A week or so ago, James and I were cleaning out our guest room really thoroughly (getting this house ready to put on the market!) and the kids were also supposed to be cleaning their rooms.

We were all working pretty hard, when Ethan came in, toting a nerf gun, and announced, “When we’re done with all this work, I suggest we have the BATTLE OF OUR LIVES.”

Nerf gun battles abound at our house. We agreed that sounded like a fantastic idea.

LAST MINUTE PARENTING WINS THE DAY

Today is Dr. Suess’ birthday, and our school is honoring it with a book character dress up day. I didn’t remember until late last night, so this morning was fraught with quickly trying to come up with SOMEthing, ANYthing, for the kids to dress up with.

Jocelyn was easy — we had a pair of Thing 1 and Thing 2 shirts that Ethan insisted on getting last year. Today, she went as Thing 1 (well, Thing 1, with normal hair, a pink skirt, and stripey tights.)

However, I did come up with (what I thought was) an INGENIOUS idea — I also took a marker, made a STAR on her tummy (on her skin) and said, “Now you’re a SUPER SECRET SNEETCH, with a STAR upon THARS.”

She was tickled to death!

Ethan was harder. Of course, he wanted to dress up as a Star Wars clone trooper, one of his many halloween costumes. We adamantly said NO — it’s BOOK character dress up, not MOVIE character dress up. He pointedly held up his huge stacks of Star Wars books, but we (OK it was James mostly) stuck to our (his) guns. No Star Wars. — A big reason is, we were pretty sure that wearing a clone trooper uniform all day may cause him to ACT like a clone trooper all day, and his teacher doesn’t need to deal with THAT.

All the things Ethan did NOT agree to dressing up as:

- A secret sneetch (aw MAN! can’t he see my BRILLIANCE?)
- Harry the Horrible
- Nate the Great
- Someone from the Magic School Bus books
- Ralph S. Mouse (a bicycle helmet, a little marker for whiskers, DONE)
- Captain Underpants (“COME ON MOM YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!”)
- One of the kids from Captain Underpants
- The Wimpy Kid (this one would have been hard, but he does have a promotional wimpy kid tshirt kicking around somewhere)

He finally decided on Max from Where the Wild Things Are. He wore red footed jammies to school, with cars on them — despite the fact that Max’s were plain red with a hood with monsterness on it.

Oh well!

I can’t wait to hear how it all went.

WHO KNEW THE BIRDS AND THE BEES WERE SO DAMNED AMUSING

These kids have been into baby stuff for a while – hearing the story of their own birth, hearing about how they would KICK me when I was pregnant, and they just love babies in general. Babies, puppies, kitties, bears, squirrels… baby ANYTHING. Ethan is studying all about autobiographies in school right now, so not only is he interested babies, but he is doing assignments about himself – relate a story about when he was a baby, how much he weighed, where was he born, etc.

So about a month ago, I got them this book: It’s NOT the Stork! — figuring if they were so interested, we might as well give them plenty of real information on the subject, and save us the hassle of having “the talk” with them as teens or preteens. I really like this book, it’s full of good information, differences between boys and girls – inside and out, different kinds of families, how babies are made, and has also helped put to rest some myths that I’m not certain have REALLY been laid to rest in this house: the fact that babies AREN’T in the mom’s STOMACH, and (here’s a rumor that Jocelyn clung to when she was a wee toddler,) the myth that babies are POOPED OUT when they are born.

It’s a fairly large book, with a lot of info in it, and generally they’ve kind of skipped around, settling on the parts they want to read. The pages where the sperm swim to get to the egg is a favorite, due to the cartoon characters – “hey its’ this way!” “We’ve been swimming forever!” etc. but the part that all parents dread talking to their kids about, has not really been hit on much with my kids with all their flipping through this book.

Until last night.

Ethan is our non-fiction guy, he loves to read about facts and science, so it’s been his favorite lately. He settled down with it and flipped to the pages with the sperm swimming to the egg pages, when he said, “But how does the sperm GET INTO the vagina?”

