Silly

As I sat reading by the window this afternoon, trying to drink in the one sliver of direct sunlight coming into the house (too chilly outside for sedentary activity), I realized that I must look pretty silly.  So, why not take a self-timer of myself looking silly? 

I'm alone (ALONE!!!!!!), by the way, which is why a) I didn't enlist someone else to take the picture.  b) There are no Legos or Tinkertoys scattered around me.  c) I am reading. Uninterrupted.

It's my 2nd Blogiversary!

I was walking down iphoto memory lane looking for something special for my blogiversary (TWO YEARS! YAY!!!), and I discovered this photo from January 28, 2007 (exactly three years ago– a year before this blog was born).

I have this blog to thank for giving me a place to chronicle the entire story of Clara's teeth, as well as every story, big, small, and tiny, that I've felt inclined to tell.  Thanks, Bloggie.

Home/work

It literally just occurred to me this second (and I only use literally when I mean it – misuse of that word is a massive pet peeve of mine) that homework is home/work for me.  Helping kids read and write and think is what I do all day long.  And even though I have four thousand tricks up my sleeve to nudge the learning along in any given subject, I'm not necessarily as patient with Clara and Trevi as I am with my students.  Mind you, my students never stop abruptly in the middle of writing a word to suggest building a remote control robot out of Lego, or to beg me to let them get their ears pierced. Maybe my head just isn't big enough to simultaneously wear Mom and Teacher hats.

Homework certainly isn't torturous for us, though.  Clara, blessed girl, is responsibility personified, and only has a very occasional hissy fit when she needs my help, and thinks I'm contradicting what her teacher has told her.  I get that.  Totally.

Trevi would always, always rather be playing, and sometimes he likes to flop around on the table and claim to be too exhausted to count or read, or hold a pencil.  Still, he ultimately gets the job done.  So I can't complain.  And when you're really busy being studious, you sometimes, once in a blue moon, forget to argue with your sibling.

Exactly three years ago

One of my favorite shots EVER:

Trev Talk

You gotta love playing Battleship with a kid who pronounces "sunk", soonk.

Which reminds me, there are a few remaining kid pronunciations that will soon be gone forever, so I'd better blog the heck out of them now.
piano - still pliano
binoculars - still binocleeurs
fabulous - fableeous
regular - regleeur (but will he mispronounce nuclear...? :) )
weekend - weekand
snuck - snook

instructions - ickstructions

kitten/mitten/button - ki'in/mi'in/bu'in

Man, it sure felt like there were more, but memory fails me....I'll get back to this....

A new itch that may need scratching eventually

I think I'd like to take a photography class, and then, maybe, at some point, get a really good camera.  Since I take four thousand photos a day, it only makes sense that I should learn a bit more about lighting and aperture (what's that?  I don't know...) and stuff like that, as opposed to my current photographic strategies, which include trying to clear most of the junk out of the background of a shot, and then cropping the heck out of pictures whose background junk is still visible.  Now, let's be realistic. This isn't going to happen any time soon.  But I'm just putting it out there.  In the meantime, maybe I'll google a few articles just to appease myself.

I came across these shots recently, which don't need to be well-lit, properly composed, or background-junkless, because, lucky for me, kids are just funny and photographable so much of the time. 

Clueless

Since our living room currently looks like this....
...we've been spending more time in other rooms, doing things like this:

We've reached a good stage for family game playing lately, with Clara fully able to play most things on her own, and Trevor participating as a team member if necessary.  Tonight, it was Clue.  I guess we kind of forgot to go over the premise with Trevi, though, because a good thirty minutes into the game, just as Clara was accusing Colonel Mustard of doing it in the kitchen with the knife, Trevor blurted out, 

"What does that even mean?! Who is Colonel Mustard, and what did he do, anyway?" 

It felt slightly creepy explaining the whole murder/crime scene thing. I wonder if, at some point, someone will come out with a less violent version of Clue...."I suspect that Mickey Mouse, played Hopscotch, in the Clubhouse...." 

I think I would miss the cute little weapons, though.  :) 

The Catwalk

Our cats, Bernie (aka Berbs/Bubs/Bubba) and Shmoo (aka Moomoos/Moosies/Moops) have a pretty cushy life.  They come and go as they please, chase birds and squirrels around the yard (when and if they feel so inclined), eat as much as they want, and scratch whatever piece of furniture is convenient. Moomoos likes to snuggle up with Clara at night, and Bubs bunks with Trevor. This is how it's been for ages.

