7 Quick Takes

Joining in with Jen and her fellow quick takers because between steam cleaning the kitchen floor and sending useless information into the abyss of the world wide web, I choose the latter a thousand times over.

1) My ohshit-o-meter (you don't have one of those? You should get one) started going off a couple weeks ago with regards to actually needing to do "kindergarten" with Naomi in the fall now that she's a geriatric 5 years-old. I am NOT of the breed of mothers who gets naturally excited about home schooling. It is not in my blood and the thought of actually doing it does nothing but produce nauseous feelings and mini panic attacks, so I was a little stuck as to what to do. Lucky for me, my closest friend here in the Bend has decided to home school next year and we seem to be of the same breed when it comes to the whole thing, so after a few convos with her and one with another lovely lady who is super laid back about it, I feel like maybe, just maybe, I won't die in the next year.

2) Have you ever had the fleeting thought that maybe you are the least fun mother in the entire world and that your children are suffering from your lack of creativity and an absence of all fun, fanciful or exciting craft-like activities in the home? Well I am here to tell you that you are not, I am. For sure.

We own this book:
And I hate it. I hate that it exists and I hate it even more when the girls discover that it does because then my negligence actually comes to light and they no longer live in total, blissful ignorance. Why not just get rid of it? It is happening. Soon. This past week it happened that the girls discovered it and it's heinous contents and since spring and summer apparently already came and went and we fast tracked it to fall here in the land of the worst weather in all the world, I decided to oblige the constant demands from the small parties that we make our own candies.

3) This was obviously partially self-interested because the candy  in the book was homemade peppermint patties and well, who doesn't love peppermint patties?  So "we" made them yesterday and it was insane. I have never gotten so messy in the process of doing anything with the girls before and the whole creation process itself really just devolved into me doing all the work while the girls cut themselves cubes of cheese in the other room and snuck chocolate chips from the kitchen, because KIDS CAN'T MAKE THEIR OWN CANDY. So now I will eat them all as a consolation prize.

I ended up not even using the recipe in the book because it was horrible and used this one instead.

4) Do your kids watch Kipper? My friend's sweet little boy introduced it to us while we watched him last week and now the girls (and maybe me) are a little obsessed. Kipper has the best accent of any cartoon character I have ever heard and maybe I am just a sucker for a good British accent, but there is something refreshing about the fact that he isn't even trying to sound like a  little kid cartoon character. It's like David Brent meets Disney but not crude, it's great.

5) Mike was out of town briefly last weekend and is leaving again for a couple of days next week and I am gearing up for absolute insanity and being in total meltdown mode (me, not the girls). Why? Because I am horrible at dealing with life when he is gone. Really, someone needs to write a book about how to cope and I will buy 100 copies just for myself, because I am horrible at it. I am hoping the blog will at least offer some type of therapeutic relief, you'll find out for yourself soon enough.

6) I am in search of (and by "search" I mean sitting on the couch thinking really hard about) an ideal cute and comfortable pair of summer sandals because my ol' flippity flops hailing from college days have developed holes in the bottoms, I think that's a good sign of needing to be retired. I have gone the route of just cute and gotten some strappy deals from Forever 21 and the grocery store and every time I wear them my feet hate me, they are so not comfy. I need a good meld of strappy cuteness and total comfort. HELP PLEASE!!!

7) Bernadette's latest fun activity has been to make up little ditties, mostly while she is using the bathroom, where she picks a work and sings lots of other words that rhyme with it.

The last 2 words chosen have been:
Witch and Pit, alternating first letters with 'B' and 'Sh' over and over. Who needs Fantastic Rainy Day books when there is clearly some major creative learning going on in this home. We are going places, I tell you.