Randomness

- I ate my very first Lean Cuisine meal this week.  It may have been lean, but it was not cuisine.  Someone should scold them for false advertising.

- I think that new "Cowboys and Aliens" movie looks so stupid, but I'm the same person who took one look at "Dancing with the Stars" several years ago and said there was no way that show would make it past one season.

- While painting my kitchen the other day, I had Pandora music playing.  During the course of the day, it played several Amy Winehouse songs.  She really was a talented singer.  Such a shame.

- My dad mowed our lawn last week while Ryan was on a business trip.  Sydney asked me how much I was going to pay him.  (Just in case you're wondering, I pay him in food.)

- I dropped the kids off at Ryan's mom's house for a few days so that I could some stuff done around the house.  Sydney said the best part of staying there is that she doesn't have to make her bed.

- I finally started working on Evan's Christmas stocking again.  Poor boy is coming up on his fourth Christmas and it's about time he had his own personalized stocking like his siblings.

- I bit the bullet and paid somebody to come out and clean our carpet.  Wow!  Between that and newly painted kitchen I feel like I'm in a whole new house.

- The kids found a baby gecko in the toy room last week.  Liam asked if we could keep it.  I politely told him "no" as I captured the scared thing and put it outside where it belongs.  Maybe it's time we get some kind of pet....

Found: One Backbone

I knew it was coming.  Really, I did.  I just didn't expect it to come so soon.

I mentioned a while back that I was in charge of our church's Vacation Bible School curriculum this summer.  It wasn't all that difficult or time consuming, especially since Ryan took the kids out for an entire afternoon so that I could finish it without interruption.

Because it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, I went ahead and volunteered to make copies of it for all the teachers.  I even put together a supply list based on the curriculum just to be helpful.

And because I did my job thoroughly and went a little above and beyond, I got the call.

What call is that, you ask?

Well, it was the "Since you did such a great job as curriculum coordinator, I was wondering if you'd be interested in being my co-director for all of Bible School next year" call.  (The term "co-director" is also the code word for the following year's head director.)

My internal response?  "Heck no."

My actual response?  "I am so flattered you'd think of me, but I really don't think I can devote the time to it that it needs."  I went on to tell her that Ryan's work is asking him to travel more this year (true) and that he's gearing up to start a master's program at a nearby university (true) and that I'd be a single mom for much of the next couple of years (also true) thanks to the first two reasons.

She was very understanding and sympathetic since her husband also travels quite a bit, but sad.  She asked who I thought who would be a good person to ask and I told her that I'd think about that and I'd get back to her (and I will because I already have a couple of names in mind).

I'm feeling guilty about it because I know it's a hard job and it's a lot of work.  I also feel guilty because the person who asked me was co-chair this past year and still managed to work full time as a high school science teacher and keep her two children fed, clothed and loved.  I honestly don't know how she did it all and I don't want to find out, either.

However, I'm a big believer that you should volunteer with a happy heart.  If you do it out of obligation then you won't enjoy it at all and people will be able to sense your resentment and neither of those are good things when it comes to dealing with over 400 children and volunteers.

I always joke with Ryan that I inherited my mother's inability to tell people "no", but I guess I didn't.  I suppose I've just learned how to do it politely and with a smile on my face.

Summer = TV

So, um, yeah.....it's been a while since I posted.

There's no excuse for it other than the fact that I had nothing to say and didn't really feel like writing.  While Seinfeld may have made a fortune with a show about nothing, nobody wants to read a blog about nothing.  It's not that we haven't done anything, I just didn't have anything to say about it.

We've attended two week long camps at church, spent a week in San Antonio with my parents, done some swimming, played in the sprinkler, played games, read lots of books for the library's summer reading program, gone to see some movies and since it is so hot outside (and by hot, I mean HOT - and I'm from Texas so I know the meaning of the word), we've put our Netflix streaming to use.

For the kids, this is the summer of "Phineas and Ferb".  I'd heard parents rave about it but never actually sat down to watch it before this summer.  It's about a couple of boys who spend their summers using their imaginations and inventing things and irritating their tattle-tale older sister who can never seem to convince their mother that the boys are up to no good.  The fact that the plot hits close to home for us may factor into our newfound love of it.

Ryan and I are making our way through the 1980s series "Thirtysomething" an episode or two at a time in the evenings.  I'm telling you, take away their giant shoulder pads and give them some smart phones and the characters could be anyone you know.  There's a stay at home mom who's struggling with having to give up her career, a couple of husbands trying to make ends meet, a divorced couple and all of their single friends whom you can't help but feel a bit jealous of and a bit sorry for all at the same time.  Sound familiar to anyone?

