(Southern) American Girl Hissy Fit...

My college roommate and I went to New York two years ago and we took my daughter.  :0)  It was a wonderful trip to the American Girl Cafe.  She was six and did what we said, and we bought what we wanted to buy for her.

Now she is eight.

She had a mission and a list of what she wanted before we got there.  This year, her doll was going to the beauty salon.

When we got off the train, before we hit the store, we stopped at the library to re-group.

Best kept secret in New York City-the children's room of the public library.  Please, go there to decompress and wash off the commercialism of it all. There are couches, literacy, clean bathrooms without lines. Only in America do we have long lines to buy M&Ms you could get at the check out of a grocery store but not walk into a famous library with an awesome collection of children's books.

Next up, Little girl heaven/hell....

About the beauty/glamor/stupidity of it all.....I agree, I should make my daughter shelve cans at a food bank. I should have her write letters to children after an earthquake.  I should and do send in mittens and hats for the school drives.

But I also have this to say:

You don't know what you will do until you are a parent.

Furthermore, if you already have the doll, it's a lot cheaper to wait in that line to get the doll cleaned up and redone than buy another doll.  If the doll has been well loved and played with, then definitely do it.

That's all I'm saying..now back to my story.

The appointment line is long. Think about the OMG! elf that Crumpet describes in the Santaland Diaries.  The good news is that they plan the appointment around your schedule. So once you get to the appointment counter, you might go straight to a stylist or come back after your lunch...

By the time we got to the front my daughter had had enough....she was melting down.  The wonderful woman said we could come back in thirty minutes and then go straight to our lunch when we were done.  But my child didn't want to come back in thirty minutes and then go to lunch.  Her doll had to have braids right this minute.

Now see, I talk about the hissy fit all the time-but I have never fully explained what I mean when I say that.  I am not going to use Google or the Urban dictionary, this is coming straight from me.  Every Belle might have her own definition, but here is mine:

Every now and then, when something is (by your definition) wrong, or unfair, or over the top crazy, or not the way you thought it should be and you are probably right ...you speak up. The filter is off and the right words come to you.  You don't stop to think what the other people are going to think, you just boldly and somewhat loudly say it.  A Belle won't cuss or take the Lord's name in vain while she is going off for two reasons: 1) It cheapens what you are saying and 2) You might get confused with someone from New Jersey.

I threw a hissy on my daughter and in front of my Connecticut born and raised best mommy friend in the middle of the American Girl Store in Manhattan:

Try to hear a loud southern accent as you read this......

"Little girls from all over the country save their money and wait in this line to have this plastic doll's synthetic hair braided.  You are very lucky that you can hop on a train and be here in less than two hours and that your grandmother and your father gave you extra money for this experience.  This nice lady has to make every little girl and her mother happy and she does her best every day. Now smile, say "Thank you Miss Anne" to her, and we will come back in thirty minutes or I'll hail us a taxi back to Grand Central Station."


Frances knows when her time is up-she put on her best smile ever and calmed herself down.

"Thank you Miss Anne-I'll be back!"

We were able to have a nice little economy/math lesson on how she could buy a few small things or one big thing and she picked the big thing.  Fine-that was her choice.

Then we went back to the beauty salon and waited for our name to be called.

While we were there, I made the stylist teach us how to care for the doll.  We don't put glitter pens on the doll, we don't cut the doll's hair, etc. and so on.  Since I was on a high and mighty roll, I asked her stylist,

"How many countries do little girls come from?"

"Ireland, Thailand, Belize, Italy, India...literally, I've worked with little girls from all over the world."

"Where do the most polite and well behaved little girls live?"

"England"

"And the rudest?"

The woman didn't want to answer me at first, and maybe I shouldn't post what she said...just in case someone on staff from American Girl is paid to be a lurker...you never know...so I'll sell out and say all over the world there are rude and polite little girls and geography doesn't have anything to do with it.

Ha ha ha...

After it was over I made sure my daughter said thank you and I said an extra thank you for making little girls happy.

Of course, my daughter must always have the last word:

Where on earth did she get that spark????


