The whole tooth and nothing but the tooth

Sebastian lost his 6th tooth on Friday.  He still hadn't left the 5th one he lost months ago for the tooth fairy yet, deciding instead to keep one for himself.  Now he had 2 teeth in two of the little tooth necklaces that come from school when your mouth starts falling apart there.

And for the first time, he questioned the magic.  "Maybe the tooth fairy doesn't really exist." When pressed, he wasn't sure where the money might come from or where the teeth might go.  Santa Claus made more sense than tooth fairies and Easter bunnies, he decided.  (Even though he claimed to have caught a glimpse of said bunny last Sunday.)  So I told him about what happened when I was his age and thought the same thing.

I decided to wait up for the fairy.  My tooth was in a film canister under my pillow, under my head, and there was no way she (or whoever was masquerading as the tooth fairy) was going to get past me.  I struggled to stay vigilant, and in the dark I checked to be sure I could hear the rattle of my little tooth in the plastic.  But it was full of coins!  And so I was convinced, for a little while longer anyway.  Sebastian pointed out that I may have dozed off briefly, but seemed to reconsider.

He didn't want to (or forgot) to leave his teeth for the fairy on Friday night, but remembered to do it last night.  After discovering the dollar he received last time still folded neatly inside his tooth pouch, he took his little calcified treasures upstairs to rest on the pillow next to his head.

Cue anxious whispering by his parents:  

"Do you have $2?"

"No!  Do you?"

"I think I have $1 in my wallet.  What should we do?"

"We'll just have to 'borrow' some from their wallets, I guess."

But then we went back to playing Mario and totally forgot.

This morning, more anxious whispering by me at 7:45am to my sleeping husband:

"Did you remember to be the tooth fairy?!"

Shit.  Now what?  The kids are up.  Sebastian has by now discovered that the tooth fairy has neglected to visit.  All wallets are downstairs with the children.  Panic! Panic!

Piggy banks!  Those are upstairs.  Who says the tooth fairy only brings bills?  She certainly didn't when I was a kid.  

Whose stupid idea was it anyway to have the kids take their change to the CoinStar machine?!  (Mine.)  The total from the 2 banks was a whopping $1.76.  There was another 15 cents on our dresser.  Jeremy told me to check his underwear drawer, but that only yielded his neckties, an "I heart Styx" button and some marbles.  (It's better not to ask.)

Now I had to sneak downstairs to get his wallet with the lonely bill, quietly put the excess change back in the banks, exchange the money for teeth and somehow not get caught.  Success!

Being the impatient person I am, when I returned downstairs some 45 minutes later I asked if the tooth fairy had come.  "She didn't," Sebastian sadly replied.  "She forgot."  

"That's not possible.  I have heard of her having trouble in bad weather, but not forgetting entirely.  Are you sure she didn't come?"

"Yes.  I checked when I woke up and my teeth were still there and there was no money."

"Hmm.  That's odd.  I wonder if she came and saw there were 2 teeth and had to go back for more money.  She probably was only expecting one tooth.  I'm sure she'll come."

"That's a good idea, Mom.  I did hold onto that other tooth for a long time."

Lo and behold, when he checked a few minutes later, the money was there... but short one dime.  Argh!  Will this nightmare never end?  I told him to check his bed and retrace his steps from his room to where the tooth pouch was now on the dining table, scrambled into the kitchen to get a dime from my wallet to throw on the floor next to the table and vowed not to worry about it when Jeremy wondered how I would explain it when Sebastian finds the original dime later.

Weirdness

Today the kids went to the rec center for their "Holiday Drop Off" from 9am to 4pm. For the low, low price of $15 per kid, Jeremy and I had a whole day to ourselves.

It's weird enough to have a night to ourselves, but a day? Odd. We dropped the kids off and came home to make coffee and play RockBand and I felt bizarre. I'm used to a little time alone at home now that both boys have school, but having Jeremy with me was a nice treat.

We played RockBand, did a little shopping, had falafel for lunch, picked up some pastries, and came home to watch Bill Cosby: Himself while I was finishing knitting Dorian's Xmas mittens. We hadn't seen Himself since we were kids, and it is frickin' hilarious. The beginning is a little slow, but the parenting stuff in the second half was breaking my face I was laughing so hard. Laughing and duplicate stitch don't mix too well, but I made it work. It's only on Netflix Instant until the 22nd, so if you need a little nostalgia, you'd better get it quick.

