Our growing family

Yes, this is the big news, folks!  Goodman baby number three is on the way, with an expected arrival of early July 2012!  In that month, s/he will join the ranks of other illustrious July babies, including myself, and provide his/her father, Seth, with another minion to assist him in his goal of world domination.

Lofty aspirations aside, we are extremely excited by this news.  And of course, there's nothing like a pregnancy announcement without an ultrasound shot.

Now, I am very aware that ultrasound shots are really only of interest to the mother, possibly the father, possibly a grandparent or two, and maybe any family friends who are ultrasound techs.  The majority of the world is excited for you that you're having a baby, but sees no point in ooing and aahing over a picture of an unrecognizable blob.  I understand that.  However, the picture is very important to me in this case, since Seth went around telling me the baby was "alleged" until he saw photographic evidence.  In case there are any other doubters out there, well, here's your proof.  (And in case you're wondering, Seth was really just joking about the "alleged" thing... I think).

Stay tuned for more updates than you'll probably want to hear about this baby!  :)

The Great Goodman Pumpkin Search

I had a plan this year for pumpkins.  Last year we didn't go pumpkin picking or carve any pumpkins because Halloween was a day or two after my dad's funeral.  I really wasn't up for it, and Halloween hadn't really been on the top of my mind during the month of October.  But this year I realized Lizzie had never carved a pumpkin, and Anna really wanted to carve one, so I had a grand plan for Seth to get off work early during the week a couple weeks before Halloween, and we'd go to Ashland Berry Farm. 

Yeah, that never happened.  So I set a firm date for this past Wednesday... but too much ended up happening that day, and we didn't go.  So I said, definitely Friday!  Nope, by the time I got back from Charlottesville, it was cold and rainy.  Saturday?  Freezing and raining.

New plan: buy a pumpkin from WalMart!  When I had gone last week, there were two huge bins of pumpkins.  Nope, not one pumpkin left.  The cashier suggested Tom Leonard's.  Great idea!  Nope, no pumpkins left there either.  But they were selling the hay bales their pumpkins had been displayed on, two for $4.  Seth had been desperately wanting hay bales to set up around our house for Halloween, so that find was pretty awesome (especially since Southern States had them for $10 apiece).  Hay bales don't fulfill a small child's need for a pumpkin to carve, though. 

Back home with a van full of hay, Seth started calling our normal grocery stores.  Nope, no pumpkins.  So I threw up my hands and said, "We're going to Ashland!"  Yes, it was still freezing.  And yes, it was still raining.  And the wind was blowing like crazy.  But I was desperate.  So I called them to make sure they were open, and off we went.

We were the only car in the parking lot.  I took advantage of that and parked as close as possible to the stands of pumpkins they had on display.  The awesome woman working there said we could still do "all you can carry" for $20, even though we weren't picking pumpkins from the field.  Score!  We ended up with nine pumpkins of varying sizes.  While we were there, one other family with small kids came and picked out pumpkins, too.

When we got back in the van, we were filthy.  Thank goodness I had put the girls in their boots.  Seth and I had mud all over our coats and gloves from carrying pumpkins.  But we were successful!  Once we got home, each of us carved a pumpkin for the family Halloween party and pumpkin contest that night.  The kids had a blast.  You can see pictures of the pumpkins and the carving process here.

So next year I swear I won't wait until the last minute again to get the pumpkins.  At least, that is until Halloween sneaks up on me again :)

Bites and beatings

Here's what happened today.  Lizzie bit Anna on the leg for no reason that could be determined (she didn't leave marks, though).  Anna starts crying.  I come around the corner, Lizzie admits to biting Anna, so I tell her that is bad and she needs to go to time out.  Lizze starts sobbing like she is the one injured, saying "I need a hug!"  Then Anna gives Lizzie a hug, and the crying stops immediately, and they are ready to play together again.  Except for the fact that Lizzie still has to have her punishment.

Then, 15 minutes later, when they are both upstairs playing, Anna starts sobbing.  Lizzie hit her over the head with a toy multiple times.  Anna says it was a Barbie, Lizzie says she didn't hit her with a Barbie... "I hit her wit dat!" (pointing at another toy on the floor).  Well, at least she doesn't lie.  So she got sent to her room, where she cried and cried and cried.  And then I caught Anna trying to let her out of her room.

So either Anna is a big softie, or Lizzie has totally figured out how to work her sister.  Or maybe it's both, but either way, I know I have to watch that sneaky little one. 

Where the streets have the same name: The story of Anna's first day of school

After orientation last Thursday our countdown to Kindergarten continued.  My goal was to start getting Anna up earlier in the mornings to prepare her for her 6am wakeup call once school started.  You can guess how well I managed that.  Saturday morning I did manage to get up a little earlier than normal, but only because we were heading to Charlottesville for the first UVA football game of the season.  So our countdown got sidetracked by football over the weekend, but on Monday we tried it again. 

Monday was semi-successful.  We got up earlier, but not early enough.  We still made the walk to the bus stop so Anna could feel what the walk was like, but we would have been 20 minutes late. 

