Wednesday Miscellany

1) I'm a week into a lovely Summer cold. This probably didn't help my mood trying to get the kids out the door this morning. I'm also four days into Eric being gone, and that rarely helps either.

2) Yesterday Owen told me that he needed a card in his lunch box. "A card?" I asked. "Yes, it needs to say 'I Love You' on it". Ok. "Do your other friends have cards in their lunch box?", "Yes, everyone!". Really?! So this morning I found a cute card in my card stash, (I almost grabbed a mother's day card since he can't read yet, he wouldn't know the difference!), and wrote "I love you Owen, and I hope you have a wonderful day!!, Love Mommy". And I put it in his lunch box. It felt really nice to put a card in his lunch. As we were getting into the van and about to leave, he said he wanted to see the card and know what it said. I pulled it out and read it to him. He immediately freaked out and started crying/raging. !?? Apparently he didn't like what I wrote and wanted a new card that said: "I love you Owen, and day and day and day." (I don't even know what means.) But, because I am a loving and giving mother (and I was freaking desperate to get Andrew to school on time, and a little fuzzy from the cold) I wrote him a new card and stuck it in his lunch box. And this, my friends, is the crap that you will do for your kids that they do not tell you about in parenting books.

3) We've being doing regular loose tooth checks because there's first grade epidemic of teeth falling out and Andrew has yet to lose a tooth. So at bedtime on Monday we did our check and hurray! Andrew has a loose tooth. Then Andrew proceeded to loose his sh*t. I mean really started to freak out and cry. Like he was going to lose-a-limb cry. Then Owen started to cry. Then Owen started to say he was going to be sick. Let me just state for the record that this was not the reaction I was expecting. All h*ll was breaking loose because Andrew has a loose tooth!! OMG. I quickly figured out that Andrew 1) was afraid of the pain when the tooth fell out, and 2) was really sad that his tooth was not going to be in his mouth any more. Because he was going to miss his tooth! (I foresee some attachment issues in his future). I was able to convince Andrew that if we left the tooth alone and let nature do its thing, that tooth was not going to hurt when it fell out. I also told him that we could write a special note to the toothfairy and he would be able to keep his tooth. Phew. That calmed Andrew down, and Owen. Thankfully Owen did not puke.

4) Andrew and Owen are both in school now. Andrew is in first grade and Owen has started preschool again at the J. Both boys go everyday. You know what the worst part of dropping off the kids in the morning is? Sarah. It just wrecks Sarah that she isn't staying at school too. If I had my way, she's happily stay in the stroller while the four of us walk Andrew do his classroom. But, she's figured out how to drag her feet in the stroller so I can't push her safely if she doesn't want to be in the stroller. So she's walking. But not really, she's running when we drop off Andrew. Running into a sea of 1,000 kids. So I'm running after her. All the while trying to make sure I know where Owen and Andrew are. Once we finally get to Andrew's line, drop him off and start to walk back to the car, she stalls. Runs away. Wants to play tether-ball, runs to the play ground. Dropping off Andrew is a 30 minute affair. Then guess what. We get to do it all over again when we drop off Owen. It. Is. Not. Fun. It is not fun to pull a kicking and screaming two year old off the playground and carry her to the car (this is after I've tried the warnings, the counting to three, the promise of donuts...) It's one of those times I'm making other parents feel really good about themselves. Sarah starts preschool on September 6th, I'm not sure who is more excited ; ).


5) Here are a few snapshots from yesterday. Another beautiful day at the pool! (I wanted to end this post on a high note :)