I forgot to add...

What I neglected to mention in the last post is how much the girls both enjoyed the feeling of peanut butter on their hands.

Annie was the only one with sap all over herself but Ashley saw the peanut butter coming forth from the pantry and her eyes lit up.

"Can I have peanut butter on a spoon!?!?" she wanted to know.

When she found out I was only putting it on hands of people who were sappy (ha!) she changed her mind and informed me she was, in fact, sap covered as well.

Both of them had to be drug to the bathroom sink and have their hands washed for them to get the peanut butter off. Apparently it's more fun than Play-Doh.

Annie was so happy about the whole thing she ended up flapping and clapping her peanut butter into little globs of wall decorations. And ceiling. And shower curtain. And mirror... you get it.

Dad would say "Go put on some long pants"

Growing up we had trees in our backyard. Lots of trees. Lots and lots of trees. Which also meant we had issues with sap. I knew that butter would get sap off hands from a fairly young age.

Living in an apartment you miss out on several goodies.

Last weekend I pulled a ton of pokey weeds from our backyard area and around the "flower bed" between us and the racist card people. (I can't call them neighbors since they are anti-neighborly). Towards the end I employed Aiden to help me with the dead bushes that were in there and the larger pokey weeds. He has leather gloves and I had cotton girly gloves so I figured it's fair.

When we were done we borrowed the wheelbarrow from the shed and filled it up. That's when I realized my kids have never done yardwork.

Huh. That NEVER would have been the case in my childhood. Clearly I am providing a dis-service to them.

Of course I let them help load the wheelbarrow and take it to the dumpster with us.

This tree sap thing, it's another thing they have never experienced before. Annie was trying to climb trees at the park on Saturday but that was an oak tree. No sap. Tonight she tried to climb a pine tree. Sap. Barbie also tried to climb the tree but she suffered much less for it all.

When we get a house (10,000 years from now) I'll have to make up for lost time.

Manscape

The warm weather brings out a lot of clothing not seen since 9 months ago. This if fun, for the most part.

I know I wear tank tops and thus expose you people to the fat that is my upper arms. But at least I shave all the appropriate areas to wear capris and tank tops. You are welcome.

Today, I saw the strangest thing.

First, it was just a really run down new-ish blue minivan from Idaho (oh, the first problem).

It finally parked and this person took a really long time getting all of their stuff together to exit the vehicle.

Having finally emerged I was able to note it was a man in his mid to late thirties carrying one of those GIGANTIC plastic soda mugs, a laptop bag (sans laptop), and a take out bag from Ivars. I think it was Ivars anyway, I couldn't really see it.

The man was wearing a self made tank top... you know, where they rip off the sleeves themselves so their old t-shirts which are full of holes can live another season? The holes are never in the sleeves though.

I was waiting for Aiden and the kids to come pick me up so I watched this man walk past me. Then I noticed it; he was smuggling squirrels in the back of his shirt!

Or was it a chinchilla?

Maybe it was a black lab. But they have short hair, don't they?

Whatever it was, it was covered in long, black, THICK hair that came up out of the back of his shirt like a really confused pompadour.

I'm still not sure what he was smuggling but I can assure you it was dead as it was not moving at all.

How he wasn't being tickled by his own back hair (if that's really what it was) is beyond me.

Also works for words that rhyme with 'witch'... I guess

While sitting at the gas station yesterday the kids were driving me nuts. I can't remember what the talking was all about, just that there was a lot of it. And it was going nowhere fast.

"Look!" I said, "A limo!"

As a kid this would have been enough for me to be distracted.

It still works.

After we all managed to see the limo, which pulled up right next to us, Alex explained, "Or a limousine."

Well, yeah.

Annie wanted to know the difference.

It didn't matter what I said, she decided a limousine was two limos long. or two limos put together.

Finally I got through to her; "you know how your friend is named Addison but people call her Addie? It's the same thing with limo and limousine."

"Oooohhh... what?"

"Like sometimes we say 'honey' but sometimes we say 'hun'? To call people it, not about the food." I have to be very specific sometimes.

She was positive she understood me now.

"Oh, so like, if a man has a dog and names it Honey and then he says "c'mere, Honey" then his wife and his dog would both come?"

What?!?

Ashley and Alex just wanted to know who would name their dog Honey.

Lots of pictures

Aiden took the kids and the camera outside and got some fun pictures. I was in class and I'm glad I wasn't there or some of these shots would have been done very differently.

First, Love is in the air...





Then Ashley was pacing a bird trying to give it a graham goldfish cracker. She walked slowly with her arm out towards it. The bird kept just 2 fence posts ahead of her walking. This is her still convinced she could get that bird...


...and giving up.


Today we went to a birthday party at the park. It was early enough that the really hot weather hadn't hit yet and we had so much fun! Thanks for the invitation, Christa!

Alex and his *friend*...


The tree we hung out under. I thought it was a good picture and was just goofing around.

My climbing monkey, Ashley.


And a climbing monkey, Alex.

Annie kept trying to climb but had little success. Maybe she's too chicken,

Or maybe it's the over-the-handle-bars-face-dive she did yesterday making her nervous.

She was sad until this lady came by with her dogs.


Ashley got in on it, too.

Alex spent a lot of time in the tree.


