Whistle Blowers

This was the week of the The Big Easter Egg Hunt at school. Parents were asked to donate plastic eggs filled with goodies not resembling candy. Three evenings ago, Mommy bought the plastic eggs; Daddy dutifully went to the party store for plastic frogs, lizards, rings, erasers, whistles. Your basic lot of of cheap crap from China. The girls and I spread everything out and commenced to filling the eggs. Wouldn't you know it, the whistles were too big for the eggs. Stella had one of those whistles hanging around her neck, PE teacher-style, and wanted to blow that thing so badly, but she is so aware that her mother is KA-ray-zee and can't stand noises like that in her ear. She gave it a couple of half-assed blows, looking at me with that, "Did you hear that? Am I in trouble?" look, and I was struck by the realization that my daughter is afraid of my Crazy. That's not right, and I was determined to make things right. So when we finished filling the eggs, I declared that they could save those whistles for the next day and they could share them with the boy next door and blow them outside. And then...BAM!...Momma had a great idea! "Girls, take those whistles and go in your room, shut the door, and blow those whistles as loud as you want! Blow them 'til you can't blow them any more!" They ran down the hallway, bopping their heads and blowing those whistles. They closed their door and they blew those whistles. And they were back in about 3 minutes, done with those whistles. Those whistles have sat on my coffee table since that evening and haven't been blown since.

I think if I'd banned them from whistle-blowing that evening, the torture of them wanting to blow those whistles would have lasted WAY more than 3 minutes. I think that was one of the most clever parenting decisions I've accidentally made thus far.

Stella's List

Stella is a girl with goals. Sometimes her goals are as simple as manipulating me into giving her a cupcake for breakfast. A couple of weeks ago, however, she outlined her life plan to me. Her life through the age of 17, anyway. I had asked her if she could please refrain from growing up because I am still enjoying her little-ness. She replied that she really needs to grow up because she is waiting to get a car and drive. I told her she can't do that until she's at least 16, so she started thinking about all the things she will do/be until then. I guess she's just going to chill and be little for a few more years because her plan doesn't start until age 11:

Age 11: Cooking lady (our nickname for Giada de Laurentis)
Age 12: Judge on Chopped (apparently we watch a lot of the Food Network)
Age 13: Yoga teacher
Age 14: Gymnastics teacher
Age 15: Doctor
Age 16: Sales Associate at Charming Charlies
Age 17: Hannah Montana. Please note: she only wants to be Hannah Montana at home for 4 days; the rest of the time she wants to be her in Hannah Montana World.

Oh, to be a young, blank slate.

Rock the Party!!!!

CRAP! I did it again. I swore I would be better about updating my blog, if for no other reason than to have a place to chronicle all the wild and crazy things my babies (not so much babies any more) do and say. And, do they ever say and do some wild and crazy things. Recently, we "rocked this party out," because isn't that what you do when someone at school gives you a balloon?

Poetry

I can't believe it's been almost 2 years since I posted anything here. That's 2 years of memories I could have recorded. A friend at work inspired me to get back to it. So, here goes. Alyssa is 8 and in 2nd grade; Stella is 4 and in pre-k. We finished with the brain-washing parochial school (wow...scary stuff) and have been at a Montessori school for the past 2 school years. Now instead of hearing, "Mommy, did you know god created all the trees?" I hear, "Mommy! Let me tell you all about the Big Bang!" Music to my ears. I could go on and on about my love for their school and the Montessori method, and I'm sure I will in future posts. Right now, however, I'd lke to share a couple of Alyssa's poems.

The Cat and Rat

By Alyssa Petcoff, April 2011

The rat and cat sat on a flat mat.

The cat was fat and ate the trap.

And the bat went splat

When it hatched in a hat.

Popcorn is Popping

By Alyssa Petcoff, May 2011

Popcorn is yummy, popcorn is sweet

Popcorn is delicious, as I eat.

I hear popcorn popping, I'm ready to eat.

Do not disturb the popcorn

When it is popping with me.

And again, popcorn is yummy

Popcorn is sweet, popcorn is delicious as I eat and eat.

I like popcorn any way it is treated

So if you have the time to see some, get some for me.

The popcorn is popping still, popping and almost ready to eat

I hear the beep and and it is ready to eat.

That's all the time I have for today

Come back another time, I'll show you the way.

