Tea Party

Sadly, my days are numbered. May 1st approaches and no matter how hard I try, nothing seems to slow the ticking of the clock. It is a sad time for me. My youngest child - my last baby - is growing up. She refuses to heed my request to stay little. She refuses to skip this birthday, though I did try to convince her that she did not actually NEED to be four years old. She refuses... Time refuses...

As is the way of our world, I asked her a few weeks ago what kind of birthday party she wanted. She quickly and promptly replied that she wanted a tea party. (A little girl tea party - NOT a political Tea Party - much to the dismay of her uncle who was thrilled **at first** to hear that we were hosting a tea party at his house.) So a tea party she shall have...

Even though I am terribly heart broken over this pending milestone, I went about the task of planning a tea party to fit a princess. (Have no doubt, she IS a princess. Just ask her...) I arranged the location. I determined who was to be invited. I even managed to order the cake. All is well with the world... (well, as well as it can be when one's last baby insists on growing up way too fast)

So - do you want to see the cake I ordered? I know you do. It's an absolutely gorgeous cake. I did make a minor change from the picture, opting for white icing instead of the yellow. I also opted for chocolate cake - or rather, the birthday girl insisted that her cake must be chocolate. Since I know you're just dying to see...

Isn't this just the most beautiful cake you've ever seen for a tea party? 

To make the party perfect, we will be providing cute spring hats and cute flower necklaces for dressing up. (Yeah - so the hats are Easter Hats from the Dollar Tree and the necklaces are leis from the Dollar Tree Luau stuff - they won't notice or care...) Marisa, of course, gets the pink sparkly necklace that is different from everybody else. She picked the cream colored hats and I will be doctoring hers up a bit, properly decorated for a special birthday girl. I let her pick out plates, too. She seems to be having a blast with the whole planning of her party.

Randall insisted that we needed to do party favors. I'm not sure why, because we never did party favors for any of the earlier parties. However, I didn't resist too much. Marisa and Kira had fun picking out the favors to put in the goody bags. I'll probably have them help me fill the bags, too. After all, it isn't MY birthday party... and I'm sure they'll thoroughly enjoy playing with all the goodies before putting them in the bags.

I haven't planned much in the way of activities other than eating and having tea. I hope to have a nail polish station where everybody can get their nails done. I haven't really gone into the details for that. I see no need to rush into anything...

Now - can anybody tell me how to make the days slow down?

Get Out...

...AND STAY OUT.

I just want to say that I am so glad that both of the girls are now old enough to be kicked out of the house.

Yes - you read that right. I kick my 3 yr old and 5 yr old out of the house. (SHE IS SO STILL THREE YEARS OLD! At least til Saturday...when I will begrudgingly admit that she has gained a year.... very begrudgingly.)

Now that they are both older and fairly well capable of obeying a couple of simple rules and boundaries, I find that there is a great deal of joy in sending them out into the yard to play.

**Mind you, the yard is fenced so they aren't wandering off to the road, and if they happen to be playing outside the fence, they have a very strict set of boundaries and know very well that failure to adhere to those boundaries will mean that they no longer have the freedom of playing outside alone. **

I do feel that the yard is a wonderful asset for parents and children.

They get to be out on their own and enjoy the independence of playing without me hovering.

I get to do a bit of housework without tripping over little people (or play on the computer without the constant chatter of little people - which is what I am most likely to do).

They get to put their imaginations to good work, creating their own games and their own adventures in a yard that is filled with lots of places to go adventuring.

I get the benefit of two little girls who become very sleepy by the end of the day.

Now that the weather is warmer, I try to kick them out of the house most days. Of course, they are never all that resistant to being kicked out...

Reaching Those All Important Milestones...

This past week was a pretty interesting week for us. We managed to accomplish one of childhood's most noted milestones. (Well - okay - that's a bit overly dramatic...)

Being the amazing parent that I am, I was piled up in bed sound asleep while my darling Kira ventured out to our sun porch to play. Mind you, she very carefully avoided waking me up for fear that I would deny her request to go out an play. Keep in mind also that Kira is a very early bird and Mom is NOT an early bird at all.

All of a sudden I am awakened - quite rudely - by the screaming of my traumatized child standing directly in front of me. How in the world she managed to get from the sun porch all the way to my bedroom without me hearing her until she was in my face, I will never know.

