School Days

Chavi's teacher was nice enough to pass along some pictures she took of the girlfriend at school. She is all about the girls at school. They are a little posse of blond haired scamps.

Maddox's Birthday

11 kids. 5 pizzas. 12 art projects. 37 paper airplanes.














Having it over and done with: priceless.

Jaime guilted me in to it

Halloween pictures - could we be any more stereotypical? Although Chavi did get more than her fair share of ooohs and ahhhs.

and... two steps back

Today is a half-day Wednesday, which means longer afterschool. It also means more time in the music room (where they do some afterschool on half-days), which apparently smells funny.

Still more progress

On Tuesday, Maddox was busy drawing when I went to afterschool to pick him up. He asked for me to wait, and then presented me with this picture, saying "This is how my day was today!"

Making progress

Maddox was very excited when I picked him up from school on Monday. He dashed over to me and said, "Mom! Guess what?!"

I couldn't imagine what the good news was. A star on his forehead? He was being promoted to first grade? Candy for lunch?

"What?"

"I pooped at school today!"

Homework

Who knew they assigned homework in kindergarten? Granted, it's only writing a sheet of Ms (upper and lower case, mind you) but still. Who knew that a 5 year old with no nap is not capable of completing said homework after 6:45 p.m.? Who knew said child could barf at will? Who knew my tolerance for barf could be so high? Who knew, way back when, that I would not think twice about sending said child to school after said barfing incident? Who knew, when I took forgotten water bottle to school after aforementioned child forgot it, that there would be other parents there telling the principal that, yes, their child had barfed that morning, too, but they really thought they were okay?

Two to leave you with

I'm going off the grid for a while, for a real vacation with no technology. (Really, none.) This is the only thing I'll miss:







































Okay, this too:

From Josh and Erica's visit (two weeks later)

Josh gave Chava a ride to the train.














We played in the fountain,














Rode the carousel,














and then, suddenly, Josh and Erica were engaged. Somerville magic? That's what we're chalking it up to.














Also, Chava sprouted enormous boobs, but I really don't know what to attribute that one to.

Lax parenting

We often let our kids do things I think are questionable.

Like letting Chava climb inside the asteroid rock at the Museum of Science.



















Or letting the both of them frolic in a fountain in Amherst.



















































Sometimes I wonder if other parents are looking at us like we are overly indulgent and our kids are bad influences. But then I decide I really don't care what they think.

another day dawns

Last night, when I went to bed, I couldn't find my mouth guard (I wear it to keep from grinding my teeth at night). The cleaning people had been in so I figured they had put it "away" somewhere, but then I started to get worried that it accidentally got swept in to the trash... so I lay awake worrying about it (those things are expensive!). When the kids came down to wake me up this morning, I said, "Hey, has anyone seen my mouth guard?" Chava ran right over to my closet and got it out. Tomorrow I'm asking if they've seen fifty bucks and a ham sandwich.

Looking at these...

You'd almost think we had a perfectly pleasant, sunny vacation.



































































But then you would watch this, and know that we went slightly insane on the 7th day of rain.

10:30 a.m.

One of our Cape traditions is that we go out for ice cream every night. We couldn't let a little rain interfere with tradition, and luckily we live in a locale with plenty of ice cream stores. So, last night (Al's choice night) we went to Christina's. Chava is an extremely slow ice cream eater (seriously, who contributed THAT gene?!) and on Monday night she didn't finish her ice cream before it was time to go, so we took it home and let her have it for breakfast on Tuesday. That meant that last night both kids were eager not to finish their ice cream so they could eat it this morning. Hey! It's vacation!

Camera in the hands of a 5 year old

The excitement is palpable. The heavy breathing gives it all away.

Staycation

We left the Cape - two days of rain and cold were enough to convince us that pre-season, rainy Cape is no fun. So we're entertaining ourselves at home for a few days and then plan to head back down to catch the weekend.

Lots of backlog to catch up

I have plenty to post but no time. I will leave you with this image of Chavie, who got in to her friend Carter's lipstick last night.

