Huh? I didn't procrastinate?

I just sent Mary off to school with a sack of valentines, each one carefully signed "Mary". . . by me. Excepting two, she didn't see or touch any of those valentines until this morning, when she dutifully handed them to her teacher--

--who explained that Mary could pass them out on Monday. Monday! Yes, I know Monday is Valentine's Day, but TODAY is the party. Silly me, I just assumed they would be passing out the valentines at the party. Oh well. No harm done. The teacher will hang on to Mary's valentines for safekeeping until Monday.

I guess I didn't have to force Grouch-of-the-Universe to do her valentines yesterday afternoon after all. We could have spread out the lovely process all weekend long. Perhaps we could have even improved each valentine by putting a bird on it.*

But I think I'll just be proud of myself that I didn't procrastinate....even though I didn't know I wasn't procrastinating. That still counts as not procrastinating, right? And I'll be happy that we're all finished with valentines this year. Well, until December 26 anyway.

*Perhaps chickens are more your kind of bird.

101

Yesterday was the 100th day of school!

Hooray!!

David's class celebrated by making special crowns, reading books about the number 100, counting objects numbering 100, and even breaking a pinata they made as part of their paper science unit. I wasn't there--I stole this picture from David's class website--but I heard it was a big success!

Last night at bedtime David prayed, "Please bless me to have a good one hundred and one day at school tomorrow."

***

A few weeks ago, as the 100th day was approaching, David started crying because he didn't want kindergarten to end. He thought he was off to the first grade right after Day 100. His teacher and I set the record straight. He was very relieved. But it got me thinking...he's not going to be a kindergartner forever! !!! What the heck? Why did that never occur to me? I spent five years preparing myself for the Big K. But I guess I forgot about everything else after that. I am definitely NOT prepared. Good thing kindergarten isn't over quite yet.

Valentines

The other day I was at Target and I overheard a woman, whose young children were begging for Transformer and Dora valentines, say rather too loudly, "Noooooo. Those are PACKAGED valentines. We're going to buy supplies and MAKE valentines for your friends. We don't buy PACKAGED valentines in our family."

Of course she was saying this at the exact moment that I was putting PACKAGED valentines into my cart.

To be perfectly honest, I'm pretty sure she wasn't saying it expressly for my benefit. I caught her eye, and she looked a little embarrassed, like, "Whoops, I shouldn't have said that so loudly." I do believe she'd said it for her kids' benefit. And her own benefit. Anyway, I know I sometimes say things too loudly at the wrong moment. I tell you all this because this post is not about what a jerk the lady at Target was (she probably wasn't), and it's also not some kind of unfair anti-craft tirade.

It's just a confession that I will never be the one to say, "We're going to buy supplies and MAKE valentines for your friends." At least, not unless my kids get some serious tutoring from Martha Stewart and also have class sizes of no more than three. Otherwise, we will be sticking to PACKAGED valentines until high school graduation, thank you very much.

I mean, packaged valentines are painful enough as it is. My oldest kid is only five, and already every time I see the Valentine's Day aisles appear at Target each year, I want to stick a fork in my eye. I guess the problem is that I insist my kids participate in way with their valentines. Even if they can't write, they can stamp, sticker, and scribble. Maybe I'm too principled, but it seems a little lame for my kid to not even set his hands on the valentines until the day he passes them out at school. It's good to have principles, right?

The problem is that my principles lead to long, excruciating afternoons, usually February 13th, full of coaxing and bribing.

At least David's teacher was looking out for me this year. A month ago she sent home a note encouraging us to get started on valentines early. All of the children are expected to clearly address each valentine as well as clearly signing their names. I was feeling validated in my belief that the kids themselves should be involved somehow with the valentining. But I also recognized that a few stamps, stickers, or scribbles wouldn't be enough. This was the real deal: Legibly addressed envelopes and clear signatures. This was going to be a big undertaking for David.

And so it was with kids like David (who'd rather run than write) in mind that Mrs Q. sent home the note encouraging us to start early. And start early we did. We worked on just a few names every other day for a few weeks, and then they were finished. Just like that. And I didn't stick a fork in my eye! And David only cried once, and that was when he fell off his chair and had nothing to do with the valentines. It was wonderful!

The lesson here is that procrastination is bad.

So don't grumble when the Valentine's Day aisle appears on December 26. I will be there buying my PACKAGED valentines.

