Adventures in disciplining...

Skyler got herself in a smidge of trouble on Sunday evening. The rule at our house is if you're playing outside (with prior permission) and hear Daddy's whistle you hie tail it to the house. Skyler asked to play with the neighbor kid and then went inside with her. When Daddy whistled for dinner, no little ducks came waddling back. Daddy marched over and retrieved our little duckling who commenced histrionics at being told that she was grounded for a major rule violation. She was PISSED. After letting things fester, I went up to her room to remind her why we have rules and that we love her and become worried if we don't know exactly where she is at every minute. She gave me a look that said something along the lines of "bite me" and said she wanted to be left alone. We sort of skirted around her for the rest of the evening.

Matt, Zack, and I are used to this particular argument as Zack has been grounded for it himself before. He gets upset, we explain the need for the rule, we all hug and make up and he serves his sentence. The three of us were a bit confused at the way that Skyler was handling this. She was bullshit as though WE had completed the infraction. Monday she didn't speak to Matt until well into the evening. She gave him a lot of dirty looks and one-word only-if-I-have-to responses.

I thought I had things figured out in the kid department. Heck they lived through the killer baby and toddler stages. I don't think I'm going to make it through this particular child going through adolescence. Zack will be the kid that loves all the girls but never leaves home. Skyler will be the one I have to call the police and report as a run-away. FSM help me!

It burns...

A good mother doesn't forget to apply sunblock to her children on a ninety-degree day filled with soccer and little shade. I am a good mother.

A smart person doesn't forget to apply said sunblock to themselves on the same day. I am not a smart person. And do you wanna know what happens when don't wear sunblock but you wear a tank-top and a necklace like the one pictured here:



You get to wear a temporary "HEY I'm the idiot that forgot to apply sunblock" sign attached right to your chest.

Forcing it...

I just had a conversation with myself in which I insisted that I click on the "new post" button and just wing it. Find SOMETHING to talk about. I was staring at my desk waiting for inspiration when my eyes locked on my iPod Touch.

I'm not really a music person. I don't really care much what I listen to. I certainly don't have good taste and have little tolerance for anything outside of mainstream. Truth be told, I've listened to more kid chosen music in the past eight years than anything else so I'm not really one who ever cared about having an iPod or MP3 player. I had a little creative zen that I loaded up once and used primarily to block out the sounds of my coworkers chattering when I needed peace in the mind.

Last year, sometime in the summer I guess, I won an iPod Touch in some sort of online contest. I thought it was cool, loaded up the before mentioned sampling of bland music, added some pictures and thought I was good to go. It was also pretty cool that it has wifi so if I could find an open connection I could get email.

Around the time the elections were heating up, someone mentioned downloading podcasts. I poked around on iTunes and found all sorts that fueled my sudden desire to know everything going on about the election. I moved on from there and have been happily listening to the news and other shows ever since.

THEN, more recently, I discovered APPLICATIONS. HELLO! I now can't make a move without my Touch. I use the calendar, read USA Today and the New York Times, check the weather, update my status on Facebook, balance my checkbook, access my Kindle books, check Google Earth, get directions, Twitter, track my distance when I'm walking, track my caloric intake, and look up words in the dictionary. I assure you I've only scratched the surface. If Zack and Matt get wind of all the games (over 6000) there are available, I'll never see the thing again. The best part is that a good portion of these applications are completely free and I love free! I'm guessing that if I ever decided to spend a buck I'd find application heaven!

So there, that's my little commercial for the iPod Touch. It's super fantastically cool and will organize your shit. Who wants to bet that now that I've sung it's praises, I'll lose it within a week?

Blogger's Block...

I have blogger's block. I've never left my blog so lonely and unloved for so long before. I just don't have it in me lately to blab along about whatever's going on in our lives. Let's try for a bunch of Random and see if that sparks anything huh?

My aunt Lisa and her girls Ransom and Montana as well as Montana's boyfriend Chad visited us for Easter. My kids had a blast chasing them around and demanding 24/7 attention. The basketball hoop in the driveway got lots of use. Skyler lost her second tooth so the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy met in the night at our house. It was crowded to say the least. We had bodies everywhere. I'm surprised the Tooth Fairy knew where to find that teeny tiny little tooth that Skyler left for her. Oh,we made pirogi, those were delicious.

