Heck Yeah Summer!

I know some (most?) parents dread summer, for with this hottest of seasons with the longest of days comes the age-old question of "what will I do with my dang kids all day?!" Because to be a grownup often means to have a job of some sort, trying to figure out how to safely keep our kids busy while also enriching their brains just a teensie bit during those long work hours can be a daunting chore. Let's just say we all do our best, shall we?

Alas, thank the sunshine and stars because with all of those hours spent at a babysitter's with strangers or in front of the TV while we work, we guilt-ridden working parents are redeemed by the magical thing we call...occasional play time! I personally crammed as much of this into the first few days of vacation so the kids might be blindsided by the extreme fantasticness of it all, and would perhaps be too tuckered out from all the fun to notice the time spent doing non-fun things afterward.

On day one of the kids' Summer Vacation: we went to the pool.

On day two of the kids' Summer Vacation: we went to an entirely different pool.

On day three of the kids' Summer Vacation: we went to an amazing music festival two blocks from our house!

On day four of the kids' Summer Vacation: the kids were picked up from Sprout by a magical fairy and taken to the river where they swam, and swam, and swam.

On day five of the kids' Summer Vacation: we, um, well we spent the day at work. But still. You have to admit that wasn't a bad start, right?

So we've come up with a great plan, and that is to simply continue having heaps of water-based fun, with some days at work, sleepover camps, traveling and all kinds of other time-fillers thrown in there for good measure.

Hey Summer: come at us, bro!

Back to Beverly Healdsburg

Liam's teachers met with Erin, my mother, and I for his annual IEP (Individual Education Plan) and it
was decided. He's coming back to Healdsburg!!

Why am I so thrilled?! Because I'm a frickin' SNOB!

There are some great towns around Sonoma County, but none better than Healdsburg. He's been going to a school in Windsor for the past year and Windsor is just....well. I mean, you can tell a lot from a town's slogan.

Santa Rosa: Out There in the Middle of Everything

Healdsburg: The Heart of Sonoma County Wine Country

Windsor: Where the Walmart is.

Last year it was deemed that Windsor had the only program suited to Liam's needs. I like to think that this fact kept the head honchos at the Healdsburg school district awake at night, fretting over the fact that they'd failed a local treasure.

"We've GOT to get Liam back!" they all collectively agreed.

Well in the intervening year the good old HUSD got their shit together and created a program that is suspiciously perfect for Liam. He'll be finishing out summer school in Windsor, which is merciful of him. I think his teachers will need time to come to terms with their loss. 

The Very Competitive Salad Competition

My daughter is a huge fan of creating contests, giving elaborate orders to those around her, and making dinner plans on our behalf. So it didn't come as much of a surprise when, while making dinner the other night, Evie declared that Paulie and I were to have a very serious salad making competition the following night. "Why salad?" I asked. I assumed it was because I was at that very moment making a salad, so she was just going with a visual impulse. Instead she said "for a contest, and for health. So we can have both."

Smart kid. 

Text from Paulie, 3.5 minutes before I left work

I am in general not a very competitive person (read: this is something said by people who don't realize just how competitive they actually are), so I forgot about our contest until about 3 minutes before I was due to leave work for home. I hadn't planned out my salad yet, but I figured, no big deal, right?

It soon became clear, however, that Paulie was taking this thing seriously. 

As soon as he walked in the door, he took on a warrior's stance and declared that no children be allowed into the kitchen during the preparing of the salads, lest they choose the winner based on favoritism alone. With kids sufficiently banished, we set to work. 

I decided to make a 'know your audience' salad, with a couple of things thrown in that the kids don't like so it wouldn't seem like blatant suck-upery. While I was steaming my green beans, Paulie disappeared for a while. When he came back, I wasn't too worried:

Fresh-trimmed baby lettuce? Meh. 

Then when I went to the sink to rinse my tomatoes, I caught sight of this pile of stuff: 

Flowers and mint? Oh hell no...he...didn't.

I mean, the guy plans on putting flowers into his salad?! Come on - totally cheating. But hey, I knew I could still pull it together. I rolled my shoulders back and opened a can of black olives: my secret weapon. Around this time, Evie bumped her way into the kitchen with her eyes squeezed shut, and dropped this reminder onto the table: 

"Remember be competitive" 

She's kind of a task-master.

Since I am a very good rule-follower I took her instructions super seriously. Every time Paulie looked over to my work station and asked "oh, are you putting those sliced almonds in your salad?" or "are you using that feta?" I was like "BACK OFF, BITCH! All of these things are miiiiiiine!" Eventually I let my guard down enough to glance over my shoulder, and I saw that Paulie was beginning to plate his salads. 

