how's that orthodontia working out for ya?

Erin hasn't had braces yet. So far the work has been with upper and lower jaw expanders and headgear to shrink the overbite.

Before (on crazy hair day at school last fall):



A few weeks ago. And not that you can see in either photo but her four bottom adult teeth which were crowded, overlapping, and crooked are now totally straight. It's been seven months since she started.

metal mouth

Erin entered the inevitable world of orthodontics a couple of months ago. Her dentist warned me several years ago to "start saving your money", as if I couldn't see the obvious.

When she was a baby I really, really hoped that she had been fortunate enough to inherit John's side of the family's genes for good jaw alignment and an uncrowded, teeth-proportional-to-the-size-of-head, orthodontic-free dental future. I know, I dream big. She inherited my genes instead.

When we went for an orthodontic consult a few months ago, the doctor sat me down and spelled out for me the plan for the first stage of work, which will take 2 years. Erin got upper and lower expanders a few weeks later and now about 6 weeks following that, it was time for headgear as well.

Boy, this brings back memories. Mercifully, I couldn't find any pictures of myself wearing this thing, but I had it from age 10 - 15 and they haven't changed a bit since then. Picture Erin with longer, blonder, straighter hair, and that was me.

I know it's not such a big deal. She's in good company in sporting this new hardware:


So far she doesn't mind wearing it, but it's only been a day. It's still rather novel. Unlike me, she doesn't have to wear it to school. She just has to wear it as much as possible outside of school. And there are benefits to starting younger. Whereas I had mine for years, she'll be able to correct the same problem in less than a year, potentially. Just in time for Allison to get one.

empathy

Empathy, in the form of a two-sided card, by Allison:

"I'm sorry that I hurt your feelings. I'm never going to do that again."

un-tanned

Some things I just don't get. There are complicated things that I don't get, which I don't mind so much that I don't get, because I figure that I could get those things if I ever took the time to learn them. Then there are things that everyone else seems to get that I don't get, and tanning is one of those things. More specifically, I don't get why people like going tanning and why people think tanning looks good.

When I returned to work the day after we returned home from Hawaii, several people at work made remarks about my lack of post-Hawaii expected tan, and they all seemed kinda disappointed. While we were in Hawaii some family members were sitting around discussing our laughable whiteness. It was pretty clear that we were, collectively, the palest people there and among the pale I was apparently the palest.

The thing is, I don't mind. I'm always caught somewhat off guard when someone notes how un-tanned I am. It's kind of like being told your zipper is down, only there is no way to pull it back up again and you don't particularly care that it's down in the first place. Some people tell me this like maybe I wasn't aware that I'm pale and I should do what I can to rectify the situation immediately.

I think having naturally darker skin looks fine but pale skin looks fine too. And when you are obviously genetically fair-skinned, with blonde or red hair hair and freckles, I think pale skin looks perfectly normal. Skin that is artificially darkened usually doesn't look good. When I think of tan, I think of this:


And this:

And also this:


Not so much looking "leathery" as much as looking like a basted roast turkey that is ready for carving. Sexy! I don't see the value in that.

People say "a healthy tan" which is a complete oxymoron. I suppose they think there is healthy smoking too.

I consider it a great vacation success that John and I and the girls all managed to be outside all day every day having fun but with the use of SPF 50 swim shirts and waterproof lotion, and hats sometimes, none of us got any sunburn. Or tan.

the sweater

Story and photo compliments of John:

While Erin was busy with her team at softball practice, Kate and Allison were drawing with sidewalk chalk on the nearby pavement. Kate laid down a sweater she brought with her, traced it, picked it up, colored the tracing in, then she laid down on her chalk sweater it to see if it "fit" her.

how to eat a hamburger, by kate

In a simple two-step process in order to savor each of the major components individually and maximally.

Step 1:

Step 2:

princess-palooza, on the rocks

Some time ago I saw an ad on the side of a bus for a Disney Princesses on Ice show to be in town in the near future and that future arrived today. After seeing the ad I told John I wanted to get some tickets and his response was, "Am I being punished? Do I have to go?" I bought the tickets about a month ago with the plan that John could be spared the experience and so today was very much anticipated by most, but not all of our household. I was mostly ambivalent about it. I knew something like this had great potential for being extremely nauseating, but I knew the girls would love it.

They are obsessed with everything princess-ish and I'm not sure how this all came about. They never saw the movies Snow White or Cinderella until a couple of weeks ago. They saw The Little Mermaid sometime last year for the first time, and Aladdin much more recently. They met all of the princesses at Disneyworld last november but they were hooked on them far, far before their grand introduction. It's a mysterious, powerful, and hopefully temporary, attraction.

As we neared the arena (the inside almost unrecognizable as the place I've seen professional hockey countless times) we saw the mobs of little girls and their parents walking in. A sizable number of the girls were dressed up as princesses themselves. One large SUV near mine in the parking lot had their destination, this show, written on their back and side windows in white marker in the way other some people write "Just Married" on their cars. It was truly bizarre. All of it.

