Indigo Girl

Palm Springs, The Bastard

The good parts of A being in Palm Springs this week:

I get the whole bed to myself. Well, me and the cats.

I get to drive his cute little CRV. 

I got to eat all the leftover salmon and risotto from Saturday night. 

The bad part:

He is in freaking Palm Springs where it is sunny and 70 degrees and I am here where it is 50 and rainy. I am so bitterly jealous. At least it's not snowing.

I told the girls that they could each pick a meal we would eat when he was gone and no, it can't be pizza each night. E chose hot dogs (sigh) so I had leftover salmon and risotto for lunch and am having hot dogs for dinner. L chose spaghetti and C chose macaroni and cheese, so we will be carb loading the rest of the week. Annoyingly, L and E don't like mararoni and cheese - not the homemade kind, not the chemical filled Kraft kind, and not the organic Annie's kind. I wonder if they are pod people.

Karen and I are planning a May trip to Chicago with our families. How do we find the cheapest hotel rate? Do you use Priceline? Do you call the hotel directly? Please advise.

Ballet and More Knitting

We went to the spring break ballet that our city's junior ballet company put on. It's only 30 minutes and tickets are $5. They had activities before the show, so a ballerina helped C and L try on different costumes, we got to see and talk to some of the dancers, do an obstacle course, and participate in a trial ballet class. I know it's supposed to be about exposing my children to art and whatnot, but I spent most of the time wishing I had the back and butt muscles those dancers have. They are amazingly muscular, but in a pretty way, not bulky or big. 

I want to give a shout out to waiting with big kids. It's so much better than waiting with littles.

The other night I found E dancing in front of the mirror. She was singing Taylor Swift's song We Are Never Getting Back Together. I did not laugh, but instead showed her how to use a hairbrush as a microphone. I've found myself humming One Direction songs. I think we are officially entering the tween years. (I hate the word tween. I would love an alternative.)

I finished knitting my bag (using this pattern) and bought a matching piece of cloth to line it a long time ago, but this week I finally got around to asking Karen to help me finish. She has a sewing machine and experience whereas I would be sewing all needle-and-thread. She hemmed my cloth and then sewed it into the bag and sewed the bag together. Now I have a bag I made!

Next up: I'm going to finish my scarf (I'm on my 2nd skein of yarn and I am very tired of it) and then I'm going to find a simple bag pattern than involves knitting-in-the-round since most of the cute bags require it. I want it to be EASY. Wish me luck because as much as people rave about ravelry, they have patterns marked "Easy" (1 on a 1-10 scale) that involve a lot of complicated techniques. I find it quite discouraging. Twitter suggested a booga bag. I don't really like the feel of felted bags, but I understood most of that pattern. Reading ravelry patterns marked "easy" and not understanding half of what they tell me to do makes me want to give up. Maybe I should try something easier, but I LOVE bags and want to learn to knit them so desperately.

Here is my knitting question: is it better to get double-point needles and knit in the round that way or to get circular needles and learn the Magic Loop method? Or are there other options? Do you have to do both depending on your project? I am wondering how much money to invest. And if you have a bag pattern to recommend for a newbie, please do. Bonus points if it has simple and clear directions.

Spring Break!

As I got ready for work last week, A said to me, "L is sleeping on the couch." We assumed that she had moved because E had a terrible cough. We were ready to praise her problem solving skills that involved NOT waking us up, but it turns out she had no idea how she got there. This isn't the first time she's done a bit of sleepwalking, but it was her most constructive episode.

I bought Big Boggle a while ago and was waiting to bring it out at the right time. Spring break seemed perfect and L and I have played a million games of Boggle this week. I actually like it. Add it to Uno and Clue as a game I enjoy. E doesn't like to play but C plays with us. (We let her find 2-letter words and use phonetic spelling.)

We've been taking the dog for a lot of walks. I realized it would be a great way to spend some casual one-on-one time with the kids, but so far everyone wants to go on walks, so it's been a family thing. We discovered a nature center near our house (I've run by it a ton of times, but never explored) and the girls have been making forts and climbing trees while Lucy and I do laps around the nature center.

It was really nice this past weekend, so I got down everyone's bikes from where they were hanging in the garage. E and L have been deemed old/responsible enough to cross the street and ride around the big city block without an adult. We have to talk about what to do in certain situations, but so far so good. I don't worry about kidnapping; I worry that they're not going to see a car and someone will back over them as they leave their driveway. We have a set of walkie talkies that we use, but one of the best things about twins is that they can go together.

