nine is officially the new black

my darling is 9. 

our family tradition is breakfast presents. then thomas sneaked off to ward council. all before the sun was up! thank you daylight savings!

a new puppet to add to the theatrical ensemble.

darth was a hit.

so much so, that i caught her slow dancing with him in the kitchen. darth was practically rounding second base with her. that darth is all hands. without even using his hands. the force!

our tree bloomed just for the occasion. my favorite.

reagan requested homemade pizza for his birthday dinner and this may be the most perfect pizza ever made. ever. 

side view:

i know! i made that!

 but i didn't make this. i may not make pretty cakes but i make cakes that taste good. this one from publix only looked good. reagan specifically requested a texas and missouri cake. naturally. cartography lovers unite!

 no blowout party this year. we're heading to wild adventure in valdosta instead. special request. 

but we had a few our reagan's favorite people over for mediocre cake, great ice cream and crystal light. reagan thinks crystal light is living large.

i'm pretty lucky that he's mine.

our sweet preemie.

i finally got to hold him a week after he was born. tears of joy.

blessing day, which ironically is the same weekend i started coloring my gray hair and last saturday night before his birthday i was up late coloring my grays. just lucky i guess.

booty pop in a family picture? don't mind if i do!

his gift to me was snuggling during church. a rarity. 

cheaters occasionally do prosper

so you don't want to but have to build a pinewood derby car? here's a step by step tutorial on what you should do!

1. give yourself plenty of time. after that, panic and realize you have no time and no tools.

2. go to the nearest junk(5 and dime)store and buy a pre-made pinewood car for 3 times the price. this might be considered cheating. i simply consider this smart. every parent has a talent. mine is finding the best solution to my problems.

3. spray paint on your front porch on a day when you haven't showered for 48 hours and you are trying to help your kids with homework at the same time. multitasking=yelling

4. skip dinner the night of the derby and shove several large handfuls of chocolate chips in your mouth while you are rubbing racing decals on. with your third arm, google the proper way to attach the tires. 

5. promise you will pray for forgiveness for all the swearing in your head.(and your mouth.)

6. apparently you can add weights to your car to achieve weight limit. that's good to know beforehand. as is knowing there is a desired weight limit. i didn't know this beforehand. this was my first pinewood. thomas was never a boy scout either. i'm tucking all this information away for when i'm a scout leader and need to share it with my pack in case there are a few clueless parents who like getting instructions on how to do things properly.

probably my least favorite thing of all time is going to church on wednesday night. i just want to put my kids to bed. i know my limits and evening activities put me way over the top. our afternoons are always already full and i get neither overtime nor hazard pay for evenings. i apologize to any who have encountered me on a wednesday night at church. i'm grumpy. i don't enjoy my bad attitude either. i feel i should be able to plead temporary insanity the nights my kids aren't in bed on time. everyone is happier when they are following their regular schedule. it's a fact. thus sayeth me. 

my other issue is that NOTHING STARTS ON TIME. 

 we took pictures to kill time until everything started and we killed that time dead.

scarlett and the "pink road rocket". 

our pack encouraged anyone who wanted to build a car to race after all the regulation scout racing was completed. scarlett was more excited than reagan about this activity and she gave me LOADS more input on her car design. luckily, the junk store had a pinewood truck and pink decals she just had to have. and i'm a pushover in a pinch so we ran with it. (scarlett dresses herself. she never met a pink sequin she didn't like.)

reagan with "green car bear". he is not good at naming things on the fly. 

still waiting for everything to start. it took so long that thomas made it before everything got rolling(punny) and he knew he was going to be late. blythe lives because he was at this activity.

finally! in case i need to plead my case before a judge, here is evidence of how long we waited: 37 minutes is way beyond my righteous thoughts capacity.

for the record, reagan does own a scout shirt. it is in pristine condition hanging in his closet. i'm just waiting for the perfect moment to sew all those patches on. hopefully, before he gets his eagle. 

in a complete 180 from my negative attitude, reagan was the best sport! he LOVES scouts. missing cub scouts has been a great bargaining tool. this scout activity was top notch in his book. after each race, he would declare himself the winner. he actually did win one race and was equally upbeat about each loss.

scarlett told me afterwards, "a boy said he hated my car! i think it's because mine beat his car!"

the moderately fast and none too furious. (not pictured, the furious. that was me.)

some kid named regan won for best classic car design. i'll keep this award until we run into a kid named regan so i can pass it along to him.

i thought i would pose with my creations:

how i really felt:

the end! until next year! and i'm sure there's no rule about re-spray painting a previous year's car! if there is, they probably won't tell me anyway!!!)

fun is run

PROUD does not even begin to describe how i feel about this past weekend's festivities. scarlett ran in her first road race this weekend. this year at school, the kids joined the running club at school and by default i come and hover over them(and quiz scarlett on spelling after each lap) and blythe comes and causes problems and gets in the other kid's way. but, they practice running and it's been a great experience. the school received a discount for registration fees for one of the area's big road races and scarlett expressed interest in running in the kid's mile. we're all suckers for a free sweat-wicking t-shirt. and i got the discount for my race too!

