Fickle Spring and Fickle Kids

It's me again. Pictures still aren't working. That bums me out, because instead of snowy, icy pictures, there could now be beautiful blue skies, green grass, budding trees, spring flowers, and spring fevered kids in photos to share. Oh well.

What have we been up to? Adjusting to the ups and downs of the fickle Spring temperatures. Right now I'm sitting in my swim suit top, soaking up the sunshine that is pouring in through the sliding glass doors as I write this. The kids' tent is up in the backyard, though there have been two failed attempts to sleep through the night out there. Frizzering kids have come back in during the wee hours of the morning, declaring through chattering teeth that it's just too cold. No, they knew better than to try last night when it hit 33 degrees, supposedly. They tried over the weekend, but the lovely Ohio wind was knifing the wrong direction and slicing through the tent instead of hitting the house first. That's life!

Apparently there are less than 30 days of the school year remaining, though I don't know how that's possible as it feels like they've only been IN school for 30 days since the New Year. I suppose now is the appropriate time to begin panicking at how much work around the house I have to do before all 3 of them are home...

Karate continues to go well. They are comfortable and focused in class. It's great to see them doing so well and learning so much. I particularly love that they do jumping jacks, sit ups, and push ups, while cheerfully hollering, "one, sir, two, sir, three, sir" and, less cheerfully as they're tiring, "getting stronger, sir" as they get into push up position. I think Uncle Jeff would get a chuckle or three out of watching them.

Damon is only quiet when he's sleeping or playing on the iPad. This usually means I have to delete about 100 pictures when I get the iPad back, as he loves to hear the button clicking as he takes a picture of the ceiling and the top of his head over and over. And over. And over. And over.

The big kids rediscovered their roller blades in the garage we cleaned out this weekend and have been gleefully stomping all over the driveway with them. Damon, naturally, is crushed that he can't be out in the driveway with them, but as I can't make dinner, get ready for the Y, AND watch that he doesn't get run over, he'll just have to suck it up and deal with it. It's hard being small. Hence the iPad.

Carrie aced her science test, getting a perfect 16/16 after her dear, sweet teacher physically brought over a packet of study materials when Carrie realized she didn't have hers and the test was the next day. Insert adage about it being a good thing one's head is attached to one's body for fear of forgetting it here. A certain fifth grader has been known on more than one occasion to plug in one half of her cord to her computer to charge overnight, never mind that the plug is not attached to the wall on the other end. I suppose that's why God invented mothers.

Work's been going well for Dada. He actually enjoys his job and his coworkers, which is such an incredibly huge blessing. I bet that's in the Bible somewhere: Blessed is he or she who has a job and a boss and people to work with and something to work on that is to one's liking. I can see how it can make or break you!

We're planning out our summer and who's going to be where, when. We will not be at camp all summer long this year because we have a million small things to do all over creation, including the redoing of the kids' bedrooms. Believe it or not, Care Bear starts middle school next year and is moving into her own room this summer while we bunk the boys together. She wants her room to be green with black accents and the boys want yellow (Liam, naturally) and choctit (chocolate, Damonese for brown). I really am going to think of yellow cake with fudgy icing every time I go in. I am sure I've said that before, but it remains true.

Carrie plans to attend horse camp through the Girl Scouts and Liam wants to do a week at Camp Lambec this year. Plus our usual OBX trip with Hin and Muggin and a weekend at camp for the 4th of July all makes for a busy summer. I want to paint some more of our white walls (we've been here for 8.5 years, it's about time, I suppose) and spend lots of time outside. The garden is started, seedlings are hogging the landing under the grow-lights, and a load of compost was delivered yesterday. I even went a little lot crazy buying flower seeds, but I got excited. I'm going to try poppies, lupine, and alyssum along the side of the house. I have some wildflower seeds and a morning glory mix, also. What can I say? It was a long winter.