Tuesday was the big day!  We got up on time and got going.  Anna looked so cute in the outfit she picked out for her first day at school.  The only downside was that it was pouring down rain, so the whole family drove to the bus stop.  We even got there early!  And then we waited and waited... and waited... and waited.  I thought it was curious that only one other car pulled up.  I thought maybe all the other parents were driving their kids to school, considering that it was pouring cats and dogs. 

Then Seth asked me, where did they say the bus stop was again?  The corner of Ridgefield Green and Flat Branch Dr, I said, right where we are.  Then Seth asked, doesn't another Ridgefield Green connect to Flat Branch at the bottom of the hill?  And I knew he was right.  And I panicked, but then I thought, no no, I have the right spot.  That is until the bus drove by us heading out of the neighborhood, without stopping.  And I silently cursed whoever it is that feels multiple streets in the same neighborhood should have the same name.  At least there was one other parent who had done the same thing, so I didn't feel like a total idiot.

So Anna was driven to school on her first day.  At first she was terrified that because we'd missed the bus, she wouldn't get to go to school, but I reassured her that was definitely not the case :) When we got there, it seemed that no other parent but me and the mother in the van in front of me had read the instructions for dropping off your child.  These instructions specifically state that the school has a serious lack of parking, therefore you shouldn't attempt to park and walk your child in, you need to pull up to the front and let them out.  Nope, everyone wanted to park, then would realize there was no parking where they were trying to go, then they would attempt to reverse, which all lead to a big traffic jam at the entrance, and the whole time I thought Anna might just jump out of the van so she could hurry up and get there already.

We finally made it to the entrance.  They were collecting the kids in a group as they were dropped off, then teachers and older kids were leading them to their classrooms.  Anna didn't even look back at the van, she was ready to go.  And there she went, my big five year old, ready to take on the world.

I got her off the bus in the afternoon (which was quite a bit late), and the first thing she asked me was if she could go back tomorrow.  Of course, she barely remembered anything about her day when I first asked her, although later it came out they'd seen a play about how you behave in the cafeteria.  However, the main thing she remembered about the play was that she didn't get to sit next to her friend from preschool.  At bedtime she remembered that the boy who sits next to her is named Martin.  I'm chalking it up to first day overload, but hopefully she remembers more than that as the school year goes on!

Today, day #2, she was up on time, ate breakfast, dressed, and we actually made it to the correct intersection for her bus.  She waved at me from the window after she got on, smiling and blowing me a kiss.  There goes my big girl.  Not on the first day, but today is the day I got teary-eyed watching her go.

Countdown to Kindergarten

Today was Anna's Kindergarten orientation.  She was so excited all morning, she kept asking me what time we were going to leave even though I'd told her a million times it wasn't until after lunch.  To help pass the time we wrote her name on all of her school supplies.  I'm so excited for her, I'm glad she's excited about school, about riding the bus, about making new friends.

It dawned on me last week that I'd forgotten how public schools work on a different timetable and level of efficiency than the business world I used to work in.  My first reminder of this fact was when I attempted to find out the time of the orientation.  We had learned it was going to be on September 1 back when I registered Anna, but I didn't know the time.  I called on Wednesday (8 days before orientation).  I was told information was going to be mailed out that Friday (less than one week before orientation).  I got the information over the phone after explaining we were going to be out of town until the day before orientation, and then had to remind myself not to be surprised that the information wasn't mailed out earlier.

I mention the above because it prepared me for all the paperwork we received during orientation.  I have written our name, address, and phone number more times than I can count.  I have written out the same four emergency contacts at least three times (not including the two times I wrote them during Anna's registration in the spring).  I had a blank Student Information Form from Anna's teacher asking for the same information that is on the official, pre-filled Student Information Form that is part of her file.  It almost (but not quite) makes me want to leave home and go back to work to create process efficiencies for the school system so that I don't have to suffer through this every school year going forward.

Now, don't think that I am not a fan of public schools.  I am a product of the public education system.  My father worked in public schools for 30 years.  I know many other wonderful people who work in the public school system.  I have the utmost respect for dedicated teachers and administrators who work hard to teach our children.  But the inefficient systems that public schools use to handle their records and paperwork?  Those I can definitely do without!

But I digress.  Back to Anna's orientation.  She was disappointed to learn that her friend from daycare is in another class, but she was excited to learn that she is going to have two teachers.  Her teacher just had a baby and is going to be on maternity leave until January, so she will have one teacher the first half of the year, and another teacher the second half.  She found her name tag on her table all by herself.  She was enchanted by the playground equipment, and ecstatic about having a library at the school where she can check out books.  She was intrigued by the "learning cottages" (aka trailers) that have popped up at the school while renovations on certain buildings are going on.  And then she didn't want to leave when it was time to go.

And I can't believe it is time for her to go.  In five days she will be getting on that big yellow bus (at the glorious time of 6:53am) and heading off on her new adventure.  And she will probably handle it better than I will :)

OBX 2011 - Old friends, new friends, and a big red house

There have been two things that Anna has been asking for since we did them last year.  First is another trip to Disney World, which we have had to explain to her is not something you can do all the time.  The second is a trip to the beach, which is much more realistic and something we were planning on doing this year, anyway.  So Anna was extremely happy when she learned that we were headed back to the Outer Banks.

