Saturday, June 30, 2012

E.T.

"Who are those men?" asked MG in the scene where E.T. is dying.

"They're doctors, they're trying to help."

"I don't think they need a doctor, they need a vet."

I love this kid.

Family Fun Night

We got take out for dinner and we're watching this:


...in our jammies, but we took a break to put Jack to bed and to have ice cream sundaes!



Friday, June 29, 2012

Theater Camp

Friday Busy Friday

Today was the girls' last day of Theater Camp.  I dropped them off at 9, went to Walmart to get a gift for MG's friend's birthday party this afternoon and cookies for the reception after the performance at camp.  Came home and Jack and I sweated outside for a while, before GBob and I headed to the theater.  We were scolded for getting there too early, so we went and got a coke and then came back, arriving at the same time as Grandpa Ben and Grandmother Diana.  BJ got there as we were walking to the theater, too.

The performance was cute.  If my phone decides to behave I'll upload a picture.  After the performance we went to lunch, then I ran Claire to a playdate at Caitrin's and took MG to her party.  Didn't realize that it was a pool party (way to read the invite, Mom), so I ran home for her suit and took it back to her.  Meanwhile I dropped GBob off at home and Jack started his nap in the car.

Jack and I came home, I put him to bed and then sat here and chewed my nails over the severe weather all afternoon.

If Jack ever decides to wake up from his nap (funny how they sleep FOREVER when you have somewhere to go) we're going to go back and pick MG up, and then we'll go visit with Caitrin's mom for a while.

We need to be home around 6 so I can make dinner for the kids and change my clothes.  BJ and I are going out for supper with some friends from college.  GBob and the kids are staying here with a pizza.

Ha ha ha, I just remembered to call and get a reservation for dinner - they're totally booked.  Awesome.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Odds & Ends

Sorry for the lack of post yesterday - I've been finishing up 11/22/63: A Novel by Stephen King which was excellent.  Finally finished it today.  You know a book is suspenseful when you're literally holding your breath as you read it.  I don't normally read King anymore, because it's bad for the anxiety, although I loved The Stand and have read it two or three times.  Both Uncle Chuck and GBob recommended 11/22/63, though, so I figured it would be ok.  I wasn't disappointed.

The problem with finishing a book is that when you do you're in between books.  I don't like being in between books.  I have several samples queued up in my Kindle, but none of them are really hitting the right note for me right now.  I have a lot of nonfiction in there, and I want some more fiction.  The book that King mentioned in his endnotes, Time and Again by Jack Finney, isn't available as an ebook, so I have to wait.  It's funny how we've gotten so accustomed to instant gratification that waiting to actually go to the library or a bookstore seems archaic.  Luckily a friend of mine has a copy and said I could borrow it.  Yep, the girl who generally can't read horror is actual IRL friends with a horror author.  Oh, irony...  I read one of his books, but I only got about 1/3 of the way into the second one before I decided it was way too scary, so if scary is your thing (or if you happen to have a few extra dozes of Vitamin Z lying around) you should read his stuff.  I'll borrow books from him, and then if he asks, "Have you read my books?"  I can honestly say, "Oh sure, lots of them!"

In other news, Jack has been torturing us with sleep deprivation for the last two nights.  Last night he was up from 2 - 5 am, and the night before that was 11 pm - 3 am.  Deeeelightful.  I got a nap this afternoon thanks to Karen and GBob.  It's 5 pm and Jack is still in his jammies.  I haven't had a shower yet.  It's one of those days...  BJ is working late and probably won't be home before bedtime.  I may or may not make supper.

I took this through the kitchen window this morning before it got so stupidly hot. 
My weird kids are singing Jingle Bells.  In June.  When it's literally 100 degrees outside. They're a little twisted.  Claire just made me a candy cane out of pipe cleaners.  Cool thoughts, I guess.

Vitamin Z is Zoloft, by the way.

