Halloween

I'm too tired to blog about our adventures (which were of the standard beg-for-candy-while-wearing-awesome-dress-ups variety), but you can have some pictures. :-)









Happy Halloween, everybody! :-*


~RCH~

Don't mess with the ghost!

I awoke this morning to discover that the skeleton and ghost decorations we'd hung on the bird feeder in the front yard had gotten in a fight (and/or been whipped around by the wind, but whatever).

I'd say the cause of death was manual strangulation.




~RCH~

Get Well Soon

Dos is sick. Not that you'd know it from the way she behaves; she has remarkable reserves of energy and cheer even when she's febrile. I wouldn't have known to keep her home from school if it hadn't been for the love note.

Uno helped her write it; as a big first grader, she knows how to spell more words than Dos does. I found it yesterday morning as I tried to rouse the girls from sleep and take the breakfast orders ("You want Pop Tarts or Marshmallow Maties?" We're full service around here!). I sadly no longer have the note -- DH threw it away in an unwarranted cleaning frenzy, grrr -- but it went something like this:

Dear Garit,

You are so col. I love you and wont you to mere me. PS ples dont tell the rest ov the class. I wold be sad. LOVE [Dos].

She tried to grab it out of my hand when she saw me reading it, but I'm too quick for her! "Who's Garret?" I asked.

"Just a boy from my class."

"Hmmmm."

On the one hand, you can't get much more innocent or adorable than a kindergarten crush. On the other hand.... They have such limited time to be children; I'd like to discourage and delay the boy crazies for as long as I can.

"This is a really nice letter," I told her. "I'm glad that you have friends you care about so much. I just don't think it's appropriate to take to school, okay?"

Her face crumpled. "I can't give it to him?"

"Sorry."

She dissolved into tired tears; it was all very pitiful. I put my hand up to move the hair out of her eyes and give her a little kiss -- and that's when I noticed the heat emanating from her forehead. I confirmed my suspicions with the temporal scan thermometer and informed her that she wasn't going to school anyway. More tears. (Until she remembered that once Uno got sick and had to stay home from school, and I brought her breakfast from Sonic to cheer her up, and so Mom can I please have french toast sticks with syrup and a blue coconut icee and no tots? At which point Uno turned on the tears: "Hey! How come I have to eat Pop Tarts?")

She seemed fine all day yesterday; she ran around, played with Tres, ate and drank normally, refused to rest. Sure, her fever would occasionally spike again, but why should a little something like that slow her down?

DH and I went to her parent-teacher conference in the afternoon. We explained Dos's absence to her teacher (who had been absent, herself, for two weeks -- two weeks! -- when her daughter had the flu) and collected her papers, the coloring and letter practice worksheets she would have done if she'd been in class yesterday. And then we got to the fun part, wherein Mrs. D told us how wonderful our daughter is:

According to her kindergarten teacher, Dos is very well-rounded, sociable, and a good leader (a fact I didn't know, since Uno dominates in their interactions at home). She's smart, listens and takes direction well, and has a lot of self confidence. Overall, she's a delight to have in the classroom. :-)

As we chatted, she relayed a story about Dos and the class troublemaker (we'll call him B). He'd been acting up from the very first day of school -- fidgeting in class, talking back, bothering other kids, bla bla bla.... His dog had been moved down the path and into the dog house (their little system of tracking behavior) plenty of times, and he had become acquainted with the principal. Mrs. D, exasperated, told him at one point that someday he'd bother the wrong kid and get walloped on in return -- and she wouldn't be able to do anything about it. That time came in P.E. a few weeks back. B picked on Dos and she -- itty-bitty-for-her-age girl that she is -- turned to him and started pounding. Mrs. D separated them before anybody got hurt, but she couldn't fault Dos for defending herself and B learned a valuable lesson: Dos may be small, but she's scrappy! Mrs. D said she had to fight to keep from laughing as it happened; she never imagined that sweet little Dos would be the one to give B his due. She said if she didn't know better, she'd think she must have brothers at home. (With girls like ours, who needs sons? LOL.)

At the end of the conference, the teacher gave us a certificate and a special pencil to take home. "Dos was the Star Student today," she said. "Tell her we missed her and she was the star for a reason; she adds so much goodness to our class." My heart rose and then sank a little. Every kid in every grade gets a chance at some point during the year to be the Star Student for her class. I've heard Uno and Dos talking about it before, wondering when their turns would come ... and now here was Dos's and she missed it.

