It's Just Not Her Year...

You may remember this post in which, among other things, I showed you Kaylee's less-than-superb first grade picture.

So when I got the flier for spring pictures this month, I decided to temporarily abandon my sworn oath to purchase one and only one set of pictures per child per school year.

Before I continue my story, I have to take a moment and step up on my soap box....bear with me:

Do any of you other moms feel a little manipulated by the twice-per-year school pictures? I mean, if you have two or three kids and you buy a cheap $20 package for each of them, you're talking big bucks each year on school pictures. School pictures. You know, the ones where they herd the kids in to a stuffy multi-purpose room sometime after they've spent 20 minutes running like animals all over the playground. Then they line up the kids and dedicate exactly 14 seconds to plunking each child in front of some random background and forever immortalizing their startled/bored/sweaty/sleepy/mildly amused expression. Yeah, those school pictures. Hence my sworn oath to purchase one and only one set of school pictures per child per year.

Okay, I feel better. Thank you for your patience.

Now, returning to my original story, I decided that for this year, and this year only, we would consider purchasing a second set of school pictures for Kaylee in an attempt at redemption from the first go-around.

I was resolved. In two weeks, when picture day came, we would be ready. Cute outfit, cute hair, cute smile, cute pictures. Right?

Right?

Wrong.

This....is

what

happens

when

Mom

forgets

about

picture

day.

Funky outfit, sloppy hair, weird smile (can't blame her), bad picture.


We'll get 'em next year, honey.

What to Expect When You're Expecting

I've been negligent with my posting lately because my time on the computer has been spent doing actual work. Yuck.

It's no fun at all, but the process of getting this adoption done requires me to spend a lot of time emailing and searching and translating and drafting documents and filling out pdf forms.

You know, pregnancy books and adoption books share in common the fact that they outline a lot of information about what to expect. But while my pregnancy books were right up front about weight gain, stretch marks, skin changes, and morning sickness, the adoption books seem to have overlooked the physical effects of this particular manner of adding a child to the family.

For example, in the first trimester (which lasts about 8 months) you can expect claw hands from signing your name six kabillion times and cheek fatigue from the perpetual smile you wear whenever you talk about how excited you are to be adopting.

Then in the second trimester (also 8 months) you can expect sudden-onset gray hair and the dreaded one-sided shoulder hunch from making seven thousand phone calls.

Finally, in the third trimester, the hair that isn't gray decides to just jump ship all together and fall out. As you glance down at your hairbrush to see just how bad the fall-out is, you will realize that the nervous eating is affecting your midsection in an unflattering way. But you comfort yourself with the knowledge that the rapidly forming stomach ulcer should soon prevent you from eating anything at all. And the fact that your eyes are getting so blurry from hours on the computer that you won't be able to see your own big butt anyway.

I'm beginning to see why they don't put this stuff in the books.

Okay, so we all know I'm exaggerating. Sort of.

But on the plus side, in my verifiable physiological need for a steady flow of chocolate, I have stumbled across an ideal recipe.

It's ideal because it's easy, it's healthy, it's delicious, and it allows me to eat chocolate for breakfast.

Oh yes, chocolate for breakfast.

I give you....



Chocolate Oatmeal.

Oh yes, chocolate oatmeal.

I myself was skeptical at first, but you must realize that chocolate and oatmeal are very good friends. As in, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Which incidentally are also an acceptable breakfast from time to time.

So here's what you do:

Make oatmeal.

Sweeten it as you usually would. (In our house, we use a spoonful of brown sugar.)

Add a conservative spoonful of unsweetened cocoa powder. (See, no added sugar or hydrogenated anything -- just pure, lovely chocolate.)

And if you're into that sort of thing, add some sliced bananas on top.

Then inhale deeply. Because it smells so good and because it will make you feel better about your life in general.

And if your kids will eat oatmeal, make some for them too. They'll think it's dessert for breakfast, and they'll be so happy about it that they won't bicker or argue or whine or dawdle for the whole rest of the day.

Okay, so we all know I'm exaggerating. Sort of.

Easter Favorites

I disciplined myself on Easter and took some proper pictures of the girls...finally!



Some came out pretty cute, like this one.


And I really like this one of Kaylee.

This one will come in handy when Maya runs for some kind of political office. She's a girl with a vision, I can tell.



This is Kaylee, um, inspecting the goose that apparently lays candy eggs. She's just picking up the eggs that are already on the ground, but from this angle it looks like she's checking to see if there are any more where the others came from.



And this one just cracks me up.

Madness

I've been played. I've been played like a fiddle by my own husband, and I know it.

I knew it the minute I heard myself say, "Villanova is losing by fourteen at the half--they better pull it out because I've got them going two more rounds."

I don't even know myself anymore. Who have I become?