I wish I had something profound to say about the health care legislation and the Supreme Court's decision today.  I'm just not entirely sure how I feel about it.  On the one hand, I remember when we were in our 20s and we didn't have health insurance, and how scary that was.  We tried to buy private insurance, but it was prohibitively expensive and what we got didn't really cover anything, anyway.  We were one accident or illness away from ruin for several years.  That's not a good feeling.  And currently, because we are self-employed, our company pays over $18,000 a year to insure us (which, when you break it down is $3600 a year per person, which isn't so bad, I guess, but it's more than we pay for our mortgage, and that kind of stings).  If there were a less-expensive option that we could buy into, that would be amazing.  On the other hand, I don't like the idea that the government can force people to buy something.  That part of it doesn't seem right, to me, whether that thing they're forcing you to buy is health insurance or, well, anything.  There are some really serious flaws in "Obamacare" that need to be addressed before it's implemented.  But all legislation is inherently flawed - no single bill is going to please everyone.  And maybe it's better than what we had.  I think ultimately that trying to take better care of people and trying to prevent bad luck from financially ruining a person or a family is good.  I just wish that cooler heads could prevail and we could get some bipartisan cooperation to get something done, rather than this polarized shouting match that has dominated our political system for, well, for as long as I can remember.

My bonus sister Jill is going to have a baby soon.  More pretty babies!  Their last name is Wise, and I think they should name him "Guy."

Well, this is kind of all over the place, isn't it?  What book should I read next?

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

July 4 Drought Prediction

Indiana is experiencing a pretty severe drought right now.  I've tried to do my part by getting my car washed, but what rain we've had has been short and localized (of course that rain was on the day that I washed my car - you're welcome!).  The grass is brown and dying in our yard.  I really worry about the farms.  Expect food prices to be ridiculous this winter if we don't get some rain soon.

Yesterday a grass fire about 5 miles away caused one interstate and one highway to be shut down for half an hour because the smoke was limiting drivers' visibility.  This sort of thing is common out west, it's virtually unheard of here.

There was a partial burn ban (basically they said, "We really recommend that you don't set anything on fire right now, but we aren't going to fine you if you do...") earlier this month, and it got upgraded to a full burn ban (no bonfires, no trash fires, no fires, and please don't pitch your lit cigarette butts out the car window either, genius) a week or two ago.

Unfortunately, as if we needed further proof that the Indiana legislature enjoys a long history of insanity, Indiana has a law (IC 22-11-14-10.5) preventing counties and towns from banning fireworks on certain dates (around July 4 and New Years).

Somebody already fought for your right to par-tay.
I've never understood the appeal of fireworks.  I think I'm too Scottish.  In my opinion, you might as well stand in the yard and set twenty dollar bills on fire.  But we have several neighbors who love fireworks, and we've returned home many a July 4 to a traumatized dog and a ton of debris in our yard. 


I can't decide if we should stay home this year and keep one hand on the garden hose; or if we should put everything irreplaceable in the car, double our insurance coverage, and go to the municipal fireworks.


I predict that unless we get some rain Hoosiers with fireworks will cause dozens of fires this July 4, and will do millions of dollars worth of property damage.  

Monday, June 25, 2012

Drive In Update

I am always a little shocked when people listen to me.  

I just received the following email from the Drive In that I wrote about yesterday:
We haves taken off the Rock of Ages trailer. We are sorry we offended you.
So, wow!  I may not be able to change the pervasive culture of premature sexualization and the objectification of women, but I can at least make sure that the rest of the kids (both girls and boys!) who go see Brave at that theater aren't exposed to inappropriate images.  And hopefully they'll think a little more critically about the trailers they show with children's movies in the future!

Maybe all it takes is us parents, as a group, standing up and saying, "We want better for our children than this, and we're not going to take this lying down any more." 

If nothing else, if our children will see us and hear us when we stand up for them, and that alone is powerful.

Thank you, to the Lake Shore Drive In for doing the right thing!

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Girl Power + Strippers = Angry Mama Bear

Update - the Drive In removed the Rock of Ages preview and apologized for offending me!  YAY!

The girls have been waiting to see Disney/Pixar's Brave for months - we saw a preview for it at Claire's birthday party in March, and they have been talking about it ever since.

Self-Rescuing Princess
Photo:  Disneypicture.net
It was fantastic - full of wonderful messages about marrying for love and waiting until you're ready to get married (!!!) and charting the course of your own fate.  I wrote before about Tangled, and how much Disney got right with that movie.  This one, they knocked this one out of the park.  Major girl power going on here.  I highly recommend it.

We decided to take the kids to see it at the drive-in movie theater north of here as a special treat.  Because we're on the western edge of the Eastern time zone, the movie didn't even start until 9:30 pm.  I don't know if you have a drive-in where you live, but it's customary for them to show two films.  We decided not to stay for the second one because the girls were already exhausted.  I took them to the bathrooms, knowing that they'd fall asleep on the way home and have to be carried inside, and waited for them outside.

