Middle School Sports

Growing up in Texas, I started playing organized team sports in middle school. I started on my less than illustrious volleyball career in middle school initially to avoid taking PE - really, really didn't want to take middle school PE. That philosophy actually did well by me through high school - joining the team to avoid taking gym class/off season training. I started playing basketball after volleyball season was over (when I was a Freshman) so I didn't have to do volleyball off-season, then took up track to avoid basketball off-season. Anyway, it all started for me back in middle school.

Up until middle school I wasn't a big athlete. I participated in the neighborhood fun and games, and gym class and playground activities, but nothing organized. I was more of a dance person - ballet, gymnastics, and clogging floated my boat. But starting in eighth grade, I was all about sports, and it seems that some of that has rubbed off on my eldest. Earlier this year Max tried out for and made a flag football team at his middle school. Max isn't a big guy - just average size for a 6th grader, but he's fast, and he's nimble on is feet. Those two summers of rugby have really improved his football game, and his soccer feet are clearly an asset. He was one of 25 kids in 6th grade that made the football teams. They do play flag football, which is the only reason we agreed to this. Coming from Texas we knew better than to toss our little guy into pads - that's just too scary for this mom and dad. Anyway, the were four teams in the middle school's football league, and Max's team went undefeated this past season.

Unfortunately, due to rain and snow (in October - can you imagine?) they missed a few games, but they finally called the season, and his team was undefeated. I was able to catch just one game - the rest were rained out - but I did see him catch an interception and almost make it across the goal line. It was cool seeing Max, all 56" of him playing football next to some 8th graders that were well over six feet. Flag football season is over now, and while Max is still playing soccer (although indoors - it's starting to get cold) he's already expressed interest in joining a basketball team. While my heart jumps at the thought of one of my kiddos playing the sport that I grew to really love and enjoy, the idea of him trying out for and making a basketball team at his height makes me giggle.

If you give a kid a violin

We are BIG fans of the Give a Mouse a Cookie series here in this house. Last week someone gave my kids violins. Of course my first thought was to run screaming from the house. How on earth could this possibly end well - not just one violin, but two. Then they started playing, and it was a totally different experience than when my oldest was given a violin. When Max first started playing violin we really thought that he couldn't hear that he was playing the wrong notes (and we weren't too far off - but turns out he's a brilliant trumpet play and can hear those notes perfectly). But Ian and Sam are different. First day out of the case, they wrote some music and played a song for us. They only know how to pluck the strings, not even how to play anything but open strings, their violins weren't completely tuned when they first brought them home, but they created music. So apparently in my house, if you give a kid a violin...

...he'll make music.

Cookies! Yuk.

Would you eat these? They were well intentioned but totally burnt. Talk about crispy cookies. Obviously, Tom failed to remove the excess dough from around the edges. Then, he put them in for WAY too long. Needless to say they are hard as hockey pucks, but shaped much more like a rock tablet. But I really did appreciate the fact that he made these for me after a long day. ;)

It's Indoor Soccer Time Again!

After a long outdoor soccer season filled with rain and reschedules, it's nice to move back indoors. All of the games are at the same place, and unless we have a massive snowstorm here again, it most likely won't stack up all in the last few weeks of the season. The kids love indoor soccer, and Lucy likes to run around without being continually told to stay out of the mud, the street, and off the field. Winter soccer is a much easier thing for our family to pull off - three boys all playing travel soccer, Tom coaching one team and me managing another made for a crazy outdoor season. So, between now and about the end of March we'll be hanging at the indoor soccer place near here, hanging out int he warm, cheering the kids on as they take the field.

Missing again? OUCH!

