What good is a perfect attendance trophy in real life anyway?

He made it to March 28th. Not a bad stretch of wellness for a 6 year old kindergartner - I have seen with my own eyes the sneezing, coughing and random "ickiness" that permeates through his class everyday. Way to go immune system!

Spencer has had some trouble this week. Since I have been so busy dealing with that, I failed to notice until late Wednesday evening that he was not looking like himself. The thermometer revealed a low grade fever and he told me his body felt "dizzy". I gave him some Tylenol and put him back to bed and the next morning he woke up fever free. He still looked a little peaked but I sent him to school anyway because he had some issues to deal with. He seemed fine after school but then into the evening he started to feel sick again. Since Wednesday he has complained of a headache, sore joints (that is the body dizziness), back pain and a cough. His cough is sounding a little worse and this morning he told me his ear hurt a little. He still had a fever this morning so we told him he couldn't go to school today.

Today of course is the day at school he has been looking forward to for the past two weeks. Pajama Day! I felt so sad for him - he was practically begging to go. He told me to just give him medicine and he would be OK. I can just call you if I feel sick at school! Please can I go? It made my heart ache that he was so disappointed. I told him that he couldn't go to school with a fever because he might give his germs to the others kids and then his friends would get sick too. Eventually, through his tears, he agreed that the right thing to do was to stay home.

So here we are, all at home. He is having his own private pajama day which unfortunately is really not the same thing at all. He has a doctor appointment this afternoon. I suspect he has some "non specific viral illness" but I am worried about an ear infection and I really would rather not spend the weekend stressing about what is wrong with him. The doctor will most likely put my mind at ease so I won't spend every minute of the day googleing meningitis and doing symptom checks on WebMD. Yes, that is what a freak I am.

Anyway, he is home today so he no longer has perfect attendance for this year. It was a good goal to go for but his health is more important. There is always next year!

The next Mitch Gaylord?

I am surely showing my age with the title of this post. I don't care - Mitch ruled at the 1984 Olympics and I think every teenage girl in America fell in love with him. Remember he went on to do that American Anthem movie? I thought that movie was the BEST! Only when I see it now do I realize how horrible it really was. He may have not been great at acting but no one could touch him in gymnastics! I guess I could have titled this post with Paul Hamm or someone a little more recent but Mitch and Mary Lou were from my day and I still am amazed by their abilities. They will always be tremendous American athletes. I digress...







I took these photos yesterday at Evan's last day of gymnastics. In the fall he did the same class for a month and now just finished his second go at it. He really enjoys the class and was a little bummed that it is over. It wasn't in my opinion a real gymnastics class. The high school gymnastics team just basically held their hands as they walked the beam or jumped off the vault. The kid's have fun though and get to burn off a ton of energy so it is totally worth it.

We are thinking about getting him into a real class maybe next fall. I am sure it will be a bigger time commitment so we will have to make sure that he is really into it - but if that is something he wants to do, we will make it happen. I think he would be a really great gymnast. He definitely has the body type for it and already has an amazing "springiness". I don't know what it is but when he jumps it is like he is on a trampoline all the time - kind of like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh! I would love it if gymnastics is something he wants to pursue. I would much rather have him be a gymnast than a football player. Gymnasts are tough - I would like to see a football player on the rings or that high bar.

Olympics year 2020? Who knows?






















I love this picture because this is Evan's version of two thumbs up. If we give him the thumbs up this is what he does back.

My Easter Blessings

I would take these three over a Cadbury Egg any day, but thanks to my thoughtful mother and my husband who remembers with a shudder the "Easter incident of 1996" - I was able to enjoy both. I am truly blessed!

If Duff saw this he would cry in his fondant.

The past four or five years, I have made a bunny cake for Easter. Not always this 3-D version - there is also the basic rabbit head with bow cake. This year I decided since we were not hosting Easter at our house and since last year we traveled the bunny cake all over with us and no one ate it - I would not make the cake. As fate would have it, Spencer asked me yesterday when we were going to make the bunny cake. So, I kind of felt like I had to make one - at least for
our family - and let's face it - it is not too hard to convince me to make something sweet.

The boys and I made the cake and decorated it today. It is not our best work. I have to confess that I should have doubled the frosting recipe to cover all of the imperfections but at the point I realized that, I was much too tired and figured that the boys and I didn't care what it looked like and we were the only ones that were going to eat it. The boys were giddy with happiness - they named the bunny Shoovey and kept asking me to take pictures of them with him. Oh o.k...if you REALLY want me to.

What was funny was that the whole time I was "constructing" this cake I couldn't stop thinking of Chef Duff and the Ace of Cakes show. PS - One of my all time favorite shows on TV. I don't know how close Baltimore is to where my cousin is getting married, but know this, if we go to that wedding and Charm City Cakes is within an hour drive time - we are SO THERE! I want my picture taken in front of that building and if they have a second - obviously a few decorating tips!

