Because today is POP TART DAY at California Tortilla!

Head over to your local California Tortilla and they’ll give you a pop-tart. Isn’t July 18th WONDERFUL? It’s POP TART DAY! And, hell, get a burrito, nachos and darn tasty queso while you’re there. I highly recommend the crunchy barbeque ranch. Yum.

July 17th: Unbeknownst to the vacationing Pop Tarts,
they would all be eaten the next day.

• made french toast, yum!
• bought 2 boy presents for upcoming birthday parties
• somehow prevented ethan from opening/ playing with/ otherwise molesting said birthday presents (james receives due credit for this feat as well.
• cleaned out office/guest room closet (#2 hardness rating on scale of 1-5, 5 being the hardest)
• bought new hardware for kids’ chest of drawers, the same chest of drawers that james had in his room growing up (hardness rating, #1)
• installed very cute new drawer pulls/knobs (#1)
• realized that a great deal more work will be needed to install new slides (#3)
• abandoned ‘fix kids’ dresser’ project, got thee to ikea for new dresser and shelf above dresser (#-137, oh so fun! ikea! yay!)
• 90% completion of putting together new dresser (#3, just on pure tediousness and time consumption)
• cleaned out 2nd walk in master bedroom closet (#4329, OMG I’D RATHER HAVE GOUGED MY EYEBALLS OUT)
• harvested small bowl of cherry tomatoes (2nd bowl sitting on the counter that i need to do something with
• harvested HUGE zucchini that I had no idea was actually growing on the plant. oops.
• harvested FIVE RASPBERRIES.
• convinced ethan to try one (jocelyn was a no-go)
• did not let children drown while swimming over at kurt and ann’s (au contraire, much fun was had by all, cute kid stories on that later)
• took beautiful pictures of blankies made by mother, and given to the kids when we were on our vacation in utah
• saw harry potter and the order of the phoenix (… eh.. did they READ the book? yeah, didn’t think so..)
• procured babysitter for next friday night, when james and i will buy the VERY LAST HARRY POTTER BOOK AT MIDNIGHT OMG I’M FREAKING OUT AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
• learned all about queen/pharaoh Hatshepsut, damn one ballsy woman.
• drank a little too much …. and wrote this entry. wheeee!
• i know i should link some things in this entry, but NOT GOING TO. DEAL.
• once again, WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

• My wallpaper art didn’t come yesterday. MAYBE TODAY!
• I’ve decided that the guest room will need some red in it. I hankering for a cuckoo clock painted glossy red, how yummy!
• my design/ decorating/ interior blog reading has reached new obsessive porportions that even frightens me a little bit. I woke up this morning from a dream that involved curtains, artwork and paint chips after reading casapinka’s blog all the way through from the first entry last night.
• I lost the lens cap to our camera. Luckily it was the cheap lens. Does that make it any better? I’m hoping it will show up, but since I ALWAYS stick the lens cap into my bra, and it wasn’t there when I was through with the camera nor anywhere in the only two rooms I was in during the camera’s use, I have no choice but to look facts in the face. My bosoms have eaten the lens cap. James would do well to beware.
• I got out the camera last night because James was out boozing and whoring with people who have absolutely nothing in common except the facts that they all own the same kind of car*, and I got to stay home and play with the kids by myself.

  This is more of a challenge than you might think. If you just play with Ethan, then Jocelyn is left out. If you just play with Jocelyn, then Ethan is left out. So we all played together in a big roleplay of getting Cinderella to the ball. Since I actually took pictures, I’ll wait until they are accessible before giving you the whole story, but I will tell you it involved cinderella, of course, construction machines, race cars, a my little pony and a police helicopter. More at 11.

-amy practices for the bubble yum olympics

* I guess they also have the penis thing in common. Will have to ask if any girls attended STI gathering.

I’m hoping that this square of wallpaper I purchased last week arrives today:

It is going to hang in our guest room, whose walls, painted a medium brown shade (I call it, ‘Melted Chocolate Ice Cream’) I’m totally digging on more and more.

I am going to keep my eye out for a light blue vase to go on the bedside table.

This is all part of my decorating plan of “getting a clue BEFORE buying shit.” I often see things that I like or think I like and subsequently purchase, all to get it home and realize that I’ve no idea where to put it or if it even goes with what’s in the room already. I end up sticking it somewhere that doesn’t really fit it and pondering on what my style IS EXACTLY ANYWAY and wondering how other people manage to do this so easily. As such, I’m starting to build quite the design/ house/ decorating blog list. It’s my new obsession.

