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!

i’m working at home today, with Jocelyn* at my side. Peter Pan The Tinker Bell movie is on, and Jocelyn is watching it with wide very attentive eyes.

She turns to me,

“Mommy. I want you to show me how to fly.”

I told her we would need to have pixie dust for that, so unfortunately, we’re stuck.

Now she’s watching and every now and then she says, “I don’t have dust. We need a fairy for dust.”

*She had a mystery fever yesterday evening that we think might be heat exhaustion or just being overheated.. I was staying home today anyway because my car? after it comes to a stop and I turn off the engine? Well, the coolant in the coolant reservoir starts to boil. It stops again if you turn on the engine (which we did to see if the fan was working). Odd, eh? It’s at the shop being poked and prodded, which I’m sure will cost us an obscene amount of money. Oh Honda Civic Hybrid, how I long to own thee!

-amy will throw you to the crocodiles

I don’t think I like it. Colors aren’t quite right, just dashed it off. We’ll see how long it lasts. Cute boy with a cute cute “look” though 🙂

First off, go see this blog of robot drawings. They make me so happy! You can suggest a robot for her to draw! I requested a kitty-bot! in a litter-box! Go see!

In other news, Ethan woke up with pink eye this morning. Will the FUN NEVER STOP??! We suspect some snot nosed kid from school gave it to him.

Blah.

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.

CAN’T WAIT.

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

Our friends the caterpillars (who should turn into beautiful swallowtails) brought us great joy for a week or two. We would run out and squeal with glee and watch the great plump caterpillars wiggling about in our parsley (the kids were excited too!) They stripped our parsley plant naked, and now we haven’t seen a wiggle from them since.

I feel so used.

(Not really. I’m thinking of planting more just to entice them back.)