Next time we go into the City,  we are hitting Central Park or the MoMa....I need a memory of something else.

The Grocery Store Diaries: Halloween Special!

I own the grocery store parking lot now.  All three of them know they don't open a single door until I give them the go ahead.  All three of them know they can't ask for junk.  All three of them know we stick together and don't scatter in 101 directions. I said they know it. I didn't say they do it.

The pumpkins outside the store would be fight number one- but we get to avoid this because we have already gone to the "pumpkin patch" in town and we don't need anymore.  Last year I went to the patch for the pictures and then bought the pumpkins at the grocery store. Oh well, every now and then I do something the way other women would do it.

Even though we had a few days left, I decided to go ahead and get the candy during this trip.  I know that buying candy early is going to force me to run six miles a day instead of three. I can also look at all the flyers and handouts on my desk and know that we have a very busy weekend ahead and finding time to brave a store might not be on the to do list.

Why oh why didn't I just grab whatever was on sale and bury it under the bread and frozen vegetables? Did I really have to take the time to engage the three of them in conversation? Think about the opportunities for speech the candy aisle provides a mother and her children.

This is a "good mommy" banter:

Look kids, what shapes do you see?

What are the different colors? 

What flavors are in those?

How many lollipops do you see?

Ok my loves, can we pick out the best candy for all our special friends in the neighborhood?  And we know we aren't opening the bag until Monday, right?  Then we eat one piece a day until Christmas.

Then you watch this woman and her kids skip happily through the check out aisle.

 OK, that was fun.

Now, here are MY THREE in the candy aisle:

F: "OK, I want this one for today, and we can eat this bag tomorrow....So we better get at least five bags...

L: "Candy Corn!  Candy Corn! I want candy corn!"

K: "Oh come on, Lowell, if we pass out candy corn no one will ever speak to us again, you know how mom gets when no one will talk to her..."

F: Lollipops would work (whispering to Kenneth)  we can hide these in my room and she won't know...

K: You hide the lollipops and I'll hide M&Ms-you are so right, she will never find them....

Why do they think I can't hear them?

OK ENOUGH!  Each of you pick one bag and then we are shopping for real food....



The decoration aisle is not my thing.  My mother sent them pumpkin place mats and we will paint and carve pumpkins this weekend.  That is as far as I have time to take it. Everyone knows not to ask me for scarecrows and spiders that end up in the storage closet later.

We are shopping fine-like any other Shoreline mommy with nothing else to do on a weekday afternoon...

Until...

The witch!

There is this scary looking life sized witch that laughs an evil cackle when you walk by her.  My three year old has perfected jumping out of the cart and climbing up my side and clutching to my hair for dear life when we get near that thing. I want to tell him that there are plenty of witches in the grocery store all year long, but lately I am keeping such opinions to myself.

Do his brother and sister comfort him and tell him it isn't real? Do they try to ease his pain?  What do you think?

"Look Lowell, she is going to get you!" He climbs higher up my head.

"Hey Mom-we could by one for our living room." Then the baby really starts screaming...I wonder if my sister has these third child torture stories...


The check out is fine-five bags of candy (one of which they have already eaten), all the staples my children love, and no witch. Unless you count me....

Rock it out this Halloween....In preparation for my Advent tradition, four more "Halloween Quacks" are coming!

How to visit childless friends

Those of you who go back and forth between the two blogs have had the privilege of meeting the "Lake guard" and his wife.  To me they are everything that represents a small New England town.  They shovel when it snows and they grill when it's warm.  Don't ask them a question if you don't want an answer, but if you need any kind of help they will be the first to show up.  Seriously-a shoulder to cry on or a gazebo to put up.  It's them.

They frequently host neighborhood get togethers with their awesome lake dock and fire pit for roasting marshmallows.  Here is the catch-they don't have kids.

I know you guys love it when I take my kids into a new environment.  This is what happens when I take them to the "Lake guard's" cottage.

They go after the dog and all her toys.  My three year old starts asking for the dog when we pull up in the driveway.  "Tiki!  Tiki!" My daughter starts to complain that the dog has more stuffed animals than she does. That could not be possible.  After about thirty minutes, the dog goes and hides, but tonight I caught my son trying to get her to come out of the bedroom closet.

