Time

It's really infuriating the way children grow and change and eventually leave you without checking first to see if it's okay with you.

I have always resisted change and I have never had a vision of my future.  When I was pregnant with Lilly a friend told me to register for baby plates and baby spoons.  I remember specifically having the thought; "Why would I do that, I am having a baby and babies don't need those things, they don't eat real food."  I never thought that Lilly would progress into needing utensils and other non baby items.

So you can imagine my shock when I found myself at my babies Kindergarten Easter party yesterday.

I was able to attend and help at Lilly's Easter party.  We hid eggs all over the classroom while the children were at lunch.  Mrs. Perruquet was very smart and told the children that they could only take one egg at a time and then they had to put them in the communal basket.

That gave every child an opportunity to find many eggs.  Then the eggs were divided equally among all the children.  I really dislike when I attend egg hunts and the big kids have 40 eggs and my small children have 1 egg, so this method appealed to my inner sense of right and wrong.  (Last year we attended a egg hunt that was divided by ages, and my 5 year old still only came home with 2 eggs.  I even let her go in the 2-4 age group with Jack.  There were some seriously aggressive toddlers at that egg hunt.)

So, I didn't say anything when I saw Lilly taking multiple eggs to the basket even though the class was told in no uncertain terms to take ONE egg.  Her teacher even said "I know you're going to think, but I have TWO hands so surely I can carry two eggs, you may still only take ONE egg."  Then when Lilly was caught carrying three eggs at a time and the other children told on her (to me) I had to remind her to take one egg.

After the party the children had bunny tails (doughnut holes), cookies, and chocolate milk.  They were then sent home with a HUGE bag of candy and treats.  Lilly brought home more candy than she did at the Halloween party. 

My baby keeps growing and there is nothing I can do about it.  I have become the adult who is shocked at children who grow.  Every week when I see my piano students I tell them it looks like they grew since last week.  I am not making it up, it really does look like they grew. They just keep growing and now I am the creepy piano lady who always talks about how much the children are growing. 

After the party Jack and I killed time until school let out.  He ran and played and had fits and threw mulch at people, so I felt like life was right. He is so far from being in school and it made me happy.

Weekend

Jack woke up extremely cranky from his nap yesterday, screaming for Jim. He was just sobbing "Mama Jim, mama Jim, mama Jim!!!"  I think he needed some special bonding time with his mama Jim...

Yesterday we were all set to travel to DC as a family for the weekend.  No bags had been packed, no laundry folded, no dishes done, and the 3:00PM departure time was looming over me.  As my exhaustion from the week caught up with me I thought about the nightmare it would be to clean, pack, and cram my family into my 1998 civic with 201,000 miles on it and drive the 3-4 hours to my mom's house.  Then I had a brilliant idea.  Why don't I go by myself to my mom's house and leave all the cleaning and childcare to Jim?  Then I could have a lovely time for sleeping and watching conference, all by myself, AND more importantly Jack could spend some quality time with his mama Jim.

I called Jim at work with my great idea and he said "Uh....okay?"

"Great! It's been decided then."  So I packed my own bag with my stuff only and went on my way.  I didn't pack a single sippy cup, diaper, car, doll, car seat, pack n play, stroller, or small article of clothing.

Several people seemed alarmed at this decision and thought something was seriously wrong or that I was really angry. None of that was true. I was just so tired and thought it sounded lovely to have a weekend with my mom, and to sleep, a lot.  I don't think I have done that since I married Jim in 2003.

I will admit that the car ride down was rather boring and a bit odd.  I still drive the same car I did in college and I still have the same CD's I had in college, so for a second I felt like I was a 21 year old driving home from Penn State.  Luckily I had a toy car in my purse to remind me that my real life was lovely and consisted of 2 beautiful children and 1 lovely husband.  I put on NPR just to drive home the fact that I am 32.

The children are having a wonderful time with mama Jim. Jim let them play outside, jumping on the trampoline until bedtime last night, and this morning he took them to McDonald's for breakfast.  Then they were off for an adventure with his mother and grandmother.  See what a fun weekend I provided for my children?? Jim is way more fun than I am, it's good to leave them in his care sometimes.

I have a lovely husband who agreed to a spontaneous, completely self absorbed, weekend to myself.

Jack's new puppy.

Lilly found a puppy at the cracker barrel. It is super annoying and barks non-stop, because SOMEBODY (not me) put batteries in the puppy.

