Kitten fever

Meet Charlie Brown...
He's our new kitten. Since he woke me up at 5:30 this morning (and also at 2 and 4, but lastly and finally at 5:30) the reason for getting a kitten eludes me. But he's super cute, and already letting the girls play with him and hanging out in the same room as Fife. He seems both nice and fearless, which are good qualities to have in a house with two children under the age of 6.

I think Charlie fits in pretty nicely. Maybe this year for my birthday, I'll resume coffee drinking.

Don't ask me about my business

Penny is no dummy. She got this board game as a prize at Wendy's this week. It's a pretty straightforward game that has you picking a number card and moving your piece along the board to the finish.

But the game also included two Lose Your Turn cards. Penny does not like losing her turn. She also pretty much hates losing, but I digress.

So for nap, she found those two cards and said she was going to take them to bed with her. Later that day, when she wanted to play the game for the 10th time that day, I asked her where the cards went.

"Don't ask me about that," was her answer, complete with very sly, evil grin.

So I guess she no longer has to lose her turn. But she still sometimes loses. Maybe she'll figure out how to end that next.

First day of school

I'd be remiss for not blogging today, Carolyn's first full day of kindergarten. It's sort of a new chapter for us, one that takes Carolyn away from us for six full hours every day.

Truth is, I don't really feel like blogging about it. I sort of hate it. I feel sad and a tiny bit pissed off. It sort of feels like the end of something. Once school starts, that's it. There's no going back. Unlike preschool or swimming or library story hour, we can't just decide not to go. It's like having a job, one she'll keep for 16 or more years.

But I'll just go ahead and hide this little disappointment from Carolyn, who feels just about as happy as one little girl can. She's enthusiastic and excited. She could hardly contain herself last night.

So, I'll just post some pictures, so it looks like I'm excited too. Because Carolyn can't read yet (although, she is in school now so maybe she'll be able to read tonight), I'll just tell her this blog is about her great new adventure.

Here's Carolyn with her teacher, Mrs. Newton.
First day of school. Ready to go!

The girls getting ready to head out to Carolyn's first full day of school. It's about an eight minute trip on the bike. Slightly less coming home with 50 fewer pounds.


Carolyn waiting in line to go into school for her first full day. Backpack? Check. Lunchbox? Check. Giant smile? Of course...

Poop in the public pool

Hey, if you want to read more about this, you'll have to visit my new blog, The Worst. It's just a fun thing my gal pal K-Carr and I are doing to pass the time. It's about thing that are "The Worst..."

It's here, worstlist.blogspot.com

Come on... You know you want to.

Kitten fever

We've all got it. Talk at our house has turned to kittens, and the girls have the worst of it.

This is because I decided I want a kitten for my birthday. My big girl is headed off to school, there's no more babies arriving and Fife is much too old to deal with a new puppy.

Plus, I sort of love cats.

Anyhow, the girls are all about helping me out in this endeavor. We got books from the library about taking care of kittens, and then we flip through the books and give each of the kitties a name. We talk about how cute kittens are and think about what it'll be like to have our very own super cute kitten living right here with us.

It's all very exciting.

Penelope, in particular, has come down hard with the kitten fever. Yesterday, before we went to the shelter to look at the dozens of kittens just waiting to be taken home (I now realize that any thoughts we had about maybe getting a kitten were killed by this visit), we were talking about the "possibility" of maybe getting me a kitten for my birthday.

"But Daddy," Penny says. "You don't want a kitten."

Well, he says, maybe it's not such a horrible idea.

"Well, if you want, we can go get you a kitten today."

Then she looks at me and give me a secret "thumbs up" sign to let me know she's taken care of the Daddy factor. She's got him.

Loving these fading summer days

The girls and I had the best time yesterday. We went to the zoo, and for the first time ever, all the animals were totally entertaining. Then a picnic lunch. Then the playground. Then the hair salon, because you can't start school without a cute new cut.

I even took some pictures. See....

Warren Dunes 09

The family first camping trip. And by first, I mean first ever... Steve and I had always meant to try camping, but we really lacked any sort of knowledge or courage or equipment to make such a daring venture.

Turns out, modern amenities have really helped out the non-campers among us. There are showers! And if you forget something, there's this little overpriced store. And there's an electrical outlet for Pete's sake.

But there was still a touch of nature. Mosquitoes, for instance, didn't know this was a modern campsite. And there was still plenty of sand.

But overall, just the best vacation ever. We climbed this giant sand dune known as Tower Hill, which **towers** 240 feet above Lake Michigan and the nearby park. Climbing up 240 feet of sand is not only not easy, it really is a test of the human spirit, especially for Steve who helped our 3-year-old Penny reach the top. The water and weather were both lovely, thank goodness, and we even stopped nearby on the way home to pick our own blueberries. And let's not forget about the most wonderful Lake Perch.

In addition to the outdoorsy goodness, we also stopped by Battle Creek and went up to mom's farm to visit her and great-grandpa. Those trips were also full of fun, except for a two-day fever that put Penny out of commission. But no trip is perfect, right...

Summer lovliness, summer eeekkkk

I think one of my favorite parts of summer is the fresh food. The sweet corn. The melons. The cucumbers. I think I could eat cucumbers every day for the rest of my life.

Today I made just the tastiest corn chowder because, really, there's only so much corn on the cob one person should eat. Fresh corn and onions and garlic. Thyme and parsley from my garden.

Now I'm waiting for those giant tomatoes in my garden to turn red before I make a ratatouille with only fresh ingredients, including the eggplant and zucchini piling up on kitchen counter.

