Party of Five

On Valentine's Day, I wrote of the newly discovered plan of my son to ambush surprise a classmate with a Valentine in her locker.  I was scared of entering this stage of his life.  I wasn't prepared for him to be at this stage in his life. As it turns out, it may have been much more innocent than at first suspected.  Maybe. As his mother, of course I was itching with curiosity all day.  It took everything I had to not meet him at the door and question him endlessly... "What happened?" "What did she say?" "What's her name?" I restrained myself and played it cool. . . . . For about 5 minutes. When he came home it was the usual conversation with his siblings, the search for the after-school hunger craving, and settling in for a full evening of homework.  As I walked through the dining room where he sat figuring out the value of "x", I (very) non-chalantly asked him how his Valentine's Day was at school. "Eh,...

It's Valentine's Day.  Generally not a day that I get overly excited about.  There's the hearts, the flowers, the little naked cherubs, blah, blah, blah.  It's not that I get shafted by Mr. D. for Valentine's Day (Hello... spa day)   I'm just not big on sharing "special" days with the rest of the world population...although the chocolate can be a major perk. Relax...I didn't forget about him.  He's getting what could quite honestly be the most perfect card (don't you love being able to find that perfect card?).    And there's also Triple Chocolate Cookies for him.  Well, us...because it's chocolate, and he knows that he'll have to share.  ;) The last few years, I've discovered it's rather fun to shower my children with valentines on this day.  Maybe it's because I don't have to go crazy or overboard to surprise them with little fun treats that really make their day, and remind them of how absolutely inc...

How could I, one who claims to love musical theater, have waited 5 weeks to see this movie? Eh.  Chalk it up to any number of excuses, the fact is I couldn't get to the theater to see this movie before now.  And the fact that it was showing at our local little movie theater where ticket prices were only $5.50 a piece, plus a medium popcorn, large cherry coke, and peanut M&M's came to less than $20...yeah, I'm happy to say I was a cheap date tonight. At any rate, five weeks after the movie opened, I was finally getting to see Les Miserables. Mr. D. and I have seen it on stage...decades ago...way back when we were still young and stupid in love.  I've read the novel...the ridiculously long novel.  There was the screen version awhile back with Liam Neeson, and it was adequate enough, but let's face it...in my musical loving heart, that film was missing something.  The music!  I've always loved my soundtrack that I've owned (for decades), it was actua...

The afternoon was fairly typical...I picked up my youngest two from school and the usual afterschool hullabaloo commenced.  Backpacks dumped, coats shed, and both of them fighting hard to be heard over one another as they told me the excitement of their day.  My daughter, being the intellectual of the family, usually tells me which multiplication family she mastered that day, or how close she was to knowing all of her spelling words for the week, or Typically I'll be half-listening to all of this while cleaning something, cooking something, or handling the stress of her brother when he can't get a word in. Today her words stopped me in my tracks. "Today in math we got a big packet full of practice problems to help us with our state tests!" My response was to simply breathe deeply and count to 10.  I would not show my emotion in front of my innocent 8 year old who has yet to experience State Assessments.  We are opting out our 12 year old, but I "compromis...

My son just came into the room while I sit here writing, and I asked him if he had ever studied Pearl Harbor in school yet. He hasn't - he's working through the Revolution and Civil War this year - so I motioned for him to sit down - insert tween eye roll accompanied by a sarcastic, "Mom! It's Friday! Do I have to learn now?" Sit down kid. I began to briefly...oh so briefly...explain the events of Pearl Harbor to my 12 year old, accompanied by the old photos I had found, noticed he wasn't impressed (seriously, do you see this ship on fire and sinking?), and quickly brought up an aerial image of the memorial where you can actually see the USS Arizona underneath the surface of the water. THAT impressed him. Oy. 12 year olds. "...December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the soli...

It's finally happened...and now that it has, the pressure is on - in a really big way! In case you don't know my history of contributing / helping with the family Thanksgiving dinner, let me briefly fill you in. (Most are chronicled on this blog if you'd like to read for yourself.)  I get to be the "responsible" one who brings the cool whip, the napkins, the 2 liters of soda, or the dinner rolls.  That pretty much sums it up each year.  Not that I have minded, it takes a lot of pressure off to not have to come up with something completely amazing and perfect that would fit in with the delicious feast prepared for us each year.  Still, it makes me wonder about my own cooking abilities sometimes. A few weeks ago, it hit me that I really needed to take lessons from Momma D. on her mastery in cooking her fantastically fabulous Thanksgiving dinner.  I may have mentioned on here before that she did attempt this with me...once.  But it's what she does with tho...

I survived.   It was my daughter's first slumber party, and I survived it.  Beyond that, it was an "American Girl" themed birthday slumber party, so it was ultra-girly...and I survived it.   Girls showed up with overnight bags, sleeping bags, their special doll friends, and their special doll friends' clothes.   There was A LOT of pink and purple, flowers, butterflies, and stars.  A LOT of stars seemed to be surrounding us everywhere!  I wanted this party to not only celebrate this beautiful girl turning eight, but also to celebrate her girl friends - to encourage these wonderful girls in a time when they are so often pushed to grow up before they are ready.  That's not to say I was going to treat them to an evening of Dora the Explorer to keep them young for as long as possible, but I did want them to walk away from this party knowing how incredibly special they are. Where there weren't pretty things decorating the house, there were 8 year...