Jack loves this puppy.

Hunter's

Lilly went with some friends to see the Harlem Globetrotter's tonight.   Jack was SO sad he couldn't go.  He had no idea where the kids were going, he just knew he was being left behind. To make matters worse  a 4 year old borrowed his sweatshirt.  That set Jack over the edge. Not only did he not get to go out in his own sweatshirt, another child took his sweatshirt to go have fun without him.  He just sobbed, and threw things, and screamed "Bye Lilly! Bye Lilly!" It was a pretty pitiful show. Huge tears streamed down his face and he sobbed and begged to go with the big kids.

I guess he is old enough to know when he is being left out. So of course we had to take him for ice cream, which pretty much cheered him up.  Jim and Jack and I tend to do fun things when Lilly is having fun on her own.  It makes us feel less lonely for Lilly.

Hunter's is the dairy freeze in town that opens in March and closes early fall.  The kids love it and the ice cream is pretty good.

Jack dumped his ice cream all over Jim's nice dress shirt.  Jim didn't care at all and just asked where the napkins were so we could clean Jack's face.  Someone else might have had a complete fit (me), but Jim has always been the mature one when it comes to fits...in that he never throws them.

Hunter's has playground equipment and a tether ball.  Jim loves to play tether ball because he is naturally athletic and can hit the ball way over my head and I never have a chance of actually making contact with the ball.  That's okay, I would rather have a husband who can destroy me in tether ball than not.  That's exactly why I married him, because he doesn't throw fits and he can beat me in tether ball.

This is the picture Jim took of me when he thought I didn't know he was taking a picture of me, but I did know. That's my "I know you're taking a picture of me" face.  One might think I should smile for that face, but I just do what comes naturally.

Lilly is still afraid of Hunter's.  Last fall before they shut down Jim took her there for a daddy/daughter date and she knocked her teeth off the see-saw and then consequently lost all three of those teeth.  She then told everyone she spoke to that her Daddy knocked her teeth out.  I think she is ready to go there for ice cream, but no fun or playing.

This is what happens to children who come and don't buy ice cream.

Just kidding, it's their decoration.  Although, that was my first thought.

Jack had a great time and forgot all about being left behind!

May in March

We have had glorious May weather in our central Pennsylvania March, but it was back to reality this morning.  I pulled out the winter coats and heard rumors of the temperature dropping into the 20's tonight.  Oh well. We enjoyed it while it was here.

My favorite editing website is going down in April so I realized I had to make the move to a real photo editing software.  I bought lightroom by adobe, because my sister told me to.  It is very confusing and not as dummy-friendly as picnik is.  So all these photos are experimenting with lightroom editing. I was going to show you before and after, but then I fear you will judge my editing and I will be sad.

I wonder what grown-up Lilly will think of the hundreds upon thousands of pictures of her making a peace sign. I love that the peace sign seems to transcend generations.

Date

I had a lunch date with Jim and Jack on Friday.  It was pretty fun and delicious.

Jack brought his mini-mimi-cup, aka Lilly's American Girl doll cup.

He refers to his sippy cup as "mimi-cup," you might spell it as "me-me cup."  He now refers to all drinking vessels as "mimi-cup." (I spell it mimi because I really liked the character "Mimi" from the musical Rent, and I took Italian in college and one of their main pronouns is mi, I think.)

The server told us that the soup of the day was a butternut squash, cabbage soup.  He told us that even though it sounded disgusting and he personally disliked butternut squash OR cabbage, the soup somehow tasted amazing.

I can't tell you how much I doubted his statement, so I ordered the soup just to prove him wrong.  However, I was wrong.  This was some of the most amazing soup I have EVER had. I also dislike butternut squash and cabbage and I started to doubt that those two ingredients were even in the soup.

I challenged the server and begged for a recipe.  He asked the chef and the chef refused, he wouldn't even tell me the ingredients.  The chef comes into the restaurant at 11PM and makes soup until 3AM in secret so no one knows what goes into them.

I called the next day to order more soup and it was gone, no more soup.  The magic chef cooks on whims and doesn't write down recipes.  Now I will spend the rest of my life in search of a butternut squash cabbage soup that tastes amazing.

Bedtime for Jack

Jack was dressed by three different members of our family tonight after bath time.

Then he escaped outside.