I still have reminders, phantom pains, about my laptop going kaput. I don’t have photos under control. I have barely emptied the camera. Today I realized I had to use GIMP as I never loaded PhotoShop on the new-to-me laptop. And I have been using a newer version of PhotoShop at work and I love it. Time to save my pennies and upgrade.

Way back:

Making Miranda's Mars visual aid

And the for Henry’s birthday, we went to the Hilton. It was very nice. We got very wet.

Catch it!

Splish

Splash

Henry lost his first tooth

He is now down two teeth, and the first one that fell out is almost all grown in.

The stairs, not just for climbing.

Hugging her fuzzy puppy while wearing her fuzzy jacket.

Kiss!

She has probably just hit the dog. The surest way to get a kiss from Bella is to have her first smack you in the face. I am not sure I ever want to see what goes on inside a toddler’s brain.

Star Wars: Battle of Unfair Advantage

Arabella loved wearing Henry's Obi-Wan robe.

That was last month’s obsession. She has moved on to taking her pants off and on. All day long. Extra fun – getting stuck taking off her shirt.

Happy Birthday to Sarah

The lovely roses from Rob, who was not glowering at Miranda or me, I don't think.

Sitting in the plastic hat box, reading the story Miranda wrote

Daylights savings is stirring us all up. It’s a silent killer. We didn’t suffer until Monday and Tuesday night.

Henry has been crawling into our bed in the night. This is not highly unusual – someone is always crawling into our bed or calling out. But the recent stealth attacks have been from Henry. Last night at bedtime, I reminded him for the 4000th time that I’d hope to see him in his bed in the morning. Not mine. And he argued. He wouldn’t commit to agreeing to stay in his bed. He wouldn’t commit to falling asleep. He wouldn’t commit to saying good night to me. And while I am as unreasonable as the next person, I didn’t lie just so he’d drop off to sleep in his normal 5-10 minutes span.  I suggested that if he woke up at 4, he could climb  into bed with us. This has been a reasonable compromise in the past.

So I did not expect that at 4:01 a.m., he’d came into our room talking a mile a minute. He wiggled and talked for an hour until Rob said, go to sleep or go to your room and play. Just let me sleep. I think we both dozed, but it was bad sleep.

He refused to leave unless I went with him. I took him back to his bed. Got him settled. Sent a silent thank you to myself for buying him a comfortable mattress.  And he kicked me out of his room. I did tell him that he could turn the light on and play if he wasn’t tired.

I crawled back to my bed. Slept hard. And at 6:30, awoke to wailing from Henry in his room in his bed with the lights on. He was seriously pissed as only a 6 year old can be. He was tired! And he didn’t sleep enough. And now it was almost wake-up time. !?!

I told him if he could sleep, go for it. We can be a few minutes late for school if we have to be.

He couldn’t sleep and by 7 he had tried to sleep in his bed and a downstairs on the couch. He decided to eat breakfast and went to school. I think he had a fine day. But Rob is putting him to bed tonight. And his clock will be turned away. (he admitted to checking to several times in the night.)

At risk of violating my no-talkee-about-workee rule, I feel completely buried. We have a big event in mid April. The deadline to register at the low price was today. And the phone rang off the hook with people wondering how the 15th had followed the 14th, just like that. Calendars, really really handy.

Not that a calendar got me to a volunteer meeting I wanted to attend last evening. Note to self, the 14th, it follows the 13th. Every month.

After watching Looney Toons the Movie for the bazillionth time, Henry realized that they use movie magic to make Brendan Fraser punch out Brendan Fraser. I would say split screen, but I think the technology has moved on since the days of Hayley Mills running around a ranch. As a digression – why not twins? It just sounds exhausting. And back to Looney Toons – Henry loves this movie. A movie which is mediocre, but I have my own playlist of movies past (Strange Brew, Up the Creek (the original Tim Matheson version),  My Chauffeur, Transylvania 6-5000 :) that are definitely mediocre. And yet I practically wore out the dubbed VHS tapes.  I’ve digressed again…Henry would like to have a double.  He could go to gym for him and recess on boring days, and wouldn’t it be awesome, Mom?

Yes, it would.

I will admit we have credit cards that don’t get paid off in full every month. A shame and a millstone and yadda yadda. And we have a card that we use for Midwest Miles. It has goods and bads – more goods when I can finally book a trip with miles and take the kids as companions. Right now, this card has $2000 balance on it. For some reason, the minimum payment is ridiculously low, as in $29. The new credit card act of 2010 has introduced this strange little box in which they show you how long it will take us to pay this card off (if we charge nothing else to it) if we make only the minimum payment. And what you’d have to pay each month to pay the card off in 3 years.

