It was a great 3 day weekend, that was filled to the brim with fun things, so I’m going to work my way backward starting with yesterday – Monday, Labor day.

I’ve always thought this was a fun idea – a cake to celebrate the beginning of the new school year. It originally was a cake a friend of mine made because she was so relieved to have the kids out of the house for a large portion of the day again, but I think it still works for us.

I put a twist on it though, we made it a KID-ONLY cake. Meaning, only KIDS are allowed to make it! I told them what to do, I held the bowl when they scraped it into the pan, and I put it into the oven, but other than that, this cake was made by KIDS ONLY! They were SO PROUD!

View all the photos in this here fancy photo-scrollin’-seein’ thingee below:

E: this submarine is really bitchin.
A: WHAT did you say?
E: because it’s super fast and–
A: honey, what was the word you used?
E: uhh, I can’t remember now.
A: did you say bitchin?
E: yeah, that was it.
A, trying to not crack up: honey, that’s actually a bad word.
E: oh.
A: I know you didn’t know, but try not to say it again.

It is pretty bitchin.

THE GIRL

This morning Jocelyn had picked out a pair of shorts that had a little drawstring bag attached to the front belt loop. We dithered about what to put in it, and settled on a little wooden clothespin doll I had painted last christmas. It fit about halfway in, with the head and torso sticking out.

When we arrived at school and she was getting out of the truck, I said, “Oops, don’t your little doll girl fall out! Little Pansy! Is that a good name? Shall we name her Pansy?”

“No..”

“How about Lucy?”

“Emma!*”

“No.. TOYOTA!”

THE BOY

And in Ethan news, he had made a little lego car/tank creation that he wanted to take in to school. During the school year, and always for Jocelyn, our policy is toys can go to school in the car, but there they must stay. So my instant response was that it has to stay in the car.

He moaned and groaned a bit, but it was pretty contained, not getting near any sort of tantrum territory.

He brought it in the car, and when we were halfway to school, he said, “Mommy, I would like to just take this toy in for a quick minute, just to show Austin.”

He hesitated a second, and then quickly added, “But if you say no, then that’s ok. It’s ok, if you say no, Mommy.”

I didn’t respond, but mulled it over the rest of the way to school. Earlier, I went with our go-to response for toys, but for summer camp, kids bring their hand-held gaming devices and pokemon cards and all sorts of crap. Why would a little lego car be any different?

“You can bring it in, Ethan. We’ll ask the counselor when we get in if it’s OK.”

“Thank you Mommy! You are the BEST!”

It’s pretty easy to be the best to such a sweet boy.

THE PARENTS

Every week of summer camp, on Fridays there’s a “big event.” The preschool campers have theirs posted on the board right as you walk into the school, and the older campers have theirs at the front of their wing of the school. James and I… well, we don’t usually check either of them very often.

This morning, the preschool campers had “Beach Day!” as their big Friday event. They were supposed to arrive in their swimsuits and bring any related beach articles they wanted (toys, chairs, umbrellas, etc.)

It’s been a somewhat distracting week ANYWAY, and yes, neither James nor I clued in to this fact. So after I took the kids in, I had to high-tail it BACK home, grab her suimsuit, towel, and water shoes, and head BACK to school. It’s times like this that I wish we didn’t pick a school for them that’s in the next town over. And of course (and I’m going to stick to “this week sucked” as my go-to excuse here), Jocelyn’s swimming suite, water shoes and towel were still in the plastic grocery bag, all wet, from splash day on Wednesday.

Oops.

Next week is the school’s last week of summer camp, and Ethan and Jocelyn’s last week at that school. They’ll be moving to a daycare/school that’s close to us, and that buses public school kids to their school (for Ethan). I’ve already spilled my guts about how much we love our current school, so I won’t get into it all over again, but … Wah.

One of the things we did for James for father’s day was make superman t-shirts. One for daddy (SuperDaddy!), one for Ethan (SuperBoy!) and one for Jocelyn (SuperGirl!).

Ethan didn’t want to wear his on Father’s day, but Jocelyn was more than game. A shot of SuperDAddy and SuperGirl at SuperSweetWaterTavern where the supers get their Father’s day sustenance (not to mention beer).

I also made a print of this image and framed it for James:

It was a nice father’s day, even though near the end I did have to say to James, “I realize it’s father’s day and I should be watching the kids so you can relax and all, but you may have to step in in order to keep me from strangling them.”

In other news, summer camp is in it’s first week, which means lots of fun activities for the kids at school. Ethan usually goes somewhere for a specific activity (bowling, pool, mini golf) in a school van in the morning, and then comes back in the afternoon more open playtime. He is also allowed to take his Nintendo DS to school (which wasn’t allowed during the school year by us or the school) and he usually is playing it when I pick him up.

