Good times...mostly

A Fiona update!
Anybody who knows me well knows I have a million nicknames for my kids. Lately, Fiona has taken objection to all of them. It goes like this:
Me: Good Morning, sunshine!
Fiona: I'm not Sunshine, I'm Fiona!
or
Me: Hello, my love!
Fiona: I'm not a wove, I'm Fiona!
(repeat, ad nauseum)
But she's always so cheerful about it, I don't mind much....
The other one, however, has been carrying around his own cloud of doom & gloom. Last week he was off sick and sprang a wicked case of hives one night. And in the midst of his sickness, he completely forgot his manners, or how to talk to people.
He wasn't poor, pitiful Adrian, he was mean & ugly Adrian. It didn't endear me much to him, and put a damper on any sympathy we had for his hideous cough.
Today he is no longer sick, but the nastiness remains. In the course of this morning he has been banished to solitude twice for being awful.
Aaron keeps reminding me that he will be going to school this afternoon, but all I can do is worry about sending the beast into a classroom of 4 & 5 year olds....
Is this just a phase? Or is this hideous behavior Adrian-specific?

The strangest girl

I thought that I would forever be the strangest girl wherever I lived...however my beloved Fiona is making strides to best me even before she turns 3.

Tonight we were waiting for our potatoes to finish baking so we could sit down to dinner and I asked her if she wanted some bread or some chicken.
Her reply?
"No thanks. I want broccoli!"

How you know...

How you know when the sick day is over:

Adrian: I want to watch Dirty Jobs!

Me: Ok. But first you're going to eat some chicken soup.

Adrian: What? Why?!

(note that all of adrian's communications are at MAXIMUM VOLUME. Sore throat? I think not.)

it is negative 7 degrees with the wind chill. without the wind it is a balmy 9 degrees. ferenheit.
I HATE YOU, OLD MAN WINTER!

Busy little bees are we...

So I missed posting last week. Could have been that every time I went to sit at the computer I had 2 kids at my side with a whole list of "Mom can I...", could have been that I needed a week to recover from a VERY LONG 4 day weekend. Could just have been that I forgot.
I honestly don't remember much these days....
But I do know that our time has been filled with dress-up, art projects, books, and as much silliness as a body can handle. Because if you are going to get a little cabin fever, it's best to get the silly kind. The best-loved silliness here goes like this:
Me: (sneeze!)
(look around until I catch eye contact from one of the kids)
Was that you?!

That is the funniest thing EVER, according to our resident 5 year old.

Anywho, I'm off to do my 1 hour of art for the day. Enjoy the pics.

This was 2 weeks ago. Today we hit 43 degrees and are currently enjoying a light drizzle. I am considering breaking out the short sleeves & having a hula party.

Turning a corner

Maybe it was just openly admitting a case of the blahs, or maybe it's that Adrian craves to know EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING but I have gone and decided to make the best of the next 10 weeks of winter. (10 weeks--gag!)
Thus far we have

1. Created a question box. In it, we put questions he has that I don't have answers to. (Currently I need someone who knows about porcupines and someone who knows about bees--Nessa I'm looking at you)

2. Caught snowflakes on black paper & examined them w/a magnifying glass. (EVERY household should have a magnifying glass)

3. Tonight we are timing how long it takes for ice to form outside (it's 22 degrees). We also put animal-shaped cookie cutters into the tray of water--I'll let you know how that pans out.

4. Looked up craft projects for later. I reeeeally need to restock the kids craft bin. We are all out of pipe cleaners, pom poms, and googly eyes. I learned that with wax paperas a non-stick surface you can make a whole mess of stuff out of stuff from your kitchen.

5. This coming weekend is a 4 day weekend for Adrian. I thought we could get crafty, get cozy, and learn a little bit about Martin Luther King, Jr. And if I can get Fiona into snowpants (or newspaper bags) we can go out into the yard and make some snow sculptures. Our current accumulation is about 6 inches (measuring will come later)

Fried polenta cakes for breakfast. Heaven!

Unh hunh unh hunh

I have been busy trying not to be "ogre mom". It is tough work, let me tell you. I think its just the season...I've said it before, I'll say it every year until I shuffle off this mortal coil: I HATE WINTER.
I feel no joy in a snowy landscape. I don't look forward to first frosts, wool sweaters, thermal underwear, and all that heavily layered stuff.

So, I am trying to overcome the tiny black cloud that follows me like a balloon & not take it out on the kids. (After all, they can't even tie their shoes--it would be highly unlikely they could build a weather-changing device out of legos & shiny gum wrappers for me)
And as winter draaaags on, I have less patience, less time for fun & frolic. Today, it was pretty sunny out so I made a point to sit in a sunbeam for as long as I could.

And its becoming harder to live up to the goal for 2010: don't forget to have a good time.
Blah!
Winter is a roller coaster of blah!
I'm going to drink some hot chocolate and read something funny. All this stewing is no good.
More later.

Happy New Year!
My resolution is as follows: Don't Forget To Have A Good Time.
What's yours?

Fiscal responsibility, lesson 1

This morning Adrian woke up at 6:30, turned on the TV to PBS (now that the remote is lost, we set it and he CANT change it--haha!) and played with Fiona's Animal Hospital (what she got for Christmas) until I rolled out of bed at 8. (I KNOW)
I stumbled towards the bathroom & he called out to me: wait! I have something important to ask you!
(I am squinting at him with one good eye and standing on one leg b/c I REALLY have to pee) yes? (raspy morning voice)
Can we get a kitten? An orange one? Please? I love cats!
My response: I'm going to the bathroom. Then we'll talk.

