Vacation, all I ever wanted...

It is Thursday, the 28th, (almost the 29th) and my vacation is almost over. Hawksbill has Spring Break this week, so I decided I should use some of my vacation time and take the week off with him. We have and had no plans this week. Just to not work, not think, be couch potatoes, that was it. My kind of vacation :)

I have to put in a little note for my Aunt Mary. She is having a rough week again. Last Saturday, my Aunt Lottie (her sister) was laid to rest. After she came home from the funeral, she received a call--her sister-in-law, (who was her late husband's (Uncle Mike's) twin sister) died on Saturday. Although I did not know this woman, I did go to her viewing Tuesday night. My poor Aunt Mary--in only 4 months, she has lost her husband, her sister and her sister-in-law. So, here is wishing my Aunt Mary some good luck for this year. She could use it.

An interesting fact (to me) about my Uncle Mike and his twin sister--apparently they were born on different days--he was born just before midnight on October 23rd, and she was born just after midnight on the 24th. I wonder how often twins are born on different days (or better yet, different years straddling December 31st and January 1st?)

Gwen is getting over the flu--or at least a really bad cold. She has been extremely needy, clingy, whiny, shrieky all week long. I can't move without carrying her like a baby with me. I feel like I should just get a sling or a backpack and keep her attached to me since I do not seem to have much choice this week. Do they make slings for 36-lb 3 year olds? Heh...

Speaking of weight, Simon has been watching his weight on the scale lately and I didn't know why until he ran to us all excited this week that he now weighs 40 lbs! ha ha...my 6 year old is JUST NOW hitting the 40 lb mark. He is excited because we told him he had to be 4 years, 40 inches tall, and 40 lbs before we would let him move to a booster instead of his car seat...he hit the other two goals two years ago, but my skinny, picky eater, he now just weighs in at 40 lbs (um, fully clothed that is)...which brings me to another topic...

Well child visits: Ok--is it just me, or are well child visits just a way for doctors to make you paranoid about your healthy kid? First off, in the last couple of years, I have started waiting until late March, early April to drag my kids in for this type of visit. Reason? January and February babies = flu season at the doctor's office. So, why would I want to drag my healthy kid into the doctor's office where everyone is hacking and coughing up the flu, to tell me Simon is small, and Gwen is big, so maybe we should stress us out about why Simon is so small (but perfectly healthy) and then let them catch the flu from all the sick people? I don't understand it. So, I am waiting. I guess I could have brought Gwen in for her cold/flu, but years ago I gave up going to the doctor when I had a cold/flu (unless it lasted longer than a full week) because it really grated on me that I would be home taking Tylenol and Robitussin (sp?) and go in to the doctor to be told to take Tylenol and Robitussin and that will be a $30 copay. So, sorry...Doctors I respect you, but I don't want to bring my kids in during flu season for the well child visit so don't yell at me for being 2-3 months late with it, and yes I know Simon is skinny! :)

Simon has found a new addiction this week: Scooby Doo. Ah, good old Scooby--it has been years since I watched that show, and Hawksbill decided split the cost with Simon and buy the first 25 episodes of the original show. I would enjoy it more, if it wasn't for those meddling kids! Just kidding-- please...I love Scooby Doo, too, and am glad they bought some of the original episodes instead of that late 70's early 80's crap with Scrappy Doo...not into that.

Even though it is Spring Break, Hawksbill will still go to his internship tomorrow so I will find something to do all day with the kiddos...if Gwen was 100% better and it was a little warmer, I would actually like to go to the zoo. I have always wanted to go to the zoo in the winter...I don't know why...I guess I thought it might be fun. We still have a lot of snow on the ground from Tuesday--I think I mentioned before it snows every freaking Tuesday--we finally got some packing snow and made a snowman.

