We have a playdate going on here, right now. One of Eve’s friends and one of Lex’s friends. I thought they would all play nicely together, or perhaps apart, and I would get some work done. Turns out we’ve hit the classic boy/girl playdate age. Eve and her friend are upstairs playing with blocks and Lex and his friend are supposed to be playing in the office. Instead, on the whim of his friend, they keep running upstairs and busting open the door. The girls scream and shriek appropriately, then the boys laugh and run away. Classic.

I just had to bust up the game because Eve’s friend did not seem to be enjoying the game. In fact, she looked like she was about ready to leave.

I like playdates here because I love seeing how the kids all interact and who has what ideas. I stay out of their way, for the most part, but I love to quietly overhear. :)

… … … …

Here are a few pictures from the playdate…

We hung up Eve's birthday chain today. I wanted a nice picture of Eve standing by it, but this is the best they gave me! See the chain hanging from the ceiling by her friend?

Pure happiness.

The girls...

... and the boys.

Look who’s paying for the fuel oil this month!!  :)

As a Dartmouth grad Dr. Seuss is taken quite seriously around here. He is often the theme of Dartmouth’s winter carnival, many locals have stories to tell (Eve’s teacher met him), and each year to celebrate his birthday they hold a Seusstival! Actually, I don’t really know how long they’ve been doing that since this is the first year we attended. Expecting a carnival-like atmosphere we headed to the local Seusstival yesterday. It was fun, though not quite what I was expecting. We got there just as a local production of The Lorax was ending. We missed the show but we got to see lots of kids running around in great Seuss-ish costumes. The festival had face painting, books for sale, a bake sale, a silent auction, and a near-continuous reading of Dr. Seuss stories, all read by local important people, none of whom I knew. The first story we made it for was read by Hannah Kearney, local resident and Olympic Gold Medalist! I recognized the name but couldn’t, until yesterday, pick her face from a crowd. She did an excellent job reading One Fish, Two Fish. :)

Eve always goes for the face painting, and always requests a cat face :)

Hannah Kearney reading One Fish, Two Fish by Dr. Seuss.

One of the many Dr. Seuss themed cakes in the silent auction. Eve begged me to buy her a cake. Like we need THAT in the house! When we left the auction was up to $150 for this one! (it was the most expensive there)

Back home Eve felt the urge to create. She told us yesterday that she wants to be an illustrator when she grows up.

Lex –
There is the name of a sharp plant in this sentence. Can you hear it? “Listen to this Lex”

Eve –
Driving home from school the other day we were talking about Eve’s substitute teacher who is also a carpenter. She was surprised that people could be more than one thing :) I said, “Sometimes I think about being a teacher when you guys are in school full-time. Do you think I’d make a good teacher?” Eve laughed, quite loudly, and said, “No!! You don’t know anything! Teachers have to know a lot of things!” Lex asked her if her teacher knew a lot and she said, “Yes, she knows everything. And she’s always right. She told us so.”

We have a hopscotch (and a half) on our floor. The kids hopscotch their way through the dining room each time they go. I frequently have to remind them that they may not do it while carrying/clearing plates of food!

My grocery list so far. Eve added "flowers" and a bunch of hearts to it. Helpful, isn't she? :)

I borrowed a book from the library called How to Draw Princesses and Fairies. Eve likes drawing and she likes princesses, so I thought it would be fun to try.

Her first ballerina. :)

Lex wrote his name with Legos. Good thing we gave these kids easy names!

We had date night with the kids last night. Lex and I went to movie night at his school (saw Nanny McPhee Returns) while Eve and Alan went out for pizza. It was fun. Eve told me this morning that they decided the 2nd day of every month should be an Eve & Daddy date. Then she wrote "DAD" on her calendar on the 2nd of each month.

Eve and I are doing lots of brainstorming for her birthday party. The current plan is a “Pet Show” party where her friends all bring their favorite stuffed animals. We are coming up with some fun ideas. She wants to invite her entire class PLUS a few other people. We’re looking at 19 kids (assuming everyone comes, which I’m sure they won’t!) Am I nuts?! Let’s hope for warm weather and sunshine that day! :)

Birthday treats for classmates

Happy Birthday to Theodor Seuss Geisel, the beloved Dr. Seuss! Today he would have been 108. Imagine how many books he could have written! As it was he wrote over 60 books, 46 were published as Dr. Seuss and the remainder under pen names. He’s been published in 15 different languages and sold over 222 million copies! (I ? Wikipedia)

Did you know…

Geisel attended Dartmouth College as a member of the Class of 1925. At Dartmouth, he joined the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and the humor magazine Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern, eventually rising to the rank of editor-in-chief.

While at Dartmouth, Geisel was caught drinking gin with nine friends in his room. As a result, Dean Craven Laycock insisted that he resign from all extracurricular activities, including the college humor magazine. To continue work on the Jack-O-Lantern without the administration’s knowledge, Geisel began signing his work with the pen name “Seuss”.