So if you have a question about popcorn, please call me

But I don't know my number so call my mommy.

I'm Back! (Maybe)

Dear Blog,
I've been neglectful. I'm going to try and be nicer and more attentive to you.

Yours truly,
Bad Blogger

SO. Earlier this week, not one, but TWO of my teenagers caught me Facebooking (has it been added to Webster's as a verb yet?). Hayli was shocked. "YOU are on Facebook??" she said. "Why, yes, I am. Are you?" "Uh, no," she said. I knew right away what the "Uh" meant she wouldn't be caught dead Facebooking. May as well give her a cell phone without texting capabilities and send her to band camp. Later in the week, Anthony had a very similar reaction. In one way, they're proud of me...the cranky old bitch is doing something they didn't think I could even figure out. On the other hand, I'm Facebooking. You know, it's like MySpace for "older" people. I can only imagine what they say to their friends...

Stretches and Poses

Joyce, the family's yogi-in-training, might say that child's pose involves a relaxing stretch that follows the downward-facing-dog. Both feel great. I'm gonna go out on a limb, though, and say that this is the quintessential child's pose:

Gardening

Yes, those are Elmo underwear. Fancy boots, huh?

Graduation

Pre-school is officially over. Alyssa's graduation ceremony on Friday night gave me yet another opportunity to prove that I should NEVER, EVER be in charge of capturing these precious moments on film, digital or otherwise. I had the camera perfectly positioned and ready to shoot as she made her grand entrance (with flair, I might add). Perfect photo-op. And then, I pressed the wrong button and turned the camera off. Great job, Mom!

After receiving their "diplomas", each class sang a song, then each kid went to the microphone to answer 2 simple questions: 1) what did you like most about pre-school? and 2) what do you want to be when you grow up? Popular answers to question No. 1 included coloring, playing outside, making friends, etc. Not surprisingly, Alyssa most enjoyed coloring. Question No. 2 elicited aspirations of becoming astronauts, policemen, firefighters, doctors. Alyssa? She wants to be a bunny.

WHAAAT?

I work with a woman whose daughter (now 20'ish) declared at a school function when she was about 5 or 6 years old that she wanted to be a brain surgeon when she grew up. She was ridiculed and pooh-poohed by teachers and fellow students and their parents. Guess what? Some 15 or so years later, said daughter has been accepted into the MD/PhD program in neurosurgery at the University of Illinois. See, this is the kind of stuff that was going through my mind as I awaited Alyssa's turn at the mike. Now all I see are carrots.

The other night, I was picking up around the house and decided it was time to do something with her pre-school homework folder. It had been sitting on the table in the foyer for over a week because there was no homework left to be done and I wasn't ready to part with it. I cleaned it out and then stared at it, wondering if I should save it. After all, it was her first homework folder. What if she gets to be 30 years old and wants to see what her first homework folder looked like? If I throw it away, will I be discarding all of her pre-school memories? In the end, I threw it out. It was empty, after all, because I'd already removed the important papers throughout the year. At any rate, I may be completely inept at camera operation, utterly failing to digitize my first-born's first scholastic milestone. Danny, the master of machinery, did capture this auspicious occasion on video...the summation of Alyssa's formative school years...

Our little bunny.

The Art of Primping

Primping is a process - a skill, if you will. Not only am I a highly skilled primper, I am a master teacher. Effortlessly, I have taught Alyssa that shoes can elicit a range of emotions. Once, I bought her two pairs of shoes in one trip and as we were getting in the car, she declared it to be the luckiest day of her life. On the other hand, the ultimate punishment for her is being forced to wear a certain pair of white sneakers. It's not that they hurt her feet, they just don't match any of her clothes. And, this, my friends, is a sin.

Alyssa is an apprentice who would make any master proud.

After trying on several outfits one day last week (I was having a particularly fat day), I finally settled for the black patterned skirt, black t-shirt and black shoes. Not crazy about the outfit, but whatever. In the end, I received Alyssa's approval, sort of. She stepped back, hesitated, and said, "That's a lot of black you've got going on there. But, I guess it's cute." Yesterday, she looked at my outfit and told me it was really cute. I put on the shoes and she said, "YES!!!!!! I LOVE those shoes!!! You look ADORABLE!" She's 5. (And a half.) One day I promised to get her some Krispy Kremes on the way to school if we had time and she explained to me that if I were to try on only ONE outfit, we would definitely have time. She is way smarter than her mother...every evening, she chooses her next day's outfit, up to and including socks, shoes, and accessories. Sometimes even a headband.