Amy & Mike's adorable bundle of love, Nate, is walking. He decided that he was NOT going to crawl and went straight for the upright method of motion. It's so fun watching him toddle around monster baby style.

I've finished my four weeks of physical therapy and after a lengthy discussion with my therapist have determined that I've gained a lot of strength but have not seen a change in the pain so I more than likely have a tear of the soft tissue inside the joint. Lovely. So the next step is a follow up with my doctor and then probably an MRI. Wouldn't that have been nice four years ago? If it is a tear, it will probably require surgery to correct. Boy am I excited about that. I'm totally and completely over all this pain though so I will sign up lickety split if that is the case.

Recently I was looking for a lightweight make-up. I typically use mineral powder foundation but I needed something liquid. I saw this in Target and thought I'd give it a try. LOVE IT!!!! ALMAY pure blends makeup

I wear the color called "naked" which is three levels in and I'm a pretty yellow/pale skin toned person. MOM - you'll like this! It stays on all day.

My baby turned eight yesterday. He's just so big. He had a great day at school, getting some extra attention and enjoying the Birthday Wishes. We went to dinner at his chosen location of Friendly's which had the added benefits of "Kids eat free on Tuesdays" and a visit from Ryan the Balloon Guy. I cannot express strongly enough the talent that this guy has. It's balloon art. The kids, Matt included, had a great time questioning Ryan about his greatest creations. We walked away with balloon hats featuring a puppy, a golfer, and a dragon with a three foot wingspan and a penguin wrist corsage. Zack used the Birthday Gift money he received from his grandparents and aunts and uncles as well as some finely chosen trade-ins to Gamestop to purchase a new Nintendo DSi.
This thing is amazing. It has some features that had the whole family laughing and you just can't put a price on these moments filled with uncontrollable kid giggles. It also features parental controls for the online abilities so I locked that shit up quick, Zack's too smart and he'd be selling his sister on eBay from it if given the chance.

I'm not sure if I've cured my blogger's block but there's a bit of randomness for you. Hopefully the juices will start flowing now.

Happy Wednesday!

Fahrenheit Photography...

A couple of weeks ago we had Fareine from Fahrenheit Photography take family pictures of us at the beach. She did a phenomenal job. We love everyone of them.

Here's a sampling:











...and lots more.

Yard work...

I love this time of year after a chilly winter and before it's sweltering hot. I like poking around with my flower beds and taking pictures of the birds. We found a Robin's nest in a tree/shrub thing that I was about to ask Matt to cut down. Now I'm going to wait until Momma Robin has abandoned it. I got Matt to hoist me onto his shoulders and wobble over to the nest so I could see if there were eggs in it without looking. I'm sure the neighbors really appreciated the clown show that was that attempt and I wasn't able to actually see inside the nest.

I puttered around the yard on Sunday taking pictures. Skyler and I planted vegetable seeds in little starter pots. Matt's going to build me a garden box in the backyard. We'll see if we can get some fresh veggies going. In the end it might just be easier to go to the grocery store but it's fun watching something you plant grow!

Skyler and I also took a bike ride. She has a tandem bike that attaches to mine. I'm more than a little out of shape so Monday morning my butt bones were SORE. Skyler didn't complain and she has a bony little butt so apparently having extra fat pads in the ass area doesn't help that particular problem.

Pics:

Flowers

Dark-eyed juncos

robin's nest

Garden Buddha

Saturday in the park...

WHAT a busy weekend (yes I know it is AGAIN the end of the week)! I needed to come to work on Monday just to get a break.

Friday night I had PT and then we sort of started poking away at the backyard for the first time this spring. I raked out a flower bed and picked up sticks while Matt bbqd and puttered with the lawn mower to get it going. It was a beautiful evening and had the patio table not needed a good scrubbing we would have sat out there. As it was, we got a good start and enjoyed the fresh air.

