Junior!

Parker was just promoted on the swim team to the next level which is called juniors. He is the youngest one on it. At first he was worried about longer, more difficult practices and swimming more days a week but now, he is totally into it and claims he will be best swimmer at Wildwood by 5th grade.   Today's work out was 30 minutes of dry land (sit ups, leg lifts, etc) and an hour swimming where he swam at least 2000 yards.  Because his schedule is already overfill with basketball, baseball, chess and piano, he'll transition slowly over the next month or so. He seems pretty proud of himself. Which he should be.

More cookies

Even though we sold all our cookies, the girls enjoyed selling them so much, we did another shift at the piedmont grocery store today.  Wasn't as busy as last time, but they still sold 19 boxes in 2 hours. Not great, but not bad.

Legos

We took the kids to see the Lego movie. Michael and I thought it was great but it was a little fast and confusing for the kids. Parker was quite upset during much of it...anxious and squirming in his seat during the conflict issues, bored during plot explanations he didn't understand and outright crying for the last 15 despite me saying "everything will be ok."  It was only the 4th movie I've taken him to and we left the other three (toy story, wall-e and up) after 20 minutes. I felt bad we took him since he clearly still doesn't like the whole experience.

But then after we were home for a bit, I saw this:

He rarely plays with Legos and usually only does the kits he gets as presents. But he must have understood some of the movie as it was all about building Legos creatively without kits.

Speaking of building things...a friend gave Parker this marble run when he got too old for it. Parker put it together himself with no help from us.  He may not like movies, but he's quite the builder.

Elizabeth girl crush

Elizabeth is pretty much smitten with this girl Rosa in her gymnastics class. And Rosa seems to be smitten with her too.

Cookies

The girls are girl scouts and the whole thing bugs the crap out of me. But they like it and all their friends do it, so we do it.  Last weekend, we all got 30 boxes of cookies to sell.  Well, each girl got 30 so we got 60 boxes.  I knew I wasn't going to let the girls sell them door to door and because our house is so close to Safeway where there is an official booth, we can't just set up shop outside our house.  So, I posted on facebook and within a few days, all the cookies were gone.  Delivered to friends nearby, dropped off at houses, or shipped to Reno, they all left the building.  Michael was upset we didn't keep more for ourselves, but I figured we could always buy more...

Here are the girls selling at a booth in a store in Piedmont in the pouring rain.  In 6 hours, they sold 138 boxes. I was shocked. Despite Elizabeth's face, she had a great time and didn't want to leave when I brought Miranda up to the shift. 

Elizabeth and her pals

Elizabeth with Greta above and Lola below.

A rare sighting

Parker doesn't pay any attention to the foster cats and appears to be quite inconvenienced by their presence.  But on this day, while watching Survivor, he couldn't resist playing with Snow White.

Mercy Watson and eclairs

I took the girls to see a play by the Bay Area Children's Theatre company (that also runs Miranda's after school class) based on the book Mercy Watson about a pig that lives with a nice couple. It was cute, albeit a bit long with a better first act than second.  Before the show we walked to get a hot chocolate and found this place called Paris Baguette which was just a long room filled with tables that looked like this. I'm always telling Michael there are no places to just pop into to get a nice eclair so you can imagine how happy I was to find this place. It's in downtown Berkeley, but I'm sure I'll find many excuses to go there now.

Kittens

Here are the girls with our latest foster kittens that got adopted today.  Well, the black one got adopted, but the white one went to foster adopt with a vet tech which was great since she has cerebellar hypoplasia which means her balance is off and she can't really walk so great. She looks like a drunk cat.  Miranda came with me again and was happy and not at all sad when they both left the building. She said, "Well, our job here is done."  Until the next one, of course.

I submitted this photo to some litter company holding a kittens and kiddos cuddle photo contest. If the two cute twins with the special needs foster kittens don't win, the contest is rigged!

Ohlone museum project

Parker had to do a small research project on the fishing habits of the ohlone Indians. I gave him some tips to get started but he did it mostly on his own.

"Watch out for this Fucker!"

Yesterday on the way home from chinese food, Michael who was in the passenger seat said, "Watch out for this fucker" referring to a car that was turning in front of me.  The girls said, "Dad!  You said a bad word."  Then we started saying things that ended with the work Fucker.  Watch out Fucker. Move out of the way Fucker. Parker was hesitant to join in, but soon enough was yelling Fucker with the rest of it. Elizabeth sounded hilarious saying it. Not sure if it is high pitched voice or her manner, but it made me almost pee my pants every time she said it.  We were all swearing and laughing. It was great. I then had to remind them about not saying those things in school, in front of other kids or parents or really anywhere. They agreed, but I also told Michael it was his fault when they messed up and told their teacher to "move it fucker."