The short answer: no.
The long answer: We have 2 cats & a dog already. And having a pet is also a financial responsibility and right now we just don't have the money for extra vet bills.

This evolved into a talk about our current animals' vet schedules (cats in the spring, dog in the fall) and eventually led to him asking "when will we have the money to get another cat?"

Maybe he should be saving for THAT instead of a computer.
What do you think?

Last night Fiona slept in her toddler bed ALL NIGHT and woke up sunny at 8:30. At which point she came downstairs and said "goodmorning, mama!"
I just love that girl.

So...it's winter

I know that I havent really said hi in a while b/c I was looking for pictures to post and the most recent ones are from November. Ah-ha-ha, yeees. I have been busy & distracted. Busy with work, busy with the kids, busy trying to keep myself from hibernating like I feel I should do every winter. The good news is that all my hard work at work has paid off and I am now a money-making tattooist, the bad news is our mortgage company misfigured our taxes by $5,000 and now wants to raise our monthly payment to half of Aaron's take-home pay. We joke that it's a good thing our kids like white rice & ramen so much.
Thanksgiving was super good--my parents & brother flew out to us and we ate all the traditional stuff, plus a few things that I have made my own: wild rice w/cranberries & pears and a corn casserole. We were all glad to be together, and once again Uncle Jono was the hit of the party. I remember my uncles being fun-in-human-form, and I think that's how the kids see Jono.

And I made Nana's Tea Biscuits for Papa D. He and Adrian frosted and sprinkled them, and had a jolly good time at it. Mom and Dad drove up from VA, and brought a car load of boxes that they had packed away when I left home. Toys, books, and my very first pair of doc marten boots. I have asked Aaron to give them a polish for me for Christmas, because nobody shines shoes quite like a military man.

adrian has declared that he is saving his money to buy his OWN computer. as i can figure, he's 10% of the way there.
you have to admire his ambition.

6:15 AM is too early for the harmonica. I'm just saying.

In review

Adrian & Aaron are looking at Good Guys magazine. It's a magazine completely devoted to classic cars. They are really into it. It sounds like this:
Aaron: whoa! check that out.
Adrian: Awesome.
(page turns)
Adrian: Awesome! Awesome! Awesome!
(page turns)
Adrian: Not awesome. Awesome! Awesome!
(page turns)
Adrian: Awesome!
Aaron: You don't have to say awesome after every car.
(page turns)
Adrian: hot-cha-cha!

fiona & i looked through the grocery store's sale flyer this afternoon. when we were done, she told me 'that was a good story'.

adrian: can we go to the north pole so i can give my letter to santa?
me: no, you have a birthday party to go to after school.

As predicted by my highschool biology teacher...

I am delinquent in nearly everything i do. Here are some photos from the Pirate birthday party...

Pirates demand cake!

Pirates get cake!

And my mom was here! For 4 days, which is not nearly enough time but we'll take what we can get. We cooked, we carved pumpkins, we partied, we trick-or-treated, we crammed in as much as we could AND I remembered to take pictures.

Things that are teh awesome.

1. throwing a Pirate Party for your kid's 5th birthday party, because that's what he wanted. (how awesome is it to have a kid that requests, nay demands! his friends talk & dress like pirates?)

2. having other adult-type friends who dress as pirates for the party so I am not dorky costumed mom...I am dorky costumed mom with friends! also, having adult-type friends who are handy with tools build a pirate game to occupy tiny ones.*

3. in the spirit of the season, rewatching old horror films. Bela Lugosi as Dracula is awesome, in a cheese-in-the-can kind of a way. Tonight's feature is Night of The Living Dead!

4. my mom comes for a visit tomorrow. I will be showing her off like a space-age robot.

5. Every time we mention trick-or-treat, Fiona interprets it to: chocolate milk. This has led to a number of improvisations--Fiona as an elephant, drinking chocolate milk. Fiona as a dinosaur, drinking chocolate milk. The action is always the same, but the narrative is what really makes it worthwhile.

6. K and Fuz move into their new house (woo! and congrats!)


*I am not sure if I failed to explain it properly or if they were just more interested in yanking each other around by a length of rope, but the game didn't happen as it was described to me.

New new new!

My oh my! It's always exciting to get things done around the house. Aaron thinks I'm overly ambitious, but the truth of the matter is that I am proactive and he is reactive. I'm also really good at getting him to see things my way. Aaaaah, the power of persistence. (It only took me 5 years to get a dog, after all). To that end, we got a new roof. When we bought the house, there were 3 layers of shingles up there--and the inspector said we could probably squeeze 4 years out of the existing roof. But then some guys came by and gave us an estimate, and I figured lets just do it. (DO IT NOW, screamed the little voice in my head)

We did a complete tear-off, and you know what they found under those 3 layers of shingles? Three holes in our roof. Right over Adrian's bedroom. Which may explain why his room was SO MUCH COLDER than the rest of the house last winter. One of the holes was big enough to put a basketball in. And I took pictures. So here they are, for your viewing pleasure.

Hole number one. AKA the really big one. And if you look up towards the crest of the roof, you can see hole number two.

Hole number 3. The slightly smaller one.

Thankfully, all have been repaired and we have a new roof on top of them.

It just goes to show: you never know what's under there!

Product review, 4-year-old style.

Me: Here, Adrian I got you some more tape.

Adrian: A whole roll? Can I keep it?

Me: Yes, a whole roll just for you. I know how you love the tape.

Adrian: Yes. Because it is SO handy.