Twas The Night Before School Starts

Twas the night before school starts, when all through the place

No parent could keep a smile from their happy face;

The backpacks were ready by the door with care

In hopes that the school bus soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of recess danced in their heads;

There was a summer’s worth of cleaning waiting to be done

But better things first like blogging and emailing everyone

Prepared with my coffee and my computer too

I had blogs to catch up and writing to do.

When all of a sudden there came a little ding,

I clicked on the pop to see what it could bring.

Away from the blogs it felt like I ran,

Over the summer, I've assumed my kids attention span.

With the familiar pop-up window, the friendly gem

I knew in a moment it must be IM

This new chatting on facebook cannot be good.

I already spend more time online than I probably should.

Tomorrow when that school bus finally takes the kids away

After a few minutes of celebration, plenty of things to fill my day

Yes, the cleaning, the laundry, the dishes galore

Gardening, sewing, washing the floor

Going to the salon, the mall, and Starbucks too

Painting my toenails, reading my book, so much to do.

Walking the kids to bus stop tomorrow,

is filled with excitement but no sorrow!

The kids climb aboard and wave from their seats

As the bus drives away from the end of the street,

Cries will be heard from moms full of cheer

“Happy first day of school to all and to all a good year.”

A Special Fan

Yesterday was another hot day here. It was in the upper 80's and I turned on the fan to cool things off. The fan gave up. It died. It lived a good long life. I think it was over 10 years old. But it's still August. I can't be without a fan.

I felt a bit like a betrayer this morning when I went out to buy a new fan. Is it wrong to replace my old fan so fast? With more hot weather coming, I don't think so.

So today, I bought this.

This fan is special. A 20 inch box fan with 3 speed settings and a carry handie for convenience. You could search for years and never find a carry handie. Really! How often does one find a carry handie on their fan?!

Yup, it's made in China.

Yup, it was the only fan left in the store.

I hope it works.

Translation Please

We're home now after spending a week in Virginia visiting my parents.
Tonight I made tacos for dinner. My 5 year old said, "Mom, I really like it when you put potatoes and whip cream on my tacos."
As yummy as potatoes and whip cream mixed with hot sauce and cheese sounds, what he meant was tomatoes and sour cream. Or at least I think that's what he meant.

Is that a what?

Today we went to the National Aquarium in Baltimore. There was a little girl in front of me about 5 years old. I heard her ask her mother, "Mom, is that a walrus????!"

Her mother very sweetly replied, "No honey, that's a catfish."

The two can so easily be confused, can't they?

We return home to Seattle tomorrow. And I can't wait.

Quick Note

We arrived safely in Virginia late last night after a long day of traveling. I felt sorry for the woman across the aisle from me. She was alone with three children. The airplane had 6 seats across separated by one aisle. So the woman took one row with two young toddlers on either side of her and her 7 year old sat on the aisle seat across from her. I sat in the seat behind the 7 year old. And older woman happened to sit next to the 7 year old. That older woman was an angel. She should have been paid millions for what she endured during the flight.
The 7 year told her all kinds of things. About her father and about her biological father. About her house that isn't really house because it's a trailer and she has no curtains on her windows. The 7 year old wanted to write a story but she couldn't write. So the 7 year old drew pictures and the lady was nice enough to write the words. Then the 7 year old said, "And let's not make this a short story. It needs to be nice and long for my daddy." And she wasn't kidding.
Later in the flight, the 7 year old started singing. First she sang songs like, "It's raining, It's pouring." Then she started just singing and even admitted that she was making up words that weren't even real words. "La Ti Da.."
Do you know how long a flight from Seattle to Virginia is?
As the plane started to descend the little girl commented that her ears were starting to bother her and that she couldn't hear. But then she quickly recovered and said, "It's ok, I can still talk." Oh...
Even my own 7 year, who was sitting 2 rows behind with my husband, commented on how annoying this other 7 year old was.
Really, this woman should have been paid millions. And I don't think the other mom even thanked her. But I did.

Some Days

Some days there isn't much going on worth blogging about. Today is one of those days. The kids aren't doing much more than their usual fighting and whining. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. The conversations in my house seem strangely normal. Even my husband is well behaved.


