The Countdown

What a wonderful family I have.
I came home after school today and was met by this sight:
Work, life, everything has been busy beyond reason lately, but Spring Break is almost here! Wahooooooo! Clara and Trevi will spend the week at Disneyland with Grammy and Grampy, and Chad will be in various states in other time zones, so I will be alone for SIX GLORIOUS DAYS. During that time, I'll let the colors fly, painting room after room after room. I can almost smell the satin interior latex enamel now....

The toy formerly known as a wagon

This mini wagon has been every kind of vehicle. It has held toys, rocks, dirt, and even Trevor. Today, it was a cat car. Not just any cat car, though. It was a...get this...."Little Red Catvette". Apparently, my hours of blasting 80's music on satellite radio are paying off.

Wallets

Since Clara has been wanting a wallet for some time now ("Not a little-kid one with velcro..."), and Trevor just got a new library card yesterday, we figured it was the perfect day to go wallet shopping. I'm so glad that Target exists.

Here you see Clara, showing off her teal, faux-leather beauty, and Trevor, feigning nonchalance with his cool-dude wallet that chains to his belt loop:
Trevi put his new library card to good use, checking out an Elephant and Piggie book. Clara reads any and all Mo Willems books to her brother with a fabulous amount of flair.
Trevi needed yet another haircut. He's one of Dr. Seuss's Zeds, I'm telling you.
The backyard is always our hair salon, and I tell Trevi that the birds might find his hair on the grass, and use it to make their nest nice and soft. Today, he asked me what would happen if the birds found some cat hair in the yard. "Would they be too scared to use cat hair in their nest?"

A Numbers Game

Both Clara and Trevor like to make up games. This is not news. Today, though, they dazzled me with their ingenuity. It started out as your basic game: Roll the dice and hop the little foam bunnies along the blue ribbon until they reach the end. But then, the rules got interesting. Clara rolled the dice, which landed together in one of the big, blue circles on the bedspread. So, she decided to count the number of smaller circles inside the big circle, and subtract it from the number she'd rolled. Trevor suggested that big circles were worth more than small circles. Clara added that green circles should have bonus points attached to them. It went on and on. Listening to them, I couldn't help but smile with pride at how cool (and mathematical) these two are.

Peep Show

Ever since the clocks sprang forward a few weeks ago, we've noticed that the sun shines through the peephole in the front door during breakfast, and makes a tiny rainbow on our kitchen wall. Trevor finds this particularly fascinating, and likes to make the rainbow disappear and reappear.
Who needs toys?

Hmmm....

Apparently Clara was on the computer in my classroom today, without my knowledge. I won't post the other 67 nearly identical shots she took of herself, but I would like to note that the William Carlos Williams poems behind her head inspired some of the most amazing poetry my students have written this year.

Happy Birthday, Manny!

Oh my gosh, look at this boy. He has just been a delight every day of his five years.
Seriously. He wakes up happy. He goes to bed happy. He's happy in between.
That said, the picture above (a birthday "Chock-o-lot" shake from Chili's, after a birthday dinner there) almost didn't happen, because both kids were being so difficult that the car was this close to turning itself around and heading home.
It's actually kind of a funny story – Trevi had been asking for weeks about having his birthday dinner at Chevi's, because he'd received a coupon from them for a free birthday meal (and complimentary sombrero). On the way to the restaurant, though, he decided that he just couldn't part with the coupon. The thought of it broke his heart. His lip trembled and tears streamed down his cheeks (and this is Happy Boy we're talking about). There was no convincing him that he'd probably get to keep the actual coupon, even if he'd used up his free meal. Really, I think that he somehow felt that his birthday would officially be over once the coupon had been redeemed. Chad and I, even when tired and hungry, can appreciate kid logic, so we worked on tweaking the plan. Meanwhile, Clara, not a fan of anyone else's logic but her own, began the process of trying to reason with her brother. By "reason", I mean that she attempted to burn her opinion on birthday coupons and their relative value into his brain. We probably should have gone home, but we forged ahead. Dinners out are a birthday tradition, after all.

Neither kid was really hungry, which made dining out much more of a chore than it should ever be. Still, everyone kind of settled down a bit once we had crayons in hand. We ended up at Chili's, by the way, and Trevi kept his precious Chevi's coupon (why did I never notice before this moment that his name rhymes with the place???).

