Wednesday, March 24, 2010

I won...something I can't use

I nearly forgot to pick up my Market Day order today, and I completely forgot that this month's order included being entered into a drawing for a Razor scooter. So I was already a bit scattered when I walked into Reece's school's gym to pick up my purchases and completely bowled over when they told me I'd won the scooter! I can't say that I never win things, because during my childhood it seemed that every time my mom entered our names into something, I won one of the prizes (for instance, one time it was a spider plant - not very practical for a child, but I thought of it kind of like a pet). But my adult years have been much less successful. Of course, the scooter doesn't actually fit me and so was quickly given to Reece, but it still feels nice. And it gave us a good excuse to get the kids outside after dinner, since the weather was conducive to such activity. Here are some pictures of what I would call the true first signs of spring:

Greyson on his scooter, showing us how it's done

Reece trying the new one out.


The inevitable introduction of the squirt gun and aiming it at the youngest child (and then being told "We don't aim guns at people", which is really pretty unrealistic but we still say it).

The backyard after the snow melted. So that's where those bats went!

And not that this has anything to do with spring, but here is Dan's beard after 3 1/2 days at home with the kids on his own. We're all shocked by the amount of silver/gray/white (whatever you call it).

Saturday, March 6, 2010

What all the best Dr. Seuss fans are wearing

Reece made this at school:They've been reading Dr. Seuss books all week and even celebrated Wacky Wednesday that involved a snowball fight (only allowed on Wacky Wednesday, of course).

And, here's what the best Dr. Seuss/Star Wars fan is wearing:


Probably the best tribute to Dr. Seuss (besides the above, of course), in my opinion, is the Rev. Jesse Jackson reading Green Eggs and Ham on Saturday Night Live. If you haven't seen it, you definitely need to.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Adventures in parenting: The snow day edition

Playing on the mound created by the snowplow on a SNOW DAY

This past Friday, both my kids had a snow day. Although this is probably surprising to those who don't live here but hear about all the snow the Cleveland area receives, it's relatively rare for our school district to cancel school for snow. Our city is small, area-wise, and quite urban, so at least the main streets get cleared pretty quickly. Plus, we're not in the "snow belt" part of the area, so we get less snow than those east of us.

So of course the kids were thrilled (we had a potential crisis when we thought Reece still had to go, and the UNFAIRNESS of it all), and Dan and I scurried to figure out what we would do with the two all day. Neither of our jobs was canceled, of course.

I had scheduled a hair appointment for 9am (and REALLY wanted to make that), then a meeting a 1:15pm at work, and then my welcome-to-40 baseline mammogram at 4pm in Dan's office building. Luckily, Dan doesn't start work until 1pm on Fridays, so we had some leeway. I went to the salon while Dan got the kids fed and dressed and called all the high school age babysitters we knew to see if they wanted to hang out with the boys for the afternoon. Turns out, they had all already made plans with friends and must have had sufficient spending money, or all the other parents got to them first, because they all turned us down. So, we moved on to plan B. While waiting for my hair to dry, I emailed work to say I wouldn't make the meeting (and then got a reply that they were canceling the meeting anyway because so many people were going to miss it). Then I headed home in time for Dan to leave, and we planned on having the kids hang out in his office when I had my boob-squooshing appointment.
Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for lunch after playing outside

I packed up the boys and their respective Nintendo DSes, made sure they went to the bathroom, and dropped them off with Dan and a lovely fruit arrangement one of his students had given him. When I returned, only Greyson was in the office. Now, if only Reece had been there, I wouldn't have been concerned because Greyson has hung out there on his own before and knows his way around, and also, he's 9. No Reece was definitely cause for alarm. So I asked Greyson where his brother was, and he said in the bathroom with Dad. It turns out, Reece suddenly had to go #2 and Dan was with a patient. We hadn't prepped Greyson on what to do in this situation, so his advice to Reece was, "Hold it in, but if you can't, just go in the garbage can!" Luckily, it didn't come to that. I raced to the bathroom where I thought they would be and relieved Dan so he could get back to seeing his patients (and you wondered why doctors are behind schedule - now you know!). I was greeted by a surprisingly calm but ready to escape husband and a very happy, chatty boy washing his hands and COVERED in strawberry remnants. Apparently, the fruit arrangement put up a fight. My one regret is that in all the commotion, I forgot to take his picture before we washed it all off.