This is Disgusting

It's Octsnowber!

K~

The List

Where to start.

Gavin had his 5th polio shot because I am a bad mom & don’t think quickly on my feet.

Tova had her first major meltdown since the middle of September.

Ethan has finally realized he can have a fulfilling life without Little Orphan Abbey over at our house every single minute of every single day.

Tova & I attended our second MOPS meeting & Tova was very brave about going to her classroom.  I could tell she didn’t want to go but the promise of Play-doh & the energetic grampa-type volunteer won her over.

We had the boy’s parent teacher conferences this week.  Gavin is doing very well except for he’s completely exhausted.  He looks to be the complete Kindergarten-readiness package, he knows all his letters & numbers, he loves to learn, he’s very social, & he’s ‘old’, but he’s why we still need half day kindergarten.  The kid is tired.  And it’s only Wed.  Other than the tiredness thing, he’s doing very well.  He’s reading, his handwriting is pretty good for a newbie, & he loves his classmates & they love him.  Ethan is doing very well too.  He’s smart & nice & well liked.  He has some amazing test scores.  But, & I hate having the but, why can’t I just be happy he’s smart?  But, he’s lazy.  And messy.  And unorganized & this year it’s hurting his grades.  Does anyone have a cure for any of those?  (I don’t think he’s lazy because he’s bored.  He probably is a little bored but I don’t think he’s a genius & light years ahead of his classmates.  I think he’s lazy because he can be & he always chooses the path of least resistance.)

Tova can zip all by herself.  She’s still only 2.

I nag Ethan way too much.

I am having two neighborhood moms & their 3 & under’s over for lunch tomorrow & I’m trying really hard to not stress over what to make for lunch.  I’m debating whether I should impress them with my culinary skills or go the quick & easy, but also tasty, route since I also need to workout Thursday morning.

Gavin needs new shoes.  Why is it the boy’s never tell me their shoes are too tight?  Why must I find out when their toes poke out the tops of their shoes?  Why are light up Skecher’s $50?  Why are those the shoes Gavin has his heart set on?  Why does he insist on keeping his old shoes ’so his kids can wear them’?

I need to get cracking on my fall gardening.  The kids & I dug up a rock garden so we can plant bulbs but I’ve been waiting for a day that’s more than 59° to do any planting.  And I still need to buy the bulbs.

That’s my list of things I was going to blog about but never got around to it.  Aren’t you sad you missed whole posts about each of those topics?

K~

Weird Moment at the Y

I’ve been doing the Body Pump at the Y & it’s a great class.  I wasn’t sure I’d like it, but it’s been really good.  Unfortunately for you Rural City Y-goers, you’ll probably never be offered the opportunity because they’d have to fork over money for equipment & after the ‘can we get some shower curtains in the locker room request’ I learned they don’t do that kind of thing.  Anyway, if you come to visit on a Friday to Metropolis, I’ll sneak you in

Most of the class goers are average women & the occasional man who was forced to come by his significant other.  And then there’s the female meat head.  With a truly tragic boob job.  The only pair I’ve seen in real life larger than hers were mine about 4 days after Gavin was born.  Youch!  That’s a painful memory.

Anyway, we were finishing up with some plank side lifts & as the class was moving into plank, Meat Head asked the instructor, “Can you see my boobs?”  Uh, Hello!  We can see them from space!  The instructor got this look on her face that was priceless & quickly moved on.

You meet all kinds at the Y.

This afternoon I have the unparalleled pleasure of taking Gavin to get his polio shot.  Somehow Family Practice missed it when I took him in for his Kindergarten shots & now the school nurse has been after me to get Gavin shot before the big audit which is now Monday.  If only she knew how much Gavin & I both hate Kindergarten shots…

I’m pretty ticked at FP at the moment.  Not only for forgetting to give Gavin his required Kindergarten shots, but because they want to charge me $10/person to transfer our medical records.  I knew they wanted to charge me for a copy, but I didn’t realize they were going to charge for any copies made.  It doesn’t matter if you are transferring out because you think the doctors suck or because you moved out of state – You must pay the ransom.  I know $10 isn’t that much; it’s the principle of the thing.  My experience with our other doctors was for them to not charge for transferring records & I checked around & the majority of the offices I called do not have a charge for getting a copy of your records, it seems only the practices that are trying to make it difficult for you to switch or the really petty offices employ that tactic.  I’ll let you decide which type of office is FP…

K~

Things I Hate More Than Cleaning Toilets

1. Walking barefoot across the minefield of Lego’s that is the toy room.
2. Spiders.
3. Playing Hi Ho! Cherry-O with a cranky 2yo who has a temper & an exceptional throwing arm.
4. Cutting up a pepper & forgetting to wash my hands before rubbing my eye.
5. My dryer.  It shrunk all my jeans!