When I get a spare hour to myself (ha, ha) or have a bout of insomnia, I've taken to watching episodes of  "Roseanne".  I watched it as a teenager and it was funny then, but now that I'm the same age as the parents and have kids of my own, it is an absolute riot: the pranks they pull on their kids, the sarcasm, the coining of new phrases such as "fiduciary Esperanto" when doing their taxes.....it's all ten times better the second time around.

While in Florida, I caught a couple of episodes of "Ice Road Truckers" and got hooked.  I usually can't stand reality TV, but I honestly find this one fascinating.  There are lots of bleeps over the bad words, but I'm fairly certain that anyone driving 10 tons of expensive cargo over frozen roads and lakes would probably drop a few bad words here and there.  And while some people think driving those trucks is the hardest job in the world because it so cold and dark, I'm thinking that the poor people filming it all probably have it even worse.  The truck drivers are in their heated trucks; the cameramen are outside in the forty below zero temperatures filming it all....I'm just sayin'.

I've had fun watching some hoity-toity BBC/Masterpiece Theater movies, too.  I'm a sucker for any kind of historical fiction set in Europe so this is right up my alley.  Just last night I watched "A Room With a View" and got the giggles seeing a young(er) Maggie Smith with a pile of blonde hair on her head and a 19 year old Helena Bonham Carter before she met Tim Burton and turned into a weirdo.  I found myself wondering if the makeup person for the movie had ever heard of tweezers or if they were trying to be historically accurate by giving the younger characters eyebrows that would make Frida Kahlo jealous.

So now that I've given you the impression that all we've done this summer is watch television, I will tell you that we've also done boring stuff like work on multiplication tables and practice handwriting.  But, hey, it's summer and everyone needs a substantial break from the grueling school year schedule, right?

Disney Trip

We're back!  Actually, we got back a few days ago, but between laundry, VBS prep and yet another trip to the pediatrician for strep tests, I'm just now able to sit down for more than five minutes.

I won't bore you with loads of pictures (just a few, I promise!).  I will say that we had a great time and we'll probably go back five to six years from now so that the boys will have some memories of the place.  It truly is a magical place, although the number of fussing/whining/crying children we saw totally contradicts the "Happiest Place on Earth" slogan.  If it was truly the happiest place on earth, it would be free of whiny, overtired children, but maybe that's just me.  Anyway....

Sydney and I spent a day at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and had a blast:



I let her choose what we did the entire time.  She got her Butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks Restaurant:



And she got to buy a wand (Hermione's, if you're curious):



We also discovered that if you're half an inch too short to ride the main ride and you cry in front of the person who tells you that you can't ride it, you'll get a gift certificate allowing you to be the first in line the next time you come and a personal escort to the front of another ride.  Not bad.

Disney was fun, too.  The kids got to meet their heroes, Woody and Jessie from Toy Story:



Liam loved all the rides he was allowed to go on.  In fact, by using their FastPass and Switchoff options, he got to ride most of them several times while poor Evan sat in the stroller waiting for all of us to finish riding the rides he was too short to go on.

We caved and bought all three kids some mouse ears:



And we forced them to pose for all of the standard photo ops:



We had a couple of "rest" days and stayed at our condo to play at the pool:



And we even took a detour on our 16 hour drive home to see the Atlantic Ocean:



I'd seen both the Atlantic and the Pacific but never actually set foot in them, so this was a first for me, too.  The water was the perfect temperature and the kids had a blast jumping in the waves (in their clothes) and getting soaked.  Now we know that we have to make a trip to the gulf for a day at the beach sometime this summer.

Anyway, we had a great time.  The drive was long and boring and by the end of our last day of driving (we totaled about 1800 miles), we were ready to kill each other.  But the rides, the shows and the overall fun overshadowed the irritation of the drive.

And what do you know....I even left most of my Type A personality at home.  While yes, I did have a spreadsheet prepared for each park with each ride's specifications and height requirements, I truly didn't care when Liam did this:



or this:



I even let Sydney take a picture of me with a Butterbeer mustache.

Wait....you didn't think I was going to let you see it, did you?

:)

Friday Funny

The following conversation took place earlier this week when we were discussing our upcoming Florida trip:

Sydney: "Did you get the Harry Potter tickets yet?"