I looked at the screen and saw this:


"Appropriate audiences?" I thought.  "Doesn't it usually say, 'all audiences'?  Uh oh..."  And then I saw this:

(BIG WARNING - this is NOT APPROPRIATE FOR CHILDREN!)



It actually occurred to me after the first pole-dancing shot to go stand in front of the projector so that the audience of small children wouldn't be exposed to this, but I knew that if I left my post outside the bathroom, my kids would come out and be scared when they couldn't find me.  And, as predicted, my girls came out of the bathroom in the middle of the preview.  I hugged them to me and covered their eyes until it was over, which of course made them more curious about what they were missing on the screen.

After it concluded, I took them back to BJ, who was as outraged as I was.  Then I marched back to the concession stand and demanded to speak to a manager.

"What's the big idea showing a preview full of STRIPPERS in between two KIDS' MOVIES?" I demanded.

"It's rated PG-13!" he said, rudely.

"I don't CARE what it's rated - you have a bunch of 5 and 6 year olds out there, and the splash screen before the trailer clearly said 'this preview is approved for APPROPRIATE audiences.'  This is NOT an appropriate audience!"

"You're going to have to take it up with Hollywood.  We don't get to decide what we show."  He said, as he was walking away from me.  (Nice customer service.)  A second guy behind the counter chose to insert himself into the conversation at this point, and he yelled the same crap about "it wasn't our decision," at me.  He was every bit as rude about it, too.

So on the way home I looked, and I found that independent theaters COMPLETELY have the power to decide what previews they do and do not show before movies.
The trailer placement system at independent theaters is much simpler: They only show trailers for movies that will soon be playing on one of their screens. For these exhibitors, the calendar is the only factor at play—and sometimes, their coming attractions don't even have trailers, which simplifies things even further.
Liar, liar, pants on fire.


The irony in all of this is that the drive-in audience was admonished on the FM channel that broadcasts the audio for the film several times to remember to pick up our trash because the drive-in hosts CHURCH SERVICES on Sunday morning.


Real pious, Lake Shore Drive-In in Monticello, Indiana, showing strippers and sex scenes to a bunch of little kids.  I'm sure God approves.



  

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Rookie Mistake

I feel like the worst mother ever tonight.

Today was busy.  I have a lot going on, and a lot on my mind.  Jack, weirdly, took his nap from 11:30 until 1:15 rather than his usual after lunch 1ish to 3ish.  I was also babysitting a friend's kids this morning, and working with another friend on some logistical stuff for this weekend, and getting some stuff planned for the afternoon when the girls were at daycamp, and and and...

I fed the girls lunch at about 12:35.  I put away a plate for Jack.  Erin took the girls to camp for me when she picked up her kids, so Dad and I waited around for Jack to wake up before we left for an afternoon of errands.


We went to the kitchen store, to a friend's house for a quick errand, past the house that just came on the market that I am dying to see (tomorrow), around another neighborhood that I wanted to point out to my dad because I just found it and it's cool, through the car wash, through the drive-in root beer place, to the liquor store, the grocery store, and the discount store where I got wrapping paper, before I dropped Dad off, swung by to pick up the girls, and finally got him home at 4:15 for snack.  Which he inhaled.  Of course.

And that sweet boy didn't make a peep the entire time.  The root beer might have helped (he was very brave in the car wash), but I think I feel worst that I fed my kid root beer for lunch than I feel about missing lunch altogether!

I almost woke him up to feed him when I found his lunch, before I realized that we ate dinner and he had lots of fruit and he's fine, he's fine, kids miss meals all the time.  Plenty of kids in this world don't have enough to eat, and he gets three meals and two snacks almost every day.  He's fine, he's fine.

But the guilt, the guilt.

It will be a lot easier when he can say, "Hey, Ma, how about some lunch?"


Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Hot Wheels

If Jack could talk, he would say, "Beeyotch, I will cut you if you try to take me out of here!"

Dishwasher

Jack has figured out how to open the dishwasher, which wouldn't be so bad if it weren't running.

Headed to the Children's Museum today!  Look for pictures later.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Jack - 18 Months

At Mary Grace's school last month, being a big boy
Dear Jack,

I got distracted with father's day and I totally forgot to post your 18 months update.  Whoops, sorry!

You're growing and changing so fast, that I want to capture a bit of who you are before you get any bigger.  Your language is just starting to emerge.  You say "Mama," and "Dada," and "Papa."  "RaRa" still means "sister" although I would swear I heard you say "Mary Grace," clear as a bell, the other day.  Your babbling is starting to sound a lot like sentences.  The word "Go!" is one of your favorites, and sometimes it sounds like you're saying, "When are we going to go?" which is a mouthful for someone so little.