Note: Might be considered a movie spoiler, so do not read if you want to see the BEST PICTURE winner and haven't already seen it: Hawksbill and I got to go out on a date tonight!! Woo hoo!! I think the last time we got to go out, just the two of us, was sometime last summer? It has been a while. We went out for Korean food and decided that we "couldn't lose" by going to see the Oscar Winning Best Picture: No Country for Old Men, by the Coen Brothers. How could we lose, right? We LOVE the Coen brothers...but, um, well...this movie sucked. OK--wait, let me give it some credit--the first 1 hour and 40 minutes were pretty darn good--I was pretty darn happy, and then something changed that. And if you saw the movie and loved it--good for you, because I still think it sucked and should never have won an Oscar for Best Picture. No way. Oh, and don't even go there with some deep meaning intellectual "REAL LIFE" bullsh*t. It sucked. They ruined it. It could have rocked and it didn't. This movie had amazing potential and they f*cked it up. So, screw you, Coen brothers!! I want my money back--and you should have to give back your Oscar because you didn't deserve it for this one!!! Losers!! I am going to go watch Raisin Arizona, Fargo, Blood Simple and Millers Crossing now and just weep for you. I might even watch The Big Lebowski!!! But you guys owe me something better than what you gave me tonight. I mean, seriously...I get to go out on a date with Hawksbill MAYBE 2-3 times per YEAR (if I am lucky) and I wanted a good movie, and you spoiled it for me. The least you could do is send me some ice cream. B*st*rds!! Or better yet--you need to COME OVER to MY HOUSE and babysit for me so we can go and see Juno. So, someone PLEASE pass the word on to the Coen brothers--they owe me a night of babysitting so I can see a GOOD MOVIE!

Well, it is February 29th and I should log off now. Thank you for letting me get that out of my system. I'll be seeing ya!

Oh my God! They're Turkeys!

Last night we were watching the first season of E.R. off Netflix and they had a Thanksgiving episode. For some reason, totally out of the blue I remembered the Thanksgiving episode of WKRP in Cincinnati, which I haven't seen or thought about for over 25 years.

In it the radio station hosts a promotion at an outdoor mall where they plan to drop turkeys from a helicopter on to the waiting crowd. Les Nessman is on site to describe the events to listeners, but Mr. Carlson made two mistakes in planning the promotion: a) he didn't tell Les what was going to happen and b) he forgot that turkeys can't fly.

After describing it to Barb and Simon (cracking them up) I thought I'd see if it was on Youtube. Sure enough... here it is... and it is as funny as I remember it.



I have two favorite memories of WKRP: this one and the one where Bailey Quarters is being wooed by a Russian diplomat who tries to seduce her with an Elton John song. Near the end of the episode he pulls her close and says: "Hold me closer tiny dancer." To this day I can't hear that song without thinking of Bailey who, for a few years in the late 1970's, embodied the perfect woman to the pre-pubescent Hawksbill.

It turns out that I'm not the only one. I stumbled across this fansite from a guy about my age who felt the same way about Jan Smithers. And he had the same memories about that Elton John song. Go figure.

Anyway, Simon loved the Youtube video above and I can keep cracking him up today by exclaiming:

Oh My God! They're Turkeys!!!

Goodbye, Aunt Lottie

My Aunt Lottie, my father's sister, passed away yesterday. I don't know how old she was because she shared a birthday with my youngest brother, Joe, so whenever they had a birthday, she just assumed his age until he turned 29. For the rest of her life if you asked her age, she answered, "29," because that was her way.

Aunt Lottie was the youngest of my father's 4 siblings. She had been in a terrible car accident in the late 1960's and was in a wheelchair, and then wore a brace on her leg for the rest of her life. She never married and had no children because she said all of us were plenty enough for her. Every birthday up until about sixth grade, she made professional bakery quality cakes for us, and she even made our wedding cake.

Aunt Lottie worked in a social services office most of her life and took care of my grandma, my Babcia, until Babcia needed more help than Aunt Lottie could provide. I never learned to speak Polish, but I remember my aunt always calling Babcia something like, "Studda Bubba" which (although I can't find it in any dictionary) meant "Old woman" or "old coot"--it very well might have meant something worse or maybe I am remembering it completely wrong, because none of the individual words translate into what I remember...but I remember hearing that, and "spanka your dupa" a lot when growing up :) I'll have to ask cousin Marie on Saturday...

It wasn't completely unexpected when my father called yesterday with the news, as Aunt Lottie has not been well for a long time, but sad to lose another relative from "The farm" after losing Uncle Mike, her brother-in-law, this fall.

Goodbye, Aunt Lottie...you will be missed....

Mama! Mia! Oh! My!

I cannot even BEGIN to say how much fun I had last night. A friend of mine from high school is starring in the touring Mama! Mia! show and a bunch of old high school buddies and I got together to see the show last night. Oh, it was so much fun!

