading the books i love with my kids, and getting to share that experience with them. I feel like, in the near future, they're going to just be finished with having me read out loud to them, and i want to read to them as many of my favorites as i can before that happens.

Beth enlisted my help for one of her projects for work tonight, so we got to sit and brainstorm for a couple of hours. At one point, sports came up peripherally, and Juanito said, "No, an ump is for baseball!" Beth said, "I'm so glad that we have a man around!" and without thinking i completely burst out laughing. Because...as far as "manly men" go, Juanito isn't exactly the poster boy. Especially when it comes to sports. (And almost immediately, i realized that i'm really mean and started to apologize, just as Juanito yelled, "Yeah! Bring me a beer!" So he wasn't too traumatized.)

Zane IS cute

This is part of one of Zane's tests from several weeks ago, and it's been hanging on my fridge , and every time i look at it, it makes me giggle a little bit. "Zane is cuter than Juanito." Bwahaha! Zane has clearly inherited Juanito's self-confidence.

Today was cold and rainy, and even though it's only been warm for a week, it was kind of a shock to be cold again. All three kids tried to wear shorts and short-sleeved shirts, and i had to send them all back up to change into warm clothes. We are all very, very ready for summer.

On the other hand, Katrina looked out the front window this afternoon and exclaimed, "The flowers are growing!" I was all, "You mean...more than they were yesterday?" and she insists that they have totally grown bigger in the past day. So the rain is good for something! Now if it can just stay warm enough that the flowers (and we) don't all freeze to death!

Sunday

My parents were gone for 2 months, and so today we celebrated all of the birthdays from the past several months. It just so happens that Juanito, Katrina, and Houston ALL have birthdays in February and March, so they all got to have "Happy birthday" sung to them...a bit late. :)

Besides that, it was just a normal Sunday. Church, dinner with the family, time with people we love. A good day, but nothing much interesting to write about.

Spring Cleaning, sort of

It was WARM today. So warm and lovely. When we went to work in the yard, the kids were all wearing jeans and long-sleeved shirts, and i was all, "You're overdressed!" And within 20 minutes, they'd all changed into shorts and t-shirts. Because it was WARM. And lovely.

And so we started spring cleaning, sort of. The yard and the garden, which were drowning in leaves, are now nearly leaf-free. As leaf-free as we could get them. We can see the growing plants and the little flowers that are coming up, and they all look so much happier.

The front porch, which has been collecting junk since last fall and basically had one little path that you could walk to get from the porch door to the front door, is now totally cleaned out and empty but for the things that actually belong there.

The back porch is clean.

The guinea pigs have a whole new set-up. Boshsquash is just a bigger guinea pig than Luna or Buttercup, and she couldn't fit through the tube that led upstairs. So, rather than try to somehow enlarge the tube, we just cut out the upstairs altogether and made a cute little set-up with a slightly higher area along two walls. Plus we changed things around a bit to hopefully make it much easier to clean the cage. Yay!

Meanwhile, Juanito worked on the coffee table he's making, the Lego table he's making for Houston, and his speaker. He fixed the gate to the backyard so that it's tall enough that Emma can't just jump over it. He put new wheels and tires on the Rio.

I feel like we accomplished a lot, and that's a great feeling.

Spring!

It was a gorgeous day - sunny and warm, and the flowers are starting to bloom and there are a few trees starting to get buds, and it is glorious. I love spring. The windows were open and the sun was shining in and all was right with the world.

We watched E.T. for pizza-movie night tonight. The kids saw it once before, years ago, at my mom's house, but this was our first time watching it, and since they didn't remember anything, it was essentially their first time. I still really like that movie. Houston made snarky comments all the way through the movie, but when it was over, he said that he really liked it. Zane was stressed out the entire movie - the music makes it seem like something terrible is going to happen any second, and he's very tuned in to the music in movies. He liked it once it was over and everyone was okay, although he did say, "Except for the part where he's almost dead in the river. That was gross." Katrina's still a little unsure. I think she liked it, but it was intense and she has to process it a bit more.

Afterwards, we were talking about swearing ("Don't say those words, kids."), and Zane said, "I only know one swear word."
Me: "Which one?"
Zane: "I'm not going to say it!"
Beth: "What does it start with?"
Zane: "An S."
Houston: "Is it 'stupid'?"
Zane: "No! I know that stupid isn't a swear word."
Me: "Is it the word that means poop?"
At which point all three kids laughed and looked at me like i was completely insane. Apparently they're not THAT educated about swear words yet.