When I was younger, my parents and I vacationed in Nags Head for a week every summer.  It was a yearly tradition, and sometimes I got to bring a friend along, and sometimes Mom and Dad had friends who would stay with us down there for a few days.  I always loved it (minus the extremely long wait at the bridge on the way down). 

Anna had been to the beach three times before this, and Lizzie had been once.  When I rented the house online, Anna had to look at the pictures of it over and over and over.  Lizzie caught Anna's enthusiasm and kept asking when we were going.  And once we got there, they didn't want to leave :)

Our beach house

Mom and several friends stayed with us, and we had an absolute blast!  The house had a pool that Anna could stand in, making it so much easier for her to play in the pool.  The Corolla beaches are awesome.  I remember when Anna used to be scared of the ocean, but this time she wasn't (well, at least not until she got stung by a jellyfish, but she got over it after a day).  Lizzie loved the waves, and kept wanting to walk further out into the water so she could get hit by them.  And of course sand is always an attraction, requiring a special extensive sand removal session after we got back to the house each time we hit the beach.

The benefit of having friends with us is that there was never a lack of people who wanted to play games in the evenings.  Between all of us we had Descent, Guillotine, Rummikub, Dominion, Gloom, and Racko with us.  Anna and Seth both learned how to play Rummikub, and Anna was so proud that she could play mostly without help by the time vacation was over!

Remember when I said that Mom and Dad used to let me bring a friend when I was younger?  In high school my friend Leah came with us, and I hadn't seen her in ages.  Guess who is now living on the Outer Banks?  She and her girls (who happen to be almost the exact same age as my girls) came to visit us for a day, and we had a great time.  Thank you, Facebook, for getting us back in touch :)

Me and Leah after dinner, with her daughter Mary

We did so many things while we were there besides play in the waves and the sand.  We have a tradition of visiting the Christmas Shop in Manteo, and this year we opted to do a dolphin cruise instead of a trip to the aquarium.  We shopped at Kitty Hawk Kites across from Jockey's Ridge.  We visited a friend of Dad's who retired from teaching and now owns an ice cream shop in Corolla.  It was a wonderful week, and we all could have easily stayed for a second week if we were able to.  But alas, we had to come home.  The girls did not want to leave, and Anna is already planning our next beach vacation.  So look out, OBX, the Goodmans will be back again soon!

Girls Only Road Trip... Of Doom?

My friend Kristin Bartholomew had her baby on Sunday, July 10.  My hope had been she would have baby Katie on my birthday, July 5, and alas I was disappointed.  It could only be a slight disappointment, though, because it is still exciting that Katie was born!  And at least we share the same birth month.  At any rate, I thought it might be fun to go and visit.  And because I have apparently become a spur-of-the-moment person, I decided (with Kristin's input, of course) to go up to Ohio on Wednesday, July 20.  For those people counting, that's only 10 days after Katie was born, and only one week after discussing the trip with Kristin!  Man, I'm living on the edge!

To make the trip even more challenging, I also decided to take both Anna and Lizzie with me.  Seth had to work, and since they are no longer in day care they could either come with me or stay with my mom.  I think their grandma would have loved to have them, but for some reason I felt compelled to bring both of them with me.  Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment, or I was looking for a new challenge.  Eight hours of straight driving, plus probably one and a half hours of stopping for food and potty breaks makes for one long trip with a two year old, a five year old, and only one adult.  Was I insane?  Possibly.  But Lizzie had done exceptionally well on a weekend trip to PA a month or so ago.  Maybe this could work.

So at 7:30am on a Wednesday morning, the van packed with snacks, drinks, a new My Little Pony for each girl, the portable DVD player, the GPS, and our suitcase, we set off on our adventure.  Other than a moment of panic when I thought the girls were going to demand to stop once an hour, the trip up was great.  The girls played with their toys, watched one movie before lunch and one after, marveled at large trucks and a wind farm, and looked for shapes in the clouds.  We got to our hotel before 6pm, then went over to Kristin and Jeff's for a yummy dinner and some fun.

I have to say, the girls behaved exceptionally well while we were in Ohio.  They were polite, they played well with other kids, they ate the food put in front of them, and I didn't hear a lot of whining.  However, while the kids were perfect, our presence was apparently a curse on the Bartholomew household.  It's not like the bad stuff wouldn't have happened if we weren't there, but while we were there it seemed to happen all at once.  First, their air conditioning went on the fritz during a record-breaking heatwave.  The kitchen fan broke.  Their awesome new stroller lost a washer off the front wheel and was unusable for our trip to the science center.  When leaving the science center, they got caught in terrible traffic with two unhappy boys and a screaming baby (we drove separately, and the GPS apparently has traffic avoidance, which I did not realize, and it magically got us back to their house long before they made it back).  And throughout Thursday and Friday while we were there, HVAC techs were in and out of the house multiple times a day, saying they were fixing the air conditioning but never quite seeming to get it resolved.

Even with all of that, everyone still seemed to have a good time!  The kids got along really well, and we did all sorts of fun things.  Baby Katie is adorable, of course, and much time was spent admiring her cuteness.  Our last night there, the girls got free t-shirts from a local ice cream shop, which totally made their day.  It was a really good trip, and it actually got me thinking that maybe I could do this sort of thing with the girls more often. 