I look to the neighbors for something blog-worthy. Nothing.


You would think I would be happy to have a peaceful, uneventful day. Instead I'm slightly disappointed to have nothing to blog about.


I'm sure Hallmark will have a new sympathy card for that soon.

But not to worry. I'm leaving to visit my parents in Virginia in a few hours. We'll be gone for 6 days. I'm sure the week will be filled with many blog-worthy adventures.

Recycling

Earlier this summer we rented a small house house in a state park. We spent two nights there. The first day we arrived I put some bottles into the recycling on the back porch. I met the park ranger while I was outside. I introduced myself and we chatted for a few minutes. Then she said that she asked when we arrived. I told her that it was our first day there. She opened the recycling container and said she would be back to empty it. Ok.
I went back inside. Then I looked through the window and I noticed that the park ranger was emptying the recycling the container like she said and it was full. Very full. Full with wine bottles! And didn't I just tell her that I was only here one day? I swear those weren't mine. Not even one of them. I had only put water bottles in the recycling. I was very jealous of the people who had stayed in the house before us!

Something Different

My husband bought this book in Japan. It is filled with pictures where are you supposed to find the differences between the two pictures. We have similar things in the US. I figured you don't have to be able to read to find the differences in the pictures, so I took the book with me when I dragged the kids with me to get the oil changed one day.
At the top of the page, the picture is divided into sections. I knew that we were supposed to one find thing different in each of the sections at the top of the page but no matter how hard we looked we could never find something different in every section. Can you guess why?


Can anyone tell that my husband solved the mystery? Because the answer is "C". "C" is the section that doesn't have anything different. So if I could have read the directions I wouldn't haven't kept looking (and made my kids keep looking) for something different in every section. At least my husband had a good laugh at my frustration. Now to go through the book in the trash.

Bring Your Own

Usually I write about the funny things my kids do. I think spending so much time with my kids this summer, is causing their behavior to wear off on me.
Yesterday I went to the grocery store. I needed to buy milk and bread. I got a few other things. I put everything on the belt at the checkout. Then I put my green cloth bag in front of my groceries. I noticed that it wasn't empty. There was something inside. I opened it. It was garlic.
I had bought garlic earlier in the week. I used the last of it when I made spaghetti. I don't use garlic every day so I didn't need it right away. I guess when I emptied the bag, I took everything else out of the bag and since the garlic was small and light I didn't notice it in the bottom of my bag. So now I was at the check out with my stowaway garlic that I had bought earlier in the week. I didn't want to attempt to explain to the checker why I had brought my own garlic to the store.
Can you imagine? "I uh brought my own garlic with me because I wanted it to see the world and know what it was like at other grocery stores." So I just put it on the belt with the rest of my groceries. For $0.50 it was worth my dignity. Except that I had purchased it at different grocery store and the produce bag was slightly different than the store I was currently in. I'm sure the checker snickered when she rang up the garlic. Luckily she didn't question me. I was so embarrassed I couldn't even look at her.
As soon as I got home, I made sure that the garlic was put away safely with the onions.
Am I the only who does things like this?
Does any else take garlic on field trips and bring garlic to the store with them so they can pay for it again?

Free Samples

Dear Quality Health,
Thank you for that lovely spam email offering me a free sample of the new Honey nut cheerios cereal bar simply by clicking on the link in the email and connecting to your website. The picture looked delicious! Then when I clicked on the link, there was no free sample, just a survey. So I typed "free sample" into the search box at the top of the screen on your website. What a great list of "free samples" you have!
I found urine samples and stool samples and even biopsy samples. Just so you know, I have boys. I get enough urine and stool samples. And I'm not really interested in any biopsy samples. In fact after reading about all of the samples on your website, I'm no longer interested in that free Honey Nut Cheerios bar sample either.
Thanks Anyway,
Cookie