Saturday started off with, guess what? Soccer of course. Skyler had a mid-morning game and I had to be attached to a computer to get them signed up for summer camp. It's cut throat getting your kids into the less expensive rec programs. The system crawled so slowly that I only made half of Sky's game. We rushed home for a shower because she had a birthday party to go to. While she was prettifying herself, Matt and I were back in the backyard raking and mowing. Matt found three baby turtles in the flower bed that I had just raked out. They were just emerging from little holes in the dirt. They were so frelling cute and if I had my shit together I'd show you pictures because I took some but I haven't uploaded yet. We got Skyler off to her party and raced over to Zack's game. His teammate is moving to Italy so we had a little send off for him with cupcakes that had soccer balls and Italian flags on them. The kids were bummed but vowed to become pen pals. One of the other Moms asked if she could have a turtle for her classroom and thus convinced me to let my kids keep the other two. I did a bunch of the googling and they seem to be very low maintenance and easy to care for. We'll see how it goes. I can always toss them in the lake where they were headed anyway. Matt and the kids finished off the night with several hours of Rock Band at a friends' house. I can't listen to that stuff all night so I stopped by to pick Sky up when I figured she'd be tired and hung out for awhile.

To be continued with Sunday...

WAIT! I uploaded a few pics:

Father Daughter Time...

Skyler and her Daddy have a little activity they do together every night at 7:30pm.

Skyler [calls from living room]: "Daaaaddy, Hannah Montana is on..."
Matt: "Coming"
Me: "BWAH HAA!"

Morning ride...

During my drive to work in the morning, all twelve minutes of it, I listen to NPR radio (yes I'm officially old). This morning as I was pulling in to the office parking lot, the following story was being read and I sat with my mouth slightly hung open the thought "you've GOT to be kidding me" running through my mind:

No Lions And Orioles And Bears? Oh, My!
by Frank Deford

What began as one man's frustration is slowly turning into a more serious movement that merits our serious attention.

Several months ago, Adam Winter of Saginaw, Mich., grew more and more angry. He is a man who has two loves — pro football and animals — and as the Detroit Lions continued to lose games, Winter became increasingly upset that the magnificent lion should be associated with such a woebegone franchise.

When Detroit — that is, the Lions — finished this past season without a victory, Winter prevailed on his state senator to introduce a bill in the Michigan Legislature that would ban the Detroit franchise from exploiting the nickname of the lion. The rationale: It's unfair to insult a proud beast that is unable to defend its own good name.

In Glen Burnie, Md., Lauren Spencer heard about this and went to her state representative, asking that a similar bill be enacted in Annapolis, preventing the Baltimore baseball team from exploiting the brilliant oriole.

Spencer even wanted the bill to prevent the Baltimore franchise from using the bird's striking orange and black colors for its uniforms, but it was ruled that whereas the oriole itself should be protected from the damage to its reputation, orange and black were colors in the public domain and beyond any statute enforcement.

Similar bills were soon put in the hopper in Tennessee, where the noble grizzly bear has been insulted for years by the Memphis basketball team, and in Arizona, where the beautiful cardinal had become a figure of fun because of the disreputable football franchise. The recent surprise success of the Cardinals did, however, result in that bill's being temporarily bottled up in committee.

Moreover, now some devoted animal defenders from the Humane Society and PETA have formed an organization named STEAM — that's an acronym for Stop Teams Everywhere from Animal Mascots — with the intent of creating federal fish and wildlife legislation to halt all sports franchises from appropriating God's creatures as their nicknames.

As the organization's president, Constance Bloodgood, says, "This year's Detroit Lion is last year's Tampa Bay Devil Ray. No animal deserves to be associated with the potential ignominy of defeat. It's time for human beings to stop insulting all the beasts of the field."

I can only say, hooray. It's about time our animal friends had such protection from gratuitous injustice. And also ... April Fool!

They got me. My SIL Lashelle had even asked me last night what sort of foolish post I was going to write THIS year on my blog. She claimed she was ready for me and I in turn was convinced that I would believe NOTHING I read today. WELL. That lasted until 6:58 a.m. SO, for all those that I upset last year with THIS post and THIS post, I've been repaid. Happy April Fool's. I hope the joke you fall for is as benign as the one that got me!