At least I thought that until the day we left.  We ate breakfast at our hotel Saturday morning, then attempted to get on the road.  You know how I hadn't really heard any whining from the girls for the last three days?  They'd been saving it all up.  Even with movies and new toys purchased as souvenirs from Ohio, the trip back tested my sanity.  Our wonderful GPS wanted us to avoid DC on the way back home, so it sent us down 81, down 17, over to Fredericksburg, and then back to 95.  Which is fine, except Anna was going crazy because she didn't remember making that many turns on the way up to Ohio, so she felt it was her duty to tell me as often as possible that I was probably going the wrong way.

We pulled into our driveway around 6:15, home safely, but in foul moods.  Anna is still working on getting all of the whining out of her system that she saved up in Ohio, and Lizzie's sleep schedule is still off.  The day we came home, I swore I would never do a trip like that again without another adult.  But having a day or so to process it, the trip home wasn't too bad.  We were all just anxious to actually get home.  Give me a few more days, and I'll probably forget about the trip home altogether and be ready to plan another road trip!  Except this time, we'll try not to take the Goodman Curse along with us so that whoever we visit will want us to come back again :)

One of my least favorite parenting tasks

Potty training.  It's an important time for any little girl and boy, as they attempt to ditch the diapers and become big kids by wearing underwear.  It means no more spending tons of money on diapers and wipes, and it means your trash doesn't stink to high heaven (well, at least for diaper reasons).  It means expanded possibilities for activities, since a lot of places don't want your kid if they're still in diapers because they don't want to deal with it.  This milestone means many things, but I'm going to be quite honest... making it happen is one of my least favorite parenting tasks.  I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that sentiment.

Anna started asking to use the potty a few months before she turned two.  I remember thinking "Awesome, she'll be one of those kids who potty trains easily and early!"  Yeah, it didn't happen like that.  She lost interest a few weeks later, and it was almost two years later before we were done with lots of daytime accidents and I could say she really was fully potty trained.

So I've kind of been dreading the day that we start this process with Lizzie.  Over the past few weeks, she has been asking to go to the potty.  She has, in fact, been begging to go.  And yesterday when we were at the library, she zeroed in on and picked out a book called "Done with Diapers".  I think she's giving me hints she might be ready.  So today she got to pick out underwear, and she has her own little potty.  So here we go!  Wish us luck! 

Pomp & Circumstance

Today was Anna's preschool graduation.  Yes, it is a fact that Anna hasn't attended preschool since the end of April.  And it is also a fact that I think graduations for preschoolers are a little silly, and mainly just opportunities for parents to take more pictures of their kids.  So why were we there?  Here's why.

Back in May we took Anna to a meet and greet at her elementary school, where she will be starting Kindergarten in the fall.  Afterwards we were back at the house and out of the blue she asked me, "When am I going to graduate?"  I thought she meant her high school graduation, so I started talking about how that was far in the future, and I got interrupted with a "No, no, no, no, Mommy.  From preschool!  Like Carter and Jameson did last year!"  Carter and Jameson are two of Anna's preschool friends who are a year older than she is.  And when I told her that she was already done with preschool, she got kind of upset.  So a few minutes later I was on the phone with the preschool director, asking if Anna could come back for graduation (and worried that it might have already happened).

As it turned out, they weren't doing their preschool graduation until June.  So this week I took Anna back to preschool twice for graduation practice, where she learned the songs and practiced lining up and walking in.  And today was her graduation.

In the end I'm glad we did it.  She got to see her little preschool friends again, got a graduation dog that her classmates signed, and now she feels like she's crossed the last hurdle before Kindergarten.  But I still think that all of that pomp and circumstance for four and five year olds is a little much :)

Lizzie update at 2.5 years

Lizzie went to the doctor today for her 2 and a half year checkup.  Since her last checkup 6 months ago, she's grown an inch and a quarter and gained 2.5 pounds!  She's now 30 pounds (65th percentile) and 35 and 3/4 inches tall (also 65th percentile).  In December when she got her shots, she screamed her head off.  Today she got one shot and a finger prick, and there was no screaming and barely any crying - so proud of her :)  Of course, it was all made better by the purple lollipop!

The puddle walk

Even though my kids are drawn to puddles of water, I normally don't let them play in them.  It's not that I'm a neat freak, but I like to minimize the possible mess that enters the house that I will have to clean up.  Today, however, I decided to make an exception.  It had been raining pretty much since last night, and the forecast is calling for rain all day, every day, through Friday.  This does not bode well for my sanity, as I'm pretty sure the girls will be climbing the walls at some point between now and then.

But this afternoon, the clouds parted and we had a sun-coming-out-to-the-sound-of-the-choir-singing-hallelujah moment.  It was gorgeous, with a bright blue sky and fluffy white clouds.  I wanted to take the girls for a walk while the weather cooperated, but I knew that they would want to splash in the many puddles created by the storm.  So we went on a puddle walk - they wore their boots (snow boots, since they don't have rain boots that fit right now), and we went in search of water to splash in. 