Kira was wailing and crying about how I had told her that they wouldn't hurt her or something of that nature. Mind you, I was in a sleep fog and she was bawling loudly.... so it was somewhat difficult to comprehend what was going on.

When the whole story is told, Kira had been stung by a carpenter bee. We have dozens of carpenter bees around her and Kira has spent hours playing with them - even letting them crawl all over her - and this was our first painful experience. Either she had found a female carpenter bee, (the males don't sting) or the bee bit her with it's pincers that it has at the front of its face. There was no way to be certain, but it appeared very much to be a sting. A bit of ice and a lot of love later, then Kira was just fine. She did, however, insist on watching the Natural Killers Hornet movie several times during the rest of the day. I will never understand that particular fascination...

In honor of Kira's major milestone of  having received her very first bee sting, I decided to find some information about treating bee stings.

1) If there is a stinger present, it is important to remove that stinger as quickly as possible. (Be thankful that the presence of the stinger means that the little monster that hurt your precious child will certainly receive the most powerful kind of justice. After all, with the stinger usually comes the entrails and without the entrails, the bee is sentenced to death for his crime.)

2) Wash the area and apply a bit of ice to help with the pain and swelling. (Those cute little boo boo packs are awesome for icing up a sting.)

3) Keep a very close watch on the victim to be sure there is no allergic reaction. This is most important for first timers because how can one be sure they are not allergic until they are exposed... (The risk of having an allergic reaction goes up if one of the parents are allergic.)

4) Tylenol or Ibuprofen can help alleviate some of the discomfort.

5) Apply liberal amounts of love and attention to the sting victim. While a bee sting may seem like a tiny little thing to us adults, it can be very traumatic to your child. (Especially when that child had spent hours and hours lovingly playing with the bees **shudder** and doesn't quite understand why this particular bee failed to realize that she was a friend and not the enemy.)

Play in the Dirt

Spring has Sprung. (finally) The sun is shining. The weather is nice. Outside is the place to be.

Now is the perfect time to plant something. Seeds are not expensive and children love to plant things and watch them grow. You can buy a small planter and a bag of garden soil at the Dollar Tree. (I love that place...) Set up your supplies outside and have some fun.

We did this about three weeks ago. I gave each girl a small planter and a bag of soil. They thoroughly enjoyed the process of digging into the soil and filling up their planters. I had purchased several packs of flower seeds and let each girl pick which flowers they wanted to plant. They each chose several different types of flowers and happily placed the seeds into their soil. Now, three weeks later, each girl anxiously waters their sprouts and watches for new growth. Their planters are filled with little green babies that need careful attention and lots of water. The girls are enjoying their roles as care taker.

Now, for some reason, Marisa's seeds just didn't sprout that well. Kira has about 30 sprouts and poor Marisa ended up with about 10 sprouts. I think she probably buried her seeds a little too deep. One day last week when the girls were in the bath, I crept out to the planters and planted a few more seeds into Marisa's soil so that she will hopefully have some extra sprouts coming up soon. Sometimes it really is okay to be a little bit deceptive when it comes to your children.

Teenagers and Vacations and WOW

Well, I took my 15 year old on vacation - just me and him. I had hoped we would have a pleasant time exploring the museums in Washington D.C. together. I was wrong. His greatest desire was to sit in our hotel room - glued to his computer.

Sigh....

It's okay, though. I anticipated this scenario. I took my scrapbooking supplies with me so I would have something to entertain myself with just in case he decided that he preferred spending time with his computer instead of exploring museums.

Even though our trip did not go as planned, I feel like we accomplished something important. I gave him a lot of my time and energy without the disruption of small children and daily life. We chatted. We had a pillow fight - sort of. We did whatever it was that Gibson wanted to do.

Mostly I watched a lot of crime TV - which was nice because we don't have TV at home. I made a few cards. I did a bunch of Sudoku puzzles. I occasionally ventured out to forage for foodstuff. On one of my food hunting ventures, I had told Gibson that I was going out to find me some tea from McDonald's. He said he didn't want anything, but when I found the local McDs, I also found a bunch of other fast food establishments. When I returned back to the hotel with a personal pan pizza for Gibson, he actually said "Thank You" instead of the anticipated "I said I didn't want anything." I consider that progress.

