Hit Like a Small Load of Bricks

Well, I nearly made it. Spring is around the corner and hopefully that means an end to this epic cold, flu, stomach bug season. Early yesterday my throat felt a little funny. By bedtime I knew I was sick.
Travis has had some form of bug for most of February (I'm not the only one ready for March). F has missed more school since Christmas than in the past two years combined. I crossed my fingers, took my vitamins, washed my hands A LOT, and even managed to get good sleep. I volunteered at school today and it's the first time in months that the whole class was present. Now F is convinced I've spread my germs and contaminated his whole classroom. He's not worried that he'll get sick, he doesn't want me taking out his pals.
It's not bad, sniffles a few coughs and a throat that makes me not want to talk very much. But Holy Cow I'm pooped. All I want to do is sleep! Maybe tomorrow...

The Lunch Struggle

I loathe the days F eats lunch at school. He faithfully hauls the lunchbox he picked out, opens it, and then pokes at one of the three items I lovingly packed and puts it all back. A nearly entirely intact lunch returns to me at the end of the day. Plus, one grouchy, grumpy, tired kiddo who has low blood sugar and is taking it out on me.
During the winter break I decided to attack the lunch struggle with all available forces. I checked out lunch cookbooks, I read online articles about cute food, I purchased cute pokey things to stick into/onto food.

So cute! Wouldn't your lunch taste better with cool stick things stuck in it? Or these snazzy lunch box notes complete with stickers?

Before school started back up T and I sat down with kiddo and had a talk that went kind of like this,

"But I do eat my lunch!"

"Well, no, you don't. You bring it all home." 

"Sorry, I forgot."

ARGH! The I Forgot. No more cursed words could ever be found in a 5 year old's vocabulary. Yes, you can remember the name and number of every single ski lift on the mountain and exactly what color socks we all put on 17 days ago, but you forgot to eat your lunch.

I bought a cookbook and F and I went page by page and stuck flags on all the items he deemed good enough to eat. Now, this child is not a picky eater. He just has better things to do on his lunch hour than eat. I soldiered forth, stuck my fancy sticks, cut cool shapes out of bread with my cookie cutters, and I thought FOR SURE he would eat lunch. Nope.

Next conversation went like this,

"You may NOT go to all day kindergarten if you don't EAT YOUR LUNCH. You have one more day to show us that you can eat lunch before I cancel all day kindergarten FOREVER!!!! MWAH HA HA!" Ok, so maybe not quite so dramatic but you get the drift. F finally did, too.

Next day, the only thing left in his lunch was the stick I stuck in his wrap :)

February Fun

I'm always glad February is only 28 days long. It's not usually a banner month for me so having fewer days is fine and dandy. This year I've barely noticed it's February with all the good times we've had lately.

A few weeks ago FFM skied his first legitimate black run. For those locals, he skied Cataract on the east side of the Rose Bowl. It's a tricky run, but he was game. After a few nerves he got the hang of the steep stuff, which wasn't very bumpy due to a nice big dump of snow. He fell a few times and learned it's easier to get up on a steep slope than down on the flats. I can't wait to get my hip fixed, I'm going to need to be in top form to keep up in no time at all!

"Yeah, take my picture Dad. I rocked that run."

 FFM knows all about GNO, or girls' night out, and has been hankering for his own guys night out. It ended up being an afternoon, but he and Travis had their guys day out at MONSTER TRUCK JAM! I wanted to go, too, but thought they could go do their guy thing.

Ready for the show to start!

 Prior to the event I talked with FFM about what to expect. It was going to be loud, it might be "smoky" (exhaust), and he might want to take a break now and then from the noise and/or smell. This was of great concern to our young man who took it to heart and was planning how often he'd need to have a break. He really thought the show should pause periodically so he could take his breaks and not miss anything.

Little boy heaven

 Last week we made some Valentines to hand out at school. It's so much fun to choose a crafty idea together and have FFM execute almost all of it on his own.

 His Valentines = "I only have eyes for YOU Valentine!" complete with googly eye rings. We used up all the leftover eyes from his 100s day project and a couple more bags besides.

