In the living room, I hear this soft thudding noise.

I say "Sean, stop jumping onto the couch."

I hear "Sorry." from Sean - who was jumping on the couch. 

No sight necessary, just the awesome powers of motherly deduction.

Now if I could only get Miriam to never screech at a brother again.  Luckily, it's 30 minutes until Parental Happy Hour bedtime.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008 8:00:35 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

Wednesday is Dance Class Day.  I thought this would work out great - Miriam has dance at 5:30, Maura right after Mim's class.  One trip, two events covered, less running around for me, and all just a couple blocks from home.  Even better, two of my friends have their daughters in Maura's class, so I can chat with them. Ooo.  Adult chatter.  How fun!

I did not take into account Maura's absolute love of dancing into this equation. 

So what happens?

About 2 pm on Wednesdays, Maura catches sight of her dance outfit and insists on wearing it. 

Then Miriam gets home at 4 pm, snacks for an hour, then we battle over her hair for fifteen minutes.  She wants it down.  She wants it up.  I'm brushing too hard.  She doesn't like the pony tail holder.  She wants a bun. 

With barely any time left, we manage to get girls into the car and drive the three blocks over and park.  Miriam promptly leaps from the car (dance bag optional) and goes running into the building.  Maura promptly starts shrieking because Miriam has left without her.

From 5:30 to 6:10, I wrestle an angry Maura who doesn't understand why she can't be in the room with her beloved Mim-Mim.  She'll go to the door and shout "Mim-mim!  Mim-mim!", then screech as I drag her away.  At some point, we either go outside (which is less of an option now that it's thirty-something degrees out and not going to get warmer), or go for a walk around the building.

At about 6:10, my friends and their daughters start to arrive, which distracts Maura from torturing me for torturing her.

Then Maura goes happily into dance class and does wonderfully for her time period.  Meanwhile, Miriam spends her waiting time whining to me about how bored she is, are they done yet?, can I go home?  Why can't I walk home?  Blah blah blah.  The Gameboy does distract her for a bit, as does food and snacks.  Despite her hour long snack fest after getting home from school. 

At 7 pm, the fun is all over and I get to take a once again mad I'm keeping her from her beloved dance Maura to the car, where she proceeds to kick and screech about having to leave.

But for those 45 minutes in dance, my girls are extremely happy and it really does make it all worth the while. 

The kicker?  I was informed by the other moms that the two weeks my mother-in-law brought the girls to dance class while we were in Ireland, Maura didn't screech or scream or flail at all.  She was just lovely.  Little stinker. 

Wednesday, November 12, 2008 3:01:45 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

I'm finally getting around to painting the dining room.  It's a lovely muted shade of yellow that makes the room glow in a nice way (unlike the yellow kitchen counters which glow in a bad road paint yellow way.)

Painting by myself gives my mind a lot of time to wander.  Which is a dangerous thing at times.  Amusing at others. 

What sort of things pass through my head?  Things like.

Wow, I'm really good at cutting in.  I don't even need tape, I'm that good. 

My mother would however have a heart attacking knowing how many painting rules I break.  Like the lack of taping.  Or drop cloths.  Or how I decided to not fill in the one crack with putty, just painted it all, cracks and all.

I never thought I'd like the more bold colors in my home.  But I do.  White walls do not cut it for me at all.  I need color.

Maura is watching Dora the Explorer in the next room.  I have a theory that Dora's mom is trying to get rid of her.  Why else would a mother let her child wander through a jungle with only a monkey as a chaperone?

And Dora is obviously a special needs child.  Large head?  That's from hydrocephalus.  Hearing problems explain her loud voice.  And she is definitely ADHD or else Map wouldn't have to tell her the directions three times and yet she still asks us what Map said.  She also must have vision problems.  Why else can't she see the boat that's right in front of her? There's more - this was a whole discussion on a special needs board I visit - but I can't recall right now. 

I do wonder who the lyrical genius behind all the songs in Dora was, and exactly how much he was paid for the the compelling lyrics of the Map song.  Don't know the Map song?  It goes "I'm the map I'm the map I'm the map I'm the map, I'm the map I'm the map I'm the map I'm the map, I'm the map!"  Oh yes, genius indeed. 

I can now hear Maura wiping her hands on the tv.  We really need to move it up onto the wall, out of her reach.  I am impressed with the durability of our flat screen television though.  We should do that before Thanksgiving, when the warranty probably runs out.  You know how things always break the day after the warranty runs out.

Back to Dora - I heard some father at the Y asking his son what close was in Spanish and little boy answered.  Which made me think that there will be this whole generation of children who speak Dora Spanish.  Somehow, I don't think singing Happy Birthday to the Big Red Chicken in Spanish is going to get my children into college.  Heck, I'm still trying to get some of my kids to speak fluent English. 