I just quietly flipped back a page or two where it covers this, and he started reading aloud. When he got to.. *ahem* the pertinent details, he stopped DEAD, looking totally AGHAST, turned and looked at me, while I sat there completely beet red. Then hollered to Jocelyn, who was sitting on the floor reading her own book to herself.

“JOCELYN! You have GOT TO HEAR THIS! The daddy puts his PENIS inside the mommy’s VAGINA!!”

They both thought it was the most hilarious and RIDICULOUS thing in the world.

It is kind of ridiculous when you think about it.

After the laughter and giggling died down — I told them that I’m glad they are learning so much about babies, but that it would NOT be appropriate to talk about this kind of stuff at school. They both nodded and laughed some more.

So! It’s especially interesting that Ethan’s teacher told James this story about Ethan in school yesterday!

His class were writing up their own autobiographical information, and Ethan got to a part where he was supposed to put down how much he weighed as a newborn, in a complete sentence. He raised his hand and the teacher came over, and Ethan whispered to him, “Is it OK if I write uterus?”

He had taken my warning to heart and was concerned about being inappropriate!

WHILE WE’RE ON THE SUBJECT, KILN FIRED PLACENTA PLEASE!

Because I’m a masochistic sadist (i don’t know which is which term means what so I’m using both) I made a google alert for “used paragon kiln for sale”. So anytime google finds a hit for that search term, it emails me. Then I can get excited before remembering that a) we’re moving and big kiln purchases, however used and cheap they may be, are not a good idea, and b) i shouldn’t be buying a kiln anyway, remember that casting kit you got amy? the one you haven’t even used once yet? how about you try THAT out before spending over $500 bucks on a kiln, hmmmm??? See — I like to torture myself with emails about what I want to buy before I tell myself I can’t buy it.

Well, sadly, my used kiln google alert pretty much just turns up links to a lot of spam, which I delete and move on. Lately, my hopes don’t even get that temporary rise when I see the subject of the email.

It used to go like this:

subject: Google Alert – used paragon kiln for sale

amy: (oh. OH! maybe this is it! maybe there’s a kiln for sale somewhere that is priced so low, i can buy it and not feel guilty!)

-click open email-

amy: (god damn “Allen heath gl2400 service manual used paragon gl24 kiln for sale bigger dick.” F**k you.

~fini~

This time though, I was slightly amused that this bout of spam google found for me included “sacred fist,” “placenta,” as well as “used kiln” in all the jumble of words-trying-to-catch-the-google-search. Maybe the spammer bot was trying to lure some pagan native american home birthing new mommies who needed a used kiln to make their sacred fist placenta new moon life fajitas with.

THAT IS ENOUGH FROM YOU, MADAM!

And with kiln fired placenta fajitas, I shall bid you adieu.

- Amy

(LOOKIT THAT I DIDN’T SAY A WORD ABOUT JEWELRY!)

(THAT KILN SPAM STORY TOTALLY DOESN’T COUNT)

Yesterday, I enthusiastically hollered when we crossed the (first) state border, “we’re in WEST VIRGINIA!” and the kids and I hooted at holered and wheeeee-ed. About an hour later, we pulled over at a rest area for a pee pee stop, and there was a pay phone right in front of our car. Ethan immediately was drawn to it.

“MOM! Can I call Daddy?”
“No,” I said,
“Please? I just want to tell hin we’re in North America!”

Then 15 minutes later when we stopped at a fast food place, as we were climbing ou Jocelyn asked, “Do they speak english here?”

THIS IS WHY WE CAME

Here’s my Dad, reading bedtime stories to 3 kids who then wouldn’t SLEEP for another hour or so:

Just a general sort of round up on his behaviour: He has a few friends in our neighborhood that he will play with, but James and I feel the need to “hover” if they’re outside or even inside, to mediate any issues that come up or step in if things get rough. When he is over at their house(s), we worry the whole time. At school, he will roll around on the floor at times, if too close to his neighbors, he will get in their space and/or poke them – his desk is generally pulled away a bit for this reason. He will sometimes circle his desk around and around. Some sensory things we’ve noticed, he will also often chew on things, and will make a sort of whistling noise through his teeth. He loves to wear super soft clothing – he won’t wear jeans, and loves the pants that are made from sweatshirt-type material. He loves footsie jammies partly because he prefers to be on the warm side when he’s sleeping, but partly because every inch of his body is covered in softness.

