How I Spent Memorial Day

E3 and I spent a good portion of our day at Urgent Care, because that's what all the cool kids are doing.

She got a couple of breathing treatments and a chest x-ray.

She even got to keep the monster mask.

I got random digital pictures of the exam room, taken by E3.

She's on the mend, and relishing the cushy lifestyle of 'patient'.

In situations like this, one routine question that medical personnel ask is, "Does she have any allergies?" Even though we aren't in a food situation, I always say, "Just peanuts", because I figure the more places it gets jotted down the better. Monday, when we were finally to a point where they were ready to send us home the nurse came in with the discharge papers and prescriptions to review. Just as she walked in she stopped and said, "Oh. Now you mentioned several times that she's allergic to peanuts, but I just ate a handful. I don't know what I was thinking."

Me either.

Flashback Friday

Monday, May 29, 2006
A Big, Big Day

Late Night Laugh

Why did the pig go into the kitchen?






(joke courtesy of Laffy Taffy)














Because he felt like bacon.

The Graduate

The kindergarten lost-tooth count held at 38 lost teeth, although E2 was wiggling one during the ceremony in what may have been a last-ditch effort to bring it to 39. How funny would that have been? "Oh, wait! Add one more sticker to the tooth chart!"

I'm not seriously paralyzed with fear about Dancing, but jeez. In the past I've always had a favorite and this time I have three. After tonight, I think Joey and Kym are my favorites, but Apollo and Julianne are second-runner ups. That's my vote - let the chips fall where they may.

I so totally watched the entire two hours of The Bachelor and Andy chose the girl I thought he should. She's the one, as his best friend said, I could see waiting for him at the end of a Triathlon with his kids. I ROCK!

Paralized With Fear

Because I have no idea how to vote tomorrow night on Dancing With The Stars. I really think ABC should consider three first place disco-ball trophies this season.

Also, I've been sucked into the last two episodes of The Bachelor and I'm curious (in a rubber-necking at a vehicle accident kind of way) to see who Andy chooses...but there's no way I'm watching for two hours tomorrow night.

She Done Dood It!

E2 walked out to the center of they gym and belted out her ZYX's like she's been doing it all her life. She forgot the bow she was going to do at the end, but her big, proud grin more than made up for it.

We got Dibs from the gas station - WOO!

Homage to Pointillism

Georges Seurat

E1 ~age 9

E2~age 6.5

Both girls attempted to paint the trio in the lower left corner as part of a class at an art studio.

You Will Remember Nothing After We Erase Your Memory!

FLASHBACK FRIDAY: Thursday, June 15, 2005, from long-gone archives

We were given four tickets to Tuesday nights minor league baseball game, so we took E1 and E2. We also had a gift certificate to the gift shop from a golf tournament Rob was in last year, so I took the girls in to spend it. They both chose inexpensive items, so I asked if they wanted to use the remaining money to get a golf ball for Dad for Father's Day. They had a better idea - three golf balls; one from each girl! Well, that bumped us over the amount of the gift certificate, but how could I refuse?

Yesterday, I put the golf balls on the girls' bed and said we'd wrap them later. As we sat down to dinner that evening, Rob said, "I have to make an announcement."

E1: Shhhh!

Rob: When I was in E1 and E2's...

E1: SHHHHHH!!

Rob: ...room, I saw something I shouldn't have.

E1, desperately: SHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Me: Oh! I forgot all about that.

E1: No! Don't!

Me: Sweetie, it's my fault. I left them there and forgot about them once we were playing outside. It's okay. Why don't you go get them and we'll give them to dad now?

E1: NO! (commences sobbing on her folded arms)

E2 went to get them, but couldn't find them (E1 had hidden them). E1 finally agreed we could still wrap them, although she was still sad that the surprse had been ruined.

When they were almost ready for bed, I was chilling out on the bed in their room and as I shifted I felt something under the covers. I pulled out the hidden golf balls and we discussed it again. E1 still wanted to wrap them for Father's Day instead of giving them to Rob before bedtime. Then I had an idea.

Rob was out of the room, so I suggested to the girls that we'd have to help dad forget that he'd seen the golf balls.

E's: How?

Me: We could rub erasers on his head.

E2: Will that work?

Me: No. Not really. But we can pretend it will! Get some pencils out of your drawer.

So, when Rob came in for good night kisses we made him stretch out on the bed. He was very wary and suspected the girls were up to something.

Me: Tonight, in this room, you saw something you shouldn't have. We're going to have to make you forget it.

Then we all started rubbing his forhead with erasers. Much giggling and laughing ensued.

Me: I'm representing E3 (I began whacking him with the pencil, as E3 would).

Rob: Is this about the golf balls?

Me: He needs more erasing!

He finally asked why we were rubbing his head with pencils and we declared the incident gone from his memory.

Smells Like T Spirit

E1 & E2's school is having a talent show next Thursday. I suspect it is, in part, a way to keep those last few days of school from seeming like they go on FOREVER. At any rate, it's the first talent show they've had since E1 started going there five years ago and it sounds like the students are pretty excited about it.