Just a lovely way to live.

And then there's Carolyn, queen girl of the tomboys.


Today while cleaning up from lunch, Carolyn called me out, yet again, to tell me she's found a slug. I went out only to see that slimy, yuckiness crawling around her arm trailing slime and ughhhh. Sort of like when she picked up that centipede we saw at the Redwood forest in California.

Ugh...I don't know where she gets that. It's not from me. I suspect it's not from her father. She just loves dirt and bugs and mud and all things icky.

Also, since I haven't mentioned it before, Carolyn's become a little passive aggressive. Instead of mentioning she'd like to do something, "Can we watch a cartoon?" "Can I eat a bowl of ice cream at 8 o'clock in the morning?" "Can I whack my sister on the head for being such a little pest?" are not questions she regularly asks anymore.

Instead, they go something like this: "I can't watch TV right now, can I?" or "We can't have ice cream for breakfast, can we?" She actually will just go ahead and whack Penny on the head without asking, so I guess that's something.

Poor, neglected second child

Sure, when Carolyn got her brand-new big girl bed, it was all I talked about. I made a big deal about the great garage sale find. I took a billion pictures. I let Fife try it out.

And sure, Penny got her very own bed yesterday. We had the headboard for — oh... I don't know — a year gathering dust and spider egg sacs in the garage. And I took this quicky picture...

... just before nap today mostly because I felt bad.

So, Penny got a new bed. And then we went to the pool where Carolyn went down the slide, like, a billion time and swam across the pool without...

Oh wait. I'm doing it again. And sure, Penny went down the big slide for the first time, but so do a lot of other kids. Sheesh.

Swimming season ends swimmingly

Carolyn had her final swim meet of the year. It's the B-Invite meet, which is basically for the slower, smaller kids. Even though Carolyn's a very slow, small swimmer, she pulled out two wins today out of three races.

It was super exciting. She really gave it her all, and was rewarded with "heat bags" or bags filled with suckers, pencils, coupons from local businesses and other promotional material. Basically, the best bag that ever existed.

We won't go to conference this year. So this was Carolyn's "conference" and she really did her best. I was so proud of her, not for winning (although that part was very exciting) but because she spent all summer working very hard on her swimming and she gave it all she had today.

She won on freestyle and butterfly. The race I posted, the fly, was the closer of the two. It's not really her strongest stroke and it's the most difficult stroke (in my very humble opinion), but she struggled her way to first place.

And now we can begin our carefree summer, as my job at ISU didn't exactly pan out according to the rejection letter I got in the mail today.

What Carolyn loves

Carolyn loves her bestest swimming pal, Nellie.


She also loves sandwiches.

Memo to the Gardner family

cc: Anybody who might come in contact with said family.

I am implementing a strict zero tolerance policy regarding toys and fighting. Toys that are the subject of a fight between children are automatically placed in toy death camp consisting of a plastic bag to be held in Storage Room A (otherwise known as the basement closet). This is a non-negotiable rule that is to begin immediately. No toy or child has any right to due process. Toy status is not to be considered.

These toys will be kept separately from other toys for two purposes. 1. These toys can never resume full-play status upstairs and 2. We will show this bounty to the girls in their pre-teen years to let them know we have no qualms about removing all their electronic devices for bad behavior.

Thanks you for your cooperation in these matters. I am sure this policy will eventually lead to household harmony and a peaceful co-existence.

Oh Penny

I love this blog for any number of reasons. It's read by at least two people who aren't family, making me way more popular than I am in my real life. It's a great way to publicly admit embarrassing moments without revealing them to any more than two people. And because it's a collection of thoughts, I find it infinitely better than the random brain farts people (including me) are posting on Facebook.

In fact, what I love most are the diary-like qualities. For instance, Penelope, at this moment, is almost unbearable. She would disagree with ice cream and puppies if I thought it was something she should have. And speaking of puppies, she's trying to convince us that Fife would be better off with a new family so she can have her very own, totally cute, girlie-girl puppy.

She's just rotten. I know. I'm a horrible parent for saying that, but it's almost completely true.

So I went looking back on the blog and found a similar entry for my dear, lovely, well-behaved, 5-year-old Carolyn. It's not very detailed, as my summer posts usually don't contain the details of the bored-out-of-my-mind winter rants, but I sort of remember a time when maybe spanking didn't sound as horrible as I first thought.

Turns out, 3 can equal 2. It's slightly different. I think 2 is so maddening because it's so random and irrational. But 3 is very rational. It just also happens to be evil, sometimes.

But it ends. And something new begins. And then that ends and something new follows. Turns out, children are great for the ADD stricken among us.

Could somebody lend me a copy of proper parent-to-parent behavior

Because as much as I enjoy feeling like a jackass, and believe me, I've had plenty of practice, I find some behavior among parents baffling.

You're probably wondering what I'm talking about. That's fair. I'm not all that great at explaining myself or communicating with other humans.

This mom from Carolyn's swimming just gave the girls about a half dozen princess dresses, complete with crowns, wands and oh-so-many shoes. I have never seen the girls go so bananas from a set of toys. They disappear for hours (not exaggerating, or maybe just a little) to dress up as a fairy or a disney princess or (Julia, you'll love this per our happily ever after discussion) a tiny blushing bride.

I know moms like to clean out their closets, but this was such a wonderful hand-me-down I wanted to show my utter appreciation. So I got a $10 gift certificate for ice cream.

And here is where everything went wrong. She seemed offended by the gesture. My intention was to show how much we really liked it, not to make somebody feel bad. And now I feel bad. Wrong and bad.

