Keep Ski Tips Up

Today was ski day. G-man and his buddy who were riding the lift together decided to find out what happens when you don't keep your ski tips up when it's time to unload the lift.

You face plant, slide under the lift and cross your fingers that you don't get bashed in the head by the chair.

The only thing better for an almost 9 year old boy is telling the story at lunch.

As long as you find it funny!

Happy Birthday Roo!

So today was Roo's birthday. He's been anxiously awaiting it's arrival. This is a day we've been marking as a big deal for almost a year now. It seems that when someone reaches age six, they are no longer a little guy but working up to something bigger. With this in mind, we created a goal for Roo.

Stop sucking his thumb.

This seemed like reasonable goal for a six year old to obtain but his thumb is his prized possession, along with "Stuffy" his pillowcase. They go together, Stuffy and Thumb. They've been together since he was about one. Over the years we have tried, with great failure to curb this habit and to his credit, he has, on a few occasions, attempted to stop on his own. For about a day. So last year I succumbed to a trick my friend used to toilet train her son. "Roo, what would it take to get you to stop? If you could have or do anything what would it be. Because Roo, if you stop by the time you are six, we will do it/get it for you!"

Over the past year he has vacillated between an electric guitar and a drum set (the house is already loud so whatever). He even picked the color. So last night he went to bed, informed us that tomorrow he would stop sucking his thumb and went to sleep, right. At 1:30 am Roo crawled into our bed (I should mention that he was born at 1:20 am) and said, "Okay, I'm six is it time to open presents?" Then immediately grabbed Stuffy and started to suck his thumb. The deal is off and I have a suspicion that we have some large orthodontist bills coming our way.

Happy Birthday Roo!

Sniffling, Sneezing, Coughing, Achy, Stuffy Head...

I'm sick. That's all there is to it. It started on Sunday when I woke up with a sore throat. Not good I thought being less than a week away from Marathon MADness. So I took it easy, spent the majority of the day on the couch and slept. Monday was luckily a holiday as I didn't feel much better and, again, spent the majority of the day in bed, sleeping. Tuesday came and feeling like my head was going to explode, made an appointment with my nurse practitioner hoping beyond hope that she could give me some kind of magical medication. Turns out to be a virus...just let it run it's course, damn it! It's course is on day 4 and I don't care if it's a virus or not, we decided to blast the SOB with a dose of antibiotics and steriod nasal spray, just in case a virus wants to surrender to an antibiotic. Hmff. That'll teach it! So in every attempt to actually run this marathon that I've trained for, taken work off from, and have looked forward to people who are crazy do oyster shots on the route, I stayed home from work today. I must say I'm feeling a bit better. I can breathe anyway and heck, I may even attempt to bike to Roo's school to pick him up. I may drop dead from lightheadedness and lack of oxygen but it may be a good 3 mile test to the 26.2 I have to face on Saturday. I'll keep you posted, the caravan leaves at 6 bells tomorrow morning!

Super Spring Recitals

Spring recitals came on a lovely, warm spring day this year. This was to our benefit on this particular day since it very well could have been snowing. I'd like you all to take notice of the boys attire. Now, this probably isn't the most appropriate recital attire but let me give you some background. First of all, I love our town. It is casual, very casual. I seldom wear make-up, heals, or anything that requires dry cleaning. Not that there's anything wrong with any of those things but they really aren't my gig and therefore I fit right into our low key community. As I looked through the boys dressers and closets for something acceptable for them to wear, I came to the conclusion that their wardrobes lack anything that would fall into the category of "dressy." Now, had I found the dressy items I was looking for, I can pretty much guarantee that tears would have been shed at the thought of wearing something so uncool and foreign especially since my boys go for the skater look. So I compiled outfits that were clean, with buttons, and matched. This sadly included shorts because they haven't had time to put dirt, holes or any other kind of stain on them yet. As I said, thank God for warm weather.

Roo proudly performed Go Tell Aunt Rhody in his red converse high tops since they don't leave his feet. He came a long way this year and is decreasing the amount of throwing he does of his violin (we've replaced two bridges so far). At the awards ceremony afterward, he won the award for "Most Improvement at Lessons."

G-man won the award for "Best Shifting" after mastering Gavotte by Lully. This also required a few "come to Jesus" meetings after he threatened to break his violin into small pieces, never come in for his lesson and crying fits because it is toooooo hard (not that I don't agree). But he got it, did awesome and now says, "Oh, shifting...that's easy." Practice makes perfect.

Mmmmm the rewards. The boys' violin instructor knows exactly how to motivate a child to sit through a 1 1/2 hour recital...sweets. I think any wonderful instructor knows to offer cookies, brownies and such after a recital, but oh, no...that's just not creative enough for this violin studio. Instead, take strawberries, grapes, melons, and pineapple and top with whipped cream. Now when I say whipped cream, I mean continue to spray it on the fruit until the child says "stop." Now what child would ever say, "stop" to whipped cream. These kids had MOUNTAINS of whipped cream atop a little bit of fruit. Perfect.