They had a blast!  Their favorite part was the puddle-almost-lake that we found where they are doing road work in our neighborhood.  To quote Lizzie, "That's the hoogest puddle I ever seen!" (See below for a short video of them splashing and dancing their way through it.)

Near the end, the clouds were rolling back in and the girls were getting tired.  Their boots were soaking wet and heavy.  But their energy was temporarily renewed if they saw water running toward a storm drain or puddles at the edge of someone's driveway.  Lizzie picked up some thick grass she found and went "fishing".  And when we got in the house, their boots and socks were soaked, but easily contained by one big towel.  So I'd have to say that our puddle walk was a success!  But I wonder how long it's going to take for their boots to dry out...

(For more pictures of the puddle walk, see our May 2011 album.)

Your kid might be watching too much Disney Junior when...

The majority of what our kids watch on tv is the Disney channel.  I suppose I should probably turn it to PBS a little more, but they've become so attached to Disney that I don't even think about it.  And the stuff on Disney is harmless (although sometimes annoying) and comes with very few, if any, product placement commercials for toys, so I don't get the "I want that!  I want that!" that immediately comes when we temporarily turn it to most other channels.

However, sometimes I think I should give them a bit more television diversity, simply because it is possible they are being brainwashed by Disney.  Anna is not quite as bad, but Lizzie may be showing signs of watching a tad too much Disney Junior.  Some signs that Lizzie may be watching too much Disney Junior are:

• If we are outside and we are missing a tool to complete a task (say a ladder so Seth can finish taking down the Christmas lights), she yells "Oh Toodles!" and fully expects Toodles to show up with a mousketool
• Trains are referred to as "Chuggingtons"
• When going into a restaurant that has a gold, circular emblem above the door, Lizzie says "That's a gold dubloon!"
• Any item that can be worn around the neck that looks like it has a pouch on it is carrying pixie dust
• The song sung most often in our house is not Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, or Mary Had a Little Lamb, it is "Clap clap, fingersnap, time to check the mouskemap."

And if you are able to recognize and identify all of the items above, you might be watching a little too much Disney Junior, too :)

Kids stories from Saturday, April 9

Story #1
Normally I have to wake up much earlier than I want to on Saturdays because the kids are hungry and want breakfast when they wake up at the crack of dawn.  Today Seth got up with them and turned on the tv, and came back to bed.  I fell asleep, and when I woke up it was 9:30!  I freaked out, wondering why the kids hadn't come back upstairs to tell us they were hungry.  When I went downstairs, they were both munching on goldfish.  I noticed that the bathroom stepstool was in the kitchen.  Apparently Anna had gotten the stepstool so she could reach the bowls, then served goldfish.  Now that she's 5, I guess she's showing off her independence!

Story #2
Lizzie does not have the ABC song down just yet.  I almost died laughing while driving when Lizzie's version of the ABCs ended "Now I know my ABCs, next time I won't sing with you!"

A party fit for a princess

(Note: I'm a bit late in posting this one, but at least I finally got around to it!)

Since January, Anna has been looking forward to turning 5.  In February she was starting to get really antsy and asking us to count the weeks and days before March arrived.  Once we reached March, every single day I was asked at least twice to tell her how long it was until her birthday and party.  She would drop lines like "My birthday is coming, so I should get to <fill in activity she normally doesn't get to do here>."

Finally, the big day arrived.  Her actual birthday was on a Wednesday this year, and her party was the following Saturday.  (Just so you know, while I consider her actual birthday to be her actual birthday, Anna considers her actual birthday to be the day of her party.)  The first thing she said to me when I woke her up on Wednesday was "It's my birthday, can I open a present now?" in an extremely sleep voice.  That evening she opened the rest of her presents from us and that had been sent in the mail by wonderful family friends.

But Saturday was the big day.  She had chosen Tangled (Rapunzel) as her theme.  She had invited the little girls from her preschool class.  Most of our family was coming (which adds 10 more kids of varying ages, if Seth's whole family is there).  She dressed in the pretty spring dress that Lizzie had picked out for her as a birthday present.  And she would not sit still all day.  The party was at 2:30, and from the time she woke up until the first guest arrived, she was bouncing around asking when people would get there, and asking if everyone was late.

We played musical chairs (Anna's requested game), pass the tiara (think hot potato), pin the crown on the princess (best Dollar Tree game purchase ever), and had a pull-string pinata.  Anna received loads of presents, had a blast with her friends and family, and had a smile on her face the entire time.  The party was a smashing success, at least for the little girls.  I'm not so sure Anna's older male cousins had as great of a time as the little girls, but at least they got candy and cake :)

Click here to see more pictures.

We have many wonderful friends and family members who helped make Anna's birthday party an extremely special day for her.  I am so happy that she had such a great 5th birthday.  And now Lizzie's already talking to me about what she wants for her birthday.  As you can imagine, it involves Mickey Mouse cupcakes, Mickey balloons, and Mickey, Mickey, Mickey... let's see if that's what she still wants come November :)

Does paper breed like rabbits?

One of my big projects this week was building a bookshelf and rearranging the office.  One of the hardest parts of completing this project was not putting the bookshelf together.  And it was not emptying my desk so that it could be lifted by a human being, and not a forklift.  No, it was dealing with all of the paper that seemed to come out of nowhere as I was doing all of this.  Stacks of it just kept popping up everywhere. 

