ROFL

I had to explain to Vicki that that didn't spell "ralph" when she saw it on a sticker earlier today. But that has nothing to do with this post. You must visit this item on amazon and read the reviews. I think I may have cracked a rib.

Kids say the darndest things

This is a conversation that Lexi and I had today after school:

Lexi: Mom, you have to promise not to tell anyone.
Me: Okay, I won't tell a single soul (crossing my fingers behind my back as I sense an excellent bloggable moment coming on - besides, I really do think she just meant don't tell Vicki, 'cause it's fun to keep secrets from your sister, especially when she's sitting in the same room)
Lexi: (whispering) I have a boyfriend (giggle)
Me: Really? (also whispering, of course) What's his name?
Lexi: Forrest. (more giggles - he must really be something)
Me: Hmmmm...what do you do with your boyfriend?
Lexi: (backing away slowly and no longer whispering) Weeeeeeellllll...I don't reeeallllly remember...ummmm...I have to go now...

I will get to the bottom of this.

Also, on a significantly less terrifying note, here's a funny thing Ellie said yesterday right after she coughed and/or sneezed with a mouthful of milk: "Uh, oh, Mommy. I bless-you'd and made a milk mess."

Fun Run and sunshine!

The sun finally managed to break through all the clouds we're so used to here in the Northwest, and boy did it make its presence known! On Friday it nearly hit 100 degrees! We made the most of it with a really busy weekend, which kicked off on Thursday with the annual Fun Run at the girls' school. Ellie and our friends Katie and Violet and I headed over to the high school to watch the big kids run.

Vicki and Lexi both seem to have inherited my, um, love for running. They ran full speed every time they got to the side of the track where all the grown ups were watching, and then walked the rest of the way. But despite that they still managed to do 6 laps in 15 minutes, which they are both quick to tell anyone who will listen is a mile and a half. Yay girls!!!

After school that day we discovered that we had no popsicles or ice cream anywhere in the house, so we turned the sprinkler on the driveway (we love our townhouse but lament the lack of yard in front or back on a regular basis) and let the girls get soaked. Ellie spent pretty much the whole time with her tongue out, trying to catch the water.

Friday was the really hot day, so we just tried to stay inside as much as possible, although we did walk home from school. I had been to the store for popsicles by then, so we were okay.

Saturday Vicki, Lexi, and I walked in a local parade with the Girl Scouts and had a blast. Chris and Ellie sat on the sidelines and waved at us, and Lexi decided that she wants to be a princess when she grows up. This decision came after seeing the Rose Festival Princesses and learning that they each got to ride on the back of their own Corvette for the parade. She's 100% serious about this ambition. Heaven help us all.

The parade was great, but Chris wasn't able to see through the camera past the glare of the sun well enough to get any pictures of us, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

That afternoon we went to our garden, which is definitely benefitting from the sunshine. I got this cute picture of Ellie I just had to share.

That evening we went over to the church for what we thought was going to be a Dutch oven cookoff, but what turned out to be more of a potluck picnic. Only one other family did Dutch oven, so we both won the prize (a soup ladle). We still had a great time, but we're really grateful that next Saturday we have no plans at all, and we intend to keep it that way!

New look!

So...what do you think?

I've been wanting to do this for weeks, but it took me forever to first figure out what I wanted it to look like, and then how on earth to do it. I actually had to create a new blog just so I could mess around with it and not completely mess up this one. But I finally did it (spending WAY too much time on it, to be perfectly honest). I'm kinda proud of myself.

Page 123

I've been catching up with all the blogs I read and I just discovered that Angie tagged me. Fortunately, it was only yesterday :) Anyway, here are the rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people and post a comment to the person who tagged you once you've posted your three sentences.

The nearest book that had at least 123 pages (Fox in Socks, while a literary classic, only has 61) was Emma Lazarus by Esther Schor. It's a biography of the woman who wrote the poem on the Statue of Liberty (you know, Give me your tired, your poor...) I'm only on page 65, and sadly have been for quite some time now, so this is new to me, but here you go:

"Given the circumstances, a more brazen, impolitic poem is hard to imagine. She drew her title, 'The Crowing of the Red Cock,' from a sentence in the famous New-York Times article: 'The peasants have a technical name for the deliberate firing of towns -- the 'red Cock' is said to crow.'

Across the Eastern sky has glowed
The flicker of a blood-red dawn,
Once more the clarion cock has crowed,
Once more the sword of Christ is drawn."

(There are two more lines to that stanza, and three more stanzas to the poem, btw) Now I'm motivated to finish the book! Thanks, Angie!

Anywho, I tag...Emily, Nicola, Kara, Danielle, and Mela.

Some days are better than others

This was me by 6pm yesterday.

