Sicko

Yester-morning Zizza came down and asked me if I remembered that one time when that one thing happened. I said no. She said she felt like that again. I asked how exactly she was feeling and she huffed about it being the same as the one time with the one thing (obviously) Eventually I was able to decipher that the one time with the one thing was a sore throat and that was all kinds of sarcastically good news considering that she brought a note home last week warning of strep exposure in her classroom.

I cancelled carpool (ok fine, I didn't cancel it I just told the mom driving not to bother stopping here) and made her an appointment for a strep test and then she proceeded to eat breakfast and act completely normal.

Awesome.

I was fearing her discovery of how to fake sick and becoming a child like myself when at lunch time she slowed down stopped eating and got a fever. Crisis averted. I mean, since she was already home I guess it's good it wasn't a false alarm. Plus I'm glad she hasn't learned to fake sick yet.

The strep test was negative and I thought she was better today, just regaining strength and all that. Sadly the afternoon brought high temperatures again. Not that high but high enough to mean that according to school guidelines she should be home again tomorrow. Drat.

The bright side of the poor child's plight is that it gave me something to write about on this the last day of November. I'll be sure and thank her for that.

tumbling

Zizza has been taking a tumbling class this fall. The class is through the city rec program and is held in the "recreation annex" of the library. This is all fine except that in the recreation annex hallway where the mothers wait while their children tumble there are concrete floors and no chairs. Actually, if I wanted to drag a chair down the hallway I could do so but that's an awful lot of fuss.

The first week of the class was ok but by the next week I found that sitting still for fifty minutes resulted in fierce nausea during the fifty minutes to follow, minutes in which still more sitting still was required as I drove to and from school. After all of that sitting still it was a miracle if I recovered from the effects during any portion of the remaining day.

On the third week, armed with that knowledge I simply did not sit. I wandered back and forth along the hall way, I stood and swayed out side the door, I accompanied Enzo to the bathroom and back as many times as he requested to go. It worked. I made it out of there no sicker than I went in. For a few weeks the odd looks from the other mothers, all camped out on the concrete were the only discomfort that came from my time there. I thought about breaking into their conversation (they are all friends and neighbors) and announcing "Hey guys, I'm pregnant that's why I'm pacing here rather than sitting while I pretend not to be eavesdropping on your conversation" but that seemed awkward so I just let them wonder. Then I reached nine weeks gestation and the back pain made it's debut. I still couldn't sit for fear of vomiting but the standing made it necessary to ice when I got home.
Basically what I'm saying here is: tomorrow is the last day of the class hallelujah!

Luckily Ziz made good use of her time there. Her cartwheels are now nearly vertical,or at least almost nearly vertical and she pronounces her teacher's name right about 30% of the time.

The teacher's name is Miss Andrea. Ziz persists in saying "Andréa."

"Mom," she says to me, "Miss Andréa said I need to practice my handstands" and I say "That's great honey go ahead and practice but first can you say 'Andrea?" We've been working hard at this. My goal is that at her recital on Saturday she'll call her teacher only by her actual name with no extra accents thrown in. I'm guessing Miss Andrea won't have a lot of time for individual conversations that day so I think it's an attainable goal.

Fine, I'll write something. Gosh!

I've been looking through my archives toying with the idea of reposting something from years gone by because I didn't feel I had anything much to say this evening. At very least I thought reading old posts would give me some idea of where to start with this one. Turns out I couldn't really settle on a post to re-purpose in either form.

I did make a few edits on old posts though so if you have some noise from me showing up in your reader, sorry. I don't know if what I did will show up for anybody anyway, but if it does now you know why.

So I thought I'd tell you about the pies I made for Thanksgiving but that sounds boring now. (I made PW's french silk it was good but I'm done now and I have almost a half of one left in my fridge if anybody wants a slice)

Anyway I've been wondering to myself about what to send to Moo for Christmas. Also, do I send things for the rest of the family? It seems kind of lame to send her a present and nothing to her brothers but I don't even know what they like. Is it better to get a present you don't like or no present at all? I'm in the "no present at all" camp on that issue but then I'm not a seven year old boy, so what do I know? I was thinking I'd send a gift for her and goodies or something for the family as a whole. What do y'all think?

Gracious, with the drivel I've been posting lately you'll probably all be singing praises when November ends and NaBloPoMo sleeps again.