As such, I think colors are the place to start. I’ve been thinking a lot about colors to go on the walls of our main level. It’s all very open and connected, so I think 1 main color with some accent walls will work best. I currently in love with the brown/blue, brown/red, brown/pink, brown/green combinations (although I don’t want a pink wall, I just don’t have that kind of chutzpuh).

I’m pretty content to just mull it over for a good long while and make sure it’s what I want. The blue and brown of that newly purchased artwork however — I’m leaning toward it for our living room, except with maybe a deeper brown.

Seriously, how could you not love brown?

-amy

Yesterday was fun. I was working, and Jocelyn was able to play pretty well by herself. It was interesting just to watch her. Ethan always settles down with his boy toys (legos, cars, transformers, construction machines, you name it) and will play while usually stating every 5 minutes, “Come play with me mommy!” It gets pretty old.

Jocelyn is different. She has never known a life of just playing on her own. Her brother or her schoolmates are always there. I’m not saying she’s NEVER played alone, but it just isn’t a common occurence. First she kind of wanders around, sometimes taking my suggestions, “What’s that? I think Julie is crying! (her doll) I think she needs her breakfast!” (Jocelyn scampers off to attend to Julie) sometimes not. She loves to dress up, and so at one point she had on her poofy pink dress up dress on, a pair of swimming goggles on her forehead like a headband, and was kicking a soccer ball over the house while wearing a pair of dress up shoes, which I just loved. (And yet did not grab a picture of, doh!)

Probably more than 5 times, she said, “Let’s go get my brother,” and I had to tell her that it wasn’t time yet. She just wasn’t quite sure what she was supposed to do all by herself. She always follows Ethan’s lead and she missed him. She also insisted that I stop calling her Jocelyn. For about an hour she was Cinderella, but then for the rest of the day she wanted to be called Ariel.

She was doing good at naptime (during which she took off all her clothes and put on Ethan’s, including his underwear, and then climbed into his bed to snuggle in) until the auto shop called and said my car was ready. They also said they could pick me up. So no nap for her.

I’d been kicking around the idea of a combination ballet/tap summer dance class for her because a) she is always always dancing. dancing and singing, that’s my girl, and b) loves loves to dress up and twirl around and c) hello! a dance class! for toddlers! need I say more, SHE WILL LOVE IT! So after we picked up the car, we went to target to check out their supply of leotards and tights (too big on both counts) and then went to the dance center in our community to sign her up.

Class starts TODAY, so we went from there to pick up Ethan and then to a dance shop in Manassas to get our supplies. The dance center said that since it was just a summer 6 week class, the cheap tap & ballet shoes from wal-mart would suffice. I don’t shop at Wal-mart, but I also didn’t want to pay out the nose for supplies for a 6 week dance class. I broke down and called them to see they actually had tap & ballet shoes, and they said they used to carry them, but now didn’t. I also called k-mart and target, and no dice. So we went to the very nice dance boutique and got Jocelyn real pink leather ballet shoes and sweet little white tap shoes. I’m glad I didn’t have to step foot into wal-mart, to tell the truth.

The nice lady got her fitted with shoes while Ethan found the stash of toys in the corner and kept himself busy. Jocelyn stood on the square of hard floor in front of the mirror and watched herself stomping and tapping and clicking her tap shoes with a look of utter delight on her face. We picked up her tights and leotard from there too. Now that she has real stuff instead of cheap fake stuff, maybe we’ll do a session or two of dance during the year as well.

When I was a little girl, for one of my birthday parties, we had a dancing theme. I remember my mom made tutus for all my friends and we all danced around to Olivia Newton John’s “Let’s Get Physical.” I also remember when I got my first pair of ballet shoes. I wasn’t in ballet. I did take ballet (and modern dance, and gymnastics) years later when I was about 10, but my first pair of ballet shoes my mom ordered for me from a catalog when I was 4 or 5. I remember the day they came, and putting them on with my leotard and long pink tutu.. my mom says I hardly ever took them off. She said I was dancing all the time.. dancing and singing. I wonder where Jocelyn gets it from 🙂

This morning Jocelyn excitedly told Ethan, “Today is my dancing class!!”

I hope it will be a hit. I want to stay and watch the class (at least the first one!) but am torn because I know Ethan won’t be able to sit still for an hour. I guess we’ll see how it goes. I should have put a movie on my video ipod.

ps – the mystery fever is gone, but there is a notice up on her classroom door saying how hand foot mouth disease has been spotted in her class. GREAT. I don’t think that’s what she had, but now I’m just hoping she doesn’t catch it!