Stella is also entering the primping apprenticeship:

Stella is also interested in shoes...
















I hope my girls realize how lucky they are to be learning the art of getting ready from such a master. Lucky for them, I think they'll have something to show for it whereas all I have to show is that primping makes you late for work.

Ruben Samich Lee

How cute is he? His name is Ruben Samich Lee, and he is the newest member of Nina's family. She and hubby Michael and son Dylan adopted Ruben last weekend and it's been reported that he's as sweet as he looks. This not-so-little guy spent a good amount of time on death row in a shelter but was then transferred to a no-kill shelter where Nina et al found him. His story warms my heart but here's the other part I love...yesterday morning, Dylan said this to Nina: "You know, Mom, it's like something was missing in my life and now I know it was Ruben".

Crackers and Eggs

Here's the great thing about daycare: you never - whoops, I mean ALWAYS - feel guilty setting your kid down in a room with that grouchy Miss Eva who kind of seems to hate kids and is really put out if your baby wants to sit on her lap for a few minutes. So instead you set your baby down by the toys and realize they are dirty and you don't want her to play with them. Then you try to sneak away while she isn't looking (because if you say "bye" she thinks she's going bye-bye with you). Then you're off to work, but you still don't feel guilty - I mean now you feel even worse - because you know it will be fine. I mean, you aren't missing out on anything because they fill out a sheet to let you know everything she did all day: what time she was changed and what was in her diaper each time, what time she napped and what she ate and drank. If you don't get a call during the day about any mishaps and she comes home without scratches or bite marks and her clothes are relatively clean, you know she had a great day. Sometimes when you pick her up, they even complain that her poop was a little runny from the apple juice you've asked them not to give her.

Yesterday was a particularly great day for Stella. I dropped her off as usual at 6:15 (6:30 according to her sheet). In addition to the routine diaper changes, she had breakfast, a snack, lunch, and another snack (I'll describe the menu in a moment because it deserves special mention), and napped from 12-2.

WAIT!!!!! How could she have eaten lunch at 11:00 and a snack at 1:00 while sleeping from 12-2? WAIT!!!!! How could she have done ANY of that if Danny surprised her and picked her up at 9:30 a.m.? I don't know if it could get any worse, but here's the kicker. In addition to "gravymeatballs", "mixveg", and apples, she also had "cearial" and "crakers". I ask you, what in the frick are cearial and crakers? And how can a "teacher" not know that you need a c before the k to soften that a? (Don't even get me started on teachers who don't know that an apostrophe does not make a word plural or don't know the difference between it's and its. Seriously, wouldn’t this be like a chef not knowing how to crack an egg?) I grant you that this is daycare, not higher education, but come on...sorry, tangent over.

The good news is that in just a few short months, Stella will be old enough to attend Alyssa’s school, where the teachers there already know and love her. And they know their grammar! I never, ever feel guilty leaving Alyssa there; in fact, I feel great about leaving her there every day. Summer is here and I think this will be the first time EVER that I am actually looking forward to fall, when I will be able to drop both my babies off and go to work feeling good, no great, about it.

O.M.G!!! Daddy, that's a big thing you've got!
Said the 5-year old about Daddy's new swamp cooler. Yes, Daddy brought home a swamp cooler last night. He said it would be small and unobtrusive, not one of those "big, ginormous" ones. So I was picturing a cute little window unit, like the one I had in my bedroom on Sacramento (the one in Chicago, not Las Vegas). Here's what we've got, and we froze our butts off last night! This thing is supposed to save us some $$ on our power bill...we'll see.

How's my hair look?

Stairs to the Moon

Alyssa: "Mommy, I wish there were stairs to the moon".

Mommy: "What would you do if there were stairs to the moon?"

Alyssa: "I would climb up there and watch the world. But I would always come down to visit you guys."

Look at those legs!

I don't know...I just want to eat her up.

Ballerina

"Mommy, I want to save this picture for a long time so I remember I want to be a ballerina when I grow up."

Ahhhh, may she always live in that safe, happy world full of green grass, sunny blue skies, ice cream and pink tutus...