Crafting attempt

 I bought this kit at Goodwill last month.  Only $3, which is a big discount from the new price (for a change - this Goodwill tends to price optimistically).  

 

I'm going to do it in purple floss, since I'm doing it for someone who absolutely loves purple.  It only uses three stitches, I think - backstitch, stem, and satin.   Well, and French knots too.  I haven't embroidered in decades, so we'll see how it goes.  

Fall is here.

The Holiday Season is Upon Us.

Ren Fest 2014

This past weekend was the day of our annual trip to the Kansas City Renaissance Festival, which doubles as our annual vacation most years (our one day out-of-state for the year).  Beautiful weather, and a nice person gave us a coupon for a free child admission while we were standing in line. 

Sadly, no cinnamon crunchy almond vendor  this year. :(  I'll just have to figure out how to make my own. 

Also, the Boy has become a shopper.  Came home with a hat, a fan, and a wand. 

He also met a mermaid and got to be a dwarf in a fairy tale performance. 

And he spent 5 hours asking how much longer we were going to be there, then 3 hours asking how much longer until we were home.  Patience is not his strong suit. 

Michelangelo's cupcakes

You know, you get lucky twice with homemade costumes, and suddenly the 6-year-old thinks you can do the Sistine Chapel on top of a cupcake (or 20 cupcakes). 

Yep, it's birthday time again.  And a real genius would sell half-boxes of cake mix to make a dozen cupcakes.  I need 12 today and 18 next week - so, 2 batches of cake mix, 48 cupcakes, and about 18 extras that will be hanging around waiting to be eaten.  I plan to try freezing some, because we're knee deep in cake, with 3 birthday parties (family, school, after-school program).  El B's grandma made his cake for the family birthday dinner, and she still makes family-size cakes with 3 boxes of mix.  With three other desserts in the mix, we came home with about 2 cakes-worth of cake. 

This year, it's Disney themed (so much for the clearanced Angry Birds stuff I bought).  He thinks I can do Mickey and Minnie faces on each cake.  One idea he floated was to cut the faces out of soda bread (?why? - after he determined that there's no actual soda in it), black icing for ears, etc.  Or purple icing, with white icing for the face, black for the ears, and something about banana slices for the mouth.  Oy. 

What he's getting is white icing with - hopefully - a Mickey outline in black or purple, and a picture of Mickey, Minnie, Allie or Swampy printed out and stuck to a toothpick.  I'm not Michelangelo, and there's only so much room on a cupcake top.

So, the Freak Out Followup

Follow up to the optical freak out. Bob has - according to the second optometrist - Small-angle esotropia, intermittent at near but constant at a distance, causing amblyopia with crowding phenomenon. None of which comes up with a lot on Google, unfortunately. Essentially, his left eye is periodically a bit off-track, thus the "intermittent" which means that surgery won't fix it. He had his 6-week follow-up, and there was some improvement, so we're doing more eye exercises and will go back for another appointment at some point. Scarily, the doctor implied tht this could be a fairly long-term thing. God, I hope not. Adding 2 hours of eye exercises on top of the after-school French program and regular homework, plus time for playing and dinner, is trying to cram a lot into one day. Doesn't help that he's bored with most everything we've done, and is a master at stalling and misdirection. Bribing will only go so far, and threats don't do any good.

Freak out Follow Up

So, last time on the amazingly neglected blog, I was dealing with the Dali/Coin conundrum, and vision issues.

The Dali issue was not so traumatic as I expected.  That day turned out to be bicycle day at Summer Camp, and an extra half hour racing his friends around the parking lot meant that Bob didn't give a fig about missing Dali or the coins (whichever ended up being the actual program).

The eye issue is an ongoing thing.  Bob had a two-hour checkup with an optometrist who specializes in pediatric patients - which meant having his eyes dilated, and whatever the doctor used was heavy-duty stuff, because he was still dilated a week and a half later.  And that led to my mother worrying that his eyes were still dilated.  And yes, we called the doctor, who said "drop by" the office (which is a 40 minute drive, so "dropping by" isn't that convenient).  We dropped, occupied the waiting room chairs for 20 minutes, and an assistant took a 20-second look to tell us that it's fine and can take up to 10 days to go back to normal.  And why couldn't they mention the 10-day timeframe the first time around???  Who knows.

