Last night, I went to an 80's dance party for my friends' birthdays. I didn't really have an 80's outfit, so I pieced this one together and I think it turned out just fine.
The party started at 9(!) and I actually stayed until midnight which is pretty ridiculous for me. I danced almost the entire time, which was also ridiculous considering I ran 11 1/2 miles earlier that day. The place was packed and I felt very, very old.
Miranda has been asking to make a cake lately. I checked out some recipes and decided on a lemon cake with lemon curd filling and lemon creamcheese frosting. I figured we could use all the damn lemons we have out front.
After securing a sufficient amount of butter (I think we used a 2 cups total), the girls and I set out to make the cake. It was going fairly smoothly (with the occasional break due to kids sticking their hands down their pants and then needing to go wash their hands or putting their mouths on the measuring spoons.) After the cake was in the oven and the frosting was almost done, I had to take the kids to a playdate that Parker really wanted to go to. I left Michael with a half finished cake situation and he wasn't entirely thrilled, but stepped up and made the curd filling and frosting. When I returned home, I assembled and then we all enjoyed. Yum!
Another fairly boring video, but one that I think the kids will enjoy seeing in about 10 or 20 years. My mom took pictures of us playing instruments in our pjs on the front lawn and I'm glad she did.
Towards the end, Miranda starts doing this strange jumping thing that is very sweet.
And as much as I hate to admit it, I'm sure a drum set is in Parker's future... Damn that genetics.
Although Parker doesn't play with Ted and Lion as much as he used to or need to sleep with them every night, he does still love them quite a bit and spends good part of certain days just hanging out with them. On this particular day, he posed them all over the house, taking pictures of them. I particularly liked these. The one that looks like Lion is Fred, my Lion replacement had Lion ever been lost. When we realized Parker would never be fooled, we just added him to the mix. To Parker, they are very, very different.
Parker yells from the living room at 3:16pm today while playing with Zomes...
"Can we buy some apple jacks?!?!??!"
Just when I thought there was nothing more annoying than a Dora video, the kids watched a Dora video that was about protecting the environment touting the joys of picking up garbage on the beach. Also included a Ttalking clams, magical mermaids, and a garbage dumping octopus. Blech.
As I am sure I've mentioned, I let the kids watch a video (Dora, Kipper, Pengu) when I take a shower and sometimes when I make dinner (if it has been a rough day and just need them to be quiet). The morning video is really to ensure they don't get into too much trouble while I am wet and naked.
Elizabeth pretty much asks every day if I'm going to take a shower. (I don't from time to time.) I tell her I don't know. She started asking me a lot about it, reminding me to take one, etc. And then getting pissed if I didn't take one or it wasn't long enough. I told her that if she complained about TV I wouldn't let her watch at all. She got it and with a slight reminder of this, she is quiet about it.
Today, Parker started in on me, telling me how they didn't get to finish dome stupid ass Dora mermaid one yesterday (he didn't say the stupid ass part). I told him that kids that talked about TV wouldn't get to watch any. Elizabeth filled him in on the deal. A few minutes later he said sort of to himself, "If you don't talk about TV at all, you can watch a lot of TV."
Then he came over to me about 20 minutes later and said, "I haven't talked about TV at all."
After our delicious crepes in LA, I thought I should make some up here. So I whipped up some fabulous crepes last night and Michael made a little filling buffet. Bananas, strawberries, sugar, jam, chocolate, caramel and wonderful canned whipped cream. Heaven!
Rachel bought Parker a fancy new construction kit from the science museum the other day. 
He was of course immediately drawn to the bridge, as shown in on the last page in the book.
Once he had the bridge built as designed, he decided that it needed to be elevated like a proper bridge.
And once it was elevated, he wanted to have signs directing the traffic under the bridge.
I made him a couple of boats, and he piloted them under the bridge for a good long while. 
This morning got up and built the bridge again, only this time he added a second deck, with an on-ramp. 
Michael (after I said "nobody puts Baby in the corner" for some forgotten reason): What does that mean?
Rachel: What do you mean what does that mean?
Michael: I mean, What does, Nobody puts baby in the corner mean?
Rachel: Are you seriously asking me that question? Have you not seen dirty dancing?
Michael: Yes. And No, I haven't seen it.
Rachel: Well, Baby is sitting in the corner and Patrick Swayze comes over and says 'Nobody puts Baby (the name of the Jennifer Grey's character) in the corner.' and takes her out.
Michael: Who does he say it to?
Rachel: To her dad. To the room.
Michael: Oh. I thought that...
