High/Low

Kind of an old Honeybadger picture, but definitely one for the books.

“Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Tonight, while settling Elsa down to sleep (which involves a lengthy ritual interrupted by room break-outs and waking up siblings and sometimes sleeping in a drawer voluntarily or doing some other such day-extending naughtiness), we were snuggled together.  Nose to nose, her head resting on my hand, she said Let's do High/Low. When asked her high, she said school. This is always her answer.  Her low involved choosing the wrong stick for the stick pony she made today.  I'm guessing in a world where that's your low, you're doing pretty well.

Then she asked me mine.

My high was. . . well, it was the first day of the new semester, so seeing fifty fresh faces in the classroom was great. That was my high.  Then I told her my low was when I lost my temper with everyone in the house this afternoon.

Mama she said.

Don't worry, Mama. She said.

I'll help you find it tomorrow, Mama. And then I snuggled her until she drifted off to sleep.

Oh, here's something I do now. . .

Mr.LMTYS has been jogging for several years now. He's addicted, I think. Won't miss a day, really - sleet or snow or terrible sleep doesn't matter. He's out there running. And my friends are runners - like, marathon runners.  And somehow, beyond all reason, I ended up on the board of a running charity. And one of my internet heroes and fellow Sriracha lovers, Matthew Inman, HE always talks about jogging being awesome.  Because I am easily swayed by peer pressure and internet strangers, I thought what the heck. 

Why not. 

So I started last Wednesday.  On Thursday I ran in the lazy river at the pool during the Honeybadger's swim lessons. Friday I ran in the cold.  It was awesome. Did you hear that? It. was. awesome. 

I like to think I look like this.
If you add like 20 lbs and tie dye pants and a bright green hoodie and a stroller and a 7 year old boy talking about Minecraft. 

My goal is to run several R2DG 5ks this summer - and then, maybe, if I'm feeling really spectacular, a half-marathon by age 40.  That sounds impressive, right?

Spilled steamed milk: no tears

Monday was the last day of Christmas break.

And let me tell you, the LMTYS house was beyond ready to get the kids BACK TO SCHOOL. The squabbling and bickering and sniping and tattle-taling is out of control, folks, and this mama is DONE.  I took the children swimming because - what FUN! Swimming!!

And when we were done I promised them Starbucks. Beloved, blissful, quieting Starbucks.  We went through the drive-thru and everybody got silent and my Venti Cinnamon Dolce latte sat in my cupholder singing the joys of a few minutes of peace and quiet and a bunch of calories.

And we drove home, and it was lovely. And we got home and the Bigs got out of the car and ran to the house and I set my 20oz beautiful latte on top of the van so I could let the Honeybadger out of her carseat.

I think you can guess what happened next.  I looked up to see my coffee falling down. On my head. And the ground. My beautiful high-caloric escape from reality splashed everywhere on the snowy road and van.

And then my car, my lovely new smarter-than-humans car beeped at me.  I like to think it was saying Sorry to see you've dropped your coffee that must be a miserable first world problem. But I'm pretty sure it was saying "Hey dummy: I have FIFTEEN CUPHOLDERS FOR A REASON."

It was exactly like this if by sidewalk you mean my head

 The good news, and there's always good news, is that I smelled delicious for the rest of the night. 

Elsa! No!

I took Honeybadger and the bigs to Barnes & Noble yesterday to spend some Christmas gift certificates.  Much to my surprise each child picked at least one book, rather than blowing all of their money on toys. Barnes & Noble has a disturbingly large toy section these days.

Seriously. Maybe the kids can read. . . the boxes?

Anyhoooooo, not the point. 

The point is that at checkout, the kids went up on their own to handle payment and checking out (a good life experience, if you ask me).  As the bigs were doing that, Honeybadger dove onto the floor and rolled around just under Monkeymoo's feet, at which point Monkeymoo said:

No Elsa! No! 

As if she were addressing a puppy. To be fair, Honeybadger spends 20% of her time acting like a puppy, so it's probably appropriate. The clerk helping us said Did you just say 'Elsa no!'?  When I was a kid we had a ferile cat we called Elsa. We were always telling it no! 

To which Monkeymoo replied: Yeah. That sounds about right. She pretends to be a ferile cat just about always.

Something tells me maybe I shouldn't have let Monkeymoo read all of those Lemony Snickett books in the past.  I'm not sure. 

2014 so far. . . in pictures

Hello, loves. It's been awhile. Sorry to say it will be awhile longer.  Why? you ask?  Well... let me show you...

You take a little this:

No. Seriously, we stayed up playing Space Invaders and Centipede and Millipede until 1 AM.

And add a whole lot of picking up a 35lb this, with extra squirming:

And write a nice long letter to your grandma.  3 pages. Single spaced and hand-written.  And you'll wake up needing this:

I remember when I used to sling gallons of milk at the coffee shop and stay up until dawn playing video games and the worst I had was... nothing.  Hello, getting older.  Nice to meet you.

I'll be back soon, I promise. I just need to be able to type first!!