What's Awesome?

What's awesome is walking out our front door and seeing this:

I know, hard to see.  But I wanted you to know, I am standing on my front porch here.  

Look closely.  What do you see? 

Yep, this little guy was hanging out by the canals!  I'm pretty sure it is the same one I saw before. 

Check it out!  You can see how close he is to the housing on the other side of the canal.  

Hello Mr. Alligator!

What's even more awesome that spotting alligators from your front porch?

This is: 

Yeah, I felt like a rock star this morning after my amazing run.  The distance, not the time!  That's 8.08 miles run in 1 hour, 22 minutes and 50 seconds.  And it was an awesome run for me!

Today, I'm the statue

Some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue.  Today I'm the statue. I can't seem to do a darn thing right.  Marian has been requesting I make a banana topping for waffles for breakfast and this morning, I had a little extra time, so I did.  I made lovely waffles from scratch and this whipped banana topping.  Marian thought it was yummy. Callie tried it, and everyone else refused to even consider sampling it.  Rylee and Delaney refused to even eat a waffle.  I have a ton of banana flavored whip cream that no one else is going to eat. So frustrating.

I had wanted to make my super yummy cheesecake for my running group, and this morning, I got it done.  Unfortunately I'm an idiot.  The cheesecake cooks for an hour, and then sits in the oven for another hour, and you are not suppose to open the door at all during those 2 hours.  I needed to go to the commissary, and Dan is home, so I didn't want him to accidentally open the oven while I was gone.  So I thought it would be a good idea to turn the oven lock on.  Silly me,  that is apparently reserved only for cleaning, and it shuts off the oven if the dial isn't in "clean" position.  So yeah, I turned the oven off halfway through the cooking hour.  I'm so cross.

I could have left Rylee home with Dan while I went to buy groceries.  But no, I'm on a roll today, so I kept making dumb decisions.  I took Rylee with me so she would get out of the house, and I had a short list of stuff to get.  How bad could it be?  Pretty bad, as it turns out.  She cried.  She cried that obnoxious, continual, half whimper for 45 minutes.  She carried on and on, and would not stop.  What was so horrible that it required such a cry-till-your-Mom's-ears-bleed-and-she-might-run-away-and-leave-you-behind cry?  I said no, I would not buy cocoa puffs.  Yep.  That induced 45 minutes of crying that ended with her screaming that she didn't want Daddy to carry her in from the car; she wanted mommy to do it.  I let Daddy cary her up to bed and if I am really lucky, she might be asleep by now.

Sadly, I do not even have cheesecake to drown my sorrows in. Maybe I need to go back to bed for a do-over.

Moms do the hard stuff

It poured rain again yesterday.  Lots of great puddles available for splashing, so after school, Callie headed out for some puddle-stomping.  She wisely went barefoot so she wouldn't get her shoes wet. Oh wait.  It was NOT a wise choice.  She joyfully went stomping in a great puddle that had lots of sticky prickly thorns at the bottom, and ended up with 2 feet full of tiny thorns.  Yikes!

I expect any normal mom would have sat on her and plucked the darn things out.  It would have been a 5 minute job, tops.   I did not do this.  Callie is my temperamental child.  Had I gone the brute force route, she's have screamed forever and hated me for days.  True story.  Plus, I kind of have the same pain-makes-me-neurotic thing going on, so I do understand it.  As a grown up though, I can (ususally!) see how silly it is to prolong the pain when it could be over so much faster.  Let me tell you how it went!

I carried Callie inside and put her on the bathroom counter.  She wailed and screamed.  I told her I could pull the thorns out quickly and she went hysterical.  I asked what she would like to do.  After more crying and dithering, she decided she wanted to lie down on the living room floor and cover her face with her blanket.  She went into drill sergeant mode and started bossing her sisters and me around- go get my blanket, I need a pillow, no one look at me, put the dog in his kennel so he doesn't accidentally touch me, bring me the cd player and put on the children's hymns so I can be distracted..... oh yeah, loads of fun already!

I finally got her situated on the living room floor, yes, with pillow and blankets, dog in the kennel, and her sisters playing upstairs.   I told her I wanted her to be comfortable and I would do what she wanted. She cried and cried.  She wasn't ready.  It has now been 30 minutes. 30 minutes of crying that was so completely unnecessary!  She cried about the dog yipping.  She cried that it hurt.  She cried that she was afraid.  She cried that her sister came downstairs and looked at her.  She cried because my hands weren't the proper distance from her feet.  She cried because she could see the tweezers.  She cried because her feet hurt.

My patience was wearing thin.  I did have dinner to make and 500 other things to be doing, other than sitting on the floor watching my child howl over something that could have been over and done with by now.