Skirt the tree

My Christmas tree is up. Rhett and Scarlett are watching over me from a branch above my favorite spot here and there's a little 5th grave Eva peeking around another branch from her frame of gold foil. I never want ornaments proudly carried home in back packs to look out of place on the tree. Fancy pants matching ornaments have their place. That place is not at my house.

Moving on: our tree has never had a tree skirt. The bare legs of the tree stand have always shivered nekked until enough presents showed up to warm them. Many a time I've thought about just making a dang skirt already but I've never really know what I wanted and it's hard to make something if you don't what you want it to look like. That being said, I think this is my year. I have not one, but two ideas for tree skirts.
First I saw this one from Garnett Hill.


Lovely, but I'm obviously too cheap to spend that kind of money on a tree skirt. Besides I'm not so much a cream kind of girl. I was thinking of making a chartreuse version.

Next I saw this idea from Better Homes and Gardens.

I love love love that. Alsoit's more fitting with the tree I've got. Considering the gold foil ornament I made in fifth grade and it's fellows I think the less formal skirt is the way to go. If someday in the future I decide to have a fancy tree in addition to the fun family tree maybe I'll make a poinsettia skirt for that.

Welcome to boring town

My family snuck out of the house while I was sleeping and now I'm sitting alone in the dark with my computer.

Actually, they didn't sneak they just went to the store. And they told me first. And I think they might be home now.

My plans for the evening involve cleaning things, sorting papers, contorting my ever growing self into the closet under the stairs to fish out the Christmas decorations, probably some hot chocolate and maybe some popcorn.

Anybody else have any awesome plans?

Happy Thanksgiving! It was a good day over here but I'm completely pooped and I'm afraid I may start complaining accidentally if I carry on and then I'd probably end up with a Thanksgiving curse or something unfortunate like that so I'm just going to stick with this monster run on sentence and call it a night.

Have your picture took

I was combing Zizza's hair and she was taking pictures with my phone. She took quite a few of herself and then turned on her brother. In the first photo he was blank faced and looking up so she coached him a bit. "Smile, Enz and look at the camera." This time the photo was a success. She looked at her accomplishment and frowned.

"His pictures are always cuter than mine!" she harrumphed. I tried to point out that the problem was she was taking her photo herself which makes thing tricky in the first place not to mention, she was having her hair combed a the time which was certainly not a help but she heard none of it. She grumbled and stormed about her brothers photogenic luck all the way out to the car and on to the first car pool pick up.

I was looking forward to sharing the photos to accompany this story but when I tried to show them to the Mr. I found that she hadn't saved them. My phone is full of photos of her fingers, random household items and my face wearing exaggerated smiles at her encouragement, all of which she managed to save. The pictures I wanted however were discarded.

I guess if I thought my little brother was cuter than I was I probably wouldn't save the photographic evidence either.

Dadgummit

Yesterday morning I thought "I should do all my grocery shopping this morning in order to avoid what I can of the Thanksgiving Grocery store mayhem." Then I realized that in order to complete said shopping in one go I would need a cohesive shopping list. That cohesive shopping list took until this afternoon to complete.

The store was a little bit crazy today around 2:00. Also, my cart pulled strongly to the right. It took all of my strength to get it moving without taking out any shoppers/displays on that side. This, as you might imagine, was less than ideal in the stop and go grocery traffic.

There were sales this week on brown sugar and kosher salt. Both of those items were on my list and both were sold out. I can get by fine on brown sugar. I was just replenishing my store to avoid future trouble on that front. The salt though. The salt is a different story.

It's been over a week since my salt ran out and I never seem to remember I need any until I'm cooking and I try to add a pinch of salt and find the salt dish empty. I've had to try to season things out of a shaker for days now. It's awful. I can't season properly by shake. I need to pinch! Sure, I could put table salt in the dish and use pinches of that but it't just not the same. Table salt sticks to my fingers and it doesn't taste the same. Not to mention that we have a Turkey to brine here soon and heaven knows we need the kosher stuff for that!

What does this all mean? It means that I'll be braving yet another grocery store tomorrow. The day before Thanksgiving. Oy.

On the other hand there were plenty of marshmallows at the store today. Thus I compiled my yams, arranged the marshmallows atop them and tucked them safe in the refrigerator to await their future toasting. When I'm done here I'll get my pie crust under way so I'll have a good start on tomorrow even considering the dreaded store trip.