 of course, the evening of the kid's race, my worst running nightmare came true. i showed up to the race at the wrong location. we were ten minutes away from the actual start location and the race started in 5 minutes. we jumped back in the car and encountered a BUNCH of construction and an ooooold man who decided to just stop his car in the middle of the road in the construction zone until a parking space opened up or his metamucil kicked in, whichever came first. desperation set in and scarlett and i jumped out of the car and starting running the remaining blocks to the race while thomas stayed behind to deal with traffic. by time we got to the starting line, the race had been started for 3 minutes and we were already out of breath just trying to get there. they were packing up the starting line, but we just went for it. it was a chipped race so we were still timed even though we were the only ones left on the road. we ran like our lives depended on it, the only two runners on the road and we held hands. it was wonderful, if not a little post-apocalyptic feeling. by time we got the finish line, everyone else was already finished but we ran across the line like the champions we are! i cried a lot. i was so proud. she never stopped running!

 then she went and sat on the ground. i saw that she wasn't even wearing socks, which is a big running no-no. we still have plenty to work on before our next race.

each time i took a picture, she put her medal right by her face.

medal by her face:

and medal by her face:

 and due to construction and the old man, thomas was just circling the race area the whole time we were running and picked us up. so, everything worked out great. 

next morning, i had my race which i showed up for at the right time and place. i haven't run a 10k(or done much running at all recently because of the obnoxious cold weather that won't go away) in a while but it's a great distance and i ran with someone faster than me so i felt shamed into keeping up with her pace the whole time. i got a personal best 10k time of 55:28. it was awful and cold and the final mile was straight up hill. vomiting fighting with breathing. breathing won out in the end, but it was touch and go for about 45 seconds after i crossed the finish line.

everyone needs a great workout partner who is a little faster than you. mine is my friend, holly, and she is so cheery that you can't help have a good time running with her. i'm so negative that i'm surprised she talks to me. ying to my yang.

i'm thinking of becoming a post-running spokesmodel. who wouldn't want to buy what i'm selling? hahahahahaha. 

and this man was the token oldster in shorty shorts with what looks like tennis balls shoved up the back of his pants. every race has one.

5 stages of snow day grief or: how i learned to stop worrying and love the snow

it's not the kids. that's not the grief issue. snow days are great and terrible. they are great because you eat your weight in junk food. one of my snow days preparations is to have cream cheese, eggs, sugar, chocolate chips, graham crackers, pudding and cake mix on hand. it's terrible because you eat your weight in junk food. i have the cucumber sliced and ready to go, but it easily pales next to my lemon squares and my 2 layer brookies(brownie layer and chocolate chip cookie layer). it's terrible because the fact IS that snow isn't very fun if you don't have proper snow attire and i make it my business to make sure WE WILL NEVER HAVE PROPER SNOW ATTIRE. we live in south carolina for a reason. we are heat oriented people. snow days are great because you don't have to go anywhere but terrible because you can't go ANYWHERE. (go ahead and DON'T tell me how you have "real snow" where you live and our 3-8 inches is a light dusting. it rained yesterday before the snow so our road are slick!)

the 5 stages of snow day grief

1. denial.  i never tell my kids until the morning of that school is  cancelled so that i won't be cajoled into extending bedtimes and by some miracle they will sleep in if i don't get them up for school.

2. anger. a. because i have a vehicle that is used to heat and humidity and when it drops below 20 degrees, my driver's side door likes to unlatch. b. and while i really do love having my kids home, i've got stuff to DO.

3. bargaining. because schoolwork still has to be done. we're anticipating at least 2 days off from school this week so it doesn't have to be done NOW, but it still looms in the air like a fart in an elevator.

4. depression. because it's cold. and practical shoes are ugly. so ugly. 

5. acceptance. it's cold. the messes are out of hand. so you bake cookies until you are out of flour and call it good.(some people "play" in the snow. i just like to stare out the window and watch it fall.)

we had our first snow day last week. they let school out early at noon and reagan ran around the yard until it finally snowed.

scarlett's version of "playing" in the snow is "posing" in the snow. 

 i was safely ensconced inside.

there had been much talk about power outages and school cancellations with the next round of ice storms predicted for this week, so yesterday i took myself to walmart at 1030am to get some additional necessities. we could potentially be out of school from tuesday to friday and the prospect of taking all three kids to the store in the snow makes me sympathetic to the cannibal-like tendencies of the donner party. i squeezed in my trip to walmart after i did an extra hard workout since i didn't know when i would make it back to the gym this week. i smelled BAD. everyone and their dog was at walmart too, making the experience especially unbearable and noteworthy(2 different people with BIG FACE TATTOOS! how do you not stare at that?)

(cutest baby in the check out line.)