I enjoyed the week with Gibson. However, I've determined that I will be going back to D.C. this summer with my husband and the girls. I need to have the full experience of D.C. I need to do that with my husband and younger kids so the experience will be more enjoyable for me. If Gibson wants to join us for that trip, that will be okay. I don't expect he will, though. He complained a lot about the drive. I don't expect he'll want to make that drive again just to sit and play World of Warcraft all day.

The Mystery of the Missing Panties

It was a bright and sunny day. The Mom was traveling to visit her beloved chiropractor for a much needed cracking of the back. The girls were in the car playing and chattering. All was well with the world.

The Mom made her way successfully and swiftly to her destination. She unloaded the girls from the car and entered the chiropractor's office with confidence that the visit would go well.

Indeed, the visit went as expected. All was well with the world.

It came time to leave and Mom instructed the girls to begin their cleaning of the childrens' area that they enjoy so much. It was then that the Mom became aware of a distressing situation. The youngest girl was missing something. The youngest girl - being well known to roll around on the floor without regard to the knowledge that dresses fly upwards when one rolls on the floor - began to roll around on the floor. It was at that very moment that the Mom realized that Risa-Houdini had managed to make something disappear.

Ahem!

Something very important was missing from the littlest girl's wardrobe. Something that she regularly enjoys "losing" at home had been somehow misplaced and the Mom had not realized this to be the case until that very moment when - in the midst of a somewhat crowded waiting room - her youngest child began to roll on the floor, making it very visible to anybody who may have been near that something was, indeed, missing.

Where, Oh Where, were that child's panties?

Lucky for the Mom, she was well prepared for any inconvenience that motherhood might bring with it. There was a spare pair of panties in the car, tucked away with the spare set of clothes for the rare possibility that one of the children might need a change of clothes while away from home.

**I really hope that nobody in the office noticed what the child was missing...**

Vacation Over

I'm back home now from my trip to D.C. with Gibson. The trip was decent. The opportunity to spend some quality time with Gibson - without distraction - was worth the expense and hassle. I walked away from this trip still feeling as though I'm the last person in the world that Gibson would want to spend time with. However, I made the effort to improve our relationship. I even told him that it was my goal to make our relationship better. Now it has to be up to him to decide if his mother is worth a bit of effort.

SIGH!

I enjoyed the break from the smaller kids. Though I did find myself missing them quite terribly. I had to remind myself regularly that everybody needs a vacation from their job from time to time - even Mothers. The break has recharged my batteries and left me feeling as though I can face the day-to-day again. It was difficult to be away from my girls, but I believe it was worth it.

Little Debbie

We were driving down the road in the middle of the night, passing miles with relative ease. It was just past midnight and we were making good time. The traffic was relatively light. The miles were slipping away with ease as we left our home town behind in search of our Spring Break destination. This trip was the long awaited vacation - just me and Gibson - leaving the babies behind with Daddy and wandering off on our own to our Great Nation's capital of Washington D.C.

It was just us, the trucks, and ...


LITTLE DEBBIE!

I have a habit of checking out the side of the trucks as I pass them. It's just a little bit of entertainment that I engage in. We were coming up to pass a truck and I commented that this was the second Little Debbie truck I had seen. My son began chanting "Little Debbie Little Debbie Little Debbie" without actually processing what I had said. As I was nearing the cab of the truck, Gibson looked out his window at the truck we were passing. He was met by a most shocking surprise...

LITTLE DEBBIE WAS STARING IN HIS WINDOW!

He actually yelped in his teenage boy way as his eyes came face to face with the bigger than life sized image of Little Debbie's head staring directly into his window. The shock of her over sized image staring at him through the darkness nearly gave him a full fledged heart attack. It also gave us a few good giggles for the remainder of our drive.

(See that picture right of Little Debbie. It was a picture similar to this one that was plastered onto the side of the semi truck. At the exact moment that Little Debbie came in direct view of his window, Gibson had chosen to look out his window.)

That was the last Little Debbie truck we saw, but that didn't prevent Gibson from claiming that Little Debbie was stalking us every time we saw a semi coming near.