Chrystal

This is so not going to resonate with any of the male readers out there….

I remember when I was a little girl – I love the name Sindy – yes Cindy but spelled with an “S”. That was the name I gave things and used as a pretend name.

Julia has chosen the name Chrystal. She uses it when playing pretend. She often asks Nathan to call her Chrystal when they are playing. Just now she is playing with “birthday cake” playdoh (a set she got) and she is singing happy birthday to the imaginary Chrystal. I have no idea where she heard the name, but I think it is so cute.

Of course – in her mind it could be spelled Kristyl or something.

For Kate

As requested – a few recent pictures of Lauren. Now you must reciprocate!

Quack Quack Quack

I dropped off Julia this morning at preschool and then preceded on my way with only Lauren in tow, asleep.

I found myself singing along to the music playing. It wasn’t until it changed songs that I realized I was singing along with “Six Little Ducks” by Raffi. I quickly switched over to my iPod but I still can’t believe I didn’t even notice that I was singing “quack quack quack” aloud.

Shoehorn

Ok – so this is one of those annoying posts about something my kid did that I find interesting. You can stop reading now if you are one of those (nonparents likely) that are bored by these.

Anyway – Nathan has taken to using a shoe horn to put on his shoes. He is a very inflexible (physically) child – most likely due to a combination of chemo (Vincristine) and my genes. So the shoe horn really helps him since he can’t sit down and bend his legs very much. I guess he decided he needed to keep it in a more convenient place.

I guess he went and got the clothespin and stuck it there. Perhaps when he is a little older he can help organize things in this house.

Newest addiction

Luke and I have a new favorite snack food…yum.

I will never be a professional party planner…

Julia had her birthday party today. She wanted it at home. She has been planning a Strawberry Shortcake theme party for a good nine months. Over the months she would occassionally instruct me in a very detailed manner about how she wanted her cake. She decided she wanted a party similar to last year. Last year the kids did crafts and decorated bags with fabric paint. Last year we had the party on a Saturday.

Ok – so this year I planned the party for a Monday afternoon. For some reason I thought it would be good and easier to have it on a weekday afternoon. Well – it really wasn’t. First off – Luke had to work and couldn’t help much. Also I had to go get Nathan from school. That coupled with the fact that I fed Lauren 3 times for at least a half an hour at a time before the party left little time to get ready. Fortunately I did get everything done.

I had some crafts. The kids did those for about a half hour and then went off to play instead. The two other moms that stayed and I worked on one of the crafts that proved to be too difficult for the kids…..

I actually did get the cake right. Julia wanted me to make it. It was white with pink frosting and strawberries on top. I convinced her to wait to put the strawberries on after she blew out the candles.

After cake, presents were opened and that was that.
All in all – it went fine – but the stress and preparation I could do without. I just do not enjoy throwing parties.

Happy Fourth Birthday Julia!

Four gallons of milk

Is this really my life? I am someone who buys four gallons of milk a a time? When did this happen?

This is what ran through my head today at Sam’s club as someone waited for me to get done loading the milk into my cart. I ran to Sam’s club this morning since I had an opportunity to do it without kids. Last time I took all 3 kids and it was a bit crazy. The term “3 kids” is also something taking getting used to. I walked out of a friends house briefly without Lauren the other day.

Anyway – these were the contents of my cart…my shopping list only had five things on it.

Aforementioned Milk
Box of 204 size 1-2 Pampers (no explaination needed there)
Box of 1200 paper plates – we use these at lunch and when we are lazy. If we didn’t use these we would have too many dishes to fit in our dishwasher. These are the really thin cheap ones and we use more than one at a time if neccessary.
Gallon of canola oil
Socks for Luke
Juice boxes – Nathan only likes the orange juice in Minute Maid juice boxes – fortunately he can get them and do the straw all by himself – so worth buying!
4 large bottles of apple juice – mainly for Julia who has a cup every morning
Potato chips and tortilla chips – $2.44 for the big bags…not bad
6.5 pounds of ground beef – at $1.88 a pound it is worth packaging into 1 pound bags and freezing
Frozen sausage patties – total impulse buy. I love sausage and this way I can make myself one patty at a time.
Laundry detergent – With five people now in this house the amount of laundry is getting out of hand. Our habit is to do laundry once a week but we are getting the point where we can’t get it all done in one day.
Clorox toilet drop-in thingies – we have a four and five year old using out toilets…..

I think that is it. Wow – how suburban mom can I be? This is a far cry from my former life as a CPA. I am not saying there is anything wrong with my life now – but sometimes it just seems weird to me that I am that thirty-something suburban mom with three kids buying four gallons of milk at a time.

The Sound of Us

This is the book I am currently reading. I love to read but haven’t been doing much reading lately. Luke used to ask me what my books were about but I always told him the same thing – just a book about people’s lives. Generally, those are my favorite books.

From Publishers Weekly
Willis (A Good Distance) gracefully explores the world of foster care through the eyes of 48-year-old Alice Marlowe, an interpreter for the deaf living a lonely life in Cleveland. When Alice receives a late-night phone call from a six-year-old girl whose mother has disappeared, the last thing she expects to do is apply to become her foster parent, but one look at beautiful, dark-skinned Larissa Benton changes everything. Alice’s maternal impulse surprises her—”How did this child and I become us?” she wonders—as she attends foster parenting classes and wonders if she can cope. Willis allows for ambiguity in her moving story: when Michelle, Larissa’s white, wayward mother, returns, she’s neither a villain nor a victim; Alice, who converses with her dead twin brother, is not a saint. When Michelle moves into Alice’s home to be closer to her daughter, the narrative reaches its height of tension; Willis shows both the safety and generosity of Alice’s world and the unpredictable but loving home that Michelle would provide. A careful, tender story of the complex bonds of motherhood, this novel doesn’t shy away from its problems, but still comes to rest on the side of its wonders. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

$1200 dog

Sure… lots of dogs cost that much – so I now decree our dog Ellie no longer a mutt but a pure-bred.

Last night she came down on some metal landscape edging and severed 2 tendons in her back paw. She had to have surgery and is supposed to stay off stairs for 3 weeks.

Did I mention that our house has FOUR sets of stairs?