Not Too Sure About This One

You Are Animal

A complete lunatic, you're operating on 100% animal instincts. You thrive on uncontrolled energy, and you're downright scary. But you sure can beat a good drum. "Kill! Kill!"

The Muppet Personality Test

I really don't see myself as Animal, although he was one of my favourites. Maybe a little of my life is seeping into my subconscious. Between being in charge of tracking volunteer hours at the school for PTA (I did get a permanent name tag for that one, though!), being a small group discussion leader for MOPS (luckily that starts in 2 weeks), co-leading a Brownie troop (next week was supposed to be our first meeting, but the school moved Curriculum Nights to that week, so we have a week to figure out what needs to get done), being guilted into taking a room parent job two days ago (and I have to have everything ready before above mentioned Curriculum Nights), making Upside-down cupcakes with Umbrellas for the Letter U themed snack for Mischa's class, having Perry out of town, and recovering from a bad week headache-wise, banging on some drums sounds pretty good.

Mom, It's Still Alive!

I was getting everyone's snack ready this morning when Caleb yells down the stairs that there is a cockroach in his room (and it's a cockroach, not a roach, he informs me). I told him I'd get to it in a few minutes. In the hustle of last minute hair/teeth/shoes/bug spray, I forgot about it. I was brushing Michaela's hair and in the mirror I see him in the dark bedroom behind me. "Mom, it's still alive!" He dangles the roach, sorry, cockroach by the antenna. Ack! I yell at him to drop it, so now it's in my room! Double ack! Luckily I had a plastic cup (see Honey, my OCD is useful!) nearby, so scooping and flushing was painless.

Tiger and Me- the Even Dozen Club

This Sunday, Tiger Woods won his 12th PGA tournament, and Perry and I celebrated our 12 anniversary. Unfortunately, this won't be the reason why this anniversary will be so unforgettable.

I got up Saturday morning to do my usual chores of making a menu for the next week and create a shopping list from it. In doing this, I realize for the first time, that my anniversary is the next day. Crud. I can't believe, even with the crazy week I had, that I would forget. 50 lashes with a wet noodle for me.

Evening comes, and I'm waiting for Perry to get home from getting some home repair stuff so I can go out and get him a gift. At 8:30, I hear a thud and then Michaela starts screaming. They have some video game chairs that rock and it seems that she was standing on one end and Caleb jumped on the other, propelling Michaela into the air. She came down on her back and whacked the back of her head really good on the floor. I get her to sit down and put some frozen corn on it- wow, veggies are good for something after all! At 9:00, Perry gets home and the vomiting starts. As the resident concussion specialist, and recent first aider, I'm getting scared. Perry calls the nurse helpline, and even though she sounds OK, we decide to take Michaela in. Perry drives to the nearby urgent care center, to find out that it closes at 9:00. He then had a fun time with a toll booth cashier because he missed his exit when Michaela decided to go to sleep on him and worry him. After about 5 minutes, she decide that the state of Georgia can live without Perry's 50 cents and sends him through. At 12:30 I get a last update before I'm told to go to bed. Michaela is going to have a CT scan as a precaution, then they're going to give her some Gatorade to see if she keeps it down, then send her home. They got home around 3:45. Our actual anniversary celebration was pretty subdued. We kicked the kids to the kitchenette table, and had a nice adult dinner, while Anneliese walked around, begging corn and pork roast off of our plates.

I am so thankful to have Perry as a husband. He has kept me sane more times than he knows. He is the rock in this relationship and I appreciate everything he does for me. I could not have asked for a kinder, more loving man to be my husband forever. Perry, I love you, and you will be getting a gift, either today or tomorrow. Promise!

Oops!

*I finally got the pictures downloaded- Thanks Perry!!

I mentioned Caleb almost getting a concussion in a previous post, and then forget to say what happened (must be a thing with me and concussions, what do you think, Perry?). The day started out normal enough (after all of the rain and what not). I went to the school at 10 to drop off Caleb's Epi-pen and Benadryl. There was a little girl there that was just being picked up by her mom. The school nurse and I chatted a little about how sad to be sick on the first day of school. Three hours later, I get a call (I have the clinic but not the school on my list of numbers on my cell, how sad is that, lol) from the clinic- Caleb tripped when he was walking up the stairs to the playground and bumped his head pretty good. Off I go to the school. He has a HUGE knot on his forehead and two cuts by his eye. He also scrapped up his elbow. On the way back to the car, Joshua tripped on the sidewalk and scrapped up his knee. I think I'm going to go buy some huge boxes, cut some arm and leg holes and a face hole, pop the kids in them, and fill them with packing peanuts. I'll have to see about uploading the pictures- poor Caleb!

Bananas!

Anneliese LOVES bananas. I was holding a piece and letting her take bites off of it. I wasn't paying attention, and the next thing I knew, she had grabbed a hold of my arm to bring it down so she could reach the banana. With every bite she was dancing and mm-mmm-mmming. After she swallowed, she would say, "Yeah".