Actually, now that I think about it, I think he’s stopped the chewing (or if not stopped, it’s lessened a great deal) as well as the whistling through his teeth.

He is very inventive and curious about all sorts of things. They were doing surveys and votes in class, and he decided to do one at home – he counted up all the smoke detectors and all the sprinklers and tallied them up with tally marks. He loves to tinker on James’ workbench – taking apart an old printer, or attaching components to an old mother board. He knows how to make a computer fan work by attaching the wire ends to a 9volt battery. We used to have him read us a book every night, but during the winter holidays he complained he was too tired at the end of the day, so we switched it to mornings, and we call it our snuggle reading time. He is growing more confident with reading, but still will sometimes just look at the beginning of a word and guess at the rest instead of seeing the whole word. He’s grown so tall that it’s hard to snuggle with him (and yet we still manage somehow!)

He is very sweet and compassionate, loves anything that is “cute” (puppies, kittens, wee little robots, the color pink) and lately the WALL*E obsession in our house has reached epic proportions. A number pad has been installed in front of the stairs where numbers are entered before walking up them. “Trash cubes” are made from anything handy (blankies and laundry mostly). Anything picked up is picked up with robotic WALL*E-ish movements, and whole conversations from the movie can be repeated verbatim. “Give me the plant! -Tell me Auto! That’s an ORDER! -Very well sir.” “HALT!” is also a common order given around our house, like the steward bots on the Axiom.

Well, I think that’s enough for now. We’ll see how it goes from here.

-amy

He has been going to a weekly “Social Achievers” class at the counseling center for about 2 months now (big gaps for the holidays) and each time, they’ve said he has really struggled with it – giving attitude and fighting the redirecting they’ve done. The last few times have been better though, with less attitude and more cooperation.

In the meantime, he was tested by a psychologist in the same center for ADD/ADHD in mid-November, and before we received the results of that testing, the school asked us to come in for a child study. This was in early/mid December.

The child study went well. “Well” being defined as my ability to hold it together and not be too devastated by what was discussed! Also defined by the sensitivity and obvious compassion those involved displayed for my son. His teacher, the vice principal, the reading specialist and the school’s psychologist were present at the meeting, as well as James and I. We went over areas that he shows strength (science, math) and areas that he is weak on (reading) and his behaviour throughout everything. Even though he is struggling in reading, he loves nothing more than to sit with a book or be read aloud to.

His teacher and the reading specialist have worked out a system of rewards for good behaviour, when he is on task and staying focused he will get to color in part of a space shuttle. When he has colored a certain number of pieces he gets a bigger prize, such as lunch with his teacher, extra time in an activity he loves, lunch in the classroom with a fellow classmate, etc. His teacher also has been charting how often he is on task, with the goal that he stays on task 70% of the time. This means that she marks down how he is doing every ten minutes throughout the day. She also keeps James and I appraised of how his day went with an email home at the end of each day. I can’t tell you how blown away I am by the school, his teacher, and the administrative staff. I am so grateful that they have been so open and helpful and truly concerned about helping him be the best student he can be.

After discussing Ethan in great detail, they basically said that we can just continue as we have been, and have another meeting in the spring to see how he is doing, or we could start testing to see if there is more going on that we don’t know. We opted to start testing. They will test for a wide spectrum of items and hopefully it will give us a bigger picture and more insight into how we can help him.

In the meantime, right before the holidays I received a few voice mails from the psychologist who did his testing at the counseling center, and after playing phone tag, got a meeting set up to go over the results. We met with her last week, and she has diagnosed him with ADHD with a recommendation for a psychiatric consultation for medication.

