So this morning, the kids were all greeting each other & myself with shouts of, "Happy Valentines Day!" and an enthusiasim level on par with Christmas. Don't know why, don't wanna ask. They're all making last minute preparations, Grant is making sure he's got the container of sugar cookies for his class party. Mairyn & Eliza are running around brushing their hair & looking for socks. I gave the final, "Ok kids, bus comes in 5 mintues!" call. We all gathered for a quick rundown of the day before I herded them out the door. Right after this, Eliza slips back to her room, returns & gets into the queue of exiting kids, looking a little like the cat that ate the canary. Her hair is all falling over her face & she's looking the other direction. I turn her toward me and right as the words 'what's going on' are in my throat, I notice them. Something dangling from her earlobes.
**Info update** The girls got their ears pierced about a year and a half ago. The rule in our house is no dangly earrings until 15. (kids + playing = something's gonna happen eventually) Hey, some girls don't get their ears pierced until 16! That's just our rule.
So I brush back the hair by her ears and spy her homemade dangly earrings. Materials used: unidentifiable thin wire (looks like from a bracelet or something; she assured me it was clean & hadn't been on the floor) and a rose shaped silly band.
I'm a mean mommy and told her no dangly earrings & she can wear the silly band like it was intended. And so continues the drama of tweeny angst.
So basically my Valentines Day dream has come true. The three ingredients have collided; except just not in the right order. There's Spencer, of course. Then Valentines Day, next week. And Paris, wee Paris. Put together in the right order and you would have a pretty dreamy date!
Let's review:
Spencer. Check! Valentines Day. On the radar, check! Paris. Double check.
Hmmm, something about this picture is not right. Oh yeah, it forgot me. Those three other ingredients are coinciding, but they forgot me. Spencer will be gone for an undetermined amount of time; but at least 3 weeks. He'd better bring me back something nice. No wait, scratch that, stupendous.
And while we're checking things out, take a look at this. Robert Duvall totally looks like my grandpa.
Okay, okay, I know it's Wednesday. But I've been uber busy. With Cairo going to you-know-where in a palm frond hand basket, it has affected every aspect of my life. Home & work. So we're taking off this weekend to decompress with our friends in Riyadh. Unfortunately, neither of us have an Audi.
I was read a friend's blog and it reminded me of a similar course of events with my kids.
It was November 2008 in Cairo, Egypt. I was back in the family room puttering around. Grant comes running in at full speed.
"Mommy!" he yells, "Can I have a banana, too?"
"Sweetie, we don't have any bananas," I said, "Who has a banana?"
"Jaqui has one!" he responded. I asked Rere (my fantabulous housekeeper in Cairo) if she had given a banana to Jacqui.
Rere said, "No ma'am, we don't have any. Remember to put 'bananas' on your grocery list."
So the three of us are all puzzling about bananas and Jacqui come toddling around the corner with a peeled banana in her had. (she is all of 17 months old at this time)
I ask Jacqui, "Where did you get that banana?"
She said, "NANA!" and took a big bite. Where did she get that banana? It didn't look spoiled. Did she have her own stash of bananas somewhere? What else was she holding hostage in her secret hidey place? We never did solve the mystery. Maybe the next tenants of our apartment found that banana prison, freeing little black lumps of banana bread candidates, along with who knows what else. All of our left socks?
I know, I know, it's Thursday today, not Tuesday. But I have been having some real video uploading issues and power outages lately, so there, that's my excuse.
I caught Jacqueline singing this medley of bedtime songs to her dolly. Interesting fusion of 'Twinkle Twinkle' and 'Lavenders Blue'.
Never heard of Lavenders Blue? Shame on you.
Lavenders blue, diddle diddle, lavenders green. When I am king, diddle diddle, you shall be queen. {'cept J. turned it around b/c she said she wouldn't be king, she's a girl, she'd be queen} Call up your men, diddle diddle, set them to work. Some to the plow, diddle diddle, some to the cart. Some to make hay, diddle diddle, some to cut corn. While you and I, diddle diddle, keep ourselves warm.
Well, that's the way it was in my nursery rhyme book. I actually did some reading on this little ditty and found it quite interesting. It's an old English nursery rhyme first printed around 1680. Now, from what I could find, this video below was the only offering of the tune & words familiar to me. This guy's a riot.
Music is integral to my life. I always have something playing. We have a couple little portable speakers that are stationed around the house so we can plug in an iPod anytime we want. I have my "favorite" speaker in the kitchen because I spend a lot of time there. Duh. I usually put a playlist on shuffle for the element of predictable surprise. Sometimes we get wild and I put it on 'all shuffle'. That mode brings out some wild mixes. Jumping from 'Nulla en Mundo Pax Sincera' * to Green Day's 'Welcome to Paradise' does tend to unhinge the atmosphere.
I *love* Pandora. It is a new luxury to me; Pandora didn't used to be accessible overseas. But the problem is, I'm not always within earshot of my computer**. I do have the Pandora iPhone app, but I listen to music all the time! I have a little radio and there are a few good stations here {surprisingly}; but if there's a boring string of songs & advertisements, I don't like to go fiddle with the station multiple times. So I have also created Mood Mixes. Here's one we've been listening to lately, during dinner & after-dinner clean-up.
Winding Down: Slower songs, some with more of a catchy beat than others, some mainstream & others off the beaten path, but mainly stuff that's not going to rile up the natives.
*p.s. about the album Shine. It is a movie soundtrack from Shine. Wonderful movie & equally wonderful soundtrack. And it is a steal on Amazon! $9.49 for 34 arrangements. Just my two cents, but sadly, those cents can't be used to purchase the album. ;)
**p.p.s there is a solution to the 'want to listen to music on my computer but i'm not always right by it' problem. The Bose SoundLink wireless music system. It wireless-ly relays you your digital media & internet radio from the computer to a speaker you put *anywhere* in your house. And it doesn't plug in, so you just move it wherever & whenever you feel like it w/o stopping the music. {bonus for me b/c i hate the 220v/110v plug problem.} But . . . . it's super expensive; almost $500. *sigh* Someday.
I'm a mean mommy and told her no dangly earrings & she can wear the silly band like it was intended. And so continues the drama of tweeny angst.