Long story short: Bob has, as far as the optometrist can tell, micro-strabisimus in his left eye, meaning the focus is a bit off or out of sync with the other eye.  She prescribed 2 hours of eye exercises a day - things like stringing beads, putting toothpicks into a straw, tracing things, etc.  That was easy to do before school started, but this week has been a mess.  Trying to fit this into the evening, along with dinner, homework, bedtime routines, and play time, is a serious headache.  I hope it gets better as we get the routine fine-tuned.  We go back for a follow-up in 5 weeks, and if this hasn't worked, I don't know what the next step is.  Google results mentioned surgery, but that was for cases caught a bit younger and suddenly - since Bob's vision last year was 20/20, I'm not sure how something sort of sudden compares to a case that may not have been so sudden.

Another reason to freak out

Yeah, the blog's been ignored this summer.  Serious lack of computer time, since the computer is upstairs and a certain kid doesn't like to be downstairs alone.  And the Kindle Fire, while internet-capable, does not work well with Blogspot.

So.  Today is NOT my day.

Small issue:  we're signed up tomorrow for a program at the campus art & archaeology museum.  Which, thanks to lousy luck, starts at the same time that summer camp is ending, and it's a 20-minute drive/walk from one to the other, but we can leave camp early in a pinch.  But the issue: the schedule I picked up at the museum this spring says the program is supposed to be about coins, while the schedule online says the subject of the day is Dali.  Bob (not his real name) is interested in the antique coins, but not so much with the Dali.  So, I call to double-check, and am told that it's Dali.  Crap.  So, I get to tell Bob that we're not really going to the museum tomorrow, and he'll probably be grumpy about me "ruining" his fun.  Ah well.  We're still doing summer camp, plus pajama party at the library in the morning, so it's not like he's at home staring at the ceiling.

Big issue (Big Big issue.  Freak-me-out issue referred to above):  Eyesight.  In short, mine sucks royally, and the one thing I was really really wanting was for Bob to not inherit the crap eyesight.  We've been going along fine until now.  He had his first optometrist visit last fall, 20/20 in both eyes, everything's fine.  Passed the amblyopia screening at school with no problems.  Then, Monday, he had his annual visit to the pediatrician, and didn't do so well in their quick-n-dirty vision screening.  Right eye fine, left eye "blurry." 

So we say "Uh oh" and called our optometrist after we got home.  He spent an hour with her this morning - got his pupils dilated, nifty little digital pic of his retinas, the whole shebang.  Right eye, still good.  (Okay, a touch of astigmatism in one eye, but still.)  Left eye, not so much.  Still blurry, but oddly, the optometrist can't see anything that would make it all blurry.  So we're getting sent for a second opinion.  Joy.

I will NOT Google this.  My Reader's Digest/Discovery/anatomy class medical education is enough to worry me as it is.  If the eye itself looks fine, but the brain is getting fuzzy pictures, that makes my medical non-education think that it's maybe something else, like problems with the optic nerve or whichever part of the brain is in charge of visual processing.  And neither of those can probably be fixed with glasses. 

The really odd part is that he hasn't mentioned anything, and he's a bright enough kid that surely he would have said something about reading being hard.  Because he's been reading like a fiend all summer - Magic School Bus, Magic Tree House, he's discovered all my Calvin & Hobbes and Foxtrot books, plus anything he can find about the Titanic, or other shipwrecks, or Dr Ballard.  Of course, he's also a bit of a hypochondriac at times, he comes home from Grandma's house with a limp to match hers, and a cough to go with Grandpa's.  But this seems too consistent.  

Can I freak out now?

Tomorrow is El B's last day of kindergarten.  He's been sad for days, and I think I may have to schedule a little freak-out time for me.  He's loved this school (it's a preschool mostly, French-immersion, and this was their first year with a kindergarten class), he's learned insane amounts of French and loves his teacher.  This fall he'll be changing schools and starting all-day school, and he doesn't do transitions well.  (Neither do I, apparently.) 

At least he'll have summer camp with his current teacher, plus weekly get-togethers with some of the kids in his class.  And  hopefully a couple of his favorite classmates will be going to the same school we're sending him to. 


But for right now, I may need to freak just a bit.  I just have to find somewhere to send him while I have a little panic, because he's also a worrier.  Oy. 