It all started about 6 years ago. I'm guessing the conversation went something like this:

"Hey Jeremy, you ready for March Madness?"

"Yeah, but I don't know how much I'm going to be able to watch...my wife's not that into it. I don't know why, but she doesn't see the fun in watching 18 games in a row for three weekends straight."

"Mine either. Wouldn't it be cool if our wives were really into it. Then we could watch all we want!"

[Drumming his fingers with a devious smile] "I have an idea..."

This has been a dramatization.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So here's what those sneaky boys decided to do.

They came up with a plan whereby to manipulate the fact that we were new moms with young babies and we would do anything for some time away. Anything. So they lured us. They lured us with the holy grail of mommydom -- a Girl's Day.

So sneaky. So manipulative. So deviously brilliant.

I think the proposition went something like this:

"Honey, you're an excellent mom--the best mom in the whole wide world."

[Turning my head without taking my eyes off of the flailing legs and grabbing hands of the baby on the changing table] "Huh?"

"Wouldn't you like a break?"

[Nearly knocking the half-diapered baby off the changing table in a mad dash for the front door] "Oh! yes! A break! Definitely! Where's my purse? Never mind. I don't need it. Oh thank you! You're wonderfu--"

"Hold on just a second. I didn't mean now. See, I have this idea..."

This has been a dramatization.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Did you see how he lured me? He just lured me right in.

The next thing I knew, I was sitting in front of a blank NCAA Tournament bracket with a pencil in my hand while my husband--my sweet, wonderful, supportive, compassionate husband--explained the rules.

"You pick the teams you think will win."

"How am I supposed to know who will win?"

"Well, all the teams have a seed...a 1 seed is high seed and 16 is the lowest."

"Why is 1 high and 16 low? That doesn't make sense. And why do they call it a seed? This is wierd."

"Never mind the seeds. Ok, so you pick who you think will win each game in the first round, and then those teams will play each other in the second round, and so on. And you get points for every win you pick. Upsets are worth double points."

"I'm upset. Do I get points for that? When do I get my Girl's Day?"

This has been a dramatization. Sort of.

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So I filled out my bracket. I had no idea what I was doing, but I didn't care. It was a shot at freedom. At liberty. At a pedicure.

And when the first day of the tournament came, I was glued to my computer. Those teams held my very happiness in their hands, and I had to know who would win.

Played like a fiddle, I tell you.

And now, six years later, it has become an annual tradition. We've gone from two couples to four in our little pool, and the stakes have been raised. Whichever couple gets the most points gets taken out to dinner at the restaurant of their chosing by the other couples. And the husbands and wives still compete for their respective day of freedom.

And I've come a long way personally.

I now know that at least one 12 seed beats a 5 seed in the first round nearly every year.

And that only once have all four number 1's made it to the Final Four.

And that if I pick Duke to advance beyond the Sweet 16, I'll be sorry because they always choke.

And that you should pick upsets, but not too many.

And that if you don't know which team to pick, decide which team's mascot would beat the other team's mascot in a battle to the death. Which helps when it's the Tigers against the Huskies, but not so much when it's the Sooners against the Tar Heels.

And that if you don't want to buy (or eat) Korean BBQ for dinner, you better win.

And that when the girls won our much needed Girl's Day that first year, those sneaky, manipulative boys smiled deviously and high-fived each other as we pulled out of the driveway. Because they had played us. And because they knew that once we tasted victory, we'd be back for more.

Dress Rehearsal

As you well know, I am a shameless stealer of ideas, so after a few other mommy bloggers I know made pillow case dresses for their kids, I decided to do a little experimenting.

I wanted to make Easter dresses for the girls, but I'm not brave enough to experiment on a dress for an actual occasion, using fabric that cost actual money.

So I dug through my bin of fabric and picked out two different pieces of fabric that were big enough to work with. I wanted the dresses to be a little more fitted to my girls bodies than the pillowcase dresses seem to be, so I measured the girls and made a pattern. (At the beginning of the school year, I had helped Jeremy clean out the cabinets in his classroom, and I dragged home two tablets of chart paper. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but as it turns out, it works really well in a pinch for making patterns).

My first attempt yielded a dress far too small for either of my girls, so I set that one aside for my niece, and adjusted the pattern a bit.

Here's what I ended up with for Kaylee:




And for Maya's, I experimented with a halter-style top.

I like it, but if you look at her directly from the front, it looks a little like she's wearing an apron. I may have to try a different approach for the Easter version.

Overall, I'm pleased with the results of this stolen idea, and the girls are practically giddy about having one new dress and the promise of another to follow.

Just wait until they find out I'm making matching ones for their American Girl dolls. Oh, the girly delight that will surely ensue.

Which only confirms that it's high time we had a boy around here.