(CHECK OUT THESE LINES!!! and that lady's face who is photobombing! we chatted it up and became fast friends. you will always make friends in the check out line at walmart in the South. southerners are chatty and we can't help ourselves. i also met a lady who had moved here from texas and a lady who was from rochester, ny and was caring for her 90 year old mother and her 92 year old mother-in-law.)

 at noon, after much navigating and strategy and 20 minutes in the check out line, i reached into my bag for my wallet to pay for my goods. my wallet was not there. 90 sweaty, grueling minutes at walmart for naught. i will admit that i fled to my car and CRIED! sobbing, heaving, gasping tears. i drove home through a veil of tears, ate a GIANT brownie that i was saving for the kids to split after school and i drove back to walmart. they had my cart at customer service with some extra stuff from other people thrown on top. i had to sort through my cart, get in line at customer service only to find out that the cashier had not left me a receipt to recall my transaction, then had to get back in a regular check out line, wait for 25 minutes this time and finally recheck all my items, pay my dang money and run out of the store at 115pm like a woman who had been there since 1030am. because i HAD been there since 1030am. then i went home and showered and picked up the kids from school.  and now i'm ready for the snow day(week).

and today's snow:

lovely from the inside!

the haps with the craps

alternate title: helping my kids figure out who they are and being thrilled about it anyway. 

there is a pretty long list of things that worry me about my kids: testimony, illness, education, peer acceptance, being a spineless sheep, pornography, quick sand, coyotes living in the woods by our house, my kid's fears. there are few things i'm NOT worried about. worries are an encyclopedia brittanica. non-worries are a leaflet flyer. 

one thing that has been rolling around in my head on a constant loop for a while now is figuring out how to help my children figure out who they are and be completely happy with it.

scarlett is so like me in so many ways. i revel in that knowledge and fear for her at the same time. my public school years were difficult for me because i knew i wasn't "cool" and that i didn't wear the "right" clothes(and i didn't really want to) and while i liked myself, i wasn't confident in myself. i was SHY! and scarlett is SHY! and i hate that because i don't want her to miss out on things because she's shy. i STILL hate thinking about how nervous i would get before going to birthday parties or playdates when i wouldn't know everyone or anyone. everything worked out fine because now at 33, i probably like myself too much and should probably dial my personality back a bit in mixed company, simply so that i don't overwhelm other children. i fear those same years will be hard for scarlett because she's delightfully weird and imaginative and quirky and we live in a society of trendy followers who claim to celebrate diversity, but only if you are "diverse" like everyone else.

 what's the trick navigating to your children's anxieties but avoiding giving them the impression that they can do no wrong? i don't know! i don't know ANYTHING! 3+4=9. see what i mean! 

 this morning was great moment for me though. we were running out the door to church(ACTUALLY ON TIME, but that's not the climax of this story) and as we were loading up, scarlett grabbed this floral belt from one of her other dresses and tied it on her head. my gut/boring/mom reaction was to tell her to take it off, the other part of me who is not afraid of harmless self-expression loved it and  i tightened it up for her. 

and now she really can do no wrong!

reagan's idiosyncrasies are even more interesting for me to decipher. because he's not a communicative, i find it's harder to figure out who he is. the good thing is that he is pretty solid in liking himself and doesn't care about what others think. a great thing to achieve at an early age.

reagan's latest obsession is of the gravity-defying, equine variety

rainbow dash

he's pretty keen on her. as evidenced by the above picture, rainbow dash has seen a lot of action.

we've never done anything to promote anything being specifically "boy" oriented or "girl" oriented. we simply don't care. kids like what they like. reagan and scarlett are close enough in age that they've shared almost all their toys. the really interesting thing about reagan is he's formed some of his own opinions about what gender can use what. reagan won't even eat off a pink plate and vehemently exclaims that the pink princess barbie cup is for "girls only". so, the constant presence of rainbow dash in our lives does surprise me, as my little pony was first something scarlett liked and involves a LOT of pink and has predominantly female ponies. upon further research, reagan is not alone. apparently there is an entire movement of "bronies"(a portmanteau of "bro" and "pony")who appreciate My Little Pony for it's "strong characters, cross-generational appeal, cultural references, the show's expressive Flash-based animation, and the ability for the showrunners to communicate and reciprocate with the fandom, such as including fan-derived elements within the show.^[Hasbro was initially caught off-guard by this surprise demographic but have since come to embrace it, leveraging licensing deals to market clothes, media, and other merchandise beyond toys to the older audience.^[".

FASCINATING!

any show that encourages kids to be themselves, enjoy reading(which reagan deplores) and has a nearly spot on episode inspired by Top Gun, i'm a fan of too.

is that not Viper from Top Gun in my little pony form?

I'll admit that this hasn't been my favorite thing for him to like because i do worry that other kids will think it's too girly and bully him about it. i don't want to see my kid picked on because i'm afraid my reaction will be ugly and borderline criminal. but, if reagan's not bothered, i won't be either. i'll just find something else on the list to worry about. like the national debt and whether disability benefits will be available to him. see, there's the cloud to the silver lining!

and then sweet little blythe who likes to disrobe in any store we go to with clothing on display. a bit of an exhibitionist. always up for a strip down. this is one thing i'd like her to grow out of, just for propriety's sake. she looks like she auditioning for disney channel.

the end.