Wednesday as I was tucking him in to bed, he said, “My neck hurts.” Now, James has been sick for the last three days so I immediately checked his forehead for any signs of fever and felt his glands. All fine.

“Is it inside your neck, like your throat? Or more on the outside, like your muscles?”

“It’s on the outside.”

Hmm. I told him he’d feel better in the morning and left it at that.

Yesterday when I picked him up at school, again, he was playing his DS. I tore him away so he could you know, say Hi or give me a hug or something, and noticed his eyes were red-rimmed and somewhat bloodshot. Suddenly I realized what his “sore neck” was from.

“How long did you play your DS today?” I asked him on the way home.
“A LONG time,” he answered.

We have a gamer-boy on our hands, who has strained neck muscles from hunching over and bloodshot eyes from peering at the screen for who knows how many hours a day.

I told him when we got home, the DS was done for the day. I also stressed the importance of taking BREAKS and that there were LOTS of OTHER things he could do at summer camp, he didn’t have to JUST play his DS all afternoon. I also talked to one of the counselors and asked her to maybe encourage him to do some other things this afternoon. We’ll see.

Gamer-boy.

So now that I have ostracized all ELEVEN of my readers (i know, a gross exageration) by NOT POSTING A THING FOR WEEKS, let me just slay you know with the WORDS WORDS WORDS!

….. WORDS!

No pictures, either, not even if you beg!

Some assorted thoughts and happenings from my mother’s visit (my dad did not come at the last minute, doh!).
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Tonight when Jocelyn pulled off her t-shirt, part of it stuck on her head. Usually, we leave it there and call it “long princess hair!” But this time, it was partially covering her face, specifically, her left eye.

“I’m a PIRATE!” she called out gaily.
“She’s a PIRATE!” Ethan called out gaily.
“Look it’s a PIRATE!” I called out gaily.

“Ahoy!” said Ethan.
“Ahoy!” said Jocelyn.
“Say, ‘Yo ho yo!'” I said.
“YO HO HO!” Jocelyn chortled, pulling her t-shirt down further over her eye.
“Say, “WALK THE PLANK, YE SCURVY LASSEY!” I said.
“WALK THE PLANK YOU FLOPPY PLASTIC!” Jocelyn said.
“Say ARRRRGHHH!” Ethan said.
“ARRRRRRRRRGH!” Jocelyn said.
“Say ‘schwab the deck, ye landlubbers!” I said.
“Schwab the deck you ladyfingers!” She hollered with delight.

Then I turned into mean mommy and made them brush their teeth, despite their claims that pirates don’t brush teeth.

TONIGHT:
Blessedly, no planned activities (ie: birthday parties, free scoop of ice cream days, soccer/tball games/practices, etc.)
This means we will be home to:
change all the sheets on all the beds
– our bed has about a cup of sand in it, thanks to Ethan taking off his socks in there
– the kids’ beds haven’t been changed in over a week now
Start laundry, make sure all soccer/tball uniforms are, or will be clean for Saturday
Find soccer picture order forms that need to be handed out to parents Saturday (check under laundry)
Wash mountain of dirty dishes in sink
Make kids clean up their art table and the 1,472 million tiny scraps of paper that have fallen on the floor around said art table. (check scraps to make sure they’re not the picture order forms)

SATURDAY:
7am – Everyone rises and parents struggle to bathe dress themselves and get 2 children dressed as well. (OK, maybe just 1 parent struggles while the other dresses themself.)
8am – Ethan’s Tball pictures. (Face should be jam free.) (perhaps with just 1 parent)
9am – Ethan’s Tball game. (Other parent arrives with other child)
11ish – Tball game over.
11:15 Amy freaks out that she hasn’t found picture order forms yet.
12:30 – Amy choir rehearsal
1:30 – Jocelyn soccer game (send james your sympathies for dealing with this on his own) (hopefully picture order forms have been found by now)
3:30 – Amy choir rehearsal over
4:30 – Amy & kids Ikea trip (w/ or w/out James depending on how frazzled he is from dealing with the soccer game on his own) to obtain goody bag items for upcoming Ethan birthday party (note to james: if you don’t come, your wife may come home with unplanned purchases) (like a RUG, we really could use a RUG in the basement!)