I'm so not ready for him to be six, or in all-day school, or first grade.  The world really needs a pause button.

Halloween season

Or, making this year's costume.

El Burrito has decided, after lots of discussion, to be Word Girl this year (yes, a "girl" - although she's also an alien. This led to discussion at the grandparents' house. He's already been a monster (Cookie) and an elephant(Horton), why shouldn't he be a girl/alien/superhero??). Next year he wants to be Super Why.

Official Word Girl costumes are about $35 and only available online, and if they're anything like the official Horton costume we saw, they're cheaply made. So it's DIY again. Luckily, I bought a sewing machine for a whopping $6 at a yard sale this summer. Even more luckily, it actually appears to work. :) And Jo-Ann's was having a sale on cotton fabric last weekend, so cape supplies came to under $5 (a bit more if you count the machine needles).

I went to Target today looking for the rest of the costume. Red seems to be "in" for kids this year, so I found a plain red shirt and leggings at Target, plus gloves and tights/legwarmers that will turn into boot covers. Much happiness on the way home.

Now I just have to actually make the cape, figure out how to do a hood, and muddle together a felt costume so our stuffed monkey can be Captain Huggy Face, Word Girl's trusty sidekick. DH and I have been told that we're going to be Mr. Botsford (Word Girl's adoptive father - her alter ego is Becky Botsford) and Becky's best friend Violet. I wanted to be Granny May and DH could be The Butcher, but we were told that we could only dress as Good Guys, not Villains. :)

I suck at summer

Yes, it's been a while. The PC got a virus and I was offline for a while. Still don't have things totally cleared up, which sucks.

Also, I suck at summer planning. Just realized El B has 2.5 weeks of summer vacation left, part of which is already blocked off for a sleepover at Grandma's, and we haven't really done anything this summer. We've left the county twice, for pete's sake, both times for trips to my parents'. (Not what you'd call a "vacation" at all.)

That list of fun local stuff to do? Didn't do any of it. I planned to go on campus to the college's art & archaeology museum, but I realized tonight that classes start next week and parking will be a crazy mess.

The box of craft kits and list of fun little projects? Totally forgotten. We did one, and it's still unfinished. Our main accomplishment has been 3 sets of caterpillars from his Live Butterfly Garden. Wow. Oh, and he saw two movies - Cars 2 and the new Winnie the Pooh movie.

He spent most of his summer watching TV, and it makes me feel like s**t because it's my fault.

We didn't go to the farmers' market, the park, the museum, the zoo (okay, 3 hour drive, but still), nothing. I didn't even manage to call his best pal from preschool for a playdate yet.


I suck.

Gardening

Update: Something uprooted one of the broccoli last night, but didn't eat it. None of the outdoor seeds are up yet. The dahlia inside have sprouted, and today I bought a small 4-pack of zinnia to brighten things up until the zinnia seed grows. Also got a small pot of coreopsis, not sure where to put it. Need to start the seeds for the cardinal climber and scarlet runner beans. I'd like to have those blooming by the birthday party in May, so I need to get going. Ditto for the bell peppers.

Semi-garden related: My folks came to town today and brought the pickup truck, so we went to Menards tonight to buy a sandbox that was on sale in their ad this week. Got there to find that it's pretty flimsy, and ended up buying lumber and plywood to make a sandbox. The home-grown version will be cheaper, twice the size, and last longer. Stopped at Toys R Us on the way home and bought a swingset, too. We may not get El Burrito back in the house after we get everything set up. He's a big, big fan of swings.

I don't think I'm Wendy anymore

So, in case I forgot to mention it here, since about last April, El Burrito has been adamant that his name is Bob the Builder, and my name is Wendy. He's introduced me to people as "Wendy, my life" (we think he means "wife" but can't be sure, the concept of marriage is still something we're working on). Strangers ask his name - "I'm Bob." The library workers call him Bob, although they know it's not really his name. If we call him by his "secret" name, we get corrected. He actually asked me a before Christmas why his teachers don't know his real name. I had to tickle him before he'd call me "Mommy."

The past couple of weeks, though, he's changed his name to Caillou (although he still says "That's me!" when we see Bob on TV). I blame the Caillou Holiday Move that he's in love with. I think it'll be staying on the TiVo for a while. (Caillou irritates me a little, mostly because El Burrito starts talking like Rosie after he watches it. Rosie's 2. It bugs me.)