I asked E1 if she would be entering, and she said Mrs W was going to organize something for the whole class and they'd talk more about it on Monday. Mrs W was absent Monday, so I guess E1 might have the scoop by now.
E2 was the one who told me about the talent show, and was she EVER excited. She announced that she'd be using some ballet music and putting on a ballet show.

Ummmm, yeah.

Except she's never taken ballet. Sure, the girls all like to dance around to classical music and say they're doing ballet... But that's here at home and I wasn't sure I should allow her to expose that to the public of her peers.
As an alternative, I suggested she sing her ZYX's because that something you don't hear every day. The crowd will go WILD, I promised. She was still hesitant, yet she practiced a couple of times this weekend.

Monday she went back to school, and when she returned home I asked if they'd talked about the talent show, if any other classmates were entering, and if Mrs R had mentioned it. Then I asked E2 if she was going to sing her ZYX's - and she said NO!She was feeling a bit shy about it, and about being up in front of so many people.
"Will the promise of ice cream help you have the courage to do it?"
I'm shameless, I know. But she's going to do it! Based on her past, the child will need loads of flattery, and she's going to love it once she does it; the ice cream is just the goose she needed to commit. She watched me fill in the permission slip, AND we both signed a 'contract' that I'll provide ice cream (from the gas station, no less) after she sings her ZYX's at the talent show. I can't wait!

~~~~~~~~~

Every morning H, a second-grader, comes over from our neighbor's house (she has an in-home daycare) and walks to school with E1. Today, as usually happens, he and I were chatting while we waited for E1 to finish brushing her teeth. H brought up the talent show and asked if E1 was entering. I told him she was planning to enter as a group with her class. He asked if E2 was entering, and I told him she was, but I wasn't at liberty to tell what she'd be doing. I asked him if he was entering and he said, no, that it's too scary getting up in front of everyone.

H: T and I talked about just telling jokes.

Me: That would be fun, telling jokes back and forth.

Here's one:What did the ocean say to the beach?

H: I'm really cold?

Me: Nothing. It just waved.

H, laughing: Why does Tigger smell bad?

Me: I don't know.

H: Because he spends so much time with Poo(h).

Listening

I listened to Dana this morning on this: Please note the beautiful pattern of my kitchen counter. Jealous, aren't you? Once upon a time I had a cd/cassette/radio in the kitchen, but it's been hijacked to E1 & E2's room so they can play cd's at bedtime. E3 wasn't out of bed yet (although it turns out she was awake) at 7:45 this morning, so I didn't want to blare one of the clock radios from the bedroom. Thus, I pulled this trusty, dusty item in from the garage. Usually reserved for listening to broadcasts of The Cardinals, today it was the vehicle for listening to Dana's debut on Allman in the Morning.

My Favorite Flower

art by E2

The Teacher Is In

It was an early dismissal day from school today for E1 & E2. After playing Barbies, and watching a Barbie movie, they are now...playing school.

Summer break is a mere 11 days away...

Yellow

Monday was Gage's first day back to school since his kidney transplant. Since I don't know how to use the 'trackback' feature you'll probably have to scroll down to the entry titled "When Everyone Saw Yellow".

Go on and go - it will do your heart good.

Say Cheese

E2 lost her other top front tooth and now has the 'classic' toothless look working for her. She lost the first top front tooth a couple of weeks ago, and it's neighbor has been growing increasingly wiggly ever since.

Saturday, as I made her pose with her lips closed and the loose tooth poking out like Nanny McPhee, I mentioned that it would probably come out soon. She declared her intent to hold on to the tooth until Monday because her teacher, Mrs R, gives out a take-home box for lost teeth and she wanted to get one.



Sunday, the girls and I attended a baby shower where we took great delight in her 'showing off' that loose tooth and it's ability to essentially flip up like a trap door. In the words of the mom-to-be: "Oh, hack." My Mom was with us, and she offered to swing by her classroom to get one of the tooth-holders she gives her first graders. E2 readily agreed to that plan, and soon had a tooth-holder necklace in her possession.

Alas, Monday morning when I went to rouse her from bed and teasingly asked, "Is that tooth still in your mouth, or did it fall overnight?", she groggily sat up, mouth closed, looking bewildered. We found it just under the edge of her pillow; I suspect nocturnal thumb-sucking was the final push the tooth needed. Thankfully, she had a tooth necklace holder to wear to school that day. Also, E2 declared that it's much easier to eat now that the tooth is gone.

Mrs R keeps track of lost kg teeth on a chart in the classroom. It's a cute tooth shape, and they add smiling teeth stickers for each tooth lost by a student. A couple of months ago, she mentioned that in all the years she's taught Kg they usually average 20 teeth for the school year, but this class was already up around 25 lost teeth. E2's recent lost tooth brought the number to 38! "We had to flip the chart over and start putting stickers on the back, Mom!"

Since there's only three weeks of school left, E1 and I are contemplating punching two more teeth out for her to bring the number up to an even 40. However, E2 has prevailed upon us to wait and see if any other classmates come through with two more teeth.