I'll try to take some project pictures soon, but some still have to stay secret. Since the kids don't read the blog, I can at least show you all the socks and mittens...

My awesome idea that will never come to fruition

The other night it came to me-- what the world really needs is a knitting band. A band that plays music about knitting, and-- get this!-- has a pattern in each song. So if you listen to the song (which would of course be amazing in its own right and feature cookie monster vocals like this) and follow the knitting instructions, you would end up with a sock or a hat or something.

This is pure genius, I know, which just makes it sadder that it will never happen. I just don't have any musical talent. Having a 94% average on Medium drums on RockBand just isn't enough. Maybe I should pass the idea along to Kelley Deal.

The vacation so far

So far on this trip I have:

• Done some of the best boogie boarding of my life.
• Put in some "work" on my tan.
• Gone on a date with Jeremy that involved outlet shopping, an Indian dinner, wandering around Portsmouth with a yummy ice cream cone, and a walk on the beach in the moonlight.
• Given my children 4 desserts in one day-- the ice cream cone cookies pictured below for breakfast dessert, Starburst for lunch dessert, a pint of ice cream masquerading as a "kiddie" cone in the afternoon, and a slice of fudge cake after dinner. Can you say, "Vay-cay-shun"?

• Received a fantabulous present from my sister-in-law of some totally amazing crafting books, as well as some gorgeous yarn from her trip to Ireland. Lucky me!
• Had the following conversation while trying to boogie board:: Man: So, where did you get your board? Me: squinting without my glasses It's my father-in-law's. Man: Oh, because this one belongs to my friend, but it's only rated up to 150 lbs and I'm bigger than that. :: Now, I don't know what he wanted me to say; perhaps, [sultrily] "Just how big a man are you?" I never should have let Dorian talk me into wearing the cute suit today. Either way, when he continued to try to befriend me, I just rode the next wave to the shore and gave Jeremy a turn. Oddly, he didn't try to make Jeremy's acquaintance.
• Finished a pair of arm warmers for the fall with the yarn I got for free. I love the yarn and I am quite happy with the arm warmers. I am also quite happy that I do not need them at this particular moment.

Now I've got my DDR shirt on and I'm ready to head down to the boardwalk and the shooting gallery (not the heroin kind) and the fireworks.

What happens when Jeremy is gone

The first day (after crying quietly for a few moments) I take the children for a walk to the farmer's market on the off chance that there will be raspberries. We just get a small container to eat on the spot. No jam today. Then we head to the thrift store and buy a Spiderman comic pajama top for Sebastian and a DDR shirt for me. Who cares that it's a child size shirt? It says, "I can't dance without arrows." We go next door to the discount natural foods store where I stock up on such necessities as organic pop tarts, all natural strawberry daiquiri mix, and cheese filled pretzel sticks.

We stop a couple of times on the way home to gossip about the 16 year old pregnant girl down the street and my neighbor who passed away recently. We arrive at home where I leave Dorian unattended for 10 minutes and come back to find this:

The kids have a minor breakdown later when it is discovered that Wipeout has been postponed by the President's press conference. I put them to bed, then somehow don't go to sleep myself until 1am. I did watch Very Young Girls about prostitution in NYC on Netflix Instant and get some knitting done, so it seemed worth it at the time.

The second day we keep ourselves busy by going out to lunch, enjoying the lake despite an obviously emotionally disturbed child terrorizing us, and then going to the library to pick up Dorian's prize and fill out their reading program cards. Sebastian has read 46 books so far and Dorian has read 18 books all by himself. We go home to have a little dinner which Sebastian proclaims seems more like lunch, and I prepare to take the kids with me to knitting night.

I bring what the shop owner calls "cuptails" that I manage to make taste like liquid Jolly Ranchers. I also bring what I hope is enough workbooks and magazines to keep the kids occupied so that I may actually knit. I do manage 10 more rows on my sleeves before the kids start acting up and then Sebastian finds a way to get his finger stuck in a peg hole in the adjustable table. It almost didn't come out, but it did. We cleared out shortly thereafter. Again I put the kids to bed on time, but stay up until 1am. This time I tried to watch Lisa Kudrow's show The Comeback but it just wasn't doing it for me. So I cut it off halfway through the third episode and wasted time online instead.