Tonight, I had to almost beg before he'd say "Goodnight Wendy" instead of "Goodnight Mommy." It used to be the other way around. Strangely, I think I'm kind of sad about not being Wendy. My boy's growing up.

Can I get a refund?

Three hours at preschool today.

"Did you have fun today?"

"Yes"

"What did you do?"

"Things that I like."

"Like what?"

"Just things that I like."

Okaaaaay. After 20 minutes of grilling while we walked, I learned that he had a cupcake at snacktime (someone's birthday), he sang a song that he can't remember, and he had his picture taken (which I knew already).

One week down, 40 or so to go

El Burrito (aka Bob the Builder, since April - and yes, he introduces himself as Bob) has survived his first week of preschool.

The first day was actually the easiest, or at least the most quiet in terms of morning fuss. He's a fretter and worrier, which he gets honestly, mostly from my side of the family. Since the second day, he's been crying and questioning non-stop, starting even before he opens his eyes. How long is preschool, how long is three hours, school is too screamy, I don't like show and tell, my teacher isn't a good watcher, I don't like French, on and on and on, until I'm ready for earplugs. He cries from the car to the classroom, with the big big tears and everything.

But then, when I show up at pick-up time, he will barely bother to wave at me because he's too busy playing on their playground. Go figure. He's been singing in French, took a book for show & tell, and has started playing a bit. Still says he doesn't know anyone else's name in his class (6 other kids), and "can't tell" me the words he learned.

Preschool

Day 2 of preschool today. Drop-off went worse than yesterday, actually - someone was leeched to my finger and wrapped around my neck until one of the teachers helped pry him off. More tears, too. But yesterday at pick-up time, he didn't want to leave. Playground time was just too much fun. (Not surprising, he does this at the grandparents' houses too.)

Morning half-day may have been a really good thing, although we didn't know it. He woke up worrying about how long school would be, missing us, school was "too screamy" and other things. If he was doing afternoon sessions, he'd be worrying himself sick all day.

And I still feel like a heel after drop-off today. I hope this gets better after a few days.

Houses & Preschool

Update A: Signed a contract for the house today. If (knock wood) inspection and appraisal go okay, we'll be moving next month.

Update B: Finally heard back from the preschool. We're going for a school tour tomorrow, and if that checks out, El Burrito starts on Tuesday. Between the holiday and helping my brother paint his house, today may have been our last "normal" day for a while. Until the new routine becomes "normal" anyway.

I had three Tim Tams, and haven't hyperventilated yet. Doubt I sleep well tonight though.

Pardon me while I panic

It's shaping up to be an interesting week (month?).

Put an offer on a house today. This is the second house we've made an offer on. Can I just say, "$250,000" and "a quarter of a million dollars" may be the same amount, but the second just sounds like more money.

And we're looking for a preschool for El Burrito. So far, our option is a morning half-day class (9 a.m. - noon) in a French-immersion preschool. First issue here: I know almost no French - maybe a dozen words, mostly related to horses (dressage, capriole, courbette). Second issue: that 9 a.m. start time means moving our whole schedule, including wake-up time, earlier by 3 hours. And preschool starts in a week. Cue the headache.

Plus, no more library storytimes, since they're all in the morning. And - unless we play hooky for a day - no "kids' tour" of the library next month, which El B (and I!) were excited about. I really need to ask why the storytimes are all scheduled in the mornings.

I'm off to find an ibuprofen. House + preschool = headache and nervousness.

Kids Day

El Burrito had a blast today. Our local PBS station does something called Kids Day every year - free admission, they bring a couple of celebrities (Clifford, Grover, and Curious George this year), and local groups or stores can come and have a booth to hand out freebies or whatever. We ended up with a scheduling conflict, so DH and I had to leave after half an hour, but my mom drove up and spent the afternoon with hi m. Apparently they stayed until the end, and had a great time. I was a little worried, El B cried when we left him standing in line to see Grover, but I guess he perked up after we left. He's smiling in his pictures anyway.

El B got to meet Clifford (twice), Grover, and Curious George, but not Miss Rosa (the local hostess for the PBS Kids shows). He came home with a ton of stuff, too.