You're such a little snuggle bug.  You like to have your back and head rubbed, just like your dad.  You like to give kisses and hugs.  Sometimes when Dad and I sit on the floor, you'll come up behind one of us and hug us.  It's very sweet.

You weaned last month - the earliest of all three of you.  It was bittersweet for me.  It's exciting that you're growing up, getting bigger and less dependent on me, but it's hard that you're not a baby anymore.  You're so big!

You absolutely LOVE playing outside.  And when your sisters go out but I can't take you out with them, you get really, really mad!

Speaking of outside....

Your favorite toy for playing is:  Your big truck - you just love to motor up and down the street pushing that thing! 

Your favorite toy for snuggling is: your "nah nahs" - cars

Your favorite food is: grapes and blueberries

Your favorite book is: Good Dog Carl or Five Little Sleepyheads

Your favorite activity is: playing with cars

Your favorite place to go is: outside!!!!!

Your best friend is: your "Rah Rahs" (sisters)

Something new that you're doing: babbling in what sounds like sentences

Something you've mastered: walking, running

Something people say about you: "He's so talkative!"

Something that you're saying is: We suspect that you might be fluent in a language that we just don't speak.

Something Dad and I are proud of you for: you play so well with other kids, especially your sisters, and we rarely have any problems with sharing toys or other issues that are common with toddlers (so far!)

Something surprising about you: you LOVE Penny so much.  She puts up with a lot of eye poking, tail pulling, and back riding (or trying to, anyway) from you.

Love you so much, Jack Rabbit!
Mommy

Sugar Cream Pie - for Rob

Sometimes my replies to comments turn into posts...


Sugar Cream Pie is one of those "desperation" pies from when people couldn't get ingredients like nuts or fruit.  Similar to mock apple pie, vinegar pie, etc.  There's an interesting discussion of the history here, although the true origins are lost to time.  The web seems to pretty consistently state that the pie was born around the same year as Indiana became a state (1816).

You can find lots of different recipes online, but this one is, IMHO, most likely to be historically accurate.

Picture credit:  Turkey Creek Lane 
You can buy them frozen around here, but they're hard to find elsewhere.  I was recently talking about them on Facebook with some local friends and people who had moved out of state.  The frozen ones don't have the layered quality that the one in the picture has.  It looks better than the frozen sort, to me.  To be honest, though, I don't like the pie well enough to go to the trouble of making one!

What's kind of funny is that I've lived in Indiana all my life, but never heard of sugar cream pie until I moved south.  My dad has lived here for over 50 years, and he hadn't had it before last night.  "The Region," as they call the area around Grammaland, is kind of it's own separate state.  We get most of our news from Chicago, the ethnic blend is very different, and it's just kind of its own little universe.  Sugar cream pie is more of a rural thing than a city thing, and Grammaland is definitely more urban than the rest of Indiana.  It makes sense that sugar cream pie would be rural, because the ingredients are all things that you'd have on hand on the farm, and don't go out of season.  In the city, you don't have to worry about having things on hand because it's an easy trip to the grocery store.

If you come visit we'll pick up a "Hoosier Pie" and treat you, Rob!

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Happy Father's Day

After swimming lessons, we spent the afternoon out at Grandpa Ben's farm with Grandpa Bob and Grandpa Ben's friends John and Carolyn.  We had a cookout and sugar cream pie, the state pie of Indiana.

Like Indiana, it's sweet, but a little weird.

Happy Father's Day to all of you who are dads.  It's not an easy job.

Friday, June 15, 2012

Earlier Than I Expected

I just had to go outside and shoo two boys away from the girls' bedroom window, because I could hear the girls up there talking to the boys instead of getting ready for bed.  Oh.  My.  God.

Photo credit:  Library of Congress
I said, from the yard, "You are not freaking Juliet!  Brush your teeth!!" before I realized that they are probably wondering what their little friend Juliet has to do with talking out the windows at boys.

*sigh*

Highways

At Dad and Mom's office...

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Louise Payne, 1912 - 2012

BJ's grandmother died yesterday.  She was a very neat person - she loved music and swimming and her family.


These photos were part of the memory board that BJ's mom made for her 100th birthday celebration in April.  I love the one on the upper left.  I think she looks mischievous.

Rest in Peace, Grandmother Payne.


Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Babies

Claire is at Grandma Camp up in Grammaland with BJ's mom.