Wax Theater

The fifth graders had their wax theater tonight, and it was wonderful. Most kids had memorized their speeches and could deliver them without hesitation, and they were all excited and dressed up and cute. Katrina was adorable and nervous and so, so great.

They hold the wax theater in the gym, which is big enough...but it also ends up being really, really loud in there. So there were kids we "listened" to, who we couldn't hear at all and we just had to watch their lips to see when they stopped talking.

Choosing who to "wake up" is like a game where you have to randomly choose, and you might get something great or you might draw something awful. There were kids whose speeches were terrific - one girl's speech on Ben Franklin made me come home and look him up, because there were things i didn't know about him. And then there were kids who were...not as great. One girl was painfully bad, and since she couldn't remember her speech well, it took forever. And you can't just walk away. You have to stand there and keep pretending to be interested. It's the worst. One girl talked in an adorable "British" accent and was completely charming. A boy was there without even an effort at a costume - just shorts and a t-shirt. One girl said, "I had seven brothers and sisters. Their names were..." and then proceeded to name all seven siblings. (I had a hard time not laughing.)

Katrina was Sybil Ludington - the female Paul Revere. I really liked her speech - it was all personable and interesting, rather than dry facts. She drew all of the little girls to her with her awesome horse head money box. And she was one of the only kids there who had drawn the picture of their character rather than using a printed picture. (Not that that's necessarily better, but i loved it.)

The best part, for Katrina, was that lots and lots of people came to support her. All of these people:

She felt very loved.

Snippets of Wednesday

It was a gorgeous day today. I took Emma to the dog park, where a male dog completely wore her out simply by repeatedly (like, for an hour) trying to hump her. She was having none of it, and rejected him again and again, but he was persistent. Every time she'd stop moving, he'd mount her. (Seriously, dog! No means no!) Eventually another dog wanted in on the action, and the two of them fought over her, and the owner took him away. He was a nice dog, but MAN did he have a one-track mind.

I got to go out to lunch today with Beth and Keren. Yay! I love my friends. Getting to spend time just sitting and talking with good friends is the best.

Zane got to go to a church carnival with his best friend, Justin, and he came home full of smiles and with piles of cotton candy.

Katrina has wax theater tomorrow, and she's nervous. So nervous. She keeps asking questions like, "Is wax theater as horrible as i think it will be?" She's not a big fan of performing. She is totally ready, though - she's got her speech memorized, and her costume is adorable, and her money box is amazing. So as long as she doesn't completely lose her mind, she'll be great.

We had Zumba tonight. There was a massive traffic jam on the way there - we didn't go over 5 mph for a good 6 miles, so we were all really late. By the time Juanito got there, the zumba students had all moved everything around the room and had everything set up and ready to go. And then they were incredibly kind and understanding about starting and finishing late. His students are the best.

Mundane stuff

Every few months or so, i'll get struck by insomnia, and two nights ago was one of those times. After hours of, "WHY can't i just fall asleep???" i finally dozed off at some point between 5:00-5:30, so i got maybe 2 hours of sleep before waking up to get the kids to school. Needless to say, i was exhausted. I napped for another 3 hours after dropping the kids off, but then i wanted to be able to sleep last night, so i forced myself to stay awake the rest of the day. After Zumba, i fell into bed and slept. (A surprisingly fragmented sleep, filled with terrible dreams so scary that i nearly woke up Juanito. The kind of dreams that continue when you fall back asleep. Hate!)

So anyhow! Today i feel tired but at least not foggy. I spent the day trying to catch up on some of the laundry and housework that hasn't been getting done because of illness and exhaustion and general busyness. Piles and piles of laundry - finished! Yay! I always kind of love getting those kinds of chores finished, because they're the kind that take at least a few days to undo. Clean the kitchen, and it's a mess as soon as the kids are home. Do the laundry, and it's clean for days! (I do still have a giant pile of socks to sort, though.)

Feeling cruddy

Whatever it was that Katrina had, i got it full-force yesterday. The exact same symptoms, even down to the same times - throw up at midnight and again at 2:00, then feel exhausted and achy for a day. Houston had it today. I expect Juanito and Zane to succumb in the next couple of days.