By jammie time, peace had been more or less restored to the kingdom. Clara announced that Trevi was now officially old enough to have homework. So, she made him some.
We just registered for Kindergarten last week (sniff!). Suddenly, I hear the opening strains of Sunrise, Sunset.....
There's so much to love about Trevor, but here are a few of his award-winning qualities:
• He talks and sings to himself while he's playing.
• He has the most infectious laugh, and funny books make him giggle wildly.
• His glass is always more than half full.
• He says things like, "Mummy, can we have a little chat?", and "My heart just loves you so much!"
• He wants to be a scientist/inventor when he grows up.
• He often wraps up his toys and gives them to us as gifts. Then, he's overflowing with excitement as we open them.
• He runs more than he walks.
• He sees things that most people would overlook.
• While eating unspectacular things like frozen fish sticks and steamed broccoli, he always says, "You're the best cook in the world!"
• He looks at junk as inventions waiting to happen.
• He is devoted to his stuffed cats.
• He can make a game out of anything.
• He is full of wonder.
Manny, you are our favorite boy in the whole world.
Happy 5th Birthday!

Partying

It makes me laugh to look at this little party spread, because I always make/buy EXACTLY THE SAME STUFF, no matter what the occasion (other than the fact that some parties include piña coladas and other libation). We've got all of the fruit and the whole grain-this-and-that going on, and I swear that kids who come to our birthday shindigs must think we're a bunch of weirdos. They might not be entirely wrong.

We did have pizza, though. Nice, greasy, kid-pleasing, cheap-o pizza.

Post-grease, we were thrilled to meet our very own Chadbot! Does he look familiar?

Chadbot wasn't nearly as menacing as he appears in this shot:

....although he did try to overtake the treehouse, while Clara and Andy played with a levitating orb. We're high-tech in these parts, let me tell you.
Twister! Right on! I'll be setting that aside for the next piña colada party...

Robie the Robocake had his moment in the spotlight:

But a big, grey cake can't hold a candle (or even five) to the most amazing boy in the universe:

One tiny glitch with the party was that I did an an absolutely lousy job of photographing the guests. I can't remember ever filling my camera with so much blur, or so many shots of people mid-word or mid-chew. I did, however, manage to snap one of Grampy Julius:

We sighed deep, contented sighs at the end of the day, and tucked our four-year-old into bed one last time.

Going Robotic

Trevi's birthday is on Monday, so we'll be celebrating tomorrow, with a Robot theme. The thing I'm wondering is, when did birthday parties start having themes other than "Birthday Party"? I'm almost sure that the ones we went to as kids were not thematic. And, as I recall, they were fun, despite the fact that the cups didn't match the cake.

Trevi loves robots, so we're going with that. The gathering will be pretty low-key, though. Silver balloons and a robot cake, a few good friends, and a surprise guest....

As I ran around like a crazy person today, trying to make the house appear less filthy than it is, Trevi turned a robot arm (aka that tubing stuff that goes from your dryer to the wall) into a crayon chute.
In between chuting, he helped with the cake prep.

It's lovely that robot cake construction only involves squares and rectangles, but I didn't anticipate the ridiculous crumbliness of the arm pieces, hacked from the torso cake. I briefly considered the possibility of a bilateral amputee robot. When you have an amputee in the family, you can get away with stuff like that.
In the end, Trevi and I made an evening run to the grocery store, and I replaced the disintegrating strawberry-cake arms with nice, compact frozen-poundcake arms. Thank you, Sara Lee.
It was nice to have a chance to use another ten drops of black food coloring from the giant bottle of it I had to buy for Clara's microphone cake last year. Grey frosting really does look pretty icky, though.
I spent an uncharacteristically large amount of time today muttering expletives to myself, but I managed to get the whole house in shape, balloons and all, with all systems go for tomorrow.

A Couple of Hosers

Heh heh. I probably haven't used the word "hosers" since 1982.
I'm pretty sure that one of the kids came in and asked me, "Mummy, can we spray each other with the hose?" and I guess I said yes.

This photo makes it look as though Trevor is being drenched against his will.
Not the case. He was all in.
And the lawn had fun, too.

Still Looking for Leprechauns

Last year at this time, I made it crystal clear how I feel about this whole leprechaun business. My feelings have not changed. And last year, Clara had to make a trap for school. This year, she didn't have to make one.
But she made one anyway.

Worse still, she got Trevor in on the whole deal....

But okay, I have to admit that it was really cute to watch them creating and conspiring. And, who knows? Maybe a leprechaun will drop by during the night, and make off with some Tootsie Rolls....

First Green Meal

This was our first meal in the appetizing new kitchen (which still needs some wall decor).And, within a few seconds, the first fight.
As I look at this, it's reminding me of the green screens they use on TV to project images behind a newscaster. I could do what Colbert does, and insert scenes of cute puppies and kittens romping through flowers, just to make sibling rivalry seem adorable.

Clara Paints, and Berbs Sleeps

Today, it was Clara's turn to get her brush on. She gets huge credit for following my strict instructions to not paint on top of Trevi's part, even though it was torturing her to see "his messy scribbles that don't look like anything". My dream is to eventually cover this surface with some kind of mosaic, but that project is low on the list, right between "dust the leaves on all the plants" and "rework the nation's economic stimulus package".

