This morning I pulled the car up the roundabout and stopped by the stairs in order to give Paris the shortest walk to the front door of his school. He lingered in the passenger seat for a minute, warming his hands over the heater vent before braving the single-digit temps outside. I know he doesn't want to go in, and that even after school he's going to be working all night on a project that's due.

Paris: *sigh*
Me: "Yup. Good morning, buddy - you can do it."
Paris: "It's morning."
Me: *nod*
Paris: "Friday morning."
Me *nod*
Paris: *epic voiceover- voice* "DAWN... OF THE FINAL DAY. 7 PERIODS TO GO"


At that moment I wanted to somehow have all the things that he was stressing about in his day be magically resolved, and I wanted to take him with me to run errands and adventure downtown so we could be together and talk all day. I love every padawan, but I don't think it's possible to overstate my like of my eldest son.

I introduced my children to hummus today at dinner. I insisted on the first two bites but by then they decided that they all liked it and we ate quite a bit. I'm very glad I have children who'll eat what I ask them to and who keep an open mind when they eat new foods.

But let's talk about my kitten!

My kitten wishes to be with us, always and anywhere we are. She is, however, smart enough to stay away from the table during dinnertime. The truth, as she knows, is that during dinner she is in grave danger of being unintentionally trampled by a random water-run (traditionally, a full-out sprint to get a refill of water) or spontaneous acting-out of a scene. Our dinners, always family affairs filled with wildly gesturing children and loud stories and laughter, are... exuberant, to say the least.

The last few times we've had family dinner our kitten has been sitting in top of our Blu-ray player, just under our huge TV and next to our Wii, watching us.

"Look what our kitten is doing! She's so silly," I said to Cai tonight, serving him another spoonful of applesauce.

"She's doing what you do," he said, stuffing about 3x more food in his mouth than I would have suspected would fit. Seeing me eying him judgmentally, he mumbled "Shorry, mummrs," around his mouthful and endeavored to swallow as much as possible so as to clear the evidence of his transgression.

"Take your time, Cai - chew, then swallow," I said automatically, adding "What do you mean, 'doing what I do'?"

Cai was too busy trying to chew his mouthful of food; in his place, Syd piped up.

"The thing with the oven," she said, picking up a piece of bread and attempting to butter it with the not-quite-pliable stick of butter, biting her tongue in concentration.

( This story, contrary to the lead-in, has very little to do with kittens.Collapse )

"Yes!" said Cai, and then suddenly everyone was back to eating and the conversation turned to 'What 4 people you would kiss if you had to'.


So now you know what my kitten does during dinner and what I do after. Which story could have been considerably shorter but... well, this is just how we do things here. Everything relates to everything else and everyone's connected.

Even kittens and mommersez.

I couldn't sleep last night omg. I don't remember the last time that happened! I ended up laying next to a slumbering Court until 3am, reading a trashy romance novel. I think I'm excited for New Years and also dreading my birthday on the 1st. You wouldn't think that these two things could coexist, would you? Maybe that's what's up with the no-sleeping.

I did have the most awesome Girl's Date yesterday. ( Downtown adventures and birthday worries behind the cutCollapse )

In other, happier news - the baby kitten I got for Christmas is adorable. She sleeps with a different padawan each night and she may be starting to come to our call. She's cuddly and playful and fits perfectly into our family. :)

Paris: "I don't think anyone should have to pay for God's love..."






"...I think that we should download it illegally using BitTorrent."

My 7-year old son Cai and I were talking about the difference between men and women's bodies earlier today.

A little while ago Syd, the baby girl, saw a picture in my art history book of a classical Roman statue (naked man) and asked, pointing at the genitals, "What's that?"

I explained to her, and to Cai who had wandered over, what that was and pointed out how beautiful the human figure is, flipping pages and showing them all different male and female statues. ( Ramifications ensued.Collapse )

I was careful not to be too silly around my children.

( Once upon a time...Collapse )

SO. The story. The story of when Cai, my 6 year old crazy son, had to put the breaks on me. Yesterday.

I get dressed for school, get the kids up and dressed and fed, and leave at the same time they do: them to walk to school, me to drive to the bus. Yesterday it was typical Colorado fall weather - winter in the morning, summer during the day, and cool fall at night. So dressing for school, we all wear layers and modular clothes. My favorite changeable item of clothing this season is my long knit socks - and by socks, I mean two to-my-butt almost-tights. The great Fall thing about them is they turn into knee-high socks with a few rolls down, then slouch socks for mid-day, or they're warm and snug as tights, all the way up, when I'm headed home at 10pm. I <3 long socks!

ANYWAY (and I realize I've lost all the boys already), yesterday morning I was telling Maddie and Syd and Cai how I had on AMAZING INCREDIBLE SOCK TIGHTS.

"Let's see!" said Maddie, and Syd added, "Let's see! Let's see!"

I wouldn't have if Paris had been around - a 13 year-old does not need to see his mother's underwear. But since it was just the girls, and Cai's still a baby and doesn't hardly even care about that whole boy-girl difference...

( Oh yeah. I showed them.Collapse )

Cai snickered. "You have Picachu on your underwear..." he snorted, and turned to go up the stairs, yelling, "PARIS! GUESS WHAT MOMMERS DID..."

Oooooooh dear; Now I was in BIG trouble!