It figures that as soon as the girls reached an age where I stopped feeling incompetent at all times, I would make up that feeling in other areas of my life. Inability to have normal conversations or act appropriately around other moms — check. Feelings of complete loserdom — check. Suddenly worried I'm turning my girls into social pariahs — check, check (because there are two of them).

Not being able to eat ice cream or clean up the constant flow of princess dresses off the floor without feeling like a jackass. That's right... check.

A vacation to remember

Nothing is quite as much fun as flying on Southwest with a 5-year-old after you learn that a) you have about the last boarding pass available and b) only families with children 4 and under get to pre-board. Oh Southwest, this is the moment (the one where I thought Carolyn and I would be sitting in different aisles of the same 5 hour plane ride... stress level rising, rising...) I began to hate you.

So really, the only annoying experience on this trip with Carolyn to San Francisco was the plane. Oh, and the trolley car, which was overpriced, crowded, dropped us off four blocks from the Wharf and completely frightening to children.

But why mention these inconveniences (other than that's sort of what I do) when we did so many great things. It actually would be boring to list them here, but I'll try anyway. We hiked a redwood forest. We ate in a super cool pub. We sat on the beach of the ocean and took a zillion pictures in front of Golden Gate Bridge. We ate in a garden. Carolyn sustained for a full day solely on a diet of ice cream and an eclair I thought was made my Alice Waters. We watched lovely young (mostly gay) couples frolic in the Mission District. We had famous Berkeley pizza. We went to Chinatown. We saw sea lions. We walked in a rose garden.

Carolyn was just fantastic. What a wonderful age to travel with a child. She's into everything, and even when she wasn't, she never broke down or had a tantrum (expect for when she cried after she got off that god-damned trolley car). If she was pissed or bored, she'd just pout and tune out the constant conversation of Julia and I, who talked and talked and talked. Then we talked some more and never ran out of things to say.

It was just about the best trip ever. Half because it was California. Half because of Carolyn. Half because of Julia and about a tenth because we drank and ate freely. These are completely accurate percentages, and you can trust that because I'm taking an entry-level stat class at a community college.

It has always been my intention to do this same trip with Penelope the summer before she starts kindergarten. And it's a good thing, because she's suddenly taken a strong interest in the San Francisco landmarks. I just hope Julia (check out her travel blog, which hasn't gotten much action lately but gives great descriptions of what it's like to travel in Eastern Europe) is there when this time comes around. There's a good chance she could be in Moscow, and while I'm all for world travel, I'm not prepared to take a small child to Russia.

California teaser

Here are just a few photos of our trip. I'll write more later, but for now, the pool is beckoning.

Here's my favorite pic of Carolyn and Julia. They're standing in front of some bridge.

Carolyn and the sea lions at Fisherman's Wharf. They are smelly, and noisy, but oh so entertaining.
Chris and Julia on some vintage city bus. Much better than that evil trolley car. Much, much better.
Carolyn climbs her very first tree at Golden Gate Park while Julia and I drink beer. OK. It was mostly me.
This was Carolyn's expression for the entire time we were at the ocean. Pure glee.

Carolyn takes this awesome picture at Muir Woods among the redwood trees. Pictures just cannot convey what they were like, but they were fantastic.
Carolyn and mom on a fallen redwood.
Now, to the pool.

Craziness all around

It has been just a crazy couple of weeks.

I drove my grandpa to Michigan two weekends ago and took the train home the next day. While there, I caught up with some friends, a few I hadn't seen in almost five years.

Then there was Carolyn's first swim meet. We just got her ribbons today. She got two fourths and two fifths. But really, it was just a victory getting to the other end of the pool. Despite my nailbiting on the sidelines (which kind of reminded me of my own childhood, watching horses approach the finish line and I sort of wanted to snap my fingers the way old men in fidoras do, but I held back), Carolyn just loved it. The swimming. The three thousand kids. The cheering. Everything.

And finally, but not lastly, there was a five-day trip to California. Carolyn and I had the very bestest of times with Aunt Julia, but I'll write more on that later (this is not your only shout out Julie ; ). For now, enjoy this team picture of Carolyn.

It's summer. That's why

Why I don't blog more often. In case you ever wondered how long it takes a 3-year-old to say Grace, it's 19 seconds. And here it is from the most pious 3-year-old I know.



Penny is actually turning out to be the house clown. She says the funniest stuff. Things that sort of sound right, but that make it pretty obvious that she doesn't know the meaning of the words. I'd give an example but I just can't think of one right this second. Anyway, we're always laughing at these little Penny-isms. Steve theorized second children often become the clowns because they have a much bigger vocabulary, having an older sibling, but not the language skills to put everything together. This garners laughter. This garners more ridiculous sayings. Pretty soon she's shaking her naked butt at us in a brand new version of the butt dance.

It's a vicious circle.

Carolyn just lost her first tooth. It's exciting and sad all at the same time. I was not expecting this to happen so early. I also wasn't expecting the tooth fairy to pay $5, but I guess that's the going rate. Here she is today, minus one baby tooth.

baptism photos

Because I know you just can't get enough of the matching outfits.

The funnest day ever

This is Carolyn's synopsis after a trip to .... Meijer!

And it was the funnest day ever. It was the kind of day I always get about two days after a vacation. We've had enough time to rest. The girls have played with all their toys. We're just about back in our groove and, suddenly, the girls turn into complete angels.

So on a trip to Meijer, when I got everything on my list but apple juice, and we learned Meijer had brought back both the free cookies and the free horsey ride, well, that indeed was something to be celebrated.

