Four Cards and Some Wheat Thins

There are times in my life when I desperately wish someone else could share a moment with me. It usually occurs when the kids say or do something and it either cracks me up or makes me cry. Today there are two stories of the more warm fuzzy and humorous variety. Because, although I began this blog journey to open myself up to the world, I have the belief that the world really doesn't need to know what a sobbing wacko I can be sometimes.

Yesterday I picked Alexa up from daycare and we were heading to Chloe's school to pick her up. It was a little after 4 o'clock and true to form she mentioned that she was hungry. I happened to have a bag of Wheat Thins left over from my lunch and I asked her if she wanted some. She said she did so I handed them back. At this point I should mention that I feel I often tempt fate with the amount of my driving time I spend handing food and drinks back to my kids. My car could feed an impoverished family for the better part of a week with all the crackers and Cheerios on the floor. Occasionally I bring the dog somewhere just so he can clean it up. So it is not an unusual occurrence for her to snack on our 30 minute drive home. After a while she said she was done and handed the bag back to me. After a bit I began to realize that with all my nerves from earlier in the day I hadn't eaten much and reached into the bag to munch a few crackers myself. At that point I noticed something felt odd about the crackers. So I inquired to Alexa about what had happened to the crackers. She responded, ever so perkily, "Oh I licked the salt off them. It tasted yummy." Needless to say I waited till dinner to eat.

Today I picked Chloe up at after school where she had been making cards for all occasions. So here you go some warm fuzzies...

For Mommy...

For Alexa...

(Look she told her sister she loves her, I knew it! Proof!)

For Cabbie...

Thats so sweet because half the time I think she hates him!

And my personal favorite for me (again)...

(I think my hair looks particularly nice in this one)

Can you read it? It says, "I love you on this day." You know as opposed to those times when I make her do horrid things like clean her room and put her clothes in the hamper.

Thanks kiddo I really did need to hear that!

Obsessively Grateful

OK so we all know I am a little on the neurotic side. If you don't, I am so sorry to blow your image of my cool, calm, and collected demeanor. Hang on to graceful... I am not really graceful in any way... but if you we mistaken enough to think I was cool, calm, and collected perhaps you could hang on to the illusion of graceful too. You know just to raise my image a little. At any rate there in the smallest chance that I tend towards the obsessive worrying type.

I have had a couple of things hanging over my head through this weekend that have caused me rather a large amount of stress. I would like to offer my humblest of gratitude to the fact that all of these things came through for me in the end.

Grateful item number one: I have been relying on Grammie Sharon to drive all the way here from New Hampshire on her days off to help me on Tuesdays and Wednesdays get Chloe to school safely. For the next two weeks she decided to... you know... have a life of her own and travel and work and wont be able to be here. I called several babysitters and wasn't able to reach any one last week to do anything more than leave a message. I was beginning to get really worried about how I was going to work this. I have to leave for work at 7 AM and Chloe can't be at school till 8:10. Plus on the 23rd Alexa's daycare is closed completely, and I was trying to find a sitter for her all day. I had to take three days off last week with Chloe being so sick so I really was feeling overwhelmed about how I was going to get us all where we needed to be safely. Well, last night one of my sitters came through for me and called to apologize for forgetting to get back to me, but said she could do all four days I need including being with Alexa all day. The girls love her as a sitter and are excited to see her. I was so relieved and amazed at how somehow these things always seem to fall into place.

Grateful item number two: This weekend I received a very bizarre letter in the mail from Allstate Insurance. I have both my car and home insurance through them. The letter was a form one and wasn't clear but mentioned paying my unpaid balance and interest being earned on the premium. I was immediately alarmed. I had records of paying my car insurance in full several months ago and I escrow my house insurance as part of my monthly mortgage payment. My records from the mortgage company showed the premium being paid in full back in September. I am sure I had dreams of home eviction last night (I didn't say my worries were logical). I got a hold of my agent today at lunch to find out that the letter was just because they wanted to tell me about a .20 credit on my account. The form letter just goes out indicating any irregular activity on the account. I thanked him for the information and obviously spent the rest of my lunch planning how to spend my big bonus.

Grateful item number three (still hanging in there?): This is a big one. I am up for license renewal this year for my teaching licence. In this state you have to establish goals that you will work on over the course of seven years and then present your portfolio to the standards board proving that you have done what you said you would. Clearly this had all the markings of something I would dwell, fret, and obsess about. I mean we are talking about my job here. The way I feed, cloth, and provide housing for my children (of course now they get to split that .20 credit into their savings accounts, but I didn't know that then). I have been stressed about this for months. I have been stressed even when others told me not to stress. (Not stress! It is what I do! and I do it so well!) Well, this afternoon was my portfolio presentation. Scheduled for 3:30. I left as soon after work as I could to make sure I was there on time. I made sure to have my big giant binder of evidence with me...

