The bounce house is coming! The bounce house is coming!

Saturday is Finn and Ella's combined b-day party. I am trying to keep it as simple and low-key as possible (except for the bounce house), but it gets expensive fast. We have gone to Build-A-Bear parties where each kid gets to make a stuffed animal, parties with treasure hunts and customized framed pictures of the b-day kid with each guest, parties with Hannah Montana look-alikes and on and on. What happened to cake, a hot game of pin the tail on the donkey, here's your balloon and goodbye? It seems like we have forgotten how little it takes for kids to have fun. I trying to think of party favors that won't just be another piece of cluttery junk when the kids get home. I would love to give sparklers since it will be close to the 4th of July, but I doubt the parents would appreciate that. Any suggestions? Anyone with me to overthrow the current over-the top party regime? Well, I'm off to obsessively clean my house so I can impress the kiddies!

Owl-riffic!

So, yesterday I find the excellent kissing owls picture. Then we go to Target and I find a super-shiny owl bank. Score! THEN I go to work this mornin' and my friend Jessie is wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with-you guessed it-AN OWL. It's a sign, people, a portent, a good omen. It is a matter of time 'til I get my own hooty-owl living in the backyard! 

Owly love

When I grow up

Ok, what am I going to do with my life? I've had 39 years to figure it out and I haven't got a clue. Do I finish school and get a teaching credential? Do I just start taking painting classes even though I know I have no real talent? Do I just sit at the computer and type for an hour a day even though it makes me feel vaguely sick to my stomach? I really don't know. I do know that when I am around books or art or hear people talk about writing or painting, my heart beats faster. Maybe I should become an art history major and write a book about art. Yeah, that's the ticket. So, any thoughts? I'm 100% open to suggestions. 

I changed my mind

I started to write this post in a foul mood, spurred by my endlessly button-pushing mother-in-law.  A few sentences in, I just sort of lost all energy for raging against her. There really is no more useless endeavor. She is not going to change and neither am I. Breathe in, breathe out. 

Of infinitely more interest to me is that my friend/customer/ex-personal trainer and his wife welcomed their first baby, Lucas (shout out to the Star Wars geeks among us). I have never seen a more woozily in-love daddy than Andrew. He was cooing over his phone, people. This g0-g0-g0, all energy Marine was nearly knocked off his feet by cell phone pix of his nugget. The sweetest thing ev-ar. 

Also, a good excuse to kind of go bananas in the baby dept. of Target. How am I supposed to pass up camo tennies and eentsy red sunglasses that say "First 4th of July" on the arms and a little romper with a bulldog on it that says "Tough Guy"? Take it from me, it is not possible. Not that I want to have another baby, mind you, but if someone were to just give me one, well, who am I to argue with fate?

Summertiiiiime....

I don't know when it happened, but I kind of love summer now. I always dreaded hot weather. Maybe because of my questionable fashion choices in high school: deathly pallor and a solid black wardrobe aren't the wisest sartorial moves when it's 90 degrees outside. Now I find I look forward to the sun on my skin, to the way the heat makes my body feel loose and languid. 

What I notice most is the smell of everything when it's hot out. The jungle-damp smell of our backyard at the end of an afternoon in the sprinklers, the combined scents of hot asphalt and syrupy jasmine in the parking lot when I leave work, and, best of all, the sweaty, earthy, salty sweetness of sun-warmed kids. *Sigh*

Let the vacation begin!

My cat, Stewart, has wrapped himself around my monitor and is peeking at me with one eye and ever so gently moving papers around with his back paws. *Sigh* Love the kitty. 

Finn was so cute and sad about leaving his teacher. He made her a card last night and refused to put it in his backpack this morning. He wanted to hold it. He is such a boyish boy, all light-sabers and explosions, but he still has such a tender heart. It just kills me. Great, now I'm crying. 

Ella and I are off to the library to stock up on TV alternatives: books, CD's, stories on tape and puppets. For FREE! Seriously, what is better than the library? 

Happy last day of school, peeps.

al..most...there...

Two more days till summer vacation! I am definitely more excited than the kids. I'm more excited than when I was a kid. I was in no way prepared for how much work school would be for me as a parent or for how personally I would take the grades. I sat there for 2 1/2 hours with a whiny kid! I want my A, dammit! Oh, excuse me. I mean, I do so want to see the kids do well. (So they can afford the therapy they will need to deal with their mother issues.)

I am killing the TV this summer. I am terrified and excited by this experiment. As someone who is most comfortable with the companionable babble of the set in the back, I am so curious to see what we all do without it. (All but Shawn that is. The day I called to actually cancel the cable service, he had me call back an cancel the cancellation. I'm not telling the kids.)