Sleep away camp

There is a camp that many Piedmont kids go to called Camp Augusta. I tried to get Parker in the last two years but had no luck. It's always overfull, but once you get in, you are in for good.  This year, all three kids got in.  The girls will be going to a 3 day mini camp from Thursday to Saturday the day after school is out. Parker will be going to a full week two weeks after that.  Elizabeth was a little nervous when I told her about it, but quickly warmed up to the idea when she saw the pictures of the rope course. Parker is going with two other friends and is very, very excited.  He asked, "Do you think I need to bring my own materials for raft building?"  I told him, no, they would supply them.  Miranda said she wasn't thrilled about getting naked in front of everyone and wished there was something she could wear in the shower to cover herself up. I told her it was called a bathing suit. She seemed satisfied with that solution.  I never went to camp, so I'm excited to for them.  Maybe the following year, we can send them all at the same time and Michael and I can have a little vacation of our own.

Affect

Miranda has started talking in a very affected way.  Sort of like a valley girl mixed with a socialite. I'm guessing she picked it up from the highly inappropriate tween australian mermaid show she watches on Saturday mornings but I'm not sure.  She rolls her eyes and flips her hair and laughs in a fake way. It's all very strange and very funny at the same time. Both Susan and Ebba pointed it out too when they watched her recently.

Yet another example of how his brain works

The other day I took Parker to a baseball coach. A friend had organized a trial session with him and about 12 other kids showed up too. He worked with Parker for about 15 minutes and then we left. We were there about 45 minutes total.

As we were driving away, I said to Parker, "How was it?  What did you learn? Did you like it?"  He answered the questions like he normally does, "Yeah, it was good."

So then I asked, "What was his name again?"  Parker says, "I can't remember his name, but I know it had 6 letters in it."  Then he was silent for about 2 minutes and added "J-U-S-T-I-N.  His name is Justin."

Even if I had remembered his name was Justin, I would never, in a million years, said, "Yeah, it had 6 letters in it."

Miranda's Breakfast

Miranda doesn't eat cereal. Which is a real pain in the ass when you are the lazy mom and don't help the kids with breakfast.  She would go without eating since eating is mostly a chore to her.  She'll have a bagel or waffle from time to time. She'll gladly eat pancakes and bacon if I was to make it everyday.

But most school days there is this time where she stands around whining, "what can I eat for breakfast today????"  Today she said, "can you make me something delicious while I get dressed?" Since I had no bacon and didn't have time to whip up some pancakes, I looked in the freezer and found a lean cuisine. Meatloaf and mashed potatoes. I heated it up, took it off it's plastic tray and she was so happy. She said, "This is quite a breakfast!"  Then she ate the whole thing which is almost unheard of, unless of course the breakfast was bacon or chocolate.

Everyone loves a box

Miranda made this box into a cat bed for our next foster kitty. Zeke found it after only a few hours.

Stuff from today

Parker came home today to say he ran two laps of the track (800 m) in 3 minutes 16 seconds. I told him I didn't believe him since that would make it faster than a 7 minute mile.  He swore up and down he did and told me to ask his PE teacher.  So I emailed her and she said, "yup."

Elizabeth is getting very friendly with this 10 year old in her gymnastics class. They goof off together the whole class which is very sweet and I'm glad she is having a good time.  What she wears to gymnastics and how she does her hair is very important. Today she put on lip gloss.

Miranda paid 3 chips tonight to stay up late. After an evening full of homework and grumpiness, she was so very, very happy to hang with mom and dad for 30 minutes after the others went to bed.

Elizabeth wears a pull up to bed. Her doctor said not to worry or do anything about it until she was  8. She got into a sleepover camp for June for 2 nights and so we discussed trying to a plan to start working on it. Last night she wore underwear under her pull up with the thought that she would wake up when it got wet.  She didn't. She slept right through it. Just like she slept right through the alarm going off in her face when she accidentally set it the other day.  Hmmm...next idea?

Parker told us about his special math time today (on Tuesdays he works with a math specialist and one other 4th graders). He had to get one ounce of water into a cup with only two cups with the sizes 5 ounces and 9 ounces. He really liked that problem.

I went to three markets today. I walked to trader joes after walking the kids to school. Then I drove to Costco. Then, when I forgot the sour cream at both places, I walked to Safeway.

 Now that all three kids are playing minecraft, I decided we needed to get another computer. I told Michael I was going to get one and he got an old one (that minecraft works perfectly on) for free. Yay Michael.

Miranda's dinner comedy routines continue. For some reason,  whenever we set down for dinner, she decides its the perfect time to start acting like a clown.  The others thinks she is hilarious and they are generally right, but it makes dinner a little...no, a lot, annoying.

Cuteness

Chicken hearts

As I've mentioned many times here, my memory has pretty much gone to shit. I barely remember what happened yesterday let alone what happened in my childhood.  But some memories are strong. For example, I have a strong memory of my dad telling us about the chicken heart that ate new york. I don't remember much more about that except that we would sit around listening to "it" or him and then at some point, he (we?) made up the chicken part that ate new corks.  I had no idea what any of it was from and just assumed that my dad made it all up.

So today, I was listening to Tom Hanks being interviewed and he said that one of his early influences was Cosby doing the Chicken Heart that Ate New York.

What?!?

This childhood memory was a Bill Cosby routine? Really?

Miranda and her favorite cat.