We made a rainbow cake for Easter:

It turned out well and tasted delicious. I also made this carrot salad and it was so good I only ate cake and carrot salad for dinner that night. (I subbed bleu cheese because we don't like feta and used dried basil. The recipe stresses waiting to dress the salad until it will be eaten, but I thought it tasted better that evening.)

We also dyed Easter eggs and made bird nest cookies: 

 I gave E and L the American Girl doll book about growing up and L and I had a nice discussion about eating disorders. I have loved all the stages since 18 months because of the verbal interaction, but almost 9yos are awesome when it comes to analysis and discussion. They're talking about similar issues in Girls on the Run. There's a lot of stuff about self-esteem and nutrition. 

Brownie Dip and Home Movies

It was a really busy week at work with a few people on vacations, so I ended up working some overtime (15 hour shift on Wednesday - do not recommend) and took Friday off to regroup. A and I went to the Honors Assembly that morning to see E and L receive their honor roll certificates and were surprised to find out that L was student of the month! We were supposed to see E get her math medallion for passing all her timed multiplication tests, but they delayed those awards for the next assembly. Boo. Especially since I have to work on the day of the next assembly.

I left the assembly and went grocery shopping, but was interrupted by a call from school to come get a sick E. Or, I should say, a "sick" E. She did have a snotty nose, but was absolutely convinced that she had a fever (she didn't) and needed to be home. I think it was the disappointment from not getting her math medallion plus a substitute teacher who doesn't know she is an occasional malingerer. I brought her home and we vegged out on the couch until it was time to go back to school for the other two. 

There is a dress that L used to have and love but has since outgrown. The replacement was 30% off at Meijer this week, so I bought her another one. She passed the smaller dress down to C. E had expressed desire for the same dress, so now despite my years of dressing them differently, they ended up looking like this. I think it's sweet when it's their choice. They all wore their dresses in 25 degree weather and made up some game involving fairies and veils. 

I made brinner that night: blueberry pancakes, banana muffins, home fries, and fruit salad (pineapple and strawberries). We devoured it. I'm using this as a mental note to make this exact meal more often.

Sometime last week, A's sister posted this picture of us on Twitter: 

We are 18 and 20 years old there (maybe 19 and 21?), but may as well be FETUSES (feti?) for how young we look.

Saturday I made brownie dip and cookie dough dip to bring over to Karen's house where we met up with other people and watched/mocked the last Twilight movie. It is definitely a movie to be seen in someone's house so you can mix it up Mystery Science Theater 3000 style. 

We took some time this afternoon and interviewed each kid. I've been wanting to do this for a while. The girls love looking at the few videos we have of them at younger ages (I am not great at taking home movies) and I know that as big as they all seem right now, they are going to get BIGGER (I KNOW!) and I'm going to wish I could hear their little voices again. We asked them a bunch of different questions: who are your friends? what do you want to be when you grow up? what are you afraid of? what do you like to do for fun? what's your first memory? what book are you reading now? etc. I am going to try to do it every year. L declared, decisively, "We will do this every Palm Sunday." Thus she spake. 

A Date With C

I went out for lunch with C today. This doesn't feel as special as when I take E or L out separately. Not that she isn't great to hang out with, but we had several years together when E and L were in school, so I feel like she's gotten a lot of my attention. E and L have had to share from day 1. However, she managed to cut me off at the knees after lunch. Conversation:

Listening to the Pinkalicious CD in the car. Pinkalicious is a spoiled brat, but the music from the play is great. She has a younger brother who is basically ignored through the whole play because he has not turned pink from eating pink foods. Also, he seems like a pretty nice kid.

C: "They don't listen to Peter because he's the littlest."

Me [hemorrhaging onto the floor from the knife to my chest]: "Do you think we don't listen to you because you're the littlest?"

C, simply, like she's stating a fact, not whining or complaining: "Yes."

GAH. The thing is, I was the littlest and I felt the same way. So I am QUITE AWARE of her and try so hard to make sure I hear her thoughts, the ones that are not as mature or well thought out as her older sisters so they tend to get lost in the flow of family conversation. But it doesn't really matter what I do if her perception is that she is not heard. *sigh*

I did not flop onto the floor of the car, lamenting my incompetent parenting although I kind of wanted to. I did tell her that I want to listen to her and if she feels like I'm not, please say, "Mama, will you please listen to me?" or something similar. And I will redouble my efforts to hear her without her asking.