Sigh. If only I LEARNED my lesson. Of course, I put off Mary's valentines until this afternoon, when she happens to be Grouch-of-the-Universe. Normally, she loves this kind of stuff. But not today, OF COURSE. She traced her name in cursive on one (she can't write her name, but loves to trace her name in cursive), put a sticker on another, and then ran downstairs bawling hysterically for inexplicable reasons. So I signed the rest myself, and she won't even see them until tomorrow when she's passing them out.

Principles are overrated.

Funny bunny

This is my funny bunny.

And I'm even allowed to call her "funny bunny"!

I refer to Mary all sorts of ways: little, big, pumpkin, cupcake, beautiful, smart, sweet, babes, cute, talented, yummy, silly-bun, adorable, you get the picture. She much MUCH prefers her name, Mary, to any other noun, adjective, or combination thereof. We do get away with calling her "Bear," but I think it's because we've been doing it consistently for so long that she doesn't notice it.

The other day I was teasing her a bit, asking if I can say that she's "super smart" or "extra sweet" or "really beautiful" or "amazingly strong''--and each time she said no. Then I asked if I could say that she's funny. And, a little sheepishly, she responded in the affirmative.

"Can I call you my funny bunny?" I asked.

She nodded yes. Seriously.

I was shocked!

I realized Mary likes to see herself as funny. And why not? She is funny!

She's been telling knock-knock jokes since she could talk. They went something like this:

"Knock, knock."

"Who's there?"

Then should would make a silly face and blow a raspberry.

It was funny, trust me.

She's had potty humor down for well over a year now. She's got good comic timing. She knows that something incongruous or unexpected can bring a laugh. She uses rhyme, word play, alliteration, and a lot of physicality to get a laugh. (She also stood on her chair and showed us her bare bottom at dinner time. That did not get a laugh. Which made for a very uncomfortable moment or two between our bites of enchilada.) And now she can tell a real knock-knock joke, start to finish.

I wish I had specific examples, but I don't often pay close attention to her comedy routine, because, quite honestly, it doesn't fit perfectly with how I define my daughter. I guess I didn't expect to give birth to the class clown. What else do I miss about her personality and desires because it doesn't fit into the paradigm I've created for her? It's so odd to me that I have a daughter for whom the ultimate compliment is "funny." We've never had a comic in the family, unless you count my dad's satiric stuffed animal stories or Tio Dave's middle school antics. And I don't think there's a lot of funny bone material in Greg's DNA.

But here she is, our little funny bunny.

My children never cease to surprise me....

....if I open my heart and my mind.

P.S. I think I've struggled with this before.

Super Bowl recap

What has Wisconsin done to me? Here I am posting again about football. FOOTBALL! Next thing you know, I'll be posting regularly about cheese or beer.

Yesterday morning at the gym everyone was both cheerful from the win and sluggish from the junk food.

Monday morning I attend a strength training class with a group of tough, classy born and bred Wisconsinite women who are 20-30 years older than me (and 20-30 times fitter than me). Thanks to the ladies at the gym, here is a general recap of the game:

1st Quarter--Jumping up from couch and eating in celebration

2nd and 3rd Quarters--Hiding behind couch and stress eating

4th Quarter--Kneeling in prayer in front of couch and feeling too sick to eat

Then, full circle--Back to jumping and eating in celebration

Also, it was decided:

Cristina--Booooo!

Half-time--Two thumbs down.

And the best commercial was decreed to be the Doritos house sitting one. (Also one of my personal favorites. But how could I not love the VW Darth Vader ad most of all??)

So there you have it. The Super Bowl according to the ladies at the gym.

P.S. I know we're too new and uneducated to be real Packers fans. But it's been SO MUCH FUN to see the Packers go all the way! We sure picked a great year to move here.

From yellow pants to calculus

Hi. Guess what I'm doing.

You betcha--watching the battle of the yellow pants. The Super Bowl seems like an excellent time to multi-task, especially in between the commercials. At first I thought about sending out some Lego Club emails. But then I thought better of it when I imagined what those people would think of me when they noticed when I sent the emails. I figure I don't need to alienate my neighbors any more. I still drive around a car with Texas plates. So here I am blogging. And thinking about football, which logically leads me to think about calculus. Don't you think about A.P. Calculus when watching pro football? (No...?)