So we did. With ice cream bars, a good old-fashioned driveway car washin' and some sprinkler time.

Funnest day ever!

Doin' da butt

My mother-in-law is right — my kids spend way too much time talking about their butts.

I guess part of the problem is that Steve and I find butt jokes infinitely funny. Yes, we are adults. No, we never progressed past fourth grade humor. Whatever. Don't tell me you laugh the tiniest bit during a good fart scene in a sophomoric Seth Rogen movie.

Just saying the word "butt" is enough to send the girls into hysterics. They love to do the "shake your butt" dance. And the problem is coupled by the inside, family joke of spanking. It's used to substitute for any other word, such as, "I love you," becoming "I love spanking," or asking "What do you want for lunch," and receiving the answer, "Spanking."

This is all well and good until we visit grandma's house. Or until Carolyn starts kindergarten and tells her teacher daddy is always spanking her.

And when this happens, I'll just blame Steve. After all, it is pretty much all his {spanking}. Trust me. It's funny.

Home at last

We just returned from a week-long trip to Tulsa. It was kind of a crazy trip because I ran my first half marathon (2:16:47, which isn't super fast but was faster than I had expected to run). We finally got the girls baptized. Steve and I celebrated our 8th anniversary with a night at the casino, where I won $100!

But what really sticks out is the fiasco.

That's right. What Gardner family trip doesn't end in fiasco? It would actually be kind of disappointing if everything went perfectly. Well, maybe not disappointing, but shocking to the point of suspecting a slip in the time/space continuum.

Anyway, we stayed in St. Louis last night. It wasn't like the 11-hour ride to Tulsa wasn't super fun, what with the sibling fighting and all, but we thought we'd break up the trip home. And, just to set the record straight, the girls were very well behaved and delightful for most of the trip.

So we decided to take the girls to the hotel pool this morning. Our hotel pool is a closed outdoor pool but there was another Sheraton on the property with an indoor pool that we could use. We opted to drive because it was kind of far away.

Fiasco starter #1: I misunderstood the lady at the desk and thought the pool was only open from 7 until 10 a.m. Turns out she meant 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. We were sort of rushing over there around 9, not wanting the girls to miss out on valuable swimming time because, obviously, they didn't get enough of that at grandma's house, with her pool.

Fiasco starter #2 : Steve hits a curb and took out a huge portion of our tire. It wasn't flat or leaking, but the 180-mile trip home made is sort of worrisome.

Fiasco starter #3: The first dealer we took it to said they could get the $300 tire, but it wouldn't be ready until the next day and they would charge us $100 "overnight delivery fee." On top of another night hotel. And dinner. And tequila.

We decided to ride home on the spare.

But... I did finally find another dealer who found us an equally good tire. Total bill: $114. Thank you.

Fiasco ender #4: I left our iPod cord at the hotel so we had to take one last stop to pick up the cord. It's not huge fiasco or anything, but after 6 hours of getting a single tire fixed, it was not not something we felt like doing.

But we're home. The girls are in bed. We turned the air on.

Trips are fun. But nothing beats coming home, especially when after learning ants had not invaded the kitchen and our basement was not flooded. It's the best!

Happy Mother's Day

It's come to my attention (thanks Steve) that my last blog was, well, on the sad side. You might have grinned, or even laughed a little, but it was probably out of pity.

But today I'm returned to gleefully lament that I have the best kids ever. Steve took the girls to the mall yesterday to pick out my Mother's Day. When he asked Carolyn what she wanted to get me, she said, "Something for her running. Maybe a running wallet."

A running wallet! It's genius. I'm always trying to figure out ways to carry stuff with me on my run (which nearly totaled 12 miles today. Go me!) Gu. A credit card. Bus money. And though I've never mentioned needing something like that, she must have really paid attention to what I've been saying and came up with the idea. Just that she thought I might like some new running stuff is enough to make me feel extra warm and fuzzy.

Apparently, she's alone. They went into every running store in the mall and nobody carried anything like that. Sounds like maybe we've got an inventor in the making. Anyway, since there were no running wallets, she settled on buying me hand soap. It smells really nice.

One out of two isn't bad. Penny, on the other hand, got candies for us to "share." She practically yanked the the package out of my hands as I tried to open it this morning.

They were tasty.

Here's an old picture of my girls. My favorite...

The graduating class of 2021

That's Carolyn. I'll pause if you need a tissue. No? Well, I never thought I'd need one either, but I about lost it when I learned this little tidbit from her new principal.

Because, it just dawned on me at that moment, now I guess she has a principal. And a school mascot. And she needs to know how to open her own milk carton and tie her own shoes. I can't even listen to the White Stripes song, "We're Going to be Friends," without resorting to a sort of blubbering that should be reserved for real problems like death, divorce and "Steel Magnolias."

It never dawned on me that I'd be tired from all this growing up crap.

Initally, I really went into this kindergarten registration thing excited. I'm excited because Carolyn is excited. She really wants to go to school, which I guess is awesome. But at some point Thursday, everything turned around on itself.

Like when Principal Shaw said our tiny little 5-year-olds will be so happy when we walk them to class and help them with their backpacks and put them in their little seats. They'll be happy on that first day, he said. In fact, they'll be happy for about a week until they realize it's better to do it by themselves. Finally they'll say, "Mom... Stop holding my hand in the hallway."

Not only that, but it got way worse for me when she did a stupid little craft at school and the teaching assistant wrote on a little piece of paper, "Carolyn: Struggled with cutting along the lines." Are you kidding me! She's already stigmatized and she hasn't actually started school yet. It's probably nothing, but what parent doesn't think their kid is the best. The best at everything.