I was talking to my mom today, and she said that my sister's family all had the exact same thing on the same day that Katrina did...exactly 2 days after she'd spent the entire day at their house. So whatever it was, they apparently all came into contact with it at the same time. We'll go ahead and blame the entire town of Grand Haven.

Sadly, this was the first really beautiful spring weekend...and i basically missed it, being curled up inside under blankets and sleeping copious amounts. (I've only dared to eat toast so far - i'm a little bit afraid of food.) At least it's not like the last beautiful weekend of fall - i'm sure to have more beautiful weekends in the near future. Yay for spring!

Back at the mall!

When i gave my kids coupons for Christmas, i gave them each 6 - one for every two months. It's not that many! Yet today i found myself back at the mall for the second day in a row, this time with Zane. He highly approves of the Blizzard. He also really liked the book store, where he bought the final Minecraft book that he was missing, the toy store, and Hot Topic. (I kept him in the one little corner of the store where they have all of the Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Pokemon, Star Wars, and Sherlock stuff. They seem to keep that area pretty child-safe.)

Shopping with Zane is hilarious, in that he loves to talk. To anyone. Everyone. One of the workers at Hot Topic came over to check on us, and Zane spent five minutes talking to her about which books are better than the movies and what she likes and whether Hello Kitty is awesome. As we walked past Barnes and Noble, he wanted to go back inside and tell the people who worked there "Thank you for having such a great store!" And as we were leaving, some people walked by us speaking Spanish, and Zane (who had been temporarily distracted by a bottle cap he was picking up for Houston) asked me if i'd said, "Hola" to them. I told him no, because i didn't know them, and he said, "OH! A lot of times i just like to say hello to people when i'm walking past them! Even if i don't know them!"

On the way home from the mall, as we were driving past downtown, i noticed that they've made significant progress in tearing down the old newspaper building downtown. So we grabbed everyone else and drove back downtown to look at the destruction up close. Because *I* don't care much about demolition but Juanito and Houston are both very interested. In fact, as we were walking away back to the car, Houston was asking questions about how one gets into the demolition field. Particularly the implosion-related part.

Let's go to the mall!*

Katrina used her "Go to the mall" coupon today. She'd actually asked days ago if she could use it on Wednesday, because she just really likes Wednesdays, but then she was sick, so...today it was!

We just basically wandered around the mall, going into the few shops that she had any interest in, which isn't many, considering that she didn't really want to look at clothes. (Though the last store we went to was Kohl's, where she tried on an adult size small maxi skirt, which she loved because it was grey and also soft, and she decided to buy it with her allowance, even though it's really kind of too big for her.) But then i also got to introduce her to her first Dairy Queen blizzard. YUM! She spent a long time looking at all of the options, because that's a really big decision. But then she agreed that blizzards are delicious.

Later, Juanito asked her what we did at the mall, and she listed off every single store that we'd gone to. In order. So i guess that she enjoyed it!

This week's "free for children/cheap for adults" movie is Big Hero 6, and i remembered that while we were at the mall. I texted Juanito and Beth to tell them, and that set off a flurry of texts, and i finally told them that they had to work it out between them so that i could stop ignoring Katrina. (Texts are stressful!)

And so they worked it out and we all met up at the movie theater early in case it was really busy. It...wasn't. So we stood around while they cleaned the theater and then got our favorite seats. Yay! And, second time around, i still absolutely love that movie. I adore Baymax and want him to be my friend.

*Incidentally. In the show "How I Met Your Mother," one of the characters turns out to have been a pop star when she was younger, and her #1 song was "Let's go to the mall." It's a silly song. Episode ends, i move on. Except that then, months later, my kids start singing that very song. They'd obviously not seen the show, and it wasn't a real song, so i was all, "What!? In the world?!" Turns out, the Wii game "Just Dance" uses that song as one of their songs. So random and weird!

My teenager

We were at the library today, and Houston was looking for books to read. I pulled the first book of the Gallagher Girl series off the shelf and told him, "You should read this! I really liked these books! They're about a girl who goes to a school for spies!" He rolled his eyes and sighed heavily, said, "FINE," took the book, and walked away.

A few minutes later, i was sitting next to him as he was starting to read that book, and he quietly got up and walked away. I thought, "Well, okay. I guess he doesn't like it." And then he came back with the entire series. And tried to play it off as not a big deal.

That was at about 3:00. He had the first one two-thirds finished by bedtime.

Update on "The illness:" Katrina threw up from midnight until 2:00, and then woke up at 10:00 happy! Feeling great! Totally fine!

