Tomorrow is the last day of first grade for The Girl. It seems totally surreal, especially after coming off of a summer flu. This summer we are trying to have more activities to help fulfill her extrovert needs. So she will be starting karate and doing Literacy Camp at the school library. She did literacy camp last year and it was a really wonderful way to keep reading new books over the summer. I am also really excited to see how karate goes. We’ve heard so many wonderful things about the program and I know the study will benefit her beyond the dojo. Meanwhile, I’m still trying to wrap my head around having a 2nd grader and a prek 5 in the fall. The days are long, but the years are short seems to ring truer and truer.

The activities also build in some time for The Boy to do something away from her as well. Plus he gets to check out books at the library and while he’s a bit young for karate, I’m sure that he will be keeping a close eye on things.

Right now we are in the midst of summer getting serious. After such a cool spring it is a shocker. At least it isn’t over 100 degrees F … Yet. Yay for the neighborhood pool and the possibility of the beach. It’s also the time when we are picking between lights and a/c. In an effort to help the energy consumption, we bought an he washer. It’s soooo quiet. It’s pretty fab.
It is amazing how much laundry 4 people can generate, but this washer handles it like a boss. Yep I am drinking coffee and waxing poetic over an appliance.

So on this last day before school is out, it’s time for errands and some thank you note writing. … And a snow cone from the snow ball place.

So trying to be a little more positive after a nice walk and while awaiting a big thunderstorm (please don’t cancel the The Girl’s field day Friday)…

We ventured out to our CSA farm’s annual potluck last Saturday and saw fireflies. It’s easy to forget that the kids only have had firefly experiences out there. So it is super exciting. It’s always hard to leave, being out there always feels right. The farmers also have some huge oak trees on their homestead which means the kids are up in them. It’s pretty freaking awesome and I try not to totally panic when one of them leaps from a branch to the ground, you know just like I used to.

Tomorrow is bubble tea and knitting with a friend. I’m going to be trying very hard not to spoiler Iron Man 3. Yay for getting to go see it alone at Alamo Drafthouse. Food and drinks and a movie … Oh and you know that very strict no phone/text/talking thing they have. Made it so far with not spoilering it to him and this whole thing is his fault. He politely slipped an iPod with video playing Iron Man under my arm long ago when I was being held down by a wee one. Hook line Avengers sinker.

So right now I’m thinking it is time to reread another chapter in The Hunger Games and probably use my face as a bookmark from where it falls in my face when the sleep comes.

Right so after a week of going crrraaaazzzyyyyu from The Girl’s incessant questioning that only a kid that is incredibly high verbally can do…The Boy hits a marvelous independence and growth/cognitive spurt.

It’s a whole lot crazy. The mix of ur doin it wrong MOM and MOM help me and why why why how what why is mind boggling. He’s absolutely the sleeps both restlessly and long when he’s in a spurt. My wake up call came this morning at 3. I’m fuzzy. The lack of sleep doesn’t help the emotional side either. Bah

Two weeks until school is out and the real fun begins. It’s both good and bad. I’m looking forward to swimming with the kids and going to the beach. Also no being chained to the school bus for a whole. Kick ass.

I was really hoping to be on board already with the exercise portion of Operation Take Care of Me… But between The Husband’s seemingly longer and longer days at work and the crazy times with the kids. Not happening. The Husband goes on his runs but somehow not me. I want to rage, flail, and scream. I don’t want to discourage him at all. I just want to go too. I know that if I exercised more, my mental health and my physical health would be better. But how do you when it seems like you can’t get there? Ever.

I wonder how people do it with little to no outside childcare. Being run down and exhausted all the time … No bueno.

Ok.
Not gonna lie. I totally enjoyed reading The Hunger Games trilogy.

The first time I read them, I reacted poorly to the last book, Mockingjay. It’s not that it was bad just the whole thing I for whatever reason missed large chunks of and didn’t quite process. Totally got it the second time and more on the third. I suspect I was reading too fast as I am wont to do but missed things due to distraction. Something like that.

Of course now I have all these questions. Most of them are the kind that make people look at you funny and roll their eyes. The kind of questions that give me that very real moment because I see the seeds of that same questioning in The Girl. The irony that just this weekend she was driving me to drinking whakadoo with the constant stream of questions.

We are both the Hermione Granger of our peers and a whole lot of Katniss Everdeen too. I hope she never loses that.

We went to the beach for the latter half of Spring Break and had a really fun time. The water was still really cold, but The Girl wasted no time wading out after getting over the initial shock of the water.

We came back to a full week of school including a field trip to the rodeo, 3 after school/evening meetings for me, and more crazyness than normal. The week after spring break was more exhausting than the week of! That rolled right on into the Easter holiday and finally today.

We went to the final weekend of the Sherwood Forest Faire this weekend. It is very different going to the renaissance festival with kids compared to as a couple. We used to go to Texas Renaissance Festival in full costume and spend the day roaming. We considered getting married there too (22/23 year old me, you should have and you should have eloped too). Anyway, after two kids and a “few” years our old costumes don’t fit and time to make one is … Non existent it seems.
My MIL made the kids costumes: female royalty and a knight. The Boy’s was a little small, so next time it won’t fit. The Girl LOVED the attention she got from the cast and it is lots of fun in costume. I could see her developing a character to go with a very elaborate costume as she gets older. She wasn’t sure how to interact but I know that will change in time. The Boy on the other hand was a little overwhelmed by the attention a costume brings. I have a feeling in a few years it will be different or he’ll have his Scorpio powers down pat and there will be a cadre of followers even if he’s quiet.