Ryan: "No.  We haven't decided who's going there yet."

Sydney: "What do you mean?"

Ryan: "We haven't decided if all five of us are going or if just you and either me or Mommy is going."

Sydney: "Why can't we all go?"

Ryan: "Because for all of us it costs about $500 to get in."

Sydney: "How much does it cost to get out?"


(She wasn't serious....she was making a joke.)

We about died laughing.  Love that girl.

Torture

What do these three things have in common?

Water Boarding, Pulling out fingernails one by one, swimsuit shopping

If you said they're all forms of torture, then you win the prize!  (Not an actual prize, but one of those self congratulatory pats on the back kind of prizes.)

For an hour this past weekend I was tortured.  No, I didn't suddenly find myself in the hands of some North Korean prison guards.  I found myself in two department stores trying on swimsuits.  Ugh.

I've needed a couple of new swimsuits for about a year now.  We go swimming a lot and mine are worn out, as in the little elastic bra thing in the top of my tankini top is no longer elasticky.  I thought I'd take advantage of the Memorial Day sales and get a couple of new suits.  Ha!  Little did I know that no one makes a decent looking suit for a petite mom of three who can't seem to get rid of her pooch of a belly.

Because he truly has a good eye for what looks good on me, I brought Ryan along.  He sat in the "husband chairs" (you know, the chairs right outside the ladies' dressing room), held my purse and shared his opinions on the dozen or so suits I tried on.  To his credit, he didn't once comment on the jiggliness (hey, if Sarah Palin can make up words then so can I) of my thighs.  He did raise an eyebrow to a couple of the more revealing suits.

I discovered a while back that I look best in v-neck clothing so those are the suits that I gravitate toward.  For some reason, swimsuit designers seem to think that women who like to wear v-necks also like to show their wares to every Tom, Dick and Harry.  You know what?  Not all of us want to show that much boobage....some of us just like v-necks!  

So, anyway, the only suit that really fit me was a blue plaid tankini with, I am not kidding, ruffles on it.  Yes, ruffles on a grown woman's swimsuit.  Really?  I felt like Elly May Clampett and vetoed it immediately.  Who in the world wants ruffles around her hips?  Doesn't that just scream, "Look how wide my hips are!!"?

I don't know what I'm going to do.  I really don't want to wear my old suits anymore.  I know kids are often embarrassed at how their moms look in their swimsuits; mine are so bad, I'm embarrassed for myself.  I also don't want to torture myself any further by trying on any more of them.  

How hard can it be to design a decent, dignified yet cute, swimsuit?

If I'm going to wear something that amounts to, let's face it, underwear that is worn in public, I've got to have some standards. 

And apparently current swimwear designers have no standards whatsoever.

O

My life seems to revolve around 'O' words these days.

There's the end of the Oprah show.  I started watching her show when I was ten years old.  I grew up with her.  While I missed several years when she was in her weird spirituality phase, I started watching again when Sydney was a baby.  I certainly skipped a lot of shows (I can't stand make-over shows), but I did wind up watching most of this last season.  Most people say they'll just start watching her new network, but since we don't have cable or satellite, this truly is the end of an era for me.

And then there's my outstanding kids who surprise me everyday with their achievements and capacity to care for others.  Sydney has finished 2nd grade with all A's and over 200 reading points (that's a lot for a 2nd grader).  She proceeded to spend half of her reading points at the little library store on gifts for her brothers.  Liam insisted on saving a cookie for Ryan (who missed dinner one evening) and giving his brother a turn at being first at something.  And Evan has taken to sharing his snack with Liam.  He won't share his drinks - that boys loves his liquids - but he has no problem giving his food to others.

And, finally, there's my feeling of being completely overwhelmed by the whole Disney vacation thing.  I've read, researched, made notes, talked to dozens of experienced Disney travelers and I'm still overwhelmed.  There is simply too much to do there and we're not even bothering with the character meals or extras like the dining plans.  I'm going to let the kids watch YouTube videos on various attractions and make a list of things we just can't miss and then we'll fill in the rest of days with any other things we can fit in.  I told Ryan that my biggest obstacle will be being able to throw my Type A personality out the window so that the kids can enjoy the experience without feeling like their mom is a drill sergeant.  I know we won't get to ride everything or see everything, especially since all three kids are too short to ride a lot of things, and I just have to get it through my thick skull that the kids will enjoy whatever it is we get to do there.  I guess we'll just have to plan to go back in a few years so that we can catch all the things we missed this time.  :)