Rachel, interrupting: I just want to disclose that I will be blogging this conversation so if you continue consider yourself warned...
Michael: Ok. I thought that there was this big dance competition and some other dancing couple got in their way and they couldn't dance so they got mad and said that.
Rachel: (Blank stare).
Michael: I had this whole big dance competition thing all built up in the mind. That is how I always envisioned it.
Rachel: I can't believe we just talked about this.
Whenever we are at the Martin/Marcus house, we like to engage in activities that have a high probability of someone ending up in the emergency room. This particular activity entertained them for a long time and ended relatively successfully.
Miranda got dressed on her own yesterday, which is somewhat rare. She thought her outfit was super cute, especially the socks. I think it's swell that she has embraced her inner dork.
Michael made this for Parker when he was a baby and loved latches and hinges. We finally took it down today and are passing it on. We both got a little sad about it.
Took the kids to LHS after gymnastics class today. Hadn't been there is a while and they had been asking about it.
We were there just over 2 hours and I think we spent at least 45 minutes going up and down to (and using) the bathroom. We went 3 times. Once when we got there. Once when Elizabeth claimed she needed to poop (but didn't.) And once when she really did evidenced by crap in her underwear.
Good times.
For some strange reason, I thought I should clean the kitchen this morning. The girls thought this was pretty cool (a novelty, at least!). They got right to work sweeping, mopping, drying the floor with towels on their feet. Then they wanted to do window so I gave each of them a spray bottle and some wash clothes and they literally cleaned every window, chair, and surface in the kitchen. Usually when the girls "help" me clean, it just creates more mess, but today they actually helped.
The whole time they kept saying, "I love this special day because it is cleaning day!" I'm guessing the Long Family gene is at work here since no Martin woman I know likes to clean.
In the car on the way home:
Miranda: Mom, what is the name of this song?
Me: Life would suck without you.
Miranda: What?
Me: LIFE WOULD SUCK WITHOUT YOU!
Miranda: Mom, when I was a baby, did I suck my fingers?
Got back around 2ish today. Elizabeth had fallen asleep in the car about 45 minutes from home. When she walked in the house, she jumped up on the couch and fell asleep again. She was up late milking a tongue biting injury.
After about 2 hours and one scooter accident, Parker did the same thing. Got up on couch, put a blanket on and fell asleep.
Miranda doesn't seem to notice that she should be tired.
I haven't blogged this weekend. Amy is bitter about that even though I have been with her since the last blog. I guess I was just not in the mood. Or I was just trying to go with the flow and just chill out.
A quick summary of our time in LA:
Drove down on Friday. Great drive. Love the DVD player in the minivan. Terrible traffic in LA. Was going to run 8 miles from Amy's to Mom's on Saturday, but when I left the shoes in the car which Michael took to see his mom, plan got derailed. I did run to his mom's house which was 6.3 miles, but as he was late for the airport and Parker was melting down, I agreed to get a ride the last 1.7 miles. Dropped the kids off at Mom's, took Michael to the airport. Back to moms. Then back to Amy's. Then a lot of sitting around. And coughing. Parker has been coughing non stop. Poor kid. Damn Asthma. Steam in bathroom seems to help as he is actually requesting it.
Did another 3 mile run with Amy on Sunday after Eran dealt with kids and let me sleep in (which was great as I was up with Parker all night.) More sitting around the house. Took girls to store and petstore. They wore their pajamas and looked ridiculous. Made a crepe cake with Amy. Had Mom, Dad and Brother over for dinner. Ate crepe cake.
More sitting around Monday. Naked backyard play (by girls, not me and Amy). Went to Uncle David's condo and used his pool. Girls used new floaty (Dora- eat your heart out Amity) swim suits which looked beyond ridiculous, but worked quite well.
Heading home tomorrow morning. With the exception of the coughing and eating weigh too much, nice, relaxing visit. Back to routine Wednesday. Let's hope with less coughing.
Last time we were in LA, my brother gave Parker an electronic piano. Parker and the girls play it a lot. But today, Parker said..."Oh! I have to go practice my piano. It's time to practice."
He played it for a while and then I told him he had to do something and he said, "Ok, but I need to do 10 more minutes of practicing."
Since no one here practices anything, I'm guessing he picked this up from Peter or Oliver.
After missing school for the whole week, Parker was feeling well enough to go today. He was still coughing, but really, really, really wanted to go to school because there was a valentine party. So I took him telling him that he felt bad or was coughing too much we would have to leave. He made it the whole day, but was then pretty tired when we got home. He had made individual cards for each kid all by himself with themes that made sense with the specific question. He even picked out his own red shirt today, something he almost never does. He even got to be line leader today and was pretty damn happy about that.