We were joined by Erin's friend, Mary, from her school and her mom. Each pair of kids got a giant tub of popcorn to share and they settled in for the show. I noticed that there were some little boys in the audience too. I'd say it was 90/10 girls to boys and the all the boys I observed had sisters. There were some fathers in the audience too, though in the minority they were in no obvious distress, which I reported to John when we got home. "Yeah, but how many of them WANTED to be there?" he wondered.


I was impressed by the scenery--it was pretty elaborate but it didn't photograph well at all. I do have a few decent shots of the skaters out of the many I took. Many things, though easily seen by us, just weren't lighted enough to show up well in a photo. And the night scene setting didn't work because of the action, so in that mode everything came out totally blurry. I'm not enough of a photographer to know what else I might have done.

Once things got started the girls were absolutely spellbound. The only parts of Erin or Allison that moved were their eyelids (occasionally), their jaws, and their hands going from popcorn buckets to mouth and back again in a constant, smooth, motion. Kate, speechless for a change and easily the most engrossed of all of them, even gave up on snacking once the show started. About 10 minutes into it she emerged briefly from her stupor in order to turn to me and say, "Oh, Mama--this is just amazing!"


Mickey and Minnie Mouse and Tinkerbell and Goofy were all there and came out in between skits to talk about the previous story and talk up the next one.

In short we heard songs and bits of the stories from each of the movies that feature one of the princesses. The costumes were great, the skating was fantastic, the special effects were much better than expected. At one point a gigantic dragon emerged onto the ice to go after some prince or another (I really don't know the stories very well) and then as he retreated he breathed fire which ignited a large area of ice for a minute or so. It was pretty cool. None of those pictures came out of course.




And perhaps the most impressive aspect of the day--Erin and Mary polished off that entire tub of popcorn in about half an hour and with Kate paralyzed with fascination the entire time, Allison finished her bucket almost entirely by herself.

worries

So, I think I dress my kids fine enough. I have no desire to have my girls look ridiculous. I would hope no one would but there is evidence to the contrary. I make them change before taking them in public when they've assembled their own way too interesting "ensembles". But, it's a fact that in 25 years they are going to look back at their childhood photos and be way less than thrilled at their hair styles and their clothes because everyone always reacts that way and, who knows, they may even react the same way that I do when I look at these, which is to say, they may nearly spit diet coke all over their monitors, and end up almost choking on it instead. It's just inevitable, isn't it?

The 1970s were universally unkind. I wonder if the oughts will be viewed the same way.

our bobbsey twins

Before:


After:

the cleanest lawn in town

Erin's school is on a modified year-around schedule so they have a very short summer break and instead take short breaks throughout the year. We are in the middle of a two week break now and during these break times her school offers optional sessions to attend. Basically, if the parents have to work there is someplace for the kids to be and they'll learn and have fun but what they do isn't part of the mandatory curriculum. So Erin is taking the session these two weeks and she spends her day doing reading and making crafts, playing outdoor sports and games, learning a bit of German, dance, and even classes on manners. I wish they would add in a class on leaving your little sisters alone and the evils of whining.


Today, a rarity. After we all got home from the YMCA this morning, Erin asked to go for a bike ride. She got the exact bike she spent about 4 months talking about before christmas last year, and she started riding it (with training wheels). Then she fell a couple of times and totally lost all enthusiasm for bikes. Every so often I ask her if she wants to go out and ride her bike but I haven't had her accept that offer in a long, long time. So John went with Erin while she biked around the block and according to him she did "ok". Didn't pedal all that well, didn't fall, tried to practice a bit about leaning uphill when you are going across a slope (driveway) so that you won't fall. Not very confident about any of it though.

Yesterday I worked all day and when I got home the twins were in the backyard. I went out there and trimmed a few bushes and came back in as Kate was dipping her bubble wand into a huge gallon of bubble solution that John opened for her. As I attended to something else in the house I heard John yelling something and Kate saying she "needs new clothes".

It turns out Kate dumped out the whole gallon of soap on the lawn and somehow managed to get mostly soaked in it herself with main concentrations in her hair and her pants while her shirt and shoes were relatively dry. Go figure that one out. I just threw both Kate and Allison in the bath. Here is our green lawn which I photographed for posterity since it will be an entirely different color very soon, I'm sure. And a post-bath photo of the happy lawn-killing culprit and her crazy-faced twin.

together again

I was carpool mom today so I had to pick up Erin and two friends and take the friends to their after-school care, and then we had just enough time to go to a nearby park to meet up with Quinton and his mom for a few minutes before Q had to leave for a swimming lesson. Erin was excited to see him. Since starting school the two haven't spent much time together and she's missed him.

i may or may not say one or two of these

if you're looking for culture, you've come to the right place

A bit of really bad microbiology humor because streptococci are still making their way around our house. First, it was Erin. Then just as she was about done her treatment course and a full week had passed, Kate got sick. Now Kate is just about done with her treatment and has been very much improved for a few days, and beginning last night it got Allison too.

important developments!

Two major breakthroughs to share.

First, I found a Dairy Queen. I'm not kidding. I haven't been to one in years because they aren't around here. Other states, sure, one on every corner, but we are distinctly Dairy Queen deprived and I don't mind admitting that I've been rather bitter about that. Turns out, there is one about 15 minutes from home which I happened upon the other day. Who knew? Of course we stopped, and I think the girls would have given it two chocolate-covered thumbs up each, if they had stopped eating long enough.

