Recipe For A Perfect Morning

1.  When your alarm goes off at 6:15 so you can get up and exercise, lie there and register your cramps, then shoot awake in a panic realizing that you forgot to do your Tooth Fairy role last night. 

2.  Run downstairs, find a dollar, run back upstairs and sneak into Juliana's dark room.  As you slide your hand under the pillow, hear Juliana whisper, "I haven't checked yet." 

3.  Check together, find the tooth and the note to the Tooth Fairy still intact.   Rack your uncaffeinated mind then point out that since she's lost two teeth in three days, maybe the Tooth Fairy wasn't expecting to come back so soon. 

4.  Give up any thoughts of exercising and snuggle with your daughter in your bed.  Try to convince her not to turn 7 tomorrow.  Six has been a really great year.

5.  When it's finally time to get up, send her to the bathroom then scramble back to exchange the tooth for a dollar.  Shove the note asking "Dear Tooth Fairy, What do you use our teeth for?  Please leave an answer." behind the headboard so you can pretend like the Tooth Fairy never saw it. 

6.  Take the kids to school along with two dozen cupcakes for Juliana's class.  Have a cupcake emergency on the way as one of the packages slides off the other and opens just enough to toss half the cupcakes onto their sides.  (By the way, if I had a band, I would totally name it Cupcake Emergency.)

7.  Get snipped at by the school secretary for daring to interrupt her as you attempt to do yet another volunteer job for the school.

8.  Run around the school like a mad-woman because it's an early release day and you don't want to spend all morning there.

9.  Realize that on top of your cramps, you have a headache from wearing your brand new progressive lens bifocals.  Stop to ponder how old and run down you are.

10.  Have a hot flash that necessitates you coming home and putting on a fresh shirt.  Toss that sweaty shirt into the third load of laundry you're already on.

11.  Savor the thought of a nice long weekend with your darling children.  They'll be home at lunchtime today and they don't go back to school until Wednesday.

Back! And With Pictures!

All righty, I'm done with the sucky blogging.  From this day forward, I'm going to try and post something every day, even if it's something quick.  The longer I go between posts, the harder it is for me to get jump-started.

ANYhow, we just got back from a long weekend in San Diego.  Ritu's brother got married on the beach at the Hotel Del Coronado.  It was a simple, intimate, and  beautiful affair. 

Here's a view of the hotel from the beach:


It rained the day of the wedding.  Laura had her heart set on being married on the beach and with only 20 guests and a quick and easy set-up, they were able to wait until the last minute when the sun miraculously came out.
Here's the bride joyfully stepping onto the beach:

My kids both got to be in the wedding.  For Juliana, it was an absolute dream come true.  She got to be a flower girl! A flower girl!!  I never got to be a flower girl and I had to stop myself from grabbing the basket of rose petals out of her hands.  David got to be the ring bearer.  While Juliana would've slept in her dress, he barely tolerated wearing the white shirt and khakis required of him.  Could they be cuter?

Seriously, could they?

The whole event was all-in-the-family.  Neal and Laura asked Ritu to officiate the ceremony.  California has a Wedding Commisioner for a Day program that granted him the authority to do that.  I tell you, that man was drunk on power for weeks. 

How Girls Are Different From Boys

"Did you have fun playing with Shannon?"

"Yes, we played Star Wars and in it, Darth Vader loved Shannon."

Give A Little Whistle

Good Lord, I am the worst blogger ever.  I could give you a big old sob story about why I can't seem to write consistently.  It would be 24 straight hours that sound like this:  blah blah blah snow days whine whine whine houseguests blah whine blah why the hell do I volunteer? whine blah whine sore throat runny nose blah blah blah.  Consider yourself filled in. 

It doesn't help my mood that David has learned to whistle.  You know when your kids are little and they beg you to teach them to whistle?  DON'T. You will live to regret it.  David tried for years and year unsuccessfully.  Why he can do it now, I have no idea.  But he can.  And he does.  Allllllll the fucking time.  He only knows two things to whistle:  the theme music from Star Wars and this song.  (And if you had any idea how much time I just wasted googling to try and figure out what the name of that song was, you'd understand why I never seem to post.)  I guess I should be glad that he does know a few actual  songs, even if he whistles them in endless loops.  Sometimes he'll do this, instead: Whistle a single sustained note, while waving his hand slowly in front of his face to change the pitch slightly.  Try it.  Isn't it fun?  <sigh>

I feel slightly guilty for squelching his one musical outlet.  But I've found over time that I can't tolerate a lot of noise.  I can't leave a TV on randomly in the background.  I can't have music on while I'm trying to write.  And, for the love of God, I can't listen to a 9 1/2 year old whistle every waking moment.

