Coffee Comments

Adrienne continues to perseverate on my coffee drinking. More comments about it came last night at bedtime. She said to Matt...."I know why Mommy drinks so much coffee. She LOVES to go potty!"

This from the child who would prefer to do without ever going potty. She is the ultimate potty request resistor. It's not uncommon to hear, "Why do I have to go potty every day?" or "I already peed today!"So you couple my frequent potty stops with my coffee drinking, and my constant requesting/asking if she has to go, and her above interpretation sounds pretty darn accurate.

Weekend Snippets

Jillian went to a birthday party on Saturday afternoon. She enjoyed a Barbie dress up photo booth and came home with a goody bag full of big girl stuff--nail polish, gum, bracelets, orange sparkly lip gloss (we had to have application lessons for the kind of lip gloss that you squeeze from a tube, versus the chapstick type she's used to), and rose colored glasses. Yes, this child loves how the world looks through them.

She loves them so much, in fact, that she wore them the entire rest of the day and into the evening as we went to the Sellon's for dinner. These 4 (J and Isaac are 5 weeks apart--and have known each other since infancy-- and A and Luke are 6 weeks apart) had some major good clean naughty dirty kid fun as their parents sipped wine, chatted and dined al fresco. The kids all required clothes changes (some more than once. Adrienne.) because they played in mud (to quote Jillian, "We made poop stew"), splashed each other with water, and ran around like hooligans dripping purple popsicles from their chins.

Adrienne kind of surprised me when she came downstairs yesterday and proclaimed, "I'm going to sketch Cinderella". And she did.

This makes me smile.

And man, oh man. After planting 5 peony bushes and waiting for a few years to see them really develop, I am reveling in their beauty. My grandma loved them and I always think of her when I see and smell them. They make me happy.

Zone Defense

Before anyone gets too excited, I am not referencing a parenting strategy that would be required if we had more than two children in the title of this post. Relax. I am referring to a home management strategy we are testing out around these parts. I recently read a book (The Entitlement Trap) that had a lot of good ideas for teaching kids responsibility and ownership, and probably my favorite strategy the authors discuss is that of a "zone". After much discussion, we sat the girls down for our first ever family meeting (to be held every Thursday from here on out), and after we opened with some compliments, we talked about how we planned to resolve sibling conflicts this summer (more on that later) and how we needed to work together as a team to keep our home nice and in relative order (then ended with our team cheer and some dessert. We are not afraid of cheesy over here. Cheesy is awesome and welcome when you have little children). So, we divided the main living spaces up into zones and we are each in charge of "working our zone" a couple times a day to keep things in check. The girls were SO excited by this idea, and Jillian accurately guessed which zones would belong to which family member (Hers is the living room, A's is the mud room, Matt's is the piano room, and mine is of course the kitchen/dining areas). The girls know they are to be responsible for their zones throughout the day, and that I expect a good 'zone check' before we leave for any activities in the morning, and then again in the evening before dinner and/or bath. The nice thing is that I don't have to specifically say, "Pick up the books" or "put the pillows on the couch", I just ask them to check their zone, or ask if they've worked their zone lately, and the rest is on their shoulders. This is working surprisingly well, and has been the subject of several funnies in just the few days this plan's been in action. 

-Jillian finds it sort of amusing that Matt gets the "easiest" zone. "Mom, all dad has to do is put the piano music away. That's not much of a chore". Seems she doesn't consider his role as sole provider for our family. Eh, no biggie. 

-Jillian walked through the kitchen as I was mid-dinner prep and still managing lunch/breakfast dishes--"Mom, your zone is a MESS"

-As we walked out the door on Saturday (through the mudroom as usual), Matt praised Adrienne for her work in the zone. "Wow, Adrienne, your zone looks great. You did a really nice job". Jillian heard this and immediately walked in to inspect. The verdict? "Um, there's hangers on the floor inside the coat closet. I'm not impressed". 

-Adrienne is absolutely exasperated by what she must view as lack of respect for her work. As I asked her to go check her zone yesterday, she walked in to find several pairs of shoes strung out across the floor. First, a heavy sigh. And then, "Oh man. Why is everybody always messing up my zone? Why can't people leave my zone alone? I'm tired of picking up everybody else's stuff".  Ha! Ah yes, this plan is working nicely....

Master Howe Theater

When we were young newlyweds, we would occasionally indulge in what we called "Master Howe Theater". This meant the entire day was devoted to movie watching. We would put blankets over all the windows and curtains to make the house extra dark, stay in pajamas, and order food from various delivery spots for each meal. It was lovely. As you might imagine, this doesn't (ever) happen anymore. In the last year we've had a couple mock Master Howe Theater events where we all watch two movies in one day, but that is the stuff of amateurs. Matt had a vision for taking Master Howe Theater up a notch, and so he ordered something to make this dream come true. We tested it out on Friday night in celebration of Jillian's last day of school. We told the girls we had a big surprise, and while they were in the tub, the Master Howe set up the screen.