Born in mid-January of '98, these cats are no spring chickens. Luckily, Moomoos is still pretty agile, and when Clara's loft bed was built, Moops quickly mastered the loft ladder, so she could climb up into bed. Berbs, on the other hand, is fat.  No two ways about it.  We knew that Trevor's loft would be inaccessable, and Trevor's idea of raising and lowering the cat in a basket, while creative, seemed like it might end badly.  Enter Chad and some lumber.

It is late afternoon.  Both cats are enjoying a rest in Trevor's bed:
Bubba decides to head down for a snack:

He takes a casual stroll along the top of the window:

Steps down easily onto the toy shelf:

And then onto the table:

 

After a quick bite to eat, Bubba can go right back up the way he came to get some more shut-eye.  No doubt he will thank us by coughing up some grass and a furball on the living room carpet. You're welcome, Bubs.

Happy Bowling Birthday!

Up until now, every single birthday party the kids have ever had has been at home.  I love it that way – the good, old-fashioned, just-like-when-we-were-kids type of party with games like Musical Chairs and Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Balloons. Dancing. Munchies. Good times.

This time around, though, Clara asked if we might consider a destination birthday.  We have about a zillion options in the vicinity, from skating rinks to ceramics studios to rock climbing walls.  Clara decided that a bowling party would be (forgive me) right up her alley. *snicker*

No cleaning the house.  No shopping or cooking or organizing or setting up or cleaning up.  All we had to do was show up, and this was waiting for us:

And I didn't even spend hours making a cake!  Clara said she'd prefer cupcakes, and she wanted to decorate them herself.

    

You know your daughter is growing up when her friends give her things like clothing and movie tickets for her birthday.  Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers....

There is definitely something to be said for venturing out of the house to celebrate.  Oh, sure, I didn't put the same love and care into the preparation, so the party felt a lot more generic than a down home gathering, but man was it ever easy.  And all of the girls (and Trevor) had a blast. Speaking of the soon-to-be-six-year-old boy, the jury is still out on the location of his upcoming party.....

Lofty

Clara has been a loft-dweller for a couple of years now, and tonight marked Trevor's inaugural sleep in his brand-spanking-new loft bed.  You can still smell the sawdust.  As you can see, Chad had fun with his new jigsaw on this one.  He didn't, however, have a laugh riot crawling across our nail-infested-obstacle-course-of-an-attic sixteen times to install those support chains.  Are these kids lucky, or what?  You rock, Hun.

Best seat in the house

Homework just got a lot more comfy, thanks to this beanbag chair from (and handmade by) Grammy.  Sweet!

Raining

I was thinking about my Auntie Willa, who was the first person I ever knew who died of cancer. I was really young – six, maybe– and I was scared of her.  Scared I'd catch it.  Scared of how people acted around her.  I have a fuzzy picture in my head of her lying on a couch (which I'm sure we called a chesterfield back then), her skin loose, wearing silver bracelets on her wrists.  I inherited a silver bracelet from her.  

After that, I think the C word pretty much disappeared from my life for a decade or so.  Then it started trickling back in.  Now it's everywhere.  And I am sick of it.  It has invaded the homes of family and friends and students, and it even snuck into our house until it got cut off.

Today there was a giant earthquake in Haiti, and someone I knew died of cancer, and our roof leaked.  

Clara's birthday is a palindrome this year! 01-11-10!

Here is our beautiful girl in all her nine-year-old splendor. Holy crow. Nine is such a big number.

I heard a program on NPR about six-word memoirs. What a nice idea for those of us who can afford to be a bit less wordy. Break us down into tidy little packages of six. And, heck, I can think of plenty of six-word sets that, while not exactly memoirs, could have been written (and have often been uttered) by our fabulous, nine-year-old Clara. Piece of (birthday) cake!

Here is six-word Clara:

• I can get a soccer scholarship.

• I need to organize my stuff.

• Do I sound like Taylor Swift?

• I should do my homework first.

• Lots of third graders have ipods!

• I'd like another bowl of cereal.

• Get out of my room, Trevor!!

• Please let me finish this chapter.

• I love when friends come over.

• Let's snuggle on the couch tonight.

• But I didn't even touch him!

• Come on, Trevi, let's make something.

• Can I go on the computer?

• This was the best day ever!

Clara will have to give the six word memoir concept a try. I bet she can rock six words like nobody's business. We are so proud of you, Honeybun. Happy Birthday!

La La Land

Thankfully, the wardrobe/self-image crisis that has been plaguing me for most of 2010 was anesthetized by my coworkers who, sensing my despair, threw their clothing and make-up at me until some of it stuck.  So I got on the plane with a massive carry-on full of other people's stuff, and a People magazine (so I could read about folks with much worse self-image issues than my own).

