Feast or Famine

That's what it is with my posting. It seems like the last couple of weeks have been crazy. The outside pool at our gym is being drained Monday so we've been going every day for the last two weeks. I feel like we're living on borrowed time so we took advantage of every day left. Not to mention I still have to run errands ie. grocery store, farmer's market, post office, library, etc. and with the added appointments like school open houses we are constantly on the go. Mia is so excited about starting Kindergarten, me too! As excited as I am for her I know I'm going to be doing the ugly cry all the way home after I drop her off. I'm planning to get some pictures but I'm guessing the teacher isn't going to want someone's mom following them in the classroom the first day. What do you mean the crazy crying lady with the camera is distracting the kids?

Anyway time to go get ready since I have a doctor's appt. this morning, need to finish folding laundry, pack the family's clothes to go to the in-laws, etc. I think my first break that I get when the kid's are in school at the same time will be spent just sitting on the couch taking a breather. It's wishful thinking anyway....

INSTALLING A HUSBAND

For lack of something better to post....as I'm too lazy to write something long at the moment and still haven't downloaded from my camera... I'm posting the following "joke-mail".

Dear Tech Support,
Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.
In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attentio n 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as:
NBA 5.0, NFL 3.0 and Golf Clubs 4.1
Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system.
Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.
What can I do?
Signed, Desperate.

DEAR DESPERATE, First, keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system.
Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme. html and try to download Tears 6.2 and do not forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update.
If that application works as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications; Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5. However, remember that overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0 or Beer 6.1 Please note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Farting and Snoring Loudly Beta.
Whatever you do, DO NOT under any circumstances install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources.)
In addition, please do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.
In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance.
We recommend : Cooking 3.0 and Hot Lingerie 7.7
Good Luck Babe!
Tech Support

Jim Gaffigan - Religion

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

I first saw this on Oprah and was inspired. I posted the full lecture not because anyone visiting my blog would want to watch a video for over an hour but so I could easily find it later.

I was crying again watching the piece on him tonight on TV. I too wept tears for a man I never met.

The infamous duck story

My friend's son Brandon thought this story was funny anyway. We were at our Moms and Tots playdate at the park and Mia comes running over with a grasshopper that she had caught. I was telling the other moms how Mia just loves to pick up insects and animals. Last Sunday we found a Praying Mantis in our driveway and Mia of course had to scoop him up. She wasn't allowed to keep him though as I hadn't seen a Praying Mantis in a long time therefore they're special. I also told them how the last time we were at Dutch Village Mia just walked up to a duck and picked it up. Mia wasn't believing us that ducks don't like to be picked up and walked around with him for what seemed like a really long time. A long time for me was probably an eternity for the duck.

Mia's last day of tumbling

Mia insisted on wearing her bathing suit on the last day of class. I tried my hardest but could not talk her out of it. I then made her wear underwear under her bathing suit since I didn't think a bathing suit would give "good coverage" during stretches. Her underwear of course stuck out the bottom the whole time. I assure you if Mia should decide she wants to continue with tumbling or dance (and I can afford it) then we will buy her some new leotards.

Some pics from Mia's class.

Mia and Mason with their teachers, Missy and Anna Thompson at Champion Gymnastics.

Mason's last day of Tumbling

Both kids really enjoyed Tumbling so tomorrow will be Mia's pics. Since it was their last day (last Thursday) they got to go downstairs to the gym area for some special fun after they were finished upstairs. They got to hang and fall into a foam pit, fly like Peter Pan in the tramp room and jump down a long trampoline.

Here they are stretching.

and here is a little bit of the floor exercises.

In the middle of the upstairs is the "castle house". The kids enter through the tunnel and it's a 2-story fun house. The kids always get to play for the last 5-10 minutes of the class.

Mason went flying second in the Tramp room. He was so excited that he couldn't contain himself while Miss Anna was strapping him in the harness.

Captain Jack


Ever since Halloween last year Mason has had a fascination with skulls and skeletons. I had bought him a skeleton t-shirt and his wardrobe has since expanded to at least 5 shirts. He is now into pirates as he associates pirates with skeletons. So on any given day he is dressed as either a pirate or a Harley biker or both.

The shirt he happens to be wearing when we went to the mall a few weeks back was the shirt that was purchased as a bribe for not screaming in swim class. So we go into the Disney store and he sees all the "Pirates of the Caribbean" stuff..... I kind of like him with dreads.

Back to the beach

We went back to the beach Saturday and it was windy! I was a little disappointed as I thought Mason would have done more "swimming" had the lake been calm but both kids still had a great time jumping the waves and body surfing. The whole time I had that Seinfeld line going through my head. The downside of being at the beach on a windy day is that you can't really sit down with a book and relax. You're constantly watching to make sure your kids haven't been swept away.

Now Mason asks to go to the beach at least a couple times a day. It really is nice having the beach just down the road. Sometimes I take it for granted but then realize at times I am living the "good life". We woke up...I made breakfast and sat around leisurely reading the paper, got dressed and took the kids to a birthday party, went to the craft fair in the park, went out to lunch with Mike (sushi, by ourselves!), beach and ordered pizza for dinner. A great day by "mom" standards.

Beach progress

When we were up in Manistee for the July 4th holiday we went to the beach and I figured that would be the time when Mason would venture into the water. I thought with his sister and his cousins swimming that would be the time for him to go. Nope. He wouldn't go near the water. The next week we went to the beach down the road from our house and he started playing in the water. He never ventured in pretty far but he started jumping the waves and once he fell down he would lay down in the shallow water. I was amazed that in just a week he had made that change.

We also started swim class that next week at an indoor pool and he was about 50/50. Half the time he was screaming/crying with a death grip on his teacher's bathing suit or he was OK to make it without screaming in the class for a small bribe (a new skull t-shirt). He never did ENJOY the class and we'll leave it at that.

We went to visit Mike's parents again last weekend and pretty much spent ALL our time at the pool. Mason was warming up to swimming (with a death grip on you), jumping off the side of the pool (to you) and going underwater on the steps. Pretty much where he has always been for skill but starting to get a little braver.

Today we went to the beach again and the sand was so stinking hot on the walk down the dune that I literally thought we had burned our feet. The kids were crying (I was almost too). We went straight for the water to cool our feet off. I then started setting our stuff down, got my chair out, started reading... when I look up and see Mason wading pretty far out in the water. I bring out his swimmies and tell him he can't go that far out unless he's wearing them. He hasn't really worn them in the water before so he instantly starts putting up a fight and whining. After some discussion (and I believe a threat to throw him in the lake) he agrees to put them on. After they're on he's standing there just scowling at me and I say, "well, go try them out". He stomps off still scowling and after a few minutes I see him smiling. I return to my beach chair and look out to see him swimming and floating! Next thing you know I have to get up every few minutes to yell out to Mia AND Mason that they're going too far out and need to swim closer to shore. What? When Mike got done with work he met us at the beach. I saw him coming down the dune and pointed to Mason who had taken off running back into the water. He wanted to show Daddy how he could swim and proceeded to swim out into the water. I think Mike was a little shocked seeing how that only last week if you showed Mason a noodle/inner tube/etc. he would have just started screaming. We've made big progress this summer and I can't wait to go back to the beach again.