UPDATE:
My friend Ann pointed me to this petition, let’s hope it helps:

“Congress must force Vice President Cheney to respond to its subpoenas. If he continues to obstruct justice and disregard the rule of law, Congress has no choice but to begin impeachment proceedings against him.”

Sign the petition.
________

On this, the day after the 4th of July, I urge you to watch or read this commentary by Keith Olbermann. I would suggest the video.

I don’t usually get political here. a) i usually isolate myself from the political news (more and more and more with this administration, it only brings heartache) in ways which include big cardboard boxes and tin foil hats to block the mind control rays (i do occasionally let the daily show in though) and b) let’s face it, am *I* really going to change your mind if you don’t agree with me? Probably not, so I don’t go there.

So I’m breaking with that convention because a) this is so past the level of acceptability that how, HOW can one not speak? It’s like… I tore my hair out years ago when he snooped on us without a judges’ consent and then they all used yahoo instead of their official emails and the list just goes on and one and you just get so tired of not beleiving this could HAPPEN that you just have to splutter and gape and it still feels so useless because hello! I’ve spluttered and gaped SO MANY TIMES IN THE LAST SEVEN YEARS and b) this piece was just perfectly done.

Olbermann: Bush, Cheney should resign
“I didn’t vote for him, but he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job.” -John Wayne, after Nixon was defeated by Kennedy

But just as essential to the seventeen words of John Wayne, is an implicit trust – a sacred trust: That the president for whom so many did not vote, can in turn suspend his political self long enough, and for matters imperative enough, to conduct himself solely for the benefit of the entire Republic.

…

Did so even before the appeals process was complete; did so without as much as a courtesy consultation with the Department of Justice; did so despite what James Madison—at the Constitutional Convention—said about impeaching any president who pardoned or sheltered those who had committed crimes “advised by” that president; did so without the slightest concern that even the most detached of citizens must look at the chain of events and wonder: To what degree was Mr. Libby told: break the law however you wish—the President will keep you out of prison?

In that moment, Mr. Bush, you broke that fundamental com-pact between yourself and the majority of this nation’s citizens—the ones who did not cast votes for you. In that moment, Mr. Bush, you ceased to be the President of the United States. In that moment, Mr. Bush, you became merely the President of a rabid and irresponsible corner of the Republican Party. And this is too important a time, Sir, to have a commander-in-chief who puts party over nation.

I will get back to the zucchini i picked andthe quilted bookmark I made and cute funny kid stories tomorrow.. But right now I’m too busy spluttering and gaping.

Hope everyone had a lovely holiday.

so if you have a wii and want our little mii’s to talk and visit, poke me on the comments and we can exchange wii numbers!

The kids’ made their very own little bobble-dudes and they’re very cute.

Bobble-dude looks very strange typed out. It’s better when you say it out loud. It just rolls off the tongue.

Bobble-dude.

Bobble-dude.

Bobble-dude.

Bobble-dude is what the little lego men are called in my family. We don’t actually call the Wii people bobble dudes. That just popped into my head just now. The lego guys are actually called mini-figs, but not in our house. Bobble-dude is what I grew up with, and bobble-dude it shall be, forever and ever, amen.

I sometimes take pictures with my phone, see. Like on vacations when you wish I’d just leave dead blog space for a few weeks, but nooooo I insist on taking blurry pictures with my camera phone.

I also often send myself email. Like account numbers or notes to myself.. just to have it in the abyss that is gmail’s email storage, ready for me to pull up with just a few clicks of the gmail search.

I have a super secret email address that my blog knows about and goes and checks every hour. If anything is in that inbox, then my blog goes and POSTS it! So see I can be out in the middle of Moab, taking pictures of dirty kid’s knees with a big hovering red rock over them, and them just send it to my super secret email address and BOOM! Blog post! Look ma, no hands!

So can you guess what I did? I sent myself a little note about the website where we order the very special cat food which prevents crystals from forming in our cats’ bladders, because that would mean = peeing all over the house and that would mean = bad bad bad and so yes, i sent myself a note on what the username and password is for that account, and did i ACTUALLY send it to myself?

No! I didn’t! I sent it to the super secret blog email address and sent it to all of you! DAMN YOU AUTO-COMPLETE! Lucky for me, I never actually put down the actual password, I just put down a phrase that will remind me of what my password is, because storing your passwords in a non secure place like gmail is a dummy dumb dumb thing to do.

bobble-dude.

bobbledude.

bauble dood

Dumb.