I've been gone again, and this time it was for a pretty decent reason:

You'll notice that it's not my foot, but it is Tom's right foot, and up until this past weekend he wasn't driving, and wasn't walking on his foot at all. This happened almost three weeks ago, so needless to say we've been busy making sure that everyone got to the right places at the right times. My day has included the deposit of various children at various schools or bus stops, driving the littlest one to and from her activities, and getting the hubby to and from work when he couldn't work from home. He was able to catch a ride from a co-worker or two to get out to another work site, but for most of the last three weeks we were a one car family with no public transportation option. The super, crazy, five soccer games and two birthday party day came when Tom's foot looked like this:

Stuffed sausage anyone? Tom's foot spent a good part of the past three weeks swollen up and all kinds of colors (yellow, purple, blue, even a little green). It's a sprain, so the prescription is PT, Advil, and elevation. This past weekend he finally started walking on it, and finally started driving. Whew! We survived the super crazy day with the help of several friends. Now, we are back to being a two car family and Tom is off of crutches as of last Monday. So, all is back to our normal level of crazy in our little corner of the world.

Babee!!!

I have a brand new nephew Nathan, and he's adorable!!!

Congrats Bill, Brooke, and Nicholas - and good job!

Benihana Fun

First trip for the youngest three to one of their dad's favorite places to eat - Benihana. Max went when he was a wee one, but this one is pretty far away, so we've never been. They behaved like perfect little children - NOT! But it was their Dad and Uncle's birthday, so we all drove out there, and everyone had fun (and some of us had good food).

They loved the volcano, the guy chopping shrimp, the hats, the hot grill and the dancing oil. And they didn't eat a thing. Max tried a bite of chicken and said that it was yummy, Sam considered he rice briefly (until he saw the stuff in it up close), but both declined any actual food. We fed them before we went anticipating that they'd not eat much there, but it was still fun for everyone.

Scarves!

Being a warm weather girl, I never really wore scarves growing up. But here in the *ahem* south...yeah. Here in Northern Virginia we need scarves a good chunk of the winter or else our necks will get cold! But I'm still not 100% sure how to wear these beautiful scarves, and I have several. They are a little like shoes or purses for some women - I collect them. I make them, I buy them, I covet them, but still not clue how to wear them. But, I found this and thought it best to share:

Now, I wear scarves and ROCK the scarves. I not only make it work, but I look cool doing it (whatever it is...).

Zombie Fun

Leave your 11 year old alone with your iPhone for a minute, and this is what you end up with:

See his zombie, realize that you have work to do, and then this is what you create:

Thanks Make a Zombie! We totally rock Zombie World now.

Lucy's first ever visit to the dentist

Lucy has been dying to go to the dentist for a while now. She goes with the boys to all of their appointments, sees that they are happy when they leave, and also get coins to buy prizes, and she's waited (not so patiently) for her turn. She's wanted to walk past the waiting room to see what fun awaits kids on the other side. Her turn finally arrived a few weeks ago and she couldn't have been happier. She marched right in, sat right down in the chair next to Max (we take them in by twos these days), and popped open her mouth when asked.

After the hygienist cleaned her teeth, the dentist took a look, and then they took x-rays as the dentist saw something suspicious on one of her teeth. All this without any fussing, and without even squirming, until the end. When they gave her the coin she practically ran over her brother and another lady waiting to check out in an attempt to tackle the machine with all the prizes. Then the fussing started. She wanted this toy, then that (they are little ones dispensed from a candy machine) and she wanted two, no three toys. Then she started in on Max - why didn't he give her his coin? Why wasn't he getting what she wanted him to get? And we got out of there as fast as we could, Lucy with a burrito - yes, burrito - in hand. Apparently plastic Mexican food toys that are dispensed from a candy machine and cost one dental cleaning are the best thing ever. She brought her burrito home and immediately showed Ian, who pulled out his taco - yes, really a taco - and then played. Dogs, rings, tattoos, sticky lizards, and all the other toys didn't hold a candle to the Mexican food at the dentist. Ahh...the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Spill Proof

Ever wonder how to take your three year old out to dinner and keep them relatively clean? First choice would obviously be feeding them something that doesn't make a mess, but how often is that the first choice of a toddler. Avoiding eating out in public is another choice, but what fun is that. So after four kiddos, I think I finally discovered the secret - raincoats. Who knew that simply sipping up a light raincoat on the messy toddler will keep her from spilling salad dressing all over herself. Napkins, parents and non-drip food won't stop it, but apparently a raincoat will. And it wipes up nicely too. Lucy LOVES salad and lettuce - lechuga, and eats it all the time so it's surprising that it took us this long to figure it out, but we finally did.

