“I miss the jingle jangle of her little bell,” Maggie said last Monday night.
Izzy was spending a few nights at the vet so they could run some tests to figure out why she was feeling so bad. We didn’t know that we wouldn’t ever hear that jingle jangle again.
Goodbye sweet kitten. We all miss you terribly.
Nick has officially made the move from our beloved Montessori to the early development program at a county school. I wondered a lot about starting him for the last three weeks of last year and then moving him back to his old school for summer school and then switching back to the new school this fall. Seemed like a lot of switching. But I have to say, now that it’s here, I’m so happy we did it. He was excited to go back, he’s already shown improvement and this transition was a lot easier than any of the others.
His my schedule has changed drastically. He has given up naps most days (except for his day off, which is Wednesdays. For now that’s our catch up on sleep day until he fully adjusts to the new schedule.) And he goes to school in the afternoon. I wasn’t too sure how I would like the pm slot, but so far I’m really happy and so is he. He loves to go to the grocery store and run errands with me, so we do that in the morning, still have time for play-doh and puzzles, eat lunch and then he’s off and I get to nap work for a few hours.
And my sweet boy is riding the bus! This bus has 5-point seatbelts for the children and there is an aid who rides along. He was soooo excited to ride, partly because he’s watched Maggie ride the bus for a year and because we talked about the bus like. it. was. magic.
He has started volunteering tidbits about his day. He will tell me what songs they sang or what art project he worked on. He’s excited to go every day and he’s happy to come home. Once again, I can’t ask for more than a happy kid.
The night before Maggie started First Grade I gave her a huge hug and told her how excited I was for her.
“I am excited too. A new classroom, a new teacher and new friends. What an adventure it will be!”
“Yesterday a child came out to wonder
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star
Then the child moved ten times round the seasons
Skated over ten clear frozen streams
Words like, when you’re older, must appease him
And promises of someday make his dreams
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We’re captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return
We can only look behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game.”
-Joni Mitchell, The Circle Game
Posted in Brigid, Maggie, parenting - my way
Tagged first day of school, The Circle Game
Izzy has won us all over. She is charming, sweet, playful, and answers to three different names. See, when we were on vacation in Michigan, we stayed in the home of a friend who had a lovely black cat named LuLu. We all loved LuLu and I mentioned more than once that I wanted to put LuLu in my suitcase.
And then we came home and found Isabella (Izzy). She’s also black. And a cat. Which means Nick has been calling her LuLu ever since we brought her home.
And now Mike has started calling her LuLu.
And Maggie calls her Isabella.
And I call her Izzy (except for the few random times I have called her LuLu too.)
And they called her Kelly at the shelter.
So her official name is now Isabella (Izzy) LuLu Kelly Happy Day.
But I’m pretty sure you can call her whatever and she will love you just the same.
We did it. We got a kitten.
We got to Happy Tales about 8 minutes before they opened on Saturday. The children spent those 8 minutes with their noses pressed to the glass.
We held quite a few kittens. They were (almost) all sweet in their own way. But we settled on a dear 3-month-old kitten who was going by the name Kelly. We waited until we got out the door before calling her by her new name – Isabella Happy Day, Izzy for short. She’s such a lover. Purrs constantly. Begs to be held and petted.
But after a short car ride and coming into a new home, she chose to hang out under the basement stairs for about 4 hours. We left her alone after trying to coax her out and about the third time I checked on her, she meowed and came right to me. (Those are her eyes looking out at us.)
(Could my child look any longer? I think not.)
(And those shoes barely fit her.)
I tried to get a good picture for longer than I care to admit. Kittens are kind of quick. By today, she finally slowed down long enough to let me get a few shots. So without further ado, meet Izzy.
More photos to come. I assure you. 
Number of days the children and I were gone on vacation: 11
Number of states we drove through: 5
Number of states we spent the night in: 3 (not counting our own state)
Number of time changes: 6
Number of hours in the car (not counting in-town trips): 32
Number of cats we got to play with: 6
Number of times we ate Steak and Shake: 3
Number of times Maggie asked “How much longer?”: 183
Number of times Nick said “Who?”: 362
Number of potty accidents on the whole trip: 0
Rounds of I-spy: 126
Percent of an entire fruit tart that I consumed in a 24 hour period: 80%
We had a great time. I only had one brief hour of thinking “What have I done?” (and believe it or not, it had nothing to do with the fruit tart.) We visited with my parents, my brother and his wonderful family, and traveled with my parents to see dear friends who live Up North.
Before leaving, I found the need to flee my everyday life to be huge. And then the need to return to it, just as enormous. Funny how that works.
Our neighbors (who are so very, very good to us) gave Maggie Sea Monkeys for her birthday. We got them set up which included letting the water sit (mixed with packet #1) for 24 hours, then putting the sea monkeys (from packet #2) in and waiting another five days, then feeding them (from packet #3.)
We were supposed to feed them on Friday. But we were busy and forgot.
So Maggie and I were about to feed them today when we noticed the water was quite green. My husband came in right then and mentioned that he had already fed them. It looked a little cloudy, and green, but we went on about our day.
Every time I passed them I couldn’t help but stare at the cloudy green mess. There had been about 20-30 little, teeny, tiny things swimming around.
Now there was one.
And it was getting bigger by the hour.
Then I picked up packet #3 and read the instructions which were to add one spoonful of food on the fifth day. Then I saw the “spoon” that was next to the packet. One serving of Sea Monkey food would be the equivalent of, oh, say, 1/8 of 1/8 of a teaspoon.
Ours had almost an entire teaspoon.
They swam right up to the all-they-could-eat-buffet and ate themselves to death. Literally.
But that one that was still swimming? It’s still growing by the minute. We’re hoping it doesn’t bust out of the tank and eat us all in our sleep.
We played a fun, family game of Trouble after dinner tonight. Maggie and I took on the boys. Nick played a few rounds and then went off to play with his tool set. Maggie played pretty much the whole game on her own with a few small strategic suggestions from me (I couldn’t help myself, and I can only teach her strategy when we are on the same team.)
And she won.
“Oh, Yeah!!!” she said with great enthusiasm and wild finger-pointing in my husband’s face.
Trouble.
We’re in it.
I rarely endorse anything in a way other than “I liked this and thought you might too.” I hate to endorse something and then have someone else hate it. (Or dislike it, as my grandmother would have me say.)
But, having said that, I am about to endorse:
Roger Day is a musician for children (that parents can enjoy too). We have seen him live at least three times. He plays every summer at our library and we have been singing his music since the first time we saw him. We have one DVD which is a concert of him singing and playing (and entertaining and being funny.) And we just bought his newest CD “Why does Gray Matter?” and have been listening to it constantly.
If you have kids, have a sense of humor and are looking for something new to listen to, check him out.
**For the FTC – I am not being paid in any way to talk about Roger Day or his music. My friend called me a groupie, but I think he’s a really cool guy playing really cool music, so that’s why I’m talking about him.
Posted in Brigid, Maggie, Nicholas, parenting - my way
Tagged kid's music that is cool, roger day, maybe I am a groupie
Back in April, we started with this:
You see, I had a hankering to have a garden.
Almost three months to the day later, we have this:
Holy cow! We are having so much fun. And the salad we had the other night with our own lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers was the best I have ever eaten.
I have 800 bazillion other photos because I have turned into “woman-who-photographs-her-garden” but I’ll save those for my 365, assuming I can catch up with the three months I need to edit and upload.
If you have considered planting a garden… …DO IT!!!
Posted in Brigid, parenting - my way, the lived in house