My end of February-March fun arrived in the mail this week. The Moores have signed up for a plot in our Community Garden this year and we're going to grow all kinds of yummy stuff. Purple carrots, yellow tomatoes, lime green cucumbers. I hope they all work! The plot ended up being about twice as large as I remembered, so we've got quite the assortment. We'll have some prep and planting to get done starting in a few weeks. Travis built a lovely, lovely seed starting station and soon our basement will bathe in the glow of grow lights.

In the meantime the mountains keep getting more snow and while my hip aches the boys are itching to get some time on the slopes. I'll take it easy the rest of the season and end a little early with hip surgery scheduled for March 29. I'm hoping it's as successful as my other surgeries and that I'll improve my mobility and get back into activities like biking and yoga.

100 Days

I'd never heard of 100 days until my friend Katie's daughter celebrated it at her school. If you're not familiar, school children start counting on their first day of school and when they get to 100 days (which is in about February for US schools) they have a big party, make projects using 100 things, and at our school there is an evening celebration where the kids present their projects to interested parents.



FFM picked his 100 days project and we got started on it a couple of weeks ago. He wanted a shirt with 100 eyeballs on it. He picked the shirt, the paint, and the eyeballs. Then he drew his alien monster on a piece of paper. It took a few tries to get one that had a big enough head to hold all the eyeballs. Then he counted and laid out all the eyeballs to make sure they fit.

waiting for the glow in the dark paint to dry

Finally, he spent about an hour gluing all the eyeballs on. Since it's an alien monster each antennae has 3 eyeballs and the rest are on it's regular head.

100 eyeballs, ready to go!

However, we then found out the project had to be left at school for a day. GASP! FFM was incredibly distraught. He did not want to wear a shirt and then have to leave it at school. His solution, make another project that he could easily leave. After bedtime one night Travis and I spent a while counting various kinds of toys he has. Turns out he's got EXACTLY 100 Matchbox sized cars. Thus began 100 days project #2. 

FFM helped Travis during display construction. He selected the layout, the handles, and did a lot of hammering. I suggested road tape for the sides and a project was born.

On the way to the party after school.  100 hat, 100 eyes, 100 cars in the car. The party was a lot of fun, it was in the evening so we got to meet and see parents (especially dads) that we don't often see at pickup times. I'm pretty sure FFM ran around the room 100 times meeting and greeting all his peeps.

Laurie Berkner LIVE!

Music is almost as popular as reading here at our house. F has an inborn talent for singing and playing that neither Travis or I have. We both did music in various forms but had to work at it. F sings and plays his piano with such simple effort that it's a joy to get to listen to. We have the rear entertainment system in our car set up for all kid music or audiobooks, and it's a toss up as to which one is F's favorite.

One of the artists that fills F's world of music is Laurie Berkner. If you've got a child who is less than 7 or so I'm sure you've experienced LB (and maybe even some of you with older kids who have outgrown her). She's not just one of the artists, she's his hands down all time favorite. I'm relishing this time as he listens to music I don't mind, I know that right around the corner are pop music and goodness knows what else.

Saturday Laurie Berkner played at the Boulder Theater. F and I had front row VIP tickets (which were only nominally more expense than general admission, go figure) and part of the package was meeting LB live and in person. We were the last ones of the before-show meet and greet and Finn blushed and wiggled as he waited his turn. He was all prepped with a couple questions for Laurie, and she had a few of her own for him. FFM was in HEAVEN.  He got hugs, he got autographs, and when Laurie asked him his favorite song she offered to sing it with him.

Live with Laurie Berkner, FFM singing "Drive My Car"!

We could have gone home right then and there and FFM would have been over the moon. He now counts Laurie as one of his friends and asked when we could see her again. LB was magnificent with all the kids, giving each one her full attention and infinite patience. She made sure everyone got a great photo, even the kids who got a bit nervous.

Getting ready to go in to the famous Boulder Theater

Sharing a moment with LB

Getting some hugs

Leaning right up against the stage for the whole show

"Pig on My Head" is a song about exactly that, a pig on her head. I was impressed that she managed to balance a giant stuffed pig on her head before she got started singing. Then during the song you do things like touch your nose, touch your toes, and then touch your nose to your toes. The woman must do some killer yoga because she stood there on stage, with a stuffed pig balanced on her head, in a skirt and pretty tall sparkly high heels and brought the toes of one foot up to her nose. Without so much as a wiggle to regain balance. Awesome.

I should have gotten a photo of the toes on the nose,
but all I managed was the pig on her head.

Having a super great day