My boyfriend: Mr. Fancy Pants

Needless to say, I was not encouraged. Evie loves avocado! Maybe that was his secret weapon? The bastard! *Deep Breath* I knew I had to stay focused...head in the game, Janik, head in the game. I tossed my salad together and thought it looked pretty damn good. 

Then, I made the rookie mistake of checking in to see what was happening over at Paulie's work station. 

You've got to be kidding me

Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. I see how this is gonna go down. Resigned to failure, I begrudgingly plated my own salad, then we set the table and called the kids in to judge the fruits and vegetables of our labor. It didn't take long before my frown...turned upside down. 

He is NOT pleased.

This one isn't so sure, either

Yep - the kids hated Paulie's salad! Woo hooooooooo!!! Sure, they liked mine only slightly more than his and still didn't want to eat the majority of it, but still. All that counts here is WINNING, amiright?

"I don't like this either, but I dislike it less than the pretty one"

As soon as Jonah had eaten a respectable amount of each salad, he said "so, um...where's...dinner?" Imagine his immense disappointment when I pulled the broccoli and cauliflower gratin out of the oven! Oh man, he was super bummed, heh heh. Luckily we had a bag of 'I'm sure these things don't expire even though the sell-by date was six months ago' frozen pork sausage patties in the freezer, which both kids fell upon like a pack of wild dogs after a long winter. 

While they ate, Paulie plotted our rematch. The next competition, much to both kids' delight, will be a Steak-Off. Since I basically never even eat steak and have no freaking idea how to cook it am a thoughtful and giving girlfriend and don't want to hurt my boyfriend's pride, I think I'll let him win that one. 

No guarantees, though. 

Important Update on The Pajama Situation!

UPDATE!

Several weeks ago I wrote about not having a proper pair of pajamas, and how terrible that was. You can read about how terrible it was HERE. Or you can just trust me. 

Here is the look I was dreaming about: 

Apparently my (enter exceedingly complimentary adjective which I haven't already used here) boyfriend thought to himself 'hmm, Amanda has a birthday coming up in a few weeks...' then got all Magnum PI up on his computer and found the exact pair of super-classy pajamas I'd used as an example in my post!

Well, almost exact. Really really close. This pair was, I guess you could say...white. 

I was like "um, have you seen me eat food?" which I quickly corrected by saying "oh my gosh! Thank you so much, I love them!!" *hug* "but, um, you have seen me eat food, right?"

He took a moment to reflect on all of the times he's seen me eat. Or gotten a text from me regarding spilling salsa down my bra or any other such examples of my slovenly habits. "Yeah, good point," he agreed. "But they were all out of blue! Well, the blue is back ordered. I guess everyone read your blog and there was a big rush on the blue ones you featured."

"Yes...yes, that seems reasonable." Sadly, I had him return the jammies. 

Since that time I have continued to sleep like a commoner in the day's leftover shirts and any variation of casual pantwear. Sigh, woe is me. 

Until......

She's very thoughtful

Yesterday a package arrived in the mail! I couldn't open it right away because of the whole 'feeding kids' thing, but as soon as I was able, I ripped that sucker open and inside I found another pair of pajamas. Tra la laaaa! I immediately put them on and got right down to the not-busy task of living the life of leisure I always imagined I was meant to live. 

I tried to take a picture, but I couldn't because our dog Mesa was busy breaking my new sleepwear in with her slobber and fur so that there was no way I could ever return them.

I know you're dying to see them, right?! Here they are! 

I look JUST like that model, I know.

To say that I love my new pajamas would be an understatement. I like, love-love them. I was super bummed when it was time to get dressed to drive the kids to school this morning, which Paulie noticed and said "you don't have to change, just wear the jammies!" Silly Paulie! He doesn't know that school drop-off is a very serious affair and we moms are being judged at every turn. Since I already don't brush my hair or teeth for this event, I know wearing pajamas would be completely unacceptable.

Shhhhhh...

So I put on some jeans and hid my jammie shirt under a jacket. And then took some selfies in a stranger's front yard.

This right here is a pj top, ladies

I was so excited that not only had I been given the perfect pair of pajamas, but the pajama top doubled as a bonafide shirt, I had to show off. I vroomed over to my friend Suzanne's house, where her mind was blown by the awesomeness of my ensemble. Needless to say, she had to take a picture - not because she's a professional photographer, but because I asked her to and she complied. She got really into it, too: "I'm gonna get all artsy n' shit here, lean up against that wall. Put your hands back, do this, do that...." The final result is okay, as long as none of my old Barbizon teachers see that foot positioning OMG amiriiiiiight?! I blame them though, for telling a 5'2" girl with a scar on half of her face that she could be a model. That's what you get, Barbizon!! Look at that sloppy footwork!

Yes. Yes I am this super cool all the time.