Then she looked at me and thanked me for being so patient with her and told me I was the best mommy ever.   With such heart-melting encouragement, what could I do but persevere?  I held her foot and we counted to 3.  She screamed, "No! Wait!  I'm not ready!!"  So I waited.  We did it again, with the same result.  And again.  I suggested she count to 3, cover her face, take a deep breath and then count, 4 and 5, and I'd pull one thorn out.  She agreed, but when we got to 3, there was more shrieks of no no no, not yet.  Sigh.  I got her to try again, and I finally pulled one out while she was on 3.  Whew!

Oh wait, there were 8 more thorns to pull.

Sufficeth to say, it was a 90 minute ordeal before they were all removed.  The cd had long run out of music, her sisters had run out of things to do upstairs, and I had run out of time to get dinner done before we'd be eating late.  Thank goodness she knows and appreciates that I love her and was willing to help her be as comfortable as possible throughout the process.  It was nice to have her delighted with me for once  And so rarely do I hear from her that I am the best mom, so it was totally worth it!

Having fun.... and NOT.

Marian has been obsessed with going rollerskating ever since she went to a skating birthday party a while back.  She has asked many many times, and I finally promised her I would take her during spring break.  I didn't realize they only have Saturday hours.  (Fine, they have weeknight hours, but open skate starts at 7, so that's not gonna happen!)

On Saturday, I made good on my promise and I took all 4 girls to the skate rink. It was rather pricey for the 5 of us, but that was okay, Marian's dreams were being fulfilled.  I told the girls we would be spending a minimum of one hour there.  Marian was hoping to be there all day, but was content to know she had at least an hour.  She took to the skates like a duck to water and was cruising around in no time. 

Callie was enthusiastic, and jumped right into it.  She gave it her best, but even by the end of the session, she was still struggling to stay upright and balanced.  She had a great time though and I thoroughly enjoyed watching her stumble twitch her way around the ring, arms flailing.  She was pleased to report she made it around the ring twice without falling! I loved that she had such a good time, even though it was hard for her.

Delaney cried.  She cried because her skates were too tight.  She cried because she fell down.  She cried because she couldn't skate.  She cried because it was too hard. She cried because she couldn't do it.  She cried because she wanted a thing to push and if I only loved her enough, she would be happy.  It was rather exhausting! Delaney did manage to make it into the skate ring twice and she inched her way around, hanging onto the wall for dear life.  She let me help her a little bit.  She declared it the worst day of her life at the end, and made me promise to never take her there again.

Rylee was adorable.  Something about clompity skates on scrawny baby legs is just cute.  Rylee clip clopped all over and occasionally skated in brief spurts.  She thought it was hilarious to "accidentally" fall down and had a very good time.  The skating place had a small ring for little kids and once she felt confident there, Rylee and I went for a spin around the big ring. She enjoyed herself immensely.

Not sure she wants to be here. 

Very excited to try this! 

Hanging out in the kiddie ring. 

Callie catching her groove in the kiddie ring. 

Delaney excited to try a larger pair of skates. 

They did not magically make her skate better and her hopes were dashed. 

The wesome blur that is Callie, working her way around the big ring. 

Marian, zipping along, doing her thing. 

This is the support thingy on wheels that some kids had.  Delaney was convinced it would cure all her woes, and cried incessantly for one.  I did find out it was $10 to rent one, and I wasn't going to.  Plus, my bag was already put away in a locker and I wasn't going to get it out and have to spend another $1 to secure my stuff again!  So Delaney cried, and an older girl took pity on her and let Delaney borrow hers for a little while.  Sorry about the picture quality.  Dimly lit spaces with moving subjects does not make for good photos!  But look how happy she is for this brief time.

 Delaney cruised around for a few minutes before the nice girl came back to take her thingy away.  (I think the girl's dad was unhappy about her loaning it out.)

Rylee, after a fake fall. 

I loved this.  Marian and Callie were skating together and it was cute to see my girls getting along.

Feeling brave after some success, and inching her way around the big ring. 

The tears.  Endless tears and drama! 

Can you find all 4 of my girls in this shot?!

Just us Girls!

Dan took Joshua out for fun, so I took my 4 favorite girls out to the movies!

They were quite cute.  We went to see "The Croods" which was the only kids movie showing, so it was the only option.  I wasn't excited to go see it, but the girls were.  All of them wanted to go, which is unusual.  We hit the 10:00 am showing, when prices were cheapest.

We were the only people in the theater!  What fun!  The girls got to sit right in front, and there was a bar there that was perfect for climbing on and hanging upside down on while viewing the movie.  There were some scary parts for the littlest ones, so I got lots of snuggles, between their roaming the aisles.  It was great to have our own private viewing!

The girls proclaimed it to be wonderful, and to my surprise, I agreed with them.  I liked the movie a lot better than I expected to.  I give it 2 thumbs up.