Getting ready for Halloween!

After dragging my butt a bit on the whole getting ready for the holidays thing I finally got started. If you get behind on decorating for Halloween, then you fall behind on Thanksgiving, and of course, Christmas/Hanukkah. The past few years I've been able to get my act together soon enough to get the house all pretty on the inside, get a few things thrown up outside, and enjoy the decorations for more than a week. But this year with school starting so late, the crush of soccer, and my general disinterest in the decorating part for some unknown reason, I finally did throw a few things out there. Cute, easy to put up and take down, yet, festive. And you know as soon as Halloween ends I'm tearing this stuff down and getting the Fall/Thanksgiving stuff up. Gotta get decorated!

Welcome to Princess World

I'm drowning in pink and changes of clothes, shoes, and opinions over here. All of this from a three year old - a recently minted three year old to boot. She is all about princess clothes, fancy shoes, changing those shoes and clothes every two minutes, and demanding that she wear jammies to bed for her nap. (Yes, still napping - fingers crossed.) But this is all new territory for us. The boys went through a dress up phase - all Power Rangers - all day. But this is different. Lucy wants to wear these cute little dresses because it's Tuesday, or because she turned left to get into her room, or because she saw a big. She changes in and out of clothes, dumping them on her floor or draping them around the house (often on me) continually throughout the day. I almost want to run out and buy her a ton of fluffy princess dresses so that she has one for each day, or a ton of jeans and shorts, pants, whatever, in cute colors and patterns so she has other things to wear than these fluffy princess dresses. But here I sit, lost in Princess World and not quite sure what's coming down the pipes next. So far she's pretty easy to please as far as clothes go, but at some point I know that she'll turn that corner and the cute fluffy clothes aren't good/fancy/sparkly enough, and that scares the heck out of me.

Remembering

By now probably just about everyone has heard - Steve Jobs passed away. I've been going through the last few days kinda sad for the loss - the man was an incredible innovator and an incredible mind. I've been reading blog posts about him and see how the loss has affected some in profound ways. But I consider myself a recent convert to Apple (I've only had an iPhone for two years now) , so not so much of an impact on me.

Just now I realized that Apple has been in my life for a very, very long time. From the time I was eight years old we have owned Apple machines. The first computer that I ever worked on was an Apple III - a dinosaur, and insanely expensive at the time (I think it was the price of a small car back then - around $6,000 when we bought it), but I learned to program on it, found my way around DOS, and learned all about dot matrix printers and floppy discs. We had that dinosaur for a while, and I was able to make the screen dance (or at least the little snake on the screen). It sat impressively on my dad's desk, and unless I'm mistaken, it was our very first family computer.

We branched off after that into a Apple IIc, that I eventually dragged

with me to college (after it was discontinued even). But by the time we bought the IIc the Mac revolution had begun. However, I had my own portable computer to take with me to school, external floppy drive, little LCD screen, and all, and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. At college I walked away from Macs completely. The lure of the PC that did more, faster, easier, was too strong, and my IIc was too slow and old. And up until this last Spring I'd never even toughed a Mac. But now I'm back in the fold, happy as a clam with my Apple once again.

So, thanks Steve jobs for all the time you've shared with me over the years. It turns out that it was much more than I would have ever imagined.

*Apple III photo courtesy of Alexander Schaelss

CANDY CORN SEASON!!!

YES! (If you can't tell I'm jumping up and down giving high fives to anyone within reach.) It's candy corn season again! One of my favorite times of year. it doesn't matter if it's raining outside, cold and dreary, if I have my candy corn I'm happy.

