Thursday, March 28, 2013

Catching Up

Well, that was like, what?  A week or two of fairly consistent blog posts?  If that doesn't call for taking a month off, I don't know what does.

So much going on.  House things.  Kid things.  Travel things. Trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up things.  Keeping track of the wild animal count in our neighborhood things (two nights ago, a bob cat and some other unidentified wild thing had a noisy encounter on our garage roof.  Yeah, that's right).   So many things to distract me from blogging.  I even started writing a new story, but after finishing pages upon pages of character outlines, I realized I was really just recreating the Bravermans from Parenthood. Really. So I decided to trash that (and stop watching so much damn TV).  I'm working on something else now, and I always find it hard to write fiction and keep up my blog at the same time.  My brain, it is not so good.  So its possible that I'll write this post and then disappear until June.  C'est La Vie.

You know when you buy a house and you want to paint the walls?  So you go out and buy a bunch of little sample paint colors, take them home, slap patches of them up onto the walls and decide you don't like any of them?  But  now you've got patches of random paint colors all over your house?

Yeah.  That.

These colors for the dining room are supposed to be grey.  And yet, they are blue.  I do not want a blue dining room.



The master bedroom.  Deep purple?  Lilac purple? or BRIGHT green/yellow.  Husband and I are clearly color blind because none of these were supposed to look like what they look like.


Ethan's room.  He has requested the bright blue on the right.  I am going to have to keep a pair of sun glasses in his room at all times because OHMYGOD, the glaring brightness of the blue!!!!

A friend has given me the contact information for a painter who uses all non-toxic paints and can match any regular commercial color, so I am going to be calling him, handing him my check book and telling him, "make my house pretty.  I'll be back later."  Because paint color decisions might be what finally pushes me over the edge, and I'll end up living in a box out behind the garage muttering "damn you, Behr "silver hill" #750F-5!! why couldn't you just be grey like you were supposed to be??!!!" And nobody wants to see that happen.

Now that we've successfully switched homes and schools (and been assured by E's new teacher that his behavior and ability to focus are pretty much on par with every 6.5 year old boy she's ever encountered), I've started the daunting task of over-scheduling us within an inch of our lives.  Monday, there's the "mad science" enrichment class at school.  Wednesday, there's Tae Kwon Do.  Thursdsay, we go to swim lessons and Friday, Ethan can be found at singing/piano lessons.  That gives us Tuesdays for marathon playdates at the park.  On top of that, there's homework to be done and thank goodness that seems to have become an accepted and routine part of our lives.

And its never too early to think about summer camp!!! Lego camp?  Check.  Theater camp?  Check.  Space camp?  Check.  Pool membership?  Check.   This is remarkable for me, people.  I had Ethan signed up for these camps BEFORE the 1st of March.  Unprecedented organization!!  Wheeeeee!! Let's just hope I wrote down the dates of said camps, because it only works if you show up on the right day.

Ethan's first day of Tae Kwon Do was yesterday.  I think I did a great job of securing my role as "that mom" amongst the other moms sitting on the side of the mat.  I may have giggled too much at the adorableness that is a bunch of little kids in white uniforms, flailing and "hiiiyaaa"ing, tripping over their own toes and shouting "yes, sir!!" to everything the instructor says.  I may have sat way forward on my seat to take lame blurry pictures and one random video with my iphone while the other moms read on their kindles or entertained other siblings.  In other words, a little heavy on the enthusiasm.  I'll try to tone it down for the next class.  But seriously.  So cute.


stretching and warming up the ankles. Natch


Jumping jacks.  Hilarious.  


I'm Ethan.  I like to kiiiiiick....

 ....and block....


....and kiiiiiick! I'm Ethan!

(those captions only make sense if you remember Molly Shannon's Sally O'Malley character from SNL.  And even then, probably not really funny to anyone but me.  Ah well.)

Ethan LOVED tae kwon do and insisted on staying in his uniform all evening so he could show Husband and practice his fancy moves.  However, since I was making him spaghetti & meatballs for dinner, I did insist that he take it off to eat.  He was not pleased when I informed him that I was not in fact inviting him to dine aux naturale and that I expected him to go put some clothes on before dinner.  After dinner, the uniform went back on and there was much "Hiiiiiya!!!"-ing when Husband got home.