Now, as if waiting for a late bus in the rain this morning, and Caleb practically getting a concussion on the playground wasn't enough- I now have the COMPLETELY INCOMPETENT afternoon bus driver. We're near the end of the route (3 more stops after us), but they have it on the schedule as 4 minutes away from the start of the route. Last year they got out at 2:15 and were home by 2:30, 2:35 at the latest. I went out to the bus stop at 2:15. At 3:15 (yes, 3:15) still no bus. Finally I see the bus at the next stop up, where my friend's kids get off. He let them off the bus and just sat there. My neighbour drives up and asks if the kids were home yet. I said no, the guy is just sitting there. So he drives up and talks to him. At the corner where I am, he's supposed to turn left and go up my street to the next 3 stops (2 are on my street). He stops at the corner, lets a girl off in front of her house. Then keeps going STRAIGHT!!!! I try waving him down, but he keeps going. I call my friend to see if Michaela was on the bus, and she tells me her kids say she was, and the little kindergartener next door wasn't even on the bus! Her mom had NO idea where she was! I call the school, they tell me to call Transportation. I've been trying for over an hour and the number has been busy (wonder why?grrrrrr). The school calls me at 4, telling me the driver took her back to school. My friend came over to sit with the kids since the two youngest were sleeping.

The Weatherman Must Die

Well, okay, maybe not that drastic. Thumbscrews, maybe. Or babysitting for me for a whole weekend. Yeah, that'll be good punishment. I keep the news on in the morning so that I can hear the weather for the bus stop. Everything looked good this morning. Last year, the bus driver moved the stop to the end of our driveway since we were the only ones getting on at our scheduled stop. She told me at the last day of school that she might not be coming back, so we trekked next door to the bus stop. The bus is scheduled to be here at 7:22, so we leave the house at 7:15. Things are going great, then around 7:20, it starts to sprinkle. By the time I run home and get an umbrella, the bus will have come and gone. So we decide to get underneath a pine tree and all is well. Then I start hearing louder rain, and you can see it moving down the street. It's about 7:30 at this time. Great. By now, the tree is getting saturated, so we're getting dripped on. The 3 older kids are hiding under my shirt, because I'm convinced that any second the bus is coming, so it's not worth going back to the house. Anneliese is loving the rain. At 7:35 the bus comes, with a new driver. I take the youngest two and we trudge back to the house in the rain, which is starting to let up. About 2 minutes after we get back in the house, it stops completely. Ha ha ha. Good one, Heavenly Father.

Huh?

Joshua came up to me just now, asking me to watch him take his head off. Okaaaay. I watch him try in vain to pull his head off. "Mommy", he says sorrowfully, "it won't come off." It took everything I had to remain somber, trying hard not to laugh at his seriousness. I wonder what made him think that his head would come off, and then I wondered what he would do with it if it could come off. Better leave that one alone. I really don't want to know the answer to that.

The Last Hurrah of Summer

School is almost upon us. Tomorrow the kids will go and meet their new teachers, and Monday is the first day (excuse me while I go do the dance of joy). It was nice spending more time with all of the kids, but I won't miss the fighting they did with each other. Well, it was mainly Caleb and Michaela against poor Joshua. He got so used to being top dog for most of the day during the school year and they reminded him daily that he wasn't. Unfortunately for him, I think Anneliese has plans for a coup d'etat.
Yesterday was a doozy. I have a friend from my MOPS group that moved in last year just down the street. She has four kids, too, so we like hanging out together because, as she said, it makes us look less crazy. Our kids get along really well, although we think it is funny that they have all teamed up boy-girl. Her oldest, a girl going into 1st grade, is in love with Caleb. We thought she and Michaela would get together, but I guess we were wrong. She has twin boys going into kindergarten. One hangs out with Michaela, and the other is attached to Anneliese, much to his mom's worry, since that attachment is in the form of him carrying her around. Joshua has teamed up with her 2 year old girl.
The whole basis for the day started out with Backyard Burgers. On Tuesdays, they have Kids Eat Free night. For $6.37, we got 4 orders of waffle fries, 3 orders of chicken fingers, 4 sodas, and a really delicious mushroom Swiss burger. I think I have a new Tuesday night dinner plan when Perry goes out of town. Anyhow, the only one that my friend knew about was in Cumming, so we were trying to figure out something to do up there to make the trip worthwhile (just looking at the website, the closest one to us is a few miles away- YAY! I really like the food, can ya tell?). She has a friend who invited us to go swimming, so that killed a few hours in the afternoon. Last week when she told me about Backyard Burger, she told me about a park she had found, so we decided that this would be our morning plan to tire the kids out. It was a really nice park. Lots of shade, places for the kids to play, and a little manmade creek running next to a sand pit, so the kids could make sandcastles. Our day pretty much went like this:
9:45 Leave for park
10-11 Play
11-11:30 Picnic lunch at park
11:30-1 Play some more
1-3 Go home, get ready for swimming
3-3:30 Drive up to Cumming
3:30-6:30 Swim
6:30-7 Get everyone dressed in the cars for dinner
7-8:30 Dinner
8:30-9 Drive home

The kids had a blast. Anneliese even had fun in the pool. She usually grabs on to you and whimpers, but yesterday she was splashing, head butting Michaela, letting me put her on her back, and hold her out and spin her around. I thought the kids would fall asleep in the car, but everyone was awake when I pulled into the driveway. The kids had slept in a fort under the dining room table the night before, so I said they could sleep in it again last night. Caleb and Michaela pretty much went straight to sleep, but Joshua was up for over 30 minutes. At 3:45 in the morning I was awakened by the t.v. coming on downstairs. Both of the boys were up. I sent them back to bed. Everyone slept in. Joshua was up pretty close to his normal time, and Michaela followed not long after. Caleb was asleep till almost 9, and Anneliese slept until 9:30. That was nice. What's not nice is the housework I have for today. Ugh. Guess I'd better get started.