I tried to talk it up when we got home, but I was right: She was disappointed. She held onto the certificate and pencil tightly, safeguarding them from a thieving Tres, and she cried. "Can I go back to school tomorrow?" she asked. I had to tell her no. She still had a fever. :-(

Dos woke up early this morning and came to find me. "I feel great!" she said. "Do I get to go to school?" I checked her head three times with the thermometer -- 102F each time. Definitely no school. Still, if you'd seen her at home today you'd never have guessed she didn't feel well. She bounced and danced; she roughhoused with Tres; she grazed and snacked throughout the morning. All of our girls are superhuman when they're sick, though: Glazed eyes? Flushed cheeks? Diminished energy? Grumpiness? Nah. They might get a little sleepy as their temps hit 105F or so (as happened toward the end of our recent trip to the Seattle area), but even then they're pleasant and remarkably low maintenance patients.

Dos had an elevated temp (100.0F, so not technically a fever) before bed tonight. She keeps talking excitedly about her class fieldtrip to the pumpkin patch coming up on Friday, and of course trick or treating on Halloween, so I've got my fingers crossed that her immune system has kicked viral butt and she'll be well in time to participate. She's such a good girl, so sweet and scrappy. I'd hate to see her disappointed again.




~RCH~

Bitter / Happy

Bitter

I'm a crappy photographer. And I have grumpy models who stomp and whine and refuse to look in the direction of the lens, despite any bribes I might offer. Our new town is on the edge of national forest land; there are deciduous trees everywhere in full autumn glory. But do you think I can convince my girls to pose amidst all that loveliness? Yeah, no. I tried twice to take some sister pics of them this week: The first time, we didn't even get to the location before Uno and Dos got in a punching match and I had to march them back home. The second time I took 218 photos and ended up with not a single usable frame. Any shots not ruined by eye rolls and goofy faces ended up out of focus (what is wrong with me??). I don't think I can convince them to try again. It's stupid, but it hurts my heart.

I keep playing Bejeweled Blitz over on Facebook. I don't know why. I kind of hate the game; the "narrator" (for lack of a better term) keeps shouting, "Awesome!" at me in the most creepy, menacing voice. I'm afraid he might track me down and hurt me if I stop playing.

Our old house hasn't sold yet. The Realtor claims the tiered back yard is people's biggest complaint, and of course there's nothing we can do about that. (The views, people! That house has the best views of the valley because of the tiered yard!) The last time we spoke with him, the Realtor also asked if it was okay for them to handle offers other than the exact asking price. Um....? Isn't that their job? Have they turned away potential buyers without asking us because they thought we were inflexible about the price? Hello, we are living with the in-laws! WE WILL BE FLEXIBLE!

I miss my family and friends. I'm not one to get homesick easily, and I generally don't mind my own company -- but DH sees his family every single day. Everywhere he goes, he runs into old family friends, people he went to high school with, people he used to work with, people who knew him when. He can call up any number of cousins or BFFs if he wants to go see a football game or hit some golf balls around to blow off steam. I can ... play Bejeweled Blitz.

Tres seems to have given up on naps.

The girls had their Primary program at church today: In lieu of speakers or a sermon, all the children (all 10, lol) sang songs and presented short prepared talks on the importance of faithful families. DH couldn't come; he was working. The girls' grandparents didn't come because (in DH's words to me, after he and his mom had gotten into it over the subject of baptism tonight) they hate our religion. Nobody was there to watch the girls do their parts. I heard it all, of course, but even I didn't get to see them because I teach Primary now and I had to sit up on the stand with the kids. I saw the backs of their heads.

Happy

Tres may have given up naps, but she's doing a little better at going to bed, after a nearly three week strike. (She'd stand up in her crib and shout angrily to anyone who would listen, "I don't yike bedtime! I not going to sleep! I NOT DOING BEDTIME, MOMMY!")

We can't buy anything permanent because we haven't sold the old house yet, but I think we've found something to rent -- and that's no small feat around here, where decent rentals are nearly impossible to come by. It's a well cared for two-bedroom, one-bath home with a nice sized back yard in a good neighborhood. The house isn't big, but the space is used efficiently; the two bedrooms are about the same size, so I think we can fit all three girls in together. I'm very grateful to the ILs for being so willing to take us in, but I'm soooooo ready for my own space! We should know within a couple days if we get the place and how soon we can move in.

Halloween is coming up, the girls have cool costumes, and (I think) for the first time ever since we've had children, DH will not be working on Halloween and can participate in the trick-or-treating. I will be Cleopatra. Uno and I keep trying to convince DH to dress up with us, but he's a party pooper in that regard. Still, he'll be here for the fun! Maybe he'll finally catch the spirit of the season and then next year we can get him in a costume.

Uno is an excellent reader, and she enjoys it. I love that.

I guess that's all for now.


~RCH~

Get your Girl Scout Cookies here!

(Otherwise titled Why I Am A Crappy, Irresponsible GS Mother.)

I thought we had a few more weeks of this cookie selling business. We hadn't really started yet because the official rules say they had to sell them while wearing their uniforms, and the only Girl Scout retailer within an hour's drive hasn't had any Daisy uniforms smaller than 10/12 each of the three times we've gone in. We finally ordered them online, paying waaay too much for expedited shipping, and planned to set up a little card table booth up the street on the corner (which gets a fair amount of traffic). Except that the weather has been awful, so I kept putting it off. I thought we had more time, plenty of time for it to stop raining, plenty of time for the temperature to rise 20 degrees to October normals. Days and weeks and oodles of time.

