special wishes

Now that July is ending, it's time for me to send out my Belated Blog Wishes to everyone.
Happy 6th Birthday to Ben! Happy Birthdays to Jack, Peggy, Michelle H., Jennifer, Sonya, Oliver, Grandma Rose, JD, and Baby Hunter! Happy Early Birthday to Madeleine :)



Happy Anniversary to K, xOxO.
Love,
Ginny

school supplies!

Here I am.
It's a typical night tonight, except it's not raining. K's making fireweed jelly and the kids are working the bedtime routine. I've got chores to do, but I'd rather paint the dollhouse, sew T's kuspuk, search for American Girl dolls on eBay, and do 16x16 sudoku.
Soccer ended, now we're getting ready for fall - yesterday I signed the girls up for ballet. On Sunday we bought school supplies. I'm a bit nervous about school, not just because it's a new, bigger school, but because I think both of the girls have forgotten things they learned last year. They'll have a completely different curriculum and much bigger classes, but we've found out that several of their soccer teammates go to this school, so the whole transition won't be a complete shock to their systems. When I was a first-grader, I attended three different schools in two states. In the third grade, I moved from a Fairbanks school (city) to Nome's elementary school (very un-city). So I know how wary they'll be, but I also know how adaptable they are.
School starting also means birthdays around here. K reminded me that now that T will be nine, we've hit the halfway-point of her living with us... unless she has her way of course. She's told us that she never wants to move out and she won't get married either because she just doesn't want to leave us! I'll have to enjoy the sweetness of that now, because she'll change her mind when she's about thirteen.
We've had a major alteration in our little household - the girls started doing chores and getting allowance. I know it's unbelievable that I waited this long to start chores, but now they finally seem capable of doing a decent job of it. They sweep, dust, load/unload the dishwasher, put their clothes away, make one loaf of bread (breadmaker) and one batch of cookies per week. T really grossed out with the dirty dishes the first time - "EWWW this is so SLIIIIMEEEYYY". We pay them more than Barack Obama pays his daughters ($1.50!!). They're happy with it, and they are constantly revising their spending/saving plans.
In August, K will be out of the country for three weeks. I realize it's time to clamp down on bedtimes, awake times, math practice, meal planning, and limits on computer & TV time. It would help if Supernanny came up here to make a chart for us and to light a fire under my ass.

fomites, fomites everywhere

Last week, we went to BossLady's soccer game in the rain. K put on his rain jacket and walked her to the field while I stayed with the other two kids in the car. T had her books, of course, and I had a few sudoku puzzles to finish - but - we all know what happens when you trap a two-year-old in a car for an hour. Playing with his trucks and farm toys was distracting enough for a while, but Misterguy needed more action. Before long he was in Boss' seat in the third row, pulling out all of her books and papers and whatever random third-row stuff he could find. The temptation of the cargo area was too much, so he climbed back there to get to the bicycle helmets and recycling stuff. In three seconds he was next to me, in the driver's seat, attacking the window controls and door locks and wiper switch and horn.
I stopped him from getting to the radio and air controls, because through it all I was straining to hear a program about hypochondria on the NPR station. Wow, what I was able to hear was fascinating, familiar, revealing, and hilarious. They had guests in the studio talking about how hypochondria affected their lives, how it began for them, the books they'd written. There were experts talking about the history of the disease. Here's a summary of the program that aired. Most interesting to me was the link between hypochondria and OCD.
OCD, yep.
No, I haven't been diagnosed with either problem, but autoimmune problems turn a person into a hypochondriac. Throw the internet in the mix and you get someone compulsively, obsessively diagnosing themselves with everything from cancer of the armpit to ringworm. Going through patient-care classes and learning what a fomite is really doesn't help the situation, either. Ew.

Germophobia is not exactly compatible with motherhood but I'm finding my way. I just have to cringe and look away when my kids head for the Rent-a-Can. And keep the big squirt-bottle of hand sanitizer in the car, just out of reach of the little monsterboy bouncing around like a pinball.

summer days...

I guess I could have tried for four whole weeks without an entry, but that would have been pushing it.
What a great time we had with our visitors last month! We walked and walked and talked and took pictures and ate (Humpy's Bar is the place to go for more greasy fries than you can eat, and more cigarette smoke than you can breathe). The weather wasn't the best but we still had fun. We saw Hatcher Pass, walked on part of Matanuska Glacier, walked through Kincaid Park and played at Point Woronzof. After they left us, Kim and Danny and their girls went to Denali National Park and a few other beautiful places. Makes me tired just thinking about it.
Since then, T-ball ended, the garden sprouted, we went to the pool once, soccer's going full-blast, and the kids have spent the good-weather days mostly outside. On July 4th, the kids and I walked with other Mat-Su Girl Scouts in the parade. After that, we went to Brenna & Brandon's for some delicious food and a squirt-gun fight. Peggy & Pat and their kids came over the next day and we met at Wasilla Lake, since the sun was out for about half an hour.
That's it for now, I've got to rush dinner and pile the grumpy crowd into the mamavan to make it to the soccer field in time for the 7 o'clock game.