Boo!

Stupid Blogger won't let me upload images right now. I'll have to try again later. Sheesh....

Ah. Halloween. I love this ‘holiday.’ I have a whole box of Halloween crap that I didn’t even take out this year. Things like flashing skulls, seizure inducing, flickering bat lights and a Snoopy wearing a skeleton costume that plays the Peanuts theme when you squeeze his hand. I didn’t put anything up this year for several reasons. First, our house is always in disarray due to random toy bits, shoes and graham crackers scattered about. I thought Halloween decorations would just add to the clutter. Anything I put up would be seen as a “toy” and I would have to listen to countless hours of whining when the kids figured out they were not allowed to play with any of it. Then everything would get broken and/or lost because the kids would find some way to get a hold of the stuff anyway. Perhaps the biggest reason I didn’t bother with putting up the Halloween stuff was I didn’t want to hear, “Is it Halloween, yet?” twenty times a day, everyday. Good going kids. Way to suck all the fun out of Halloween.

Luci and the girls carved a couple of pumpkins while I was at the gym last night. We got a nifty pumpkin carving kit at Target a few weeks ago. They come with little saws that are great for carving and you won’t sever an artery like you will using a kitchen knife. Of course, the kit was (and still is) nowhere to be found. So they used the really old rusty pumpkin carving tool from a kit I got a million years ago. Roan saved some pumpkin seeds and wants to glue them on the pumpkins ‘chins’ so it looks like ‘drool.’ Last night she said drool, this morning she said ‘slobber.’

I think we’re taking them to “Boo at the Zoo” when Luci gets home from work. It costs money to get in and we went last year and it was a total *ahem* zoo so I’m not sure why we’re going again. I guess it’s kind of fun. They have trick or treat stations (which is mostly advertising aimed at the parents), craft areas, hay bales, a costume parade which is kind of cute to watch. They also have snakes, hedgehogs and other creepy animals for the kids to see. Okay, hedgehogs are kind of cute, but they had them out last year. We may trick or treat some, I’m not sure yet. Luci doesn’t like it and says it’s like ‘begging.’ I only think it’s begging if people trick or treat and they’re not in costume. We get these people all the time. They’re often way to old to be trick or treating as well. But the age thing doesn’t really bother me, just wear a fracking costume.

Roan just informed me that “giraff-is are a lot taller than kids” when I told her we might go to the zoo tonight. Preschool money well spent! Speaking of preschool, they had their “pumpkin party” yesterday. All of the girls minus a Wonder Woman and a Cowgirl were either a princess, fairy princess or a fairy of some sort. The boys were a little more varied, but super heroes were very common (Batman, Spiderman). There was a Darth Vader and an “Army Guy” (his words), a pirate and a red M&M. They ate giant pretzel sticks dipped in chocolate frosting and then rolled in Halloween themed sprinkles. For some reason that seems really gross to me.

Roan is dressing up as a princess in the dress I made her. Of course, since I made it, it doesn’t fit great across her shoulders so she gets to wear a white turtleneck underneath it so she doesn’t flash too much skin. The turtleneck solves another problem, Roan complaining that the dress is “itchy.” When she wears the turtle neck underneath, the itchiness doesn’t bother her. It doesn’t look as bad as you might think. Though it would be cuter with out the shirt.

I really need to learn how to make my own dress patterns. The patterns you buy always require a lot of fabric. Roan’s dress is semi-fancy and looks pretty nice minus the bad sewing, but making it didn’t save any money and that’s not even counting the time it took to make. Anyway, I learned how to gather and put in a zipper by making the dress.

Sage is going to wear a little witch costume I bought. She was supposed to wear the giraffe suit that Roan wore for two years in a row, but when we put it Sage she wouldn’t stop crying. I doubt she’ll keep her witch hat on for long. Last night I made a shirt and a skirt to use as a witch costume for me as well. I’ll see if feel like wearing it or not tonight. Luci will probably just pull out the wizard hat.