Other than that (and, frankly, that is one of the main reasons we've been trying to take the kids out for one-on-one time), we had a great time. We ate lunch at The Olive Garden (her choice) and got frozen yogurt afterward. We picked up a new family member and ran a couple errands because I cannot resist the urge to be efficient. It was fun and as I was giving her a bath later, she said, "I had a fun time on our date today!" 

P.S. Speaking of E, I used a bun maker on E and it turned out so cute! I think I'm finally get the hang of fancy hair. Not that I could do it on myself, of course.

My Legs Hurt

I have had such a week at work. Part of it was great and part of it was horrible and I am all done processing it. The thought of summing it up again makes me tired, so please forgive me for being cryptic. I'm glad it's over.

After all that, I knew I had to run today and I ran the farthest I've run since getting plantar fasciitis: 7.7 miles! (I really want to round up to 8 miles, but it's not quite close enough, and I don't want to round down to 7.5 miles because I ran MORE than that and I want credit for it.) Aside from the 3-5 seconds I stopped for a red light and traffic, I ran the entire time - no walk breaks. My foot feels fine today and if it feels okay tomorrow, I'm going to continue to increase my distance. My legs and butt hurt, but it's a good kind of hurt. I hope I can walk tomorrow. 

I picked the girls up from school today and we got shamrock shakes from McDonald's. They are so delicious (please don't tell me what's in them - I already had to record the calorie count in My Fitness Pal) and I figured it was about time to introduce my children to them. Then we went to the school skating party which was about as fun for me as you'd expect.

If you use Google Reader then you know they are retiring it for some reason on July 1. I haven't read anything about why they are no longer offering a popular service, so I don't know the business behind the decision. If you use another RSS reader that will work on a computer and a phone AND you like it, please make your recommendation.

Relaxing Day

All the girls are off from school today for parent-teacher conferences, so I brought them to the Y with me for my step class. E and L were the oldest kids in the kids area and were sad when I picked them up because they were in charge of groups of little kids for a letter building contest (I didn't understand either, but whatever). I waited for the contests to be done and then let them lift weights for a little while. 

We picked up this book at the library. I heard the author on NPR and I want to read it, but I'm also afraid of reading it because I think I won't be able to eat any food EVER AGAIN when I'm finished. 

I didn't feel like making an official lunch, so we ate fruit and yogurt parfaits for lunch and later made no-bake cookies to round out the meal. Never mind the two cups of sugar in those - oatmeal is a healthy food! Seriously, I like to have fun meals like this - L reminded me the other day about when I let them eat ice cream and fruit for dinner one hot summer night. File this under "Making Memories."

It was shower day (these older kids! They are getting so stinky so fast lately!), so everyone rotated through a bath. We usually do showers, but all three kids prefer a bath when we have time. I moved the coffee table and they spent a while alternating between playing Just Dance 4 and lounging on the floor in sleeping bags and reading. E and L's class earned a reading/pj day at school, so yesterday they wore pjs to school, brought their sleeping bags, and got to spend the whole afternoon reading. They wanted to recreate this at home.

It was all moving along happily until I came downstairs and found E almost asleep. Do you know what an unexpected nap will do to an 8yo? It's ugly. In my desperation, I turned on Netflix and introduced them to Power Rangers. I DON'T KNOW WHAT I WAS THINKING EITHER. Anyway, they were transfixed. I'm not sure if this is better or worse than H2O. Who can tell me about iCarley? Is that an acceptable show? Maybe I can refocus them before it's too late.

I made roasted red pepper risotto and garlicky chicken thighs for dinner and we discussed cannibalism and the Donner party. (L offered the idea that cannibalism is tiered - eating a raw human being is grosser than eating a cooked human. Should I be worried?) Then we piled in the car and went to parent-teacher conferences. They were lovely and boring. Everyone is working hard. 

C knows all her kindergarten sight words. Her teacher was going through the first grade ones with her, but she apparently got tired, turned to Mrs. B, and suggested, "I think we should stop now." She also got marked down for not knowing her phone number. When I heard that, I turned to her and said, "C, what's my phone number?" and she rattled it off. Her only areas to work on are 1. don't talk when she's not supposed to be talking and 2. follow through to the end of a project. Those sort of seem like normal things for a kindergartener.

E and L are both at or above grade level and rocked the state standardized test. Their issue is THIRD GRADE GIRL DRAMA. Their teacher says it's all developmentally normal and nothing has been serious enough to call us about. This particular class isn't as bad as others, she says, but she sees cliques forming and drama happening. Ugh. 