Here we are, as a family, watching the Super Bowl, and I can't help but wonder if our time in Wisconsin during such formative years for our children will lead them to have some kind of vague lifelong loyalty to the Packers. Our children are creating memories and forming impressions that will stay with them forever. FOREVER. What is going to be a part of this FOREVER? The Packers? What else??

Football always reminds me of elementary school. One year before the Super Bowl our P.E. teacher taped up a tall piece of butcher paper, divided it down the middle, and wrote the competing teams at the top: Bears and Patriots. All of the children in the school wrote their names under the team they wanted to win. Well, that was easy. The Bears, naturally. This was during the tenure of "The Refrigerator," after all. Every single child wrote his or her name on the Bears side. Except one brave soul. (Who I now admire for his courage in the face of intense peer pressure, but who at the time I thought was an idiot. I mean, who likes the Patriots??) As a result, my entire life I have thought, "Bears, good. Patriots, bad." I also truly believed no body (except one random reject kid) liked the Patriots. So it was a shock to the system when, twenty years later, the Patriots dominated football...and it seemed like they had fans. People liked the Patriots??? I could not shake the impression from elementary school.

Likewise, because of that very same experience in elementary gym class, I had a hard time shaking the feeling two weeks ago that I should have been cheering for Chicago. (Bears, good. Bears, good. Bears, good.) Wow, elementary school is some powerful stuff. So I wonder, will there be a voice deep inside David that will forever urge him to cheer on the Packers? What else will those voices from elementary school whisper to him?

Because of elementary school, professional football always leads me to think of math. That's because of my second grade math teacher. As we struggled to memorize our times tables, she taught us all kinds of nifty tricks. I learned quickly that I desperately needed those nifty tricks. I could not memorize numbers. I couldn't hold them in my head. I had to have some kind of trick to remember my times tables. (I'm speaking in the past tense here, but all of that still holds true today.) To help us remember 7x7, my teacher simply told us to think about football. That was easy. You see, I lived in Denver at the time, and anyone in the entire state of Colorado who ever saw the number 7 immediately thought of John Elway. My little second grade self included. And what is the answer to 7x7? No, it's not the Broncos. But it was the second best thing. 49! I happened to be elementary school during a time when the 49ers were dominating football. The NFL saved me! I never would have remembered 7x7=49 without it!

And just when you thought we were well on our way to the connection to calculus, I have to let you in on the news that the next stop in my mind is a story about a Cabbage Patch Kid named Mary Ellen.

But, now that the kids are in bed, I might give a little undivided attention to the game. (Or maybe it's really the chance to cuddle with my husband that I'm looking forward to.) Either way, we'll broach the ever exciting topic of Mary Ellen...and calculus...another day.

P.S. We can see the highway from our house. There is nary a car. It is very, very quiet out there today.

P.P.S. I love that both teams in the Super Bowl are old school teams, with the names to go with it. What history! (When I was little, whenever I heard "Packers," I always thought of the UPS man because he delivers packages. I didn't make the connection to "meat packer." Why would I? I was a vegetarian. One day when I saw their green and yellow uniforms, I was genuinely surprised: I think I had honestly expected them to be brown like a UPS truck. Also, I thought the Steelers were "the stealers." Anyway, despite my lack of a decent football education, I have some appreciation for these teams and the history behind them. Because, really, without tradition, what is the point?)

Winter sport

David went skiing again today. He did really well! He's catching on. Afterwards, he was genuinely proud and satisfied. Yay! I love seeing my kids conquer new things.

Later this afternoon, when boredom had driven David and Mary to couch jumping, hand-standing, and assaulting each other with a light saber, we tried to convince them to go outside and go sledding. It was 30 degrees! Perfect for some outside afternoon fun. (Seriously, it is freaking me out how warm it felt to me today!)

But David responded with that classic know-it-all tone, "I already did my winter sport today."

(Little stinker.)

Sledding or no, I'm proud of his hard work at his "winter sport" today.

Not an invitation

Tomorrow is the open house at Mary's school.

I really like her school.

I would really like people I know to see a Montessori classroom.

I should be inviting people to the open house.

But I am not.

First of all, like many Mormons, many of my friends are Mormon. And many of my Mormon friends attend church from 11 am-2pm. The open house is from 11am-1pm. I'm not inviting them to miss church. We're Mormon, people!