I don’t know if it’s because of some of the possibilities that were tossed around in the school meeting (Asberger’s was one) that totally freaked me out and made ADHD a walk in the park by comparison, but I took this news very well, although it was exactly what I had been dreading. I am totally freaked out at the possibility of giving my SIX YEAR OLD a DAILY medication. (Totally. Completely. Did I mention I’m totally freaked out? LIke, WAY FREAKED OUT. A medication EVERY DAY. That will screw up WHO KNOWS WHAT as a side effect. Just want to be clear here! Me = FREAKED.)

From what I’ve read, ADHD can be a pretty subjective diagnosis. But I can’t avoid the fact that Ethan definitely has some problems that points pretty clearly to ADHD. I am not fighting this diagnosis, I just want to make sure that the help we give him will be the best for him, his health, and his physiological well being. I’ve talked to a few friends whose kids do use medication, and heard their stories. I’ve talked to my sister who has kids with ADHD and does not medicate. I am definitely more open to medication THAN I WAS before the holidays, but I honestly don’t feel the rush to make a decision RIGHT NOW.

However, what we are going to do RIGHT NOW, is get him in to see a psychiatrist. I’ve always felt like what we’re doing for him now is not right, or rather, not enough. I think he would benefit with one on one sessions, and I think James and I would benefit as well – part of the reason I don’t like what’s going on now is it gives James and I no feedback with how we should be doing things. When he acts impulsively or throws a tantrum, or comes home from school with a report of a bad day – are we handling it adequately? Is there something we could be doing better? I feel like we could use someone to help us with ideas on the homefront that we can employ in specific situations. I mentioned this once to the counselor who runs his class, and I think she thought I was playing a “But I’m such a BAD PARENT!” sympathy bit or something and told me I’m not a bad parent, I’m doing fine.

But I didn’t say I was a bad parent – and I don’t think we are bad parents. I don’t have to be a bad parent to want better parenting skills and skills to help Ethan cope better, not to mention, skills to help ME COPE BETTER. I think some one on one sessions well help Ethan, but also help us, and after a psychiatrist knows him and has worked with him a bit, I’ll be interested to see what their opinion on medication is.

So, once again, I’ve looked around for a new psychiatrist/clinic we can switch him too and once again I keep looking at this clinic that was recommended to us and moaning that they aren’t in our insurance. I called to get their self-pay rates, and even though we would be reinbursed 50% for out of network providers, AND we pushed our medical flexible spending account sky high for this year, it would be tough to say goodbye to that much money. The office staff person actually had one of the doctors call me back and after talking with her for a minute, she recommended some other psychiatrists in the area – one of which I had actually looked up after finding him on the insurance website’s network of providers. Relieved, I called this clinic and set up an appointment.

So right now, we’re kind of in a wait and see mode. Wait and see how it goes with the psychiatrist. Continue taking him to his social achiever’s class until we see the doctor. Wait and see what the school testing results looks like.

Since this is getting pretty long, I’m going to write more about Ethan himself tomorrow, lest I kill anyone with all these words!

-amy

Before they were sent off, I did take pictures.

Outside of Ethan’s letter:

What can I say, he likes to scare people.

Ethan’s letter to Santa:

Text:
Dear Santa, I would like a spy kit. From, Ethan

Jocelyn’s letter to Santa

A little trickier to read, so here’s the text:

Dear Santa! I would like a green buzz!!!!!!! I’ve been very good! Jocelyn

(edited to add: She is referring to Buzz Lightyear. None of those 5″ $5 purple ones, either, she wants the $20 12-inch one, that is GREEN.)

I have to say. Ever since James and I spawned offspring, I’ve been secretly waiting for the day I could take pictures of their letters to Santa.

Too cute.

I’ve always thought this was a fun idea – a cake to celebrate the beginning of the new school year. It originally was a cake a friend of mine made because she was so relieved to have the kids out of the house for a large portion of the day again, but I think it still works for us.