Or that…

Geisel’s pen name is regularly pronounced /?sju?s/ SEWSS, an anglicized pronunciation inconsistent with his German surname. He himself noted that it rhymed with “voice” (his own pronunciation being /?s??s/ SOYSS) and Alexander Liang (his collaborator on the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern) wrote of him:

You’re wrong as the deuce
And you shouldn’t rejoice
If you’re calling him Seuss.
He pronounces it Soice[37] (or Zoice[38])

Geisel switched to the anglicized pronunciation because it “evoked a figure advantageous for an author of children’s books to be associated with—Mother Goose” and because most people used this pronunciation.

To celebrate this day we decided to make treats to bring to school. We thought long and hard about treats that could be made quickly (I just realized it was his birthday about two days ago!) and treats that were portable and could be brought to school unannounced :) I didn’t want to show up with a giant Cat in the Hat cake and have their teachers hate me forever! We decided on Goldfish in baggies. I wanted to mix in some chocolate graham goldfish, or maybe swedish fish or something, but our local Co-op had limited options so we stuck to plain, rainbow, and pretzel fish. Then we made tags and stapled them on top.

These are going to school this morning. Do you think they will be well received?

The paper tags are two-sided. We made enough for both classes, plus some extras for teachers and others.

Happy children. (whatever happened to my adorable babies? my kids look like wild hooligans these days!)

Eve insisted on taking a picture of me as well.

(I threaten to sell my kids to the circus. Frequently. It’s serious enough that they understand my frustration, but silly enough that they know I’m just joking. Mostly.)

Yesterday afternoon was awful. To tell you just how awful, here is an email I sent my friend last night (mostly I’m just too lazy to retype the whole ordeal!).

So the kids and I decided to fill baggies with goldfish and make a little tag to attach to the top for Dr. Seuss’s birthday treats. We stopped at the Co-op (closest store) for an expensive and limited selection of goldfish. The kids both wanted snack bars there and in a weak moment I bought yogurt covered pretzels. Our stop for one item turned into about nine. Eve even threw in boxed mac&cheese and I didn’t object?! It was snowing and traffic was a mess so I was cranky and feeling mildly nauseas again. We got home and basically had a group meltdown. Some yelling, some huffing and foot stomping, etc. Good times. Then we pulled it together, cleaned up the fort, and filled 40 baggies with goldfish. Then we, all together, made a Word document to print. Well, we started together and I ended up on my own because it wasn’t doing what I wanted it to and a 10 minute thing ended up taking me about 45 minutes. I was cranky!! I was also eating yogurt pretzels by the handful all afternoon. We finally got it done, the kids ate oatmeal for dinner while I cut up all the papers to fit the bags. My stomach very much in pain at this point and the “going to vomit feeling” slowly surfacing. I managed to settle things down and as we were finishing up dinner and as I was debating about letting the kids stay up late to help with the stapling-tags-to-bags process, I realized that Dr. Seuss’s birthday is FRIDAY!!! Not tomorrow! Ugh. It would have made so much more sense to go to Price Chopper tomorrow (or BJs!), spend more time on it, breath… breath… I’m an idiot! I pointed out my mistake to the kids, trying to control my frustration with myself, and they were so sweet. “That’s ok Mom, everyone makes mistakes sometimes,” Lex told me. “I have something for you mommy,” said Eve, giving me a big hug and kiss. They are good to me.

In the back of my head that whole time was also the possibility of a snow day today. Which happened. So this morning I had to decide if it would be another awful day with two wild children, or if I would turn it around and make it a good day. Can you guess what I chose!?

We had an excellent day today. We played some board games and then the kids played really well together with an elaborate game of garbage processing, involving all the slippers in the house, mountains of tiny toys, and random other components, while I exercised and showered. They drew pictures together and had snack on the floor while I finished up the treat bags for tomorrow. They had nice quite time and I got to read a whole chapter of Harry Potter to Lex. Then we went outside and they went sledding across the street while I shoveled the driveway. Back inside they continued to play super well together. I think they always play super well together when I am not so sensitive to every noise and whine and giant mess.

HOWEVER, one big thing that changed today was my interactions with Eve. She has been making me crazy with her whining and rude attitude and constant meowing and whimpering. Seriously. Makes my head want to explode. This morning we had a long chat about respect, what it means and how we both need to respect each other a little more. I also offered her a treat (of her choice) at the end of the day if she could go an entire day without making animal sounds. And she did!! What a difference that made in my brain. No incessant meowing or whimpering. Just happy Eve voices. Love, love, love! She chose playing Starfall games with daddy as her treat. If she makes it through tomorrow with no animal noises I have agreed to buy her flowers this weekend. Also her choice. :)

Sigh. Just when you are ready to sell them to the circus they turn it around and offer up a wonderful, fun-filled snow day experience.

There are no circuses in town anyway, so I guess it’s just as well.

A few photos from today and the past few days…

She's ready for the circus!

Tuesday night Lex built a fort under the table, using mainly books and boxes for walls. They brought some art supplies in and had a grand time until I made them clean it up for dinner.

Fun with the new rainboots.

Wednesday morning the fort was resurrected, this time with blanket walls (my suggestion!) They enjoyed their breakfast and more art projects in there before school.

We went sledding across the street this afternoon. Due to lack of giant snowbanks and growing children, this hill did not provide the thrill it used to. I guess they were bound to outgrow it eventually.

Lex going for a very short ride.