My sweet Rita and her family have left for their India trip. They'll be gone far too long and I miss her already. Her dad passed away recently, and her mother will be coming back to the States with her. I can't wait to hug them both. Please pray that they have a safe trip and that the kids have no allergic reactions to any foods while they're away... And that I don't kill her plant while they're gone!

Okay, the Kitchen Fairy hasn't shown up, so I must go do her dirty work. Have a wonderful day. It's Worship Wednesday for those of us in camp mode, so count those blessings. We have millions. =)

Exciting times

We can say truthfully that things are never boring around here. For example:

Dada got home safely from his two-week China trip. He'd left on a Saturday morning, was gone all that week, over a weekend, and came home the following Friday night. Then he needed to sleep most of that weekend to get back on our time zone. He had a very good first experience from the food to the people to the haggling that is shopping. The worst part was probably the neverending plane rides there and back!

While he was gone, I took the kids to church, dropped them off in their Sunday school rooms, made my way to the sanctuary and lasted through one song before I was paged. Damon was standing against the wall, sobbing his heart out, and refusing to be comforted. I ended up in the lobby, holding him on my lap in my metal chair, until he fell asleep during the offering. He woke up just in time to go collect the big kids and head home. Kids-1, Mama-0.

Monday after school brought Carrie home coatless.
"Where is your coat?"
"I left it at school."
"What were you doing when everyone else was putting theirs on? Didn't you notice you didn't have yours on?"
"Nobody else was wearing theirs, either!"
"..."

Tuesday night, I asked Carrie to please tell Liam to finish up in the bathtub. This included rinsing, getting out, draining the water, getting dry, then getting pajamas on. I hear hysterical laughter from upstairs but proceeded to finish the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen, more fool me. By the time I made it up there, I found a still-soapy Liam in the tub along with a fully clothed Damon. Kids-1000, Mama-0...

Two Thursdays later was the first swimming lessons for the big kids. Their classes are in the evening, while Damon has one right before lunch. We're at the Y a lot! Anyway, Liam is old enough to be in the male family locker room. So I pop Damon in the child care section, go through the female family locker room side and watch their classes. When they are done, they are instructed to rinse off the chlorine, get changed, dry, into pajamas, etc. so we can go home and go to bed. It's a school night, and I have to rescue Damon before the child care part closes. Carrie gets done, I get Damon, and we are waiting, waiting, waiting. A towel-clad Liam pops out into the hall with his swim trucks in his other hand, proclaiming with just a tinge of panic that his stuff is gone. Turns out, he was in the wrong locker bay and his stuff was intact on the other side. However, it takes eons for him to find it and get dry and get dressed and get packed up and get his coat on.............

I tell Carrie, "I am SO GLAD Dada's job will have him home more now. Next time, I can stay home with Damon while you take care of yourself after your lesson and Dada can do the guys' locker room with Liam." She sags against the wall in relief.

You get the idea. There was something like that every.single. day. I was overjoyed to see Dada come home. My Girlfriends all suggested I dump the kids on him every single night of the following week, but alas, it was not to be.
"Did I mention that I'll be gone Thursday and Friday of this week? Um, and of next week?"
"..."
Life- infinity, Mama-0.

Fast forward to this Thursday past. Once again, there's a clean, dressed, book-in-hand (she's wised up) Carrie in the hall. I get Damon, and we wait. And we wait. And we WAIT.

Carrie sets her book down and marches into the guys' side. "Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam!"  She finds him still in the shower. No joke.

He does eventually make it out. To the tune of FORTY MINUTES AFTER HIS CLASS ENDED.

This week, we'll take sleeping bags. And snacks.

That Friday, he confided to me that he'd been scrubbing the shower walls. They were nice and shiny when he was all done.

Paging Alexander, once again. Is there room in that suitcase for me to join you in Australia?