• his very own wooden toolbox, which he made himself (with help), courtesy of Home Depot
• orange workshop apron (ditto)
• stickers - I stopped counting at 15. Clifford, Sid the Science Kid, etc
• Frisbee from the Little Gym
• purple coneflower seeds from the city's composting department
• 3 cards that he ink-stamped for us
• bookmarks - at least 4
• two temporary tattoos
  
• a boat made with a paper plate and a paper sail
• pirate hat from a folded comics section
• two free books (thanks to Scholastic and Clifford)
• one apple
• one sucker
• one piece of candy from Sylvan Learning (I didn't sign him up to win 30 hours of free tutoring, guaranteed to raise him a grade level. He's four.)
• four uninflated balloons (he wanted the Thomas the Train foil balloons)
• two bottles of sunscreen on carabiners
• a pencil with rubber duckies on it
• a rubber duckie eraser/pencil topper
• a Sid the Science kid eraser
• a little WordWorld story
  
• Sesame Street "Talking Cents" magazine
• three Happy Pet coloring books
• a handful of coloring/activity pages
• a park brochure about bats and how to build a cave diorama
• a free french fries coupon from McD's
• 10 free tokens at Chuck E Cheese (where we don't ever plan on going)
• assorted bits and pieces of paper
• a nice paper-towel painting he did for me - something about spraying food coloring on a piece of saran wrap and putting the towel on it
• a watermelon seed in a little pot
  

I think that's it. Lots of organizations had booths set up - the local Stream Team, public radio station, the recycling section of the city's public waste department, Scholastic, Usborne books. Those are just the ones I remember, and we weren't there long enough to see 10% of it before we had to leave.

Fun day at the library

Today was the first storytime of the summer, so we (meaning El Burrito, our lovely night owl) had to start getting up in time to get to the library on time. Today's theme was Pirates, with El Burrito's favorite librarian, Miss Chris, and Miss Angela. Fun time - he even sat up front for the stories, although he migrated back to me for the songs. He's weird about loud noises.

Played for a while, including chasing a couple of kids around trying to get them to look at his (invisible) car. They were confused when he said his name was Bob the Builder. I got to read a whole People, and the cover of Time, before we went hunting Bob the Builder books. And of course he had to climb the stairs up to the third floor before the book sale started.

He totally scored some deals at the sale - best find was the Complete Adventures of Curious George, paperback, for $2. In great condition, other than a faded spine, too. A hardback picture book about fossils, a hardback book of nursery rhymes with Pooh as the main character, a small I Spy book, and another Pooh story. I got a 50-cent copy of Little Women, in hardback, and four ex-library novels (2 mystery, 2 fantasy) for 25-cents each.

El Burrito also finagled himself a muffin from the cafe/kiosk in the lobby. Yes, I gave in - he was whining, and I had a splitting headache. Give him one "library snack" and he wants one every time now. Sigh.

House Hunting update

Update:

After viewing 10 homes in 8 hours (with about 150 miles total driving), we've moved to Plan B - find something in town that will be adequate for 1-2 years (*), until we can find some ground and have a house built.

(*) Give our motivation levels, I won't be surprised if 1-2 years turns into 5 or so. Hell, we started house-hunting about 8 years ago, intending to be in a house before we had any kids. Uh huh. El Burrito is going to be 4 pretty soon.

We'd planned to park El B at Grandma & Grandpa's house over this past weekend, while we looked at homes. So of course, El B spent Friday puking (all over me!), and we didn't think he or his grandparents needed the hassle. I stayed home with Mr No Longer Throwing Up, and DH went with the realtor to look at 10 or so houses. In a drenching downpour most of the day - which demonstrated drainage/gutter issues at one house, and meant that another house wasn't viewable because of road/water problems.

Three of those made the short-list, so we're both going for another look this week, plus a visit with the mortgage people.

And on top of that, El B is still under the weather (although thankfully no longer vomiting), and the HVAC checkup on Friday revealed that our AC's issue earlier this month was a severe lack of freon. They came back today and took care of things, and wonder of wonders, it was all covered by the warranty. Yay!

By this time next week, we may have a house under contract. Our mortgage right now is seriously low, so the new mortgage could be 3x to 4x of the current one. I may get a little nauseous when I write the mortgage checks for a while.