Let down your hair

The other day I was wearing my favorite maternity sweater. I noticed a hair on the sleeve and as I pulled it free I remembered how last time I wore the sweater, four plus years ago, I had crazy long hair. I looked for a photo of said crazy long hair but I can't find anything older than October 2007 so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Where was I? Oh, right there was hair on my sweater. First I thought it was weird, then I made sense of it thinking it was my hair from years gone by. Then I noticed that it was blonde...and plastic.

Lookee what Zizza got for her birthday.

Her bestie gave it to her.

This is what it looked like the first time she wore it. Now it looks like a giant hairball. It has it's own toy bin, lest anything get tangled in it and become lost forever. She loves it so, and yet I'm not sure she can even get it on her head anymore. If I attempt to comb it out one more time I think I'll probably be left with a sweater full of hair and a nearly bare skull cap. It sure was fun while it lasted though.

Sunday play

This evening as I was making dinner Enzo suggested a game to play. "I'll be Jesus and you be the sick kid who was gonna die," he said to Zizza.

I wish I could tell you how the game went. I would have loved to hear it myself. Unfortunately, they never could agree on the specifics and begin playing. See, Ziz wanted to to play a healthy child and Enz wanted her character to be ailing.

They discussed options for a long time but in the end they went with the old stand-by to pass the time while I cooked. Then, after dinner they played a rousing game of Go Fish.

I guess the point of this post is: though I'm not a big fan of the illustrations in the gospel story book I gave the kids last week, I think it's doing what it's meant to do.

There's always room for Cello

Zizza had her first cello concert today. She spent all morning in a workshop with other area cellists and then they all preformed together.

She was the youngest there by at least 2 years and the smallest by at least six inches.

She got a Lot of attention.

Naturally she had a great time.

She's been shunning me lately though. I asked her yesterday if she thought she'd like one of us to come with her or if she'd rather stay by herself. She said, without hesitation, that she'd like to stay herself.

Monday when she got home for school and I reminded her to get ready for her lesson she cried and asked if she could quit because she wanted to watch TV. I said no. Then I went to fetch Enzo so we could get a move on.

I found him sleeping and un-wake-able. I kissed his cheek, I rubbed his head. Not so much as a eyelash fluttered. So, I went back to Ziz and told her I would drop her off at her lesson this time (just around the corner) rather than stay with her. She was ecstatic and suddenly thrilled with all things musical and stringed. I hurried back home, spent the half hour getting dinner on and found Enzo just blinking the sleep from his eyes as it was time to go and fetch her.

In my absence she had the best lesson ever and has happily practiced all week. Maybe I should be offended.

Socks

I went through my sock drawer today and found five pair of Enzo's socks inter-dispersed with mine. I almost didn't notice. Observe the similarity: mine are on the left his on the right.

And here is what they look like when they're not balled up.

My content may have just reached a new low.

I apologize.

for reals

There is a baby. In my belly.

I felt it thump me in the side just now and then it followed up with another thump front and center. I've been wondering for the last few days if I wasn't feeling little movements but I hadn't come to a conclusion. A preggo pulse is so strong one can feel it pounding away steadily when one is still. I hadn't yet been sure if I were noticing the odd pulse beat or if it really were somebody in there.

It's quite early. I've never felt anyone else any sooner than 17 weeks and we're just 15 as of tomorrow. I know what it feels like though, and it is what it is.

Lunch

Enzo and I were discussing lunch options. He requested a cheese sandwich and I began to prepare it. A few minutes later he caught site of it on the griddle and said "NO! I don't want it warm!"

The boy wanted a non grilled cheese... Just a slice of cheddar between two squishy pieces of bread.

If next time he asks for apricot jam on it I'm afraid I'll have to find a large crate, poke some air holes in it and ship him to my mother where clearly, he'll be more happy. She always believed she was giving us a treat when she served up non-grilled cheese and apricot jam sandwiches.

A Christmas music kind of day

On Saturday The Mr announced that he thought it would be ok if we started listening to Christmas music. I don't remember what brought on the announcement. Maybe Ziz was singing "Jingle Bells" again, I don't know. I just know I was amazed.