For the record, I am relieved that I will pay at least $100 toward this card this month. And more with the reimbursement for Rob’s travel from earlier this year.

I am still not sure I needed to know that.

Maybe I could leave that debt for my double? Or my great-great-great grandchildren? Shouldn’t they just say, hey, we’re applying your $29 payment to a life insurance policy so you can pay this off when you’re dead?

This will probably be an odds and ends post – what else can I do when I haven’t written for a few weeks?

Is it more embarrassing if your mom talks about your mental or gastrointestinal health?

If Bella is going to be a more typical kid — pickier eater, better sleeper, stranger aware, fall down on the ground tantrums, frustrated by her inability to speak intelligible words, sharing and smacking in equal measures — boy, the next year is going to suck.

I feel cheated by the lack of rain. Rain is not my favorite part of spring, but rain now would wash away the dirty icky snow (and dirty icky airmass hovering over Wisconsin). And the dirty snow needs to go. Instead of drenching rain, we have fog.

Drifting fog + stagnant green water in the far fields + ice patches + winter trees = the landscape of a ghost tale. In Scotland.

Just because you know what you’re doing is potentially and probably dumb, it doesn’t make it any easier to do the smarter thing. Self preservation may be smart, but it isn’t easy. This is probably universally true, not just in worklife.

I am struck that Scott Walker’s idea to break MPS into 10-12 districts is not nearly as interesting as if he suggested a county wide solution. You know, creating a city-county school district. Of course, the 10-12 districts could each be the suburb at the edges of Milwaukee, each taking a piece. Leaving behind maybe 2-3 smaller fully urban districts.

I can’t even tell if I hate this idea.

I really can’t even believe I don’t live in Milwaukee anymore.

And I wonder where the suburbanites who fled Milwaukee would flee if there were combined city suburban districts.

How can I be frustrated with my daughter’s pessimism when I am not exactly a ray of sunshine?

Just rain! Rain! Rain! Blow in some new weather.

Henry has more homework in kindergarten than Miranda had in first and second grade.

Miranda got her state test scores and her MAPS scores. She is doing well. She finally wants to read harder books.  I wonder if testing well is an inherited trait? They make her more nervous than I even remember feeling.

We had a quiet weekend ahead of us. I hope.

This has been a day of small hiccups. It just didn’t even seem worth trying to get anything done. I got side-tracked this morning and forgot to eat breakfast. Henry forgot his gloves. I didn’t notice that I Henry forgot his gloves until he was taking his cold little hands out of the car. On the day he has cold hands, we got to school 4 minutes earlier than normal, so he had 5-6 minutes of cold hands rather than the normal 1-2 minutes of warm hands before he goes in. I went home. I got the gloves. By the time I got back, the kids had gone in.  I had to park, walk the gloves all the way to the kindergarten rooms. I came home, decided to go to Target. Target had only 2 of the 3 things I went to get. But they had Kindergarten Cop for $4.75.

I came home, dyed my hair, started reading a Jennifer Cruisie novel. This was the highlight of my day. Then I was off to a doctor’s appointment at 1. Henry was seeing the same doc at 3:45. I didn’t notice earlier in the week when I could have combined those appointments.  After the doctor, I went to Walgreens. They had the missing item from Target. I finally got a prescription filled that I have been trying to have approved for 2 weeks. Another small plus – 90 day supply for $30 for a name brand drug. Even though it was to my favor, the line on my receipt that said my insurance saved me $370 seems ridiculous. I don’t want to pay $400 for the medication. But I hope my insurance company doesn’t pay that much either. Or that Walgreens doesn’t eat the $370.

I head home, make the homemade blueberry mini muffins I promised Miranda for her half day birthday at school tomorrow. Yesterday, I decided I was too lazy to follow a recipe from scratch. I wanted a mix. The first mix had lard in it.  No. All the rest had partially hydrogenated oil. Ugh. I buy the Hodgins Mill Whole wheat blueberry muffin mix. Whole wheat. Some molasses. Add egg and sugar and milk. And then I give in and buy some of the Betty Crocker.

The whole wheat muffins are so stereotypically hard and chewy that I think I could make crunchy granola out of them. I made the “regular” muffins as well. And then the plan to give each kid 2 mini muffins fell apart. And I was out of butter. Despite 2 store trips, no butter. Did I mention we had a miserable whiny snow  all day? It was messy and wet and I just didn’t want to go out again. My mom rescued us by heading to the grocery store and getting grapes – so each kid will get 9 grapes and 1 mini muffin. Happy half Birthday.

