Katrina's room

That's not actually a before and after picture. It's more of a halfway finished and after picture. I always forget the before pictures! 

Today Katrina used her "Mom will clean your room for you" coupon. Her room was literally covered in a layer of mess about a foot deep - clothes, books, toys, random stuff that just migrates to her floor, apparently. Part of the problem, to be fair, is that we don't have any good place in our house to keep toys and random kid stuff, so everything has to be in their rooms, and part of the problem is that her room is pretty small. BUT. Oh. My. Gosh. The girl seriously needs to learn to put stuff away after she uses it!!! 

I'd be a lot more annoyed (and i'm pretty annoyed, to be honest) with her room being SUCH a mess if i didn't know that...my room was not quite as messy when i was a kid, but it wasn't a lot less messy, either.

So i started cleaning her room as soon as i woke up, and i took breaks only to eat meals and to go work out with Beth, and i only just finished cleaning at 10:00. By the time i was mostly finished, Katrina was in full-on helpful mode, asking what she could do to help me and cheerfully doing whatever i asked. She is SO happy and thankful, and it does provide a sense of satisfaction at a job well-done. 

But i am so tired.

At least Katrina's classroom is never boring

I cover lunch in Katrina's classroom every other week (the opposite weeks being in Zane's classroom), and it's always, always completely chaotic and loud with this particular class. "This class" being Katrina's grade, whatever grade that is. The kids that are the same age as her? They are...a loud mix. The kids individually are great, but as a group, they're just hard to handle. 

So the kids were getting their lunches, either lined up for school lunch or gathering stuff from backpacks or whatever, and i was trying to keep kids from throwing food at each other, when suddenly one of the girls yelled, "OH MY GOSH!" I spun around in time to see copious amounts of black smoke billowing out of the microwave. She yanked the microwave open, at which point smoke poured out even faster, along with a toxic smell. David, the kid whose "food" was in the microwave, came running over crying, "No, it's supposed to do that!" We all looked at him, and i said definitively, "It is NOT supposed to do that." He looked at the burning mess and the melted styrofoam bowl that was supposed to be macaroni and cheese, slapped his head, and said, "OH! I forgot to add the water!" 

I sent everyone to the hall until the smoke was less thick and opened all the windows. The kids ate lunch in their winter coats. After school, Zane (whose classroom is the farthest one from Katrina's in the same hall) told me all about how it smelled so bad that they all had to eat while plugging their noses. 

Today is the last Friday before Groundhog's day, and Juanito and i have been eagerly waiting for our kids to be old enough to appreciate that movie. We decided that this was the year, and so! Tonight Beth came over and we made our pizzas and watched Groundhog Day! The kids laughed in all the right places and covered their eyes when there was kissing and declared it an awesome movie. Yay!

Snow day!

The phone rang bright and early this morning, with tidings of "School has been cancelled for today. Thank you!" It was really more of an ice day, since we didn't actually get any snow (a fact noticed and commented on by each of the kids in turn - "But...there's no snow...?"). Katrina walked into my room at exactly 7:00, as my alarm was going off, because she'd had a bad dream. She crawled into bed with me and went back to sleep until Zane woke up at 8:30 and came to get me to go downstairs with him. Sleeping in is lovely.

Houston woke up at about 10:00, came downstairs, and announced, "I feel so much better today!" He looked much better too! And sounded better, and generally acted more like himself again. Hallelujah!

Zane and i took Emma for a walk, which was incredibly treacherous, given the combination of the icy streets/sidewalks and Emma's propensity to drag me one direction and the other in an ecstasy of sniffing. At least it wasn't horribly cold, though! Zane really wanted to try making ice bubbles, but it wasn't cold enough to actually freeze the bubbles fast enough. I...can't say that i'm terribly sad about it not being that cold, honestly. 

Emma has been SO HYPER lately, so this afternoon the kids and i all went to the dog park - partly to get Emma some sunshine and exercise and fun, and partly to get the kids some sunshine and exercise and fun. (Emma was a lot more eager to go. Houston and Katrina would rather have stayed home in their pajamas all day long.) We got to the dog park, though, and ... the gates were chained closed. There was another lady standing in front of the gates with her dog, looking forlorn. Eventually we found a little line on one of the signs that said that the dog park is closed when the public schools are closed. Dang it. Luckily, there's a huge field just across the parking lot, next to a mostly fenced-in baseball field (with lots of signs declaring "NO DOGS!"). We headed to the field to let Emma run around. She immediately ran into the baseball field. I called her back. She came, said hello, and ran straight back to the baseball field. 