The kids know where all the candy is. They have two bubble gum machines, a box of peppermint patties, and three M&M dispensers.  Mind you both of these adults are not overweight.  I start grabbing candy and putting it in cabinets after the kids eat three handfuls each.

They only have flesh colored band aids.  This confused my son as he really couldn't imagine anyone not wanting Yoda on a band aid-how could you heal without a Jedi using the force?

You have to change the channel or you walk in and your children may be watching Tosh.O or an episode of Law and Order.

I once put ten different breakable items in their bedroom. I don't think anything has been broken this season.

 The husband tore up the pantry looking for MacnCheese for my daughter-he was about to boil pasta and make it from scratch before I told him it wasn't necessary.

And finally, I usually get one or two texts the next morning for toys and possibly shoes that my children left behind.

The best part? My children NEVER want to leave and can't wait to go back.  Swinging in the hammock, sitting around the fire pit, playing with that dog...I hope they remember all of it forever.

Who is inviting us over next?

The Grocery Store Diaries 4

The Grocery Store Diaries 4: When you have extra people with you

Dirty Looks: 3 in the parking lot, one in the meat section
You’ve got your hands full: o
Damage: None that I know of, but it is kind of like watching Hagrid’s three headed dog Fluffy at times.

Daddy went with us on Sunday after our weekly trip to Moe’s. That means that all three of them had a Moe’s balloon. Of course none of them wanted to give up the balloon and leave it in the car, so they carry them in the parking lot. Frances loses her balloon immediately and runs after it, in the rain, in the grocery store parking lot. Daddy runs after her while the boys start squirming to get away from me and follow dad.

Fortunately the Race Car cart is available so there is no crying about the unavailability of the cart. But there is a HUGE fight between the older two about who is going to push the cart, mom or dad. They finally decided they would let me push the cart like “normal days.” Thanks guys. They all agree to a seat when I hear the first “POP!” one balloon down, two to go. (Note: the toddler is under close supervision the entire time he has his own balloon, don’t email me.)

The older two sense a disturbance in the mommy force since daddy is with us, look at me with a wicked grin, and take off running. One insists we need cookies, the other one popsicles, and both boxes go in our normally fruit and vegetable filled cart (yeah right). In the mean time, the little one screams to eat everything as it goes in. I swear he can say “NOW!” This continues as they alternate between perfect angels sitting in the car cart and running around begging for junk they normally don’t get immediately.

The weirdest part was in the meat area, this woman was taking her time going through the chicken and staring at it like it was going to fly south for the winter. I’m not sure what she was looking for, but it made me think I should look closer before I throw the antibiotic free organic chicken in my cart. Then I remembered I had three kids hanging on me and I didn’t have time to do anything other than trust that the grocery store was selling me good poultry.

Of course with another adult, check out is smooth and loading the car in the rain is easier. Father of the year just doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. Grrrrr

Today I picked my babysitter up from our old neighborhood, and before I drove home to the new neighborhood, I asked her if she would sit in the car with the kids while I ran in to the store and grabbed a few things. I had three on my list. She said sure no problem. I ran in and grabbed a basket. I was hunting for three things, but as I went around I kept throwing things in that I knew I needed. By the time I got to the check out, I was weighted down by the basket of “three things,” and had a case of diet coke in the other hand. I hobbled with all of it back to the parking lot. They looked at me like I was crazy, but it was a really quick trip and worth the upper arm workout.

It’s always fun to go to the store with other people…..

Picking Berries

When I was talking to my real estate agent about living in Guilford, the first thing she said was, “you are going to love living here, we have orchards and you can pick your own apples and berries.” I have never cut grass; I have only really raked leaves once because a friend of mine told me her dad said he bet I couldn’t. Now I was leaving the hustle and bustle of Pittsburgh to go pick my own berries? Nope. I don’t play the Grapes of Wrath.

We did try to do it the second weekend we lived here. It was apple season and you had to wait in line for the big trucks to take you up the actual orchards. This was before you even started picking the apples. The crowds were too big and the wait too long for any of my children, forget the one that can’t stand a crowd or loud noises.