Now, I like me some Christmas tunes, don't get me wrong. I am all about the Yule Tide strains but I mostly subscribe to the belief that they are better if you wait until after Thanksgiving to unleash them. If we all listened to Christmas music all year long then it would just be music ya know? Plus my mom conditioned me to feel guilty about skipping Thanksgiving when in my youth I wanted to bust out the Falala's the day after Halloween.

When the Mr made his reluctant statement his argument was that since we're already singing it weekly in choir practice, we might as well. I spent years (a few of them anyway) of my life dusting off festive choral numbers beginning in July so for me Christmas music in a rehearsal setting doesn't actually count. I was surprised to hear that it made a difference to him.

We spent the rest of Saturday listening to standard fare while I processed the new development. Then, Sunday morning I made a decision. I would like to enjoy some tidings of comfort and joy. It would not make me an ungrateful Thanksgiving skipper. You know why? Because I planned to feel gratitude for each and every Christmastide note that poured from my stereo.

So, we listened on Sunday and it was nice and now I think I'll wait until next week to introduce the rest of the Christmas music collection to the year 2010.

What I did for love

I decided to skip canning this year. I didn't do any peaches or pears. Ordering time came. I reflected upon my feelings and the stock of canned goods I already had and didn't order any.

Then came the apples. I only eat applesauce about once a year when it's hot and I smother gingerbread with it so I didn't feel qualified to make this decision on my own. I said to the Mr. "I'm not canning any peaches or pears this year, but do you think I should do some applesauce?" His response was a trance like "mmm, applesauce..."

That is how I came to spend the past two weeks in the process of making, recovering from, avoiding and then making applesauce again. It was really only three batches but the recovering and avoiding steps are quite lengthy. That's how the whole thing got stretched to two weeks.

Below are jars from each of the three batches. Batch one on the left took the longest to cook because the pot was so dang full, thus it's the darkest shade of brown. Batch two went a lot quicker because I used a third fewer apples so it cooked faster. Plus I could stir it more easily. Batch three was actually bigger than batch one but I cooked down one load of apples before adding more so the pot was never quite so brimful as it was with batch one. That meant it cooked a little faster and didn't get quite as brown.

This is one of my favorite jars. (There's one somewhere that I like better, it probably has peaches in it right now) The jars I started out with came form The Mr's grandma. Back in the day she used to do all of my canning. Every Christmas we'd get a case of peaches and a case of pears. Then we gave the jars back and she'd fill them again the next fall.

One year I filled the jars myself rather than giving them back and that was the end of that glorious arrangement. I wonder if she'd still be doing it for me if I hadn't stopped bringing back the jars?

Anyway, thanks to Grandma I have a few jars that are a lot older than the rest. This is one of them.

I like how it stands head and shoulders above the rest. From where I sit now I can see it popping up above the others on the table. If that jar were a person it would wear red shoes and carry a magenta handbag...at the same time.

I like folks like that.

Anyway, get ready for the big finish. And If you don't mind, please imagine that I sound like Lea Michelle as I sing it. Here we go.

Won't Forget,

Can't regret,

What I did for love...

What I did for love...

What I did for Love!

What I did. for. LOVE!

You tell me

last year I decided I'd like to have an advent calendar, but I decided mid-December and that is a bit late. I'm quite pleased that I thought of it again here in mid-November when I still have a chance of doing something about it.

Do any of you know of a pattern, kit or pre-made advent calendar that I should consider in my search? I am looking for something that does not include sweets or nightly presents but does lend significance to each passing day. All advice is welcome.

I was tempted to post without a title...

Enzo was playing with his toy snake today. The kids went to their cousins house for the evening and I let them each take an animal. It was kind of a big deal: usually I don't let them take toys anywhere. I don't like finding piles of them forgotten in the car and I don't like dealing with the heartbreak when something is inevitably left behind.

On the way home sleepy Enz asked me to hold snakey for him. This led the Mr to mention how we'll have to be sure and hide snakey when his mother comes for Thanksgiving, cause boy howdy she really doesn't do snakes. In fact, now that she knows there's a toy snake on the premises, hidden or no, there's a danger that she might make other lodging arrangements rather than venture into the house. (Listen, we're going to hide it really well. There will be no trace of a toy snake anywhere. Promise!)