Two days down, the last day is a lazy one. Well, for the kids anyway. I puttered about the house doing laundry, weeding, and sanding and spackling the spare room. We played some Memory (I kicked their butts) and they watched some AstroBoy. After they went to bed, I watched Birth, a lame "mystery" starring Nicole Kidman that I would not advise anyone watch. But I got more knitting done, so it achieved its purpose.

And now Jeremy is home and life can go back to normal, ie. my falling asleep around 10:30pm.

de Blob

For Jeremy's birthday, Dustin and Cortney brought him de Blob, a game for the Wii where you have to repaint a world gone gray. It is really cool visually and a good blend of wandering around and actual challenges. But I have a couple of bones to pick with it.

1. You can't just save whenever you want/need to. The only saving happens at the end of the level. This is a problem because
2. The levels are getting progressively longer. Level 1 took me 42 minutes. Level 2 took 75 minutes. And level 3 took me 101 minutes.

The thought of spending over 2 hours completing the next level makes me a little cranky. As much as I like playing, I don't want it to feel like such a huge commitment. I can't have the kids watch me play for that long, nor do I want to waste an entire evening with Jeremy on a game.

Dilemmas, dilemmas... what's a girl to do?

What did you do this morning, Hott Mama?

Why, thanks for asking.

This morning I played the cowbell in front of about 400 people. I was not expecting to do this, but I did it. Apparently, the person who was supposed to warn me this might happen "dropped the ball." We can only hope that I didn't embarrass Sebastian too much, but just enough.

Bonus: I found another mother who wants to play RockBand. Can I fit it into my busy schedule before school ends? I think I have to.

The post that should have pictures but doesn't

My aching back is a testament to all the things I've been doing but not documenting here lately.

I've gotten a lot done in the yard/garden in the past few days. Everything edible is planted, including my "Moon and Stars" watermelons which for some reason I thought were small melons, but, if the picture is to be believed, are actually ginormously long melons. (They get their name from the distinctive yellow markings on the rind that look like, you guessed it, a moon and stars.) I also purchased a couple more perennials for the bed out front-- poppies and coral bells. And the azaleas that I got for my birthday from my mother-in-law also went out front along the fence. Fence + shrubbery = more privacy. Oh, who am I kidding? This corner appears to be the least private spot in town.

I have been trying to get a little more exercise, and so has Jeremy, so Sunday we did a DDR workout which almost turned into a DNR. Then on Monday I did a bunch of gardening and went to exercise class which didn't have a whole lot of the ab action I need and instead crippled my glutes. Today was more gardening and lots of hobbling due to the sore glutes, but at least I had the sense this time to bring a chair to T-ball practice so I wouldn't hurt my back sitting on the lumpy ground. Go me!

I finally got around to cutting open the biggest squash I bought in October today. I have been more than a little afraid of what I would find inside after an autumn and a winter and most of the spring (that's 7 months, people!) of sitting on the floor of my pantry. Would it be rotten? Or just plain old moldy? Neither! Miraculously, it was still fine and smelled as sweet as a cantaloupe. So I baked the bejesus out of it (just in case) and mashed it. Then I made squash biscuits for tonight's dinner and my plan is to use the rest for a pie.

I also got a little more knitting in on my summer sweater. One and a half skeins down, 9.5 to go. I may not be wearing it until fall. Whatever-- it will get done eventually, along with all my other half-finished projects. Big knitted blanket... picnic quilt... wallpaper stripping in the dining room... baby socks for a baby that doesn't exist anyway...

Your nerd news for today

We packed up the kids for our second annual birthday pilgrimage to Funspot. Last year was Jeremy and the debut of the Wiebe shirt. Today they were having a tournament, and we got to see this "celebrity".

And on the way home...

Sebastian: Ask me what I'm doing.

Dorian: What are you doing?

Sebastian: Being cool.