So yeah, that’s what that weird item about the garbled veterinarian thingee was.

-amy, bobble-dudes 4-ever!
-amy’s password is not bobbledude. Just FYI.

Wednesday, I took the kids to Barnes and Noble where they got a disney princess book, and a book about ambulances (i’ll let you guess which one goes to whom…) and I got…

Bend the Rules Sewing, by Amy Karol – of angry chicken fame.

Thursday I pored over the book and decided to make nearly all the patterns therein… But mostly, I wanted to make “Charming Handbag.” Next in line is the scalloped baby blanket and a ton of bibs.

Friday I stopped at the fabric store and picked out the lining for my handbag. I knew what I wanted for the bag itself, but I was fairly nervous about picking out a complimentary fabric for the lining. I am pretty pleased with my selection – I think it turned out very well!

I knew that if I were to actually USE this bag, I would need a pocket on the outside for my keys and my phone, so I made my own bias tape (instructions are in the book!) out of the lining fabric and edged the pocket with it.

My only issue is the straps – I am going to redo them with some sort of lining inside and wider, as they are a bit flimsy and I want them a lot sturdier – but I am pretty proud of myself.

Isn’t it pretty?

I found the most precious fabric ever for the scalloped baby blanket. I love it so much, that I must confess I decided, “screw babies! I’m going to make this for my own girlie!” and bought 4 yards. I can’t wait til I finish it and show you.

-amy is not to be operated under the influence of alcohol

I am in the Prince William Chorale, and our final concert is on July 28, in Manassas, VA. We are doing a few medleys of Beauty & the Beast and Andrew Lloyd Webber which are a hoot to sing as well as some american folk songs, pieces by John Rutter, and other beautiful pieces. Our director has opened the Broadway selections (Beast and Webber) for anyone who wishes to join in during the concert and sing with us. It’s a great idea really, everyone knows these songs anyway, you attend our rehearsals for a month, not a big time commitment there, and then get to sing with us in front of an audience in the concert. It’s a good way for those who are thinking about joining a choir to “try it out” and see if they like it, and a great way for us to recruit some members for our 2007-2008 season.

So if you’re in the prince william/manassas area and think seeing “Be our Guest”, “Kill the Beast!”, “Memories”, and “Jesus Christ Superstar” would be a hoot, then check out our Director’s open invitation and I hope I’ll see you on Tuesday at our rehearsal! If not, then perhaps you’d like to attend our concert! It will be fun, and there’ll be a reception with refreshments afterward. Click on the link above for directions on how to get there.

See you there!

-amy is especially good at expectorating

It occurs to me that this whole pink eye situation has taught James and I one thing: How to give our children eye drops with very little fuss and bother. And so, I will attempt to share the one good thing to come out of this mess – our professional knowledge on giving kids eye drops.