I do. After all, she started as a lump in my belly, evolving into a totally helpless blob of person that couldn't do anything. And now she can write her name and swing across the monkey bars and ride (sort of) her bike. It's totally a miracle.

Pretty soon, it won't matter that I think everything she does is pure gold. It just crushes me to think it's starting to matter what other people think. People that don't even know her and her perfectness. It's not enough that she'll join swim team this summer and probably come in last at every race, now she's in a race of who can read the best, or who can sing the best, or who can cut the best, most accurate lines with kiddy scissors.

I'm sorry, but that's just too much for me to think about. Thank goodness none of this matters to her, at least for now. She's just excited about school. About a new teacher and friends and carrying her own lunch box.

So I'll hold her hand to class until she decides she's rather walk alone. And she'll go to her classroom. And I'll go home and cry in the bathroom, if I can make it to the bathroom. God please let me make it to the bathroom.

Because I guess that's the way it's supposed to be.

Please don't call child protective services

Carolyn is going through a bit of an injury phase right now. She's so bruised and hurt other moms are starting to comment on the injuries.

Let's review.

There's the horrible bruise, smack in the middle of her chest. This happened when she wiped out on her bike a few days ago. This is by far the worst injury, and the worst looking. I'm not even sure how she did it, other than that she was going really fast, talking (of course) and looking back at me. My dad used to tell me "It's a long way from your heart" whenever I hurt myself and came crying to him. I would have said this, because I sort of love it, but it was actually dangerously close to her heart. And lungs. And other very vital organs.

Speaking of bike injuries, there was the falling off the bike injury today that will surely result in a black eye. Hopefully, it'll be gone before she's baptized in a week and a half. (Yeah!!! The girls are finally getting baptized. Take that... eternal damnation.)

Later in the morning, she scratched up the side of her face.

Just before school, she was under her bed and re-injured her back by scraping the exact same spot she hurt a few weeks ago at the playground.

Let's just say there are a number of other bumps and bruises throughout. Thankfully, today when she was playing monster tag with her friend at the playground, there was no noticeable injury when she ran smack into a metal pole.

"No bruising? No bleeding? You're totally fine. Go play."

Why sisters are great

Today at the playground, there was this group of very annoying tweens. Actually, they were about 8 and 9, but they were real jerks. I'd also like to make fun of their physical appearance, but it just doesn't feel right to go quite that low.

Anyway, they wouldn't move for Carolyn to get through and this was making Carolyn very upset. After asking for them to move several times, with no results, she just stood there and stared at them. At one point, the girls started calling each other weird.

Carolyn misunderstood and thought they had called Penny weird.

"Don't call my sister weird," she yelled. She was ready to throw down with these jerky bullies. I was so proud.

And Penny... Sweet lying Penny. That girl doesn't know how to tell the truth.

She spills milk. "It spilled itself." She kicks Fife. "He walked into my foot." She hits Carolyn, three times, IN FRONT of Steve. "No I didn't."

It's so weird because I don't think Carolyn has ever lied. Ever. She just doesn't know how. And now there's Penny, the chronic liar. Like I've said... Sometimes this stuff comes down to hard wiring.

Either that or Penny has already learned, from Carolyn, that telling the truth just doesn't pay.

Comedic genius

I just said Penelope was probably a comic genius in my last post, and now I know it's true. She spent about 15 minutes this morning re-enacting my favorite scene from Steve Martin's "The Jerk," even though she has never heard tell of either the actor/writer/funniest-person-ever and/or movie.

After much debate, Penny decided she would, in fact, agree to go to swimming class later this afternoon. She's been mad at Ms. Connie because, two weeks ago, Ms. Connie told Penny not to climb up the ladder. I know... How dare she.

Anyway, Penny went around the house collecting her items. Her robe, swimsuit, goggles, swim cap and flip flops.

Then, she'd say she needed her new Sleeping Beauty doll.

"That's all I need," she'd say.

Then, she needed a coloring book.

"I got my coloring book," dragging the bag around the house. "That's all I need."

Then she needed a baggie of crayons. Then a giant coloring page. Then a library book. After packing each item, she'd drag the heavier-and-heavier bag around the house.

"And that's all I need."

Field trip

The family and I returned last night from a whirlwind trip to Chicago. I first went to Michigan to see Michelle, a good friend of mine (and we were lucky enough to be in Holland for the second annual Groove Fest, which was super duper fun). 

The next day, I drove to Chicago while Steve took the train with the girls.We did some of the usual stuff. Go to the Disney store. Eat and drink at great restaurants. Penny, of course, only wanted to eat soup (she actually told me, "No soup for you," which makes me believe she's a comedic genius since she doesn't know what a Seinfeld is) and Carolyn mostly dined on salad. While I love to say they're sort of weird eaters, I'm not-so-secretly proud that they would rather eat Minestrone than chicken nuggets. 

We also walked around for hours. I went running down by the lakeshore and became infatuated with the Westin's "Sleep TV" that causes you to fall asleep within five minutes of turning it on. I also mistakenly made fun of a handicap person. This guy with two bum legs let us go by and I said, "It's fine. We're usually the slow ones." No I really said that. In my defense, I had consumed a fair amount of cheap red wine.  It's folly that Steve finds infinitely hilarious and likes to apply to all sorts of situations.

It's really quite horrible and I am truly sorry to anybody reading this with a bum leg.