Good Friday

Our Good Friday tradition is to color Easter eggs - so that is what we did this afternoon. We have been doing this for years. As infants, our kids were forced to watch and participate to the best of their ability. Even before the kids were born, Trent and I would color eggs on Good Friday - probably because we are the geekiest people on Earth but we tend to enjoy doing things that most people would find mundane.

What was funny this year is how excited the boys were to BOIL the eggs. They had watched "It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown" on TV and thought the part where Marcy puts the eggs in the toaster, the waffle maker and eventually cracks them in the boiling water to make "egg soup" and Peppermint Pattie's frustration with her through it all was about the funniest thing they had ever seen in their young lives. Spencer even decided that Evan should start calling him "sir" as Marcy does to Peppermint Pattie. On a side note, I had never really noticed how "butch" Pattie was until I watched this special with them - and believe me, I have watched a lot of Charlie Brown. Since they were so excited, we decided to boil the eggs yesterday so they would be all ready for coloring today. I have never seen two kids so excited to set eggs into a pan of water. I don't know what they thought was going to happen - I told them that the boiling process was going to be pretty much the opposite of exciting.

After the eggs were hard boiled and I picked out the few that for some reason always crack open. I put them in the garage refrigerator. Big mistake. The fridge is as old as I am ( it came from the house I grew up in) and it runs on the cold side. The milk and pop we put in there will sometimes come out more like a Slurpee - better frozen than rancid I guess. So today I discovered that almost all of them had frozen and cracked open - not the ideal state of eggs for coloring. I called Trent at work and asked him on his way home to pick up another dozen.

Once we had eggs, the coloring began. Spence with his teenage-like attention span did his seven eggs and was ready to watch Ben 10 or whatever mind numbing show was on. Apparently, the actual coloring doesn't hold a candle to the boiling. Weirdo - I guess the boiling is kind of scientific and he really gets into science stuff and experiments. Evan being the artist that he is couldn't get enough. He even colored the cracked ones. Even Hailey got to put stickers on her own little egg. She liked picking at the stickers and then was trying to eat the egg -shell and all. In frustration she dropped it on the floor, of course it cracked apart so I cut it up for her to eat without the shell.

Spencer doesn't really get the concept of seasonal appropriate clothes. He doesn't think that a tank top in 20 degree weather is a poor choice. I have stopped fighting him since he strips out of his clothes about ten times a day, I am just happy he had something on.

The Easter Lily that Spence and Trent brought home for me. I set it in the window to take a picture and noticed how wrong it looked against the snowing background. I can't believe we had to shovel about 4 inches of snow on the second day of Spring! When will it ever end? All in all, it was a very good Friday.

Warning: Ends with an awww...

I was putting Evan to bed last night and we couldn't find his three dogs - Laddie, Paddy and Wawa. I searched his room that is always a disaster of books and dinosaurs and found them in the pile of clean clothes that I have yet to put away. When I gave them to him he gave the three of them the biggest group hug and told me Thanks Mom for finding them! My dogs are my pals and my best friends! I love them and I love you too, Mom! I told him I love you Evan! You are my favorite three and a half year old boy in the world! Then he said - Mom, that makes my heart feel SUPER! Awww.....

ACTING! Genius! THANK YOU!

Spencer had his stage debut this past weekend in the musical Cinderella. He did such a wonderful job! It was a long weekend with five performances after a long week of rehearsals. Needless to say by Sunday afternoon he was extremely tired - but in a good way! The photo above shows him and the other boys saying their only line. Herman? It was so cute to hear him walking around the house practicing. I have to admit that I was skeptical that he would really go through with the whole thing. I thought for sure that at the last minute he would back out or stage fright would take over, but he never wavered one bit about wanting to do it. He never seemed nervous at all. I am so proud of him! It takes a lot of guts for a 6 year old to get up on stage in front of all those people and do what he did. I know I never would have done it. I guess I have in my head that he is a shy kid and I have to get out of that mindset because all evidence shows that he is not. He was quiet in preschool and scared to play T-ball that same year, but since then has gone into all he does with gusto. His teacher has never mentioned to me anything about shyness, on the contrary he is probably not quiet enough in school!

I wonder if he will continue to enjoy acting and theatre. He took a story plays class over the winter at the theatre downtown and loved it. On parent watch day I was so surprised at how well he did and how much he got into the imagining and pretending of it all. I guess we will see what opportunity presents itself next. Who knows - maybe someday he will take me to the Oscars!

Scenes from Cinderella.

His rose from Mommy and a smiley face balloon from Evan.

Signing his first autograph!