I put a twist on it though, we made it a KID-ONLY cake. Meaning, only KIDS are allowed to make it! I told them what to do, I held the bowl when they scraped it into the pan, and I put it into the oven, but other than that, this cake was made by KIDS ONLY! They were SO PROUD!

View all the photos in this here fancy photo-scrollin’-seein’ thingee below:

This has been rattling around in my head for a week or so. Let’s see if I can get it out in some sort of concise manner.

When you’re a teenager, well probably long before that, but let’s go with this for now shall we? Jeez. quit interupting and just let me get this out already!

Ahem.

When you’re a teenager, you are very aware of what others are thinking, what they’re wearing, what they’re doing, what they’re eating, what they like, what they don’t like, what they might think of you, whether you’re cool, whether you’re not cool, etc.

So you start to really pay attention to your own behavior, clothes, habits, etc. You monitor everything you do so as not to be deemed uncool. Thus is your entry into the world of adulthood, constantly monitoring, choosing, judging both yourself and others, on whether they or you are “cool”. This goes on pretty much forever, in what we call “society.”

So you are going along, constantly monitoring your own social acceptance levels all the way into adulthood, then you find that special someone. You and the special someone waggle your eyes at each other. SEXY! Suddenly, you get all busy and then BAM! 9 months later you are PARENTS. Sure, you may have planned this all out. But even if you didn’t, you had 9 months to mentally prepare yourself for this thing called parenthood. I can totally do this, you think. I’m hip! I’m one cool chick/dude! I’ll be the awesomest mom/dad out there! Bring it! Wooo! Babies!

So then you have this tiny little mewling infant who demands constant attention, needs to be fed constantly, poops on you, barfs on you, won’t let you sleep, and has you completely wrapped around your little finger.

The constant demands on your attention, coupled with the lack of sleep, have completely stolen away any sense of cool you may have had. Cool is suddenly, not nearly as high a priority as it once was. Managing to brush your teeth before noon? If you can manage it, AND a baby wipe bath (because let’s face it, not showering has made that baby spew that went down your shirt really start to smell rank) is just about the highlight of your day.

So the cool – totally gone. But even at this stage, you still know what cool IS. You are still TOTALLY cool! You are just… caught at a bad time, right? It’s not like you would GO OUT INTO THE WORLD like this!! OK, yes, there was that one time where you HAD to run to the store and didn’t notice that you were wearing sweats, flip flops and a t-shirt that says, “I PUT OUT!” with a happy fire extinguisher on it* and spit-up all down the back, but that was EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES! You were out of DIAPERS! You still totally know what cool was, and once you could get a decent 6 hours of sleep (ALL IN A ROW!) you might be able to function at a normal level of cool! Really! Someone should just put, “There are extenuating circumstances for this outfit!” on a t-shirt and all would be well. The world will excuse you, right? And if not, well fuck them, you have a new baby.

* James is actually wearing this shirt right now, minus the baby spew.

And time goes by! And you do get those six hours all lined up in a row (which totally helps one to feel like an actual human being again, forget about the cool!) and you can start to function normally again and even manage to give yourself a good once over before leaving the house to make sure there’s no snot, vomit, spit up or poop anywhere in sight! This is a positive step!

And it’s true that once you get over that initial ‘new baby’ hump, you do largely return to your cool, hip self, (albeit with a new infant, you emerge like a bear blinking in the sun to a strange and totally new and beautiful world, but we’re focusing on the cool thing in this post, so I won’t go into that). But that is where you are WRONG. You have lost your cool. It’s subtle, but it’s THERE.

You are walking down the store aisles keeping a constant stream of one sided conversation up with your infant kid because of course you know that hearing YOU talk is how SHE learns to talk and yes, you did feel silly in the beginning but now you don’t even notice the people looking at you strangely as you ask Jocelina-Beena if you should get daddy some chocolate syrup or not. “Yes! We should,” you say, totally oblivious to HOW UNCOOL YOU ARE AT THIS MOMENT, “You’re so right cutie patootie! Let’s get daddy some chocolate ice cream too! Ooh, and let’s not forget Mommy’s bottle of wine, oh no!” You continue this banter as the only response you get from baby is the occasional spit bubble.