The other day I snapped and demanded of Ritu:  "Who the hell taught that child to whistle?"  He smiled at me and demonstrated yet again his complete inability to whistle. Oh.  Right.  Must've been me.  Which brings me to another annoying thing.  How the hell can you be a grown up who doesn't know how to whistle??

Great Skating, Sybil!

Last weekend, Juliana put on her slippers and zoomed all around the wood floors in the kitchen.  She moved as fast as she could, slipping and sliding, in her version of ice skating.  As she is her father's child, she narrated the entire experience as she skated:

"Look at her go.  Now she's skating around the island.  She almost crashes into the table, but she's still skating.  She goes off the ice and onto the carpet, but she's still skating.  She's having a snack (holds her hands to her mouth,  fake chewing sounds here) but she's STILL skating.  Wow, she's so fast and so good at skating.  Now she's coming around the corner.  She almost crashes into the island, but she doesn't.  Look at her go!  Still skating!  She is the best skater I've ever seen!"

This must've gone on for 10 straight minutes.  I was trying to sit and read, but by the end I was cracking up.  I tried to stay quiet because I knew if she heard me laughing, she'd want to know what was so funny.  Finally she took a break and I commended her on her excellent skating.  Plus, I said, I really liked the announcing.  She nodded in agreement at me and said, "The one who was talking a lot is named Bill.  The one who wasn't talking very much is named Bob."

Oh Goody

<<While road conditions on major roads have improved throughout the day, neighborhood side streets remain a concern for student transportation, especially considering the forecast of freezing temperatures overnight and into tomorrow. Current forecasts are also predicting the possibility of additional snow or freezing rain tonight.>>

Just got this email that they canceled school for Thursday.  Somebody kill me.

Deana Is The Boss Of Me

<<WTF dude?  Post already.>>

Isn't Deana so sweet?  She guilted me into posting.  But I have nothing to say.  Actually, I have tons to say, but no motivation to type.  My current excuse is that we're in the midst of a snow event.  Schools have been closed for the past two days because we got about 3 1/2 inches of snow Tuesday morning.  It doesn't snow too often here and we don't have the resources to get rid of the snow.  And they won't salt the roads because GOD FORBID it gets into the runoff water and affects the salmon.  (As Amy said, "Isn't that called lox?") 

 Ritu had to put chains on his car just to get to the grocery store this morning.  I, of course stayed home with the kids.  We did walk over to a friend's house for a few hours this afternoon, but now we're home awaiting the forecasted freezing rain.  My children are going to be morons by the end of the week.  And I'll most likely be in jail. 

Here's a picture of our snowy backyard and greenspace:

It is lovely, no doubt.  And I do adore a snow day.  I love being forced to stay home all day, with a hot cup of coffee and a book to read.  Only the reality doesn't play out quite that way.  The kids are in and out of the house all day long, tracking in snow and slush.  My dryer is constantly running with the latest discarded pair of gloves or socks.  This necessitates me dragging my lazy ass off the couch so often that my coffee gets cold and my book goes unread.  And let's face it, the romance of the snow wears off after one day. 

Ritu was home for this whole storm.  That's unusal in and of itself.  For the most part, whenever we get bad weather, he's either atwork or at a conference in some sunny, warm spot.  In fact, he spent most of last week in Florida.  It didn't get above freezing for five days in a row here, so our conversations went like this:

Me:  How was your day today?

Him:  Pretty good.  I was in meetings all day, but then I went and got a massage and had drinks by the pool, since it's 84 degrees.

Me:  That sounds nice.  (My Brain:  Awesome.  It was 26 degrees here and I spent yet another day answering every stupid question your children asked, nagging them through every assigned task, and doing every bit of cleaning up there was to do.  I hate you and everything you stand for.  Never utter the words massage, drinks, or pool again.)

Is it even necessary to insert here that last week was PMS week?

(Ok, Deana, are you happy now?  I'll try to be better at posting.  Just be prepared for quantity over quality!)