Where in the world did all the paper come from?  About once a week I go through my desk and recycle or shred stacks of paper.  I regularly file bills (the ones that aren't electronic) and important items.  But when I had cleaned out my desk, I had stacks on two office chairs and a huge pile on the bottom shelf of our new bookshelf.  And this did not include items already in file folders.

The only explanation I can come up with is that paper in the office (much like wire hangers and tiny Barbie accessories) breeds like rabbits.  Does anyone know where I can take the paper (and the wire hangers and Anna's tiny Barbie accessories) to have it spayed or neutered?  Please, help me prevent paper overpopulation in my home!

Only three remain

This morning my grandmother called me, and I knew something was wrong from the tone of her voice.  Her sister Margie passed away last night.  I realize how strange it may seem to some people that I am so saddened by the death of my great aunt.  How many people really know their great aunts?  But I count myself as lucky that I had the opportunity to know all of my grandmother's sisters during my life.

My grandmother is one of 12 children, and there were 6 girls: Ethel, Lola, Mabel, Augusta (my grandma), Margie, and Polly.  There was only about a year between the births of Mabel and my grandma, and then again between Grandma and Margie, and they were very close.  The three of them and Ethel stayed in the Charlottesville area, while Lola took Polly to upstate New York after their mother died.  I have memories of all them.

Ethel babysat me before I started Kindergarten.  I still remember running around her house, playing with the fake fruit, watching Bob Ross on tv, and walking over to the city park that was right next door to play.  She was like a third grandmother to me.

Lola may have lived in upstate New York, but I remember her visiting my grandmother all the time.  She would come down and stay for a week or two.  My most vivid memory of her is when I was in elementary school.  My grandmother found a tick on my head, and Lola thought the best way to get rid of it would be to burn it off.  I still have a small bump on the right side of my head that may or may not be scarring :)  She also made me and my cousin beautiful quilts when we were little.  I was always amazed at how well she could sew. 

Mabel went into a nursing home when she was relatively young, maybe in her 60s.  I don't remember what her illness was.  I do remember that my grandmother went to visit her all the time, and took me with her sometimes.  Mabel's experiences in that nursing home were the reason Grandma told me that if she ever needed to be put in one, I should take her out back and shoot her. 

Margie and my grandmother were really close, and would talk to each other on the phone all the time.  Margie used come to my grandmother's house to visit a lot when I was younger.  Margie came to my bridal shower.  The picture below is of Grandma and Margie, and Grandma is holding my nephew Alex.  Polly was there, too, and the three of them won the contest to make a wedding dress out of toilet paper.  I remember the three of them cracking me up as they were using my grandmother as the dress model.  I also have a picture of Margie "wrapping" Grandma, but all you see is the back of Margie's head.

Polly is the only girl besides my grandmother that is still alive.  She was the youngest girl and the baby of the family.  I remember going up to New York to visit Polly and all of her kids and grandkids when I was younger.  Polly and her husband Donald moved back to Charlottesville for a while, I believe when I was in high school, and lived in a house on the same property as my grandmother.  I would see her all the time.  She was a nanny for a UVA professor, and for my college graduation that professor got seats for her and Grandma at the stage at Old Cabell, where they could see everything (even me!).  She moved back to New York a few years ago, and due to heart problems she's not allowed to travel back down here.

I am so blessed to have had so many experiences with my great aunts.  How many people can say that they hung out so much with their grandmother's sisters?  Those women would fight and get mad at each other, but they loved each other and were always there for each other.  It makes me so sad to think that there are only three children left out of twelve (my great uncle Maurice is the only boy left).  But at the same time, look at the extended family that they have created.  I am so lucky to have had them all in my life.

Something funny happened when we walked in the shoe store...

It is amazing how fast kids' feet grow.  We bought Anna tap and ballet shoes that were a little too big for her in early September, before her dance class started, and in January I couldn't even get the ballet shoes on her.  We bought the girls tennis shoes around the same time, so I figured it was time to get some new ones. 
We ended up at Saxon shoes for several reasons: 1) Lizzie's feet are too wide for your run-of-the-mill Target, WalMart, or KMart shoes; 2) they have a pretty big selection; and 3) they give out balloons (this is really the most important reason, you understand).

Ms. Peggy measured Anna's feet, and she had grown almost a size and a half!  We walked around looking at shoes she might like.  I zeroed in on the pink ones initially, because pink is her favorite color.  The last time we went shoe shopping, she wanted pink shoes.  But she didn't seem to want any of the ones we were showing her.  Finally I asked her what color she wanted.  "Green!"  Ok, that's odd.  So Anna ended up with green shoes.  Actually, more like neon green, seem-to-emanate-their-own-light shoes.

Lizzie had also grown a size and picked out some blue and red tennis shoes (pretty typical for her, since she likes blue).  When we went to check out, Ms. Peggy asked the girls what color balloons they wanted.  Once again I was thrown for a loop - Lizzie wanted pink (not blue or purple, but not really strange since she likes pink, too) and Anna wanted... green?  What in the world?  I mean, I'm happy she's moving away from pink, but this is so unexpected!  Had something magically changed when we walked into the door of the shoe store?