Finally, we headed over to the Field Museum to look at dinosaur bones. It was a good trip but Penny was pretty much done by the time we left and slept almost the whole way home, rush hour traffic.  See here, as we leave the museum and Carolyn tries to remove my headband while Penny cries in the corner. That about sums up our departure.

I slept 10 hours last night, even without Sleep TV. I almost feel ready to face the day.

A week of ugh

A little case of the sick hit our house this week. Ugh. While none of us stayed in terrible shape for too long, it seems climbing out of this funk into a state of complete wellness has taken longer than I expected. Definitely longer than I wanted

Anyway, we did venture out today, with disastrous results. Carolyn came down with a case of the clumsies at the playground. She was playing with an older girl while I anxiously watched Penny tackling larger and larger ladders. Then I saw Carolyn whimpering with a group of moms standing around her, of course, and they said she fell and hurt her back. And it was scraped up pretty good.

Carolyn was more frantic about not being able to find me than the injury. She said, "All the other mommies were watching over their sweethearts." Good grief. By the time we left, she had hurt herself twice more, which is really pretty uncommon for her and more of a Penelope kind of thing.

Then, after moving to a quieter playground (we were the only ones there, sweet bliss) and off to downtown for lunch, I realized I forgot my wallet at home.

Doh! That is such a rooky mistake. There was so much screaming and crying on the bike ride home (some of it even came from the girls) that we were all spent by the time we got in the house. Both girls are still sleeping two hours later, if that's any indication on how the morning went.

We are an at-home kind of trio this afternoon. Besides. I have windows and screens to wash and gardening to tend to. Oh joy. But at least I can lock the girls in their bedrooms when they start screaming here.

Scaring the shit out of your 5-year-old, part 2

Steve took the girls out today and, as is his wont, had the radio tuned to crazy right-wing talk shows. Let it never be said that Rush Limbaugh isn't a family-friendly kind of guy.

At one point Carolyn asks Steve, "What's a baby killer?"
Steve tell her that nobody kills babies.
"They were joking?"
Yes, of course they were joking.
"Do jerks kill babies?"
No, not even jerks kill babies. She ponders this for a minute.
"Because they aren't strong enough?"

Post Easter glow

As predicted, last week was pretty crazy. In four days, I went to church four times. The girls went twice including the Good Friday service where the congregation kisses the feet of the life size (which was also fairly lifelike) crucifix. Carolyn got up there and in her outdoor voice shrieked "What's that."

My mom made it to our house for Easter too. It really was a lovely holiday, complete with chocolate bunnies, egg hunts in our backyard and fancy dresses. The best Easter in my memory.

Back to real life, which now includes swim lessons for Penny. She just loves them, which is a pleasant surprise and a big relief. I'm sure there's about a billion other things to write about, but I just can't think of them right now.

Happy Holy Week

While Carolyn thought the Mr. Easter Bunny was pretty rockin', Penny was pretty traumatized. So, no pictures of her screaming to get away. Not this year.

Well, just a week until Easter. We are especially busy this year, for reasons I will outline in a moment, so I won't be blogging this week. This weekend also was pretty busy for reasons I will outline shortly.

This weekend:
• I ran 10 miles. Yeah for me. It was a little slower than I would have liked, but I felt great for most of it, which is a big improvement over a few weeks ago.
• This year's Easter egg hunt was just one long fiasco. The things we took away from this experience were that nice spring weather makes people come out in huge numbers, parents of small children are not immune from jerkiness and six plastic eggs. It was chaos, but still fun.
• Carolyn had FOUR shots on Friday. What a trooper. She came through OK, but I had made more than a few promises, thankfully, I was able to see through. That meant a trip to Toys R Us (Carolyn got the game Operation, which is both very annoying and super awesome), lunch at her favorite restaurant and an inaugural trip to Chuck E Cheese. My head still hurts.

This week:
• There will be more than a few hours spent in church for my upcoming confirmation, including a mass Good Thursday (*see note) where I will have my feet washed by a priest. That shouldn't be at all awkward.
• I'm working on deadline on a story, which I put off until my busiest week of the year.
• Penny starts swimming lessons this week. Fingers crossed, she seems really excited about it.
• I still have to get to the store for Easter presents. That big stupid rabbit isn't bringing candy, but rather very specific gifts that require his staff to run all over town. Stupid rabbit.

And just as an aside, Steve thinks it's really funny to play the theme to Doogie Howser M.D. while I write my blog. Happy Holy Week!

(*Note: My dear friend Jazzy Joe pointed out Thursday is called Holy Thursday, not Good Thursday, making me a bad Catholic. I'd argue that I was drunk when I wrote that so I was well within the parameters of Catholicism. Come talk to me when a priest washes your feet.)

When did sugar become a good thing?

Don't get me wrong. I'm a fan of sugar. And butter. And oil. And meat.

But it doesn't mean those things are actually good for us. Sugar's probably the worst of the lot because of its complete lack of nutritional value. It was to be avoided at all costs for many, many years.

Steve and I were watching TV last night and Snapple was advertising its new tea, "with sugar." Like sugar some magical new health food. Sure it's better than high fructose corn syrup, which is in virtually everything processed because it's such a cheap product, but sugar still rots teeth and makes you fat.

Steve had it right. "Who would have thought they would invent something that makes sugar look good."

By the way, I'm totally an old person magnet. When all the other moms are chatting at library story time, I'm jawing away to the grandma who lives across the street. I am always talking to the oldest caregiver in the room. This is not to say I'm super mature or anything, I've known plenty of immature old people, but I think it does say something about my character, or my reluctance to dye to my hair.