SUNDAY:
8:30am – Amy rises, struggles to bathe and dress herself
8:45 – Amy gets breakfast for the kids (who will be up by then) before heading out, still bleary eyed, for the third week in her PAID SINGING GIG!! (I know! I rock, baby!) (I singing in a church choir for sunday mass)(lightning hasn’t struck once!)
9:30 rehearsal
10:30 – mass
11:30 – mass over, amy heads home
12:15 amy arrives home and crumples in a heap on the floor.
1:30 amy picks self up and gets ready for choir concert, and leaves for concert venue
2:00 amy rehearsal at concert venue
3:30 james gathers various quiet activities (coloring books, paper dolls) and heads to concert with kids
4:30 choir concert in which amy has several solos
5:30 concert over, after vague milling around and socializing, amy and family head home.
6pm – amy and james collapse in a heap on the floor while the children play at the art table and scatter roughly 2,258 million tiny scraps of paper on the floor.
7pm – amy freaks out that her parents will be arriving in exactly 1 week and hasn’t managed to clean the entire house from top to bottom and will have no time in the coming week or weekend in which to do so! Whew!

So! Busy weekend for us! How about you?

First of all, I”m glad to hear that I am not the only one with a holy terror of the parental visit. Thanks gals for all your comments (is it weird that it is only GIRLS that commented? I THINK NOT!)

So yesterday, the note on the kindergarten board that informs parents what their kids did that day, held huge news. The kindergarteners had compiled and were taking home – their Kindergarten Phone book, with the names and phone numbers of everyone in their class.

Ethan was, to say the least, excited. He also held a little scrap of paper which he said was Austin’s phone number. As to why this number wasn’t in the phone book, he couldn’t say.

While I was picking up kids, James had arrived home and was starting dinner when Ethan received his first phone call. James was somewhat disconcerted, not knowing that kindergarteners everywhere were doubtless phoning up their buddies all over the prince william county area. He made sure a parent was near, took a message and then promptly called me.

“You’ll never guess who just called.”
“Someone for Ethan?”
“YES!”

Tee hee. I should have placed money on it.

“You got your first phone call, Ethan! Sean called you!”
“What did daddy tell him?”
“He told him you’d call him back when you got home.”
“ALL RIGHT! I’M GOING TO CALL HIM BACK!”

When we got home, Sean received his return phone call, Austin was also called and not being home, a message left for him. Then Lucy was called, and they discussed plans for meeting at the park in the near future. Other things that were discussed: Ethan’s upcoming birthday party and Austin’s upcoming birthday party.

After each phone call, Ethan usually beamed with pride and declared, “MY VERY FIRST PHONE CALL!!” (even if it was, at that point, his 3rd or even 4th.)

Jocelyn was not to be outdone, and wanted to make some phone calls of her own, so I let her call Grandma and Grandpa. They weren’t home, so she left a message for them. Ethan got a return phone call from Austin while he was in the bathtub (which was a fantastic way to get him out of the tub, which is always a chore). Grandma called Jocelyn back in about 10 minutes, and Jocelyn said “Hi Grandma! BYE!” and then passed the phone to me.

Yes, indeed, I’m surprised that the phone lines were able to manage all the extra usage as many 6 year olds (AND THEIR SIBLINGS!) tied up lines everywhere to call their friends they had just seen hours earlier.

This morning before getting dressed, he wanted to call Jenni. I managed to forestall that one, by saying she might be at school already.

Boy oh boy. OH boy.

It was just an ordinary working at home sick as a dog with a sore throat…

When I finished up work at around 4pm and started going through my long neglected Google reader and it was about the time when I *should* have gotten up and gone and picked up my kids, when I got caught up on Arjewtino, a fellow DC blogger, who was running a contest for whoever is the 100,000th visitor to his blog.

Suddenly, I wasn’t going ANYWHERE. I could smell VICTORY!

So I kept my ass on that couch and clicked. AND CLICKED. AND clicked!

What would my efforts yield if I won? Why several items featuring Sir Arjewtino himself, the first being a baseball card from his time at the Dodgers fantasy camp, and the second being a picture of his buttocks. No… not just any picture of his buttocks… An AUTOGRAPHED ass picture. NOW WE’RE TALKIN’!

THERE WAS NO GIVING UP NOW! Because you know, I HAD to have those buttocks! There is a deep dark corner in my closet, which I keep locked, because all the porn, guns, and crack is in there, and yes, that corner is just BEGGING for a framed butt picture!

So yes… I did win. I sat and watched the stats climb up to the 99,999 number, and then swiftly loaded up the site. That’s right people, if you want to WIN, you’ve got to PAY ATTENTION AND DO WHAT IT TAKES.

And so, I give those that did not win these parting words.

SUCK IT, LOSERS!

I asked Arjewtino to please shoot the non-fuzzy side.

When I told James I had won a MAJOR AWARD! he asked if it will say “FRA-JEEEE-LAY!” on the side when it arrives.

Just go see it yourself. Safe for work, will only take 40 seconds. CLICK!