Mary Grace is going to sleep at Girl Scout camp tomorrow night, so I'll drop her off around 9 am and I won't see her until 4 pm.

Jack is enormous.  He's going to start talking any minute.  He babbles like crazy.  I could have sworn that he said, "When are we going to go?" tonight, but it might just be the same phenomenon as when people play records backwards and hear secret messages... hard to say.

They're all just so stinkin' grown up all of a sudden!

I got to hold my dear friend's 5 month old son today (and to hang out with her and her adorable 4 year old son!) and it felt so good to snuggle a little guy again.  They live out east, so it was a very special treat.

My neighbors are bringing home their new baby boy tomorrow, and I can't wait to get my hands on him.

Honestly, if we had bottomless bank accounts, I don't think I would ever stop having babies.  I hate it that fears about how we're going to pay for college inform the decision about how many kids we're going to have, but they do.

It's time for me to go back and read some of the whiny posts I wrote when I was pregnant.  It's amazing how we forget, isn't it?

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Super Highways

Purdue has lots of good places to drive trucks!

BJ wonders if he will pose for these photos again in 17 years.

Flashback

Jack and I got to campus half an hour before the box office opens, so we came to the union, where BJ and I used to get breakfast with Andrew and Mandy. The radio played Dave Matthews and Alanis Morrissette and I passed the ghost of myself in the hall.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Laundry

If anyone is handing out Olympic medals or Guinness records for laundry folding, please nominate me. I just spent the last two hours folding an epic pile of laundry.  As I was rounding the corner toward the finish I had the following thought -

"This is dumb.  My kids are never going to care that I routinely stayed up until nearly midnight folding their clothes.  This doesn't matter to them.  Why on earth am I doing it?  Motherhood is the most thankless job..." grouse grouse grouse...

...and then I realized that I needed to write this today:

Dear Mom,

Thank you for staying up until nearly midnight (and beyond) folding clothes, making Halloween costumes, packing lunches and backpacks, paying bills, balancing the checkbook, and doing the other 99,000 things that you did for me when I was a kid.

Love,
Amy

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Community Service

Ok, scraping and sanding the porch sucks.  I don't want to ever do this again.  We're building our next house out of PVC.

Speaking of our next house, I'm probably going to be tarred, feathered, and run out of the neighborhood on a rail because I volunteered to lead the neighborhood association.  There's a big conflict between da 'hood and the private school down the street, and rather than get all whipped up in a lather about it I'm actually trying to sit down and talk with all the parties involved and reach a solution that makes everyone happy, and for this I'm being accused by my neighbors of conspiracy and getting grumpy emails and all other manner of b.s.

You know, because it's oh so wrong to try to solve conflicts like grown ups.  It's so much more fun to get all freaked out and yell about how long you've lived here and make up rumors about what people are planning to do with their imaginary bottomless piles of money.

(Waiting for a grumpy neighbor to find this blog in T-ten... nine... eight...  (None of my Facebook friends who are also my neighbors are grumpy, and they'd better not forward this to the grumpy ones!!))

SO brilliant of me to complain about the neighborhood when I posted a picture of the front of my house earlier today.  I'm a regular savant.

Not that I've said anything here (ever) that I wouldn't say to someone's face.  I ended an email today with, "I'm pretty sure that Hitler started out as the president of his HOA."  Because when mediation doesn't work, sometimes you have to resort to sarcasm.

While we weren't rubbing our knuckles raw on the porch, I tried to talk to some neighbors (I talked to three - 109 to go!) about all the things that are going on with the school.  It gave my arms a chance to stop vibrating from the sander.  We also swept some magical polymerized sand stuff into the cracks of the patio and then BJ sprinkled it with the hose and it's supposed to seal up all the seams so we don't get so many weeds.  We'll see how that goes.  The dog is probably stuck to the patio as I'm typing this.

And if that wasn't enough for one day, BJ and MG set up a lemonade stand in the front yard.  MG learned a lot of valuable lessons about running a business, including:

  • If you give your friends freebies, you won't make any money.
  • Being able to make correct change is a critical skill.  You can't take 5 dimes from someone and give them two quarters back when lemonade is 50 cents and expect to be able to repay your loans.
  • Advertising is vital to the success of any retail enterprise.
  • It sucks to work when all your friends are off playing.
  • You have to sell a hell of a lot of lemonade to earn enough money to buy four Star Wars figures - you're better off just waiting for your birthday.
The First Bank of Mom and Dad gave her $14 in seed money.  She made $13.  If she doesn't pay us back with interest, she's gonna be swimmin' with da fishes.  Our interest rates are ridiculous.