Getting It All Done

Lately I have been having non-working days where I have no choice but to get everything done. I am looking forward to some down time this weekend, but until then, I forage on.

Our fridge stopped working last weekend. It's been making sad futile noises for a week now, so I was not surprised to find melted ice cubes in the freezer. We made do with a cooler on the deck (it's a high of 30, low of 10 here right now) but that's less than ideal. It keeps the milk from spoiling but wrecks the texture of the lunch meat.

This morning, after I sent the kids and A off to school/work, I went to the scratch and dent store where I had bought our non-working fridge almost exactly ten years ago. I followed the exact same procedure: scouted out the black/stainless fridges (there were four) and chose the one with the dent that would be covered by my calendar. When they asked when I'd like it delivered, I requested meekly, "Today?" and held my breath. By supreme coincidence, they were delivering an appliance to our neighbor at 10 am and could they drop off my fridge at 11, LESS THAN THREE HOURS FROM THEN? HELL YES. Sorry, I just couldn't believe my luck. Woo! 

I picked up our wet dry vacuum (loose gasket) from the vacuum repair shop and the cat meds from the vet, then zipped back home to push the fridge out of the way and clean the wall and floor. I finished just in time to make my class at the Y. I got my butt kicked and was pulling into my driveway as the delivery guys finished with my neighbor and waved to me. Timing, baby.

I spent the next two hours throwing out the spoiled food, moving all the magnets/pictures to the new fridge, and figuring out what I needed to replace. I went grocery shopping and then to World Market for coffee syrup. They are having a "Moving! Everything Must Go!" sale, so the coffee syrup was almost gone. I picked up C from school and we got cat/dog food and looked at the animals to kill time while E and L were at Girls on the Run. We went back to get them a little early and she read her book to me as I knitted. E and L came out brimming with excitement that they had run half a mile today (cute!) and we picked up pizza on the way home.

We got home, ate, and I unloaded the groceries and put everything away. C colored while E and L did their homework and thankfully needed minimal supervision from me today. I packed lunches for tomorrow, bathed everyone, and put away laundry with L's help and encouragement. (Me, despairingly:"I don't WANT to put away laundry AGAIN." Her, comfortingly:"It's okay, Mom. I'll help!" and she did most of it.) I read stories and Harry Potter and tucked them all in. Now I am done and going to bed. 5:30 comes early.

Only Sometimes Overwhelmed

It was a wild and crazy Friday night as I watched hair videos on You Tube to get ideas for L's hair. I found out how to do that twisty braid-like thing and did E's hair like that. I followed this tutorial to do a bun for L and it turned out well even though I didn't have the cute flower hair clip to accessorize (mental note: buy a cute flower hair clip!). That girl in the video has the most beautiful hair. I did this updo this morning based on this tutorial, even accessorizing it with a bow we already had! I'm feeling quite successful for being such a non-hairstyle person my whole life. 

E and L started Girls on the Run this week and like it thus far. They run after school twice a week in preparation to run a 5K at the end of May.

C made this sign about herself and my SIL suggested that world peace could be achieved if everyone did this.

The children have made a cardboard house/rocket that Roland seems to think belongs to him.

I am having that overwhelmed I'LL NEVER GET EVERYTHING DONE feeling as I think about having a realtor come, look at our house, and make suggestions about getting our house in shape to put on the market (this year or next). Then I think about the regular day-to-day things of dinner and homework and laundry and I start to hyperventilate. Friday morning I was lolling about thinking, "Why bother? I'll never get everything done" but decided to do SOMETHING, so I:

• started the laundry
• ran 6 miles
• took down that Christmas decoration that I had forgotten about and brought it and next year's Christmas pjs that I had bought on sale in January to the basement.
• made three phone calls
• returned a library book
• meal planned, made a grocery list, and grocery shopped
• spent 15 minutes in the new Goodwill by the grocery store to see if its worth frequenting
• picked up the kids, got home thinking that I would have over an hour to get dinner ready and then realized that I had forgotten to pick up the cat medicine from the vet. Piled all the kids back into the car and drove to the vet. Got home, realized they had shortchanged me a lot of pills, called them, got it straightened out, and made plans to pick it up on my next day off (Tuesday). 
• Made everyone dinner and brought them all back to school with sleeping bags and pillows for a movie night (Hotel Transylvania) in the gym.