Here comes Jillian, hopping along with major excitement when she saw the big screen plopped in the living room.

And Adrienne as she arrives onto the scene.

Now, in a perfect world we would have done this outside. We have big ideas about hosting outdoor movies for all the neighbors this summer, and to have camp outs with friends, but the weather was such that we felt testing it indoors was best. Matt gave a little speech to introduce our inaugural big screen projector movie

Waiting in suspense.

Shrek! They'd never seen it, and both Matt and I had forgotten what it was about. The girls found it to be hilarious.

\

Intermission--popcorn making time.

We let these clowns stay up wayyyyyy too late, but man did we have fun.  Still paying for the late night by the way...

Last Day of K

Miss Jillian had her last day of kindergarten today! This year went at lightning speed for me. Seriously, didn't I just take this picture on the first day?

And here she was this morning, giving the thumbs up for rockin' kindergarten like a boss.

Poor Adrienne asked to take a picture with Jillian, and then we forgot, so she had a little sad meltdown. I had to coax Jillian to get back in place for a picture with her sister.  This one says it all...

I wasn't expecting the emotions I experienced at the end of the day. My first wave of tears came when she hopped in the car wearing her little hat...."I've Finished K, On My Way to 1st Grade!"

And then, as we approached the corner by the school (after waiting in that dang pick up line for one last time this year--I feel like I should win an award for not yelling at anyone for poor pick up line behavior this year. I really restrained myself!), I kept hearing honking and clapping and cheering. I wasn't sure what in the world was going on, but then I saw that all the teachers were on the corner, waving and cheering to all kids/cars/buses that went by. I just thought it was really neat, and it made me cry AGAIN.

Jillian's teacher, Mrs Dyer (on left) was there, and the class para Miss Joanna (on R), too.

Jillian asked me why in the world I was crying. And so I explained to her that I was just feeling grateful. Grateful that she had such a fabulous first year of "real" school, where she enjoyed her teacher (and her teacher enjoyed her), developed a passion for reading, made friends, navigated her first experience with 'mean girl' stuff, validated our thoughts on her intellect by doing amazing on her first standardized tests...and having fun the whole time, wearing a smile on her face. I also explained to her that I was feeling grateful that we live in such a nice place, with nice schools, involved/committed parents, and great teachers. Not everyone can say that. We have much to celebrate and be thankful for! 

Lucky 13

Matt and I celebrated our 13th Anniversary on May 31st. Hard to believe! Time flies when you are having fun. We had a pretty relaxed day that began with the girls secretly prying Matt out of bed to take them to get doughnuts. They think that every celebration deserves surprise doughnuts for breakfast, and I never complain. We had a leisurely morning and then we took the girls over to the Taunton's, because Jenni just insisted that we go out for a date. So we gratefully accepted and then spent a few hours that afternoon enjoying a sushi lunch....and running some really romantic errands, the first of which was Costco.

The next "romantic" errand was going to Matt's office so he could take some suits to the locker room for when he rides his bike during the week. We did take advantage of the quiet Gonda atrium and open piano, and Matt sat to play a little Coldplay.

Matt recently moved offices and he now has a sweet one. It even has a window, which is highly coveted in his department. This office looks right out over the boy with the dolphin statue/fountain. We stopped in the office to drop off some new decor--a snake in a bottle our babysitter Eleyna brought him from her recent trip to Vietnam. This will be a talking point amidst many academic discussions, I'm sure.

We grabbed some coffee and then went back to visit with our friends and pick up the girls. When we got home I finished some garden planting and ran to get some flowers for my deck pots. I brought the girls a surprise McDonald's dinner.

We put the girls to bed and then headed back out to the deck for a quiet dinner of a nice filet mignon and a bottle of red. And then we stayed out there until 10 p.m. watching Game of Thrones on the laptop, because we made a sweet purchase at Costco...a patio heater! Woot! Why didn't we think of this before? Shouldn't everyone in MN own these? Game changer right here, people. Game changer.

The Truth?

Matt likes to take the girls to Casey's (closest gas station/convenience store to us) to let them pick out a candy bar from time to time (and because he has a thing for buying Powerball tickets). This blows their mind, and probably further solidifies their feeling that he is the fun guy. I've been called the "treat nazi" by my husband before, and it's probably deserved. On this particular night, I was out at book club and the girls were delighted to have time with him--"Yay! I love it when Daddy babysits us!" Say what? Listen girls--your dad is NOT a babysitter. He is your DAD. Parents are not babysitters. I could rant for hours on that subject. Anyway, back to the point of the post: as the girls and Matt were driving along to Casey's, Adrienne offered her unsolicited analysis of my contributions: "All Mommy does is drink coffee and play the piano". Matt told Adrienne that she should not ever tell me that because it would hurt my feelings, and he said the girls just busted out laughing. So, yep. All I do is drink coffee and play the piano all day....and I wave my magic wand to transport kids, do the laundry, cook the meals, pay the bills, and make sure everyone stays healthy and alive.