Life, the Universe, and Everything

Milestones

Ally and I are watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (not that horrible new one (that I refuse to see, so I have no actual idea whether it's horrible or not) with Johnny Depp in it) for the first time. We saw a play earlier this year, but this is the first time for the movie. I loved this movie as a child, so I'm thrilled to introduce her to it. I also rented Annie. Sometimes having kids is pretty cool.

I'm not dead yet (and neither is my dog)

Last week, well, it went by. Mom took the kids from Sunday to Thursday. She told Ally that she got me "peace and quiet" for my birthday. Ally told her I'd probably just take it back. What I actually did with it was spend damn near every minute of it enjoying myself. You know, with the slight exception of finding a tumor on my dog's ass and hearing the grossly over-inflated quote for the surgery price.

Upon dropping the kids off, Rob and I decided that we needed Cold Stone. And pizza. Yum. We got to have ice cream, and we did not have to cajole anyone into eating their vegetables to somehow justify the treat, nor did we have to wait until everyone was sleeping. We sat in the living room at 7:00 at night, eating supper and watching a rented season of House, MD. The next night, we went out to supper and wandered around the mall some. I got my wedding band cleaned, because, ugh, kids and dog slobber and who knows what else had long since taken the shine off. We did NOT ride the carousel. We sat around the house and had some more Cold Stone - this time cupcakes - and watched some more non-disney television. And pet the dogs. Poor Audrey. Wednesday, we went to the theater and saw the new (ok, it was new a couple months ago) Star Trek. I was shocked to say that it was great. It was really well done and I wouldn't even mind seeing it again. That's high praise from me. I hated the original series. I was always a Next Generation girl myself. And then probably some more Cold Stone. I gained 3 pounds last week.

Then, Thursday the kids came home to go to the day care's family fun night, and Friday, we still missed them a little, but not nearly as much as we had on Thursday, because, hoo-boy they were brats. And then since we hadn't played with them much, and soccer is starting in less than a month, we decided to get the rest of the gear we needed and go to the park and try it out. We found out that Anya's really good at dribbling down the field, and Ally wants to be a goalie really bad. I suspect because she's lazy. We flew a kite and played on the playground, and Rob and I read books while Ally chased a bunch of older girls around bothering them. And Anya ferried her 3 baby dolls up the climber one at a time and then gathered them and slid down with them only to repeat it again and again. It was quite calming, under Ally decided to look over her shoulder and yell at the girls and trip over a piece of the playground, and bust her lip open and scream for a while. But even then, {shrug} she got over it. But, oh...the whining that ensued late that night. The kids were in bed quite early. Anya is NOT ready to skip her naps yet, and I have a sneaking suspiscion that she skipped quite a few last week.

Nevertheless, gluttons that we are, we skipped nap on Sunday too in favor of Knight's Action Park. And let me tell you, it was awesome. This was our 3rd trip, so Anya had gotten used to most of the stuff, and was mostly content to slide on the little slides by herself and throw a beach ball around and catch it. Aly entertained herself similarly, until she announcedshe was bored and wanted to go to the bigger slides. I went with her while Rob watched. By this time, we had been there abouan hour and a half and I had only spent about 30 seconds in the water. Which was great, because it wasquite cool. And the kids we having a great time without me having to actively entertain them. Eventually, Anya decided to branch out and visit another area, so Rob brought her over near me and we got to sit together for a little while with our eyes on the kids, but otherwise relaxing. But, what I hadn't told them was that we were planning on meeting their friends there. Dawson was in Anya's class andhis sister Dava-Jo was in Ally's class, and they have season passes too. The kids were thrilled when they showed up. THey played together and then magically, when they moved toward the bigger slides once agian, Anya got over being afraid and went down the big slides with them.

We closed the place down.

So it's not that I have nothing to say. Just no time to say it in. I am seriously cutting back on my internet time at work, because I want to keep my job. And also - I have no time. I never thought the day would come when I'd be swamped with work, but Hallelujah! I am no longer bored. Be careful what you wish for and all that. Really, though, I'll take this over boredom any day. I love my life.

Also, did I mention that I'm typing this on my own little brand new netbook? Sitting on the couch typing is awesome.

Tomoorow I'll probably be in a shitty mood again and post telling you all the resasons I hate my life, but that's just the way life rolls sometimes.

Happy Birthday, Katie! Your dog has cancer

It's Audrey, and I have no other news. This couldn't have possibly come at a worse time. I can't afford surgery, for a dog. What the hell?

Saturday morning

Ally, go downstairs and play.

But I want to watch SuperWhy!

So go downstairs and watch tv then.

But I'm too lazy!

Once in a lifetime

I have about 15 minutes before I have to strip the dirty clothes off the children and throw them (the children, not the clothes) in the bath. Until that time, though, there is no dirty laundry in my house and the only clothes not put away are the ones hanging in the laundry room waiting for Rob to bring them upstairs.

I'd like my medal now.

Conversations from a daycare #1

Robin: So we may get a fish for our classroom. I was at Walmart the other day and looking...

Ally: But we can't get a narwhal, because they are much too big for our classroom. And they live in the ocean. And the ocean is saltwater. But maybe if we all went to the ocean and got a bucket of water and ...

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Robin is speaking to a co-worker about plans for watching a baseball game at a sports bar

Ally: Can I go with you?!!

Robin: No, Ally, the place we're going is only for adults.

Ally: But if I ask my mom...

Robin: You have to be 21, Ally.

Ally: Well, when I'm older, I'll going to go there and I won't even invite you!

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Ally: OK, what's a kind of animal that can have 16 legs?

Robin: I don't know.

Ally: A seastar.

Robin: I don't think I knew that.

Anya: It has 5 legs!

Ally: (to Anya) No it doesn't. A starfish has five legs (to Robin) Actually, I meant a sunstar. It's a kind of starfish. Do you know what that's called? A species.

**We've been reading a Discovery Kids book about animals and watching PBS Nature shows.

Tuesday again

I seem to have a habit of posting on Tuesdays. Our weekends are always so busy, and then Monday comes and I have a ton of work to do, and they just restricted our internet access even more, and, and, and.. then it's Tuesday and I feel bad for not posting about the weekend.

So here I am.

And I have nothing interesting to say.

This weekend was great. We went to Knights Action Park (no big slides for Anya, yet) on Friday.Then we met my step-mother for ice cream. We drove home late, after the kids bedtime. Ally feel deep asleep. We couldn't even get her awake to see the fireworks on the way home. Saturday was grey, wet, and gloomy. We almost canceled our plans. In fact, the parade did get canceled. But we soldiered on and made our way to a friend's (more than one friend, actually) house and got to shoot our guns between the rains. Fun, fun.

Then we scared the crap out of the goats by shooting fireworks off right over their pen. Poor goats. We had a lot of fireworks.

 

They made a bottle rocket table out of pegboard.

This was an awesome idea, but you might want to put it further from the people and aim it kind of, well, more that-a-way. And cover your head. You know, just in case.

Once again, the kids missed their bedtime, so Sunday was a very laid back day.

See, boring. For you. I had a good time. Maybe I need to post on Wednesdays.

Dammit, why can't I upload pictures? Apparently I can, they just aren't visible in my editor.

Oh, Oh, I forgot. This is exciting!! I'm getting a laptop of my very own!!

But it's backordered, because I want blue, so I can tell it apart from Rob's easily. I don't want to accidentally open his and see his porn school work, instead of my stuff.