Smells like my birthday (one day early)

I was already psyched for today because Dustin and Rob are coming over for pizza and cake and RockBand. (I am, of course, disappointed that Cortney and Quinnie can't be here, but I'm not going to let it interfere with the rawk.)

Then I call Jeremy and he asks if I can bring the kids by to visit today. Why? I wondered. Well, his coworkers found out it was my birthday tomorrow, so they got me cake. Awesome, right? Two cakes in one day = sugared up Hott Mama. So, I put Dorian in the car and we headed over. (I did not want to wait for Sebastian to get off the bus. He doesn't even like cake anyway.)

After Dorian starts devouring my cake, they asked me how old I would be this year. I tell them 33, to which they reply that they would have guessed 25. (Clearly, my Delia's top was distracting from the gray hair that has recently been flourishing on my head.) And here's where instead of cake, I decided to put my foot in my mouth. "If I were 25, that would have made me a 19 year old mom... [realize 2 of the women I'm talking to were teen mothers] and I don't think I could have handled that." Um, whoops! So I tried to cover it up with, "but if only I'd started then, the kids would be out of the house when I was 40." Go ahead, girl, keep diggin' that hole...

At that point, I thanked them again for the cake and stuffed my face with it to prevent any further embarrassment to myself or others.

A supposedly fun thing I'll never do again... at least until next year

The Flapdoodlers had their annual "Running of the Bulls" party in honor of their 2 Tauruses, Flapman and Little Miss Flap. This party involves drinking the strongest margaritas ever and then running up their dead end street into the woods and back for a total of a half mile.

Myopic bookworm that I am, I am not made for running. Hell, I'm no good at track and field video games. It is not my sport.

It should be no surprise that I came in last. And I mean dead last. As in "I almost died" last.

I could blame the margarita, or the maker of the margarita, but the full responsibility lies with the drinker of the margarita who had the awesome foresight to wear her low rise pants which are perpetually falling down and a pair of Chucks. I was somehow completely unprepared for the fact that the other people were going to be wearing running shorts and running shoes and, you know, run for fun and stuff.

Well, there's always next year (when I will be sitting on the sidelines with my margarita cheering everyone else on).

Dinky's Peabrain reaches new heights!

Last night, while Jeremy and I were rockin' out as Dinky's Peabrain, our RockBand, things were not going so well. I actually failed while singing some shit song during a mystery setlist. (Only once, and we still got 4 stars, but I still don't like failing.) Then I tried to step it up to Medium level drumming, and while there was no failing, it was definitely a trial. So after 7 mystery songs, we decided to finish our evening with a 3 song Make a Setlist of "Today", "My Own Worst Enemy" and "Come Out and Play (Keep 'Em Separated)".

We both chose Expert, me singing and Jeremy on drums. We got 5 stars on "Today" although I only got 82%, but I guarantee you Billy Corgan himself couldn't do that well himself. Then, the magic happened...

On the last 2 songs, we not only got 5 stars, but 5 gold stars. I have to assume that sort of reward is reserved only for doing an almost perfect job on Expert. (We both got 99%.)

Made my weekend.

I don't suppose I'm stressed...

Last night Jeremy had to come up and wake me because I was screaming at top volume in my sleep. This time it was the Super-Stressed Dream where I'm trapped in a room with no exit (in this case, a bubble room).

I freak out, but don't scream, if it's the Moderately-Stressed Dream where things are falling on my head, such as spiders, kites, fabric, or sticks. The Slightly-Stressed Dream involves driving my car at a fairly slow speed but being unable to stop because the brakes aren't working. I spend the dream trying to swerve to a stop or trying to find a convenient crash location. Clearly, my dreams do not require a fancy dictionary to decipher.

The worst part is that I had the Super-Stressed Dream over the stupid shit going on with the PTA. It's not even anything important! Certainly not worth straining my vocal cords over. Especially not when Jimbama is coming for the weekend and there will surely be lots of RockBand.

Mind blown twice, VT woman struggles to recover

So, you know we are now the proud owners of RockBand2 and as such spend a lot of time playing the same songs over and over. Awesome songs they are and most of them fun to sing.