She wilted a little bit as the day went on, and spent most of the day on the couch, but there was no further throwing up, and she did seem to be mostly okay. So at least, if we all get sick, we can hopefully look forward to a short-lived illness. Yay?

Pirates!

Back in October, our city held a "Pirate Day," wherein anyone who wanted to participate could walk around to various locations and pick up pieces of a pirate costume (hat, eye patch, etc.). Those of us who participated were encouraged to put a picture on Instagram. So we did the whole thing, and it was fun, and then a week or two later, i got a message saying that we'd won 4 tickets to the Public Museum and the Pirate exhibit and also the Planetarium. Yay!

So today we went to the museum and the pirate exhibit and the planetarium. Fun! The Pirate exhibit was fine. Not the best thing i've ever been to, but interesting enough. The kids enjoyed it. And they really enjoyed walking around the other exhibits in the museum (honestly, they have pretty low expectations, apparently, because our museum is pretty boring for the most part). But i think that my favorite thing was the Planetarium, mostly because i just love planetariums. I could want to go and just have them show us the stars and the constellations. (They did that a bit, and then they did a movie about going back to the moon.)

And...Katrina just started throwing up. So. The rest of the week is entirely up for grabs now.

Also, we visited Keren, who is doing SO WELL.

Katrina slept over at her cousin's house last night, which meant that we were entirely Katrina-free for over 24 hours, and it made me realize just how very much i love having each of my children around. It wasn't boring around here - the boys and Emma made sure of that - but it was just...missing Katrina. Each of the kids brings something unique to our family, and it's just really obviously missing when they aren't here. (She's back now! We're happy! Although she went to sleep immediately upon climbing into bed, which was 5 minutes after getting home, so....)

One thing that i realized about Emma today is this: She can't handle it during the day when we have people in different rooms. At one point, Houston was upstairs, and Zane was by the kitchen table, and i was in the front room, and Emma was just obnoxious. I'd call her, and she'd come sit by me for a minute, and then Zane would make a noise and she'd leap up to investigate, and then the guinea pigs would make a noise and she'd go over and try to lick (or eat) them, and then she'd try to get into the kitchen, and then i'd call her and she'd come over and sit down for a moment until Zane made a noise.... Eventually i gave Zane permission to play on the computer just to get Emma to stop. And it totally worked. Sigh.

Easter!

It's Easter!

After church, we went to my sister's house to celebrate with the whole family (or as close as we could get, since my brother Rick's family lives across the country), and we had a giant meal with way too much food for us all. It was delicious, and while it's always fun to sit and talk with everyone, it was extra-fun today, because it was the first Sunday dinner since my parents got back from their two months in Florida. Yay!

My mom had Easter eggs for everyone, so we hid the eggs all over the yard and then sent all of the kids off to find them. It was a lot longer and harder than we'd expected, because even the easy eggs were hard to find given the sheer size of my sister's yard. Each kid had 16 eggs, and they kept wandering around, muttering, "Only six more to go! Only five more to go!" while the adults gave helpful hints like, "Um, hey! I can see three of your eggs from where i'm standing right here!" In the end, and with a bit of a group effort for the last few, all of the eggs were re-located. It's a really good thing that we knew how many we were looking for, though!

I ran out last night to get chocolate Easter bunnies to but in my kids' baskets, because Zane was SO EXCITED about the chocolate bunny that he was SURE he was going to get. I just couldn't bear to disappoint him when i could make him fantastically happy for just $1.50. And, sure enough, he ripped it open and was ready to annihilate it immediately. I had to stop him to take a quick picture...and he first licked it before putting it back in the box, because he just needed to taste it. Right now!!!

Hockey

Juanito's work had tickets to a hockey game tonight, and his boss was all, "If you don't take them, they won't get used at all! And it's your fatherly duty to take your kids to a game!" And ... new experiences and whatnot.

So we went to a hockey game tonight. Zane enjoyed it. Katrina suddenly developed a fear of heights, and kept leaning on me and whimpering, "I just don't like this. I feel like i'm going to fall!" Houston didn't appreciate the loudness of it all. So! Success for one out of three! One out of five, if you count Juanito and me.