First we met at my friend, R's, house to go to dinner. About half of us met for dinner before the show and went to Bastone's in Royal Oak which I have never heard of before, nor had I ever even noticed even though it is right on Main Street. The food was amazing...I think R described it best as a full menu of "comfort food".

Before the show we met our friend, S, in the lobby of the Fisher Theater. He is the man with glasses in the back row of this photo--S is playing the role of Sam Carmicheal, who is the "main" potential father in the show. If you don't know the story line of Mama! Mia!, basically, Sophia is a 20-year old woman about to get married on a Greek island. She was raised by a single mother never knowing who her father was. Before the show begins, Sophia finds her mother's diary from the late 1970's, and comes to the conclusion that her father must be one of 3 men, so she invites all of them to her upcoming wedding. Hilarity results as the 3 men discover why they have been invited to the wedding. And, oh yeah...there is a lot of ABBA music.



S invited us on stage after the show to see what goes on backstage and for some photo ops in the Mama! Mia! scenery. No, this isn't the cast--this is everyone who came to see S. S is front and center in the dark and light gray sweater...that's me in the lavender sweater in front on the right.


Oh, it was like a Marching Band Reunion 19 years later...that reminds me of the time, when we were at band camp!!!

Um, er...actually it DOES remind me of the time...we were at band camp...um...yeah...I was in band.

All and all, a wonderful night. :)

Happy 6th Birthday, Simon Pepper!!!

Today is your birthday, my sweet little guy! I can't believe you are six years old!!! Where did the time go? It seems like only yesterday you were running around in puppy camouflage pajamas.


Simon woke up so excited today and keeps saying, "Today is the best day ever!" but I think every day with Simon is the "best day ever!" :)

This morning you opened your presents from us and from Grandma K, and received phone calls from Aunt A, cousin S, and Grandma M. You received some care bears, a jacket, some PS2 games, and finally the Star Wars: The Complete Saga that you have wanted for so long. Today we made a blue (well, more like teal) cake with green and purple frosting decorated with Backyardigans toys (of course I do not have the amazing cake decorating gene that my aunts and cousins have so it is pretty lopsided and messy). Later, we went to Target so you and Gwen could spend some of your birthday money on some legos and then we played at the mall and play. Tonight we will wait for Hawksbill to come home so we can sing to you again and eat your lovely cake.

You crack me up the way you spin around and dance and jump all day! I am looking forward to watching you grow yet another year. I am so happy to be your mom and I love you!!

Happy Birthday, Simon Pepper...I am glad you are here to show us where the pepper is!! :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day, Baby!

I can't tell you how happy I am that you're in my life. You're the best wife a guy could ask for and the best mom I can imagine for our kids and I love it that we have a common vision for what we want our family to be. You rock my world!

And, as always... I love you more than bugs!

Less is more

The other day my lovely bride sent me this link to a BBC article discussing the optimal age children should start school. Apparently children in Britain start school at 5 years of age whereas children in other European countries often start at about 7. In the US children start first grade at 6 years old, but are almost always in Kindergarten at 5 years and many children are in "pre-school" even earlier than that.

The main point of the article is to question this practice of early enrollment because, as the article quotes from a Cambridge report on education: "The assumption that an early starting age is beneficial for children's later attainment is not well supported in the research and therefore remains open to question."

The cited report suggests that the origins of early enrollment had little to do with education at all. In fact... "Entering full-time education at such a tender age meant reducing the malign influence of Victorian feckless parents - it was about child protection and social conditioning rather than learning." In other words, the British government didn't trust parents to raise their own children and used the education system as a surrogate family where children would be raised in an acceptable manner.

I also like this paragraph from the article:

Last year's teachers' conferences heard concerns that children were spending so little time with their own families that they were showing signs of aggression and de-socialisation, taking their behaviour from their peer group rather than absent adult role models.

One of the pro-public education arguments I usually hear is about how school helps children learn social skills that they wouldn't otherwise learn. This has seemed silly to me for some years now as we've been organizing our homeschool for exactly the reason discussed in the above paragraph. I love it when our kids have the chance to play with friends, family and peers, but if time with their peer group so dominates their social experience that it began to exclude time with us, then I would be very concerned.

I think this happens a lot in public schools. Kids spend most of their day in classes, they often have several after school activities and then they have homework to complete before the next day. The result often means surprisingly little time spent with family, which can result in estrangement from parents and an over reliance on the peer group as a source of social identity.

