Sunday, January 25, 2009

Stealing by Accident

I stole a princess dance outfit from a store today. We'll call the store "Farget" just for anonymity. I didn't do it on purpose. I swear.

With Anna in dance class, we thought we'd get her another tutu outfit to wear. She fell in love with a blue princess one, and she held it tightly the whole time in the store. When we get out to the car, I lift Anna out of the basket and see that she had been sitting on the dance outfit, so we didn't pay for it. By this time, everything is loaded and Jack is in the van and buckled. And, it's also about 2° outside.

I'm just about to load the kids up back into the basket when I remember I was going to return a lamp I bought from Farget that didn't work. I did a quick calculation; the dance outfit was roughly the cost of the lamp, so I figured it was a wash.

On the drive home, I was still feeling pretty guilty about the whole thing. I was even making plans in my head to go back and pay for the outfit. But then I remembered that I went to Farget last week and purchased a dowel rod. However, the check-out girl must have put it separately or something because we did not get home with it. Yet, I was still charged for it!

So now I don't feel guilty anymore. In fact, I figure Farget owes me.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Sick Day/Vacation Day

Anna is "sick" today. Notice the use of quotations? There's a good reason for them.

This morning, Anna woke up and said she was wet because she threw up on herself. Sure enough, there were huge chunks of gross stuff all in her hair and bed. I got her all cleaned up and by this time, she got the notion of staying home sick. I could tell she felt fine, though (and no fever or anything), so I tried to convince her to go to school.

"There is still throw-up in my tummy. I need to stay home," Anna said.

She wouldn't eat (but was prancing around in her princess shoes). I figured I'd better be safe than sorry. At our daycare, if a child throws up or has a fever, they have to be out for 24 hours. So if I would have taken her in and then she threw up, then I'd have to take off two days.

By this time, Jack is pretty mad. He tries to tell me that he has a pretty nasty cough and that he needs to stay home sick, too. I told him no, and it pretty much broke his little heart. So I decided it was time to "make a deal" with him. You know...bribe him so he doesn't cry and get all upset. Anyway, it took some doing, but here's what we came up with:

5 grab bags (from the dollar store, only $1 each!)
Pancakes for dinner
$1 for his savings box
Skittles
Tae Kwon Do class tonight

Am I a pushover or what? Oh well. I took a vacation day and have been running errands and getting stuff done. All in all, a productive day.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Winter Classes

Jack and Anna are finally at the age where they can both take classes at the Y by themselves. This is a huge milestone for me because up until now, I've done a lot of swimming classes with them. Don't get me wrong, I like swimming. But the whole ordeal gets tiring with changing and then getting in the water and then changing again.

So now Jack is taking Tae Kwon Do and basketball (a last-minute sign-up on a whim). And Anna is very ecstatic about a little girl dance class.

I don't want to be one of those families with crazy schedules who have something every night of the week. But this is sure going to help us get through winter. Plus, we figured out that it's cheaper to become members of the Y, rather than to pay community rates for individual classes.

So this weekend was the first session. I went with Jack to basketball, and he was VERY timid at first. He is my cautious boy who is very self-conscious, so he didn't want to do the dribbling drills at all. He finally warmed up, though, and had a blast. Afterward, we got him a $5 basketball at the store and he's been practicing his dribbling ALL weekend long in the house.

I didn't go to Anna's class, but Steve said she loves it. Imagine 8 to 10 little 3 and 4-year-olds, all decked out in little dance shoes and tutus. It doesn't get much cuter than that. Hopefully we'll have pictures soon.

Friday, January 09, 2009

The Blog About Snow

As I type this, I know I'm going to have critics. People around here hate winter and the snow. Believe me, they start talking about hating it as soon as the first snowfall. I get it...it's cold and wet and icky and dirty. And I've definitely had my fair share of complaining about it. In fact, every year on the first very very cold day, I usually call Steve and complain to him about bringing me to this nasty cold state. (Actually, I usually say worse things than that, but I'm keeping this blog PG.)

But the thing is, there are some really cool things about living in a place where it snows. Today we got home and there was about 5 inches of snow in the driveway. The kids were in complete and utter excitement as they put on their snowpants and boots. And then while I snowblowed the driveway, they had an absolute blast.

It was pretty, too. The wind wasn't blowing. It wasn't that cold. And the sky was completely clear and crisp. It was a beautiful scene.

I'll be sick of snow next week, I'm sure. And definitely by March when it's still snowing. But sometimes it's just fun and pretty.