Upon hearing this Enzo asked "Do Grandma like Dinny Pigs?" "Well, I don't know boy. She probably likes guinea pigs fine" I answered. "And my puppy," he broke in "Mine is a good puppy." You see the boy was fearing for all his plush friends. Puppy and Guinea Pig accompany him around the house a large percentage of the time. They are fast friends. He surely couldn't do without them.

Lucky for him aside from the snake thing his grandmother is a kind rational woman so there will be no need for him to hide any but one toy in order to enjoy her company.

check minus

Today my child scolded me for my lack of attention during homework time.

It started with her pulling her homework sheet from her folder and inquiring "Why is there red writing on here and no sticker?"

I looked it over. One red comment mentioned that she hadn't written her practice words over enough times. The next comment was a similar one about the letters. Then there was the matter of my forgetting to initial for every day's read aloud portion. I listened to her read it all those times, I just forgot to sign. Finally in the number section she'd written all three number sixes between eleven and forty backward. I was watching from across the table when she did it so I missed that mistake due to upside-down-ness.

The back side of her page was perfect. I was paying attention during that part.

I explained to her why she got each red mark and said the problem was we just didn't pay as much attention to home work this week as usual and she said "You mean you didn't pay as much attention as usual," I took the criticism nobly because it was true.

Last week I sat watching her perfectly form each letter just as the instructions on the page guided me to do and I thought "This is lame. She knows how to do it right already I can probably quit watching," So this week I only sort of watched and now I have the blood of a missed sticker on my hands.

baby it's cold outside

We had our first chilly morning today. Instead of bounding down the stairs, Enzo stayed cuddled under his covers and called to me to find him some pants. Here's what he ended up in.

I think it's time we reevaluated his winter wardrobe.

On a side note, when this photo was taken he was tattling on the dog for sitting in his spot. The dog takes up approximately a six inch square portion of the the sofa. Apparently those were the inches where Enzo wanted to be. The nerve of some canines.

hark

I've been trying to reign myself in on the pregnancy posts because I assume no one want's to hear week by week day by day how my achyness, nausea, energy level etc compare with what I remember from the last two times I did this. Writing about anything else is challenging though, because, well, that's pretty much all I've been thinking about for the past while.

What all of that means is, thanks to some mild writer's block today, I'll be indulging my self with a pregnancy post. Nothing too graphic though, so don't worry.

I assume that every one in my readership will have heard tell of the pregnant nose. How when smelled through a pregnant nose(soon we'll have a little baby nose) even the slightest hint of aroma becomes powerfully pungent.

I don't really get that.

I notice smells a little bit but it's not because they seem stronger or my nose is keener, I notice them a bit more because they're much more likely to make me wretch. That's all. If I were one of those lucky ones who doesn't spend the first trimester in a desperate battle to keep from tossing cookies and things, I doubt I'd ever have noticed a thing.

Want to know what I have noticed? Pregnancy ears.

I grew up in a family of twelve. As such I'm generally almost impervious to noise. Except when I'm pregnant.

The hum of a speaker that's turned on but not in use, shrieking children, whining dogs, The Beatles song "Back in the USSR" these things and so many others drive me to distraction and cause me to clutch my ears in pain.

Has anyone else noticed this? Am I the only one?

Zizza combed her own hair.

Pretty good right?

She was so proud.

A new favorite

Folks, I'm a changed woman. We had breakfast pizza for dinner and it was amazing. Seriously, make it at your first convenience. You won't be sorry.

My advice after having made it once is, don't use a peel. I had an egg overboard after sliding my pizza onto the hot stone in the oven. Second piece of advice; take it out of the oven while your eggs are a little jigglier than you like, then let carry over heat take them the rest of the way while it rests for five minutes or so. This will keep your eggs from being over hard as well as save your mouth from being burned.

The roof of my mouth is smarting a bit as testimony of my impatience. It was worth it though.

It was July

Looking through pictures of Enzo's long hair lead me to my July folder so I thought I'd tell you something I've never taken the time to post. I did briefly mention the facilities available on this particular day, but now I'm going to tell you of things that happened outside of the rest room.

The Mr and I took responsibility for my niece Googs while the rest of her family were occupied on a longer, more grueling hike.

There were plenty of other cousins around as well, (see there are four kids here) but we were only the boss of one extra which I was glad of.

knapsacks packed, our little group set off to circle the lake.

We saw lady bugs! Also blue bottle flies but that photo contains too much greyish brown dirt for my liking so I'm leaving it out.