After we got home, I asked Anna why she got green shoes instead of pink.  I was told that green is her next favorite color, and from the extremely long (and hard to understand) explanation that followed, I think she wants her shoes to be a different color, but everything else to be pink.  I guess green and pink are complementary colors (well, maybe pink and a normal green, I'm not so sure about the green on her shoes), but she certainly is happy with them, and I guess that's all that matters!

The Magic of Disney

This afternoon Anna helped me organize the pictures for our Disney World album.  And yes, if you are scratching your head because you remember us going to Disney World in spring of 2010 (over 9 months ago), you are right.  It has taken me that long to get my act together, get the pictures printed, and put them in the album.  (Click here to see the pictures on Picasa.)  But that's not the point of this post.

The point is that it continues to amaze me how much of an impact that trip had on Anna.  She had recently turned 4 before we went, and my assumption was that a couple months after the trip was over, she wouldn't remember anything, except a vague image of castles, princesses, and a life-size Mickey Mouse.  I had originally wanted to wait until the girls were older (Lizzie was only 18 months old), but Dad's health was failing and he really wanted to take them, so off we went.

While putting the pictures in order for the album, Anna gave me a narrative of various parts of our trip that apparently stood out in her mind.  I didn't have to prompt her.  She pointed to the first picture of the table we sat at at Cinderella's Castle and said "We ate lunch there!"  She remembers visiting Mickey Mouse's "house" after we got our picture taken with him.  She happily talked about shooting Seth with a water cannon at the kids water play area at the Contemporary.  She exclaimed "That took us up into space!" when looking at a picture of Grandma and Granddaddy on the Spaceship Earth ride at Epcot.  There were a few things she didn't remember, but it is amazing to me how much she does.  When looking at a picture of the restaurant in Norway at Epcot where we had our final princess-themed dinner, Anna said she would like to go eat dinner there tonight with the princesses, and could we please go catch a plane?

And speaking of planes, I'm not sure when this started, but if she sees a plane fly overhead now she yells "Take me to Disney World!" at it, as if it's supposed to land in our cul de sac right then so she can hitch a ride.

It won't be this year, but it looks like we need to plan a trip to Disney World again soon.  And I know Dad will be there with us in spirit.  And when I think about telling him how much Anna remembers of the last trip, I can almost hear him say "Of course she does!" in a condescending tone, as if he knew all along exactly how much of an impact it would have on her little growing mind.

British period drama - It's not just moving matchsticks

I cannot hide my love of British period dramas.  I believe it first came upon me when I saw Pride and Prejudice (all 6 hours of it) on PBS when I was in high school.  I also think that's when I fell in love with Colin Firth.  But I digress.

PBS also brought me a Jane Austen Masterpiece marathon a couple years ago, where they showed the made-for-British-tv versions of Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, Emma, Persuasion, and of course they showed Pride and Prejudice (but I already had that one on DVD, so I didn't have to wait three weeks to see the whole thing!).  My joy knew no bounds!  Then last year they showed Cranford, which I also immediately got on DVD.  I was frantic when I couldn't find my copy of Gosford Park, only to find my mother had borrowed it.  I loved Young Victoria.  And while it's not a period drama, we now own the entire series of Jeeves and Wooster.  We watched it before the tv series House came on the air - let me tell you how shocked I was to see Wooster (Hugh Laurie) as an American doctor!

The greatest thing about all of this is that Seth loves it all, too.  The first time I made him watch Pride and Prejudice, and he liked the first episode and couldn't wait to see the next, I knew he was my true love.  Do you know why our daughter Elizabeth's nickname is Lizzie, not Liz or Beth?  Because Seth pointed out that Lizzie was Elizabeth Bennett's nickname to her family and close friends.

So in the beginning of January I read a review of Downton Abbey on NPR's website, and discovered it was written by Julian Fellowes, who wrote Gosford Park, and immediately knew we had to watch it.  As a bonus, Maggie Smith plays the Dowager Countess. 



So we watched it.  And it's awesome.  We were so excited to see the last episode tonight (Sunday), wondering how it all would end.  Would Mary say yes to Matthew's proposal?  Would Matthew lose his inheritance to Lord Grantham's unborn child, should it be a boy?  What truths would Anna find out about Mr. Bates?  At a certain point I hit pause, and realized there were only 13 minutes left, and there didn't seem to be any way it could all be resolved in 13 minutes.  And then it ended, and so many things weren't resolved, and then a note flashed on the screen stating that a second season is in production.  Excuse me, what?  Second season?  Seth will bear witness that I actually threw my hands in the air and yelled at the tv, while he, great husband that he is, had already pulled out his laptop to find out when the next season will air.  Only to see me throw myself dramatically across the sofa when I discovered they don't film the next installment until March 2011.

I'm going to write a nasty little note to the NPR reviewer - he or she should have mentioned that it was a series, and that next season is not yet in production!  How dare they get me excited about a British tv show like this, only to have the expected ending ripped from me!  I have no idea how I'm going to manage for the next year, because that's how long it's going to take before it comes on the air in the US.  Seth and I have already discussed that we're going to have to buy it on DVD, then watch it again to prepare for the second installment.  I suppose I will need to re-watch all of my Jane Austen DVDs and Cranford to quell my desire for British drama until then.  Sigh.