Second of all, most of my friends who are not Mormon are native Wisconsinites. I am NOT making myself look like an idiot by inviting them to a Montessori school open house tomorrow.

TOMORROW!

I'm on thin ice with these people anyway, especially since I admitted that I'd thought the Packers had gone to Florida years ago and had their name changed to the Manta Rays.

What is wrong with the people at Mary's school??? They seriously scheduled a non-football event on Super Bowl Sunday. When the PACKERS are in the Super Bowl. It's like having a school event scheduled for Thanksgiving Day.

You don't believe me? Businesses are closing their doors tomorrow afternoon so employees can celebrate with their loved ones. Sounds like a holiday to me. And last night at Culver's, the lady at the table next to us was telling her family, who were head to toe green and gold, that Sunday she is going to make an apple pie, a wild berry pie, and, oh yes, a TURKEY. Told you: It's like Thanksgiving.

Actually, I take that back. It's way, way bigger than Thanksgiving!

So, no, I am not inviting you to Mary's Montessori open house. Besides, I won't be there. I'll be at church: I'm Mormon, remember. And then I'm going home to, yes, watch the Super Bowl:

I live in Wisconsin.

P.S. Poor David. Of his two best friends, one is a Packers fan and the other a Steelers fan. David told me he hopes it's a tie.

P.P.S. We drove by the capitol tonight. It's lit up all yellow and green in honor of you know who! I didn't have my camera. So I refer you to Miz Booshay, a fellow Madison resident of PW fame, who posted a nice photo--though not one of her own--on her blog. It's actually pretty cool, up close and in person. I'm glad we took the long way home to see the capitol all festive like that.

P.P.P.S. We are duly connected to this Super Bowl, via Wisconsin and Dallas. The Packers are staying in the hotel across from my dad's office building. And we have friends who've spied on the team's practices. And I've even been to the stadium.

Winter weather without the whine

Hi. Just like you (or many of you anyway) we are digging out from that blizzard. But I am not whining one tiny bit because

1. We had the most gorgeous fall that lasted forever while many of you were freezing your toesies off by November.
2. We did not get our first winter storm until December.
3. We have completely missed out on all the "fun" the East Coast has been getting this year.
4. I'll take a foot of snow here over an inch of snow in the south. Plows, salt trucks, warm coats, winter boots, and snow shovels do a lot to make the snow manageable. (Please note the "fun" places like Atlanta have had this year.)
5. Here in Madison we definitely did not get the worst of the blizzard.
6. Kind neighbors with snow blowers are angels from above.

Okay, now I will begin my post.

When I woke up this morning, I rushed to my bedroom window to see the blizzard's damage. The first thing I noticed was the clear roads. It didn't look so bad out there. Seriously, I thought, my kids are missing school for this?

Then I looked out the front door.

Okay, so maybe I'm glad I don't have to open the door and take my kids to school.

(But I have to say I was very impressed with our city's public works department. Those roads sure fooled me as to whether or not there'd been a blizzard!)

In case you were wondering, this is what the backyard looked like this morning:

For comparison, this is what the backyard looked like for most of January:

Here is another picture of our backyard from January. Notice the snow against the fence.

This next picture is from this morning. Notice the fence.

So, yes, there was some accumulation.

Under those circumstances, there's nothing to do but suit up and head out.

Do you want to know what this is a picture of? (Well, besides Mary working on her snow fort.)

That, my friends, is what the edge of your driveway looks like after a snow blower has cleared it. Did I mention we have an angel who lives up the street?

I'm sure Greg loves it when snow fort construction debris ends up on the driveway. Doesn't everyone love to clear extra snow from their driveway?

Happy girl.

Happy snow.

Okay, okay. I admit, I have to whine, but just the teensy tiniest bit. My kids and I don't like being trapped in our house together all day. (Why can't we be like normal people who love the cozy togetherness and do things like crafts and cookie baking? Instead we watch T.V. or wander around the house aimlessly, our eyes rolling around in our heads from boredom.)

Also, that snow you saw up there in those pictures, it's not going anywhere. It will be with us until April, or whenever spring arrives. To be perfectly honest, I'm terrified of the spring thaw. Perhaps I should start building an ark.

The face of a boy

This is the face of a boy who just learned that Phil didn't see his shadow today.

His teddy bear was also happy.

Let's all hope Phil was right and we're in for an early spring. But somehow I doubt it.