We hiked up hills which required coming back down...

And up and down again.

Then we crossed a stream. Everyone else used the bridge but I was wearing my vibram five fingers for the first time and I wanted to see how they'd do in the water. Besides I never can resist wading into mountain streams.

Anyway, now we're getting to the point of this post. After hiking, we went back to the hotel and passed off a swim and the subsequent chlorine rinse as bathing the kids. The problem was we didn't have any clean clothes for Googs so she ended up in Enzo's spares. She looked smashing in them, but that wasn't the problem.

The problem was I couldn't tell these two apart from behind. I spent the afternoon reminding myself who I'd dressed in what as I did scans of the yard to account for the children under my supervision. It was disconcerting.

As soon as Googoo's mama returned I had her switched to her own clothes so I could keep tabs on my own offspring sans confusion.
Tell me, is that what it feels like to have twins?

Barber Shop

Sometimes I curse my belief that children, once they form an opinion and state it, should be allowed to make their own decisions where hair styles are concerned.

I've tried to thwart the belief and force my children to conform to my desires for their hair but I can't do it. The guilt is too much.

It's happened on multiple occasions with Zizza. Her hair finally gets long enough that it doesn't fall out of every pony tail and she decides she'd prefer it short. Lately she insisted that in spite of her forehead cowlick, bangs were the only way to go.

Observe the most recent tragedy.

Here is my boy with lovely blond locks

And here he is now, after he stated his hair style preference for the first time.

It's been nearly two weeks and I'm still in mourning.

I put off my own severely over due haircut for weeks to avoid the cut he asked for.

Is there an upside to the new look? Yes, but just one. Between Enzo's cut and his father's new clean shaved responsibilities they are super twiners. I like to see their matching faces together even if given my preference, I'd put a mop of blonde hair on the one and ginger goatee on the other. (I'll let you decide which I'd put where)

All together I've been rather put upon when it comes to the style of the male half of my family. Since when are style decisions made around here without the benefit of my opinion?

Since about a month ago I suppose.

Comfort me with apples

On Wednesday afternoon we did this.

Enzo was a big helper, he picked out aprons for the both of us and did his share of turning that crank.

Then Zizza cam home from school and helped too.

Soon enough we'd filled the giant stock pot. We bought that pot for the purpose of brining turkeys, I'm not sure if we've ever used it for anything else.

I actually don't recommended it for apple sauce as it's nearly impossible to stir a pot that deep when it's filled with apples. The bottom scaled but good. The apple sauce tastes fine (thank goodness) but the pot has been soaking between scrubbings since Wednesday night.
Yesterday I spent the afternoon helping in Zizza's class. The four hours of standing/sitting in kindergarten sized chairs are what lead to yesterday's post.
I'm fresh home the chiropractor's office where I was massaged and adjusted. It feels so much better, still my muscles ache in the aftermath.
Over half the apples wait to be dealt with, but I don't think I'll be making more sauce today. I'm going to nap and when I wake up I may bake a crostata. The rest of the apples will have to wait.

Dude

This is so not cool. I don't even look pregnant yet. I mean people who know can tell but the average stranger will just think I'm on the thick side. So why does my back feel like it's supporting the weight of a toddler in my womb? The weekly pregnancy calendar thingy I read told me my baby is only the size of a lime. What the heck?

I'm getting a massage tomorrow at noon. I just have to hobble through the next eleven and a half hours.

I'm going to need more ice.

actually it was 13 and a half hours I realized my mistake as drug my weary bones into bed. No way was I coming back to edit at that point.

Killer

I killed a scorpion in my garage today.

I was taking out the Recycle bin but right behind it where I'd step to get the leverage to tip it for rolling, there was what I thought was a wadded up rubber band.

I didn't want to step on the rubber band so I just shimmied the bin forward a little and tipped it without the added leverage. When I did that, the rubber band moved and I discovered that it was actually a scorpion. I was super glad I'd decided against stepping on it, barefoot as I was.

So I stood there contemplating the scorpion. Do I leave it where it is while I go in to get shoes on so I can kill it? What if it runs away? What if I try to kill it and it charges my bare feet? My previous experience with scorpions tells me they can be wily like that. I thought about balancing on the tricycle while I killed it but I was afraid I might lose my balance.