K~

Ollivander, Gregorovitch, & Heather

What do they all have in common?

They are all wandmakers.

I hear Ollivander & Gregorovitch wands are impossible to come by, but a Heather?  They are readily available at Etsy.

This is one of my favorites.

Ruby Wand

The detail is amazing.

Skull Wand

If you’re thinking ahead to Halloween or just want to surprise your aspiring witch or wizard, visit OrderedChaos at Etsy & tell her Kristen sent you.

K~

Splash!

The official total is 4 inches of rain in 2 days.  We now have a brand new sump pump, a bigger drain hose, & a damp smell throughout the house.  We also had some fun in the huge puddles.

Tova

Gavin aiming for a big splash

Ethan making a huge jump

It's a race. Or a body slide.

K~

April, I Mean August, Showers Better Bring Something Nicer Than Flowers.

Rain Rain, Go Away,

Come again another day.

Preferably one when our sump pump is not completely overwhelmed by the 3/4in of rain from the previous night so it can’t keep up with the inch being dumped on us currently.  That’s all I’m asking.

The basement needed a good washing, but rainwater wasn’t quite what I had in mind.

Thanks for watering the garden though.

K~

Tova Tickles Your Funny Bone

K~

*for those of you that don’t speak Toddlerese, she’s saying “You remember me in one minute?  You remember me in one second?  Knock Knock.  You didn’t remember me!”

Musings

Do you remember the Seinfeld episode where Jerry wonders how a finger can be an insult?  It’s been a long while since I’ve had someone give me the finger.  Today while driving down The Corridor/Rudest Highway in America I was on the receiving end of a digit flip.  Apparently I wasn’t moving out of the way fast enough for this lovely woman so on her way by she twirled her hair & had a finger extended for my pleasure.  I started laughing at the absurdity of being flipped off & remembering the Seinfeld clip but instantly regretted it because I then had to explain what I was laughing about to the boys.

The kids & I headed to the zoo Tuesday.  We had a great time with our Rural City friends & saw a rather unique animal.

It's a Giraffe with a matching trailer!

A few weeks ago I read a blog post about Rickrolling.  I’d never heard the term before but it did shed some light on a puzzling video from my YouTube subscriptions.  The one subscription I have is mostly silly dance videos, but this one made no sense.  How does a teen boy know about Rick Astley much less, why would he make a video with Astley’s awful music?

Rickrolling.  That’s why.  It only took me 2 years to get up to speed.

I am sooo with it.

K~

Metropolis’ Secret Pool

In our house, summer means swimming.  The last few years we practically lived at the pool.  We were there 3 days a week & most Saturdays in July.  The Rural City pool was delightful.  It had a huge 1.5-2ft section that the kids have always loved.  It’s deep enough for some swimming but shallow enough they could always stand with their head above water.  Because they opened early we would have a light lunch then hightail it to the pool for a swim & be home for a nice long afternoon nap.  A busy day at the Rural City Pool were the days a couple of the local daycare’s swam & they had a schedule so, if you felt so inclined, you could easily avoid swimming during that time.

Metropolis has been a little different.  We’ve now tried all 4 pools.  We tried Close to Home Pool & it’s always really busy.  We tried Petting Zoo Park Pool & it’s small & crowded.  We tried Old Mill Pond & my heart sank as no less than 5 huge school buses unloaded their thousands of kids & 3 chaperons for an afternoon swim.  Old MillPond was a nice pool with lots of stuff for the kids to do, if they felt like fighting the crowds for their turn.  Neither the kids or I were impressed.

Finally we tried Secret Pool.  It was wonderful.  It’s smallish, the big waterslide is slow, & it has a huge area for the little swimmers.  The best thing is that it’s not busy.  I have no idea why it’s not busy, hence the name Secret Pool, either people don’t know about it, or there’s some secret as to why no one goes there & frankly, I don’t want to know.  It’s small & I think that limits the number of daycares & I’m beginning to think that’s the big differnce.  I love Secret Pool.  I can find my kids without having to search the entire pool.  Tova is thriving with the lack of crowds – today she put her face in the water, on purpose!  A few times I’ve even been able to sit on the side & watch the kids splash around without fearing they were going to be plowed under by some undersupervised kids who shouldn’t be playing on the toddler slide anyway.

Today we took Gavin’s camera to video Brave Tova’s jumps.  I am standing about 5ft from the wall & she has no fear.

K~