Defender

The girls and I were folding laundry, and, yet again, Luke was "too tired."  I told him he'd better go lie down then.

Kate and Anna began complaining that he tries this every time.  I said, "Oh, I know.  I have a plan."  I explained that after we finished laundry, Luke would still need more rest while the rest of us went down and played games and enjoyed a treat."

Ally had been putting away laundry but came bursting into the room, furious. "I can hear you!" she said, her little body leaning towards me, posed for battle.

"I thought you probably could," I said calmly.

"Do you want to hurt Lukey's feelings?" she challenged.

"No, but he hasn't been helping.  And my job is to help him grow up to be a responsible, helpful person."

She wasn't sure what to do right now.  She wavered a little.  She would defend her twin to the death, but she seemed to think what I said made some sense.

"Well!" she said, stalling.

Then, still defensive, she asked, "How do you think that will make him feel?"

"Probably sad," I answered softly.

"Exactly!" she said, pausing a moment to shake her head at me while glaring for a moment, and then stomping off to comfort her brother.

Showing off

Luke and Ally were playing monster trucks (Ally will do anything for Luke) and using copies of Milwaukee Magazine and AAA Living for ramps.  Suddenly they ran up to me and said, "Mommy look!"  They pointed in the magazine and giggled.  I looked down and saw they were pointing to an advertisement for butt enhancements.

I just stared for a second while trying to think of what to say and Luke said,  "She's wearing really, really tight underwear."

Ally said, "It's inappropriate."

Then they both giggled and said, "Gwoss."

I still wasn't sure how to approach a conversation, or if to approach one.  They turned a few pages and found a woman in a bra.  Luke asked me, “How come there’s so much inappropriate stuff?”  

And Ally said, “Probably because it’s for grown ups.”  

And Luke said, “It's seems like they’re just showing off.”

I decided to leave it at that.

Well...

Ally had a friend, C, over after school, and we made cookies.

While we waited for them to bake, Ally said, "Oh, I have to unpack my school stuff.  Do you want to see what I do?"

They ran out of the room so Ally could unpack.

I overheard Ally telling C, "I have to take all my papers out of my folder and give them to my mom.  I have to put my snack container by the sink and then unpack my lunch bag and put it away.

C said, " I don't have to do that.  I just take out my folder and put my lunch bag in the kitchen and my mom does the rest."

Ally said, "My mom doesn't do any of it."

C said, "I know why your mom doesn't do it.  It's because she's busy.  And," she added teasingly, "because she doesn't love you.  Moms are supposed to do that stuff."

Ally didn't miss a beat; she joked right back, "My mom's just 'unresponsible.'"

Shorts

The time arrived.

Luke was asking if it was warm enough to wear his "short sleeved pants."

Ally said, "There's no such thing as short sleeved pants.  They're just called 'shorts.'"

(Sniff.  Sniff.)

I loved the term "short sleeved pants."

Who said that?

We sold some of the kids' toys on Kidscyle for $25 and I overheard Luke tell Kate, "We could each take $5 and let Mom and Dad have $5."

Kate suggested everyone gets $6.25 with no leftover money.

Luke said, "No, let's do $5... Actually, I'll just take $4.  Mom and Dad need some money after they wasted so much of theirs on the boat."

I realized I should be more careful to make sure they understand what I mean when I say things.

The next day Luke was looking at his library books with Dave.  One of them was a football book, and he commented on a picture of a linebacker with a big gut and told Dave, "This guy ate a lot of butter!"

Dave told me the story and it cracked me up, but I didn't really understand why Luke thought this, since I don't really talk a lot about foods making you fat or thin; I try to focus more on the nutritious value of food.  So, tonight I asked Luke what kind of foods might make someone fat.  He said, "Butter."  I asked, "Why do you think that?"  He said, "Because one time you told someone it's okay if we like eating butter since we're all so skinny."

I really do need to remember that they remember many of these off handed things I say!

Valentine's day baby pictures

I've started watching a new baby named C.  He's such a pleasure.  He has the world's best baby giggle!  I wanted to make C's parents a special Valentine.  Inspired by a photo I found on a Google search, I sewed a little bowtie and set up a little studio to get  a few pictures of him.

I thought the "naked baby wearing a bowtie" look was about the cutest thing ever.

My kids didn't agree.  When she saw me taking the pictures, Anna shook her head and commented, "Is he supposed to look cute?  Because you might want to put a shirt on him."

Ally was very concerned asking, "Are you choking him!?"

Nine!

Anna turned nine on the ninth... yep, her Golden Birthday.  And, Anna, of all people, isn't one to let such a momentous occasion slip past unnoticed.  She got a little family celebration on her birthday and a party on Saturday.

This year, Anna's obsession was with stuffed emoji and Shopkins.  I don't particularly understand either, but I'm not nine.

On Saturday, she, her siblings, and a few friends were able to get a tour of Hogwarts.

We began by entering through platform 9 3/4 so we could head into Diagon Alley for supplies.

(The day before the party I was telling the kids the plan to go to Dragon Alley and and Ally said, "Diagon me?!")

We got our robes from Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions.  

Then headed over to Ollivanders to get our wands.  We found our perfect pets at the Magical Menagerie and picked up a potion book from Flourish & Blotts.  

 After all that exhausting shopping it was time to get some butter beer 

from The Leaky Cauldron, where one of Anna's friends made a toast to her birthday.

 We then found a portkey to get us to Hogwarts.  

When there, we headed to the Great Hall where we were sorted into our houses by the sorting hat.

Look at the floating candles!

  The first class we attended was Charms.  

We perfected our wands by decorating them with such magical things as 

braided unicorn tale, woven frog intestines, and ground dragon scales.

 We had a deliciously magical dinner of nachos in the Great Hall.

Followed by cake.

 Anna made sure she didn't have any candle extinguishing assistance.

 After dinner we had potions class, where we were able to make potions 

that involved such rare ingredients as 

Basilisk Venom, Dragon Blood, Unicorn Horn Powder, 

Worm Guts, Dream Powder, and Dragon Drool.