I also think it explains my love for crossword puzzles and "Antiques Roadshow."

Scaring the shit out of your 5-year-old in three easy steps

This really is a simple-to-follow plan for anybody who thinks their 5-year-old has lived in the innocence of childhood long enough and needs to begin learning the harsh realities of life.

1. Show your child a dead squirrel in the middle of the road with its brains splashed out all over the place. Say that could happen to her if she were hit by a car, although she's been trained from birth never to run into the street and has never violated this cardinal rule.

2. When she begins to ask very difficult questions (i.e. will the squirrel become undead, what will happen now, what about its little squirrel family) allow yourself to get deeper and deeper into the philosophy of death and its finality.

3. When you let your children watch Saturday morning cartoons in the basement while you watch an old movie upstairs, don't bother to check what comes on after CareBears. Even when your 5-year-old's baby sister comes upstairs, just assume everything is totally fine and don't worry that an infomercial about cleft lip might be frightening your little girl very, very badly. I'd like to extend a special thanks network TV for this. I don't know why we don't rely on you more often.

After this, your child should be sufficiently afraid of pretty much everything. While you watch the end of your movie, which just might be the 1977 Jane Fonda film, "Julia," she should hear Jane Fonda get a little panicky about babies in a bakery and just assume the French baguettes the baker is holding are baby legs.

This is the end of your lesson on how to scare the shit out of your 5-year-old. I hope it helps.

I did it! I knew I could do it.

The girls and I are probably the greatest playground connoisseurs in Normal. It doesn't hurt that we have at least six playgrounds within a one-mile radius of our house.

There's the purple playground. The big playground. The dragon playground. The horsey playground. Carolyn's playground. It's a pretty varied selection.

Today, at the new playground (named after having just recently been built), Carolyn hit a milestone. She finally figured out the monkey bars. You know... The ones requiring you to swing from one bar to another. I've yet to see an adult master these but Carolyn had it down in about 10 minutes. Well... Five years and 10 minutes.



Totally cool and fun. And we even found a cluster of daffodils to make this whole spring experience really come together.


Too bad it's going to snow six inches tomorrow night. Ugh. I am done with winter.

Catching frogs

Not really. We were out in the field trying to catch some frogs. Trying, but not succeeding.

A farm definitely has its perks, and just to note, Carolyn just really loved being outside there. She wandered around for long stretches, playing her own games or creating her own imaginary scenarios.

I don't know for sure that's what she was doing, but that's what I did when I was a kid on a farm.

The best kids in the room. Today.

When your 3-year-old pees all over the McDonald's playset at the Chicagoland's toll road travel plaza, what do you do?

Well, when this happened to me early today, I tried as best I could to wipe in up, put on her sister's shoes, keep her from taking off her pants and grab my brand-new cup of Starbuck's tea as I tried to bribe them away from the super-fun slide and into the nearest bathroom without attracting any unnecessary attention.

Thank goodness she was wearing black pants. They are a lot more forgiving then the red shirt I was wearing, which got the brunt of her very wet crotch thrust against it.

This comes at the end of a short trip to Michigan the girls and I took this week. And really, I need to back up a little.

On the trip to Michigan, the girls were as good as I have ever seen them. They were polite to my friends. They were chatty, but not overly so. They were interested in the conversations. God bless the 3 and 5 year old siblings.

Early on the trip, I took them to my favorite fancy café in the even fancier St. Joseph. (I love me some beach towns.) The girls lovingly shared their soup and Carolyn ate more than half my salad. Penny finished lunch before us and she wandered around the table admiring the decor. As I was leaving, the employees behind he counter stopped me to say I had the best behaved children they had ever seen in there.

The best! I was giddy with pride and shock. I told them, shucks, the girls aren't always like this. And just so I wouldn't be a liar or anything, Penny screamed from the travel plaza's parking lot (she was under the impression we would return to playset. Oops!) until I paid the toll worker his 60 cents and threatened her with a blankie-free ride home.

Good girls

I would just like to note that I feel really crappy today. I had horrible insomnia last night and a very, very busy day today with a visit to the library, a field trip to the Children's Museum, no napping and swimming later today.

So it's especially nice the girls have played together nicely for about TWO HOURS!

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Spring cleanup

Every year I look in the backyard as spring approaches and think, "Who in the hell is going to clean this up? Who has the time, what with all the playgrounds to visit and bike rides to take." The answer will probably be me. This year seemed like an impossibly big task, evidenced by this poor Little People person, discovered among the wounded.


So I looked back at last year about this time, and it turns out this mess is probably less horrible than last year, which was much wetter. Sticks and mud are one thing. Reseeding a whole portion of our yard due to flood is another.

And plus, I already got the garage tackled. Mostly.

On to more exciting news, I wanted to mention Carolyn's recent obsession with Hannah Montana. She has never actually seen the show, but is recently in love with her music, or anything on the radio that resembles pink bubblegum or rainbow-colored unicorns. I'm not discouraging her new attraction, although I have no intention of letting her watch a show that focuses on the love lives of hot Disney stars, but I even let her create her own Hannah Montana Pandora station.

It is the worst, and I am in no way exaggerating, worst music I have ever heard. I think this is what getting old sounds like. But I can't help but smile a tiny bit as Carolyn "thumbs up" her favorite ear-piercing pop songs.

Rock on...

Why can't I be a role model

I love my friend Courtney. She's super cool and beautiful and all that stuff people say about the women they admire.

So I loved to hear Carolyn's unexpected praise of Courtney yesterday. Just randomly, Carolyn started talking talking about her. When we asked what she meant, she said, "Courtney does everything."