I went to a gallery reception: Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Prints and Objects. The whole exhibit is over here from their museum in the Netherlands - it's not a traveling exhibit. His Wrapped Woman was excellent, as were his 3-d sketches (he wrapped the sketches! See the pic on the right in that link, above) Generally, though - eh. Met some fun people, had some wine - it's enough. I have SO much more to talk about, conceptually, but I'll chatter about it in my art student lj 'cause it's navel-gazing and only interesting to those who are interested in it, so to speak.

Basically I am working hard. I have a bunch of art projects that went in this week (4 more Friday and Saturday) and I am satisfied with them all. Art History debate and 3D discussion were both awesome - as you can imagine, I have little trouble talking. In fact I made it to finals and I'll debate Painting vs. Sculpture: Leonardo vs Michaelangelo next Thursday. Working every spare minute and some which aren't spare at all. Everyone's being very understanding. I go to bed late each night - crap, I did it again tonight, didn't I? Well, I had to clean house for The Switchover (ch4rm comes in, lives in this house and has the children each weekend while I'm at the apartment) and make my lunch for tomorrow's 8-hour class.

Oh, one sweet story! I picked Paris up after his play practice and he was very late so I didn't get a chance to do much for dinner except roast the ham and get the other stuff together on the counter - biscuits and such - before I had to leave for my night class. "I'll cook the rest of dinner," Paris said, "I've been practicing in Family Science class."

"All right if you're sure - that would be great! Everything's laid out on the counter ready to go. OH NO - I won't have time to fix MYSELF a dinner," I whined, "well, I can't help it. I've got to go get ready and run..."

"Don't worry about it mom," Paris said, pushing me up the stairs, "go get ready and I'll take care of it."

And so as I walked out the door, Paris placed my Hello Kitty lunchsac into my hands.

"Have a good night at school! Try your best!" he said, doing a passable imitation of me.

But the best part came when I looked inside and saw not just my favorite sandwich OR my favorite chips (Sun Chips) AND Oreo cookies but a napkin, folded in half neatly, with a little happy face and the words "LOVE YA!" written in cursive.

MY BOY WROTE ME A LUNCH LOVE-LETTER ON MY NAPKIN.

*squee!* That speaks of such unbelievable kindness and personal love tailored just for me that I could just die, to be a mother to and have raised a boy like that.


PS Guess who contacted me out of the blue today? JINN. Yes, him. Wow, random universe flashback machine. He's very the same 'ol Jinn, so I'm not sure if it was a serious "Let's be friends again" guesture or an "I'm a little drunk and lonely" overture. Cross your fingers for the former - we had some good times together and I could use the male friend companionship. We'll see if he follows up, eh?

Dear ch4rm,

Picking the kids up from the first day of a week-long afternoon soccer camp, the first thing I noticed is they were BEAT. Tired and red-faced and dirty beyond belief. Walking slow and with a slump, they shuffled to the car... and Paris didn't stop to hug me, which just doesn't happen. Cai had been crying - I saw him on the field with his coach - but he likes to talk about things in his own time (and then he likes no not STOP talking, but that's another story) so I left him alone. Maddie was snarling sub-vocally, almost.

I could see they had HAD IT so I pulled the 'ol "Let's go get chocolate shakes!" which had a tiny effect - still, Paris wasn't talking, Cai was tearing up sometimes and Maddie was downright cranky. After 15 minutes of me chattering about funny things and some tasty shakes later, everyone was cooling off and I got some stories.

( Anyone remember community organized sports? Yeah. Under here, with pics.Collapse )

Wish us luck,

-S

Today was all about the bean and bacon soup.

See we had the soup last night with dinner, but I put in too much Lawrey's Salt with Tabasco and I was the only one who liked it. So I put it in the refrigerator after dinner and Maddie off-handedly said, "mommers, why are you even putting that in there? No one's going to eat it!" and A Thought was born.
__________

I wake my children up with a backscratch and a little light talk about the day - what it's like outside, what to wear, what breakfast is, what's going on at school, what the plans are for snack or afterschool or that evening. This morning I made sure to talk about it being April Fools Day - tricky, and full of jokes and silly things. A pretend sort of day. Believe me, for a child as young as Syd and Cai the world is still a surprising place with new things happening all the time and new rules about how to live popping up all over. A bit of advance notice does little to mediate the shock of the new, as you will soon see.

So everyone clear on that, up and dressed, the padawans came down to a breakfast... of bean and bacon soup.

( Oh em GEE, WAT?!?Collapse )

I am fairly certain that one or two dreams tonight will involve horrible scary soup. Also, I will not be able to serve bean and bacon soup for a great long while.

(TOTALLY worth it!)


PS. Best Internet April Fools Joke: World of Warcraft: The Molten Core. Watch the trailer - and then scroll down for concept vs. ACTUAL screenshots. Hahahahaha!!

So we are halfway through Spring Break, and let me just say - MAN, my alt!family is FUNNY! I'm very glad I took off this week to be with them. :)

For instance, we were all walking past a Harley store and I stopped to see the motorcycles inside. I chose my favorite and then turned to Paris.

"Look at that one, Paris - it has a built-in seat on the back so TWO people can ride!"

He looked at me and said, dryly, "Oh yay; so TWO people can die at the same time."

Sarcastic little bugger, he is - how'd he learn THAT?!?



OK - brb goin to Denver on the bus!