So Sunday night, as some of you know, well, most of you on the Facebook nation know, one of our wonderful wintry windstorms swept through. It was powerful enough to knock down wires in more than one spot, and we lost power just as we were ending dinner. I'd gotten groceries, some Christmas presents, and had snuggled babies at church earlier in the day. We got candles and flashlights and headed to the basement as our tornado watch devolved into a tornado warning. We even took Triskal down there, which was a first or second time only, as Newfies are not big fans of stairs and they're bad for their hips so we purposely never encouraged her to be anywhere but our main floor.

So we're as snug as can be (and may I add that spending a decent amount of time in the basement makes one take a serious look into redecorating so that they're more comfortable furnishings for extended stays?), the warning subsides, we head to bed, and wake up the next morning with still no power. A two-hour delay turns into school being cancelled. Are you even kidding me!?

No. They weren't. Okay, so there's no school. What are the kids doing? Cross my heart, they are packing suitcases. Where are they going? To camp in the front yard.

...

Yes, that's what they said. They were going to move out.
"Did you not notice that school has been cancelled because of inclement weather? And you want to try to set up a tent in that wind? And it rained yesterday so the ground isn't going to be dry?"
"Auuuuuuuuuuuugh, FINE."

At this point, I quit keeping score.

Thankfully Dada came home at lunch and treated us all to Bob Evans. We stuffed ourselves silly and spent a little bit of time in the bookstore nearby to stay warm. "CanIhavethat? Canwegetthis? CanIhavethat?"

I received an ecstatic text from our next door neighbor saying the power's back on. Hallelujah! Let's go home and turn on the heat!

We were blessed. Yes, the power was out for 20 hours, but we didn't lose anything in the fridge or freezers because we'd kept them closed and the groceries were fresh and unopened. It only rained before the power went out, otherwise the sump pump wouldn't have kept up since there was no electricity and we could have flooded again. I haven't found any shingles in the yard, our garden gnome Virgil Eugene is merely laying down instead of smashed to bits, and our cars were undamaged. It could have been so much worse. They were on the other side of town. Some of the same areas that were hit by the tornado when Damon was born got blasted again. The outage taught the kids to not depend on the iPad or the Wii or the TV to entertain themselves. A little, anyway. And nobody got hurt. Blessed.

4th of July weekend in review

Dada had off on Friday so we all headed to Maumee Bay to play at the beach. The kids had a great time chasing seagulls (yes, yes, Mary Alice... I mean lake gulls, hehe), playing in the sand, and Carrie did get a little wet, but it was cooler than last Monday when we went. It was fun to have Dada there with us! Nobody even got sunburned- yay!

Friday night we drove back out that direction to the Drive In. It was Liam's first movie experience in a theater (so to say) and they saw Ice Age 3 and Night at the Museum 2. We had sleeping bags in the back of Pepe and Liam didn't make it through the second movie, but Carrie did. They enjoyed Ice Age and have been talking about Buck ever since.

Dada and Carrie ran errands on the 4th and came home with a 10'x10' screened tent! So we slept out in the yard that night. Liam fell asleep in his sleeping bag with his arms up over his head. When the neighbors started with the firecrackers, in his sleep he moved his hands to his ears and slept like that! I tried to take a picture with my cell phone but it was too dark. He looked adorable asleep with his ears covered up. The neighborhood quieted down around 2:30 and then the sun came blazing around 6, so we didn't get much sleep but had a good time... the kids did surprisingly well for it being their 1st time "camping in a tent." Even with it being screened in, Carrie managed to get munched on by some bugs, so the poor girl is all itchy with big red welts. Of course they nibbled her in annoying places like between her fingers, on her ears, forehead, back of her neck. Come to think of it, though, anyplace a bug bites you is an annoying place, right?

Yesterday we barely made it to the 10:45 service at church, I had babies at the 12:30, and then we had lunch and naps. The house looks like a tornado hit, PaPa comes to visit this week, and moms' group will be here Wednesday morning. Guess I better go get busy cleaning up! Have a great week, everyone!