Again, we asked her what she meant. She said, "She works at an airport and she's a firefighter. Also, she's a cooker at a restaurant."

While Courtney doesn't cook much as far as I know, much less for an audience, I think Carolyn believes Courtney catered her own wedding. Even still, I thought it was really awesome.

Also, I bought Carolyn her first pair of Nike sneakers today. When we were saying Grace, something we're all pretty new at doing, Carolyn kind of sped through the sign of the cross. I told her she didn't need to hurry, but she said her sneakers made her go extra fast.

I'm tired of running in the cold

Since giving up Facebook for Lent, I've had a lot of random thoughts and things happen that I haven't been able to share with the World(WideWeb). For instance, Steve and I attended an all day Christian Sexuality workshop in order to have our marriage blessed. We're getting "married" on March 22. We haven't registered for anything and would prefer checks. Thanks.

Speaking of March 22, that starts off spring break week. Now I'm thinking maybe I should again move up my Michigan trip to March 23 so I don't have to hear "Do I have school today?" from Carolyn 5,000 times a day. It would give me a chance to pick up those checks in person.

Carolyn got in trouble at swimming yesterday for telling Little Annie, who is just as cute as her name suggests, "You're not the boss of me."

While giving up Facebook has been relatively simple, giving up beer and wine has been much more difficult. Some might say this is a sign of alcoholism. I say I need the carbs because of all my hard-core training (see title).

I need just one more OK to buy those plane tickets I've got my eye on. Nonstop to California, baby!

Since I'm not on Facebook, I have much less communication with the outside world. While this is sort of sad, it did help me get up and go talk to the popular swim team moms yesterday. Anyway, please start e-mailing me. I feel sort of unloved.

Making it happen very, very slowly

This blog entry is not about the children. If you are here for them, I'd ask you to please move along.

Today, I passed my 21 manual skills competency test to get certified as a nursing assistant. Woohoo, right! That means I had to buy a pair of scrubs and perform certain tasks on real-live old people. The tester told me it usually takes between two and six hours, but I got mine done in an hour and a half. Why? Because I'm awesome.

This is slowly putting me the road to nursing school. Slowly, slowly. I've wanted to be a nurse ever since I was 15 years old and my dear friend, Heather, got me a job as a junior nursing assistant at Presbyterian Village. The trouble was, at the time, I was not very good at science, not very disciplined and more interested in boys than work.

Ehh. We all have faults.

So I retook Anatomy and Physiology (got an A), am getting re-certified as a CNA and will take a statistics class this fall to prepare for this once lost dream. But for the first time in... forever... I think this will be the time it works for me. I'll have everything (and I mean every tiny little thing) in order and it'll be the perfect time to do it.

Plus, I'll need the work once newspapers finally start closing down and Steve is home with me all day.

What a year this will be. I'll become Catholic. I'll get all my nursing stuff in order. I'll run a half marathon. Not having any friends might just be one of the best things that ever happened to me.

My girls are clueless. But in a good way

Carolyn's teacher had to talk to me yesterday, but not at all in a "your kid is the spawn of satan" kind of way. The teachers just wanted me to know they're not using the F-word to teach the Letter of the Week.

The kids were washing their hands in this giant communal sink, and they started saying things like, "You're cussing," and "Stop cussing."

Carolyn's witness to this and likes to get in the act. So she tells them to stop cussing. Next thing, Carolyn is asking her teacher, "What's cussing?" Love her, right!

So Ms. Casey says cussing is saying something that isn't nice. Fine. Carolyn goes back out to finish her hand washing, but then comes running back to her teacher all in a tither.

"Now they're cussing at me!"

Penny's little misunderstandings also lean on the side of super cute.

She's really into getting dressed. She gets dressed about 10 minutes after waking up, and puts on her jammies about 10 minutes after getting home for the night.

And not just that, but it's important that she match.

Yesterday, she wore her horizontally striped turtleneck with big blocks of bright rainbow colors with her new horizontally striped Valentine's Day pants with pencil-thin lines of pink and red stripes.

You might think these two items might clash, but they're both striped. The other day, she wore a shirt/pants combo because they both had butterflies on them. To Penny, these things totally mean matching — and are super, super cute.

Also, this non-matching type of matching is better than Carolyn's preference of wearing nothing but sweatpants.

The case of the missing Penelope Bunny

For those of you not in the know, Penelope Bunny is Carolyn's must-have favorite toy. She can't sleep without it and she sucks on her long, organic ears, which is pretty disgusting.

So last night when she couldn't find her, there was lots and lots of crying. Carolyn laid in bed, sobbing that she couldn't sleep without Penelope Bunny (nice name, huh!) while the real Penelope and I turned the house upside down.

You might not know it to look at her, but the real Penelope is very good at finding things. Just asking her where things are sometimes yields excellent results.

But after an hour, the search party called off the rescue efforts. Penny offered Carolyn other toys to sleep with, and even suggested some lovely music ("Do you want silly music, or soft music?"). Carolyn eventually cried herself to sleep and Penny eventually stopped calling me in ask if I had looked in the closet, or under the couch.

So this morning, I was a little surprised when Carolyn came running out of the room with Penelope Bunny. Turns out, she had stuffed her into a little toy castle — one that was on her bed the WHOLE time. Carolyn told this story in a fit of giggles while Penny and I looked at each other, shaking our heads.


* Note: This is Penelope Bunny on Christmas morning 2007 when Carolyn got her. I am SHOCKED that she was so pink, as she is barely white right now. But it's the only pic I have of her.