Second, the turbo bubble blower actually works! John bought this gadget/toy at Toys R Us a few weeks ago--you are supposed to be able to fill it with solution and turn it on and have it create a virtual bubble storm. The question of why we need something to create a huge bubble storm in the first place and why we should be disappointed in continuing to be deprived of one got entirely lost because of the following events: it conked out after about 5 seconds. Hmmmmm. Try other, different, sets of new batteries, same thing. So John returned it and got another one but it didn't work any better, or longer. He didn't know what the problem was and some time later when I asked him if he'd taken this latest model back he said he is keeping it and considered it a "personal challenge".

First he tried hooking up an AC adapter instead of using batteries for power. Still no worky. Then he decided to "bypass the thermal fuse" inside, which required using a soldering iron on some of the wiring, and that's about all I know about that. Yes, I took four physics courses in college and I did quite well in all of them. Yes, we studied circuits at some point. Yes, I still know jack squat about circuits.

And it just goes to show that even when you have a zillion bubbles per minute spilling out of a machine right next to you, blowing them one at a time with a cheapy little wand is still pretty cool.

bye-bye, blow kings

the great american apple caper

It went down on the evening of thursday, May 17, sometime between 5:02 and 5:07pm, authorities claim. Two defendants were in the kitchen with mama as she was trying to separate a) mail she should attend to at some point, although further procrastination would probably be ok, from b) bills which needed immediate attention, from c) bills which didn't need immediate attention, from d) stuff which was even less worthy of the dead trees it was printed on than the junk in the first three groups. The defendants asked for a snack but since it was already nearly dinner time, they were refused and they went on their merry mischievous way.

A couple of minutes later mama walked down the hall to drop off some clean laundry in her room and noticed a veeeeeeeeeery unmistakable crunching sound coming from the adjacent defendants' room. Mama then found the following crime in progress:

As experienced as these same defendants have been in various illegal activities in and around this same residence, their discovery apparently caught them off guard and defendant K decided that honesty might mitigate the inevitable consequences. "We're eating apples!" she admitted gleefully.

Indeed.

After confiscating and cataloging the damage as evidence, she went back to the kitchen to inspect the location of the theft. The apples had been on an extra-high counter, completely out of reach for any of the shorter people in the home from the kitchen side of the counter, and only capable of being taken from the family room side of the counter with the help of a lift of some kind. They must have used the office chair, she thought, but the chair was in it's normal location, a good three feet from the counter in question.

The other puzzling fact was that mama had just been in the kitchen around the time they must have been taken. How did this crime duo pull this latest caper together? Had they used the chair but knew to return it to the desk? Had one defendant boosted the other up to reach the apples? Had they climbed the small bookshelf there? None of these skills have been witnessed before, so they all seemed equally unlikely. Defendant A had asked for a snack a minute or two later than defendant K. Was this a distraction technique?

Erin, known to assist the defendants in their mischief in the past, for all the world seemed as surprised as mama did about these particular events and was not observed anywhere near the kitchen prior to the theft. She is not being considered an accessory to this as of press time.

I'm afraid that full discovery of this operation won't be forthcoming. The defendants are known to be resistant to probing questions. They're expert at pretending they have a mere 2-year old's vocabulary. They distract interrogators with puppy dog eyes, silly faces, cute smiles, and hugs and kisses. Unfortunately some crime cases go cold, and I think this is one of them.

signs of spring

Admiring the blossoming plant life all around us, even taking a moment to be a tree-hugger, literally,


cooling off in the backyard sprinklers,


going for a leisurely drive with the top down,

love is in the air,

And you know that summer must be right around the corner when it's obvious to you and everyone that you're just too cool for school.

tree fishing

Today's theme song:




I'm not sure how it came about. We came home from the gym saturday morning (John and I joined the local Y--they provide free child care!) and I then ran back out to the dry cleaners. Ten minutes later I was back home and John and the girls were in the yard and he was putting the finishing touches on the last of 3 fishing poles, made from twigs and twine. Some corn cob pipes, a raft, and a traveling companion named Jim would have completed the picture nicely (not to mention, some water, and, ah, fish), but it was pretty humorous as it was.

The twins kept "casting" their lines at the various trees in an effort to "catch" them. Those poor trees didn't stand a chance. Occasionally lines became entangled and tempers got testy. A little while later John got some small animal toys in the house and tied one to everyone's poles, so they brought in a good catch for their efforts.


In quite the turnaround in overall refinement for the weekend, Grandma dug out some princess paraphernalia for the girls to dress up in at her house on sunday. Sparkling heels, tiaras, and scepters galore. Good grief.

Allison even walked by John and me and gave us the "beauty queen" wave. The first time I thought it was a fluke, but there was no doubting it by the third time.

I guess the little princesses don't know about, or don't trust, hired help when it comes to their horsies because they took them outside to graze in Grandma's hedge for a while before dinner. The horsies were mighty hungry, or the hedge needed trimming, or both.