When I was in high school, it was the early 90s and Kurt Cobain and all that grunge stuff was popular and my parents were divorcing. I was headed to a women’s college, and I was obsessed with Sylvia Plath. I loved her pain and her depression and the world hates me and doesn’t understand me angst. The bottom line is she was a girl from New England going to Smith and working for a magazine. Come on girl, you weren’t waiting in line at a soup kitchen. But I loved her. I wrote papers on her. I memorized “Daddy,” yeah, I know. I didn’t have much of a life then either.

OK, now I am a mother of three little ones and I know that Sylvia killed herself while her toddlers were napping. I know that isn’t funny and please don’t take this the wrong way, but who hasn't used naptime at least once for a full blown psychotic mommy melt down? But since I have other outlets and know, thanks to the internet, that I am not alone, dear Sylvia, you and I have parted ways. I will stay on the earth as long as I am allowed….

At least I thought we had parted ways until I agreed to a berry picking play date. It was my children and three other moms and their kids at the blueberry patch. All the kids were ready to pick berries with their buckets. It wasn’t nearly as crowded or confusing as that day in the apple orchards. They had the bushes marked for picking, and off we went. Yeah right. Sylvia’s brilliant Bitter Strawberries popped into my head, and it has stayed there. It was still there three months later when we went for raspberries with daddy. Here we go, my Blueberry picking against her memories turned poetry of her Bitter Strawberries:

All morning in the strawberry field
They talked about the Russians
Squatted down between the rows
We listened
We heard the the head woman say,
‘Bomb them off the map.’

In the blueberry fields, probably closer to eleven than the original plan of ten, the six kids all ran in completely different directions and didn’t hear a single thing any of the mommies said about healthcare, if we mentioned it at all…

Two Children laughed at tag
In the tall grass,
Leaping awkward and long-legged

Page’s kids decide they would rather throw rocks than pick berries and invite the other boys to join in the fun. The baby squirms and wants to join them. He has incredible aim for a twelve month old. Wow.

How many quarts?
She recorded in the notebook

Most people’s buckets were filled and the totals were in the 20 dollar range, cash or check only. My three kids picked less than four dollars worth.

Cupping the berry protectively before
Snapping off the stem
Between thumb and forefinger

What nice fine motor skill work. Occupational therapists should really encourage berry picking, considering my daughter had about zero fine motor ability right before she turned three. I couldn’t get her to pick up a cheerio with a pincer grasp. I tried broken crayons, I tried three little pig finger puppets from Guatemala, and I tried popcorn. No go. But she did really love picking the blueberries for a little while. Then you remember no attention span and after about fifteen minutes, give or take ten, my kids were yanking on everything and shoving it in the bucket.

We did try to recreate our “Pick your own” experience with Daddy in the raspberry field, and I did try harder that day. They each had a hat they refused to wear, and I put sunscreen on them. But no one, and I mean no one, told me that raspberry bushes had prickles on them. Good night nurse the screaming that day isn’t worth writing about. Sometimes I am almost sure my husband wishes he had married someone else who would have given him cute kids that would have worn matching Gymboree outfits and filled their baskets to the brim without eating any or smearing berries on themselves or scream to get out of the stroller. Then we could have gone home and made tarts from scratch and read Jamberry together and scrapbook the day.

Sylvia so should have blogged….

The Grocery Store Diaries 2

If I am to do this Bridget Jones style, I’m going to do it right:

Dirty Looks: 4
“You’ve go your hands full” - 3
Break anything: 0


Today’s trip was all about teamwork, starting with digging through the carts for the police one. The Big Y now has your choice of toddler carts. Before it used to be a Fire engine only, but now you can also ride around in a taxi or a police car. Someone had returned a blue police car cart, and my son was not going to sit in anything else. So after I pulled out three other carts with a baby on my hip, everyone was happy in the cop cart.