Basically, I think friends are great and necessary, but I think family is the best source of social identity. And, I think that building that social identity in the best and most positive way requires lots and lots of time with family. I'm not much of a believer in "quality time". I'm all about quantity.

Overall it's an interesting article. I also enjoyed the many comments from readers sharing their thoughts on the subject.

Ch ch ch changes....

We had a small change in Hawksbill's school schedule so he can see more clients, so we added Friday evening to days we don't see each other. However, he is home in the morning now, so it is nice to see him for a while instead of him taking off at 6:45 am when I am most certainly NOT awake and neither are the kids.

We are making some other small changes around here now that Gwen has moved into a big girl bed and out of the crib. She has been asking for big cups so we finally packed away all of the baby bottles and moved her to sippy cups and regular cups. She's been able to drink out of a regular cup since she was about 18 months, but preferred her milk in a bottle still, and I really didn't see any reason to take it away until this weekend when she kept demanding Dora the Explorer sippy cups--fine--you can have new sippy cups, but I need to dump this mountain of plastic in my cupboard so the bottles are packed up to give away or save.

I remember when Simon was a baby I was *so concerned* that he stop using a bottle at 18 months and I took them all away at 18 months as that was some stupid number I am sure I read in a baby book or maybe a comment at the doctor's office...now I really don't care. Ah, freedom from the experts and advisers!! Now I can do what I think is best--imagine that!

I think, sadly, we are starting to give up on "quiet time," aka, Gwen's nap. The last few weeks we are lucky if she sleeps once a week, and usually she just sits in her room and screams for us to come and get her. So, I think the afternoon nap is over. I can't complain, though, as Simon gave his up at 18 months (maybe because I took away his bottles?) but she made it almost 3 years with her daily nap...ah, well...she is three.

On the homeschool front we are still plugging along with math, art and now Simon is really into Greek Mythology--I think that is mostly because Hawksbill explained which planets are named after which Greek gods. Of course, now I am just WAITING for the day my mom asks Simon about god and he responds, "Silly Grandma, there are many gods, not just one! You know, Zeus, Apollo, Hades, Aphrodite, etc..." and of course then he'll point out the boy gods vs. the girl gods which we call goddesses. I can already see a candle lit for me at church. Probably a worrisome call from Father Frank, too! Sigh....

Simon seems to like his new math books still and we seem to do 1-2 lessons when we feel like it. We might skip a day or two, but then he will do 2 lessons but they are short and he likes them...of course he has to get creative with his answer and write them squiggly or backwards or REALLY BIG or really tiny or something else which is his way.

Simon has also decided he really wants to learn sign language and although I keep saying I am going to do this, I still need to google some kind of sign language program for him. A coworker said his daughters learned sign language in Montessori so that gives me a lead I have just been so busy with work and everything that I haven't gotten myself in gear to find what would work for him and download it or see if we can afford to order something.

Changing the subject here, today is the first day of Lent, and not that I would normally follow this Catholic event, but an internet friend from Texas (who happens to NOT be Catholic, either) and I have taken it upon ourselves to see if we can give something up for Lent. For me, it will be chocolate (except for Simon's bday in case he has chocolate cake) and for her it will be second helpings at dinner. It is only until Easter, right? I can make it without chocolate, right? I think....maybe it will help me lose those last 5 lbs that will not go away.

Changing the subject yet AGAIN, I am laughing at some silly things my kids (mostly Simon) have said this week and am just posting them so I can remember them. Maybe they aren't really funny, but they were funny to me :)

After Gwen sang some of her nighttime songs (Yesterday, Sunshine, Hush Little Baby, Santa Claus is Coming to Town) Simon commented, "Wow! I didn't know she knew all the words to that song! She could be in an opera!!"

After Simon was looking at some items in a Lego catalog, "Mommy and Daddy, I really want an R2 D2 Lego watch, but I can't get it until after my birthday because it says you have to be age 6 to buy one."

Shoot...I know there was something else...darn it, I can't remember...

Oh, well...I'll post it when I remember or if Hawksbill remembers...but, back to my countdown...10 more weeks!! Only 9 if you don't count spring break which I took off so Hawksbill and I can hang out and be lazy for another full week. 10 more weeks!! I can't believe this is really happening!! So happy about this school thing ending soon!!

Until next time....