Having the lyrics written out has been an enlightening experience. I have learned that:

• "Come out and play (Keep 'em separated)" is about gang warfare.
• "Pretend that we're dead" is about not letting capitalist pigs walk all over you (or something).
• some songs are just gibberish.
• "Aqualung" is about a dirty old man.
• there is a reason why those old Time/Life commercials only played certain, brief portions of the songs in their collections. (See: Aqualung which only had the line "Sitting on a park bench")

But none of those things blew my mind. No, it was my husband disabusing me of the notion that 2 of the songs were sung by women. First, it was "Lazy Eye" by the Silversun Pickups. "That is not a man!" I said repeatedly. I absolutely flat out refused to believe him, mystical turtle that he is and possessor of far more music knowledge than I will ever have. "Look them up," he says. So, I did an image search and pronounced indignantly, "See! There's a girl! She must sing this. She must." Well, not quite:

So, I clearly lost on that one, although when I watch him sing, it still seems wrong with a capital R.

Next came that old classic "Go Your Own Way" by Fleetwood Mac. This song was made for me in this game.* Guaranteed 100% every time. Or at least 99%. Either way, I was sure it must be Stevie Nicks singing. Wrong-o:

Obviously, Lindsay Buckingham singing about Stevie Nicks. Whoops. What do I know? Only that I sing like a man, I guess. A very effeminate man.

* "My Own Worst Enemy" and "Eye of the Tiger" are also tailored to my abilities. Some of the others, not so much.

It's coming along...

While my frighteningly computer-savvy 3 year old was doing the PBS Kids thing this afternoon, I managed to get two more strips of the small squares and rectangles done for the picnic quilt.

One of the new strips is not pictured because I decided I needed to squeeze in time for one more after photographing and before I put the kibosh on Dorian's screen time. This is not a final representation of the order of the strips. That will come later when they are all done. But what you see there is about 28"x48" which I think is about half the size I want the squares to be. Making more strips and adding on a border or three should make it big enough for picnicking.

Although I probably would never pick out any of these fabrics in a store, I have fallen in love with them. You may recall that I got a one quart ziploc bag full of them at the thrift store for one dollar. They were all pretty random scraps, but some of them revealed that they were supposed to be stuffed bears and bunnies... probably for Easter. There is something so sweet and simple about the ginghams and polka dots and I just can't wait to get peanut butter and jelly stains all over them. The picture above looks pretty dull, I know, but I think only a grassy field will do it justice. We don't have any of those around right now, though.

And for the little bit of knitting I have managed since RockBand came in the house:

Miss Lydia's hat, modelled by Sebastian. It's the same old pixie hat pattern that I think I could do in my sleep, only fancied up with some flowers and leaves. I got to use up some of my many scraps of Lamb's Pride, so that was good. And I also got to try out some of the little embellishments in an awesome book my mom gave me, so that was also good.

The sickness is in full effect

I have managed to avoid "the sickness" for the last few months, mostly due to the absence of my prime enablers, Dustin and Cortney, and to the fact that I get embarrassed when my kids start tearing apart Dustin's mom's house while I'm playing a video game.

But now the source of the virus itself is in my home. Oh, yes. RockBand2 arrived at our house Friday evening and has infected both of the "responsible" adults.

The good news: It does not appear to wake up/keep up the children.

The bad news: Belting out "Livin' on a Prayer" is doing nothing to help my sore throat from my real sickness.

No better Valentine's Day

Well, it would have been better if I hadn't been woken up by the children screaming at each other. But so far:

• We had heart shaped cherry pancakes for breakfast. (I had to make them from scratch, but still.)
• There were fabulous homemade valentines from my 3 guys, including a pop-up one and a flip-o-rama one.
• There was a box of See's chocolates, which are the absolute best chocolates in the whole wide world.
• I was serenaded by my guys who sang 3 of my favorite songs.
• Dorian named his bumblebee "Honeyhive" at Sebastian's suggestion.
• Sebastian said he "couldn't imagine anything better" than the mittens I knit for him. (and he's got quite an imagination, that kid.)
• And Jeremy liked his gift which I painted for him. (It's a tropical stinkbug. Tres romantique, non?)

• Add to that the gift that keeps on giving, RockBand 2, and it has been an awesome day.

Now for some grocery shopping before Quinn comes to babysit so Jeremy and I can gorge ourselves on Indian food.