Annie got whiny so I had her pick "flowers" (it's a fight in our house that they are weeds so we don't bring them inside but they are very much flowers to Ashley who cannot think of anything so great as free YELLOW flowers she's allowed to pick and bring to Mom as much as she wants!).


After that we were hot so we ran a few errands which included buying a mister from ACE. Best $12 I ever spent. I thought about it last year but didn't get one. Oh, man! I'm so glad we did it.

The kids spent the rest of the day in the pools with Amy's kids, in the sprinkler, and playing water guns. And the grown ups? We sat in chairs and enjoyed the mist.

Music to my ears

Annie had her kindergarten program last Wednesday night. It was so much fun! The first graders sang first and did a good job. Then the kids we were there to see got up.

Our section of the front rows was full of the four of us to watch her, our landlord's husband with 2 of their kids (one in the show and one at the doctor's with Mom), and Amy, James, and two of their kids (TWO of theirs in the show!).

It was our own little Northwood Manor cheering section.

Annie had been practicing all the songs at home and in the car and everywhere we went so she knew all the words and we could hear her above the rest of them at some times.

Good job, Annie! It was great and you were beautiful!!

They'll Probably Be On The News Someday

I'm taking two classes this summer; one is not ever going to be mentioned on here and the other is Parent Child Relations.

Last semester I had to take a class about how kids develop from conception to age 8. Alex is turning 9 next month so I kind of felt like I was cheating by being in the class. How many issues of Parents magazine have I read? How many hours have I dealt with it exactly? Yeah...

So I kind of feel that way this semester, too. I have, despite all evidence to the contrary, read a lot of research (even before the great Major change) on parenting and the long term effects it can have on the kids.

But I LOVE going to this class. There are only 20 or so people, including the teacher, in the room. Of those, 3 of us are parents and one is a boy. The professor is one I have had before and she knows I am not quiet in discussion based classes. And she knows I have kids. She asks my input as much as I offer it without her asking.

In short, the people in my class know I a LOT about what kind of parenting I do. I'm honest about it, for the sake of the class... it's like therapy.

For example, yesterday we were talking about 2-5 year olds and that included tantrums. Our teacher explained how you should redirect a tantrum thrower so they will forget their fit and be done.

I said we had moved on to applaud Ashley's tantrums. "Good Job!!! Oh, look, she kicked the wall!!" All with extreme pleasure and clapping.

It startles them, shocks them, whatever in to stopping the fit. They aren't getting their reaction they were after so they give up. Eventually.

I throw in my juicy nuggets of future helpfulness anytime I can.

Some of the girls told me yesterday they are going to be calling me in a few year with "how did you handle this situation?!?"

Maybe they should wait and see how my kids turn out, first.

It Must Be SUMMERTIME

We've had our warm weather start to hit. It's still nice because the breeze is still going. It's stagnate August that gets to me.

In the last week we have had BBQ'd hamburgers, hotdogs, and/or chicken 6 times for lunch or dinner. Or both.

Corn on the cob is less than 4 for a buck

Watermelon

The kids are staying out later, bedtime's pushed back, and the bikes are once again racing around the parking lot while their riders listen for parents to yell "CAR" so they'll pull over.

I love it.

Three more months of awesomeness!

What it's like

We went to Applebee's for dinner last night (Wednesday night is "kids eat for 99 cents night"!). The girls had to go potty so we let them walk each other back to the bathroom.

While they were gone our food arrived. Alex took a big dunk of ketchup on his grilled cheese sandwich and bit in.

Then he started making strange noises.

After several attempts to guess what was wrong (it was a really big bite) he decided to fingerspell it ASL style.

K-I-N-K-

"It's kinky?" I asked.

-E-

the laughter ensued.

-R

Aiden guessed it, CANKER in his mouth. OH!

Then I went to check on the girls since it had been a long time since they left us to go potty.

I walked in to bathroom and heard them talking to each other.

There was a large, old, disabled woman trying to get herself into one of the stalls.

I knocked on the handicap stall door (where I take them if we all go together, I totally understand why they went in there) and asked how it was going.

Annie informed me that she couldn't reach the toilet paper and Ashley, who was walking around in there) couldn't get it to give her any.

I made her unlock the door and I went in to help.

While they were unlocking the door the old lady came back out of the stall she was trying to get into and asked if they were finally done yet.

I apologized and said it would just be a minute.

Annie ended up having to finish her business in another stall which only took a second but I was embarrassed that this old woman had to wait for my kids so she could do her own business.

I helped Ashley wash her hands and then Annie emerged ready to do the same. This old woman had moved about 3 inches from the counter (not for spite, just because she was that slow and sore). Annie started washing her hands and I asked the old woman if she needed a hand and apologized once again.

She informed me that she can do it on her own but she's just sore from waiting so long to use the handicapped stall.

I apologized once again, again and went back to our table.

I suppose she thinks I should teach my kids NOT to go in that stall but this is the first time this has happened in all my years of taking kids potty. I am not about to change this habit of theirs. Frankly, Ashley still needs a little help once in awhile and Annie is able to help her.

Am I wrong?

After we got home we took the kids out to ride bikes (except the one who behaved poorly and got an earlier flight to bed). At one point I listened to Alex asking his friend, Jared, how he spits. Apparently Jared and made some comment about Alex's style (which I didn't know he had or was doing...). They were riding around the corner I was stationed at so I only heard the beginning of the answer but I giggled to myself about the things boys ask peer advice for. They are SO unlike girls.