I Am Not Really Okay with This

Blech!

Today I feel useless and crabby and like a crappy parent. I could tell you all the things I haven't done (like folding the laundry and making my kids play outside - it's 100º!), but instead I think it would help me for you to know all the things I have done recently.

This is a big one - I took my kids to see 2 movies in the past week (or so). Well, Pete saw 2, and Lulu saw 1, but for a person who prefers to watch movies at home, this is definitely outside my box. And I initiated the movie Pete and I went to by inviting Pete's BFF and her mom to go with us instead of waiting to hear from them. Also outside my box... Then Pete and Lulu and I talked Husbandguy into skipping out on his last 2 hours of work one day and all went to a movie together. Trying to talk HG into skipping out of work isn't outside my box, but it does make for a fun afternoon!

Then, yesterday, I took Pete's spelling workbook from last year and spent an hour building 13 crossword puzzles for her to take to the beach with us. I should share those with her friends...

And in the past week (or so) my girls and I have tie-dyed and painted pottery (twice) and made a fairy wand and watched "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" (which didn't scare Lulu).

And I've discovered that my Follies-writing niche is actually multimedia, not so much dialogue or whatever. I am a lover of high praise for me, and my projects for this year's Follies, which are Powerpoint shows (and VERY funny) have elicited high praise for me. Yay me!!

Honesty, I don't feel that much better, but thanks for reading anyway.

Oh, I did have another featured post at Write With Pictures last week. But I was the only entry that day...

HG Says:

The other day I was talking to Lulu about living in New Hampshire. She decided she would rather live there than here (NC) because there it actually snows. A lot. Then Pete got involved and the talk turned to the 2 weeks of mud and lilacs that people in NH call "spring" and how beautiful the fall can get, but they were both still intrigued by the snow and didn't mind at all that it can get really, really cold there in the winter (although not as cold as some places, I know). Then Husbandguy said, "The cold lasts a long time, too. It stays cold there for as long as it stays hot here." Like that was going to change anyone's mind. HA! The past week or so, the high temperatures have been in the high 90's with heat indexes in the 100's. It's miserable. I hate it. It's awful. And it's not the humidity that's the problem either; it's the heat. Yuck.

Sadly, HG's job pays exactly the same in NH as it does in NC, dollar for dollar, in spite of the substantially higher cost of living so I suppose we'll be waiting to make the move north until I've had something significant published. Sigh.

For now I'll just stay inside and wait for October and hope it snows at least once in January for my girls.

On Tuesday We Painted Pottery

Of course I didn't remember to take a picture during. Two years ago I would have had 2 dozen shots of my girls at the pottery paintin' place, but for some reason (just like with the tie dye), I didn't think of taking a picture until it was too late.

sigh...

Here's what we made, though. You guess who did what!

The Argument For

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that it is a good idea, or even okay, really, for my girls to spend their entire summer vacation in front of the TV, but I will admit that I let them watch a little every day. Once they have done certain things (like Pete practicing piano and Lulu picking up her toys and getting dressed) (or dressed again - it's hard to keep that kid clothed).

This summer they discovered "Time Warp Trio." It's a silly show about a magical book that sends these 3 kids back into history. They meet actual cartoon representations of historical figures and visit historical time periods and apparently my children are learning a little bit here and there. And it's hard to argue that there is no value in this program when Pete knows more about Mary Shelley than Husbandguy does (he said, "Isn't 'Mary Shelley' a pseudonym? It's a man, right?"), especially since she's not old enough to read Frankenstein yet.

On the other hand, it is not hard to argue that there is no value in watching another program about a square, yellow sea creature type thing and turn the TV off. So I still do that.

We Tie Dyed on Monday

This is the only pair of socks that (nearly) match
(and it was an accident that they do).

We also did t-shirts and skirts (that's Lulu's skirt in the photo). It was messy and drippy and we suspected some of the items (like the skirt) (and those socks) might turn out black because of how much dye they had on them when we finished, but they didn't.

I think we'll probably be doing that again.

(Also, red is a primary color, right? So you're not supposed to be able to "make" it, right? Look at Lulu's skirt... We didn't have red dye... We're MAGIC!!)

Storm Coming

LL Says:

My girls are going to day camp this week, and several of Lulu's friends from this past school year are there too. When we were talking about what they had done yesterday, Lulu said that she hadn't played with the boys who were there that she knew because they had just played together and wouldn't play with her. Then she put her hands on her hips and said, and I couldn't help but giggle inappropriately, "I hate to say this, but... those boys are dumb." Remember, she's barely 4. And she totally meant that they didn't know what they were missing by not playing with her.

Back Yard

Summer storms are so much more interesting when you can see the usually lazy creek at the bottom of the hill raging and threatening to overflow.

A Difference

I'm a UU. Probably mentioned that before, but if not, there you go. This morning, the guest speaker (our minister is on sabbatical) told a funny tale. She had been asked to lead a UU-style service one Sunday during a session at an Episcopal divinity school, and the morning of the service, the dean commented, kind of nervously that she might want to make everyone aware of what to expect before she started. This is funny by itself because, what does he think we do on Sundays? But she complied. Standing in front of the group in the chapel she said, "This will be very much like what you're used to. We will have music and a message. But there will be one difference." Here she gestured to the chalice and said, "We will not be having communion. We UU's don't drink from the chalice. We light it on fire."

GA Aquarium

Help Me Out Here

Poppop, Husbandguy's dad, is blind in his left eye. The state still says he can drive and Nana lets him prefers for him to so he does. But the day I watched him pour himself a puddle of orange juice around a glass because his depth perception is nonexistent, I declared that he was never to drive a car with my child in it. At the time we just had Pete, but obviously the rule has been extended to protect our newer sweetie.

I know for a fact that he completely disregarded my concern at least one time and drove with Pete in the car. And I suspect that he did most, if not all, of the driving during Pete's recent week-long visit with them and then convinced her to lie about it. My evidence is this: a. I know they don't agree with, and I don't trust that they respect, my feelings about this and b. Pete said that they were "going to drop Krista off at work and then Poppop said he would drive us around, I mean, Nana is going to drive us around until it is time for dinner." She claims she misspoke, even though I've tried to make it clear that she won't be in trouble if Poppop did drive with her in the car, and she insists that he didn't drive at all. I hate to say it, but I don't believe her.

And unfortunately it's making me not want to let Lulu go for a week, or even a long weekend, by herself. She is only 4 and won't be able to stand up for herself and will certainly be riding in a car that Poppop and his one eye are driving.

Look at it this way with me, for a moment. Maybe I'm wrong and Poppop can see perfectly well enough to drive a 3-ton deathtrap and nothing terrible will ever happen to my children. Or maybe I'm right that he can't but he'll get lucky and nothing terrible will ever happen to my children. But what if I am right and his luck runs out and there is a horrible tragic crash and my child is hurt or killed or has to witness one or both of her grandparents or someone else get killed. I would never forgive them, either one of them because she (Nana) is just as guilty for letting him drive, and this, at the very least, would certainly not be good for my marriage and at the very worst would completely ruin my life.

So? Should I let Lulu go by herself? She so desperately wants to be big enough to go alone and probably won't understand my reasons for not wanting her to, but I'm truly worried. And, honestly, I'm a little pissed off that nobody, not even HG, sees eye to eye with me on this.

Differences

Pete and Lulu are so different. When we got to the park and saw that there were other people there, Pete thought, "Oh no," and Lulu said, "Yay! New friends!"