Toaster ovens may be the death of me

Before Tom and I had kids we ate food cooked in the toaster oven regularly. We were actually pretty proficient at cooking in that little oven - it was easy and quick and didn't require any real cooking skills. I've always been a fan of Black and Decker's toaster ovens, and that hasn't changed over the years. But once again, we've nearly destroyed a toaster oven. Only this time it wasn't me lighting the toaster oven on fire or Tom burning food past recognition - this was something new. It's been many years since we've had a toaster oven, so it's a completely new device to the kiddos. While it looks like a microwave you don't use a plate. It bakes cookies but still, no plates. Somehow Sam missed that memo:

Yes, that's a blue plastic plate melted down into the toaster oven. And yes, those are waffles. Seems that poor little Sam got a bit confused and loaded his waffles and his plate into the toaster oven - the brand new toaster oven. Well, once you start cooking your waffles and plastic plate, aside from stinking up the whole house, you melt your plate. At some point after they decided to send a messenger down the hall to tell me what they did. But it was't the reaction that the boys expected, and it certainly wasn't the sight that I expected to see. Apparently ruining toaster ovens is genetic. This will be #3 that we've had to toss, unless we can burn off the rest of the plastic - which we'll try when it stops raining outside so we don't stink up the house. But still, there's something to be said about toaster ovens in our house - apparently that's not a match made in heaven.

9/11 Memories

Looked back at my blog to five years ago to see what I wrote about 9/11, and what did I find? Nothing. Not a single post for the day, and nothing written about 9/11 at all that year. Then I remembered what 2006 was all about for me and understood better. 2006 was us moving to the DC area, both of my grandparents dying, then my mom passing away - all in the same year. So it makes more sense that I wasn't in a spot to reflect on 9/11. But this year, ten years after 9/11, is different. I've been having a bit of trouble with the whole 9/11 for some reason. It's almost as if I'm still processing, wanting to avoid it. We weren't directly affected by it. Tom was home, about to get on a plane to DC, but still packing when the planes hit the towers. Our close family was not directly affected but extended family was (and they left the area as soon as they could for the space and beauty of Colorado). But today as I sit here reflecting on what it means to me - which is what so many folks are asking - I'm not sure what to think. Like I said above, I think I'm still processing. The emotions well up and the fear resurfaces. The unknown is there again.

A few weeks ago we had an earthquake and the cell phones were jammed. Couldn't find Tom for a bit, but at the time I wasn't concerned as I knew generally where he was and that he was likely safe. But now I wonder what would have happened if it had been hours and there was no communication, no contact. I can't even begin to understand what folks went through on 9/11 where they saw the images on the TV and online but couldn't reach out to their family.

So here we are ten years later, remembering, certainly not forgetting, but for me I'm still trying to figure out exactly how to process all of this. Maybe in time I will settle. We did go to the site a few years back and saw where there were no more towers. That was startling. Maybe it's time for us to go back again and see what is in the place of those famous towers, and things might settle more in my mind.

TMBG

So yesterday I totally threw Giants under the bus. We LOVE They Might Be Giants. They have so many good songs for both adults and kids, but one of my favorites Science is Real spoke to me after watching yesterday's GOP Presidential Debate. So today I thought I'd show them a little love/ Giants are about clever, they are about fun, and they are about creative:

Gotta love TMBG!

Dear Rick Perry

Dear Rick Perry - Evolution is a fact, and science is real.

So terribly sorry, TMBG. We really do love you, but this guy running for President needs to hear this.

First Day of School

After recovering from the crying and fussing about that we had yesterday, it was good to hear that the kids who actually DID go to school had a great day. The little boys were very excited about their first day, had little to tell me but both thought that recess was fun. It is pouring outside so not sure what was fun about that, but they
thought it was fun. Max liked some of his teachers a LOT, and some he left out completely, so I'm guessing he was non-plussed. He learned some stuff about the school, where his locker might be (they'll get those next week), and that he's the only 6th grader in the Advanced/Symphonic band. Not sure what that means either, but hey, he's excited. All three boys were glad to go back the second day, and so I'm hoping that this will be
a great year. Buses ran on time, supplies were delivered ahead of time, and everyone made it to and from school in one piece. Max made some new friends, Ian and Sam ran across loads of old ones, and all is right in the world. And now, I nap.