On the way home, Zane was all, "So...you basically broke the rules. Because there were signs saying that dogs weren't allowed in there...." Yes, we did. I'm only a little bit sorry.

Wine and Canvas

Tonight Keren and i went to Wine and Canvas. (You pay to go, and they provide all of the stuff you need to paint a picture, including the idea and the how-to-paint-it instructions. It was actually interesting to look around at all the different people's paintings when we were finished, because there were a lot of different styles of the exact same picture.) It was the first time going for both of us, and i was pretty convinced that my picture would be horrible (i can't paint!), but it was actually really fun, and my painting turned out way better than i expected. Plus, i like Keren, so it was fun to get to hang out with her. Yay!

So, the question everyone's been asking me today: "Is anyone else sick?!" Nope. Nobody so far. Houston is still sick, poor little puppy. After he threw up AGAIN this morning, i called our pediatrician and asked if i should be concerned. The nurse asked a few questions and said, "Yep. It sounds like the intestinal virus that's been going around." Treatment: Barely keep anything in your stomach and just wait it out, from the sound of it.

As i was saying goodnight to him tonight, Houston said, "I threw up again tonight." (Pause.) "Can i still go to school tomorrow, though? I REALLY want to go. Please???" I'd almost think that this was all a clever ruse to stay home (No, really! I WANT to go. So sad that i keep throwing up....) except for the fact that Houston has eaten approximately nothing in the past three days. I can't see him doing that if he wasn't really sick.

Houston is still sick.

Houston continues to be sick and throwing up, randomly and completely without any fever at all. I have no idea what's going on with him. I've even tried googling it, and everything they suggested came with a fever, which he doesn't have. I'm flummoxed. But, since he threw up twice tonight, i guess he gets to miss a third day of school. Yay.

While Houston was lying on the couch, he randomly picked up my camera and took the worst picture of me in the world. Seriously, i could tell it was going to be horrible the second i heard the click. He looked at the picture and said, "Pretty!" and set it down. Sometimes i really wish i could see myself through my children's eyes. 

IMAX!

Zane's class had a field trip to IMAX today. It's my favorite field trip to go on. Minimal supervision + getting to watch a cool movie = awesomeness! This year's movie was about scientists going to Galapagos to follow up on Darwin's evolutionary theory. The coolest part was when they went searching for new species in the deep ocean. Zane turned to me as soon as the movie was over and said, "THAT'S the kind of scientist i want to be!"

(On a side note: I swear that every time i go on a field trip with Zane, no matter the year, i end up with the most difficult kid in the class. Today, one of the boys in our group was bratty enough that i actually told on him to the teacher. He made mean comments to every other person in our group, and i told him that he needed to quit, at which point he was all, "Make me!" Brat! It makes me seriously hope that my kids never act like that with other adults.)

So. Houston started throwing up early this morning. At first, i thought, "Oh, it's probably just exhaustion combined with Houston's sensitive stomach. Hopefully." Except then he threw up two more times, and now i'm just dreading it spreading through our family. I've been walking around with Lysol wipes, wiping off all of the surfaces i can find, and i've been encouraging the kids to wash their hands repeatedly, and ... i'm afraid it's still hopeless. Sigh.

This afternoon, he told me, with his pathetic little self, "I think i probably got it at winter camp." Yep. I really should have seen it coming.

The day AFTER winter camp.

Houston and Katrina came home from winter camp this afternoon. I asked if it was fun, and they both said, "Yes! It was EXHAUSTING!" Houston fell asleep at my parents' house, right in the middle of a huge group of people. So yes. They were wiped out.

Katrina's favorite part, according to her, was when dodgeball was scheduled, but a whole bunch of the girls didn't want to play that, so instead they went to their cabin and had an impromptu dance party, complete with flashlights as spotlights. Her second favorite thing was climbing the rock wall.

Houston's favorite part was "free time." What did he do during free time? "Um...worked on my skits. And ... other stuff?" So. He had fun, but he's not entirely sure what he did. Except that he stayed up until about 2:00 in the morning both nights. Apparently the kids in the room above them were really loud and stompy after they were supposed to go to sleep, so Houston's roommates got back at them by spraying Axe body spray all over their room when they were gone. So.

Houston went to bed at 6:00, after i kept stopping him from falling asleep on the couch. Katrina made it to 7:00. I expect both of them to be horrible tomorrow morning.