And it continues as baby gets bigger. You do the weirdest, UNCOOLEST stuff ever. Everyone knows that it is totally uncool to be super enthusiastic about ANYTHING. Cool is nothing but the epitome of blase. Cool is never, “AWESOME!” Cool is always laid back, “It’s all good.” This however, dosn’t fly with the toddler set.

“WOWEE! LOOK AT THE TRAIN!”
“YOU’RE RIGHT, YOU CAN DO IT ALL BY YOURSELF!”
“AN AIRPLANE! I MAY FALL OVER FROM THE SHEER EXCITEMENT OF IT ALL!”
“LOOK AT THAT! YOU PEED IN THE POTTY!”
“DID YOU DRAW THIS FOR ME??!! PERFECTION! A TRIUMPH! BEST SCRIBBLE EVER! I GIVE IT FIVE STARS!!”

Even as they get older, and grow out of the need for this over exuberance, it’s hard for you to let it go. I mean, after all these years, you’re allowed to show excitement about things that really ARE cool and exciting to you! What fun! You’re not about to give that up! Trains ARE exciting dammit! And that drawing baby made you make for her of a mermaid? It’s awesome! There’s nothing wrong with being proud of that! Screw cool! And you are finally allowed to take pride and show some enthusiasm in your hobbies and accomplishments! You know how long it’s been since that was allowed? Since YOU were a kid! It’s been a long time, so why not relish it?

“LOOK AT THIS BUNNY I MADE! ISN’T IT THE CUTEST THING YOU’VE EVER SEEN IN YOUR LIFE??!”

And that’s it. It’s all downhill from there. You find yourself singing along to all the Little People, Laurie Berkner, and They Might Be Giants (kid) songs, even figuring out a counter-point melody to sing against “I’ve Been Working On The Railroad” –even LOOKING FORWARD to the “Teddy Bear Picnic” song. You start to do funny voices for all the different characters in the stories you read to your child, and you even kind of enjoy settling in for a nice game of “Barbie goes to the ball… in this MONSTER TRUCK!!” (yes, this is the kind of thing you do when you have both son and daughter). You let your daughter put piggy tails all over your head. You let your son jump on you even if it means you might get a knee to the nads. You become THAT PARENT who calmly, even serenely continues their shopping even though they have a child screaming bloody murder in the shopping cart.

Let’s face it. Even if you are OUTWARDLY cool… your kid is closer to you then the rest of the world. Your kid SEES all this uncoolness. And what’s more, when they are little, they need it. They CRAVE it. You really are not being a very good parent if you tell your kid that no, you won’t draw her a mermaid because it just wouldn’t be COOL, right? They need it, and you give it, but it will bite you in the ass later, because they ABSORB IT ALL IN ALL IT’S UNCOOL GOOEYNESS!

And then your kids grow up.

And they LEARN about what it is to be cool.

And they remember their childhood and all those uncool things you did. Admit it. You did a LOT of uncool things. Those imitations of Tom Cruise sliding across the wood floor singing into a hairbrush? You thought it was cool, and at the time, it made you the best daddy in the world.

But now they know. They’re on to you. You are SO not cool.

And you have to admit… they’ve got a point. But it doesn’t matter at this point, because you’ve learned that coolness just isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. It’s way cooler to be uncool, baby!

So go ahead. Be uncool. OWN it baby! You NEED to be uncool! Just don’t say I didn’t warn you when your 14 year old rolls her eyes and asks you to drop her off a block away from the school so she won’t be seen with you. She’s totally right. She’s got years of memories of the total uncoolness that is you.

But don’t worry. With a bit of luck, after an appropriate amount of time, she’ll find someone special and they’ll start waggling their eyes at each other, and before she knows it, she’ll have lost her cool to the world of baby spew.

And you’ll get to spoil her subsequent children tell them they can have ANYTHING they want, feed them stuff that’s bad for them and then send them back to her uncool ass just before they crash from the sugar high!