Busy week this week.  MG is going to Girl Scouts Camp and Claire is going to Grandma Camp.  Jack is stuck with me.  

Shabby

Saturday, June 9, 2012

It's BJ's Speshul Birfday

Today is BJ's birthday.  I just made him a cake that I found on Pinterest (Dr. Pepper cake).  The kids were more excited about it than he was.  Hopefully it'll be tasty.  I have to go to the store now because I am out of eggs, flour, sugar, and cocoa, and I have no vanilla ice cream.

When the girls were smaller they would make cakes out of Legos or whatever they had on hand and they'd present us with them and say, "It's your speshul birfday!" in this sing-songy voice.  It was so stinkin' cute.  It was someone's speshul birfday just about every day for a year.

Happy birthday to the father of all my pretty babies.  Love you.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Spooky

Jack freaks me out. We are wrestling on my bed after a brutal tantrum. He just sat up and waved as though someone had come in and was standing in the hallway.

There is nobody there.

Now I'm afraid to get up.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Exhausted

Do you ever get to the end of a day, and think about the first thing you did that day, and think, "Was that really today?  It seems like two or three days ago!"

Yeah, me too.

I may not survive this summer "vacation" thing, people.  Mainly because I spent several hours sanding the porch today, and [bad stand up comedian impression] boy are my arms tired.  Forget all the "fix your jiggly arms" posts on Pinterest.  You want awesome tank-top-ready arms?  Come help me sand.

I'm telling you, this shabby chic exterior paint thing is going to be HUGE.  One of these days I'll remember to take a picture before it gets dark outside.

I am so grateful that 3/4 of the house is vinyl siding, I can't even tell you.  Hell, if it were up to me we'd build the whole thing out of plastic and concrete and things that don't rot and/or need to be painted.  Ever.  I want an iHouse.  If Apple made houses, they'd come in slick beautiful packaging, they'd be intuitive to use, and they would be state of the art.  Living in a house that was built in 1963 is like listening to 8-tracks.  Did they even have 8-tracks then?  Whatever, you know what I mean.

Also, before I was a homeowner, I never appreciated just how critical caulking is.  I don't know why they wasted time teaching me how to make brownies in home ec, they should have been teaching me how to caulk.  I'm not kidding.  They should also have an entire class on credit cards, how your credit score works, and how to balance checkbooks and save for retirement.  And in that class, when you're 15 years old, they should say, "Hey, if you save $1000 now, you don't ever have to save anything again and you'll have a million bucks by the time you retire.  But if you wait until you're 25 you'll never catch up.  So you can either blow that summer job money at the Gap or you can save it and be a millionaire.  You pick, sport."

What do you wish someone had taught you 20 years ago?

Monday, June 4, 2012

What It Will Be Like

I signed the girls up for a program through the parks and rec department that is in session from 9 - 12 and from 1 - 4 each weekday for the rest of the month.  I pick them up and get them fed between noon and one, and then I take them back to the program.

It occurred to me that this is what it's going to be like in the fall, when they're both in school full time.  Jack and I got so much done!  We went to the office to check one quick thing off my to do list; to Walmart; to the post office; watched a show that I wanted to watch while I put up the groceries; we got everyone and came home for lunch with BJ and Karen, Owen, Kade, and Laney; then Karen returned the girls to the program; I put Jack down for a nap; got some laundry done; ran a couple of errands on the way home from picking them up...  I accomplished more in this one day than I did during the whole last week.

It was awesome.

The girls had a fabulous time.  They love everything.  They love the kids, the counselors, the games, the arts and crafts...  Everything was made of fabulous.  And I love seeing them shine in new situations.  I love the way they just walk in and are amazing.  They are so confident.  I hope they never ever lose that.

The thing is, though, that while day or two of this is awesome for everybody, I'm afraid that 12 or 13 years of it will be too much.  I'm really going to miss them after the newness wears off.  I'm probably going to run out of errands.  And God help me when Jack starts school.  *sniff*

I remember when Mary Grace was little thinking, "It'll be easier when..." and that sentence ended a million ways - everything from "she gains head control," to, yes, "when she goes to school."  And in some ways, it is technically easier.  But it's hard in ways that I never expected.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Home "Improvement"

I've got the porch mostly scraped and ready to be painted, but I've run out of enthusiasm for the project, so I'm going to pioneer the "shabby chic" look in exterior painting.  These things have to start somewhere, right?