The Kids Are Growing

Spring is upon us! You can't make that pronouncement here without someone assuring you there will be a freeze in March. I know, there usually is. Still, when the temperature rises and the sun comes out again as February draws to a close, I just want to spend all my time in the yard. You'd never guess it if you looked at the barren wasteland that is our front yard...baby steps. The back yard is still a nightmare; we'll get to the front yard when we can pay someone to make it less horrifying.

So today, the girls and I planted some seeds of their choosing for the children's garden, which I think will be a container garden. As I pulled out all the seeds, Kate told me "I'm really into gardening, mom". She is. She's taking a gardening class at After School and has successfully grown sprouts, which I've been eating.



After a walk/bikeride/rollerblade into Oakhurst and back, it was time to prep a new bed for the exciting plants we'll have this year. The girls were less into that, they really only wanted to engage when the hose came out. They disappeared for a bit, while I continued turning earth and throwing out some seeds with high hopes, and they magically reappeared in bathing suits. I had a bad feeling about how the seed watering was about to go. It was, indeed, a bit of mayhem but eventually, all the new seeds got a hefty drink. And so it begins! Hopefully something good will grow this year.

Further Vigina Monologues

Sarah sings almost non-stop. Today, while standing in line at Home Depot, she invented a song and dance that went with the sound of the beeping scanner at the cash register. Prior to the Home Depot Wiggle, she was making up a song at breakfast. It went like this:
In my VAGINA!
In my VAGINA!
In my VA...

You get the point. Given the frequency with which grown men talk openly about their members, I did not think it fair for me to squelch Sarah's early love for her womanhood. Still, I didn't want to let that song become her first big hit. I always felt a little embarrassed for Madonna's dad, along those lines.

So, as I handed her a muffin (the irony was not lost on me...) I explained that in public, it's not generally considered acceptable to speak or sing of one's private bits. "Why not?" she asked. I have no idea. "It just isn't" I said, perpetuating my American Puritanical roots. "You could sing about your more public parts, you know, like your ears or fingers or your nose", I offered.

She paused thoughtfully for a moment, then launched into the same tune with new lyrics:
Picking my nose!
Eating it!
Picking my nose!
Picking my nose!

At that point, I just went with my favorite go-to parenting technique and pretended I didn't hear her by becoming instantly engrossed in a book.

Lydia lives!

Well folks, Lydia's had her muzzle off since Monday and her e-collar off since yesterday. She's doing fine, attacking Monkey with obnoxious abandon. That sort of behavior could well be what got her into this fix, but we're keeping an eye on that. Monday evening, we discovered a gaping hole in Rex the cat's side. So it was back to the vet with us. He's fine, too, but we're ready to get rid of all the pets at this point. We don't know what caused Rex's hole. It was not, as I feared, a disease akin to that which killed my brother's Oscars - Hole in the Head disease (it's a thing!), it is more likely the dogs played too rough with Rex, who is entirely too tolerant of their shenanigans.

Kate took these photos with my phone this morning, to prove Lydia's fine.

A Morning at the Opera

Kate's class is headed to the Opera today. She was allowed to wear whatever she wanted, no uniform! Yesterday she said "what do people wear to the opera?" and I said "They dress up!" and she flew from her seat in the kitchen up the stairs, nary lighting upon a single one, where she selected her outfit for the event, and laid it neatly out at the foot of her bed.

Then she insisted I curl her hair. Jeremiah and I convinced her to bring her bright orange binoculars with the caterpillar for an arm as her opera glasses. No one in our home knows what opera she's going to see (a technicality, this is about the attire!). I hope it's a rock opera. Jesus Christ! Superstar! Do you think you're what they say you are...

Lydia

We had some dog drama over the weekend. It's about Lydia, hence the post's title. Whenever Mom wants to let us know about the demise of someone we all knew, she very efficiently breaks the bad news in a mass email. The subject is the deceased's name. Sometimes she has good news about someone, and she'll place the honoree's name where the dead person's name typically belongs and so naturally, hilarity ensues. Anyway, Lydia isn't dead, but it's not really good news.

We made a brief run up to Virginia over the weekend. The dog's, and the children even, didn't join us. We took our puppies to the doggy spa. It was to be Lydia's first sleep-over. She had her lovey and her Monkey so we weren't worried. However, we received a call from a distraught doggy babysitter, who placed Lydia in her delux suite with Monkey the prior evening, and found her broken in the morning. There was no real evidence of a tussle, but she couldn't close her mouth. Somehow, and we will never know how, Lydia broke her own jaw. I assume this is a fight club sort of thing, and am resigned to the fact that she'll never talk about fight club.

After much drama involving potential surgery and having to transport her from our very conveniently located vet to an animal hospital that is wildly inconvenient and so busy they can't be bothered with you for at least 45 minutes once you're in the exam room, it was determined her fractures (yes, plural) were so hairline she'd be fine. A youngster like her, we were told, will heal up lickety split. So now miss Lydia is strapped into a bit of headgear. We have to grind her food into liquid. That bit makes me gag a little, not in the funny way. Still, after all the hullabaloo and what not, it looks like this pup will live. On Monday, she may even be declared healed by the vet.





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:The boodwar

Fire! Mind your booty.

As we waited for our coffee from Karvana, just across the street from the fire house, the hook and latter truck groaned into action and, predictably, I got excited. "Look girls!" I declared, as if they're the ones who get worked up upon seeing a fire truck in action, "there goes the fire truck!" Kate and Sarah gazed at the truck as it passed us, its lights whirling and sirens blaring. Sarah said "Uh-oh, something got on fire." Before I could correct Sarah's grammar Kate piped up with "I hope it's not our butts!"

Blogging on the iPad

I have successfully located an app for blogging on the iPad! Now I am sitting in the kitchen with 2 very naughty girls. Kate was on red today for the very first time in her Drew Charter School history. Reportedly, she took up with a gang of first grade ruffians and together the pack were playing in the mud on the playground despite being told not to.

Sarah, not to be outdone, pinched her friend Willow. I asked why she pinched Willow and she said "she said she had my headband in her pocket". Wow, she goes directly to violence. I couldn't even determine if Willow really did have Sarah's headband. It was on Sarah's head by the time I arrived.

I declared a movie-less evening. Neither kid seems fazed by her own behavior or by having gotten in trouble for it. In fact, they are continuing to behave badly. Maybe I picked up the wrong kids from school...

Anyway, hooray, I can blog on my iPad!

Oh no thurz no spelcheque on here!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:The kitchen

Bathing Beauties

The bubbles are best when you turn on the jets.