Not tri-Lamda Material

Little Cheetah Girlz

Last week, Luci and Roan went to Target. They walked over there, but Roan likes to ride in the shopping cart and the one they grabbed had a CD in it. Luci hid the CD in the bushes (he didn’t want to carry it in the store without a receipt) and picked it up on their way home. The CD was the Cheetah Girls, which is some Disney produced tween pop group. Roan came home and was all excited about it. Of course, she had never heard of them before. The kids have a boom box in their room, but the cd player has been broken for awhile. I finally replaced it a couple of nights ago with a lovely pink Hello Kitty boom box. The only cd played on it so far has been the Cheetah Girls.

Roan is really into it. She makes up these weird dances and pretends she’s on stage. She said she used to sing, but now she just dances. Sage gets really into it too. She dances a little bit, but mostly just spins around and around until she gets dizzy, starts stumbling and then laughs. Roan calls her “the little Cheetah Girl.” We need to video tape it. I’m pretty sure there will be another performance tonight. The music is pretty horrible, by the way.

Sage is big enough to play Ring Around the Rosie with us. I’m not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse. After about two times through the Rosie, I get way too dizzy. Fortunately, kids never like to do the same thing over and over (sarcasm).

Lately, Sage has been trying to take down her big sister. She usually does this when Roan has a banana or something else to eat in her hand. Sage wraps her arms around Roan’s waist and tries to pull her down. It’s insane. Roan is usually a good sport about it. A few nights ago, though, they were playing with their dad. I think the game was that the kids would stand on a baby blanket on the floor and dad would throw a pillow at them and see if it would knock them over. (That sounds kind of horrible as I type it, but they loved it). Roan was standing on the blanket, facing her dad and I was sitting on the couch behind her. Sage got on the blanket and Roan slapped her on the back. It seemed like Roan just couldn’t control herself because she wanted the attention even though she knows it’s wrong to hit her sister.

Bad Mommy...

I suck. Poor Roan had to miss preschool this morning because her dumb mom, who was up late playing Warcraft, thought she had set the alarm but managed to screw it up. I thought the little round light was the “alarm on” light, but really it was the “am” light. In my defense, it’s a dual alarm clock, so there are lots of little lights. Well, ok, three lights, but that’s one to many. I had to keep her home last Wednesday because she wasn’t getting enough sleep (up coughing at night) and was acting kind of weird and spaced out during the day.

I’m going to chalk up my alarm clock error to being sick, AGAIN. I just had a cold two weeks ago. I managed to get over that one pretty quickly, which I now realize was only so I could catch another one right away. I think poor baby Sage has had a runny nose the whole time. She loves to come up and wipe it on me. She usually aims for my pants leg or a sleeve and then burrows her head in and turns her face to one side. She has technique.

I took the kids to the park last week and got to (over)hear a disturbing conversation between three moms. Firstly they were all pretty thin, probably like size 2 thin. They were talking about their kids and their kids weight and how their kids eat. One of them has a daughter and the mom obviously was concerned about her weight. I guess the kid likes to wear stuff that’s a little on the small side (being a young kid, she’s rightfully not concerned about her weight) to the dismay of her parents. They were also talking about how their kids would eat a whole plate of chicken nuggets and one of the mom’s told about how she would tell her kid not to eat so much. Did I say they were all really concerned about raising kids (one of them has three daughters) with eating disorders? At least two of them talked about how all of their roommates in college were bulimic (but they didn’t say bulimic, just said that they “threw up”). They were standing right behind me (I was sitting by the sandbox). One of them also talked about her husband’s fat sister and other fat people. They were talking about this for at least 20 minutes. I wanted to turn around and yell at them. I also felt sorry for their kids. Kids shouldn’t diet. They should eat healthy stuff and get lots of exercise. This is a challenge. It can be hard to get Roan to eat anything and when we go to the park, they both want to ride the swing for an hour. Also, kids tend to put on weight (especially around their tummies) when they’re about to grow. We’ve all seen it. Kid is a little chubby, next time you see him he’s taller an thinner. I doubt any of these women have kids that are even close to obese, yet they were all so concerned about it.