30-Day Challenge

So, I hear from my beautiful sister over at Guffey Love that everyone is doing this 30-day blog challenge thing. That sounds interesting. And totally unfeasible. However, I talked with my Mimi on the phone today, and found out that she checks my blog regularly...which is reason enough, today, for me to give it a try. It means blogging every day for 30 days, and apparently doing so on a certain category or question. However, I could not find the Guff's (aka Cupcake) list of blog topics, so I'm using a different one. I'm sure her blog will be informative and entertaining; I hope mine will be coherent.

Day #1: How much laundry do you do in a week?

I'm not exactly sure, but I think we average a load each day. Some time back I got the idea of actually doing a load each day, but that involved the machines doing all the work and me not doing any...which in turn became our bedroom overrun with mounds of unfolded laundry.

Mostly little-boy laundry. It outnumbers little-girl laundry by about 14:1, in spite of the fact that they hold only 2:1 advantage.

Here is what our bed looks like right now:



Which means I should go and deal with it instead of blogging. See you tomorrow!

Life Is Good

In keeping with last night's bedtime theme, I have to say that going in to check on the kids before J and I go to bed is one of my favorite times of day. For all of the the fun, misadventure and loveliness during the day, there's something about sleeping babies (no matter how old they are) that is so powerful and attractive. J and I usually check on them together, and we often stand there and whisper about how sweet they are. I rumple the hair on their little heads and tell them that I love them. J pulls the blankets up on cool evenings.

They look so innocent, and sweet, and entirely incapable of shooting Nerf dart guns at each other at point-blank range and then (both) screaming with laughter.

I love quiet time and dandelions in vases, but for recharging my "affection batteries" nothing beats a little bedtime check-in!


Thanks for the reminder, Wombles.

Volcano Man

Although Volcano Man has been in our lives for a relatively short time, he has come to play a large role in bedtime.

Volcano Man came from a Happy Meal. When we drove to Quincy this summer, we let the kids get Happy Meals for their road food. They love getting the toy (can't open it until you're done eating!) and the apple dippers are a favorite. Volcano Man is from that trip.

Volcano Man lights up when you push a button. This enables the bearer to look at Star Wars sticker books and Lego catalogs after lights-out.




No wonder he's hugely popular.

I've been planning on giving a shout-out request for an accurate identification of Volcano Man, but after a quick Google search it appears that Volcano Man may actually be his name. Who knew?!

My Kind of Recess

Usually at recess I require the kids to go outside. Require. I think I may have mentioned this before. In the mornings, this is generally not a problem. In fact, they're all as ready to tear around the yard as I am to check e-mail and throw a load of laundry into the washing machine.

So it all works perfectly, although it's anybody's guess when that load may make it into the dryer.

Anyway, it must have been lunch recess (as opposed to morning recess) when I sent the kids outside. Pixie grumbled. I said, "You don't have to run around, you can sit and read, but you have to go outside." It was one of those days. I waxed eloquent on the benefits of fresh air, although those benefits were ones I was willing to trade for a little solitude inside (and the chance to make lunch in peace).

A little later, this is what I found:



It just made me happy. It's the kind of recess I take, when I can get it!

This Morning--Halloween

This morning, Pixie and Bud got their Halloween costumes from Nona.

When she was out visiting last summer, Pixie and Nona spent a while looking at patterns online. Pixie wanted to be a "Water Fairy Princess" and found the perfect, "flow-y" dress. There was never any real question that I would make them...I still have the fabric and 24-month pattern for a really cute outfit for Pixie.

And if there was any doubt as to Pixie's feelings on the subject, they were silenced forever when Pixie put a hole in the sleeve of the dress for her (water fairy) doll. She asked for Nona's address, because she wanted to write to her about it. I thought that was sweet. She returned with an envelope to mail that obviously included the dress. She was sending it out for repairs! Maybe Mom can remind me of the words in the accompanying note, but they were something like, "Dear Nona, The sleeve of the dress is torn. I wish you could fix it. Love, Pixie."

Anyway, the sending of the dress afforded the long-suffering Nona an opportunity to match the color fabric with Pixie's costume fabric. AND she mailed it back...repaired. Silvermist is in it to this day!

This cemented forever Nona's superstardom in that category. Bud decided that he wanted to be "Peter, the High King" and that the knight costume on the shared pattern would be perfect.

OK, what I originally meant to say was that this morning, after weeks of waiting and asking, the costumes were revealed to Pixie and Bud.

I think they kept asking--"Do you think the costumes will be here by Halloween? It's only X days away!" because they loved to hear "Yes!"

Bud clapped his hand over his mouth. Pixie said they were more beautiful than she had ever imagined. Bud couldn't believe that Nona had made the boots.

And I breathed in the soft scent of my parents' house, and remembered the pink princess dress complete with pointy hat streaming more pink fabric from first grade, and the aliens, and mummies...and the huge hoop skirt... and the turquoise recreation of my grandmother's ball gown...and that little black velvet number that Mom stitched me into on my way out to a dance.



Thanks, Mom. For everything.

Nite-Nite turns Three

Some time ago, I posted about Pixie and Nite-Nite the Frog. I can't find it, so you'll have to trust me...Nite-Nite is like a member of the family.

So when Pixie insisted that NN's birthday go on the calendar (Oct. 3), I agreed. And when she said he needed a cake, I said OK.

I drew the line at buying presents, however. There's restraint for you.

The day before NN's birthday came together in such an alignment of circumstances that I got to feel like an on-top-of-it Mom without doing any of the hard work. It was AWESOME.

Pixie and her friend LuLu came over wanting to make a cake for NN. Coming a mere 9 days after Wombles' birthday, I had about 5 different colors of frosting in the refrigerator...and bunch of cupcakes in the freezer from the leftover cake batter from Wombles' cake. YES! YES! YES, you can decorate for Nite-Nite! Let me pull these things out for you!!


And on the next day, when we sang and took pictures, I could tell that Nite-Nite felt adequately beloved and celebrated.






(The writing on his cupcake reads, "Happy Birthday" in Frog.)

Don't Try This (not) at Home

Sometimes, just for fun, Bud dresses us as a Superhero Extraordinaire for school in the mornings.



Maybe it helps him with his math. It definitely adds a little spice to our day. And I'm pretty sure that if he wore it to the public school, I would get a phone call. But maybe I'm wrong! Maybe I should let him wear it to Spanish tomorrow afternoon, just to see what happens!

Even if I am the teacher. I would probably call myself to remind myself how disruptive that kind of thing can be.

And I'd have to learn the official Spanish term for Superman.