Less nimble, smaller brain

We got an awesome package in the mail yesterday from my brother who sent both DDR: Hottest Party 2 and Big Brain Academy. (Thanks, Jack!) Unfortunately, I had to wait until after exercise class to try out the DDR, which was a gigantic mistake.

After Lois' butt-kicking class in which I had to lift 5 lb weights over my head 90 times in a row* among other things, I was more than a smidge tired and suffering from the jelly legs. You are probably wondering why I would even get on a dance pad at that point, and you would be totally right to wonder. I, too, am wondering the same thing. Especially since the new version is loaded with exciting new tricks designed to confuse even the nimblest among us. And apparently my mad skillz on the original Hottest Party are more attributable to repetition and memorization than to actual foot-eye coordination. I'm psyched about the new songs and looking forward to trying again...

...But today was spent enrolling in the Big Brain Academy where I discovered that, although my blog may be "genius" level, I am decidedly not. When tested, I received a C+. The horror! Sebastian got a C--, and Dorian got a D (for Dorian!). I am only slightly reassured by the fact that Jeremy got a C++, but I still kicked his ass repeatedly in the Brain Quiz and Mind Sprint categories.

*I totally only did 60, but it was still too much.

When it's the dead of winter, I'll wish for this much activity...

Just a little taste of today:

8am-9am: Make healthy snack at school. Requires cutting the largest carrots I've ever seen into about 3lbs of carrot sticks and cutting apples in half.

9-11:30: Playdate for Dorian/awesome gossip session for me. I must remind myself that having a friend who is a cop's wife is a very good thing. I'm sure Martha Stewart would agree.

11:30-3:30: Come home to make lunch and share aforementioned gossip with my two best gossip recipients. Catch up on email, blog, get some little things done.

3:30-4: Stand on street corner freezing butt off waiting for school bus.

4-4:30: Feed school child copious amounts of snacks before...

4:40: Dropping him off at appointment and returning home to...

4:50-5:30: Make healthy dinner instead of the junk food I seem to be constantly craving these days.

5:35-6:45: Eat dinner, help with homework, etc.

6:45-8: Go to PTA meeting

8pm-?: Escape PTA after-chat to rush over to good old Walker Farm for some RockBand 2.

And you ask yourself why I'm the Hott Mama...

46 hours, 34 minutes later...

I finally beat The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess last night! Thank goodness that's done!

I have to say this one is only slightly higher than the second Zelda game in my ranking. If you ever played The Adventures of Link you know how bad that game was. I beat the first Zelda probably 6 or 7 times, I loved it so much. The second was a stinker. Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask were great and I spent years anticipating this most recent installment. It tore me up inside that we couldn't get a Wii sooner so I could play this game.

I guess it was a case of "Be careful what you wish for" because I hated Twilight Princess with a passion for the entire first half. Jeremy continually admonished me to just stop playing. "Why are you doing this to yourself?" he would ask. Why? Why?! Because I waited so long for this game, that's why. And I wanted it to be so much better than it was.

The entire first half was just fighting. That is not what I buy Zelda games for. I buy them for the awesome logic puzzle aspect. In Princess, you are not allowed to wander around, there are no little tasks to achieve, you just fight, fight, fight for about 16 hours. That is too long.

Once that horrible beginning is completed, the game returns to the traditional Zelda model, but by then I was too mad to appreciate much. There were some challenging new puzzles and some cool new gadgets, like the spinner and the double grappling hooks, but overall I was underwhelmed.

The controls were unwieldy. For example, 90% of the time, if you wanted to back out of a screen, you would push B. However, the other 10% of the time, if you pushed B you would end up equipping or using a piece of equipment you didn't intend to use. There was a lot of that kind of irritation. And this is kind of a general Wii complaint that applies to this game: there is not enough enjoyable use of the motion technology the Wii could deliver.

The graphics were okay, but much better for the evil characters than the good ones. That Link looked like an empty-headed dope. And his girlfriend was worse. I was not a fan of the plastic hair look.

I'm not sorry I played it, but boy am I glad it's over! At least it didn't take me the extra 8 hours Jeremy spent on it. On to Super Paper Mario!