But I digress. 

As you can plainly see I am thrilled with my new pajamas-slash-shirt. And I have once again let Barbizon down. And I don't look anything like the pajama model. 

But you know what? I don't care. Because I'm comfy, I'm matchy, and the dog still loves to rest her head in my crotch. Happy five-weeks-late Birthday to me!

Big Hero

What a great weekend!

We had pool time:

An artsy photo shoot in the park:

And best of all, MOVIES! Okay, I know "screen time" is EVIL, right? I'm ruining my kids and should be enriching their lives with the arts. Well then, how about performance art?

Movie time at our house isn't your typical slack-jawed passive brain atrophying couch-potato time. It's a goddamn SHOW staring Finley Bairdsmith. It takes him about two viewings with a new favorite film for him to start acting out the whole thing. We've only had Big Hero 6 for a month or so and Finn will already do the action in every scene with some approximation of the dialogue.

It's like a very clean Rocky Horror Picture Show. I couldn't capture the best moments because he casts himself as the protagonist, the young Hiro Hamada, and me as the deuteragonist, Baymax the big white robot. Invariably a lot of our scenes are close up and we didn't have a reliable third person to capture those moments on film. Jodee draws the line at double-digit viewings of any Pixar film and Liam is always too emotional after the first act.    

My Little Angel

"LIAM!! We do NOT hit daddy in the penis!"

"I'm sorry daddy, what's wrong?"

As Liam's communication skills improve, so have his lies. In fact I think being able to more effectively bullshit has been his primary motivation in overcoming his speech issues. Hey, whatever works!

My grandfather used to believe in the concept of "the bad seed" but I think that's baloney. All kids are sweet, innocent, and precious...especially my boys. Admittedly, if you throw a few pigtails on him, Liam does bear a striking resemblance to a young Patty McCormack.

And sure, his hugs can get a little intense...

And he does get quite the thrill out of holding my head underwater for as long as possible...

And there's this...

Plus I noticed that every time we've come home this week, he picks up a rock from the ground out back and destroys a spider web on the porch railing. He let's the spider live, but I think that's just so the poor dumb spider will rebuild the thing.

Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!

What?

Then again, he's my hero when it comes to Finn. Sure, there are times I hear Finn cry out from the next room and when I go to investigate I get Liam's usual, incriminating overly-sweet greeting, "Hi daddy! HI! Hello! Hi DADDY!!" But who shares ice cream? Honestly.

The best part too!!

Awww!! So sweet, right? Thankfully every evil genius needs his minion.

P.S. Liam, if you're reading this, I'm totally joking and daddy loves you very very very very very very very much.
 

The To-Do List

I had yesterday off from work at Sprout, which is a very rare occurrence and warrants a fun mix of trying to force myself to relax and also attempt to check a few things off of my ever-growing to-do list. I got through a few things (in fact, I’m accomplishing #3 right now!), and yet the list still looks daunting and makes me want to crawl into bed with the crappy book I’m reading and let it put me to sleep like it always does. For nothing other than my need for validation, here is the list, in no particular order:

1. Pick up shoes from the cobbler (I dropped them off over a month ago, but he's always closed when I'm not at work)

2. Sweep entire house

3. Write (in progress!) ((yes this counts!))

4. Mail Evie's letter to her penpal (it's been like 3 weeks, oooooops)

Mail for everybody!!

5. Redeem massage gift certificate (I've, uh, had this thing since November - what nincompoop can't find one damn hour for a free massage?!)

6. Finish writing this year's will

7. Check out sale at Cheese Shop

8. Shave legs (I know. I know. I can't believe it either!)

9. Wake up early enough to call the clinic that takes Medi-Cal, get weird armpit lump checked out

One of these things is not like the other

10. Trim other hedge (I found 10 minutes two weeks ago to trim one of them, but not both)

11. Return neighbor's drink container thingy

12. Buy lightbulbs, hand towels and a new cordless phone for Sprout

13. Replace the 11 burned-out light bulbs at Sprout

14. Find/book tickets for Michigan trip. Try not to punch anything/cry/scream

15. Review list of goals - add/amend/assess

16. Send a Santa Rosa postcard to that kid for her school project - DUE IN MAY!!

17. Finish crappy, typo-filled book I'm reading so I can start something more worthy of precious time consumption

18. Look through photo albums for baby picture of Evie for midwife's retirement party

19. Plan clothing swap in lieu of shopping for new clothes

20. Clean baby chicken poop off of living room floor

I’m going to stop at 20. Rest assured, there are more. Especially considering I didn’t put ‘nap’ in there. Or ‘Take a deep breath’. Or ‘Unclench jaw’. Or even ‘Everything is going to work out just fine’.

It might be time to make a new list.