(And for those of you who don't get the title of this post, please refer to Eddie Izzard's "Dressed to Kill" comedy special.  Oh yeah, he's a British transvestite comedian.  And he's freaking hilarious.  Come up to me and Seth and say "Do you have a flag?" and we will fall over ourselves laughing.  Seriously.)

Crazy Schedule vs. Lazy Schedule

On Monday afternoons Anna has dance class.  I usually feel like the odd one out during it.  Most of the moms already know each other because their daughters have older siblings that go to school together, or swim together, or play soccer together, or they live in the same neighborhood, and so on and so forth, giving them plenty of topics of conversation that I don't really feel like jumping in on.  I also happen to like watching my daughter try out new ballet and tap moves, or I'm chasing after Lizzie, so even if I can jump into the conversation I'm usually a bit distracted by my kids.

But today's "mom conversation" amazed me because I discovered that people with kids Anna's age apparently like to plug them into as many activities as possible.  Two of the girls in Anna's class are also participating in swimming and soccer.  One of the moms was talking about putting her preschool daughter in a swimming clinic because it would "take her out of her comfort zone and push her to the next level."  What?

For a split second, I wondered if I was a lazy mom.  Obviously these moms are willing to spend the time, money, and energy to put their preschool daughters into all of these different activities and push them to be successful.  Am I doing my child any favors by not doing the same?  Shouldn't I be getting her involved in all sorts of different sports to determine where she has talent and can improve or excel?

This feeling only lasted for that split second.  Anna turns 5 in March.  She goes to Kindergarten this fall.  One of the reasons I quit my 9-5 job was so that I could spend more quality time with my children and have more of a direct impact on their day-to-day lives.  I can't really imagine, at this point in Anna's life, dragging her around to all of those different activities.  She asked for dance class, and it is only one hour, but with getting ready, getting there, and getting home, it takes 2 hours out of our Monday, at least, in addition to having to make lunch earlier and change nap time.  And adding more classes or practices would seriously cut back on the things Anna seems to love most - making up songs, coloring, dancing around the living room, coming up with crazy, outlandish stories involving her princesses and other toys, and generally being herself.

Maybe when she's in middle or high school and has a better idea of what she really wants to be involved in, then we'll have the crazy schedule I hear a lot of the other dance moms talking about.  But until then, I'm really only interested in my preschooler being a preschooler.  For other families, the packed schedule may be right around age 5, but I don't think it's right for us.  Hopefully this parenting decision won't scar my girls too much in the long run!

The awful, horrible, no good, very bad quiet time

Quiet time/nap time in our house is my sanity hour.  I can take a breather, waste some time with e-mail and surfing the internet, or make some important phone calls where I don't have "Mommy Mommy Mommy!" or incessant screaming going on in the background.  The house is peaceful.  Usually.  Then there are those days, like this past Monday, where it just doesn't happen.

I went with Anna to her room to begin quiet time.  She no longer naps, but she can play quietly and must stay in her room.  I point out to her on her clock what time she is allowed to leave the room.  On Monday, Anna had been begging to have her nails painted.  I told her that if she was good for quiet time then we would paint her nails afterwards.  Then I went to lay Lizzie down.  Lizzie is fighting a cold, so she was congested and couldn't fall asleep.  That's happened before, and I let her play quietly in her room as well, and shut her door.

I started tackling dishes (the ones I don't want the kids to "help" with), but a few minutes later I heard the pitter patter of two pairs of little feet in the hall upstairs.  I should note that Lizzie still hasn't figured out how to open her door, so the fact I could hear both of them either meant she had just now figured it out, or it meant that Anna had left her room and opened Lizzie's door.  So I went upstairs, found them both in the hallway, and Anna confessed that she had opened Lizzie's door.  I put Anna back in her room, pointed out to her that she would not get her nails painted now because she was supposed to stay in her room, and then put Lizzie back in her room. Of course, Anna was not a happy camper, and "quiet time" was no longer quiet as she fussed loudly about her punishment.  I decided to just ignore her alternating grumbling and crying about it, but she kept it up for a good 15 minutes.

It was nearing the end of quiet time when I heard a very loud thunk that sounded like it came from Lizzie's room.  I went upstairs and into her room, where I was confronted with disaster.  A piece of the curtain was ripped and hanging by just a thread, clothes were on the floor, a dresser drawer was also on the floor (hence the thunk), and pieces of black string and hundreds of blue beads were strewn across her room.  It didn't take me long to figure out that while out of her room earlier, Lizzie had gone into Anna's room and grabbed a beaded bracelet I let Anna play with, then pulled it apart.  I must have missed that she had it when I put her back in her room.

The way I spoke to both girls about the situation was probably not one of my finer parenting moments.  To say I was upset is definitely an understatement.  However, whatever I said, or the tone of my voice, something had an impact, because they were both perfect angels playing quietly and doing as they were told for the rest of the afternoon... at least until their daddy got home.  But I had sent him an e-mail immediately after cleaning up the destruction to tell him they were all his that evening, so I let him deal with that :)