Usually all you have to do is push your cart up and down the aisles, grab what you need according to your list, grab what you need according to your cravings, or grab what you need according to the sale price. My son on the other hand decides that we need to be a team about it. It was Frances’ turn to sit in the cop seat while the boys were in the front. Kenneth decided that she should hop out and pick up the food, and then she should hand it to me. THEN I should give it to him to throw in the cart. How many people does it take to throw food in the cart? The answer is three apparently. We did this around the grocery store and it didn’t get old and he didn’t give up. “Frances give it to mommy, mommy, give it to me, now watch me put it in the cart.” It did prevent fighting and biting and it killed a rainy Saturday afternoon, so there you go.

The baby did decide to scream over a yogurt cup I wouldn’t let him eat today, since now I know his game, just in time for two little old ladies to look up and say, “What is that screaming?” Did babies in the 50s really act that much better? I doubt it.

The trip could have been worse, team work drags it out but definitely made it less of a headache.

Fill Out the Form, Please.....

This is not, nor ever will it be, a typical blog about how my baby is going to Kindergarten and OMG I am crying and getting old and taking 200 pictures until my memory stick is full and my facebook friends and email lists are going to be sick of the albums. I don’t think so. I think my digital camara is in a box in the basement with my college textbooks. I have already screwed this up. It started with the stupid blue health form last week. I just am not a good "document er" when it comes to my children. She lost her first tooth today and I think she swallowed it, so she won't be finding it in my dresser drawer in a few months or years and realize there is no tooth fairy. She has already said no fairy is getting near her pillow anyway.

Back to Kindergarten, I have been dreading this day since my first evaluation when she was 20 months old and they told me she stopped completing tasks at nine months. My only goal since then was to have her ready for Kindergarten. Public school is vicious for a normal little girl, plus, I'm a psycho. Am I really going to "Walk away" when I should? I hope so. I am going to focus on what I am going to try to do as the mom of a brand new, special needs Kindergartener. This post is going to be about "Forms."

Nobody likes to fill out forms. We fill them out all the freaking time. For the library card, for the doctor, for the grocery store discount card. You have to fill out a form to take the baby home from the hospital, you have to fill it out to get married. The cool thing is that now it is a little easier if you want to fill one out online, but still, everything must have a paper trail, especially a special education student.

Now, Kindergarten is usually the first place a child goes to venture into the big, bad, public education system. Mommy and Daddy fill out a ton of forms just to get them in the front door. If it is the first child going, you live for that little packet to arrive in the mailbox. That is when it gets personal. You get the teacher forms!

The teacher sends you a hello letter with a little form to fill out about your child. Each teacher has their own form. I have created these forms myself, and I remember being psyched to make my own. I also remember some of the answers I got back. Some parents were short, sweet, and to the point. Other moms wrote novels about their kids. Guess which kids ended up being the cool ones I would consider friends today?

This is how I approach filling out the forms for my child:

1) Fill them out. Answer the questions correctly, but nobody needs a personal narrative. Save that for your blog. :0)
2) Do NOT correct a teacher's grammar. She or he will catch it themselves and be highly embarrassed later anyway. This will only make you look like a jerk from day one.
3) Return them as soon as you finish filling them out, or they are going to sit on your pile of things at home and be forgotten about, which will irritate the teacher, who may have to send you another, and so it begins.
4) Read all of the questions and any other newsletters that come home. I speak from experience. Teachers spend a lot of time writing these form letters and coming up with these questions. Plus an administrator looks over it to make sure it is done and sent home. For you to throw it away is pretty lame. Toss stuff that doesn't say please return, sure, but read it first. I personally would save it all until the end of the year. Nothing is worse than a parent ranting and raving that they didn't know something when a teacher wrote it down in a newsletter, initialed by the principal. So please, read it out and be nice.
5)This kind of goes along with number four, but if a teacher says something like, we will read everyday for fifteen minutes, and then one day they don't because they run out of time during a science experiment, don't jump down her/his throat that it didn't get done once. Again, it is all about how you look to this person.

Now, having just said all of that, here is how my first ever public school "parent form" looked as I filled it out for my first child. I am summarizing the questions and the response that came from me.