As it turns out, there was quite a lot of fun to be had.  Dancing blissfully until closing time at a crazy, sweaty, thumping, grinding, LOUD Hollywood nightclub?  Check.

Hobnobbing and drinking specialty rum punchy drinks at a lavish CBS party?  Check.

Not taking enough pictures, despite carrying the camera everywhere?  Check.

Posers

I've been running around like the worst kind of maniac all week, trying to get together some sort of non-frumpy outfit that will gag and conceal the Kindergarten teacher-slash-suburban mom that has taken over my being in recent years.  I'm not just doing this for a lark, though. Thing is, I really should wear clothes in LA this weekend.  So I go to Macy's, which is a corner of the mall I can kind of hide in, while the rest of the mall goes on around me without unnerving me too much.  I pick things off the rack that are expensive, and have brand names that sound like I might have heard them before.  I take more than the allotted number of items into the fitting room.  I try and try again.  I'm The Little Engine That Could of the fitting room.  I start to feel slightly hopeful, but then I suddenly lose momentum when I try on something so expensive and so ridiculous that it gives me an instant headache.  I make ugly faces at myself in the mirror, and then make normal faces, which look good by comparison.  I go home feeling like Macy's has failed me, and that LA is no place for someone with my bad attitude about shopping.

At home, I look into the bathroom and see this:

"What are you doing, Manny?" I ask.

"Practicing posing."

"What for?"

"Well, if I want to be in a magazine someday, I can do this pose, and be in the magazine, or maybe on a commercial for Aquasand. Don't I have a beautiful smile?"

"Yes, you sure do."

Trevi is a much better poser than I am.  And his kind of posing doesn't require $200 jeans.

Construction/Destruction

It was a constructive day, in the most literal sense.  It started with an animal hotel, made with the cool magnets from Gomma.

Chad camped out in the garage for a few hours and whipped up a bench and a bookshelf.

Meanwhile, back in the livingroom, Trevor created some kind of crushing device.  He methodically lined up things to be crushed, like, yeah, those same magnets from this morning. There's a fine line between construction and destruction around here.

His contraption worked perfectly.

After dinner, Clara got in on the action.  The contraption was dubbed, "The Crushinator" (no doubt a result of the fact that Chad and I have been letting them watch non-stop Phineas and Ferb every morning during vacation while we sleep in – totally, TOTALLY, love this show, BTW) and it crushed like a charm.

It's funny what vacation does to you.  I mean, I'm a person who loves my job.  I get a lot of satisfaction from teaching, and I love hanging out with my students.  Tonight, though, there is no part of me that wants to get up at 6:30, make myself presentable, and say goodbye to the two most fabulous kids in the universe (and their awesome dad) to go back to work.  But I will. And it will be fine.  I'll have a great day, even, and the kids will love being back at school, and we'll all have lots to talk about at dinner. Isn't vacation wonderful, though?  Sigh.  This sure was nice.  

(And I got all caught up on blog posts since Thanksgiving!)

Gratitude

I am the worst at getting around to sending Thank You notes. The worst.  I don't know why, exactly, since I feel heaps of gratitude for every type of kindness.  I should just sit down right away and express my thanks in writing, but I always put it off, and put it off, until sometimes it is embarrassingly late to thank somebody for something.  I know there's no statute of limitations on gratitude, but there's no excuse for lagging when it comes to telling someone how much you appreciate their thoughtfulness.  

Since I don't want the kids to turn into Thank You procrastinators, I thought I'd try to make an event of saying thanks, so we had a little "Thank You Celebration" today.  The "celebration" aspect was pretty basic – some popcorn and favorite music at the kitchen table – but it got us all gathered around and creating some cards to put in the mail. Clara never really needs any prodding to do this type of thing, because she loves anything to do with writing.  Trevor is another story.  The popcorn bribe was key.  Midway through, he declared, "All this writing is making me hot!", so he spent most of the celebration shirtless.

Clara got on such a roll that she even thanked the editors of American Girl Mini-Mysteries. Love that girl.

I have a little plan up my sleeve to make Thank You Celebrations a regular occurrence in our household.

2010. Whoa.

Even though we've packed a lot of activity into the past decade, it did blow by kind of quickly, didn't it?  To bring in the new year, Chad and I luxuriated at a resort last night (compliments of G&G! Thank you!!) and ate humongous sandwiches on the beach for lunch today.  We're ready to take on 2010!

P.S.  We'll spend most of the remaining 364 days this year with the kids.  :)

P.P.S.  Recognize my trusty sweatshirt?