I get 39 rock muffins. And 35 fluffy muffins. I head to school to pick up Henry for his doctor’s appointment. On most pickups, Henry is sitting in the office, dressed in his boots and snowpants and hat and gloves. Waiting. Not today. I am a bit later in the day, there is no parking. I double-park with my flashers. And Henry isn’t there. The office confirms Henry should be there. I head down to his room. I grab all of his stuff and pull him from class.

The doctor’s appointment was fine. We head home. We see Henry and Miranda’s bus. And after we’re home and Bella is watching at the window…the bus with Miranda on it? Doesn’t stop at our house. We wait. It circles the block. Then it stops.

Henry got in trouble for talking 3 times at school today. Miranda couldn’t sleep between staying up later than normal watching American Idol and thinking about her half birthday. Arabella took a later nap and didn’t want to go to sleep. I should be trying to sleep right now. But it just hasn’t been that kind of day.

Having lost the comfort of my laptop, I have spent more time reading. Sadly, not more time laughing. I finished Pillars of the Earth. I’ve now book clubbed The Help twice. And I started reading Brave New World again. Just to be cheerier.

The Help really bugged me. I think it bugged me not because it wasn’t well written, it wasn’t an interesting story, or not even that it wasn’t the kind of story we should read. It bugged me because it reminded me that we didn’t all learn civil rights in history in high school or college. And if this book was a suggested book for high schoolers, I’d say bravo. I guess having books bug you isn’t a bad thing, as long as you think about why that might be. I am ready to be done thinking about it for a while.

I’d really rather talk about the ideas it raised for me about child care. What does it mean – what the the legacies of having child care being treated as such a lowly job? Poor pay, terrible hours, impossible wells of patience and care for children that may love you and look down at you, all at once. I don’t have an answer, other than the suspicion that it could tie into the stay at home / working mom battles of viewpoint.   And I want to know about the next 10 years. In the early 1960s, before the Voting Rights act and the Civil Rights Acts, segregation was legal. By the early 1970s, it wasn’t legal. What did that transition look like? What are those stories? Miss Hilly was evil in The Help…did she learn to keep quiet by the 80s? Racism certainly isn’t dead today, but it is more subtle. I have to think that’s better, it just doesn’t quite seem good enough.

———————————

In other news…We went to the children’s museum today. There is a cow, a horse, a silo and a corn field sign. You can velcro the corn to the field. Then pick it. Drop it in the silo. Then wheel barrow a load over the animals. Henry walked each piece of corn from the silo to the field. 20+ pieces of corn. A little girl came along, saw the corn stuck to the field and figured out it was to be picked. After watching Henry cross the 10 feet from the silo to the field 20 times at least, I was amused to see the little girl walk over, grab as many ears of corn as she could hold in her arms, approximately 12, and walk over to the cow. Henry was quite outraged.

Henry is 5, so soon to be 6 he can taste it. He can poke it it, through the gap in his bottom teeth. He lost his first tooth, an event which both frightened and excited him. His thin thin frame is starting to show that look of a school boy. He never had any baby fat, but that first bloom of elementary school is showing on his face. His face is wider, his arms are stronger, his games are more creative. He sees letters everywhere. He spots numbers and counts. Not just the STOP sign, but the 50 words on his school star word list. He she is was you I the…

Henry has become quite good at video games. I should not not proud of this. It shows the hours he has logged on the Wii and the DS. But I am of the opinion that this generation will spend most of their lifetimes with elctronica aroudn them, entertaining them, employing them, educating them. He is starting to master real games, not just the Diego and Mii creation that might have previously satisfied him.  His hand-eye coordination is growing. His amblyopia was more mild – it is now corrected to 20/20 with glasses.

School is OK. I think Henry enjoys it. He shares stories at random, and never when I am prepared. He was proud that he was the only one at his table to pick out that Elephant started with E. He has friends. He plays at recess. He enjoys gym class and regularly gets posture? sitting? conduct awards in music. The art teacher has her hands full with him. He has never enjoyed coloring per se. And he is coloring a lot this year. It is mostly free-form, which is probably better for his brain but less charming for the baby book.

At 5 and 11 months, I am awed at how big he is. How smart he is. How nice he is. He still is working on some assertiveness with his peers. Working on using words with his sisters instead of light sabers. He feels boo-bbos strongly and cries at the slights and sadness in his day.