1. Health related information-this within itself could take two or three pages, but I kept it short, sweet, and to the point. Glasses. Eyepatch.
2. How does she feel about coming to school-she can't wait to get away from me and her brothers!
3. interests-stuffed animals and, unbeknown to me, The Jonas Brothers
4. concerns frightens/worries your child?- a change in her schedule
5. what do I hope my child will learn-this one is really loaded, be careful with this answer. Teachers don't work miracles.
6. do you or your spouse possess a special talent, skill, or hobby-LOL
7. Anything else.-again, open ended for someone to go on forever. Pop some popcorn and get a diet coke if you want to enjoy reading these.

That is it for forms. I need to go fill some out for soccer and gymnastics before labor day, so I better get off the computer anyway....

Walking away

I used to love to watch Judge Judy yell at the defendants and plaintiffs in her courtroom. It made perfect sense to me. They were usually idiots. Well, that isn't nice. They were people who had been caught up in the heat of the moment and weren't thinking clearly. Once two women went at it over a parking space and one started hitting the other one's car with the orange cone. Another time two teenage boys had some road rage because the one in front wouldn't go immediately at the light, and the other one honked, so he flipped him off, so then he tapped his car, etc. etc. Judy fined both boys and said, "The next time someone picks a fight with you, you drive away." That is excellent advice. Walk away, drive away, get away. Now, imagine you are the mom and your child is involved somehow.

Mommy circles can be just as vicious as who sits at whose table in the middle school cafeteria. Which pre-school, which church, which mommy and me class, and who you have your Monday morning playgroup with, all of these things have the potential of making you really enjoy or really suffer through those early years of parenthood. Now, what happens while all the moms are talking about which organic juice box is the best? The kids are playing. When kids are playing, unless you raised a robot, there will be a conflict. Some moms have common sense about this. They are kids and there are only so many glitter pink hula hoops to go around. Some mothers think that their snow princess ballerina was put on this earth for that hoop and your wild child better back off. How do you handle conflict? I mean when the other mother is unreasonable? You walk away. You keep your mouth shut and you walk away.

I am writing about this because it goes against my nature and my personality. I am always paranoid people are going to see me on the six o'clock news because I blew up at the wrong person. But if I can walk away, anyone can walk away. Don't bother with the counting and the deep breaths, just get away.

For example, sometimes at gymnastics, other mommies have it in their heads they are raising Nadia Comaneci and make their kid practice while the rest of the kiddos are running in circles. Then they scream at your children to move off the bars. You try to apologize but the woman stares at you. You want to escalate and say something nasty, and you know that the gym gets more tuition checks from you than her, but you walk away.

You are in the beloved grocery store and your son is throwing a tantrum for leftover, marked down fourth of July cookies that are filled with so much red and blue dye that even you won't let him eat them. A woman pushes her three children sitting still in the toddler cart and she has the nerve to look at them and say, "My children know how to act in public" and giggles. You want to a)let your kids out of the cart and chase her down like a pack of guard dogs, b) tell her her husband is probably screwing his secretary, or c) Just start a stereotypical cat fight in front of the frozen ice cream. But-you push your cart away.

There are many other times, at least twice in my son's preschool coat room, when I have had to walk away. Once I did accidentally say something I shouldn't have before I got out of the room. She hasn't spoken to me again ever. Oops.

This advice came down from Judge Judy and it happens to me a lot around other moms. Do not lose it and make a fool out of yourself over another woman's even more foolish behavior. WALK AWAY.

And you know what the coolest part about walking away is? If you leave out all names, you can write about it later....

Working Mom

It has been too long since I posted, and the main reason for that is I had to go out of town for work. I work from home and I rarely have to go in, but this week I did for basically four days. Now, I love my job and I have the best of both worlds in a lot of ways. However,when mommy goes out of town for work, no matter how hard you try and no matter how hard you plan, something is going to give. Here are some simple little examples of things that happened that would not have happened had I been at home on my laptop.

I check into the hotel two hours before my conference starts. Cool-I can take a nap. Ring Ring "Hello, Mrs. P. we would like to schedule a new meeting for Frances..." and forty-five minutes later the paperwork is done. Like I need to get away from the kids so I can schedule their lives quietly. No time to rest, go to work.