Signs That Summer Vacation Is A Little Too Long

1. You think that ice cream is an appropriate breakfast because it contains milk. And strawberry ice cream counts as fruit too!
2. You stop asking the kids not to fight and start asking them not to fight on the couch because blood stains don't come out.
3. You're on a first name basis with the people at the McDonald's drive thru.
4. The people at the McDonald's Drive thru aren't on a first name basis with you.
5. Spraying the kids outside with the hose has replaced giving them a bath.
6. You've finished buying all of the back to school supplies a month before school actually starts.
7. You start a petition for the school year to start in July.
8. You have bought 29 pairs of goggles and only have 2 kids that use them.
9. There are 5 buckets filled with dirt, sand, grass, weeds, seeds, shells, sand dollars, rocks and other collections on the deck, but not a single bucket available to take to the beach.
10. Your body goes into involuntary convulsions at the when you hear the first syllable of the word "boring"

Secret Super Powers

I have super powers. It's a secret, so don't tell anyone.
I can make it rain. All I have to do is sign my kids up for summer camp and magically it rains. I'm not kidding. I have signed my kids up for camp twice this summer. The first time it rained. It hasn't rained since. Not one drop. Finally the second week that I chose for camp is here and guess what. It's raining. Am I talented, or what? I know you are jealous.

Lunch Time

Today at lunch I heard my 7 year old say to his little 5 year old brother, "Let me know when you're all done lunch."
My 5 year old asked, "Why?"
"Because I'm going to eat your lunch when I'm done with mine."

You'd think I don't feed them enough! Then when I asked my 7 year old if he was still hungry and if I should prepare him something else to eat he said, "no."

Some days you just can't win.

Did I mention that there are only 23 days until school starts?

Can I Use the Tweezers???

The other day my 7 year old said, "Mom, can use the tweezers?"
"Why?" I asked, a little afraid of what his answer might be.
"Because I want to go in the woods in the back yard and there is a prickle bush in the way" was his logical reply.
I looked down from the vegetables I was chopping for dinner and saw that he was actually holding the hedge clippers. That makes more sense. "Go ahead. Just make sure and you put them back in the garage where you found them when you are done. And honey, those are hedge clippers, not tweezers."
"Oh" he said and took off.
Now it makes a lot more sense why when my 5 year old started screaming last week when got splinter and I asked for the tweezers to get it out!

Lemonade Stand

I wish I could have taken a picture of this to share with you. But it wasn't my kids selling lemonade that I'm writing about. It was the kids who live about a block away. My neighborhood is a dead end. It is made up of one main road that has 5 small roads coming off of it. Each of those 5 roads ends in a cul de sac. I live in the third cul de sac. The lemonade stand was in the fourth cul de sac. At least the kids who selling the lemonade live in the fourth cul de sac.
My 5 year old was playing outside in front of my house today. He came running inside asking me for a quarter to buy some lemonade from his friends who live in the next cul de sac. He decided it would be best to take two quarters since his brother was outside too and would also want some lemonade. I asked my son, "did you leave our cul de sac?" Because surely the only way to buy lemonade would be to pass by the lemonade stand in front of their house, right? He assured me he hadn't.
I looked outside. The kids from the next cul de sac has set up their lemonade stand at the end of my driveway.
I get that these things happen. I get that kids wander sometimes. Parents lose track of their kids when go outside to play. It has happened to me before. My kids go outside to play and next thing I know my neighbor across the street is calling to ask if it's ok if my kids have a Popsicle. But that wasn't the case this time. This time the father was with the kids. In fact he was pulling the cooler for the kids to sell their lemonade at the end of my driveway. I'm not kidding.
So I was chatting with my good friend and next door neighbor, who also had to get a quarter for her son to have some convenient lemonade, and we decided that tomorrow we're going to sell something in their cul de sac. We just haven't decided what to sell yet. Classy, I know.

Ice Cave

I took this picture today. Do you know what my 7 year old is doing? He's getting ready to throw a snowball. What a difference from a few days ago when it was over 100 degrees here.

Today we hiked the Ice Cave trail in the Mt. Baker National Forest. If you live in the Seattle Area, it's well worth the drive and the hike. The kids had a blast. They walked on the snow. The slid on the snow. The fell on the snow. The threw snowballs. They even shivered! All on the first day of August.