(I'm a terrible fan. They're all, "Let's make some noise!" and i'm all, "No. Thank you." And they're all, "Chant this thing again!" and i'm all, "I've already done that for you. Twice. You can't make me do it again." Truly, it's just loud. LOUD. And it's complete sensory overload - the second the action stops on the ice, they start playing loud music and show stuff on the screen, and then they'll cut the music off mid-phrase to go back to the ice, but then they'll start chanting, and then they'll cut to something else. It's not my cup of tea.)

Spring Break! YAY!

Today was the first day of Spring Break!

This morning we went to my sister's house, along with my mom, my other two sisters, and all of our kids, to dye Easter eggs. Yay!

Beforehand, Zane insisted that he really wasn't interested in dying ANY eggs, thank you very much. He didn't like dying eggs, you see. Katrina and Houston both said that they really only wanted to dye 3-4 eggs each. So i bought and boiled a dozen and brought them along.

I insisted that Zane needed to at least try dying ONE egg. As soon as he started the first one, he realized that...hey! Dying eggs is fun! Who knew?! And Houston and Katrina both flew through their first 4 eggs as well, and then all three kids looked around pathetically until their cousins and aunts offered them another egg or two to dye.

Moral of the story: Next time, we need more eggs.

We got home at 11:30ish, and the kids almost immediately started asking if we could go to this or that place, and if they could play computer, and what could they do? Couldn't we DO something? Me: "It's the FIRST DAY of Spring Break! Go play outside! Play a game! Read a book!" Them: "Sigh. FINE."

Nostalgia!

I've been scanning and scanning old pictures into my computer, because right now they're in boxes and random photo books that just sit on my shelf, and i never look at them, and i'm always a little bit worried that they're going to get lost or damaged or ruined somehow. If they're on my computer, then they're safe, but more importantly, i can use them for things! I use them for my screen saver! I can think, "I need a picture of such and such," and instead of thinking, "Nope. Impossible to find," i can just quick search for it on my computer! I can use the pictures for books! So many possibilities!

So while i'm scanning, i'm (obviously) looking at all these old pictures, and that makes me all nostalgic. Look at my cute grandparents! They were so awesome! I miss them! Look at us when we were little! Awww. We were cute! Look at what a terrible photographer i was! I really have gotten better!

Look at how many exclamation points i've already used in just two paragraphs!

Anyhow. Back to the present. 

Katrina's in fifth grade, which, even when i was young, means that it's time for the school to split the boys and the girls into separate groups and teach them about puberty. Yay! I asked Katrina about it afterwards, and she was extremely matter-of-fact about the whole thing. "Some of the kids were SO embarrassed. I don't know why." I asked her if she learned anything new, and she thought for a second and then said, "No." 

What i do think is odd is that they spend 2-3 days talking about stuff. The first day seems to be about puberty and getting your period and what to expect with all of that. On the second day, they talked about HIV and AIDS. I asked her if they talked about sex at all, and she said that they didn't. I asked her, "So ... how did they say that you could get AIDS then?" and she said, "They just said that you could get it by doing sex or sharing needles or becoming blood siblings." But they didn't explain what "doing sex" meant. (I'm sure it's because parents would object, but explaining one without the other just seems...incomplete.)

As long as we're talking about that talk, allow me to tell you my memory of when i was in 5th grade. They invited the mothers to come to the class with their daughters, and then they showed us a movie that was probably made in the late 60s. It was cheesy and really out-of-date, and at one point, one of the girls (who was wearing a really, really short skirt) was all, "Will anyone know when i have my period?" And my mom leaned over to me and whispered, "If you bend down they will!" I was SO embarrassed. The end.

Also, it was a gorgeous spring day, so everything was happier.

For some reason, our internet didn't work at all, all day yesterday. Finally, after the kids were in bed (and after we'd tried everything we could try several times), i called Comcast to find out what was wrong. They ran their diagnostics, and told me, "Well, i don't want to insult you, but your modem is...old? So you need a new one." And so i planned to trade out our modem for a shiny new one this morning...except that this morning our internet was working completely fine. Technology.

In fifth grade, the kids do a wax theater project for history class, and it's a huge project. Katrina really wanted to be Betsy Ross, but by the time that she got to choose, Betsy was already taken, so she is Sybil Ludington, who was apparently "the female Paul Revere." Her poster and money box are due tomorrow. I think it's pretty obvious that Katrina did her poster almost entirely without any help - and it is adorable - and also that she had a wee bit of help making the money box.

My parents are home! Yay!!! They've been in Florida for the past two months, and we've all been missing them. Today my mom came over to hang out for a few hours, and it was lovely.