Phone rings the next morning at breakfast, "Hey honey, look, I know that they have dentist appointments, but they are coughing up lungs..." (They weren't when I left but I can hear them in the background). So I say, "OK fine, call and cancel." "Can't you do it?" I am in the middle of a hotel in Philadelphia with no access to my laptop, as it is being upgraded by the tech team. "No, Google it." He doesn't want to, but he does anyway. During my break I get a call from the dentist's office, "Hello Mrs. P., I'm sorry they are sick, we have a three month waiting list..." Ugh

Phone rings yet AGAIN! "Mrs. P., this is the school nurse at your daughter's elementary school, she can't start Kindergarten without the health form and this one isn't current." The pediatrician needs ten days to fill one out and I am not getting home until Thursday night. I have no idea where the health form is in my office at home. Call the nanny and beg her to load all three children up, get another form from the elementary school and drop it off at the drs. office, who tells her they "hope I will at least be home to pick it up."

Crawl into bed while all the young cool teachers go out on the town in Philly. I sleep until my best friend calls to see how it is going. It is never a dull moment ever.

But the baby slept through the night for his Daddy......

What I love about the summer

1. You have less laundry, especially socks.
2. All you need for a summer birthday party is a sprinkler and some ice cream.
3. You spend quality time with the people that mean the most to you, even if you only see them every couple of years.
4. There are more hours in a day and you spend them outside.
5. My wedding anniversary, the birth of my third child, the release of Harry Potter novels, my favorite holiday... July is magic!
6.I don't work, for this I love being a teacher.
7. I could spend hours and hours on a beach, any beach. Now I live less than five minutes from one.
8. The smell of sunscreen and a page turning novel
9. Summer camps and day trips
10. Knowing a new school year begins in August, we can always start over and change the path we are on, just a little...

I hope everyone is enjoying my favorite season, it gets me through the winter.

Soccer Camp Week in Review

I'm sure there are moms who keep a little "journal" of all the little events in their child's life. If I had to scribble one down for soccer week, this is what it would look like:

Monday-Mommy has to stay, there is no shade, thank goodness I packed one water bottle, nothing to sit on, remembered his soccer ball. Happened to have sunscreen in Vera, but only the regular kind. Kenneth stops the ball by falling over it, not using his feet. He falls seventeen times according to his friend. Every ten minutes all the little preschoolers come running for water. Lowell wants to drink from everyone’s sippy cup but his own.

Tuesday-Packed a small cooler of drinks and a snack for after camp, had a quilt to spread out and toys for the baby. Said baby was also wearing a huge sun hat and sunscreen. Woman behind me starts screaming that her phone won’t turn on. She borrows her friend’s to call her husband at work and tell him her phone won’t turn on. Screams at him goodbye, and then tells the rest of us husbands are worthless. Kenneth has learned to stop the ball with his feet, according to his friend, he only crashed twice.

Wednesday- Rained all night and was very muddy. This is the day he wants to wear his special uniform that his “Tio Dani” sent him from Barcelona. I tried to tell him no, but there really was no point. Frances starts screaming she wants to wear hers to school, so both of them are wearing their good outfits in the rain and mud. Lowell won’t nap in his stroller, so I get no reading time, but should probably be watching the soccer drills anyway so we can practice at home. Kenneth does not stop when the coach yells “red light.”

Thursday-It is a cool day for July, he doesn’t really need sun block but they still get water breaks every ten minutes. He starts to yell when we get there, “Mom! Mom! I have to go the coach is in the circle mom!” He is going to miss the world cup if I don’t hurry down to the field. He asks me when he can go to high school, he wants to start soon.

Friday-Daddy takes the morning off to watch the last day. Frances doesn’t have school so she runs up and down the bleachers, Lowell chews on the orange cones. Even port-a-johns are cleaner in Connecticut. Kenneth is given a popsicle after the final little mini-game. He tells my friend, “no thanks, I don’t like popsicles, can you get me a banana?” Everyone thinks I am a strict nutritionist. LOL my friends know me better than that.

Move over Diego Maradona. I still wish he would sign up for preschool emo poetry writing instead.