I dropped the boys off at The Little Gym this week for a few hours and I managed to get a TON done. Sean has been crazy busy at work over the past few weeks which means I have had A LOT of quality time with the children, but very little time to get anything done. So, in the three hours they were gone, I went to two different Hallmark stores looking for something I didn’t end up finding at either one, I made two trips to our storage unit to get stuff out, I went to the scrapbooking store, Sonic, the drycleaners and the post office. I would have never been able to get all of that done with them. The post office alone would have sent us all over the edge. There was a long line and there is just way too much stuff for a curious three-year old to get into at the post office. Same goes for the scrapbooking store and Hallmark, too, now that I think about it.
Another memoir. This one was recommended to me by my friend Christie. Very good book. Sad. Tragic. I also have to remind myself while I am reading a memoir that this is someone’s life. These things really happened. I was warned to get the tissues ready and I used them, too.
I saw a report on the news the other night that brought back the night our house burned down. These poor people on the news had to sit and watch their house burn down because it was so cold outside the firemen couldn’t get the fire hydrants open and when they did, the line cracked because it was frozen. We were in a similar situation the night our house burned down. It was cold and it was dark and it was late and the fire hydrant was frozen shut. I had just gotten home from working at Minsky’s. It was a weekend, so it was at least 11 or so when I got home. I was downstairs in the basement getting ready to go to bed when someone came and BANGED on our door. I ran upstairs and someone said our house was on fire. My parents, who always take care of everything and I knew who would take care of this, started rushing around. I went back downstairs because my parents always took care of everything and never let harm come our way. Somehow I realized that this was the real deal and that my parents couldn’t make this one go away. When my mom and I walked out the front door there was a line of fire going up our living room wall. A nice woman down the street gave me some socks to wear since I had left in such a rush and we spent the night at the Holiday Inn. The next day, when we went back to survey the damage, we were reunited with our cat who had miraculously survived my crawling in the dryer. Everything on the first floor was a big piece of ice. I don’t remember there being an upstairs. I think there might have been a shell of the upstairs left, but I don’t think we could go up there. My bedroom was a mess. Since it was in the basement all of the water that got sprayed in the fire ended up in my bedroom. My textbooks were floating around in the mess and pretty much everything that had been on the floor was destroyed. The thing I will never forget is the smell. It stayed with us and on our things for quite a while. You hear stories on the news of fires ending much more tragically. We were so lucky.
Now that we have moved we have a different trash and recycling company. That means we have a new list of rules and regs that we have to follow about things we can and can’t recycle. I like it. We can recycle so much more here and I find us recycling about twice as much as we were previously. The thing that really bothers me though is that we can’t recycle glass here. I understand why. Glass is heavy which means it costs a lot to transport, but it causes me great pain to just throw it away. I don’t know what to do. I can’t have a bunch of glass piled all over until I can find a place to recycle it, but I hate throwing it away. What to do.
We have clearly been watching too much Arthur. Sean and I were discussing whether Buster’s parents were married. I said that they were and that he is a pilot and is gone all the time flying. Sean said that he remembered an episode where Buster had to leave for the summer to go stay with his dad. Yeah, I remember that one, too. Grown-up adult married people shouldn’t be discussing Arthur. We should be discussing world politics, the upcoming election year, caucuses, assassinations, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. Nope, we like to focus on the light stuff-Arthur. 🙂
Liam made his first and hopefully last winter visit to Children’s Mercy last night. Croup. Man, it is so scary. It always seems to be the same every time he gets it. He is fine one moment and a half hour later he is gasping for breath. We went out to dinner, came home, took a bath, practiced violin (he was fine the whole time). Then Liam and Colm played on the computer with Sean for a while. He started coughing while they were on the computer, by the time they were done he could barely make it up the stairs. I gave him some asthma meds thinking that was the problem. When those didn’t work I knew things were going to get way worse before they got better. I am glad we went. They had to give him the big drugs…but they worked. We got home a little after one. I’m tired.
When we went to go see Mr. Magorium a month or so ago there was a preview for the new Alvin and the Chipmunks movie. Liam and Colm new instantly that they wanted to see it. Sean and I new instantly that there was no way on God’s green earth that we would let them see it. Uh, it’s awful in every way I can think of and that is just based on what I saw of the previews. What makes me even sadder is that for the past two weeks it has been in the second and third spot at the box office. What does that say? Either there is absolutely nothing else to see at the movies and people are desperate to waste their money. I think it might also say something sad about what we, as Americans, find funny and entertaining. Even sadder, I think people really want to take their kids to the movies (especially since their not in school) and that is the closest thing out there to a kids movie right now. Why can’t there be more good kid movies? We get about one good one a year, that’s not enough.
Liam is at a difficult age right now. It really hit me when I started trying to plan his birthday party. He is getting too old for some things, but isn’t quite old enough for other things. He really wants to go to a Laser Tag place for his birthday party, but he isn’t old enough. He also wants to do glow in the dark golf, but I don’t think five-years olds quite have the fine motor skills to do that, especially in the dark. Yet, he’s a little too old, I think, for some of the other options that have been pretty standard up until now. He won’t take animal crackers in his lunch…they’re too babyish. (I think someone told him that because he eats them just fine at home.) He will still watch Backyardigans (especially if it’s one he hasn’t seen before) and he still likes an episode of Diego every now and again. His book choices are becoming more complex and so are his tastes in movies. He wanted to go see Waterhorse over break, but after doing a bit of research we decided he wasn’t old enough. We explained it too him. He still wants to see it, but he didn’t put up a fight. He is still making good choices, but I can feel it coming. I am holding onto his “little guyness” at long as possible, but I know that I will have to let it go, eventually, too. They grow up, darn it.
I am learning to gauge when Colm is done with Mass. I was very proud of him today, he made it all the way through the homily. That’s a first, folks. He has adopted Liam’s Bible and was very busy with it most of the time…mostly scanning the pages for pictures of bad guys or people who were crying. He wanted to know why each person was crying. It got to be a little much after a while, so I told him I would tell him later. Anyways, when Colm is done, he is done. There is no bribe or threat that will get him in line and it is in everyone’s best interests if you know how to handle it. So, as soon as he gets that way we leave. I don’t try to bribe him or get him in line because it won’t work and he just ends up getting worse and disturbing the people around us. I am not going to punish him, he is three and I don’t want him to think of church as a boring place where Mom and Dad get mad at him. Most three and four year olds have a hard time sitting still for an hour or more; it isn’t really developmentally appropriate for most children that age to sit in one spot quietly for that long. I also want him to know, however, that he can’t misbehave in church. It’s a fine line. Children eventually learn to sit through church and listen, but it takes a while. So, we go the the foyer so he can blow off some steam and walk around and I can still participate in Mass.
We went to WonderEve today at Wonderscope and we were there ALL DAY! We got there at 9:45 and didn’t leave until 5:15 and the boys enjoyed EVERY minute. Mr. Stinky Feet was there, a musician, a juggler, they got out the StarLab and they have a brand new underwater Lego exhibit…not to mention all the other things they have to do. They even served us lunch and passed out snacks in the afternoon. I definitely got my moneys worth.
Liam in his underwater gear. He also has on a scuba pack which you can’t see. Throughout the course of the day, he probably played in the Lego area for at least two hours with whatever child/ren he could find that were close to his age…and they played HARD! Their imaginations were at work. Of course, Colm was right there with them…playing with the big kids and holding his own.
Colm’s favorite room…the ball room.
Pizza break!
The magician was awesome! Seriously!