1. First things first. You must acquire some patience. It does no one any good to become frustrated and controlling. Think about it. Much like sleeping, eating and pooping, there is nothing, NOTHING you can do to make your child open his or her eye. If they decide to screw their eyes closed, you are screwed. Totally and completely screwed. And attempting to wrench someone’s eyes open long enough to drop in some eye drops will NOT be the most pleasant experience in the world. You must acknowledge that the instinct for ANYONE when something comes near the eye, is to blink, or otherwise protect the eyeball. When the kid throws up his or her hands in defense, they cannot help it. That is what the brain is telling them to do. And the VERY WORST thing you can do is to get all loud and yelly, and order them to put them hands down, or to stop blinking, or to open your eyes already, dammit! Yes. Not good things to say. Just keep in mind that you have to do this (of course your dosage may vary, but probably about) THREE times a day for the NEXT 7-10 DAYS. If you lose your cool and get your kid all apprehensive about this on the very first day, you are going to be in hell for the next week. Seriously. If you feel like you’re losing your temper, it’s better to take a break, and try again in 10 minutes.
2. Television. Television is your friend. Lay the child down on their back, so that their head is closest to the TV, and their feet are farthest away. Load up the tivo (what? you don’t have tivo? well, I can’t help you then. DVDS! There we go!) with their favorite show, preferably a new one that they haven’t seen before. Something with talking. Cartoons filled with primarily physical comedy doesn’t have enough to draw their attention (at least, this is how it was for our kids. They love tom and jerry, but it wasn’t enough for eyedrops time.) Their position on the floor is such that they have to crane their neck upwards to see the TV. Not only their necks, but their little eyeballs have to look upward too. If they tilt their head too much so that their eyes aren’t as open as they could be, just gently slide their head down a little so that they have to keep their eyes as open as possible.
3. Hands can be a problem. They just can’t help themselves from reaching up and blocking their eye from the eyedrops. James will actually lay the kid down with arms at their side, and straddle them gently so that his knees on the floor is holding their arms in place against their body. (Please don’t put your knees on their arms!) I sit to the side of the kid with 1 leg holding one arm, and then i put my other leg across their body with my knee up in the air so that my foot on the floor holds their other arm in place. Just remember to be gentle and explain that you’re helping them to keep their hands at their side. Ethan got pretty good at this by himself so that we don’t have to hold his arms at all, but if he accidently lets his hands fly up to his face, we’ll just have him put his hands under his bottom, and the pressure of sitting/laying on his own hands is enough for him to keep them there.
4. Now in the beginning, I’ve found that turning the sound on the TV up a bit so it really captures their attention is helpful. (I actually discovered this when I would give Ethan haircuts as an 18-month-old and he was scared of the loud clippers. I’d turn the tv up, and he would forget all about the clippers. I had to turn it WAY up though.) They are very concered about that bottle of eye drops, and they want to keep track of it, and they’re thinking, “I’ll just squint and it will never go in,” but then, “OH! Look at that! It’s Charlie and Lola! Lola is small, and very funny! They have to complete the tasks their mom gave them in time to watch their favorite programme, Space Family Hudson, the Faaa-mi-ly in space!” The louder volume than usual will really distract them and they’ll crane their heads to see what’s going on. Just be patient (PATIENT PATIENT PATIENT!) and watch for that opportunity to drop the eyedrops in. You may have to hover there for 5 minutes with the bottle above their eye, readjusting the tilt of their head, or gently pulling the lower lid down, just waiting for PERFECT moment to drop them in – it’s gonna take a while, and it may take a few tries, just beeeee patient. No freaking out or yelling at the kid allowed. I sometimes have to say, “Look! what is charlie DOING?!” to Jocelyn, as she is harder to do than Ethan.
5. REWARD SYSTEM! After every successful eye drop (and there will be plenty that just hit the eyelid when the kid blinks RIGHT at the wrong time, or flinches or throws up their hand in protest. Just say, “Oopsies!” wipe it off, and take up the waiting position again.) Where was I? After each successful eye drop, have something on hand for immediate gratification. We use M&Ms or marshmellows (the little ones). And don’t depend on just the treat to be the reward, you’ve got to be a freaking cheerleader and make them feel FANTASTIC. “YOU GOT ONE! GOOD JOB! You are SO GOOD at this! What a big girl/boy! You are! YOU get an M&M! Gimme five!” I can’t stress this enough. If you make this an unpleasant experience, they are going to resist EVERY time it’s eyedrops time. If you make it a big payoff after the yucky part, they will remember and not fight you tooth and claw when eyedrops time rolls around. We always have a little pile of M&Ms waiting for them after the whole ordeal is over. It’s gotten so that Jocelyn will get excited about eyedrops and say, “I’ll get the M&Ms ready!” when it’s time. (Of course, she sometimes fusses DURING, but at least when we say it’s time for eye drops, she doesn’t run howling away from us into the night.)
6. A little more on the dropping of the drops themselves: I have found that it’s easier to tilt the body at a slight angle from the TV so that they are looking both UP, but also to the side a bit. This exposes more of the white of the eye for the drop. I always try to drop into the inner part of the eye, by the nose rather than into the outer side of the eye. It just seems like the lashes are longer and getting it INTO the eye is just a lot trickier if you’re trying to drop from the outside. Then I change the angle of their body so it’s easier to get to the inner eye of the other eye. This is getting pretty picky though, just get that sucker in anyway you can, I’m just letting you know my preference.

I think that’s it. That’s all my expertise on administering eye drops. I’ll be interested in seeing if a lot of search hits come my way from this post. I know that when we first had to give eye drops, we were totally bewildered on how exactly we could possibly accomplish this. Now, I’m happy to say that we don’t actually have to go through this whole routine each and every time. One of us has to drive to their school to give Ethan a dose of eyedrops at lunchtime and he manages that with very little bother. Today after I picked up Jocelyn’s Vigamox eye drops, I gave her her first dose in the car, with her sitting in her car seat. There was a time when I never thought THAT would EVER be possible. So if you are despairing at the thought of giving your kid eye drops, I hope this helped a little 🙂

-amy