Luckily at home we were delighted to find valentines day surprises from both grandmas. Actually we got the letters from mom yesterday, but Grammy's box today. The kids loved getting their own separate letters.
They were all pretty damn happy about the goodies from Grammy. Miranda was especially tickled with it all.
Referring back to comment #1 on a post from January, Parker said to me this morning.
Did you know 1+ 2+ 4 = 7?
And did you know that 4+4 = 8
And that 7 +1 = 8?
Isn't that funny?
Parker typed out all the numbers from 1-100 and then 100-200 by tens on the computer the other day and then printed it out.
Then he came to me and said, "You see the commas?"
Sure enough, there were commas between 11 and 12, 22 and 23, 33 and 34, 44 and 45, 55 and 56, 66 and 67, 77, and 78, 88 and 89, 89 and 90, 99 and 100.
I'm sure you've figured out why they are there, but it took me a minute looking at the big page of numbers. Oh, and the one between 99 and 100 is just a mistake.
Man, Parker is in a bad way. He was basically miserable all day today with about an hour of just bad. Took him to the doctor. Apparently he was wheezing pretty badly which I can never hear. She was a bit worried and gave him a breathing treatment and some more asthma medication. He was shivering in the car on the way home and by dinner time had a fever of 103. It came down to 101 after a couple hours. He has just been lying around crying. He went to sleep at 6:30 and has woken up twice already crying. Poor, poor kid.
In the car on the way home from picking up the girls from preschool...
Miranda: When I am an adult I'm going to drive in my baby daddy's car.
Me: Who is your baby daddy?
Miranda: My BABY DADDY!
Me: But who is he?
Parker: What is his name?
Miranda: His name is the same name as my daddy. It's Michael.
Miranda: Who is your daddy and Michael's daddy, Mommy?
Me: My daddy is Grandpa Tony. You remember him right? And Michael's daddy is Wilbur and he is dead.
Miranda: Did he eat a horse?
Miranda: "You can look at a horse. You can pet a horse. But if you eat a horse, you'll get dead."
Parker: "Yeah. You'll always get dead when you eat a horse."
Parker is sick today. Bad cough and low fever. Since my kids aren't used to staying home all day long, as we are doing today, everyone is slightly on edge (except me, actually who is doing quite well considering). Parker really wants to go ride his new scooter, but I won't let him since I kept him home from school and swim class and don't think he should go exert himself even if he is feeling better.
So I told him if he could not cough for 5 minutes, he could go ride the scooter. Since he has been coughing constantly, I was pretty safe. So he tries once. Coughs within 30 seconds. Tries again. 20 seconds. Tries again. 1 minutes. Tries again 20 seconds. Tries again 2 minutes. He starts crying and asking if he can try for 3 minutes. I tell him yes, but if he can't do it, we'll stop trying. He makes it about 40 seconds. Man, is he sad. As he is coughing up a lung, he is telling me how he is all better now. I hug him and tell him it sucks to be sick and I'm sorry.
Now he is watching Kipper and coughing up the other lung.
Parker is singing Summertime (Daddy is rich...and your mama is good looking)
Elizabeth is trying to sing Hey Mickey! (Hey Mickey you're so fine, you're so fine it blows my mind, Hey Mickey!) Which comes out like this, "Hey micket, galkhslkhas alkhsd alkhaslkdh alkhakhg sakjd aksk aksd Hey Mickey!.
Miranda is singing "we did it, we did it" which is the ending song on all Dora Videos.
Val's youngest turned two today so I took the kids up to Sacramento for the party. They love Val's house since there is an ample supply of toys, games and other fun activities inside as well as a park like backyard complete with zip line, teeter totter, swing set, cement for scootering and slide. My kids were pretty happy the whole time and I'm sure the multiple cup cakes didn't hurt either.
Parker played a new game today. Nerf tag played with nerf guns. I'm not necessarily against guns like I am against princess stuff (don't ask, because I couldn't explain it), but it was strange to see him running around shooting things. I thanked Val, sarcastically for broadening his horizons.
After the other party goers has left, Elijah went for a nap and the other kids rode around on scooters out front. Parker used one of Andres Razors and loved it. He has never been on a 2 wheel one before and he did great. I admitted to Val and hubby Lawrence that I had been thinking I needed to get him one. They told me not to bother and produced a brand new, still in box, one for Parker to have. Now...that is a one nice party favor. 