So it all comes out OK in the end!

Children-wise, I mean.

The kids have been so happy go lucky. Last Friday was the last week of “school” and this week was designated as “daycare only” at their school, which means Ethan has gotten to bring his Nintendo DS to school with him and play to his little heart’s content, and probably not much of any change for Jocelyn.

Next week summer camp starts, which is filled with much more exciting things, especially for Ethan, since he is in the “big kids” summer camp. He gets to board the school’s vans each day and head out to the pool, skating, mini golf, & bowling. Jocelyn gets to have game day, splash day, movie day, and imagination station day (all at the school).

So I was kind of afraid this might be a blah week for them, but they’ve been so cheery and happy I am looking back at the week, kind of amazed. In fact on Wednesday when I picked them up, they were so lovey dovey and happy that I commented to them, “You guys are happier than a pile of puppies!” which made them laugh and giggle with even MORE happiness.

We all had so much fun at the pool last Sunday that I promised I would take them after school on Friday. Yesterday Ethan asked, “How many days until Friday?”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because Friday we’re going to the POOL!”

“Well, you should be happy because TOMORROW is Friday!”

“WAHOO!! I’m going to swim under water again! And I’m going to show Daddy this time!”

These kids. So cute. I hope the “happy” streak continues for a LONG long while.

“I’m a PIRATE!” she called out gaily.
“She’s a PIRATE!” Ethan called out gaily.
“Look it’s a PIRATE!” I called out gaily.

“Ahoy!” said Ethan.
“Ahoy!” said Jocelyn.
“Say, ‘Yo ho yo!’” I said.
“YO HO HO!” Jocelyn chortled, pulling her t-shirt down further over her eye.
“Say, “WALK THE PLANK, YE SCURVY LASSEY!” I said.
“WALK THE PLANK YOU FLOPPY PLASTIC!” Jocelyn said.
“Say ARRRRGHHH!” Ethan said.
“ARRRRRRRRRGH!” Jocelyn said.
“Say ‘schwab the deck, ye landlubbers!” I said.
“Schwab the deck you ladyfingers!” She hollered with delight.

Then I turned into mean mommy and made them brush their teeth, despite their claims that pirates don’t brush teeth.

I won’t be growing zuchini or cucumbers, because a) no one ever ate any but me, and b) the zucchini grew to GARGANTUAN sizes before I could pick them, which makes them less yummy.

The raspberries look like they are going to take over the world, the roots have REALLY spread out, and the strawberries are all intermingled with the raspberries. I should have done something about them last fall and now it’s too late. Note to self: Move the strawberries somewhere ELSE next fall. We already have a TON of little green baby strawberries growing. I can’t WAIT.

We’re doing sunflowers along the deck again – I LOVED those. We planted them on Sunday. I may also plant a pumpkin, because our mystery pumpkin was so much fun. Will definitely plant it later in the spring/summer though, as the pumpkin was ready long before October, and we’ll want some for halloween, o’course!

GOALS
I’m totally screwing the pooch on some of my new years goals, so I need to go over that. Blech.

KIDS
Soccer and tball season is upon us. Ethan’s games are going well, and I think he is really having a ball. Jocelyn love, love LOVES her soccer practice/games and even if she is a little clingy during them, afterward she always says, “I had SO MUCH FUN!” We had a vague repeat of the first game from last spring and I had an eerie deja vu feeling. It’s fun, but it really does run us ragged. Our menu planning is going to go SO downhill. I am the manager for Jocelyn’s team, so far I’ve only forgotten 1 thing. ERr, 2 things. At least I’ve come a long way since our first soccer game. Maybe.

EASTER
i have very cute pictures that i need to do something.

PHOTOS
It’s a shame that I fell off the 360 photos thingee because now the camera is sitting there, getting dusty. Someday I should pick it up again.

MONEY MONEY MONEY!
OK, not really money, but budget. The more I use YNAB, the more I LOVE it and I want to wax philosophical about that and see if I can’t get some of you to USE IT!

THAT’S ALL, FOLKS!