Berbs is oblivious to color changes, or any other kinds of changes in the house. Case in point: While taking his daily nap on Trevor's bed, he didn't notice that this was not actually Trevor's bed, but just a pile of Trevor's blankets that had been dragged out and left on the living room floor.

Farewell, purple!

We really loved our purple walls. Unfortunately, the color was just too dark in our windowless kitchen, so we decided to spread the green around. The green project began back in January, but it took a bit longer than anticipated to get back to it.

Clara was at a sleepover, but Trevi was anxious to help.
With brush:
And with roller:

Then, a nice creative outlet:

There's still more work to do, but the place is looking wonderful:
And I have a sudden, uncontrollable urge to eat salad.

Locks

Trevor's evening of finding things to "lock up" culminated in this wonderful 80's-inspired fashion statement.
The orange thing, by the way, is a nylon cord attached to the padlock key. Chad wanted to be sure that the key didn't get lost, dooming Trevi to an endlessly cinched waist.

Spring!

Well, thank goodness the sun is finally shining some of its glory on us. Even though I know that we have it very, very easy winter-wise here in CA, I have been chilly lately. The sky has been gray, and the rainy-day indoor recesses are less than fun.

Today was the first day in maybe months that we all just hung out in the backyard after school. Coatless. Ahhhhh.

Clara and Trevor gave some love to the sad-looking, bare-knuckled mulberry tree, and played a little bucket game:
Which, naturally, eventually turned into a bucket battle:

Chad did some work:
And I sat there, thinking about the loveliness of it all.

No Pink Slip!

Today I received the oh-so-relieving news that I am not being laid off. Almost 80 teachers in our small school district received Reduction In Force notices this week, but I was not one of them. "Pink Slip" sounds prettier than RIF Notice, I know, but the truth is that they aren't actually pink, and there's nothing pretty about them. I honestly don't know what I would have done if I'd lost my job. For teachers around here, there is nowhere to go.

I could go on and on about the plight of public education in California, as it is a subject that's near and dear to my heart, but two nearer and dearer things played paper airplanes tonight. So, I will soar with them, instead of grousing.

You gotta love paper airplanes. Seriously. Play with paper. Awesome.
These blue planes were folded according to a pattern in a book, and they fly like nobody's business. Clara and Trevor tossed and tossed, and laughed and laughed, while I rescued the planes every time they landed somewhere out of kid reach.
Come to think of it, now I know exactly what to do with a pink slip, if I ever do get one in the future.

Pengoloo

Pengoloo is a cute little memory game, sent to us by Aunt Jan and Uncle Bill at Christmas (Thank you!). Here's how it's meant to be played:
Hiding underneath each hollow wooden penguin is a colored egg, and you need to find matching egg pairs. To this day, I cannot beat either child at any memory task, and I don't imagine my prospects are looking up. These kids are sharp.

The thing about the little penguins is that they are pretty darn cute and irresistible. So, they end up having all kinds of adventures around the house. It's a wonder we still have the complete set. Here's what the Pengoloos were up to tonight:

1. Floating on icebergs (obviously), as their eggs huddled together for warmth

2. Regrouping after an iceberg collision
Good thing we had no leftovers tonight.

It's that time again....

I suspected that Clara would be a natural at the sales game, and she did not disappoint. How could shoppers possibly resist this cute and uber-enthusaistic little face?
I deserved a free case of Samoas for completing the Herculean task of sewing on Clara's 8,000 badges today (If a stitch in time saves nine, I should have realized that a badge in time would save me the torture of an entire Sunday morning spent stitching...), but the Samoas were sold out in no time flat. Tagalongs were the next to go (Rats!), but I enjoyed watching as my little mathematician counted by fours, made change, and smiled her Brownie smile.

In the end, we went home with a box of Doh-si-dohs, and a new career option for Clara.
PS: I can never eat Girl Scout cookies without thinking about the first Thin Mints I ever tried, fresh from Tara's care package, in the cafeteria at IAA. Thanks for sharing, Tara! :)

Trevor Was Here

Each night, after the kids are tucked in bed, we find little traces of Trevor in every corner of the house. Tonight, it was a goggle-wearing garbage truck with Bert crammed into the cab.
I'm not sure why the garbage truck is wearing goggles, but there's no doubt in my mind that Trevi had a good reason for accessorizing.

Homework Fashions

It wasn't even close to hot today, but apparently it was warm enough for Clara to dig out the old swimsuit and parade around pretending it was summer vacation already. Before long, though, HOMEWORK came along and snapped her back into the present (almost).
I know how she feels. I'm ready for it, too.
Well, I'm ready for the vacation part.....but not quite ready for the swimsuit...