+

And now on  to Miranda. Miranda is nearly 8 and half. She can’t have grown 5 inches this year already, but it feels like it. Having already been tall, I feel foolish to say she’s so tall. Yes, it is true. But she has reached that next stage of equilibrium, of grace. She is more at peace with her body. She still fights with her hair, but her long think mane is a source of pride too. There is a foreshadowing of adolescence when I look at her. I hope that the transition into puberty is kind to her.

School is harder this year for Miranda. Not too hard, but she has to think more often. She is reading well, silently, my biggest dream for this year. Math is pushing her boundaries. She understands how to do the work, but sometimes the mystery of why she has to do it that way (number lines specifically) eludes her. And she is not buying my explanation that it is good to have as many strategies as possible to approach numbers. The drama of friends is still with us. She is better at figuring out how to play with her friends. She is realizing that sometimes it is just as important to have someone to play with as it is to get to choose what to play. I am glad to see her loyatly and kindness develop more fully.

Miranda challenges me in such interesting ways. Like making me realize how mainstream a thinker I am.  She likes conspiracy theories (was the moon landing a hoax? did dinosaurs really rule the earth?) and she loves routine. I think she would like a few more routine classes, whereas I am afraid adding more into our schedule will upset her applecart. She feels things so deeply and shares that with us.

I will admit I am going to miss the kids over the next few days. And taking them away on a long weekend out of state would be both quite expensive and tiring for all of us. I will try to think of their funny as well as their sweet. They are nice kids. And I am not as easily amused as I would like to be. Maybe when I return.

Our family room is behind our main garage. The garage addition is nearly nearly done. It lacks siding, but it parks cars just the same. It is strange yet nice to come home to wonder who is home. You used to be able to count the cars and have a pretty good guess.

While driving home from dinner Friday night (the smoking ban cannot start too soon), we turned into he dark driveway, pushed the button on the garage door opener and pulled into the garage itself. Henry must have thought we were going a bit too fast because he said whoa.  Or maybe he was taming imaginary horses? My mom asked him where we would go if we went through the back of the garage wall.  And Henry said “dead.”

I guess winter hasn’t killed my spirit, yet, as that amused me. Even if I should have driven just a bit more slowly down the driveway.

That was my final answer in Clue tonight. And I was wrong. I got my scheme confused. I always did a pretty straightforward “X out the cards you’ve seen” plan. And then I looked at Rob’s detective notebook after a game. Damn, he had Xs and Os and little markings. What? So I overly complicated my plan and got confused and lost.

Rob was far better at detecting. He played another round. Came up with Miss Scarlett with the knife in the kitchen. I had started with the kitchen and had seen no cards about it. I agreed, silently, with Rob’s assessment. Rob checks in the secret file and what do you know, it was the dining room.

What?

Miranda had the kitchen card and neglected to notice or show it throughout the game. She was confused then contrite. We were mostly amused. Henry was really amused. We did not play another round.

In other news, Henry messed with his loose tooth all day long. Or so we infer from his teacher telling him to stop messing with his tooth already. And then after supper, after Clue, before bedtime it started bleeding and Grandma helped it along. Grandma with the tooth in the kitchen. Henry has lost his first tooth. 5 weeks to his 6th birthday. I am not ready.

Hello 2010. Good-bye 2009.

I am not sure I can even remember all the way back to January. I started a frugality plan, along with the rest of the Western world. I can’t say I did all that well at it. I think I was good for about 6 months and then we went to a cabin with my mom, and Miranda’s birthday party grew larger, and then Halloween. I usually assume I need stop shopping. I wonder if perhaps I should not entertain at home.

But boo on that idea.

Let’s see if I review my digital photos:

January: We started rocking out on the Wii to Guitar Hero. Bella started eating real food with a rapacious appetite. She learned to roll over, at least accidentally. We went snowshoeing and for some walks into the ice and snow.

January 2009

February: We visited Chicago. We celebrated Henry’s fifth birthday with his preschool pals at Dairy Queen. We visited my grandparents in Green Bay. Bella kept growing and growing. I enroll Henry in kindergarten for next year and shed a few tears.

February 2009

March: We start some early spring walking around the block. We celebrated my mom’s birthday and my birthday. Miranda takes St. Patrick’s Day very seriously. We visit Green Bay again.