The day was going really well, nothing exceptional, just a normal day, up until about 4pm. Then, essentially, all hell broke loose. I was working on a project for my sister in law (can't elaborate - Mother's Day is coming up and both our mothers read this blog), which involved a lot of uploading and such on the computer. It was rather stressful, making sure everything was done right, and when I hit the final "confirm" button, the next screen I got was Explorer's error screen, so I didn't even know if everything I had done had gone through. I went downstairs to call Emily and let her know that maybe everything was ready, and just as she answered I came upon Ellie, sitting in a very large puddle in the middle of the floor. I should mention that Ellie has been going through a bit of a regression this week, and finding her in the midst of a puddle is not surprising. However, this was not your ordinary puddle. So, hoping against hope that it was just water, although there were no cups or water bottles nearby, I asked her (with Emily on the other end of the phone, mind you) what she was sitting in.

"A puddle."
"Ummm...a puddle of what, Ellie?"
"Pee pee!"

I have no idea how long she'd been in said puddle, but she was certainly having a good time. Emily, meanwhile, was howling with laughter as I, in a huge state of panic, told her I'd call her back. I dragged Ellie upstairs and threw her in the bathtub ("In my clothes?") and then undressed her. Meanwhile, Vicki and Lexi , being somewhat responsible, had headed upstairs to do their daily jobs (clean up the bedroom and playroom - they alternate days), but just couldn't seem to remember which room they were on, so rather than check the calendar that I made to counter such convenient forgetfulness, they decided to first shout at me to tell them, and then argue amongst themselves. They both thought they were on the bedroom, which, of course, was the cleaner of the two rooms. During all this screaming (I had no idea which room they were on but was a little too preoccupied to check for them), I was mopping up the floor and trying unsuccessfully to avoid getting my socks wet. Plus, darting into the bathroom periodically to make sure Ellie wasn't drowning or flooding the bathroom. I finished cleaning up the floor, found the calendar and told the girls which room they were on, checked on Ellie again, and called Emily back. She was, of course, still laughing (just wait, Em!) As soon as we got a conversation going a new fight broke out between Vicki and Lexi, this time (as far as I could tell) having something to do with the fact that Lexi wanted to put something away in the bedroom and Vicki not letting her in. Screams and total anarchy immediately broke out. I checked on Ellie again and started my 5th load of laundry for the day. Sensing that the older girls were on the verge of tearing each others' hair out, I said goodbye to Emily, sent them to separate rooms, and announced that they were grounded for the rest of the evening because I was tired of the rudeness. This, of course, did nothing to stop the screaming, it just changed the target of the screams. Then I went back into the bathroom to check on Ellie, who had been alone for no more than two minutes, and found her squeezing the last of the shampoo into a tub already filled with most of the conditioner. Great. Empty the tub, rinse the kid, refill the tub, desperately squeeze one more drop of shampoo so I can wash her hair, get out, get dressed, dodge the screams, make dinner.

Then Ellie said, "Oh, no, I'm peeing!" while standing on the chair, not a normal kitchen chair, but the one with her booster seat, which means three layers to go through before it hits the freshly mopped floor. Which means three layers to take apart and sanitize. Chris came home about this time, took one look at me on the floor, surrounded by Clorox wipes, garbage bags, and pieces of the booster seat, plus a half-made dinner on the stove, and turned around and went to Panda Express. What a guy.

The upside to all this is that Ellie, who had had no nap, fell asleep halfway through her hot dog, which I made because I knew she wouldn't make it until Chris got back, and Vicki and Lexi finished their jobs and ate peanut butter sandwiches in their room and were then in bed reading. So Chris and I were alone in the quiet by 7pm to enjoy our Chinese takeout and the banana splits that he stopped and got the stuff for on his way home from Panda Express. Yep, what a guy.

The downside to being responsible...

Today after school Vicki asked if she could walk her friend's dog. This dog is a big black lab, and she's still just a puppy, so she's pretty excitable, but Vicki has held her leash before, so nobody thought anything of it. Except for the dog, who apparently figured out that someone different and less experienced had ahold of her, and took off running. Poor Vicki was afraid to let go of the leash because she didn't want the dog to run away, so she was dragged across the blacktop several yards before we finally caught up to her. She came away with two very skinned knees (she picked a great day to wear shorts, huh?), as well as scrapes, scratches, and bruises all over her legs and hands. She was so brave, though, hardly crying, even though she was shaking like a leaf. As much as I wanted to tell her she should just have let go of the leash to save herself the pain, I had to praise her for being so responsible when she was looking after someone else's pet. And now she has some great battle wounds to show off to everyone tomorrow at school! Isn't that half the fun of being a kid?