Um, apparently the cookie orders are due on Saturday. So we have about a day. Or a day and a half, maybe, depending on when I have to get them to the troop leader.

CRAP.

*Sigh.*

So here we go with the hard sell: You want Girl Scout cookies. You neeeeeed Girl Scout cookies. All the cool kids are eating them. They're only sold once a year (well, once in each region -- you may get them some other time where you live) so you'd better stock up (they freeze well for later)! Or get them out-of-season if your Girl Scouts sell them in the spring! Just close your eyes and picture them -- Samoas, Thin Mints, Tagalongs! Mmmmmmmm. Your mouth is watering. You are reaching for your wallet. YOU MUST HAVE THEM.

Right? How am I doing?

Let's have our actual Girl Scouts have a crack at it!

Uno says, "Please buy some cookies! We have all different flavors and they're so yummy. They're back from the '50s, sooo long ago. Well, wait, they didn't have ovens then -- but they're still delicious. You HAVE to try them. There are two new flavors: One is Dulce de Leche and one is Thank U Berry Munch. Then we have the Tagalongs, then we have the Thin Mints. So if you want to order them, just type us back and tell us which cookies you want and we'll fill that in for you and we'll turn this in by tomorrow. Thank you."

Dos says, "Hello. Would you like to buy some cookies? All you need is four dollars in a box! Thank you." (She means they cost four dollars per box.)

So yeah, each box sells for $4.00 -- the proceeds of which go toward activities, projects, and facilities for the girls in our council -- and you can buy them singly and/or in one of three bundles ($12 per bundle): Timeless Classics (Thin Mints, Trefoils, and Samoas); I Love Chocolate (Samoas, Tagalongs, and Thin Mints); and Cafe Companions (Thank U Berry Munch, Lemon Chalet Cremes, and Trefoils).

You can read more about each of the cookies here (including nutrition information -- though maybe you shouldn't read that if you're hoping the cookies are at all nutritious). Not all of the cookies listed there are sold in every region, though, so let me list for you the ones that we offer:

Lemon Chalet Cremes

Trefoils

Do-Si-Dos

Samoas

Dulce De Leche (NEW!)

Thank U Berry Munch (NEW!)

Tagalongs

Thin Mints

If you would like to order some (please, please, you know you want to) email me or leave me a comment. Or leave me a comment that you'd like to email me but don't have my email address, if that's the case and you'd rather do it that way. Payment isn't due until delivery, but when that time comes you can send it via PayPal or regular check. If anyone who lives far from us wants to order (and that's pretty much my entire blog readership, lol) I will ship them to you free of charge as my own donation to the Girl Scout cause, so you'll only be responsible for the actual boxes of cookies you order. And you'll get a package! So everybody wins!

Mmmmmm, Samoas....


~RCH~

Don't stick your arm out the window, Mother said....

My mom has her maxims and favorite sayings: Make it a great day! Many hands make light work! Speak the truth and shun the devil! When I'd complain about my boyish teenage body she'd always say the exact same thing: "Most girls would love to have your figure. You're tall and slender like a tree!" (Though she was only half right; I may be taller than she is, lol, but 5'4" puts me right at the edge of petite. Short and scrawny like a twig may have been more appropriate. :-P)

My repertoire isn't as fully developed as hers is yet, but I do notice myself saying certain things over and over to my children: Remember, the game is only fun if everybody thinks it's fun! Little bites for little girls! If you're too tired to listen to your mother, I can put you to bed right now!

Part of our morning drop-off ritual, which began last year with a kindergarten Uno and preschool Dos, includes me yelling out, "Be good! Have fun! Listen to your teacher and be nice to your friends! Learn a lot of stuff! I love you!" as they scamper off toward the school house door. Sometimes I switch the order around, just to mix it up a little, but every part is essential; I can't imagine sending them to school without those admonitions.

I'm curious to hear what other bits of maternal wisdom are floating around in the universe, so if I have any readers left (sorry I've been so delinquent lately), leave me some juicy comments about your mom's favorite sayings. :-)

(Note: The title of this post comes from a hilarious poem by Hal Sirowitz called "Chopped Off Arm." It begins:

Don't stick your arm out the window,
Mother said. Another car can sneak up
behind us, & chop it off. Then your father
will have to stop, stick the severed piece
in the trunk, & drive you to the hospital.
It's not like the parts of your telescope that snap back on.
A doctor will have to sew it.
You won't be able to wear short sleeves.
You won't want anyone to see the stitches....

And then it just goes on and on. I have a recording of the author reading it in his nebbishy New York accent and it cracks me up every time.)


~RCH~