The drive over I was rapidly changing radio stations (because you know when I am nervous I can't settle or find anything that will hold my attention for long). I hit on one song. It is an older song and I haven't heard it for a while. It is a song that always reminded my of my dad. There is a line in it where the guy is talking to his daughter. He is teaching her to drive and he tells her to "sit up girl you are doing just fine." That is something my dad would have said to me, and he was right I was going to do just fine. And I did. My presentation was just fine, and at the end the woman gave me this...

people are good. Chocolate is great.

The process of looking at what I have been doing for the past seven years was interesting. It has made me do a lot of thinking lately. I couldn't believe it had been 7 years. It has made me think a lot about what I really want to do with the next seven. I don't know what it will be, but it has made me start to do some preliminary Internet searches over the last few months. It has got me thinking, and right now that feels like a pretty powerful thing. So thank you world for continuing to foster my belief that if we put good energy out in the world good things will come back.

Tree Decorating

Each year I try to keep Chloe's birthday from being washed out by Christmas. I always tell the girls we will decorate for Christmas after Chloe's birthday. So today we took down the birthday decorations and headed out to get a tree. They were pretty excited. We are still working on the whole spreading the ornaments around thing, so a lot of them ended up in one area.

I was amazed at how many ornaments we have collected over the years. I love the ones that are made out of their hand prints, and they loved seeing how much they have grown over the years. We had to make sure that the ones made of anything that could possibly be viewed as edible by a small diet starved dog went up high. Lest he find himself a snack while we are at work and school tomorrow.

We were happy with the end result.

Chloe's Birthday

Today Chloe turned 7. I tried to sell the idea of a party somewhere else given the small size of my house, but she wanted a friend party at home. So what turned out to be 8 kids descended on my house this afternoon. I was expecting 6 but one that hadn't replied came with her younger brother. That caused a bit of chaos with the art project I had planned, as I was short the needed supplies. I felt bad, but there wasn't much I could do since I didn't know they were coming. Other than that things went smoothly. Chloe loves to choose a theme each year out of the birthday Express catalog, and this year she wanted a dog theme. We decorated bobble head dogs.

Played pin the tail on the dog (the kids decorated their tails first).

Played toss the dog bone into the dog bowl my version of a ring toss with felt dog bones. Then we ate dog cake.

and opened presents.

After everyone left I gave her the gifts from myself and other family members. She is now well stocked with new art projects. She can't wait to dig in to the pottery wheel from Auntie Kim and Uncle Louis. She was excited to try out the kids sized sewing machine I got her.

And both Alexa and Chloe both loved digging through the box of make believe sent by Aunt Andrea and Uncle Ryan. We are well stocked for a cold winter of indoor activities.

Now I need a couple of months to recover from that and get ready for Alexa's.

We call her Cinderella

Alexa and I created a snowman in the yard yesterday. We had him face the house and wave so Chloe could see him from her bedroom window. Alexa topped it off with dried flowers for the head and announced that she was a girl and should be named Cinderella.

She lasted all of twelve hours as the snow gave way to wind and rain and she is now a pile of mush in the yard, but it was a lovely sight while it lasted and Chloe enjoyed looking at it.

Be Careful What You Wish For...

Alexa had her wish granted. She was begging for more snow and here it is. True to her word she helped out with clearing the drive way today.

Of course she tends to take a few breaks here and there.

We even got Grammie Sharon help out. It just doesn't pay to a guest at this house (you should see the people who come and fix my bathroom drain, she got off easy).

The only one that got out of the snow removal work was Chloe, who is still in bed with a fever. Although she is so stir crazy she would love to get out of the house. Well, further than the doctor's office.

That is a Tylenol induced smile...poor kid.

Snow

When you are three and a half and desperately waiting for that first snow fall, you don't want to hear that it has been a freakishly warm November and December. You don't want to know that we usually have a good sized snowstorm by this point in the year. You don't want to get up to hear your mom tell you it is raining... again. So when we got up this morning to see nothing more than what would be called lake effect snow in any one's book. It didn't matter to Alexa. As soon as the sun was high enough in the sky she layered up and headed out.

Unfortunately for Cabbie her sister was sick in bed all day with a fever so she elected him to be her playmate on the outside. Cabbie the cold-weather-hating-what-is-this-white-cold-stuff-sticking-to-my-paws-let-me-back-in-the-house- dog.

They tried all the usual fun... building a snow man... not enough snow.

Plowing the slide off with your feet...well... she tried it.

Shoveling the deck off. It is cleared, she made sure of that, but as you can see it lacked a little something. I am sure that we will get a big snow storm at some point. This is after all Vermont and Alexa is ready because all today did was wet her appetite for the real thing.