In the end I just grabbed the garden rake and gave it a good bash. Once I knew it was dead, I went in a called my friendly neighborhood exterminator. Then I cleaned up the corpse and called it a day.

Missing

Yes, this is another Zizza post. Hopefully soon Enzo will do something endearing and sweet such that I'll want to record it for posterity. Lately he's been mostly messes and fits. I'd rather forget those things.

I'm going to share just one though because I've just discovered it and I'd like to get it off my chest. I went to tuck him in bed not ten minutes ago and found his pillows bare and lying forlornly on the floor. It took just a moment to locate the cases, lumpy and full sitting on the shelf. He'd filled them with books and toys.

Finding his things tucked away in such a manner would have been much nicer if they hadn't all been put away properly in their respective baskets and boxes previous to their stay in the pillow cases.

Now, if he'd picked his things up from the floor and tucked them away in that manner I would have been thrilled as his picking up at all. As it was I put him to bed with no song or story. I couldn't trust myself to do it nicely.

Anyway, this was supposed to be a Zizza post.

When I took the kids to the dentist a few months ago it was discovered that Ziz had her first lose tooth. It was still so tight that only a dental professional would notice the wiggle. The hygienist guessed the tooth would stay until December. Zizza has been carefully wiggling it ever since.
Maybe it was the girls persistent wiggling, but the hygienist was wrong. The tooth came out on Halloween day, right at the outset of girlfriend's primary (Sunday school) class.

She tucked it carefully under her pillow that night and the Mr and I fell into bed exhausted from the weekend's festivities with no thought for the waiting tooth. We realized our negligence before she did and decided we'd just tell her the tooth fairy has Sunday nights off. She took this as gospel. If you don't believe me check the comments from my last post.

Last night I knew I'd have to deliver. We got her into bed and I began the countdown. Just as I was thinking it might be safe, out she came. "Hermer's too loud. He's keeping me awake," She came out three times with that complaint. Finally I told her to fall asleep in my bed.

Soon the Mr was carrying her up the stairs, as an extra measure he moved the crab cage out into the family room. I thought that was that and I'd just pop in to her room and take care of business, but when I went to check I found her wide awake. "I know why Hermer's so loud Mom," she said. "He's looking for Hermy."

It was after 9:30 when she was finally snoring. I snatched the tooth laden ziplock from under her pillow, slid a fifty cent piece into it's place and gave a sigh of relief.

Then I realized I had no idea what to do with the tooth. Do I throw it away? Do I save it? Saving it seems a little weird, but then I saved snippings from their first haircuts, is it really that different?

What do people do with the teeth after they glean them from beneath the pillows? I am at a loss.

And now we are six: A happy and sad story.

A little over a week ago was a big day for Zizza. A six year old kind of a day.
In the morning she puzzled over her first couple of presents.

She was glad to get them, (they were presents after all) but she wasn't quite sure what they were for.

Then she opened one more...Hermit crabs! of her very own!

She and her brother spent over an hour at the table just gazing at the crabs. During this time the crabs never moved. She named one crab Hermy and the other Hermer and she's been spritzing them and soaking their water sponge daily ever since.

Later that day, at 4:02 after a party with some friends she turned six officially, once and for all.

This morning, a little over a week later as I said, tragedy struck. I was doing laundry and she called me, "Mama something's weird about Hermy's shell,"

Something was indeed weird. It was empty. I found poor little Hermy curled up dead behind the food dish. Apparently she'd needed a new shell and couldn't find one.
Ziz just stood there as I told her the news. I looked for signs of distress, a trembling chin, a teary eye. She seemed unphased until she she began to speak "I kept asking to go buy new shells and you kept saying 'no!"
Now the tears were, coming. It's true too. We had a busy week, both crabs looked to have plenty of shell room. I told her we'd go buy extra shells later.
We'll hold a funeral service tonight, after a trip to the pet store to some alternate shells for Hermer. Also, I think Zizza's grief is progressing well because after a few hours of mourning and "Hermy was my favorite, she had such a cute shell" she had healed enough to suggest getting a replacement crab.

Those were her words too. On the way to school, after telling her friends of her heart break she called to me from the back seat "Mom! maybe we could get a replacement crab!"

I don't know if it occurred to her to hope for a crab small enough to someday inherit that little striped shell that proved too snug for Hermy, but she's gunning for more than some empty shells. We shall see...