I find the days I work to be overwhelming and then I DON'T want to be doing a million things on my days off, but I'm not sure there is any alternative. I have so much sympathy for people with long commutes and full or more than full-time jobs. On my work days, I'm out the door at 6:30 and - ideally - leaving work at 5:15-5:30. By the time I pick up my kids and we're home, it's an hour later. We eat whatever I've got in the crockpot and are doing bedtime stuff by 7:15. A and I are coming back downstairs to pick up, pack lunches, etc by 8. I am in bed by 9 or 9:30 to get up at 5:30 the next day. There isn't a lot of extra time.

We had a great Saturday yesterday even though I was on call and was called in to place an internal defibrillator. I went to my step aerobics class and A went for a run when I got home. Just before 11, I went into work, but was home by 1:30 (two hours of overtime pay! Thank you!). A took E out for lunch and frozen yogurt while L and I put away laundry, cleaned the fish tank, and baked cookies. In the evening, we popped popcorn and watched The Gruffalo and a few more episodes of The Cosby Show (I think we're on season 3). We finished Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and I don't THINK my kids are sociopaths, but no one was as sad as I thought they should be at the end of the book. Seriously, I BAWLED.

I am thinking days and evenings like this need to be put on hold if we're going to do home improvement stuff and get our house on the market. I'm such a glutton, though, and I don't WANT to give up relaxation time. I want MORE relaxation time. Sigh. 

Vacation

Our school had vacation this week, so A and I took time off from work and we took the kids to an indoor waterpark. It's our fourth consecutive year, so we get the big room, late checkout, and a courtesy box of goodies. E and L have been old enough for the past two years that we've let them play on their own with regular check-ins. It was all fine - A even caught E being kind to a little kid when she didn't know he was watching her - until the end. We did the normal thing of finding everyone and telling them that we were going to leave in the next thirty minutes. C was tired and wanted to curl up on my lap. L headed for the hot tub. And then we spent the next twenty minutes - increasing in franticness - looking for E. 

It's not a huge facility and between the two of us, we searched each area at least a half dozen times in that twenty minutes. Finally, after he had climbed to the top of the slides and the fort, I said, "We need help." You guys. That's scary. I knew she hadn't drowned because those life guards are like caged panthers pacing back and forth constantly. I also knew that the most likely scenario was that we had missed her somehow, but with both of us looking for twenty minutes, I was - deep down - scared she had been taken. I KNOW that statistics are not in favor of kidnapping - it rarely happens - but where else could she be?

I reported her missing. The lifeguard took her description (I HAD TO DESCRIBE MY CHILD. BECAUSE SHE WAS MISSING) and sent people out to look for her. In the meantime, I eyed the doors and asked if he was going to stop people from leaving until she was found. He said, apologetically, that they only do that if they call a Code Pink and then management has to get involved and everyone searches. I had a moment - just a moment - of thinking, "Oh, I don't want to be any trouble" and then I thought, "What if she HAS been abducted and I hold back a search out of POLITENESS? How could I ever forgive myself?" The answer was: I couldn't. So I said, "Yes. That's exactly what I'm looking for. Please do that." And he did.

We found her within ten minutes. She was floating in the lazy river, happy as a clam. It was too bad, really, because then I squeezed her to death and smothered her with kisses. Seems a waste, doesn't it? It was over an hour before my adrenaline subsided and I still get nauseous when I think about parents who go through that for a much longer period of time and with a different outcome. I am proud of myself for advocating for a Code Pink even though it turned out to be unnecessary. I would make the same decision again.

The rest of our stay was much less dramatic. They had air quality issues on our second morning (a outdoor vent had been blocked with snow) and gave away buckets of free tokens in the arcade until it was fixed. Our children played games for hours (free!) and won more than 2000 tickets. They pooled their tickets and now we're the "proud" owners of an LED light that says "Peace."

E and L spent a lot of time with groups of other kids. It makes me happysad to see. C still wanted to hang out with us and E and L would return occasionally to ask us to watch them on the lily pads or ride a double tube down the slide with them, but they were much more interested in making friends.

Earlier this week, my FIL emailed to see if we wanted to send the girls to their house for a sleepover and you bet we did. I dropped them off yesterday so A and I could go out to dinner (hampered for a short period by a flat tire that A manfully changed in the cold and snow) and see Django Unchanged. This morning he ran a 5K and then we saw Lincoln and went out for sushi. I've only had sushi one other time, but this was a place recommended by a coworker. I loved it. I don't love the texture of raw fish, so I stuck to cooked stuff - shrimp and cucumber roll, a roll with crab salad and something crunchy - and a glass of sake.