March 2009

April: I work on the preschool yearbook. We see the Easter Bunny and hunt for eggs at the grocery store. Bella puts her feet on the grass. We visit Green Bay. Miranda makes her First Communion and her godparents come from California to see us. We take an amazing band of people to the Dells. Bella is sitting up on her own.

April 2009

May: Baseball with racing sausage madness. A family wedding and some happy time in Green Bay. Faraway friends come for a visit, if only we could pop over to Idaho to return the favor. Rob builds a crazy bike barge. I get 6 yards of dirt for the garden and Henry gets great king-of-the-hill joy. Henry graduates from preschool. We celebrate Rob’s birthday. We connect with Rob’s aunt and brother. Good friends visit from Madison. Bella starts crawling around this time.

May 2009

June: We get 6 yards of sand and don’t spread it out. King of the hill returns. We torment the children with a 5K -we cheat and it still too long. But they run in the kids race and finish! We go to Green Bay and visit our favorite amusement park. 25 cent rides can’t be beat. Rob plays drums in a barn. Henry plays t-ball. We dip our toes in Lake Michigan. Yep, still cold. Henry and Miranda go to Safety Town. We have breakfast on a farm.

June 2009

July: We celebrate America’s Independence with water slides and go-karts. Two trips to the Dells in 1 year should be too much but it is mostly awesome. We head to Green Bay and check out the wildlife sanctuary and Bay Beach. We visit the Milwaukee Zoo. Twice. With my grandparents, we head to Door County to pick cherries. We check out the Town’s heavy machinery at the Happy Days-esque outdoor restaurant. The children enjoy summer bounty from Texas. We head to the free Ozaukee county fair.

July 2009

August: We visit the fair again. We head to Madison and enjoy the company of good friends while being happy neither of us has 6 kids alone. We head to a cottage in Waupaca. We nearly drown the two big kids by flipping a pedal boat, but by grace and luck we don’t. We enjoy the lake life. I relearn that making 4 right turns makes you drive in a circle. Rob and the big kids participate in the triathlon. Our garden exploded while we were gone – the zucchini were too huge. Miranda has a spa birthday party for several of her closest friends. We signed a contract to have an extra area added to our garage.

August 2009

September: School starts. It is an odd thing to have both big kids gone all day. Bella turns 1. We have a nice party. We attend a baseball game. We sit too high up, but Bernie slides a few time, so it is OK. We get Miranda and Henry new desks from IKEA. We visit Chicago and hang out with B&B. The garage slab is poured.

September 2009

October: Halloween madness descends. Miranda is a snow princess. Henry is a monkey. Bella is a frog. Bella learns to walk. Rob is Levon Helms (And if you know who he is, god bless you :) The band was rocking out to Woodstock so I was a hippie. My desire for a car load of pumpkins outweighed my common sense and even my desire to carve 60 of them. We went to the Milwaukee Zoo to delight in their decor. We had a fabulous Halloween party, first the kids in the afternoon and then the kids mostly adults at night.The garage has walls, but no roof.

October 2009

November: While I adored the Halloween festivities, by November 1, I was done. We un-decorated and I appreciated minimalism. I started a part-time leave-the-house job in early November. Even at 10 hours, I have had challenges getting everything done. The garage comes together with walls and a roof. I decorate the outside of the house to take Christmas photos of the kids. My seemingly early planning paid off. The cards were finished. They had clothes to wear for the holiday concert at school. We decide to buy a new TV in the family room. This results in removing the gas fireplace that we didn’t like, removing the floor, putting in new laminate flooring, painting the walls, buying a new entertainment stand and desk for the computer. Perhaps Frugality 2009 should have had no parties and no home improvement? We visit Green Bay. We stay home for Thanksgiving and my brother and his wife visits. Did more happen in November, or is it just more fresh?

November 2009

December: We see Santa in the Park, enjoying Rob’s work holiday event and seeing the Enchantment in the Park lights show. I realize how awesome it would be to live somewhere warmer – whose Christmas events include fireworks? Walking through light shows. Ah, the possibilities. We start parking the cars in the new garage, before the snows start coming. The big kids each sing in the holiday program. We head to Green Bay and to Madison. Santa brings much job with presents. We find out just how early you need to go to Xmas eve mass to get seats in the old church. (earlier than 35 minutes before) We have a seafood extravaganza for New Year’s Eve. We stay in. It is quiet.

December 2009

It was a grand year watching Bella turn from a 3 month old cuddly bug into walking, nearly-talking, dynamo at 15 months. She has maintained her dimples. And her joy in being around her siblings. I hope I can say that in 10 years.