And then I realized that I'm going to need to do two coats to get this paint color just right on the walls.  I'm hoping to just need this one gallon I have.  I bought the paint last year.  Yes, it's taken me a year to get to this point.

Okay, so not ALL of these thoughts happened while I painted.  I'm hoping to paint more during Maura's nap, which may lead to more interesting mind wanderings. 

Did I mention I'm darn good at cutting in around the edges?  And that baby wipes are great for wiping up minor mistakes?  They are.  Can you imagine burly contractors with a box of Pampers wipes? 

Wednesday, November 12, 2008 1:52:50 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

Put Mim on the bus at 7:30. She's perfectly fine except for a minor clothing battle (she was not going to school in striped tights and a floral print summer dress. Not on my watch!)

Her bus drops her off about 8-ish.

8:15, the school calls, says Mim's in the office and she's sick. I do the nice mom "Oh dear", then ask (because I'm suspicious) "With what?"

She's complaining her stomach hurts. Great. One of her usual excuses (the other being her head hurts. You know, things that are hard to prove? Yeah, she's a smart one, our girl.) The secretary also says she looks a little peaked. Well, okay, since Collin did throw up Saturday night, maybe there's some truth to the stomach hurting.

Josh goes and gets her. He walks into the office and she pops right up and says "Hi Dad!" with a big smile. Comes into the house all smiles. Only gets sad when she hears that since she's "sick", she has to spend the day in bed reading. Miriam does love to read, so this isn't cruel and unusual torture. But I do believe she thought she was going to spend her day playing on the computer and watching cartoons while sucking down Sprite

Meanwhile, I'm praying she doesn't prove us wrong and throw up all over the place.

Monday, November 10, 2008 9:15:50 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

Okay, not quite.

I'm home with Vomit Boy Collin, who threw up last night.  Josh took other children to church.  Me, I'm having my own Sunday Service here, praying desperately to God that the plague that has entered our house will be confined to just Collin of the Weak Stomach.

Today, I am going to attempt to paint my dining room walls. I've been really trying to for the past two weeks.  I bought the paint a few months ago.  I've been planning this paint job since we moved in.

But two weeks ago I decided they needed to get done.  So I got out the paint, the supplies, started cleaning the crayon off the walls, when Mr. UPS Guy showed up with my new laptop.  The next day, I woke up with a massive head cold.  A few days ago, I decided to try again, now that I was feeling a bit better. 

Except some budding Picasso had colored on the walls.  Repeatedly.  And some lazy mother never bothered to clean off the crayon because she was just going to paint over it all anyway.  That was when the lazy mother was planning on painting the walls a darker color, instead of the barely there creamy yellow that she ultimately chose.

So this lazy mother has been cleaning crayon off the walls.  She was nearly there when her second Magic Eraser crumbled into tiny pieces.  Two more have been decimated today, on one wall alone.  Good thing I bought the four pack this time. 

Here's to prettier walls, new laptops and non-vomiting children!

Sunday, November 09, 2008 12:43:42 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

I'm watching some "mystery illness" show on Discovery Health.  At commercial breaks, they have a little "this person has these symptoms, what disease do they have?"

I'm getting most of them right.

Yep - between scouring the Internet trying to figure out what Maura has, and watching too many Discovery Health Channel shows on the hopes that some show might have an episode about a child just like Maura, I have learned about way too many rare disorders.

The four years of French I took?  Don't ask. 

Monday, October 27, 2008 12:15:13 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

Proving that indeed, this is genetic...

Collin was telling me how in his creative writing class, the students were being too noisy, so had to do a writing assignment as punishment.  Two paragraphs on how they'd change the world.

I asked him "What did you write it on?"

He said "Paper."

Little snot.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008 7:11:05 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0] 

...is that it's so hard to catch up to everything once you return home.

We went to Ireland.  It was gorgeous.  As was the bacon in Ireland.  Yes, we liked the bacon.  It was good.  And the Bulmer's cider.  The roads could have been a wee bit wider.  But the grass indeed was green and there were cows and sheep on hillsides, rock walls, crumbling towers and castles.  We took too many pictures and I will be sharing them as soon as I get copies on my computer.

However, while we were in Ireland, my grandmother passed away.  She was a lovely woman, my grandmother.  A lovely, flighty, feisty woman.  We got back just in time to turn around, repack and head to Chicago for the funeral.  All my siblings were there and it once again reminded me that smart-ass-ness is indeed genetic in our family.

But we came back and dove straight back into Real Life.  Up at 6:30 am so we can get kids on the bus by 7:30 am.  Finding library books.  Oops, my band concert is tonight and I need a white shirt.  Doctor appointments. Dance classes.  Doo dah, doo dah. 

And Miriam decided yesterday she wants to be something different than we already planned for Halloween. 

Yep, we have returned to Real Life.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008 12:21:16 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [0]