They had a good time, but the party ended quickly when they got really hot. Score for Me by bringing a change of clothes in a backpack. The kids didn’t want to do much after that. The grownups were sad bc we wanted to look at a few shops and catch a show or two. So I quickly drank my Bee Sting (mead+hard cider) on the way to the Fairy Tea Party. The tea party ended up being in full sun. Despite a moments perk up for fairy call lessons and have to choose to sit with the Seelie or Unseelie fairies (Unseelie FTW bc they were allowed to growl), it just got really hard to hold it together.
That was all she wrote.

So now I am thinking about a cool coin necklace I saw that could be made with a triquetra on one side and my star sign on the other stamped in bronze. I wonder how it would work with a costume someday. Part of my problem is deciding on class and also really wanting a cosplay costume too. Royal class doesn’t work for me and I realllllllly am a blue jeans kind of girl. The closest in a skirt is something inspired by Eowyn in LotR or Sif from Thor. More upper warrior class? Also I get a weapon or, at the very least, a cool staff. Something to think about anyway….

RUN AWAY

Well it’s Spring Break here and of course the SXSW insanity which is a whole bag of cats.

It’s cool because it make an epic amount of money for the area.  Some of the cool places to eat have expanded hours, you can sit for hours and people watch (well if you don’t have someone going MOOOOMMMMMM we’re bored, why are they dressed like that, OMG they are SMOKING! every 5 seconds), and there are some really cool panels/films/bands to see. This year was kind of crazy because I’m watching all these celebrities roll into town via twitter announcements that I would love to meet/be in the same area as. Just say hi, thanks for the good times, maayyyyybe get quick pic if the time is right, stuff like that.

I love hearing how my fav coffee roaster is delivering coffee to (insert name) while I am sitting in their yard watching people pop up over the edge of the half pipe at the bar, turned Thrasher venue, down the street. The kids always love that part. It is also amusing to watch people get cray over parking, lines, and the ever weirdness that is just Austin.

But it’s also sucky because traffic oh yeah… it is full of fail.

Needless to say… I am thinking sandy thoughts may be in our near future. It’s hard since everything the kids want to do is right in SXSW central… and kind of funny … and counting the days until they are asking for a full pass so they can rock out for a whole week.

I’ve been trying to play music for my oldest when she gets home from school. Mostly just anything to make her move after being on the bus like a little sardine. Her little brother is not as amused because he really just wants to listen to Fireman music (Fireman Sam).

We started out with soundtrack music because it’s more modern classical. It is such a great illustration of dynamics and ability to convey emotion through music. Ironically, it’s almost all from movies she’s heard of but never seen … you know because we are mean, mean parents who don’t let the kids watch violent movies yet.  Also because my extremely verbal, imaginative, and sensitive kids still are learning the difference between reality and what they seen in film.  Wheeee. Anyway, so they know the music from all my fav movies and tv shows too. Just in case you didn’t know … the sci fi/fantasy geek runs deep here.

More recently, it’s been veering to more recent things and I’ve been mixing in my favorites. You know, classics like Queen, The Beatles, stuff like that.  So yesterday is writing homework day and it’s almost always a battle of epic proportions. We’ve played the pop stuff my oldest likes (thank you PE class!) and she asks to listen to “We Will Rock You.” (silent momma scream of YESSSSS!) After she gets the stomp, stomp, clap (this is very important when you are 6) … she actually listens to the lyrics.

“BLOOD????!!!!! Why do they have blood on their FACE? ew WHY?”  (that’s a really good question. What do you think happened?)

“ok so in “Call Me Maybe,” why does she miss them so bad?” (tries to explain the before she met them something was missing from their life idea… FAIL)

then just for silliness I played “Time Warp” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show …. listens a little “What is this? Really. (serious face)” (ummm…er… it’s from a musical and yeah it’s kind of funky)

By then I switched to Big Band, mostly just for the mental break, because the questions were rolling in faster than I could distill them down to 6 year old levels.  Really… how do you explain what “sexy” is (a la sexy lady from “Gangham Style”)? But, it’s been interesting to see how that question has changed since last year when her classmates were singing “I’m Sexy and I Know It.” Last year, saying it implies a maturity that you/friends just don’t have yet and it’s probably better to not sing that right now. Now it’s very much what is that. Good times.

This morning, I was checking twitter and got the great idea to play her “Seven Seas of Rhye” by Queen from Tom Hiddleston. It had been a long time since I’d really listened to it, but I remember blasting it out the windows of my Bronco II in high school (on a cassette tape mind you). Listening to the lyrics again is amazing. Seriously woah. Seriously Loki (at least the Thor iteration). Seriously …. I used to sing this as loud as possible in the car when I was about 17. Giggle… yeah. No wonder people gave me a wide berth.