The request was for "a piece of watermelon as big as my head"

Happy Goodnight

I suppose it all makes sense

Underwear companies do plenty of marketing, to both men and women. There is the Victoria's Secret lingerie fashion show, shown at prime time, the Times Square underwear billboard (I guess that was a while ago, but still), lots of print ads, etc. I think fancy underwear is supposed to give us that "special" feeling, like knowing we've got something going on that no one else is aware of. So, really, I should not be shocked when Maddox tells me that he can only tackle certain difficulties in his life while wearing his Star Wars underwear. I just need to buy more of it.

Memorial Day

We had a great Memorial Day weekend and hit all the important summer markers: a cookout, a parade, a swim in our neighbor's pool, bikerides, playgrounds, watermelon and slush.

Kids in their Looooooooovely Hats

I don't know where Chava picks up all the idioms she does. I think she is stealthfully listening to the grownups all the time and trying to work the lingo she hears into her everyday conversations as much as possible. In any case, she is constantly cracking me up.

Last night she decided that she needed a Lovely Hat for her bath, so she created one and got Maddox to participate as well. They wore them for a good twenty minutes.

She told me yesterday that "My outfit is not complete until I have my jewelry on." This would actually be more funny if I didn't constantly find her rifling through the jewelry I have on my dresser and wearing it around the house. When I hid it up higher, I found her stacking stools (by the time I had arrived, she had three piled up on top of each other) to access the forbidden. When she is denied, she is quick to show her displeasure.

Okay, Mom, I've gotten my payback. Now remove the evil curse you put on my daughter.

Chava is three. Well, three and a half, if you want to put a fine point on it. So please explain to me just exactly how it is that she is a clothes horse. A clothes fiend. A prima donna when it comes to her clothes. Or, as Al puts it, "Man, she is just totally bonkers around her clothes."

Getting dressed in the morning often evolves over the course of an hour. First she has to pick things out (and if we veto something [like a tanktop on a 40 degree day], woe is us). Then she has to try it on. Then she has to improve upon it by changing some of the elements. Then she has to pick out accessories. And, of course, shoes (shut up, Mom, I can hear you laughing from here).

Last night both kids slept all night without a peep and stayed in their room until their alarm clock started playing music at 6:30. This was four nights of sleep, so Maddox earned a new Star Wars lego set and Chava earned some stick on earrings that had been torturing her on top of my dresser for weeks. She built her whole outfit around those earrings - a pink cotton dress with ruffles and a bow, off white tights, flip flops (yes, her favorite shoes are flip flops right now and she just pulls down the tights in between her toes to get the flip flops on) and a very pretty Irish knit cardigan. Then she spent what was left of the morning twirling around the house sing-songing "I'm so BEAUUUUUUUUU---tiful."

What a long, hard day it's been

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Al picks Maddox and his friend Sam up early from school so they can go to tennis lessons, offered through the Rec. Department. They have special racquets and balls that I guess are geared to teach young kids to play - the balls are kind of sponge-like. Maddox likes it, but he is pretty uncoordinated. Luckily, he does not seem to notice that Sam is kicking his ass most of the time. On Tuesdays, after a short break, we go to soccer practice. So, by the time we finished eating our pizza last night, he was pooped... and so was everyone else (me included).

Al fresco dining

Woo hoo! Spring at last!

Party Girl all Pooped Out

Chava was in fine form this weekend. She woke up in a snit on Saturday morning and had multiple tantrums throughout the day and then refused to nap, guaranteeing that the night would be a disaster. It was. Maddox was in bed, washed and brushed, while Chava was still having a tantrum about getting out of the car. Sunday wasn't much different, except we drove out to Framingham in the late afternoon. Chava fell asleep .2 seconds after we pulled out of the driveway.

Can you call it a hiatus if you didn't really plan to come back?

My mom guilted me in to posting again. Otherwise I have to provide lengthy updates on the phone about Maddox's pooping (it's fine, and actually he's absolutely the MOST chatty while he sits on the toilet) or Chava's desire to be Boozchi Baby all the time (I don't know how to spell Boozchi, but I like this spelling I just came up with, and want to emphasize that SHE picked that name) by putting on her footy p.j.s and making us hold her and carry her and feed her, or the fact that I am having difficulty coaching soccer because my damn 5 year olds spend the entire practice whining about being "STAAAAARVing" and then running around with pretzel sticks in their hands/mouths. No shit. At Saturday's game I had to clean popcorn off the shirts of all the kids before they started to play.

Aren't you glad I'm back?